MARCELLA

by

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

Author of _Robert Elsmere_, _The History Of David Grieve_, etc. 

In Two Volumes

1894

[Illustration: Portrait of Mary A. Ward]

TO MY FATHER I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK IN LOVE AND GRATITUDE

BOOK I. 

"If nature put not forth her powerAbout the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour?"

CHAPTER I. 

"The mists--and the sun--and the first streaks of yellow in thebeeches--beautiful!--_beautiful_!"

And with a long breath of delight Marcella Boyce threw herself on herknees by the window she had just opened, and, propping her face upon herhands, devoured the scene, before her with that passionate intensity ofpleasure which had been her gift and heritage through life. 

She looked out upon a broad and level lawn, smoothed by the care ofcenturies, flanked on either side by groups of old trees--some Scotchfirs, some beeches, a cedar or two--groups where the slow selective handof time had been at work for generations, developing here the delightfulroundness of quiet mass and shade, and there the bold caprice of barefir trunks and ragged branches, standing black against the sky. Beyondthe lawn stretched a green descent indefinitely long, carrying the eyeindeed almost to the limit of the view, and becoming from the lawnonwards a wide irregular avenue, bordered by beeches of a splendidmaturity, ending at last in a far distant gap where a gate--and a gateof some importance--clearly should have been, yet was not. The size ofthe trees, the wide uplands of the falling valley to the left of theavenue, now rich in the tints of harvest, the autumn sun pouringsteadily through the vanishing mists, the green breadth of the vastlawn, the unbroken peace of wood and cultivated ground, all carried withthem a confused general impression of well-being and of dignity. Marcella drew it in--this impression--with avidity. Yet at the samemoment she noticed involuntarily the gateless gap at the end of theavenue, the choked condition of the garden paths on either side of thelawn, and the unsightly tufts of grass spotting the broad gravel terracebeneath her window. 

"It _is_ a heavenly place, all said and done, " she protested to herselfwith a little frown. "But no doubt it would have been better still ifUncle Robert had looked after it and we could afford to keep the gardendecent. Still--"

She dropped on a stool beside the open window, and as her eyes steepedthemselves afresh in what they saw, the frown disappeared again in theformer look of glowing content--that content of youth which is nevermerely passive, nay, rather, contains an invariable element of covetouseagerness. 

It was but three months or so since Marcella's father, Mr. RichardBoyce, had succeeded to the ownership of Mellor Park the old home of theBoyces, and it was little more than six weeks since Marcella hadreceived her summons home from the students' boarding-house inKensington, where she had been lately living. She had ardently wishedto assist in the June "settling-in, " having not been able to apply hermind to the music or painting she was supposed to be studying, norindeed to any other subject whatever, since the news of theirinheritance had reached her. But her mother in a dry little note had letit be known that she preferred to manage the move for herself. Marcellahad better go on with her studies as long as possible. 

Yet Marcella was here at last. And as she looked round her large bareroom, with its old dilapidated furniture, and then out again to woodsand lawns, it seemed to her that all was now well, and that herchildhood with its squalors and miseries was blotted out--atoned for bythis last kind sudden stroke of fate, which might have been delayed sodeplorably!--since no one could have reasonably expected that anapparently sound man of sixty would have succumbed in three days to thesort of common chill a hunter and sportsman must have resistedsuccessfully a score of times before. 

Her great desire now was to put the past--the greater part of it at anyrate--behind her altogether. Its shabby worries were surely done with, poor as she and her parents still were, relatively to their presentposition. At least she was no longer the self-conscious schoolgirl, paidfor at a lower rate than her companions, stinted in dress, pocket-money, and education, and fiercely resentful at every turn of some real orfancied slur; she was no longer even the half-Bohemian student of thesepast two years, enjoying herself in London so far as the iron necessityof keeping her boarding-house expenses down to the lowest possiblefigure would allow. She was something altogether different. She wasMarcella Boyce, a "finished" and grown-up young woman of twenty-one, theonly daughter and child of Mr. Boyce of Mellor Park, inheritress of oneof the most ancient names in Midland England, and just entering on alife which to her own fancy and will, at any rate, promised the highestpossible degree of interest and novelty. 

Yet, in the very act of putting her past away from her, she onlysucceeded, so it seemed, in inviting it to repossess her. 

For against her will, she fell straightway--in this quiet of the autumnmorning--into a riot of memory, setting her past self against herpresent more consciously than she had done yet, recalling scene afterscene and stage after stage with feelings of sarcasm, or amusement, ordisgust, which showed themselves freely as they came and went, in thefine plastic face turned to the September woods. 

She had been at school since she was nine years old--there was thedominant fact in these motley uncomfortable years behind her, which, inher young ignorance of the irrevocableness of living, she wished soimpatiently to forget. As to the time before her school life, she had adim memory of seemly and pleasant things, of a house in London, of alarge and bright nursery, of a smiling mother who took constant noticeof her, of games, little friends, and birthday parties. What had led tothe complete disappearance of this earliest "set, " to use a theatricalphrase, from the scenery of her childhood, Marcella did not yetadequately know, though she had some theories and many suspicions inthe background of her mind. But at any rate this first image of memorywas succeeded by another precise as the first was vague--the image of atall white house, set against a white chalk cliff rising in terracesbehind it and alongside it, where she had spent the years from nine tofourteen, and where, if she were set down blindfold, now, at twenty-one, she could have found her way to every room and door and cupboard andstair with a perfect and fascinated familiarity. 

When she entered that house she was a lanky, black-eyed creature, tallfor her age, and endowed or, as she herself would have put it, cursedwith an abundance of curly unmanageable hair, whereof the brushing andtending soon became to a nervous clumsy child, not long parted from hernurse, one of the worst plagues of her existence. During her home lifeshe had been an average child of the quick and clever type, with averagefaults. But something in the bare, ugly rooms, the discipline, theteaching, the companionship of Miss Frederick's Cliff House School forYoung Ladies, transformed little Marcella Boyce, for the time being, into a demon. She hated her lessons, though, when she chose, she coulddo them in a hundredth part of the time taken by her companions; shehated getting up in the wintry dark, and her cold ablutions with somedozen others in the comfortless lavatory; she hated the meals in thelong schoolroom, where, because twice meat was forbidden and twicepudding allowed, she invariably hungered fiercely for more mutton andscorned her second course, making a sort of dramatic story to herselfout of Miss Frederick's tyranny and her own thwarted appetite as she satblack-browed and brooding in her place. She was not a favourite with hercompanions, and she was a perpetual difficulty and trouble to herperfectly well-intentioned schoolmistress. The whole of her first yearwas one continual series of sulks, quarrels, and revolts. 

Perhaps her blackest days were the days she spent occasionally in bed, when Miss Frederick, at her wit's end, would take advantage of one ofthe child's perpetual colds to try the effects of a day's seclusion andsolitary confinement, administered in such a form that it could do hercharge no harm, and might, she hoped, do her good. "For I do believe agreat part of it's liver or nerves! No child in her right senses couldbehave so, " she would declare to the mild and stout French lady who hadbeen her partner for years, and who was more inclined to befriend andexcuse Marcella than any one else in the house--no one exactly knew why. 

Now the rule of the house when any girl was ordered to bed with a coldwas, in the first place, that she should not put her arms outside thebedclothes--for if you were allowed to read and amuse yourself in bedyou might as well be up; that the housemaid should visit the patient inthe early morning with a cup of senna-tea, and at long and regularintervals throughout the day with beef-tea and gruel; and that no oneshould come to see and talk with her, unless, indeed, it were thedoctor, quiet being in all cases of sickness the first condition ofrecovery, and the natural schoolgirl in Miss Frederick's persuasionbeing more or less inclined to complain without cause if illness weremade agreeable. 

For some fourteen hours, therefore, on these days of durance Marcellawas left almost wholly alone, nothing but a wild mass of black hair anda pair of roving, defiant eyes in a pale face showing above thebedclothes whenever the housemaid chose to visit her--a pitiable morsel, in truth, of rather forlorn humanity. For though she had her movementsof fierce revolt, when she was within an ace of throwing the senna-teain Martha's face, and rushing downstairs in her nightgown to denounceMiss Frederick in the midst of an astonished schoolroom, somethinggenerally interposed; not conscience, it is to be feared, or any wish"to be good, " but only an aching, inmost sense of childish lonelinessand helplessness; a perception that she had indeed tried everybody'spatience to the limit, and that these days in bed represented criseswhich must be borne with even by such a rebel as Marcie Boyce. 

So she submitted, and presently learnt, under dire stress of boredom, toamuse herself a good deal by developing a natural capacity for dreamingawake. Hour by hour she followed out an endless story of which she wasalways the heroine. Before the annoyance of her afternoon gruel, whichshe loathed, was well forgotten, she was in full fairy-land again, figuring generally as the trusted friend and companion of the Princessof Wales--of that beautiful Alexandra, the top and model of Englishsociety whose portrait in the window of the little stationer's shop atMarswell--the small country town near Cliff House--had attracted thechild's attention once, on a dreary walk, and had ever since governedher dreams. Marcella had no fairy-tales, but she spun a whole cycle forherself around the lovely Princess who came to seem to her before longher own particular property. She had only to shut her eyes and she hadcaught her idol's attention--either by some look or act of passionateyet unobtrusive homage as she passed the royal carriage in thestreet--or by throwing herself in front of the divinity's runawayhorses--or by a series of social steps easily devised by an imaginativechild, well aware, in spite of appearances, that she was of an oldfamily and had aristocratic relations. Then, when the Princess had heldout a gracious hand and smiled, all was delight! Marcella grew up on theinstant: she was beautiful, of course; she had, so people said, the"Boyce eyes and hair;" she had sweeping gowns, generally of white muslinwith cherry-coloured ribbons; she went here and there with the Princess, laughing and talking quite calmly with the greatest people in the land, her romantic friendship with the adored of England making her all thetime the observed of all observers, bringing her a thousand delicateflatteries and attentions. 

Then, when she was at the very top of ecstasy, floating in the softestsummer sea of fancy, some little noise would startle her into openingher eyes, and there beside her in the deepening dusk would be the barewhite beds of her two dormitory companions, the ugly wall-paperopposite, and the uncovered boards with their frugal strips of carpetstretching away on either hand. The tea-bell would ring perhaps in thedepths far below, and the sound would complete the transformation ofthe Princess's maid-of-honour into Marcie Boyce, the plain naughtychild, whom nobody cared about, whose mother never wrote to her, who incontrast to every other girl in the school had not a single "partyfrock, " and who would have to choose next morning between another dumbday of senna-tea and gruel, supposing she chose to plead that her coldwas still obstinate, or getting up at half-past six to repeat half apage of Ince's "Outlines of English History" in the chilly schoolroom, at seven. 

Looking back now as from another world on that unkempt fractious Marcieof Cliff House, the Marcella of the present saw with a mixture ofamusement and self-pity that one great aggravation of that child's dailymiseries had been a certain injured, irritable sense of socialdifference between herself and her companions. Some proportion of thegirls at Cliff House were drawn from the tradesman class of two or threeneighbouring towns. Their tradesmen papas were sometimes ready to dealon favourable terms with Miss Frederick for the supply of herestablishment; in which case the young ladies concerned evidently feltthemselves very much at home, and occasionally gave themselves airswhich alternately mystified and enraged a little spitfire outsider likeMarcella Boyce. Even at ten years old she perfectly understood that shewas one of the Boyces of Brookshire, and that her great-uncle had been afamous Speaker of the House of Commons. The portrait of this great-unclehad hung in the dining room of that pretty London house which now seemedso far away; her father had again and again pointed it out to thechild, and taught her to be proud of it; and more than once her childisheye had been caught by the likeness between it and an old grey-hairedgentleman who occasionally came to see them, and whom she called"Grandpapa. " Through one influence and another she had drawn the gloryof it, and the dignity of her race generally, into her childish blood. There they were now--the glory and the dignity--a feverish leaven, driving her perpetually into the most crude and ridiculous outbreaks, which could lead to nothing but humiliation. 

"I wish my great-uncle were here! _He'd_ make you remember--yougreat--you great--big bully you!"--she shrieked on one occasion when shehad been defying a big girl in authority, and the big girl--the stoutand comely daughter of a local ironmonger--had been successfullyasserting herself. 

The big girl opened her eyes wide and laughed. 

"_Your_ great-uncle! Upon my word! And who may he be, miss? If it comesto that, I'd like to show _my_ great-uncle David how you've scratched mywrist. He'd give it you. He's almost as strong as father, though he isso old. You get along with you, and behave yourself, and don't talkstuff to me. "

Whereupon Marcella, choking with rage and tears, found herself pushedout of the schoolroom and the door shut upon her. She rushed up to thetop terrace, which was the school playground, and sat there in a hiddenniche of the wall, shaking and crying, --now planning vengeance on herconqueror, and now hot all over with the recollection of her ownill-bred and impotent folly. 

No--during those first two years the only pleasures, so memorydeclared, were three: the visits of the cake-woman on Saturday--Marcellasitting in her window could still taste the three-cornered puffs andsmall sweet pears on which, as much from a fierce sense of freedom andself-assertion as anything else, she had lavished her tiny weeklyallowance; the mad games of "tig, " which she led and organised in thetop playground; and the kindnesses of fat Mademoiselle Rénier, MissFrederick's partner, who saw a likeness in Marcella to a long-dead smallsister of her own, and surreptitiously indulged "the little wild-cat, "as the school generally dubbed the Speaker's great-niece, whenever shecould. 

But with the third year fresh elements and interests had entered in. Romance awoke, and with it certain sentimental affections. In the firstplace, a taste for reading had rooted itself--reading of the adventurousand poetical kind. There were two or three books which Marcella hadabsorbed in a way it now made her envious to remember. For at twenty-onepeople who take interest in many things, and are in a hurry to haveopinions, must skim and "turn over" books rather than read them, mustuse indeed as best they may a scattered and distracted mind, and sufferoccasional pangs of conscience as pretenders. But at thirteen--whatconcentration! what devotion! what joy! One of these precious volumeswas Bulwer's "Rienzi"; another was Miss Porter's "Scottish Chiefs"; athird was a little red volume of "Marmion" which an aunt had given her. She probably never read any of them through--she had not a particle ofindustry or method in her composition--but she lived in them. The partswhich it bored her to read she easily invented for herself, but thescenes and passages which thrilled her she knew by heart; she had nogift for verse-making, but she laboriously wrote a long poem on thedeath of Rienzi, and she tried again and again with a not inapt hand toillustrate for herself in pen and ink the execution of Wallace. 

But all these loves for things and ideas were soon as nothing incomparison with a friendship, and an adoration. 

To take the adoration first. When Marcella came to Cliff House she wasrecommended by the same relation who gave her "Marmion" to the kindoffices of the clergyman of the parish, who happened to be known to someof the Boyce family. He and his wife--they had no children--did theirduty amply by the odd undisciplined child. They asked her to tea once ortwice; they invited her to the school-treat, where she was onlyself-conscious and miserably shy; and Mr. Ellerton had at least onefriendly and pastoral talk with Miss Frederick as to the difficulties ofher pupil's character. For a long time little came of it. Marcella washard to tame, and when she went to tea at the Rectory Mrs. Ellerton, whowas refined and sensible, did not know what to make of her, though insome unaccountable way she was drawn to and interested by the child. Butwith the expansion of her thirteenth year there suddenly developed inMarcie's stormy breast an overmastering absorbing passion for these twopersons. She did not show it to them much, but for herself it raisedher to another plane of existence, gave her new objects and newstandards. She who had hated going to church now counted time entirelyby Sundays. To see the pulpit occupied by any other form and face thanthose of the rector was a calamity hardly to be borne; if the exit ofthe school party were delayed by any accident so that Mr. And Mrs. Ellerton overtook them in the churchyard, Marcella would walk home onair, quivering with a passionate delight, and in the dreary afternoon ofthe school Sunday she would spend her time happily in trying to writedown the heads of Mr. Ellerton's sermon. In the natural course of thingsshe would, at this time, have taken no interest in such things at all, but whatever had been spoken by him had grace, thrill, meaning. 

Nor was the week quite barren of similar delights. She was generallysent to practise on an old square piano in one of the top rooms. Thewindow in front of her overlooked the long white drive and the distanthigh road into which it ran. Three times a week on an average Mrs. Ellerton's pony carriage might be expected to pass along that road. Every day Marcella watched for it, alive with expectation, her fingersstrumming as they pleased. Then with the first gleam of the white ponyin the distance, over would go the music stool, and the child leapt tothe window, remaining fixed there, breathing quick and eagerly till thetrees on the left had hidden from her the graceful erect figure of Mrs. Ellerton. Then her moment of Paradise was over; but the afterglow of itlasted for the day. 

So much for romance, for feelings as much like love as childhood canknow them, full of kindling charm and mystery. Her friendship had beenof course different, but it also left deep mark. A tall, consumptivegirl among the Cliff House pupils, the motherless daughter of aclergyman-friend of Miss Frederick's, had for some time taken notice ofMarcella, and at length won her by nothing else, in the first instance, than a remarkable gift for story-telling. She was a parlour-boarder, hada room to herself, and a fire in it when the weather was cold. She wasnot held strictly to lesson hours; many delicacies in the way of foodwere provided for her, and Miss Frederick watched over her with a quitematernal solicitude. When winter came she developed a troublesome cough, and the doctor recommended that a little suite of rooms looking southand leading out on the middle terrace of the garden should be given upto her. There was a bedroom, an intermediate dressing-room, and then alittle sitting-room built out upon the terrace, with a window-dooropening upon it. 

Here Mary Lant spent week after week. Whenever lesson hours were doneshe clamoured for Marcie Boyce, and Marcella was always eager to go toher. She would fly up stairs and passages, knock at the bedroom door, run down the steps to the queer little dressing-room where the roofnearly came on your head, and down more steps again to the sitting-room. Then when the door was shut, and she was crooning over the fire with herfriend, she was entirely happy. The tiny room was built on the edge ofthe terrace, the ground fell rapidly below it, and the west windowcommanded a broad expanse of tame arable country, of square fields andhedges, and scattered wood. Marcella, looking back upon that room, seemed always to see it flooded with the rays of wintry sunset, a kettleboiling on the fire, her pale friend in a shawl crouching over thewarmth, and the branches of a snowberry tree, driven by the wind, beating against the terrace door. 

But what a story-teller was Mary Lant! She was the inventor of a storycalled "John and Julia, " which went on for weeks and months without everproducing the smallest satiety in Marcella. Unlike her books ofadventure, this was a domestic drama of the purest sort; it wasextremely moral and evangelical, designed indeed by its sensitivelyreligious author for Marcie's correction and improvement. There was init a sublime hero, who set everybody's faults to rights and lectured theheroine. In real life Marcella would probably before long have beenfound trying to kick his shins--a mode of warfare of which in her demonmoods she was past mistress. But as Mary Lant described him, she notonly bore with and trembled before him--she adored him. The taste forhim and his like, as well as for the story-teller herself--a girl of atremulous, melancholy fibre, sweet-natured, possessed by a Calvinistfaith, and already prescient of death--grew upon her. Soon her absorbingdesire was to be altogether shut up with Mary, except on Sundays and atpractising times. For this purpose she gave herself the worst cold shecould achieve, and cherished diligently what she proudly considered tobe a racking cough. But Miss Frederick was deaf to the latter, and onlythreatened the usual upstairs seclusion and senna-tea for the former, whereupon Marcella in alarm declared that her cold was much better andgave up the cough in despair. It was her first sorrow and cost her somedays of pale brooding and silence, and some nights of stifled tears, when during an Easter holiday a letter from Miss Frederick to her motherannounced the sudden death of Mary Lant. 

CHAPTER II. 

Friendship and love are humanising things, and by her fourteenth yearMarcella was no longer a clever little imp, but a fast-maturing and insome ways remarkable girl, with much of the woman in her already. Shehad begun even to feel an interest in her dress, to speculateoccasionally on her appearance. At the fourth breaking-up party afterher arrival at Cliff House, Marcella, who had usually figured on theseoccasions in a linsey-woolsey high to the throat, amid the frilled andsashed splendours of her companions, found lying on her bed, when shewent up with the others to dress, a plain white muslin dress with blueribbons. It was the gift of old Mademoiselle Rénier, who affectionatelywished her queer, neglected favourite to look well. Marcella examined itand fingered it with an excited mixture of feelings. First of all therewas the sore and swelling bitterness that she should owe such things tothe kindness of the French governess, whereas finery for the occasionhad been freely sent to all the other girls from "home. " She very nearlyturned her back upon the bed and its pretty burden. But then the meresnowy whiteness of the muslin and freshness of the ribbons, and theburning curiosity to see herself decked therein, overcame a naturewhich, in the midst of its penury, had been always really possessed bya more than common hunger for sensuous beauty and seemliness. Marcellawore it, was stormily happy in it, and kissed Mademoiselle Rénier for itat night with an effusion, nay, some tears, which no one at Cliff Househad ever witnessed in her before except with the accompaniments of rageand fury. 

A little later her father came to see her, the first and only visit hepaid to her at school. Marcella, to whom he was by now almost astranger, received him demurely, making no confidences, and took himover the house and gardens. When he was about to leave her a suddenupswell of paternal sentiment made him ask her if she was happy and ifshe wanted anything. 

"Yes!" said Marcella, her large eyes gleaming; "tell mamma I want a'fringe. ' Every other girl in the school has got one. "

And she pointed disdainfully to her plainly parted hair. Her father, astonished by her unexpected vehemence, put up his eyeglass and studiedthe child's appearance. Three days later, by her mother's permission, Marcella was taken to the hairdresser at Marswell by MademoiselleRénier, returned in all the glories of a "fringe, " and, inacknowledgment thereof, wrote her mother a letter which for the firsttime had something else than formal news in it. 

Meanwhile new destinies were preparing for her. For a variety of smallreasons Mr. Boyce, who had never yet troubled himself about the matterfrom a distance, was not, upon personal inspection, very favourablystruck with his daughter's surroundings. His wife remarked shortly, whenhe complained to her, that Marcella seemed to her as well off as thedaughter of persons of their means could expect to be. But Mr. Boycestuck to his point. He had just learnt that Harold, the only son of hiswidowed brother Robert, of Mellor Park, had recently developed a deadlydisease, which might be long, but must in the end be sure. If the youngman died and he outlived Robert, Mellor Park would be his; they wouldand must return, in spite of certain obstacles, to their natural rank insociety, and Marcella must of course be produced as his daughter andheiress. When his wife repulsed him, he went to his eldest sister, anold maid with a small income of her own, who happened to be staying withthem, and was the only member of his family with whom he was now onterms. She was struck with his remarks, which bore on family pride, acommodity not always to be reckoned on in the Boyces, but which sheherself possessed in abundance; and when he paused she slowly said thatif an ideal school of another type could be found for Marcella, shewould be responsible for what it might cost over and above the presentarrangement. Marcella's manners were certainly rough; it was difficultto say what she was learning, or with whom she was associating;accomplishments she appeared to have none. Something should certainly bedone for her--considering the family contingencies. But being a strongevangelical, the aunt stipulated for "religious influences, " and saidshe would write to a friend. 

The result was that a month or two later Marcella, now close on herfourteenth birthday, was transferred from Cliff House to the charge of alady who managed a small but much-sought-after school for young ladiesat Solesby, a watering place on the east coast. 

 * * * * *

But when in the course of reminiscence Marcella found herself once moreat Solesby, memory began to halt and wander, to choose another tone andmethod. At Solesby the rough surroundings and primitive teaching ofCliff House, together with her own burning sense of inferiority anddisadvantage, had troubled her no more. She was well taught there, anddeveloped quickly from the troublesome child into the young lady dulybroken in to all social proprieties. But it was not her lessons or herdancing masters that she remembered. She had made for herself agitationsat Cliff House, but what were they as compared to the agitations ofSolesby! Life there had been one long Wertherish romance in which therewere few incidents, only feelings, which were themselves events. Itcontained humiliations and pleasures, but they had been all matters ofspiritual relation, connected with one figure only--the figure of herschoolmistress, Miss Pemberton; and with one emotion only--a passion, anadoration, akin to that she had lavished on the Ellertons, but now muchmore expressive and mature. A tall slender woman with brown, grey-besprinkled hair falling in light curls after the fashion of ourgrandmothers on either cheek, and braided into a classic knotbehind--the face of a saint, an enthusiast--eyes overflowing withfeeling above a thin firm mouth--the mouth of the obstinate saint, yetsweet also: this delicate significant picture was stamped on Marcella'sheart. What tremors of fear and joy could she not remember inconnection with it? what night-vigils when a tired girl kept herselfthrough long hours awake that she might see at last the door open and afigure with a night-lamp standing an instant in the doorway?--for MissPemberton, who slept little and read late, never went to rest withoutsoftly going the rounds of her pupils' rooms. What storms of contest, mainly provoked by Marcella for the sake of the emotions, first ofcombat, then of reconciliation to which they led! What a strangedevelopment on the pupil's side of a certain histrionic gift, a turn forimaginative intrigue, for endless small contrivances such as might rouseor heighten the recurrent excitements of feeling! What agitated momentsof religious talk! What golden days in the holidays, whenlong-looked-for letters arrived full of religious admonition, letterswhich were carried about and wept over till they fell to pieces underthe stress of such a worship--what terrors and agonies of a stimulatedconscience--what remorse for sins committed at school--what zeal toconfess them in letters of a passionate eloquence--and what indifferencemeanwhile to anything of the same sort that might have happened at home!

Strange faculty that women have for thus lavishing their heart's bloodfrom their very cradles! Marcella could hardly look back now, in thequiet of thought, to her five years with Miss Pemberton without a shiverof agitation. Yet now she never saw her. It was two years since theyparted; the school was broken up; her idol had gone to India to join awidowed brother. It was all over--for ever. Those precious letters hadworn themselves away; so, too, had Marcella's religious feelings; shewas once more another being. 

 * * * * *

But these two years since she had said good-bye to Solesby and herschool days? Once set thinking of bygones by the stimulus of Mellor andits novelty, Marcella must needs think, too, of her London life, of allthat it had opened to her, and meant for her. Fresh agitations!--freshpassions!--but this time impersonal, passions of the mind andsympathies. 

At the time she left Solesby her father and mother were abroad, and itwas apparently not convenient that she should join them. Marcella, looking back, could not remember that she had ever been much desired athome. No doubt she had been often moody and tiresome in the holidays;but she suspected--nay, was certain--that there had been other and morepermanent reasons why her parents felt her presence with them a burden. At any rate, when the moment came for her to leave Miss Pemberton, hermother wrote from abroad that, as Marcella had of late shown decidedaptitude both for music and painting, it would be well that she shouldcultivate both gifts for a while more seriously than would be possibleat home. Mrs. Boyce had made inquiries, and was quite willing that herdaughter should go, for a time, to a lady whose address she enclosed, and to whom she herself had written--a lady who received girl-studentsworking at the South Kensington art classes. 

So began an experience, as novel as it was strenuous. Marcella soondeveloped all the airs of independence and all the jargon of twoprofessions. Working with consuming energy and ambition, she pushed hergifts so far as to become at least a very intelligent, eager, andconfident critic of the art of other people--which is much. But thoughart stirred and trained her, gave her new horizons and new standards, itwas not in art that she found ultimately the chief excitement andmotive-power of her new life--not in art, but in the birth of social andphilanthropic ardour, the sense of a hitherto unsuspected social power. 

One of her girl-friends and fellow-students had two brothers in London, both at work at South Kensington, and living not far from their sister. The three were orphans. They sprang from a nervous, artistic stock, andMarcella had never before come near any one capable of crowding so muchliving into the twenty-four hours. The two brothers, both of themskilful and artistic designers in different lines, and hard at work allday, were members of a rising Socialist society, and spent theirevenings almost entirely on various forms of social effort and Socialistpropaganda. They seemed to Marcella's young eyes absolutely sincere andquite unworldly. They lived as workmen; and both the luxuries and thecharities of the rich were equally odious to them. That there could beany "right" in private property or private wealth had become incredibleto them; their minds were full of lurid images or resentments drawn fromthe existing state of London; and though one was humorous and handsome, the other, short, sickly, and pedantic, neither could discuss theSocialist ideal without passion, nor hear it attacked without anger. And in milder measure their sister, who possessed more artistic giftthan either of them, was like unto them. 

Marcella saw much of these three persons, and something of theirfriends. She went with them to Socialist lectures, or to the publicevenings of the Venturist Society, to which the brothers belonged. Edie, the sister, assaulted the imagination of her friend, made her read thebooks of a certain eminent poet and artist, once the poet of love anddreamland, "the idle singer of an empty day, " now seer and prophet, theherald of an age to come, in which none shall possess, though all shallenjoy. The brothers, more ambitious, attacked her through the reason, brought her popular translations and selections from Marx and Lassalle, together with each Venturist pamphlet and essay as it appeared; theyflattered her with technical talk; they were full of the importance ofwomen to the new doctrine and the new era. 

The handsome brother was certainly in love with her; the other, probably. Marcella was not in love with either of them, but she wasdeeply interested in all three, and for the sickly brother she felt atthat time a profound admiration--nay, reverence--which influenced hervitally at a critical moment of life. "Blessed are the poor"--"Woe untoyou, rich men"--these were the only articles of his scanty creed, butthey were held with a fervour, and acted upon with a conviction, whichour modern religion seldom commands. His influence made Marcella arent-collector under a lady friend of his in the East End; because ofit, she worked herself beyond her strength in a joint attempt made bysome members of the Venturist Society to organise a Tailoresses' Union;and, to please him, she read articles and blue-books on Sweating andOvercrowding. It was all very moving and very dramatic; so, too, was thepersuasion Marcella divined in her friends, that she was destined intime, with work and experience, to great things and high place in themovement. 

The wholly unexpected news of Mr. Boyce's accession to Mellor had veryvarious effects upon this little band of comrades. It revived inMarcella ambitions, instincts and tastes wholly different from those ofher companions, but natural to her by temperament and inheritance. Theelder brother, Anthony Craven, always melancholy and suspicious, divinedher immediately. 

"How glad you are to be done with Bohemia!" he said to her ironicallyone day, when he had just discovered her with the photographs of Mellorabout her. "And how rapidly it works!"

"What works?" she asked him angrily. 

"The poison of possession. And what a mean end it puts to things! A weekago you were all given to causes not your own; now, how long will ittake you to think of us as 'poor fanatics!'--and to be ashamed you everknew us?"

"You mean to say that I am a mean hypocrite!" she cried. "Do you thinkthat because I delight in--in pretty things and old associations, I mustgive up all my convictions? Shall I find no poor at Mellor--no work todo? It is unkind--unfair. It is the way all reform breaks down--throughmutual distrust!"

He looked at her with a cold smile in his dark, sunken eyes, and sheturned from him indignantly. 

When they bade her good-bye at the station, she begged them to write toher. 

"No, no!" said Louis, the handsome younger brother. "If ever you wantus, we are there. If you write, we will answer. But you won't need tothink about us yet awhile. Good-bye!"

And he pressed her hand with a smile. 

The good fellow had put all his own dreams and hopes out of sight with afirm hand since the arrival of her great news. Indeed, Marcella realisedin them all that she was renounced. Louis and Edith spoke with affectionand regret. As to Anthony, from the moment that he set eyes upon themaid sent to escort her to Mellor, and the first-class ticket that hadbeen purchased for her, Marcella perfectly understood that she hadbecome to him as an enemy. 

"They shall see--I will show them!" she said to herself with angryenergy, as the train whirled her away. And her sense of theirunwarrantable injustice kept her tense and silent till she was roused toa childish and passionate pleasure by a first sight of the wide lawnsand time-stained front of Mellor. 

 * * * * *

Of such elements, such memories of persons, things, and events, wasMarcella's reverie by the window made up. One thing, however, which, clearly, this report of it has not explained, is that spirit ofenergetic discontent with her past in which she had entered on hermusings. Why such soreness of spirit? Her childhood had been pinched andloveless; but, after all, it could well bear comparison with that ofmany another child of impoverished parents. There had been compensationsall through--and were not the great passion of her Solesby days, together with the interest and novelty of her London experience, enoughto give zest and glow to the whole retrospect? Ah! but it will beobserved that in this sketch of Marcella's schooldays nothing has beensaid of Marcella's holidays. In this omission the narrative has butfollowed the hasty, half-conscious gaps and slurs of the girl's ownthought. For Marcella never thought of those holidays and all that wasconnected with them _in detail_, if she could possibly avoid it. But itwas with them, in truth, and with what they implied, that she was soirritably anxious to be done when she first began to be reflective bythe window; and it was to them she returned with vague, but stillintense consciousness when the rush of active reminiscence died away. 

 * * * * *

That surely was the breakfast bell ringing, and with the dignifiedancestral sound which was still so novel and attractive to Marcella'sear. Recalled to Mellor Park and its circumstances, she wentthoughtfully downstairs, pondering a little on the shallow steps of thebeautiful Jacobean staircase. _Could_ she ever turn her back upon thoseholidays? Was she not rather, so to speak, just embarked upon theirsequel, or second volume?

But let us go downstairs also. 

CHAPTER III. 

Breakfast was laid in the "Chinese room, " a room which formed part ofthe stately "garden front, " added to the original structure of the housein the eighteenth century by a Boyce whose wife had money. Thedecorations, especially of the domed and vaulted roof, were supposed bytheir eighteenth century designer to be "Oriental"; they were, at anyrate, intricate and overladen; and the figures of mandarins on the wornand discoloured wall-paper had, at least, top-knots, pigtails, andpetticoats to distinguish them from the ordinary Englishmen of 1760, besides a charming mellowness of colour and general effect bestowed onthem by time and dilapidation. The marble mantelpiece was elaboratelycarved in Chinamen and pagodas. There were Chinese curiosities of amiscellaneous kind on the tables, and the beautiful remains of an Indiancarpet underfoot. Unluckily, some later Boyce had thrust a crudelyGothic sideboard, with an arched and pillared front, adapted to thepurposes of a warming apparatus, into the midst of the mandarins, whichdisturbed the general effect. But with all its original absurdities, andits modern defacements, the room was a beautiful and stately one. Marcella stepped into it with a slight unconscious straightening of hertall form. It seemed to her that she had never breathed easily tillnow, in the ample space of these rooms and gardens. 

Her father and mother were already at table, together with Mrs. Boyce'sbrown spaniel Lynn. 

Mr. Boyce was employed in ordering about the tall boy in a worn andgreasy livery coat, who represented the men-service of theestablishment; his wife was talking to her dog, but from the lift of hereyebrows, and the twitching of her thin lips, it was plain to Marcellathat her mother was as usual of opinion that her father was behavingfoolishly. 

"There, for goodness' sake, cut some bread on the sideboard, " said theangry master, "and hand it round instead of staring about you like astuck pig. What they taught you at Sir William Jute's I can't conceive. _I_ didn't undertake to make a man-servant of you, sir. "

The pale, harassed lad flew at the bread, cut it with a vast scatteringof crumbs, handed it clumsily round, and then took glad advantage of ashort supply of coffee to bolt from the room to order more. 

"Idiot!" said Mr. Boyce, with an angry frown, as he disappeared. 

"If you would allow Ann to do her proper parlour work again, " said hiswife blandly, "you would, I think, be less annoyed. And as I believeWilliam was boot boy at the Jutes', it is not surprising that he did notlearn waiting. "

"I tell you, Evelyn, that our position _demands_ a man-servant!" was thehot reply. "None of my family have ever attempted to run this house withwomen only. It would be unseemly--unfitting--incon--"

"Oh, I am no judge of course of what a Boyce may do!" said his wifecarelessly. "I leave that to you and the neighbourhood. "

Mr. Boyce looked uncomfortable, cooled down, and presently when thecoffee came back asked his wife for a fresh supply in tones from whichall bellicosity had for the time departed. He was a small and singularlythin man, with blue wandering eyes under the blackest possible eyebrowsand hair. The cheeks were hollow, the complexion as yellow as that ofthe typical Anglo-Indian. The special character of the mouth was hiddenby a fine black moustache, but his prevailing expression varied betweenirritability and a kind of plaintiveness. The conspicuous blue eyes wereas a rule melancholy; but they could be childishly bright andself-assertive. There was a general air of breeding about Richard Boyce, of that air at any rate which our common generalisations connect withthe pride of old family; his dress was careful and correct to the lastdetail; and his hands with their long fingers were of an excessivedelicacy, though marred as to beauty by a thinness which nearly amountedto emaciation. 

"The servants say they must leave unless the ghost does, Marcella, " saidMrs. Boyce, suddenly, laying a morsel of toast as she spoke on Lynn'snose. "Someone from the village of course has been talking--the cooksays she heard _something_ last night, though she will not condescend toparticulars--and in general it seems to me that you and I may be leftbefore long to do the house work. "

"What do they say in the village?" asked Marcella eagerly. 

"Oh! they say there was a Boyce two hundred years ago who fled downhere from London after doing something he shouldn't--I really forgetwhat. The sheriff's officers were advancing on the house. Their approachdispleased him, and he put an end to himself at the head of the littlestaircase leading from the tapestry-room down to my sitting-room. Whydid he choose the _staircase_?" said Mrs. Boyce with lightreflectiveness. 

"It won't do, " said Marcella, shaking her head. "I know the Boyce theymean. He was a ruffian, but he shot himself in London; and, any way, hewas dead long before that staircase was built. "

"Dear me, how well up you are!" said her mother. "Suppose you give alittle lecture on the family in the servants' hall. Though I never knewa ghost yet that was undone by dates. "

There was a satiric detachment in her tone which contrasted sharply withMarcella's amused but sympathetic interest. _Detachment_ was perhaps thecharacteristic note of Mrs. Boyce's manner, --a curious separateness, asit were, from all the things and human beings immediately about her. 

Marcella pondered. 

"I shall ask Mr. Harden about the stories, " she said presently. "He willhave heard them in the village. I am going to the church this morning. "

Her mother looked at her--a look of quiet examination--and smiled. TheLady Bountiful airs that Marcella had already assumed during the sixweeks she had been in the house entertained Mrs. Boyce exceedingly. 

"Harden!" said Mr. Boyce, catching the name. "I wish that man wouldleave me alone. What have I got to do with a water-supply for thevillage? It will be as much as ever I can manage to keep a water-tightroof over our heads during the winter after the way in which Robert hasbehaved. "

Marcella's cheek flushed. 

"The village water-supply is a _disgrace_, " she said with low emphasis. "I never saw such a crew of unhealthy, wretched-looking children in mylife as swarm about those cottages. We take the rent, and we ought tolook after them. I believe you could be _forced_ to do something, papa--if the local authority were of any use. "

She looked at him defiantly. 

"Nonsense, " said Mr. Boyce testily. "They got along in your UncleRobert's days, and they can get along now. Charity, indeed! Why, thestate of this house and the pinch for money altogether is enough, Ishould think, to take a man's mind. Don't you go talking to Mr. Hardenin the way you do, Marcella. I don't like it, and I won't have it. Youhave the interests of your family and your home to think of first. "

"Poor starved things!" said Marcella sarcastically--"living in such a_den_!"

And she swept her white hand round, as though calling to witness theroom in which they sat. 

"I tell you, " said Mr. Boyce, rising and standing before the fire, whence he angrily surveyed the handsome daughter who was in truth solittle known to him, and whose nature and aims during the close contactof the last few weeks had become something of a perplexity anddisturbance to him, --"I tell you our great effort, the effort of us all, must be to keep up the family position!--_our_ position. Look at thatlibrary, and its condition; look at the state of these wall-papers; lookat the garden; look at the estate books if it comes to that. Why, itwill be years before, even with all my knowledge of affairs, I can pullthe thing through--years!"

Mrs. Boyce gave a slight cough--she had pushed back her chair, and wasalternately studying her husband and daughter. They might have beenactors performing for her amusement. And yet, amusement is not preciselythe word. For that hazel eye, with its frequent smile, had not a sparkof geniality. After a time those about her found something scathing inits dry light. 

Now, as soon as her husband became aware that she was watching him, hislook wavered, and his mood collapsed. He threw her a curious furtiveglance, and fell silent. 

"I suppose Mr. Harden and his sister remind you of your London Socialistfriends, Marcella?" asked Mrs. Boyce lightly, in the pause thatfollowed. "You have, I see, taken a great liking for them. "

"Oh! well--I don't know, " said Marcella, with a shrug, and something ofa proud reticence. "Mr. Harden is very kind--but--he doesn't seem tohave thought much about things. "

She never talked about her London friends to her mother, if she couldhelp it. The sentiments of life generally avoided Mrs. Boyce when theycould. Marcella being all sentiment and impulse, was constantly hermother's victim, do what she would. But in her quiet moments she stoodon the defensive. 

"So the Socialists are the only people who think?" said Mrs. Boyce, whowas now standing by the window, pressing her dog's head against herdress as he pushed up against her. "Well, I am sorry for the Hardens. They tell me they give all their substance away--already--and every onesays it is going to be a particularly bad winter. The living, I hear, isworth nothing. All the same, I should wish them to look more cheerful. It is the first duty of martyrs. "

Marcella looked at her mother indignantly. It seemed to her often thatshe said the most heartless things imaginable. 

"Cheerful!" she said--"in a village like this--with all the young mendrifting off to London, and all the well-to-do people dissenters--no oneto stand by him--no money and no helpers--the people always ill--wageseleven and twelve shillings a week--and only the old wrecks of men leftto do the work! He might, I think, expect the people in _this_ house toback him up a little. All he asks is that papa should go and satisfyhimself with his own eyes as to the difference between our property andLord Maxwell's--"

"Lord Maxwell's!" cried Mr. Boyce, rousing himself from a state ofhalf-melancholy, half-sleepy reverie by the fire, and throwing away hiscigarette--"Lord Maxwell! Difference! I should think so. Thirty thousanda year, if he has a penny. By the way, I wish he would just have thecivility to answer my note about those coverts over by Willow Scrubs!"

He had hardly said the words when the door opened to admit William thefootman, in his usual tremor of nervousness, carrying a salver and anote. 

"The man says, please sir, is there any answer, sir?"

"Well, that's odd!" said Mr. Boyce, his look brightening. "Here _is_Lord Maxwell's answer, just as I was talking of it. "

His wife turned sharply and watched him take it; her lips parted, astrange expectancy in her whole attitude. He tore it open, read it, andthen threw it angrily under the grate. 

"No answer. Shut the door. " The lad retreated. Mr. Boyce sat down andbegan carefully to put the fire together. His thin left hand shook uponhis knee. 

There was a moment's pause of complete silence. Mrs. Boyce's face mighthave been seen by a close observer to quiver and then stiffen as shestood in the light of the window, a tall and queenly figure in hersweeping black. But she said not a word, and presently left the room. 

Marcella watched her father. 

"Papa--_was_ that a note from Lord Maxwell?"

Mr. Boyce looked round with a start, as though surprised that any onewas still there. It struck Marcella that he looked yellow andshrunken--years older than her mother. An impulse of tenderness, joinedwith anger and a sudden sick depression--she was conscious of them allas she got up and went across to him, determined to speak out. Herparents were not her friends, and did not possess her confidence; buther constant separation from them since her childhood had now sometimesthe result of giving her the boldness with them that a stranger mighthave had. She had no habitual deference to break through, and thehindering restraints of memory, though strong, were still less strongthan they would have been if she had lived with them day by day and yearby year, and had known their lives in close detail instead of guessingat them, as was now so often the case with her. 

"Papa, is Lord Maxwell's note an uncivil one?"

Mr. Boyce stooped forward and began to rub his chilly hand over theblaze. 

"Why, that man's only son and I used to loaf and shoot and play crickettogether from morning till night when we were boys. Henry Raeburn was abit older than I, and he lent me the gun with which I shot my firstrabbit. It was in one of the fields over by Soleyhurst, just where thetwo estates join. After that we were always companions--we used to goout at night with the keepers after poachers; we spent hours in the snowwatching for wood-pigeons; we shot that pair of kestrels over the innerhall door, in the Windmill Hill fields--at least I did--I was a bettershot than he by that time. He didn't like Robert--he always wanted me. "

"Well, papa, but what does he say?" asked Marcella, impatiently. Shelaid her hand, however, as she spoke, on her father's shoulder. 

Mr. Boyce winced and looked up at her. He and her mother had originallysent their daughter away from home that they might avoid the dailyworry of her awakening curiosities, and one of his resolutions in comingto Mellor Park had been to keep up his dignity with her. But the sightof her dark face bent upon him, softened by a quick and womanlycompassion, seemed to set free a new impulse in him. 

"He writes in the third person, if you want to know, my dear, and refersme to his agent, very much as though I were some London grocer who hadjust bought the place. Oh, it is quite evident what he means. They werehere without moving all through June and July, and it is now three weeksat least since he and Miss Raeburn came back from Scotland, and not acard nor a word from either of them! Nor from the Winterbournes, nor theLevens. Pleasant! Well, my dear, you must make up your mind to it. I didthink--I was fool enough to think--that when I came back to the oldplace, my father's old friends would let bygones be bygones. I never did_them_ any harm. Let them 'gang their gait, ' confound them!"--the littledark man straightened himself fiercely--"I can get my pleasure out ofthe land; and as for your mother, she'd not lift a finger to propitiateone of them!"

In the last words, however, there was not a fraction of that sympatheticpride which the ear expected, but rather fresh bitterness and grievance. 

Marcella stood thinking, her mind travelling hither and thither withlightning speed, now over the social events of the last six weeks--nowover incidents of those long-past holidays. Was this, indeed, the secondvolume beginning--the natural sequel to those old mysterious historiesof shrinking, disillusion, and repulse?

"What was it you wanted about those coverts, papa?" she asked presently, with a quick decision. 

"What the deuce does it matter? If you want to know, I proposed to himto exchange my coverts over by the Scrubs, which work in with hisshooting, for the wood down by the Home Farm. It was an exchange madeyear after year in my father's time. When I spoke to the keeper, I foundit had been allowed to lapse. Your uncle let the shooting go to rack andruin after Harold's death. It gave me something to write about, and Iwas determined to know where I stood--Well! the old Pharisee can go hisway: I'll go mine. "

And with a spasmodic attempt to play the squire of Mellor on his nativeheath, Richard Boyce rose, drew his emaciated frame to its full height, and stood looking out drearily to his ancestral lawns--a picturesque andelegant figure, for all its weakness and pitiableness. 

"I shall ask Mr. Aldous Raeburn about it, if I see him in the villageto-day, " said Marcella, quietly. 

Her father started, and looked at her with some attention. 

"What have you seen of Aldous Raeburn?" he inquired. "I remember hearingthat you had come across him. "

"Certainly I have come across him. I have met him once or twice at theVicarage--and--oh! on one or two other occasions, " said Marcella, carelessly. "He has always made himself agreeable. Mr. Harden says hisgrandfather is devoted to him, and will hardly ever let him go away fromhome. He does a great deal for Lord Maxwell now: writes for him, andhelps to manage the estate; and next year, when the Tories come back andLord Maxwell is in office again--"

"Why, of course, there'll be plums for the grandson, " said Mr. Boycewith a sneer. "That goes without saying--though we are such a virtuouslot. "

"Oh yes, he'll get on--everybody says so. And he'll deserve it too!" sheadded, her eye kindling combatively as she surveyed her father. "Hetakes a lot of trouble down here, about the cottages and the board ofguardians and the farms. The Hardens like him very much, but he is notexactly popular, according to them. His manners are sometimes shy andawkward, and the poor people think he's proud. "

"Ah! a prig I dare say--like some of his uncles before him, " said Mr. Boyce, irritably. "But he was civil to you, you say?"

And again he turned a quick considering eye on his daughter. 

"Oh dear! yes, " said Marcella, with a little proud smile. There was apause; then she spoke again. "I must go off to the church; the Hardenshave hard work just now with the harvest festival, and I promised totake them some flowers. "

"Well"--said her father, grudgingly, "so long as you don't promiseanything on my account! I tell you, I haven't got sixpence to spend onsubscriptions to anything or anybody. By the way, if you see Reynoldsanywhere about the drive, you can send him to me. He and I are goinground the Home Farm to pick up a few birds if we can, and see what thecoverts look like. The stock has all run down, and the place has beenpoached to death. But he thinks if we take on an extra man in thespring, and spend a little on rearing, we shall do pretty decently nextyear. "

The colour leapt to Marcella's cheek as she tied on her hat. 

"You will set up another keeper, and you won't do anything for thevillage?" she cried, her black eyes lightening, and without another wordshe opened the French window and walked rapidly away along the terrace, leaving her father both angered and amazed. 

A man like Richard Boyce cannot get comfortably through life without agood deal of masquerading in which those in his immediate neighbourhoodare expected to join. His wife had long since consented to play thegame, on condition of making it plain the whole time that she was nodupe. As to what Marcella's part in the affair might be going to be, herfather was as yet uneasily in the dark. What constantly astonished him, as she moved and talked under his eye, was the girl's beauty. Surely shehad been a plain child, though a striking one. But now she had not onlybeauty, but the air of beauty. The self-confidence given by thepossession of good looks was very evident in her behaviour. She was veryaccomplished, too, and more clever than was always quite agreeable to afather whose self-conceit was one of the few compensations left him bymisfortune. Such a girl was sure to be admired. She would havelovers--friends of her own. It seemed that already, while Lord Maxwellwas preparing to insult the father, his grandson had discovered that thedaughter was handsome. Richard Boyce fell into a miserable reverie, wherein the Raeburns' behaviour and Marcella's unexpected gifts playedabout equal parts. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile Marcella was gathering flowers in the "Cedar garden, " the mostadorable corner of Mellor Park, where the original Tudor house, grey, mullioned and ivy-covered, ran at right angles into the later "gardenfront, " which projected beyond it to the south, making thereby a sunnyand sheltered corner where roses, clematis, hollyhocks, and sunflowersgrew with a more lavish height and blossom than elsewhere, as thoughconscious they must do their part in a whole of beauty. The grass indeedwanted mowing, and the first autumn leaves lay thickly drifted upon it;the flowers were untied and untrimmed. But under the condition of twogardeners to ten acres of garden, nature does very much as she pleases, and Mr. Boyce when he came that way grumbled in vain. 

As for Marcella, she was alternately moved to revolt and tenderness bythe ragged charm of the old place. 

On the one hand, it angered her that anything so plainly meant forbeauty and dignity should go so neglected and unkempt. On the other, ifhouse and gardens had been spick and span like the other houses of theneighbourhood, if there had been sound roofs, a modern water-supply, shutters, greenhouses, and weedless paths, --in short, the generalself-complacent air of a well-kept country house, --where would have beenthat thrilling intimate appeal, as for something forlornly lovely, which the old place so constantly made upon her? It seemed to dependeven upon _her_, the latest born of all its children--to ask fortendance and cherishing even from _her_. She was always planninghow--with a minimum of money to spend--it could be comforted and healed, and in the planning had grown in these few weeks to love it as thoughshe had been bred there. 

But this morning Marcella picked her roses and sunflowers in tumult anddepression of spirit. What _was_ this past which in these newsurroundings was like some vainly fled tyrant clutching at them again?She energetically decided that the time had come for her to demand thetruth. Yet, of whom? Marcella knew very well that to force her mother toany line of action Mrs. Boyce was unwilling to follow, was beyond herpower. And it was not easy to go to her father directly and say, "Tellme exactly how and why it is that society has turned its back upon you. "All the same, it _was_ due to them all, due to herself especially, nowthat she was grown up and at home, that she should not be kept in thedark any longer like a baby, that she should be put in possession of thefacts which, after all, threatened to stand here at Mellor Park, asuntowardly in their, in _her_ way, as they had done in the shabby schooland lodging-house existence of all those bygone years. 

Perhaps the secret of her impatience was that she did not, and couldnot, believe that the facts, if faced, would turn out to beinsurmountable. Her instinct told her as she looked back that theirrelation toward society in the past, though full of discomforts andhumiliations, had not been the relation of outcasts. Their poverty andthe shifts to which poverty drives people had brought them thedisrespect of one class; and as to the acquaintances and friends oftheir own rank, what had been mainly shown them had been a sort of cooldistaste for their company, an insulting readiness to forget theexistence of people who had so to speak lost their social bloom, andlaid themselves open to the contemptuous disapproval or pity of theworld. Everybody, it seemed, knew their affairs, and knowing them saw nopersonal advantage and distinction in the Boyces' acquaintance, butrather the contrary. 

As she put the facts together a little, she realised, however, that thebreach had always been deepest between her father and his relations, orhis oldest friends. A little shiver passed through her as she reflectedthat here, in his own country, where his history was best known, thefeeling towards him, whatever it rested upon, might very probably bestrongest. Well, it _was_ hard upon them!--hard upon her mother--hardupon her. In her first ecstasy over the old ancestral house and thedignities of her new position, how little she had thought of thesethings! And there they were all the time--dogging and thwarting. 

She walked slowly along, with her burden of flowers, through a laurelpath which led straight to the drive, and so, across it, to the littlechurch. The church stood all alone there under the great limes of thePark, far away from parsonage and village--the property, it seemed, ofthe big house. When Marcella entered, the doors on the north and southsides were both standing open, for the vicar and his sister had beenalready at work there, and had but gone back to the parsonage for a bitof necessary business, meaning to return in half an hour. 

It was the unpretending church of a hamlet, girt outside by the humblegraves of toiling and forgotten generations, and adorned, or, at anyrate, diversified within by a group of mural monuments, of variousstyles and dates, but all of them bearing, in some way or another, thename of Boyce--conspicuous amongst them a florid cherub-crowned tomb inthe chancel, marking the remains of that Parliamentarian Boyce whofought side by side with Hampden, his boyish friend, at Chalgrove Field, lived to be driven out of Westminster by Colonel Pryde, and to spend hislater years at Mellor, in disgrace, first with the Protector, and thenwith the Restoration. From these monuments alone a tolerably faithfulidea of the Boyce family could have been gathered. Clearly not a familyof any very great pretensions--a race for the most part of frugal, upright country gentlemen--to be found, with scarcely an exception, onthe side of political liberty, and of a Whiggish religion; men who hadgiven their sons to die at Quebec, and Plassy, and Trafalgar, for themaking of England's Empire; who would have voted with Fox, but that theterrors of Burke, and a dogged sense that the country must be carriedon, drove them into supporting Pitt; who, at home, dispensed alternatejustice and doles, and when their wives died put up inscriptions to themintended to bear witness at once to the Latinity of a Boyce'seducation, and the pious strength of his legitimate affections--atedious race perhaps and pig-headed, tyrannical too here and there, buton the whole honourable English stuff--the stuff which has made, andstill in new forms sustains, the fabric of a great state. 

Only once was there a break in the uniform character of the monuments--abreak corresponding to the highest moment of the Boyce fortunes, amoment when the respectability of the family rose suddenly intobrilliance, and the prose of generations broke into a few years ofpoetry. Somewhere in the last century an earlier Richard Boyce wentabroad to make the grand tour. He was a man of parts, the friend ofHorace Walpole and of Gray, and his introductions opened to him whateverdoors he might wish to enter, at a time when the upper classes of theleading European nations were far more intimately and familiarlyacquainted with each other than they are now. He married at Rome anItalian lady of high birth and large fortune. Then he brought her hometo Mellor, where straightway the garden front was built with all itsfantastic and beautiful decoration, the great avenue was planted, pictures began to invade the house, and a musical library was collectedwhereof the innumerable faded volumes, bearing each of them the entwinednames of Richard and Marcella Boyce, had been during the last few weeksmines of delight and curiosity to the Marcella of to-day. 

The Italian wife bore her lord two sons, and then in early middle lifeshe died--much loved and passionately mourned. Her tomb bore nolong-winded panegyric. Her name only, her parentage and birthplace--forshe was Italian to the last, and her husband loved her the better forit--the dates of her birth and death, and then two lines from Dante's_Vita Nuova_. 

The portrait of this earlier Marcella hung still in the room where hermusic-books survived, --a dark blurred picture by an inferior hand; butthe Marcella of to-day had long since eagerly decided that her ownphysique and her father's were to be traced to its original, as well, nodoubt, as the artistic aptitudes of both--aptitudes not hithertoconspicuous in her respectable race. 

In reality, however, she loved every one of them--these Jacobean andGeorgian squires with their interminable epitaphs. Now, as she stood inthe church, looking about her, her flowers lying beside her in a tumbledheap on the chancel step, cheerfulness, delight, nay, the indomitablepride and exultation of her youth, came back upon her in one greatlifting wave. The depression of her father's repentances andtrepidations fell away; she felt herself in her place, under the shelterof her forefathers, incorporated and redeemed, as it were, into theirguild of honour. 

There were difficulties in her path, no doubt--but she had hervantage-ground, and would use it for her own profit and that of others. _She_ had no cause for shame; and in these days of the developedindividual the old solidarity of the family has become injustice andwrong. Her mind filled tumultuously with the evidence these last twoyears had brought her of her natural power over men and things. She knewperfectly well that she could do and dare what other girls of her agecould never venture--that she had fascination, resource, brain. 

Already, in these few weeks--Smiles played about her lips as she thoughtof that quiet grave gentleman of thirty she had been meeting at theHardens'. His grandfather might write what he pleased. It did not alterthe fact that during the last few weeks Mr. Aldous Raeburn, clearly oneof the _partis_ most coveted, and one of the men most observed, in theneighbourhood, had taken and shown a very marked interest in Mr. Boyce'sdaughter--all the more marked because of the reserved manner with whichit had to contend. 

No! whatever happened, she would carve her path, make her own way, andher parents' too. At twenty-one, nothing looks irrevocable. A woman'scharm, a woman's energy should do it all. 

Ay, and something else too. She looked quickly round the church, hermind swelling with the sense of the Cravens' injustice and distrust. Never could she be more conscious than here--on this very spot--ofmission, of an urging call to the service of man. In front of her wasthe Boyces' family pew, carved and becushioned, but behind it stretchedbench after bench of plain and humble oak, on which the village sat whenit came to church. Here, for the first time, had Marcella been broughtface to face with the agricultural world as it is--no stage ruralism, but the bare fact in one of its most pitiful aspects. Men of sixty andupwards, grey and furrowed like the chalk soil into which they hadworked their lives; not old as age goes, but already the refuse of theirgeneration, and paid for at the rate of refuse; with no prospect but theworkhouse, if the grave should be delayed, yet quiet, impassive, resigned, now showing a furtive childish amusement if a schoolboymisbehaved, or a dog strayed into church, now joining with a stolidunconsciousness in the tremendous sayings of the Psalms; women coarse, or worn, or hopeless; girls and boys and young children already blanchedand emaciated beyond even the normal Londoner from the effects ofinsanitary cottages, bad water, and starvation food--these figures andtypes had been a ghastly and quickening revelation to Marcella. InLondon the agricultural labourer, of whom she had heard much, had beento her as a pawn in the game of discussion. Here he was in the flesh;and she was called upon to live with him, and not only to talk abouthim. Under circumstances of peculiar responsibility too. For it was veryclear that upon the owner of Mellor depended, and had always depended, the labourer of Mellor. 

Well, she had tried to live with them ever since she came--had gone inand out of their cottages in flat horror and amazement at them and theirlives and their surroundings; alternately pleased and repelled by theircringing; now enjoying her position among them with the naturalaristocratic instinct of women, now grinding her teeth over her father'sand uncle's behaviour and the little good she saw any prospect of doingfor her new subjects. 

What, _their_ friend and champion, and ultimately their redeemer too?Well, and why not? Weak women have done greater things in the world. Asshe stood on the chancel step, vowing herself to these great things, shewas conscious of a dramatic moment--would not have been sorry, perhaps, if some admiring eye could have seen and understood her. 

But there was a saving sincerity at the root of her, and her strainedmood sank naturally into a girlish excitement. 

"We shall see!--We shall see!" she said aloud, and was startled to hearher words quite plainly in the silent church. As she spoke she stoopedto separate her flowers and see what quantities she had of each. 

But while she did so a sound of distant voices made her raise herselfagain. She walked down the church and stood at the open south door, looking and waiting. Before her stretched a green field path leadingacross the park to the village. The vicar and his sister were comingalong it towards the church, both flower-laden, and beside walked a tallman in a brown shooting suit, with his gun in his hand and his dogbeside him. 

The excitement in Marcella's eyes leapt up afresh for a moment as shesaw the group, and then subsided into a luminous and steady glow. Shewaited quietly for them, hardly responding to the affectionate signalsof the vicar's sister; but inwardly she was not quiet at all. For thetall man in the brown shooting coat was Mr. Aldous Raeburn. 

CHAPTER IV. 

"How kind of you!" said the rector's sister, enthusiastically; "but Ithought you would come and help us. "

And as Marcella took some of her burdens from her, Miss Harden kissedMarcella's cheek with a sort of timid eagerness. She had fallen in lovewith Miss Boyce from the beginning, was now just advanced to thisprivilege of kissing, and being entirely convinced that her new friendpossessed all virtues and all knowledge, found it not difficult to holdthat she had been divinely sent to sustain her brother and herself inthe disheartening task of civilising Mellor. Mary Harden was naturally ashort, roundly made girl, neither pretty nor plain, with grey-blue eyes, a shy manner, and a heart all goodness. Her brother was like untoher--also short, round, and full-faced, with the same attractive eyes. Both were singularly young in aspect--a boy and girl pair. Both had theworn, pinched look which Mrs. Boyce complained of, and which, indeed, went oddly with their whole physique. It was as though creatures builtfor a normal life of easy give and take with their fellows had fallenupon some unfitting and jarring experience. One striking difference, indeed, there was between them, for amid the brother's timidity andsweetness there lay, clearly to be felt and seen, the consciousness ofthe priest--nascent and immature, but already urging and characteristic. 

Only one face of the three showed any other emotion than quick pleasureat the sight of Marcella Boyce. Aldous Raeburn was clearly embarrassedthereby. Indeed, as he laid down his gun outside the low churchyardwall, while Marcella and the Hardens were greeting, that generallyself-possessed though modest person was conscious of a quite disablingperturbation of mind. Why in the name of all good manners and decencyhad he allowed himself to be discovered in shooting trim, on thatparticular morning, by Mr. Boyce's daughter on her father's land, andwithin a stone's throw of her father's house? Was he not perfectly wellaware of the curt note which his grandfather had that morning despatchedto the new owner of Mellor? Had he not ineffectually tried to delayexecution the night before, thereby puzzling and half-offending hisgrandfather? Had not the incident weighed on him ever since, wounding anadmiration and sympathy which seemed to have stolen upon him in thedark, during these few weeks since he had made Miss Boyce'sacquaintance, so strong and startling did he all in a moment feel themto be?

And then to intrude upon her thus, out of nothing apparently but sheermoth-like incapacity to keep away! The church footpath indeed was publicproperty, and Miss Harden's burdens had cried aloud to any passing maleto help her. But why in this neighbourhood at all?--why not rather onthe other side of the county? He could have scourged himself on thespot for an unpardonable breach of manners and feeling. 

However, Miss Boyce certainly made no sign. She received him without any_empressement_, but also without the smallest symptom of offence. Theyall moved into the church together, Mr. Raeburn carrying a vast bundleof ivy and fern, the rector and his sister laden with closely-packedbaskets of cut flowers. Everything was laid down on the chancel stepsbeside Marcella's contribution, and then the Hardens began to plan outoperations. Miss Harden ran over on her fingers the contributions whichhad been sent in to the rectory, or were presently coming over to thechurch in a hand-cart. "Lord Maxwell has sent the most _beautiful_ potsfor the chancel, " she said, with a grateful look at young Raeburn. "Itwill be quite a show. " To which the young rector assented warmly. It wasvery good, indeed, of Lord Maxwell to remember them always so liberallyat times like these, when they had so little direct claim upon him. Theywere not his church or his parish, but he never forgot them all thesame, and Mellor was grateful. The rector had all his sister's gentleeffusiveness, but a professional dignity besides, even in his thanks, which made itself felt. 

Marcella flushed as he was speaking. 

"I went to see what I could get in the way of greenhouse things, " shesaid in a sudden proud voice. "But we have nothing. There are thehouses, but there is nothing in them. But you shall have all ourout-of-door flowers, and I think a good deal might be done with autumnleaves and wild things if you will let me try. "

A speech, which brought a flush to Mr. Raeburn's cheek as he stood inthe background, and led Mary Harden into an eager asking of Marcella'scounsels, and an eager praising of her flowers. 

Aldous Raeburn said nothing, but his discomfort increased with everymoment. Why had his grandfather been so officious in this matter of theflowers? All very well when Mellor was empty, or in the days of a miserand eccentric, without womankind, like Robert Boyce. But now--the actbegan to seem to him offensive, a fresh affront offered to anunprotected girl, whose quivering sensitive look as she stood talking tothe Hardens touched him profoundly. Mellor church might almost beregarded as the Boyces' private chapel, so bound up was it with thefamily and the house. He realised painfully that he ought to begone--yet could not tear himself away. Her passionate willingness tospend herself for the place and people she had made her own at firstsight, checked every now and then by a proud and sore reserve--it wastoo pretty, too sad. It stung and spurred him as he watched her; onemoment his foot moved for departure, the next he was resolving thatsomehow or other he must make speech with her--excuse--explain. Ridiculous! How was it possible that he should do either!

He had met her--perhaps had tried to meet her--tolerably often sincetheir first chance encounter weeks ago in the vicarage drawing-room. Allthrough there had been on his side the uncomfortable knowledge of hisgrandfather's antipathy to Richard Boyce, and of the social steps towhich that antipathy would inevitably lead. But Miss Boyce had nevershown the smallest consciousness, so far, of anything untoward orunusual in her position. She had been clearly taken up with the interestand pleasure of this new spectacle upon which she had entered. The oldhouse, its associations, its history, the beautiful country in which itlay, the speech and characteristics of rural labour as compared withthat of the town, --he had heard her talk of all these things with afreshness, a human sympathy, a freedom from conventional phrase, and, nodoubt, a touch of egotism and extravagance, which rivetted attention. The egotism and extravagance, however, after a first moment of criticaldiscomfort on his part, had not in the end repelled him at all. Thegirl's vivid beauty glorified them; made them seem to him a mere specialfulness of life. So that in his new preoccupation with herself, and bycontact with her frank self-confidence, he had almost forgotten herposition, and his own indirect relation to it. Then had come thatunlucky note from Mellor; his grandfather's prompt reply to it; his ownineffective protest; and now this tongue-tiedness--this clumsyintrusion--which she must feel to be an indelicacy--an outrage. 

Suddenly he heard Miss Harden saying, with penitent emphasis, "I _am_stupid! I have left the scissors and the wire on the table at home; wecan't get on without them; it is really too bad of me. "

"I will go for them, " said Marcella promptly. "Here is the hand-cartjust arrived and some people come to help; you can't be spared. I willbe back directly. "

And, gathering up her black skirt in a slim white hand, she sped downthe church, and was out of the south door before the Hardens had time toprotest, or Aldous Raeburn understood what she was doing. 

A vexed word from Miss Harden enlightened him, and he went after thefugitive, overtaking her just where his gun and dog lay, outside thechurchyard. 

"Let me go, Miss Boyce, " he said, as he caught her up. "My dog and Iwill run there and back. "

But Marcella hardly looked at him, or paused. 

"Oh no!" she said quickly, "I should like the walk. "

He hesitated; then, with a flush which altered his usually quiet, self-contained expression, he moved on beside her. 

"Allow me to go with you then. You are sure to find fresh loads to bringback. If it's like our harvest festival, the things keep dropping in allday. "

Marcella's eyes were still on the ground. 

"I thought you were on your way to shoot, Mr. Raeburn?"

"So I was, but there is no hurry; if I can be useful. Both the birds andthe keeper can wait. "

"Where are you going?"

"To some outlying fields of ours on the Windmill Hill. There is a tenantthere who wants to see me. He is a prosy person with a host ofgrievances. I took my gun as a possible means of escape from him. "

"Windmill Hill? I know the name. Oh! I remember: it was there--my fatherhas just been telling me--that your father and he shot the pair ofkestrels, when they were boys together. "

Her tone was quite light, but somehow it had an accent, an emphasis, which made Aldous Raeburn supremely uncomfortable. In his disquiet, hethought of various things to say; but he was not ready, nor naturallyeffusive; the turn of them did not please him; and he remained silent. 

Meantime Marcella's heart was beating fast. She was meditating a _coup_. 

"Mr. Raeburn!"

"Yes!"

"Will you think me a very extraordinary person if I ask you a question?Your father and mine were great friends, weren't they, as boys?--yourfamily and mine were friends, altogether?"

"I believe so--I have always heard so, " said her companion, flushingstill redder. 

"You knew Uncle Robert--Lord Maxwell did?"

"Yes--as much as anybody knew him--but--"

"Oh, I know: he shut himself up and hated his neighbours. Still you knewhim, and papa and your father were boys together. Well then, if youwon't mind telling me--I know it's bold to ask, but I have reasons--whydoes Lord Maxwell write to papa in the third person, and why has youraunt, Miss Raeburn, never found time in all these weeks to call onmamma?"

She turned and faced him, her splendid eyes one challenge. The glow andfire of the whole gesture--the daring of it, and yet the suggestion ofwomanish weakness in the hand which trembled against her dress and inthe twitching lip--if it had been fine acting, it could not have beenmore complete. And, in a sense, acting there was in it. Marcella'semotions were real, but her mind seldom deserted her. One half of herwas impulsive and passionate; the other half looked on and put infinishing touches. 

Acting or no, the surprise of her outburst swept the man beside her offhis feet. He found himself floundering in a sea of excuses--not for hisrelations, but for himself. He ought never to have intruded; it wasodious, unpardonable; he had no business whatever to put himself in herway! Would she please understand that it was an accident? It should nothappen again. He quite understood that she could not regard him withfriendliness. And so on. He had never so lost his self-possession. 

Meanwhile Marcella's brows contracted. She took his excuses as a freshoffence. 

"You mean, I suppose, that I have no right to ask such questions!" shecried; "that I am not behaving like a lady--as one of your relationswould? Well, I dare say! I was not brought up like that. I was notbrought up at all; I have had to make myself. So you must avoid me ifyou like. Of course you will. But I resolved there--in the church--thatI would make just one effort, before everything crystallises, to breakthrough. If we must live on here hating our neighbours and being cut bythem, I thought I would just ask you why, first. There is no one else toask. Hardly anybody has called, except the Hardens, and a few new peoplethat don't matter. And _I_ have nothing to be ashamed of, " said the girlpassionately, "nor has mamma. Papa, I suppose, did some bad things longago. I have never known--I don't know now--what they were. But I shouldlike to understand. Is everybody going to cut us because of that?"

With a great effort Aldous Raeburn pulled himself together, certain fineinstincts both of race and conduct coming to his help. He met herexcited look by one which had both dignity and friendliness. 

"I will tell you what I can, Miss Boyce. If you ask me, it is right Ishould. You must forgive me if I say anything that hurts you. I will trynot--I will try not!" he repeated earnestly. "In the first place, I knowhardly anything in detail. I do not remember that I have ever wished toknow. But I gather that some years ago--when I was still alad--something in Mr. Boyce's life--some financial matters, Ibelieve--during the time that he was member of Parliament, made ascandal, and especially among his family and old friends. It was theeffect upon his old father, I think, who, as you know, died soonafterwards--"

Marcella started. 

"I didn't know, " she said quickly. 

Aldous Raeburn's distress grew. 

"I really oughtn't to speak of these things, " he said, "for I don't knowthem accurately. But I want to answer what you said--I do indeed. It wasthat, I think, chiefly. Everybody here respected and loved yourgrandfather--my grandfather did--and there was great feeling for him--"

"I see! I see!" said Marcella, her chest heaving; "and against papa. "

She walked on quickly, hardly seeing where she was going, her eyes dimwith tears. There was a wretched pause. Then Aldous Raeburn broke out--

"But after all it is very long ago. And there may have been some harshjudgment. My grandfather may have been misinformed as to some of thefacts. And I--"

He hesitated, struck with the awkwardness of what he was going to say. But Marcella understood him. 

"And you will try and make him alter his mind?" she said, notungratefully, but still with a touch of sarcasm in her tone. "No, Mr. Raeburn, I don't think that will succeed. "

They walked on in silence for a little while. At last he said, turningupon her a face in which she could not but see the true feeling of ajust and kindly man--

"I meant that if my grandfather could be led to express himself in a waywhich Mr. Boyce could accept, even if there were no great friendship asthere used to be, there might be something better than this--this, which--which--is so painful. And any way, Miss Boyce, whatever happens, will you let me say this once, that there is no word, no feeling in thisneighbourhood--how could there be?--towards you and your mother, but oneof respect and admiration? Do believe that, even if you feel that youcan never be friendly towards me and mine again--or forget the things Ihave said!"

"Respect and admiration!" said Marcella, wondering, and still scornful. "Pity, perhaps. There might be that. But any way mamma goes with papa. She always has done. She always will. So shall I, of course. But I amsorry--_horribly_ sore and sorry! I was so delighted to come here. Ihave been very little at home, and understood hardly anything aboutthis worry--not how serious it was, nor what it meant. Oh! I _am_sorry--there was so much I wanted to do here--if anybody could onlyunderstand what it means to me to come to this place!"

They had reached the brow of a little rising ground. Just below them, beyond a stubble field in which there were a few bent forms of gleaners, lay the small scattered Tillage, hardly seen amid its trees, the curlsof its blue smoke ascending steadily on this calm September morningagainst a great belt of distant beechwood which begirt the hamlet andthe common along which it lay. The stubble field was a feast of shadeand tint, of apricots and golds shot with the subtlest purples andbrowns; the flame of the wild-cherry leaf and the deeper crimson of thehaws made every hedge a wonder; the apples gleamed in the cottagegarden; and a cloudless sun poured down on field and hedge, and on thehalf-hidden medley of tiled roofs, sharp gables, and jutting dormerswhich made the village. 

Instinctively both stopped. Marcella locked her hands behind her in agesture familiar to her in moments of excitement; the light wind blewback her dress in soft, eddying folds; for the moment, in her tallgrace, she had the air of some young Victory poised upon a height, tillyou looked at her face, which was, indeed, not exultant at all, buttragic, extravagantly tragic, as Aldous Raeburn, in his English reserve, would perhaps have thought in the case of any woman with tamer eyes anda less winning mouth. 

"I don't want to talk about myself, " she began. "But you know, Mr. Raeburn--you must know--what a state of things there is here--you knowwhat a _disgrace_ that village is. Oh! one reads books, but I neverthought people could actually _live_ like that--here in the widecountry, with room for all. It makes me lie awake at night. We are notrich--we are very poor--the house is all out of repair, and the estate, as of course you know, is in a wretched condition. But when I see thesecottages, and the water, and the children, I ask what right we have toanything we get. I had some friends in London who were Socialists, and Ifollowed and agreed with them, but here one _sees_! Yes, indeed!--it_is_ too great a risk to let the individual alone when all these livesdepend upon him. Uncle Robert was an eccentric and a miser; and look atthe death-rate of the village--look at the children; you can see how ithas crushed the Hardens already. No, we have no right to it!--it oughtto be taken from us; some day it will be taken from us!"

Aldous Raeburn smiled, and was himself again. A woman's speculationswere easier to deal with than a woman's distress. 

"It is not so hopeless as that, I think, " he said kindly. "The Mellorcottages are in a bad state certainly. But you have no idea how soon alittle energy and money and thought sets things to rights. "

"But we have no money!" cried Marcella. "And if he is miserable here, myfather will have no energy to do anything. He will not care whathappens. He will defy everybody, and just spend what he has on himself. And it will make me wretched--_wretched_. Look at that cottage to theright, Mr. Raeburn. It is Jim Hurd's--a man who works mainly on theChurch Farm, when he is in work. But he is deformed, and not so strongas others. The farmers too seem to be cutting down labour everywhere--ofcourse I don't understand--I am so new to it. Hurd and his family had an_awful_ winter, last winter--hardly kept body and soul together. And nowhe is out of work already--the man at the Church Farm turned him offdirectly after harvest. He sees no prospect of getting work by thewinter. He spends his days tramping to look for it; but nothing turnsup. Last winter they parted with all they could sell. This winter itmust be the workhouse! It's _heart-breaking_. And he has a mind; he can_feel_! I lend him the Labour paper I take in, and get him to talk. Hehas more education than most, and oh! the _bitterness_ at the bottom ofhim. But not against persons--individuals. It is like a sort of blindpatience when you come to that--they make excuses even for Uncle Robert, to whom they have paid rent all these years for a cottage which is acrime--yes, a _crime_! The woman must have been such a prettycreature--and refined too. She is consumptive, of course--what elsecould you expect with that cottage and that food? So is the eldestboy--a little white atomy! And the other children. Talk of London--Inever saw such sickly objects as there are in this village. Twelveshillings a week, and work about half the year! Oh! they _ought_ to hateus!--I try to make them, " cried Marcella, her eyes gleaming. "They oughtto hate all of us landowners, and the whole wicked system. It keeps themfrom the land which they ought to be sharing with us; it makes one manmaster, instead of all men brothers. And who is fit to be master? Whichof us? Everybody is so ready to take the charge of other people's lives, and then look at the result!"

"Well, the result, even in rural England, is not always so bad, " saidAldous Raeburn, smiling a little, but more coldly. Marcella, glancing athim, understood in a moment that she had roused a certain family andclass pride in him--a pride which was not going to assert itself, butnone the less implied the sudden opening of a gulf between herself andhim. In an instant her quick imagination realised herself as thedaughter and niece of two discredited members of a great class. When sheattacked the class, or the system, the man beside her--any man insimilar circumstances--must naturally think: "Ah, well, poor girl--DickBoyce's daughter--what can you expect?" Whereas--Aldous Raeburn!--shethought of the dignity of the Maxwell name, of the width of the Maxwellpossessions, balanced only by the high reputation of the family forhonourable, just and Christian living, whether as amongst themselves ortowards their neighbours and dependents. A shiver of passionate vanity, wrath, and longing passed through her as her tall frame stiffened. 

"There are model squires, of course, " she said slowly, striving at leastfor a personal dignity which should match his. "There are plenty oflandowners who do their duty as they understand it--no one denies that. But that does not affect the system; the grandson of the best man may bethe worst, but his one-man power remains the same. No! the time has comefor a wider basis. Paternal government and charity were very well intheir way--democratic self-government will manage to do without them!"

She flung him a gay, quivering, defiant look. It delighted her to pitthese wide and threatening generalisations against the Maxwell power--toshow the heir of it that she at least--father or no father--was nohereditary subject of his, and bound to no blind admiration of theMaxwell methods and position. 

Aldous Raeburn took her onslaught very calmly, smiling frankly back ather indeed all the time. Miss Boyce's opinions could hardly matter tohim intellectually, whatever charm and stimulus he might find in hertalk. This subject of the duties, rights, and prospects of his classwent, as it happened, very deep with him--too deep for chancediscussion. What she said, if he ever stopped to think of it in itself, seemed to him a compound of elements derived partly from her personalhistory, partly from the random opinions that young people of a generoustype pick up from newspapers and magazines. She had touched his familypride for an instant; but only for an instant. What he was abidinglyconscious of, was of a beautiful wild creature struggling withdifficulties in which he was somehow himself concerned, and out ofwhich, in some way or other, he was becoming more and moredetermined--absurdly determined--to help her. 

"Oh! no doubt the world will do very well without us some day, " he saidlightly, in answer to her tirade; "no one is indispensable. But are youso sure, Miss Boyce, you believe in your own creed? I thought I hadobserved--pardon me for saying it--on the two or three occasions we havemet, some degenerate signs of individualism? You take pleasure in theold place, you say; you were delighted to come and live where yourancestors lived before you; you are full of desires to pull these poorpeople out of the mire in your own way. No! I don't feel that you arethorough-going!"

Marcella paused a frowning moment, then broke suddenly into a delightfullaugh--a laugh of humorous confession, which changed her whole look andmood. 

"Is that all you have noticed? If you wish to know, Mr. Raeburn, I lovethe labourers for touching their hats to me. I love the school childrenfor bobbing to me. I love my very self--ridiculous as _you_ may thinkit--for being Miss Boyce of Mellor!"

"Don't say things like that, please!" he interrupted; "I think I havenot deserved them. "

His tone made her repent her gibe. "No, indeed, you have been most kindto me, " she cried. "I don't know how it is. I am bitter and personal ina moment--when I don't mean to be. Yes! you are quite right. I am proudof it all. If nobody comes to see us, and we are left all alone out inthe cold, I shall still have room enough to be proud in--proud of theold house and our few bits of pictures, and the family papers, and thebeeches! How absurd it would seem to other people, who have so muchmore! But I have had so little--so _little_!" Her voice had a hungrylingering note. "And as for the people, yes, I am proud too that theylike me, and that already I can influence them. Oh, I will do my bestfor them, my _very best_! But it will be hard, very hard, if there isno one to help me!"

She heaved a long sigh. In spite of the words, what she had said did notseem to be an appeal for his pity. Rather there was in it a sweetself-dedicating note as of one going sadly alone to a painful task, anote which once more left Aldous Raeburn's self-restraint tottering. Shewas walking gently beside him, her pretty dress trailing lightly overthe dry stubble, her hand in its white ruffles hanging so close besidehim--after all her prophetess airs a pensive womanly thing, that mustsurely hear how his strong man's heart was beginning to beat!

He bent over to her. 

"Don't talk of there being no one to help! There may be many ways out ofpresent difficulties. Meanwhile, however things go, could you belarge-minded enough to count one person here your friend?"

She looked up at him. Tall as she was, he was taller--she liked that;she liked too the quiet cautious strength of his English expression andbearing. She did not think him handsome, and she was conscious of nothrill. But inwardly her quick dramatising imagination was alreadyconstructing her own future and his. The ambition to rule leapt in her, and the delight in conquest. It was with a delicious sense of her ownpower, and of the general fulness of her new life, that she said, "I_am_ large-minded enough! You have been very kind, and I have been verywild and indiscreet. But I don't regret: I am sure, if you can help me, you will. "

There was a little pause. They were standing at the last gate beforethe miry village road began, and almost in sight of the little vicarage. Aldous Raeburn, with his hand on the gate, suddenly gathered a spray oftravellers'-joy out of the hedge beside him. 

"That was a promise, I think, and I keep the pledge of it, " he said, andwith a smile put the cluster of white seed-tufts and green leaves intoone of the pockets of his shooting jacket. 

"Oh, don't tie me down!" said Marcella, laughing, but flushing also. "And don't you think, Mr. Raeburn, that you might open that gate? Atleast, we can't get the scissors and the wire unless you do. "

CHAPTER V. 

The autumn evening was far advanced when Aldous Raeburn, after his day'sshooting, passed again by the gates of Mellor Park on his road home. Heglanced up the ill-kept drive, with its fine overhanging limes, caught aglimpse to the left of the little church, and to the right, of the longeastern front of the house; lingered a moment to watch the sunset lightstreaming through the level branches of two distant cedars, standingblack and sharp against the fiery west, and then walked briskly forwardsin the mood of a man going as fast as may be to an appointment he bothdesires and dreads. 

He had given his gun to the keeper, who had already sped far ahead ofhim, in the shooting-cart which his master had declined. His dog, ablack retriever, was at his heels, and both dog and man were somewhatweary and stiff with exercise. But for the privilege of solitude, AldousRaeburn would at that moment have faced a good deal more than the twomiles of extra walking which now lay between him and Maxwell Court. 

About him, as he trudged on, lay a beautiful world of English woodland. After he had passed through the hamlet of Mellor, with itsthree-cornered piece of open common, and its patches ofarable--representing the original forest-clearing made centuries ago bythe primitive fathers of the village in this corner of the Chilternuplands--the beech woods closed thickly round him. Beech woods of allkinds--from forest slopes, where majestic trees, grey and soaringpillars of the woodland roof, stood in stately isolation on thedead-leaf carpet woven by the years about their carved and polishedbases, to the close plantations of young trees, where the saplingscrowded on each other, and here and there amid the airless tangle ofleaf and branch some long pheasant-drive, cut straight through the greenheart of the wood, refreshed the seeking eye with its arched andfar-receding path. Two or three times on his walk Aldous heard from farwithin the trees the sounds of hatchet and turner's wheel, which toldhim he was passing one of the wood-cutter's huts that in the hilly partsof this district supply the first simple steps of the chairmakingindustry, carried on in the little factory towns of the more populousvalleys. And two or three times also he passed a string of the greattimber carts which haunt the Chiltern lanes; the patient team of brownhorses straining at the weight behind them, the vast prostrate trunksrattling in their chains, and the smoke from the carters' pipes risingslowly into the damp sunset air. But for the most part the road alongwhich he walked was utterly forsaken of human kind. Nor were there anysigns of habitation--no cottages, no farms. He was scarcely more thanthirty miles from London; yet in this solemn evening glow it would havebeen hardly possible to find a remoter, lonelier nature than thatthrough which he was passing. 

And presently the solitude took a grander note. He was nearing the edgeof the high upland along which he had been walking. In front of him thelong road with its gleaming pools bent sharply to the left, showing paleand distinct against a darkening heaven and the wide grey fields whichhad now, on one side of his path, replaced the serried growth of youngplantations. Night was fast advancing from south and east over theupland. But straight in front of him and on his right, the forest trees, still flooded with sunset, fell in sharp steeps towards the plain. Through their straight stems glowed the blues and purples of that lowerworld; and when the slopes broke and opened here and there, above therounded masses of their red and golden leaf the level distances of theplain could be seen stretching away, illimitable in the evening dusk, toa west of glory, just vacant of the sun. The golden ball had sunk intothe mists awaiting it, but the splendour of its last rays was still onall the western front of the hills, bathing the beech woods as they roseand fell with the large undulations of the ground. 

Insensibly Raeburn, filled as he was with a new and surging emotion, drew the solemnity of the forest glades and of the rolling distancesinto his heart. When he reached the point where the road diverged to theleft, he mounted a little grassy ridge, whence he commanded the wholesweep of the hill rampart from north to west, and the whole expanse ofthe low country beneath, and there stood gazing for some minutes, lostin many thoughts, while the night fell. 

He looked over the central plain of England--the plain which stretcheswestward to the Thames and the Berkshire hills, and northward throughthe Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire lowlands to the basin of the Trent. An historic plain--symbolic, all of it, to an English eye. There in thewestern distance, amid the light-filled mists, lay Oxford; in front ofhim was the site of Chalgrove Field, where Hampden got his clumsy deathwound, and Thame, where he died; and far away, to his right, where thehills swept to the north, he could just discern, gleaming against theface of the down, the vast scoured cross, whereby a Saxon king hadblazoned his victory over his Danish foes to all the plain beneath. 

Aldous Raeburn was a man to feel these things. He had seldom stood onthis high point, in such an evening calm, without the expansion in himof all that was most manly, most English, most strenuous. If it had notbeen so, indeed, he must have been singularly dull of soul. For thegreat view had an interest for him personally it could hardly havepossessed to the same degree for any other man. On his left hand MaxwellCourt rose among its woods on the brow of the hill--a splendid pilewhich some day would be his. Behind him; through all the upland he hadjust traversed; beneath the point where he stood; along the sides of thehills, and far into the plain, stretched the land which also would behis--which, indeed, practically was already his--for his grandfather wasan old man with a boundless trust in the heir on whom, his affectionsand hopes were centred. The dim churches scattered over the immediateplain below; the villages clustered round them, where dwelt the toilersin these endless fields; the farms amid their trees; the cottagesshowing here and there on the fringes of the wood--all the equipment andorganisation of popular life over an appreciable part of the Englishmidland at his feet, depended to an extent hardly to be exaggerated, under the conditions of the England of to-day, upon him--upon his oneman's brain and conscience, the degree of his mental and moral capacity. 

In his first youth, of course, the thought had often roused a boy'stremulous elation and sense of romance. Since his Cambridge days, and oflate years, any more acute or dramatic perception than usual of his lotin life had been wont to bring with it rather a consciousness of weightthan of inspiration. Sensitive, fastidious, reflective, he was disturbedby remorses and scruples which had never plagued his forefathers. Duringhis college days, the special circumstances of a great friendship haddrawn him into the full tide of a social speculation which, as ithappened, was destined to go deeper with him than with most men. Theresponsibilities of the rich, the disadvantages of the poor, therelation of the State to the individual--of the old Radical dogma offree contract to the thwarting facts of social inequality; the Toryideal of paternal government by the few as compared with the Liberalideal of self-government by the many: these commonplaces of economicaland political discussion had very early become living and often sorerealities in Aldous Raeburn's mind, because of the long conflict in him, dating from his Cambridge life, between the influences of birth andearly education and the influences of an admiring and profound affectionwhich had opened to him the gates of a new moral world. 

Towards the close of his first year at Trinity, & young man joined thecollege who rapidly became, in spite of various practical disadvantages, a leader among the best and keenest of his fellows. He was poor and helda small scholarship; but it was soon plain that his health was not equalto the Tripos routine, and that the prizes of the place, brilliant aswas his intellectual endowment, were not for him. After an inwardstruggle, of which none perhaps but Aldous Raeburn had any exactknowledge, he laid aside his first ambitions and turned himself toanother career. A couple of hours' serious brainwork in the day was allthat was ever possible to him henceforward. He spent it, as well as thethoughts and conversation of his less strenuous moments, on the study ofhistory and sociology, with a view to joining the staff of lecturers forthe manufacturing and country towns which the two great Universities, touched by new and popular sympathies, were then beginning to organise. He came of a stock which promised well for such a pioneer's task. Hisfather had been an able factory inspector, well-known for his share inthe inauguration and revision of certain important factory reforms; theson inherited a passionate humanity of soul; and added to it a magneticand personal charm which soon made him a remarkable power, not only inhis own college, but among the finer spirits of the Universitygenerally. He had the gift which enables a man, sitting perhaps afterdinner in a mixed society of his college contemporaries, to lead the wayimperceptibly from the casual subjects of the hour--the river, the dons, the schools--to arguments "of great pith and moment, " discussions thatsearch the moral and intellectual powers of the men concerned to theutmost, without exciting distrust or any but an argumentativeopposition, Edward Hallin could do this without a pose, without a falsenote, nay, rather by the natural force of a boyish intensity andsimplicity. To many a Trinity man in after life the memory of his slightfigure and fair head, of the eager slightly parted mouth, of the eyesglowing with some inward vision, and of the gesture with which he wouldspring up at some critical point to deliver himself, standing amid hisseated and often dissentient auditors, came back vivid and ineffaceableas only youth can make the image of its prophets. 

Upon Aldous Raeburn, Edward Hallin produced from the first a deepimpression. The interests to which Hallin's mind soon became exclusivelydevoted--such as the systematic study of English poverty, or of therelation of religion to social life, reforms of the land and of theChurch--overflowed upon Raeburn with a kindling and disturbing force. Edward Hallin was his gad-fly; and he had no resource, because he lovedhis tormentor. 

Fundamentally, the two men were widely different. Raeburn was a true sonof his fathers, possessed by natural inheritance of the finer instinctsof aristocratic rule, including a deep contempt for mob-reason and allthe vulgarities of popular rhetoric; steeped, too, in a number of subtleprejudices, and in a silent but intense pride of family of the noblersort. He followed with disquiet and distrust the quick motions andconclusions of Hallin's intellect. Temperament and the Cambridgediscipline made him a fastidious thinker and a fine scholar; his mindworked slowly, yet with a delicate precision; and his generally coldmanner was the natural protection of feelings which had never yet, except in the case of his friendship with Edward Hallin, led him to muchpersonal happiness. 

Hallin left Cambridge after a pass degree to become lecturer onindustrial and economical questions in the northern English towns. Raeburn stayed on a year longer, found himself third classic and thewinner of a Greek verse prize, and then, sacrificing the idea of afellowship, returned to Maxwell Court to be his grandfather's companionand helper in the work of the estate, his family proposing that, after afew years' practical experience of the life and occupations of a countrygentleman, he should enter Parliament and make a career in politics. Since then five or six years had passed, during which he had learned toknow the estate thoroughly, and to take his normal share in the businessand pleasures of the neighbourhood. For the last two years he had beenhis grandfather's sole agent, a poor-law guardian and magistratebesides, and a member of most of the various committees for social andeducational purposes in the county. He was a sufficiently keen sportsmanto save appearances with his class; enjoyed a walk after the partridgesindeed, with a friend or two, as much as most men; and played the hostat the two or three great battues of the year with a propriety which hisgrandfather however no longer mistook for enthusiasm. There was nothingmuch to distinguish him from any other able man of his rank. Hisneighbours felt him to be a personality, but thought him reserved anddifficult; he was respected, but he was not popular like hisgrandfather; people speculated as to how he would get on in Parliament, or whom he was to marry; but, except to the dwellers in Maxwell Courtitself, or of late to the farmers and labourers on the estate, it wouldnot have mattered much to anybody if he had not been there. Nobody everconnected any romantic thought with him. There was something in hisstrong build, pale but healthy aquiline face, his inconspicuous browneyes and hair, which seemed from the beginning to mark him out as theordinary earthy dweller in an earthy world. 

Nevertheless, these years had been to Aldous Raeburn years marked by anexpansion and deepening of the whole man, such as few are capable of. Edward Hallin's visits to the Court, the walking tours which brought thetwo friends together almost every year in Switzerland or the Highlands, the course of a full and intimate correspondence, and the various callsmade for public purposes by the enthusiast and pioneer upon the pocketand social power of the rich man--these things and influences, together, of course, with the pressure of an environing world, ever more real, and, on the whole, ever more oppressive, as it was better understood, had confronted Aldous Raeburn before now with a good many teasingproblems of conduct and experience. His tastes, his sympathies, hisaffinities were all with the old order; but the old faiths--economical, social, religious--were fermenting within him in different stages ofdisintegration and reconstruction; and his reserved habit and oftensolitary life tended to scrupulosity and over-refinement. His futurecareer as a landowner and politician was by no means clear to him. Onething only was clear to him--that to dogmatise about any subject underheaven, at the present day, more than the immediate practical occasionabsolutely demanded, was the act of an idiot. 

So that Aldous Raeburn's moments of reflection had been constantly mixedwith struggle of different kinds. And the particular point of view wherehe stood on this September evening had been often associated in hismemory with flashes of self-realisation which were, on the whole, moreof a torment to him than a joy. If he had not been Aldous Raeburn, orany other person, tied to a particular individuality, with a particularplace and label in the world, the task of the analytic mind, in face ofthe spectacle of what is, would have been a more possible one!--so ithad often seemed to him. 

But to-night all this cumbering consciousness, all these self-madedoubts and worries, had for the moment dropped clean away! Atransfigured man it was that lingered at the old spot--a man once moreyoung, divining with enchantment the approach of passion, feeling atlast through all his being the ecstasy of a self-surrender, long missed, long hungered for. 

Six weeks was it since he had first seen her--this tall, straight, Marcella Boyce? He shut his eyes impatiently against the disturbinggolds and purples of the sunset, and tried to see her again as she hadwalked beside him across the church fields, in that thin black dress, with, the shadow of the hat across her brow and eyes--the small whiteteeth flashing as she talked and smiled, the hand so ready with itsgesture, so restless, so alive! What a presence--how absorbing, troubling, preoccupying! No one in her company could forget her--nay, could fail to observe her. What ease and daring, and yet no hardnesswith it--rather deep on deep of womanly weakness, softness, passion, beneath it all!

How straight she had flung her questions at him!--her most awkwardembarrassing questions. What other woman would have dared suchcandour--unless perhaps as a stroke of fine art--he had known womenindeed who could have done it so. But where could be the art, thepolicy, he asked himself indignantly, in the sudden outburst of a younggirl pleading with her companion's sense of truth and good feeling inbehalf of those nearest to her?

As to her dilemma itself, in his excitement he thought of it withnothing but the purest pleasure! She had let him see that she did notexpect him to be able to do much for her, though she was ready tobelieve him her friend. Ah well--he drew a long breath. For once, Raeburn, strange compound that he was of the man of rank and thephilosopher, remembered his own social power and position with anexultant satisfaction. No doubt Dick Boyce had misbehaved himselfbadly--the strength of Lord Maxwell's feeling was sufficient proofthereof. No doubt the "county, " as Raeburn himself knew, in some detail, were disposed to leave Mellor Park severely alone. What of that? Was itfor nothing that the Maxwells had been for generations at the head ofthe "county, " i. E. Of that circle of neighbouring families connected bythe ties of ancestral friendship, or of intermarriage, on whom in thispurely agricultural and rural district the social pleasure and comfortof Miss Boyce and her mother must depend?

He, like Marcella, did not believe that Richard Boyce's offences were ofthe quite unpardonable order; although, owing to a certain absent andpreoccupied temper, he had never yet taken the trouble to enquire intothem in detail. As to any real restoration of cordiality between theowner of Mellor and his father's old friends and connections, that ofcourse was not to be looked for; but there should be decent socialrecognition, and--in the case of Mrs. Boyce and her daughter--thereshould be homage and warm welcome, simply because she wished it, and itwas absurd she should not have it! Raeburn, whose mind was ordinarilydestitute of the most elementary capacity for social intrigue, began toplot in detail how it should be done. He relied first upon winning hisgrandfather--his popular distinguished grandfather, whose lightest wordhad weight in Brookshire. And then, he himself had two or three womenfriends in the county--not more, for women had not occupied much placein his thoughts till now. But they were good friends, and, from thesocial point of view, important. He would set them to work at once. These things should be chiefly managed by women. 

But no patronage! She would never bear that, the glancing proudcreature. She must guess, indeed, let him tread as delicately as hemight, that he and others were at work for her. But oh! she should besoftly handled; as far as he could achieve it, she should, in a verylittle while, live and breathe compassed with warm airs of good-will andconsideration. 

He felt himself happy, amazingly happy, that at the very beginning ofhis love, it should thus be open to him, in these trivial, foolish ways, to please and befriend her. Her social dilemma and discomfort onemoment, indeed, made him sore for her; the next, they were a kind ofjoy, since it was they gave him this opportunity to put out a strongright arm. 

Everything about her at this moment was divine and lovely to him; allthe qualities of her rich uneven youth which she had shown in theirshort intercourse--her rashness, her impulsiveness, her generosity. Lether but trust herself to him, and she should try her social experimentsas she pleased--she should plan Utopias, and he would be her hodman tobuild them. The man perplexed with too much thinking remembered thegirl's innocent, ignorant readiness to stamp the world's stuff anewafter the forms of her own pitying thought, with a positive thirst ofsympathy. The deep poetry and ideality at the root of him under all theweight of intellectual and critical debate leapt towards her. He thoughtof the rapid talk she had poured out upon him, after their compact offriendship, in their walk back to the church, of her enthusiasm for herSocialist friends and their ideals, --with a momentary madness ofself-suppression and tender humility. In reality, a man like AldousRaeburn is born to be the judge and touchstone of natures like MarcellaBoyce. But the illusion of passion may deal as disturbingly with moralrank as with social. 

It was his first love. Years before, in the vacation before he went tocollege, his boyish mind had been crossed, by a fancy for a prettycousin a little older than himself, who had been very kind indeed toLord Maxwell's heir. But then came Cambridge, the flow of a new mentallife, his friendship for Edward Hallin, and the beginnings of a moralstorm and stress. When he and the cousin next met, he was quite cold toher. She seemed to him a pretty piece of millinery, endowed with a trickof parrot phrases. She, on her part, thought him detestable; she marriedshortly afterwards, and often spoke to her husband in private of her"escape" from that queer fellow Aldous Raeburn. 

Since then he had known plenty of pretty and charming women, both inLondon and in the country, and had made friends with some of them in hisquiet serious way. But none of them had roused in him even a passingthrill of passion. He had despised himself for it; had told himselfagain and again that he was but half a man--

Ah! he had done himself injustice--he had done himself injustice!

His heart was light as air. When at last the sound of a clock strikingin the plain roused him with a start, and he sprang up from the heap ofstones where he had been sitting in the dusk, he bent down a moment togive a gay caress to his dog, and then trudged off briskly home, whistling under the emerging stars. 

CHAPTER VI. 

By the time, however, that Aldous Raeburn came within sight of thewindows of Maxwell Court his first exaltation had sobered down. Thelover had fallen, for the time, into the background, and the capable, serious man of thirty, with a considerable experience of the worldbehind him, was perfectly conscious that there were many difficulties inhis path. He could not induce his grandfather to move in the matter ofRichard Boyce without a statement of his own feelings and aims. Norwould he have avoided frankness if he could. On every ground it was hisgrandfather's due. The Raeburns were reserved towards the rest of theworld, but amongst themselves there had always been a fine tradition ofmutual trust; and Lord Maxwell amply deserved that at this particularmoment his grandson should maintain it. 

But Raeburn could not and did not flatter himself that his grandfatherwould, to begin with, receive his news even with toleration. The grimsatisfaction with which that note about the shooting had beendespatched, was very clear in the grandson's memory. At the same time itsaid much for the history of those long years during which the old manand his heir had been left to console each other for the terriblebereavements which had thrown them together, that Aldous Raeburn neverfor an instant feared the kind of violent outburst and opposition thatother men in similar circumstances might have looked forward to. Thejust living of a life-time makes a man incapable of any mere selfishhandling of another's interests--a fact on which the bystander mayreckon. 

It was quite dark by the time he entered the large open-roofed hall ofthe Court. 

"Is his lordship in?" he asked of a passing footman. 

"Yes, sir--in the library. He has been asking for you, sir. "

Aldous turned to the right along the fine corridor lighted with Tudorwindows to an inner quadrangle, and filled with Graeco-Roman statuaryand sarcophagi, which made one of the principal features of the Court. The great house was warm and scented, and the various open doors whichhe passed on his way to the library disclosed large fire-lit rooms, withpanelling, tapestry, pictures, books everywhere. The colour of the wholewas dim and rich; antiquity, refinement reigned, together with anexquisite quiet and order. No one was to be seen, and not a voice was tobe heard; but there was no impression of solitude. These warm, darkly-glowing rooms seemed to be waiting for the return of guests justgone out of them; not one of them but had an air of cheerful company. For once, as he walked through it, Aldous Raeburn spared the old housean affectionate possessive thought. Its size and wealth, with all thatboth implied, had often weighed upon him. To-night his breath quickenedas he passed the range of family portraits leading to the library door. There was a vacant space here and there--"room for your missus, too, myboy, when you get her!" as his grandfather had once put it. 

"Why, you've had a long day, Aldous, all by yourself, " said LordMaxwell, turning sharply round at the sound of the opening door. "What'skept you so late?"

His spectacles fell forward as he spoke, and the old man shut them inhis hand, peering at his grandson through the shadows of the room. Hewas sitting by a huge fire, an "Edinburgh Review" open on his knee. Lampand fire-light showed a finely-carried head, with a high wave of snowyhair thrown back, a long face delicately sharp in the lines, and anattitude instinct with the alertness of an unimpaired bodily vigour. 

"The birds were scarce, and we followed them a good way, " said Aldous, as he came up to the fire. "Rickman kept me on the farm, too, a goodwhile, with interminable screeds about the things he wants done forhim. "

"Oh, there is no end to Rickman, " said Lord Maxwell, good-humouredly. "He pays his rent for the amusement of getting it back again. Landowningwill soon be the most disinterested form of philanthropy known tomankind. But I have some news for you! Here is a letter from Barton bythe second post"--he named an old friend of his own, and a CabinetMinister of the day. "Look at it. You will see he says they can'tpossibly carry on beyond January. Half their men are becomingunmanageable, and S----'s bill, to which they are committed, willcertainly dish them. Parliament will meet in January, and he thinks anamendment to the Address will finish it. All this confidential, ofcourse; but he saw no harm in letting me know. So now, my boy, you willhave your work cut out for you this winter! Two or three evenings aweek--you'll not get off with less. Nobody's plum drops into his mouthnowadays. Barton tells me, too, that he hears young Wharton willcertainly stand for the Durnford division, and will be down upon usdirectly. He will make himself as disagreeable to us and the Levens ashe can--that we may be sure of. We may be thankful for one small mercy, that his mother has departed this life! otherwise you and I would haveknown _furens quid femina posset_!"

The old man looked up at his grandson with a humorous eye. Aldous wasstanding absently before the fire, and did not reply immediately. 

"Come, come, Aldous!" said Lord Maxwell with a touch of impatience, "don't overdo the philosopher. Though I am getting old, the nextGovernment can't deny me a finger in the pie. You and I between us willbe able to pull through two or three of the things we care about in thenext House, with ordinary luck. It is my firm belief that the nextelection will give our side the best chance we have had for half ageneration. Throw up your cap, sir! The world may be made of greencheese, but we have got to live in it!"

Aldous smiled suddenly--uncontrollably--with a look which left hisgrandfather staring. He had been appealing to the man of maturitystanding on the threshold of a possibly considerable career, and, as hedid so, it was as though he saw the boy of eighteen reappear!

"_Je ne demands pas mieux_!" said Aldous with a quick lift of the voiceabove its ordinary key. "The fact is, grandfather, I have come home withsomething in my mind very different from politics--and you must give metime to change the focus. I did not come home as straight as Imight--for I wanted to be sure of myself before I spoke to you. Duringthe last few weeks--"

"Go on!" cried Lord Maxwell. 

But Aldous did not find it easy to go on. It suddenly struck him that itwas after all absurd that he should be confiding in any one at such astage, and his tongue stumbled. 

But he had gone too far for retreat. Lord Maxwell sprang up and seizedhim by the arms. 

"You are in love, sir! Out with it!"

"I have seen the only woman in the world I have ever wished to marry, "said Aldous, flushing, but with deliberation. "Whether she will everhave me, I have no idea. But I can conceive no greater happiness than towin her. And as I want _you_, grandfather, to do something for her andfor me, it seemed to me I had no right to keep my feelings to myself. Besides, I am not accustomed to--to--" His voice wavered a little. "Youhave treated me as more than a son!"

Lord Maxwell pressed his arm affectionately. 

"My dear boy! But don't keep me on tenterhooks like this--tell me thename!--the name!"

And two or three long meditated possibilities flashed through the oldman's mind. 

Aldous replied with a certain slow stiffness--

"Marcella Boyce!--Richard Boyce's daughter. I saw her first six weeksago. "

"God bless my soul!" exclaimed Lord Maxwell, falling back a step or two, and staring at his companion. Aldous watched him with anxiety. 

"You know that fellow's history, Aldous?"

"Richard Boyce? Not in detail. If you will tell me now all you know, itwill be a help. Of course, I see that you and the neighbourhood mean tocut him, --and--for the sake of--of Miss Boyce and her mother, I shouldbe glad to find a way out. "

"Good heavens!" said Lord Maxwell, beginning to pace the room, handspressed behind him, head bent. "Good heavens! what a business! what anextraordinary business!"

He stopped short in front of Aldous. "Where have you been meetingher--this young lady?"

"At the Hardens'--sometimes in Mellor village. She goes about among thecottages a great deal. "

"You have not proposed to her?"

"I was not certain of myself till to-day. Besides it would have beenpresumption so far. She has shown me nothing but the merestfriendliness. "

"What, you can suppose she would refuse you!" cried Lord Maxwell, andcould not for the life of him keep the sarcastic intonation out of hisvoice. 

Aldous's look showed distress. "You have not seen her, grandfather, " hesaid quietly. 

Lord Maxwell began to pace again, trying to restrain the painful emotionthat filled him. Of course, Aldous had been entrapped; the girl hadplayed upon his pity, his chivalry--for obvious reasons. 

Aldous tried to soothe him, to explain, but Lord Maxwell hardlylistened. At last he threw himself into his chair again with a longbreath. 

"Give me time, Aldous--give me time. The thought of marrying my heir tothat man's daughter knocks me over a little. "

There was silence again. Then Lord Maxwell looked at his watch withold-fashioned precision. 

"There is half an hour before dinner. Sit down, and let us talk thisthing out. "

 * * * * *

The conversation thus started, however, was only begun by dinner-time;was resumed after Miss Raeburn--the small, shrewd, bright-eyed personwho governed Lord Maxwell's household--had withdrawn; and was continuedin the library some time beyond his lordship's usual retiring hour. Itwas for the most part a monologue on the part of the grandfather, brokenby occasional words from his companion; and for some time Marcella Boyceherself--the woman whom Aldous desired to marry--was hardly mentioned init. Oppressed and tormented by a surprise which struck, or seemed tostrike, at some of his most cherished ideals and just resentments, LordMaxwell was bent upon letting his grandson know, in all their fulness, the reasons why no daughter of Richard Boyce could ever be, in the truesense, fit wife for a Raeburn. 

Aldous was, of course, perfectly familiar with the creed implied in itall. A Maxwell should give himself no airs whatever, should indeed feelno pride whatever, towards "men of goodwill, " whether peasant, professional, or noble. Such airs or such feeling would be both vulgarand unchristian. But when it came to _marriage_, then it behoved him tosee that "the family"--that carefully grafted and selected stock towhich he owed so much--should suffer no loss or deterioration throughhim. Marriage with the fit woman meant for a Raeburn the preservation ofa pure blood, of a dignified and honourable family habit, and moreoverthe securing to his children such an atmosphere of self-respect within, and of consideration from without, as he had himself grown up in. And awoman could not be fit, in this sense, who came either of aninsignificant stock, untrained to large uses and opportunities, or of astock which had degenerated, and lost its right of equal mating with thevigorous owners of unblemished names. Money was of course important andnot to be despised, but the present Lord Maxwell, at any rate, large-minded and conscious of wealth he could never spend, laidcomparatively little stress upon it; whereas, in his old age, the otherinstinct had but grown the stronger with him, as the world waxed moredemocratic, and the influence of the great families waned. 

Nor could Aldous pretend to be insensible to such feelings and beliefs. Supposing the daughter could be won, there was no doubt whatever thatRichard Boyce would be a cross and burden to a Raeburn son-in-law. Butthen! After all! Love for once made philosophy easy--made classtradition sit light. Impatience grew; a readiness to believe RichardBoyce as black as Erebus and be done with it, --so that one might get tothe point--the real point. 

As to the story, it came to this. In his youth, Richard Boyce had beenthe younger and favourite son of his father. He possessed some ability, some good looks, some manners, all of which were wanting in his loutishelder brother. Sacrifices were accordingly made for him. He was sent tothe bar. When he stood for Parliament his election expenses werejubilantly paid, and his father afterwards maintained him with asgenerous a hand as the estate could possibly bear, often in the teeth ofthe grudging resentment of Robert his firstborn. Richard showed signs ofmaking a rapid success, at any rate on the political platform. He spokewith facility, and grappled with the drudgery of committees during hisfirst two years at Westminster in a way to win him the favourableattention of the Tory whips. He had a gift for modern languages, andspoke chiefly on foreign affairs, so that when an important EasternCommission had to be appointed, in connection with some troubles in theBalkan States, his merits and his father's exertions with certain oldfamily friends sufficed to place him upon it. 

The Commission was headed by a remarkable man, and was able to dovaluable work at a moment of great public interest, under the eyes ofEurope. Its members came back covered with distinction, and were muchfêted through the London season. Old Mr. Boyce came up from Mellor tosee Dick's success for himself, and his rubicund country gentleman'sface and white head might have been observed at many a London partybeside the small Italianate physique of his son. 

And love, as he is wont, came in the wake of fortune. A certain freshwest-country girl, Miss Evelyn Merritt, who had shown her stately beautyat one of the earliest drawing-rooms of the season, fell across Mr. Richard Boyce at this moment when he was most at ease with the world, and the world was giving him every opportunity. She was very young, asunspoilt as the daffodils of her Somersetshire valleys, and hercharacter--a character of much complexity and stoical strength--waslittle more known to herself than it was to others. She saw Dick Boycethrough a mist of romance; forgot herself absolutely in idealising him, and could have thanked him on her knees when he asked her to marry him. 

Five years of Parliament and marriage followed, and then--a crash. Itwas a common and sordid story, made tragic by the quality of the wife, and the disappointment of the father, if not by the ruined possibilitiesof Dick Boyce himself. First, the desire to maintain a "position, " tomake play in society with a pretty wife, and, in the City, with amarketable reputation; then company-promoting of a more and moredoubtful kind; and, finally, a swindle more energetic and less skilfulthan the rest, which bomb-like went to pieces in the face of the public, filling the air with noise, lamentations, and unsavoury odours. Nor wasthis all. A man has many warnings of ruin, and when things were goingbadly in the stock market, Richard Boyce, who on his return from theEast had been elected by acclamation a member of several fashionableclubs, tried to retrieve himself at the gaming-table. Lastly, when moneymatters at home and abroad, when the anxieties of his wife and thealtered manners of his acquaintance in and out of the House of Commonsgrew more than usually disagreeable, a certain little chorus girl cameupon the scene and served to make both money and repentance scarcer eventhan they were before. No story could be more commonplace or moredetestable. 

"Ah, how well I remember that poor old fellow--old John Boyce, " saidLord Maxwell, slowly, shaking his stately white head over it, as heleant talking and musing against the mantelpiece. "I saw him the day hecame back from the attempt to hush up the company business. I met him inthe road, and could not help pulling up to speak to him. I was so sorryfor him. We had been friends for many years, he and I. 'Oh, good God!'he said, when he saw me. 'Don't stop me--don't speak to me!' And helashed his horse up--as white as a sheet--fat, fresh-coloured man thathe was in general--and was off. I never saw him again till after hisdeath. First came the trial, and Dick Boyce got three months'imprisonment, on a minor count, while several others of the precious lothe was mixed up with came in for penal servitude. There was sometechnical flaw in the evidence with regard to him, and the cleverlawyers they put on made the most of it; but we all thought, and societythought, that Dick was morally as bad as any of them. Then the papersgot hold of the gambling debts and the woman. She made a disturbance athis club, I believe, during the trial, while he was out on bail--anywayit all came out. Two or three other people were implicated in thegambling business--men of good family. Altogether it was one of thebiggest scandals I remember in my time. "

The old man paused, the long frowning face sternly set. Aldous gazed athim in silence. It was certainly pretty bad--worse than he had thought. 

"And the wife and child?" he said presently. 

"Oh, poor things!"--said Lord Maxwell, forgetting everything for themoment but his story--"when Boyce's imprisonment was up they disappearedwith him. His constituents held indignation meetings, of course. He gaveup his seat, and his father allowed him a small fixed income--she hadbesides some little money of her own--which was secured him afterwards, I believe, on the estate during his brother's lifetime. Some of herpeople would have gladly persuaded her to leave him, for his behaviourtowards her had been particularly odious, --and they were afraid, too, Ithink, that he might come to worse grief yet and make her lifeunbearable. But she wouldn't. And she would have no sympathy and notalk. I never saw her after the first year of their marriage, when shewas a most radiant and beautiful creature. But, by all accounts of herbehaviour at the time, she must be a remarkable woman. One of her familytold me that she broke with all of them. She would know nobody who wouldnot know him. Nor would she take money, though they were wretchedlypoor; and Dick Boyce was not squeamish. She went off to little lodgingsin the country or abroad with him without a word. At the same time, itwas plain that her life was withered. She could make one great effort;but, according to my informant, she had no energy left for anythingelse--not even to take interest in her little girl--"

Aldous made a movement. 

