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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76077 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+PROBATION
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  J. Collier, px.      C. O. Murray. Sc.
+
+ADRIENNE.]
+
+
+
+
+  PROBATION
+
+  A Novel
+
+  BY
+
+  JESSIE FOTHERGILL
+
+  AUTHOR OF ‘THE FIRST VIOLIN,’ ‘KITH AND KIN,’ ETC.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  A NEW EDITION
+
+  LONDON
+
+  RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON ST.
+
+  Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen
+
+  1887
+
+  _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+PRIDE AND PLENTY.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+OF AN ABSENTEE EMPLOYER.
+
+  ‘The perfection of mechanism, human and metallic.’
+
+
+You, at any rate, Lancashire reader, know this place; the large
+somewhat low room; the long lines of looms; the wheels, straps, and
+beams; the rows of standing work-people, men, women, and children;
+the dimness of the dust-laden atmosphere. You know, too, the roar of
+noise--how deafening, stunning, and overwhelming it is to the stranger
+who may happen casually to encounter it, yet how easily those in
+the habit of working in it can make themselves intelligible to one
+another. You know all this, and your accustomed eye recognises at once
+one division of the ‘weaving shed’ of a large cotton factory; which
+forms, with its perfect mechanism, the ‘metallic and the human,’ a most
+wonderful sight to any eyes but the too careless or the too accustomed.
+
+There is an air of calm, leisurely ease about the process which might
+be apt to lead the uninitiated astray, and make him suppose that not so
+much accuracy of eye, delicacy of manipulation, sensitiveness of touch,
+was required as is really the case. Which are the most alive--the
+girls in the cotton dresses, and the men in their fustian clothes,
+who move lightly to and fro, adjusting their work, keeping watch and
+ward over the flying shuttle; or that flying shuttle itself, which
+seems instinct with vitality, darting with vivid, almost oppressive,
+regularity of activity backwards and forwards--indulging sometimes in a
+malicious vagary, worthy of a human being, such as flying suddenly out
+from its groove, and perhaps striking its human fellow-worker a sharp
+blow on the forehead, or in the eye? It would be difficult to say--the
+definition at the head of the chapter forms also the best description
+of the whole--‘the perfection of mechanism, human and metallic.’
+
+It was during the afternoon hours of work; the day’s labour was drawing
+to a close; the great ceaseless roar and buzz and rush seemed to
+grow rhythmic, harmonious in its monotonous continuity; through the
+thick-ribbed panes of glass, distorted yellow sunbeams came streaming,
+golden, hazy, smoky, dusty, striking here and there upon the face of
+some laughing or languid girl; here into the eyes of some lad--an imp
+of mischief--or a youth of thoughtful and serious aspect.
+
+That was the head overlooker who came in, looked round, stopped the
+loom of one of the said laughing girls, fingered the cloth, remarked
+warningly, ‘Now, Sarah Alice! this won’t do! You must look out, or
+there’ll be some mischief;’ then passed on his round, stopping more
+looms; examining more cloth, and then went out of the room altogether.
+
+A steady progression, for a time, of the rhythmic toil, till the same
+door was again opened, and a young man, who also appeared to be a
+person of some authority, stepped in, and paused, note-book and pencil
+in hand. This was the second overlooker, a person who of necessity
+must possess considerable intelligence--being generally, as in this
+case, a working-man born and bred--some discrimination and tact also,
+since he fulfilled the duties, in some measure, both of a workman
+and a superior. In addition to his position as overlooker, he also
+performed the functions of what is known in factory parlance as ‘head
+cut-looker:’ and a cut-looker is a man who examines each piece or ‘cut’
+of cloth after it leaves the loom; notes the flaws, and deducts from
+the wages of the weaver in compensation for the same. Perhaps this
+‘cut-looking’ and over-looking may be like criticising--they may have
+a tendency to produce a turn of mind sceptical as to the merits of the
+work with which the cut-looker, or the critic, has to do. Incessant
+flaws, ‘scamped’ work, broken threads, ill-joined ends, an uneven weft,
+a rough warp--the parallel is certainly a striking one; and a long
+career of cut-looking, to say nothing of criticising, may tend to make
+the temper quick, and the tone just a little imperious.
+
+The individual whose occupation was something like criticism was a tall
+young man, dressed in grey clothes, which looked in some way cleaner,
+or better, or different from the clothes of the others, and a white
+linen jacket, which gave a cool and airy look to the whole costume,
+and was far from unbecoming to the spare, yet very strong, well-built
+figure, and to the dark, handsome, sharply cut face belonging to it.
+
+A right workmanlike figure. There was power and capacity--skilled
+power and capacity, too, in the supple, lissome figure, in the brown
+hands, long and slim, yet strong and muscular, which looked as if they
+were well-accustomed to do fine work, and to do it well. The loose
+linen jacket was by no means new, though clean; it bore here and there
+traces of having been mended, and sat in the easy creases and folds of
+a much-worn old friend, from whose shape no washing and starching can
+quite banish the accustomed outline, given by the wearer’s form. Above
+the collar of this jacket was a narrow line of grey waistcoat; then a
+white collar, and a narrow black tie. The whole costume was as pleasant
+and as becoming to look at as it was practical, fit, and workmanlike.
+
+The face was rather thin and rather square; the complexion pale. The
+eyes were very dark and very steady--at the moment very quiet, though
+with a touch of defiance in them which was habitual; the forehead broad
+and thoughtful--the level eyebrows had a trick of contracting sharply,
+which took away from the calmness which might have seemed at first the
+dominant characteristic of the ample brow. The nose was rather long and
+sharp--the mouth firm, and a little cross: the lips looked as if they
+would more readily tighten in irritation at the stupidity of others,
+than part in wonder or amaze at their cleverness--and their expression
+did not belie the truth. The whole face was more clearly cut, more
+decided in feature, more distinct in expression than the faces of
+many--nay, of most of his class in the same place. Perhaps it answered
+to a clearer mental outline--was the distinct objective side of a
+well-defined subjectivity. Be that as it may, the figure was a manly
+and a good one--the face no less so.
+
+This young man, holding his pencil suspended over his note-book, looked
+reflectively around the room, standing erect, though the wall was just
+behind him to lean upon. Walls to lean upon, moral or material, are
+irresistible to some people. His eyes fell upon the different workers
+as they moved hither and thither, adjusting their work, or stepping
+from one loom to another. Those eyes presently fell upon a young woman
+who was standing at the far end of the room, and whose face happened to
+be turned towards him. Her glance met his: they nodded and smiled to
+one another, and his smile flashed across his dark face with an effect
+which the smiles of fair faces and light eyes can never have.
+
+This young man’s name was Myles Heywood, and the scene of his labours
+was the factory of Sebastian Mallory, the largest mill and property
+owner but one in the town of Thanshope, in Lancashire. He was, then,
+clever, honest, proud to excess, and self-opinionated, though few
+people could help liking him, even when his opinions and prejudices,
+with both of which articles he was well provided, might rub against
+theirs. One thing deserves recording of him, which alone would have
+shown him to be somewhat aloof from his fellow-workmen--he had no
+nickname; and in that district, where often a man’s real name was
+quite hidden under a cloud of bynames and nicknames, this was at least
+peculiar.
+
+Myles Heywood, after spending a few moments looking down the shed,
+through the mist of cotton fluff which made the air dim and the lungs
+irritable, turned and went into a neighbouring room, where they were
+twisting--a monotonous task--the rapid twisting together of the ends of
+cotton of two warps, paid for at the rate of threepence per thousand
+ends--a fact which had caused our critic in the linen jacket much
+thought at different times.
+
+Out of this twisting-room into a large square yard or court, with the
+engine-house and its neighbouring boilers on one side; offices on
+another, and the great wall of the mill on the third. On the fourth, a
+blank wall and huge gates, at present standing open, and affording a
+glimpse into the dingy street.
+
+The engineer, this warm August afternoon, was standing in the full glow
+of the furnace: his face was black, and shone as if recently it had
+been anointed with oil. His arms were bare and sinewy, and they were
+black too. His shirt, whatever its original hue, was black now, and his
+other garments, reduced to as scanty a quantity as was compatible with
+decency, were black also with oil, and grease, and coal-dust. He paused
+to mop away a swarthy perspiration with a dingy-looking handkerchief,
+as Myles went by, looking clean and cool, and aggravatingly comfortable.
+
+‘Hey, Miles, lad, what time dost make it? I’m too hot to get my watch.’
+
+‘Ten to six,’ said Myles, looking at his watch.
+
+‘The Lord be praised!’ responded the engineer piously, ‘and send us a
+speedy deliverance. It’s as hot as hell here of a summer afternoon, and
+no jokin’. Hast had thi’ baggin?’[1]
+
+‘I don’t take baggin,’ said Myles, a little contemptuously, as he took
+his way to the office, where he found a man and a boy behind a desk,
+on which was a heap of gold, silver, and copper coins, and a number of
+books and papers. It was Friday afternoon--pay-day.
+
+‘Oh, you’re there, Myles,’ said the man. ‘You may take your wages now,
+if you like.’
+
+‘All right!’ said Myles, picking up two sovereigns from the heap of
+gold, and slipping them into his pocket. Then he twisted himself over
+the counter and seated himself on a high stool beside the desk.
+
+‘By your leave, I’ll just wait here till my lass comes, and then we’ll
+go home together.’
+
+Wilson, the head-overlooker and cashier, assented. Myles folded his
+arms before him, and began to whistle a tune to himself. It was the
+tune of the song, ‘Life let us cherish!’ and when Myles had nothing
+else to do, he generally did whistle it--unthinkingly, almost
+unconsciously. While he whistled he looked through the dingy panes of a
+small window upon a prospect as dingy as the panes.
+
+There was nothing but a short patch of grey-looking street, and over
+the way the multitudinous windows of a great foundry, from the back
+premises of which came loud sonorous clangs, as of metal striking
+against metal--a maddening and a deafening sound to ears unused to it,
+but which, from long habit, failed to disturb the workers in ‘Mallory’s
+Factory.’ It had become not exactly inaudible to them, but part of
+the day’s features--as clouds, or wind, or rain. They would, to use a
+Hibernicism, only have noticed it if it had left off.
+
+It still wanted some eight or nine minutes to the time when the bell
+would ring for ‘knocking off’ work, and that interval was used by those
+present to discuss with their tongues that with which their heads
+happened to be concerned, for the truth is, that out of the emptiness
+of the head, much oftener than out of the fulness of the heart, does
+the mouth speak.
+
+‘Hast heerd news, Myles?’ inquired the lad.
+
+The whistle ceased for a moment.
+
+‘What news?’
+
+‘We have heard say,’ said the other man, ‘as how he’s coming home.’
+
+‘Who?’
+
+Wilson pointed northwards, over his shoulder, with his thumb.
+
+‘Oh, him!’ said Myles, with again the touch of contempt which came a
+little too often to his voice. And he shrugged his shoulders--another
+gesture betraying his unlikeness in temper and temperament to those
+with whom he was surrounded.
+
+‘Ay, him!’
+
+‘Is it true?’ inquired Heywood.
+
+‘Don’t know. I’ve only heard say so.’
+
+‘_Who_ said so?’
+
+‘Why, I believe it were one of the men from the stables at Mrs.
+Mallory’s.’
+
+‘Servants’ gossip!’ said Myles, trenchantly, unsuccessfully trying to
+turn up his nose. ‘Never believe what they say. Flunkeys by trade, and
+liars by nature, the whole lot of ’em, or they wouldn’t be where they
+are.’
+
+‘I’m none so keen about believing everything that any one says to
+me,’ said Wilson, with a slightly offended air, ‘but this seems to me
+so uncommonly probable, with things in the state that they are. Why
+shouldn’t he come back?’
+
+‘Ay, why shouldn’t he?’ echoed Ben, the office boy, feeling a dawning
+sense of coming pleasure in the idea of having given Myles a poser.
+
+‘Why shouldn’t he?’ began Myles.
+
+‘That makes three times as it’s been said,’ observed Ben, with an
+intelligent smile. ‘Well?’
+
+‘Young one, keep your fingers out of the pie!’ said Myles, ‘and answer
+me this--why should he?’
+
+Crestfallen silence on the part of Wilson and Ben, till the former
+began rather feebly,
+
+‘Well, he’s been abroad for years and years, and when he’s a fine
+property like this awaiting for him to step into, as it were, and a
+fine house, and a fine mother----’
+
+‘Ha, ha!’ said Myles, and his laugh was by no means one of
+unsophisticated enjoyment.
+
+‘And with things in the state that they are,’ Wilson again repeated, as
+if much impressed with that state. ‘With these Yankees and Southerners
+at it like cat and dog, and cotton going up, and no prospect of any end
+to it yet. Mr. Sutcliffe said to me, he says, ‘Wilson, we don’t know
+what’s before us yet. If I’m not much mistaken,’ he says, ‘there’ll
+be a famine in the land before this time next year.’ And I say, if a
+master shouldn’t come home under those circumstances, when should he?’
+
+‘Should! Ought!’ repeated Heywood, in sarcastic tones; his scornful
+smile lighting his face and gleaming in his eyes. ‘What’s that to do
+with it? I’ll tell you why he couldn’t, and shouldn’t, and won’t come.’
+
+The others settled themselves more attentively in their positions to
+hear the riddle answered.
+
+‘Because he’s proud and lazy, and likes amusing himself better than
+working,’ said Myles, with a strong flavour of contempt and dislike in
+his voice. ‘Because the money’s there, and let who may have made it,
+choose how they’ve sweated for it, it’s got into his hands, whether he
+deserves it or not, and it’s his to do as he likes with--so he does
+what he likes with it. He’s got such a manager as there isn’t another
+like him in Lancashire. Mr. Sutcliffe can do anything; it’s he that has
+slaved and made this business what it is--the biggest in Thanshope,
+next to Spenceley’s. He’s got this manager, and if he chooses to think
+that he hasn’t got a duty in this mortal world, except to muddle his
+head with foreign politics, as I hear he does, and amuse himself by
+dancing attendance on a lot of fine ladies, and stroll about foreign
+countries, and stare himself blind up at pictures as big as the side of
+a house, and as black as my hat, and figures of men and women without
+any clothes on----’
+
+‘Lord!’ said Ben, awestruck and shocked.
+
+‘And go rambling about, admiring scenery, and wondering what to do with
+himself next--well, what is it to us?’
+
+As Wilson and Ben really did not see what it was to them, but had an
+uncomfortable sensation that their hitherto revered and honoured Mr.
+Sutcliffe was in some way a wronged and slighted individual, and that
+they ought to feel it all to be a great deal to them, and a subject of
+soreness and offence, they waited humbly for the keynote, nodding their
+heads, and trying to look wise.
+
+‘It’s true,’ went on Myles, more warmly--‘it’s true, he’s got this big
+business here, which makes his money, and hundreds of hands who work
+for him, and who are, so to speak, under his care; and it’s true that
+some people--old-fashioned idiots, of course--might think that a big
+property has its duties as well as its pleasures, and that a capitalist
+has, or ought to have, something else to do than take and spend his
+money, and never inquire how he got it, nor what state the machine is
+in that made it for him; but what is that to us? If we’re going to
+have a famine in the land, it would be unpleasant for a person not
+accustomed to this kind of thing--all the more reason for him to keep
+away. My lord likes the company of lords and ladies, and he thinks
+Thanshope is only fit for tradespeople.’
+
+‘I bet he’s ne’er seen nowt finer nor the new town-hall, choose where
+he may have been!’ said Ben, aggressively.
+
+‘And,’ went on Myles, whose mouth had grown very cross indeed, and
+whose eyebrows met in a straight line across his frowning brow, ‘he’s a
+_Tory_--a Tory; if I’d said that at first, I shouldn’t have needed to
+say all the rest. A Tory, in these times, and in Thanshope!’
+
+Wilson and Ben laughed, but not quite a whole-hearted laugh. A
+Tory--every species of Conservative--was a poor thing, was the general
+Thanshope opinion, but they had always thought of Tories more as
+harmless old women, or vulgar ‘risen’ men, like Mr. Spenceley, than as
+anything so actively mischievous and to be eschewed as their absentee
+employer, Sebastian Mallory.
+
+‘He’s ashamed of the place, and the people, and the business that has
+made him what he is. And that’s why he won’t come back.’
+
+‘I say, Myles, who told you all this?’ inquired Wilson, deferentially.
+
+‘That I’m not at liberty to say; but not one of the men from the
+stables, old lad,’ said Myles. ‘But my authority is a good one, and
+it’s what I’ve suspected for years. I’ve heard of his doings. He goes
+about with parsons. He’s trying all he can to shake himself free of
+trade. He’ll try to do it by marrying a lord’s daughter--that’s what
+these shoddy Conservatives always do--she’ll spend his money for him,
+and if he says anything, she’ll tell him it smells of cotton, and she
+wants to get rid of it.’
+
+‘Nay, nay, now!’ interrupted Ben, with feeling.
+
+‘But she will,’ said Myles, looking as angry as if the fair and
+contemptuous aristocrat stood in person before them. ‘I know. Don’t we
+all know what happened to Jack Brierley’s lad, and how----’
+
+Clang, clang, clang! went the great bell in the courtyard. It was two
+minutes past six. Wilson raised himself rapidly from his recumbent
+attitude, and began to turn over his papers, calling Ben to his side
+to help him. The discussion as to the merits or demerits of Sebastian
+Mallory, who certainly formed a striking instance of the theory that
+_les absents ont toujours tort_, was over; soon the office was filled
+with a pushing, elbowing crowd, waiting more or less impatiently to
+receive the hire of their week’s labour.
+
+Myles sat upon his high stool in the background, and watched,
+while Wilson and his assistant paid out the wages. It was rather
+a dingy-looking crowd that he saw, and was apparent to nose, as
+well as to eye, by the unmistakable odour of oil and fluff which
+emanated from it. Bare-armed girls with long, greasy pinafores, loud
+voices, and ungainly gestures, elbowing their way through the lads,
+and exchanging with them chaff of the roughest description. Small,
+pale, stunted-looking men; sometimes downright hideously ugly and
+mean-looking, or again, only sallow, pale, and subdued by a sedentary
+occupation, with here and there a tremendous massive brow; here and
+there a pair of eyes so deep and glowing as to cause a shock and thrill
+to one who encountered them; here a mouth of poetical delicacy and
+sensitiveness; there a jaw so strong and heavy, that, comparing it with
+the eyes, brows, and mouths before spoken of, one no longer felt cause
+for surprise in hearing such aphorisms as ‘Manchester rules England,’
+‘What Lancashire thinks to-day, England thinks to-morrow.’ It was,
+taken all in all, an ugly crowd, but in its way a commanding one. It
+might have moved the soul of a ‘Corn-Law Rhymer,’ a Gerald Massey, a
+‘Lancashire Lad;’ it would probably have been repulsive to more refined
+bards and writers, and the poet of the brush and canvas would have
+found absolutely nothing here with which to gladden his eye.
+
+Myles, a striking exception to almost every one of the men in point
+of good looks and fine physical development, if not in point of
+intelligent expression, sat upon his stool; and his monotonous whistle
+continued as he scanned the faces, and returned a nod here and there.
+Many a girl looked at him, and smiled her brightest as she caught his
+grave eyes.
+
+He was not quite like the other workmen in more things than beauty,
+and a somewhat higher position, and none knew that better than the
+workwomen. The smiles and amiable looks provoked little answer. Myles
+was not rude to girls; he never chaffed them in the rough manner of
+some of his fellow-workmen; but, on the other hand, he very seldom took
+any notice of them at all, having very little to say to any young woman
+out of his own family.
+
+They passed before him in varied array; ugly, and pretty, and mediocre;
+fair girls and dark girls, stout girls and thin ones, tall and short,
+stupid and intelligent-looking. Here and there a pale, pensive face,
+with a head of flaxen hair, and long, delicate, Madonna-like features;
+now a brunette, with high complexion, and flashing black eyes, that
+showed the brighter under the thick white powdering of cotton fluff
+with which her head was covered; _piquante_ and placid, merry and
+melancholy; but not for one in all the crowd did his cheek flush in
+the least, not once did the calm indifference in his eyes change, nor
+did his low, careless whistle cease for an instant. He stared over or
+between their heads, or--which was the most irritating of all--right at
+them, without once noticing them, until a girl, somewhat taller than
+the majority of her companions, came in, and stood waiting with a group
+of others near the door, until her turn should come to go up for her
+wages.
+
+Then Myles stopped whistling, and got off his stool, remarking, half
+to himself, ‘There’s Mary, at last!’ and applied to Wilson for the sum
+of eighteen shillings, that being the amount of his sister’s wages. He
+received the money, and made his way through the crowd towards the door.
+
+‘Eh, Myles, art there?’ said the young woman. ‘Wait of me a minute,
+while I get my wages.’
+
+‘They’re here,’ said he, putting the money into her hand. ‘So come
+along, lass! Let’s get out of this shop.’
+
+They passed out at the door, and walked together down the sloping
+street--a tall and well-looking pair. It was very seldom, indeed, that
+Myles Heywood and his sister Mary failed to walk home from their work
+together.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] ‘Baggin’ is not only lunch, but any accidental meal coming
+between two regular ones.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+BEFORE THE STORM.
+
+  ‘And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for
+  many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.’
+
+
+It was August of the year 1861--the year succeeding that which might
+almost be called the apotheosis of the cotton trade. The goods of
+Lancashire were piled in every port; her merchants were a byword
+for riches and prosperity. ‘Cotton lords’--the aristocracy of the
+land--that grimy, smutty, dingy, golden land, whose sceptre was swayed
+by King Cotton.
+
+Day after day the goodly ships had borne their load across the
+Atlantic, from New Orleans and the other cotton ports; day after day
+those Liverpool cotton lords had received that load upon their docks,
+and those Manchester cotton lords had bartered with them and bought
+it; and it had been borne slowly along, piled up on great lorries, or
+it had been whirled along the iron road, and unloaded, and carried to
+a thousand factories in Manchester, and Bolton, and Oldham--the giant
+consumers; in Rochdale, and Bury, and Burnley; Blackburn and Wigan, and
+Ashton and Stockport; to the great, young, growing towns; to strange
+moorland villages, younger sisters of the towns; and there thickset
+spikes had whirled it about, and combs had smoothed it out; revolving
+spindles had spun it into the thickest or the most fairy threads; rows
+and rows of shining looms had received it, and woven it into every
+conceivable variety of texture and colour, and breadth, and length,
+and pattern. Skilled workmen and workwomen, deft-handed, lissome,
+soft-fingered craftsmen and craftswomen had stood by their wooden and
+metal fellow-workers, and fed their untiring jaws; then it had gone to
+the white-looking warehouses, to be piled in great masses, like little
+mountains for height and solidity, and from thence removed to ships
+again, and borne over the seas to India, and China, and America, and to
+every town in Europe where men and women needed clothing and had money
+to buy it.
+
+The glory of King Cotton at this period of his reign, and the splendour
+of him, cannot be better summed up than in the graphic words of one who
+has thought and written on that great subject:--
+
+‘The dreary totals which Mr. Gladstone’s eloquence illuminates, and
+the rolling numerals of the National Debt, become almost insignificant
+beside the figures which this statement (the statistics of the cotton
+trade) involves. Arithmetic itself grows dizzy as it approaches the
+returns of the cotton trade for 1860. One hundred years back, and the
+cotton manufactures of England had been valued at £200,000 a year.
+Had not French, American, and Russian wars--had not railways and
+telegraphs, had their part and lot in this century, surely it would be
+known as the Cotton Age. This year, 1860, was the _annus mirabilis_ of
+King Cotton. In this year his dependents were most numerous and his
+throne most wide. There was no Daniel at hand to interpret to him the
+handwriting on the wall, which within twelve months should be read by
+all who ran, in letters of blood. What cared he? An argosy of ships
+bore him across every sea and into every port. He listened to the
+humming of his spindles and to the rattle of his looms; he drank of the
+fulness of his power and was satisfied, for he was great--yes, very
+great.... The total value of their (the manufacturers’) exports for the
+year amounted to £52,012,380. If figures can ever be magnificent--if
+naked totals ever reach to the sublime--surely the British cotton trade
+for the year 1860 claims our admiration. Its production for this
+single year equalled in value £76,012,380, or nearly six millions more
+than the gross revenue of the kingdom for the same period.’
+
+Surely the land which was the chief home of this monster trade deserved
+the title of ‘The Land of Plenty,’ and such it was--‘a goodly land,’
+in fact, if not in outward show, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey,’
+or at least their modern English equivalents--a land where wealth was
+profuse--where masters and men vied with each other in pride of bearing
+and dogged independence of spirit. Such was that rough, dark land at
+the end of 1860; such it was still at the end of August 1861; what
+it was in August 1862 only those know who dwelt in it, and saw its
+thousands of perishing children, and noted their stoic endurance of
+their sufferings.
+
+Even now, even in this month of August 1861, rumours were gaining
+ground that the war in America would not soon be over. The price
+of cotton was beginning to go up; the days were hastening towards
+that month of October when prices sprang up, mounting daily higher
+and higher, and factories began to close--not in ones and twos as
+heretofore, not to run short time, or half-time, or even quarter-time,
+but to close bodily, in dozens and scores, with no prospect of their
+opening again for an indefinite period of want and woe. It was a vast,
+dark, pitiless cloud, that which was even now rolling up from the West,
+bearing in its huge womb lamentation, and mourning, and woe.
+
+But still Lancashire was the land of plenty and of hospitality; still
+her generous fires burnt merrily upon her ample hearths, making the
+stranger forget her murky skies, and the smoke-dimmed countenance
+of her landscapes. Her work-people still got the largest wages,
+her masters still made the greatest fortunes of any masters and
+work-people, taken collectively, in England; and nothing was said about
+the over-production of the last plethoric year, nor of the piled-up
+goods in the overstocked warehouses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+RIFTS WITHIN THE LUTE.
+
+
+The brother and sister walked together down the sloping street already
+mentioned, and which was, as usual at that time, full of work-people,
+streaming out of the numberless factories which formed the staple of
+Thanshope buildings. Arms were swinging, and clogs were clattering;
+tongues were wagging furiously in the reaction of the release
+from work, and the inhalation of the air, which, though close and
+thunderous, was yet fresher than that in the great hot factories.
+
+Thanshope was built on a situation with considerable claims to natural
+beauty, and there were days, even now, when it looked beautiful. Its
+streets all climbed up and down steep hills. Whenever the day or the
+smoke was clear enough, hills might be seen surrounding it on all sides
+in the distance, except to the south, where Manchester lay.
+
+There was a river--the river Thanse--running through the town,
+which unfortunate stream formed a fertile source of bickering and
+heart-burning amongst the members of the town-council, the medical men,
+and the people who write to the newspapers: one party of them contended
+that there was nothing the matter with the river Thanse, it was a good
+and wholesome stream, which purified the town; while the other party
+said that it and its unspeakable uncleanness were at the root of all
+the ills that Thanshope flesh suffered from.
+
+Altogether, the verdict of a stranger would most likely have been that
+Thanshope was a dim, unlovely, smoky place, in which no one would
+choose to live whose business did not oblige him to do so--a place
+where substantial dirt was the co-operator of substantial prosperity,
+where grime and plenty went hand in hand.
+
+Yet there were people who loved this dirty town, and who lived
+contented lives in it--people not belonging to the great swarm of
+workers who were obliged to live there, and who, perhaps, thought more
+about the rate of wages than about the æsthetic condition of their
+surroundings.
+
+Myles and Mary Heywood, having come to the end of the sloping street,
+turned a corner to the left, and soon found themselves in another
+street, quieter, wider, with terraces of small houses on either side,
+whose monotony was diversified by various chapels, meeting-houses, and
+schools. Uphill for a short distance, till the street grew wider and
+the houses better, and Myles and Mary, turning down a side street to
+the right, emerged upon one side of a wide, open, square space, called
+Townfield, or the Townfield, and elevated so high that the rest of the
+town lay below them as in a basin. All along that side of the Townfield
+where they stood was a row of neat, small houses, each exactly like all
+the others; the only room for the individuality of the owners making
+itself apparent being in the arrangement of the little strip of garden
+spreading before each.
+
+Half the Townfield had been cut off, a couple of years ago, to furnish
+a small park or pleasure-ground; but looking across the open space to
+the north-west, they could see the old part of the town in its hollow;
+the old church of the parish on ground almost as high as the Townfield
+itself; the gilded spire of the town-hall rising ambitiously from the
+hollow (it chimed a quarter after six with mellow tone as they stood
+there), and all the other churches and chapels and public buildings
+strewn here and there about the town. A great cloud of smoke came
+up and dimmed the air; on every side was a fringe of long chimneys;
+different big factories were familiar features in the landscape, and
+formed landmarks to Mary and her brother--had formed landmarks to them
+from infancy.
+
+Away to the north-west were undulating lines of blue, lofty moors. They
+were part of Blackrigg--that mighty joint of England’s irregular spine.
+It was not exactly an enlivening prospect, but it had certain beauties
+of its own; and at least this town, full of rough, busy toilers, had a
+fitting and harmonious frame in that semicircle of bleak and treeless
+moors.
+
+Mary and Myles went up one of the strips of garden about the middle of
+the terrace, and opened the door of the house.
+
+‘Pah! how hot and close it feels!’ said Myles, as they closed
+themselves in. ‘Now I wonder how that lad is!’
+
+They went along a little passage, to the left of which was the
+‘parlour,’ arranged in the approved style of such parlours, with a
+brilliant, large-patterned carpet in red, yellow, and blue; bright
+green merino curtains, a ‘drawing-room suite’ in rosewood and crimson
+rep, a pink cloth upon the centre table, upon which were negligently
+arranged albums, Sunday books, paper mats, and a glass shade, under
+which reposed waxen apples and grapes of a corpulent description.
+On the mantelpiece, two green glass vases, and a china greyhound of
+an unknown variety, more frilled paper mats, and little piles of
+spar and crystal. On the walls, photographs and a rich collection of
+framed funeral cards, together with the _chef-d’œuvre_ of the whole
+establishment--a work of art which Mary regarded with feelings little
+short of veneration--‘Joseph sold by his Brethren,’ executed in Berlin
+wools, the merchants all squinting frightfully, and Joseph with a
+salmon-coloured back and a decidedly ruddy countenance, though one
+not of such remarkable beauty as quite to account for his subsequent
+adventures.
+
+Past the door leading into this epitome of art and beauty went these
+young people, into the kitchen, which was, of course, the general
+living-room of the family. Upon a couch beneath the window, with the
+crinkling of the cinders and the ticking of the clock for his only
+companions, lay the failure of his family--a cripple lad of eighteen.
+
+‘Well, Ned, lad, how dost find thyself?’ asked Myles, going in.
+
+‘I find myself as usual--wishing I was dead,’ was the encouraging
+reply, as the lad turned a pale and sallow face, not without
+considerable beauty of feature, but stamped with a look of ill-health,
+pain, and something deeper and more sorrowful than either, towards the
+strong, handsome brother who stooped over him.
+
+‘Nay, come! Not quite so bad as that,’ said Myles, smoothing Edmund’s
+hair from his hot forehead, and seating himself beside the couch. He
+looked into his cripple brother’s eyes with a glance so full of life,
+and hope, and strong, protecting kindness, and withal so contagious a
+smile, that an answering, if a reluctant one, was wrung from the lad’s
+dull eyes and down-drawn mouth.
+
+‘I’m that thirsty!’ he said. ‘Molly, do get the tea ready.’
+
+‘I’m shappin’’ (shaping) ‘to’t now, lad,’ she returned, hanging up her
+cotton kerchief and poking the fire to settle the kettle upon it.
+
+‘And you read a bit, Myles, wilta?’ pursued Edmund. ‘Mother won’t be
+home for half an hour, and I could like to know how yon Lady Angiolina
+got on at the castle.’
+
+Myles took up a book from a table and began to read aloud:
+
+‘“As the groom of the chambers announced the Lady Angiolina
+Fitzmaurice, every eye turned towards her. She advanced with the step
+of a queen. Her trailing robe of black velvet set off her superb beauty
+to the utmost advantage,”’ and so forth.
+
+Edmund listened with face intent and a pleased half-smile upon his
+lips. Mary moved noiselessly about, getting the tea-cups out of the
+cupboard and setting them on the tray with gingerly hand, so as not to
+disturb the literary party in the window.
+
+The reading was continued only for the space of some quarter of an
+hour. The story was a novel of ‘high life.’ No agent in it was of lower
+rank than a baronet; no menial less distinguished than a groom of the
+chambers or a majordomo was permitted to appear in its truly select and
+exclusive pages; the action took place in Mayfair, in Belgravia, and
+in the ancestral halls of dukes and earls. Manchester was alluded to
+by the refined author much as if it had been of about equal importance
+with Timbuctoo; the whole a very tawdry tinsel, pasted together in a
+very poor, second-rate manner.
+
+Myles read on and Edmund listened. Perhaps he was aware that the story
+was rubbish, but it took him into a world which by contrast with his
+own was beautiful: it spoke of something else than the Townfield as
+a pleasure-ground, grey factories, smoke and chimneys by way of a
+prospect. It pointed out another sort of existence than that led by
+him and his.
+
+Edmund had an intensely poetic temperament. Poetry of some sort, in
+real life or in books, he must have or die. It was not forthcoming in
+real life: Myles never read novels for his own pleasure, therefore
+Edmund had no beneficent hand to point out to him the shining treasures
+of real poetry with which our English literature abounds, so he had to
+rely on the titles in the catalogue of the Thanshope Free Library, and
+often received a stone instead of bread, in the shape of such jingling
+nonsense as he was greedily listening to just now.
+
+Myles was a great reader of politics and science. The romantic
+and poetic side of his nature had been left to itself; the soil,
+whether sterile or fruitful, had never received the least touch of
+cultivation--yet. He had some strong convictions on the subject of
+ethics, which will be best left undescribed, to display their results
+in his actions as circumstances put his theories to the test.
+
+There was something striking and uncommon in the appearance of all
+three of this group of brothers and sister. Mary was comely--a tall,
+well-formed, well-grown young woman, with the pale but clear and
+healthy complexion, dark eyes and hair of her elder brother--a calm,
+sensible face, not destitute of a certain still, regular beauty, but
+lacking the impetuousness and intensity of Myles’s expression. She sat
+knitting a long grey woollen stocking, and looked with a large steady
+gaze now at Myles, now at Edmund, whose face was equally sharp cut as
+his brother’s, but worn and drawn with pain and ill-health.
+
+Edmund was nineteen; Mary, two-and-twenty; Myles, six-and-twenty;
+another, born between them, had died an infant.
+
+At this juncture the back door was heard to open. Some one entered, and
+in the pause made by Myles in his reading there was distinctly audible
+a heavy sigh--almost a groan. Glances were exchanged between Myles and
+Mary; both looked as if they braced themselves to meet some ordeal.
+Edmund’s face darkened visibly.
+
+‘Is that you, mother?’ called out Mary cheerfully.
+
+‘Ay, it’s me!’ replied a rather grating voice--a voice high, though not
+loud, and complaining in the midst of an ostentatious resignation.
+
+‘Go on, Myles!’ said Edmund, in an undertone.
+
+‘Can’t, my lad. You know mother can’t abide it.’
+
+‘Why am I never to have a bit o’ pleasure? It’s precious little as
+I get,’ grumbled the lad, as he turned away, and lay with his face
+concealed.
+
+‘See, lad! Tak’ the book, and read for thysel’,’ said Myles, who
+indulged in a tolerably broad dialect when in the bosom of his family.
+
+Edmund shrugged his shoulders irritably and made a gesture of aversion.
+Myles closed the book, rising from the side of the couch and going
+to the table, as a woman came in from the back kitchen--a small,
+sharp-featured woman, comely yet, with a bright cheek and a dark eye.
+She was the mother of all those tall children, though she was only
+five-and-forty, having been married, as too many of her class do marry,
+at eighteen. The great wonder was that she had remained a widow so
+long, for in addition to good looks, clever fingers, and a stirring
+disposition, she possessed property to the extent of thirty pounds per
+annum left by a rich relation to her years ago.
+
+An ignorant observer, looking at the family party just now, would have
+said what a good-looking, prosperous, well-to-do party they were. But
+Mrs. Heywood had scarcely spoken yet.
+
+‘Evenin’, mother,’ said her eldest son, civilly, but, it must be owned,
+hardly cordially.
+
+‘Good evenin’,’ she returned, in her high-pitched, dubious voice.
+‘What! you’ve managed to get th’ tea ready, lass? But I know what that
+means. Just twice as much tea in the pot as we’ve any need for, or as I
+should ‘a put in mysel’. Waste, waste, on every side!’
+
+As this was Mrs. Heywood’s invariable remark when she came in from her
+occasional day’s sewing at one of the large houses of the neighbourhood
+and found the tea prepared, it excited neither comment nor indignation,
+and the excellent woman, seating herself, cast a sharp, discontented
+look around, as if wishing that some one would give her an opportunity
+of saying something disagreeable.
+
+‘Eh, bi’ the mass! It is some and hot! If some folks had to walk as far
+as me, mayhap they’d understand what I feel at this moment.’
+
+Again no answer. Myles was buttering a piece of bread. His eyebrows
+were contracted again. The serpent in that Eden was the contentious
+woman. Myles never answered her complaints, on principle, for fear of
+saying something outrageous and unbecoming, but it was often with a
+sore struggle that he abstained: he did not want to become a household
+bully, or he knew--he had found it out by accident one day--that a
+certain look and tone of his could quell Mrs. Heywood’s temper in one
+minute. He was very much afraid of using it too frequently, though
+often sorely provoked. ‘Such people as Sebastian Mallory,’ he reflected
+(whose mother was said to live for him and his happiness), ‘were
+not obliged to stay in one room, listening to maddening complaints,
+like the continual dropping of a rainy day, with no alternative but
+solitude, silence, or the taproom.’
+
+Edmund’s shoulders were drawn up to his ears, and his back expressed
+distinctly that he felt himself jarred and grated in every fibre of his
+being.
+
+‘Now, then, Edmund,’ said his mother, in her thin, penetrating voice;
+‘art comin’ to the table, or mun thou have thy tea carried to thee, to
+drink on th’ sofa, like a lady, eh?’
+
+Answering to this appeal, he raised himself, his face darkened, his
+lips quivering with anger.
+
+‘That’s right!’ said he, bitterly. ‘Do insult me a little more! It’s so
+nice to be ill, and so pleasant to spend your days by yourself upon a
+sofa in a kitchen. I’m likely to keep it up as long as ever I can. So
+would you if once you knew how agreeable it was.’
+
+He had supported himself by means of a stick to the table; and as he
+limped along to the chair which Mary had placed for him, one could
+see how much deformed he was, and how clumsily he moved. No look of
+pity warmed the woman’s face as she saw him. He was not, like many a
+weakly or deformed child, the object of the mother’s divinest love and
+tenderest care. He had been born three months after his father’s sudden
+death. Mrs. Heywood had never been noted for enthusiastic devotion to
+any of her children, or to her husband, or, indeed, to any one but
+herself and her own interest. Myles could influence her; but she seemed
+to have a positive aversion to Edmund, who used to say that his real
+mother was Mary.
+
+When the meal was over, there was a little movement. Edmund looked
+wistfully towards Myles and the book; but Myles did not offer to resume
+it. He had begun to think over that conversation in the office before
+pay-time, and was wondering whether it could be really true that
+Sebastian Mallory meant to return.
+
+Sebastian Mallory was, and had been for years, his _bete noire_. He had
+seen him once, ten years ago, a handsome, fair-faced, ‘yellow-haired
+laddie’ of sixteen, who had come to look round his own works, with a
+somewhat listless gaze. Myles’s vigorous soul had been filled with
+contempt for him at that moment, and he had never seen fit to alter
+that feeling. All he heard of Sebastian Mallory was exactly contrary
+to his ideas of what a _man_--unless the man were some irresponsible
+person, with neither business nor estate in the background--ought to
+be and do. He had a very strong sense of duty himself, and never, so
+far as he knew, left a duty unperformed. He struggled hard, according
+to his light, to do what was right; consequently he felt himself in
+a position to be somewhat censorious upon those who, he considered,
+obviously did not fulfil their duties--duties to their property,
+their dependents, their privileges, to him--such persons as this very
+Sebastian Mallory. Therefore he smiled somewhat grimly to himself as
+he imagined that lily-handed, yellow-haired, delicate-looking young
+man coming to take his place at the head of affairs at such a crisis
+as was striding towards Lancashire--a storm which it would take the
+keenest heads, the strongest hands, the most practised eyes of the
+wariest business men who should succeed in weathering it. Probably Mr.
+Sebastian Mallory, if he did come, would cut a sorry spectacle, and
+would soon be glad to retire again to more congenial scenes abroad.
+
+He did not feel it his duty to excite Mrs. Heywood’s disagreeable
+remarks by reading aloud what he justly considered ‘balderdash’ to
+Edmund; he therefore suggested that they should go and take a turn on
+the Townfield.
+
+Edmund, who for some reason was in a more unhappy temper than usual,
+shrugged his shoulders, and said he did not feel inclined to go out.
+
+‘No? Then I must go by myself, I suppose,’ said Myles.
+
+But he made no immediate effort to leave the house. He seated himself
+at the table with a book, and might possibly have remained in the
+house, but for his mother, who having ascertained that his book was
+entitled ‘The History of Rationalism,’ announced that the bitterest
+grief of her declining years consisted in having to see a son of hers
+growing up an infidel, or worse. She hunted under the Family Bible,
+and produced a tract, which she offered him in lieu of the work he was
+reading. It bore the alluring title, ‘Thou also, Worm!’ And on his
+refusing this tit-bit of religious badinage, she put it aside with a
+bitter smile, and an audibly expressed hope that it might not in the
+future go too hardly with those who had spurned the means of grace
+proffered by a mother’s hand.
+
+Myles endured these, and a succession of similar remarks, for some
+little time, while he appeared to go on with his book without
+heeding them; but, as none knew better than she who made them, the
+contracted eyebrows and the impatient twisting of his moustache covered
+considerable inward irritation. He at last abruptly rose, and took his
+cap from the nail on which it hung.
+
+‘Out again!’ said Mrs. Heywood, in the same maddening voice; ‘and if a
+mother may ask, what pothouse are you going to now?’
+
+‘No thanks to you, mother, that I’ve not taken to the pothouse long
+ago,’ replied the young man curtly, slapping his hat upon his head and
+leaving the room.
+
+‘If he doesn’t break that door off its hinges some fine day, in one
+of his tempers, my name’s not Sarah Ann Heywood,’ remarked his mother.
+‘It’s a grievous thing to have an ungovernable temper. His Bible, if he
+ever read it, would tell him that the tongue is a little member, but a
+consuming fire.’
+
+‘The Bible never said a truer word,’ retorted Edmund, witheringly; and
+Mrs. Heywood, returning to her knitting, with the pleasant sense of
+having driven out the strongest, sank into silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ADRIENNE.
+
+    ‘I love my lady; she is very fair;
+    Her brow is wan, and bound by simple hair:
+    Her spirit sits aloof, and high,
+    But glances from her tender eye,
+        In sweetness droopingly.’
+
+
+Myles left the house, and, traversing some sideways, found himself
+presently in a steep, hilly street, which he descended, arriving at
+last at a sort of square, through the middle of which ran the river
+Thanse, and on both sides of which were rows of shops. Then, walking on
+a hundred yards or so, he emerged in another still larger open space,
+opposite a large and beautiful building, which, in its delicate and
+multiform Gothic tracery, and noble dimensions, with the springing
+gilded spire leaping aloft at last, offered a startling contrast to its
+sordid surroundings--the shabby, low houses, narrow streets, and grimy
+factories which crowded round, as near as they dared. The river here
+made a bend, and passed the front of the town-hall. A kind of boulevard
+had been made, planted with trees, and immediately across the river,
+fronting the town-hall, was a house standing in a garden, divided by
+the river from the road. It was a fine old house of red brick, which
+had no doubt originally been ‘in the country.’ There was a look of
+stateliness and substance about it--the brick was relieved by handsome
+stone mullions, copings, and chimney-stacks.
+
+The trees had been stunted by smoke, but they lived yet. Much ivy,
+strong and tenacious from advanced age, clung about it. The grounds
+were thoroughly well kept. The parterres were blazing with the
+passionate, glowing colours of late summer flowers; the windows were
+glazed with sheets of plate-glass. Here and there a bow had been thrown
+out. Behind were extensive stables and outhouses. It was, though dingy,
+and miscellaneous in architecture, a fine, imposing old mansion; it
+instantly caught the stranger’s eye, and was known from infancy to
+every inhabitant of Thanshope as well as the old church on the hill
+behind the town-hall, or as the great co-operative stores on another
+hill at the other side of the town.
+
+To-night Myles looked more earnestly than usual at this old house. It
+was called ‘The Oakenrod,’ and was the property of Sebastian Mallory,
+tenanted during his absence by that stately dame, his mother.
+
+‘There it is!’ said Myles within himself. ‘Cumbering the ground--kept
+like a palace for a fellow who doesn’t care two straws for it!’
+
+Again he shrugged his shoulders, and turned somewhat abruptly to the
+left, making for one of the side doors of the town-hall. He went in,
+and ran up a great many flights of stone steps, past corridors and
+branching passages, till he could go no higher, for the excellent
+reason that he was at the top of the building. Pushing open the glass
+door, which swung to behind him, Myles found himself in the holy of
+holies--the library. A door to the right led into the reading-room, and
+thither he directed his steps. It was a large, lofty, handsome room,
+with many tables and chairs, and plenty of pens, ink, newspapers, and
+periodicals scattered about. When Myles entered, the room was almost
+empty. One or two men were reading newspapers, and at one table in a
+window sat a girl, who had a great book open before her, but whose eyes
+were at the moment intently fixed upon the old house, the Oakenrod,
+which lay directly beneath.
+
+Myles, searching about, found a number of the _Westminster Review_, and
+took it to his accustomed place, at the table next to that where the
+girl sat. He noticed no one to right or to left of him--not even her
+who was almost the only lady visitor who ever entered the reading-room.
+
+She was already a familiar figure to his eyes. For some months past
+he had seen her nearly every evening, sitting at the same table, even
+at the same side of that table, with a book--generally some large and
+weighty volume--open before her, and a small thick note-book, in which
+she wrote extracts or abstracts of what she read.
+
+Myles knew quite well the tall, slim figure, the two dresses which she
+alternately wore--one a soft, flowing black one--another, soft and
+flowing too, of a blue so dark as to be nearly black. He knew that the
+lines of her dresses flowed gracefully, and were agreeable to the eye.
+He knew, too, the little black _fichu_ which she usually wore--a sort
+of apology for a mantle, which she never discarded on the hottest days;
+the modestly shaped white straw hat, with its carefully preserved black
+lace scarf, and bunch of daisies at one side, which hat she always
+ended in taking off after she had sat there ten minutes or so. She had
+a pale, clear, fair complexion, bright, warm chestnut hair, and a face
+which, not conventionally beautiful in outline, was full to overflowing
+of the subtler, more bewitching charm of a beautiful spirit. It--her
+face--had a youthful softness of outline--not full, but not thin, with
+a charming rounded chin, melting into the full white throat; a mouth
+whose lines attracted irresistibly, so good, so spiritual were their
+curves; an insignificant but well-cut nose; a pair of large, luminous,
+expressive eyes, which in some favourable lights might appear grey, but
+which an impartial observer must inevitably have confessed had a shade
+of green in them.
+
+Myles and this young lady had sat at neighbouring tables in the public
+reading-room almost every evening throughout the spring and summer
+months of that year. Whenever Myles came into the room he had found the
+young lady there; he could not, of course, tell whether she came when
+he was not there.
+
+Conversation in the reading-room was against the rules; but
+‘conversation’ is an abstract noun of considerable indefiniteness, and
+one to which different minds may attach different meanings. A few words
+exchanged, of greeting or courtesy, could scarcely have come under the
+head of ‘conversation,’ or if it did, the rules were infringed every
+day. A little remark, as one passed the paper to the other--fifty
+little things might have been said (and were said by some frequenters
+of the room) without in the least disturbing the peace of the studious.
+
+But between Myles and his neighbour those words had never been spoken.
+They had never exchanged a syllable--Myles because of a certain
+British-workmanlike shyness, and a general sense that she belonged,
+despite the simplicity of her appearance, manner, and attire, to the
+class of ‘fine ladies’ whom he disliked and distrusted--the class which
+was typified for him in the person of Mrs. Mallory of the Oakenrod--and
+of whom he had the idea that they were silly, pretty, useless,
+expensive things, good for nothing but to spend a man’s money, and make
+him miserable with their tricks and antics--and break his heart if he
+were fool enough to give it into their keeping--incapable of taking any
+part in the serious things of life. That was his opinion of ‘ladies.’
+For the women of his own class he had a hearty respect and admiration:
+they could earn wages; they could work; they did not meddle with things
+out of their sphere; they had a distinct use and purpose; he never
+uttered an ill word to or of any one of them.
+
+He had never spoken to his neighbour, because he was shy, and did not
+know how to begin a conversation; but he would have scorned to own it:
+he would have said, ‘Speak to her? Why should I speak to her? I’ve
+nothing that I want to say to her.’
+
+Which would have been untrue; for there was such intelligence, such
+sympathy in her face, that he many a time caught himself, on reading
+any striking passage, wondering what she would think of it if she had
+read it.
+
+She had never spoken to him--because--why--because--well, what did
+it matter? possibly because she was a little more sensible than most
+girls, and felt no wish to speak unless she had something to say.
+
+They met without sign of recognition. He would take his place--she
+hers; she always had some book under her arm, for which she had stopped
+to ask the librarian on her way in, and they would often pass a couple
+of hours thus almost without a word or a look. She read earnestly
+and hard--not as if she read for pleasure, but for work--with a
+purpose. Privately, Myles was mighty puzzled to know what she could
+be reading, or rather, with what object she read what she did. Once
+he had been quite excited (silently) to see her poring over a musical
+score; reading it as if it were a book. One of the specialities of the
+Thanshope Free Library was its musical department, which was richly
+stocked both in scores and in treatises on music and musicians.
+
+During the summer the room was generally nearly empty. The people were
+otherwise employed, so that often not more than half a dozen readers
+were to be found in all the large, airy room--sometimes Myles and the
+studious, unknown ‘reading girl’ were all alone there.
+
+Myles opened his Review, and his eye fell upon an article on the
+governing classes which instantly caught his attention. In the hope of
+finding some follies and weaknesses of the governing classes sharply
+castigated, he settled himself with pleased expectation to his book.
+
+Half an hour passed. One by one the other occupants of the room walked
+away. The workman and the young lady were left alone together. She
+looked every now and then out of the window. Her note-taking did not
+seem to flow so smoothly as usual. Spread open on the table before her,
+she had a fine edition of the ‘Fugues’ of Domenico Scarlatti, which
+she studied a little now and then, but oftener looked out through the
+window. Now, from that window she had a tolerably wide prospect; and
+immediately beneath her eyes was the handsome old red-brick house, with
+its flower-beds, and its lawns, smooth, and green, and well-watered--a
+rural fastness in the midst of the dusty town.
+
+There was silence that was almost solemn in the big room, which was
+growing dusk: it was so high and airy, and so isolated; raised far
+above the town and its troubles; the din hushed; the rolling vehicles
+and the passing throng dwarfed; books on every side, and silence like a
+garment over all.
+
+As chimes broke that silence, and eight o’clock struck, the girl, with
+a sigh, turned resolutely away from the outside prospect, and applied
+herself again to her score.
+
+Myles, half roused by the chiming, half pleased with a particularly
+hard hit at the governing classes, which especially took his fancy,
+raised his head at this moment, and his eyes, without any thought of
+his neighbour. It is a gesture which every one makes sometimes in
+reading. Smiling with satisfaction at what struck him as a masterly
+argument, Myles let his eyes fall upon her.
+
+She too was looking up--not at him, but past him. Her eyes were
+turned towards the door, and quick as thought there passed a subtle,
+inexplicable flash of dislike, tempered with alarm, across her face.
+She made a movement as if to rise--as if to escape; then sat down
+again, with a flush, more of annoyance than confusion, mantling in her
+cheeks. Then, bending to her book, she seemed to make some effort to
+keep her eyes firmly fixed upon it.
+
+This little bit of by-play roused Myles’s attention. He turned his
+head towards the door, which was behind him, and he saw how it was
+opened, and a man came into the room. A gentleman? he speculated, as he
+first saw the figure, in the obscure background. The visitor gradually
+approached, and Myles, staring unceremoniously at him, experienced a
+feeling of surprise, disgust, and sudden enlightenment as to the cause
+of the young lady’s disturbance.
+
+The new-comer was a young man with a somewhat high colour, dark hair
+and eyes, a full beardless face, and a coarse, animal mouth. He was
+well, even foppishly dressed, and bore the outward stamp of a person
+to whom money is not a subject of painful study or consideration. But,
+as Myles knew, he was not sterling coin. His manner, even of entering
+that room, was less than second-rate; confidence became a swagger;
+independence was metamorphosed into self-consciousness. The expression
+of his face was bold and vulgar. Perhaps no greater or more telling
+contrast could have been found, than that between the workman in his
+work-a-day dress, and the would-be dandy in his gloved, perfumed,
+over-dressed vulgarity.
+
+This person came forward; his eyes fell upon Myles; he removed them. A
+workman--a person not demanding his attention, one of the “fellahs” who
+came to the reading-room.
+
+Nevertheless, he seated himself at Myles’s table and drew a _Daily
+News_ towards him, without speaking and without removing his hat. Myles
+glanced at the young lady without letting her see that he did so; her
+eyes were fastened upon the page before her, but he had studied her
+expressions, and knew that she was not reading.
+
+‘Now, I should like to know,’ speculated Myles inwardly, ‘what you may
+want here, Mr. Frederick Spenceley?’
+
+He had recognised the man--the son of a rich manufacturer of Thanshope,
+who had earned his fortune as a Radical, and was living in state now as
+a Conservative and a supporter of the aristocracy, Church, State, and
+landed gentry interest. His son, as Myles was well aware, had assuredly
+not visited the reading-room for purposes of mental instruction.
+
+Myles apparently applied himself again to his book, but the argument
+had lost its charm for him. He had not known until now how lively was
+the interest he had taken in his graceful young neighbour. Placing his
+book so as to shield his face, but yet so that he could observe what
+was going on, he said to himself,
+
+‘I’m glad I didn’t go away ten minutes ago.’
+
+After bestowing a very short and scant need of attention upon the
+_Daily News_, Mr. Spenceley cast his eyes around him. Myles watched
+him, and saw the leisurely impudence of the stare with which he
+favoured the young lady, and his ears began to tingle. He--my poor
+Myles--was of a fiery temperament, could not endure to see even a ‘fine
+lady’ insulted without cause, and was dangerously ready to take up the
+cudgels for the unprotected or ill-used.
+
+‘I beg your pardon,’ said Mr. Frederick Spenceley, leaning towards the
+girl. ‘Do you want that paper?’
+
+He stretched his hand towards a newspaper which lay upon the table
+at which she sat, but he was looking at her with a stare, perhaps
+intended for one of gallant admiration, but which, from the unfortunate
+‘nature of the beast,’ succeeded only in being impertinent.
+
+Without looking at him, she raised her elbow from the paper on which it
+had rested, and continued, or seemed to continue, her reading.
+
+‘You don’t want it?’ he said, with what may have been meant for a
+winning smile.
+
+‘No,’ came like a little icicle from her lips.
+
+Myles with difficulty sat still; but, making an effort, continued
+quiet, though watching the game with a deeper interest than before.
+
+The twilight had grown almost into darkness by this time. The
+attendant, perhaps not knowing that any one was in the room, had not
+yet lighted the gas.
+
+Mr. Spenceley took the paper, but, without even pretending to look at
+it, said in a tone of under-bred badinage,
+
+‘Isn’t it rather dark to be reading, Miss--a----’
+
+She raised her eyes this time, and caught those of the speaker fixed
+full upon her. Her own were instantly averted, with an expression of
+cold contempt and disgust, and she made no reply.
+
+‘I assure you it’s very bad for the eyes to read by this
+half-light--very trying. Hadn’t I better tell the fellah to light the
+gas? I am sure you will spoil your eyes, and that would be a pity,’
+with a winning simper, which made Myles’s fist clench with an intense
+desire to do him some horrible violence. ‘Don’t you really think I had
+better?’ he pursued, evidently bent upon making her speak. At last he
+succeeded.
+
+‘Be good enough to mind your own business, without addressing me,’ said
+she, in a voice which, thought Myles, was sufficient to have rebuffed
+the veriest cur that ever called itself by the name of man.
+
+With that she quietly, by slightly altering the position of her chair,
+turned her back upon Mr. Spenceley, while her profile, with frowning
+brow and indignantly compressed lips, was plainly visible to Myles.
+
+Mr. Spenceley laughed, not so musically as a lady-killer should be able
+to laugh, and remarked:
+
+‘I feel it my business to prevent a young lady from spoiling her eyes,
+and----’
+
+Steadying his voice with some difficulty into something like
+indifference, Myles turned to him and said,
+
+‘Don’t you know that talking is forbidden here?’
+
+The look which he received in answer made him smile, despite his inner
+indignation. Mr. Spenceley contemplated him with a stare, which was
+unfortunately not so regal as it might have been; then, raising a
+single eyeglass, he stuck it into one eye, and surveyed the audacious
+speaker anew, as if his wonder at what had occurred could never be
+sufficiently satisfied.
+
+‘Will yah mind yah own business, and leave gentlemen to mind they-aws?’
+he at last drawled out, with magnificent disdain.
+
+‘When I see the gentleman I shall be quite ready to leave him to mind
+his own business,’ was the placid retort. ‘In the meantime, as the
+young lady wishes to read, and I wish to read, and you disturb us with
+your chatter, perhaps you will kindly hold your tongue.’
+
+Here Mr. Spenceley resolved upon a master-stroke. Turning his
+broadcloth-clad back upon Myles, he tilted his chair back so as to see
+the young lady better, and inquired,
+
+‘Do you know the fellah, Miss--a----?’
+
+Before she could reply (supposing that she had any intention of
+replying) Myles had leaned a little forward, and tapped Mr. Spenceley
+on the shoulder. With a great start, quite disproportionate to the
+circumstances, the latter brought his chair to its normal position
+again. Myles saw the start, and stifled a smile.
+
+‘Excuse me, my good sir, I don’t remember ever to have seen you here
+before, so perhaps you won’t mind showing me your ticket--I mean your
+member’s ticket--otherwise----’
+
+‘Will yah hold yah tongue?’ retorted the other, in a tone of scornful
+exasperation.
+
+‘No,’ replied Myles. ‘If you’ve any right to be here, show me your
+ticket, and hold _your_ tongue, according to rules; if you haven’t that
+right, walk out at once.’
+
+‘I can tell yah, yah don’t seem to know who ya’h speaking to,’ observed
+Mr. Spenceley, apparently lost in astonishment. ‘Are yah one of the
+authorities here?’
+
+‘Oh yes! I know you,’ said Myles, who saw that the young lady was now
+watching the dispute with undisguised interest. ‘And I’m that much
+of an authority that I can prevent you from disturbing and annoying
+people. Once for all, will you show me your card of admission?’
+
+‘No, I won’t.’
+
+‘Then you’ll excuse my going to the librarian and telling him you are
+here without right--unless you prefer to save that trouble to me, and
+ten shillings to yourself, by walking yourself off now, this moment,’
+said Myles, who began to find a delicious piquancy in the sensation of
+dealing thus summarily with a person of the consideration of Frederick
+Spenceley. It was an ignoble feeling, and we all have ignoble feelings
+sometimes, or what is the meaning of the constant injunctions to bear
+and forbear which we receive from different sources?
+
+‘Haw! Wha--at?’
+
+‘The fine for using this room without belonging to it is ten shillings.
+There’s another fine for talking and disturbing people, too,’ said
+Myles, who had never lost his look of perfect ease and calmness, and
+who did not for a moment remove his eyes from the other’s face.
+
+Mr. Spenceley did not appear to like the mention of fines. His face
+fell; his hand involuntarily sought his pocket.
+
+‘Tender in that direction, poor fellow!’ thought Myles to himself.
+
+‘Confounded radical place, this!’ observed Mr. Spenceley. ‘Not fit for
+gentlemen to live in.’
+
+‘Not when they have only been gentlemen since the last general
+election,’ said Myles, politely. ‘I quite agree with you.’
+
+‘Well, I shall go and see what the librarian says to all this,’ said
+Mr. Spenceley, by way of covering his retreat; and then, after a
+prolonged stare at the girl in the window, he retired, not so jauntily
+as he had entered.
+
+Myles picked up his book again. The girl watched her tormentor, until
+the noiseless door had swung to behind him, and she had seen his shadow
+pass towards the stairs. Myles feigned to read, but he could not help
+seeing how she trembled as she sat there.
+
+He did not speak to her. Something--he knew not what--held him back.
+But he suddenly felt a light touch upon his arm, and, looking up, saw
+the young lady standing beside him.
+
+‘Do you think he is really gone?’ she asked, scarcely above her breath.
+
+‘Oh yes! That sort of cur slinks off when you stoop for a stone, with
+his tail between his legs. It’s only when he has his kennel well behind
+him that he turns upon you and snaps,’ replied Myles, with homely if
+expressive metaphor.
+
+She drew a long breath, raised her head again, and said, with a mixture
+of dignity and gentleness which appealed intensely to his strongest
+feelings of admiration,
+
+‘I cannot tell you how much I am obliged to you!’
+
+‘Don’t mention it, miss,’ said he; and it was odd that, while Mr.
+Spenceley’s ‘miss’ made every right-minded person pant to knock him
+down and pound him well, Myles’s ‘miss’ was not in the faintest degree
+offensive.
+
+‘You spoke as if you knew who he is. Do you?’ she added.
+
+‘Oh yes! He’s well enough known; he’s the only son of that Spenceley
+who has the big factories down at Lower Place--“Bargaining Jack” they
+call him.’
+
+‘Oh! I know who you mean. Poor man! How I pity him for having such a
+son!’
+
+‘Had you ever seen him before?’ asked Myles, confirmed in his
+impression that she was not a native of Thanshope, and finding
+conversation easier than he had expected.
+
+‘I have seen him several times lately. I seem always to be meeting him.
+Once I thought he had followed me, and then I thought how absurd to
+imagine such a thing; but he must have done it all the same.’
+
+Myles had had inexplicable sensations while she spoke. He had known
+her so long without a voice, that now, when he heard it, she seemed to
+become a stranger again; and yet not a stranger. She had a sweet, low
+voice, clear and penetrating, and she spoke with an accent that had
+something not quite English in it.
+
+It would have been difficult--to Myles in his ignorance, impossible--to
+say in what the foreign element lay; but it was assuredly there. When
+she spoke she looked at him with fleeting glances which had nothing
+insincere in them, and her face lighted up and became lovely--and more
+than that, distinguished, spiritual; the slender figure was balanced
+with such a graceful poise; the delicate hands were free from all
+nervous restlessness. Her chestnut hair was abundant, and its dressing
+so simple and beautiful as alone to make her remarkable. Myles realised
+that she was most distinctly a ‘lady,’ but he could not make himself
+feel her to be either trivial or stupid. There had been nothing trivial
+in her behaviour. Her treatment of him flattered his discrimination
+when he remembered her late treatment of Mr. Spenceley. At that time
+of his life he had very wrong ideas on the subject of gentlemen,
+having mistaken notions as to their power and character; but the best
+part of his nature was soothed and pleased when so perfect a piece of
+refinement as this young lady treated him entirely as a gentleman.
+
+‘And I thank you again, very much,’ she added, smiling, and holding out
+her hand.
+
+Myles forgot to be confused as he accepted the hand so frankly
+extended, and felt encouraged to do what he had thought would be right
+from the moment she had spoken to him.
+
+‘I am very glad to have been of service. May I ask how far you are
+going?’
+
+‘To Blake Street, if you know it.’
+
+‘I know it well. It is too far for you to go alone, if you will excuse
+my saying so. It is quite possible that fellow may be hanging about
+yet. I’ll go with you, if you will allow me?’
+
+‘Oh! you are very kind,’ said she, with visible relief. ‘I cannot
+refuse, though I am sorry to take you away.’
+
+‘Not at all. I can’t fasten to it again,’ said Myles, sincerely.
+
+‘Then, if you would be so good, I should be very grateful,’ said she;
+and she looked so relieved and so pleased, that Myles felt himself
+rewarded an hundredfold for the act which had occurred to him as one of
+simple civility--nay, of almost obvious necessity.
+
+They left the town-hall when she had returned her book to the
+librarian, and passed out into the street turning to the right.
+
+‘This is the shortest way, miss,’ said Myles, distracted as to what he
+should call her, feeling ‘miss’ disagreeable, he hardly knew why, but,
+despite the wealth of the English language, having no other alternative
+than a bold ‘you.’
+
+She relieved his mind as if she had understood his thoughts.
+
+‘My name is Adrienne Blisset,’ said she. ‘I should like to know yours,
+if you will tell it me?’
+
+‘Myles Heywood.’
+
+‘I like it--it is so English, so Lancashire.’
+
+‘It’s not like yours, then,’ said he. ‘It sounds foreign.’
+
+‘Adrienne? Yes; that is French for Adriana; but I pronounce it in the
+German way--Adrien-ne. Don’t you see?’
+
+‘I never heard such a name--for an English young lady,’ said Myles,
+simply.
+
+‘I am not altogether an Englishwoman. I am half German. I was never in
+England till eighteen months ago.’
+
+‘Never in England!’ echoed Myles, incredulously. ‘Then you speak
+English amazingly well.’
+
+Adrienne laughed, and Myles asked,
+
+‘How do you like England, now that you are in it?’
+
+‘I do not know England. I only know Thanshope, and I--cannot say--that
+I do like it much--if you will excuse me.’
+
+‘Oh, we don’t expect every one to like our town,’ said Myles,
+magnanimously. ‘It is a rough sort of a place, I fancy. And I should
+not think you would like it either. You are not like most of the ladies
+here.’
+
+‘No?’
+
+‘There isn’t another lady in the place who would come to the
+reading-room as you do.’
+
+‘Indeed. Why?’
+
+‘They are too fine, I suppose,’ said he, contemptuously.
+
+‘Too fine?’
+
+‘Ay. We have a lot of fine ladies here. There’s Mrs. Spenceley, mother
+of that fellow who was annoying you this evening; but she’s not so
+fine, certainly, poor thing! But there’s her daughter!’ Myles shrugged
+his shoulders and turned his eyes to heaven.
+
+‘Is she very fine?’
+
+‘Whenever I see her she is as fine as fine can be; but perhaps she
+has some excuse for it, for she is very handsome, and she has a kind
+face too; one would wonder how she could be that fellow’s sister. Then
+there’s Mrs. Shuttleworth, that has the grand yellow carriage, but she
+is better than some of them; and she looks ill, poor thing! so perhaps
+her finery only gives her very little comfort.’
+
+‘It seems to me that you have an excuse for them all,’ said Miss
+Blisset.
+
+‘Perhaps I have--for all but one--the proudest and the finest of the
+whole lot. I’d rather have any of them than her--and that’s Mrs.
+Mallory of the Oakenrod.’
+
+‘Mrs. Mal----’ began Adrienne quickly, and then stopped abruptly. ‘Do
+you know her?’ she added.
+
+‘I know this much of her, that I work in their factory, and she comes
+looking round now and then, behaving as if she thought that I, and the
+factories, and the town, and the world in general were made for her
+pleasure and service. Oh, she’s a proud, insolent woman, Mrs. Mallory;
+all the Mallorys are proud and insolent. It would do them good to be
+humbled, and I hope they will be.’
+
+‘Oh! how can you be so bitter against them?’ said she, as if shocked.
+
+‘No, I’m not bitter; but I don’t like to see people like that giving
+themselves airs, looking as if the world’s prosperity depended upon
+their continuing to favour it by living in it, when any one knows that
+if they had their bread to earn they couldn’t do it. I like justice.’
+
+‘Justice, and a little generosity with it,’ said she, gently, smiling
+in what appeared to Myles a very attractive manner.
+
+‘We are here in Blake Street,’ said he; ‘which way do we turn?’
+
+‘To the right, please. My uncle’s house is at the very end of the
+street.’
+
+‘The end--it must be lonely,’ observed Myles.
+
+‘Yes, it is, rather. He lives at Stonegate.’
+
+‘Stonegate!’ echoed Myles. ‘I’ve often wondered who lived there,
+and never knew. Why, it is part of the Mallorys’ property,’ he said
+suddenly.
+
+‘Yes; I believe it is,’ she replied composedly. ‘My uncle has lived
+there for ten years now.’
+
+There was a little pause, and then Myles said,
+
+‘You will excuse me, but I don’t really think it is fit for you to walk
+all that long way of an evening, especially now that it gets dark so
+soon, and after what has happened to-night.’
+
+‘I suppose I shall have to give it up. Luckily I am nearly at the end
+of my task. So I shall try to finish it.’
+
+‘Your reading?’ he said inquiringly.
+
+‘Yes. References for my uncle’s book. He is writing a book about Art
+and the Development of Civilisation: he is too infirm to go to the
+library himself, and I like going there. I have been reading up music
+for him all summer.’
+
+‘Oh, that’s it!’ said Myles, in a tone which betrayed ingenuously
+enough that he had thought often and deeply upon the subject.
+
+‘Yes, that is it. I must really try to go a few times more, because
+those books may not be removed from the library; and then I shall not
+need to go any more.’
+
+‘But you have not been here long, you said?’ said Myles.
+
+‘No. Only eighteen months, since my father died abroad, and my uncle
+asked me to come and live here with him, else I should have had no
+home.’
+
+She spoke with a quietness amounting to sadness, and Myles felt sure
+that there was sadness in her life, though she spoke so cheerfully.
+
+‘Were you sorry or glad to come to England?’ he ventured to ask.
+
+‘Oh, sorry. Every association I had with it was unpleasant; whereas I
+had had many pleasures at different times abroad; and it is so cold,
+and dull, and _triste_ here.’
+
+‘For any one that has no friends----’ he began.
+
+‘Like me,’ she said.
+
+‘It must be rather dull. Here is your place, I think.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Adrienne, pausing with her hand on the latch of the gate.
+‘I would ask you to come in, only it would disturb my uncle so much.
+But I shall see you again, and another evening I hope you will come
+in--will you?’
+
+‘You are very kind,’ said Myles, secretly feeling immensely flattered
+at the invitation. ‘If it wouldn’t be intruding----’
+
+‘Not at all. I should like to know what you think about one or two
+things. I know you think, by the books I have seen you reading, and I
+have a burning curiosity to know what you think.’
+
+Myles suggested that his subjects--work, wages, politics--might not be
+very interesting to a young lady.
+
+‘It depends so much upon the kind of young lady, I think,’ said she,
+smiling. ‘Well, good night; I am obliged for your kindness.’
+
+With a gracious inclination of her head she was gone--had passed
+swiftly up the walk, opened the door, and entered the house.
+
+Myles stood for some time on the spot where she had left him, staring
+at the house. He looked at it well. ‘Stonegate. Blake Street.’ The
+whole of Blake Street was part of the Mallorys’ property--Sebastian
+Mallory’s property, to gain which he had toiled not, neither had he
+spun; but it had come to him, and was his to do as he would with.
+
+Blake Street was a long street, composed, for about half its length, of
+smallish houses, in which lived quiet, steady, proper people. Several
+of the door-plates bore the indications of dressmakers; there were two
+dentists, a veterinary surgeon, and an undertaker. The rest were quiet,
+dull, dingy-looking private residences.
+
+Beyond a certain point all this changed. Blake Street became a mere
+confusion of pasteboard terraces, half-finished houses, single strips
+of houses, and general disorder and chaos--a brick and plaster
+abomination of desolation. And then came a lonely stretch of street,
+quite without houses, with an unfinished footpath on either side,
+skirting a waste of what really had been heath, and was now little
+else. Some tufts of heather might be found growing there in their
+season, and the air that blew over it was sharp and keen.
+
+Across this common one might see the lights of the town; dim outlines
+of factories and churches, and masses of buildings--the tortuous lines
+of light creeping up steep streets and lanes, and the indistinct
+outlines of the long range of the Blackrigg moors. On the left side of
+the road stood one solitary house, in a moderately sized garden--the
+Stonegate where Adrienne lived with her uncle. It was an old house
+of dark grey stone; square, solidly built, and of moderately large
+proportions. It was contemporary with the Oakenrod, and had been built
+by some far-back, dead and gone Mallory (they were lords of the manor
+of Thanshope) as a dower-house. In the garden the trees were shrivelled
+up, the flower-beds were adorned with nothing but a few evergreen
+bushes, and the grass was not kept as was the grass in the Oakenrod
+garden.
+
+Behind the house was the lonely-looking waste of heath or common which
+was out of Sebastian Mallory’s jurisdiction; and in front a low wall,
+with a wicket-gate in it, bounded the garden. From the wicket to the
+door was a flagged walk, raised a little above the grass border on
+either side of it. On each side the door two windows; on the second
+story five windows. The shutters of the lower windows were closed--the
+whole face of the house presented a blank, staring void, till at last
+Myles, looking intently upwards, saw a light appear in one of the upper
+windows, and a shadow pass the blind. That must be Adrienne’s room.
+Then he glanced at the surroundings of the house.
+
+‘A lonely place enough!’ he decided within himself. ‘I’m glad I came
+home with her. If that blackguard had been at the trouble to follow
+her! I hope he doesn’t know where she lives: it hardly looks as if he
+did, or he wouldn’t have chosen the public library to molest her in. I
+don’t believe that if she called out, in this street, any one would
+hear her; and if they did, they’re a poor lot--tailors, and women,
+and ‘pothecaries: they wouldn’t know a woman’s screaming from a cat’s
+miauling.’
+
+‘It is a nasty place!’ he muttered again to himself, lingering
+unaccountably, reluctant to go. ‘It looks as if there were a blight, or
+a curse, or something upon it.’
+
+At last he tore himself away, and took his homeward way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+PHILOSOPHY AND FASCINATION.
+
+    ‘A tenderness shows through her face,
+          And, like the morning’s glow,
+          Hints a full day below.’
+
+
+Myles walked home, not in the ‘kind of dream’ proper for a hero under
+the circumstances, but thinking very lucidly and very connectedly
+during his pretty long walk, from the end of Blake Street to his house
+on the Townfield, chiefly of what had happened that evening. He thought
+of Adrienne--of all those summer months of silence, and then of the
+sudden, quick acquaintance.
+
+‘She’s certainly different from other people,’ he said to himself:
+and in that matter he was right, if he meant that she was not like
+the ordinary Thanshope lady. But the ordinary Thanshope lady had
+not been brought up as Adrienne Blisset had been, and Myles did not
+know then what patient struggles with sorrow and poverty and adverse
+circumstances had made her what she was. At one-and-twenty she had
+lived in many lands, and her mind had come in contact with many other
+minds, often minds of a far from common order. Very few English girls
+in her class have had that experience at that age--nor would those who
+wish a girl to be innocent and happy desire such experience for her, if
+it had to be paid for with such a heavy guerdon of sorrow and suffering
+as Adrienne had paid for hers.
+
+Myles knew nothing of that, he only saw the difference. He felt a
+curiosity about her, blended with some admiration. He admired her
+grace, her spirit, her sweet voice, her quick intelligence; and he
+thought a great deal about her as he walked home, and wondered if he
+should see her again to-morrow--if she would be as gracious as she had
+been to-night; he thought of Frederick Spenceley, and classed him in
+his mind with ‘Mallory and that lot,’ and was glad, quite revengefully
+glad, that he had been able to treat him as he had done, and that was
+all.
+
+Perfectly unexpectant, unconscious, unaware of the web which
+circumstances, past, present, and to come, were weaving about his
+head, he paced the well-known streets--a son of toil, the descendant
+of generations of sons of toil, but with a whole world dormant in him,
+or rather nascent--a whole realm of suffering: love, hope, grandeur,
+baseness, which this night had first stirred into a premonitory natal
+activity.
+
+Saturday morning came, and work, and the business of life; Saturday
+afternoon, and holiday. Myles and Mary walked home together about two
+o’clock; and his sister looked at him more than once, as his head and
+his eyes turned quickly from one side to the other, so often that at
+last she said,
+
+‘Why, Myles, dost expect to see some one thou knows?’
+
+‘Me--no!’ said he, hastily, and with a forced laugh. He had been half
+unconsciously looking for Adrienne, but in vain.
+
+In the evening he repaired to the reading-room as usual. He went
+straight to his seat in the window; but she was not there, so he picked
+up the _Westminster_, which no one had disturbed since last night, and
+resumed the article on the governing classes.
+
+But he could not, to use his own expression, ‘fasten to it,’ until he
+heard the soft opening and closing of the swing-door in the background,
+and the faint sound, almost imperceptible, of a girl’s light footfall
+and undulating dress, came nearer and nearer. Then, when he looked up,
+she was there, looking just the same as usual--which was surprising,
+after all his dreamy thoughts about her.
+
+She bowed to him, with the smile which lent such a charm to her
+fair face. For she was fair, Myles decided, as he saw that look of
+recognition; and he was right. She was one of those women who are not
+anything, neither ugly nor beautiful, until one knows them, and then
+they are lovely for ever.
+
+With the ‘Good evening’ and the smile they exchanged, he felt at rest,
+and could turn to his book again, and read, and understand. For not yet
+did he know that he had met his fate--good or evil as the case might
+be; there was a sweet, momentary pause before there came that fever of
+unrest which love must be to such men as he.
+
+Miss Blisset made her notes, and studied her music with diligence,
+until nine o’clock came chiming from the steeple above their heads,
+and there rang out after the chimes the music of the tune ‘Life let us
+cherish!’
+
+Adrienne put her books together, and rose.
+
+‘Mr. Heywood, I told my uncle about what happened last night, and he
+told me to ask you to come and see him this evening. Will you?’
+
+‘I shall be very glad to do so,’ said Myles, looking up, pleased and
+somewhat surprised. He had thought Miss Blisset’s gratitude to him
+natural, under the circumstances, and had quite supposed that she would
+treat him with friendliness afterwards; but he had smiled at the idea
+of the uncle of whom she spoke troubling himself about him. If he let
+the girl take that disagreeable walk to the town-hall every evening, he
+was not likely to care much whether she were annoyed or not, so that
+his work was done. That was the conclusion Myles had come to; and it
+was a conclusion quite in harmony with his character.
+
+They left the hall together: it was Saturday night, and the streets
+were thronged with a rough-spoken, roughly mannered Lancashire crowd,
+pushing and talking, and, too many of them, reeling about, with the
+absence of ceremony peculiar to them. They soon left the thoroughfare,
+and found themselves first in the narrow cross-lane, and then in Blake
+Street.
+
+‘Only one more evening,’ said Adrienne, ‘and then my work will be done;
+and I shall not need to come any more.’
+
+‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Myles, abruptly.
+
+‘You like reading,’ said Adrienne. ‘Have you read much?’
+
+‘I don’t think I have,’ he owned frankly.
+
+‘The Thanshope library is not a bad one in its way,’ she remarked.
+‘Rather behind the time though, in the matter of science and
+philosophy.’
+
+‘Well, you see, it’s like the gentlemen who have the managing of it,
+I suppose,’ said Myles, apologetically. ‘They are a little behind the
+time, too.’
+
+‘Fortunately they have been allowed to exercise no control over my
+department, the music, since it was all bequeathed by a good and
+enlightened man to the town; and all those worthy committee people had
+to do, was to accept it gratefully, and find a room to put it in. And
+then, too, I don’t think they would know anything about the orthodox
+and heterodox in such matters.’
+
+‘Is there orthodox and heterodox in music?’ asked Myles.
+
+‘I should think so! The adherents of the different musical creeds
+are given to a “bear and forbearance” equal to that of adherents of
+different religious creeds.’
+
+Myles laughed a little at this and said,
+
+‘Then I’m sure ignorance is bliss in that case. We’re somewhat overrun
+with parsons in these parts. The women make so much of them that they
+seem quite to lose their understanding--what they have of it. But the
+vicar--Canon Ponsonby--he is quite different; and he keeps a pretty
+tight hand over his parsons. I’ve heard that he shows them their place
+sometimes as if they were schoolboys. He ought to have been a prime
+minister, ought Canon Ponsonby.’
+
+‘Yes, I know him,’ said Adrienne. ‘He and my uncle are great friends.
+He is a grand old gentleman.’
+
+Here they turned in at the wicket of Stonegate; Adrienne opened
+the door, and Myles for the first time--not for the last by any
+means--stood within that sad-looking, lonesome old house.
+
+It was a square, matted hall in which they stood; dimly lighted by a
+Japanese lantern, also square, hanging from the roof. On a great oaken
+table in the centre, stood a large, beautiful vase of grey-green
+Vallouris ware. Over the carved mantelpiece hung an oil-painting--a
+fine copy of that beautiful likeness of Goethe--the one with the
+dark rings of curling hair, and the magnificent face; that likeness
+which always reminds one of the _herrlichen Jüngling_ described by
+Bettina as the hero of a certain skating scene, when he stole his
+mother’s cloak--_der Kälte wegen_. Opposite to this picture stood, on a
+pedestal, a bust of Orfila. These were the only ornaments in the place:
+every other available corner was filled with book-shelves loaded with
+books. A dome-light gave light by day to this hall.
+
+‘This way,’ said Adrienne, opening a door to the left, and Myles
+followed her into the room. This room too was lighted with lamps and
+candles. There was a table in the centre--a writing-table in one of
+the windows, piled with books, and papers, and manuscripts. In an
+easy-chair, beside this writing-table, reading, was a man--presumably
+the ‘uncle’ of whom Adrienne had so often spoken.
+
+‘Uncle’ said she, going up to him, and touching his arm, ‘here is Mr.
+Heywood, of whom I spoke to you.’
+
+He looked up, and Myles beheld a strange, long, pale face, with hollow
+eyes, and a large and, as it seemed to him, an expressionless mouth. It
+was a deathlike face; its expression neutral to impassiveness.
+
+‘Mr. Heywood--oh, I am glad to see you. Take a seat.’
+
+Somewhat chilled by this unenthusiastic greeting Myles complied without
+a word, feeling remarkably small and insignificant, while Adrienne
+produced her papers, sat down at the desk, and began to arrange them.
+Mr. Blisset turned towards her, but did not move his chair. He merely
+observed to Myles,
+
+‘You will excuse us a moment, Mr. Heywood,’ and then gave his attention
+to the remarks which his niece, in a low tone, made to him. It was with
+a kind of shock that Myles soon perceived the man’s lower limbs must
+be paralysed. That was what Adrienne meant when she spoke of his being
+unable to come to the library. That was why he was so shy and reserved,
+that he must be prepared for the visit of a stranger. Myles understood
+it all now, and, from his experience of Edmund, knew what it meant,
+only that this was far worse, far more of a living death than that in
+which Edmund lived.
+
+The writing and reporting over, Adrienne left the room. Myles and the
+strange-looking, corpse-like man were left alone; and now Mr. Blisset
+turned to him and said, still in the same cold, measured voice,
+
+‘You rendered a very kind service to my niece last night, and I am much
+obliged to you.’
+
+‘Pray don’t mention it. No one could have sat still and seen a young
+lady annoyed by a fellow like Frederick Spenceley.’
+
+‘Spenceley--surely I have heard the name!’
+
+‘Very likely. His father is the richest man in Thanshope.’
+
+‘Oh--ah! Naturally I have heard of him then. So that was the name of
+the individual who insulted her?’
+
+‘That is his name,’ said Myles, concisely, ‘and it’s another name for a
+cad and a blackguard.’
+
+‘Oh, is it? You know something about him?’
+
+‘There are few people in Thanshope who don’t. He is a born
+ruffian--Spenceley. Some day the ruffianism will come out through the
+veneering, and, once out, it will never be polished over again.’
+
+Mr. Blisset assented half-inquiringly, surveying Myles all the time
+from his impassive eyes, and then he said,
+
+‘I am sorry my niece should have to go to the reading-room. She tells
+me that one evening more will finish what she has to do, otherwise I
+should not permit it. But I should think you have frightened the fellow
+away for a time?’
+
+‘Oh yes! He won’t trouble her again,’ said Myles, with contemptuous
+indifference, forgetting that beaten-off insects, with or without
+stings, have a habit of returning with blundering persistency to the
+attack. ‘But couldn’t she go in the daytime?’ he asked suddenly.
+
+Mr. Blisset shrugged his shoulders.
+
+‘There is so much work to be done in the daytime,’ said
+he--‘correspondence, and reading, and manuscript to copy. But I spare
+her as much as I can. I never ask or wish her to work after she returns
+in the evening. The rest of her time is her own.’
+
+‘I should hope so!--from nine o’clock!’ thought Myles, a little
+surprised. ‘She must be ready to go to bed at ten, after such a day as
+that. I wonder at what time it begins. Why, I am better off than that.’
+
+‘The rest of her time is her own,’ repeated Mr. Blisset, as if he clung
+to that concession with fondness and pride, feeling that it made up for
+all other privations which her day’s work might entail--which indeed
+was the case. His infirmity--his long confinement to one house and one
+spot--the absorbed concentration of his faculties upon one work--a
+work which he was determined should burst upon the world, and make him
+illustrious--all this, and above all, Adrienne’s own devotion to him
+and his pursuits, since she had come to live with him, had fostered his
+natural egotism; till now he verily believed that his yoke was easy
+and his burden light to the young creature who bore it, and that that
+hour ‘after she came in’ was an elastic period, in which any amount of
+private work and reading could be done, and pleasure enjoyed.
+
+Yet he was not a hard-hearted man, and if Adrienne had been by any
+cause removed from him, it would have been her gentle presence and the
+charm of her company that he would have lamented--not the loss of her
+services in reading, writing, and research.
+
+His intense and almost forbidding coldness of manner was soon
+understood by Myles, who discovered before long that it arose chiefly
+from physical weakness and languor--not from any want of interest in
+the questions of the day, or in the men and things about him.
+
+‘You are writing a great book, sir?’ inquired Myles, by way of
+something to say.
+
+‘A book,’ corrected Mr. Blisset--a slight but ineffable smile playing
+upon the marble of his face. ‘Let no men and no generation call any of
+their own achievements--whether in literature or legislation--great.
+That is for posterity to decide.’
+
+(‘Humph!’ thought Myles. ‘That implies that posterity will take some
+notice of it, in which case--but the reflections opened up were too
+large to be fully followed out then.)
+
+‘One branch of knowledge, and one alone, can produce works which at the
+very time of their appearance may be safely pronounced great--and that
+is science, of course,’ resumed Mr. Blisset half-closing his eyes.
+
+‘Then yours is not a scientific work,’ said Myles politely.
+
+‘It is chiefly historical and speculative, but based, I trust, on the
+truest and most profoundly scientific principles. It is an inquiry into
+the question whether highly advanced civilisation and an art-spirit
+living, original, and capable of producing new and great works, can
+exist together--whether they are ever likely to go hand in hand.’
+
+‘And what do you conclude?’ asked Myles.
+
+‘I began in hope,’ said Mr. Blisset. ‘But the hope has died away.
+Music still remains--a wide, only partially trodden field, but for the
+rest----’ he shook his head. ‘Of course it is a gigantic undertaking,’
+he went on, ‘and I have been engaged upon it for twenty years. But I
+think when my work is complete, that I shall have pretty well exhausted
+the subject.’
+
+‘And your readers, too, perhaps,’ thought Myles, unwillingly forced
+to wonder whether there were much use in Mr. Blisset’s gigantic
+undertaking.
+
+At this juncture Adrienne came into the room again; and Myles,
+beholding her for the first time in indoor dress, was sensible of a
+warmer, deeper feeling of admiration than he had hitherto experienced.
+There was a nameless foreign charm about her, which worked like a spell
+upon him. She held some trifling work in her hand, and coming quietly
+in, seated herself, and lent her attention to her uncle as he went on
+discoursing in a monotone, which by degrees fascinated Myles, so that
+he listened intently, and _nolens volens_.
+
+It was only afterwards, in thinking it all over, that he remembered
+what a sad, dreary life it must be for the young girl, alone with
+this stupendous egotist, listening while he discoursed of--himself;
+helping him in his great work; writing letters relating to his vast
+undertaking; studying hard in order to supply him with facts. That
+was all true: but at the moment Myles did not think of it, for Mr.
+Blisset spoke upon subjects that the young man had thought about
+himself--subjects that made his heart burn--of governments and peoples,
+and the lessons which history may teach us.
+
+And when Myles heard the treasures of learning and research, which Mr.
+Blisset had undoubtedly accumulated, brought to bear upon his own view
+of the question, and found that the speaker too was one of those whose
+watchword is--
+
+    ‘The people, Lord! the people!
+    Not crowns and thrones, but _men_!’
+
+his admiration speedily grew to enthusiasm, and he sat listening, his
+handsome face all flushed with eagerness, and was disposed, before the
+evening was over, to rank Mr. Blisset as a demigod.
+
+Mr. Blisset was pleased, like other philosophers, with the admiration
+he excited, and surveyed the young man with a favouring eye.
+
+‘You must come and see me again,’ said he. ‘It is always a pleasure to
+me to know one who has thought and felt upon these subjects. But I have
+talked till I feel almost exhausted. Adrienne, my love, suppose you
+give us some music.’
+
+‘Yes, uncle,’ said she; ‘I like you to talk in that way,’ she added,
+touching his forehead with her lips. ‘Then you do yourself justice.’
+
+There was a piano in the room, and Adrienne’s playing for her uncle
+when the day’s work was quite over--a sort of requiem upon the toil
+they had passed through--was as regular a thing as the falling of night
+upon the earth. There, in the world of harmony, was her kingdom--there
+she ruled; from thence she could sway the hearts of men.
+
+The harmonies she made for them that evening were calm and grave--a
+pathetic _Tema_ of Haydn’s; a solemn _Ciaconna_ of Bach’s; a slow
+movement, the ‘singing together of the morning stars,’ of Beethoven’s.
+
+Mr. Blisset shaded his long pale face with his long pale hand, and
+sat, with closed eyes, listening. Myles was listening too, but ear,
+with him, was subservient to eye and to thought. His gaze never left
+Adrienne, and the longer he looked, the deeper became the charm.
+There had slumbered in his mind, throughout these years of toil and
+striving, a latent, dormant, ideal of loveliness, purity, and fitness
+for worship, and it was as though, when Adrienne’s fingers touched the
+keys, that the door of heaven was opened, and a ray, falling upon her
+fair head, proclaimed her his soul’s dearest wish.
+
+With a sigh, promptly repressed, he rose from his dream as she
+finished, and took his departure, after Mr. Blisset had made him
+promise to come again.
+
+It was Saturday night, and Myles found the din of the town not yet
+hushed. He saw sights which were familiar enough to his eyes, heard
+sounds to which his ears were accustomed--drunken men reeling out
+of the public-houses which must be closed, brawling songs shouted
+hoarsely up and down--all the ugliness of rude, coarse natures taking
+their pleasure. He had never in his life found pleasure himself in
+such things; but equally, he had grown accustomed to the fact that
+others--men with whom he was on good terms--did take pleasure in them.
+He thought of the scene he had just left, and there shot a sudden
+sense of chill doubt and discomfiture through his frame of musing,
+high-strung happiness, a desperate feeling that those whom he saw
+about him in the streets now, were his class, his companions; that,
+ever since he had begun to hope and think, he had hoped for their
+advancement, their good, and he must not be untrue to them.
+
+‘Pah!’ said he to himself, ‘as if she could ask a man to be false to
+what he ought to be true to. She’s like truth itself.’
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+FINE LADIES AND FOLLY.
+
+
+Monday morning, with the business of this work-a-day world in full
+swing, or rather in preparation for the week’s swing of labour. In the
+freshness and rawness of a six o’clock morning air, Myles walked with
+his sister to his work. He and Mary were accustomed to do all their
+private conversation during these walks. They sometimes discussed their
+mother and her doings, and the discussion took away from the bitterness
+which silence would have left to rankle there.
+
+To-day Myles was exceedingly silent, but Mary, who knew him and loved
+him better than any other soul, felt that the silence was no sign of
+dejection.
+
+The brother and sister separated on arriving at the factory. Mary went
+to the weaving shed, and Myles to the warehouse. After breakfast the
+same arrangement took place; but the day was not destined to be one of
+pleasant memories for Myles.
+
+In the course of the forenoon he was in the outer office, with Wilson
+the overlooker, when the latter, glancing through the window, remarked,
+
+‘There’s Mrs. Mallory coming. I see her carriage.’
+
+Myles made no answer, for the information did not seem to him of any
+particular importance; but Wilson went on, in a voice which had grown
+by anticipation smooth and respectful,
+
+‘I expect she wants to see Mr. Sutcliffe, and he’s out. So she’ll have
+to put up with me.’
+
+With that he stepped up to a square of looking-glass, which he retained
+despite all Myles’s gibes and jeers, over the mantelpiece, and smoothed
+his hair.
+
+‘And Myles, lad, as Mrs. Mallory’s coming, and may have business to
+speak about, perhaps you’d better----’
+
+‘Go?’ said Myles, tranquilly, though the suggestion was highly
+irritating to him. ‘That I’m not going to do, old chap. I’ve got these
+figures to write down; and here I stay and write them, if fifty Mrs.
+Mallorys were coming.’
+
+Wilson made no answer. Myles’s position was too near his own for him
+to be able to order him out of the office; but, not quite satisfied,
+he waited, snatching up bundles of papers and sample cops, shoving an
+empty skip aside, and endeavouring to make the rough office look a
+little tidier.
+
+‘What a pity,’ remarked Myles, sarcastically, ‘that you haven’t got a
+few evergreens and some paper roses. I’d invest in a few, if I were
+you, and keep them in the cupboard, ready for such an occasion as this.’
+
+With which he seated himself at the desk in the window, which commanded
+a view of the street, and began to write.
