 CHAPTER XXIV On the wing Morton's surprise at hearing that Sir Everett and his daughter were on the point of starting for the South was as great as it was unpleasant. His first impulse when Delcy told him where she was going was to go with her, but Sir Everett interfered. "'Not for the world, my dear Morton,' he said, "'your prospects must not be blighted, because I have a weak chest. The high-clear election will be on early in February, and you have made up your mind to stand. You will have plenty of work to do in the meantime if you want to get in, for from all I hear there will be a pretty sharp contest on the liberal side, and you, as a new man, will have to fight your hardest. No, Morton, you look after your political interests while Delcy and I ramble along the Riviera, and cross over to Algiers for a quiet month or so among the moors. We shall be back, if all go well, with the swallows.' "'That is a long time for me to look forward to, sir,' answered Morton, pale and grave. With a glance of mournful tenderness at Delcy, who stood by her father's side, her hand clasped in her lovers, her heart aching with a divided love. How am I to live without Delcy all through three dreary months?' "'You manage to exist without her a good many years,' said the Baronette, with a touch of cynicism. "'Well, because I did not know the world contained such a pearl. But knowing her, having won her. How am I to bear my life without her? Let me give up this election, and come with you, sir Everett. It will be like a foretaste of our honeymoon.' "'Such joys should never be anticipated. I have admired and sympathised with your ambition, Morton. It places you apart from and above the rock of young men. I should despise you if you could surrender your hope so lightly. And I think before you had been away from England a week you would despise yourself. If I did, I should at least be happy.' "'No, Morton, self-contempt and happiness are incompatible. You would be wretched.' "'Oh, you must not come with us, Morton. Indeed you must not,' said Delcy. "'I should hate myself if for my sake you sacrificed your noble ambition.' He looked at him with fond admiring eyes, as if he were a hero and a martyr, as if until he arose with the desire to legislate for his country, nobody had ever hoped or cared or striven for the welfare of mankind. So after some further argument, it was decided that Morton was only to go with the travellers as far as Paris, and that he was to spend the next month in preparing the ground for his election. The day after Sir Everud's return from London was Saturday, and it was on Sunday evening that this conversation took place, as father and daughter sat by the fire in Delcy's morning-room, with Morton in his accustomed seat on the opposite side of the hearth. He had come over to Fairview directly after dinner, leaving his womankind to drive to evening service at Highclair. They were tremendous church-goers, and never missed a service that they could manage to attend. The lovers parted mournfully that evening between ten and eleven in the Windy Avenue, Delcy having wrapped herself in her cloak at Morton's request, and accompanied him as far as the gate. "'How little I thought that this was hanging over me when we were so happy together on Christmas night,' said Morton discontentedly. "'When we were so happy,' echoed Delcy, pouting a little, "'you mean when you and Lady Frances Grange were so happy together? I was not honoured with much of your society.' "'Delcy, can you be jealous?' cried Morton amazed. "'I think I could, if I tried very hard,' faltered Delcy. "'Oh, my darling, such a thought is unworthy of you. Oh, as for poor little fan,' he went on, speaking of Lady Frances, as if she were a favourite dog. "'Oh, she and I have a kind of adopted sister and brotherhood, which is more familiar than friendship. She trusts me wholly, as I trust her, and she knows that there is only one woman in the world I love, or ever can love, but don't let us waste the precious moments talking nonsense, Delcy. I want to know more about this sudden indisposition of your father.' "'It is not sudden, Morton. Poor Papa has been suffering at intervals for years. He would not tell me anything about it, for fear he should grieve me. But careful as he has been to hide his pain from me, I know that he has suffered. He has had days of extreme depression and sleepless nights. I have been watchful of him, and have felt many a pang of fear, but I tried to hide my anxiety. "'Now the London doctor has told him that he has a mortal malady. His life can only be prolonged by extreme care. Oh, can you blame me, Morton, if I wish to do all that love can do to cherish and comfort him?' "'No, dearest, I cannot blame you, but I wish you were my wife.' "'Why?' "'Well, because in that case either I should go with you, or you would not go at all.' "'But you are going with us as far as Paris?' "'Oh, a fig for Paris! What is that beggarly stage of the journey? Four and twenty hours at most, and stretched to that only by dawdling a little at the Lord Warden. It's a contemptible boon to be allowed to escort you to Paris.' "'Well, if you are disagreeable, you shall stay at Tangley.' The church-clock struck eleven, and they parted, half in playfulness and half in sorrow. The travellers were to start early the following afternoon by the High Clear Express. Dulcy devoted the morning to wandering about the house, looking fondly at those home treasures that she was to leave for a time. Then she went to her own room, and put in order drawers and wardrobes which had been disordered in the hurry of packing. Her maid had had as much as she could do to get everything ready in time for this sudden journey. She and Sir Everett's valet were to accompany the travellers. Everything could be more marked than the contrast between the two servants. Emma Pugh, a simple-minded, ruddy, cheeked rustic, and Stanton, a man of the world, a soldier of fortune, speaking half a dozen continental languages, and as much at home in any corner of Europe, as it was thought, ready for any adventure. To him the idea of starting for Algeria was a delight. To Emma it was a source of fear and dread. Stanton had officiously informed her that Algiers was on the coast of Africa, and the very name of the dark continent had inspired horror and aversion. "'Win Africa a dreadful place,' Mr. Stanton, she asked. "'A savage, sandy country, where there's nothing but poisonous swamps and niggers and lions climbing up trees, or perhaps it is the travellers that climbed to get out of the way of the lions.' "'Oh, Algiers isn't half a bad place,' answered Stanton in his easy way. "'Capital climate, fine sea, picturesque costumes and decent hotels. "'And as to lions?' "'Well, yes, I dare say we might have a chance of seeing a lion hunt.' "'This was enough for Emma Pugh. From this moment lions roamed up and down the streets of Algiers in the fancy picture of that city which her distempered imagination set before her. Even now Emma had done her work, and all Delcy's belongings were packed and in the hall, ready to be carried off to the station. And having done her duty, Miss Pugh, much disturbed and excited by the journey before her, had gone off to employ her last leisure hours in Daleshire in taking leave of her parents, aunts, uncles, sisters and cousins. Thus Delcy was left alone in rooms which already had a deserted look. Her bedroom was the same which her mother had occupied in her brief span of married life, a lovely room with wide square windows overlooking the lawns and shrubberies, the low lying lake and the wide expanse of landscape beyond. At one end of the room there was an aural fronting south, and in this sunny window was Delcy's favourite seat. Here she had a little table with an easel, here she painted flowers or fruit with a delicacy of touch and tone, rare in an amateur hand. Here she worked or read or wrote through many a busy morning. It was the room in which she had been born, in which her mother had died. Sir Everett had removed himself to the furthest end of the house after his wife's death, and had never since that hour entered this room save once when Delcy was ill. But for Delcy there was no terror in this chamber where death had come, where the young and lovely wife had lain in her last slumber. It was hallowed rather by that sad memory. She loved to look at the objects on which her mother's eye had rested, to sit in the low tapestry armchair which had been her mother's favourite seat, to handle the old china cups and sauces on the mantelpiece, the geodesimo volumes of classic prose and poetry on the hanging bookshelves by the bed, knowing that her mother's touch had rested on them. Today she moves slowly about the room, looking wistfully at familiar objects, wondering idly when she would see them again. Presently she paused half in absence of mind before an old Japanese cabinet, and began to pull out the drawers one by one, looking listlessly at their contents. In one she saw a few old letters of her own, notes of invitation, programs of concerts at High Clear, rubbish of all kinds. In another there were shells, in another some withered flowers gathered a year or two ago in her alpine rambles. In another worn out paintbrushes and half empty colour tubes. Another, and this she handled reverently, had been undisturbed since her mother's death. She had laid a folded sheet of tissue paper over the contents, trifling as they were, the mere jetsam and flotsam of daily life. Today in sheer idleness of mind she lifted the paper, and began to rearrange the trifles which her loving hands had carefully covered years ago, when she first took possession of her mother's room. What frivolous relics of a departed life they were, yet how suggestive of youth and elegant pleasures, a broken fan of delicately carved ivory and painted vellum, graces and silks, desporting in a world of flowers, a long white glove embroidered with gold, still bearing the impress of the little hand that had worn it, a Dijon rose, which still exhaled the faint suggestion of a long departed sweetness, two or three pieces of rare old lace yellow with age, a few letters closely written and crossed from married sisters, a handful of dead violets, and lastly, something which filled dulcy with wonder, simple as the thing was in itself, a yellow ribbon, the very colour and texture of that old-fashioned ribbon which dulcy had found on the hearth rug in Dora Blake's sitting-room. She sat with the ribbon in her hand, about a yard in length, not soiled or worn, but with folds that showed it had been tied, perhaps as a loop for that broken fan. Yes! it was exactly the same ribbon! there could be no doubt of it! Either Dora Blake must have got her piece from Lady Courtney, or Lady Courtney must have got hers from Aunt Dora. Unless there was a rage for this kind of ribbon at that time, thought dulcy, oh, but that can hardly be, for I'm sure this ribbon is more than twenty years old. It's the sort of thing our great-grandmother's wore. Well, it is a small mystery to worry one's brain about. Miss Blake must have given a piece to Beymar, or Beymar to Miss Blake. That is certain. She remembered Aunt Dora's somewhat confused and troubled manner when she had talked about the yellow ribbon. Could such a trifle as that involve some sorrowful memory? Some association full of pain and sadness? Vain to sit wandering there! Dulcy lifted the ribbon to her lips before she put it back in the drawer. Poor little ribbon! Stray leaflet from the past! I'm sure you are half a century old. You had curious, half-tender associations for my dear mother, I dare say, when she wore you to tie up a bunch of roses or as a loop for her fan. You may have belonged to some maiden aunt, a famous bell perhaps who died in her youth, or to some dear old indulgent rambamar who wore yellow ribbons in her cap. For me, your history as a blank, as mysterious as the life of kiosks. She closed the drawer and locked the cabinet, and then resumed her progress through the rooms till it was time for luncheon, after