 CHAPTER 62 Lady Rowley makes an attempt. Nothing could be more uncomfortable than the state of Sir Marmaduke Rowley's family for the first ten days after the arrival in London of the Governor of the Mandarin Islands. Lady Rowley had brought with her two of her girls, the third and fourth, and as we know had been joined by the two eldest, so that there was a large family of ladies gathered together. A house had been taken in Manchester Street, to which they had intended to transfer themselves after a single night passed at Gregg's Hotel, but the trouble and sorrow inflicted upon them by the abduction of Mrs. Trevelyan's child, and the consequent labours thrust upon Sir Marmaduke's shoulders, had been so heavy that they had slept six nights at the hotel before they were able to move themselves into the house prepared for them. By that time all idea had been abandoned of recovering the child by any legal means to be taken as a consequence of the illegality of the abduction. The boy was with his father, and the lawyers seemed to think that the father's rights were paramount, as he had offered a home to his wife without any conditions which a court of law would adjudge to be cruel. If she could show that he had driven her to live apart from him by his own bad conduct, then probably the custody of her boy might be awarded to her until the child should be seven years old. But when the circumstances of the case were explained to Sir Marmaduke's lawyer by Lady Rowley, that gentleman shook his head. Mrs. Trevelyan had, he said, no case with which she could go into court. Then by degrees there were words whispered as to the husband's madness. The lawyer said that that was a matter for the doctors. If a certain amount of medical evidence could be obtained to show that the husband was in truth mad, the wife could no doubt obtain the custody of the child. When this was reported to Mrs. Trevelyan, she declared that conduct such as her husband's must suffice to prove any man to be mad. But at this Sir Marmaduke shook his head, and Lady Rowley sat, sadly silent, with her daughter's hand within her own. They would not dare to tell her that she could regain her child by that plea. During those ten days they did not learn whether the boy had been carried, nor did they know even where the father might be found. Sir Marmaduke followed up the address as given in the letter, and learned from the porter at the acrobats that the gentleman's letters were sent to number fifty-five, Stony Walk, Union Street, Borough. To this uncomfortable locality Sir Marmaduke traveled more than once. Thrice, he went thither, intent on finding his son-in-law's residence. On the two first occasions he saw no one but Mrs. Basel, and the discretion of that lady in declining to give any information was most admirable. Trevelyan? Yes, she had heard the name certainly. It might be that her husband had business engagements with a gent of that name. She would not say even that for certain, as it was not her custom ever to make any inquiries as to her husband's business engagements. Her husband's business engagements were, she said, much too important for the likes of she to know anything about them. When was Basel likely to be at home? Basel was never likely to be at home. According to her showing, Basel was of all husbands the most erratic. He might perhaps come in for an hour or two in the middle of the day on a Wednesday, or perhaps would take a cup of tea at home on Friday evening. But anything so fitful and uncertain as were Basel's appearances in the bosom of his family was not to be conceived in the mind of woman. Sir Marmaduke then called in the middle of the day on Wednesday, but Basel was reported to be away in the provinces. His wife had no idea in which of the provinces he was at that moment engaged. The persevering governor from the islands called again on the Friday evening. And then, by chance, Basel was found at home. But Sir Marmaduke succeeded in gaining very little information even from Basel. The man acknowledged that he was employed by Mr. Trevelyan. Any letter or parcel left with him for Mr. Trevelyan should be duly sent to that gentleman. If Sir Marmaduke wanted Mr. Trevelyan's address, he could write to Mr. Trevelyan and ask for it. If Mr. Trevelyan declined to give it, was it likely that he, Basel, should betray it? Sir Marmaduke explained who he was at some length. Basel, with a smile, assured the governor that he knew very well who he was. He let drop a few words to show that he was intimately acquainted with the whole course of Sir Marmaduke's family affairs. He knew all about the mandarins and Colonel Osborne and Greg's Hotel, not that he said anything about Parker's Hotel, and the Colonial Office. He spoke of Miss Nora and even knew the names of the other two young ladies, Miss Sophia and Miss Lucy. It was a weakness with Basel, that of displaying his information. He would have much liked to be able to startle Sir Marmaduke by describing the government house in the island, or by telling him something of his old carriage-horses. But if such information as Sir Marmaduke desired, Sir Marmaduke got none. And there were other troubles which fell very heavily upon the poor governor, who had come home as it were for a holiday, and who was a man hating work naturally, and who, from the circumstances of his life, had never been called on to do much work. A man may govern the mandarins and yet live in comparative idleness. To do such governing work well, a man should have a good presence, a flow of words which should mean nothing, an excellent temper, and a love of hospitality. With these attributes Sir Rowley was endowed. For though his disposition was by nature hot, for governing purposes it had been brought by practice under good control. He had now been summoned home through the machinations of his dangerous old friend Colonel Osbourne in order that he might give the results of his experience in governing before a committee of the House of Commons. In coming to England on this business he had thought much more of his holiday, of his wife and children, of his daughters at home, of his allowance per day while he was to be away from his government, and of his salary to be paid to him entire during his absence, instead of being halved as it would be if he were away on leave. He had thought much more in coming home on these easy and pleasant matters than he did on the work that was to be required from him when he arrived. And then it came to pass that he felt himself almost injured when the Colonial Office demanded his presence from day to day, and when clerks bothered him with questions as to which they expected ready replies, but in replying to which Sir Marmaduke was by no means ready. The working men at the Colonial Office had not quite thought that Sir Marmaduke was the most fitting man for the job in hand. There was a certain Mr. Thomas Smith at another set of islands in quite another part of the world, who was supposed by these working men at home to be a very paragon of a governor. If he had been had home—so said the working men—no committee of the house would have been able to make anything of him. They might have asked him questions week after week, and he would have answered them all fluently and would have committed nobody. He knew all the ins and outs of governing, did Mr. Thomas Smith, and was a match for the sharpest committee that ever sat at Westminster. Sir Marmaduke was a man of a very different sort, all of which was known by the working men, but the parliamentary interest had been too strong, and here was Sir Marmaduke at home. But the working men were not disposed to make matters so pleasant for Sir Marmaduke as Sir Marmaduke had expected. The committee would not examine Sir Marmaduke till after Easter, in the middle of April, but it was expected of him that he should read blue books without number, and he was so cataclyzed by the working men that he almost began to wish himself back in the mandarins. In this way the new establishment in Manchester Street was not at first in a happy or even in a contented condition. At last, after about ten days, Lady Rowley did succeed in obtaining an interview with Trevelyan. A meeting was arranged through Basel, and took place in a very dark and gloomy room at an inn in the city. Why Basel should have selected the Bremen coffee-house in Polter's alley for this meeting, no fit reason can surely be given, unless it was that he conceived himself bound to select the most dreary locality within his knowledge on so melancholy an occasion. Polter's alley is a narrow dark passage somewhere behind the mansion-house, and the Bremen coffee-house, why so-called no one can now tell, is one of those strange houses of public resort in the city at which the guests seem never to eat, never to drink, never to sleep, but to come in and out after a mysterious and almost ghostly fashion, seeing their friends, or perhaps their enemies, in nooks and corners, and carrying on their conferences in low melancholy whispers. There is an aged waiter at the Bremen coffee-house, and there is certainly one private sitting-room upstairs. It was a dingy, ill-furnished room, with an old large mahogany table, an old horsehair sofa, six horsehair chairs, two old round mirrors, and an old mahogany press in a corner. It was a chamber so sad in its appearance that no wholesome useful work could have been done within it, nor could men have eaten there with any appetite, or have drained the flowing bowl with any touch of joviality. It was generally used for such purposes as that to which it was now appropriated, and no doubt had been taken by Bosel on more than one previous occasion. Here Lady Rowley arrived precisely at the hour fixed, and was told that the gentleman was waiting upstairs for her. There had, of course, been many family consultations as to the manner in which this meeting should be arranged. Should Sir Marmaduke accompany his wife? Or perhaps should Sir Marmaduke go alone? Lady Rowley had been very much in favour of meeting Mr. Trevelyan without anyone to assist her in the conference. As for Sir Marmaduke, no meeting could be concluded between him and his son-in-law without a personal and probably a violent quarrel. Of that, Lady Rowley had been quite sure. Sir Marmaduke, since he had been home, had, in the midst of his various troubles, been driven into so vehement a state of indignation against his son-in-law as to be unable to speak of the wretched man without strongest terms of approbrium. Nothing was too bad to be said by him of one who had ill-treated his dearest daughter. It must be admitted that Sir Marmaduke had heard only one side of the question. He had questioned his daughter, and had constantly seen his old friend Osborne. The Colonel's journey down to Devonshire had been made to appear the most natural proceeding in the world. The correspondence of which Trevelyan thought so much had been shown to consist of such notes as might pass between any old gentleman and any young woman. The promise which Trevelyan had endeavored to exact, and which Mrs. Trevelyan had declined to give, appeared to the angry father to be a monstrous insult. He knew that the Colonel was an older man than himself, and his Emily was still to him only a young girl. It was incredible to him that anybody should have regarded his old comrade as his daughter's lover. He did not believe that anybody had, in truth, so regarded the man. The tale had been a monstrous invention on the part of the husband, got up because he had become tired of his young wife. According to Sir Marmaduke's way of thinking, Trevelyan should either be thrashed within an inch of his life or else locked up in a madhouse. Colonel Osborne shook his head, and expressed a conviction that the poor man was mad. But Lady Rowley was more hopeful. Though she was as confident about her daughter as was the father, she was less confident about the old friend. She probably was alive to the fact that a man of fifty might put on the heirs and assume the character of a young lover, and acting on that suspicion, entertaining also some hope that bad as matters now were they might be mended, she had taken care that Colonel Osborne and Mrs. Trevelyan should not be brought together. Sir Marmaduke had fumed, but Lady Rowley had been firm. If you think so, Mama, Mrs. Trevelyan had said, with something of scorn in her tone, of course let it be so. Lady Rowley had said that it would be better so, and the two had not seen each other since the memorable visit to Nuncomputny. And now Lady Rowley was about to meet her son-in-law, with some slight hope that she might arrange affairs. She was quite aware that present indignation, though certainly a gratification, might be indulged in at much too great a cost. It would be better for all reasons that Emily should go back to her husband and her home, and that Trevelyan should be forgiven for his iniquities. General was at the tavern during the interview, but he was not seen by Lady Rowley. He remained seated downstairs, in one of the dingy corners, ready to give assistance to his patron should assistance be needed. When Lady Rowley was shown into the gloomy sitting-room by the old waiter, she found Trevelyan alone, standing in the middle of the room and waiting for her. This is a sad occasion, he said, as he advanced to give her his hand. A very sad occasion, Louis. I do not know what you may have heard of what has occurred, Lady Rowley. It is natural, however, to suppose that you must have heard me spoken of with censure. I think my child has been ill-used, Louis, she replied. Of course you do. I could not expect that it should be otherwise. When it was arranged that I should meet you here, I was quite aware that you would have taken the side against me before you had heard my story. It is I that have been ill-used, cruelly misused. But I do not expect that you should believe me. I do not wish you to do. I would not for world separate the mother from her daughter. But why have you separated