"Suppose we talk about her?" he said rather shortly. 

Lord Maxwell started and recollected himself. After a pause he said, looking down under his spectacles at his grandson with an expression inwhich discomfort strove with humour--

"I see. You think we are beating about the bush. Perhaps we are. It isthe difference between being old and being young, Aldous, my boy. Well--now then--for Miss Boyce. How much have you seen of her?--how deephas it gone? You can't wonder that I am knocked over. To bring that manamongst us! Why, the hound!" cried the old man, suddenly, "we could noteven get him to come and see his father when he was dying. John had losthis memory mostly--had forgotten, anyway, to be angry--and just _craved_for Dick, for the only creature he had ever loved. With great difficultyI traced the man, and tried my utmost. No good! He came when his fatherno longer knew him, an hour before the end. His nerves, I understood, were delicate--not so delicate, however, as to prevent his being presentat the reading of the will! I have never forgiven him that cruelty tothe old man, and never will!"

And Lord Maxwell began to pace the library again, by way of working offmemory and indignation. 

Aldous watched him rather gloomily. They had now been discussing Boyce'scriminalities in great detail for a considerable time, and nothing elseseemed to have any power to touch--or, at any rate, to hold--LordMaxwell's attention. A certain deep pride in Aldous--the pride ofintimate affection--felt itself wounded. 

"I see that you have grave cause to think badly of her father, " he saidat last, rising as he spoke. "I must think how it concerns me. Andto-morrow you must let me tell you something about her. After all, shehas done none of these things. But I ought not to keep you up like this. You will remember Clarke was very emphatic about your not exhaustingyourself at night, last time he was here. "

Lord Maxwell turned and stared. 

"Why--why, what is the matter with you, Aldous? Offended?Well--well--There--I _am_ an old fool!"

And, walking up to his grandson, he laid an affectionate and rathershaking hand on the younger's shoulder. 

"You have a great charge upon you, Aldous--a charge for the future. Ithas upset me--I shall be calmer to-morrow. But as to any quarrel betweenus! Are you a youth, or am I a three-tailed bashaw? As to money, youknow, I care nothing. But it goes against me, my boy, it goes againstme, that _your_ wife should bring such a story as that with her intothis house!"

"I understand, " said Aldous, wincing. "But you must see her, grandfather. Only, let me say it again--don't for one moment take it forgranted that she will marry me. I never saw any one so free, sounspoilt, so unconventional. "

His eyes glowed with the pleasure of remembering her looks, her tones. 

Lord Maxwell withdrew his hand and shook his head slowly. 

"You have a great deal to offer. No woman, unless she were eitherfoolish or totally unexperienced, could overlook that. Is she abouttwenty?"

"About twenty. "

Lord Maxwell waited a moment, then, bending over the fire, shrugged hisshoulders in mock despair. 

"It is evident you are out of love with me, Aldous. Why, I don't knowyet whether she is dark or fair!"

The conversation jarred on both sides. Aldous made an effort. 

"She is very dark, " he said; "like her mother in many ways, only quitedifferent in colour. To me she seems the most beautiful--the onlybeautiful woman I have ever seen. I should think she was very clever insome ways--and very unformed--childish almost--in others. The Hardenssay she has done everything she could--of course it isn't much--for thatmiserable village in the time she has been there. Oh! by the way, she isa Socialist. She thinks that all we landowners should be done awaywith. "

Aldous looked round at his grandfather, so soon probably to be one ofthe lights of a Tory Cabinet, and laughed. So, to his relief, did LordMaxwell. 

"Well, don't let her fall into young Wharton's clutches, Aldous, or hewill be setting her to canvas. So, she is beautiful and she isclever--and _good_, my boy? If she comes here, she will have to fillyour mother's and your grandmother's place. "

Aldous tried to reply once or twice, but failed. 

"If I did not feel that she were everything in herself to be loved andrespected"--he said at last with some formality--"I should not long, asI do, to bring you and her together. "

Silence fell again. But instinctively Aldous felt that his grandfather'smood had grown gentler--his own task easier. He seized on the moment atonce. 

"In the whole business, " he said, half smiling, "there is only one thingclear, grandfather, and that is, that, if you will, you can do me agreat service with Miss Boyce. "

Lord Maxwell turned quickly and was all sharp attention, the keencommanding eyes under their fine brows absorbing, as it were, expressionand life from the rest of the blanched and wrinkled face. 

"You could, if you would, make matters easy for her and her mother inthe county, " said Aldous, anxious to carry it off lightly. "You could, if you would, without committing yourself to any personal contact withBoyce himself, make it possible for me to bring her here, so that youand my aunt might see her and judge. "

The old man's expression darkened. 

"What, take back that note, Aldous! I never wrote anything with greatersatisfaction in my life!"

"Well, --more or less, " said Aldous, quietly. "A very little would do it. A man in Richard Boyce's position will naturally not claim verymuch--will take what he can get. "

"And you mean besides, " said his grandfather, interrupting him, "that Imust send your aunt to call?"

"It will hardly be possible to ask Miss Boyce here unless she does!"said Aldous. 

"And you reckon that I am not likely to go to Mellor, even to see her?And you want me to say a word to other people--to the Winterbournes andthe Levens, for instance?"

"Precisely, " said Aldous. 

Lord Maxwell meditated; then rose. 

"Let me now appease the memory of Clarke by going to bed!" (Clarke washis lordship's medical attendant and autocrat. ) "I must sleep upon this, Aldous. "

"I only hope I shall not have tired you out. "

Aldous moved to extinguish a lamp standing on a table near. 

Suddenly his grandfather called him. 

"Aldous!"

"Yes. "

But, as no words followed, Aldous turned. He saw his grandfatherstanding erect before the fire, and was startled by the emotion heinstantly perceived in eye and mouth. 

"You understand, Aldous, that for twenty years--it is twenty years lastmonth since your father died--you have been the blessing of my life? Oh!don't say anything, my boy; I don't want any more agitation. I havespoken strongly; it was hardly possible but that on such a matter Ishould feel strongly. But don't go away misunderstanding me--don'timagine for one instant that there is anything in the world that reallymatters to me in comparison with your happiness and your future!"

The venerable old man wrung the hand he held, walked quickly to thedoor, and shut it behind him. 

 * * * * *

An hour later, Aldous was writing in his own sitting-room, a room on thefirst floor, at the western corner of the house, and commanding bydaylight the falling slopes of wood below the Court, and all the wideexpanses of the plain. To-night, too, the blinds were up, and the greatview drawn in black and pearl, streaked with white mists in the groundhollows and overarched by a wide sky holding a haloed moon, lay spreadbefore the windows. On a clear night Aldous felt himself stifled byblinds and curtains, and would often sit late, reading and writing, witha lamp so screened that it threw light upon his book or paper, while notinterfering with the full range of his eye over the night-world without. He secretly believed that human beings see far too little of the night, and so lose a host of august or beautiful impressions, which might behonestly theirs if they pleased, without borrowing or stealing fromanybody, poet or painter. 

The room was lined with books, partly temporary visitors from the greatlibrary downstairs, partly his old college books and prizes, and partlyrepresenting small collections for special studies. Here were a largenumber of volumes, blue books, and pamphlets, bearing on the conditionof agriculture and the rural poor in England and abroad; there were someshelves devoted to general economics, and on a little table by the firelay the recent numbers of various economic journals, English andforeign. Between the windows stood a small philosophical bookcase, thevolumes of it full of small reference slips, and marked from end to end;and on the other side of the room was a revolving book-table crowdedwith miscellaneous volumes of poets, critics, and novelists--mainly, however, with the first two. Aldous Raeburn read few novels, and thosewith a certain impatience. His mind was mostly engaged in a slow wrestlewith difficult and unmanageable fact; and for that transformation andillumination of fact in which the man of idealist temper must sometimestake refuge and comfort, he went easily and eagerly to the poets and tonatural beauty. Hardly any novel writing, or reading, seemed to himworth while. A man, he thought, might be much better employed than indoing either. 

Above the mantelpiece was his mother's picture--the picture of a youngwoman in a low dress and muslin scarf, trivial and empty in point ofart, yet linked in Aldous's mind with a hundred touching recollections, buried all of them in the silence of an unbroken reserve. She had diedin childbirth when he was nine; her baby had died with her, and herhusband, Lord Maxwell's only son and surviving child, fell a victim twoyears later to a deadly form of throat disease, one of those ills whichcome upon strong men by surprise, and excite in the dying a sense ofhelpless wrong which even religious faith can only partially soothe. 

Aldous remembered his mother's death; still more his father's, thatfather who could speak no last message to his son, could only lie dumbupon his pillows, with those eyes full of incommunicable pain, and thehand now restlessly seeking, now restlessly putting aside the small andtrembling hand of the son. His boyhood had been spent under the shadowof these events, which had aged his grandfather, and made him too earlyrealise himself as standing alone in the gap of loss, the only hope leftto affection and to ambition. This premature development, amid the mostmelancholy surroundings, of the sense of personal importance--not in anyegotistical sense, but as a sheer matter of fact--had robbed a nervousand sensitive temperament of natural stores of gaiety and elasticitywhich it could ill do without. Aldous Raeburn had been too much thoughtfor and too painfully loved. But for Edward Hallin he might well haveacquiesced at manhood in a certain impaired vitality, in the scholar'srange of pleasures, and the landowner's customary round of duties. 

It was to Edward Hallin he was writing to-night, for the stress and stirof feeling caused by the events of the day, and not least by hisgrandfather's outburst, seemed to put sleep far off. On the table beforehim stood a photograph of Hallin, besides a miniature of his mother as agirl. He had drawn the miniature closer to him, finding sympathy and joyin its youth, in the bright expectancy of the eyes, and so wrote, as itwere, having both her and his friend in mind and sight. 

To Hallin he had already spoken of Miss Boyce, drawing her in light, casual, and yet sympathetic strokes as the pretty girl in a difficultposition whom one would watch with curiosity and some pity. To-night hisletter, which should have discussed a home colonisation scheme ofHallin's, had but one topic, and his pen flew. 

"Would you call her beautiful? I ask myself again and again, trying toput myself behind your eyes. She has nothing, at any rate, in commonwith the beauties we have down here, or with those my aunt bade meadmire in London last May. The face has a strong Italian look, but notItalian of to-day. Do you remember the Ghirlandajo frescoes in SantaMaria Novella, or the side groups in Andrea's frescoes at theAnnunziata? Among them, among the beautiful tall women of them, thereare, I am sure, noble, freely-poised, suggestive heads like hers--hair, black wavy hair, folded like hers in large simple lines, and faceswith the same long, subtle curves. It is a face of the Renaissance, extraordinarily beautiful, as it seems to me, in colour and expression;imperfect in line, as the beauty which marks the meeting pointbetween antique perfection and modern character must always be. Ithas _morbidezza_--unquiet melancholy charm, then passionategaiety--everything that is most modern grafted on things Greek and old. I am told that Burne Jones drew her several times while she was inLondon, with delight. It is the most _artistic_ beauty, having both theharmonies and the dissonances that a full-grown art loves. 

"She may be twenty or rather more. The mind has all sorts of ability;comes to the right conclusion by a divine instinct, ignoring the how andwhy. What does such a being want with the drudgery of learning? to suchkeenness life will be master enough. Yet she has evidently read a gooddeal--much poetry, some scattered political economy, some modernsocialistic books, Matthew Arnold, Ruskin, Carlyle. She takes everythingdramatically, imaginatively, goes straight from it to life, and backagain. Among the young people with whom she made acquaintance while shewas boarding in London and working at South Kensington, there seem tohave been two brothers, both artists, and both Socialists; ardent youngfellows, giving all their spare time to good works, who must haveinfluenced her a great deal. She is full of angers and revolts, whichyou would delight in. And first of all, she is applying herself to herfather's wretched village, which will keep her hands full. A large andpassionate humanity plays about her. What she says often seems to mefoolish--in the ear; but the inner sense, the heart of it, command me. 

"Stare as you please, Ned! Only write to me, and come down here as soonas you can. I can and will hide nothing from you, so you will believe mewhen I say that all is uncertain, that I know nothing, and, though Ihope everything, may just as well fear everything too. But somehow I amanother man, and the world shines and glows for me by day and night. "

Aldous Raeburn rose from his chair and, going to the window, stoodlooking out at the splendour of the autumn moon. Marcella moved acrossthe whiteness of the grass; her voice was still speaking to his inwardear. His lips smiled; his heart was in a wild whirl of happiness. 

Then he walked to the table, took up his letter, read it, tore itacross, and locked the fragments in a drawer. 

"Not yet, Ned--not yet, dear old fellow, even to you, " he said tohimself, as he put out his lamp. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Three days passed. On the fourth Marcella returned late in the afternoonfrom a round of parish visits with Mary Harden. As she opened the oakdoors which shut off the central hall of Mellor from the outervestibule, she saw something white lying on the old cut and disusedbilliard table, which still occupied the middle of the floor tillRichard Boyce, in the course of his economies and improvements, couldreplace it by a new one. 

She ran forward and took up a sheaf of cards, turning them over in asmiling excitement. "Viscount Maxwell, " "Mr. Raeburn, " "Miss Raeburn, ""Lady Winterbourne and the Misses Winterbourne, " two cards of LordWinterbourne's--all perfectly in form. 

Then a thought flashed upon her. "Of course it is his doing--and I askedhim!"

The cards dropped from her hand on the billiard table, and she stoodlooking at them, her pride fighting with her pleasure. There wassomething else in her feeling too--the exultation of proved power over aperson not, as she guessed, easily influenced, especially by women. 

"Marcella, is that you?"

It was her mother's voice. Mrs. Boyce had come in from the gardenthrough the drawing-room, and was standing at the inner door of thehall, trying with shortsighted eyes to distinguish her daughter amongthe shadows of the great bare place. A dark day was drawing to itsclose, and there was little light left in the hall, except in one cornerwhere a rainy sunset gleam struck a grim contemporary portrait of MaryTudor, bringing out the obstinate mouth and the white hand holding ajewelled glove. 

Marcella turned, and by the same gleam her mother saw her flushed andanimated look. 

"Any letters?" she asked. 

"No; but there are some cards. Oh yes, there is a note, " and she pouncedupon an envelope she had overlooked. "It is for you, mother--from theCourt. "

Mrs. Boyce came up and took note and cards from her daughter's hand. Marcella watched her with quick breath. 

Her mother looked through the cards, slowly putting them down one by onewithout remark. 

"Oh, mother! do read the note!" Marcella could not help entreating. 

Mrs. Boyce drew herself together with a quick movement as though herdaughter jarred upon her, and opened the note. Marcella dared not lookover her. There was a dignity about her mother's lightest action, aboutevery movement of her slender fingers and fine fair head, which hadalways held the daughter in check, even while she rebelled. 

Mrs. Boyce read it, and then handed it to Marcella. 

"I must go and make the tea, " she said, in a light, cold tone, andturning, she went back to the drawing-room, whither afternoon tea hadjust been carried. 

Marcella followed, reading. The note was from Miss Raeburn, and itcontained an invitation to Mrs. Boyce and her daughter to take luncheonat the Court on the following Friday. The note was courteously andkindly worded. "We should be so glad, " said the writer, "to show you andMiss Boyce our beautiful woods while they are still at their best, inthe way of autumn colour. "

"How will mamma take it?" thought Marcella anxiously. "There is not aword of papa!"

When she entered the drawing-room, she caught her mother standingabsently at the tea-table. The little silver caddy was still in her handas though she had forgotten to put it down; and her eyes, whichevidently saw nothing, were turned to the window, the brows frowning. The look of suffering for an instant was unmistakable; then she startedat the sound of Marcella's step, and put down the caddy amid thedelicate china crowded on the tray, with all the quiet precision of herordinary manner. 

"You will have to wait for your tea, " she said, "the water doesn'tnearly boil. "

Marcella went up to the fire and, kneeling before it, put the logs withwhich it was piled together. But she could not contain herself for long. 

"Will you go to the Court, mamma?" she asked quickly, without turninground. 

There was a pause. Then Mrs. Boyce said drily--

"Miss Raeburn's proceedings are a little unexpected. We have been herefour months, within two miles of her, and it has never occurred to herto call. Now she calls and asks us to luncheon in the same afternoon. Either she took too little notice of us before, or she takes too muchnow--don't you think so?"

Marcella was silent a moment. Should she confess? It began to occur toher for the first time that in her wild independence she had been takingliberties with her mother. 

"Mamma!"

"Yes. "

"I asked Mr. Aldous Raeburn the other day whether everybody here wasgoing to cut us! Papa told me that Lord Maxwell had written him anuncivil letter and--"

"You--asked--Mr. Raeburn--" said Mrs. Boyce, quickly. "What do youmean?"

Marcella turned round and met the flash of her mother's eyes. 

"I couldn't help it, " she said in a low hurried voice. "It seemed sohorrid to feel everybody standing aloof--we were walking together--hewas very kind and friendly--and I asked him to explain. "

"I see!" said Mrs. Boyce. "And he went to his aunt--and she went to LadyWinterbourne--they were compassionate--and there are the cards. You havecertainly taken us all in hand, Marcella!"

Marcella felt an instant's fear--fear of the ironic power in thesparkling look so keenly fixed on her offending self; she shrank beforethe proud reserve expressed in every line of her mother's fragileimperious beauty. Then a cry of nature broke from the girl. 

"You have got used to it, mamma! I feel as if it would kill me to livehere, shut off from everybody--joining with nobody--with no friendlyfeelings or society. It was bad enough in the old lodging-house days;but here--why _should_ we?"

Mrs. Boyce had certainly grown pale. 

"I supposed you would ask sooner or later, " she said in a low determinedvoice, with what to Marcella was a quite new note of reality in it. "Probably Mr. Raeburn told you--but you must of course have guessed itlong ago--that society does not look kindly on us--and has its reasons. I do not deny in the least that it has its reasons. I do not accuseanybody, and resent nothing. But the question with me has always been, Shall I accept pity? I have always been able to meet it with a No! Youare very different from me--but for you also I believe it would be thehappiest answer. "

The eyes of both met--the mother's full of an indomitable fire which hadfor once wholly swept away her satiric calm of every day; the daughter'stroubled and miserable. 

"I want friends!" said Marcella, slowly. "There are so many things Iwant to do here, and one can do nothing if every one is against you. People would be friends with you and me--and with papa too, --through us. Some of them wish to be kind"--she added insistently, thinking of AldousRaeburn's words and expression as he bent to her at the gate--"I knowthey do. And if we can't hold our heads high because--because of thingsin the past--ought we to be so proud that we won't take their hands whenthey stretch them out--when they write so kindly and nicely as this?"

And she laid her fingers almost piteously on the note upon her knee. 

Mrs. Boyce tilted the silver urn and replenished the tea-pot. Then witha delicate handkerchief she rubbed away a spot from the handle of aspoon near her. 

"You shall go, " she said presently--"you wish it--then go--go by allmeans. I will write to Miss Raeburn and send you over in the carriage. One can put a great deal on health--mine is quite serviceable in the wayof excuses. I will try and do you no harm, Marcella. If you have chosenyour line and wish to make friends here--very well--I will do what I canfor you so long as you do not expect me to change my life--for which, mydear, I am grown too crotchety and too old. "

Marcella looked at her with dismay and a yearning she had never feltbefore. 

"And you will never go out with me, mamma?"

There was something childlike and touching in the voice, something whichfor once suggested the normal filial relation. But Mrs. Boyce did notwaver. She had long learnt perhaps to regard Marcella as a girlsingularly well able to take care of herself; and had recognised thefact with relief. 

"I will not go to the Court with you anyway, " she said, daintily sippingher tea--"in your interests as well as mine. You will make all thegreater impression, my dear, for I have really forgotten how to behave. Those cards shall be properly returned, of course. For the rest--let noone disturb themselves till they must. And if I were you, Marcella, Iwould hardly discuss the family affairs any more--with Mr. Raeburn oranybody else. "

And again her keen glance disconcerted the tall handsome girl, whosepower over the world about her had never extended to her mother. Marcella flushed and played with the fire. 

"You see, mamma, " she said after a moment, still looking at the logs andthe shower of sparks they made as she moved them about, "you never letme discuss them with you. "

"Heaven forbid!" said Mrs. Boyce, quickly; then, after a pause: "Youwill find your own line in a little while, Marcella, and you will see, if you so choose it, that there will be nothing unsurmountable in yourway. One piece of advice let me give you. Don't be too _grateful_ toMiss Raeburn, or anybody else! You take great interest in your Boycebelongings, I perceive. You may remember too, perhaps, that there isother blood in you--and that no Merritt has ever submitted quietly toeither patronage or pity. "

Marcella started. Her mother had never named her own kindred to herbefore that she could remember. She had known for many years that therewas a breach between the Merritts and themselves. The newspapers hadtold her something at intervals of her Merritt relations, for they werefashionable and important folk, but no one of them had crossed theBoyces' threshold since the old London days, wherein Marcella couldstill dimly remember the tall forms of certain Merritt uncles, and evena stately lady in a white cap whom she knew to have been her mother'smother. The stately lady had died while she was still a child at herfirst school; she could recollect her own mourning frock; but that wasalmost the last personal remembrance she had, connected with theMerritts. 

And now this note of intense personal and family pride, under which Mrs. Boyce's voice had for the first time quivered a little! Marcella hadnever heard it before, and it thrilled her. She sat on by the fire, drinking her tea and every now and then watching her companion with anew and painful curiosity. The tacit assumption of many years with herhad been that her mother was a dry limited person, clever and determinedin small ways, that affected her own family, but on the wholecharacterless as compared with other people of strong feelings andresponsive susceptibilities. But her own character had been rapidlymaturing of late, and her insight sharpening. During these recent weeksof close contact, her mother's singularity had risen in her mind to thedignity at least of a problem, an enigma. 

Presently Mrs. Boyce rose and put the scones down by the fire. 

"Your father will be in, I suppose. Yes, I hear the front door. "

As she spoke she took off her velvet cloak, put it carefully aside on asofa, and sat down again, still in her bonnet, at the tea-table. Herdress was very different from Marcella's, which, when they were not inmourning, was in general of the ample "aesthetic" type, and gave her agood deal of trouble out of doors. Marcella wore "art serges" andvelveteens; Mrs. Boyce attired herself in soft and costly silks, generally black, closely and fashionably made, and completed by variousfanciful and distinguished trifles--rings, an old chatelaine, a diamondbrooch--which Marcella remembered, the same, and worn in the same way, since her childhood. Mrs. Boyce, however, wore her clothes so daintily, and took such scrupulous and ingenious care of them, that her dresscost, in truth, extremely little--certainly less than Marcella's. 

There were sounds first of footsteps in the hall, then of some scoldingof William, and finally Mr. Boyce entered, tired and splashed fromshooting, and evidently in a bad temper. 

"Well, what are you going to do about those cards?" he asked his wifeabruptly when she had supplied him with tea, and he was beginning to dryby the fire. He was feeling ill and reckless; too tired anyway totrouble himself to keep up appearances with Marcella. 

"Return them, " said Mrs. Boyce, calmly, blowing out the flame of hersilver kettle. 

"_I_ don't want any of their precious society, " he said irritably. "Theyshould have done their calling long ago. There's no grace in it now; Idon't know that one isn't inclined to think it an intrusion. "

But the women were silent. Marcella's attention was diverted from hermother to the father's small dark head and thin face. There was a greatrepulsion and impatience in her heart, an angry straining againstcircumstance and fate; yet at the same time a mounting voice of naturalaffection, an understanding at once sad and new, which paralysed andsilenced her. He stood in her way--terribly in her way--and yet itstrangely seemed to her, that never before till these last few weeks hadshe felt herself a daughter. 

"You are very wet, papa, " she said to him as she took his cup; "don'tyou think you had better go at once and change?"

"I'm all right, " he said shortly--"as right as I'm likely to be, anyway. As for the shooting, it's nothing but waste of time and shoe leather. Ishan't go out any more. The place has been clean swept by some of thosebrutes in the village--your friends, Marcella. By the way, Evelyn, Icame across young Wharton in the road just now. "

"Wharton?" said his wife, interrogatively. "I don't remember--ought I?"

"Why, the Liberal candidate for the division, of course, " he saidtestily. "I wish you would inform yourself of what goes on. He isworking like a horse, he tells me. Dodgson, the Raeburns' candidate, hasgot a great start; this young man will want all his time to catch himup. I like him. I won't vote for him; but I'll see fair play. I've askedhim to come to tea here on Saturday, Evelyn. He'll be back again by theend of the week. He stays at Dell's farm when he comes--pretty badaccommodation, I should think. We must show him some civility. "

He rose and stood with his back to the fire, his spare frame stiffeningunder his nervous determination to assert himself--to hold up his headphysically and morally against those who would repress him. 

Richard Boyce took his social punishment badly. He had passed his firstweeks at Mellor in a tremble of desire that his father's old family andcountry friends should recognise him again and condone his"irregularities. " All sorts of conciliatory ideas had passed throughhis head. He meant to let people see that he would be a good neighbourif they would give him the chance--not like that miserly fool, hisbrother Robert. The past was so much past; who now was more respectableor more well intentioned than he? He was an impressionable imaginativeman in delicate health; and the tears sometimes came into his eyes as hepictured himself restored to society--partly by his own efforts, partly, no doubt, by the charms and good looks of his wife anddaughter--forgiven for their sake, and for the sake also of that storeof virtue he had so laboriously accumulated since that long-pastcatastrophe. Would not most men have gone to the bad altogether, aftersuch a lapse? He, on the contrary, had recovered himself, had neitherdrunk nor squandered, nor deserted his wife and child. These things, ifthe truth were known, were indeed due rather to a certain lack ofphysical energy and vitality, which age had developed in him, than toself-conquest; but he was no doubt entitled to make the most of them. There were signs indeed that his forecast had been not at allunreasonable. His womenkind _were_ making their way. At the very momentwhen Lord Maxwell had written him a quelling letter, he had become awarethat Marcella was on good terms with Lord Maxwell's heir. Had he notalso been stopped that morning in a remote lane by Lord Winterbourne andLord Maxwell on their way back from the meet, and had not bothrecognised and shaken hands with him? And now there were these cards. 

Unfortunately, in spite of Raeburn's opinion to the contrary, no man insuch a position and with such a temperament ever gets something withoutclaiming more--and more than he can conceivably or possibly get. Startled and pleased at first by the salutation which Lord Maxwell andhis companion had bestowed upon him, Richard Boyce had passed hisafternoon in resenting and brooding over the cold civility of it. Sothese were the terms he was to be on with them--the deuce take them andtheir pharisaical airs! If all the truth were known, most men would lookfoolish; and the men who thanked God that they were not as other men, soonest of all. He wished he had not been taken by surprise; he wishedhe had not answered them; he would show them in the future that he wouldeat no dirt for them or anybody else. 

So on the way home there had been a particular zest in his chanceencounter with the young man who was likely to give the Raeburns andtheir candidate--so all the world said--a very great deal of trouble. The seat had been held to be an entirely safe one for the Maxwellnominee. Young Wharton, on the contrary, was making way every day, and, what with securing Aldous's own seat in the next division, and helpingold Dodgson in this, Lord Maxwell and his grandson had their hands full. Dick Boyce was glad of it. He was a Tory; but all the same he wishedevery success to this handsome, agreeable young man, whose deferentialmanners to him at the end of the day had come like ointment to a wound. 

The three sat on together for a little while in silence. Marcella kepther seat by the fire on the old gilt fenderstool, conscious in adreamlike way of the room in front of her--the stately room with itsstucco ceiling, its tall windows, its Prussian-blue wall-paper behindthe old cabinets and faded pictures, and the chair covers in Turkey-redtwill against the blue, which still remained to bear witness at once tothe domestic economies and the decorative ideas of old RobertBoyce--conscious also of the figures on either side of her, and of herown quick-beating youth betwixt them. She was sore and unhappy; yet, onthe whole, what she was thinking most about was Aldous Raeburn. What hadhe said to Lord Maxwell?--and to the Winterbournes? She wished she couldknow. She wished with leaping pulse that she could see him againquickly. Yet it would be awkward too. 

 * * * * *

Presently she got up and went away to take off her things. As the doorclosed behind her, Mrs. Boyce held out Miss Raeburn's note, whichMarcella had returned to her, to her husband. 

"They have asked Marcella and me to lunch, " she said. "I am not going, but I shall send her. "

He read the note by the firelight, and it produced the mostcontradictory effects upon him. 

"Why don't you go?" he asked her aggressively, rousing himself for amoment to attack her, and so vent some of his ill-humour. 

"I have lost the habit of going out, " she said quietly, "and am too oldto begin again. "

"What! you mean to say, " he asked her angrily, raising his voice, "thatyou have never _meant_ to do your duties here--the duties of yourposition?"

"I did not foresee many, outside this house and land. Why should wechange our ways? We have done very well of late. I have no mind to riskwhat I have got. "

He glanced round at her in a quick nervous way, and then looked backagain at the fire. The sight of her delicate blanched face had in somerespects a more and more poignant power with him as the years went on. His anger sank into moroseness. 

"Then why do you let Marcella go? What good will it do her to go aboutwithout her parents? People will only despise her for a girl of nospirit--as they ought. "

"It depends upon how it is done. I can arrange it, I think, " said Mrs. Boyce. "A woman has always convenient limitations to plead in the way ofhealth. She need never give offence if she has decent wits. It will beunderstood that I do not go out, and then someone--Miss Raeburn or LadyWinterbourne--will take up Marcella and mother her. "

She spoke with her usual light gentleness, but he was not appeased. 

"If you were to talk of _my_ health, it would be more to the purpose, "he said, with grim inconsequence. And raising his heavy lids he lookedat her full. 

She got up and went over to him. 

"Do you feel worse again? Why will you not change your things directlyyou come in? Would you like Dr. Clarke sent for?"

She was standing close beside him; her beautiful hand, for which intheir young days it had pleased his pride to give her rings, almosttouched him. A passionate hunger leapt within him. She would stoop andkiss him if he asked her; he knew that. But he would not ask her; he didnot want it; he wanted something that never on this earth would she givehim again. 

Then moral discomfort lost itself in physical. 

"Clarke does me no good--not an atom, " he said, rising. "There--don'tyou come. I Can look after myself. "

He went, and Mrs. Boyce remained alone in the great fire-lit room. Sheput her hands on the mantelpiece, and dropped her head upon them, and sostood silent for long. There was no sound audible in the room, or fromthe house outside. And in the silence a proud and broken heart once morenerved itself to an endurance that brought it peace with neither man norGod. 

 * * * * *

"I shall go, for all our sakes, " thought Marcella, as she stood latethat night brushing her hair before her dimly-lighted and ricketydressing-table. "We have, it seems, no right to be proud. "

A rush of pain and bitterness filled her heart--pain, new-born andinsistent, for her mother, her father, and herself. Ever since AldousRaeburn's hesitating revelations, she had been liable to this suddeninvasion of a hot and shamed misery. And to-night, after her talk withher mother, it could not but overtake her afresh. 

But her strong personality, her passionate sense of a moral independencenot to be undone by the acts of another, even a father, made her soonimpatient of her own distress, and she flung it from her with decision. 

"No, we have no right to be proud, " she repeated to herself. "It must beall true what Mr. Raeburn said--probably a great deal more. Poor, poormamma! But, all the same, there is nothing to be got out of emptyquarrelling and standing alone. And it was so long ago. "

Her hand fell, and she stood absently looking at her own black and whitereflection in the old flawed glass. 

She was thinking, of course, of Mr. Raeburn. He had been very prompt inher service. There could be no question but that he was speciallyinterested in her. 

And he was not a man to be lightly played upon--nay, rather a singularlyreserved and scrupulous person. So, at least, it had been always heldconcerning him. Marcella was triumphantly conscious that he had not fromthe beginning given _her_ much trouble. But the common report of himmade his recent manner towards her, this last action of his, the moresignificant. Even the Hardens--so Marcella gathered from her friend andadmirer Mary--unworldly dreamy folk, wrapt up in good works, and in thehastening of Christ's kingdom, were on the alert and beginning to takenote. 

It was not as though he were in the dark as to her antecedents. He knewall--at any rate, more than she did--and yet it might end in his askingher to marry him. What then?

Scarcely a quiver in the young form before the glass! _Love_, at such athought, must have sunk upon its knees and hid its face for tenderhumbleness and requital. Marcella only looked quietly at the beautywhich might easily prove to be so important an arrow in her quiver. 

What was stirring in her was really a passionate ambition--ambition tobe the queen and arbitress of human lives--to be believed in by herfriends, to make a mark for herself among women, and to make it in themost romantic and yet natural way, without what had always seemed to herthe sordid and unpleasant drudgeries of the platform, of a tiresomeco-operation with, or subordination to others who could not understandyour ideas. 

Of course, if it happened, people would say that she had tried tocapture Aldous Raeburn for his money and position's sake. Let them sayit. People with base minds must think basely; there was no help for it. Those whom she would make her friends would know very well for whatpurpose she wanted money, power, and the support of such a man, and sucha marriage. Her modern realism played with the thought quite freely; hermaidenliness, proud and pure as it was, being nowise ashamed. Oh! forsomething to carry her _deep_ into life; into the heart of its widestand most splendid opportunities!

She threw up her hands, clasping them above her head amid her clouds ofcurly hair--a girlish excited gesture. 

"I could revive the straw-plaiting; give them better teaching and bettermodels. The cottages should be rebuilt. Papa would willingly hand thevillage over to me if I found the money! We would have a parishcommittee to deal with the charities--oh! the Hardens would come in. Theold people should have their pensions as of right. No hopeless old age, no cringing dependence! We would try co-operation on the land, and pullit through. And not in Mellor only. One might be the ruler, theregenerator of half a county!"

Memory brought to mind in vivid sequence the figures and incidents ofthe afternoon, of her village round with Mary Harden. 

"_As the eyes of servants towards the hand of their mistress_"--the oldwords occurred to her as she thought of herself stepping in and out ofthe cottages. Then she was ashamed of herself and rejected the imagewith vehemence. Dependence was the curse of the poor. Her whole aim, ofcourse, should be to teach them to stand on their own feet, to knowthemselves as men. But naturally they would be grateful, they would letthemselves be led. Intelligence and enthusiasm give power, and ought togive it--power for good. No doubt, under Socialism, there will be lessscope for either, because there will be less need. But Socialism, as asystem, will not come in our generation. What we have to think for isthe transition period. The Cravens had never seen that, but Marcella sawit. She began to feel herself a person of larger experience than they. 

As she undressed, it seemed to her as though she still felt the clinginghands of the Hurd children round her knees, and through them, symbolisedby them, the suppliant touch of hundreds of other helpless creatures. 

She was just dropping to sleep when her own words to Aldous Raeburnflashed across her, --

"Everybody is so ready to take charge of other people's lives, and lookat the result!"

She must needs laugh at herself, but it made little matter. She fellasleep cradled in dreams. Aldous Raeburn's final part in them was notgreat!

CHAPTER VIII. 

Mrs. Boyce wrote her note to Miss Raeburn, a note containing cold thoughcivil excuses as to herself, while accepting the invitation forMarcella, who should be sent to the Court, either in the carriage orunder the escort of a maid who could bring her back. Marcella found hermother inclined to insist punctiliously on conventions of this kind. Itamused her, in submitting to them, to remember the free and easy ways ofher London life. But she submitted--and not unwillingly. 

On the afternoon of the day which intervened between the Maxwells' calland her introduction to the Court, Marcella walked as usual down to thevillage. She was teeming with plans for her new kingdom, and could notkeep herself out of it. And an entry in one of the local papers hadsuggested to her that Hurd might possibly find work in a parish somemiles from Mellor. She must go and send him off there. 

When Mrs. Hurd opened the door to her, Marcella was astonished toperceive behind her the forms of several other persons filling up thenarrow space of the usually solitary cottage--in fact, a tea-party. 

"Oh, come in, miss, " said Mrs. Hurd, with some embarrassment, as thoughit occurred to her that her visitor might legitimately wonder to find aperson of her penury entertaining company. Then, lowering her voice, she hurriedly explained: "There's Mrs. Brunt come in this afternoon tohelp me wi' the washin' while I finished my score of plait for the womanwho takes 'em into town to-morrow. And there's old Patton an' hiswife--you know 'em, miss?--them as lives in the parish houses top o' thecommon. He's walked out a few steps to-day. It's not often he's able, and when I see him through the door I said to 'em, 'if you'll come inan' take a cheer, I dessay them tea-leaves 'ull stan' another wettin'. Ihaven't got nothink else. ' And there's Mrs. Jellison, she came in alongo' the Pattons. You can't say her no, she's a queer one. Do you knowher, miss?"

"Oh, bless yer, yes, yes. She knows me!" said a high, jocular voice, making Mrs. Hurd start; "she couldn't be long hereabouts without makkin'eëaste to know me. You coom in, miss. We're not afraid o' you--Lor'bless you!"

Mrs. Hurd stood aside for her visitor to pass in, looking round her thewhile, in some perplexity, to see whether there was a spare chair androom to place it. She was a delicate, willowy woman, still young infigure, with a fresh colour, belied by the grey circles under the eyesand the pinched sharpness of the features. The upper lip, which waspretty and childish, was raised a little over the teeth; the wholeexpression of the slightly open mouth was unusually soft and sensitive. On the whole, Minta Hurd was liked in the village, though she wasthought a trifle "fine. " The whole family, indeed, "kept theirsels totheirsels, " and to find Mrs. Hurd with company was unusual. Her name, of course, was short for Araminta. 

Marcella laughed as she caught Mrs. Jellison's remarks, and made her wayin, delighted. For the present, these village people affected her likefigures in poetry or drama. She saw them with the eye of the imaginationthrough a medium provided by Socialist discussion, or by certain phasesof modern art; and the little scene of Mrs. Hurd's tea-party took forher in an instant the dramatic zest and glamour. 

"Look here, Mrs. Jellison, " she said, going up to her; "I was just goingto leave these apples for your grandson. Perhaps you'll take them, nowyou're here. They're quite sweet, though they look green. They're thebest we've got, the gardener says. "

"Oh, they are, are they?" said Mrs. Jellison, composedly, looking up ather. "Well, put 'em down, miss. I dare say he'll eat 'em. He eats mostthings, and don't want no doctor's stuff nayther, though his mother dokeep on at me for spoilin' his stummuck. "

"You are just fond of that boy, aren't you, Mrs. Jellison?" saidMarcella, taking a wooden stool, the only piece of furniture left in thetiny cottage on which it was possible to sit, and squeezing herself intoa corner by the fire, whence she commanded the whole group. "No! don'tyou turn Mr. Patton out of that chair, Mrs. Hurd, or I shall have to goaway. "

For Mrs. Hurd, in her anxiety, was whispering in old Patton's ear thatit might be well for him to give up her one wooden arm-chair, in whichhe was established, to Miss Boyce. But he, being old, deaf, andrheumatic, was slow to move, and Marcella's peremptory gesture bade herleave him in peace. 

"Well, it's you that's the young 'un, ain't it, miss?" said Mrs. Jellison, cheerfully. "Poor old Patton, he do get slow on his legs, don't you, Patton? But there, there's no helping it when you're turnedof eighty. "

And she turned upon him a bright, philosophic eye, being herself a youngthing not much over seventy, and energetic accordingly. Mrs. Jellisonpassed for the village wit, and was at least talkative and excitablebeyond her fellows. 

"Well, _you_ don't seem to mind getting old, Mrs. Jellison, " saidMarcella, smiling at her. 

The eyes of all the old people round their tea-table were by now drawnirresistibly to Miss Boyce in the chimney corner, to her slim grace, andthe splendour of her large black hat and feathers. The new squire'sdaughter had so far taken them by surprise. Some of them, however, wereby now in the second stage of critical observation--none the lesscritical because furtive and inarticulate. 

"Ah?" said Mrs. Jellison, interrogatively, with a high, long-drawn notepeculiar to her. "Well, I've never found you get forrarder wi' snarlin'over what you can't help. And there's mercies. When you've had a husbandin his bed for fower year, miss, and he's took at last, you'll _know_. "

She nodded emphatically. Marcella laughed. 

"I know you were very fond of him, Mrs. Jellison, and looked after himvery well, too. "

"Oh, I don't say nothin' about that, " said Mrs. Jellison, hastily. "Butall the same you kin reckon it up, and see for yoursen. Fower year--an'fire upstairs, an' fire downstairs, an' fire all night, an' soomthin'allus wanted. An' he such an objeck afore he died! It do seem like aholiday now to sit a bit. "

And she crossed her hands on her lap with a long breath of content. Alock of grey hair had escaped from her bonnet, across her wrinkledforehead, and gave her a half-careless rakish air. Her youth of longago--a youth of mad spirits, and of an extraordinary capacity forphysical enjoyment, seemed at times to pierce to the surface again, eventhrough her load of years. But in general she had a dreamy, sunny look, as of one fed with humorous fancies, but disinclined often to thetrouble of communicating them. 

"Well, I missed my daughter, I kin tell you, " said Mrs. Brunt, with asigh, "though she took a deal more lookin' after nor your good man, Mrs. Jellison. "

Mrs. Brunt was a gentle, pretty old woman, who lived in another of thevillage almshouses, next door to the Pattons, and was always ready tohelp her neighbours in their domestic toils. Her last remainingdaughter, the victim of a horrible spinal disease, had died some nine orten months before the Boyces arrived at Mellor. Marcella had alreadyheard the story several times, but it was part of her social gift thatshe was a good listener to such things even at the twentieth hearing. 

"You wouldn't have her back though, " she said gently, turning towardsthe speaker. 

"No, I wouldn't have her back, miss, " said Mrs. Brunt, raising her handto brush away a tear, partly the result of feeling, partly of along-established habit. "But I do miss her nights terrible! 'Mother, ain't it ten o'clock?--mother, look at the clock, do, mother--ain't ittime for my stuff, mother--oh, I do _hope_ it is. ' That was her stuff, miss, to make her sleep. And when she'd got it, she'd _groan_--you'dthink she couldn't be asleep, and yet she was, dead-like--for two hours. I didn't get no rest with her, and now I don't seem to get no restwithout her. "

And again Mrs. Brunt put her hand up to her eyes. 

"Ah, you were allus one for toilin' an' frettin', " said Mrs. Jellison, calmly. "A body must get through wi' it when it's there, but I don'thold wi' thinkin' about it when it's done. "

"I know one, " said old Patton, slily, "that fretted about _her_ darterwhen it didn't do her no good. "

He had not spoken so far, but had sat with his hands on his stick, aspectator of the women's humours. He was a little hunched man, twistedand bent double with rheumatic gout, the fruit of seventy years of fieldwork. His small face was almost lost, dog-like, under shaggy hair andovergrown eyebrows, both snow-white. He had a look of irritableeagerness, seldom, however, expressed in words. A sudden passion in thefaded blue eyes; a quick spot of red in his old cheeks; these Marcellahad often noticed in him, as though the flame of some inner furnaceleapt. He had been a Radical and a rebel once in old rick-burning days, long before he lost the power in his limbs and came down to be thankfulfor one of the parish almshouses. To his social betters he was now aquiet and peaceable old man, well aware of the cakes and ale to be gotby good manners; but in the depths of him there were reminiscences andthe ghosts of passions, which were still stirred sometimes by causes notalways intelligible to the bystander. 

He had rarely, however, physical energy enough to bring anyemotion--even of mere worry at his physical ills--to the birth. Thepathetic silence of age enwrapped him more and more. Still he could gibethe women sometimes, especially Mrs. Jellison, who was in general tooclever for her company. 

"Oh, you may talk, Patton!" said Mrs. Jellison, with a little flash ofexcitement. "You do like to have your talk, don't you! Well, I dare sayI _was_ orkard with Isabella. I won't go for to say I _wasn't_ orkard, for I _was_. She should ha' used me to 't before, if she wor took thatway. She and I had just settled down comfortable after my old man went, and I didn't see no sense in it, an' I don't now. She might ha' let themen alone. She'd seen enough o' the worrit ov 'em. "

"Well, she did well for hersen, " said Mrs. Brunt, with the same gentlemelancholy. "She married a stiddy man as 'ull keep her well all hertime, and never let her want for nothink. "

"A sour, wooden-faced chap as iver I knew, " said Mrs. Jellison, grudgingly. "I don't have nothink to say to him, nor he to me. He thinkshissen the Grand Turk, he do, since they gi'en him his uniform, and madehim full keeper. A nassty, domineerin' sort, I calls him. He's allusmakin' bad blood wi' the yoong fellers when he don't need. It's the wayhe's got wi' 'im. But _I_ don't make no account of 'im, an' I let 'imsee 't. "

All the tea-party grinned except Mrs. Hurd. The village was wellacquainted with the feud between Mrs. Jellison and her son-in-law, George Westall, who had persuaded Isabella Jellison at the mature age ofthirty-five to leave her mother and marry him, and was now one of LordMaxwell's keepers, with good pay, and an excellent cottage some littleway out of the village. Mrs. Jellison had never forgiven her daughterfor deserting her, and was on lively terms of hostility with herson-in-law; but their only child, little Johnnie, had found the softspot in his grandmother, and her favourite excitement in life, now thathe was four years old, was to steal him from his parents and feed him onthe things of which Isabella most vigorously disapproved. 

Mrs. Hurd, as has been said, did not smile. At the mention of Westall, she got up hastily, and began to put away the tea things. 

Marcella meanwhile had been sitting thoughtful. 

"You say Westall makes bad blood with the young men, Mrs. Jellison?" shesaid, looking up. "Is there much poaching in this village now, do youthink?"

There was a dead silence. Mrs. Hurd was at the other end of the cottagewith her back to Marcella; at the question, her hands paused an instantin their work. The eyes of all the old people--of Patton and his wife, of Mrs. Jellison, and pretty Mrs. Brunt--were fixed on the speaker, butnobody said a word, not even Mrs. Jellison. Marcella coloured. 

"Oh, you needn't suppose--" she said, throwing her beautiful head back, "you needn't suppose that _I_ care about the game, or that I would everbe mean enough to tell anything that was told me. I know it _does_cause a great deal of quarrelling and bad blood. I believe it doeshere--and I should like to know more about it. I want to make up my mindwhat to think. Of course, my father has got his land and his ownopinions. And Lord Maxwell has too. But I am not bound to think likeeither of them--I should like you to understand that. It seems to meright about all such things that people should enquire and find out forthemselves. "

Still silence. Mrs. Jellison's mouth twitched, and she threw a slyprovocative glance at old Patton, as though she would have liked to pokehim in the ribs. But she was not going to help him out; and at last theone male in the company found himself obliged to clear his throat forreply. 

"We're old folks, most on us, miss, 'cept Mrs. Hurd. We don't hear talko' things now like as we did when we were younger. If you ast Mr. Hardenhe'll tell you, I dessay. "

Patton allowed himself an inward chuckle. Even Mrs. Jellison, hethought, must admit that he knew a thing or two as to the best way ofdealing with the gentry. 

But Marcella fixed him with her bright frank eyes. 

"I had rather ask in the village, " she said. "If you don't know how itis now, Mr. Patton, tell me how it used to be when you were young. Wasthe preserving very strict about here? Were there often fights, with thekeepers--long ago?--in my grandfather's days?--and do you think menpoached because they were hungry, or because they wanted sport?"

Patton looked at her fixedly a moment undecided, then her strongnervous youth seemed to exercise a kind of compulsion on him; perhaps, too, the pretty courtesy of her manner. He cleared his throat again, andtried to forget Mrs. Jellison, who would be sure to let him hear of itagain, whatever he said. 

"Well, I can't answer for 'em, miss, I'm sure, but if you ast _me_, Ib'lieve ther's a bit o' boath in it. Yer see it's not in human natur, when a man's young and 's got his blood up, as he shouldn't want terhave 'is sport with the wild creeturs. Perhaps he see 'em when ee'sgoing to the wood with a wood cart--or he cooms across 'em in theturnips--wounded birds, you understan', miss, perhaps the day after thegentry 'as been bangin' at 'em all day. An' ee don't see, not for thelife of 'im, why ee shouldn't have 'em. Ther's bin lots an' lots for therich folks, an' he don't see why _ee_ shouldn't have a few arter they'veenjoyed theirselves. And mebbe he's eleven shillin' a week--an'two-threy little chillen--you understan', miss?"

"Of course I understand!" said Marcella, eagerly, her dark cheekflushing. "Of course I do! But there's a good deal of game given away inthese parts, isn't there? I know Lord Maxwell does, and they say LordWinterbourne gives all his labourers rabbits, almost as many as theywant. "

Her questions wound old Patton up as though he had been a disused clock. He began to feel a whirr among his creaking wheels, a shaking of all hisrusty mind. 

"Perhaps they do, miss, " he said, and his wife saw that he was beginningto tremble. "I dessay they do--I don't say nothink agen it--thoughtheer's none of it cooms my way. But that isn't all the rights on itnayther--no, that it ain't. The labourin' man ee's glad enough to get ahare or a rabbit for 'is eatin'--but there's more in it nor that, miss. Ee's allus in the fields, that's where it is--ee can't help seein' thehares and the rabbits a-comin' in and out o' the woods, if it were iverso. Ee knows ivery run ov ivery one on 'em; if a hare's started furthestcorner o' t' field, he can tell yer whar she'll git in by, because he'sallus there, you see, miss, an' it's the only thing he's got to take hismind off like. And then he sets a snare or two--an' ee gits very sharpat settin' on 'em--an' ee'll go out nights for the sport of it. Therisn't many things _ee's_ got to liven him up; an' ee takes 'is chanceso' goin' to jail--it's wuth it, ee thinks. "

The old man's hands on his stick shook more and more visibly. Bygones ofhis youth had come back to him. 

"Oh, I know! I know!" cried Marcella, with an accent half ofindignation, half of despair. "It's the whole wretched system. It spoilsthose who've got, and those who haven't got. And there'll be no mendingit till the _people_ get the land back again, and till the rights on itare common to all. "

"My! she do speak up, don't she?" said Mrs. Jellison, grinning again ather companions. Then, stooping forward with one of her wild movements, she caught Marcella's arm--"I'd like to hear yer tell that to LordMaxwell, miss. I likes a roompus, I do. "

Marcella flushed and laughed. 

"I wouldn't mind saying that or anything else to Lord Maxwell, " she saidproudly. "I'm not ashamed of anything I think. "

"No, I'll bet you ain't, " said Mrs. Jellison, withdrawing her hand. "Nowthen, Patton, you say what _you_ thinks. You ain't got no vote nowyou're in the parish houses--I minds that. The quality don't trouble_you_ at 'lection times. This yoong man, Muster Wharton, as is goin'round so free, promisin' yer the sun out o' the sky, iv yer'll only votefor 'im, so th' men say--_ee_ don't coom an' set down along o' you an'me, an' cocker of us up as ee do Joe Simmons or Jim Hurd here. But thatdon't matter. Yur thinkin's yur own, anyway. "

But she nudged him in vain. Patton had suddenly run down, and there wasno more to be got out of him. 

Not only had nerves and speech failed him as they were wont, but in hiscloudy soul there had risen, even while Marcella was speaking, theinevitable suspicion which dogs the relations of the poor towards thericher class. This young lady, with her strange talk, was the newsquire's daughter. And the village had already made up its mind thatRichard Boyce was "a poor sort, " and "a hard sort" too, in his landlordcapacity. He wasn't going to be any improvement on his brother--not ahaporth! What was the good of this young woman talking, as she did, whenthere were three summonses as he, Patton, heard tell, just taken out bythe sanitary inspector against Mr. Boyce for bad cottages? And not afarthing given away in the village neither, except perhaps the bits offood that the young lady herself brought down to the village now andthen, for which no one, in truth, felt any cause to be particularlygrateful. Besides, what did she mean by asking questions about thepoaching? Old Patton knew as well as anybody else in the village, thatduring Robert Boyce's last days, and after the death of his sportsmanson, the Mellor estate had become the haunt of poachers from far andnear, and that the trouble had long since spread into the neighbouringproperties, so that the Winterbourne and Maxwell keepers regarded ittheir most arduous business to keep watch on the men of Mellor. Ofcourse the young woman knew it all, and she and her father wanted toknow more. That was why she talked. Patton hardened himself against thecreeping ways of the quality. 

"I don't think nought, " he said roughly in answer to Mrs. Jellison. "Thinkin' won't come atwixt me and the parish coffin when I'm took. I'veno call to think, I tell yer. "

Marcella's chest heaved with indignant feeling. 

"Oh, but, Mr. Patton!" she cried, leaning forward to him, "won't itcomfort you a bit, even if you can't live to see it, to think there's abetter time coming? There must be. People can't go on like thisalways--hating each other and trampling on each other. They're beginningto see it now, they are! When I was living in London, the persons I waswith talked and thought of it all day. Some day, whenever the peoplechoose--for they've got the power now they've got the vote--there'll beland for everybody, and in every village there'll be a council tomanage things, and the labourer will count for just as much as thesquire and the parson, and he'll be better educated and better fed, andcare for many things he doesn't care for now. But all the same, if hewants sport and shooting, it will be there for him to get. For everybodywill have a chance and a turn, and there'll be no bitterness betweenclasses, and no hopeless pining and misery as there is now!"

The girl broke off, catching her breath. It excited her to say thesethings to these people, to these poor tottering old things who had livedout their lives to the end under the pressure of an iron system, and hadno lien on the future, whatever Paradise it might bring. Again thesituation had something foreseen and dramatic in it. She saw herself, asthe preacher, sitting on her stool beside the poor grate--she realisedas a spectator the figures of the women and the old man played on by thefirelight--the white, bare, damp-stained walls of the cottage, and inthe background the fragile though still comely form of Minta Hurd, whowas standing with her back to the dresser, and her head bent forward, listening to the talk while her fingers twisted the straw she plaitedeternally from morning till night, for a wage of about 1s. 3d. A week:

Her mind was all aflame with excitement and defiance--defiance of herfather, Lord Maxwell, Aldous Raeburn. Let him come, her friend, and seefor himself what she thought it right to do and say in this miserablevillage. Her soul challenged him, longed to provoke him! Well, she wassoon to meet him, and in a new and more significant relation andenvironment. The fact made her perception of the whole situation themore rich and vibrant. 

Patton, while these broken thoughts and sensations were coursing throughMarcella's head, was slowly revolving what she had been saying, and theothers were waiting for him. 

At last he rolled his tongue round his dry lips and delivered himself bya final effort. 

"Them as likes, miss, may believe as how things are going to happen thatway, but yer won't ketch me! Them as have got 'ull _keep_"--he let hisstick sharply down on the floor--"an' them as 'aven't got 'ull 'ave togo without and _lump it_--as long as you're alive, miss, you mark mywords!"

"Oh, Lor', you wor allus one for makin' a poor mouth, Patton!" said Mrs. Jellison. She had been sitting with her arms folded across her chest, part absent, part amused, part malicious. "The young lady speaksbeautiful, just like a book she do. An' she's likely to know a dealbetter nor poor persons like you and me. All _I_ kin say is, --if there'sgoin' to be dividin' up of other folks' property, when I'm gone, I hopeGeorge Westall won't get nothink ov it! He's bad enough as 'tis. Isabella 'ud have a fine time if _ee_ took to drivin' ov his carriage. "

The others laughed out, Marcella at their head, and Mrs. Jellisonsubsided, the corners of her mouth still twitching, and her eyes shiningas though a host of entertaining notions were trooping throughher--which, however, she preferred to amuse herself with rather than thepublic. Marcella looked at Patton thoughtfully. 

"You've been all your life in this village, haven't you, Mr. Patton?"she asked him. 

"Born top o' Witchett's Hill, miss. An' my wife here, she wor born justa house or two further along, an' we two bin married sixty-one year comenext March. "

He had resumed his usual almshouse tone, civil and a little plaintive. His wife behind him smiled gently at being spoken of. She had a longfair face, and white hair surmounted by a battered black bonnet, a mouthset rather on one side, and a more observant and refined air than mostof her neighbours. She sighed while she talked, and spoke in a delicatequaver. 

"D'ye know, miss, " said Mrs. Jellison, pointing to Mrs. Patton, "as shekep' school when she was young?"

"Did you, Mrs. Patton?" asked Marcella in her tone of sympatheticinterest. "The school wasn't very big then, I suppose?"

"About forty, miss, " said Mrs. Patton, with a sigh. "There was eighteenthe Rector paid for, and eighteen Mr. Boyce paid for, and the rest paidfor themselves. "

Her voice dropped gently, and she sighed again like one weighted with aneternal fatigue. 

"And what did you teach them?"

"Well, I taught them the plaitin', miss, and as much readin' and writin'as I knew myself. It wasn't as high as it is now, you see, miss, " and adelicate flush dawned on the old cheek as Mrs. Patton threw a glanceround her companions as though appealing to them not to tell stories ofher. 

But Mrs. Jellison was implacable. "It wor she taught _me_, " she said, nodding at Marcella and pointing sideways to Mrs. Patton. "She had aqueer way wi' the hard words, I can tell yer, miss. When she couldn'ttell 'em herself she'd never own up to it. 'Say Jerusalem, my dear, andpass on. ' That's what she'd say, she would, sure's as you're alive! I'veheard her do it times. An' when Isabella an' me used to read the Bible, nights, I'd allus rayther do 't than be beholden to me own darter. Itgets yer through, anyway. "

"Well, it wor a good word, " said Mrs. Patton, blushing and mildlydefending herself. "It didn't do none of yer any harm. "

"Oh, an' before her, miss, I went to a school to another woman, as livedup Shepherd's Row. You remember her, Betsy Brunt?"

Mrs. Brunt's worn eyes began already to gleam and sparkle. 

"Yis, I recolleck very well, Mrs. Jellison. She wor Mercy Moss, an' agoodish deal of trouble you'd use to get me into wi' Mercy Moss, allalong o' your tricks. "

Mrs. Jellison, still with folded arms, began to rock herself gently upand down as though to stimulate memory. 

"My word, but Muster Maurice--he wor the clergyman here then, miss--worset on Mercy Moss. He and his wife they flattered and cockered her up. Ther wor nobody like her for keepin' school, not in their eyes--till onemidsummer--she--well she--I don't want to say nothink onpleasant--_butshe transgressed_, " said Mrs. Jellison, nodding mysteriously, triumphant however in the unimpeachable delicacy of her language, andlooking round the circle for approval. 

"What do you say?" asked Marcella, innocently. "What did Mercy Moss do?"

Mrs. Jellison's eyes danced with malice and mischief, but her mouth shutlike a vice. Patton leaned forward on his stick, shaken with a sort ofinward explosion; his plaintive wife laughed under her breath till shemust needs sigh because laughter tired her old bones. Mrs. Brunt gurgledgently. And finally Mrs. Jellison was carried away. 

"Oh, my goodness me, don't you make me tell tales o' Mercy Moss!" shesaid at last, dashing the water out of her eyes with an excitedtremulous hand. "She's bin dead and gone these forty year--married andburied mos' respeckable--it 'ud be a burning shame to bring up talesagen her now. Them as tittle-tattles about dead folks needn't look tolie quiet theirselves in their graves. I've said it times, and I'll sayit again. What are you lookin' at me for, Betsy Brunt?"

And Mrs. Jellison drew up suddenly with a fierce glance at Mrs. Brunt. 

"Why, Mrs. Jellison, I niver meant no offence, " said Mrs. Brunt, hastily. 

"I won't stand no insinooating, " said Mrs. Jellison, with energy. "Ifyou've got soomthink agen me, you may out wi' 't an' niver mind theyoung lady. "

But Mrs. Brunt, much flurried, retreated amid a shower of excuses, pursued by her enemy, who was soon worrying the whole little company, asa dog worries a flock of sheep, snapping here and teasing there, chattering at the top of her voice in broad dialect, as she got more andmore excited, and quite as ready to break her wit on Marcella as onanybody else. As for the others, most of them had known little else forweeks than alternations of toil and sickness; they were as much amusedand excited to-night by Mrs. Jellison's audacities as a Londoner is byhis favourite low comedian at his favourite music-hall. They playedchorus to her, laughed, baited her; even old Patton was drawn againsthis will into a caustic sociability. 

Marcella meanwhile sat on her stool, her chin upon her hand, and herfull glowing eyes turned upon the little spectacle, absorbing it allwith a covetous curiosity. 

The light-heartedness, the power of enjoyment left in these old folkstruck her dumb. Mrs. Brunt had an income of two-and-sixpence a week, _plus_ two loaves from the parish, and one of the parish or "charity"houses, a hovel, that is to say, of one room, scarcely fit for humanhabitation at all. She had lost five children, was allowed two shillingsa week by two labourer sons, and earned sixpence a week--about--bycontinuous work at "the plait. " Her husband had been run over by a farmcart and killed; up to the time of his death his earnings averaged abouttwenty-eight pounds a year. Much the same with the Pattons. They hadlost eight children out of ten, and were now mainly supported by thewages of a daughter in service. Mrs. Patton had of late years sufferedagonies and humiliations indescribable, from a terrible illness whichthe parish doctor was quite incompetent to treat, being all through asingularly sensitive woman, with a natural instinct for the decorous andthe beautiful. 

Amazing! Starvation wages; hardships of sickness and pain; horrors ofbirth and horrors of death; wholesale losses of kindred and friends; themeanest surroundings; the most sordid cares--of this mingled cup ofvillage fate every person in the room had drunk, and drunk deep. Yethere in this autumn twilight, they laughed and chattered, andjoked--weird, wrinkled children, enjoying an hour's rough play in aclearing of the storm! Dependent from birth to death on squire, parson, parish, crushed often, and ill-treated, according to their own ideas, but bearing so little ill-will; amusing themselves with their owntragedies even, if they could but sit by a fire and drink a neighbour'scup of tea. 

Her heart swelled and burned within her. Yes, the old people were pasthoping for; mere wreck and driftwood on the shore, the spring-tide ofdeath would soon have swept them all into unremembered graves. But theyoung men and women, the children, were they too to grow up, and growold like these--the same smiling, stunted, ignobly submissive creatures?One woman at least would do her best with her one poor life to rousesome of them to discontent and revolt!

CHAPTER IX. 

The fire sank, and Mrs. Hurd made no haste to light her lamp. Soon theold people were dim chattering shapes in a red darkness. Mrs. Hurd stillplaited, silent and upright, lifting her head every now and then at eachsound upon the road. 

At last there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Hurd ran to open it. 

"Mother, I'm going your way, " said a strident voice. "I'll help you homeif you've a mind. "

On the threshold stood Mrs. Jellison's daughter, Mrs. Westall, with herlittle boy beside her, the woman's broad shoulders and harsh strikinghead standing out against the pale sky behind. Marcella noticed that shegreeted none of the old people, nor they her. And as for Mrs. Hurd, assoon as she saw the keeper's wife, she turned her back abruptly on hervisitor, and walked to the other end of the kitchen. 

"Are you comin', mother?" repeated Isabella. 

Mrs. Jellison grumbled, gibed at her, and made long leave-takings, whilethe daughter stood silent, waiting, and every now and then peering atMarcella, who had never seen her before. 

"I don' know where yur manners is, " said Mrs. Jellison sharply to her, as though she had been a child of ten, "that you don't say good evenin'to the young lady. "

Mrs. Westall curtsied low, and hoped she might be excused, as it hadgrown so dark. Her tone was smooth and servile, and Marcella dislikedher as she shook hands with her. 

The other old people, including Mrs. Brunt, departed a minute or twoafter the mother and daughter, and Marcella was left an instant withMrs. Hurd. 

"Oh, thank you, thank you kindly, miss, " said Mrs. Hurd, raising herapron to her eyes to staunch some irrepressible tears, as Marcellashowed her the advertisement which it might possibly be worth Hurd'swhile to answer. "He'll try, you may be sure. But I can't think as howanythink 'ull come ov it. "

And then suddenly, as though something unexplained had upset herself-control, the poor patient creature utterly broke down. Leaningagainst the bare shelves which held their few pots and pans, she threwher apron over her head and burst into the forlornest weeping. "I wish Iwas dead; I wish I was dead, an' the chillen too!"

Marcella hung over her, one flame of passionate pity, comforting, soothing, promising help. Mrs. Hurd presently recovered enough to tellher that Hurd had gone off that morning before it was light to a farmnear Thame, where it had been told him he might possibly find a job. 

"But he'll not find it, miss, he'll not find it, " she said, twisting herhands in a sort of restless misery; "there's nothing good happens tosuch as us. An' he wor allus a one to work if he could get it. "

There was a sound outside. Mrs. Hurd flew to the door, and a short, deformed man, with a large head and red hair, stumbled in blindly, splashed with mud up to his waist, and evidently spent with longwalking. 

He stopped on the threshold, straining his eyes to see through thefire-lit gloom. 

"It's Miss Boyce, Jim, " said his wife. "Did you hear of anythink?"

"They're turnin' off hands instead of takin' ov 'em on, " he saidbriefly, and fell into a chair by the grate. 

He had hardly greeted Marcella, who had certainly looked to be greeted. Ever since her arrival in August, as she had told Aldous Raeburn, shehad taken a warm interest in this man and his family. There wassomething about them which marked them out a bit from theirfellows--whether it was the husband's strange but not repulsivedeformity, contrasted with the touch of plaintive grace in the wife, orthe charm of the elfish children, with their tiny stick-like arms andlegs, and the glancing wildness of their blue eyes, under the frizzle ofred hair, which shone round their little sickly faces. Very soon she hadbegun to haunt them in her eager way, to try and penetrate their peasantlives, which were so full of enigma and attraction to her, mainlybecause of their very defectiveness, their closeness to an animalsimplicity, never to be reached by any one of her sort. She soondiscovered or imagined that Hurd had more education than his neighbours. At any rate, he would sit listening to her--and smoking, as she made himdo--while she talked politics and socialism to him; and though he saidlittle in return, she made the most of it, and was sure anyway that hewas glad to see her come in, and must some time read the labournewspapers and Venturist leaflets she brought him, for they were alwayswell thumbed before they came back to her. 

But to-night his sullen weariness would make no effort, and the huntedrestless glances he threw from side to side as he sat crouching over thefire--the large mouth tight shut, the nostrils working--showed her thathe would be glad when she went away. 

Her young exacting temper was piqued. She had been for some time tryingto arrange their lives for them. So, in spite of his dumb resistance, she lingered on, questioning and suggesting. As to the advertisement shehad brought down, he put it aside almost without looking at it. "Thereud be a hun'erd men after it before ever he could get there, " was all hewould say to it. Then she inquired if he had been to ask the steward ofthe Maxwell Court estate for work. He did not answer, but Mrs. Hurd saidtimidly that she heard tell a new drive was to be made that winter forthe sake of giving employment. But their own men on the estate wouldcome first, and there were plenty of them out of work. 

"Well, but there is the game, " persisted Marcella. "Isn't it possiblethey might want some extra men now the pheasant shooting has begun. Imight go and inquire of Westall--I know him a little. "

The wife made a startled movement, and Hurd raised his misshapen formwith a jerk. 

"Thank yer, miss, but I'll not trouble yer. I don't want nothing to dowith Westall. "

And taking up a bit of half-burnt wood which lay on the hearth, he threwit violently back into the grate. Marcella looked from one to the otherwith surprise. Mrs. Hurd's expression was one of miserable discomfort, and she kept twisting her apron in her gnarled hands. 

"Yes, I _shall_ tell, Jim!" she broke out. "I shall. I know Miss Boyceis one as ull understand--"

Hurd turned round and looked at his wife full. But she persisted. 

"You see, miss, they don't speak, don't Jim and George Westall. When Jimwas quite a lad he was employed at Mellor, under old Westall, George'sfather as was. Jim was 'watcher, ' and young George he was assistant. That was in Mr. Robert's days, you understand, miss--when Master Haroldwas alive; and they took a deal o' trouble about the game. An' GeorgeWestall, he was allays leading the others a life--tale-bearing an'spyin', an' settin' his father against any of 'em as didn't give in tohim. An', oh, he behaved _fearful_ to Jim! Jim ull tell you. Now, Jim, what's wrong with you--why shouldn't I tell?"

For Hurd had risen, and as he and his wife looked at each other a sortof mute conversation seemed to pass between them. Then he turnedangrily, and went out of the cottage by the back door into the garden. 

The wife sat in some agitation a moment, then she resumed. "He can'tbear no talk about Westall--it seems to drive him silly. But I say ashow people _should_ know. "

Her wavering eye seemed to interrogate her companion. Marcella waspuzzled by her manner--it was so far from simple. 

"But that was long ago, surely, " she said. 

"Yes, it wor long ago, but you don't forget them things, miss! An'Westall, he's just the same sort as he was then, so folks say, " sheadded hurriedly. "You see Jim, miss, how he's made? His back was twistedthat way when he was a little un. His father was a good oldman--everybody spoke well of 'im--but his mother, she was a queer madbody, with red hair, just like Jim and the children, and a temper! myword. They do say she was an Irish girl, out of a gang as used to worknear here--an' she let him drop one day when she was in liquor, an'never took no trouble about him afterwards. He was a poor sickly lad, hewas! you'd wonder how he grew up at all. And oh! George Westall hetreated him _cruel_. He'd kick and swear at him; then he'd dare him tofight, an' thrash him till the others came in, an' got him away. Thenhe'd carry tales to his father, and one day old Westall beat Jim withinan inch of 'is life, with a strap end, because of a lie George told 'im. The poor chap lay in a ditch under Disley Wood all day, because he wasthat knocked about he couldn't walk, and at night he crawled home on hishands and knees. He's shown me the place many a time! Then he told hisfather, and next morning he told me, as he couldn't stand it no longer, an' he never went back no more. "

"And he told no one else?--he never complained?" asked Marcella, indignantly. 

"What ud ha been the good o' that, miss?" Mrs. Hurd said, wondering. "Nobody ud ha taken his word agen old Westall's. But he come and toldme. I was housemaid at Lady Leven's then, an' he and his father were oldfriends of ourn. And I knew George Westall too. He used to walk out withme of a Sunday, just as civil as could be, and give my mother rabbitsnow and again, and do anything I'd ask him. An' I up and told him he wasa brute to go ill-treatin' a sickly fellow as couldn't pay him back. That made him as cross as vinegar, an' when Jim began to be about withme ov a Sunday sometimes, instead of him, he got madder and madder. An'Jim asked me to marry him--he begged of me--an' I didn't know what tosay. For Westall had asked me twice; an' I was afeard of Jim's health, an' the low wages he'd get, an' of not bein' strong myself. But one dayI was going up a lane into Tudley End woods, an' I heard George Westallon tother side of the hedge with a young dog he was training. Somethin'crossed him, an' he flew into a passion with it. It turned me _sick_. Iran away and I took against him there and then. I was frightened of him. I duresn't trust myself, and I said to Jim I'd take him. So you canunderstan', miss, can't you, as Jim don't want to have nothing to dowith Westall? Thank you kindly, all the same, " she added, breaking offher narrative with the same uncertainty of manner, the same timidscrutiny of her visitor that Marcella had noticed before. 

Marcella replied that she could certainly understand. 

"But I suppose they've not got in each other's way of late years, " shesaid as she rose to go. 

"Oh! no, miss, no, " said Mrs. Hurd as she went hurriedly to fetch a furtippet which her visitor had laid down on the dresser. 

"There is _one_ person I can speak to, " said Marcella, as she put on thewrap. "And I will. " Against her will she reddened a little; but she hadnot been able to help throwing out the promise. "And now, you won'tdespair, will you? You'll trust me? I could always do something. "

She took Mrs. Hurd's hand with a sweet look and gesture. Standing therein her tall vigorous youth, her furs wrapped about her, she had the airof protecting and guiding this poverty that could not help itself. Themother and wife felt herself shy, intimidated. The tears came back toher brown eyes. 

 * * * * *

When Miss Boyce had gone, Minta Hurd went to the fire and put ittogether, sighing all the time, her face still red and miserable. 

The door opened and her husband came in. He carried some potatoes in hisgreat earth-stained hands. 

"You're goin' to put that bit of hare on? Well, mak' eëaste, do, for I'mstarvin'. What did she want to stay all that time for? You go and getit. I'll blow the fire up--damn these sticks!--they're as wet as Dugnallpond. "

Nevertheless, as she sadly came and went, preparing the supper, she sawthat he was appeased, in a better temper than before. 

"What did you tell 'er?" he asked abruptly. 

"What do you spose I'd tell her? I acted for the best. I'm alwaysthinkin' for you!" she said as though with a little cry, "or we'd soonbe in trouble--worse trouble than we are!" she added miserably. 

He stopped working the old bellows for a moment, and, holding his longchin, stared into the flames. With his deformity, his earth-stains, hisblue eyes, his brown wrinkled skin, and his shock of red hair, he hadthe look of some strange gnome crouching there. 

"I don't know what you're at, I'll swear, " he said after a pause. "Iain't in any pertickler trouble just now--if yer wouldn't send a fellowstumpin' the country for nothink. If you'll just let me alone I'll get alivin' for you and the chillen right enough. Don't you troubleyourself--an' hold your tongue!"

She threw down her apron with a gesture of despair as she stood besidehim, in front of the fire, watching the pan. 

"What am I to do, Jim, an' them chillen--when you're took to prison?"she asked him vehemently. 

"I shan't get took to prison, I tell yer. All the same, Westall got holto' me this mornin'. I thought praps you'd better know. "

Her exclamation of terror, her wild look at him, were exactly what hehad expected; nevertheless, he flinched before them. His brutality wasmostly assumed. He had adopted it as a mask for more than a year past, because he _must_ go his way, and she worried him. 

"Now look here, " he said resolutely, "it don't matter. I'm not goin' tobe took by Westall. I'd kill him or myself first. But he caught melookin' at a snare this mornin'--it wor misty, and I didn't see no onecomin'. It wor close to the footpath, and it worn't my snare. "

"'Jim, my chap, ' says he, mockin', 'I'm sorry for it, but I'm going tosearch yer, so take it quietly, ' says he. He had young Dynes withhim--so I didn't say nought--I kep' as still as a mouse, an' sure enoughhe put his ugly han's into all my pockets. An' what do yer think hefoun'?"

"What?" she said breathlessly. 

"Nothink!" he laughed out. "Nary an end o' string, nor a kink o'wire--nothink. I'd hidden the two rabbits I got las' night, and all mybits o' things in a ditch far enough out o' his way. I just laughed atthe look ov 'im. 'I'll have the law on yer for assault an' battery, yerdamned miscalculatin' brute!' says I to him--'why don't yer get that boythere to teach yer your business?' An' off I walked. Don't you beafeared--'ee'll never lay hands on me!"

But Minta was sore afraid, and went on talking and lamenting while shemade the tea. He took little heed of her. He sat by the fire quiveringand thinking. In a public-house two nights before this one, overtureshad been made to him on behalf of a well-known gang of poachers withhead-quarters in a neighbouring county town, who had their eyes on thepheasant preserves in Westall's particular beat--the Tudley Endbeat--and wanted a local watcher and accomplice. He had thought thematter at first too dangerous to touch. Moreover, he was at that momentin a period of transition, pestered by Minta to give up "the poachin', "and yet drawn back to it after his spring and summer of field work byinstincts only recently revived, after long dormancy, but now hard toresist. 

Presently he turned with anger upon one of Minta's wails which happenedto reach him. 

"Look 'ere!" said he to her, "where ud you an' the chillen be this nightif I 'adn't done it? 'Adn't we got rid of every stick o' stuff we iver'ad? 'Ere's a well-furnished place for a chap to sit in!"--he glancedbitterly round the bare kitchen, which had none of the little propertiesof the country poor, no chest, no set of mahogany drawers, nocomfortable chair, nothing, but the dresser and the few rush chairs andthe table, and a few odds and ends of crockery and householdstuff--"wouldn't we all a bin on the parish, if we 'adn't starvedfust--_wouldn't_ we?--jes' answer me that! _Didn't_ we sit here an'starve, till the bones was comin' through the chillen's skin?--didn'twe?"

That he could still argue the point with her showed the innervulnerableness, the inner need of her affection and of peace with her, which he still felt, far as certain new habits were beginning to sweephim from her. 

"It's Westall or Jenkins (Jenkins was the village policeman) havin' the_law_ on yer, Jim, " she said with emphasis, putting down a cup andlooking at him--it's the thought of _that_ makes me cold in my back. None o' _my_ people was ever in prison--an' if it 'appened to you Ishould just die of shame!"

"Then yer'd better take and read them papers there as _she_ brought, " hesaid impatiently, first jerking his finger over his shoulder in thedirection of Mellor to indicate Miss Boyce, and then pointing to a heapof newspapers which lay on the floor in a corner, "they'd tell yersummat about the shame o' _makin_' them game-laws--not o' breakin' ov'em. But I'm sick o' this! Where's them chillen? Why do yer let that boyout so late?"

And opening the door he stood on the threshold looking up and down thevillage street, while Minta once more gave up the struggle, dried hereyes, and told herself to be cheerful. But it was hard. She was farbetter born and better educated than her husband. Her father had been asmall master chair-maker in Wycombe, and her mother, a lackadaisicalsilly woman, had given her her "fine" name by way of additional proofthat she and her children were something out of the common. Moreover, she had the conforming law-abiding instincts of the well-treateddomestic servant, who has lived on kindly terms with the gentry andshared their standards. And for years after their marriage Hurd hadallowed her to govern him. He had been so patient, so hard-working, sucha kind husband and father, so full of a dumb wish to show her he wasgrateful to her for marrying such a fellow as he. The quarrel withWestall seemed to have sunk out of his mind. He never spoke to or ofhim. Low wages, the burden of quick-coming children, the bad sanitaryconditions of their wretched cottage, and poor health, had made theirlives one long and sordid struggle. But for years he had borne his loadwith extraordinary patience. He and his could just exist, and the manwho had been in youth the lonely victim of his neighbours' scorn hadfound a woman to give him all herself and children to love. Hence yearsof submission, a hidden flowering time for both of them. 

Till that last awful winter!--the winter before Richard Boyce'ssuccession to Mellor--when the farmers had been mostly ruined, and halfthe able-bodied men of Mellor had tramped "up into the smoke, " as thevillage put it, in search of London work--then, out of actual sheerstarvation--that very rare excuse of the poacher!--Hurd had gone onenight and snared a hare on the Mellor land. Would the wife and motherever forget the pure animal satisfaction of that meal, or the fearfuljoy of the next night, when he got three shillings from a local publicanfor a hare and two rabbits?

But after the first relief Minta had gone in fear and trembling. For theold woodcraft revived in Hurd, and the old passion for the fields andtheir chances which he had felt as a lad before his "watcher's" placehad been made intolerable to him by George Westall's bullying. He becameexcited, unmanageable. Very soon he was no longer content with Mellor, where, since the death of young Harold, the heir, the keepers had beendismissed, and what remained of a once numerous head of game lay open tothe wiles of all the bold spirits of the neighbourhood. He must needs goon to those woods of Lord Maxwell's, which girdled the Mellor estate onthree sides. And here he came once more across his enemy. For GeorgeWestall was now in the far better-paid service of the Court--and a veryclever keeper, with designs on the head keeper's post whenever it mightbe vacant. In the case of a poacher he had the scent of one of his ownhares. It was known to him in an incredibly short time that that "lowcaselty fellow Hurd" was attacking "his" game. 

Hurd, notwithstanding, was cunning itself, and Westall lay in wait forhim in vain. Meanwhile, all the old hatred between the two men revived. Hurd drank this winter more than he had ever drunk yet. It wasnecessary to keep on good terms with one or two publicans who acted as"receivers" of the poached game of the neighbourhood. And it seemed tohim that Westall pursued him into these low dens. The keeper--big, burly, prosperous--would speak to him with insolent patronage, watchinghim all the time, or with the old brutality, which Hurd dared notresent. Only in his excitable dwarf's sense hate grew and throve, verysoon to monstrous proportions. Westall's menacing figure darkened allhis sky for him. His poaching, besides a means of livelihood, becamemore and more a silent duel between him and his boyhood's tyrant. 

And now, after seven months of regular field-work and respectableliving, it was all to begin again with the new winter! The same shuddersand terrors, the same shames before the gentry and Mr. Harden!--thesoft, timid woman with her conscience could not endure the prospect. Forsome weeks after the harvest was over she struggled. He had begun to goout again at nights. But she drove him to look for employment, and livedin tears when he failed. 

As for him, she knew that he was glad to fail; there was a certain easeand jauntiness in his air to-night as he stood calling the children:

"Will!--you come in at once! Daisy!--Nellie!"

Two little figures came pattering up the street in the moist Octoberdusk, a third, panted behind. The girls ran in to their motherchattering and laughing. Hurd lifted the boy in his arm. 

"Where you bin, Will? What were yo out for in this nasty damp? I'vebrought yo a whole pocket full o' chestnuts, and summat else too. "

He carried him in to the fire and sat him on his knees. The littleemaciated creature, flushed with the pleasure of his father's company, played contentedly in the intervals of coughing with the shiningchestnuts, or ate his slice of the fine pear--the gift of a friend inThame--which proved to be the "summat else" of promise. The curtainswere close-drawn; the paraffin lamp flared on the table, and as thesavoury smell of the hare and onions on the fire filled the kitchen, thewhole family gathered round watching for the moment of eating. The fireplayed on the thin legs and pinched faces of the children; on the baby'scradle in the further corner; on the mother, red-eyed still, but able tosmile and talk again; on the strange Celtic face and matted hair of thedwarf. Family affection--and the satisfaction of the simpler physicalneeds--these things make the happiness of the poor. For this hour, to-night, the Hurds were happy. 

Meanwhile, in the lane outside, Marcella, as she walked home, passed atall broad-shouldered man in a velveteen suit and gaiters, his gun overhis shoulder and two dogs behind him, his pockets bulging on eitherside. He walked with a kind of military air, and touched his cap to heras he passed. 

Marcella barely nodded. 

"Tyrant and bully!" she thought to herself with Mrs. Hurd's story in hermind. "Yet no doubt he is a valuable keeper; Lord Maxwell would be sorryto lose him! It is the system makes such men--and must have them. "

The clatter of a pony carriage disturbed her thoughts. A small, elderlylady, in a very large mushroom hat, drove past her in the dusk and bowedstiffly. Marcella was so taken by surprise that she barely returned thebow. Then she looked after the carriage. That was Miss Raeburn. 

To-morrow!

CHAPTER X. 

"Won't you sit nearer to the window? We are rather proud of our view atthis time of year, " said Miss Raeburn to Marcella, taking her visitor'sjacket from her as she spoke, and laying it aside. "Lady Winterbourne islate, but she will come, I am sure. She is very precise aboutengagements. "

Marcella moved her chair nearer to the great bow-window, and looked outover the sloping gardens of the Court, and the autumn splendour of thewoods girdling them in on all sides. She held her head nervously erect, was not apparently much inclined to talk, and Miss Raeburn, who hadresumed her knitting within a few paces of her guest, said to herselfpresently after a few minutes' conversation on the weather and the walkfrom Mellor: "Difficult--decidedly difficult--and too much manner for ayoung girl. But the most picturesque creature I ever set eyes on!"

Lord Maxwell's sister was an excellent woman, the inquisitive, benevolent despot of all the Maxwell villages; and one of the soundestTories still left to a degenerate party and a changing time. Her brotherand her great-nephew represented to her the flower of human kind; shehad never been capable, and probably never would be capable, ofquarrelling with either of them on any subject whatever. At the sametime she had her rights with them. She was at any rate their naturalguardian in those matters, relating to womankind, where men areconfessedly given to folly. She had accordingly kept a shrewd eye inAldous's interest on all the young ladies of the neighbourhood for manyyears past; knew perfectly well all that he might have done, and sighedover all that he had so far left undone. 

At the present moment, in spite of the even good-breeding with which sheknitted and chattered beside Marcella, she was in truth consumed withcuriosity, conjecture, and alarm on the subject of this Miss Boyce. Profoundly as they trusted each other, the Raeburns were not on thesurface a communicative family. Neither her brother nor Aldous had sofar bestowed any direct confidence upon her; but the course of affairshad, notwithstanding, aroused her very keenest attention. In the firstplace, as we know, the mistress of Maxwell Court had left Mellor and itsnew occupants unvisited; she had plainly understood it to be herbrother's wish that she should do so. How, indeed, could you know thewomen without knowing Richard Boyce? which, according to Lord Maxwell, was impossible. And now it was Lord Maxwell who had suggested not onlythat after all it would be kind to call upon the poor things, who wereheavily weighted enough already with Dick Boyce for husband and father, but that it would be a graceful act on his sister's part to ask the girland her mother to luncheon. Dick Boyce of course must be made to keephis distance, but the resources of civilisation were perhaps not unequalto the task of discriminating, if it were prudently set about. At anyrate Miss Raeburn gathered that she was expected to try, and instead ofpressing her brother for explanations she held her tongue, paid her callforthwith, and wrote her note. 

But although Aldous, thinking no doubt that he had been alreadysufficiently premature, had said nothing at all as to his own feelingsto his great-aunt, she knew perfectly well that he had said a great dealon the subject of Miss Boyce and her mother to Lady Winterbourne, theonly woman in the neighbourhood with whom he was ever reallyconfidential. No woman, of course, in Miss Raeburn's position, and withMiss Raeburn's general interest in her kind, could have been ignorantfor any appreciable number of days after the Boyces' arrival at Mellorthat they possessed a handsome daughter, of whom the Hardens inparticular gave striking but, as Miss Raeburn privately thought, by nomeans wholly attractive accounts. And now, after all these somewhatagitating preliminaries, here was the girl established in the Courtdrawing-room, Aldous more nervous and preoccupied than she had ever seenhim, and Lord Maxwell expressing a particular anxiety to return from hisBoard meeting in good time for luncheon, to which he had especiallydesired that Lady Winterbourne should be bidden, and no one else! It maywell be supposed that Miss Raeburn was on the alert. 

As for Marcella, she was on her side keenly conscious of being observed, of having her way to make. Here she was alone among these formidablepeople, whose acquaintance she had in a manner compelled. Well--whatblame? What was to prevent her from doing the same thing againto-morrow? Her conscience was absolutely clear. If they were not readyto meet her in the same spirit in which through Mr. Raeburn she hadapproached them, she would know perfectly well how to protectherself--above all, how to live out her life in the future withouttroubling them. 

Meanwhile, in spite of her dignity and those inward propitiations itfrom time to time demanded, she was, in her human vivid way, full of anexcitement and curiosity she could hardly conceal as perfectly as shedesired--curiosity as to the great house and the life in it, especiallyas to Aldous Raeburn's part therein. She knew very little indeed of theclass to which by birth she belonged; great houses and great people werestrange to her. She brought her artist's and student's eyes to look atthem with; she was determined not to be dazzled or taken in by them. Atthe same time, as she glanced every now and then round the splendid roomin which they sat, with its Tudor ceiling, its fine pictures, itscombination of every luxury with every refinement, she was distinctlyconscious of a certain thrill, a romantic drawing towards thestateliness and power which it all implied, together with a proud andcareless sense of equality, of kinship so to speak, which she made lightof, but would not in reality have been without for the world. 

In birth and blood she had nothing to yield to the Raeburns--so hermother assured her. If things were to be vulgarly measured, this facttoo must come in. But they should not be vulgarly measured. She did notbelieve in class or wealth--not at all. Only--as her mother had toldher--she must hold her head up. An inward temper, which no doubt led tothat excess of manner of which Miss Raeburn was meanwhile conscious. 

Where were the gentlemen? Marcella was beginning to resent and tire ofthe innumerable questions as to her likes and dislikes, heraccomplishments, her friends, her opinions of Mellor and theneighbourhood, which this knitting lady beside her poured out upon herso briskly, when to her great relief the door opened and a footmanannounced "Lady Winterbourne. "

A very tall thin lady in black entered the room at the words. "My dear!"she said to Miss Raeburn, "I am very late, but the roads are abominable, and those horses Edward has just given me have to be taken such tiresomecare of. I told the coachman next time he might wrap them in shawls andput them to bed, and _I_ should walk. "

"You are quite capable of it, my dear, " said Miss Raeburn, kissing her. "We know you! Miss Boyce--Lady Winterbourne. "

Lady Winterbourne shook hands with a shy awkwardness which belied herheight and stateliness. As she sat down beside Miss Raeburn the contrastbetween her and Lord Maxwell's sister was sufficiently striking. MissRaeburn was short, inclined to be stout, and to a certain gay profusionin her attire. Her cap was made of a bright silk handkerchief edged withlace; round her neck were hung a number of small trinkets on variousgold chains; she abounded too in bracelets, most of which were clearlyold-fashioned mementos of departed relatives or friends. Her dress wasa cheerful red verging on crimson; and her general air suggested energy, bustle, and a good-humoured common sense. 

Lady Winterbourne, on the other hand, was not only dressed from head tofoot in severe black without an ornament; her head and face belongedalso to the same impression, as of some strong and forcible study inblack and white. The attitude was rigidly erect; the very dark eyes, under the snowy and abundant hair, had a trick of absent staring; incertain aspects the whole figure had a tragic, nay, formidable dignity, from which one expected, and sometimes got, the tone and gesture oftragic acting. Yet at the same time, mixed in therewith, a curiousstrain of womanish, nay childish, weakness, appealingness. Altogether, agreat lady, and a personality--yet something else too--somethingill-assured, timid, incongruous--hard to be defined. 

"I believe you have not been at Mellor long?" the new-comer asked, in adeep contralto voice which she dragged a little. 

"About seven weeks. My father and mother have been there since May. "

"You must of course think it a very interesting old place?"

"Of course I do; I love it, " said Marcella, disconcerted by the oddhabit Lady Winterbourne had of fixing her eyes upon a person, and then, as it were, forgetting what she had done with them. 

"Oh, I haven't been there, Agneta, " said the new-comer, turning after apause to Miss Raeburn, "since that summer--_you_ remember that partywhen the Palmerstons came over--so long ago--twenty years!"

Marcella sat stiffly upright. Lady Winterbourne grew a little nervousand flurried. 

"I don't think I ever saw your mother, Miss Boyce--I was much away fromhome about then. Oh, yes, I did once--"

The speaker stopped, a sudden red suffusing her pale cheeks. She hadfelt certain somehow, at sight of Marcella, that she should say or dosomething untoward, and she had promptly justified her own prevision. The only time she had ever seen Mrs. Boyce had been in court, on thelast day of the famous trial in which Richard Boyce was concerned, whenshe had made out the wife sitting closely veiled as near to her husbandas possible, waiting for the verdict. As she had already confided thisreminiscence to Miss Raeburn, and had forgotten she had done so, bothladies had a moment of embarrassment. 

"Mrs. Boyce, I am sorry to say, does not seem to be strong, " said MissRaeburn, bending over the heel of her stocking. "I wish we could havehad the pleasure of seeing her to-day. "

There was a pause. Lady Winterbourne's tragic eyes were once moreconsidering Marcella. 

"I hope you will come and see me, " she said at last abruptly--"and Mrs. Boyce too. "

The voice was very soft and refined though so deep, and Marcella lookingup was suddenly magnetised. 

"Yes, I will, " she said, all her face melting into sensitive life. "Mamma won't go anywhere, but I will come, if you will ask me. "

"Will you come next Tuesday?" said Lady Winterbourne quickly--"come totea, and I will drive you back. Mr. Raeburn told me about you. Hesays--you read a great deal. "

The solemnity of the last words, the fixedness of the tragic look, werenot to be resisted. Marcella laughed out, and both ladies simultaneouslythought her extraordinarily radiant and handsome. 

"How can he know? Why, I have hardly talked about books to him at all. "

"Well! here he comes, " said Lady Winterbourne, smiling suddenly; "so Ican ask him. But I am sure he did say so. "

It was now Marcella's turn to colour. Aldous Raeburn crossed the room, greeted Lady Winterbourne, and next moment she felt her hand in his. 

"You did tell me, Aldous, didn't you, " said Lady Winterbourne, "thatMiss Boyce was a great reader?"

The speaker had known Aldous Raeburn as a boy, and was, moreover, a sortof cousin, which explained the Christian name. 

Aldous smiled. 

"I said I thought Miss Boyce was like you and me, and had a weaknessthat way, Lady Winterbourne. But I won't be cross-examined!"

"I don't think I am a great reader, " said Marcella, bluntly--"at least Iread a great deal, but I hardly ever read a book through. I haven'tpatience. "

"You want to get at everything so quickly?" said Miss Raeburn, lookingup sharply. 

"I suppose so!" said Marcella. "There seems to be always a hundredthings tearing one different ways, and no time for any of them. "

"Yes, when one is young one feels like that, " said Lady Winterbourne, sighing. "When one is old one accepts one's limitations. When I wastwenty I never thought that I should still be an ignorant anddiscontented woman at nearly seventy. "

"It is because you are so young still, Lady Winterbourne, that you feelso, " said Aldous, laughing at her, as one does at an old friend. "Why, you are younger than any of us! I feel all brushed and stirred up--a boyat school again--after I have been to see you!"

"Well, I don't know what you mean, I'm sure, " said Lady Winterbourne, sighing again. Then she looked at the pair beside her--at the alertbrightness in the man's strong and quiet face as he sat stoopingforward, with his hands upon his knees, hardly able to keep his eyes foran instant from the dark apparition beside him--at the girl's evidentshyness and pride. 

"My dear!" she said, turning suddenly to Miss Raeburn, "have you heardwhat a monstrosity Alice has produced this last time in the way of ababy? It was born with four teeth!"

Miss Raeburn's astonishment fitted the provocation, and the two oldfriends fell into a gossip on the subject of Lady Winterbourne'snumerous family, which was clearly meant for a _tête-à-tête_. 

"Will you come and look at our tapestry?" said Aldous to his neighbour, after a few nothings had passed between them as to the weather and herwalk from Mellor. "I think you would admire it, and I am afraid mygrandfather will be a few minutes yet. He hoped to get home earlier thanthis, but his Board meeting was very long and important, and has kepthim an unconscionable time. "

Marcella rose, and they moved together towards the south end of the roomwhere a famous piece of Italian Renaissance tapestry entirely filled thewall from side to side. 

"How beautiful!" cried the girl, her eyes filling with delight. "What adelicious thing to live with. "

And, indeed, it was the most adorable medley of forms, tints, suggestions, of gods and goddesses, nymphs and shepherds, standing inflowery grass under fruit-laden trees and wreathed about with roses. Both colour and subject were of fairyland. The golds and browns andpinks of it, the greens and ivory whites had been mellowed and pearledand warmed by age into a most glowing, delicate, and fanciful beauty. Itwas Italy at the great moment--subtle, rich, exuberant. 

Aldous enjoyed her pleasure. 

"I thought you would like it; I hoped you would. It has been my specialdelight since I was a child, when my mother first routed it out of agarret. I am not sure that I don't in my heart prefer it to any of thepictures. "

"The flowers!" said Marcella, absorbed in it--"look at them--the irises, the cyclamens, the lilies! It reminds one of the dreams one used to havewhen one was small of what it would be like to have _flowers enough_. Iwas at school, you know, in a part of England where one seemed alwayscheated out of them! We walked two and two along the straight roads, andI found one here and one there--but such a beggarly, wretched few, forall one's trouble. I used to hate the hard dry soil, and console myselfby imagining countries where the flowers grew like this--yes, just likethis, in a gold and pink and blue mass, so that one might thrust one'shands in and gather and gather till one was really _satisfied_! That isthe worst of being at school when you are poor! You never get enough ofanything. One day it's flowers--but the next day it is pudding--and thenext frocks. "

Her eye was sparkling, her tongue loosened. Not only was it pleasant tofeel herself beside him, enwrapped in such an atmosphere of admirationand deference, but the artistic sensitive chord in her had been struck, and vibrated happily. 

"Well, only wait till May, and the cowslips in your own fields will makeup to you!" he said, smiling at her. "But now, I have been wondering tomyself in my room upstairs what you would like to see. There are a goodmany treasures in this house, and you will care for them, because youare an artist. But you shall not be bored with them! You shall see whatand as much as you like. You had about a quarter of an hour's talk withmy aunt, did you not?" he asked, in a quite different tone. 

So all the time while she and Miss Raeburn had been making acquaintance, he had known that she was in the house, and he had kept away for his ownpurposes! Marcella felt a colour she could not restrain leap into hercheek. 

"Miss Raeburn was very kind, " she said, with a return of shyness, whichpassed however the next moment by reaction, into her usual daring. "Yes, she was very kind!--but all the same she doesn't like me--I don't thinkshe is going to like me--I am not her sort. "

"Have you been talking Socialism to her?" he asked her, smiling. 

"No, not yet--not yet, " she said emphatically. "But I am dreadfullyuncertain--I can't always hold my tongue--I am afraid you will be sorryyou took me up. "

"Are you so aggressive? But Aunt Neta is so mild!--she wouldn't hurt afly. She mothers every one in the house and out of it. The only peopleshe is hard upon are the little servant girls, who will wear feathers intheir hats!"

"There!" cried Marcella, indignantly. "Why shouldn't they wear feathersin their hats? It is their form of beauty--their tapestry!"

"But if one can't have both feathers and boots?" he asked her humbly, atwinkle in his grey eye. "If one hasn't boots, one may catch a cold anddie of it--which is, after all, worse than going featherless. "

"But why _can't_ they have feathers and boots? It is becauseyou--we--have got too much. You have the tapestry--and--and thepictures"--she turned and looked round the room--"and this wonderfulhouse--and the park. Oh, no--I think it is Miss Raeburn has too manyfeathers!"

"Perhaps it is, " he admitted, in a different tone, his look changing andsaddening as though some habitual struggle of thought were recalled tohim. "You see I am in a difficulty. I want to show you our feathers. Ithink they would please you--and you make me ashamed of them. "

"How absurd!" cried Marcella, "when I told you how I liked the schoolchildren bobbing to me!"

They laughed, and then Aldous looked round with a start--"Ah, here is mygrandfather!"

Then he stood back, watching the look with which Lord Maxwell, aftergreeting Lady Winterbourne, approached Miss Boyce. He saw the old man'ssomewhat formal approach, the sudden kindle in the blue eyes whichmarked the first effect of Marcella's form and presence, the bow, thestately shake of the hand. The lover hearing his own heart beat, realised that his beautiful lady had so far done well. 

"You must let me say that I see a decided likeness in you to yourgrandfather, " said Lord Maxwell, when they were all seated at lunch, Marcella on his left hand, opposite to Lady Winterbourne. "He was one ofmy dearest friends. "

"I'm afraid I don't know much about him, " said Marcella, rather bluntly, "except what I have got out of old letters. I never saw him that Iremember. "

Lord Maxwell left the subject, of course, at once, but showed a greatwish to talk to her, and make her talk. He had pleasant things to sayabout Mellor and its past, which could be said without offence; and someconversation about the Boyce monuments in Mellor church led to adiscussion of the part played by the different local families in theCivil Wars, in which it seemed to Aldous that his grandfather tried invarious shrewd and courteous ways to make Marcella feel at ease withherself and her race, accepted, as it were, of right into the localbrotherhood, and so to soothe and heal those bruised feelings he couldnot but divine. 

The girl carried herself a little loftily, answering with anindependence and freedom beyond her age and born of her London life. Shewas not in the least abashed or shy. Yet it was clear that LordMaxwell's first impressions were favourable. Aldous caught every now andthen his quick, judging look sweeping over her and instantlywithdrawn--comparing, as the grandson very well knew, every point, andtone, and gesture with some inner ideal of what a Raeburn's wife shouldbe. How dream-like the whole scene was to Aldous, yet how exquisitelyreal! The room, with its carved and gilt cedar-wood panels, itsVandykes, its tall windows opening on the park, the autumn sun floodingthe gold and purple fruit on the table, and sparkling on the glass andsilver, the figures of his aunt and Lady Winterbourne, the movingservants, and dominant of it all, interpreting it all for him anew, thedark, lithe creature beside his grandfather, so quick, sensitive, extravagant, so much a woman, yet, to his lover's sense, so utterlyunlike any other woman he had ever seen--every detail of it was chargedto him with a thousand new meanings, now oppressive, now delightful. 

For he was passing out of the first stage of passion, in which it is, almost, its own satisfaction, so new and enriching is it to the wholenature, into the second stage--the stage of anxiety, incredulity. Marcella, sitting there on his own ground, after all his planning, seemed to him not nearer, but further from him. She was terribly on herdignity! Where was all that girlish abandonment gone which she had shownhim on that walk, beside the gate? There had been a touch of it, adivine touch, before luncheon. How could he get her to himself again?

Meanwhile the conversation passed to the prevailing local topic--thebadness of the harvest, the low prices of everything, the consequentdepression among the farmers, and stagnation in the villages. 

"I don't know what is to be done for the people this winter, " said LordMaxwell, "without pauperising them, I mean. To give money is easyenough. Our grandfathers would have doled out coal and blankets, andthought no more of it. We don't get through so easily. "

"No, " said Lady Winterbourne, sighing. "It weighs one down. Last winterwas a nightmare. The tales one heard, and the faces one saw!--though weseemed to be always giving. And in the middle of it Edward would buy mea new set of sables. I begged him not, but he laughed at me. "

"Well, my dear, " said Miss Raeburn, cheerfully, "if nobody boughtsables, there'd be other poor people up in Russia, isn't it?--orHudson's Bay?--badly off. One has, to think of that. Oh, you needn'ttalk, Aldous! I know you say it's a fallacy. _I_ call it common sense. "

She got, however, only a slight smile from Aldous, who had long ago lefthis great-aunt to work out her own economics. And, anyway, she saw thathe was wholly absorbed from his seat beside Lady Winterbourne inwatching Miss Boyce. 

"It's precisely as Lord Maxwell says, " replied Lady Winterbourne; "thatkind of thing used to satisfy everybody. And our grandmothers were verygood women. I don't know why we, who give ourselves so much more troublethan they did, should carry these thorns about with us, while they wentfree. "

She drew herself up, a cloud over her fine eyes. Miss Raeburn, lookinground, was glad to see the servants had left the room. 

"Miss Boyce thinks we are all in a very bad way, I'm sure. I have heardtales of Miss Boyce's opinions!" said Lord Maxwell, smiling at her, withan old man's indulgence, as though provoking her to talk. 

Her slim fingers were nervously crumbling some bread beside her; herhead was drooped a little. At his challenge she looked up with a start. She was perfectly conscious of him, as both the great magnate on hisnative heath, and as the trained man of affairs condescending to agirl's fancies. But she had made up her mind not to be afraid. 

"What tales have you heard?" she asked him. 

"You alarm us, you know, " he said gallantly, waiving her question. "Wecan't afford a prophetess to the other side, just now. "

Miss Raeburn drew herself up, with a sharp dry look at Miss Boyce, whichescaped every one but Lady Winterbourne. 

"Oh! I am not a Radical!" said Marcella, half scornfully. "WeSocialists don't fight for either political party as such. We take whatwe can get out of both. "

"So you call yourself a Socialist? A real full-blown one?"

Lord Maxwell's pleasant tone masked the mood of a man who after amorning of hard work thinks himself entitled to some amusement atluncheon. 

"Yes, I am a Socialist, " she said slowly, looking at him. "At least Iought to be--I am in my conscience. "

"But not in your judgment?" he said laughing. "Isn't that the conditionof most of us?"

"No, not at all!" she exclaimed, both her vanity and her enthusiasmroused by his manner. "Both my judgment and my conscience make me aSocialist. It's only one's wretched love for one's own little luxuriesand precedences--the worst part of one--that makes me waver, makes me atraitor! The people I worked with in London would think me a traitoroften, I know. "

"And you really think that the world ought to be 'hatched over again andhatched different'? That it ought to be, if it could be?"

"I think that things are intolerable as they are, " she broke out, aftera pause. "The London poor were bad enough; the country poor seem to meworse! How can any one believe that such serfdom and poverty--suchmutilation of mind and body--were meant to go on for ever!"

Lord Maxwell's brows lifted. But it certainly was no wonder that Aldousshould find those eyes of hers superb?

"Can you really imagine, my dear young lady, " he asked her mildly, "that if all property were divided to-morrow the force of naturalinequality would not have undone all the work the day after, and givenus back our poor?"

The "newspaper cant" of this remark, as the Cravens would have put it, brought a contemptuous look for an instant into the girl's face. Shebegan to talk eagerly and cleverly, showing a very fair training in thecatch words of the school, and a good memory--as one uncomfortableperson at the table soon perceived--for some of the leading argumentsand illustrations of a book of Venturist Essays which had lately beenmuch read and talked of in London. 

Then, irritated more and more by Lord Maxwell's gentle attention, andthe interjections he threw in from time to time, she plunged intohistory, attacked the landowning class, spoke of the Statute ofLabourers, the Law of Settlement, the New Poor Law, and other greatmatters, all in the same quick flow of glancing, picturesque speech, andall with the same utter oblivion--so it seemed to her stiff indignanthostess at the other end of the table--of the manners and modesty properto a young girl in a strange house, and that young girl Richard Boyce'sdaughter!

Aldous struck in now and then, trying to soothe her by supporting her toa certain extent, and so divert the conversation. But Marcella was soontoo excited to be managed; and she had her say; a very strong say oftenas far as language went: there could be no doubt of that. 

"Ah, well, " said Lord Maxwell, wincing at last under some of herphrases, in spite of his courteous _savoir-faire_, "I see you are of thesame opinion as a good man whose book I took up yesterday: 'Thelandlords of England have always shown a mean and malignant passion forprofiting by the miseries of others?' Well, Aldous, my boy, we arejudged, you and I--no help for it!"

The man whose temper and rule had made the prosperity of a whole countryside for nearly forty years, looked at his grandson with twinkling eyes. Miss Raeburn was speechless. Lady Winterbourne was absently staring atMarcella, a spot of red on each pale cheek. 

Then Marcella suddenly wavered, looked across at Aldous, and broke down. 

"Of course, you think me very ridiculous, " she said, with a tremulouschange of tone. "I suppose I am. And I am as inconsistent as anybody--Ihate myself for it. Very often when anybody talks to me on the otherside, I am almost as much persuaded as I am by the Socialists: theyalways told me in London I was the prey of the last speaker. But itcan't make any difference to one's _feeling_: nothing touches that. "

She turned to Lord Maxwell, half appealing--

"It is when I go down from our house to the village; when I see theplaces the people live in; when one is comfortable in the carriage, andone passes some woman in the rain, ragged and dirty and tired, trudgingback from her work; when one realises that they have no _rights_ whenthey come to be old, nothing to look to but charity, for which _we_, whohave everything, expect them to be grateful; and when I know that everyone of them has done more useful work in a year of their life than Ishall ever do in the whole of mine, then I feel that the whole state ofthings is _somehow_ wrong and topsy-turvy and _wicked_. " Her voice rosea little, every emphasis grew more passionate. "And if I don't dosomething--the little such a person as I can--to alter it before I die, I might as well never have lived. "

Everybody at table started. Lord Maxwell looked at Miss Raeburn, hismouth twitching over the humour of his sister's dismay. Well! this was aforcible young woman: was Aldous the kind of man to be able to dealconveniently with such eyes, such emotions, such a personality?

Suddenly Lady Winterbourne's deep voice broke in:

"I never could say it half so well as that, Miss Boyce; but I agree withyou. I may say that I have agreed with you all my life. "

The girl turned to her, grateful and quivering. 

"At the same time, " said Lady Winterbourne, relapsing with a long breathfrom tragic emphasis into a fluttering indecision equallycharacteristic, "as you say, one is inconsistent. I was poor once, before Edward came to the title, and I did not at all like it--not atall. And I don't wish my daughters to marry poor men; and what I shoulddo without a maid or a carriage when I wanted it, I cannot imagine. Edward makes the most of these things. He tells me I have to choosebetween things as they are, and a graduated income tax which would leavenobody--not even the richest--more than four hundred a year. "

"Just enough, for one of those little houses on your station road, "said Lord Maxwell, laughing at her. "I think you might still have amaid. "

"There, you laugh, " said Lady Winterbourne, vehemently: "the men do. ButI tell you it is no laughing matter to feel that your _heart_ and_conscience_ have gone over to the enemy. You want to feel with yourclass, and you can't. Think of what used to happen in the old days. Mygrandmother, who was as good and kind a woman as ever lived, was drivinghome through our village one evening, and a man passed her, a labourerwho was a little drunk, and who did not take off his hat to her. Shestopped, made her men get down and had him put in the stocks there andthen--the old stocks were still standing on the village green. Then shedrove home to her dinner, and said her prayers no doubt that night withmore consciousness than usual of having done her duty. But if the powerof the stocks still remained to us, my dear friend"--and she laid herthin old woman's hand, flashing with diamonds, on Lord Maxwell'sarm--"we could no longer do it, you or I. We have lost the sense of_right_ in our place and position--at least I find I have. In the olddays if there was social disturbance the upper class could put it downwith a strong hand. "

"So they would still, " said Lord Maxwell, drily, "if there wereviolence. Once let it come to any real attack on property, and you willsee where all these Socialist theories will be. And of course it willnot be _we_--not the landowners or the capitalists--who will put itdown. It will be the hundreds and thousands of people with something tolose--a few pounds in a joint-stock mill, a house of their own builtthrough a co-operative store, an acre or two of land stocked by theirown savings--it is they, I am afraid, who will put Miss Boyce's friendsdown so far as they represent any real attack on property--and brutally, too, I fear, if need be. "

"I dare say, " exclaimed Marcella, her colour rising again. "I never cansee how we Socialists are to succeed. But how can any one _rejoice_ init? How can any one _wish_ that the present state of things should goon? Oh! the horrors one sees in London. And down here, the cottages, andthe starvation wages, and the ridiculous worship of game, and then, ofcourse, the poaching--"

Miss Raeburn pushed back her chair with a sharp noise. But her brotherwas still peeling his pear, and no one else moved. Why did he let suchtalk go on? It was too unseemly. 

Lord Maxwell only laughed. "My dear young lady, " he said, much amused, "are you even in the frame of mind to make a hero of a poacher?Disillusion lies that way!--it does indeed. Why--Aldous!--I have beenhearing such tales from Westall this morning. I stopped at Corbett'sfarm a minute or two on the way home, and met Westall at the gate comingout. He says he and his men are being harried to death round aboutTudley End by a gang of men that come, he thinks, from Oxford, a drivinggang with a gig, who come at night or in the early morning--the smartestrascals out, impossible to catch. But he says he thinks he will soonhave his hand on the local accomplice--a Mellor man--a man named Hurd:not one of our labourers, I think. "

"Hurd!" cried Marcella, in dismay. "Oh no, it _can't_ be--impossible!"

Lord Maxwell looked at her in astonishment. 

"Do you know any Hurds? I am afraid your father will find that Mellor isa bad place for poaching. "

"If it is, it is because they are so starved and miserable, " saidMarcella, trying hard to speak coolly, but excited almost beyond boundsby the conversation and all that it implied. "And the Hurds--I don'tbelieve it a bit! But if it were true--oh! they have been in suchstraits--they were out of work most of last winter; they are out of worknow, No one _could_ grudge them. I told you about them, didn't I?" shesaid, suddenly glancing at Aldous. "I was going to ask you to-day, ifyou could help them?" Her prophetess air had altogether left her. Shefelt ready to cry; and nothing could have been more womanish than hertone. 

He bent across to her. Miss Raeburn, invaded by a new and intolerablesense of calamity, could have beaten him for what she read in hisshining eyes, and in the flush on his usually pale cheek. 

"Is he still out of work?" he said. "And you are unhappy about it? But Iam sure we can find him work: I am just now planning improvements at thenorth end of the park. We can take him on; I am certain of it. You mustgive me his full name and address. "

"And let him beware of Westall, " said Lord Maxwell, kindly. "Give him ahint, Miss Boyce, and nobody will rake up bygones. There is nothing Idislike so much as rows about the shooting. All the keepers know that. "

"And of course, " said Miss Raeburn, coldly, "if the family are in realdistress there are plenty of people at hand to assist them. The man neednot steal. "

"Oh, charity!" cried Marcella, her lip curling. 

"A worse crime than poaching, you think, " said Lord Maxwell, laughing. "Well, these are big subjects. I confess, after my morning with thelunatics, I am half inclined, like Horace Walpole, to think everythingserious ridiculous. At any rate shall we see what light a cup of coffeethrows upon it? Agneta, shall we adjourn?"

CHAPTER XI. 

Lord Maxwell closed the drawing-room door behind Aldous and Marcella. Aldous had proposed to take their guest to see the picture gallery, which was on the first floor, and had found her willing. 

The old man came back to the two other women, running his hand nervouslythrough his shock of white hair--a gesture which Miss Raeburn well knewto show some disturbance of mind. 

"I should like to have your opinion of that young lady, " he saiddeliberately, taking a chair immediately in front of them. 

"I like her, " said Lady Winterbourne, instantly. "Of course she is crudeand extravagant, and does not know quite what she may say. But all thatwill improve. I like her, and shall make friends with her. "

Miss Raeburn threw up her hands in angry amazement. 

"Most forward, conceited, and ill-mannered, " she said with energy. "I amcertain she has no proper principles, and as to what her religious viewsmay be, I dread to think of them! If _that_ is a specimen of the girlsof the present day--"

"My dear, " interrupted Lord Maxwell, laying a hand on her knee, "LadyWinterbourne is an old friend, a very old friend. I think we may befrank before her, and I don't wish you to say things you may regret. Aldous has made up his mind to get that girl to marry him, if he can. "

Lady Winterbourne was silent, having in fact been forewarned by that oddlittle interview with Aldous in her own drawing-room, when he hadsuddenly asked her to call on Mrs. Boyce. But she looked at MissRaeburn. That lady took up her knitting, laid it down again, resumed it, then broke out--

"How did it come about? Where have they been meeting?"

"At the Hardens mostly. He seems to have been struck from the beginning, and now there is no question as to his determination. But she may nothave him; he professes to be still entirely in the dark. "

"Oh!" cried Miss Raeburn, with a scornful shrug, meant to express allpossible incredulity. Then she began to knit fast and furiously, andpresently said in great agitation, --

"What can he be thinking of? She is very handsome, of course, but--"then her words failed her. "When Aldous remembers his mother, how canhe?--undisciplined! self-willed! Why, she laid down the law to _you_, Henry, as though you had nothing to do but to take your opinions from achit of a girl like her. Oh! no, no; I really can't; you must give metime. And her father--the disgrace and trouble of it! I tell you, Henry, it will bring misfortune!"

Lord Maxwell was much troubled. Certainly he should have talked toAgneta beforehand. But the fact was he had his cowardice, like othermen, and he had been trusting to the girl herself, to this beauty heheard so much of, to soften the first shock of the matter to the presentmistress of the Court. 

"We will hope not, Agneta, " he said gravely. "We will hope not. But youmust remember Aldous is no boy. I cannot coerce him. I see thedifficulties, and I have put them before him. But I am more favourablystruck with the girl than you are. And anyway, if it comes about, wemust make the best of it. "

Miss Raeburn made no answer, but pretended to set her heel, her needlesshaking. Lady Winterbourne was very sorry for her two old friends. 