which hurried meal the carriage came to the door and Morton arrived with his travelling bag. It was a pleasant journey for Dulcy and Morton in spite of the parting that laid before them at the end of the way. For these two it was happiness to be together. Sir Everad seemed more cheerful when he had turned his back upon fair view. He talked about the coming election, discussed Morton's hopes, and gave him some good advice, which the young man fully appreciated. They stayed a couple of days in Paris to please Morton, went the round of churches and galleries which all had seen before, but which Dulcy was delighted to see in her lover's society, drove in the wintery poire, saw all the world of fashion and beauty, wasted a good deal of money at Boissiers, buying artistic baskets and dainty sat-in boxes filled with sugar-plums, dined at the last restaurant à la mode, and wound up with a delightful evening at Molière's classic theatre, where the elegant Favard and the seductive Delaunay played an idyllic drama by Debussy. Those two days were full of delight for Morton. They were only two brief, and then on the evening of the second, he drove with Sir Everad and his daughter to the Lyon station, and saw them seated in the train which was to carry them to the south. I shall come to you directly, the election is over, he said, if you have not returned before then. My dear fellow, Parliament will meet by the time the election is over, and you will have your senatorial duties to attend to, replied Sir Everad. Morton stood by the carriage-door, with Dulcy's hand clasped in his, till the last moment. It was their first parting. They looked at each other with pale, pained faces, tearless but despairing. Then came the guards bustling along, authoritative, military of aspect, then the Russian turmoil of people who could not find places, then a shriek, a whistle, their clinging hands parted, and Dulcy was gone. Morton went gloomily back to the shabby, half-built boulevard outside the big station. What a horrid place Paris is for a man to be alone in, he said to himself as he walked back to the Bristol. I shall be off at seven to-morrow morning. He was at Tangley by eleven o'clock on the following night, moody and out of spirits, feeling that all the delight and hopefulness of his life was gone. How fondly, how intensely, she loves him! He said to himself, thinking of Dulcy and her father, what a God that I could trust him as she trusts him, that I could honour him as she honours him. Yes, for her sake I would be blind if heaven would grant me the gift of blindness, but I cannot forget how he shranked from answering my question that night, how he put me off with generalities, with indignant assertions that evaded the point at issue. CHAPTER XXV. OF JUST AS I AM. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Just as I am, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. CHAPTER XXV. Dulcy Sacrifices Herself. It was early in February, and all along the sunlit Riviera, the world was waking to the first faint breath of spring. A sapphire sky reflected itself in a sapphire sea, and save for the murderous cold wind now and then, the sojourner in that southern world might flatter himself that he had cheated time out of a winter. Sir Everad and his daughter had been roving along the seaboard, stopping a few days here and a week there, and hurrying off impatiently from another place at the whim of the invalid, who was curiously restless and difficult to please. He missed his library and the quiet life of Fairview, which perhaps was more congenial to his meditative character than any other kind of life, albeit he had never seemed quite happy even at Fairview. Dulcy bore with his whims and soothed his restless spirits with inexhaustible patience. Every other hope and wish in her mind had given place to the one ardent desire to spin out the weak thread of her father's days to sweeten the remnant of his life. She bore without a murmur her separation from Morton, dearly as she loved him, and although it seemed to her as if all the brightness and youth were taken out of her life now that he and she were parted. The key note of her existence was not gladness but resignation. Her father's health seemed to improve after they reached the south, but his spirits were variable, and that restlessness which Dulcy noticed soon after they left Paris, that utter weariness of soul which made the shortest winter day too long, was almost worse than physical pain or weakness. Nothing they saw in their shifting from place to place interested or amused him. He avoided society as much as possible, and most of all avoided his own countrymen who were to be found in possession of the hotels wherever they went. If we could only find some quiet place where you and I could be alone together with nature and our favourite books, he said to Dulcy, and in quest of this tranquil retreat they travelled backwards and forwards along the sea-coast in a vague, purposeless way, which would have been dispiriting to a business-like tourist. At last a little way inland from Marseille, out of the beat of the common run of travellers, Sir Everard found a spot that pleased him. It was a little town on the side of a sandy hill, crested with pines. A few villas were scattered among the pine-trees, the air was exhilarating, and there was a distant view of the Mediterranean. It was something like Bournemouth before Bournemouth became a popular watering-place. Sir Everard hired one of the white-walled villas near the top of the hill, a small, low house, sheltered on the landward side by a thick grove of pines, its front windows overlooking a wide sweep of blue water. Here we will stay till we cross to Algiers, said Sir Everard, and he seemed in no hurry to visit the African shore. He ordered a piano from Marseille, and a big case of new books from Paris, and settled himself down to his old studious and meditative life with something of the old repose. Dulcy was delighted. The mornings were warm enough for them to sit out of doors among the pine-trees. The sun was sometimes so hot at noontide as to necessitate the use of Dulcy's biggest parasol. I really think we have succeeded in running away from the winter papa, she said gaily. You ought to buy this villa, and then we could come here every year. The world is wide, my darling. Why should we anchor ourselves to one spot? We may winter in Egypt next year. And then Morton will be with us, will he not, papa? Hazardly Dulcy blushing. I suppose I shall be married before this year is ended. You know, dearest, I don't mean my marriage to separate me from you. I shall be your daughter all the same, and obedient to you in all things. Morton will be your adopted son. Oh, you do not know what you're talking about, Dulcy, answered her father impatiently. The kind of thing you propose is not possible. Other daughters have talked like you time out of mind, and it has all ended in nothing. When Desdemona marries, she follows her more to Cyprus, and poor old Brabantio is deserted. I think in the play, papa, that is Brabantio's fault. It was he who flung off his daughter. It was on the evening after this conversation that Dulcy and her father were sitting side by side in the veranda, watching the moonlit waves and the yellow lights of the little town twinkling under a purple sky. The post had come in half an hour ago. There had been several letters for Sir Everad but none for Dulcy. He had been silent and gloomy since the reading of his letters, and his daughter feared that one of them must have brought ill news of some kind. Whatever it might be, she waited patiently for him to reveal his trouble, feeling that it was wiser to leave him undisturbed till he chose to speak. She was at his side, ready to be his confidant if he needed her sympathy. They had sat almost in silence for nearly half an hour when Sir Everad laid his hand gently on his daughter's shoulder and drew her nearer to him. Dulcy, he said softly, are you happy with me? Quite happy, dear father. And this retired, studious life hidden from the world, unambitious, uneventful, pleases and satisfies you? I can imagine no pleasanter kind of life. That is well, he answered, and then relapsed into silence for some minutes. My darling, he began after that long pause. I think you know that I love you. I think you will believe, however inconsistent my conduct may seem, that I love you as truly and as dearly as father Ever loved daughter since this world was created. Yes, papa, I have perfect faith in your love, she answered, calling a little. And yet I am going to distress you. I am going to ask you to sacrifice something very dear to your heart. Sacrifice is the proof of love, dear father, she answered gently. I am prepared to make any sacrifice for your sake. I want you to give up Morton. Oh, father, she exclaimed with a faint cry, as if a physical pain. Yes, I thought it was that, she said quietly. There are reasons why your union with him could never bring happiness either to him or to you. I felt this when he first proposed for you, and I set my face against such an engagement as you know. In an evil hour, seeing that your heart was concerned in the matter, I weakly yielded, but I have felt ever since that I have done wrong. I have felt more firmly convinced as time went by that the engagement must result in misery. But why, father, for what reason? I am ready to obey you. I am willing to make any sacrifice for your sake. Yes, even to part from a him who is dearer to me than anything on earth except yourself. You shall always be first. I have told you that. If there is some good reason why Morton and I cannot be happy together, let me know it and understand it, and I will accept my fate. Unfortunately I cannot tell you my reason. You must take it on trust. And did this same reason influence you when you first refused to sanction our engagement? In part, yes. Oh, father, why did you yield then? I could easier have borne to give him up then than now. Every hour we have spent together has made him nearer and dearer to me until he has become a part of my life. It would have been better for me if you had been cruel then, if you had been blind to my silent regret and let those sorrow wear itself out. Perhaps it would have worn itself out in time, though I fancied it was going to be a sorrow of a lifetime. All fancy, dear child, answered Sir Everud soothingly, hearts are not so easily broken. Steal yourself to endure the agony of a sudden wrench, and a year hence you will wonder that this sacrifice could have cost you so much. You say that, and yet you have never forgotten my mother. Sir Everud started, like one who feels a sudden touch upon an old wound, a touch that thrills through every nerve. That was different, he answered huskily. She was my wife, my own. We had one short year of bliss, and then came ruin. No man could forget such a blow as that. But a girl's first lover is like a child's first doll, dearer than anything else in the world, till she gets a new one. Father! cried Dulcy with a sob. Yes, I know I must seem hard and cruel, but I have your welfare at heart, darling. This marriage could not make you happy. There is that in Morton's character which must result in misery to you. He is noble-minded, conscientious, truthful, full of thought for others. You cannot read him as I read him, or know him as I know him. But I will urge this question no further. If you have made up your mind to marry him in opposition to my most urgent desire, let the engagement go on. But if you want to make me happy, you must give up Morton Blake. You know that I would lay down my life for your happiness. But this is so strange, so sudden. You give me no reason, or only a vague reason for such an act. My mind is utterly bewildered. Take a week to think about it, said Sir Everett quietly. That looks like disobedience. Oh, my love, I will not so think of it. I know that I must seem to you inconsistent, arbitrary, cruel even. But as I live, Dulcy, the grief I would have you enjoy for my sake today will save you a more