your own wife from her child? Because it was my duty. What? Is a father not to have the charge of his own son? I have done nothing, Lady Rowley, to justify a separation, which is contrary to the laws of nature. Where is the boy, Louis? Ah! That is just what I am not prepared to tell anyone who has taken my wife's side, till I know that my wife has consented to pay to me that obedience which I, as her husband, have a right to demand. If Emily will do as I request of her, as I command her, as Trevelyan said this, he spoke in a tone which was intended to give the highest possible idea of his own authority and dignity. Then she may see her child without delay. What is it you request of my daughter? Obedience, simply that, submission to my will which is surely a wife's duty, let her beg my pardon for what has occurred. She cannot do that, Louis. And solemnly promise me, continued Trevelyan, not daining to notice Lady Rowley's interruption, that she will hold no further intercourse with that snake in the grass who wormed his way into my house, let her be humble and penitent and affectionate, and then she shall be restored to her husband and child. He said this walking up and down the room and waving his hand as though he were making a speech that was intended to be eloquent, as though he had conceived that he was to overcome his mother-in-law by the weight of his words and the magnificence of his demeanor. And yet his demeanor was ridiculous, and his words would have had no weight had they not tended to show Lady Rowley how little prospect there was that she should be able to heal this breach. He himself, too, was so altered in appearance since she had last seen him. Bright with the hopes of his young married happiness, that she would hardly have recognized him had she met him in the street. He was thin and pale and haggard and mean. And as he stalked up and down the room, it seemed to her that the very character of the man was changed. She had not previously known him to be pompous, unreasonable and absurd. She did not answer him at once, as she perceived that he had not finished his address. And after a moment's pause he continued, Lady Rowley, there is nothing I would not have done for your daughter, for my wife. All that I had was hers. I did not dictate to her any mode of life. I required from her no sacrifices. I subjected her to no caprices, but I was determined to be master in my own house. I do not think, Louis, that she has ever denied your right to be master, to be master in my own house and to be paramount in my influence over her, so much I had a right to demand. Who has denied your right? She has submitted herself to the counsels and to the influences of a man who has endeavored to undermine me in her affection. In saying that I make my accusation as light against her as is possible, I might make it much heavier and yet not sin against the truth. This is an illusion, Louis. Ah, well! No doubt it becomes you to defend your child. Was it an illusion when he went to Devonshire? Was it an illusion when he corresponded with her, contrary to my express orders, both before and after that unhallowed journey? Lady Rowley, there must be no more such illusions. If my wife means to come back to me, and to have her child in her own hands, she must be penitent as regards the past, and obedient as regards the future. There was a wicked bitterness in that word penitent which almost maddened Lady Rowley. She had come to this meeting believing that Trevelyan would be rejoiced to take back his wife. If details could be arranged for his doing so, which should not subject him to the necessity of crying Pekevee, but she found him speaking of his wife as though he would be doing her the greatest possible favour in allowing her to come back to him dressed in sack cloth and with ashes on her head. She could understand from what she had heard that his tone and manner were much changed since he obtained possession of the child, and that he now conceived that he had his wife within his power. That he should become a tyrant because he had the power to tyrannize was not in accordance with her former conception of the man's character. But then he was so changed that she felt that she knew nothing of the man who now stood before her. I cannot acknowledge that my daughter has done anything that requires penitence, said Lady Rowley. I dare say not, but my view is different. She cannot admit herself to be wrong when she knows herself to be right. You would not have her confess to a fault, the very idea of which has always been abhorrent to her. She must be crushed in spirit, Lady Rowley, before she can again become a pure and happy woman. This is more than I can bear, said Lady Rowley, now at last worked up to a fever of indignation. My daughter, sir, is as pure a woman as you have ever known or are likely to know. You, who should have protected her against the world, will someday take blame to yourself as you remember that you have so cruelly maligned her. Then she walked away to the door and would not listen to the words which she was hurling after her. She went down the stairs and out of the house, and at the end of Polter's Alley found the cab which was waiting for her. Trevalian, as soon as he was alone, rang the bell and sent for Basel. And while the waiter was coming to him, and until his myrmidon had appeared, he continued to stalk up and down the room, waving his hand in the air as though he were continuing his speech. Basel, said he, as soon as the man had closed the door, I have changed my mind. As how, Mr. Trevalian? I shall make no further attempt. I have done all that man can do and have done it in vain. Her father and mother uphold her in her conduct, and she is lost to me, for ever. But the boy, Mr. T. I have my child. Yes, I have my child. Poor infant. Basel, I look to you to see that none of them learn our retreat. As for that, Mr. Trevalian, why, facts is to be come at by one party pretty well as much as by another. Now, suppose the things was changed, wicy-warcy, and as I was acting for the colonel's party. Damn the colonel, exclaimed Trevalian. Just so, Mr. Trevalian, but if I was acting for the other party, and they said to me, Basel, where's the boy? Why, in three days, I'd be down on the facts. Facts is open, Mr. Trevalian, if you knows where to look for them. I shall take him abroad at once. Think twice of it, Mr. T. The boy is so young, you see, and a mother's art is softer and lovinger than anything. I'd think twice of it, Mr. T., before I kept him apart. This was a line of thought which Mr. Basel's conscience had not forced him to entertain to the prejudice of his professional arrangements, but now as he conversed with his lawyer and by degrees aware of the failure of Trevalian's mind, some shade of remorse came upon him and made him say a word on behalf of the other party. Am I not always thinking of it? What else have they left me to think of? That will do for today. You had better come down to me tomorrow afternoon. Amel promised obedience to these instructions, and as soon as his patron had started he paid the bill and took himself home. Lady Rowley, as she travelled back to her house in Manchester Street, almost made up her mind that the separation between her daughter and her son-in-law had better be continued. It was a very sad conclusion to which to come, but she could not believe that any high-spirited woman could long continue to submit herself to the caprices of a man so unreasonable and dictatorial as he to whom she had just been listening. Were it not for the boy there would she felt be no doubt upon the matter, and now as matters stood she thought that it should be their great object to regain possession of the child. Then she endeavored to calculate what would be the result to her daughter, if in very truth it should be found that the wretched man was mad. To hope for such a result seemed to her to be very wicked, and yet she hardly knew how not to hope for it. Well, mamma, said Emily Trevelyan, with a faint attempt at a smile. You saw him? Yes, dearest, I saw him. I can only say that he is a most unreasonable man. And he would tell you nothing of Louis? No, dear, not a word. End of chapter sixty-two. Chapter sixty-three of He Knew He Was Right. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollop. Chapter sixty-three Sir Marmaduke at Home. Nora Rowley had told her lover that there was to be no further communication between them till her father and mother should be in England, but in telling him so had so frankly confessed her own affection for him, and had so sturdily promised to be true to him that no lover could have been reasonably aggrieved by such an interdiction. Nora was quite conscious of this, and was aware that Hugh Standbury had received such encouragement, as ought at any rate to bring him to the new Rowley establishment, as soon as he should learn where it had fixed itself. But when at the end of ten days he had not shown himself, she began to feel doubts. Could it be that he had changed his mind, that he was unwilling to encounter refusal from her father, or that he had found, on looking into his own affairs more closely, that it would be absurd for him to propose to take a wife to himself while his means were so poor and so precarious? Sir Marmaduke during this time had been so unhappy, so fretful, so indignant, and so much worried, that Nora herself had become almost afraid of him, and without much reasoning on the matter, had taught herself to believe that Hugh might be actuated by similar fears. She had intended to tell her mother of what had occurred between her and Standbury the first moment that she and Lady Rowley were together, but then there had fallen upon them that terrible incident of the loss of the child, and the whole family had become at once so wrapped up in the agony of the bereaved mother, and so full of rage against the unreasonable father, that there seemed to Nora to be no possible opportunity for the telling of her own love story. Emily herself appeared to have forgotten it in the midst of her own misery, and had not mentioned Hugh Standbury's name since they had been in Manchester Street. We have all felt how, on occasions, our own hopes and fears, nay almost our own individuality, become absorbed in and obliterated by the more pressing cares and louder voices of those around us. Nora hardly dared to allude to herself while her sister's grief was still so prominent, and while her father was daily complaining of his own personal annoyances at the colonial office. It seemed to her that at such a moment she could not introduce a new matter for dispute, and perhaps a new subject of dismay. Nevertheless, as the days passed by, and as she saw nothing of Hugh Standbury, her heart became sore and her spirit vexed. It seemed to her that if she were now deserted by him all the world would be over for her. The Glasscock episode in her life had passed by, that episode which might have been her history, which might have been a history so prosperous, so magnificent, and probably so happy. As she thought of herself and of circumstances as they had happened to her, of the resolutions which she had made as to her own career when she first came to London, and of the way in which she had thrown all those resolutions away in spite of the wonderful success which had come in her path, she could not refrain from thinking that she had brought herself to shipwreck by her own indecision. It must not be imagined that she regretted what she had done. She knew very well that to have acted otherwise than she did when Mr. Glasscock came to her at Nuncomputney would have proved her to be heartless, selfish, and unwomenly. Long before that time she had determined that it was her duty to marry a rich man, and if possible a man in high position. Such a one had come to her, one endowed with all the good things of the world beyond her most sanguine expectation, and she had rejected him. She knew that she had been right because she had allowed herself to love the other man. She did not repent what she had done, the circumstances being as they were, but she almost regretted that she had been so soft in heart, so susceptible of the weakness of love, so little able to do as she pleased with herself. Of what use to her was it that she loved this man with all her strength of affection when he never came to her, although the time at which he had been told that he might come was now ten days past? She was sitting one afternoon in the drawing-room, listlessly reading, or pretending to read, a novel, when, on a sudden, Hugh Stanbury was announced. The circumstances of the moment were most unfortunate for such a visit. Sir Marmaduke, who had been down at Whitehall in the morning, and from thence had made a journey to St. Diddalf's in the eastern back, was exceedingly cross and out of temper. They had told him at his office that they feared he would not suffice to carry through the purpose for which he had been brought home, and his brother-in-law, the parson, had expressed to him an opinion that he was in great part responsible for the misfortune of his daughter by the encouragement which he had given to such a man as Colonel Osbourne. Sir Marmaduke had in consequence quarreled both with the chief clerk and with Mr. Outhouse, and had come home surly and discontented. Lady Rowley and her eldest daughter were away, closeted at the moment with Lady Milbara, with whom they were endeavouring to arrange some plan by which the boy might at any rate be given back. Poor Emily Trevalian was humble enough now to Lady Milbara, was prepared to be humble to anyone, and in any circumstances, so that she should not be required to acknowledge that she had entertained Colonel Osbourne as her lover. The two younger girls, Sophie and Lucy, were in the room when Stanbury was announced, as was also Sir Marmaduke, who at that very moment was uttering angry growls at the obstinacy and want of reason with which he had been treated by Mr. Outhouse. Now Sir Marmaduke