+
+Wilson walked up and down, watching the carriage as it drew nearer, and
+Myles felt contemptuous and superior.
+
+‘She’s got Miss Spenceley in the carriage with her,’ observed Wilson,
+reconnoitring over Myles’s head. ‘They go a deal together, those two.’
+
+Myles looked up sharply as he heard this. The carriage had stopped;
+Wilson had rushed to open the door. Myles saw the open carriage
+standing at the gates, and how one lady sat waiting while the other got
+out. The face of the waiting lady was turned towards the office.
+
+‘Miss Spenceley’--the sister of the man who had displayed his
+contemptible character to Adrienne Blisset the other night. It was not
+likely that Myles should glance at her with very amiable or respectful
+feelings. He saw a graceful figure leaning nonchalantly back in the
+carriage; he had a general impression of a brilliantly beautiful
+brunette face, large dark eyes, an extremely elegant costume, a hat, or
+bonnet, with a waving plume, a parasol covered with lace--and that was
+all. But he had long sight; he saw none of her brother’s expression on
+the girl’s countenance, which was frank and open, as well as beautiful.
+
+‘I’d bet something they don’t get on well together,’ he thought; and
+then he heard a silk dress rustle over the threshold, and a woman’s
+voice answering indifferently Wilson’s profuse salutations. Myles could
+not help looking up, though he tried not to do so. He had often seen
+Mrs. Mallory before; but she had never seen him. Now she was looking
+full at him.
+
+She was a handsome woman, of some forty-six years of age, but looking
+younger when one did not notice certain lines about her eyes and
+mouth--lines of meanness as well as of pride. She was very richly
+dressed in black; there was silk, and lace, and perfume about her. She
+was tall, fair, pale, and inclined towards _embonpoint_. She looked
+Myles over from head to foot; then, turning to Wilson, said,
+
+‘Is Mr. Sutcliffe in?’
+
+‘I’m very sorry, ’m; he isn’t. He has had to go to Bolton, and won’t be
+back till afternoon.’
+
+‘Oh!’ said she, pausing as if in thought; and then added, ‘Give me the
+papers Mr. Sutcliffe was speaking about the other day; they are sure
+to have been left ready. I will take them home with me, and look them
+over.’
+
+Myles had turned again to his work, and was bending over a page of
+figures, wroth with himself that, instead of being able undisturbedly
+to add up the figures he had put down, he could not help listening to
+Mrs. Mallory’s voice.
+
+‘Yes, ’m; I’ll find the papers. They’ll be in Mr. Sutcliffe’s room. But
+won’t you sit down ’m, while I look for them?’
+
+‘No; make haste, please,’ was all she said, a little impatiently; for
+Mr. Wilson’s manner was, to put it mildly, fussy; and Myles, feeling
+the influence of that tone, despite all his efforts, began to count
+half aloud:
+
+‘Three and five, nine--eight, I mean; and seven fifteen, and----’
+
+‘Here they are, ’m. Allow me to make them into a parcel, ’m: it will be
+more convenient.’
+
+‘No; you can take them to the carriage, and I will look them over when
+I have time.’
+
+‘Myles, lad, suppose you were to take the papers to the carriage,’ said
+Wilson, wishing to appear superior.
+
+Myles looked up, surprised; he could read the simple, fussy character
+of the faithful old cashier to its very depths, and knew his motives
+exactly. He had no wish to disoblige him, and, with an amused
+half-smile, took the papers and walked to Mrs. Mallory’s carriage.
+
+The young lady, Miss Spenceley, was looking somewhat impatiently
+towards the office.
+
+‘Oh!’ said she, when she saw Myles, ‘is Mrs. Mallory in there? Has she
+nearly finished her business, do you think?’
+
+Myles had seen the girl many a time before; she was the beauty and the
+heiress, _par excellence_, of Thanshope; the only daughter, as her
+brother was the only son, of her parents. The young man, looking at her
+more attentively than ever before, could find no trace of likeness, or
+his scorn of her relative might have displayed itself in his voice.
+
+‘I really don’t know,’ said he, in answer to her question. ‘She is
+talking to the cashier.’
+
+‘Oh, thanks!’ said she, turning abruptly away, and looking impatiently
+up the street.
+
+Myles returned to the office, and as he re-entered it Mrs. Mallory was
+saying to Wilson,
+
+‘Because I expect my son--your master--will be at home again shortly,
+and of course he will wish to inquire into everything that is going on.’
+
+There was something in the tone in which this was said which rasped
+upon Myles’s feelings--a calm superiority which he felt to be extremely
+needless.
+
+‘Then we may expect Mr. Mallory to come and take possession some time
+soon?’ Wilson hailed the news as if it were a personal favour.
+
+‘I expect so. I do not know the exact time; but of course everything
+will be ready for him?’
+
+‘Will _he_ be ready for everything?’ thought Myles, with strong
+contempt; his old spite--it deserves no nobler name--against the
+absent, unknown Sebastian Mallory rose angrily to the surface again.
+‘Our _master_, indeed!’ he reflected angrily. ‘I wonder if he’s ever
+proved himself his own master yet?’
+
+Wilson, by an unlucky combination of circumstances, was at this moment
+inspired to turn pointedly to Myles and remark:
+
+‘Now, Myles, do you hear what Madam Mallory says? I told you the master
+was coming, and you wouldn’t believe me.’
+
+‘It remains to be seen whether “master” is the right word to use,’ said
+Myles, with deliberation. ‘In this case I have my doubts about it.’
+
+He bent to his book once more, but not before he had seen the stony
+stare in the light blue eyes of Mrs. Mallory, and the gaze of haughty
+astonishment upon her pale, high-featured face--a stare which seemed to
+say, ‘I have seen human nature in many obtrusive and ill-bred aspects,
+but never in one which so much required putting into its proper place
+as this.’
+
+Myles smiled rather grimly to himself; he hated to exchange such
+civilities with any one, most of all with a woman, but his spirit could
+ill brook the unquestionably haughty and supercilious manner of Mrs.
+Mallory, and the profuse mouthing of the word ‘master’ by Wilson’s
+complaisant lips. Myles had, up to now, utterly refused to call any man
+master, and he was not going to begin it in the case of a man whom he
+had never seen; and to whom local report gave anything but a decided or
+master-like character.
+
+‘There’s no call for you to be so rude,’ said the cashier, shocked and
+reproachful.
+
+Myles turned to him.
+
+‘Will you understand,’ said he, with lips that had grown tight, ‘that a
+man can’t both do arithmetic and talk?’
+
+‘Who _is_ the young man?’ inquired Mrs. Mallory of the discomfited
+Wilson.
+
+‘You must excuse him, ’m. He’s one of the foremen: he knows no better.’
+
+Myles made no sort of comment upon this apology, content that they
+should say what they liked about it, so long as they did not require
+him to acknowledge an unknown ‘master.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory, after another and a prolonged stare of the said
+haughty astonishment, which stare wasted itself upon the back of the
+delinquent, swept away, leaving Myles with his lips twisted into a fine
+sneer--an expression to which they were wont too readily to bend.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Myles’s temper had assuredly not been improved by the occurrences of
+the morning. It was destined to be yet more severely tried before his
+return to work in the afternoon.
+
+On leaving the factory he parted from Mary, as he had an errand in
+the town, and told her he would be home in half an hour for dinner.
+He did his errand, and took his way home. And as he arrived at his
+own gate there came out from it a man whom Myles recognised as a
+person to whom he bore no friendly feelings. He was named James
+Hoyle, and was by trade a small shopkeeper, in the stationery and
+evangelical-religious-book line: occasionally he acted as a preacher
+of a denunciatory and inflammatory description; always he was a
+missionary--so, at least, he said.
+
+To him and to his style of preaching and piety Myles had a most
+thorough dislike; he believed him to be a hypocrite, and in this case
+his dislike was well grounded enough, and founded on facts.
+
+‘Good morning, Myles. The Lord bless you!’ observed Mr. Hoyle, holding
+out a dingy, fat hand. No lowest scum of the Levites, of whatever
+section, whatever persuasion, could have looked, thought Myles,
+sleeker, or more as if his sleekness were an ill-gotten gain.
+
+Out of tune as Myles was with all the world, this apparition and his
+tone of familiarity was not of a kind likely to restore harmony to the
+jarring notes of his life’s music. Drawing up his proud figure to its
+utmost height, and looking with his contemptuous eyes down upon the
+pudgy individual who addressed him, he said,
+
+‘Good morning. I’ll thank you not to make so free with my name. Who
+gave you leave to call me “Myles”?’
+
+He ignored the outstretched hand, having an objection to touching what
+he considered to be both literally and metaphorically dirty fingers.
+
+Hoyle looked up at him, and his eyes twinkled.
+
+‘I’ve been taking spiritual counsel with your mother, my dear young
+friend. A sweet, precious soul! It is a privilege to converse with her;
+she teaches one so much.’
+
+‘Does she? It’s a pity but she could teach you to be sober and honest,’
+said Myles, with distinct enunciation and scornful mien, holding
+himself somewhat aloof from Mr. Hoyle. ‘Anyhow,’ he continued, ‘until
+you’ve managed it--the soberness and honesty, I mean (you needn’t look
+as if you didn’t know. I saw where you came out of at eleven o’clock
+on Saturday night)--till then, you’ll please give this house a clear
+berth, and my mother may take her spiritual counsel--if she wants
+it--with a different sort of person from you.’
+
+He was about to turn in at the gate, but, with his hand on the latch,
+was arrested by an expression on the face of the other.
+
+‘The day will come, young man, when you will wish you had treated
+me--me, of all people--with more respect,’ said he with a smile, for he
+had a flexible face, which appeared to lend itself even more easily to
+smiles than to other expressions. Yet the smile was an evil one.
+
+He turned and walked away, and Myles, in some annoyance, went into the
+house. Usually Mrs. Heywood had the field to herself in the exercise
+of her tongue. Edmund occasionally indulged in a burst of temper, but
+always to his own disadvantage. Mary never answered at all. Myles
+alone, as has been before said, could, with a certain look and tone,
+show himself master of the fretful, repining embodiment of scolding
+and selfishness whom they had the misfortune to call mother. To-day he
+was in no mood to ‘stand nonsense,’ and as he went into the kitchen
+he said, hanging up his cap, and taking Edmund’s hand, as he seated
+himself beside him,
+
+‘What does yon James Hoyle want always hanging about here? The chap is
+never out of the place, and I can’t abide him. If he doesn’t give us a
+little more of his room and less of his company I must speak to him.
+Mary, lass, I hope thou’rt not got agate of meeting-going.’
+
+He spoke with perfect good-nature and good temper, not suspecting
+anything but that all the rest of the company were equally averse with
+himself to Mr. Hoyle’s visits, and he smiled a little as he looked at
+Mary.
+
+‘Me!’ said his sister, laughing. ‘Nay, I’m not come to that. As long as
+I live I’st go to th’ parish church every Sunday, and sit in th’ old
+place----’
+
+‘Alongside o’ Harry Ashworth,’ put in Edmund, gravely, at which Mary’s
+cheeks flushed, and she went on somewhat more rapidly.
+
+‘For I make nowt at o’ out o’ the meetin’-house.’
+
+‘Perhaps you’ll end by leaving th’ owd place for an older, and going
+clean over to Rome,’ said Mrs. Heywood, who had been bending over the
+fire, looking at a pan of potatoes, and who now raised rather a flushed
+face from that occupation; ‘choose how, there’st nowt be said here
+against James Hoyle, the godly man! and it’s more than likely that
+you’ll see more of him than you have done yet.’
+
+‘How do you mean?’ asked her eldest son, turning towards her; ‘you mean
+that Jimmy Hoyle would come here a second time after I’d forbidden him
+the house?’
+
+He laughed, as if he thought it rather a good joke.
+
+‘You’d turn him out of the house? That’s like you!’ said Mrs. Heywood,
+emptying the potatoes into a tureen.
+
+‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Myles, in some
+surprise at her whole demeanour.
+
+‘Well, you’ll get to know, then,’ she retorted, without meeting his
+eye. ‘A good man is like the salt of the earth. He can make even a
+sinful house holy, and bring a blessing on it. James Hoyle and me is
+going to be married. We’st be wed this day three week, and then I’d
+like to know how you’ll forbid him the house.’
+
+There was a momentary silence, during which Myles, who had risen,
+stared at his mother in an incredulous manner. Mary, after a moment,
+turned pale, and sat down upon a chair in the background. Edmund’s lips
+were curled into a sneer.
+
+‘Mother!’ said Myles, confronting her, and somewhat forcing her eyes to
+meet his. ‘Is this a joke that you’re playing upon us? Because, if so,
+it’s a very poor one.’
+
+‘Joke!’ she retorted, her voice rising to shrillness. ‘What should it
+be a joke for, I’d like to know? Have I such comfort in my children
+that I shouldn’t be glad of the help of a godly man--oh, and he is a
+godly man--like that?’
+
+‘That’s a poor answer, mother,’ said Myles, who had thrust his hand
+into his breast, as if to repress some anger or emotion. ‘Your children
+have never done anything to cause you uneasiness.’
+
+‘Do go on blowing your own trumpet!’ Mrs. Heywood exhorted him.
+
+‘Nay, I’ve no more to say about it. But I want a better answer than
+that your children’s conduct drove you to marry that great, idle,
+greasy, sanctimonious, all-praying, no-doing brute--he isn’t a man. I
+can understand him wanting to marry you, you’ve thirty pounds a year
+of your own: but that you should look at him!’ He made an expressive
+gesture of contempt.
+
+‘So it’s my money he’s marrying me for,’ said Mrs. Heywood; and no
+girl of eighteen could have spoken with more anger at the suggestion.
+‘That’s it, is it? Ay, ay! “Honour thy father and thy mother”--do!’
+
+‘Are you giving us an example of honouring our father?’ he inquired,
+growing quieter in tone as his anger and disgust grew more intense,
+and her determination (he saw) more fixed. ‘Or is your present plan
+likely to lead us to honour you? No, mother; I can’t see what a woman
+like you wants with marrying again; though if it had been a decent man,
+let him be never so rough, I’d have put up with him, but that--why,
+I saw him on Saturday night coming out of the lowest public-house in
+Thanshope--half-drunk--as plain as I see you. But here’s the long and
+short of it. That man certainly never enters this house again. I’ll let
+him know that. And if you do marry him, he’ll please to find a home for
+you; for neither he nor you will share ours. Mark my words--if you go
+to him you leave us for ever.’
+
+‘Mother, thou’ll ne’er be so wicked,’ said Mary, from her corner, in
+tears.
+
+‘Hold thy tongue, thou hussy! calling thy mother wicked,’ said Mrs.
+Heywood, sharply.
+
+‘I’ll not have Molly called by that name,’ said Myles, composedly.
+‘Remember, it’s I that am master here, when all’s said and done. I’ll
+have no such nonsense carried on. So let us hear--do you intend to be a
+wise woman or a fool?’
+
+The words were not at all rudely spoken, but they were unfortunately
+chosen. They incensed Mrs. Heywood, and she replied sharply,
+
+‘I intend to marry James Hoyle.’
+
+‘Then,’ said he, slowly, as if giving her an opportunity to recant,
+‘it’s settled that I intend to have no more to do with you.’
+
+‘Oh, Myles, don’t be so hard on her!’ implored Mary, coming forward and
+laying her hand upon his arm.
+
+‘My good lass,’ said he, ‘dry thy eyes, and be glad thou’rt not called
+upon to be hard, as thou calls it.’
+
+Mary did not expostulate. Under the gentleness of the words she read a
+decision which she did not attempt to combat.
+
+‘Mary’s our good angel,’ remarked Edmund from the couch; and his eyes,
+too, fell upon her with affection.
+
+‘A nice angel you’ll find her when I’m gone,’ grumbled Mrs. Heywood.
+
+‘Once more,’ broke in Myles’s voice, ‘I tell you, mother, I have spoken
+to you for the last time, unless I hear that this abominable thing is
+given up--for the last time.’
+
+‘Myles!’ implored his sister. But she might as well have tried to move
+one of the great boulders on Blackrigg as make him soften or yield one
+jot.
+
+‘Come, lass!’ he observed to her. ‘Those that must work must eat. The
+time’s gone by in this precious palaver, and we’ve only twenty minutes
+left.’
+
+He sat down and helped himself, and tried to look as if nothing had
+happened; soon, however, he laid down his knife and fork, and told
+Mary, who had not even pretended to eat, that it was time to go.
+
+She put her shawl over her head, and, saying good afternoon to Edmund,
+they went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+SANS FAÇON.
+
+
+Six o’clock was the time at which the work-people ‘knocked off.’ Myles
+and Mary had not spoken as they went to their work, and of course not
+during the afternoon; and it was only as they were coming home again
+that they first named the subject which at that moment lay nearest
+their hearts. Mary was all for mildness and temperate measures.
+
+‘I think, Myles, that if we was to be kind to her, and talk to her,
+hoo’d likely give it up,’ said the girl, in her soft, broad, Lancashire
+dialect.
+
+‘Not she, Molly. She’s no intention of giving it up.’
+
+‘I never could abide yon Hoyle,’ went on Mary. ‘A false, sneakin’
+fellow, he always seemed to me. I reckon he’s after mother’s bit o’
+brass; but how hoo can gi’ so mich as a thought to him--nay, it fair
+passes me!’
+
+‘Ay! you may well blush! I don’t wonder!’ said Myles, grimly. ‘It looks
+as if some people’s minds were fair crooked, or set up on edge, or
+upside down, or something.’
+
+They went into the house, and found Edmund alone.
+
+‘She’s not coming back,’ said he, by way of salutation. ‘She’s gone to
+some of his relations. She says she’s lived through a deal o’ trouble,
+and has found out at last what it was to be turned out of doors by her
+own children.’
+
+Neither Mary nor Myles made any answer to this announcement. Mary got
+tea ready, and they sat down. It was a silent painful meal. Myles rose
+from it with a sense of relief, and taking Edmund’s book to change,
+said he was going down to the reading-room.
+
+‘Would thou mind calling at th’ saddler’s in Bold Street for yon strap
+o’ mine?’ said Mary.
+
+‘What strap, Molly?’
+
+‘It’s a girder as I took to have a new un made like it. He’ll give you
+both th’ old and th’ new un. I could like to have it to take wi’ me
+to-morn. I’ve been using Sally Rogers’; but hoo’s comin’ back again
+to-morn, and hoo’ll want it hoo’rsel.’
+
+‘Ay, I’ll get it,’ said Myles, putting on his cap and going out.
+
+He made a little détour from his usual route, in order to go to
+the saddler’s on his errand for Mary. Bold Street was one of the
+principal streets of Thanshope, and close to the very shop to which
+Myles was going was a place known to the vulgar as ‘th’ Club.’ This
+was a billiard and whist club, frequented by the golden youth of the
+promising town of Thanshope.
+
+It was a spot not exactly loved of the mammas of the said town, and
+much discussed by the young ladies of the same. Much iniquity was
+vaguely supposed to be perpetrated there: some of the piously disposed
+spoke of it as a ‘den’; others, who knew nothing, and wished to appear
+as if they knew a great deal, said it was ‘as bad as the worst of
+London clubs,’ which remark may serve as a specimen of the mighty
+self-consciousness of little provincial towns--and ‘den’ is a word
+which has about it a fine abstract flavour of awfulness.
+
+It is probable that, as a matter of fact, much bad whist was played
+there; billiard balls were knocked up and down, and bets made; too much
+spirits were probably consumed; as many dull, coarse, or vulgar tales
+were told, as much aimless scandal was talked, as many praise-worthy
+efforts were made to ape the manners and tone of metropolitan clubs, as
+in most provincial institutions of a similar kind.
+
+Myles went to the saddler’s, which was next door to this temple
+of hilarity, fashion, and fastness; got the straps which Mary had
+spoken of, and then came out to take his way to the town-hall. As he
+passed the portico of the club, he saw just within it a back which he
+remembered, clothed in broadcloth. Beside this figure was another,
+that of a mere lad, with a babyish face and no chin to speak of, who
+would have been better in the cricket-field, or even grinding at his
+Latin grammar. On his small-featured insignificant face was stamped an
+expression of foolish glee and admiration.
+
+The first individual was speaking; Myles, strolling leisurely past,
+heard the words, in the loud, strident voice:
+
+‘Such a chase, my boy! but I succeeded. I found out where she lives,
+and waylaid her; gave her my protection whether she liked it or not.
+Unless I’m much mistaken, we shall soon be very good friends. She’s a
+deep one--those little demure things always are. Ha, ha!’
+
+‘I say, Spenceley----’
+
+‘Doosid pretty, though. D--d good eyes she has, and knows how to use
+them. Look here! do you want your revenge for Saturday night?’
+
+‘Oh yes! Come along!’
+
+They walked forward to the interior of the hall, and were lost to view.
+
+Never before had Myles felt the singular sensation which just then
+clutched him--a kind of tingling, half of rage, half of shame, from
+head to foot--a tempest of his whole mental being. He was in a white
+heat of fury, and only two ideas were distinct in his mind: to find
+Adrienne, and to punish her insulter.
+
+Almost unknowing how, he hurried to the town-hall, up the stairs,
+through the library, into the reading-room. Would she be there? Yes,
+she was there, in her usual place. He strode towards her. She was not
+even pretending to read or write. She was pale as ashes, and trembling,
+as he saw in his approach.
+
+‘Miss Blisset!’ he almost whispered, as he went up to her, and bent
+over her, his face dark with suppressed indignation, his eyes aflame.
+If she too had not been moved out of all conventional calm, she must
+have started at the expression which flashed from his face upon hers.
+
+‘Oh, Mr. Heywood, will you be so very good as to go home with me now,
+at once? I have been so frightened and--insulted.’
+
+Her voice broke, though her eyes flashed. How proud a front soever
+she might have showed to her insulter, the reaction had set in: the
+remembrance was not to be borne unmoved.
+
+‘I know you have,’ said he in a low emphatic voice; and a tremor
+shook him too as he looked at her and saw how beautiful she was. He
+had admired her as she sat in repose, but now every fibre of his
+nature bowed to her, and he felt a passionate desire to do something,
+anything, which should set him apart in her eyes from others. Yet
+after his first swift glance, he scarcely looked at her, and said very
+little. Words appeared weak and trivial--he could not express in them
+his detestation of the conduct of that other man, or how profoundly he
+reverenced her.
+
+‘How was it?’ he asked, speaking composedly, but clenching his hands,
+and crushing together what he held in them.
+
+‘It was that man,’ said she, in a low breathless voice, ‘that hideous
+man. I don’t know where he saw me. I think he must have followed me,
+but when I got to that little lane, he suddenly overtook me, and spoke
+to me. I could not turn back. It would have been much farther--and so
+lonely. I did not answer him; I went on very fast, but he detained
+me so long in that lane--he would not let me pass. I thought I
+should--bah! I thought, when we got into the town, that he would have
+left me, but he did not. He came to the very door of this place, and I
+dare not go out for fear he should be there yet. Oh, I am so glad to
+see you! I thought you were never coming.’
+
+She had leaned her head upon her hand, or she must have seen the light
+that flashed suddenly into his eyes--not the light that had been there
+at first. He drew a long breath, but succeeded in not betraying for a
+second his emotion, as she turned, pale and quivering with excitement,
+and put her two little slender hands upon his, saying earnestly,
+
+‘You have been very kind to me. What should I have done if you had not
+helped me?’
+
+‘It has been a pleasure to serve you,’ he said constrainedly. ‘Do you
+feel fit to walk home now?’
+
+‘Oh, quite!’ she answered, picking up her note-book; and they went away
+together.
+
+Myles walked with her to the gate of her uncle’s house, and said, as
+they paused there,
+
+‘Of course you will never come again, Miss Blisset?’
+
+‘Never. Of course not.’
+
+‘Then--then--’ he faltered, unable to say what he wished.
+
+‘But I shall see you again, of course,’ said Adrienne, quickly. ‘You
+will come again. My uncle wishes you to come again. And you will--yes?’
+
+‘You are sure it wouldn’t be an intrusion?’ said Myles, doubtfully.
+
+‘Very far from an intrusion,’ she answered. ‘You will be welcome--and
+you will be expected until you come.’
+
+With which, and with a warm hand-shake she disappeared.
+
+Myles did not pause to-night to contemplate the street, or to look
+out for the light in the window. He took the shortest and straightest
+course into the town again, went direct to Bold Street, and stopped
+before the club.
+
+There was a light in the vestibule of that building, and a waiter stood
+at the door surveying the passers by, and feeling no doubt that he
+looked negatively fascinating.
+
+‘Is Mr. Frederick Spenceley here?’ inquired Myles, quietly and politely.
+
+‘Mr. Frederick Spenceley?’ repeated the waiter, while an expression of
+ill-humour crossed his face. ‘I rather think he is, and in a deuce of a
+temper too. If Mr. Frederick Spenceley keeps on coming here, I shan’t
+stay. Well, do you want to see him?’
+
+‘I should like just to speak to him,’ said Myles, ever calmly and
+politely; his one object being to penetrate to Mr. Spenceley’s
+presence, content to pocket his burning fury until he was face to face
+with him.
+
+Mr. Spenceley evidently enjoyed little favour in the eyes of the
+waiter, or the latter would hardly have allowed a working-man to
+penetrate into that _sanctum sanctorum_, the billiard-room. As it was,
+he said,
+
+‘Well, if you go straight ahead upstairs, you’ll find him in the
+billiard-room, I expect. But perhaps you want to see him down here?’
+
+‘Oh no! I can go to him. Upstairs, you say?’
+
+The waiter nodded; and Myles obeying his direction, found himself on
+the first landing, opposite a door inscribed ‘Billiards.’
+
+He knocked, but no reply was given, which was accounted for by the loud
+and overpowering voice of Frederick Spenceley, whose accents drowned
+all other sounds.
+
+Myles opened the door, and walked into the room, which was like most
+other billiard-rooms: four green-shaded lights above the table; the
+marker, standing in his place, looking sulky--he too having received
+his share of the compliments of Mr. Spenceley that evening.
+
+(It was a significant fact, that not one of Frederick Spenceley’s
+inferiors would have felt anything but pleasure in his degradation or
+humiliation.)
+
+There was Charlie Saunders, the insignificant-looking boy whose pretty
+pink-and-white face was now a good deal flushed, and who laughed
+foolishly now and then in high-pitched voice. Opposite, with his burly
+back towards the door, was Frederick Spenceley, shouting very loudly,
+and freely expressing his opinion that the cloth was a confounded bad
+one, and that the table was not level.
+
+‘It’s your eye that’s not level, Freddy, my boy,’ said his youthful
+opponent; ‘and your cue too. Look out what you’re doing.’
+
+‘D--n it! it isn’t. Where’s the cha-alk? It’s my beastly luck,’ roared
+Spenceley, against whom the balls had broken most unfavourably the
+whole evening.
+
+Had the fellow been in the least intoxicated, Myles would have retired;
+but he was merely noisy and ill-tempered, and accordingly the workman
+chose that moment to step forward and touch Mr. Spenceley on the
+shoulder.
+
+With a violent start, which contrasted somewhat curiously with his
+previous bluster, he turned; and when he saw Myles, his face assumed a
+deep hue of anger, and perhaps of some less noble feeling.
+
+‘I want a word with you,’ said Myles, curtly; and young Saunders paused
+to stare at the new-comer, while the marker turned and looked on too.
+
+Be it observed that neither of these men loved Frederick Spenceley.
+A billiard-marker, however, is not always in a position to resent
+affronts, and Charlie Saunders was a person of less importance than
+Spenceley, whatever might be his private opinion of him. Moreover, the
+whole proceeding took them by surprise, or--perhaps they might have
+interfered.
+
+‘If you like to come to another room, where we can be alone,’ pursued
+Myles, composedly, ‘lead the way. I don’t care where it is.’
+
+‘What the ---- do you want, you ----?’ growled Spenceley, recovering
+his pluck, or what he was pleased to consider his pluck.
+
+‘I think you remember me. I don’t need to introduce myself,’ said
+Myles. ‘Now look here! You’ve been behaving like a blackguard
+again--perhaps you can’t help that--but, in any case, you’ll be pleased
+to take your attentions to some other quarter than that one. You know
+what I mean.’
+
+‘I’ll be--’ (a volley of the dash dialect)--‘if I do, you fool! Be off,
+and don’t annoy gentlemen. Clear out, I say, or I’ll call the waiter,
+and have you kicked out.’
+
+There was that in Myles’s face, so far removed from brutal violence,
+which was conspicuous in every word and gesture of Spenceley, that the
+others were quiescent. How he had got there was a mystery to them; but
+being there, they were Englishmen enough to wish for fair play, and
+had sufficient sense to perceive that the workman was no blackguard,
+whatever his interlocutor might be.
+
+‘You were in Markham’s Lane, to-night,’ went on Myles composedly,
+though his face had become white, and his lips were set.
+
+‘What’s that to you? What business have you to come spying on
+gentlemen?’
+
+‘If I were you, I wouldn’t say too much about spying. You know what
+happened there--in Markham’s Lane I mean. If anything like it happens
+again--just once again----’
+
+He paused.
+
+‘Well?’ said Spenceley, with a sneer and a taunt, ‘what will be the
+consequences, my fine fellow?’
+
+‘They will be unpleasant to you, for I’ll thrash you within an inch of
+your life.’
+
+‘Ha! ha! _ha_!’ roared Mr. Spenceley, but somehow there was a false
+note in the full chord: it failed of rounded complete harmony.
+
+‘Freddy, what have you been up to?’ cried Charlie Saunders, in amaze;
+but he did not ask what the other man had been ‘up to.’ It appeared to
+be taken for granted that he had good ground for his complaint.
+
+‘Look here, you beggar,’ observed Spenceley to Myles; ‘just get out
+of this, before you are turned out, and don’t interfere in things you
+don’t understand.’
+
+‘I go when I have your promise to behave yourself in future--not
+before.’
+
+‘Wha-at? Promises? I don’t make promises to cads.’
+
+‘Then I suppose you’ve never promised yourself what you deserve. I’m
+waiting for a promise to me, not a cad, and I’ll stay till I get it.’
+
+‘D--n you! will you be off?’ shouted Spenceley, in a sudden passion, as
+he saw the cool, scornful face of Myles, and his eyes contemptuously
+measuring him from head to foot; and took in with a side-glance the
+scarcely concealed smile upon the faces of the others. ‘Will neither of
+you fellows ring the bell, and have this fool turned out?’
+
+The rules of the club not providing for such an emergency, they took no
+notice of what he blustered at them, while Myles replied coolly as ever,
+
+‘When I’ve got what I want, I’ll be off, as I said.’
+
+‘Perhaps you want to keep the little darling to yourself,’ began
+Spenceley.
+
+‘Drop that!’ said Myles, sharply, for the first time losing his perfect
+self-command.
+
+‘Ah, that’s it! We don’t want to be disturbed in our little game. We
+are so very industrious and literary in our pursuits----’
+
+In clenching his hand, Myles felt something in it which he had
+forgotten--the parcel containing Mary’s straps. The paper which
+enwrapped them had got loose. One strap had fallen coiling upon the
+floor; one remained in his hand. He looked at it, and felt very strong
+to wield it. He turned once more to Spenceley, saying,
+
+‘Do you promise never to speak to, or molest the lady again?’
+
+‘Make promises to _you_, about that little jade ...’ began Spenceley,
+jeeringly, but he did not finish the sentence.
+
+Myles’s hand, like an iron vice, was at his throat, and during the
+paralysing astonishment and bewilderment of the other two, Frederick
+Spenceley received such a thrashing as he had many a time deserved,
+but which circumstances had hitherto denied to him. Myles’s hold,
+strengthened by a passion which lent him irresistible power, did not
+for one moment relax. At last Saunders turned and rang the bell; but
+not before the fine broadcloth coat was in ribbons upon its owner’s
+back, and the face above it purple and almost suffocating, did Myles
+fling him away from him, remarking coolly,
+
+‘Perhaps that will answer as well as a promise. If ever it’s necessary,
+there’s the same thing, and worse, ready for you a second time.’
+
+He turned to find the door open, and the waiter staring in, aghast.
+
+‘Kick him out! Fetch some water!’ cried young Saunders, bending
+over the prostrate figure of his friend. ‘Kick him out, I say!’
+he reiterated. He was remarkably small and slender in figure, and
+doubtless felt that it would be a mockery to attempt the deed himself.
+
+Myles turned towards the waiter, who still blocked up the doorway.
+
+‘Well,’ said he, tranquilly, ‘I am waiting; which are you going to do?
+Kick me out--or let me pass?’
+
+The billiard-marker had made no attempt to interfere. The insults
+received that very evening from Spenceley rankled in his mind; he was
+well pleased at the humiliation of the bully. The little waiter looked
+up for a moment at the tall, muscular, sinewy young man who towered
+above him, with a pale face, and a look of inflexible determination and
+power about his eyes and mouth, and a frown of anger, terrible in its
+intensity, on his brow. He stood aside silently. Myles turned and said,
+
+‘If I’m wanted again about this business, my name is Heywood, and I
+live on the Townfield. I can easily be found.’
+
+No answer was returned: he composedly picked up his second strap, and
+walked away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+AFTER-THOUGHTS.
+
+
+‘What ails thee, Myles?’ asked his sister, as he came into the kitchen.
+
+‘Me? Nothing, lass. Here’s your straps. The new one has had a kind of
+inauguration, but I reckon it will have done it good more likely than
+harm.’
+
+‘What dost mean?’ she asked, staring at him.
+
+‘Oh, nothing!’ said he, with a slight laugh, as he leaned against the
+mantelpiece with his arms folded behind him, his favourite attitude.
+
+‘Hast changed my book, Myles?’ inquired Edmund.
+
+‘Eh, I clean forgot it,’ replied Myles, with a start. ‘I’m very sorry.
+Fact is, I was called off, and I never thought of the book again.’
+
+‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ answered Edmund, who was in high good humour
+at his mother’s absence.
+
+Mary also seemed less constrained, though nothing would have induced
+her to own that she was glad her mother had left them. She moved about
+more freely, and as she passed to and fro, ‘putting things to rights,’
+she was heard to sing snatches of no less a song of praise than the
+‘Old Hundredth.’ And when her household work was done (for Myles’s
+adventure had not taken long, and it was now barely eight o’clock) she
+brought her work, and sat down with her brothers; and though there were
+shadows brooding over them all--darker shadows, and deeper, than they
+imagined--they formed a very happy trio.
+
+Mary especially felt happy and contented. She was devoted to her
+brothers--loved Edmund with a mother’s and a sister’s love combined,
+while she looked upon Myles as her ideal of all that was good and
+manly. He had given her no cause to think otherwise. With regard to her
+own merits, she was humble; but let any one impeach in the slightest
+degree those of Myles or Edmund, and she became fierce, proud, and
+resentful. Something in Myles’s mien to-night disturbed her, she knew
+not why.
+
+‘Wilt have thi pipe, lad? It’s theer; I’st get it in a minute.’
+
+‘No, thank you, Molly. I don’t care about smoking to-night.’
+
+‘Did iver ony one see sich a chap?’ said Mary, secretly filled with
+pride in him. ‘He ne’er drinks, and he ne’er hardly smokes, and he
+ne’er does nowt disagreeable.’
+
+‘He hasn’t a redeeming vice,’ said Myles, ironically, watching her
+fingers as she plied her needle, and forcing himself to speak, though
+he did it half mechanically. What was she making? he asked.
+
+‘A shirt.’
+
+‘For whom?’
+
+‘Why, for thee, lad!’ said Mary, with a laugh and a look at him; and
+Myles returned the look with a smile, and instantly became lost in a
+long train of reflection.
+
+Edmund and Mary loved him, and looked up to him as to a superior
+being, as the centre figure in their lives, and the person around whom
+clustered their hopes, fears, and loves. Beyond them, out of their
+circle, was Adrienne Blisset; was it in the nature of things that she
+could ever behold him with eyes like theirs? No, never; because she was
+instructed, and they were ignorant. Well, was adoration the best thing
+for a man? Was it not better to adore? Could there be any shame in the
+worship of a woman like Adrienne? He decided, no. It was not the giving
+up of independence--it was the bending to a superior being, which, when
+that attitude was self-elected, was the highest independence. Here all
+was secure, safe, assured. Nothing would ever change the love of these
+two for him: outside there, where Adrienne was, all was storm, cloudy,
+feverish, uncertain: he knew not what she thought of him--what feelings
+or no-feelings her gracious manner might cover.
+
+He had defended her--from the first moment of their intercourse his
+attitude had been made by circumstances a protecting one: he felt at
+once an inferiority and a superiority to her, which two things do
+surely form part of the primal basis of pure and holy love. He stood
+still, leaning against the chimney-piece, thinking of what he had this
+night done for her sake, and his face flushed at the remembrance.
+
+‘Can she ever be like another woman to me?’ he thought. ‘It is
+impossible. If it were possible I should be a clod.’ For what he had
+done counted for something with Myles: he was not one of those heroes
+who will thrash you half a dozen fellows, twice as big as themselves,
+and then require to be reminded of such a trifle.
+
+He was not quite sure, even now, that he felt unmixed satisfaction in
+the deed. To thrash a cowardly bully, who seemed unable to express
+himself without the assistance of copious volleys of oaths, was one
+thing, and Myles contemplated with some complacency the fact that he
+had done it. But if any evil consequences should ensue to Adrienne!
+
+After a moment he reassured himself. He did not believe that Spenceley
+knew her name. He had not mentioned it. Myles would have died rather
+than utter it himself in that company--that would indeed have been a
+casting of pearls before swine, of which he was naturally incapable.
+
+If Mr. Spenceley chose to prosecute him he would own himself guilty,
+and take his punishment--anything rather than drag her name into the
+discussion; but he doubted much whether Spenceley would wish to draw
+public attention so pointedly to the fact that he had been flogged by a
+workman in the billiard-room of his own club. That would have been to
+expose his own brutal insolence and violence, and to hint, moreover, at
+some discreditable deed in the background which had called forth the
+attack. Myles began to wonder how that beautiful sister of his, whom he
+had spoken to that morning--could it be that morning?--would receive
+her brother. Then his thoughts wandered off again to Adrienne.
+
+‘At any rate, I can’t face her yet. I must stay quiet awhile until
+it has blown over. Perhaps, as she’s so very quiet, and goes out so
+little, she’ll not hear about it; and then I could call, and not
+mention it, and it would all pass over.’
+
+A knock at the back door roused him.
+
+Mary lifted her head, and cried ‘Come in!’ but after a pause the knock
+was renewed.
+
+‘It’s Harry,’ observed Edmund. ‘Thou mun open to him, Myles, or he’ll
+go on knocking for half an hour.’
+
+‘Ay, poor lad, I suppose he will,’ said Myles, going towards the door,
+while Mary maintained absolute silence, continuing her work.
+
+Myles soon returned, accompanied by a young man, slight and somewhat
+delicate-looking, pale-faced and fair-complexioned, whose calm, open
+countenance was pleasant to look upon, despite a certain vagueness in
+its expression--not a want of intelligence, or anything approaching
+vacancy, but rather as if something escaped him and left him apart from
+other people.
+
+‘Good evenin’, Mary--evenin’, Ned,’ he said, in the very softest and
+gentlest of voices.
+
+‘Sit down, Harry, and have supper with us,’ said Myles; and when he
+spoke, Harry Ashworth’s infirmity became apparent.
+
+Myles had to go close up to him and speak, not very loudly, but very
+slowly and clearly. He was almost deaf, in consequence of a fever he
+had had when a boy of twelve. He was twenty-five now, and the weakness
+increased each year: it was probable that in a few more years he would
+be stone-deaf. He was a frequent visitor at the Heywoods’, and a great
+friend of Myles and Edmund; Mary and he had little to say to each other
+beyond the words of greeting and farewell.
+
+There was a certain constraint this evening immediately after his
+entrance, on account of what had happened in regard to Mrs. Heywood,
+but this constraint was dissipated by Harry himself.
+
+‘I hear your mother has gone,’ he remarked.
+
+Myles assented in a grave sort of way.
+
+Mary’s cheeks flushed, and she did not raise her eyes from her work.
+
+‘She thinks of being married soon, then?’
+
+‘I expect so,’ said Myles.
+
+‘Ah,’ said Harry; and then, without any embarrassment, changed the
+subject.
+
+‘We may expect changes soon, Myles, I reckon.’
+
+‘What changes?’ asked Myles, who had come close to Harry, while the
+latter had placed his chair beside Edmund’s sofa.
+
+‘The master’s coming back--so I hear.’
+
+‘Oh, him!’ said Myles, again trying to turn up his nose, and again
+failing to do so.
+
+Harry laughed, and Mary remarked,
+
+‘Eh, but I could like to seen yon chap. He mun be some and clever.’
+
+‘Molly thinks he must be clever,’ said Myles to Harry, who nodded.
+
+‘I don’t see why he shouldn’t be, choose how. I think you’re a bit hard
+on him, Myles. We know no harm on him.’
+
+‘Yes, we do. We know he’s neglected his business and his property. He’s
+six-and-twenty if he’s a day, and he’s never looked in upon us since he
+came into possession. He’s a gawmless chap--he must be.’
+
+‘Well, we’st see that when he comes. Have you heard as Mr. Lippincott,
+his health’s failin’, and he’s ordered abroad? They say he can’t live.’
+
+Mr. Lippincott was the sitting member for Thanshope.
+
+‘Nay, I heard nothing of that,’ said Myles, reflectively. ‘Then,
+suppose he dies, we shall have a fresh election.’
+
+‘Ay; and I have heard,’ pursued Harry, not without a twinkle of humour
+in his eyes, ‘as it’s possible Mr. Mallory may stand, if Mr. Lippincott
+resigns or dies.’
+
+‘What!’ ejaculated Myles. ‘And who is to oppose him?’
+
+‘Spenceley--Bargaining Jack.’
+
+‘Why, Myles, thou’d be hard set to know who to vote for,’ said Mary,
+innocently.
+
+Myles suddenly recovered his presence of mind, and shouted to Harry,
+
+‘You’ve heard wrong, lad. Mallorys are all Tories, and always have
+been--it’s bred in the bone; and Bargaining Jack reckons to be a
+Conservative too, so far as he’s anything. Conservatives manage better
+than us. They would never run two candidates in Thanshope--in fact,
+they only run one for the look of the thing. They can’t get the wedge
+in here.’
+
+‘Well, I have heard too,’ continued Harry, ‘as how Mallory is a
+Radical--a Liberal, choose how.’
+
+‘That I’ll never believe till I hear him say it himself,’ said Myles,
+decidedly. ‘And from all I’ve heard, I think you’ve been misinformed,
+Harry.’
+
+‘Well, perhaps I have,’ said Harry, peaceably. ‘It doesn’t matter to me
+which way it is.’
+
+Nor did the others appear to take much interest in the subject, for it
+dropped, and Mary began to get supper ready.
+
+At that meal the conversation was carried on almost entirely between
+Harry and Myles. Harry was a spinner, in receipt of a large wage. He
+was, as has been said, a pleasant, comely-looking young man, and if not
+very robust, did not look unhealthy. Many of his friends wondered why
+he did not marry; for he was turned twenty-five. He and Myles and Mary
+Heywood were beginning to be looked upon as drifting into the old maid
+and bachelor ranks.
+
+At all times, early--terribly early--marriages are the rule in
+Lancashire; but in those halcyon years of plenty and golden prosperity
+preceding the American Civil War, they had been more numerous than ever.
+
+After supper Edmund, stretching out his arms, said in a muffled kind of
+voice,
+
+‘Eh, I say, it is some and hot here. I wonder what it’s like outside.’
+
+‘Why, the air’s pleasant enough on the Townfield,’ said Harry.
+
+‘I could like to feel it,’ remarked Edmund. ‘I’ve not been out these
+three days.’
+
+‘Well, come along and take a turn,’ said Myles, good-naturedly, well
+knowing that Edmund’s motive for suggesting such a thing at that time
+was that the dusk was rapidly gathering: there were fewer people about,
+and he was less likely to be observed.
+
+Edmund jumped at the offer, and Myles, giving him his cap, and taking
+his own, drew his brother’s arm through his, shouting to Harry,
+
+‘Wilt come with us, or wilt stay with Molly?’
+
+‘I’st stay and have a pipe till you come in, if Mary’s no objection,’
+said Harry; and Mary, by way of answer, pointed to a china basket on
+the mantelpiece, in which stood half a dozen neatly made ‘spills.’
+
+These spills were a mystery to the household. Mary gave it out that
+she liked to have them. They looked tidy like, and did for lighting
+the pipes; but it was a well-known fact that Edmund did not smoke at
+all, that Myles preferred to light his pipe with a coal or a match,
+and that the only visitor who enjoyed the privilege of smoking in
+that kitchen was Harry Ashworth. Yet no one ever suggested that the
+lighters were kept in stock for Harry’s benefit, though Edmund had
+been perilously near doing so once or twice. Had he or any one else
+uttered that theory, it is impossible to imagine what Mary would have
+said--possibly nothing at all, for she was, in practice at least, a
+strong upholder of the theory that ‘silence is golden.’
+
+The two brothers went out, leaving the door open, and a waft of the
+somewhat cooler outside air penetrated to the kitchen. The gas was
+not lighted; the fire had burnt low; the room was almost dark. Mary
+could no longer see to work, and sat, with her head thrown a little
+backwards, in the high-backed, red-cushioned rocking-chair. The clock
+ticked: everything was very still. It was Harry who spoke first, in his
+soft voice.
+
+‘Warm and close, this here weather, Mary.’
+
+‘Ay,’ said Mary, ‘’tis.’
+
+‘How does Ned get on?’ he asked; for though she did not speak very
+loudly, she spoke deliberately, and he appeared to hear her easily.
+
+‘He feels th’ heat aboon a bit,’ replied Mary.
+
+‘Ay! I dare say.’
+
+A pause, while Harry puffed away at his pipe, and Mary offered no
+further observations on men or things.
+
+‘I took a long walk o’ Sunday--yesterday,’ observed Harry at last.
+
+‘Did you? Where to?’
+
+‘Reet o’er th’ moors to th’ top o’ Blackrigg.’
+
+‘It’s to’ far. Thou’rt none strong eno’ for sich like walks.’
+
+‘Yea, but I am. I set me down on the heather, and listened wi’ all my
+might, and I thowt I heard a bird singing.’
+
+‘Happen a lark?’ said Mary, after a perceptible pause.
+
+‘Happen. I should ha’ gone to church in th’ evenin’, but I can’t
+hear--nowt distinct, that’s to say--and I’m a’most inclined to think
+that I didn’t _hear_ yon lark, but only thowt I did, from memory, thou
+known.’
+
+‘Ay,’ assented Mary.
+
+‘And when I go into church, and hear the organ buzzin’ and th’ voices
+all mixed up wi’ it, and can’t make out what it is, it fair moithers
+me; same as when I look up, and see th’ parson speakin’, and don’t know
+what it’s about.’
+
+‘Ay,’ said Mary, laconically as ever, but this time there was the
+faintest possible vibration in her voice.
+
+And there was another long pause, while Mary’s eyelids drooped. He did
+not see that--it was too dark; and had he seen it, he could not have
+known that those eyelids were sore with repressed tears, which burnt
+them, and which she would not allow to flow.
+
+‘Sometimes,’ his voice broke in again, ‘I get discontented. I’m main
+fond o’ music, as you know, Mary.’
+
+‘Ay, I know thou art.’
+
+‘And it troubles me above a bit sometimes as I should be deaf, for it
+just takes away my greatest pleasure. Sometimes I wish I’d been blind
+instead.’
+
+No answer from Mary, till Harry, in a hesitating voice, said,
+
+‘What dost think, Mary? Is it very wrong to have such thoughts?’
+
+‘No, I dunnot,’ replied Mary. ’ I call it very nateral. If I was deaf,
+I reckon I should make more noise about it than you do. I wonder what
+them chaps is doin.’ It’s time they was comin’ in.’
+
+‘Don’t thou go out. I’ll find ’em, and tell ’em, for I mun be goin’
+too,’ said Harry, rising.
+
+Mary had begun to poke the fire violently, and now let the poker fall
+with a loud rattle, as Harry, without her knowing it, had advanced
+close to her, so that her elbow struck against his outstretched hand.
+
+‘Dule tak’ th’ fire-irons!’ said she, impatiently. ‘I conna think what
+ails ’em. Good neet to you, if you mun be going,’ she added, shaking
+hands with him, and, as soon as he was gone, lighting the gas.
+
+Presently her brothers came in. The house was locked up. Mary went to
+bed, followed by Edmund. Myles was left by the dying-out kitchen fire,
+with a book on the table, which he never opened, but sat till far into
+the night, living through some of those strange hours of still, silent,
+yet vivid, rushing, mental life which come to all of us sometimes in
+our youth, and which are like no other hours in our experience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A TEA-PARTY.
+
+  ‘Mir war’s so wohl, so weh!’
+
+
+After that evening Myles found himself in a position which he at least
+found full of difficulties. Two things happened, both of which he had
+looked upon as probable; the news of what had happened spread, and
+Frederick Spenceley did not prosecute. The waiter who had allowed Myles
+to go into the billiard-room was dismissed; the billiard-marker who had
+stood by shared the same fate.
+
+It would be difficult to guess what object, real or supposed, was
+gained by this measure; but it seemed to afford great satisfaction to
+many minds. Spenceley found it convenient to leave home for some weeks,
+and Myles heard no more of his share in the transaction.
+
+There were endless tales in circulation--the facts, the names, the
+causes of the affair, all got mixed up in the wildest and most
+inextricable confusion, as in such cases they always do. The principals
+maintained absolute silence, and let report work what wonders it would
+or could.
+
+    ‘Bear not false witness; let the lie
+    Have time on its own wings to fly!’
+
+They adhered to the precept, and the result was that they and their
+grievances were soon completely obscured in the buzz of talk,
+conjecture, wrong guesses, and wild surmises which gathered about them
+like a thick cloud. One thing soon became apparent; and, once secure of
+that, Myles cared nothing for the rest. Adrienne’s name was not known.
+The cause of the _fracas_ was generally supposed to be a woman; but the
+tale which gained the greatest favour was one taking the side of the
+workman--that mysterious ‘workman’ whose name had somehow disappeared
+in the midst of contradictory reports, and whom no one could distinctly
+specify, because there were so many workmen in Thanshope. How was a
+genteel person to know one linen jacket, or its wearer, from another?
+This report, which preserved a kind of likeness amidst all its
+variations, was to the effect that Frederick Spenceley had deserved his
+thrashing; for that he had been taking undue liberties with the young
+man’s sweetheart--and her name was Sally Rogers, was Frances Alice
+Kershaw, and she was a dressmaker, was a mill hand, and lived in half
+a dozen places, and worked in as many factories, quite certainly and
+positively; she was very pretty, and he was very jealous; or, she was
+not a particularly good-looking girl, but Fred Spenceley had had words
+with the young man before, and had wished to insult him.
+
+Myles maintained a rigid silence upon the subject, even when Mary came
+in one day in a state of unusual excitement, exclaiming,
+
+‘Eh! Ned, Myles, have ye heerd tell o’ what’s happened?’
+
+‘What?’
+
+‘Jack Spenceley’s lad has had such a leathering,’ said Mary; and told
+the rest of it with much excitement and volubility, for her.
+
+Edmund manifested a lively interest in the story, and Myles admitted
+indifferently that he had heard something about it.
+
+They were, however, not much given to gossiping at that house, and the
+subject soon dropped.
+
+Then came Myles’s other difficulty. He did not know whether boldly
+to go and call at Mr. Blisset’s, as he longed and desired to do, or
+whether to remain away. He plagued himself with wondering what she
+thought about it, and then tried to believe that she had perhaps not
+even heard of it--her life was so very retired, she saw and heard so
+little of what was going on outside. Then he might go? But suppose
+she did know, and he appeared as if he came to be thanked and made a
+hero of? He contradicted himself ten times a day; decided to go--to
+stay--to go--and stayed because he absolutely could not decide which
+was best.
+
+So the days went on until Saturday, and he had not had a glimpse of
+her--only the remembrance of her grateful eyes and the pressure of her
+hand, as she bade him good-bye at her uncle’s gate before it had all
+happened. When Saturday afternoon came, his longing to see her was
+growing almost unbearable, and he had the sensation that if he went out
+of the house, his feet would turn mechanically towards Blake Street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was Saturday afternoon; the clockhands pointed to five; Mary’s
+‘cleaning’ was over, and the house was quiet. Edmund lay upon his sofa
+with a headache, and Myles was softly reading to him, glad of some
+monotonous occupation which should divert his thoughts somewhat from
+the topic which at present tyrannised over them.
+
+Edmund had been reading in a magazine about the works of the Brontë
+sisters, and Myles had procured him ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’
+from the free library. ‘Wuthering Heights’ lay as yet untouched; it
+had not yet laid its strong and dreadful spell on the boy’s spirit.
+They were deep in ‘Jane Eyre.’ It proved a spell which caused Edmund to
+forget his headache, and enchained the attention of Myles himself, with
+its passionate expression of the equality of soul and soul, and its
+eager conviction of the supremacy of mind over the differences of rank
+or place. Its burning radicalism went straight to Myles’s soul, while
+its deep poetry touched Edmund’s inmost heart.
+
+At this moment they were wandering with ‘Jane’ over the summer moors,
+homeless, friendless, foodless, penniless; and they had forgotten all
+outside things with her, as she reposed herself beneath the broad sky,
+on the friendly bosom of her mother--Nature.
+
+‘Hist!’ said Edmund, suddenly, ‘there’s a knock.’
+
+Myles paused. Some one knocked at the front door. Mary had heard it,
+and rose from her rocking-chair.
+
+‘Thee go on wi’ thi’ readin’,’ said she, going out; and they heard her
+open the door, and a low voice--a woman’s voice--ask her some question.
+
+With an inarticulate exclamation, Myles half rose, the book open in his
+hand, and as Edmund was in the act of inquiring what was the matter,
+Mary came in again, looking rather bewildered, and saying, as she
+turned to some one who followed her,
+
+‘Myles, here’s a lady wants to speak to thee.’
+
+‘Why did you not come?’ said Adrienne, going straight up to Myles. ‘Why
+have you never been to see me? I have waited and waited, until I could
+wait no longer.’
+
+He stood, crimson, unable to speak a word, but looking at her with eyes
+that must have told their tale--which must have warned her had she been
+less excited and earnest.
+
+‘How could you go and do a thing like that, and then never take any
+further notice of me?’ she continued. ‘I have thought of nothing else
+since I heard of it. It was most wonderfully foolish--oh, very foolish;
+but oh, I do thank you, and honour you for it, with all my heart. It
+is exactly what such _canaille_ deserve, and it was nobly done--it was
+indeed!’
+
+‘Miss Blisset ... you ... you--it was nothing. Any one would have done
+it. I couldn’t have rested or slept till I had punished him. I was
+obliged to do it.’
+
+‘Ah, that is how _you_ put it, no doubt--but any one would not have
+felt so--only you would. I can never thank you--never.’
+
+‘Well, don’t then! I--it makes me ashamed of myself--it does indeed,’
+said he, earnestly.
+
+‘But whativer is it o’ about, miss?’ said Mary, putting into words her
+own and Edmund’s boundless astonishment.
+
+‘Is it possible,’ said Adrienne, turning with wide-open eyes to
+Myles--‘is it possible that you have never told them? Did he not tell
+you?’
+
+‘Nay, he’s ne’er told us nowt,’ said Mary.
+
+‘I never heard of anything so extraordinary,’ said Adrienne, with still
+a vibration in her voice, which showed how much she was moved. ‘You
+must have heard about that man--Spenceley--who insulted me, and ...’
+
+‘Thank heaven, your name has never been uttered,’ interposed Myles,
+hastily.
+
+‘And your brother, who had once before sent him away when he tried to
+annoy me at the library, went to make him promise to behave himself,
+and he would not. Was not that it? So he flogged him.’
+
+‘Eh--Myles!’ said Mary, with a long-drawn intonation, compounded of
+incredulity, pride, and pleasure. ‘Eh--h--Myles! I niver did--no niver!’
+
+‘So it were you, Myles,’ said Edmund. ‘Thou hast kept some and quiet
+about it. But I’m glad thou did it.’
+
+‘And he has never come near my home--never given me a chance of
+thanking him,’ pursued Adrienne. ‘You must understand, now, why I have
+come.’
+
+‘Ay, I can so,’ said Mary, regarding her with great favour and
+cordiality, for this praise of Myles touched her to the very heart.
+‘Won’t you sit down?’ she added.
+
+‘I don’t wish to disturb you,’ said Adrienne, hesitating.
+
+‘Eh, no sich thing. Sit you down,’ said Mary, drawing up the
+rocking-chair, in which Adrienne sat down, and Myles stood leaning
+against one end of the mantelpiece, feeling the need of a support of
+some kind; for he felt a sort of intoxication and a bewilderment, and a
+strange, subtle, new life in the very fact of Adrienne’s presence.
+
+‘I had to inquire where you lived,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘You
+did not even tell me that. You once mentioned that you lived on the
+Townfield, and I thought I should never find your house; but the first
+person I met told me where you lived. But would you never have come?’
+
+‘I--I hardly liked to come. I did not know whether you might have
+been--displeased, perhaps,’ he said, with some embarrassment.
+
+‘My uncle has often asked when you were coming. He wants to see you
+again. But now you will come soon--yes?’
+
+‘I--yes. I should like to,’ said he.
+
+‘I hope you don’t mind my coming here,’ said Adrienne to Mary.
+
+‘Eh, no! Lord, no!’ said Mary, earnestly. ‘I’m reet glad to see you.
+Yon chap would ne’er ha’ told us what he’d been doin’. He’s so--stupid.’
+
+‘Yes--so I should think,’ said Adrienne, meeting Mary’s eyes with a
+smile.
+
+And then, looking at Edmund, she said, ‘I’ve heard of you, too. You are
+not strong.’
+
+‘No,’ said Mary, answering for him. ‘He’s ne’er one o’ th’ strongest,
+and to-day he’s getten a headache.’
+
+‘Don’t you do anything for your headaches?’
+
+‘Nay, I jist bide ’em out.’
+
+‘That is a pity. I could do something for them--if I come again, I will
+bring you something that will do them good.’
+
+She went on talking to Mary and Edmund, who seemed to feel no
+embarrassment in the intercourse. Adrienne certainly possessed in a
+high degree the art of putting people at their ease in her company.
+Mary and Edmund were not usually communicative in first interviews
+with strangers; but this stranger appeared to take their hearts
+by storm, and quickly succeeded in making them forget that there
+was any difference in station between them. She apologised for her
+intrusion much more particularly than she would have done to a woman
+whose servant had opened the door, taken her card, and announced
+her with a flourish. This demeanour was not put on--it was her
+natural, spontaneous manner, springing from instinctive politeness
+and geniality of nature. Everything about her was true and pure--what
+Myles was accustomed to call in the vernacular ‘jannock.’ Mary, also,
+was nothing if not jannock; and the two girls--the lady and the
+factory-worker--seemed instinctively to get on.
+
+‘I must not detain you any longer now,’ said Adrienne, at last. ‘I see
+you are going to have your tea. But I should like to know you. Would
+you mind if I came again, now and then?’
+
+‘Eh, I’st be vary glad,’ said Mary, ‘if so be we’re not too simple and
+plain like for you. Yo’ seen we’re nobbut working folk ...’
+
+‘Well, I am a working person too, and like seeks like,’ said Adrienne.
+
+‘I reckon you’re a different mak’ o’ worker fro’ us,’ said Mary.
+
+‘I am sure I work as hard as you at least, and am as tired and as glad
+of rest as you, when my work is done.’
+
+‘You look tired now,’ said Mary, fixing her large, clear eyes upon
+Adrienne’s pale and somewhat weary face, from which the glow had faded.
+‘Where do you live?’
+
+‘Up at Stonegate, in Blake Street.’
+
+‘My certy! But that’s a good step!’ said Mary, who, like many of
+her class, was nothing of a walker. ‘We’re just goin’ to have our
+tay--won’t you draw up and have a sup, and a bit o’ summat to eyt?’
+
+That homely, cordial Lancashire invitation, ‘Come and have a sup, and a
+bit o’ summat to eat’--what Lancashire ears are there that do not know
+it and love it for the kind thoughts it arouses? It went straight home
+to our lonely Adrienne: a mist rushed over her eyes; she said somewhat
+hesitatingly,
+
+‘Oh, I should like it. You are very kind, but I fear----’ she half
+turned to Myles.
+
+‘Myles, coom out o’ yon corner, and behave thisel’, mon! Thou can when
+thou’s a mind to,’ said Mary, briskly. ‘Now draw up,’ she added to
+Adrienne. ‘Tak’ off your hat, and I’st hang it up, so! And Myles’ll see
+you home. He’s got nowt to do to-neet.’
+
+Mary must have been inspired when she made this suggestion.
+
+‘Oh, I need not trouble him now,’ said Adrienne, with a radiant smile
+upon the approaching Myles--‘unless he has forgotten the way to my
+uncle’s house, as I begin to think.’
+
+‘It’s much better I should go with you. It’s Saturday evening,’ said
+Myles, seating himself beside her, and throwing a fleeting glance
+towards her face.
+
+She was content, pleased, even flattered at the friendly way in which
+she had been received. Her expression said that as plainly as words
+could do. Myles began to lose some of his bewilderment, and to gain
+somewhat more confidence.
+
+‘Eh, I’ve forgotten th’ mowffins!’ said Mary, suddenly, a shade
+crossing her face. ‘We mun really wait while I toast the mowffins.’
+
+She jumped up and produced tea-cakes out of a cupboard, and Myles
+suggested that perhaps it did not matter about the muffins. Mary was,
+however, firm, and bade him cut some bread-and-butter while she toasted.
+
+‘And mind thou cuts it nice and thin, and not all i’ lumps,’ she added
+in admonitory tones.
+
+Myles, much too simple-minded to see anything derogatory in cutting
+bread-and-butter, began, but in half a minute Adrienne had jumped up
+and laid hold of the knife.
+
+‘Stop! That is clearly not your sphere,’ said she, laughing into his
+embarrassed, yet ever-attractive face. ‘It is not stern enough--not
+commanding enough. Let me do it.’
+
+Unaware of the distinguished example set by the Wetzlar heroine in the
+bread-and-butter cutting line, Myles watched the deft fingers of his
+enchantress as if no woman had ever been known to cut bread-and-butter
+properly before.
+
+Mary, who grew visibly and every moment more satisfied with her guest,
+toasted the ‘mowffins,’ buttered them, and tea was proclaimed ready
+with acclamation.
+
+Then Edmund came to the table; they all sat there, and Mary made tea in
+state, apologising for not having the best tea-things because of the
+impromptu nature of the visit.
+
+‘I am sure these seem delightful tea-things,’ said Adrienne, smiling.
+
+The festivity was altogether successful as regarded Adrienne, Mary,
+and Edmund. But Miss Blisset cast every now and then fleeting glances
+at Myles, and was not quite at her ease about him, for he alone of
+all the party was silent and grave. It was the deep intensity of the
+delight within him that caused this, but Adrienne could not be supposed
+to know that--in very truth, as yet she honestly believed the greater
+admiration and liking to be on her side. That delusion was soon to be
+ended, but at present she was under its influence.
+
+The meal was not long over when she said she must go, and promising
+Mary to come again, she went away, accompanied by Myles.
+
+Their way lay through what was called ‘the Park.’ They turned in at the
+large iron gates of a town pleasure-ground, laid out in gravel walks,
+grass plots, seats, and flower-beds. They were on a height. The town
+lay below, with the gilded spire of the town-hall cleaving the air, and
+the hazy-looking blue wall of Blackrigg to the north and north-west.
+
+As they walked slowly along a broad terrace, unoccupied save by
+themselves, Adrienne asked, in her quick foreign way,
+
+‘Say to me, Mr. Heywood--you are vexed that I came?’
+
+‘I--vexed--nay!’ was all that he could say.
+
+The current which for the last week had ever been hurrying more and
+more quickly forward had now arrived at the verge. It leapt over it in
+a bound, and carried everything before. He was madly in love, and all
+he could do was to say as little, be as brief as possible, for fear of
+showing her, startling her, perhaps repelling her; for he was intensely
+conscious of the difference; all his dearly loved, passionately
+cherished theories of equality could not blind him to the fact that
+they were not equals--that while he loved her with a strength that
+shook his nature with its power, yet the bare thought of touching her,
+holding her hand, speaking to her on easy and familiar terms, came to
+him with a sense of impropriety--brought him the conviction, _non sum
+dignus_.
+
+‘You were so quiet,’ said she. ‘You would hardly speak to me. I was
+afraid I had offended you.’
+
+‘Not at all,’ said poor Myles, unable to say more lest he should say
+too much.
+
+‘I am sure,’ pursued Adrienne, stopping in her walk and looking
+earnestly at him--‘I am sure you know that I did not mean to offend
+you; and you could not be so hard as to wish me to keep silence. You
+behaved splendidly. I felt that I must thank you for it.’
+
+It was growing too much for him to stand there quiescent, and hear that
+voice, which contained all melody for him, and to see that face, those
+eyes, looking at him so. The eagerness of desperate love came storming
+down upon prudence, and hurrying words of devotion to his lips.
+Mastering himself by a strong effort, and clasping, or rather clenching
+his hands behind him, he said, in what seemed to Adrienne a singularly
+calm, colourless voice,
+
+‘You make too much of it. I would rather not be thanked for it.’
+
+‘You are hard upon me to say that. It gives me such pleasure to thank
+you, but you deserve at my hands that I should comply with your
+wishes--after what you have done for me. But you cannot guess what a
+delightful feeling it is to one so lonely as I, to suddenly discover
+that there is some one who has been not afraid to stand up for her--and
+to some purpose.’
+
+‘I should have thought you would have many friends,’ remarked Myles,
+endeavouring to change the too-fascinating subject.
+
+‘I--no indeed. I don’t think any one with fewer friends ever lived.’
+
+‘But you may have left friends behind you on the Continent?’
+
+A momentary pause while he looked at her. It was as though some sudden
+blow had struck the words back from her lips to her heart--then she
+said steadily,
+
+‘Some few; but chiefly benefactors rather than friends--benefactors
+who befriended and helped me in my loneliness and destitution, for my
+father and I were sometimes almost destitute.’
+
+‘Destitute?’ echoed Myles, shocked.
+
+‘Oh yes! I have not always lived in Lancashire, you know. No one seems
+to be poor here. I have known what it is to look at a piece of money
+worth sixpence, and know that if I spent that upon my supper I should
+not have a penny in the morning to buy breakfast with.’
+
+‘But not seriously?’
+
+‘I assure you it seemed very serious to me. I have sunk lower. I have
+known what it was to go supperless to bed, wondering what poor little
+trinket or book I could spare in order to get a breakfast next morning.’
+
+Myles was silent, and Adrienne continued,
+
+‘That, you know, is what is not considered respectable for a young
+lady.’
+
+‘Hang respectability!’ was all he said.
+
+‘Not at all! I like it. After all the fever and the turmoils, and the
+ups and downs, and dreadful uncertainties of that life, my present one
+is like Paradise. Oh, rest is a very sweet thing--rest and security,
+and a strong arm to help you.’ (Myles turned to her with parted lips.)
+‘Your home is beautiful. That sister of yours is so calm and good. I
+love her already. She must be very dear to you.’
+
+‘Ay, I love Mary dearly.’
+
+‘Yes. Both she and you, and all of you, look as if you had had a home
+all your lives. Do you think I might go to see them again?’
+
+‘They’ll only be too glad. I never thought you could sympathise so
+much--with our sort,’ said Myles, constrainedly.
+
+‘To-morrow you will come to Stonegate, will you not? and then I will
+tell you my story, and you will perhaps understand how it is that I
+sympathise with “your sort,” as you call it, and why I think so much of
+what you have done for me.’
+
+‘I will come with pleasure.’
+
+‘To-morrow afternoon, then, I shall expect you.’
+
+They walked the rest of the way in silence, and Myles left her at the
+gate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+  ‘Deeper and deeper still.’
+
+
+It was a lovely Sunday afternoon on which Myles took his way to
+Stonegate. He found Adrienne alone. She said her uncle was taking his
+afternoon airing in his bath-chair in the garden, and did not wish to
+be disturbed; his old servant, Brandon, was with him.
+
+‘But sit down,’ she continued, ‘and we can have a talk.’
+
+With that she picked up her knitting and began to work.
+
+‘You will talk,’ said Myles, ‘if you keep your promise. You promised to
+tell me about yourself.’
+
+‘Do you really want to hear that?’
+
+‘I came on purpose.’
+
+‘Well, I will tell it you, and I hope it will have the effect I intend.’
+
+‘What effect is that?’
+
+‘You are determined to look upon me (I have seen it, so don’t be at the
+trouble of denying it) as something fine and delicate, and unused to
+roughness and hardship.’
+
+‘Yes, one can see plainly enough that you are that.’
+
+‘Can one? Well, I’ll begin my story, and you shall learn how
+appearances may deceive.’
+
+Adrienne related well. She did not exaggerate; there was nothing
+strained, no striving after effect; but there was colour, pathos, life,
+in her tale, and a subtle poetry thrown over all, by her way of looking
+at things.
+
+Myles, in listening, felt as if he were actually wandering with her on
+that nomadic life she spoke of; through the great foreign capitals, and
+the country villages, and the towns, big and little; to be sojourning
+with her in the gay, feverish watering-places; to survey the distant,
+rose-tinted Alps. He utterly forgot where he was, and knew only her and
+her life.
+
+There had been two brothers, she told him, of whom her father was the
+younger, and her uncle the elder. Kith and kin, they had none, and
+their patrimony was small. Both were gifted, but in different ways.
+Adrian, her father, was artist to the marrow of his bones. Richard,
+her uncle, had also some taste for art, but more of the analytical and
+critical than of the synthetic description; he had been, moreover,
+at one time, a practical man of business, and had made money--he was
+not rich, but thoroughly independent. Her father had had the gift of
+spending, not of making. The brothers had parted early. Adrian, as soon
+as he was his own master, had said farewell to home, and had gone,
+first to Germany, there to study the music which his soul loved, and
+which had beautified his otherwise weary, disappointed life.
+
+Some time was spent in Germany; then two or three years in
+miscellaneous and somewhat aimless travel; then back again to Germany,
+to music, and to love. The fair, clever, and penniless daughter of a
+poor professor and man of science won his heart, as he hers, and they
+married.
+
+With marriage came the feeling of an insufficiency of means, and the
+desire to augment them led him into business speculations of a nature
+which he did not in the least understand: the bubble burst, and Adrian
+Blisset found himself a ruined man in less than a year after his
+marriage. Adrienne’s mother died at her birth; the girl had never known
+that holy bond, however much she might have longed for it. Her father
+chose to lay part of the cause of his wife’s death to the anxiety
+induced by his extravagance and folly--moreover, he had adored her, and
+from the hour of her death he had been a changed man. He had his own
+living and that of his child to gain, but he settled nowhere. His life
+became nomadic. He and the little one did not sojourn long in the tents
+of any particular tribe. Scarce a city or a town of any importance in
+Europe, but had sheltered the unconscious head of the infant, or been
+trodden by the child’s uncertain feet, or by the sedate step of the
+maiden, careworn before her time, while she knew intimately many an
+out-of-the-way nook, unnamed by Murray, Bradshaw, or Baedeker, amongst
+Italian hills, deep in the sunny lands of France, Thüringian woods and
+slopes, or sleepy red-roofed Rhenish hamlets.
+
+A restless ghost drove the musician with his child and his violin
+hither and thither, never permitting him to stay long in any one place
+and gather substance; but ever, so soon as the novelty had worn off,
+seeming to drive him forth on a fresh search after--what? Adrienne had
+learnt at an early age to ask herself that question, and sorrowfully to
+give up the answer.
+
+Sometimes he was in funds, when he showered all kinds of presents upon
+her, and called her his dear child, his _Herzallerliebste_; but oftener
+they were plunged in poverty, sore, sordid, dreadful poverty. His moods
+varied distressingly, from kindness that had in it something fitful and
+sinister, up to the dark melancholy silence which was his most frequent
+humour. He was proud, and his pride was of a touchy and intractable
+kind; it offended men of business, and estranged friends and pupils.
+
+Adrienne had had many teachers and many strange lessons, and the whole
+had combined into a varied and truly most unconventional education.
+Her father had lavished musical training upon her. At Florence, where
+they stayed a whole year, longer than anywhere else, she had wandered
+about with a kind-hearted old artist, who led her about with him to
+the great galleries, and showed her the grandest pictures, and made
+her know the beautiful buildings, till she had imbibed the undying
+loveliness of such masterpieces as Giotto’s Campanile, or Michael
+Angelo’s Duomo, and had discovered that her favourite thing in Florence
+was the ‘Pensiero’ Medici of the last-named artist.
+
+‘You remind me of him,’ she added, suddenly looking at Myles. And she
+had sat, at thirteen years of age, for a picture of ‘Gravity.’
+
+‘Was that what he called you?’ asked Myles.
+
+‘Yes. Gravity, or Sedateness was his name for me--and it suited me.’
+
+She had had to part from her good old friend, and that had cost her the
+pain which parting brings to those who know they will not meet again.
+
+In Paris, Adrienne had had lessons in democracy from a young universal
+genius, whose talents were too vast to stoop to any ordinary walk of
+life. He lived in a garret, and planned schemes of a perfect republic.
+Adrienne had not felt much grief on parting from him.
+
+A monstrous learned professor, who lived at Bonn, in a _Schlafrock_,
+slippers, and spectacles, had taught her a little store of Greek and
+Latin. But her greatest teacher had been a strange, absent-looking
+professor, in Berlin--a man of literature and philosophy, who had been
+very fond of her, and had given her freely of his very best. Her uncle,
+Mr. Blisset, looked upon this as a providential circumstance, for he
+found when she came to him, that he had no tyro to deal with, but one
+already instructed in philosophy and its terminology.
+
+Two years ago her father had died; and just before his death she had
+learnt for the first time that they possessed any relation in the
+world. She had received a letter to give to her uncle. She fulfilled
+the behest, and that was how she first met Mr. Blisset.
+
+‘And what did he say? How did he receive you?’ asked Myles, eagerly.
+
+‘I was chilled,’ said she, ‘as I sat opposite to him and saw his pale,
+impassive face, and watched how he raised his eyes now and then from
+that letter. He gave me no reply that night; told me nothing; did not
+intimate whether he were pleased or displeased to see me, but ordered a
+room to be prepared for me; and the next day he told me that my father
+had asked him in his letter to give me a shelter until I was able to
+find some employment by which I could support myself. My uncle said
+that if I could endure to live buried alive with an old man, and work
+hard at a sedentary employment, he would give me a home and pay me a
+certain sum every year. I accepted his proposal gratefully, and have
+never repented it; and I trust he never will, either.’
+
+There spoke the true Adrienne Blisset.
+
+‘And you are happy here?’
+
+‘As happy as I expect to be. It is a great thing not to be miserable.’
+
+‘That’s what our rulers appear to think we working-men ought to feel,’
+said Myles, sardonically, his thoughts for the moment flying off at a
+tangent.
+
+‘Are you bitter against your rulers?’ asked Adrienne, tranquilly.
+
+‘I am bitter against some of them--a pampered set of rich men, who
+never had a care in their lives, but don’t mind how many other people
+have to bear. There are some, now--Bright, and Cobden, and the
+like--for them I’d die. There’s that in their faces which says they
+have not a mean thought, nor a desire but for our good; but the most
+of them’--he shrugged his shoulders--‘those lily-handed politicians
+who call themselves Radicals in these days, and plan how to prevent a
+working-man from getting his beer, but have half a dozen sorts of wine
+at their own tables, and go mincing about at public meetings, talking
+lightly of trials that would make them cringe if they had to face them;
+talking about “supply and demand” and how to improve the conditions
+of the lower orders--isn’t that the phrase? Much they know about the
+lower orders, and how to improve them! They don’t know what ails them
+yet.’
+
+He laughed sarcastically.
+
+‘It is true, they are a somewhat emasculate type,’ said she; ‘but
+I don’t see what right you have to blame them much. It is the
+working-man’s own fault that they can do no more for him.’
+
+‘His own fault!’ he echoed incredulously.
+
+‘Now don’t eat me up, please! I wonder if you and I differ essentially
+in first principles on this subject. You have thought about it, haven’t
+you?’
+
+‘Ay, I have. I’ve plenty of reason to think about it, when I see such
+fellows as Frederick Spenceley and young Mallory living on the fat of
+the land, without having lifted a finger to get it, or proved by a
+single act that they merited it.’
+
+‘Mr. Mallory,’ said Adrienne, slowly, ‘you say you have seen him: has
+he come home?’
+
+‘No. I meant to speak figuratively. I don’t see him; but I know it is
+so. If I don’t know him, I know the likes of him----’
+
+‘But--but what about him?’ she asked, still with the same slowness and
+a kind of hesitation. ‘What has he done wrong?’
+
+‘He has done nothing; that’s what he has done wrong,’ said Myles.
+‘Well, he’s coming home soon; we shall see how he breasts the
+storm--for we are in for a storm, sooner or later. But don’t you think,
+Miss Blisset, it must make a man think to see these contrasts--a man
+who has the least bit of a power of thought?’
+
+‘No doubt. And what conclusion have you come to in the matter?’
+
+‘The conclusion that it’s a crying injustice.’
+
+‘To whom?’
+
+‘To--well, to put it broadly, we’ll say to the working-man--but I mean
+to those in general, who work very hard, and get very little.’
+
+‘In what way?’
+
+‘Miss Blisset! Where is the justice of fellows like that having that
+money without either rhyme or reason; and of fellows like----’
+
+‘You,’ suggested Adrienne, demurely.
+
+‘I don’t mean me in particular, but my class in general, earning from
+thirty to sixty shillings a week--the very best paid of us--in payment
+for hours and hours of close, hard work.’
+
+‘I suppose it is not the work you object to?’
+
+‘No. I like work. I should be lost without my work.’
+
+‘The property which those young men enjoy has been earned with trouble
+as great, or probably, from an intellectual point of view, greater than
+your weekly wages.’
+
+‘But not by them.’
+
+‘Suppose it had been earned by you, and you wished to leave it to your
+only son, whom you had educated with a view to his inheriting it, and
+the law stepped in and said you should not, but should leave it amongst
+a number of working-people whom you had never seen or heard of--how
+would you like that?’
+
+‘But that is an exaggerated view of the case.’
+
+‘I don’t see it. I don’t believe you have ever considered the subject
+fairly. And answer me this; suppose the average working-man became
+possessed of that money, or of part of it--_money which he had not
+earned_--money which had become his by a lucky chance: do you think his
+use of it would be worse, or as good as, or better, than the use made
+of it by those two of whom we are speaking? Do you think it would do
+him a real and permanent good: increase his self-respect, lessen his
+self-indulgence, make him steadier, soberer, more inwardly dignified,
+worthy, and honourable?’
+
+She was looking earnestly at him, and Myles frowned, the words driven
+back from his lips. Did he know one man amongst his fellow-workman on
+whom the possession of such money would have such an effect? Would it
+have such an effect upon himself? The generalities of the writers who
+cried up the working-man and his wrongs seemed suddenly to grow small,
+and to shrink into the background.
+
+‘Oh,’ went on Adrienne, ‘I don’t think you working-men know in the
+least how noble your work intrinsically is. You only see that others
+are outwardly better off than you, and you clamorously demand a share
+of that wealth. You don’t see how disastrous to your best interests
+such an acquisition would be.’
+
+Myles had started up, feeling terribly humiliated.
+
+‘You think so ill of us!’ he exclaimed. ‘You could come and see us
+yesterday, and talk to my sister as if she had been your sister--and
+now you reproach us in this way. Good-bye!’
+
+‘Stop!’ said she, laying her hand upon his arm, and looking earnestly
+into his face. ‘How wild and impatient you are! Think a moment! It is
+not of _you_ I am speaking. Do you know any other working-man to whom I
+could speak in this way?’
+
+She paused. It was true. Perhaps Harry Ashworth might hear those words
+and bear them--he knew of no other who would do so; and while he was
+stung and tortured by what she said, he felt a bitter consciousness
+that it was true. But he stood still, and waited to hear the end.
+
+‘I am speaking to you with a purpose,’ Adrienne went on in the same
+tone, low and quiet, but full of vehemence. ‘Since that night when you
+stepped forward in my defence, I have thought much about you--very
+much. I have studied you, and you do not know how well-used I am to
+studying people. The more I have studied you, the more I have felt that
+you were both generous and high-minded--and terribly hot-tempered,’
+she added, with a smile, which Myles thought must have charmed the
+temper of a ravening wolf. ‘Just think what you, a workman, might do
+by setting an example to your fellow-workmen. Take the right side. You
+are too good for the commonplace career of an ordinary “intelligent
+working-man,” for a blind submission to trade-union rules, and for
+an obstinate resistance to your masters, just because they are your
+masters, or because your union bids you resist them. Don’t be a
+tool; use your reason; consider the why and wherefore of things. Be
+answerable to your conscience alone for all you say and do. Help to
+show your fellows that all improvement in their condition must arise
+actively from within, not be received passively from without--you know
+that, and own it, don’t you?’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Myles, quickly, folding his arms and leaning against the
+mantelpiece, his eyes fixed upon her, as she stood before him, with her
+head a little thrown back; her eyes alight, looking beautiful in her
+energy and excitement.
+
+‘I wish,’ she said, ‘I often wish that I were a working-woman, like
+your sister. I would show you what I meant; how toil could be ennobled.’
+
+She paused. Myles’s heart was beating wildly. Something, whether God or
+devil he had no time to think, hurried quick words from his lips; in a
+voice as low, as vehement as her own had been, he said,
+
+‘Do you? And suppose it ever came to the point? Suppose some day some
+working-man came to you, and told you he loved you; that he could see
+how toil might be ennobled, if you would help him to do it--there would
+be an end of your philosophy. You would think of the cottage to live
+in, the floors to scrub, the rough neighbours, the coarse common life,
+the children to tend, and make, and mend, and sew for; and if you could
+get over that, there would be the man himself--a great rough fellow--a
+workman, not a gentleman, a man of rough speech, like--like our sort.
+You would have to work for him, too; to cook, and sew, and wash for
+him; to obey him--_you_. When he said, “Do this,” you must do it, and
+when he called, “Come here!” you must go to him. That’s the way amongst
+us working-people. What about the ennobling of toil _then_?’
+
+He spoke jeeringly, and hated himself for doing so; and listened for
+her answer in a state of wild, if silent, excitement.
+
+Her hands had dropped, her eyes had sunk, her face was burning; she
+turned away. If he could have trusted himself to move or speak, he
+would have fallen upon his knees and begged her pardon.
+
+‘Oh, Myles!’ said she, at last, in a very low voice. He bit his lip
+till the blood came, at that sound; the most maddening in its mingled
+sweetness and bitterness, he had ever heard. ‘I suppose I gave you the
+right to say that,’ she said, ‘and to demand an answer too. You put
+it tersely, certainly. As you speak, I can see the very life rising
+before me that you picture.’
+
+‘And yourself in it!’ said he, still with a sneer, though he would have
+given the world to ask her to forgive him.
+
+‘No. You forget something,’ she replied, walking to the window, while
+he still leaned against the mantelpiece. ‘You made it all hard and
+sordid. You forgot the very “ennobling” that began the discussion.
+I _could_ fancy myself in such a home--a working-man’s wife--but to
+become that, I must love that man; and in the life you described there
+was no love. The man I loved, be he workman or prince, must be a
+gentleman--not a brute.’
+
+‘Ah! and supposing you met this working-man--or whoever he might be?’
+suggested Myles, in a calm, restrained kind of voice.
+
+‘If I met him, and if I loved him, and he loved me, and asked me to
+marry him, I would say “yes;” and I would love him, and serve him
+faithfully to the end of my life.’
+
+The words fell softly and gently, almost timorously, as if she
+hesitated to speak of such a thing; and yet with a certain gentle
+firmness which said that they were no sentimental verbiage, but
+expressed the steadfast feeling of a steadfast heart. But each word
+was like a drop of liquid fire in the young man’s veins. She seemed
+suddenly to be close beside him--a possibility, a thing he might
+dream of--and fifty thousand times higher and farther off, and more
+impossible to him than ever. How could _he_ ever hope to bend that
+heart to love him? The very thought was insanity.
+
+He mastered his emotion, and walked up to her. She turned, but did not
+look at him.
+
+‘I beg your pardon, most humbly,’ said he.
+
+‘It is granted freely. I dare say it has been good for me; it has
+reduced my vague theories to the language of common sense. I had no
+right to reproach you with the faults of your class, and expect nothing
+but milk and honey from your lips in return. We understand each other.
+Oh, but yours is a biting tongue! It cuts like a knife.’
+
+‘It forgot itself when it turned against _you_. But, remember, your
+words had roused me. You made me blush for my own “vague theories,” as
+you call them. If you could not have said what you did, to any other
+workman, do you suppose I could have spoken so to any other young lady?’
+
+‘No, no. I suppose not,’ said she, but her face was still downcast. The
+glance which he at last received wavered almost timidly. She resumed
+her seat and her work, saying, ‘And you will think of what I have said?’
+
+‘I will--seriously. I believe you are right, but the thing was too
+wonderful for me. I could not attain unto it--all at once.’
+
+The conversation was turned, as if by one consent, to books. Adrienne’s
+heart was beating unwontedly fast; her knight had not only surprised,
+but somewhat subdued her; delighting her at the same time. He was no
+tool; he could turn upon her, and he had the front of a ruler. That
+glance and that voice were not to be forgotten. She thrilled as she
+remembered them. She was glad he had not gone; the sensation that he
+was still there was pleasurable, with a strange potency of strength.
+
+The door opened, and Mr. Blisset was wheeled in, and a servant brought
+afternoon tea. Then Mr. Blisset began to talk, and Myles to listen.
+Mr. Blisset had some of his niece’s conversational power. The time
+flew insensibly, till supper was announced. Myles rose, fearing he had
+intruded too long.
+
+‘No,’ said Mr. Blisset. ‘Stay, unless you are tired, and my niece will
+give us some music.’
+
+He looked at her, and she said, ‘Yes, do stay!’ And Myles stayed.
+
+That evening Adrienne sang some songs. She finished with ‘_Neue Liebe
+neues Leben_,’ and Myles went home with its last passionate words
+ringing in his ears:
+
+    ‘_Liebe, Liebe, lass’ mich los!_’
+
+Would it ever ‘let him loose,’ that love which had sprung up so
+suddenly and strongly, making every other feeling weak in the glow of
+its might and strength?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+PROMISES.
+
+
+That visit was but the first of a long series. Mr. Blisset was pleased
+to see the young man who listened so patiently and so deferentially to
+him, and Myles had an ever-growing conviction that Mr. Blisset’s views
+of men and things, of right and wrong, were deeper and sounder than his
+own; riper, truer, and most justly balanced. Myles learnt much in these
+visits and conversations.
+
+Adrienne had been many times to the cottage on the Townfield, and had
+completely won the hearts of Mary and Edmund. She had opened up a new
+field of delight and wonder to the boy, by putting him in the way of
+studying botany, and his enthusiasm knew no bounds. She lent him books
+and specimens, and Harry Ashworth, who was a great walker, brought him
+all kinds of plants, and ferns, and mosses, from the moors on which he
+was wont to spend his Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings.
+
+When Myles and Adrienne were in his house at the same time, they
+seemed to have little to say to each other; which was, perhaps, not
+surprising, for their subjects were not those discussed by Mary and
+Edmund. Harry Ashworth had a great deal to ask Miss Blisset about
+music; she comforted him, too, for she helped him to some scientific
+understanding of the mighty harmonies of which he was fast losing the
+outward apprehension. Harry had not read much about music or musicians;
+he had, while his hearing had been pretty good, contented himself
+with drinking in the sounds themselves. Adrienne soon discovered that
+the sorrow of his life was his failing hearing, and one evening it
+occurred to her to tell him the story of Beethoven. Mary and Harry and
+she happened to be alone. Adrienne began, and related that saddest of
+stories. It had the effect she intended.
+
+Harry sat with one hand shading his face, in an attitude which he had
+assumed soon after she began the story, when she said, ‘And at last
+he wrote to one of his friends and confessed that he was growing quite
+deaf--that if he went to the opera, he must sit close to the orchestra,
+and even then, even leaning over towards it, he could scarcely hear.’
+
+Mary went on knitting. Adrienne’s voice, somewhat raised, slow,
+distinct, and clear, told the tale of that mighty genius--Christlike
+in the immensity of his woe and the utterness of his separation from
+those around him. She went through it all. She told him about the great
+symphonies, about Beethoven’s one or two sad, luckless love-episodes;
+his poverty; his love for the thankless young profligate, his nephew;
+the performance of the Choral Symphony--of that great adagio ‘in which
+we discern the slowly stalking movement of a god!’
+
+‘When it was over,’ Adrienne went on, ‘the audience were
+almost mad with rapture and delight, and the applause was
+deafening--thundering--it resounded through and through the great room!
+the master still stood with his baton in his hand, his back to the
+audience, till one of the vocalists gently turned him round, and he saw
+them all--how they were wild with pleasure and emotion; _he_ had thus
+moved them by his heavenly music to ‘joy,’ and he had heard no sound of
+it all.’
+
+She paused. It was the life which she most loved in all truth or
+poetry; to her Beethoven’s sufferings were as actual as his genius or
+his grandeur.
+
+She saw Harry look at her with an expression which told her that he too
+understood, and she went on to the end--told of the bitter loneliness
+of those last years, that death in harmony with the life--that passing
+away of the Titan soul in the sublime music of the spring thunderstorm,
+and then she was silent.
+
+Harry looked at her for a moment, started up, and took her hand.
+
+‘Thank you, miss,’ said he, and left the house.
+
+‘Eh, Miss Blisset,’ said Mary, wiping her eyes, ‘you’re like no one
+else as ivver I heerd tell on afore. You’ve done a kindness to yon poor
+lad, such as he never had yet.’
+
+‘I’m very glad if you think so.’
+
+‘Yo’ve gi’en him summat to console him. He’ll go about now, thinking he
+may bear his deafness quite easy like, seein’ yon man as yo’ towd us
+on were so great and patient. His mind is fair beautiful--Harry’s mind
+is,’ said Mary, moved out of all reticence.
+
+‘I like him very much,’ said Adrienne; ‘very much indeed.’
+
+‘Ay! He’s good--good to th’ marrow of his bones, he is.’
+
+‘Like you, Mary. You and he are well matched.’
+
+‘Eh, nay! Eh, don’t think o’ that! He’s ne’er said nowt about it.’
+
+‘He will some time!’
+
+Mary was silent, with a downcast face, till at last she said,
+
+‘I know you’ll ne’er say a word to no one about it. I can trust you to
+tell you this, as whether he ever says owt about it or not, the vary
+thowt of ony other mon than him fair gives me a turn.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Adrienne. ‘And you do deserve to be happy, Mary. I wonder
+how it is that you and all yours are so different from other people. I
+always feel well, and happy, and right with the world, when I am with
+you.’
+
+Later, as Myles walked with her up Blake Street, Adrienne remarked that
+the end of September was approaching and the evenings darkened earlier.
+
+‘Yes,’ said Myles, ‘soon winter will be here. And then ... now then,
+you,’ he added to a passer-by, who gave Adrienne a very close berth;
+‘mind your manners when you’re passing a lady.’
+
+‘I didn’t know you had lady-friends, Myles Heywood,’ replied a smooth
+voice, as the offender paused, and looked at them.
+
+‘Oh, it’s you!’ said Myles, with trenchant contempt. ‘If I’d known, I
+wouldn’t have troubled to speak to you.’ And he passed on.
+
+‘Who is the man?’ asked Adrienne.
+
+‘He’s my--step-father,’ said Myles, in a peculiar voice. Adrienne had
+heard the whole story from Mary; Myles had never been able to speak of
+it.
+
+‘Oh, forgive me for saying it, but I wish you had not spoken to him in
+that way.’
+
+‘Why? How?’ he stammered.
+
+‘Has he ever done you any harm?’
+
+‘Not directly; but I can’t abide the very looks of him.’
+
+‘There!’ said she, with a somewhat nervous smile; ‘you are too
+contemptuous. Reverence is better than contempt; it is indeed.’
+
+‘Reverence! Would you have me reverence _him_?’
+
+‘Yes. You ought to reverence human nature--your own nature--in him. If
+you could have heard yourself speak! Do you know what you would do, if
+any one spoke to you in that way?’
+
+‘What?’
+
+‘Why, you would--I think you would shake him. I can just see you make
+one stride towards him, and fasten upon him--poor fellow!--to teach him
+manners.’
+
+‘You mean that I have none myself. Well, you may be right.’
+
+‘Are you offended?’
+
+‘Miss Blisset--you could not offend me.’
+
+‘I think I could. But do think of what I have said; and try not to be
+so contemptuous. Will you?’
+
+‘The next time I meet Jim Hoyle, I’ll take off my hat to him
+politely--since you wish it.’
+
+‘You will drive me to despair! How different you are from your
+reasonable sister, who sees the right bearings of things at once; and
+from your sensitive brother, who....’
+
+‘Yes, Ned is like a girl for delicacy,’ said Myles, a sarcastic flavour
+in his voice. ‘Well, Miss Blisset, I will try hard to please you. Next
+week there’s a fellow coming that I _have_ a contempt for, if I ever
+had for any one.’
+
+‘Who may that be?’
+
+‘Mr. Sebastian Mallory, our so-called _master_.’
+
+A pause. Then a hesitating, ‘In-deed!’ from her, the intonation of
+which Myles did not remark.
+
+‘So I’ll try to be polite to him, if our paths cross--which I hope they
+won’t.’
+
+‘Perhaps they may not. But now do try,’ said she. ‘You may find it
+easier than you think.’