"Wait a little, " she said, laying her hand lightly on Miss Raeburn's. "No doubt with her opinions she felt specially drawn to assert herselfto-day. One can imagine it very well of a girl, and a generous girl inher position. You will see other sides of her, I am sure you will. Andyou would never--you could never--make a breach with Aldous. "

"We must all remember, " said Lord Maxwell, getting up and beginning towalk up and down beside them, "that Aldous is in no way dependent uponme. He has his own resources. He could leave us to-morrow. Dependent onme! It is the other way, I think, Agneta--don't you?"

He stopped and looked at her, and she returned his look in spite ofherself. A tear dropped on her stocking which she hastily brushed away. 

"Come, now, " said Lord Maxwell, seating himself; "let us talk it overrationally. Don't go, Lady Winterbourne. "

"Why, they may be settling it at this moment, " cried Miss Raeburn, half-choked, and feeling as though "the skies were impious not to fall. "

"No, no!" he said smiling. "Not yet, I think. But let us prepareourselves. "

 * * * * *

Meanwhile the cause of all this agitation was sitting languidly in agreat Louis Quinze chair in the picture gallery upstairs, with Aldousbeside her. She had taken off her big hat as though it oppressed her, and her black head lay against a corner of the chair in fine contrast toits mellowed golds and crimsons. Opposite to her were two famous Holbeinportraits, at which she looked from time to time as though attracted tothem in spite of herself, by some trained sense which could not besilenced. But she was not communicative, and Aldous was anxious. 

"Do you think I was rude to your grandfather?" she asked him at lastabruptly, cutting dead short some information she had stiffly asked himfor just before, as to the date of the gallery and its collection. 

"Rude!" he said startled. "Not at all. Not in the least. Do you supposewe are made of such brittle stuff, we poor landowners, that we can'tstand an argument now and then?"

"Your aunt thought I was rude, " she said unheeding. "I think I was. Buta house like this excites me. " And with a little reckless gesture sheturned her head over her shoulder and looked down the gallery. AVelasquez was beside her; a great Titian over the way; a pricelessRembrandt beside it. On her right hand stood a chair of carved steel, presented by a German town to a German emperor, which, had not itsequal in Europe; the brocade draping the deep windows in front of herhad been specially made to grace a state visit to the house of CharlesII. 

"At Mellor, " she went on, "we are old and tumble-down. The rain comesin; there are no shutters to the big hall, and we can't afford to putthem--we can't afford even to have the pictures cleaned. I can pity thehouse and nurse it, as I do the village. But here--"

And looking about her, she gave a significant shrug. 

"What--our feathers again!" he said laughing. "But consider. Even youallow that Socialism cannot begin to-morrow. There must be a transitiontime, and clearly till the State is ready to take over the historicalhouses and their contents, the present nominal owners of them are bound, if they can, to take care of them. Otherwise the State will be some daydefrauded. "

She could not be insensible to the charm of his manner towards her. There was in it, no doubt, the natural force and weight of the man olderand better informed than his companion, and amused every now and then byher extravagance. But even her irritable pride could not take offence. For the intellectual dissent she felt at bottom was tempered by a moralsympathy of which the gentleness and warmth touched and moved her inspite of herself. And now that they were alone he could express himself. So long as they had been in company he had seemed to her, as oftenbefore, shy, hesitating, and ineffective. But with the disappearance ofspectators, who represented to him, no doubt, the harassing claim ofthe critical judgment, all was freer, more assured, more natural. 

She leant her chin on her hand, considering his plea. 

"Supposing you live long enough to see the State take it, shall you beable to reconcile yourself to it? Or shall you feel it a wrong, and goout a rebel?"

A delightful smile was beginning to dance in the dark eyes. She wasrecovering the tension of her talk with Lord Maxwell. 

"All must depend, you see, on the conditions--on how you and yourfriends are going to manage the transition. You may persuademe--conceivably--or you may eject me with violence. "

"Oh, no!" she interposed quickly. "There will be no violence. Only weshall gradually reduce your wages. Of course, we can't do withoutleaders--we don't want to do away with the captains of any industry, agricultural or manufacturing. Only we think you overpaid. You must becontent with less. "

"Don't linger out the process, " he said laughing, "otherwise it will bepainful. The people who are condemned to live in these houses before theCommune takes to them, while your graduated land and income taxes areslowly starving them out, will have a bad time of it. "

"Well, it will be your first bad time! Think of the labourer now, withfive children, of school age, on twelve shillings a week--think of thesweated women in London. "

"Ah, think of them, " he said in a different tone. 

There was a pause of silence. 

"No!" said Marcella, springing up. "Don't let's think of them. I get tobelieve the whole thing a _pose_ in myself and other people. Let's goback to the pictures. Do you think Titian 'sweated' his draperymen--paid them starvation rates, and grew rich on their labour? Verylikely. All the same, that blue woman"--she pointed to a bendingMagdalen--"will be a joy to all time. "

They wandered through the gallery, and she was now all curiosity, pleasure, and intelligent interest, as though she had thrown off anoppression. Then they emerged into the upper corridor answering to thecorridor of the antiques below. This also was hung with pictures, principally family portraits of the second order, dating back to theTudors--a fine series of berobed and bejewelled personages, whereinclothes pre-dominated and character was unimportant. 

Marcella's eye was glancing along the brilliant colour of the wall, taking rapid note of jewelled necks surmounting stiff embroidereddresses, of the whiteness of lace ruffs, or the love-locks and gleamingsatin of the Caroline beauties, when it suddenly occurred to her, --

"I shall be their successor. This is already potentially mine. In a fewmonths, if I please, I shall be walking this house as mistress--itsfuture mistress, at any rate!"

She was conscious of a quickening in the blood, a momentary blurring ofthe vision. A whirlwind of fancies swept across her. She thought ofherself as the young peeress--Lord Maxwell after all was overseventy--her own white neck blazing with diamonds, the historic jewelsof a great family--her will making law in this splendid house--in thegreat domain surrounding it. What power--what a position--what aromance! She, the out-at-elbows Marcella, the Socialist, the friend ofthe people. What new lines of social action and endeavour she mightstrike out! Miss Raeburn should not stop her. She caressed the thoughtof the scandals in store for that lady. Only it annoyed her that herdream of large things should be constantly crossed by this foolishdelight, making her feet dance--in this mere prospect of satin gowns andfine jewels--of young and fêted beauty holding its brilliant court. Ifshe made such a marriage, it should be, it must be, on public grounds. Her friends must have no right to blame her. 

Then she stole a glance at the tall, quiet gentleman beside her. A manto be proud of from the beginning, and surely to be very fond of intime. "He would always be my friend, " she thought. "I could lead him. Heis very clever, one can see, and knows a great deal. But he admires whatI like. His position hampers him--but I could help him to get beyond it. We might show the way to many!"

"Will you come and see this room here?" he said, stopping suddenly, yetwith a certain hesitation in the voice. "It is my own sitting-room. There are one or two portraits I should like to show you if you wouldlet me. "

She followed him with a rosy cheek, and they were presently standing infront of the portrait of his mother. He spoke of his recollections ofhis parents, quietly and simply, yet she felt through every nerve thathe was not the man to speak of such things to anybody in whom he did notfeel a very strong and peculiar interest. As he was talking a rush ofliking towards him came across her. How good he was--how affectionatebeneath his reserve--a woman might securely trust him with her future. 

So with every minute she grew softer, her eye gentler, and with eachstep and word he seemed to himself to be carried deeper into the currentof joy. Intoxication was mounting within him, as her slim, warm youthmoved and breathed beside him; and it was natural that he should readher changing behaviour for something other than it was. A man of histype asks for no advance from the woman; the woman he loves does notmake them; but at the same time he has a natural self-esteem, andbelieves readily in his power to win the return he is certain he willdeserve. 

"And this?" she said, moving restlessly towards his table, and taking upthe photograph of Edward Hallin. 

"Ah! that is the greatest friend I have in the world. But I am sure youknow the name. Mr. Hallin--Edward Hallin. "

She paused bewildered. 

"What! _the_ Mr. Hallin--_that_ was Edward Hallin--who settled theNottingham strike last month--who lectures so much in the East End, andin the north?"

"The same. We are old college friends. I owe him much, and in all hisexcitements he does not forget old friends. There, you see--" and heopened a blotting book and pointed smiling to some closely writtensheets lying within it--"is my last letter to him. I often write two ofthose in the week, and he to me. We don't agree on a number of things, but that doesn't matter. "

"What can you find to write about?" she said wondering. "I thoughtnobody wrote letters nowadays, only notes. Is it books, or people?"

"Both, when it pleases us!" How soon, oh! ye favouring gods, might hereveal to her the part she herself played in those closely coveredsheets? "But he writes to me on social matters chiefly. His whole heart, as you probably know, is in certain experiments and reforms in which hesometimes asks me to help him. "

Marcella opened her eyes. These were new lights. She began to recall allthat she had heard of young Hallin's position in the Labour movement;his personal magnetism and prestige; his power as a speaker. HerSocialist friends, she remembered, thought him in the way--a force, buta dangerous one. He was for the follies of compromise--could not be gotto disavow the principle of private property, while ready to go greatlengths in certain directions towards collective action and corporatecontrol. The "stalwarts" of _her_ sect would have none of him as aleader, while admitting his charm as a human being--a charm sheremembered to have heard discussed with some anxiety among her Venturistfriends. But for ordinary people he went far enough. Her father, sheremembered, had dubbed him an "Anarchist" in connection with the termshe had been able to secure for the Nottingham strikers, as reported inthe newspapers. It astonished her to come across the man again as Mr. Raeburn's friend. 

They talked about Hallin a little, and about Aldous's Cambridgeacquaintance with him. Then Marcella, still nervous, went to look at thebookshelves, and found herself in front of that working collection ofbooks on economics which Aldous kept in his own room under his hand, byway of guide to the very fine special collection he was gradually makingin the library downstairs. 

Here again were surprises for her. Aldous had never made the smallestclaim to special knowledge on all those subjects she had so ofteninsisted on making him discuss. He had been always tentative anddiffident, deferential even so far as her own opinions were concerned. And here already was the library of a student. All the books she hadever read or heard discussed were here--and as few among many. Thecondition of them, moreover, the signs of close and careful reading shenoticed in them, as she took them out, abashed her: _she_ had neverlearnt to read in this way. It was her first contact with an exact andarduous culture. She thought of how she had instructed Lord Maxwell atluncheon. No doubt he shared his grandson's interests. Her cheek burnedanew; this time because it seemed to her that she had been ridiculous. 

"I don't know why you never told me you took a particular interest inthese subjects, " she said suddenly, turning round upon himresentfully--she had just laid down, of all things, a volume ofVenturist essays. "You must have thought I talked a great deal ofnonsense at luncheon. "

"Why!--I have always been delighted to find you cared for such thingsand took an interest in them. How few women do!" he said quite simply, opening his eyes. "Do you know these three pamphlets? They wereprivately printed, and are very rare. "

He took out a book and showed it to her as one does to a comrade andequal--as he might have done to Edward Hallin. But something was jarredin her--conscience or self-esteem--and she could not recover her senseof heroineship. She answered absently, and when he returned the book tothe shelf she said that it was time for her to go, and would he kindlyask for her maid, who was to walk with her?

"I will ring for her directly, " he said. "But you will let me take youhome?" Then he added hurriedly, "I have some business this afternoonwith a man who lives in your direction. "

She assented a little stiffly--but with an inward thrill. His words andmanner seemed suddenly to make the situation unmistakable. Among thebooks it had been for the moment obscured. 

He rang for his own servant, and gave directions about the maid. Thenthey went downstairs that Marcella might say good-bye. 

Miss Raeburn bade her guest farewell, with a dignity which her smallperson could sometimes assume, not unbecomingly. Lady Winterbourne heldthe girl's hand a little, looked her out of countenance, and insisted onher promising again to come to Winterbourne Park the following Tuesday. Then Lord Maxwell, with old-fashioned politeness, made Marcella take hisarm through the hall. 

"You must come and see us again, " he said smiling; "though we are suchbelated old Tories, we are not so bad as we sound. "

And under cover of his mild banter he fixed a penetrating attentive lookupon her. Flushed and embarrassed! Had it indeed been done already? orwould Aldous settle it on this walk? To judge from his manner and hers, the thing was going with rapidity. Well, well, there was nothing for itbut to hope for the best. 

On their way through the hall she stopped him, her hand still in hisarm. Aldous was in front, at the door, looking for a light shawl she hadbrought with her. 

"I should like to thank you, " she said shyly, "about the Hurds. It willbe very kind of you and Mr. Raeburn to find them work. "

Lord Maxwell was pleased; and with the usual unfair advantage of beautyher eyes and curving lips gave her little advance a charm infinitelybeyond what any plainer woman could have commanded. 

"Oh, don't thank me!" he said cheerily. "Thank Aldous. He does all thatkind of thing. And if in your good works you want any help we can give, ask it, my dear young lady. My old comrade's grand-daughter will alwaysfind friends in this house. "

Lord Maxwell would have been very much astonished to hear himself makingthis speech six weeks before. As it was, he handed her over gallantly toAldous, and stood on the steps looking after them in a stir of mind notunnoted by the confidential butler who held the door open behind him. Would Aldous insist on carrying his wife off to the dower house on theother side of the estate? or would they be content to stay in the oldplace with the old people? And if so, how were that girl and his sisterto get on? As for himself, he was of a naturally optimist temper, andever since the night of his first interview with Aldous on the subject, he had been more and more inclining to take a cheerful view. He liked tosee a young creature of such evident character and cleverness holdingopinions and lines of her own. It was infinitely better than merenonentity. Of course, she was now extravagant and foolish, perhaps vaintoo. But that would mend with time--mend, above all, with her positionas Aldous's wife. Aldous was a strong man--how strong, Lord Maxwellsuspected that this impetuous young lady hardly knew. No, he thought thefamily might be trusted to cope with her when once they got her amongthem. And she would certainly be an ornament to the old house. 

Her father of course was, and would be, the real difficulty, and theblight which had descended on the once honoured name. But a man soconscious of many kinds of power as Lord Maxwell could not feel muchdoubt as to his own and his grandson's competence to keep so poor aspecimen of humanity as Richard Boyce in his place. How wretchedly ill, how feeble, both in body and soul, the fellow had looked when he andWinterbourne met him!

The white-haired owner of the Court walked back slowly to his library, his hands in his pockets, his head bent in cogitation. Impossible tosettle to the various important political letters lying on his table, and bearing all of them on that approaching crisis in the spring whichmust put Lord Maxwell and his friends in power. He was over seventy, buthis old blood quickened within him as he thought of those two on thisgolden afternoon, among the beech woods. How late Aldous had left allthese experiences! His grandfather, by twenty, could have shown him theway. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile the two in question were walking along the edge of the hillrampart overlooking the plain, with the road on one side of them, andthe falling beech woods on the other. They were on a woodland path, justwithin the trees, sheltered, and to all intents and purposes alone. Themaid, with leisurely discretion, was following far behind them on thehigh road. 

Marcella, who felt at moments as though she could hardly breathe, byreason of a certain tumult of nerve, was yet apparently bent onmaintaining a conversation without breaks. As they diverged from theroad into the wood-path, she plunged into the subject of her companion'selection prospects. How many meetings did he find that he must hold inthe month? What places did he regard as his principal strongholds? Shewas told that certain villages, which she named, were certain to goRadical, whatever might be the Tory promises. As to a well-knownConservative League, which was very strong in the country, and to whichall the great ladies, including Lady Winterbourne, belonged, was heactually going to demean himself by accepting its support? How was itpossible to defend the bribery, buns, and beer by which it won itscorrupting way?

Altogether, a quick fire of questions, remarks, and sallies, whichAldous met and parried as best he might, comforting himself all the timeby thought of those deeper and lonelier parts of the wood which laybefore them. At last she dropped out, half laughing, half defiant, wordswhich arrested him, --

"Well, I shall know what the other side think of their prospects verysoon. Mr. Wharton is coming to lunch with us to-morrow. "

"Harry Wharton!" he said astonished. "But Mr. Boyce is not supportinghim. Your father, I think, is Conservative?"

One of Dick Boyce's first acts as owner of Mellor, when socialrehabilitation had still looked probable to him, had been to send acontribution to the funds of the League aforesaid, so that Aldous hadpublic and conspicuous grounds for his remark. 

"Need one measure everything by politics?" she asked him a littledisdainfully. "Mayn't one even feed a Radical?"

He winced visibly a moment, touched in his philosopher's pride. 

"You remind me, " he said, laughing and reddening--"and justly--that anelection perverts all one's standards and besmirches all one's morals. Then I suppose Mr. Wharton is an old friend?"

"Papa never saw him before last week, " she said carelessly. "Now hetalks of asking him to stay some time, and says that, although he won'tvote for him, he hopes that he will make a good fight. "

Raeburn's brow contracted in a puzzled frown. 

"He will make an excellent fight, " he said rather shortly. "Dodgsonhardly hopes to get in. Harry Wharton is a most taking speaker, a veryclever fellow, and sticks at nothing in the way of promises. Ah, youwill find him interesting, Miss Boyce! He has a co-operative farm on hisLincolnshire property. Last year he started a Labour paper--which Ibelieve you read. I have heard you quote it. He believes in all that youhope for--great increase in local government and communal control--theland for the people--graduated income-tax--the extinction of landlordand capitalist as soon as may be--_e tutti quanti_. He talks with greateloquence and ability. In our villages I find he is making way everyweek. The people think his manners perfect. ''Ee 'as a way wi' un, ' saidan old labourer to me last week. 'If 'ee wor to coe the wild birds, I dobelieve, Muster Raeburn, they'd coom to un!'"

"Yet you dislike him!" said Marcella, a daring smile dancing on the darkface she turned to him. "One can hear it in every word you say. "

He hesitated, trying, even at the moment that an impulse of jealousalarm which astonished himself had taken possession of him, to find themoderate and measured phrase. 

"I have known him from a boy, " he said. "He is a connection of theLevens, and used to be always there in old days. He is very brilliantand very gifted--"

"Your 'but' must be very bad, " she threw in, "it is so long in coming. "

"Then I will say, whatever opening it gives you, " he replied withspirit, "that I admire him without respecting him. "

"Who ever thought otherwise of a clever opponent?" she cried. "It is thestock formula. "

The remark stung, all the more because Aldous was perfectly consciousthat there was much truth in her implied charge of prejudice. He hadnever been very capable of seeing this particular man in the dry lightof reason, and was certainly less so than before, since it had beenrevealed to him that Wharton and Mr. Boyce's daughter were to bebrought, before long, into close neighbourhood. 

"I am sorry that I seem to you such a Pharisee, " he said, turning uponher a look which had both pain and excitement in it. 

She was silent, and they walked on a few yards without speaking. Thewood had thickened around them: The high road was no longer visible. Nosound of wheels or footsteps reached them. The sun struck freely throughthe beech-trees, already half bared, whitening the grey trunks atintervals to an arrowy distinctness and majesty, or kindling the slopesof red and freshly fallen leaves below into great patches of light andflame. Through the stems, as always, the girdling blues of the plain, and in their faces a gay and buoyant breeze, speaking rather of springthan autumn. Robins, "yellow autumn's nightingales, " sang in the hedgeto their right. In the pause between them, sun, wind, birds made theircharm felt. Nature, perpetual chorus as she is to man, stole in, urging, wooing, defining. Aldous's heart leapt to the spur of a sudden resolve. 

Instinctively she turned to him at the same moment as he to her, andseeing his look she paled a little. 

"Do you guess at all why it hurts me to jar with you?" he said--findinghis words in a rush, he did not know how--"Why every syllable of yoursmatters to me? It is because I have hopes--dreams--which have become mylife! If you could accept this--this--feeling--this devotion--which hasgrown up in me--if you could trust yourself to me--you should have nocause, I think--ever--to think me hard or narrow towards any person, anyenthusiasm for which you had sympathy. May I say to you all that is inmy mind--or--or--am I presuming?"

She looked away from him, crimson again. A great wave ofexultation--boundless, intoxicating--swept through her. Then it waschecked by a nobler feeling--a quick, penitent sense of his nobleness. 

"You don't know me, " she said hurriedly: "you think you do. But I am allodds and ends. I should annoy--wound--disappoint you. "

His quiet grey eyes flamed. 

"Come and sit down here, on these dry roots, " he said, taking alreadyjoyous command of her. "We shall be undisturbed. I have so much to say!"

She obeyed trembling. She felt no passion, but the strong thrill ofsomething momentous and irreparable, together with a swellingpride--pride in such homage from such a man. 

He led her a few steps down the slope, found a place for her against asheltering trunk, and threw himself down beside her. As he looked up atthe picture she made amid the autumn branches, at her bent head, hershy moved look, her white hand lying ungloved on her black dress, happiness overcame him. He took her hand, found she did not resist, drewit to him, and clasping it in both his, bent his brow, his lips upon it. It shook in his hold, but she was passive. The mixture of emotion andself-control she showed touched him deeply. In his chivalrous modesty heasked for nothing else, dreamt of nothing more. 

Half an hour later they were still in the same spot. There had been muchtalk between them, most of it earnest, but some of it quite gay, brokenespecially by her smiles. Her teasing mood, however, had passed away. She was instead composed and dignified, like one conscious that life hadopened before her to great issues. 

Yet she had flinched often before that quiet tone of eager joy in whichhe had described his first impressions of her, his surprise at findingin her ideals, revolts, passions, quite unknown to him, so far, in thewomen of his own class. Naturally he suppressed, perhaps he had evenforgotten, the critical amusement and irritation she had often excitedin him. He remembered, he spoke only of sympathy, delight, pleasure--ofhis sense, as it were, of slaking some long-felt moral thirst at thewell of her fresh feeling. So she had attracted him first, --by a certainstrangeness and daring--by what she _said_--

"Now--and above all by what you _are_!" he broke out suddenly, moved outof his even speech. "Oh! it is too much to believe--to dream of! Putyour hand in mine, and say again that it is really _true_ that we twoare to go forward together--that you will be always there to inspire--tohelp--"

And as she gave him the hand, she must also let him--in this firsttremor of a pure passion--take the kiss which was now his by right. Thatshe should flush and draw away from him as she did, seemed to him themost natural thing in the world, and the most maidenly. 

Then, as their talk wandered on, bit by bit, he gave her all hisconfidence, and she had felt herself honoured in receiving it. Sheunderstood now at least something--a first fraction--of that inner life, masked so well beneath his quiet English capacity and unassuming manner. He had spoken of his Cambridge years, of his friend, of the desire ofhis heart to make his landowner's power and position contributesomething towards that new and better social order, which he too, likeHallin--though more faintly and intermittently--believed to beapproaching. The difficulties of any really new departure weretremendous; he saw them more plainly and more anxiously than Hallin. Yethe believed that he had thought his way to some effective reform on hisgrandfather's large estate, and to some useful work as one of a group oflike-minded men in Parliament. She must have often thought him carelessand apathetic towards his great trust. But he was not so--notcareless--but paralysed often by intellectual difficulty, by the claimsof conflicting truths. 

She, too, explained herself most freely, most frankly. She would havenothing on her conscience. 

"They will say, of course, " she said with sudden nervous abruptness, "that I am marrying you for wealth and position. And in a sense I shallbe. No! don't stop me! I should not marry you if--if--I did not likeyou. But you can give me--you have--great opportunities. I tell youfrankly, I shall enjoy them and use them. Oh! do think well before youdo it. I shall _never_ be a meek, dependent wife. A woman, to my mind, is bound to cherish her own individuality sacredly, married or notmarried. Have you thought that I may often think it right to do thingsyou disagree with, that may scandalise your relations?"

"You shall be free, " he said steadily. "I have thought of it all. "

"Then there is my father, " she said, turning her head away. "He isill--he wants pity, affection. I will accept no bond that forces me todisown him. "

"Pity and affection are to me the most sacred things in the world, " hesaid, kissing her hand gently. "Be content--be at rest--my beautifullady!"

There was again silence, full of thought on her side, of heavenlyhappiness on his. The sun had sunk almost to the verge of the plain, thewind had freshened. 

"We _must_ go home, " she said, springing up. "Taylor must have got therean hour ago. Mother will be anxious, and I must--I must tell them. "

"I will leave you at the gate, " he suggested as they walked briskly;"and you will ask your father, will you not, if I may see him to-nightafter dinner?"

The trees thinned again in front of them, and the path curved inward tothe front. Suddenly a man, walking on the road, diverged into the pathand came towards them. He was swinging a stick and humming. His head wasuncovered, and his light chestnut curls were blown about his forehead bythe wind. Marcella, looking up at the sound of the steps, had a suddenimpression of something young and radiant, and Aldous stopped with anexclamation. 

The new-comer perceived them, and at sight of Aldous smiled, andapproached, holding out his hand. 

"Why, Raeburn, I seem to have missed you twenty times a day this lastfortnight. We have been always on each other's tracks without meeting. Yet I think, if we had met, we could have kept our tempers. "

"Miss Boyce, I think you do not know Mr. Wharton, " said Aldous, stiffly. "May I introduce you?"

The young man's blue eyes, all alert and curious at the mention ofMarcella's name, ran over the girl's face and form. Then he bowed with acertain charming exaggeration--like an eighteenth-century beau with hishand upon his heart--and turned back with them a step or two towards theroad. 

BOOK II. 

"A woman has enough to govern wiselyHer own demeanours, passions and divisions. "

CHAPTER I. 

On a certain night in the December following the engagement of MarcellaBoyce to Aldous Raeburn, the woods and fields of Mellor, and all thebare rampart of chalk down which divides the Buckinghamshire plain fromthe forest upland of the Chilterns lay steeped in moonlight, and in thesilence which belongs to intense frost. 

Winter had set in before the leaf had fallen from the last oaks; alreadythere had been a fortnight or more of severe cold, with hardly any snow. The pastures were delicately white; the ditches and the wet furrows inthe ploughed land, the ponds on Mellor common, and the stagnant pool inthe midst of the village, whence it drew its main water supply, werefrozen hard. But the ploughed chalk land itself lay a dull grey besidethe glitter of the pastures, and the woods under the bright sun of thedays dropped their rime only to pass once more with the deadly cold ofthe night under the fantastic empire of the frost. Every day the veil ofmorning mist rose lightly from the woods, uncurtaining the wintryspectacle, and melting into the brilliant azure of an unflecked sky;every night the moon rose without a breath of wind, without a cloud; andall the branch-work of the trees, where they stood in the open fields, lay reflected clean and sharp on the whitened ground. The bitter coldstole into the cottages, marking the old and feeble with the touch ofAzrael; while without, in the field solitudes, bird and beast coweredbenumbed and starving in hole and roosting place. 

How still it was--this midnight--on the fringe of the woods! Two mensitting concealed among some bushes at the edge of Mr. Boyce's largestcover, and bent upon a common errand, hardly spoke to each other, sostrange and oppressive was the silence. One was Jim Hurd; the other wasa labourer, a son of old Patton of the almshouses, himself a man ofnearly sixty, with a small wizened face showing sharp and white to-nightunder his slouched hat. 

They looked out over a shallow cup of treeless land to a further boundof wooded hill, ending towards the north in a bare bluff of down shiningsteep under the moon. They were in shadow, and so was most of the widedip of land before them; but through a gap to their right, beyond thewood, the moonbeams poured, and the farms nestling under the oppositeridge, the plantations ranging along it, and the bald beacon hill inwhich it broke to the plain, were all in radiant light. 

Not a stir of life anywhere. Hurd put up his hand to his ear, andleaning forward listened intently. Suddenly--a vibration, a dullthumping sound in the soil of the bank immediately beside him. Hestarted, dropped his hand, and, stooping, laid his ear to the ground. 

"Gi' us the bag, " he said to his companion, drawing himself upright. "You can hear 'em turnin' and creepin' as plain as anything. Now then, you take these and go t' other side. "

He handed over a bundle of rabbit nets. Patton, crawling on hands andknees, climbed over the low overgrown bank on which the hedge stood intothe precincts of the wood itself. The state of the hedge, leaving thecover practically open and defenceless along its whole boundary, showedplainly enough that it belonged to the Mellor estate. But the fieldbeyond was Lord Maxwell's. 

Hurd applied himself to netting the holes on his own side, pushing thebrambles and undergrowth aside with the sure hand of one who had alreadyreconnoitred the ground. Then he crept over to Patton to see that allwas right on the other side, came back, and went for the ferrets, ofwhom he had four in a closely tied bag. 

A quarter of an hour of intense excitement followed. In all, fiverabbits bolted--three on Hurd's side, two on Patton's. It was all thetwo men could do to secure their prey, manage the ferrets, and keep awatch on the holes. Hurd's great hands--now fixing the pegs that heldthe nets, now dealing death to the entangled rabbit, whose neck he brokein an instant by a turn of the thumb, now winding up the line that heldthe ferret--seemed to be everywhere. 

At last a ferret "laid up, " the string attached to him having eitherslipped or broken, greatly to the disgust of the men, who did not wantto be driven either to dig, which made a noise and took time, or to losetheir animal. The rabbits made no more sign, and it was tolerablyevident that they had got as much as they were likely to get out ofthat particular "bury. "

Hurd thrust his arm deep into the hole where he had put the ferret. "Ther's summat in the way, " he declared at last. "Mos' likely a dead un. Gi' me the spade. "

He dug away the mouth of the hole, making as little noise as possible, and tried again. 

"'Ere ee be, " he cried, clutching at something, drew it out, exclaimedin disgust, flung it away, and pounced upon a rabbit which on theremoval of the obstacle followed like a flash, pursued by the lostferret. Hurd caught the rabbit by the neck, held it by main force, andkilled it; then put the ferret into his pocket. "Lord!" he said, wipinghis brow, "they do come suddent. "

What he had pulled out was a dead cat; a wretched puss, who on somehappy hunt had got itself wedged in the hole, and so perished theremiserably. He and Patton stooped over it wondering; then Hurd walkedsome paces along the bank, looking warily out to the right of him acrossthe open country all the time. He threw the poor malodorous thing farinto the wood and returned. 

The two men lit their pipes under the shelter of the bushes, and resteda bit, well hidden, but able to see out through a break in the bit ofthicket. 

"Six on 'em, " said Hurd, looking at the stark creatures beside him. "Ibe too done to try another bury. I'll set a snare or two, an' be offhome. "

Patton puffed silently. He was wondering whether Hurd would give him onerabbit or two. Hurd had both "plant" and skill, and Patton would havebeen glad enough to come for one. Still he was a plaintive man with aperpetual grievance, and had already made up his mind that Hurd wouldtreat him shabbily to-night, in spite of many past demonstrations thathis companion was on the whole of a liberal disposition. 

"You bin out workin' a day's work already, han't yer?" he saidpresently. He himself was out of work, like half the village, and hadbeen presented by his wife with boiled swede for supper. But he knewthat Hurd had been taken on at the works at the Court, where the newdrive was being made, and a piece of ornamental water enlarged andimproved--mainly for the sake of giving employment in bad times. He, Patton, and some of his mates, had tried to get a job there. But thesteward had turned them back. The men off the estate had first claim, and there was not room for all of them. Yet Hurd had been taken on, which had set people talking. 

Hurd nodded, and said nothing. He was not disposed to be communicativeon the subject of his employment at the Court. 

"An' it be true as _she_ be goin' to marry Muster Raeburn?"

Patton jerked his head towards the right, where above a sloping hedgethe chimneys of Mellor and the tops of the Mellor cedars, some two orthree fields away, showed distinct against the deep night blue. 

Hurd nodded again, and smoked diligently. Patton, nettled by thisparsimony of speech, made the inward comment that his companion was "adeep un. " The village was perfectly aware of the particular friendshipshown by Miss Boyce to the Hurds. He was goaded into trying a morestinging topic. 

"Westall wor braggin' last night at Bradsell's"--(Bradsell was thelandlord of "The Green Man" at Mellor)--"ee said as how they'd taken youon at the Court--but that didn't prevent 'em knowin' as you was a badlot. Ee said _ee_ 'ad 'is eye on yer--ee 'ad warned yer twoice lastyear--"

"That's a lie!" said Hurd, removing his pipe an instant and putting itback again. 

Patton looked more cheerful. 

"Well, ee spoke cru'l. Ee was certain, ee said, as you could tell athing or two about them coverts at Tudley End, if the treuth were known. You wor allus a loafer, an' a loafer you'd be. Yer might go snivellin'to Miss Boyce, ee said, but yer wouldn't do no honest work--ee said--notif yer could help it--that's what ee said. "

"Devil!" said Hurd between his teeth, with a quick lift of all his greatmisshapen chest. He took his pipe out of his mouth, rammed it downfiercely with his thumb, and put it in his pocket. 

"Look out!" exclaimed Patton with a start. 

A whistle!--clear and distinct--from the opposite side of the hollow. Then a man's figure, black and motionless an instant on the whiteneddown, with a black speck beside it; lastly, another figure higher upalong the hill, in quick motion towards the first, with other specksbehind it. The poachers instantly understood that it was Westall--whoseparticular beat lay in this part of the estate--signalling to his nightwatcher, Charlie Dynes, and that the two men would be on them in notime. It was the work of a few seconds to efface as far as possible thetraces of their raid, to drag some thick and trailing brambles whichhung near over the mouth of the hole where there had been digging, tocatch up the ferrets and game, and to bid Hurd's lurcher to come toheel. The two men crawled up the ditch with their burdens as far away toleeward as they could get from the track by which the keepers wouldcross the field. The ditch was deeply overgrown, and when theapproaching voices warned them to lie close, they crouched under a densethicket of brambles and overhanging bushes, afraid of nothing but thenoses of the keepers' dogs. 

Dogs and men, however, passed unsuspecting. 

"Hold still!" said Hurd, checking Patton's first attempt to move. "He'llbe back again mos' like. It's 'is dodge. "

And sure enough in twenty minutes or so the men reappeared. Theyretraced their steps from the further corner of the field, where somepreserves of Lord Maxwell's approached very closely to the big Mellorwood, and came back again along the diagonal path within fifty yards orso of the men in the ditch. 

In the stillness the poachers could hear Westall's harsh and peremptoryvoice giving some orders to his underling, or calling to the dogs, whohad scattered a little in the stubble. Hurd's own dog quivered besidehim once or twice. 

Then steps and voices faded into the distance and all was safe. 

The poachers crept out grinning, and watched the keepers' progressalong the hill-face, till they disappeared into the Maxwell woods. 

"_Ee_ be sold again--blast 'im!" said Hurd, with a note of quitedisproportionate exultation in his queer, cracked voice. "Now I'll setthem snares. But you'd better git home. "

Patton took the hint, gave a grunt of thanks as his companion handed himtwo rabbits, which he stowed away in the capacious pockets of hispoacher's coat, and slouched off home by as sheltered and roundabout away as possible. 

Hurd, left to himself, stowed his nets and other apparatus in a hiddencrevice of the bank, and strolled along to set his snares in threehare-runs, well known to him, round the further side of the wood. 

Then he waited impatiently for the striking of the clock in Mellorchurch. The cold was bitter, but his night's work was not over yet, andhe had had very good reasons for getting rid of Patton. 

Almost immediately the bell rang out, the echo rolling round the bend ofthe hills in the frosty silence. Half-past twelve Hurd scrambled overthe ditch, pushed his way through the dilapidated hedge, and began toclimb the ascent of the wood. The outskirts of it were filled with athin mixed growth of sapling and underwood, but the high centre of itwas crowned by a grove of full-grown beeches, through which the moon, now at its height, was playing freely, as Hurd clambered upwards amidthe dead leaves just freshly strewn, as though in yearly festival, abouttheir polished trunks. Such infinite grace and strength in the line workof the branches!--branches not bent into gnarled and unexpectedfantasies, like those of the oak, but gathered into every conceivableharmony of upward curve and sweep, rising all together, black againstthe silvery light, each tree related to and completing its neighbour, asthough the whole wood, so finely rounded on itself and to the hill, werebut one majestic conception of a master artist. 

But Hurd saw nothing of this as he plunged through the leaves. He wasthinking that it was extremely likely a man would be on the look-out forhim to-night under the big beeches--a man with some business to proposeto him. A few words dropped in his ear at a certain public-house thenight before had seemed to him to mean this, and he had accordingly sentPatton out of the way. 

But when he got to the top of the hill no one was to be seen or heard, and he sat him down on a fallen log to smoke and wait awhile. 

He had no sooner, however, taken his seat than he shifted it uneasily, turning himself round so as to look in the other direction. For in frontof him, as he was first placed, there was a gap in the trees, and overthe lower wood, plainly visible and challenging attention, rose the darkmass of Mellor House. And the sight of Mellor suggested reflections justnow that were not particularly agreeable to Jim Hurd. 

He had just been poaching Mr. Boyce's rabbits without any sort ofscruple. But the thought of _Miss_ Boyce was not pleasant to him when hewas out on these nightly raids. 

Why had she meddled? He bore her a queer sort of grudge for it. He hadjust settled down to the bit of cobbling which, together with his wife'splait, served him for a blind, and was full of a secret excitement as tovarious plans he had in hand for "doing" Westall, combining a maximum ofgain for the winter with a maximum of safety, when Miss Boyce walked in, radiant with the news that there was employment for him at the Court, onthe new works, whenever he liked to go and ask for it. 

And then she had given him an odd look. 

"And I was to pass you on a message from Lord Maxwell, Hurd, " she hadsaid: "'You tell him to keep out of Westall's way for the future, andbygones shall be bygones. ' Now, I'm not going to ask what that means. Ifyou've been breaking some of our landlords' law, I'm not going to sayI'm shocked. I'd alter the law to-morrow, if I could!--you know I would. But I do say you're a fool if you go on with it, now you've got goodwork for the winter; you must please remember your wife and children. "

And there he had sat like a log, staring at her--both he and Minta notknowing where to look, or how to speak. Then at last his wife had brokenout, crying:

"Oh, miss! we should ha starved--"

And Miss Boyce had stopped her in a moment, catching her by the hand. Didn't she know it? Was she there to preach to them? Only Hurd mustpromise not to do it any more, for his wife's sake. 

And he--stammering--left without excuse or resource, either against hercharge, or the work she offered him--had promised her, and promised her, moreover--in his trepidation--with more fervency than he at all likedto remember. 

For about a fortnight, perhaps, he had gone to the Court by day, and hadkept indoors by night. Then, just as the vagabond passions, the Celticinstincts, so long repressed, so lately roused, were goading at himagain, he met Westall in the road--Westall, who looked him over from topto toe with an insolent smile, as much as to say, "Well, my man, we'vegot the whip hand of you now!" That same night he crept out again in thedark and the early morning, in spite of all Minta's tears and scolding. 

Well, what matter? As towards the rich and the law, he had the morals ofthe slave, who does not feel that he has had any part in making therules he is expected to keep, and breaks them when he can with glee. Itmade him uncomfortable, certainly, that Miss Boyce should come in andout of their place as she did, should be teaching Willie to read, andbringing her old dresses to make up for Daisy and Nellie, while he wasmaking a fool of her in this way. Still he took it all as it came. Onesensation wiped out another. 

Besides, Miss Boyce had, after all, much part in this double life ofhis. Whenever he was at home, sitting over the fire with a pipe, he readthose papers and things she had brought him in the summer. He had nottaken much notice of them at first. Now he spelled them out again andagain. He had always thought "them rich people took advantage of yer. "But he had never supposed, somehow, they were such thieves, such meanthieves, as it appeared, they were. A curious ferment filled hisrestless, inconsequent brain. The poor were downtrodden, but they werecoming to their rights. The land and its creatures were for the people!not for the idle rich. Above all, Westall was a devil, and must be putdown. For the rest, if he could have given words to experience, he wouldhave said that since he began to go out poaching he had burst his prisonand found himself. A life which was not merely endurance pulsed in him. The scent of the night woods, the keenness of the night air, the tracksand ways of the wild creatures, the wiles by which he slew them, thetalents and charms of his dog Bruno--these things had developed in himnew aptitudes both of mind and body, which were in themselvesexhilaration. He carried his dwarf's frame more erect, breathed from anampler chest. As for his work at the Court, he thought of it often withimpatience and disgust. It was a more useful blind than his cobbling, orhe would have shammed illness and got quit of it. 

"Them were sharp uns that managed that business at Tudley End!" He fellthinking about it and chuckling over it as he smoked. Two of Westall'sbest coverts swept almost clear just before the big shoot inNovember!--and all done so quick and quiet, before you could say "JackRobinson. " Well, there was plenty more yet, more woods, and more birds. There were those coverts down there, on the Mellor side of thehollow--they had been kept for the last shoot in January. Hang him! whywasn't that fellow up to time?

But no one came, and he must sit on, shivering and smoking, a sackacross his shoulders. As the stir of nerve and blood caused by theferreting subsided, his spirits began to sink. Mists of Celticmelancholy, perhaps of Celtic superstition, gained upon him. He foundhimself glancing from side to side, troubled by the noises in the wood. A sad light wind crept about the trunks like a whisper; the owls calledoverhead; sometimes there was a sudden sharp rustle or fall of a branchthat startled him. Yet he knew every track, every tree in that wood. Upand down that field outside he had followed his father at the plough, alittle sickly object of a lad, yet seldom unhappy, so long as childhoodlasted, and his mother's temper could be fled from, either at school orin the fields. Under that boundary hedge to the right he had lainstunned and bleeding all a summer afternoon, after old Westall hadthrashed him, his heart scorched within him by the sense of wrong andthe craving for revenge. On that dim path leading down the slope of thewood, George Westall had once knocked him down for disturbing a sittingpheasant. He could see himself falling--the tall, powerful lad standingover him with a grin. 

Then, inconsequently, he began to think of his father's death. He made agood end did the old man. "Jim, my lad, the Lord's verra merciful, " or"Jim, you'll look after Ann. " Ann was the only daughter. Then a sigh ortwo, and a bit of sleep, and it was done. 

And everybody must go the same way, must come to the same stopping ofthe breath, the same awfulness--in a life of blind habit--of a momentthat never had been before and never could be again? He did not put itto these words, but the shudder that is in the thought for all of us, seized him. He was very apt to think of dying, to ponder in his secretheart _how_ it would be, and when. And always it made him very softtowards Minta and the children. Not only did the _life_ instinct clingto them, to the warm human hands and faces hemming him in and protectinghim from that darkness beyond with its shapes of terror. But to think ofhimself as sick, and gasping to his end, like his father, was to puthimself back in his old relation to his wife, when they were firstmarried. He might cross Minta now, but if he came to lie sick, he couldsee himself there, in the future, following her about with his eyes, andthanking her, and doing all she told him, just as he'd used to do. Hecouldn't die without her to help him through. The very idea of her beingtaken first, roused in him a kind of spasm--a fierceness, a clenching ofthe hands. But all the same, in this poaching matter, he must have, hisway, and she must just get used to it. 

Ah! a low whistle from the further side of the wood. He replied, and wasalmost instantly joined by a tall slouching youth, by day a blacksmith'sapprentice at Gairsley, the Maxwells' village, who had often brought himinformation before. 

The two sat talking for ten minutes or so on the log. Then they parted;Hurd went back to the ditch where he had left the game, put two rabbitsinto his pockets, left the other two to be removed in the morning whenhe came to look at his snares, and went off home, keeping as much aspossible in the shelter of the hedges. On one occasion he braved themoonlight and the open field, rather than pass through a woody cornerwhere an old farmer had been found dead some six years before. Then hereached a deep lane leading to the village, and was soon at his owndoor. 

As he climbed the wooden ladder leading to the one bedroom where he, hiswife, and his four children slept, his wife sprang up in bed. 

"Jim, you must be perished--such a night as 't is. Oh, Jim--where ha'you bin?"

She was a miserable figure in her coarse nightgown, with her grizzlinghair wild about her, and her thin arms nervously outstretched along thebed. The room was freezing cold, and the moonlight stealing through thescanty bits of curtains brought into dismal clearness the squalid bed, the stained walls, and bare uneven floor. On an iron bedstead, at thefoot of the large bed, lay Willie, restless and coughing, with the eldergirl beside him fast asleep; the other girl lay beside her mother, andthe wooden box with rockers, which held the baby, stood within reach ofMrs. Hurd's arm. 

He made her no answer, but went to look at the coughing boy, who hadbeen in bed for a week with bronchitis. 

"You've never been and got in Westall's way again?" she said anxiously. "It's no good my tryin' to get a wink o' sleep when you're out likethis. "

"Don't you worrit yourself, " he said to her, not roughly, but decidedly. "I'm all right. This boy's bad, Minta. "

"Yes, an' I kep' up the fire an' put the spout on the kettle, too. " Shepointed to the grate and to the thin line of steam, which was doing itspowerless best against the arctic cold of the room. 

Hurd bent over the boy and tried to put him comfortable. The child, weakand feverish, only began to cry--a hoarse bronchial crying, whichthreatened to wake the baby. He could not be stopped, so Hurd made hasteto take off his own coat and boots, and then lifted the poor soul in hisarms. 

"You'll be quiet, Will, and go sleep, won't yer, if daddy takes keer onyou?"

He wrapped his own coat round the little fellow, and lying down besidehis wife, took him on his arm and drew the thin brown blankets overhimself and his charge. He himself was warm with exercise, and in alittle while the huddling creatures on either side of him were warm too. The quick, panting breath of the boy soon showed that he was asleep. Hisfather, too, sank almost instantly into deep gulfs of sleep. Only thewife--nervous, overdone, and possessed by a thousand fears--lay tossingand wakeful hour after hour, while the still glory of the winter nightpassed by. 

CHAPTER II. 

"Well, Marcella, have you and Lady Winterbourne arranged your classes?"

Mrs. Boyce was stooping over a piece of needlework beside a window inthe Mellor drawing-room, trying to catch the rapidly failing light. Itwas one of the last days of December. Marcella had just come in from thevillage rather early, for they were expecting a visitor to arrive abouttea time, and had thrown herself, tired, into a chair near her mother. 

"We have got about ten or eleven of the younger women to join; none ofthe old ones will come, " said Marcella. "Lady Winterbourne has heard ofa capital teacher from Dunstable, and we hope to get started next week. There is money enough to pay wages for three months. "

In spite of her fatigue, her eye was bright and restless. The energy ofthought and action from which she had just emerged still breathed fromevery limb and feature. 

"Where have you got the money?"

"Mr. Raeburn has managed it, " said Marcella, briefly. 

Mrs. Boyce gave a slight shrug of the shoulders. 

"And afterwards--what is to become of your product?"

"There is a London shop Lady Winterbourne knows will take what we makeif it turns out well. Of course, we don't expect to pay our way. "

Marcella gave her explanations with a certain stiffness of self-defence. She and Lady Winterbourne had evolved a scheme for reviving andimproving the local industry of straw-plaiting, which after years ofdecay seemed now on the brink of final disappearance. The village womenwho could at present earn a few pence a week by the coarser kinds ofwork were to be instructed, not only in the finer and better paid sorts, but also in the making up of the plait when done, and the "blocking" ofhats and bonnets--processes hitherto carried on exclusively at one ortwo large local centres. 

"You don't expect to pay your way?" repeated Mrs. Boyce. "What, never?"

"Well, we shall give twelve to fourteen shillings a week wages. We shallfind the materials, and the room--and prices are very low, the wholetrade depressed. "

Mrs. Boyce laughed. 

"I see. How many workers do you expect to get together?"

"Oh! eventually, about two hundred in the three villages. It willregenerate the whole life!" said Marcella, a sudden ray from the innerwarmth escaping her, against her will. 

Mrs. Boyce smiled again, and turned her work so as to see it better. 

"Does Aldous understand what you are letting him in for?"

Marcella flushed. 

"Perfectly. It is 'ransom'--that's all. "

"And he is ready to take your view of it?"

"Oh, he thinks us economically unsound, of course, " said Marcella, impatiently. "So we are. All care for the human being under the presentstate of things is economically unsound. But he likes it no more than Ido. "

"Well, lucky for you he has a long purse, " said Mrs. Boyce, lightly. "But I gather, Marcella, you don't insist upon his spending it _all_ onstraw-plaiting. He told me yesterday he had taken the Hertford Streethouse. "

"We shall live quite simply, " said Marcella, quickly. 

"What, no carriage?"

Marcella hesitated. 

"A carriage saves time. And if one goes about much, it does not cost somuch more than cabs. "

"So you mean to go about much? Lady Winterbourne talks to me ofpresenting you in May. "

"That's Miss Raeburn, " cried Marcella. "She says I must, and all thefamily would be scandalised if I didn't go. But you can't imagine--"

She stopped and took off her hat, pushing the hair back from herforehead. A look of worry and excitement had replaced the radiant glowof her first resting moments. 

"That you like it?" said Mrs. Boyce, bluntly. "Well, I don't know. Mostyoung women like pretty gowns, and great functions, and prominentpositions. I don't call you an ascetic, Marcella. "

Marcella winced. 

"One has to fit oneself to circumstances, " she said proudly. "One mayhate the circumstances, but one can't escape them. "

"Oh, I don't think you will hate your circumstances, my dear! You wouldbe very foolish if you did. Have you heard finally how much thesettlement is to be?"

"No, " said Marcella, shortly. "I have not asked papa, nor anybody. "

"It was only settled this morning. Your father told me hurriedly as hewent out. You are to have two thousand a year of your own. "

The tone was dry, and the speaker's look as she turned towards herdaughter had in it a curious hostility; but Marcella did not notice hermother's manner. 

"It is too much, " she said in a low voice. 

She had thrown back her head against the chair in which she sat, and herhalf-troubled eyes were wandering over the darkening expanse of lawn andavenue. 

"He said he wished you to feel perfectly free to live your own life, andto follow out your own projects. Oh, for a person of projects, my dear, it is not so much. You will do well to husband it. Keep it for yourself. Get what _you_ want out of it: not what other people want. "

Again Marcella's attention missed the note of agitation in her mother'ssharp manner. A soft look--a look of compunction--passed across herface. Mrs. Boyce began to put her working things away, finding it toodark to do any more. 

"By the way, " said the mother, suddenly, "I suppose you will be goingover to help him in his canvassing this next few weeks? Your father saysthe election will be certainly in February. "

Marcella moved uneasily. 

"He knows, " she said at last, "that I don't agree with him in so manythings. He is so full of this Peasant Proprietors Bill. And I hatepeasant properties. They are nothing but a step backwards. "

Mrs. Boyce lifted her eyebrows. 

"That's unlucky. He tells me it is likely to be his chief work in thenew Parliament. Isn't it, on the whole, probable that he knows moreabout the country than you do, Marcella?"

Marcella sat up with sudden energy and gathered her walking thingstogether. 

"It isn't knowledge that's the question, mamma; it's the principle ofthe thing. I mayn't know anything, but the people whom I follow know. There are the two sides of thought--the two ways of looking at things. Iwarned Aldous when he asked me to marry him which I belonged to. And heaccepted it. "

Mrs. Boyce's thin fine mouth curled a little. 

"So you suppose that Aldous had his wits about him on that greatoccasion as much as you had?"

Marcella first started, then quivered with nervous indignation. 

"Mother, " she said, "I can't bear it. It's not the first time that youhave talked as though I had taken some unfair advantage--made anunworthy bargain. It is too hard too. Other people may think what theylike, but that you--"

Her voice failed her, and the tears came into her eyes. She was tiredand over-excited, and the contrast between the atmosphere of flatteryand consideration which surrounded her in Aldous's company, in thevillage, or at the Winterbournes, and this tone which her mother sooften took with her when they were alone, was at the moment hardly to beendured. 

Mrs. Boyce looked up more gravely. 

"You misunderstand me, my dear, " she said quietly. "I allow myself towonder at you a little, but I think no hard things of you ever. Ibelieve you like Aldous. "

"Really, mamma!" cried Marcella, half hysterically. 

Mrs. Boyce had by now rolled up her work and shut her workbasket. 

"If you are going to take off your things, " she said, "please tellWilliam that there will be six or seven at tea. You said, I think, thatMr. Raeburn was going to bring Mr. Hallin?"

"Yes, and Frank Leven is coming. When will Mr. Wharton be here?"

"Oh, in ten minutes or so, if his train is punctual. I hear your fatherjust coming in. "

Marcella went away, and Mrs. Boyce was left a few minutes alone. Herthin hands lay idle a moment on her lap, and leaning towards the windowbeside her, she looked out an instant into the snowy twilight. Her mindwas full of its usual calm scorn for those--her daughter included--whosupposed that the human lot was to be mended by a rise in weekly wages, or that suffering has any necessary dependence on the amount ofcommodities of which a man disposes. What hardship is there in starvingand scrubbing and toiling? Had she ever seen a labourer's wife scrubbingher cottage floor without envy, without moral thirst? Is it these thingsthat kill, or any of the great simple griefs and burdens? Doth man liveby bread alone? The whole language of social and charitable enthusiasmoften raised in her a kind of exasperation. 

So Marcella would be rich, excessively rich, even now. Outside theamount settled upon her, the figures of Aldous Raeburn's present income, irrespective of the inheritance which would come to him on hisgrandfather's death, were a good deal beyond what even Mr. Boyce--uponwhom the daily spectacle of the Maxwell wealth exercised a certainangering effect--had supposed. 

Mrs. Boyce had received the news of the engagement with astonishment, but her after-acceptance of the situation had been marked by all herusual philosophy. Probably behind the philosophy there was much secretrelief. Marcella was provided for. Not the fondest or most contrivingmother could have done more for her than she had at one stroke done forherself. During the early autumn Mrs. Boyce had experienced some momentsof sharp prevision as to what her future relations might be towards thisstrong and restless daughter, so determined to conquer a world hermother had renounced. Now all was clear, and a very shrewd observercould allow her mind to play freely with the ironies of the situation. 

As to Aldous Raeburn, she had barely spoken to him before the day whenMarcella announced the engagement, and the lover a few hours later hadclaimed her daughter at the mother's hands with an emotion to which Mrs. Boyce found her usual difficulty in responding. She had done her best, however, to be gracious and to mask her surprise that he should haveproposed, that Lord Maxwell should have consented, and that Marcellashould have so lightly fallen a victim. One surprise, however, had to beconfessed, at least to herself. After her interview with her futureson-in-law, Mrs. Boyce realised that for the first time for fifteenyears she was likely to admit a new friend. The impression made upon himby her own singular personality had translated itself in feelings andlanguage which, against her will as it were, established anunderstanding, an affinity. That she had involuntarily aroused in himthe profoundest and most chivalrous pity was plain to her. Yet for thefirst time in her life she did not resent it; and Marcella watched hermother's attitude with a mixture of curiosity and relief. 

Then followed talk of an early wedding, communications from Lord Maxwellto Mr. Boyce of a civil and formal kind, a good deal more notice fromthe "county, " and finally this definite statement from Aldous Raeburn asto the settlement he proposed to make upon his wife, and the jointincome which he and she would have immediately at their disposal. 

Under all these growing and palpable evidences of Marcella's futurewealth and position, Mrs. Boyce had shown her usual restless and ironicspirit. But of late, and especially to-day, restlessness had becomeoppression. While Marcella was so speedily to become the rich andindependent woman, they themselves, Marcella's mother and father, werevery poor, in difficulties even, and likely to remain so. She gatheredfrom her husband's grumbling that the provision of a suitable trousseaufor Marcella would tax his resources to their utmost. How long would itbe before they were dipping in Marcella's purse? Mrs. Boyce'sself-tormenting soul was possessed by one of those nightmares her pridehad brought upon her in grim succession during these fifteen years. Andthis pride, strong towards all the world, was nowhere so strong or soindomitable, at this moment, as towards her own daughter. They werepractically strangers to each other; and they jarred. To inquire wherethe fault lay would have seemed to Mrs. Boyce futile. 

 * * * * *

Darkness had come on fast, and Mrs. Boyce was in the act of ringing forlights when her husband entered. 

"Where's Marcella?" he asked as he threw himself into a chair with theair of irritable fatigue which was now habitual to him. 

"Only gone to take off her things and tell William about tea. She willbe down directly. "

"Does she know about that settlement?"

"Yes, I told her. She thought it generous, but not--I think--unsuitable. The world cannot be reformed on nothing. "

"Reformed!--fiddlesticks!" said Mr. Boyce, angrily. "I never saw a girlwith a head so full of nonsense in my life. Where does she get it from?Why did you let her go about in London with those people? She may bespoilt for good. Ten to one she'll make a laughing stock of herself andeverybody belonging to her, before she's done. "

"Well, that is Mr. Raeburn's affair. I think I should take him intoaccount more than Marcella does, if I were she. But probably she knowsbest. "

"Of course she does. He has lost his head; any one can see that. Whileshe is in the room, he is like a man possessed. It doesn't sit well onthat kind of fellow. It makes him ridiculous. I told him half thesettlement would be ample. She would only spend the rest on nonsense. "

"You told him that?"

"Yes, I did. Oh!"--with an angry look at her--"I suppose you thought Ishould want to sponge upon her? I am as much obliged to you as usual!"

A red spot rose in his wife's thin cheek. But she turned and answeredhim gently, so gently that he had the rare sensation of having triumphedover her. He allowed himself to be mollified, and she stood there overthe fire, chatting with him for some time, a friendly natural note inher voice which was rare and, insensibly, soothed him like an opiate. She chatted about Marcella's trousseau gowns, detailing her owncontrivances for economy; about the probable day of the wedding, thelatest gossip of the election, and so on. He sat shading his eyes fromthe firelight, and now and then throwing in a word or two. The inmostsoul of him was very piteous, harrowed often by a new dread--the dreadof dying. The woman beside him held him in the hollow of her hand. Inthe long wrestle between her nature and his, she had conquered. His fearof her and his need of her had even come to supply the place of a dozenethical instincts he was naturally without. 

Some discomfort, probably physical, seemed at last to break up hismoment of rest. 

"Well, I tell you, I often wish it were the other man, " he said, withsome impatience. "Raeburn 's so d----d superior. I suppose I offendedhim by what I said of Marcella's whims, and the risk of letting hercontrol so much money at her age, and with her ideas. You never saw suchan air!--all very quiet, of course. He buttoned his coat and got up togo, as though I were no more worth considering than the table. Neitherhe nor his precious grandfather need alarm themselves: I shan't troublethem as a visitor. If I shock them, they bore me--so we're quits. Marcella'll have to come here if she wants to see her father. But owingto your charming system of keeping her away from us all her childhood, she's not likely to want. "

"You mean Mr. Wharton by the other man?" said Mrs. Boyce, not defendingherself or Aldous. 

"Yes, of course. But he came on the scene just too late, worse luck! Whywouldn't he have done just as well? He's as mad as she--madder. Hebelieves all the rubbish she does--talks such _rot_, the people tell me, in his meetings. But then he's good company--he amuses you--you don'tneed to be on your p's and q's with _him_. Why wouldn't she have takenup with him? As far as money goes they could have rubbed along. _He's_not the man to starve when there are game-pies going. It's just badluck. "

Mrs. Boyce smiled a little. 

"What there is to make you suppose that she would have inclined to him, I don't exactly see. She has been taken up with Mr. Raeburn, really, from the first week of her arrival here. "

"Well, I dare say--there was no one else, " said her husband, testily. "That's natural enough. It's just what I say. All I know is, Whartonshall be free to use this house just as he pleases during hiscanvassing, whatever the Raeburns may say. "

He bent forward and poked the somewhat sluggish fire with a violencewhich hindered rather than helped it. Mrs. Boyce's smile had quitevanished. She perfectly understood all that was implied, whether in hisinstinctive dislike of Aldous Raeburn, or in his cordiality towardsyoung Wharton. 

After a minute's silence, he got up again and left the room, walking, asshe observed, with difficulty. She stopped a minute or so in the sameplace after he had gone, turning her rings absently on her thin fingers. She was thinking of some remarks which Dr. Clarke, the excellent andexperienced local doctor, had made to her on the occasion of his lastvisit. With all the force of her strong will she had set herself todisbelieve them. But they had had subtle effects already. Finally shetoo went upstairs, bidding Marcella, whom she met coming down, hurryWilliam with the tea, as Mr. Wharton might arrive any moment. 

 * * * * *

Marcella saw the room shut up--the large, shabby, beautiful room--thelamps brought in, fresh wood thrown on the fire to make it blaze, andthe tea-table set out. Then she sat herself down on a low chair by thefire, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands claspedin front of her. Her black dress revealed her fine full throat and herwhite wrists, for she had an impatience of restraint anywhere, and worefrills and falls of black lace where other people would have followedthe fashion in high collars and close wristbands. What must have struckany one with an observant eye, as she sat thus, thrown into beautifullight and shade by the blaze of the wood fire, was the massiveness ofthe head compared with the nervous delicacy of much of the face, thethinness of the wrist, and of the long and slender foot raised on thefender. It was perhaps the great thickness and full wave of the hairwhich gave the head its breadth; but the effect was singular, and wouldhave been heavy but for the glow of the eyes, which balanced it. 

She was thinking, as a _fiancée_ should, of Aldous and their marriage, which had been fixed for the end of February. Yet not apparently withany rapturous absorption. There was a great deal to plan, and her mindwas full of business. Who was to look after her various village schemeswhile she and Lady Winterbourne were away in London? Mary Harden hadhardly brains enough, dear little thing as she was. They must find somecapable woman and pay her. The Cravens would tell her, of course, thatshe was on the high road to the most degrading of _rôles_--the _rôle_ ofLady Bountiful. But there were Lady Bountifuls and Lady Bountifuls. Andthe _rôle_ itself was inevitable. It all depended upon how it wasmanaged--in the interest of what ideas. 

She must somehow renew her relations with the Cravens in town. It wouldcertainly be in her power now to help them and their projects forward alittle. Of course they would distrust her, but that she would get over. 

All the time she was listening mechanically for the hall door bell, which, however, across the distances of the great rambling house it wasnot easy to hear. Their coming guest was not much in her mind. Shetacitly assumed that her father would look after him. On the two orthree occasions when they had met during the last three months, including his luncheon at Mellor on the day after her engagement, herthoughts had been too full to allow her to take much notice ofhim--picturesque and amusing as he seemed to be. Of late he had not beenmuch in the neighbourhood. There had been a slack time for bothcandidates, which was now to give way to a fresh period of hardcanvassing in view of the election which everybody expected at the endof February. 

But Aldous was to bring Edward Hallin! That interested her. She felt anintense curiosity to see and know Hallin, coupled with a certainnervousness. The impression she might be able to make on him would be insome sense an earnest of her future. 

Suddenly, something undefinable--a slight sound, a current of air--madeher turn her head. To her amazement she saw a young man in the doorwaylooking at her with smiling eyes, and quietly drawing off his gloves. 

She sprang up with a feeling of annoyance. 

"Mr. Wharton!"

"Oh!--must you?"--he said, with a movement of one hand, as though tostop her. "Couldn't you stay like that? At first I thought there wasnobody in the room. Your servant is grappling with my bags, which are asthe sand of the sea for multitude, so I wandered in by myself. Then Isaw you--and the fire--and the room. It was like a bit of music. It wasmere wanton waste to interrupt it. "

Marcella flushed, as she very stiffly shook hands with him. 

"I did not hear the front door, " she said coldly. "My mother will behere directly. May I give you some tea?"

"Thanks. No, I knew you did not hear me. That delighted me. It showedwhat charming things there are in the world that have no spectators!What a _delicious_ place this is!--what a heavenly old place--especiallyin these half lights! There was a raw sun when I was here before, butnow--"

He stood in front of the fire, looking round the great room, and at thefew small lamps making their scanty light amid the flame-lit darkness. His hands were loosely crossed behind his back, and his boyish face, inits setting of curls, shone with content and self-possession. 

"Well, " said Marcella, bluntly, "I should prefer a little more light tolive by. Perhaps, when you have fallen downstairs here in the dark asoften as I have, you may too. "

He laughed. 

"But how much better, after all--don't you think so?--to have too littleof anything than too much!"

He flung himself into a chair beside the tea-table, looking up with gayinterrogation as Marcella handed him his cup. She was a good dealsurprised by him. On the few occasions of their previous meetings, thesebright eyes, and this pronounced manner, had been--at any rate astowards herself--much less free and evident. She began to recover thestart he had given her, and to study him with a half-unwillingcuriosity. 

"Then Mellor will please you, " she said drily, in answer to his remark, carrying her own tea meanwhile to a chair on the other side of the fire. "My father never bought anything--my father can't. I believe we havechairs enough to sit down upon--but we have no curtains to half thewindows. Can I give you anything?"

For he had risen, and was looking over the tea-tray. 

"Oh! but I _must_, " he said discontentedly. "I _must_ have enough sugarin my tea!"

"I gave you more than the average, " she said, with a sudden little leapof laughter, as she came to his aid. "Do all your principles break downlike this? I was going to suggest that you might like some of that firetaken away?" And she pointed to the pile of blazing logs which nowfilled up the great chimney. 

"That fire!" he said, shivering, and moving up to it. "Have you any ideawhat sort of a wind you keep up here on these hills on a night likethis? And to think that in this weather, with a barometer that laughs inyour face when you try to move it, I have three meetings to-morrownight!"

"When one loves the 'People, ' with a large P, " said Marcella, "onemustn't mind winds. "

He flashed a smile at her, answering to the sparkle of her look, thenapplied himself to his tea and toasted bun again, with the daintydeliberation of one enjoying every sip and bite. 

"No; but if only the People didn't live so far apart. Some murderousperson wanted them to have only one neck. I want them to have only oneear. Only then unfortunately everybody would speak well--which wouldbring things round to dulness again. Does Mr. Raeburn make you thinkvery bad things of me, Miss Boyce?"

He bent forward to her as he spoke, his blue eyes all candour and mirth. 

Marcella started. 

"How can he?" she said abruptly. "I am not a Conservative. "

"Not a Conservative?" he said joyously. "Oh! but impossible! Does thatmean that you ever read my poor little speeches?"

He pointed to the local newspaper, freshly cut, which lay on a table atMarcella's elbow. 

"Sometimes--" said Marcella, embarrassed. "There is so little time. "

In truth she had hardly given his candidature a thought since the dayAldous proposed to her. She had been far too much taken up with her ownprospects, with Lady Winterbourne's friendship, and her village schemes. 

He laughed. 

"Of course there is. When is the great event to be?"

"I didn't mean that, " said Marcella, stiffly. "Lady Winterbourne and Ihave been trying to start some village workshops. We have been workingand talking, and writing, morning, noon, and night. "

"Oh! I know--yes, I heard of it. And you really think anything is goingto come out of finicking little schemes of that sort?"

His dry change of tone drew a quick look from her. The fresh-colouredface was transformed. In place of easy mirth and mischief, she read anacute and half contemptuous attention. 

"I don't know what you mean, " she said slowly, after a pause. "Orrather--I do know quite well. You told papa--didn't you?--and Mr. Raeburn says that you are a Socialist--not half-and-half, as all theworld is, but the real thing? And of course you want great changes: youdon't like anything that might strengthen the upper class with thepeople. But that is nonsense. You can't get the changes for a long_long_ time. And, meanwhile, people must be clothed and fed and keptalive. "

She lay back in her high-backed chair and looked at him defiantly. Hislip twitched, but he kept his gravity. 

"You would be much better employed in forming a branch of theAgricultural Union, " he said decidedly. "What is the good of playingLady Bountiful to a decayed industry? All that is childish; we want _themeans of revolution_. The people who are for reform shouldn't wastemoney and time on fads. "

"I understand all that, " she said scornfully, her quick breath risingand falling. "Perhaps you don't know that I was a member of theVenturist Society in London? What you say doesn't sound very new to me!"

His seriousness disappeared in laughter. He hastily put down his cupand, stepping over to her, held out his hand. 

"You a Venturist? So am I. Joy! Won't you shake hands with me, ascomrades should? We are a very mixed set of people, you know, andbetween ourselves I don't know that we are coming to much. But we canmake an alderman dream of the guillotine--that is always something. Oh!but now we can talk on quite a new footing!"

She had given him her hand for an instant, withdrawing it with shyrapidity, and he had thrown himself into a chair again, with his armsbehind his head, and the air of one reflecting happily on a changedsituation. "Quite a new footing, " he repeated thoughtfully. "But itis--a little surprising. What does--what does Mr. Raeburn say to it?"

"Nothing! He cares just as much about the poor as you or I, pleaseunderstand! He doesn't choose my way--but he won't interfere with it. "

"Ah! that is like him--like Aldous. "

Marcella started. 

"You don't mind my calling him by his Christian name sometimes? It dropsout. We used to meet as boys together at the Levens. The Levens are mycousins. He was a big boy, and I was a little one. But he didn't likeme. You see--I was a little beast!"

His air of appealing candour could not have been more engaging. 

"Yes, I fear I was a little beast. And he was, even then, and always, 'the good and beautiful. ' You don't understand Greek, do you, MissBoyce? But he was very good to me. I got into an awful scrape once. Ilet out a pair of eagle owls that used to be kept in the courtyard--SirCharles loved them a great deal more than his babies--I let them out atnight for pure wickedness, and they came to fearful ends in the park. Iwas to have been sent home next day, in the most unnecessary and penalhurry. But Aldous interposed--said he would look after me for the restof the holidays. "

"And then you tormented him?"

"Oh no!" he said with gentle complacency. "Oh no! I never tormentanybody. But one must enjoy oneself you know; what else can one do? Thenafterwards, when we were older--somehow I don't know--but we didn't geton. It is very sad--I wish he thought better of me. "

The last words were said with a certain change of tone, and sitting uphe laid the tips of his fingers together on his knees with a littleplaintive air. Marcella's eyes danced with amusement, but she lookedaway from him to the fire, and would not answer. 

"You don't help me out. You don't console me. It's unkind of-you. Don'tyou think it a melancholy fate to be always admiring the people whodetest you?"

"Don't admire them!" she said merrily. 

His eyebrows lifted. "_That_, " he said drily, "is disloyal. I call--Icall your ancestor over the mantelpiece"--he waved his hand towards ablackened portrait in front of him--"to witness, that I am all foradmiring Mr. Raeburn, and you discourage it. Well, but now--_now_"--hedrew his chair eagerly towards hers, the pose of a minute before thrownto the winds--"do let us understand each other a little more beforepeople come. You know I have a labour newspaper?"

She nodded. 

"You read it?"

"Is it the _Labour Clarion_? I take it in. "

"Capital!" he cried. "Then I know now why I found a copy in the villagehere. You lent it to a man called Hurd?"

"I did. "

"Whose wife worships you?--whose good angel you have been? Do I knowsomething about you, or do I not? Well, now, are you satisfied with thatpaper? Can you suggest to me means of improving it? It wants some freshblood, I think--I must find it? I bought the thing last year, in amoribund condition, with the old staff. Oh! we will certainly takecounsel together about it--most certainly! But first--I have beenboasting of knowing something about you--but I should like to ask--doyou know anything about me?"

Both laughed. Then Marcella tried to be serious. 

"Well--I--I believe--you have some land?"

"Eight!" he nodded--"I am a Lincolnshire landowner. I have about fivethousand acres--enough to be tolerably poor on--and enough to playtricks with. I have a co-operative farm, for instance. At present I havelent them a goodish sum of money--and remitted them their firsthalf-year's rent. Not so far a paying speculation. But it will do--someday. Meanwhile the estate wants money--and my plans and I wantmoney--badly. I propose to make the _Labour Clarion_ pay--if I can. That will give me more time for speaking and organising, for whatconcerns _us_--as Venturists--than the Bar. "

"The Bar?" she said, a little mystified, but following every word with afascinated attention. 

"I made myself a barrister three years ago, to please my mother. Shethought I should do better in Parliament--if ever I got in. Did you everhear of my mother?"

There was no escaping these frank, smiling questions. 

"No, " said Marcella, honestly. 

"Well, ask Lord Maxwell, " he said, laughing. "He and she came acrosseach other once or twice, when he was Home Secretary years ago, and shewas wild about some woman's grievance or other. She always maintainsthat she got the better of him--no doubt he was left with a differentimpression. Well--my mother--most people thought her mad--perhaps shewas--but then somehow--I loved her!"

He was still smiling, but at the last words a charming vibration creptinto the words, and his eyes sought her with a young open demand forsympathy. 

"Is that so rare?" she asked him, half laughing--instinctively defendingher own feeling lest it should be snatched from her by any make-believe. 

"Yes--as we loved each other--it is rare. My father died when I was ten. She would not send me to school, and I was always in her pocket--Ishared all her interests. She was a wild woman--but she _lived_, as notone person in twenty lives. "

Then he sighed. Marcella was too shy to imitate his readiness to askquestions. But she supposed that his mother must be dead--indeed, nowvaguely remembered to have heard as much. 

There was a little silence. 

"Please tell me, " she said suddenly, "why do you attack mystraw-plaiting? Is a co-operative farm any less of a stopgap?"

Instantly his face changed. He drew up his chair again beside her, asgay and keen-eyed as before. 

"I can't argue it out now. There is so much to say. But do listen! Ihave a meeting in the village here next week to preach landnationalisation. We mean to try and form a branch of the Labourers'Union. Will you come?"

Marcella hesitated. 

"I think so, " she said slowly. 

There was a pause. Then she raised her eyes and found his fixed uponher. A sudden sympathy--of youth, excitement, pleasure--seemed to risebetween them. She had a quick impression of lightness, grace; of an openbrow set in curls; of a look more intimate, inquisitive, commanding, than any she had yet met. 

"May I speak to you, miss?" said a voice at the door. 

Marcella rose hastily. Her mother's maid was standing there. 

She hurried across the room. 

"What is the matter, Deacon?"

"Your mother says, miss, " said the maid, retreating into the hall, "I amto tell you she can't come down. Your father is ill, and she has sentfor Dr. Clarke. But you are please not to go up. Will you give thegentlemen their tea, and she will come down before they go, if she can. "

Marcella had turned pale. 

"Mayn't I go, Deacon? What is it?"

"It's a bad fit of pain, your mother says, miss. Nothing can be donetill the doctor comes. She begged _particular_ that you wouldn't go up, miss. She doesn't want any one put out. "

At the same moment there was a ring at the outer door. 

"Oh, there is Aldous, " cried Marcella, with relief, and she ran out intothe hall to meet him. 

CHAPTER III. 

Aldous advanced into the inner hall at sight of Marcella, leaving hiscompanions behind in the vestibule taking off their coats. Marcella ranto him. 

"Papa is ill!" she said to him hastily. "Mamma has sent for Dr. Clarke. She won't let me go up, and wants us to take no notice and have teawithout her. "

"I am so sorry! Can we do anything? The dogcart is here with a fasthorse. If your messenger went on foot--"

"Oh, no! they are sure to have sent the boy on the pony. I don't knowwhy, but I have had a presentiment for a long time past that papa wasgoing to be ill. "

She looked white and excited. She had turned back to the drawing-room, forgetting the other guests, he walking beside her. As they passed alongthe dim hall, Aldous had her hand close in his, and when they passedunder an archway at the further end he stooped suddenly in the shadowsand kissed the hand. Touch--kiss--had the clinging, the intensity ofpassion. 

They were the expression of all that had lain vibrating at the man'sinmost heart during the dark drive, while he had been chatting with histwo companions. 

"My darling! I hope not. Would you rather not see strangers? Shall Isend Hallin and young Leven away? They would understand at once. "

"Oh, no! Mr. Wharton is here anyway--staying. Where is Mr. Hallin? Ihad forgotten him. "

Aldous turned and called. Mr. Hallin and young Frank Leven, diviningsomething unusual, were looking at the pictures in the hall. 

Edward Hallin came up and took Marcella's offered hand. Each looked atthe other with a special attention and interest. "She holds my friend'slife in her hands--is she worthy of it?" was naturally the questionhanging suspended in the man's judgment. The girl's manner was proud andshy, the manner of one anxious to please, yet already, perhaps, on thedefensive. 

Aldous explained the position of affairs, and Hallin expressed hissympathy. He had a singularly attractive voice, the voice indeed of theorator, which can adapt itself with equal charm and strength to the mostvarious needs and to any pitch. As he spoke, Marcella was conscious of asudden impression that she already knew him and could be herself withhim at once. 

"Oh, I say, " broke in young Leven, who was standing behind; "don't yoube bothered with us, Miss Boyce. Just send us back at once. I'm awfullysorry!"

"No; you are to come in!" she said, smiling through her pallor, whichwas beginning to pass away, and putting out her hand to him--the youngEton and Oxford athlete, just home for his Christmas vacation, was agreat favourite with her--"You must come and have tea and cheer me up bytelling me all the things you have killed this week. Is there anythingleft alive? You had come down to the fieldfares, you know, lastTuesday. "

He followed her, laughing and protesting, and she led the way to thedrawing-room. But as her fingers were on the handle she once more caughtsight of the maid, Deacon, standing on the stairs, and ran to speak toher. 

"He is better, " she said, coming back with a face of glad relief. "Theattack seems to be passing off. Mamma can't come down, but she begs thatwe will all enjoy ourselves. "

"We'll endeavour, " said young Leven, rubbing his hands, "by the help oftea. Miss Boyce, will you please tell Aldous and Mr. Hallin not to talkpolitics when they're taking me out to a party. They should fight a manof their own size. I'm all limp and trampled on, and want you to protectme. "

The group moved, laughing and talking, into the drawing-room. 

"Jiminy!" said Leven, stopping short behind Aldous, who was aloneconscious of the lad's indignant astonishment; "what the deuce is _he_doing here?"

For there on the rug, with his back to the fire, stood Wharton, surveying the party with his usual smiling _aplomb_. 

"Mr. Hallin, do you know Mr. Wharton?" said Marcella. 

"Mr. Wharton and I have met several times on public platforms, " saidHallin, holding out his hand, which Wharton took with effusion. Aldousgreeted him with the impassive manner, the "three finger" manner, whichwas with him an inheritance--though not from his grandfather--and didnot contribute to his popularity in the neighbourhood. As for youngLeven, he barely nodded to the Radical candidate, and threw himself intoa chair as far from the fire as possible. 

"Frank and I have met before to-day!" said Wharton, laughing. 

"Yes, I've been trying to undo some of your mischief, " said the boy, bluntly. "I found him, Miss Boyce, haranguing a lot of men at thedinner-hour at Tudley End--one of our villages, you know--cramming themlike anything--all about the game laws, and our misdeeds--my father's, of course. "

Wharton raised a protesting hand. 

"Oh--all very well! Of course it was us you meant! Well, when he'ddriven off, I got up on a cart and had _my_ say. I asked them whetherthey didn't all come out at our big shoots, and whether they didn't havealmost as much fun as we did--why! the schoolmaster and the postman cometo ask to carry cartridges, and everybody turns out, down to thecripples!--whether they didn't have rabbits given them all the yearround; whether half of them hadn't brothers and sons employed somehowabout the game, well-paid, and well-treated; whether any man-jack ofthem would be a ha'porth better off if there were no game; whether manyof them wouldn't be worse off; and whether England wouldn't be a beastlydull place to live in, if people like him"--he pointed to Wharton--"hadthe governing of it! And I brought 'em all round too. I got themcheering and laughing. Oh! I can tell you old Dodgson'll have to takeme on. He says he'll ask me to speak for him at several places. I'm nothalf bad, I declare I'm not. "

"I thought they gave you a holiday task at Eton, " observed Wharton, blandly. 

The lad coloured hotly, then bethought himself--radiant:--

"I left Eton last half, as of course you know quite well. But if it hadonly been last Christmas instead of this, wouldn't I have scored--byJove! They gave us a beastly _essay_ instead of a book. _Demagogues_!' Isat up all night, and screwed out a page and a half. I'd have knownsomething about it _now_. "

And as he stood beside the tea-table, waiting for Marcella to entrustsome tea to him for distribution, he turned and made a profound bow tohis candidate cousin. 

Everybody joined in the laugh, led by Wharton. Then there was a generaldrawing up of chairs, and Marcella applied herself to making tea, helpedby Aldous. Wharton alone remained standing before the fire, observantand apart. 

Hallin, whose health at this moment made all exertion, even a drive, something of a burden, sat a little away from the tea-table, resting, and glad to be silent. Yet all the time he was observing the girlpresiding and the man beside her--his friend, her lover. The moment hada peculiar, perhaps a melancholy interest for him. So close had been thebond between himself and Aldous, that the lover's communication of hisengagement had evoked in the friend that sense--poignant, inevitable--which in the realm of the affections always waits onsomething done and finished, --a leaf turned, a chapter closed. "That sadword, Joy!" Hallin was alone and ill when Raeburn's letter reached him, and through the following day and night he was haunted by Landor'sphrase, long familiar and significant to him. His letter to his friend, and the letter to Miss Boyce for which Raeburn had asked him, had costhim an invalid's contribution of sleep and ease. The girl's answer hadseemed to him constrained and young, though touched here and there witha certain fineness and largeness of phrase, which, if it was to be takenas an index of character, no doubt threw light upon the matter so far asAldous was concerned. 

Her beauty, of which he had heard much, now that he was face to facewith it, was certainly striking enough--all the more because of itsimmaturity, the subtlety and uncertainty of its promise. _Immaturity_--_uncertainty_--these words returned upon him as heobserved her manner with its occasional awkwardness, the awkwardnesswhich goes with power not yet fully explored or mastered by itspossessor. How Aldous hung upon her, following every movement, anticipating every want! After a while Hallin found himselfhalf-inclined to Mr. Boyce's view, that men of Raeburn's type are neverseen to advantage in this stage--this queer topsy-turvy stage--of firstpassion. He felt a certain impatience, a certain jealousy for hisfriend's dignity. It seemed to him too, every now and then, thatshe--the girl--was teased by all this absorption, this deference. He wasconscious of watching for something in her that did not appear; and afirst prescience of things anxious or untoward stirred in his quicksense. 

"You may all say what you like, " said Marcella, suddenly, putting downher cup, and letting her hand drop for emphasis on her knee; "but youwill never persuade me that game-preserving doesn't make life in thecountry much more difficult, and the difference between classes muchwider and bitterer, than they need be. "

The remark cut across some rattling talk of Frank Leven's, who was inthe first flush of the sportsman's ardour, and, though by no meanswithout parts, could at the present moment apply his mind to little elsethan killing of one kind or another, unless it were to the chances ofkeeping his odious cousin out of Parliament. 

Leven stared. Miss Boyce's speech seemed to him to have no sort of _àpropos_. Aldous looked down upon her as he stood beside her, smiling. 

"I wish you didn't trouble yourself so much about it, " he said. 

"How can I help it?" she answered quickly; and then flushed, like onewho has drawn attention indiscreetly to their own personal situation. 

"Trouble herself!" echoed young Leven. "Now, look here Miss Boyce, willyou come for a walk with me? I'll convince you, as I convinced thosefellows over there. I know I could, and you won't give me the chance;it's too bad. "

"Oh, you!" she said, with a little shrug; "what do you know about it?One might as well consult a gambler about gambling when he is in themiddle of his first rush of luck. I have ten times more right to anopinion than you have. I can keep my head cool, and notice a hundredthings that _you_ would never see. I come fresh into your country life, and the first thing that strikes me is that the whole machinery of lawand order seems to exist for nothing in the world but to protect yourpheasants! There are policemen--to catch poachers; there aremagistrates--to try them. To judge from the newspapers, at least, theyhave nothing else to do. And if _you_ follow your sporting instincts, you are a very fine fellow, and everybody admires you. But if ashoemaker's son in Mellor follows his, he is a villain and a thief, andthe policeman and the magistrate make for him at once. "

"But I don't steal his chickens!" cried the lad, choking with argumentsand exasperation; "and why should he steal my pheasants? I paid for theeggs, I paid for the hens to sit on 'em, I paid for the coops to rearthem in, I paid the men to watch them, I paid for the barley to feedthem with: why is he to be allowed to take my property, and I am to besent to jail if I take his?"

"_Property_!" said Marcella, scornfully. "You can't settle everythingnowadays by that big word. We are coming to put the public good beforeproperty. If the nation should decide to curtail your 'right, ' as youcall it, in the general interest, it will do it, and you will be left toscream. "

She had flung her arm round the back of her chair, and all her litheyoung frame was tense with an eagerness, nay, an excitement, which drewHallin's attention. It was more than was warranted by the conversation, he thought. 

"Well, if you think the abolition of game preserving would be popular inthe country, Miss Boyce, I'm certain you make a precious mistake, " criedLeven. "Why, even you don't think it would be, do you, Mr. Hallin?" hesaid, appealing at random in his disgust. 

"I don't know, " said Hallin, with his quiet smile. "I rather think, onthe whole, it would be. The farmers put up with it, but a great many ofthem don't like it. Things are mended since the Ground Game Act, butthere are a good many grievances still left. "

"I should think there are!" said Marcella, eagerly, bending forward tohim. "I was talking to one of our farmers the other day whose land goesup to the edge of Lord Winterbourne's woods. '_They_ don't keep theirpheasants, miss, ' he said. '_I_ do. I and my corn. If I didn't send aman up half-past five in the morning, when the ears begin to fill, there'd be nothing left for _us_. ' 'Why don't you complain to theagent?' I said. 'Complain! Lor' bless you, miss, you may complain tillyou're black in the face. I've allus found--an' I've been here, man andboy, thirty-two year--as how _Winterbournes generally best it. '_ Thereyou have the whole thing in a nutshell. It's a tyranny--a tyranny of therich. "

Flushed and sarcastic, she looked at Frank Leven; but Hallin had anuncomfortable feeling that the sarcasm was not all meant for him. Aldouswas sitting with his hands on his knees, and his head bent forward alittle. Once, as the talk ran on, Hallin saw him raise his grey eyes tothe girl beside him, who certainly did not notice it, and was notthinking of him. There was a curious pain and perplexity in theexpression, but something else too--a hunger, a dependence, a yearning, that for an instant gripped the friend's heart. 

"Well, I know Aldous doesn't agree with you, Miss Boyce, " cried Leven, looking about him in his indignation for some argument that should befinal. "You don't, do you, Aldous? You don't think the country would bethe better, if we could do away with game to-morrow?"

"No more than I think it would be the better, " said Aldous, quietly, "ifwe could do away with gold-plate and false hair to-morrow. There wouldbe too many hungry goldsmiths and wig-makers on the streets. "

Marcella turned to him, half defiant, half softened. 

"Of course, your point lies in _to-morrow, "_ she said. "I accept that. We can't carry reform by starving innocent people. But the question is, what are we to work towards? Mayn't we regard the game laws as one ofthe obvious crying abuses to be attacked first--in the greatcampaign!--the campaign which is to bring liberty and self-respect backto the country districts, and make the labourer feel himself as much ofa man as the squire?"

"What a head! What an attitude!" thought Hallin, half repelled, halffascinated. "But a girl that can talk politics--hostile politics--to herlover, and mean them too--or am I inexperienced?--and is it merely thatshe is so much interested in him that she wants to be quarrelling withhim?"

Aldous looked up. "I am not _sure_, " he said, answering her. "That isalways my difficulty, you know, " and he smiled at her. "Game preservingis not to me personally an attractive form of private property, but itseems to me bound up with other forms, and I want to see where theattack is going to lead me. But I would protect your farmer--mind!--aszealously as you. "

Hallin caught the impatient quiver of the girl's lip. The tea had justbeen taken away, and Marcella had gone to sit upon an old sofa near thefire, whither Aldous had followed her. Wharton, who had so far saidnothing, had left his post of observation on the hearth-rug, and wassitting under the lamp balancing a paper-knife with great attention ontwo fingers. In the half light Hallin by chance saw a movement ofRaeburn's hand towards Marcella's, which lay hidden among the folds ofher dress--quick resistance on her part, then acquiescence. He felt asudden pleasure in his friend's small triumph. 

"Aldous and I have worn these things threadbare many a time, " he said, addressing his hostess. "You don't know how kind he is to my dreams. Iam no sportsman and have no landowning relations, so he ought to bid mehold my tongue. But he lets me rave. To me the simple fact is that _gamepreserving creates crime_. Agricultural life is naturally simpler--mightbe, it always seems to me, so much more easily moralised and fraternisedthan the industrial form. And you split it up and poison it all by theemphasis laid on this class pleasure. It is a natural pleasure, you say. Perhaps it is--the survival, perhaps, of some primitive instinct in ournorthern blood--but, if so, why should it be impossible for the rich toshare it with the poor? I have little plans--dreams. I throw them outsometimes to catch Aldous, but he hardly rises to them!"

"Oh! I _say_, " broke in Frank Leven, who could really bear it no longer. "Now look here, Miss Boyce, --what do you think Mr. Hallin wants? It isjust sheer lunacy--it really is--though I know I'm impertinent, and he'sa great man. But I do declare he wants Aldous to give up a big commonthere is--oh! over beyond Girtstone, down in the plain--on LordMaxwell's estate, and make a _labourers'_ shoot of it! Now, I ask you!And he vows he doesn't see why they shouldn't rear pheasants if theychoose to club and pay for it. Well, I will say that much for him, Aldous didn't see his way to _that_, though he isn't the kind ofConservative _I_ want to see in Parliament by a long way. Besides, it'ssuch stuff! They say sport brutalises _us_, and then they want to go andcontaminate the labourer. But we won't take the responsibility. We'vegot our own vices, and we'll stick to them; we're used to them; but wewon't hand them on: we'd scorn the action. "

The flushed young barbarian, driven to bay, was not to be resisted. Marcella laughed heartily, and Hallin laid an affectionate hand on theboy's shoulder, patting him as though he were a restive horse. 

"Yes, I remember I was puzzled as to the details of Hallin's scheme, "said Aldous, his mouth twitching. "I wanted to know who was to pay forthe licences; how game enough for the number of applicants was to begot without preserving; and how men earning twelve or fourteen shillingsa week were to pay a keeper. Then I asked a clergyman who has a livingnear this common what he thought would be the end of it. 'Well, ' hesaid, 'the first day they'd shoot every animal on the place; the secondday they'd shoot each other. Universal carnage--I should say that wouldbe about the end of it. ' These were trifles, of course--details. "

Hallin shook his head serenely. 

"I still maintain, " he said, "that a little practical ingenuity mighthave found a way. "

"And I will support you, " said Wharton, laying down the paper-knife andbending over to Hallin, "with good reason. For three years and a fewmonths just such an idea as you describe has been carried out on my ownestate, and it has not worked badly at all. "

"There!" cried Marcella. "There! I knew something could be done, ifthere was a will. I have always felt it. "

She half turned to Aldous, then bent forward instead as though listeningeagerly for what more Wharton might say, her face all alive, andeloquent. 

"Of course, there was nothing to shoot!" exclaimed Frank Leven. 

"On the contrary, " said Wharton, smiling, "we are in the middle of afamous partridge country. "

"How your neighbours must dote on you!" cried the boy. But Wharton tookno notice. 

"And my father preserved strictly, " he went on. "It is quite a simplestory. When I inherited, three years ago, I thought the whole thingdetestable, and determined I wouldn't be responsible for keeping it up. So I called the estate together--farmers and labourers--and we workedout a plan. There are keepers, but they are the estate servants, notmine. Everybody has his turn according to the rules--I and my friendsalong with the rest. Not everybody can shoot every year, but everybodygets his chance, and, moreover, a certain percentage of all the gamekilled is public property, and is distributed every year according to aregular order. "

"Who pays the keepers?" interrupted Leven. 

"I do, " said Wharton, smiling again. "Mayn't I--for the present--do whatI will with mine own? I return in their wages some of my ill-gottengains as a landowner. It is all makeshift, of course. "

"I understand!" exclaimed Marcella, nodding to him--"you could not be aVenturist and keep up game-preserving?"

Wharton met her bright eye with a half deprecating, reserved air. 

"You are right, of course, " he said drily. "For a Socialist to beletting his keepers run in a man earning twelve shillings a week forknocking over a rabbit would have been a little strong. No one can beconsistent in my position--in any landowner's position--it isimpossible; still, thank Heaven, one can deal with the most glaringmatters. As Mr. Raeburn said, however, all this game business is, ofcourse, a mere incident of the general land and property system, as youwill hear me expound when you come to that meeting you promised me tohonour. "

He stooped forward, scanning her with smiling deference. Marcella feltthe man's hand that held her own suddenly tighten an instant. ThenAldous released her, and rising walked towards the fire. 

"You're _not_ going to one of his meetings, Miss Boyce!" cried Frank, inangry incredulity. 

Marcella hesitated an instant, half angry with Wharton. Then shereddened and threw back her dark head with the passionate gesture Hallinhad already noticed as characteristic. 

"Mayn't I go where I belong?" she said--"where my convictions lead me?"

There was a moment's awkward silence. Then Hallin got up. 

"Miss Boyce, may we see the house? Aldous has told me much of it. "

 * * * * *

Presently, in the midst of their straggling progress through thehalf-furnished rooms of the garden front, preceded by the shy footmancarrying a lamp, which served for little more than to make darknessvisible, Marcella found herself left behind with Aldous. As soon as shefelt that they were alone, she realised a jar between herself and him. His manner was much as usual, but there was an underlying effort anddifficulty which her sensitiveness caught at once. A sudden wave ofgirlish trouble--remorse--swept over her. In her impulsiveness she movedclose to him as they were passing through her mother's littlesitting-room, and put her hand on his arm. 

"I don't think I was nice just now, " she said, stammering. "I didn'tmean it. I seem to be always driven into opposition--into a feeling ofwar--when you are so good to me--so much too good to me!"

Aldous had turned at her first word. With a long breath, as it were ofunspeakable relief, he caught her in his arms vehemently, passionately. So far she had been very shrinking and maidenly with him in theirsolitary moments, and he had been all delicate chivalry and respect, tasting to the full the exquisiteness of each fresh advance towardsintimacy, towards lover's privilege, adoring her, perhaps, all the morefor her reserve, her sudden flights, and stiffenings. But to-night heasked no leave, and in her astonishment she was almost passive. 

"Oh, do let me go!" she cried at last, trying to disengage herselfcompletely. 

"No!" he said with emphasis, still holding her hand firmly. "Come andsit down here. They will look after themselves. "

He put her, whether she would or no, into an arm-chair and knelt besideher. 

"Did you think it was hardly kind, " he said with a quiver of voice hecould not repress, "to let me hear for the first time, in public, thatyou had promised to go to one of that man's meetings after refusingagain and again to come to any of mine?"

"Do you want to forbid me to go?" she said quickly. There was a feelingin her which would have been almost relieved, for the moment, if he hadsaid yes. 

"By no means, " he said steadily. "That was not our compact. But--guessfor yourself what I want! Do you think"--he paused a moment--"do youthink I put nothing of myself into my public life--into these meetingsamong the people who have known me from a boy? Do you think it is all aconvention--that my feeling, my conscience, remain outside? You can'tthink that! But if not, how can I bear to live what is to be so large apart of my life out of your ken and sight? I know--I know--you warned meamply--you can't agree with me. But there is much besides intellectualagreement possible--much that would help and teach us both--if only weare together--not separated--not holding aloof--"

He stopped, watching all the changes of her face. She was gulfed in adeep wave of half-repentant feeling, remembering all his generosity, hisforbearance, his devotion. 

"When are you speaking next?" she half whispered. In the dim light hersoftened pose, the gentle sudden relaxation of every line, were anintoxication. 

"Next week--Friday--at Gairsly. Hallin and Aunt Neta are coming. "

"Will Miss Raeburn take me?"

His grey eyes shone upon her, and he kissed her hand. 

"Mr. Hallin won't speak for you!" she said, after the silence, with areturn of mischief. 

"Don't be so sure! He has given me untold help in the drafting of myBill. If I didn't call myself a Conservative, he would vote for meto-morrow. That's the absurdity of it. Do you know, I hear them comingback?"

"One thing, " she said hastily, drawing him towards her, and thenholding him back, as though shrinking always from the feeling she couldso readily evoke. "I must say it; you oughtn't to give me so much money, it is too much. Suppose I use it for things you don't like?"

"You won't, " he said gaily. 

She tried to push the subject further, but he would not have it. 

"I am all for free discussion, " he said in the same tone; "but sometimesdebate must be stifled. I am going to stifle it!"

And stooping, he kissed her, lightly, tremulously. His manner showed heronce more what she was to him--how sacred, how beloved. First it touchedand shook her; then she sprang up with a sudden disagreeable sense ofmoral disadvantage--inferiority--coming she knew not whence, and undoingfor the moment all that buoyant consciousness of playing themagnanimous, disinterested part which had possessed her throughout thetalk in the drawing-room. 

The others reappeared, headed by their lamp: Wharton first, scanning thetwo who had lingered behind, with his curious eyes, so blue andbrilliant under the white forehead and the curls. 

"We have been making the wildest shots at your ancestors, Miss Boyce, "he said. "Frank professed to know everything about the pictures, andturned out to know nothing. I shall ask for some special coachingto-morrow morning. May I engage you--ten o'clock?"

Marcella made some evasive answer, and they all sauntered back to thedrawing-room. 

"Shall you be at work to-morrow, Raeburn?" said Wharton. 

"Probably, " said Aldous drily. Marcella, struck by the tone, lookedback, and caught an expression and bearing which were as yet new to herin the speaker. She supposed they represented the haughtiness natural inthe man of birth and power towards the intruder, who is also theopponent. 

Instantly the combative critical mood returned upon her, and the impulseto assert herself by protecting Wharton. His manner throughout the talkin the drawing-room had been, she declared to herself, excellent--modest, and self-restrained, comparing curiously with the boyish egotism andself-abandonment he had shown in their _tête-à-tête_. 

 * * * * *

"Why, there is Mr. Boyce, " exclaimed Wharton, hurrying forward as theyentered the drawing-room. 

There, indeed, on the sofa was the master of the house, more ghastlyblack and white than ever, and prepared to claim to the utmost thetragic pre-eminence of illness. He shook hands coldly with Aldous, whoasked after his health with the kindly brevity natural to the man whowants no effusions for himself in public or personal matters, andconcludes therefore that other people desire none. 

"You _are_ better, papa?" said Marcella, taking his hand. 

"Certainly, my dear--better for morphia. Don't talk of me. I have got mydeath warrant, but I hope I can take it quietly. Evelyn, I _specially_asked to have that thin cushion brought down from my dressing-room. Itis strange that no one pays any attention to my wants. "

Mrs. Boyce, almost as white, Marcella now saw, as her husband, movedforward from the fire, where she had been speaking to Hallin, took acushion from a chair near, exactly similar to the one he missed, andchanged his position a little. 

"It is just the feather's weight of change that makes the difference, isn't it?" said Wharton, softly, sitting down beside the invalid. 

Mr. Boyce turned a mollified countenance upon the speaker, and being nowfree from pain, gave himself up to the amusement of hearing his guesttalk. Wharton devoted himself, employing all his best arts. 

"Dr. Clarke is not anxious about him, " Mrs. Boyce said in a low voice toMarcella as they moved away. "He does not think the attack will returnfor a long while, and he has given me the means of stopping it if itdoes come back. "

"How tired you look!" said Aldous, coming up to them, and speaking inthe same undertone. "Will you not let Marcella take you to rest?"

He was always deeply, unreasonably touched by any sign of stoicism, ofdefied suffering in women. Mrs. Boyce had proved it many times already. On the present occasion she put his sympathy by, but she lingered totalk with him. Hallin from a distance noticed first of all her tallthinness and fairness, and her wonderful dignity of carriage; then thecordiality of her manner to her future son-in-law. Marcella stood bylistening, her young shoulders somewhat stiffly set. Her consciousnessof her mother's respect and admiration for the man she was to marry was, oddly enough, never altogether pleasant to her. It brought with it acertain discomfort, a certain wish to argue things out. 

Hallin and Aldous parted with Frank Leven at Mellor gate, and turnedhomeward together under a starry heaven already whitening to the comingmoon. 

"Do you know that man Wharton is getting an extraordinary hold upon theLondon working men?" said Hallin. "I have heard him tell that story ofthe game-preserving before. He was speaking for one of the Radicalcandidates at Hackney, and I happened to be there. It brought downthe house. The _rôle_ of your Socialist aristocrat, of yourland-nationalising landlord, is a very telling one. "

"And comparatively easy, " said Aldous, "when you know that neitherSocialism nor land-nationalisation will come in your time!"

"Oh! so you think him altogether a windbag?"

Aldous hesitated and laughed. 

"I have certainly no reason to suspect him of principles. His conscienceas a boy was of pretty elastic stuff. "

"You may be unfair to him, " said Hallin, quickly. Then, after a pause:"How long is he staying at Mellor?"

"About a week, I believe, " said Aldous, shortly. "Mr. Boyce has taken afancy to him. "

They walked on in silence, and then Aldous turned to his friend indistress. 

"You know, Hallin, this wind is much too cold for you. You are the mostwilful of men. Why would you walk?"

"Hold your tongue, sir, and listen to me. I think your Marcella isbeautiful, and as interesting as she is beautiful. There!"

Aldous started, then turned a grateful face upon him. 

"You must get to know her well, " he said, but with some constraint. 

"Of course. I wonder, " said Hallin, musing, "whom she has got hold ofamong the Venturists. Shall you persuade her to come out of that, do youthink, Aldous?"

"No!" said Raeburn, cheerfully. "Her sympathies and convictions go withthem. "

Then, as they passed through the village, he began to talk of quiteother things--college friends, a recent volume of philosophical essays, and so on. Hallin, accustomed and jealously accustomed as he was to bethe one person in the world with whom Raeburn talked freely, would notto-night have done or said anything to force a strong man's reserve. Buthis own mind was full of anxiety. 

CHAPTER IV. 

"I _love_ this dilapidation!" said Wharton, pausing for a moment withhis back against the door he had just shut. "Only it makes me long totake off my coat and practise some honest trade or other--plastering, orcarpentering, or painting. What useless drones we upper classes are!Neither you nor I could mend that ceiling or patch this floor--to saveour lives. "

They were in the disused library. It was now the last room westwards ofthe garden front, but in reality it was part of the older house, and hadbeen only adapted and re-built by that eighteenth-century Marcella whosemoney had been so gracefully and vainly lavished on giving dignity toher English husband's birthplace. The roof had been raised and domed tomatch the "Chinese room, " at the expense of some small rooms on theupper floor; and the windows and doors had been suited toeighteenth-century taste. But the old books in the old latticed shelveswhich the Puritan founder of the family had bought in the days of theLong Parliament were still there; so were the chairs in which thatworthy had sat to read a tract of Milton's or of Baxter's, or the tableat which he had penned his letters to Hampden or Fairfax, or to his oldfriend--on the wrong side--Edmund Verney the standard-bearer. Only theworm-eaten shelves were dropping from their supports, and the books layin mouldy confusion; the roofs had great holes and gaps, whence thelaths hung dismally down, and bats came flitting in the dusk; and therewere rotten places in the carpetless floor. 

"I have tried my best, " said Marcella, dolefully, stooping to look at ahole in the floor. "I got a bit of board and some nails, and tried tomend some of these places myself. But I only broke the rotten wood away;and papa was angry, and said I did more harm than good. I did get acarpenter to mend some of the chairs; but one doesn't know where tobegin. I have cleaned and mended some of the books, but--"

She looked sadly round the musty, forlorn place. 

"But not so well, I am afraid, as any second-hand bookseller'sapprentice could have done it, " said Wharton, shaking his head. "It'smaddening to think what duffers we gentlefolks are!"

"Why do you harp on that?" said Marcella, quickly. She had been takinghim over the house, and was in twenty minds again as to whether and howmuch she liked him. 

"Because I have been reading some Board of Trade reports beforebreakfast, " said Wharton, "on one or two of the Birmingham industries inparticular. Goodness! what an amount of knowledge and skill and resourcethese fellows have that I go about calling the 'lower orders. ' I wonderhow long they are going to let me rule over them!"

"I suppose brain-power and education count for something still?" saidMarcella, half scornfully. 

"I am greatly obliged to the world for thinking so, " said Wharton withemphasis, "and for thinking so about the particular kind of brain-powerI happen to possess, which is the point. The processes by which aBirmingham jeweller makes the wonderful things which we attribute to'French taste' when we see them in the shops of the Rue de la Paix are, of course, mere imbecility--compared to my performances in Responsions. Lucky for _me_, at any rate, that the world has decided it so. I get agood time of it--and the Birmingham jeweller calls me 'sir. '"

"Oh! the skilled labour! that can take care of itself, and won't go oncalling you 'sir' much longer. But what about the unskilled--the peoplehere for instance--the villagers? We talk of their governing themselves;we wish it, and work for it. But which of us _really_ believes that theyare fit for it, or that they are ever going to get along without _our_brain-power?"

"No--poor souls!" said Wharton, with a peculiar vibrating emphasis. "'_By their stripes we are healed, by their death we have lived_. ' Doyou remember your Carlyle?"

They had entered one of the bays formed by the bookcases which on eitherside of the room projected from the wall at regular intervals, and werestanding by one of the windows which looked out on the great avenue. Beside the window on either side hung a small portrait--in the one caseof an elderly man in a wig, in the other of a young, dark-haired woman. 

"Plenty in general, but nothing in particular, " said Marcella, laughing. "Quote. "

He was leaning against the angle formed by the wall and the bookcase. The half-serious, half-provocative intensity of his blue eyes under thebrow which drooped forward contrasted with the careless, well-appointedease of his general attitude and dress. 

"'_Two men I honour, and no third_, '" he said, quoting in a slightlydragging, vibrating voice: "'_First, the toil-worn craftsman that withearth-made implement laboriously conquers the earth and makes herman's. --Hardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for uswere thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed; thou wert ourconscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert somarred_. ' Heavens! how the words swing! But it is great nonsense, youknow, for you and me--Venturists--to be maundering like this. Charity--benevolence--that is all Carlyle is leading up to. He merelywants the cash nexus supplemented by a few good offices. But we wantsomething much more unpleasant! 'Keep your subscriptions--hand over yourdividends--turn out of your land--and go to work!' Nowadays society istrying to get out of doing what _we_ want, by doing what Carlylewanted. "

"_Do_ you want it?" said Marcella. 

"I don't know, " he said, laughing. "It won't come in our time. "

Her lip showed her scorn. 

"That's what we all think. Meanwhile you will perhaps admit that alittle charity greases the wheels. "

"_You_ must, because you are a woman; and women are made forcharity--and aristocracy. "

"Do you suppose you know so much about women?" she asked him, ratherhotly. "I notice it is always the assumption of the people who make mostmistakes. "

"Oh! I know enough to steer by!" he said, smiling, with a littleinclination of his curly head, as though to propitiate her. "How likeyou are to that portrait!"

Marcella started, and saw that he was pointing to the woman's portraitbeside the window--looking from it to his hostess with a closeconsidering eye. 

"That was an ancestress of mine, " she said coldly, "an Italian lady. Shewas rich and musical. Her money built these rooms along the garden, andthese are her music books. "

She showed him that the shelves against which she was leaning were fullof old music. 

"Italian!" he said, lifting his eyebrows. "Ah, that explains. Do youknow--that you have all the qualities of a leader!"--and he moved away ayard from her, studying her--"mixed blood--one must always have that tofire and fuse the English paste--and then--but no! that won't do--Ishould offend you. "

Her first instinct was one of annoyance--a wish to send him about hisbusiness, or rather to return him to her mother who would certainly keephim in order. Instead, however, she found herself saying, as she lookedcarelessly out of window--

"Oh! go on. "

"Well, then"--he drew himself up suddenly and wheeled round uponher--"you have the gift of compromise. That is invaluable--that willtake you far. "

"Thank you!" she said. "Thank you! I know what that means--from aVenturist. You think me a mean insincere person!"

He started, then recovered himself and came to lean against thebookshelves beside her. 

"I mean nothing of the sort, " he said, in quite a different manner, witha sort of gentle and personal emphasis. "But--may I explain myself, MissBoyce, in a room with a fire? I can see you shivering under your fur. "

For the frost still reigned supreme outside, and the white grass andtrees threw chill reflected lights into the forsaken library. Marcellacontrolled a pulse of excitement that had begun to beat in her, admittedthat it was certainly cold, and led the way through a side door to alittle flagged parlour, belonging to the oldest portion of the house, where, however, a great log-fire was burning, and some chairs drawn upround it. She took one and let the fur wrap she had thrown about her fortheir promenade through the disused rooms drop from her shoulders. Itlay about her in full brown folds, giving special dignity to her slimheight and proud head. Wharton glancing about in his curious inquisitiveway, now at the neglected pictures, now on the walls, now at the old oakchairs and chests, now at her, said to himself that she was a splendidand inspiring creature. She seemed to be on the verge of offence withhim too, half the time, which was stimulating. She would have liked, hethought, to play the great lady with him already, as Aldous Raeburn'sbetrothed. But he had so far managed to keep her off that plane--andintended to go on doing so. 

"Well, I meant this, " he said, leaning against the old stone chimneyand looking down upon her; "only _don't_ be offended with me, please. You are a Socialist, and you are going--some day--to be Lady Maxwell. Those combinations are only possible to women. They can sustain them, because they are imaginative--not logical. "

She flushed. 

"And you, " she said, breathing quickly, "are a Socialist and a landlord. What is the difference?"

He laughed. 

"Ah! but I have no gift--I can't ride the two horses, as you will beable to--quite honestly. There's the difference. And the consequence isthat with my own class I am an outcast--they all hate me. But you willhave power as Lady Maxwell--and power as a Socialist--because you willgive and take. Half your time you will act as Lady Maxwell should, theother half like a Venturist. And, as I said, it will give you power--amodified power. But men are less clever at that kind of thing. "

"Do you mean to say, " she asked him abruptly, "that you have given upthe luxuries and opportunities of your class?"

He shifted his position a little. 

"That is a different matter, " he said after a moment. "We Socialists areall agreed, I think, that no man can be a Socialist by himself. Luxuries, for the present, are something personal, individual. It isonly a man's 'public form' that matters. And there, as I said before, Ihave no gift!--I have not a relation or an old friend in the world thathas not turned his back upon me--as you might see for yourselfyesterday! My class has renounced me already--which, after all, is aweakness. "

"So you pity yourself?" she said. 

"By no means! We all choose the part in life that amuses us--that bringsus most _thrill_. I get most thrill out of throwing myself into theworkmen's war--much more than I could ever get, you will admit, out ofdancing attendance on my very respectable cousins. My mother taught meto see everything dramatically. We have no drama in England at thepresent moment worth a cent; so I amuse myself with this greattragi-comedy of the working-class movement. It stirs, pricks, interestsme, from morning till night. I feel the great rough elemental passionsin it, and it delights me to know that every day brings us nearer tosome great outburst, to scenes and struggles at any rate that will makeus all look alive. I am like a child with the best of its cake to come, but with plenty in hand already. Ah!--stay still a moment, Miss Boyce!"

To her amazement he stooped suddenly towards her; and she, looking down, saw that a corner of her light, black dress, which had been overhangingthe low stone fender, was in flames, and that he was putting it out withhis hands. She made a movement to rise, alarmed lest the flames shouldleap to her face--her hair. But he, releasing one hand for an instantfrom its task of twisting and rolling the skirt upon itself, held herheavily down. 

"Don't move; I will have it out in a moment. You won't be burnt. "

And in a second more she was looking at a ragged brown hole in herdress; and at him, standing, smiling, before the fire, and wrapping ahandkerchief round some of the fingers of his left hand. 

"You have burnt yourself, Mr. Wharton?"

"A little. "

"I will go and get something--what would you like?"

"A little olive oil if you have some, and a bit of lint--but don'ttrouble yourself. "

She flew to find her mother's maid, calling and searching on her way forMrs. Boyce herself, but in vain. Mrs. Boyce had disappeared afterbreakfast, and was probably helping her husband to dress. 

In a minute or so Marcella ran downstairs again, bearing variousmedicaments. She sped to the Stone Parlour, her cheek and eye glowing. 

"Let me do it for you. "

"If you please, " said Wharton, meekly. 

She did her best, but she was not skilful with her fingers, and thisclose contact with him somehow excited her. 

"There, " she said, laughing and releasing him. "Of course, if I were awork-girl I should have done it better. They are not going to be verybad, I think. "

"What, the burns? Oh, no! They will have recovered, I am afraid, longbefore your dress. "

"Oh, my dress! yes, it is deplorable. I will go and change it. "

She turned to go, but she lingered instead, and said with an odd, introductory laugh:

"I believe you saved my life!"

"Well, I am glad I was here. You might have lost self-possession--even_you_ might, you know!--and then it would have been serious. "

"Anyway"--her voice was still uncertain--"I might have beendisfigured--disfigured for life!"

"I don't know why you should dwell upon it now it's done with, " hedeclared, smiling. 

"It would be strange, wouldn't it, if I took it quite for granted--allin the day's work?" She held out her hand: "I am grateful--please. "

He bowed over it, laughing, again with that eighteenth-century air whichmight have become a Chevalier des Grieux. 

"May I exact a reward?"

"Ask it. "

"Will you take me down with you to your village? I know you are going. Imust walk on afterwards and catch a midday train to Widrington. I havean appointment there at two o'clock. But perhaps you will introduce meto one or two of your poor people first?"

Marcella assented, went upstairs, changed her dress, and put on herwalking things, more than half inclined all the time to press her motherto go with them. She was a little unstrung and tremulous, pursued by afeeling that she was somehow letting herself go, behaving disloyally andindecorously towards whom?--towards Aldous? But how, or why? She did notknow. But there was a curious sense of lost bloom, lost dignity, combined with an odd wish that Mr. Wharton were not going away for theday. In the end, however, she left her mother undisturbed. 

By the time they were half way to the village, Marcella's uncomfortablefeelings had all passed away. Without knowing it, she was becoming toomuch absorbed in her companion to be self-critical, so long as they weretogether. It seemed to her, however, before they had gone more than afew hundred yards that he was taking advantage--presuming on what hadhappened. He offended her taste, her pride, her dignity, in a hundredways, she discovered. At the same time it was _she_ who was always onthe defensive--protecting her dreams, her acts, her opinions, againstthe constant fire of his half-ironical questions, which seemed to leaveher no time at all to carry the war into the enemy's country. He put herthrough a quick cross-examination about the village, its occupations, the incomes of the people, its local charities and institutions, whatshe hoped to do for it, what she would do if she could, what she thoughtit _possible_ to do. She answered first reluctantly, then eagerly, herpride all alive to show that she was not merely ignorant and amateurish. But it was no good. In the end he made her feel as Antony Craven hadconstantly done--that she knew nothing exactly, that she had notmastered the conditions of any one of the social problems she wastalking about; that not only was her reading of no account, but that shehad not even managed to _see_ these people, to interpret their livesunder her very eyes, with any large degree of insight. 

Especially was he merciless to all the Lady Bountiful pose, which meantso much to her imagination--not in words so much as in manner. He lether see that all the doling and shepherding and advising that stillpleased her fancy looked to him the merest temporary palliative, andirretrievably tainted, even at that, with some vulgar feeling or other. All that the well-to-do could do for the poor under the present state ofsociety was but a niggardly quit-rent; as for any relation of "superior"and "inferior" in the business, or of any social desert attaching tothese precious efforts of the upper class to daub the gaps in theruinous social edifice for which they were themselves responsible, hedid not attempt to conceal his scorn. If you did not do these things, somuch the worse for you when the working class came to its own; if youdid do them, the burden of debt was hardly diminished, and the rope wasstill left on your neck. 