had not so much as heard the name of Hugh Stanbury as yet, and Nora, though her listlessness was all at an end, at once felt how impossible it would be to explain any of the circumstances of her case in such an interview as this. While, however, Hugh's dear steps were heard upon the stairs, her feminine mind at once went to work to ascertain in what best mode, with what most attractive reason for his presence, she might introduce the young man to her father. Had not the girls been then present, she thought that it might have been expedient to leave Hugh to tell his own story to Sir Marmaduke, but she had no opportunity of sending her sisters away, and unless chance should remove them, this could not be done. He is the son of the lady we were with at Nuncomputney, she whispered to her father as she got up to move across the room to welcome her lover. Now Sir Marmaduke had expressed great disapproval of that retreat to Dartmoor, and had only understood respecting it that it had been arranged between Trevelyan and the family in whose custody his two daughters had been sent away into banishment. He was not therefore specially disposed to welcome Hugh Stanbury in consequence of this mode of introduction. Hugh, who had asked for Lady Rowley and Mrs. Trevelyan, and had learned that they were out before he had mentioned Miss Rowley's name, was almost prepared to take his sweetheart into his arms. In that half-minute he had taught himself to expect that he would meet her alone, and had altogether forgotten Sir Marmaduke. Young men, when they call it four o'clock in the day, never expect to find papas at home, and of Sophia and Lucy he had either heard nothing or had forgotten what he had heard. He repressed himself, however, in time, and did not commit either Nora or himself by any very vehement demonstration of affection. But he did hold her hand longer than he should have done, after Sir Marmaduke saw that he did so. "'This is Papa,' said Nora. "'Papa, this is our friend, Mr. Hugh Stanbury. The introduction was made in a manner almost absurdly formal, but poor Nora's difficulties lay heavy upon her. Sir Marmaduke muttered something, but it was little more than a grunt. "'Mama and Emily are out,' continued Nora. "'I dare say they will be in soon.' Sir Marmaduke looked round sharply at the man. Why was he to be encouraged to stay till Lady Rowley should return? Lady Rowley did not want to see him. It seemed to Sir Marmaduke in the midst of his troubles that this was no time to be making new acquaintances. "'These are my sisters, Mr. Stanbury,' continued Nora. "'This is Sophia, and this is Lucy.' Sophia and Lucy would have been thoroughly willing to receive their sister's lover with genial kindness if they had been properly instructed, and if the time had been opportune. But as it was they had nothing to say. They also could only mutter some little sound intended to be more courteous than their father's grunt. Poor Nora. "'I hope you are comfortable here,' said Hugh. "'The house is all very well,' said Nora, but we don't like the neighborhood.' Hugh also felt that conversation was difficult. He had soon come to perceive, before he had been in the room half a minute, that the atmosphere was not favourable to his mission. There was to me no embracing or permission for embracing on the present occasion. Had he been left alone with Sir Marmaduke he would probably have told his business plainly, let Sir Marmaduke's manner to him have been what it might. But it was impossible for him to do this with three young ladies in the room with him. Seeing that Nora was embarrassed by her difficulties, and that Nora's father was cross and silent, he endeavored to talk to the other girls, and ask them concerning their journey and the ship in which they had come. But it was very uphill work. Lucy and Sophie could talk as glibly as any young ladies home from any colony, and no higher degree of fluency can be expressed. But now they were cowed. Their elder sister was shamefully and most undeservedly disgraced, and this man had had something they knew not what to do with it. "'Is Priscilla quite well?' Nora asked at last. "'Quite well. I heard from her yesterday. You know they have left the clock-house.' I had not heard it. Oh yes, and they are living in a small cottage just outside the village. And what else do you think has happened?' "'Nothing bad, I hope, Mr. Stanbury. My sister Dorothy has left her aunt and is living with them again at Nuncombe.' "'Has there been a quarrel, Mr. Stanbury?' "'Well, yes, after a fashion there has, I suppose. But it is a long story and would not interest Sir Marmaduke. The wonder is that Dorothy should have been able to stay so long with my aunt. I will tell it you all some day.' Sir Marmaduke could not understand why a long story about this man's aunt and sister should be told to his daughter. He forgot, as men always do in such circumstances forget, that while he was living in the Mandarin's, his daughter living in England, would of course pick up new interest and become intimate with new histories. But he did not forget that pressure of the hand which he had seen, and he determined that his daughter Nora could not have any worse lover than the friend of his elder daughter's husband. Stanbury had just determined that he must go, that there was no possibility for him either to say or do anything to promote his cause at the present moment, when the circumstances were all changed by the return home of Lady Rowley and Mrs. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley knew, and had for some days known, much more of Stanbury than had come to the ears of Sir Marmaduke. She understood in the first place that the Stanbury's had been very good to her daughter, and she was aware that Hugh Stanbury had thoroughly taken her daughter's part against his old friend Trevelyan. She would therefore have been prepared to receive him kindly, had he not on this very morning been the subject of special conversation between her and Emily. But as it had happened, Mrs. Trevelyan had this very day told Lady Rowley the whole story of Nora's love. The elder sister had not intended to be treacherous to the younger, but in the thorough confidence which mutual grief and close conference had created between the mother and daughter, everything had at last come out, and Lady Rowley had learned the story, not only of Hugh Stanbury's courtship, but of those rich offers which had been made by the heir to the barony of Peterborough. It must be acknowledged that Lady Rowley was greatly grieved and thoroughly dismayed. It was not only that Mr. Glasscock was the eldest son of a peer, but that he was represented by the poor, suffering wife of the ill-tempered man, to be a man blessed with a disposition sweet as an angel's. And she would have liked him, Emily had said, if it had not been for this unfortunate young man, Lady Rowley was not worse than our other mothers, not more ambitious or more heartless or more worldly. She was a good mother, loving her children and thoroughly anxious for their welfare. But she would have liked to be the mother-in-law of Lord Peterborough. And she would have liked dearly to see her second daughter removed from the danger of those rocks against which her eldest child had been shipwrecked. And when she asked after Hugh Stanbury and his means of maintaining a wife, the statement which Mrs. Trevelyan made was not comforting. He writes for a penny newspaper, and I believe writes very well, Mrs. Trevelyan had said. For a penny newspaper? Is that respectable? His aunt, Miss Stanbury, seemed to think not, but I suppose men of education do write for such things now. He says himself that it is very precarious as an employment. It must be precarious, Emily, and has he got nothing? Not a penny of his own, said Mrs. Trevelyan. Then Lady Rowley had thought again of Mr. Glasscock and of the family title and of Munkums. And she thought of her present troubles and of the mandarins and the state of Sir Marmaduke's balance at the bankers, and of the other girls and of all there was before her to do. Here had been a very Apollo among suitors kneeling at her child's feet, and the foolish girl had sent him away for the sake of a young man who wrote for a penny newspaper. Was it worth the while of any woman to bring up daughters with such results? Lady Rowley, therefore, when she was first introduced to Hugh Stanbury, was not prepared to receive him with open arms. On this occasion the task of introducing him fell to Mrs. Trevelyan and was done with much graciousness. Emily knew that Hugh Stanbury was her friend and would sympathize with her respecting her child. You have heard what has happened to me, she said. Stanbury, however, had heard nothing of that kidnapping of the child. In Rowley's it seemed that such a deed of iniquity, done in the middle of London, must have been known to all the world, he had not as yet been told of it. And now the story was given to him. Mrs. Trevelyan herself told it, with many tears and an agony of fresh grief, but still she told it as to one whom she regarded as a sure friend, and from whom she knew that she would receive sympathy. Sir Marmaduke sat by the while, still gloomy and out of humor. Why was there family sorrow to be laid bare to this stranger? It is the cruelest thing I ever heard, said Hugh. A dastardly deed, said Lady Rowley. But we all feel that for the time he can hardly know what he does, said Nora. And where is the child? Stanbury asked. We have not the slightest idea, said Lady Rowley. I have seen him and he refuses to tell us. He did say that my daughter should see her boy, but he now accompanies his offer with such conditions that it is impossible to listen to him. And where is he? We do not know where he lives. We can reach him only through a certain man. Ah, I know the man, said Stanbury, one who was a policeman once. His name is Basel. That is the man, said Sir Marmaduke. I have seen him. And of course he will tell us nothing but what he is told to tell us, continued Lady Rowley. Can there be anything so horrible as this, that a wife should be bound to communicate with her own husband respecting her own child through such a man as that? Man might possibly find out where he keeps the child, said Hugh. If you could manage that, Mr. Stanbury, said Lady Rowley. I hardly see that it would do much good, said Hugh. Indeed I do not know why he should keep the place a secret. I suppose he has a right to the boy until the mother shall have made good her claim before the court. He promised, however, that he would do his best to ascertain where the child was kept and where Trevelyan resided, and then, having been nearly an hour at the house, he was forced to get up and take his leave. He had said not a word to any one of the business that had brought him there. He had not even whispered an assurance of his affection to Nora. Till the two elder ladies had come in, and the subject of the taking of the boy had been mooted, he had sat there as a perfect stranger. He thought that it was manifest enough that Nora had told her secret to no one. It seemed to him that Mrs. Trevelyan must have forgotten it, that Nora herself must have forgotten it, if such forgetting could be possible. He got up, however, and took his leave, and was comforted in some slight degree by seeing that there was a tear in Nora's eye. Who is he? demanded Sir Marmaduke as soon as the door was closed. He is a young man who was an intimate friend of Lewis's, answered Mrs. Trevelyan, but he is so no longer, because he sees how infatuated Lewis has been. And why does he come here? We know him very well, continued Mrs. Trevelyan. It was he that arranged our journey down to Devonshire. He was very kind about it, and so were his mother and sister. We have every reason to be grateful to Mr. Stanbury. This was all very well, but Nora nevertheless felt that the interview had been anything but successful. Has he any profession? asked Sir Marmaduke. He writes for the press, said Mrs. Trevelyan. What you mean, books? No, for a newspaper. For a penny newspaper, said Nora boldly, for the daily record. Then I hope he won't come here any more, said Sir Marmaduke. Nora paused a moment, striving to find words for some speech which might be true to her love and yet not unseemly, but finding no such words ready she got up from her seat and walked out of the room. What is the meaning of it all? asked Sir Marmaduke. There was silence for a while, and then he repeated his question in another form. Is there any reason for his coming here, about Nora? I think he is attached to Nora, said Mrs. Trevelyan. My dear, said Lady Rowley, perhaps we had better not speak about it just now. I suppose he has not a penny in the world, said Sir Marmaduke. He has what he earns, said Mrs. Trevelyan. If Nora understands her duty she will never let me hear his name again, said Sir Marmaduke. Then there was nothing more said, and as soon as they could escape, both Lady Rowley and Mrs. Trevelyan left the room. I should have told you everything, said Nora to her mother that night. I had no intention to keep anything a secret from you, but we have all been so unhappy about Louis that we have had no heart to talk of anything else. I understand all that, my darling, and I had meant that you should tell Papa, for I suppose that he would come, and I meant that he should go to Papa himself. He intended that himself, only today, as things turned out. Just so, dearest, but it does not seem that he has got any income. It would be very rash, wouldn't it? People must be rash sometimes. Everybody can't have an income without earning it. I suppose people in professions do marry without having fortunes. When they have settled professions, Nora. And why is his not a settled profession? I believe he receives quite as much at seven in twenty as Uncle Olifant does at sixty. But your Uncle Olifant's income is permanent. Lawyers don't have permanent incomes, or doctors, or merchants. But those professions are regular and