terrible grief in the future. I should have foreseen this earlier. I have been weak and blameworthy. I am a sinner, and I need all your charity, all your patience. You're the best and dearest of men, sobbed Dulcy with her tearful face hidden upon his breast. How could I hope to have you and Morton? It would be too much for heaven to grant to one woman. Then after a pause she lifted her head, and looked in her father's face with an almost childlike simplicity. Papa, if I give him up, do you think he will marry Lady Francis? I think it not improbable. That will make my life harder to bear. It will be very bitter. Not another word was said about Morton, either by Sir Everard or his daughter. This confirmed an idea that had flashed across Dulcy's mind when Sir Everard began to speak about her renunciation of Morton. She loved her father with such perfect trustfulness that she could not believe him capable of wantonly grieving her. He would not have asked her to make this sacrifice without some good and sufficient reason, and it might be that he withheld that reason rather than wound her womanly pride by telling her that Morton was false or fickle. She had felt a few faint pangs of jealousy that Christmas night at Tangley when Morton and Francis were waltzing with the air of people to whom it was natural to be together. Many a careless familiarity of Francis Granges had struck her on that Christmas day. Every word she said to Morton revealed a long and intimate acquaintance, the friendly association of years, while an undefinable something in the lady's tone and manner hinted at a warmer feeling than friendship. Brooding upon these past impressions, and even exaggerating them in the light of her newborn fears, Dulcy gradually convinced herself that her father knew more of Morton's sentiments than he cared to tell her. She remembered that curious change in her lover's manner which had wounded and alarmed her during the period before the trial at Highclare. She remembered his fitful spirits, his intervals of silence and moodiness, all accounted for at the time by his anxiety as to the result of the trial. Looking back at his conduct now, she told herself that this trouble of mind might have marked the gradual arising of a change of feeling, a slow awakening to the consciousness that Francis Grange, and dear by old associations, had a stronger hold upon his heart than the girl whom he had chosen for his wife. Always doubtful of her own merits, it seemed to Dulcy that Lady Francis was fascinating enough to lure any lover away from such an insignificant little person as herself. Yet the thought of Morton's inconstancy stung her to the quick, and it needed all her courage and all her pride to bear the blow. Dulcy played to her father, and read to him, and walked with him, and drove with him in the usual way, smiled at him even when he was inclined to be cheerful, but the sweet, young face had a pale, rigid look that went to Sir Everett's heart. He suffered almost as acutely as she did. One morning, in something less than a week after the conversation on the veranda, Dulcy came to her father as he sat writing letters in the sunny little room which he had made his study. Papa, will you please write me the draft of a letter to Morton, telling him that he and I are to part, she asked meekly. I don't know how to say it. Sir Everett wrote the letter, and Dulcy copied it, adding a few lines of her own, and brought it to him ready for the midday mail. CHAPTER XXVI February was over, and the high clear election had begun in the cold and rain of a severe march. The conservative interest was strong in the old county town, and Morton Blake found that he had a hard fight before him. He was not a popular man in his neighbourhood. He was respected and liked by his equals. They knew his sterling qualities, but that lower section of society which sees a landed proprietor only from the outside, did not care about Morton Blake. They knew him only as a young man of reserved manners, who never drank or played billiards at the peacock, who was rarely seen at local race meetings, and took no part in local cricket matches. Middle-aged people who remembered his father took delight in disparaging the son. His liberal opinions went against him among people who were always praising the days that were gone, and who considered free trade the ruin of England. If he had been a good old Tory, and had clamoured for the revival of the sliding scale, he would have had plenty of supporters among the farmers and burgesses of Southern Daleshire, but opinions which would have won him friends at Blackford, only made him enemies at Highclair. Education for the million, and coffee taverns, and a national thrift, and even a cheap loaf, were questions of no interest to a town which had grown up and flourished upon ignorance, beer, and high prices. Then he had Sir Nathaniel Ritherdon for his opponent, a man who spent a great deal of money in the town, who was known to be a sworn foe to all cooperative associations, whose opinions were so mildly commonplace, and whose utterances were so amably vague, that he pleased everybody. Morton fought his battle honestly and well. He was a fine speaker, expressing himself with a vigorous directness which one prays even from those who objected to his politics as dangerous and revolutionary. He had a noble voice, deep, resonant, and he knew how to use it. He had a handsome, intelligent face, and a good figure, and he was admired as a fine specimen of the English radical. But as a radical he was feared, and his electioneering tactics were somewhat too bold and independent to succeed with an old-fashioned borrower like High Clear, where with the advance of civilisation, direct and open bribery had only given place to indirect corruption. His agent plainly told Morton that the line he was taking was not the road to success, whereupon Morton replied that he would stand or fall as an honest man should. Then I'm sorry to say I think you'll fall, answered the agent. Mind, I'm not the man to counsel anything like bribery, but there's such a thing as being too squeamish in electioneering matters. The Code of Honor is a trifle wider, you see, in business of that kind, than I never heard of but one Code of Honor, and I shall regulate my conduct by that, said Morton. Huh, obstinate fool, thought the agent. Is it meanness or rustic prejudice, I wonder, that influences him? And then he answered with a shrug of his shoulders. I take it that your object is to get into Parliament, and that the mode and manner of your getting there is a detail which you can afford to leave in the hands of a trustworthy agent. Yours is not the first craft that I've navigated through some ugly shoals. I wouldn't go to heaven if I had to get there by a dirty road, retorted Morton. The result was exactly as the agent had anticipated. Sir Nathaniel spent two thousand pounds upon bill-sticking, beer and indirect bribery, and came in at the head of the pole. Morton spent nine hundred upon stationery, postage stamps, agents' fees, and the hire of a room in which to give utterance to his opinions, and his name was lowest in the list. An intelligent minority had voted for him as an earnest politician and an original thinker. But the masses were true to the old candidate, who knew the way to their hearts. Morton went home to tangly after the election, sorely depressed and disappointed. His agent had told him that he would fail, but his belief in the goodness and honesty of his fellow men had been stronger than his belief in the agent's acumen. He had seen a crowded audience thrill as he spoke. He had seen the glow of enthusiasm in men's faces. He had heard the accent of truth in their loud cheers. He knew that he had touched the hearts of the best among the electors, that he had showed them his mind, convinced them of his earnestness. And yet the majority preferred to be represented by a twaddling old gentleman who spoke once or twice in a session, and then delivered himself of truisms which had been old-fashioned or obsolete in the days when Samuel Johnson was a parliamentary reporter. At home Morton found unlimited sympathy. His aunt consoled him with quiet sweetness. His sisters were loudly indignant, but not without reproachfulness. If you had let us give more garden parties last summer, such an insult could never have been offered to the family, protested tiny. If you had taken more interest in the bizarre in aid of the restoration of the frescoes in the chancel of St. Mary's, all the church people would have voted for you, said Horatia, who was enthusiastic about things ecclesiastical. I hope you will never again stand for High Clear, said Lizzie Hardman, pale with indignation. The stupid people are not worthy of you. At Blackford you would be appreciated. My uncle and my brother were delighted with your speeches. I sent them the High Clear paper with the report of the meetings at which you spoke. They are only working people, and perhaps I ought not to talk about their opinions here, but they are warm politicians. My dear Lizzie, I am very glad to be appreciated by them, Morton answered kindly. He had turned with a touch of weariness from his sister's reproaches, and even from his aunt's consolations, but these remarks of Lizzie's had a soothing effect. It was something to be understood even by brawly armed workers at Blackford. Was it not precisely this class whose interest he had most at heart, the rugged sons of Toil from whose ranks his grandfather had risen? Among his womankind he bore himself bravely, and too proud to let anyone see how deeply he was disappointed how ardently he had hoped for a different result. He made light of the matter when Tiny and Horatia harped upon the iniquity of elections in general, and the shameless ingratitude of the electors of Highclear in particular. I am sure the money we have spent in that town would make a golden obelisk as big as Cleopatra's needle if it could all be melted down, said Tiny petulantly. And now I hope you will let us belong to the civil service cooperative stores, and get our Berlin woolen things at wholesale prices. Morton went to smoke his cigar on the common directly after dinner in order to escape such sympathy as this. Seek and moonless as the night was, it was pleasanter to him to ramble among these black furs-bushes by the narrow sandy paths which he had known from a child than to sit in the drawing-room and hear his sisters bewail his failure. He was altogether depressed and out of spirits. A week had gone by without bringing him any letter from Dulcy, who until now had written every other day. He began to fear that she was ill, or that Sir Everard was worse. Nothing perhaps, and his daughter alone with him in a strange country. There is one comfort in my failure, he said to himself. There is nothing to tie me to England now. I shall start for Marseille tomorrow morning, and surprise Dulcy and her villa among the pine-trees. After a long walk about the common he went home wonderfully cheered at the prospect of a speedy meeting with Dulcy. He went straight to his dressing-room and packed his portmanteau, serving at all times supremely independent of service. He consulted Bradshaw, found that there was no possibility of starting before the night mail from Dover, and then some time after midnight went to bed, with very little hope of sleeping. In this he was agreeably disappointed, for worn out with the excitement and the fatigue of the day he slept heartily and long, and on waking found the wintry sun shining in at his window, and half a dozen letters on the table by his bed. Among them there was the long-looked-for letter from Dulcy, a poor, thin letter, instead of the usual three or four sheets of foreign paper. A withered violet dropped from the envelope as he tore it open. "'An emblem of my disappointed hopes,' said Morton, thinking of yesterday's failure. This was Dulcy's letter. My dear Morton, after serious and painful consideration, my father has resolved upon withdrawing his consent to our marriage. He has reasons of