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diff --git a/old/69496-0.txt b/old/69496-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 90dbd8c..0000000 --- a/old/69496-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5788 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The professor's experiment, Vol. 3 (of -3), by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The professor's experiment, Vol. 3 (of 3) - A novel - -Author: Margaret Wolfe Hungerford - -Release Date: December 7, 2022 [eBook #69496] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROFESSOR'S EXPERIMENT, -VOL. 3 (OF 3) *** - - - - - - THE PROFESSOR’S EXPERIMENT - - - - - MRS. HUNGERFORD’S NOVELS - - ‘_Mrs. Hungerford has well deserved the title of being one of the most - fascinating novelists of the day. The stories written by her are the - airiest, lightest, and brightest imaginable, full of wit, spirit, and - gaiety; but they contain, nevertheless, touches of the most exquisite - pathos. There is something good in all of them._’—ACADEMY. - - =A MAIDEN ALL FORLORN=, and other Stories. Post 8vo., illustrated - boards, 2s.; cloth limp, 2s. 6d. - -‘There is no guile in the novels of the authoress of “Molly Bawn,” nor -any consistency or analysis of character; but they exhibit a faculty -truly remarkable for reproducing the rapid small-talk, the shallow but -harmless “chaff” of certain strata of modern fashionable -society.’—_Spectator._ - - =IN DURANCE VILE=, and other Stories. Post 8vo., illustrated boards, - 2s.; cloth limp, 2s. 6d. - -‘Mrs. Hungerford’s Irish girls have always been pleasant to meet upon -the dusty pathways of fiction. They are flippant, no doubt, and often -sentimental, and they certainly flirt, and their stories are told often -in rather ornamental phrase and with a profusion of the first person -singular. But they are charming all the same.’—_Academy._ - - =A MENTAL STRUGGLE.= Post 8vo., illustrated boards, 2s.; cloth limp, - 2s. 6d. - -‘She can invent an interesting story, she can tell it well, and she -trusts to honest, natural, human emotions and interests of life for her -materials.’—_Spectator._ - - =A MODERN CIRCE.= Post 8vo., illustrated boards, 2s.; cloth limp, 2s. - 6d. - -‘Mrs. Hungerford is a distinctly amusing author.... In all her books -there is a “healthy absenteeism” of ethical purpose, and we have derived -more genuine pleasure from them than probably the most earnest student -has ever obtained from a chapter of “Robert Elsmere.”’—_Saturday -Review._ - - =MARVEL.= Post 8vo., illustrated boards, 2s.; cloth, 2s. 6d. - -‘The author has long since created an imaginary world, peopled with more -or less natural figures; but her many admirers acknowledge the easy -grace and inexhaustible _verve_ that characterize her scenes of -Hibernian life, and never tire of the type of national heroine she has -made her own.’—_Morning Post._ - - =LADY VERNER’S FLIGHT.= Crown 8vo., cloth extra, 3s. 6d.; post 8vo., - illustrated boards, 2s.; cloth limp, 2s. 6d. - -‘There are in “Lady Verner’s Flight” several of the bright young -people who are wont to make Mrs. Hungerford’s books such very -pleasant reading.... In all the novels by the author of “Molly Bawn” -there is a breezy freshness of treatment which makes them most -agreeable.’—_Spectator._ - - =THE RED-HOUSE MYSTERY.= Crown 8vo., cloth extra, 3s. 6d. - -‘Mrs. Hungerford is never seen to the best advantage when not dealing -with the brighter sides of life, or seeming to enjoy as much as her -readers the ready sallies and laughing jests of her youthful personages. -In her present novel, however, the heroine, if not all smiles and mirth, -is quite as taking as her many predecessors, while the spirit of -uncontrolled mischief is typified in the American heiress.’—_Morning -Post._ - - =THE THREE GRACES.= 2 vols., crown 8vo., 10s. net. - -‘It is impossible to deny that Mrs. Hungerford is capable of writing a -charming love-story, and that she proves her capacity to do so in “The -Three Graces.”’—_Academy._ - - LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY. - - - - - THE - PROFESSOR’S EXPERIMENT - =A Novel= - - - BY - - MRS. HUNGERFORD - - AUTHOR OF - ‘MOLLY BAWN,’ ‘THE RED-HOUSE MYSTERY,’ ‘THE THREE GRACES,’ ‘LADY - VERNER’S FLIGHT,’ ETC. - -[Illustration] - - IN THREE VOLUMES - - VOL. III. - - - =London= - CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY - 1895 - - - - - THE - - PROFESSOR’S EXPERIMENT - - - - - CHAPTER XL. - - ‘Heart’s-ease I found where love-lies-bleeding - Empurpled all the ground; - Whatever flower I missed, unheeding, - Heart’s-ease I found.’ - - -The day is still lingering, but one can see that night is beginning to -coquet with it. Tender shadows lie here and there in the corners of the -curving road, and in and among the beech-trees that overhang it birds -are already rustling with a view to slumber. The soft coo-coo of the -pigeon stirs the air, and on the river down below, ‘Now winding bright -and full with naked banks,’ the first faint glimmer of a new moon is -falling—falling as though sinking through it to a world beneath. - -‘What are you thinking of, Susan?’ asks Crosby at last, when the sound -of their feet upon the road has been left unbroken for quite five -minutes. Susan has chatted to him quite gaily all down the avenue, and -until the gates are left behind, but after that she has grown—well, -thoughtful. - -‘Thinking?’ She looks up at him as if startled out of a reverie. - -‘Yes. What have you been thinking of so steadily for the past five -minutes?’ - -Thus brought to book, Susan gives him the truest answer. - -‘I was thinking of Lady Muriel Kennedy. I was thinking that I had never -seen anyone so beautiful before.’ - -‘That’s high praise.’ - -‘You think so too?’ - -‘Well—hardly. She is handsome, very handsome, but not altogether the -most beautiful person I have ever seen.’ - -‘To me she is,’ says Susan simply. - -‘That only shows to what poor use you have put your looking-glass,’ says -he, and Susan laughs involuntarily as at a most excellent joke. Crosby, -glancing at her and noting her sweet unconsciousness, feels a strong -longing to take her hand and draw it within his arm and hold it, but -from such idyllic pleasures he refrains. - -The dusky shades are growing more pronounced now: ‘Eve saddens into -night.’ The long and pretty road, bordered by overhanging trees, though -still full of light just here, looks black in the distance, and overhead - - ‘The pale moon sheds a softer day, - Mellowing the woods beneath its pensive beam.’ - -After a little silence Susan turns her head and looks frankly at him. - -‘Are you going to be married to her?’ asks she, gently and quite -naturally. - -‘What!’ says Crosby. He is honestly amazed, and conscious of some other -feeling, too, that brings a pucker to his forehead. ‘Good heavens, no! -what put that into your head?’ - -‘I don’t know. I——’ She has grown all at once confused, and a pink flush -is warming her cheek. ‘Of course I shouldn’t have asked you that. But -she is so lovely, and I thought—I fancied——I am afraid’—her eyes growing -rather misty as they meet his in mute appeal—‘you think me very rude.’ - -‘I never think you anything but just what you are,’ says Crosby slowly. -‘I wonder if you could be rude if you tried. I doubt it. However, don’t -try. It would spoil you. As for Lady Muriel, she wouldn’t look at me.’ - -Susan remains silent, pondering over this. Would he look at her? - -‘Should you like her to?’ asks she at last. - -‘To look at me?’ Crosby is now openly amused. ‘A cat may look at a king, -you know.’ - -‘Oh, but she——’ - -‘Is not the cat? That’s rude, any way. Susan, I take back all the -handsome things I said of you just now. So I’m the cat, and she is the -queen, I suppose. Well, no; I don’t want Queen Muriel to look at me. It -would be rather embarrassing, considering all things. She is a very high -and mighty young lady, you know, and I’m terribly shy. On the whole, -Susan’—he pauses, and studies her a minute—‘I should prefer you to look -at me.’ - -His studying goes for naught; not a vestige of blush appears on Susan’s -face or any emotion whatever. His little flattery has gone by her. - -‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ says she. - -‘Do I? You are often very deep, you know; but if you mean that perhaps I -should like to marry Lady Muriel—well, I shouldn’t.’ - -‘How strange!’ says Susan. ‘I think if I were a man I should be -dreadfully in love with her.’ - -Crosby laughs. - -‘So you think you could be dreadfully in love?’ says he. - -Susan’s lips part in a little smile. - -‘Oh, not as it is. I was only thinking of Lady Muriel ... and you—that -you ought to be——’ - -‘Dreadfully in love? How do you know I am not—with somebody else?’ - -She shakes her head. - -‘No, you are not,’ says she. ‘After all, I think you are just as little -likely to be dreadfully in love with anyone as I am.’ - -‘Susan! You are growing positively profound,’ says he. - -They are now drawing near to the Rectory gates, and Susan’s fingers are -stealing into her pocket and out again with nervous rapidity. Oh, she -must give it to him now or never! To-morrow it will be too late. One -can’t give a birthday gift the day after the birthday. But it is such a -ridiculous little bag, and she has seen so many of his presents up at -the Hall, and all so lovely, and in such good taste. Still, to let him -think, after all his kindness, that she had not even remembered his -birthday—— - -‘Mr. Crosby,’ says she, and now the hand that comes from the pocket has -something in it. ‘I—all day, I’—tremulously—‘have been wanting to give -you something for your birthday. I know’—she pauses, and slowly and -reluctantly, and in a very agony of shyness, now holds out to him the -little silken bag filled with fragrant lavender—‘I know’—tears filling -her eyes—‘after what I saw to-day ... those other gifts, that it is not -worth giving, but—I made it for you.’ - -She holds it out to him, and Crosby, who has coloured a dark red, takes -it from her, but never a word comes from him. - -The dear, darling child! To think of her having done this for him!... To -Susan his silence sounds fatal. - -‘Of course,’ says she, ‘I knew you wouldn’t care for it. But——’ - -‘Care for it! Oh, Susan! To call yourself my friend and so misjudge me! -I care for it a good deal more, I can tell you, than for all those other -things up there put together.’ - -There is no mistaking the genuine ring in his tone. Indeed, his delight -and secret emotion amaze even himself. Susan’s spirits revive. - -‘Oh no,’ protests she. - -‘Yes, though! No one else,’ says Crosby, ‘took the trouble to make me -anything! That’s the difference, you see. To make it for me—with your -own hands. It is easy to buy a thing—there is no trouble there.’ He -looks at her present, turning and twisting it with unmistakable -gratification. ‘What a lovely little bag, and filled with lavender, eh?’ - -‘It is to put in your drawer with your handkerchiefs,’ says Susan, shyly -still; but she is smiling now, and looking frankly delighted. ‘Betty -made me one last year, and I keep it with mine.’ - -‘So we have a bag each,’ says Crosby, and somehow he feels a ridiculous -pleasure in the knowledge that he and she have bags alike, and that both -their handkerchiefs will be made sweet with the same perfume. And now -his eyes fall on the worked words that lie criss-cross in one of the -corners: ‘Mr. Crosby, from Susan.’ - -‘Do you mean to say you actually did that too?’ asks he, with such -extreme astonishment that Susan grows actually elated. - -‘Oh yes,’ says she, taking a modest tone, though her conceit is rising; -‘it is quite easy.’ - -‘To me it seems impossible. To do that, and only with one’s fingers; it -beats typewriting,’ says he. ‘It is twice as legible. Do you mean to say -you wrote—worked, I mean—that with a common needle and thread?’ - -‘I did indeed,’ says Susan earnestly, her heart again knowing a throb of -exultation. Why, if he could only see the cushion she worked for Lady -Millbank’s bazaar! - -‘It must have taken a long time,’ says he thoughtfully. And then, ‘And -to think of you doing it for me!’ - -‘Oh, for you,’ says Susan—‘you who have been so kind to us all! -I’—growing shy again—‘I am very glad you really like that little bag; -but it is nothing—nothing. And I was delighted to make it for you, and -to think of you all the time as I made it.’ - -‘Were you, Susan?’ says Crosby, as gratefully as possible, though he -feels his heart in some silly way is sinking. - -‘I was—I was indeed!’ says Susan openly, emphatically. ‘So you must not -trouble yourself about that.’ Crosby’s heart falls another fathom or -two. - -‘I’ll try not to,’ says he, with a somewhat melancholy reflection of his -usual lightheartedness. They have arrived at the gate now, and Susan -holds out her hand to him. - -‘Remember you have promised to bring up the boys to-morrow for their -gipsy tea,’ says he, holding it. - -‘Yes.’ She hesitates and flushes warmly. ‘Might I bring Betty, too?’ - -‘Why, of course’—eagerly. ‘Give my love to her, and tell her from—my -sister that we can’t have a gipsy tea without her.’ - -‘And Lady Forster?’ Susan grows uncertain about the propriety of asking -Betty without Lady Forster’s consent. - -‘Now, Susan! As if you aren’t clever enough to know that Katherine -delights in nothing so much as young people—she’s quite as young as the -youngest herself—and that she will be only too pleased to see a sister -of yours.’ - -There is emphasis on the last word. - -‘You think that she likes me?’ Susan’s tone is anxious. - -‘I think she has fallen in love with you.’ She smiles happily and moves -a step away. But his voice checks her: ‘Not the only one either, Susan.’ - -‘Oh, not Captain Lennox again! I have had one lecture.’ Susan looks -really saucy, for once in her life, and altogether delightful, as she -defies him from under her big straw hat. - -‘No. I was thinking of——’ - -‘Yes?’—gaily. - -‘Never mind.’ - -He turns and walks away, and Susan, laughing to herself at his inability -to accuse her further, runs down the little avenue to her home. There is -a rush from the lawn as she comes in sight. - -‘Oh, there you are, Susan!’ - -‘How did it go off?’ - -‘Were they all nice? Were you nervous?’ - -‘Is the house lovely?’ - -‘Oh, it is!’ says Susan, now having reached a seat, and feeling a little -consequential with all of them sitting round her and waiting on her -words. ‘You never saw such a house! Much, much more beautiful than Lady -Millbank’s.’ - -‘Well, we all know it’s twice—four times the size; but Lady Millbank’s -furniture was——’ - -‘Oh, that’s all changed. Mr. Crosby has furnished his house all over -again from beginning to end. Of course we’ve been through it many times -when he was away, but now you wouldn’t know it. It appears he has had -things stored up after his travels—left in their cases, indeed—that -lately have been brought to light. The drawing-room is perfect, and—the -pictures——’ - -‘And the people?’ asks Betty impatiently; she is distinctly material. - -‘Very, very nice too—that is, most of them. Miss Prior was there. -She—well, I can’t bring myself to like her.’ - -‘What did she do to you?’ asks Dom. - -‘Oh, nothing; nothing really, only——’ - -‘That’s enough,’ says Carew. ‘You didn’t hit it off with her, -evidently.’ - -Susan hesitates, and as usual is lost. - -‘I can’t bear her,’ says she. - -‘And that lovely girl who drove home with Mr. Crosby?’ asks Betty. - -‘Ah, she is even lovelier than I thought,’ says Susan, with increased -enthusiasm. She finds it quite easy to praise her now. ‘And so charming! -She wished particularly to be introduced to me, and——’ - -‘Did she?’—from Betty. ‘What a good thing that she likes you! If she -marries Mr. Crosby she may be very useful to us.’ - -‘I don’t think she is going to marry him,’ says Susan thoughtfully. - -‘No?’—with growing interest. ‘They’—casting back her thoughts—‘looked -very like it on Sunday. How do you know?’ - -‘I asked him,’ says Susan simply. - -‘What!’ They all sit up in a body. ‘You—asked him?’ - -‘Yes. Does it sound dreadful?’ Poor Susan grows very red. -‘It’—nervously—‘didn’t sound a bit dreadful when I did it. -And’—desperately—‘I did, any way.’ - -‘It wasn’t a bit dreadful,’ says Carew good-naturedly. - -‘Not a bit. Go on, Susan.’ Dom regards her with large encouragement. -‘Did you ask him any more questions? Did you ask him if he would like to -marry you? There wouldn’t be a bit of harm in that, either, and——’ - -‘Dominick!’ says Susan in an outraged tone. - -Here Betty promptly catches his ear, and, pulling him down beside her, -begins to pommel him within an inch of his life. - -‘Never mind him, Susan. He’s got no brains. They were left out when he -was born. Tell us more about your luncheon-party.’ - -‘There is so little to tell,’ says Susan in a subdued voice. Her pretty -colour has died away, and she is looking very pale. - -‘What about the poet?’ - -‘Oh, the poet! His name is Jones, of all the names in the world!’ - -Here she revives a little, and at certain recollections of the -illustrious Jones, in spite of herself, her smiles break forth again. -‘He——’ She bursts out laughing. ‘It sounds horribly conceited, but I -really think he believes he is in love with me. Such nonsense, isn’t -it?’ - -(Oh, too pretty Susan! who wouldn’t be in love with you?) - -‘I don’t know about that,’ says Dom, who has escaped from Betty’s -wrathful hands and is prepared to go any length to prevent a recurrence -of the late ceremonies. ‘He might do worse!’ - -‘And so the house is lovely,’ says Betty, with a regretful sigh. Now if -only they would ask her there; but of course nobody remembers second -girls. - -‘Yes, lovely. The halls are all done up; and there are paintings on the -walls; and as for the marbles, they are exquisite!’ - -‘Nice simple people, apparently,’ says Dom. ‘Were they glass or stone, -Susan? Alleys or stony taws? Did you have a game yourself? I’m afraid -our education has been a little neglected in that line; but, still, I -can recollect your doing a little flutter in the way of marbles about -half a decade or so ago; and you won, too!’ - -‘I suppose you think you’re funny,’ says Betty, which is about the most -damping speech that anyone can make, but Mr. Fitzgerald is hard to damp. -He gives her a reproachful glance and sinks back with the air of one -thoroughly misunderstood. - -‘For the matter of games, I suppose they’—Betty is alluding to Mr. -Crosby’s guests—‘wouldn’t play one to save their lives; quite -fashionable people, of course!’ Betty plainly knows little of -fashionable people. ‘Hardly even tennis, I dare say. They would call -that, no doubt, fatiguing. Were they—were they very starchy?’ - -‘So far from that,’ says Susan, ‘that——’ She hesitates. ‘I’m almost sure -I heard quite right—and certainly Lady Forster asked Mr. Crosby to let -me stay on this evening, and sleep there, so that I might take part -in——’ - -She pauses. - -‘Private theatricals?’ cries Betty excitedly. - -‘No. I think it was a “pillow-scuffle” they called it.’ - -There is a solemn silence after this, and then, ‘A pillow-scuffle!’ says -Betty faintly. ‘Are they so nice as that?’ - -‘They are. They are very nice, just like ourselves.’ - -This flagrant bit of self-appreciation goes for a wonder unnoticed -beneath the weight of the late announcement. - -‘Why on earth don’t they ask us to go up?’ says Dominick, who has many -reasons for knowing he could do much with a pillow. - -‘Well, they have asked you,’ cries Susan eagerly; ‘not for a -pillow-match, but for afternoon tea in the woods to-morrow. She—Lady -Forster, you know—was delighted when she heard of you boys, and she said -I was to be sure and bring you. And there is to be a fire lit, and——’ - -‘Oh, Susan!’ cries Betty, in a deplorable tone, tears fast rising to her -eyes; ‘I think you might have said you had a sister.’ - -‘So I did—so I did’—eagerly; ‘and you are to come too; and——’ - -‘Oh no! Not really!’ - -‘Yes, really.’ - -‘Oh, darling Susan!’ - - - - - CHAPTER XLI. - - ‘As long as men do silent go, - Nor faults nor merits can we know; - Yet deem not every still place empty: - A tiger may be met with so.’ - - -Friday has dawned, and is as delightful a day as ever any miserable -out-of-door entertainer can desire; and Miss Barry, in spite of her -tremors, and her fears for the success of this, her first big -adventurous party, feels a certain sense of elation. Yes, to-day she is -going to entertain all the party at the Park; yesterday the Park had -entertained all her young people. The good soul (so good in spite of her -temper and her peculiarities) has felt deep joy in the thought that the -children had been not only invited, but actually sought after, by all -those fashionable folk up there, and though she would have died rather -than boast of it to her neighbours, being too well-born for boasting of -that kind, still, her own heart swells with pride at the thought that, -in spite of their poverty, the children’s birth has asserted itself, and -carried them through all difficulties to the society where they should -be. - -So happy has she been in her unselfish gladness, that she has forgotten -to scold one of them for quite ten hours. And now Friday, the day of her -coming triumph, has arrived, and she has risen almost with the sun that -has brought it. There is so much to be done, you see: the best -table-cloths to be brought out, and the old Queen Anne teapot to get a -last rub, and all the cakes to be made! There will be plenty of time for -the baking of them before five o’clock, at which hour Lady Forster has -arranged to come with all her guests. - -Susan and Betty have been busy with the drawing-room—one of the smallest -rooms on record; a fact, however, made up for lavishly by the size of -the furniture, which would not disgrace a salon. It is now, to confess -the truth, in the sere and yellow stage, and some of the chairs have -legs that are distinctly wobbly, and by no means to be depended upon. - -‘Hurry up, Susan!’ says Betty. ‘The room will do very well now, -especially as no one will come into it. They are sure to stay in the -garden this lovely evening. Come and see about the flowers for the -table.’ - -‘Oh, look at that screen!’ cries Susan; and indeed, as a fact, it is -upside down. - -‘Never mind! Come on,’ says Betty impatiently, dragging her away. ‘Even -if it is the wrong way up it doesn’t matter. It looks twice as Japanesey -that way. I wonder if the boys have brought the fruit yet?’ - -When first Dominick had heard of Miss Barry’s intention of giving a -party for the Park people, he had decided that at all risks it should be -a success. But his quarter’s allowance was, as usual (he had received it -only a month ago), at death’s door, and only thirty shillings remained -of it. He had at once written to his guardian saying circumstances over -which he had no control—I suppose he meant his inability to refrain from -buying everything his eye lit on—had made away with the sum sent last -June, and he would feel immensely obliged to Sir Spencer if he could let -him have a few pounds more, or even give him an advance on his next -allowance. The answer had come this morning, had been opened hurriedly, -but, alas! had contained, instead of the modest cheque asked for, a -distinct and uncompromising ‘No.’ - -‘Mean old brute!’ said Dom indignantly, referring, I regret to say, to -his uncle. ‘I wrote to him for a bare fiver, and the old beast refuses -to part. Never mind, Susan! We’ll have our spread just the same. I’ve -thirty shillings to the good still, and that’ll get us all we want.’ - -‘No, indeed, Dom,’ said Susan, flushing. ‘You mustn’t spend your last -penny like that. We’ll do very well as we are, with auntie’s cakes.’ - -‘We must have fruit,’ said Mr. Fitzgerald with determination. ‘Do you -remember all those grapes yesterday, and the late peaches and things?’ - -Indeed they had had a most heavenly day yesterday—a distinctly -rollicking day—in the woods, and had played hide and seek afterwards -amongst the shrubberies, at which noble game Lady Forster and Miss -Forbes had quite distinguished themselves, the latter beating Dom all to -nothing in the dodging line, and reaching the goal every time without -being caught. It had been altogether a splendid romp, and the Barrys had -come home flushed and happy, and with so much to tell their aunt that -their words tumbled over each other, and were hard to put together in -any consecutive way. I think Aunt Jemima was a little shocked when Betty -told her that Lady Forster had called Carew ‘a rowdy-dowdy boy,’ but she -fortified herself with the thought that no doubt the world had changed a -good deal since she was a girl—as no doubt it had. Any way, the children -were delighted, and Dominick felt that nothing they could do for the -Park people, and especially for that jolly Miss Forbes, could be good -enough. - -‘We must have some grapes,’ said he, ‘and even if it is to be my last -penny, Susan, I am sure I can depend on you to patch up my old breeches -so as to carry me with decency, if not with elegance, through the next -two months.’ - -‘But, Dom—I really don’t think you should——’ - -‘Never mind her,’ Betty had said promptly here—Betty, who is devoid of -any sort of false shame, and looks upon Dom as a possession; ‘of course -we must have fruit.’ - -‘And those little cakes at Ricketty’s, with chocolate on them. Put on -your hat, Betty, and come down town with me, and we’ll astonish the -natives yet!’ - -But Betty had too much to do, and finally Carew had gone off with Dom on -a foraging quest, and now, as the girls come out of the drawing-room, -they meet the two boys ‘laden with golden grain,’ like the _Argosy_, and -eager to display their purchases. - -Such grapes! Such dear sweet little cakes! They are all enchanted; and -soon the table, delicately laid out in a corner of the queer, pretty old -garden, is a sight to behold! And beyond lies the tennis-court—one only, -but so beautifully mown and rolled, looking like the priest of famous -history, all ‘shaven and shorn.’ - - * * * * * - -‘Didn’t I tell you it was a perfect old garden?’ Lady Forster is saying, -addressing Lady Muriel, who is laughing, quite immensely for her, at one -of Carew’s boyish jokes. Lady Forster is dressed in one of her smartest -gowns—a mere trifle, perhaps, but done to please, and therefore a -charming deed. And all her guests, incited by her, no doubt, have donned -their prettiest frocks, so that Miss Barry’s garden at this moment -presents a picture more suggestive of a garden-party at Twickenham than -a quiet tea in the grounds of an old Irish rectory. - -‘It is too pretty for anything,’ says Lady Muriel. ‘I wouldn’t have -missed it for a good deal. I think it was very kind of your aunt, Mr.——’ - -‘Carew!’ says he quickly. - -‘May I? What a charming name! It was very kind of your aunt, -Carew’—smiling—‘to ask us here.’ - -‘It is very kind of you to come,’ says Carew. - -‘Do you run over to town?’ asks Lady Muriel. It has occurred to her that -she would like to repay this pretty kindness of Miss Barry’s. - -‘Oh no’—shaking his handsome head. And then frankly, ‘We are too poor -for that.’ - -‘Ah! your sister ought to come,’ says she, after which she grows -thoughtful. - -Crosby glances quickly at her. He has heard that last remark of hers, -and somehow resents it. Susan—in London! - -He had taken his cup of tea from Miss Barry a little while ago, and -carried it to where Susan is sitting, throwing himself on the grass at -her feet, his cup beside him. Lady Muriel’s words grate on him. He looks -up now at the pure profile beside him, and wonders what would be the -result of starting Susan as a debutante in town under good auspices. -What? - -‘You are thinking,’ says Susan softly, breaking into his reverie gently. - -‘Yes, I was thinking.’ He looks up at her. ‘If I said of you, would you -believe me?’ - -‘Not a bit’—gaily. ‘Anyone would say that.’ - -‘Would they?’ His regard grows even more pronounced. How many have said -that to her? How, indeed, could anyone refrain from saying it? And—he -draws his breath a little quickly here, as conviction forces itself on -him—and everyone with truth! ‘Susan, this is disgraceful!’ says he -carelessly. ‘You must have had a long list of flirtations to speak like -that.’ - -Susan laughs merrily. She is in high spirits. All is going so well, and -even Lady Millbank has praised the tea-cakes—Lady Millbank, who never -praises anything! But to-day Lady Millbank has changed her tune. Perhaps -no one had been so astonished as she, to see all the Park people here -to-day in this quiet old garden. She had been asked to meet them, of -course, being a friend and distant relation of the Rector’s; but she had -dreamed of seeing only Lady Forster, for half an hour or so, as a -concession to her brother’s parish priest, and now—now—here they all -are! All these smart people, who had refused to go to her only the day -before yesterday! Now, horrid snob that she is, she goes quite out of -her way to be nice to the Barrys. - -‘A disgraceful list, indeed!’ says Susan, laughing down into Crosby’s -eyes. Oh, what pretty eyes hers are! - -‘You acknowledge it, then?’ - -‘Certainly. It is a list so bare that one must be ashamed of it. Not -even one name!’ - -‘What about James, the redoubtable?’ - -‘Oh, if you are going to be stupid!’ says she; and, rising with a pretty -show of scorn, she leaves him. It is not entirely her scorn of him, -however, that leads her to this drastic step; it is an appealing glance -from Betty, who is sitting near her aunt, looking perplexed in the -extreme. There is cause for perplexity. Next to Miss Barry sits the -poet! Unfortunately Miss Barry has heard a great deal about this young -man and all his works, and plainly considers it her duty to live up to -him, if possible, during his visit to the Rectory. She has now put on -quite a literary air and her best spectacles, and is holding forth on -literature generally, with a view to impressing him. She succeeds beyond -her expectations. The great Jones, who is reclining beside her in an -artistic attitude, becomes by degrees smitten into stone, so great, so -wondrously surprising, are some of her utterances. Through all his -astonishment, however, he holds on to the artistic pose. Having struck -it with the intention of conquering Susan, he refuses to alter it until, -at all events, she has had a good look. It may be a long time, poor -girl! before she will get the chance of seeing anything like it again. - -‘What’s the matter with his leg?’ asks Dom, who has just come up, in a -whisper to Betty. ‘It’s got turned round, hasn’t it?’ - -‘It looks broken,’ says Betty. ‘But it’s all right. It’s a way he has -with it. For goodness’ sake, Dom, stop auntie, if you can.’ - -But auntie is enjoying herself tremendously, and now, seeing her -audience greatly increased, and the poet evidently much struck, her -voice rises higher, and she beams on all around her. - -‘My two favourite authors,’ she is now saying, ‘are—and I’m sure you -will agree with me, dear Lady Forster, and you too, Mr. Jones: your -opinion’—with alarming flattery—‘is indeed important—my two favourite -authors are dear Wilkie Trollope and Anthony Collins!’ - -Great sensation! Naturally everyone is impressed by this startling -declaration, and Miss Forbes is actually overcome. At all events, she -subsides behind her parasol, and is for a little time lost in thought. - -‘Yes, yes. Charming people—charming!’ says Lady Forster quickly, if a -little hysterically; and the poet, having seen Susan’s eye upon him and -his pose, and feeling that he has not endured the last half-hour in -vain, struggles into a more every-day attitude. Pins and needles, -however, having set in in the most _posé_ of the legs, he is conscious -of a good deal of unpleasantness, and at last a desire to get up. -Essaying to rise, however, it distinctly declines to support him, and, -to his everlasting chagrin, he falls ‘plop’ upon the ground again, in a -painfully inartistic position this time. - -‘Anything wrong, old man? Got a cramp?’ asks Captain Lennox, hauling him -into sitting posture. - -‘It is nothing, nothing,’ says the poet sadly. Oh, what it is to dwell -in the tents of the Philistines! ‘I was merely overcome by the beauty of -this divine spot.’ He gives a sickly glance at Susan. ‘Such tones, you -know! Such colour! Such a satisfying atmosphere!’ - -Here Susan, who is under the impression that he is ill, brings him -hurriedly a cup of coffee, which he takes, pressing her hand, and -murmuring to her inaudible, but no doubt very ‘precious,’ things. - -‘One yearns over the beautiful always,’ says he. It is plain to everyone -that he is yearning over Susan, and Crosby, looking on, feels a sudden -mad longing to kick him over the laurel hedge on to the road below. ‘And -such a spot as this wakes all one’s dreams into life. Those trees! Those -distant glimpses! The little soft throbs of Nature—Mother Nature! All, -all can be felt!’ - -‘I wish to heaven I could make him feel something!’ says Sir William in -a low but moving tone. - -‘And there—over there; see those green glimpses, the parting of the -leaves.’ - -‘Oh, go on, go on,’ says Miss Barry, growing tearful behind her glasses. -‘This is indeed beautiful!’ - -‘Dear lady, you feel it too! There’—pointing to where the Cottage trees -seem to become one with those of the Rectory—at which Wyndham starts -slightly, ‘one can see the delicate blendings of Nature’s sweetest -tints, and can fancy that from between those pleasant leaves a face -might once again, as in the old, sweet phantasies, peep forth. This dear -place looks as if Hamadryads had not yet died from out the world: as if -still they might be found inhabitating these lovely ways. Almost it -seems to me as if their divine faces might even now be seen, peeping -through those perfumed greeneries beyond.’ - - - - - CHAPTER XLII. - - ‘Spite is a little word, but it represents as strange a jumble of - feelings and compound of discords as any polysyllable in the - language.’ - - -Involuntarily, unconsciously, all their eyes follow his, to the trees in -the Cottage grounds. - -And there - - ‘All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth.’ - -A profound silence falls on the group. Captain Lennox, whose eyeglass is -immovably fixed on something in the distance, is the first to break it. - -‘Almost it does!’ says he, mimicking the poet’s lachrymose drawl to a -nicety. But no one laughs; they are all too engrossed with what they -see, peeping out shyly from between the branches of those trees below, -that seem to belong to the Rectory, meeting them as they do, and -mingling with them so closely that one loses memory of the road that -runs between. ‘I feel as if I saw one now. How do you feel, Forster?’ - -Sir William laughs. - -‘A charming Hamadryad beyond dispute,’ says he. - -Charming indeed! Crowned by the leaves that hang above her head, Ella’s -face is looking out at them like some lovely vision. Her face only can -be seen, but that very distinctly. To her, unfortunately, it had seemed -quite certain that she could not be seen at all. It was so far away, and -they would be talking and thinking, and it was so hard to resist the -desire to see them. Carew had insisted on her being asked to join their -party, and Susan had begged and implored, but Ella had steadfastly -refused to accept the invitation. And then Susan had remembered that -strange minute or two during her luncheon at the Park, and the evident -anxiety of Mr. Wyndham that Mrs. Prior should know nothing about Ella, -and had refrained from further pressing. - -Now again this uncertain certainty occurs to Susan, and she makes a -little eager gesture, hoping that Ella will see her and take the hint -and go away. But, alas! Ella is not looking at her, or at Carew, or -anyone, except—strange to say—at Mrs. Prior. - -There is an intensity in her gaze that even at such a distance Susan, -who is eminently sympathetic, divines. - -‘It’s her bonnet!’ thinks Susan hurriedly; she had, indeed, been -immensely struck by Mrs. Prior’s head-gear on her arrival. Such a tall -aigrette, and such big wings at the sides! Again she makes little passes -in the air, meant for Ella’s benefit, but again in vain. Turning with a -view to enlisting Carew’s help, she finds herself close to Wyndham. - -His face is livid. He is, indeed, consumed with anger. Good heavens, is -the girl bent on his undoing? Is she determined wilfully to add to the -already too _risqué_ situation? - -‘Carew might do something,’ whispers she to him softly. ‘He might run -across and tell her she can be seen, or——’ - -She looks round for Carew, and Wyndham follows her lead, to see Carew -behind an escallonia bush, waving his arms frantically in the air. There -is intense anxiety in the boy’s air, but something else too. There is, -as Wyndham can see, heartfelt admiration; and beyond all doubt the -admiration outweighs the anxiety. He is conscious of a sensation of -annoyance for a moment, then his thoughts come back to the more pressing -need. He looks at Susan, and then expressively at Mrs. Prior, and Susan, -in answer to his evident entreaty, goes quickly to her, and suggests -softly a little stroll through the old orchard; but Mrs. Prior -peremptorily puts her aside, and, taking a step forward, comes up to -Wyndham, and looks straight at him in a questioning fashion, at which—as -though by the removal of Mrs. Prior’s eyes from hers Ella all at once -ceases to be under some strange spell—the charming head between the -sycamore-trees disappears from view, and no more is seen of Mr. Jones’s -Hamadryad. - -‘“Though lost to sight, to memory dear!”’ breathes Captain Lennox -sentimentally. ‘I feel I shall remember that goddess of the grove as -long as I live.’ - -The tiny excitement is at an end for most of the guests, and they are -now chatting gaily again of petty nothings, all except Mrs. Prior, who -is still looking at Wyndham. - -‘Who is that girl?’ asks she, in a low but firm tone. Wyndham would have -spoken, but Carew breaks angrily into the conversation. His heart is -sore, his boyish indignation at its height. Surely there had been -disrespect in their tone as they spoke of Ella! He had specially -objected to that word ‘Hamadryad.’ - -‘She is a young lady who has taken Mr. Wyndham’s cottage,’ says he, in -his clear young voice, ‘and a friend of my sister’s.’ - -‘Oh, indeed!’ says Mrs. Prior. ‘I congratulate you, Paul’—turning a -withering glance on him—‘on your taste in tenants!’ - -The evening lights are falling—falling softly, tenderly, but surely. The -crows are sailing home to their beds in the elm-trees, cawing as they -come. The tall hollyhocks are growing indistinct, the tenderer colours -fading into white. There is a rising odour of damp, sweet earth upon the -air. Lady Forster is making little signs of departure—not hurried signs, -by any means; she seems, indeed, rather reluctant to say good-bye, but -Mrs. Prior has said something to her, on which she has risen, the others -following her example. There is no doubt about Mrs. Prior’s anxiety to -go. With her face set like a flint, she is already bidding Miss Barry a -stiff farewell, and is waiting with ill-concealed impatience for Lady -Forster. - -‘Good-bye, Susan,’ says Crosby, coming up at this moment to the slim -maiden who bears that name. ‘Though you deserted me so shamelessly a -while ago, I bear you no ill-will. I understood the action. It was a -guilty conscience drove you to it. I asked you a simple question, and -you refused to answer it. I ask it again now.’ A pause, during which -Susan taps her foot on the ground, and tries to assume a puzzled air -that would not have deceived a boy. ‘And you still refuse, -Susan?’—tragically. ‘Is it that you can’t?’ - -‘Can’t what?’—blushing fatally. - -‘Can’t say that the redoubtable James is nothing to you.’ - -‘I suppose you want to drive me away again,’ says Susan demurely. - -‘That subterfuge won’t answer a second time. Don’t dream of it. If you -attempt to fly me now, I warn you that I shall grapple with that blue -tie round your neck, and—you wouldn’t like a scene, Susan, would you? -Come, is he nothing to you?’ - -‘I really wonder,’ says Susan, struggling with a desire for laughter -that brightens up her pretty eyes and curves the corners of her lips, -‘that after all I have said before you should still persist in this -nonsense.’ - -‘That still is no answer. I don’t even know if it is nonsense. I begin -to suspect you of being a diplomatist, Susan.’ - -‘I am not,’ says she, a little indignantly. ‘I am nothing in the world -but what you see—just Susan Barry.’ - -‘And that means—shall I tell you what that means?’ He is smiling -lightly, easily, but a good deal of heartfelt passion can lie behind a -smile. ‘Shall I?’ - -This is another question. But Susan, softly glancing, puts that question -by. - -‘What, no answer to anything?’ - -‘Not to silly things.’ She shakes her head. ‘Besides, it’s my turn now. -Do you’—she lays her hand lightly on his arm and looks cautiously round -her—‘do you think it—is all right?’ - -‘All right? How should I know? You refuse to answer me, and what do I -know of James?’ - -‘Oh, oh, oh!’ Her soft voice shows irritation, and her hand trembles on -his arm as if she would dearly like to shake him. ‘I begin to hate -James.’ - -‘Ah, now we get near the answer,’ says he. ‘I feel better. Go on. What’s -to be all right?’ - -‘You saw Ella—Mr. Wyndham’s tenant, you know—in the tree over there a -little time ago. What do you think about it? I thought Mrs. Prior looked -put out. But what can it matter to her who is living there? Did she want -the Cottage?’ - -‘It seems a fair solution of the problem,’ says Crosby thoughtfully, -and, after all, truthfully enough. Certainly Mrs. Prior has worked for -eighteen months, not only for the Cottage, but for the owner of the -Cottage and all the rest of his possessions for her daughter. - -‘But she won’t be disagreeable to poor Ella, will she?’ - -‘Won’t she, if she gets the chance!’ thinks Crosby. ‘Must see that she -doesn’t get it, though. No, no; of course’—out aloud. - -‘And you think it doesn’t matter her being seen; that nothing will come -of it?’ - -‘Only a most infernal row,’ thinks Crosby again, but says: ‘Naturally -nothing. Besides, Mrs. Prior is going home to-morrow.’ - -‘Oh, I’m glad of that,’ says Susan. ‘I didn’t like her expression when -she saw Ella. And now I must go; Lady Forster wants to say good-bye to -me.’ She turns, then runs back again. ‘Oh, a moment. Tell me’—looking at -him eagerly, but shyly—‘you—do you really think it has gone off—well?’ - -The eyes are so anxious that Crosby feels it is impossible to jest here. -This little party has seemed a great deal to her—quite a tremendous -event in her calm, isolated life. - -‘I heard Katherine say just now,’ says he, ‘that she had never enjoyed -herself so much in all her life!’ And if he hadn’t heard Katherine say -that, I hope it will be forgiven him. - -‘And—and the others?’ - -‘“The proof of the pudding is in the eating,”’ quotes he solemnly. ‘In -my opinion you will have to get up the sergeant and all his merry men to -turn them out.’ - -‘Oh, now!’ says Susan, with a lovely laugh, that has such sweet and open -gratification in it, ‘that’s too much. And you’—anxiously—‘you weren’t -dull?’ - -He pauses; then: ‘I don’t think so.’ He pauses again, as if to more -religiously search his memory. ‘I really don’t think so!’ - -At this Susan laughs with even greater gaiety than before, and he laughs -too, and with a little friendly hand-clasp they part. - -It doesn’t take the Barrys—that is, Susan, Dom, Carew, and Betty—a -second after their guests have gone, to scamper down the road to the -little green gate and beat upon it the tattoo that is the signal between -them and Ella. And it takes only another moment for Ella herself to open -the gate cautiously, whereupon she finds herself instantly with her -hands full of cakes and fruit and sweets that they have brought her from -their party, leaving the rest to the children, who had really behaved -remarkably well all through the afternoon, thanks to the sombre Jacky, -who had kept them under his unflinching eye. - -‘Well, we’re alive,’ cries Betty. ‘Rather the worse for wear, but still -in the land of the living. And, really, it went off miraculously -well—for us. Not even a fly in the cream. You saw us, I know. How did we -look?’ - -‘Oh, it was all so pretty—so pretty!’ says Ella, a little sadly, -perhaps, but with enthusiasm that leaves nothing to be desired. ‘Yes, of -course I saw you. I climbed up the tree. But’—nervously, looking at -Susan—‘I’m afraid they saw me.’ - -‘Certainly they saw you,’ says Carew, a little hotly. ‘Why shouldn’t -they?’ - -‘Oh no! I didn’t want that. I am sorry,’ says Ella, with evident -distress. ‘I thought I was quite safe there—that no one could see me. -But—Susan—did Mr. Wyndham see me?’ - -‘Yes,’ says Susan gently. Ella’s distress at once growing deeper, she -goes on hurriedly: ‘But, as Carew says, why not? It is your own -place—your own tree—and I have always said you ought to come out and mix -with us.’ - -‘No, no!’—hurriedly. All at once it seems to her that she must tell -Susan the whole truth; how it is with her, and her horror of being -discovered by that man, and the past sadness of her life, and the -present loneliness of it. But not now; another time, when they are quite -alone. - -‘The poet saw you, at all events,’ says Dom. ‘He’s not quite right in -his head, poor old chap! and he got very mixed. He thought you were a -Hindoo idol——’ - -‘Dominick!’ Betty turns upon him indignantly. ‘How disgracefully -ignorant you are! After all papa’s teaching! Hamadryads aren’t Hindoo -idols. They are lovely things. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’ - -‘I am—I am,’ says Mr. Fitzgerald, with resignation. ‘I really don’t -think I shall pass any exam.’ - -‘You don’t try,’ says Susan, with a slight touch of anger. ‘You don’t -put your mind into your work. And it is such a shame towards father. Why -don’t you try?’ - -‘He does try!’ says Betty angrily. She is so evidently on the -defensive—on the side of the prisoner at the bar—that they all stare, a -matter that brings her to her senses in a hurry. She to defend Dom, with -whom she is always at daggers drawn! A gleam of pleasure in Dom’s eyes -enrages her, and brings the crisis. - -‘He does try,’ repeats she. ‘But’—with a glance at Dom meant to reduce -him to powder—‘he has no brains.’ - -The glance is lost. Dom comes up smiling. - -‘You’ve got it,’ says he. And then, ‘Anyway, Miss Moore, our only poet -thought you were a sylvan goddess. Will that do, Betty? Didn’t he, -Carew?’ - -‘He’s a fool,’ says Carew morosely. - -‘Did you notice him, Ella?’ asks Betty. ‘A little man with a dismal eye -and a nose you could hang your hat on? If poets are all like that, -defend me from them! He goes about as if he was searching for a corner -in which to weep, and he looks as if——’ - -‘“’E don’t know where ’e are,”’ quotes Dom. - -‘Yes, I saw him. He was sitting near you, Susan; and I saw Mr. Wyndham, -and——’ She pauses, and a faint colour steals into her cheeks. ‘Susan, -who was that woman with the high things in her bonnet?’ - -‘High things!’ Susan looks puzzled, and Ella goes on to describe Mrs. -Prior’s bonnet with more extreme accuracy. - -‘That was Mrs. Prior—Mr. Wyndham’s aunt. Fancy your noticing her! Do you -know, Ella, I can’t bear her, or her daughter. They are all so—so -unreal—so cruel, I think——’ - -But Ella is hardly listening. Her eyes are troubled. She is -thinking—thinking. - -‘It is strange,’ says she at last, ‘but, somehow, it seems to me as if I -had seen her before. Not here—not now—but long, long, long ago.’ She -makes a little movement of her hands as if driving something from her, -then looks at Susan. ‘It is nonsense, of course.’ She is very pale, and -her smile is dull and lifeless. ‘But—I have seen her somewhere in my -past—or someone like her; but not so cold—so cruel.’ - -‘She is Mr. Wyndham’s aunt,’ says Susan again. ‘Perhaps the likeness you -see lies there.’ - -‘Perhaps so. But no, he is not like her,’ says the girl earnestly. ‘No, -it is not Mr. Wyndham she reminds me of.’ - -‘My goodness, Susan,’ says Betty suddenly, ‘perhaps we should not have -left all those cakes with the children. They will make themselves ill, -and we shall have a horrid time to-morrow.’ - -‘Oh, and Bonnie!’ says Susan, paling. She kisses Ella hurriedly and -races home again up the quiet little shadowy road, without waiting for -the slower coming of those behind her. - - - - - CHAPTER XLIII. - - ‘Fortune makes quick despatch, and in a day - May strip you bare as beggary itself.’ - - -‘Is this thing true, George?’ - -‘What thing?’ asks Crosby. - -‘Oh, you know—you know. You’—turning her cold eyes on him with actual -fury in their depths—‘must have known it all along.’ - -‘My dear Mrs. Prior, if you would only explain!’ - -Mrs. Prior motions him to a seat. She is already dressed for dinner, -though it is barely seven o’clock. She had, however, determined—after a -stormy interview with Josephine on their return from the Rectory—on -seeing Wyndham at once, and demanding an explanation with regard to -‘that creature,’ as she called her. Wyndham, it seemed, however, had not -yet returned. ‘Gone to see her, no doubt,’ cried Mrs. Prior, with -ever-rising wrath; and thus foiled in her efforts to see him, she had -sent for her host, who, of course, being a bosom friend of Wyndham’s, -and living down here, must have known all about it from the first. - -‘Do you think I need?’ says she, with a touch of scorn. ‘Are you going -to tell me deliberately that you do not know what this—woman—is to -Paul?’ - -‘His tenant,’ says Crosby calmly. ‘What’s the matter with that? Lots of -fellows have tenants.’ - -‘That is quite true. It is also true that “lots of fellows”’—she draws -in her breath as if suffocating—‘have——’ - -‘Oh, come now!’ says Crosby. - -‘You would have me mince matters,’ says she in her low, cold voice, that -is now vibrating with anger. ‘It is inadmissible, of course, to mention -things of this sort. But I have my poor girl’s interest at stake, and I -dare to go far—for her. This arrangement of Paul’s down here, close to -you’—she gives him a sudden quick glance—‘in the very midst of us, as it -were, is a direct insult.’ - -‘So it certainly would be, if matters were as you suppose. I am -confident, however, that they are not. I have Paul’s word for it.’ - -‘Oh, a man’s word on such an occasion as this!’ - -‘Well, I suppose a man’s word, if you know the man, is as good on one -occasion as another,’ says Crosby. ‘And why should he lie to me about -it? I have no interest in his tenants. If, as you seem to fancy, she -is——’ - -‘Oh, hush!’ says Mrs. Prior, making an entreating gesture; ‘don’t speak -so loud. That poor child of mine—that poor, poor child—is -there’—pointing to the door on her left—‘and if she heard this, it would -almost kill her, I think.’ Mrs. Prior throws a little tragedy into her -pale blue eyes. ‘Her heart is deeply concerned—is filled, indeed, with -Paul! As you know, George, for years this engagement has been thought -of.’ - -‘Engagement?’ - -‘Between’—a little impatiently, but solemnly—‘Paul and——’ She stops as -if heart-broken, and covers her face with her handkerchief. - -‘Virginia,’ is on the tip of Crosby’s tongue, but by a noble effort he -swallows it. - -‘My unhappy Josephine,’ says Mrs. Prior, having commanded her grief. -‘For myself, I cannot see what the end of this thing will be.’ - -‘It’s an unlucky name beyond doubt,’ says Crosby, growing historical. ‘I -don’t think I’d christen another—h’m—I mean, I don’t think it is a good -name to call a girl by, don’t you know; but I fail to see where the -unhappiness comes in this time.’ - -‘Don’t you? Do you imagine my poor child would wed a man with such -disgraceful antecedents? I had thought of the marriage for next year; -but now! And dear Shangarry has so set his heart on a union between my -girl and Paul. Only last month he was speaking to me about it. It will -be a horrible blow to the poor old man. Indeed, I shouldn’t wonder if he -disinherited Paul on account of it.’ - -Here she looks steadily, meaningly at Crosby. It is a challenge. Crosby -quite understands that he is to convey to Wyndham that he is to give up -his tenant, or else Mrs. Prior will declare war upon him, and prejudice -the old man, his uncle, against him. - -‘On account of what?’ asks he, unmoved. ‘Because he has a tenant in his -cottage, or because——’ - -‘Oh, tenant!’ Mrs. Prior makes a swift movement of her white and -beautiful hands. - -‘Or, because——’ - -She interrupts him again, as he has expected. He has no desire whatever -to go on; to say to her, ‘because he will probably refuse to marry your -daughter,’ would be a little too broad. He has risked the beginning of -his speech with a hope of frightening her into some sort of propriety; -but he has failed. - -‘There will be a scandal,’ says she, with determination. - -‘Not unless somebody insists upon one.’ Crosby crosses one leg over the -other with a judicial air. ‘And scandals are so very vulgar.’ - -‘Quite the most vulgar things one knows; but they do occur, for all -that. And if Shangarry once knew that Paul so much as wavered in his -allegiance to Josephine, he would be very hard to manage.’ - -‘But has it, then, gone so far as that?’ - -‘Far! What can be farther? A girl, a young girl, and a—well, I dare say -there are some who would call her beautiful—kept in seclusion, called, -for decency’s sake, his tenant——’ - -‘Oh, that!’ says Crosby; ‘I wasn’t alluding to that. I mean, has this -affair between your daughter and Wyndham gone so very far? Is this -engagement you hint at a thing accomplished? Has it been settled?’ He -leans towards her in a strictly confidential manner. ‘Any words said?’ - -‘Oh, words! What are words?’ says Mrs. Prior. ‘Deeds count, not words. -And all our world knows how attentive he has been to my poor child for -years.’ - -This is a slip, and she is at once conscious of it. - -‘Years! Bad sign,’ says Crosby, stroking his chin. - -‘I don’t know what you mean by that’—irritably, and with a view to -retrieving her position. ‘The longer the time, the greater the -injustice—the injury—afterwards. I feel that my poor darling is quite -compromised over this affair. I need hardly tell you, George, who know -her, and how attractive she is’—Crosby nods feelingly, and, I hope, -offers up a prayer for pardon—‘that she has refused many and many a -magnificent offer because she believed herself pledged surely, if -unspokenly, to her cousin. Her great attachment to him’—all at once -Crosby sees Josephine’s calm, calculating eyes and passionless -manner—‘has been, I now begin to fear, the misfortune of her life, -because certainly—yes, certainly—he led her to believe all along that he -meant to make her his wife.’ - -‘Well, perhaps he does,’ says Crosby. - -‘What! And do you imagine I would submit to—to—that establishment, -whilst my daughter——’ She buries her face in her handkerchief. -‘Shangarry will be so grieved,’ says she. - -This is a second threat, meant to be conveyed to Wyndham. Crosby -represses an inclination to laugh. After all, she has chosen, poor -woman! about the worst man in Europe for her ambassador. To him, Mrs. -Prior’s indignation is as clear as day. With his clear common-sense he -thus reads her: She has doubts about Wyndham’s relations with his pretty -tenant, but she has deliberately set herself to believe the worst. The -worst to her, however, would not be the immoral attitude of the case, -but the dread that the girl would inveigle Wyndham into a marriage with -her, and so spoil her daughter’s chance. The girl, as she saw her -through the spreading branches, was very beautiful, and Josephine—well, -there was a time when she was younger, fresher. - -‘I really think, Mrs. Prior, you are making a mountain out of a -mole-hill,’ says he presently. ‘I assure you I think this young -lady, now living in the Cottage, is nothing more or less than -Wyndham’s tenant. Why make a fuss about it? I am sure if you ask -Wyndham——By-the-by, why don’t you ask him?’ - -‘Because he refuses me the opportunity,’ says Mrs. Prior. ‘I sent for -him; he was not to be found. He purposely avoids me this evening. But he -shall not do so to-morrow. I am his aunt; I have every right to speak to -him on this disgraceful subject.’ - -‘Not disgraceful, I trust,’ says Crosby, who is devoutly thanking his -stars that Mrs. Prior is not his aunt. - -‘Utterly disgraceful, when I think of how he has behaved to my poor -trusting girl——’ - -‘Still,’ says Crosby thoughtfully, ‘you tell me there were no words -said.’ - -‘No actual words.’ - -‘Ah, the others are so useless,’ says Crosby. - -Mrs. Prior lifts her eyes to his for a moment. Real emotion shines in -them; and all at once Crosby is conscious of a sense of shame. Poor -soul! however mistaken, however contemptible her trouble, still it is -trouble, and therefore worthy of consideration. - -‘I can see you are not on my side,’ says she at last. ‘You have no -sympathy with my grief, and yet you might have. I have had many griefs -in my time, George, but this is the worst of all. To have my daughter -thus treated! Of course, after this I could not—I really believe I could -not sanction her marriage with Paul.’ She pauses, and delicately dabs -her handkerchief into her eyes. Her hopes of a marriage between her -daughter and Wyndham have been at such a low ebb for a long time that -there is scarcely any harm in declaring now her determination not to wed -her daughter to her cousin at any price. If things should take a turn -for the better, if her threats about informing Shangarry should take -effect, she can easily get out of her present attitude. ‘Yes, such -troubles!’ She dabs her eyes again. ‘First my sister’s terrible marriage -with a perfectly impossible person—you know all about that, George—poor -dear Eleanor; and then my father’s will, leaving everything to Eleanor -and her children, though he had so often excommunicated her, as it were. -And the trouble with that will! The searching here and there for -Eleanor—poor Eleanor; such awful trouble—advertisements, and private -inquiry people, and all the rest. As you know, it is only quite lately -that, certain information of her death without issue having come to -hand, I have been enabled to live.’ - -‘Yes—yes, I know,’ says Crosby. He is on his very best behaviour now. - -‘You have always appreciated my sweet girl at her proper worth, at all -events,’ says Mrs. Prior, dabbing her eyes for the last time, and -emerging from behind her handkerchief with wonderfully pale lids. - -‘I have—I have indeed!’ exclaims Crosby warmly. Anything to pacify her! -His manner is so warm, so ardent, that Mrs. Prior pauses, and her mind -starts on another track. With rapidity her thoughts fly back and then -forward. Crosby is quite as good a match as Paul, if one excludes the -title. And perhaps—who knows? - -‘George,’ says she softly, but with emotion, ‘perhaps you think me hard. -But a mother—and that dreadful girl lives there alone in his house; and -he visits her; and can you still, from your heart, tell me that she——’ - -She breaks off, as if quite overcome, and unable to go on. - -‘I can tell you this, at all events,’ says Crosby, ‘that she does not -live alone. Wyndham has engaged a lady to be a companion to her.’ - -‘Paul!’ Mrs. Prior turns her eyes, moist with her late emotion, on -him—eyes now full of wrath. ‘Is she an imbecile, then, this girl? Must -Paul engage a keeper for her? What absurd throwing of dust in the eyes -of the world!’ - -‘A companion, I said.’ - -She throws him a little contemptuous glance, and, with agitation, begins -to pace up and down the room. ‘A nice companion! They are well met, no -doubt,’ cries she suddenly, ‘this “companion” and her charge. I tell -you, George, I shall get at the root of this.’ - -‘I don’t think you will have to go very deep,’ says Crosby. - -‘You think it is so much on the surface as that? I don’t. And I shall -take measures; I shall know what to do.’ - -There is something so determined in her air as she says this, that -Crosby looks at her with some consideration. What is she going to do? - -But she is looking down upon the carpet, and is evidently thinking. Yes, -she knows what she will do. She will go to that girl to-morrow, and tell -her plainly what her position is. She will so speak and so argue, that -if the girl is, as George Crosby pretends to suppose, a virtuous girl, -she will frighten her out of her present position. And if she is what -Mrs. Prior, with horrible hope, determines she is, well, then, no harm -will be done, but the ‘little establishment,’ as she calls it, will -infallibly be broken up. There is another thought, however. Crosby just -now had spoken almost tenderly of Josephine. If there is the smallest -chance of Crosby’s being attracted by her, Mrs. Prior feels that she -could stay proceedings with regard to Paul with a most willing hand. If -not? Any way, there is a whole evening to think it over. - -‘What do you think of doing?’ asks Crosby at this moment, a little -anxiously. To attack Wyndham before them all, downstairs?... That would -be abominable! And yet he would hardly put it beyond her. - -‘Ah, that lies in the future,’ says she. She rises languidly from the -chair into which she has sunk, and smiles at him. ‘I am afraid I am -keeping you from your other guests.’ - -‘Not at all—not at all,’ says Crosby amiably. ‘You are keeping me only -from my man and my tie, and the rest of it.’ - -He bows himself hurriedly, but amiably, out of the room. - - - - - CHAPTER XLIV. - - ‘Where jealousie is the jailour, many break the prison, it opening - more wayes to wickedness than it stoppeth.’ - - -It is indeed perilously near the dinner-hour! Mrs. Prior, after a few -words with Josephine—who had evidently had her dainty ear applied to the -keyhole, and who is distinctly sulky—has gone downstairs and into the -smaller drawing-room, where she finds a group on the hearthrug gathered -round a little, but friendly, autumn fire, discussing all in heaven and -earth. They have evidently come down to earth as she enters, because the -name of Susan Barry is being wafted to and fro. - -‘Oh, she’s lovely—lovely!’ Lady Forster is saying with enthusiasm. ‘Such -eyes, and with such a funny expression in them sometimes—sometimes, when -she isn’t so dreadfully in earnest, as she generally is. After all, -perhaps the earnestness is her charm. She is certainly the very sweetest -thing! George’—she turns, looks round her, and, finding Crosby not -present, laughs, and makes a little gesture with her hands—‘George will -never be able to go back to his niggers.’ In her heart, being devoted to -her only brother, she hopes this will be the case. - -‘If you don’t take care, she will marry your brother,’ says Miss Prior -from her low seat. She is protecting her complexion from the light of -the big lamp near her by a fan far bigger than the lamp. - -‘Well, why not?’ says Lady Forster, who detests Josephine. - -‘A girl like that—a mere nobody—the daughter of an obscure country -parson?’ - -‘Oh, not so very obscure!’ says Lady Muriel, in her gentle way. ‘Mr. -Barry is very well connected; I have met some of his people.’ - -‘Still, hardly a match for Mr. Crosby.’ Josephine waves her fan lightly, -yet with a suggestion of temper. Her mother, who has subsided into a -seat, listens with an interest that borders on agitation to the answer -to this speech. On it hangs her decision about the girl at the Cottage. -If Crosby’s people support Crosby in his infatuation for that silly -child at the Rectory, then—nothing is left to Josephine. - -‘Do you know,’ says Lady Forster, ‘I don’t feel a bit like that. Let us -all be happy, is my motto. I think’—thoughtfully—‘I am not sure, mind -you—but I think if George wanted to marry a barmaid, or something like -that, I should enter a gentle protest. But if he has set his heart on -this delightful Susan——Isn’t she a heart, Muriel? Such a ducky child!’ - -‘I thought her delightful, and her brother, too,’ says Lady Muriel, -laughing at Katherine’s exaggerations. ‘She is decidedly pretty, at all -events. Even more than that.’ - -‘Oh, a great deal more,’ says Captain Lennox, who has come into the room -with some of the other men. - -‘And of very good family, too,’ says Lady Millbank, who is dining with -them. The Barrys, as has been said, are a connection of hers, but always -up to this—on account of their poverty—scarcely acknowledged, and kept -carefully in the shade. But now, with this brilliant chance of a -marriage for Susan, she is willing to bring them suddenly into the -fuller light. - -‘But penniless,’ puts in Josephine carefully. - -‘Ah! what do pennies matter?’ says Lady Forster sweetly, but with a -faint grin at her husband, who is near her. He, too, feels small -affection for the stately Josephine. - -‘And if George fancies her—why, it will keep him from marrying a squaw. -They don’t call them squaws in Africa, do they? Something worse, -perhaps.’ - -‘Not much difference,’ says Captain Lennox. ‘But the squaws, as a rule, -wear more clothing than the Zulu ladies, and that might perhaps——’ - -‘Oh, good heavens!’ says Lady Forster; ‘it might indeed! If they wear -less petticoat than the dear old squaws——And if he should bring one -here! Fancy her advent into one’s drawing-room! People would go away.’ - -‘I don’t think so—I really don’t,’ says Captain Lennox reassuringly. ‘I -believe honestly you might depend on “people” to support you under the -trying circumstances. What are friends for, if——’ - -‘Oh, well, I couldn’t stand it if you could,’ says Lady Forster, with a -glance at him. ‘And I don’t want George to marry a nasty Zulu, any way. -What do you think, Billee Barlow?’—to her husband. ‘Isn’t Susan nicer -than a Zulu woman?’ - -‘I’ve not had much experience,’ says Sir William lazily. ‘But I dare say -you’re right.’ - -‘But listen. Isn’t it better for George to marry Susan than to go out -there again, and perhaps give you a sister-in-law “mit nodings” on her?’ - -‘It’s very startling,’ says Lennox. ‘Take time, Billee, before -answering; you might commit yourself.’ - -‘Really, the question is,’ says Josephine, in her cold, settled way, -‘whether it would be wise to encourage a marriage so distinctly -one-sided in the way of advantage as that between——’ - -‘Yes, yes, yes,’ interrupts Lady Forster impatiently. ‘But if George -goes away again, I have a horrid feeling that he won’t come back at all. -You see, he is too much one of us to bring into our midst a dusky -bride—and men have married out there—and if he likes this charming child -and she likes him——People should always marry for love, I think, eh, -Billee?’—turning to her husband. - -‘I always think as you do,’ says the wise man. - -‘Billee Barlow, what an answer!’ She looks aggrieved, and throws up her -little dainty, fairy-like head. ‘Do you think I’d have married you if I -hadn’t—liked you?’ - -‘Was that why you married me?’ asks he, laughing, and bent on teasing -her. - -‘No.’ She turns her back on him. ‘I don’t know why I married you, -except—that you were the biggest duffer in Europe.’ - -Forster roars. - -‘I’m glad I’m the biggest,’ says he. ‘It’s well to be great in one’s own -line.’ - -‘Well, that’s where it is,’ says Lady Forster, returning with perfect -equanimity to the original subject. ‘And if it comes off, Susan will be -a perfect sister-in-law. One has to think of one’s self, you know; and -what I dwell on is, that I’ll have the greatest fun bringing her out in -town. I’ve thought it all over. She will have a regular boom. There -won’t be a girl next year in it with her. I know all the coming -debutantes, and she could give them miles and beat them.’ - -Miss Prior laughs curiously, and Lady Forster looks at her. - -‘You think?’ - -‘That you are the most disinterested sister on earth, or——’ - -‘Well?’ - -‘The most selfish.’ - -Lady Forster, who is impetuous to a fault, makes a movement as if to say -something crushing—then restrains herself. After all, it is her -brother’s house; this girl is her guest. - -‘Oh, not selfish,’ says she sweetly. ‘I have a strange fancy that George -adores her.’ - -‘Strange fancies are not always true,’ says Miss Prior. ‘Sir William, do -you agree with Katherine about this adoration?’ - -Sir William shrugs his shoulders. How should he know? - -‘Oh, Billee’s a fool,’ says Lady Forster, in her plaintive voice. -‘Aren’t you, Billee?’ - -‘My darling, you forget I married you,’ says Forster, in his tragic -tone. Whereat she rolls her handkerchief into a little ball and throws -it at him. - -Mrs. Prior, who has sat on a lounge near the door listening silently to -this conversation, now makes up her mind. There is nothing to be hoped -for from Crosby. To-morrow, then, she will see this ‘tenant’ of Paul’s, -though all the guardians and chaperons in Europe rise up to prevent her. - -‘But are you really so sure that your brother is in love with Miss -Susan?’ asks Lennox of Lady Forster, in a low tone, unheard by the -others. - -‘No, I’m not,’ declares she, with astounding frankness. ‘I only wanted -to be a tiny bit nasty to Josephine, who, I’m sure, has her eye on him -in case another complication fails. No, indeed’—sighing—‘no such luck! -Wanderers like George are like confirmed gamblers, or drunkards, or that -sort of extraordinary person—they are beyond cure. I’m sure that, in -spite of all that pretty Susan’s charms, he will go back to his nasty -blacks and his lions and his general tomfoolery.’ - - - - - CHAPTER XLV. - - ‘They begin with making falsehood appear like truth, and end with - making truth appear like falsehood.’ - - -Mrs. Prior knocks gently at the front-gate of the Cottage, not the -little green gate so well known to the Barrys; and after a little delay -Mrs. Denis’s martial strides can be heard behind it, and her voice -pierces the woodwork. - -‘Who’s there?’ - -‘It is I, Mrs. Prior.’ Mrs. Prior’s tones are soft and suave and -persuasive. ‘That is you, I think, Mrs. Denis. I recognise your voice as -that of an old friend. I have been here before, you know, several times, -and I quite remember you. My nephew—your master, Mr. Wyndham, has at -last let me know about his tenant, and I have come’—very softly this—‘to -call on her.’ - -That she is lying horribly and with set purpose is beyond doubt. To -herself she excuses herself with the old, sad, detestable fallacy, that -her words are true, whatever the spirit of them may be. - -Mrs. Denis, astute matron and alert Cerberus as she is (a rather comical -combination), is completely taken in. She is the more ready to be -deceived, in that she is at her heart, good soul! so unfeignedly glad to -think that now, after all this time, her master’s people are coming -forward to recognise, and no doubt make much of, the ‘purty darlin’’ -under her care. Her care. Never for a moment has she admitted Miss -Manning’s right to chaperon Ella, though now on excellent terms with -that most excellent lady. - -She does not answer Mrs. Prior immediately, but strokes her beard behind -the gate, and smiles languidly to herself. Hah! He’s tould ’em! He’s -found out for himself that he loves her! The crathure! An’ why not! -Fegs, there isn’t her aqual between this and the Injies! An’, of course, -it is a mark of honour designed by him to his young lady, that his aunt -should come an’ pay her respects to her. - -For all this, she is still cautious, and now opens the gate to Mrs. -Prior by only an inch or so at a time. Mrs. Prior, on this, calmly and -with the leisurely manner that belongs to her, moves forward a step or -two, a step that places her parasol and her arm inside the gateway. - -‘You are, I can see, a most faithful guardian,’ says she pleasantly, and -with the distinctly approving tones of the superior to the efficient -inferior. ‘I shall take care to tell Mr. Wyndham my opinion of you.’ The -little sinister meaning in her speech is clouded in smiles. She takes -another step forward that brings not only her arm and parasol, but -herself, inside the gate; thus mistress of the situation, she smiles -again—this time a little differently, but still with the utmost suavity. - -‘This young lady?’ asks she. ‘She is in the house, no doubt? If you -could let me see her without any formal introduction, it would be so -much more friendly, it seems to me.’ - -Mrs. Denis’s ample bosom swells with joy and pride. Her beard vibrates. -‘Friendly.’ So they are going to be friendly—those people of his! After -all, perhaps Miss Ella is a princess in disguise, and they have only -just found it out. ‘Well, she looks one—wid her little feet, an’ her -little hands, an’ those small features of hers.’ - -‘No, ma’am,’ says she, addressing Mrs. Prior with a courtesy she seldom -uses to anyone. ‘Miss Ella is in the garding; an’ as you say ye’d like -to see her all be yerself, if ye’ll go round that corner ye’ll find her -aisy, near the hollyhocks. An’ I’ll tell ye this,’ says Mrs. Denis, -squaring her arms, and growing sentimental, ‘’tis plazed ye’ll be whin -ye do see her.’ - -‘I feel sure of that,’ says Mrs. Prior. She speaks quite calmly, yet a -rage of hatred shakes her. Glad to see this abominable creature, who has -interfered with the marriage of her daughter! - -‘She’s got the face of an angel, ma’am.’ - -‘And the heart of one, of course,’ says Mrs. Prior. The sarcasm is -thrown away upon Mrs. Denis, who is now bursting with a pæan addressed -to her goddess. - -‘Ay, ma’am. Fegs, ’tis aisy to see the masther has bin’ tellin’ you -about her.’ - -‘Just a little,’ says Mrs. Prior. ‘He——’ - -‘He thinks a dale of her,’ says Mrs. Denis, putting her hand to her -mouth, and speaking mysteriously. ‘I can see that much, but ’tis little -he says. But sure, ye know him. ’Tis mighty quiet he is entirely.’ - -‘Yes, I think I know him. But this ... young lady——’ - -‘Wisha! ’tis only keepin’ ye from her I am. An’ ’tis longin’ ye are to -see her, ov course.’ - -‘You are right, my good woman,’ says Mrs. Prior; ‘I really don’t think I -was ever so anxious to make the acquaintance of anyone before.... Round -that corner, you say? Thank you. I shall certainly tell my nephew what a -trustworthy guardian you make.’ - -She parts with Mrs. Denis with a little gracious bow, and a sudden swift -change of countenance that strikes that worthy woman at the time—but -unfortunately works out a little late. Stepping quickly in the direction -indicated, Mrs. Prior turns the corner and goes along the southern -border of the pretty cottage until she reaches a small iron gate that -leads to the garden proper. - -In here, soft perfumes meet one in the air, and delicate tints delight -the eye. The little walks run here and there, the grasses grow, and from -the flowering shrubs sweet trills are heard, sounds beautiful, and - - ‘Not sooner heard - Than answered, doubled, trebled more, - Voice of an Eden in the bird, - Renewing with his pipe of four - The sob; a troubled Eden, rich - In throb of heart.’ - -The grandeur of the dying autumn strikes through all; for over there, as -a background to the still brilliant flowers, are fading yellows, and sad -reds, and leaves russet-brown, more lovely now, perhaps, than when a -life dwelt in them. - -Mrs. Prior moves through all these things untouched by their beauty—on -one thought bent. And all at once the subject of her thought lies there -before her. The clearest, sweetest thought! - -Ella, on one of the many small paths, is standing as if struck by some -great surprise. She is looking at Mrs. Prior earnestly, half fearfully, -with eager searching in her large dark eyes, as of one trying to work -out some problem that had been suggested many years ago. - -The sight of the girl, standing there with her hand pressed against her -forehead as if to compel thought, drives the anger she is feeling even -deeper into Mrs. Prior’s soul. Such an attitude! As if not -understanding! The absurd put-on innocence of it is positively—well, -disgusting! - -And always Ella stands looking at her, as if frightened by the sudden -unexpected visitor, but presently through her fear and astonishment -another look springs into life. Her eyes widen—she does nothing, she -says nothing, but anyone looking on would say that the girl all at once -had remembered. But something terribly vague had touched her—something -startling out of the past that until that moment had lain dead. Oh, -surely she knows this lady, has met her somewhere. - -As if impelled by this mad fancy, she goes quickly towards Mrs. Prior. - -‘I—do I know you?’ asks she, in a low tense way. - -‘I think not,’ says Mrs. Prior, in her calm _trainante_ voice, that is -now insolent to a degree. A faint, most cruel smile plays upon her lips. -‘You, and such as you, are seldom known by—us.’ - -The girl stands silent. No actual knowledge of her meaning enters into -her heart, but what does come home to her in some vague way is that she -has been thrust back—put far away—cast out, as it were. - -‘I don’t understand,’ says she, a little faintly. - -‘Oh, I think you do,’ says Mrs. Prior, with cultivated rudeness. ‘But I -have not come here to-day to inform you as to your position in life. I -have come rather to explain to you that your—er—relations with my nephew -must come to an end—and at once.’ - -‘Your nephew?’ - -‘Has Mr. Wyndham not spoken to you of his people, then? Rather better -taste than I should have expected from him. But one may judge from it -that he is not yet lost to all sense of decency.’ - -The insolence in her tone stings. - -‘You must believe me or not, as you like,’ says the girl, drawing up her -slight figure, ‘but I don’t know what you are speaking about. Do you -mean that you think it wrong of me to have rented this cottage from Mr. -Wyndham?’ - -Mrs. Prior raises her pince-nez and looks at her. - -‘Really, you are very amusing!’ says she. ‘Now what do you think it is? -Right? Your views should be interesting.’ - -‘If not this house, I should take another,’ says Ella. She is feeling -bewildered and frightened, and has grown very pale. - -‘Of course, if you insist on the innocent _rôle_,’ says Mrs. Prior -coldly, shrugging her shoulders, ‘it is useless my wasting my time. If, -however, you have any regard for Mr. Wyndham, who, it seems, has been -very kind to you’—she glances meaningly round the charming little home -and garden—‘if distinctly unkind to himself, it may be of use to let you -know that your presence here is very likely to be the cause of his -ruin.’ - -‘His—ruin!’ The unmistakable horror in the girl’s face strikes Mrs. -Prior as hopeful, so she proceeds briskly. - -‘Social ruin! It will undoubtedly mean his disinheritance by his uncle, -Lord Shangarry, and—the rupture of his engagement with the girl -he—loves!’ - -She plants this barb with joy. The telling of a lie more or less has -never troubled her during her life. - -‘The girl he loves!’ Ella’s voice as she repeats the words sounds dull -and monotonous. She is quite ghastly now, and she has laid her hand on -the back of a garden-chair to steady herself. - -‘Yes. The girl he has always meant to marry!’ She lays great stress on -the last word. That ought to tell. ‘Whom he meant to marry until -your—fascinations’—she throws detestable meaning into her speech, base -as it is detestable—‘alienated him—for the moment!’ - -All at once Ella recovers herself. - -‘Oh, you are wrong, wrong!’ cries she vehemently. ‘Somebody has been -telling you what is not true, what is not the case! Mr. Wyndham does -not—does not’—she trembles violently—‘love me. Not me—anyone but me. Oh! -who could have said such a thing? Believe me, do believe me’—she comes -forward, holding out her hands imploringly—‘when I tell you that I am -the last girl in the world he would fall in love with. If you know this -young lady he loves, go back to her, I implore you, and tell her it is -all untrue—that he loves her, and her only, and that all she has heard -to the contrary is not worth one thought. Oh, madam! If he should be -hurt through me!... After all his goodness to me! Oh ... go ... go to -her and tell her what I say!’ - -She stops, and covers her face suddenly with her hands. She is not -crying, however. Tears are far from her eyes. But the misery of death -has swept over her soul. - -Mrs. Prior gives way to a low laugh. - -‘Why didn’t you go on the stage?’ she says. ‘You would have made even a -better living there. But perhaps you have only just come off it?’ - -The girl lets her hand drop to her sides, and turns passionately upon -her. - -‘Why won’t you believe me?’ cries she, with sudden wild vehemence. -‘What have I done that you should disbelieve my word?’ Her eyes are -bright with grief and the eager desire that is consuming her to make -things straight for Wyndham and the girl he loves. Wyndham, who has -been so good to her, who has brought her out of such deep waters! To -hurt him—to injure him: the very thought is unbearable. She has -involuntarily—unknowingly—drawn up her _svelte_ and slender body to -its fullest height, and with a courage that few women could have found -under circumstances so poignant, so filled with agonized memory, and -with yet another feeling that perhaps is bitterest of all (though -hardly known), she looks full at her tormentor. - -‘Can’t you see,’ cries she, with a proud humility, ‘how wrong you must -be? How could I interfere between Mr. Wyndham and the woman he loves? -Who am I? Nothing!’ She throws up her beautiful head with a touch of -inalienable pride, and repeats the word distinctly: ‘Nothing!’ - -‘Less than nothing,’ says Mrs. Prior, who is only moved to increased and -unendurable hatred by her beauty and her unconscious hauteur. ‘So far as -he regards you!’ - -Ella draws her breath quickly. - -‘If so small in his regard, how then do I prevent his marriage with the -girl he loves?’ - -Alas for the sorrow of her voice! It might have touched the heart of -anyone. Mrs. Prior, however, is impervious to such touches. - -‘Don’t you think it very absurd, your pretending like this?’ says she -contemptuously. - -‘Of course, in spite of the absurd innocence you pretend, one can see -that you quite understand the situation, and how unpleasantly you are in -the way. If he had brought you anywhere but here, it might have been -hushed up, but to the very house his poor mother left him—why, it is an -open scandal, and an insult to my daughter!’ - -The girl makes a shocked gesture. - -‘It is your daughter, then? But’—quickly—‘now you know he doesn’t love -me, and you can tell her—and——’ She is looking eagerly, with almost -passionate hope, at Mrs. Prior. - -‘Tell her! Tell my daughter about you!’ Mrs. Prior’s voice is terrible. -‘How dare you suggest the idea of my speaking to my girl of——’ She -checks herself with difficulty, and goes on coldly: ‘No doubt you -believe Mr. Wyndham will be to you always as he is now. Women of your -class delude themselves like that. But—when he marries—as he will—as he -shall—you will learn that a wife is one thing and a mis——’ - -She breaks off in the middle of her odious word as though shot. A hand -has grasped her shoulder. - -‘Hould yer tongue, woman, if there’s still a dhrop o’ dacency left in -ye! Hould yer tongue, I say!’ - -The voice is the voice of Mrs. Denis. - -‘May I ask who it is you are addressing?’ asks Mrs. Prior, releasing -herself easily enough. Putting up her eyeglass, she bends upon Mrs. -Denis the glare that she has always found so effectual for the undoing -of her foes. But Mrs. Denis thinks nothing of glares. She is, indeed, at -this moment producing one of her own, beneath which Mrs. Prior’s sinks -into insignificance. - -‘Faith ye may!’ says she, advancing towards the enemy with a regular -‘come on’ sort of air. ‘An’ as ye ask me, I’ll give ye yer answer. Ye’re -the aunt of a nevvy that has ivery right to be ashamed o’ ye! Know ye, -is it? Arrah!’ Here the unapproachable sarcasm of the Irish peasant -breaks forth. ‘Is it that ye’re askin’? Fegs, I do, thin, an’ to me -cost, for ’tis too late I am wid me knowledge.’ She pauses here, and -planting her hands on her ample hips, surveys Mrs. Prior with deliberate -scorn. - -‘Oh, ye ould thraitor!’ says she at last. - -Tableau! - -It is open to question whether Mrs. Prior’s instant anger arises most -from the word ‘ould’ or ‘thraitor.’ Probably the ‘ould.’ - -‘You forget yourself!’ cries she sharply, furiously. - -‘Ye’re out there,’ says Mrs. Denis; ‘for ’tis I’m remimberin’. “Oh, Mrs. -Denis”’—with a wonderful attempt at Mrs. Prior’s air—‘“an’ is that -you?”—so swate like. An’, “I’ll be tellin’ me nevvy what a good guardian -ye are.” An’, “’Tis me nevvy tould me to come an’ pay me respecks to -your young lady.”’ Here Mrs. Denis lifts her powerful fist and shakes it -in the air. ‘I wondher to the divil,’ says she, ‘that yer tongue didn’t -sthick to yer mouth whin ye said thim words. Yer nevvy indeed! Wait till -I see yer nevvy! ’Tis shakin’ in yer shoes ye’ll be thin! Worse than ye -made this poor lamb’—with a glance at Ella, who has drawn back and is -trembling violently—‘shake to-day.’ - -‘You shall have reason to remember this—this most insolent behaviour. -You shall know——’ begins Mrs. Prior, white with wrath; but Mrs. Denis -will have none of her. - -‘I know one thing, any way,’ says she, ‘that out ov this ye go, this -minnit-second. Ye can tell yer nevvy all about it whin ye git out, an’ -the sooner ye’re out, the sooner ye can tell him; an’ I wish ye joy of -the tellin’! Come now!’—she steps up to Mrs. Prior with a menacing -air—‘quick march!’ - -This grand old soldier—with whom even her husband, good man and true as -he had proved himself on many a battlefield, would probably have come -off second best at a close tussle—now sidling up to Mrs. Prior with -distinct battle in her eyes, that lady deems it best to lay down her -arms and sound a retreat. - -‘This disreputable conduct only coincides with the whole of this -establishment,’ says Mrs. Prior, making a faint effort to sustain her -position whilst being literally moved towards the gate by the powerful -personality and still more powerful arm of Mrs. Denis. The latter does -not touch her, indeed, but she keeps waving that muscular member up and -down like a windmill, in a most threatening manner. ‘You understand that -I shall report all this to Mr. Wyndham?’ - -‘Ye’ve said all that before,’ says Mrs. Denis, with great contempt. ‘An’ -now I’ll tell you something. That report ye spake of, in my humble -opinion, will make mighty little noise!’ - -After that she closes the gate with scant ceremony on Mrs. Prior’s -departing heels. - - - - - CHAPTER XLVI. - - ‘To hear an open scandal is a curse; - But not to find an answer is a worse.’ - - -Mrs. Prior, thus forcibly ejected (ejections are the vogue in Ireland), -commences her return journey to Crosby Park, smarting considerably under -her wrongs and the big umbrella she is holding over her head. She has -gone but a little way, however, when, on suddenly turning a corner, she -finds herself face to face with Wyndham. - -He has evidently been walking in a great hurry, but as he sees her he -comes to a dead stop. All his worst fears are at once realized. The fact -is that Crosby had missed Mrs. Prior at luncheon hour—a most unusual -thing, by the way, for her to be absent, for she dearly loved a meal—and -he had asked Miss Prior where she was. Miss Prior had said she did not -know—hadn’t the faintest notion—perhaps gone for a prowl and forgotten -her way home. Crosby somehow had felt that the fair Josephine was lying -openly and freely, and had at once given a hint to Wyndham of Mrs. -Prior’s conversation with him on the previous night, even suggesting -that Mrs. Prior’s unusual absence from luncheon might have some -connection with the Cottage. The result of all of which is that Mrs. -Prior now finds herself looking into her nephew’s eyes and wondering -rather vaguely what the next move is going to be. - -His eyes are distinctly unpleasant. They had been anxious—horribly -anxious—when first she saw them; but now they seem alive with active -rage. - -‘Where have you been?’ asks he immediately, his face set and white. -Crosby, then, had been quite right in his suggestion. - -‘I have been doing my duty,’ returns Mrs. Prior, who has pulled herself -together. Her tone is stern and uncompromising. - -‘You have been at the Cottage?’ - -‘You have guessed quite correctly.’ - -‘You have seen that poor girl, then, and——’ - -‘I have seen that most wretched girl, and told her my opinion of her.’ - -Wyndham makes a sharp ejaculation. ‘You spoke to her, insulted her, that -poor child?’ He feels that reproach is no longer possible to him. What -has she said? What, indeed, has she left unsaid? Great heavens, what -monsters some women can be! - -‘I explained to her her position. Not that she needed explanation, in -spite of all her extremely clever efforts at an innocent bearing. I -passed over that, however, and told her—hoping that perhaps she had some -real feeling for you, though I understand that class of person never has -any honest feeling—that beyond all doubt Lord Shangarry would disinherit -you if he heard of your connection with her.’ She pauses here. This is -her trump card, and she looks straight at Paul as she plays it. - -It proves valueless. He passes it over as though it were of no -consequence whatever. - -‘I don’t know what to say to you,’ says he, struggling with his -passionate rage, and grief, and shame. ‘I hardly know how to condemn you -strongly enough. I wish to God you were not a woman, and then I should -know what to do. This girl you have so insulted is a girl as good and -pure as the best girl you have ever met, and yet you have gone down -there’—pointing in the direction of the Cottage—‘and deliberately hurt -and wounded her. I wonder you had the courage to do it. Are you’—growing -now furious—‘a fool that you couldn’t see how sweet and gentle and -innocent she is?’ - -‘Is it your intercourse with this sweet and gentle and innocent girl -that has made you so extremely rude?’ asks his aunt in her low, -well-bred voice. ‘If so, I consider I have done an extra duty by my -visit to her. It may have results. Your disinheritance by Shangarry, for -example, is sure to have an effect upon her. I am afraid, after all, it -is you who are the fool. In the meantime, Paul, I can quite see that -your infatuation for an extremely ordinary sort of girl has blinded you -to her defects. Some of these people, I am told, quite study our manners -nowadays; but she lacks distinction of any sort. That you happen to be -in love with her at present of course prevents your seeing these -faults.’ - -‘You seem so remarkably well up in the affair,’ says Wyndham, who could -now have cheerfully strangled her, ‘that I suppose it will be quite -superfluous to tell you that love has no voice in the matter. I am not -in love with her, and she most positively is not in love with me.’ - -Mrs. Prior makes a contemptuous movement of her thin shoulders. - -‘So very old,’ says she. ‘Do you suppose, my dear Paul, with the stake -you have in view, that I expected you to say the truth—to tell me that -you had fallen violently in love with this little paltry creature, who -has come out of no one knows where, except yourself, to go back to no -one knows where when you are tired of her?’ - -‘Look here,’ says Wyndham, driven beyond all courtesy by some feeling -that he can hardly explain, ‘I think you have the worst mind of any -woman I have ever met. I see now that it is useless to try to convince -you; but remember—remember always’—he makes a distinct pause, as if on -purpose, as if to fasten the words on her mind—‘what I say to you -now—that anyone who calls Ella Moore anything less than the best woman -on earth—lies!’ - -‘Your infatuation has gone deep,’ says Mrs. Prior. ‘Few men would speak -so strongly in favour of the virtue of their—friends.’ - -‘I understand your hideous hint,’ says Wyndham, who has now grown cold -and collected. ‘You are a woman, and it is hard to tell a woman that she -lies. But if you were a man, I shouldn’t hesitate about it.’ - -‘As I tell you, she has not improved your manners,’ says Mrs. Prior, -with a bitter smile. She has not dreamt the affair would take this turn. -She has believed that Paul, through dread of Shangarry’s displeasure, -would at the most have made light of the matter, have parried the -attack, and perhaps have sworn fresh allegiance to Josephine on the head -of it. That he should defend this ‘creature’ and defy her, his aunt, -because of her—— The situation has become strained beyond bearing. - -‘If you do not love her, and she does not love you, and is not even your -friend,’ says she sneeringly, ‘what is she to you?’ - -‘My tenant—neither more nor less.’ - -‘You mean to tell me, on your honour, that she pays you rent?’ - -‘Certainly she does.’ - -‘She is a _bonâ-fide_ tenant, nothing more? Then, if so, why all this -mystery? Why did you give me to understand weeks ago that she was a -man?’ - -‘You understood that for yourself. And with regard to the mystery, it -seems that she is desirous of privacy.’ - -‘How very modest, and what an extraordinary tenant to pick up! May I ask -where you first heard of her? By advertisement?’ - -‘No.’ - -‘How, then?’ - -For a moment Wyndham hesitates. Hesitation is supposed to lead to ruin, -but Wyndham comes out of it sound in wind and limb. His mind had -suffered a shock as it fell back upon that tragic scene in the -Professor’s room, but recovered from it almost immediately. - -‘You may have heard of Professor Hennessy,’ says he—‘a very -distinguished man. He told me of her just before his death. -Now’—sarcastically—‘have I answered enough of your questions? Is your -conscience quite satisfied as to your duty?’ - -‘It is open to anyone to make light of sacred subjects,’ said Mrs. -Prior, with dignity. ‘Duty to me is the one sacred thing in life. I have -taken this matter in hand, and, in spite of all you have said, Paul, I -may as well warn you that I shall not take your word for it, but shall -sift it steadily to the bottom. I consider that my duty to both you and -to my daughter.’ - -‘To Josephine?’ - -‘Yes, to Josephine. Are you prepared to say that you have no duty -towards her?’ - -‘Not that I am aware of.’ - -‘After all these years? After all Shangarry has hinted and said? After -all the notoriety, the talk, the gossip, of our world? That a man should -pay pointed attentions to a girl for two years—should come and go, be -received at her mother’s house, and escort her to balls and concerts and -to theatres—is all that to go for nothing? Is my poor girl to be cast -aside now as though nothing had occurred——’ - -‘If you are alluding to Josephine,’ says Wyndham coldly and calmly, ‘I -can’t see that anything has occurred to cause her annoyance of any kind. -I am afraid you are misleading yourself. You ought to speak to your -daughter, and she, no doubt, will post you up about it. I, for my part, -can assure you that there is nothing between us, nor has there ever -been. Your daughter is as indifferent to me as’—emphatically—‘I am to -her.’ - -He feels abominably rude as he says this, but he feels, too, the -necessity for saying it. And, after all, the onus of the rudeness lies -with her. Mrs. Prior is silent for a moment, more from anger than from -inability to speak; then she breaks out: - -‘I shall write to Shangarry.’ - -‘You can write,’ says Wyndham quietly, ‘to anyone on earth you like.’ - -‘You distinctly, then, decline to carry out your engagement to my -daughter?’ - -‘My dear aunt, surely you exaggerate? When was there any engagement?’ - -‘It was the same thing. You paid her great attention, and Shangarry has -set his heart on it.’ - -‘I am sorry for Lord Shangarry.’ - -‘You refuse, then?’ - -‘Distinctly,’ says Wyndham. He lifts his hat and hurries past her. She -waits a little, watching him until he disappears round the corner that -will lead him to the Cottage. - - - - - CHAPTER XLVII. - - ‘For what wert thou to me? - How shall I say?’ - - -He finds Ella standing, where she had stood throughout her interview -with Mrs. Prior, beneath a big horse-chestnut-tree in the garden. She -had resisted all Miss Manning’s entreaties to come indoors and lie down -and have a cup of tea (that kind woman’s one unfailing recipe for all -diseases and griefs under the sun), and had only entreated piteously -that she might be left alone. - -Now, as she hears Wyndham’s step upon the gravel, she lifts her head, -and the white misery of her face, as he sees it, makes his heart swell -with wrath within him. Great heavens! what had that fiend said to her? -He struggles with an almost ungovernable desire to go to her and press -those poor forlorn eyes against his breast, if only to shut them out -from his vision; and he struggles, too, it must be confessed—not so -successfully—with a wild longing to give way to bad language. A few -words escape him, breathed low, but extremely pungent. They bring some -faint relief; but still his heart burns within him, and, indeed, he -himself is surprised at the intensity of his emotion. - -She does not speak, and he does not attempt to shake hands with her. It -is impossible for him to forget that it is his own aunt who has thus -wantonly insulted her—who has brought this terrible look into her young -face. She, who has known so much suffering, who is now, indeed, only -slowly recovering from a life unutterably sad. - -‘I know it all,’ begins he hurriedly, disconnectedly—he, the cold, -clever barrister. ‘I met her just now, just outside the gate. She is a -woman of a most vindictive temper. I hope you will not let anything she -may have said dwell for a moment in your memory. It is not worth it, -believe me. She is unscrupulous.’ He is almost out of breath now, but -still hurries on. ‘She would do anything to gain a point. She——’ - -‘You are talking of your aunt,’ says Ella at last in a stifled tone. - -‘Yes; and God knows,’ says he, with vehement bitterness, ‘there was -never anyone more ashamed to acknowledge anything than I am to -acknowledge her. You—you will try to forget what she said——’ - -‘Forget! Every word,’ says the girl, lifting her hands and pressing the -palms against her pretty head, ‘seems beaten in here.’ - -‘But such words—so false, so meaningless—the words of a malicious woman, -used to gain her own purpose——’ - -‘Still, they are here,’ says she wearily. - -‘For the moment; but in time you will forget, not only her words, but -her.’ - -‘Her! I shall never forget her!’ She turns to him with quick questioning -in her eyes. ‘Is she really your aunt, Mr. Wyndham? It is strange—it is -impossible—but I know I have seen her before. In my dreams sometimes, -now, I see her. But in my dreams she does not look as she did to-day.’ -She shudders, and presses her fingers against her eyes, as if to shut -out something. ‘She is lovely there, and kind, and so beautiful; and she -calls me “Ellie.” I must be going mad, I think,’ cries she abruptly. ‘A -brain diseased sees queer things; and when I saw her in the Rectory -garden yesterday, all at once it came to me that I knew her—that I had -seen her before. Perhaps’—she goes closer to him, and examines his face -with interest, marking every line, as it were, every feature, until -Wyndham begins to wish that his parents had granted him better looks, -and then, ‘No, no,’ says she, sighing. ‘I thought perhaps it was her -likeness to you that made her face seem familiar. But you are not like -her. She’—sighing again—‘is very handsome.’ - -This is a distinct ‘takedown.’ Wyndham, however, bears up nobly. - -‘No,’ says he; ‘I am grateful to say that I resemble my father’s family, -plain though they may be. The Burkes, of course, were always considered -very handsome.’ - -‘Burke?’ She looks at him again, and frowns a little, as if again memory -is troubling her. ‘The Burkes were——’ - -‘My mother was a daughter of Sir John Burke.’ - -‘Yes, yes; I see. And the lady who was here just now, Mrs.——’ - -‘Prior.’ - -‘She was a daughter, too?’ - -‘I regret to say so—yes.’ - -‘Well, my dreams are wrong,’ says she, as if half to herself. ‘And -yet——’ She breaks off. - -She moves away from him, and in an idle, inconsequent way, pulls at the -shrubs and flowers near her. He can see at once that she is thinking, -wrestling with the troubled waters of her mind, and there is something -in the dignity and sadness of the young figure that appeals to him, and -awakens afresh that eager desire to help her that has been his from the -first. - -After awhile she comes back to him, her hands full of the late flowers -that she nervously pulls from finger to finger in an unconscious -fashion. - -‘I can’t live here any longer,’ says she. ‘I should not have come here -at all. She has quite shown me that.’ - -‘I have already told you that not one word Mrs. Prior said is worthy of -another thought.’ - -He is alluding to Mrs. Prior’s abominable suggestions as to the real -meaning of the girl’s presence in the Cottage. - -‘Mr. Wyndham,’ says Ella, resting her earnest eyes on his, ‘perhaps I -have never let you fully understand how I regard all you have done for -me—how grateful I am to you—a mere waif, a nobody. But I am grateful, -and, believe me, the one thing that has cut me to the very heart to-day -is the thought that I—I’—with poignant meaning—‘should be the one to -cause dissension between you and—and—and her.’ - -‘Her?’ - -‘Yes, yes; she told me.’ - -‘She? Who? Her?’ This involved sentence is taken no notice of. - -‘It was your aunt who told me. But you can explain to her——’ - -‘To her! To whom? My aunt?’ - -‘Oh, no, no!’ She pauses. ‘Surely you know.’ At this moment something in -the girl’s air makes Wyndham feel that she is believing him guilty of a -desire to play the hypocrite—to conceal something. ‘It cannot have gone -so very far,’ says she miserably. ‘A few words from you to her——’ - -‘To “her” again? If not my aunt,’ demands he frantically, ‘what her?’ - -She looks at him with sad astonishment. - -‘I see now you wouldn’t trust me,’ says she. Her eyes are suffused with -tears. She turns aside, her hands tightly clenched, as if in pain. Then -all at once she breaks out. ‘Oh,’ cries she passionately, ‘why didn’t -you tell her at first?’ Tell her at first! Who the deuce is ‘her’? ‘Or -even me. If’—miserably—‘if I had known, I should not have come here, and -then there would have been no trouble, no wondering, no mystery; and -there would have been no misunderstanding between you and’—she draws a -sharp breath—‘the girl you love!’ - -‘Good heavens! Do I find myself in Bedlam?’ cries Wyndham, who is not by -any means an even-tempered man, and who now has lost the last rag of -self-control. ‘What girl do I love?’ - -But his burst of rage seems to take small effect on Ella. - -‘Of course,’ says she, in a stifled tone, directing her attention now to -a bush near her, plucking hurriedly at its leaves, ‘if you wish to keep -it a secret—and you know I said you didn’t trust me—and, of course, if -you wish to’—her voice here sounds broken—‘to tell me nothing, you are -right—quite right. There is no reason why I should be let into your -confidence.’ - -‘Look here,’ says Wyndham roughly. He catches her arm and compels her to -turn round. ‘Let’s get to the bottom of this matter. What did my aunt -tell you? Come now! Out with it straight and plain.’ - -He has occasionally entreated his clients to be honest, but usually with -very poor results. Now, however, he finds one to answer him even more -straightly than he had at all bargained for. Ella flings up her head. -Perhaps she had objected to that magisterial ‘Come now.’ - -‘She said you were in love with her daughter, and that you had meant -to marry her, until—my being here interfered with it. She’—the girl -pauses, and regards him anxiously, as if looking to him for an -explanation—‘didn’t say how I interfered.’ - -‘She said that?’ Wyndham’s voice is full of suppressed but violent rage. - -‘Yes, that, and a great deal more,’ she goes on now vehemently. ‘That my -being here would ruin you. That some lord—your uncle—your -grand-uncle—Shan—Shanbally or garry was the name’—striving wildly with -her memory—‘would disinherit you because you had let your cottage to me. -But that wasn’t just, was it? Why shouldn’t you let your house to me as -well as to anybody else, Mr. Wyndham?’—with angry intonation. ‘Is that -three hundred a year the Professor left me mine really? Did he leave it -to me at all? Oh! if he didn’t—if I am indebted to you for all this -comfort, this happiness——’ She breaks down. - -‘You are entitled to that money; I swear it!’ says Wyndham. ‘His very -last words were of you.’ - -‘You are sure! Of course, if not——That might be the reason for their all -being angry with me.’ - -She is so very far off the actual truth that Wyndham hesitates before -replying to her. - -‘I am quite sure,’ says he presently. ‘The money is yours.’ - -‘Then I do not understand your aunt,’ cries she, throwing up her small -head proudly. ‘She said a great many other things that I thought very -rude—at least, I’m sure they were meant to be rude by her air. But they -were so stupid that no one could understand them. I hardly remember -them. I only remember those about——’ She breaks off suddenly; tears rise -in her saddened eyes. ‘I wish—I wish,’ cries she, in an agonized tone, -‘you had told me that you loved her.’ - -‘Loved her! Josephine!’ - -‘Is that her name—your cousin’s name?’ - -‘Yes, and a most detestable name it is.’ There is frank disgust in his -tone. The girl watches him wistfully. - -‘Perhaps, after all,’ says she—she hesitates, and the hand on the -rose-bush now trembles, though Wyndham never sees it—‘perhaps it wasn’t -your cousin she meant. I misunderstood her, I dare say. It’—she looks at -him with eager, searching young eyes—‘it was someone else, perhaps——’ - -‘Someone else?’ - -‘You are in love with.’ She draws back a little, almost leaning against -the rose-bush now, and looking up at him from under frightened brows. - -‘I am in love with no one,’ says Wyndham, with much directness—‘with no -one in the wide world.’ He quite believes himself as he says this. But, -in spite of this belief, a sensation of discontent pervades him, as, -looking at the girl, he sees a smile, wide and happy, spreading over her -charming face. Evidently it is nothing to her. She has had no desire -that he should be in love with—her. ‘There is one thing,’ says he, a -little austerely—that smile is still upon her face—‘if you really desire -privacy, you should be careful about letting yourself be seen. -Yesterday, in that tree,’ he points towards it, and Ella colours in a -little sad, ashamed way that goes to his heart, but does not disturb his -determination to read her a lecture, ‘you laid yourself open to -discovery, and therefore to insult. The getting up into a tree or -looking at people is nothing,’ argues he coldly. ‘It is the fact that, -though you wish to look at people, you refuse to let them look at you, -that makes the mischief. Anyone in this narrow society of ours who -decides on withdrawing herself from the public gaze is open to -misconception—to gossip—and finally to insult. I warned you of that long -ago.’ - -‘I will not—I cannot. You know I cannot go out of this without great -fear and danger,’ says Ella faintly. - -‘I know nothing of the kind. This determination of yours to shut -yourself away from the world is only a species of madness, and it will -grow upon you. Supposing that man found you, what could he do?’ - -‘Oh, don’t, don’t!’ says she faintly. She covers her eyes with her -hands. Then suddenly she takes them down and looks at him. ‘You have -never felt fear,’ says she. She says this quickly, reproachfully, almost -angrily; but through all the anger and reproach and haste there runs a -thread of admiration. ‘But I have. And I tell you if—that man—were to -see me again—were to come here and order me to go away with him—I should -not dare to refuse.’ - -‘He knows better than to come here,’ says Wyndham curtly. ‘You may -dispose of that fear.’ - -‘Ah!’ says she, sighing, ‘you don’t know him.’ - -‘I know—if not him individually—his class,’ says Wyndham confidently. -‘Give up, I counsel you, this secrecy of yours. See what it has brought -upon you to-day. And these insults will continue. I warn you’—he looks -at her with a frowning brow—‘I warn you they will continue.’ - -‘She?’ Ella looks at him timidly. ‘You think she will come again?’ - -‘Mrs. Prior?’—contemptuously; ‘no. But there will be others. What do you -think people are saying?’ - -‘Saying of me?’ She looks frightened. ‘They have heard about that night -at the Professor’s?’ questions she. She looks now almost on the verge of -fainting. ‘Your aunt—she—did she know? She said nothing.’ - -‘No. She knows nothing of that,’ says Wyndham hurriedly. After all, it -is impossible to explain to her. But Miss Manning will know—she will -know what to say. - -‘She only saw me in the tree,’ says the girl, with a voice that is now -half sobbing. And then she thought you—that I—oh!’—more wretchedly -still—‘I don’t know what she thought! But’—trembling—‘I wish I had never -climbed into that tree.’ - -‘Because she happened to see you? Never mind that. She’s got eyes in the -back of her head; no one could escape her,’ says he, touched by her -agitation. - -‘I am not thinking of her,’ says Ella proudly, making a gesture that -might almost be called imperious. ‘I am only vexed because you are angry -with me about it. But’—eagerly—‘I never thought anyone would find me -out, and I did so want to see what you—what’—quickly correcting herself -and colouring faintly—‘you were all doing in the Rectory garden.’ - -‘If you want so much, and so naturally,’ says he, ‘to see your -fellow-people, why didn’t you accept Susan’s invitation? It would have -prevented all this.’ - -‘I know. But I couldn’t,’ says she, hanging her pretty head. ‘You know I -tried it once, and it was only when I got back again here—here into this -safe, safe place—that I knew how frightened I had been all the time. And -you may remember how I fancied then, on my return, that I had seen——’ -She stops as if unable to go on. - -‘I know. I remember. But that was a mere hallucination, I am sure. You -must try to conquer such absurd fears. Promise me you will try.’ - -‘I will try,’ cries she impulsively. She holds out to him her hand, and -he takes it. ‘I will indeed. You have been so good to me, that I ought -to do something for you. But all the same’—shaking her head—‘I know you -are vexed with me about this.’ - -‘For your sake only. This abominable visit of my aunt’s, for example——’ - -‘Yes; about the girl you——’ She stops and withdraws her hand. - -‘I thought I had explained that,’ says he, with a laugh. ‘But what -troubles me is the thought that you may be again annoyed in this way. -Not by her; I shall see about that’—with force. ‘But there may be -others. And of course your welfare is’—he checks himself—‘of some -consequence to me.’ - -‘Is it?’ She has grown cold too. ‘Your aunt’s welfare must be something -to you as well.’ - -‘Do you mean by that that you don’t think I am on your side?’ - -She lifts her heavy lids and looks at him. - -‘You told me that my affairs were nothing to you—that they did not -concern you in the smallest degree.’ - -‘Was that—some time ago?’ - -‘Yes. Almost at first.’ - -‘Don’t you think it is a little vindictive to visit one’s former -utterances upon one now?’ - -‘I don’t know.’ - -‘Well, good-bye,’ says he quickly. He turns, wounded more than he could -have believed it possible to be by a girl who is positively nothing to -him. Nothing! he quite insists on this as he goes down the path. - -But now—what is this? Swift feet running after him; a small eager hand -upon his arm. - -‘Mr. Wyndham! Don’t go away like this. If I have offended you, I am -sorry; I’—her lips begin to tremble now, and the eyes that are uplifted -to his are dim—‘I am dreadfully sorry. Oh, don’t go away like this! -Forgive me!’ Suddenly she bursts into tears. ‘Do forgive me!’ - -‘Forgive? I? It is you who have to forgive,’ stammers he. ‘Ella!’ - -He has laid his hand upon hers to draw them from her eyes, but with a -sudden movement she breaks from him and runs back to the house. At the -door, however, she stops, and glances back at him, and he can see that -her face is radiant now, though her eyes are still wet with their late -tears. - -‘Good-bye! Good-bye!’ cries she. She raises both her hands to her lips, -and in the prettiest, the most graceful fashion flings him a last -farewell. This manner of hers is new to him. It is full, not only of -friendliness, but of the joy of one who has been restored once more to -happiness. - - * * * * * - -On the avenue of Crosby Park Wyndham meets the master of it, who has -plainly been strolling this way with a view to meeting him on his -return. - -‘Well!’ says Crosby. Then, seeing the other’s face, ‘I was right, then?’ - -‘You were. She had made her way in, and insulted the poor child in the -most violent way.’ - -‘I felt sure she was up to mischief,’ says Crosby, colouring hotly; he, -too, is conscious of strong resentment. That anyone should go from his -house to deliberately annoy a girl—a young girl, and one so sadly -circumstanced—makes his usually easy-going blood boil. ‘I thought her -manner to you at breakfast was over-suave. Well?’ - -‘There is hardly anything to tell you. That she was there, that she -spoke as few women would have had the heart to do, is all I am sure of. -No; this more: that that poor child, thank God! didn’t understand half -of her vile insinuations. I could see so much. But she was cut to the -heart, for all that. If you could have seen her face, so white, so -frightened! I tell you this, Crosby——’ - -He never told him, however. He broke off short—as if not able to trust -his voice, and Crosby, after one sharp glance at him, bestowed all his -attention on the gravel at his feet. And as he waited for the other to -recover his serenity, he shook his head over the whole affair. Yes, this -was always the end of this sort of thing. If Wyndham didn’t know it, he -did. Wyndham was desperately in love with this ‘waif’ of his—with this -girl who had sprung out of nowhere, who had been flung upon his hands -out of the angry tide of life. Presently, seeing Wyndham continuing -silent, as if lost in a train of thought, he breaks in. - -‘How did you know Mrs. Prior was there?’ - -‘From herself.’ - -‘What! you met her?’ - -‘Just outside the gate.’ - -‘And’—Crosby here shows signs of hopeful joy—‘had it out with her?’ - -‘On the spot. She denied nothing. Rather led the attack. One has but a -poor vengeance with women, Crosby; but at all events she knows what I -think of her. Of course there is an end to all pretence of friendship -with her in the future, and I am glad of it.’ - -‘I hope you didn’t say too much,’ says Crosby, rather taken aback by the -sullen rage on the other’s brow. - -‘How could I do that? If it had been a man——’ - -‘She might well congratulate herself that she isn’t, if she could only -see your eyes at this moment,’ says Crosby, laughing in spite of -himself. ‘But she’ll make mischief out of this, Paul, I’m afraid.’ He is -silent a moment, and then: ‘Your uncle is still bent, I suppose, on your -marriage with her daughter?’ - -‘Yes, rather a bore,’ says Wyndham, frowning. ‘I don’t like to -disappoint the old man.’ - -‘You mean?’ - -‘That I should not marry Josephine Prior if my accession to a throne -depended upon it.’ - -‘So bad as that?’ - -‘Is what so bad as that?’—struck by a meaning in the other’s tone. - -‘Why, your infatuation for your tenant.’ - -‘My——Oh, of course I might have known you would come to look at it like -that,’ says Wyndham, shrugging his shoulders. With another man he might -have been offended. But it is hard to be offended with Crosby. ‘Still, -you are a sort of fellow one might trust to take a broader view of -things.’ - -‘What broader do you want me to take?’ begins Crosby, slightly amused. -‘But to get back to our argument—mine, rather. I think it will be bad -for you if you quarrel with Shangarry over this matter. The title, of -course, must be yours—but barren honours are hardly worth getting. And -he may leave his money away from you. You have told me before this that -he has immense sums in his hands to dispose of—and much of the property -is not entailed. You should think, Paul—you should think.’ He was the -last man in the world to think himself on such an occasion as this. - -‘I have thought.’ - -‘You mean?’ - -‘I don’t know what I mean,’ says Wyndham; then, with sudden impatience: -‘Is love necessary to marriage?’ - -Crosby laughs. - -‘Is marriage necessary at all?’ says he. ‘Why not elect to do as I do, -live and die a jolly old bachelor?’ - -‘Ah! I don’t believe in you,’ says Paul, with a rather mirthless smile. -‘If I went in for that state of life, depending on you as a companion, I -should find myself left—sooner or later.’ - -‘Well, then,’ says Crosby, who has no prejudices, ‘why not marry her?’ - -‘Her?’ - -‘Your tenant—this charming, unhappy, pretty girl, who, believe me, -Wyndham’—growing suddenly grave—‘I regard as much as you do with the -very deepest respect.’ Crosby has his charm. - -‘You go too far,’ says Wyndham, looking a little agitated, however. ‘I -am not in love with her, as you seem to imagine.’ Crosby smothers a -smile, as in duty bound. ‘And, besides, even if I did desire to marry -her, how could I do it? It would kill Shangarry with his queer, -old-fashioned ideas.... A girl with no name.... And our name—so old.... -It would kill him, I tell you. And—and besides all that, George, I don’t -care for her, and she doesn’t care for me ... not in that way.’ - -‘Well, you are the best judge of that,’ says Crosby. ‘And if it is as -you say, I am sorry you ever saw her. She has brought you into a -decidedly _risqué_ situation. And she is too good-looking to get out of -it—or you either, without scandal.’ - -‘You have seen her?’ Wyndham’s face is full of rather angry inquiry. - -‘My dear fellow, don’t eat me! We all saw her yesterday, if you come to -think of it, in that tree of hers. You may remember that ass Jones’s -remarks about a Hamadryad.’ - -‘Oh yes, of course. And you thought——’ - -‘To tell you the truth,’ says Crosby, ‘I thought her the very image -of—don’t hit a little one, Wyndham! But I did think her more like Mrs. -Prior than even Mrs. Prior’s own daughter is.’ - -‘What absurd nonsense! And yet, now I remember it, she—Ella—Miss Moore -said she felt as if she had seen Mrs. Prior before.’ - -‘That’s odd. And yet not so odd as it seems. Many families totally -unrelated to each other are often very much alike; I dare say Mrs. Prior -and Miss Moore’s mother, though in different ranks of life, might have -possessed features of the same type, and nature very similar, too. Same -features, same manners, you know, very often.’ - -‘That ends the argument for me,’ says Wyndham, with a frown; ‘Miss -Moore’s manners are as far removed from my aunt’s, and as far above -them, as is possible.’ - -He brushes rather hurriedly past his friend. But his friend forgives -him. He stands, indeed, in the middle of the avenue, staring after -Wyndham’s vanishing form. - -‘And to think he doesn’t know he is in love with her!’ says he at last. -‘Any fellow might know when he was in love with a woman. Well,’—with a -friendly sigh of deep regret—‘I am afraid it will cost him a good deal.’ - - - - - CHAPTER XLVIII. - - ‘What a rich feast the canker grief has made! - How has it suck’d the roses of thy cheeks, - And drunk the liquid crystals of thy eyes!’ - - -Autumn is dead. It has faded slowly and tenderly away, with no great -sudden changes, no desperate looking back towards the life departing, no -morbid rushing towards the death in front. Delicately, but very -sorrowfully, it went to its grave, and was buried almost before one -realized its loss. - -And now winter is with us; chill and still chiller grow the winds, and -harsh the biting frosts. - - ‘The upper skies are palest blue, - Mottled with pearl and fretted snow; - With tattered fleece of inky hue, - Close overhead the storm-clouds go. - - ‘Their shadows fly along the hills, - And o’er the crest mount one by one; - The whitened planking of the mill - Is now in shade and now in sun.’ - -It is as yet a young winter, just freshly born, and full of the terrible -vitality that belongs to infancy. Sharp are the little darting breezes, -and merry blow the blinding showers of snow, still so light and fragile, -laughed at by the children, and caught in their little upturned hands, -but still sure forerunners of the bitter days to come, when the baby -winter shall be a man full grown, and bad to wrestle with. - -To these days, so cold and pitiless to the fragile creatures of the -earth, little Bonnie has succumbed. Into his aching limbs the frosts -have entered, racking the tender little body, and bringing it to so low -an ebb that Susan, watching over him with miserable fear and terrible -forebodings from morning till night, and from night again to morning -(she never now lets him out of her sight, refusing even to let anyone -else sleep with him), lives in secret, awful terror of what every day -may bring. - -Cuddled into her young warm arms at night, she clasps him tightly to -her, feeling he cannot be taken from her whilst thus she holds him, -whilst still she can feel him—feel his little beloved form, now, alas! -mere bones, with their sad covering, that seems to be of skin only. And -to her Father in heaven she prays, not only nightly, when he is in her -arms, but at intervals when she is on her strong young feet, that he -will spare her this one awful grief—the death of her pretty boy. - -No mother ever prayed harder, entreated more wildly (yet always so -silently), for the life of her offspring than Susan prays for the -continuance of this small life. - -For the last week he has been very bad, in great and incessant pain; and -Susan, abandoning all other duties, has given herself up to him. - -No one has reprimanded her for this giving up of her daily work, though -the household is suffering much through lack of her many customary -ministrations. Even Miss Barry has forgotten to scold, and goes very -silently about the house; whilst the Rector’s face has taken a -heart-broken expression—the look it used to wear, as the elder children -so well remember, after their mother’s death. - -All day long Susan sits with her little boy, sometimes, when his aches -are worse than usual, hushing him against her breast, and breathing soft -childish songs into his ear to soothe his sufferings and keep up his -heart, whilst her own is breaking. For is it not her fault that he is -suffering now? If she had not forgotten him—this little lamb of her dead -mother’s fold, left by that dying mother to her special care—he might be -now as well and strong as all the rest of them. - - * * * * * - -She is sitting with him now in the schoolroom, lying back in the old -armchair quite motionless, for the suffering child within her arms has -fallen into a fitful slumber, when the door is opened, and Crosby -enters. He had left the Park about a month ago, and had not been -expected back for some time—not until the spring, indeed—but something -unknown or unacknowledged even by himself had driven him back after four -weeks to this small corner of the earth. - -‘Sh!’ breathes Susan softly, putting up her hand. A warm flush has -suddenly dyed her pale face, grown white through grief and many -watchings. Her surprise at seeing Crosby is almost unbounded, and with -it is another feeling—of joy, of comfort, of support. All through her -strange joy and surprise, however, she remembers the child, and that he -sleeps. Of late his slumbers have grown very precious. - -Crosby advances slowly, carefully. This gives him time to look at Susan, -to mark the sadness of the tender face bending over the sleeping child, -to mark also the terrible lines of suffering on his. But his eyes wander -always back to Susan. - -In her grief, how beautiful she is! how human! how womanly! And with the -child pressed against her breast. Oh, Susan, you were always pretty, but -now! The grief is almost divine. Oh, little young Madonna! - -But, then, to have Susan look like that! He wakes from his dreams of her -beauty with a sharp anger against himself. And now only one thing is -uppermost in his mind—Susan is suffering. Well, then, Susan must not be -allowed to suffer. - -‘He is ill?’ he says quickly, in a low tone. - -‘Oh, so ill! He—he has been ill now for three weeks. The cold, that hurt -him.’ She lifts her face for a moment, struggles with herself, and then -lowers her head again, as if to do something to Bonnie’s little necktie, -lest he should see her tears. - -‘Tell me about it,’ says Crosby, drawing up a chair and seating himself -close to her and the boy. There is something so friendly, so -sympathetic, in his action that the poor child’s heart expands. - -‘Oh, you can’t think how bad it has been!’ she says. ‘This dreadful cold -seems to get into him. Speak very low. He slept hardly two hours the -whole of last night.’ - -‘How do you know that?’—quickly. - -‘How should I not know?’—surprised. ‘I slept with him. Who should know -if I didn’t?’ - -‘Then you did not even sleep two hours?’ - -‘Oh, what does it matter about me?’ says she in a low, impatient tone. -‘Think of him. All last night he cried—he cried dreadfully. And what cut -me to the heart,’ says the girl in an agonized tone, ‘was that I think -sometimes he was keeping back his tears, for fear they should grieve me. -Oh, how he suffers! Mr. Crosby’—suddenly, almost sharply—‘should people, -should little, lovely, darling children like this, suffer so horribly, -and when it is no fault of their own? Oh’—passionately—‘it is frightful! -it is wrong! Father is sometimes angry with me about saying it, but how -can God be so cruel?’ - -Her tone vibrates with wild and angry grief, yet still she keeps it low. -It strikes Crosby as wonderful that, through all her violent agitation, -she never forgets the child sleeping in her arms. - -He says nothing, however. Who could, to comfort her, in an hour like -this? He bends over the sleeping child and looks at him. Such a small -face, and so lovely, in spite of the furrows pain has laid upon it. How -clearly writ they are! And yet the child is like Susan—strangely like. -In the young blooming face, bending over the emaciated one, the likeness -can be traced. - -‘You think—you think——’ whispers Susan eagerly, following his gaze, and -demanding an answer to it. - -‘He looks ill, but——’ - -‘But?’ There is a terrible inquiry—oh, more, poor child!—there is -terrible entreaty in her question. - -‘Susan,’ says Crosby, ‘there is always hope. But the child is very ill.’ - -‘Ah!’ She shrinks from him. ‘That there is no hope is what you want to -say to me.’ - -‘It is not. Far worse cases have sometimes recovered. But in the -meantime’ anxiously—‘I think of you. You look exhausted. You shouldn’t -keep him on your lap like that. I have just seen Miss Barry, and she -tells me you keep him in your arms by night and by day.’ - -Susan turns upon him with an almost fierce light in her gentle eyes. - -‘I shall keep him in my arms always—always—when he wishes it. I——’ She -stops. ‘He can’t die whilst I hold him,’ cries she. She draws in her -breath sharply, and then, as if the cruel word ‘die’ has stung her, she -breaks into silent, but most bitter, weeping. - -‘This is killing you,’ says Crosby. - -‘Oh, I almost wish it were,’ says she. She has choked back her tears, -fearing lest the sleeping child should be disturbed by the heaving of -her chest. She lifts her haggard, sad young eyes to his. ‘It is I who -have brought him to this pass. Every pang of his should by right be -mine. It is I who should bear them.’ - -‘It seems to me,’ says Crosby gravely, ‘that you are bearing them.’ - -He waits a moment; but she has gone back to her contemplation of her -little brother’s face. She is hanging over him, her eyes fixed on the -pale, fragile features, as if fearing, as if dwelling, on the thought of -the last sad moment of all, when he will be no longer with her, when the -grave will have closed over him. - -Presently Crosby, seeing her so absorbed, rises very quietly and takes a -step towards the door. - -As he moves she lifts her head, and holds out to him the one hand free. - -‘Mr. Crosby,’ whispers she, with a dreary attempt at a smile, ‘I don’t -believe I have even said so much as “How d’ye do?” to you. I certainly -have not welcomed you back——’ - -‘No,’ says Crosby, ‘not one word of welcome. But how could I expect it -at such a time?’ - -‘And, any way, I need not say it,’ says she, her eyes filling. ‘You know -you are welcome.’ - -‘To you, Susan?’ - -‘To me? You know—you must know that,’ says Susan, with the sweetest -friendliness. - - * * * * * - -Crosby goes straight into Mr. Barry’s study, where he finds the Rector -immersed in his books and notes, and there makes clear to him the -subject that only five minutes ago had become clear to himself. Yet it -is so cleverly described to Mr. Barry that the latter might well be -excused for believing that it had been thought out for many days, and -carefully digested before being laid before him. The fact was that he, -Crosby, was going to Germany almost immediately—certainly next -week—though even more certainly he had not thought of going to Germany—a -country he detested—so late as this morning. There were wonderful baths -there, he said, and a specialist for rheumatic people. He made the -specialist the least part of the argument, though in reality it was the -greatest, as the professor he had in mind (who had come to his mind -during his interview with Susan, so sadly miserable with that child upon -her knee) was one of the most distinguished men alive where rheumatic -affections were in question. If Mr. Barry would trust his little son to -him, would let him take Bonnie to these wonderful life-restoring baths -and to this even more wonderful specialist, he would regard it as a -great privilege, as a mark of friendship, of esteem. - -Poor Mr. Barry! He sank back in his chair, and covered his eyes with his -hands. How could he take from a perfect—well, a comparative stranger—so -great a boon? All the old instincts, the pride of a good race, fought -with him; but with the old instincts and the pride love fought, and -gained the victory. - -The child—had he the right to refuse life to the child because of his -senseless shrinking from obligations to another? He asked himself this -question over and over again, whilst Crosby, who sincerely pitied him -because he understood him, waited. And then all at once the father saw -the child bathed in sweat and moaning with awful pain, and human nature -prevailed. He gave in. - - * * * * * - -‘I can never repay you, Mr. Crosby,’ he said, in a shortened tone, -standing tall and grim and crushed behind his table, his sharp -aristocratic features intensified by the shabbiness of the furniture -around him. - -‘There is nothing to repay,’ says Crosby lightly. ‘This is a whim of -mine. I believe in this specialist of whom I tell you; many do not. But -I have sufficient cause for my belief to ask you to entrust your little -son to my care. I tell you honestly it is a whim. If you will gratify -it, it will give me pleasure.’ - -Mr. Barry rises and walks to the window. His gaunt figure stands out -clear before it and the room. - -‘No, no,’ says he. ‘You cannot put it like that. Do not imagine all your -kind words can destroy the real meaning of your kind action. This is the -best action, sir, that I have ever known’—his voice shakes—‘and, as I -tell you, I can never repay it.... But the child——’ - -He turns more sharply, as if going to the window merely to adjust the -blind, but a slight glance at him has told Crosby that the tears are -running down his cheeks. Poor man! Poor father! - -‘The child will be safe with me,’ says Crosby earnestly. - -‘I know that.’ The Rector turns all at once; his face is now composed, -but he looks older, thinner, if that could be. He comes straight up to -Crosby. ‘I am a dull old man,’ says he hurriedly. ‘I can’t explain -myself. But I know what you are doing—I know—I——’ He hesitates. ‘I would -pray for you, but you have no need of prayers.’ - -‘We all have need of prayers,’ says Crosby gravely. ‘Mr. Barry, this is -an adventure of mine, out of which no man can say how I may come. I take -your child from you, but how can I say that I will bring him back to -you? If you will pray, pray for him, and for me, too, that we may come -back together.’ - - - - - CHAPTER XLIX. - - ‘Tears from the depth of some divine despair.’ - - -Thus it was arranged, and when another week has come and gone, the day -arrives when Crosby is to carry off little Bonnie to distant lands with -a view to his recovery. - -Susan had of course been told, and there had been a rather painful scene -between her and her aunt and her father. - -‘Bonnie to be taken from her!’ and so soon. - -‘But for his good, Susan.’ - -She had given in at the last, as was inevitable, with many cruel -tearings at her heart, and miserable beliefs that his going now would -mean his going for ever. He would never come back. And they would bury -him there in that strange land without his Susan to comfort him and -soothe his dying moments. - -It is with great fainting of the spirit that Susan rises to-day—to-day, -that will see her little lad carried away from her, no matter in whose -kindly hands, to where she cannot know under three days’ post whether he -be alive or—— - -At one part of his dressing (he has never yet since his first illness -been dressed by anyone but Susan) she had given way. - -Of course, the child knew he was going somewhere with Mr. Crosby—he -liked Crosby—‘to be made well and strong, my own ducky,’ as Susan had -told him, with her heart bursting. - -But I think it was when she was halfway through his dressing, and, -kneeling on the floor beside him, was fastening his small suspenders, -that Susan’s courage failed her. - -‘Oh, Bonnie! Oh, my own Bonnie!’ she cried, pressing her head against -his thin little ribs. - -‘Susan,’ said the child earnestly, turning and clasping his arms round -her bent head, ‘I’ll come back to you. I will indeed! I promise!’ - -It was a solemn promise; but it gave Susan nothing but such an awful -pang of sure foreboding that it subdued her. Despair gives strength. She -stopped her tears, and rose, and ministered to his little needs, and -became as though grief was no longer hers—as though she lived and moved -as her usual self. This immobility frightened her, because she knew she -would pay the penalty for it later on, when he was gone. - - * * * * * - -Now, standing in the garden, awaiting Mr. Crosby and the carriage that -is to carry the boy away from her for six long months, she is still -dry-eyed and calm. - -Here it comes. She can hear the horses’ hoofs now, and the roll of the -carriage-wheels along the road. And now it is stopping at the gate. And -now—— - -Mr. Crosby has jumped out and is coming towards her. - -‘You must say good-bye to me here, Susan,’ says he, ‘because there will -only be good-bye for the little brother presently.’ - -‘Good-bye,’ says she. - -‘Obedient child.’ But as he holds her hand and looks at her, he can see -the rings that grief has made around her beautiful eyes. - -Seeing him still waiting, as if for a larger answer, as she thinks, -though in reality he is only silent because of his studying of her sad -sweet face with its tears and its courage, so terrible in one so young, -she says tremulously, ‘I have not even thanked you!’ - -‘That is not it,’ says Crosby. ‘There is nothing to thank me for, but -there is something, Susan, you might say. Tell me that you will miss me -a little bit whilst I’m away.’ - -Susan’s hand trembles within his, but answer makes she none. - -‘Well?’ says he again, as if determined not to be defrauded of his -rights by this child—this pretty child. She may not love him, but surely -she may miss him. - -Susan raises her eyes, and he can see that they are filled with tears. - -‘Oh, I shall!’ says she earnestly. ‘I shall miss you, and long for your -return.’ - -This fervid speech is so unlike Susan, that all at once he arranges a -meaning for it. Of course, Bonnie will be with him; she will long for -the child’s return. If he resents a little this thought of Susan’s for -Bonnie, to the entire exclusion of himself, he still admires the -affection that has inspired it and that desolates her lovely face. - -‘Susan, I shall take care of him,’ says he earnestly. ‘Trust me in this -matter. If human skill can do anything for him, I shall see that it is -done; if care and watching and attention are of any use, he shall have -them from me.’ - -‘Ah, but love?’ says Susan. ‘He has been so used to love! And now he -will not have me. Mr. Crosby’—clasping her hands together as if to keep -the trembling of them from him—‘try—try to love him! He is so sweet, so -dear, that it can’t be hard—and—and——’ - -She stops; her face is as white as death. - -‘I would to God, Susan,’ says he, ‘that you could have come with us too; -but that—that was impossible.’ - -‘I know—I know. And, of course, I sound very ungrateful; but he is so -ill, so fragile, so near to——’ She shivers, as if some horrid pain had -touched her. ‘And it is to me he has turned for everything up to this. -And to-morrow’—suddenly she lifts her hands to her face, and breaks down -altogether—‘oh, who will dress him to-morrow?’ - - * * * * * - -The end has almost come. Bonnie has said good-bye to his father and all -the rest of them, and is now clinging to Susan and crying bitterly. Poor -Susan! she is very pale, and is visibly trembling as she holds the child -to her with all her strength, as though to let him go is almost -impossible to her; but she holds back her tears bravely, afraid of -distressing him further. - -‘I told you I should have taken you with us,’ says Crosby in a low tone -to Susan, more with a view to lightening the situation than anything -else. But the situation is made of material too heavy to be blown aside -by any such light wind. Susan pays no heed to him. He is quite aware, -indeed, after a moment, that Susan neither sees nor hears him. She is -holding the child against her heart, and breathing into his ear broken -words of love and hope and courage. - -At last the final moment comes. Crosby has shaken hands with Mr. Barry, -who is looking paler and more gaunt than usual, for at least the fourth -time, and has now come to the carriage in which Susan has placed Bonnie, -having wrapped him warmly round with rugs. Betty is standing near her. - -‘Good-bye,’ says Crosby, holding out his hand to Betty, who is crying -softly. - -‘Oh, good-bye,’ cries she, flinging her arms round his neck and giving -him a little hug. ‘We shall never forget this of you—never!’ - -‘I shall bring him back,’ says he, smiling. He pats her shoulder—dear -little girl!—and turns to Susan. ‘Don’t be unhappy,’ he whispers -hurriedly. ‘You spoke of love for him. I shall love him! I shall never -let him out of my sight, Susan. I swear that to you. You believe me? You -will take comfort?’ - -‘I believe you,’ says Susan, lifting her miserable eyes to his, ‘and I -trust you.’ - -‘Good-bye, then.’ - -‘Good-bye. I heard what you said to Betty. You will bring him back—that -is a promise.’ - -‘With the help of God I’ll bring him back to you,’ says Crosby solemnly. -‘And now, good-bye again.’ - -‘Good-bye,’ says Susan. And then, to his everlasting surprise, she leans -forward, lays her hands upon his shoulders, and presses her lips to his -cheek, not lightly or carelessly, but with heartfelt feeling. She shows -no confusion. Not so much as a blush appears upon her face. It seems the -most natural thing in the world—to her! - -That it is gratitude only that has impelled her to this deed is quite -plain to Crosby. He pushes her back from him very gently, and, stepping -into the carriage, is soon out of sight. - -But the memory of that kiss goes with him. It seems to linger on his -cheek, and he can still see her as she raised her head, with her lovely -tear-dimmed eyes on his. It was all done in the most innocent, the most -friendly way. She had no thought beyond the fact that he was being very -good to the little idolized brother. It was thus she showed her -gratitude. - -But even through gratitude to kiss him! Suddenly a fresh, a most -unpleasant thought springs to life. No doubt she regards him as an old -fogey—a man of such and such an age—a kind of bachelor uncle! Oh, -confound it! He is not so very much older than she is, if one comes to -think of it. He feels a rush of anger towards Susan, followed by a -strange depression, that he either will not or does not understand. The -anger, however, he understands well enough. There is no earthly reason -why she should think him old enough to kiss like that. It was abominable -of her. - -He is conscious of a longing to go back and have it out with her—to ask -her at what age she considers a man may be kissed. But at this point he -checks himself, and gives way to a touch of mirth that is a trifle grim. -She might mistake his meaning, and say twenty—that would be about her -own age. - -And of course it is impossible to go back, the journey once begun. -Though why he had undertaken the charge of this child except to please -her he hardly knows. And in all probability the cure will never be -effected. And then she will go even further, and regret having given him -that insulting kiss—of gratitude. And what on earth is he to do with -this child—this burden? - -Here he looks round at the little burden. Bonnie is asleep. All the -tears and excitement have overcome him, and he is lying back in a deep -slumber, and in a most uncomfortable position. - -Crosby bends over him, and tenderly, very tenderly, lifts the small -delicate, flower-like head from its uneasy resting-place against the -side of the carriage, and lays it softly on his arm. And thus he -supports it for the rest of the drive, until, Dublin being reached, he -gives him into the care of a trained nurse procured from the Rotunda, -who is to accompany the child abroad. - - - - - CHAPTER L. - - ‘How goodness heightens beauty!’ - - -‘Oh, what a Christmas Day!’ cries Betty, springing out of bed and -rushing to the window. - -‘You will catch your death of cold,’ says Susan sleepily; but in spite -of this protest, or, rather, in despite of it, she, too, jumps out of -her cosy nest and hurries to the window. ‘Oh, what a morning!’ breathes -she. - -And, indeed, the world seems all afire to-day. The sun is glittering -upon the snow, and the snow is casting back at it lights scarcely less -brilliant. All the trees and shrubs are gaily decked with snowy wraps -and armlets, whilst here and there, through the universal white, big -branches of holly-berries, scarlet as blood, peep out. - -‘Ouf! Yes; but it’s cold,’ says Betty, after a moment or two. - -‘I told you you would catch cold,’ says Susan, turning upon her -indignantly, though in reality she stands quite as big a chance of -meeting the dread foe as Betty. - -‘I’ll catch you instead!’ cries Betty, with full intent. - -Whereon ensues a combat that might have given the gods pause—a most -spirited hunt, that takes them round and round the small bedroom a dozen -times or more. It is a regular chase; over the bed, and past the -wardrobe, and behind the dressing-table—it was a near shave for Susan -that last, and full of complication, but she gets out of it with the -loss of only one small china ornament, the very least concession that -could be made to the god of battle. - -And now away again! Over the bed once more, and round a chair, deftly -directed at the enemy’s toes, and——After all, the very bravest of us can -sometimes know defeat, and Susan is at last run to earth between a -basket-chair and a trunk. - - * * * * * - -After this they condescend to dress—both a little exhausted, and Betty, -I regret to say, jibbing at her bath. - -‘If it was hot I’d say nothing,’ says she. ‘When I’m married I’ll have a -hot bath in December.’ - -‘Who’d marry you?’ says Susan, and then, like the immortal parrot, is -sorry that she spoke. Showers of icy water descend upon her! - -But now breakfast is ready, and they must hasten down, with a last look -out of their favourite window at the golden colouring there. - -‘I suppose it’s almost warm where Bonnie is,’ says Betty, after a slight -pause. - -‘I hope so. Yes; I think so.’ There is, however, doubt in Susan’s tone. -It seems impossible to believe any place warm with that snow-burdened -garden outside. - -‘It must be warm,’ says Betty. ‘Bonnie could not stand cold like this, -and the last accounts were not bad’—this rather doubtfully. - -‘No. But’—Susan’s face, that had been glowing, now loses something of -its warmth—‘not good, either. Still——Betty’—she looks at her -sister—‘don’t you think Mr. Crosby is a man one might depend upon?’ - -‘Oh, I do—I do indeed!’ says Betty. ‘He’—earnestly, and with a view to -please Susan—‘is so ugly that anyone might depend upon him.’ - -‘Ugly! He certainly is not ugly,’ says Susan. ‘I must say, Betty, I -think sometimes you make the most foolish remarks.’ - -‘Well, I’ll say he’s handsome, if you like,’ says Betty, slightly -affronted. ‘Any way, he has been very good to Bonnie. I suppose that’s -what makes him handsome in your eyes. And he has been kind, too—could -anyone be kinder?—and sometimes, Susan, I feel that I love him just as -much as you do.’ - -‘Oh, I don’t love him!’ says Susan, flushing. - -‘No? Is it gratitude, then? Well, whatever it is you feel, Susan, I feel -just the same—because he has been so kind to poor Bonnie.’ - -Susan turns away without replying. And then, ‘We must go down,’ says -she. - -‘Well, come,’ says Betty, a little urgently. ‘I’m sure I have only been -waiting for you, Susan. I wonder what Christmas cards we shall get.’ - -‘One from Dom, any way.’ - -Mr. Fitzgerald had been summoned home by his guardian for Christmas, -much to his disgust. - -‘Oh, that! But Dom doesn’t count!’ says Betty, tilting her pretty nose -in rather a disdainful fashion. - - * * * * * - -Breakfast is nearly over, however, before the post arrives. The postman -of Curraghcloyne has had many delays to-day. At every house every -resident has given him his Christmas-box, and sometimes a ‘stirrup cup’ -besides, so that by the time he gets to the Rectory he is very -considerably the worse for wear. Yet he gives out his letters there with -the air of a finished postman, and accepts the Rectory annual five -shillings with a bow that would not have disgraced Chesterfield. That -his old caubeen is on the side of his head, and his articulation -somewhat indistinct, detracts in no wise from the dignity of the way in -which he delivers his packages and bids Mr. Barry ‘All th’ complaints o’ -t’ saison!’ - -‘Oh, here’s one from Dom!’ cries Betty, tearing open her letter. ‘And -written all on the back! What on earth has he got to say on a Christmas -card? Why didn’t he write a letter? - - ‘“MY DEAR BETTY, - - ‘“I feel as I write this that you don’t know where you are. That shows - the great moral difference between you and me. I know where I am, and - I wish to Heaven I didn’t. Old uncle is awfully trying. Puts your back - up half a dozen times a minute. I don’t believe I’ll ever get back; - because if he doesn’t murder me I shall infallibly murder him, and - then where shall we all be? I’ve written most religiously all over - this card (I chose a big one on purpose), so that you cannot, in the - usual mean fashion peculiar to girls, send it on again to your dearest - friend as a New Year’s offering. See how well I know your little - ways!”’ - -‘Isn’t he a beast!’ says Betty, with honest meaning. ‘And it would have -done so nicely for old Miss Blake. You see, she has sent me one, though -I had quite forgotten all about her. I must say Dom is downright -malignant. I suppose I’ll have to buy her one now. All the rest of mine -have “Happy Christmas” on them, and it does look badly to send a card -like that for New Year’s Day. Dom’s has both Christmas and New Year on -it, and of course it would have suited beautifully. Oh, Susan’—pouncing -on a card in Susan’s hand—‘what a beauty, and nothing written on the -back. You will let me have it for Miss Blake, won’t you?’ - -‘No, no,’ says Susan hastily. She takes it back quickly from Betty. A -little sharp unwelcome blush has sprung into her cheeks. - -‘Who is it from—James?’ - -‘James! Are you mad?’ says Susan. ‘Fancy my caring for a card from -James! Why, here is his, and you can have it to make ducks and drakes -of, if you like.’ - -‘But that, then?’ questions Betty, with some pardonable curiosity, -pointing at the card denied her. - -‘It is from Mr. Crosby. Don’t you think, Betty,’ the treacherous colour -growing deeper, ‘that one should treasure even a card sent by one who -has been so good to Bonnie?’ - -‘I do—I do indeed,’ says Betty earnestly. ‘And, after all, one would -treasure a card from most people. Even this’—flicking Dom’s somewhat -contemptuously—‘I’ll have to treasure, as I can’t send it away to -anyone. Susan, I wonder if Ella has got any cards besides those we sent -her? Shall we go to her this afternoon and ask her?’ - -‘I don’t suppose she can have got any,’ says Susan thoughtfully. ‘You -know she keeps herself so aloof from the world. She had yours and mine -certainly, and Carew’s.’ - -‘Did Carew send her one?’ - -‘Didn’t you know?’ Susan laughs a little. ‘I didn’t think it was a -secret. I went into his room yesterday, and saw an envelope directed to -Ella, and said something about it; but I really quite thought he had -told you, too.’ - -‘Well, he didn’t! After dinner, Susan, let us run down and see her, and -show her our cards.’ - -‘Oh no!’ says Susan, shrinking a little. ‘If she had none of her own, it -might make her feel—feel lonely!’ - -‘That’s true,’ says Betty. - - - - - CHAPTER LI. - - ‘Who would trust slippery chance?’ - - -But, after all, Ella has a card of her own, that is not from Susan, or -Betty, or Carew. Some hours ago the post brought it to her, and she has -gone out into the garden, that is now lovely in its white garments, with -the red berries of the holly-trees peeping through the snow, to read it -and look at it again. - -The walks have been swept clear by Denis, who has come down from Dublin -to spend a long (a very long) and happy Christmas week with his wife. A -third person in Mrs. Denis’s kitchen and private apartments might have -questioned about the happiness, but that it is a lively week goes beyond -all doubt. - -With Ella’s card a little line had come too. Mr. Wyndham was coming down -by the afternoon train, to see to something for Crosby, who had written -to him from Carlsbad, and he hoped to call at the Cottage before his -return. Ella reads and re-reads the little note. The afternoon train -comes in at one o’clock. It is now after twelve. Soon he will be here! -How kind he is to her! How good! And to remember that Christmas card! -She had heard Susan and Betty talking of Christmas cards, and they had -sent her one, each of them, and Carew had sent one, too. They also were -kind, so kind; but that Mr. Wyndham should remember her, with all his -other friends to think of! - -Alone in this dear garden, with no one to hear or see her, she gives way -to her mood. Miss Manning has gone up to Dublin to spend her Christmas -Day with an old friend, urged thereto by Ella, who, indeed, wished to be -alone after her post had come. Now she can walk about here, and speak to -her own heart without interruption, Mrs. Denis being engaged in that -intellectual game called ‘words’ with her husband. Oh, how happy she -feels—how extraordinarily happy! She laughs aloud, and, lifting her -arms, crosses them with lazy delight behind her head, and amongst the -warm furs that encircle her neck. This action draws her head -backwards—her eyes upwards—— - -Upwards! To the top of the wall on that far distant corner. There her -eyes rest as if transfixed, and then grow frozen in this awful horror -that has come to her. Where is the happiness now in the eyes—the young, -glad joy? - -She stands as if stricken into stone, staring into a face that is -staring back at her. - -On the wall close to the old tree, from which she loves to look into the -Rectory garden and wave a handkerchief to the children there to come to -her, sits Moore, the man from whom she had fled; the man whom she dreads -most of all things upon earth; the man who wanted to marry her! - -Oh dear, dear Heaven, is all her good time ended? Such a little, little -time, too—such a transient gleam of light—and all so black behind it! -Like a flash her life spreads itself out before her. What a childhood! -Unmothered, unloved! What a cold, terrible girlhood! and then a few -short months of quiet rest and calm, and now again the old, hideous -misery. - -It seems impossible for her to remove her eyes from those above her—to -move in any way. Her brain grows at last confused, and only three words -seem to be clear—to din themselves with a cruel persistency in her ears: -‘All is over! All is over!’ - -They have neither sense nor meaning to her in her present state, but -still they go on repeating themselves: ‘All is over! All, all, all is -over!’ - -The man has caught a branch of the tree now, and with a certain -activity, considering the squareness and the bulk of his body, has swung -himself into it, and so on to the ground. - -He is coming towards her. The girl still stands immovable, as if rooted -to the gravel walk; but her mind has returned to her. Alas! it brings no -hope with it. This man, who has been a terror to her from her childhood, -has now again come into the circle of her daily life. She draws back as -he approaches her—her first movement since her frightened eyes met -his—and holds up her hands, as a child might, to ward off mischief. This -coming face to face with him is a horrible shock as well as an -awakening. She had believed herself mistress of her fears of him, though -her horror might still obtain, and now, now she knows that both her -horror and her fear are still rampant. - -‘Well, I’ve found you at last,’ says the man, advancing across the -grass. ‘And here!’ There is something terrible in his tone and in the -look of scorn he casts at the pretty surroundings, beautiful always, -though now wrapped in their snowy shrouds. ‘Four months ago I was here,’ -says he, after a lengthened pause. ‘I was on your track then, but a mere -chance put me off it. Four months ago I might have dragged you out of -this sink of iniquity—had I but known!’ - -Ella is silent. That day when she had run back from the Rectory and -fancied she saw him turn the corner of the road. That fancy had been no -delusion, then! Ah! why had she played with it? - -‘Have you nothing to say?’ asks he slowly, sullenly, gazing at her with -hard, compelling eyes. ‘No excuse to make, or are you trying to get up a -story? I tell you, girl, it will be useless. This speaks for itself.’ -Again he looks round him, at the charming cottage, the tall trees, the -dainty garden and winding walks. - -‘There is no story,’ says Ella at last. Her voice is dry and husky; she -can hardly force the words between her lips. - -‘You lie!’ says the man fiercely. ‘There is a story, and a most —— one -for you.’ His eyes light with a sudden fury, and he looks for a moment -as though he would willingly fall upon her and choke the life out of her -slender body. His manner is distinctly brutal, but yet there is -something about it that speaks of honesty. It is rough, cruel, hateful, -but honest for all that. A certain belief in himself is uppermost. - -He is a tall man, very strong in build, and with strong features too. -His dress is that of the comfortable, half-educated artisan; but he -shows some neatness in his attire. His shirt is immaculate, his hair -well cut, and altogether he might suggest to the unimpassioned observer -that he was a man who had dreamt many dreams of rising above the life to -which he had been born. He is, at all events, not an ordinary man of any -type, and distinctly one to be feared, if only for the enormous strength -he had put forth to fight with his daily surroundings, and with his past -(a more difficult enemy still), so as to gain a footing on the ladder -that will raise him above his fellows. - -The girl shrinks from him, frightened even more by the wild light in his -eyes than by his words, and as she shrinks he advances, contempt mingled -with menace in his eyes. - -‘You thought I should never find you,’ says he, with cruel slowness. -‘But mine you were from the beginning, and mine you are still.’ - -Ella makes a faint and trembling protest. - -‘Deny it!’ cries he. ‘Deny it if you can! Your own mother left you to -me—a mother who was ashamed to tell her real name. She left you—a waif, -a stray—to my charity, and so, of my charity, I bought you through my -wife. You are mine, I tell you. Hah! well you may hide your face! Child -of infamy, now sunk in infamy!’ - -His strong, horrible face is working. The girl, as if petrified by fear, -has fallen back into a garden-chair, and is sitting there cowering, her -face hidden in her shaking hands. - -‘So,’ continues the man in mocking accents, the very mockery of it -betraying the intolerable love he had borne her in her sad past—a love -now deadened, but still half alive, and quick with revengeful wrath, -‘you ran away from me, not so much from hatred of me, but for love of -him.’ - -‘Of him?’ Ella lifts her haggard face at this. - -‘Ay, girl, of him! The man who has dragged you down to this—who has -brought you here to be a bird in his gilded cage. D’ye think to blind me -still? I’ve followed you, I tell you, step by step. You didn’t reckon on -my staying powers, perhaps. But I had sworn by the heaven above -me’—lifting his hand, large and rough and powerful, to the sky—‘that I -would have you, dead or alive!’ He pauses. ‘When you left me, I thought -at first that I had been too harsh to you. But I was wrong: such as you -require harshness.’ Again he grows silent. ‘You ran to him, then, -because you loved him! Such as you love easily; has it occurred to you, -however, to ask yourself how long he will love you?’ - -‘I—someone must have been telling you strange things. All this is -impossible,’ says the girl, pressing her hands against her beating -heart. ‘No one loves me—no one.’ - -‘And you do not love anyone? Answer that,’ says Moore. - -‘No. No—except——’ She hesitates miserably. She had thought of Susan—she -had meant to declare her love for Susan as her sole love, but another -form had suddenly risen between her and Susan, and she loses herself. - -‘Another lie,’ says Moore, with a sneer. ‘Lies become fine ladies, and -you seem to be making yourself into one in a hurry. But you’ll find -yerself out there’—with all his care he sometimes drops into his earlier -form of speech, and that ‘yerself’ betrays him. ‘You’re not built for a -fine lady. You—you’—furiously—‘who came out of the gutter! Yet I can see -you have been doing the fine lady very considerably of late—so -considerably that you can now lie like the best of them. But’—with a -touch of absolute ferocity—‘I tell you, your lies will be of little use -to you with me. I’ve dropped on the truth of your story, and there shall -be an end of it. To my dead wife your dead mother left you, and from my -dead wife you have come to me again. To me you belong; I am your -guardian; you are bound by law to follow me.’ - -Ella makes a terrified gesture, then sinks back upon her seat, pale and -chilled to her heart’s core. - -‘To follow you?’ The words come from between her lips, whispered rather -than uttered; but he hears them. - -‘Ay, to follow me. You shall not stay in this home of infamy another -hour if I can prevent it. And prevent it I shall.’ - -His rugged, disagreeable face, so full of strength, lights up as he -speaks these words of command. - -‘I cannot go,’ says the girl faintly. - -She puts out her hands again with that old, childish movement as if to -ward off something hateful to her. There is so much aversion in this act -that Moore’s temper fails him. - -‘Hate me as much as you will, still, come with me you shall!’ says he. -‘Do you imagine——’ Here he takes a step towards her, and, catching her -by the wrist, swings her to and fro with distinct brutality, then lets -her go. ‘Do you think, having once found you, I shall let you go? No; -though’—he makes a pause, and, standing before her, pours his words into -her unwilling, nay, but half-understanding, ears—‘though I so despise -you that I would now consider my name dishonoured if joined with -yours—even now when I know you not to be worth the picking up—still, I -will not let you go. You are mine, and with me you shall leave this old -country and seek another. I start for Australia to-morrow week, and you -shall start with me. Together we shall seek that land.’ - -‘I cannot go,’ repeats Ella feebly. She looks magnetized. The old terror -is full upon her, and it is but a dying effort to resist him that she -now makes. ‘I—I——’ She stops again, and then bursts out: ‘It would kill -me! Oh!’—holding out her hands wildly—‘why do you want me to go away? -Why do you want me to leave this place? How’—miserably—‘can I be of any -help to you? Of any use? You know’—in softest, most piteous -accents—‘that I hate you—why, then, take me with you? Why not let me -stay here in peace?’ - -‘In sin you mean,’ says Moore, his harsh voice now filled with a new -virulence. ‘Make an end of this, girl—for come with me you shall. -What’—violently—‘you would not live with me, who would have honourably -married you; but you would live with him, who will never marry you!’ - -‘I do not desire that he should marry me,’ says the girl, drawing -herself up. Even in this terrible moment, when all her senses feel -dulled, a look of pride grows upon her beautiful face. ‘And he does not -live here.’ - -‘Enough of that!’—gruffly. ‘You have told lies sufficient for one -morning. Get up, and come with me.’ - -‘Come with you?’ - -‘Ay—and at once!’ - -‘But’—she has risen, as if in strange unreasoning obedience to his -command, being fully beneath the spell born of her horror and fear of -him—‘but—I must have time—to write—to leave a word. He has been so -kind—so kind. Give me’—her face is deadly white now, her tone -anguished—‘only one moment to go in and write a line of good-bye to -him.’ - -‘Not one!’ says Moore sternly. ‘I shall not even wait for you to take -off those garments—the garments of sin—that you are wearing. You shall -come as you are—and now.’ - -He lays his hand upon her arm, and draws her towards the gate; still, as -in a dream, she follows him. The bitterness of death is on her, yet she -goes with him calmly—quietly. Perhaps there is a hope in her heart that -as she had run away from him once, she might be able to do so again. But -could she? Would he not, having been warned by her first escape, take -pains to guard against a second? She knows that in her dreams, when he -is not here, she can defy him, elude him, but to defy him when he is -present would be too much for her; and, besides, he is her lawful -guardian; he has said so. Her own mother had left her to him. He might -call in the policeman in the village, and so compel her in that way. But -oh, to go without saying good-bye to Mr. Wyndham! - -He had said he would come to-day! But all hope of his coming now is at -an end. And Mrs. Denis! Not even to see her—she might have helped her. -And not to say one word to her, or to Susan! What—what will they all -think of her? - -At this moment they come to the hall-door of the Cottage, and she stops -suddenly, and makes a little rush towards it, but the clutch on her arm -is strong. - -‘To say one word to Mrs. Denis,’ she gasps imploringly, damp breaking -out upon her young forehead. ‘Oh!’—beating her hands with miserable -agony upon her chest—‘think how it will be! They will for ever and ever -remember me as ungrateful—unloving—a creature who had taken their love, -and abused it. They will be glad to forget me.’ - -‘I hope so,’ says he coldly, utterly unmoved—nay, knowing even pleasure -in her grief. ‘The sooner they forget you, and you them, the better. -“They!”’ He repeats the word. ‘Why don’t you say “he” and be done with -it?’ cries he furiously. ‘What a —— hypocrite you are!’ - -He almost drags her to the gate. Ella, half fainting, finds herself at -it. It is the last step. In here lies safety and happiness and peace—out -there—— Moore turns the key in the lock, and pulls at the handle of the -door. Yes, it is all over. The door opens. At this instant a long, low, -passionate cry escapes from Ella. - -Wyndham is standing in the roadway just outside the gate! - - - - - CHAPTER LII. - - ‘Narrow minds think nothing right that is above their own capacity.’ - - -‘What is the meaning of this?’ says Wyndham. He comes in quickly, -locking the door and putting the key in his pocket. He has taken in the -situation at a glance. - -‘It means that I have come here to take this girl out of your hands,’ -says Moore, who shows no fear, or anything else, save a concentrated -hatred of the man before him. - -‘Then you have come on an idle errand,’ says Wyndham haughtily. ‘I -should advise you to amuse yourself on Christmas Days, in future, with -something more likely to prove amusing. This young lady’—with strong -emphasis—‘does not stir from this spot except at her own desire.’ - -‘She is coming, for all that,’ says Moore doggedly. Wyndham glances from -him to Ella, who now, white as a sheet, is standing trembling, like a -frightened creature, with one small hand uplifted to her lips, as if to -hide their trembling. Her eyes are agonized, but in some way Wyndham can -see that, though she fancies hope dead, still hope in him has lit one -small spark. - -‘Are you going?’ says Wyndham, addressing her directly. - -‘No, no,’ breathes she from between her frozen lips. She takes a step -forward. ‘Don’t let me go,’ says she. - -‘Certainly I shan’t let you go,’ says Wyndham, with the utmost -cheerfulness. ‘As a fact, indeed, I forbid you to go. I have excellent -authority for looking after you.’ - -‘What authority?’ asks Moore, who has now struck a most aggressive -attitude upon the gravel path. ‘I shall question that. You to talk of -authority! Why, I tell you that you, and such as you, cut a very bad -figure in a court of law.’ - -‘Never mind that, my man,’ says Wyndham. ‘I have no time now for -impromptu speeches. May I ask what claim you have on this young lady?’ - -‘I am her rightful guardian,’ says Moore, ‘and I shall exercise my -rights. Open that gate, or it will be the worse for you. You talk of -claims! What claim have you? Is she your wife or your——’ - -Wyndham, who is now as white as Ella herself, turns to her: - -‘Go away,’ says he quickly; ‘go at once.’ - -‘Hah! you don’t like her to hear it,’ cries Moore, now in a frenzy, as -Ella, only too glad to get back into the beloved house, runs quickly -towards the Cottage. He would have intercepted her flight, but Wyndham -prevents him. - -‘But if not your wife, what is she? Your mistress?’ - -‘Hold your tongue, you —— scoundrel,’ says Wyndham, his eyes blazing. - -‘Hold yours,’ says Moore. ‘Is she your wife? Come, answer that.’ - -‘No,’ says Wyndham. ‘But——’ - -‘No “buts” for me,’ says Moore. ‘I know the meaning of your “but.” Come, -who’s the —— scoundrel now?’ - -‘You, beyond all doubt,’ says Wyndham. ‘Stand back, man’—as the other -makes a lunge towards him—‘and listen to law, if not to reason. You have -as much claim on her as the beggar in the street beyond, and you know -it.’ - -‘I do not.’ Moore shows an air of open defiance. ‘Her mother died in my -wife’s house, and my wife died later on and left her to me. That makes -me her guardian, I reckon. As for you’—turning upon Wyndham defiantly—‘I -wonder you can look an honest man in the face after what you’ve done to -her.’ - -‘I can look an honester man than you in the face,’ says Wyndham quietly. -‘But let’s come to business. You wanted to marry her—eh?’ - -‘She told you that?’ - -‘Certainly she told me that.’ - -‘She told you most things, it seems to me’—with a sneer that is full of -trouble and jealousy. ‘Aren’t you ashamed to repeat them—to me?’ He -pauses, and his face grows positively livid. ‘To me, who would have -married her fair and square, whilst you—what have you done?’ He steps -forward, and makes as though he would clutch at Wyndham’s collar, but -the latter flings him backward. - -‘Well, what have I done?’ - -‘Ruined her, body and soul.’ - -‘You are wrong there,’ says Wyndham, who has recovered from his sudden -temper, and is now quite calm. ‘You had better sit down and let us talk -it over. You are wrong on all counts. I have done her no injury. You are -not her proper guardian. She is in a position to support herself.’ - -‘She is not,’ says Moore coarsely. - -‘But she is, I assure you, if’—with elaborate politeness—‘you will -permit me to explain. Miss—what is her name, by the way, Moore?’ - -‘That’—with a scowl—‘is for you to find out.’ - -‘True. Well, I shall find it out. In the meantime, I suppose you quite -recognise the fact that all is at an end about that idea of yours that -you have any power over her.’ - -‘It would take a good lawyer to convince me of that,’ says Moore -insolently. - -‘A good lawyer,’ says Wyndham. ‘Well, name one.’ - -‘Paul Wyndham, for one.’ Moore laughs sardonically as he says it, and -looks at his antagonist as if defying him to question the power of the -man he has named. - -Wyndham smiles. After all, what a compliment this man has paid him! He -dips his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, and brings out a leather -card-case, and hands it to Moore. The latter opens it. - -There is a slight pause, then Moore gives him back the case in silence. - -‘So you are Paul Wyndham?’ says he. His face has changed colour, but -still his bull-dog courage sticks to him. ‘Then you ought to be the more -ashamed of yourself.’ - -‘I expect I’ll make you very much ashamed of yourself,’ says Wyndham, -‘and that almost immediately. An abduction has a very unpleasant sound -nowadays, and generally means trouble to the principal actor in it. I’d -advise you to sit down and let us talk sense. I know all your dealings -with this—this young lady, and they scarcely redound to your credit. In -fact, I am pretty sure they would lead you into mischief—and six months’ -hard labour—if eloquently stated. That is the very least you would -get—unless——’ - -‘Six months! I am going abroad on Thursday next.’ - -‘Are you? I wouldn’t be too sure, if I were you,’ says Wyndham grimly. -‘It’s as bad a case of persecution as I have ever gone into. And I may -as well say at once that, if you persist in your determination to carry -off this poor child against her will, I shall call in the village police -and expose the whole matter.’ - -Moore, who has been cowed by Wyndham’s name and the stern air of the -barrister, in spite of his show of defiance, falters here, and the -result of the long conversation that ensues between the two men leaves -all in Wyndham’s hands. - -At the end, seeing the game was up, Moore gave in unconditionally. He -acknowledged that Ella’s name was not Moore. It was Haynes. She was no -relation of his or his wife’s, but undoubtedly her mother had left the -girl to their charge when dying, and as she was useful and his wife was -fond of her, they kept her with them. Her father was dead. Mrs. Haynes -had always been very reticent. He was of opinion that she had once been -in better circumstances. Haynes was not respectable—he, Moore, had an -idea that his father had cast him off. He was not at all sure that -Haynes was his real name. He had, indeed, reasons for thinking it -wasn’t, but he had never been able to discover anything; and when the -child was left to them, his wife had insisted on calling her Moore. She -had gone by that name ever since. - -All this information was not given until payment had been demanded and -made, and after that there had been a final settlement, by which all the -small belongings of the girl were to be delivered up to Wyndham; over -this part of the transaction Moore had proved himself specially shrewd. -As the game was up, he was determined to see himself really well out of -it; and in the end he made so excellent a bargain that Wyndham found -himself a good deal out of pocket. The price he paid was certainly a -heavy one for two boxes, that might contain anything or nothing, and, -for an astute lawyer like Wyndham, bordered on the absurd. Beyond doubt, -if he went to law with the fellow, Ella would have got her own, but then -there would be the publicity, and—— Any way, he paid it—not so much for -the boxes, however, as for the certainty that Moore would go abroad and -leave Ella free. It was for that he bought and paid. But in spite of his -better sense, that told him if there were anything in the boxes worth -having Moore or his wife would have traded on it long ago, still he -looked forward to the examining of them with a strange anxiety. - -When they came, they brought only disappointment with them—one was a -hideous trunk, absolutely empty; the other a small dressing-case that -had been costly when first made, the clasps and fastenings being of -silver. The bottles inside had no doubt been made of silver, but they -were all gone. It was a melancholy relic, and Wyndham, looking at it, -told himself that probably Ella’s mother had picked it up for the sake -of its outside beauty (the wood was Coromandel, and very pretty) at some -cheap sale. Inside it was as empty of information as the trunk itself, a -reel or two of thread, a pair of old black silk gloves, and a little bit -of fancy work half done, being the only things to be seen. No letters or -clue of any sort. It looked like the dressing-case of a young girl. On -the lid were engraved the letters E. B. He was right, then—of course -Ella’s mother had bought it. What could E. B. have to do with Mrs. -Haynes? Unless her maiden name. But it seemed a common story, scarce -worth looking into any further. All that was to be seen to now was -Moore’s departure. And this he saw to effectually, getting up on a -pouring morning to see Moore off, and giving him half of the cheque -agreed on, as he left the outward-bound ship that took Moore with it. -The big trunk he got rid of through the means of Denis, who burnt it, -and the dressing-case he took down to Ella, who regarded it with -reverence, and made a little special place for it on one of the small -tables in the drawing-room of the Cottage. It was all that remained to -her, poor child—all that she knew—of the woman who was her mother. - - - - - CHAPTER LIII. - - ‘Were my whole life to come one heap of troubles, - The pleasure of this moment would suffice, - And sweeten all my griefs with its remembrance.’ - - -For the twentieth time within the last hour Susan has rushed -tumultuously to the window, under the mistaken impression that she has -heard the sound of wheels, and for the twentieth time has walked back -dejectedly to her seat to the slow accompaniment of her aunt’s voice: -‘Impatience, Susan, never took a second off any hour.’ It sounds like a -heading from a copy-book. - -But Susan, after each disappointment, feels her spirits rise again, and, -with glad delight in her heart, trifles with the work she is pretending -to do. Betty and the boys are on the top of the garden wall, and have -promised to send her instant tidings of the approach of the carriage. -Susan felt she could not watch from there the home-coming of her Bonnie. -The workings of the human mind are strange, and Susan, who had climbed -many a wall in her time, and still can climb them with the best, shrank -with a sort of nervous terror from being up there—on the top of that -wall—when he came! She would have to climb down, you see, to meet her -little sweetheart, whereas here it will be so easy to run out and catch -him to her heart, and ask him if he has forgotten his Susan during all -these long, long days. - -But truly this sitting indoors is very trying. It would be much better -to go to the gate and wait there. Even though those others on the garden -wall will have the first glimpse of him, still—at the gate she would -have the first kiss. Her father had gone to the station to meet him, but -had forbidden the others to go with him. Susan had been somehow glad of -this command. But to go to the gate! She had thought of this often, but -had somehow recoiled from it through a sense of nervousness; but now it -grows too much for her, and flinging down her work, she runs out of the -room and up to the gate, and there stands trembling, listening, waiting. - -Waiting for what? She hardly knows. Crosby’s letters of late have been -very vague. They have scarcely conveyed anything. But that Bonnie is -alive is certain, and that is all that Susan dwells on now. God grant he -be not worse than when he left her—that he is better there seems no real -reason for believing. But still he is coming back to her—her little boy! - -And in this fair spring weather too, so closely verging on the warmer -summer. That will be good for him. If Mr. Crosby had not taken him away -when he did, surely those late winter frosts and colds would have -chilled to death the little life left in his precious body.... A perfect -passion of gratitude towards Crosby shakes her soul, and brings the -tears to her eyes. She will never forget that, never. And though, of -course, he has failed in a sense, and her little Bonnie will come back -to her as he went—on crutches, that had always hurt so cruelly poor -Susan’s heart—still, he has done all he could, and he is to be -reverenced and loved for ever because of it. Who else, indeed, would -have thought of the delicate child, or—— - -Oh! what is that? - -She strains forward. Now—now really the sound of wheels is here. It is -echoing through the village street, and now.... Now a shout has gone up -from the denizens on the top of the garden wall, and now a carriage has -turned the corner. - -It has stopped. Mr. Crosby springs out of it; he looks at Susan, but -Susan, after one swift glance, does not look at him; her eyes have gone -farther, to a small, slim, beautiful boy who gets out of the carriage by -himself, and slowly, but without a crutch, goes to Susan, and -precipitates himself upon her with a little loving cry. - -‘Susan! Susan!’ says he. - -‘Oh, Bonnie! Oh, Bonnie!’ Her arms are round him. They seem to hold him -as though she could never let him go again. ‘Oh, Bonnie! you can walk by -yourself!’ - -Suddenly she bursts into a storm of tears, and the child clinging to her -cries too. ‘You can walk—you can walk alone!’ She repeats this between -her sobs, her face buried in the boy’s pretty locks. It seems, indeed, -as if she has nothing else to say—as if everything else is forgotten by -her. The injury she had done him has been wiped out. He can walk without -the aid of those terrible sticks. - -The child, thin still, and now very pale through his emotion, yet -wonderfully healthy in comparison with what he had been, pats her with -his little hands; and presently he laughs—a laugh so free from pain, and -so unlike the old laugh that was more sad than many others’ tears, that -Susan looks up. - -‘It is true, then,’ says she; ‘but walk for me again, Bonnie! Walk!’ - -Again Bonnie’s laugh rings clear—how sweet the music of it is!—and -stepping back from her, he goes to his father, who had followed him out -of the carriage, and from him to Crosby, and from him back again to -Susan, slowly, carefully, yet with a certain vigour that speaks of -perfect health in the near future. - -Susan, who has looked as if on the point of fainting during this little -trial, catches him in her slender arms. She is trembling visibly. - -Crosby goes to her quickly. - -‘I should have given you a hint,’ says he remorsefully. ‘I thought of -only giving you a glad surprise; but it has been too much for you. I -should have said a word or two.’ - -‘There is nothing, nothing you have left undone,’ says Susan, looking at -him over Bonnie’s head, and speaking with a gratitude that is almost -fierce. ‘Nothing!’ - -The others have all got down off their wall by this time, and are -kissing and hugging Bonnie. After all, if they had had the first view of -the carriage, still Susan has certainly had the best of the whole -affair. Mr. Barry, with his handsome, gaunt face, radiant now, is -endeavouring to hold them back. - -‘You will come in?’ says Susan to Crosby. ‘Auntie is waiting for you, to -thank you—as if’—her eyes slowly filling again—‘anyone could thank you.’ - -‘Oh, you can!’ says Crosby, laughing. ‘I was never so thanked in all my -life. Why, your eyes, Susan! They hold great worlds of gratitude. You’ll -have to stop being thankful to me, or I shall run away once more. -And’—he looks at her with a half-laugh on his lips, but question in his -eyes—‘you would not like to drive me into exile so soon again, would -you?’ - -‘No, no!’ says Susan. ‘You have been a very long time away as it is.’ - -‘You have missed me, I hope—by that.’ - -‘We have all missed you,’ says Susan softly. - -‘That’s a very general remark. Have _you_ missed me?’ - -‘Every hour of the day,’ says Susan fervently—too fervently, too openly. -Crosby laughs again, but there is a tincture of disappointment in his -mirth this time. - -‘Faithful little friend!’ returns he gaily. ‘No, Susan, I don’t think -I’ll go in now; but tell Miss Barry from me that I shall come down -to-morrow to see her and my little charge. By-the-by, I have kept my -promise to you about loving him. It was easy work; I don’t wonder now at -your love for him. I assure you I feel downright lonely at the thought -of leaving him behind me.’ - -He presses her hand lightly, and goes towards Bonnie. - -‘Well, good-bye, old man,’ says he, catching the child and drawing him -towards him. - -‘Oh no. Oh, you won’t go!’ says Bonnie anxiously. - -‘For the present I must. And mind you go to bed early and sleep well, or -there will be a regular row on when next we meet.’ - -‘You will come this evening?’ says the child, hardly listening to him. - -‘No;’ he shakes his head. - -‘To-morrow, then?’ entreats the child, clinging to him. - -‘To-morrow, yes.’ He whispers something in his ear, and the boy, -flinging his arm round his neck, kisses him warmly. Crosby smiles at -Susan. ‘See what chums we are,’ says he. - - - - - CHAPTER LIV. - - ‘What Zal said once to Rostum dost thou know? - “Think none contemptible who is thy foe.”’ - - -To-morrow brings him, faithful to his word. It brings, too, a great many -gifts with him. Is there one child of the house forgotten? Not one. And -even Miss Barry is remembered. - -‘Oh, how good, how kind of you!’ says Susan. ‘Fancy remembering every -one of us!’ - -‘I don’t believe I was ever called good before,’ says Crosby. ‘It makes -me feel like the bachelor uncle’—as he says this he thinks again of the -kiss that Susan had once given him—‘and old, quite hopelessly old!’ - -‘Nonsense!’ says Susan. ‘You?’—looking at him—‘you are not old.’ - -‘Go to, flatterer! You really shouldn’t, Susan! Flattery is bad for -people generally, and for me in particular. I’m very open to it.’ - -‘I don’t flatter,’ says Susan. She laughs and runs away to answer a call -from her aunt, who is evidently struggling with an idea, in one of the -rooms within. - -‘Who’s that on the tennis-ground?’ asks Crosby of Betty as they are -standing on the hall-door steps. - -‘Oh, don’t you know? That’s James. He came back a week ago. Of course, -now I think of it’—airily—‘you couldn’t know, as we were unable to write -to you for the past week. But it’s James. You remember hearing about -him?’ Crosby does. ‘Well, he’s home on leave now. But,’ says Betty, -giving way to suppressed mirth, ‘I think his wits have gone astray, and -he believes his home is here. Anyway, we can always find him somewhere, -round any corner, from ten to eight. And’—she grows convulsed with -silent mirth again—‘he’s just as spooney on Susan as ever!’ - -‘Yes?’ says Crosby. - -‘He’s perfectly ridiculous. He is here morning, noon and night. And when -she lets him, he sits in her pocket by the hour. Of course it bores her, -but Susan is so absurdly good-natured that she puts up with everything. -Come down and have a game of tennis. Do!’ - -Betty, who is _bon camarade_ with Crosby, slips her hand into his arm -and leads him tennis-wards. - -So this is James. Crosby gives direct attention to the young man on the -tennis-ground below him. A young man got up in irreproachable flannels, -and with a sufficiently well-bred air about him. Crosby gives him all -his good points without stint. He is well got up, and well groomed, and -decently shaved—and confoundedly ugly. He laughs as he tells himself -this. There is solace in the thought. In fact, James McIlveagh with his -big nose and little eyes, and the rather heavy jaw, and the general look -of doggedness about him, could hardly be considered a beauty except by a -deluded mother. - -He is playing a set with Carew against Dom and Jacky, who is by no means -to be despised as a server. It occurs to Crosby, watching him, that he -is playing rather wildly, and giving more attention to the hall-door in -the distance than to his adversary. Game and set are called for Dom and -Jacky. It is with an open sense of joy upon his ugly face that Mr. -McIlveagh flings down his racket and balls; and indeed presently, when -he goes straight towards—— - -Towards whom? - -Crosby, curious, follows the young man’s going, and then sees Susan. - -Susan, with Bonnie! A Bonnie who now trots happily beside her, and is -evidently quite her slave—a pretty undoing of the old days, when she was -always his. Tommy, full of toys brought by Crosby—a white rabbit, a -performing elephant, an awful bear, and various other delightful things -tucked under his fat arms—is following them. - -And now McIlveagh has reached her. He is speaking to her. Crosby, with a -grim sense of amusement at his own frame of mind, wonders what on earth -that idiot can be saying. - -Presently Susan, smiling sweetly, and shaking her head as if giving a -very soft refusal to some proposal on the part of James, comes this way. -Tommy has caught hold of Bonnie’s hand—the new Bonnie, who can now run -about with him—and is dragging him towards the little wood, and Susan is -protesting. But now Bonnie is protesting too. ‘I can go, Susan. I have -walked a great deal farther than that. I have really.’ Crosby, watching -still, as if infatuated, can see that Susan is studying Bonnie silently, -as if in great amazement. - -This little, well Bonnie seems almost impossible to her. Bonnie going -for a run—alone into the wood! - -Crosby comes up to her. - -‘I hardly realize it,’ she says gently, her eyes still upon the -retreating form of the child. - -‘A great many things are hard to realize,’ says he. ‘For my part, I find -it very hard to see myself supplanted.’ - -‘Supplanted?’ - -‘Decidedly. And by the redoubtable James. By the way, Susan, I think you -gave me a distinctly wrong impression of that hero in the beginning of -our acquaintance. He doesn’t look half so wild as you represented him.’ - -‘As for that’—indifferently—‘I suppose they have drilled him.’ - -‘He’s quite presentable,’ glancing at the young soldier in question, -who, a few yards off, is looking as ugly as any impressionist could -desire, and sulky into the bargain. He can see that Susan is sitting -with a stranger, and evidently quite content—and—who the deuce is that -fellow, anyway? - -‘What did you expect him to be?’ asks Susan. - -‘Unpresentable, of course. I’ve been immensely taken in. And by you, -Susan! You quite led me to expect something interesting—a rare -specimen—and here he is, as like one of the rest of us as two peas.’ - -‘Did you expect him to have two heads?’ asks Susan, with a rather -ungrateful levity, considering James is an old friend of hers. - -‘I hardly hoped for so much,’ says Crosby. ‘I’m not greedy. As a rule I -am thankful for small mercies—perhaps’—with a thoughtful glance at -her—‘because big ones don’t come my way. And I don’t think you need be -so very angry with me, Susan, because I think the excellent James less -ugly than’—with a reproachful air—‘I had been led to believe.’ - -‘I think him hideous,’ says Susan promptly, and with no attempt at -softening of any sort. - -‘Alas! Poor James! But do you really?’ - -‘Very really,’ says Susan, laughing. ‘Just look at his profile.’ - -‘It’s a good honest one,’ says Crosby. ‘If a trifle——’ - -‘Well, I suppose it’s the trifle,’ says Susan. - -‘I have seen worse.’ - -‘Oh! you can think him an Apollo if you like,’ says Susan, with a little -shrug. Shrugs from Susan are so unexpected that Crosby regards her with -interest. The unexpected is often very delightful, and certainly Susan, -at this moment, with her little new petulant mood upon her, is as sweet -as sunshine. It seems all at once to Crosby that he is seeing her now -again for the first time, with a fresh idea of her. What a little -slender maiden—and how beautiful, even in her thin ‘uneducated’ frock, -that has so often seen the tub, and is of a fashion of five years ago! -And yet, in a way, that old frock is kind to her—who would not be kind -to her? It stands to her, in spite of its age. It throws out all the -beauties of her delicately-built, but healthy young figure. - -Susan here, in this primitive gown, is Susan! Susan got up in silks and -laces and satins, and all the fripperies of fashion, what would she be -like? - -It is a question quickly answered. Why, she would be Susan too! Nothing -could change that gentle, tender heart. He feels quite sure of that. It -would only be Susan glorified! A Susan that would probably reduce to -envy half the so-called society beauties of the season. - -Here he breaks through his thoughts, and comes back to the moment. - -‘I don’t like your tone,’ says he reproachfully; ‘it savours of -unkindness. And considering how long it is since last we met——’ - -Here Susan interrupts him, remorse tearing at her soul: - -‘I know. Seven months.’ - -‘You must have found it long,’ says Crosby. ‘I make it only twenty-two -hours, and’—consulting his watch—‘sixteen minutes.’ - -‘Oh! if you are alluding to yesterday,’ says Susan, with dignity that -has a sort of disgust in it. - -‘Of course.’ - -‘I thought you were alluding to your being away in Germany. And as to -finding it long’—resentfully—‘I think you must have found it very much -longer, if you can count to a minute like that.’ - -Was there ever such a child? Crosby roars with laughter, though -something in his laughter amounts to passionate tenderness. - -‘Forgive me, Susan!’ He leans forward, and takes her hand. As he feels -it within his—close clasped, and not withdrawn—and with Susan’s earnest -eyes looking into his, words spring to his lips: ‘Susan, once you took -me under your protection. Do you remember that old garden, and——’ - -Whatever he was going to say is here rudely broken in upon by the -advance of James, who, though distinctly ugly, looks no longer dull. He -seems now dreadfully wide-awake. Susan draws her hand quickly away, and -Crosby, who believes she has done this lest James should see the too -friendly attitude, is still further mortified by her manner. - -‘I think I told you you were not to speak of that—that hateful day -again,’ says she; and turning from him as if eternally offended, seats -herself on a rug quite far away from him, and in such a position that -James can find a resting-place at her feet—a fact he is very swift to -see. - -The others have all come up now, and Dom, who is terribly -conversational, opens the ball. - -‘What are you now, James?’ asks he. ‘General?’ - -‘Not quite,’ responds James gruffly, who naturally objects to being -chaffed in the presence of the beloved one. - -‘Colonel? Eh?’ - -‘Don’t be stupid, Dom,’ says Susan suddenly. ‘He is a lieutenant, but -soon he’ll be a captain—won’t you, James? Come up here and take part of -my rug.’ - -‘Oh no! no!’ says James, in a nervous, flurried tone that is filled with -absolute adoration; ‘I like being here.’ - -‘But——’ - -‘My dear Susan, why interfere with his mad joy?’ says Dom in a whisper -that is meant to be perfectly audible, and is so, to all around. ‘He’ll -catch cold to a moral; and he’s frightfully uncomfortable. But to sit at -your feet: what comfort could compare with that?’ - -‘Several,’ says Susan calmly. ‘Come here, James. I want to talk to you.’ - -And, indeed, from this moment she devotes herself to the devoted James. -Crosby she ignores completely, and when at last he rises to go, she says -‘good-bye’ to him with a very conventional air. - -‘Are you really going—and so soon?’ - -The others have moved a little away from them. - -‘What is the good of my staying when you won’t even look at me?’ - -‘I am looking at you,’ says Susan, flushing scarlet, but compelling her -eyes to rest on his—for a moment only, however. ‘But—you know I don’t -like you to allude to that day.’ - -‘It was a very small allusion. It gave you’—slowly—‘your chance, -however.’ - -‘My chance?’ - -‘To amuse yourself with the man of war.’ - -‘You think that I——’ - -‘I think a good deal at times.’ He laughs lightly, if a little -anxiously. ‘I am thinking even now.’ - -‘Of me?’ - -‘Naturally’—smiling. ‘Am I not always thinking of you?’ - -‘But what—what?’ demands she imperiously, tapping her slender foot upon -the ground. - -‘That you do not believe the martial James so hideous after all.’ - -‘Then you are wrong—quite wrong’—vehemently. - -‘Yes? Well, then, I think now——’ - -‘Now?’ - -‘That you are a very dangerous little coquette.’ - -Susan’s colour fades. A frown wrinkles her lovely brow. - -‘I am not!’ says she coldly. ‘If all your thinking has only come to -that—I—despise your thoughts.’ - -It is the nearest approach to a quarrel he has ever had with her; but, -instead of depressing him, it seems to exalt him, and he goes on his way -apparently rejoicing. - - - - - CHAPTER LV. - - ‘There has fallen a splendid tear - From the passion-flower at the gate. - She is coming, my love, my dear; - She is coming, my life, my fate.’ - - -To-day the sun is out, and all the walks at the Cottage are glittering -in its rays. Sparks like diamonds come from the small white stones in -the gravel, and the grassy edges close to them—clean shaven by Denis, -who is down again on a penitential visit to his wife—are sweet and -fresh, and suggestive of a desire to make to-day’s work a work again for -to-morrow, so quickly the spring blades grow and prosper. - -Wyndham, as he walks from the station to this pretty spot, takes great -note of Nature. Lately the loveliness—the charm of it!—the desire that -grows in the heart for it, has come to him, has sunk into his soul. As -he goes life seems everywhere, and with it such calm!... And here in -this old home, what a place it is! A veritable treasury of old-world -delights— - - ‘Dewy pastures, dewy trees, - Softer than sleep—all things in order stored, - A haunt of ancient peace.’ - -As he walks from the gate to the Cottage, a slim figure darting sideways -brings him to a standstill. After her bounds a huge dog. Wyndham -restrains the cry upon his lips that would have called the dog to him, -and, standing still, watches the pretty pair. - -He has come down to-day with the intention, avowed and open to his -heart, of asking this girl to marry him. That the deed will mean ruin to -him socially he knows, but he has faced the idea. That she will probably -accept him seems clear, but that it will not be for love seems even -clearer. She has always treated him as one who had given her a helping -hand out of her Slough of Despond, but no more. - -Many days have led to his decision of to-day, and many thoughts, and -many sleepless nights. But he has conquered all fears save that supreme -one that she does not love him. - -This marriage, if he can persuade her to it, will offend his uncle, Lord -Shangarry. Not a farthing will that old Irish aristocrat leave him if he -knows he has wedded himself to a girl outside his own world—a mere waif -and stray, disreputable, as many would call her. - -Disreputable! - -It was when this thought of what his friends’ view of his marriage would -be first came to him, and with it a mad longing to seize the throats of -those hideous scandalmongers, that Wyndham knew that he loved the girl -he had saved and protected—and most honourably loved. - -And to-day—well, he has come down to ask her to marry him. Shangarry’s -money may go, and all things else that the old lord can keep from him; -the title will still be his—and hers; and with his profession, and the -talent that they say is his, and the money left him by his dead -mother—oh, if she had lived and seen Ella!—he may still be able to keep -up the old name, if not in its old splendour, at all events with a sort -of decency. - -Ella is now running towards him, as he stands in the shelter of the -rhododendrons, the dog running after her, jumping about her, with soft -velvety paws and a wagging tail. Suddenly he springs upon her and -threatens the daintiness of her frock. - -‘Down now! Down now! Down!’ cries she, laughing. She catches the -handsome brute round the neck, and looks into his eyes. “Does he love -his own missis, then? Then down! It is really down now, sir. Not another -jump. See’—glancing ruefully at her pretty white serge dress—‘the stains -you have made here already.’ - -How soft, how delicate is her voice, how full of affection for the dog! -Surely, ‘There’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.’ - -Wyndham comes forward very casually from amongst the bushes. - -‘Oh—you!’ cries she, colouring delightfully, but showing no -embarrassment—he would have liked a little embarrassment. He tells -himself that the want of it quite proves his theory that she regards him -merely as a good friend—no more. - -‘Yes; I have run down for an hour or so. You’—looking round him—‘have -been quite a good fairy to my flowers, I see.’ - -‘Oh, your flowers!’ says she gaily, yet shyly too. Her air is of the -happiest. She has, indeed, been a different creature since Wyndham had -assured her a few months ago of Moore’s actual arrival in Australia. -‘Why, they are mine now, aren’t they? You have given them to me with -this.’ She threw out her arms in a little appropriative way towards the -garden. - -‘In a way—yes.’ He pauses. Passion is rising within him. ‘Come in,’ says -he abruptly. ‘There is something I must say to you.’ - -The pretty drawing-room is bright with flowers, and there is a certain -air of daintiness—a charm—about the whole place that tells of the -refinement of its owner. It is not Miss Manning who has given this -delicate cosiness to it—Miss Manning, good soul, who is now in the -kitchen, very proud in the fond belief that she is helping Mrs. Denis to -make marmalade. No! In every cluster of early roses, in every bunch of -sweet-smelling daffodils, in the pushing of the chairs here, and the -screens there, Wyndham can see the touch of Ella’s hand. - -In the far-off window, on a little table, stands the dressing-case that -he had sent her after his interview with Moore. It is open, and some of -the contents—what remains of them—with their silver tops, are shining in -the rays of the sun. The girl’s glance catches them, and all at once the -merry touch upon her lips dies away, and gloom settles on her brow. The -lost bottles, the battered and dismantled case, seem to Wyndham but the -broken links of a broken life, and a thrill of pity urges him to instant -speech. - -‘Don’t look like that, Ella.’ And then, with a burst of passion and -grief: ‘My darling, what does it matter?’ And then again, almost without -a stop, ‘Ella, will you marry me?’ - -For a moment she looks at him as if not understanding. Then a most -wonderful light springs into her eyes. But when he would go to her and -take her in his arms, she puts out hers, and almost imperiously forbids -him. - -‘No,’ says she clearly, if a little wildly perhaps. - -‘But why—why? Oh, this is nonsense! You know—you must have known for a -long time—that I love you.’ - -‘I did not know,’ says she faintly. ‘I—even now it seems impossible. -Don’t!’ as he makes a movement towards her. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. I -know now’—her voice breaking a little—‘that it might have been. But what -is impossible’—her young voice growing rounder, fuller, and unutterably -wretched—‘is that I should marry you.’ - -‘You think because——’ - -But she sweeps his words aside. - -‘It is useless,’ says she, with a strength strange in one so few miles -advanced upon life’s roadway, until one remembers how sad and eventful -those few miles she has trodden have been—how full of miserable -knowledge, how full of the cruel lesson—how to bear! ‘I am nobody, less -than nobody. And you—are somebody. Do you think I would consent to ruin -your life—the life of the only one who has—who has ever stood my -friend?’ - -‘This gratitude is absurd!’ he breaks in eagerly. ‘What have I done for -you? Let you the Cottage at a fair rental!’ - -‘Ah, no!’ There is irrepressible sadness in her air. She struggles with -herself, holding her hands against her eyes for a little while—pressing -them hard, as if to keep down her emotion. ‘I won’t—I can’t go into it,’ -says she brokenly. ‘But when I forget—Mr. Wyndham’—she turns upon him -passionately—‘never ask me that question again. Nothing on earth would -induce me to link my name with yours.’ She pauses, and a hot blush -covers her face. ‘My name!’—she repeats her words with determination, -though he can see how the determination hurts her—‘I have no name.’ - -‘That is all the more reason why you should take mine,’ breaks he in -hotly. - -‘And so destroy it. I shall not, indeed,’ says the girl firmly. Her -firmness is costing her a good deal. It causes Wyndham absolute physical -suffering to see the pallor of her face, the trembling of her slight -form. But that he can shake her decision seems improbable. Something in -her face takes him back to that terrible hour in which he first saw her, -when with pale face and undaunted spirit she accepted the chance of -death. Her voice, even in this hour of renunciation of all that she -holds dearest, rings clear. ‘Do you think I would requite all your -kindness to me by being the cause of your disinheritance by your uncle? -Do you think Lord Shangarry would ever forgive your marriage with a -woman of whom no one knows anything—not even her parentage?’ - -‘I am willing to risk all that.’ - -‘But I’—slowly—‘am not.’ - -‘Ella, if you loved me——’ - -‘Ah!’ A cry breaks from her, a cry that betrays her secret, and -convinces him of her love for him. It is full of exquisite pain, and -seems to wound her. Is it not because she loves him that—— ‘Well, then,’ -says she miserably, ‘say I do not. Think I do not.’ - -‘I will not think it,’ cries he vehemently, ‘until you say it. Ella, my -beloved, what has this old man’s wealth to do with you or me? What has -the world to do with us? Come now, look into it with me. Here are you, -and here am I, and what else is there in all the wide world for us two, -Ella?’ And now he breaks into earnest, most manly entreaties, and wooes -her with all his soul, and at last—as a true lover should—upon his -knees. - -But she resists him, pushing his clasping hands away. - -‘I will not! I will not!’ repeats she steadfastly. - -‘Oh, you are cold; you do not care,’ cries he suddenly. - -He springs to his feet, angry, yet filled with an admiration for her -that has, if not increased his love, made it more open to him. A strong -man himself, and hard to move, he can see the splendid strength of this -poor girl, who, because of her love for him, refuses his love for her. - -His sudden movement has upset the small table on which the dressing-case -is standing, and brings it heavily to the ground. - -There is a crash, a breaking asunder of the sides of the case, and here -on the carpet before their astonished gaze lies a small sheaf of letters -and a faded photograph. Where had they come from? Had there been a -secret drawer? Wyndham, stooping, picks them up. A name catches his eye. -Why, this thing, surely, is a certificate of marriage! - - * * * * * - -As he reads, hurriedly, breathlessly, going from one letter to another -and back again, from the few pages of a small disconnected diary to the -marriage certificate in his other hand, his face grows slowly white as -death. - -‘Oh, what is it?’ cries Ella at last. - -‘Give me time.’ His tone is full of ill-repressed agitation. - -Again he reads. - -The girl drops on her knees beside him, her face no less white than his. -What does it all mean? What secret do these old letters hold? The -photograph is lying still upon the floor, and her eyes, riveting -themselves upon it, feel at once as though they were looking at -someone—someone remembered—loved! She stares more eagerly. Surely it -reminds her, too, of ... of—she leans closer over it—of someone feared -and hated! Oh! how could that gentle face be feared—or hated—and yet, -was there not someone, who—— - -‘Oh, I know it!’ cries she suddenly, violently. She springs to her feet -as if stung, and turns a ghastly face on Wyndham. ‘Look at it!’ cries -she, gasping, pointing to the photograph at her feet. ‘It is like your -aunt, Mrs. Prior.’ - -‘Like your aunt!’ says Wyndham slowly, emphatically. The hand with the -letters in it has dropped to his side, but he is holding those old -documents as if in a vice. - -‘Mine—Mrs. Prior—oh no! oh no!’ says Ella, making a gesture of fear and -horror. - -‘Yes, yours and mine, Ella!’ There is passionate delight and triumph in -his whole air. ‘A moment ago you said you had no name; now—now,’ -striking the papers in his hand, ‘you have one! These are genuine, I -swear they are, and they prove you to be the grand-daughter of Sir John -Burke, and of—strangest of all things—the Professor.’ - -‘I—how can I understand? What is it?’ asks she faintly. - -He explains it to her, and it is, indeed, all that he has said. The -breaking up of that queer old dressing-case, that afterwards Mrs. Prior -had most unwillingly to admit belonged to Ella’s mother—the lost Eleanor -Burke—brought all things to a conclusion. There was the diary in it that -proved the writer to be Eleanor Burke beyond all doubt, and the heiress -of her dead father, Sir John; and there was the marriage certificate -that proved poor Eleanor’s marriage to as big a scamp as could be found -in Europe, which is saying a good deal; and there were many other -letters besides, to show that the scamp, who called himself Haynes to -evade the law (and his father), was the son of Professor Hennessy. That -Ella had forgotten the other name her poor mother bore, ‘Haynes,’ and -had let her identity be lost in the word ‘Moore,’ had, of course, much -to do with the unhappy mystery that had so long surrounded her. After -Sir John’s death—that left Eleanor, his eldest girl, his heir, or -failing her, her children—much search had been made for Eleanor under -the name of Haynes, but naturally without avail. Anyway, the whole thing -had gradually sunk out of sight; Eleanor was accepted as dead, and her -fortune lapsing to Mrs. Prior, she reigned in her stead. - - * * * * * - -‘You see how it is,’ says Wyndham, who from a rather prematurely old, -self-contained man has developed into an ordinary person, full of -enthusiasm. ‘You are now Miss Hennessy—a hideous name, I allow. But you -were,’ with a flick of humour, ‘so very anxious for a name of any sort, -that perhaps you will forgive the ugliness. And you are heir to a good -deal of money on both sides. Mrs. Prior will have to hand out a -considerable amount of her capital, and as for me ... I feel nothing -less than a defrauder. You know your grandfather, the Professor, left me -the bulk of his fortune—not knowing you were so much as in the world at -the time he made his will. Of course, that, too—— Are you listening, -Ella?’ - -The fact that the girl is not listening to him has evoked this remark. -Whatever ‘gray grief’ had to do with her a few minutes ago, before the -breaking of her mother’s dressing-case, it has nothing to do with her -now. All the splendour of youth has come back to her face, and all the -happiness; yet still it is quite plain to him that her mind is not set -on the money that fate has cast upon her path, or on the high chances of -gaining a place in society, but on—— - -‘No,’ says she slowly, simply, and with a touch of trouble, as if -bringing her mind with difficulty back to something far away. - -‘You must give me your attention for a moment,’ says he sharply. Ever -since he discovered that she was not only the possessor of a very good -name, in spite of its ugliness, but also the heiress of a very -considerable sum of money, all passion has died out of his tone. If he -thought, however, by this to deceive her with regard to his honest -feeling for her, he is entirely mistaken. ‘There are things to which you -will have to listen—to which you ought to wish to listen. And if’—with a -frown—‘you will not think of your good fortune, of what will you think?’ - -There is a long silence. And then there is a little rush towards him, -and two arms are flung round his neck. - -‘I am thinking,’ cries she softly, clinging to him, ‘that now I can -marry you.’ - - * * * * * - -Heavenly moments on this side of the sky are few and far between. It is -Ella, so strangely unlike a woman, who breaks into the delicious -silence. - -‘That night! I wish now——’ - -‘Wish nothing, so far as that is concerned. That night I saw you first -gave you to me.’ - -‘But——’ - -‘That sounds like fright,’ interrupts he, laughing. ‘But you are not -easily frightened, are you? That night—you see, I insist upon going back -to it’—catching her hands and drawing her to him—‘no, you shall not be -ashamed of it. That night in which we both met for the first time you -were not frightened. You walked towards death without a qualm.’ - -‘Ah, I was too wretched then to be frightened of anything!’ says she. - -She looks at him, a smile parts her lips, and slowly, slowly she leans -towards him until her cheek is resting against his. - -‘I should be frightened now,’ says she softly, tenderly. - -His arms close round her. He clasps her to his heart. - - - - - CHAPTER LVI. - - ‘Your heart is never away, - But ever with mine, for ever, - For ever, without endeavour, - To-morrow, love, as to-day; - Two blent hearts never astray, - Two souls no power may sever, - Together, O my love, for ever!’ - - -There was a deal of trouble over it for a while, but when that faded -photograph and the certificate and the diary were brought into a larger -light things smoothed down. Shangarry saw at once how it must end, and -accepted the situation gracefully; but Mrs. Prior was a little hard to -manage until Ella (who refused point-blank to meet her) declared her -determination not to take more than half the money that had been left to -her by Sir John Burke, her grandfather. It was quite astonishing how -Mrs. Prior softened towards her after that. But Ella stood firm and -would not see her. - -Later on she might consent to meet—at Lord Shangarry’s, perhaps (he had -fallen in love with the pretty, gentle girl who had endured so much), or -at Lady Forster’s house this season—Lady Forster had written a very -charming note—but not just now. Gentle as Ella was, she could not -forgive too readily. Yes, Lady Forster’s would be the best place. They -would be in town after their honeymoon, and there they could see Mrs. -Prior and break the ice, as it were. - -But to-day no ice has to be broken. Ella, who has arranged with Wyndham -to meet him in the old Rectory garden, has gone over quite early to be -petted and made much of by all there—Carew excepted. That unhappy youth, -his first grand passion having been ruthlessly laid in the dust, and -with yet another new trouble that had arrived by the post some days ago -upon his shoulders, has carried himself and his injured affections far, -far away, to a distant trout stream. - -Wyndham is staying with Crosby, who is most honestly glad of his -friend’s successful exit from a difficult situation. He has, indeed, -been highly sympathetic all through, astonishingly so for so determined -a bachelor, as he seems to Wyndham, who six months ago had seemed quite -as determined a bachelor to Crosby. Only to-day, at luncheon, he had -told Wyndham not to mind about leaving him when the ‘Rectory’ called. He -(Crosby) might walk down there later on. But he advised Wyndham to hurry -up, to start as early as he liked, not to wait for him, and so forth. -Wyndham took him at his word, decided not to wait, and was therefore -naturally a little surprised to find Crosby on the door-steps, not only -ready to go with him, but distinctly impatient. This seemed such -devotion to the cause, such honest friendliness towards him and Ella, -that Wyndham felt quite grateful to him. - - * * * * * - -‘How happy they look!’ says Miss Barry to Susan, finding herself alone -with her niece for a moment. She is looking at Wyndham and Ella, who -indeed seem to have reached their pinnacle of bliss. ‘And no wonder,’ -with a sigh. ‘He is a most excellent match. Not only money, but a -title—in the distance. I can’t help wishing, Susan,’ sighing again, and -more heavily this time, ‘that it had been you.’ - -‘Me! I wouldn’t marry him for anything,’ says Susan indignantly. - -‘That’s what girls always say,’ says Miss Barry mournfully, ‘until they -are asked.’ Perhaps she herself had said it many times. ‘But I assure -you, Susan, money is a good thing—and your poor father just now, with -the loss of this four hundred pounds that he had laid aside for Carew——’ - -‘Oh, I know!’ says Susan miserably. ‘It is dreadful. Poor, poor -father—and poor Carew, too! I suppose he can’t go in for his exam now?’ - -‘No, I’m afraid not, unless some miraculous thing should occur. -Susan!’—Miss Barry looks wistfully at her niece—‘James, now, he will be -well off—and he could help us. If you could——’ - -‘Could what?’ Susan’s eyes are almost menacing. - -‘Think of him—in that way. He is well off, my dear, and——’ - -‘I shall not marry James,’ says Susan distinctly. ‘I wonder how you -could suggest it to me.’ - -‘Certainly he is very ugly,’ says Miss Barry, who has grown, poor soul, -very meek of late; the smashing of the bank that had held the four -hundred pounds, the savings of years, that the Rector had laid by with -the hope of putting his eldest boy into the army, has lowered her -spirit. Poverty seems to pursue them. And the sight of the Rector, -crushed and more gaunt than usual, has gone to her old heart. If only -Susan—any of them—could be provided for. How happy that girl Ella is! -how rich the man is who has chosen her! and yet is she to be so much as -compared with Susan? Miss Barry’s soul swells within her at the -injustice of it all. - -If only Susan could be induced to think of James McIlveagh. But no, -Susan is not like that. She looks up suddenly, and there before her eyes -are James and Susan strolling leisurely, in quite a loverlike way, -towards the little shrubbery. Can the girl have taken her hint to heart? -A glow of hope radiates her mind for a moment. But then come other -thoughts, and fear, and trouble, and a keen, strange disappointment. - -No, no! Susan—Susan to be worldly! Her pretty girl! God grant she has -not been the means of driving her to belie her better—her own—self. - -Good gracious! If Susan comes back and tells her she has engaged herself -to James because of her father’s trouble—because of Carew’s trouble—what -shall she do? Miss Barry, who is hardly equal to emergencies so great as -this, looks with a certain wildness round her. Who can help her? That -foolish girl must be sent for; brought back from that shrubbery where -Miss Barry, in her panic, feels now assured James is once again, for the -hundredth time, proposing to her, and being (no doubt to his everlasting -astonishment) accepted. The last words can’t have been said as yet: -there may still be time to drag Susan out of the fire. - -Wyndham and Ella and Miss Manning are coming towards her. Ella is going -home; it is nearly seven o’clock, and Wyndham will have barely time to -see her to the Cottage and catch his train to Dublin. Miss Barry bids -him a rather hurried good-bye, and then looks round for Betty. Betty is -always useful—when she can be found! But unfortunately Betty and Dom -have gone off to eat green gooseberries in the vegetable garden, a -fearsome occupation, of which they are both disgracefully fond, and that -seems to affect their stomachs in no wise. Betty, therefore, is not to -be had, but Miss Barry’s troubled eye wandering round sees Crosby, who -is sitting with Bonnie on his knee, and with courage born of desperation -she beckons him to come to her. - -‘Mr. Crosby, I want Betty. Where is she?’ - -‘I think she went into the garden a moment ago with Dom.’ - -‘Do you mind—would you be so good as to tell her I want her, and at -once?’ - -‘Certainly,’ says Crosby, laughing; ‘though she and Dom, or both, bring -down all the anathemas in the world on my head.’ - -He starts on his quest, a little glad, indeed, to get away from the -others. Early in the afternoon he had had a little tiff with Susan—just -a small thing, a mere breeze, and certainly of his own creating. He had -said something about James—why the deuce can’t he leave James alone? But -it seems he can’t of late; and Susan had been a little, just a -little—what was it?—offended? Well, put out in some way, at all events. -Perhaps after all she does care for James. Like to like, you know—and -youth to youth; and there can be but a year or two between him and -Susan. - -At this moment there is a quick movement of the branches on his left; -someone is pushing the laurel bushes aside with an angry, impatient -touch, and now—— - -Susan has stepped into view; a new Susan—angry, pale, hurried. Her soft -eyes are dark and frowning, but as she sees Crosby they lighten again, -and grow suddenly thick with tears. Then, as though in him lie comfort -and protection, she runs to him, holding out her hands. - -He catches them, and saying nothing, draws her down the bank and into a -little leafy recess that leads to a small wood beyond. The touch of her -hand is good to him. She has forgiven, then, that late little conflict. -She can be angry with James, too, it seems. Confound that fool! What has -he been saying to her? - -‘Well?’ says he. - - - - - CHAPTER LVII. - - ‘My lady is so fair and dear - That all my heart to her is given; - One word she whispered in my ear, - And earth for me was changed to heaven.’ - - -He has held one of her hands all the time, but now she releases it. She -has recovered herself marvellously, but there is still a good deal of -nervousness in the laugh that breaks from her as she seats herself in -the old rustic seat in the corner. - -‘Well—what?’ She is evidently prepared to carry it off boldly. - -‘You don’t mean to tell me there was no reason for that look in your -eyes just now?’ - -There is a very obstinate look in his own eyes just now, at all events. - -‘What look?’ - -‘Susan,’ says Crosby, with a solemn shake of his head, ‘you might as -well give it up at once. You were never made for this sort of thing. You -wouldn’t take in a new-born infant. Come, get it off your mind. Make -your confession. What has the immaculate James been doing?’ - -‘James!’ She tries to look surprised, but breaks down ignominiously. -‘Oh, nothing’—hurriedly—‘nothing.... Nothing at all, really! Only—he’s -so stupid!’ - -‘He’s been stupid very often of late, hasn’t he? Look -here’—severely—‘you are suppressing something; either you or he (and you -for choice, I should say, judging by the obvious guilt upon your -countenance) have been doing something of which you are thoroughly -ashamed. Even such small signs of grace are to be welcomed, but in the -meantime I think a fuller confession would make for the good of your -soul. Come, what have you been doing?’ - -‘It was James a moment ago,’ says she slowly. - -‘Was it?’—quickly—‘I thought as much. But what was he doing a moment -ago?’ - -‘Nonsense’—flushing hotly—‘you know what I mean—that it was James you -were accusing a moment ago.’ - -‘True! And it should have been you. I am in fault this time, then. That -makes a third.’ - -‘No, indeed, because I am not in fault at all.’ - -‘Then it was the immaculate one! What of him? Has he been at his old -game again: chasing you round the garden to——’ - -‘Mr. Crosby!’ There is indignant protest in her tone, but the rich -colour that rises to her cheek tells him that his guess has been at -least partly accurate. - -‘Not that,’ says he. ‘Foolish James!’ Even as he says these idle words -he is cursing James up hill and down dale for the abominable -impertinence of him. No little shred of allowance for James’ honest love -for this pretty maiden enters into his heart. - -‘Well—go on! That is only a negative statement—if it is a statement at -all.’ - -‘There is nothing to tell. And’—she pauses—‘and, any way, I won’t tell -it,’ says she. - -Crosby suppresses a desire to laugh. Oh, how sweet—how sweet his little -darling is! - -‘Not even to me—your guide, philosopher, and friend? Susan’—he is -looking into her eyes as if compelling an answer—‘he proposed to you -again, didn’t he?’ - -‘Oh yes,’ says Susan, as if throwing a load off her mind; ‘and when I -told him again that I couldn’t and wouldn’t—he—he was horrid. And he -wanted——’ She stops. - -‘Yes’—Crosby’s voice is sharp now—‘but you didn’t——’ - -‘No, no! But I hate him!’ - -‘So do I, with all my soul,’ says Crosby, more to himself, however, than -for her hearing. He stands looking on the ground for a bit, and then: - -‘So you have refused the gunner. Poor James! You don’t really care for -him, then?’ - -‘I thought all the world knew that,’ says Susan. ‘Why’—with almost -pathetic contempt—‘can’t he know it? It is unkind of him, isn’t it, to -make me so unkind? But I can’t love him—I can’t!’ A little sigh escapes -her. - -The rose on the straggling bush above her is not sweeter or more -beautiful than Susan is now, with her pretty bent head and her -flower-like face, and all the delicate beauty of her soul shining -through her earnest eyes. - -A strange nervousness seizes on Crosby. He takes a step towards her, -however, and takes both her hands in his strong clasp. - -‘Susan, am I too old?’ says he. - -Susan turns her startled eyes upon him, grows crimson, and then deadly -white. She pulls her hands out of his and turns away, but too late—too -late to hide the rapture in her eyes, that the heavy tears in vain are -trying to drown. - -‘Susan, my darling! my own sweet little girl! Susan’—his arms are round -her now—‘is it true? So you do care for me! For me—such an old fellow -next to you—you’—clasping her to him and laughing—‘are only a baby, you -know. But my baby now, eh? Oh, Susan, is it true?’ - -Susan tightens her hand upon his arm, but answer makes she none. - -‘Afterwards you may be sorry; thirty-four and nineteen—a great many -milestones between us, you see.’ - -‘Ah, it is you who will be sorry!’ says Susan, lifting her head a minute -from the safe shelter of his breast to look at him. It is a lovely look. -Poor James! if he had only seen it! - -‘Are you going to lead me such a life as that?’ says Crosby, laughing. -‘I don’t believe it.’ - -‘You know what I mean.’ - -‘I don’t, indeed. I don’t even know if you love me yet.’ - -‘Oh, as for that——’ Suddenly she laughs, too, and with the sweetest -tenderness slips one arm round his neck and draws his head down to hers. -‘And, besides, I’m very nearly twenty,’ says she. - -‘Look here,’ says Crosby presently; ‘too much happiness is bad for any -man. Now, you sit over there’—putting her into a far corner of the old -garden-seat—‘and I’ll sit here’—seating himself with the sternest virtue -at the other end. ‘Don’t come within a mile of me again for a while, and -let us be sensible and talk business. When will you marry me—next week?’ - -‘Next week?’—with a laugh—‘is that talking business?’ - -‘The best business.’ - -‘Oh, nonsense!’ - -‘Where does the nonsense come in? I’ve been waiting all my life for you, -and what’s the good of waiting any longer—even a day? See here, now, -Susan. In seven days you could——’ - -‘I could not, indeed!’ She breaks off suddenly. ‘You are coming nearer.’ - -‘So I am,’ says he, sighing, and moving back to his corner. ‘Good Susan! -Keep reminding me, will you?’ - -‘I certainly shall,’ says Susan, who has perhaps been only half -understood up to this. - -‘Well, if not next week—next month?’ - -‘Oh no,’ says Susan. ‘In a year perhaps I——’ - -‘How dare you make such a proposition! Come now, Susan, you have heard -the old adage beginning, “Life is short.”’ - -‘Yes, but I don’t believe it. And besides—no; don’t stir. And -besides—you are coming nearer.’ - -‘It is all your fault if I am. You are behaving so disgracefully. The -idea of your mentioning a year. I shall appeal to your father.’ - -‘I am certain he won’t hear of it at all. He—oh, there, you are coming -closer again.’ - -‘Susan,’ says Crosby sternly, ‘enough of this. I’ll stand no more of it. -You shan’t keep me at arm’s length any longer.’ - -‘I? What had I to do with it?’ says Susan, arching her charming brows. - -After which it takes only a moment to have the arm in question round her -again, and to have her drawn into it—a most willing captive. - -‘Do you remember when you made me promise I would never steal anything -again?’ asks Crosby, after an eloquent pause. - -‘Yes.’ - -‘Well, I have broken that promise.’ - -‘You haven’t, I hope.’ - -‘I have, though. I’—with disgraceful triumph—‘have stolen your heart.’ - -‘Not a bit of it,’ cries Susan, with a triumph that puts his to shame; -‘I gave it to you. Deny that if you dare.’ - -He evidently doesn’t dare. He does something else, however, that is -quite as effective. - -‘Well, it’s a month, any way, isn’t it?’ says he. ‘In a month we’ll get -married, and we’ll go away—away, all by ourselves, Susan—just you and I, -to the heavenly places of the earth. You shall see the world, and the -world shall see you—the loveliest thing that is in it.’ - -‘You mean that we shall go abroad?’ says Susan. ‘To Rome, perhaps?’ - -‘To Rome or any other spot your fancy dictates, so long as you take me -with you.’ He draws her to him as he says this, and—‘Susan, will you -answer me one word?’ - -Susan’s clear, truthful eyes fasten upon his. - -‘What is it?’ asks she softly. - -‘Am I the one man in all the world you would see the world with?’ - -The clear truthful eyes do not falter. - -‘Why do you ask me that?’ says she. ‘Surely you know it.’ - - * * * * * - -‘Where is your father?’ asks he presently. ‘Let us go and tell him.’ - -‘Tell father?’ Her tone has an ominous trembling in it. - -‘Why, of course,’ says Crosby, regarding her with some surprise. It must -be forgiven him if he thinks Mr. Barry will be decidedly glad to hear -the news. - -‘Oh, I couldn’t,’ says Susan, growing quite pale. ‘He’ll be very angry -with me. He will keep on thinking of me as a child, you know, and I -can’t get him out of it. When I put on long frocks last year, I thought -he’d see it then, but he didn’t; and even the doing up of my hair wasn’t -of the slightest use.’ - -‘We might give him a third lesson,’ says Crosby. ‘Come on, and let us -get it over.’ - -‘You’—Susan draws back, and her tone now is distinctly fearful—‘You -couldn’t go without me, could you? By yourself, I mean.’ - -‘I could, of course,’ says he. ‘But——’ - -‘Oh, then, do,’ cries Susan, giving him a little push—there are -unmistakable signs of cowardice about her. And all at once to Crosby -comes the thought, how pure at heart all these people are—how ‘far from -the madding crowd’ of self-seekers! She has not realized that he is what -most of his town acquaintances call a ‘good match.’ She is even afraid -to announce her engagement to her father, lest he should think her too -young to marry. It sounds incredible, but a glance at Susan, and a -vision of the sad man sitting alone with his new sorrow and -disappointment in his little study beyond, dissolves all suspicions. - -‘Yes—do go,’ says Susan. ‘To tell you the truth, father is in rather a -disturbed state of mind just now, and I’m afraid he won’t receive you -very well. He may be grumpy. He is unhappy. He has lost a great deal of -money lately.’ - -‘A great deal?’ - -‘A very great deal. Four hundred pounds!’ Susan looks tragic. ‘And it -had been set aside to put Carew into the army, so of course he feels it. -The bank failed, you see.’ - -‘Banks will do these rude things at times,’ says Crosby. ‘But what I -fail to see is, why you can’t come with me, and get your blessing on the -spot.’ - -‘Why, I’ve told you’—reproachfully. ‘Father is in a bad temper, and -he——’ She pauses. ‘Oh, I can’t go,’ says she. ‘But you can.’ - -‘Alone! After the awful picture you have just drawn of your father’s -wrath! Have you no regard for my life, Susan? Is this your vaunted love -for me?—to abandon me remorselessly to the foe. Is it safe, do you -think? Suppose I never come back?’ - -‘Tut!’ says Susan. ‘There—go on! But be sure you say it isn’t my fault.’ - -‘That makes an end of it,’ says Crosby. ‘Your fault. Whose fault is it, -if it isn’t yours? Susan, I refuse to stir a step without you. I feel it -is your distinct duty to be there, if only to see fair play and be a -witness at the inquest afterwards. Besides, I should like you to gather -up my remains; you might give a helping hand so far. Seriously, -darling’—drawing her to him—‘I think it would be wise of you to come -with me. He would understand so much better if—if only you will look at -me as you are looking now.’ - -‘Well, I’ll come,’ says Susan, sighing dejectedly, but with another look -that makes his heart sing aloud for joy. - -‘That’s a darling Susan! But now, before we go, I must put you through a -strict cross-examination. To begin with—you are positive you love me?’ - -‘Positive.’ Susan, laughing, lays her hands against his shoulders, -pressing him back. - -‘That doesn’t look like it!’ - -‘It’s true, though!’—laughing. - -‘And it isn’t out of pity?’ - -‘I’ll certainly have to pity you soon. Are you going out of your mind?’ - -‘No wonder if I were.’ He swiftly undoes that unkind touch upon his -shoulders, and takes her in his arms and kisses her. - -‘I don’t think that is cross-examination,’ says she reproachfully. No -doubt later on she will be capable of developing a little wit of her -own. - -‘You are right. To continue, then: how much do you love me?’ - -‘Better’—Susan’s eyes, now sweeter than ever, raise themselves to his -for one shy moment—‘than anyone.’ - -‘That is vague, Susan. Give it a voice. Better than—Bonnie? Oh -no!’—quickly—‘I shouldn’t have asked that. Don’t answer it, my -sweetheart,’ pressing her head against his breast. ‘We’ll take another. -You love me better than you thought you would ever love anyone—tell me -that, any way.’ - -‘Oh, much, much more,’ says she. She clings to him for a moment, then -steps back, and a little air of meditation grows on her. ‘Do you know,’ -says she in a low, rather ashamed tone, ‘about this very thing I have -lately been very much surprised at myself.’ - -It is irresistible. Crosby bursts out laughing—such happy laughter! - -‘What are you laughing at?’ asks Susan, a little nervously. - -‘At you.’ - -‘At me?’ - -‘Yes; because you are just the sweetest angel, Susan. What sort of rings -do you like best?’ - -Susan is silent for a moment, and now through all the rose-white of her -skin a warm flush rises. - -‘You are going to give me a ring?’ says she. ‘Do you know, I hadn’t -thought of that. A ring! I have never had a ring!’ - -He draws her head softly down upon his breast. - -‘Your first will be a sacred one, then. It will be our engagement-ring, -my darling!’ - -‘I should like a blue ring,’ says Susan shyly, after a little while. - -‘Like your own eyes. Sapphire, then? So be it. It will do for a first -one. But you must have a keeper for it, Susan, and you must leave that -to me.’ He is silent a moment. Where are the best diamonds to be got? -‘Now, come,’ says he; ‘I think honestly we ought to tackle your father -together.’ - - - - - CHAPTER LVIII. - - ‘My heart is full of joy to-day, - The air hath music in it.’ - - -Mr. Barry is sitting at his shabby writing-table in his very shabby -study. His pale, refined face seems paler than usual, and there is a -look of dejection in his sunken eyes that goes to Crosby’s heart. He has -entered the room without a word of warning—a very reluctant Susan at his -back—and has therefore caught that look on the Rector’s face before he -has had time to take it off. - -‘Mr. Barry,’ begins he quickly. ‘I—we—Susan, where are you?—we’—with -emphasis that devastates the soul of the culprit next him—‘have come to -tell you that—Susan, this is mean,’ as Susan makes a base effort to hide -behind him once again—‘that Susan and I’—he laughs a little here, partly -through nervousness, and partly because of an agonized, if unconscious, -pinch from Susan on his arm—‘want to get married.’ - -Mr. Barry lays down the pen he has been holding since their unexpected -entrance, and stares at Crosby as though he were the proud possessor of -two heads, or else a decided madman. - -At last a flush dyes the pallor of his face. - -‘Sir,’ says he, with dignity, ‘if this is a jest——’ - -‘Not a jest such as you think,’ breaks in Crosby quickly; ‘though I hope -our life together’—with a quick glance back at Susan, who still declines -to show herself—‘will have a good deal of laughter in it. What I really -want you to know’—gently—‘is that I have asked Susan to marry me, and -she has said “Yes,” if’—with charming courtesy—‘you will give your -consent.’ - -Mr. Barry rises from his chair. If he could be paler than he was a -moment since, he is certainly so now. - -‘Do you mean to tell me that you want’—he points at the only part of the -abashed Susan that he can see—‘that you want that child for your wife?’ - -There is a slight pause. It is long enough for Susan to cast an eloquent -glance at Crosby. ‘I told you so,’ is the gist of it. - -‘She is nineteen,’ says Crosby; ‘and she says that she——’ - -Here he comes to grief; it seems impossible to so true a lover to say -out aloud that Susan has confessed her love for him. He turns round. - -‘I really think, Susan, it is your turn now,’ whispers he. ‘You might -say something.’ - -Susan gives him an indignant glance. Hadn’t she told him how it would -be? But dignity sweeps her into the breach. - -‘It—it is quite true, papa,’ says she, faltering, trembling. - -‘What is true?’ asks her father. - -She is not trembling half so much outwardly as he is trembling inwardly. -This thing, can it be true? And that baby—but is she a baby? How many -years is it since the other Susan—his own Susan—died? - -‘That—that I love him!’ says Susan brokenly. - -When she says this she covers her face with her hands as if distinctly -ashamed of herself, and Crosby, divining her thoughts, lays his arms -round her and presses both hands and face out of sight against his -breast. - -Mr. Barry looks at him. - -‘She is only a little country girl,’ says he. As if disliking the -definition of her, Susan releases herself and stands back from Crosby. -‘And you—have large possessions—and a position that will enable you to -choose a wife anywhere. Susan—has nothing!’ - -‘She has everything,’ says Crosby hotly. ‘When I look at her I know it -is I who have nothing. What money, what position, could compare with the -wealth of her beauty?... And now this gift of her love!... I am only too -proud, I think myself only too blest, to be allowed to lay at her feet -all that I have.’ - -He turns to his pretty sweetheart and holds out his hand to her frankly. -And she comes to him—a little pale, a little unnerved, but with earnest -love in her shining eyes. And as he bends to her she gives him back with -honest warmth the kiss that in her father’s presence he gives her. - -It seems a seal upon the truth of their declaration. Mr. Barry, going to -her, lays his hands upon her shoulders. He is pale still, but the look -of depression that almost amounted to despair that marked his face when -Crosby first came in is now gone, and in its place is hope—and some -other feeling hard to place—but pride, perhaps, is the nearest to it. - -‘God bless you, Susan, always!’ says he solemnly. In this moment, as he -looks at her, for the first time it comes to him that she is the very -image of her dead mother. ‘It is a great responsibility,’ says he. His -words are slow and difficult. ‘Try to be worthy of it! Be a good woman, -and love your husband!’ - -‘Oh, I will—I will, papa!’ says Susan, throwing her arms round his neck. -It seems such an easy request. And all her fear of him seems gone. She -clings to him. And the father presses her closely to him, but nervously, -as if afraid of breaking down. - -Crosby can see how it is, and touches Susan lightly on the arm. - -‘Go into the garden,’ he whispers to her. ‘I will meet you there -presently.’ - -There is a last quick embrace between father and daughter, and Susan, -who is now crying softly, leaves the room. - -‘You will let me have her,’ says Crosby, turning to the Rector. ‘And I -thank you for the gift. I think’—earnestly—‘you know enough of me to -understand how I shall prize it.’ - -Mr. Barry comes back from the window. - -‘It is such a relief,’ says he quickly, and with extraordinary honesty. -‘It will be a weight off my mind. It is such a prospect as I could never -have dreamed of for her. They tell me’—absently—‘that she is very -pretty; her mother, at that age——’ He does not continue his sentence. A -heavy sigh escapes him. ‘I have had great trouble lately,’ says he, -after a minute or two, ‘and this, coming unexpectedly, has unnerved me.’ - -‘There shall be no more trouble that I can prevent,’ says Crosby gently, -calmly, yet with strength. ‘You must think of me from to-day as your -son.’ He pauses. ‘By-the-by, I hear that there is some little difficulty -about Carew’s continuing his profession. That would be a pity, -considering how far he has gone. We must not allow that.’ - -‘There is no “we” in it,’ says Mr. Barry, his thin white face now -whiter. ‘I can do nothing in the matter. As you have heard so much, you, -of course, know that the money that I had laid by for Carew’s start in -life has been lost.’ - -‘That failure of a bank? Yes; but——’ - -‘You are giving a great deal to my daughter, Crosby,’ says the Rector -quickly; ‘I cannot allow you to give to——’ - -‘My brother, sir. Come, Mr. Barry, do not make me feel I am kept at -arm’s length by Susan’s people. If a man can’t help his own brother, who -can he help? And, after all, if you come to think of it, have you any -right to prevent my helping him—to check his career like this? -Besides’—laughing—‘you may as well give in, as I am going to see him -through, whether you will or not. If I didn’t, there would be bad times -for me with Susan.’ - -There is something about him—something in his happy, strong, kindly -manner, that precludes the idea of offence of any sort; and Mr. Barry, -after a struggle with his conscience, gives in. That suggestion about -his having any right to deny the boy his profession had touched him. - -‘Well, that’s settled,’ says Crosby comfortably. And it gives an idea of -the charm of his character that, as he says it, no feeling of chagrin, -of smallness, enters into the soul of the man he has benefited. Mr. -Barry, indeed, smiles a happier smile than his worn face has known for -many a day. - -‘God bless you, Crosby!’ says he. And then, pausing and colouring—the -slow and painful colour of age, ‘God bless you, George! It is useless to -speak. I cannot say what I want to say. But this’—his tone, nervous and -awkward always, now almost stammers—‘this I must say, that Susan ought -to be a happy woman.’ - -‘Oh, as to that,’ says Crosby, laughing again, a little nervously -himself now, as he sees the other’s suppressed emotion, ‘I hope so. I’ll -see to it, you know. But there’s one thing sure—that I’m going to be a -happy man.’ - -He looks towards the window. - -‘I think she is waiting for me in the garden,’ says he. - -‘Well, go to her.’ But as he walks to the door the Rector follows him, -struggling in his silent way with some thought; and just as Crosby is -disappearing through it the struggle ends. Mr. Barry goes quickly after -him, and lays his hand upon his shoulder. - -‘Oh, Crosby,’ says he, with sharp feeling, ‘it is good to give happiness -to others. It will stand to you all your life, and on your death-bed, -too. There, go to her. She is in the garden, you say.’ - -And there, indeed, she is, waiting for him. He finds her in the old -summer-house watching shyly for him from between the soft green -branches. And soon she is not only in the garden, but in his strong and -loving arms. - - - THE END - - - BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in - spelling. - 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. - 3. 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