sure. They don't marry without fortunes till they have made their income sure. Mr. Standbury's income is sure. I don't know why it shouldn't be sure. He goes on writing and writing every day, and it seems to me that of all the professions in the world it is the finest. I'd much sooner write for a newspaper than be one of those old musty, fusty lawyers who'll say anything that they're paid to say. My dearest Nora, all that is nonsense. You know as well as I do that you should not marry a man when there is a doubt whether he can keep a house over your head. That is his position. It is good enough for me, Mama. And what is his income from writing? It is quite enough for me, Mama. The truth is I have promised, and I cannot go back from it. Dear, dear Mama, you won't quarrel with us and oppose us and make Papa hard against us. You can do what you like with Papa. I know that. Look at poor Emily. Plenty of money has not made her happy. If Mr. Glasscock had only asked you a week sooner, said Lady Rowley, with a handkerchief to her eyes. But you see he didn't, Mama. When I think of it I cannot but weep, and the poor mother burst out into a full flood of tears. Such a man! So good! So gentle! And so truly devoted to you. Mama, what's the good of that now? Going down all the way to Devonshire after you. So did Hugh, Mama. A position that any girl in England would have envied you. I cannot but feel it. And Emily says she is sure he would come back if he got the very slightest encouragement. That is quite impossible, Mama. Why should it be impossible? Emily declares that she never saw a man so much in love in her life, and she says also that she believes he is abroad now simply because he has brokenhearted about it. Mr. Glasscock, Mama, was very nice and good and all that, but indeed he is not the man to suffer from a broken heart. And Emily is quite mistaken. I told him the whole truth. What truth? That there was somebody else that I did love. Then he said that of course that put an end to it all, and he wished me good-bye ever so calmly. How could you be so infatuated? Why should you have cut the ground away from your feet in that way? Because I chose that there should be an end to it. Now there has been an end to it, and it is much better, Mama, that we should not think about Mr. Glasscock any more. He will never come again to me, and if he did I could only say the same thing. You mustn't be surprised, Nora, if I'm unhappy. That is all. Of course I must feel it. Such a connection as it would have been for your sisters. Such a home for poor Emily and her trouble. And as for this other man—Mama, don't speak ill of him. If I say anything of him I must say the truth, said Lady Rowley. Don't say anything against him, Mama, because he is to be my husband. Dear, dear Mama, you can't change me by anything you say. Perhaps I have been foolish, but it is settled now. Don't make me wretched by speaking against the man whom I mean to love all my life better than all the world. Think of Louis Trevelyan. I will think of no one but Hugh Stanbury. I tried not to love him, Mama. I tried to think that it was better to make believe that I loved Mr. Glasscock, but he got the better of me and conquered me, and I will never rebel against him. You may help me, Mama, but you can't change me. CHAPTER 64 Sir Marmaduke at his club Sir Marmaduke had come away from his brother-in-law the parson in much anger, for Mr. Outhouse, with that mixture of obstinacy and honesty which formed his character, had spoken hard words of Colonel Osbourne, and words which by implication had been hard also against Emily Trevelyan. He had been very staunch to his niece when attacked by his niece's husband, but when his sympathies and assistants were invoked by Sir Marmaduke it seemed as though he had transferred his allegiance to the other side. He pointed out to the unhappy father that Colonel Osbourne had behaved with great cruelty in going to Devonshire, that the Stanburys had been untrue to their trust in allowing him to enter the house, and that Emily had been indiscreet in receiving him. When a young woman is called indiscreet by her friends, it may be assumed that her character is very seriously assailed. Sir Marmaduke had understood this, and on hearing the word had become wroth with his brother-in-law. There had been hot words between them, and Mr. Outhouse would not yield an inch or retract a syllable. He conceived it to be his duty to advise the father to caution his daughter with severity, to quarrel absolutely with Colonel Osbourne, and to let Trevelyan know that this had been done. As to the child, Mr. Outhouse expressed a strong opinion that the father was legally entitled to the custody of his boy, and that nothing could be done to recover the child, except what might be done with the father's consent. In fact, Mr. Outhouse made himself exceedingly disagreeable, and sent away Sir Marmaduke with a very heavy heart. Could it really be possible that his old friend Fred Osbourne, who seven or eight and twenty years ago had been potent among young ladies, had really been making love to his old friend's married daughter? Sir Marmaduke looked into himself, and conceived it to be quite out of the question that he should make love to anyone. A good dinner, good wine, a good cigar, an easy chair, and a rubber of wist—all these things, with no work to do, and men of his own standing around him, were the pleasures of life which Sir Marmaduke desired. Now Fred Osbourne was an older man than he, and though Fred Osbourne did keep up a foolish system of padded clothes and dyed whiskers, still at fifty-two or fifty-three, surely a man might be reckoned safe. And then, too, that ancient friendship! Sir Marmaduke, who had lived all his life in the comparative seclusion of a colony, thought perhaps more of that ancient friendship than did the Colonel, who had lived amidst the blaze of London life, and who had had many opportunities of changing his friends. Some inkling of all this made its way into Sir Marmaduke's bosom, as he thought of it with bitterness, and he determined that he would have it out with his friend. Hitherto he had enjoyed very few of those pleasant hours which he had anticipated on his journey homewards. He had had no heart to go to his club, and he had fancied that Colonel Osbourne had been a little backward in looking him up, and providing him with amusement. He had suggested this to his wife, and she had told him that the Colonel had been right not to come to Manchester Street. "'I have told Emily,' said Lady Rowley, that she must not meet him, and she is quite of the same opinion. Nevertheless there had been remissness. Sir Marmaduke felt that it was so in spite of his wife's excuses. In this way he was becoming sore with everybody, and very unhappy. It did not at all improve his temper, when he was told that his second daughter had refused an offer from Lord Peterborough's eldest son. When she may go into the workhouse for me, the angry father had said, declaring at the same time that he would never give his consent to her marriage with the man who did dirty work for the daily record, as he with his paternal wisdom chose to express it. But this cruel phrase was not spoken in Nora's hearing, nor was it repeated to her. Lady Rowley knew her husband, and was aware that he would, on occasions, change his opinion. It was not till two or three days after his visit to St. Diddolf's that he met Colonel Osbourne. The Easter recess was then over, and Colonel Osbourne had just returned to London. They met on the doorsteps of the acrobats, and the Colonel immediately began with an apology. I have been so sorry to be away just when you are here, upon my word I have, but I was obliged to go down to the duchesses. I had promised early in the winter, and those people are so angry if you put them off. By George it's almost as bad as putting off royalty. Damn the duchess, said Sir Marmaduke. With all my heart, said the Colonel, only I thought it as well that I should tell you the truth. What I mean is that the duchess and her people make no difference to me. I hope you had a pleasant time, that's all. Well yes, we had. One must get away somewhere at Easter. There is no one left at the club, and there's no house, and no one asks one to dinner in town. In fact, if one didn't go away one wouldn't know what to do. There were ever so many people there that I liked to meet. Lady Glencora was there, and uncommon pleasant she made it. That woman has more to say for herself than any half dozen men I know. And Lord Cantrip, your chief, was there. He said a word or two to me about you. What sort of a word? He says he wishes you would read up some blue books or papers or reports or something of that kind, which he says that some of his fellows have sent you. It seems that there are some new rules or orders or fashions which he wants you to have at your finger's ends. Captain could be more civil than he was, but he just wished me to mention this knowing that you and I are likely to see each other. I wish I had never come over, said Sir Marmaduke. Why so? They didn't bother me with their new rules and fashions over there. When the papers came somebody read them and that was enough. I could do what they wanted me to do there. And so you will hear after a bit. I'm not so sure of that. Those young fellows seem to forget that an old dog can't learn new tricks. They've got a young brisk fellow there who seems to think that a man should be an encyclopedia of knowledge because he has lived in a colony over twenty years. That's the new undersecretary. Never mind who it is. Osborne just come up to the library, will you? I want to speak to you. Then Sir Marmaduke, with considerable solemnity, led the way up to the most deserted room in the club, and Colonel Osborne followed him, well knowing that something was to be said about Emily Trevelyan. Sir Marmaduke seated himself on a sofa, and his friend sat close beside him. The room was quite deserted. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and the club was full of men. There were men in the morning-room, and men in the drawing-room, and men in the card-room, and men in the billiard-room. But no better choice of a chamber for a conference, intended to be silent and secret, could have been made in all London than that which had induced Sir Marmaduke to take his friend into the library of the acrobats. And yet a great deal of money had been spent in providing this library for the acrobats. Sir Marmaduke sat for a while silent, and had he sat silent for an hour, Colonel Osborne would not have interrupted him. Then at last he began, with a voice that was intended to be serious, but which struck upon the ear of his companion as being affected, and unlike the owner of it. "'This is a very sad thing about my poor girl,' said Sir Marmaduke. Indeed it is. There is only one thing to be said about it, Rowley. And what's that? The man must be mad. He is not so mad as to give us any relief by his madness, poor as such comfort would be. He has got Emily's child away from her, and I think it will about kill her. And what is to become of her? As to taking her back to the islands without her child, it is out of the question. I never knew anything so cruel in my life. And so absurd, you know. Ah, that's just the question. If anybody had asked me, I should have said that you were the man of all men whom I could have best trusted. Do you doubt it now? I don't know what to think. Do you mean to say that you suspect me, and your daughter, too? No, by heavens, poor dear! If I suspected her there would be an end of all things with me. I could never get over that. No, I don't suspect her. Sir Marmaduke had now dropped his affected tone and was speaking with his natural energy. But you do me. No, if I did I don't suppose I should be sitting with you here, but they tell me—they tell you what? They tell me that you did not behave wisely about it. Why could you not let her alone when you found out how matters were going? Who has been telling you this, Rowley? Sir Marmaduke considered for a while, and then remembering that Colonel Osborn could hardly quarrel with a clergyman told him the truth. Outhouse says that you have done her an irretrievable injury by going down to Devonshire to her and by riding to her. Outhouse is an ass. That is easily said, but why did you go? And why should I not go? What the deuce? Because a man like that chooses to take vagaries into his head I am not to see my own godchild? Sir Marmaduke tried to remember whether the Colonel was, in fact, the godfather of his eldest daughter, but he found that his mind was quite a blank about his children's godfathers and godmothers. And as for the letters I wish you could see them, the only letters which had in them a word of importance were those about your coming home. I was anxious to get that arranged, not only for your sake but because she was so eager about it. God bless her, poor child, said Sir Marmaduke, rubbing the tears away from his eyes with his red silk pocket handkerchief. I will acknowledge that those letters, there may have been one or two, were the beginning of the trouble. It was these that made this man show himself to be a lunatic. I do admit that. I was bound not to talk about your coming, and I told her to keep the secret. He went spying about and found her letters, I suppose, and then he took fire because there was to be a secret from him—dirty mean dog!