his own which he does not think fit to tell me, and I, as in duty bound, submit to his decision. If he were to tell me to lay my head upon the block blindfold, I would do it, and in the same spirit of blind obedience to his will I write this letter. I hope you will forgive me if this act of mine should give you any pain, but I have some reasons of my own for believing that the rupture of our engagement will be rather a relief to you than a regret. I have packed all the presents you so generously gave me in a box to be sent by rail, except the pretty vellum bound in memoriam, which I ventured to keep as a souvenir of our friendship. Your always faithful friend, Dulcy Bella Courtney. And the signature of this brief letter had an awful look. She had never so signed herself before. Your own Dulcy, your loving Dulcy, your fondest, truest Dulcy, this had been the style of thing for the last year, and now with a grand flourish of her pen, bold and free as if the hand that wrote had never trembled or faltered for a moment, appeared this formal signature, which looked formidable enough for a death warrant, Dulcy Bella Courtney. The first two sentences in the letter were her father's composition. The rest was her own. Morton could not tell that the brief formal note had been rung from a breaking heart. He only felt the cruelty of the stroke. He was coldly, curtly dismissed. And that was all. She could hardly write less if she was sending away a servant, he said to himself, and then rereading the letter and seeing that the act was Sir Everards and that Dulcy was only the instrument, a horrible idea flashed upon him. Why, this is his retaliation for the doubts I ventured to express that last night at Fairview, he said to himself. I remember his livid look of anger, the passion with which he repelled my questions. Oh, there can be no longer a doubt. It was he whose horses hooves were printed on the spot where my father fell. It was he, false friend, jealous husband, who struck that deadly blow, and not the kerr who lies rotting in Portland prison. My hideous fear, the horror I have struggled to shut out of my mind, was not a baseless apprehension. I accept my release. Yes, Dulcy, you are right. It is a relief to me to be free. Dearest as I love you, my sweet one, it is better that I should be free to avenge my father's murder. That is my first duty. Would arrestees have stopped to make love and take a wife when once his task was set for him, when once he knew what fate had given him to do? My poor pretty Ophelia. I will take back my gifts, the pledges of a happy love. Such bliss was never meant for you and me. For me life has sterner claims and harder duties. For you, O my love, my love, what is to become of you if I pursue the purpose that is in my mind? Is your gentle heart to be broken? He read the letter again, and saw Sir Everard's hand in it. Dulcy, who had so innocently revealed to him the singleness of her heart, the depth of her love, could she thus whistle him down the wind? No. The letter had been rung from her bleeding heart. That curt dismissal, so coldly worded, was darkness the result of a bitter struggle. It was to bring about this separation that Sir Everard had taken his daughter away. Even the story of his ill health was perhaps a pretense invented to this end. Morton answered Dulcy's letter with even greater brevity than her own. Dearest, I accept your decree, but I shall love you to the end of my life. Whatever may happen, even if it be my fate to bring you sorrow, remember and believe this always. I love, have loved, and shall love you only. Morton. P.S. God bless you for keeping the little Tennyson. And so ends an old song, he said to himself. He avoided making an appearance at the family breakfast table, by pleading the press of important business, letters that must be written in time for the midday post, knowing that the two penetrating eyes of his aunts and sisters, to say nothing of Lizzie Hardman's steadfast gaze, would read his agitation in his pale troubled face. I don't mean to tell them anything yet awhile, he said to himself. Perhaps that one particular detail in all the circumstances of his grief, which a man most dreads and abores in such a case, is the overwhelming sympathy of his feminine acquaintances. This morning Morton would have thought Alexander Selkirk and his desert island the most enviable character on the face of the globe. His aunt Dora brought the breakfast tray to the library, and stood beside his chair and bent over him, and laid her soft, cool hand on his burning forehead. My dearest boy, you're in a fever, she exclaimed. You must have had a sleepless night. Oh, no, auntie, I slept wonderfully well. Oh, yet you look so pale and haggard. My poor boy, I'm afraid you feel this disappointment more than I thought you did from your manner last night. Well I am naturally a little provoked at a dumb dog-like, good pompous old Sennethaniel, being preferred to an energetic young man with ideas of his own. But I shall soon get over it, auntie. I have had a good deal of worry and work, you know, in the last three weeks, and all that has exhausted me. I see you had a letter from Dulcy this morning, said Miss Blake, one of whose many duties was the opening of the post-bag. But not the usual budget. I hope so everud is no worse. No, he is about the same. And Dulcy, is she quite well? Oh, yes, she is pretty well. Oh, sweet child, how I miss her! She is such a loving little soul. Try to get a little more sleep more than when you have finished your letters. You look tired to death. Really, dear aunt, there is nothing amiss with me. And when I have written my letters, I am going off on a short journey. I have some business to do at Avonmore, and I shall not be home until nearly midnight. Don't let anybody except Andrew sit up for me, there so dear good auntie. At Avonmore? What can you possibly have to do at Avonmore? Oh, nothing very particular, but I am glad to have something to occupy me this afternoon, as it will put the election out of my head. Oh, that is an advantage, certainly. But pray don't tire yourself at Avonmore. No fear of that. I shall drive over to Highclear in the dog cart, and Sims can put up there and bring me back at night. And now, best of aunts, if I am to write my letters, I must leave you to yourself. Yes, I understand. Leave my fondest love to Delcy. Oh, that letter was written before I came downstairs. Shall I put your message on the envelope to be spelt out by all the postmen between here and Provence? Well, I think not. I shall write to my pet this afternoon. If I were to tell her how ill and rich you looked this morning, she'd be miserable. Well, tell her I am well and happy, said Morton with a curious laugh. There is nothing like putting a good face upon things. Morton's letters were only an excuse for being alone. He wrote a few lines to his parliamentary agent and closing a check, for even failure is expensive. Wrote with friendly brevity to Sir Nathaniel, congratulating him on his triumph, and then he flung himself into his armchair and sat with his elbows on his knees, brooding upon the past and forecasting the future. His path was dark, and beset with difficulty. He could hardly take a step forward which would not hasten the coming of sorrow to the girl he loved. Yet to stand still, or to go back, seemed to him impossible. CHAPTER XXVII Avonmore is one of the gentilist towns in England. There is positively nothing common or unclean in it. It manufactures nothing, it gives employment to nobody. It knows nothing of the working classes, it has no out-of-fringe of shabby streets and laboring men's cottages. It is a pure and perfect chrysalite set in the garden land of England. A land of green pastures, watered by a picturesque but weedy river that never turned a mill or served any useful purpose in its life, but which glides along its serpentine course placidly between willow-shaded banks. The high street is as broad as Regent Street and sparkles with shops which only appeal to the wealthy. The two chief hotels are as elegantly luxurious and as expensive as clarages. The gentle slopes, which the natives call hills, are dotted with white-walled villas girdled with exquisitely kept gardens, rich in monkey trees, deodoros, wellingtonias, and all the aristocracy of foreign timber. The finest society in England is to be had at Avonmore, said Mr. Churchill Green, as he finished his hashed mutton and turned his chair to the fire in the untidy little backpawler behind his shop. But it is an infernally stagnant hole for a man to earn his living in. His wife sat in a low chair in the opposite corner of the hearth, nursing her last baby, a sickly mother with hollow hectic cheeks and a dry hacking cough. A flabby-looking infant dribbling in an imbecile manner over a soiled and crumpled pinafore. I don't know how it is for other people, replied Mrs. Green mournfully. Some of them seem to get on well enough and even to make their fortunes, but it doesn't answer with us. Perhaps if you were to stick closer to business, Churchill, closer to business, echoed Mr. Green scornfully, will my closeness bring customers? If I were to be as close as an oyster, would that fill my shop? Did I stay at home and sit yawning over the telegraph behind that blessed counter all yesterday afternoon? And what, are we the richer for my self-denial? Two young ladies came, Churchill. Ah, yes, and after turning over three portfolios of songs and walses, decided there was nothing they cared about and walked out of the shop without spending sixpence. I wish I dealt in cheeses or eel pies or rags and bones or pigs trotters, cried Churchill savagely. For then I might find an appreciative public. I have often advised you to try some other business, said the wife, with meek reproachfulness, the kind of half-resigned, half-complaining, and wholly miserable tone which irritates a husband's nerves like the perpetual dropping of water, a small nuisance but horrible from its continuity. Oh, hang it all, exclaimed Churchill, as he knocked the ashes out of his blackened meershaw. I couldn't stand an un-gentlemanly trade if it were to bring in thousands. Lucy Green gave a little whimpering sigh as she bent over the sickly baby and lifted the limp little hand to her lips. I wouldn't care what the trade was if it gave us good food and decent clothes, Charlie, she said. She always called her husband Charlie when she was most in earnest. I'm sure I felt as bad as if somebody was putting a knife into me this afternoon when I saw those children going to school in patch clothes and worn-out boots. Oh, what's the good of waiting for concert engagements that don't come? If it wasn't for a circus now and then and a piano or two to tune, you wouldn't earn a five-pound note in a twelve-month. It's only the kindness of my friends. She faltered a little here and looked furtively at her husband, whose face had clouded over with a sudden scowl. It's only their kindness keeps us from starvation. Perhaps if your friends were a little less mysterious in their benevolence, I might feel more grateful, it's oughted Mr. Green. But it isn't a pleasant idea for a husband that his wife gets her money from nobody knows whom. The money seems as welcome to you as to me, Charlie. You always help to spend it. I suppose I have a right to live, Lucy. Nobody denies that, Churchill. Don't I slave to put a decent dinner on the table and feed the poor children on bread and tree-cloth the week so that you might have a little bit of odd supper when you come home tired of a night? But it does seem odd upon us all when you go and spend money in a tavern parlour rather than make yourself happy at home. Happy, echoed Green, with a contemptuous survey of the shabby room and the faded wife. A fine place for a man to be happy in. A chorus of squalling brats, varied by a solo from a grumbling wife. If it were not for the relief I get from a little pleasant society of an evening, I should cut my throat. I don't think I should be here to trouble you very much longer, said