+
+They parted at the wicket, and Myles went home, to find Edmund gone to
+bed, and to sit up himself, reading ‘My Beautiful Lady,’ which Adrienne
+had lent to Edmund, never supposing that Myles would look at it, or
+that he would take any interest in it if he did. But he pored over it,
+and his heart-strings trembled to the poet’s notes: it was he himself,
+his own thoughts put into poetry as the lover waited his lady’s coming.
+And as for the end, Myles read it differently; to please himself, he
+allowed common sense to step in--Adrienne was not consumptive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+MR. MALLORY’S POLITICS.
+
+    ‘_Philinte._--Mais on entend les gens au moins sans se fâcher.
+
+    _Alceste._--Moi, je veux me fâcher, et ne veux point entendre.’
+
+  _Le Misanthrope._
+
+
+During the following forenoon Myles sat alone in the outer office,
+employed exactly as he had been on the day of Mrs. Mallory’s visit,
+weeks before. Wilson was going his usual round in the works, and Mr.
+Sutcliffe, the manager, was out.
+
+Pausing at the end of a column of figures, he raised his eyes and saw
+coming down the street something which caused him to open his eyes in
+surprise, though surprise was not his usual expression.
+
+It was a very high and very swell phaeton, with a pair of magnificent
+bays, which danced along the street, as if its shabby, clog-worn
+stones caused much distress to their aristocratic hoofs. The driver of
+this (in Thanshope) unique conveyance was a young man in light grey
+clothes and a round cloth cap--no English cap: indeed there was, at
+least to the uninitiated Thanshope eye, something un-English in his
+whole appearance. He was, however, master of his cattle, as even Myles
+could see. Beside him sat a slight, dark boy, with a plain, queer, but
+attractive face; and behind was a very correct-looking groom.
+
+‘Who on earth is that chap?’ was Myles’s first very natural thought, as
+he forgot his work, and gazed in the blissfulness of ignorance at the
+vision. The next moment he could have bitten off his tongue could he
+have had the feeling that he had not bestowed a second glance upon the
+whole affair, for the dancing bays came sidling down the street, and
+the driver pulled them up before that very office door; moreover, he
+had caught sight of Myles staring at him, and had given him in return a
+lazy look from a pair of rather sleepy eyes.
+
+Now Myles knew it was the ‘so-called master’--it was Sebastian Mallory:
+a second glance at the fair though bronzed face, the yellow hair and
+moustache, the proudly cut features, and the indifferent expression,
+displayed sufficient likeness to his mother to make the first intuitive
+conviction a certainty.
+
+Furious with himself at having been caught staring openly and
+wonderingly, Myles forgot his voluntary promise to Adrienne, and, in
+order to prove that, whatever his open eyes might at first have seemed
+to intimate, yet that he was not really at all struck by anything he
+had seen, he turned his back to the door, and was apparently bending
+with the deepest attention over his work, when that door was opened; he
+heard a voice conclude some injunctions to the groom, and the answer
+which followed:
+
+‘_Jawohl, mein Herr._’
+
+‘Foreign servants, even!’ murmured Myles, shrugging his shoulders.
+
+‘Good morning, my good man,’ was the next thing he heard, in an accent
+as different from that of the Thanshope ‘gentleman’ as Adrienne’s was
+different from that of the Thanshope lady.
+
+He turned round and looked up; he was forced to do so now, and, without
+noticing the lad who stood in the background, he faced Mallory. The two
+young men confronted each other for the first time.
+
+So far as expression and complexion went, they were as great a contrast
+as could be imagined. Both were tall, spare, and well-built, and there
+the resemblance ended. Myles was, as has been said, quick, passionate,
+lithe, alert, with a temper that sprang into action on every possible
+occasion, with eyes that flashed, brows that contracted, very often
+in the course of the day. Sebastian Mallory was graceful, but there
+was some languor, real or assumed, in the grace. He was handsome, but
+the good looks were certainly marred by the bored expression on his
+pale, fine features. His eyes moved slowly; they were very good eyes,
+luminous, and hazel in colour, but they did not look as if they would
+easily flash. He spoke, looked, moved, as if he found life rather
+troublesome, and scarcely worth the trouble when it had been taken. He
+had taken off his cap when he entered the office--foreign fashion, and
+Myles saw that his face, all save the forehead, was somewhat bronzed;
+but it was with the bronze of a hot sun--not nature, naturally he
+was pale. His hair, too, seemed to have caught the sun at the ends,
+elsewhere it was just yellow hair. Every gesture and movement was full
+of the polished ease of high cultivation.
+
+Myles, looking straight at him, said to himself, ‘One of your languid,
+heavy swells, are we? I’m afraid we shall ruffle his fine feathers in
+this horrid democratic place.’
+
+He had Mrs. Mallory in his mind’s eye as he surveyed her son; her
+principles were well known--the divine right of kings--the Conservative
+side through thick and thin, good report and evil report; Church and
+Constitution intact through every storm; our greatest Premier, the
+late lamented Duke of Wellington; _the working-man in his proper
+place_ (wherever that may be); rich and poor, gentle and simple, a
+providential arrangement which it would be sinful and impious to think
+of disturbing.
+
+Thinking of all this, Myles surveyed Sebastian Mallory, and as he found
+him entirely different from any young man he had ever seen before, and
+as most of the Thanshope people, great and small, were of the Radical
+persuasion, he immediately concluded that he was right--what had been
+bred in the bone must come out in the flesh, and it was quite clear
+that Mr. Mallory was a Conservative of the bluest dye.
+
+Meanwhile Sebastian had been looking at Myles, too, surprised at
+receiving no answer to his remark, and still more surprised to observe
+that the eyes of the ‘good man’ were fixed intently, criticisingly,
+and with unabashed steadfastness upon himself, and appeared to measure
+him over from head to foot, in a manner which was, to say the least,
+singular. The cap of the young man remained on his head; he did not
+rise; he did not ask what he could do, nor the visitor’s business;
+he simply looked at him with a pair of remarkably keen, piercing,
+dark eyes, and Sebastian returned the look, until at last a gleam of
+amusement appeared in his sleepy eyes.
+
+That look of amusement was not lost upon Myles; it irritated and
+angered him. He was so terribly in earnest about all he did, thought,
+or believed, as not readily to see the comic side of a question, while
+it was Mallory’s chief foible to take everything in this world that
+came to him as rather amusing--if not too troublesome.
+
+‘_Ma foi!_’ he observed, with a quaint look, but very good-naturedly;
+‘they told me in the train that I should be surprised at the Thanshope
+people, and so I am!’
+
+‘Perhaps they’ll be equally surprised with you,’ said Myles, concisely.
+
+‘Well, they may,’ replied Sebastian, coolly. ‘Do you know who I am?’
+
+Myles hesitated a moment, much wishing to say, ‘No, I don’t,’ but
+integrity got the upper hand; he only put the fact as disagreeably as
+he could.
+
+‘I should suppose you are Mrs. Mallory’s son.’
+
+Sebastian turned to the brown-faced, dark-eyed boy who stood behind,
+and remarked smilingly,
+
+‘You see, _I_ am nobody, Hugo; only my mother’s son; and yet here I am
+upon my own property.’
+
+The youth nodded, and glanced thoughtfully at Myles, who could not
+resist going on with the rather perilous game he was playing, and who
+remarked drily,
+
+‘You’ll find that we count a good deal by residence and relationship
+here.’
+
+‘So!’ said Sebastian, with the amused half-smile still playing about
+his lips and in his eyes, to the intense exasperation of Myles, who
+naturally saw nothing at all to laugh at in the situation. There was
+something, too, about Mallory, which struck a subtle blow at his pride
+and self-esteem--something which in his innermost heart he knew to be
+superior to himself, though he passionately refused to admit the idea.
+
+‘Your guess is correct,’ went on Sebastian. ‘I am Mrs. Mallory’s son.
+And now I should be glad to know who and what you are--one of my
+work-people, perhaps?’
+
+The young man did not seem to be at all annoyed at what was taking
+place; indeed, there was that in his manner which said that he was
+mildly amused with the whole affair. He looked around as he spoke, with
+a lazy, criticising glance, but it was the glance, as Myles keenly
+felt, of a master, and of one who was accustomed to be a master. He was
+surveying his property, and questioning one of his servants. All the
+revolutionary element in that servant was in perturbation.
+
+‘What am I?’ he began, when Sebastian, who had taken off his cap on
+entering the office, said suggestively, ‘Hadn’t you better take your
+cap off?’
+
+‘That is a matter of opinion,’ said Myles, the blood rushing to his
+face. ‘It is not the fashion here. As for me, I doff to no man, and but
+few women.’
+
+‘Ah! well, we won’t quarrel about it. As you say, it is a matter of
+opinion,’ said Sebastian, politely; but there was something in the
+tone which made Myles feel small, and as if he had been behaving
+childishly--not a comforting feeling.
+
+‘But I interrupted you,’ continued Mallory, who seemed to be acquiring
+gradually a sort of interest in the conversation; ‘you were going to
+tell me who you are?’
+
+‘My name is Myles Heywood, and my business is cut-looking and part of
+the over-looking in this factory,’ said Myles.
+
+‘Heywood,’ repeated Sebastian, his eyes losing their lazy look,
+‘Heywood, where have I--ah, yes! A cut-looker--I don’t know what that
+is.’
+
+‘Likely enough not,’ said Myles.
+
+‘But it is quite certain that I must learn it,’ pursued Sebastian;
+‘what is it, if I may ask?’
+
+An uncomfortable sense began to steal over Myles, that Mr. Mallory was
+courtesy itself, and that too under considerable provocation. He gave a
+short sketch of his business.
+
+‘Thanks,’ said Sebastian. ‘And now--by-the-by, I am absolutely
+forgetting my business--is Mr. Sutcliffe in?’
+
+‘Not now: he will be in about an hour.’
+
+‘In an hour? Then I must go over the works without him. Is there any
+one here who knows all about it--you, perhaps?’ he added quickly, as if
+struck by a happy thought.
+
+The idea of leading Mr. Mallory round the works excited the liveliest
+aversion in Myles’s mind.
+
+‘Wilson, the head-overlooker, is above me. He generally does that,’
+said he.
+
+‘Wilson--I ought to remember Wilson. He has been here a long time,
+hasn’t he?’
+
+‘He has,’ said Myles, rather emphatically.
+
+‘I thought so. Well, where is he?’
+
+Myles, despite himself, very much despite himself, felt the influence
+of Sebastian’s manner. He would have been glad could he reasonably have
+classed him with Frederick Spenceley, but no such classification was
+for a moment possible. He wished he had not made that difficulty about
+going through the works. He suddenly remembered his voluntary promise
+to Adrienne, and felt that he could not tell her he had kept his word.
+But too proud, or perhaps too shy, to suddenly change his manner, he
+said, in the same curt tone,
+
+‘He’s going round the works. If you’ll wait a minute I’ll send him to
+you.’
+
+‘Thank you,’ said Mr. Mallory.
+
+Myles went out of the office, and across the yard to the factory; and
+Mallory, putting his hand upon Hugo’s shoulder, silently pointed to the
+workman’s figure, and they watched him until he had gone into the mill.
+
+‘Hugo, you have not a good ear for English names yet, but I have. I
+have heard that man’s name just lately--yesterday, in fact, in the
+train as we came from Manchester. He is a fellow I must know something
+more about. Did you notice him? He has a splendid face.’
+
+‘Splendid manners too, I think,’ said the boy sarcastically.
+
+‘Yes,’ replied Sebastian meditatively. ‘Heywood! If he had not
+mentioned his name when he did, I think I should have lost my temper.
+As it is, I shall try another plan. There he goes! What a row comes
+from behind that door!’
+
+Then they looked through the window.
+
+‘What a prospect!’ said Sebastian, glancing over the head of his
+companion, who leaned with both arms on the window-sill. ‘This
+time last week, do you remember? we were with--ah, what was their
+name--those girls and their brother?’
+
+‘On the Luzern steamer, going to Fluelen,’ said Hugo, his eyes fixed
+upon the dead wall opposite.
+
+‘Just so! Do you remember the sunset, and Mount Pilatus, as we came
+back? Well, Pilatus is there now--and we are here.’
+
+Hugo made no answer, but Sebastian saw a smile curve his cheek.
+
+‘Why, you might be pleased rather than not,’ said he.
+
+‘I am not displeased,’ replied the lad, with the same little smile.
+
+‘Not displeased that I took a notion about duty into my head, and
+whirled you away from Switzerland, and snow-peaks, and Alpine
+colouring, to Thanshope, Hugo?’
+
+‘Suppose you had obeyed the call of duty without whirling me away--had
+left me behind somewhere?’ said Hugo, tranquilly.
+
+‘Ah, so! That is at the root of it,’ said Sebastian, laughing. ‘What
+an odd--ah, here comes the overlooker! Now, Hugo, observe me doing the
+merchant-prince, and prepare your artist-eye for some shocks during the
+progress we are going to make.’
+
+Wilson entered in a state of high excitement.
+
+‘Mr. Mallory, sir, this _is_ a hunexpected pleasure! I couldn’t believe
+it. ‘Ow are you, sir? Well, I ’ope. We’ve looked forward long to this
+event.’
+
+‘Very well, thank you. I found myself at home sooner than I had
+expected--a week earlier. I remember you very well,’ he added. ‘How are
+you and your family?’
+
+‘As well as possible, sir, thank you,’ said Wilson, pressing the hand
+which Sebastian had held out to him. ‘Do I see a friend of yours,
+sir?’ he added, looking at Hugo, who was watching the man with the
+preternatural solemnity which was one of his ways of showing that he
+was amused.
+
+‘Yes; a very great friend--Mr. Von Birkenau,’ was all Sebastian said,
+and added, ‘I want to go through the works. I asked that young fellow
+who was here, who----’
+
+‘I hope he wasn’t rude, sir. I trust he didn’t make him self
+unpleasant,’ said Wilson, fervently.
+
+‘Why, is he insubordinate usually, or rude to his superiors?’ asked
+Sebastian, with a sudden keenness of look, in strong contrast with his
+soft voice, and gentle manner.
+
+‘Insubordinate! no, sir. A better workman or an honester young
+fellow never lived; only he’s got the idea that he hasn’t got no
+superiors--and it will bring him into trouble. I often tell him so.’
+
+‘But he is clever and honest, you say?’ said Sebastian, pausing to ask
+the question.
+
+‘Yes, sir,’ said Wilson, who was fond of Myles, and had been fond of
+him for years. ‘He’s got the brains of half a dozen of the usual run,
+and you might trust him with untold gold; ay, and more dangerous things
+than that. But he is apt to give a little too much of his sauce.’
+
+‘Ah! Well, we will go on now, if you please; and when Mr. Sutcliffe
+comes in, I’ll get him to go on and lunch with me. I should like to
+say a few words to the--“hands,” is it you call them?--if there is any
+place where they could come and listen to me.’
+
+‘Surely, sir. The big yard will hold them all, and more than them.’
+
+‘Then be good enough to lead the way,’ said Sebastian, looking at his
+watch suggestively.
+
+Wilson was a proud and a happy man that morning, as he led the
+newly arrived lord of that place through the maze of great rooms
+and machinery, and pointed out all the improvements, the wonderful
+contrivances for making wood and steel and iron do the work of hands
+and feet; all the ‘perfection of mechanism, human and metallic,’ of
+which the factory and its contents formed an example.
+
+Sebastian followed him: his eyes had lost their sleepy look; he asked
+many questions, acute enough, for all the indifferent tone of them.
+He seemed to have much of the gift which is said to be royal--the eye
+which took in with incredible rapidity both details and generalities.
+Very little that was to be seen escaped him, including the curious
+glances and the loud comments and surmises relative to himself.
+
+It took an hour to go even quickly through the different rooms, and
+then Wilson, saying, ‘This is the last, sir, the warehouse,’ took
+them into a large, well-lighted room, in which were some half-dozen
+men at work, Myles Heywood in the centre. Sebastian stooped to Hugo,
+whispering,
+
+‘I want to speak to that young fellow alone a few minutes.’
+
+Hugo stepped up to a large pile of cloth, seemingly interested in some
+mystic marks and figures upon it, which he requested Wilson to explain;
+while Sebastian, going on, stopped at Myles’s side, and, looking at his
+work said,
+
+‘That is cut-looking is it?’
+
+‘Yes.’
+
+‘Well, I’ve learnt something. Listen to me a moment, will you?’
+
+Myles looked up inquiringly.
+
+‘I am going to say something to all these people directly, and I want
+you to promise to come and listen to it; will you?’
+
+Half vexed, half flattered, Myles looked into Mallory’s face. He had
+not given up his notion that the young man was a ‘jackanapes:’ but
+if so, the ‘jackanapes’ had a manner that it was not easy for even a
+superior person to resist. Myles replied,
+
+‘Certainly I will come.’
+
+He looked as if he were going to add something--in fact it was on the
+tip of his tongue to say, ‘I don’t promise to like what I shall hear;’
+but he refrained. He remembered Adrienne and his promise. Yet he had
+the conviction that he would dislike what Sebastian had to say. A
+Conservative--Southern sympathies, no doubt. What could such an one
+have to say that he would like? But he would go, if only to watch till
+the cloven foot showed itself.
+
+At that moment Wilson came up again.
+
+‘You’ve seen the last of the rooms, sir. If you’re ready, I’ll have the
+bell rung, and then we can go out into the yard.’
+
+In a few minutes the great bell had clanged out, the engines had been
+stopped, the hands were streaming out into the yard.
+
+Sebastian and Wilson stood upon a huge empty lorrie that was close by
+one of the warehouse doors, so that they had nothing to do but step on
+to it, which they did, while Myles and his comrades swung themselves on
+to the ground, and took their stand in a knot, not far away from this
+impromptu platform.
+
+Sebastian looked keenly at all the upturned faces, while Wilson made a
+few brief yet remarkably entangled and involved introductory remarks.
+
+The overlooker’s voice ceased. He swung himself from the lorrie, and
+went and stood with the crowd.
+
+‘My friends,’ began Sebastian, ‘circumstances have kept me for ten
+years away from Lancashire. Perhaps I might still not have made the
+necessary effort to return, but for this great struggle which is
+going on in America, and whose direct effects will first be felt in
+Lancashire. When that began, I felt I had no right to remain any longer
+away. I have heard, and one or two little things which I have seen,
+even during the few hours I have been in Thanshope, lead me to feel
+that the saying is a true one, that you Lancashire men are inclined to
+despise an employer who does not know his business, much as you would
+despise a workman who did not know his work. The principle is a right
+and honest one; and I don’t say that I may not have come under the head
+of those who deserve some contempt as being ignorant, and “absentee
+owners.” Even since I came here, I have discovered that I never knew
+what work was before; I see that my task will be no easy one, to master
+the principles of my business, and to try and provide in some degree
+against the dark days which, I fear, are almost inevitable. But, hard
+or easy, it is a task I mean to learn. The time is coming, as I think
+all thoughtful men must see--coming rapidly, when Lancashire will have
+to exert every effort to meet that distress which will rush upon her;
+that cloud that is hastening across the Atlantic is a very black cloud,
+and will make the days very dark. Let us try manfully, hand in hand, to
+breast the storm together.
+
+‘I suppose that you all, or nearly all, will agree with me upon at
+least one point--sympathy with the Federal side in this struggle.
+(A murmur, deep and strong, of profound approbation arose--a murmur
+in which men’s and women’s voices alike joined.) ‘That noble man,
+Abraham Lincoln, against whose honour the Southern press has lifted its
+impotent voice--not to mention some journals in this country, which
+Englishmen ought to be ashamed to read--that noble man, should he live
+and be fortunate in his grand crusade, will benefit all the world
+by his intrepidity. He cannot give you cheap and abundant supplies
+of cotton now, but by his courage and wisdom he is securing your
+future supplies upon a firm basis, very different from the slippery
+vantage-ground of slave-labour upon which they have hitherto depended.
+(Another murmur indicative of that approval which, to their honour,
+Lancashire working-men and women, throughout those bitter years, gave
+to the Federal side, greeted the speaker.)
+
+‘I understand that you Lancashire men, especially you Thanshope
+men, think a great deal of politics and principles. So you ought,
+considering who is your member, and that other great name which is
+connected with Thanshope. I also know that in spite of the strong
+Conservative element amongst your gentry, and, they tell me, amongst
+the workmen too’ (a voice: ‘Conservative working-man--there’s no such
+thing!’)--‘in spite of this alleged Conservative element, you have
+always, since you first returned a representative to Parliament,
+returned a Radical.
+
+‘I was not aware of the strength of the feeling upon this point in
+Thanshope. I have always myself held politics to be secondary to some
+other subjects, but, since I find so much interest centred round the
+point here, and moreover, since persons whom I have met and spoken to
+have treated me on the tacit assumption that I was a Conservative,
+I judge it as well to tell you, face to face, that whatever I may be
+on other matters, in politics I am no Conservative, but a Radical.
+Of course there are almost as many kinds of Radicals as there are of
+Dissenters. The details of my radicalism and those of your radicalism
+are, I dare say, somewhat different; but I hope we shall both be able
+to respect the principle and never mind the form.
+
+‘Now I will not keep you longer--only let me say, finally, I am here to
+learn my business, and to try to guide my ship through the storm that
+is coming. Thanshope, as you know, is one of the places where the pinch
+of distress will be soonest felt, since the counts of yarns used here
+are precisely those the supply of which will soonest fall off. I ask a
+promise from you, and I make one to you. In that time that is coming I
+ask you to trust me--my feelings and intentions towards you, and on my
+part I promise to strain every nerve to do my duty by you. We will work
+on as long as there is cotton to be had, and then--I trust, for your
+sakes, and mine, and that of humanity at large, that it will not be
+long that I shall have to help you in your fight to keep the wolf from
+the door.’
+
+He stopped, bowed, and was turning away, when they gave him a hearty
+cheer; and one or two voices informed him laconically that they
+‘reckoned he was one o’ th’ reet sort,’ and that ‘he’d suit.’
+
+He jumped down from the lorrie, joined Wilson and his friend Hugo, and
+went with them towards the office. The engineer returned to his post;
+soon the busy machinery was in full roar again, as if there had been no
+such thing as war--no such parties as Federals and Confederates. The
+interruption to the morning’s work was already a thing of the past--an
+incident to be talked about.
+
+Myles Heywood maintained entire silence upon the subject, nor could any
+one of all who inquired of him get him to say what he thought of the
+new master. He might have deep thoughts about it--at least they were
+unexpressed. The rest of the hands talked the event over with lively
+excitement. The general impression was a favourable one. The men liked
+what he had said, though he was generally pronounced to be a ‘bit too
+much of a swell,’ and it was agreed that he ‘spoke rather fine,’ and,
+they said, minced his words too much; was, in short, rather too much
+of a fine gentleman. Otherwise he was considered sound, and they were
+pleased to find him on the right side in politics.
+
+The women, too, liked him, for reasons apparently similar to those
+alleged by Peter van den Bosch, as their grounds for liking Philip van
+Artevelde,
+
+    ‘And wenches who were there, said Artevelde
+    Was a sweet name, and musical to hear.’
+
+Mary Heywood, at least, said she ‘liked the chap: he had siccan a soft
+voice, and a nice, smooth-soundin’ name, like.’
+
+The general conclusion was a very Lancashire one; that the young man
+had spoken well and reasonably; sensibly enough for a person who knew
+nothing about his business, but that ‘fair words butter no parsnips;’
+and the conjecture may reasonably be hazarded whether Sebastian’s
+speech had induced any one of his hearers to form a decided opinion,
+good or bad, of him. They waited to see, and indeed the time was
+striding forward with fearful rapidity, nearer and nearer, when the
+sincerity of his profession should be put to the proof.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+INITIATION.
+
+
+Sebastian and Hugo drove away from the factory, accompanied by Mr.
+Sutcliffe, the manager and head man of the business. Arrived at the
+Oakenrod, Mallory and his manager retired to the library, and there
+plunged straight into business.
+
+Mr. Sutcliffe was a small, mild-looking man, with eyes that were keen
+despite his nervous, almost timid expression, a bald head, spectacles,
+a gentle smile, and a large bundle of what he called ‘documents.’
+
+Over these documents he and Sebastian remained absorbed until luncheon
+was announced. They tarried not long over that meal. Hugo von Birkenau
+appeared to be a very familiar friend, for Sebastian made no excuse
+for leaving him, and with a slight apology to his mother he and Mr.
+Sutcliffe returned to the library.
+
+An hour, two, three hours passed, chiefly occupied in expositions
+from Mr. Sutcliffe on the nature of the business, its principles,
+and the method of carrying it on. Sebastian’s part consisted chiefly
+in listening, naturally; but every now and then he interposed with a
+question--questions so much to the point, and showing such discernment
+and discrimination, that Mr. Sutcliffe, who had at first begun his task
+with some constraint and great dryness of manner and tone, brightened
+visibly every minute; his tone grew warmer, his manner more animated,
+his eyes flashed now and then. Thus the interview went on, until Mr.
+Sutcliffe, laying down a bundle of papers, whose import he had just
+explained, took up another bundle, and was beginning--
+
+‘These refer to the----’
+
+But Sebastian interrupted him.
+
+‘Excuse me, Mr. Sutcliffe. Suppose we lay aside business for to-day.
+I want to ask you some other questions. With such a manager as you, I
+have no fear of things going wrong.’
+
+Mr. Sutcliffe smiled.
+
+‘Judging from what I have heard and seen of you, Mr. Mallory,
+you will soon be in a position to manage your own business. You
+must not feel offended when I say that I have been most agreeably
+disappointed--surprised is perhaps rather the word.’
+
+Sebastian smiled a little.
+
+‘I am a fearfully indolent fellow, I believe,’ said he. ‘I take a lot
+of rousing; but once set me to plod at a thing, and I continue until I
+understand it--at least, I think so.’
+
+‘That is a very modest way of describing your ready comprehension of
+details which must be as strange to you as those we have just been
+discussing. But that’s neither here nor there; you wanted some other
+information?’
+
+‘I suppose you are pretty well acquainted with the different parties,
+social and political, in the town, and with the characters, at any
+rate, of the leading people?’
+
+‘I may say that I certainly am.’
+
+‘Well, to begin with, I wish you would tell me candidly what character
+is borne by my own concern and the management of it?’
+
+Mr. Sutcliffe looked up quickly, an almost startled expression upon his
+face.
+
+‘That is rather a delicate matter,’ he began.
+
+‘Yes, I suppose it is. But I am sure you will be frank with me. I
+drew my own conclusions from what I saw and heard this morning, and
+I want to find out if your account agrees with them. Never mind how
+disagreeable it may be.’
+
+‘Your works, then, bear a very high reputation in many respects. Your
+hands are as decent and as steady a lot as any in the town, take them
+all in all. Things are generally peaceable. It is looked upon, and with
+justice, as an increasing, thoroughly prosperous concern. Our goods,
+both yarns and cloth, have got a name. I like the men who are under me,
+and I think they like me--Wilson, and Heywood, and the others. I think
+I have succeeded in keeping things right; but----’
+
+‘Well?’
+
+‘There are some misunderstandings about yourself--some prejudices. They
+don’t like absentee owners here, and that’s a fact. But I’m sure that
+impression will soon be effaced, now that you are here yourself. If you
+show them that you don’t mean play----’
+
+Sebastian shrugged his shoulders.
+
+‘_Mon Dieu!_ There does not seem to be much question of play. I never
+saw anything so oppressively in earnest as every one here seems to be.
+It is stamped upon almost every face you meet. Certainly I am not in
+play.’
+
+‘Then they will soon find that out, and respect you accordingly.’
+
+‘But that is not all you were going to say?’
+
+‘It may seem a small kind of complaint to make; but it’s better to let
+you know the truth at once. There certainly is a feeling against Mrs.
+Mallory.’
+
+Sebastian looked up in surprise.
+
+‘Against my mother? What has she to do with it?’
+
+‘A feeling that she is not sufficiently liberal in her ideas, and that
+she would, if she could get the authority, interfere unduly in matters
+which, with the utmost respect to her, she does not understand, never
+having had occasion to study them. I am bound to say that, though I
+have never had anything like a dispute with Mrs. Mallory, yet that is
+my own impression too, and that is one reason why I rejoice at your
+return. You are now the final authority.’
+
+The murder was out, and Mr. Sutcliffe’s shrewd eyes watched the young
+man’s face attentively. He did not look angry, did not look even
+annoyed, but rather thoughtful for a moment. Then he said,
+
+‘I am glad you mentioned it. Of course that is not a topic for
+discussion. As you said, my presence will make all the difference. Is
+that all about my own works?’
+
+‘Yes. I don’t think there is anything else.’
+
+‘Who are the leading men here?’
+
+‘So far as money goes, there are a good many big men here. Mr.
+Spenceley is reported to be the richest, and I believe report is right.’
+
+‘Spenceley! Ah! What about him?’
+
+‘He is a spinner; does an enormous trade. They say he has been
+speculating rather too much lately. He has a certain influence in some
+quarters, but it is an influence that will die with him.’
+
+‘How so?’
+
+‘He has only a son and a daughter, and the son is probably the biggest
+blackguard in the place; he will never have any influence. The
+daughter, I hear, is rather an eccentric young lady.’
+
+‘Oh!’ was all Sebastian said.
+
+Mr. Sutcliffe went on,
+
+‘The son I believe, is a very black sheep. It was only a week or two
+ago that he insulted some young woman--in a small place, you see, these
+things make a good deal of noise--in a most abominable manner; but he
+was punished for that, for the girl’s sweetheart--at least that is
+one of the tales, I don’t believe it myself; but one thing is quite
+certain, a young working-man followed him to his club that very night,
+and gave him a good hiding in the billiard-room. No one, I don’t think
+one soul, was sorry for him. The feeling was so dead against him that
+he did not even prosecute.’
+
+‘I have heard some account of it. But don’t you know who the young man
+was who did it?’
+
+Mr. Sutcliffe smiled a little as he said,
+
+‘In my own mind, I believe I could lay my finger upon the man; but as I
+thoroughly respect him for what he did, and should be sorry to get him
+into trouble, I shall keep quiet about it.’
+
+Sebastian looked inquiringly at him.
+
+‘I believe the man was one of your own work-people--Heywood, a fellow I
+have known from the time when he first came as a half-timer.’
+
+‘I have seen the man. You think it was he. Why?’
+
+‘Partly because I was passing the club-door at the very time of the
+row, and saw him come out of it, looking rather dangerous, with a
+couple of straps in his hand; and, secondly, because when it has been
+discussed, which you will easily believe has been pretty actively, he
+has looked embarrassed, and kept perfect silence upon the subject.’
+
+Sebastian nodded.
+
+‘Miss Spenceley is a great friend of Mrs. Mallory,’ went on the
+manager. ‘But that’s neither here nor there; only they are about
+the biggest people, in a money point of view, in the place. There
+are several other families something like them. Then there’s Canon
+Ponsonby, the radical parson, our vicar, a very fine old gentleman;
+you will like him. He is respected by all who are themselves worthy of
+respect, be they Churchmen or dissenters.’
+
+‘Naturally the feeling here is radical?’
+
+‘Tremendous; and North, almost to a man. Lots of these working-men know
+what’s coming; and it _is_ coming upon them too, like the very devil.
+They’ll tell you they know the cotton must run out soon, or run up to
+such a price that we can hardly get it. But if they have to do without
+it, or with Surats----’
+
+‘What on earth is “Surats”?’
+
+‘Indian cotton; abominable stuff to work. Haven’t you--but of course
+you haven’t--heard of the weaver who put up the prayer, “O Lord! send
+us cotton; _but not Surats_!” But if they have to work Surats, they’ll
+stick to it that North is right, and South wrong; and they’ll clem
+rather than have anything to say to Jeff Davis.’
+
+‘How soon do you think distress will begin?’
+
+‘I think we shall have to shut up shop by Christmas. It’s of no use
+talking much about it beforehand. All I can say is, there’s a time
+coming which will prove Lancashire once for all, her rich and her poor
+alike; and show them up to the world in a light as fierce as that
+of the midday sun. We shall get to see the stuff we’re made of. And
+there’s half-past five; I must go.’
+
+‘Won’t you stay and dine with us?’
+
+‘I have another engagement, thank you. To-morrow, at the same time, Mr.
+Mallory, we will resume the discussion, if you feel so inclined.’
+
+‘Certainly. I shall expect you. Good evening.’
+
+He was left, leaning against the mantelpiece, to reflect upon what had
+passed.
+
+A tap at the door was followed by the entrance of his mother.
+
+‘Have you finished at last, Sebastian? I have had no opportunity to
+tell you that I am expecting a friend to dine with us to-night.’
+
+‘Oh, are you? Who may he be?’
+
+‘She is Helena Spenceley, a very great favourite of mine. If my son
+will spend all his time away from home, I am obliged to find some kind
+of a substitute, you know. She has been almost like a daughter to me.’
+
+‘Any relative of the young man who recently distinguished himself by
+earning a thrashing?’
+
+Mrs. Mallory looked annoyed.
+
+‘He is her brother,’ said she coldly. ‘He is away from home now. You
+must not judge Helena by him. Poor girl! She has a sad, unhappy home.
+I believe I really have been a friend to her. And I like to see young
+people about me.’
+
+‘Yes, of course.’
+
+‘I hope you have no engagement?’
+
+‘None at all. I shall be delighted to make Miss Spenceley’s
+acquaintance.’
+
+She retired, after casting a comprehensive glance around at the papers
+which strewed the table.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE TWO RADICALS.
+
+
+Mrs. Mallory came into her drawing-room twenty minutes before the
+dinner-hour, and found her son already there, alone, already dressed,
+and stretched, in an attitude of extreme laziness, in an arm-chair by
+the fire.
+
+There was likeness between the mother and son--strong likeness; and
+there was also, what most people forget in comparing relations with
+one another, strong unlikeness. Mrs. Mallory was an elegant-looking
+and a young-looking woman. She had an impassive, pale face, with thin
+lips and a high nose; pale, flaxen hair, without a grey streak in its
+glossy abundance; and the elegant trifle of lace and feathers which she
+wore upon it made her look still younger and handsomer. She was dressed
+in pale lavender silk and white lace, and she looked a very handsome,
+prosperous person, as she came in, casting a glance at Sebastian--a
+sharp, keen, calculating glance. Mrs. Mallory loved power, and had long
+exercised it; she did not realise that her son had grown from a boy
+into a man since she had known him. She had the lowest possible opinion
+of the natural penetration of men; and circumstances had fostered that
+impression. There is a great deal in having once lived for a term of
+years in close intercourse with a person very decidedly one’s inferior
+in intellect, as in the case of Mrs. Mallory and her late husband.
+There is nothing like it for giving one an overweening idea of one’s
+own capacities, and for fostering an attitude of contemptuous tolerance
+towards the opinions of every one else. Mrs. Mallory’s experience of
+her husband had entailed, as one of its indirect sequences, that she
+was completely deceived now by the lazy, languid manner of her son.
+In this most agreeable of convictions, that of mental supremacy over
+the rest of the company, let her tranquilly abide, until her hour of
+disillusion arrives.
+
+‘Mother, it is too absurd that I should have to go about representing
+myself as your son! Couldn’t you pass as my sister?’
+
+‘Nonsense! Where is your friend?’
+
+‘Dressing, I suppose. He was greatly excited at hearing that a young
+lady was expected to dine with us.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory had some remarks to make _à propos_ of the young lady, but
+she deferred them for a moment in order to inquire,
+
+‘What have you been doing all day?’
+
+And she placed herself in an easy-chair opposite to his, and held a
+feathery screen between her face and the fire.
+
+‘I have been, like a good little boy, attending to my lessons,’ said
+her son, lazily.
+
+‘Ah, don’t speak in parables! I have forgotten how. In this dreadful
+place every one says the most disagreeable things they can think of,
+in the most disagreeable way they can think of, and then call it being
+honest and candid. And if you can contrive to drop a few h’s, and speak
+in a broad Lancashire dialect at the same time, you are thought very
+honest and candid indeed. I detest the place!’
+
+‘Do you really, mother? I wonder you have remained here so long.’
+
+‘I have tried to do my duty, Sebastian, to you and your property. A
+woman must make up her mind to sacrifice herself--a mother above all
+others.’
+
+‘I am infinitely obliged to you, mother, but I trust that now you will
+have a long and complete rest. I am going to learn my business----’
+
+‘Very proper, but I think it will take you some time. With your habits,
+I am afraid you will find it a frightful bore.’
+
+‘Do you know my habits, mother?’ he inquired in the very quietest of
+voices.
+
+Mrs. Mallory looked at him in some surprise. As a matter of fact, she
+did not know his habits in the very least. But, looking at him as he
+lounged in his easy-chair, with the newspaper across his knees, she
+said within herself, and prided herself upon her discernment,
+
+‘His father all over: weak and idle, though he has more surface
+quickness. I don’t think I shall have much trouble with him.’
+
+‘At least I know, dear, that your habits have not been those of
+Thanshope business men. But I suppose your first object will be to go
+over the works and see your people?’
+
+‘I have been over the works, and have seen my people, and spoken to
+them.’
+
+‘When--why did you not tell me?’ she asked vivaciously, and with no
+little vexation. ‘You should not be so impetuous, Sebastian.’
+
+He laughed.
+
+‘The first time I was ever accused of impetuousness. It shows indeed
+that you don’t know my habits.’
+
+This was annoying, though it was impossible to complain about it.
+
+‘These people will not bear to be treated unceremoniously, though they
+are such bears themselves.’
+
+‘I am not aware that I did treat them unceremoniously.’
+
+‘What did you say to them?’ she asked, curiosity getting the better
+of vexation. ‘I wish you had not been so hasty. A speech of that kind
+requires both consideration and careful management I hope you did
+not commit yourself. They are such frightful people for taking up
+one’s most innocent remarks and construing them into something quite
+different from what one intended.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory spoke feelingly, as if from experience.
+
+‘Are they? Well, I don’t know that I committed myself to anything from
+which I should wish to back out later. Indeed, I am not a fellow who
+is given to backing out of his promises--but then I make so few,’ he
+added, thoughtfully. ‘I simply told them I was afraid there were bad
+times coming, and that we must stand by each other in them. And I said
+a few words on politics.’
+
+‘My dear boy! how foolish! Excuse me, but it was. They are rabid
+Radicals, and have a prejudice against you already--one of their
+horrid, narrow-minded prejudices, and to mention that you were a
+Conservative would certainly not improve your situation.’
+
+Sebastian looked a little surprised.
+
+‘How odd it is! Why should I tell them I was a Conservative when I am a
+Radical? I spoke the truth of course.’
+
+Not Mrs. Transome herself could have been more horrified at Harold’s
+declaration of his views than was Mrs. Mallory at this avowal by
+her son. She forgot to shade that complexion, which was not as the
+complexions of other women of six-and-forty. She laid her screen
+down, sat bolt upright, without the pretence of any amiability in her
+expression, and said sharply,
+
+‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’
+
+‘I am truly sorry that I cannot oblige you by feeling so.’
+
+‘You have no respect for your father, or your grandfather--for any of
+your forefathers,’ said she, sullenly. ‘Every man here who can boast of
+a grandfather, much more a man of good old family like yours, ought to
+be a Conservative out of pure self-respect. No! You have no respect for
+your ancestors or for yourself.’
+
+‘_Mon Dieu!_ I think I have as much respect for them as they deserve.
+Do you think ancestors are really of much use? But at least I have more
+respect for their memories than to imagine that they would wish me
+simply to sit down and hobnob with the first opinions that happened to
+be offered to me. Since I have inherited my name and my tendencies of
+mind from them, I must also have inherited my brains and my reasoning
+powers from them. I have an inquiring mind, a thing, my dear mother,
+which is not spontaneously generated, but developed.’
+
+‘That is wicked nonsense, Sebastian. I won’t allow it.’
+
+‘But you will allow me to explain my opinions to you, I am sure. That
+is always better, and saves so many misunderstandings.’
+
+‘I see without explanation that you are a renegade to your fathers, and
+have degraded yourself to the level of these horrid, insolent Radicals;
+yes, to the level of these grasping, dirty, presuming work-people.
+I hate them, Sebastian; I cannot tell you how I hate all Radicals.
+How can you refuse any of the demands of these odious people now,
+professing, as you do, their own opinions?’
+
+‘I don’t know what their opinions may be, I am sure. Probably not at
+all the same as mine. But I was going to mention that, in my quite
+early youth, I once read a little sentence which made a deep impression
+upon my mind. It ran thus: “Those who believe that heaven is what earth
+has been--a monopoly in the hands of a favoured few, would do well to
+reconsider their opinion; if they find that it came from their priest
+or their grandmother, they could not do better than reject it.”’
+
+‘I call that impiety,’ said she, her lips tightening.
+
+‘Allow me to finish,’ said he, courteously. ‘I read between the
+lines of that little remark, and applied the principle contained in
+it to a great many other things beside those mentioned in the text;
+and the result of my continued use of that principle, as a test of
+institutions, opinions, and customs, has been that I am a Radical.’
+
+‘It is an odious and an impious principle,’ said Mrs. Mallory, with
+cold and bitter anger in her voice, ‘and it is a principle to which I
+will never give my countenance.’
+
+The shock had been not a small one of finding that Sebastian called
+himself by the name she hated, as the formula of the sum of the
+opinions of Thanshope--Radical. But a yet greater shock was that
+of finding, that though he seemed so soft and pliable, spoke so
+indifferently, smiled so languidly, yet that she could no more bend
+him, nor apparently impress him, than she could stem the incoming tide
+of the ocean.
+
+Sebastian had risen, and was standing by the mantelpiece. Mrs. Mallory
+glanced at him once, sideways, and caught his eye. That was annoying in
+itself: it vexed and angered her because he was smiling.
+
+‘I am sorry you don’t like it, mother,’ he said quite pleasantly and
+cheerfully, but not in the least apologetically; ‘and yet, do you
+know, considering the letters you have had from me, and my perfect
+frankness as to the society I have most sought and enjoyed, I think
+you might have been prepared for it, even if I never explicitly stated
+my convictions.’
+
+This was also true. He had a most annoying way of being in the right.
+
+‘Convictions? Oh, I dislike that talk about convictions. When people
+want to annoy their best friends, they call their conduct the result of
+convictions.’
+
+‘The impertinence of circumstances is certainly very great sometimes,’
+assented Sebastian, leaning against the mantelpiece, and she, as she
+tapped her foot impatiently upon the floor, would hardly have been
+flattered to find that he was thinking:
+
+‘I must let her rail against it until it begins to be tiresome--perhaps
+she may see the wisdom of stopping before then. I suppose one must
+make allowances for the disappointment of a woman whose prejudices (or
+convictions?) have been offended; but it would be wasting words to
+reason with her about it, and soon, I suppose, she will learn to accept
+the circumstances and make the best of it.’
+
+He had no wish or intention of being disrespectful. Simply, he had
+‘beaten his music out’ with more difficulty than any one knew, save
+himself, and was mildly surprised to find that the resulting harmony,
+which sounded not ill in his own ears, should cause his mother such
+shuddering, should fall so discordantly upon her perceptions. He had
+no more idea of interrupting the flow of that harmony than he had of
+sharing his ample estate with all the paupers in Thanshope.
+
+Fortunately, at this juncture, Hugo came into the room, his odd,
+original young face looking still more peculiar in contrast with his
+careful evening dress, and before many words had been exchanged ‘Miss
+Spenceley’ was announced.
+
+Sebastian turned, with the story of Frederick Spenceley and his already
+conceived contempt for him strong in his mind, to confront Frederick
+Spenceley’s sister. His glance softened as it fell upon the girl
+advancing towards his mother.
+
+Had he wandered through all the cities of Europe and seen their lovely
+women, in order to come home and find in a provincial manufacturing
+town a daughter of the people more beautiful than any of them?
+
+‘Helena, my love, let me introduce my son, who has arrived sooner than
+I expected. Sebastian, Miss Spenceley.’
+
+A profound bow on his part, and a rather careless, not very
+sophisticated inclination of her beautiful head on hers, was the result
+of these phrases of politeness.
+
+‘My son’s friend, Mr. von Birkenau,’ was then introduced, and received
+the same notice exactly, a notice graceful and even dignified, because
+she could not help all her movements being graceful and dignified.
+
+‘Like my daughter,’ Mrs. Mallory had said, and as she spoke to Helena
+Spenceley her voice assuredly took a tender accent; she glanced over
+the young lady’s costly dress, and smoothed down a lace ruffle with
+the affectionate familiarity of a very intimate friend or much-loved
+relative.
+
+Miss Spenceley remained standing on the hearthrug, talking to Mrs.
+Mallory--a lovely, noble figure, tall, slim, and shapely, with the
+exquisite elasticity of perfect health in every line.
+
+‘Splendid!’ said Sebastian, in his own mind; and splendid expressed her
+appearance and her character both. From her great dark, soft eyes, her
+dusky hair, in its delicate unruly little rings and tendrils, her ripe
+red lips, set in a delicious curve of mirth, frankness, and wilfulness,
+down to her rich dress and sparkling rings, she was all splendid,
+without being in the least vulgar.
+
+‘Dear child, what a long time it is since I saw you!’ said Mrs. Mallory.
+
+‘Yes. I have been busy. How nice this fire is, Mrs. Mallory. I do
+believe we have not had one at our house yet. Perhaps it is lighted on
+your behalf?’ she added, turning to Sebastian with a somewhat malicious
+smile.
+
+‘Mine? Not so far as I am aware. What makes you think so?’
+
+‘You have been living in warm countries lately, and Thanshope is not a
+warm place, but one of those towns where we have to use a lot of coals
+to make up for the want of sunshine!’
+
+‘Yes, indeed!’ said Mrs. Mallory, shivering.
+
+‘I have not had time to miss the sunshine, or to enjoy it, if there had
+been any, since I came,’ said Sebastian, his glance dwelling almost
+involuntarily upon her as she stood there, her eyes flashing back the
+firelight, and looking herself (he thought) like some bright living
+flame, or some tropical flower.
+
+He could not understand her. There was nothing vulgar about her; her
+voice was pleasant and, though distinctly northern in its clear accent,
+was not in the least uneducated in its pronunciation of words; she had
+ease, grace, self-possession of carriage; apparently she was devoid
+altogether of self-consciousness; all of which things were surely
+signs of good breeding; and yet she was not in the least like the many
+well-bred girls whom he had met in society up and down the world--in
+Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and other places. He wondered what she could
+talk about, and whether she talked well.
+
+Dinner was announced, and he led her into the dining-room. Hugo von
+Birkenau was talking with much animation to Mrs. Mallory, as was
+his wont, though she did not appear to find him a very interesting
+companion.
+
+Helena Spenceley, suddenly turning to Sebastian, said,
+
+‘I know quite well where you have been. I have followed your course
+with the greatest interest Mrs. Mallory used always to tell me where
+you went, and sometimes read me bits of your letters.’
+
+‘Did she? I wish I had known.’
+
+‘Do you? Why?’ she asked, looking at him with a certain bright
+attentiveness, and waiting with evident interest for his answer.
+
+Certainly she was not like other girls. Another girl would have known
+directly that he meant a kind of vague compliment by his aimless
+phrase; but she said ‘Why?’
+
+‘If I had known, perhaps I might have written rather more carefully
+considered epistles to my mother,’ he said, and felt that it was, and
+sounded, a lame reply.
+
+‘That would have been a pity, for the sake of a person you had never
+seen and did not know,’ she said, the smile fading from her face.
+
+Sebastian felt he had made a bad beginning. It began to be rather
+dreadful, when she went on quite seriously,
+
+‘Do you mean that if you had thought your letters were read aloud you
+would have made them into set compositions to please an audience?’
+
+‘I think it is a matter of no importance whatever. Letter-writing is
+not my _forte_. I am too lazy.’
+
+‘Oh, they were very interesting letters,’ said Helena, naïvely. ‘But
+how can you talk about being lazy! If only I had had such chances!’ She
+shook her head.
+
+‘I should think you had the chance of doing whatever you pleased,’ he
+said, smiling.
+
+Helena did not respond to the smile. Her face, intensely expressive,
+darkened visibly. Her eyes sank.
+
+‘No,’ said she, coldly. ‘You are quite mistaken. Whatever pleasures
+and enjoyments I have had in my life have been procured for me by the
+kindness of Mrs. Mallory. She has been so good to me!’ She looked at
+him with eyes tragic in the earnestness of their expression.
+
+Sebastian, glancing down the table, saw that Hugo’s eyes were fixed
+upon her in a perfect trance of admiration.
+
+‘Then you have never been abroad?’ said he.
+
+‘I--no! I have been nowhere except to London once or twice--oh, and to
+Brighton with Mrs. Mallory. I don’t want to go anywhere.’
+
+‘You are such a home-bird?’
+
+He saw immediately that he had asked an unfortunate question. The blood
+rushed over her face as she replied, again coldly,
+
+‘Oh no! I think all that stuff about “home, sweet home,” and that, is
+the most wearisome nonsense imaginable. I hate it.... Did you study the
+position of women at all when you were abroad?’
+
+Sebastian looked at her. She was perfectly grave, serious, and
+judicial. The ‘Woman Question’ had not been forced so far to the front
+in 1861 as in 1878, and Sebastian was proportionately surprised to hear
+that question from so young, rich, and beautiful a woman as Helena
+Spenceley.
+
+‘I’m afraid I was rather remiss in that respect. But one sees their
+position without studying it, I think.’
+
+‘And what do you think about it? Is it what it ought to be? But that is
+a foolish question. It is not what it ought to be, anywhere. It never
+will be what it ought to be, until women themselves rise and refuse any
+longer to submit to their own degradation. Don’t you think so?’
+
+‘Really I am afraid I have not thought much at all upon the question.’
+
+‘I suppose the idea has not yet penetrated to France and Germany. It
+will have to come, though, sooner or later. The German woman, for
+instance--is she in bonds, or emancipated?’
+
+‘As how?’
+
+‘Is the German woman the slave of the German man, or has she a position
+of her own?’
+
+A malign spirit took possession of Sebastian. Mrs. Mallory and Hugo
+were both listening to the discussion, Mrs. Mallory with a shade of
+anxiety on her face. Sebastian, after a pause, as if he were profoundly
+considering the question, said,
+
+‘I should say that she combined both those conditions--that she was
+very decidedly the slave of the German man, and at the same time had a
+distinct position of her own.’
+
+‘Really! I wish I had brought my note-book. Pray explain!’
+
+‘The German woman’s thoughts are, if I may use such an expression,
+directed manwards, _Mann_ being, you know, her word for husband. Her
+thoughts, then, are directed _Mann_-wards from her earliest youth--from
+the time when she begins to go to school....’
+
+‘Horrible!’ said Helena, her eyes fixed in grave earnest upon his face,
+so that his gravity was sorely tried. ‘Horrible! Well?’
+
+‘I don’t know how much or how little true the report maybe about her
+beginning in early youth to prepare her trousseau.’
+
+‘Disgusting!’
+
+‘But she hears all around her and all her life long conversations on
+the subject of matrimony.’
+
+‘The end and aim of her existence, poor thing!’ said Helena, with
+a pitying smile. ‘Go on! you have studied the subject almost
+unconsciously, as every thinking man must.’
+
+‘If she reaches the age of one-and-twenty, unmarried, she begins to
+wonder what the reason can be of such a thing, and her friends, too,
+begin to speculate about it....’
+
+‘Naturally!’ said Helena, her eyes flashing and her colour rising,
+while Hugo looked preternaturally solemn, except for a gleam in the
+depths of his eyes, and Mrs. Mallory’s face wore a puzzled expression.
+‘Naturally--she is sold, disposed of before her reasoning powers are
+developed. It is very deplorable. Well?’
+
+‘But very generally she is married at or before that age, and then----’
+
+‘And _then_?’ echoed Helena, waving away the butler’s offer of wine
+and leaning eagerly towards Sebastian. ‘And then--what is her life
+afterwards, Mr. Mallory? Tell me that!’
+
+‘A long course of bondage to husband, children, domestic affairs, and
+social exactions.’
+
+‘Hideous!’ murmured Helena. ‘What a sad, sad fate! Did you not burn
+with indignation every time you witnessed it?’
+
+‘I--I----’
+
+‘Ah! you did, I know, or you could not have described it so
+graphically. And now you will consider the subject, I don’t doubt, and
+you will see it in its true light. But you said the German women had
+also a distinct position of their own. How do you account for that?’
+
+‘They have. The very fact of their bondage gives them a sort of
+distinguishing rank. They have been accustomed to it for so long, that
+now they glory in it. If you were to attempt to inspire them with your
+enlightened notions, they would probably scoff at you; you would appear
+as dark to them as they to you.’
+
+Helena looked at him with such intense earnestness and expressiveness,
+that Sebastian began to feel somewhat embarrassed.
+
+‘What an odd girl she is!’ he thought. ‘And how, in Heaven’s name,
+shall I get out of this mess that I have got into? I can’t let her go
+without offering some explanation.’
+
+‘You grieve me,’ said Helena, in a sorrowful voice. ‘I had no idea it
+was so bad as that.’
+
+Here Mrs. Mallory rose in a dignified though perplexed silence, and
+they all went into the drawing-room.
+
+Arrived there, Sebastian, as in duty bound, asked Helena to play.
+
+‘I don’t play at all,’ said she. ‘I can’t waste my time upon
+practising.’
+
+‘_Waste_ your time upon music?’ he asked, wondering whether that were
+one of the strong-minded female ideas too.
+
+‘I have not the power of interpreting music; it would be vanity and
+vexation. So I never try. I can just accompany myself in one or two
+little songs; that is all.’
+
+‘Then you will gratify us by singing one of the said little songs, I am
+sure.’
+
+Helena went to the piano, sat down, and began to play an introduction.
+Sebastian looked at Hugo, with ever so slight a shrug, and they waited.
+It was ‘Kathleen Mavourneen.’ But the faces of the two critics changed
+gradually from an expression of painful doubt and suspense, to pleased
+surprise, pleasure, and a broad smile of delight. A pure, strong,
+fresh, sweet soprano voice rang out. There was no attempt at airs and
+graces; the severest simplicity and the most unaffected tenderness
+sounded in every one of the true, clear notes.
+
+Mrs. Mallory watched her son covertly, but intently, and saw that
+Helena’s music had power to move him. The languor disappeared from
+his expression; his head was raised, and his lips parted. Song and
+songstress engrossed his attention.
+
+Mrs. Mallory’s countenance gradually cleared.
+
+As Helena finished, both Hugo and Sebastian sprang forward, with thanks
+and entreaties for something else.
+
+She paused a moment, and then sang:
+
+    ‘Since first I saw your face, I resolved
+      To honour and renown ye;
+    If now I be disdained, I wish
+      My heart had never known ye!
+
+    ‘What! I that loved, and you that liked,
+      Shall _we_ begin to wrangle?
+    No, no, no, my heart is fast,
+      And cannot disentangle.
+
+    ‘The sun, whose beams most glorious are,
+      Rejecteth no beholder;
+    And your sweet beauty, past compare,
+      Makes my poor eyes the bolder.
+
+    ‘Where beauty moves, and wit delights,
+      And ties of kindness bind me,
+    There, oh! there, where’er I go,
+      I leave my heart behind me.’
+
+It is a sweet, tender, quaint old song, and Helena sang it almost
+perfectly. She rose when she had finished, and, looking at Hugo, asked
+him if he did not play.
+
+‘Yes,’ said the boy, flushing; ‘but after your voice----’
+
+‘Don’t refuse, Hugo,’ put in Sebastian.
+
+And Hugo seated himself and began to play German music--deep, strange,
+and expressive, _con amore_.
+
+‘But he is a musician--he must be!’ said Helena, turning, with
+wide-open eyes, to Sebastian.
+
+‘Most certainly he is. I believe he has it in him to make a great name
+as a composer.’
+
+‘How delightful to have a talent, a genius, that gives pleasure to
+yourself and every one else! Is he a very great friend of yours?’
+
+‘Yes; he is my ward. I have been his guardian now for four years.’
+
+‘Ah! if he can compose, he has a life before him--a career!’ sighed
+Helena; and her eyes looked dreamingly and longingly before her.
+
+Sebastian felt strangely attracted to the girl, but as yet he felt
+he knew her too little to know whether he should even like her. The
+explanation he had to make would serve to bring out some fresh point in
+her character.
+
+Mrs. Mallory was knitting fleecy-white wool by the fireside, and seemed
+able to give up Helena’s society on this occasion. Hugo’s fingers
+wandered on in one melody after another--melodies like those which
+Adrienne Blisset’s fingers most readily wove.
+
+Helena herself gave Sebastian the opportunity he wished for.
+
+‘About the German women and their position?’ she began.
+
+He laughed a little.
+
+‘I had no idea you were so much in earnest,’ said he. ‘It was a joke.’
+
+‘A joke!’
+
+She turned to him in amaze.
+
+‘In this way. What I said was quite true--that _is_ the the position of
+the German women; but--but--I thought you would see it--isn’t it the
+position of all civilised women? Are not Englishwomen in the same case?
+I am sure I think so. I don’t see how any woman who marries can expect
+anything else.’
+
+The colour rushed in an angry flood over her cheek, and brow, and
+throat, as she realised that he had been politely making merriment of
+the subject, and that the very point of the joke lay in her having
+taken it all as solemn, thoughtful earnest.
+
+‘You were making fun of me and of the cause: that was very polite of
+you!’ she said, her eyes flashing upon him in anger.
+
+‘I am very sorry,’ he said, with a provoking smile. ‘I was only
+describing the position of women in general in a picturesque manner. It
+depends upon the feelings of the speaker as to the colouring he gives
+to his descriptions.’
+
+‘I see,’ said Helena, ‘you are just like any other selfish, unthinking
+man--not in earnest. But I am! I think that cause is worthy the
+devotion of a woman’s life; and it is what I intend to devote my life
+to.’
+
+‘Don’t!’ said Sebastian, involuntarily.
+
+But Helena had been roused to real anger.
+
+‘Compliments and pretty phrases are all we ever get from men on that
+subject,’ she said. ‘All my life I have been sure it was women alone
+who must work their own emancipation; and after what you have said
+to-night, I am doubly sure of it. Oh! it is horrible to think that
+a woman is not even allowed to have a serious thought upon her own
+condition; or if she says she has to a man, he laughs at her! There is
+one consolation--the laugh dishonours him, not her.’
+
+‘But, my dear Miss Spenceley, do let me explain. Do you think you
+really have had any experience in such things? Many most accomplished
+women think quite differently; the nicest girl I ever knew--I mean
+the cleverest and best-informed young lady I ever knew--thought very
+differently.’
+
+‘Perhaps that was one reason why you thought her so nice. I am sure she
+had not been brought up in the school of adversity and experience.’
+
+‘Pardon me! She had been brought up in that school alone, and in no
+other. I fancy she had attended more of its classes than you.’
+
+‘I don’t see how you can know what school I have attended,’ said
+Helena, the same sudden, cold, sharp look coming into her eyes and over
+her face. ‘And I do not think much of any woman who is indifferent upon
+that subject.’
+
+‘I did not say she was indifferent,’ said Sebastian; and Helena,
+looking at him, saw that he was, in imagination, in some very different
+place from his mother’s drawing-room: perhaps thinking of ‘the nicest
+girl I ever knew.’
+
+‘Don’t you think,’ said he, breaking the angry silence which on her
+part had supervened, ‘that the best way of securing your ends would be
+for men and women to work together, and----’
+
+‘I don’t believe in men’s help in that matter. They are too thoroughly
+and naturally selfish ever to give real help in such a cause.’
+
+‘Without help you can do nothing,’ he said composedly.
+
+‘Can we not?’ she replied, setting her lips.
+
+‘I don’t think that any number of women agitating, and making speeches,
+will answer the purpose. The sort of help I mean is such as would be
+given by, for instance, husband and wife practically showing how much
+they had the subject at heart, by working together and giving in their
+lives a specimen of their doctrines. It is not a question that will
+ever be settled by public meetings and petitions. It must grow and
+evolve, as other social conditions evolve--gradually!’
+
+‘Husband and wife!’ said Helena, with a sneer--a sneer so bitter and
+unmistakable as to startle him. ‘That is a relation I have put entirely
+out of my calculations in this matter. I don’t believe in the existence
+of husbands who will give up, and help their wives. I have been able to
+study the subject remarkably well....’
+
+(‘Mr. Spenceley sits upon Mrs. Spenceley, and the redoubtable Frederick
+sits upon them all,’ thought Sebastian.)
+
+‘And the women who wish to improve their condition must put all such
+foolish ideas aside, and feel, as I do, that they can never be tempted
+into accepting any such delusory fancies.’
+
+‘You feel that?’ he said, smiling.
+
+‘Yes, I do--to the bottom of my heart.’
+
+Helena spoke with emphasis; her eyes flashing, her cheek flushing.
+She was very handsome; she was more, splendidly beautiful; ‘but how
+untrained, how unreasonable,’ thought Sebastian. ‘How different this
+heat and prejudice from the calm, well-balanced judgment, the clear,
+philosophical mind, of that other girl, scarcely older than herself.
+This raging against the weakness and selfishness of men was very
+short-sighted, and rather vulgar, was it not?’ All he said, however,
+was,
+
+‘I am glad you feel so independent. It must give you a sense of
+superiority.’
+
+‘I never think about such things. I call it vanity to be always
+wondering whether you are superior to other people.’
+
+She rose and went across the room to talk to Mrs. Mallory. Very soon
+she was discussing the merits of a new knitting-pattern, just as if no
+such thing as women’s rights had ever been heard of.
+
+When she had gone, and Hugo had retired, after fervently expressing
+his opinion that she was the loveliest, most fascinating, _schönste,
+herrlichste_ person he had ever seen, Mrs. Mallory introduced her
+intended remarks upon her favourite. Did not Sebastian think her very
+lovely? Yes; she certainly was an exquisitely beautiful girl. And
+intelligent, too? Undoubtedly; but there was a certain sameness about
+her animation. She seemed to rave a good deal upon one subject.
+
+‘If you knew her surroundings, Sebastian, you would not be surprised, I
+assure you. Such a brother! With her high spirit, and rather strained
+ideas as to what is honourable and gentlemanly, it must be a bitter
+cross to her to have that brother constantly disgracing himself in one
+way or another.’
+
+‘Yes, that is true.’
+
+‘And her father and mother too----’
+
+‘Ha! what about them?’
+
+‘Her mother is a mere cipher--a handsome, helpless, vulgar woman;
+kind-hearted, but absolutely weak in intellect, and the father is a
+hard, coarse man, who bullies that unfortunate woman in a disgraceful
+manner. He is proud of his daughter, but in a tyrannical, despotic way.
+Fortunately for her (I may say it without boasting), he thinks me the
+best friend she could have, and places no restraint on her visits to
+me. Otherwise, she has not a congenial companion.’
+
+‘The benefit must have been immense to her,’ he said. ‘I wondered,
+after all I had heard of her family, how she came to be even
+so--well-behaved.’
+
+‘She ought to marry soon. She would soon calm down if she had a kind
+husband, whom she loved.’
+
+Sebastian remarked drily that she had forcibly expressed her
+determination to eschew any such relationship.
+
+Mrs. Mallory shook her head, smiling with gentle pity.
+
+‘So she may say, but her father has very different views for her. She
+would be very helpless, cast upon the world, with her beauty, her hasty
+disposition, and her large fortune.’
+
+‘Has she a fortune, then?’ he asked, with provoking indifference.
+
+‘Sebastian, that young, warm-hearted girl, with all her enthusiasms and
+crotchets, ready to fall into the hands of any adventurer, will have at
+least a hundred thousand pounds.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory spoke with solemn, impressive manner and tones. She was
+watching her son, who seemed to view the matter with a seriousness that
+promised well, for he stood, his hands folded behind him, his eyes
+fixed upon the carpet, profoundly silent and profoundly grave, till,
+looking up with a sudden, humorous smile, he said,
+
+‘_Ma foi!_ The adventurer who won her, and her hundred thousand pounds,
+and her frantic ideas on women’s rights, and the execrations of all the
+other adventurers who had tried, and failed to win her--and her family,
+who must be most delightful people, I am sure--that adventurer would
+have driven the very hardest bargain that could well be imagined. I
+pity him, whoever he may be.... Good night, mother. You must excuse me;
+I have several things to do to-night. I have my business to learn, you
+know.’
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+  ‘“Do so,” said Socrates; “here is room by me.”
+
+  ‘“Oh, Jupiter!” exclaimed Alcibiades, “what I endure from that man!
+  He thinks to subdue every way.”’
+
+
+In a week from that time the master’s face was beginning to be familiar
+to his work-people; and his business and its details were beginning to
+be a little less strange to him. Whatever Sebastian thought, felt, or
+endured, in the change so complete and entire, of habits, customs, and
+surroundings--and the contrast, and the effort to grow accustomed to it
+must have been pretty severe at times--he said nothing--made absolutely
+no remark, but quietly ‘went at it,’ with a cool, calm, comprehensive
+energy which amazed Wilson and the other secondary officials, and
+delighted little Mr. Sutcliffe.
+
+It seemed as if, from the moment in which the young man had entered the
+place, work had walked up to him, ready to his hand, and that hand had
+grappled with it, and that head had bent itself to the understanding
+of it, without thought or intention of ever turning back, until the
+task were accomplished. His place was ready for him, and he stepped
+into it. He had a tenacious memory; he was rather fond of saying that
+it was the only mental advantage he possessed. He was a very quiet,
+undemonstrative person--never paraded any likes or dislikes: at the end
+of a week, his mother was amazed and angry to find, that though he had
+so completely worsted her on that eventful night when Helena Spenceley
+had dined with them, yet that she did not discover any pronounced
+points of character in him--no particular weaknesses or predilections
+on which she could lay hold, as handles by which to manage him. This
+annoyed her excessively: she puzzled over it, and tried to find a way
+out of it, and was, almost unknowingly to herself, nourishing towards
+her son an attitude which was beginning to be one of opposition.
+
+Sebastian’s retentive memory held, amongst the other figures with which
+it was peopled, that of Myles Heywood in a conspicuous and prominent
+place. A most distinct impression remained in his mind of the workman’s
+defiant attitude and words. What Sebastian felt towards the young man
+would make too long a tale, and involve too much dry psychological
+analysis, to be here recorded. Mrs. Mallory had most truly told her son
+that whether she knew his habits or not, she was sure they were not
+the habits of Thanshope business men. Something happened just about
+this time--and Sebastian’s method of treating the matter would probably
+have made the hair of a Thanshope business man stand on end, or called
+forth from his tongue emphatically Doric epithets as to the young
+mill-owner’s sanity, and mental capacity in general.
+
+Sebastian never beheld Myles’s firmly set lips and sharply contracting
+eyebrows without wondering whether those strongly marked features were
+merely signs of an absolutely crabbed disposition and bad temper, or
+whether they were only traits of a hot temper and quick disposition.
+He tried in half a dozen ways to find out, but in vain. Myles put on a
+silent dignity and reserve equal to Sebastian’s own, until at last pure
+accident put the matter to the test.
+
+Some irregularity or insubordination had occurred in one of the rooms,
+which Sebastian had been discussing with Mr. Sutcliffe, and the latter
+had said that some one must be told off on the following day to
+superintend that room--some one in authority. The following morning
+Sebastian, coming down to the works, entered the outer office, and
+found Wilson and Myles there.
+
+‘Has Mr. Sutcliffe come?’ he inquired.
+
+‘Yes, sir,’ said Wilson. ‘He’s in his room.’
+
+‘Did he give any orders about the beaming-room?’
+
+‘No, sir. He hasn’t mentioned it to me.’
+
+‘Oh! Well, Heywood, you had better go there and look over them this
+morning. I can’t have them idling about as they have been doing. You
+had better go at once.’
+
+With that, and without waiting for any answer, he stepped forward into
+the inner office, and closed the door after him.
+
+Myles went on with his work for some minutes, and then rose.
+
+‘If you go to the beaming-room,’ observed Wilson, ‘I must take your
+place in the warehouse myself, I suppose.’
+
+‘I’m not going to the beaming-room,’ was the tranquil reply.
+
+‘Not going! But the master----’
+
+‘I’m not a Jack-of-all-trades. I know what my business is, and how
+long it will take me to do it. It is not my business to overlook the
+beaming-room.’
+
+‘But Mr. Mallory didn’t know that.’
+
+‘So it appears,’ said Myles, with a disagreeable smile. ‘He’ll know it
+for the future. It’s all in the way of learning. You can find some one
+else to overlook the beamers. I’m off to the warehouse.’
+
+With which he departed, leaving Wilson aghast.
+
+It was through a mere casual question to Wilson that Sebastian found
+out, later, what had happened. Wilson’s evident confusion aroused his
+suspicions. Dropping his careless tone, he promptly bade the overlooker
+tell him all that had passed.
+
+Wilson stammered out the whole story, even to Myles’s remark about it
+‘all being in the way of learning,’ and then stood, looking miserable,
+and feeling no less so, listening for the command, ‘Send Heywood to me.’
+
+But the command did not come, and Wilson concluded that the dismissal
+would perhaps be given through Mr. Sutcliffe. That it would be given,
+and that promptly, he did not doubt, nor was he reassured by the
+perfect calm and good temper of Mr. Mallory’s expression.
+
+Several days passed, and still Myles Heywood, without let or hindrance,
+pursued his usual avocations undisturbed; and still Mr. Mallory, calm
+and good-tempered as ever, continued to learn away at his business; and
+still he made no remark upon the act of flagrant insubordination which
+had taken place.
+
+Saturday came some three days after the occurrence just described.
+It was late in the afternoon, and work had been over for an hour and
+a half, but the mill was not yet closed, for Mr. Mallory and Mr.
+Sutcliffe were in the inner office, in consultation, and Ben, the
+office boy, stood lounging outside, wishing that his superiors would
+bring their parley to an end and let him lock up and get home to his
+holiday.
+
+Within, at that moment, there ensued a little pause, and Sebastian
+rose, looking thoughtful, and leaning against the mantelpiece.
+Presently he said,
+
+‘Well, I suppose there is nothing else for it; we had better put up the
+half-time notice this afternoon.’
+
+‘Yes. There is nothing else for it,’ echoed Mr. Sutcliffe. ‘It will be
+no time at all in a few weeks. We can’t hold out much longer.’
+
+‘Ah!’ said Sebastian, and again seemed to fall into a train of thought,
+until he said,
+
+‘I wonder how it will all end? What is there in this life of yours,
+Mr. Sutcliffe, that gives it its interest? I feel more as if I was
+really living now than I ever did before. The cotton trade is on its
+last legs, for a time; and a young man who dislikes me has behaved with
+insubordination and impertinence; and yet, though there is nothing
+intrinsically interesting in those facts, and no connection between
+them, I feel intensely interested in both.’
+
+‘You will excuse my saying it, Mr. Mallory, but it is not discipline to
+have allowed Heywood to remain a single day in your employment after
+his openly disobeying an order of yours. It goes very much against my
+judgment.’
+
+‘I know it is neither business nor discipline,’ said Sebastian,
+apologetically; ‘but you must allow me a little tether now and then,
+till I am more used to run in harness in this way. I am trying an
+experiment in regard to that young man. It is a delightful diversion
+from business. How long has he been here, did you say?’
+
+‘Fifteen years, and his sister eleven. Except in the strike, four years
+ago, they have never missed a day.’
+
+‘Exactly, it would decidedly displease me--it would humiliate me to
+think that a man who had amicably worked fifteen years during my
+absence should have to--hook it within a fortnight after my arrival.
+Besides, he is unusually intelligent, and an admirable workman.’
+
+‘Ay, he is. He could direct and manage if ever he got a rise in life.
+He has a head on his shoulders as good as any one else’s, but that
+temper of his will be the ruin of him.’
+
+‘I don’t know about that,’ said Sebastian, reflectively, as if
+discoursing with himself. ‘That temper of his--I should dearly like to
+subdue it.’
+
+‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mr. Sutcliffe, to whom this was as so much
+Sanscrit.
+
+Sebastian looked up with a smile.
+
+‘Leave me my own way in this matter, Mr. Sutcliffe. I promise that, if
+things do not turn out as I expect, I will dismiss Heywood on Monday.’
+
+At this moment Ben put his head in at the door, and remarked,
+
+‘Please, sir, there’s your carriage, and the young gentleman in it,
+a-come for you; and Heywood, he wants to know if he can speak to you.’
+
+‘Show him in here, and tell the gentleman I will join him in a few
+minutes.’
+
+Ben disappeared. Mr. Sutcliffe rose.
+
+‘I’ll leave you alone with your rebel, Mr. Mallory. I shall be curious
+to know whether he has come to beg pardon, or to give notice.’
+
+‘For my part,’ said Sebastian, ‘I have no more idea which he will do
+than an owl in the parish church tower.’
+
+Mr. Sutcliffe laughed and went away, and a moment afterwards Myles
+Heywood entered the office. Sebastian, still leaning up against the
+mantelpiece, looked at him, and could read nothing from his expression.
+He felt that he did not know the man, and he also felt an inexplicable
+anxiety that the man should not say he was going to leave his service.
+
+‘Good afternoon,’ said he, courteously; ‘you wish to speak to me?’
+
+Myles had taken off his cap, a sign which Sebastian noted instantly.
+
+‘Yes,’ said he, slowly, but not ungraciously. ‘You gave me an order the
+other day, which I took no notice of, and I spoke of you as I ought not
+to have done. I am sorry that I did so, and I beg your pardon.’
+
+Sebastian had watched him intently, and with keen interest. He saw that
+Myles had strung himself up to say the words from a sheer sense of what
+was right and fitting, and from honest conviction that he had done
+wrong; not from any sudden leaning towards him, Sebastian. And he saw
+that the anxiety and the uneasiness followed, not preceded, the words.
+He saw that Myles laid great importance upon the manner in which his
+words were taken.
+
+‘It is granted freely,’ said Mallory. ‘I felt sure that you were
+too manly not to do this. You have felt that I had no wish to be
+capricious, or put you to work that was not yours, when I gave you that
+order?’
+
+‘Yes; I have thought it over, and felt that that was the case.’
+
+‘You have worked here fifteen years, and it would have troubled me very
+much if you had, from any reason, been obliged to leave me as soon as I
+got here.’
+
+Myles looked up, surprised, but, as Sebastian plainly saw, with a
+flush of self-reproach. It had not entered into his calculations that
+Sebastian could possibly take any interest in him or his. The latter
+went on,
+
+‘I am new to my work; you must remember that. Another time, don’t let a
+mistake go so near costing you your place, and me my best workman.’
+
+Myles’s face flushed.
+
+‘I will certainly bear it in mind,’ said he. ‘I have a hasty temper,
+and it leads me astray often, I know.’
+
+‘And you do not like me,’ said Sebastian, looking steadily at him.
+
+Myles’s eyes were also fixed upon his.
+
+‘I have not liked you,’ he said; ‘I should tell a lie if I said even
+now that I liked you; but I respect you. I shall respect you from
+this day, and I don’t think you will ever have to complain either of
+disrespect or disobedience from me again.’
+
+‘You have relieved my mind very much. I am glad we have had this
+explanation. It does you credit.’
+
+‘The credit is not all with me,’ said Myles, hastily, with a rising
+colour and a conscious look, which Sebastian remarked. ‘I had some
+advice from some one, that finished it off. I must go now. Good
+afternoon.’
+
+‘Good afternoon,’ said Sebastian, who would have prolonged the
+conversation if he could; but Myles departed, and Sebastian followed
+him out of the office.
+
+Standing just without was Sebastian’s phaeton, with Hugo holding the
+reins, and carrying on a conversation with Ben at the same time.
+Sebastian heard the words:
+
+‘Ay, and his mother never got o’er it, hoo didn’t. It were main stupid
+o’ Sally Whittaker to say what hoo did----’
+
+Ben stopped abruptly and grew very red in the face, as Sebastian tapped
+him on the shoulder, inquiring, as he climbed into his place,
+
+‘What was so stupid?’
+
+‘Go on!’ said Hugo to the boy. ‘He’s telling me about a boy that he
+knew, who was killed at a factory. Go on! What did Sally Whittaker say?’
+
+‘Well, it were i’ this way, yo’ seen. It were at Ormerod’s works as th’
+lad were killed, and Ormerod come round just as they was takin’ th’
+body away on a shutter; and he says, “Now then, where are you boun’?”
+he says. And they told him they were for takkin’ him to his mother,
+and they doubted it would kill her too, for hoo were main fond on him.
+“Eh, what?” he says. “Yo munnot do so. Yo mun one on yo go afore, and
+warn her--prepare her like a bit,” he says. “Let one o’ these ’ere
+wenches go on afore.” So Sally Whittaker, hoo knew his mother, and hoo
+said hoo’d go and tell her, and hoo went on afore. Eh, bi’ th’ mass!
+but hoo is a gradely foo’, is Sally Whittaker! and hoo walks into
+Emma’s kitchen, and hoo says, straight out, hoo says, “Eh, Emmer, but
+troubles is never to seech,” hoo says. “Your Johnny’s killed as dead as
+a stoan!”’
+
+‘What did the poor woman do?’ asked Sebastian, with interest.
+
+‘Eh, hoo just dropped the fryin’-pan, and hoo gave a screech yo’ mowt a
+yeard down to the town-hall, and then hoo begun to cry, and then they
+browt him whoam. Mun I lock up, sir, now? Have you finished?’
+
+‘Yes, quite,’ said Sebastian, with a good-natured nod. ‘Lock up, and go
+home. You’ve not had much of a holiday this afternoon’
+
+‘Bless you, sir, it’s no soart o’ consequence,’ said Ben, with a
+gratified look at this mark of attention; and he retired to lock up
+again.
+
+‘Will you drive?’ asked Hugo, when they were alone.
+
+‘No; I’ll let you drive on, if you will. And, stay! What do you say
+to a drive in the country before dinner? It will be daylight for a
+long time yet. If there is any country about here?’ he added, with a
+disparaging look around.
+
+‘Oh, lots! While you have been so industriously grubbing away at those
+figures, and showing me quite a new phase in your character, I have
+been exploring the interior. I know of four separate and distinct
+routes to the country. Certainly it is rather stony when one does get
+there; but it is country all the same. Will you go north, south, east,
+or west?’
+
+‘Hurrah for the North!’ said Sebastian, drily. ‘Turn the horses’ heads
+towards Yorkshire, _mein Hugo_!’
+
+Hugo complied. Very soon they were rattling through the main street.
+Hugo’s attention was taken up with the guiding of his cattle. Sebastian
+leaned back, a little wearily, and was long silent, until they had
+left the town behind them--left the dirty straggling suburb called
+Bridgehouse, and passed through the neighbouring manufacturing village
+of Hamerton, with its stately houses of gentry and rich mill-owners,
+and were put out upon a wide, open road, driving past a solemn old
+house called Stanlaw, deeply sunk in trees. Beyond that, the purple
+moors spread before them, rising every moment higher and nearer. The
+sky was pure, the air sweet. As if with a sudden impulse, they both
+turned and looked behind them. A heavy cloud of smoke showed where
+Thanshope lay below, in the distance.
+
+Hugo shrugged his shoulders.
+
+‘Comfort yourself,’ said Sebastian. ‘It won’t be there long. Soon we
+shall see what Thanshope looks like without smoke.’
+
+They drove quickly on in the sharp, delicious October afternoon air,
+along the upland road. The heather sprang from the very roadside, and
+rich, mellow purple, brown, and crimson, the moors spread themselves
+around, under the pale, chill blue of the cloudless sky. The peculiar
+scent of the ling and heather rose like a pastoral incense around them;
+far away glittered the sinuous line of a canal, and a silvery pond or
+two. The crack of a gun broke the stillness once or twice.
+
+‘Did I not tell you I would bring you into the country?’ said Hugo.
+
+‘You always manage to keep your promises, somehow’ (they were speaking
+German now). ‘How goes the music under these changed conditions, Hugo?’
+
+The lad smiled his odd smile, and said,
+
+‘The more prosaic the surroundings, the more need one has of something
+like music to brighten them. Don’t you think so?’
+
+‘Just so. I only asked because I have not noticed you practising, and
+as for sitting down and listening to you--why, the last time I did that
+was when Miss Spenceley was at the Oakenrod.’
+
+‘You have been so busy. I have practised hard enough, only your mind
+was taken up with other things.’
+
+‘Ay, with things less artistic than the Sonatas of Beethoven.’
+
+‘But not more earnest and workmanlike. Do you know, I like this
+Thanshope. There is something real in the life these people lead.’
+
+‘There is so! And in the things they say, and the way in which they
+remind you of your duties. There is a fellow I am very curious to
+know something more about. Do you remember that brusque individual who
+confronted us the first time we drove to the office?’
+
+‘Perfectly well. Do you never see him?’
+
+‘Oh, daily. I have just had another shindy with him. He piques me
+excessively. Every time I see the fellow, with his handsome face and
+defiant eyes--he _has_ a pair of eyes--I feel as if I must stop and
+question him upon his thoughts and feelings. It is a most insane idea,
+and I know it makes him exceedingly angry; but it is so, all the same.
+What is that air you are humming, Hugo?’
+
+Hugo held the reins loosely between his fingers, while the horses
+climbed slowly up the hill: he hummed to himself the half-melancholy
+air of the German _Volkslied_--_Der Verschmähete_; and Sebastian
+listened attentively with a half-smile.
+
+‘Aren’t you tired, Hugo? Let me take the reins.’
+
+‘As you will!’ said Hugo, changing places with him, and they turned
+homewards again.
+
+‘Do you remember when we last heard _Der Verschmähete_?’ asked Hugo,
+smiling to himself.
+
+‘Perfectly,’ said Sebastian, concisely. ‘Corona Müller sang it, and....’
+
+‘There was instrumental music, too,’ put in Hugo; ‘one of Liszt’s
+Hungarian Rhapsodies--ay, ay! And it was a Rhapsody too! How splendidly
+she played it! It would have delighted Liszt himself. Do you remember
+the end?’
+
+‘Yes, yes! _Un poco pesante!_’ said Sebastian, who listened attentively
+to the reminiscences, but volunteered no remark upon the subject.
+
+They were now again in Thanshope, and the dusk was beginning to fall,
+though it was still far from dark. There had been a silence. Now as
+they turned into the main street, Hugo, suddenly taking courage, looked
+up into his companion’s face, and said,
+
+‘Sebastian, do you know where she went with her father, from Wetzlar?’
+
+‘No I have seen nothing, and heard nothing of her, since then.’
+
+‘But you have inquired?’
+
+‘Inquired--naturally. But--ah, there’s my handsome young democrat. Just
+take a good look at him, Hugo--quick! before he turns off--do you hear?
+What? _Impossible!_’
+
+Hugo had touched his arm, so that his attention was diverted from the
+figure of Myles Heywood, who was in the act of turning off down a side
+street, and directed towards that of a young lady going straight down
+the main street, and whom they were now in the act of passing.
+
+It was nothing remarkable for an expression of lively excitement,
+pleasurable or otherwise, to be seen upon Hugo’s face, but such a look
+upon Sebastian Mallory’s countenance was a rare visitor; and it painted
+itself there at this moment, as his eye fastened upon the slight figure
+of the girl, who was pursuing her way, looking neither to right nor
+left of her. Would she see them? Would she turn? No--yes--no! The
+phaeton had just passed her, when she casually raised her eyes, and
+glanced towards the road; and then into her face, too, leapt the same
+startled look--the same surprise and vivid emotion of some kind, as
+that which already brightened Sebastian’s. She made a visible pause,
+as her eyes fell upon the occupants of the carriage. Both hats were
+lifted, two deep bows were made at the same moment; four earnest eyes
+looked eagerly into her face. With a sudden, quick, warm flush, she
+returned the bow of the young men, and then they had driven on, and
+left her behind them.
+
+They were almost at home now, close to the Oakenrod. No word was
+spoken, until, as they sprang out of the carriage, their eyes met,
+Hugo’s full of inquiry, Sebastian’s of a trouble and excitement strange
+to them.
+
+‘Are you glad?’ asked the boy, in a low voice, as they hung up their
+hats in the vestibule.
+
+‘Nay, _mein Bester_--time alone can tell me that. I know no more than
+you. But here--how did she come here?’
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  ‘Mais pourquoi pour ces gens un intérêt si grand?’
+
+
+One evening--it was Sunday, the day after that drive into the
+country--Sebastian Mallory strolled into the drawing-room where his
+mother sat, and, glancing round, seated himself, without speaking at
+the piano, on which he struck some aimless chords, which presently
+developed into a coherent harmony, in a style _un poco pesante_. He
+played the first bars of Liszt’s second _Rhapsodie Hongroise_, and then
+paused.
+
+‘What is that thumping thing?’ inquired Mrs. Mallory, whose many mental
+superiorities did not include an understanding of the art of music.
+
+‘This “thumping thing,” as you so justly term it, is a “Hungarian
+Rhapsody,” by that Thor the Hammerer of pianoforte music, Franz Liszt.’
+
+‘I am as wise as I was before.’
+
+‘_N’importe!_ Where is Hugo, I wonder?’
+
+No reply.
+
+‘You have not seen him?’
+
+‘I saw him leave the garden about an hour ago.’
+
+‘Gone out for a walk, I suppose. I am glad he can find anywhere to go
+to.’
+
+‘Sebastian, may I ask how long a visit that boy is to pay here?’
+
+‘Visit!’ said Sebastian, turning round on the music stool, in some
+surprise; ‘why, Hugo lives with me. I thought you knew.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory lowered her favourite weapon, the feathery screen.
+
+‘Lives with you? What will you say?’
+
+‘I can but repeat my previous statement. He is my ward--you do know
+that, mother--but then we drop that connection as much as possible. I
+suppose we are more like brothers than anything else.’
+
+‘You are the guardian of his property, then? He is a _von_--is he of
+noble family?’
+
+‘Two questions. He is of noble family. Von Birkenau is a good old name,
+and he is the last of his race. As for property, he has none--not a
+scrap.’
+
+‘How came you to be his guardian? It was very extraordinary--so young a
+man as you. Had his family, or whoever left him to you, any claims upon
+you?’
+
+‘It was his mother who left him to me, because I asked her to. She had
+no claims upon me in the legal sense of the word; only the claim of
+having been my great friend, and the source of inestimable benefit to
+me. Paula von Birkenau was a woman in a thousand, beautiful, good, and
+gifted; and, I am sorry to say, very unhappy.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory, watching her son’s face, thought how odd it was that he
+should have such queer, out-of-the-way ideas and tastes. What could
+there be in this memory of an impecunious German countess to bring that
+smile to his lips, and that light of subdued enthusiasm to his eyes?
+
+‘If her son has no property, how did she manage to live?’
+
+‘She was penniless when she married, and her husband’s family had
+been a declining one for generations. When he died, she was left
+without a stick or stone of land or house, and without a penny of
+fortune. She retired into a _Stift_--an institution, you know, for
+poor ladies of noble family. There are many like it in Germany. She
+procured admittance for her son into a place of the same kind--a
+school, where he was hard-worked and ill-fed, and quite unable to
+pursue the real bent of his talent for music. I made the acquaintance
+of Frau von Birkenau six years ago. I could not describe her; she
+was a beautiful soul; she did more for me than any one I have ever
+known. She talked to me a great deal about her boy, and I went to
+see him. I liked him, and told her so. She asked me if I would think
+of him sometimes, and perhaps pay him an occasional visit, when she
+should be dead; she suffered from a painful complaint, and bore her
+sufferings like a heroine. I said the best and shortest way would
+be for her to make a will, appointing me her son’s guardian, when I
+should have full authority over him. This she did, about four years
+ago, and very shortly afterwards she died. On my signing a document
+to the purport that henceforth I undertook the duties of a parent to
+him, the authorities of the school permitted me to remove Hugo, to
+his and my great satisfaction. Since then he has been my companion in
+all my ramblings, and though I don’t wish to sound my own praises, I
+must say he looks a different fellow altogether from the white-faced,
+pinched-looking lad whom I took away with me overwhelmed with grief at
+his mother’s death.’
+
+‘In-deed!’ observed Mrs. Mallory, in cold tones of intense, though
+repressed, exasperation. ‘It sounds like a page from a romance. If my
+opinion were asked, I should say I could hardly tell whether he or you
+stood most in need of a guardian--of some one to control you. You have
+encumbered yourself with his entire maintenance. He is a pensioner on
+your bounty?’
+
+Sebastian shook his head. Leaning his elbow upon the top of the piano,
+he remarked,
+
+‘There is no question of “incumbrance.” I love the lad. I delight
+to see him growing happier every day, and to know that his powers
+are expanding in the direction best suited to them. It is not every
+one who can secure the pleasure of enabling an artist nature to grow
+and develop in a congenial soil. As to his being “a pensioner on my
+bounty,” excuse me, mother, I mean no disrespect when I say that I
+dislike that expression intensely. If you had not used those words, I
+should not have mentioned that Hugo knows nothing at all of this. All
+he knows is that I am his guardian. I let him live under the impression
+that I guard not only himself, but his property. And that impression
+must not be disturbed. I will not have his happiness embittered just
+when he should be able to throw aside all care for everything except
+his studies. He is intensely sensitive. I never approach the subject
+with him--you understand?’
+
+‘I suppose I do. But I consider it the most amazing piece of folly I
+ever heard of. How do you know what he may turn out?’
+
+‘How, indeed? At least he will have had every inducement to turn out
+well; and, unless I am much mistaken, he will do so. It is not only
+his name and lineage that is noble.’
+
+‘I thought you were a _Radical_’ observed Mrs. Mallory.
+
+‘My dear mother!’
+
+‘That Frau von Birkenau must have been a clever woman--too clever for
+you, at any rate.’
+
+‘Please don’t say anything against her. I would as soon say anything
+against you as against her,’ said Sebastian, calmly; and his mother,
+meeting his eyes, found herself blushing for her own meanness. Such
+signs of sensibility are often reckoned hopeful.
+
+‘Is he to be always here?’ she asked quickly, to cover her confusion.
+
+‘I don’t know. He will please himself. At present England is new to
+him. He may enjoy it, or study it, until he gets tired of it; and then,
+I expect, he will go to some German musical _Conservatoire_ to study,
+just as he pleases. I shall give him his choice.’
+
+‘Humph!’ said Mrs. Mallory, with indescribable significance of tone.
+
+‘But I repeat, he is never to be told of his position. I shall explain
+it all to him myself, when circumstances make it desirable. And I think
+you will get to like him, mother. He is the best-hearted fellow, and
+absolutely adores those who are kind to him. He is a perfect child in
+some ways.’
+
+‘I don’t like young men who are like children.’
+
+‘Well, I like Hugo. It would pain me exceedingly to have any
+misunderstanding with him,’ said he, with an emphasis unusual to him,
+as he turned again to the piano, and solaced himself with a waltz of
+Schubert.
+
+Mrs. Mallory sat puzzling angrily over the character which daily
+baffled her more completely; its traits becoming more involved,
+enigmatical--nay, to her, insane. She considered this freak of his to
+display an eccentricity not short of insanity, but strangely enough she
+did not dare to tell him so. Did he care for any one? Was he so devoted
+to this lad, whom she disliked for his fantastic, unconventional habits
+and speech, and whom she would regard with contemptuous pity, as he
+sat, the morning long, at the piano, absorbed, with strange tossings
+of the head, and quaint, absent-minded wavings of the hands, and
+contortions of the body? Or was he only obstinate to have his own way,
+and provoke her, his mother?
+
+At this moment the door was opened, and Hugo entered, followed by the
+butler, with tea.
+
+Mrs. Mallory was too much annoyed to linger over that refreshment. She
+drank it quickly, and went to her writing-table, where she turned over
+the papers, listening vexedly the while to the talk between Sebastian
+and Hugo--talk in which she had no sort of share--about music, and
+foreign friends, and foreign countries; and she heard Hugo express his
+rejoicing that at last he could have an hour of Sebastian’s company,
+and she heard Sebastian answer, that he was glad too, for that he
+missed his companion. And she knew that the tone was one of genuine
+affection; that Mr. Mallory of the Oakenrod was perverse enough to pin
+his affections rather upon an eccentric, penniless German lad, than to
+make acquaintances which would be to his advantage; that her chance
+remark about the cleverness of the late Frau von Birkenau had been, in
+vulgar parlance, ‘a bad shot’--a very bad one indeed, and that she had
+not increased her own influence by making it.
+
+The laughs and chaff of Hugo and Sebastian became intolerable, as
+forming a running accompaniment to reflections of this nature. She made
+another shot, this time unconsciously; and this time she hit her mark,
+also unconsciously. Picking up a note which lay upon her table, she
+suddenly interrupted the conversation.
+
+‘Sebastian, here is a note--it must go to you now, I suppose. I have
+nothing more to do with these affairs.’
+
+He looked up; rose and came to fetch it; smiled as he took it; but she
+would not see either smile or look.
+
+‘It is from Mr. Blisset,’ she remarked, apparently busily arranging her
+papers. ‘Something about repairs. I cannot imagine what he wants doing,
+I am sure.’
+
+Sebastian and Hugo exchanged glances.
+
+‘Mr. Blisset--who may he be!’ inquired Sebastian.
+
+‘Your tenant. He lives at Stonegate, that place up at other end of the
+town, which your great-grandfather built, and which has always been a
+great deal more trouble than profit.’
+
+‘How long has this Mr. Blisset been its tenant?’
+
+‘I’m sure I don’t know. Eight or nine years, I think.’
+
+‘Do you know anything about him--who he is, or where he comes from?’
+
+‘No. He is an invalid--paralysed--a most crotchety, tiresome person.’
+
+‘Ah! Let me see what he says.’
+
+He opened the note, and his face changed as he saw the handwriting.
+It had been addressed to Mrs. Mallory, as had probably all other
+communications on the subject. The hand was small, compact, and
+characteristic--the matter was business-like.