—and now I am to be told by such a fellow as Outhouse that it's my fault, that I have caused all the trouble, because when I happened to be in Devonshire I went to see your daughter. We must do the Colonel the justice of supposing that he had by this time quite taught himself to believe that the church porch at Cockchaffington had been the motive cause of his journey into Devonshire. Upon my word it is too hard, continued he indignantly. As for Outhouse, only for the gown upon his back I'd pull his nose, and I wished that you would tell him that I say so. There is trouble enough without that, said Sir Marmaduke. But it is hard. By God it is hard! There is this comfort. If it hadn't been me, it would have been someone else. Such a man as that couldn't have gone two or three years without being jealous of someone. And as for poor Emily, she is better off perhaps with an accusation so absurd as this than she might have been had her name been joined with a younger man, or with one whom you would have less reason for trusting. There was so much that seemed to be sensible in this, and it was spoken with so well assumed a tone of injured innocence that Sir Marmaduke felt that he had nothing more to say. He muttered something further about the cruelty of the case, and then slunk away out of the club, and made his way home to the dull gloomy house in Manchester Street. There was no comfort for him there, but neither was there any comfort for him at the club. And why did that vexatious Secretary of State send him messages about blue books? As he went, he expressed sundry wishes that he was back at the mandarins, and told himself that it would be well that he should remain there till he died. CHAPTER 65 When the thirty-first of March arrived, Exeter had not as yet been made gay with the marriage festivities of Mr. Gibson and Camilla French. And this delay had not been the fault of Camilla. Camilla had been ready, and when about the middle of the month it was hinted to her that some postponement was necessary, she spoke her mind out plainly, and declared that she was not going to stand that kind of thing. The communication had not been made to her by Mr. Gibson in person. For some days previously he had not been seen at Hevetry, and Camilla had from day to day become more black, gloomy, and harsh in her manners, both to her mother and her sister. Little notes had come, and little notes had gone, but no one in the house except Camilla herself knew what those notes contained. She would not condescend to complain to Arabella, nor did she say much in condemnation of her lover to Mrs. French till the blow came. With unremitting attention she pursued the great business of her wedding garments, and exacted from the unfortunate Arabella an amount of work equal to her own, of thankless work as is the custom of embryo brides with their unmarried sisters. Then she drew with great audacity on the somewhat slender means of the family for the amount of feminine gear necessary to enable her to go into Mr. Gibson's house with something of the écla of a well provided bride. When Mrs. French hesitated, and then expostulated, Camilla replied that she did not expect to be married above once, and that in no cheaper or more productive way than this could her mother allow her to consume her share of the family resources. What matter, mamma, if you do have to borrow a little money? Mr. Burgess will let you have it when he knows why, and as I shan't be eating and drinking at home any more, nor yet getting my things here I have a right to expect it. And she ended by expressing an opinion, in Arabella's hearing, that any daughter of a house who proves herself to be capable of getting a husband for herself is entitled to expect that those left at home shall pinch themselves for a time, in order that she may go forth to the world in a respectable way and be a credit to the family. Then came the blow. Mr. Gibson had not been at the house for some days, but the notes had been going and coming. At last Mr. Gibson came himself, but as it happened when he came, Camilla was out shopping. In these days she often did go out shopping between eleven and one, carrying her sister with her. It must have been but a poor pleasure for Arabella, this witnessing the purchases made, seeing the pleasant draperies, and handling the real linens and admiring the fine cambricks, spread out before them on the shop counters by obsequious attendants. And the questions asked of her by her sister, whether this was good enough for so August an occasion, or that sufficiently handsome, must have been harassing. She could not have failed to remember that it ought all to have been done for her, that had she not been treated with monstrous injustice, with most unsisterly cruelty, all these good things would have been spread on her behoof. But she went on and endured it, and worked diligently with her needle, and folded and unfolded as she was desired, and became, as it were, quite a younger sister in the house, creeping out by herself now and again into the perluse of the city, to find such consolation as she might receive from her solitary thoughts. But Arabella and Camilla were both away when Mr. Gibson called to tell Mrs. French of his altered plans. And as he asked, not for his lady-love, but for Mrs. French herself, it is probable that he watched his opportunity, and that he knew to what cares his Camilla was then devoting herself. "'Perhaps it is quite as well that I should find you alone,' he said, after sundry preludes, to his future mother-in-law, "'because you can make Camilla understand this better than I can. I must put off the day for about three weeks.'" Three weeks, Mr. Gibson? Or a month? Perhaps we had better say the twenty-ninth of April. Mr. Gibson had by this time thrown off every fear that he might have entertained of the mother, and could speak to her of such an unwarrantable change of plans with tolerable equanimity. But I don't know that that will suit Camilla at all. She can name any other day she pleases, of course. That is, in May. But why is this to be? There are things about money, Mrs. French, which I cannot arrange sooner, and I find that, unfortunately, I must go up to London. Though many other questions were asked, nothing further was got out of Mr. Gibson on that occasion, and he left the house with a perfect understanding on his own part, and on that of Mrs. French, that the marriage was postponed till some day still to be fixed, but which could not and should not be before the twenty-ninth of April. Mrs. French asked him why he did not come up and see Camilla. He replied, false man that he was, that he had hoped to have seen her this morning, and that he would come again before the week was over. Then it was that Camilla spoke her mind out plainly. I shall go to his house at once, she said, and find out all about it. I don't understand it. I don't understand it at all, and I won't put up with it. He shall know who he has to deal with if he plays tricks upon me. Mama, I wonder you let him out of the house till you had made him come back to his old day. What could I do, my dear? What could you do? Shake him out of it, as I would have done. But he didn't dare to tell me, because he is a coward. Camilla in all this showed her spirit, but she allowed her anger to hurry her away into an indiscretion. Arabella was present, and Camilla should have repressed her rage. I don't think he's at all a coward, said Arabella. That's my business. I suppose I'm entitled to know what he is better than you. All the same I don't think Mr. Gibson is at all a coward, said Arabella, again pleading the cause of the man who had misused her. Now Arabella, I won't take any interference from you, mind that. I say it was cowardly, and he should have come to me. It's my concern, and I shall go to him. I'm not going to be stopped by any shilly-shally nonsense, when my future respectability, perhaps, is at stake. All Exeter knows that the marriage is to take place on the thirty-first of this month. On the next day Camilla absolutely did go to Mr. Gibson's house at an early hour, at nine, when, as she thought, he would surely be at breakfast. But he had flown. He had left Exeter that morning by an early train, and his servant thought that he had gone to London. On the next morning Camilla got a note from him, written in London. It affected to be very cheery and affectionate, beginning, dearest cammy, and alluding to the postponement of his wedding, as though it were a thing so fixed as to require no further question. Camilla answered this letter, still in much wrath, complaining, protesting, expostulating, throwing in his teeth the fact that the day had been fixed by him and not by her. And she added a post-script in the following momentous words, If you have any respect for the name of your future wife, you will fall back upon your first arrangement. To this she got simply a line of an answer, declaring that this falling back was impossible, and then nothing was heard of him for ten days. He had gone from Tuesday to Saturday week, and the first that Camilla saw of him was his presence in the reading desk, when he chanted the Cathedral Service as Priest Vicar on the Sunday. At this time Arabella was very ill, and was confined to her bed. Mr. Martin declared that her system had become low from over-anxiety, that she was nervous, weak, and liable to hysterics, that her feelings were in fact too many for her, and that her efforts to overcome them, and to face the realities of the world, had exhausted her. This was, of course, not said openly at the town cross of Exeter, but such was the opinion which Mr. Martin gave in confidence to the mother. Fiddledee Dee said Camilla when she was told of feelings, susceptibilities, and hysterics. At the present moment she had acclaimed to the undivided interest of the family, and she believed that her sister's illness was feigned in order to defraud her of her rights. "'My dear, she is ill,' said Mrs. French. "'Then let her have a dose of salts,' said the stern Camilla. This was on the Sunday afternoon. Camilla had endeavored to see Mr. Gibson as he came out of the Cathedral, but had failed. Mr. Gibson had been detained within the building, no doubt by duties connected with the Coral Services. On that evening he got a note from Camilla, and quite early on the Monday morning he came up to have a tree. "'You will find her in the drawing-room,' said Mrs. French, as she opened the hall-door for him. There was a smile on her face as she spoke, but it was a forced smile. Mr. Gibson did not smile at all. "'Is it all right with her?' he asked. "'Well, you had better go to her. You see, Mr. Gibson, young ladies, when they are going to be married, think that they ought to have their own way a little, just for the last time, you know.' He took no notice of the joke, but went with slow steps up to the drawing-room. It would be inquiring too curiously to ask whether Camilla, when she embraced him, discerned that he had fortified his courage that morning with a glass of Curaçao. "'What does all this mean, Thomas?' was the first question that Camilla asked when the embrace was over. "'All what mean, dear? This untoward delay. Thomas, you have almost broken my heart. You have been away, and I have not heard from you.' I wrote twice, Camilla. And what sort of letters? If there is anything the matter, Thomas, you had better tell me at once.' She paused, but Thomas held his tongue. "'I don't suppose you want to kill me?' "'God forbid,' said Thomas. "'But you will. What must everybody think of me in this city when they find that it is put off? Poor Mamma has been dreadful, quite dreadful. And here is Arabella now laid up on a bed of sickness. This, too, was in discreet. Camilla should have said nothing about her sister's sickness.' "'I have been so sorry to hear about dear Bella,' said Mr. Gibson. "'I don't suppose she's very bad,' said Camilla. "'But of course we all feel it. Of course we're upset. As for me, I bear up, because I've that spirit that I won't give way if it's ever so. But upon my word it tries me hard. What is the meaning of it, Thomas?' But Thomas had nothing to say beyond what he had said before to Mrs. French. He was very particular, he said, about money, and certain money matters made it incumbent on him not to marry before the 29th of April. When Camilla suggested to him that as she was to be his wife she ought to know all about his money matters, he told her that she should. Someday, when they were married he would tell her all. Camilla talked a great deal, and said some things that were very severe. Mr. Gibson did not enjoy his morning, but he enjoyed the up-braidings of his fair one with more firmness than might perhaps have been expected from him. He left all the talking to Camilla, but when he got up to leave her the 29th of April had been fixed, with some sort of assent from her, as the day on which she was really to become Mrs. Gibson. When he left the room he again met Mrs. French on the landing place. She hesitated a moment, waiting to see whether the door would be shut, but the door could not be shut as Camilla was standing in the entrance. Mr. Gibson, said Mrs. French, in a voice that was scarcely a whisper, would you mind stepping in and seeing poor Bella for a moment? Why, she is in bed, said Camilla. Yes, she is in bed, but she thinks it would be a comfort to her. She has seen nobody these four days except Mr. Martin, and she thinks it would comfort her to have a word or two with Mr. Gibson. Now Mr. Gibson was not only going to be Bella's brother-in-law, but he was also a clergyman. Camilla in her heart, believed that the half-clerical aspect which her mother had given to the request, was false and hypocritical. There were special reasons why Bella should not have wished to see Mr. Gibson in her bedroom, at any rate till Mr. Gibson had become her brother-in-law. The expression of such a wish at the present moment was almost indecent. You'll be there with them, said Camilla. Mr. Gibson blushed up to his ears as he heard the suggestion. Of course you'll be there with them, Mama. No, my dear, I think not. I fancy she wishes him to read to her, or something of that sort. Then Mr. Gibson, without speaking a word, but still blushing up to his ears, was taken to Arabella's room, and Camilla, flouncing into the drawing-room, banged the door behind her. She had hitherto fought her battle with considerable skill and with great courage, but her very success had made her imprudent. She had become so imperious in the great position which she had reached