Lucy, looking at him with eyes that were slowly filling with tears. The look was pathetic, but the husband had seen it so often that it had lost its power to move him. And if you don't give any more thought to the poor children when I'm gone than you do now, they won't be very long a burden upon you, for with their weekly constitutions they need all a father's care. They need a father's purse, my girl, and mine's empty, answered Green, putting away his pipe and rising to depart. He settled his collar and arranged his hair before the shabby little glass over the mantelpiece, and then feeling that he'd not been quite so kind as he might have been to the weak piece of humanity which he had wedded, he bent down and gave his wife a gentle pat on the shoulder with one hand, while he offered the forefinger of the other to his baby, who clutched at it convulsively and examined it with a frowning intentness as if the paternal finger were a natural curiosity seen for the first time. Cheer up, old girl, said Green. A creaking door always hangs longest on its hinges. You'll go on creaking for many a year to come, I'll be bound. I don't think so, Charlie. My chest's awfully bad and the pain in my side gets worse every day. Oh, it's all on account of these villainous east winds. You'll pick up directly there's a change in the weather. Ta-ta! Where are you going, Churchill, in such a hurry? To the station. There's a concert at Blackford this evening and a new contralto I've set my heart on hearing. I shall go third class, three Bob there and back, and I shall be home before one in the morning. Oh, don't sit up for me, Lucy. But just have a bit of something hot on the kitchen hob, as per usual. He was gone before she could remonstrate. She sat rocking the baby on her knees while a few slow tears rolled down her wasted cheeks. Three shillings for railway fare and something for his tea at Blackford, even if he gets into the concert hall for nothing, she murmured dolefully. Five shillings would buy Matty a pair of boots and the poor child's feet are on the ground. Oh, God help me. I was so proud of Churchill's musical genius when I married him. And now I hate the name of concerts and organs and oratorios and a whole lot of it. The bell hanging on the shop door gave a jingling ring and Lucy Green started up in an agitated manner, hurriedly deposited the flabby bundle of infant life in the cradle and hastened into the shop. A gentleman was standing in front of the counter looking about him thoughtfully. Did you wish to see our newest music, sir? As Mrs. Green, summoning up her most cheerful smile and trying to look like a prosperous tradesman's wife, a painfully conscious all the while of her faded gown and untidy hair which the baby had been clawing a few minutes ago. I am not a customer, madam, answered the stranger with grave politeness. I wish to have a little private conversation with you if you will allow me. I believe you are Mrs. Green. Oh, yes, sir. Well, I am known slightly to your relation, Mrs. Dolly of Holbrooke Farm. Oh, indeed, sir. Oh, then I'm sure you're welcome, exclaimed Lucy Brightening. Mrs. Dolly is my aunt and the best of aunts. How was she looking, sir, when you last saw her? Oh, glorious! I met her in Highclair Marketplace only a week ago and she looked blooming and hearty. Oh, dear old Highclair, said Mrs. Green regretfully. Oh, I love that place. It isn't as fashionable or as handsome a town as this, I know, but it's nearer my old home and I knew it when I was a light-hearted girl without a care. That makes the difference, you see, sir. Will you please step into the palace, sir, and make yourself at home? It's a poor place for a limited-aster-room, you see, everything being sacrificed to the shop, and with children about one can never keep a room tidy. Oh, pray don't apologize, said Morton Blake. I dare say you would rather have disorder with the children than order without them. Yes, indeed, sir, I should be sorry to lose one, though it's a wearing life. Her hollow cough gave emphasis to the remark, it was a life that seemed likely to wear into death before she was much older. I want to talk to you about the past when you were in service at Templewood. Oh, sir, those were the happiest days of my life. See, me know, you'd never believe what a giddy, flighty young creature I was then. But what interest can that time have to you, sir? Oh, a great deal. I'm hunting up details of family history in order to work out a law case in which I'm interested. You understand? Oh, nice, at least, sir. And, said Mrs. Green, with a puzzled look. But you must bear in mind that I have no head for business. Green's always telling me that. Morton had invented this pretext as he came along, feeling that it would be necessary to allege some motive for his inquiries. You were with Miss Alice Rothany before her marriage, I believe, he said. Oh, yes, sir. I was own-made to Miss Alice and her sisters. She was a sweet young lady, poor flower, cut off in her bloom and beauty. Her eyes filled with tears, and she turned away her head with a choking sob, as she felt in her pocket for her handkerchief, fumbling nervously in her agitation. You were very fond of her, I see, said Morton kindly. Fond of her? I loved her as if she'd be my own flesh and blood. She was a kind mistress to me, and I was true and faithful to her. Oh, yes, God knows I would have gone through fire and water to serve her. And was she happy in her married life? asked Morton, intensely interested. It seemed to him that he was on the right track. Mrs. Green was inclined to be communicative. The floodgates of memory were open, and all would be easy. But at this question she became suddenly on her guard. She drew herself up, and tightened her lips, and dried her tears, and became, as it were, a woman of marble. She had the best of us, Brincere, and the most devoted. Oh, but that does not always ensure happiness. She may have had a previous attachment. She may have been unhappy in her memory of a former lover. If it were so, sir, it wouldn't be my place to talk about it, especially with a stranger. I was true to my lady in life, and I wish to be true to her in death. Oh, I would not for the world assail your fidelity. But there is reason why the details of Lady Courtney's married life, and of her death, are deeply interesting to me. It is no idle curiosity that moves me. Be assured of that. It is in the cause of truth and justice that I ask these questions. Lucy Green looked at him with a scared expression, pale to the lips. You, from your association with the neighbourhood, must have been interested in the trial at High Clear last December, continued Morton. Tell me frankly now. Do you think the man who was condemned for the murder of Walter Blake was the real murderer? She never took her eyes from his face. The pale lips assumed a purple tinge. The hectic flush came and went upon the sunken cheeks. This woman is in the secret, thought Morton. What strange questions you ask, she faltered, and what could that man's guilt or innocence have to do with Lady Courtney? Oh, perhaps a great deal. Walter Blake had been Lady Courtney's suitor before her marriage. It is possible that her husband's jealousy. Oh, you have no right to say such things. You have no right to speak against the dead, exclaimed Lucy, tremulous with anger. I was true to my lady while she was alive. Do you think I'm going to be false to her now to gratify your malice? Why do you come here to rip up the secrets of the past, if there were any secrets in her life which there were not? Nobody ever slandered her while she was alive. Is she to be made light of after she's been lying in her grave twenty years? Oh, pray, do not agitate yourself, said Morton gently. I have not said a word against Lady Courtney. If Walter Blake loved her, it is a reason why I should honour her memory. But I believe that Sir Everard Courtney had a hand in Walter Blake's murder, and I believe that you could help me to discover the secret of his guilt. Sir Everard Courtney! cried Lucy with a laugh that had too hysterical a sound for genuine mirthfulness or genuine scorn. Why, he and Mr Blake were old friends, old school fellows. Mr Blake was as much at home as Fairview as Sir Everard himself. Oh, well, what if that friendship was suddenly broken, if some act or word innocent of all evil, perhaps, on the part of the wife, awakened the husband's jealousy? Oh, you're leading me on now about Sir Everard, as you led me on about Lady Courtney, but you're wasting time and trouble. I have no secret to tell, and if I had, I would not speak one word against a good master who was always kind and generous to me. Oh, yes, always generous! she repeated, lapsing from hysterical laughter to hysterical tears. He has been a good friend to me, my trouble, with four children and a husband who squanders more than he earns. What would become of me do you think if I hadn't a friend? And yet you, a stranger to me, come here and try to make me turn against him. She had risen in her agitation and had moved about the room, stooping over the cradle to arrange the baby's coverlet with a warm hand that fluttered like a withered leaf in the faint evening wind. Morton had risen, too, and had changed his place, so that he now stood with his face turned to the bright winter light streaming through a window that looked northward. Why do you distress yourself, Mrs. Green? He said, watching her intently. If there's nothing to conceal or nothing to tell, what need of this agitation? But if you are keeping the secret of a crime, bribed perhaps to be silent, you are doing a wicked act, and no good can come to you or your children from the help which is given to you as hush money. Oh, dare you tell me I take hush money? she cried, trembling in every limb and looking him straight in the face for the first time since they had shifted their position. Oh, dare you insult— She stopped suddenly with a faint shriek, and clasped her hands before her eyes as if to shut him from her sight. My God! she cried. Walter Blake's face! She sank into the nearest chair, cowering and shuddering as if she had seen a ghost. Oh, my poor Miss Alice, my poor Miss Alice! He was so good and brave and true, and loved her so dearly. Then she began to sob, big tears rolling down her wasted cheeks. Why do you come here to torment me like a spirit from the dead? She cried, you have no right to torture me like this. Yes, I have the right to use every means in my power to search out the secret of Walter Blake's murder, answered Morten Sterney, for he was my father. She rose again and came over to him and looked him in the face earnestly with pitious eyes, as if indeed he were a shadowy wanderer from the land where all things are forgotten. Yes, it is his face, she murmured. I ought to have known it from the first. I hardly saw you till just now. You sat with your back to the light, and I was so upset by what you said. My sight has grown weaker every day since I nursed my last baby. I ought to have guessed who you were at once. Your voice is like his too. Perhaps that's the reason I was so upset, for I'm a poor, nervous creature. Can you help me bring his guilt home to my father's murderer? asked Morten, waving away all her agitated protestations with a tone and a look that indicated intentness of purpose. No! What should I know of the murder? I was with my poor dying mistress all that day. I never stirred outside Fairview. I hardly left her room. And you know nothing? You can recall no suspicious circumstance? You can give me no clue? Nothing. No. No. You mean you will not? No. I say I cannot. I know nothing. Oh, why do you not believe all the world believes that the man who confessed to the crime was the man who did it? Because I have the strongest reasons for thinking otherwise. Yes, good and sufficient ground, for believing that Sir Everards was the hand that struck the blow. You must be mad, said Lucy, with her gaze still fixed on his face, as if drawn to it irresistibly by some influence of memory, love, or fear, stronger than her