Now Marcella herself had on one or two occasions taken a maliciouspleasure in flaunting these doctrines, or some of them, under MissRaeburn's eyes. But somehow, as applied to herself, they weredisagreeable. Each of us is to himself a "special case"; and she saw theother side. Hence a constant soreness of feeling; a constant recallingof the argument to the personal point of view; and through it all acurious growth of intimacy, a rubbing away of barriers. She had feltherself of no account before, intellectually, in Aldous's company, as weknow. But then how involuntary on his part, and how counter-balanced bythat passionate idealism of his love, which glorified every prettyimpulse in her to the noblest proportions! Under Wharton's Socraticmethod, she was conscious at times of the most wild and womanishdesires, worthy of her childhood--to cry, to go into a passion!--andwhen they came to the village, and every human creature, old and young, dropped its obsequious curtsey as they passed, she could first havebeaten them for so degrading her, and the next moment felt a feverishpleasure in thus parading her petty power before a man who in hisdoctrinaire pedantry had no sense of poetry, or of the dear old naturalrelations of country life. 

They went first to Mrs. Jellison's, to whom Marcella wished to unfoldher workshop scheme. 

"Don't let me keep you, " she said to Wharton coldly, as they neared thecottage; "I know you have to catch your train. "

Wharton consulted his watch. He had to be at a local station some twomiles off within an hour. 

"Oh! I have time, " he said. "Do take me in, Miss Boyce. I have madeacquaintance with these people so far, as my constituents--now show themto me as your subjects. Besides, I am an observer. I 'collect' peasants. They are my study. "

"They are not my subjects, but my friends, " she said with the samestiffness. 

They found Mrs. Jellison having her dinner. The lively old woman wassitting close against her bit of fire, on her left a small deal tablewhich held her cold potatoes and cold bacon; on her right a tiny windowand window-sill whereon lay her coil of "plait" and the simplestraw-splitting machine she had just been working. When Marcella hadtaken the only other chair the hovel contained, nothing else remainedfor Wharton but to flatten himself as closely against the door as hemight. 

"I'm sorry I can't bid yer take a cheer, " said Mrs. Jellison to him, "but what yer han't got yer can't give, so I don't trouble my head aboutnothink. "

Wharton applauded her with easy politeness, and then gave himself, withfolded arms, to examining the cottage while Marcella talked. It might beten feet broad, he thought, by six feet in one part and eight feet inanother. The roof was within little more than an inch of his head. Thestairway in the corner was falling to pieces; he wondered how the womangot up safely to her bed at night; custom, he supposed, can make evenold bones agile. 

Meanwhile Marcella was unfolding the project of the straw-plaitingworkshop that she and Lady Winterbourne were about to start. Mrs. Jellison put on her spectacles apparently that she might hear thebetter, pushed away her dinner in spite of her visitors' civilities, andlistened with a bright and beady eye. 

"An' yer agoin' to pay me one a sixpence a score, where I now getsninepence. And I'll not have to tramp it into town no more--you'll senda man round. And who is agoin' to pay me, miss, if you'll excuse measking?"

"Lady Winterbourne and I, " said Marcella, smiling. "We're going toemploy this village and two others, and make as good business of it aswe can. But we're going to begin by giving the workers better wages, andin time we hope to teach them the higher kinds of work. "

"Lor'!" said Mrs. Jellison. "But I'm not one o' them as kin do withchanges. " She took up her plait and looked at it thoughtfully. "Eighteen-pence a score. It wor that rate when I wor a girl. An' it ha'been dibble--dibble--iver sense; a penny off here, an' a penny offthere, an' a hard job to keep a bite ov anythink in your mouth. "

"Then I may put down your name among our workers, Mrs. Jellison?" saidMarcella, rising and smiling down upon her. 

"Oh, lor', no; I niver said that, " said Mrs. Jellison, hastily. "I don'thold wi' shilly-shallyin' wi' yer means o' livin'. I've took my plait toJimmy Gedge--'im an' 'is son, fust shop on yer right hand when yer gitinto town--twenty-five year, summer and winter--me an' three otherwomen, as give me a penny a journey for takin' theirs. If I wor to gomessin' about wi' Jimmy Gedge, Lor' bless yer, I should 'ear ov it--oh!I shoulden sleep o' nights for thinkin' o' how Jimmy ud serve me outwhen I wor least egspectin' ov it. He's a queer un. No, miss, thank yerkindly; but I think I'll bide. "

Marcella, amazed, began to argue a little, to expound the manyattractions of the new scheme. Greatly to her annoyance, Wharton cameforward to her help, guaranteeing the solvency and permanence of her newpartnership in glib and pleasant phrase, wherein her angry fancysuspected at once the note of irony. But Mrs. Jellison held firm, embroidering her negative, indeed, with her usual cheerful chatter, butsticking to it all the same. At last there was no way of saving dignitybut to talk of something else and go--above all, to talk of somethingelse before going, lest the would-be benefactor should be thought apetty tyrant. 

"Oh, Johnnie?--thank yer, miss--'e's an owdacious young villain as iverI seed--but _clever_--lor', you'd need 'ave eyes in yer back to lookafter _'im_. An' _coaxin'_! ''Aven't yer brought me no sweeties, Gran'ma?' 'No, my dear, ' says I. 'But if you was to _look_, Gran'ma--inboth your pockets, Gran'ma--iv you was to let _me_ look?' It's a sharpun Isabella, she don't 'old wi' sweet-stuff, she says, sich a pack o'nonsense. She'd stuff herself sick when she wor 'is age. Why shouldn't_ee_ be happy, same as her? There ain't much to make a child 'appy in_that_ 'ouse. Westall, ee's that mad about them poachers over TudleyEnd; ee's like a wild bull at 'ome. I told Isabella ee'd come toknockin' ov her about _some_ day, though ee did speak so oily when eewor a courtin'. Now she knows as I kin see a thing or two, " said Mrs. Jellison, significantly. Her manner, Wharton noticed, kept always thesame gay philosophy, whatever subject turned up. 

"Why, that's an old story--that Tudley End business--" said Marcella, rising. "I should have thought Westall might have got over it by now. "

"But bless yer, ee says it's goin' on as lively as iver. Ee says eeknows they're set on grabbin' the birds t'other side the estate, overbeyond Mellor way--ee's got wind of it--an' ee's watchin' night an' dayto see they don't do him no bad turn _this_ month, bekase o' the bigshoot they allus has in January. An' lor', ee do speak drefful bad o'_soom_ folks, " said Mrs. Jellison, with an amused expression. "You knowsome on 'em, miss, don't yer?" And the old woman, who had begun toyingwith her potatoes, slanted her fork over her shoulder so as to pointtowards the Hurds' cottage, whereof the snow-laden roof could be seenconspicuously through the little lattice beside her, making sly eyes thewhile at her visitor. 

"I don't believe a word of it, " said Marcella, impatiently. "Hurd hasbeen in good work since October, and has no need to poach. Westall has adown on him. You may tell him I think so, if you like. "

"That I will, " said Mrs. Jellison, cheerfully, opening the door forthem. "There's nobody makes 'im 'ear the trëuth, nobbut me. I _loves_naggin' ov 'im, ee's that masterful. But ee don't master _me_!"

"A gay old thing, " said Wharton as they shut the gate behind them. "Howshe does enjoy the human spectacle. And obstinate too. But you will findthe younger ones more amenable. "

"Of course, " said Marcella, with dignity. "I have a great many namesalready. The old people are always difficult. But Mrs. Jellison willcome round. "

"Are you going in here?"

"Please. "

Wharton knocked at the Hurds' door, and Mrs. Hurd opened. 

The cottage was thick with smoke. The chimney only drew when the doorwas left open. But the wind to-day was so bitter that mother andchildren preferred the smoke to the draught. Marcella soon made out thepoor little bronchitic boy, sitting coughing by the fire, and Mrs. Hurdbusied with some washing. She introduced Wharton, who, as before, stoodfor some time, hat in hand, studying the cottage. Marcella was perfectlyconscious of it, and a blush rose to her cheek while she talked to Mrs. Hurd. For both this and Mrs. Jellison's hovel were her father's propertyand somewhat highly rented. 

Minta Hurd said eagerly that she would join the new straw-plaiting, andwent on to throw out a number of hurried, half-coherent remarks aboutthe state of the trade past and present, leaning meanwhile against thetable and endlessly drying her hands on the towel she had taken up whenher visitors came in. 

Her manner was often nervous and flighty in these days. She never lookedhappy; but Marcella put it down to health or natural querulousness ofcharacter. Yet both she and the children were clearly better nourished, except Willie, in whom the tubercular tendency was fast gaining on thechild's strength. 

Altogether Marcella was proud of her work, and her eager interest inthis little knot of people whose lives she had shaped was morepossessive than ever. Hurd, indeed, was often silent and secretive; butshe put down her difficulties with him to our odious system of classdifferences, against which in her own way she was struggling. One thingdelighted her--that he seemed to take more and more interest in thelabour questions she discussed with him, and in that fervid, exuberantliterature she provided him with. Moreover, he now went to all Mr. Wharton's meetings that were held within reasonable distance of Mellor;and, as she said to Aldous with a little laugh, which, however, was notunsweet, _he_ had found her man work--_she_ had robbed his candidate ofa vote. 

Wharton listened a while to her talk with Minta, smiled a little, unperceived of Marcella, at the young mother's docilities of manner andphrase; then turned his attention to the little hunched and coughingobject by the fire. 

"Are you very bad, little man?"

The white-faced child looked up, a dreary look, revealing a patient, melancholy soul. He tried to answer, but coughed instead. 

Wharton, moving towards him, saw a bit of ragged white paper lying onthe ground, which had been torn from a grocery parcel. 

"Would you like something to amuse you a bit--Ugh! this smoke! Comeround here, it won't catch us so much. _Now_, then, what do you say to adoggie, --two doggies?"

The child stared, let himself be lifted on the stranger's knee, and didhis very utmost to stop coughing. But when he had succeeded his quickpanting breaths still shook his tiny frame and Wharton's knee. 

"Hm--Give him two months or thereabouts!" thought Wharton. "What abeastly hole!--one room up, and one down, like the other, only a shadelarger. Damp, insanitary, cold--bad water, bad drainage, I'll bebound--bad everything. That girl may well try her little best. And I gomaking up to that man Boyce! What for? Old spites?--newspites?--which?--or both!"

Meanwhile his rapid skilful fingers were tearing, pinching, and shaping;and in a very few minutes there, upon his free knee, stood the mostenticing doggie of pinched paper, a hound in full course, with long earsand stretching legs. 

The child gazed at it with ravishment, put out a weird hand, touchedit, stroked it, and then, as he looked back at Wharton, the mostexquisite smile dawned in his saucer-blue eyes. 

"What? did you like it, grasshopper?" cried Wharton, enchanted by thebeauty of the look, his own colour mounting. "Then you shall haveanother. "

And he twisted and turned his piece of fresh paper, till there, besidethe first, stood a second fairy animal--a greyhound this time, witharching neck and sharp long nose. 

"There's two on 'em at Westall's!" cried the child, hoarsely, clutchingat his treasures in an ecstasy. 

Mrs. Hurd, at the other end of the cottage, started as she heard thename. Marcella noticed it; and with her eager sympathetic look began atonce to talk of Hurd and the works at the Court. She understood theywere doing grand things, and that the work would last all the winter. Minta answered hurriedly and with a curious choice of phrases. "Oh! hedidn't have nothing to say against it. " Mr. Brown, the steward, seemedsatisfied. All that she said was somehow irrelevant; and, to Marcella'sannoyance, plaintive as usual. Wharton, with the boy inside his arm, turned his head an instant to listen. 

Marcella, having thought of repeating, without names, some of Mrs. Jellison's gossip, then shrank from it. He had promised her, she thoughtto herself with a proud delicacy; and she was not going to treat theword of a working man as different from anybody else's. 

So she fastened her cloak again, which she had thrown open in thestifling air of the cottage, and turned both to call her companion andgive a smile or two to the sick boy. 

But, as she did so, she stood amazed at the spectacle of Wharton and thechild. Then, moving up to them, she perceived the menagerie--for it hadgrown to one--on Wharton's knee. 

"You didn't guess I had such tricks, " he said, smiling. 

"But they are so good--so artistic!" She took up a little gallopinghorse he had just fashioned and wondered at it. 

"A great-aunt taught me--she was a genius--I follow her at a longdistance. Will you let me go, young man? You may keep all of them. "

But the child, with a sudden contraction of the brow, flung a tinystick-like arm round his neck, pressing hard, and looking at him. Therewas a red spot in each wasted cheek, and his eyes were wide and happy. Wharton returned the look with one of quiet scrutiny--the scrutiny ofthe doctor or the philosopher. On Marcella's quick sense the contrast ofthe two heads impressed itself--the delicate youth of Wharton's with itsclustering curls--the sunken contours and the helpless suffering of theother. Then Wharton kissed the little fellow, put his animals carefullyon to a chair beside him, and set him down. 

They walked along the snowy street again, in a different relation toeach other. Marcella had been touched and charmed, and Wharton teasedher no more. As they reached the door of the almshouse where the oldPattons lived, she said to him: "I think I had rather go in here bymyself, please. I have some things to give them--old Patton has beenvery ill this last week--but I know what you think of doles--and I knowtoo what you think, what you must think, of my father's cottages. Itmakes me feel a hypocrite; yet I must do these things; we are different, you and I--I am sure you will miss your train!"

But there was no antagonism, only painful feeling in her softened look. 

Wharton put out his hand. 

"Yes, it is time for me to go. You say I make you feel a hypocrite! Iwonder whether you have any idea what you make me feel? Do you imagine Ishould dare to say the things I have said except to one of the _élite_?Would it be worth my while, as a social reformer? Are you not vowed togreat destinies? When one comes across one of the tools of the future, must one not try to sharpen it, out of one's poor resources, in spite ofmanners?"

Marcella, stirred--abashed--fascinated--let him press her hand. Then hewalked rapidly away towards the station, a faint smile twitching at hislip. 

"An inexperienced girl, " he said to himself, composedly. 

CHAPTER V. 

Before she went home, Marcella turned into the little rectory garden tosee if she could find Mary Harden for a minute or two. The intimacybetween them was such that she generally found entrance to the house bygoing round to a garden door and knocking or calling. The house was verysmall, and Mary's little sitting-room was close to this door. 

Her knock brought Mary instantly. 

"Oh! come in. You won't mind. We were just at dinner. Charles is goingaway directly. Do stay and talk to me a bit. "

Marcella hesitated, but at last went in. The meals at the rectorydistressed her--the brother and sister showed the marks of them. To-dayshe found their usual fare carefully and prettily arranged on a spotlesstable; some bread, cheese, and boiled rice--nothing else. Nor did theyallow themselves any fire for meals. Marcella, sitting beside them inher fur, did not feel the cold, but Mary was clearly shivering under hershawl. They eat meat twice a week, and in the afternoon Mary lit thesitting-room fire. In the morning she contented herself with thekitchen, where, as she cooked for many sick folk, and had only a girl offourteen whom she was training to help her with the housework, she hadgenerally much to do. 

The Rector did not stay long after her arrival. He had a distant visitto pay to a dying child, and hurried off so as to be home, if possible, before dark. Marcella admired him, but did not feel that she understoodhim more as they were better acquainted. He was slight and young, andnot very clever; but a certain inexpugnable dignity surrounded him, which, real as it was, sometimes irritated Marcella. It sat oddly on hisround face--boyish still, in spite of its pinched and anxious look--butthere it was, not to be ignored. Marcella thought him a Conservative, and very backward and ignorant in his political and social opinions. Butshe was perfectly conscious that she must also think him a saint; andthat the deepest things in him were probably not for her. 

Mr. Harden said a few words to her now as to her straw-plaiting scheme, which had his warmest sympathy--Marcella contrasted his tone gratefullywith that of Wharton, and once more fell happily in love with her ownideas--then he went off, leaving the two girls together. 

"Have you seen Mrs. Hurd this morning?" said Mary. 

"Yes, Willie seems very bad. "

Mary assented. 

"The doctor says he will hardly get through the winter, especially ifthis weather goes on. But the greatest excitement of the village justnow--do you know?--is the quarrel between Hurd and Westall. Somebodytold Charles yesterday that they never meet without threatening eachother. Since the covers at Tudley End were raided, Westall seems to havequite lost his head. He declares Hurd knew all about that, and that heis hand and glove with the same gang still. He vows he will catch himout, and Hurd told the man who told Charles that if Westall bullies himany more he will put a knife into him. And Charles says that Hurd is nota bit like he was. He used to be such a patient, silent creature. Now--"

"He has woke up to a few more ideas and a little more life than he had, that's all, " said Marcella, impatiently. "He poached last winter, andsmall blame to him. But since he got work at the Court in November--isit likely? He knows that he was suspected; and what could be hisinterest now, after a hard day's work, to go out again at night, and runthe risk of falling into Westall's clutches, when he doesn't want eitherthe food or the money?"

"I don't know, " said Mary, shaking her head. "Charles says, if they oncedo it, they hardly ever leave it off altogether. It's the excitement andamusement of it. "

"He promised me, " said Marcella, proudly. 

"They promise Charles all sorts of things, " said Mary, slyly; "but theydon't keep to them. "

Warmly grateful as both she and the Rector had been from the beginningto Marcella for the passionate interest she took in the place and thepeople, the sister was sometimes now a trifle jealous--divinelyjealous--for her brother. Marcella's unbounded confidence in her ownpower and right over Mellor, her growing tendency to ignore anybodyelse's right or power, sometimes set Mary aflame, for Charles's sake, heartily and humbly as she admired her beautiful friend. 

"I shall speak to Mr. Raeburn about it, " said Marcella. 

She never called him "Aldous" to anybody--a stiffness which jarred alittle upon the gentle, sentimental Mary. 

"I saw you pass, " she said, "from one of the top windows. He was withyou, wasn't he?"

A slight colour sprang to her sallow cheek, a light to her eyes. Mostwonderful, most interesting was this engagement to Mary, who--strange tothink!--had almost brought it about. Mr. Raeburn was to her one of thebest and noblest of men, and she felt quite simply, and with a sort ofChristian trembling for him, the romance of his great position. WasMarcella happy, was she proud of him, as she ought to be? Mary was oftenpuzzled by her. 

"Oh no!" said Marcella, with a little laugh. "That wasn't Mr. Raeburn. Idon't know where your eyes were, Mary. That was Mr. Wharton, who isstaying with us. He has gone on to a meeting at Widrington. "

Mary's face fell. 

"Charles says Mr. Wharton's influence in the village is very bad, " shesaid quickly. "He makes everybody discontented; sets everybody by theears; and, after all, what can he do for anybody?"

"But that's just what he wants to do--to make them discontented, " criedMarcella. "Then, if they vote for him, that's the first practical steptowards improving their life. "

"But it won't give them more wages or keep them out of the publichouse, " said Mary, bewildered. She came of a homely middle-class stock, accustomed to a small range of thinking, and a high standard of doing. Marcella's political opinions were an amazement, and on the whole ascandal to her. She preferred generally to give them a wide berth. 

Marcella did not reply. It was not worth while to talk to Mary on thesetopics. But Mary stuck to the subject a moment longer. 

"You can't want him to get in, though?" she said in a puzzled voice, asshe led the way to the little sitting-room across the passage, and tookher workbasket out of the cupboard. "It was only the week before lastMr. Raeburn was speaking at the schoolroom for Mr. Dodgson. You weren'tthere, Marcella?"

"No, " said Marcella, shortly. "I thought you knew perfectly well, Mary, that Mr. Raeburn and I don't agree politically. Certainly, I hope Mr. Wharton will get in!"

Mary opened her eyes in wonderment. She stared at Marcella, forgettingthe sock she had just slipped over her left hand, and the darning needlein her right. 

Marcella laughed. 

"I know you think that two people who are going to be married ought tosay ditto to each other in everything. Don't you--you dear old goose?"

She came and stood beside Mary, a stately and beautiful creature in herloosened furs. She stroked Mary's straight sandy hair back from herforehead. Mary looked up at her with a thrill, nay, a passionate throbof envy--soon suppressed. 

"I think, " she said steadily, "it is very strange--that love shouldoppose and disagree with what it loves. "

Marcella went restlessly towards the fire and began to examine thethings on the mantelpiece. 

"Can't people agree to differ, you sentimentalist? Can't they respecteach other, without echoing each other on every subject?"

"Respect!" cried Mary, with a sudden scorn, which was startling from acreature so soft. 

"There, she could tear me in pieces!" said Marcella, laughing, thoughher lip was not steady. "I wonder what you would be like, Mary, if youwere engaged. "

Mary ran her needle in and out with lightning speed for a second or two, then she said almost under her breath--

"I shouldn't be engaged unless I were in love. And if I were in love, why, I would go anywhere--do anything--believe anything--if _he_ toldme!"

"Believe anything?--Mary--you wouldn't!"

"I don't mean as to religion, " said Mary, hastily. "But everythingelse--I would give it all up!--governing one's self, thinking for one'sself. He should do it, and I would _bless_ him!"

She looked up crimson, drawing a very long breath, as though from somedeep centre of painful, passionate feeling. It was Marcella's turn tostare. Never had Mary so revealed herself before. 

"Did you ever love any one like that, Mary?" she asked quickly. 

Mary dropped her head again over her work and did not answerimmediately. 

"Do you see--" she said at last, with a change of tone, "do you seethat we have got our invitation?"

Marcella, about to give the rein to an eager curiosity Mary's manner hadexcited in her, felt herself pulled up sharply. When she chose, thislittle meek creature could put on the same unapproachableness as herbrother. Marcella submitted. 

"Yes, I see, " she said, taking up a card on the mantelpiece. "It will bea great crush. I suppose you know. They have asked the whole county, itseems to me. "

The card bore an invitation in Miss Raeburn's name for the Rector andhis sister to a dance at Maxwell Court--the date given was thetwenty-fifth of January. 

"What fun!" said Mary, her eye sparkling. "You needn't suppose that Iknow enough of balls to be particular. I have only been to one before inmy life--ever. That was at Cheltenham. An aunt took me--I didn't dance. There were hardly any men, but I enjoyed it. "

"Well, you shall dance this time, " said Marcella, "for I will make Mr. Raeburn introduce you. "

"Nonsense, you won't have any time to think about me. You will be thequeen--everybody will want to speak to you. I shall sit in a corner andlook at you--that will be enough for me. "

Marcella went up to her quickly and kissed her, then she said, stillholding her--

"I know you think I ought to be very happy, Mary!"

"I should think I do!" said Mary, with astonished emphasis, when thevoice paused--"I should think I do!"

"I _am_ happy--and I want to make him happy. But there are so manythings, so many different aims and motives, that complicate life, thatpuzzle one. One doesn't know how much to give of one's self, to each--"

She stood with her hand on Mary's shoulder, looking away towards thewindow and the snowy garden, her brow frowning and distressed. 

"Well, I don't understand, " said Mary, after a pause. "As I said before, it seems to me so plain and easy--to be in love, and give one's self_all_--to that. But you are so much cleverer than I, Marcella, you knowso much more. That makes the difference. I can't be like you. Perhaps Idon't want to be!"--and she laughed. "But I can admire you and love you, and think about you. There, now, tell me what you are going to wear?"

"White satin, and Mr. Raeburn wants me to wear some pearls he is goingto give me, some old pearls of his mother's. I believe I shall find themat Mellor when I get back. "

There was little girlish pleasure in the tone. It was as though Marcellathought her friend would be more interested in her bit of news than shewas herself, and was handing it on to her to please her. 

"Isn't there a superstition against doing that--before you're married?"said Mary, doubtfully. 

"As if I should mind if there was! But I don't believe there is, or MissRaeburn would have heard of it. She's a mass of such things. Well! Ihope I shall behave myself to please her at this function. There arenot many things I do to her satisfaction; it's a mercy we're not goingto live with her. Lord Maxwell is a dear; but she and I would never geton. Every way of thinking she has, rubs me up the wrong way; and as forher view of me, I am just a tare sown among her wheat. Perhaps she isright enough!"

Marcella leant her cheek pensively on one hand, and with the otherplayed with the things on the mantelpiece. 

Mary looked at her, and then half smiled, half sighed. 

"I think it is a very good thing you are to be married soon, " she said, with her little air of wisdom, which offended nobody. "Then you'll knowyour own mind. When is it to be?"

"The end of February--after the election. "

"Two months, " mused Mary. 

"Time enough to throw it all up in, you think?" said Marcella, recklessly, putting on her gloves for departure. "Perhaps you'll bepleased to hear that I _am_ going to a meeting of Mr. Raeburn's nextweek?"

"I _am_ glad. You ought to go to them all. "

"Really, Mary! How am I to lift you out of this squaw theory ofmatrimony? Allow me to inform you that the following evening I am goingto one of Mr. Wharton's--here in the schoolroom!"

She enjoyed her friend's disapproval. 

"By yourself, Marcella? It isn't seemly!"

"I shall take a maid. Mr. Wharton is going to tell us how the peoplecan--get the land, and how, when they have got it, all the money thatused to go in rent will go in taking off taxes and making lifecomfortable for the poor. " She looked at Mary with a teasing smile. 

"Oh! I dare say he will make his stealing sound very pretty, " said Mary, with unwonted scorn, as she opened the front door for her friend. 

Marcella flashed out. 

"I know you are a saint, Mary, " she said, turning back on the pathoutside to deliver her last shaft. "I am often not so sure whether youare a Christian!"

Then she hurried off without another word, leaving the flushed andshaken Mary to ponder this strange dictum. 

 * * * * *

Marcella was just turning into the straight drive which led past thechurch on the left to Mellor House, when she heard footsteps behind her, and, looking round, she saw Edward Hallin. 

"Will you give me some lunch, Miss Boyce, in return for a message? I amhere instead of Aldous, who is very sorry for himself, and will be overlater. I am to tell you that he went down to the station to meet acertain box. The box did not come, but will come this afternoon; so hewaits for it, and will bring it over. "

Marcella flushed, smiled, and said she understood. Hallin moved onbeside her, evidently glad of the opportunity of a talk with her. 

"We are all going together to the Gairsley meeting next week, aren't we?I am so glad you are coming. Aldous will do his best. "

There was something very winning in his tone to her. It implied bothhis old and peculiar friendship for Aldous, and his eager wish to find anew friend in her--to adopt her into their comradeship. Something verywinning, too, in his whole personality--in the loosely knit, nervousfigure, the irregular charm of feature, the benignant eyes andbrow--even in the suggestions of physical delicacy, cheerfullyconcealed, yet none the less evident. The whole balance of Marcella'stemper changed in some sort as she talked to him. She found herselfwanting to please, instead of wanting to conquer, to make an effect. 

"You have just come from the village, I think?" said Hallin. "Aldoustells me you take a great interest in the people?"

He looked at her kindly, the look of one who saw all hisfellow-creatures nobly, as it were, and to their best advantage. 

"One may take an interest, " she said, in a dissatisfied voice, poking atthe snow crystals on the road before her with the thorn-stick shecarried, "but one can do so little. And I don't know anything; not evenwhat I want myself. "

"No; one can do next to nothing. And systems and theories don't matter, or, at least, very little. Yet, when you and Aldous are together, therewill be more chance of _doing_, for you than for most. You will be twohappy and powerful people! His power will be doubled by happiness; Ihave always known that. "

Marcella was seized with shyness, looked away, and did not know what toanswer. At last she said abruptly--her head still turned to the woodson her left--

"Are you sure he is going to be happy?"

"Shall I produce his letter to me?" he said, bantering--"or letters? ForI knew a great deal about you before October 5" (their engagement-day), "and suspected what was going to happen long before Aldous did. No;after all, no! Those letters are my last bit of the old friendship. Butthe new began that same day, " he hastened to add, smiling: "It may bericher than the old; I don't know. It depends on you. "

"I don't think--I am a very satisfactory friend, " said Marcella, stillawkward, and speaking with difficulty. 

"Well, let me find out, won't you? I don't think Aldous would call meexacting. I believe he would give me a decent character, though I teasehim a good deal. You must let me tell you sometime what he did forme--what he was to me--at Cambridge? I shall always feel sorry forAldous's wife that she did not know him at college. "

A shock went through Marcella at the word--that tremendous word--wife. As Hallin said it, there was something intolerable in the claim it made!

"I should like you to tell me, " she said faintly. Then she added, withmore energy and a sudden advance of friendliness, "But you really mustcome in and rest. Aldous told me he thought the walk from the Court wastoo much for you. Shall we take this short way?"

And she opened a little gate leading to a door at the side of the housethrough the Cedar Garden. The narrow path only admitted of single file, and Hallin followed her, admiring her tall youth and the fine black andwhite of her head and cheek as she turned every now and then to speak tohim. He realised more vividly than before the rare, exciting elements ofher beauty, and the truth in Aldous's comparison of her to one of thetall women in a Florentine fresco. But he felt himself a good dealbaffled by her, all the same. In some ways, so far as any man who is notthe lover can understand such things, he understood why Aldous hadfallen in love with her; in others, she bore no relation whatever to thewoman his thoughts had been shaping all these years as his friend's fitand natural wife. 

Luncheon passed as easily as any meal could be expected to do, of whichMr. Boyce was partial president. During the preceding month or two hehad definitely assumed the character of an invalid, although toinexperienced eyes like Marcella's there did not seem to be very muchthe matter. But, whatever the facts might be, Mr. Boyce's adroit use ofthem had made a great difference to his position in his own household. His wife's sarcastic freedom of manner was less apparent; and he wasobviously less in awe of her. Meanwhile he was as sore as ever towardsthe Raeburns, and no more inclined to take any particular pleasure inMarcella's prospects, or to make himself agreeable towards his futureson-in-law. He and Mrs. Boyce had been formally asked in Miss Raeburn'sbest hand to the Court ball, but he had at once snappishly announced hisintention of staying at home. Marcella sometimes looked back withastonishment to his eagerness for social notice when they first came toMellor. Clearly the rising irritability of illness had made it doublyunpleasant to him to owe all that he was likely to get on that score tohis own daughter; and, moreover, he had learnt to occupy himself morecontinuously on his own land and with his own affairs. 

As to the state of the village, neither Marcella's entreaties norreproaches had any effect upon him. When it appeared certain that hewould be summoned for some specially flagrant piece of neglect he wouldspend a few shillings on repairs; otherwise not a farthing. All thatfilial softening towards him of which Marcella had been conscious in theearly autumn had died away in her. She said to herself now plainly andbitterly that it was a misfortune to belong to him; and she would havepitied her mother most heartily if her mother had ever allowed her thesmallest expression of such a feeling. As it was, she was left to wonderand chafe at her mother's new-born mildness. 

In the drawing-room, after luncheon, Hallin came up to Marcella in acorner, and, smiling, drew from his pocket a folded sheet of foolscap. 

"I made Aldous give me his speech to show you, before to-morrow night, "he said. "He would hardly let me take it, said it was stupid, and thatyou would not agree with it. But I wanted you to see how he does thesethings. He speaks now, on an average, two or three times a week. Eachtime, even for an audience of a score or two of village folk, he writesout what he has to say. Then he speaks it entirely without notes. Inthis way, though he has not much natural gift, he is making himselfgradually an effective and practical speaker. The danger with him, ofcourse, is lest he should be over-subtle and over-critical--not simpleand popular enough. "

Marcella took the paper half unwillingly and glanced over it in silence. 

"You are sorry he is a Tory, is that it?" he said to her, but in a lowervoice, and sitting down beside her. 

Mrs. Boyce, just catching the words from where she sat with her work, atthe further side of the room, looked up with a double wonder--wonder atMarcella's folly, wonder still more at the deference with which men likeAldous Raeburn and Hallin treated her. It was inevitable, ofcourse--youth and beauty rule the world. But the mother, under no spellherself, and of keen, cool wit, resented the intellectual confusion, thelowering of standards involved. 

"I suppose so, " said Marcella, stupidly, in answer to Hallin's question, fidgeting the papers under her hand. Then his curious confessor's gift, his quiet questioning look with its sensitive human interest to allbefore him, told upon her. 

"I am sorry he does not look further ahead, to the great changes thatmust come, " she added hurriedly. "This is all about details, palliatives. I want him to be more impatient. "

"Great political changes you mean?"

She nodded; then added--

"But only for the sake, of course, of great social changes to comeafter. "

He pondered a moment. 

"Aldous has never believed in _great_ changes coming suddenly. Heconstantly looks upon me as rash in the things _I_ adopt and believe in. But for the contriving, unceasing effort of every day to make that partof the social machine in which a man finds himself work better and moreequitably, I have never seen Aldous's equal--for the steady passion, thepersistence, of it. "

She looked up. His pale face had taken to itself glow and fire; his eyeswere full of strenuous, nay, severe expression. Her foolish priderebelled a little. 

"Of course, I haven't seen much of that yet, " she said slowly. 

His look for a moment was indignant, incredulous, then melted into acharming eagerness. 

"But you will! naturally you will!--see everything. I hug myselfsometimes now for pure pleasure that some one besides his grandfatherand I will know what Aldous is and does. Oh! the people on the estateknow; his neighbours are beginning to know; and now that he is goinginto Parliament, the country will know some day, if work and highintelligence have the power I believe. But I am impatient! In the firstplace--I may say it to you, Miss Boyce!--I want Aldous to come out ofthat _manner_ of his to strangers, which is the only bit of the trueTory in him; _you_ can get rid of it, no one else can--How long shall Igive you?--And in the next, I want the world not to be wasting itself onbaser stuff when it might be praising Aldous!"

"Does he mean Mr. Wharton?" thought Marcella, quickly. "But thisworld--our world--hates him and runs him down. "

But she had no time to answer, for the door opened to admit Aldous, flushed and bright-eyed, looking round the room immediately for her, andbearing a parcel in his left hand. 

"Does she love him at all?" thought Hallin, with a nervous stiffening ofall his lithe frame, as he walked away to talk to Mrs. Boyce, "or, inspite of all her fine talk, is she just marrying him for his money andposition!"

Meanwhile, Aldous had drawn Marcella into the Stone Parlour and wasstanding by the fire with his arm covetously round her. 

"I have lost two hours with you I might have had, just because atiresome man missed his train. Make up for it by liking these prettythings a little, for my sake and my mother's. "

He opened the jeweller's case, took out the fine old pearls--necklaceand bracelets--it contained, and put them into her hand. They were hisfirst considerable gift to her, and had been chosen for association'ssake, seeing that his mother had also worn them before her marriage. 

She flushed first of all with a natural pleasure, the girl delighting inher gaud. Then she allowed herself to be kissed, which was, indeed, inevitable. Finally she turned them over and over in her hands; and hebegan to be puzzled by her. 

"They are much too good for me. I don't know whether you ought to giveme such precious things. I am dreadfully careless and forgetful. Mammaalways says so. "

"I shall want you to wear them so often that you won't have a chance offorgetting them, " he said gaily. 

"Will you? Will you want me to wear them so often?" she asked, in an oddvoice. "Anyway, I should like to have just these, and nothing else. I amglad that we know nobody, and have no friends, and that I shall have sofew presents. You won't give me many jewels, will you?" she saidsuddenly, insistently, turning to him. "I shouldn't know what to do withthem. I used to have a magpie's wish for them; and now--I don't know, but they don't give me pleasure. Not these, of course--not these!" sheadded hurriedly, taking them up and beginning to fasten the bracelets onher wrists. 

Aldous looked perplexed. 

"My darling!" he said, half laughing, and in the tone of the apologist, "You know we _have_ such a lot of things. And I am afraid my grandfatherwill want to give them all to you. Need one think so much about it? Itisn't as though they had to be bought fresh. They go with pretty gowns, don't they, and other people like to see them?"

"No, but it's what they imply--the wealth--the _having_ so much whileother people want so much. Things begin to oppress me so!" she brokeout, instinctively moving away from him that she might express herselfwith more energy. "I like luxuries so desperately, and when I get them Iseem to myself now the vulgarest creature alive, who has no right to anopinion or an enthusiasm, or anything else worth having. You must notlet me like them--you must help me not to care about them!"

Raeburn's eye as he looked at her was tenderness itself. He could ofcourse neither mock her, nor put what she said aside. This question shehad raised, this most thorny of all the personal questions of thepresent--the ethical relation of the individual to the World's Fair andits vanities--was, as it happened, a question far more sternly androbustly real to him than it was to her. Every word in his fewsentences, as they stood talking by the fire, bore on it for a practisedear the signs of a long wrestle of the heart. 

But to Marcella it sounded tame; her ear was haunted by the fragments ofanother tune which she seemed to be perpetually trying to recall andpiece together. Aldous's slow minor made her impatient. 

He turned presently to ask her what she had been doing with hermorning--asking her with a certain precision, and observing herattentively. She replied that she had been showing Mr. Wharton thehouse, that he had walked down with her to the village, and was gone toa meeting at Widrington. Then she remarked that he was very goodcompany, and very clever, but dreadfully sure of his own opinion. Finally she laughed, and said drily:

"There will be no putting him down all the same. I haven't told anybodyyet, but he saved my life this morning. "

Aldous caught her wrists. 

"Saved your life! Dear--What do you mean?"

She explained, giving the little incident all--perhaps more than--itsdramatic due. He listened with evident annoyance, and stood ponderingwhen she came to an end. 

"So I shall be expected to take quite a different view of himhenceforward?" he inquired at last, looking round at her, with a veryforced smile. 

"I am sure I don't know that it matters to him what view anybody takesof him, " she cried, flushing. "He certainly takes the frankest views ofother people, and expresses them. "

And while she played with the pearls in their box she gave a vividaccount of her morning's talk with the Radical candidate for WestBrookshire, and of their village expedition. 

There was a certain relief in describing the scorn with which her actsand ideals had been treated; and, underneath, a woman's curiosity as tohow Aldous would take it. 

"I don't know what business he had to express himself so frankly, " saidAldous, turning to the fire and carefully putting it together. "Hehardly knows you--it was, I think, an impertinence. "

He stood upright, with his back to the hearth, a strong, capable, frowning Englishman, very much on his dignity. Such a moment must surelyhave become him in the eyes of a girl that loved him. Marcella provedrestive under it. 

"No; it's very natural, " she protested quickly. "When people are so muchin earnest they don't stop to think about impertinence! I never met anyone who dug up one's thoughts by the roots as he does. "

Aldous was startled by her flush, her sudden attitude of opposition. Hisintermittent lack of readiness overtook him, and there was an awkwardsilence. Then, pulling himself together with a strong hand, he left thesubject and began to talk of her straw-plaiting scheme, of the Gairsleymeeting, and of Hallin. But in the middle Marcella unexpectedly said:

"I wish you would tell me, seriously, what reasons you have for notliking Mr. Wharton?--other than politics, I mean?"

Her black eyes fixed him with a keen insistence. 

He was silent a moment with surprise; then he said:

"I had rather not rake up old scores. "

She shrugged her shoulders, and he was roused to come and put his armround her again, she shrinking and turning her reddened face away. 

"Dearest, " he said, "you shall put me in charity with all the world. Butthe worst of it is, " he added, half laughing, "that I don't see how I amto help disliking him doubly henceforward for having had the luck to putthat fire out instead of me!"

CHAPTER VI. 

A few busy and eventful weeks, days never forgotten by Marcella in afteryears, passed quickly by. Parliament met in the third week of January. Ministers, according to universal expectation, found themselvesconfronted by a damaging amendment on the Address, and were defeated bya small majority. A dissolution and appeal to the country followedimmediately, and the meetings and speech-makings, already activethroughout the constituencies, were carried forward with redoubledenergy. In the Tudley End division, Aldous Raeburn was fighting asomewhat younger opponent of the same country-gentleman stock--a formerfag indeed of his at Eton--whose zeal and fluency gave him plenty to do. Under ordinary circumstances Aldous would have thrown himself with allhis heart and mind into a contest which involved for him the moststimulating of possibilities, personal and public. But, as these dayswent over, he found his appetite for the struggle flagging, and washarassed rather than spurred by his adversary's activity. The real truthwas that he could not see enough of Marcella! A curious uncertainty andunreality, moreover, seemed to have crept into some of their relations;and it had begun to gall and fever him that Wharton should be stayingthere, week after week, beside her, in her father's house, able tospend all the free intervals of the fight in her society, strengtheningan influence which Raeburn's pride and delicacy had hardly allowed himas yet, in spite of his instinctive jealousy from the beginning, to takeinto his thoughts at all, but which was now apparent, not only tohimself but to others. 

In vain did he spend every possible hour at Mellor he could snatch froma conflict in which his party, his grandfather, and his own personalfortunes were all deeply interested. In vain--with a tardy instinct thatit was to Mr. Boyce's dislike of himself, and to the wilful fancy forWharton's society which this dislike had promoted, that Wharton's longstay at Mellor was largely owing--did Aldous subdue himself topropitiations and amenities wholly foreign to a strong character longaccustomed to rule without thinking about it. Mr. Boyce showed himselfnot a whit less partial to Wharton than before; pressed him at leasttwice in Raeburn's hearing to make Mellor his head-quarters so long asit suited him, and behaved with an irritable malice with regard to someof the details of the wedding arrangements, which neither Mrs. Boyce'sindignation nor Marcella's discomfort and annoyance could restrain. Clearly there was in him a strong consciousness that by his attentionsto the Radical candidate he was asserting his independence of theRaeburns, and nothing for the moment seemed to be more of an object withhim, even though his daughter was going to marry the Raeburns' heir. Meanwhile, Wharton was always ready to walk or chat or play billiardswith his host in the intervals of his own campaign; and his society hadthus come to count considerably among the scanty daily pleasures of asickly and disappointed man. Mrs. Boyce did not like her guest, and tookno pains to disguise it, least of all from Wharton. But it seemed to beno longer possible for her to take the vigorous measures she would oncehave taken to get rid of him. 

In vain, too, did Miss Raeburn do her best for the nephew to whom shewas still devoted, in spite of his deplorable choice of a wife. She tookin the situation as a whole probably sooner than anybody else, and sheinstantly made heroic efforts to see more of Marcella, to get her tocome oftener to the Court, and in many various ways to procure the poordeluded Aldous more of his betrothed's society. She paid many chatteringand fussy visits to Mellor--visits which chafed Marcella--and beforelong, indeed, roused a certain suspicion in the girl's wilful mind. Between Miss Raeburn and Mrs. Boyce there was a curious understanding. It was always tacit, and never amounted to friendship, still less tointimacy. But it often yielded a certain melancholy consolation toAldous Raeburn's great-aunt. It was clear to her that this strangemother was just as much convinced as she was that Aldous was making agreat mistake, and that Marcella was not worthy of him. But theengagement being there--a fact not apparently to be undone--both ladiesshowed themselves disposed to take pains with it, to protect it againstaggression. Mrs. Boyce found herself becoming more of a _chaperon_ thanshe had ever yet professed to be; and Miss Raeburn, as we have said, made repeated efforts to capture Marcella and hold her for Aldous, herlawful master. 

But Marcella proved extremely difficult to manage. In the first placeshe was a young person of many engagements. Her village scheme absorbeda great deal of time. She was deep in a varied correspondence, in theengagement of teachers, the provision of work-rooms, the collecting andregistering of workers, the organisation of local committees and soforth. New sides of the girl's character, new capacities andcapabilities were coming out; new forms of her natural power over herfellows were developing every day; she was beginning, under theincessant stimulus of Wharton's talk, to read and think on social andeconomic subjects, with some system and coherence, and it was evidentthat she took a passionate mental pleasure in it all. And the morepleasure these activities gave her, the less she had to spare for thoseaccompaniments of her engagement and her position that was to be, whichonce, as Mrs. Boyce's sharp eyes perceived, had been quite normallyattractive to her. 

"Why do you take up her time so, with all these things?" said MissRaeburn impatiently to Lady Winterbourne, who was now Marcella'sobedient helper in everything she chose to initiate. "She doesn't carefor anything she _ought_ to care about at this time, and Aldous seesnothing of her. As for her trousseau, Mrs. Boyce declares she has had todo it all. Marcella won't even go up to London to have her wedding-dressfitted!"

Lady Winterbourne looked up bewildered. 

"But I can't make her go and have her wedding-dress fitted, Agneta! AndI always feel you don't know what a fine creature she is. You don'treally appreciate her. It's splendid the ideas she has about this work, and the way she throws herself into it. "

"I dare say!" said Miss Raeburn, indignantly. "That's just what I objectto. Why can't she throw herself into being in love with Aldous! That'sher business, I imagine, just now--if she were a young woman likeanybody else one had ever seen--instead of holding aloof from everythinghe does, and never being there when he wants her. Oh! I have no patiencewith her. But, of course, I must--" said Miss Raeburn, hastilycorrecting herself--"of course, I must have patience. "

"It will all come right, I am sure, when they are married, " said LadyWinterbourne, rather helplessly. 

"That's just what my brother says, " cried Miss Raeburn, exasperated. "Hewon't hear a word--declares she is odd and original, and that Aldouswill soon know how to manage her. It's all very well; nowadays men_don't_ manage their wives; that's all gone with the rest. And I amsure, my dear, if she behaves after she is married as she is doing now, with that most objectionable person Mr. Wharton--walking, and talking, and taking up his ideas, and going to his meetings--she'll be a handfulfor any husband. "

"Mr. Wharton!" said Lady Winterbourne, astonished. Her absent blackeyes, the eyes of the dreamer, of the person who lives by a few intenseaffections, saw little or nothing of what was going on immediately underthem. "Oh! but that is because he is staying in the house, and he is aSocialist; she calls herself one--"

"My _dear_, " said Miss Raeburn, interrupting emphatically;"if--you--had--now--an unmarried daughter at home--engaged or not--wouldyou care to have Harry Wharton hanging about after her?"

"Harry Wharton?" said the other, pondering; "he is the Levens' cousin, isn't he? he used to stay with them. I don't think I have seen him sincethen. But yes, I do remember; there was something--somethingdisagreeable?"

She stopped with a hesitating, interrogative air. No one talked lessscandal, no one put the uglinesses of life away from her with a hastierhand than Lady Winterbourne. She was one of the most consistent of moralepicures. 

"Yes, _extremely_ disagreeable, " said Miss Raeburn, sitting boltupright. "The man has no principles--never had any, since he was a childin petticoats. I know Aldous thinks him unscrupulous in politics andeverything else. And then, just when you are worked to death, and havehardly a moment for your own affairs, to have a man of that type alwaysat hand to spend odd times with your lady love--flattering her, engagingher in his ridiculous schemes, encouraging her in all the extravagancesshe has got her head twice too full of already, setting her against yourown ideas and the life she will have to live--you will admit that it isnot exactly soothing!"

"Poor Aldous!" said Lady Winterbourne, thoughtfully, looking far aheadwith her odd look of absent rigidity, which had in reality so little todo with a character essentially soft; "but you see he _did_ know allabout her opinions. And I don't think--no, I really don't think--I couldspeak to her. "

In truth, this woman of nearly seventy--old in years, but wholly youngin temperament--was altogether under Marcella's spell--more at ease withher already than with most of her own children, finding in hersatisfaction for a hundred instincts, suppressed or starved by her ownenvironment, fascinated by the girl's friendship, and eagerly gratefulfor her visits. Miss Raeburn thought it all both incomprehensible andsilly. 

"Apparently no one can!" cried that lady in answer to her friend'sdemurrer; "is all the world afraid of her?"

And she departed in wrath. But she knew, nevertheless, that she was justas much afraid of Marcella as anybody else. In her own sphere at theCourt, or in points connected with what was due to the family, or toLord Maxwell especially, as the head of it, this short, capable old ladycould hold her own amply with Aldous's betrothed, could maintain, indeed, a sharp and caustic dignity, which kept Marcella very much inorder. Miss Raeburn, on the defensive, was strong; but when it came toattacking Marcella's own ideas and proceedings, Lord Maxwell's sisterbecame shrewdly conscious of her own weaknesses. She had no wish tomeasure her wits on any general field with Marcella's. She said toherself that the girl was too clever and would talk you down. 

Meanwhile, things went untowardly in various ways. Marcella disciplinedherself before the Gairsley meeting, and went thither resolved to giveAldous as much sympathy as she could. But the performance only repelleda mind over which Wharton was every day gaining more influence. Therewas a portly baronet in the chair; there were various Primrose Dames onthe platform and among the audience; there was a considerablerepresentation of clergy; and the labourers present seemed to Marcellathe most obsequious of their kind. Aldous spoke well--or so the audienceseemed to think; but she could feel no enthusiasm for anything that hesaid. She gathered that he advocated a Government inspection ofcottages, more stringent precautions against cattle disease, bettertechnical instruction, a more abundant provision of allotments and smallfreeholds, &c. ; and he said many cordial and wise-sounding things inpraise of a progress which should go safely and wisely from step tostep, and run no risks of dangerous reaction. But the assumptions onwhich, as she told herself rebelliously, it all went--that the rich andthe educated must rule, and the poor obey; that existing classes andrights, the forces of individualism and competition, must and would goon pretty much as they were; that great houses and great people, theEnglish land and game system, and all the rest of our odious classparaphernalia were in the order of the universe; these ideas, conceivedas the furniture of Aldous's mind, threw her again into a ferment ofpassionate opposition. And when the noble baronet in the chair--to hereye, a pompous, frock-coated stick, sacrificing his after-dinner sleepfor once, that he might the more effectually secure it in thefuture--proposed a vote of confidence in the Conservative candidate;when the vote was carried with much cheering and rattling of feet; whenthe Primrose Dames on the platform smiled graciously down upon themeeting as one smiles at good children in their moments of prettybehaviour; and when, finally, scores of toil-stained labourers, youngand old, went up to have a word and a hand-shake with "Muster Raeburn, "Marcella held herself aloof and cold, with a look that threatenedsarcasm should she be spoken to. Miss Raeburn, glancing furtively roundat her, was outraged anew by her expression. 

"She will be a thorn in all our sides, " thought that lady. "Aldous is afool!--a poor dear noble misguided fool!"

Then on the way home, she and Aldous drove together. Marcella tried toargue, grew vehement, and said bitter things for the sake of victory, till at last Aldous, tired, worried, and deeply wounded, could bear itno longer. 

"Let it be, dear, let it be!" he entreated, snatching at her hand asthey rolled along through a stormy night. "We grope in a dark world--yousee some points of light in it, I see others--won't you give me creditfor doing what I can--seeing what I can? I am sure--_sure_--you willfind it easier to bear with differences when we are quite together--whenthere are no longer all these hateful duties and engagements--andpersons--between us. "

"Persons! I don't know what you mean!" said Marcella. 

Aldous only just restrained himself in time. Out of sheer fatigue andslackness of nerve he had been all but betrayed into some angry speechon the subject of Wharton, the echoes of whose fantastic talk, as itseemed to him, were always hanging about Mellor when he went there. Buthe did refrain, and was thankful. That he was indeed jealous anddisturbed, that he had been jealous and disturbed from the moment HarryWharton had set foot in Mellor, he himself knew quite well. But to playthe jealous part in public was more than the Raeburn pride could bear. There was the dread, too, of defining the situation--of striking somevulgar irrevocable note. 

So he parried Marcella's exclamation by asking her whether she had anyidea how many human hands a parliamentary candidate had to shake betweenbreakfast and bed; and then, having so slipped into another tone, hetried to amuse himself and her by some of the daily humours of thecontest. She lent herself to it and laughed, her look mostly turned awayfrom him, as though she were following the light of the carriage lampsas it slipped along the snow-laden hedges, her hand lying limply in his. But neither were really gay. His soreness of mind grew as in the pausesof talk he came to realise more exactly the failure of the evening--ofhis very successful and encouraging meeting--from his own private pointof view. 

"Didn't you like that last speech?" he broke out suddenly--"thatlabourer's speech? I thought you would. It was entirely his ownidea--nobody asked him to do it. "

In reality Gairsley represented a corner of the estate which Aldous hadspecially made his own. He had spent much labour and thought on theimprovement of what had been a backward district, and in particular hehad tried a small profit-sharing experiment upon a farm there which hehad taken into his own hands for the purpose. The experiment had metwith fair success, and the labourer in question, who was one of theworkers in it, had volunteered some approving remarks upon it at themeeting. 

"Oh! it was very proper and respectful!" said Marcella, hastily. 

The carriage rolled on some yards before Aldous replied. Then he spokein a drier tone than he had ever yet used to her. 

"You do it injustice, I think. The man is perfectly independent, and anhonest fellow. I was grateful to him for what he said. "

"Of course, I am no judge!" cried Marcella, quickly--repentantly. "Whydid you ask me? I saw everything crooked, I suppose--it was yourPrimrose Dames--they got upon my nerves. Why did you have them? I didn'tmean to vex and hurt you--I didn't indeed--it was all the other way--andnow I have. "

She turned upon him laughing, but also half crying, as he could tell bythe flutter of her breath. 

He vowed he was not hurt, and once more changed both talk and tone. Theyreached the drive's end without a word of Wharton. But Marcella went tobed hating herself, and Aldous, after his solitary drive home, sat uplong and late, feverishly pacing and thinking. 

 * * * * *

Then next evening how differently things fell!

Marcella, having spent the afternoon at the Court, hearing all thefinal arrangements for the ball, and bearing with Miss Raeburn in a waywhich astonished herself, came home full of a sense of duty done, andannounced to her mother that she was going to Mr. Wharton's meeting inthe Baptist chapel that evening. 

"Unnecessary, don't you think?" said Mrs. Boyce, lifting her eyebrows. "However, if you go, I shall go with you. "

Most mothers, dealing with a girl of twenty-one, under thecircumstances, would have said, "I had rather you stayed at home. " Mrs. Boyce never employed locutions of this kind. She recognised with perfectcalmness that Marcella's bringing up, and especially her independentyears in London, had made it impossible. 

Marcella fidgeted. 

"I don't know why you should, mamma. Papa will be sure to want you. Ofcourse, I shall take Deacon. "

"Please order dinner a quarter of an hour earlier, and tell Deacon tobring down my walking things to the hall, " was all Mrs. Boyce said inanswer. 

Marcella walked upstairs with her head very stiff. So her mother, andMiss Raeburn too, thought it necessary to keep watch on her. Howpreposterous! She thought of her free and easy relations with herKensington student-friends, and wondered when a more reasonable idea ofthe relations between men and women would begin to penetrate Englishcountry society. 

Mr. Boyce talked recklessly of going too. 

"Of course, I know he will spout seditious nonsense, " he said irritablyto his wife, "but it's the fellow's power of talk that is soastonishing. _He_ isn't troubled with your Raeburn heaviness. "

Marcella came into the room as the discussion was going on. 

"If papa goes, " she said in an undertone to her mother as she passedher, "it will spoil the meeting. The labourers will turn sulky. Ishouldn't wonder if they did or said something unpleasant. As it is, _you_ had much better not come, mamma. They are sure to attack thecottages--and other things. "

Mrs. Boyce took no notice as far as she herself was concerned, but herquiet decision at last succeeded in leaving Mr. Boyce safely settled bythe fire, provided as usual with a cigarette and a French novel. 

The meeting was held in a little iron Baptist chapel, erected some fewyears before on the outskirts of the village, to the grief and scandalof Mr. Harden. There were about a hundred and twenty labourers present, and at the back some boys and girls, come to giggle and make anoise--nobody else. The Baptist minister, a smooth-faced young man, possessed, as it turned out, of opinions little short of Wharton's ownin point of vigour and rigour, was already in command. A few latecomers, as they slouched in, stole side looks at Marcella and the veiledlady in black beside her, sitting in the corner of the last bench; andMarcella nodded to one or two of the audience, Jim Hurd amongst them. Otherwise no one took any notice of them. It was the first time thatMrs. Boyce had been inside any building belonging to the village. 

Wharton arrived late. He had been canvassing at a distance, and neitherof the Mellor ladies had seen him all day. He slipped up the bench witha bow and a smile to greet them. "I am done!" he said to Marcella, as hetook off his hat. "My voice is gone, my mind ditto. I shall drivel forhalf an hour and let them go. Did you ever see such a stolid set?"

"You will rouse them, " said Marcella. 

Her eyes were animated, her colour high, and she took no account at allof his plea of weariness. 

"You challenge me? I must rouse them--that was what you came to see? Isthat it?"

She laughed and made no answer. He left her and went up to theminister's desk, the men shuffling their feet a little, and rattling astick here and there as he did so. 

The young minister took the chair and introduced the speaker. He had astrong Yorkshire accent, and his speech was divided between the mostvehement attacks, couched in the most Scriptural language, upon capitaland privilege--that is to say, on landlords and the land system, onState churches and the "idle rich, " interspersed with quavering returnsupon himself, as though he were scared by his own invective. "Mybrothers, let us be _calm_!" he would say after every burst of passion, with a long deep-voiced emphasis on the last word; "let us, above allthings, be _calm_!"--and then bit by bit voice and denunciation wouldbegin to mount again towards a fresh climax of loud-voiced attack, onlyto sink again to the same lamb-like refrain. Mrs. Boyce's thin liptwitched, and Marcella bore the good gentleman a grudge for providingher mother with so much unnecessary amusement. 

As for Wharton, at the opening of his speech he spoke both awkwardly andflatly; and Marcella had a momentary shock. He was, as he said, tired, and his wits were not at command. He began with the general politicalprogramme of the party to which--on its extreme left wing--he proclaimedhimself to belong. This programme was, of course, by now a newspapercommonplace of the stalest sort. He himself recited it withoutenthusiasm, and it was received without a spark, so far as appeared, ofinterest or agreement. The minister gave an "hear, hear, " of a loudofficial sort; the men made no sign. 

"They might be a set of Dutch cheeses!" thought Marcella, indignantly, after a while. "But, after all, why should they care for all this? Ishall have to get up in a minute and stop those children romping. "

But through all this, as it were, Wharton was only waiting for hissecond wind. There came a moment when, dropping his quasi-official andhigh political tone, he said suddenly with another voice and emphasis:

"Well now, my men, I'll be bound you're thinking, 'That's all prettyenough!--we haven't got anything against it--we dare say it's all right;but we don't care a brass ha'porth about any of it! If that's all you'dgot to say to us, you might have let us bide at home. We don't have nonetoo much time to rest our bones a bit by the fire, and talk to themissus and the kids. Why didn't you let us alone, instead of bringing usout in the cold?'

"Well, but it _isn't_ all I've got to say--and you know it--becauseI've spoken to you before. What I've been talking about is all true, andall important, and you'll see it some day when you're fit. But what canmen in your position know about it, or care about it? What do any of youwant, but _bread_--"

--He thundered on the desk--

"--a bit of decent _comfort_--a bit of _freedom_--freedom from tyrantswho call themselves your betters!--a bit of rest in your old age, a homethat's something better than a dog-hole, a wage that's something betterthan starvation, an honest share in the wealth you are making every dayand every hour for other people to gorge and plunder!"

He stopped a moment to see how _that_ took. A knot of young men in acorner rattled their sticks vigorously. The older men had begun at anyrate to look at the speaker. The boys on the back benches instinctivelystopped scuffling. 

Then he threw himself into a sort of rapid question-and-answer. Whatwere their wages?--eleven shillings a week?

"Not they!" cried a man from the middle of the chapel. "Yer mus' reckonit wet an' dry. I wor turned back two days las' week, an' two days this, _fower_ shillin' lost each week--that's what I call skinnin' ov yer. "

Wharton nodded at him approvingly. By now he knew the majority of themen in each village by name, and never forgot a face or a biography. "You're right there, Watkins. Eleven shillings, then, when it isn'tless, never more, and precious often less; and harvest money--thepeople that are kind enough to come round and ask you to vote Tory forthem make a deal of that, don't they?--and a few odds and ends here andthere--precious few of them! There! that's about it for wages, isn't it?Thirty pounds a year, somewhere about, to keep a wife and childrenon--and for ten hours a day work, not counting meal times--that's it, Ithink. Oh, you _are_ well off!--aren't you?"

He dropped his arms, folded, on the desk in front of him, and paused tolook at them, his bright kindling eye running over rank after rank. Achuckle of rough laughter, bitter and jeering, ran through the benches. Then they broke out and applauded him. 

Well, and about their cottages?

His glance caught Marcella, passed to her mother sitting stifflymotionless under her veil. He drew himself up, thought a moment, thenthrew himself far forward again over the desk as though the better tolaunch what he had to say, his voice taking a grinding determined note. 

He had been in all parts of the division, he said; seen everything, inquired into everything. No doubt, on the great properties there hadbeen a good deal done of late years--public opinion had effectedsomething, the landlords had been forced to disgorge some of the gainswrested from labour, to pay for the decent housing of the labourer. Butdid anybody suppose that _enough_ had been done? Why, he had seen_dens_--aye, on the best properties--not fit for the pigs that thefarmers wouldn't let the labourers keep, lest they should steal theirstraw for the littering of them!--where a man was bound to live thelife of a beast, and his children after him--

A tall thin man of about sixty rose in his place, and pointed a longquavering finger at the speaker. 

"What is it, Darwin? speak up!" said Wharton, dropping at once into thecolloquial tone, and stooping forward to listen. 

"My sleepin' room's six foot nine by seven foot six. We have to shiftour bed for the rain's comin' in, an' yer may see for yoursels therain't much room to shift it in. An' beyont us ther's a room for thechillen, same size as ourn, an' no window, nothin' but the door into us. Ov a summer night the chillen, three on 'em, is all of a sweat aforethey're asleep. An' no garden, an' no chance o' decent ways nohow. An'if yer ask for a bit o' repairs yer get sworn at. An' that's all thatmost on us can get out of Squire Boyce!"

There was a hasty whisper among some of the men round him, as theyglanced over their shoulders at the two ladies on the back bench. One ortwo of them half rose, and tried to pull him down. Wharton looked atMarcella; it seemed to him he saw a sort of passionate satisfaction onher pale face, and in the erect carriage of her head. Then she stoopedto the side and whispered to her mother. Mrs. Boyce shook her head andsat on, immovable. All this took but a second or two. 

"Ah, well, " said Wharton, "we won't have names; that'll do us no good. It's not the _men_ you've got to go for so much--though we shall go forthem too before long when we've got the law more on our side. It's thesystem. It's the whole way of dividing the wealth that _you_ made, youand your children--by your work, your hard, slavish, incessantwork--between you and those who _don't_ work, who live on your labourand grow fat on your poverty! What we want is _a fair division_. There_ought_ to be wealth enough--there _is_ wealth enough for all in thisblessed country. The earth gives it; the sun gives it: labour extractsand piles it up. Why should one class take three-fourths of it and leaveyou and your fellow-workers in the cities the miserable pittance whichis all you have to starve and breed on? Why?--_why_? I say. Why!--because you are a set of dull, jealous, poor-spirited _cowards_, unable to pull together, to trust each other, to give up so much as apot of beer a week for the sake of your children and your liberties andyour class--there, _that's_ why it is, and I tell it you straight out!"

He drew himself up, folded his arms across his chest, and looked atthem--scorn and denunciation in every line of his young frame, and theblaze of his blue eye. A murmur ran through the room. Some of the menlaughed excitedly. Darwin sprang up again. 

"You keep the perlice off us, an' gie us the cuttin' up o' theirbloomin' parks an' we'll do it fast enough, " he cried. 

"Much good that'll do you, just at present, " said Wharton, contemptuously. "Now, you just listen to me. "

And, leaning forward over the desk again, his finger pointed at theroom, he went through the regular Socialist programme as it affects thecountry districts--the transference of authority within the villagesfrom the few to the many, the landlords taxed more and more heavilyduring the transition time for the provision of house room, water, light, education and amusement for the labourer; and ultimately land andcapital at the free disposal of the State, to be supplied to the workeron demand at the most moderate terms, while the annexed rent andinterest of the capitalist class relieves him of taxes, and thedisappearance of squire, State parson, and plutocrat leaves him masterin his own house, the slave of no man, the equal of all. And, as a firststep to this new Jerusalem--_organisation_!--self-sacrifice enough toform and maintain a union, to vote for Radical and Socialist candidatesin the teeth of the people who have coals and blankets to give away. 

"Then I suppose you think you'd be turned out of your cottages, dismissed your work, made to smart for it somehow. Just you try! Thereare people all over the country ready to back you, if you'd only backyourselves. But you _won't_. You won't fight--that's the worst of you;that's what makes all of us _sick_ when we come down to talk to you. Youwon't spare twopence halfpenny a week from boozing--not you!--tosubscribe to a union, and take the first little step towards fillingyour stomachs and holding your heads up as free men. What's the good ofyour grumbling? I suppose you'll go on like that--grumbling and starvingand cringing--and talking big of the things you could do if youwould:--and all the time not one honest effort--not one!--to betteryourselves, to pull the yoke off your necks! By the Lord! I tell youit's a _damned_ sort of business talking to fellows like you!"

Marcella started as he flung the words out with a bitter, nay, a brutal, emphasis. The smooth-faced minister coughed loudly with a suddenmovement, half got up to remonstrate, and then thought better of it. Mrs. Boyce for the first time showed some animation under her veil. Hereyes followed the speaker with a quick attention. 

As for the men, as they turned clumsily to stare at, to laugh, or talkto each other, Marcella could hardly make out whether they were angeredor fascinated. Whichever it was, Wharton cared for none of them. Hisblood was up; his fatigue thrown off. Standing there in front of them, his hands in his pockets, pale with the excitement of speaking, hiscurly head thrown out against the whitened wall of the chapel, he lashedinto the men before him, talking their language, their dialect even;laying bare their weaknesses, sensualities, indecisions; painting in thesombrest colours the grim truths of their melancholy lives. 

Marcella could hardly breathe. It seemed to her that, among thesecottagers, she had never lived till now--under the blaze of theseeyes--within the vibration of this voice. Never had she so realised thepower of this singular being. He was scourging, dissecting, theweather-beaten men before him, as, with a difference, he had scourged, dissected her. She found herself exulting in his powers of tyranny, inthe naked thrust of his words, so nervous, so pitiless. And then by asudden flash she thought of him by Mrs. Hurd's fire, the dying child onhis knee, against his breast. "Here, " she thought, while her pulsesleapt, "is the leader for me--for these. Let him call, I will follow. "

It was as though he followed the ranging of her thought, for suddenly, when she and his hearers least expected it, his tone changed, his stormof speech sank. He fell into a strain of quiet sympathy, encouragement, hope; dwelt with a good deal of homely iteration on the immediatepractical steps which each man before him could, if he would, taketowards the common end; spoke of the help and support lying ready forthe country labourers throughout democratic England if they would butput forward their own energies and quit themselves like men; pointedforward to a time of plenty, education, social peace; and so--with somegood-tempered banter of his opponent, old Dodgson, and some preciseinstructions as to how and where they were to record their votes on theday of election--came to an end. Two or three other speeches followed, and among them a few stumbling words from Hurd. Marcella approvedherself and applauded him, as she recognised a sentence or two takenbodily from the _Labour Clarion_ of the preceding week. Then aresolution pledging the meeting to support the Liberal candidate waspassed unanimously amid evident excitement. It was the first time thatsuch a thing had ever happened in Mellor. 

 * * * * *

Mrs. Boyce treated her visitor on their way home with a new respect, mixed, however, as usual, with her prevailing irony. For one who knewher, her manner implied, not that she liked him any more, but that aman so well trained to his own profession must always hold his own. 

As for Marcella, she said little or nothing. But Wharton, in the dark ofthe carriage, had a strange sense that her eye was often on him, thather mood marched with his, and that if he could have spoken her responsewould have been electric. 

When he had helped her out of the carriage, and they stood in thevestibule--Mrs. Boyce having walked on into the hall--he said to her, his voice hoarse with fatigue:

"Did I do your bidding, did I rouse them?"

Marcella was seized with sudden shyness. 

"You rated them enough. "

"Well, did you disapprove?"

"Oh, no! it seems to be your way. "

"My proof of friendship? Well, can there be a greater? Will you show mesome to-morrow?"

"How can I?"

"Will you criticise?--tell me where you thought I was a fool to-night, or a hypocrite? Your mother would. "

"I dare say!" said Marcella, her breath quickening; "but don't expect itfrom me. "

"Why?"

"Because--because I don't pretend. I don't know whether you roused them, but you roused _me_. "

She swept on before him into the dark hall, without giving him a momentfor reply, took her candle, and disappeared. 

Wharton found his own staircase, and went up to bed. The light hecarried showed his smiling eyes bent on the ground, his mouth stillmoving as though with some pleasant desire of speech. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Wharton was sitting alone in the big Mellor drawing-room, after dinner. He had drawn one of the few easy chairs the room possessed to the fire, and with his feet on the fender, and one of Mr. Boyce's French novels onhis knee, he was intensely enjoying a moment of physical ease. The workof these weeks of canvassing and speaking had been arduous, and he wasnaturally indolent. Now, beside this fire and at a distance, it amazedhim that any motive whatever, public or private, should ever have beenstrong enough to take him out through the mire on these winter nights tospout himself hoarse to a parcel of rustics. "What did I do it for?" heasked himself; "what am I going to do it for again to-morrow?"

Ten o'clock. Mr. Boyce was gone to bed. No more entertaining of _him_ tobe done; one might be thankful for that mercy. Miss Boyce and her motherwould, he supposed, be down directly. They had gone up to dress at nine. It was the night of the Maxwell Court ball, and the carriage had beenordered for half-past ten. In a few minutes he would see Miss Boyce inher new dress, wearing Raeburn's pearls. He was extraordinarilyobservant, and a number of little incidents and domestic arrangementsbearing on the feminine side of Marcella's life had been apparent tohim from the beginning. He knew, for instance, that the trousseau wasbeing made at home, and that during the last few weeks the lady for whomit was destined had shown an indifference to the progress of it whichseemed to excite a dumb annoyance in her mother. Curious woman, Mrs. Boyce!

He found himself listening to every opening door, and already, as itwere, gazing at Marcella in her white array. He was not asked to thisball. As he had early explained to Miss Boyce, he and Miss Raeburn hadbeen "cuts" for years, for what reason he had of course left Marcella toguess. As if Marcella found any difficulty in guessing--as if thepreposterous bigotries and intolerances of the Ladies' League were notenough to account for any similar behaviour on the part of any similarhigh-bred spinster! As for this occasion, she was far too proud both onher own behalf and Wharton's to say anything either to Lord Maxwell orhis sister on the subject of an invitation for her father's guest. 

It so happened, however, that Wharton was aware of certain other reasonsfor his social exclusion from Maxwell Court. There was no necessity, ofcourse, for enlightening Miss Boyce on the point. But as he sat waitingfor her, Wharton's mind went back to the past connected with thosereasons. In that past Raeburn had had the whip-hand of him; Raeburn hadbeen the moral superior dictating indignant terms to a young fellowdetected in flagrant misconduct. Wharton did not know that he bore himany particular grudge. But he had never liked Aldous, as a boy, that hecould remember; naturally he had liked him less since that old affair. The remembrance of it had made his position at Mellor particularly sweetto him from the beginning; he was not sure that it had not determinedhis original acceptance of the offer made to him by the LiberalCommittee to contest old Dodgson's seat. And during the past few weeksthe exhilaration and interest of the general position--considering allthings--had been very great. Not only was he on the point of ousting theMaxwell candidate from a seat which he had held securely foryears--Wharton was perfectly well aware by now that he was trespassingon Aldous Raeburn's preserves in ways far more important, and infinitelymore irritating! He and Raeburn had not met often at Mellor during theseweeks of fight. Each had been too busy. But whenever they had comeacross each other Wharton had clearly perceived that his presence in thehouse, his growing intimacy with Marcella Boyce, the free-masonry ofopinion between them, the interest she took in his contest, the villagefriendships they had in common, were all intensely galling to AldousRaeburn. 

The course of events, indeed, had lately produced in Wharton a certainexcitement--recklessness even. He had come down into these parts tocourt "the joy of eventful living"--politically and personally. But thesituation had proved to be actually far more poignant and personal thanhe had expected. This proud, crude, handsome girl--to her certainly itwas largely due that the days had flown as they had. He was perfectly, one might almost say gleefully, aware that at the present moment it washe and not Aldous Raeburn who was intellectually her master. His mindflew back at first with amusement, then with a thrill of something else, over their talks and quarrels. He smiled gaily as he recalled her fitsof anger with him, her remonstrances, appeals--and then her awkwardinevitable submissions when he had crushed her with sarcasm or withfacts. Ah! she would go to this ball to-night; Aldous Raeburn wouldparade her as his possession; but she would go with thoughts, ambitions, ideals, which, as they developed, would make her more and more difficultfor a Raeburn to deal with. And in those thoughts and ambitions the manwho had been her tormentor, teacher, and companion during six rushingweeks knew well that he already counted for much. He had cherished inher all those "divine discontents" which were already there when hefirst knew her; taught her to formulate them, given her better reasonsfor them; so that by now she was a person with a far more defined andstormy will than she had been to begin with. Wharton did notparticularly know why he should exult; but he did exult. At any rate, hewas prodigiously tickled--by the whole position. 

A step, a rustle outside--he hastily shut his book and listened. 

The door opened, and Marcella came in--a white vision against the heavyblue of the walls. With her came, too, a sudden strong scent of flowers, for she carried a marvellous bunch of hot-house roses, Aldous's gift, which had just arrived by special messenger. 

Wharton sprang up and placed a chair for her. 

"I had begun to believe the ball only existed in my own imagination!"he said gaily. "Surely you are very late. "

Then he saw that she looked disturbed. 

"It was papa, " she said, coming to the fire, and looking down into it. "It has been another attack of pain--not serious, mamma says; she iscoming down directly. But I wonder why they come, and why he thinkshimself so ill--do you know?" she added abruptly, turning to hercompanion. 

Wharton hesitated, taken by surprise. During the past weeks, what withMr. Boyce's confidence and his own acuteness, he had arrived at a veryshrewd notion of what was wrong with his host. But he was not going toenlighten the daughter. 

"I should say your father wants a great deal of care--and is nervousabout himself, " he said quietly. "But he will get the care--and yourmother knows the whole state of the case. "

"Yes, she knows, " said Marcella. "I wish I did. "

And a sudden painful expression--of moral worry, remorse--passed acrossthe girl's face. Wharton knew that she had often been impatient of latewith her father, and incredulous of his complaints. He thought heunderstood. 

"One can often be of more use to a sick person if one is not too wellacquainted with what ails them, " he said. "Hope and cheerfulness areeverything in a case like your father's. He will do well. "

"If he does he won't owe any of it--"

She stopped as impulsively as she had begun. "To me, " she meant to havesaid; then had retreated hastily, before her own sense of somethingunduly intimate and personal. Wharton stood quietly beside her, sayingnothing, but receiving and soothing her self-reproach just as surely asthough she had put it into words. 

"You are crushing your flowers, I think, " he said suddenly. 

And indeed her roses were dangling against her dress, as if she hadforgotten all about them. 

She raised them carelessly, but he bent to smell them, and she held themout. 

"Summer!" he said, plunging his face into them with a long breath ofsensuous enjoyment. "How the year sweeps round in an instant! And allthe effect of a little heat and a little money. Will you allow me aphilosopher's remark?"

He drew back from her. His quick inquisitive but still respectful eyetook in every delightful detail. 

"If I don't give you leave, my experience is that you will take it!" shesaid, half laughing, half resentful, as though she had old aggressionsin mind. 

"You admit the strength of the temptation? It is very simple, no onecould help making it. To be spectator of the _height_ of anything--thebest, the climax--makes any mortal's pulses run. Beauty, success, happiness, for instance?"

He paused smiling. She leant a thin hand on the mantelpiece and lookedaway; Aldous's pearls slipped backwards along her white arm. 

"Do you suppose to-night will be the height of happiness?" she said atlast with a little scorn. "These functions don't present themselves to_me_ in such a light. "

Wharton could have laughed out--her pedantry was so young andunconscious. But he restrained himself. 

"I shall be with the majority to-night, " he said demurely. "I may aswell warn you. "

Her colour rose. No other man had ever dared to speak to her with thisassurance, this cool scrutinising air. She told herself to be indignant;the next moment she _was_ indignant, but with herself for rememberingconventionalities. 

"Tell me one thing, " said Wharton, changing his tone wholly. "I know youwent down hurriedly to the village before dinner. Was anything wrong?"

"Old Patton is very ill, " she said, sighing. "I went to ask after him;he may die any moment. And the Hurds' boy too. "

He leant against the mantelpiece, talking to her about both cases with aquick incisive common-sense--not unkind, but without a touch ofunnecessary sentiment, still less of the superior person--whichrepresented one of the moods she liked best in him. In speaking of thepoor he always took the tone of comradeship, of a plain equality, andthe tone was, in fact, genuine. 

"Do you know, " he said presently, "I did not tell you before, but I amcertain that Hurd's wife is afraid of you, that she has a secret fromyou?"

"From me! how could she? I know every detail of their affairs. "

"No matter. I listened to what she said that day in the cottage when Ihad the boy on my knee. I noticed her face, and I am quite certain. Shehas a secret, and above all a secret from you. "

Marcella looked disturbed for a moment, then she laughed. 

"Oh, no!" she said, with a little superior air. "I assure you I know herbetter than you. "

Wharton said no more. 

"Marcella!" called a distant voice from the hall. 

The girl gathered up her white skirts and her flowers in haste. 

"Good-night!"

"Good-night! I shall hear you come home and wonder how you have sped. One word, if I may! Take your _rôle_ and play it. There is nothingsubjects dislike so much as to see royalty decline its part. "

She laughed, blushed, a little proudly and uncertainly, and went withoutreply. As she shut the door behind her, a sudden flatness fell upon her. She walked through the dark Stone Parlour outside, seeing still thefirmly-knit lightly-made figure--boyish, middle-sized, yet neverinsignificant--the tumbled waves of fair hair, the eyes so keenly blue, the face with its sharp mocking lines, its powers of sudden charm. Thenself-reproach leapt, and possessed her. She quickened her pace, hurryinginto the hall, as though from something she was ashamed or afraid of. 

In the hall a new sensation awaited her. Her mother, fully dressed, stood waiting by the old billiard-table for her maid, who had gone tofetch her a cloak. 

Marcella stopped an instant in surprise and delight, then ran up to her. "Mamma, how _lovely_ you look! I haven't seen you like that, not since Iwas a child. I remember you then once, in a low dress, a white dress, with flowers, coming into the nursery. But that black becomes you sowell, and Deacon has done your hair beautifully!"

She took her mother's hand and kissed her cheek, touched by an emotionwhich had many roots. There was infinite relief in this tender naturaloutlet; she seemed to recover possession of herself. 

Mrs. Boyce bore the kiss quietly. Her face was a little pinched andwhite. But the unusual display Deacon had been allowed to make of herpale golden hair, still long and abundant; the unveiling of the shapelyshoulders and neck, little less beautiful than her daughter's; theelegant lines of the velvet dress, all these things, had very noblytransformed her. Marcella could not restrain her admiration and delight. Mrs. Boyce winced, and, looking upward to the gallery, which ran roundthe hall, called Deacon impatiently. 

"Only, mamma, " said Marcella, discontentedly, "I don't like that littlechain round your neck. It is not equal to the rest, not worthy of it. "

"I have nothing else, my dear, " said Mrs. Boyce, drily. "Now, Deacon, don't be all night!"

Nothing else? Yet, if she shut her eyes, Marcella could perfectly recallthe diamonds on the neck and arms of that white figure of herchildhood--could see herself as a baby playing with the treasures of hermother's jewel-box. 

Nowadays, Mrs. Boyce was very secretive and reserved about her personalpossessions. Marcella never went into her room unless she was asked, andwould never have thought of treating it or its contents with anyfreedom. 

The mean chain which went so ill with the costly hoarded dress--itrecalled to Marcella all the inexorable silent miseries of her mother'spast life, and all the sordid disadvantages and troubles of her ownyouth. She followed Mrs. Boyce out to the carriage in silence--once morein a tumult of sore pride and doubtful feeling. 

 * * * * *

Four weeks to her wedding-day! The words dinned in her ears as theydrove along. Yet they sounded strange to her, incredible almost. Howmuch did she know of Aldous, of her life that was to be--above all, howmuch of herself? She was not happy--had not been happy or at ease formany days. Yet in her restlessness she could think nothing out. Moreover, the chain that galled and curbed her was a chain of character. In spite of her modernness, and the complexity of many of her motives, there was certain inherited simplicities of nature at the bottom of her. In her wild demonic childhood you could always trust Marcie Boyce, ifshe had given you her word--her schoolfellows knew that. If her passionswere half-civilised and southern, her way of understanding the point ofhonour was curiously English, sober, tenacious. So now. Her sense ofbond to Aldous had never been in the least touched by any of herdissatisfactions and revolts. Yet it rushed upon her to-night withamazement, and that in four weeks she was going to marry him! Why?how?--what would it really _mean_ for him and for her? It was as thoughin mid-stream, she were trying to pit herself for an instant against thecurrent which had so far carried them all on, to see what it might belike to retrace a step, and could only realise with dismay the forceand rapidity of the water. 

Yet all the time another side of her was well aware that she was at thatmoment the envy of half a county, that in another ten minutes hundredsof eager and critical eyes would be upon her; and her pride was risingto her part. The little incident of the chain had somehow for the momentmade the ball and her place in it more attractive to her. 

 * * * * *

They had no sooner stepped from their carriage than Aldous, who waswaiting in the outer hall, joyously discovered them. Till then he hadbeen walking aimlessly amid the crowd of his own guests, wondering whenshe would come, how she would like it. This splendid function had beenhis grandfather's idea; it would never have entered his own head for amoment. Yet he understood his grandfather's wish to present his heir'spromised bride in this public ceremonious way to the society of whichshe would some day be the natural leader. He understood, too, that therewas more in the wish than met the ear; that the occasion meant to LordMaxwell, whether Dick Boyce were there or no, the final condoning ofthings past and done with, a final throwing of the Maxwell shield overthe Boyce weakness, and full adoption of Marcella into her new family. 

All this he understood and was grateful for. But how would _she_respond? How would she like it--this parade that was to be made ofher--these people that must be introduced to her? He was full ofanxieties. 

Yet in many ways his mind had been easier of late. During the last weekshe had been very gentle and good to him--even Miss Raeburn had beenpleased with her. There had been no quoting of Wharton when they met;and he had done his philosopher's best to forget him. He trusted herproudly, intensely; and in four weeks she would be his wife. 

"Can you bear it?" he said to her in a laughing whisper as she and hermother emerged from the cloak-room. 

"Tell me what to do, " she said, flushing. "I will do my best. What acrowd! Must we stay very long?"

"Ah, my dear Mrs. Boyce, " cried Lord Maxwell, meeting them on the stepsof the inner quadrangular corridor--"Welcome indeed! Let me take you in. Marcella! with Aldous's permission!" he stooped his white head gallantlyand kissed her on the cheek--"Remember I am an old man; if I choose topay you compliments, you will have to put up with them!"

Then he offered Mrs. Boyce his arm, a stately figure in his ribbon andcross of the Bath. A delicate red had risen to that lady's thin cheek inspite of her self-possession. "Poor thing, " said Lord Maxwell to himselfas he led her along--"poor thing!--how distinguished and charming still!One sees to-night what she was like as a girl. "

Aldous and Marcella followed. They had to pass along the great corridorwhich ran round the quadrangle of the house. The antique marbles whichlined it were to-night masked in flowers, and seats covered in red hadbeen fitted in wherever it was possible, and were now crowded withdancers "sitting out. " From the ball-room ahead came waves ofwaltz-music; the ancient house was alive with colour and perfume, withthe sounds of laughter and talk, lightly fretting, and breaking theswaying rhythms of the band. Beyond the windows of the corridor, whichhad been left uncurtained because of the beauty of the night, the stiffTudor garden with its fountains, which filled up the quadrangle, wasgaily illuminated under a bright moon; and amid all the varied colour oflamps, drapery, dresses, faces, the antique heads ranged along the wallsof the corridor--here Marcus Aurelius, there Trajan, there Seneca--andthe marble sarcophagi which broke the line at intervals, stood in cold, whitish relief. 

Marcella passed along on Aldous's arm, conscious that people werestreaming into the corridor from all the rooms opening upon it, and thatevery eye was fixed upon her and her mother. "Look, there she is, " sheheard in an excited girl's voice as they passed Lord Maxwell's library, now abandoned to the crowd like all the rest. "Come, quick! There--Itold you she was lovely!"

Every now and then some old friend, man or woman, rose smiling from theseats along the side, and Aldous introduced his bride. 

"On her dignity!" said an old hunting squire to his daughter when theyhad passed. "Shy, no doubt--very natural! But nowadays girls, whenthey're shy, don't giggle and blush as they used to in _my_ young days;they look as if you meant to insult them, and they weren't going toallow it! Oh, very handsome--very handsome--of course. But you can seeshe's advanced--peculiar--or what d'ye call it?--woman's rights, Isuppose, and all that kind of thing? Like to see you go in for it, Nettie, eh!"

"She's _awfully_ handsome, " sighed his pink-cheeked, insignificantlittle daughter, still craning her neck to look--"very simply dressedtoo, except for those lovely pearls. She does her hair very oddly, solow down--in those plaits. Nobody does it like that nowadays. "

"That's because nobody has such a head, " said her brother, a youngHussar lieutenant, beside her, in the tone of connoisseurship. "ByGeorge, she's ripping--she's the best-looking girl I've seen for a goodlong time. But she's a Tartar, I'll swear--looks it, anyway. "

"Every one says she has the most extraordinary opinions, " said the girl, eagerly. "She'll manage him, don't you think? I'm sure he's very meekand mild. "

"Don't know that, " said the young man, twisting his moustache with theair of exhaustive information. "Raeburn's a very good fellow--excellentfellow--see him shooting, you know--that kind of thing. I expect he'sgot a will when he wants it. The mother's handsome, too, and looks alady. The father's kept out of the way, I see. Rather a blessing for theRaeburns. Can't be pleasant, you know, to get a man like that in thefamily. Look after your spoons--that kind of thing. "

Meanwhile Marcella was standing beside Miss Raeburn, at the head of thelong ball-room, and doing her best to behave prettily. One afteranother she bowed to, or shook hands with, half the magnates of thecounty--the men in pink, the women in the new London dresses, for whichthis brilliant and long-expected ball had given so welcome an excuse. They knew little or nothing of her, except that she was clearlygood-looking, that she was that fellow Dick Boyce's daughter and wasreported to be "odd. " Some, mostly men, who said their conventional fewwords to her, felt an amused admiration for the skill and rapidity withwhich she had captured the _parti_ of the county; some, mostly women, were already jealous of her. A few of the older people here and there, both men and women--but after all they shook hands like the rest!--knewperfectly well that the girl must be going through an ordeal, weretouched by the signs of thought and storm in the face, and looked backat her with kind eyes. 

But of these last Marcella realised nothing. What she was saying toherself was that, if they knew little of her, she knew a great deal ofmany of them. In their talks over the Stone Parlour fire she and Whartonhad gone through most of the properties, large and small, of hisdivision, and indeed of the divisions round, by the help of theknowledge he had gained in his canvass, together with a blue-book--oneof the numberless!--recently issued, on the state of the midlandlabourer. He had abounded in anecdote, sarcasm, reflection, based partlyon his own experiences, partly on his endless talks with theworking-folk, now in the public-house, now at their own chimney-corner. Marcella, indeed, had a large unsuspected acquaintance with the countybefore she met it in the flesh. She knew that a great many of these menwho came and spoke to her were doing their best according to theirlights, that improvements were going on, that times were mending. Butthere were abuses enough still, and the abuses were far more vividlypresent to her than the improvements. In general, the people whothronged these splendid rooms were to her merely the incompetent membersof a useless class. The nation would do away with them in time!Meanwhile it might at least be asked of them that they should practisetheir profession of landowning, such as it was, with greater conscienceand intelligence--that they should not shirk its opportunities or idlethem away. And she could point out those who did both--scandalously, intolerably. Once or twice she thought passionately of Minta Hurd, washing and mending all day, in her damp cottage; or of the Pattons in"the parish house, " thankful after sixty years of toil for a hovel wherethe rain came through the thatch, and where the smoke choked you, unless, with the thermometer below freezing-point, you opened the doorto the blast. Why should _these_ people have all the gay clothes, theflowers, the jewels, the delicate food--all the delight and all theleisure? And those, nothing! Her soul rose against what she saw as shestood there, going through her part. Wharton's very words, everyinflection of his voice was in her ears, playing chorus to the scene. 

But when these first introductions, these little empty talks of three orfour phrases apiece, and all of them alike, were nearly done with, Marcella looked eagerly round for Mary Harden. There she was, sittingquietly against the wall in a remote corner, her plain face all smiles, her little feet dancing under the white muslin frock which she hadfashioned for herself with so much pain under Marcella's directions. Miss Raeburn was called away to find an arm-chair for some dowager ofimportance; Marcella took advantage of the break and of the end of adance to hurry down the room to Mary. Aldous, who was talking to old SirCharles Leven, Frank's father, a few steps off, nodded and smiled to heras he saw her move. 

"Have you been dancing, Mary?" she said severely. 

"I wouldn't for worlds! I never was so much amused in my life. Look atthose girls--those sisters--in the huge velvet sleeves, like colouredballoons!--and that old lady in the pink tulle and diamonds. --I do sowant to get her her cloak! _And_ those Lancers!--I never could haveimagined people danced like that. They didn't dance them--they rompedthem! It wasn't beautiful--was it?"

"Why do you expect an English crowd to do anything beautiful? If wecould do it, we should be too ashamed. "

"But it _is_ beautiful, all the same, you scornful person!" cried Mary, dragging her friend down beside her. "How pretty the girls are! And asfor the diamonds, I never saw anything so wonderful. I wish I could havemade Charles come!"

"Wouldn't he?"

"No"--she looked a little troubled--"he couldn't think it would bequite right. But I don't know--a sight like this takes me off my feet, shakes me up, and does _me_ a world of good!"

"You dear, simple thing!" said Marcella, slipping her hand into Mary'sas it lay on the bench. 

"Oh, you needn't be so superior!" cried Mary, --"not for another year atleast. I don't believe you are much more used to it than I am!"

"If you mean, " said Marcella, "that I was never at anything so big andsplendid as this before, you are quite right. "

And she looked round the room with that curious, cold air of personaldetachment from all she saw, which had often struck Mary, and to-nightmade her indignant. 

"Then enjoy it!" she said, laughing and frowning at the same time. "That's a much more plain duty for _you_ than it was for Charles to stayat home--there! Haven't you been dancing?"

"No, Mr. Raeburn doesn't dance. But he thinks he can get through thenext Lancers if I will steer him. "

"Then I shall find a seat where I can look at you, " said Mary, decidedly. "Ah, there is Mr. Raeburn coming to introduce somebody toyou. I knew they wouldn't let you sit here long. "

Aldous brought up a young Guardsman, who boldly asked Miss Boyce for thepleasure of a dance. Marcella consented; and off they swept into a roomwhich was only just beginning to fill for the new dance, and where, therefore, for the moment the young grace of both had free play. Marcella had been an indefatigable dancer in the old London days atthose students' parties, with their dyed gloves and lemonade suppers, which were running in her head now, as she swayed to the rhythm of thisperfect band. The mere delight in movement came back to her; and whilethey danced, she danced with all her heart. Then in the pauses she wouldlean against the wall beside her partner, and rack her brain to find aword to say to him. As for anything that _he_ said, every word--whetherof Ascot, or the last Academy, or the new plays, or the hunting and theelections--sounded to her more vapid than the last. 

Meanwhile Aldous stood near Mary Harden and watched the dancing figure. He had never seen her dance before. Mary shyly stole a look at him fromtime to time. 

"Well, " he said at last, stooping to his neighbour, "what are youthinking of?"

"I think she is a dream!" said Mary, flushing with the pleasure of beingable to say it. They were great friends, he and she, and to-nightsomehow she was not a bit afraid of him. 

Aldous's eye sparkled a moment; then he looked down at her with a kindsmile. 

"If you suppose I am going to let you sit here all night, you are verymuch mistaken. Marcella gave me precise instructions. I am going offthis moment to find somebody. "

"Mr. Raeburn--don't!" cried Mary, catching at him. But he was gone, andshe was left in trepidation, imagining the sort of formidable young manwho was soon to be presented to her, and shaking at the thought of him. 

When the dance was over Marcella returned to Miss Raeburn, who wasstanding at the door into the corridor and had beckoned to her. She wentthrough a number of new introductions, and declared to herself that shewas doing all she could. Miss Raeburn was not so well satisfied. 

"Why can't she smile and chatter like other girls?" thought Aunt Neta, impatiently. "It's her 'ideas, ' I suppose. What rubbish! There, now--just see the difference!"

For at the moment Lady Winterbourne came up, and instantly Marcella wasall smiles and talk, holding her friend by both hands, clinging to heralmost. 

"Oh, do come here!" she said, leading her into a corner. "There's such acrowd, and I say all the wrong things. There!" with a sigh of relief. "Now I feel myself protected. "

"I mustn't keep you, " said Lady Winterbourne, a little taken aback byher effusion. "Everybody is wanting to talk to you. "

"Oh, I know! There is Miss Raeburn looking at me severely already. But Imust do as I like a little. "

"You ought to do as Aldous likes, " said Lady Winterbourne, suddenly, inher deepest and most tragic voice. It seemed to her a moment had comefor admonition, and she seized it hastily. 

Marcella stared at her in surprise. She knew by now that when LadyWinterbourne looked most forbidding she was in reality most shy. Butstill she was taken aback. 

"Why do you say that, I wonder?" she asked, half reproachfully. "I havebeen behaving myself quite nicely--I have indeed; at least, as nicely asI knew how. "

Lady Winterbourne's tragic air yielded to a slow smile. 

"You look very well, my dear. That white becomes you charmingly; so dothe pearls. I don't wonder that Aldous always knows where you are. "

Marcella raised her eyes and caught those of Aldous fixed upon her fromthe other side of the room. She blushed, smiled slightly, and lookedaway. 

"Who is that tall man just gone up to speak to him?" she asked of hercompanion. 

"That is Lord Wandle, " said Lady Winterbourne, "and his plain secondwife behind him. Edward always scolds me for not admiring him. He sayswomen know nothing at all about men's looks, and that Lard Wandle wasthe most splendid man of his time. But I always think it an unpleasantface. "

"Lord Wandle!" exclaimed Marcella, frowning. "Oh, _please_ come with me, dear Lady Winterbourne! I know he is asking Aldous to introduce him, andI won't--no I will _not_--be introduced to him. "

And laying hold of her astonished companion, she drew her hastilythrough a doorway near, walked quickly, still gripping her, through twoconnected rooms beyond, and finally landed her and herself on a sofa inLord Maxwell's library, pursued meanwhile through all her hurried courseby the curious looks of an observant throng. 

"That man!--no, that would really have been _too_ much!" said Marcella, using her large feather fan with stormy energy. 

"What _is_ the matter with you, my dear?" said Lady Winterbourne in heramazement; "and what is the matter with Lord Wandle?"

"You must know!" said Marcella, indignantly. "Oh, you _must_ have seenthat case in the paper last week--that _shocking_ case! A woman and twochildren died in one of his cottages of blood-poisoning--nothing in theworld but his neglect--his _brutal_ neglect!" Her breast heaved; sheseemed almost on the point of weeping. "The agent was appealed to--didnothing. Then the clergyman wrote to him direct, and got an answer. Theanswer was published. For cruel insolence I never saw anything like it!He ought to be in prison for manslaughter--and he comes _here_! Andpeople laugh and talk with him!"

She stopped, almost choked by her own passion. But the incident, afterall, was only the spark to the mine. 

Lady Winterbourne stared at her helplessly. 

"Perhaps it isn't true, " she suggested. "The newspapers put in so manylies, especially about _us_--the landlords. Edward says one ought neverto believe them. Ah, here comes Aldous. "

Aldous, indeed, with some perplexity on his brow, was to be seenapproaching, looking for his betrothed. Marcella dropped her fan and saterect, her angry colour fading into whiteness. 

"My darling! I couldn't think what had become of you. May I bring LordWandle and introduce him to you? He is an old friend here, and mygodfather. Not that I am particularly proud of the relationship, " hesaid, dropping his voice as he stooped over her. "He is a soured, disagreeable fellow, and I hate many of the things he does. But it is anold tie, and my grandfather is tender of such things. Only a word ortwo; then I will get rid of him. "

"Aldous, I _can't_, " said Marcella, looking up at him. "How could I? Isaw that case. I must be rude to him. "

Aldous looked considerably disturbed. 

"It was very bad, " he said slowly. "I didn't know you had seen it. Whatshall I do? I promised to go back for him. "

"Lord Wandle--Miss Boyce!" said Miss Raeburn's sharp little voice behindAldous. Aldous, moving aside in hasty dismay, saw his aunt, looking verydetermined, presenting her tall neighbour, who bowed with old-fashioneddeference to the girl on the sofa. 

Lady Winterbourne looked with trepidation at Marcella. But the socialinstinct held, to some extent. Ninety-nine women can threaten a scene ofthe kind Lady Winterbourne dreaded, for one that can carry it through. Marcella wavered; then, with her most forbidding air, she made ascarcely perceptible return of Lord Wandle's bow. 

"Did you escape in here out of the heat?" he asked her. "But I am afraidno one lets you escape to-night. The occasion is too interesting. "

Marcella made no reply. Lady Winterbourne threw in a nervous remark onthe crowd. 

"Oh, yes, a great crush, " said Lord Wandle. "Of course, we all come tosee Aldous happy. How long is it, Miss Boyce, since you settled atMellor?"

"Six months. "

She looked straight before her and not at him as she answered, and hertone made Miss Raeburn's blood boil. 

Lord Wandle--a battered, coarsened, but still magnificent-looking man ofsixty--examined the speaker an instant from half-shut eyes, then put uphis hand to his moustache with a half-smile. 

"You like the country?"

"Yes. "

As she spoke her reluctant monosyllable, the girl had really noconception of the degree of hostility expressed in her manner. Insteadshe was hating herself for her own pusillanimity. 

"And the people?"

"Some of them. "

And straightway she raised her fierce black eyes to his, and the manbefore her understood, as plainly as any one need understand, that, whoever else Miss Boyce might like, she did not like Lord Wandle, andwished for no more conversation with him. 

Her interrogator turned to Aldous with smiling _aplomb_. 

"Thank you, my dear Aldous. Now let me retire. No one must _monopolise_your charming lady. "

And again he bowed low to her, this time with an ironical emphasis notto be mistaken, and walked away. 

Lady Winterbourne saw him go up to his wife, who had followed him at adistance, and speak to her roughly with a frown. They left the room, andpresently, through the other door of the library which opened on thecorridor, she saw them pass, as though they were going to theircarriage. 

Marcella rose. She looked first at Miss Raeburn--then at Aldous. 

"Will you take me away?" she said, going up to him; "I am tired--take meto your room. "

He put her hand inside his arm, and they pushed their way through thecrowd. Outside in the passage they met Hallin. He had not seen herbefore, and he put out his hand. But there was something distant in hisgentle greeting which struck at this moment like a bruise on Marcella'squivering nerves. It came across her that for some time past he had madeno further advances to her; that his first eager talk of friendshipbetween himself and her had dropped; that his _acceptance_ of her intohis world and Aldous's was somehow suspended--in abeyance. She bit herlip tightly and hurried Aldous along. Again the same lines of gay, chatting people along the corridor, and on either side of the widestaircase--greetings, introduction--a nightmare of publicity. 

"Rather pronounced--to carry him off like that, " said a clergyman to hiswife with a kindly smile, as the two tall figures disappeared along theupper gallery. "She will have him all to herself before long. "

 * * * * *

Aldous shut the door of his sitting-room behind them. Marcella quicklydrew her hand out of his arm, and going forward to the mantelpiecerested both elbows upon it and hid her face. 

He looked at her a moment in distress and astonishment, standing alittle apart. Then he saw that she was crying. The colour flooded intohis face, and going up to her he took her hand, which was all she wouldyield him, and, holding it to his lips, said in her ear every soothingtender word that love's tutoring could bring to mind. In his emotion hetold himself and her that he admired and loved her the more for theincident downstairs, for the temper she had shown! She alone among themall had had the courage to strike the true stern Christian note. As tothe annoyance such courage might bring upon him and her in thefuture--even as to the trouble it might cause his own dear folk--whatreal matter? In these things she should lead. 

What could love have asked better than such a moment? Yet Marcella'sweeping was in truth the weeping of despair. This man's very sweetnessto her, his very assumption of the right to comfort and approve her, roused in her a desperate stifled sense of bonds that should never havebeen made, and that now could not be broken. It was all plain to her atlast. His touch had no thrill for her; his frown no terror. She hadaccepted him without loving him, coveting what he could give her. Andnow it seemed to her that she cared nothing for anything he couldgive!--that the life before her was to be one series of petty conflictsbetween her and a surrounding circumstance which must inevitably in theend be too strong for her, conflicts from which neither heart norambition could gain anything. She had desired a great position for whatshe might do with it. But could she do with it! She would besubdued--oh! very quickly!--to great houses and great people, and allthe vapid pomp and idle toil of wealth. All that picture of herself, stooping from place and power, to bind up the wounds of the people, inwhich she had once delighted, was to her now a mere flimsy vulgarity. She had been shown other ideals--other ways--and her pulses were stillswaying under the audacity--the virile inventive force of the showman. Everything she had once desired looked flat to her; everything she wasnot to have, glowed and shone. Poverty, adventure, passion, the joys ofself-realisation--these she gave up. She would become Lady Maxwell, makefriends with Miss Raeburn, and wear the family diamonds!

Then, in the midst of her rage with herself and fate, she drew herselfaway, looked up, and caught full the eyes of Aldous Raeburn. Consciencestung and burned. What was this life she had dared to trifle with--thisman she had dared to treat as a mere pawn in her own game? She gave wayutterly, appalled at her own misdoing, and behaved like a penitentchild. Aldous, astonished and alarmed by her emotions and by the wildincoherent things she said, won his way at last to some moments ofdivine happiness, when, leaving her trembling hand in his, she satsubmissively beside him, gradually quieting down, summoning back hersmiles and her beauty, and letting him call her all the fond names hewould. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Scarcely a word was exchanged between Marcella and her mother on thedrive home. Yet under ordinary circumstances Marcella's imaginationwould have found some painful exercise in the effort to find out in whatspirit her mother had taken the evening--the first social festivity inwhich Richard Boyce's wife had taken part for sixteen years. In fact, Mrs. Boyce had gone through it very quietly. After her first publicentry on Lord Maxwell's arm she had sat in her corner, taking keen noteof everything, enjoying probably the humours of her kind. Several oldacquaintances who had seen her at Mellor as a young wife in her firstmarried years had come up with some trepidation to speak to her. She hadreceived them with her usual well-bred indifference, and they had goneaway under the impression that she regarded herself as restored tosociety by this great match that her daughter was making. LadyWinterbourne had been shyly and therefore formidably kind to her; andboth Lord Maxwell and Miss Raeburn had been genuinely interested insmoothing the effort to her as much as they could. She meanwhile watchedMarcella--except through the encounter with Lord Wandle, which she didnot see--and found some real pleasure in talking both to Aldous and toHallin. 

Yet all through she was preoccupied, and towards the end very anxiousto get home, a state of mind which prevented her from noticingMarcella's changed looks after her reappearance with Aldous in theball-room, as closely as she otherwise might have done. Yet the mother_had_ observed that the end of Marcella's progress had been somewhatdifferent from the beginning; that the girl's greetings had beengentler, her smiles softer; and that in particular she had taken somepains, some wistful pains, to make Hallin talk to her. LordMaxwell--ignorant of the Wandle incident--was charmed with her, andopenly said so, both to the mother and Lady Winterbourne, in his heartyold man's way. Only Miss Raeburn held indignantly aloof, and would notpretend, even to Mrs. Boyce. 

And now Marcella was tired--dead tired, she said to herself, both inmind and body. She lay back in the carriage, trying to sink herself inher own fatigue, to forget everything, to think of nothing. Outside thenight was mild, and the moon clear. For some days past, after the breakup of the long frost, there had been heavy rain. Now the rain hadcleared away, and in the air there was already an early promise ofspring. As she walked home from the village that afternoon she had feltthe buds and the fields stirring. 

When they got home, Mrs. Boyce turned to her daughter at the head of thestairs, "Shall I unlace your dress, Marcella?"

"Oh no, thank you. Can I help you?"

"No. Good-night. "

"Mamma!" Marcella turned and ran after her. "I should like to know howpapa is. I will wait here if you will tell me. "

Mrs. Boyce looked surprised. Then she went into her room and shut thedoor. Marcella waited outside, leaning against the old oak gallery whichran round the hall, her candle the one spot of light and life in thegreat dark house. 

"He seems to have slept well, " said Mrs. Boyce, reappearing, andspeaking under her breath. "He has not taken the opiate I left for him, so he cannot have been in pain. Good-night. "

Marcella kissed her and went. Somehow, in her depression of nerve andwill, she was loth to go away by herself. The loneliness of the night, and of her wing of the house, weighed upon her; the noises made by theold boards under her steps, the rustling draughts from the dark passagesto right and left startled and troubled her; she found herselfchildishly fearing lest her candle should go out. 

Yet, as she descended the two steps to the passage outside her door, shecould have felt little practical need of it, for the moonlight wasstreaming in through its uncovered windows, not directly, but reflectedfrom the Tudor front of the house which ran at right angles to thispassage, and was to-night a shining silver palace, every battlement, window, and moulding in sharpest light and shade under the radiance ofthe night. Beneath her feet, as she looked out into the Cedar Garden, was a deep triangle of shadow, thrown by that part of the building inwhich she stood; and beyond the garden the barred black masses of thecedars closing up the view lent additional magic to the glitteringunsubstantial fabric of the moonlit house, which was, as it were, embosomed and framed among them. She paused a moment, struck by thestrangeness and beauty of the spectacle. The Tudor front had the air ofsome fairy banqueting-hall lit by unearthly hands for some weirdgathering of ghostly knights. Then she turned to her room, impatientlylonging in her sick fatigue to be quit of her dress and ornaments andtumble into sleep. 

Yet she made no hurry. She fell on the first chair that offered. Hercandle behind her had little power over the glooms of the darktapestried room, but it did serve to illuminate the lines of her ownform, as she saw it reflected in the big glass of her wardrobe, straightin front of her. She sat with her hands round her knees, absentlylooking at herself, a white long-limbed apparition struck out of thedarkness. But she was conscious of nothing save one mountingoverwhelming passionate desire, almost a cry. 

Mr. Wharton must go away--he _must_--or she could not bear it. 

Quick alternations of insight, memory, self-recognition, self-surrender, rose and broke upon her. At last, physical weariness recalled her. Sheput up her hands to take off her pearls. 

As she did so, she started, hearing a noise that made her turn her head. Just outside her door a little spiral staircase led down from hercorridor to the one below, which ran at the back of the old library, andopened into the Cedar Garden at its further end. 

Steps surely--light steps--along the corridor outside, and on thestaircase. Nor did they die away. She could still hear them, --as shesat, arrested, straining her ears, --pacing slowly along the lowerpassage. 

Her heart, after its pause, leapt into fluttering life. This room ofhers, the two passages, the library, and the staircase, represented thatpart of the house to which the ghost stories of Mellor clung mostpersistently. Substantially the block of building was of early Tudordate, but the passages and the staircase had been alterations made withsome clumsiness at the time of the erection of the eighteenth-centuryfront, with a view to bringing these older rooms into the general plan. Marcella, however, might demonstrate as she pleased that the Boyce whowas supposed to have stabbed himself on the staircase died at leastforty years before the staircase was made. None the less, no servantwould go alone, if she could help it, into either passage after dark;and there was much excited marvelling how Miss Boyce could sleep whereshe did. Deacon abounded in stories of things spiritual and peripatetic, of steps, groans, lights in the library, and the rest. Marcella hadconsistently laughed at her. 

Yet all the same she had made in secret a very diligent pursuit of thisghost, settling in the end to a certain pique with him that he would notshow himself to so ardent a daughter of the house. She had sat upwaiting for him; she had lingered in the corridor outside, and on thestairs, expecting him. By the help of a favourite carpenter she had maderesearches into roofs, water-pipes, panelling, and old cupboards, in thehope of finding a practical clue to him. In vain. 

Yet here were the steps--regular, soft, unmistakable. The colour rushedback into her cheeks! Her eager healthy youth forgot its woes, flung offits weariness, and panted for an adventure, a discovery. Springing up, she threw her fur wrap round her again, and gently opened the door, listening. 

For a minute, nothing--then a few vague sounds as of something livingand moving down below--surely in the library? Then the steps again. Impossible that it should be any one breaking in. No burglar would walkso leisurely. She closed her door behind her, and, gathering her whitesatin skirts about her, she descended the staircase. 

The corridor below was in radiant moonlight, chequered by the few piecesof old furniture it contained, and the black and white of the oldportrait prints hanging on the walls. At first her seeking, excited eyescould make out nothing. Then in a flash they perceived the figure ofWharton at the further end near the garden door, leaning against one ofthe windows. He was apparently looking out at the moonlit house, and shecaught the faint odour of a cigarette. 

Her first instinct was to turn and fly. But Wharton had seen her. As helooked about him at the sound of her approach, the moon, which was justrounding the corner of the house, struck on her full, amid the shadowsof the staircase, and she heard his exclamation. 

Dignity--a natural pride--made her pause. She came forward slowly--heeagerly. 

"I heard footsteps, " she said, with a coldness under which he plainlysaw her embarrassment. "I could not suppose that anybody was still up, so I came down to see. "

He was silent a moment, scanning her with laughing eyes. Then he shookhis head. "Confess you took me for the ghost?" he said. 

She hesitated; then must laugh too. She herself had told him thestories, so that his guess was natural. 

"Perhaps I did, " she said. "One more disappointment! Good-night. "

He looked after her a quick undecided moment as she made a step in frontof him, then at the half-burnt cigarette he held in his hand, threw theend away with a hasty gesture, overtook her and walked beside her alongthe corridor. 

"I heard you and your mother come in, " he said, as though explaininghimself. "Then I waited till I thought you must both be asleep, and camedown here to look at that wonderful effect on the old house. " He pointedto the silver palace outside. "I have a trick of being sleepless--atrick, too, of wandering at night. My own people know it, and bear withme, but I am abashed that you should have found me out. Just tell me--inone word--how the ball went?"

He paused at the foot of the stairs, his hands on his sides, as keenlywide-awake as though it were three o'clock in the afternoon instead ofthree in the morning. 

Womanlike, her mood instantly shaped itself to his. 

"It went very well, " she said perversely, putting her satin-slipperedfoot on the first step. "There were six hundred people upstairs, andfour hundred coachmen and footmen downstairs, according to our man. Everybody said it was splendid. "

His piercing enigmatic gaze could not leave her. As he had often franklywarned her, he was a man in quest of sensations. Certainly, in thisstrange meeting with Aldous Raeburn's betrothed, in the midst of thesleep-bound house, he had found one. Her eyes were heavy, her cheekpale. But in this soft vague light--white arms and neck now hidden, nowrevealed by the cloak she had thrown about her glistening satin--she wasmore enchanting than he had ever seen her. His breath quickened. 

He said to himself that he would make Miss Boyce stay and talk to him. What harm--to her or to Raeburn? Raeburn would have chances enoughbefore long. Why admit his monopoly before the time? She was not in lovewith him! As to Mrs. Grundy--absurd! What in the true reasonableness ofthings was to prevent human beings from conversing by night as well asby day?

"One moment"--he said, delaying her. "You must be dead tired--too tiredfor romance. Else I should say to you, turn aside an instant and look atthe library. It is a sight to remember. "

Inevitably she glanced behind her, and saw that the library door wasajar. He flung it open, and the great room showed wide, its high domedroof lost in shadow, while along the bare floor and up the latticedbooks crept, here streaks and fingers, and there wide breadths of lightfrom the unshuttered and curtainless windows. 

"Isn't it the very poetry of night and solitude?" he said, looking inwith her. "You love the place; but did you ever see it so lovable? Thedead are here; you did right to come and seek them! Look at yournamesake, in that ray. To-night she lives! She knows that is her husbandopposite--those are her books beside her. And the rebel!"--he pointedsmiling to the portrait of John Boyce. "When you are gone I shall shutmyself up here--sit in his chair, invoke him--and put my speechtogether. I am nervous about to-morrow" (he was bound, as she knew, to alarge Labour Congress in the Midlands, where he was to preside), "andsleep will make no terms with me. Ah!--how strange! Who can that bepassing the avenue?"

He made a step or two into the room, and put up his hand to his brow, looking intently. Involuntarily, yet with a thrill, Marcella followed. They walked to the window. 

"It is _Hurd_!" she cried in a tone of distress, pressing her faceagainst the glass. "Out at this time, and with a gun! Oh, dear, dear!"

There could be no question that it was Hurd. Wharton had seen him lingerin the shadowy edge of the avenue, as though reconnoitring, and now, ashe stealthily crossed the moonlit grass, his slouching dwarf's figure, his large head, and the short gun under his arm, were all plainlyvisible. 

"What do you suppose he is after?" said Wharton, still gazing, his handsin his pockets. 

"I don't know; he wouldn't poach on _our_ land; I'm sure he wouldn't!Besides, there is nothing to poach. "--Wharton smiled. --"He must begoing, after all, to Lord Maxwell's coverts! They are just beyond theavenue, on the side of the hill. Oh! it is too disappointing! Can we doanything?"

She looked at her companion with troubled eyes. This incursion ofsomething sadly and humanly real seemed suddenly to have made it naturalto be standing beside him there at that strange hour. Her conscience wassoothed. 

Wharton shook his head. 

"I don't see what we could do. How strong the instinct is! I told youthat woman had a secret. Well, it is only one form--the squalidpeasant's form--of the same instinct which sends the young fellows ofour class ruffling it and chancing it all over the world. It is theinstinct to take one's fling, to get out of the rut, to claim one'sinnings against the powers that be--Nature, or the law, or convention. "

"I know all that--I never blame them!"--cried Marcella--"but just now itis so monstrous--so dangerous! Westall specially alert--and this gangabout! Besides, I got him work from Lord Maxwell, and made him promiseme--for the wife and children's sake. "

Wharton shrugged his shoulders. 

"I should think Westall is right, and that the gang have got hold ofhim. It is what always happens. The local man is the catspaw. --So youare sorry for him--this man?" he said in another tone, facing round uponher. 

She looked astonished, and drew herself up nervously, turning at thesame time to leave the room. But before she could reply he hurried on:

"He--may escape his risk. Give your pity, Miss Boyce, rather toone--who has not escaped!"

"I don't know what you mean, " she said, unconsciously laying a hand onone of the old chairs beside her to steady herself. "But it is too lateto talk. Good-night, Mr. Wharton. "

"Good-bye, " he said quietly, yet with a low emphasis, at the same timemoving out of her path. She stopped, hesitating. Beneath the lace andfaded flowers on her breast he could see how her heart beat. 