that she could not control her temper or wait till her power was confirmed. The banging of that door was heard through the whole house, and everyone knew why it was banged. She threw herself onto a sofa, and then, instantly rising again, paced the room with quick step. Could it be possible that there was treachery? Was it on the cards that that weak, poor creature, Bella, was intriguing once again to defraud her of her husband? There were different things that she now remembered. Arabella, in that moment of bliss in which she had conceived herself to be engaged to Mr. Gibson, had discarded her sheenion. Then she had resumed it, in all its monstrous proportions. Since that it had been lessened by degrees, and brought down, through various interesting but abnormal shapes, to a size which would hardly have drawn forth any anathema from Miss. Stanbury. And now, on this very morning, Arabella had put on a clean nightcap with muslin frills. It is perhaps not unnatural that a sick lady, preparing to receive a clergyman in her bedroom, should put on a clean nightcap, but to suspicious eyes small causes suffice to create alarm. And if there were any such hideous wickedness in the wind, had Arabella any colleague in her villainy? Could it be that the mother was plotting against her daughter's happiness and respectability? Camilla was well aware that her mamma would at first have preferred to give Arabella to Mr. Gibson, had the choice in the matter been left to her. But now, when the thing had been settled before all the world, would not such treatment on a mother's part be equal to infanticide? And then as to Mr. Gibson himself. Camilla was not prone to think little of her own charms, but she had been unable not to perceive that her lover had become negligent in his personal attentions to her. An accepted lover, who deserves to have been accepted, should devote every hour at his command to his mistress. But Mr. Gibson had of late been so cherry of his presence at Hevetry, that Camilla could not but have known that he took no delight in coming thither. She had acknowledged this to herself, but she had consoled herself with the reflection that marriage would make this all right. Mr. Gibson was not the man to stray from his wife, and she could trust herself to obtain a sufficient hold upon her husband hereafter, partly by the strength of her tongue, partly by the ascendancy of her spirit, and partly also by the comforts which she would provide for him. She had not doubted but that it would all be well when they should be married. But how, if even now, there should be no marriage for her? Camilla French had never heard of Crayusa and of Jason, but as she paced her mother's drawing-room that morning she was a midia in spirit. If any plot of that kind should be in the wind, she would do such things that all Devonshear should hear of her wrongs and of her revenge. In the meantime Mr. Gibson was sitting by Arabella's bedside, while Mrs. French was trying to make herself busy in her own chamber next door. There had been a reading of some chapter of the Bible, or of some portion of a chapter. And Mr. Gibson, as he read, and Arabella as she listened, had endeavored to take to their hearts and to make use of the word which they heard. The poor young woman, when she begged her mother to send to her the man who was so dear to her, did so with some half-formed condition that it would be good for her to hear a clergyman read to her. But now the chapter had been read, and the book was back in Mr. Gibson's pocket, and he was sitting with his hand on the bed. She is so very arrogant, said Bella, and so domineering. To this Mr. Gibson made no reply. I'm sure I have endeavored to bear it well, though you must have known what I have suffered, Thomas. Nobody can understand it so well as you do. I wish I had never been born, said Mr. Gibson tragically. Don't say that, Thomas, because it's wicked. But I do. See all the harm I have done, and yet I did not mean it. You must try and do the best you can now. I am not saying what that should be. I am not dictating to you. You are a man, and of course you must judge for yourself. But I will say this. You shouldn't do anything just because it is the easiest. I don't suppose I should live after it. I don't, indeed, but that should not signify to you. I don't suppose that any man was ever before in such a terrible position since the world began. It is difficult. I am sure of that, Thomas. And I have meant to be so true. I fancy sometimes that some mysterious agency interferes with the affairs of a man and drives him on, and on, and on, almost till he doesn't know where it drives him. As he said this in a voice that was quite sepulchral in its tone, he felt some consolation in the conviction that this mysterious agency could not affect a man without imbuing him with a certain amount of grandeur, very uncomfortable indeed in its nature, but still having considerable value as a counter-poise. Pride must bear pain, but pain is recompensed by pride. She is so strong, Thomas, that she can put up with anything, said Arabella, in a whisper. Strong, yes, said he, with a shudder. She is strong enough. And as for love. Don't talk about it, said he, getting up from his chair. Don't talk about it. You will drive me frantic. You know what my feelings are, Thomas. You have always known them. There has been no change since I was the young thing you first knew me. As she spoke, she just touched his hand with hers, but he did not seem to notice this, sitting with his elbow on the arm of his chair and his forehead on his hand. In reply to what she said to him, he merely shook his head, not intending to imply thereby any doubt of the truth of her assertion. You have now to make up your mind and to be bold, Thomas, continued Arabella. She says that you are a coward, but I know that you are no coward. I told her so, and she said that I was interfering. Oh, that she should be able to tell me that I interfere when I defend you. I must go, said Mr. Gibson, jumping up from his chair. I must go. Bella, I cannot stand this any longer. It is too much for me. I will pray that I may decide a right. God bless you." Then he kissed her brow as she lay in bed and hurried out of the room. He had hoped to go from the house without further converse with any of its inmates, for his mind was disturbed and he longed to be at rest. But he was not allowed to escape so easily. Camilla met him at the dining-room door and accosted him with a smile. There had been time for much meditation during the last half hour, and Camilla had meditated. How do you find her, Thomas? She asked. She seems weak, but I believe she is better. I have been reading to her. Come in, Thomas. Will you not? It is bad for us to stand talking on the stairs. Dear Thomas, don't let us be so cold to each other. He had no alternative but to put his arm round her waist and kiss her, thinking as he did so of the mysterious agency which afflicted him. Tell me that you love me, Thomas, she said. Of course I love you. The question is not a pleasant one when put by a lady to a gentleman whose affections towards her are not strong, and it requires a very good actor to produce an efficient answer. I hope you do, Thomas. It would be sad indeed if you did not. You are not weary of your Camilla, are you? For a moment there came upon him an idea that he would confess that he was weary of her, but he found it once that such an effort was beyond his powers. How can you ask such a question, he said? Because you do not come to me. Camilla as she spoke laid her head upon his shoulder and wept. And now you have been five minutes with me and nearly an hour with Bella. She wanted me to read to her, said Mr. Gibson, and he hated himself thoroughly as he said it. And now you want to get away as fast as you can, continued Camilla. Because of the morning service, said Mr. Gibson, this was quite true, and yet he hated himself again for saying it. As Camilla knew the truth of the last plea, she was obliged to let him go, but she made him swear before he went that he loved her dearly. I think it's all right, she said to herself as he went down the stairs. I don't think he'd dare make it wrong. If he does, oh! Mr. Gibson, as he walked into Exeter, endeavored to justify his own conduct to himself. There was no moment, he declared to himself, in which he had not endeavored to do right. Seeing the manner in which he had been placed among these two young women, both of whom had fallen in love with him, how could he have saved himself from vacillation? And by what untoward chance had it come to pass that he had now learned to dislike so vigorously, almost to hate, the one with whom he had been for a moment sufficiently infatuated to think that he loved? But with all his arguments he did not succeed in justifying to himself his own conduct, and he hated himself. Miss Stanbury, looking out of her parlor window, saw Mr. Gibson hurrying towards the cathedral down the passage which leads from southern hay into the close. He's just come from Hevetrie, I'll be bound, said Miss Stanbury to Martha, who was behind her. Like enough, ma'am. Though they do say that the poor fool of a man has become quite sick of his bargain already. He'll have to be sicker yet, ma'am, said Martha. They were to have been married last week, and nobody ever knew why it was put off. It's my belief he'll never marry her. And she'll be served right, quite right. He must marry her now, ma'am. She's been buying things all over Exeter as though there was no end of their money. They haven't more than enough to keep body and soul together, said Miss Stanbury. I don't see why I mightn't have gone to service this morning, Martha. It's quite warm now out in the close. You'd better wait, ma'am, till the east winds is over. She was at Puddox only the day before yesterday buying bed linen, the finest they had, and that wasn't good enough. Pshaw, said Miss Stanbury. As though Mr. Gibson hadn't things of that kind good enough for her, said Martha. Then there was silence in the room for a while. Miss Stanbury was standing at one window, and Martha at the other, watching the people as they passed backwards and forwards in and out of the close. Dorothy had now been away at Nuncomputney for some weeks, and her aunt felt her loneliness with a heavy sense of weakness. Never had she entertained a companion in the house who had suited her as well as her niece, Dorothy. Dorothy would always listen to her, would always talk to her, would always bear with her. Since Dorothy had gone, various letters had been interchanged between them. Though there had been anger about Brooke Burgess, there had been no absolute rupture, but Miss Stanbury had felt that she could not write and beg her niece to come back to her. She had not sent Dorothy away. Dorothy had chosen to go, because her aunt had had an opinion of her own as to what was fitting for her heir, and as Miss Stanbury would not give up her opinion, she could not ask her niece to return to her. Such had been her resolution, sternly expressed to herself a dozen times during these solitary weeks, but time and solitude had acted upon her, and she longed for the girl's presence in the house. Martha, she said at last, I think I shall get you to go over to Nuncomputney. Again, ma'am, why not again? It's not so far, I suppose, that the journey will hurt you. I don't think it'd hurt me, ma'am. Only what good will I do? If you'll go rightly to work, you may do good. Miss Dorothy was a fool to go the way she did, a great fool. She stayed longer than I thought she would, ma'am. I'm not asking you what you thought. I'll tell you what. Do you send giles to Winslow's, and tell them to send in early tomorrow a nice four-quarter of lamb, or it wouldn't hurt you if you went and chose it yourself. It wouldn't hurt me at all, ma'am. You get it nice, not too small, because meat is meat at the price things are now, and how they ever see butchers meat at all is more than I can understand. People as has to be careful, ma'am, makes a little go a long way. You get it a good size, and take it over in a basket. It won't hurt you done up clean in a napkin. It won't hurt me at all, ma'am. And you give it to Miss Dorothy with my love. Don't you let him think I sent it to my sister-in-law? And is that to be all, ma'am? How do you mean all? Because ma'am, the railway and the carrier would take it quite ready, and there would be a matter of ten or twelve shillings saved in the journey. Whose affair is that? Not mine, ma'am, of course. I believe you are afraid of the trouble, Martha, or else you don't like going because they're poor. It ain't fair, ma'am, of you to say so. That it ain't. All I ask is, is that to be all? When I've given the lamb, am I just to come away straight, or am I to say anything? It will look so odd if I'm just to put down the basket and come away without air or word. Martha! Yes, ma'am. You're a fool. That's true, too, ma'am. It would be like you to go about it in that dummy way, wouldn't it? And you that was so fond of Miss Dorothy. I was fond of her, ma'am. Of course you'll be talking to her, and why not? And if she should say anything about returning. Yes, ma'am. You can say that you know her old aunt wouldn't. She refused to have her back again. You can put it your own way, you know. You needn't make me find words for you. But she won't, ma'am. Won't what? Won't say anything about returning. Yes, she will, Martha, if you talk to her rightly. The servant didn't reply for a while, but stood looking out of the window. You might as well go about the lamb at once, Martha. So I will, ma'am, when I've got it out all clear. What you mean by that? Why, just this, ma'am, may I tell Miss Dolly straight out that you want her to come back and that I've been sent to say so? No, Martha. Then how am I to do it, ma'am? Do it out of your own head, just as it comes up at the moment. Out of my own head, ma'am. Yes, just as you feel, you know. Just as I feel, ma'am. You understand what I