will. Sir Everard, a gentleman, lift his hand against his own friend. Oh, impossible! Oh, Mr. Blake, Mr. Blake, why did you come here? My poor heart, how it beats! And the blood seems seething and bubbling in my poor weak head. Why do you bring up the past? I can't bear it. I can't bear it! She flung herself back into the chair from which she had risen restlessly a minute before, and burst into passionate tears. Never had Morton seen a woman sob so bitterly, and the sight wrung his heart. Oh, my good soul, I am truly sorry, he exclaimed, laying his hand gently, almost tenderly upon her shoulder. Pray, do not distress yourself in this way. If you have no knowledge of my father's death, if you are withholding nothing from me, there can be no cause for this agitation. Yes, there can, she cried passionately. There is another cause. Oh, cannot you understand how dull you are? I knew you were father so well. I saw him so often when he came to Templewood Court and Miss Alice. Oh, my God, his face rises before me now, as if it was only yesterday that he was standing by the Harley hedge, which shut off the kitchen garden from the shrubbery, talking to me about my young mistress. He used to make a friend of me and give me messages and little notes for her, for she was hardly out with the nursery at that time, and Lady George kept her very close. It used to please Mr. Blake to talk to me about her, for I could tell him all she said about him and what he called her pretty ways. Of course it never occurred to him that any harm could come to me from all this talk. You fine gentlemen, think because we are servants, we're not flesh and blood, that we have no hearts to feel or fancies to be led astray. But though I was a lady's maid, I was a woman, and I grew to care more for him than I ought to have cared, and I was miserable about him, and took no pleasure in life except when he was near me, and my heart was gnawed with jealousy. And many a time when he has given me a letter for Miss Alice, I covered it with kisses and carried it about in my bosom for hours before I gave it to her, and I've been tempted to destroy it in my jealous pain. Yet I was true to my lady through all, and never turned against her, or wavered in my love for her. She said all this with her wasted hands spread before her wasted face, her speech broken every now and then by a stifled sob. Now she let fall her hands and looked at Morton once more. Her face crimson with shame. Why do I tell you this now that he has been in his grave twenty years? She asked. Never knows why. I've never told a creature before today. He never guessed it. I was not a bold, flirting girl like some, and I would have died rather than betray myself to him. But you are his son. It seems to me almost as if you were himself risen from the dead. And you wanted to know why I was so upset, and I told you. And there is an end to it. This was said with an air that was half weary, half defiant, the air of one who was very tired of the burden of this life, and destined very soon to cast off the burden forever. I am sorry for you with all my soul, said Morton. I honour you for having loved him, and for having so faithfully kept the secret of that love. You can better understand how I, his only son, who loved him passionately, and bent upon avenging his death. This renewed her tears. Don't talk to me about his death, she pleaded. I can't bear it. He stood looking down at her thoughtfully for some minutes, while she sat struggling with her tears, and wiping them off her worn cheeks, sorely inclined to be hysterical, but conquering her agitation heroically. He felt profound pity for her weakness, physical and mental. He saw such signs of disease in her pallid face and shrunken form, as could but move him to compassion. Yet he felt that weak as she was, she had got the better of him, conquering his strength of will by her very weakness. He felt assured that she had some knowledge of circumstances bearing on his father's death, and that she was willfully keeping that knowledge from him. Throughout the interview there had been a remorseful consciousness of wrongdoing in her manner. It was not grief for the dead alone, which drew from her such passionate tokens of distress. There was guilt as well. You seemed to be in a weak state of health, he said kindly, when she had grown calmer and had taken the baby from his cradle, as if in the hope of finding some comfort in that feeble morsel of humanity, which she pressed tenderly to her breast, bending down to kiss the flabby little face, smiling into the blue eyes that stared wonderingly at her. Yes, I have had a hacking cough ever since last September, and I have been very low. Poor mother died in a decline, and my eldest sister went off last year just in the same way. And I suppose it will be my turn next. I shouldn't much mind if it wasn't for these poor children, but it's hard to leave them. Churchill means well, poor fellow, but he's wrapped up in music and singing and such like. He'll go twenty miles to hear a new church organ, or a new singer. He can't take care of the children as I do. Oh, please, God, you may be spared for some years yet. You seem to have rather a hard life here, the shop to mind. Oh, Churchill is at home sometimes, answered the wife with the deprecating air, but I do mind the shop mostly. And the children to take care of. Yes, it's a hard life to anyone that's out of health, assented Lucy with a sigh. Well, don't you think if you were to come into the fresh country air among fields and woods, and have a comfortable cottage to live in, and a nice little servant to look after the children and wait upon you, you might get better. Oh, Lord, sir, you might as well ask me if I thought I should get better in paradise. Oh, of course I should, but it's impossible. Not at all. If you like to come to Tangley, I'll give you one of the cottages on my estate with a nice bit of garden, and I'll find an honest girl to nurse you and your children. And my aunt, who is about the best woman in the world, will take care that you want for nothing till you get well and strong and are able to come back to your husband. Oh, sir, she said, clasping her hands rapturously. Oh, how generous and noble you are! Oh, yes, you are indeed his son, like him who was the kindest of men. Let it be a settled thing, then. I will have some furniture put into a cottage tomorrow. We have always plenty of chairs and tables and old bedsteads in the lumber-room at the manor, and I'll get my aunt to arrange everything. All you have to do is to get your husband's consent to your leaving him to take care of himself for a month or two. I don't think he'll much mind, sir, answered Lucy. He's often said he would like to give me a change of air if he could afford it. And it worries him, poor fellow, to hear my cough, and know he can do nothing towards curing it. He's grumbled at my aunt, dolly, because she hasn't asked me to go and stay at the farm. But then you see, sir, my aunt has her husband to study, and sick people are a bad company. And even if she were to invite me to the farm, she wouldn't have the children, and I should have to be parted from them, poor innocence. You will be happier with your children round you, I am sure. Here's a trifle for the expenses of the journey. He slipped a five-pound note into her hand. I'll write to you tomorrow to say how soon the cottage can be ready, and you can settle everything with Mr. Green in the meantime. Oh, sir, I don't know how to thank you. You're too good. Oh, you're like your father, and I can't say more than that. I don't want any thanks. Goodbye, until I see you at Tangley. And with this brief leave taking, Morton took up his hat and departed. There had been no thought of self-interest in his kindness to Lucy. His heart had been touched by her distress, and still more so by the deep feeling she had shown in reference to his father. But after he had left her and was on his way home, it occurred to him that whatever knowledge she had withheld from him to-day as a stranger, she might possibly impart at some future time when she had learnt to regard him as her benefactor and friend. Jane Barnard went back to High Clear, sorely depressed by the failure of her mission. Her chief hope had been in the council who had defended her father, and whose defence had hinted at a knowledge of suspicious facts bearing on the murder. To find him as ignorant as herself was a sore disappointment. Her next endeavour must be to discover whether Shaft O. Jeb, who had furnished the hint on which Mr. Tomplin had framed his cross-examination of Sir Everett Courtney, knew any more than he had pretended to know that evening in the coffee-room at the peacock. A man of that kind might know a good deal, and in his self-importance hint at secrets which he dared not betray, lest in so doing he should hazard his professional position. Or he might know nothing, and from sheer boastfulness pretend to the possession of some terrible secret. There was an old Dr. Jeb at Osthorpe that poor mother used to go to for medicine, reflected Jane. l wonder whether this one is his son. l might go and see him about the pain in my shoulder. She went to bed that night in very low spirits. This business of clearing her father's name, which she had undertaken with so much energy and determination, began to seem hopeless. The poor old father was lying in Portland prison, a condemned murderer. Pentonville and Milbank had both been full at the time of his respite, so he had been drafted straight to Portland. The mystery of Walter Blake's death was explained to the satisfaction of everybody. How was she, a friendless woman, to induce the world to reverse the sentence that had been passed upon a self-accused criminal? And now, being an economical little woman, Mrs. Barnard began to worry herself about the money she was wasting upon this seemingly hopeless enterprise. She had spent thirty pounds already out of the fifty, which her husband had given her when she left home. She had crossed in a Cunard steamer in the hope of being in time for the trial, but she had insisted, much against her husband's wish, on coming as a second-class passenger. It'll be comfortable enough for me, she said, when he remonstrated with her. l don't mind roughing it. l came over in an emigrant ship, you know, dear, and was seven weeks on the sea. What should l do among a lot of simpering saloon passengers, thinking of nothing but eating and drinking and dressing? l'd rather be among homely people who have got their troubles and are obliged to be careful of their money. The same desire to spare her husband's purse had influenced Mrs. Barnard in her choice of the second-floor bedroom over a tobacconist in one of the narrowest streets in Highclair. For this attic chamber, which was neat and clean and airy, she gave the large sum of four shillings a week, in which rent was included the right to boil her kettle or cook a chop or a steak or a rasher on the kitchen fire. She lived as such unselfish women can live, on tea and bread and butter, with such inexpensive relishes or substitutes for dinner as her fancy suggested. At this rate of expenditure the twenty pounds in hand would last a long time. Yet Jane Barnard had an uneasy sense of wasting her husband's hardly-earned money, and she had already asked her landlady to try to get her some plain needlework to do. Disheartened as she was by the result of her journey to London, she wrote to her husband in a hopeful strain, lest he too should lose heart and insist on her immediate return. He had been opposed to her coming, and it had been only her intense desire that had prevailed over his dislike to the journey. To own herself baffled and beaten would be too painful to Jane Barnard's proud spirit. For this little woman, who had been reared and educated in a work-house, and had graduated in the rough school of domestic service, was gifted with an indomitable spirit, and a mind not to be ruled by time or space. About a week after her interview with Mr. Tomplin, she walked over to Osthorpe