"Not good-bye? You are coming back after the meeting?"

"I think not. I must not inflict myself--on Mrs. Boyce--any more. Youwill all be very busy during the next three weeks. It would be anintrusion if I were to come back at such a time--especially--consideringthe fact"--he spoke slowly--"that I am as distasteful as I now knowmyself to be, to your future husband. Since you all left to-night thehouse has been very quiet. I sat over the fire thinking. It grew clearto me. I must go, and go at once. Besides--a lonely man as I am must notrisk his nerve. His task is set him, and there are none to stand by himif he fails. "

She trembled all over. Weariness and excitement made normal self-controlalmost impossible. 

"Well, then, I must say thank you, " she said indistinctly, "for you havetaught me a great deal. "

"You will unlearn it!" he said gaily, recovering his self-possession, soit seemed, as she lost hers. "Besides, before many weeks are over youwill have heard hard things of me. I know that very well. I can saynothing to meet them. Nor should I attempt anything. It may soundbrazen, but that past of mine, which I can see perpetually present inAldous Raeburn's mind, for instance, and which means so much to his goodaunt, means to me just nothing at all! The doctrine of identity must betrue--I must be the same person I was then. But, all the same, what Idid then does not matter a straw to me now. To all practical purposes Iam another man. I was then a youth, idle, _désoeuvré_, playing with allthe keys of life in turn. I have now unlocked the path that suits me. Its quest has transformed me--as I believe, ennobled me. I do not askRaeburn or any one else to believe it. It is my own affair. Only, if weever meet again in life, you and I, and you think you have reason to askhumiliation of me, do not ask it, do not expect it. The man you willhave in your mind has nothing to do with me. I will not be answerablefor his sins. "

As he said these things he was leaning lightly forward, looking up ather, his arms resting on the back of one of the old chairs, one footcrossed over the other. The attitude was easy calm itself. Thetone--indomitable, analytic, reflective--matched it. Yet, all the same, her woman's instinct divined a hidden agitation, and, woman-like, responded to that and that only. 

"Mr. Raeburn will never tell me old stories about anybody, " she saidproudly. "I asked him once, out--out of curiosity--about you, and hewould tell me nothing. "

"Generous!" said Wharton, drily. "I am grateful. "

"No!" cried Marcella, indignantly, rushing blindly at the outlet foremotion. "No!--you are not grateful; you are always judging himharshly--criticising, despising what he does. "

Wharton was silent a moment. Even in the moonlight she could see thereddening of his cheek. 

"So be it, " he said at last. "I submit. You must know best. But you? areyou always content? Does this _milieu_ into which you are passing alwayssatisfy you? To-night, did your royalty please you? will it soon beenough for you?"

"You know it is not enough, " she broke out, hotly; "it is insulting thatyou should ask in that tone. It means that you think me ahypocrite!--and I have given you no cause--"

"Good heavens, no!" he exclaimed, interrupting her, and speaking in alow, hurried voice. "I had no motive, no reason for what Isaid--none--but this, that you are going--that we are parting. I spokein gibes to make you speak--somehow to strike--to reach you. To-morrowit will be too late!"

And before, almost, she knew that he had moved, he had stooped forward, caught a fold of her dress, pressed it to his lips, and dropped it. 

"Don't speak, " he said brokenly, springing up, and standing before herin her path. "You shall forgive me--I will compel it! See! here we areon this moonlit space of floor, alone, in the night. Very probably weshall never meet again, except as strangers. Put off convention, andspeak to me, soul to soul! You are not happy altogether in thismarriage. I know it. You have as good as confessed it. Yet you will gothrough with it. You have given your word--your honour holds you. Irecognise that it holds you. I say nothing, not a syllable, against yourbond! But here, to-night, tell me, promise me that you will make thismarriage of yours serve _our_ hopes and ends, the ends that you and Ihave foreseen together--that it shall be your instrument, not yourchain. We have been six weeks together. You say you have learnt from me;you have! you have given me your mind, your heart to write on, and Ihave written. Henceforward you will never look at life as you might havedone if I had not been here. Do you think I triumph, that I boast? Ah!"he drew in his breath--"What if in helping you, and teaching you--for Ihave helped and taught you!--I have undone myself? What if I came herethe slave of impersonal causes, of ends not my own? What if Ileave--maimed--in face of the battle? Not your fault? No, perhaps not!but, at least, you owe me some gentleness now, in these last words--somekindness in farewell. "

He came closer, held out his hands. With one of her own she put hisback, and lifted the other dizzily to her forehead. 

"Don't come near me!" she said, tottering. "What is it? I cannot see. Go!"

And guiding herself, as though blindfold, to a chair, she sank upon it, and her head dropped. It was the natural result of a moment of intenseexcitement coming upon nerves already strained and tried to theirutmost. She fought desperately against her weakness; but there was amoment when all around her swam, and she knew nothing. 

Then came a strange awakening. What was this room, this weird light, these unfamiliar forms of things, this warm support against which hercheek lay? She opened her eyes languidly. They met Wharton's half inwonder. He was kneeling beside her, holding her. But for an instant sherealised nothing except his look, to which her own helplessly replied. 

"Once!" she heard him whisper. "Once! Then nothing more--for ever. "

And stooping, slowly, deliberately, he kissed her. 

In a stinging flow, life, shame, returned upon her. She struggled to herfeet, pushing him from her. 

"You dared, " she said, "_dared_ such a thing!"

She could say no more; but her attitude, fiercely instinct, through allher physical weakness, with her roused best self, was speech enough. Hedid not venture to approach her. She walked away. He heard the doorclose, hurrying steps on the little stairs, then silence. 

He remained where she had left him, leaning against the latticed wallfor some time. When he moved it was to pick up a piece of maidenhairwhich had dropped from her dress. 

"That was a scene!" he said, looking at it, and at the trembling of hisown hand. "It carries one back to the days of the Romantics. Was IAlfred de Musset?--and she George Sand? Did any of them ever taste amore poignant moment than I--when she--lay upon my breast? To behelpless--yet yield nothing--it challenged me! Yet I took noadvantage--none. When she _looked_--when her eye, her _soul_, was, forthat instant, mine, then!--Well!--the world has rushed with me since Isaw her on the stairs; life can bring me nothing of such a qualityagain. What did I say?--how much did I mean? My God! how can I tell? Ibegan as an actor, did I finish as a man?"

He paced up and down, thinking; gradually, by the help of an iron willquieting down each rebellious pulse. 

"That poacher fellow did me a good turn. _Dare_! the word galled. But, after all, what woman could say less? And what matter? I have held herin my arms, in a setting--under a moon--worthy of her. Is not lifeenriched thereby beyond robbery? And what harm? Raeburn is not injured. _She_ will never tell--and neither of us will ever forget. Ah!--what wasthat?"

He walked quickly to the window. What he had heard had been a dullreport coming apparently from the woods beyond the eastern side of theavenue. As he reached the window it was followed by a second. 

"That poacher's gun?--no doubt!"--he strained his eyes invain--"Collision perhaps--and mischief? No matter! I have nothing to dowith it. The world is all lyric for me to-night. I can hear in it noother rhythm. "

 * * * * *

The night passed away. When the winter morning broke, Marcella was lyingwith wide sleepless eyes, waiting and pining for it. Her candle stillburnt beside her; she had had no courage for darkness, nor the smallestdesire for sleep. She had gone through shame and anguish. But she wouldhave scorned to pity herself. Was it not her natural, inevitableportion?

"I will tell Aldous everything--_everything_, " she said to herself forthe hundredth time, as the light penetrated. "Was _that_ only sevenstriking--_seven_--impossible!"

She sat up haggard and restless, hardly able to bear the thought of thehours that must pass before she could see Aldous--put all to the touch. 

Suddenly she remembered Hurd--then old Patton. 

"He was dying last night, " she thought, in her moral torment--herpassion to get away from herself. "Is he gone? This is the hour when oldpeople die--the dawn. I will go and see--go at once. "

She sprang up. To baffle this ache within her by some act of repentance, of social amends, however small, however futile--to propitiate herself, if but by a hairbreadth--this, no doubt, was the instinct at work. Shedressed hastily, glad of the cold, glad of the effort she had to makeagainst the stiffness of her own young bones--glad of her hunger andfaintness, of everything physically hard that had to be fought andconquered. 

In a very short time she had passed quietly downstairs and through thehall, greatly to the amazement of William, who opened the front door forher. Once in the village road the damp raw air revived her greatly. Shelifted her hot temples to it, welcoming the waves of wet mist that sweptalong the road, feeling her youth come back to her. 

Suddenly as she was nearing the end of a narrow bit of lane betweenhigh hedges, and the first houses of the village were in sight, she wasstopped by a noise behind her--a strange unaccountable noise as ofwomen's voices, calling and wailing. It startled and frightened her, andshe stood in the middle of the road waiting. 

Then she saw coming towards her two women running at full speed, cryingand shouting, their aprons up to their faces. 

"What is it? What is the matter?" she asked, going to meet them, andrecognising two labourers' wives she knew. 

"Oh! miss--oh! miss!" said the foremost, too wrapt up in her news to besurprised at the sight of her. "They've just found him--they're bringin'ov 'im home; they've got a shutter from Muster Wellin! 'im at DisleyFarm. It wor close by Disley wood they found 'em. And there's one ov 'ismen they've sent off ridin' for the inspector--here he come, miss! Comeout o' th' way!"

They dragged her back, and a young labourer galloped past them on a farmcolt, urging it on to its full pace, his face red and set. 

"Who is found?" cried Marcella--"What is it?"

"Westall, miss--Lor' bless you--Shot him in the head they did--blowedhis brains right out--and Charlie Dynes--oh! he's knocked aboutshamful--the doctor don't give no hopes of him. Oh deary--deary me! Andwe're goin' for Muster Harden--ee must tell the widder--or MissMary--none on us can!"

"And who did it?" said Marcella, pale with horror, holding her. 

"Why the poachers, miss. Them as they've bin waitin' for all along--andthey do say as Jim Hurd's in it. Oh Lord, oh Lord!"

Marcella stood petrified, and let them hurry on. 

CHAPTER IX. 

The lane was still again, save for the unwonted sounds coming from thegroups which had gathered round the two women, and were now movingbeside them along the village street a hundred yards ahead. 

Marcella stood in a horror of memory--seeing Hurd's figure cross themoonlit avenue from dark to dark. Where was he? Had he escaped? Suddenlyshe set off running, stung by the thought of what might have alreadyhappened under the eyes of that unhappy wife, those wretched children. 

As she entered the village, a young fellow ran up to her in breathlessexcitement. "They've got 'im, miss. He'd come straight home--'adn't madeno attempt to run. As soon as Jenkins" (Jenkins was the policeman)"heared of it, ee went straight across to 'is house, an' caught 'im. Eewor goin' to make off--'is wife 'ad been persuadin' ov 'im all night. But they've got him, miss, sure enough!"

The lad's exultation was horrible. Marcella waved him aside and ran on. A man on horseback appeared on the road in front of her leading fromWidrington to the village. She recognised Aldous Raeburn, who hadchecked his horse in sudden amazement as he saw her talking to the boy. 

"My darling! what are you here for? Oh! go home--go _home_!--out ofthis horrible business. They have sent for me as a magistrate. Dynes isalive--I _beg_ you!--go home!"

She shook her head, out of breath and speechless with running. At thesame moment she and he, looking to the right, caught sight of the crowdstanding in front of Hurd's cottage. 

A man ran out from it, seeing the horse and its rider. 

"Muster Raeburn! Muster Raeburn! They've cotched 'im; Jenkins has got'im. "

"Ah!" said Aldous, drawing a long, stern breath; "he didn't try to getoff then? Marcella!--you are not going there--to that house!"

He spoke in a tone of the strongest remonstrance. Her soul rose in angeragainst it. 

"I am going to _her_" she said panting;--"don't wait. "

And she left him and hurried on. 

As soon as the crowd round the cottage saw her coming, they divided tolet her pass. 

"She's quiet now, miss, " said a woman to her significantly, noddingtowards the hovel. "Just after Jenkins got in you could hear her cryingout pitiful. "

"That was when they wor a-handcuffin' him, " said a man beside her. 

Marcella shuddered. 

"Will they let me in?" she asked. 

"They won't let none ov _us_ in, " said the man. "There's Hurd's sister, "and he pointed to a weeping woman supported by two others. "They've kep'her out. But here's the inspector, miss; you ask him. "

The inspector, a shrewd officer of long experience, fetched in hastefrom a mile's distance, galloped up, and gave his horse to a boy. 

Marcella went up to him. 

He looked at her with sharp interrogation. "You are Miss Boyce? MissBoyce of Mellor?"

"Yes, I want to go to the wife; I will promise not to get in your way. "

He nodded. The crowd let them pass. The inspector knocked at the door, which was cautiously unlocked by Jenkins, and the two went in together. 

"She's a queer one, " said a thin, weasel-eyed man in the crowd to hisneighbour. "To think o' her bein' in it--at this time o' day. You couldsee Muster Raeburn was a tellin' of her to go 'ome. But she's alluspampered them Hurds. "

The speaker was Ned Patton, old Patton's son, and Hurd's companion onmany a profitable night-walk. It was barely a week since he had been outwith Hurd on another ferreting expedition, some of the proceeds of whichwere still hidden in Patton's outhouse. But at the present moment he wasone of the keenest of the crowd, watching eagerly for the moment when heshould see his old comrade come out, trapped and checkmated, boundsafely and surely to the gallows. The natural love of incident andchange which keeps life healthy had been starved in him by hislabourer's condition. This sudden excitement had made a brute of him. 

The man next him grimaced, and took his pipe out of his mouth a moment. 

"_She_ won't be able to do nothin' for 'im! There isn't a man nor boyin this 'ere place as didn't know as ee hated Westall like pison, andwould be as like as not to do for 'im some day. That'll count agen 'imnow terrible strong! Ee wor allus one to blab, ee wor. "

"Well, an' Westall said jus' as much!" struck in another voice; "theerwor sure to be a fight iv ever Westall got at 'im--on the job. Yousee--they may bring it in manslarter after all. "

"'Ow does any one know ee wor there at all? who seed him?" inquired awhite-haired elderly man, raising a loud quavering voice from the middleof the crowd. 

"Charlie Dynes seed 'im, " cried several together. 

"How do yer know ee seed 'im?"

From the babel of voices which followed the white-haired man slowlygathered the beginnings of the matter. Charlie Dynes, Westall'sassistant, had been first discovered by a horsekeeper in Farmer Wellin'semployment as he was going to his work. The lad had been found under ahedge, bleeding and frightfully injured, but still alive. Close besidehim was the dead body of Westall with shot-wounds in the head. On beingtaken to the farm and given brandy, Dynes was asked if he had recognisedanybody. He had said there were five of them, "town chaps"; and then hehad named Hurd quite plainly--whether anybody else, nobody knew. It wassaid he would die, and that Mr. Raeburn had gone to take his deposition. 

"An' them town chaps got off, eh?" said the elderly man. 

"Clean!" said Patton, refilling his pipe. "Trust them!"

Meanwhile, inside this poor cottage Marcella was putting out all thepowers of the soul. As the door closed behind her and the inspector, shesaw Hurd sitting handcuffed in the middle of the kitchen, watched by aman whom Jenkins, the local policeman, had got in to help him, till somemore police should arrive. Jenkins was now upstairs searching thebedroom. The little bronchitic boy sat on the fender, in front of theuntidy fireless grate, shivering, his emaciated face like a yellowishwhite mask, his eyes fixed immovably on his father. Every now and thenhe was shaken with coughing, but still he looked--with the dumb devotedattention of some watching animal. 

Hurd, too, was sitting silent. His eyes, which seemed wider open andmore brilliant than usual, wandered restlessly from thing to thing aboutthe room; his great earth-stained hands in their fetters twitched everynow and then on his knee. Haggard and dirty as he was, there was acertain aloofness, a dignity even, about the misshapen figure whichstruck Marcella strangely. Both criminal and victim may have it--thisdignity. It means that a man feels himself set apart from his kind. 

Hurd started at sight of Marcella. "I want to speak to her, " he saidhoarsely, as the inspector approached him--"to that lady"--noddingtowards her. 

"Very well, " said the inspector; "only it is my duty to warn you thatanything you say now will be taken down and used as evidence at theinquest. "

Marcella came near. As she stood in front of him, one trembling unglovedhand crossed over the other, the diamond in her engagement ringcatching the light from the window sparkled brightly, diverting even forthe moment the eyes of the little fellow against whom her skirts werebrushing. 

"Ee might ha' killed me just as well as I killed 'im, " said Hurd, bending over to her and speaking with difficulty from the dryness of hismouth. "I didn't mean nothink o' what happened. He and Charlie came onus round Disley Wood. He didn't take no notice o' them. It was they asbeat Charlie. But he came straight on at me--all in a fury--ablackguardin' ov me, with his stick up. I thought he was for beatin' mybrains out, an' I up with my gun and fired. He was so close--that washow he got it all in the head. But ee might 'a' killed me just as well. "

He paused, staring at her with a certain anguished intensity, as thoughhe were watching to see how she took it--nay, trying its effect both onher and himself. He did not look afraid or cast down--nay, there was acurious buoyancy and steadiness about his manner for the moment whichastonished her. She could almost have fancied that he was more alive, more of a _man_ than she had ever seen him--mind and body better fused, more at command. 

"Is there anything more you wish to say to me?" she asked him, afterwaiting. 

Then suddenly his manner changed. Their eyes met. Hers, with all theirsubtle inheritance of various expression, their realised character, asit were, searched his, tried to understand them--those peasant eyes, sopiercing to her strained sense in their animal urgency and shame. _Why_had he done this awful thing?--deceived her--wrecked his wife?--that waswhat her look asked. It seemed to her too _childish_--too _stupid_ to bebelieved. 

"I haven't made nobbut a poor return to _you_, miss, " he said in ashambling way, as though the words were dragged out of him. Then hethrew up his head again. "But I didn't mean nothink o' what happened, "he repeated, doggedly going off again into a rapid yet, on the whole, vivid and consecutive account of Westall's attack, to which Marcellalistened, trying to remember every word. 

"Keep that for your solicitor, " the inspector said at last, interruptinghim; "you are only giving pain to Miss Boyce. You had better let her goto your wife. "

Hurd looked steadily once more at Marcella. "It be a bad end I'm cometo, " he said, after a moment. "But I thank you kindly all the same. _They'll_ want seein' after. " He jerked his head towards the boy, thentowards the outhouse or scullery where his wife was. "She takes itterr'ble hard. She wanted me to run. But I said, 'No, I'll stan' itout. ' Mr. Brown at the Court'll give you the bit wages he owes me. Butthey'll have to go on the Union. Everybody'll turn their backs on themnow. "

"I will look after them, " said Marcella, "and I will do the best I canfor you. Now I will go to Mrs. Hurd. "

Minta Hurd was sitting in a corner of the outhouse on the clay floor, her head leaning against the wall. The face was turned upward, the eyesshut, the mouth helplessly open. When Marcella saw her, she knew thatthe unhappy woman had already wept so much in the hours since herhusband came back to her that she could weep no more. The two littlegirls in the scantiest of clothing, half-fastened, sat on the floorbeside her, shivering and begrimed--watching her. They had been cryingat the tops of their voices, but were now only whimpering miserably, andtrying at intervals to dry their tear-stained cheeks with the skirts oftheir frocks. The baby, wrapped in an old shawl, lay on its mother'sknee, asleep and unheeded. The little lean-to place, full of odds andends of rubbish, and darkened overhead by a string of damp clothes--wasintolerably cold in the damp February dawn. The children were blue; themother felt like ice as Marcella stooped to touch her. Outcast miserycould go no further. 

The mother moaned as she felt Marcella's hand, then started wildlyforward, straining her thin neck and swollen eyes that she might seethrough the two open doors of the kitchen and the outhouse. 

"They're not taking him away?" she said fiercely. "Jenkins swore to methey'd give me notice. "

"No, he's still there, " said Marcella, her voice shaking. "Theinspector's come. You shall have notice. "

Mrs. Hurd recognised her voice, and looked up at her in amazement. 

"You must put this on, " said Marcella, taking off the short fur cape shewore. "You are perished. Give me the baby, and wrap yourself in it. "

But Mrs. Hurd put it away from her with a vehement hand. 

"I'm not cold, miss--I'm burning hot. He made me come in here. He saidhe'd do better if the children and I ud go away a bit. An' I couldn't goupstairs, because--because--" she hid her face on her knees. 

Marcella had a sudden sick vision of the horrors this poor creature musthave gone through since her husband had appeared to her, splashed withthe blood of his enemy, under that same marvellous moon which--

Her mind repelled its own memories with haste. Moreover, she was awareof the inspector standing at the kitchen door and beckoning to her. Shestole across to him so softly that Mrs. Hurd did not hear her. 

"We have found all we want, " he said in his official tone, but under hisbreath--"the clothes anyway. We must now look for the gun. Jenkins isfirst going to take him off to Widrington. The inquest will be heldto-morrow here, at 'The Green Man. ' We shall bring him over. " Then headded in another voice, touching his hat, "I don't like leaving you, miss, in this place. Shall Jenkins go and fetch somebody to look afterthat poor thing? They'll be all swarming in here as soon as we've gone. "

"No, I'll stay for a while. I'll look after her. They won't come in ifI'm here. Except his sister--Mrs. Mullins--she may come in, of course, if she wants. "

The inspector hesitated. 

"I'm going now to meet Mr. Raeburn, miss. I'll tell him that you'rehere. "

"He knows, " said Marcella, briefly. "Now are you ready?"

He signed assent, and Marcella went back to the wife. 

"Mrs. Hurd, " she said, kneeling on the ground beside her, "they'regoing. "

The wife sprang up with a cry and ran into the kitchen, where Hurd wasalready on his feet between Jenkins and another policeman, who were toconvey him to the gaol at Widrington. But when she came face to facewith her husband something--perhaps the nervous appeal in his strainedeyes--checked her, and she controlled herself piteously. She did noteven attempt to kiss him. With her eyes on the ground, she put her handon his arm. "They'll let me come and see you, Jim?" she said, trembling. 

"Yes; you can find out the rules, " he said shortly. "Don't let themchildren cry. They want their breakfast to warm them. There's plenty ofcoal. I brought a sack home from Jellaby's last night myself. Good-bye. "

"Now, march, " said the inspector, sternly, pushing the wife back. 

Marcella put her arm round the shaking woman. The door opened; andbeyond the three figures as they passed out, her eye passed to thewaiting crowd, then to the misty expanse of common and the dark woodsbehind, still wrapped in fog. 

When Mrs. Hurd saw the rows of people waiting within a stone's throw ofthe door she shrank back. Perhaps it struck her, as it struck Marcella, that every face was the face of a foe. Marcella ran to the door as theinspector stepped out, and locked it after him. Mrs. Hurd, hidingherself behind a bit of baize curtain, watched the two policemen mountwith Hurd into the fly that was waiting, and then followed it with hereyes along the bit of straight road, uttering sounds the while of lowanguish, which wrung the heart in Marcella's breast. Looking back inafter days it always seemed to her that for this poor soul the trueparting, the true wrench between life and life, came at this moment. 

She went up to her, her own tears running over. 

"You must come and lie down, " she said, recovering herself as quickly aspossible. "You and the children are both starved, and you will want yourstrength if you are to help him. I will see to things. "

She put the helpless woman on the wooden settle by the fireplace, rolling up her cloak to make a pillow. 

"Now, Willie, you sit by your mother. Daisy, where's the cradle? Put thebaby down and come and help me make the fire. "

The dazed children did exactly as they were told, and the mother laylike a log on the settle. Marcella found coal and wood under Daisy'sguidance, and soon lit the fire, piling on the fuel with a lavish hand. Daisy brought her water, and she filled the kettle and set it on toboil, while the little girl, still sobbing at intervals like some littleweeping automaton, laid the breakfast. Then the children all crouchedround the warmth, while Marcella rubbed their cold hands and feet, and"mothered" them. Shaken as she was with emotion and horror, she was yetfull of a passionate joy that this pity, this tendance was allowed toher. The crushing weight of self-contempt had lifted. She felt morallyfree and at ease. 

Already she was revolving what she could do for Hurd. It was as clearas daylight to her that there had been no murder but a free fight--aneven chance between him and Westall. The violence of a hard andtyrannous man had provoked his own destruction--so it stood, for herpassionate protesting sense. That at any rate must be the defence, andsome able man must be found to press it. She thought she would write tothe Cravens and consult them. Her thoughts carefully avoided the namesboth of Aldous Raeburn and of Wharton. 

She was about to make the tea when some one knocked at the door. Itproved to be Hurd's sister, a helpless woman, with a face swollen bycrying, who seemed to be afraid to come into the cottage, and afraid togo near her sister-in-law. Marcella gave her money, and sent her forsome eggs to the neighbouring shop, then told her to come back in halfan hour and take charge. She was an incapable, but there was nothingbetter to be done. "Where is Miss Harden?" she asked the woman. Theanswer was that ever since the news came to the village the rector andhis sister had been with Mrs. Westall and Charlie Dyne's mother. Mrs. Westall had gone into fit after fit; it had taken two to hold her, andCharlie's mother, who was in bed recovering from pneumonia, had alsobeen very bad. 

Again Marcella's heart contracted with rage rather than pity. Such wrackand waste of human life, moral and physical! for what? For theprotection of a hateful sport which demoralised the rich and theiragents, no less than it tempted and provoked the poor!

When she had fed and physically comforted the children, she went andknelt down beside Mrs. Hurd, who still lay with closed eyes inheavy-breathing stupor. 

"Dear Mrs. Hurd, " she said, "I want you to drink this tea and eatsomething. "

The half-stupefied woman signed refusal. But Marcella insisted. 

"You have got to fight for your husband's life, " she said firmly, "andto look after your children. I must go in a very short time, and beforeI go you must tell me all that you can of this business. Hurd would tellyou to do it. He knows and you know that I am to be trusted. I want tosave him. I shall get a good lawyer to help him. But first you must takethis--and then you must talk to me. "

The habit of obedience to a "lady, " established long ago in years ofdomestic service, held. The miserable wife submitted to be fed, lookedwith forlorn wonder at the children round the fire, and then sank backwith a groan. In her tension of feeling Marcella for an impatient momentthought her a poor creature. Then with quick remorse she put her armstenderly round her, raised the dishevelled grey-streaked head on hershoulder, and stooping, kissed the marred face, her own lips quivering. 

"You are not alone, " said the girl with her whole soul. "You shall neverbe alone while I live. Now tell me. "

She made the white and gasping woman sit up in a corner of the settle, and she herself got a stool and established herself a little way off, frowning, self-contained, and determined to make out the truth. 

"Shall I send the children upstairs?" she asked. 

"No!" said the boy, suddenly, in his husky voice, shaking his head withenergy, "I'm not a-going. "

"Oh! he's safe--is Willie, " said Mrs. Hurd, looking at him, butstrangely, and as it were from a long distance, "and the others is toolittle. "

Then gradually Marcella got the story out of her--first, the misery ofalarm and anxiety in which she had lived ever since the Tudley End raid, owing first to her knowledge of Hurd's connection with it, and with thegang that had carried it out; then to her appreciation of the quick andghastly growth of the hatred between him and Westall; lastly, to hersense of ingratitude towards those who had been kind to them. 

"I knew we was acting bad towards you. I told Jim so. I couldn't hardlybear to see you come in. But there, miss, --I couldn't do anything. Itried, oh! the Lord knows I tried! There was never no happiness betweenus at last, I talked so. But I don't believe he could help himself--he'snot made like other folks, isn't Jim--"

Her features became convulsed again with the struggle for speech. Marcella reached out for the toil-disfigured hand that was fingering andclutching at the edge of the settle, and held it close. Gradually shemade out that although Hurd had not been able of course to conceal hisnight absences from his wife, he had kept his connection with the Oxfordgang absolutely dark from her, till, in his wild exultation overWestall's discomfiture in the Tudley End raid, he had said things in hisrestless snatches of sleep which had enabled her to get the whole truthout of him by degrees. Her reproaches, her fears, had merely angered andestranged him; her nature had had somehow to accommodate itself to his, lest affection should lose its miserable all. 

As to this last fatal attack on the Maxwell coverts, it was clear toMarcella, as she questioned and listened, that the wife hadlong foreseen it, and that she now knew much more about itthan--suddenly--she would allow herself to say. For in the midst of herout-pourings she drew herself together, tried to collect and calmherself, looked at Marcella with an agonised, suspicious eye, and fellsilent. 

"I don't know nothing about it, miss, " she stubbornly declared at last, with an inconsequent absurdity which smote Marcella's pity afresh. "Howam I to know? There was seven o' them Oxford fellows at Tudley End--thatI know. Who's to say as Jim was with 'em at all last night? Who's to sayas it wasn't them as--"

She stopped, shivering. Marcella held her reluctant hand. 

"You don't know, " she said quietly, "that I saw your husband in here fora minute before I came in to you, and that he told me, as he had alreadytold Jenkins, that it was in a struggle with him that Westall was shot, but that he had fired in self-defence because Westall was attacking him. You don't know, too, that Charlie Dynes is alive, and says he sawHurd--"

"Charlie Dynes!" Mrs. Hurd gave a shriek, and then fell to weeping andtrembling again, so that Marcella had need of patience. 

"If you can't help me more, " she said at last in despair, "I don't knowwhat we shall do. Listen to me. Your husband will be charged withWestall's murder. That I am sure of. He says it was not murder--that ithappened in a fight. I believe it. I want to get a lawyer to prove it. Iam your friend--you know I am. But if you are not going to help me bytelling me what you know of last night I may as well go home--and getyour sister-in-law to look after you and the children. "

She rose as she spoke. Mrs. Hurd clutched at her. 

"Oh, my God!" she said, looking straight before her vacantly at thechildren, who at once began to cry again. "_Oh, my God_! Look here, miss"--her voice dropped, her swollen eyes fixed themselves onMarcella--the words came out in a low, hurried stream--"It was justafter four o'clock I heard that door turn; I got up in my nightgown andran down, and there was Jim. 'Put that light out, ' he says to me, sharplike. 'Oh, Jim, ' says I, 'wherever have you been? You'll be the death o'me and them poor children!' 'You go to bed, ' says he to me, 'and I'llcome presently. ' But I could see him, 'cos of the moon, almost as plainas day, an' I couldn't take my eyes off him. And he went about thekitchen so strange like, puttin' down his hat and takin' it up again, an' I saw he hadn't got his gun. So I went up and caught holt on him. An' he gave me a push back. 'Can't you let me alone?' he says; 'you'llknow soon enough. ' An' then I looked at my sleeve where I'd touchedhim--oh, my God! my God!"

Marcella, white to the lips and shuddering too, held her tight. She hadthe _seeing_ faculty which goes with such quick, nervous natures, andshe saw the scene as though she had been there--the moonlit cottage, themiserable husband and wife, the life-blood on the woman's sleeve. 

Mrs. Hurd went on in a torrent of half-finished sentences and fragmentsof remembered talk. She told her husband's story of the encounter withthe keepers as he had told it to her, of course with additions andmodifications already struck out by the agony of inventive pain; shedescribed how she had made him take his blood-stained clothes and hidethem in a hole in the roof; then how she had urged him to strike acrosscountry at once and get a few hours start before the ghastly businesswas known. But the more he talked to her the more confident he became ofhis own story, and the more determined to stay and brave it out. Besides, he was shrewd enough to see that escape for a man of hisdeformity was impossible, and he tried to make her understand it so. Butshe was mad and blind with fear, and at last, just as the light wascoming in, he told her roughly, to end their long wrestle, that heshould go to bed and get some sleep. She would make a fool of him, andhe should want all his wits. She followed him up the steep ladder totheir room, weeping. And there was little Willie sitting up in bed, choking with the phlegm in his throat, and half dead of fright becauseof the voices below. 

"And when Hurd see him, he went and cuddled him up, and rubbed his legsand feet to warm them, an' I could hear him groanin'. And I says to him, 'Jim, if you won't go for my sake, will you go for the boy's?' For yousee, miss, there was a bit of money in the house, an' I thought he'dhide himself by day and walk by night, and so get to Liverpool perhaps, and off to the States. An' it seemed as though my head would burst withlistening for people comin', and him taken up there like a rat in atrap, an' no way of provin' the truth, and everybody agen him, becauseof the things he'd said. And he burst out a-cryin', an' Willie cried. An' I came an' entreated of him. An' he kissed me; an' at last he saidhe'd go. An' I made haste, the light was getting so terrible strong; an'just as he'd got to the foot of the stairs, an' I was holding littleWillie in my arms an' saying good-bye to him--"

She let her head sink against the settle. There was no more to say, andMarcella asked no more questions--she sat thinking. Willie stood, awasted, worn figure, by his mother, stroking her face; his hoarsebreathing was for the time the only sound in the cottage. 

Then Marcella heard a loud knock at the door. She got up and lookedthrough the casement window. The crowd had mostly dispersed, but a fewpeople stood about on the green, and a policeman was stationed outsidethe cottage. On the steps stood Aldous Raeburn, his horse held behindhim by a boy. 

She went and opened the door. 

"I will come, " she said at once. "There--I see Mrs. Mullins crossing thecommon. Now I can leave her. "

Aldous, taking off his hat, closed the door behind him and stood withhis hand on Marcella's arm, looking at the huddled woman on the settle, at the pale children. There was a solemnity in his expression, a mixtureof judgment and pity which showed that the emotion of other scenesalso--scenes through which he had just passed--was entering into it. 

"Poor unhappy souls, " he said slowly, under his breath. "You say thatyou have got some one to see after her. She looks as though it mightkill her, too. "

Marcella nodded. Now that her task, for the moment, was nearly over, shecould hardly restrain herself nervously or keep herself from crying. Aldous observed her with disquiet as she put on her hat. His heart wasdeeply stirred. She had chosen more nobly for herself than he would havechosen for her, in thus daring an awful experience for the sake ofmercy. His moral sense, exalted and awed by the sight of death, approved, worshipped her. His man's impatience pined to get her away, tocherish and comfort hen Why, she could hardly have slept three hourssince they parted on the steps of the Court, amidst the crowd ofcarriages!

Mrs. Mullins came in still scared and weeping, and dropping frightenedcurtseys to "Muster Raeburn. " Marcella spoke to her a little in awhisper, gave some counsels which filled Aldous with admiration for thegirl's practical sense and thoughtfulness, and promised to come againlater. Mrs. Hurd neither moved nor opened her eyes. 

"Can you walk?" said Aldous, bending over her, as they stood outside thecottage. "I can see that you are worn out. Could you sit my horse if Iled him?"

"No, let us walk. "

They went on together, followed by the eyes of the village, the boyleading the horse some distance behind. 

"Where have you been?" said Marcella, when they had passed the village. "Oh, _please_ don't think of my being tired! I had so much rather knowit all. I must know it all. "

She was deathly pale, but her black eyes flashed impatience andexcitement. She even drew her hand out of the arm where Aldous wastenderly holding it, and walked on erect by herself. 

"I have been with poor Dynes, " said Aldous, sadly; "we had to take hisdeposition. He died while I was there. "

"He died?"

"Yes. The fiends who killed him had left small doubt of that. But helived long enough, thank God, to give the information which will, Ithink, bring them to justice!"

The tone of the magistrate and the magnate goaded Marcella's quiveringnerves. 

"What is justice?" she cried; "the system that wastes human lives inprotecting your tame pheasants?"

A cloud came over the stern clearness of his look. He gave a bittersigh--the sigh of the man to whom his own position in life had been, asit were, one long scruple. 

"You may well ask that!" he said. "You cannot imagine that I did notask it of myself a hundred times as I stood by that poor fellow'sbedside. "

They walked on in silence. She was hardly appeased. There was a deep, inner excitement in her urging her towards difference, towards attack. At last he resumed:

"But whatever the merits of our present game system may be, the presentcase is surely clear--horribly clear. Six men, with at least three gunsamong them, probably more, go out on a pheasant-stealing expedition. They come across two keepers, one a lad of seventeen, who have nothingbut a light stick apiece. The boy is beaten to death, the keeper shotdead at the first brush by a man who has been his life-long enemy, andthreatened several times in public to 'do for him. ' If that is notbrutal and deliberate murder, it is difficult to say what is!"

Marcella stood still in the misty road trying to command herself. 

"It was _not_ deliberate, " she said at last with difficulty; "not inHurd's case. I have heard it all from his own mouth. It was a_struggle_--he might have been killed instead of Westall--Westallattacked, Hurd defended himself. "

Aldous shook his head. 

"Of course Hurd would tell you so, " he said sadly, "and his poor wife. He is not a bad or vicious fellow, like the rest of the rascally pack. Probably when he came to himself, after the moment of rage, he could notsimply believe what he had done. But that makes no difference. It wasmurder; no judge or jury could possibly take any other view. Dynes'sevidence is clear, and the proof of motive is overwhelming. "

Then, as he saw her pallor and trembling, he broke off in deep distress. "My dear one, if I could but have kept you out of this!"

They were alone in the misty road. The boy with the horse was out ofsight. He would fain have put his arm round her, have consoled andsupported her. But she would not let him. 

"Please understand, " she said in a sort of gasp, as she drew herselfaway, "that I do _not_ believe Hurd is guilty--that I shall do my veryutmost to defend him. He is to me the victim of unjust, abominable laws!If _you_ will not help me to protect him--then I must look to some oneelse. "

Aldous felt a sudden stab of suspicion--presentiment. 

"Of course he will be well defended; he will have every chance; that youmay be sure of, " he said slowly. 

Marcella controlled herself, and they walked on. As they entered thedrive of Mellor, Aldous thought passionately of those divine moments inhis sitting-room, hardly yet nine hours old. And now--_now_!--she walkedbeside him as an enemy. 

The sound of a step on the gravel in front of them made them look up. Past, present, and future met in the girl's bewildered and stormy senseas she recognised Wharton. 

CHAPTER X. 

The first sitting of the Birmingham Labour Congress was just over, andthe streets about the hall in which it had been held were beginning tofill with the issuing delegates. Rain was pouring down and umbrellaswere plentiful. 

Harry Wharton, accompanied by a group of men, left the main entrance ofthe hall, --releasing himself with difficulty from the friendly crowdabout the doors--and crossed the street to his hotel. 

"Well, I'm glad you think I did decently, " he said, as they mounted thehotel stairs. "What a beastly day, and how stuffy that hall was! Come inand have something to drink. "

He threw open the door of his sitting-room as he spoke. The four menwith him followed him in. 

"I must go back to the hall to see two or three men before everybodydisperses, " said the one in front. "No refreshment for me, thank you, Mr. Wharton. But I want to ask a question--what arrangements have youmade for the reporting of your speech?"

The man who spoke was thin and dark, with a modest kindly eye. He wore ablack frock coat, and had the air of a minister. 

"Oh, thank you, Bennett, it's all right. The _Post_, the _Chronicle_, and the _Northern Guardian_ will have full copies. I sent them offbefore the meeting. And my own paper, of course. As to the rest they mayreport it as they like. I don't care. "

"They'll all have it, " said another man, bluntly. "It's the best speechyou've ever made--the best president's speech we've had yet, Isay, --don't you think so?"

The speaker, a man called Casey, turned to the two men behind him. Bothnodded. 

"Hallin's speech last year was first-rate, " he continued, "but somehowHallin damps you down, at least he did me last year; what you want justnow is _fight_--and, my word! Mr. Wharton let 'em have it!"

And standing with his hands on his sides, he glanced round from one toanother. His own face was flushed, partly from the effects of a crowdedhall and bad air, but mostly with excitement. All the men presentindeed--though it was less evident in Bennett and Wharton than in therest--had the bright nervous look which belongs to leaders keenlyconscious of standing well with the led, and of having just emergedsuccessfully from an agitating ordeal. As they stood together they wentover the speech to which they had been listening, and the scene whichhad followed it, in a running stream of talk, laughter, and gossip. Wharton took little part, except to make a joke occasionally at his ownexpense, but the pleasure on his smiling lip, and in his roving, contented eye was not to be mistaken. The speech he had just deliveredhad been first thought out as he paced the moonlit library and corridorat Mellor. After Marcella had left him, and he was once more in his ownroom, he had had the extraordinary self-control to write it out, andmake two or three machine-copies of it for the press. Neither its rangenor its logical order had suffered for that intervening experience. Theprogramme of labour for the next five years had never been betterpresented, more boldly planned, more eloquently justified. Hallin'spresidential speech of the year before, as Casey said, rang flat in thememory when compared with it. Wharton knew that he had made a mark, andknew also that his speech had given him the whip-hand of some fellowswho would otherwise have stood in his way. 

Casey was the first man to cease talking about the speech. He hadalready betrayed himself about it more than he meant. He belonged to theNew Unionism, and affected a costume in character--fustian trousers, flannel shirt, a full red tie and work-man's coat, all well calculatedto set off a fine lion-like head and broad shoulders. He had begun lifeas a bricklayer's labourer, and was now the secretary of a recentlyformed Union. His influence had been considerable, but was said to bealready on the wane; though it was thought likely that he would win aseat in the coming Parliament. 

The other two men were Molloy, secretary to the congress, short, smooth-faced, and wiry, a man whose pleasant eye and manner were oftenmisleading, since he was in truth one of the hottest fighting men of afighting movement; and Wilkins, a friend of Casey's--ex-iron worker, Union official, and Labour candidate for a Yorkshire division--anuneducated, passionate fellow, speaking with a broad, Yorkshire accent, a bad man of affairs, but honest, and endowed with the influence whichcomes of sincerity, together with a gift for speaking and superhumanpowers of physical endurance. 

"Well, I'm glad it's over, " said Wharton, throwing himself into a chairwith a long breath, and at the same time stretching out his hand to ringthe bell. "Casey, some whisky? No? Nor you, Wilkins? nor Molloy? As foryou, Bennett, I know it's no good asking you. By George! ourgrandfathers would have thought us a poor lot! Well, some coffee at anyrate you must all of you have before you go back. Waiter! coffee. By theway, I have been seeing something of Hallin, Bennett, down in thecountry. "

He took out his cigarette case as he spoke, and offered it to theothers. All refused except Molloy. Casey took his half-smoked pipe outof his pocket and lit up. He was not a teetotaler as the others were, but he would have scorned to drink his whisky and water at the expenseof a "gentleman" like Wharton, or to smoke the "gentleman's" cigarettes. His class-pride was irritably strong. Molloy, who was by natureanybody's equal, took the cigarette with an easy good manners, whichmade Casey look at him askance. 

Mr. Bennett drew his chair close to Wharton's. The mention of Hallin hadroused a look of anxiety in his quick dark eyes. 

"How is he, Mr. Wharton? The last letter I had from him he made light ofhis health. But you know he only just avoided a breakdown in that strikebusiness. We only pulled him through by the skin of his teeth--Mr. Raeburn and I. "

"Oh, he's no constitution; never had, I suppose. But he seemed much asusual. He's staying with Raeburn, you know, and I've been staying withthe father of the young lady whom Raeburn 's going to marry. "

"Ah! I've heard of that, " said Bennett, with a look of interest. "Well, Mr. Raeburn isn't on our side, but for judgment and fair dealing thereare very few men of his class and circumstances I would trust as I wouldhim. The lady should be happy. "

"Of course, " said Wharton, drily. "However, neither she nor Raeburn arevery happy just at this moment. A horrible affair happened down therelast night. One of Lord Maxwell's gamekeepers and a 'helper, ' a lad ofseventeen, were killed last night in a fight with poachers. I only justheard the outlines of it before I came away, but I got a telegram justbefore going into congress, asking me to defend the man charged with themurder. "

A quick expression of repulsion and disgust crossed Bennett's face. 

"There have been a whole crop of such cases lately, " he said. "How shallwe ever escape from the _curse_ of this game system?"

"We shan't escape it, " said Wharton, quietly, knocking the end off hiscigarette, "not in your lifetime or mine. When we get more Radicals onthe bench we shall lighten the sentences; but that will only exasperatethe sporting class into finding new ways of protecting themselves. Oh!the man will be hung--that's quite clear to me. But it will be a goodcase--from the public point of view--will work up well--"

He ran his hand through his curls, considering. 

"Will work up admirably, " he added in a lower tone of voice, as thoughto himself, his eyes keen and brilliant as ever, in spite of the marksof sleeplessness and fatigue visible in the rest of the face, thoughonly visible there since he had allowed himself the repose of hiscigarette and arm-chair. 

"Are yo' comin' to dine at the 'Peterloo' to-night, Mr. Wharton?" saidWilkins, as Wharton handed him a cup of coffee; "but of coorse youare--part of yower duties, I suppose?"

While Molloy and Casey were deep in animated discussion of the greatmeeting of the afternoon he had been sitting silent against the edge ofthe table--a short-bearded sombre figure, ready at any moment to make agrievance, to suspect a slight. 

"I'm afraid I can't, " said Wharton, bending forward and speaking in atone of concern; "that was just what I was going to ask you all--if youwould make my excuses to-night? I have been explaining to Bennett. Ihave an important piece of business in the country--a labourer has beengetting into trouble for shooting a keeper; they have asked me to defendhim. The assizes come on in little more than a fortnight, worse luck! sothat the time is short--"

And he went on to explain that, by taking an evening train back toWidrington, he could get the following (Saturday) morning with thesolicitor in charge of the case, and be back in Birmingham, thanks tothe convenience of a new line lately opened, in time for the secondmeeting of the congress, which was fixed for the early afternoon. 

He spoke with great cordiality and persuasiveness. Among the men whosurrounded him, his youth, good looks, and easy breeding shone outconspicuous. In the opinion of Wilkins, indeed, who followed his everyword and gesture, he was far too well dressed and too well educated. Aday would soon come when the labour movement would be able to show theseyoung aristocrats the door. Not yet, however. 

"Well, I thowt you wouldn't dine with us, " he said, turning away with ablunt laugh. 

Bennett's mild eye showed annoyance. "Mr. Wharton has explained himselfvery fully, I think, " he said, turning to the others. "We shall miss himat dinner--but this matter seems to be one of life and death. And wemustn't forget anyway that Mr. Wharton is fulfilling this engagement atgreat inconvenience to himself. We none of us knew when we elected himlast year that he would have to be fighting his election at the sametime. Next Saturday, isn't it?"

Bennett rose as he spoke and carefully buttoned his coat. It was curiousto contrast his position among his fellows--one of marked ascendency andauthority--with his small insignificant physique. He had a gentledeprecating eye, and the heart of a poet. He played the flute andpossessed the gift of repeating verse--especially Ebenezer Eliot's CornLaw Rhymes--so as to stir a great audience to enthusiasm or tears. TheWesleyan community of his native Cheshire village owned no moresuccessful class-leader, and no humbler Christian. At the same time hecould hold a large business meeting sternly in check, was the secretaryof one of the largest and oldest Unions in the country, had been inParliament for years, and was generally looked upon even by the men whohated his "moderate" policy, as a power not to be ignored. 

"Next Saturday. Yes!" said Wharton, nodding in answer to his inquiry. 

"Well, are you going to do it?" said Casey, looking round at him. 

"Oh, yes!" said Wharton, cheerfully; "oh, yes! we shall do it. We shallsettle old Dodgson, I think. "

"Are the Raeburns as strong as they were?" asked Molloy, who knewBrookshire. 

"What landlord is? Since '84 the ground is mined for them all--good andbad--and they know it. "

"The mine takes a long time blowing up--too long for my patience, " saidWilkins, gruffly. "How the country can go on year after year paying itstribute to these plunderers passes my comprehension. But you may attackthem as you please. You will never get any forrarder so long asParliament and the Cabinet is made up of them and their hangers on. "

Wharton looked at him brightly, but silently, making a little assentinginclination of the head. He was not surprised that anything should passWilkins's comprehension, and he was determined to give him no openingfor holding forth. 

"Well, we'll let you alone, " said Bennett. "You'll have very little timeto get off in. We'll make your excuses, Mr. Wharton. You may be sureeverybody is so pleased with your speech we shall find them all in agood temper. It was grand!--let me congratulate you again. Good-night--Ihope you'll get your poacher off!"

The others followed suit, and they all took leave in character;--Molloy, with an eager business reference to the order of the day forSaturday, --"Give me your address at Widrington; I'll post you everythingto-night, so that you may have it all under your eye"--Casey, with theoff-hand patronage of the man who would not for the world have hisbenevolence mistaken for servility, --and Wilkins with as gruff a nod andas limp a shake of the hand as possible. It might perhaps have been readin the manner of the last two, that although this young man had justmade a most remarkable impression, and was clearly destined to go far, they were determined not to yield themselves to him a moment before theymust. In truth, both were already jealous of him; whereas Molloy, absorbed in the business of the congress, cared for nothing except toknow whether in the next two days' debates Wharton would show himself asgood a chairman as he was an orator; and Bennett, while saying no wordthat he did not mean, was fully conscious of an inner judgment, whichpronounced five minutes of Edward Hallin's company to be worth more tohim than anything which this brilliant young fellow could do or say. 

 * * * * *

Wharton saw them out, then came back and threw himself again into hischair by the window. The venetian blinds were not closed, and he lookedout on a wide and handsome street of tall red-brick houses and shops, crowded with people and carriages, and lit with a lavishness of gaswhich overcame even the February dark and damp. But he noticed nothing, and even the sensation of his triumph was passing off. He was once morein the Mellor drive; Aldous Raeburn and Marcella stood in front of him;the thrill of the moment beat once more in his pulse. 

He buried his head in his hands and thought. The news of the murder hadreached him from Mr. Boyce. The master of Mellor had heard the news fromWilliam, the man-servant, at half-past seven, and had instantly knockedup his guest, by way of sharing the excitement with which his own feebleframe was throbbing. 

"By Gad! I never heard such an _atrocious_ business, " said the invalid, his thin hand shaking against his dressing-gown. "That's what yourRadical notions bring us to! We shall have them plundering and burningthe country houses next. "

"I don't think my Radical notions have much to do with it, " saidWharton, composedly. 

But there was a red spot in his cheeks which belied his manner. So whenhe--_they_--saw Hurd cross the avenue he was on his way to this deed ofblood. The shot that he, Wharton, had heard had been the shot which slewWestall? Probably. Well, what was the bearing of it? Could she keep herown counsel or would they find themselves in the witness box? The ideaquickened his pulse amazingly. 

"Any clue? Any arrests?" he asked of his host. "Why, I told you, " saidBoyce, testily, though as a matter of fact he had said nothing. "Theyhave got that man Hurd. The ruffian has been a marked man by the keepersand police, they tell me, for the last year or more. And there's mydaughter has been pampering him and his wife all the time, and_preaching_ to me about them! She got Raeburn even to take him on at theCourt. I trust it will be a lesson to her. "

Wharton drew a breath of relief. So the man was in custody, and therewas other evidence. Good! There was no saying what a woman's consciencemight be capable of, even against her friends and herself. 

When Mr. Boyce at last left him free to dress and make his preparationsfor the early train, by which the night before, after the ladies'departure for the ball, he had suddenly made up his mind to leaveMellor, it was some time before Wharton could rouse himself to action. The situation absorbed him. Miss Boyce's friend was now in imminentdanger of his neck, and Miss Boyce's thoughts must be of necessityconcentrated upon his plight and that of his family. He foresaw thepassion, the _saeva indignatio_, that she must ultimately throw--thegeneral situation being what it was--into the struggle for Hurd's life. Whatever the evidence might be, he would be to her either victim orchampion--and Westall, of course, merely the Holofernes of the piece. 

How would Raeburn take it? Ah, well! the situation must develop. Itoccurred to him, however, that he would catch an earlier train toWidrington than the one he had fixed on, and have half an hour's talkwith a solicitor who was a good friend of his before going on toBirmingham. Accordingly, he rang for William--who came, all staring anddishevelled, fresh from the agitation of the servants' hall--gave ordersfor his luggage to be sent after him, got as much fresh information ashe could from the excited lad, plunged into his bath, and finallyemerged, fresh and vigorous in every nerve, showing no trace whatever ofthe fact that two hours of broken sleep had been his sole portion for anight, in which he had gone through emotions and sustained a travail ofbrain either of which would have left their mark on most men. 

 * * * * *

Then the meeting in the drive! How plainly he saw them both--Raeburngrave and pale, Marcella in her dark serge skirt and cap, with an eyeall passion and a cheek white as her hand. 

"A tragic splendour enwrapped her!--a fierce heroic air. She was theembodiment of the moment--of the melancholy morning with its rain andleafless woods--of the human anguish throbbing in the little village. And I, who had seen her last in her festal dress, who had held her warmperfumed youth in my arms, who had watched in her white breast theheaving of the heart that I--_I_ had troubled!--how did I find itpossible to stand and face her? But I did. It rushed through me at once_how_ I would make her forgive me--how I would regain possession of her. I had thought the play was closed: it was suddenly plain to me that thesecond act was but just beginning. She and Raeburn had already come towords--I knew it directly I saw them. This business will divide themmore and more. His _conscience_ will come in--and a Raeburn's conscienceis the devil!

"By now he hates me; every word I speak to him--still more every wordto her--galls him. But he controlled himself when I made him tell me thestory--I had no reason to complain--though every now and then I couldsee him wince under the knowledge I must needs show of the persons andplaces concerned--a knowledge I could only have got from _her_. And shestood by meanwhile like a statue. Not a word, not a look, so far, thoughshe had been forced to touch my hand. But my instinct saved me. I rousedher--I played upon her! I took the line that I was morally certain_she_ had been taking in their _tête-à-tête_. Why not a scuffle?--ageneral scrimmage?--in which it was matter of accident who fell? The mansurely was inoffensive and gentle, incapable of deliberate murder. Andas to the evidence of hatred, it told both ways. He stiffened and wassilent. What a fine brow he has--a look sometimes, when he is moved, ofantique power and probity! But she--she trembled--animation came back. She would almost have spoken to me--but I did well not to prolong it--tohurry on. "

Then he took the telegram out of his pocket which had been put into hishands as he reached the hotel, his mouth quivering again with theexultation which he had felt when he had received it. It recalled to hisranging memory all the details of his hurried interview with the littleWidrington solicitor, who had already scented a job in the matter ofHurd's defence. This man--needy, shrewd, and well equipped with localknowledge--had done work for Wharton and the party, and asked nothingbetter than to stand well with the future member for the division. "There is a lady, " Wharton had said, "the daughter of Mr. Boyce ofMellor, who is already very much interested in this fellow and hisfamily. She takes this business greatly to heart. I have seen her thismorning, but had no time to discuss the matter with her. She will, Ihave little doubt, try to help the relations in the arrangements for thedefence. Go to her this morning--tell her that the case has mysympathy--that, as she knows, I am a barrister, and, if she wishes it, Iwill defend Hurd. I shall be hard put to it to get up the case with theelection coming on, but I will do it--for the sake of the publicinterest involved. You understand? Her father is a Tory--and she is justabout to marry Mr. Raeburn. Her position, therefore, is difficult. Nevertheless, she will feel strongly--she does feel strongly about thiscase, and about the whole game system--and I feel moved to support her. She will take her own line, whatever happens. See her--see the wife, too, who is entirely under Miss Boyce's influence--and wire to me at myhotel at Birmingham. If they wish to make other arrangements, well andgood. I shall have all the more time to give to the election. "

Leaving this commission behind him, he had started on his journey. Atthe end of it a telegram had been handed to him on the stairs of hishotel:

"Have seen the lady, also Mrs. Hurd. You are urgently asked to undertakedefence. "

He spread it out before him now, and pondered it. The bit of flimsypaper contained for him the promise of all he most coveted, --influence, emotion, excitement. "She will have returns upon herself, " he thoughtsmiling, "when I see her again. She will be dignified, resentful; shewill suspect everything I say or do--still more, she will suspectherself. No matter! The situation is in my hands. Whether I succeed orfail, she will be forced to work with me, to consult with me--she willowe me gratitude. What made her consent?--she must have felt it in somesort a humiliation. Is it that Raeburn has been driving her to strongmeasures--that she wants, woman-like, to win, and thought me after allher best chance, and put her pride in her pocket? Or is it?--ah! oneshould put _that_ out of one's head. It's like wine--it unsteadies one. And for a thing like this one must go into training. Shall I write toher--there is just time now, before I start--take the lofty tone, theequal masculine tone, which I have noticed she likes?--ask her pardonfor an act of madness--before we go together to the rescue of a life? Itmight do--it might go down. But no, I think not! Let the situationdevelop itself. Action and reaction--the unexpected--I commit myself tothat. _She_--marry Aldous Raeburn in a month? Well, she may--certainlyshe may. But there is no need for me, I think, to take it greatly intoaccount. Curious! twenty-four hours ago I thought it all done with--deadand done with. 'So like Provvy, ' as Bentham used to say, when he heardof anything particularly unseemly in the way of natural catastrophe. Nowto dine, and be off! How little sleep can I do with in the nextfortnight?"

He rang, ordered his cab, and then went to the coffee-room for somehasty food. As he was passing one of the small tables with which theroom was filled, a man who was dining there with a friend recognised himand gave him a cold nod. Wharton walked on to the further end of theroom, and, while waiting for his meal, buried himself in the localevening paper, which already contained a report of his speech. 

"Did you see that man?" asked the stranger of his friend. 

"The small young fellow with the curly hair?"

"Small young fellow, indeed! He is the wiriest athlete Iknow--extraordinary physical strength for his size--and one of thecleverest rascals out as a politician. I am a neighbour of his in thecountry. His property joins mine. I knew his father--a little, dried-upold chap of the old school--very elegant manners and veryobstinate--worried to death by his wife--oh, my goodness! such a woman!"

"What's the name?" said the friend, interrupting. 

"Wharton--H. S. Wharton. His mother was a daughter of Lord Westgate, and_her_ mother was an actress whom the old lord married in his dotage. Lady Mildred Wharton was like Garrick, only natural when she was acting, which she did on every possible occasion. A preposterous woman! OldWharton ought to have beaten her for her handwriting, and murdered herfor her gowns. Her signature took a sheet of note-paper, and as for herdress I never could get out of her way. Whatever part of the room Ihappened to be in I always found my feet tangled in her skirts. Somehow, I never could understand how she was able to find so much stuffof one pattern. But it was only to make you notice her, like all therest. Every bit of her was a pose, and the maternal pose was the worstof all. "

"H. S. Wharton?" said the other. "Why, that's the man who has beenspeaking here to-day. I've just been reading the account of it in the_Evening Star_. A big meeting--called by a joint committee of theleading Birmingham trades to consider the Liberal election programme asit affects labour--that's the man--he's been at it hammer andtongs--red-hot--all the usual devices for harrying the employer out ofexistence, with a few trifles--graduated income-tax and landnationalisation--thrown in. Oh! that's the man, is it?--they say he hada great reception--spoke brilliantly--and is certainly going to get intoParliament next week. "

The speaker, who had the air of a shrewd and prosperous manufacturer, put up his eyeglass to look at this young Robespierre. His_vis-à-vis_--a stout country gentleman who had been in the army andknocked about the world before coming into his estate--shrugged hisshoulders. 

"So I hear--he daren't show his nose as a candidate in _our_ part of theworld, though of course he does us all the harm he can. I remember agood story of his mother--she quarrelled with her husband and all herrelations, his and hers, and then she took to speaking in public, accompanied by her dear boy. On one occasion she was speaking at amarket town near us, and telling the farmers that as far as she wasconcerned she would like to see the big properties cut up to-morrow. Thesooner her father's and husband's estates were made into small holdingsstocked with public capital the better. After it was all over, a friendof mine, who was there, was coming home in a sort of omnibus that ranbetween the town and a neighbouring village. He found himself betweentwo fat farmers, and this was the conversation--broad Lincolnshire, ofcourse: 'Did tha hear Lady Mildred Wharton say them things, Willum?''Aye, a did. ' 'What did tha think, Willum?' 'What did _tha_ think, George?' 'Wal, _aa_ thowt Laady Mildred Wharton wor a graät fule, Willum, if tha asks me. ' 'I'll uphowd tha, George! I'll uphowd tha!'said the other, and then they talked no more for the rest of thejourney. "

The friend laughed. 

"So it was from the dear mamma that the young man got his opinions?"

"Of course. She dragged him into every absurdity she could from the timehe was fifteen. When the husband died she tried to get the servants tocome in to meals, but the butler struck. So did Wharton himself, who, for a Socialist, has always showed a very pretty turn for comfort. I ambound to say he was cut up when she died. It was the only time I everfelt like being civil to him--in those months after she departed. Isuppose she was devoted to him--which after all is something. "

"Good heavens!" said the other, still lazily turning over the pages ofthe newspaper as they sat waiting for their second course, "here isanother poaching murder--in Brookshire--the third I have noticed withina month. On Lord Maxwell's property--you know them?"

"I know the old man a little--fine old fellow! They'll make himPresident of the Council, I suppose. He can't have much work left inhim; but it is such a popular, respectable name. Ah! I'm sorry; the sortof thing to distress him terribly. "

"I see the grandson is standing. "

"Oh yes; will get in too. A queer sort of man--great ability and highcharacter. But you can't imagine him getting on in politics, unless it'sby sheer weight of wealth and family influence. He'll find a scruple inevery bush--never stand the rough work of the House, or get on with the_men_. My goodness! you have to pull with some queer customers nowadays. By the way, I hear he is making an unsatisfactory marriage--a girl veryhandsome, but with no manners, and like nobody else--the daughter, too, of an extremely shady father. It's surprising; you'd have thought a manlike Aldous Raeburn would have looked for the pick of things. "

"Perhaps it was she looked for the pick of things!" said the other, witha blunt laugh. "Waiter, another bottle of champagne. "

CHAPTER XI. 

Marcella was lying on the sofa in the Mellor drawing-room. The Februaryevening had just been shut out, but she had told William not to bringthe lamps till they were rung for. Even the fire-light seemed more thanshe could bear. She was utterly exhausted both in body and mind; yet, asshe lay there with shut eyes, and hands clasped under her cheek, a startwent through her at every sound in the house, which showed that she wasnot resting, but listening. She had spent the morning in the Hurds'cottage, sitting by Mrs. Hurd and nursing the little boy. Minta Hurd, always delicate and consumptive, was now generally too ill from shockand misery to be anywhere but in her bed, and Willie was growingsteadily weaker, though the child's spirit was such that he would insiston dressing, on hearing and knowing everything about his father, and onmoving about the house as usual. Yet every movement of his wasted bonescost him the effort of a hero, and the dumb signs in him of longing forhis father increased the general impression as of some patient creaturedriven by Nature to monstrous and disproportionate extremity. 

The plight of this handful of human beings worked in Marcella like somefevering torture. She was wholly out of gear physically and morally. Another practically sleepless night, peopled with images of horror, haddecreased her stock of sane self-control, already lessened by longconflict of feeling and the pressure of self-contempt. Now, as she laylistening for Aldous Raeburn's ring and step, she hardly knew whether tobe angry with him for coming so late, or miserable that he should comeat all. That there was a long score to settle between herself and himshe knew well. Shame for an experience which seemed to her maiden senseindelible--both a weakness and a treachery--lay like a dull weight onheart and conscience. But she would not realise it, she would not actupon it. She shook the moral debate from her impatiently. Aldous shouldhave his due all in good time--should have ample opportunity of decidingwhether he would, after all, marry such a girl as she. Meanwhile hisattitude with regard to the murder exasperated her. Yet, in some strangeway it relieved her to be angry and sore with him--to have a grievanceshe could avow, and on which she made it a merit to dwell. His gentle, yet firm difference of opinion with her on the subject struck her assomething new in him. It gave her a kind of fierce pleasure to fight it. He seemed somehow to be providing her with excuses--to be coming down toher level--to be equalling wrong with wrong. 

The door handle turned. At last! She sprang up. But it was only Williamcoming in with the evening post. Mrs. Boyce followed him. She took aquiet look at her daughter, and asked if her headache was better, andthen sat down near her to some needlework. During these two days shehad been unusually kind to Marcella. She had none of the little femininearts of consolation. She was incapable of fussing, and she nevercaressed. But from the moment that Marcella had come home from thevillage that morning, a pale, hollow-eyed wreck, the mother had assertedher authority. She would not hear of the girl's crossing the thresholdagain; she had put her on the sofa and dosed her with sal-volatile. AndMarcella was too exhausted to rebel. She had only stipulated that a noteshould be sent to Aldous, asking him to come on to Mellor with the newsas soon as the verdict of the coroner's jury should be given. The juryhad been sitting all day, and the verdict was expected in the evening. 

Marcella turned over her letters till she came to one from a London firmwhich contained a number of cloth patterns. As she touched it she threwit aside with a sudden gesture of impatience, and sat upright. 

"Mamma! I have something to say to you. "

"Yes, my dear. "

"Mamma, the wedding must be put off!--it _must_!--for some weeks. I havebeen thinking about it while I have been lying here. How _can_ I?--youcan see for yourself. That miserable woman depends on me altogether. Howcan I spend my time on clothing and dressmakers? I feel as if I couldthink of nothing else--nothing else in the world--but her and herchildren. " She spoke with difficulty, her voice high and strained. "Theassizes may be held that very week--who knows?--the very day we aremarried. "

She stopped, looking at her mother almost threateningly. Mrs. Boyceshowed no sign of surprise. She put her work down. 

"I had imagined you might say something of the kind, " she said after apause. "I don't know that, from your point of view, it is unreasonable. But, of course, you must understand that very few people will see itfrom your point of view. Aldous Raeburn may--you must know best. But hispeople certainly won't; and your father will think it--"

"Madness, " she was going to say, but with her usual instinct for themoderate fastidious word she corrected it to "foolish. "

Marcella's tired eyes were all wilfulness and defiance. 

"I can't help it. I couldn't do it. I will tell Aldous at once. It mustbe put off for a month. And even that, " she added with a shudder, "willbe bad enough. "

Mrs. Boyce could not help an unperceived shrug of the shoulders, and amovement of pity towards the future husband. Then she said drily, --

"You must always consider whether it is just to Mr. Raeburn to let amatter of this kind interfere so considerably with his wishes and hisplans. He must, I suppose, be in London for Parliament within sixweeks. "

Marcella did not answer. She sat with her hands round her knees lost inperplexities. The wedding, as originally fixed, was now three weeks andthree days off. After it, she and Aldous were to have spent a shortfortnight's honeymoon at a famous house in the north, lent them for theoccasion by a Duke who was a cousin of Aldous's on the mother's side, and had more houses than he knew what to do with. Then they were to goimmediately up to London for the opening of Parliament. The furnishingof the Mayfair house was being pressed on. In her new-born impatiencewith such things, Marcella had hardly of late concerned herself with itat all, and Miss Raeburn, scandalised, yet not unwilling, had been doingthe whole of it, subject to conscientious worryings of the bride, whenever she could be got hold of, on the subject of papers andcurtains. 

As they sat silent, the unspoken idea in the mother's mind was--"Eightweeks more will carry us past the execution. " Mrs. Boyce had alreadypossessed herself very clearly of the facts of the case, and it was herperception that Marcella was throwing herself headlong into a hopelessstruggle--together with something else--a confession perhaps of a touchof greatness in the girl's temper, passionate and violent as it was, that had led to this unwonted softness of manner, this absence ofsarcasm. 

Very much the same thought--only treated as a nameless horror not to berecognised or admitted--was in Marcella's mind also, joined however withanother, unsuspected even by Mrs. Boyce's acuteness. "Very likely--whenI tell him--he will not want to marry me at all--and of course I shalltell him. "

But not yet--certainly not yet. She had the instinctive sense thatduring the next few weeks she should want all her dignity with Aldous, that she could not afford to put herself at a disadvantage with him. Tobe troubled about her own sins at such a moment would be like themeanness of the lazy and canting Christian, who whines about saving hissoul while he ought to be rather occupied with feeding the bodies of hiswife and children. 

A ring at the front door. Marcella rose, leaning one hand on the end ofthe sofa--a long slim figure in her black dress--haggard and pathetic. 

When Aldous entered, her face was one question. He went up to her andtook her hand. 

"In the case of Westall the verdict is one of 'Wilful Murder' againstHurd. In that of poor Charlie Dynes the court is adjourned. Enoughevidence has been taken to justify burial. But there is news to-nightthat one of the Widrington gang has turned informer, and the police saythey will have their hands on them all within the next two or threedays. "

Marcella withdrew herself from him and fell back into the corner of thesofa. Shading her eyes with her hand she tried to be very composed andbusiness-like. 

"Was Hurd himself examined?"

"Yes, under the new Act. He gave the account which he gave to you and tohis wife. But the Court--"

"Did not believe it?"

"No. The evidence of motive was too strong. It was clear from his ownaccount that he was out for poaching purposes, that he was leading theOxford gang, and that he had a gun while Westall was unarmed. Headmitted too that Westall called on him to give up the bag of pheasantshe held, and the gun. He refused. Then he says Westall came at him, andhe fired. Dick Patton and one or two others gave evidence as to thelanguage he has habitually used about Westall for months past. "

"Cowards--curs!" cried Marcella, clenching both her hands, a kind of sobin her throat. 

Aldous, already white and careworn, showed, Mrs. Boyce thought, a ray ofindignation for an instant. Then he resumed steadily--

"And Brown, our steward, gave evidence as to his employment sinceOctober. The coroner summed up carefully, and I think fairly, and theverdict was given about half-past six. "

"They took him back to prison?"

"Of course. He comes before the magistrates on Thursday. "

"And you will be one!"

The girl's tone was indescribable. 

Aldous started. Mrs. Boyce reddened with anger, and checking herinstinct to intervene began to put away her working materials that shemight leave them together. While she was still busy Aldous said:

"You forget; no magistrate ever tries a case in which he is personallyconcerned. I shall take no part in the trial. My grandfather, of course, must prosecute. "

"But it will be a bench of landlords, " cried Marcella; "of men with whoma poacher is already condemned. "

"You are unjust to us, I think, " said Aldous, slowly, after a pause, during which Mrs. Boyce left the room--"to some of us, at any rate. Besides, as of course you know, the case will be simply sent on fortrial at the assizes. By the way "--his tone changed--"I hear to-nightthat Harry Wharton undertakes the defence. "

"Yes, " said Marcella, defiantly. "Is there anything to say against it?You wouldn't wish Hurd not to be defended, I suppose?"

"Marcella!"

Even her bitter mood was pierced by the tone. She had never wounded himso deeply yet, and for a moment he felt the situation intolerable; thesurging grievance and reproach, with which his heart was really full, all but found vent in an outburst which would have wholly swept away hisordinary measure and self-control. But then, as he looked at her, itstruck his lover's sense painfully how pale and miserable she was. Hecould not scold! But it came home to him strongly that for her own sakeand his it would be better there should be explanations. After allthings had been going untowardly for many weeks. His nature moved slowlyand with much self-doubt, but it was plain to him now that he must makea stand. 

After his cry, her first instinct was to apologise. Then the words stuckin her throat. To her, as to him, they seemed to be close on a trial ofstrength. If she could not influence him in this matter--so obvious, asit seemed to her, and so near to her heart--what was to become of thatlead of hers in their married life, on which she had been reckoning fromthe beginning? All that was worst in her and all that was best rose tothe struggle. 

But, as he did not speak, she looked up at last. 

"I was waiting, " he said in a low voice. 

"What for?"

"Waiting till you should tell me you did not mean what you said. "

She saw that he was painfully moved; she also saw that he wasintroducing something into their relation, an element of proudself-assertion, which she had never felt in it before. Her own vanityinstantly rebelled. 

"I ought not to have said exactly what I did, " she said, almost stifledby her own excitement, and making great efforts not to play the merewilful child; "that I admit. But it has been clear to me from thebeginning that--that"--her words hurried, she took up a book andrestlessly lifted it and let it fall--"you have never looked at thisthing justly. You have looked at the crime as any one must who is alandowner; you have never allowed for the provocation; you have not letyourself feel pity--"

He made an exclamation. 

"Do you know where I was before I went into the inquest?"

"No, " she said defiantly, determined not to be impressed, feeling achildish irritation at the interruption. 

"I was with Mrs. Westall. Harden and I went in to see her. She is ahard, silent woman. She is clearly not popular in the village, and noone comes in to her. Her"--he hesitated--"her baby is expected beforelong. She is in such a state of shock and excitement that Clarke thinksit quite possible she may go out of her mind. I saw her sitting by thefire, quite silent, not crying, but with a wild eye that means mischief. We have sent in a nurse to help Mrs. Jellison watch her. She seems tocare nothing about her boy. Everything that that woman most desired inlife has been struck from her at a blow. Why? That a man who was in nostress of poverty, who had friends and employment, should indulgehimself in acts which he knew to be against the law, and had promisedyou and his wife to forego, and should at the same time satisfy a wildbeast's hatred against the man, who was simply defending his master'sproperty. Have _you_ no pity for Mrs. Westall or her child?"

He spoke as calmly as he could, making his appeal to reason and moralsense; but, in reality, every word was charged with electric feeling. 

"I _am_ sorry for her!" cried Marcella, passionately. "But, after all, how can one feel for the oppressor, or those connected with him, as onedoes for the victim?" He shook his head, protesting against the word, but she rushed on. "You do know--for I told you yesterday--how under theshelter of this _hateful_ game system Westall made Kurd's life a burdento him when he was a young man--how he had begun to bully him again thispast year. We had the same sort of dispute the other day about thatmurder in Ireland. You were shocked that I would not condemn theMoonlighters who had shot their landlord from behind a hedge, as youdid. You said the man had tried to do his duty, and that the murder wasbrutal and unprovoked. But I thought of the _system_--of the _memories_in the minds of the murderers. There _were_ excuses--he suffered for hisfather--I am not going to judge that as I judge other murders. So, whena Czar of Russia is blown up, do you expect one to think only of hiswife and children? No! I will think of the tyranny and the revolt; Iwill pray, yes, _pray_ that I might have courage to do as they did! Youmay think me wild and mad. I dare say. I am made so. I shall always feelso!"

She flung out her words at him, every limb quivering under the emotionof them. His cool, penetrating eye, this manner she had never yet knownin him, exasperated her. 

"Where was the tyranny in this case?" he asked her quietly. "I agreewith you that there are murders and murders. But I thought your pointwas that here was neither murder nor attack, but only an act ofself-defence. That is Hurd's plea. "

She hesitated and stumbled. "I know, " she said, "I know. I believe it. But, even if the attack had been on Hurd's part, I should still findexcuses, because of the system, and because of Westall's hatefulness. "

He shook his head again. 

"Because a man is harsh and masterful, and uses stinging language, is heto be shot down like a dog?"

There was a silence. Marcella was lashing herself up by thoughts of thedeformed man in his cell, looking forward after the wretched, unsatisfied life, which was all society had allowed him, to the violentdeath by which society would get rid of him--of the wife yearning herheart away--of the boy, whom other human beings, under the name of law, were about to separate from his father for ever. At last she broke outthickly and indistinctly:

"The terrible thing is that I cannot count upon you--that now I cannotmake you feel as I do--feel with me. And by-and-by, when I shall wantyour help desperately, when your help might be everything--I suppose itwill be no good to ask it. "

He started, and bending forward he possessed himself of both herhands--her hot trembling hands--and kissed them with a passionatetenderness. 

"What help will you ask of me that I cannot give? That would be hard tobear!"

Still held by him, she answered his question by another:

"Give me your idea of what will happen. Tell me how you think it willend. "

"I shall only distress you, dear, " he said sadly. 

"No; tell me. You think him guilty. You believe he will be convicted. "

"Unless some wholly fresh evidence is forthcoming, " he said reluctantly, "I can see no other issue. "

"Very well; then he will be sentenced to death. But, after sentence--Iknow--that man from Widrington, that solicitor told me--if--if stronginfluence is brought to bear--if anybody whose word counts--if LordMaxwell and you, were to join the movement to save him--There is sure tobe a movement--the Radicals will take it up. Will you do it--will youpromise me now--for my sake?"

He was silent. 

She looked at him, all her heart burning in her eyes, conscious of herwoman's power too, and pressing it. 

"If that man is hung, " she said pleadingly, "it will leave a mark on mylife nothing will ever smooth out. I shall feel myself somehowresponsible. I shall say to myself, if I had not been thinking about myown selfish affairs--about getting married--about the straw-plaiting--Imight have seen what was going on. I might have saved these people, whohave been my friends--my _real_ friends--from this horror. "

She drew her hands away and fell back on the sofa, pressing herhandkerchief to her eyes. "If you had seen her this morning!" she saidin a strangled voice. "She was saying, 'Oh, miss, if they do find himguilty, they can't hang him--not my poor deformed Jim, that never had achance of being like the others. Oh, we'll beg so hard. I know there'smany people will speak for him. He was mad, miss, when he did it. He'dnever been himself, not since last winter, when we all sat and starved, and he was driven out of his senses by thinking of me and the children. You'll get Mr. Raeburn to speak--won't you, miss?--and Lord Maxwell? Itwas their game. I know it was their game. But they'll forgive him. They're such great people, and so rich--and we--we've always had such astruggle. Oh, the bad times we've had, and no one know! They'll try andget him off, miss? Oh, I'll go and _beg_ of them. '"

She stopped, unable to trust her voice any further. He stooped over herand kissed her brow. There was a certain solemnity in the moment forboth of them. The pity of human fate overshadowed them. At last he saidfirmly, yet with great feeling:

"I will not prejudge anything, that I promise you. I will keep my mindopen to the last. But--I should like to say--it would not be any easierto me to throw myself into an agitation for reprieve because this manwas tempted to crime by _my_ property--on _my_ land. I should think itright to look at it altogether from the public point of view. Thesatisfaction of my own private compunctions--of my own privatefeelings--is not what I ought to regard. My own share in thecircumstances, in the conditions which made such an act possible doesindeed concern me deeply. You cannot imagine but that the moral problemof it has possessed me ever since this dreadful thing happened. Ittroubled me much before. Now, it has become an oppression--a torture. Ihave never seen my grandfather so moved, so distressed, in all myremembrance of him. Yet he is a man of the old school, with the oldstandards. As for me, if ever I come to the estate I will change thewhole system, I will run no risks of such human wreck and ruin asthis--"

His voice faltered. 

"But, " he resumed, speaking steadily again, "I ought to warn you thatsuch considerations as these will not affect my judgment of thisparticular case. In the first place, I have no quarrel with capitalpunishment as such. I do not believe we could rightly give it up. Yourattitude properly means that wherever we can legitimately feel pity fora murderer, we should let him escape his penalty. I, on the other hand, believe that if the murderer saw things as they truly are, he wouldhimself _claim_ his own death, as his best chance, his only chance--inthis mysterious universe!--of self-recovery. Then it comes to this--wasthe act murder? The English law of murder is not perfect, but it appearsto me to be substantially just, and guided by it--"

"You talk as if there were no such things as mercy and pity in theworld, " she interrupted wildly; "as if law were not made andadministered by men of just the same stuff and fabric as thelawbreaker!"

He looked troubled. 

"Ah, but _law_ is something beyond laws or those who administer them, "he said in a lower tone; "and the law--the _obligation-sense_--of ourown race and time, however imperfect it may be, is sacred, not becauseit has been imposed upon us from without, but because it has grown up towhat it is, out of our own best life--ours, yet not ours--the best proofwe have, when we look back at it in the large, when we feel its work inourselves of some diviner power than our own will--our best clue to whatthat power may be!"

He spoke at first, looking away--wrestling out his thought, as it were, by himself--then turning back to her, his eyes emphasised the appealimplied, though not expressed, in what he said--intense appeal to herfor sympathy, forbearance, mutual respect, through all acuteness ofdifference. His look both promised and implored. 

He bad spoken to her but very rarely or indirectly as yet of his ownreligious or philosophical beliefs. She was in a stage when such thingsinterested her but little, and reticence in personal matters was so muchthe law of his life that even to her expansion was difficult. Sothat--inevitably--she was arrested, for the moment, as any quickperception must be, by the things that unveil character. 

Then an upheaval of indignant feeling swept the impression away. Allthat he said might be ideally, profoundly true--_but_--the red blood ofthe common life was lacking in every word of it! He ought to beincapable of saying it _now_. Her passionate question was, how could he_argue_--how could he hold and mark the ethical balance--when a _woman_was suffering, when _children_ were to be left fatherless? Besides--theethical balance itself--does it not alter according to the hands thathold it--poacher or landlord, rich or poor?

But she was too exhausted to carry on the contest in words. Both felt itwould have to be renewed. But she said to herself secretly that Mr. Wharton, when he got to work, would alter the whole aspect of affairs. And she knew well that her vantage-ground as towards Aldous was strong. 

Then at last he was free to turn his whole attention for a little to herand her physical state, which made him miserable. He had never imaginedthat any one, vigorous and healthy as she was, could look so worn out inso short a time. She let him talk to her--lament, entreat, advise--andat last she took advantage of his anxiety and her admissions to come tothe point, to plead that the marriage should be put off. 

She used the same arguments that she had done to her mother. 

"How can I bear to be thinking of these things?"--she pointed a shakingfinger at the dress patterns lying scattered on the table--"with thisagony, this death, under my eyes?"

It was a great blow to him, and the practical inconveniences involvedwere great. But the fibre of him--of which she had just felt thetoughness--was delicate and sensitive as her own, and after a very shortrecoil he met her with great chivalry and sweetness, agreeing thateverything should be put off for six weeks, till Easter in fact. Shewould have been very grateful to him but that something--some secretthought--checked the words she tried to say. 

"I must go home then, " he said, rising and trying to smile. "I shallhave to make things straight with Aunt Neta, and set a great manyarrangements in train. Now, you will _try_ to think of something else?Let me leave you with a book that I can imagine you will read. "

She let herself be tended and thought for. At the last, just as he wasgoing, he said:

"Have you seen Mr. Wharton at all since this happened?"

His manner was just as usual. She felt that her eye was guilty, but thedarkness of the firelit room shielded her. 

"I have not seen him since we met him in the drive. I saw the solicitorwho is working up the case for him yesterday. He came over to see Mrs. Hurd and me. I had not thought of asking him, but we agreed that, if hewould undertake it, it would be the best chance. "

"It _is_ probably the best chance, " said Aldous, thoughtfully. "Ibelieve Wharton has not done much at the Bar since he was called, butthat, no doubt, is because he has had so much on his hands in the way ofjournalism and politics. His ability is enough for anything, and he willthrow himself into this. I do not think Hurd could do better. "

She did not answer. She felt that he was magnanimous, but felt itcoldly, without emotion. 

He came and stooped over her. 

"Good-night--good-night--tired child--dear heart! When I saw you in thatcottage this morning I thought of the words, 'Give, and it shall begiven unto you. ' All that my life can do to pour good measure, presseddown, running over, into yours, I vowed you then!"

When the door closed upon him, Marcella, stretched in the darkness, shedthe bitterest tears that had ever yet been hers--tears which transformedher youth--which baptised her, as it were, into the fulness of ourtragic life. 

She was still weeping when she heard the door softly opened. She sprangup and dried her eyes, but the little figure that glided in was not oneto shrink from. Mary Harden came and sat down beside her. 

"I knew you would be miserable. Let me come and cry too. I have been myround--have seen them all--and I came to bring you news. "

"How has she taken--the verdict?" asked Marcella, struggling with hersobs, and succeeding at last in composing herself. 

"She was prepared for it. Charlie told her when he saw her after youleft this afternoon that she must expect it. "

There was a pause. 

"I shall soon hear, I suppose, " said Marcella, in a hardening voice, herhands round her knees, "what Mr. Wharton is doing for the defence. Hewill appear before the magistrates, I suppose. "

"Yes; but Charlie thinks the defence will be mainly reserved. Only alittle more than a fortnight to the assizes! The time is so short. Butnow this man has turned informer, they say the case is quitestraightforward. With all the other evidence the police have there willbe no difficulty in trying them all. Marcella!"

"Yes. "

Had there been light enough to show it, Mary's face would have revealedher timidity. 

"Marcella, Charlie asked me to give you a message. He begs you notto--not to make Mrs. Hurd hope too much. He himself believes there is nohope, and it is not kind. "

"Are you and he like all the rest, " cried Marcella, her passion breakingout again, "only eager to have blood for blood?"

Mary waited an instant. 

"It has almost broken Charlie's heart, " she said at last; "but he thinksit was murder, and that Hurd will pay the penalty; nay, more "--shespoke with a kind of religious awe in her gentle voice--"that he oughtto be glad to pay it. He believes it to be God's will, and I have heardhim say that he would even have executions in public again--understricter regulations of course--that we may not escape, as we always doif we can--from all sight and thought of God's justice and God'spunishments. "

Marcella shuddered and rose. She almost threw Mary's hand away from her. 

"Tell your brother from me, Mary, " she said, "that his God is to _me_just a constable in the service of the English game-laws! If He _is_such a one, I at least will fling my Everlasting No at him while Ilive. "

And she swept from the room, leaving Mary aghast. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile there was consternation and wrath at Maxwell Court, whereAldous, on his return from Mellor, had first of all given his great-auntthe news of the coroner's verdict, and had then gone on to break to herthe putting-off of the marriage. His championship of Marcella in thematter, and his disavowal of all grievance were so quiet and decided, that Miss Raeburn had been only able to allow herself a very modifiedstrain of comment and remonstrance, so long as he was still there tolisten. But she was all the more outspoken when he was gone, and LadyWinterbourne was sitting with her. Lady Winterbourne, who was at homealone, while her husband was with a married daughter on the Riviera, hadcome over to dine _tête-à-tête_ with her friend, finding it impossibleto remain solitary while so much was happening. 

"Well, my dear, " said Miss Raeburn, shortly, as her guest entered theroom, "I may as well tell you at once that Aldous's marriage is putoff. "

"Put off!" exclaimed Lady Winterbourne, bewildered. "Why it was onlyThursday that I was discussing it all with Marcella, and she told meeverything was settled. "

"Thursday!--I dare say!" said Miss Raeburn, stitching away with fieryenergy, "but since then a poacher has murdered one of our gamekeepers, which makes all the difference. "

"What _do_ you mean, Agneta?"

"What I say, my dear. The poacher was Marcella's friend, and she cannotnow distract her mind from him sufficiently to marry Aldous, thoughevery plan he has in the world will be upset by her proceedings. And asfor his election, you may depend upon it she will never ask or knowwhether he gets in next Monday or no. That goes without saying. She ismeanwhile absorbed with the poacher's defence, _Mr. Wharton_, of course, conducting it. This is your modern young woman, my dear--typical, Ishould think. "

Miss Raeburn turned her buttonhole in fine style, and at lightningspeed, to show the coolness of her mind, then with a rattling of all herlockets, looked up and waited for Lady Winterbourne's reflections. 

"She has often talked to me of these people--the Hurds, " said LadyWinterbourne, slowly. "She has always made special friends with them. Don't you remember she told us about them that day she first came backto lunch?"

"Of course I remember! That day she lectured Maxwell, at first sight, on his duties. She began well. As for these people, " said Miss Raeburn, more slowly, "one is, of course, sorry for the wife and children, thoughI am a good deal sorrier for Mrs. Westall, and poor, poor Mrs. Dynes. The whole affair has so upset Maxwell and me, we have hardly been ableto eat or sleep since. I thought it made Maxwell look dreadfully oldthis morning, and with all that he has got before him too! I shallinsist on sending for Clarke to-morrow morning if he does not have abetter night. And now this postponement will be one more trouble--allthe engagements to alter, and the invitations. _Really_! that girl. "

And Miss Raeburn broke off short, feeling simply that the words whichwere allowed to a well-bred person were wholly inadequate to her stateof mind. 

"But if she feels it--as you or I might feel such a thing about some onewe knew or cared for, Agneta?"

"How can she feel it like that?" cried Miss Raeburn, exasperated. "Howcan she know any one of--of that class well enough? It is not seemly, Itell you, Adelaide, and I don't believe it is sincere. It's just done tomake herself conspicuous, and show her power over Aldous. For otherreasons too, if the truth were known!"

Miss Raeburn turned over the shirt she was making for some charitablesociety and drew out some tacking threads with a loud noise whichrelieved her. Lady Winterbourne's old and delicate cheek had flushed. 

"I'm sure it's sincere, " she said with emphasis. "Do you mean to say, Agneta, that one can't sympathise, in such an awful thing, with peopleof another class, as one would with one's own flesh and blood?"

Miss Raeburn winced. She felt for a moment the pressure of a democraticworld--a hated, formidable world--through her friend's question. Thenshe stood to her guns. 

"I dare say you'll think it sounds bad, " she said stoutly; "but in myyoung days it would have been thought a piece of posing--ofsentimentalism--something indecorous and unfitting--if a girl had putherself in such a position. Marcella _ought_ to be absorbed in hermarriage; that is the natural thing. How Mrs. Boyce can allow her to mixherself with such things as this murder--to _live_ in that cottage, as Ihear she has been doing, passes my comprehension. "

"You mean, " said Lady Winterbourne, dreamily, "that if one had been veryfond of one's maid, and she died, one wouldn't put on mourning for her. Marcella would. "

"I dare say, " said Miss Raeburn, snappishly. "She is capable of anythingfar-fetched and theatrical. "

The door opened and Hallin came in. He had been suffering of late, andmuch confined to the house. But the news of the murder had made a deepand painful impression upon him, and he had been eagerly acquaintinghimself with the facts. Miss Raeburn, whose kindness ran with unceasingflow along the channels she allowed it, was greatly attached to him inspite of his views, and she now threw herself upon him for sympathy inthe matter of the wedding. In any grievance that concerned Aldous shecounted upon him, and her shrewd eyes had plainly perceived that he hadmade no great friendship with Marcella. 

"I am very sorry for Aldous, " he said at once; "but I understand _her_perfectly. So does Aldous. "

Miss Raeburn was angrily silent. But when Lord Maxwell, who had beentalking with Aldous, came in, he proved, to her final discomfiture, tobe very much of the same opinion. 

"My dear, " he said wearily as he dropped into his chair, his old facegrey and pinched, "this thing is too terrible--the number of widows andorphans that night's work will make before the end breaks my heart tothink of. It will be a relief not to have to consider festivities whilethese men are actually before the courts. What I am anxious about isthat Marcella should not make herself ill with excitement. The man sheis interested in will be hung, must be hung; and with her somewhatvolatile, impulsive nature--"

He spoke with old-fashioned discretion and measure. Then quickly hepulled himself up, and, with some trivial question or other, offered hisarm to Lady Winterbourne, for Aldous had just come in, and dinner wasready. 

CHAPTER XII. 

Nearly three weeks passed--short flashing weeks, crowded withagitations, inward or outward, for all the persons of this story. 

After the inquiry before the magistrates--conducted, as she passionatelythought, with the most marked animus on the part of the bench and policetowards the prisoners--had resulted in the committal for trial of Hurdand his five companions, Marcella wrote Aldous Raeburn a letter whichhurt him sorely. 

"Don't come over to see me for a little while, " it ran. "My mind is allgiven over to feelings which must seem to you--which, I know, do seem toyou--unreasonable and unjust. But they are my life, and when they arecriticised, or even treated coldly, I cannot bear it. When you are notthere to argue with, I can believe, most sincerely, that you have aright to see this matter as you do, and that it is monstrous of me toexpect you to yield to me entirely in a thing that concerns your senseof public duty. But don't come now--not before the trial. I will appealto you if I think you can help me. I _know_ you will if you can. Mr. Wharton keeps me informed of everything. I enclose his last two letters, which will show you the line he means to take up with regard to some ofthe evidence. "

Aldous's reply cost him a prodigal amount of pain and difficulty. 

"I will do anything in the world to make these days less of a burden toyou. You can hardly imagine that it is not grievous to me to think ofany trouble of yours as being made worse by my being with you. But stillI understand. One thing only I ask--that you should not imagine thedifference between us greater than it is. The two letters you enclosehave given me much to ponder. If only the course of the trial enables mewith an honest heart to throw myself into your crusade of mercy, withwhat joy shall I come and ask you to lead me, and to forgive my ownslower sense and pity!

"I should like you to know that Hallin is very much inclined to agreewith you, to think that the whole affair was a 'scrimmage, ' and thatHurd at least ought to be reprieved. He would have come to talk it overwith you himself, but that Clarke forbids him anything that interests orexcites him for the present. He has been very ill and suffering for thelast fortnight, and, as you know, when these attacks come on we try tokeep everything from him that could pain or agitate him. But I see thatthis whole affair is very much on his mind, in spite of my efforts. 

"... Oh, my darling! I am writing late at night, with your letter openbefore me and your picture close to my hand. So many things rise in mymind to say to you. There will come a time--there _must!_--when I maypour them all out. Meanwhile, amid all jars and frets, remember this, that I have loved you better each day since first we met. 

"I will not come to Mellor then for a little while. My election, littleheart as I have for it, will fill up the week. The nomination-day isfixed for Thursday and the polling for Monday. "

Marcella read the letter with a confusion of feeling so great as to bein itself monstrous and demoralising. Was she never to be simple, to seeher way clearly again?

As for him, as he rode about the lanes and beechwoods in the days thatfollowed, alone often with that nature for which all such temperamentsas Aldous Raeburn's have so secret and so observant an affection, he wasperpetually occupied with this difficulty which had arisen betweenMarcella and himself, turning it over and over in the quiet of themorning, before the turmoil of the day began. 

He had followed the whole case before the magistrates with the mostscrupulous care. And since then, he had twice run across the Widringtonsolicitor for the defence, who was now instructing Wharton. This man, although a strong Radical, and employed generally by his own side, sawno objection at all to letting Lord Maxwell's heir and representativeunderstand how in his opinion the case was going. Aldous Raeburn was aperson whom everybody respected; confidences were safe with him; and hewas himself deeply interested in the affair. The Raeburns being theRaeburns, with all that that implied for smaller people in Brookshire, little Mr. Burridge was aware of no reason whatever why Westall'semployers should not know that, although Mr. Wharton was working up thedefence with an energy and ability which set Burridge marvelling, it wasstill his, Burridge's opinion, that everything that could be advancedwould be wholly unavailing with the jury; that the evidence, as it cameinto final shape, looked worse for Hurd rather than better; and that theonly hope for the man lay in the after-movement for reprieve which canalways be got up in a game-preserving case. 

"And is as a rule political and anti-landlord, " thought Aldous, on oneof these mornings, as he rode along the edge of the down. He foresawexactly what would happen. As he envisaged the immediate future, he sawone figure as the centre of it--not Marcella, but Wharton! Wharton wasdefending, Wharton would organise the petition, Wharton would apply forhis own support and his grandfather's, through Marcella. To Whartonwould belong not only the popular _kudos_ of the matter, but much more, and above all, Marcella's gratitude. 

Aldous pulled up his horse an instant, recognising that spot in theroad, that downward stretching glade among the beeches, where he hadasked Marcella to be his wife. The pale February sunlight was spreadingfrom his left hand through the bare grey trunks, and over the distantshoulders of the woods, far into the white and purple of the chalkplain. Sounds of labour came from the distant fields; sounds of winterbirds from the branches round him. The place, the time, raised in himall the intensest powers of consciousness. He saw himself as the man_standing midway_ in everything--speculation, politics, sympathies--asthe perennially ineffective and, as it seemed to his morbid mood, theperennially defeated type, beside the Whartons of this world. Wharton!He knew him--had read him long ago--read him afresh of late. Raeburn'slip showed the contempt, the bitterness which the philosopher could notrepress, showed also the humiliation of the lover. Here was he, banishedfrom Marcella; here was Wharton, in possession of her mind andsympathies, busily forging a link--

"It shall be _broken!_" said Raeburn to himself with a sudden fierceconcentration of will. "So much I will claim--and enforce. "

But not now, nothing now, but patience, delicacy, prudence. He gatheredhimself together with a long breath, and went his way. 

 * * * * *

For the rest, the clash of motives and affections he felt and foresaw inthis matter of the Disley murders, became day by day more harassing. Themoral debate was strenuous enough. The murders had roused all the humaneand ethical instincts, which were in fact the man, to such a point thatthey pursued him constantly, in the pauses of his crowded days, likeavenging Erinnyes. Hallin's remark that "game-preserving creates crime"left him no peace. Intellectually he argued it, and on the wholerejected it; morally, and in feeling, it scourged him. He had sufferedall his mature life under a too painful and scrupulous sense that he, more than other men, was called to be his brother's keeper. It wasnatural that, during these exhausting days, the fierce death onWestall's rugged face, the piteous agony in Dynes's young eyes andlimbs, should haunt him, should make his landlord's place andresponsibility often mere ashes and bitterness. 

But, as Marcella had been obliged to perceive, he drew the sharpest linebetween the bearings of this ghastly business on his own private lifeand action, and its relation to public order. That the gamekeepersdestroyed were his servants, or practically his servants, made nodifference to him whatever in his estimate of the crime itself. If thecircumstances had been such that he could honestly have held Hurd not tobe a murderer, no employer's interest, no landlord's desire forvengeance, would have stood in his way. On the other hand, believing, ashe emphatically did, that Hurd's slaying of Westall had been of a kindmore deliberate and less capable of excuse than most murders, he wouldhave held it a piece of moral cowardice to allow his own qualms andcompunctions as to the rights and wrongs of game-preserving to interferewith a duty to justice and society. 

Ay! and something infinitely dearer to him than his own qualms andcompunctions. 

Hallin, who watched the whole debate in his friend day by day, wasconscious that he had never seen Aldous more himself, in spite oftrouble of mind; more "in character, " so to speak, than at this moment. Spiritual dignity of mind and temper, blended with a painful personalhumility, and interfused with all--determining all--elements ofjudgment, subtleties, prejudices, modes of looking at things, for whichhe was hardly responsible, so deeply ingrained were they by inheritanceand custom. More than this: did not the ultimate explanation of thewhole attitude of the man lie in the slow but irresistible revolt of astrong individuality against the passion which had for a time suppressedit? The truth of certain moral relations may be for a time obscured anddistorted; none the less, _reality_ wins the day. So Hallin read it. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile, during days when both for Aldous and Wharton the claims of abustling, shouting public, which must be canvassed, shaken hands with, and spoken to, and the constant alternations of business meetings, committee-rooms and the rest, made it impossible, after all, for eitherman to spend more than the odds and ends of thought upon anythingoutside the clatter of politics, Marcella had been living a life ofintense and monotonous feeling, shut up almost within the walls of atiny cottage, hanging over sick-beds, and thrilling to each pulse ofanguish as it beat in the miserable beings she tended. 

The marriage of the season, with all its accompanying festivities andjubilations, had not been put off for seven weeks--till afterEaster--without arousing a storm of critical astonishment both invillage and county. And when the reason was known--that it was becauseMiss Boyce had taken the Disley murder so desperately to heart, thatuntil the whole affair was over, and the men either executed orreprieved, she could spare no thought to wedding clothes or cates--therewas curiously little sympathy with Marcella. Most of her own classthought it a piece of posing, if they did not say so as frankly as MissRaeburn--something done for self-advertisement and to advanceanti-social opinions; while the Mellor cottagers, with the instinctiveEnglish recoil from any touch of sentiment not, so to speak, in thebargain, gossiped and joked about it freely. 

"She can't be very fond o' 'im, not of Muster Raeburn, she can't, " saidold Patton, delivering himself as he sat leaning on his stick at hisopen door, while his wife and another woman or two chattered inside. "_Not_ what I'd call lover-y. She don't want to run in harness, shedon't, no sooner than, she need. She's a peert filly is Miss Boyce. "

"I've been a-waitin', an' a-waitin', " said his wife, with her gentlesigh, "to hear summat o' that new straw-plaitin' she talk about. Butnary a word. They do say as it's give up althegither. "

"No, she's took up wi' nursin' Minta Hurd--wonderful took up, " saidanother woman. "They do say as Ann Mullins can't abear her. When she'sthere nobody can open their mouth. When that kind o' thing happens inthe fambly it's bad enoof without havin' a lady trailin' about you allday long, so that you have to be mindin' yersel', an' thinkin' aboutgivin' her a cheer, an' the like. "

One day in the dusk, more than a fortnight after the inquest, Marcella, coming from the Hurds' cottage, overtook Mrs. Jellison, who was goinghome after spending the afternoon with her daughter. 

Hitherto Marcella had held aloof from Isabella Westall and herrelations, mainly, to do her justice, from fear lest she might somehowhurt or offend them. She had been to see Charlie Dynes's mother, but shehad only brought herself to send a message of sympathy through MaryHarden to the keeper's widow. 

Mrs. Jellison looked at her askance with her old wild eyes as Marcellacame up with her. 

"Oh, she's _puddlin'_ along, " she said in answer to Marcella's inquiry, using a word very familiar in the village. "She'll not do herself amischief while there's Nurse Ellen an' me to watch her like a pair o'cats. She's dreadful upset, is Isabella--shouldn't ha' thought it ofher. That fust day"--a cloud darkened the curious, dreamy face--"no, I'mnot a-goin' to think about that fust day, I'm not, 'tain't a ha'porth o'good, " she added resolutely; "but she was all right when they'd let herget 'im 'ome, and wash an' settle 'im, an' put 'im comfortable like inhis coffin. He wor a big man, miss, when he wor laid out! Searle, asmade the coffin, told her as ee 'adn't made one such an extry size sinceold Harry Flood, the blacksmith, fifteen year ago. Ee'd soon a done forJim Hurd if it 'ad been fists o' both sides. But guns is things as yercan't reckon on. ". 

"Why didn't he let Hurd alone, " said Marcella, sadly, "and prosecute himnext day? It's attacking men when their blood is up that brings theseawful hings about. "

"Wal, I don't see that, " said Mrs. Jellison, pugnaciously; "he wor paidto do 't--an' he had the law on his side. 'Ow 's she?" she said, lowering her voice and jerking her thumb in the direction of the Hurds'cottage. 

"She's very ill, " replied Marcella, with a contraction of the brow. "Dr. Clarke says she ought to stay in bed, but of course she won't. "

"They're a-goin' to try 'im Thursday?" said Mrs. Jellison, inquiringly. 

"Yes. "

"An' Muster Wharton be a-goin' to defend 'im. Muster Wharton may becliver, ee may--they do say as ee can see the grass growin', ee's thatknowin'--but ee'll not get Jim Hurd off; there's nobody in the villageas b'lieves for a moment as 'ow he will. They'll best 'im. Lor' blessyer, they'll best 'im. I was a-sayin' it to Isabella thisafternoon--ee'll not save 'is neck, don't you be afeared. "

Marcella drew herself up with a shiver of repulsion. 

"Will it mend your daughter's grief to see another woman's heart broken?Don't you suppose it might bring her some comfort, Mrs. Jellison, if shewere to try and forgive that poor wretch? She might remember that herhusband gave him provocation, and that anyway, if his life is spared, his punishment and their misery will be heavy enough!"

"Oh, lor' no!" said Mrs. Jellison, composedly. "She don't want to beforgivin' of 'im. Mr. Harden ee come talkin' to 'er, but she isn't oneo' that sort, isn't Isabella. I'm sartin sure she'll be better in'erself when they've put 'im out o' the way. It makes her all ov a feverto think of Muster Wharton gettin' 'im off. _I_ don't bear Jim Hurd nopertickler malice. Isabella may talk herself black i' the face, but sheand Johnnie'll have to come 'ome and live along o' me, whatever she maysay. She can't stay in that cottage, cos they'll be wantin' it foranother keeper. Lord Maxwell ee's givin' her a fine pension, my word eeis! an' says ee'll look after Johnnie. And what with my bitairnins--we'll do, yer know, miss--we'll do!"

The old woman looked up with a nod, her green eyes sparkling with thequeer inhuman light that belonged to them. 

Marcella could not bring herself to say good-night to her, and washurrying on without a word, when Mrs. Jellison stopped her. 

"An' 'ow about that straw-plaitin', miss?" she said slyly. 

"I have had to put it on one side for a bit, " said Marcella, coldly, hating the woman's society. "I have had my hands full and LadyWinterbourne has been away, but we shall, of course, take it up againlater. "

She walked away quickly, and Mrs. Jellison hobbled after her, grinningto herself every now and then as she caught the straight, tall figureagainst the red evening sky. 

"I'll go in ter town termorrer, " she thought, "an' have a crack wi'Jimmy Gedge; _ee_ needn't be afeard for 'is livin'. An' them great fulesas ha' bin runnin' in a string arter 'er, an' cacklin' about theireighteen-pence a score, as I've told 'em times, I'll eat my apron thefust week as iver they get it. I don't hold wi' ladies--no, nor passonsneither--not when it comes to meddlin' wi' your wittles, an' dictatin'to yer about forgivin' them as ha' got the better ov yer. That younglady there, what do she matter? That sort's allus gaddin' about? What'llshe keer about us when she's got 'er fine husband? Here o' Saturday, gone o' Monday--that's what she is. Now Jimmy Gedge, yer kin allus counton '_im. _ Thirty-six year ee ha' set there in that 'ere shop, and Iguess ee'll set there till they call 'im ter kingdom come. Be's acheatin', sweatin', greedy old skinflint is Jimmy Gedge; but when yerwants 'im yer _kin_ find 'im. "

 * * * * *

Marcella hurried home, she was expecting a letter from Wharton, thethird within a week. She had not set eyes on him since they had met thatfirst morning in the drive, and it was plain to her that he was asunwilling as she was that there should be any meeting between them. Since the moment of his taking up the case, in spite of the pressure ofinnumerable engagements, he had found time to send her, almost daily, sheets covered with his small even writing, in which every detail andprospect of the legal situation, so far as it concerned James Hurd, werenoted and criticised with a shrewdness and fulness which never wavered, and never lost for a moment the professional note. 

"Dear Miss Boyce"--the letters began--leading up to a "Yoursfaithfully, " which Marcella read as carefully as the rest. Often, as sheturned them over, she asked herself whether that scene in the libraryhad not been a mere delusion of the brain, whether the man whose wildwords and act had burnt themselves into her life could possibly bewriting her these letters, in this key, without a reference, without anallusion. Every day, as she opened them, she looked them through quietlywith a shaking pulse; every day she found herself proudly able to handthem on to her mother, with the satisfaction of one who has nothing toconceal, whatever the rest of the world may suspect. He was certainlydoing his best to replace their friendship on that level of highcomradeship in ideas and causes which, as she told herself, it had onceoccupied. His own wanton aggression and her weakness had toppled it downthence, and brought it to ruin. She could never speak to him, never knowhim again till it was re-established. Still his letters galled her. Heassumed, she supposed, that such a thing could happen, and nothing morebe said about it? How little he knew her, or what she had in her mind!

Now, as she walked along, wrapped in her plaid cape, her thought was onelong tumultuous succession of painful or passionate images, interruptednone the less at times by those curious self-observing pauses of whichshe had always been capable. She had been sitting for hours beside Mrs. Hurd, with little Willie upon her knees. The mother, always anaemic andconsumptive, was by now prostrate, the prey of a long-drawn agony, peopled by visions of Jim alone and in prison--Jim on the scaffold withthe white cap over his eyes--Jim in the prison coffin--which would rouseher shrieking from dreams which were the rending asunder of soul andbody. Minta Hurd's love for the unhappy being who had brought her tothis pass had been infinitely maternal. There had been a boundless pityin it, and the secret pride of a soul, which, humble and modest towardsall the rest of the world, yet knew itself to be the breath andsustenance, the indispensable aid of one other soul in the universe, andgloried accordingly. To be cut off now from all ministration, allcomforting--to have to lie there like a log, imagining the moment whenthe neighbours should come in and say, "It is all over--they have brokenhis neck--and buried him"--it was a doom beyond all even that her timidpessimist heart had ever dreamed. She had already seen him twice inprison, and she knew that she would see him again. She was to go onMonday, Miss Boyce said, before the trial began, and after--if theybrought him in guilty--they would let her say good-bye. She was alwaysthirsting to see him. But when she went, the prison surroundingsparalysed her. Both she and Hurd felt themselves caught in the wheels ofa great relentless machine, of which the workings filled them with avoiceless terror. He talked to her spasmodically of the most incongruousthings--breaking out sometimes with a glittering eye into a string ofinstances bearing on Westall's bullying and tyrannous ways. He told herto return the books Miss Boyce had lent him, but when asked if he wouldlike to see Marcella he shrank and said no. Mr. Wharton was "doin'capital" for him; but she wasn't to count on his getting off. And hedidn't know that he wanted to, neither. Once she took Willie to see him;the child nearly died of the journey; and the father, "though any onecan see, miss, he's just sick for 'im, " would not hear of his comingagain. Sometimes he would hardly kiss her at parting; he sat on hischair, with his great head drooped forward over his red hands, lost in akind of animal lethargy. Westall's name always roused him. Hate stillsurvived. But it made _her_ life faint within her to talk of themurdered man--wherein she showed her lack of the usual peasant'srealism and curiosity in the presence of facts of blood and violence. When she was told it was time for her to go, and the heavy door waslocked behind her, the poor creature, terrified at the warder and thebare prison silences, would hurry away as though the heavy hand of thisawful Justice were laid upon her too, torn by the thought of him sheleft behind, and by the remembrance that he had only kissed her once, and yet impelled by mere physical instinct towards the relief of AnnMullins's rough face waiting for her--of the outer air and the freeheaven. 

As for Willie, he was fast dwindling. Another week or two--the doctorsaid--no more. He lay on Marcella's knee on a pillow, wasted to aninfant's weight, panting and staring with those strange blue eyes, butalways patient, always struggling to say his painful "thank you" whenshe fed him with some of the fruit constantly sent her from MaxwellCourt. Everything that was said about his father he took in andunderstood, but he did not seem to fret. His mother was almost dividedfrom him by this passivity of the dying; nor could she give him or hisstate much attention. Her gentle, sensitive, but not profound nature wasstrained already beyond bearing by more gnawing griefs. 

After her long sit in Mrs. Hurd's kitchen Marcella found the air of theFebruary evening tonic and delightful. Unconsciously impressions stoleupon her--the lengthening day, the celandines in the hedges, theswelling lilac buds in the cottage gardens. They spoke to her youth, andout of mere physical congruity it could not but respond. Still, her facekept the angered look with which she had parted from Mrs. Jellison. More than that--the last few weeks had visibly changed it, had gravedupon it the signs of "living. " It was more beautiful than ever in itssignificant black and white, but it was older--a _woman_ spoke from it. Marcella had gone down into reality, and had found there the rebellionand the storm for which such souls as hers are made. Rebellion most ofall. She had been living with the poor, in their stifling rooms, amidtheir perpetual struggle for a little food and clothes and bodily ease;she had seen this struggle, so hard in itself, combined with agonies ofsoul and spirit, which made the physical destitution seem to thespectator something brutally gratuitous, a piece of careless andtyrannous cruelty on the part of Nature--or God? She would hardly letherself think of Aldous--though she _must_ think of him by-and-by! Heand his fared sumptuously every hour! As for her, it was as though inher woman's arms, on her woman's breast, she carried Lazarus all day, stooping to him with a hungering pity. And Aldous stood aloof. Aldouswould not help her--or not with any help worth having--in consoling thismisery--binding up these sores. Her heart cried shame on him. She had acrime against him to confess--but she felt herself his superior none theless. If he cast her off--why then surely they would be quits, quits forgood and all. 

As she reached the front door of Mellor, she saw a little two-wheeledcart standing outside it, and William holding the pony. 

Visitors were nowadays more common at Mellor than they had been, andher instinct was to escape. But as she was turning to a side doorWilliam touched his cap to her. 

"Mr. Wharton's waiting to see you, miss. "

She stopped sharply. 

"Where is Mrs. Boyce, William?"

"In the drawing-room, miss. "

She walked in calmly. Wharton was standing on the rug, talking; Mrs. Boyce was listening to what he had to say with the light repellent airMarcella knew so well. 

When she came in Wharton stepped forward ceremoniously to shake hands, then began to speak at once, with the manner of one who is on a businesserrand and has no time to waste. 

"I thought it best, Miss Boyce, as I had unexpectedly a couple of sparehours this evening, to come and let you know how things were going. Youunderstand that the case comes on at the assizes next Thursday?"

Marcella assented. She had seated herself on the old sofa beside thefire, her ungloved hands on her knee. Something in her aspect madeWharton's eyes waver an instant as he looked down upon her--but it wasthe only sign. 

"I should like to warn you, " he said gravely, "that I entertain no hopewhatever of getting James Hurd off. I shall do my best, but the verdictwill certainly be murder; and the judge, I think, is sure to take asevere view. We may get a recommendation to mercy, though I believe itto be extremely unlikely. But if so, the influence of the judge, according to what I hear, will probably be against us. The prosecutionhave got together extremely strong evidence--as to Hurd's longconnection with the gang, in spite of the Raeburns' kindness--as to hisrepeated threats that he would 'do for' Westall if he and his friendswere interrupted--and so on. His own story is wholly uncorroborated; andDynes's deposition, so far as it goes, is all against it. "

He went on to elaborate these points with great clearness of expositionand at some length; then he paused. 

"This being so, " he resumed, "the question is, what can be done? Theremust be a petition. Amongst my own party I shall be, of course, able todo something, but we must have men of all sides. Without some at leastof the leading Conservatives, we shall fare badly. In one word--do youimagine that you can induce Mr. Raeburn and Lord Maxwell to sign?"

Mrs. Boyce watched him keenly. Marcella sat in frozen paleness. 

"I will try, " she said at last, with deliberation. 

"Then"--he took up his gloves--"there may be a chance for us. If youcannot succeed, no one else can. But if Lord Maxwell and Mr. Raeburn canbe secured, others will easily follow. Their names--especially under allthe circumstances--will carry a peculiar weight. I may say everything, in the first instance--the weight, the first effect of thepetition--depends on them. Well, then, I leave it in your hands. No timeshould be lost after the sentence. As to the grounds of our plea, Ishall, of course, lay them down in court to the best of my ability. "

"I shall be there, " she interrupted. 

He started. So did Mrs. Boyce, but characteristically she made nocomment. 

"Well, then, " he resumed after a pause, "I need say no more for thepresent. How is the wife?"

She replied, and a few other formal sentences of inquiry or commentpassed between them. 

"And your election?" said Mrs. Boyce, still studying him with hostileeyes, as he got up to take leave. 

"To-morrow!" He threw up his hands with a little gesture of impatience. "That at least will be one thread spun off and out of the way, whateverhappens. I must get back to Widrington as fast as my pony can carry me. Good-bye, Miss Boyce. "

Marcella went slowly upstairs. The scene which had just passed wasunreal, impossible; yet every limb was quivering. Then the sound of thefront door shutting sent a shock through her whole nature. The firstsensation was one of horrible emptiness, forlornness. The next--her mindthrew itself with fresh vehemence upon the question, "Can I, by anymeans, get my way with Aldous?"

CHAPTER XIII. 