mean, Martha. I'll do my best, ma'am, and I can't say no more. But if you scold me afterwards, ma'am, why, of course, I must put up with it. But I won't scold you, Martha. Then I'll go out to Winslow's about the lamb at once, ma'am. Very nice, and not too small, Martha. Martha went out and ordered the lamb, and packed it as desired quite clean in a napkin, and fitted it into the basket, and arranged with Giles' hick-body to carry it down for her early in the morning to the station, so that she might take the first train to Lesborough. It was understood that she was to hire a fly at Lesborough to take her to Nuncamputney. Now that she understood the importance of her mission, and was aware that the present she took with her was only the customary accompaniment of an ambassador's entrusted with a great mission, Martha said nothing even about the expense. The train started for Lesborough at seven, and as she was descending from her room at six, Miss Stanbury, in her flannel dressing-gown, stepped out of the door of her own room. Just put this in the basket, said she, handing a note to her servant. I thought last night I'd write a word. Just put it in the basket and say nothing about it. The note which she sent was as follows. The close, Eighth April, 1860 blank. My dear Dorothy, as Martha talks of going over to pay you a visit, I thought that I'd just get her to take you a quarter of lamb, which is coming in now very nice. I do envy her going to see you, my dear, for I had gotten somehow to love to see your pretty face. I'm getting almost strong again, but Sir Peter, who was here this afternoon, just calling as a friend, was uncivil enough to say that I'm too much of an old woman to go out in the East wind. I told him it didn't much matter, for the sooner old women made way for young ones the better. I am very desolate and solitary here, but I rather think that women who don't get married are intended to be desolate, and perhaps it is better for them, if they bestow their time and thoughts properly, as I hope you do, my dear, a woman with a family of children has almost too many of the cares of this world, to give her mind a shot to the other. What shall we say, then, of those who have no such cares, and yet do not walk uprightly? Dear Dorothy, be not such a one. For myself I acknowledge bitterly the extent of my shortcomings. Much has been given to me, but if much be expected, how shall I answer the demand? I hope I need not tell you that whenever it may suit you to pay a visit to Exeter, your room will be ready for you, and there will be a warm welcome. Mrs. McHugh always asks after you, and so has Mrs. Clifford. I won't tell you what Mrs. Clifford said about your color, because it would make you vain. The heavy-tree affair has all been put off. Of course you have heard that. Dear, dear, dear, you know what I think, so I need not repeat it. Give my respects to your mamma and Priscilla, and for yourself, except the affectionate love of your loving old aunt, Jemima Stanbury. P.S. If Martha should say anything to you, you may feel sure that she knows my mind. Poor old soul! She felt an almost uncontrollable longing to have her niece back again, and yet she told herself that she was bound not to send a regular invitation, or to suggest an unconditional return. Dorothy had herself decided to take her departure, and if she chose to remain away, so it must be. She, Miss Stanbury, could not demean herself by renewing her invitation. She read her letter before she added to it the post-script, and felt that it was too solemn in its tone to suggest to Dorothy that which she wished to suggest. She had been thinking much of her own past life when she wrote those words about the state of an unmarried woman, and was vacillating between two minds—whether it were better for a young woman to look forward to the cares and affections, and perhaps hard usage of a married life, or to devote herself to the easier and safer course of an old maid's career. But an old maid is nothing if she be not kind and good. She acknowledged that, and acknowledging it added the post-script to her letter. What though there was a certain blow to her pride in the writing of it? She did tell herself that in thus referring her niece to Martha for an expression of her own mind, after that conversation which she and Martha had had in the parlor, she was in truth eating her own words. But the post-script was written, and though she took the letter up with her to her own room, in order that she might alter the words if she repented of them in the night, the letter was sent as it was written—post-script and all. She spent the next day with very sober thoughts. When Mrs. McHugh called upon her, and told her that there were rumors afloat in Exeter that the marriage between Camilla French and Mr. Gibson would certainly be broken off, in spite of all purchases that had been made, she merely remarked that they were two poor, feckless things who didn't know their own minds. Camilla knows her as plain enough, said Mrs. McHugh sharply, but even this did not give Miss Stanbury any spirit. She waited, and waited patiently till Martha should return, thinking of the sweet pink color which used to come and go in Dorothy's cheeks, which she had been want to observe so frequently, not knowing that she had observed it, and loved it. CHAPTER 67 RIVERS CAUTIGE Three days after Hugh Stanbury's visit to Manchester Street, he wrote a note to Lady Rowley, telling her of the address at which might be found both Trevelyan and his son. As Basel had acknowledged, facts are things which may be found out. Hugh had gone to work somewhat after the Bosleian fashion, and had found out this fact. He lives at a place called Rivers Cottage at Willsden, wrote Stanbury. If you turn off the Harrow Road to the right, about a mile beyond the cemetery, you will find the cottage on the left-hand side of the lane, about a quarter of a mile from the Harrow Road. I believe you can go to Willsden by railway, but you would better take a cab from London. There was much consultation respecting this letter between Lady Rowley and Mrs. Trevelyan, and it was decided that it should not be shown to Sir Marmaduke. To see her child was at the present moment the most urgent necessity of the poor mother, and both the ladies felt that Sir Marmaduke and his wrath might probably impede rather than assist her in this desire. If told where he might find Trevelyan, he would probably insist on starting in quest of his son-in-law himself, and the distance between the mother and her child might become greater in consequence, instead of less. There were many consultations, and the upshot of these was that Lady Rowley and her daughter determined to start for Willsden without saying anything to Sir Marmaduke of the purpose they had in hand. When Emily expressed her conviction that if Trevelyan should be away from home, they would probably be able to make their way into the house. So as to see the child, Lady Rowley with some hesitation acknowledged that such might be the case. But the child's mother said nothing to her own mother of a scheme which she had half-formed of so clinging to her boy that no human power should separate them. They started in a cab as advised by Standbury, and were driven to a point on the road from which a lane led down to Willsden, passing by Rivers Cottage. They asked as they came along, and met no difficulty in finding their way. At the point on the road indicated there was a country in for hay-wagoners, and here Lady Rowley proposed that they should leave their cab, urging that it might be best to call it the cottage in the quietest manner possible. But Mrs. Trevelyan, with her scheme in her head for the recapture of their child, begged that the cab might go on, and thus they were driven up to the door. Rivers Cottage was not a pre-possessing abode. It was a new building of light-colored bricks, with a door in the middle and one window on each side. Over the door was a stone tablet bearing the name Rivers Cottage. There was a little garden between the road and the house, across which there was a straight path to the door. In front of one window was a small shrub, generally called a puzzle monkey, and in front of the other was a variegated laurel. There were two small morsels of green turf, and a distant view round the corner of the house of a row of cabbage-stumps. If Trevelyan were living there, he had certainly come down in the world since the days in which he had occupied the house in Curson Street. The two ladies got out of the cab, and slowly walked across the little garden. Mrs. Trevelyan was dressed in black, and she wore a thick veil. She had altogether been unable to make up her mind as to what should be her conduct to her husband should she see him. She must be governed by circumstances as they might occur. Her visit was made not to him but to her boy. The door was opened before they knocked, and Trevelyan himself was standing in the narrow passage. Lady Rowley was the first to speak. "'Lewis,' she said, "'I have brought your wife to see you.' "'Who told you that I was here?' he asked, still standing in the passage. "'Of course a mother would find out where was her child,' said Lady Rowley. "'You should not have come here without notice,' he said. "'I was careful to let you know the conditions on which you should come.' "'You do not mean that I shall not see my child,' said the mother. "'Oh, Louis, you will let me see him.'" Trevelyan hesitated a moment, still keeping his position firmly in the doorway. By this time an old woman, decently dressed in a comfortable appearance, had taken her place behind him, and behind her was a slip of a girl about fifteen years of age. This was the owner of River's cottage and her daughter, and all the inhabitants of the cottage were now there, living in the passage. "'I ought not to let you see him,' said Trevelyan. "'You have intruded upon me in coming here. I had not wished to see you here, till you had complied with the order I had given you. What a meeting between a husband and a wife who had not seen each other now for many months! Between a husband and a wife who were still young enough not to have outlived the first impulses of their early love.' He still stood there guarding the way, and had not even put out his hand to greet her. He was guarding the way lest she should without his permission obtain access to her own child. She had not removed her veil, and now she hardly dared to step over the threshold of her husband's house. At this moment she perceived that the woman behind her was pointing to the room on the left, as the cottage was entered, and Emily at once understood that her boy was in there. Then at that moment she heard her son's voice, as in his solitude the child began to cry. "'I must go in,' she said, "'I will go in,' and rushing on she tried to push aside her husband. Her mother aided her, nor did Trevelyan attempt to stop her with violence, and in a moment she was kneeling at the foot of a small sofa with her child in her arms. "'I had not intended to hinder you,' said Trevelyan, "'but I require from you a promise that you will not attempt to remove him.' "'Why should she not take him home with her?' said Lady Rowley. "'Because I will not have it so,' replied Trevelyan, "'because I choose that it should be understood that I am to be the master of my own affairs.' Mrs. Trevelyan had now thrown aside her bonnet and her veil, and was covering her child with caresses. The poor little fellow, whose mind had been utterly dismayed by the events which had occurred to him since his capture, though he returned her kisses, did so in fear and trembling, and he was still sobbing, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles, and by no means yielding himself with his whole heart to his mother's tenderness, as she would have had him do. "'Louie,' she said, whispering to him, "'you know Mama, you haven't forgotten Mama.' He half murmured some little infantine word through his sobs, and then put his cheek up to be pressed against his mother's face. "'Louie will never, never forget his own Mama? Will he, Louis?' The poor boy had no assurances to give, and could only raise his cheek again to be kissed. In the meantime Lady Rowley and Trevelyan were standing by, not speaking to each other, regarding the scene in silence. She, Lady Rowley, could see that he was frightfully altered in appearance, even since the day on which she had so lately met him in the city. His cheeks were thin and haggard, and his eyes were deep and very bright, and he moved them quickly from side to side as though ever suspecting something. He seemed to be smaller in stature, withered as it were, as though he had melted away. And though he stood looking upon his wife and child, he was not for a moment still. He would change the posture of his hands and arms, moving them quickly with little surreptitious jerks, and would shuffle his feet upon the floor, almost without altering his position. His clothes hung about him, and his linen was soiled and worn. Lady Rowley noticed this especially, as he had been a man peculiarly given to neatness of apparel. He was the first to speak. "'You have come down here in a cab,' said he. "'Yes, in a cab from London,' said Lady Rowley. "'Of course you will go back in it. You cannot stay here. There is no accommodation. It is a wretched place, but it suits the boy. As for me, all places are now alike.' "'Louis,' said his wife, springing up from her knees, coming to him and taking his right hand between both her own, "'you will let me take him with me. I know you will let me take him with me.' "'I cannot do that, Emily. It would be wrong.' "'Wrong to restore a child to his mother? Oh, Louis, think of it. What must my life be without him, or you?' "'Don't talk of me. It is too late for that.' "'Not if you will be reasonable, Louis, and listen to me. Oh, heavens, how ill you are!' As she said this, she drew nearer to him, so that her face was almost close to his. "'Louis, come back. Come