one mile's grey afternoon, passing with a shudder by the Pollard Oak and Blatchmarden Cops. Osthorpe looked the quietest place in the universe on this winter afternoon. The south-west wind had breathed across the frosty fields, and melted the snow of last week, save here and there where it lay white under a hedge, or on a northward-facing bank. The scattered cottages, set far apart on the wide high road leading to nowhere, stood out sharply against the sunless afternoon sky. The old church stood afar off among its tombstones, surrounded with level meadows where the cattle grazed complacently, unconscious of any ecclesiastical influence. Before inquiring for Mr. Jeb's surgery, Mrs. Barnard went to look at Fairview, the one important house in the village. The lodge gate was shut, so she walked along the path by the park pailing which bounded the grounds, to get a glimpse at the mansion as she best might. It was so shut in by a fine belt of timber, that she had to walk a good way before she came to the point at which the house was visible from the road. Then, looking at the old Tudor mansion through a break in the trees, Jane Barnard saw all the windows closely shuttered, as if the house were empty. The sight moved her curiously. Did it mean absence or death? She was so eager to know this, that she ran back to the lodge entrance as fast as her feet could carry her. She rang the bell, and was answered after an interval of some minutes by a lodgekeeper, who looked indignant at being disturbed in his afternoon nap. Are the family away? she asked. Yes, you ought to know that by the look of the place, and not come startling folks pulling that their bell light mad. What do you want? I wish to see Sir Everard Courtney. Well, you're just three days too late. Sir Everard and Miss Courtney left three days ago for the south of France, and maybe they're going to old years. Wasn't it very sudden? Well, it was sudden, if you must need to know. Sir Everard went away for his health. Our winter's too cold for him. Perhaps you'd better go up to the house and state your business to the housekeeper, and she'll let Sir Everard know about it when she sends him his letters, if it's anythin' particular. No, it's not very particular. I'll wait till he comes home. Does he go abroad every winter? Well, he has been away travelling of an autumn pretty often, but this is the first winter he's gone abroad. Oh, good afternoon, said Jane, whereupon the man stared at her through the rails of the gate, gave her a surly nod, and went back to finish his nap. This looks like running away, thought Mrs Barnard. Why should he go abroad this winter above every other winter? I wonder whether it was Mr Cheb who recommended him to go on account of his health. She now set herself to discover the village surgeons abode. It was in a lane that ran at right angles with the broad village street, not far from the three sugar loaves, and within the shadow of school, house, and church. It was not a bad old house, but it had been sawn in neglected for the last half-century. In its palmy days it had been the habitation of a prosperous farmer, but with the advancement of enlightenment the farmer had taken it into his head that the old homestead was not good enough for him, and had built himself a lordly dwelling-house in a better situation, whereupon the homestead had been rented by old Dr Cheb, and from that time forward had sunk gradually to decay. All that Dr Cheb's profession had ever done for him had been to feed and clothe himself and his numerous offsprings, until those fledgings were old enough to be flung out of the family nest and pick up their own subsistence in the highways and byways of life. On the death of the original Cheb, who without having taken the superior degree had always been called Doctor, his practice had descended to his elder son together with the household furniture and the pestles, mortars, and gallipots in the surgery, and on the strength of this inheritance the jovial shaftow had married, and filled the shabby, worn-out old house with a progeny as numerous as the previous generation which had occupied it. He was a man who took life lightly, and though Mrs Cheb had aspirations after better things, in the shape of paint and paper, curtains and carpets, the surgeon opined that what had been good enough for his father and mother was good enough for him, a comforting doctrine to a man who never had any spare cash wherewith to improve and embellish his surroundings. It's very dreadful, sighed poor Mrs Cheb, the rain comes in through the nursery ceiling to such an extent that I expect to get up some morning and find those poor children drowned in their beds. I always have to put an umbrella up over Percy's crib in stormy weather, and as for the stable, the roof is in such a weak state that I do believe it will tumble down and bury the grey mare some day while you're out of the way. The stable does want a little repair, certainly, said shaftow, who was more careful of the mare than of his children. He expected them to grow and thrive as he had grown and thriven, like the birds of the air. The house had a certain air of homely comfort in spite of its shabbiness and dilapidation. The Jebs lived on the fat of the land, and kept good fires, and were altogether inclined to take life pleasantly. They were hospitable to a ridiculous degree, in the idea of their less liberal neighbours, the Uppams, for instance, who entertained their friends with a formal dinner two or three times a year, and never gave meat or drink to anybody between wiles. Mrs Cheb was a meek motherly woman, who was always cooking when she was not mending, and who considered shaftow one of the greatest men of his age, on an intellectual level with Gladstone and Disraeli. Only fate had hindered his coming to the front. She was too meek of spirit to give utterance to this opinion, to any one except her own children, but to them she asserted the fact dogmatically. If your father had only had an opening, he would have been Prime Minister before now, she told them. And meek, as Mrs Cheb was, she was frequently involved in difficulties and discordances with her servants. She could only afford to keep two, and there was a great deal of work to be done by these two. Perhaps that difficulty might have been got over, if Mrs Cheb had not helped them. Her assistance turned the scale, and made war where peace might have been. It is a fact in domestic history that servants never stay long in a house where the mistress helps in the work. Essayists of the male sex may write fiercely against the fashionable lady who reads a novel, when she might be washing the breakfast things, or who gads about to afternoon tea-drinkings when she should be helping to cook the dinner. The fact remains that the only households of whose machinery the wheels go round smoothly are the houses in which the mistress interferes in no overt manner with the duties of her servants. Mrs Cheb helped the domestics from morning till night, and in so doing she was continually behind the scenes, and saw a great many things which it would have been better for her to have left unseen, and deprived her servants of those stray scraps of liberty and leisure which would have sweetened toil and bondage. The hour loitered away at the shifted dinner with such comfortable gossip and idle laughter as make the best sauce to cold mutton. The half hour at tea, with elbows on table, and saucer balanced on outspread hand, the friendly dropping in of a sister or cousin, the love-letter written before supper. Mrs Cheb's servants found no such leisure moments or unobserved pleasures in their lives, and after two or three months drudgery they discovered that the work was too heavy for them, and gave their mistress warning, at which Mrs Cheb, although she was accustomed to the calamity, usually shed tears, and declared that she couldn't have believed that this last Anne or Jane or Mary would have turned out as ungrateful as the rest. The fact is, you're too kind to them, said Shafto. You pamper and pet them till they don't know what they're doing. It was only last summer I saw them eating cold salmon. It was only the tail and the fins, Shafto. I made salmon cutlets of all the fish that was left for your breakfast. And very good those cutlets are, said the surgeon. I think you fry fish better and better every day. Oh, I take a pleasure in it, answered Mrs Cheb, with my old delight at her husband's compliment. On this January afternoon, when Jane Barnard came to the homestead, Mrs Cheb was in her usual difficulty. Sarah, her nurse and confidential servant, had given warning, and the warning was to expire in a few days, yet Mrs Cheb had found no substitute for the deserter. Don't throw out your dirty water before your shore of clean, said Shafto, who was fond of proverbs and aphorisms. But the dirty water had a will of its own, and had made up its mind to go, and there was no clean water forthcoming. Emily Cheb had shed some furtive tears this afternoon, while she busied herself with the composition of a curry, a dish which her husband loved. He had his own views and theories as to the concoction of this savory meat. He made his own curry powder, and believed that he had discovered a mixture superior to anything that had ever been achieved by the Rajas of India. Mrs Barnard knocked modestly at the surgery door, feeling that she had no right to approach the parish surgeon in his domestic character. But Mr Cheb was miles away on his afternoon round, and the door was opened by his eldest daughter, a tall slip of a girl in very short petticoats, who had been lying on the surgery rug, reading Robinson Crusoe. Pa's not at home, she said curtly. Ma is, if you want to see her. You haven't come about the nurse's place, have you? Oh, no, Miss. I wanted to consult your father about my health. Pa will be home to his dinner at six. We have tea, and Pa has dinner, interjected Miss Cheb, who was of a communicative temper, and had an abrupt and somewhat breathless way of speaking. I thought he might have come after the nurse's situation. Mrs Barnard looked thoughtful. She saw a possible opportunity in this suggestion. Is Mrs Cheb in want of a nurse? She asked. Oh, yes, we want one dreadfully, answered the eager girl with youthful candour. Sally has behaved most ungratefully. We liked her so much, you know, and we were very good with her, except Ethy. Ethy has a bad temper, you know. She has broken chilled brains, and Ma says that's the reason. And Sally gave Ma a warning one day, all of a sudden, and she's going the day after tomorrow, and I shall have to nurse the baby and keep all the others quiet till we get a new nurse, and I hate the thought of it. Perhaps you know of someone who might suit Ma, speculated the damsel, staring at Mrs Barnard with big round eyes. I think I do know of someone who might suit, for a short time at any rate. Could I see your Mama? Ma's busy in the kitchen, and I know she's doing something very particular, answered Florence Jeb, to whose mind her father's dinner was among the leading facts in life. But I think she'd see you. Please come into the breakfast room. The damsel left Robinson Crusoe, sprawling wide open on the hearth rug, in company with a lively kitten and a disabled doll, and led the way up a little stair into the breakfast room. It was breakfast room, dinner, tea, and supper room, too, and smelled strongly of meals. But there was a cheery fire in the old fashioned grate. There was a bright little copper kettle singing on the hob. There was a roomy, luxurious, easy chair beside the fire, ready for the surgeon whose slippers lay in a snug corner close by. Altogether the room, shabby as it was, had a comfortable look, and even the sleek tabby cat stretched before the fire suggested the placidese of home. Here Mrs Barnard waited while Miss Jeb went in quest of her mother. If I were to take the nurse's place for a month or so, it would save me bored and lodging. And I should be likely to hear all that Mr Jeb had to tell, Jane said to herself, oh, and