+
+  ‘Mr. Blisset presents his compliments to Mrs. Mallory, and begs to
+  inform her that the outside of his house stands in need of some
+  repairs before the winter sets in. If Mrs. Mallory will have the
+  kindness to send her agent, or the work-people she usually employs,
+  to inspect the house, Mr. Blisset will feel extremely obliged to her.’
+
+Sebastian, without comment, handed the note to Hugo, who read it with a
+smile, and an excited expression, which caused Mrs. Mallory to set him
+down in her own mind as a lunatic.
+
+‘I will have it seen to!’ was all Sebastian said, carefully putting the
+document into a small letter-case.
+
+‘I should send Mitchell to make an estimate: he will do it as cheaply
+as any one,’ observed Mrs. Mallory.
+
+‘Yes, it shall be attended to,’ repeated her son. ‘Now, Hugo, sit
+down to that piano, and play something--something right lively and
+soul-stirring, you will understand.’
+
+‘I think I do,’ said Hugo, smiling in an uncanny manner, as he placed
+himself at the piano, and straightway burst into a triumphal march.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later, when Hugo and Sebastian were alone, the former said,
+
+‘Now you can go and call, Sebastian.’
+
+‘Heaven forbid! I have not the least right to do so.’
+
+‘But you would like to. Make a way. Make that note about the repairs an
+excuse. Call upon Mr. Blisset, and find out what sort of an old party
+he is.’
+
+Sebastian said nothing, and the subject dropped.
+
+The next day, as they sat in Sebastian’s study, and he cut the leaves
+of a Review, he remarked,
+
+‘I had a conversation with Myles Heywood to-day.’
+
+‘The revolutionary weaver?’
+
+‘He is no weaver, ignoramus. He is a sort of head man, but they call
+him a cut-looker.’
+
+‘A how much?’
+
+‘A cut-looker. Your education, like mine, has been neglected. But I
+know now what a cut-looker is. Myles Heywood is one. He earns forty
+shillings a week. It exercises the brains and the observation, and they
+have time for reading and thinking, too. Myles Heywood reads. He has
+read Buckle’s _History of Civilisation_.’
+
+‘Indeed!’ said Hugo, sitting with his head on one side, looking like an
+intelligent dog. ‘That does not raise my opinion of him. It is a book I
+hate.’
+
+‘He has read most of the works of John Stuart Mill.’
+
+‘I’m glad I don’t know him so well as you do.’
+
+‘Impertinent!’
+
+‘Can he play Beethoven’s Sonatas, and paint in oils; and does he sing
+tenor, baritone, or bass?’
+
+‘Tsh! I tell you I take the greatest interest in the fellow. He knows a
+lot of German, too. Where he learnt it I can’t tell. When I asked him
+who taught him he flushed up, looked me straight in the face, and said,
+“A friend.” So I had to beg his pardon.’
+
+Sebastian had thrown himself into an easy-chair, and was lighting a
+cigar.
+
+‘Beg his pardon--why?’
+
+‘My dear child, you wouldn’t say to your equal, “_You_ learn
+German--who teaches you?” and why should you say it to a cut-looker?’
+
+‘Well?’ said Hugo, seeing the expression upon Sebastian’s face, and
+knowing it to be no careless one.
+
+‘I did beg his pardon, and he said, “Don’t mention it.” Then I asked
+him what he meant to do with himself while we were working half-time.
+He said he had no doubt he could manage to dispose of his own time, and
+I incautiously persisted, “But how?” He said he really had not thought
+much about it--might he ask why I wanted to know? So I had to beg his
+pardon again.’
+
+Sebastian was puffing away, with raised eyebrows. Hugo burst out
+laughing.
+
+‘I never heard of anything so preposterous. Why did you go on talking
+to him, if you got so vexed?’
+
+‘But I didn’t. I got interested. Why should the fellow dislike me so
+intensely? What can be his object?’
+
+‘Sebastian! I thought you did not care a straw what any one thought of
+you. You have said so often enough.’
+
+‘Well, and it was generally true--_generally_, mind you. I am
+interested against my will--personally interested. One thing I’ve found
+out--he hates me.’
+
+‘Nonsense!’
+
+‘Hold your froward tongue! You know how to play Beethoven’s Sonatas,
+and I know what I am talking about. He hates me, and I have made up my
+mind that he shall, so to speak, eat his words--that is, change his
+opinion. It will gave me endless trouble, I know,’ added Sebastian,
+knocking the ash from his cigar; ‘endless trouble, but I will do it. I
+must know whether that man is master, or I.’
+
+‘Oh, if it comes to that,’ said Hugo, shrugging his shoulders, and
+laughing a little; ‘if he has excited your obstinate combative
+instincts, you will never let the poor beggar alone till he at any rate
+_says_ that he gives in. Bless you, I know you!’
+
+‘He will never say he gives in unless he actually does so.’
+
+‘_Ja, ja!_’ said Hugo, nodding significantly, ‘I know. May you find the
+game worth the candle, is the sincere wish of one who succumbed long
+ago to your masterful disposition!’
+
+‘Thanks!’ laughed Sebastian. ‘And as I can’t begin this laudable
+campaign on the instant, I shall carry my investigations into another
+direction, that, namely of Stonegate. I am going to call upon Mr.
+Blisset.’
+
+‘At Stonegate--also with a view to conquest?’ inquired Hugo, politely,
+rising and walking quickly to the door, and closing it after him just
+in time for it, instead of his own person, to receive the large bundle
+of tape-tied ‘documents’ which Sebastian wrathfully sent flying after
+him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+DISCORD.
+
+
+The scene once again the drawing-room of Mr. Blisset’s house; its
+occupants, Myles and Adrienne: he just arrived; she smiling to receive
+him, and he smiling in answer, as one might smile on suddenly finding a
+flower peeping up through the snow.
+
+‘I rather hoped you would come to-night, to do some German,’ said she,
+‘but I did not think you would come so early.’
+
+‘We are working half-time. We began to-day,’ said Myles.
+
+‘Half-time already? I thought there was such an enormous supply of
+cotton somewhere in the country.’
+
+‘So there is, somewhere; but it will have to be bought with a price
+before it can be got at. Lots of other places have begun half-time
+to-day. And it’s not only that cotton is dear; there must have come a
+reaction after last year’s over-production. It was tremendous. There is
+a bad time coming for the workers; but those who can afford to wait,
+and who know how to use their chances, will make some big fortunes.’
+
+‘Some others will lose them, I think.’
+
+‘Naturally. The one goes with the other.’
+
+‘But how will you all manage when the hard time comes?’
+
+‘We shall pull through,’ said poor short-sighted Myles, little dreaming
+of the depths of misery, and what he, and such as he--proud, honest,
+self-dependent men--considered deepest degradation, which lay in the
+not far-distant future. ‘We shall pull through. If it is only half-wage
+we get, we shall have to do with half-doings; pinch a bit, and clem a
+bit, and put on a good face.’
+
+‘But,’ said she gravely, ‘my uncle and Canon Ponsonby were saying the
+other night that the time must most likely come when there would be no
+work and no wages.’
+
+‘If the war lasts a long time, or the ports are very well blockaded, it
+may come to that,’ said Myles, calmly. ‘But we, and a good many others
+besides us, have money laid by. We must live on that till better times
+come.’
+
+In six months from that time, thousands of working homes were stripped
+of every stick of furniture that could possibly be done without. Many a
+savings bank had collapsed. Many a stout-hearted toiler had to bend his
+proud, unwilling feet towards the relief committee, or the guardians,
+and, with burning face, and bursting heart and down-drooped head, tell
+his tale, and ask for ‘charity.’ Not yet had the ‘Lancashire Lad’
+sent to the _Times_ that pathetic account of the shame-faced girls
+who stopped him to ask him, ‘Con yo help us a bit?’ that appeal which
+brought the tears to thousands of eyes of readers in every end of the
+earth. None of this had happened yet. The great ‘panic’ had not come
+swooping down upon the land; but it was not long before the cry of the
+distressed must go up.
+
+Myles Heywood, after this his first half-day’s enforced idleness,
+perhaps not ill-pleased to be freed for a few hours, on a fine
+afternoon, from his toil, said he had no fears for the future. He felt
+himself strong: felt that a little pinching and ‘clemming’ would do him
+no material harm, and smiled at the storm-cloud hurrying across the
+Atlantic.
+
+They went on talking upon different topics; but while she questioned
+or answered, his jealous eyes detected some change in her. She was
+not cold to him; there was the same genial grace and cordiality, and
+yet there was a change. In a pause which presently ensued, a footstep
+passed on the flags outside. She raised her head quickly and looked up,
+with parted lips and a startled expression.
+
+‘Do you expect some one?’ asked Myles; and so much were the words a
+part of the thought, that he scarcely knew he had spoken them, until
+she answered,
+
+‘I--oh no! Why should I? But shall we not read some more of
+“Iphigenia”? Here is the book.’
+
+She did not look at him. There was a sudden constrained expression
+upon her face as she opened the book, and he as suddenly felt his
+heart sink with a reasonless, aimless, lover’s pang. He said nothing,
+however, but obediently began to read. But neither his heart nor
+her’s was in the work, as usual. She had told him that he was an apt
+scholar; his intelligence was ready, and his ear quick, and attuned
+to the Lancashire gutturals, and its broad ‘a’s’ and ‘u’s’ found
+little difficulty with the corresponding German sounds. Myles, for
+his part, had treasured up that hour that she devoted to him once or
+twice a week, as if it had been some precious coin or gem. Then she
+was all attention to him; then she was thinking of nothing else but
+him and his lesson, and the idea was heavenly. But this very evening,
+for the first time, he was obliged to let himself understand that her
+attention wandered, that she sometimes scarcely heard what he said,
+and his anxiety and foreboding increased every moment. He was no
+favoured lover; he had striven assiduously to conceal every sign of
+his devotion, for fear it should annoy her, or repel her. He had no
+right to ask her why her attention strayed, what made her absent and
+_distraite_, and that very fact made him the more sensitive to the
+change in her manner.
+
+He read on, and translated, mechanically, dreamily, till he came to the
+words:
+
+    ‘Und künft’ge Thaten drangen wie die Sterne,
+    Rings um uns her, unzählbar aus der Nacht.’
+
+‘“And future deeds,”’ he slowly translated, while the sense of discord
+and oppression grew every moment stronger; ‘“and future deeds pressed
+about us, out of the night, countless as the stars.”’
+
+She had not heard a word. He looked at her, with eyes that dared
+not be reproachful, and said nothing. There was pain, there was
+embarrassment, in her expression. Then she suddenly said,
+
+‘I want to speak to you. Let us put away this book. I want to tell you
+something that I ought to have told you before.’
+
+At once his face changed; the cloud fled; he turned to her with a smile.
+
+‘Something you ought to have told me----’ he began.
+
+The door was opened. Just outside they heard the voice of Brandon, Mr.
+Blisset’s old servant, saying,
+
+‘I will see whether Mr. Blisset is at liberty, sir, if you will step in
+here.’
+
+Then he threw the door wide open and announced,
+
+‘Mr. Mallory.’
+
+Sebastian came into the room, and Adrienne rose, feeling like one in
+a dream, looking like a person who has received overwhelming news of
+some kind. She saw Sebastian: she felt that Myles was there--felt it
+in every fibre of her being, and while Sebastian spoke to her, she was
+only intensely conscious that Myles was gazing at them both; and she
+wondered, with an intensity that amounted to pain, what he was thinking
+of her.
+
+She gazed at Sebastian, as he came up to her, looking as if he saw no
+one but her, with extended hand, and she heard him as he said,
+
+‘Miss Blisset, I little thought before Saturday, that I should have the
+happiness of meeting you again--in Thanshope!’
+
+With that their hands closed, and her voice said (with a vibration),
+
+‘It is certainly long since we met. I am glad to see you again.’
+
+Myles had risen with a swift, almost unconscious impulse, and was now
+in the window, leaning against it, and looking into the night, which
+was now falling fast. He closed his eyes. He felt his own emotion to be
+almost grotesque in its intensity, but it was so--he could not help it.
+The devil jealousy had seized his very heart-strings on the instant,
+and clutched them relentlessly. There was one thing, and one only,
+that he could do--having no right to call her to account, he could
+suffer in silence, and speak gently to her--after all, he reminded
+himself, she had been exquisitely kind to him, and he had no sort of
+claim upon such kindness.
+
+While Myles fought this silent, desperate battle with the feelings
+which urged him to rush out of the room, and leave those two together,
+Sebastian was saying,
+
+‘I came to see Mr. Blisset on some business, and his servant asked me
+to come in here. I fear I disturb you.’
+
+‘Not at all. May I introduce--but Mr. Heywood tells me he knows you
+already.’
+
+She turned to Myles, who also turned. His very emotion made him rise to
+the occasion. Pride and self-esteem, respect and regard for Adrienne,
+modesty as to his own merits, all urged him to put on an outwardly calm
+demeanour; and Sebastian, whatever astonishment he might feel, was of
+course far too civilised to betray it.
+
+‘We have met already to-day, earlier,’ remarked Mr. Mallory,
+courteously bowing towards the young man, who, on his part, bowed his
+head gravely and proudly, and wished his employer good evening. If
+Adrienne had not flushed up, and looked with such startled, conscious
+eyes, and such a half-excited smile, around her, he could have done
+even more--he might have been able to force a smile too, but under the
+circumstances it was physically impossible.
+
+Adrienne, turning aside, as if to push forward a chair, looked at him,
+but in his then state of mind he could not understand the glance;
+all he could do was to answer it with another, of bitter, clouded,
+miserable feeling; sorrow, pain, and a sort of premonitory despair.
+
+Sebastian did not see Adrienne’s look, but he did see this one of
+Myles’s, and it made him feel suddenly grave and doubtful. In an
+instant he understood how things were with Myles: as to Adrienne’s
+feelings he was utterly in the dark. He remembered one morning, when
+she, relieved through his efforts of great anxiety, had clasped his
+hand, and, looking up at him with brimming eyes, had said, ‘There is
+nothing I would not do for you.’ They had been almost the last words
+she had said to him. The day afterwards he had lost her. He knew
+nothing of what she thought of him now, but he realised immediately
+that the stiff-necked young workman, whose pride and reserve resisted
+all his efforts to break through them, was over head and ears in love
+with the woman of whom he had been thinking, when he spoke to Helena
+Spenceley of ‘the nicest girl I ever knew.’ It might be preposterous:
+it might be that young, handsome, and more than ordinarily
+high-spirited and ambitious young workman had no business to fall in
+love with young ladies in a superior position in life; but all that did
+not prevent the fact that such an occurrence had taken place before,
+and would take place again. Sebastian knew it, and, reasoning from the
+interest he himself took in Myles, did not underrate the importance of
+the discovery he had made.
+
+‘Have you seen the evening edition of the Manchester paper?’ he asked
+Myles, as he seated himself.
+
+‘To-night? No.’
+
+‘The war news seems rather important. I hope our neutrality won’t be
+put in peril. It would be an everlasting disgrace to us if it were to
+be interrupted for a moment.’
+
+‘Yes, it would,’ assented Myles, dimly conscious that it was a superior
+sophistication which was able to converse thus easily upon foreign
+affairs--under the circumstances.
+
+‘I suppose you take a great interest in the war too?’ said Sebastian,
+turning to Adrienne.
+
+‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Mr. Heywood and I have the audacity to dispute
+even with my uncle sometimes.’
+
+‘Mr. Blisset is your uncle?’
+
+‘Yes. Oh! I forgot you could not know; I live with him here. Have you
+known him before?’
+
+‘Never. But I find he is my tenant I came to see him on a matter of
+business and----’
+
+‘Will you step into the other room, sir?’ interrupted Brandon, coming
+in.
+
+Sebastian rose.
+
+‘Shall I see you again?’ he asked, stooping a little towards Adrienne,
+who looked up to him with the same distinct, though well-repressed,
+agitation or excitement of some kind in her face.
+
+‘It will depend upon how long you stay; I do not know,’ said she; and
+her voice was not calm and deliberate as usual.
+
+Myles sat still, his face composed, watching those two; realising her
+grace and beauty, and his charm of manner, and all those advantages in
+the background. No girl--he felt it keenly--need be ashamed of the fact
+that she had fallen captive to the wooing of Sebastian Mallory. His
+heart grew heavier and colder.
+
+‘Then I will say good evening, in case I do not see you again,’ said
+Sebastian.
+
+They shook hands, and Mallory followed the waiting Brandon.
+
+Then they were left alone. Adrienne’s face had changed; the excitement
+had gone from it; it was pale; the glow had faded; her voice sounded
+tired when she spoke.
+
+‘When Mr. Mallory came,’ she said, forcing a smile, ‘I was just going
+to explain to you that I knew him--or rather, had known him a few years
+ago. It was curious that he should call at that very moment.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Myles, in a voice colourless as her own.
+
+‘Once he was very kind,’ she pursued, ‘when my father was in trouble.
+He saved me a great deal of anxiety and distress.’
+
+‘Yes,’ again assented Myles. ‘I am sure he is very considerate, and
+means to do right.’
+
+‘You think so! Then your opinion has changed?’
+
+‘Yes, very much. He is not at all the kind of man I supposed him to be.’
+
+‘I am glad you have discovered that. I am sure you and he will get on,
+now that the misunderstanding is cleared up.’
+
+Myles rose, smiling rather a faint, miserable smile. He felt it
+impossible not to give one little thrust in the midst of the agony he
+was himself enduring.
+
+‘You know I am hot-tempered, and, I am afraid, prejudiced,’ said he
+quietly; ‘but if you had mentioned to me that you knew Mr. Mallory, and
+that he was not the kind of man I supposed, I should--perhaps I might
+have behaved more rationally.’
+
+Adrienne stood speechless. She made neither apology nor excuse. When he
+said good night, she put out her hand silently, and did not meet his
+eyes. His own manner was quite to coldness. Thus they parted. Myles, as
+he walked home, could not forget the verse from ‘Iphigenia,’ which he
+had laboriously translated:
+
+    ‘Und künft’ge Thaten drangen wie die Sterne,
+    Rings um uns her, unzahlbar aus der Nacht.’
+
+In that moment he doubted bitterly whether any deeds, whether anything
+but woes, lay for him in the future.
+
+Meanwhile Adrienne was left alone to reflect upon the situation, to
+think of Sebastian’s smile, and of Myles Heywood’s pale face and
+glowing eyes; and, after due reflection, either to congratulate or
+commiserate herself, as she thought most appropriate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+‘MAY MY MOTHER CALL UPON YOU?’
+
+
+Mr. Mallory contrived to make his visit so delightful to Mr. Blisset
+that that gentleman pressed him, with an eagerness unwonted to him,
+to remain a little longer; and Sebastian, hoping each moment to see
+Adrienne appear, continued in his place.
+
+At last she came into the room; but she had brought her work with her,
+and after a few sentences of courtesy, amiable but meaningless, she
+took a chair a little apart, and sat in almost entire silence, while
+the two men discussed, first politics, and then, when each had taken
+the length of the other’s foot on that topic, science and philosophy.
+
+Sebastian, whether intentionally or not, showed himself in his best
+mood, and putting aside both cynicism and indifference, discussed the
+subjects earnestly, and incidentally displayed how much thought and
+attention he had really given to them.
+
+Mr. Blisset, greatly delighted at finding so cultivated a listener,
+was also in a happier and more hopeful mood than usual. Adrienne’s
+eyes were fixed upon that monotonous embroidery. It is to be presumed
+that she did not see the repeated glances, half of inquiry, half of
+surprise, with which Sebastian’s eyes continually sought her face. He
+knew that she could talk on such subjects. Mr. Blisset’s reiterated
+appeal to her--‘Eh, Adrienne?’ ‘Don’t you think so, my dear?’--showed
+Sebastian that she was not accustomed to sit in silence at the feet of
+even so great a philosopher as her uncle; and yet she was silent now,
+merely answering when spoken to, as briefly as possible.
+
+At length came a pause, and Sebastian hastened to make use of it.
+
+‘How do you like England, Miss Blisset?’
+
+‘I can hardly say, seeing that I only know Thanshope.’
+
+‘Thanshope, then, as compared with the Continent in general?’
+
+‘I like it,’ said Adrienne, ‘because I have found a home in it, and
+because I am useful to some one--am I not, uncle?’
+
+‘Necessary, my dear, necessary.’
+
+‘There, you see! necessary!’ said Adrienne.
+
+‘But you used to rejoice so intensely in the sunshine, and the poetry,
+and the beauty of those foreign lands.’
+
+‘Yes, I did.’
+
+‘Wetzlar, for instance. Do you remember how delighted you were? how you
+sat dreaming by Goethe’s Brunnen, and how you seated yourself in Lotte
+Buff’s parlour, and looked round, and could scarcely speak?’
+
+‘Ah, yes!’ said Adrienne, her eyes lighting up at the remembrance, and
+a smile stealing over her face; ‘but that was very enchanted ground,
+you know.’
+
+‘And you struck a few chords on that piano; that “old, tuneless
+instrument,” on which Goethe had played to Lotte, and then drew back,
+quite ashamed of your own audacity--you must remember?’
+
+‘Did I ever say I did not remember?’ said Adrienne, a tremor in her
+voice as she looked up and found Sebastian leaning forward, his chin
+in his hand, and his eyes fixed upon her face.
+
+Something in the expression of those eyes seemed to cause Adrienne some
+emotion. Her colour rose. Mr. Blisset had opened a newspaper which his
+servant had brought in, and was apparently buried behind it. Sebastian,
+his eyes still fixed upon the young lady’s troubled face, said softly,
+
+‘Don’t you think Wetzlar was the most sunshiny place you were ever in?’
+
+‘At least the sun began to shine for me there,’ she said quickly, and
+looking towards him with a sudden, deeper glance than before.
+
+He smiled.
+
+‘I think, for me too.’ Then, seeing that she looked still more
+downcast, he added, ‘But we shall meet again, I hope, and then we can
+discuss those old days. I was going to ask, have you many friends here?’
+
+‘Scarcely any. My uncle does not visit. We know Canon Ponsonby, and
+Mrs. Ponsonby called upon me, and was very kind. Then I have a few
+friends of my own peculiar kind, you know.’
+
+‘I know. Old apple-women at street-corners; working-people; unhappy
+youths who want a few lessons in this and that--eh?’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Adrienne, smiling.
+
+‘Then Myles Heywood is not counted amongst your friends?’ said
+Sebastian, composedly, glancing aside at Mr. Blisset, to assure himself
+that that gentleman was absorbed in his newspaper.
+
+‘Yes, he is,’ said Adrienne, raising her head. ‘He is a friend both of
+my uncle’s and mine.’
+
+‘Is it allowable to ask how you made his acquaintance?’
+
+Adrienne suddenly crimsoned, while Sebastian unkindly continued
+steadfastly to watch her. He had been piecing different facts and
+inferences together in his mind, and was rather anxiously awaiting her
+answer.
+
+‘It is not allowable?’ he said. ‘I beg your pardon.’
+
+‘Yes, it is, quite,’ retorted she, somewhat recovering herself. ‘I met
+Myles Heywood a few weeks ago, not more. I used to have some work that
+I did at the public reading-room, and he used to read there too. He
+rendered me a very kind service on one occasion, and has been a friend
+and a visitor here ever since.’
+
+Sebastian bowed politely.
+
+‘He interested me,’ said he, with a rather ambiguous smile. ‘I wished
+to know more of him; but he declines every advance I make to him.’
+
+Adrienne was silent. Sebastian, with a laudable thirst for information,
+went on, in the same calm, matter-of-fact voice,
+
+‘I begin to think that in his case appearances deceive me’ (Adrienne
+looked rapidly up and down again). ‘There is something wonderfully
+attractive about his face and manner. He appears so very superior to
+his class, and yet I begin to fancy there must be some fatal defect of
+temper--some moral want.’
+
+‘You are mistaken,’ said she, in a voice which, though low, was so
+clear and decided as to startle Sebastian. The information he wished
+for appeared to be readily forthcoming--whether it were of a pleasant
+nature or not, he could hardly yet say.
+
+‘You think so? You think it is not mere churlishness?’ he said,
+purposely using a strong word.
+
+‘He has not a grain of the churl in him.’
+
+‘Indeed! Then he must have well-developed imitative faculties,’ said
+Sebastian, with a politely sceptical accent, which he had often
+found useful as a conversational weapon. It was successful upon this
+occasion. Adrienne answered quickly,
+
+‘You must not think him churlish. It would be a grievous mistake to
+make. He has a most generous disposition. You should see him at home
+with his sister and his cripple brother--they are friends of mine
+too, and his deaf friend, Harry Ashworth. You would not misjudge him
+then. Those people know his heart, as it is--and they all adore him.
+Churlish--no!’
+
+‘Well, does he behave in such an extraordinary way to Mr. Blisset?
+Does he look at him as if he would say, “Thus far, and no farther. Keep
+your distance if you please”?’
+
+‘To my uncle--oh no! He is very fond of him, and very respectful to
+him,’ said Adrienne, demurely, a curious little smile quivering about
+the corners of her mouth.
+
+‘Then why does he select myself as the object of his hatred--for I am
+sure he does hate me?’
+
+‘He--because----’
+
+‘Because?’
+
+‘I cannot explain. Only he does not hate you.’
+
+‘I am convinced you could tell me all about it if you would, so, as
+you will not, I must find it out in my own way. I am determined I will
+learn the reason of his aversion to me--and will overcome it.’
+
+‘Oh, don’t! Pray let him alone. He is best let alone.’
+
+Sebastian smiled.
+
+‘You seem to be well acquainted with what is best for him--though you
+have only known him a few weeks. If you have succeeded in making a
+friend of him, why should not I?’
+
+‘I would not go too far. Remember, he, as well as you, has a right to
+choose his own friends, and if he does not choose you for one of them,
+you have no right to----’
+
+‘Importune him? No. You are quite right,’ he said, rising. ‘But there
+is society of a different stamp from Myles Heywood, even in Thanshope.
+Would you have any objection to my mother calling upon you?’
+
+‘Mrs. Mallory--objection? Not the least. I should be delighted. But
+don’t you think, if she had wished for my acquaintance, she would have
+called before?’
+
+‘She was ignorant that you lived here. She thought Mr. Blisset’s
+household was quite without ladies. I expect she will call upon you
+within the next few days.’
+
+‘I shall be happy to see her,’ said Adrienne, politely, but not
+enthusiastically; and he could read nothing from her eyes, as
+they answered his inquiring gaze. She roused her uncle from his
+abstraction, and Sebastian dropped her hand with a smile. After all,
+he told himself, it was absurd to think seriously of Myles Heywood
+as a rival--quite absurd. A high cultivation like Adrienne’s--and
+how different she was from that little dark-eyed Helena, with her
+vehemence and her disorganised ideas as to women’s rights and man’s
+selfishness--could surely never feel any real affinity with that
+untamed, untutored specimen of humanity, Myles Heywood. There might
+be plenty of force about him, but force without culture is apt to get
+uncomfortable.
+
+Amidst earnest requests from Mr. Blisset that he would speedily renew
+his visit, and equally earnest assurances on his part that he would do
+so, Sebastian departed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the Oakenrod drawing-room, Mrs. Mallory by the fire, with a novel
+and the feathery screen; Hugo gloating over a copy of the original
+edition of Bewick’s ‘Birds,’ the like of which treasure, he considered,
+he had never seen before: for the rest silence.
+
+‘You have been out all the evening?’ inquired Mrs. Mallory, languidly,
+as she looked up.
+
+‘Yes, I have been at Mr. Blisset’s.’
+
+Hugo looked up.
+
+‘Mother, do you ever call at Mr. Blisset’s house?’
+
+‘No. Soon after he came, I called; but his man-servant told me that he
+was a great invalid, and saw no one.’
+
+‘He is certainly a great invalid. But there is a Miss Blisset.’
+
+‘Is he a widower?’ asked Mrs. Mallory, struck by something in her son’s
+tone, dimly conscious of some impending unpleasantness in store for
+herself.
+
+‘She is his niece. She came to live with him some two years or eighteen
+months ago. I was delighted to renew my acquaintance with her.’
+
+‘Then you had met her before?’
+
+‘Yes, at Coblentz, and at Wetzlar, on the Lahn.’
+
+Sebastian was at the present moment leaning on the top of his mother’s
+chair, which was a deep, roomy easy-chair of a bygone day. As he spoke
+he took the feathery screen out of her hand and fanned her with it a
+little. She wished he would not do so. It might not make it more really
+difficult to resist him, but it made her look very ungracious; it must
+look ungracious in a mother to deny favours to a son who asked them in
+so seductive a manner.
+
+Mrs. Mallory thought there were certain points upon which she would
+never give in; but even while she thought it, and Sebastian’s
+hand waved the screen to and fro, and his voice gently continued
+to speak--even then, she had an indefinable sensation of being
+managed--that power was slipping from her hands into his. But she could
+say nothing until he had in some way committed himself; and he had a
+most provoking habit of not committing himself.
+
+‘She is as clever and accomplished in her way as her uncle is in
+his,’ Sebastian went on: ‘and she is, in addition, a most charming
+young lady. She has no friends here--and she is so different from the
+Thanshope people--much more in your style than that vehement little
+Miss Spenceley,’ he added, while Hugo looked on from afar and laughed
+in his sleeve. ‘I am sure you would like her if you knew her, and I
+want you to be so kind as to call upon her.’
+
+‘Call upon her! Call upon a person I know nothing about! Really,
+Sebastian, I wonder at you!’
+
+‘My dear mother, she is not in the least what you would describe as a
+“person.” Even your critical taste will pronounce her a thorough lady
+when you see her.’
+
+‘How is it nobody else has called upon her?’
+
+‘Some one else has. Mrs. Ponsonby has called upon her. But I want you
+to call upon her. You really would oblige me exceedingly, mother, if
+you would.’
+
+‘And therefore I must, I suppose. That appears to be the rule by which
+the young judge the old in the present day,’ said Mrs. Mallory, a
+little acidly.
+
+Sebastian had come round to the other side, and was leaning against the
+mantelpiece, and as Mrs. Mallory concluded her remark she looked at
+her son, and her son looked at her. If he had only been talking about
+Helena Spenceley! But it was merely some Miss Blisset. She thought she
+would refuse. But at that moment the idea struck her that she might
+even serve her own aims by consenting conditionally.
+
+Scarcely two days before, Sebastian had treated, first with levity and
+contempt, and then with downright repugnance, the prospect of dining
+at the Spenceleys’ house, or cultivating their further acquaintance.
+Mrs. Mallory had at that moment in her pocket a note, in Helena’s
+handwriting, requesting the pleasure of the company of Mrs. and Mr.
+Mallory, and that of Mr. von Birkenau, to dinner ten days hence.
+
+‘If I go out of my way to make new acquaintances, about whom I care
+nothing in the world, it is only fair that you should put yourself a
+little out of the way too, Sebastian.’
+
+‘Perfectly fair. As how?’
+
+‘We are invited to dine at the Spenceleys on the --th. If you don’t go
+there, and behave civilly to my friends, I really don’t see how I can
+encourage yours, about whom I know nothing, to come here, or go to see
+them myself.’
+
+‘I quite grasp the importance of the situation,’ said Sebastian, with
+that placid politeness which exasperated Mrs. Mallory beyond bounds,
+because she did not know into what language to translate it. ‘If you
+will call upon Miss Blisset within the next day or two--I mean a proper
+call, you know, with an intimation that you would like her to return
+it, and so on--I will go to any amount of Spenceley spreads, be they
+never so gorgeous, and will listen to Miss Spenceley’s diatribes with
+the utmost resignation. There will be the contrast to think of.’
+
+This was not very encouraging behaviour; but it was the best to be
+extracted from her very ‘trying’ son, and Mrs. Mallory had to accept
+it, merely remarking,
+
+‘If your friend, Miss Blisset, has anything like the good qualities of
+Helena, I shall be surprised.’
+
+‘No, she has not,’ said Sebastian. ‘Miss Spenceley has one hundred
+thousand golden virtues--not to mention others of a less tangible
+character--of a kind that Adrienne Blisset knows nothing about.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory made a note of the ‘Adrienne Blisset,’ and began to feel
+an intense dislike to that young lady.
+
+But the bargain had been struck. On the third day after the treaty
+had been, so to speak, signed, Mrs. Mallory called out her horses
+and called out her men, and drove in state to see and overwhelm Miss
+Blisset.
+
+She saw her; but the overwhelming remained still a dream of the future.
+Adrienne’s utter freedom from embarrassment in the presence of Mrs.
+Mallory, of the Oakenrod, might be in bad taste, but it could not very
+well be commented upon. She parried all her visitor’s hidden thrusts
+upon the subject of Sebastian with a cool adroitness which called forth
+her visitor’s reluctant admiration, and behaved altogether with an ease
+and an address which was the more reprehensible in that it seemed so
+perfectly natural.
+
+‘But it could not have been natural,’ reflected Mrs. Mallory, as she
+drove away. ‘The attention, after Sebastian’s calling there and finding
+her, was so marked. I think she is the most consummate little actress I
+ever met anywhere.’
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+‘I DREAMT I DWELT IN MARBLE HALLS.’
+
+
+Castle Hill, the Spenceley mansion, was a large, new, imposing
+residence of red brick, with massive stone facings. It had been the
+dwelling of Mr. Spenceley and his family for some six or seven years,
+and it was within these walls that Helena sat in captivity, and groaned
+alternately over the selfishness of men and the mean-spiritedness of
+women.
+
+On the appointed evening, Mrs. Mallory, her son, and Hugo, were driven
+to this mansion, and ushered into the drawing-room. It was an apartment
+vast in dimensions, lofty, dazzling, perfectly square, perfectly
+gorgeous, and more than perfectly uncomfortable.
+
+Some ten or twelve persons were collected somewhere amidst the mass of
+gorgeous carpet, hangings, furniture, and dazzling crystal drops which
+seemed to blend and combine in a determined and successful effort to
+crush and annihilate the human portion of the scene. Sebastian and Hugo
+saw Mrs. Mallory sail up to a massive-looking lady in purple satin,
+and white lace, and unlimited jewellery of florid design and great
+brilliance. This lady she greeted almost affectionately. Was she not
+Helena’s mother? and did not Mrs. Mallory herself regard Helena almost
+as a daughter? Having introduced Sebastian and Hugo, Mrs. Mallory
+turned to Mr. Spenceley, while the young men bowed themselves before
+the mistress of the house.
+
+She said she was very glad to see them. Then she told Sebastian that
+she had heard a great deal about him, and then she looked hurriedly
+around for ‘Mr. Spenceley.’
+
+That gentleman, who had been exchanging courtesies in a loud and
+blatant voice with Mrs. Mallory, now began to welcome Sebastian to his
+native place, also in a loud and blatant manner.
+
+‘Well, sir, I’m glad to see you. Come home just in the nick of time,
+you have. You’ve a grand opportunity for making your fortune now. Gad!
+But it’s providential, this American business! We shall get rid of some
+of our surplus stock now. It’ll give us a pull over our work-people
+too, at last; and not before we need it. The fellows were getting
+beyond everything, eh!’
+
+Sebastian, his calm and serious eyes quietly scanning the strong, if
+coarse, under-bred face of the man before him, merely said that he was
+quite new to this kind of thing. He had not considered the subject in
+that light at all.
+
+‘Well, I should advise you to do so as soon as possible then, or you’ll
+lose your chance,’ shouted Mr. Spenceley, whose voice was elevated so
+as to drown entirely those of the rest of the company, while his wife
+timidly looked on, her florid face set gravely, and her eyes round and
+staring with a sort of anxious attentiveness.
+
+Sebastian foresaw that he would have to take her in to dinner, and he
+glanced at her now and then, wondering what he should say to her--how
+keep up some kind of a conversation. She was a tall, stout, matronly
+woman; once she must have been an extremely handsome lass. Her black
+hair was still abundant, and had something of the waviness of Helena’s:
+her eyes, too, were dark. She was as tall as her daughter, but more
+lymphatic in temperament.
+
+Helena probably inherited her beauty from her mother, and her
+vehemence from her father. Mrs. Spenceley was accustomed to roll in her
+carriage through Bridgehouse and Lower Place, suburbs of Thanshope,
+and to look from her elevation upon the extensive matrons who stood
+at their cottage doors, exchanged gossip, and scolded their ingenuous
+offspring, sporting in the road before them; but her nature was the
+same as theirs. Denude her of her silks and satins, attire her in a
+cotton or linsey gown, with bare arms and a large apron, her hair
+twisted up into a knot behind, and her head capless; a cottage full
+of cares and unruly children, a rough ‘measter’ to make and mend and
+‘do’ for, and she would have been indistinguishable from those other
+matrons. She would have fallen back into the old ways quite genially
+and naturally; she would have been what she certainly was not under
+existing arrangements--happy.
+
+For Mrs. Spenceley was unhappy in her riches and greatness; she
+could remember quite distinctly the days when Spenceley had been
+overlooker at one of the great Thanshope factories, and she had done
+the work of the house, and brought up the children single-handed,
+and been happy--and not genteel. She remembered the sudden leap into
+prosperity, the gradually increasing establishment, Helena dismissed
+to a fashionable boarding-school, and Fred to a private and select
+academy, where he was to learn how to become a gentleman--that short,
+easy, and every-day process, where, as a matter of fact, he had drunk
+in one lesson, and one only, namely, that a fellow whose father has
+money, and who will one day have money himself, need not know, or do,
+or be anything--except rich. Mrs. Spenceley remembered how servants,
+of whom she stood in awe, had accumulated around her; how she had had
+to leave her kitchen to their tender mercies; how she had found that
+she must not handle a duster, or have an opinion as to the merits of
+the heave-shoulder or the wave-breast any longer; until she had got a
+magnificent housekeeper, in black silk and a lace cap, who was fully
+conscious of the primordial fact that large and wealthy establishments
+only existed in order that she might domineer over one of them. How
+Helena was returned upon her hands, a ‘finished’ young lady, ignorant,
+as it seemed to Mrs. Spenceley in her own ignorance, of the very
+elements of a womanly education--unable to keep house, to cook, to
+sew, even to distinguish ribs of beef from sirloin. She had ventured,
+mildly, to utter some of her woe to the father, who had said, ‘Pooh!
+Let the lass alone. She’ll never need to know such things. She shall
+marry a lord! Only don’t let her cross me and she’ll do.’ And Helena
+had been suffered to trample upon the domestic arts, and to throw
+herself, with all the energy of one who has nothing to do with herself,
+into all sorts of questions about which her active brain made her
+curious, while her unfinished education left her profoundly ignorant of
+their practical bearings. She had no female friends except Mrs. Mallory
+and Miss Mereweather, a conspicuous friend and upholder of ‘the cause.’
+She loved Mrs. Mallory, because that lady was kind to her, and was by
+no means a nonentity; and she adored Miss Mereweather because of her
+talents, or what seemed to Helena her talents.
+
+Friends at home the girl had none. Fred had one of those hopelessly
+dense natures which may be called the complacently brutal--nothing
+in the way of friendship or sympathy was to be had from him. Her
+father--Helena, in her intercourse at school with girls of good
+family and social surroundings, had learnt to know that her father’s
+manners and language were to be abhorred, while, had he been a Sir
+Charles Grandison in the matter of deportment, his coarse bullying
+and ferocious bantering of her mother would alone have made the
+hot-spirited girl almost hate him.
+
+And Fred--his mother stood in profound awe of him; his talk, his slang,
+his ways in general; and she was the one soul on earth, except himself,
+who was firmly convinced of the fact that Frederick Spenceley was at
+once a finished gentleman and a consummate man of the world.
+
+As Sebastian sat watching his hostess, and partly divining some of
+these facts, a voice at his elbow roused him.
+
+‘Good evening, Mr. Mallory. You look as if you were dreaming.’
+
+Looking quickly round, he saw Helena standing close beside him, smiling
+as frankly as if no misunderstanding had ever existed between them,
+as if they had not quarrelled violently within two hours of first
+seeing each other. How lovely she was! None but a very lovely woman
+could have stood the dull ivory satin dress she wore, fitting tight in
+the waist, without a fold or a crease; and, in an age of voluminous,
+portentous crinolines, trailing straight and long behind her. She wore
+a black lace fichu, and elbow sleeves with black lace ruffles falling
+from them. The fichu was fastened with a golden brooch; beyond that was
+not a ribbon, not a frill, not a jewel or a flower about her. And her
+beauty came triumphant through the ordeal.
+
+They had parted on decidedly evil terms, and he was surprised now to
+find that she welcomed him cordially, and smiled as she took the chair
+beside him.
+
+‘I am afraid I was very cross the other night,’ said she, with a sunny
+smile. ‘But I thought you had treated me badly, and I am going to have
+my revenge to-night, and show you that I am in earnest. My greatest
+friend, Laura Mereweather, has most fortunately been able to come just
+when I invited her. Wasn’t that wonderful?’
+
+‘I am prepared to say that it was; but I don’t yet know why.’
+
+‘You know Miss Mereweather; by name, at least?’
+
+‘To my shame I must confess that I never even heard of her before.’
+
+‘What an extraordinary thing! She has a European reputation.’
+
+‘You astonish me! For what?’
+
+‘As being the most advanced female thinker, and the greatest benefactor
+to her sex, of her time.’
+
+Sebastian’s face fell, as he looked round the room.
+
+‘These very intellectual women have often nothing remarkable in their
+personal appearance,’ said he. ‘Would you believe that, of the several
+young ladies I see seated about the room, I could not say which I
+should suppose to be Miss Mereweather.
+
+‘_That_,’ said Helena impressively, ‘that slight girl, all intellect,
+and mind, and spirit, talking to my brother--that is Laura!’
+
+‘Is it really?’ he said, his eyes falling upon the ethereal-looking
+being described by Helena.
+
+He saw a thin, nervous-looking girl--a girl with not a bad face, if
+it could not be called absolutely handsome. She too was dressed,
+like Helena, in a tightly fitting robe with undistended skirts, but
+her dress was black. She wore an eyeglass, looked restlessly around,
+and had a deep contralto voice. There was nothing alarming in her
+appearance; she looked, thought Sebastian, as if she would have made an
+excellent head-mistress of a large school, the matron of an hospital,
+or some authority of that description.
+
+‘She is a woman of powerful individuality, I should say,’ he remarked.
+
+‘Is she not? After dinner she shall talk to you.’
+
+‘Oh, you are very kind! I wouldn’t trouble her for the world.’
+
+‘It is no trouble. Nothing done for the cause would be a trouble to
+Laura; and then you must be enlightened. You must learn that ours is
+not a cause to be treated with levity. You must be punished for what
+you did and said the other night,’ said Helena.
+
+‘I submit; but--I am sure you could talk just as well,’ said Sebastian,
+resignedly.
+
+‘Ah, if I could!’ said Helena, gazing with admiring devotion towards
+her friend.
+
+‘Is there not an immensity of power and force about her?’ she said
+enthusiastically. ‘Laura has several times been mistaken for a man--by
+persons who have heard her voice, and her remarks, without seeing her.’
+
+‘Has she? How excessively annoying for her!’ said Sebastian, with
+feeling.
+
+‘Annoying! It pleases her, as a testimony to her power, and as a proof
+that there is no real disparity in the respective capacities of men and
+women. Of course, when it is known that books or pictures have been
+written or painted by women, all hope of fair and impartial criticism
+is over.’
+
+‘Is it?--Well, I was looking at the question from another point of
+view. I thought that if Miss Mereweather disapproves so strongly of men
+in general, it would annoy her to be mistaken for one of that odious
+and inferior sex; and, moreover, would only be a sign of how very
+different she must be from most women.’
+
+‘She is very superior to most women; if that is what you mean, I
+concede the point willingly.’
+
+‘Well, if such a superior woman is often mistaken for a man, is not
+that a piece of negative evidence of the inferiority of women in
+general?’ he asked politely.
+
+Helena’s face had flushed again.
+
+‘As I said, Laura shall talk to you. She will argue much better than I
+can. I do not pretend to her abilities. And there is Parsons announcing
+dinner,’ added Helena hastily, her colour mounting still higher as she
+caught Sebastian’s eyes fixed with a grave yet not unkindly expression
+upon her face.
+
+He rose to offer Mrs. Spenceley his arm, and stood with her, watching
+the couples as they filed out of the room. Yes, Helena was lovely, and
+not all her wild talk, not even her enthusiastic admiration for Miss
+Mereweather, could make her otherwise.
+
+He looked absently on, as first his mother and Mr. Spenceley went by;
+next a gorgeous dowager, whose tribal name and standing were unknown to
+him, but whom he distinctly heard saying something about ‘the ’oist at
+the Lang’um ’otel,’ as she swept past on the arm of a flaccid-faced,
+red-haired, meek-looking man, pertaining to the goodly company of
+cotton-spinners. The wife of the said cotton-spinner followed next,
+with a gentle-looking incumbent--he who ministered to the spiritual
+needs of Mr. Spenceley and his family. More couples followed. Fred
+Spenceley with Miss Mereweather--more gorgeous dowagers and resplendent
+spinsters, and more of the native young men, leading the same to the
+banquet, and, at last, Helena, in her creamy robes, with Hugo.
+
+‘The lucky young dog!’ thought Sebastian, resignedly, as Hugo’s
+eyes met his, and the lad smiled rather triumphantly, in the full
+consciousness that he was leading out the prettiest woman in the room.
+
+Was she talking women’s rights now? Sebastian wondered, as he silently
+brought up the rear with the equally silent Mrs. Spenceley. No! She was
+laughing with Hugo, like any other pleasant, well-conditioned girl, and
+asking him to tell her exactly how he spelt his name, and if it had any
+particular meaning.
+
+‘For I know nothing about German, you know, except a translation of the
+“Sorrows of Werther,” which I thought very funny.’
+
+‘And I do not know much about English,’ said Hugo, much delighted
+with his own good fortune, ‘but I can understand yours, _sehr gut_, I
+mean, very well. You speak so clearly--it is different from the London
+people.’
+
+‘Not bad for a first attempt, old boy!’ thought Sebastian, smiling
+as they entered the celebrated dining-room of Castle Hill, with its
+pictures and bronzes, and statuary, all of the very best, and ‘bought
+by people who understood such things,’ as Mr. Spenceley was wont
+modestly to say, when any one praised any of his artistic treasures.
+
+Mrs. Spenceley did not look like a person who would have exactly a
+discriminating taste in the matter of genre-paintings, or landscape,
+but Sebastian broke the silence between them by remarking on a little
+picture hanging opposite to him.
+
+‘Yes; it’s by a person called Ansdell, I believe,’ said Mrs. Spenceley.
+‘They say it’s very good; but for my part I’m no judge of such things.’
+
+Sebastian bowed, and then, thinking that perhaps local topics might
+prove more successful than artistic ones, said he feared that distress
+was already beginning amongst the work-people.
+
+Mrs. Spenceley turned with some vivacity to her guest.
+
+‘You’re right, Mr. Mallory. If it goes on as it is doing, it’ll break
+some ’earts before all’s over.’
+
+‘Do you visit much amongst them?’
+
+‘Not so much as I could wish. There’s some of the poor creatures will
+soon be fair clemming--starving, I mean.’ Mrs. Spenceley sank her
+voice, and every now and then her eye turned with a little nervous,
+wavering glance towards her lord at the other end of the table. ‘You
+see I shouldn’t like to go amongst them so much without I could keep
+them a bit. I _should_ like to have a soup-kitchen!’ she added with
+feeling; ‘but Spenceley doesn’t quite approve of it. He says that many
+of them have money laid by, and he’s of opinion that we must let them
+help themselves a bit before we begin to help them.’
+
+‘From a politico-economical point of view Mr. Spenceley is perhaps
+right,’ said Sebastian, glancing down the table at the red-faced,
+coarse-featured man, with a heavy jaw not devoid of cruelty; and noting
+that same jaw reproduced even more obtrusively and unpleasantly in the
+son; scarcely at all in the daughter, or at least only in a manner
+which gave an expression of decision to the charming mouth.
+
+‘I know nothing about politics,’ said Mrs. Spenceley; ‘and you may mark
+my words--those that’s starving will want bread--not politics.’
+
+‘Certainly they will. Unfortunately you often cannot give them the one
+without a good deal of the other.’
+
+‘I dare say. But if the war doesn’t stop soon we shall have to do
+something, if it was only to try and teach the poor women to make the
+most of their bits of stuff. Most of them are no housekeepers to speak
+of. They can spin and weave, but they can’t make home comfortable,
+and after all, that’s the chief thing. But,’ she added, suddenly
+remembering different reports she had heard of Sebastian, and Helena’s
+contemptuous announcement that he was a fop, who thought the world was
+made for his amusement, and that there was nothing in life worth the
+trouble of being earnest about, ‘you won’t be much interested in these
+kind of things, Mr. Mallory.’
+
+‘On the contrary, I am much interested in it. Your idea makes me wonder
+if something could not be done. If some schools, or something of that
+kind, could be established,[2] if some of the ladies of the town would
+take it up--my mother and you, for example, Mrs. Spenceley--and make
+it unnecessary for those poor girls to be wandering about, laughing
+and making fun of people in the streets as I saw them the other day.
+And your daughter--I should think Miss Spenceley would find the work
+congenial.’
+
+‘Helena!’ echoed the mother, shaking her head. ‘It’s of no use talking
+about her, Mr. Mallory. She has always some fresh craze in her head,
+and never a useful one. That horrid Miss Mereweather has been the ruin
+of her.’
+
+Sebastian repressed a smile.
+
+‘If she only would turn to something useful!’ lamented Mrs. Spenceley,
+‘but with these ridiculous ideas about women being better than men, and
+all that--and she can’t even make a shirt for her father or a pudding
+for her brother. Oh, but I beg your pardon--only I do often tell her
+that she would never make a good wife with these ideas--not if she had
+millions of pounds and was the prettiest girl in England.’
+
+Though Mrs. Spenceley threw back her head and spoke in a tone of
+annoyance, yet Sebastian clearly distinguished an accent of pride in
+her voice. The homely mother then was not altogether displeased with
+her wilful, brilliant girl.
+
+‘And what does she say to that?’ he asked, looking at Hugo and Helena,
+who seemed to be greatly enjoying some remarkably good joke; and he
+thought: ‘The prettiest girl in England! At least she might hold her
+own amongst a dozen of the prettiest.’
+
+‘Oh, she says she never will be married, and that nonsense. I tell
+her to wait until Mr. Right comes, and then we shall hear a different
+song. I wish he would, I’m sure,’ she added fervently, ‘before she gets
+spoiled. She has a right good heart, has Helena, if only a giddy head.’
+
+Sebastian did not answer. He was still looking towards Hugo and Helena,
+and felt intensely conscious of the ripple of laughter which scarcely
+ceased between them. It was impossible that women’s rights, or any
+such bristly, hateful topic could be causing that delighted look on
+Hugo’s dark, artist face; could call that gracious curve to Helena’s
+red lips. Hugo threw himself with passion into the joy of the moment,
+as Sebastian knew; Helena seemed to have something of his eager,
+inflammable temperament. At least they appeared to be very happy
+together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dinner over; a group of four congregated in a corner. Helena on a sofa,
+with Hugo beside her; Sebastian and Miss Mereweather facing one another
+in chairs, and the cross-examination about to begin. Helena had wished
+to leave Sebastian and Miss Mereweather to fight it out alone, but he
+had meekly suggested that it was not fair to make him confront the most
+remarkable woman of her age entirely without support; and Hugo adding
+his petition, Helena had consented to be present at the discussion.
+
+Helena seated herself, opened her fan, and said,
+
+‘Now, Laura dear, Mr. Mallory would like to know your views on the
+Woman Question.’
+
+She avoided meeting the look of sorrowful amazement and reproach with
+which Sebastian heard this decidedly exaggerated announcement, and
+Laura replied,
+
+‘I should first wish to know Mr. Mallory’s own views upon that
+subject--_the_ subject, I may say, of the present age.’
+
+‘They are soon stated,’ said Sebastian. ‘I have none.’
+
+‘Then there is some hope for you,’ said Miss Mereweather, with rather a
+pitying smile.
+
+‘I am glad of that. At the same time, I should like to know in which
+direction the hope shows itself.’
+
+‘Your frank acknowledgment of your utter ignorance of the question is
+a great point in your favour. As you have no views at all upon it,
+you are the more likely to be able to receive just ones when they are
+offered to you.’
+
+‘I have some preconceived ideas upon the matter of logic and
+reasonableness, common sense, and all that kind of thing. Will that be
+against me in this case, do you think?’
+
+‘I dislike flippancy,’ said Laura.
+
+‘I did not mean to be flippant. I merely wished for information.’
+
+‘We will take the suffrage first,’ said Miss Mereweather, raising
+her voice somewhat, as if to scatter such irrelevant remarks to the
+winds. ‘Are you in favour of extending the franchise to women--I mean
+women-householders and ratepayers?’
+
+‘On what grounds?’
+
+‘On the only grounds on which they can claim it; on the grounds that
+they are mentally, morally, and, in the practical affairs of the world,
+the equal of man; and that, as they bear equal burdens for the State,
+so they should have equal privileges.’
+
+‘I could never grant them the suffrage on those grounds.’
+
+‘_What!_’ exclaimed both ladies, while Helena started forward, and
+dropped her fan, her eyes flashing, and her face flushing.
+
+‘Because it would take too long to prove your case. What is more, if
+you fight the question on that ground, I doubt whether you will ever
+win it. You cannot be said to have proved a case to your opponent
+until you have got him to agree with you, and you will never, in your
+lifetime at least, get more than a number to agree with you on that
+point; it may be an influential number, and a select one, but it will
+not be at all a majority.’
+
+‘Your argument is not logical, it is a quibble,’ said Miss Mereweather
+disdainfully. ‘Your real opinion is that women ought not to have the
+franchise.’
+
+‘I never said so. If they think it a privilege, and if they would be
+pleased to have it, why not?’
+
+Miss Mereweather, unaccustomed to this style, neither agreement nor
+opposition, was silent a moment. Then a shade of pique crossed her brow.
+
+‘You do not think women worth discussing anything seriously with?’ said
+she.
+
+‘Excuse my saying that you are quite mistaken.’
+
+‘Then why don’t you discuss this question seriously?’ was the decidedly
+feeble reply of the most remarkable woman of her time.
+
+‘But I do. I say, why not give them the franchise if they would like to
+have it? I suppose that by degrees they would get educated up to it.’
+
+‘Mr. Mallory! you are absolutely insulting,’ cried Helena, angrily, and
+Sebastian merely answered with a grave look, and the remark,
+
+‘I am sorry if I have offended you.’
+
+Helena’s lips, opened to utter further reproach, suddenly closed; with
+a look of embarrassment she became silent, and Miss Mereweather, in a
+business-like tone, said,
+
+‘Mr. Mallory is not so dark as he seems to you, my dear, I have good
+hopes for him. We will turn to another branch of the subject. What is
+your opinion, Mr. Mallory, of the relative status before the law of
+husband and wife? What do you think of the laws about married women’s
+property?’
+
+‘I think they are bad,’ said Sebastian, stifling a yawn, and glancing
+at Hugo, who was fanning himself with Helena’s fan, while she leaned
+eagerly forward.
+
+‘Ah!’ said Laura, ‘an opinion at last! You agree with us that there, in
+that most important of all relations, the woman is a slave.’
+
+‘I don’t think I said so. I suppose the woman might be a slave if every
+husband were as bad as the law would allow him to be. Men are not all
+tyrants, nor women all slaves! so I suppose that is why the law has not
+been changed.’
+
+‘That is sophistry,’ said Laura.
+
+‘Will you deny that it is fact?’ he inquired politely.
+
+‘Then you would allow the law to be altered?’
+
+‘Certainly.’
+
+‘It is an important subject for you, my dear child,’ said Miss
+Mereweather to Helena. ‘I only hope your resolution will remain firm,
+and that you will resist temptation and specious promises. In your case
+you will have plenty of both.’
+
+‘Of course I shall resist,’ said Helena, a little crossly. ‘I am not
+quite imbecile, Laura, and know how to take care of myself. My mind is
+quite made up on that subject.’
+
+‘In what direction?’ inquired Sebastian.
+
+‘I have told you already. I know I shall have property,’ said Helena,
+trying to speak with lofty indifference, but all the same, not unaware
+that the young man’s eyes were fixed upon her face, and with her own
+wavering as she went on with the speech which she had uttered many a
+time before, and which now struck her for the first time as falling
+somewhat flat, and not being quite equal to the occasion. Other young
+men had looked at her, and said they were sure she didn’t mean it,
+and it was too cruel of her, and other ‘vacant chaff’ of the same
+description. Sebastian only looked at her gravely, calmly, as it seemed
+to her, almost pityingly, and in perfect silence.
+
+The glance stung and galled her. She would not be deterred by that
+look. What was Sebastian Mallory but a man--a thoughtless young man,
+who had dared to laugh at her views?
+
+‘And property entails responsibilities,’ she continued.
+
+‘It certainly does.’
+
+‘I shall therefore never marry,’ said Helena, courageously, though her
+face burned, and she wished intensely that she had never insisted upon
+the discussion. ‘I shall look after my own affairs, and arrange them
+according to my own judgment. I will be free, and nobody’s servant.’
+
+‘A very wise resolution; provided, first, that you keep it; and second,
+that you feel equal to disposing judiciously of a large property.’
+
+‘I have no doubt about _that_,’ said she, with a lofty smile, still not
+raising her eyes, and very angry with herself for not being able to do
+so.
+
+Sebastian smiled, and the smile made Helena feel hot and uncomfortable.
+
+‘I hope,’ said he, with extreme politeness, ‘that you will feel the
+satisfaction which should be the reward of such high motives.’
+
+Helena flushed again. She had argued the point more than once with
+different people, and without this feeling of embarrassment. Why was
+she embarrassed now? What would that ‘nicest girl’ he ever knew think,
+if she were here? Had she money? He had said she had been brought up
+in the school of adversity. That reminded Helena of another point in
+the argument, which she ought to have advanced long ago. She was dimly
+conscious of a kind of bathos as she said, ‘I don’t believe in useless
+fine ladies, you know, all the same. I think women ought to be able to
+earn their own living, if necessary. They ought to be able to be quite
+independent of men, if they choose.’
+
+‘Do you think they ever would choose?’ he asked with a suppressed smile.
+
+‘I know this, that I would rather earn fourpence a day as a
+needle-woman, than depend upon any man!’ said Helena, hotly and
+indignantly. ‘And I could always do that.’
+
+‘In that case I congratulate you,’ he retorted ironically. ‘You are
+superior to all calamities and misfortunes. I wish I could feel myself
+equally secure.’
+
+‘You have not argued a single point,’ said Helena with passion. ‘I
+shall never be at the trouble to talk seriously to you again.’
+
+‘If you will only talk to me at all, I shall be delighted.’
+
+She had risen, and whirled herself away to the other end of the room,
+where she busied herself in setting two young ladies to screech duets,
+while she conversed (seriously or otherwise) with the clergyman.
+
+Sebastian turned with a half-smile to Miss Mereweather. He found an
+unaccountable pleasure in goading Helena into a passion. He had a dim,
+vague idea that if he tried, he could not only irritate her into fury,
+but soothe her back into calmness; but he was quite sure he never would
+try. Rages, he thought, were not in his line. He liked better, as a
+permanency, the perfect temper and calm self-possession of another
+character. No one would want to tease Adrienne.
+
+His mind half given to such thoughts, he conversed with Miss
+Mereweather, and his opinion of Helena’s discrimination was gradually
+raised. Miss Mereweather was not at all bitter about her defeat--if
+defeat it were. She was clever, sensible, accomplished. She owned
+that she did think a great deal about the advancement of women and
+their improvement, and she was an ardent advocate for giving them the
+franchise; but, she added, she could not go to the lengths Helena
+did, and very soon they left that subject and turned to others. Their
+conversation was perfectly amicable and agreeable, and Helena watched
+them from afar, with a darkling, somewhat resentful glance. Dear
+Laura’s one fault, she thought, was that she was too facile--that she
+compromised too easily.
+
+As the Mallorys drove home, Mrs. Mallory, completely deceived by
+the long conversation which had taken place, was in a disastrously,
+unsuspiciously amiable frame of mind, and was correspondingly
+dejected when Sebastian, summing up his description of the evening’s
+entertainment, said that Miss Spenceley had adopted the strictly
+feminine line of argument, ‘Agree with all I say, or I will quarrel
+with you!’
+
+‘As I did not agree with all she said, she quarrelled with me. _Violà
+tout!_ Did she talk women’s rights to you, Hugo?’
+
+‘To me--no!’
+
+‘Why _I_ should be selected as the victim, I can’t imagine,’ pursued
+Sebastian. ‘It is a pity she does it, for she could be nice, I am sure;
+and as it is, she makes herself simply a bore.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory was silent, mentally heaping opprobrium upon Helena’s
+crazes.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] An apology is herewith offered to the Manchester Central
+Committee, for thus putting into the mouth of a fictitious individual
+their excellent proposals for the schools which were of so much benefit
+in most of the distressed districts.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+THE STORM.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE FIRST OF THE STORM
+
+
+The year 1861 had closed in thick clouds and a great darkness, with
+the mutter of war in the far west, and with the threatening of famine
+at home. The year 1862 dawned, but with a dawn so dark as scarce to be
+distinguishable from profoundest midnight.
+
+    ‘Earth turned in her sleep for pain.’
+
+January, February, dragged slowly by, and times only grew worse. Few
+chimneys smoked, no workers tramped through the streets; faces were
+pinched, fires burnt low and meagre in the bitter weather; money was
+not forthcoming, clothes were few, pleasures were at an end. Men paused
+and waited, as it were, while the thunder growled and the first heavy
+drops of the storm began to fall, slowly and deliberately, and then
+faster and ever faster, till none could escape the universal drenching.
+
+One bitter morning, in the beginning of March, Myles and Mary Heywood
+turned out to their daily work. A furious, stinging wind, and a
+driving, scourging rain, saluted them as they entered the long sloping
+street leading to the factory. Myles pulled his collar up about his
+ears, and Mary folded her shawl more tightly round her, pulling it also
+farther over her face. They walked in silence, and did not look at
+each other. In truth, both their hearts were sad as sad could be. They
+were entirely changed from the well-to-do, untroubled, noble-looking
+brother and sister who, six or seven months ago, had walked home
+together in the heat of the August afternoon. What a hot, plentiful
+blaze of sunlight then! what cold, what wet, what inclemency of
+elements now! The contrast was pointed and searching, and went home to
+both.
+
+For months now, Myles’s heart had been growing bitterer and harder, and
+more rebellious; ever since that evening on which Sebastian Mallory
+had come and interrupted his talk with Adrienne. He had not seen her
+often since then, or rather had not visited her often since then; but
+on the few occasions when he had done so, she was changed. He had seen
+the change distinctly, had seen how her eye wavered and her colour
+changed under his piercing glance, for he could look at her steadily
+enough now, without bashfulness, and with a gaze of desperate, hopeless
+inquiry, which, he thought, must burn her secret from her heart. With
+each visit, each conversation with her, he had grown more hopeless,
+more despairingly certain that what little part or lot he had ever
+had in her life, had now vanished--was done with for ever more. Once,
+strolling aimlessly along, he had seen her come out of a shop, and
+had been going to speak to her, when Sebastian Mallory had come up,
+smiling, and lifting his hat, and fixing his eyes upon her face.
+
+The sight had been quite enough for Myles, who had plunged his hands
+into his pockets, and turned away with bitterness in his heart. Once or
+twice--he did not know how often--he had purposely and pointedly spoken
+to her of Sebastian, and had even asked her a question or two about her
+former acquaintance with him, and had watched cruelly and unflinchingly
+to see how she took it. And she had taken it just as he had expected,
+with downcast eyes, a heightened colour, and a sudden confused silence.
+He had been satisfied with his experiment; now he had given over going
+to Mr. Blisset’s house, saying to himself,
+
+‘If she cares for us, and is worth anything, she will come--she will
+come, if it is only to see Mary. By this I shall know her. If she comes
+I’ll keep quiet, and try to be satisfied with her--friendship. And if
+she does not come--I’ll hate her; no, I’ll think no more of her--I’ll
+forget her, and rid myself of this plague that has been with me ever
+since I knew her.’
+
+Adrienne did not come; days and weeks went by, and she came not,
+and Myles did not hate her; he did not cease to think of her. His
+‘plague’ tormented him more grievously than ever, and his life was
+miserable. His days were long; there was only half the usual work to
+fill them. The weary afternoons and evenings were unutterably long.
+He sat at home with his books open before him, or he took his way to
+the reading-room, and sat with more books open before him, and stared
+at them, and knew nothing about what was in them, while the chimes
+played ‘Life let us cherish!’ and Myles thought of the hundreds, now
+daily augmenting, dwelling in the houses beneath those chimes, to whom,
+in their destitution, the tune must have seemed a sort of melodious
+mockery. ‘Life let us cherish!’ while the men across the Atlantic
+were locked in the deadly grip of war, and the cotton manufacture in
+England was coming steadily, surely to a stand-still. A few more throbs
+of its mighty pulse--a few more desperate struggles to break through
+the paralysis that was creeping over it, and then the iron lungs, the
+great throbbing heart of it, its huge limbs, its vast arteries, would
+be quiescent--for who should venture to say how long? It was a deadly
+prospect.
+
+With these various causes of distress gnawing perseveringly at his
+heart, the young man might well be silent, as he set his teeth against
+the wind, and stooped his head to shield his face from the rain.
+
+While Mary, on her side, had cause enough and to spare of unhappiness.
+The poor girl’s heart was full to bursting of a dread fear that she had
+had for many weeks now, and concerning which she had not breathed a
+word to any one.
+
+‘That it should ha’ begun just now!’ she thought to herself; ‘just when
+times is hard, and work is short, and I can none get him all he should
+have.’
+
+She kept up a brave face; worked out her daily task at her looms, and
+her much harder, heart-breaking task at home; had caresses, and smiles,
+and tender words for Edmund, and a good face to turn to poor Myles, in
+his gloom, which oppressed her faithful heart like a chill hand laid
+upon it. She had her meed of consolation for Harry Ashworth, who said
+he was growing deafer and deafer. She had her own private astonishment
+at Adrienne’s long absence, but no thought that Adrienne meant any
+slight or ill-will to her or hers.
+
+Still, her secret cares had thinned her cheeks, and taught her lips
+to assume a sadder curve; had placed a line or two upon her frank,
+calm brow, and lent a quiet pensiveness to her dark-brown eyes. It
+had always been a good face--now it had the dignity and pathos of
+well-borne sorrow.
+
+They entered the great gas-lighted room. Myles went off to his part of
+the mill and Mary to hers. How hot and overpowering it felt, after the
+bitter rawness of the outside air! She cast aside her shawl, and set
+her looms going, and in a few minutes the old accustomed roar of the
+machinery had somewhat soothed her; and her monotonous, weary pondering
+over ways and means, and sharp, stinging fears as to some dread event
+hovering in the near future, had been somewhat dissipated by attention
+to her work and the chat of a fellow factory-worker.
+
+‘I reckon we’st soon have to shut up shop here, Mary,’ said the latter.
+‘I yeard Wilson say as how we couldn’t hold out mich longer.’
+
+‘Eh, what?’ said Mary, with a start--‘eh, I hope not, lass. What mun we
+do, if we’ve no work?’
+
+The other girl shrugged her shoulders.
+
+‘I’ve yeard say, too, as if we do have any work, it’ll be wi’ Surats,
+and I mun say I’d rayther have none at all. I conno’ work yon stuff.’
+
+‘I care nowt at all, whether it’s Surats, or what it is, so as I’ve
+summat to do, and summat to earn,’ said Mary.
+
+‘Thou may work twelve hours a day at Surats, and not earn above
+six shillin’ a week,’ said her companion cynically; and then the
+conversation ceased, and Mary was left to her reflections.
+
+At eight they went home to breakfast, and at half-past they were at
+their work again, and continued at it until half-past twelve, when
+Wilson put his head into the room, and called out,
+
+‘All the hands in this here room will please wait a few minutes in the
+big yard. I’ve got something to say to you.’
+
+The same announcement had been made in the different rooms, and the
+result was, all the hands were assembled and waiting, some curiously,
+some apathetically, for the communication that was coming.
+
+Wilson jumped upon a lorrie which stood in the yard, and in a clear,
+distinct voice, read out from a paper he held in his hand this
+announcement:--
+
+  ‘I hereby give notice that on and after Friday, March the --th,
+  this factory will be closed, owing to the present condition of the
+  cotton trade, in consequence of the American war. At the same time,
+  as I am anxious to keep my hands together, and to save them as much
+  as possible from distress, I undertake, for the present at least,
+  and until other circumstances should make a change desirable, to
+  furnish them with the means of subsistence, and such of them as are
+  my tenants will not be pressed for rent until the times improve. Each
+  head of a family is requested to attend in the warehouse of this
+  mill on the afternoon of Monday next, at three o’clock, when the
+  conditions of relief will be made known, and the names and addresses
+  of all in receipt thereof taken down. I request you earnestly, and
+  with perfect confidence, to try, all of you, during this present
+  trouble, to act together, and assist me in the preservation of order
+  and the relief of distress.
+
+    ‘SEBASTIAN MALLORY.’
+
+There was a short silence; then murmurs; then, from some lips, an
+attempt at a cheer. Some girls and women were wiping their eyes with
+their aprons, and one or two men waved their hats: exclamations
+and murmurs arose all around. ‘Eh, but that’s reet-down kind, that
+is!’ ‘Th’ chap is a good sort!’ ‘Well, we needna fear to clem just
+yet!’ and so on. The gratitude was very real, if expressed with true
+Lancashire reticence and absence of effusion. But almost greater than
+the gratitude was the gloom--the sense of shame and degradation--the
+feeling that this was a draught too bitter for any amount of sugaring
+to sweeten, and that they had done nothing to deserve to have to
+swallow it. Sebastian had done wisely in committing to Wilson the
+delivery of the message. Wilson seemed to the work-people almost as
+one of themselves; he, too, must suffer somewhat from this calamity.
+The humiliation would have been too intense had Sebastian read the
+announcement himself. He, like hundreds of other masters, was making
+money--netting large profits at this stage of the crisis. His piled-up
+warehouses would be emptied at profitable prices of the accumulated
+results of last year’s over-production, while the impossibility of
+getting at the stores of cotton which were undoubtedly reposing in
+large quantities in Manchester and Liverpool warehouses, relieved
+him from the immediate expense of working, and of paying wages.
+That part of the ‘panic,’ as it was and is always called by the
+work-people, was one of unmitigated severity for the poor man--for the
+worker--capital added hugely to her stores. Yet every employer of any
+foresight was troubled to know what was to become of his work-people
+during the great distress--such skilful, practised, deft-handed,
+soft-fingered work-people as no other corner of the world could supply
+to him--work-people who, if they once got scattered, or emigrated, or
+separated from their labour, could not be replaced--the choicest of
+craftsmen and craftswomen. This was a hard subject during all the years
+of the cotton famine--how keep the operatives together, provide for
+them, prevent them from becoming demoralised by the enforced idleness,
+combined with the living on money not earned by themselves? It was a
+problem which, all must confess, was nobly solved.
+
+At this precise time, though the distress was daily augmenting in an
+appalling manner, though each week saw a greater number of factories
+closed entirely, yet the organised system of relief--that gigantic
+machinery whose equal the world had never before seen--was not yet in
+existence.
+
+Sebastian, after long consultations with Mr. Sutcliffe, had come to the
+conclusion, for the present at least, to support his own work-people,
+and the result of that resolution was the paper just now read out by
+Wilson.
+
+Slowly the hands dispersed. Mary Heywood, seeing her brother near the
+big gate, joined him there, and glanced rather doubtfully up into his
+face. Doubt rapidly changed to dismay: he was white as death; his lips
+tight-set; his great dark eyes absolutely scintillating with passion.
+The words she had been about to speak to him died upon her lips.
+
+‘Thou go home, lass! I’ve a little business to do before I come after
+thee, but I’ll not be long,’ said he, so quietly and calmly that her
+heart beat a little less rapidly, and without a word she obeyed,
+leaving him there in the yard, he conscious only of one purpose, and of
+a burning restlessness until that purpose should be accomplished.
+
+He waited by the gates, looking at no one, speaking to no one, until he
+saw that all the hands had filed out, and that Wilson was left alone in
+the office, locking things up. A few swift, striding steps brought him
+inside the little room. Wilson looked up.
+
+‘Hey, Myles! Is that you? Do you want something?’
+
+‘Yes. I just want to tell you to take my name--and my sister’s too--off
+the books. We shall not work here any more.’
+
+‘Oh! but you will. This here is only a temporary stoppage, you know.
+Times must mend, though they look bad enough now, and Mallory’s won’t
+go to smash so easily.’
+
+‘I shall never work here again, I tell you, nor Mary either. Take our
+names off the books, if you please; and look you, Wilson, if anybody
+comes round to my house offering me relief in’--a spasm twitched his
+pain-set lips--‘the master’s name, I’ll kick him out--so you’re warned.’
+
+‘My certy, Myles! You’re mad to talk i’ that way. You’ve ne’er thought
+about it. How are you to live without relief? And when such a handsome
+arrangement has been made----’
+
+‘That’s nothing to the point. Please to do as I ask, and remember, I’ll
+keep my word.’
+
+He turned on his heel and left the yard. Wilson looked after him,
+watching the proud, elastic figure, haunted by the remembrance of the
+deadly paleness of the face, and the sombre, despairing gloom of the
+eyes.
+
+Wilson acted as became a wary man, who did not choose to commit
+himself--shook his head, and murmured,
+
+‘Ay, ay, my good chap, but you’ll have to eat humble-pie sooner or
+later--and why not sooner?’
+
+Evidently, the characters of Myles and his easy-going old friend were
+fundamentally unlike.
+
+Meantime Myles, breathing rather more freely, and with a faint return
+of colour to his cheek, took his way home, feeling that now, if he met
+Sebastian Mallory, he could look him in the face as defiantly as he
+chose. There was something almost exquisite in the sense that, though
+only a few pounds stood between him and destitution, yet he was no
+longer in any way dependent upon Mallory.
+
+Arrived at home, he found the kitchen empty; the dinner half ready
+(not such an abundant dinner, even now, as it once had been), the
+table spread. He sat down moodily, and waited; and presently Mary came
+down looking very sad indeed. She had not been crying, but there was
+something in her eyes speaking of a grief and fear beyond tears.
+
+‘Well, my lass, where’s Edmund?’
+
+‘Edmund’s in bed, Myles.’
+
+‘In bed!’ he echoed, looking up in some surprise; ‘why, what ails him?’
+
+‘The same thing as has been ailin’ him this six-week. I dunnot know
+what it may be. Th’ doctor calls it low fever.’
+
+‘The doctor!’ he echoed again, more astonished still. ‘What’s the
+meaning of this, Molly?’
+
+‘Eh, Myles, if thou’d none been so wrapped up in summat all this time,
+thou might ha’ seen as the lad were fair pinin’ away.’
+
+She could hardly finish her words, but sat down upon the rocking-chair,
+and covered her face with her hands for a moment, while he looked at
+her with a haggard gaze. A hundred trifles came into his mind now,
+crowding quickly forward--Mary’s pre-occupation--Edmund’s passive
+silence and flushed face--and he had never seen it. Brute that he was!
+
+‘And to-day he’s that weak, he can’t sit up no longer,’ continued Mary,
+raising her face from her hands and looking sadly before her; ‘and I’m
+sore fleyed he’ll ne’er be strong again, that I am.’
+
+Then she rose, and began to finish the few preparations for dinner,
+though, sooth to say, no two people ever made ready for a meal with
+less appetite. She began to talk, as she thought cheerfully.
+
+‘When I heard Wilson read out as factory would stop o’ Friday, my heart
+fair sank within me, when I thowt o’ yon lad, and us wi’out a penny
+to earn, but, eh! I could ha’ cried wi’ joy afore he’d done. Yon Mr.
+Mallory mun be a reet good-hearted chap, and our Edmund winnot clem
+now.’
+
+‘Mary!’ he exclaimed, starting up, and speaking in so strange a voice
+that she looked at him involuntarily, and saw again the look--the
+pale face, the scintillating eyes--which had so terrified her an hour
+before, at the mill-gate. He stepped across the room to her, and
+grasped her arm. ‘Never thou name such a thing again. I told Wilson to
+take my name, and thy name, off the books, and to send anybody round
+here, poking into my affairs, if he dared. I’d die like a dog before
+I’d take bit or sup from _him_, or let any of those that belonged to me
+do it.’
+
+‘Why, whatever----’ she began, but he went on, forcibly moderating his
+voice,
+
+‘Molly, I never could have thought to hear such a word from thee. Hast
+thought what it means? It means that we--seven hundred and more of
+us--shall go like beggars every day, and take that man’s money, and eat
+his bread, and do nothing for it. Thou’rt mazed with thy trouble,’ he
+added soothingly, ‘or thou’d never have dreamt of it.’
+
+‘But how mun we live?’ she asked, seeing only that they were Mr.
+Mallory’s work-people, and that he prized their services, and like a
+generous master desired to help them until better times came round
+again. ‘Thou wert always so set against th’ master, lad; but when we’re
+like to starve, what mun we do?’
+
+Neither Mary nor Myles, it may have been observed, made any mention
+of their mother, or spoke as if she could relieve them. Later in the
+distress Mary went to her mother, and represented their situation. Mrs.
+Hoyle replied sententiously that her money was sunk in her husband’s
+business, and she had no longer any control over it, which was indeed
+true: she had put it entirely in his power immediately after marrying
+him, and it remained there, for towards the close of 1863 Mrs. Hoyle,
+who had believed that she was doing well for herself in her marriage,
+died of a rapid, sudden illness, and her money passed away from her
+children, and into her husband’s hands, for ever.
+
+‘We’re not like to starve yet,’ replied Myles, to his sister’s last
+remark. ‘I’ve got over ten pounds put by--it ought to have been more,
+but I wasn’t as careful as I should have been; and you’ve something of
+your own, I know. It’s true, we’d meant to keep it, but in these times
+we’ll most of us have to use up what we put by.’
+
+‘Eh, lad!’ answered Mary, with sorrowful embarrassment, ‘mine were such
+a bit! And I’ve drawn it all out, for to buy yon lad his bits of things
+as he must have. Doctor ordered them, and I saw as thou were moithered
+wi’ summat, so I didn’t ax thee, but just used up my own bit o’ brass.
+It’s all gone--all but a few shillin’s.’
+
+He dropped her arm, and turned aside. This then was the prospect--a
+sick brother to cherish, himself and his sister to support; the rent
+to pay; and a little over ten pounds between them and destitution.
+Undaunted though his spirit was, it was fain to stand appalled before
+these facts, until at last, turning round, he said,
+
+‘I’ll think about what can be done, Mary. Ten pounds will last a good
+while, and thou’rt so clever at managing, and all that.’
+
+Mary was silent. She knew how quickly ten pounds would vanish, where
+there was an invalid to be cared for; and the regular weekly sum which
+Myles had haughtily refused, seemed, now that it was out of her reach,
+to assume the proportions of absolute wealth.
+
+‘Myles,’ she said, ‘I know thou mun have some reason for what thou’rt
+doing, but _I’ve_ no grudge against the master. I don’t see why I
+shouldn’t take the relief and help Ned a bit ... thou needna know nowt
+about it.’
+
+‘Mary!’ He paused, choked back some passionate emotion, and looked at
+her. There rushed over his mind, as by an inspiration, the conviction
+that what he had said, what he had proposed to do, was a mean,
+tyrannical way of making others suffer for his own private grudge.
+Mary’s mind was to be kept on the rack as to ways and means; Edmund’s
+comforts were to be stinted, or stopped, because he, Myles, hated
+Sebastian Mallory, and, knowing his sister would obey him, despotically
+said, ‘You will take no help from him.’
+
+Certainly, to know that Mary and Edmund were subsisting upon Mr.
+Mallory’s bounty, while he was idle, would be anguish almost as keen
+as to sit down and subsist upon that bounty himself; but anguish, it
+seemed, prevailed a good deal in the world. It had to be borne by some
+people--what right had he to shift his portion upon the shoulders
+of a loving woman and a cripple boy? He cried shame upon himself.
+His cheek flushed, and he hesitated no longer. He had begun to speak
+passionately; he finished calmly.
+
+‘I had not thought of that. You are right, Molly. You’d better do so.
+It will be bad for me to bear’ (how bad, his pale face and drawn lips
+foretold), ‘but it’s best so. This is a great trouble that has come
+upon us, and we must be as great as we can to meet it, I suppose. I
+shall look out and see if I can find anything to do--perhaps away from
+here. I’m sure it’s the best thing I could do. It’s a great mistake my
+being here at all.’
+
+This speech, with the misery and bitterness underlying its acquiescence
+in her wish, seemed to freeze Mary’s heart within her. She could not
+understand it, yet it seemed to forebode evil and misery and woe to
+her. She looked at Myles, in whose whole attitude was something alien
+and strange. For a moment a fearful weight and foreboding oppressed
+her; then, breaking suddenly loose from it, she ran up to him with a
+cry of love, flung her arms around his neck, and kissed him eagerly.
+
+‘Eh, Myles, hush, hush! Thou munnot talk like that. I’d clem sooner nor
+take a penny from any one thou didn’t like. It were only that I were
+quite disheartened, like, wi’ wondering what I were to do in these hard
+times, now yon lad is so poorly. But for thee to go away and leave
+us--the best brother’--a hug--‘ay, the vary best, ever a lass had--my
+certy, don’t say nowt about it again.’
+
+She was half laughing, half crying. As for Myles, the clasp of her
+warm arms about his neck seemed to unstiffen it; the pressure of her
+face upon his breast appeared to loosen a load of pent-up feeling. He
+put his arm round her waist, and kissed her soft brown hair again and
+again, and once more the feeling rushed over him that this was true
+hearty love, and that he was a fool to distress himself for that other
+love, which would never be his.
+
+‘Don’t take on so, there’s a dear lass. Do just as you like about the
+relief. Say nothing to me about it, and I shall know nothing about
+it. There’s a reason why I can take neither bit nor sup from young
+Mallory--a reason I can’t tell you, and that will never be removed. A
+crumb of his bread would choke me.’
+
+‘Why, has he done thee any wrong?’
+
+‘None at all, and means me no wrong; it’s what they call circumstances,
+Molly. They come rather hard upon a fellow sometimes, that’s all. Come!
+the dinner must be well-nigh cold. Let’s have it, and then I’ll go up
+and sit wi’ poor Ned a bit.’
+
+It was a dark prospect which opened before them; yet, after this
+conversation, they both felt lighter of heart, and better prepared to
+meet it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+‘RATHE SCHLAGEN.’
+
+
+Sebastian Mallory, Mr. Sutcliffe, and Wilson, holding a council of
+war together, late in the afternoon of that eventful day, discussed
+the means to be taken for the preservation of order, and the best
+distribution of relief.
+
+Sebastian, in the course of the debate, asked how many exactly there
+were to be relieved.
+
+Wilson ran his eye over some long lists of names and addresses.
+
+‘The number of hands is seven hundred and thirty, sir, all in all; but
+it’s with the heads of families we shall have to deal. About a dozen
+won’t require relief, and four have taken their names off the books
+altogether.’
+
+‘Which are they?’ asked Sebastian.
+
+‘Frank Mitchell, weaver; he’s got a brother in Canada, who offered to
+pay his passage out if he’ll go and help him on his farm; so, as soon
+as he heard work was stopped, he decided to go. That’s one. Myles and
+Mary Heywood----’
+
+‘What! Any reasons given for their leaving?’ asked Sebastian, quickly.
+
+‘Well, sir, relief would be a hard nut for Myles Heywood to crack, at
+the best of times. He’s uncommon proud, and he came up to me, after I’d
+read your notice, and told me very stiff indeed to take his name and
+his sister’s off the books. I did hexpostulate with him, but he were
+quite determined.’
+
+‘Did he give any reasons?’
+
+‘No, sir. He doesn’t generally give his reasons for what he does,
+leastways not to me; but I’m not his master.’
+
+‘Is he one of my tenants?’
+
+‘No, sir. He lives on the Townfield, at Number 16.’
+
+‘Oh, very well!’ said Sebastian, and the business went on for some time
+uninterruptedly.
+
+In the evening Sebastian, calling at Stonegate, and asking if Miss
+Blisset could see him, was admitted, and taken to the drawing-room,
+where he found Adrienne alone, seated at her piano. She rose, coming
+forward to greet him, and he saw that her face was pale, and her eyes
+sad and heavy.
+
+‘I hope you are in a good-natured and self-sacrificing mood,’ said he,
+‘for I am come to ask a very great favour.’
+
+‘I shall be delighted if I can help you in any way.’
+
+‘Did you know we cease to work at all after Friday?’
+
+‘Cease to work at all! What will become--oh, I am very sorry--what will
+the work-people do?’
+
+‘I thought,’ began Sebastian, and bit his lips.
+
+He was afraid of appearing to parade his intentions before her, and
+altered the form of his announcement.
+
+‘I have consulted with Sutcliffe, my manager, you know, and we have
+come to the conclusion that it will be the best and wisest plan for me
+to relieve my work-people myself, for the present at any rate, and----’
+
+‘All of them! To keep them, do you mean?’ asked Adrienne, quickly.
+
+‘It is really the best, and it will be the cheapest way in the end,’
+said he, half apologetically; ‘and what I wished to ask you was----’
+
+‘It is right--it is a generous thing to do. I am glad you are going to
+do it,’ she interrupted him, her eyes beaming, and suppressed warmth in
+her tone.
+
+And she looked at him more fully and steadily than she had done for
+many weeks past. Yet there was something not perfectly pleased in her
+expression.
+
+Sebastian, a young man who was not usually given to losing his
+self-possession or presence of mind, coloured, half with embarrassment,
+half with pleasure.
+
+‘I am glad you approve,’ was all he could find to say.
+
+‘I do. It will be such an excellent example.’
+
+‘An example--ah, yes! But now to ask my favour. Sutcliffe thinks it
+will not do to let them be idle all the time, so we have decided to
+open some schools--one for the men and boys, and another for the women
+and girls. Both of them will require some one with brains and a head on
+their shoulders to look after them. I want to know if you will take the
+management of the women’s school?’
+
+‘But Mrs. Mallory--will she not wish to----’
+
+‘No. She will have nothing to do with it beyond giving me a
+subscription. I believe she does not altogether approve of the course
+I have taken, and has decided to hold herself aloof. You can do it, if
+you will, and if Mr. Blisset will spare you. I know you are not afraid
+of yourself, and that is why I asked you.’
+
+‘If my uncle can spare me, I will undertake it,’ said Adrienne,
+speaking as she now usually did speak to him--rather briefly and drily.
+
+Sebastian could wring no sign from her--nothing but a rapid, guarded
+glance, and a brief, unemotional speech. It was unsatisfactory, he
+felt. He was not making way. She tormented his thoughts sometimes in
+a way that was harassing; he carried in his mind almost incessantly
+the calm, sweet face, pale and clear; the rapid glance which was,
+he felt, not so much destitute of expression as full of something
+veiled--something which she would not allow to beam fully out upon him.
+
+‘It will not be play,’ he proceeded, after a silent pause, during which
+his eyes interrogated hers, which made no answer. ‘It will be downright
+hard, arduous work. If it should prove to be too much for you....’
+
+‘It will not be too much for me,’ she said quickly, and then her eyes
+did suddenly fill with some expression--what he could not tell. ‘I
+want some work like that--work which will be hard and absorbing,’ said
+Adrienne, clasping her hands with an involuntary movement. ‘What must I
+do? Have you got a room for the school, and some teachers?’
+
+‘I think of dividing part of my warehouse, and filling it with
+benches. It can soon be done. As for teachers, I thought some of the
+better-educated amongst the young women themselves, or I could find a
+mistress, and--do you know Miss Spenceley?’
+
+‘No, I do not,’ said Adrienne, steadily, her colour rising.
+
+‘She is a young lady who professes to need active work and to love it,
+and I really think, if she had the opportunity, she would throw herself
+heart and soul into such a scheme. But perhaps you would rather not
+make her acquaintance?’
+
+Adrienne paused again. Was she to extend the scorn and contempt she
+felt for Frederick Spenceley to his whole connections, and to make
+difficulties and quibbles about her co-workers in a scheme in which it
+was essential chiefly to have workers as soon as possible?
+
+‘No,’ said she; ‘if you think Miss Spenceley would help, I shall be
+very happy to work with her.’
+
+‘Of course you will be the head,’ said Sebastian. ‘I will take care
+that is understood, and then there will be no difficulty.’
+
+‘If you will send me a list of names and addresses,’ said Adrienne, ‘I
+will go myself and see after them. I dare say Mary Heywood could tell
+me something about a good many of them.’
+
+‘That reminds me that Myles Heywood, for some reason or other, has seen
+fit to decline all assistance. He has ordered his own name and his
+sister’s to be taken off my books, and withdraws in dignified silence.’
+
+He looked intently at Adrienne as he spoke. She was silent, crimsoned
+for a moment as she met his glance; then she started from her chair and
+walked to the fireplace, stooped over the fire-irons, and began to mend
+the fire.
+
+‘Allow me!’ said Sebastian, politely, coming to her assistance in
+time to see her disturbed face. ‘Is it not foolish of him?’ he added,
+remorselessly. ‘He is too young to have been able to save anything
+almost, and there is not the least prospect of work at present.’
+
+‘He was quite right,’ said Adrienne, clearly, as she fixed her eyes
+upon Sebastian.
+
+‘Quite right?’ he echoed, holding the poker suspended in his hand, and
+looking at her in his turn.
+
+‘Perfectly right. I am thankful to hear it. If he had stooped tamely
+to accept charity from you--I mean from any one--as soon as it was
+offered, I--I would never have forgiven him.’
+
+Sebastian gently replaced the poker in the fender.
+
+‘Perhaps he knew that,’ he remarked in his softest tone.
+
+‘He could not,’ was Adrienne’s quick retort. ‘I have not spoken to him
+for weeks. And if I had--if he had known it....’
+
+‘He might know it perfectly well, all the same,’ insisted Sebastian.
+‘Have you thought seriously about it, Miss Blisset? I know Heywood is a
+friend of yours....’
+
+‘Yes, he is--a great friend of mine,’ she answered firmly, and not one
+sign was lost upon Sebastian’s cool, observant eyes; the head a little
+thrown back, eyes bright, the pale cheek flushed, as if she braced
+herself to meet some peril. He saw and noted it all.
+
+‘You should be cautious how you influence him,’ said he.
+
+‘I do not influence him. He is far too strong and decided to be
+influenced by--by a girl like me.’
+
+Sebastian smiled politely but derisively.
+
+‘Pardon me, but I don’t think you are quite right there. I am convinced
+you do influence him, and if so, don’t you think it is unkind to
+prejudice him against his real interests?’
+
+‘His real interest is not to take charity. Mr. Mallory, the bare idea
+of Myles Heywood coming up to receive charity is dreadful. It makes me
+miserable to think of it--only I can’t imagine his doing such a thing.
+He never will. Poor fellow! I am sorry for him!’
+
+‘Sooner or later it will come to that--it must,’ said Sebastian. ‘And
+I--you speak as if I had tried to thrust alms upon him ostentatiously,
+like a rich man relieving a beggar, and then appealing to every one
+to notice his generosity. Can you suppose I intended anything so
+revolting?’
+
+The usually placid and unruffled Sebastian spoke in a tone of deep
+vexation and chagrin.
+
+‘No, of course I did not suppose any such thing,’ replied Adrienne,
+her face still flushed. ‘I did not do you so much injustice. But I’m
+glad he refused--so glad. I hope he will find something else. I even
+hope that this present trouble may turn out to be a means of improving
+his position, for I think he may turn his thoughts to some higher
+employment than mere drudgery in a factory--even though it is your
+factory,’ she added, with a slight smile.
+
+‘He is certainly fit for a higher post. You would be glad to know him
+in such a situation, would you not?’
+
+‘Indeed I should.’
+
+‘Even though it took him away from his friends and native town?’ went
+on Sebastian, somewhat ironically.
+
+‘Y--yes. Even in that case.’
+
+‘Well--who knows! It may turn out to be as you say.’
+
+The conversation had been a far from satisfactory one to Sebastian.
+He had had no idea, a month ago, that Myles Heywood’s image would
+take such an important place in his concerns. He turned the subject,
+and made arrangements with Adrienne about the school; but it seemed
+to him that since their passage of arms--for it had been a passage
+of arms--her eyes had brightened, and her voice had been more full
+and decided. He left her at last, firmly convinced that Myles was his
+formidable rival, and the conviction gave him a strange sensation, such
+as he had never known before. All his life he had been accustomed to
+quietly make up his mind, and then as quietly carry out his decision.
+Now, to his own astonishment, he found himself strangely wavering
+between certainty and uncertainty; and as he walked from Mr. Blisset’s
+house to his own, he pondered over the history of his own love for
+Adrienne, and, almost for the first time, began to wonder what would be
+the end of that history.
+
+It was three years now since he had first met her. There had been a
+chamber concert, in Coblenz, of classical music. Adrian Blisset had
+played violin and his daughter piano, and Sebastian had been one of
+the not very numerous audience; for the taste of the Coblenzers for
+music was not of the severe sort. Perhaps the small audience was the
+more appreciative--at least Sebastian Mallory sat a long two hours and
+a half, without a thought of being weary or any wish to go. When the
+music was over he had penetrated to the little room whither Adrian and
+his daughter had retired; and knocked, and been bidden _herein_.
+
+Apologising for the intrusion, he had introduced himself, and said
+he imagined that certain pieces that had been played that evening,
+and which stood on the programme without any composer’s name, were
+the production of the musician himself. He was right, and as these
+compositions had appeared to him to possess a certain wild, weird
+beauty of their own, there had ensued a long conversation upon the
+subject, during which Sebastian’s discrimination and real, earnest love
+for the art he professed had won over even Mr. Blisset’s reserved and
+moody disposition.