back and let it all be forgotten. It shall be a dream, a horrid dream, and nobody shall speak of it.' He left his hand within hers and stood looking into her face. He was well aware that his life, since he had left her, had been one long hour of misery. There had been to him no alleviation, no comfort, no consolation. He had not a friend left to him. Even his satellite, the policeman, was becoming weary of him and manifestly suspicious. The woman with whom he was now lodging, and whose resources were infinitely benefited by his payments to her, had already thrown out hints that she was afraid of him. And as he looked at his wife, he knew that he loved her. Everything for him now was hot and dry and poor and bitter. How sweet would it be again to sit with her soft hand in his, to feel her cool brow against his own, to have the comfort of her care and to hear the music of loving words. The companionship of his wife had once been to him everything in the world, but now, for many months past, he had known no companion. She bade him come to her and look upon all this trouble as a dream not to be mentioned. Could it be possible that it should be so and that they might yet be happy together? Perhaps in some distant country where the story of all their misery might not be known, he felt all this truly and with a keen accuracy. If he were mad, he was not all mad. I will tell you of nothing that is past, said she, hanging to him and coming still nearer to him and embracing his arm. Could she have condescended to ask him not to tell her of the past? Had it occurred to her so to word her request, she might perhaps have prevailed. But who can say how long the tenderness of his heart would have saved him from further outbreak and whether such prevailing on her part would have been of permanent service? As it was, her words wounded him in that spot of his inner self which was most sensitive. On that spot from whence had come all his fury. A black cloud came upon his brow and he made an effort to withdraw himself from her grasp. It was necessary to him that she should in some fashion own that he had been right and now she was promising him that she would not tell him of his fault. He could not thus swallow down all the convictions by which he had fortified himself to bear the misfortunes which he had endured. Had he not quarreled with every friend he possessed on this score and should he now stultify himself in all those quarrels by admitting that he had been cruel, unjust and needlessly jealous and did not truth demand of him that he should cling to his old assurances. Had she not been disobedient, ill-conditioned and rebellious? Had she not received the man, both him personally and his letters after he had explained to her that his honor demanded that it should not be so? How could he come into such terms as those now proposed to him simply because he longed to enjoy the rich sweetness of her soft hand to feel the fragrance of her breath and to quench the heat of his forehead in the cool atmosphere of her beauty. Why have you driven me to this by your intercourse with that man? He said. Why, why, why did you do it? She was still clinging to him. Louis, she said, I am your wife. Yes, you are my wife. And will you still believe such evil of me without any cause? There has been cause, horrible cause. You must repent, repent, repent. Heaven help me, said the woman, falling back from him and returning to the boy who was now seated in Lady Rowley's lap. Mama, do you speak to him? What can I say? Would he think better of me were I to own myself to have been guilty when there has been no guilt, no slightest fault? Does he wish me to purchase my child by saying that I am not fit to be his mother? Louis, said Lady Rowley, if any man was ever wrong, mad, madly mistaken, you are so now. Have you come out here to accuse me again as you did before in London, he asked. Is that the way in which you and she intend to let the past be, as she says, like a dream? She tells me that I am ill. It is true. I am ill and she is killing me, killing me by her obstinacy. What would you have me do? said the wife, again rising from her child. Acknowledge your transgressions and say that you will amend your conduct for the future. Mama, Mama, what shall I say to him? Who can speak to a man that is beside himself? replied Lady Rowley. I am not so beside myself as yet, Lady Rowley, but that I know how to guard my own honor and to protect my own child. I have told you, Emily, the terms on which you can come back to me. You had better now return to your mother's house, and if you wish again to have a house of your own and your husband and your boy, you know by what means you may acquire them. For another week I shall remain here. After that I shall remove far from hence. And where will you go, Louis? As yet I know not, to Italy, I think, or perhaps to America, it matters little where for me. And will Louis be taken with you? Certainly he will go with me. To strive to bring him up so that he may be a happier man than his father is all that there is now left for me in life. Mrs. Trevelyan had now got the boy in her arms and her mother was seated by her on the sofa. Trevelyan was standing away from them, but so near the door that no sudden motion on their part would enable them to escape with the boy without his interposition. It now again occurred to the mother to carry off her prize in opposition to her husband, but she had no scheme to that effect laid with her mother. And she could not reconcile herself to the idea of a contest with him in which personal violence would be necessary. The woman of the house had indeed seemed to sympathize with her, but she could not dare in such a matter to trust to assistance from a stranger. I do not wish to be uncourteous, said Trevelyan, but if you have no assurance to give me, you had better leave me. Then there came to be a bargaining about time, and the poor woman begged almost on her knees that she might be allowed to take her child upstairs and be with him alone for a few minutes. It seemed to her that she had not seen her boy till she had had him to herself in absolute privacy till she had kissed his limbs and had her hand upon his smooth back and seen that he was white and clean and bright as he had ever been, and the bargain was made. She was asked to pledge her word that she would not take him out of the house, and she pledged her word, feeling that there was no strength in her for that action which she had meditated. He, knowing that he might still guard the passage at the bottom of the stairs, allowed her to go with the boy to his bedroom while he remained below with Lady Rowley. A quarter of an hour was allowed to her, and she humbly promised that she would return when that time was expired. Trevelyan held the door open for her as she went and kept it open during her absence. There was hardly a word said between him and Lady Rowley, but he paced from the passage into the room and from the room into the passage with his hands behind his back. It is cruel, he said once, it is very cruel. It is you that are cruel, said Lady Rowley. Of course, of course, that is natural from you. I expect that from you. To this she made no answer and he did not open his lips again. After a while Mrs. Trevelyan called to her mother and Lady Rowley was allowed to go upstairs. The quarter of an hour was of course greatly stretched and all the time Trevelyan continued to pace in and out of the room. He was patient, for he did not summon them, but went on pacing backwards and forwards, looking now and again to see that the cab was at its place, that no deceit was being attempted, no second act of kidnapping being perpetrated. At last the two ladies came down the stairs and the boy was with them and the woman of the house. Louis, said the wife, going quickly up to her husband, I will do anything if you will give me my child. What will you do? Anything, say what you want. He is all the world to me and I cannot live if he be taken from me. Acknowledge that you have been wrong. But how, in what words, how am I to speak it? Say that you have sinned and that you will sin no more. Sinned, Louis, as the woman did in the scripture, would you have me say that? He cannot think that it is so, said Lady Rowley. But Trevelyan had not understood her. Lady Rowley, I should have fancied that my thoughts at any rate were my own. But this is useless now. The child cannot go with you today, nor can you remain here. Go home and think of what I have said. If then you will do as I would have you, you shall return. With many embraces, with promises of motherly love and with prayers for love in return, the poor woman did at last leave the house and return to the cab. As she went there was a doubt on her own mind whether she should ask to kiss her husband, but he made no sign. And she at last passed out without any mark of tenderness. He stood by the cab as they entered it and closed the door upon them and then went slowly back to his room. My poor Baron, he said to the boy, my poor Baron. Why for Mama go? sobbed the child. Mama goes. Oh, heaven and earth, why should she go? She goes because her spirit is obstinate and she will not bend. She is stiff-necked and will not submit herself. But Louis must love Mama always and Mama someday will come back to him and be good to him. Mama is good, always, said the child. Trevelyan had intended on this very afternoon to have gone up to town to transact business with Basel for he still believed, though the aspect of the man was bitter to him as Wormwood, that Basel was necessary to him in all his business. And he still made appointments with the man, sometimes at Stony Walk in the borough and sometimes at the tavern in Polter's Court, even though Basel not unfrequently neglected to attend the summons of his employer. And he would go to his bankers and draw out money and then walk about the crowded lanes of the city and afterwards return to his desolate lodgings at Willsden, thinking that he had been transacting business and that this business was exacted from him by the unfortunate position of his affairs. But now he gave up his journey. His retreat had been discovered and there came upon him at once a fear that if he left the house his child would be taken. His landlady told him on this very day that the boy ought to be sent to his mother and had made him understand that it would not suit her to find a home any longer for one who was so singular in his proceedings. He believed that his child would be given up at once if he were not there to guard it. He stayed at home therefore, turning in his mind many schemes. He had told his wife that he should go either to Italy or to America at once, but in doing so he had had no formed plan in his head. He had simply imagined at the moment that such a threat would bring her to submission. But now it became a question whether he would do better than go to America. He suggested to himself that he should go to Canada and fix himself with his boy on some remote farm far away from any city and would then invite his wife to join him if she would. She was too obstinate, as he told himself, ever to yield, unless she should be absolutely softened and brought down to the ground by the loss of her child. What would do this so effectually as the interposition of the broad ocean between him and her? He sat thinking of this for the rest of the day and Louis was left at the charge of the mistress of Rivers Cottage. Do you think he believes it, Mama? Mrs. Trevelyan said to her mother when they had already made nearly half their journey home in the cab. There had been nothing spoken hitherto between them except some half-formed words of affection intended for consolation to the young mother in her great affliction. He does not know what he believes, dearest. You heard what he said. I was to own that I had sinned. Sinned, yes, because you will not obey him like a slave. That is sin to him. But I asked him, Mama, did you not hear me? I could not say the word plainer, but I asked him whether he meant that sin. He must have known and he would not answer me. And he spoke of my transgression. Mama, if he believed that, he would not let me come back at all. He did not believe it, Emily. Could he possibly then so accuse me? The mother of his child. If his heart be utterly hard and false towards me, if it is possible that he should be cruel to me with such cruelty as that, still he must love his boy. Why did he not answer me and say that he did not think it? Simply because his reason has left him. But if he be mad, Mama, ought we to leave him like that? And then did you see his eyes and his face and his hands? Did you observe how thin he is? And his back, how bent? And his clothes, how they were torn and soiled. It cannot be right that he should be left like that. We will tell Papa when we get home, said Lady Rowley, who was herself beginning to be somewhat frightened by what she had seen. It is all very well to declare that a friend is mad when one simply desires to justify oneself in opposition to that friend. But the matter becomes much more serious when evidence of the friend's insanity becomes true and circumstantial. I certainly think that a physician should see him, continued Lady Rowley. On their return home Sir Marmaduke was told of what had occurred, and there was a long family discussion in which it was decided that Lady Milborough should be consulted, as being the oldest friend of Louis Trevelyan himself with whom they were acquainted. Trevelyan had relatives of his own name living in Cornwall, but Mrs. Trevelyan herself had never even met one of that branch of the family. Sir Marmaduke, however, resolved that he himself would go out and see his son-in-law. He too had called Trevelyan mad, but he did not believe that the madness was of such a nature as to interfere with his own duties in punishing the man who had ill-used his daughter. He would at any rate see Trevelyan himself, but of this he said nothing either to his wife or to his child.