"And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!" The deep-pitched words fellslowly on Marcella's ears, as she sat leaning forward in the gallery ofthe Widrington Assize Court. Women were sobbing beside and behind her. Minta Hurd, to her left, lay in a half-swoon against her sister-in-law, her face buried in Ann's black shawl. For an instant after Hurd's deathsentence had been spoken Marcella's nerves ceased to throb--the longexhaustion of feeling stopped. The harsh light and shade of the ill-litroom; the gas-lamps in front of the judge, blanching the ranged faces ofthe jury; the long table of reporters below, some writing, but mostlooking intently towards the dock; the figure of Wharton opposite, inhis barrister's gown and wig--that face of his, so small, nervous, delicate--the frowning eyebrows a dark bar under the white of thewig--his look, alert and hostile, fixed upon the judge; the heads andattitudes of the condemned men, especially the form of a fair-hairedyouth, the principal murderer of Charlie Dynes, who stood a little infront of the line, next to Hurd, and overshadowing his dwarf'sstature--these things Marcella saw indeed; for years after she couldhave described them point by point; but for some seconds or minutes hereyes stared at them without conscious reaction of the mind on theimmediate spectacle. 

In place of it, the whole day, all these hours that she had been sittingthere, brushed before her in a synthesis of thought, replacing thestream of impressions and images. The crushing accumulation of hostileevidence--witness after witness coming forward to add to the damningweight of it; the awful weakness of the defence--Wharton's irritationunder it--the sharpness, the useless, acrid ability of hiscross-examinations; yet, contrasting with the legal failure, thepersonal success, the mixture of grace with energy, the technicalaccomplishment of the manner, as one wrestling before hisequals--nothing left here of the garrulous vigour and brutality of thelabourers' meeting!--the masterly use of all that could avail, the fewquiet words addressed at the end to the pity of the jury, and byimplication to the larger ethical sense of the community, --all this shethought of with great intellectual clearness while the judge's sonorousvoice rolled along, sentencing each prisoner in turn. Horror and pitywere alike weary; the brain asserted itself. 

The court was packed. Aldous Raeburn sat on Marcella's right hand; andduring the day the attention of everybody in the dingy building had beenlargely divided between the scene below, and that strange group in thegallery where the man who had just been elected Conservative member forEast Brookshire, who was Lord Maxwell's heir, and Westall's employer, sat beside his betrothed, in charge of a party which comprised not onlyMarcella Boyce, but the wife, sister, and little girl of Westall'smurderer. 

On one occasion some blunt answer of a witness had provoked a laughcoming no one knew whence. The judge turned to the gallery and looked upsternly--"I cannot conceive why men and women--women especially--shouldcome crowding in to hear such a case as this; but if I hear anotherlaugh I shall clear the court. " Marcella, whose whole conscious naturewas by now one network of sensitive nerve, saw Aldous flush and shrinkas the words were spoken. Then, looking across the court, she caught theeye of an old friend of the Raeburns, a county magistrate. At thejudge's remark he had turned involuntarily to where she and Aldous sat;then, as he met Miss Boyce's face, instantly looked away again. Sheperfectly--passionately--understood that Brookshire was very sorry forAldous Raeburn that day. 

The death sentences--three in number--were over. The judge was a veryordinary man; but, even for the ordinary man, such an act carries withit a great tradition of what is befitting, which imposes itself on voiceand gesture. When he ceased, the deep breath of natural emotion could befelt and heard throughout the crowded court; loud wails of sobbing womenbroke from the gallery. 

"Silence!" cried an official voice, and the judge resumed, amid stifledsounds that stabbed Marcella's sense, once more nakedly alive toeverything around it. 

The sentences to penal servitude came to an end also. Then a ghastlypause. The line of prisoners directed by the warders turned right aboutface towards a door in the back wall of the court. As the men filedout, the tall, fair youth, one of those condemned to death, stopped aninstant and waved his hand to his sobbing sweetheart in the gallery. Hurd also turned irresolutely. 

"Look!" exclaimed Ann Mullins, propping up the fainting woman besideher, "he's goin'. "

Marcella bent forward. She, rather than the wife, caught the last lookon his large dwarf's face, so white and dazed, the eyes blinking underthe gas. 

Aldous touched her softly on the arm. 

"Yes, " she said quickly, "yes, we must get her out. Ann, can you lifther?"

Aldous went to one side of the helpless woman: Ann Mullins held her onthe other. Marcella followed, pressing the little girl close against herlong black cloak. The gallery made way for them; every one looked andwhispered till they had passed. Below, at the foot of the stairs, theyfound themselves in a passage crowded with people--lawyers, witnesses, officials, mixed with the populace. Again a road was opened for Aldousand his charges. 

"This way, Mr. Raeburn, " said a policeman, with alacrity. "Stand back, please! Is your carriage there, sir?"

"Let Ann Mullins take her--put them into the cab--I want to speak to Mr. Wharton, " said Marcella in Aldous's ear. 

"Get me a cab at once, " he said to the policeman, "and tell my carriageto wait. "

"Miss Boyce!"

Marcella turned hastily and saw Wharton beside her. Aldous also sawhim, and the two men interchanged a few words. 

"There is a private room close by, " said Wharton, "I am to take youthere, and Mr. Raeburn will join us at once. "

He led her along a corridor, and opened a door to the left. They entereda small dingy room, looking through a begrimed window on a courtyard. The gas was lit, and the table was strewn with papers. 

"Never, never more beautiful!" flashed through Wharton's mind, "withthat knit, strenuous brow--that tragic scorn for a base world--thatroyal gait--"

Aloud he said:

"I have done my best privately among the people I can get at, and Ithought, before I go up to town to-night--you know Parliament meets onMonday?--I would show you what I had been able to do, and ask you totake charge of a copy of the petition. " He pointed to a long envelopelying on the table. "I have drafted it myself--I think it puts all thepoints we can possibly urge--but as to the names--"

He took out a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket. 

"It won't do, " he said, looking down at it, and shaking his head. "As Isaid to you, it is so far political merely. There is a very strongLiberal and Radical feeling getting up about the case. But that won'tcarry us far. This petition with these names is a demonstration againstgame preserving and keepers' tyranny. What we want is the co-operationof a _neighbourhood_, especially of its leading citizens. However, Iexplained all this to you--there is no need to discuss it. Will you lookat the list?"

Still holding it, he ran his finger over it, commenting here and there. She stood beside him; the sleeve of his gown brushed her black cloak;and under his perfect composure there beat a wild exultation in hispower--without any apology, any forgiveness--to hold her there, alonewith him, listening--her proud head stooped to his--her eye followinghis with this effort of anxious attention. 

She made a few hurried remarks on the names, but her knowledge of thecounty was naturally not very serviceable. He folded up the paper andput it back. 

"I think we understand, " he said. "You will do what you can in the onlyquarter"--he spoke slowly--"that can really aid, and you willcommunicate with me at the House of Commons? I shall do what I can, ofcourse, when the moment comes, in Parliament, and meanwhile I shallstart the matter in the Press--our best hope. The Radical papers arealready taking it up. "

There was a sound of steps in the passage outside. A policeman openedthe door, and Aldous Raeburn entered. His quick look ran over the twofigures standing beside the table. 

"I had some difficulty in finding a cab, " he explained, "and we had toget some brandy; but she came round, and we got her off. I sent one ofour men with her. The carriage is here. "

He spoke--to Marcella--with some formality. He was very pale, but therewas both authority and tension in his bearing. 

"I have been consulting with Miss Boyce, " said Wharton, with equaldistance of manner, "as to the petition we are sending up to the HomeOffice. "

Aldous made no reply. 

"One word, Miss Boyce, "--Wharton quietly turned to her. "May I ask youto read the petition carefully, before you attempt to do anything withit? It lays stress on the _only_ doubt that can reasonably be felt afterthe evidence, and after the judge's summing up. That particular doubt Ihold to be entirely untouched by the trial; but it requires carefulstating--the issues may easily be confused. "

"Will you come?" said Aldous to Marcella. What she chose to think theforced patience of his tone exasperated her. 

"I will do everything I can, " she said in a low, distinct voice toWharton. "Good-bye. "

She held out her hand. To both the moment was one of infinite meaning;to her, in her high spiritual excitement, a sacrament of pardon andgratitude--expressed once for all--by this touch--in Aldous Raeburn'spresence. 

The two men nodded to each other. Wharton was already busy, putting hispapers together. 

"We shall meet next week, I suppose, in the House?" said Wharton, casually. "Good-night. "

 * * * * *

"Will you take me to the Court?" said Marcella to Aldous, directly thedoor of the carriage was shut upon them, and, amid a gaping crowd thatalmost filled the little market-place of Widrington, the horses movedoff. "I told mamma, that, if I did not come home, I should be with you, and that I should ask you to send me back from the Court to-night. "

She still held the packet Wharton had given her in her hand. As thoughfor air, she had thrown back the black gauze veil she had worn allthrough the trial, and, as they passed through the lights of the town, Aldous could see in her face the signs--the plain, startling signs--ofthe effect of these weeks upon her. Pale, exhausted, yet showing inevery movement the nervous excitement which was driving her on--hisheart sank as he looked at her--foreseeing what was to come. 

As soon as the main street had been left behind, he put his head out ofthe window, and gave the coachman, who had been told to go to Mellor, the new order. 

"Will you mind if I don't talk?" said Marcella, when he was again besideher. "I think I am tired out, but I might rest now a little. When we getto the Court, will you ask Miss Raeburn to let me have some food in hersitting-room? Then, at nine o'clock or so, may I come down and see LordMaxwell and you--together?"

What she said, and the manner in which she said it, could only add tohis uneasiness; but he assented, put a cushion behind her, wrapped therugs round her, and then sat silent, train after train of close andanxious thought passing through his mind as they rolled along the darkroads. 

When they arrived at Maxwell Court, the sound of the carriage broughtLord Maxwell and Miss Raeburn at once into the hall. 

Aldous went forward in front of Marcella. "I have brought Marcella, " hesaid hastily to his aunt. "Will you take her upstairs to yoursitting-room, and let her have some food and rest? She is not fit forthe exertion of dinner, but she wishes to speak to my grandfatherafterwards. "

Lord Maxwell had already hurried to meet the black-veiled figurestanding proudly in the dim light of the outer hall. 

"My dear! my dear!" he said, drawing her arm within his, and patting herhand in fatherly fashion. "How worn-out you look!--Yes, certainly--Agneta, take her up and let her rest--And you wish to speakto me afterwards? Of course, my dear, of course--at any time. "

Miss Raeburn, controlling herself absolutely, partly because of Aldous'smanner, partly because of the servants, took her guest upstairsstraightway, put her on the sofa in a cheerful sitting-room with abright fire, and then, shrewdly guessing that she herself could notpossibly be a congenial companion to the girl at such a moment, whatevermight have happened or might be going to happen, she looked at herwatch, said that she must go down to dinner, and promptly left her tothe charge of a kind elderly maid, who was to do and get for herwhatever she would. 

Marcella made herself swallow some food and wine. Then she said that shewished to be alone and rest for an hour, and would come downstairs atnine o'clock. The maid, shocked by her pallor, was loth to leave her, but Marcella insisted. 

When she was left alone she drew herself up to the fire and tried hardto get warm, as she had tried to eat. When in this way a portion ofphysical ease and strength had come back to her, she took out thepetition from its envelope and read it carefully. As she did so her liprelaxed, her eye recovered something of its brightness. All the pointsthat had occurred to her confusedly, amateurishly, throughout the day, were here thrown into luminous and admirable form. She had listened tothem indeed, as urged by Wharton in his concluding speech to the jury, but it had not, alas! seemed so marvellous to her then, as it did now, that, _after_ such a plea, the judge should have summed up as he did. 

When she had finished it and had sat thinking awhile over the decliningfire, an idea struck her. She took a piece of paper from Miss Raeburn'sdesk, and wrote on it:

"Will you read this--and Lord Maxwell--before I come down? I forgot thatyou had not seen it. --M. "

A ring at the bell brought the maid. 

"Will you please get this taken to Mr. Raeburn? And then, don't disturbme again for half an hour. "

And for that time she lay in Miss Raeburn's favourite chair, outwardlyat rest. Inwardly she was ranging all her arguments, marshalling all herforces. 

When the chiming clock in the great hall below struck nine, she got upand put the lamp for a moment on the mantelpiece, which held a mirror. She had already bathed her face and smoothed her hair. But she looked atherself again with attention, drew down the thick front waves of hair alittle lower on the white brow, as she liked to have them, and oncemore straightened the collar and cuffs which were the only relief to herplain black dress. 

The house as she stepped out into it seemed very still. Perfumed breathsof flowers and pot-pourri ascended from the hall. The pictures along thewalls as she passed were those same Caroline and early Georgian beautiesthat had so flashingly suggested her own future rule in this domain onthe day when Aldous proposed to her. 

She felt suddenly very shrinking and lonely as she went downstairs. Theticking of a large clock somewhere--the short, screaming note of MissRaeburn's parrot in one of the ground-floor rooms--these sounds and thebeating of her own heart seemed to have the vast house to themselves. 

No!--that was a door opening--Aldous coming to fetch her. She drew achildish breath of comfort. 

He sprang up the stairs, two or three steps at a time, as he saw hercoming. 

"Are you rested--were they good to you? Oh! my precious one!--how paleyou are still! Will you come and see my--grandfather now? He is quiteready. "

She let him lead her in. Lord Maxwell was standing by his writing-table, leaning over the petition which was open before him--one hand upon it. At sight of her he lifted his white head. His fine aquiline face wasgrave and disturbed. But nothing could have been kinder or more courtlythan his manner as he came towards her. 

"Sit down in that chair. Aldous, make her comfortable. Poor child, howtired she looks! I hear you wished to speak to me on this most unhappy, most miserable business. "

Marcella, who was sitting erect on the edge of the chair into whichAldous had put her, lifted her eyes with a sudden confidence. She hadalways liked Lord Maxwell. 

"Yes, " she said, struggling to keep down eagerness and emotion. "Yes, Icame to bring you this petition, which is to be sent up to the HomeSecretary on behalf of Jim Hurd, and--and--to _beg_ of you and Aldous tosign it, if in any way you can. I know it will be difficult, but Ithought I might--I might be able to suggest something to you--toconvince you--as I have known these people so well--and it is veryimportant to have your signatures. "

How crude it sounded--how mechanical! She felt that she had not yetcommand of herself. The strange place, the stately room, theconsciousness of Aldous behind her--Aldous, who should have been on herside and was not--all combined to intimidate her. 

Lord Maxwell's concern was evident. In the first place, he waspainfully, unexpectedly struck by the change in the speaker. Why, whathad Aldous been about? So thin! so frail and willowy in her blackdress--monstrous!

"My dear, " he said, walking up to her and laying a fatherly hand on hershoulder, "my dear, I wish I could make you understand how gladly Iwould do this, or anything else, for you, if I honourably could. I woulddo it for your sake and for your grandfather's sake. But--this is amatter of conscience, of public duty, both for Aldous and myself. Youwill not surely _wish_ even, that we should be governed in our relationsto it by any private feeling or motive?"

"No, but I have had no opportunity of speaking to you about it--and Itake such a different view from Aldous. He knows--everybody mustknow--that there is another side, another possible view from that whichthe judge took. You weren't in court to-day, were you, at all?"

"No. But I read all the evidence before the magistrates with great care, and I have just talked over the crucial points with Aldous, who followedeverything to-day, as you know, and seems to have taken special note ofMr. Wharton's speeches. "

"Aldous!"--her voice broke irrepressibly into another note--"I thoughthe would have let me speak to you first!--to-night!"

Lord Maxwell, looking quickly at his grandson, was very sorry for him. Aldous bent over her chair. 

"You remember, " he said, "you sent down the petition. I thought thatmeant that we were to read and discuss it. I am very sorry. "

She tried to command herself, pressing her hand to her brow. But alreadyshe felt the irrevocable, and anger and despair were rising. 

"The whole point lies in this, " she said, looking up: "_Can_ we believeHurd's own story? There is no evidence to corroborate it. I grantthat--the judge did not believe it--and there is the evidence of hatred. But is it not possible and conceivable all the same? He says that he didnot go out with any thought whatever of killing Westall, but that whenWestall came upon him with his stick up, threatening and abusing him, as he had done often before, in a fit of wild rage he shot at him. Surely, _surely_ that is conceivable? There _is_--there _must_ be adoubt; or, if it is murder, murder done in that way is quite, quitedifferent from other kinds and degrees of murder. "

Now she possessed herself. The gift of flowing persuasive speech whichwas naturally hers, which the agitations, the debates of these weeks hadbeen maturing, came to her call. She leant forward and took up thepetition. One by one she went through its pleas, adding to them here andthere from her own knowledge of Hurd and his peasant's life--presentingit all clearly, with great intellectual force, but in an atmosphere ofemotion, of high pity, charged throughout with the "tears of things. " Toher, gradually, unconsciously, the whole matter--so sordid, commonplace, brutal in Lord Maxwell's eyes!--had become a tragic poem, a thing offear and pity, to which her whole being vibrated. And as she conceivedit, so she reproduced it. Wharton's points were there indeed, but sowere Hurd's poverty, Hurd's deformity, Hurd as the boyish victim of atyrant's insults, the miserable wife, the branded children--emphasised, all of them, by the occasional quiver, quickly steadied again, of thegirl's voice. 

Lord Maxwell sat by his writing-table, his head resting on his hand, oneknee crossed over the other. Aldous still hung over her chair. Neitherinterrupted her. Once the eyes of the two men met over her head--adistressed, significant look. Aldous heard all she said, but whatabsorbed him mainly was the wild desire to kiss the dark hair, so closebelow him, alternating with the miserable certainty that for him at thatmoment to touch, to soothe her, was to be repulsed. 

When her voice broke--when she had said all she could think of--sheremained looking imploringly at Lord Maxwell. 

He was silent a little; then he stooped forward and took her hand. 

"You have spoken, " he said with great feeling, "most nobly--mostwell--like a good woman, with a true compassionate heart. But all thesethings you have said are not new to me, my dear child. Aldous warned meof this petition--he has pressed upon me, still more I am sure uponhimself, all that he conceived to be your view of the case--the view ofthose who are now moving in the matter. But with the best will in theworld I cannot, and I believe that he cannot--though he must speak forhimself--I cannot take that view. In my belief Hurd's act was murder, and deserves the penalty of murder. I have paid some attention to thesethings. I was a practising barrister in my youth, and later I was fortwo years Home Secretary. I will explain to you my grounds veryshortly. "

And, bending forward, he gave the reasons for his judgment of the caseas carefully and as lucidly as though he were stating them to afellow-expert, and not to an agitated girl of twenty-one. Both in wordsand manner there was an implied tribute, not only to Marcella, butperhaps to that altered position of the woman in our moving world whichaffects so many things and persons in unexpected ways. 

Marcella listened, restlessly. She had drawn her hand away, and wastwisting her handkerchief between her fingers. The flush that had sprungup while she was talking had died away. She grew whiter and whiter. WhenLord Maxwell ceased, she said quickly, and as he thought unreasonably--

"So you will not sign?"

"No, " he replied firmly, "I cannot sign. Holding the conviction aboutthe matter I do, I should be giving my name to statements I do notbelieve; and in order to give myself the pleasure of pleasing you, andof indulging the pity that every man must feel for every murderer's wifeand children, I should be not only committing a public wrong, but Ishould be doing what I could to lessen the safety and security of onewhole class of my servants--men who give me honourable service--and twoof whom have been so cruelly, so wantonly hurried before their Maker!"

His voice gave the first sign of his own deep and painful feeling on thematter. Marcella shivered. 

"Then, " she said slowly, "Hurd will be executed. "

Lord Maxwell had a movement of impatience. 

"Let me tell you, " he said, "that that does not follow at all. There is_some_ importance in signatures--or rather in the local movement thatthe signatures imply. It enables a case to be reopened, which, in anyevent, this case is sure to be. But any Home Secretary who could decidea murder case on any other grounds whatever than those of law and hisown conscience would not deserve his place a day--an hour! Believe me, you mistake the whole situation. "

He spoke slowly, with the sharp emphasis natural to his age andauthority. Marcella did not believe him. Every nerve was beginning tothrob anew with that passionate recoil against tyranny and prejudice, which was in itself an agony. 

"And you say the same?" she said, turning to Aldous. 

"I cannot sign that petition, " he said sadly. "Won't you try and believewhat it costs me to refuse?"

It was a heavy blow to her. Amply as she had been prepared for it, therehad always been at the bottom of her mind a persuasion that in the endshe would get her way. She had been used to feel barriers go down beforethat ultimate power of personality of which she was abundantlyconscious. Yet it had not availed her here--not even with the man wholoved her. 

Lord Maxwell looked at the two--the man's face of suffering, the girl'sstruggling breath. 

"There, there, Aldous!" he said, rising. "I will leave you a minute. Domake Marcella rest--get her, for all our sakes, to forget this a little. Bring her in presently to us for some coffee. Above all, persuade herthat we love her and admire her with all our hearts, but that in amatter of this kind she must leave us to do--as before God!--what wethink right. "

He stood before her an instant, gazing down upon her with dignity--nay, a certain severity. Then he turned away and left the room. 

Marcella sprang up. 

"Will you order the carriage?" she said in a strangled voice. "I will goupstairs. "

"Marcella!" cried Aldous; "can you not be just to me, if it isimpossible for you to be generous?"

"Just!" she repeated, with a tone and gesture of repulsion, pushing himback from her. "_You_ can talk of justice!"

He tried to speak, stammered, and failed. That strange paralysis of thewill-forces which dogs the man of reflection at the moment when he musteither take his world by storm or lose it was upon him now. He had neverloved her more passionately--but as he stood there looking at her, something broke within him, the first prescience of the inevitabledawned. 

"_You_, " she said again, walking stormily to and fro, and catching ather breath--"_You_, in this house, with this life--to talk ofjustice--the justice that comes of slaying a man like Hurd! And I mustgo back to that cottage, to that woman, and tell her there is _no_hope--none! Because _you_ must follow your conscience--you who haveeverything! Oh! I would not have your conscience--I wish you aheart--rather! Don't come to me, please! Oh! I must think how it can be. Things cannot go on so. I should kill myself, and make you miserable. But now I must go to _her_--to the _poor_--to those whom I _love_, whomI carry in my heart!"

She broke off sobbing. He saw her, in her wild excitement, look roundthe splendid room as though she would wither it to ruin with one fiery, accusing glance. 

"You are very scornful of wealth, " he said, catching her wrists, "butone thing you have no right to scorn!--the man who has given you hisinmost heart--and now only asks you to believe in this, that he is notthe cruel hypocrite you are determined to make him!"

His face quivered in every feature. She was checked a moment--checked bythe moral compulsion of his tone and manner, as well as by his words. But again she tore herself away. 

"_Please_ go and order the carriage, " she said. "I cannot bear any more. I _must_ go home and rest. Some day I will ask your pardon--oh! forthis--and--and--" she was almost choked again--"other things. But now Imust go away. There is some one who will help me. I must not forgetthat!"

The reckless words, the inflection, turned Aldous to stone. Unconsciously he drew himself proudly erect--their eyes met. Then hewent up to the bell and rang it. 

"The brougham at once, for Miss Boyce. Will you have a maid to go withyou?" he asked, motioning the servant to stay till Miss Boyce had givenher answer. 

"No, thank you. I must go and put on my things. Will you explain to MissRaeburn?"

The footman opened the door for her. She went. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

"But this is unbearable!" said Aldous. "Do you mean to say that she isat home and that she will not see me?"

Mrs. Boyce's self-possession was shaken for once by the flushedhumiliation of the man before her. 

"I am afraid it is so, " she said hurriedly. "I remonstrated withMarcella, but I could do nothing. I think, if you are wise, you will notfor the present attempt to see her. "

Aldous sat down, with his hat in his hand, staring at the floor. After afew moments' silence he looked up again. 

"And she gave you no message for me?"

"No, " said Mrs. Boyce, reluctantly. "Only that she could not bear to seeanybody from the Court, even you, while this matter was stillundecided. "

Aldous's eye travelled round the Mellor drawing-room. It was arrested bya chair beside him. On it lay an envelope addressed to Miss Boyce, ofwhich the handwriting seemed to him familiar. A needle with some blacksilk hanging from it had been thrust into the stuffed arm of the chair;the cushion at the back still bore the imprint of the sitter. She hadbeen there, not three minutes ago, and had fled before him. The doorinto Mrs. Boyce's sitting-room was still ajar. 

He looked again at the envelope on the chair, and recognised thewriting. Walking across to where Mrs. Boyce sat, he took a seat besideher. 

"Will you tell me, " he said steadily--"I think you will admit I have aright to know--is Marcella in constant correspondence now with HenryWharton?"

Mrs. Boyce's start was not perceptible. 

"I believe so, " she quickly replied. "So far as I can judge, he writesto her almost every other day. "

"Does she show you his letters?"

"Very often. They are entirely concerned with his daily interviews andefforts on Hurd's behalf. "

"Would you not say, " he asked, after another pause, raising his cleargrey eyes to her, "that since his arrival here in December Marcella'swhole views and thoughts have been largely--perhaps vitally--influencedby this man?"

Mrs. Boyce had long expected questions of this kind--had, indeed, oftenmarvelled and cavilled that Aldous had not asked them weeks before. Nowthat they were put to her she was, first of all, anxious to treat themwith common sense, and as much plain truth as might be fair to bothparties. The perpetual emotion in which Marcella lived tired andoppressed the mother. For herself she asked to see things in a drylight. Yet she knew well that the moment was critical. Her feeling wasmore mixed than it had been. On the whole it was indignantly on Aldous'sside--with qualifications and impatiences, however. 

She took up her embroidery again before she answered him. In heropinion the needle is to the woman what the cigarette is to thediplomatist. 

"Yes, certainly, " she said at last. "He has done a great deal to formher opinions. He has made her both read and think on all those subjectsshe has so long been fond of talking about. "

She saw Aldous wince; but she had her reasons for being plain with him. 

"Has there been nothing else than that in it?" said Aldous, in an oddvoice. 

Mrs. Boyce tried no evasions. She looked at him straight, her slight, energetic head, with its pale gold hair lit up by the March sun behindher. 

"I do not know, " she said calmly; "that is the real truth. I _think_there is nothing else. But let me tell you what more I think. "

Aldous laid his hand on hers for an instant. In his pity and liking forher he had once or twice allowed himself this quasi-filial freedom. 

"If you would, " he entreated. 

"Leave Marcella quite alone--for the present. She is not herself--notnormal, in any way. Nor will she be till this dreadful thing is over. But when it is over, and she has had time to recover a little, _then_"--her thin voice expressed all the emphasis it could--"_then_assert yourself! Ask her that question you have asked me--and get youranswer. "

He understood. Her advice to him, and the tone of it, implied that shehad not always thought highly of his powers of self-defence in the past. But there was a proud and sensitive instinct in him which both told himthat he could not have done differently and forbade him to explain. 

"You have come from London to-day?" said Mrs. Boyce, changing thesubject. All intimate and personal conversation was distasteful to her, and she admitted few responsibilities. Her daughter hardly counted amongthem. 

"Yes; London is hard at work cabinet-making, " he said, trying to smile. "I must get back to-night. "

"I don't know how you could be spared, " said Mrs. Boyce. 

He paused; then he broke out: "When a man is in the doubt and trouble Iam, he must be spared. Indeed, since the night of the trial, I feel asthough I had been of very little use to any human being. "

He spoke simply, but every word touched her. What an inconceivableentanglement the whole thing was! Yet she was no longer merelycontemptuous of it. 

"Look!" she said, lifting a bit of black stuff from the ground besidethe chair which held the envelope; "she is already making the mourningfor the children. I can see she despairs. "

He made a sound of horror. 

"Can you do nothing?" he cried reproachfully. "To think of her dwellingupon this--nothing but this, day and night--and I, banished andpowerless!"

He buried his head in his hands. 

"No, I can do nothing, " said Mrs. Boyce, deliberately. Then, after apause, "You do not imagine there is any chance of success for her?"

He looked up and shook his head. 

"The Radical papers are full of it, as you know. Wharton is managing itwith great ability, and has got some good supporters in the House. But Ihappened to see the judge the day before yesterday, and I certainlygathered from him that the Home Office was likely to stand firm. Theremay be some delay. The new ministry will not kiss hands till Saturday. But no doubt it will be the first business of the new HomeSecretary. --By the way, I had rather Marcella did not hear of my seeingJudge Cartwright, " he added hastily--almost imploringly. "I could notbear that she should suppose--"

Mrs. Boyce thought to herself indignantly that she never could haveimagined such a man in such a plight. 

"I must go, " he said, rising. "Will you tell her from me, " he addedslowly, "that I could never have believed she would be so unkind as tolet me come down from London to see her, and send me away empty--withouta word?"

"Leave it to my discretion, " said Mrs. Boyce, smiling and looking up. "Oh, by the way, she told me to thank you. Mr. Wharton, in his letterthis morning, mentioned that you had given him two introductions whichwere important to him. She specially wished you to be thanked for it. "

His exclamation had a note of impatient contempt that Mrs. Boyce wasgenuinely glad to hear. In her opinion he was much too apt to forgetthat the world yields itself only to the "violent. "

He walked away from the house without once looking back. Marcella, from, her window, watched him go. 

"How _could_ she see him?" she asked herself passionately, both thenand on many other occasions during these rushing, ghastly days. His turnwould come, and it should be amply given him. But _now_ the very thoughtof that half-hour in Lord Maxwell's library threw her into wild tears. The time for entreaty--for argument--was gone by, so far as he wasconcerned. He might have been her champion, and would not. She threwherself recklessly, madly into the encouragement and support of the manwho had taken up the task which, in her eyes, should have been herlover's. It had become to her a _fight_--with society, with the law, with Aldous--in which her whole nature was absorbed. In the course ofthe fight she had realised Aldous's strength, and it was a bitteroffence to her. 

How little she could do after all! She gathered together all thenewspapers that were debating the case, and feverishly read every line;she wrote to Wharton, commenting on what she read, and on his letters;she attended the meetings of the Reprieve Committee which had beenstarted at Widrington; and she passed hours of every day with Minta Hurdand her children. She would hardly speak to Mary Harden and the rector, because they had not signed the petition, and at home her relations withher father were much strained. Mr. Boyce was awakening to a good deal ofalarm as to how things might end. He might not like the Raeburns, butthat anything should come in the way of his daughter's match was, notwithstanding, the very last thing in the world, as he soondiscovered, that he really desired. During six months he had taken itfor granted; so had the county. He, of all men, could not afford to bemade ridiculous, apart from the solid, the extraordinary advantages ofthe matter. He thought Marcella a foolish, unreasonable girl, and wasnot the less in a panic because his wife let him understand that he hadhad a good deal to do with it. So that between him and his daughterthere were now constant sparrings--sparrings which degraded Marcella inher own eyes, and contributed not a little to make her keep away fromhome. 

The one place where she breathed freely, where the soul had full course, was in Minta Hurd's kitchen. Side by side with that piteous plaintivemisery, her own fierceness dwindled. She would sit with little Willie onher knees in the dusk of the spring evenings, looking into the fire, andcrying silently. She never suspected that her presence was often aburden and constraint, not only to the sulky sister-in-law but to thewife herself. While Miss Boyce was there the village kept away; and Mrs. Hurd was sometimes athirst, without knowing it, for homelier speech andsimpler consolations than any Marcella could give her. 

The last week arrived. Wharton's letters grew more uncertain anddespondent; the Radical press fought on with added heat as the causebecame more desperate. On Monday the wife went to see the condemned man, who told her not to be so silly as to imagine there was any hope. Tuesday night, Wharton asked his last question in Parliament. Friday wasthe day fixed for the execution. 

The question in Parliament came on late. The Home Secretary's answer, though not final in form, was final in substance. Wharton went outimmediately and wrote to Marcella. "She will not sleep if I telegraphto-night, " he thought, with that instinct for detail, especially forphysical detail, which had in it something of the woman. But, knowingthat his letter could not reach her by the early post with the stroke ofeight next morning, he sent out his telegram, that she might not learnthe news first from the papers. 

Marcella had wandered out before breakfast, feeling the house anoppression, and knowing that, one way or another, the last news mightreach her any hour. 

She had just passed through the little wood behind and alongside of thehouse, and was in a field beyond, when she heard some one running behindher. William handed her the telegram, his own red face full ofunderstanding. Marcella took it, commanded herself till the boy was outof sight and hearing again, then sank down on the grass to read it. 

"All over. The Home Secretary's official refusal to interfere withsentence sent to Widrington to-day. Accept my sorrow and sympathy. "

She crushed it in her hand, raising her head mechanically. Before herlay that same shallow cup of ploughed land stretching from her father'sbig wood to the downs, on the edge of which Hurd had plied his ferretsin the winter nights. But to-day the spring worked in it, and breathedupon it. The young corn was already green in the furrows; thehazel-catkins quivered in the hedge above her; larks were in the air, daisies in the grass, and the march of sunny clouds could be seen in theflying shadows they flung on the pale greens and sheeny purples of thewide treeless basin. 

Human helplessness, human agony--set against the careless joy ofnature--there is no new way of feeling these things. But not to havefelt them, and with the mad, impotent passion and outcry which filledMarcella's heart at this moment, is never to have risen to the fullstature of our kind. 

 * * * * *

"Marcella, it is my strong wish--my command--that you do _not_ go out tothe village to-night. "

"I must go, papa. "

It was Thursday night--the night before the Friday morning fixed forHurd's execution. Dinner at Mellor was just over. Mr. Boyce, who wasstanding in front of the fire, unconsciously making the most of his owninadequate height and size, looked angrily at his stately daughter. Shehad not appeared at dinner, and she was now dressed in the long blackcloak and black hat she had worn so constantly in the last few weeks. Mr. Boyce detested the garb. 

"You are making yourself _ridiculous_, Marcella. Pity for these wretchedpeople is all very well, but you have no business to carry it to such apoint that you--and we--become the talk, the laughing-stock of thecounty. And I should like to see you, too, pay some attention to AldousRaeburn's feelings and wishes. "

The admonition, in her father's mouth, would almost have made her laugh, if she could have laughed at anything. But, instead, she only repeated:

"I must go, I have explained to mamma. "

"Evelyn! why do you permit it?" cried Mr. Boyce, turning aggressively tohis wife. 

"Marcella explained to me, as she truly said, " replied Mrs. Boyce, looking up calmly. "It is not her habit to ask permission of any one. "

"Mamma, " exclaimed the girl, in her deep voice, "you would not wish tostop me?"

"No, " said Mrs. Boyce, after a pause, "no. You have gone so far, Iunderstand your wish to do this. Richard, "--she got up and went tohim, --"don't excite yourself about it; shall I read to you, or play agame with you?"

He looked at her, trembling with anger. But her quiet eye warned himthat he had had threatenings of pain that afternoon. His anger sank intofear. He became once more irritable and abject. 

"Let her gang her gait, " he said, throwing himself into a chair. "But Itell you I shall not put up with this kind of thing much longer, Marcella. "

"I shall not ask you, papa, " she said steadily, as she moved towards thedoor. Mrs. Boyce paused where she stood, and looked after her daughter, struck by her words. Mr. Boyce simply took them as referring to themarriage which would emancipate her before long from any control of his, and fumed, without finding a reply. 

The maid-servant who, by Mrs. Boyce's orders, was to accompany Marcellato the village, was already at the front door. She carried a basketcontaining invalid food for little Willie, and a lighted lantern. 

It was a dark night and raining fast. Marcella was fastening up hertweed skirt in the hall, when she saw Mrs. Boyce hurry along the galleryabove, and immediately afterwards her mother came across the hall toher. 

"You had better take the shawl, Marcella: it is cold and raw. If you aregoing to sit up most of the night you will want it. "

She put a wrap of her own across Marcella's arm. 

"Your father is quite right, " she went on. "You have had one horribleexperience to-day already--"

"Don't, mamma!" exclaimed Marcella, interrupting her. Then suddenly shethrew her arms round her mother. 

"Kiss me, mamma! please kiss me!"

Mrs. Boyce kissed her gravely, and let herself even linger a moment inthe girl's strong hold. 

"You are extraordinarily wilful, " she said. "And it is so strange to methat you think you do any good. Are you sure even that she wants to haveyou?"

Marcella's lip quivered. She could not speak, apparently. Waving herhand to her mother, she joined the maid waiting for her, and the twodisappeared into the blackness. 

"But _does_ it do any good?" Mrs. Boyce repeated to herself as she wentback to the drawing-room. "_Sympathy!_ who was ever yet fed, warmed, comforted by _sympathy_? Marcella robs that woman of the only thing thatthe human being should want at such a moment--solitude. Why should weforce on the poor what to us would be an outrage?"

Meanwhile Marcella battled through the wind and rain, thankful that thewarm spring burst was over, and that the skies no longer mocked thishorror which was beneath them. 

At the entrance to the village she stopped, and took the basket from thelittle maid. 

"Now, Ruth, you can go home. Run quick, it is so dark, Ruth!"

"Yes, miss. "

The young country girl trembled. Miss Boyce's tragic passion in thismatter had to some extent infected the whole household in which shelived. 

"Ruth, when you say your prayers to-night, pray God to comfort thepoor, --and to punish the cruel!"

"Yes, miss, " said the girl, timidly, and ready to cry. The lantern sheheld flashed its light on Miss Boyce's white face and tall form. Tillher mistress turned away she did not dare to move; that dark eye, sowide, full, and living, roused in her a kind of terror. 

On the steps of the cottage Marcella paused. She heard voices inside--orrather the rector's voice reading. 

A thought of scorn rose in her heart. "How long will the poor endurethis religion--this make-believe--which preaches patience, _patience_!when it ought to be urging war?"

But she went in softly, so as not to interrupt. The rector looked up andmade a grave sign of the head as she entered; her own gesture forbadeany other movement in the group; she took a stool beside Willie, whosemakeshift bed of chairs and pillows stood on one side of the fire; andthe reading went on. 

Since Minta Hurd had returned with Marcella from Widrington Gaol thatafternoon, she had been so ill that a doctor had been sent for. He hadbade them make up her bed downstairs in the warm; and accordingly amattress had been laid on the settle, and she was now stretched upon it. Her huddled form, the staring whiteness of the narrow face and closedeyelids, thrown out against the dark oak of the settle, and thedisordered mass of grizzled hair, made the centre of the cottage. 

Beside her on the floor sat Mary Harden, her head bowed over the roughhand she held, her eyes red with weeping. Fronting them, beside a littletable, which held a small paraffin lamp, sat the young rector, hisTestament in his hand, his slight boy's figure cast in sharp shadow onthe cottage wall. He had placed himself so as to screen the crude lightof the lamp from the wife's eyes; and an old skirt had been hung over achair to keep it from little Willie. Between mother and child sat AnnMullins, rocking herself to and fro over the fire, and groaning fromtime to time--a shapeless sullen creature, brutalised by many childrenand much poverty--of whom Marcella was often impatient. 

"_And he said, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom. AndHe said unto him, Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Mein Paradise. "_

The rector's voice, in its awed monotony, dwelt insistently on eachword, then paused. "_To-day_, " whispered Mary, caressing Minta's hand, while the tears streamed down her cheeks; "he repented, Minta, and theLord took him to Himself--at once--forgiving all his sins. "

Mrs. Hurd gave no sign, but the dark figure on the other side of thecottage made an involuntary movement, which threw down a fire-iron, andsent a start through Willie's wasted body. The reader resumed; butperfect spontaneity was somehow lost both for him and for Mary. Marcella's stormy presence worked in them both, like a troubling leaven. 

Nevertheless, the priest went steadily through his duty, dwelling onevery pang of the Passion, putting together every sacred and sublimeword. For centuries on centuries his brethren and forerunners had heldup the Man of Sorrows before the anguished and the dying; his turn hadcome, his moment and place in the marvellous never-ending task; heaccepted it with the meek ardour of an undoubting faith. 

"_And all the multitudes that came together to this sight, when theybeheld the things that were done, returned, smiting their breasts_. "

He closed the book, and bent forward, so as to bring his voice close tothe wife's ear. 

"So He died--the Sinless and the Just--for you, for your husband. He haspassed through death--through cruel death; and where He has gone, wepoor, weak, stained sinners can follow, --holding to Him. No sin, howeverblack, can divide us from Him, can tear us from His hand in the darkwaters, if it be only repented, --thrown upon His Cross. Let us pray foryour husband, let us implore the Lord's mercy this night--thishour!--upon his soul. "

A shudder of remembrance passed through Marcella. The rector knelt; Mrs. Hurd lay motionless, save for deep gasps of struggling breath atintervals; Ann Mullins sobbed loudly; and Mary Harden wept as sheprayed, lost in a mystical vision of the Lord Himself among them--thereon the cottage floor--stretching hands of pity over the woman besideher, showing His marred side and brow. 

Marcella alone sat erect, her whole being one passionate protest againsta faith which could thus heap all the crimes and responsibilities ofthis too real earth on the shadowy head of one far-off Redeemer. "Thisvery man who prays, " she thought, "is in some sort an accomplice ofthose who, after tempting, are now destroying, and killing, because theyknow of nothing better to do with the life they themselves have madeoutcast. "

And she hardened her heart. 

When the spoken prayer was over, Mr. Harden still knelt on silently forsome minutes. So did Mary. In the midst of the hush, Marcella saw theboy's eyes unclose. He looked with a sort of remote wonder at his motherand the figures beside her. Then suddenly the gaze became eager, concrete; he sought for something. Her eye followed his, and sheperceived in the shadow beside him, on a broken chair placed behind therough screen which had been made for him, the four tiny animals ofpinched paper Wharton had once fashioned. She stooped noiselessly andmoved the chair a little forward that he might see them better. Thechild with difficulty turned his wasted head, and lay with his skeletonhand under his cheek, staring at his treasures--his little, all--withjust a gleam, a faint gleam, of that same exquisite content which hadfascinated Wharton. Then, for the first time that day, Marcella couldhave wept. 

At last the rector and his sister rose. 

"God be with you, Mrs. Hurd, " said Mr. Harden, stooping to her; "Godsupport you!"

His voice trembled. Mrs. Hurd in bewilderment looked up. 

"Oh, Mr. Harden!" she cried with a sudden wail. "Mr. Harden!"

Mary bent over her with tears, trying to still her, speaking again withquivering lips of "the dear Lord, the Saviour. "

The rector turned to Marcella. 

"You are staying the night with her?" he asked, under his breath. 

"Yes. Mrs. Mullins was up all last night. I offered to come to-night. "

"You went with her to the prison to-day, I believe?"

"Yes. "

"Did you see Hurd?"

"For a very few minutes. "

"Did you hear anything of his state of mind?" he asked anxiously. "Is hepenitent?"

"He talked to me of Willie, " she said--a fierce humanness in herunfriendly eyes. "I promised him that when the child died, he should beburied respectably--not by the parish. And I told him I would alwayslook after the little girls. "

The rector sighed. He moved away. Then unexpectedly he came back again. 

"I must say it to you, " he said firmly, but still so low as not to beheard by any one else in the cottage. "You are taking a greatresponsibility here to-night. Let me implore you not to fill that poorwoman with thoughts of bitterness and revenge at such a moment of herlife. That _you_ feel bitterly, I know. Mary has explained to me--butask yourself, I beg of you!--how is _she_ to be helped through hermisery, either now or in the future, except by patience and submissionto the will of God?"

He had never made so long a speech to this formidable parishioner ofhis, and his young cheek glowed with the effort. 

"You must leave me to do what I think best, " said Marcella, coldly. Shefelt herself wholly set free from that sort of moral compulsion whichhis holiness of mind and character had once exerted upon her. Thathateful opinion of his, which Mary had reported, had broken the spellonce for all. 

Mary did not venture to kiss her friend. They all went. Ann Mulling, whowas dropping as much with sleep as grief, shuffled off last. When shewas going, Mrs. Hurd seemed to rouse a little, and held her by theskirt, saying incoherent things. 

"Dear Mrs. Hurd, " said Marcella, kneeling down beside her, "won't youlet Ann go? I am going to spend the night here, and take care of you andWillie. "

Mrs. Hurd gave a painful start. 

"You're very good, miss, " she said half-consciously, "very good, I'msure. But she's his own flesh and blood is Ann--his own flesh and blood. Ann!"

The two women clung together, the rough, ill-tempered sister-in-lawmuttering what soothing she could think of. When she was gone, MintaHurd turned her face to the back of the settle and moaned, her handsclenched under her breast. 

Marcella went about her preparations for the night. "She is extremelyweak, " Dr. Clarke had said; "the heart in such a state she may die ofsyncope on very small provocation. If she is to spend the night incrying and exciting herself, it will go hard with her. Get her to sleepif you possibly can. "

And he had left a sleeping draught. Marcella resolved that she wouldpersuade her to take it. "But I will wake her before eight o'clock, " shethought. "No human being has the right to rob her of herself throughthat last hour. "

And tenderly she coaxed Minta to take the doctor's "medicine. " Mintaswallowed it submissively, asking no questions. But the act of taking itroused her for the time, and she would talk. She even got up andtottered across to Willie. 

"Willie!--Willie!--Oh! look, miss, he's got his animals--he don't thinkof nothing else. Oh, Willie! won't you think of your father?--you'llnever have a father, Willie, not after to-night!"

The boy was startled by her appearance there beside him--his haggard, dishevelled mother, with the dews of perspiration standing on the face, and her black dress thrown open at the throat and breast for air. Helooked at her, and a little frown lined the white brow. But he did notspeak. Marcella thought he was too weak to speak, and for an instant itstruck her with a thrill of girlish fear that he was dying then andthere--that night--that hour. But when she had half helped, half forcedMrs. Hurd back to bed again, and had returned to him, his eyelids hadfallen, he seemed asleep. The fast, whistling breath was much the sameas it had been for days; she reassured herself. 

And at last the wife slept too. The narcotic seized her. The achinglimbs relaxed, and all was still. Marcella, stooping over her, kissedthe shoulder of her dress for very joy, so grateful to every sense ofthe watcher was the sudden lull in the long activity of anguish. 

Then she sat down in the rocking chair by the fire, yielding herselfwith a momentary relief to the night and the silence. The tall clockshowed that it was not yet ten. She had brought a book with her, and shedrew it upon her knee; but it lay unopened. 

A fretting, gusty wind beat against the window, with occasional rushesof rain. Marcella shivered, though she had built up the fire, and put onher cloak. 

A few distant sounds from the village street round the corner, thechiming of the church clock, the crackling of the fire close besideher--she heard everything there was to hear, with unusual sharpness ofear, and imagined more. 

All at once restlessness, or some undefined impression, made her lookround her. She saw that the scanty baize curtain was only half-drawnacross one of the windows, and she got up to close it. Fresh from thelight of the lamp, she stared through the panes into the night withoutat first seeing anything. Then there flashed out upon the dark the doorof a public-house to the right, the last in the village road. A man cameout stumbling and reeling; the light within streamed out an instant onthe road and the common; then the pursuing rain and darkness fell uponhim. 

She was drawing back when, with sudden horror, she perceived somethingelse close beside her, pressing against the window. A woman's face!--thepowerful black and white of it--the strong aquiline features--the madkeenness of the look were all plain to her. The eyes looked in hungrilyat the prostrate form on the settle--at the sleeping child. Anotherfigure appeared out of the dark, running up the path. There was a slightscuffle, and voices outside. Marcella drew the curtain close with ahasty hand, and sat down hardly able to breathe. The woman who hadlooked in was Isabella Westall. It was said that she was becoming moreand more difficult to manage and to watch. 

Marcella was some time in recovering herself. That look, as of asleepless, hateful eagerness, clung to the memory. Once or twice, as ithaunted her, she got up again to make sure that the door was fast. 

The incident, with all it suggested, did but intensify the horror andstruggle in which the girl stood, made her mood more strained, morepiercingly awake and alert. Gradually, as the hours passed, as allsounds from without, even that of the wind, died away, and the silencesettled round her in ever-widening circles, like deep waters sinking torepose, Marcella felt herself a naked soul, alone on a wide sea, withshapes of pain and agony and revolt. She looked at the sleeping wife. "He, too, is probably asleep, " she thought, remembering some informationwhich a kindly warder had given her in a few jerky, well-meantsentences, while she was waiting downstairs in the gaol for Minta Hurd. "Incredible! only so many hours, minutes left--so far as any mortal_knows_--of living, thinking, recollecting, of all that makes ussomething as against the _nothing_ of death--and a man wastes them insleep, in that which is only meant for the ease and repair of the dailystruggle. And Minta--her husband is her all--to-morrow she will have nohusband; yet she sleeps, and I have helped to make her. Ah! Nature maywell despise and trample on us; there is no reason in us--no dignity!Oh, why are we here--why am _I_ here--to ache like this--to hate goodpeople like Charles Harden and Mary--to refuse all I could give--tomadden myself over pain I can never help? I cannot help it, yet I cannotforsake it; it drives, it clings to me!"

She sat over the fire, Willie's hand clasped in hers. He alone in thisforlorn household _loved_ her. Mrs. Hurd and the other children fearedand depended on her. This creature of thistle-down--this little threadand patch of humanity--felt no fear of her. It was as though hisweakness divined through her harshness and unripeness those maternal andprotecting powers with which her nature was in truth so richly dowered. He confided himself to her with no misgivings. He was at ease when shewas there. 

Little piteous hand!--its touch was to her symbolic, imperative. 

Eight months had she been at Mellor? And that Marcella, who had beenliving and moving amid these woods and lanes all this time--that foolishgirl, delighting in new grandeurs, and flattered by Aldous Raeburn'sattentions--that hot, ambitious person who had meant to rule a countythrough a husband--what had become of her? Up to the night of Hurd'sdeath sentence she had still existed in some sort, with her obligations, qualms, remorses. But since then--every day, every hour had beengrinding, scorching her away--fashioning in flame and fever this newMarcella who sat here, looking impatiently into another life, whichshould know nothing of the bonds of the old. 

Ah, yes!--her _thought_ could distinguish between the act and the man, between the man and his class; but in her _feeling_ all was confounded. This awful growth of sympathy in her--strange irony!--had made allsympathy for Aldous Raeburn impossible to her. Marry him?--no!no!--never! But she would make it quite easy to him to give her up. Pride should come in--he should feel no pain in doing it. She had in herpocket the letter she had received from him that afternoon. She hadhardly been able to read it. Ear and heart were alike dull to it. 

From time to time she probably slept in her chair. Or else it was theperpetual rush of images and sensations through the mind that hastenedthe hours. Once when the first streaks of the March dawn were showingthrough the curtains Minta Hurd sprang up with a loud cry:

"Oh, my God! Jim, _Jim!_ Oh, no!--take that off. Oh, _please_, sir, please! Oh, for God's sake, sir!"

Agony struggled with sleep. Marcella, shuddering, held and soothed her, and for a while sleep, or rather the drug in her veins, triumphed again. For another hour or two she lay restlessly tossing from side to side, but unconscious. 

Willie hardly moved all night. Again and again Marcella held beef-tea ormilk to his mouth, and tried to rouse him to take it, but she could makeno impression on the passive lips; the sleeping serenity of the brownever changed. 

At last, with a start, Marcella looked round and saw that the morningwas fully there. A cold light was streaming through the curtains; thefire was still glowing; but her limbs were stiff and chilled under hershawl. She sprang up, horror descending on her. Her shaking fingerscould hardly draw out the watch in her belt. 

_Ten minutes to eight_!

For the first time the girl felt nerve and resolution fail her. Shelooked at Mrs. Hurd and wrung her hands. The mother was muttering andmoving, but not yet fully awake; and Willie lay as before. Hardlyknowing what she was doing, she drew the curtains back, as thoughinspiration might come with the light. The rain-clouds trailed acrossthe common; water dripped heavily from the thatch of the cottage; and afew birds twittered from some bedraggled larches at the edge of thecommon. Far away, beyond and beneath those woods to the right, Widrington lay on the plain, with that high-walled stone building at itsedge. She saw everything as it must now be happening as plainly asthough she were bodily present there--the last meal--the pinioning--thechaplain. 

Goaded by the passing seconds, she turned back at last to wake that poorsleeper behind her. But something diverted her. With a start she sawthat Willie's eyes were open. 

"Willie, " she said, running to him, "how are you, dear? Shall I liftyour head a little?"

He did not answer, though she thought he tried, and she was struck bythe blueness under the eyes and nose. Hurriedly she felt his tiny feet. They were quite cold. 

"Mrs. Hurd!" she cried, rousing her in haste; "dear Mrs. Hurd, come andsee Willie!"

The mother sprang up bewildered, and, hurrying across the room, threwherself upon him. 

"Willie, what is it ails you, dear? Tell mother! Is it your feet are socold? But we'll rub them--we'll get you warm soon. And here's somethingto make you better. " Marcella handed her some brandy. "Drink it, dear;drink it, sweetheart!" Her voice grew shrill. 

"He can't, " said Marcella. "Do not let us plague him; it is the end. Dr. Clarke said it would come in the morning. "

They hung over him, forgetting everything but him for the moment--theonly moment in his little life he came first even with his mother. 

There was a slight movement of the hand. 

"He wants his animals, " said Marcella, the tears pouring down hercheeks. She lifted them and put them on his breast, laying the coldfingers over them. 

Then he tried to speak. 

"Daddy!" he whispered, looking up fully at his mother; "take 'em toDaddy!"

She fell on her knees beside him with a shriek, hiding her face, andshaking from head to foot. Marcella alone saw the slight, mysterioussmile, the gradual sinking of the lids, the shudder of departing lifethat ran through the limbs. 

A heavy sound swung through the air--a heavy repeated sound. Mrs. Hurdheld up her head and listened. The church clock tolled eight. She kneltthere, struck motionless by terror--by recollection. 

"Oh, Jim!" she said, under her breath--"my Jim!"

The plaintive tone--as of a creature that has not even breath andstrength left wherewith to chide the fate that crushes it--brokeMarcella's heart. Sitting beside the dead son, she wrapt the mother inher arms, and the only words that even her wild spirit could findwherewith to sustain this woman through the moments of her husband'sdeath were words of prayer--the old shuddering cries wherewith the humansoul from the beginning has thrown itself on that awful encompassingLife whence it issued, and whither it returns. 

CHAPTER XV. 

Two days later, in the afternoon, Aldous Raeburn found himself at thedoor of Mellor. When he entered the drawing-room, Mrs. Boyce, who hadheard his ring, was hurrying away. 

"Don't go, " he said, detaining her with a certain peremptoriness. "Iwant all the light on this I can get. Tell me, she has _actually_brought herself to regard this man's death as in some sort my doing--assomething which ought to separate us?"

Mrs. Boyce saw that he held an opened letter from Marcella crushed inhis hand. But she did not need the explanation. She had been expectinghim at any hour throughout the day, and in just this condition of mind. 

"Marcella must explain for herself, " she said, after a moment's thought. "I have no right whatever to speak for her. Besides, frankly, I do notunderstand her, and when I argue with her she only makes me realise thatI have no part or lot in her--that I never had. It is just enough. Shewas brought up away from me. And I have no natural hold. I cannot helpyou, or any one else, with her. "

Aldous had been very tolerant and compassionate in the past of thisstrange mother's abdication of her maternal place, and of its probablecauses. But it was not in human nature that he should be either to-day. He resumed his questioning, not without sharpness. 

"One word, please. Tell me something of what has happened sinceThursday, before I see her. I have written--but till this morning I havehad not one line from her. "

They were standing by the window, he with his frowning gaze, in whichagitation struggled against all his normal habits of manner andexpression, fixed upon the lawn and the avenue. She told him brieflywhat she knew of Marcella's doings since the arrival of Wharton'stelegram--of the night in the cottage, and the child's death. It wasplain that he listened with a shuddering repulsion. 

"Do you know, " he exclaimed, turning upon her, "that she may neverrecover this? Such a strain, such a horror! rushed upon so wantonly, soneedlessly. "

"I understand. You think that I have been to blame? I do not wonder. Butit is not true--not in this particular case. And anyway your view is notmine. Life--and the iron of it--has to be faced, even by women--perhaps, most of all, by women. But let me go now. Otherwise my husband will comein. And I imagine you would rather see Marcella before you see him orany one. "

That suggestion told. He instantly gathered himself together, andnervously begged that she would send Marcella to him at once. He couldthink of nothing, talk of nothing, till he had seen her. She went, andAldous was left to walk up and down the room planning what he shouldsay. After the ghastly intermingling of public interests and privatemisery in which he had lived for these many weeks there was a certainrelief in having reached the cleared space--the decisive moment--when hemight at last give himself wholly to what truly concerned him. He wouldnot lose her without a struggle. None the less he knew, and had knownever since the scene in the Court library, that the great disaster ofhis life was upon him. 

The handle of the door turned. She was there. 

He did not go to meet her. She had come in wrought up to faceattack--reproaches, entreaties--ready to be angry or to be humble, as heshould give her the lead. But he gave her no lead. She had to breakthrough that quivering silence as best she could. 

"I wanted to explain everything to you, " she said in a low voice, as shecame near to him. "I know my note last night was very hard and abrupt. Ididn't mean to be hard. But I am still so tired--and everything that onesays, and feels, hurts so. "

She sank down upon a chair. This womanish appeal to his pity had notbeen at all in her programme. Nor did it immediately succeed. As helooked at her, he could only feel the wantonness of this eclipse intowhich she had plunged her youth and beauty. There was wrath, apassionate protesting wrath, under his pain. 

"Marcella, " he said, sitting down beside her, "did you read my letterthat I wrote you the day before--?"

"Yes. "

"And after that, you could still believe that I was indifferent to yourgrief--your suffering--or to the suffering of any human being for whomyou cared? You could still think it, and feel it?"

"It was not what you have said all through, " she replied, lookingsombrely away from him, her chin on her hand, "it is what you havedone. "

"What have I done?" he said proudly, bending forward from his seatbeside her. "What have I ever done but claim from you that freedom youdesire so passionately for others--freedom of conscience--freedom ofjudgment? You denied me this freedom, though I asked it of you with allmy soul. And you denied me more. Through these five weeks you haverefused me the commonest right of love--the right to show you myself, toprove to you that through all this misery of differing opinion--misery, much more, oh, much more to me than to you!--I was in truth bent on thesame ends with you, bearing the same burden, groping towards the samegoal. "

"No! no!" she cried, turning upon him, and catching at a word; "whatburden have you ever borne? I know you were sorry--that there was astruggle in your mind--that you pitied me--pitied _them_. But you judgedit all _from above_--you looked down--and I could not see that you hadany right. It made me mad to have such things seen from a height, when Iwas below--in the midst--_close_ to the horror and anguish of them. "

"Whose fault was it, " he interrupted, "that I was not with you? Did Inot offer--entreat? I could not sign a statement of fact which seemedto me an untrue statement, but what prevented me--preventedus. --However, let me take that point first. Would you, "--he spokedeliberately, "would you have had me put my name to a public statementwhich I, rightly or wrongly, believed to be false, because you asked me?You owe it to me to answer. "

She could not escape the penetrating fire of his eye. The man'smildness, his quiet self-renouncing reserve, were all burnt up at lastin this white heat of an accusing passion. In return she began to forgether own resolve to bear herself gently. 

"You don't remember, " she cried, "that what divided us wasyour--your--incapacity to put the human pity first; to think of thesurrounding circumstances--of the debt that you and I and everybody likeus owe to a man like Hurd--to one who had been stunted and starved bylife as he had been. "

Her lip began to tremble. 

"Then it comes to this, " he said steadily, "that if I had been a poorman, you would have allowed me my conscience--my judgment of right andwrong--in such a matter. You would have let me remember that I was acitizen, and that pity is only one side of justice! You would have letme plead that Hurd's sin was not against me, but against the community, and that in determining whether to do what you wished or no, I mustthink of the community and its good before even I thought of pleasingyou. If I had possessed no more than Hurd, all this would have beenpermitted me; but because of Maxwell Court--because of my _money_, "--sheshrank before the accent of the word--"you refused me the commonestmoral rights. _My_ scruple, _my_ feeling, were nothing to you. Yourpride was engaged as well as your pity, and I must give way. Marcella!you talk of justice--you talk of equality--is the only man who can getneither at your hands--the man whom you promised to marry!"

His voice dwelt on that last word, dwelt and broke. He leant over her inhis roused strength, and tried to take her hand. But she moved away fromhim with a cry. 

"It is no use! Oh, don't--don't! It may be all true. I was vain, I daresay, and unjust, and hard. But don't you see--don't you understand--ifwe _could_ take such different views of such a case--if it could divideus so deeply--what chance would there be if we were married? I oughtnever--never--to have said 'Yes' to you--even as I was then. But _now_, "she turned to him slowly, "can't you see it for yourself? I am a changedcreature. Certain things in me are gone--_gone_--and instead there is afire--something driving, tormenting--which must burn its way out. When Ithink of what I liked so much when you asked me to marry you--beingrich, and having beautiful things, and dresses, and jewels, andservants, and power--social power--above all _that_--I feel sick andchoked. I couldn't breathe now in a house like Maxwell Court. The poorhave come to mean to me the only people who really _live_, and really_suffer_. I must live with them, work for them, find out what I can dofor them. You must give me up--you must indeed. Oh! and you will! Youwill be glad enough, thankful enough, when--when--you know what I _am_!"

He started at the words. Where was the prophetess? He saw that she waslying white and breathless, her face hidden against the arm of thechair. 

In an instant he was on his knees beside her. 

"Marcella!" he could hardly command his voice, but he held herstruggling hand against his lips. "You think that suffering belongs toone class? Have you really no conception of what you will be dealing tome if you tear yourself away from me?"

She withdrew her hand, sobbing. 

"Don't, don't stay near me!" she said; "there is--more--there issomething else. "

Aldous rose. 

"You mean, " he said in an altered voice, after a pause of silence, "thatanother influence--another man--has come between us?"

She sat up, and with a strong effort drove back her weeping. 

"If I could say to you only this, " she began at last, with long pauses, "'I mistook myself and my part in life. I did wrong, but forgive me, andlet me go for both our sakes'--that would be--well!--that would bedifficult, --but easier than this! Haven't you understood at all?When--when Mr. Wharton came, I began to see things very soon, not in myown way, but in his way. I had never met any one like him--not any onewho showed me such possibilities in _myself_--such new ways of usingone's life, and not only one's possessions--of looking at all the greatquestions. I thought it was just friendship, but it made me critical, impatient of everything else. I was never myself from the beginning. Then, --after the ball, "--he stooped over her that he might hear her themore plainly, --"when I came home I was in my room and I heardsteps--there are ghost stories, you know, about that part of the house. I went out to see. Perhaps, in my heart of hearts--oh, I can't tell, Ican't tell!--anyway, he was there. We went into the library, and wetalked. He did not want to touch our marriage, --but he said all sorts ofmad things, --and at last--he kissed me. "

The last words were only breathed. She had often pictured herselfconfessing these things to him. But the humiliation in which sheactually found herself before him was more than she had ever dreamed of, more than she could bear. All those great words of pity and mercy--allthat implication of a moral atmosphere to which he could neverattain--to end in this story! The effect of it, on herself, rather thanon him, was what she had not foreseen. 

Aldous raised himself slowly. 

"And when did this happen?" he asked after a moment. 

"I told you--the night of the ball--of the murder, " she said with ashiver; "we saw Hurd cross the avenue. I meant to have told youeverything at once. "

"And you gave up that intention?" he asked her, when he had waited alittle for more, and nothing came. 

She turned upon him with a flash of the old defiance. 

"How could I think of my own affairs?"

"Or of mine?" he said bitterly. 

She made no answer. 

Aldous got up and walked to the chimney-piece. He was very pale, but hiseyes were bright and sparkling. When she looked up at him at last shesaw that her task was done. His scorn--his resentment--were they not theexpiation, the penalty she had looked forward to all along?--and withthat determination to bear them calmly? Yet, now that they were there infront of her, they stung. 

"So that--for all those weeks--while you were letting me write as I did, while you were letting me conceive you and your action as I did, you hadthis on your mind? You never gave me a hint; you let me plead; you letme regard you as wrapped up in the unselfish end; you sent me thoseletters of his--those most misleading letters!--and all the time--"

"But I meant to tell you--I always meant to tell you, " she criedpassionately. "I would never have gone on with a secret like that--notfor your sake--but for my own. "

"Yet you did go on so long, " he said steadily; "and my agony of mindduring those weeks--my feeling towards you--my--"

He broke off, wrestling with himself. As for her, she had fallen back inher chair, physically incapable of anything more. 

He walked over to her side and took up his hat. 

"You have done me wrong, " he said, gazing down upon her. "I pray God youmay not do yourself a greater wrong in the future! Give me leave towrite to you once more, or to send my friend Edward Hallin to see you. Then I will not trouble you again. "

He waited, but she could give him no answer. Her form as she lay therein this physical and moral abasement printed itself upon his heart. Yethe felt no desire whatever to snatch the last touch--the last kiss--thatwounded passion so often craves. Inwardly, and without words, he saidfarewell to her. She heard his steps across the room; the door shut; shewas alone--and free. 

BOOK III. 

"O Neigung, sage, wie hast du so tief Im Herzen dich verstecket?Wer hat dich, die verborgen schlief, Gewecket?"

CHAPTER I. 

"Don't suppose that I feel enthusiastic or sentimental about the 'claimsof Labour, '" said Wharton, smiling to the lady beside him. "You may getthat from other people, but not from me. I am not moral enough to be afanatic. My position is simplicity itself. When things are inevitable, Iprefer to be on the right side of them, and not on the wrong. There isnot much more in it than that. I would rather be on the back of the'bore' for instance, as it sweeps up the tidal river, than the swimmercaught underneath it. "

"Well, that is intelligible, " said Lady Selina Farrell, looking at herneighbour, as she crumbled her dinner-roll. To crumble your bread atdinner is a sign of nervousness, according to Sydney Smith, who did itwith both hands when he sat next an Archbishop; yet no one for a goodmany years past had ever suspected Lady Selina of nervousness, thoughher powers had probably been tried before now by the neighbourhood ofmany Primates, Catholic and Anglican. For Lady Selina went much intosociety, and had begun it young. 

"Still, you know, " she resumed after a moment's pause--"you _play_enthusiasm in public--I suppose you must. "

"Oh! of course, " said Wharton, indifferently. "That is in the game. "

"Why should it be--always? If you are a leader of the people, why don'tyou educate them? My father says that bringing feeling into politics islike making rhymes in one's account book. "

"Well, when you have taught the masses how _not_ to feel, " said Wharton, laughing, "we will follow your advice. Meanwhile it is our brains andtheir feelings that do the trick. And by the way, Lady Selina, are _you_always so cool? If you saw the Revolution coming to-morrow into thegarden of Alresford House, would you go to the balcony and argue?"

"I devoutly hope there would be somebody ready to do something more tothe point, " said Lady Selina, hastily. "But of course _we_ haveenthusiasms too. "

"What, the Flag--and the Throne--that kind of thing?"

The ironical attention which Wharton began at this moment to devote tothe selection of an olive annoyed his companion. 

"Yes, " she repeated emphatically, "the Flag and the Throne--all that hasmade England great in the past. But we know very well that they are not_your_ enthusiasms. "

Wharton's upper lip twitched a little. 

"And you are quite sure that Busbridge Towers has nothing to do withit?" he said suddenly, looking round upon her. 

Busbridge Towers was the fine ancestral seat which belonged to LadySelina's father, that very respectable and ancient peer, Lord Alresford, whom an ungrateful party had unaccountably omitted--for the firsttime--from the latest Conservative administration. 

"Of course we perfectly understand, " replied Lady Selina, scornfully, "that your side--and especially your Socialist friends, put down allthat _we_ do and say to greed and selfishness. It is ourmisfortune--hardly our fault. "

"Not at all, " said Wharton, quietly, "I was only trying to convince youthat it is a little difficult to drive feeling out of politics. Do yousuppose our host succeeds? You perceive?--this is a Radical house--and aRadical banquet?"

He pushed the _menu_ towards her significantly. Then his eye travelledwith its usual keen rapidity over the room, over the splendiddinner-table, with its display of flowers and plate, and over theassembled guests. He and Lady Selina were dining at the hospitable boardof a certain rich manufacturer, who drew enormous revenues from thewest, had formed part of the Radical contingent of the last Liberalministry, and had especially distinguished himself by a series ofuncompromising attacks on the ground landlords of London. 

Lady Selina sighed. 

"It is all a horrible tangle, " she said, "and what the next twenty yearswill bring forth who can tell? Oh! one moment, Mr. Wharton, before Iforget. Are you engaged for Saturday week?"

He drew a little note-book out of his pocket and consulted it. Itappeared that he was not engaged. 

"Then will you dine with us?" She lightly mentioned the names of four orfive distinguished guests, including the Conservative Premier of theday. Wharton made her a little ceremonious bow. 

"I shall be delighted. Can you trust me to behave?"

Lady Selina's smile made her his match for the moment. 

"Oh! we can defend ourselves!" she said. "By the way I think you told methat Mr. Raeburn was not a friend of yours. "

"No, " said Wharton, facing her look with coolness. "If you have askedMr. Raeburn for the 23rd, let me crave your leave to cancel that note inmy pocket-book. Not for my sake, you understand, at all. "

She had difficulty in concealing her curiosity. But his face betrayednothing. It always seemed to her that his very dark and straighteyebrows, so obtrusive and unusual as compared with the delicacy of thefeatures, of the fair skin and light brown curls, made it easy for himto wear any mask he pleased. By their mere physical emphasis they drewattention away from the subtler and more revealing things of expression. 

"They say, " she went on, "that he is sure to do well in the House, ifonly he can be made to take interest enough in the party. But one of hisadmirers told me that he was not at all anxious to accept this post theyhave just given him. He only did it to please his grandfather. My fatherthinks Lord Maxwell much aged this year. He is laid up now, with a chillof some sort I believe. Mr. Raeburn will have to make haste if he is tohave any career in the Commons. But you can see he cares very littleabout it. All his friends tell me they find him changed since thatunlucky affair last year. By the way, did you ever see that girl?"

"Certainly. I was staying in her father's house while the engagementwas going on. "

"Were you!" said Lady Selina, eagerly, "and what did you think of her?"

"Well, in the first place, " said Wharton, slowly, "she is beautiful--youknew that?"

Lady Selina nodded. 

"Yes. Miss Raeburn, who has told me most of what I know, always throwsin a shrug and a 'but' when you ask about her looks. However, I haveseen a photograph of her, so I can judge for myself. It seemed to me abeauty that men perhaps would admire more than women. "

Wharton devoted himself to his green peas, and made no reply. LadySelina glanced at him sharply. She herself was by no means a beauty. Butneither was she plain. She had a long, rather distinguished face, with amarked nose and a wide thin-lipped mouth. Her plentiful fair hair, alittle dull and ashy in colour, was heaped up above her forehead ininfinitesimal curls and rolls which did great credit to her maid, andgave additional height to the head and length to a thin white neck. Herlight blue eyes were very direct and observant. Their expression impliedboth considerable knowledge of the world and a natural inquisitiveness. Many persons indeed were of opinion that Lady Selina wished to know toomuch about you and were on their guard when she approached. 

"You admired her very much, I see, " she resumed, as Wharton stillremained silent. 

"Oh, yes. We talked Socialism, and then I defended her poacher for her. "

"Oh, I remember. And it is really true, as Miss Raeburn says, that shebroke it off because she could not get Lord Maxwell and Mr. Raeburn tosign the petition for the poacher?"

"Somewhere about true, " said Wharton, carelessly. 

"Miss Raeburn always gives the same account; you can never get anythingelse out of her. But I sometimes wonder whether it is the _whole_ truth. _You_ think she was sincere?"

"Well, she gave up Maxwell Court and thirty thousand a year, " he replieddrily. "I should say she had at least earned the benefit of the doubt. "

"I mean, " said Lady Selina, "was she in love with anybody else, and wasthe poacher an excuse?"

She turned upon him as she spoke--a smiling, self-possessed person--alittle spoilt by those hard, inquisitive eyes. 

"No, I think not, " said Wharton, throwing his head back to meet herscrutiny. "If so, nothing has been heard of him yet. Miss Boyce has beenat St. Edward's Hospital for the last year. "

"To learn nursing? It is what all the women do nowadays, they tell me, who can't get on with their relations or their lovers. Do you suppose itis such a very hard life?"

"I don't want to try!" said Wharton. "Do you?"

She evaded his smile. 

"What is she going to do when she has done her training?"

"Settle down and nurse among the poor, I believe. "

"Magnificent, no doubt, but hardly business, from her point of view. Howmuch more she might have done for the poor with thirty thousand a year!And any woman could put up with Aldous Raeburn. "

Wharton shrugged his shoulders. 

"We come back to those feelings, Lady Selina, you think so badly of. "

She laughed. 

"Well, but feelings must be intelligible. And this seems so small acause. However, were you there when it was broken off?"

"No; I have never seen her since the day of the poacher's trial. "

"Oh! So she has gone into complete seclusion from all her friends?"

"That I can't answer for. I can only tell you my own experience. "

Lady Selina bethought herself of a great many more questions to ask, butsomehow did not ask them. The talk fell upon politics, which lasted tillthe hostess gave the signal, and Lady Selina, gathering up her fan andgloves, swept from the room next after the Countess at the head of thetable, while a host of elderly ladies, wives of ministers and the like, stood meekly by to let her pass. 

As he sat down again, Wharton made the entry of the dinner at AlresfordHouse, to which he had just promised himself, a little plainer. It wasthe second time in three weeks that Lady Selina had asked him, and hewas well aware that several other men at this dinner-table, of about thesame standing and prospects as himself, would be very glad to be in hisplace. Lady Selina, though she was unmarried, and not particularlyhandsome or particularly charming, was a personage--and knew it. As themistress of her father's various fine houses, and the kinswoman of halfthe great families of England, she had ample social opportunities, andmade, on the whole, clever use of them. She was not exactly popular, butin her day she had been extremely useful to many, and her invitationswere prized. Wharton had been introduced to her at the beginning ofthis, his second session, had adopted with her the easy, aggressive, "personal" manner--which, on the whole, was his natural manner towardswomen--and had found it immediately successful. 

When he had replaced his pocket-book, he found himself approached by aman on his own side of the table, a member of Parliament like himself, with whom he was on moderately friendly terms. 

"Your motion comes on next Friday, I think, " said the new-comer. 

Wharton nodded. 

"It'll be a beastly queer division, " said the other--"a precious lot ofcross-voting. "

"That'll be the way with that kind of question for a good while tocome--don't you think"--said Wharton, smiling, "till we get a completereorganisation of parties?"

As he leaned back in his chair, enjoying his cigarette, his half-shuteyes behind the curls of smoke made a good-humoured but contemptuousstudy of his companion. 

Mr. Bateson was a young manufacturer, recently returned to Parliament, and newly married. He had an open, ruddy face, spoilt by an expressionof chronic perplexity, which was almost fretfulness. Not that thecountenance was without shrewdness; but it suggested that the man hadambitions far beyond his powers of performance, and already knew himselfto be inadequate. 

"Well, I shouldn't wonder if you get a considerable vote, " he resumed, after a pause; "it's like women's suffrage. People will go on voting forthis kind of thing, till there seems a chance of getting it. _Then_!"

"Ah, well!" said Wharton, easily, "I see we shan't get _you_. "

"_I_!--vote for an eight-hours day, by local and trade option! In myopinion I might as well vote for striking the flag on the British Empireat once! It would be the death-knell of all our prosperity. "

Wharton's artistic ear disliked the mixture of metaphor, and he frownedslightly. 

Mr. Bateson hurried on. He was already excited, and had fallen uponWharton as a prey. 

"And you really desire to make it _penal_ for us manufacturers--for mein my industry--in spite of all the chances and changes of the market, to work my men more than eight hours a day--_even_ if they wish it!"

"We must get our decision, our majority of the adult workers in anygiven district in favour of an eight-hours day, " said Wharton, blandly;"then when they have voted for it, the local authority will put the Actin motion. "

"And my men--conceivably--may have voted in the minority, against anysuch tomfoolery; yet, when the vote is given, it will be a punishableoffence for them, and me, to work overtime? You _actually_ mean that;how do you propose to punish us?"

"Well, " said Wharton, relighting his cigarette, "that is a much debatedpoint. Personally, I am in favour of imprisonment rather than fine. "

The other bounded on his chair. 

"You would imprison me for working overtime--with _willing men!_"

Wharton eyed him with smiling composure. Two or three other men--an oldgeneral, the smart private secretary of a cabinet minister, and awell-known permanent official at the head of one of the great spendingdepartments--who were sitting grouped at the end of the table a few feetaway, stopped their conversation to listen. 

"Except in cases of emergency, which are provided for under the Act, "said Wharton. "Yes, I should imprison you, with the greatest pleasure inlife. Eight hours _plus_ overtime is what we are going to stop, _at allhazards!_"

A flash broke from his blue eyes. Then he tranquilly resumed hissmoking. 

The young manufacturer flushed with angry agitation. 

"But you must know, it is inconceivable that you should not know, thatthe whole thing is stark staring lunacy. In our business, trade isdeclining, the export falling every year, the imports from Francesteadily advancing. And you are going to make us fight a country wheremen work eleven hours a day, for lower wages, with our hands tied behindour backs by legislation of this kind? Well, you know, " he threwhimself back in his chair with a contemptuous laugh, "there can be onlyone explanation. You and your friends, of course, have banishedpolitical economy to Saturn--and you suppose that by doing so you getrid of it for all the rest of the world. But I imagine it will beat you, all the same!"

He stopped in a heat. As usual what he found to say was not equal towhat he wanted to say, and beneath his anger with Wharton was thefamiliar fuming at his own lack of impressiveness. 

"Well, I dare say, " said Wharton, serenely. "However, let's take your'political economy' a moment, and see if I can understand what you meanby it. There never were two words that meant all things to all men sodisreputably!"

And thereupon to the constant accompaniment of his cigarette, and withthe utmost composure and good temper, he began to "heckle" hiscompanion, putting questions, suggesting perfidious illustrations, extracting innocent admissions, with a practised shrewdness and malice, which presently left the unfortunate Bateson floundering in a sea of hisown contradictions, and totally unable for the moment to attach anyrational idea whatever to those great words of his favourite science, wherewith he was generally accustomed to make such triumphant play, bothon the platform and in the bosom of the family. 

The permanent official round the corner watched the unequal fight withattentive amusement. Once when it was a question of Mill's doctrine ofcost of production as compared with that of a leading moderncollectivist, he leant forward and supplied a correction of somethingWharton had said. Wharton instantly put down his cigarette and addressedhim in another tone. A rapid dialogue passed between them, the dialogueof experts, sharp, allusive, elliptical, in the midst of which the hostgave the signal for joining the ladies. 

"Well, all I know is, " said Bateson, as he got up, "that these kinds ofquestions, if you and your friends have your way, will _wreck_ theLiberal party before long--far more effectually than anything Irish hasever done. On these things some of us will fight, if it must come tothat. "

Wharton laughed. 

"It would be a national misfortune if you didn't give us a stiff job, "he said, with an airy good-humour which at once made the other'sblustering look ridiculous. 

"I wonder what that fellow is going to do in the House, " said thepermanent official to his companion as they went slowly upstairs, Wharton being some distance ahead. "People are all beginning to talk ofhim as a coming man, though nobody quite knows why, as yet. They tell mehe frames well in speaking, and will probably make a mark with hisspeech next Friday. But his future seems to me very doubtful. He canonly become a power as the head of a new Labour party. But where is theparty? They all want to be kings. The best point in his favour is thatthey are likely enough to take a gentleman if they must have a leader. But there still remains the question whether he can make anything out ofthe material. "

"I hope to God he can't!" said the old general, grimly; "it is thesetown-chatterers of yours that will bring the Empire about our headsbefore we've done. They've begun it already, wherever they saw achance. "

 * * * * *

In the drawing-room Wharton devoted himself for a few minutes to hishostess, a little pushing woman, who confided to his apparentlyattentive ear a series of grievances as to the bad manners of the greatladies of their common party, and the general evil plight of Liberalismin London from the social point of view. 

"Either they give themselves airs--_rediculous_ airs!--or they admiteverybody!" she said, with a lavish use of white shoulders and scarletfan by way of emphasis. "My husband feels it just as much as I do. It isa real misfortune for the party that its social affairs should be sovillainously managed. Oh! I dare say _you_ don't mind, Mr. Wharton, because you are a Socialist. But, I assure you, those of us who stillbelieve in the influence of the best people don't like it. "

A point whence Wharton easily led her through a series of spitefulanecdotes bearing on her own social mishaps and rebuffs, which were nonethe less illuminating because of the teller's anxious effort to givethem a dignified and disinterested air. Then, when neither she nor herplight were any longer amusing, he took his leave, exchanging anotherskirmishing word or two on the staircase with Lady Selina, who itappeared was "going on" as he was, and to the same house. 

In a few minutes his hansom landed him at the door of a great mansionin Berkeley Square, where a huge evening party was proceeding, given byone of those Liberal ladies whom his late hostess had been so freelydenouncing. The lady and the house belonged to a man who had held highoffice in the late Administration. 

As he made his way slowly to the top of the crowded stairs, the statelywoman in white satin and diamonds who was "receiving" on the landingmarked him, and when his name was announced she came forward a step ortwo. Nothing could have been more flattering than the smile with whichshe gave him her gloved hand to touch. 

"Have you been out of town all these Sundays?" she said to him, with theslightest air of soft reproach. "I am always at home, you know--I toldyou so!"

She spoke with the ease of one who could afford to make whatever socialadvances she pleased. Wharton excused himself, and they chatted a littlein the intervals of her perpetual greetings to the mounting crowd. Sheand he had met at a famous country house in the Easter recess, and heraristocrat's instinct for all that gives savour and sharpness to thedish of life had marked him at once. 

"Sir Hugh wants you to come down and see us in Sussex, " she said, stretching her white neck a little to speak after him, as he was at lastcarried through the drawing-room door by the pressure behind him. "Willyou?"

He threw back an answer which she rather took for granted than heard, for she nodded and smiled through it--stiffening her delicate-face themoment afterwards to meet the timid remarks of one of her husband'sconstituents--asked by Sir Hugh in the streets that afternoon--whohappened to present her with the next hand to shake. 

Inside, Wharton soon found himself brought up against the ex-Secretaryof State himself, who greeted him cordially, and then bantered him alittle on his coming motion. 

"Oh, I shall be interested to see what you make of it. But, you know, ithas no _actuality_--never can have--till you can agree among yourselves. You _say_ you want the same thing--I dare say you'll all swear it onFriday--but _really_--"

The statesman shook his head pleasantly. 

"The details are a little vague still, I grant you, " said Wharton, smiling. 

"And you think the principle matters twopence without the details? Ihave always found that the difficulty with the Christian command, 'Be yeperfect. ' The principle doesn't trouble me at all!"

The swaying of the entering throng parted the two speakers, and for asecond or two the portly host followed with his eye the fair profile andlightly-built figure of the younger man as they receded from him in thecrowd. It was in his mind that the next twenty years, whether this manor that turned out to be important or no, must see an enormousquickening of the political pace. He himself was not conscious of anyjealousy of the younger men; but neither did he see among them anycommanding personality. This young fellow, with his vivacity, hisenergy, and his Socialist whims, was interesting enough; and hisproblem was interesting--the problem of whether he could make a partyout of the heterogeneous group of which he was turning out to beindisputably the ablest member. But what was there _certain_ or_inevitable_ about his future after all? And it was the same with allthe rest. Whereas the leaders of the past had surely announcedthemselves beyond mistake from the beginning. He was inclined to think, however, that we were levelling up rather than levelling down. The worldgrew too clever, and leadership was more difficult every day. 

Meanwhile Wharton found his progress through these stately roomsextremely pleasant. He was astonished at the multitude of people heknew, at the numbers of faces that smiled upon him. Presently, afterhalf an hour of hard small talk, he found himself for a moment withoutan acquaintance, leaning against an archway between two rooms, and freeto watch the throng. Self-love, "that froward presence, like achattering child within us, " was all alert and happy. A feeling ofsurprise, too, which had not yet worn away. A year before he had toldMarcella Boyce, and with conviction, that he was an outcast from hisclass. He smiled now at that past _naïveté_ which had allowed him totake the flouts of his country neighbours and his mother's unpopularitywith her aristocratic relations for an index of the way in which"society" in general would be likely to treat him and his opinions. Henow knew, on the contrary, that those opinions had been his bestadvertisement. Few people, it appeared, were more in demand among thegreat than those who gave it out that they would, if they could, abolishthe great. 

"It's because they're not enough afraid of us--yet, " he said to himself, not without spleen. "When we really get to business--if we ever do--Ishall not be coming to Lady Cradock's parties. "

"Mr. Wharton, do you ever do such a frivolous thing as go to thetheatre?" said a pretty, languishing creature at his elbow, the wife ofa London theatrical manager. "Suppose you come and see us in 'TheMinister's Wooing, ' first night next Saturday. I've got _one_ seat in mybox, for somebody _very_ agreeable. Only it must be somebody who canappreciate my frocks!"

"I should be charmed, " said Wharton. "Are the frocks so adorable?"

"Adorable! Then I may write you a note? You don't have your horridParliament that night, do you?" and she fluttered on. 

"I think you don't know my younger daughter, Mr. Wharton?" said a severevoice at his elbow. 

He turned and saw an elderly matron with the usual matronly cap andcareworn countenance putting forward a young thing in white, to whom hebowed with great ceremony. The lady was the wife of a north-countrymagnate of very old family, and one of the most exclusive of her kind inLondon. The daughter, a vision of young shyness and bloom, looked at himwith frightened eyes as he leant against the wall beside her and beganto talk. She wished he would go away and let her get to the girl friendwho was waiting for her and signalling to her across the room. But in aminute or two she had forgotten to wish anything of the kind. Themixture of audacity with a perfect self-command in the manner of her newacquaintance, that searching half-mocking look, which saw everything indetail, and was always pressing beyond the generalisations of talk andmanners, the lightness and brightness of the whole aspect, of the curls, the eyes, the flexible determined mouth, these things arrested her. Shebegan to open her virgin heart, first in protesting against attack, thenin confession, till in ten minutes her white breast was heaving underthe excitement of her own temerity and Wharton knew practically allabout her, her mingled pleasure and remorse in "going out, " herastonishment at the difference between the world as it was this year, and the world as it had been last, when she was still in theschool-room--her Sunday-school--her brothers--her ideals--for she was alittle nun at heart--her favourite clergyman--and all the rest of it. 

"I say, Wharton, come and dine, will you, Thursday, at the House--smallparty--meet in my room?"

So said one of the party whips, from behind into his ear. The speakerwas a popular young aristocrat who in the preceding year had treated themember for West Brookshire with chilliness. Wharton turned--to considera moment--then gave a smiling assent. 

"All right!" said the other, withdrawing his hand from Wharton'sshoulder--"good-night!--two more of these beastly crushes to fightthrough till I can get to my bed, worse luck! Are any of your fellowshere to-night?"

Wharton shook his head. 

"Too austere, I suppose?"

"A question of dress coats, I should think, " said Wharton, drily. 

The other shrugged his shoulders. 

"And this calls itself a party gathering--in a radical and democratichouse--what a farce it all is!"

"Agreed! good-night. "

And Wharton moved on, just catching as he did so the eyes of his newgirl acquaintance looking back at him from a distant door. Their shyowner withdrew them instantly, coloured, and passed out of sight. 

At the same moment a guest entered by the same door, a tall grave man inthe prime of life, but already grey haired. Wharton, to his surprise, recognised Aldous Raeburn, and saw also that the master of the house hadhim by the arm. They came towards him, talking. The crowd prevented himfrom getting effectually out of their way, but he turned aside and tookup a magazine lying on a bookcase near. 

"And you really think him a trifle better?" said the ex-minister. 

"Oh, yes, better--certainly better--but I am afraid he will hardly getback to work this session--the doctors talk of sending him away atonce. "

"Ah, well, " said the other, smiling, "we don't intend it seems to letyou send anything important up to the Lords yet awhile, so there will betime for him to recruit. "

"I wish I was confident about the recruiting, " said Raeburn, sadly. "Hehas lost much strength. I shall go with them to the Italian lakes at theend of next week, see them settled and come back at once. "

"Shall you miss a sitting of the commission?" asked his host. Both heand Raeburn were members of an important Labour Commission appointed theyear before by the new Conservative government. 

"Hardly, I think, " said Raeburn, "I am particularly anxious not to missD----'s evidence. "

And they fell talking a little about the Commission and the witnessesrecently examined before it. Wharton, who was wedged in by a group ofladies, and could not for the moment move, heard most of what they weresaying, much against his will. Moreover Raeburn's tone of quiet andmasterly familiarity with what he and his companion were discussingannoyed him. There was nothing in the world that he himself would moreeagerly have accepted than a seat on that Commission. 

"Ah! there is Lady Cradock!" said Raeburn, perceiving his hostess acrossa sea of intervening faces, and responding to her little wave of thehand. "I must go and get a few words with her, and then take my auntaway. "

As he made his way towards her, he suddenly brushed against Wharton, whocould not escape. Raeburn looked up, recognised the man he had touched, flushed slightly and passed on. A bystander would have supposed themstrangers to each other. 

CHAPTER II. 

Two or three minutes later, Wharton was walking down a side streettowards Piccadilly. After all the flattering incidents of the evening, the chance meeting with which it concluded had jarred unpleasantly. Confound the fellow! Was he the first man in the world who had beenthrown over by a girl because he had been discovered to be a tiresomepedant? For even supposing Miss Boyce had described that little scene inthe library at Mellor to her _fiancé_ at the moment of giving him hisdismissal--and the year before, by the help of all the news that reachedhim about the broken engagement, by the help still more of the look, orrather the entire absence of look wherewith Raeburn had walked past hisgreeting and his outstretched hand in a corridor of the House, on thefirst occasion of their meeting after the news had become publicproperty, Wharton was inclined to think she _had_--what then? No doubtthe stern moralist might have something to say on the subject of takingadvantage of a guest's position to tamper with another man's betrothed. If so, the stern moralist would only show his usual incapacity to graspthe actual facts of flesh and blood. What chance would he or any oneelse have had with Marcella Boyce, if she had happened to be in lovewith the man she had promised to marry? That little trifle had been leftout in the arrangement. It might have worked through perfectly wellwithout; as it happened it had broken down. _Realities_ had broken itdown. Small blame to them!

"I stood for _truth_!" he said to himself with a kind of rage--"thatmoment when I held her in the library, she _lived_. --Raeburn offered hera platform, a position; _I_ made her think, and feel. I helped her toknow herself. Our relation was not passion; it stood on thethreshold--but it was real--a true relation so far as it went. That itwent no farther was due again to circumstances--realities--of anotherkind. That _he_ should scorn and resent my performance at Mellor isnatural enough. If we were in France he would call me out and I shouldgive him satisfaction with all the pleasure in life. But what am _I_about? Are his ways mine? I should have nothing left but to shoot myselfto-morrow if they were!"

He walked on swiftly, angrily rating himself for those symptoms of amerely false and conventional conscience which were apt to be roused inhim by contact with Aldous Raeburn. 

"Has he not interfered with my freedom--stamped his pedantic foot onme--ever since we were boys together! I have owed him one for manyyears--now I have paid it. Let him take the chances of war!"

Then, driven on by an irritation not to be quieted, he began against hiswill to think of those various occasions on which he and Aldous Raeburnhad crossed each other in the past--of that incident in particular whichMiss Raeburn had roughly recalled to Lady Winterbourne's reluctantmemory. 

Well, and what of it? It had occurred when Wharton was a lad oftwenty-one, and during an interval of some months when Aldous Raeburn, who had left Cambridge some three years before, and was already the manof importance, had shown a decided disposition to take up the brilliant, unmanageable boy, whom the Levens, among other relations, had alreadywashed their hands of. 

"What did he do it for?" thought Wharton. "Philanthropic motives ofcourse. He is one of the men who must always be saving their souls, andthe black sheep of the world come in handy for the purpose. I remember Iwas flattered then. It takes one some time to understand the workings ofthe Hebraistic conscience!"

Yes--as it galled him to recollect--he had shown great plasticity for atime. He was then in the middle of his Oxford years, and Raeburn'sletters and Raeburn's influence had certainly pulled him through variousscrapes that might have been disastrous. Then--a little later--he couldsee the shooting lodge on the moors above Loch Etive, where he andRaeburn, Lord Maxwell, Miss Raeburn, and a small party had spent theAugust of his twenty-first birthday. Well--that surly keeper, and hispretty wife who had been Miss Raeburn's maid--could anything be moreinevitable? A hard and jealous husband, and one of the softest, mostsensuous natures that ever idleness made love to. The thing was in theair!--in the summer, in the blood--as little to be resisted as theimpulse to eat when you are hungry, or drink when you thirst. Besides, what particular harm had been done, what particular harm _could_ havebeen done with such a Cerberus of a husband? As to the outcry which hadfollowed one special incident, nothing could have been more uncalledfor, more superfluous. Aldous had demanded contrition, had said strongthings with the flashing eyes, the set mouth of a Cato. And the culprithad turned obstinate--would repent nothing--not for the asking. Everything was arguable, and Renan's doubt as to whether he or ThéophileGautier were in the right of it, would remain a doubt to all time--thatwas all Raeburn could get out of him. After which the Hebraist friend ofcourse had turned his back on the offender, and there was an end of it. 

That incident, however, had belonged to a stage in his past life, astage marked by a certain prolonged tumult of the senses, on which henow looked back with great composure. That tumult had found vent inother adventures more emphatic a good deal than the adventure of thekeeper's wife. He believed that one or two of them had been not unknownto Raeburn. 

Well, that was done with! His mother's death--that wanton stupidity onthe part of fate--and the shock it had somehow caused him, had firstdrawn him out of the slough of a cheap and facile pleasure on which henow looked back with contempt. Afterwards, his two years of travel, andthe joys at once virile and pure they had brought with them, joys ofadventure, bodily endurance, discovery, together with the intellectualstimulus which comes of perpetual change, of new heavens, new seas, newsocieties, had loosened the yoke of the flesh and saved him fromhimself. The deliverance so begun had been completed at home, by thevarious chances and opportunities which had since opened to him a solidand tempting career in that Labour movement his mother had linked himwith, without indeed ever understanding either its objects or its men. The attack on capital now developing on all sides, the planning of thevast campaign, and the handling of its industrial troops, these thingshad made the pursuit of women look insipid, coupled as they were withthe thrill of increasing personal success. Passion would require topresent itself in new forms, if it was now to take possession of himagain. 

As to his relation to Raeburn, he well remembered that when, after thatlong break in his life, he and Aldous had met casually again, in Londonor elsewhere, Aldous had shown a certain disposition to forget the oldquarrel, and to behave with civility, though not with friendliness. Asto Wharton he was quite willing, though at the same time he had gonedown to contest West Brookshire, and, above all, had found himself inthe same house as Aldous Raeburn's betrothed, with an even liveliersense than usual of the excitement to be got out of mere living. 

No doubt when Raeburn heard that story of the library--if he had heardit--he recognised in it the man and the character he had known of old, and had shrunk from the connection of both with Marcella Boyce in bitterand insurmountable disgust. A mere Hebraist's mistake!

"That girl's attraction for me was not an attraction of thesenses--except so far that for every normal man and woman charm ischarm, and ginger is hot in the mouth and always will be! What I playedfor with her was _power_--power over a nature that piqued and yet bynatural affinity belonged to me. I could not have retained that power, as it happened, by any bait of passion. Even without the Hurd affair, ifI had gone on to approach her so, her whole moral nature would haverisen against me and her own treachery. I knew that perfectly well, andtook the line I did because for the moment the game was too exciting, too interesting, to give up. For the moment! then a few days, --a fewweeks later--Good Lord! what stuff we mortals be!"

And he raised his shoulders, mocking, yet by no means disliking his ownidiosyncrasies. It had been strange, indeed, that complete change ofmental emphasis, that alteration of spiritual axis that had befallen himwithin the first weeks of his parliamentary life, nay, even before theHurd agitation was over. That agitation had brought him vigorously andprofitably into public notice at a convenient moment. But what hadoriginally sprung from the impulse to retain a hold over a woman, becamein the end the instrument of a new and quite other situation. Whartonhad no sooner entered the House of Commons than he felt himselfstrangely at home there. He had the instinct for debate, the instinctfor management, together with a sensitive and contriving ambition. Hefound himself possessed for the moment of powers of nervous endurancethat astonished him--a patience of boredom besides, a capacity fordrudgery, and for making the best of dull men. The omens were allfavourable, sometimes startlingly so. He was no longer hampered by theill-will of a county or a family connection. Here in this new world, every man counted strictly for what, in the parliamentary sense, he wasworth. Wharton saw that, owing to his public appearances during the twopreceding years, he was noticed, listened to, talked about in the House, from the first; and that his position in the newly-formed though stillloosely-bound Labour party was one of indefinite promise. The anxietiesand pitfalls of the position only made it the more absorbing. 

The quick, elastic nature adjusted itself at once. To some kinds ofsuccess, nothing is so important as the ability to forget--to sweep themind free of everything irrelevant and superfluous. Marcella Boyce, andall connected with her, passed clean out of Wharton's consciousness. Except that once or twice he said to himself with a passing smile thatit was a good thing he had not got himself into a worse scrape atMellor. Good heavens! in what plight would a man stand--a man with hiscareer to make--who had given Marcella Boyce claims upon him! As wellentangle oneself with the Tragic Muse at once as with that stormy, unmanageable soul!

So much for a year ago. To-night, however, the past had been thrust backupon him, both by Lady Selina's talk and by the meeting with Raeburn. Tosmart indeed once more under that old ascendency of Raeburn's, was tobe provoked into thinking of Raeburn's old love. 

Where was Miss Boyce? Surely her year of hospital training must be up bynow?

He turned into St. James Street, stopped at a door not far from thePalace end, let himself in, and groped his way to the second floor. Asleepy man-servant turned out of his room, and finding that his masterwas not inclined to go to bed, brought lights and mineral water. Whartonwas practically a teetotaller. He had taken a whim that way as a boy, and a few experiments in drunkenness which he had made at college hadonly confirmed what had been originally perhaps a piece ofnotoriety-hunting. He had, as a rule, flawless health; and theunaccustomed headaches and nausea which followed these occasionalexcesses had disgusted and deterred him. He shook himself easily free ofa habit which had never gained a hold upon him, and had ever since foundhis abstinence a source both of vanity and of distinction. Nothingannoyed him more than to hear it put down to any ethical motive. "If Iliked the beastly stuff, I should swim in it to-morrow, " he would saywith an angry eye when certain acquaintance--not those he made at LabourCongresses--goaded him on the point. "As it is, why should I make it, orchloral, or morphia, or any other poison, my master! What's theinducement--eh, you fellows?"

_En revanche_ he smoked inordinately. 

"Is that all, sir, " said his servant, pausing behind his chair, aftercandles, matches, cigarettes, and Apollinaris had been supplied inabundance. 

"Yes; go to bed, Williams, but don't lock up. Good-night. "

The man departed, and Wharton, going to the window which opened on abalcony looking over St. James Street, threw it wide, and smoked acigarette leaning against the wall. It was on the whole a fine night andwarm, though the nip of the east wind was not yet out of the air. In thestreet below there was still a good deal of movement, for it was onlyjust past midnight and the clubs were not yet empty. To his right theturreted gate-house of the Palace with its clock rose dark against a skycovered with light, windy cloud. Beyond it his eye sought instinctivelyfor the Clock Tower, which stood to-night dull and beaconless--like someone in a stupid silence. That light of the sitting House had become tohim one of the standing pleasures of life. He had never yet beenhonestly glad of its extinction. 

"I'm a precious raw hand, " he confessed to himself with a shake of thehead as he stood there smoking. "And it can't last--nothing does. "

Presently he laid down his cigarette a moment on the edge of thebalcony, and, coming back into the room, opened a drawer, searched alittle, and finally took out a letter. He stooped over the lamp to readit. It was the letter which Marcella Boyce had written him some two orthree days after the breach of her engagement. That fact was barelymentioned at the beginning of it, without explanation or comment of anykind. Then the letter continued:

"I have never yet thanked you as I ought for all that you have done andattempted through these many weeks. But for them it must have been plainto us both that we could never rightly meet again. I am very destitutejust now--and I cling to self-respect as though it were the only thingleft me. But that scene in the past, which put us both wrong withhonour and conscience, has surely been wiped out--_thought--suffered_away. I feel that I dare now say to you, as I would to any otherco-worker and co-thinker--if in the future you ever want my work, if youcan set me, with others, to any task that wants doing and that I coulddo--ask me, and I am not likely to refuse. 

"But for the present I am going quite away into another world. I havebeen more ill than I have ever been in my life this last few days, andthey are all, even my father, ready to agree with me that I must go. Assoon as I am a little stronger I am to have a year's training at aLondon hospital, and then I shall probably live for a while in town andnurse. This scheme occurred to me as I came back with the wife fromseeing Hurd the day before the execution. I knew then that all was overfor me at Mellor. 

"As for the wretched break-down of everything--of all my schemes andfriendships here--I had better not speak of it. I feel that I have giventhese village-folk, whom I had promised to help, one more reason todespair of life. It is not pleasant to carry such a thought away withone. But if the tool breaks and blunts, how can the task be done? It canbe of no use till it has been re-set. 

"I should like to know how your plans prosper. But I shall see yourpaper and follow what goes on in Parliament. For the present I wantneither to write nor get letters. They tell me that as a probationer Ishall spend my time at first in washing glasses, and polishingbath-taps, on which my mind rests!

"If you come across my friends of whom I have spoken to you--Louis, Anthony, and Edith Craven--and could make any use of Louis for the_Labour Clarion_, I should be grateful. I hear they have had bad timesof late, and Louis has engaged himself, and wants to be married. Youremember I told you how we worked at the South Kensington classestogether, and how they made me a Venturist?

 "Yours very truly, "MARCELLA BOYCE. "

Wharton laid down the letter, making a wry mouth over some of itsphrases. 

"'_Put us both wrong with honour and conscience. ' 'One more reason fordespair of life'--'All was over for me at Mellor_'--dear! dear!--howwomen like the big words--the emphatic pose. All those little odds andends of charities--that absurd straw-plaiting scheme! Well, perhaps onecould hardly expect her to show a sense of humour just then. But whydoes nature so often leave it out in these splendid creatures?"

"Hullo!" he added, as he bent over the table to look for a pen; "whydidn't that idiot give me these?"

For there, under an evening paper which he had not touched, lay a pileof unopened letters. His servant had forgotten to point them out to him. On the top was a letter on which Wharton pounced at once. It wasaddressed in a bold inky hand, and he took it to be from NehemiahWilkins, M. P. , his former colleague at the Birmingham Labour Congress, of late a member of the _Labour Clarion_ staff, and as such a dailyincreasing plague and anxiety to the _Clarion's_ proprietor. 

However, the letter was not from Wilkins. It was from the secretary ofa Midland trades-union, with whom Wharton had already been incommunication. The union was recent, and represented the as yet feebleorganisation of a metal industry in process of transition from thehome-workshop to the full factory, or Great Industry stage. Theconditions of work were extremely bad, and grievances many; wages werelow, and local distress very great. The secretary, a young man ofability and enthusiasm, wrote to Wharton to say that certain alterationsin the local "payment lists" lately made by the employers amounted to areduction of wages; that the workers, beginning to feel the hearteningeffects of their union, were determined not to submit; that bitter andeven desperate agitation was spreading fast, and that a far-reachingstrike was imminent. Could they count on the support of the _Clarion_?The _Clarion_ had already published certain letters on the industry froma Special Commissioner--letters which had drawn public attention, andhad been eagerly read in the district itself. Would the _Clarion_ now"go in" for them? Would Mr. Wharton personally support them, in or outof Parliament, and get his friends to do the same? To which questions, couched in terms extremely flattering to the power of the _Clarion_ andits owner, the secretary appended a long and technical statement of thesituation. 

Wharton looked up from the letter with a kindling eye. He foresaw anextremely effective case, both for the newspaper and the House ofCommons. One of the chief capitalists involved was a man called Denny, who had been long in the House, for whom the owner of the _Clarion_entertained a strong personal dislike. Denny had thwarted himvexatiously--had perhaps even made him ridiculous--on one or twooccasions; and Wharton saw no reason whatever for forgiving one'senemies until, like Narvaez, one had "shot them all. " There would bemuch satisfaction in making Denny understand who were his masters. Andwith these motives there mingled a perfectly genuine sympathy with the"poor devils" in question, and a desire to see them righted. 

"Somebody must be sent down at once, " he said to himself. "I suppose, "he added, with discontent, "it must be Wilkins. "

For the man who had written the articles for the _Labour Clarion_, asSpecial Commissioner, had some three weeks before left England to takecommand of a colonial newspaper. 

Still pondering, he took up the other letters, turned themover--childishly pleased for the thousandth time by the M. P. On eachenvelope and the number and variety of his correspondence--and eagerlychose out three--one from his bankers, one from his Lincolnshire agent, and one from the _Clarion_ office, undoubtedly this time in Wilkins'shand. 

He read them, grew a little pale, swore under his breath, and, angrilyflinging the letters away from him, he took up his cigarette again andthought. 

The letter from his bankers asked his attention in stiff terms to alargely overdrawn account, and entirely declined to advance a sum ofmoney for which he had applied to them without the guarantee of twosubstantial names in addition to his own. The letter from his agentwarned him that the extraordinary drought of the past six weeks, together with the general agricultural depression, would certainly meana large remission of rents at the June quarter day, and also informedhim that the holders of his co-operative farm would not be able to paytheir half-yearly interest on the capital advanced to them by thelandlord. 

As to the third letter, it was in truth much more serious than the twoothers. Wilkins, the passionate and suspicious workman, of great naturalability, who had been in many ways a thorn in Wharton's side since thebeginning of his public career, was now member for a miningconstituency. His means of support were extremely scanty, and at theopening of the new Parliament Wharton had offered him well-paid work onthe _Clarion_ newspaper. It had seemed to the proprietor of the_Clarion_ a way of attaching a dangerous man to himself, perhaps also ofcontrolling him. Wilkins had grudgingly accepted, understandingperfectly well what was meant. 

Since then the relation between the two men had been one of perpetualfriction. Wilkins's irritable pride would yield nothing, either in theHouse or in the _Clarion_ office, to Wharton's university education andclass advantages, while Wharton watched with alarm the growing influenceof this insubordinate and hostile member of his own staff on thoselabour circles from which the _Clarion_ drew its chief support. 

In the letter he had just read Wilkins announced to the proprietor ofthe _Clarion_ that in consequence of the "scandalous mismanagement" ofthat paper's handling of a certain trade arbitration which had justclosed, he, Wilkins, could no longer continue to write for it, andbegged to terminate his engagement at once, there being no formalagreement between himself and Wharton as to length of notice on eitherside. A lively attack on the present management and future prospects ofthe _Clarion_ followed, together with the threat that the writer woulddo what in him lay henceforward to promote the cause of a certain rivalorgan lately started, among such working men as he might be able toinfluence. 

"_Brute_! jealous, impracticable brute!" exclaimed Wharton aloud, as hestood chafing and smoking by the window. All the difficulties which thisopen breach was likely to sow in his path stood out before him in clearrelief. 

"_Personal_ leadership, there is the whole problem, " he said to himselfin moody despair. "Can I--like Parnell--make a party and keep ittogether? Can I through the _Clarion_--and through influence _outside_the House--coerce the men _in_ the House? If so, we can do something, and Lady Cradock will no longer throw me her smiles. If not the game isup, both for me and for them. They have no cohesion, no commoninformation, no real power. Without leaders they are a mere set ofhalf-educated firebrands whom the trained mind of the country humoursbecause it must, and so far as they have brute force behind them. Without _leadership_, _I_ am a mere unit of the weakest group in the House. Yet, by Jove! it looks as though I had not the gifts. "

And he looked back with passionate chagrin on the whole course of hisconnection with Wilkins, his unavailing concessions and smallhumiliations, his belief in his own tact and success, all the time thatthe man dealt with was really slipping out of his hands. 

"Damn the fellow!" he said at last, flinging his cigarette away. "Well, that's done with. All the same, he would have liked that Midland job! Hehas been hankering after a strike there for some time, and might haveranted as he pleased. I shall have the satisfaction of informing him hehas lost his opportunity. Now then--who to send? By Jove! what aboutMiss Boyce's friend?"

He stood a moment twisting the quill-pen he had taken up, then hehastily found a sheet of paper and wrote:

"Dear Miss Boyce, --It is more than a year since I have heard of you, andI have been wondering with much interest lately whether you have reallytaken up a nursing life. You remember speaking to me of your friends theCravens? I come across them sometimes at the Venturist meetings, andhave always admired their ability. Last year I could do nothingpractical to meet your wishes. This year, however, there is an openingon the _Clarion_, and I should like to discuss it with you. Are you intown or to be found? I could come any afternoon next week, _early_--I godown to the House at four--or on Saturdays. But I should like it to beTuesday or Wednesday, that I might try and persuade you to come to ourEight Hours debate on Friday night. It would interest you, and I think Icould get you a seat. We Labour members are like the Irishmen--we canalways get our friends in. 

"I must send this round by Mellor, so it may not reach you till Tuesday. Perhaps you will kindly telegraph. The _Clarion_ matter is pressing. 

 "Yours sincerely, "H. S. WHARTON. "

When he had finished he lingered a moment over the letter, the play ofconflicting motives and memories bringing a vague smile to the lips. 

Reverie, however, was soon dispersed. He recollected his othercorrespondents, and springing up he began to pace his room, gloomilythinking over his money difficulties, which were many. He and his motherhad always been in want of money ever since he could remember. LadyMildred would spend huge sums on her various crotchets and campaigns, and then subside for six months into wretched lodgings in a back streetof Southsea or Worthing, while the Suffolk house was let, and her sonmostly went abroad. This perpetual worry of needy circumstances hadalways, indeed, sat lightly on Wharton. He was unmarried, and so farscarcity had generally passed into temporary comfort before he had timeto find it intolerable. But now the whole situation was becoming moreserious. In the first place, his subscriptions and obligations as amember of Parliament, and as one of the few propertied persons in amoneyless movement, were considerable. Whatever Socialism might make ofmoney in the future, he was well aware that money in the present was noless useful to a Socialist politician than to any one else. In the nextplace, the starting and pushing of the _Clarion_ newspaper--originallypurchased by the help of a small legacy from an uncle--had enormouslyincreased the scale of his money transactions and the risks of life. 

How was it that, with all his efforts, the _Clarion_ was not making, butlosing money? During the three years he had possessed it he had raisedit from the position of a small and foul-mouthed print, indifferentlynourished on a series of small scandals, to that of a Labour organ ofsome importance. He had written a weekly signed article for it, whichhad served from the beginning to bring both him and the paper intonotice; he had taken pains with the organisation and improvement of thestaff; above all, he had spent a great deal more money upon it, in theway of premises and appliances, than he had been, as it turned out, inany way justified in spending. 

Hence, indeed, these tears. Rather more than a year before, while the_Clarion_ was still enjoying a first spurt of success and notoriety, hehad, with a certain recklessness which belonged to his character, invested in new and costly machinery, and had transferred the paper tolarger offices. All this had been done on borrowed money. 

Then, for some reason or other, the _Clarion_ had ceased to answer tothe spur--had, indeed, during the past eight months been flaggingheavily. The outside world was beginning to regard the _Clarion_ as animportant paper. Wharton knew all the time that its advertisements werefalling off, and its circulation declining. Why? Who can say? If it istrue that books have their fates, it is still more true of newspapers. Was it that a collectivist paper--the rival organ mentioned byWilkins--recently started by a group of young and outrageously cleverVenturists and more closely in touch than the _Clarion_ with two orthree of the great unions, had filched the _Clarion's_ ground? Or was itsimply that, as Wharton put it to himself in moments of rage anddespondency, the majority of working men "are either sots orblock-heads, and will read and support _nothing_ but the low racing orpolice-court news, which is all their intelligences deserve?" Few peoplehad at the bottom of their souls a more scornful distrust of the"masses" than the man whose one ambition at the present moment was to bethe accepted leader of English labour. 

Finally, his private expenditure had always been luxurious; and he wasliable, it will be seen, to a kind of debt that is not easily keptwaiting. On the whole, his bankers had behaved to him with greatindulgence. 

He fretted and fumed, turning over plan after plan as he walked, hiscurly head sunk in his shoulders, his hands behind his back. Presentlyhe stopped--absently--in front of the inner wall of the room, where, above a heavy rosewood bookcase, brought from his Lincolnshire house, anumber of large framed photographs were hung close together. 

His eye caught one and brightened. With an impatient gesture, like thatof a reckless boy, he flung his thoughts away from him. 

"If ever the game becomes too tiresome here, why, the next steamer willtake me out of it! What a _gorgeous_ time we had on that glacier!"

He stood looking at a splendid photograph of a glacier in the ThibetanHimalayas, where, in the year following his mother's death, he had spentfour months with an exploring party. The plate had caught the very grainand glisten of the snow, the very sheen and tint of the ice. He could_feel_ the azure of the sky, the breath of the mountain wind. The manseated on the ladder over that bottomless crevasse was himself. Andthere were the guides, two from Chamounix, one from Grindelwald, andthat fine young fellow, the son of the elder Chamounix guide, whom theyhad lost by a stone-shower on that nameless peak towering to the left ofthe glacier. Ah, those had been years of _life_, those _Wanderjahre_! Heran over the photographs with a kind of greed, his mind meanwhile losingitself in covetous memories of foamy seas, of long, low, tropical shoreswith their scattered palms, of superb rivers sweeping with sound andfury round innumerable islands, of great buildings ivory white amid thewealth of creepers which had pulled them into ruin, vacant now for everof the voice of man, and ringed by untrodden forests. 

"'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay, '" he thought. "Ah! but how much did the man who wrote that know about Cathay?"

And with his hands thrust into his pockets, he stood lost awhile in aflying dream that defied civilisation and its cares. How well, howindispensable to remember, that beyond these sweltering streets where wechoke and swarm, Cathay stands always waiting! _Somewhere_, while wetoil in the gloom and the crowd, there is _air_, there is _sea_, the joyof the sun, the life of the body, so good, so satisfying! Thisinterminable ethical or economical battle, these struggles selfish oraltruistic, in which we shout ourselves hoarse to no purpose--why! theycould be shaken off at a moment's notice!

"However"--he turned on his heel--"suppose we try a few other triflesfirst. What time? those fellows won't have gone to bed yet!"

He took out his watch, then extinguished his candles, and made his wayto the street. A hundred yards or so away from his own door he stoppedbefore a well-known fashionable club, extremely small, and extremelyselect, where his mother's brother, the peer of the family, hadintroduced him when he was young and tender, and his mother's relationsstill cherished hopes of snatching him as a brand from the burning. 

The front rooms of the club were tolerably full still. He passed on tothe back. A door-keeper stationed in the passage stepped back andsilently opened a door. It closed instantly behind him, and Whartonfound himself in a room with some twenty other young fellows playingbaccarat, piles of shining money on the tables, the electric lamps hungover each, lighting every detail of the scene with the same searchingdisenchanting glare. 