asked a hard work. I don't mind that a bit. Mrs Jeb came in, flushed with the heat of the fire and the anxiety of a true artist. My daughter tells me you know of a nurse who might suit me, she said. Yes, madam, I thought if you wouldn't mind taking a person for a short time while you're looking about you, as one may say, I should be very glad of the situation myself, but I could hardly stay more than a month or six weeks. I came over from America on business, and I shall have to go back to my house and family in about that time. Hmm, you seem a very respectable person, and, well, yes, hesitated Mrs Jeb, who, being of a procrastinating temper, had delayed looking for a new nurse till the old one was on the eve of departure, and now knew not where to find one. Yes, I think perhaps we might manage. It would be a convenience for a time, and I should be able to suit myself better if I had leisure to look about me. Are you an American? Oh, no, ma'am. I went out to America when I was nineteen and settled there. Does your husband approve of your being away from him? Oh, yes, ma'am. Oh, at least he doesn't mind it, knowing that I had important business in England. My business is not finished yet, or I should go back to him. I might have to ask for a day, perhaps, once or twice, while I was in your service. Oh, you could have that, of course. I'm always glad to oblige my servants if they're obliging to me. You understand children, I suppose? I was nurse-made before I was fifteen, ma'am, and I have brought up my own dear children. Various questions followed as to whether the applicant could do plain needlework, a little dress-making now and then, trim the children's bonnets, and was willing to make herself generally useful and so on. I can turn my hand to pretty well anything, ma'am, from trimming a bonnet to cooking a dinner, but I must tell you that I can't offer any reference, unless it is to the person in whose house I have lodged three weeks, and that's not a long character. I'm quite a stranger in England. You look very respectable, said Mrs. Jeb meditatively. I don't think I should mind running the risk, but Mr. Jeb mustn't know it. He's so very particular. It is always well to hold up one member of the family as an embodied code of law, severe as that of the mead and persian. Shafto Jeb was one of the easiest of men, save in matters of meat and drink, but Mrs. Jeb had a diplomatic way of talking of him, as if he were a tyrant of unappeasable ferocity. So it was settled that Mrs. Barnard should come to the homestead with bag and baggage next evening, by which time Sarah, the deserter, would have gone forth to seek her fortune elsewhere, and the nursery would have been scrubbed and dusted in honour of the newcomer. I hope you'll take to the children, said Mrs. Jeb. They're rather self-willed, but they have warm, loving hearts. I'm not afraid, ma'am. I can always get on with children. You haven't told me your name. Barnard, ma'am. Jane Barnard. Mrs. Barnard went back to Highclear, well pleased with her afternoon's work. To live at Osthorpe in domestic service, unobserved, unsuspected, as an unemployed stranger might be, would give her excellent opportunities of finding out much that she wanted to know. If there were any dark secret in the past life of Sir Everud Courtney, she would be likely to get some inkling of it here, where his life had been spent, where he was the one important person in the place, and must needs have been always the object of closer scrutiny. Tangly, too, was very near, and she would be able to know what course Morton Blake was taking. Then again the idea of spending a few weeks near the place of her birth was pleasant to her, anxious as she was to accomplish her mission and to go back to her husband and children. Thus it was with a cheerful spirit that she took up her abode in Mr. Jeb's household. She found the habits of the surgeon's family peculiarly favourable to her object. The general usefulness to which she had pledged herself included waiting at table while Mr. Jeb dined, and as the jovial surgeon was loquacious with his meals, and was one of those reckless blustering talkers who rarely paused to consider what he'd the listeners may be taking of their talk, Jane Barnard was in a fair way to hear his real opinion upon all subjects. It was Mr. Jeb's custom to dine surrounded by his olive branches, every one of whom, down to the cantankerous baby, he honestly loved. But this family gathering did not prevent the breadwinner dining daintyly and on exclusive fare. His little dinner was distinct and separate from the general meal. Wife and children dined at one o'clock, and for them the evening banquet was a compromise between tea and supper. Mrs. Jeb managed the tea-tree at one end of the table, while the other end was neatly set forth with Mr. Jeb's particular bottled ale, his plate of soup, his little bit of fish, his curry or bird or sweetbread to follow. He was a man who boasted that he wanted very little, and who frankly owned that he required that little to be of the best quality. Mrs. Jeb had made it the study of her life to satisfy her lord, and she had no haunting idea that her existence had been wasted because its chief occupation had been in the kitchen. The children made their evening meal of such savory odds and ends as a careful housekeeper could afford to give them, eeked out by bread and jam, a homely plum-cake of satisfying solidity, watercresses or the occasional shrimp. Sort of a day have you had, Shaftow? asked Mrs. Jeb one February evening, when her lord had approved her last intellectual effort, in the shape of a filleted soul with mushroom sauce. Oh, so-so! Sanathaniel sent for me this morning. The election has put him off his feed. Too much excitement for an old one like him. Oh, there's plenty of pace in the old fellow yet. I gave him a ball, and threw him out of work for a day or two. Shaftow had a way of speaking of his patience, as if they were horses, to which his wife and family were accustomed. No talk of Sir Everad and Miss Courtney's return, I suppose, said Mrs. Jeb. Not likely. If he went abroad for his health, he ought not to come back till May. If he went for his health? Why, of course, that was the reason he went, wasn't it, asked Mrs. Jeb, a curiosity aroused by that significant if. Well, I don't know. One can't always get at a man's real meaning. The whole thing was so sudden. I never heard Sir Everad complain. He seemed dull and out of spirit some time, and was fonder of sitting by the fire in his library, pouring over stupid old books than a healthy middle-aged man ought to be. But I never knew there was anything amiss with him, and yet I'm supposed to be the family doctor. And one fine morning he rushes up to London, sees a physician, and comes home and says he's been ordered to the south of Europe, algeas even, on account of his lungs. I call it an insult to his local advisor to act in such a way. But there's more behind it all than any body knows. Oh, what can there be? asked Mrs. Jeb, leaning over her tea-tray and looking intently at her husband, as he coquetted with the last morsel of his sweet bread, and mopped up the gravy with a bit of bread. My dear, I'm not going to talk, said Mr. Jeb, and then for once in a way he appeared to be conscious that the youthful mind is not a stranger to curiosity, for he glanced at the clustering heads of his household gathered about a dish of winkles, and murmured, Little pictures, you know, my dear. The nurse was standing at the sideboard cutting bread and butter, and of her presence neither Mr. Jeb nor his wife took any heed. As a stranger from the other side of the Atlantic, she could have no possible interest in local gossip. Tell me by and by, dear, said Mrs. Jeb meekly. Whenever Shaftow said he was not going to talk, it was a sure sign that he was longing to impart his ideas to a sympathetic mind. Mrs. Jeb occupied herself in filling the cups which her children thrust into the tea-tray, each clamorous to have his or her claim allowed. I've only had one cup mar, remonstrated Florence. Perseus had two, and I believe Algiers had three. That's another of Flo's crumpers, cried Algernon, with his mouth full, and his chin anointed with jam, like her classical comedians smeared with the leaves of wine. What do you expect will happen to you if you tell such out-and-outters as that? If I stuff myself with strawberry jam on the top of wrinkles to the extent you do, I should expect to have a fit, retorted Florence. Jane Barnard laid a soothing hand on Flo's sharp shoulder, and offered her a tempting crust from the new loaf. You're disturbing your pa and ma, dear, she whispered. I'll take care you get a good cup of tea. Mrs. Barnard had been at the homestead three weeks, and had already acquired a great influence over the children, who were not altogether bad children, although they had been dragged up anyhow, and were scampish in their ideas and behaviour. I'll tell you what, volunteered Mr. Jeb, leaning back in his chair and picking his teeth in a leisurely manner, as if it were the next best thing to dining. I don't mind going so far as to say that a certain marriage will never come off. What marriage? Oh, how dull you are, Emily! M. B. and D. C., of course. What? Dulcy? Dulcy, not Mary Morton, cried Mrs. Jeb. Oh, why, it would break both of their hearts. I've seen them together, times and often, you know, Shafto, for she always asked me to tea when I call upon her, and she always returns my call. And though it's a great effort to put on one's best gown and bonnet, and go out like a lady to pay a visit, I like to do it now and then, because it reminds me that I am a lady. However, I'm a slave at the housework. I call it fiddle-faddle, interjected the surgeon contemptuously. If you go out, you should go for a good country-walk. That would freshen you up a bit. Oh, not half so much as a nice cup of tea, and a little friendly talk in Miss Caughton's pretty morning-room. Everything is so elegant there. The books, the china, and the furniture, I feel as if I were in a new world. Oh, and oh, Shafto, I'm sure they adore each other. And if the marriage were to be broken off, I believe it would be the death of her. Men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love. A quoted Shafto, who had picked up a score or so of Shakespearean source from other people, and passed for a Shakespearean scholar, without ever having read so much as a single scene in a single play. I should be very sorry if the young lady were to fret. I vaccinated her, and I've attended her ever since Sir Everett brought her back to Fairview. Measles, Scarletina, chickenpox, whooping cough, I brought her through them all beautifully. So you can't suppose I'm not interested in her welfare. Still, I say that marriage will never come off. There's an antagonism between the two men, Sir E. and M.B. They may smother it for a time, but sooner or later it will break out in a big blaze, like a fire that's been ever so long smoldering. I saw M's face the day at the trial. Saw him watch Sir E. while the prisoner's counsel was cross-examining him. And there was Miss Jeef in it. Yes, Mrs. Jeb, there was Miss Jeef. That marriage will never come off. Or if it does, there'll be misery for somebody. I've seen what domestic misery means. Silent. Secret. A beautiful home. Every luxury that wealth can buy. A position in the county. Youth. Beauty. Pride of race. But the trail of the serpent was over it all. That's where it is, Mrs. Jeb. The trail was there. The slimy, silvery track that showed where the snake had been. The cook. An unusual apparition in that room. Burst suddenly in. Breathless, her cap half blown off her head. Oh, please, sir, you're to go to Tangly Manor directly in it. Mr. Blake's took ill, and the ladies think it's brain fever. Didn't I say so? exclaimed Mr. Jeb, looking at his wife with an air of gloomy triumph, as he put his toothpick in his pocket and rose to go. And although he had said nothing of the kind, Mrs. Jeb looked upon him as a prophet. End of Chapter 28