+
+Thus the acquaintance began. The musician had been kinder and more open
+than he usually was, not only to strangers, but to any one at all.
+Sebastian had been allowed to visit him and his daughter. Adrienne had
+played for him; she had talked with him, and he had found her charming.
+
+From Coblenz they had gone to Wetzlar, in the vain and illusory hope
+that there they might find an audience, and receive remuneration. The
+projected concert never took place, but certain other things did.
+They spent altogether a week in the sleepy old town. They floated in
+a little boat up the river, between the rows of poplars and the level
+meads; they sat under the shadow of the grim old _Heidenthurm_ of the
+cathedral, and looked over all the landscape below. Adrienne sat upon
+the wall above Goethe’s _Brunnen_, and looked at the girls coming to
+fill their pitchers, and said to Sebastian, who was standing beside
+her, and looking earnestly down at her,
+
+‘I wonder if it was to such a well that Hermann came and helped
+Dorothea? I could almost fancy so. Could not you?’
+
+‘I think I could,’ Sebastian had answered, looking, not at the well,
+but at her.
+
+With each day that he saw her, his admiration for her grew greater. She
+was a fair jewel in a poor setting. Her gentleness, her dignity under
+trouble and sorrow, her
+
+    ‘Festen Muth in schweren Leiden,’
+
+impressed him, delighted him. Her flashes of quaint humour, which
+showed him how gay the spirit she owned might be, if only the sun would
+shine a little upon its dwelling-place; her grace, her intellect,
+attracted him irresistibly; and he loved, too, the quiet independence
+with which she met him; the calm dignity with which she ignored his
+wealth, his position, his advantages, and treated him as her equal--no
+more, no less.
+
+Amongst the list of events which made, as it were, a gaily coloured,
+kaleidoscopic pattern in his memory, that week at Wetzlar stood out
+from the rest, like a little patch of pure gold, like the lucent
+background on which stands out, pure and clear, some mediæval Madonna.
+
+One morning, when he went to call upon them, he found Adrienne in sore
+distress, which she tried in vain to conceal. She was alone, and he
+had succeeded at last in getting her to confess what troubled her. A
+creditor of her father’s pressed hard for a certain sum of money, due
+long ago. That fact was in itself painful enough, but it alone would
+not have been sufficient to break down Adrienne’s calm and steadfast
+courage. It was her father’s manner of accepting, or not accepting, his
+position, which alarmed and made her wretched. More than once he had
+uttered dark and oracular hints as to the wisdom of leaving a world
+which was full of nothing but misery and contradictions. At that time
+he was in his room, and had refused to see her or speak to her. She
+did not know what would happen, what he might or might not do; and
+Sebastian saw the young girl’s courage fail for the first time, for the
+first time saw her fold her hands, and, with tear-stained eyes, ask
+piteously,
+
+‘What am I to do?’
+
+‘Leave it to me, Miss Blisset. Of course something must be done, and I
+will do it. For your sake I will do it gladly,’ he had said, taking her
+hands, looking into her troubled eyes with a glance that made them more
+troubled still, and going straight to her father’s room.
+
+The ‘something to be done’ naturally resolved itself into pecuniary
+assistance. The matter was perfectly simple. Notes for three hundred
+thalers settled it. Sebastian insisted upon becoming Mr. Blisset’s
+banker, and Mr. Blisset said that he could not refuse the possibility
+of being under obligations to a gentleman, who would understand
+the feelings of another gentleman, rather than to a coarse-minded
+tradesman, who could not by any possibility understand such fine
+sensibilities. The money was a loan. They both called it a loan; and
+Sebastian came out and told Adrienne that it was all right.
+
+She had burst into tears; then recovering, had said,
+
+‘There is nothing that I would not do for you.’
+
+To which he had replied,
+
+‘Then come and have a row on the river.’
+
+Upon which they had straightway had a very delightful row on the river,
+the Lahn; and delicacy alone had prevented Sebastian from then and
+there saying to Adrienne that he loved her, and asking her to be his
+wife. He deferred the question--he hoped, not for long--only until he
+had spoken to her father; and that he decided he would do the following
+day.
+
+In pursuance of this resolution, he had called during the forenoon at
+the musician’s lodgings, and had asked to see him.
+
+‘_Ja!_’ the hostess told him, with a shrug of the shoulders, ‘the
+_Herrschaften_ had left by the first train that morning. Last night the
+gentleman had spoken very sternly to the Fräulein; she had heard him.
+The Fräulein had expostulated, and cried, and said, “How unthankful
+it will seem!” To which her _Herr Papa_ had replied that he could not
+endure such a burden; he must leave the place. After which he had
+desired his _Fräulein Tochter_ to pack up, and they were gone.’
+
+‘Where?’ asked Sebastian.
+
+‘_Na!_ How should I know, _mein Herr_? Apparently to Frankfort, since
+the first train in the morning goes direct there; but from Frankfort,
+I have heard, one may go out anywhere over the whole world, even to
+Africa, if one chooses. What do I know?’
+
+Sebastian had retired, quite convinced that it was not Adrienne but
+the morbid pride and vanity of her father, which had caused this
+_contretemps_. That pride could not endure to live in the presence of
+the man who had placed him under an obligation. He had gone to hide
+himself, and Sebastian tried in vain to find any further trace of
+Adrian Blisset and his daughter.
+
+He had so much the less forgotten her. The feelings of warm admiration,
+chivalrous respect, and tender affection which he had hitherto felt
+for her, suddenly leaped up in a quicker flame--he loved her. From
+feeling convinced that to have her as his wife would be a good and a
+happy thing for him, he had become determined that one day she should
+be his wife; she and no other. From that time she had remained for him
+as a sort of standard, an ideal of womanhood; gentle-spirited, true,
+and pure, wise and prudent, sweet and modest. He had judged all other
+women by this standard, and had never felt anything more than a certain
+admiration for any woman since his parting from Adrienne.
+
+Then had ensued his return home, his not very satisfactory relations
+with his mother, the distress amongst his people, the necessity for
+prompt action and hard work, his introduction to Helena Spenceley, his
+sudden, unexpected meeting with Adrienne, and the eager conviction that
+now she soon must, should be his. Beside Helena’s brilliant beauty, the
+delicate grace of Adrienne was as the beauty of a white violet compared
+with a crimson rose. Helena was dazzlingly beautiful, but she was the
+exact opposite of all which he had been for three years praising and
+exalting to himself as best and sweetest and most desirable in woman.
+He thought a good deal of Helena. She was younger than Adrienne,
+wilder, less educated, prejudiced, hot-headed, violent, and bewitching.
+
+‘Yes, she must be bewitching,’ argued Sebastian, with exquisite
+_naïveté_, within himself. ‘Look at Hugo. The lad was enraptured with
+her.’ That was to be expected. Hugo was young too; he had not loved
+Adrienne Blisset for three years. Sebastian had the steady purpose
+and intention of asking Adrienne to marry him, to honour him and
+make him happy by becoming his wife. When? As soon as he could find
+the opportunity, he said to himself. But it never did come. He could
+not understand how it was, that, though he saw Adrienne repeatedly
+and alone, though she was amiable, cordial, pleasant, yet he could
+never get that question asked. Adrienne’s behaviour puzzled him. He
+could have sworn that once she loved him. When he was with her, Myles
+Heywood’s handsome olive-hued face, with its scornful lips and defiant
+eyes, seemed always to be hovering there between her and him. And yet,
+on the one occasion on which he had seen them together, Myles had
+looked and behaved as if he were as far as possible from being anything
+like a favoured lover, thought Sebastian, with an odd sensation of
+jealousy and pain. No; it was only opportunity for which he waited,
+an opportunity which seemed as if it would never come. Certainly it
+had not been there that evening. He walked home lost in profound
+speculations, thinking of Adrienne’s lifted head and flashing eyes, and
+of how Myles Heywood had been ‘very stiff indeed’ with poor old Wilson
+that morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+    ‘Kannst du des Herzens Flammentrieb nicht dämpfen,
+    So fordre, Tugend, dieses Opfer nicht.’
+
+
+Towards eight o’clock on the following evening, Mary Heywood and Edmund
+were the only occupants of the kitchen. The lad was somewhat better and
+less feverish, and Myles had carried him downstairs and laid him upon
+his old resting-place, the chintz-covered sofa under the window.
+
+There he lay, with a shawl thrown across him; his thin face wasted to
+sharpness--a waxen pallor on his cheeks and lips; dark rings under his
+great bright eyes. His almost transparent hands were stretched out upon
+the couch before him, and his unread book lay open across his knees.
+Mary had made things as cheerful as she could, so as not to let Edmund
+know how bitterly they were pinched in order to give him the things he
+needed. True, the fire was smaller than their kitchen fires were wont
+to be; and behind the cupboard-doors there was not very much to bring
+forth for supper; but the place was exquisitely clean and tidy, and so
+was the girl herself, in her faded gown, and with her pale, pathetic
+face.
+
+‘Mary,’ said Edmund, breaking a silence, ‘does Miss Blisset never come
+here now?’
+
+‘Well, it’s a good while, like, since hoo were here; likely hoo’s had
+summat to do as has kept her away,’ said Mary, as confidently as she
+could.
+
+‘I canno’ think why hoo ne’er comes. I could like to see her ...
+where’s Myles to-neet?’
+
+‘Gone to the reading-room, he said. I’m some and glad he does go there.
+Some o’ these chaps is hanging about the livelong day, fair as if they
+didn’t know what to do with theirsels. I reckon some on ’em will do
+summat as they shouldn’t before long.’
+
+‘Has Harry Ashworth been lately?’ pursued Edmund, his thoughts turning
+towards his friends, now that he felt himself somewhat more free from
+pain and weariness.
+
+‘Ay--he’s been more than once,’ replied Mary, and her cheeks flushed,
+and she gave a great jump, as a knock resounded at that very moment
+through the house. The coincidence was too remarkable.
+
+In a moment, however, she realised that the knock was at the front,
+not the back, door, therefore it could not be Harry Ashworth who
+knocked; and secondly, it was not at all like his knock when he did
+come. Wondering who the visitor could be, and casting a critical glance
+around, to see if the kitchen were as neat as it should be, she stepped
+out through the passage, and went through the ceremony of unlocking and
+opening the door.
+
+Outside it was dark. Coming from the light of the kitchen she could not
+see who stood there, but a voice which she had already heard once, and
+thought pleasant, inquired,
+
+‘Does Myles Heywood live here?’
+
+‘Ay, he does; but he’s out.’
+
+‘Oh, is he? I’m sorry. I felt sure he would be in in the evening.’
+
+The visitor still lingered on the doorstep, and inquired again,
+
+‘Do you know how long he will be?’
+
+Mary’s sense of hospitality was stronger than even her dread of Myles’s
+displeasure.
+
+‘Won’t you step in a minute, and see if he comes? It’s Mr. Mallory,
+isn’t it?’
+
+‘Yes. I did want to see him very particularly.’
+
+‘’Appen, if you were to sit you down a bit, he might coom back soon,’
+suggested Mary, fervently trusting that he would do nothing of the
+kind; and that Mr. Mallory would get tired of waiting, as she knew
+Myles himself did.
+
+With a word of thanks Mr. Mallory accepted the invitation, and
+entered the house. A proper attention to established etiquette would
+have led Mary to usher him into the highly coloured parlour, but
+the recollection that there was no fire there, and that some of the
+furniture was wanting, overcame conventional rules, and he was taken
+forward into the kitchen.
+
+‘I hope I am not intruding,’ he began, so courteously that all Mary’s
+innate politeness was roused to action, and his welcome was more
+effusive than it might otherwise have been.
+
+‘Eh, dear no! Please take a seat!’ said Mary, pulling up her own
+rocking-chair. ‘Me and Edmund was quite alone, and not doin’ nowt at
+all, except talk a bit. Ned, here’s Mr. Mallory. You’ve ne’er seen him
+afore.’
+
+Edmund had never been aware of Myles’s deep antipathy to the young
+master; he only knew that his brother had a sort of contempt for his
+employer, as a useless, highly finished piece of humanity, not good
+for much in such a rough place as Thanshope. He himself was intensely
+sensitive to refinement and beauty, in every shape and form, and as
+Sebastian was handsome, polished, and refined in an eminent degree,
+Edmund’s eyes rested upon him with a sense of satisfaction and soothed
+pleasure and delight, and he smiled pleasantly as he took the hand
+which their visitor extended, saying kindly,
+
+‘I fear you are a great invalid.’
+
+‘I’m none so strong,’ said Edmund. ‘I’ve been ill, but now I’m better.’
+
+‘I suppose you are Myles Heywood’s brother and sister?’ continued
+Sebastian.
+
+‘Ay,’ said the others, and they smiled--that smile of mingled pride and
+affection which speaks well for the absent one, and which Sebastian
+noted directly.
+
+He took a chair by Edmund’s sofa, and, turning to Mary, said,
+
+‘I suppose you know your brother has had his name and yours taken off
+my books.’
+
+‘Ay,’ responded Mary, colouring with some embarrassment, while Edmund
+looked rather anxiously from the one to the other, this being the first
+he had heard of the circumstance.
+
+‘Was it your wish, too, to leave my employment so suddenly?’ he asked
+slowly.
+
+‘I didn’t know--Myles did it. He thought it would be for the best, I
+suppose, sir,’ stammered the girl.
+
+‘But you,’ he persisted gently--‘have you such an intense objection to
+receiving a little assistance in such a time of distress, from a--you
+don’t say master here, I notice--from an employer whom you have served
+so long and so well as I hear you have done? I should not have thought
+so. You know it is not an ordinary case. It is not as if you or I, or
+any of us here, could have prevented it. There can be no shame----’
+
+‘I never thought there was,’ said Mary, wondering in her distress what
+could be the grudge that Myles had against such a master as this. ‘I
+fair cried wi’ joy when I heard what you was going to do; but when
+Myles came in and told me----’
+
+‘But you do not mean that he has forbidden you--that he prevents--it
+is----’
+
+‘No!’ said Mary, suddenly. ‘Our Myles is not one of that sort, I can
+tell you, Mr. Mallory. He won’t take a penny himself--why, I don’t
+know. And I saw as it would go near to break his heart to see me and
+yon lad eating another man’s bread, and him standing by idle. But he
+said to me, “Thou’ll do what thou’s a mind to, Molly; it’s a great
+distress, and we m--mun--be g--great to meet it.” Oh! it were same as
+if he’d said, “There’s nowt for’t but to cut off my right hand; give me
+th’ chopper, and let me do it!”--that it were!’
+
+She sobbed vehemently once or twice, and Sebastian read the passionate
+love and devotion she felt for that brother, whom, he began to think,
+he never could conquer.
+
+‘Ah! that is more like him!’ he said warmly. ‘I thought I was mistaken.
+And will nothing persuade you to accept this help? It is such a small
+thing to refuse; and I do not think it right in you to refuse it. You
+must think of this brother of yours. He cannot stand the hardships of
+this time as Myles, and even you, can; and----’
+
+‘You are very good--reet-down kind, you are!’ said Mary, looking at him
+with gratitude. ‘I’ll say this. We’ll hold out as long as we can. We
+mun do that, if we want to think well of ourselves. But I’ll come to
+you when it gets too much. You’re reet: I can’t see nowt to be ashamed
+of in it.’
+
+‘You promise?’
+
+‘Ay, I promise.’
+
+‘That is well. Now, if your brother would come in, I could say what I
+have to say to him, and----’
+
+Mary lifted her head. She heard footsteps along the flags of the back,
+and the tune being whistled which no one but Myles ever did whistle.
+She started forward as the back door was opened, and exclaimed,
+
+‘Here’s Myles; he’s coming now.’
+
+‘Ah, I’m glad of that,’ said Sebastian, though he was fully conscious
+of Mary’s discomfited looks. ‘Now I can speak to him myself.’
+
+The back door was closed again; the quick steps grew leisurely;
+presently the kitchen-door also was opened, and the voice of Myles was
+heard, saying, as he entered,
+
+‘I say, Molly, thou must----’
+
+He came in, and looked round with a smile, which flashed out of his
+face as he saw who was there. His first impulse was to ask fiercely,
+‘What brings _you_ to my house?’ but Myles had very strongly developed
+the proverbial Lancashire sense of hospitality, and accordingly he
+suppressed his question, and remained silent, until Sebastian offered
+him his hand, saying courteously,
+
+‘I hope you will not think I am intruding. I particularly wished to see
+you, and your sister was so kind as to ask me to wait a few minutes, in
+the hope that you would return.’
+
+Sebastian had spoken just in time. Myles was assailed on the side of
+hospitality, politeness to a guest, and other similar feelings. He
+realised quickly that Sebastian had not acted as most masters would
+have done--sent for him to come and see him--but had come himself to
+seek him out, and now apologised for intruding in the most handsome
+and ample manner. There was nothing there that even his sore heart
+could construe into a slight. Moreover, the man was there, under his
+roof--had been invited there; and, if Molly might have been wiser,
+the thing was done, and he must act accordingly. He could not look
+cordial--the sense of the advantages which the other had over him
+was too heavily and oppressively present for that--but he could be
+civil, he could speak words something like welcome. He could even,
+under the circumstances, accept the hand which Mallory held out--or
+rather, circumstances did not allow him to refuse it. Accordingly, he
+took the hand, standing very erect, and looking very proud and solemn,
+while Mary knitted more quickly, as she observed, from her seat in the
+background, how each man looked straight and steadily into the other’s
+eyes.
+
+‘Won’t you take a seat?’ said Myles, handing a chair to Sebastian, and
+taking one himself. ‘It’s a cold night, and you’ve had a longish walk.’
+
+‘Thank you. It was on a small matter of business that I called--about
+your having taken your name from my books.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Myles, his eyebrows setting suddenly in a straight line
+across his brow, and his lips in one nearly as straight beneath his
+moustache.
+
+‘It was this. I do hope you will not think that I come out of any
+officiousness or curiosity, because it is not so. Mr. Sutcliffe told
+me you had left my employment. I asked him if he thought you had any
+other occupation; and he said that, so far as he knew, you had not.
+I concluded, whether rightly or not, that your reason for leaving
+was that the factory was closed, and you would not accept assistance
+without working for it. Was I right?’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Myles, concisely.
+
+‘I know that employment, especially remunerative employment, is
+not easy to find in these bad times, and that you might not soon
+find anything to do; so I merely called to say that I know of two
+situations, for either of which you would be suited, and if you would
+like me to use my influence to get you either of them, I shall be glad
+to do so. You must not think that I meant anything else.’
+
+‘You are very kind,’ said Myles, in the same constrained and colourless
+voice, which belied his contracted brows and the fiery flash of his
+eyes beneath them, ‘very kind; but I do not require any assistance,
+thank you!’
+
+The manner and the tone were such that Sebastian felt he could not,
+after what he had said, urge his offer any farther. But the desire
+which he constantly felt when with Myles, to gain his esteem and win
+his confidence, rushed more strongly over him than ever before. He saw
+in the young man so much that was noble, so much that was good, so much
+that he, in his quiet, reserved way, intensely prized. Sebastian had a
+strong, though secret, desire to be much loved, to greatly influence
+certain individuals. He felt very strongly that where Myles Heywood
+loved or admired, it would be with a passionate whole-hearted devotion,
+which would go all lengths; and he desired greatly to see some other
+expression light those sombre, moody eyes, when they looked at him;
+to compel that right hand to stretch itself towards him in a genial,
+spontaneous clasp of friendship and regard.
+
+Was it possible that he who before now had won hearts, both of men and
+of women; he who had inspired that fitful, capricious artist-Hugo with
+a passionate love and devotion; he who had seen Adrienne Blisset’s
+quiet eyes well over with something more than gratitude; he who felt
+within him the potentiality to subdue that fiery-hearted Helena, did
+he but choose to give his mind to the task, and to bring her to his
+feet with a devotion as intense as her present half-assumed scorn--was
+it possible that he was to be baffled by a young, uncultivated,
+untutored, unsophisticated artisan, who could continue to resist,
+defy, and scorn him, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary? Was
+it possible that this plain-spoken Myles Heywood, with nothing on his
+side but his prejudices, his pride, and his love, could continue to
+hold Sebastian Mallory at arm’s length, when he really set his whole
+battery of persuasion to work upon him? The idea was a galling one.
+He did not like effusiveness, but he did like devotion very much. He
+hated a display of power; but the power itself he loved dearly. Myles,
+in his present attitude, represented a defiant obstacle which must be
+overcome. But how?
+
+Mary here afforded him unconsciously a little assistance, by saying in
+a tearful voice, ‘Eh, Myles, think about it! Remember how badly off
+we are. It’s not for mysel’, it’s for Edmund and thee. I canna bear
+to think o’ thee bein’ so pulled down and troubled wi’ such things.
+Thou’rt too good for it.’
+
+‘Molly, lass, don’t make it worse for me!’ said Myles, with a
+reproachful look; and Mary was silenced, as Sebastian saw.
+
+She sat down in a rocking-chair, and cried quietly, wiping her eyes at
+intervals, but she said no more. Myles turned his back upon her, not
+wishing to see her distress. Sebastian had also stood up. The man’s
+pride was stiffer than even he had supposed, and his desire to bend it
+became proportionately greater.
+
+‘I am very sorry you will not let me do anything,’ he said. ‘You are
+quite mistaken in thinking there could be any degradation in it.’
+
+‘I never said I did think so,’ interposed Myles.
+
+‘You are not without ambition,’ pursued Sebastian, fixing his eyes upon
+Myles with conviction, and noting the answering flush in his face,
+though his eyes remained downcast. ‘No man who is worth anything is
+without ambition. If you would let me, I could put you into the way
+of furthering your ambition. Of course it would be a struggle; but
+then you are one of the right kind to struggle--you like it. A few
+years’ absence from England, a few years’ hard work in a post for which
+you would be well suited, and you might return here, if you liked, a
+different man, in a different position, able to do and get pretty much
+what you liked. Remember, to a man of courage, who has made a mark,
+_most things that he wishes for stand open_. Is this nothing to you? Do
+you prefer remaining shut up in Thanshope, with your own prospects, and
+the prospects of your fellow-workmen no better than they are? I cannot
+believe it of you.’
+
+Almost unconsciously, Sebastian had half-cast aside the mask of
+indifference, and was speaking nearly as eagerly as he felt. He had
+stepped up to Myles, and laid his hand upon his arm. Their eyes met.
+Myles’s very soul had been stirred by the words he had heard.
+
+They had touched the very well-spring of his present wishes and
+desires, the longing which had grown and intensified with his love
+and his sense of its utter hopelessness. To leave this place--go away
+to some other spot, where there would be scope for hard work, mental
+and bodily--work that would absorb his energies. There was nothing
+he desired more than such work. His enforced idleness was absolutely
+hideous to him. Out of England, he might advance, rise; Sebastian, he
+knew, was not wont to speak rashly or unadvisedly on such matters,
+but was given to measuring his words. He might return an altered
+man, well off, perhaps, or at least with the means of becoming well
+off; why, he might (it all seemed to flash in a second through his
+mind)--he might go at last, and seek Adrienne--and find her gone, hear
+that she was Sebastian Mallory’s wife. And _then_ the acceptance of
+Sebastian Mallory’s assistance would have caused his last state to be
+worse than his first. He would have stooped, not to conquer, but to
+be forestalled, defeated, humiliated, and all the riches, and all the
+position that the world could give, would not restore his hopes and his
+lost self-respect. With a short sardonic, miserable laugh, he jerked
+his arm from Sebastian’s hand, and said almost angrily,
+
+‘It is of no use. You will never persuade me to that. It is wasted
+breath to try it.’
+
+Sebastian felt an absolute thrill of vexation and mortification; a
+thrill so strong as to surprise himself.
+
+‘What makes you so obstinate?’ he unwarily exclaimed. ‘Is it some
+personal reason?’
+
+‘Yes,’ answered Myles, looking him directly in the eyes; ‘it is!’
+
+Sebastian’s lips were parted to speak, but he could not utter the words
+he intended to say. He was silent with a disagreeable, discomfiting
+sense that he was baffled and defeated. They were all silent till
+Sebastian said,
+
+‘Well, since you will not, you will not. But I think you are mistaken
+in your course, and what is more, I think you will repent it before
+long. If you do, if you should come to change your mind, let me know. I
+have no wish to take my word back, but shall always be ready to abide
+by it.’
+
+Myles smiled, almost scornfully, as he bowed his head slightly and said,
+
+‘Thank you.’
+
+In his inmost heart he was thinking that he would rather die than place
+himself under obligations to his rival, whose full formidableness he
+only realised to-night. There was, he confessed it, fully and frankly
+to himself, something extremely attractive about the grace and courtesy
+of Sebastian, but the most dangerous quality was the power which soon
+became distinctly visible beneath the polish; a power which forced the
+observer, however reluctantly, to respect as well as to admire. If
+he, the unwilling and prejudiced, felt these things so strongly, how
+much more must others, already prejudiced in his favour, experience
+it? So much the more reason why he, the plain and unadorned, should
+keep himself to himself, follow his own path, and not ape qualities
+so different from his own. But he had ceased to bear any ill-will to
+Sebastian. The latter did not know how far he had advanced in the very
+moment in which he seemed to have receded.
+
+‘I will not intrude upon you any longer,’ said he. ‘You bear no
+resentment, I trust, but understand my motives?’
+
+‘I bear no resentment at all,’ said poor Myles, putting his hand
+without hesitation into that held out to him. ‘If I have been rather
+rough, I beg your pardon. It is my way. I meant no incivility.’
+
+‘I am sure of it. Good night,’ he added, turning to Edmund. ‘Good
+night, Miss Heywood.’
+
+‘Good night, sir,’ said Mary, looking tearfully up, as Sebastian
+followed Myles from the room. She heard the door open and shut, and the
+steps of the unwonted visitor going away. Then Myles returned to the
+kitchen.
+
+Edmund was tired. Myles helped him upstairs, and came down again. They
+scarcely spoke. Mary uttered no reproach, and he offered no apology;
+but when she got up to go to bed, he kissed her tenderly, saying,
+
+‘Don’t think too hardly of me, Molly. I can’t do otherwise and be an
+honest man at the same time.’
+
+‘I’m none thinking of blaming thee, lad,’ said Mary, escaping from him,
+and going upstairs.
+
+He remained there a long time, brooding over the embers of the fire,
+and thinking, if only things had been different! And as he thought, a
+vision rose before him of that Sunday afternoon when he had so nearly
+betrayed himself, and he remembered Adrienne’s words:
+
+‘If I loved that man, and he loved me, and asked me to be his wife, I
+would say yes; and I would love him and serve him as long as I lived.’
+
+‘Ay, my darling!’ his heart cried within him, in a kind of anguish,
+‘but you don’t love me; and if you did, I should not be worthy of you,
+if I did what was wrong to win you.’
+
+No doubt he took a wild, fantastic, mistaken view of things, but to him
+it was much more real than if the most accomplished logician had argued
+it out for him, and proved it to be founded on the purest and most
+solidly reasonable basis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+COMBINATION _V._ STARVATION.
+
+
+For the space of some six weeks--that is, from early March to the
+middle of April, Adrienne, Helena, Mr. Sutcliffe, Hugo, Sebastian,
+and others who worked with them or under them, had toiled hard at the
+schools of both kinds which Mr. Mallory had opened in connection with
+his relief system. At first considerable difficulties were naturally
+experienced; some of the work-people grumbled bitterly at being obliged
+to ‘go to school again,’ as the condition of receiving a sum, which
+appeared to them small indeed, after the abundant wages they had for
+years been earning; but the tact and kindness of the three principals,
+Sebastian, Adrienne, and good little Mr. Sutcliffe, and the hearty
+manner in which they were backed up by their subordinates, soon worked
+wonders. Ere long the work-people themselves discovered how much better
+off they were than those of their friends whose masters had not seen
+fit to provide for them; and who were just then groaning under the
+obnoxious ‘labour test,’ as it was called, which roused so much gall
+and bitterness before the sewing and educational schools were fairly
+started. Learning to make clothes, or reading, writing, and arithmetic,
+were felt to be decidedly more distinguished and elevating employments
+than stone-breaking, or road-making, and were, moreover, much better
+adapted to the lissom fingers, and to the physique, accustomed to
+sedentary labour in a high temperature, of the operatives. By degrees
+they fell into their places. They felt that they were known, and
+expected, and missed if they did not come at the appointed time. The
+great warehouse was warmed and lighted, and threw open its doors
+hospitably wide to receive them. ‘Mallory’s schools’ were known all
+over the town, and those who attended them were envied by those who did
+not.
+
+For the principals the task was, as Sebastian had told Adrienne, no
+joke. It was continuous, dry drudgery. The routine was monotonous, and
+the discipline strict; but the master and head of it all was the first
+to adhere unswervingly to every rule laid down, and his coadjutors
+followed with unhesitating obedience. Mr. Blisset received more
+kisses and thanks from his niece just now than she had ever bestowed
+before--kisses and thanks for what she called his goodness in sparing
+her to help the poor people in their great distress. She was with him
+much less than usual, and perhaps did not therefore notice so much his
+pallor and weakness, and the strength which was failing in every way.
+He, for some reason, withheld the truth from her, and did not tell her
+that he felt almost at the end of his weary, dismal pilgrimage. It was
+only to Sebastian that he spoke about that--Sebastian, who had become
+the trusted friend of the poor, lonely man.
+
+Adrienne and Helena worked heartily, hand in hand. That was no time
+for petty bickerings and jealousies. Even sectarians forgot their
+differences in the imperative necessity for administering to the great
+need and woe of the people. In working-hours Adrienne forgot entirely
+who Helena was; and knew her only as a hearty helper, a quick, bright,
+kind-hearted girl, to whom no trouble was too great, and no task too
+hard. It was not quite the same with Helena. She had divined, by some
+subtle means--herself scarce knew how--that Adrienne was no other than
+‘the nicest girl I ever knew,’ and Miss Spenceley’s eyes grew intensely
+critical. Every word, every gesture and action of her coadjutor, was
+weighed in a nice balance, and, so far, had not been found wanting.
+Helena herself was, without knowing it, changing rapidly. Despite a
+certain vague disquietude of heart, she was happier than she had ever
+been in her life before. She threw herself into her new work with
+her characteristic passionate energy and vehemence, and her contact
+with life, and some of its sternest lessons, was rubbing down her
+preconceived extravagances of opinion, though she still, in word and
+theory, cherished them as fondly as ever. But it was impossible that
+one of her intensely sensitive and receptive mind could behold what
+she daily did, of sorrow and pain, of ignorance and helplessness, and
+remain the same. She saw into depths in this our life of which she had
+never dreamed, and which Laura Mereweather’s philosophy passed over
+entirely.
+
+It has been acknowledged on all sides that the benefits, at that time
+were not only on one side. It was not only the rough factory-girls
+who came to learn, but also the delicate ladies who gave up time
+and comfort and their best energies to teach, who profited by the
+intercourse. In the sad and degrading spectacle of the spring of 1878,
+the sweet lessons learned and taught in that bitter season of 1862
+seem almost to have been forgotten and obliterated. Many a benighted
+girl--many an uneducated, ignorant matron, roused to her toil at
+half-past five in the morning, and prevented by its long monotony from
+acquiring any domestic grace, learnt almost her first notions of making
+home happy and comfortable in the schools that were set up in the
+‘panic.’
+
+Then, in the woe of the poor, and the sympathy of the rich, it almost
+seemed as if the great black frowning barriers of caste had been
+overthrown; but the division of classes, the opposition between master
+and man, is a plant of sturdy growth, and strikes its roots deep and
+far under the earth. Now, sixteen years later, comes a strike almost
+without parallel for bitterness and unyielding stubbornness on either
+side--a strike accompanied by rioting and mob-rule, broken windows,
+houses sacked, men assaulted, women and children threatened; and the
+necessity for a strong military force to preserve even the outward
+semblance of order; and this, on the identical ground where, during
+the cotton famine, the sore distress was most nobly borne and most
+generously relieved. These things make a riddle hard to read.
+
+Adrienne and Helena found both their mental and physical energies
+taxed to the utmost by the work they had undertaken, but neither had
+any thought of giving up. With Adrienne it was a labour of calm,
+affectionate duty; she went to it with an enlightened sense of her
+own responsibilities, and a full comprehension of the gravity of the
+crisis. With Helena it was something quite different; she worked
+eagerly, till she was wearied, and scarcely knew why she did it. Of
+course she was sorry for the poor people, and pitied them in their
+present condition, and was anxious to help them, strained every nerve
+to do her work; but she thought more about Adrienne Blisset and
+Sebastian Mallory than about all the poor people in Thanshope.
+
+She was changing rapidly, without knowing it. In the presence of
+this great urgent need, and of her own deeper emotions, all the
+flimsy theories of the past were being utterly undermined, though
+outwardly towering as high and as fair as ever. She was no happier
+in her home-relations than before. Sebastian’s conduct was condemned
+there by her father and brother. She knew that it was only because of
+Sebastian’s wealth and Mrs. Mallory’s high position in the town, that
+she was allowed to participate in what was called the ‘madness’ of
+Mr. Mallory. Fool and madman were the mildest words in the vocabulary
+of the Spenceley men, by which to describe Sebastian’s course. It was
+wrong and iniquitous in him, they said, to set such an example, as if
+every mill-owner in Thanshope could be expected to support his hands
+while this confounded war lasted.
+
+‘Every mill-owner--no!’ said Helena, with flashing eyes. ‘So many of
+them are too poor. They have not the means; but if all those who could
+afford it did so, it would only be their duty--their bare duty, and
+there would not be so many begging letters in the papers, asking for
+help for the richest county in the richest country in the world.’
+
+She was informed that she knew nothing about it, and that it was only
+to keep her out of some other mischief that she was allowed to have
+anything to do with such folly.
+
+(‘And,’ she thought to herself, with a hard smile, ‘because Sebastian
+Mallory is rich and influential, and I see him every day, there.’)
+
+The conversation turned to Helena’s coming birthday, when she would
+attain her majority, and great festivities would be the order of the
+day. With tears in her eyes, she took the opportunity to implore her
+father to give up the ball which would cost so much money, and to give
+her half, nay, a quarter of the sum he intended to spend upon it, that
+she might give it to Miss Blisset or Mr. Mallory, and have it used for
+relief purposes; but the request was peremptorily refused, and she was
+told, in oracular language, that she did not know what was good either
+for herself or the work-people. Moreover, she was informed, it was
+all very well for a pretty girl to play at women’s rights; but that a
+daughter was expected to obey her father; and the regal Fred remarked
+that a fool and her money were soon parted, and he would back Helena
+for making ducks and drakes of any property she might ever have, if it
+were not pretty tightly tied up.
+
+‘I suppose it is only finished gentlemen like yourself who know how to
+make proper use of their money and their time,’ said Helena, turning
+upon him bitterly. ‘I can tell you the whole town will cry shame on
+both of you--the richest men in it, and you have scarcely subscribed
+five pounds to keep your own work-people from starving.’
+
+‘I didn’t become the richest man in Thanshope by pouring my money into
+my work-people’s pockets,’ said Mr. Spenceley, grimly.
+
+And Helena, with a passionate ‘Psha!’ rushed from the room, drawing on
+her gloves as she went, to go forth to her afternoon labours at the
+school.
+
+This was in the middle of March, and as she came up the cindery path
+leading to the little anteroom, which Sebastian and his staff were in
+the habit of using as an office, he and Miss Blisset sat at the window
+watching her approach.
+
+‘What a lovely, graceful creature she is!’ said Adrienne, admiringly,
+as the tall supple figure of the girl came swiftly up the walk. ‘I
+often wonder how she can be the child of such parents.’
+
+‘There is some southern impetuousness in her nature,’ he replied,
+‘and a capacity for southern rages, too,’ he added, watching her and
+smiling. ‘Look at her now, Miss Blisset; do you see that frown, and how
+her eyes are flashing, and her lips set?’
+
+‘Yes, I do; but that is a very unusual expression with her. I wonder
+what is the matter with her?’
+
+Here Helena came in, somewhat in the whirlwind style, her tall figure
+erect--her silken skirts angrily sweeping about her.
+
+‘You look annoyed, Miss Spenceley,’ said Adrienne, looking up from
+where she sat, composed and cool.
+
+‘Annoyed!’ repeated Helena, whose anger and mortification had been
+augmenting all the time since she had left home, and whose voice
+vibrated; ‘they tell me on all sides that my father is the richest man
+in Thanshope, and that I shall have more money than I know what to do
+with--some time. Some time, indeed! And I cannot get five pounds now
+to help people with. I’ve given away all my money. I have just half a
+crown in the world, and I can’t get any more for a month. Do you call
+_that_ the proper way to treat a woman who will be responsible for five
+thousand a year--_some time_? My father said I should. Do you call that
+the right means to accustom her to the duties of her position?’
+
+She had turned suddenly, and almost fiercely, to Sebastian.
+
+‘Not at all,’ said he at once; perceiving that her lips quivered, and
+that she was divided between tears of mortification and flames of
+anger. ‘Not at all; but, my dear Miss Spenceley, so long as we have
+your services, the money which you do or do not contribute is not of
+the very least consequence.’
+
+‘Don’t say that to me!’ she exclaimed, excitedly. ‘What is the use? My
+services are nothing; I can do nothing.’
+
+‘Indeed, I don’t know what I should do without you,’ said Adrienne.
+‘You can influence those girls and women sometimes, when I can make
+nothing of them. You can make them laugh heartily, when all my efforts
+can only extort a solemn stare from them.’
+
+‘You must not talk of going,’ chimed in Sebastian. ‘It is your
+countenance alone which reconciles my mother to the undertaking. And if
+you did not come,’ he added, smiling, ‘I don’t believe Hugo would have
+anything to say to it; and he is invaluable to me amongst the boys. For
+heaven’s sake, don’t desert us!’
+
+Helena, with downcast eyes, was taking off her gloves. Her cheek was
+flushed, and she smiled a little triumphantly.
+
+‘Girls can do something then, after all?’ said she.
+
+‘Have I not two living and bright proofs of the fact before me now?’ he
+replied, looking from the one to the other.
+
+‘Ah, yes!’ said Helena, coolly, while the flush died from her cheek,
+and the smile faded from her lips. ‘Would you mind helping me off with
+my mantle? Thanks. There comes Hugo von Birkenau, and there is our
+first batch of girls, Miss Blisset. What is the programme for this
+afternoon?’
+
+She was all business now; had tied on a great holland apron, studded
+with baggy-looking pockets, and slung a huge pair of scissors by a
+string round her slim waist. Adrienne was accoutred in a similar
+manner. Helena stopped some of the girls who were coming in, to make
+them carry a pile of calico to the workroom. Raising his hat, Sebastian
+left them to their labours, and joined Hugo outside.
+
+Half of the great warehouse had been temporarily cleared, and
+accommodated with benches and half a dozen huge deal tables. This
+afternoon was to be a ‘cutting-out’ lesson--a lesson which, sooth to
+say, Helena had had to learn herself for the occasion, from her mother.
+The two young ladies, with some half-dozen others, who rapidly followed
+on Helena’s steps, each took a class, and began their instructions;
+the women and girls standing round, and many a dozen of them receiving
+their first impressions as to the practical construction of the clothes
+they wore. The directions were clear and simple enough; care was
+taken, by questionings and cross-questionings, that the pupils should
+thoroughly understand what was being explained to them.
+
+When the ‘cutting out’ was over, they were shown how to fix the
+things, and as they all sat doing this, each one bringing up her
+performance when it was complete, for approval or correction, there
+was much talking, and some singing, chiefly of hymns, in very high,
+and generally in minor keys. It was very fatiguing work: the long
+standing, the continuous talking, explaining, expounding, arranging and
+rearranging for the stiff, unaccustomed fingers, formed no light task.
+After more than two hours and a half of such labour, it was time to
+go. The work was folded up, piled in heaps, laid on one side, and the
+pupils prepared to leave.
+
+Adrienne and Helena, both very tired, stood at the door, counting them
+as they filed out.
+
+‘Three hundred and five,’ they exclaimed together, as the last one
+departed, and they smiled, and turned inside the room again, to divest
+themselves of their aprons and shears.
+
+‘Miss Blisset, will you not come home with me, and have some tea?’
+asked Helena, who had given the invitation several times before, and
+always received the same answer as on this occasion.
+
+‘Thank you very much. I am sorry to say I cannot come.’
+
+‘You always say that,’ said Helena, looking earnestly at her. ‘I have
+tried in vain to get a little conversation with you, and to know you
+better. I never see you, except at this dingy schoolroom, where I am
+sure the incentives to cheerful intercourse are not strong.’
+
+Adrienne smiled rather faintly as she replied,
+
+‘I am sorry; it looks rude, I know, but I must go home to my uncle. He
+is not very well at present; and I am obliged to leave him so much. You
+must excuse me!’
+
+‘If I must, I must, I suppose, but I don’t all the same,’ said Helena,
+turning away in some dissatisfaction, and at that moment Sebastian and
+Hugo entered, arm in arm.
+
+‘Miss Spenceley!’ said Hugo, eagerly going up to her; ‘it is getting
+dark. May I accompany you home?’
+
+‘Oh yes, if you like,’ said Helena, absently, while she attentively
+listened to what was passing between their fellow-workers.
+
+‘Miss Blisset,’ she heard Sebastian say, ‘your uncle particularly asked
+me to call this afternoon. I will walk with you to Stonegate, if you
+will allow me.’
+
+‘I shall be very glad,’ said she. ‘I am sure he will be pleased to see
+you. Do you know, sometimes I am afraid he will not live long.’
+
+‘His is hardly likely to be a long life,’ said Sebastian, evasively.
+
+‘Oh, but it may be. Invalids--when they are taken such care of as I
+take of him--sometimes live a long time. And he is not old, and it is
+not as if he had a complaint in which there was danger of his dying
+suddenly.’
+
+‘Do you dread his death so much?’ asked Sebastian, folding her shawl
+around her.
+
+‘I do; and I fear for selfish reasons. Without him I should be
+perfectly alone in the world.’
+
+‘You alone? not unless you wished it,’ said he, almost reproachfully,
+whilst Helena, assisted by the proud and happy Hugo, was wrapping
+herself in her fur-lined mantle with the sable border; the mantle which
+set off her dark, piquant beauty to the utmost advantage; for she was
+one of those truly English beauties who look almost lovelier in their
+outdoor dress, and with the flush of exercise upon their cheeks, than
+in the airy fabrics of the ball-room. But there was no flush upon
+Helena’s cheeks now. She turned to the boy who had been, or wished
+to be since he first saw her, her particular page in attendance (he
+aspired to nothing more in his own mind, and, despite all unfavourable
+circumstances, he had always seen Helena the wife of his worshipped
+friend), and said, in a voice that had sunk and grown tired,
+
+‘Come, Hugo, I have no time to spare. We will leave the others to lock
+up. I must go.’
+
+‘I am ready, and waiting your pleasure, _mein gnädiges Fräulein_.’
+
+‘Don’t speak foreign tongues to me. Do you forget what Gretchen said to
+Faust when he called her Fräulein?’
+
+‘“Thank you, sir, I can walk home by myself.” That would be shocking,
+and I will not do it again.’
+
+‘Good afternoon!’ suddenly said Helena, in a loud, clear voice, as she
+looked carelessly over her shoulder at the other two, who started, as
+if suddenly recalled to a sense of what was going on around them.
+
+Hugo and his companion left the mill-yard, and paced down the street in
+the bitter cold of the March twilight, now rapidly becoming darkness.
+The lamps were being lighted; some shops were open; the passengers
+along the streets were not many; the great factories were silent, there
+was no cloud of smoke to obscure the frostily twinkling stars.
+
+Helena suddenly began to speak, in a voice bitter, though it strove to
+be careless, and with a short laugh that was not a merry one.
+
+‘How affecting--truly affecting it is, to see two such congenial
+spirits together as Mr. Sebastian Mallory and Miss Adrienne Blisset.
+He likes a rose-watery kind of woman, who looks up to him and
+thinks he is better than she is herself, and wiser; and she likes a
+dreamy, unpractical kind of man, full of sweet compliments and vague
+generalities--like a sugar-plum that breaks in your mouth, and then
+you find it has been full of a weak, diluted kind of essence--like
+Sebastian Mallory.’
+
+‘What a comparison!’ exclaimed Hugo, in a tone, almost of offence.
+‘You are very harsh, sometimes, Miss Spenceley. Sebastian dreamy and
+unpractical! _Jawohl!_ I used to think so once; but I have found out
+that there is an iron hand under the silken glove. Once I fancied he
+was all art, all----’
+
+‘All art!’ said Helena, perversely twisting his imperfect English to
+suit her own purposes; ‘perhaps you were not so far wrong there, Hugo.’
+
+‘What has occurred to vex you, _mein Fräulein_?’ asked her companion
+innocently.
+
+‘To vex me? I am not vexed. I am tired, and it is so cold. Well, go on!
+I don’t think very highly of Mr. Mallory, as you may be aware; and I
+should like to hear what you can find to say in his favour. What other
+good points has he?’
+
+‘_Herrgott!_ He is all good.’
+
+‘Ha! ha!’
+
+‘Miss Spenceley----’
+
+‘A good, bigoted Tory and Conservative, despite his professed
+radicalism. Mrs. Mallory need not have been distressed. He may call
+himself what he likes, but he hates progress.’
+
+‘I don’t understand about Radicals and Conservatives,’ said Hugo,
+good-humouredly. ‘I am densely ignorant about politics. In Prussia
+there are Liberals and Conservatives, and Communists, but I don’t know
+what any of them want. I don’t think the _Reichstag_ is the sphere for
+me--do you?’
+
+‘Good gracious! how should I know? I was not talking about Communists
+or the _Reichstag_. If you don’t know anything about them, you know
+something else, Hugo,’ she said, softening her voice confidentially.
+
+‘I know that you are charming--so kind to me,’ said he, with a
+vibration in his voice--and indeed Helena had been very kind to the
+boy; ‘and I know that you sing “Since first I saw your face” like an
+angel.’
+
+‘You know perfectly well that Mr. Mallory and Miss Blisset are
+desperately in love with one another--deny it if you can.’
+
+Hugo was silent.
+
+‘You cannot,’ said Helena, triumphantly.
+
+‘I am not in their confidence,’ he said slowly.
+
+‘All the world is in the confidence of people who are so far gone
+as they are. If you mean to say that they did not each take you
+separately aside, and tell you in so many words--well, I can say the
+same. He that hath eyes to see, let him observe.’
+
+Hugo was not yet master enough of the English language to be able to
+turn off her remark. Helena began to hum a little song to herself, and
+then suddenly sank into silence and gravity, until it began to snow,
+and grew quite dark, when she shivered, putting up her umbrella, and
+saying pettishly,
+
+‘My mantle will be ruined. Why didn’t I bring a cloak? I declare,
+another day, when the weather is so bad, I won’t take this horrid long
+walk.’
+
+‘You will rather drive?’ suggested Hugo, with apparently the most
+childlike innocence of her meaning.
+
+‘How ridiculous you are! How far is it, Hugo, from the mill to
+Stonegate?’
+
+‘About as far as from the mill to Castle Hill, only in exactly the
+opposite direction.’
+
+‘Oh! I don’t know that end of the town at all. We, at any rate, have
+had time for a delightful conversation, haven’t we? Come in, and have
+some tea, and play me something.’
+
+Nothing loth, Hugo followed her, and they vanished within the portals
+of Castle Hill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+    ‘Death, with most grim and grisly visage seene,
+    Yet is he nought but parting of the breath;
+    Ne ought to see, but like a shade to weene,
+    Unbodièd, unsoul’d, unheard, unseene.’
+
+
+Adrienne and Sebastian were walking ‘just the opposite way,’ with very
+little more satisfaction to themselves than Hugo and Helena had found.
+Helena was constantly picturing Sebastian to herself as engaged in
+half-intellectual, half-amorous discourse with the ‘nicest of girls;’
+his mind elevated by her spiritual observations, and his languid but
+ever-present sense of superiority (this was Helena’s hypothesis)
+gratified by her deference to his superior wisdom. It was a comical
+theory--one worthy of Helena’s vivid imagination and hopelessly
+impractical ideas; and was, moreover, as far removed from the truth
+as she herself could possibly have wished. Yes, wished; for while the
+delusive vision kept dangling before her mental eyes, and while she
+professed to sneer and scoff at it, it was in reality an ever-present,
+dull pain, none the less real because not clearly comprehended for what
+it was.
+
+On this especial evening Adrienne was tired more than usual, and
+mentally as well as physically weary. An undefined pain and distress
+had troubled her mind for some weeks--to-day the cloud was very
+dark. She had seen Sebastian Mallory growing more and more intimate
+with her uncle, and progressing with great rapidity in the favour of
+that most fastidious individual; she had seen--how could she help
+seeing?--Sebastian’s attentions to herself; how, when he was with her,
+his eyes constantly turned towards her, and how a light flashed into
+their quietness when they met hers; how his voice, in speaking to her,
+took a deeper sound. He was good, rich, handsome, clever, kind. She
+knew all his good qualities, and thoroughly valued them. She approved
+of him; she liked his presence; it was pleasant to her. She remembered
+with deep, earnest gratitude his delicate kindness and attention to
+her in those days gone by, when her troubles with her father, and her
+terrible struggle against their adverse circumstances had threatened
+to overwhelm her. ‘I would do anything for you,’ she had said, and had
+meant it. And yet, now! How painfully, unaccountably, unexpectedly
+things changed! Thus meditating, her step dragged, and her head drooped
+a little, as they paced the dreary length of Blake Street together.
+She did not understand why that load of oppression and longing--that
+_Sehnsucht_--should just now lie so heavily upon her heart. Sebastian
+paused at the gate, and laid his hand upon it, and then Adrienne seemed
+to see, in a flash of sunlight, Myles Heywood’s tall figure and earnest
+face; as he, in the same attitude, almost a year ago, had laid his hand
+upon that wicket, and had opened it for her to pass in. Her heart
+throbbed--something rose in her throat as she entered.
+
+‘Myles has not been near us for weeks,’ said she to herself. ‘I will go
+and call there some day, very soon,’ she added valiantly, ‘and ask the
+reason of it, and if I have done anything to offend them.’
+
+Mr. Blisset, his servant said, was not at all well. He felt very weak,
+and had gone to bed, and he had left word that if Mr. Mallory called,
+he particularly wished to see him.
+
+Sebastian followed the man upstairs. Adrienne went into the
+drawing-room, and mechanically sat down, without even turning up the
+shaded lamp, and her hands clasped themselves before her upon her knees.
+
+Sebastian sat a long time beside Mr. Blisset’s bed, for their
+conversation was prolonged. At last Mr. Blisset said,
+
+‘And I have made you one of my executors. I hope you don’t mind. I have
+so few friends.’
+
+‘I am honoured in being chosen, and will gladly undertake it.’
+
+‘Thank you. Of course, I have left everything to Adrienne. She will
+be placed above all money troubles; for she is like me, she has no
+extravagant desires. But I should wish the child to have a staunch
+friend, and you are different from other young men, or I would not have
+asked it. Will you be her friend?’
+
+‘It is my most earnest wish. But since we have spoken of this, I may
+as well tell you the whole truth. I have loved your niece for a long
+time--for years. When I find an opportunity, I intend asking her to
+become my wife. Have you anything against it?’
+
+Mr. Blisset pressed the young man’s hand with a clasp which had grown
+feeble.
+
+‘You make me very happy. I would rather know her safe in your hands
+than in those of any other man.’
+
+‘I wish you could know it,’ said Sebastian, with a somewhat melancholy
+smile. ‘I assure you I am far from feeling confident myself, but I hope
+for the best.’
+
+‘I think you may be quite confident,’ said Mr. Blisset. ‘Poor child!
+now she need not be alone, and has a fair chance of a safe, untroubled
+future, such as a woman ought to enjoy.’
+
+Shortly after this Sebastian left him, and went away without seeing
+Adrienne. Later, she went upstairs to sit with her uncle, and ask if
+she should read to him.
+
+‘No, thank you, my child. I shall need no more reading now, Adrienne.
+Your wearisome, monotonous task is almost at an end.’
+
+‘Dear uncle, what do you mean?’
+
+‘I am what men call dying, my dear. Whether it is the end of all things
+for each one of us, or whether it is but the beginning of an endless
+succession of advancing lives, very soon I shall know--or I shall not
+know.’
+
+She kissed his hand.
+
+‘You must not talk in that way. You have been very good to me, and I
+cannot spare you. I love you, uncle--you must not leave me.’
+
+‘I fear your pleasure will not be consulted on that point, my
+daughter,’ said he, with a strange half-smile, half-pity, half-deep
+amusement. ‘Ah! Adrienne, when men have lived--or existed--as I have
+done, and for so long, they are not sorry when the machinery comes to a
+stop, and they know no more.’
+
+Much moved and much distressed, she listened to him until he sent her
+away, telling her to sleep undisturbedly, for he would yet live to talk
+with her, and convince her that it was for the best.
+
+But he was wrong. When morning dawned, Richard Blisset was at rest, and
+free from the mantle of pain and weakness which he had worn so long.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+‘TO THE DREGS.’
+
+
+The merry month of May, in the year of grace 1862, and in that part
+of her Majesty’s dominions known as the County Palatine of Lancaster,
+wore a face even less smiling and colder than usual. Despite the
+gaudy sunshine, despite the unusual chances offered to external
+nature, of showing herself to the best advantage through the absence
+of smoke--despite this, all was sad, penitential, silent. One missed
+the burst of talk and laughter, the chaffing and shouting in the
+streets when the mills were loosed. One missed the tramp, tramp, of the
+thousands of clogs over the flags at the appointed times.
+
+Trade had collapsed. King Cotton was discrowned; his subjects had
+become a nation of paupers; some of whom were begging their bread,
+all of whom were living chiefly on help from outside. There was a
+vast organisation kept up, chiefly by unpaid, voluntary toil, for
+discovering distress, and distributing relief. Thanshope had now added
+herself to the list of towns which had instituted Relief Committees,
+and Sebastian’s schools had been merged into the larger ones belonging
+to the public body. They had served as a sort of model or introduction,
+and the others were founded upon the same plan. He himself was one of
+the most powerful and active members of the committee, while Adrienne
+and Helena, from their previous experience, were in reality the head
+and front of the ladies’ committee, though duly subordinated in outward
+order to Mrs. Ponsonby, and one or two other dames of place and
+importance.
+
+But while the great complicated machine was working with such
+regularity and smoothness, so that it and its movements were praised
+by all who beheld them, what were those doing on whose behalf all this
+mechanism had been set a-going? What was happening in the thousands of
+homes whose most cherished hopes and traditions had to be given up and
+forsaken in this terrible emergency? In the one home in which we are
+interested it was going hardly enough.
+
+It was in the very beginning of the month, a bright, glaring, sunny
+May morning, to look upon, with a dry pitiless east wind blowing
+round the corners and sweeping down the shady side of the streets.
+It was the middle of the forenoon, and the Heywoods’ kitchen did
+not get the morning sun. There was no fire. Mary and her next-door
+neighbour, Mrs. Mitchell, took turns at having a fire, for the cooking
+of both households now was less extensive than it once had been, and
+each alternately undertook the responsibility of the other’s baking
+and boiling. This was the day on which Mrs. Mitchell had the fire;
+consequently Mary’s kitchen was all the colder from its bareness and
+its spotless neatness. She was sitting in the window, sewing. Myles
+was at the centre table with some books from the library before him,
+ostensibly reading--really gazing blankly at the page, and looking, as
+it is not good that a young man, or any man, should look--looking as
+men only do look when their affairs are in a very bad way.
+
+His sister stole occasional side-glances at his face, and her heart
+wept, if her eyes did not. She and Edmund had been living all this time
+upon the weekly sum allowed by Sebastian Mallory to such of his hands
+as chose to accept it. They had been aided by Myles from his own store,
+in order that Edmund might have the things he required; and that store,
+Mary knew now, was at an end, had come to an end some days ago. She did
+not quite know how Myles had lived during those few dreadful days. He
+had accepted nothing from her, because what she offered had been bought
+with Sebastian Mallory’s money. He had smiled when she had implored him
+to take something and repay her when times mended, if he would not have
+it as a gift; smiled in a way that had not encouraged her to repeat
+the offer. He had made no complaints, had been very quiet, but those
+days had been the most wretched Mary had ever spent in her life. She
+knew what her brother had been trying to hold out for, but the hope
+continued to be deferred; and even if it must now be soon fulfilled,
+she feared the relief would come too late to save him from what he and
+she both considered the supreme and ultimate disgrace and shame, of
+having to apply for relief. Some fortnight ago, the Relief Committee
+had advertised for two clerks, to relieve their honorary secretaries
+of the burden of accounts and correspondence, which had grown greater
+than they could bear. Candidates of the artisan class were invited
+to apply, and it was intimated that, if competent, they would be
+preferred rather than others, on the principle of helping them to
+help themselves. Myles Heywood had been one of the applicants, and the
+decision would not be known for two days yet. The day before, Mary had
+met Mr. Mallory, and had hurriedly implored him to use his influence,
+if he had any, to get her brother in; but never, never to say she had
+asked him, or she did not know what would happen if Myles ever knew
+of it. He had promised; but there still remained a dreadful blank two
+days, and then, even with Sebastian’s efforts, the answer might be that
+Myles was rejected.
+
+Thus she sat this morning, with a sick heart, furtively watching her
+brother in an anguish of pity. Would it really come to the worst?
+Would he actually have to turn his steps--her brother, of whom she was
+so proud--towards those dreadful doors above which glared, in white
+letters a foot long, ‘Relief Committee’s Offices’? those doors which,
+she thanked her God every night, she had not yet been obliged to enter?
+He had had no breakfast, she knew; she did not know when he had last
+eaten, or of what the meal had consisted. His face was terribly wasted;
+so was the muscular, long-fingered hand which lay before him on the
+table. There was lassitude in his attitude, a drawn look about his lips
+and his eyes; his eyes haunted her, and made her very heart bleed when
+she encountered them. What would he do? At eleven the committee began
+their sitting, and it was ten minutes to eleven now, and the offices
+were some distance away. If he were going it was time he----
+
+She started violently as he, at this moment, pushed his books away from
+him with a slow, resolute sweep of his hand, and rose. What a terrible
+change had taken place in the whole figure and deportment of the man!
+
+Myles took his cap from the nail on which it hung, and turned to her.
+
+‘I’m going out, Molly,’ said he.
+
+‘Yes,’ she answered; and something in the muffled toneless accent of
+her voice made him look at her. She was gazing intently at him, with
+a fixed, almost staring look--a glance of blank pain and suffering,
+passive, yet terrible.
+
+‘Mary,’ said he, pausing, ‘you know what it is. It must be. You think
+it is the worst; but I tell you it is not so. It is not so bad as what
+you would have me do.’
+
+With that he left the room and the house.
+
+He had a pretty long walk, up and down hill. He felt inexpressibly
+tired--and worse than tired: his stomach was empty: he had a sick,
+gnawing sense of hunger--absolute, grinding hunger, such as he had read
+of others--destitute people--feeling; but such as he had never before
+felt, till now that he was destitute himself. His head felt weak and
+dizzy; his mind dull and stupid--he found he could only walk slowly, as
+he took first this turning and then that, and presently arrived at his
+destination--the one place in Thanshope where, in these hard times, a
+flourishing business was being carried on.
+
+About the door was a crowd of people--men and women; young and old. The
+expressions upon the different faces varied from callousness, through
+every variety of unwillingness, pain, and shame, up to a careless
+hardihood that felt no disgrace, and was only wishful to make the most
+of the opportunity.
+
+Into this crowd stepped the tall figure of the young workman; his
+face white, half with exhaustion, half with emotion; his lips set,
+his deep-set eyes glooming beneath the pain-drawn brows. He looked
+neither to right nor left of him, but leaning against the wall, plunged
+his hands into his pockets and waited. There was a kind of network
+of railings before the door, through which the people had to pass in
+single file, to prevent their all crowding in together, and Myles, like
+the rest, had to wait his turn.
+
+Most men have to go through one or two _mauvais quarts d’heure_ in the
+course of their lives, but few can have surpassed in bitterness the
+minutes which Myles Heywood spent, waiting his turn, before the door
+of the committee-room. Some one recognised him, spoke to him, and said
+she had never expected to see him there. He answered mechanically and
+composedly, but felt his face suddenly grow fierily hot; and then a
+little push from behind warned him to move on, and he obeyed it.
+
+He entered the large room in company with several other people, and
+there were more than a dozen gentlemen seated round the table in the
+middle of the room. But from the moment in which he entered and saw a
+face raised, a pair of eyes fixed in pitying astonishment upon him, he
+felt as if he were alone with one man, and that man Sebastian Mallory.
+Strange to say, he had never remembered, had scarcely been conscious of
+the fact, that Mallory was one of the most important members of this
+very committee. He knew it now--realised it with heart and brain and
+consciousness, as the face of his rival
+
+    ‘Flashed like a cymbal on his face,’
+
+and for a moment the sense of degradation, of humiliation, burned and
+scorched him, and he felt almost mad.
+
+Almost--but no; reason was still the stronger. The remembrance of his
+own utter destitution, the distinct, imperative call of sickness and
+hunger, the clear knowledge that there was no alternative, prevailed.
+He did not turn round and walk away. He remained, but how he dragged
+his feet towards the desk of the man who was asking questions, he
+knew not. How he answered those questions remained also a mystery to
+him. The gentlemen heard him, noted his address, and said he would
+see that the case was inquired into. Myles felt no resentment at the
+idea of his statements being thought to require investigation: whether
+because his pride had been once for all laid low, or whether from sheer
+weakness and dulness of sense, he did not know. He was turning away
+and wondering when the inquiries would be made, and how much longer he
+would be able to hold out, when Sebastian Mallory, for the first time
+removing his attention from the writing in which he had apparently been
+engrossed, said composedly,
+
+‘There is no need to trouble the visitor to inquire into that case,
+Mr. Whitaker. I can vouch for the truth of every word of it. I should
+recommend you to write a ticket and pay the sum required at once.’
+
+Then he turned to his writing again. Mr. Whitaker said, ‘Ah, that is
+all right, then,’ and immediately took a ticket and began to write.
+
+Myles felt as if everything was reeling around him, and himself
+with the rest. He caught at the top of a chair by the table and
+steadied himself, feeling as if he were some one else, some strange,
+alien, degraded being--one of the beggars of whom he used to read in
+advanced periodicals, that they ought not to be relieved by private,
+miscellaneous almsgiving; but should all be ticketed and classified,
+and strictly watched and overlooked. It was as the bitterness of death,
+and must be borne unmoved, standing composedly and decently.
+
+All the time he still supported himself by the back of the chair,
+unable, from very weakness and dizziness, to move. The gentleman
+who sat in it rose, and looked at him from a pair of keen, stern,
+steel-gray eyes.
+
+‘You look ill, young man,’ said he. ‘Come with me, and I will show you
+where to get the money.’
+
+He took the ticket in his hand, and, taking Myles’s arm, led him away
+through a side-door, into a small sort of anteroom. Here he bade Myles
+sit down, and he took from a cupboard some wine--red wine, which he
+poured into a glass and gave to Myles with a piece of bread.
+
+‘Take that,’ said he, ‘and drink the wine, or you will be ill before
+you get home. You have fasted long. You should have come sooner. How
+long is it since you had any food?’
+
+‘About thirty-six hours, I think,’ said Myles, looking at him as
+he took the glass in his hand. It was Canon Ponsonby, ‘the radical
+parson,’ the man who ought to have been a prime minister, but who, as
+Rector of Thanshope, earned more love than falls to the lot of most
+prime ministers, charm they never so wisely.
+
+His stern face softened as he looked upon the figure before him.
+
+‘You have a right spirit,’ said he. ‘I know your name, and who you are.
+Your sister attends the parish church. You----’
+
+‘Attend no church at all. I’m a free thinker.’
+
+‘Are you? I don’t think you will ever solve your riddle by
+free-thinking. But shake hands. I wish you were one of my flock.’
+
+‘If anything could make me one of a flock, it would be that you are the
+shepherd, sir,’ said Myles, finishing his bread and wine, and feeling a
+warmed life in his veins and at his heart.
+
+‘See!’ said Canon Ponsonby, ‘here is the weekly allowance to which
+your ticket entitles you. Do not trouble to call at the office. Good
+morning.’ He took the young man’s hand. ‘I have long known of you. I am
+glad to have seen you. God have you in His keeping!’
+
+Strangely moved and grateful, Myles silently clasped the noble old
+man’s hand. He could not speak. Canon Ponsonby showed him out by a
+side-door, so that he avoided that dreadful crowd round the entrance.
+He was in the street again, with the white ticket, and some money in
+his hand. After what Canon Ponsonby had said to him, he had ceased to
+feel that dreadful agony of shame, but he felt utterly crushed, and
+reduced to the most perfect insignificance.
+
+Dreamily pursuing his homeward way, he turned over the money in his
+hand, and remembered that he must buy some food with it! Food! for
+himself? When he had gone through that age of anguish, as it had seemed
+to him, he should take the coins which had been so hardly earned, and
+buy bread with them, and eat them? It struck him as being absurd--as if
+one had used a steam-hammer to crush a midge withal.
+
+Nevertheless, he went into a shop, and bought some bread and cheese,
+and was carrying it home, still with the same sense of incongruity
+between the means and the end. But, as he passed a doorstep, at the end
+of a street, he beheld a little girl sitting on it, and crying bitterly.
+
+‘Little one, what’s the matter?’ he asked, stopping, and looking down
+at her.
+
+‘I’m--so--hungry!’ said the child, with a sob between each word, as she
+looked piteously up into his face, and held a thin little pinafore,
+soaked with tears, in two small, tremulous hands.
+
+‘So hungry!’ he said, stooping over her, with the sense that perhaps,
+after all, he had not gone through the furnace to find nothing at the
+other side. ‘Hast had no breakfast?’
+
+‘Nay, none at o’.’
+
+‘How’s that?’
+
+Here a thin, clean-looking, poorly clad woman, with a baby in her arms,
+came to the door.
+
+‘Come in, Sarah Emily,’ said she. ‘For shame o’ thisel, to sit bawlin’
+on th’ dur-step. Thi’ feyther’s gone to see about summat to ayt. Coom
+in, and hold thi’ din.’
+
+‘I’m--so--hungry!’ was the only answer.
+
+‘Ne’er heed her, lad!’ said the woman to Myles. ‘My measter’s going to
+th’ committee to-day. We’ve had to come to that, and we’ll likely get
+summat to ayt afore neet.’
+
+‘Nay, but it’s very hard for such a bit of a lass to wait so long,’
+said Myles. ‘If you’ll trust her to me, I’ll give her some breakfast.
+I’m just going to get my own.’
+
+‘Eh, thank you, you’re very kind,’ said the woman, her voice suddenly
+breaking, as she looked at him, and then turned aside again.
+
+‘Come, my lass!’ said Myles gently, and he took the open-mouthed Sarah
+Emily in his arms, and carried her to his home.
+
+In the kitchen, he seated her in Mary’s rocking-chair, explaining
+briefly to his sister that the child was clemming, and must be fed, and
+then he cut her some bread and cheese, and watched her with an intense
+and altogether unaccountable interest while she ate it. He felt almost
+light-hearted. If he had not, so to speak, walked up to the cannon’s
+mouth this morning, little Sarah Emily might have been sickening with
+hunger until eventide.
+
+‘Good! good!’ she cried, when she had eaten as much as she could.
+
+And she laughed at him, while he slowly ate something himself.
+
+‘Look here!’ he suggested; ‘do you think you could find your way from
+your home to this another day?’
+
+‘Eh, ay! It’s none so far,’ said Sarah Emily.
+
+‘Then, if you come every morning--every morning, mind--I’ll give you
+something to eat always, eh?’ he suggested.
+
+‘But I can ayt such a lot, when I’m hungry,’ said Sarah Emily
+bashfully, putting her forefinger into her mouth.
+
+‘Never mind! There’ll always be something. Wilt come?’
+
+‘Eh, I will so!’ said the child, clapping her hands, jumping upon his
+knee, and kissing him.
+
+Thus was the bargain struck.
+
+There is this day, in Thanshope, a dark-eyed young woman, of some
+twenty-four years, who has a husband, and some young children. When the
+little ones clamour for breakfast or dinner, she is in the habit of
+reproving them, by telling them that they don’t know what real hunger
+is; and, as an instance in point, she is given to relating the story
+how she sat on the doorstep one day in the ‘panic’ crying with hunger,
+and how the tall, pale-faced young man with the kind eyes picked her
+up, and carried her home, and gave her food; and how either he or his
+sister welcomed their hungry little visitor daily for----
+
+‘How long, mother?’
+
+‘Three months, child; every day--eh, they were kind; they were so.’
+
+‘Is he alive now, mother?’
+
+‘Ay, for sure he is, and----’
+
+But the dark-eyed young woman always makes rather a long story of it,
+and freely intersperses remarks and comments, which, though doubtless
+interesting to her family, might not be considered of value by the
+public in general.
+
+Two days later, the postman brought Myles a summons to attend at the
+Central Offices of the Relief Committee that day, as he was one of the
+successful candidates for the clerkship, and the announcement that his
+salary would be twenty shillings a week.
+
+Thus the worst, materially, was tided over; but the bitterness of the
+cup he had drunk that terrible morning did not lightly pass away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A PAUSE.
+
+
+When Myles began his work at the Committee Office, one conspicuous
+member of the Ladies’ Committee was temporarily absent. Adrienne
+Blisset was then occupied in learning the condition of her own affairs,
+and found herself soon in a totally different position from any she had
+ever expected to fill--very rich, as it seemed to her, and a person
+of great importance; and, what was strangest of all, with Sebastian
+Mallory coming and going and fulfilling his duties as executor, and
+explaining everything to her. She repeatedly told him that she could
+not believe it; it was impossible--there must be a mistake. All that
+money hers to do as she liked with, and she had not earned it, nor
+worked for it!
+
+‘What an idea you have of working for everything you get!’ he exclaimed
+suddenly one day. ‘Do you carry it so far as to demand a service from
+every one to whom you accord a sign of favour?’
+
+‘Really I don’t know what you mean,’ replied she. ‘I only know that I
+have got, you tell me, between six and seven hundred a year, and I have
+done nothing to deserve it.’
+
+‘No. I suppose you have to deserve it now, by using it properly,’ said
+he sedately.
+
+That was in fact the amount of Adrienne’s means, and it was natural
+that it should appear to her as wealth unbounded. She had also
+Stonegate on a lease, which had yet somewhat over two years to run. And
+when she had learnt all this, and that she really was the mistress of
+such means, with the only drawback that there was no one to share them
+with, no one to consult with--herself alone, and her own pleasure and
+convenience to study; when she had grasped these facts, and had begun
+to feel rather sad and lonely, she returned to her work one morning
+in a black dress, looking rather thinner and paler than she had done
+before. The people with whom she had become acquainted in her work, and
+who had heard the reason of her absence, came round her, and, though
+not openly, congratulated her, hoped she would now take a recognised
+place amongst them, asked if they might call, and so on. And as she
+somewhat vaguely and sadly answered these efforts at friendship, she
+looked up, and saw some one pass the window. It was Myles Heywood going
+to his work.
+
+Adrienne’s name had become well known in Thanshope during the last
+three months. It was but a provincial town, and every one seemed
+thoroughly acquainted with every one else’s affairs. Mrs. Mallory had
+been much annoyed at finding Sebastian ‘mixed up,’ as she called it,
+with Mr. Blisset’s affairs, and above all, with those of Miss Blisset.
+She had had to explain it as well as she could to certain friends who
+had asked her who this Miss Blisset was, and what it all meant.
+
+Sebastian, she said, was so very good-natured; she feared he would be
+imposed on some time. Did she know Miss Blisset? Certainly she did, in
+a way; but as for being a friend of hers, certainly not! Sebastian had
+consented to act as Mr. Blisset’s executor out of pure goodwill and
+kindness, because the man was so much to be pitied, and seemed to have
+absolutely no friends. That was all.
+
+But despite all Mrs. Mallory’s efforts, it got known that her son
+and the young lady, who had lately come into a fortune, and who was
+reported to be both charming and accomplished, were very great friends.
+Helena Spenceley took rather a malicious pleasure in upholding this
+theory in Mrs. Mallory’s very presence, so that that lady would have
+boxed her ears with pleasure, if one could box the ears of a person who
+would have one hundred thousand pounds some day.
+
+Thus Miss Blisset and Mr. Mallory were already talked about in a
+certain set, and Adrienne’s duties had made her name and herself
+familiar to another and a less distinguished public--to the
+working-people of Thanshope. She had been a notability amongst them
+before her sudden accession to wealth and friends; she was doubly well
+known to them now. She was busy and preoccupied, thought Myles, as he
+sat at his desk in the second office, and saw her almost daily pass the
+windows on her way to the Ladies’ Committee-room. She was a lady of
+property, sought after and busy, and he was a clerk on a high stool, to
+whom she scarce spoke a word from one week’s end to the other.
+
+Those years of distress brought about some strange acquaintances, and
+led to some unusual events. Though everything appeared on the outside
+to work so smoothly, there were active emotions stirring amongst the
+members of that Thanshope Relief Committee--emotions, quite unconnected
+with the wants of those for whose benefit they had assembled
+themselves. The circumstances were exceptional, and it was only under
+exceptional circumstances that those particular people could have not
+only met, but continued almost daily to meet and come in contact with
+one another. Gradually circumstances drew them together--gradually as
+they met, the half-forgotten, smouldering feelings of love and hate,
+contempt and pity, sprang into life and activity again, and emotion
+stepped to the front, and all these things acted and reacted one upon
+the other, till every story was modified, every life received a bend
+this way or that, a change in the even tenor of its way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+A MEETING.
+
+
+Mr. Spenceley, the millionaire, the richest man in Thanshope, the man
+of boundless wealth and boundless callousness, was amongst those cotton
+lords who, to their lasting shame and disgrace, were determined at
+this crisis not to come forward and give of their abundance, but who
+preferred to hang back until the popular voice left them no option, and
+the universal indignation absolutely thrust them to the front.
+
+For a long time Mr. Spenceley had contented himself with abusing the
+sorely tried work-people, demanding to know why they did not all
+emigrate, and vowing that he would not waste his money upon them. He
+amused himself by everywhere calling Sebastian Mallory, behind his
+back, a fool and a madman, a spendthrift, a pernicious leveller, and so
+on: and by behaving to him before his face with the utmost courtesy and
+politeness, excusing conduct which might savour of double dealing by
+saying that such fools could never be made to see that they were fools,
+and that it was best to take them as you found them, and let them go
+their own way.
+
+When the Public Relief Committee was established, and one and all, rich
+and poor, young and old, contributed something either in money, or
+kind, or assistance, or all, the chief inhabitant of Thanshope could
+no longer hold back. He allowed his name to appear as a member of the
+committee, sent a subscription of a hundred pounds, and deputed his son
+to act as his proxy at councils, committee meetings, and so on. Despite
+the bad times, he himself was so much engaged with business, that he
+had no time to attend to such things.
+
+Accordingly, Fred Spenceley periodically shed the light of his
+countenance upon the council board and those surrounding it. He
+continued to come, despite a terrible rebuff he received on the
+occasion of his first appearance upon the scene.
+
+It was that rebuff, and one or two incidents connected with it, which
+filled him with rage and bitterness; so that if he had been an Irish
+reaper, or an Oldham weaver, he would have proceeded to drink himself
+blind, and then gone home and maltreated his wife, or any other
+feminine creature within the range of his arm. Being in a different
+station from that occupied by reapers and weavers, and thinly veneered
+over into a poor, tinselly, outward semblance of a gentleman, he only
+raged frantically within himself, and cast about to find an instrument
+to execute a moral revenge, which, he had sense enough in his dull
+brutal brain to know, would far more torture the objects of it than all
+the corporal punishment in the world.
+
+He arrived one afternoon, thinking the whole business a great piece of
+‘tomfoolery.’ The Relief Committee’s offices consisted of three rooms,
+opening one out of the other. The first was the Ladies’ Committee-room,
+a large, spacious place, where the ladies could meet, decide upon their
+proceedings, and hear the accounts of their wants and troubles brought
+to them by mothers, wives, and daughters from all parts of the town.
+Passing through this room, a second and smaller one was reached, in
+which sat the two clerks, Myles Heywood, and a lad who was under him.
+Through this second apartment, ingress was obtained to the Gentlemen’s
+Committee-room, where the council assembled, three times a week as a
+rule, and oftener if necessary.
+
+Coming to attend his first committee meeting, Fred Spenceley entered
+the first of these rooms, and, glancing round, beheld different groups
+scattered in different parts of the room. No one took any notice of
+him; they were all much too busy; but as he looked round, he perceived,
+in one of the windows apart from the rest, three persons: Sebastian
+Mallory, whom he had hated since first he saw his face, as only a
+true ‘cad’ can hate a true gentleman; and two ladies--one in black,
+whose back was turned towards him, the other his sister Helena, erect,
+animated, with her dark eyes flashing and her silks in some agitation.
+
+He walked up to the group, and touched Helena on the shoulder,
+inquiring graciously,
+
+‘Well, little one, what’s the matter now?’
+
+‘Fred! How you startled me! Have you come to the meeting?’
+
+‘Yes, I have. Much good it will do me or any one else, my being here.
+But the governor was----’
+
+‘Oh yes! I know. But stop! You know Mr. Mallory. Miss Blisset, let
+me----’
+
+Adrienne interrupted her. She was standing, pale, haughty, and erect,
+with eyes full of cold contempt; and she interposed, in a cool, decided
+voice,
+
+‘Pardon me, Miss Spenceley, I do not wish for any introduction. I must
+decline to make that--gentleman’s acquaintance.’
+
+With which she turned away, in perfect outward composure, and, seating
+herself at a desk, calmly looked out of the window, leaving Sebastian
+surprised, and yet not surprised, Fred furious, and Helena overwhelmed
+with confusion; for she knew her brother, and felt sure that he must
+have distinguished himself in some far from desirable manner towards
+Miss Blisset, to cause that gentle lady openly to manifest discourtesy.
+Helena’s humiliation was increased as she realised, with lightning-like
+rapidity, that Adrienne must have some excellent reason for repeatedly
+refusing to visit her at Castle Hill. Crimson, she stood where she
+had received the rebuff, and knew not what to do. It was Sebastian
+who, after the unavoidable momentary pause, and when Mr. Spenceley had
+turned upon his heel, said just as if nothing had happened,
+
+‘I shall lay the matter before the Board to-day, Miss Spenceley, and I
+am sure it will be attended to immediately.’
+
+Helena met his eyes as she looked up at him, and the burning blush of
+mortification glowed more deeply than before.
+
+‘You are very kind,’ said she, in a low, choked voice; ‘but you cannot
+do away with the fact that I have to blush for my nearest relations.’
+
+With that, she too turned away, as if not knowing where to go to; and
+Sebastian decided that the best thing he could do would be to follow
+Mr. Spenceley to the council-room.
+
+For Mr. Spenceley, muttering an anathema, had directed his steps away
+from such dangerous ground, and with raging hatred in his heart,
+entered the second of the three rooms. In that moment he would gladly
+have strangled some one, or kicked his dog, or flogged his horse, or
+sworn at his mother; and if he had had a wife, he would have caused her
+to spend a joyful evening on his return home.
+
+As it was, he found himself in a small room, in the window of which
+stood a long desk, at which desk sat two men busily writing. One of
+them rose, as he entered, to fetch a ledger from a shelf at the other
+side of the room. Spenceley’s rage gave way to a momentary start of
+surprise; then the blood came surging to his face and ears, as he
+found that he was confronting that insolent, unknown operative who had
+disgraced and branded him, and degraded and punished him, ten months
+ago in the club billiard-room.
+
+Like a lurid dream it all started up again in his brain. There the man
+stood--he tingled from head to foot as he beheld him--with face pinched
+and worn, but with that same broad, unstained brow, the same scornful
+grey eyes, the same muscular fingers--he seemed to feel them at his
+collar again--and he could not grind him to powder, as he would like
+to do, nor put him to any kind of horrible torture, such as he would
+have deemed desirable for him. Myles’s eyes fell upon him, and a sudden
+gleam of scornful contemptuous amusement shot into them; his head flung
+itself backwards--his lips curved into a kind of smile, but otherwise
+he did not deign to notice Mr. Spenceley.
+
+Into the heart of the latter the old devils of revengeful desire and
+frantic hatred came leaping back. Why had he been so quiet? Why had
+he suffered himself to be laughed at and diverted from his original
+purpose of punishment? Why had he sat down patiently all this time with
+that--a black cloud of fury overshadowed his mind. His thoughts were
+scarcely coherent. But it was incredible. The fellow should and must
+be made to pay dearly for his insolence. He had sworn it once, and he
+would carry it out now. With wrath and rage contending madly in his
+stupid, brutal soul, he went on into the committee-room, where he was
+immediately followed by Sebastian Mallory, and business commenced.
+
+Fred Spenceley was too much occupied with his own private fury, with
+thinking, with a sort of hatred and love combined, of the sweet,
+contemptuous face of Adrienne Blisset, which he could not banish from
+his mind--of these and of other things, to take any particular notice
+of the man called James Hoyle, who was summoned to read a report to the
+Board that afternoon.
+
+He had been intrusted with the task of visiting certain courts in a
+low part of the town, whither, it was said, a number of the factory
+hands had been obliged to retire, in consequence of being unable any
+longer to pay the rent of more respectable houses. Mr. Hoyle had
+offered himself to the Board as peculiarly suited for the work, being
+himself a minister of the gospel, and used to strange scenes and low
+neighbourhoods.
+
+‘He speaks the truth there, at all events,’ Sebastian Mallory had
+remarked _sotto voce_ to Canon Ponsonby, ‘but the Father of Lies has
+had some share in his parentage, all the same, sir--don’t you think so?’
+
+‘Or else he has selected him as his peculiar adversary, and left the
+traces of his attempts to corrupt him,’ replied Canon Ponsonby, fixing
+his piercing eyes upon Mr. Hoyle.
+
+But as Mr. Hoyle really did seem well fitted and anxious for the work,
+he was allowed to undertake it.
+
+His report was considered clear and succinct. He was told that he had
+done well; a further commission of the same kind was given him, and he
+was told to present himself again as soon as possible with the required
+information.
+
+Expressing himself humbly gratified at having been of any service
+in such a cause, Mr. Hoyle bowed to the assembled Board, carefully
+avoiding two pairs of eyes--a pair of lazy brown ones and a pair of
+piercing grey ones, and, with a long sidelong look at the sullen,
+averted countenance of Frederick Spenceley, took his departure.
+
+A fortnight passed. The middle of May had come and gone. Every day
+the distress grew more tremendous--the efforts needed to meet it more
+strenuous and unceasing. The whole time and the whole energies of those
+who had begun the work were gradually absorbed into it. Still the cruel
+war raged on across the Atlantic, and Mid-summer and Famine advanced
+hand in hand, with long, devouring strides.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+‘FOR A PRICE.’
+
+
+A committee meeting had been called for a certain Tuesday afternoon. An
+appeal for help had been sent out to all the persons of any position
+in the neighbourhood. Canon Ponsonby’s name headed the list with a
+donation of fifty pounds, which was more to him than fifty hundred
+would have been to Mr. Spenceley. Some half-dozen large manufacturing
+firms followed with sums varying from one to five hundred pounds. ‘S.
+M., five hundred pounds.’ ‘Mrs. Mallory, five pounds.’ Mrs. Mallory had
+so many calls upon her charity just then, she said, she really could
+not afford more, or the yearly sum she set apart for such purposes
+would be exceeded.
+
+‘The yearly distress to be relieved is also considerably exceeded,’
+murmured her son, as he took possession of the contribution. ‘H. v. B.,
+five pounds.’
+
+‘Our money!’ as Mrs. Mallory indignantly observed to herself, and
+tossed her head angrily.
+
+‘H. S., ten pounds.’ This stood for Helena Spenceley, who delivered the
+money over to Sebastian with a kind of chuckle. ‘You would never guess
+how I got it,’ said she, with a broad smile of triumph and satisfaction.
+
+‘Begged, borrowed, or stolen?’ he asked, smiling too.
+
+‘Neither one nor the other. Nor yet was it a free gift, nor yet did I
+find it at the back of a drawer, having quite forgotten that I had put
+it there, as I once before did with a five-pound note. Oh, you will
+never know how I got it.’ And she laughed.
+
+But Sebastian learnt from Adrienne how she had come by the money.
+
+‘Her father would not give her a penny,’ said she, ‘because he had made
+up his mind with his narrow income to sacrifice twenty-five pounds,
+which he was sadly in need of himself, so what do you think she did?’
+
+‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.’
+
+‘She sold a lot of her dresses and things. I expect the poor girl has
+been awfully cheated,’ Adrienne added, a touch of real feminine feeling
+and regret in her tone. ‘She said she had left herself only half a
+dozen--and fancy getting no more than ten pounds for the rest of her
+wardrobe--it is awful to think of. But the money was there, she said,
+and she could not resist it. She is as pleased as if it had been a
+hundred.’
+
+‘Like somebody else’s,’ suggested Sebastian.
+
+‘Somebody else’s?’
+
+He pointed to the written subscription list which they had been looking
+over. ‘Life let us Cherish, £100,’ stood inscribed on the page.
+
+‘Do you think I don’t know what hand traced that?’
+
+‘But you won’t tell, please!’ said Adrienne.
+
+‘Ah, you have confessed. No; I will not tell, unless I think it would
+be for your good.’
+
+‘Nonsense! But was it not nice and generous in that girl?’ persisted
+Adrienne, who always would talk to Sebastian, much more than he liked,
+about Helena.
+
+‘Yes; it was. But she has a generous disposition,’ he admitted, still
+looking affectionately at his favourite inscription.
+
+The celebrated twenty-five pounds spoken of by Adrienne--it is lucky
+that money has not an organised nervous system, or it might suffer
+keenly under the touch of some fingers!--was committed by Mr. Spenceley
+the elder to Mr. Spenceley the younger, with the remark that he
+wondered how much longer people who had honestly earned their money
+would be expected to pour it out like water ‘in that way;’ and the
+request that he would deliver it into the hands of Sebastian Mallory,
+the treasurer.
+
+Mr. Frederick Spenceley, who did not appear to find business so
+engrossing as his father, strolled down to the committee-rooms,
+arriving on the scene of action some ten minutes or quarter of an
+hour before any signs of action had begun to manifest themselves. The
+well-known _mauvais quart d’heure_ may be evil in many ways, kinds, and
+degrees of badness. Frederick Spenceley had no intention of spending
+his fifteen minutes more aimlessly or mischievously than usual; but
+his guardian demon had ordained that they should be consumed more
+reprehensibly, perhaps, than all the rest of his existence put together.
+
+There was no one in the first room, no one in the second room; in the
+third room was a solitary figure standing in one of the windows--a
+figure in black cloth clothes, with a bundle of documents under one
+arm--the figure of Mr. James Hoyle.
+
+There were two windows to the room. Mr. Spenceley, jingling the coin in
+his pockets, strolled up to the other one, and stood at it, whistling
+to himself, and looking out upon the prospect--what there was of it.
+The two windows were on the same side of the room, and looked upon a
+kind of open yard, separated from the street by a low wall. It was
+a slanting street, like so many others in that up-and-down town,
+Thanshope. Exactly opposite the window in which Spenceley stood was a
+gate, through which any one coming to the committee-rooms must pass,
+and, going under the windows (to the right) of the other two rooms, at
+last arrive at the door opening into the Ladies’ Committee-room. There
+was also a separate door, leading into the second room, or clerk’s
+office, where Myles Heywood and his fellow-clerk sat.
+
+Half absently, Spenceley began to collect the money together that
+his father had given him, and to lay it out, two five-pound notes
+and fifteen sovereigns, upon the window-ledge before him. He looked
+at it pensively, and Mr. Hoyle’s little sharp eyes were fixed with a
+sidelong gaze, full of interest, upon his face. Mr. Hoyle had surveyed
+the prospect to more purpose than Mr. Spenceley, and was very anxious
+that the latter should give over counting out his money, and return to
+the apparently innocent pursuit of looking out of the window, which he
+presently did.
+
+He plunged his hands into his pockets, and gazed out again, swaying
+to and fro from his toes to his heels, in the rhythmic manner common
+to persons in his position. Presently the rhythmic movement ceased.
+Mr. Spenceley’s attention became concentrated on outside objects, on
+a figure some two hundred yards distant, approaching down the hill.
+He looked at her as she came along, in her black dress, with her pale
+face and her warmly tinted hair. He hated her for a thousand reasons,
+and because she looked sad and lovely at once, because she was gentle
+to others and to him an icicle; and most of all, because he had made
+a great mistake about her in his gross, clumsy, blundering way, and
+knew now, that if he had but known what she was he would never have
+insulted her, but would have tried with all his might, though he was
+not clever, to become good enough for her. But she had prevented that,
+she had refused him the faintest chance of letting her know that he
+repented, and by ----, he thought savagely, he did not repent. These
+women were all alike; either worse than the devil himself, or too icily
+cold and pure to glance aside at such as he. He watched and watched, as
+if fascinated; watched how she came along, looking tired and pale, but
+lovely; despite his hatred he felt, with all the finer feeling he had,
+that she was lovely, and his head turned, his eyes followed her steps,
+till she arrived at the gate, and then her face changed, and he gave
+a great start, for, standing there, exactly as she came up, was Myles
+Heywood, who had been coming (as the astute Mr. Hoyle had perceived) up
+the hill from the opposite direction.
+
+They met at the gate. Adrienne’s face, after a faint smile, seemed to
+grow still paler and calmer. She held out her hand. Myles took off his
+cap, and though he did not smile--unless a slight quiver about the
+comers of his mouth could be called a smile--yet he took her hand, and
+they spoke together for a moment at the gate. It was quite evident
+that it was Adrienne, and not Myles, who made the pause and carried on
+the conversation which took place before they both came on, past the
+windows (which had the lower panes frosted, on purpose to baffle vulgar
+curiosity), without seeing the two striking countenances that were
+watching them.
+
+Myles left Adrienne at the door of the second room, and she went on to
+the ladies’ room.
+
+Frederick Spenceley had entirely forgotten the presence of any one but
+himself. He gave vent to his feelings in a low but distinctly audible--
+
+‘D--n them!’
+
+He suddenly felt a touch on his arm, and, turning round with his usual
+disproportionate start, beheld Mr. Hoyle at his elbow, looking into his
+face.
+
+‘Oh! Confound you! What do you want, creeping up to a fellow in that
+way?’
+
+‘I beg your pardon, sir. I have been looking at that man Myles
+Heywood....’
+
+‘What, that’s the blackguard’s name, is it?’
+
+‘Yes, sir. My step-son. A--_some_ young ladies choose strange friends,
+sir; don’t you think so?’
+
+Spenceley was about to ask roughly what business of his it was; but
+something in the intent, glittering fixity of the man’s gaze held him
+fast.
+
+‘Perhaps they do,’ said he, slowly. ‘What then?’
+
+‘Only this. That young man’s mother is now my wife. I ought to know
+what sort of a character he is. I ought to know something about the
+young lady, too. If the facts about both of them, the real facts, were
+known, _she_ would be in a different position from what she has, and
+he----’
+
+Mr. Hoyle laughed.
+
+‘He--what about him?’ asked Mr. Spenceley, almost breathlessly.
+
+‘Well, I don’t think that young fool of a master of his----’
+
+‘Who is his master?’
+
+‘Mallory.’
+
+‘Ah--h!’
+
+‘He’s taken a fancy to him; he’s offered to help him. He did help him
+to his present place. But it was in ignorance of the facts. If he knew
+the facts, my young gentleman would not be in such a hurry to patronise
+him. In fact--he’d be ruined.’
+
+‘Facts--what facts?’
+
+‘Ah!’ said Mr. Hoyle. ‘That’s just it. Properly to investigate and
+establish those facts might be rather expensive.’
+
+‘Oh! you are certain that if they were known they would have the
+requisite effect?’
+
+‘You mean----’
+
+‘Of parting him and her--of punishing her?’
+
+‘I tell you, he would leave the place, and she would cry her eyes out.
+I know it.’
+
+‘And about how expensive would that be?’ demanded Spenceley.
+
+‘It would cost a hundred pounds, and I should want five-and-twenty to
+go on with--the rest down when I tell you he has gone.’
+
+Spenceley put his hand on the money.
+
+‘This is five-and-twenty,’ he remarked. ‘I must give them a cheque for
+it, instead of money down. But remember, if you’re cheating me----’
+
+‘On my soul and honour, sir,’ said Hoyle, with almost vehement
+earnestness, ‘you may trust me. It’s as much my cause as yours. And
+meantime, if you should hear any reports to the disadvantage of a
+certain lady, don’t deny them--I told you I knew some queer facts about
+them both.’
+
+Scarcely had the money been transferred to the keeping of Mr. Hoyle,
+than the door was opened, and Canon Ponsonby, Sebastian Mallory,
+and others, came in. Mr. Hoyle began to study his documents, and
+Fred Spenceley to look out of the window again, his heart beating
+unheroically fast, with a sense of peril of which he felt ashamed, and
+an undercurrent of eager thirst for revenge, the stronger in that there
+was now some prospect of its being gratified.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+    ‘Bear not false witness; let the lie
+    Have time on its own wings to fly.’
+
+
+One fine morning, Mrs. Mallory, her son, and Hugo von Birkenau sat
+at breakfast, and the young men maintained a decorous silence while
+the lady held forth on what was at present her favourite topic, the
+approaching ball at Castle Hill, in honour of Helena’s coming of age.
+
+‘Helena will be the belle at her own ball,’ she observed. ‘I called the
+other day, and Mrs. Spenceley showed me her dress. It had just come
+from Paris. It is perfectly exquisite. Even you, Sebastian, will be
+able to find no fault with that toilette.’
+
+‘Black velvet, diamonds, and point lace?’ he suggested. ‘That would
+be just like her, and then it is a costume on which you may spend an
+indefinite amount of money.’