"I say!" cried a young dark-haired fellow, like a dishevelled LordByron. "Here comes the Labour leader--make room!"

And amid laughter and chaffing he was drawn down to the baccarat table, where a new deal was just beginning. He felt in his pockets for money;his eyes, intent and shining, followed every motion of the dealer'shand. For three years now, ever since his return from his travels, thegambler's passion had been stealing on him. Already this season he hadlost and won--on the whole lost--large sums. And the fact was--sofar--absolutely unknown except to the men with whom he played in thisroom. 

CHAPTER III. 

"If yer goin' downstairs, Nuss, you'd better take that there scuttlewith yer, for the coals is gittin' low an' it ull save yer a journey!"

Marcella looked with amusement at her adviser--a small bandy-legged boyin shirt and knickerbockers, with black Jewish eyes in a stronglyfeatured face. He stood leaning on the broom he had just been wielding, his sleeves rolled up to the shoulder showing his tiny arms; hisexpression sharp and keen as a hawk's. 

"Well, Benny, then you look after your mother while I'm gone, and don'tlet any one in but the doctor. "

And Marcella turned for an instant towards the bed whereon lay a sickwoman too feeble apparently to speak or move. 

"I aint a goin' ter, " said the boy, shortly, beginning to sweep againwith energy, "an' if this 'ere baby cries, give it the bottle, Is'pose?"

"No, certainly not, " said Marcella, firmly; "it has just had one. Yousweep away, Benny, and let the baby alone. "

Benny looked a trifle wounded, but recovered himself immediately, andran a general's eye over Marcella who was just about to leave the room. 

"Now look 'ere, Nuss, " he said in a tone of pitying remonstrance, "yernever a goin' down to that 'ere coal cellar without a light. Yer'll 'aveto come runnin' up all them stairs again--sure as I'm alive yer will!"

And darting to a cupboard he pulled out a grimy candlestick with an endof dip and some matches, disposed of them at the bottom of thecoal-scuttle that Marcella carried over her left arm, and then, stillmasterfully considering her, let her go. 

Marcella groped her way downstairs. The house was one of a type familiarall over the poorer parts of West Central London--the eighteenth-centuryhouse inhabited by law or fashion in the days of Dr. Johnson, nowparcelled out into insanitary tenements, miserably provided with air, water, and all the necessaries of life, but still showing in itschimney-piece or its decaying staircase signs of the graceful domesticart which had ruled at the building and fitting of it. 

Marcella, however, had no eye whatever at the moment for the panellingon the staircase, or the delicate ironwork of the broken balustrade. Rather it seemed to her, as she looked into some of the half-open doorsof the swarming rooms she passed, or noticed with disgust the dirt anddilapidation of the stairs, and the evil smells of the basement, thatthe house added one more to the standing shames of the district--anopinion doubly strong in her when at last she emerged from her gropingsamong the dens of the lower regions, and began to toil upstairs againwith her filled kettle and coal-scuttle. 

The load was heavy, even for her young strength, and she had just passeda sleepless night. The evening before she had been sent for in haste toa woman in desperate illness. She came, and found a young Jewess, with aten days old child beside her, struggling with her husband and two womenfriends in a state of raging delirium. The room, was full to suffocationof loud-tongued, large-eyed Jewesses, all taking turns at holding thepatient, and chattering or quarrelling between their turns. It had beenMarcella's first and arduous duty to get the place cleared, and she haddone it without ever raising her voice or losing her temper for aninstant. The noisy pack had been turned out; the most competent womanamong them chosen to guard the door and fetch and carry for the nurse;while Marcella set to work to wash her patient and remake the bed asbest she could, in the midst of the poor thing's wild shrieks andwrestlings. 

It was a task to test both muscular strength and moral force to theirutmost. After her year's training Marcella took it simply in the day'swork. Some hours of intense effort and strain; then she and the husbandlooked down upon the patient, a woman of about six-and-twenty, plungedsuddenly in narcotic sleep, her matted black hair, which Marcella hadnot dared to touch, lying in wild waves on the clean bed-clothes andnight-gear that her nurse had extracted from this neighbour andthat--she could hardly have told how. 

"_Ach, mein Gott, mein Gott!_" said the husband, rising and shakinghimself. He was a Jew from German Poland, and, unlike most of his race, a huge man, with the make and the muscles of a prize-fighter. Yet, after the struggle of the last two hours he was in a bath ofperspiration. 

"You will have to send her to the infirmary if this comes on again, "said Marcella. 

The husband stared in helpless misery, first at his wife, then at thenurse. 

"You will not go away, mees, " he implored, "you will not leaf me alone?"

Wearied as she was, Marcella could have smiled at the abject giant. 

"No, I will stay with her till the morning and till the doctor comes. You had better go to bed. "

It was close on three o'clock. The man demurred a little, but he was intruth too worn out to resist. He went into the back room and lay downwith the children. 

Then Marcella was left through the long summer dawn alone with herpatient. Her quick ear caught every sound about her--the heavy breathsof the father and children in the back room, the twittering of thesparrows, the first cries about the streets, the first movements in thecrowded house. Her mind all the time was running partly on contrivancesfor pulling the woman through--for it was what a nurse calls "a goodcase, " one that rouses all her nursing skill and faculty--partly on theextraordinary misconduct of the doctor, to whose criminal neglect andmismanagement of the case she hotly attributed the whole of the woman'sillness; and partly--in deep, swift sinkings of meditative thought--onthe strangeness of the fact that she should be there at all, sitting inthis chair in this miserable room, keeping guard over this Jewish motherand her child!

The year in hospital had _rushed_--dreamless sleep by night, exhaustingfatigue of mind and body by day. A hospital nurse, if her work _seizes_her, as it had seized Marcella, never thinks of herself. Now, for somesix or seven weeks she had been living in rooms, as a district nurse, under the control of a central office and superintendent. Her work layin the homes of the poor, and was of the most varied kind. The life wasfreer, more elastic; allowed room at last to self-consciousness. 

 * * * * *

But now the night was over. The husband had gone off to work at afactory near, whence he could be summoned at any moment; the childrenhad been disposed of to Mrs. Levi, the helpful neighbour; she herselfhad been home for an hour to breakfast and dress, had sent to the officeasking that her other cases might be attended to, and was at present insole charge, with Benny to help her, waiting for the doctor. 

When she reached the sick-room again with her burdens, she foundBenjamin sitting pensive, with the broom across his knees. 

"Well, Benny!" she said as she entered, "how have you got on?"

"Yer can't move the dirt on them boards with sweepin', " said Benny, looking at them with disgust; "an' I ain't a goin' to try it no more. "

"You're about right there, Benny, " said Marcella, mournfully, as sheinspected them; "well, we'll get Mrs. Levi to come in and scrub--as soonas your mother can bear it. "

She stepped up to the bed and looked at her patient, who seemed to bepassing into a state of restless prostration, more or less under theinfluence of morphia. Marcella fed her with strong beef tea made byherself during the night, and debated whether she should give brandy. No--either the doctor would come directly, or she would send for him. She had not seen him yet, and her lip curled at the thought of him. Hehad ordered a nurse the night before, but had not stayed to meet her, and Marcella had been obliged to make out his instructions from thehusband as best she could. 

Benny looked up at her with a wink as she went back to the fire. 

"I didn't let none o' _them_ in, " he said, jerking his thumb over hisshoulder. "They come a whisperin' at the door, an' a rattlin' ov thehandle as soon as ever you gone downstairs. But I tole 'em just to taketheirselves off, an' as 'ow you didn't want 'em. Sillies!"

And taking a crust smeared with treacle out of his pocket, Bennyreturned with a severe air to the sucking of it. 

Marcella laughed. 

"Clever Benny, " she said, patting his head; "but why aren't you atschool, sir?"

Benjamin grinned. 

"'Ow d'yer s'pose my ma's goin' to git along without me to do for 'erand the babby?" he replied slily. 

"Well, Benny, you'll have the Board officer down on you. "

At this the urchin laughed out. 

"Why, 'e wor here last week! Ee can't be troublin' 'isself about this'ere bloomin' street _ev_ery day in the week. "

There was a sharp knock at the door. 

"The doctor, " she said, as her face dismissed the frolic brightnesswhich had stolen upon it for a moment. "Run away, Benny. "

Benny opened the door, looked the doctor coolly up and down, and thenwithdrew to the landing, where his sisters were waiting to play withhim. 

The doctor, a tall man of thirty, with a red, blurred face and a fairmoustache, walked in hurriedly, and stared at the nurse standing by thefire. 

"You come from the St. Martin's Association?"

Marcella stiffly replied. He took her temperature-chart from her handand asked her some questions about the night, staring at her from timeto time with eyes that displeased her. Presently she came to an accountof the condition in which she had found her patient. The edge on thewords, for all their professional quiet, was unmistakable. She saw himflush. 

He moved towards the bed, and she went with him. The woman moaned as heapproached her. He set about his business with hands that shook. Marcella decided at once that he was not sober, and watched hisproceedings with increasing disgust and amazement. Presently she couldbear it no longer. 

"I think, " she said, touching his arm, "that you had better leave it tome--and--go away!"

He drew himself up with a start which sent the things he held flying, and faced her fiercely. 

"What do you mean?" he said, "don't you know your place?"

The girl was very white, but her eyes were scornfully steady. 

"Yes--I know my place!"

Then with a composure as fearless as it was scathing she said what shehad to say. She knew--and he could not deny--that he had endangered hispatient's life. She pointed out that he was in a fair way to endanger itagain. Every word she said lay absolutely within her sphere as a nurse. His cloudy brain cleared under the stress of it. 

Then his eyes flamed, his cheeks became purple, and Marcella thought foran instant he would have struck her. Finally he turned down hisshirt-cuffs and walked away. 

"You understand, " he said thickly, turning upon her, with his hat in hishand, "that I shall not attend this case again till your Association cansend me a nurse that will do as she is told without insolence to thedoctor. I shall now write a report to your superintendent. "

"As you please, " said Marcella, quietly. And she went to the door andopened it. 

He passed her sneering:

"A precious superior lot you lady-nurses think yourselves, I dare say. I'd sooner have one old gamp than the whole boiling of you!"

Marcella eyed him sternly, her nostrils tightening. "Will you go?" shesaid. 

He gave her a furious glance, and plunged down the stairs outside, breathing threats. 

Marcella put her hand to her head a moment, and drew a long breath. There was a certain piteousness in the action, a consciousness of youthand strain. 

Then she saw that the landing and the stairs above were beginning tofill with dark-haired Jewesses, eagerly peering and talking. In anotherminute or two she would be besieged by them. She called sharply, "Benny!"

Instantly Benny appeared from the landing above, elbowing the Jewessesto right and left. 

"What is it you want, Nuss? No, she don't want none o' _you_--_there_!"

And Benjamin darted into the room, and would have slammed the door inall their faces, but that Marcella said to him--

"Let in Mrs. Levi, please. "

The kind neighbour, who had been taking care of the children, wasadmitted, and then the key was turned. Marcella scribbled a line on ahalf-sheet of paper, and, with careful directions, despatched Benny withit. 

"I have sent for a new doctor, " she explained, still frowning and white, to Mrs. Levi. "That one was not fit. "

The woman's olive-skinned face lightened all over. "Thanks to the Lord!"she said, throwing up her hands. "But how in the world did you do 't, miss? There isn't a single soul in this house that doesn't go all of atremble at the sight of 'im. Yet all the women has 'im when they'reill--bound to. They thinks he must be clever, 'cos he's such a brute. Ido believe sometimes it's that. He _is_ a brute!"

Marcella was bending over her patient, trying so far as she could to sether straight and comfortable again. But the woman had begun to mutteronce more words in a strange dialect that Marcella did not understand, and could no longer be kept still. The temperature was rising again, andanother fit of delirium was imminent. Marcella could only hope that sheand Mrs. Levi between them would be able to hold her till the doctorcame. When she had done all that was in her power, she sat beside thepoor tossing creature, controlling and calming her as best she could, while Mrs. Levi poured into her shrinking ear the story of the woman'sillness and of Dr. Blank's conduct of it. Marcella's feeling, as shelistened, was made up of that old agony of rage and pity! The sufferingsof the poor, _because_ they were poor--these things often, still, darkened earth and heaven for her. That wretch would have been quitecapable, no doubt, of conducting himself decently and even competently, if he had been called to some supposed lady in one of the well-to-dosquares which made the centre of this poor and crowded district. 

"Hullo, nurse!" said a cheery voice; "you seem to have got a bad case. "

The sound was as music in Marcella's ears. The woman she held was fastbecoming unmanageable--had just shrieked, first for "poison, " then for a"knife, " to kill herself with, and could hardly be prevented by thecombined strength of her nurse and Mrs. Levi, now from throwing herselfmadly out of bed, and now from tearing out her black hair in handfuls. The doctor--a young Scotchman with spectacles, and stubbly redbeard--came quickly up to the bed, asked Marcella a few short questions, shrugged his shoulders over her dry report of Dr. Blank's proceedings, then took out a black case from his pocket, and put his morphia syringetogether. 

For a long time no result whatever could be obtained by any treatment. The husband was sent for, and came trembling, imploring doctor andnurse, in the intervals of his wife's paroxysms, not to leave him alone. 

Marcella, absorbed in the tragic horror of the case, took no note of thepassage of time. Everything that the doctor suggested she carried outwith a deftness, a tenderness, a power of mind, which keenly affectedhis professional sense. Once, the poor mother, left unguarded for aninstant, struck out with a wild right hand. The blow caught Marcella onthe cheek, and she drew back with a slight involuntary cry. 

"You are hurt, " said Dr. Angus, running up to her. 

"No, no, " she said, smiling through the tears that the shock had calledinto her eyes, and putting him rather impatiently aside; "it is nothing. You said you wanted some fresh ice. "

And she went into the back room to get it. 

The doctor stood with his hands in his pockets, studying the patient. 

"You will have to send her to the infirmary, " he said to the husband;"there is nothing else for it. "

Marcella came back with the ice, and was able to apply it to the head. The patient was quieter--was, in fact, now groaning herself into a freshperiod of exhaustion. 

The doctor's sharp eyes took note of the two figures, the huddledcreature on the pillows and the stately head bending over her, with thedelicately hollowed cheek, whereon the marks of those mad fingers stoodout red and angry. He had already had experience of this girl in one ortwo other cases. 

"Well, " he said, taking up his hat, "it is no good shilly-shallying. Iwill go and find Dr. Swift. " Dr. Swift was the parish doctor. 

When he had gone, the big husband broke down and cried, with his headagainst the iron of the bed close to his wife. He put his great hand onhers, and talked to her brokenly in their own patois. They had beeneight years married, and she had never had a day's serious illness tillnow. Marcella's eyes filled with tears as she moved about the room, doing various little tasks. 

At last she went up to him. 

"Won't you go and have some dinner?" she said to him kindly. "There'sBenjamin calling you, " and she pointed to the door of the back room, where stood Benny, his face puckered with weeping, forlornly holding outa plate of fried fish, in the hope of attracting his father's attention. 

The man, who in spite of his size and strength was in truth childishlysoft and ductile, went as he was bid, and Marcella and Mrs. Levi setabout doing what they could to prepare the wife for her removal. 

Presently parish doctor and sanitary inspector appeared, strange andperemptory invaders who did but add to the terror and misery of thehusband. Then at last came the ambulance, and Dr. Angus with it. Thepatient, now once more plunged in narcotic stupor, was carrieddownstairs by two male nurses, Dr. Angus presiding. Marcella stood inthe doorway and watched the scene, --the gradual disappearance of thehelpless form on the stretcher, with its fevered face under the dark matof hair; the figures of the straining men heavily descending step bystep, their heads and shoulders thrown out against the dirty drabs andbrowns of the staircase; the crowd of Jewesses on the stairs andlanding, craning their necks, gesticulating and talking, so that Dr. Angus could hardly make his directions heard, angrily as he bade themstand back; and on the top stair, the big husband, following the form ofhis departing and unconscious wife with his eyes, his face convulsedwith weeping, the whimpering children clinging about his knees. 

How hot it was!--how stifling the staircase smelt, and how the sun beatdown from that upper window on the towzled unkempt women with theirlarge-eyed children. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Marcella on her way home turned into a little street leading to a greatblock of model dwellings, which rose on the right hand side and madeeverything else, the mews entrance opposite, the lines of squalid shopson either side, look particularly small and dirty. The sun was beatingfiercely down, and she was sick and tired. 

As she entered the iron gate of the dwellings, and saw before her thelarge asphalted court round which they ran--blazing heat on one side ofit, and on the other some children playing cricket against the wall withchalk marks for wickets--she was seized with depression. The tall yetmean buildings, the smell of dust and heat, the general impression ofpacked and crowded humanity--these things, instead of offering her rest, only continued and accented the sense of strain, called for moreendurance, more making the best of it. 

But she found a tired smile for some of the children who ran up to her, and then she climbed the stairs of the E. Block, and opened the door ofher own tenement, number 10. In number 9 lived Minta Hurd and herchildren, who had joined Marcella in London some two months before. Insets 7 and 8, on either side of Marcella and the Hurds, lived twowidows, each with a family, who were mostly out charing during the day. 

Marcella's Association allowed its District Nurses to live outside the"home" of the district on certain conditions, which had been fulfilledin Marcella's case by her settlement next door to her old friends inthese buildings which were inhabited by a very respectable though poorclass. Meanwhile the trustees of the buildings had allowed her to make atemporary communication between her room and the Hurds, so that shecould either live her own solitary and independent life, or call fortheir companionship, as she pleased. 

As she shut her door behind her she found herself in a little passage orentry. To the left was her bedroom. Straight in front of her was theliving room with a small close range in it, and behind it a little backkitchen. 

The living room was cheerful and even pretty. Her art-student's trainingshowed itself. The cheap blue and white paper, the couple of oak flaptables from a broker's shop in Marchmont Street, the two or three canechairs with their bright chintz cushions, the Indian rug or two on thevarnished boards, the photographs and etchings on the walls, the bookson the tables--there was not one of these things that was not in itsdegree a pleasure to her young senses, that did not help her to live herlife. This afternoon as she opened the door and looked in, the prettycolours and forms in the tiny room were as water to the thirsty. Hermother had sent her some flowers the day before. There they were on thetables, great bunches of honey-suckles, of blue-bells, and Banksiaroses. And over the mantelpiece was a photograph of the place where suchflowers as Mellor possessed mostly grew--the unkempt lawn, the oldfountain and grey walls of the Cedar Garden. 

The green blind over the one window which looked into the court, hadbeen drawn down against the glare of the sun, as though by a carefulhand. Beside a light wooden rocking chair, which was Marcella'sfavourite seat, a tray of tea things had been put out. Marcella drew along breath of comfort as she put down her bag. 

"Now, _can_ I wait for my tea till I have washed and dressed?"

She argued with herself an instant as though she had been a greedychild, then, going swiftly into the back kitchen, she opened the doorbetween her rooms and the Hurds. 

"Minta!"

A voice responded. 

"Minta, make me some tea and boil an egg! there's a good soul! I will beback directly. "

And in ten minutes or so she came back again into the sitting-room, daintily fresh and clean but very pale. She had taken off her nurse'sdress and apron, and had put on something loose and white that hungabout her in cool folds. 

But Minta Hurd, who had just brought in the tea, looked at herdisapprovingly. 

"Whatever are you so late for?" she asked a little peevishly. "You'llget ill if you go missing your dinner. "

"I couldn't help it, Minta, it was such a bad case. "

Mrs. Hurd poured out the tea in silence, unappeased. Her mind wasconstantly full of protest against this nursing. Why should Miss Boycedo such "funny things"--why should she live as she did, at all?

Their relation to each other was a curious one. Marcella, knowing thatthe life of Hurd's widow at Mellor was gall and bitterness, had sent forher at the moment that she herself was leaving the hospital, offeringher a weekly sum in return for a little cooking and house service. Mintaalready possessed a weekly pension, coming from a giver unknown to her. It was regularly handed to her by Mr. Harden, and she could only imaginethat one of the "gentlemen" who had belonged to the Hurd ReprieveCommittee, and had worked so hard for Jim, was responsible for it, outof pity for her and her children. The payment offered her by Miss Boycewould defray the expense of London house-rent, the children's schooling, and leave a trifle over. Moreover she was pining to get away fromMellor. Her first instinct after her husband's execution had been tohide herself from all the world. But for a long time her precariousstate of health, and her dependence first on Marcella, then on MaryHarden, made it impossible for her to leave the village. It was not tillMarcella's proposal came that her way was clear. She sold her bits ofthings at once, took her children and went up to Brown's buildings. 

Marcella met her with the tenderness, the tragic tremor of feeling fromwhich the peasant's wife shrank anew, bewildered, as she had oftenshrunk from it in the past. Jim's fate had made her an old woman atthirty-two. She was now a little shrivelled consumptive creature withalmost white hair, and a face from which youth had gone, unless perhapsthere were some traces of it in the still charming eyes, and small openmouth. But these changes had come upon her she knew not why, as theresult of blows she felt but had never reasoned about. Marcella's fixedmode of conceiving her and her story caused her from the beginning oftheir fresh acquaintance a dumb irritation and trouble she could neverhave explained. It was so tragic, reflective, exacting. It seemed to askof her feelings that she could not have, to expect from her expressionthat was impossible. And it stood also between her and the friends anddistractions that she would like to have. Why shouldn't that queer man, Mr. Strozzi, who lived down below, and whose name she could notpronounce, come and sit sometimes of an evening, and amuse her and thechildren? He was a "Professor of Elocution, " and said and sung comicpieces. He was very civil and obliging too; she liked him. Yet MissBoyce was evidently astonished that she could make friends with him, andMinta perfectly understood the lift of her dark eyebrows whenever shecame in and found him sitting there. 

Meanwhile Marcella had expected her with emotion, and had meant throughthis experiment to bring herself truly near to the poor. Minta must notcall her Miss Boyce, but by her name; which, however, Minta, reddening, had declared she could never do. Her relation to Marcella was not to bethat of servant in any sense, but of friend and sister; and on her andher children Marcella had spent from the beginning a number of newwomanish wiles which, strangely enough, this hard, strenuous life hadbeen developing in her. She would come and help put the children to bed;she would romp with them in their night-gowns; she would bend herimperious head over the anxious endeavour to hem a pink cotton pinaforefor Daisy, or dress a doll for the baby. But the relation jarred andlimped perpetually, and Marcella wistfully thought it her fault. 

Just now, however, as she sat gently swaying backwards and forwards inthe rocking-chair, enjoying her tea, her mood was one of nothing butcontent. 

"Oh, Minta, give me another cup. I want to have a sleep so badly, andthen I am going to see Miss Hallin, and stay to supper with them. "

"Well, you mustn't go out in them nursin' things again, " said Minta, quickly; "I've put you in some lace in your black dress, an' it looksbeautiful. "

"Oh, thank you, Minta; but that black dress always seems to me too smartto walk about these streets in. "

"It's just _nice_, " said Minta, with decision. "It's just what everybodythat knows you--what your mamma--would like to see you in. I can't abidethem nursin' clothes--nasty things!"

"I declare!" cried Marcella, laughing, but outraged; "I never likemyself so well in anything. "

Minta was silent, but her small mouth took an obstinate look. What shereally felt was that it was absurd for ladies to wear caps and apronsand plain black bonnets, when there was no need for them to do anythingof the kind. 

"Whatever have you been doing to your cheek?" she exclaimed, suddenly, as Marcella handed her the empty cup to take away. 

Marcella explained shortly, and Minta looked more discontented thanever. "A lot of low people as ought to look after themselves, " that washow in her inmost mind she generally defined Marcella's patients. Shehad been often kind and soft to her neighbours at Mellor, but thesedirty, crowded Londoners were another matter. 

"Where is Daisy?" asked Marcella as Minta was going away with the tea;"she must have come back from school. "

"Here I am, " said Daisy, with a grin, peeping in through the door of theback kitchen. "Mother, baby's woke up. "

"Come here, you monkey, " said Marcella; "come and go to sleep with me. Have you had your tea?"

"Yes, lots, " said Daisy, climbing up into Marcella's lap. "Are you goingto be asleep a long time?"

"No--only a nap. Oh! Daisy, I'm so tired. Come and cuddlie a bit! If youdon't go to sleep you know you can slip away--I shan't wake. "

The child, a slight, red-haired thing, with something of the etherealcharm that her dead brother had possessed, settled herself on Marcella'sknees, slipped her left thumb into her mouth, and flung her other armround Marcella's neck. They had often gone to sleep so. Mrs. Hurd cameback, drew down the blind further, threw a light shawl over them both, and left them. 

An hour and a half later Minta came in again as she had been told. Daisy had slipped away, but Marcella was still lying in the perfectgentleness and relaxation of sleep. 

"You said I was to come and wake you, " said Minta, drawing up the blind;"but I don't believe you're a bit fit to be going about. Here's some hotwater, and there's a letter just come. "

Marcella woke with a start, Minta put the letter on her knee, and dreamand reality flowed together as she saw her own name in Wharton'shandwriting. 

She read the letter, then sat flushed and thinking for a while with herhands on her knees. 

A little while later she opened the Hurds' front-door. 

"Minta, I am going now. I shall be back early after supper, for Ihaven't written my report. "

"There--now you look something like!" said Minta, scanning herapprovingly--the wide hat and pretty black dress. "Shall Daisy run outwith that telegram?"

"No, thanks. I shall pass the post. Good-bye. "

And she stooped and kissed the little withered woman. She wished, ardently wished, that Minta would be more truly friends with her!

After a brisk walk through the June evening she stopped--still withinthe same district--at the door of a house in a long, old-fashionedstreet, wherein the builder was busy on either hand, since most of thelong leases had just fallen in. But the house she entered was stilluntouched. She climbed a last-century staircase, adorned with panels ofstucco work--slender Italianate reliefs of wreaths, ribbons, andmedallions on a pale green ground. The decoration was clean and caredfor, the house in good order. Eighty years ago it was the home of afamous judge, who entertained in its rooms the legal and literarycelebrities of his day. Now it was let out to professional people inlodgings or unfurnished rooms. Edward Hallin and his sister occupied thetop floor. 

Miss Hallin, a pleasant-looking, plain woman of about thirty-five, cameat once in answer to Marcella's knock, and greeted her affectionately. Edward Hallin sprang up from a table at the further end of the room. 

"You are so late! Alice and I had made up our minds you had forgottenus!"

"I didn't get home till four, and then I had to have a sleep, " sheexplained, half shyly. 

"What! you haven't been night-nursing?"

"Yes, for once. "

"Alice, tell them to bring up supper, and let's look after her. "

He wheeled round a comfortable chair to the open window--the charmingcircular bow of last-century design, which filled up the end of the roomand gave it character. The window looked out on a quiet line of backgardens, such as may still be seen in Bloomsbury, with fine plane treeshere and there just coming into full leaf; and beyond them the backs ofanother line of houses in a distant square, with pleasant irregularitiesof old brickwork and tiled roof. The mottled trunks of the planes, theirblackened twigs and branches, their thin, beautiful leaves, the forms ofthe houses beyond, rose in a charming medley of line against the blueand peaceful sky. No near sound was to be heard, only the distant murmurthat no Londoner escapes; and some of the British Museum pigeons weresunning themselves on the garden-wall below. 

Within, the Hallins' room was spacious and barely furnished. The walls, indeed, were crowded with books, and broken, where the books ceased, byphotographs of Italy and Greece; but of furniture proper there seemed tobe little beside Hallin's large writing-table facing the window, and afew chairs, placed on the blue drugget which brother and sister hadchosen with a certain anxiety, dreading secretly lest it should be apiece of self-indulgence to buy what pleased them both so much. On oneside of the fireplace was Miss Hallin's particular corner; her chair, the table that held her few special books, her work-basket, with itsknitting, her accounts. There, in the intervals of many activities, shesat and worked or read, always cheerful and busy, and always watchingover her brother. 

"I wish, " said Hallin, with some discontent, when Marcella had settledherself, "that we were going to be alone to-night; that would haverested you more. "

"Why, who is coming?" said Marcella, a little flatly. She had certainlyhoped to find them alone. 

"Your old friend, Frank Leven, is coming to supper. When he heard youwere to be here he vowed that nothing could or should keep him away. Then, after supper, one or two people asked if they might come in. Thereare some anxious things going on. "

He leant his head on his hand for a moment with a sigh, then forciblywrenched himself from what were evidently recurrent thoughts. 

"Do tell me some more of what you are doing!" he said, bending forwardto her. "You don't know how much I have thought of what you have told mealready. "

"I'm doing just the same, " she said, laughing. "Don't take so muchinterest in it. It's the fashion just now to admire nurses; but it'sridiculous. We do our work like other people--sometimes badly, sometimeswell. And some of us wouldn't do it if we could help it. "

She threw out the last words with a certain vehemence, as though eagerto get away from any sentimentalism about herself. Hallin studied herkindly. 

"Is this miscellaneous work a relief to you after hospital?" he asked. 

"For the present. It is more exciting, and one sees more character. Butthere are drawbacks. In hospital everything was settled for you--everyhour was full, and there were always orders to follow. And the 'off'times were no trouble--I never did anything else but walk up and downthe Embankment if it was fine, or go to the National Gallery if it waswet. "

"And it was the monotony you liked?"

She made a sign of assent. 

"Strange!" said Hallin, "who could ever have foreseen it?"

She flushed. 

"You might have foreseen it, I think, " she said, not without a littleimpatience. "But I didn't like it all at once. I hated a great deal ofit. If they had let me alone all the time to scrub and polish andwash--the things they set me to at first--I thought I should have beenquite happy. To see my table full of glasses without a spot, and mybrass-taps shining, made me as proud as a peacock! But then of course Ihad to learn the real work, and that was very odd at first. "

"How? Morally?"

She nodded, laughing at her own remembrances. "Yes--it seemed to me alltopsy-turvy. I thought the Sister at the head of the ward rather astupid person. If I had seen her at Mellor I shouldn't have spoken twowords to her. And here she was ordering me about--rating me as I hadnever rated a house-maid--laughing at me for not knowing this or that, and generally making me feel that a raw probationer was one of thethings of least account in the whole universe. I knew perfectly wellthat she had said to herself, 'Now then I must take that proud girl downa peg, or she will be no use to anybody;' and I had somehow to put upwith it. "

"Drastic!" said Hallin, laughing; "did you comfort yourself byreflecting that it was everybody's fate?"

Her lip twitched with amusement. 

"Not for a long time. I used to have the most absurd ideas!--sometimeslooking back I can hardly believe it--perhaps it was partly a queerstate of nerves. When I was at school and got in a passion I used to tryand overawe the girls by shaking my Speaker great-uncle in their faces. And so in hospital; it would flash across me sometimes in a plaintivesort of way that they _couldn't_ know that I was Miss Boyce of Mellor, and had been mothering and ruling the whole of my father's village--orthey wouldn't treat me so. Mercifully I held my tongue. But one day itcame to a crisis. I had had to get things ready for an operation, andhad done very well. Dr. Marshall had paid me even a little complimentall to myself. But then afterwards the patient was some time in comingto, and there had to be hot-water bottles. I had them ready of course;but they were too hot, and in my zeal and nervousness I burnt thepatient's elbow in two places. Oh! the _fuss_, and the scolding, and thehumiliation! When I left the ward that evening I thought I would go homenext day. "

"But you didn't?"

"If I could have sat down and thought it out, I should probably havegone. But I couldn't think it out--I was too _dead_ tired. That is thechief feature of your first months in hospital--the utter helplessfatigue at night. You go to bed aching and you wake up aching. If youare healthy as I was, it doesn't hurt you; but, when your time comes tosleep, sleep you _must_. Even that miserable night my head was no sooneron the pillow than I was asleep; and next morning there was all theroutine as usual, and the dread of being a minute late on duty. Thenwhen I got into the ward the Sister looked at me rather queerly and wentout of her way to be kind to me. Oh! I was so grateful to her! I couldhave brushed her boots or done any other menial service for her withdelight. And--then--somehow I pulled through. The enormous interest ofthe work seized me--I grew ambitious--they pushed me onrapidly--everybody seemed suddenly to become my friend instead of myenemy--and I ended by thinking the hospital the most fascinating andengrossing place in the whole world. "

"A curious experience, " said Hallin. "I suppose you had never obeyed anyone in your life before?"

"Not since I was at school--and then--not much!"

Hallin glanced at her as she lay back in her chair. How richly human theface had grown! It was as forcible as ever in expression and colour, butthat look which had often repelled him in his first acquaintance withher, as of a hard speculative eagerness more like the ardent boy thanthe woman, had very much disappeared. It seemed to him absorbed insomething new--something sad and yet benignant, informed with all thepathos and the pain of growth. 

"How long have you been at work to-day?" he asked her. 

"I went at eleven last night. I came away at four this afternoon. "

Hallin exclaimed, "You had food?"

"Do you think I should let myself starve with my work to do?" she askedhim, with a shade of scorn and her most professional air. "And don'tsuppose that such a case occurs often. It is a very rare thing for us toundertake night-nursing at all. "

"Can you tell me what the case was?"

She told him vaguely, describing also in a few words her encounter withDr. Blank. 

"I suppose he will make a fuss, " she said, with a restless look, "andthat I shall be blamed. "

"I should think your second doctor will take care of that!" said Hallin. 

"I don't know. I couldn't help it. But it is one of our first principlesnot to question a doctor. And last week too I got the Association intotrouble. A patient I had been nursing for weeks and got quite fond ofhad to be removed to hospital. She asked me to cut her hair. It wasmatted dreadfully, and would have been cut off directly she got to theward. So I cut it, left her all comfortable, and was to come back at oneto meet the doctor and help get her off. When I came, I found the wholecourt in an uproar. The sister of the woman, who had been watching forme, stood on the doorstep, and implored me to go away. The husband hadgone out of his senses with rage because I had cut his wife's hairwithout his consent. 'He'll murder you, Nuss!' said the sister, 'if hesees you! Don't come in!--he's mad--he's _been going round on 'is 'andsand knees on the floor_!'"--Hallin interrupted with a shout of laughter. Marcella laughed too; but to his amazement he saw that her hand shook, and that there were tears in her eyes. 

"It's all very well, " she said with a sigh, "but I had to come away indisgrace, all the street looking on. And he made such a fuss at theoffice as never was. It was unfortunate--we don't want the people setagainst the nurses. And now Dr. Blank!--I seem to be always getting intoscrapes. It is different from hospital, where everything is settled forone. "

Hallin could hardly believe his ears. Such womanish terrors anddepressions from Marcella Boyce! Was she, after all, too young for thework, or was there some fret of the soul reducing her natural force? Hefelt an unwonted impulse of tenderness towards her--such as one mightfeel towards a tired child--and set himself to cheer and rest her. 

He had succeeded to some extent, when he saw her give a little start, and following her eyes he perceived that unconsciously his arm, whichwas resting on the table, had pushed into her view a photograph in alittle frame, which had been hitherto concealed from her by a glass offlowers. He would have quietly put it out of sight again, but she sat upin her chair. 

"Will you give it me?" she said, putting out her hand. 

He gave it her at once. 

"Alice brought it home from Miss Raeburn the other day. His aunt madehim sit to one of the photographers who are always besieging public men. We thought it good. "

"It is very good, " she said, after a pause. "Is the hair really--as greyas that?" She pointed to it. 

"Quite. I am very glad that he is going off with Lord Maxwell to Italy. It will be ten days' break for him at any rate. His work this last yearhas been very heavy. He has had his grandfather's to do really, as wellas his own; and this Commission has been a stiff job too. I am rathersorry that he has taken this new post. "

"What post?"

"Didn't you hear? They have made him Under-secretary to the HomeDepartment. So that he is now in the Government. "

She put back the photograph, and moved her chair a little so as to seemore of the plane trees and the strips of sunset cloud. 

"How is Lord Maxwell?" she asked presently. 

"Much changed. It might end in a sudden break-up at any time. "

Hallin saw a slight contraction pass over her face. He knew that she hadalways felt an affection for Lord Maxwell. Suddenly Marcella lookedhastily round her. Miss Hallin was busy with a little servant at theother end of the room making arrangements for supper. 

"Tell me, " she said, bending over the arm of her chair and speaking in alow, eager voice, "he is beginning to forget it?"

Hallin looked at her in silence, but his half sad, half ironic smilesuggested an answer from which she turned away. 

"If he only would!" she said, speaking almost to herself, with a kind ofimpatience. "He ought to marry, for everybody's sake. "

"I see no sign of his marrying--at present, " said Hallin, drily. 

He began to put some papers under his hand in order. There was a colddignity in his manner which she perfectly understood. Ever since thatday--that never-forgotten day--when he had come to her the morning afterher last interview with Aldous Raeburn--come with reluctance anddislike, because Aldous had asked it of him--and had gone away herfriend, more drawn to her, more touched by her than he had ever been inthe days of the engagement, their relation on this subject had been thesame. His sweetness and kindness to her, his influence over her lifeduring the past eighteen months, had been very great. In that firstinterview, the object of which had been to convey to her a warning onthe subject of the man it was thought she might allow herself to marry, something in the manner with which he had attempted his incrediblydifficult task--its simplicity, its delicate respect for herpersonality, its suggestion of a character richer and saintlier thananything she had yet known, and unconsciously revealing itself under thestress of emotion--this something had suddenly broken down his pale, proud companion, had to his own great dismay brought her to tears, andto such confidences, such indirect askings for help and understanding asamazed them both. 

Experiences of this kind were not new to him. His life consecrated toideas, devoted to the wresting of the maximum of human service from acrippling physical weakness; the precarious health itself which cut himoff from a hundred ordinary amusements and occupations, and especiallycut him off from marriage--together with the ardent temperament, thecharm, the imaginative insight which had been his cradle-gifts--thesethings ever since he was a lad had made him again and again the guideand prop of natures stronger and stormier than his own. Often theunwilling guide; for he had the half-impatient breathless instincts ofthe man who has set himself a task, and painfully doubts whether he willhave power and time to finish it. The claims made upon him seemed to himoften to cost him physical and brain energy he could ill spare. 

But his quick tremulous sympathy rendered him really a defenceless preyin such matters. Marcella threw herself upon him as others had done; andthere was no help for it. Since their first memorable interview, at longintervals, he had written to her and she to him. Of her hospital life, till to-night, she had never told him much. Her letters had been thepassionate outpourings of a nature sick of itself, and for the moment ofliving; full of explanations which really explained little; full too ofthe untaught pangs and questionings of a mind which had never given anysustained or exhaustive effort to any philosophical or social question, and yet was in a sense tortured by them all--athirst for an impossiblejustice, and aflame for ideals mocked first and above all by thewriter's own weakness and defect. Hallin had felt them interesting, sad, and, in a sense, fine; but he had never braced himself to answer themwithout groans. There were so many other people in the world in the sameplight!

Nevertheless, all through the growth of friendship one thing had neveraltered between them from the beginning--Hallin's irrevocable judgmentof the treatment she had bestowed on Aldous Raeburn. Never throughoutthe whole course of their acquaintance had he expressed that judgment toher in so many words. Notwithstanding, she knew perfectly well both thenature and the force of it. It lay like a rock in the stream of theirfriendship. The currents of talk might circle round it, imply it, glanceoff from it; they left it unchanged. At the root of his mind towardsher, at the bottom of his gentle sensitive nature, there was asternness which he often forgot--she never. 

This hard fact in their relation had insensibly influenced her greatly, was constantly indeed working in and upon her, especially since thechances of her nursing career had brought her to settle in thisdistrict, within a stone's throw of him and his sister, so that she sawthem often and intimately. But it worked in different ways. Sometimes--as to-night--it evoked a kind of defiance. 

A minute or two after he had made his remark about Aldous, she said tohim suddenly, "I had a letter from Mr. Wharton to-day. He is coming to tea with meto-morrow, and I shall probably go to the House on Friday with EdithCraven to hear him speak. "

Hallin gave a slight start at the name. Then he said nothing; but wenton sorting some letters of the day into different heaps. His silenceroused her irritation. 

"Do you remember, " she said, in a low, energetic voice, "that I told youI could never be ungrateful, never forget what he had done?"

"Yes, I remember, " he said, not without a certain sharpness of tone. "You spoke of giving him help if he ever asked it of you--has he askedit?"

She explained that what he seemed to be asking was Louis Craven's help, and that his overtures with regard to the _Labour Clarion_ wereparticularly opportune, seeing that Louis was pining to be able tomarry, and was losing heart, hope, and health for want of some fixedemployment. She spoke warmly of her friends and their troubles, andHallin's inward distaste had to admit that all she said was plausible. Since the moment in that strange talk which had drawn them together, when she had turned upon him with the passionate cry--"I see what youmean, perfectly! but I am not going to marry Mr. Wharton, so don'ttrouble to warn me--for the matter of that he has warned mehimself:--but my _gratitude_ he _has_ earned, and if he asks for it Iwill _never_ deny it him "--since that moment there had been no word ofWharton between them. At the bottom of his heart Hallin distrusted her, and was ashamed of himself because of it. His soreness and jealousy forhis friend knew no bounds. "If that were to come on again"--he wassaying to himself now, as she talked to him--"I could not bear it, Icould not forgive her!"

He only wished that she would give up talking about Wharton altogether. But, on the contrary, she would talk of him--and with a curiouspersistence. She must needs know what Hallin thought of his career inParliament, of his prospects, of his powers as a speaker. Hallinanswered shortly, like some one approached on a subject for which hecares nothing. 

"Yet, of course, it is not that; it is injustice!" she said to herself, with vehemence. "He _must_ care; they are his subjects, his intereststoo. But he will not look at it dispassionately, because--"

So they fell out with each other a little, and the talk dragged. Yet, all the while, Marcella's inner mind was conscious of quite differentthoughts. How good it was to be here, in this room, beside these twopeople! She must show herself fractious and difficult with Hallinsometimes; it was her nature. But in reality, that slight and fragileform, that spiritual presence were now shrined in the girl's eagerreverence and affection. She felt towards him as many a Catholic hasfelt towards his director; though the hidden yearning to be led by himwas often oddly covered, as now, by an outer self-assertion. Perhaps herquarrel with him was that he would not lead her enough--would not tellher precisely enough what she was to do with herself. 

CHAPTER V. 

While she and Hallin were sitting thus, momentarily out of tune witheach other, the silence was suddenly broken by a familiar voice. 

"I say, Hallin--is this all right?"

The words came from a young man who, having knocked unheeded, opened thedoor, and cautiously put in a curly head. 

"Frank!--is that you? Come in, " cried Hallin, springing up. 

Frank Leven came in, and at once perceived the lady sitting in thewindow. 

"Well, I _am_ glad!" he cried, striding across the room and shakingHallin's hand by the way. "Miss Boyce! I thought none of your friendswere ever going to get a sight of you again! Why, what--"

He drew back scanning her, a gay look of quizzing surprise on his fairboy's face. 

"He expected me in cap and apron, " said Marcella, laughing; "or means topretend he did. "

"I expected a sensation! And here you are, just as you were, only twiceas--I say, Hallin, doesn't she look well!"--this in a stage aside toHallin, while the speaker was drawing off his gloves, and still studyingMarcella. 

"Well, _I_ think she looks tired, " said Hallin, with a little attempt ata smile, but turning away. Everybody felt a certain tension, a certaindanger, even in the simplest words, and Miss Hallin's call to supper wasvery welcome. 

The frugal meal went gaily. The chattering Christchurch boy brought toit a breath of happy, careless life, to which the threeothers--over-driven and over-pressed, all of them--responded with a kindof eagerness. Hallin especially delighted in him, and would have out allhis budget--his peacock's pride at having been just put into the'Varsity eleven, his cricket engagements for the summer, his rows withhis dons, above all his lasting amazement that he should have justscraped through his Mods. 

"I thought those Roman emperors would have done for me!" he declared, with a child's complacency. "_Brutes!_ I couldn't remember them. Ilearnt them up and down, backwards and forwards--but it was no good;they nearly dished me!"

"Yet it comes back to me, " said Hallin, slily, "that when a certainperson was once asked to name the winner of the Derby in some obscureyear, he began at the beginning, and gave us all of them, from first tolast, without a hitch. "

"The winner of the _Derby_!" said the lad, eagerly, bending forward withhis hands on his knees; "why, I should rather think so! That isn'tmemory; that's _knowledge_!--Goodness! who's this?"

The last remark was addressed _sotto voce_ to Marcella. Supper was justover, and the two guests, with Hallin, had returned to the window, whileMiss Hallin, stoutly refusing their help, herself cleared the table andset all straight. 

Hallin, hearing a knock, had gone to the door while Leven was speaking. Four men came crowding in, all of them apparently well known both toHallin and his sister. The last two seemed to be workmen; the otherswere Bennett, Hallin's old and tried friend among the Labour-leaders, and Nehemiah Wilkins, M. P. Hallin introduced them all to Marcella andLeven; but the new-comers took little notice of any one but their host, and were soon seated about him discussing a matter already apparentlyfamiliar to them, and into which Hallin had thrown himself at once withthat passionate directness which, in the social and speculative field, replaced his ordinary gentleness of manner. He seemed to be in strongdisagreement with the rest--a disagreement which troubled himself andirritated them. 

Marcella watched them with quick curiosity from the window where she wassitting, and would have liked to go forward to listen. But Frank Leventurned suddenly round upon her with sparkling eyes. 

"Oh, I say! don't go. Do come and sit here with me a bit. Oh, isn't itrum! isn't it _rum_! Look at Hallin, --those are the people whom he_cares_ to talk to. That's a shoemaker, that man to the left--really anawfully cute fellow--and this man in front, I think he told me he was amason, a Socialist of course--would like to string _me_ up to-morrow. Did you ever see such a countenance? Whenever that man begins, I thinkwe must be precious near to shooting. And he's pious too, would prayover us first and shoot us afterwards--which isn't the case, Iunderstand, with many of 'em. Then the others--you know them? That'sBennett--regular good fellow--always telling his pals not to make foolsof themselves--for which of course they love him no more than they areobliged--And Wilkins--oh! _Wilkins_"--he chuckled--"they say it'll cometo a beautiful row in the House before they've done, between him and mycharming cousin, Harry Wharton. My father says he backs Wilkins. "

Then suddenly the lad recollected himself and his clear cheek coloured alittle after a hasty glance at his companion. He fell to silence andlooking at his boots. Marcella wondered what was the matter with him. Since her flight from Mellor she had lived, so to speak, with her headin the sand. She herself had never talked directly of her own affairs toanybody. Her sensitive pride did not let her realise that, notwithstanding, all the world was aware of them. 

"I don't suppose you know much about your cousin!" she said to him witha little scorn. 

"Well, I don't want to!" said the lad, "that's one comfort! But I don'tknow anything about anything!--Miss Boyce!"

He plunged his head in his hands, and Marcella, looking at him, saw atonce that she was meant to understand she had woe and lamentation besideher. 

Her black eyes danced with laughter. At Mellor she had been severaltimes his confidante. The handsome lad was not apparently very fond ofhis sisters and had taken to her from the beginning. To-night sherecognised the old symptoms. 

"What, you have been getting into scrapes again?" she said--"how manysince we met last?"

"There! you make fun of it!" he said indignantly from behind hisfingers--"you're like all the rest. "

Marcella teased him a little more till at last she was astonished by aflash of genuine wrath from the hastily uncovered eyes. 

"If you're only going to chaff a fellow let's go over there and talk!And yet I did want to tell you about it--you were awfully kind to medown at home. I want to tell you--and I don't want to tell you--perhapsI _oughtn't_ to tell you--you'll think me a brute, I dare say, anungentlemanly brute for speaking of it at all--and yet somehow--"

The boy, crimson, bit his lips. Marcella, arrested and puzzled, laid ahand on his arm. She had been used to these motherly ways with him atMellor, on the strength of her seniority, so inadequately measured byits two years or so of time!

"I won't laugh, " she said, "tell me. "

"No--really?--shall I?"

Whereupon there burst forth a history precisely similar it seemed tosome half dozen others she had already heard from the same lips. Apretty girl--or rather "an exquisite creature!" met at the house of somerelation in Scotland, met again at the "Boats" at Oxford, and yet againat Commemoration balls, Nuneham picnics, and the rest; adored andadorable; yet, of course, a sphinx born for the torment of men, takingher haughty way over a prostrate sex, kind to-day, cruel to-morrow; notto be won by money, yet, naturally, not to be won without it; possessedlike Rose Aylmer of "every virtue, every grace, " whether of form orfamily; yet making nothing but a devastating and death-dealing use ofthem--how familiar it all was!--and how many more of them there seemedto be in the world, on a man's reckoning, than on a woman's!

"And you know, " said the lad, eagerly, "though she's so _frightfully_pretty--well, frightfully fetching, rather--and well dressed and all therest of it, she isn't a bit silly, not one of your empty-headedgirls--not she. She's read a _lot_ of things--a lot! I'm sure, MissBoyce"--he looked at her confidently, --"if _you_ were to see her you'dthink her awfully clever. And yet she's so little--and so dainty--andshe dances--my goodness! you should see her dance, skirt-dance Imean--Letty Lind isn't in it! She's good too, awfully good. I think hermother's a most dreadful old bore--well, no, I didn't mean that--ofcourse I didn't mean that!--but she's fussy, you know, and invalidy, andhas to be wrapped up in shawls, and dragged about in bath chairs, andBetty's an angel to her--she is really--though her mother's alwayssnapping her head off. And as to the _poor_--"

Something in his tone, in the way he had of fishing for her approval, sent Marcella into a sudden fit of laughter. Then she put out a hand torestrain this plunging lover. 

"Look here--do come to the point--have you proposed to her?"

"I should rather think I have!" said the boy, fervently. "About once aweek since Christmas. Of course she's played with me--that sort alwaysdoes--but I think I might really have a chance with her, if it weren'tfor her mother--horrible old--no, of _course_ I don't mean that! Butnow it comes in--what I oughtn't to tell you--I _know_ I oughtn't totell you! I'm always making a beastly mess of it. It's because I can'thelp talking of it!"

And shaking his curly head in despair, he once more plunged his redcheeks into his hands and fell abruptly silent. 

Marcella coloured for sympathy. "I really wish you wouldn't talk inriddles, " she said. "What is the matter with you?--of course you musttell me. "

"Well, I know you won't mind!" cried the lad, emerging. "As if you couldmind! But it sounds like my impudence to be talking to youabout--about--You see, " he blurted out, "she's going to Italy with theRaeburns. She's a connection of theirs, somehow, and Miss Raeburn'staken a fancy to her lately--and her mother's treated me like dirt eversince they asked her to go to Italy--and naturally a fellow sees what_that_ means--and what her mother's after. I don't believe Betty_would_; he's too old for her, isn't he? Oh, my goodness!"--this time hesmote his knee in real desperation--"now I _have_ done it. I'm simply_bursting_ always with the thing I'd rather cut my head off than say. Why they make 'em like me I don't know!"

"You mean, " said Marcella, with impatience--"that her mother wants herto marry Mr. Raeburn?"

He looked round at his companion. She was lying back in a deep chair, her hands lightly clasped on her knee. Something in her attitude, in thepose of the tragic head, in the expression of the face stamped to-nightwith a fatigue which was also a dignity, struck a real compunction intohis mood of vanity and excitement. He had simply not been able to resistthe temptation to talk to her. She reminded him of the Raeburns, and theRaeburns were in his mind at the present moment by day and by night. Heknew that he was probably doing an indelicate and indiscreet thing, butall the same his boyish egotism would not be restrained from theheadlong pursuit of his own emotions. There was in him too such aburning curiosity as to how she would take it--what she would say. 

Now however he felt a genuine shrinking. His look changed. Drawing hischair close up to her he began a series of penitent andself-contradictory excuses which Marcella soon broke in upon. 

"I don't know why you talk like that, " she said, looking at himsteadily. "Do you suppose I can go on all my life without hearing Mr. Raeburn's name mentioned? And don't apologise so much! It really doesn'tmatter what I suppose--that _you_ think--about my present state of mind. It is very simple. I ought never to have accepted Mr. Raeburn. I behavedbadly. I know it--and everybody knows it. Still one has to go on livingone's life somehow. The point is that I am rather the wrong person foryou to come to just now, for if there is one thing I ardently wish aboutMr. Raeburn, it is that he should get himself married. "

Frank Leven looked at her in bewildered dismay. 

"I never thought of that, " he said. 

"Well, you might, mightn't you?"

For another short space there was silence between them, while the rushof talk in the centre of the room was still loud and unspent. 

Then she rated herself for want of sympathy. Frank sat beside her shyand uncomfortable, his confidence chilled away. 

"So you think Miss Raeburn has views?" she asked him, smiling, and inher most ordinary voice. 

The boy's eye brightened again with the implied permission to go onchattering. 

"I know she has! Betty's brother as good as told me that she and Mrs. Macdonald--that's Betty's mother--she hasn't got a father--had talked itover. And now Betty's going with them to Italy, and Aldous is going toofor ten days--and when I go to the Macdonalds Mrs. Macdonald treats meas if I were a little chap in jackets, and Betty worries me to death. It's sickening!"

"And how about Mr. Raeburn?"

"Oh, Aldous seems to like her very much, " he said despondently. "She'salways teasing and amusing him. When she's there she never lets himalone. She harries him out. She makes him read to her and ride with her. She makes him discuss all sorts of things with her you'd _never_ thinkAldous would discuss--her lovers and her love affairs, and being inlove!--it's extraordinary the way she drives him round. At Easter sheand her mother were staying at the Court, and one night Betty told meshe was bored to death. It was a very smart party, but everything was soflat and everybody was so dull. So she suddenly got up and ran across toAldous. 'Now look here, Mr. Aldous, ' she said; 'this'll never do! you'vegot to come and dance with me, and _push_ those chairs and tablesaside'--I can fancy the little stamp she'd give--'and make those otherpeople dance too. ' And she made him--she positively made him. Aldousdeclared he didn't dance, and she wouldn't have a word of it. Andpresently she got to all her tricks, skirt-dancing and the rest ofit--and of course the evening went like smoke. "

Marcella's eyes, unusually wide open, were somewhat intently fixed onthe speaker. 

"And Mr. Raeburn liked it?" she asked in a tone that soundedincredulous. 

"Didn't he just? She told me they got regular close friends after that, and he told her everything--oh, well, " said the lad, embarrassed, andclutching at his usual formula--"of course, I didn't mean that. Andshe's fearfully flattered, you can see she is, and she tells me that sheadores him--that he's the only great man she's ever known--that I'm notfit to black his boots, and ought to be grateful whenever he speaks tome--and all that sort of rot. And now she's going off with them. I shallhave to shoot myself--I declare I shall!"

"Well, not yet, " said Marcella, in a soothing voice; "the case isn'tclear enough. Wait till they come back. Shall we move? I'm going overthere to listen to that talk. But--first--come and see me whenever youlike--3 to 4. 30, Brown's Buildings, Maine Street--and tell me how thisgoes on?"

She spoke with a careless lightness, laughing at him with a halfsisterly freedom. She had risen from her seat, and he, whose thoughtshad been wrapped up for months in one of the smallest of the sex, wassuddenly struck with her height and stately gesture as she moved awayfrom him. 

"By Jove! Why didn't she stick to Aldous, " he said to himselfdiscontentedly as his eyes followed her. "It was only her cranks, and ofcourse she'll get rid of _them_. Just like my luck!"

 * * * * *

Meanwhile Marcella took a seat next to Miss Hallin, who looked up fromher knitting to smile at her. The girl fell into the attitude oflistening; but for some minutes she was not listening at all. She wasreflecting how little men knew of each other!--even the most intimatefriends--and trying to imagine what Aldous Raeburn would be like, married to such a charmer as Frank had sketched. His friendship for hermeant, of course, the attraction of contraries--one of the mostpromising of all possible beginnings. On the whole, she thought Frank'schances were poor. 

Then, unexpectedly, her ear was caught by Wharton's name, and shediscovered that what was going on beside her was a passionate discussionof his present position and prospects in the Labour party--a discussion, however, mainly confined to Wilkins and the two workmen. Bennett had theair of the shrewd and kindly spectator who has his own reasons fortreating a situation with reserve; and Hallin was lying back in hischair flushed and worn out. The previous debate, which had now merged inthese questions of men and personalities, had made him miserable; he hadno heart for anything more. Miss Hallin observed him anxiously, andmade restless movements now and then, as though she had it in her mindto send all her guests away. 

The two Socialist workmen were talking strongly in favour of anorganised and distinct Labour party, and of Wharton's leadership. Theyreferred constantly to Parnell, and what he had clone for "those Irishfellows. " The only way to make Labour formidable in the House was tolearn the lesson of Unionism and of Parnellism, to act together andstrike together, to make of the party a "two-handed engine, " ready tosmite Tory and Liberal impartially. To this end a separate organisation, separate place in the House, separate Whips--they were ready, nayclamorous, for them all. And they were equally determined on HarryWharton as a leader. They spoke of the _Clarion_ with enthusiasm, anddeclared that its owner was already an independent power, and was, moreover, as "straight" as he was sharp. 

The contention and the praise lashed Wilkins into fury. After making oneor two visible efforts at a sarcastic self-control which came tonothing, he broke out into a flood of invective which left the rest ofthe room staring. Marcella found herself indignantly wondering who thisbig man, with his fierce eyes, long, puffy cheeks, coarse black hair, and North-country accent, might be. Why did he talk in this way, withthese epithets, this venom? It was intolerable!

Hallin roused himself from his fatigue to play the peace-maker. But someof the things Wilkins had been saying had put up the backs of the twoworkmen, and the talk flamed up unmanageably--Wilkins's dialect gettingmore pronounced with each step of the argument. 

"Well, if I'd ever ha' thowt that I war coomin' to Lunnon to put myselfand my party oonder the heel o' Muster Harry Wharton, I'd ha' stayed at_home_, I tell tha, " cried Wilkins, slapping his knee. "If it's to bethe People's party, why, in the name o' God, must yo put a yoongripstitch like yon at the head of it? a man who'll just mak _use_ of usall, you an' me, and ivery man Jack of us, for his own advancement, an'ull kick us down when he's done with us! Why shouldn't he? What is he?Is he a man of _us_--bone of our bone? He's a _landlord_, and anaristocrat, I tell tha! What have the likes of him ever been but thornsin our side? When have the landlords ever gone with the people? Havethey not been the blight and the curse of the country for hun'erds ofyears? And you're goin' to tell me that a man bred out o' _them_--livingon his rent and interest--grinding the faces of the poor, I'll be boundif the truth were known, as all the rest of them do--is goin' to lead_me_, an' those as'll act with me to the pullin' down of the landlords!Why are we to go lickspittlin' to any man of his sort to do our work forus? Let him go to his own class--I'm told Mr. Wharton is mighty fond ofcountesses, and they of him!--or let him set up as the friend of theworking man just as he likes--I'm quite agreeable!--I shan't make anybones about takin' his _vote_; but I'm not goin' to make him master overme, and give him the right to speak for my mates in the House ofCommons. I'd cut my hand off fust!"

Leven grinned in the background. Bennett lay back in his chair with aworried look. Wilkins's crudities were very distasteful to him both inand out of the House. The younger of the Socialist workmen, a mason, with a strong square face, incongruously lit somehow with the eyes ofthe religious dreamer, looked at Wilkins contemptuously. 

"There's none of you in the House will take orders, " he said quickly, "and that's the ruin of us. We all know that. Where do you think we'dhave been in the struggle with the employers, if we'd gone about ourbusiness as you're going about yours in the House of Commons?"

"I'm not saying we shouldn't _organise_, " said Wilkins, fiercely. "WhatI'm sayin' is, get a man of the working class--a man who has the _wants_of the working class--a man whom the working class can get a hold on--todo your business for you, and not any bloodsucking landlord orcapitalist. It's a slap i' the face to ivery honest working man i' thecoontry, to mak' a Labour party and put Harry Wharton at t' head of it!"

The young Socialist looked at him askance. "Of course you'd like ityourself!" was what he was thinking. "But they'll take a man as can holdhis own with the swells--and quite right too!"

"And if Mr. Wharton _is_ a landlord he's a good sort!" exclaimed theshoemaker--a tall, lean man in a well-brushed frock coat. "There's manyon us knows as have been to hear him speak, what he's tried to do aboutthe land, and the co-operative farming. E's _straight_ is Mr. Wharton. We 'aven't got Socialism yet--an' it isn't 'is fault bein' a landlord. Ee was born it. "

"I tell tha he's playin' for his own hand!" said Wilkins, doggedly, thered spot deepening on his swarthy cheek--"he's runnin' that paper forhis own hand--Haven't I had experience of him? I know it--And I'll proveit some day! He's one for featherin' his own nest is Mr. Wharton--andwhen he's doon it by makkin' fools of us, he'll leave us to whistle forany good we're iver likely to get out o' _him. He_ go agen the landlordswhen it coom to the real toossle, --I know 'em--I tell tha--I know 'em!"

A woman's voice, clear and scornful, broke into the talk. 

"It's a little strange to think, isn't it, that while we in London go ongroaning and moaning about insanitary houses, and making our smallattempts here and there, half of the country poor of England have beenre-housed in our generation by these same landlords--no fuss aboutit--and rents for five-roomed cottages, somewhere about one andfourpence a week!"

Hallin swung his chair round and looked at the speaker--amazed!

Wilkins also stared at her under his eyebrows. He did not likewomen--least of all, ladies. 

He gruffly replied that if they had done anything like as much as shesaid--which, he begged her pardon, but he didn't believe--it was donefor the landlords' own purposes, either to buy off public opinion, orjust for show and aggrandisement. People who had prize pigs and prizecattle must have prize cottages of course--"with a race of slavesinside 'em!"

Marcella, bright-eyed, erect, her thin right hand hanging over her knee, went avengingly into facts--the difference between landlords' villagesand "open" villages; the agrarian experiments made by different greatlandlords; the advantage to the community, even from the Socialist pointof view of a system which had preserved the land in great blocks, forthe ultimate use of the State, as compared with a system like theFrench, which had for ever made Socialism impossible. 

Hallin's astonishment almost swept away his weariness. 

"Where in the world did she get it all from, and is she standing on herhead or am I?"

After an animated little debate, in which Bennett and the two workmenjoined, while Wilkins sat for the most part in moody, contemptuoussilence, and Marcella, her obstinacy roused, carried through her defenceof the landlords with all a woman's love of emphasis and paradox, everybody rose simultaneously to say good-night. 

"You ought to come and lead a debate down at our Limehouse club, " saidBennett pleasantly to Marcella, as she held out her hand to him; "you'dtake a lot of beating. "

"Yet I'm a Venturist, you know, " she said, laughing; "I _am_. "

He shook his head, laughed too, and departed. 

When the four had gone, Marcella turned upon Hallin. 

"Are there many of these Labour members like _that_?"

Her tone was still vibrating and sarcastic. 

"He's not much of a talker, our Nehemiah, " said Hallin, smiling; "but hehas the most extraordinary power as a speaker over a large popularaudience that I have ever seen. The man's honesty is amazing, --it's histempers and his jealousies get in his way. You astonished him; but, forthe matter of that, you astonished Frank and me still more!"

And as he fell back into his chair, Marcella caught a flash ofexpression, a tone that somehow put her on her defence. 

"I was not going to listen to such unjust stuff without a word. Politicsis one thing--slanderous abuse is another!" she said, throwing back herhead with a gesture which instantly brought back to Hallin the scene inthe Mellor drawing-room, when she had denounced the game-laws andWharton had scored his first point. 

He was silent, feeling a certain inner exasperation with women and theirways. 

"'She only did it to annoy, '" cried Frank Leven; "'because she knows itteases. ' _We_ know very well what she thinks of us. But where did youget it all from, Miss Boyce? I just wish you'd tell me. There's a horridRadical in the House I'm always having rows with--and upon my word Ididn't know there was half so much to be said for us!"

Marcella flushed. 

"Never mind where I got it!" she said. 

In reality, of course, it was from those Agricultural Reports she hadworked through the year before under Wharton's teaching, with so muchangry zest, and to such different purpose. 

 * * * * *

When the door closed upon her and upon Frank Leven, who was to escorther home, Hallin walked quickly over to the table, and stood looking fora moment in a sort of bitter reverie at Raeburn's photograph. 

His sister followed him, and laid her hand on his shoulder. 

"Do go to bed, Edward! I am afraid that talk has tired you dreadfully. "

"It would be no good going to bed, dear, " he said, with a sigh ofexhaustion. "I will sit and read a bit, and see if I can get myself intosleeping trim. But you go, Alice--good-night. "

When she had gone he threw himself into his chair again with thethought--"She must contradict here as she contradicted there! _She_--andjustice! If she could have been just to a landlord for one hour lastyear--"

He spent himself for a while in endless chains of recollection, oppressed by the clearness of his own brain, and thirsting for sleep. Then from the affairs of Raeburn and Marcella, he passed with a freshsense of strain and effort to his own. That discussion with those fourmen which had filled the first part of the evening weighed upon him inhis weakness of nerve, so that suddenly in the phantom silence of thenight, all life became an oppression and a terror, and rest, eitherto-night or in the future, a thing never to be his. 

He had come to the moment of difficulty, of tragedy, in a career whichso far, in spite of all drawbacks of physical health and crampedactivities, had been one of singular happiness and success. Ever sincehe had discovered his own gifts as a lecturer to working men, content, cheerfulness, nay, a passionate interest in every hour, had been quitecompatible for him with all the permanent limitations of his lot. Thestudy of economical and historical questions; the expression throughthem of such a hunger for the building of a "city of God" among men, asfew are capable of; the evidence not to be ignored even by his modesty, and perpetually forthcoming over a long period of time, that he had thepower to be loved, the power to lead, among those toilers of the worldon whom all his thoughts centred--these things had been his joy, and hadled him easily through much self-denial to the careful husbanding ofevery hour of strength and time in the service of his ideal end. 

And now he had come upon opposition--the first cooling of friendships, the first distrust of friends that he had ever known. 

Early in the spring of this year a book called _To-morrow and the Land_had appeared in London, written by a young London economist of greatability, and dealing with the nationalisation of the land. It did notoffer much discussion of the general question, but it took up thequestion as it affected England specially and London in particular. Itshowed--or tried to show--in picturesque detail what might be theconsequences for English rural or municipal life of throwing all landinto a common or national stock, of expropriating the landlords, andtransferring all rent to the people, to the effacement of taxation andthe indefinite enrichment of the common lot. The book differed from_Progress and Poverty_, which also powerfully and directly affected theEnglish working class, in that it suggested a financial scheme, of greatapparent simplicity and ingenuity, for the compensation of thelandlords; it was shorter, and more easily to be grasped by the averageworking man; and it was written in a singularly crisp and taking style, and--by the help of a number of telling illustrations borrowed directlyfrom the circumstances of the larger English towns, especially ofLondon--treated with abundant humour. 

The thing had an enormous success--in popular phrase, "caught on. " SoonHallin found, that all the more active and intelligent spirits in theworking-class centres where he was in vogue as a lecturer weretouched--nay, possessed--by it. The crowd of more or less socialisticnewspapers which had lately sprung up in London were full of it; theworking men's clubs rang with it. It seemed to him a madness--aninfection; and it spread like one. The book had soon reached an immensesale, and was in every one's hands. 

To Hallin, a popular teacher, interested above all in the mingledproblems of ethics and economics, such an incident was naturally ofextreme importance. But he was himself opposed by deepest conviction, intellectual and moral, to the book and its conclusions. The more itssuccess grew, the more eager and passionate became his own desire tobattle with it. His platform, of course, was secured to him; hisopenings many. Hundreds and thousands of men all over England were keento know what he had to say about the new phenomenon. 

And he had been saying his say--throwing into it all his energies, allhis finest work. With the result that--for the first time in elevenyears--he felt his position in the working-class movement giving beneathhis feet, and his influence beginning to drop from his hand. Coldness inplace of enthusiasm; critical aloofness in place of affection; readinessto forget and omit him in matters where he had always hitherto belongedto the inner circle and the trusted few--these bitter ghosts, with theirhard, unfamiliar looks, had risen of late in his world of idealisteffort and joy, and had brought with them darkness and chill. He couldnot give way, for he had a singular unity of soul--it had been thesource of his power--and every economical or social conviction was insome way bound up with the moral and religious passion which was hisbeing--his inmost nature. And his sensitive state of nerve and brain, his anchorite's way of life, did not allow him the distractions of othermen. The spread of these and other similar ideas seemed to him aquestion of the future of England; and he had already begun to throwhimself into the unequal struggle with a martyr's tenacity, and withsome prescience of the martyr's fate. 

Even Bennett! As he sat there alone in the dim lamp-light, his head bentover his knees, his hands hanging loosely before him, he thoughtbitterly of the defection of that old friend who had stood by himthrough so many lesser contests. It was _impossible_ that Bennettshould think the schemes of that book feasible! Yet he was one of thehonestest of men, and, within a certain range, one of the mostclear-headed. As for the others, they had been all against him. Intellectually, their opinion did not matter to him; but morally it wasso strange to him to find himself on the side of doubt and dissent, while all his friends were talking language which was almost thelanguage of a new faith!

He had various lecturing engagements ahead, connected with this greatdebate which was now surging throughout the Labour world of London. Hehad accepted them with eagerness; in these weary night hours he lookedforward to them with terror, seeing before him perpetually thousands ofhostile faces, living in a nightmare of lost sympathies and brokenfriendships. Oh, for _sleep_--for the power to rest--to escape thiscorrosion of an ever active thought, which settled and reconcilednothing!

"_The tragedy of life lies in the conflict between the creative will ofman and the hidden wisdom of the world, which seems to thwart it_. "These words, written by one whose thought had penetrated deep into hisown, rang in his ears as he sat brooding there. Not the hidden fate, orthe hidden evil, but the hidden _wisdom_. Could one die and stillbelieve it? Yet what else was the task of faith?

CHAPTER VI. 

"So I understand you wish me to go down at once?" said Louis Craven. "This is Friday--say Monday?"

Wharton nodded. He and Craven were sitting in Marcella's littlesitting-room. Their hostess and Edith Craven had escaped through thedoor in the back kitchen communicating with the Hurds' tenement, so thatthe two men might be left alone a while. The interview between them hadgone smoothly, and Louis Craven had accepted immediate employment on the_Labour Clarion_, as the paper's correspondent in the Midlands, withspecial reference to the important strike just pending. Wharton, whosetendency in matters of business was always to go rather further than hehad meant to go, for the sake generally of making an impression on theman with whom he was dealing, had spoken of a two years' engagement, andhad offered two hundred a year. So far as that went, Craven wasabundantly satisfied. 

"And I understand from you, " he said, "that the paper _goes in_ for thestrike, that you will fight it through?"

He fixed his penetrating greenish eyes on his companion. Louis Cravenwas now a tall man with narrow shoulders, a fine oval head and face, delicate features, and a nervous look of short sight, producing inappearance and manner a general impression of thin grace and of acourtesy which was apt to pass unaccountably into sarcasm. Wharton hadnever felt himself personally at ease with him, either now, or in theold days of Venturist debates. 

"Certainly, we shall fight it through, " Wharton replied, withemphasis--"I have gone through the secretary's statement, which I nowhand over to you, and I never saw a clearer case. The poor wretches havebeen skinned too long; it is high time the public backed them up. Thereare two of the masters in the House. Denny, I should say, belonged quiteto the worst type of employer going. "

He spoke with light venom, buttoning his coat as he spoke with the airof the busy public man who must not linger over an appointment. 

"Oh! Denny!" said Craven, musing; "yes, Denny is a hard man, but a justone according to his lights. There are plenty worse than he. "

Wharton was disagreeably reminded of the Venturist habit of neveraccepting anything that was said quite as it stood--of not, even insmall things, "swearing to the words" of anybody. He was conscious ofthe quick passing feeling that his judgment, with regard to Denny, oughtto have been enough for Craven. 

"One thing more, " said Craven suddenly, as Wharton looked for hisstick--"you see there is talk of arbitration. "

"Oh yes, I know!" said Wharton impatiently; "a mere blind. The men havebeen done by it twice before. They get some big-wig from theneighbourhood--not in the trade, indeed, but next door to it--and, ofcourse, the award goes against the men. "

"Then the paper will not back arbitration?"

Craven took out a note-book. 

"No!--The quarrel itself is as plain as a pikestaff. The men are askingfor a mere pittance, and must get it if they are to live. It's like allthese home industries, abominably ground down. We must go for them! Imean to go for them hot and strong. Poor devils! did you read theevidence in that Bluebook last year? Arbitration? no, indeed! let themlive first!"

Craven looked up absently. 

"And I think, " he said, "you gave me Mr. Thorpe's address?" Mr. Thorpewas the secretary. 

Again Wharton gulped down his annoyance. If he chose to be expansive, itwas not for Craven to take no notice. 

Craven, however, except in print, where he could be as vehement asanybody else, never spoke but in the driest way of those workman'sgrievances, which in reality burnt at the man's heart. A deepdisdain for what had always seemed to him the cheapest form ofself-advertisement, held him back. It was this dryness, combined with anamazing disinterestedness, which had so far stood in his way. 

Wharton repeated the address, following it up by some rather curtdirections as to the length and date of articles, to which Craven gavethe minutest attention. 

"May we come in?" said Marcella's voice. 

"By all means, " said Wharton, with a complete change of tone. "Businessis up and I am off!"

He took up his hat as he spoke. 

"Not at all! Tea is just coming, without which no guest departs, " saidMarcella, taking as she spoke a little tray from the red-haired Daisywho followed her, and motioning to the child to bring the tea-table. 

Wharton looked at her irresolute. He had spent half an hour with her_tête-à-tête_ before Louis Craven arrived, and he was really due at theHouse. But now that she was on the scene again, he did not find it soeasy to go away. How astonishingly beautiful she was, even in thisdisguise! She wore her nurse's dress; for her second daily round beganat half-past four, and her cloak, bonnet, and bag were lying ready on achair beside her. The dress was plain brown holland, with collar andarmlets of white linen; but, to Wharton's eye, the dark Italian head, and the long slenderness of form had never shown more finely. Hehesitated and stayed. 

"All well?" said Marcella, in a half whisper, as she passed Louis Cravenon her way to get some cake. 

He nodded and smiled, and she went back to the tea-table with an eye allgaiety, pleased with herself and everybody else. 

The quarter of an hour that followed went agreeably enough. Wharton satamong the little group, far too clever to patronise a cat, let alone aVenturist, but none the less master and conscious master of theoccasion, because it suited him to take the airs of equality. Cravensaid little, but as he lounged in Marcella's long cane chair with hisarms behind his head, his serene and hazy air showed him contented; andMarcella talked and laughed with the animation that belongs to one whoseplots for improving the universe have at least temporarily succeeded. Or did it betray, perhaps, a woman's secret consciousness of somepresence beside her, more troubling and magnetic to her than others?

"Well then, Friday, " said Wharton at last, when his time was more thanspent. --"You must be there early, for there will be a crush. Miss Cravencomes too? Excellent! I will tell the doorkeeper to look out for you. Good-bye!--good-bye!"

And with a hasty shake of the hand to the Cravens, and one more keenglance, first at Marcella and then round the little workman's room inwhich they had been sitting, he went. 

He had hardly departed before Anthony Craven, the lame elder brother, who must have passed him on the stairs, appeared. 

"Well--any news?" he said, as Marcella found him a chair. 

"All right!" said Louis, whose manner had entirely changed since Whartonhad left the room. "I am to go down on Monday to report the Damesleystrike that is to be. A month's trial, and then a salary--two hundred ayear. Oh! it'll do. "

He fidgeted and looked away from his brother, as though trying to hidehis pleasure. But in spite of him it transformed every line of thepinched and worn face. 

"And you and Anna will walk to the Registry Office next week?" saidAnthony, sourly, as he took his tea. 

"It can't be next week, " said Edith Craven's quiet voice, interposing. "Anna's got to work out her shirt-making time. She only left thetailoresses and began this new business ten days ago. And she was tohave a month at each. "

Marcella's lifted eyebrows asked for explanations. She had not yet seenLouis's betrothed, but she was understood to be a character, and abetter authority on many Labour questions than he. 

Louis explained that Anna was exploring various sweated trades for thebenefit of an East End newspaper. She had earned fourteen shillings herlast week at tailoring, but the feat had exhausted her so much that hehad been obliged to insist on two or three days respite before moving onto shirts. Shirts were now brisk, and the hours appallingly long in thisheat. 

"It was on shirts they made acquaintance, " said Edith pensively. "Louiswas lodging on the second floor, she in the third floor back, and theyused to pass on the stairs. One day she heard him imploring the littleslavey to put some buttons on his shirts. The slavey tossed her head, and said she'd see about it. When he'd gone out, Anna came downstairs, calmly demanded his shirts, and, having the slavey under her thumb, gotthem, walked off with them, and mended them all. When Louis came home hediscovered a neat heap reposing on his table. Of course hewept--whatever he may say. But next morning Miss Anna found her shoesoutside her door, blacked as they had never been blacked before, with anote inside one of them. Affecting! wasn't it? Thenceforward, as long asthey remained in those lodgings, Anna mended and Louis blacked. Naturally, Anthony and I drew our conclusions. "

Marcella laughed. 

"You must bring her to see me, " she said to Louis. 

"I will, " said Louis, with some perplexity; "if I can get hold of her. But when she isn't stitching she's writing, or trying to set up Unions. She does the work of six. She'll earn nearly as much as I do when we'remarried. Oh! we shall swim!"

Anthony surveyed his radiant aspect--so unlike the gentle or satiricaldetachment which made his ordinary manner--with a darkening eye, asthough annoyed by his effusion. 

"Two hundred a year?" he said slowly; "about what Mr. Harry Whartonspends on his clothes, I should think. The Labour men tell me he issuperb in that line. And for the same sum that he spends on his clothes, he is able to buy _you_, Louis, body and soul, and you seem inclined tobe grateful. "

"Never mind, " said Louis recklessly. "He didn't buy some one else--and I_am_ grateful!"

"No; by Heaven, you shan't be!" said Anthony, with a fierce change oftone. "_You_ the dependent of that charlatan! I don't know how I'm toput up with it. You know very well what I think of him, and of yourbecoming dependent on him. "

Marcella gave an angry start. Louis protested. 

"Nonsense!" said Anthony doggedly; "you'll have to bear it from me, Itell you--unless you muzzle me too with an Anna. "

"But I don't see why _I_ should bear it, " said Marcella, turning uponhim. "I think you know that I owe Mr. Wharton a debt. Please rememberit!"

Anthony looked at her an instant in silence. A question crossed hismind concerning her. Then he made her a little clumsy bow. 

"I am dumb, " he said. "My manners, you perceive, are what they alwayswere. "

"What do you mean by such a remark, " cried Marcella, fuming. "How can aman who has reached the position he has in so short a time--in so manydifferent worlds--be disposed of by calling him an ugly name? It is morethan unjust--it is absurd! Besides, what can you know of him?"

"You forget, " said Anthony, as he calmly helped himself to more breadand butter, "that it is some three years since Master Harry Whartonjoined the Venturists and began to be heard of at all. I watched hisbeginnings, and if I didn't know him well, my friends and Louis's did. And most of them--as he knows!--have pretty strong opinions by now aboutthe man. "

"Come, come, Anthony!" said Louis, "nobody expects a man of that type tobe the pure-eyed patriot. But neither you nor I can deny that he hasdone some good service. Am I asked to take him to my bosom? Not at all!He proposes a job to me, and offers to pay me. I like the job, and meanto use him and his paper, both to earn some money that I want, and do abit of decent work. "

"_You_--use Harry Wharton!" said the cripple, with a sarcasm thatbrought the colour to Louis's thin cheek and made Marcella angrier thanbefore. She saw nothing in his attack on Wharton, except personalprejudice and ill-will. It was natural enough, that a man of AnthonyCraven's type--poor, unsuccessful, and embittered--should dislike apopular victorious personality. 

"Suppose we leave Mr. Wharton alone?" she said with emphasis, andAnthony, making her a little proud gesture of submission, threw himselfback in his chair, and was silent. 

It had soon become evident to Marcella, upon the renewal of herfriendship with the Cravens, that Anthony's temper towards all men, especially towards social reformers and politicians, had developed intoa mere impotent bitterness. While Louis had renounced his art, anddevoted himself to journalism, unpaid public work and starvation, thathe might so throw himself the more directly into the Socialist battle, Anthony had remained an artist, mainly employed as before in decorativedesign. Yet he was probably the more fierce Venturist and anticapitalistof the two. Only what with Louis was an intoxication of hope, was on thewhole with Anthony a counsel of despair. He loathed wealth morepassionately than ever; but he believed less in the working man, less inhis kind. Rich men must cease to exist; but the world on any terms wouldprobably remain a sorry spot. 

In the few talks that he had had with Marcella since she left thehospital, she had allowed him to gather more or less clearly--thoughwith hardly a mention of Aldous Raeburn's name--what had happened to herat Mellor. Anthony Craven thought out the story for himself, finding ita fit food for a caustic temper. Poor devil--the lover! To fall a victimto enthusiasms so raw, so unprofitable from any point of view, was hard. And as to this move to London, he thought he foresaw the certain end ofit. At any rate he believed in her no more than before. But her beautywas more marked than ever, and would, of course, be the dominant factorin her fate. He was thankful, at any rate, that Louis in this two years'interval had finally transferred his heart elsewhere. 

After watching his three companions for a while, he broke in upon theirchat with an abrupt--

"What _is_ this job, Louis?"

"I told you. I am to investigate, report, and back up the Damesleystrike, or rather the strike that begins at Damesley next week. "

"No chance!" said Anthony shortly, "the masters are too strong. I had atalk with Denny yesterday. "

The Denny he meant, however, was not Wharton's colleague in the House, but his son--a young man who, beginning life as the heir of one of themost stiff-backed and autocratic of capitalists, had developed socialistopinions, renounced his father's allowance, and was now a member of the"intellectual proletariat, " as they have been called, the free-lances ofthe Collectivist movement. He had lately joined the Venturists. Anthonyhad taken a fancy to him. Louis as yet knew little or nothing of him. 

"Ah, well!" he said, in reply to his brother, "I don't know. I think the_Clarion can_ do something. The press grows more and more powerful inthese things. "

And he repeated some of the statements that Wharton had made--thatWharton always did make, in talking of the _Clarion_--as to its growthunder his hands, and increasing influence in Labour disputes. 

"Bunkum!" interrupted Anthony drily; "pure bunkum! My own belief isthat the _Clarion_ is a rotten property, and that he knows it!"

At this both Marcella and Louis laughed out. Extravagance after acertain point becomes amusing. They dropped their vexation, and Anthonyfor the next ten minutes had to submit to the part of the fractiousperson whom one humours but does not argue with. He accepted the part, saying little, his eager, feverish eyes, full of hostility, glancingfrom one to the other. 

However, at the end, Marcella bade him a perfectly friendly farewell. Itwas always in her mind that Anthony Craven was lame and solitary, andher pity no less than her respect for him had long since yielded him theright to be rude. 

"How are you getting on?" he said to her abruptly as he dropped herhand. 

"Oh, very well! my superintendent leaves me almost alone now, which is acompliment. There is a parish doctor who calls me 'my good woman, ' and asanitary inspector who tells me to go to him whenever I want advice. Those are my chief grievances, I think. "

"And you are as much in love with the poor as ever?"

She stiffened at the note of sarcasm, and a retaliatory impulse made hersay:--

"I see a great deal more happiness than I expected. "

He laughed. 

"How like a woman! A few ill-housed villagers made you a democrat. A fewwell-paid London artisans will carry you safely back to your class. Yourpeople were wise to let you take this work. "

"Do you suppose I nurse none but well-paid artisans?" she asked him, mocking. "And I didn't say 'money' or 'comfort, ' did I? but 'happiness. 'As for my 'democracy, ' you are not perhaps the best judge. "

She stood resting both hands on a little table behind her, in anattitude touched with the wild freedom which best became her, a gleam ofstorm in her great eyes. 

"Why are you still a Venturist?" he asked her abruptly. 

"Because I have every right to be! I joined a society, pledged to work'for a better future. ' According to my lights, I do what poor work I canin that spirit. "

"_You_ are not a Socialist. Half the things you say, or imply, show it. And we _are_ Socialists. "

She hesitated, looking at him steadily. 

"No!--so far as Socialism means a political system--the trampling out ofprivate enterprise and competition, and all the rest of it--I findmyself slipping away from it more and more. No!--as I go about amongthese wage-earners, the emphasis--do what I will--comes to lie less andless on possession--more and more on character. I go to two tenements inthe same building. One is Hell--the other Heaven. Why? Both belong towell-paid artisans with equal opportunities. Both, so far as I can see, might have a decent and pleasant life of it. But one is a man--theother, with all his belongings, will soon be a vagabond. That is notall, I know--oh! don't trouble to tell me so!--but it is more than Ithought. No!--my sympathies in this district where I work are not somuch with the Socialists that I know here--saving your presence!but--with the people, for instance, that slave at Charity Organisation!and get all the abuse from all sides. "

Anthony laughed scornfully. 

"It is always the way with a woman, " he said; "she invariably prefersthe tinkers to the reformers. "

"And as to your Socialism, " she went on, unheeding, the thought of manydays finding defiant expression--"it seems to me like all otherinteresting and important things--destined to help something else!Christianity begins with the poor and division of goods--it becomes thegreat bulwark of property and the feudal state. The Crusades--they setout to recover the tomb of the Lord!--what they did was to increasetrade and knowledge. And so with Socialism. It talks of a neworder--what it _will_ do is to help to make the old sound!"

Anthony clapped her ironically. 

"Excellent! When the Liberty and Property Defence people have got holdof you--ask me to come and hear!"

Meanwhile, Louis stood behind, with his hands on his sides, a smile inhis blinking eyes. He really had a contempt for what a handsomehalf-taught girl of twenty-three might think. Anthony only pretended ordesired to have it. 

Nevertheless, Louis said good-bye to his hostess with real, and, forhim, rare effusion. Two years before, for the space of some months, hehad been in love with her. That she had never responded with anythingwarmer than liking and comradeship he knew; and his Anna now possessedhim wholly. But there was a deep and gentle chivalry at the bottom ofall his stern social faiths; and the woman towards whom he had once feltas he had towards Marcella Boyce could never lose the glamour lent herby that moment of passionate youth. And now, so kindly, so eagerly!--shehad given him his Anna. 

When they were all gone Marcella threw herself into her chair a momentto think. Her wrath with Anthony was soon dismissed. But Louis's thankshad filled her with delicious pleasure. Her cheek, her eye had a child'sbrightness. The old passion for ruling and influencing was all alive andhappy. 

"I will see it is all right, " she was saying to herself. "I will lookafter them. "

What she meant was, "I will see that Mr. Wharton looks after them!" andthrough the link of thought, memory flew quickly back to that_tête-à-tête_ with him which had preceded the Cravens' arrival. 

How changed he was, yet how much the same! He had not sat beside her forten minutes before each was once more vividly, specially conscious ofthe other. She felt in him the old life and daring, the old imperiousclaim to confidence, to intimacy--on the other hand a new atmosphere, anew gravity, which suggested growing responsibilities, the difficultiesof power, a great position--everything fitted to touch such animagination as Marcella's, which, whatever its faults, was noble, bothin quality and range. The brow beneath the bright chestnut curls hadgained lines that pleased her--lines that a woman marks, because shethinks they mean experience an I mastery. 

Altogether, to have met him again was pleasure; to think of him waspleasure; to look forward to hearing him speak in Parliament waspleasure; so too was his new connection with her old friends. And apleasure which took nothing from self-respect; which was open, honourable, eager. As for that ugly folly of the past, she frowned atthe thought of it, only to thrust the remembrance passionately away. That _he_ should remember or allude to it, would put an end tofriendship. Otherwise friends they would and should be; and the personalinterest in his public career should lift her out of the crampinginfluences that flow from the perpetual commerce of poverty andsuffering. Why not? Such equal friendships between men and women growmore possible every day. While, as for Hallin's distrust, and AnthonyCraven's jealous hostility, why should a third person be bound by eitherof them? Could any one suppose that such a temperament as Wharton'swould be congenial to Hallin or to Craven--or--to yet another person, ofwhom she did not want to think? Besides, who wished to make a hero ofhim? It was the very complexity and puzzle of the character that madeits force. 

 * * * * *

So with a reddened cheek, she lost herself a few minutes in thispleasant sense of a new wealth in life; and was only roused from thedreamy running to and fro of thought by the appearance of Minta, whocame to clear away the tea. 

"Why, it is close on the half-hour!" cried Marcella, springing up. "Where are my things?"

She looked down the notes of her cases, satisfied herself that her bagcontained all she wanted, and then hastily tied on her bonnet and cloak. 

Suddenly--the room was empty, for Minta had just gone away with thetea--by a kind of subtle reaction, the face in that photograph onHallin's table flashed into her mind--its look--the grizzled hair. Withan uncontrollable pang of pain she dropped her hands from the fasteningsof her cloak, and wrung them together in front of her--a dumb gesture ofcontrition and of grief. 

She!--she talk of social reform and "character, " she give her opinion, as of right, on points of speculation and of ethics, she, whose mainachievement so far had been to make a good man suffer! Somethingbelittling and withering swept over all her estimate of herself, all herpleasant self-conceit. Quietly, with downcast eyes, she went her way. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Her first case was in Brown's Buildings itself--a woman suffering frombronchitis and heart complaint, and tormented besides by an ulceratedfoot which Marcella had now dressed daily for some weeks. She lived onthe top floor of one of the easterly blocks, with two daughters and ason of eighteen. 

When Marcella entered the little room it was as usual spotlessly cleanand smelt of flowers. The windows were open, and a young woman was busyshirt-ironing on a table in the centre of the room. Both she and hermother looked up with smiles as Marcella entered. Then, they introducedher with some ceremony to a "lady, " who was sitting beside the patient, a long-faced melancholy woman employed at the moment in marking linenhandkerchiefs, which she did with extraordinary fineness and delicacy. The patient and her daughter spoke of Marcella to their friend as "theyoung person, " but all with a natural courtesy and charm that could nothave been surpassed. 

Marcella knelt to undo the wrappings of the foot. The woman, a paletransparent creature, winced painfully as the dressing was drawn off;but between each half stifled moan of pain she said something eager andgrateful to her nurse. "I never knew any one, Nurse, do it as gentle asyou--" or--"I _do_ take it kind of you, Nurse, to do it so _slow_--oh!there were a young person before you--" or "hasn't she got nice hands, Mrs. Burton? they don't never seem to _jar_ yer. "

"Poor foot! but I think it is looking better, " said Marcella, getting upat last from her work, when all was clean and comfortable and she hadreplaced the foot on the upturned wooden box that supported it--for itsowner was not in bed, but sitting propped up in an old armchair. "Andhow is your cough, Mrs. Jervis?"

"Oh! it's very bad, nights, " said Mrs. Jervis, mildly--"disturbs Emilydreadful. But I always pray every night, when she lifts me into bed, asI may be took before the morning, an' God ull do it soon. "

"Mother!" cried Emily, pausing in her ironing, "you know you oughtn't tosay them things. "

Mrs. Jervis looked at her with a sly cheerfulness. Her emaciated facewas paler than usual because of the pain of the dressing, but from thefrail form there breathed an indomitable air of _life_, a gay courageindeed which had already struck Marcella with wonder. 

"Well, yer not to take 'em to heart, Em'ly. It ull be when it willbe--for the Lord likes us to pray, but He'll take his own time--an'she's got troubles enough of her own, Nurse. D'yer see as she's leff offher ring?"

Marcella looked at Emily's left hand, while the girl flushed all over, and ironed with a more fiery energy than before. 

"I've 'eerd such things of 'im, Nurse, this last two days, " she saidwith low vehemence--"as I'm _never_ goin' to wear it again. It 'ud burnme!"

Emily was past twenty. Some eighteen months before this date she hadmarried a young painter. After nearly a year of incredible misery herbaby was born. It died, and she very nearly died also, owing to thebrutal ill-treatment of her husband. As soon as she could get on herfeet again, she tottered home to her widowed mother, broken for the timein mind and body, and filled with loathing of her tyrant. He made noeffort to recover her, and her family set to work to mend if they couldwhat he had done. The younger sister of fourteen was earning sevenshillings a week at paper-bag making; the brother, a lad of eighteen, had been apprenticed by his mother, at the cost of heroic efforts somesix years before, to the leather-currying trade, in a highly skilledbranch of it, and was now taking sixteen shillings a week with theprospect of far better things in the future. He at once put aside fromhis earnings enough to teach Emily "the shirt-ironing, " denying himselfevery indulgence till her training was over. 

Then they had their reward. Emily's colour and spirits came back; herearnings made all the difference to the family between penury and ease;while she and her little sister kept the three tiny rooms in which theylived, and waited on their invalid mother, with exquisite cleanlinessand care. 

Marcella stood by the ironing-table a moment after the girl's speech. 

"Poor Emily!" she said softly, laying her hand on the ringless one thatheld down the shirt on the board. 

Emily looked up at her in silence. But the girl's eyes glowed withthings unsaid and inexpressible--the "eternal passion, eternal pain, "which in half the human race have no voice. 

"He was a very rough man was Em'ly's husband, " said Mrs. Jervis, in herdelicate thoughtful voice--"a very uncultivated man. "

Marcella turned round to her, startled and amused by the adjective. Butthe other two listeners took it quite quietly. It seemed to themapparently to express what had to be said. 

"It's a sad thing is want of edication, " Mrs. Jervis went on in the sametone. "Now there's that lady there"--with a little courtly wave of herhand towards Mrs. Burton--"she can't read yer know, Nurse, and I'm thatsorry for her! But I've been reading to her, an' Emily--just while mycough's quiet--one of my ole tracks. "

She held up a little paper-covered tract worn with use. It was called "APennorth of Grace, or a Pound of Works?" Marcella looked at it inrespectful silence as she put on her cloak. Such things were not in herline. 

"I do _love_ a track!" said Mrs. Jervis, pensively. "That's why I don'tlike these buildings so well as them others, Em'ly. Here you never getno tracks; and there, what with one person and another, there was a newone most weeks. But"--her voice dropped, and she looked timidly first ather friend, and then at Marcella--"she isn't a Christian, Nurse. Isn'tit sad?"

Mrs. Burton, a woman of a rich mahogany complexion, with a black"front, " and a mouth which turned down decisively at the corners, looked up from her embroidery with severe composure. 

"No, Nurse, I'm not a Christian, " she said in the tone of one stating adisagreeable fact for which they are noways responsible. "My brotheris--and my sisters--real good Christian people. One of my sistersmarried a gentleman up in Wales. She 'as two servants, an' fam'lyprayers reg'lar. But I've never felt no 'call, ' and I tell 'em I can'tpurtend. An' Mrs. Jervis here, she don't seem to make me see it nodifferent. "

She held her head erect, however, as though the unusually high sense ofprobity involved, was, after all, some consolation. Mrs. Jervis lookedat her with pathetic eyes. But Emily coloured hotly. Emily was achurchwoman. 

"Of course you're a Christian, Mrs. Burton, " she said indignantly. "Whatshe means, Nurse, is she isn't a 'member' of any chapel, like mother. But she's been baptised and confirmed, for I asked her. And of courseshe's a Christian. "

"Em'ly!" said Mrs. Jervis, with energy. 

Emily looked round trembling. The delicate invalid was sitting boltupright, her eyes sparkling, a spot of red on either hollow cheek. Theglances of the two women crossed; there seemed to be a mute strugglebetween them. Then Emily laid down her iron, stepped quickly across toher mother, and kneeling beside her, threw her arms around her. 

"Have it your own way, mother, " she said, while her lip quivered; "Iwasn't a-goin' to cross you. "

Mrs. Jervis laid her waxen cheek against her daughter's tangle of brownhair with a faint smile, while her breathing, which had grown quick andpanting, gradually subsided. Emily looked up at Marcella with aterrified self-reproach. They all knew that any sudden excitement mightkill out the struggling flame of life. 

"You ought to rest a little, Mrs. Jervis, " said Marcella, with gentleauthority. "You know the dressing must tire you, though you won'tconfess it. Let me put you comfortable. There; aren't the pillows easierso? Now rest--and good-bye. "

But Mrs. Jervis held her, while Emily slipped away. 

"I shall rest soon, " she said significantly. "An' it hurts me when Emilytalks like that. It's the only thing that ever comes atween us. Shethinks o' forms an' ceremonies; an' _I_ think o' _grace_. "

Her old woman's eyes, so clear and vivid under the blanched brow, searched Marcella's face for sympathy. But Marcella stood, shy andwondering in the presence of words and emotions she understood solittle. So narrow a life, in these poor rooms, under these cripplingconditions of disease!--and all this preoccupation with, this passionover, the things not of the flesh, the thwarted, cabined flesh, but ofthe spirit--wonderful!

 * * * * *

On coming out from Brown's Buildings, she turned her steps reluctantlytowards a street some distance from her own immediate neighbourhood, where she had a visit to pay which filled her with repulsion and anunusual sense of helplessness. A clergyman who often availed himself ofthe help of the St. Martin's nurses had asked the superintendent toundertake for him "a difficult case. " Would one of their nurses goregularly to visit a certain house, ostensibly for the sake of a littleboy of five just come back from the hospital, who required care at homefor a while, _really_ for the sake of his young mother, who had suddenlydeveloped drinking habits and was on the road to ruin?

Marcella happened to be in the office when the letter arrived. Shesomewhat unwillingly accepted the task, and she had now paid two orthree visits, always dressing the child's sore leg, and endeavouring tomake acquaintance with the mother. But in this last attempt she had nothad much success. Mrs. Vincent was young and pretty, with a flighty, restless manner. She was always perfectly civil to Marcella, andgrateful to her apparently for the ease she gave the boy. But sheoffered no confidences; the rooms she and her husband occupied showedthem to be well-to-do; Marcella had so far found them well-kept; andthough the evil she was sent to investigate was said to be notorious, she had as yet discovered nothing of it for herself. It seemed to herthat she must be either stupid, or that there must be something abouther which made Mrs. Vincent more secretive with her than with others;and neither alternative pleased her. 

To-day, however, as she stopped at the Vincents' door, she noticed thatthe doorstep, which was as a rule shining white, was muddy andneglected. Then nobody came to open, though she knocked and rangrepeatedly. At last a neighbour, who had been watching the strangenurse through her own parlour window, came out to the street. 

"I think, miss, " she said, with an air of polite mystery, "as you'dbetter walk in. Mrs. Vincent 'asn't been enjyin' very good 'ealth thislast few days. "

Marcella turned the handle, found it yielded, and went in. It was aftersix o'clock, and the evening sun streamed in through a door at the backof the house. But in the Vincents' front parlour the blinds were allpulled down, and the only sound to be heard was the fretful wailing of achild. Marcella timidly opened the sitting-room door. 

The room at first seemed to her dark. Then she perceived Mrs. Vincentsitting by the grate, and the two children on the floor beside her. Theelder, the little invalid, was simply staring at his mother in awretched silence; but the younger, the baby of three, was restlesslythrowing himself hither and thither, now pulling at the woman's skirts, now crying lustily, now whining in a hungry voice, for "Máma! din-din!Máma! din-din!"

Mrs. Vincent neither moved nor spoke, even when Marcella came in. Shesat with her hands hanging over her lap in a desolation incapable ofwords. She was dirty and unkempt; the room was covered with litter; thebreakfast things were still on the table; and the children wereevidently starving. 

Marcella, seized with pity, and divining what had happened, tried torouse and comfort her. But she got no answer. Then she asked formatches. Mrs. Vincent made a mechanical effort to find them, butsubsided helpless with a shake of the head. At last Marcella found themherself, lit a tire of some sticks she discovered in a cupboard, and puton the kettle. Then she cut a slice of bread and dripping for each ofthe children--the only eatables she could find--and after she haddressed Bertie's leg she began to wash up the tea things and tidy theroom, not knowing very well what to be at, but hoping minute by minuteto get Mrs. Vincent to speak to her. 

In the midst of her labours, an elderly woman cautiously opened the doorand beckoned to her. 

Marcella went out into the passage. 

"I'm her mother, miss! I 'eered you were 'ere, an' I follered yer. Oh!such a business as we 'ad, 'er 'usband an' me, a gettin' of 'er 'omelast night. There's a neighbour come to me, an' she says: 'Mrs. Lucas, there's your daughter a drinkin' in that public 'ouse, an' if I was youI'd go and fetch her out; for she's got a lot o' money, an' she'streatin' everybody all round. ' An' Charlie--that's 'er 'usband--ee comealong too, an' between us we got holt on her. An' iver sence we broughther 'ome last night, she set there in that cheer, an' niver a word tonobody! Not to me 't any rate, nor the chillen. I believe 'er 'usbandan' 'er 'ad words this mornin'. But she won't tell me nothin'. She sitsthere--just heart-broke"--the woman put up her apron to her eyes andbegan crying. "She ain't eatin' nothink all day, an' I dursen't leavethe 'ouse out o' me sight--I lives close by, miss--for fear of 'er doing'erself a mischief. "

"How long has she been like this?" said Marcella, drawing the doorcautiously to behind her. 

"About fourteen month, " said the woman, hopelessly. "An' none of usknows why. She was such a neat, pretty girl when she married 'im--an' eesuch a steady fellow. An' I've done _my_ best. I've talked to 'er, an'I've 'id 'er 'at an' her walking things, an' taken 'er money out of 'erpockets. An', bless yer, she's been all right now for seven weeks--tilllast night. Oh, deary, deary, me! whatever 'ull become o' them--'er, an''im, an' the children!"

The tears coursed down the mother's wrinkled face. 

"Leave her to me a little longer, " said Marcella, softly; "but come backto me in about half an hour, and don't let her be alone. "

The woman nodded, and went away. 

Mrs. Vincent turned quickly round as Marcella came back again, and spokefor the first time:

"That was my mother you were talkin' to?"

"Yes, " said Marcella, quietly, as she took the kettle off the fire. "NowI do want you to have a cup of tea, Mrs. Vincent. Will you, if I makeit?"

The poor creature did not speak, but she followed Marcella's movementswith her weary eyes. At last when Marcella knelt down beside her holdingout a cup of tea and some bread and butter, she gave a sudden cry. Marcella hastily put down what she carried, lest it should be knockedout of her hand. 

"He struck me this morning!--Charlie did--the first time in seven years. Look here!"

She pulled up her sleeve, and on her white, delicate arm she showed alarge bruise. As she pointed to it her eyes filled with miserable tears;her lips quivered; anguish breathed in every feature. Yet even in thisabasement Marcella was struck once more with her slim prettiness, herrefined air. This woman drinking and treating in a low public-house atmidnight!--rescued thence by a decent husband!

She soothed her as best she could, but when she had succeeded in makingthe wretched soul take food, and so in putting some physical life intoher, she found herself the recipient of an outburst of agony beforewhich she quailed. The woman clung to her, moaning about her husband, about the demon instinct that had got hold of her, she hardly knewhow--by means it seemed originally of a few weeks of low health andsmall self-indulgences--and she felt herself powerless to fight; aboutthe wreck she had brought upon her home, the shame upon her husband, whowas the respected, well-paid foreman of one of the large shops of theneighbourhood. All through it came back to him. 

"We had words, Nurse, this morning, when he went out to his work. Hesaid he'd nearly died of shame last night; that he couldn't bear it nomore; that he'd take the children from me. And I was all queer in thehead still, and I sauced him--and then--he looked like a devil--and hetook me by the arm--and _threw_ me down--as if I'd been a sack. An' henever, _never, _--touched me--before--in all his life. An' he's nevercome in all day. An' perhaps I shan't ever see him again. An' lasttime--but it wasn't so bad as this--he said he'd try an' love me againif I'd behave. An' he did try--and I tried too. But now it's no good, an' perhaps he'll not come back. Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do!"she flung her arms above her head. "Won't _anybody_ find him? won't_anybody_ help me?"

She dropped a hand upon Marcella's arm, clutching it, her wild eyesseeking her companion's. 

But at the same moment, with the very extremity of her own emotion, acloud of impotence fell upon Marcella. She suddenly felt that she coulddo nothing--that there was nothing in her adequate to such anappeal--nothing strong enough to lift the weight of a human life thusflung upon her. 

She was struck with a dryness, a numbness, that appalled her. She triedstill to soothe and comfort, but nothing that she said went home--tookhold. Between the feeling in her heart which might have reached andtouched this despair, and the woman before her, there seemed to be abarrier she could not break. Or was it that she was really barren andpoor in soul, and had never realised it before? A strange misery rose inher too, as she still knelt, tending and consoling, but with noefficacy--no power. 

At last Mrs. Vincent sank into miserable quiet again. The mother camein, and silently began to put the children to bed. Marcella pressed thewife's cold hand, and went out hanging her head. She had just reachedthe door when it opened, and a man entered. A thrill passed through herat the sight of his honest, haggard face, and this time she found whatto say. 

"I have been sitting by your wife, Mr. Vincent. She is very ill andmiserable, and very penitent. You will be kind to her?"

The husband looked at her, and then turned away. 

"God help us!" he said; and Marcella went without another word, andwith that same wild, unaccustomed impulse of prayer rilling her beingwhich had first stirred in her at Mellor at the awful moment of Hurd'sdeath. 

 * * * * *

She was very silent and distracted at tea, and afterwards--saying thatshe must write some letters and reports--she shut herself up, and badegood-night to Minta and the children. 

But she did not write or read. She hung at the window a long time, watching the stars come out, as the summer light died from the sky, andeven the walls and roofs and chimneys of this interminable London spreadout before her took a certain dim beauty. And then, slipping down on thefloor, with her head against a chair--an attitude of her stormychildhood--she wept with an abandonment and a passion she had not knownfor years. She thought of Mrs. Jervis--the saint--so near to death, sosatisfied with "grace, " so steeped in the heavenly life; then of thepoor sinner she had just left and of the agony she had no power to stay. Both experiences had this in common--that each had had some part inplunging her deeper into this darkness of self-contempt. 

What had come to her? Daring the past weeks there had been somethingwrestling in her--some new birth--some "conviction of sin, " as Mrs. Jervis would have said. As she looked back over all her strenuous youthshe hated it. What was wrong with her? Her own word to Anthony Cravenreturned upon her, mocked her--made now a scourge for her own pride, nota mere, measure of blame for others. Aldous Raeburn, her father andmother, her poor--one and all rose against her--plucked ather--reproached her. "Aye! what, indeed, are wealth and poverty?" crieda voice, which was the voice of them all; "what are opinions--what isinfluence, beauty, cleverness?--what is anything worth but_character_--but _soul?_"

And character--soul--can only be got by self-surrender; andself-surrender comes not of knowledge but of love. 

A number of thoughts and phrases, hitherto of little meaning to her, floated into her mind--sank and pressed there. That strange word "grace"for instance!

A year ago it would not have smitten or troubled her. After her firstinevitable reaction against the evangelical training of her schoolyears, the rebellious cleverness of youth had easily decided thatreligion was played out, that Socialism and Science were enough formankind. 

But nobody could live in hospital--nobody could go among thepoor--nobody could share the thoughts and hopes of people like EdwardHallin and his sister, without understanding that it is still here inthe world--this "grace" that "sustaineth"--however variouslyinterpreted, still living and working, as it worked of old, among thelittle Galilean towns, in Jerusalem, in Corinth. To Edward Hallin it didnot mean the same, perhaps, as it meant to the hard-worked clergymen sheknew, or to Mrs. Jervis. But to all it meant the motive power oflife--something subduing, transforming, delivering--something thatto-night she envied with a passion and a yearning that amazed herself. 

How many things she craved, as an eager child craves them! First somemoral change, she knew not what--then Aldous Raeburn's pardon andfriendship--then and above all, the power to lose herself--the power to_love_. 

Dangerous significant moment in a woman's life--moment at once ofdespair and of illusion!

CHAPTER VIII. 

Wharton was sitting in a secluded corner of the library of the House ofCommons. He had a number of loose sheets of paper on a chair beside him, and others in his hand and on his knee. It was Friday afternoon;questions were going on in the House; and he was running rapidly for thelast time through the notes of his speech, pencilling here and there, and every now and then taking up a volume of Hansard that lay near thathe might verify a quotation. 

An old county member, with a rugged face and eye-glasses, who had beenin Parliament for a generation, came to the same corner to look up aspeech. He glanced curiously at Wharton, with whom he had a familiarHouse-of-Commons acquaintance. 

"Nervous, eh?" he said, as he put on his eye-glasses to inspect firstWharton, then the dates on the backs of the Reports. 

Wharton put his papers finally together, and gave a long stretch. 

"Not particularly. "

"Well, it's a beastly audience!" said the other, carrying off his book. 

Wharton, lost apparently in contemplation of the ceiling, fell into adreamy attitude. But his eye saw nothing of the ceiling, and was not atall dreamy. He was not thinking of his speech, nor of the other man'sremark. He was thinking of Marcella Boyce. 

When he left her the other day he had been conscious, only more vividlyand intensely, more possessively as it were, than she, of the samegeneral impression that had been left upon her. A new opening forpleasure--their meeting presented itself to him, too, in the same way. What had he been about all this time? _Forget_?--such a creature? Why, it was the merest wantonness! As if such women--with such a brow, suchvitality, such a gait--passed in every street!

What possessed him now was an imperious eagerness to push the matter, torecover the old intimacy--and as to what might come out of it, let thegods decide! He could have had but a very raw appreciation of her atMellor. It seemed to him that she had never forced him to think of herthen in absence, as he had thought of her since the last meeting. 

As for the nursing business, and the settlement in Brown's Buildings, itwas, of course, mere play-acting. No doubt when she emerged she would beall the more of a personage for having done it. But she must emergesoon. To rule and shine was as much her _métier_ as it was the _métier_of a bricklayer's labourer to carry hods. By George! what would not LadySelina give for beauty of such degree and kind as that! They must bebrought together. He already foresaw that the man who should launchMarcella Boyce in London would play a stroke for himself as well as forher. And she must be launched in London. Let other people nurse, andpitch their tents in little workmen's flats, and _live_ democracyinstead of preaching it. Her fate was fixed for her by her physique. _Ilne faut pas sortir de son caractère_. 

The sight of Bennett approaching distracted him. 

Bennett's good face showed obvious vexation. 

"He sticks to it, " he said, as Wharton jumped up to meet him. "Talks ofhis conscience--and a lot of windy stuff. He seems to have arranged itwith the Whips. I dare say he won't do much harm. "

"Except to himself, " said Wharton, with dry bitterness. "Goodness! let'sleave him alone!"

He and Bennett lingered a few minutes discussing points of tactics. Wilkins had, of course, once more declared himself the _enfant terrible_of a party which, though still undefined, was drawing nearer day by dayto organised existence and separate leadership. The effect of to-night'sdebate might be of far-reaching importance. Wharton's Resolution, pledging the House to a Legal Eight Hours' Day for all trades, came atthe end of a long and varied agitation, was at the moment in clearpractical relation to labour movements all over the country, and had infact gained greatly in significance and interest since it was firstheard of in public, owing to events of current history. Workableproposals--a moderate tone--and the appearance, at any rate, of harmonyand a united front among the representatives of labour--if so much atleast could be attained to-night, both Wharton and Bennett believed thatnot only the cause itself, but the importance of the Labour party in theHouse would be found to have gained enormously. 

"I hope I shall get my turn before dinner, " said Bennett, as he wasgoing; "I want badly to get off for an hour or so. The division won't betill half-past ten at earliest. "

Wharton stood for a moment in a brown study, with his hands in hispockets, after Bennett left him. It was by no means wholly clear to himwhat line Bennett would take--with regard to one or two points. After along acquaintance with the little man, Wharton was not always, norindeed generally, at his ease with him. Bennett had curious reserves. Asto his hour off, Wharton felt tolerably certain that he meant to go andhear a famous Revivalist preacher hold forth at a public hall not farfrom the House. The streets were full of placards. 

Well!--to every man his own excitements! What time? He looked first athis watch, then at the marked question paper Bennett had left behindhim. The next minute he was hurrying along passages and stairs, with hisspringing, boyish step, to the Ladies' Gallery. 

The magnificent doorkeeper saluted him with particular deference. Wharton was in general a favourite with officials. 

"The two ladies are come, sir. You'll find them in the front--oh! notvery full yet, sir--will be directly. "

Wharton drew aside the curtain of the Gallery, and looked in. Yes!--there was the dark head bent forward, pressed indeed against thegrating which closes the front of the den into which the House ofCommons puts its ladies--as though its owner were already absorbed inwhat was passing before her. 

She looked up with an eager start, as she heard his voice in her ear. 

"Oh! now, come and tell us everything--and who everybody is. Why don'twe see the Speaker?--and which is the Government side?--oh, yes, I see. And who's this speaking now?"

"Why, I thought you knew everything, " said Wharton as, with a greetingto Miss Craven, he slipped in beside them and took a still vacant chairfor an instant. "How shall I instruct a Speaker's great-niece?"

"Why, of course I feel as if the place belonged to me!" said Marcella, impatiently; "but that somehow doesn't seem to help me to people'snames. Where's Mr. Gladstone? Oh, I see. Look, look, Edith!--he's justcome in!--oh, don't be so superior, though you _have_ been herebefore--you couldn't tell me heaps of people!"

Her voice had a note of joyous excitement like a child's. 

"That's because I'm short-sighted, " said Edith Craven, calmly; "but it'sno reason why you should show me Mr. Gladstone. "

"Oh, my dear, my dear!--do be quiet! Now, Mr. Wharton, where are theIrishmen? Oh! I wish we could have an Irish row! And where do yousit?--I see--and there's Mr. Bennett--and that black-faced man, Mr. Wilkins, I met at the Hallins--you don't like him, do you?" she said, drawing back and looking at him sharply. 

"Who? Wilkins? Perhaps you'd better ask me that question later on!" saidWharton, with a twist of the lip; "he's going to do his best to make afool of himself and us to-night--we shall see! It's kind of you to wishus an Irish row!--considering that if I miss my chance to-night I shallnever get another!"

"Then for heaven's sake don't let's wish it!" she said decidedly. "Oh, that's the Irish Secretary answering now, is it?"--a pause--"Dear me, how civil everybody is. I don't think this is a good place for aDemocrat, Mr. Wharton--I find myself terribly in love with theGovernment. But who's that?"

She craned her neck. Wharton was silent. The next instant she drewhurriedly back. 

"I didn't see, " she murmured; "it's so confusing. "

A tall man had risen from the end of the Government bench, and wasgiving an answer connected with the Home Secretary's department. For thefirst time since their parting in the Mellor drawing-room Marcella sawAldous Raeburn. 

She fell very silent, and leant back in her chair. Yet Wharton's quickglance perceived that she both looked and listened intently, so long asthe somewhat high-pitched voice was speaking. 