+
+‘How ill-natured you are! It is a charming dress, and she will look
+lovely in it. I hope you have secured one dance, at any rate, or you
+will have no chance now.’
+
+He confessed that he had not acted with sufficient spirit in that
+respect; he had never even thought of asking for a dance.
+
+‘Then I am sure she will be very much hurt. She let me see the other
+day that she thought a great deal about your coming.’
+
+‘If she did, she is not the girl I take her for,’ said he, looking
+rather impatient. It was not Mrs. Mallory’s fault if her son remained
+sceptical on the subject of Helena Spenceley’s _penchant_ for him.
+She had long ago seen that it was useless for her to dangle Helena’s
+hundred thousand pounds before his eyes; he would none of it, whereas
+to Mrs. Mallory it was an ornament which grew more becoming and more
+desirable the longer she looked at it. She had discovered, or thought
+she had discovered, that Sebastian was very anxious not to hurt the
+feelings of any one, by neglect or unkindness, ‘that is, of any one
+but myself,’ as she plaintively told herself--and she thought that
+if she pictured in colours strong enough the affection which she was
+determined Helena had for him, this sensitiveness of his might lead to
+the desired results--sooner or later.
+
+‘Any other man,’ Mrs. Mallory said to herself, ‘would have fallen in
+love with the girl for her beauty alone, if she had not had a penny;
+but in that case, of course, he would have fallen in love with her.’
+
+Then she tried to excite his self-esteem, and pique his _amour propre_,
+by telling him that Helena was very difficult to please, and had
+already had half a dozen more or less eligible offers, all of which she
+had refused _sans façon_.
+
+‘I can quite believe it,’ was the tranquil reply. ‘_Sans façon_ exactly
+describes her manner and her character as well. She has no idea of any
+medium. Wild enthusiasms and extravagant hatreds----’
+
+(‘Like me,’ murmured Hugo to his plate.)
+
+‘And I have no doubt she did refuse the “six braw gentlemen” you
+mention, unceremoniously enough.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory would have despaired, if she had not taken comfort in
+the idea that Sebastian liked to conceal his feelings from her, which
+argued that perhaps he cherished a secret passion for Helena, and would
+do as he ought to do, if he were let alone.
+
+Her fears as to the influence of Adrienne Blisset were fitful and
+intermittent. Sometimes that adventuress did not particularly disturb
+her mental peace, but at other moments a dread fear seized her lest the
+game should be going in the very direction she least wished it to take;
+lest the obstacle which interfered with her plans and wishes was not
+Sebastian’s utter and unaccountable indifference to beauty, love, and
+a hundred thousand pounds, but a misguided, infatuated inclination on
+his part, for a daughter of Heth, with neither beauty (compared with
+Helena) nor pretensions. When attacked by such thoughts, Mrs. Mallory
+felt herself turn cold and numb with fear. The idea of Adrienne Blisset
+promoted to her place was the most thoroughly unpleasant--not to say
+altogether hideous--that had ever occurred to her.
+
+On the morning in question, Sebastian, on being asked what his plans
+were, said he should be in his office all morning, and at a committee
+meeting in the afternoon. Would he be in to lunch at half-past one?
+Yes, he fully expected so; and with that, he said good morning, and
+went away.
+
+The others went their several ways. Hugo retired to the drawing-room,
+to a packet of new transcendental German music, and to the spinning out
+certain music of his own. Mrs. Mallory, after an interview with her
+housekeeper, ordered her carriage for half-past eleven, wrote letters
+in the breakfast-room till that time, and then got ready and drove out
+in the said carriage. The proverbial ‘spectator might have seen’ the
+equipage go from one place to another in the town, and afterwards to
+certain mansions in the vicinity of the same, where its mistress made
+state calls. (It was the fashion in Thanshope to make state calls in
+full dress between twelve and one.) It was quite half-past one when
+Mrs. Mallory forsook the war-path, and returning home, came into the
+dining-room. She sat down to lunch without removing her bonnet. She
+was dressed in her favourite lavender and black, and so attired, with
+a new and unusual expression of animation and amiability upon her high
+fair features, she looked a very handsome, agreeable, though rather
+thin-lipped English matron.
+
+The gong sounded. First Hugo strolled in, and raised his dark eyes in
+astonishment when the lady graciously and sweetly inquired,
+
+‘May I give you some soup, Mr. von Birkenau?’
+
+‘No, thank you,’ he replied, politely but tentatively.
+
+‘How warm it is, is it not? So unlike the end of May. May is generally
+such a bad month in England; don’t you think so?’
+
+‘You should know best,’ said Hugo, bowing solemnly, and somewhat
+nervous under this excessive amiability.
+
+‘I wonder what Sebastian is doing,’ she remarked, still graciously. ‘He
+really seems to have his hands quite full.’
+
+At that moment he came in.
+
+‘Sorry to be so late, but Sutcliffe kept me. Soup? No, thanks. I’ll
+trouble you for some of that cold fowl, Hugo, please.’
+
+‘And will you give me a little sherry, my dear?’ said his mother.
+
+Sebastian, too, changed countenance at this tone, privately wondering
+‘what next?’ but poured out the sherry with imperturbable gravity.
+
+The meal proceeded in silence for some little time, until it occurred
+to Sebastian to ask,
+
+‘Where have you been all morning, mother?’
+
+‘Driving,’ was the vague reply, and another pause ensued.
+
+Sebastian poured out a glass of sherry, drank some of it, and then
+thought he would trouble Hugo again; he was so awfully hungry. Hugo,
+with a gravity amounting to gloom, wrenched the second wing from the
+fowl before him, and placed it upon Sebastian’s plate.
+
+Sebastian was watching the operation with the intense eagerness of a
+mind quite at ease; and it was at this juncture that Mrs. Mallory said,
+
+‘Sebastian, I am sorry to hear of a very strange thing in connection
+with that girl--what is her name?--whose uncle’s affairs you somehow
+got mixed up with.’
+
+Hugo’s eyes gave a flash. That was what was coming.
+
+‘Do you mean Miss Adrienne Blisset?’ asked Sebastian, in a distinct
+voice.
+
+‘Blisset--yes, Miss Blisset. She professes to take a great interest in
+the relief affairs.’
+
+‘So far as I know, the interest is real--at least if hard work is any
+test of reality.’
+
+‘She appears to choose very strange people as her intimate friends.’
+
+‘Myself, _par exemple_?’ he suggested.
+
+War was now declared. The blandness had disappeared from Mrs. Mallory’s
+countenance. The excitement remained. Her son did not appear to her to
+be excited, but Hugo, glancing at him, felt a little thrill as he saw
+all the slight signs which he so well understood, and which told him
+that his friend was moved, much moved, unpleasantly moved.
+
+Mrs. Mallory, all unconscious how much Sebastian knew, and reckless of
+the storm she was inviting to descend upon herself, continued,
+
+‘I must say, I hope you are not amongst her intimate friends, unless
+you wish to be placed on the level of low, immoral, atheistical
+work-people; the very dregs of the lower orders.’
+
+‘It is asserted that Miss Blisset selects her friends from the dregs of
+the lower orders?’ he inquired, with ominous politeness.
+
+‘The case does not rest on mere assertion. Her uncle professed peculiar
+opinions, and she carries them to extremes, as is the way with those
+women who have been brought up amongst men, and always led a vagabond
+life.’
+
+Sebastian smiled slightly as he carefully balanced a fork upon his
+little finger.
+
+‘_Après?_’ he inquired.
+
+‘She made the acquaintance of a young man of whose character the less
+is said the better--picked him up at some reading-room where she used
+to go in an evening--an _evening_,’ said Mrs. Mallory, in an utterly
+indescribable tone. ‘She encouraged him to visit her, and he did so
+repeatedly; he is a socialist, an atheist, and altogether immoral. How
+far the connection may have gone I cannot pretend to say, but this I
+know, that Frederick Spenceley, who is not exactly strait-laced----’
+
+‘No, certainly not.’
+
+‘Frederick Spenceley declined to make her acquaintance, and took his
+sister away, and declined to let her converse with her.’
+
+‘You have this information from a reliable source?’
+
+‘Perfectly reliable. I am not at liberty to say who told me, but I must
+say the news exactly agrees with what my own judgment led me to expect.
+I always said....’
+
+‘Pardon! No matter what you have always said, or what other people say.
+I can tell you the truth, not from any second-hand source, but from my
+own personal knowledge of the circumstances. The young man of whom you
+have heard such a delightful character was, though he no longer is, one
+of my own work-people. He is perfectly respectable, and of unstained
+character. If Frederick Spenceley were one hundredth part--if he could
+ever become one hundredth part as much of a gentleman as Myles Heywood
+naturally is, he might congratulate himself. He--Heywood, I mean--is a
+friend of Miss Blisset’s, and the fact honours both him and her. I have
+met him at her uncle’s house, and I have shaken hands with him in his
+own house. He is a man whom I honour and respect very much. So much for
+that part of your information. For the rest, that Frederick Spenceley
+refused to make Miss Blisset’s acquaintance--my dear mother, I am
+surprised that a woman with your knowledge of the world should believe
+such a story. I happened to be present then, too. Miss Spenceley wished
+to introduce her brother to Miss Blisset, and the latter declined
+the acquaintance; I believe she had excellent reasons for doing so.
+I pitied Miss Spenceley, from my soul, for she is as superior to her
+blackguard of a brother as heaven is to earth. But--I trust you will
+see the wisdom of making the best of Miss Blisset, and not the worst,
+for I shall ask her to be my wife--to-day, if I get the chance, and if
+not, on the very first opportunity.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory had sat, during this prolonged harangue, drawing deep
+breaths, but at the last announcement, made with an emphasis unusual to
+Sebastian, it seemed suddenly to burst upon her, how entirely she had
+overreached herself, and she rose from her chair very pale; and, but
+that her pride forbade it, would have burst into tears of mortification.
+
+‘There is no ingratitude like that of a child to a mother,’ said she,
+in an icy voice. ‘You have done all you could to humiliate me and cross
+my wishes ever since your return, and now you insult me by seeking out
+the least----’
+
+They were at the door. He had opened it for her, but as she looked up
+in uttering those words, she paused, subdued by a certain expression in
+his eyes and mouth.
+
+‘Don’t speak too recklessly of that lady. It will do no good, and you
+would repent it,’ he remarked.
+
+She did not finish her sentence, but swept out of the room, and he
+gently closed the door after her.
+
+He stood in the middle of the room, biting his lip, till Hugo came up
+to him and took his hand.
+
+‘Dear Sebastian, I wish you success, though, _freilich_, I fancied you
+would marry Miss Spenceley.’
+
+‘Why, I wonder?’ asked Sebastian, impatiently. ‘I cannot imagine why
+I am supposed to be destined for Miss Spenceley, or she for me. She
+cannot endure me, and makes no secret of her dislike....
+
+‘You could overcome that,’ suggested his counsellor audaciously.
+
+‘Could I? She is perfectly charming, I don’t wish to deny, but I have
+loved Adrienne Blisset for years, and I am not going to give her up
+unless she refuses me.’
+
+‘Fellows don’t always give up when they are refused,’ suggested Hugo
+again.
+
+‘Finish your lunch and hold your tongue. What I was going to say is,
+that my mother is answerable for a great deal of mischief by persisting
+in marrying me to Miss Spenceley.’
+
+‘If there had been no such person as you, then there would have been no
+mischief,’ said Hugo, apparently throwing in the observation between
+two sips of claret, for he had obediently returned to the table.
+
+‘What do you mean?’ asked his friend, stopping in his promenade between
+the two windows.
+
+‘I mean what I say.’
+
+‘Why, do you mean that I have ever encouraged----’
+
+‘Miss Spenceley? _I, bewahre!_ No. But----’
+
+‘I shall do you some serious bodily injury if you don’t curb your
+boundless impertinence. Do you mean that I ever encouraged my mother’s
+scheme in any way?’
+
+‘Can’t say. I’ve done. Adieu!’ said Hugo, going out of the room, and
+singing in an insultingly loud voice--
+
+    ‘Willst du dein Herz mir schenken,
+    So fang’ es heimlich an!’
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+  ‘Opportunity is always golden and beautiful. It is the use it is
+  sometimes put to that is--imperfect.’
+
+
+Sebastian did not find any opportunity that afternoon for carrying out
+his purpose. He was fully occupied; so was Adrienne, and he was forced
+to see her, half an hour before he could leave himself, walk away alone
+in the direction of Blake Street, without having been able to exchange
+a word with her. This annoyed him, and made him feel nervous and
+anxious. Three months ago he would, without any inordinate vanity, have
+felt almost secure of being accepted if he proposed to Adrienne; now he
+felt very far from sure of it. The unpleasant scene with Mrs. Mallory
+left him determined to wait no longer, no more to ‘fear his fate too
+much,’ but ‘to put it to the touch, and win or lose it all,’ that very
+day, be it early or late.
+
+Accordingly, he returned home after the meeting, dined alone before
+the usual time, and, knowing that Adrienne was usually at home about
+half-past seven, set off a little after seven.
+
+His shortest way to Blake Street was to go past the town-hall, and
+proceed through the pleasure-grounds on the hillside, through the park
+at the top, and so across the Townfield into Blake Street.
+
+This he did, and having ascended the hill, entered the park by one
+of its gates, and found that it was almost deserted. There was a
+nursemaid, and some children playing about the croquet lawn; there was
+a man reclining upon a bench in a rocky recess--a man who seemed tired,
+for he was almost crouched together; his face was completely hidden by
+his arm and hand, which were stretched on the back of the bench. There
+was also a woman’s figure advancing from the other end of the park, and
+Sebastian’s heart gave a spring as he recognised Adrienne Blisset.
+
+He walked up to her, and met her.
+
+‘You here, Mr. Mallory, at this time? That is unusual, isn’t it?’
+
+‘I am here because I was on my way to your house, hoping very much to
+find you in. I am glad I have not missed you altogether.’
+
+‘I am glad too. I was going to see Mary Heywood, and should most likely
+have sat with her some time, for my conscience accuses me of having
+neglected her. But shall we return to my house?’
+
+‘Not on any account--that is, if you are not tired, and do not object
+to walking about on this terrace for a short time.’
+
+‘Not in the least. What a lovely evening it is! And how clear! Look
+at those purple moors to the north. I have often longed to get to the
+top of one of those moors. What do you think I should see at the other
+side?’
+
+‘Yorkshire--and more moors.’
+
+‘Those are the moors on the other side of which Charlotte and Emily
+Brontë lived,’ said Adrienne, her thoughts taking any direction but the
+one Sebastian wished.
+
+‘Yes, I believe so. Haworth and Keighley, and all about there. You
+should go there some time. But don’t look at the prospect now. I want
+to ask you something.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Adrienne, turning to him with a half-smile.
+
+The smile died away. She found his eyes fixed upon hers with an
+unmistakable meaning in their earnest gaze. Her own face flushed
+deeply, as he gently took her hand and said,
+
+‘I have tried in vain to take an opportunity--at last I have had to
+make one. I must know something, certainly. I cannot wait any longer.
+Adrienne, I love you dearly--I have loved you ever since I lost sight
+of you on that unhappy morning after you left Wetzlar. I knew it then,
+and my love has only grown stronger ever since. Can you return it? Will
+you--some time--be my wife?’
+
+He felt his happy confidence falling from him on all sides, as he
+beheld her face, and stood there, cold, as if a warm mantle had dropped
+from his shoulders.
+
+‘You--I am very sorry,’ she stammered. ‘Oh, Mr. Mallory----’
+
+‘Mr. Mallory!’ he echoed drearily. ‘Adrienne, I see what you are going
+to say, but think again! I must have been a terrible, conceited fool
+all this time; but will you not think again? Wait till to-morrow. Don’t
+speak to-day. Let me explain.’
+
+Adrienne’s face was full of pain as she said, tremulously but
+decisively,
+
+‘No. It would be wrong. I know what I feel, and must always feel, now.
+I admire you very much; I respect you, oh, more than I can tell you. I
+have a sort of affection for you. Indeed, I am very fond of you. You
+were so good to me,’ said Adrienne, with tears swimming in her eyes;
+‘but I cannot marry you.... Oh, do not look like that!’ she exclaimed,
+in an agony, ‘I am so sorry; I am so sorry.’
+
+‘Are you quite certain?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘Have I all along
+been so utterly indifferent to the woman I----’
+
+‘Not indifferent. You were never indifferent to me. And once----’
+
+‘Once!’ he echoed eagerly.
+
+‘I thought--I believed----’
+
+‘That you could love me--perhaps that you did love me?’
+
+She bowed.
+
+‘Ah, that was when I was away. But why should you not love me now,
+dearest? If you would only let me show you how I love you--you
+must--you could not help--so good and so loving as you are.’
+
+‘No, no! Do not speak to me of it. _It can never be._ I know my own
+heart now--too well,’ she said, looking at him almost appealingly, and
+with distracted, troubled eyes.
+
+‘And there is no love in it for me?’
+
+‘Not that kind of love. Oh, heavens! why must I have such things to
+say to _you_! You must know that you ought to have a very different
+kind of wife from me. Your wife should be rich and beautiful, and quite
+different. You will see it yourself some day, when you meet a woman
+worthy of you, who will love you as you deserve to be loved.’
+
+‘That is cold comfort when the woman I worship won’t have me. I cannot
+make you love me.’
+
+‘Only because another man has all the love I have to give,’ said
+Adrienne, scarcely audibly, as she turned aside her face.
+
+Sebastian stood still for a moment.
+
+‘Forgive me!’ said he; ‘it is hopeless, I see. I will never speak to
+you of it again.’
+
+‘Forgive _me_!’ she said, much moved. ‘I ought--no, I could not tell
+you. I have been distracted.... I----’
+
+‘Do not reproach yourself,’ said he, chivalrously. ‘I understand. After
+this’ (they had begun to move towards the farther gate of the park,
+along the broad terrace where the man was sitting on the seat in the
+trees)--‘after this I have not another word to say. We shall have to
+meet as before, Adrienne. May I call you Adrienne sometimes?’
+
+‘Always, if you like.’
+
+‘Will you try to overlook this--to treat me as if I had not annoyed you
+thus?’
+
+‘Annoyed me--_you_! Oh, how can you ask?’
+
+‘And then slander will be silenced, and then there will be no more
+misunderstandings. All will be clear between us.’
+
+The tenderness he felt he could not banish from his voice, and hers
+trembled as she answered.
+
+‘Quite clear--as it should be.’
+
+He raised her hand to his lips, and they passed on. The man on the
+bench had not moved, and they, as they uttered these last words, which
+were in effect a farewell, saw nothing and no one but each other.
+
+‘I must go home. I cannot go on now,’ said Adrienne, as they arrived at
+the gate.
+
+‘I will leave you. Good-bye.’
+
+‘Good-bye,’ said she, putting her hand in his, but not looking at him.
+He kept her hand in his so long that at last she looked up.
+
+‘Dear Sebastian, I----’
+
+‘There, that is all I wanted,’ said he, with a rather faint smile. ‘God
+keep you, child. Good-bye!’
+
+When Adrienne had left her home, it had been with the firm resolution
+to see Mary Heywood before returning. But she met Sebastian, and the
+visit was not accomplished.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+    ‘Great Mother Nature!
+    Eternal good and blessed!
+    Hear me! Hear my prayer!
+    Forsake me not in this my need!’
+
+
+Myles Heywood’s life had become worse and darker than merely a sad
+life. It was filled with a wretched pain and unrest, which had been
+growing like a disease for weeks. His was an earnest, passionate
+nature, deep and intense; but there was in it a well-spring of
+contentment, a something essentially sweet and wholesome, which,
+so long as no very disturbing element intruded, left him tolerably
+at ease with his life, in spite of the vague dissatisfaction and
+striving which had led him in earlier days to associate himself with
+radical working-men’s clubs; which had made him eagerly devour all
+kinds of iconoclastic literature, and which had often sent him home,
+on pay-day, meditating upon the unequal manner in which wealth was
+distributed. But he had had nothing to make him feel this inequality,
+keenly and cruelly, until, with one single circumstance, one single
+evening’s adventure, the turning-point in his life came, and he seemed
+all at once to realise the significance of all these things--wealth,
+station, and culture--in the shape of Adrienne Blisset. From that time
+his view of things was changed. He had seen what he felt to be the
+best, and most beautiful, and desirable thing in the world; and he
+did desire it with the ardour of a young man and a poet and a lover
+all combined, and with an ardour deeper still--the ardour of one who
+feels that everything great and high and satisfactory lies in one
+direction, and in the other, blackness, emptiness, death, if death be
+the opposite of life. He could never look back or down again; and yet,
+the more he looked forwards and upwards, the more did all he saw in
+the distance seem unattainable and impossible. He had quite ceased to
+visit Adrienne. To be with her now was only a prolonged ache and pain.
+He watched her wistfully, and noted in his heart each day that passed
+over without a visit from her. She used to come so often; now she never
+came at all. He knew--every one knew, that her uncle was dead, and that
+she was his heiress. More than once he had heard it was likely that she
+and Sebastian Mallory would be married. He felt it to be very likely
+himself; but to go and see her, to hear such a thing from her own lips,
+was more than his will had strength to accomplish.
+
+Myles had at one time heartily despised Sebastian Mallory; and later,
+with little more reason, had as intensely disliked him. Now that was
+all changed, and he himself was surprised to find how utterly and
+entirely his resentment had burnt out, vanished, evaporated. He could
+see his (as he considered him) successful rival without any other
+feeling than one of quiet, despairing indifference. His most active
+wish, when he was conscious of actively wishing anything, was that all
+this could somehow come to an end, that some change would soon take
+place.
+
+The change was approaching, in a manner so unexpected, so utterly
+terrible and unthought of, that if his sore and weary heart led him
+somewhat astray, a just and righteously acting world must not blame him
+too severely. When the eyes are dim with watching, when every nerve is
+irritable from long strain and a cruel endless tension, when calamity
+quickly succeeds calamity, it is not given to all men to act exactly as
+they ought to do.
+
+On the morning of the day on which Mrs. Mallory had been so signally
+defeated as regarded Miss Blisset, Myles Heywood received a letter.
+Address and contents were alike in a handwriting unknown to him.
+The epistle was simply headed ‘Thanshope,’ with the date following.
+He turned it over, and the subscription puzzled him--‘A Christian
+Well-wisher,’ it was signed. Marvelling at the whole thing, he began at
+the beginning, and read it through.
+
+  ‘Do you know,’ began the ‘Christian Well-wisher,’ ‘what position you
+  are standing in? Do you know to whom you really owe your situation?
+  You owe it to your friend Mr. Sebastian Mallory. Ask him if he did
+  not get Canon Ponsonby’s casting vote, which, with his own, got you
+  in. I thought you were determined to owe nothing to him. Do you know
+  that, with all his fair professions, he is stealing a march upon you
+  in one direction--that if you don’t either make sure of a certain
+  young lady, or give her up altogether, you will soon look a great
+  fool? I say this because it is well known that you and she are, or
+  were, great friends. Ask any one you know, almost any one in the town
+  of Thanshope, what is said about you and her, and see if I have not
+  written the truth. There is one way open to you out of this, and one
+  only--you can leave the place. I take a real interest in you, and
+  advise this, supposing that you do feel some grief at having caused
+  her to be spoken about in such a manner. Of course you are at liberty
+  either to take my advice or leave it. I should think there cannot be
+  much doubt which is the most manly, not to say Christian, course.
+
+    A CHRISTIAN WELL-WISHER.’
+
+He laid the letter down, feeling that he was trembling--feeling almost
+as if his limbs failed him. He did not speculate as to who had written
+the letter. Much of it seemed true to him. Sebastian’s love for
+Adrienne was no delusion of his jealous fancy. Nothing was said against
+her; he was blamed, and it was hinted that others spoke lightly of her.
+He was told to test the report, to inquire for himself; the challenge
+was a fair one.
+
+That he owed his situation to Sebastian Mallory’s influence was
+nothing; such things as that had now lost the slightest power to
+distress him. That Sebastian was ‘stealing a march’ upon him--that
+idea was so ludicrous and so pitiable as to make him smile drily in
+the midst of his own torture. There was no sting in that. If Sebastian
+chose to woo Adrienne, if she chose to receive his wooing, who should
+say them nay? He had no such right, at least. He dwelt for a moment
+on these points, and then came the rush of horror and disgust, the
+sickening, dreadful part of it. He shook with fury, and with misery
+too, as he realised that there were people who had watched him and
+her; that wrong constructions had been put upon their friendship; that
+people gossiped about her--coupled her name with his. It stung him into
+madness. There must be something in it. ‘Ask,’ said the writer, ‘ask,
+and see if I have not written the truth.’ To advise him to go away--to
+appeal to his manly feeling! It was like a hideous dream, which he
+could not at first grasp. His heart was sore and aching already; this
+blow seemed to crush him. His nerves had been strained for weeks past;
+he saw nothing in its proper light or just proportions. He thrust the
+letter into his breast-pocket, and, driven by necessity, went out to
+his work. How he got that work accomplished he could not tell. Adrienne
+was not there, or he did not think he could have struggled through with
+it.
+
+At noon he took his way home again. Crossing the Townfield, he met
+Harry Ashworth, who joined him, wishing him good-day, and observing,
+
+‘Myles, lad, you don’t look so well. What ails you?’
+
+‘Nothing, nothing ails me,’ said Myles; and then there flashed a sudden
+thought into his mind: that letter--that ‘Ask, and see if I have not
+written the truth.’ He would put it to the test now; no time like the
+present.
+
+‘I am telling lies,’ said he; ‘something does ail me. Harry, are you my
+friend?’
+
+‘Ay, for sure I am, old lad.’
+
+‘Then come and prove it. Come with me into our house; I want to show
+you something.’
+
+They were close at home. Myles led the way, and Harry followed him into
+the parlour, the front room, now stripped of almost all the furniture
+and ornaments which had formerly been the pride of Mary’s life.
+
+‘See here!’ said Myles, his eyes filled with a sombre fire, and his
+lips twitching a little as he pulled out the letter: ‘read this, and
+tell me, when you’ve done, if you know who’s meant in it.’
+
+Harry looked surprised, but took the letter and read it. Myles watched
+him, thinking what a good idea it was to make him read the letter. If
+the report were unfounded, he would not guess who was referred to;
+and if it were true, he would. Harry’s face changed, grew amazed,
+embarrassed as he read on. When he had finished the letter, he folded
+it up, and returned it, without speaking, to its owner. He did not look
+at Myles, but out of the window, as he said,
+
+‘It’s a very queer kind of a letter.’
+
+‘Well,’ said Myles, obliged to raise his voice, but desirous that
+neither Mary nor Edmund should overhear the conversation, ‘can you give
+a guess, lad, as to who the lady is that’s spoken of?’
+
+‘Well,’ said Harry, rather confusedly, ‘I have heard some talk about
+you and--and--that lady.’
+
+‘Suppose I don’t know who is meant? Suppose it’s all a riddle to me?’
+said Myles.
+
+But Harry shook his head, saying,
+
+‘Nay, nay, that won’t do.’
+
+‘But tell me who you think it is,’ said Myles, impatiently,
+desperately; ‘tell me, for God’s sake! I will know, Harry, so out with
+it.’
+
+‘You must remember, it’s no tale of mine--it’s only what I’ve heard;
+and I believe the lady meant is Miss Blisset. Fact is,’ he added
+decisively, ‘I know it is!’
+
+Again Myles’s lips quivered a little as he said,
+
+‘You said you were my friend, Harry. You must tell me what you’ve
+heard.’
+
+‘Well, it’s useless to deny that there’s a story going about that
+before her uncle died she was in love with you, and that you said so
+often; but _I_ don’t believe it, old chap. You never think I believe it
+all?’
+
+‘That I said she was in love with me?’ said Myles in a voice that had
+grown almost hoarse.
+
+‘Yes; and that when you went to their house it wasn’t exactly to see
+the old gentleman, but----’
+
+‘There, that will do!’ said the other, holding up his hand and turning
+away sickened. It was too hideous. If any such rumour had penetrated to
+her ears? He could not speak, till Harry, in an ill-judged moment, said,
+
+‘Nay, there’s nothing to take on about so much, Myles. Some enemy of
+yours has written that letter--some one as wants you out of the way.
+Can’t you see what he’s driving at when he advises you to go? Likely
+enough some one as thinks he might get your place if you were gone. But
+you’re not the sort of chap to pay any attention----’
+
+‘The advice is good,’ said Myles, curtly. ‘Very likely I shall take it.
+Do you know who set this tale going?’ he asked, turning to Harry with a
+look which startled the latter.
+
+‘That’s just what no one can tell,’ said he. ‘It seems to be known
+everywhere, and yet we can’t tell where it comes from.’
+
+‘Though you give it the benefit of free discussion. Well, I’ve found
+out what I wanted to know. There’s only one thing more--if you care for
+me or mine--and we’ve known each other a good many years now--you’ll
+never speak of what we have spoken of this morning.’
+
+‘My hand upon it,’ said his friend. ‘Never, so long as I live.’
+
+They left the room. Harry departed by the back way to have a word with
+Mary, and to offer to come and sit up that night with Edmund, who was
+much worse. The offer was accepted, and Harry went away.
+
+The midday meal was again a very sad one. Myles ate nothing, and said
+nothing; and Mary, full of fears and forebodings, was almost as bad.
+
+After dinner the young man went out again--up the street he hated, to
+the room which had become a purgatory to him. How he loathed the sight
+of that long building with the many windows and the well-known faces!
+It seemed to him as if every eye must be fixed upon him, every finger
+pointing at him.
+
+Work was not over until late that afternoon. It was six o’clock, or
+after, when Myles got home again, and on going into the house found
+that Mary was sitting upstairs with Edmund; so, after brooding a
+little, his mind full of wild, half-chaotic projects and ideas, he
+left the house and wandered out, he knew not whither. At last he found
+himself in the park, pacing about the broad terrace, and looking with
+eyes that saw nothing, across the idle town and the nearer hills, to
+the blue, calm, moorland ridges far away to the north. It was a scene
+he had loved, half unconsciously, from his childhood up, but to-day it
+was without joy--almost without existence for him.
+
+At last he seated himself on a bench situated in a kind of rockery
+which ran along one side of the terrace; the seat was a little retired
+in a hollow of the rockwork, and there he remained, and gradually he
+turned his back upon the prospect and his face to the wall, and hid
+his face in his arm and fought alone, as well as he could, with the
+misery and despair which rushed over him like a flood. He saw no point
+of cheerfulness or light in all his life’s sky. All was black and thick
+and overcast.
+
+‘This is no fit place for me to stay in,’ he thought. ‘I must get away
+as soon as I can. If I go, all the lies will die out quickly enough,
+and then--there’s another man who is ready to fight her battles for
+her, and he may see her as much as he pleases, and there’s no harm in
+it.’
+
+How long he had remained there motionless and miserable he did not
+know. He had forgotten all outside things, and was busied solely with
+his wretched self-introspection. At last, however, distant voices
+first, and then approaching footsteps, which advanced slowly and with
+many pauses, penetrated to his abstracted ear. He did not move; why
+should any one notice him, or think of him? Still less did he move when
+he distinctly heard and recognised Sebastian Mallory’s voice close to
+him saying,
+
+‘And then slander will be silenced, and there will be no more
+misunderstandings. All will be clear between us.’
+
+His voice was deep with love as he spoke, and to each vibration of it
+Myles’s heart seemed to give an answering throb.
+
+‘Quite clear, as it should be,’ replied the voice he loved best, and it
+trembled too.
+
+They paced past. Myles hid his face more deeply in his folded arms. He
+heard Sebastian kiss her hand, and then their voices died away--their
+footsteps too, and at last Myles raised his head and changed his
+position. He was half puzzled at the change which had come over him,
+at the quiet apathy which seemed to fill his whole soul. He had heard
+those words spoken which he had thought would be harder than any other
+words for him to bear, and yet he found himself sitting on in the same
+place, his pulses beating no faster, his breath coming no more quickly.
+Such utter indifference he felt to be ominous, and yet, though he
+tried, he could bring no different feelings forward; he repeated to
+himself all that he thought he had lost, all he believed Sebastian had
+won--conned it over as a devotee might tell his beads, but it had no
+effect. He felt no special pain or indignation.
+
+And yet, when he rose with the instinctive intention of turning his
+steps homeward, he found that he was incapable of going home. He
+recoiled from the very idea of entering the house, or speaking to any
+one he knew. He stood reasoning within himself about it.
+
+‘Why shouldn’t I go home? Home is surely the best place. Molly is
+there, and Ned. I ought to go and stay with him; he’s so ill.’ And he
+forced his feet towards home. But it was useless, he felt it impossible
+to enter the house.
+
+‘I know what I want,’ he reasoned within himself. ‘I want a good
+stretch of a walk, right over the moors, and away from this smoky hole.
+There’s nothing like a moorland breeze for blowing away unhealthy
+fancies. Harry used to say so, and he’s tried it often enough, and in
+trouble enough, poor lad.’
+
+He smiled. He found himself pitying Harry Ashworth with an intensity of
+commiseration such as he could not by any means wring out for his own
+sorrows.
+
+But he congratulated himself. A long, long walk, a walk of twenty
+miles or so, to prove to himself that he was still young and strong,
+and swift of foot, and that six weeks of clerkship drudgery, and six
+months’ alternate hot and cold, hope and fear, doubt and despair,
+had not impaired one iota his strength and endurance! That glorious
+moorland air, blowing keen and fresh, though it was pure, from the
+north over the top of Blackrigg! There was surely not a grief, not a
+solitude-nourished fear and sorrow, that its strong, bracing breath
+would not blow clean away!
+
+By this time he had left the park, and was walking quickly down
+the street in a northerly direction. He met one or two friends and
+acquaintances before he got fairly out of the town; he returned their
+salutations quite mechanically, and still walked on. Just outside
+Thanshope, as the suburb of Bridgefold began, there stood a well-known
+public-house, the _Craven Heifer_; and, as he was passing its door,
+some one hailed him.
+
+‘Eh, Myles! I say, Myles, is yon you?’
+
+He looked up, and saw a man standing in the doorway--a man whom he
+had known years ago, who had once worked side by side with him in the
+factory, and had left and gone over into Rossendale before Myles had
+been promoted from the weaving shed to the warehouse. He stared blankly
+at the man, who had been drinking, and though by no means drunk, was
+decidedly elevated.
+
+‘Come in, mon?’ he cried. ‘It’s years sin’ I saw you. Come in, and have
+a glass, for old acquaintance sake. I’ll stand it.’
+
+He would not be gainsaid, but rolled out, and pulled his former friend
+into the taproom. There were half a dozen men there, all more or less
+happy and free from care, as it seemed to Myles. They welcomed him
+noisily, and his friend asked him, with unnecessary affectionateness of
+tone and manner, what it should be.
+
+‘What? Oh, anything. What you are having yourself,’ said Myles,
+greeting first one and then another of them, and thinking, with a
+kind of savage mirth, within himself, that there were more kinds of
+pleasure in the world than one; since he could not have one kind, he
+might as well try another. He would see whether these men, who seemed
+so pleased to see him, were really such bad company after all. And he
+sat down, and waited until a girl brought him a glass of steaming hot
+punch--whisky punch; that was what they were drinking.
+
+‘Now, then,’ cried his acquaintance, ‘good luck to you, Myles! Here’s
+to our next merry meeting, eh?’
+
+‘To our next!’ said Myles, raising the glass to his lips, and then,
+even as it touched them, feeling as if he had suddenly come to his
+senses, he put the glass down on the table. ‘Not yet,’ he said, half
+aloud, and got up from his seat and walked out of the room, shaking off
+the hands that were outstretched to stay him, and unheeding the loud
+and angry expostulations which came after him.
+
+‘Pah!’ he exclaimed, as he took his way along the road again; ‘I’m not
+come to that yet!’
+
+It was a long and toilsome road that led from the town of Thanshope,
+through some outlying suburbs, to a large manufacturing village, called
+Hamerton, which lay on the very skirts of Yorkshire, closed in on all
+sides by the great ridges of Blackrigg, and some neighbouring wild and
+desolate moors. He took the road along which Hugo and Sebastian had
+once driven, and the sun had set as he turned his face towards the
+hills with that strange sensation of oppressive apathy and indifference
+ever at his heart. The night was descending, the ‘stars rushed out,’ as
+he at length gained the complete solitude of the moors, and, turning
+aside from the road, plunged half knee-deep into the thick heather and
+ling, which was the only vegetation about there. He walked, for a very
+short time as it seemed to him--really, for hours--battling with the
+horrible sensations of a great, black, yawning, hideous blank, a huge
+emptiness, an _ewiges Nichts_, which completely overpowered him. He
+was unconscious how far he had gone, or where he was, or that he was
+even weary, when suddenly he found himself stumbling over the knolls of
+heather, and looking up, found that it was dark. The summer night had
+closed in, and he, for aught he knew, might be twenty miles away, or
+thirty, from Thanshope.
+
+He thought he would sit down and rest a little, so he sank down upon
+the friendly heather, and found that it formed a soft and yielding bed,
+and that the air which played around his head and face was cool, and
+pure, and sweet. For a moment he found a blessed sensation of rest and
+relief, and then all things seemed softly to swim and fade around him;
+with sweeping wing sleep came upon him, and laid her finger upon his
+eyelids, and bade the weary brain rest. He sank gradually down in the
+hollow of the heather, and a deep, dreamless slumber overcame him, and
+saved him. Never had sleep been a more beneficent visitant; never had
+kindly Nature taken to her soft arms a more weary, heart-sick child of
+hers, than she did that summer night, when she offered to Myles Heywood
+rest upon her own broad bosom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+SUNRISE.
+
+
+Mary Heywood, all the weary afternoon of that weary day, sat beside
+Edmund’s bed and nursed him, with fear at her heart that the nursing
+would be of no long duration. The fever which had consumed him was
+over, but the weakness which remained was terrible--it was a weakness
+from which, as Mary dimly felt, there would never be any rallying.
+She had brought sewing and knitting upstairs into the little bedroom,
+and she drew down the blind ‘to keep the sun out,’ as they both said.
+Edmund lay perfectly still. She asked him if she should read to him,
+but he smiled a little, and shook his head. Neither of them knew how
+very near the end was. Edmund, if he could have known, would have been
+very glad, and Mary would have been so miserable, that it was well she
+did not know.
+
+‘I could like to see Myles a bit,’ said Edmund at last; ‘I ne’er see
+him now, hardly. He’s quite different from what he was.’
+
+‘He’s not happy,’ said Mary. ‘I don’t rightly know what ails him, but
+it’s summat very bad, I’m sure.’
+
+‘Oh, he doesn’t like bein’ out o’ work. No more should I, if I was him.
+He’s ne’er been used to such pinchin’ work as this. They keep him a
+long time at yon shop.’
+
+‘Ay, they do. Harry Ashworth said he’d come and sit wi’ thee to-neet,
+Ned. Would thou like it?’
+
+Edmund assented, with a look of pleasure, and there was silence, while
+the afternoon wore on, and at last Mary’s head began to droop. She was
+weary with sorrow, with working, and with watching. The atmosphere of
+the room was close and heavy, although Mary had conscientiously tried
+to follow out the doctor’s directions about keeping it ventilated. She
+could not keep her eyes open, but slept in her chair until Edmund’s
+feeble touch on her arm awoke her, and she started up.
+
+‘Eh, what is it, lad?’
+
+‘I could so like summat to drink, Molly,’ said he, gaspingly. ‘And I
+think there’s summat not reet wi’ Myles. I heard him come in, and sit
+quite still for a bit, and now he’s gone out again, without coming up
+here, or waitin’ for his tea, or anything.’
+
+Thoroughly awake, Mary hurried downstairs, and found emptiness and
+solitude. She could see that Myles had been in. She could see the
+chair that he had drawn up to the table and pushed away again, and she
+wondered, and was uneasy at his going out thus, without word or message.
+
+The kitchen, too, felt close. She drew up the window, and set the back
+door open to let some air in. Then she roused the fire, and set the
+gently singing kettle upon it, and brought out the tea-things. She
+prepared some tea for Edmund, and took it upstairs to him. He had said
+he was very thirsty, and he took the cup eagerly, and put his lips to
+it, then put it down again.
+
+‘I feel very faint, Mary; I can’t take that. I mun have a
+little--bran----’
+
+He had fainted, and it was some time before she succeeded in restoring
+him to consciousness.
+
+‘Eh, I wish Myles was here; I wish Harry would come,’ she kept
+murmuring to herself, looking with anguish upon the poor worn
+face, which had now the stamp of the approaching end set upon it in
+unmistakable characters.
+
+At last a knock at the outer door informed her that Harry Ashworth had
+come. She ran downstairs and let him in, drawing him into the kitchen;
+and when they were there, sat down upon her rocking-chair, and began to
+cry heartily.
+
+‘Why, Mary, what ails thee, lass?’ said Harry, taking her hand.
+
+‘Myles is gone out--I don’t know where, and yon poor lad upstairs
+hasn’t so much longer to be here,’ said Mary, looking at him with her
+tearful eyes. ‘Thou munnot leave me yet awhile, Harry.’
+
+Whether the presence of a great mutual sorrow broke the barrier which
+had hitherto existed between these two, I know not. As Mary begged him
+not to leave her, their eyes met, and something in those eyes gave
+Harry the courage he had never before been able to summon to his aid.
+It was as if by a mutual impulse that they bent towards each other,
+and their lips met for consolation and reassurance; and Harry, with a
+wonderful sense of strength of courage, put his arm round Mary’s waist,
+saying,
+
+‘There’s nought I’d like so well as never to leave thee at all, Mary,
+if thou could look at such a poor, deaf, marred chap as me. Sometimes I
+think thou could, and sometimes I’m sure thou couldn’t. Dost think thou
+could make up thy mind to take me?’
+
+‘I made up my mind long ago what I’d do if ever thou asked me,’ said
+Mary, naïvely.
+
+‘And what was that?’
+
+‘Why, to take thee, for sure,’ she answered.
+
+Harry, smiling, looking on her with amaze and admiration, ventured on
+another kiss, and said,
+
+‘Eh, but I have been a fool not to speak to thee before.’
+
+She smiled a little, and then the remembrance of the troubled present
+returning to her, said,
+
+‘I’m very happy, but we mun think o’ poor Ned just now. Thee go
+upstairs, and tell him what thou’s done. He always _were_ suspicious
+about thee. It’ll cheer him up like, and I’ll come after thee in a
+minute or two.’
+
+Just for a few moments the news had the desired effect upon Edmund. He
+shook hands with Harry, smiled and looked what he had not voice enough
+to say. But the same chill look of coming death was upon his face; and
+Mary, as Myles still did not come, could not rest until she had been
+out and brought the doctor back with her. The doctor was a busy man.
+He made a very brief visit--said nothing much in the sick-room, but
+ordered some restorative, and, when Mary followed him downstairs and
+tremulously asked his opinion, said brusquely, but not at all unkindly,
+
+‘My good girl, you must make up your mind to lose him. I cannot even
+assure you that he will live till morning.’
+
+Restraining her tears, Mary went upstairs again, and, with Harry,
+resumed her watch by the sick lad. They were slow and solemn hours.
+They saw the end approaching under their very eyes; they saw Death’s
+grey seal stamping its impress more and more visibly upon the features,
+and one on either side the narrow little bed they sat, while it grew
+deep night, and still Myles did not come home.
+
+‘What can be keeping him?’ the girl uneasily wondered again and again;
+but she dared not speak her wonder, for every time that Edmund roused
+from the lethargy which was settling more and more heavily upon him,
+he looked round with an anxious gaze, and a vague astonishment at the
+absence of that brother who had been his stay and protection all his
+weak and painful life.
+
+Midnight passed, and still the sorrowful watch lasted. One o’clock
+struck, and still he came not; and still the face on the pillow grew
+grayer and more deathlike. Two o’clock passed, and yet all was as it
+had been. Towards half-past two, Mary, going softly to the window,
+raised a corner of the blind, and beheld the first flush of dawn in the
+east, as it may be seen at that hour on a June morning. Her heavy eyes
+looked across the houses, across the town, to where the pure sky, with
+a cool, bright light, showed the ridges of the moors. She looked back
+into the room. Harry’s eyes had followed her, and hung upon her face;
+and Edmund’s eyes too were opened, wide, bright, and clear. His voice
+had regained a last flicker of strength, as he said distinctly,
+
+‘Wind up the blind, Molly, and open the window a bit. Let _me_ see the
+sun rise.’
+
+Speechless, Mary complied. A waft of pure, fresh morning air was
+borne into the room through the open window. Then there was a pause.
+From where he lay, Edmund could see the broadening rose flush in the
+east, and then suddenly the chimes from the spire rang out; three was
+solemnly tolled, and in a moment there rang out upon the sleeping town,
+resting from its troubles, the sweet old tune, ‘Life let us cherish!’
+Mary heard the tune, ‘Myles’s tune,’ as she called it, and wondered
+longingly where he was. She returned to the bedside, and Harry went to
+the window. Edmund had closed his eyes again, and another quarter had
+chimed, when Harry exclaimed,
+
+‘He’s there! He’s coming!’
+
+In a few moments more Myles stood in the room. There were very few
+words more. They all stood round the bed, and Edmund held his brother’s
+hand. In the watching him, the others had no time to notice the haggard
+look on Myles’s face. Day grew broader, and life waned. Four was chimed
+melodiously; the first stir of life was audible, as Edmund quietly
+breathed his last.
+
+Mary was sobbing--the sunrise was over--and day, full, glowing, and
+brilliant, poured in upon the dead face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+DUST AND ASHES.
+
+
+The day that followed was naturally a sad one. Mary was too much
+occupied in mourning her loss to notice Myles as she otherwise might
+have done. Harry left the house about five o’clock, promising to call
+again about dinner-time. A friendly neighbour came in and helped Mary
+to perform all that remained to be done for the dead. At last all was
+finished. The woman had gone, and Mary paused as she left the room,
+looking round it with a kind of sorrowful pride. It looked very white,
+and pure, and still.
+
+She had drawn the blind down and set everything in the most exquisite
+order. The dead figure lay stretched out in its eternal repose,
+with calm, beautiful face, and quietly closed eyes. At the door she
+returned, and ran up to the bedside, and kissed the cold forehead.
+
+‘Poor lad! poor lad!’ she whispered between her tears, ‘thine has been
+a hard life, but thou’rt in heaven now, if ever anybody was.’
+
+When Myles came in, during the forenoon, she was struck, for the first
+time, with his great stillness and the strange, haggard look upon his
+face. She remembered that he had been out all night, and asked him what
+he had been doing.
+
+‘I dare say it seemed unkind,’ he replied, ‘but you may trust me,
+Molly, I couldn’t help it. I can’t explain to you why it was; something
+had happened. I couldn’t help it.’
+
+He sat down beside her, and took her hand, and they both remained
+there, looking mournfully into the little fire; she with the sorrow of
+deep affection which knows its object removed; he sad too, but with a
+more incurable sadness than hers. They were both oppressed with sorrow,
+but he
+
+            ‘Beneath a rougher sea,
+    And whelmed in deeper gulfs than she.’
+
+On this scene entered Harry Ashworth, with offers of his services if
+they were wanted, and also with the object of telling Myles what had
+passed between him and Mary.
+
+Myles heard it all out, down to Mary’s acknowledgment that she wished
+to marry Harry, ‘supposing thou hast nothing against it, Myles.’
+
+‘Against it? What could I have against it? You’ve my hearty consent and
+good wishes, both of you. There won’t be a better wife in Thanshope,
+nor in England, than you’ll get, Harry; and I know you so well that I’m
+not afraid to trust Molly to you. I’m glad it is so, for I don’t think
+I shall stay here long, and I should have been unhappy to leave her
+alone. I hope you’ll both be as happy as you deserve.’
+
+He shook hands with Harry and kissed Mary, but he could not force
+a smile. They saw that he was glad, relieved to find that they had
+decided to be married; but they also saw that he had some sorrow behind
+it all, which was greater than the joy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a little after eight on the same evening. Myles found himself
+standing opposite the Townhall, with his hand on the latch of the
+Oakenrod gate. He paused a moment before lifting it, then summoning up
+courage, did so, and stood within the garden of the house against which
+he had had so long and so strong a prejudice.
+
+He had never been so near it before. His feet were strange within the
+gates of rich or important people of any kind, but particularly here.
+It was with a sort of thrill that he looked round at the smoothly
+shaven grass, the dazzling flower-beds, in all the splendour of their
+June garments, the softly rolled gravel beneath his feet. The errand he
+came upon was one which, a month ago, he would have repudiated, would
+have said that no imaginable combination of circumstances could make
+him undertake. Yes, truly; but the combinations of circumstances which
+force us into the actions that humble us, and wound us, and sting our
+self-esteem with hornet-stings, are always such combinations as we
+should never imagine beforehand, because it never occurs to us that
+deserving persons, such as ourselves, can be put into positions only
+appropriate to ill-regulated conduct.
+
+Myles was conscious of no bad conduct or evil intentions, but only of
+a great, ever-growing misery, which was so strong as to force him to
+try in some way to escape from it, and this was the only path which
+presented itself as practicable; so he took it, as is generally the
+case.
+
+He walked up to the front door, past the open windows with the lace
+curtains fluttering inside, and pulled the bell. An unpleasant fear
+seized him, lest Sebastian should be out, gone to see Adrienne,
+perhaps, and he would have his hard task to do all over again.
+
+A page-boy opened the door, and Myles inquired if Mr. Mallory were at
+home.
+
+‘I believe so,’ said the youth, a little wondering at the unusual
+visitor.
+
+‘I wish to see him,’ said Myles, stepping in, ‘if he is not engaged,
+that is; and my business is rather particular.’
+
+The boy, after serious consideration, decided to show the visitor into
+the library, and asked him to take a seat. This he did, and inquired,
+
+‘Who shall I say wishes to see him?’
+
+‘Tell him that Myles Heywood would be glad to speak to him, if he is
+disengaged.’
+
+The page disappeared. Myles was left alone in the library, and his
+quick, restless eyes roamed round it, and took everything in, and the
+full significance of everything--the soft carpets, the harmonious,
+subdued hues of walls, hangings, and furniture; the relief afforded by
+gleams of gold here and there; the book-cases filled with books of all
+times and in all languages; the great bronze busts of Aristotle and
+Sophocles; the quaint blue and white vases; the two curious paintings
+by Sebastian’s favourite German artist; the reading-stands; the
+writing-tables; the pleasant luxury and taste, and abundance of every
+appointment.
+
+‘No wonder!’ said he to himself. ‘And between the man and me--his
+manners and mine, his mind and mine--there is just the same difference
+as there is between this library of his and our little flagged kitchen
+at home. This is the place for her, and I feel as if I could see her
+here sitting at that writing-table, or standing in the window there
+looking out.’
+
+He heaved a deep sigh, and at that moment some one began to play a
+melody on a piano in another room; a soft, sad, melancholy air, to
+which he listened so intently that he did not hear the door open, and
+was first roused by Sebastian’s voice.
+
+‘Good evening. I am sorry to have kept you waiting; but I was engaged
+and could not escape.’
+
+‘Don’t mention it,’ said Myles, rising; and as each man’s eyes fell
+upon the other man’s face, both felt surprise. Sebastian almost showed
+his, in a suppressed exclamation, but Myles was too sad and oppressed
+to experience more than a vague wonder and astonishment that a man
+in what he thought was Sebastian’s position should wear that subdued,
+grave, downcast look.
+
+‘I noticed that you were not in your place to-day,’ began Mallory, by
+way of opening the conversation; ‘nothing wrong at home, I hope?’
+
+‘Yes; we are in trouble at home. My brother, who has been ill for a
+long time, died this morning, early.’
+
+‘I am very sorry indeed. Of course you would not think of coming to
+work, at present. It is not----’
+
+‘It was not to excuse myself from work that I came,’ said Myles, in the
+same quiet, constrained way. ‘My brother’s death is a grief to me, of
+course; but one does not talk about such things. I was going to trouble
+you on a matter of business, if you can spare the time----’
+
+‘Perfectly well. In what can I help you?’
+
+Myles bit his lips. He had strong ideas about what it was fitting for
+a man to say and do under certain circumstances. Probably if he had
+formulated some of his ideas upon ethics, most sophisticated persons
+would have broken into inextinguishable laughter. One favourite maxim
+of his was that, to use his own language, ‘To blackguard a man high
+and low, and then go and ask a favour of him, was a mean, dirty trick;
+fit for a hound, perhaps, but not for an honest man.’ If he could
+not be said to have ‘blackguarded’ Sebastian high and low, he had
+certainly spoken with less than courtesy, both of him and to him; it
+was impossible to ignore that fact, and proceed to his real errand.
+
+‘You may think it a very strange thing, but I’ve come to ask a favour
+of you,’ said he.
+
+‘Is it strange? I shall be glad to grant it if I can.’
+
+Myles lifted his hand a moment, and then went on,
+
+‘You may not know that I have often spoken very bitterly of you, but
+you do know that I have not been particularly civil to you--have I?’
+
+‘Well, not exactly effusive,’ admitted Sebastian, with a slight smile,
+wondering whether he had at last completed his much-desired conquest.
+
+‘It is true,’ said Myles. ‘I had a bad opinion of you--a prejudice
+against you--and I expressed it. If it had not been for troubles I have
+had lately,’ he added, with that little nervous twitch of the lips
+which had only lately been present with him; ‘but for those troubles, I
+might have gone on thinking and speaking evil of you without a cause,
+but my eyes have been opened. I see how utterly wrong I was--blind and
+bigoted. You have proved yourself a very different man from what I
+thought you--a very much wiser and better man than I should have been
+in your place--and I beg your pardon for what I have said against you.’
+
+‘But, my dear fellow, you must not take it so terribly in earnest;
+so--so tragically. Every one has his prejudices; I have some most
+preposterous ones, I believe. All the same, I confess to you that I
+was excessively piqued by your bad opinion of me. It has been a matter
+of some moment, with me, to overcome that prejudice, and enlist you
+amongst my friends. If I can say that you are amongst them now, I must
+feel that I have won a kind of victory.’
+
+‘Mr. Mallory, I can never be amongst your enemies, never again. Let
+that be enough. I can say no more. You are wiser and more generous,
+too, than I am; but you can afford to be so. The reason I came to-night
+was to ask you if you still remembered an offer you made me a short
+time ago--the offer to give me a place away from Thanshope and _out of
+England_, you said?’
+
+‘I remember it perfectly well, and that I said I could still do it if
+you changed your mind about it. Well?’
+
+‘I have changed my mind about it If you can carry your generosity
+a little farther, and get me that place, or something like it--the
+farther away from here the better--I shall be--God knows, how grateful
+to you: I can never express it.’
+
+‘I can still do it,’ said Sebastian, looking attentively and kindly
+at the eager, haggard face of the other. ‘But I am sorry you think of
+leaving Thanshope.’
+
+‘I _must_ leave Thanshope. It is to get away from here that I ask. Will
+the work be hard? I hope so. I care for nothing but hard work--hard
+work,’ he repeated, in a sort of restless, prolonged sigh.
+
+‘You will have what you wish for. The work is certainly pretty stiff.
+It is in Germany--in a rough, mining district near a large town. There
+is a cotton factory, and some collieries. They have a lot of English
+and Irish work-people there. The master and owner, Herr Süsmeyer, is
+a very intimate friend of mine. He wants a sort of superintendent--an
+Englishman, and one who is not afraid of work. He himself is as much an
+Englishman as a German. Still, you must know a little of the language.
+Did you not learn something of it from Miss Blisset?’ he added
+deliberately.
+
+‘Yes,’ said Myles, curtly.
+
+‘Ah, you will soon pick up more; you are quick, and you must study when
+work is over. That will give you as much occupation as even you could
+wish, I think. I shall give you a very high recommendation, indeed, as
+being personally known to me.’
+
+‘And as having been always polite, reasonable, and amiable with my
+superiors; not ready to take offence, and willing to own myself in the
+wrong!’ suggested Myles, with grim humour.
+
+Sebastian smiled, in silence, as he drew a paper-case and inkstand
+towards him, and wrote rapidly. He fastened up the letter, and
+addressed it to--HERRN GUSTAV SÜSMEYER, Eisendorf, Westphalien,
+Prussia, and handed it to Myles, saying,
+
+‘I know the situation is still open, and that letter will secure it for
+you. I shall also write to Herr Süsmeyer to-night, so as to lose no
+time. From what you say, I suppose you will want to go soon?’
+
+‘As soon as ever I can--in a few days, when poor Ned is buried, and I
+can leave Mary.’
+
+‘You will leave your sister behind you?’
+
+‘For a good reason,’ said Myles. ‘She’s going to be married, and I know
+I leave her in good hands.’
+
+‘May I ask whom she will marry?’
+
+‘Harry Ashworth, a friend of ours. He has loved her long,’ said Myles,
+not even feeling surprised that he should be relating such things to
+Sebastian.
+
+‘I am very glad; I wish them all happiness. I am sure the man is
+fortunate who marries your sister.’
+
+‘Yes, he is,’ assented Myles. ‘Then,’ he added, ‘you think I may go any
+day?’
+
+‘Any day; but before you go, I hope you will see me again, so that I
+can give you some idea of the place, and tell you what route to take.
+It is an out-of-the-way sort of place; and excuse me, the journey is
+somewhat expensive, and----’
+
+‘You are very kind. My friend Harry has money which he will lend me.
+I shall soon repay him if I once get work. He won’t want it till he
+is married. Let me see: the day after to-morrow--Mary will stay with
+Harry’s mother. Would it be convenient if I called the day after
+to-morrow, in the evening?’
+
+‘The day after to-morrow--to-morrow is Mrs. Spenceley’s ball,’ said
+Sebastian, half to himself. ‘Yes; the day after to-morrow will suit me
+perfectly well.’
+
+‘And the day after that I can go,’ exclaimed Myles, the first ray
+of anything like pleasure flashing across his face. ‘I can go,’ he
+repeated.
+
+Sebastian looked at him, not feeling at all satisfied with his victory.
+All that he had ever wished to himself, with regard to Myles, had come
+to pass. The latter had owned himself wrong; had apologised for his own
+frowardness; had descended so far as to ask a favour, and to express
+himself in tones of unmistakable emotion as deeply grateful when it was
+granted. And yet--the effect was not in the least what it ought to have
+been. The sensations of the victor were anything but jubilant.
+
+‘You seem very anxious to get away?’ he remarked, involuntarily and
+inquiringly.
+
+‘Yes, I am; it’s the only thing I care for, just at present,’ said
+Myles. ‘Good night,’ he added, rising. ‘I can’t express my gratitude to
+you. You would have been justified in treating me very differently.’
+
+‘Indeed I should not!’ exclaimed Sebastian; and the sense that his
+victory was a barren one was borne still more strongly in upon him.
+
+What was it worth if, after all, it had only been won _for_ him by
+Myles’s adverse circumstances, not _by_ him, through his own influence
+over the conquered one?
+
+‘Heywood,’ he exclaimed earnestly, ‘is there nothing behind all this
+that you could tell me? Can I do nothing for you but help you to get
+away from this place, which seems to have grown so unbearable to you?
+I do not ask from ordinary curiosity--you must know that; it is from
+sympathy, and a sincere wish to be your friend, if possible.’
+
+Myles shook his head.
+
+‘I can speak to no man of what troubles me, thank you,’ said he. ‘All
+the same, I am not ungrateful.’
+
+He held out his hand, which the other grasped heartily, and in another
+minute found himself alone.
+
+All that evening, all the night, he was haunted by a vision of the pale
+face and miserable eyes of Myles Heywood--a vision of suffering whose
+very remembrance oppressed him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+HUGO.
+
+
+The few days intervening between her dispute with her son and the
+Spenceleys’ ball were, as may be supposed, not particularly pleasant
+ones to Mrs. Mallory. Sebastian, after his interview with Adrienne,
+came home, and looking into the drawing-room found his mother alone.
+She did not deign to notice him, but he, coming in, said to her,
+
+‘Mother, I want to speak to you.’
+
+‘Well?’
+
+‘I proposed to Miss Blisset this evening.’
+
+‘Indeed!’
+
+‘You do not ask what reception my offer met with.’
+
+‘I imagine, considering your relative positions, there cannot be much
+need to inquire.’
+
+‘Still, I may as well tell you that she refused me.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory was profoundly astonished, of course; but as, after a
+moment’s reflection, she did not perceive herself any nearer her real
+and cherished object, Sebastian’s marriage with Helena, she contented
+herself with uttering a sneering little laugh, and saying, in an
+exasperating tone--
+
+‘Really!’
+
+‘So that you will not have the annoyance of knowing her your
+daughter-in-law. But I think it better to mention that such remarks as
+you made about her this morning must not be repeated in my presence. I
+do not choose to hear anything spoken of that young lady which is not
+quite respectful.’
+
+‘Though she _has_ jilted you,’ said Mrs. Mallory, with an amiable smile.
+
+‘I was not aware of it.’
+
+‘Very likely not; men seldom do know when women make fools of them. The
+better for them and their conviction as to their superior wisdom.’
+
+‘You may possibly be right,’ he rejoined, with perfect temper; ‘but the
+point I wish to impress upon you is, that nothing disrespectful is ever
+to be uttered of Miss Blisset in my presence. The other questions are
+quite supplementary.’
+
+She made no answer, and Sebastian, politely wishing her good night,
+retired to his study.
+
+Mrs. Mallory sat alone, very angry, after her phlegmatic, batrachian
+fashion, at what had happened, and longing very much, for the relief
+of her own feelings, to punish some one in some way. It was too
+exasperating that Sebastian should behave in that manner, after all
+her plans for his good and welfare. Helena Spenceley was at the moment
+perfection in her eyes.
+
+‘At any rate, he must go to the ball the day after to-morrow,’ she said
+to herself. ‘It is a good chance. There is no time when a man is so
+likely to fall in love with a woman as when he has just been “refused”
+by another woman.’
+
+But here her thoughts wandered off to Adrienne, and she felt as angry
+with her for her presumption in refusing Sebastian as she would have
+felt with her success had she accepted him. Indeed, her audacity in
+attracting him at all was thoroughly odious; she was a little dog in
+the manger, who would neither accept the man’s love herself nor leave
+him free to wander aside to where beauty and a hundred thousand pounds
+waited for him to lift his hand in order to utter a rapturous ‘Yes.’
+
+‘For Helena _is_ in love with him, let her pretend what she likes,’ she
+muttered angrily. ‘I can see it distinctly. He might have her for the
+asking.... I wonder if all children are born to break their mothers’
+hearts?’
+
+With which speculation agitating her brain she retired to rest.
+
+Her spirit was still ruffled and ill at ease all the next day, and by
+degrees she concentrated her ill-temper upon a single object--a sort
+of focus to her anger and vexation--and that object was no other than
+Hugo von Birkenau. She had always regarded him with little favour: he
+was poor, dependent, and behaved himself as if he were rich and free.
+Now, everything that he said or did appeared an offence--a purposely
+intended, premeditated insult directed at herself, with the purpose
+of angering her--a very strange frame of mind, dear reader, and one
+which, from its being so utterly unknown to you and me and eminently
+reasonable persons like ourselves, would almost seem to require some
+elucidation or description.
+
+Mrs. Mallory found the day go over, and Hugo continue to be insultingly
+cheerful and conversational, without her being able to find any actual
+ground for quarrelling with him. It would come, she was determined; it
+should come: he was too impertinent to be tolerated without an attempt
+to repress him.
+
+On the evening on which Myles came to see Sebastian, the latter and
+Hugo were sitting together in Sebastian’s study. Hugo had heard of
+Adrienne’s refusal, and though condoling, did not feel so sorry as he
+considered he ought to have done. By degrees the conversation drifted
+off to Hugo’s own affairs and prospects. Sebastian told him he thought
+he ought seriously to think about what he meant to do.
+
+‘I have thought about it, and decided,’ said Hugo. ‘I’m going to write
+an opera. That has been my ambition ever since I could strum upon a
+piano.’
+
+‘But, my dear lad, you will never learn all that you must know in
+order to write an opera by staying in Thanshope. You must go away,
+Hugo, to your native land, where alone true music flourishes, and
+you must study. You ought to go to Köln or Leipzig or some other
+conservatorium. I should recommend Leipzig.’
+
+‘I have always thought of Leipzig,’ answered the boy, ‘and I will go as
+soon as you like, Sebastian, but it will be very dreary without you.’
+
+‘Oh, bah! Yours is a fickle, artist nature, Hugo, revelling in the
+delight of the moment. You will think Leipzig heaven a week after you
+get there, and all the other pupils in the conservatorium seraphs and
+angels, and you will wonder how you ever lived here.’
+
+‘Not fickle, Sebastian!’ he cried, with the tragic earnest which
+sometimes made Sebastian think him so like Helena Spenceley. ‘Anything
+but that! Anything but fickle to you! If I thought I ever _could_ be
+fickle to you, I’d put an end to myself to-night, and have no qualms
+of conscience about it. Such a wretch would be better out of the world
+than in it.’
+
+‘Oh, nonsense! But one thing I do wish you would promise me. I’ve often
+thought of asking you before, but I was afraid it might seem like
+trying to entrap your youth and innocence.’
+
+‘What is it? Quick, tell me what it is!’ asked Hugo, his eyes ablaze
+with eagerness.
+
+‘Well, it is this: that you will never, before you are one-and-twenty,
+take any very important step, without _telling_ me what you intend to
+do. I don’t say asking my permission. I trust too much to your honour
+and purity of heart to keep you from doing anything bad,’ he added,
+with a smile. ‘I would not harass and fetter you by any such stupid
+restriction; but, as I trust you, I want you to trust me. Don’t do
+anything important without telling me that you intend to do it, and
+giving me a chance to offer you a specimen of my superior wisdom, you
+know.’
+
+‘What a question! I swear it!’ said Hugo, enthusiastically. ‘As if I
+_could_ do anything without consulting you!’
+
+‘Not so fast!’ said his friend, laughing. ‘Wait till the time comes. I
+shall most likely seem then a wearisome old formalist, who----’
+
+‘_Never!_’
+
+‘But I tell you, it will be so, you obstinate young dog! There are
+temptations, Hugo, and you, with your temperament, will find them as
+hard to resist as if they were red-hot fiery hail. I am such a slow,
+phlegmatic sort of fellow. They don’t affect me in the same way. My
+temptations always come too late. By the time I begin to think I should
+like to do something either bad or idiotic, the chance is over, and I
+am saved. So I have got the reputation of being a very well-conducted
+sort of person, and not caring for the things other fellows care about.’
+
+‘At any rate, I solemnly give the promise you ask, and should have
+done so if it had been ten times as binding--and there’s my hand upon
+it,’ said Hugo, to whom the idea of binding himself to any particular
+thing, by ‘solemn oaths and execrations,’ was especially fascinating
+and delightful. It seemed to surround him and his friend with a little
+romance, and to separate them from the outer crowd. It opened up vague
+possibilities of self-denial, trial, and probation, and a prospect of
+endurance through good and evil, thick and thin, which delighted his
+ardent soul.
+
+‘Then that is settled,’ said Sebastian, contentedly. ‘We can talk about
+your going away later.’
+
+It was towards the close of this conversation that Sebastian had been
+called away to Myles Heywood--the day, therefore, before the ball at
+Castle Hill.
+
+On the following afternoon Sebastian had to go out. His mother asked
+him at lunch if he intended to go to the dance, and he said yes, he
+supposed he did--he must now, but he did not care about it, and did
+not think it was in very good taste to be having balls at such a time.
+Moreover, he had heard a rumour that Mr. Spenceley’s own affairs caused
+him some anxiety.
+
+Mrs. Mallory said she supposed it was Mr. Spenceley’s own business;
+he ought to know best whether he were able to give balls at such a
+time. He could not put off his daughter’s twenty-first birthday for an
+indefinite time.
+
+‘No,’ said Sebastian, ‘and that is just what makes the whole affair
+such a melancholy farce. His daughter is very anxious not to have any
+ball. She told me so, and nearly cried with vexation about it.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory made no reply, and Sebastian, saying he had a meeting to
+attend, went out.
+
+Hugo was that afternoon in one of his oft-recurring idle moods, and
+wandered about, apparently not knowing what to do with himself. He was
+anticipating the ball eagerly enough, having extracted from Helena the
+promise of no less than three waltzes--less of a distinction than he
+imagined, perhaps, since Helena, in granting them, had been thinking
+chiefly of escaping from the defective dancing and fatuous remarks of
+the Thanshope young men, amongst whom she enjoyed what she considered
+a fatal popularity. She had wondered whether to keep any dances for
+Sebastian. Would he ask her to dance at all?
+
+‘Of course he will!’ she thought, ‘as a matter of duty, and I think I
+shall fill up my programme, and show it him without any comment when he
+asks me. Then he will raise his eyebrows in that way I hate, and make
+a little bow, and smile a little smile, and remark, “I see I am indeed
+too late;” and stand on one side, perfectly content not to dance, since
+the nicest girl he ever knew is not there.’
+
+But these workings of the feminine mind could not possibly be known
+to Hugo, who was only aware that he had received an indulgent smile
+and a pleasant glance from Helena’s dark eyes, as she protested a
+little against the three waltzes, but yielded in the end. He repaired
+to the drawing-room, and, with characteristic fitfulness, spent the
+whole afternoon in playing waltzes, good, bad, and indifferent, of
+every kind and from every source he could think of. Waltz after waltz
+flowed from his rapid fingers. Gung’l and Strauss, Beethoven, Mozart,
+Schubert--ancient and modern composers, good and bad ones, were laid
+under contribution, till his whole being seemed a waltz, and he was
+in a state of highly strung nervous excitement and anticipation, with
+which mingled the memories of past waltzes with partners of a bygone
+day. Hugo felt his whole soul penetrated with music, melody, and
+happiness as he sat in the shady corner of the drawing-room and saw the
+sun stream warmly in at the side window. He felt life that afternoon
+very full and rich and delicious, and crowded with sweet and grand
+possibilities. He felt at harmony with all the world, and was sure it
+was a good place to live in.
+
+He had just finished the solemn, passionate strains of a waltz of
+Beethoven’s, and still his fingers lingered on the keys, and still his
+ears drank in the glorious notes, when the door opened and Mrs. Mallory
+came into the room.
+
+Hugo stopped playing. She did not openly request him to do so, but he
+knew she disliked to hear him, and to his fastidious taste the very
+presence of an unsympathetic spirit was jarring. Spontaneity ceased;
+pleasure was gone.
+
+He rose from the instrument, went to the sunny window, and hummed over
+the air he had been playing.
+
+‘At what time do we go to-night, Mrs. Mallory?’ he presently inquired.
+
+‘Go where?’
+
+‘To the ball.’
+
+‘At eight o’clock, I believe,’ she said, with stony coldness. Mrs.
+Mallory’s anger was coming to a climax now; it would be strange if Hugo
+did not say something which should cause the storm to break over his
+head. Unconsciously, unwittingly, he led straight up to the point.
+
+‘I should like to dance every night,’ he said, rather enthusiastically,
+for his music still haunted him, and even Mrs. Mallory’s chill
+influence could not quite bring him down from his heights of
+abstraction to the commonplaces of every day--yet.
+
+‘Very likely,’ she said. ‘I have noticed that the more frivolous a
+thing is, the more you delight in it.’
+
+‘Dancing is not necessarily frivolous,’ Hugo assured her with the
+greatest solemnity. ‘It is, or should be, an art; not a mere kicking
+about of the legs.’
+
+‘Indeed!’
+
+‘When I grow up,’ continued Hugo, ‘that is to say, when I am _majorat_,
+come of age, I mean, and come into my property, I shall devote a great
+part of my time to dancing, I love it so.’
+
+This was too much, far too much. It was high time that this vain,
+bombastical, self-conceited pauper was put down.
+
+‘When you come into your property,’ she remarked with polite sarcasm,
+‘then you can squander it just as you please. But I would advise you
+first to make certain that you have any property to come into.’
+
+‘Oh, I don’t suppose I shall be rich. Sebastian knows all about it. He
+says he will explain all in good time.’
+
+‘Sebastian is as foolish a young man, in some respects, as I know; and
+as for you, Mr. von Birkenau, I am at a loss to understand how any one
+professing to be a gentleman can behave as you do.’
+
+‘As how?’ demanded Hugo, his brow suddenly clouding as he perceived
+that her words bore reference to something unknown to him.
+
+‘Did Sebastian ever tell you, in so many words, that you had any
+property, any money, estate, possessions of any kind?’
+
+‘N--no.’
+
+‘I thought so. He is very trying, but I have always found him sincere,
+so far. I should have thought that very fact would have led you to
+think a little about your own position. That you can quietly accept
+another man’s bounty, and never ask the reason of it, never inquire
+into your own affairs, or ask whether you are living in a manner
+suitable to your future prospects--it is incredible! No one with any
+sense of honour could conduct himself in such a manner.’
+
+‘I do not know what you mean--Sebastian knows,’ said Hugo, a dread
+suspicion beginning to creep into his heart. ‘He is my guardian, and I
+live as _he_ pleases, of course. You know I do.’
+
+‘Your guardian! That is about all he has to guard, I think.’
+
+‘He is my guardian, and the guardian of my property, however small
+it may be. I dare say, to you, I may seem almost a beggar, but
+Sebastian----’
+
+‘You make me pity you! I do not think it right that you should live
+under such a delusion any longer. Let me tell you that you have no
+property except what my son gives you. You live on his bounty. But for
+him you would be a beggar.’
+
+‘You are not speaking the truth!’ said Hugo, suddenly standing before
+her and bending his flashing eyes upon her. ‘You know you are not
+speaking the truth.’
+
+    ‘Where is it now, the glory and the dream?’
+
+‘Am I not? You had better ask Sebastian. It was he who told me. I
+thought you considered him perfect in all respects--not being his
+mother.’
+
+‘Sebastian told you that I lived on him--that he----’
+
+‘That your mother committed you to his charge, and he took it into his
+head to adopt you. That, except what he gives you, you have _nothing_.
+He told me that, and I think it best that you should know it, for I
+consider your behaviour and conversation very unfit for your position.
+That is all that I have to say, or want to hear, upon the subject.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory’s moral equilibrium was almost restored; she felt
+distinctly more cheerful and better satisfied with everything. For Hugo
+there remained only a hideous chaos, a general _bouleversement_ of his
+fixed, contented conceptions of life and his sphere in it.
+
+He walked out of the room, and stood in the hall a moment. What should
+he do--whither go? This was no place for him. He had no right here. He
+was the object of a rich man’s pitying charity--a beggar. Mrs. Mallory
+had said it, and said it after a fashion which left no doubt possible.
+Instead of playing a grand piano in a luxurious drawing-room, instead
+of going to balls and dancing with beautiful young women of large
+fortune, and driving about, and riding fine horses--all belonging to
+another man--instead of this, he ought to be--what? Well, if Sebastian
+had left him at the institution where he was being brought up, the
+authorities would at least have found him a trade and apprenticed him
+to it: he might have been at this moment a shopman or an usher, or a
+clerk, or somebody’s secretary and amanuensis. At least, he would not
+have been anybody’s dependent, loaded with so many obligations that
+their weight crushed and overpowered him.
+
+By this time he had almost unconsciously ascended the stairs, and
+found himself in his own room. What must he do? It was impossible to
+let such a state of things continue any longer. What remained? To go,
+of course! The idea flashed like an inspiration upon him. He would
+fly--now, at once, Sebastian was out; Mrs. Mallory would certainly
+not try to prevent his departure. What should he take? what leave?
+He made an excited rush to his wardrobe, his drawers, and began to
+turn them out. Then another idea struck him. That would not do. They
+were all Sebastian’s things. Not one of them but had been bought with
+Sebastian’s money. He could not take any of them. It would be stealing.
+He looked down with a shudder at the very clothes he wore. No--he must
+take nothing; but he must go--he must get away from here, and go and
+earn some money, and pay Sebastian back.
+
+But he never could do that. How could he repay the kindness, the
+advice, the friendship--the care that had watched over him, the
+generosity which had condoned a thousand impertinences and wayward
+wearisome fancies? No money, no service, could ever repay these
+things. But at least he must get away--must remove himself. That very
+generosity which he had so often proved might, for anything he knew,
+have wearied of him long ago, though it would never say so.
+
+He rose with the vague intention of getting out of the house with as
+few impediments as possible, and, once out of it, never to re-enter it.
+And then memory and conscience again asserted themselves. What was it
+that he had promised Sebastian only last night? Not to do anything of
+any importance without first telling him of his intention. He could not
+even go, for he would not begin his new career by breaking his word to
+the man to whom he owed everything. He must wait.
+
+‘Oh, Sebastian!’ groaned the poor boy, flinging himself face downwards
+upon a couch at the foot of his bed, ‘it was cruel, cruel of you! You
+should not have treated me thus!’
+
+Men of Hugo’s temperament weep sometimes with almost womanly facility,
+and Hugo, in his new-born anguish and despair, wept now; and when
+the weeping was over, he did not rise, but remained with his face
+buried in the cushions, repeating to himself every item of Sebastian’s
+generosity, and his own blind, besotted self-confidence and ignorant
+assumption (such it appeared to him). A thousand things rose up in his
+memory, and he asked himself how he could have failed to comprehend
+their meaning, to have some suspicion of his real position. He
+resolved, with more and more impassioned eagerness, to _go_; to wait
+till he had redeemed his promise, and then to say farewell, and bid
+Sebastian forget him. How his heart ached at the thought! But no
+alternative was open to him. He was a gentleman. No gentleman could
+knowingly continue to live as he had been doing.
+
+The time went on; whether long or short he could not tell. He did not
+keep count of the minutes or hours. His whole consciousness seemed to
+resolve itself into a desire to be gone, which had grown overpowering
+and intense, when a quick tap at the door was heard, then it was
+opened, and Sebastian’s voice said,
+
+‘I say, Hugo, do you mean to go to this entertainment or not? Because
+if--why, what _is_ the matter with you?’
+
+‘I never knew, Sebastian! Upon my soul and honour I never knew
+till Mrs. Mallory told me to-day!’ exclaimed Hugo, starting up and
+confronting his horrified friend, with pale face, scintillating eyes,
+which bore traces of recent weeping, hair wildly tossed up and down his
+head, and generally demoralised aspect.
+
+‘Didn’t know _what_, my dear fellow? What is all this excitement about?’
+
+‘Mrs. Mallory told me, just a little while ago, the _truth_ about
+myself,’ said Hugo, speaking rapidly and vehemently in German, as he
+nearly always did when agitated, and he began to stride excitedly about
+the room. ‘It was not right ... no, no! it was very cruel! you should
+not have done it. I have no right to reproach you, but you should
+not have laid such a burden upon me--a burden which is greater than
+I can bear ... _aber, Gott im Himmel_! what do I mean by reproaching
+you, when I owe you the very bread I eat, the very clothes I wear!
+Sebastian! Sebastian! It was not _right_!’ he reiterated passionately,
+coming to a stop, and standing before the other, upon whose mind the
+truth began to dawn.
+
+His mother had played the traitor--had betrayed the trust which he
+had been weak enough to repose in her before he had understood her
+so well as he did now, and the result must be, in any case, a very
+painful explanation, and perhaps failure to convince Hugo; perhaps
+the alienation of a love which he prized more highly at this present
+moment than he ever had done before. For the moment, the first moment,
+his heart sank very low: he suddenly seemed to see everything that he
+most prized deserting him. Adrienne was lost to him, and his heart
+was yet smarting under that conviction. Yesterday he had seen Myles
+Heywood depart, expressing his gratitude, but, as he felt, unconquered,
+untouched at heart. Now, here was Hugo bitterly reproaching him for
+not having done what was right towards him. One stroke coming upon the
+other almost unmanned him momentarily, for the men with warm hearts and
+cool heads are necessarily more susceptible both to failure and success
+than the men with cool heads and cold hearts to boot.
+
+Then he suddenly gathered himself together. Hugo was not gone; he was
+only drifting away from him. He would make a very strong struggle to
+still hold him fast to him; if he succeeded, he might take it as a good
+omen for the future--if not, the future must look after itself. He came
+into the room and closed the door.
+
+‘You startle me, Hugo. This is something I did not expect. Suppose you
+tell me all about it, and we can discuss it. Shall we?’
+
+‘There is nothing to be discussed. If it had not been for my promise to
+you yesterday, I should not be here now. As it is, I waited; but only
+to say that I am going at once--to clear myself--to tell you that I
+never knew....’
+
+‘Why, Hugo, how _could_ you know? If you had known, you would not
+have been what you are to me, the frank, open-hearted comrade, whose
+friendship and companionship have made me so happy.’
+
+‘If I had known,’ said Hugo, ‘I should not have behaved myself like
+a mountebank, such as I must have seemed to you many a time, with my
+impertinences and fancies. Mrs. Mallory is quite right--for me to be
+thinking of balls and amusements and enjoyments is folly--madness. What
+an ape! what a confounded, conceited, self-important _ape_ I must have
+seemed all these years! Acting as if I had great prospects before me,
+while all the time I am a beggar. It is hideous!’
+
+He was getting excited again. His eyes began to flash and his foot
+to beat the floor restlessly. Sebastian noticed that he had not once
+looked at him during all this scene, but away from him: anywhere rather
+than meet his eyes.
+
+‘Let me go,’ he added, in a choked voice. ‘Let me go, and forget me.
+That is all you and I can do, and it must be done at once.’
+
+‘You will never leave me, any more than I can, or shall try to forget
+you.’
+
+‘Why? Because I am under such obligations to you, that you can force me
+to obey you from very shame?’ asked Hugo, bitterly.
+
+‘Not at all, Hugo, but because you love me, and I love you (if it were
+not so, after all these years, it would be strange), and you could
+never find it in your heart to wound me as such a proceeding would
+wound me.’
+
+At last Hugo’s eyes turned to him; at last he stood still and looked
+at him, and Sebastian returned the look from his inmost heart. This
+soul-to-soul, searching gaze was a prolonged one, and Hugo at last,
+turning away, sat down on the sofa again, put his hand before his face,
+and said in a broken voice,
+
+‘You could always do what you liked with me, and you can now. What do
+you want?’
+
+‘I only want you to listen to me and _believe_ me,’ said Sebastian. ‘If
+you will only believe me, all will be well.’
+
+A movement of the head showed that Hugo was listening.
+
+‘You have called me cruel--you have said that what I have done was not
+right. I cannot hear such accusations unmoved. Why have I been cruel?’
+
+‘In putting me into a false position--making me believe myself to be
+what I am not.’
+
+‘Somewhat insincere it may have been, but I do not see how I could well
+have acted otherwise. When your mother died you were equally badly off,
+so far as worldly circumstances go, as you are now. _You_ did not know
+it. It was her weakness that she could not bear you, whom she adored,
+to know it. She had a horror of your learning that the institution at
+which you were being educated was a ch--I mean----’
+
+‘A charity-school--yes.’
+
+‘That’s right, old fellow! Put it as spitefully as you can. If you
+like, it _was_ a charity-school--and a poor coarse inadequate place
+too, not the place for you. When I think of _you_ there, it is
+horrible; I simply took the place of the authorities of that school
+towards you. They had nothing to bind them to you; no single tie
+existed. _I_ had everything. I had been your mother’s intimate friend;
+she gave me, in her goodness, that which no service of mine could
+repay. I reverenced her in her lifetime, and I reverence her memory
+now. She knew what I wished; I discussed it with her fully and freely,
+and she gave her unqualified consent. She trusted you to me--gave you
+to me. Have you any right to impute wrong motives to her memory? You
+remember her perfectly well. You know what she was. You must know that
+she never acted but as she thought, from right and pure motives.’
+
+‘I know; that alters it. But all the same it is very hard.’
+
+‘I feel it so,’ said Sebastian. ‘Year by year I have been more glad
+that I had you as my firm and faithful friend, who would never desert
+me, whatever any one else did. I firmly believed that it was so, and
+you--you have so little regard for me, that you would leave me--quit
+me here at an hour’s notice, and why? Because you cannot, or will not,
+rise above a few miserable, material interests; because you let a
+few paltry, sordid coins (that is what it comes to) raise themselves
+between you and me, and make them into a wall which neither of us
+can pass. Yet you told me the other night that you _could_ not be
+fickle--to me. Which am I to believe--your words or your actions?’
+
+‘You may believe both now, when I tell you that I will do what you
+please. Shall I stay? I will do whatever you like--just whatever you
+like,’ said Hugo, in a dull, toneless kind of voice.
+
+‘You call that doing what I please--remaining though you hate it. I
+thought--last night I was sure that it would have caused you pain to
+leave me.’
+
+‘It will--would, I mean, cause me agony; but what am I to think, when
+you have told Mrs. Mallory, who hates me, my whole story, and kept it
+from me, whom you say you love?’
+
+‘There I was wrong, Hugo--utterly wrong, I own it Had I known--but I
+must not say that. If I had it to do now, I should keep silence. But if
+you will not allow me _one_ mistake, take your own way. Leave me alone.
+My mother opposes my wishes bitterly. The girl I love won’t have a word
+to say to me. I have no one left but Hugo von Birkenau--and he begs to
+decline my acquaintance. So be it!’
+
+He turned to leave the room. His hand was on the door-handle, when Hugo
+overtook him.
+
+‘Stop!’ said he, almost in a whisper. ‘You know me better than I know
+myself. I cannot leave you thus. If I thought I was of any good to
+you----’
+
+‘I suppose I should go through all this, to keep a thing I didn’t care
+for. That is so like me!’ observed Sebastian.
+
+‘Yes,’ said Hugo, with a half-laugh, half-choke, or sob; ‘I never
+thought of that.’
+
+‘Of course not. You wish to repay me, as you call it, Hugo. The only
+way in which you can do it is to let me watch your future, as I have
+always hoped to do, till you are famous, and I am known as your
+greatest friend, eh?’
+
+Hugo smiled faintly.
+
+‘Your mother despises me,’ he began.
+
+Sebastian shrugged his shoulders.
+
+‘My dear boy, you must have seen that my mother is by no means
+graciously disposed towards any one or anything that I may have the
+misfortune to be fond of. As I like you better almost than any one,
+she naturally dislikes you proportionately. It is not a pleasant thing
+to have to say, but it is true. Surely, if you and I understand each
+other, it does not matter what outsiders think of us.’
+
+‘No,’ said Hugo, and once more there was heartiness and confidence in
+his tone. ‘Forgive me my folly. It is over now.’
+
+‘I thank you for making such a sacrifice to me.... When I came into the
+room it was to see what you were doing, as you didn’t appear at dinner.
+And, behold, nearly an hour has passed. The carriage will be here in
+ten minutes.’
+
+‘I don’t think I shall go.’
+
+‘Pray do, though, or I shall have to think that this reconciliation is
+only a sham one after all. Besides, Helena’s _beaux yeux_ will not turn
+very amiably towards me, if I come without you.’
+
+‘It depends upon yourself how Helena’s _beaux yeux_ regard you,’ said
+Hugo; ‘but I will go. It would be insulting to her if I did not. I’ll
+get ready now.’
+
+‘I must do the same,’ said Sebastian, leaving the room.
+
+Hugo proceeded to dress himself. He found himself looking back upon the
+afternoon, when he had sat playing waltzes, as if it had been separated
+by years from the evening, and his present self was a stranger to
+himself of yesterday.
+
+It was quite true. These few short hours had transformed him from a boy
+to a man. The process, which in some cases is one of such prolonged,
+lingering growth, had been with him effected at a leap, a single bound.
+The change proved itself most in the fact that he accepted the cross
+laid upon him; he felt himself possessed of that goodly, manly virtue,
+the ability to wait; two days ago he would have tried to rush away from
+pain and difficulty--now he could shake hands with them. As he dressed,
+he planned his course as it should be, subject to circumstances; not
+with the furious, fitful temper of an hour ago, but with calm, manly
+reasonableness and judgment.
+
+When the carriage came round they stood in the hall, and Mrs. Mallory
+looked curiously at his pale, altered, composed countenance; but she
+saw in an instant, by the look that passed between him and Sebastian,
+that all was perfectly clear between them. The sweet accord of two
+noble natures was a thing beyond her power to grasp; but she saw that
+she had not succeeded in separating them, and recognised that she had
+done her cause no service by her interference.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+HOW HELENA CAME INTO HER FORTUNE.
+
+
+The rooms at Castle Hill were nearly full, and the ball had just
+begun, when the Oakenrod party arrived. Sebastian offered his arm to
+his mother, and she took it, both of them having a very strong sense
+of the fact that the courtesy was a mere outside show, and that they
+would rather have been any number of miles apart. Followed by Hugo,
+they penetrated through the large square hall and the coffee-room,
+to the drawing-room, which blazed in the full splendour of unlimited
+wax-lights. In the centre of the room, looking very hot and very
+uncomfortable, they found Mrs. Spenceley alone. Her lord was nowhere to
+be seen, though her son was stationed at some little distance from her,
+helping her in the discharge of her duties with a Thanshopian grace and
+dignity all his own.
+
+Sebastian, when his mother had finished her greetings and
+congratulations, went up to Mrs. Spenceley, and in his turn paid his
+_devoirs_.
+
+The lady bore upon her face distinct traces of uneasiness of mind.
+There was something terrible and _bezarre_ in the contrast between
+her expression and her attire. Helena had considerately tried to
+arrange her dress for her, with the natural sense of beauty and
+harmony of colour and material which she so strongly possessed. She
+had endeavoured to soften down the radiant hues contemplated by Mrs.
+Spenceley, and had succeeded in inducing her rather to dress herself
+in a magnificent robe of black satin. Diamonds twinkled upon her
+spacious bosom, and diamond pins fastened her gorgeous lace cap. Here
+Helena’s efforts had ceased to produce any effect. At this point Mrs.
+Spenceley’s own taste in dress asserted itself. She had thrown over
+her shoulders a floating scarf of crimson gauze, intertwined with
+lines of orient gold, and over which wandered abnormally large bunches
+of abnormally large grapes--purple grapes, with leaves of the same
+phenomenal proportions. This treasure had been put on in order, as
+she explained to Helena, ‘to cover my shoulders and give me a little
+colour; for, say what you will, a black satin and a white lace cap is
+not full enough for a woman of my years.’
+
+In despairing resignation Helena had submitted, and the result was
+the apparition already described, looking, with the troubled, puzzled
+expression on her highly coloured face and the restless wandering of
+her gentle dark eyes, altogether so grotesque, that Sebastian’s quick
+observation instantly suspected something behind the gay show which
+surrounded them.
+
+‘I am glad to see you, Mr. Mallory,’ she said, giving him her hand,
+and with an effort giving her attention to him. ‘I hope you’ll enjoy
+yourself, I’m sure. We’ve done all we could think of to make people
+enjoy themselves; but it is _very_ provoking, Spenceley’s not coming at
+the last minute, isn’t it?’
+
+‘I thought I missed Mr. Spenceley. Is he engaged?’
+
+‘Oh, it’s this horrid business, you know. I said to him, I said,
+“Spenceley, if business is so uncertain, it’s a very sure thing that we
+oughtn’t to be giving balls in this style;” not but what I am _very_
+glad to see you, and I hope you’ll enjoy it,’ she hastened to add. ‘He
+had to go off to Liverpool early this morning, and he said he _might_
+have to come home by Manchester, but he’d try to be with us before we
+began. However, he hasn’t turned up.’
+
+‘Very likely he has been detained.’
+
+‘I expect so. These are anxious times, and it keeps a man on the
+strain, with things going first up and then down, and not knowing how
+anything will turn out,’ said Mrs. Spenceley, lucidly. ‘But aren’t
+you going to dance, Mr. Mallory? There’s lots of young ladies will
+be delighted to dance with you. See! there’s little Fanny Kay sitting
+out--the first dance, too. Do you know her?’
+
+‘Yes, thank you. I don’t think I will dance at present. I’m looking for
+Miss Spenceley, to congratulate her; but she is not here, I think.’
+
+‘She’s in the ball-room. You see, she had to open the ball, being for
+her own birthday, and all, and some of them were very anxious to begin.
+It makes it very awkward, Spenceley’s being away. But you’ll see Helena
+directly, I dare say. She said she should come straight here when the
+dance was over.’
+
+‘I think I will go and see if it is over,’ said Sebastian, who saw Hugo
+leading off a white-robed virgin to the ball-room.
+
+‘Ay, do; I’m sure they must be nearly done by now,’ she replied,
+drawing her dazzling scarf more closely about her, and obstinately
+refusing to lessen her fatigue by sitting down.
+
+Sebastian crossed the hall, and at the door of the ball-room met Helena
+and her partner coming out. She was leaning on the arm of an elderly
+man, one of the Thanshope magnates, to whose lot it had fallen to guide
+her through the mazes of a duty-quadrille, by way of opening the ball.
+Helena looked bored, and the gentleman no less so. They were making
+straight for the drawing-room, in order to get rid of each other as
+soon as possible.
+
+Helena did not at once see Sebastian, and he had time to notice how
+downcast and pale she looked, although so lovely. Mr. Rawson, her
+partner, was at this moment ‘collared’ in a summary manner by an
+acquaintance, and appeared particularly anxious to talk with him on
+congenial subjects. Mr. Mallory, therefore, seized the opportunity to
+advance and say:
+
+‘Good evening, Miss Spenceley.’
+
+Helena started, and turned quickly to him.
+
+‘Mr. Rawson,’ proceeded Sebastian, ‘I see you are engaged. Allow me to
+take Miss Spenceley to the drawing-room--or wherever else you please,’
+he added, in a lower voice, as Mr. Rawson, with evident gratitude,
+gave up his charge, and they walked away, her hand resting lightly on
+his arm.
+
+‘Now he is happy with a friend of his own age,’ remarked Sebastian. ‘I
+could not find you in the drawing-room, so I came to seek you, in order
+to offer you my sincere congratulations upon this occasion.’
+
+‘Why so _sincere_? You speak so emphatically that I begin to doubt your
+sincerity. Why congratulate me at all?’
+
+‘What a question! I always understood, from your own words, that
+you looked forward to your twenty-first birthday as a moment of
+emancipation, when you would not be trodden down any more, and could
+really show the sex which fails to meet your approval what you think of
+them, and----’
+
+‘I wish you would not keep talking in that way,’ said Helena. ‘It does
+not amuse me in the least, and I don’t see what fun there is in it.’
+
+‘Fun! I had no idea of fun! You shock me. I am in the most solemn
+earnest I beg to be allowed to offer my congratulations to the heroine
+of the present occasion, and to wish you “many happy returns of this
+day.” You will permit me to do that?’
+
+‘I am not a heroine, and the present occasion requires anything but
+congratulations,’ was all Helena said.
+
+Her wonted brilliance and high spirits had quite deserted her, even
+in the presence of Sebastian Mallory, for whose delectation they
+were usually wont to flow rather more rapidly than at other times.
+In this new and more pensive mood Sebastian found the charm, which
+he had always owned, a strong one. He had never before found her so
+attractive. Her dress was less splendid, and more airy and girlish
+than usual. It was white and full and flowing, suggestive of _tulle
+illusion_ and silvery clouds, and was dotted all over with little
+bunches of rosebuds. There was a string of pearls around her lovely
+throat; and, for all her paleness and downcast looks, her beauty came
+out triumphant.
+
+‘She is a lovely creature!’ he thought, glancing downwards at the
+serious face and the dark lashes which swept her cheek.
+
+‘Not a heroine!’ he said. ‘You must be one to-night, whether you like
+it or not. And as for congratulations, I could offer you a hundred
+reasons why people should congratulate you; but to confine myself to
+one, you are Helena Spenceley. Don’t you think that is reason enough
+for congratulation?’
+
+They had wandered into a little anteroom, divided by curtains from one
+of the other sitting-rooms, and as Sebastian asked the last question
+they were standing in the middle of the room, and Helena looked at him.
+Her face was sad, and her eyes were bright with tears.
+
+‘It is of no use; you cannot make me angry to-night, even by laughing
+at me. But if you want the satisfaction of knowing that your remarks
+wound me, take it: it is so.’
+
+‘Helena! Miss Spenceley!’ he stammered, in confusion, for his words had
+not been free from malice, and he knew it. What he had not known was
+that Helena was in no mood for battle--that she did not even wish to
+quarrel with him.
+
+‘If you are offended, I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I did not mean
+anything like what you imagine. And, since you do not choose to be
+congratulated, I withdraw the congratulations. May I say you have my
+good wishes?’
+
+‘Not unless you mean it,’ said Helena, coldly; ‘and, when you think how
+different our thoughts and wishes, and hopes and objects in life are,
+you will, I hope, hesitate before making more pretty speeches.’
+
+‘You are very severe. I think I had better say no more upon the
+subject. But,’ he added, with that air of almost affectionate interest
+which Helena believed she so greatly resented, ‘you are downcast and
+out of spirits to-night--not as you should be for your own birthday
+ball. How is it?’
+
+In so matter-of-fact a tone was the question asked, that Helena
+scarcely felt it strange that he should put it, and began in a docile
+manner to explain.
+
+‘How can I be otherwise? It is such nonsense. What is the good of
+having a ball? I don’t want a ball. I wanted to be quiet. I go about
+every day, from house to house, and see people starving--much better
+people than I am, or ever shall be--and then I have to come home and
+see money flung away on a ball--for me--because such an important
+personage has condescended to live twenty-one years in this horrid,
+grimy old world; and to put on a dress that has cost--no, I will never
+reveal all my shame, but I could tear my dress to pieces when I think
+of a woman whom I saw this afternoon, and who was crying as if her
+heart would break, because she had to pawn her husband’s and children’s
+Sunday clothes, and their best tea-things, that she had when she was
+married. I thought of this dress, which was got on purpose for me at
+Paris, and which cost about ten times as much as the materials that
+made it are worth,’ said Helena passionately, ‘and when I put it on, I
+felt as if I were putting on my shroud.’
+
+‘I am very sorry--only you won’t believe it, because I say so, but
+surely now it will be different? You must not get morbid. That never
+does any good. You will have wealth of your own now, and be your own
+mistress, when you can take your revenge on all these fine clothes, and
+go about in home-spun, or even sackcloth, if you choose.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Helena dispiritedly, ‘I know; but I should not like it.
+I love expensive things, and I hate coarse and common ones. And I am
+beginning to think that perhaps I am not such a very fit person to have
+money. I have heard a great deal about money lately, and I don’t fancy
+it is so easy to manage as I used to think.’
+
+‘Miss Mereweather will assist you,’ he said, half smiling.
+
+‘Don’t name Miss Mereweather to me,’ said Helena, with sudden
+animation. ‘She has deceived me cruelly. I never was so cut-up about
+anything.’
+
+‘What _has_ she done?’
+
+‘She has got married,’ said Helena, in a determined voice, as if
+anxious to get the worst over.
+
+‘Got married!... Why ... and a very good wife she will make, if she
+has got the right sort of husband. I remember thinking, that evening I
+met her here, what a capital head of a large establishment she would
+make....’
+
+‘Did you?’ said Helena, with a curious quaver in her voice, half
+laughter, half astonishment. ‘Well, you must have been right. She has
+married a clergyman who is the head of a very large boys’ school--a
+sort of college.’
+
+‘The very thing for her. I wish, when you write, you would ask if she
+remembers my insignificance, and offer my warmest congratulations and
+good wishes.’
+
+‘When I write!’ echoed Helena, scornfully. ‘I wrote to her once, after
+I heard of it, but never again. I told her my mind.’
+
+‘Did you really? What did you say?’
+
+‘I said she was a traitor to her sex and her cause, and that, as I
+still held my old opinions, I could not be her friend any longer.’
+
+‘How awful for her! May I ask whether she made any reply?’
+
+‘Oh yes,’ said Helena, her colour rising, ‘she made a very stupid
+reply.’
+
+‘Won’t you tell me what it was?’
+
+‘No, it was too silly.’
+
+‘I believe you got the worst of it.’
+
+‘At least, it was too ridiculous to repeat.’
+
+‘Perhaps she said, “Wait and see;” or, “Don’t shout till you are out of
+the wood!” only more elegantly expressed.’
+
+‘She--oh, there is Hugo coming. This is my first dance with him.’
+
+‘Miss Spenceley, will you be very kind to Hugo to-night? Really and
+truly, he has had a great trouble.’
+
+‘I will. Poor boy!’
+
+‘And have you any dances left?--a waltz? Though I can hardly hope it.
+You must have been engaged long ago, for the whole evening?’
+
+‘In that case you might have spared yourself the trouble of asking,’
+said Helena, rather defiantly; but as their eyes met, hers wavered.
+
+‘Perhaps you have still one left,’ said he, capturing her programme and
+opening it.
+
+‘It looks very full,’ he said; ‘but--ah, yes! here is one, a waltz--two
+waltzes. This is extraordinary--my luck, I mean; don’t you think so?
+And may I----’
+
+He paused, looking inquiringly at her as he held the pencil suspended
+over the card.
+
+‘Two waltzes!’ exclaimed Helena, innocently. ‘Oh, but that must be a
+mistake. I know when Mr. Consterdine came just now I told him I had not
+one left.’
+
+‘No doubt you told him what was good for him,’ said Sebastian, with
+laudable gravity. ‘At least, we will make it quite sure now. There: “S.
+M., 6,” and “S. M., 10.” Thank you, very much.’
+
+With a bow and a half-smile he resigned her to Hugo, who came up at
+that moment to offer congratulations and to claim his dance, while
+Sebastian walked away to while away the time until ‘Number 6’ should
+begin.
+
+As he danced only once or twice with any one but Helena, he had ample
+opportunity of observing the general features of the entertainment, and
+he soon saw that Helena’s depression was but a part of that obvious
+more or less throughout the whole assembly. The rooms were dazzling,
+the decorations were unutterably gorgeous, the brilliance of the lights
+amounted to an absolute glare, and became oppressive and terrible. On
+all sides there was evidence of the most lavish expenditure; flowers,
+furniture, attendants, refreshments, all seemed to cry in loud and
+blatant voices, ‘Try us; we are of the very best. No stint here,
+because expense is no object, absolutely none at all.’ It would have
+been exceedingly amusing, and Sebastian was by no means slow to see the
+humorous side of ambitious entertainments of that kind; but the amusing
+part of it was quite overcome and swamped by the great and nameless
+cloud and oppression that hung over it all. What was the reason of that
+cloud? Surely not the simple fact that the master of the house was
+absent. That alone would have been a relief rather than otherwise.
+
+For he came not, and came not, and poor Mrs. Spenceley still looked ill
+at ease: and at last Sebastian noticed some one else begin to look ill
+at ease too, and to glance round with a suspicious, watchful air now
+and then. That person was Frederick Spenceley. Something was wrong,
+something lay behind it all, thought Sebastian, as he stood in the
+cool hall after his first dance with Helena, that is to say, between
+ten and eleven o’clock. During that dance they had quite forgotten to
+flout each other, or to do anything but enjoy themselves. He had said
+all he could to raise that nameless cloud from her face, and he had
+been startled to find what brilliant success had attended his efforts.
+Helena had soon smiled again, and had half confessed that she had kept
+the two dances for him, and had even blushed and laughed when he teased
+her about it. He was thinking of that waltz, and humming the tune to
+which they had danced as he paced about the hall, while he still seemed
+to feel Helena lightly resting in his arms, her fleet foot keeping pace
+with his; and he began to wish that he had not four whole dances to
+wait before his next one with her came.
+
+‘She is very lovely, and there is something very bewitching about her,’
+he said to himself for the second time that evening.
+
+A dance was going on in the ball-room, and the hall at the moment was
+empty, save for himself. He paused before a huge mirror, which had been
+raised at one end of it, and in front of which was erected a fragrant
+pyramid of flowers and ferns, delicate hothouse blossoms, and feathery
+aromatic leaves. There was a blaze of light all around, and the
+staircase and part of the gallery running round the second story were
+reflected in the mirror. Sebastian stood before the pyramid of flowers,
+and gently first touched one and then the other, and then his eyes fell
+upon the reflection of his own face, and he was surprised to see how
+grave it looked; for he did not feel particularly grave at the moment,
+and that interview with Adrienne Blisset seemed to hang like a dream in
+the far background of his consciousness, while another face and form,
+flower-crowned and glowingly beautiful, advanced to the front.
+
+Suddenly he became conscious, as it were, of some shadow crossing the
+glass, and looking higher, to where the staircase was reflected, he
+saw the figure of a man stealing carefully, softly, noiselessly up the
+stairs, keeping well to the wall, with averted face, as if anxious to
+get as quickly as possible out of all that obtrusive glare of light and
+stream of dancing sound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+HOW MR. SPENCELEY MET HIS DIFFICULTIES.
+
+
+Sebastian’s first thought naturally resolved itself into the words, ‘A
+thief in the night;’ some evil-disposed person who thought to penetrate
+to some of the bedrooms, in the confusion, and perhaps reap a harvest
+of neglected brooches, watches, or shawl-pins. In such a case, it was
+his duty at once to warn the servants, and he was in the act of turning
+to go and do so as quickly as possible, when the figure reached the
+head of the first flight of stairs, and turned to mount the next. As
+this happened, Sebastian caught a momentary glimpse of the face. He
+was long sighted, and not given to making mistakes in the matter of
+identity. The man who was stealing so quietly up the stairs in such
+evident fear of detection was, one would suppose, the last person
+who should need to act in so strange a manner. It was Mr. Spenceley
+himself, the master of the house.
+
+With great presence of mind Sebastian checked his movement to turn
+round, and neither started nor stirred, but stood pensively trifling
+with a fern leaf, as he gave himself time to reflect upon what had
+happened.
+
+The vague, floating rumours which he had heard, as to the ‘shakiness’
+of Mr. Spenceley’s commercial position, recurred to his mind. Probably
+there was something in them. His own business and that of Mr. Spenceley
+lay in utterly different lines: he had not come across him in any
+commercial transactions; but he knew men who had, and who were of
+opinion that Spenceley was playing rather a dangerous game. During
+those troublous years some fortunes were made, and many were lost--lost
+by men who seemed as little likely to fail as Mr. Spenceley of Castle
+Hill. Sebastian pictured the feelings of his mother, supposing she were
+to hear any such rumour--his mother who was probably at that moment
+listening with affecting interest and politeness to some circumlocutory
+history from the lips of Mrs. Spenceley, _à propos_ either of Fred or
+of Helena. This was the day on which Helena was to come into--not her
+whole fortune--that was only to happen at her father’s death, or if
+she married--but of so much of it as would make her what many people
+would call a rich woman. Sebastian thought of this, and wondered if the
+fortune were but
+
+        ‘A fleeting show
+    For man’s illusion given.’
+
+His thoughts turned persistently to the girl with whom he had so
+lately been dancing. It was all in her honour, this ghastly, hollow
+mockery of an entertainment, with its spectres and shadows flitting and
+stealing about. All for her! She was crowned with roses, which were
+indeed the fitting flower for so beautiful a rose as she was herself.
+Those great pearls round her neck, and those massive bracelets on
+her slender arm--his mind recalled each item of her dress, and, as
+it were, every line of her beauty; he saw her standing, as she had
+stood more than once that evening, with a crowd round her, of friends
+and well-wishers--for she was popular--who congratulated her, and
+brought her flowers and bouquets--chiefly roses--the flowers of love
+and triumph. And ever, as he pictured her thus, that shadowy, stealing
+figure seemed to lurk and crouch behind them, now uncovering its face
+a little, and then, with a smile of weird meaning, drawing the veil
+again. He shuddered a little, and turned hastily towards the ball-room;
+stood in the doorway and looked. Yes, there was Helena with Hugo; he
+was glad she was with Hugo; smiling and laughing with him, as they flew
+swiftly by, past the door, and her perfumed skirts brushed him and sent
+an odd little thrill through him.
+
+The ball progressed, and the evening drew drearier and drearier; he
+heard the excuses made by Mrs. Spenceley, and saw the care growing
+darker upon her brow; he heard the regrets of the guests, and saw the
+increasing uneasiness of the looks cast about him by Fred, with a
+strange sense that he alone could, if he chose, point the way upstairs
+and say, ‘You will find the explanation of all, if you go there and
+ask.’
+
+As the tenth dance was about to begin, he saw Fred make some excuse to
+the lady whom he was leading to the ball-room; heard the words, ‘Very
+sorry--back in a minute.’ The young lady was put on a cushioned bench
+beside the wall, and Fred quickly departed, with a look of resolution
+on his face. Sebastian, with Helena on his arm, looked after Spenceley.
+He was going upstairs. Mallory, throughout all the dance, could not
+keep himself from wondering what was taking place in one of those upper
+rooms. What confession, or what revelation? Were things very bad? Was
+the crisis a very critical one?
+
+‘You have become perfectly silent, Mr. Mallory--not to say morose,’
+remarked Helena. ‘And when I was dancing with Hugo, I saw you looking
+in upon us with a sort of glare. What is the matter?’
+
+‘Oh, nothing! Miss Spenceley, when did you last see your father?’
+
+‘This morning, quite early: you know we have breakfast at eight,
+because we are business people. He gave me these pearls that I have
+on for a birthday present, and though I would much rather have had
+no presents, they were so beautiful, and I am so weak, that I was in
+ecstasies with them. But papa said he had very important business in
+Liverpool, and he might have to go to Manchester too. Still, he is very
+late,’ she added, as they began to dance again.
+
+The waltz was over. Every one was streaming into the supper-room;
+Helena, with Sebastian, remained in the ball-room, watching the people
+out, to see that all went, when voices made themselves heard: young men
+were calling out, ‘I say, Spenceley!’--‘Where’s Fred?’--‘Who’s to sit
+where?’--‘Fred, Mrs. Spenceley wants to ask you something.’
+
+‘Where can Fred be?’ exclaimed Helena, craning her neck to look round.
+‘It is very strange in him to go away just now, when he ought to be
+seeing after things.’
+
+They were standing beside a door of the ball-room; not that leading
+into the hall, but one which opened into a passage leading to the
+billiard-room, and thence to the kitchen regions and offices. Almost
+as Helena spoke, the door was suddenly opened, and a young woman
+appeared, with frightened face, and widely distended eyes, who, seeing
+Helena, began, after the manner of her kind, to wring her hands, and
+exclaim, in much agitation,
+
+‘Oh, Miss Spenceley! Where’s missis? Oh, how dreadful! Oh!’
+
+‘What is the matter?’ demanded Helena in a clear, decided voice.
+
+‘Oh--master, m’! He’s----’
+
+‘Stop!’ said Sebastian, suddenly and sternly, as he took the girl’s
+arm, and gave it a little shake, to restore her to her senses. ‘Don’t
+make such a noise! Miss Spenceley, wait here a moment. Come here!’
+he added to the girl--one of the housemaids--as he drew her into the
+passage, and closed the door. ‘Now, what is the matter? Your master has
+returned. I saw him. Is he ill?’
+
+‘Oh, sir,’ she said, with an hysterical sob, ‘he’s dead! He’s lying on
+the sofa in his room, and----’
+
+‘Dead!’ repeated Sebastian, and he knew in a moment what it meant.
+‘Where is Mr. Fred? Is he with him?’
+
+‘No, sir. I haven’t seen him. I thought he was here.’
+
+Sebastian, with a growing fear that the whole thing was much blacker
+and more dreadful than he had suspected, bade the young woman wait
+a moment, while he returned to Helena. He had rapidly reviewed the
+circumstances, and found there was nothing for it but to go to her.
+Fred was gone: he did not like to let the idea, ‘absconded,’ shape
+itself, even in his mind; but all the same, it was there, like an ugly
+black spectre. To burst upon Mrs. Spenceley with such news would have
+been in the highest degree inhuman and improper. Helena alone remained
+to take this fearful burden upon her shoulders.
+
+He found Helena standing in the same place in which he had left her,
+and the last of the guests disappearing through the hall to the
+supper-room. Helena was composed and calm, but her eyes, as they met
+his, told him that she suspected a catastrophe.
+
+‘I want you to come with me,’ said he, drawing her arm through his,
+and speaking in a low, gentle voice, and then they stood in the
+passage, with the servant-maid.
+
+‘Show me the room where your master is, and do not speak,’ he said to
+her; she was crying bitterly, in a cowed and helpless fashion, but was
+less excited, less inclined to shriek out her dreadful news to every
+one she met. Helena’s face grew white, but she neither trembled nor
+spoke, as they followed the girl up the backstairs to a landing-door,
+which she threw open, and then they found themselves standing on the
+gallery which formed the landing, and from which all the bedroom doors
+opened out.
+
+‘Which is your master’s room?’ asked Sebastian.
+
+The maid pointed to a door, and cried more bitterly still, while
+Helena’s face grew whiter and more set every minute.
+
+‘Have you seen Mr. Fred at all this evening?’
+
+‘I saw him run upstairs, sir, and then I saw him go to his own room;
+but he’s not there now, and I’ve never seen him since.’
+
+‘Very well, you can go now; but remember, you are to be silent, or it
+will be worse for you. Do you understand?’
+
+‘Yes, sir. I won’t say nothing, indeed!’ said the weeping young woman,
+going away with her muslin apron to her eyes.
+
+He turned to Helena. He felt he must not defer it any longer. There was
+pity and tenderness in his eyes and in his voice, as he said,
+
+‘Now, Helena, you are brave, and you must be as brave as you can
+to-night.’
+
+‘Tell me what it is!’ she said; ‘but don’t keep me waiting any longer.’
+
+‘I must keep you waiting just a few moments,’ said he. ‘I want you to
+sit down here, and not move, while I go to your father’s room--will
+you?’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Helena, seating herself with a prompt docility which
+contrasted strangely with her white face and distended eyes.
+
+Sebastian left her, walked into the room, and found it all as he had
+expected. Mr. Spenceley had committed suicide. He had taken prussic
+acid, and lay dead upon the couch at the foot of his bed. Sebastian,
+looking quickly round, saw a written paper lying on the floor at his
+feet. It was merely a scrap of paper, with the words,
+
+‘DEAR LIZZIE,--I am a ruined man, and I can’t bear it. I’ve never made
+you very happy, and the best I can do is to leave you. I don’t know
+what will be left, but there is always your money of your own, and
+Nelly’s that I----’
+
+Here it broke off. It was not torn; it was as if the facts had rushed
+over the man as he wrote these words, and he had failed to pen another
+syllable. There was no proof that Fred had absconded, or that he knew
+his father’s fate. Sebastian knew he must put the matter in the best
+light; but he himself felt an absolute certainty of conviction on the
+matter.
+
+He took the paper and went out of the room, locking the door and
+putting the key in his pocket. Helena looked up as he came to her, but
+said not a word.
+
+‘Helena,’ he began, ‘from what has happened to-night, I fear your
+father has found that he is ruined.’
+
+‘Is that all?’ said Helena, drawing a long breath of relief.
+
+‘No. That, if true, is the least part of it. Remember what this must
+have been to your father. Prosperity and success were his very _life_.’
+
+‘Do you mean that it has killed papa?’ asked Helena with unnatural
+calm, fixing her eyes upon his face.
+
+‘I wish to spare your mother, or I would not tell you this. It has
+killed him--that is, he could not bear to live after such a fall. My
+poor child, your father has destroyed himself.’
+
+‘He has--oh!’ came like a whisper from her white lips. Face, cheeks,
+brow, lips, were white as the dress she wore. She caught at a chair
+which stood near and supported herself upon it, looking at him with a
+stare of blank, utter horror, which he felt to be almost unbearable.
+For weeks afterwards he was haunted by the vision of the white figure
+in its cloudy dress; the roses scattered about it, all like one white
+marble figure, save the dusky hair and eyes which looked coal-black by
+contrast with her face.
+
+‘Think of your mother,’ said he, feeling that that spell of horror
+must be broken, and he gently put his arm round her, and placed her
+in the chair on which she had been leaning. She did not speak for a
+moment, but at last said,
+
+‘Oh, poor mamma! If she only need not know.’
+
+‘I fear she must know a great deal of it.’
+
+Then Helena put the question which he dreaded.
+
+‘But where can Fred be all this time?’
+
+‘He is not in the house. He may have gone away to see if the failure
+is complete--if anything remains to be saved,’ said Sebastian; ‘at any
+rate he is not here.’
+
+‘Ah, yes!’ said Helena, and no suspicion like Sebastian’s conviction
+even for a moment troubled her mind. He gave her the paper he had found.
+
+‘I have read it; I thought it best,’ said he. ‘And now I want you to go
+to your own room, and I will send Mrs. Spenceley to you, and ask all
+these people to go away. You will allow me!’
+
+‘You are very good,’ said Helena, calmly.
+
+‘You must break just what you think fit to Mrs. Spenceley,’ he added.
+‘There is no one but you to do it, and she will hear it best from you.
+For her sake, you will keep up this brave, calm behaviour till the
+worst is over.’
+
+‘Yes; and then?’
+
+‘Trouble yourself about nothing else to-night. I will see to everything
+until your brother comes back. I will stay here all night. You need not
+leave your room again.’
+
+Helena rose without speaking; looked at him with an indescribable
+expression; her lips moved, as if she would have spoken; but, without
+a word, she turned and went to her room. Sebastian watched until the
+door had closed after her, and that silence seemed to leave an enormous
+want in his heart. There was silence, except a murmur coming from the
+supper-room. That reminded him of his duty. With another earnest look
+at that closed door, he went downstairs.
+
+He made his way to Mrs. Spenceley, and asked her to go to her daughter
+in her room. With a deep flush of terror and foreboding, she went.
+Neither husband nor son was there to support her. A stranger took her
+to the foot of the stairs and left her. Sebastian’s soul was quite
+possessed with the idea of these two women; one telling, the other
+learning, the extent of their awful calamity, so far as it was known.
+It haunted him, but he gathered himself together, and easily catching
+the attention of the startled company, he merely told them that Mrs.
+and Miss Spenceley wished him to express their great regret at having
+to leave their guests, in consequence of very distressing news which
+they had just received. Frederick Spenceley had had to leave home
+immediately, and he thought, as it was already late, the kindest thing
+they could do would be to leave the house as soon as possible.
+
+Amidst a wild buzz of inquiries, suggestions, and speculations, the
+guests dispersed. In an hour the house was quiet, and Helena had gently
+told her mother the whole truth as far as she knew it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+DOWN IN THE WORLD.
+
+
+It was not until late in the afternoon of the following day that
+Sebastian, not forgetting his appointment with Myles Heywood, found it
+possible to return to his own home.
+
+That was a dreadful day, bringing in its course fresh disclosures of
+dishonesty on the part of both father and son of the Spenceleys, fresh
+shame and humiliation to the sorely proved Helena; fresh bursts of
+wild, hopeless weeping and meaningless questions from her poor mother.
+Mrs. Spenceley was, of course, perfectly bewildered by everything, and
+could only reiterate that she had told Spenceley, over and over again,
+that if business was so precarious, they had no right to be giving
+balls; and she knew it would turn out badly, she had said so all along.
+Then a fresh burst of weeping, and the inquiries:
+
+‘Helena, my dear, I s’pose we shall have to leave here. What do you
+think we shall be allowed to keep? Will everything have to be sold?’
+
+To all of which Helena, pale, composed, and gentle, made answers as
+soothing as she could.
+
+It was upon her head that the cruellest shame and humiliation naturally
+fell. Sebastian asked her, almost as soon as he met her in the morning,
+what friends or relations there were with whom he could communicate
+on the subject of her father’s death, and to whom he could resign his
+present authority.
+
+‘But there is Fred,’ said poor, unconscious Helena. ‘He is sure to be
+back soon. He will come by one of the early trains from Manchester, I
+am sure.’
+
+‘I doubt it,’ said Sebastian, feeling his task a hard one. ‘And even
+if he did, it is not right that your friends and relations should not
+be summoned. Don’t think I wish to withdraw the little assistance I
+can offer you, but I have no right to the position. It is absolutely
+necessary that I give the responsibility into some proper hands.’
+
+‘I don’t know of any one except Uncle Robert, and papa and he were not
+good friends. He is mamma’s brother. I think he would come if we sent
+for him.’
+
+‘Where does he live?’
+
+‘In Manchester; I will give you his address,’ said Helena.
+
+When she had done so, Sebastian telegraphed to Mr. Robert Bamford,
+requesting him to come over as soon as possible on urgent business.
+An answer came to the effect that Mr. Bamford would arrive some time
+in the afternoon. It was for his appearance that Sebastian waited. He
+and Helena were in the library. He was trying to explain to her the
+circumstances which had made it possible for her father to fail, and
+Helena was giving her best attention, but, with all the goodwill in
+the world, utterly helpless before the technical business terms and
+details. Her sad face with its serious, puzzled look, was in sharp
+contrast with that of the Helena Spenceley whom Sebastian had always
+hitherto known.
+
+‘You see,’ said she, suddenly looking up at him with a wan attempt at a
+smile, ‘you had every right to laugh at me when I boasted my business
+capacities. No one could be more ignorant. I see it now.’
+
+‘It was not unnatural,’ said he, gently. ‘People with a cheque-book and
+a balance at the banker’s, are apt to think they understand business
+when they don’t. But it is of no consequence, really. The thing has
+happened, and if you had known all the secrets of the Stock Exchange
+you could not have prevented it.’
+
+‘No, I know,’ said Helena, looking wearily round. ‘I wonder if Fred
+will come back with Uncle Robert. I daresay he has been to consult him.
+Don’t you think so?’
+
+‘It may be so; at least, your uncle will be able to tell us something
+about him.’
+
+‘How I wish it was all over,’ she went on, ‘and that we were safely
+housed in, wherever we go to--some back street in Manchester, I dare
+say.’
+
+‘Oh, it may not be quite so bad as that.’
+
+‘I never said I thought that would be bad,’ said Helena, leaning her
+elbows, as if utterly tired out, upon the table, and resting her head
+upon her hands. Sebastian felt a deep pity stir his heart. She had
+already suffered so much--she had still so much more, and so much worse
+to suffer. Perhaps all this pain would make her what people, what he
+himself, would call ‘more reasonable.’ But she was very sweet in her
+unreasonableness. It seemed rather sad that she must go through such an
+ordeal in order that she might become like other people.
+
+At this point a servant announced ‘Mr. Robert Bamford,’ and Helena’s
+uncle arrived. Now Sebastian felt sure some painful truths would have
+to be told, and he again looked with a strange strength of compunction
+at the beautiful, weary, white face of Helena.
+
+Mr. Bamford was a very plain, rough-spoken man indeed, who walked with
+a heavy step into the room, glanced at Sebastian from a pair of shrewd,
+dark eyes, and without waiting for an introduction, gave a stiff little
+nod, and said, ‘Your servant, sir;’ and then turned to his niece with
+the greeting, ‘Well, Helena, this is a pretty business.’
+
+‘It is very sad, uncle,’ said she, facing him, pale, and with dilated
+eyes. ‘I think we had better not talk about it, but see what is to be
+done.’
+
+‘There’s not much left to be done now that yon precious brother o’
+yours has given us the slip.’
+
+‘_What?_’ said Helena, growing paler than before, and putting her
+trembling hands upon the table to support herself. ‘Fred given you the
+slip--what do you mean? He has gone to see about papa’s affairs. He--I
+expected him to come back with you. What has he done?’
+
+There was no defiance in the tone, only apprehension.
+
+‘Done!’ ejaculated Mr. Bamford, plunging his hands into his pockets and
+almost running about the room in his excitement. ‘Done! Why, he’s taken
+everything he could lay his hands on in the shape of money or money’s
+worth, and he’s off--perhaps to America, but certainly to the devil.’
+
+‘Do you mean that Fred has acted dishonourably?’ asked Helena, almost
+inaudibly, and trembling still more.
+
+‘Dishonourably! Why, you know nothing. Every one in Manchester knows it
+by this time. There’s been precious little honour wasted on the whole
+business, my lass. We know what to think when the men make away with
+themselves one way or another, and leave the women and the debts behind
+them.’
+
+‘But my father--it was his misfortune--he did not----’
+
+‘The less said about your father’s transactions, for the last six
+weeks, the better,’ said Mr. Bamford, curtly.
+
+‘Consider Miss Spenceley’s feelings, sir!’ interposed Sebastian, unable
+to endure seeing Helena’s despair, and feeling a glow almost of hatred
+towards Mr. Bamford, and what struck him as his brutality. Helena had
+turned away and covered her face with her hand, as a man might do
+who is sorely hit on some vital point--it was more a man’s gesture
+than a woman’s. Neither groan nor cry escaped her, but Sebastian
+saw that the iron had entered into her soul. That which she endured
+was the keenest moral anguish--the supremest of all pains. He could
+understand it. Her beauty was enhanced: the reckless, impetuous girl,
+with her ‘disorganised’ ideas, which he had laughed at before now, was
+transformed into the noble woman, who must bear things which only women
+can or do bear--the punishment for the sins of their masculine shields
+and protectors. ‘She has had a very severe shock already,’ he went on,
+‘and it cannot be necessary to pain her with----’
+
+‘She must know the truth, and the sooner the better,’ said Mr. Bamford,
+irascibly. ‘If she is a girl of spirit, she will not wish to be
+deceived, and anyhow her whole life will have to be changed, and come
+down a peg or two, for the sins of her father shall be visited upon
+her.’
+
+‘You are very kind, Mr. Mallory,’ said Helena, turning to them again
+and speaking calmly, though her face had, even in those few minutes,
+taken an older, worn expression, which shocked Sebastian. ‘I wish to
+know the worst at once. I can bear it. I did not know there had been
+anything dishonourable. Go on, uncle. I am not afraid, and I must know
+what I have to tell my mother.’
+
+‘By ----, the lass has a spirit of her own!’ observed Mr. Bamford. ‘Now
+that I see what she’s made of, I may try to explain things to her a
+bit.’
+
+‘Then I will leave you,’ said Sebastian. ‘Miss Spenceley will tell you
+that I made what arrangements were immediately necessary. I shall take
+the liberty of calling soon,’ he added to Helena, ‘in the hope that I
+may be of some assistance to you. May I?’
+
+‘You are very kind,’ she said, still with the same unmoved calm, as
+she gave him her hand. ‘I shall be glad to see you whenever you call.
+Perhaps, another time I can thank you better for your goodness; but at
+present----’
+
+‘Pray do not thank me; there is not the very least necessity,’ said he,
+as he left the room.
+
+‘Now, Uncle Robert!’ said Helena.
+
+‘Who is that young fellow?’
+
+‘Mr. Sebastian Mallory.’
+
+‘Young Mallory of the Oakenrod, who has been acting the philanthropist
+since he came from abroad?’
+
+‘Has he? Yes, it is that Mallory.’
+
+‘Any particular friend of yours?’
+
+‘No,’ was the cold response. ‘He happened to hear first of my father’s
+death last night, and as there was no one else here, and no one to do
+anything, he has been kind enough to arrange things for me since. I
+know very little of him.’
+
+‘H’m! ha! Well, we must get to business.’
+
+In a very short time Helena was made acquainted with what had happened,
+and with the bare and naked outline of her approaching future life. The
+less said of her brother the better, said Mr. Bamford. He believed that
+the sum with which he had absconded was about two thousand pounds. As
+for her father--he softened his tone a little, out of consideration for
+Helena--he was to blame, too, for not drawing in when first he began to
+find himself in difficulties; ‘only that would have brought him down
+in the world, and he couldn’t bear it; so, instead of going one step
+lower, and then climbing up again when he had a chance, he has waited,
+till he had to tumble down to the ground, and can never get up again,’
+remarked the merchant drily, while Helena listened.
+
+She showed him the scrap of paper which Sebastian had given her.
+
+‘Yes,’ said Mr. Bamford; ‘that money of yours is a myth----’
+
+‘I am glad to hear it,’ said his niece, in a deep, almost resentful
+tone. ‘And if it had been there--every penny--I should not have kept it
+now, of course.’
+
+‘And what your mother was to have had--it’s all in the business; was, I
+mean. It has gone with the rest.’
+
+‘I am glad of that too,’ observed Helena, concisely. ‘Then no one
+will have the power to say that we were well off while other people
+suffered.’
+
+‘Your wardrobe and jewellery will be your own, of course. Your jewels
+and your mother’s must be worth a pretty good sum, Helena.’
+
+‘My jewellery will be sold, and mamma’s too.’
+
+‘Please yourself about your own; but if your mother is not your
+father’s most pressing creditor, I don’t know who is. Of course she
+will sell her jewels; but she will keep the proceeds, and you will
+abstain from meddling in matters you don’t understand.’
+
+‘I understand right and wrong, uncle, and I shall do what I feel to be
+right.’
+
+‘Eh!’ he repeated, with a kind of chuckle: ‘the lass has a spirit in
+her after all.’
+
+They would have to leave Thanshope. Helena must try to find some
+employment. He would give them a home until that was accomplished; to
+his sister as long as she chose to stay with him. If she liked she
+might keep house for him, but if she chose to also try some means of
+gaining a livelihood, he would do what he could to help her. More, he
+thought, they could not expect.
+
+‘Certainly not,’ said Helena, composedly. ‘We have no right to expect
+so much, and may consider ourselves fortunate in having you for a
+friend.’
+
+She had always asked for work, she reminded herself when she was
+alone--real work, necessary work--not the fads with which rich women
+try to deceive themselves by calling them work. Behold! here was every
+prospect of as much work as she liked, and yet she found nothing
+cheering in it. Only--anything to get away from this sham life of sham
+luxury, sham state, sham riches, sham everything--away from the world’s
+eyes and those of Sebastian, into obscurity and poverty, which, she
+felt, would be no shams, but stern realities, with front of brass and
+eyes of stone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+IRREVOCABLE.
+
+
+‘Good-bye, Heywood, I wish you every success, and you carry the
+assurance of success in yourself. You will return to England a man of
+mark.’
+
+‘I trust never to return to England,’ replied Myles, standing up in
+Sebastian’s study, in the act of going. ‘I am afraid it will seem
+ungracious to you when I say I don’t care much about success. I want
+work; I don’t care whether it’s successful or not. There’s a verse in
+the Bible about “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world
+and lose his own soul?” There may be many sorts of souls, don’t you
+think so?’
+
+‘Yes, certainly. But I think time will soften these feelings of yours.
+Some time you will find yourself wishing to return to England.’
+
+Myles shook his head, with a half-smile, at once melancholy and
+sceptical. He ever wish to return to the place where Adrienne lived,
+Sebastian Mallory’s wife! They had left the study, and gone to the hall
+door.
+
+Straight before them, separated only by the garden and the dirty
+little river, was the broad, busy street--the beautiful building of
+the town-hall rose through the dusk before them. Lights twinkled; feet
+and wheels sped rapidly past. As they paused before the open door, the
+chimes rang out, clear and melodious; nine struck solemnly, and the old
+tune which haunted Myles, so interwoven was it with all the most sacred
+feelings of his life, was borne through the air in broken, fitful gusts
+of sound.
+
+Sebastian heard it too.
+
+‘Take that as an omen,’ said he, earnestly. ‘The old poet old Martin
+Usteri, in his homely German town, touched a deeper truth when he wrote
+that little song of his, than all our present pessimistic sages put
+together can cram into their learned books. Don’t forget the tune when
+you are away.’
+
+‘I am not likely ever to forget it,’ said Myles. ‘Good-bye, and thank
+you. I cannot say more.’
+
+With a pressure of the hand he was gone. Sebastian heard his quick step
+along the gravel--then he heard the gate open and swing to after him;
+and then Myles Heywood’s form and footsteps were lost in the general
+rush along the busy street. Sebastian was left to listen to the last
+echoes of the chimes, and to hum softly to himself--
+
+    ‘Freut Euch des Lebens,
+        Weil noch das Lämpchen glüht!
+    Pflücket die Rose,
+        Eh’ sie verblüht.’
+
+Myles was striding quickly homewards. In the hurry, preparation,
+and excitement of the last two days his mind had regained somewhat
+its vigour. It was not that he felt at all happier, or satisfied, or
+contented--not that life appeared much brighter to him, only _it had
+to be lived_. He set that formula before his mind, and never allowed
+a doubt upon the subject to intrude, because he dared not. He felt
+that his only safe, his only reasonable course of action, was to press
+forward sternly and as rapidly as possible; to cast from him his old
+life like a worn-out coat, and begin the new one.
+
+There was the prospect before him of life, struggle, striving, which
+he knew was worth a hundred of the lives he had been leading, which
+he knew it was his duty to accept and fulfil. The mere idea of
+it--of the difficulties to be overcome, and the possibilities to be
+attained--attracted him and braced him up, even while all he must leave
+seemed to grow dearer and more desirable as it was thrust farther into
+the background. There was no turning back now; a delay was what he most
+dreaded. He had grown a little grim and hard in his resolute pressing
+forward; even Mary fancied that he left them with a kind of exultation,
+and grieved the more, even while she felt no surprise.
+
+This evening he walked rapidly up the hilly street, ‘for the last
+time,’ he kept saying to himself, and hoping so too. How he had loved
+this prosaic, commonplace, dingy manufacturing town! What memories
+hung about it! Memories of a childhood spent amongst those he loved,
+of a youth and young manhood, which had not been without their
+honest, hearty struggles, strivings, and conquests, as well as their
+backslidings and failures; memories of a love which had grown upon him,
+stealing into his heart by such gentle, subtle degrees that he could
+by no means define them--which love had become the master passion of
+his earnest heart, with heaven on its side, and chaos on the other.
+All this he had lived through in grimy, smoky Thanshope, with the
+everlasting roar of machinery as a sort of chorus; within sound of the
+melodius, chiming bells. His whole surroundings had ever been earnest
+and serious as his own thoughts and bent of mind, and he felt that
+no other home would ever be harmonious to him as this was. Yet he
+was going to leave it all to-morrow, and his heart beat with a fierce
+gladness at the thought.
+
+Occupied with such reflections as these, he found himself at his
+own door, and went into the house. Mary was in the kitchen. All her
+preparations lay neglected; she sat in her rocking-chair, with her
+hands before her, looking at nothing, her eyes wet with tears.
+
+‘What ails you, Molly?’
+
+‘Eh, you’re there, Myles! Nothing ails me except thinking o’ what Miss
+Blisset’s been talking about.’
+
+‘Miss Blisset!’ he echoed in a gentle voice, pausing to look at her.
+‘Has she been here?’
+
+‘Ay, she has so! She only heard tell this morning about poor Ned,
+and she came down to say how sorry she were. Eh, but she is some and
+altered; hoo’s gone so quiet, I ne’er saw nowt like it. Hoo were ne’er
+a noisy one, but now----’
+
+Mary paused a minute.
+
+‘I’d a deal to tell her--all about me and Harry, and poor Ned, and
+about thy going away.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Myles, in a dull voice.
+
+‘Hoo fair started when hoo heard thou were going away. Hoo were so
+surprised. I told her all about it, and hoo said it were much the best
+thing, and I were to congratulate you. And then hoo said it were a
+long time since hoo had seen you, and, if you’d time, would you go up
+to-night and see her, for she’d something she wanted to say to you. If
+you do go,’ added Mary, ‘you’ll have to go now, or it’ll get too late.
+It’s after nine.’
+
+‘I don’t think it would be anything very important,’ said her brother,
+in a measured voice. ‘And I have no time, either. I’ve a lot of things
+to do to-night.’
+
+‘Won’t you go?’ asked Mary, opening her eyes wide. ‘Not go and say
+good-bye to her! Such friends as you’ve been!’
+
+‘No,’ repeated Myles. ‘She will understand that I am too busy.’
+
+‘I don’t think hoo’ll understand nowt o’ t’ sort,’ said Mary very
+emphatically. ‘But go thy own gait! thou knows best.’
+
+He turned away from her, and went upstairs to nail up a box with some
+books of his own in it, and to put up some few things of furniture
+which Mary was to take away with her when she went to the Ashworths’
+house; and as he worked his heart and his temples throbbed almost to
+bursting.
+
+Go to her, after what had been said! And, never to mention that, why
+was he to go to her? To hear something she wanted to tell him! What
+could that be, but that she was going to marry Sebastian? He was to
+walk up and hear that from her own lips, and then say good-bye to her,
+and not betray himself! After what had happened! After he had gone
+through with his bitter task, accepted favours from Sebastian--all in
+order that he might never see her again! No! Of course it might be
+ungrateful, brutal, uncivilised; it was nevertheless the only safe
+path for him to take--to maintain absolute silence and let her think
+what she pleased of him. What did it matter? She had Sebastian. He
+would soon be forgotten; he would take care of that. He knew, he was
+perfectly conscious all the time, that he was doing wrong. As he drove
+one nail after another into the box, each stroke of the hammer seemed
+to say ‘Wrong!’ And, with his eyes open, he did that wrong, because he
+was utterly miserable, and for the moment utterly indifferent; because
+he had suffered so much and so long that even his will felt broken, and
+to deliberately go to her and court still more suffering was more than
+he could do.
+
+The theory of the freedom of the will, says the latest philosophy,
+is nonsense, and worse than nonsense. If we seriously follow out
+such an idea, it leads us into a mad confusion--an insane chaos of
+impossibilities piled on impossibilities. We have no power to will
+this or that; we have the power of following and obeying the strongest
+motives, and acting upon them. It was in strict accordance with this
+principle that Myles behaved in this crisis of his fate: he followed
+and obeyed the strongest motives--he stayed at home.
+
+Soon after eight the next morning he left. Later on the same day,
+Mr. Hoyle, hearing of the disappearance of Frederick Spenceley, was
+perforce reminded of the words of the preacher, and learnt practically
+that he had wrought in vain; that, truly, all was vanity.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE DAWN OF NEW DAYS.
+
+
+It was August; the second August since that memorable one in 1862. This
+year, that of 1864, was in many respects a remarkable one in the annals
+of commerce, more especially in that branch of it known as the cotton
+trade.
+
+Strange events had been witnessed; amongst others, a wondering world
+had looked on at the great ‘scare’ which took place amongst the cotton
+lords, when the first mistaken rumours of peace were spread. The
+members of a trade whose greatest friend, it might have been supposed,
+would be peace, turned pale and trembled when peace was mentioned, and
+actually wished for the continuance of war; some of them saying that
+for them the alternative was war or ruin. Things grew somewhat more
+sane and better balanced, later; but the fact remained, that for once
+a great industry had seriously inclined her ear unto warlike councils,
+and had sought therein her profit. Despite all drawbacks, however, this
+last mighty daughter of civilisation was slowly arousing, and shaking
+off the paralysis which oppressed her. She stretched her huge limbs,
+and found that there was still life and vigour in them. Factories
+were being reopened on every side, and amongst those which were again
+working full time was that of Sebastian Mallory.
+
+He sat breakfasting one Friday morning, alone, opening his letters, and
+with the unopened newspapers beside him. He usually breakfasted alone
+now, and had grown quite accustomed to it. Mrs. Mallory rather avoided
+his society, and he, when he thought about the matter at all, felt the
+absence to be a relief rather than otherwise.
+
+Two years may or may not make a great change both in the character and
+appearance of a man. Sebastian Mallory was somewhat altered in the
+latter respect since he had parted from Myles Heywood one evening,
+which, when he thought of it, seemed a long time ago. His face had
+taken an older, more decided expression; his lips were more firmly
+closed; his eyes had lost much of their listlessness. He had found
+plenty of work ready to his hand, and he was not one of those persons
+whose work decreases. Business accumulated about him. People had
+discovered that he was useful, capable, and impartial. He did not know
+himself how great his influence was, or rather he had not known it
+until a few days before, when, to his great surprise, he had been asked
+to contest the borough in the Radical interest, so soon as a vacancy
+should occur. He had promised to take the matter into consideration.
+In a few days his answer was to be given. He was not wont to waver
+or vacillate; generally he could sum up the reasons for and against
+a course, and decide in the most prudent and reasonable way. On this
+occasion he had not found the matter so easily disposed of. ‘He would,
+and he would not.’ Many considerations urged him to accept; he could
+scarcely assign any for declining. The only one which would have
+been valid--that he felt no desire for a public life, and no wish to
+increase his present occupations--was absent. He had often felt a
+strong inclination for such a life; and he knew that he could manage
+to give time enough to it. The core of the matter was that his heart
+was not in it. As he read his letters this morning, he thought of the
+coming interview with his supporters, and had an odd sensation that he
+absolutely did not know what to say to them, and that it was a case
+which might appropriately be settled by tossing up.
+
+He laid two of his letters on one side, until the business
+communications were disposed of, and then he took one of them up. They
+both bore the Prussian stamp of two and a half groschen, and both were
+addressed in a German handwriting. He took up the first of them, with
+a slight smile hovering about his lips, or ever he began to read.
+
+    ‘DEAR SEBASTIAN,’ it began,
+
+  ‘What an age it is since I heard from you! I look out fervently every
+  day for the postman, and he never comes. I suppose you are _busy_!
+  How completely changed you are, you who never used to be busy. I am
+  writing this at the midnight hour, because I have news for you. Good
+  news, of course; if it were bad news, I should leave it to travel to
+  you on its own legs. Old Biermann, the _Direktor_, and I have, so to
+  speak, buried the tomahawk, and sworn an alliance; and he is going to
+  give my little cantata, _Hermann u. Dorothea_, at the next concert
+  but one. This is a great step in advance. I hardly know what has
+  induced him to be so gracious; but his word is given now, and let him
+  repent him never so much, he will be obliged to carry it out. I need
+  not tell you, however, that I look upon it only as a step, and that
+  my hopes and wishes continue to turn always to the opera. I am not
+  hurrying about it, because I want it to be worth hearing when it is
+  done. Mozart was only eighteen when his first opera (it’s true it was
+  a comic one) was produced, and I am nearly twenty.
+
+  ‘I am in luck’s way, too. I have earned ten pounds by my own
+  exertions, teaching, in the last six months. It is spread out before
+  me in a beautiful shining row. No money ever looked so charming
+  before. Please remember this, and make your next remittance ten
+  pounds less than usual, or else I shall not feel as if I had really
+  earned it.
+
+  ‘I cannot give you any news, for there is none; still, I will
+  tell you what happened to me the other day. I was walking in the
+  _Hofgarten_, when I met a lady walking alone. I looked up, and I
+  thought: ‘Helena Spenceley! How did she come here?’ In the surprise
+  of the moment I did not look at her attentively enough, but raised my
+  cap, held out my hand, and was going to accost her, when she smiled
+  and uttered a rather astonished ‘_Mein Herr_, you are mistaken!’ She
+  was German, and when she smiled I saw the difference; she had not
+  Helena’s fire and spirit, and yet the likeness was wonderful. The
+  incident set me thinking about these old days. You never mention
+  Helena now. Do you never see her? Tell me when you write. I have
+  never seen any one like her. I suppose you are too busy to think of
+  such things. I used to wonder at your coolness all the time that she
+  was suffering so, in consequence of that wicked father and brother of
+  hers. I used to make her, in my own mind, the heroine of a hundred
+  tragedies and romances, in those days. And yet--forgive me for saying
+  so, I have always said things I ought not to say, to you--I was
+  nothing to her but an enthusiastic boy, to whom she was kind, and you
+  were a great deal--a man--I believe _the_ man. Since I met that lady
+  in the gardens, I have thought a great deal about it, and as I found
+  a little poem the other day, called _Hélène_, I composed an air for
+  it, and made it into a song; but I shall not sell it. You may have it
+  if you like; but I shall not send it until I hear from you.
+
+    ‘Ever your devoted
+    ‘HUGO.’
+
+Sebastian put the letter down, the smile fading from his face. The
+meeting with a strange girl, a passing likeness, had set Hugo’s memory
+working; had prompted him to write words which seemed striking to
+Sebastian. He had thought, more than once--often--of Helena Spenceley,
+but he had never seen her since, with disasters falling thick upon
+her young head, she, with her mother, had left Thanshope. They had
+gone to Manchester, he had heard. Once or twice he had asked his
+mother if she had not heard from Helena, for he remembered that Mrs.
+Mallory had told him how Helena had been a ‘kind of daughter’ to her;
+but she had composedly answered ‘No,’ and had added that she did not
+know their address, and had reason to think they did not wish to keep
+up any of their old Thanshope acquaintances, which, she feelingly
+added, was really very natural under the circumstances. At the time
+of their departure, business had pressed upon Sebastian, as it had
+continued to press upon him ever since. He had been smarting under the
+disappointment of his refusal by Adrienne. Helena and her misfortunes
+had touched him deeply; her calmness, and the real heroism with which
+she met her fate, had impressed him. He had firmly intended that he
+should not be one of the Thanshope acquaintances whom they dropped
+entirely; but, by some means, they had slipped out of his ken, and
+he had not been able to find them again. Yet, many a time, Helena’s
+beautiful face had seemed to start up before his eyes, at strange
+moments: sometimes when he was most busy, sometimes when he was in one
+of his rare idle moods. Sometimes a song or a strain of music would
+summon up the vision; sometimes in a busy street, or in a silent hour,
+it would hover before him. This morning, after reading Hugo’s letter,
+he saw it more strongly than ever; but with the strength of will which
+belongs to daylight and activity, he thrust it away, and took up his
+other letter.
+
+It was from his old friend, Herr Süsmeyer, who asked him if he was
+never coming to see him again, and added, that he expected his son home
+some time during the autumn, to take his place in the business. There
+were further domestic details, and then the remark, ‘Young Heywood,
+whom you sent here to me, is my right hand, now that I am somewhat
+laid up; but he has been invaluable ever since he fairly mastered the
+language. I should like to speak to you about him too. There will have
+to be some change when Julius returns.’
+
+‘Julius will return, will he?’ murmured Sebastian to himself. ‘And
+Heywood is invaluable. He has gained the old man’s affections, and has
+not hardened his heart against him, or indeed against any one but me.
+But I know the reason, and can forgive him. It is an old story now.
+Still, if ever I had the chance, I should like to test once again his
+feelings, and see if he is as stiffnecked as ever.’
+
+He put the letters into his pocket-book, and, having finished
+breakfast, took his way to his office, pondering as to whether it
+would be possible for him to get a brief holiday some time during the
+autumn, run over to Eisendorf, see Herr Süsmeyer, and observe with
+his own eyes how ‘young Heywood’ was getting on; then go on to where
+Hugo was studying, and carry him off with him to--Italy, perhaps, or
+Switzerland. He began to long all at once that he might be able to do
+so, and to yearn, almost, for the sound of Hugo’s voice; to feel a
+sudden weariness of this grey, dismal town--this never-ending strife
+with starvation, this strained suspense, this sensation of standing on
+the brink of a precipice, which had been present with him, as it was
+with most men in his position, during all those troubled years. The
+last two of them he had fought out alone: to-day, for the first time,
+he felt the battle weary and monotonous--almost ignoble.
+
+‘Please, sir,’ said Ben, who still retained his place in the office, as
+Sebastian entered it, ‘there’s a message from Mr. Sutcliffe to say he’s
+very poorly this morning, and can’t come. He’s very sorry, and he hopes
+he’ll be better to-morrow.’
+
+‘Ill, is he?’ said Sebastian, going into his private room. Mr.
+Sutcliffe had often been ill lately, and when he came to his work he
+walked feebly, and coughed a good deal.
+
+‘That’s another question that must be settled, and before long, too,’
+reflected Mr. Mallory, a shade of care upon his brow, when he found
+himself alone. ‘I must have a serious talk with Sutcliffe, but how I’m
+to manage to make him have assistance, and yet take the same salary, I
+don’t know. He is so confoundedly conscientious.’
+
+After working doubly hard, in order to make up for Mr. Sutcliffe’s
+absence, Sebastian found himself, shortly after eleven o’clock, in
+the train on his way to Manchester, Tuesday and Friday being the
+market-days in that city: the days when merchants in the streets most
+do congregate, and when that impressive spectacle, High ’Change, is
+wont to be even more imposing than usual.
+
+It was a busy day. Sebastian, after going on ’Change and visiting his
+Manchester office, made certain business calls, and, in the middle
+of the afternoon, found himself standing in Mosley Street, exactly
+opposite the Royal Institution.
+
+It was a hot, close, Manchester afternoon. Scarcely a breath of air
+was stirring. The smoke pressed heavily down upon the thick, yellow
+air. Faintly the coppery sunbeams tried to struggle through it,
+and wavered, and seemed to fail. There was a roar and a din in the
+much-frequented street--all about the great black, grimy-looking
+buildings, shops, offices, and warehouses. Omnibuses, carts, and
+lorries were struggling in a ‘lock’ in the middle of the street,
+and two exhausted-looking policemen were trying to restore order.
+Sebastian’s next destination was over the way; but, surveying the scene
+before him, he saw no immediate prospect of getting over the way, and
+turned round towards the Royal Institution, as if to consult that
+building as to what he had better do.
+
+Three large boards, covered with placards, caught his eye. ‘Exhibition
+of Pictures,’ in large letters, stood at the top of the boards, while
+profuse details followed in smaller print below.
+
+‘The pictures! Why not go in and have a look?’ he reflected, and
+straightway walked up to the door, paid his shilling, secured a
+catalogue, and ran up the steps.
+
+It was between three and four in the afternoon. If it had been sultry
+out of doors, it was much more so within. The rooms felt stiflingly
+hot, and the blaze of colour upon the walls was oppressive. There were
+not very many visitors present, and those who had come were going
+languidly round. The people who had secured seats upon the chairs or
+divans looked nearly asleep, and those who had not secured such seats
+were looking enviously at those who had, as if, with a little more
+provocation, they would forget conventionality and sit down on top of
+them.
+
+Sebastian glanced critically around. Now and then a picture caught his
+eye and partially pleased it, but these were few and far between; and
+he passed rather quickly from one room to another, until he came to the
+end one of all, which was devoted to water-colours. The first object
+that met his eye was an empty chair, and he promptly sat down upon
+it. On examining the wall before him, he found that one oil-painting
+had been admitted amongst the water-colours, and that it was hung
+exactly opposite to him. He sat in rapt contemplation of it, feebly
+endeavouring to guess what it was meant to represent. A drab-coloured
+lady crouched together, nursing one of her own feet. She was scantily
+attired, also in drab, and had a peculiar cast of countenance, and
+an imbecile smile, showing rows of very fine teeth, and was glancing
+upwards. She was adorned with ropes of pearls of a size and value which
+must have surprised even the author of ‘Lothair,’ could he have seen
+them. An opaque veil prevented the colour of her hair from being seen.
+She was drab; the stones of the palace-steps upon which she reposed
+were likewise drab. The sand of the banks, the water of the river
+flowing by, were all drab. Sebastian studied the composition, and shook
+his head, referring in despair to his catalogue. ‘Cleopatra by the
+Nile, by ----. Price, one hundred guineas.’ If a little green ticket
+stuck in the margin of the frame were to be believed, this work of
+genius was sold.
+
+‘Some fellows do have most awful strokes of luck,’ mused Sebastian.
+‘Now, the man who painted this thing--I wonder if he knew how the
+chances were against his ever sell----’
+
+‘You shan’t!’
+
+‘I shall! I tell you I shall have that picture; it’s mine. I like that
+little pussy. Mayn’t I have that little pussy, Miss Spenceley?’
+
+‘Well, no, dear, I’m afraid not, unless you can persuade papa to buy
+it; because, you see, we can’t take the things away.’
+
+‘But I will have it! I want that little pussy for my own!’ And a howl
+followed.
+
+‘Oh, hush, Jacky, dear! What shall we do if the man comes to turn us
+out? Come here. We’ll ask papa about the pussy, shall we?’
+
+Sebastian started from his chair, heat, listlessness, ‘Cleopatra by
+the Nile,’ and everything else forgotten, and turned suddenly round.
+The group was behind him, close to him--yes, he knew that figure again
+instantly, even in its present shabbiness, compared with its former
+splendour. She was bending over an urchin of four or five summers,
+whose engaging countenance was ominously puckered up in readiness for
+another burst of infantile music. Two other children, a girl and a boy,
+both older than the would-be possessor of the pussy-cat, stood by,
+wrangling with each other as to the possession of another work of art.
+She still did not turn her face in his direction, but Sebastian, with
+an eagerness and a pleasure which surprised even himself, exclaimed
+very audibly,
+
+‘Miss Spenceley, have you forgotten me? Won’t you look at me?’ She
+started violently from her stooping attitude, and, leaving the
+recalcitrant Jacky to his fate, at last turned to him.
+
+‘Mr. Mallory, I--I--how you surprised me!’ she stammered, looking at
+first so pale and startled that he was surprised.
+
+He was shocked too, after the first glance, at the change, the sad,
+mournful change, in her face.
+
+‘You do know me again,’ he said; ‘at least you might shake hands with
+me. I fear you are not pleased to renew our acquaintance.’
+
+He had taken her hand, and as his fingers touched hers, Helena’s
+paleness fled, and crimson dyed her cheeks. Tears rushed to her eyes;
+her lips opened, but she did not speak. His eyes were still fixed
+upon her face; he could not remove them; he did not realise that his
+prolonged gaze distressed her. He felt unaccountably glad to meet her,
+pleased, excited, light-hearted, as if he had a great deal to say to
+her and ask her. He forgot all about his engagements--about returning
+to the station, or going home; he wanted to talk to her, to hear her
+speak, to find out all about her.
+
+The colour gradually died out of her cheeks, and then became again
+apparent the change these two years had wrought in her. She was thin,
+decidedly thin, compared with the full if delicate beauty of past days;
+there were hollows in her cheeks, and under her great dark eyes; there
+was a painful line about her lips, and a melancholy, which looked
+as if it were settled, in her expression. She looked, what he had
+never thought she could look, patient and subdued--not the impulsive,
+fiery-hearted girl whom he had known and teased and quarrelled with.
+
+Her dress, he also saw, was sadly altered. Helena had always had a
+weakness for splendid things: she delighted in a rich colour, a soft
+silk, a sheeny satin--in all kinds of luxurious, and beautiful, and
+fashionable things. Formerly people used to laugh at this weakness.
+Other girls, whose fathers had not been so rich as Mr. Spenceley, used
+to turn up their noses, and say that she was vulgarly ostentatious;
+that it was exceedingly bad taste in a girl to dress herself as
+splendidly as a dowager, and so on. In truth, it had been no bad
+taste at all. The splendour was part of her nature--one phase of her
+individuality; it belonged to her as much as her queenly shape and
+melodious voice.
+
+But now--there was no splendour in that dress, of poor material and
+last year’s fashion. The silk mantle had been handsome once--perhaps it
+was a relic of palmier days; now its shape was antiquated, and it was
+too good for the poorness of the rest of the toilette. The glove on the
+hand, which Sebastian still continued to hold, had been often mended.
+Helena looked what she used to have the strongest objection to--poor,
+shabby, and unprosperous, her good looks faded----
+
+But not gone. No. Sebastian, staring on in the same rude and
+reprehensible manner, satisfied himself that her beauty was only
+clouded over, not vanished.
+
+‘Do you know, I have been thinking about you a great deal to-day?’ he
+said. ‘I had a letter this morning from Hugo von Birkenau: he saw a
+German lady in the gardens at ----, and thought it was you. Just fancy!
+He made all sorts of inquiries about you. How fortunate that I happened
+to look in this afternoon!’
+
+Helena seemed to have nothing to reply. Her face was still downcast;
+she remained silent.
+
+‘It is nearly two years since we met,’ he urged; ‘and yet you do not
+say you are glad to see me.’
+
+‘Oh, I am! Very glad,’ murmured Helena.
+
+‘You live in Manchester still?’
+
+‘Yes; mamma and I. We live in Woodford Street----’
+
+She named one of the southern suburbs of Manchester.
+
+‘Do you? That is not far away. How odd that we should never have met!’
+
+‘I don’t think so. Woodford Street is not a fashionable locality.’
+
+‘Is it not? I must remember the name. I asked my mother where you
+lived, but she said she did not know the address. But now that we have
+met, I am sure you will allow me to call, will you not?’
+
+‘Our house is so very small; we have so few visitors,’ she began in
+some embarrassment.
+
+‘But, my dear Miss Spenceley, you do not seriously mean that you could
+urge that as an objection,’ he exclaimed. ‘You are pleased to chaff me,
+I think, as you used to do.’
+
+Helena turned abruptly away; her lips set; her eyes fixed upon a
+water-colour drawing immediately before them.
+
+‘Do you mean that you really would rather I did not come?’ he asked
+earnestly, and excessively piqued at the idea.
+
+‘If you really wish to come,’ said Helena, rather proudly, ‘of course
+we shall be happy to see you, but I am sure you will find it very
+inconvenient. I am engaged until after four o’clock, and mamma----’
+
+‘Until after four? I shall remember that. The evenings are long now,
+and there are trains going to Thanshope till midnight, you know. How is
+Mrs. Spenceley?’
+
+‘She is very well, thank you.’
+
+‘Have you been bringing these young people to see the pictures?’ he
+inquired, for something in Helena’s manner forbade him to make the
+eager personal inquiries which crowded to his lips.
+
+Now that the first shock and surprise of meeting him again had passed,
+and she had recovered her self-possession, there was a certain
+pride and distance of bearing which seemed to require considerable
+deference on his part. Helena’s troubles had indeed made her into
+a woman; she had most decidedly quitted the girlish stage. She had
+probably, thought Sebastian, become a great deal more reasonable, and
+consequently a great deal less amenable to the influence of other
+persons--Miss Mereweather, for instance, and himself too. With regard
+to Miss Mereweather, it might be a matter of rejoicing that Helena had
+forsworn her tenets, but with regard to himself, perhaps that was not
+altogether delightful.
+
+‘Yes,’ said Helena, calmly, as she looked at the three children, ‘I
+have. They are my pupils.’
+
+‘Are they good?’
+
+‘I fancy they are as good as their parents will allow them to be. It
+all depends upon that.’
+
+‘How so?’ asked Sebastian. Anything to prolong the conversation!
+
+‘Mr. and Mrs. Galloway are supplied with the newest ideas upon all
+subjects, education included. The new education theory is, that when
+children are allowed their own way, they always do right; or if they do
+wrong some one else is to blame for it. That is why I say they are as
+good as their parents will allow them to be.’
+
+‘And are you generally the “some one else” who is to blame?’ he asked,
+wishing very much that she would utter some complaint, afford him some
+chance of offering sympathy or expressing fellow-feeling.
+
+‘Oh no!’ she replied, quite cheerfully. ‘I only come in for my share,
+and they really are very fond of me; only they show it in rather a
+funny way. That is why I can’t see any one before four o’clock. I leave
+them then--reluctantly, of course,’ she added, with a smile which vexed
+Sebastian, because he could not tell whether it was feigned or not;
+‘but still, I leave them.’
+
+‘Won’t you sit down in this chair,’ he said reproachfully, ‘and tell
+me all about yourself?’ He moved the chair forward for her, for he saw
+that she looked tired, and indeed she was very tired, and Sebastian
+looked to her wearied eyes, so kind, so handsome, and so agreeable,
+that it was with difficulty she maintained her little air of dignified
+reserve: but the voice within was a powerful one: ‘What right has he
+to look at me in that gentle, reproachful way, as if he, and not poor
+mamma and I, had been neglected? It is impertinent, and I won’t submit
+to it.’
+
+‘No, thank you,’ she said aloud, looking at her watch. ‘It is time to
+go. We must take a Victoria Park omnibus, and it will pass in three
+minutes. Come, children! Jacky, Amy, Ted! we must go.’
+
+They came obediently enough, their failing appearing to be in affection
+towards each other. They lavished affectionate epithets upon their
+governess, and quarrelled, as Helena said, ‘because I have not three
+hands;’ but they cast looks of suspicion upon each other, and took
+every opportunity of falling out.
+
+‘Good afternoon!’ said Helena to Sebastian, and as the children crowded
+round her and clasped her hands, she was not displeased to see that his
+face fell. She was glad that he should see that she was not altogether
+an object of pity.
+
+‘I am going too,’ he said. ‘I will see you into the omnibus. It will
+save you a little trouble. Come, young lady, take hold of my hand, or
+you will tear Miss Spenceley to pieces.’
+
+The little girl put her hand in his contentedly enough, merely
+informing her brothers that they were ‘nasty, selfish things,’ and the
+procession went downstairs.
+
+As they stood on the top of the steps, waiting for the omnibus,
+Sebastian, turning once more to Helena, said,
+
+‘You have not told me the number of your house. What is it?’
+
+‘Fifty-seven,’ said Helena. ‘Jacky, dear, if you pull Teddy’s hair
+again, I’ll make you sit outside the omnibus.’
+
+‘Fifty-seven. Best make a note of it, for fear I should forget it,’
+he added, jotting it down, while Helena, with a brave assumption of
+indifference, looked straight before her, and choked back her tears.
+
+‘You are not engaged until four o’clock on Sundays, are you?’ he
+suddenly asked.
+
+‘No--but--oh, don’t come on Sunday!’ said Helena in her old tragic
+manner.
+
+‘I solemnly swear that I will not come on Sunday!’ he said. ‘And
+equally solemnly I swear I will make you tell me why I am forbidden to
+come on that day.’
+
+‘Why?’ said Helena, with a kind of half-laugh, not quite free from an
+hysterical sound--‘why, the reason is simple enough. Because----’
+
+The omnibus is almost more relentless in its punctuality than time and
+tide. Not another word could be exchanged. They ran down the steps, and
+went through the ignominious performance of hailing and catching the
+vehicle. Sebastian, with great presence of mind, did manage to clasp
+Helena’s hand once more, and to repeat the words,
+
+‘I shall come soon, and _not_ on Sunday.’
+
+Then he stood in the middle of Mosley Street gazing after the omnibus,
+until an uproar caused him to look up, and he found himself surrounded
+with infuriated lorrie-drivers, swearing at him for getting into the
+way, while a hansom cabman had just pulled his horse up on to its
+very haunches, and was apostrophising him in a manner the reverse of
+complimentary. Newspaper boys were jeering at him, and an indignant
+policeman was ordering him to move on.
+
+With an amiable smile, and a murmured general apology, he made his way
+to the footpath, and then on to the station.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+FENCING.
+
+
+Towards five o’clock on the following Tuesday afternoon, a hansom-cab
+drove rapidly up that Manchester thoroughfare known as Oxford Street,
+and the address given by the man who took it had been, ‘Fifty-seven
+Woodford Street.’
+
+As they spun rapidly along, he looked out wondering on which side of
+Oxford Street Woodford Street might lie; how far from town, and if it
+would turn out to be a very poor little street indeed. He remembered
+Helena’s look of embarrassment, as she said the house was small and
+uncomfortable. They drove on; the cab passed the Owen’s College, passed
+the ‘Church of the Holy Name,’ passed some other buildings, and at last
+turned off to the right.
+
+Sebastian shook his head. ‘Not the best side. Poor little Helena!’ Why
+did he always think of her as ‘little Helena,’ she who was taller than
+most women, and whose disdainful head, set upon her long white neck,
+had been wont to look over the heads of a good many even of the men
+of Thanshope? Three whole days had passed since he had met her in the
+Royal Institution--three whole days, and part of a fourth, because she
+had told him not to come on Sunday.
+
+‘Why wouldn’t she let me come on Sunday?’ he had asked himself many
+times, and had assigned all kinds of imaginary reasons for the
+prohibition. The latest was, ‘Perhaps other people, or another person,
+may be allowed to come on Sunday. I shall make her tell me--if I can. I
+wonder if I can call one of those old flashing smiles to her face--one
+of those looks, which ran over it, and made it more beautiful still, if
+that could be?’
+
+Lost in profound conjecture upon this subject, he forgot to look where
+they were going, until the cab had traversed several smallish streets,
+and at last pulled up suddenly before one of a row of moderately sized
+houses--houses of the kind which would be called ‘respectable.’ It was
+not a glaring new street: it was neatly kept, and as he jumped out
+of the hansom and looked up it and down it, he did not see a single
+barrel-organ--not even a perambulator.
+
+Neither of these things did he behold; but he saw Helena Spenceley
+herself, just coming up to the gate, walking rather wearily, and
+looking tired as she pushed it open.
+
+‘She has been walking, and I have been driving,’ he thought, with a
+strange sensation of guiltiness, as he dismissed the man and joined her.
+
+‘You see, I have kept my word,’ he observed. ‘I have come soon, and I
+have not come on Sunday.’
+
+‘I am glad to see you,’ said Helena, sedately.
+
+They were airing themselves all this time on the top of the door steps,
+Mrs. Spenceley’s domestic, or domestics, not seeming to be in any
+violent hurry to open the front door; but as Sebastian was about to
+make some further observation, it was suddenly flung (as much as such
+a modestly proportioned door could be flung) wide open, by a young man
+whose appearance seemed to indicate that he belonged to some one of the
+numerous tribe of clerks.
+
+When he saw them he recoiled a step or two, and Sebastian, to his
+great amusement, saw that he was honoured by the surprised young
+gentleman with a scowl of peculiar malevolence. Clearing his brow,
+after a moment, of this unbecoming expression, he addressed himself to
+Helena.
+
+‘Good afternoon, Miss Spenceley. I hope I see you well.’
+
+‘Very well, thank you. Will you allow me to pass?’
+
+‘You see I am somewhat earlier to-day; in fact two hours earlier than
+usual. I was, if I must tell the truth, on my way to meet _you_,’
+with great emphasis upon the personal pronoun, and a languishing but
+fascinating smile.
+
+‘To meet _me_?’ repeated Helena, with equal emphasis. ‘Pray, on what
+errand, Mr. Jenkins?’
+
+‘I thought, as the evening was so beautiful, you might possibly not be
+indisposed for a--a--little walk after tea of course; and if so, I----’
+
+‘I am obliged, but I am engaged this evening, and I _never_ take walks
+after tea,’ said Helena, with crushing coldness. ‘If you will kindly
+allow us to pass----’
+
+Mr. Jenkins, plunging his hand into his breast, flattened himself
+against the wall, and resumed the Giaour-like scowl as Sebastian
+followed Helena. She opened the door of a back room and invited him in.
+
+‘I am afraid you will find it rather hot,’ said she; ‘these little
+houses are so thin, you know. They let the heat in, and then it never
+seems to get out again, somehow. Take that chair,’ and she seated
+herself languidly upon another. ‘It is our only sitting-room,’ she
+added, drawing off her gloves, and speaking deliberately, as she looked
+fixedly at Sebastian, to see how he would take her announcement. ‘It is
+dining, and drawing-room, morning-room, boudoir, and library. At Castle
+Hill we had them separately, but here mamma lets the rest of her rooms
+to lodgers. Mr. Jenkins, who wanted me to go for a walk with him, was
+one of them.’
+
+‘I see,’ said Sebastian, tranquilly. ‘I also saw that I did not rise in
+his esteem from the fact that I deprived him of his walk.’
+
+‘Mr. Mallory!’ exclaimed Helena, indignantly, as she lost the languid
+look and suddenly sat upright, ‘do you insult me by supposing that I
+_ever_ take my walks abroad with that horrid, presuming little man?
+But why should you not suppose so?’ she added with a little laugh.
+
+‘I supposed nothing,’ said Sebastian. ‘I only saw that he looked very
+much disappointed, and I could quite sympathise with him.’
+
+Here he ventured to look at Helena with some meaning in his glance,
+but was met by a direct gaze of what seemed to him cheerful, blank
+indifference--a gaze which chilled him; for Helena’s looks and glances
+had suddenly risen to a place of high importance in his mind. Their
+interview on Friday, especially the first few minutes of it, haunted
+him. He could not forget her agitation, nor how she had turned, first
+pale, and then red as a rose, on meeting him. He had wondered, and had
+determined to find out, what the agitation meant. He had thought it
+would be quite easy. The Helena whom he had known in former days had
+not been adroit in concealing her feelings, but before the present
+young lady he was obliged to own himself baffled. Her appearance,
+attitude, expression, were languid and weary; she looked worn, and
+not very happy, but her manner was composed, and a little hard in its
+ostentatious cheerfulness. He could not tell what was real and what
+assumed, and the desire to find out, to break down the reserve, to
+conquer in short--his besetting foible--grew very strong indeed.
+
+‘Can you drink tea at five o’clock?’ pursued Helena. ‘We have ours
+at five. Teaching makes me thirsty, and mamma likes her tea at five.
+Remember, there is no dinner to follow after.’
+
+‘If you invite me to tea, I am sure I shall be delighted to stay.’
+
+‘Then you are invited. Now I must go and take off my things. I will try
+to find mamma. You will excuse our leaving you alone for a short time.’
+
+‘Pray don’t mention it,’ said Sebastian, and Helena left the room. It
+was not a lofty room: the doorway was decidedly low, and he thought she
+would have to stoop to pass under it.
+
+When he was left alone, he glanced round the room. It was rather
+small, and was over-filled with furniture. Books were scattered about,
+and in the most shady corner of the room there was a vase containing a
+carefully preserved nosegay, such as might be bought for a trifle at
+any greengrocer’s shop in the neighbourhood. Everything was exquisitely
+neat and orderly, and in little touches here and there he fancied he
+recognised Helena’s hand despite the plainness, and in some respects
+even poorness, of the furniture. On the mantelpiece he detected two
+little vases of Sevres--relics of former splendour, no doubt. There
+was no piano, he noticed that. Perhaps because it would have filled
+up the room too much, or perhaps because pianos were rather expensive
+things to buy or hire. Yet Helena used to sing, and had a very fresh,
+sweet voice. How well he remembered her on that evening when he had
+first seen her--in her beauty and splendour, in her costly dress and
+sparkling necklace and rings. She had sung, ‘Since first I saw your
+face.’
+
+That seemed a very long time ago!
+
+He hoped it would not be long before Helena came down again. He hoped
+Mrs. Spenceley would not sit with them all the evening, and he hoped
+they would not expect him to go away very early.
+
+Presently the door was opened, and, not Helena but her mother came in.
+Sebastian was as much struck with the change in her as he had been
+shocked with that in Helena, but in a different way. Mrs. Spenceley
+looked better, happier, younger, and more contented, than she had done
+since her husband had made his fortune eighteen years ago. And she
+looked so because she was so. She did not mind the narrow means, the
+small house, the two girls, and the constant necessity for her presence
+in the kitchen. All that was as the breath of life to her, and she
+thoroughly enjoyed it. Sebastian, with a sigh of relief, felt that here
+no condolences were needed, no delicate skirting of dangerous ground.
+He might look cheerful, and ask Mrs. Spenceley with confidence and
+success how she was. The nature of her answer was visibly written upon
+her face beforehand.
+
+‘Well, Mr. Mallory, this is a pleasure! I could scarcely believe it
+when Helena said she had met you, and you were coming to see us. I
+said, “Eh, he’ll never come, not he!” But she said she thought you
+would; and she’s right, it seems.’
+
+‘She certainly is. I am very glad to see you looking so well, Mrs.
+Spenceley.’
+
+‘Oh, thank you,’ said Mrs. Spenceley, lightly, flinging a purple satin
+cap-string over her shoulder. ‘I’ve nothing to complain of, thank God!
+I’ve got on much better than I’d any reason to expect, and I’m thankful
+for it. It’s hard work sometimes, but I’ve a broad back.’
+
+Which she certainly had.
+
+‘That is very fortunate,’ he said, with becoming solemnity.
+
+‘Yes; I’ve four gentlemen. You’d wonder where we find room to put them
+all, but the house is more capacious’ (Sebastian conjectured that she
+meant spacious) ‘than it looks, and we’ve room for them all. Very
+nice gentlemen they are too; all in business in Manchester, you know.
+They’re quiet and well-behaved, and they pay up regularly; and,’ she
+added, dropping her voice, ‘none of your stand-off gents. They are all
+disposed to be most friendly, all except Mr. Harrison, and he’s engaged
+to his cousin, who lives in Northumberland. He hears from her regularly
+twice a week.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Sebastian, with an air of the deepest interest--the air of
+one thirsting for more information.
+
+‘But all the others, Mr. Finlay, and Mr. Smithson, and Mr. Jenkins--are
+most friendly, and quite gentlemen, every one of them. Indeed, Mr.
+Jenkins,’ she dropped her voice again, ‘is very much interested in
+Helena.’
+
+‘Is he?’ said Sebastian, still with unfeigned interest.
+
+‘Yes, he is. He’s getting on, too. And a perfect gentleman--on
+Sundays’--Sebastian leaned eagerly forward--‘on Sundays they often go
+out into the country for the day, or sometimes even for the week-end;
+but Mr. Jenkins, never,’ said Mrs. Spenceley, emphatically: ‘Mr.
+Jenkins dines with _us_.’
+
+‘_Poor_ Helena!’ thought Sebastian, while he said, ‘Oh, indeed!’
+
+‘Helena said I oughtn’t to have entered into such an arrangement; but
+I think she’s mistaken, and I think she’ll come to see her mistake in
+time.’
+
+‘Miss Spenceley does not feel so much interest in Mr. Jenkins, perhaps,
+as he feels in her!’
+
+‘That I can’t say; but if she does, she conceals it, which is but
+natural after all.’
+
+‘Quite natural in such a case,’ assented Sebastian.
+
+‘Here’s the tea-things,’ continued Mrs. Spenceley, cheerfully,
+producing a bunch of keys, and going to a cupboard, whence she drew
+forth, to speak metaphorically, flagons wherewith to stay her guest,
+and apples for his comfort--in the dry language of reality, a jar of
+apple-jelly, and a glass dish containing conserves of a deeper, more
+sanguinary hue.
+
+While Mrs. Spenceley was half-buried in the depths of the cupboard,
+Helena came into the room again. She had changed her dress, and
+attired herself in another relic of splendour, a black silk dress,
+rich and handsome, if somewhat old-fashioned; and she had tied an
+orange-coloured ribbon round her neck, and put on a little lace frill,
+and Sebastian felt that she looked lovely, and began to hate those
+three gentlemen who were disposed to be so very friendly, with a deadly
+hatred. Her eyes fell upon the figure of her mother, half in and half
+out of the cupboard. It was a very funny sight, and when she turned to
+Sebastian there was a broad smile of amusement upon her face. It looked
+as if it was the first that had been there for a very long time, and
+Sebastian felt it only right to smile as genially in return.
+
+Mrs. Spenceley, emerging from the cupboard, summoned them to the table;
+Sebastian felt as if it were a dream, as he handed Helena her chair,
+and took his place opposite her. No surroundings, however poor, could
+take away from the queenly beauty of her face and figure. She was
+indeed more queenly than she ever had been before, he thought, as he
+watched her across that simple board. The meal was soon over, and then
+Mrs. Spenceley, rising, said,
+
+‘Mr. Mallory, you must excuse me if I leave you. I must first go
+and see about Their teas, and then I’ve promised to go and sit with
+Mrs. Woodford, next door but one. She’s a great friend of mine. Her
+husband’s father built most of the houses in this street, and was a
+rich man, but he never could keep anything, never! and now she pays a
+rent for the very house her father-in-law built. This world’s full of
+ups and downs.’
+
+‘It is indeed. Then I shall not see you again this evening?’
+
+‘Well, no. We shall most likely have a little supper together, and so I
+shall leave Helena and you to have a little chat. But I shall hope to
+see you again soon, Mr. Mallory, if you don’t mind coming all this way
+out of town.’
+
+He hastened to assure her that he thought it a very nice drive, and not
+at all far; and Mrs. Spenceley, disturbed by the sound of a ring at the
+bell, said,
+
+‘There’s Mr. Finlay! I must go. Good evening, Mr. Mallory.’
+
+She was gone, and they were alone. Helena had taken her work-basket to
+a little table near the window, and had begun to embroider a little
+strip of muslin. Sebastian thought the sofa, which was just on the
+other side of the little table, offered a suitable place for the
+purposes of confidential conversation, and he went and sat down upon it.
+
+‘Is there no one in Thanshope about whom you wish to inquire, Miss
+Spenceley?’ he began.
+
+‘I--oh, how rude of me! I have never asked after Mrs. Mallory. How is
+she?’
+
+‘She is very well, thank you.’
+
+‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Helena, calmly; and Sebastian felt rather
+uncomfortable, for Mrs. Mallory had not displayed any interest in the
+Spenceley family since their downfall.
+
+‘Do you see much of the Thanshope people?’ continued Helena, in the
+same calmly indifferent tone; not a resentful tone, but a politely
+conventional one, which was much more disagreeable to Sebastian than a
+resentful one would have been. It implied that Thanshope and all that
+therein lived had become a name, a memory, a thing of the past to her.
+‘Do you visit much?’ she added; ‘go to many parties?’
+
+‘N--no. I am very busy. I am busy all day, and I don’t care much for
+the Thanshope people. All my near friends, those in whom I took an
+interest, I have lost.’
+
+‘How very distressing! How has that come to pass?’
+
+‘Hugo von Birkenau has gone to Germany. He is studying music, and
+intends to make a profession of it. He has begun to give lessons
+already.’
+
+‘Hugo give lessons!’ cried Helena, looking up surprised.
+
+‘Yes, I will tell you all about it another time. I see you don’t half
+believe it. But it is true. We have not quarrelled, I am glad to say;
+but he has gone. He has begun life for himself, and henceforth our
+paths are divided. There was another. You did not know him. I could
+scarcely call him one of my friends, but I miss him. He is one interest
+less. There was Mr. Blisset; he is dead. There was you--at least I hope
+so.’
+
+‘I don’t think we ever were really friends. I did not like your
+opinions.’
+
+‘But not enemies?’
+
+‘Well, perhaps not exactly; at least, not at last,’ said Helena with
+a sudden change in her voice. ‘But,’ she repeated, ‘I did not like
+your opinions. You shut me--I mean, you denied to women the right
+to participate in those larger questions which I hold they ought to
+be interested in as well as men, for the sake both of men and of
+themselves; and I never would give in to that as long as I live.’
+
+She did not speak vehemently, but with a decision and calmness unlike
+her old agitation of manner.
+
+‘I wonder how I shall ever make you understand my real views on that
+subject,’ he said despairingly.
+
+‘You said you had no views on the question. Perhaps, if you had ever
+tried to find out whether I had any understanding, you might have
+succeeded in discovering a tiny scrap somewhere very low down. But
+never mind, it is of no consequence now. I can never help forward the
+questions I take an interest in, as I once hoped to do; so you need
+not be afraid of my going astray. I have lost the power.’
+
+‘Miss Spenceley----’
+
+‘I think you have forgotten one of your friends,’ suggested Helena,
+with a change in her voice, which she could not quite conceal.
+
+‘Have I? Which?’ he asked very meekly.
+
+‘Miss Adrienne Blisset.’
+
+‘Ah, yes! I actually had forgotten her. I never see her now, either.’
+
+‘Does she no longer live in Thanshope?’ asked Helena, bending over her
+work.
+
+‘She still has Stonegate, but she is scarcely ever there. I think she
+has taken a dislike to the place. And when she is there, I do not see
+her. As you say, she is lost to me too, for we once were friends.’
+
+Sebastian’s voice did not change. It was quite steady and composed.
+Helena still seemed interested in her work, as she said,
+
+‘I should think that must be the greatest loss of all to you.’
+
+‘In some respects it is. At first it was a great loss. Now I feel
+it less. For two years I have been learning to live alone. Smile
+scornfully to yourself if you like! You may not believe me, but it is
+true all the same.’
+
+‘Oh, I can believe that you found it hard to lose Miss Blisset’s
+society. She was no ordinary young lady. If she had once been your
+friend, it must have been difficult to resign her. And people spoke of
+something more than friendship. I heard, often, that you and she were
+engaged.’
+
+‘Did you? I, too, have heard something of the same kind; but there was
+no truth in the report. We were never engaged.’
+
+‘Ah! people will talk, you see!’
+
+‘Naturally, but I don’t think they talk so much anywhere as in
+Thanshope.’
+
+‘Perhaps they haven’t so much cause.’
+
+‘That is rather too bad.’
+
+‘You mean that people are not often so rude to you. I can quite fancy
+so.’
+
+‘You will agree with me that I have lost all my friends.’
+
+‘You do not seem broken-hearted,’ said Helena. ‘You look well and
+cheerful.’ She raised her eyes, and surveyed his face, straightly
+and composedly. Sebastian wished the look had not been so entirely
+self-possessed.
+
+‘I lead too busy a life to be broken-hearted,’ he replied. ‘Pray don’t
+suppose that I spend my time in thinking how lonely I am.’
+
+‘I never supposed anything of the kind.’
+
+‘It is simply that I once had friends, and circumstances removed
+them, and I have not been able to fill up their places. I have worked
+hard--really hard, and I think I have learnt some good lessons in these
+sad years.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Helena, looking up, with the old eager interest in her
+eyes, the old brightness upon her face. ‘You must indeed have learned
+some lessons. My greatest trouble in leaving Thanshope was that I
+lost sight of all my friends that I had made during the distress. I
+have had no interest like that since then. You have. And you have had
+other interests too. I saw that they had asked you to be the Radical
+candidate, when Mr. Lippincott resigned. There is a prospect before
+you! Have you given your answer yet?’
+
+‘My answer is due to-morrow. And upon my honour, I don’t know what it
+is going to be. What would you advise?’
+
+‘Mr. Mallory!’
+
+‘Yes?’
+
+‘Why will you persist in saying such things? Do you think it is
+amusing?’
+
+‘According to you, I must have the most wonderful faculty of amusement
+that any man possessed. Please, do I think what amusing?’
+
+‘Do you think it amusing to ask questions of that kind?--to solemnly
+ask advice when you don’t want it? To consult a woman, and a young
+woman, upon an important step in life? We don’t understand these
+things--at least you say so, and I choose to take you at your word,
+so far as you are concerned. I do not choose to be treated as you once
+treated me, when I was in earnest, and then be appealed to for an
+opinion. I have no opinion on the question.’
+
+‘I wish I had never opened my lips upon that question. You have
+never forgiven me, and you never will,’ said he, in a deep tone of
+mortification. ‘I too was in earnest when I asked you to-night what you
+advised. I have been vacillating, and considering and wondering what
+was best, like----’
+
+‘Like a woman.’
+
+‘Like a lonely man who has no counsellor to whom to apply.’
+
+‘How pathetic!’
+
+‘Will you really not give me one word of advice? Would you accept or
+not?’
+
+‘You do not want my advice. You--it is absurd! You have lots of men to
+advise you. What can you want my advice for?’
+
+She spoke impatiently. Stung by her tone, words, and manner, he leaned
+suddenly forward, saying,
+
+‘I do want your advice, Helena. I acted like a consequential fool
+towards you at one time. When your troubles overtook you, I was made
+thoroughly ashamed of myself. You behaved like a heroine. Tell me,
+should I accept or refuse? Give me your opinion, and, by heaven, I will
+abide by it! I can trust you.’
+
+‘Then accept! With your abilities and your responsibilities, you have
+no right to refuse.’
+
+‘I shall accept,’ was all he said, and there was silence for a time.
+
+Helena went on working, with how great, how immense an effort, he could
+not know. He sat and meditated on what he had done, on the fact that
+he had submitted his conscience to the guidance of a girl’s voice, and
+that since that voice had spoken, every hesitation, every doubt had
+vanished. Not a difficulty remained.
+
+‘You will be almost certainly elected,’ said Helena, after a pause.
+‘Then your life will be busier than ever. How will you manage?’
+
+‘That is a problem which is even now troubling me. I must have some
+help. I do not know where to turn for it. I am overwhelmed with
+business, really.’
+
+‘Are you? I wonder at you wasting your precious hours here,’ said
+Helena, and the moment after she had said it her face became crimson.
+
+‘You think the time wasted, and you wonder that I should waste it
+here?’ said Sebastian, and looked at her steadily.
+
+Helena did, at this point, show a return of her former sensibility.
+The flush remained high in her cheeks. Her eyes fell, and her hands
+trembled as she resumed her work. Sebastian was much too good a
+tactician to lessen the value of the sign he had wrung from her, by
+coming to her assistance with any casual remark. He remained perfectly
+silent, till Helena, apparently finding the situation disturbing,
+started up, exclaiming impatiently.
+
+‘How hot it is! Oh, how hot! My needle gets sticky, and I can’t work
+with a sticky needle.... When you are elected--and you are sure to be
+elected--you will, as you say, be very busy; but what an interesting
+kind of business! I shall often think----’
+
+She stopped suddenly.
+
+‘Never mind my life,’ said he, beginning to see where the power on his
+side, and the weakness on hers, really lay. ‘Tell me something about
+your own.’
+
+‘About mine--my life!’ said Helena, with a laugh. ‘That would indeed be
+an exciting history--too much for your nerves altogether, I fear.’
+
+‘Tell me, or I shall not know how to think of you. It is so annoying
+not to know the tenor of the life led by some person in whom one takes
+an interest. What is the name of the parents of your pupils?’
+
+‘Their name is Galloway.’
+
+‘What sort of people are they?’
+
+‘They are rich people.’
+
+‘That is nothing to the point.’
+
+‘They are people with fads, and yet they are very kind to me. I teach
+their children--as much as they will allow me, that is. They believe in
+letting the children grow up happy, and never punishing them, which
+means----’ Helena smiled.
+
+‘Which means that every one else, and you particularly, are to grow up
+unhappy, and live in a state of eternal punishment,’ said Sebastian,
+resentfully; ‘disgusting people!’
+
+‘They are not disgusting, and they have a right to bring up their
+children as they think best.’
+
+Sebastian found that Helena would not complain. She evidently accepted
+the inevitable resolutely. She had become very reasonable and sensible.
+He wished she had been less so.
+
+‘Mrs. Spenceley looks well and cheerful,’ said he at last. ‘That must
+be a comfort to you.’
+
+‘Poor mamma! Yes, it is,’ said Helena, with sudden tenderness. ‘What a
+great deal she has had to go through, and how brave, and cheerful, and
+uncomplaining she is. She makes me feel ashamed of myself, and yet I
+cannot see things in the light in which she sees them.’
+
+‘Mr. Jenkins, for instance, on Sundays.’
+
+‘Oh!’ exclaimed Helena, and then, after a pause, ‘No; mamma and I
+differ very much on the subject of Mr. Jenkins.’
+
+‘You see, I know why I may not come on Sunday,’ said he, rising.
+
+‘Do you? I thought you would not enjoy Mr. Jenkins’s society, but now,
+if you like, you may come on Sunday, and have the pleasure of meeting
+him. We are glad to see our friends, if they care to visit us.’
+
+‘Our _friends_!’ It was the turn of the eminently reasonable Mr.
+Mallory to feel most unreasonably annoyed at being classed, along with
+Mr. Jenkins, as ‘our friends.’ Helena had succeeded in turning the
+tables very completely upon him. It was useless to try not to feel
+mortified and snubbed. He felt both; and Helena stood, the picture of
+unconscious innocence, waiting for him to finish his good-bye.
+
+‘You have changed, Miss Spenceley,’ said he. ‘You have developed the
+power of being very----’
+
+‘Rude and unkind?’ suggested Helena. ‘Perhaps adversity has soured my
+temper. It has that effect upon many natures, and I never was one who
+could endure thwarting as you may remember.’
+
+‘May I be allowed to come again?’ he asked, almost humbly.
+
+‘We shall be happy to see you, whenever your other engagements allow
+you to call,’ said Helena, quite coolly and distantly. The answer
+chilled him and stung him, and yet he asked himself, what more would he
+have had her say?
+
+‘You say you are so very busy,’ she continued remorselessly, ‘and if
+you accept this invitation to stand, and if Mr. Lippincott resigns,
+which I suppose he really intends to do now, and the election comes on,
+your time will indeed be fully occupied.’
+
+‘But I am not forbidden to come when I have time?’
+
+‘Forbidden! Oh no! As I said, we are always glad to see our friends.’
+
+‘Good-bye,’ said he. ‘Remember you are answerable for the step I am
+going to take.’
+
+‘You say so, but I wonder how it would have been if we had never met,’
+said Helena, carelessly. They shook hands, and Sebastian was gone, with
+the words still echoing after him: ‘I wonder how it would have been, if
+we had never met!’
+
+‘How indeed?’ he muttered to himself. ‘And how is it to be now that
+we have met? I don’t know how it will end, but you shall look at me
+differently from that, Helena, or----’
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IN THE RAIN.
+
+
+It was more than three weeks later. The month of August had almost
+come to its close. The scene was again the bright and cheerful city of
+Manchester, on one of its typical days. August was going out, as she
+often does in Lancashire, with a sullen, streaming rain, which poured
+on, relentlessly and unceasingly. Helena Spenceley had been struggling
+all the morning with her pupils, who had turned refractory, and, unable
+because of the rain to go out, had vented their youthful spirits in
+a series of experiments upon Miss Spenceley’s endurance. They were
+not bad children; indeed they had in them ‘the makings’ of very good
+children, and were, as their governess had informed Sebastian, as good
+as their parents would allow them to be. They had been allowed to find
+out that everyone and everything in the establishment was to yield to
+their comfort and convenience. They knew their power, and used it.
+
+The morning’s lessons were over. Usually, at twelve o’clock, Helena
+took her pupils for a walk, but to-day that was impossible, so they
+remained indoors, and she was understood to be amusing them. It was a
+dreary kind of amusement. She had been feeling weary and exhausted all
+the morning, and now, the close room, the shouting children rushing
+wildly about, almost overpowered her. She felt herself growing each
+moment more numb and stupid. At last the bell rang for Mrs. Galloway’s
+lunch, and the dinner of Helena and the children. Pell-mell they
+rushed in, and forgot for a time, in the pleasures of the table, their
+quarrels and disputes, relating chiefly to the possession of certain
+precious objects and fetishes, over which they wrangled with ever fresh
+acrimony and avidity.
+
+The meal was over, and Helena returned to the schoolroom. The children
+were to remain downstairs for an hour with their mother. Helena took
+a chair to the window, and, resting her chin upon her hand, looked
+drearily out upon the streaming rain, the dripping trees, and the misty
+outlines of other houses in the park. Idle tears filled her eyes, and
+a lump rose in her throat. She choked both back, and smiled drily and
+drearily to herself.
+
+‘What a fool I was,’ she thought, ‘to expect him again! It was
+a passing fancy. He is naturally polite--that means, a little
+deceitful--and he could not have said anything rough or rude if he
+had tried. But he will never come again. It is not likely. I was most
+foolish to be so glad to see him. I might have known it would bring me
+nothing but pain and sorrow. I wish we had not met again, and then, if
+I had not had the pleasure, I should not have had the pain either. I
+had almost given over thinking of him, and now I have nothing else to
+think of, and he has everything else. Why did he come and spend that
+one evening, and brighten everything, and take me into another world,
+and force me to like him? Why did he ask my advice--as if he wanted
+it? It was too bad, and I was a fool. But I always was that. He is not
+shallow--no, it is not that. It is simply that his life is a full one,
+and mine is an empty one, and that what to him is a chance meeting--a
+passing act of politeness, is to me a great event--a thing to think
+about. I wish I had a great deal to do--a work, a regular career. Soon,
+if these miserable, restless feelings do not leave me, I must bestir
+myself, and find something more absorbing than this teaching. I have
+been more dissatisfied ever since I knew that he had the prospect of
+making himself a name and an influence. And I will do something, too.
+There must be things to be done; there must be some way of curing this
+sentimental folly--some way of working it out, till nothing is left of
+it. I will find a way, or I will die.’
+
+She started as the door opened, and Mrs. Galloway, the mother of her
+pupils, entered.
+
+‘Are you sitting moping, Miss Spenceley? You should never mope,’ said
+she; ‘it is a very bad habit, and leads to all kinds of follies.’
+
+‘Does it?’ said Helena.
+
+‘Yes, indeed,’ replied Mrs. Galloway, who did not look as if she moped
+much herself.
+
+She did not either speak or look unkindly; she was only devoid of tact
+and judgment. She held three books in her hands; and as she spoke she
+advanced to the window and looked out.
+
+‘I am afraid it is not going to clear up,’ she began, looking first at
+the rain, and then at the books.
+
+Helena also expressed the same opinion.
+
+‘I am rather in a dilemma,’ continued Mrs. Galloway.
+
+‘Can I be of any help to you?’
+
+‘I was on my way to ask you to do something for me; but I had no idea
+how very wet it was, and I do not think it fit for you to go.’
+
+‘Was it to go out?’ asked Helena, wondering whether it would not be
+pleasanter to brave the elements than to return to her task of teaching
+the little Galloways that day.
+
+‘The fact is, Mr. Galloway forgot to take the books to Mudie’s this
+morning, and we had arranged to have some reading aloud to-night,
+and----’
+
+‘I will go and change them for you with pleasure,’ said Helena, almost
+with animation; ‘only the children----’
+
+‘It will do the children no harm to miss their lessons this afternoon;
+in the depressed state of the barometer, it is cruelty to make them
+study. But it is such a day----’
+
+‘Oh, I don’t mind. It will do me no harm; I don’t take cold easily, and
+I can take an omnibus from Oxford Street, you know.’
+
+‘Really, since you don’t seem to mind, I think----’
+
+‘I will get ready now,’ said Helena.
+
+‘I can lend you a waterproof,’ suggested Mrs. Galloway, to whom it
+did not seem to occur that a cab would be the most effectual kind of
+waterproof.
+
+‘I have one, thank you; I am ready now. I will put the books in this
+strap. Have you put a list with them?’
+
+‘The list is quite ready. Then you will bring the books back here?’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Helena, cheerfully, so pleased at the prospect of escaping
+the afternoon’s lessons that she would willingly have gone if, in
+addition to the rain, it had blown a hurricane.
+
+Mrs. Galloway followed her to the hall door, uttering deprecating
+observations, and Helena, unfurling her umbrella, stepped out into the
+rain.
+
+After a short walk through the damp, soaking avenues of the park, she
+at last emerged in Oxford Street, and stood waiting in the wet until
+an omnibus came by. It was nearly full, but Helena managed to squeeze
+herself in between two stout ‘Turkish merchants,’ and opposite a
+fat old woman with a bundle. Who does not know and love the classic
+atmosphere of a crowded omnibus on a wet, close day?
+
+The omnibus took her to Market Street, from whence she took another
+walk into Cross Street, and turned into the narrow lane, sacred to
+Mr. Mudie’s library and fancy shops. Her enthusiasm was beginning
+to glow less brightly. She felt very wet, very draggled, and very
+tired--exceedingly tired. She went into the library, and found herself
+alone there; the young man who came forward to serve her looked almost
+compassionately at her, and remarked what very bad weather it was.
+Helena languidly agreed with him, and presented her list. He gave her
+two heavy massive volumes of travels, and she took them. They would not
+go into the little strap which had held the three volume novel, and
+Helena was in that mood in which a trifling inconvenience makes one
+feel that it would be best to put an end to one’s existence at once.
+
+‘Suppose you were to take only one volume,’ suggested the young man.
+
+‘No, I’ll have both,’ said Helena, stoically, manfully seizing them,
+and going on her way.
+
+As she left the library some one almost knocked up against her, some
+one who was going, like herself, towards St. Ann’s Square.
+
+‘Beg your pardon. Oh, Helena--Miss Spenceley! What, in the name of all
+that is damp, brings you here on such a day?’ asked Sebastian, stopping
+suddenly and looking at her.
+
+To meet him thus, after her recent reflections, came upon Helena with
+almost a shock: but she mastered herself quickly, and said,
+
+‘I have only been to the library.’
+
+‘Only been to the library! Suppose you give me those books. I have
+tried to call at your house again,’ he added, ‘but I have been
+so awfully busy. You would see all about my acceptance and Mr.
+Lippincott’s resignation in the papers.’
+
+‘Yes; I did not expect you to call again,’ said Helena, distantly.
+
+‘Did you not? You speak as if you were offended. What have I done?’
+
+By this time they were in the square, near the cab-stand, and it was
+high time to decide whether they were going in the same direction or
+not.
+
+‘Where are you going?’ asked Sebastian.
+
+‘To the omnibus office, till a Victoria Park omnibus comes, and then to
+Mrs. Galloway’s with the books. Where are you going?’
+
+‘I am going to see the pictures again,’ said Sebastian. ‘Don’t you
+think you had better come and see them too?’
+
+‘I! Oh, I am afraid I have not time,’ said Helena, taken aback by the
+proposal. ‘It is nearly four o’clock, and the books----’
+
+‘Oh, never mind the books. I am sure you want to see the pictures; and
+you must explain to me what I have done to offend you, and we can’t do
+that under an umbrella in the street.’
+
+He signed to an observant cabby, who drove up, and Sebastian politely
+handed Helena into the vehicle. She did not know why she got into
+the cab, unless it was because Sebastian looked as if he were quite
+determined that she should do so, and she did not feel able to resist.
+
+‘Royal Institution,’ said he, and followed her. They drove rapidly away.
+
+‘I ought not to have come; it is very absurd,’ said Helena,
+uncomfortably.
+
+‘I am quite sure you ought,’ he said, decidedly.
+
+He saw that Helena’s manner was changed. From her gravity and almost
+monosyllabic answers to his remarks he concluded that she was for some
+reason offended with him. He did not know that three weeks’ absence and
+silence had done more to favour his cause than three months’ assiduous
+courtship would have done.
+
+‘Here we are! Now for the pictures!’ he observed, as they stopped
+before the Royal Institution.
+
+Helena laughed nervously, and did not know why she laughed. They
+stopped to leave their umbrellas with the porter, and she found
+Sebastian unfastening her cloak.
+
+‘Because we shall be here a good while,’ said he, gravely. ‘The
+pictures are not to be done all in a minute.’
+
+Helena did not resist. It was all very strange--comical almost. She
+felt as if it had been a pre-arranged meeting, and yet, she solemnly
+assured herself, that was impossible.
+
+They went up the stairs, bestowing a very scanty meed of attention on
+the much-talked-of pictures. Sebastian seemed in very high spirits,
+thought Helena, unconscious that her own cheeks were burning with
+their old brightness, that the actual sight of her and her eyes had
+turned her companion’s head; that he had thought more of her than of
+his work since they had parted; that her face, and her eyes, and an
+orange-coloured ribbon, had seemed to float before his eyes by day and
+by night, haunting him in all his business, and intruding themselves
+in the most solemn of committee meetings or political dinners. She was
+conscious that whenever she looked at him he seemed to be looking at
+her, and, she thought, often when she was not looking; that there was
+something in his eyes and his manner which made her tremble strangely,
+and that she suddenly felt quite certain that whatever might have been
+the case in the past, he did not care for Adrienne Blisset now.
+
+On that wet afternoon there were not more than half a dozen persons
+in all the suite of rooms. They walked through one after another, and
+would probably have gone on for ever, had they not found that they had
+come to the last: they were stopped by a wall, and could go no farther.
+
+‘Sit down,’ said Sebastian, suddenly, taking her hand and drawing her
+to the settee in the middle of the room, which was empty, save for
+themselves.
+
+‘You know I am in the midst of electioneering?’ said he.
+
+‘I supposed so, from what I read in the papers.’
+
+‘That has been the only reason why I did not call. Twice I have tried
+to do so, but, with the best will in the world, I could not manage it.
+And poor Sutcliffe, my manager, is ill, so I have had double duty to
+do.’
+
+‘I am sure you are busy,’ she repeated mechanically.
+
+‘It is thought that I shall win,’ he added. ‘The Conservatives seem to
+have got desperate. No local candidate would present himself, so they
+had down a Q.C. from the Junior Carlton. I don’t fancy he has much
+chance, though he is a good fellow.’
+
+‘Oh, he will have no chance. You will win. I shall be very glad.’
+
+‘Will you really? You really meant what you said when you told me I had
+no right to refuse?’
+
+‘I am not in the habit of saying what I don’t mean.’
+
+‘That is true, but you were very brief in your remarks on that
+occasion. Do you think that I really can do good?’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Helena, crushing down all the ungenerous remarks which
+occurred to her, and answering him frankly, according to her
+conviction, ‘I do. I think, with your experience of a different,
+broader life than most of our young manufacturers have led, and
+with the practical talents that you have too, you ought to rise to
+influence. You may do a great deal. I think you have a noble career
+before you, if you will follow it worthily. And--I--I shall always read
+with interest of your progress.’
+
+‘You really think this, though you so bitterly opposed me upon some
+other questions?’ he asked earnestly.
+
+‘Yes, I do. I have seen not the error of my ideas, for I still believe
+them to be true and just in principle, but I have seen that a man may
+be utterly against them, and may yet be capable of very great things. I
+believe this of you. I shall be sorry if I ever hear of your rising and
+lifting your voice against these ideas that I believe in; but I shall
+try to think that my cause is not so important as a great many others,
+and----’
+
+‘But, will you give me a hearing now, while I tell you that my views
+have changed, too, as much as yours?’
+
+‘Have they? How?’
+
+‘I always did believe that the woman’s cause is man’s. I told you that,
+even when we most disagreed and least understood each other. During
+these two years in which I have lived alone, I have learned to feel
+that still more strongly. I have felt that no friend, no _man_, could
+give me the help and sympathy that I wanted; that no man, and no woman,
+pitted each against the other, could do any good, but that “the _twain
+together_ well might change the world.” I shall never uplift my voice
+against those theories of yours, never.’
+
+‘I am glad of that, very glad. It would have hurt me dreadfully; it
+would have seemed as if--it would have cut me up,’ said Helena.
+
+‘How careful I shall have to be, as to what I say and do, now.’
+
+‘Because of what I have said? You have a larger public than me to think
+of. You must do what is right--you must say all that you know of the
+truth.’
+
+‘Helena, will you help me to try and discover what is right and true? I
+have been wondering for a fortnight whether you would, and sometimes I
+have dared to hope it. Have I been too bold?’
+
+‘You mean----’ said Helena, with trembling lips and a face which had
+suddenly grown pale.
+
+‘I mean that for a year, for more, I have loved you unconsciously,
+Helena; that since I met you three weeks ago, I have known it to my
+very heart-depths. Will you help me? Will you be my wife?’
+
+‘You forget,’ said she, her face grown still paler, and its expression
+more pained; ‘you forget.’
+
+‘Forget what?’ he asked, surprised and chilled by the tone, yet unable
+to think that the expression in her eyes was one of indifference.
+
+‘You forget whom you are asking to be your wife. You----’
+
+‘I am asking Helena Spenceley to be my wife. Who has a word to say
+against her?’ he asked, his face darkening.
+
+‘You must remember that I am not alone,’ said Helena. ‘There is the
+past: my father, my brother; oh, it is not to be thought of--for you.’
+
+‘Is that a roundabout way of telling me that you do not love me, and
+will not marry me?’ he asked, taking her hand, and looking at her until
+she looked at him. ‘I would rather you said it straight out--I am
+waiting.’
+
+‘But I cannot say that,’ murmured Helena; ‘I do love you.’
+
+‘Then let the other things take care of themselves,’ said he
+pleadingly, for something in her face forbade him to draw her to him,
+or do anything more than plead.
+
+‘No,’ said she. ‘It is not fit that a man like you, in your position,
+should marry a girl with the--connections--that I have.’
+
+‘You mean this seriously?’
+
+‘I am quite decided about it.’
+
+‘Then good-bye,’ said Sebastian, abruptly rising; ‘I will bear it as
+best I can.’
+
+He was going, but suddenly turned to her again and stooped over her.
+
+‘Helena,’ he said, and his voice was so changed that she looked up
+affrighted--‘is it that your pride is stronger than your love? Because,
+if so, yours is not real love.’
+
+‘My pride!’ she ejaculated.
+
+‘Yes, your pride, which is afraid lest it should be said that I stooped
+to you? That is the secret of this objection. You would ruin our two
+lives for the sake of gratifying your pride.’
+
+‘Sebastian!’
+
+‘Helena?’
+
+‘It is not that....’
+
+‘What else is it?’
+
+She was silent, in pain and uncertainty, till he said:
+
+‘_My_ pride is not so great as my love. You have conquered me, Helena.
+I would go through fire and water to win you. Once more, will you tell
+me again to go?’
+
+His voice had sunk to a whisper. He was leaning over the settee, and
+she, with a sudden shiver at the idea his words conjured up, looked up
+to him. He stooped, by an involuntary, instinctive impulse, and kissed
+her.
+
+‘Must I go, or may I stay? Answer me, my darling.’
+
+‘Do not go!’ said Helena, almost inaudibly, and Sebastian stayed; but
+he could not conceal from himself that he had yet much to win, much
+service to do, before he could call Helena his own.
+
+She loved him; she said so; she felt it, but she was proud: he had
+been right when he said so. Despite her love, she was half ashamed,
+half angry at finding herself conquered, and the glance was a shy and
+wavering one which he met. It was a strange fact, that though he wished
+very much that Helena would ask him to go home with her, though he had
+a couple of hours to spare, yet he dared not venture to hint at the
+invitation. All he could venture upon was to say to her.
+
+‘You will allow me to take you to Mrs. Galloway’s, as it is late?’
+
+‘Yes, please,’ said Helena, rising.
+
+And they went downstairs. Sebastian gave Helena her umbrella, carried
+her cloak, opened the door for her, in a strange silence. She had just
+accepted him, and yet he had never felt so completely held at arm’s
+length before. Helena’s own shyness and timidity effected what the
+most cunningly laid stratagem could not have accomplished--they raised
+her lover’s fervent admiration into absolute worship. He called a cab,
+and in it they drove towards the Victoria Park. When they were nearly
+there, Sebastian, unable to endure the silence any longer, said.
+
+‘Helena, when may I come to see you? Will you not even look at me?’ he
+added, almost vehemently. ‘You cannot know how hardly you are treating
+me.’
+
+‘Hardly!’ she repeated. ‘I--it is so strange. It is a most wonderful
+feeling.’
+
+‘But pleasant, I hope?’ suggested Sebastian, earnestly.
+
+‘Oh, very!’
+
+‘Then may I come soon to see you? To ask Mrs. Spenceley’s consent----’
+
+‘Oh! there is Mrs. Mallory. I am sure she will object,’ said Helena,
+suddenly, and with animation.
+
+‘Leave her to me!’ said he, almost impatiently. ‘See, Helena, we are
+almost at the park, and you have not given me one look, one word, to
+tell me that you are really mine. I have not deserved to be so treated.’
+
+‘Forgive me!’ said she, suddenly, in a voice of tenderness. ‘I was so
+unhappy this afternoon before I saw you, and now I am too happy for
+words. I am afraid of my happiness. Come soon to see me, and I will try
+to behave better.’
+
+She looked at him at last with an April face, beneath whose showers lay
+a broad and fathomless heaven of love. Sebastian was satisfied.
+
+‘And may I write?’ he asked.
+
+‘Yes, do!’ returned Helena, and the cab stopped at Mrs. Galloway’s
+door. Helena and the books got out, and Sebastian Mallory drove away
+again, to the station--and a meeting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A CONQUEST.
+
+
+‘My dear Mallory, I am glad to see you here at last! Were you
+unexpectedly detained?’ asked Canon Ponsonby, greeting Sebastian at the
+door of the room in the town-hall in which the meeting was to be held.
+It began at half-past seven, and that time had been already past when
+Sebastian arrived.
+
+‘I was very unexpectedly detained,’ replied the young man, pressing
+Canon Ponsonby’s hand with a fervour which seemed a little extravagant
+to that gentleman. ‘But I am quite ready now, quite fit,’ he added.
+‘Suppose we go to the platform. They seem to be getting impatient.’
+
+They ascended the platform, and Sebastian was surprised at the
+heartiness of the greeting he received. He had not known how popular he
+was, and in his present mood he felt absolutely touched by these signs
+of goodwill on the part of the ‘people.’ All things combined to-night
+to rouse and inspire him. One or two even of his warmest friends and
+supporters, and most earnest admirers, had said they feared Mallory’s
+coldness of manner might be mistaken for indifference, that he was a
+little too prone to betray some of the contempt which he felt for party
+and party feeling: and had a way, in the extreme philosophy of his
+radicalism, of saying things which might be mistaken by the uninitiated
+Thanshope mind for distinctly Conservative expressions. On this
+occasion, these doubting hearts were agreeably deceived. Sebastian’s
+tact came strongly into play; he made one of those fortunate speeches,
+in which the right was happily touched off, and in which the truth was
+told without disturbing people’s feelings. He felt himself penetrated
+by an enthusiasm as rare, with him, as it was agreeable. Every now
+and then he seemed to lose sight of the sea of faces below him, and to
+see only one; his own voice seemed to die away, while Helena’s voice
+bade him do what was right, and tell the truth as far as he knew it.
+Under that influence questions which had hitherto seemed even a little
+contemptible were suddenly revealed as susceptible of being raised
+and ennobled; and the effort which he had at first thought of making,
+chiefly in compliance with the wishes of certain friends, and because
+he felt (like Myles Heywood) a thirst for constant work wherewith to
+fill up his life--this effort, not a very hearty or enthusiastic one,
+was now changed completely by the consciousness that there was not only
+Sebastian Mallory, indolent and indifferent by nature, to be consulted,
+but also Helena Spenceley, earnest, vehement, and enthusiastic, who
+would exult in his success, and be bitterly disappointed by his
+failure. Indeed, she was so calmly confident that he would win, that
+he felt he dared not lose. All this combined in his favour that night.
+There was no want of unanimity in the voice of the meeting. The speaker
+was so carried away himself that he carried his audience away with him.
+They separated in the highest good humour with him and themselves--full
+of confidence in their candidate, and of amiable contempt for his
+Conservative opponent.
+
+There followed a gathering of some of his friends, and supper at home.
+Politics, and nothing but politics, engrossed the conversation, and
+it was late when Sebastian found himself alone. He drew a long breath
+of relief, but checked it again immediately--as he remembered the
+interview which was to follow.
+
+‘Best get it over at once,’ he reflected, going to the drawing-room;
+but finding it empty, he went upstairs and knocked at his mother’s
+dressing-room door.
+
+‘Who’s there?’ she asked.
+
+‘It is I--Sebastian. May I see you for a few minutes?’
+
+‘Come in!’ was the answer, and Sebastian entered.
+
+Mrs. Mallory was seated before her looking-glass, and her maid was
+brushing her hair.
+
+‘Be quick, Emma,’ said she; ‘and sit down, Sebastian; I shall be ready
+directly.’
+
+He threw himself into a low chair by the hearth, and in two minutes was
+lost in a pleasant, pleasant dream.
+
+‘Now!’ said his mother’s voice at last, and he speedily awoke to
+reality again.
+
+The lady’s maid had twisted up her mistress’s hair into a loose knot in
+the gaslight. With the soft frills of her dressing-gown round her neck
+she looked a very young and handsome woman.
+
+‘What beautiful hair you have, mother!’ he exclaimed, struck with its
+gloss and abundance. ‘Why do you cover it up with a cap?’
+
+‘Is that all you have come to say?’ she inquired drily. ‘What kind of a
+meeting did you have?’
+
+‘It appeared very unanimous and successful. Ponsonby said it was, and
+he ought to know. I wish you had been there. I saw a good many ladies.’
+
+‘Very likely; but not ladies of my opinions.’
+
+‘Ah! I forgot,’ said Sebastian, smiling.
+
+He felt soft-hearted to-night, and hardly noticed his mother’s coolness.
+
+‘Have all those men gone?’
+
+‘Yes; the last of them has departed, and I am glad of it. But I did
+not come to keep you talking about Radical meetings, mother. I wished
+particularly to see you to-night; I have something to tell you.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory knew in an instant the nature of the coming communication,
+and prepared herself to hear something disagreeable. She had not
+omitted to provide her son with many opportunities of changing his
+estate. She had had plenty of visitors at her house, and chiefly young
+lady visitors. None of them had had a hundred thousand pounds, but
+equally none of them had been quite portionless, and all of them had
+been more or less good-looking, and what are called ‘nice girls.’ She
+had seen all her efforts wasted; had seen Sebastian studiously polite
+and amiable, even putting himself out of the way often to attend her
+and her visitors when they wanted an escort. She had seen him follow
+them to concerts and dances and garden-parties; she had seen him play
+the host--and nothing else--to admiration; and she had seen the look of
+relief which dawned upon his face when the duty could conscientiously
+be left, and he could return to his books, his plans, and his
+business--that business which seemed to have become the very breath of
+life to him, and from which no girl, however nice, could succeed in
+drawing him away.
+
+But some one had at last found this power--probably some one whom she
+would dislike excessively. Most probably he had met Adrienne Blisset
+again somewhere; had proposed to her a second time, and been accepted.
+Mrs. Mallory thought she would have preferred him to come and tell her
+that he was going to marry any one--a barmaid, a milliner--any one
+rather than ‘that girl,’ whom she hated with a virulence which grew
+with time.
+
+‘Indeed!’ she made answer, and left him to inflict the blow. It was
+exactly as she expected.
+
+‘I am going to be married, mother.’
+
+‘To be married?’ she repeated mechanically. She had long ago said that
+she had no power over her son, but she felt bitter at this proof of the
+truth of her words.
+
+‘Yes. I hope you will approve my choice.’
+
+‘If your choice is Miss Blisset, Sebastian, I shall never approve it,
+and so I tell you distinctly.’
+
+‘But it is not Miss Blisset, mother. She refused me two years ago--she
+would refuse me now, and she would refuse me through all time. Then I
+was a good deal cut-up about it. Now, I am very glad. No; it is some
+one whom you used to like very much. At least, I always understood you
+to say so.’
+
+It is a fact that the idea of Helena Spenceley did not once enter Mrs.
+Mallory’s mind. She had so come to believe that her son never could,
+under any circumstances, turn to her former favourite, that since the
+downfall of Helena and her family she had altogether dismissed them
+from her thoughts. Even now, as Sebastian paused, she did not think of
+Helena, but said, after a moment.
+
+‘I cannot imagine whom you mean, Sebastian, and I never could guess
+things of that kind. Who may the lady be?’
+
+‘Helena Spenceley.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory actually started from her chair.
+
+‘HELENA SPENCELEY! What will you tell me?’
+
+‘You surely cannot disapprove of that. My dear mother, you at one time
+wished me to marry her. You told me so.’
+
+‘You have the most extraordinary, perverted ideas of right and duty,
+Sebastian. Can you suppose that I ever wished you to marry a girl whose
+father committed suicide after behaving in a far from honourable way in
+his business affairs, and whose brother absconded with a large sum of
+money which he had stolen, and who is now--who knows where he is, or
+what he is doing, or what trouble he may cause his relations even yet?’
+
+Sebastian almost smiled at the utter opposition of his mother’s ideas
+to his own. They never saw but one side each of the other’s nature--not
+because neither had another side to show, but because of the formation
+of their respective mental eyes. Yet, for the sake of appearances, he
+must argue the matter out.
+
+‘Suppose we had married at the time you wished it,’ he suggested.
+‘These things would have happened all the same. As it is, they are now
+nearly forgotten. No one with any feeling would wish to remind her of
+them. If you could only see her, you would forget them all, in looking
+at herself. She was always a beautiful girl, but now she is lovelier
+than ever, and more charming.’
+
+She was silent.
+
+‘Will you not say you approve of this, mother! You know I will not seek
+a wife with a fortune. If she had happened to have money, well and
+good; but I would rather have her without, and with the beauty and the
+love that Helena gives me.’
+
+‘It is a mockery to ask me whether I approve of it. You will do it
+whether I approve or not.’
+
+‘But if you will approve--if you will hold out your hand to Helena, and
+accept her as my wife, you will gratify me beyond measure. You know,
+it is really your fault. You threw Helena in my way at first, and she
+must have made a much deeper impression upon me than I knew, for a
+few weeks ago, when I met her unexpectedly, I was scarcely master of
+myself. It was all over with me from that moment.’
+
+‘And suppose I do not approve?’
+
+‘I should be unspeakably grieved. We are alone in the world, almost.
+You are the very nearest relative a man can have; but you will agree,’
+and he stooped and gently kissed her cheek.
+
+She started. With that kiss seemed to come suddenly to her a great
+revelation, the revelation of the love which she had thrust obstinately
+away from her. She had received her son as a child, and had tried to
+curb and control him; and when he acted as a man, she had enclosed
+herself within a wall of icy reserve, and had repelled every advance he
+had made. The truth rushed upon her mind now with overwhelming force.
+She was a selfish, a profoundly selfish, woman; but somewhere, not
+quite withered away within her, there lay the remains of a mother’s
+heart.
+
+‘I am your mother, Sebastian,’ she said, with a sudden tremor in her
+voice. ‘It is very strange that we should have got on so badly since
+you came home.... I have had no wish but for your prosperity and
+well-being, and yet----’
+
+‘I know you have. I fear I have not been all that I might have been to
+you. Forgive me!’
+
+He refrained, and she noticed it, from even speaking of the other side
+of the question--from saying, ‘You have deliberately set yourself
+against every plan and project of mine, until at last, in very
+self-defence, I have been obliged to be silent, and to keep my hopes
+and wishes to myself.’ This behaviour was generous, and she knew it
+was. It appeared that Sebastian did love her, and prized her goodwill.
+The emotion she felt was not an unpleasant one. And then, as he
+certainly would marry Helena, she put her hand on his shoulder and said,
+
+‘I consent, Sebastian, though it is a trial. No; I don’t mean that I
+disapprove of Helena. I know a more lovely girl could not easily be
+found. It is her--well, never mind! Are you going to be married soon?’
+
+‘Thank you! I thank you from my very heart!’ he exclaimed. ‘My great
+fear was lest you should be displeased. Shall we be married soon? I do
+not know in the least. I am obliged to go abroad before the autumn, and
+if I can persuade Helena, we will be married before then; but I am not
+sure that I can. She is not by any means inclined to rush into my arms.
+She is very much changed. She used to be so impulsive, and to betray
+her feelings so easily; and now, I assure you, her dignity has already
+almost overwhelmed me more than once.’
+
+‘When you are married, or, at any rate, when you return from abroad,
+you will want the Oakenrod to yourselves,’ she suggested graciously.
+
+‘My dear mother, I hope you will stay in it exactly as long as you feel
+disposed to do so. Helena wishes very much to please you,’ he added,
+drawing a bow at a venture.
+
+‘Does she? When next you see her give her my--my love. Perhaps I had
+better go and call upon her.’
+
+‘Or I will bring her over here to spend the day with you.’
+
+‘Yes, perhaps that might be better. Has she given up any of her old
+notions yet?’
+
+‘We both find that our views on these points are considerably modified,
+so that we are quite able to meet each other and agree together.’
+
+‘I am glad to hear it. I think it must be getting late.’
+
+‘It is indeed. You must excuse me, mother. I seem to have found more
+than a wife to-day,’ he added, kissing her hands one after the other.
+‘Good night.’
+
+Mrs. Mallory drew her son’s face down, and kissed him, strangely moved.
+
+‘Good night, my son. God bless you!’
+
+Sebastian left her. The conquest was won. From that day Augusta Mallory
+was a happier woman than she had been. There was always a certain
+distance about the intercourse between her and her son and his family,
+but there was amity and concord; and later, when Helena won triumphs
+by her beauty, grace, and spirit, which no money could ever have
+purchased for her, and when Mrs. Mallory heard on all sides of her
+beautiful and charming daughter-in-law, she began to think that after
+all Sebastian had not done so badly, even in a worldly wise point of
+view; and her respect for him increased accordingly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the course of a week the election came off, when the Radical
+candidate headed the poll by a large majority. Despite the exceeding
+business of that week, Sebastian had found time to pay several visits
+at 57 Woodford Street, and there had used such arguments with Helena
+that she had consented to the early marriage he wished for. Sebastian,
+Mrs. Mallory, and Canon Ponsonby went over to Manchester one evening,
+and the next day there was a small wedding at a quiet church in some
+fields.
+
+Helena was given away by her uncle of the uncompromisingly truthful
+disposition. Mrs. Mallory looked calmly dignified. Mrs. Galloway
+was there, subdued by the fact that Helena had taken the liberty to
+contradict her hypothesis that governesses always make disastrous
+marriages. Mrs. Spenceley was there too, weeping in an obtrusive
+manner; and, when it was all over, they returned to their respective
+dwellings, except Helena and Sebastian, who went to the London Road
+station, to a compartment in the Euston express marked ‘engaged.’ They
+were on their way to Germany, but before they arrived at Euston Square
+Sebastian had told Helena the whole history of his earlier love for
+Adrienne, and his own misty conjectures as to how things stood between
+her and Myles Heywood--a recital which aroused the romantic Helena’s
+most compassionate and interested feelings--and so ended Sebastian’s
+courtship.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+QUITS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+  ‘_1st Friend._ Well, you’ve tried it: is your problem solved?
+
+  _2d Friend._ I have lived so long in the dark, I do not know.
+
+  _1st Friend._ Out, into the wind and sunshine then, and try!’
+
+
+What is the difference, save in size, between one manufacturing town
+and another? How will you say, reader, on the first view, where this
+town lies to which I am about to lead you? You shall have heard no
+word of the language of its people, seen none of its customs, only had
+a quick bird’s-eye view of it, with its long chimneys and its canopy
+of smoke, its blackened grass and dingy trees. Not to make the survey
+tedious, let me say that it is no English town, but a German one. Let
+us not linger longer than is needful in its streets; here is a sloping
+road that leads to the railway station; and here, after ascending the
+hill, we are within the great noisy arena.
+
+Amidst the crowd of hurrying passengers and phlegmatic officials, one
+figure stood perfectly still on the platform, waiting quietly, and
+looking composedly around him with quick, observant eyes. Whether a
+German, an Englishman, or even a Frenchman, the casual observer would
+have found it hard to say until he spoke, and then the accent would
+have betrayed the Englishman.
+
+He was much changed. The two years of absence, the better outward
+circumstances, the habit of authority, the necessity of accommodating
+himself to a life new and strange to him, together with whatever
+inward thoughts might have had their part in moulding and shaping his
+mind--all these had had their influence. He was still Myles Heywood;
+but between him and himself of two years ago there was just the
+difference that there is between the reflective man and the passionate
+child.
+
+As he stood waiting, a little round, quick-looking fair-haired German
+man came up to him and began to talk to him.
+
+‘Now, Mr. Heywood, you have finished your business in the town?’
+
+‘Yes, Herr Sternefeld; I am, as you may see, waiting for the train to
+Eisendorf.’
+
+‘How goes all there? The old man is in rather feeble health, I hear.’
+
+‘Yes. He has not been strong this summer. He thinks he will be better
+when the cooler weather comes.’
+
+‘Ah!’ said the little German, ‘and still he keeps grinding away at the
+business?’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Myles, rather indifferently; ‘or rather, I do. He leaves it
+pretty much to me at present.’
+
+‘Yes, to be sure,’ said Herr Sternefeld, with a somewhat significant
+nod and smile. And there’s your train. Herr Süsmeyer will be glad to
+see you back again. _Au revoir!_’
+
+He bustled away, and Myles, stepping forward to take his place in the
+Eisendorf train, soon forgot him.
+
+From the great manufacturing town of ----feld, the home of turbulent
+spirits and birthplace of social democracy, to the mining and
+manufacturing village of Eisendorf, was some three quarters of an
+hour’s railway journey. The way was so thickly set with factories,
+houses, great collieries, and other evidences of manufacturing
+industry, that scarcely had these been left behind, and a strip of
+green grass and some distant hills been allowed a chance of showing
+themselves in a purer air, than they too were swamped, as it were. More
+collieries, more great buildings, cranes, hoists, and a canal, became
+dominant in the landscape, while the train rolled into Eisendorf.
+
+Myles got out of the train, and left the station. Going quickly in
+the September evening through the busy main street, he presently
+turned aside and went down a kind of alley, at the end of which
+light and trees were visible. It was the way into a restauration
+and _Biergarten_, much frequented by the middle and better class of
+Eisendorf. Here, on almost every evening in the week, music was to be
+heard, and here, beneath the trees, one might sit and take one’s supper.
+
+This was apparently Myles’s intention, for he walked through the
+lighted garden, seated himself at one of the tables, and gave an order
+to a waiter, who presently returned bearing a dish, a table-cloth, and
+all the other paraphernalia of a supper.
+
+Myles did not spend a long time over this meal. The table was soon
+clear again, with the exception of the indispensable bottle of yellow
+wine, and the accompanying green glass. He leaned his elbows upon the
+table before him and stared dreamily forward across the garden, beyond
+the groups of merry guests--young men and girls, and whole families,
+with _Vater_ and _Mutter_ in full amplitude; he seemed to see none of
+them. The band in the orchestra, fifty yards away, were playing soft
+strains; the lamps twinkled with a mild, pleasant brightness; the trees
+above them looked ink-black by contrast. The sky beyond was like a
+vault of violet crystal, and the lamp-like stars beamed out mildly here
+and there. The breeze rustled gently now and then, but it was a very
+gentle breeze, with nothing of the storm in its breath. All around was
+the hum of laughter and talk, and the murmur of flirtation; now and
+then the clanking of spurs and the rattling of swords as the company
+was reinforced ever and anon by fresh specimens of the inevitable
+lieutenant; it was all very pleasant, very calm and peaceful. Myles,
+somewhat languid after a long day’s business in the de-oxygenised
+atmosphere of the offices and warehouses of a large town, felt, at the
+moment, perfectly neutral; neither glad nor sorry, but content, so far
+as he was anything, to sit still, with his arms on the table, taking an
+occasional drink of his pleasant, if not strong, straw-coloured Neckar
+wine, and listening to the whispers of the band, as one instrument
+after another died away in the final bars of a little serenade of
+Haydn’s. He would have been content to stay there for an indefinite
+time, for Myles had arrived at that mental state in which a man finds
+it easiest and pleasantest to go on doing the same thing. Whether the
+thing were work or idlenesss was almost immaterial to him, when he had
+once begun it. It was the effort of turning his attention from one
+thing to another which brought mental pain and inconvenience. All day
+he had wrought hard, and asked nothing better than to continue doing
+so. So long as he could go on, he was almost at ease. But when the work
+was over--when the offices were closed, and men had finished their
+toil, and were going home to ‘play them’--to use an idiom of his own
+native dialect--then it was that despondency seized him; then it was
+that he felt a sudden blank, an emptiness, a sense of being lost and
+unprovided for; then it was that the effort to find some other pastime,
+something else with which to fill his thoughts, was a dull pang which
+he dreaded continually. It was this feeling of desolation that kept him
+sitting up till all hours of the night, with book and dictionary open
+before him, studying or reading until his eyelids fell over his weary
+eyes, and he could go upstairs, certain that he would fall asleep as
+soon as he tumbled into bed. It was this which made him dread to awaken
+in the night watches, or to lie awake with nothing to do; this that,
+as soon as he opened his eyes in the morning, made him rise instantly
+and begin to do something. He had got an unconquerable horror of those
+hours of silent thought and meditation which had once been a joy and
+a privilege to him, as they are and must be to all robust, properly
+ripening minds.
+
+It was for this reason that, being tired with his work, soothed with
+eating and drinking, and pervaded by a feeling of quiet calm and
+contentment unusual with him, he felt reluctant to move, and sat on,
+his handsome bronzed face set in a gravity that amounted to solemnity,
+and a fixed listlessness in his dark and brilliant eyes. Soon, he
+knew, the transient pause would be over--for the contentment was
+abnormal--soon the aching sense of desolation and unrest would return,
+and he would have to awake again.
+
+Very soon, indeed, the spell was broken. A party of young men,
+strolling through the gardens, saw him, greeted him, and sat down
+beside him. They began to talk--persisted in drawing his attention to
+this girl and that girl, and in asking him if he had heard this piece
+of gossip or the other.
+
+They were well-conditioned, kind-hearted young fellows enough; they
+had liked him, and had treated him with friendliness ever since his
+advent amongst them, and they continued to seek his company, in spite
+of his unvarying sedateness and gravity. Myles, in these latter days,
+was courtesy itself to all who merited courtesy; if Adrienne Blisset
+could have heard the yea, yea and nay, nay of his daily communication
+at present, she would have been quite unable to accuse him of being
+‘scornful’ or ‘disdainful,’ as she once had done. What she might have
+felt about the little air of proud, absent, patient indifference, who
+shall say?
+
+Despite absence and indifference, Myles was very well liked amongst
+the better sort of the young men of Eisendorf. They were of various
+nationalities; chiefly, however, German, Dutch, and English, with a
+sprinkling of French. They were all engaged in commercial pursuits,
+with the exception of one or two young professional men, and an
+occasional ‘lieutenant’--that much-laughed-at, much-abused equivalent
+of the English curate. It was known--Myles had never attempted to make
+any secret of it--that he had left a workman’s situation in an English
+town, to come and be the overlooker at Herr Süsmeyer’s works--that
+since then he had rapidly risen to the post of manager and headman;
+that Herr Süsmeyer had greatly attached himself to him; and it was
+thought more than probable that Herr Süsmeyer’s son, Julius, would
+never abandon his favourite occupation of travelling in foreign lands,
+and that when Herr Süsmeyer had provided for the said Julius, he would
+most likely retire, and leave his business in the hands of Myles
+Heywood, who--so every one agreed--was quite the most proper person to
+succeed to it.
+
+Myles happened to know better--to know that Julius Süsmeyer was even
+then on his way home, with every intention of devoting himself to the
+career of a merchant, but, at Herr Süsmeyer’s request, he had not named
+the fact.
+
+He sat, this evening, listening to the talk and jesting of the others
+for some little time, and then rose.
+
+‘Why are you going?’ cried one of them. ‘Why not stay here? The evening
+has only just began. It’s only nine o’clock. I expect we shall have
+some dancing in the _Saal_ when the concert is over.’
+
+‘Thanks,’ said Myles, with a gleaming smile which lighted up his dark
+face; ‘dancing is not in my line, as you know.’
+
+‘No,’ said a young Englishman, laughing. ‘One would almost as soon
+expect to see old Michel Angelo’s Juliano de Medici step from his
+pedestal and begin to dance, as you, Heywood.... Now that I look at
+you,’ he added, thoughtfully, putting his head on one side, ‘there is a
+likeness actually; at least about the nose and mouth. Look here! If you
+were to put your hand across your face so----’
+
+‘And twist my other arm into a commanding position--thus--you would see
+a man in the attitude of Michel Angelo’s ‘Pensiero’ Medici, and that
+would be all. Good night!’
+
+‘Odd fish, Heywood!’ murmured his countryman, shaking his head. ‘I
+wonder if he was ever less solemn than he is now.’
+
+The object of that speculation took his way out of the gardens and
+the town, walking northwards, along a road leading to that suburb in
+which lived most of the more wealthy and distinguished inhabitants
+of Eisendorf. He walked for half an hour or more, till he arrived at
+the house of Herr Süsmeyer, the largest and pleasantest of all these
+residences. He went up the dark garden walk, and pulled the bell; soon
+the great door was thrown open, and he was in the presence of his
+chief, a delicate, kindly-looking old man, with a gouty foot laid up
+on a stool before him, and a crutched stick leaning against the table
+which stood hard by his easy-chair. The table was covered with books
+and papers; a reading-lamp cast a softened light over the page which
+the old man was reading. He was quite alone; there was perfect rest and
+perfect stillness around him.
+
+He glanced up over his spectacles, and laid down his book, as if well
+satisfied when he found who his visitor was.
+
+‘So late!’ said he. ‘I had hardly expected to see you to-night, after
+your long day’s work. What business in ----feld?’
+
+Myles entered into details as to the business he had done, with an
+incidental disquisition upon the state of trade in general at that
+time. Then the conversation drifted off into other channels.
+
+‘Your holiday-time will soon be here,’ observed Herr Süsmeyer; ‘you
+mean to spend it in Berlin, I think you said?’
+
+‘I shall go to Berlin, amongst other places,’ said Myles, who had
+assumed the very attitude which the young Englishman had wished him to
+take, and who sat, his hand half across his face, looking out, through
+the open window, into the darkness of the garden. ‘I suppose I shall
+wander from one place to another. I do not much care where I go. You
+know it is your doing, sir, that I am going at all.’
+
+‘I wonder that you should go to Berlin, from one town to another. I
+should have thought the green woods and fresh air of Thüringen, or----’
+
+Myles shook his head.
+
+‘No; I don’t care about the country. It is dull.’
+
+‘Or to England, to see your friends?’
+
+The young man started.
+
+‘No--oh, certainly not,’ said he. ‘The last place I should wish to
+go to. No, Herr Süsmeyer; with your introductions and through your
+kindness, I shall meet with friends in Berlin and other places, and
+shall see a great deal that is interesting, and which I have long
+wished to see. I shall come back here refreshed and ready for work
+again, until your son----’
+
+‘We can talk about that when Julius arrives. Time enough, time enough!
+I hate changes,’ said Herr Süsmeyer. ‘Meanwhile, I have had very good
+news to-day--excellent news.’
+
+‘Indeed!’
+
+‘Yes; a letter from Sebastian Mallory.’
+
+‘Ah! Is he coming, then?’
+
+‘He is coming--yes, but not alone,’ said Herr Süsmeyer, a smile of much
+satisfaction playing upon his face. He will bring his bride with him.
+What do you think of that? He says I must see her. But you say nothing;
+you did not know?’
+
+‘His bride!’ repeated Myles, in a low voice. ‘No, I did not know.
+But--when does he come?’
+
+‘In a few days. They are already at Cologne. They will travel through
+Düsseldorf and ----feld, and come here for two nights only. Then they
+are going on. It is their wedding tour. I have already given orders,’
+continued the old man, ‘to receive them. I must make much of my friend
+Sebastian. It is as if a child of my own brought his bride to see me.
+I have ordered the guest-chambers to be prepared, which have not been
+used since the death of my blessed Amalie, my wife.’
+
+Thus the good old man prosed on, with childlike pleasure in the
+prospect of meeting ‘his’ Sebastian again, and of seeing his bride,
+so engrossed in the anticipation that he did not even look at his
+listener, who sat still, composed and pale, hearing distinctly all that
+was said, and occupied, he too, in picturing the scene: how Sebastian
+Mallory would lead forward his bride, who would be glad that his old
+friends were pleased to welcome her. Myles could exactly realise how
+she would go up to good old Herr Süsmeyer with both hands held out, and
+eyes shining with happiness, and he--perhaps he need not be there at
+all; but, at any rate, if he only kept sufficiently in the background
+he would not be observed, and he could bear his pain alone. This stroke
+had been long delayed, but it had come at last--as he knew it must.
+Those words he had heard spoken in the Thanshope Park had held good.
+Why there had been so long an interval he could not tell; he had often
+wondered, had many a time sought the papers through with sickening
+anxiety, and had never yet seen what he expected and dreaded to see.
+But at last all uncertainty was over. He could never doubt again: and
+now, he thought to himself, life would be much easier to live, for he
+had too much sense to bewail his lot when he knew what it was; it was
+uncertainty which was so wearing, and no doubt it was uncertainty which
+had caused all his mental pain and distress. Now, certainly, things
+would be better.
+
+Thus consoling himself, he rose to take his leave of Herr Süsmeyer, who
+shook hands with him, and thanked him for calling, and said.
+
+‘You know, you too must see Mr. Mallory. He will wish to see you;
+indeed, he says so in this letter.’
+
+‘Yes, I shall see him, of course,’ said Myles.
+
+Then he went away--walked back to town to his lodgings; found his lamp
+burning, and his books open as he had left them; said to himself,
+
+‘Now, at last, I can study with a mind at ease,’ and straightway
+prepared to do so.
+
+In vain! Echoes from a life that he had tried to believe lived out
+thronged in his mind, and resounded there. Faces seemed to flash
+past him and voices to ring in his ears. All sorts of scenes vividly
+recurred to his mind: always he and she were together; always there
+was exquisite delight mingling with his pain, till he recalled the
+scene in which Frederick Spenceley had come scowling through the
+committee-room, in the great distress. It was after that that his
+life had become so intolerable to him. His thoughts wandered off
+to the Spenceleys in general. Of course he had heard of the great
+failure; of Mr. Spenceley’s suicide; of Fred’s dishonourable flight.
+What was the wretched fellow doing now? he wondered. And there had
+been others: a good, homely-looking mother, who seemed ill at ease
+under her greatness; and a daughter--he remembered her too--the most
+beautiful girl in Thanshope, so every one had said, and Myles also had
+been compelled to give her his meed of admiration when he saw her,
+day after day, working with Adrienne Blisset. He had often thought
+what a contrast they formed--like a beautiful crimson rose and a white
+violet: the one with her fair hair and delicate, pale face; the other
+with dusky locks and great dark eyes, the rich colour that came and
+went, the vivid life in every movement, the splendid attire. Yes, he
+remembered her--she was most beautiful; but to him a violet was more
+exquisite and precious than the most gorgeous rose, and it seemed other
+people shared the same opinion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ROSE OR VIOLET?
+
+
+Two days later, Myles took his way, in the evening, towards Herr
+Süsmeyer’s house. The travellers had arrived, he had heard, early in
+the forenoon. There had been a ceremonious _Mittagessen_, or midday
+dinner, at which different treasured friends of Herr Süsmeyer’s had
+been present--friends also of Sebastian in former days. Myles, too,
+had received a pressing invitation to be there; but, feeling that he
+would much rather descend of his own free will into the crater of Mount
+Vesuvius, and there spend the remainder of his natural life, than sit
+a long three hours (for German congratulatory dinners are not amongst
+the briefest of ceremonies) at Herr Süsmeyer’s table under the proposed
+circumstances, he had declined, on the plea that it was a very busy
+day at the works, and he could not possibly be spared before evening.
+At the evening meal (the _Abendbrod_), Herr Süsmeyer insisted that
+he should be present; and Myles, not quite sure, when it came to the
+point, that the last arrangement was not worse than the first, had
+perforce consented.
+
+The house was lighted up, he saw, as he approached. There were lights
+in the windows of those guest-chambers which had once been the pride of
+her life to the _selige Amalie_ of Herr Süsmeyer. There, in that house,
+under that roof, he was to meet Adrienne again--no longer the girl
+whom he might dare to love because she was free, but as the wife of
+Sebastian Mallory, henceforth to be looked upon with other eyes. A rush
+of recollections, sweet and bitter, alike filled his mind for a moment,
+and were very strong.
+
+But his will was still stronger. He had not endured his years of
+sorrow, trial, and probation, to emerge, at the last, a weaker and
+worse man than he had been at first. He was prepared to endure the pain
+that awaited him, _piene forte et dure_ though it might be--to endure
+and perhaps, in the end to conquer it; to bear it, moreover, so that it
+and its cause should be known to himself alone.
+
+It was with a feeling of sadness, but without any of bitterness, that
+he entered the house. He felt clearly and distinctly that he could meet
+his successful rival without a feeling of grudging or ill-will.
+
+He was ushered into the large commodious room which was Herr Süsmeyer’s
+library, and in which he always sat when alone, or with intimate
+friends. Myles, going in, saw his old master in his gala dress of
+faultless black cloth and dazzling linen, his gouty foot laid up on
+the stool before him; his best-pleased smile upon his face, looking up
+to where Sebastian Mallory stood talking, his elbow resting on the top
+of the piano. There was no one else in the room. Sebastian, who was
+looking towards the door, changed his position quickly as Myles came
+in, and went to meet him with outstretched hand.
+
+‘Ah, Heywood, I am glad to see you again. We were talking about you at
+this instant.’
+
+Myles found it strangely hard at first to return the greeting, but
+he sternly beat back the grudging feeling which momentarily raised
+its head, and spoke with cordiality. How well Sebastian looked! How
+happy! How self-possessed, and at harmony with life and circumstances,
+naturally, thought Myles. He had everything to make him so. He was
+little changed. Perhaps there was a degree more of animation or
+abruptness in his manner; a little more of the active combatant, and
+less of the amused bystander, looker-on at the world’s game. That was
+natural too, thought Myles, and to be expected, while Sebastian was
+thinking he had never seen any man with manner, expression, almost
+appearance, so completely changed as this ‘revolutionary weaver,’ as
+Hugo von Birkenau had once called him. He could scarcely realise the
+excessive change which had taken place. All the old froward defiance
+appeared to have vanished, and instead there was
+
+    ‘The reason calm, the temperate will,
+    Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill,’
+
+which were the qualities he himself most highly prized in man and
+woman. They stood patent on his ex-workman’s broad brow, in his steady
+eyes, and upon his firmly, though not sourly, set lips. Sebastian was
+divided between pleased surprise and self-congratulation on his own
+foresight; for, from the first, he had hoped and expected to see Myles
+turn into something of this kind.
+
+Occupied with these feelings, the two young men scarcely spoke, but
+left Herr Süsmeyer to do the talking, which was exactly what he wished.
+The first thing that really roused them to reality again was a remark
+of Herr Süsmeyer’s:
+
+‘Your dear wife (_Ihre liebe Frau_) is absent a long time, _mein
+Bester_.’
+
+‘Oh,’ said Sebastian, with a sudden flash of the eyes, which did not
+escape Myles, ‘she will not be long. I told her at what time you took
+your supper. She was resting when I saw her.’
+
+‘So!’ said Herr Süsmeyer, adding, for the hundredth time, ‘I trust she
+finds herself accommodated with all she wants upstairs.’
+
+‘Oh, everything, thank you. She says she thinks German hospitality is
+the most delightful she ever had.’
+
+‘German hospitality!’ thought Myles. ‘Strange! She passed her happiest
+years in Germany; she told me so.’
+
+While he was marvelling at this (to him) peculiar remark of
+Sebastian’s, the rustle of a silken gown became audible on the polished
+floor of the passage; _she_ was coming now.
+
+‘There she is!’ said Sebastian, catching the sound too, and starting
+forward to open the door.
+
+‘I hope I’m not very late,’ said a voice--(silvery, though not _the_
+voice)--and it was just at that moment that Myles began to wonder if he
+were labouring under some wild and extraordinary hallucination--whether
+long brooding and the last blow had really driven him mad.
+
+He was conscious, but in a dream-like, unreal manner, of rising, as
+Sebastian led a lady into the room--a lady who laughed a happy laugh.
+He was conscious, also dreamily, of seeing a figure which had been in
+his thoughts quite lately--a tall, superbly shaped, queenly figure--not
+the figure of Adrienne; of seeing a lovely face, glowing with a soft
+flush of health and happiness; of meeting eyes which, for darkness and
+fire, might match his own; of seeing a long, white throat, a dress of
+silk and lace, rings flashing on white hands, and a dazzling smile
+making the brilliant whole more brilliant still. Nothing like a sweet
+violet, indeed, but a rich and gorgeous rose, in the full pride of its
+queenly beauty.
+
+‘Helena, this is Mr. Heywood, of whom you have often heard me speak.
+Heywood, Mrs. Mallory.’
+
+(‘How fearfully he stared at me, dear!’ said Helena afterwards. ‘He
+is really a very remarkable-looking young man, and I liked him when I
+talked to him; but he stared most alarmingly at first.’)
+
+Myles was still dimly aware that the brilliant vision, which he kept
+expecting to see fade away like a dissolving view, to be followed by
+that of Adrienne, held out her hand graciously, saying something about
+‘My husband has often told me about you,’ or words to that effect; and
+that he took the hand and bowed over it--very creditably, considering
+his state of mind. Then Sebastian placed a chair for--yes, his wife--it
+must be his wife, Myles argued within himself, and the conversation
+was taken up, and he listened to it in silence for a time, gradually
+comprehending that he had been labouring under a delusion, but a
+different delusion than he had imagined. By and by he became able to
+answer some remark addressed to him by Helena, and then she continued
+to talk to him, and Myles found himself being drawn out to show to the
+best advantage, saying clever things which he had had no idea that he
+could say, until they were elicited by the tact and sympathy of a woman
+like Helena. Still, he could not altogether get rid of the sensation
+that he was in a dream, and he continued to feel so for the rest of the
+evening.
+
+When he was going away, Sebastian asked him if he could see him on the
+following morning.
+
+‘At any time you please,’ said Myles.
+
+‘Then I will call at the works in the forenoon. I can soon say what I
+have to say.’
+
+On that understanding they parted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+WHICH WINS?
+
+
+The following forenoon, while it was yet early, Myles saw Sebastian
+coming through the great yard, towards the office where he sat. His
+face wore an expression of gravity--even of trouble--and he frowned
+thoughtfully as he came along.
+
+Myles took him into his private room. He could not help thinking of how
+he had received him on that eventful morning when he came driving up to
+the office at Thanshope with Hugo beside him, and Myles smiled a little
+sadly at the change.
+
+‘You came on business, perhaps,’ suggested Myles.
+
+‘Yes; but I had no idea myself, until about an hour ago, how pressing
+the business was. Herr Süsmeyer and I were talking about you last
+evening before you came. He tells me his son is on his way home, and
+that he intends devoting himself to business.’
+
+‘Yes; I believe that is true.’
+
+‘Under those circumstances, I presume, your position would be somewhat
+changed.’
+
+‘Certainly. It would naturally become more subordinate.’
+
+‘Will you like that?’
+
+Myles shrugged his shoulders.
+
+‘Herr Süsmeyer was talking to me about it. He gave me a very high
+character of you. He very much regrets your having to take a secondary
+position. He says he would be very sorry to part with you for many
+reasons, but not if you left him to your own advantage.’
+
+‘Does Herr Süsmeyer want to get rid of me?’ asked Myles.
+
+‘On the very contrary. He only wishes to see your position improved. I
+may as well come to the point. You would hear that I have been returned
+as the representative of Thanshope, in Parliament.’
+
+‘Yes. I think the Thanshope people showed their good sense there, at
+any rate,’ said Myles, with a smile.
+
+‘Let us hope so. But you will easily understand that such a position
+will take me away from home a good deal, and make me unable to attend
+to my business as fully as I have done.’
+
+‘Naturally,’ said Myles, with a sudden, quick glance upwards, as he
+first saw the drift of Sebastian’s remarks. His face flushed, and he
+rose from his chair, pacing about the room.
+
+‘For some time Mr. Sutcliffe has been quite unfit for the post he
+held--I mean, as regards bodily health. I have wanted very much to
+provide him with an assistant, but did not know how to manage it
+without hurting his feelings. My conversation with Herr Süsmeyer
+decided me to ask you to take the post. Since then--in fact, this
+very morning--I have a telegram from Wilson with the news of poor
+Sutcliffe’s death. I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I liked him well.
+Such faithful probity, such diligence, and such capacity, are not found
+in one man in a hundred. But, long ago, I thought I had discovered
+them all in you, and my errand to you this morning is to ask if you
+will take Mr. Sutcliffe’s post in my business. Your energy, vigour,
+and the talents for business which Herr Süsmeyer tells me you have,
+would be invaluable to me, and without doubt the connection would be an
+advantageous one for you. What do you say?’
+
+Myles had come to a stop in his restless walk, his hands plunged in
+his pockets, his brows knit, his eyes somewhat downcast. He did not
+look elated. His first words were not an explicit answer to Sebastian’s
+question.
+
+‘I think you are the most generous man I ever knew, sir,’ he said at
+last, almost abruptly.
+
+‘That is beside the question. There is no talk of generosity, but of
+a business connection, a contract entered into by us for our mutual
+advantage.’
+
+‘It would at least be very much to my advantage. Have you not
+considered that there are plenty of men, employers like yourself, who
+would be glad to see sons of theirs placed with you, and would furnish
+capital too, as a premium?’
+
+‘_Mon Dieu!_ yes, I know. I have had hints to that effect from more
+than one already. It does not suit me to do anything of the kind.
+I don’t want a young gentleman with capital, whom I shall have to
+teach. I want a business man, who can really take commercial care
+off my shoulders when cares of another kind are laid upon them. I am
+not a fellow to do things in a hurry. The whole matter has been well
+considered, and it is a great object with me to secure you. As to
+terms, we could come to some satisfactory arrangement, I doubt not.
+What I want to know now is, will you come to me, and take the place of
+manager of my business?’
+
+Again Myles began to pace the room, biting his lip and frowning
+desperately.
+
+‘You must think me strangely callous and indifferent, not to jump at
+such an offer,’ he began.
+
+‘No; I see you don’t want to come. I know your reasons. No,’ he added,
+as Myles started, ‘not your very reason, but I know that when you left
+Thanshope it was in the hope never to see it again; and that desire has
+not yet changed.’
+
+‘No it has never changed,’ he owned.
+
+‘But, if I guess rightly, there is no actual, tangible obstacle to your
+return. It is a strong private feeling of repugnance on your own part,
+arising from some cause or causes to me unknown. Is it not so?’
+
+‘Yes, it is so.’
+
+‘Well; still I ask you to come. Come and try, at least. Fight it down,
+and come and revisit your city of the dead. Come and try whether there
+may not be new life hidden for you there.’
+
+Myles shook his head.
+
+‘There is not that,’ said he.
+
+‘Then, to put it in another light, come because I ask you, to oblige
+me. Surely all that wrath and misunderstanding which once existed
+between us is burnt out for ever now. I am certain we can act together
+in most things. And--excuse me, I have no wish to be impertinent--but
+let me tell you that Stonegate is always empty now; and if it were not,
+I have introduced you to my wife.’
+
+Myles turned abruptly away. Stonegate always empty! Whether empty or
+inhabited, he had forfeited all right to approach it.
+
+‘With the best wishes in the world for friendship, that would have
+divided us, would it not?’ continued Sebastian, who, when he took
+up the probe, was not wont to lay it down again, with the operation
+half finished, deterred by the anguished face or fainting mien of the
+patient.
+
+‘Yes,’ was the only answer.
+
+‘But it is gone. I know not what life may hold for you in the future;
+I do know that you have suffered in the past, and that places where
+one has had that kind of suffering are haunted, and full of ghosts;
+but again I urge you--come! I think you are leading a morbid, foolish
+life here, rendered, by the motives which prompt it, not a particularly
+healthy one, and----’
+
+‘Say no more, sir. I will come. I knew I should come, as soon as you
+asked me. No wish of yours could be other than a command to me now. It
+was only that I could not force myself to say yes. But now I say it. I
+will go whenever you like--that is, whenever Herr Süsmeyer will spare
+me.’
+
+‘That is spoken as I hoped you would speak,’ said Sebastian, heartily.
+‘Let us shake hands upon it.’
+
+‘On my agreement to take you for my lawful master, and serve you
+faithfully and honestly,’ said Myles, with rather a forced smile, as he
+grasped Sebastian’s hand.
+
+‘I suppose that is the foundation of all such agreements, but I trust
+we shall be something more worthy of us both than mere master and
+servant. At least, you need not be afraid of rusting. I have dozens of
+plans which I have never had time or assistants to carry out. Now, with
+my wife, and I hope you to help me too, I shall get along splendidly.’
+
+‘I am glad to hear there is plenty of work,’ said Myles. ‘I was to
+have left here in a couple of days for a holiday. Suppose I went to
+Thanshope direct, instead of Berlin, and the other places I had thought
+of. That would leave the field clear to Herr Süsmeyer and his son, and
+I could get to work at once.’
+
+‘Better take the holiday first, hadn’t you?’ said Sebastian. ‘It may be
+long enough before you have the chance of another.’
+
+‘Thank you; but I would much rather go straight to work. The holiday
+was none of my seeking. It was Herr Süsmeyer’s doing.’
+
+‘Very well. I will telegraph to Wilson that you will be there in a few
+days, and he must have the books ready for you. I will just give you
+an idea of how we stand at present, and leave you to shake down before
+I come back, eh?’ said Sebastian, with as much nonchalance as if he
+had been proposing nothing more difficult than that they should take
+a stroll together. He knew, this astute young man, the kind of nature
+he was dealing with. To have proposed coming to Thanshope with Myles,
+and there standing by him and smoothing out his way for him, would
+have been in the highest degree distasteful to the latter. The charge
+imposed upon him was a heavy one; it promised him arduous and incessant
+occupation for some time, at least until Sebastian’s return from
+abroad. Already the idea of Thanshope looked less like a grim phantom.
+The way became more practicable. He brightened visibly, to Sebastian’s
+private amusement.
+
+‘Yes. How soon will you return?’
+
+‘It is impossible to say. It will depend a great deal upon the reports
+you send me. This is my wedding tour, really, though it has had a
+queer beginning, and I think my wife has a right to complain of being
+dragged about to German manufacturing towns in order to settle business
+matters, when I promised to take her to the Italian Lakes. We shall
+try to go on there, and to Switzerland, and make a regular holiday of
+it, before coming back to settle really to business. You will do the
+best you can.’
+
+‘Yes, of course,’ said Myles. ‘I hope and think that my reports will
+allow you to take a pretty long holiday.’
+
+‘Then I can go,’ said Sebastian. ‘We leave to-morrow morning. Suppose
+you come up to Herr Süsmeyer’s to supper to-night, as you did last
+night, and we will take an hour afterwards for business--yes? And now I
+must be off.’
+
+These rapidly made arrangements were all faithfully carried out.
+In less than a week Myles, armed with Sebastian’s explanations and
+instructions, was on his way to Thanshope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+                                    ‘Yet, ere the phantoms flee,
+    Which that house, and heath, and garden, made dear to thee erewhile,
+      Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings are not free
+    From the music of two voices, and the light of one sweet smile.’
+
+
+It would be difficult to overrate the completeness of the change which
+had supervened, in both the outer and inner life of Myles Heywood,
+between the time when he had left his native town, and now, when he
+returned to it.
+
+He was very busy, very quiet, and very lonely. Sebastian had acted with
+the soundest wisdom in leaving his new manager to take his place alone,
+and alone to fight down the obstacles which he encountered, alone to
+strike back the ill-will, the jealousy, and the insubordination--all of
+which things raised their heads and gaped upon him with their mouths on
+his first assumption of his new office.
+
+Myles had accepted the post calmly, but he had known perfectly well
+that he assumed no light task. It would have been comparatively easy,
+if there had not been the envy and prejudices of old friends to be
+overcome. Thanks to the first-rate management of Mr. Sutcliffe, and
+to Sebastian’s own ubiquitous eye, the whole machine was in complete
+working order; but this, perhaps, only left all the more room for
+smaller spites and jealousies to make themselves felt. There was, first
+of all, Wilson, the faithful old cashier who had once been Myles’s
+superior: he was a first-rate accountant and bookkeeper, but no manager
+or man of business, and utterly devoid of the faculty of arranging
+or regulating things. None knew it better than himself, yet it was
+something of a trial to his feelings to see the young fellow, whom he
+had known from the time when he had begun life as a ‘half-time’ of
+eleven, placed over him. In justice to both the men, it must be said
+that this little jealousy soon wore off. Myles won Wilson’s heart by
+his manner of treating him with scrupulous respect in the presence of
+third persons, and without pretensions of any kind when alone with him.
+Wilson, too, was an intelligent man, who knew a clever man of business
+when he met him. Myles very soon proved his perfect capacity for his
+post, and after that Wilson’s soreness was at an end. He backed up ‘Mr.
+Heywood’ on every possible occasion, and suffered no appeal from the
+said Mr. Heywood’s behests.
+
+Myles found it a somewhat more difficult matter to dispose of others,
+old comrades of his own, who were working away in the same old places,
+no higher than they ever had been; and who, unable to rise themselves,
+were lost in astonishment that he should be put over their heads.
+Some of them were strongly inclined to be provokingly familiar; first
+jocosely, and then maliciously, insubordinate; utterly unconscious
+of the mental gulf between him and them. But the stronger brain and
+will of the man who had risen beyond them was able to check these
+manifestations of feeling. One or two sharp examples, and a most
+unequivocal demonstration that no nonsense would be endured, reduced
+them to their natural places. Ever afterwards he had the name amongst
+them of having become hard, inconsiderate, and a fine gentleman. He
+knew it and regretted it, but accepted it as inevitable, remembering
+the time when he had resented the fact that the law did not compel all
+men to live on the same level.
+
+The new manager’s eyes appeared to be ubiquitous--nothing escaped them;
+but good work and good conduct were as keenly noted by him as bad, and
+he let the approval be as distinctly felt as the displeasure. There
+was, moreover, another thing which soon began to tell more than all the
+others put together: he was utterly unconscious of deserving ill-will;
+he was so evidently bent upon work, hard work, and nothing but work,
+and not upon hectoring it over those who had become his subordinates,
+that distrust gradually subsided. Sneers and scoffs had no effect
+whatever upon him; they were ignored in a manner so complete as to
+recoil with disconcerting effect upon their originators. That grave
+absorbed face, those eyes which noted everything, that ready presence
+of mind, that seemingly unwearying, untiring strength, that utter
+disregard of the amount of work which fell upon his own shoulders, soon
+began to tell upon individuals, and, through them, upon the mass.
+
+Myles wrote Sebastian regular accounts of his business transactions,
+hoping they met with his approval. He never named any disputes with the
+work-people, leaving his master to infer that he was, as the latter had
+said, ‘shaking down’ to his new work.
+
+Outside that work his life was rather colourless. Mary and Harry no
+longer lived at Thanshope. Harry had found work in a manufacturing
+village some five miles distant; he lived in a cottage on the borders
+of an open moor, where the air was pure, free, and bracing. He had
+grown, physically, much stronger in consequence of the change, and
+thought that his hearing, if not actually better, did not become
+worse so rapidly as when he lived in the town. Occasionally, on a
+Sunday, Myles would go over to see them, and nurse his sister’s little
+boy on his knee, feeling a passion of tenderness which he could not
+express for the little round-faced thing, with its large, solemn, dark
+eyes--like his own, Mary said, with affectionate pride. He would walk
+with Harry over the moors, and gratify him by shouting descriptions of
+his foreign life into his failing ears. But, except for this one day
+in the week, they were lost to him; their incessant toil, and his own,
+preventing further intercourse.
+
+Very often his dead brother occupied a place in his mind. Poor Ned!
+What a life he could have given him now! He could have had him to live
+with him, and bought him books and pictures, and given him music, and
+made his existence a poetry to him. But it was too late: Edmund slept
+his quiet sleep, killed off by the want and the sorrow which had been
+too much for them all, at the time of the great distress.
+
+One face was missing--that of Hoyle, his old enemy. Myles made some
+casual inquiries about him one day, and heard that he had left
+Thanshope about a year ago. He never knew the part the man had played
+between him and Adrienne.
+
+The young men who had once been friends of his (it seemed as if it
+must be hundreds of years ago), and to whose debating society he had
+once belonged, received him with a mixture of timidity and admiration.
+Many of them had advocated--perhaps still did so--the Proudhonistic
+theory--‘all property is a crime.’ At one time Myles had believed
+and ardently advocated the same delusion. He had lived faster and
+grown faster than these old friends of his, and now they were divided
+between embarrassment at his open support of one of the most flagrant
+property-holders of the district, and admiration of his cleverness,
+which had swept such gains into his own lap. Myles felt little sympathy
+with them, and had the uncomfortable sensation that while they were
+shy of discussing things before his face, they were very voluble, and
+chiefly about himself, behind his back.
+
+He found his most congenial associate in Mr. Lyttleton, the Factory
+Inspector of Thanshope and some surrounding towns, who lived in
+Thanshope--a middle-aged, highly educated man, who was attracted,
+the first time he saw him, by the keen yet sombre countenance of Mr.
+Mallory’s new manager; and who, when he learnt the outlines of Myles’s
+history, became still more interested in him, asked him to his house,
+and there introduced him to some young professional men, of a higher
+class, taken all in all, than those he had known in Eisendorf. The
+benefit was mutual, and Myles’s circle of acquaintances, if not of
+intimates, thus gradually extended. Almost everywhere he pleased, but
+everywhere there was the constant wonder why Heywood was so reserved,
+so almost melancholy in manner, and so sparing in speech; ‘much more
+like a Spanish grandee,’ observed a young doctor to Mr. Lyttleton,
+‘than a man who has risen from the ranks of the working-men. I can’t
+make the fellow out.’
+
+Very few people could make the fellow out, though many seemed to find a
+decided pleasure in trying to do so.
+
+Thus time passed until Sebastian and his wife came home, and then
+Myles found that ‘master and servant’ was indeed far from expressing
+the relation which Mallory wished to exist between them. Sebastian’s
+regard, once won, was dealt out with no niggard hand. He had got
+Myles to yield to his will; now it seemed he wished for more than
+respect--regard. The best part of Myles’s nature responded to the call;
+his liking warmed each day, till it grew to an affection, reserved and
+reticent indeed in outward show, but inwardly glowing as warmly as
+Sebastian himself could desire. The former ill-will had burnt itself
+out. Master and man were on a footing of perfect amity and accord.
+The more Myles heard of Sebastian’s plans, thoughts, and schemes,
+the better he liked them, and the wiser he felt them to be. He could
+appreciate them now; three years ago he could only have scoffed at
+them. He entered heartily into them all; he worked unremittingly till
+Sebastian declared he was afraid of his energy, and refused rest,
+saying he neither required nor desired it. Whatever his own private
+and personal hopes, thoughts, or wishes (if he had any), he kept them
+strictly and entirely to himself. Helena was very kind to him, and
+they were very good friends; she, woman like, always thinking of that
+background in his life, that hinted love-story, of which Sebastian had
+given her some glimpses. Occasionally she and her husband would speak
+of it.
+
+‘Sebastian, you know him best, and what he is capable of. Do you think
+he is in love with that girl yet?’
+
+‘I think, most reverend matron, that he is in love with that girl--who,
+by-the-by, is rather older than yourself--yet.’
+
+‘Then why doesn’t he find her out and propose to her?’
+
+‘I have not asked him.’
+
+‘He cannot think she is too good for him.’
+
+‘I should not be surprised if he did.’
+
+‘Absurd!’
+
+‘Pray take it upon yourself to tell him so. No doubt you will succeed
+in convincing him.’
+
+‘You are ridiculous, sir.’
+
+When he, Myles, had by any chance a leisure hour, he would go--even
+after the nights had grown dark, and frosts of winter had set in--up
+the dreary length of Blake Street to the wicket of the empty Stonegate,
+and, leaning upon that support, would stand gazing at the emptiness
+and the desolation of it. No one lived there. A woman came some few
+times in the week, and spent the day there, lighting fires and throwing
+open shutters and windows; but that was all. It had always, at the
+best of times, been a dreary-looking, sad, cold place, but now it was
+forlorn in its mournfulness. If it had not been so utterly lonely,
+Myles would not have gone there. No one he knew ever came past. He had
+his watch-post to himself, and probably found some kind of mournful,
+unsatisfactory joy in his vigils. Always it remained the same--empty,
+closed, desolate--always void of her presence--always without sign or
+indication that it would ever again be gladdened by it. Her name had
+never been mentioned, either by him or his friends. He was absolutely
+ignorant of where she was, or how; of what she was doing, whether she
+were happy or sad; of every fact and circumstance connected with her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+    ‘Du, du, liegst mir im Herzen;
+    Du, du, liegst mir im Sinn;
+    Du, du, machst mir viel Schmerzen--
+        Weiss’ nicht wie gut ich Dir bin!’
+
+
+The spell--the long silence--was broken at last. One evening towards
+the end of April, when he had been seven months in Thanshope, he first
+had any news of Adrienne. The Mallorys were in London, and had been
+there since the opening of Parliament in the beginning of February.
+Myles had had all the work and responsibility at home laid upon his
+shoulders. His work for the day was over, and, the evening being fine
+and the air pleasant, he turned out for his usual stroll up Blake
+Street. As he came nearer to the house, he saw a man standing in the
+garden, and as he approached still nearer, he recognised the man; he
+was Brandon, Mr. Blisset’s old servant and factotum.
+
+The windows in the front of the house were all open, and glittering
+in the rays of an April sunset--mild and cool. Brandon was standing,
+looking meditatively towards that sunset, and towards the moors to
+which it formed a flaming background. His hands were in his pockets,
+and he was softly whistling a tune.
+
+Myles paused, and the man turned round. There was a mutual recognition.
+Brandon had been three days in the town, and had heard all the
+gossip there was--all about Myles’s changed position; and while he
+looked pleased to see an old acquaintance, he touched his cap as to
+a superior. Myles, wishing him good evening, rested his elbow on the
+gate, and said.
+
+‘Are you living in Thanshope?’
+
+‘No, sir. I only came here for a few days on business.’
+
+Myles was gratified that he could at once satisfy the deep yearning
+that lay at his heart--to ask after Adrienne--and at the same time do
+what was natural and to be expected; for who, if not her uncle’s old
+servant, should know anything about her? He therefore inquired.
+
+‘Do you ever hear anything of Miss Blisset now, since Mr. Blisset’s
+death?’
+
+Brandon looked surprised.
+
+‘Hear of her, sir! I’m in her service.’
+
+‘In her service?’ repeated Myles mechanically.
+
+‘Yes, when my late master died, Miss Blisset was good enough to say
+that she particularly wished me to remain with her, unless I had other
+views, which I had not. I have served her and her family for thirty
+years, and I hope never to serve any other.’
+
+‘I had no idea you had remained with her. I am glad to hear it. She
+must require a person to--an old servant, who will be like a friend to
+her as well.’
+
+‘Miss Blisset was so kind as to say, when she asked me to remain, that
+she looked upon me as a friend. My wife and I are the only servants she
+has.’
+
+‘Ah! How is Miss Blisset--or rather, how was she when you left her?’
+
+‘She was quite well, sir, thank you.’
+
+‘Does she live in England?’
+
+‘At present she is living in London, and we have been at Florence and
+Dresden.’
+
+‘Indeed! Does she mean to stay in London?’
+
+‘I think she will stay until autumn. Then she is going abroad with some
+friends. I am not sure where, but I think to Italy. Most likely she
+will take either my wife or me with her, and leave the other behind.’
+
+‘Then she does not think of coming to Thanshope at all?’
+
+‘No. Her lease of this house expires directly, and she is not going to
+renew it. She has seen Mr. Mallory in London, and made arrangements to
+give it up. I have come to see about storing the furniture.’
+
+‘Yes. When shall you be returning?’
+
+‘In about three days, sir, I expect.’
+
+‘The house will then be empty.’
+
+‘Yes.’
+
+There was a pause. Myles’s heart was beating. Brandon was looking at
+him inquiringly, as if he awaited some further word or some message to
+be delivered to his mistress. But Myles dared not send any message.
+He could not forget how he had ignored her own message to him, though
+head and heart alike cried out that he was wrong. In ordinary concerns
+he was clear-headed and practical enough: where his love for Adrienne
+stepped in, his nature seemed changed; he became timid, nervous, and
+lost all self-confidence. To have sent a mere conventional phrase
+of compliments or kind regards, would, it seemed to him, have been
+deliberate, insolent bravado--after what had passed. If he could have
+seen her, if she would have spoken to him, he might have confessed his
+fault and begged her pardon; but there was no word, no message that he
+could send through even the most trusted of old servants--through any
+third person.
+
+After a few more words with Brandon, he wished him good night and moved
+on, leaving that worthy man to think how ill-mannered he was. ‘And he
+used to sit and look at my young lady in a way that any one must have
+noticed,’ thought Brandon, rather indignantly.
+
+Myles walked homewards, deciding in his own mind that he would not go
+near Blake Street again until after Brandon should be gone. He pictured
+Adrienne in London, with plenty of friends, visiting the Mallorys,
+happy--the man had given no sort of hint that she was not happy.
+Suppose he happened to be in London, to be in the same room with her,
+to pass her in the street! He had forfeited the right to claim her
+acquaintance; he did not think he would have the courage to address
+her. He had made a great mess, a horrible mistake, when he repulsed
+that advance of hers; for that it had been an advance there could be
+now no doubt, since there had never been anything between her and
+Sebastian Mallory. What a shock, what offence, that behaviour of his
+must have caused her! The dead silence which had supervened on her part
+showed how she must have taken it.
+
+His heart ached a good deal as he walked towards his home. What
+profited him all this solitary, lonely prosperity? If he could have
+exchanged it all for one more of those evenings at Stonegate in the
+old days--for one more of those glances from Adrienne, which used to
+intoxicate him with their half-frank, half-timid expression--he would
+have flung all he had to the winds, and begun life again to-morrow,
+if he could have seen her once again betrayed into such a look, such
+a tone, as that with which she had said, ‘Oh, Myles!’ one Sunday
+afternoon. But that would never be. She too had found that Thanshope
+was not the place for her. She would never come to Stonegate again.
+When next he saw it, it would be empty, dismantled, a shell. He
+wondered--and immediately felt eager that it should be so--whether
+Sebastian Mallory would let _him_ have Stonegate. There was no other
+place in which he cared to live. A fear seized him, lest it might
+already have been promised to some one else. He hastened his steps,
+and as soon as he got in wrote to Sebastian, and dropped the letter
+with his own hand into the letter-box. He had written urgently. If Mr.
+Mallory had not already disposed of Stonegate, might he, Myles Heywood,
+become its tenant, at whatever rent Mr. Mallory pleased, even to the
+half of his income? Repairs and everything of that kind (he mixed up
+business and sentiment in a hurried jumble) were to be his concern, and
+his alone. And might he have an answer soon? He did not care whether
+the reasons of his eagerness were guessed or not by Sebastian.
+
+By return of post he had an answer:
+
+  ‘DEAR HEYWOOD--I am glad to find there is something you seem to
+  care much about, outside business. Since Miss Blisset is leaving
+  Stonegate, I could have no other tenant so desirable as you, and I
+  assure you applications have not flowed in with the rapidity you
+  seem to think. You are at liberty to take possession as soon as she
+  vacates, which I suppose will be in a few days from now. It is not
+  a residence which I should have exactly chosen out from amongst all
+  others, but _chacun à son goût_.--Yours truly,
+
+    ‘S. M.’
+
+Myles carried this note about with him in his breast-pocket, as if it
+had been a magic talisman. He studiously adhered to his resolution not
+to go near Blake Street till the three days of which Brandon had spoken
+should have elapsed, but the shadow of the deserted house ‘haunted him
+like a passion’--a longing, intense and increasing, concentrated his
+thoughts upon that ‘house, and heath, and garden,’ the ‘phantoms’ of
+which had been ‘so dear to him erewhile.’
+
+Not until the fourth evening after this interview with Brandon did he
+again take his way along the familiar street.
+
+It was even such an evening as that earlier one. The air was mild, the
+sun, now declining, had been bright--all nature smiled. It was growing
+dusk as he drew near the house. Why was his heart so low? Why had he
+such a great sensation of loneliness--of being cast adrift? Why did sad
+words of a sad song ring in his ears, and seem to be borne in whispers
+to him with each breath of wind--
+
+          ‘Away! away! to thy sad and silent home!
+            Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth!
+          Watch the dim shades, as like ghosts they go and come,
+            And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.’
+
+    ‘The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall fall about thine head,
+      The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy feet,
+    But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the
+      dead,
+      Ere midnight’s frown and morning’s smile, ere thou and peace may
+        meet.’
+
+He felt the idea dreadfully prophetic; he felt as if that were the fate
+he had selected for himself, as he at last rested his arms upon the
+homely wicket of that lonesome abode, and looked towards the front of
+the house.
+
+He was prepared for closed shutters, melancholy wisps of straw and
+scraps of paper, doors bolted and barred--such as mark, with a brand
+not to be mistaken, the deserted house. What he beheld was an open door
+and an open window--the window to the right hand; he could see that the
+hall was stripped of its fittings, that the windows were curtainless,
+but the house was not empty--as yet, its hearth was not ‘desolated.’
+
+What is that moving within the room? A figure; perhaps one of ‘the dim
+shades, as like ghosts they go and come.’ So dull are our senses, when
+night is falling, that even he did not recognise whose form it was; it
+was not to a sight, but to a sound, that his nerves suddenly thrilled,
+and his senses became tense and alert.
+
+As he stood, a chord was struck upon a piano within--another. A slight
+shiver shook him, but still he was not convinced until a voice floated
+out--the softly melodious voice which he knew in every fibre of his
+heart, not loudly, but with a subdued intensity of feeling which made
+him also absolutely tremble. For the song she sang brought hopes,
+doubts, fears--and again, wild and tremulous, chaotic hopes, crowding
+into his mind. It was the homely old German _Volkslied_--
+
+    ‘Du, du, liegst mir im Herzen.’
+
+To every word his heart throbbed, as she apostrophised, with the
+abandon of one who believes herself unheard and unlistened to, that
+absent one--
+
+    ‘Thou, love, shrined in my heart,
+    Thou, love, shrined in my mind!’
+
+and sang how he ‘caused her much pain, and knew not how much he was
+loved.’ A pause after that, till she went on to the second verse--
+
+    ‘So, love, e’en as I love thee,
+    So, so, by thee I’d be loved.’
+
+‘For,’ said the song, ‘I must ever be drawn most tenderly towards thee.’
+
+    (‘Die, die, zärtlichsten Triebe
+    Fühle ich ewig auf Dich.’)
+
+Towards thee--towards whom? Her voice vibrated, almost failed, as
+she went on with a sad, pondering accent, to the wonder expressed in
+the third verse, as to whether _he_, that absent one of the careless
+spirit, might be trusted, as he might trust to her; and the notes
+swelled out again--
+
+    ‘Weiss’ nicht wie gut ich Dir bin.’
+
+Myles’s head had sunk down upon his arms. The wonder, the mystery, the
+wild hope, that came surging over his heart almost unmanned him, and
+still the voice floated out, as she sang the last verse of the song.
+_Could_ it be? Might he dare to hope that, as she chose _that_ hour,
+that place, that song in which to express her feeling, that it _was_
+he--for she was singing now--
+
+    ‘My love, when in the distance
+      In dreams thy face I see,
+    My heart, with fond insistance,
+      Turns evermore to thee.’
+
+Whose face? Her voice had faltered with the energy of her own feeling,
+on the last lines--
+
+    ‘Dann, dann, wünsch ich so gerne,
+    Dass uns die Liebe vereint!’
+
+She sang the last cadences again, as if she could not leave them, as if
+weary of waiting and separation--
+
+    ‘Ja, ja, ja, ja!
+    Dass uns die Liebe vereint!’
+
+With a heart full of the wildest, most chaotic doubt, wonder, surmise,
+Myles stood, his head raised again, his dark eyes burning, as their
+wont was when he was agitated, upon the open window. The dusk was too
+deep now for him to see anything in the room.
+
+His brain, his heart, all of him, were thrilling with the aspiration
+conveyed in the last untranslatable words of the song--the passionate,
+simple, primitive--
+
+    ‘Dass uns die Liebe vereint!’
+
+He saw nothing, heard nothing, until a footstep paused, as if arrested
+in surprise, beside him--a figure interposed itself between his eyes
+and the window at which he was gazing.
+
+‘_Adrienne!_’
+
+The name fell, like a sigh, without his will or wish, almost without
+his knowledge, from his lips. He scarcely knew himself, or where he
+was, or anything, except that she stood there, and had paused, stopped,
+was looking at him. It was light enough to see that she had recognised
+him on coming close to him, and that, when their eyes met, she was
+trembling.
+
+When she looked into his face, her own turned paler, and a startled
+‘Oh!’ fell from her lips.
+
+For a moment they both stood silent thus. Then Myles, seeing that she
+still trembled and looked startled, remembered suddenly where he was,
+and how it all was. He bared his head and stood before her, saying, in
+a low voice,
+
+‘Pardon me! I forgot! I will not intrude. I did not know you were here.’
+
+He had turned to go, was absolutely moving, when she herself opened the
+wicket wide, and said, in an indescribable tone,
+
+‘Will you leave me without one word, as before?’
+
+The tremulous appeal was a command. He entered the garden, looking at
+her, as if awaiting a direction from her. But at last he said,
+
+‘It was that which made me fear to look at you. I can scarcely believe
+you will speak to me. Do you mean,’ he added, with a sudden appeal in
+his voice--‘do you mean that I may come in, and--talk to you?’
+
+For all answer Adrienne held out her right hand, and closed the wicket
+with the other, so that they stood together within the garden.
+
+Myles took that hand, but he could not at first speak.
+
+‘Miss Blisset, I behaved unpardonably--like a ruffian--two years ago. I
+do not deserve your forgiveness.’
+
+They had been moving towards the house, and they now stood in the
+almost dismantled drawing-room, by the open piano.
+
+‘At first,’ said Adrienne, in a voice which still trembled, ‘I thought
+I never could forgive you. It was cruel on your part----’
+
+‘It was brutal--unpardonable.’
+
+‘No; you were mad with grief--I knew it afterwards--and you could not
+know what it was I had to say to you.’
+
+‘What was it?’ he asked, below his breath.
+
+‘It was to say good-bye, and something more--to say that I feared I had
+been unkind! I had seemed to desert you--in your trouble, but that
+it had never been so in reality, for I had thought of you constantly;
+and,’ she added steadily, ‘to tell you, too, that I had heard
+something--that some report had been set going about you and me----’
+
+‘You heard _that_! It was to spare you that--it was because I was
+almost mad at the thought----’
+
+‘It was to tell you that I prized your friendship beyond all those
+slanders, and that nothing could ever shake it. I did wish to tell you
+that; but after you were gone, after you had left me in that manner,
+Myles, I dared not write.’
+
+‘Fool that I was! But I have been paying the price of my folly for two
+years without ceasing. Till seven months ago I believed you were going
+to marry Sebastian Mallory. You may suppose I was anxious for nothing
+so much as to be silent--to hear nothing of you.’
+
+Adrienne made no answer, till Myles said,
+
+‘And now you are going to leave Thanshope?’
+
+‘Yes, for ever.’
+
+‘You have come to say good-bye to the old place?’
+
+‘I never meant to come. Brandon found some difficulties about the
+arrangements I wished him to make, and telegraphed for me. I came this
+afternoon, and am leaving again to-morrow morning.’
+
+Adrienne had lost her self-command as he gained more of his. Her voice
+shook uncontrollably, as she leaned her elbow on the top of the piano.
+
+‘I shall always feel happy that I have been able to see you, to tell
+you that, whether you forgave me or not, I have repented, and do
+repent, my churlishness, and to thank you for your--your _unspeakable_
+kindness to a rough, stupid, clumsy fellow like me,’ said he. ‘Your
+great goodness and your gentle influence will go with me through my
+life; and--may you never know a sorrow or a care as long as you live!’
+
+The aspiration appeared useless, for Adrienne had buried her face in
+her hands, and was weeping with a quiet sorrow that had something of
+despair in it.
+
+‘But before I go,’ he added, ‘will you answer me a question? Perhaps
+I have no right to ask it, but I must, I have been listening to your
+singing; I heard every word.’
+
+‘Yes,’ was the almost inaudible answer.
+
+‘Tell me if you had some one in your mind when you sang that song.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Adrienne, still scarce above her breath.
+
+‘You had!’ he exclaimed, and forgot the solemn farewell, the almost
+benediction, he had just bestowed upon her, while he hurried his words
+out desperately. ‘Oh, Adrienne! forgive me if I am too presumptuous;
+but have mercy! Tell me, when you sang ‘Du, du, liegst mir im
+Herzen’.... But I am too bold--I----’
+
+‘Do not look at me so strangely!’ she began, raising her tear-stained
+face. ‘Tell me----Ah!’ she suddenly exclaimed, as with one movement
+they clasped each other, ‘it is you, Myles--it was always you; but you
+were so dreadfully proud.’
+
+‘Do you mean,’ he asked, after a long pause, ‘that if I had come to you
+that night--if I had forgotten myself, and told you, as I felt sure I
+should, that I loved you, and that no “friendship” could be anything
+but a wretched mockery to me--do you mean that _then_ you would have
+taken me, ruined and wretched, and without one bright thought or one
+hope for the future?’
+
+‘If you had come then, and told me all that, you need not have gone
+away without hope, and I should have spent a different two years than I
+have done. But it is all right now,’ she added. ‘The probation is over,
+my love, and you have borne it bravely.’
+
+‘If you think so, it must be so; but at the time, I assure you, I felt
+anything but brave. _Now_ I feel--I feel at rest,’ said Myles.
+
+There was silence. The darkness gathered. The air blew softly in at the
+window, and bore with it the faint sound of an old tune, in broken,
+melodious chimes.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+_J. D. & CO_
+
+
+_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.
+
+
+
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+
+ANONYMOUS.
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+  _The Last of the Cavaliers._
+
+By J. SHERIDAN LE FANU.
+
+  _Uncle Silas._
+  _The House by the Churchyard._
+  _In a Glass Darkly._
+
+By MARCUS CLARKE.
+
+  _For the Term of his Natural Life._
+
+By Baroness TAUTPHŒUS.
+
+  _The Initials._
+  _Quits!_
+
+By MARIE CORELLI.
+
+  _Vendetta._
+  _A Romance of Two Worlds._ P.T.O.
+
+By RHODA BROUGHTON.
+
+  _Dr. Cupid._
+  _Cometh up as a Flower._
+  _Good-bye, Sweetheart!_
+  _Joan._
+  _Nancy._
+  _Not Wisely, but too Well._
+  _Red as a Rose is She._
+  _Second Thoughts._
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+
+By ROSA N. CAREY.
+
+  _Wee Wifie._
+  _Barbara Heathcote’s Trial._
+  _Nellie’s Memories._
+  _Not like Other Girls._
+  _Robert Ord’s Atonement._
+  _Wooed and Married._
+  _Uncle Max._
+
+By JESSIE FOTHERGILL.
+
+  _The ‘First Violin.’_
+  _Borderland._
+  _Healey._
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+  _Probation._
+
+By HELEN MATHERS.
+
+  _Comin’ thro’ the Rye._
+  _Sam’s Sweetheart._
+
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+
+  _The Three Clerks._
+
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+
+  _Olive Varcoe._
+
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+
+  _Misunderstood._
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+  _Thrown Together._
+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
+  _A Perilous Secret._
+
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+
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+
+
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+
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+
+  _No Relations._ [With numerous Illustrations.]
+
+By Mrs. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN.
+
+  _A Sister’s Story._
+
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+
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+       *       *       *       *       *
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+
+
+
+Transcriber’s note
+
+
+Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Spelling of
+surnames names were standardized
+
+Other spelling was retained as in the original except for the following
+changes:
+
+  Page 113: “Another murmer indicative”     “Another murmur indicative”
+  Page 138: “exclaimed Alkibiades”          “exclaimed Alcibiades”
+  Page 140: “nor was he reasurred”          “nor was he reassured”
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76077 ***