"He does those things very well, " he said carelessly, judging it best totake the bull by the horns. "Never a word too much--they don't get anychange out of him. Do you see that old fellow in the white beard underthe gallery? He is one of the chartered bores. When he gets up to-nightthe House will dine. I shall come up and look for you, and hand you overto a friend if I may--a Staffordshire member, who has his wifehere--Mrs. Lane. I have engaged a table, and I can start with you. Unfortunately I mustn't be long out of the House, as it's my motion;but they will look after you. "

The girls glanced a little shyly at each other. Nothing had been saidabout dining; but Wharton took it for granted; and they yielded. It wasMarcella's "day off, " and she was a free woman. 

"Good-bye, then, " he said, getting up. "I shall be on in about twentyminutes. Wish me well through!"

Marcella looked round and smiled. But her vivacity had been quenched forthe moment; and Wharton departed not quite so well heartened for thefray as he could have wished to be. It was hard luck that the Raeburnghost should walk this particular evening. 

Marcella bent forward again when he had gone, and remained for longsilent, looking down into the rapidly filling House. Aldous Raeburn waslying back on the Treasury bench, his face upturned. She knew very wellthat it was impossible he should see her; yet every now and then sheshrank a little away as though he must. The face looked to her older andsingularly blanched; but she supposed that must be the effect of thelight; for she noticed the same pallor in many others. 

"_All that my life can do to pour good measure_--_down_--_runningover_--_into yours, I vowed you then!_"

The words stole into her memory, throbbing there like points of pain. Was it indeed this man under her eyes--so listless, so unconscious--whohad said them to her with a passion of devotion it shamed her to thinkof. 

And now--never so much as an ordinary word of friendship between themagain? "On the broad seas of life enisled"--separate, estranged, forever? It was like the touch of death--the experience brought with itsuch a chill--such a sense of irreparable fact, of limitations never tobe broken through. 

Then she braced herself. The "things that are behind" must be left. Tohave married him after all would have been the greatest wrong. Nor, inone sense, was what she had done irreparable. She chose to believe FrankLeven, rather than Edward Hallin. Of course he must and should marry! Itwas absurd to suppose that he should not. No one had a stronger sense offamily than he. And as for the girl--the little dancing, flirtinggirl!--why the thing happened every day. _His_ wife should not be toostrenuous, taken up with problems and questions of her own. She shouldcheer, amuse, distract him. Marcella endeavoured to think of it all withthe dry common-sense her mother would have applied to it. One thing atleast was clear to her--the curious recognition that never before hadshe considered Aldous Raeburn, _in and for himself_, as an independenthuman being. 

"He was just a piece of furniture in my play last year, " she said toherself with a pang of frank remorse. "He was well quit of me!"

But she was beginning to recover her spirits, and when at last Raeburn, after a few words with a minister who had just arrived, disappearedsuddenly behind the Speaker's chair, the spectacle below her seized herwith the same fascination as before. 

The House was filling rapidly. Questions were nearly over, and thespeech of the evening, on which considerable public expectation bothinside and outside Parliament had been for some time concentrated, wasfast approaching. Peers were straggling into the gallery; the reporterswere changing just below her: and some "crack hands" among them, who hadbeen lounging till now, were beginning to pay attention and put theirpaper in order. The Irish benches, the Opposition, the Government--allwere full, and there was a large group of members round the door. 

"There he is!" cried Marcella, involuntarily, with a pulse ofexcitement, as Wharton's light young figure made its way through thecrowd. He sat down on a corner seat below the gangway and put on hishat. 

In five minutes more he was on his feet, speaking to an attentive andcrowded House in a voice--clear, a little hard, but capable of the mostaccomplished and subtle variety--which for the first moment sent ashudder of memory through Marcella. 

Then she found herself listening with as much trepidation and anxiety asthough some personal interest and reputation depended for her, too, onthe success of the speech. Her mind was first invaded by a strong, an_irritable_ sense of the difficulty of the audience. How was it possiblefor any one, unless he had been trained to it for years, to make anyeffect upon such a crowd!--so irresponsive, individualist, unfused--solacking, as it seemed to the raw spectator, in the qualities andexcitements that properly belong to multitude! Half the men down below, under their hats, seemed to her asleep; the rest indifferent. And werethose languid, indistinguishable murmurs what the newspapers call"_cheers_"?

But the voice below flowed on; point after point came briskly out; theatmosphere warmed; and presently this first impression passed into onewholly different--nay, at the opposite pole. Gradually the girl's ardentsense--informed, perhaps, more richly than most women's with thememories of history and literature, for in her impatient way she hadbeen at all times a quick, omnivorous reader--awoke to the peculiarconditions, the special thrill, attaching to the place and itsperformers. The philosopher derides it; the man of letters out of theHouse talks of it with a smile as a "Ship of Fools"; both, when occasionoffers, passionately desire a seat in it; each would give his right handto succeed in it. 

Why? Because here after all is power--here is the central machine. Hereare the men who, both by their qualities and their defects, are to havefor their span of life the leading--or the wrecking?--of this greatfate-bearing force, this "weary Titan" we call our country. Here thingsare not only debated, but done--lamely or badly, perhaps, but still_done_--which will affect our children's children; which link us to thePast; which carry us on safely or dangerously to a Future only the godsknow. And in this passage, this chequered, doubtful passage fromthinking to doing, an infinite savour and passion of life is somehowdisengaged. It penetrates through the boredom, through all the failure, public and personal; it enwraps the spectacle and the actors; it carriesand supports patriot and adventurer alike. 

Ideas, perceptions of this kind--the first chill over--stole upon andconquered Marcella. Presently it was as though she had passed intoWharton's place, was seeing with his eyes, feeling with his nerves. Itwould be a success this speech--it was a success! The House was gained, was attentive. A case long familiar to it in portions and fragments, which had been spoilt by violence and discredited by ignorance, wasbeing presented to it with all the resources of a great talent--withbrilliancy, moderation, practical detail--moderation above all! From theslight historical sketch, with which the speech opened, of the English"working day, " the causes and the results of the Factory Acts--throughthe general description of the present situation, of the workman'spresent hours, opportunities and demands, the growth of the desire forState control, the machinery by which it was to be enforced, and theeffects it might be expected to have on the workman himself, on thegreat army of the "unemployed, " on wages, on production, and on theeconomic future of England--the speaker carried his thread of luminousspeech, without ever losing his audience for an instant. At every pointhe addressed himself to the smoothing of difficulties, to thepropitiation of fears; and when, after the long and masterly handling ofdetail, he came to his peroration, to the bantering of capitalistterrors, to the vindication of the workman's claim to fix the conditionsof his labour, and to the vision lightly and simply touched of theregenerate working home of the future, inhabited by free men, dedicatedto something beyond the first brutal necessities of the bodily life, possessed indeed of its proper share of the human inheritance ofleisure, knowledge, and delight--the crowded benches before and behindhim grudged him none of it. The House of Commons is not tolerant of"flights, " except from its chartered masters. But this young man hadearned his flight; and they heard him patiently. For the rest, theGovernment had been most attractively wooed; and the Liberal party inthe midst of much plain speaking had been treated on the whole with adeference and a forbearance that had long been conspicuously lacking inthe utterances of the Labour men. 

"'The mildest mannered man' _et cetera!_" said a smiling member of thelate Government to a companion on the front Opposition bench, as Whartonsat down amid the general stir and movement which betoken the break-upof a crowded House, and the end of a successful speech which people areeager to discuss in the lobbies. "A fine performance, eh? Great advanceon anything last year. "

"Bears about as much relation to facts as I do to the angels!" growledthe man addressed. 

"What! as bad as that?" said the other, laughing. "Look! they have putup old Denny. I think I shall stay and hear him. " And he laid down hishat again which he had taken up. 

Meanwhile Marcella in the Ladies' Gallery had thrown herself back in herchair with a long breath. 

"How can one listen to anything else!" she said; and for a long time shesat staring at the House without hearing a word of what the verycompetent, caustic, and well-informed manufacturer on the Governmentside was saying. Every dramatic and aesthetic instinct shepossessed--and she was full of them--had been stirred and satisfied bythe speech and the speaker. 

But more than that. He had spoken for the toiler and the poor; hisperoration above all had contained tones and accents which were in factthe products of something perfectly sincere in the speaker's motleypersonality; and this girl, who in her wild way had given herself to thepoor, had followed him with all her passionate heart. Yet, at the sametime, with an amount of intellectual dissent every now and then as tomeasures and methods, a scepticism of detail which astonished herself! Ayear before she had been as a babe beside him, whether in matters ofpure mind or of worldly experience. Now she was for the first timeconscious of a curious growth--independence. 

But the intellectual revolt, such as it was, was lost again, as soon asit arose, in the general impression which the speech had left uponher--in this warm quickening of the pulses, this romantic interest inthe figure, the scene, the young emerging personality. 

Edith Craven looked at her with wondering amusement. She and herbrothers were typical Venturists--a little cynical, therefore, towardsall the world, friend or foe. A Venturist is a Socialist minus cant, anda cause which cannot exist at all without a passion of sentiment lays itdown--through him--as a first law, that sentiment in public is theabominable thing. Edith Craven thought that after all Marcella waslittle less raw and simple now than she had been in the old days. 

"There!" said Marcella, with relief, "that's done. Now, who's this? Thatman _Wilkins_!"

Her tone showed her disgust. Wilkins had sprung up the instant Wharton'sConservative opponent had given the first decisive sign of sittingdown. Another man on the same side was also up, but Wilkins, black andfrowning, held his own stubbornly, and his rival subsided. 

With the first sentences of the new speech the House knew that it was tohave an emotion, and men came trooping in again. And certainly the shortstormy utterance was dramatic enough. Dissent on the part of animportant north-country Union from some of the most vital machinery ofthe bill which had been sketched by Wharton--personal jealousy anddistrust of the mover of the resolution--denial of his representativeplace, and sneers at his kid-gloved attempts to help a class with whichhe had nothing to do--the most violent protest against the servilitywith which he had truckled to the now effete party of free contract andpolitical enfranchisement--and the most passionate assertion thatbetween any Labour party, worthy of the name, and either of the greatparties of the past there lay and must lie a gulf of hatred, unfathomable and unquenchable, till Labour had got its rights, andlandlord, employer, and dividend-hunter were trampled beneath itsheel--all these ugly or lurid things emerged with surprising clearnessfrom the torrent of north-country speech. For twenty minutes NehemiahWilkins rioted in one of the best "times" of his life. That he was anorator thousands of working men had borne him witness again and again;and in his own opinion he had never spoken better. 

The House at first enjoyed its sensation. Then, as the hard wordsrattled on, it passed easily into the stage of amusement. LadyCradock's burly husband bent forward from the front Opposition bench, caught Wharton's eye, and smiled, as though to say: "What!--you haven'teven been able to keep up appearances so far!" And Wilkins's finalattack upon the Liberals--who, after ruining their own chances and thechances of the country, were now come cap in hand to the working manwhining for his support as their only hope of recovery--was delivered toa mocking chorus of laughter and cheers, in the midst of which, with anangry shake of his great shoulders, he flung himself down on his seat. 

Meanwhile Wharton, who had spent the first part of Wilkins's speech in astate of restless fidget, his hat over his eyes, was alternately sittingerect with radiant looks, or talking rapidly to Bennett, who had come tosit beside him. The Home Secretary got up after Wilkins had sat down, and spent a genial forty minutes in delivering the Government _nonpossumus_, couched, of course, in the tone of deference to King Labourwhich the modern statesman learns at his mother's knee, but enlivenedwith a good deal of ironical and effective perplexity as to which handto shake and whose voice to follow, and winding up with a tribute ofcompliment to Wharton, mixed with some neat mock condolence with theOpposition under the ferocities of some others of its nominal friends. 

Altogether, the finished performance of the old stager, the _habitué_. While it was going on, Marcella noticed that Aldous Raeburn had comeback again to his seat next to the Speaker, who was his official chief. Every now and then the Minister turned to him, and Raeburn handed him avolume of Hansard or the copy of some Parliamentary Return whence thegreat man was to quote. Marcella watched every movement; then from theGovernment bench her eye sped across the House to Wharton sitting oncemore buried in his hat, his arms folded in front of him. A little shiverof excitement ran through her. The two men upon whom her life had so farturned were once more in presence of, pitted against, each other--andshe, once more, looking on!

When the Home Secretary sat down, the House was growing restive withthoughts of dinner, and a general movement had begun--when it was seenthat Bennett was up. Again men who had gone out came back, and those whowere still there resigned themselves. Bennett was a force in the House, a man always listened to and universally respected, and the curiosityfelt as to the relations between him and this new star and would-beleader had been for some time considerable. 

When Bennett sat down, the importance of the member for West Brookshire, both in the House and in the country, had risen a hundred per cent. Aman who over a great part of the north was in labour concerns theunquestioned master of many legions, and whose political position hadhitherto been one of conspicuous moderation, even to his own hurt, hadgiven Wharton the warmest possible backing; had endorsed his proposals, to their most contentious and doubtful details, and in a few generousthough still perhaps ambiguous words had let the House see what hepersonally thought of the services rendered to labour as a whole duringthe past five years, and to the weak and scattered group of Labourmembers in particular, since his entrance into Parliament, by the youngand brilliant man beside him. 

Bennett was no orator. He was a plain man, ennobled by the training ofreligious dissent, at the same time indifferently served often by animperfect education. But the very simplicity and homeliness of itsexpression gave additional weight to this first avowal of a strongconviction that the time had come when the Labour party _must_ haveseparateness and a leader if it were to rise out of insignificance; tothis frank renunciation of whatever personal claims his own past mighthave given him; and to the promise of unqualified support to the policyof the younger man, in both its energetic and conciliatory aspects. Hethrew out a little not unkindly indignation, if one may be allowed thephrase, in the direction of Wilkins--who in the middle of the speechabruptly walked out--and before he sat down, the close attention, thelooks, the cheers, the evident excitement of the men sitting abouthim, --amongst whom were two-thirds of the whole Labour representation inParliament--made it clear to the House that the speech marked an epochnot only in the career of Harry Wharton, but in the parliamentaryhistory of the great industrial movement. 

The white-bearded bore under the gallery, whom Wharton had pointed outto Marcella, got up as Bennett subsided. The house streamed out like oneman. Bennett, exhausted by the heat and the effort, mopped his brow withhis red handkerchief, and, in the tension of fatigue, started as he felta touch upon his arm. Wharton was bending over to him--perfectly white, with a lip he in vain tried to steady. 

"I can't thank you, " he said; "I should make a fool of myself. "

Bennett nodded pleasantly, and presently both were pressing into theout-going crowd, avoiding each other with the ineradicable instinct ofthe Englishman. 

Wharton did not recover his self-control completely till, after anordeal of talk and handshaking in the lobby, he was on his way to theLadies' Gallery. Then in a flash he found himself filled with thespirits, the exhilaration, of a schoolboy. This wonderful experiencebehind him!--and upstairs, waiting for him, those eyes, that face! Howcould he get her to himself somehow for a moment--and dispose of thatCraven girl?

"Well!" he said to her joyously, as she turned round in the darkness ofthe Gallery. 

But she was seized with sudden shyness, and he felt, rather than saw, the glow of pleasure and excitement which possessed her. 

"Don't let's talk here, " she said. "Can't we go out? I am melted!"

"Yes, of course! Come on to the terrace. It's a divine evening, and weshall find our party there. Well, Miss Craven, were you interested?"

Edith smiled demurely. 

"I thought it a good debate, " she said. 

"Confound these Venturist prigs!" was Wharton's inward remark as he ledthe way. 

CHAPTER IX. 

"How enchanting!" cried Marcella, as they emerged on the terrace, andriver, shore, and sky opened upon them in all the thousand-tinted lightand shade of a still and perfect evening. "Oh, how hot we were--and howbadly you treat us in those dens!"

Those confident eyes of Wharton's shone as they glanced at her. 

She wore a pretty white dress of some cotton stuff--it seemed to him heremembered it of old--and on the waving masses of hair lay a littlebunch of black lace that called itself a bonnet, with black strings tieddemurely under the chin. The abundance of character and dignity in thebeauty which yet to-night was so young and glowing--the rich arrestingnote of the voice--the inimitable carriage of the head--Wharton realisedthem all at the moment with peculiar vividness, because he felt them insome sort as additions to his own personal wealth. To-night she was inhis power, his possession. 

The terrace was full of people, and alive with a Babel of talk. Yet, ashe carried his companions forward in search of Mrs. Lane, he saw thatMarcella was instantly marked. Every one who passed them, or made wayfor them, looked and looked again. 

The girl, absorbed in her pleasant or agitating impressions, knewnothing of her own effect. She was drinking in the sunset light--thepoetic mystery of the river--the lovely line of the bridge--theassociations of the place where she stood, of this great buildingovershadowing her. Every now and then she started in a kind of terrorlest some figure in the dusk should be Aldous Raeburn; then when astranger showed himself she gave herself up again to her young pleasurein the crowd and the spectacle. But Wharton knew that she was observed;Wharton caught the whisper that followed her. His vanity, already sowell-fed this evening, took the attention given to her as so much freshhomage to itself; and she had more and more glamour for him in thereflected light of this publicity, this common judgment. 

"Ah, here are the Lanes!" he said, detecting at last a short lady inblack amid a group of men. 

Marcella and Edith were introduced. Then Edith found a friend in a youngLondon member who was to be one of the party, and strolled off with himtill dinner should be announced. 

"I will just take Miss Boyce to the end of the terrace, " said Wharton toMr. Lane; "we shan't get anything to eat yet awhile. What a crowd! TheAlresfords not come yet, I see. "

Lane shrugged his shoulders as he looked round. 

"Raeburn has a party to-night. And there are at least three or fourothers besides ourselves. I should think food and service will beequally scarce!"

Wharton glanced quickly at Marcella. But she was talking to Mrs. Lane, and had heard nothing. 

"Let me just show you the terrace, " he said to her. "No chance of dinnerfor another twenty minutes. "

They strolled away together. As they moved along, a number of menwaylaid the speaker of the night with talk and congratulations--glancingthe while at the lady on his left. But presently they were away from thecrowd which hung about the main entrance to the terrace, and had reachedthe comparatively quiet western end, where were only a few pairs andgroups walking up and down. 

"Shall I see Mr. Bennett?" she asked him eagerly, as they paused by theparapet, looking down upon the grey-brown water swishing under the fastincoming tide. "I want to. "

"I asked him to dine, but he wouldn't. He has gone to aprayer-meeting--at least I guess so. There is a famous Americanevangelist speaking in Westminster to-night--I am as certain as I everam of anything that Bennett is there--dining on Moody and Sankey. Menare a medley, don't you think?--So you liked his speech?"

"How coolly you ask!" she said, laughing. "Did _you_?"

He was silent a moment, his smiling gaze fixed on the water. Then heturned to her. 

"How much gratitude do you think I owe him?"

"As much as you can pay, " she said with emphasis. "I never heardanything more complete, more generous. "

"So you were carried away?"

She looked at him with a curious, sudden gravity--a touch of defiance. 

"No!--neither by him, nor by you. I don't believe in your Bill--and I am_sure_ you will never carry it!"

Wharton lifted his eyebrows. 

"Perhaps you'll tell me where you are, " he said, "that I may know how totalk? When we last discussed these things at Mellor, I _think_--you werea Socialist?"

"What does it matter what I was last year?" she asked him gaily, yetwith a final inflection of the voice which was not gay; "I was a baby!_Now_ perhaps I have earned a few poor, little opinions--but they are aragged bundle--and I have never any time to sort them. "

"Have you left the Venturists?"

"No!--but I am full of perplexities; and the Cravens, I see, will soonbe for turning me out. You understand--I _know_ some working folk now!"

"So you did last year. "

"No!"--she insisted, shaking her head--"that was all different. But nowI am _in_ their world--I live with them--and they talk to me. Oneevening in the week I am 'at home' for all the people I know in ourBuildings--men and women. Mrs. Hurd--you know who I mean?"--her browcontracted a moment--"she comes with her sewing to keep me company; sodoes Edith Craven; and sometimes the little room is packed. The mensmoke--when we can have the windows open!--and I believe I shall soonsmoke too--it makes them talk better. We get all sorts--Socialists, Conservatives, Radicals--"

"--And you don't think much of the Socialists?"

"Well! they are the interesting, dreamy fellows, " she said, laughing, "who don't save, and muddle their lives. And as for argument, theSocialist workman doesn't care twopence for facts--that don't suit him. It's superb the way he treats them!"

"I should like to know who does care!" said Wharton, with a shrug. Thenhe turned with his back to the parapet, the better to command her. Hehad taken off his hat for coolness, and the wind played with the crispcurls of hair. "But tell me"--he went on--"who has been tampering withyou? Is it Hallin? You told me you saw him often. "

"Perhaps. But what if it's everything?--_living?_--saving your presence!A year ago at any rate the world was all black--_or_ white--to me. Now Ilie awake at night, puzzling my head about the shades between--whichmakes the difference. A compulsory Eight Hours' Day for all men in alltrades!" Her note of scorn startled him. "You _know_ you won't get it!And all the other big exasperating things you talk about--publicorganisation of labour, and the rest--you won't get them till all theworld is a New Jerusalem--and when the world is a New Jerusalem nobodywill want them!"

Wharton made her an ironical bow. 

"Nicely said!--though we have heard it before. Upon my word, you havemarched!--or Edward Hallin has carried you. So now you think the poorare as well off as possible, in the best of all possible worlds--is thatthe result of your nursing? You agree with Denny, in fact? the man whogot up after me?"

His tone annoyed her. Then suddenly the name suggested to her arecollection that brought a frown. 

"That was the man, then, you attacked in the _Clarion_ this morning!"

"Ah! you read me!" said Wharton, with sudden pleasure. "Yes--that openedthe campaign. As you know, of course, Craven has gone down, and thestrike begins next week. Soon we shall bring two batteries to bear, heletting fly as correspondent, and I from the office. I enjoyed writingthat article. "

"So I should think, " she said drily; "all I know is, it made _one_reader passionately certain that there was another side to the matter!There may not be. I dare say there isn't; but on me at least that wasthe effect. Why is it"--she broke out with vehemence--"that not a singleLabour paper is ever capable of the simplest justice to an opponent?"

"You think any other sort of paper is any better?" he asked herscornfully. 

"I dare say not. But that doesn't matter to me! it is _we_ who talk ofjustice, of respect, and sympathy from man to man, and then we go andblacken the men who don't agree with us--whole classes, that is to say, of our fellow-countrymen, not in the old honest slashing style, Tartuffes that we are!--but with all the delicate methods of a new artof slander, pursued almost for its own sake. We know so muchbetter--always--than our opponents, we hardly condescend even to beangry. One is only 'sorry'--'obliged to punish'--like the priggishgoverness of one's childhood!"

In spite of himself, Wharton flushed. 

"My best thanks!" he said. "Anything more? I prefer to take my drubbingall at once. "

She looked at him steadily. 

"Why did you write, or allow that article on the West Brookshirelandlords two days ago?"

Wharton started. 

"Well! wasn't it true?"

"No!" she said with a curling lip; "and I think you know it wasn'ttrue. "

"What! as to the Raeburns? Upon my word, I should have imagined, " hesaid slowly, "that it represented your views at one time with tolerableaccuracy. "

Her nerve suddenly deserted her. She bent over the parapet, and, takingup a tiny stone that lay near, she threw it unsteadily into the river. He saw the hand shake. 

"Look here, " he said, turning round so that he too leant over the river, his arms on the parapet, his voice close to her ear. "Are you alwaysgoing to quarrel with me like this? Don't you know that there is no onein the world I would sooner please if I could?"

She did not speak. 

"In the first place, " he said, laughing, "as to my speech, do yousuppose that I believe in that Bill which I described just now?"

"I don't know, " she said indignantly, once more playing with the stoneson the wall. "It sounded like it. "

"That is my gift--my little _carillon_, as Renan would say. But do youimagine I want you or any one else to tell me that we shan't get such aBill for generations? Of course we shan't!"

"Then why do you make farcical speeches, bamboozling your friends andmisleading the House of Commons?"

He saw the old storm-signs with glee--the lightning in the eye, the roseon the cheek. She was never so beautiful as when she was angry. 

"Because, my dear lady--_we must generate our force_. Steam must be gotup--I am engaged in doing it. We shan't get a compulsory eight hours'day for all trades--but in the course of the agitation for that preciousillusion, and by the help of a great deal of beating of tom-toms, andgathering of clans, we shall get a great many other things by the waythat we _do_ want. Hearten your friends, and frighten yourenemies--there is no other way of scoring in politics--and theparticular score doesn't matter. Now don't look at me as if you wouldlike to impeach me!--or I shall turn the tables. _I_ am still fightingfor my illusions in my own way--_you_, it seems, have given up yours!"

But for once he had underrated her sense of humour. She broke into a lowmerry laugh which a little disconcerted him. 

"You mock me?" he said quickly--"think me insincere, unscrupulous?--Well, I dare say! But you have no right to mock me. Lastyear, again and again, you promised me guerdon. Now it has come topaying--and I claim!"

His low distinct voice in her ear had a magnetising effect upon her. Sheslowly turned her face to him, overcome by--yet fightingagainst--memory. If she had seen in him the smallest sign of referenceto that scene she hated to think of, he would have probably lost thishold upon her on the spot. But his tact was perfect. She saw nothing buta look of dignity and friendship, which brought upon her with a rush allthose tragic things they had shared and fought through, purifying thingsof pity and fear, which had so often seemed to her the atonement for, the washing away of that old baseness. 

He saw her face tremble a little. Then she said proudly--

"I promised to be grateful. So I am. "

"No, no!" he said, still in the same low tone. "You promised me afriend. Where is she?"

She made no answer. Her hands were hanging loosely over the water, andher eyes were fixed on the haze opposite, whence emerged the blocks ofthe great hospital and the twinkling points of innumerable lamps. Buthis gaze compelled her at last, and she turned back to him. He saw anexpression half hostile, half moved, and pressed on before she couldspeak. 

"Why do you bury yourself in that nursing life?" he said drily. "It isnot the life for you; it does not fit you in the least. "

"You test your friends!" she cried, her cheek flaming again at theprovocative change of voice. "What possible right have you to thatremark?"

"I know you, and I know the causes you want to serve. You can't servethem where you are. Nursing is not for you; you are wanted among yourown class--among your equals--among the people who are changing andshaping England. It is absurd. You are masquerading. "

She gave him a little sarcastic nod. 

"Thank you. I am doing a little honest work for the first time in mylife. "

He laughed. It was impossible to tell whether he was serious or posing. 

"You are just what you were in one respect--terribly in the right! Be alittle humble to-night for a change. Come, condescend to the classes! Doyou see Mr. Lane calling us?"

And, in fact, Mr. Lane, with his arm in the air, was eagerly beckoningto them from the distance. 

"Do you know Lady Selina Farrell?" he asked her, as they walked quicklyback to the dispersing crowd. 

"No; who is she?"

Wharton laughed. 

"Providence should contrive to let Lady Selina overhear that questiononce a week--in your tone! Well, she is a personage--Lord Alresford'sdaughter--unmarried, rich, has a _salon_, or thinks she has--manipulatesa great many people's fortunes and lives, or thinks she does, which, after all, is what matters--to Lady Selina. She wants to know you, badly. Do you think you can be kind to her? There she is--you will letme introduce you? She dines with us. "

In another moment Marcella had been introduced to a tall, fair lady in avery fashionable black and pink bonnet, who held out a gracious hand. 

"I have heard so much of you!" said Lady Selina, as they walked alongthe passage to the dining-room together. "It must be so wonderful, yournursing!"

Marcella laughed rather restively. 

"No, I don't think it is, " she said; "there are so many of us. "

"Oh, but the things you do--Mr. Wharton told me--so interesting!"

Marcella said nothing, and as to her looks the passage was dark. LadySelina thought her a very handsome but very _gauche_ young woman. Still, _gauche_ or no, she had thrown over Aldous Raeburn and thirty thousand ayear; an act which, as Lady Selina admitted, put you out of the commonrun. 

"Do you know most of the people dining?" she enquired in her blandestvoice. "But no doubt you do. You are a great friend of Mr. Wharton's, Ithink?"

"He stayed at our house last year, " said Marcella, abruptly. "No, Idon't know anybody. "

"Then shall I tell you? It makes it more interesting, doesn't it? Itought to be a pleasant little party. "

And the great lady lightly ran over the names. It seemed to Marcellathat most of them were very "smart" or very important. Some of the smartnames were vaguely known to her from Miss Raeburn's talk of last year;and, besides, there were a couple of Tory Cabinet ministers and two orthree prominent members. It was all rather surprising. 

At dinner she found herself between one of the Cabinet ministers and theyoung and good-looking private secretary of the other. Both men wereagreeable, and very willing, besides, to take trouble with this unknownbeauty. The minister, who knew the Raeburns very well, was discussingwith himself all the time whether this was indeed the Miss Boyce of thatstory. His suspicion and curiosity were at any rate sufficiently strongto make him give himself much pains to draw her out. 

Her own conversation, however, was much distracted by the attention shecould not help giving to her host and his surroundings. Wharton had LadySelina on his right, and the young and distinguished wife of Marcella'sminister on his left. At the other end of the table sat Mrs. Lane, doingher duty spasmodically to Lord Alresford, who still, in a blind old age, gave himself all the airs of the current statesman and possible premier. But the talk, on the whole, was general--a gay and carelessgive-and-take of parliamentary, social, and racing gossip, the ballflying from one accustomed hand to another. 

And Marcella could not get over the astonishment of Wharton's part init. She shut her eyes sometimes for an instant and tried to see him asher girl's fancy had seen him at Mellor--the solitary, eccentric figurepursued by the hatreds of a renounced Patricianate--bringing the enmityof his own order as a pledge and offering to the Plebs he asked to lead. Where even was the speaker of an hour ago? Chat of Ascot and ofNewmarket; discussion with Lady Selina or with his left-hand neighbourof country-house "sets, " with a patter of names which sounded in herscornful ear like a paragraph from the _World_; above all, a general airof easy comradeship, which no one at this table, at any rate, seemedinclined to dispute, with every exclusiveness and every amusement of the"idle rich, " whereof--in the popular idea--he was held to be one of thevery particular foes!--

No doubt, as the dinner moved on, this first impression changedsomewhat. She began to distinguish notes that had at first been lostupon her. She caught the mocking, ambiguous tone under which she herselfhad so often fumed; she watched the occasional recoil of the women abouthim, as though they had been playing with some soft-pawed animal, andhad been suddenly startled by the gleam of its claws. These thingspuzzled, partly propitiated her. But on the whole she was restless andhostile. How was it possible--from such personal temporising--such afrittering of the forces and sympathies--to win the single-mindednessand the power without which no great career is built? She wanted to talkwith him--reproach him!

"Well--I must go--worse luck, " said Wharton at last, laying down hisnapkin and rising. "Lane, will you take charge? I will join you outsidelater. "

"If he ever finds us!" said her neighbour to Marcella. "I never saw theplace so crowded. It is odd how people enjoy these scrambling meals inthese very ugly rooms. "

Marcella, smiling, looked down with him over the bare coffee-tavernplace, in which their party occupied a sort of high table across theend, while two other small gatherings were accommodated in the spacebelow. 

"Are there any other rooms than this?" she asked idly. 

"One more, " said a young man across the table, who had been introducedto her in the dusk outside, and had not yet succeeded in getting her tolook at him, as he desired. "But there is another big party thereto-night--Raeburn--you know, " he went on innocently, addressing theminister; "he has got the Winterbournes and the Macdonalds--quite agathering--rather an unusual thing for him. "

The minister glanced quickly at his companion. But she had turned toanswer a question from Lady Selina, and thenceforward, till the partyrose, she gave him little opportunity of observing her. 

As the outward-moving stream of guests was once more in the corridorleading to the terrace, Marcella hurriedly made her way to Mrs. Lane. 

"I think, " she said--"I am afraid--we ought to be going--my friend andI. Perhaps Mr. Lane--perhaps he would just show us the way out; we caneasily find a cab. "

There was an imploring, urgent look in her face which struck Mrs. Lane. But Mr. Lane's loud friendly voice broke in from behind. 

"My dear Miss Boyce!--we can't possibly allow it--no! no--just half anhour--while they bring us our coffee--to do your homage, you know, tothe terrace--and the river--and the moon!--And then--if you don't wantto go back to the House for the division, we will see you safely intoyour cab. Look at the moon!--and the tide"--they had come to the widedoor opening on the terrace--"aren't they doing their very best foryou?"

Marcella looked behind her in despair. _Where_ was Edith? Far in therear!--and fully occupied apparently with two or three pleasantcompanions. She could not help herself. She was carried on, with Mr. Lane chatting beside her--though the sight of the shining terrace, withits moonlit crowd of figures, breathed into her a terror and pain shecould hardly control. 

"Come and look at the water, " she said to Mr. Lane; "I would rather notwalk up and down if you don't mind. "

He thought she was tired, and politely led her through the sitting orpromenading groups till once more she was leaning over the parapet, nowtrying to talk, now to absorb herself in the magic of bridge, river, andsky, but in reality listening all the time with a shrinking heart forthe voices and the footfalls that she dreaded. Lady Winterbourne, aboveall! How unlucky! It was only that morning that she had received aforwarded letter from that old friend, asking urgently for news and heraddress. 

"Well, how did you like the speech to-night--_the_ speech?" said Mr. Lane, a genial Gladstonian member, more heavily weighted with estatesthan with ideas. "It was splendid, wasn't it?--in the way of speaking. Speeches like that are a safety-valve--that's my view of it. Have 'emout--all these ideas--get 'em discussed!"--with a good-humoured shake ofthe head for emphasis. "Does nobody any harm and may do good. I can tellyou, Miss Boyce, the House of Commons is a capital place for tamingthese clever young men!--you must give them their head--and they makeexcellent fellows after a bit. Why--who's this?--My dear LadyWinterbourne!--this _is_ a sight for sair een!"

And the portly member with great effusion grasped the hand of a statelylady in black, whose abundant white hair caught the moonlight. 

"_Marcella_!" cried a woman's voice. 

Yes--there he was!--close behind Lady Winterbourne. In the soft darknesshe and his party had run upon the two persons talking over the wallwithout an idea--a suspicion. 

She hurriedly withdrew herself from Lady Winterbourne, hesitated asecond, then held out her hand to him. The light was behind him. Shecould not see his face in the darkness; but she was suddenly andstrangely conscious of the whole scene--of the great dark building withits lines of fairy-lit gothic windows--the blue gulf of the rivercrossed by lines of wavering light--the swift passage of a steamer withits illuminated saloon and crowded deck--of the wonderful mixture ofmoonlight and sunset in the air and sky--of this dark figure in front ofher. 

Their hands touched. Was there a murmured word from him? She did notknow; she was too agitated, too unhappy to hear it if there was. Shethrew herself upon Lady Winterbourne, in whom she divined at once atremor almost equal to her own. 

"Oh! do come with me--come away!--I want to talk to you!" she saidincoherently under her breath, drawing Lady Winterbourne with a stronghand. 

Lady Winterbourne yielded, bewildered, and they moved along the terrace. 

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" cried the elder lady--"to think of finding _you_here! How astonishing--how--how dreadful! No!--I don't mean that. Ofcourse you and he must meet--but it was only yesterday he told me hehad never seen you again--since--and it gave me a turn. I was veryfoolish just now. There now--stay here a moment--and tell me aboutyourself. "

And again they paused by the river, the girl glancing nervously behindher as though she were in a company of ghosts. Lady Winterbournerecovered herself, and Marcella, looking at her, saw the old tragicseverity of feature and mien blurred with the same softness, the samedelicate tremor. Marcella clung to her with almost a daughter's feeling. She took up the white wrinkled hand as it lay on the parapet, and kissedit in the dark so that no one saw. 

"I _am_ glad to see you again, " she said passionately, "so glad!"

Lady Winterbourne was surprised and moved. 

"But you have never written all these months, you unkind child! And Ihave heard so little of you--your mother never seemed to know. When willyou come and see me--or shall I come to you? I can't stay now, for wewere just going; my daughter, Ermyntrude Welwyn, has to take some one toa ball. How _strange_"--she broke off--"how very strange that you and heshould have met to-night! He goes off to Italy to-morrow, you know, withLord Maxwell. "

"Yes, I had heard, " said Marcella, more steadily. "Will you come to teawith me next week?--Oh, I will write. --And we must go too--where _can_my friend be?"

She looked round in dismay, and up and down the terrace for Edith. 

"I will take you back to the Lanes, anyway, " said Lady Winterbourne;"or shall we look after you?"

"No! no! Take me back to the Lanes. "

"Mamma, are you coming?" said a voice like a softened version of LadyWinterbourne's. Then something small and thin ran forward, and a girl'svoice said piteously:

"_Dear_ Lady Winterbourne, my frock and my hair take so long to do! _I_shall be cross with my maid, and look like a fiend. Ermyntrude will besorry she ever knew me. _Do_ come!"

"Don't cry, Betty. I certainly shan't take you if you do!" said LadyErmyntrude, laughing. "Mamma, is this Miss Boyce--_your_ Miss Boyce?"

She and Marcella shook hands, and they talked a little, Lady Ermyntrudeunder cover of the darkness looking hard and curiously at the tallstranger whom, as it happened, she had never seen before. Marcella hadlittle notion of what she was saying. She was far more conscious of thegirlish form hanging on Lady Winterbourne's arm than she was of her ownwords, of "Betty's" beautiful soft eyes--also shyly and gravely fixedupon herself--under that marvellous cloud of fair hair; the long, pointed chin; the whimsical little face. 

"Well, none of _you_ are any good!" said Betty at last, in a tragicvoice. "I shall have to walk home my own poor little self, and 'ask ap'leeceman. ' Mr. Raeburn!"

He disengaged himself from a group behind and came--with no alacrity. Betty ran up to him. 

"Mr. Raeburn! Ermyntrude and Lady Winterbourne are going to sleep here, if you don't mind making arrangements. But _I_ want a hansom. "

At that very moment Marcella caught sight of Edith strolling alongtowards her with a couple of members, and chatting as though the worldhad never rolled more evenly. 

"Oh! there she is--there is my friend!" cried Marcella to LadyWinterbourne. "Good-night--good-night!"

She was hurrying off when she saw Aldous Raeburn was standing alone amoment. The exasperated Betty had made a dart from his side to "collect"another straying member of the party. 

An impulse she could not master scattered her wretched discomfort--evenher chafing sense of being the observed of many eyes. She walked up tohim. 

"Will you tell me about Lord Maxwell?" she said in a tremulous hurry. "Iam so sorry he is ill--I hadn't heard--I--"

She dared not look up. Was that _his_ voice answering?

"Thank you. We have been very anxious about him; but the doctors to-daygive a rather better report. We take him abroad to-morrow. "

"Marcella! at last!" cried Edith Craven, catching hold of her friend;"you lost me? Oh, nonsense; it was all the other way. But look, there isMr. Wharton coming out. I must go--come and say good-night--everybody isdeparting. "

Aldous Raeburn lifted his hat. Marcella felt a sudden rush ofhumiliation--pain--sore resentment. That cold, strange tone--thoseunwilling words!--She had gone up to him--as undisciplined in herrepentance as she had been in aggression--full of a passionate yearningto make friends--somehow to convey to him that she "was sorry, " in theold child's phrase which her self-willed childhood had used so little. There could be no misunderstanding possible! He of all men knew best howirrevocable it all was. But why, when life has brought reflection, andyou realise at last that you have vitally hurt, perhaps maimed, anotherhuman being, should it not be possible to fling conventions aside, andgo to that human being with the frank confession which by all thepromises of ethics and religion _ought_ to bring peace--peace and asoothed conscience?

But she had been repulsed--put aside, so she took it--and by one of thekindest and most generous of men! She moved along the terrace in a maze, seeing nothing, biting her lip to keep back the angry tears. All thatobscure need, that new stirring of moral life within her--which hadfound issue in this little futile advance towards a man who had onceloved her and could now, it seemed, only despise and dislike, her--wasbeating and swelling stormlike within her. She had taken being loved soeasily, so much as a matter of course! How was it that it hurt her nowso much to have lost love, and power, and consideration? She had neverfelt any passion for Aldous Raeburn--had taken him lightly and shakenhim off with a minimum of remorse. Yet to-night a few cold words fromhim--the proud manner of a moment--had inflicted a smart upon her shecould hardly bear. They had made her feel herself so alone, unhappy, uncared for!

But, on the contrary, she _must_ be happy!--_must_ be loved! To this, and this only, had she been brought by the hard experience of thisstrenuous year. 

 * * * * *

"Oh, Mrs. Lane, _be_ an angel!" exclaimed Wharton's voice. "Just oneturn--five minutes! The division will be called directly, and then wewill all thank our stars and go to bed!"

In another instant he was at Marcella's side, bare-headed, radiant, reckless even, as he was wont to be in moments of excitement. He hadseen her speak to Raeburn as he came out on the terrace, but his mindwas too full for any perception of other people's situations--even hers. He was absorbed with himself, and with her, as she fitted his presentneed. The smile of satisfied vanity, of stimulated ambition, was on hislips; and his good-humour inclined him more than ever to Marcella, andthe pleasure of a woman's company. He passed with ease from triumph tohomage; his talk now audacious, now confiding, offered her a deference, a flattery, to which, as he was fully conscious, the events of theevening had lent a new prestige. 

She, too, in his eyes, had triumphed--had made her mark. His ears werefull of the comments made upon her to-night by the little world on theterrace. If it were not for money--_hateful_ money!--what more brilliantwife could be desired for any rising man?

So the five minutes lengthened into ten, and by the time the divisionwas called, and Wharton hurried off, Marcella, soothed, taken out ofherself, rescued from the emptiness and forlornness of a tragic moment, had given him more conscious cause than she had ever given him yet tothink her kind and fair. 

CHAPTER X. 

"My dear Ned, do be reasonable! Your sister is in despair, and so am I. Why do you torment us by staying on here in the heat, and taking allthese engagements, which you know you are no more fit for than--"

"A sick grasshopper, " laughed Hallin. "Healthy wretch! Did Heaven giveyou that sun-burn only that you might come home from Italy and twit usweaklings? Do you think I _want_ to look as rombustious as you? 'Nothingtoo much, ' my good friend!"

Aldous looked down upon the speaker with an anxiety quite untouched byHallin's "chaff. "

"Miss Hallin tells me, " he persisted, "that you are wearing yourself outwith this lecturing campaign, that you don't sleep, and that she is moreunhappy about you than she has been for months. Why not give it up now, rest, and begin again in the winter?"

Hallin smiled a little as he sat with the tips of his fingers lightlyjoined in front of him. 

"I doubt whether I shall live through the winter, " he said quietly. 

Raeburn started. Hallin in general spoke of his health, when he allowedit to be mentioned at all, in the most cheerful terms. 

"Why you should behave as though you _wished_ to make such a prophecytrue I can't conceive!" he said in impatient pain. 

Hallin offered no immediate answer, and Raeburn, who was standing infront of him, leaning against the wood-work of the open window, lookedunhappily at the face and form of his friend. In youth that face hadpossessed a Greek serenity and blitheness, dependent perhaps on itsclear aquiline feature, the steady transparent eyes--_coeli lucidatempla_--the fresh fairness of the complexion, and the boyish brow underits arch of pale brown hair. And to stronger men there had always beensomething peculiarly winning in the fragile grace of figure andmovements, suggesting, as they did, sad and perpetual compromise betweenthe spirit's eagerness and the body's weakness. 

"Don't make yourself unhappy, my dear boy, " said Hallin at last, puttingup a thin hand and touching his friend--"I _shall_ give up soon. Moreover, it will give me up. Workmen want to do something else withtheir evenings in July than spend them in listening to stuffy lectures. I shall go to the Lakes. But there are a few engagements still ahead, and--I confess I am more restless than I used to be. The night comethwhen no man can work. "

They fell into a certain amount of discursive talk--of the politicalsituation, working-class opinion, and the rest. Raeburn had been alivenow for some time to a curious change of balance in his friend's mind. Hallin's buoyant youth had concerned itself almost entirely withpositive crusades and enthusiasms. Of late he seemed rather to havepassed into a period of negations, of strong opposition to certaincurrent _isms_ and faiths; and the happy boyish tone of earlier yearshad become the "stormy note of men contention-tost, " which belongs, indeed, as truly to such a character as the joy of young ideals. 

He had always been to some extent divided from Raeburn and others of hisearly friends by his passionate democracy--his belief in, and trust of, the multitude. For Hallin, the divine originating life was realised andmanifested through the common humanity and its struggle, as a whole; forRaeburn, only in the best of it, morally or intellectually; the restremaining an inscrutable problem, which did not, indeed, prevent faith, but hung upon it like a dead weight. Such divisions, however, are amongthe common divisions of thinking men, and had never interfered with thefriendship of these two in the least. 

But the developing alienation between Hallin and hundreds of hisworking-men friends was of an infinitely keener and sorer kind. Since hehad begun his lecturing and propagandist life, Socialist ideas of allkinds had made great way in England. And, on the whole, as theprevailing type of them grew stronger, Hallin's sympathy with them hadgrown weaker and weaker. Property to him meant "self-realisation"; andthe abuse of property was no more just ground for a crusade whichlogically aimed at doing away with it, than the abuse of other humanpowers or instincts would make it reasonable to try and do awaywith--say love, or religion. To give property, and therewith the fullerhuman opportunity, to those that have none, was the inmost desire of hislife. And not merely common property--though like all true soldiers ofthe human cause he believed that common property will be in the futureenormously extended--but in the first place, and above all, todistribute the discipline and the trust of personal and privatepossession among an infinitely greater number of hands than possess themalready. And that not for wealth's sake--though a more equaldistribution of property, and therewith of capacity, must inevitablytend to wealth--but for the soul's sake, and for the sake of thatcontinuous appropriation by the race of its moral and spiritualheritage. 

How is it to be done? Hallin, like many others, would haveanswered--"For England--mainly by a fresh distribution of the land. "Not, of course, by violence--which only means the worst form of wasteknown to history--but by the continuous pressure of an emancipatinglegislation, relieving land from shackles long since struck off otherkinds of property--by the assertion, within a certain limited range, ofcommunal initiative and control--and above all by the continuous privateeffort in all sorts of ways and spheres of "men of good will. " For allsweeping uniform schemes he had the natural contempt of the student--orthe moralist. To imagine that by nationalising sixty annual millions ofrent for instance you could make England a city of God, was not only avain dream, but a belittling of England's history and England's task. Anation is not saved so cheaply!--and to see those energies turned toland nationalisation or the scheming of a Collectivist millennium, whichmight have gone to the housing, educating, and refining of English men, women, and children of to-day, to moralising the employer's view of hisprofit, and the landlord's conception of his estate--filled him with agrowing despair. 

The relation of such a habit of life and mind to the Collectivist andSocialist ideas now coming to the front in England, as in every otherEuropean country, is obvious enough. To Hallin the social life, thecommunity, was everything--yet to be a "Socialist" seemed to him moreand more to be a traitor! He would have built his state on the purifiedwill of the individual man, and could conceive no other foundation for astate worth having. But for purification there must be effort, and foreffort there must be freedom. Socialism, as he read it, despised anddecried freedom, and placed the good of man wholly in certain externalconditions. It was aiming at a state of things under which the joys andpains, the teaching and the risks of true possession, were to be forever shut off from the poor human will, which yet, according to him, could never do without them, if man was to be man. 

So that he saw it all _sub specie aeternitatis_, as a matter not ofeconomic theory, but rather of religion. Raeburn, as they talked, shrankin dismay from the burning intensity of mood underlying his controlledspeech. He spoke, for instance, of Bennett's conversion to HarryWharton's proposed bill, or of the land nationalising scheme he wasspending all his slender stores of breath and strength in attacking, notwith anger or contempt, but with, a passionate sorrow which seemed toRaeburn preposterous! intolerable!--to be exhausting in him the verysprings and sources of a too precarious life. There rose in Aldous atlast an indignant protest which yet could hardly find itself words. Whathelp to have softened the edge and fury of religious war, only todiscover new antagonisms of opinion as capable of devastating heart andaffections as any _homoousion_ of old? Had they not already cost himlove? Were they also, in another fashion, to cost him his friend?

 * * * * *

"Ah, dear old fellow--enough!" said Hallin at last--"take me back toItaly! You have told me so little--such a niggardly little!"

"I told you that we went and I came back in a water-spout, " said Aldous;"the first rain in Northern Italy for four months--worse luck! 'Rain atReggio, rain at Parma. --At Lodi rain, Piacenza rain!'--that might aboutstand for my diary, except for one radiant day when my aunt, BettyMacdonald, and I descended on Milan, and climbed the Duomo. "

"Did Miss Betty amuse you?"

Aldous laughed. 

"Well, at least she varied the programme. The greater part of our day inMilan Aunt Neta and I spent in rushing after her like its tail after akite. First of all, she left us in the Duomo Square, running like adeer, and presently, to Aunt Neta's horror, we discovered that she waspursuing a young Italian officer in a blue cloak. When we came up withthe pair she was inquiring, in her best Italian, where the 'Signor' gothis cloak, because positively she must have one like it, and he, cap inhand, was explaining to the Signorina that if she would but follow himround the corner to his military tailor's, she could be supplied on thespot. So there we all went, Miss Betty insisting. You can imagine AuntNeta. She bought a small shipload of stuff--and then positively skippedfor joy in the street outside--the amazed officer looking on. And as forher career over the roof of the Duomo--the agitation of it nearlybrought my aunt to destruction--and even I heaved a sigh of relief whenI got them both down safe. "

"Is the creature all tricks?" said Hallin, with a smile. "As you talk ofher to me I get the notion of a little monkey just cut loose from abarrel organ. "

"Oh! but the monkey has so much heart, " said Aldous, laughing again, asevery one was apt to laugh who talked about Betty Macdonald, "and itmakes friends with every sick and sorry creature it comes across, especially with old maids! It amounts to genius, Betty's way with oldmaids. You should see her in the middle of them in the hotel _salon_ atnight--a perfect ring of them--and the men outside, totally neglected, and out of temper. I have never seen Betty yet in a room with somebodyshe thought ill at ease, or put in the shade--a governess, or aschoolgirl, or a lumpish boy--that she did not devote herself to thatsomebody. It is a pretty instinct; I have often wondered whether it isnature or art. "

He fell silent, still smiling. Hallin watched him closely. Perhaps thethought which had risen in his mind revealed itself by some subtle signor other to Aldous. For suddenly Raeburn's expression changed; theover-strenuous, harassed look, which of late had somewhat taken theplace of his old philosopher's quiet, reappeared. 

"I did not tell you, Hallin, " he began, in a low voice, raising his eyesto his friend, "that I had seen her again. "

Hallin paused a moment. Then he said:

"No. I knew she went to the House to hear Wharton's speech, and that shedined there. I supposed she might just have come across you--but shesaid nothing. "

"Of course, I had no idea, " said Aldous; "suddenly Lady Winterbourne andI came across her on the terrace. Then I saw she was with that man'sparty. She spoke to me afterwards--I believe now--she meant to bekind"--his voice showed the difficulty he had in speaking at all--"but Isaw him coming up to talk to her. I am ashamed to think of my ownmanner, but I could not help myself. "

His face and eye took, as he spoke, a peculiar vividness and glow. Raeburn had not for months mentioned to him the name of Marcella Boyce, but Hallin had all along held two faiths about the matter: first, thatAldous was still possessed by a passion which had become part of hislife; secondly, that the events of the preceding year had produced inhim an exceedingly bitter sense of ill-usage, of a type which Hallin hadnot perhaps expected. 

"Did you see anything to make you suppose, " he asked quietly, after apause, "that she is going to marry him?"

"No--no, " Aldous repeated slowly; "but she is clearly on friendly, perhaps intimate, terms with him. And just now, of course, she is morelikely to be influenced by him than ever. He made a great success--of akind--in the House a fortnight ago. People seem to think he may comerapidly to the front. "

"So I understand. I don't believe it. The jealousies that divide thatgroup are too unmanageable. If he _were_ a Parnell! But he lacks justthe qualities that matter--the reticence, the power of holdinghimself aloof from irrelevant things and interests, the hardself-concentration. "

Aldous raised his shoulders. 

"I don't imagine there is any lack of that! But certainly he holdshimself aloof from nothing and nobody! I hear of him everywhere. "

"What!--among the smart people?"

Aldous nodded. 

"A change of policy by all accounts, " said Hallin, musing. "He must doit with intention. He is not the man to let himself be be-Capua-ed allat once. "

"Oh dear, no!" said Aldous, drily. "He does it with intention. Nobodysupposes him to be the mere toady. All the same I think he may very welloverrate the importance of the class he is trying to make use of, andits influence. Have you been following the strike 'leaders' in the_Clarion?_"

"No!" cried Hallin, flushing. "I would not read them for the world! Imight not be able to go on giving to the strike. "

Aldous fell silent, and Hallin presently saw that his mind had harkedback to the one subject that really held the depths of it. The truestfriendship, Hallin believed, would be never to speak to him of MarcellaBoyce--never to encourage him to dwell upon her, or upon anythingconnected with her. But his yearning, sympathetic instinct would not lethim follow his own conviction. 

"Miss Boyce, you know, has been here two or three times while you havebeen away, " he said quickly, as he got up to post a letter. 

Aldous hesitated; then he said--

"Do you gather that her nursing life satisfies her?"

Hallin made a little face. 

"Since when has she become a person likely to be 'satisfied' withanything? She devotes to it a splendid and wonderful energy. When shecomes here I admire her with all my heart, and pity her so much that Icould cry over her!"

Aldous started. 

"I don't know what you mean, " he said, as he too rose and laid his handon Hallin's for a moment. "But don't tell me! It's best for me not totalk of her. If she were associated in my mind with any other man thanWharton, I think somehow I could throw the whole thing off. Butthis--this--" He broke off; then resumed, while he pretended to look fora parcel he had brought with him, by way of covering an agitation hecould not suppress. "A person you and I know said to me the other day, 'It may sound unromantic, but I could never think of a woman who hadthrown me over except _with ill-will. _' The word astonished me, butsometimes I understand it. I find myself full of _anger_ to the mostfutile, the most ridiculous degree!"

He drew himself up nervously, already scorning his own absurdity, hisown breach of reticence. Hallin laid his hands on the taller man'sshoulders, and there was a short pause. 

"Never mind, old fellow, " said Hallin, simply, at last, as his handsdropped; "let's go and do our work. What is it you're after?--I forget. "

Aldous found his packet and his hat, explaining himself again, meanwhile, in his usual voice. He had dropped in on Hallin for a morningvisit, meaning to spend some hours before the House met in theinvestigation of some small workshops in the neighbourhood of DruryLane. The Home Office had been called upon for increased inspection andregulation; there had been a great conflict of evidence, and Aldous hadfinally resolved in his student's way to see for himself the state ofthings in two or three selected streets. 

It was a matter on which Hallin was also well-informed, and feltstrongly. They stayed talking about it a few minutes, Hallin eagerlydirecting Raeburn's attention to the two or three points where hethought the Government could really do good. 

Then Raeburn turned to go. 

"I shall come and drag you out to-morrow afternoon, " he said, as heopened the door. 

"You needn't, " said Hallin, with a smile; "in fact, don't; I shall havemy jaunt. "

Whereby Aldous understood that he would be engaged in his commonSaturday practice of taking out a batch of elder boys or girls from oneor other of the schools of which he was manager, for a walk or to seesome sight. 

"If it's your boys, " he said, protesting, "you're not fit for it. Handthem over to me. "

"Nothing of the sort, " said Hallin, gaily, and turned him out of theroom. 

 * * * * *

Raeburn found the walk from Hallin's Bloomsbury quarters to Drury Lanehot and airless. The planes were already drooping and yellowing in thesquares, the streets were at their closest and dirtiest, and the trafficof Holborn and its approaches had never seemed to him more bewilderingin its roar and volume. July was in, and all freshness had alreadydisappeared from the too short London summer. 

For Raeburn on this particular afternoon there was a curious forlornnessin the dry and tainted air. His slack mood found no bracing in the sunor the breeze. Everything was or seemed distasteful to a mind out oftune--whether this work he was upon, which only yesterday had interestedhim considerably, or his Parliamentary occupations, or some tiresomeestate business which would have to be looked into when he got home. Hewas oppressed, too, by the last news of his grandfather. The certaintythat this dear and honoured life, with which his own had been so closelyintertwined since his boyhood, was drawing to its close weighed upon himnow heavily and constantly. The loss itself would take from him anobject on which affection--checked and thwarted elsewhere--was stillfree to spend itself in ways peculiarly noble and tender; and as forthose other changes to which the first great change must lead--histransference to the Upper House, and the extension for himself of allthe ceremonial side of life--he looked forward to them with an intenseand resentful repugnance, as to aggravations, perversely thrust on himfrom without, of a great and necessary grief. Few men believed lesshappily in democracy than Aldous Raeburn; on the other hand, few menfelt a more steady distaste for certain kinds of inequality. 

He was to meet a young inspector at the corner of Little Queen Street, and they were to visit together a series of small brush-drawing andbox-making workshops in the Drury Lane district, to which the attentionof the Department had lately been specially drawn. Aldous had no soonercrossed Holborn than he saw his man waiting for him, a tall strip of afellow, with a dark bearded face, and a manner which shyness had made atrifle morose. Aldous, however, knew him to be not only a capitalworker, but a man of parts, and had got much information and some ideasout of him already. Mr. Peabody gave the under-secretary a slightpreoccupied smile in return for his friendly greeting, and the twowalked on together talking. 

The inspector announced that he proposed to take his companion first ofall to a street behind Drury Lane, of which many of the houses werealready marked for demolition--a "black street, " bearing a peculiarlyvile reputation in the neighbourhood. It contained on the whole theworst of the small workshops which he desired to bring to Raeburn'snotice, besides a variety of other horrors, social and sanitary. 

After ten minutes' walking they turned into the street. With itscondemned houses, many of them shored up and windowless, its narrowroadway strewn with costers' refuse--it was largely inhabited bycosters frequenting Covent Garden Market--its filthy gutters and brokenpavements, it touched, indeed, a depth of sinister squalor beyond mostof its fellows. The air was heavy with odours which, in this July heat, seemed to bear with them the inmost essences of things sickening anddecaying; and the children, squatting or playing amid the garbage of thestreet, were further than most of their kind from any tolerable humantype. 

A policeman was stationed near the entrance of the street. After theyhad passed him, Mr. Peabody ran back and said a word in his ear. 

"I gave him your name, " he said briefly, in answer to Raeburn'sinterrogative look, when he returned, "and told him what we were after. The street is not quite as bad as it was; and there are little oases ofrespectability in it you would never expect. But there is plenty of theworst thieving and brutality left in it still. Of course, now you see itat its dull moment. To-night the place will swarm with barrows andstalls, all the people will be in the street, and after dark it will beas near pandemonium as may be. I happen to know the School Board visitorof these parts; and a City Missionary, too, who is afraid of nothing. "

And standing still a moment, pointing imperceptibly to right and left, he began in his shy, monotonous voice to run through the inhabitants ofsome of the houses and a few typical histories. This group was mainlypeopled by women of the very lowest class and their "bullies"--that isto say, the men who aided them in plundering, sometimes in murdering, the stranger who fell into their claws; in that house a woman had beenslowly done to death by her husband and his brutal brothers under everycircumstance of tragic horror; in the next a case of flagrant andrevolting cruelty to a pair of infant children had just been brought tolight. In addition to its vice and its thievery, the wretched place was, of course, steeped in drink. There were gin-palaces at all the corners;the women drank, in proportion to their resources, as badly as the men, and the children were fed with the stuff in infancy, and began forthemselves as early as they could beg or steal a copper of their own. 

When the dismal catalogue was done, they moved on towards the furtherend of the street, and a house on the right hand side. Behind the veilof his official manner Aldous's shrinking sense took all it saw andheard as fresh food for a darkness and despondency of soul already greatenough. But his companion--a young enthusiast, secretly very critical of"big-wigs"--was conscious only of the trained man of affairs, courteous, methodical, and well-informed, putting a series ofpreliminary questions with unusual point and rapidity. 

Suddenly, under the influence of a common impression, both men stoodstill and looked about them. There was a stir in the street. Windows hadbeen thrown open, and scores of heads were looking out. People emergedfrom all quarters, seemed to spring from the ground or drop from theskies, and in a few seconds, as it were, the street, so dead-alivebefore, was full of a running and shouting crowd. 

"It's a fight!" said Peabody, as the crowd came up with them. "Listen!"

Shrieks--of the most ghastly and piercing note, rang through the air. The men and women who rushed past the two strangers--hustling them, yettoo excited to notice them--were all making for a house some ten ortwelve yards in front of them, to their left. Aldous had turned white. 

"It is a woman!" he said, after an instant's listening, "and it soundslike murder. You go back for that policeman!"

And without another word he threw himself on the crowd, forcing his waythrough it by the help of arms and shoulders which, in years gone by, had done good service for the Trinity Eight. Drink-sodden men andscreaming women gave way before him. He found himself at the door of thehouse, hammering upon it with two or three other men who were therebefore him. The noise from within was appalling--cries, groans, uproar--all the sounds of a deadly struggle proceeding apparently on thesecond floor of the house. Then came a heavy fall--then the sound of avoice, different in quality and accent from any that had gone before, crying piteously and as though in exhaustion--"Help!"

Almost at the same moment the door which Aldous and his companions weretrying to force was burst open from within, and three men seemed to beshot out from the dark passage inside--two wrestling with the third, awild beast in human shape, maddened apparently with drink, and splashedwith blood. 

"Ee's done for her!" shouted one of the captors; "an' for the Sistertoo!"

"The Sister!" shrieked a woman behind Aldous--it's the nuss he means! Isor her go in when I wor at my window half an hour ago. Oh! yer_blackguard_, you!"--and she would have fallen upon the wretch, in afrenzy, had not the bystanders caught hold of her. 

"Stand back!" cried a policeman. Three of them had come up at Peabody'scall. The man was instantly secured, and the crowd pushed back. 

Aldous was already upstairs. 

"Which room?" he asked of a group of women crying and cowering on thefirst landing--for all sounds from above had ceased. 

"Third floor front, " cried one of them. "We all of us _begged_ and_implored_ of that young person, sir, not to go a-near him! Didn't we, Betsy?--didn't we, Doll?"

Aldous ran up. 

On the third floor, the door of the front room was open. A woman lay onthe ground, apparently beaten to death. 

By her side, torn, dishevelled, and gasping, knelt Marcella Boyce. Twoor three other women were standing by in helpless terror and curiosity. Marcella was bending over the bleeding victim before her. Her own leftarm hung as though disabled by her side; but with the right hand she wasdoing her best to staunch some of the bleeding from the head. Her bagstood open beside her, and one of the chattering women was handing herwhat she asked for. The sight stamped itself in lines of horror onRaeburn's heart. 

In such an exaltation of nerve _she_ could be surprised at nothing. When she saw Raeburn enter the room, she did not even start. 

"I think, " she said, as he stooped down to her--speaking with pauses, asthough to get her breath--"he has--killed her. But there--is a chance. Are the--police there--and a stretcher?"

Two constables entered as she spoke, and the first of them instantlysent his companion back for a stretcher. Then, noticing Marcella'snursing dress and cloak, he came up to her respectfully. 

"Did you see it, miss?"

"I--I tried to separate them, " she replied, still speaking with the samedifficulty, while she silently motioned to Aldous, who was on the otherside of the unconscious and apparently dying woman, to help her with thebandage she was applying. "But he was--such a great--powerful brute. "

Aldous, hating the clumsiness of his man's fingers, knelt down and triedto help her. Her trembling hand touched, mingled with his. 

"I was downstairs, " she went on, while the constable took out hisnote-book, "attending a child--that's ill--when I heard the screams. They were on the landing; he had turned her out of the room--then rushedafter her--I _think_--to throw her downstairs--I stopped that. Then hetook up something--oh! there it is!" She shuddered, pointing to a brokenpiece of a chair which lay on the floor. "He was quite mad with drink--Icouldn't--do much. "

Her voice slipped into a weak, piteous note. 

"Isn't your arm hurt?" said Aldous, pointing to it. 

"It's not broken--it's wrenched; I can't use it. There--that's all wecan do--till she gets--to hospital. "

Then she stood up, pale and staggering, and asked the policeman if hecould put on a bandage. The man had got his ambulance certificate, andwas proud to say that he could. She took a roll out of her bag, andquietly pointed to her arm. He did his best, not without skill, and thedeep line of pain furrowing the centre of the brow relaxed a little. Then she sank down on the floor again beside her patient, gazingat the woman's marred face--indescribably patient in its deepunconsciousness--at the gnarled and bloodstained hands, with theirwedding-ring; at the thin locks of torn grey hair--with tears that ranunheeded down her cheeks, in a passion of anguished pity, which toucheda chord of memory in Raeburn's mind. He had seen her look so oncebefore--beside Minta Hurd, on the day of Hurd's capture. 

At the same moment he saw that they were alone. The policeman hadcleared the room, and was spending the few minutes that must elapsebefore his companion returned with the stretcher, in taking the namesand evidence of some of the inmates of the house, on the stairs outside. 

"You can't do anything more, " said Aldous, gently, bending over her. "Won't you let me take you home?--you want it sorely. The police aretrained to these things, and I have a friend here who will help. Theywill remove her with every care--he will see to it. "

Then for the first time her absorption gave way. She remembered who hewas--where they were--how they had last met. And with the remembrancecame an extraordinary leap of joy, flashing through pain and faintness. She had the childish feeling that he could not look unkindly at heranymore--after this! When at the White House she had got herself intodisgrace, and could not bring her pride to ask pardon, she wouldsilently set up a headache or a cut finger that she might be pitied, andso, perforce, forgiven. The same tacit thought was in her mind now. No!--after this he _must_ be friends with her. 

"I will just help to get her downstairs, " she said, but with aquivering, appealing accent--and so they fell silent. 

Aldous looked round the room--at the miserable filthy garret with itsbegrimed and peeling wall-paper, its two or three broken chairs, itsheap of rags across two boxes that served for a bed; its emptygin-bottles here and there--all the familiar, one might almost sayconventionalised, signs of human ruin and damnation--then at thisbreathing death between himself and her. Perhaps his strongest feelingwas one of fierce and natural protest against circumstance--against hermother!--against a reckless philanthropy that could thus throw thefinest and fragilest things of a poorly-furnished world into such ahopeless struggle with devildom. 

"I have been here several times before, " she said presently, in a faintvoice, "and there has never been any trouble. By day the street is notmuch worse than others--though, of course, it has a bad name. There is alittle boy on the next floor very ill with typhoid. Many of the women inthe house are very good to him and his mother. This poor thing--used tocome in and out--when I was nursing him--Oh, I wish--I _wish_ they wouldcome!" she broke off in impatience, looking at the deathly form--"everymoment is of importance!"

As Aldous went to the door to see if the stretcher was in sight, itopened, and the police came in. Marcella, herself helpless, directed thelifting of the bloodstained head; the police obeyed her with care andskill. Then Raeburn assisted in the carrying downstairs, and presentlythe police with their burden, and accompanied apparently by the wholestreet, were on their way to the nearest hospital. 

Then Aldous, to his despair and wrath, saw that an inspector of police, who had just come up, was talking to Marcella, no doubt instructing heras to how and where she was to give her evidence. She was leaningagainst the passage wall, supporting her injured arm with her hand, andseemed to him on the point of fainting. 

"Get a cab at once, will you!" he said peremptorily to Peabody; thengoing up to the inspector he drew him forward. They exchanged a fewwords, the inspector lifted his cap, and Aldous went back to Marcella. 

"There is a cab here, " he said to her. "Come, please, directly. Theywill not trouble you any more for the present. "

He led her out through the still lingering crowd and put her into thecab. As they drove along, he felt every jolt and roughness of the streetas though he were himself in anguish. She was some time before sherecovered the jar of pain caused her by the act of getting into the cab. Her breath came fast, and he could see that she was trying hard tocontrol herself and not to faint. 

He, too, restrained himself so far as not to talk to her. But theexasperation, the revolt within, was in truth growing unmanageably. Wasthis what her new career--her enthusiasms--meant, or might mean!Twenty-three!--in the prime of youth, of charm! Horrible, unpardonablewaste! He could not bear it, could not submit himself to it. 

Oh! let her marry Wharton, or any one else, so long as it were madeimpossible for her to bruise and exhaust her young bloom amid suchscenes--such gross physical abominations. Amazing!--how meanly, passionately timorous the man of Raeburn's type can be for the woman! Hehimself may be morally "ever a fighter, " and feel the glow, the sternjoy of the fight. But she!--let her leave the human brute and hisunsavoury struggle alone! It cannot be borne--it was never meant--thatshe should dip her delicate wings, of her own free will at least, insuch a mire of blood and tears. It was the feeling that had possessedhim when Mrs. Boyce told him of the visit to the prison, the night inthe cottage. 

In her whirl of feverish thought, she divined him very closely. Presently, as he watched her--hating the man for driving and the cab forshaking--he saw her white lips suddenly smile. 

"I know, " she said, rousing herself to look at him; "you think nursingis all like that!"

"I hope not!" he said, with effort, trying to smile too. 

"I never saw a fight before, " she said, shutting her eyes again. "Nobody is ever rude to us--I often pine for experiences!"

How like her old, wild tone! His rigid look softened involuntarily. 

"Well, you have got one now, " he said, bending over to her. "Does yourarm hurt you much?"

"Yes, --but I can bear it. What vexes me is that I shall have to give upwork for a bit. --Mr. Raeburn!"

"Yes. " His heart beat. 

"We may meet often--mayn't we?--at Lady Winterbourne's--or in thecountry? Couldn't we be friends? You don't know how often--" She turnedaway her weary head a moment--gathered strength to begin again--"--howoften I have regretted--last year. I see now--that I behaved--moreunkindly"--her voice was almost a whisper--"than I thought then. But itis all done with--couldn't we just be good friends--understand eachother, perhaps, better than we ever did?"

She kept her eyes closed, shaken with alternate shame and daring. 

As for him, he was seized with overpowering dumbness and chill. What wasreally in his mind was the Terrace--was Wharton's advancing figure. Buther state--the moment--coerced him. 

"We could not be anything but friends, " he said gently, but withastonishing difficulty; and then could find nothing more to say. Sheknew his reserve, however, and would not this time be repelled. 

She put out her hand. 

"No!" she said, looking at it and withdrawing it with a shudder; "ohno!"

Then suddenly a passion of tears and trembling overcame her. She leantagainst the side of the cab, struggling in vain to regain herself-control, gasping incoherent things about the woman she had not beenable to save. He tried to soothe and calm her, his own heart wrung. Butshe hardly heard him. 

At last they turned into Maine Street, and she saw the gateway ofBrown's Buildings. 

"Here we are, " she said faintly, summoning all her will; "do you knowyou will have to help me across that court, and upstairs--then I shan'tbe any more trouble. "

So, leaning on Raeburn's arm, Marcella made her slow progress across thecourt of Brown's Buildings and through the gaping groups of children. Then at the top of her flight of steps she withdrew herself from himwith a wan smile. 

"Now I am home, " she said. "Good-bye!"

Aldous looked round him well at Brown's Buildings as he departed. Thenhe got into a hansom, and drove to Lady Winterbourne's house, andimplored her to fetch and nurse Marcella Boyce, using her bestcleverness to hide all motion of his in the matter. 

After which he spent--poor Aldous!--one of the most restless andmiserable nights of his life. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Marcella was sitting in a deep and comfortable chair at the open windowof Lady Winterbourne's drawing-room. The house--in James Street, Buckingham Gate--looked out over the exercising ground of the greatbarracks in front, and commanded the greenery of St. James's Park to theleft. The planes lining the barrack railings were poor, wilted things, and London was as hot as ever. Still the charm of these open spaces ofsky and park, after the high walls and innumerable windows of Brown'sBuildings, was very great; Marcella wanted nothing more but to liestill, to dally with a book, to dream as she pleased, and to be letalone. 

Lady Winterbourne and her married daughter, Lady Ermyntrude, were stillout, engaged in the innumerable nothings of the fashionable afternoon. Marcella had her thoughts to herself. 

But they were not of a kind that any one need have wished to share. Inthe first place, she was tired of idleness. In the early days after LadyWinterbourne had carried her off, the soft beds and sofas, the trainedservice and delicate food of this small but luxurious house had been sopleasant to her that she had scorned herself for a greedy Sybaritictemper, delighted by any means to escape from plain living. But she hadbeen here a fortnight, and was now pining to go back to work. Her moodwas too restless and transitional to leave her long in love with comfortand folded hands. She told herself that she had no longer any placeamong the rich and important people of this world; far away beyond theseparks and palaces, in the little network of dark streets she knew, laythe problems and the cares that were really hers, through which herheart was somehow wrestling--must somehow wrestle--its passionate way. But her wrenched arm was still in a sling, and was, moreover, under-going treatment at the hands of a clever specialist; and she couldneither go home, as her mother had wished her to do, nor return to hernursing--a state of affairs which of late had made her a little silentand moody. 

On the whole she found her chief pleasure in the two weekly visits shepaid to the woman whose life, it now appeared, she _had_ saved--probablyat some risk of her own. The poor victim would go scarred and maimedthrough what remained to her of existence. But she lived; and--asMarcella and Lady Winterbourne and Raeburn had abundantly made up theirminds--would be permanently cared for and comforted in the future. 

Alas! there were many things that stood between Marcella and true rest. She had been woefully disappointed, nay wounded, as to the results ofthat tragic half-hour which for the moment had seemed to throw a bridgeof friendship over those painful, estranging memories lying between herand Aldous Raeburn. He had called two or three times since she had beenwith Lady Winterbourne; he had done his best to make her inevitableappearance as a witness in the police-court, as easy to her as possible;the man who had stood by her through such a scene could do no less, incommon politeness and humanity. But each time they met his manner hadbeen formal and constrained; there had been little conversation; and shehad been left to the bitterness of feeling that she had made a strangeif not unseemly advance, of which he must think unkindly, since he hadlet it count with him so little. 

Childishly, angrily--_she wanted him to be friends!_ Why shouldn't he?He would certainly marry Betty Macdonald in time, whatever Mr. Hallinmight say. Then why not put his pride away and be generous? Their futurelives must of necessity touch each other, for they were bound to thesame neighbourhood, the same spot of earth. She knew herself to be herfather's heiress. Mellor must be hers some day; and before that day, whenever her father's illness, of which she now understood the incurablethough probably tedious nature, should reach a certain stage, she mustgo home and take up her life there again. Why embitter such asituation?--make it more difficult for everybody concerned? Why notsimply bury the past and begin again? In her restlessness she wasinclined to think herself much wiser and more magnanimous than he. 

Meanwhile in the Winterbourne household she was living among people towhom Aldous Raeburn was a dear and familiar companion, who admired himwith all their hearts, and felt a sympathetic interest alike in hisprivate life and his public career. Their circle, too, was his circle;and by means of it she now saw Aldous in his relations to his equals andcolleagues, whether in the Ministry or the House. The result was anumber of new impressions which she half resented, as we may resent theinformation that some stranger will give us upon a subject we imaginedourselves better acquainted with than anybody else. The promise ofRaeburn's political position struck her quick mind with a curioussurprise. She could not explain it as she had so often tacitly explainedhis place in Brookshire--by the mere accidents of birth. After all, aristocratic as we still are, no party can now afford to choose its menby any other criterion than personal profitableness. And a man nowadaysis in the long run personally profitable, far more by what he is than bywhat he has--so far at least has "progress" brought us. 

She saw then that this quiet, strong man, with his obvious defects oftemperament and manner, had already gained a remarkable degree of"consideration, " using the word in its French sense, among his politicalcontemporaries. He was beginning to be reckoned upon as a man of thefuture by an inner circle of persons whose word counted and carried;while yet his name was comparatively little known to the public. Marcella, indeed, had gathered her impression from the most slight andvarious sources--mostly from the phrases, the hints, the manner of menalready themselves charged with the most difficult and responsible workof England. Above all things did she love and admire power--the power ofpersonal capacity. It had been the secret, it was still half thesecret, of Wharton's influence with her. She saw it here under whollydifferent conditions and accessories. She gave it recognition with akind of unwillingness. All the same, Raeburn took a new place in herimagination. 

Then--apart from the political world and its judgments--the intimacybetween him and the Winterbourne family showed her to him in many newaspects. To Lady Winterbourne, his mother's dear and close friend, hewas almost a son; and nothing could be more charming than theaffectionate and playful tolerance with which he treated her littleoddities and weaknesses. And to all her children he was bound by thememories and kindnesses of many years. He was the godfather of LadyErmyntrude's child; the hero and counsellor of the two sons, who wereboth in Parliament, and took his lead in many things; while there was noone with whom Lord Winterbourne could more comfortably discuss county oragricultural affairs. In the old days Marcella had somehow tended toregard him as a man of few friends. And in a sense it was so. He did noteasily yield himself; and was often thought dull and apathetic bystrangers. But here, amid these old companions, his delicacy andsweetness of disposition had full play; and although, now that Marcellawas in their house, he came less often, and was less free with them thanusual, she saw enough to make her wonder a little that they were all sokind and indulgent to _her_, seeing that they cared so much for him andall that affected him. 

Well! she was often judged, humbled, reproached. Yet there was a certainirritation in it. Was it all her own fault that in her brief engagementshe had realised him so little? Her heart was sometimes oddly sore; herconscience full of smart; but there were moments when she was ascombative as ever. 

Nor had certain other experiences of this past fortnight been any moresoothing to this sore craving sense of hers. It appeared very soon thatnothing would have been easier for her had she chosen than to become thelion of the later season. The story of the Batton Street tragedy had, ofcourse, got into the papers, and had been treated there with the usualadornments of the "New Journalism. "

The world which knew the Raeburns or knew of them--comparatively a largeworld--fell with avidity on the romantic juxtaposition of names. To loseyour betrothed as Aldous Raeburn had lost his, and then to come acrossher again in this manner and in these circumstances--there was adramatic neatness about it to which the careless Fate that governs ustoo seldom attains. London discussed the story a good deal; and wouldhave liked dearly to see and to exhibit the heroine. Mrs. Lane inparticular, the hostess of the House of Commons dinner, felt that shehad claims, and was one of the first to call at Lady Winterbourne's andsee her guest. She soon discovered that Marcella had no intentionwhatever of playing the lion; and must, in fact, avoid excitement andfatigue. But she had succeeded in getting the girl to come to her onceor twice of an afternoon to meet two or three people. It was better forthe wounded arm that its owner should walk than drive; and Mrs. Lanelived at a convenient distance, at a house in Piccadilly, just acrossthe Green Park. 

Here then, as in James Street, Marcella had met in discreet successiona few admiring and curious persons, and had tasted some of the smallersweets of fame. But the magnet that drew her to the Lanes' house hadbeen no craving for notoriety; at the present moment she was totallyindifferent to what perhaps constitutionally she might have liked; theattraction had been simply the occasional presence there of HarryWharton. He excited, puzzled, angered, and commanded her more than ever. She could not keep herself away from the chance of meeting him. And LadyWinterbourne neither knew him, nor apparently wished to know him--a factwhich probably tended to make Marcella obstinate. 

Yet what pleasure had there been after all in these meetings! Again andagain she had seen him surrounded there by pretty and fashionable women, with some of whom he was on amazingly easy terms, while with all of themhe talked their language, and so far as she could see to a great extentlived their life. The contradiction of the House of Commons eveningreturned upon her perpetually. She thought she saw in many of his newfriends a certain malicious triumph in the readiness with which theyoung demagogue had yielded to their baits. No doubt they were at leastas much duped as he. Like Hallin, she did not believe, that at bottom hewas the man to let himself be held by silken bonds if it should be tohis interest to break them. But, meanwhile, his bearing among thesepeople--the claims they and their amusement made upon his time and hismind--seemed to this girl, who watched them, with her dark, astonishedeyes, a kind of treachery to his place and his cause. It was somethingshe had never dreamed of; and it roused her contempt and irritation. 

Then as to herself. He had been all eagerness in his enquiries after herfrom Mrs. Lane; and he never saw her in the Piccadilly drawing-room thathe did not pay her homage, often with a certain extravagance, a kind ofappropriation, which Mrs. Lane secretly thought in bad taste, andMarcella sometimes resented. On the other hand, things jarred betweenthem frequently. From day to day he varied. She had dreamt of a greatfriendship; but instead, it was hardly possible to carry on the threadof their relation from meeting to meeting with simplicity and trust. Onthe Terrace he had behaved, or would have behaved, if she had allowedhim, as a lover. When they met again at Mrs. Lane's he would besometimes devoted in his old paradoxical, flattering vein; sometimes, she thought, even cool. Nay, once or twice he was guilty of curiouslittle neglects towards her, generally in the presence of some greatlady or other. On one of these occasions she suddenly felt herselfflushing from brow to chin at the thought--"He does not want any one tosuppose for a moment that he wishes to marry me!"

It had taken Wharton some difficult hours to subdue in her the effectsof that one moment's fancy. Till then it is the simple truth to say thatshe had never seriously considered the possibility of marrying him. Whenit _did_ enter her mind, she saw that it had already entered his--andthat he was full of doubts! The perception had given to her manner anincreasing aloofness and pride which had of late piqued Wharton intoefforts from which vanity, and, indeed, something else, could notrefrain, if he was to preserve his power. 

So she was sitting by the window this afternoon, in a mood which had init neither simplicity nor joy. She was conscious of a certain dull andbaffled feeling--a sense of humiliation--which hurt. Moreover, the sceneof sordid horror she had gone through haunted her imaginationperpetually. She was unstrung, and the world weighed upon her--the pity, the ugliness, the confusion of it. 

 * * * * *

The muslin curtain beside her suddenly swelled out in a draught of air, and she put out her hand quickly to catch the French window lest itshould swing to. Some one had opened the door of the room. 

"_Did_ I blow you out of window?" said a girl's voice; and there behindher, in a half-timid attitude, stood Betty Macdonald, a vision of whitemuslin, its frills and capes a little tossed by the wind, the pointedface and golden hair showing small and elf-like under the big shady hat. 

"Oh, do come in!" said Marcella, shyly; "Lady Winterbourne will be indirectly. "

"So Panton told me, " said Betty, sinking down on a high stool besideMarcella's chair, and taking off her hat; "and Panton doesn't tell _me_any stories _now_--I've trained him. I wonder how many he tells in theday? Don't you think there will be a special little corner of purgatoryfor London butlers? I hope Panton will get off easy!"

Then she laid her sharp chin on her tiny hand, and studied Marcella. Miss Boyce was in the light black dress that Minta approved; her paleface and delicate hands stood out from it with a sort of noble emphasis. When Betty had first heard of Marcella Boyce as the heroine of a certainstory, she had thought of her as a girl one would like to meet, if onlyto prick her somehow for breaking the heart of a good man. Now that shesaw her close she felt herself near to falling in love with her. Moreover, the incident of the fight and of Miss Boyce's share in it hadthrilled a creature all susceptibility and curiosity; and the littlemerry thing would sit hushed, looking at the heroine of it, awed by thethought of what a girl only two years older than herself must havealready seen of sin and tragedy, envying her with all her heart, and bycontrast honesty despising--for the moment--that very happy and popularperson, Betty Macdonald!

"Do you like being alone?" she asked Marcella, abruptly. 

Marcella coloured. 

"Well, I was just getting very tired of my own company, " she said. "Iwas very glad to see you come in. "

"Were you?" said Betty, joyously, with a little gleam in her prettyeyes. Then suddenly the golden head bent forward. "May I kiss you?" shesaid, in the wistfullest, eagerest voice. 

Marcella smiled, and, laying her hand on Betty's, shyly drew her. 

"That's better!" said Betty, with a long breath. "That's the secondmilestone; the first was when I saw you on the Terrace. Couldn't youmark all your friendships by little white stones? I could. But thehorrid thing is when you have to mark them back again! Nobody ever didthat with you!"

"Because I have no friends, " said Marcella, quickly; then, when Bettyclapped her hands in amazement at such a speech, she added quickly witha smile, "except a few I make poultices for. "

"There!" said Betty, enviously, "to think of being really _wanted_--forpoultices--or, anything! I never was wanted in my life! When I diethey'll put on my poor little grave--

 "She's buried here--that hizzie Betty; She did na gude--so don't ee fret ye!

"--oh, there they are!"--she ran to the window--"Lady Winterbourne andErmyntrude. Doesn't it make you laugh to see Lady Winterbourne doing herduties? She gets into her carriage after lunch as one might mount atumbril. I expect to hear her tell the coachman to drive to the scaffoldat Hyde Park Corner. ' She looks the unhappiest woman in England--and allthe time Ermyntrude declares she likes it, and wouldn't do without herseason for the world! She gives Ermyntrude a lot of trouble, but she_is_ a dear--a naughty dear--and mothers are _such_ a chance!Ermyntrude! _where_ did you get that bonnet? You got it without me--andmy feelings won't stand it!"

Lady Ermyntrude and Betty threw themselves on a sofa together, chattering and laughing. Lady Winterbourne came up to Marcella andenquired after her. She was still slowly drawing off her gloves, whenthe drawing-room door opened again. 

"Tea, Panton!" said Lady Winterbourne, without turning her head, and inthe tone of Lady Macbeth. But the magnificent butler took no notice. 

"Lady Selina Farrell!" he announced in a firm voice. 

Lady Winterbourne gave a nervous start; then, with the air of a personcut out of wood, made a slight advance, and held out a limp hand to hervisitor. 

"Won't you sit down?" she said. 

Anybody who did not know her would have supposed that she had never seenLady Selina before. In reality she and the Alresfords were cousins. Butshe did not like Lady Selina, and never took any pains to conceal it--afact which did not in the smallest degree interfere with the youngerlady's performance of her family duties. 

Lady Selina found a seat with easy aplomb, put up her bejewelled fingersto draw off her veil, and smilingly prepared herself for tea. Sheenquired of Betty how she was enjoying herself, and of Lady Ermyntrudehow her husband and baby in the country were getting on without her. Thetone of this last question made the person addressed flush and drawherself up. It was put as banter, but certainly conveyed that LadyErmyntrude was neglecting her family for the sake of dissipations. Bettymeanwhile curled herself up in a corner of the sofa, letting one prettyfoot swing over the other, and watching the new-comer with a maliciouseye, which instantly and gleefully perceived that Lady Selina thoughther attitude ungraceful. 

Marcella, of course, was greeted and condoled with--Lady Selina, however, had seen her since the tragedy--and then Lady Winterbourne, after every item of her family news, and every symptom of her own andher husband's health had been rigorously enquired into, began to attemptsome feeble questions of her own--how, for instance, was LordAlresford's gout?

Lady Selina replied that he was well, but much depressed by thepolitical situation. No doubt Ministers had done their best, but hethought two or three foolish mistakes had been made during the session. Certain blunders ought at all hazards to have been avoided. He fearedthat the party and the country might have to pay dearly for them. But_he_ had done his best. 

Lady Winterbourne, whose eldest son was a junior whip, had been therecipient, since the advent of the new Cabinet, of so much rejoicingover the final exclusion of "that vain old idiot, Alresford, " from anyfurther chances of muddling a public department, that Lady Selina's talkmade her at once nervous and irritable. She was afraid of beingindiscreet; yet she longed to put her visitor down. In her odddisjointed way, too, she took a real interest in politics. Her cravingidealist nature--mated with a cheery sportsman husband who laughed ather, yet had made her happy--was always trying to reconcile the ends ofeternal justice with the measures of the Tory party. It was a task ofSisyphus; but she would not let it alone. 

"I do not agree with you, " she said with cold shyness in answer to LadySelina's concluding laments--"I am told--our people say--we are doingvery well--except that the session is likely to be dreadfully long. "

Lady Selina raised both her eyebrows and her shoulders. 

"_Dear_ Lady Winterbourne! you really mean it?" she said with theindulgent incredulity one shows to the simple-minded--"But just think!The session will go on, every one says, till _quite_ the end ofSeptember. Isn't that enough of itself to make a party discontented?_All_ our big measures are in dreadful arrears. And my father believesso _much_ of the friction might have been avoided. He is all in favourof doing more for Labour. He thinks these Labour men might have beeneasily propitiated without anything revolutionary. It's no goodsupposing that these poor starving people will wait for ever!"

"Oh!" said Lady Winterbourne, and sat staring at her visitor. To thosewho knew its author well, the monosyllable could not have been moreexpressive. Lady Winterbourne's sense of humour had no voice, butinwardly it was busy with Lord Alresford as the "friend of the poor. "_Alresford_!--the narrowest and niggardliest tyrant alive, so far as hisown servants and estate were concerned. And as to Lady Selina, it waswell known to the Winterbourne cousinship that she could never get amaid to stay with her six months. 

"What did _you_ think of Mr. Wharton's speech the other night?" saidLady Selina, bending suavely across the tea-table to Marcella. 

"It was very interesting, " said Marcella, stiffly--perfectly consciousthat the name had pricked the attention of everybody in the room, andangry with her cheeks for reddening. 

"Wasn't it?" said Lady Selina, heartily. "You can't _do_ those things, of course! But you should show every sympathy to the clever enthusiasticyoung men--the men like that--shouldn't you? That's what my father says. He says we've got to win them. We've got somehow to make them feel ustheir friends--or we shall _all_ go to ruin! They have the votingpower--and we are the party of education, of refinement. If we can onlylead that kind of man to see the essential justice of our cause--and atthe same time give them our help--in reason--show them we want to betheir friends--wouldn't it be best? I don't know whether I put itrightly--you know so much about these things! But we can't undo '67--canwe? We must get round it somehow--mustn't we? And my father thinksMinisters so unwise! But perhaps"--and Lady Selina drew herself backwith a more gracious smile than ever--"I ought not to be saying thesethings to you--of course I know you _used_ to think us Conservativesvery bad people--but Mr. Wharton tells me, perhaps you don't think_quite_ so hardly of us as you used?"

Lady Selina's head in its Paris bonnet fell to one side in a gentleinterrogative sort of way. 

Something roused in Marcella. 

"Our cause?" she repeated, while the dark eye dilated--"I wonder whatyou mean?"

"Well, I mean--" said Lady Selina, seeking for the harmless word, inthe face of this unknown explosive-looking girl--"I mean, of course, thecause of the educated--of the people who have made the country. "

"I think, " said Marcella, quietly, "you mean the cause of the rich, don't you?"

"Marcella!" cried Lady Winterbourne, catching at the tone rather thanwords--"I thought you didn't feel like that any more--not about thedistance between the poor and the rich--and our tyranny--and its beinghopeless--and the poor always hating us--I thought you changed. "

And forgetting Lady Selina, remembering only the old talks at Mellor, Lady Winterbourne bent forward and laid an appealing hand on Marcella'sarm. 

Marcella turned to her with an odd look. 

"If you only knew, " she said, "how much more possible it is to thinkwell of the rich, when you are living amongst the poor!"

"Ah! you must be at a distance from us to do us justice?" enquired LadySelina, settling her bracelets with a sarcastic lip. 

"_I_ must, " said Marcella, looking, however, not at her, but at LadyWinterbourne. "But then, you see, "--she caressed her friend's hand witha smile--"it is so easy to throw some people into opposition!"

"Dreadfully easy!" sighed Lady Winterbourne. 

The flush mounted again in the girl's cheek. She hesitated, then feltdriven to explanations. 

"You see--oddly enough"--she pointed away for an instant to thenorth-east through the open window--"it's when I'm over there--among thepeople who have nothing--that it does me good to remember that thereare persons who live in James Street, Buckingham Gate!"

"My dear! I don't understand, " said Lady Winterbourne, studying her withher most perplexed and tragic air. 

"Well, isn't it simple?" said Marcella, still holding her hand andlooking up at her. "It comes, I suppose, of going about all day in thosestreets and houses, among people who live in one room--with not a bit ofprettiness anywhere--and no place to be alone in, or to rest in. I comehome and _gloat_ over all the beautiful dresses and houses and gardens Ican think of!"

"But don't you _hate_ the people that have them?" said Betty, again onher stool, chin in hand. 

"No! it doesn't seem to matter to me then what kind of people they are. And I don't so much want to take from them and give to the others. Ionly want to be sure that the beauty, and the leisure, and the freshnessare _some_where--not lost out of the world. "

"How strange!--in a life like yours--that one should think so much ofthe _ugliness_ of being poor--more than of suffering or pain, " saidBetty, musing. 

"Well--in some moods--you do--_I_ do!" said Marcella; "and it is inthose moods that I feel least resentful of wealth. If I say to myselfthat the people who have all the beauty and the leisure are oftenselfish and cruel--after all they die out of their houses and theirparks, and their pictures, in time, like the shell-fish out of itsshell. The beauty and the grace which they created or inherited remain. And why should one be envious of _them_ personally? They have had thebest chances in the world and thrown them away--are but poor animals atthe end! At any rate I can't hate them--they seem to have afunction--when I am moving about Drury Lane!" she added with a smile. 

"But how can one help being ashamed?" said Lady Winterbourne, as hereyes wandered over her pretty room, and she felt herself driven somehowinto playing devil's advocate. 

"No! No!" said Marcella, eagerly, "don't be ashamed! As to the peoplewho make beauty more beautiful--who share it and give it--I often feelas if I could say to them on my knees, Never, _never_ be ashamed merelyof being rich--of living with beautiful things, and having time to enjoythem! One might as well be ashamed of being strong rather than acripple, or having two eyes rather than one!"

"Oh, but, my dear!" cried Lady Winterbourne, piteous and bewildered, "when one has all the beauty and the freedom--and other people must_die_ without any--"

"Oh, I know, I _know_!" said Marcella, with a quick gesture of despair;"that's what makes the world the world. And one begins with thinking itcan be changed--that it _must_ and _shall_ be changed!--that everybodycould have wealth--could have beauty and rest, and time to think, thatis to say--if things were different--if one could get Socialism--if onecould beat down the capitalist--if one could level down, and level up, till everybody had 200 _l. _ a year. One turns and fingers the puzzle allday long. It seems so _near_ coming right--one guesses a hundred ways inwhich it might be done! Then after a while one stumbles upon doubt--onebegins to see that it never _will_, never _can_ come right--not in anymechanical way of that sort--that _that_ isn't what was meant!"

Her voice dropped drearily. Betty Macdonald gazed at her with a girl'snascent adoration. Lady Winterbourne was looking puzzled and unhappy, but absorbed like Betty in Marcella. Lady Selina, studying the threewith smiling composure, was putting on her veil, with the most carefulattention to fringe and hairpins. As for Ermyntrude, she was no longeron the sofa; she had risen noiselessly, finger on lip, almost at thebeginning of Marcella's talk, to greet a visitor. She and he werestanding at the back of the room, in the opening of the conservatory, unnoticed by any of the group in the bow window. 

"Don't you think, " said Lady Selina, airily, her white fingers stillbusy with her bonnet, "that it would be a very good thing to send allthe Radicals--the well-to-do Radicals I mean--to live among the poor? Itseems to teach people such extremely useful things!"

Marcella straightened herself as though some one had touched herimpertinently. She looked round quickly. 

"I wonder what you suppose it teaches?"

"Well, " said Lady Selina, a little taken aback and hesitating; "well! Isuppose it teaches a person to be content--and not to cry for the moon!"

"You _think_, " said Marcella, slowly, "that to live among the poor canteach any one--any one that's _human_--to be _content_!"

Her manner had the unconscious intensity of emphasis, the dramatic forcethat came to her from another blood than ours. Another woman couldhardly have fallen into such a tone without affectation--without pose. At this moment certainly Betty, who was watching her, acquitted her ofeither, and warmly thought her a magnificent creature. 

Lady Selina's feeling simply was that she had been roughly addressed byher social inferior. She drew herself up. 

"As I understand you, " she said stiffly, "you yourself confessed that tolive with poverty had led you to think more reasonably of wealth. "

Suddenly a movement of Lady Ermyntrude's made the speaker turn her head. She saw the pair at the end of the room, looked astonished, then smiled. 

"Why, Mr. Raeburn! where have you been hiding yourself during this greatdiscussion? Most consoling, wasn't it--on the whole--to us West Endpeople?"

She threw back a keen glance at Marcella. Lady Ermyntrude and Raeburncame forward. 

"I made him be quiet, " said Ermyntrude, not looking, however, quite ather ease; "it would have been a shame to interrupt. "

"I think so, indeed!" said Lady Selina, with emphasis. "Good-bye, dearLady Winterbourne; good-bye, Miss Boyce! You have comforted me verymuch! Of _course_ one is sorry for the poor; but it is a great thing tohear from anybody who knows as much about it as _you_ do, that--afterall--it is no crime--to possess a little!"

She stood smiling, looking from the girl to the man--then, escorted byRaeburn in his very stiffest manner, she swept out of the room. 

When Aldous came back, with a somewhat slow and hesitating step, heapproached Marcella, who was standing silent by the window, and askedafter the lame arm. He was sorry, he said, to see that it was still inits sling. His tone was a little abrupt. Only Lady Winterbourne saw thequick nervousness of the eyes, "Oh! thank you, " said Marcella, coldly, "I shall get back to work nextweek. "

She stooped and took up her book. 

"I must please go and write some letters, " she said, in answer to LadyWinterbourne's flurried look. 

And she walked away. Betty and Lady Ermyntrude also went to take offtheir things. 

"Aldous!" said Lady Winterbourne, holding out her hand to him. 

He took it, glanced unwillingly at her wistful, agitated face, pressedthe hand, and let it go. 

"Isn't it sad, " said his old friend, unable to help herself, "to see herbattling like this with life--with thought--all alone? Isn't it sad, Aldous?"

"Yes, " he said. Then, after a pause, "Why _doesn't_ she go home? Mypatience gives out when I think of Mrs. Boyce. "

"Oh! it isn't Mrs. Boyce's fault, " said Lady Winterbourne, hopelessly. "And I don't know why one should be sorry for her particularly--why oneshould want her to change her life again. She does it splendidly. OnlyI never, _never_ feel that she is a bit happy in it. "

It was Hallin's cry over again. 

He said nothing for a moment; then he forced a smile. 

"Well! neither you nor I can help it, can we?" he said. The grey eyeslooked at her steadily--bitterly. Lady Winterbourne, with the sensationof one who, looking for softness, has lit on granite, changed thesubject. 

Meanwhile, Marcella upstairs was walking restlessly up and down. Shecould hardly keep herself from rushing off--back to Brown's Buildings atonce. _He_ in the room while she was saying those things! Lady Selina'swords burnt in her ears. Her morbid, irritable sense was all onevibration of pride and revolt. Apology--appeal--under the neatest comedyguise! Of course!--now that Lord-Maxwell was dying, and the ill-usedsuitor was so much the nearer to his earldom. A foolish girl hadrepented her of her folly--was anxious to make those concernedunderstand--what more simple?

Her nerves were strained and out of gear. Tears came in a proud, passionate gush; and she must needs allow herself the relief of them. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile, Lady Selina had gone home full of new and uncomfortablefeelings. She could not get Marcella Boyce out of her head--neither asshe had just seen her, under the wing of "that foolish woman, MadeleineWinterbourne, " nor as she had seen her first, on the terrace with HarryWharton. It did not please Lady Selina to feel herself in any wayeclipsed or even rivalled by such an unimportant person as this strangeand ridiculous girl. Yet it crossed her mind with a stab, as she layresting on the sofa in her little sitting-room before dinner, that neverin all her thirty-five years had any human being looked into _her_ facewith the same alternations of eagerness and satisfied pleasure she hadseen on Harry Wharton's, as he and Miss Boyce strolled the terracetogether--nor even with such a look as that silly baby Betty Macdonaldhad put on, as she sat on the stool at the heroine's feet. 

There was to be a small dinner-party at Alresford House that night. Wharton was to be among the guests. He was fast becoming one of the_habitues_ of the house, and would often stay behind to talk to LadySelina when the guests were gone, and Lord Alresford was dozingpeacefully in a deep arm-chair. 

Lady Selina lay still in the evening light, and let her mind, whichworked with extraordinary shrewdness and force in the grooves congenialto it, run over some possibilities of the future. 

She was interrupted by the entrance of her maid, who, with the quickenedbreath and heightened colour she could not repress when speaking to herformidable mistress, told her that one of the younger housemaids wasvery ill. Lady Selina enquired, found that the doctor who alwaysattended the servants had been sent for, and thought that the illness_might_ turn to rheumatic fever. 

"Oh, send her off to the hospital at once!" said Lady Selina. "Let Mrs. Stewart see Dr. Briggs first thing in the morning, and makearrangements. You understand?"

The girl hesitated, and the candles she was lighting showed that she hadbeen crying. 

"If your ladyship would but let her stay, " she said timidly, "we'd alltake our turns at nursing her. She comes from Ireland, perhaps you'llremember, my lady. She's no friends in London, and she's frightened todeath of going to the hospital. "

"That's nonsense!" said Lady Selina, sternly. "Do you think I can haveall the work of the house put out because some one is ill? She might dieeven--one never knows. Just tell Mrs. Stewart to arrange with her abouther wages, and to look out for somebody else at once. "

The girl's mouth set sullenly as she went about her work--put out theshining satin dress, the jewels, the hairpins, the curling-irons, thevarious powders and cosmetics that were wanted for Lady Selina'stoilette, and all the time there was ringing in her ears the piteous cryof a little Irish girl, clinging like a child to her only friend: "OMarie! dear Marie! do get her to let me stay--I'll do everything thedoctor tells me--I'll make _haste_ and get well--I'll give no trouble. And it's all along of the work--and the damp up in these rooms--thedoctor said so. "

An hour later Lady Selina was in the stately drawing-room of AlresfordHouse, receiving her guests. She was out of sorts and temper, and thoughWharton arrived in due time, and she had the prospect to enliven herduring dinner--when he was of necessity parted from her by people ofhigher rank--of a _tête-à-tête_ with him before the evening was over, the dinner went heavily. The Duke on her right hand, and the Dean on herleft, were equally distasteful to her. Neither food nor wine had savour;and once, when in an interval of talk she caught sight of her father'sface and form at the further end, growing more vacant and decrepit weekby week, she was seized with a sudden angry pang of revolt andrepulsion. Her father wearied and disgusted her. Life was often tristeand dull in the great house. Yet, when the old man should have found hisgrave, she would be a much smaller person than she was now, and the dayswould be so much the more tedious. 

Wharton, too, showed less than his usual animation. She said to herselfat dinner that he had the face of a man in want of sleep. His youngbrilliant look was somewhat tarnished, and there was worry in therestless eye. And, indeed, she knew that things had not been going sofavourably for him in the House of late--that the stubborn oppositionof the little group of men led by Wilkins was still hindering thatconcentration of the party and definition of his own foremost place init which had looked so close and probable a few weeks before. Shesupposed he had been exhausting himself, too, over that shocking Midlandstrike. The _Clarion_ had been throwing itself into the battle of themen with a monstrous violence, for which she had several timesreproached him. 

When all the guests had gone but Wharton, and Lord Alresford, dulyplaced for the sake of propriety in his accustomed chair, was safelyasleep, Lady Selina asked what was the matter. 

"Oh, the usual thing!" he said, as he leant against the mantelpiecebeside her. "The world's a poor place, and my doll's stuffed withsawdust. Did you ever know any doll that wasn't?"

She looked up at him a moment without speaking. 

"Which means, " she said, "that you can't get your way in the House?"

"No, " said Wharton, meditatively, looking down at his boots. "No--notyet. "

"You think you will get it some day?"

He raised his eyes. 

"Oh yes!" he said; "oh dear, yes!--some day. "

She laughed. 

"You had better come over to us. "

"Well, there is always that to think of, isn't there? You can't deny youwant all the new blood you can get!"

"If you only understood your moment and your chance, " she said quickly, "you would make the opportunity and do it at once. "

He looked at her aggressively. 

"How easy it comes to you Tories to rat!" he said. 

"Thank you! it only means that we are the party of common sense. Well, Ihave been talking to your Miss Boyce. "

He started. 

"Where?"

"At Lady Winterbourne's. Aldous Raeburn was there. Your beautifulSocialist was very interesting--and rather surprising. She talked of theadvantages of wealth; said she had been converted--by living among thepoor--had changed her mind, in fact, on many things. We were all muchedified--including Mr. Raeburn. How long do you suppose that businesswill remain 'off'? To my mind I never saw a young woman more eager toundo a mistake. " Then she added slowly, "The accounts of Lord Maxwellget more and more unsatisfactory. "

Wharton stared at her with sparkling eyes. "How little you know her!" hesaid, not without a tone of contempt. 

"Oh! very well, " said Lady Selina, with the slightest shrug of her whiteshoulders. 

He turned to the mantelpiece and began to play with some ornaments uponit. 

"Tell me what she said, " he enquired presently. 

Lady Selina gave her own account of the conversation. Wharton recoveredhimself. 

"Dear me!" he said, when she stopped. "Yes--well--we may see anotheract. Who knows? Well, good-night, Lady Selina. "

She gave him her hand with her usual aristocrat's passivity, and hewent. But it was late indeed that night before she ceased to speculateon what the real effect of her words had been upon him. 

As for Wharton, on his walk home he thought of Marcella Boyce and ofRaeburn with a certain fever of jealous vanity which was coming, he toldhimself, dangerously near to passion. He did not believe Lady Selina, but nevertheless he felt that her news might drive him into rash stepshe could ill afford, and had indeed been doing his best to avoid. Meanwhile it was clear to him that the mistress of Alresford House hadtaken an envious dislike to Marcella. How plain she had looked to-nightin spite of her gorgeous dress! and how intolerable Lord Alresford grew!

CHAPTER XII. 

But what right had Wharton to be thinking of such irrelevant matters aswomen and love-making at all? He had spoken of public worries to LadySelina. In reality his public prospects in themselves were, if anything, improved. It was his private affairs that were rushing fast oncatastrophe, and threatening to drag the rest with them. 

He had never been so hard pressed for money in his life. In the firstplace his gambling debts had mounted up prodigiously of late. Hisfriends were tolerant and easy-going. But the more tolerant they werethe more he was bound to frequent them. And his luck for some time hadbeen monotonously bad. Before long these debts must be paid, and some ofthem--to a figure he shrank from dwelling upon--were already urgent. 

Then as to the _Clarion_, it became every week a heavier burden. Theexpenses of it were enormous; the returns totally inadequate. Advertisements were falling off steadily; and whether the working costwere cut down, or whether a new and good man like Louis Craven, whoseletters from the strike district were being now universally read, wereput on, the result financially seemed to be precisely the same. It wasbecoming even a desperate question how the weekly expenses were to bemet; so that Wharton's usual good temper now deserted him entirely assoon as he had crossed the _Clarion_ threshold; bitterness had becomethe portion of the staff, and even the office boys walked in gloom. 

Yet, at the same time, withdrawing from the business, was almost asdifficult as carrying it on. There were rumours in the air which had, already seriously damaged the paper as a saleable concern. Wharton, indeed, saw no prospect whatever of selling except at ruinous loss. Meanwhile, to bring the paper to an abrupt end would have not onlyprecipitated a number of his financial obligations; it would have beenpolitically, a dangerous confession of failure made at a very criticalmoment. For what made the whole thing the more annoying was that the_Clarion_ had never been so important politically, never so much read bythe persons on whom Wharton's parliamentary future depended, as it wasat this moment. The advocacy of the Damesley strike had been so far astroke of business for Wharton as a Labour Member. 

It was now the seventh week of the strike, and Wharton's "leaders, "Craven's letters from the seat of war, and the _Clarion_ strike fund, which articles and letters had called into existence, were as vigorousas ever. The struggle itself had fallen into two chapters. In the firstthe metal-workers concerned, both men and women, had stood out for theold wages unconditionally and had stoutly rejected all idea ofarbitration. At the end of three or four weeks, however, when gravesuffering had declared itself among an already half-starved population, the workers had consented to take part in the appointment of a board ofconciliation. This board, including the workmen's delegates, overawedby the facts of foreign competition as they were disclosed by themasters, recommended terms which would have amounted to a victory forthe employers. 

The award was no sooner known in the district than the passionateindignation of the great majority of the workers knew no bounds. Meetings were held everywhere; the men's delegates at the board werethrown over, and Craven, who with his new wife was travellingincessantly over the whole strike area, wrote a letter to the _Clarion_on the award which stated the men's case with extreme ability, wasimmediately backed up by Wharton in a tremendous "leader, " and wasreceived among the strikers with tears almost of gratitude andenthusiasm. 

Since then all negotiations had been broken off. The _Clarion_ had gonesteadily against the masters, against the award, against furtherarbitration. The theory of the "living wage, " of which more recent dayshave heard so much, was preached in other terms, but with equal vigour;and the columns of the _Clarion_ bore witness day by day in the longlists of subscriptions to the strike fund, to the effects of itseloquence on the hearts and pockets of Englishmen. 

Meanwhile there were strange rumours abroad. It was said that the tradewas really on the eve of a complete and striking revolution in its wholeconditions--could this labour war be only cleared out of the way. Thesmaller employers had been for long on the verge of ruin; and the largermen, so report had it, were scheming a syndicate on the American planto embrace the whole industry, cut down the costs of production, andregulate the output. 

But for this large capital would be wanted. Could capital be got? Thestate of things in the trade, according to the employers, had beendeplorable for years; a large part of the market had been definitelyforfeited, so they declared, for good, to Germany and Belgium. It wouldtake years before even a powerful syndicate could work itself into athoroughly sound condition. Let the men accept the award of theconciliation board; let there be some stable and reasonable prospect ofpeace between masters and men, say, for a couple of years; and a certaingroup of bankers would come forward; and all would be well. The menunder the syndicate would in time get more than their old wage. _But theaward first_; otherwise the plan dropped, and the industry must go itsown way to perdition. 

"'Will you walk into my parlour?'" said Wharton, scornfully, to theyoung Conservative member who, with a purpose, was explaining thesethings to him in the library of the House of Commons, "the merest trap!and, of course, the men will see it so. Who is to guarantee them eventhe carrying through, much less the success, of your precious syndicate?And, in return for your misty millennium two years hence, the men are tojoin at once in putting the employers in a stronger position than ever?Thank you! The 'rent of ability' in the present state of things is, nodoubt, large. But in this particular case the _Clarion_ will go on doingits best--I promise you--to nibble some of it away!"

The Conservative member rose in indignation. 

"I should be sorry to have as many starving people on my conscience asyou'll have before long!" he said as he took up his papers. 

At that moment Denny's rotund and square-headed figure passed along thecorridor, to which the library door stood open. 

"Well, if I thrive upon it as well as Denny does, I shall do!" returnedWharton, with his usual caustic good-humour, as his companion departed. 

And it delighted him to think as he walked home that Denny, who hadagain of late made himself particularly obnoxious in the House ofCommons, on two or three occasions, to the owner of the _Clarion_, hadprobably instigated the quasi-overtures he had just rejected, and mustbe by now aware of their result. 

Then he sent for Craven to come and confer with him. 

Craven accordingly came up from the Midlands, pale, thin, and exhausted, with the exertions and emotions of seven weeks' incessant labour. Yetpersonally Wharton found him, as before, dry and unsympathetic; anddisliked him, and his cool, ambiguous manner, more than ever. As to thestrike, however, they came to a complete understanding. The _Clarion_, or rather the _Clarion_ fund, which was doing better and better, heldthe key of the whole situation. If that fund could be maintained, themen could hold out. In view of the possible formation of the syndicate, Craven denounced the award with more fierceness than ever, maintainingthe redoubled importance of securing the men's terms before thesyndicate was launched. Wharton promised him with glee that he should besupported to the bitter end. 

_If_, that is to say--a proviso he did not discuss with Craven--the_Clarion_ itself could be kept going. In August a large sum, obtainedtwo years before on the security of new "plant, " would fall due. Thetime for repayment had already been extended; and Wharton hadascertained that no further extension was possible. 

Well! bankruptcy would be a piquant interlude in his various social andpolitical enterprises! How was it to be avoided? He had by now plenty ofrich friends in the City or elsewhere, but none, as he finally decided, likely to be useful to him at the present moment. For the amount ofmoney that he required was large--larger, indeed, than he cared toverify with any strictness, and the security that he could offer, almostnil. 

As to friends in the City, indeed, the only excursion of a business kindthat he had made into those regions since his election was now addingseriously to his anxieties--might very well turn out, unless the matterwere skilfully managed, to be one of the blackest spots on his horizon. 

In the early days of his parliamentary life, when, again, mostly for the_Clarion's_ sake, money happened to be much wanted, he had becomedirector of what promised to be an important company, through theinterest and good nature of a new and rich acquaintance, who had taken aliking to the young member. The company had been largely "boomed, " andthere had been some very profitable dealing in the original shares. Wharton had made two or three thousand pounds, and contributed bothpoint and finish to some of the early prospectuses. 

Then, after six months, he had withdrawn from the Board, underapprehensions that had been gradually realised with alarming accuracy. Things, indeed, had been going very wrong indeed; there were a number ofsmall investors; and the annual meeting of the company, to be held nowin some ten days, promised a storm. Wharton discovered, partly to hisown amazement, for he was a man who quickly forgot, that during hisdirectorate he had devised or sanctioned matters that were not at alllikely to commend themselves to the shareholders, supposing the pastwere really sifted. The ill-luck of it was truly stupendous; for on thewhole he had kept himself financially very clean since he had become amember; having all through a jealous eye to his political success. 

 * * * * *

As to the political situation, nothing could be at once more promisingor more anxious!

An important meeting of the whole Labour group had been fixed for August10, by which time it was expected that a great measure concerning Labourwould be returned from the House of Lords with highly disputableamendments. The last six weeks of the session would be in many ways morecritical for Labour than its earlier months had been; and it would beproposed by Bennett, at the meeting on the 10th, to appoint a generalchairman of the party, in view of a campaign which would fill theremainder of the session and strenuously occupy the recess. 

That Bennett would propose the name of the member for West Brookshirewas perfectly well known to Wharton and his friends. That the nominationwould meet with the warmest hostility from Wilkins and a small group offollowers was also accurately forecast. 

To this day, then, Wharton looked forward as to the crisis of hisparliamentary fortunes. All his chances, financial or social, must nowbe calculated with reference to it. Every power, whether of combat orfinesse, that he commanded must be brought to bear upon the issue. 

What was, however, most remarkable in the man and the situation at themoment was that, through all these gathering necessities, he was by nomeans continuously anxious or troubled in his mind. During these days ofJuly he gave himself, indeed, whenever he could, to a fatalist oblivionof the annoyances of life, coupled with a passionate pursuit of allthose interests where his chances were still good and the omens stillwith him. 

Especially--during the intervals of ambition, intrigue, journalism, andunsuccessful attempts to raise money--had he meditated the beauty ofMarcella Boyce and the chances and difficulties of his relation to her. As he saw her less, he thought of her more, instinctively looking to herfor the pleasure and distraction that life was temporarily denying himelsewhere. 

At the same time, curiously enough, the stress of his financial positionwas reflected even in what, to himself, at any rate, he was boldlybeginning to call his "passion" for her. It had come to his knowledgethat Mr. Boyce had during the past year succeeded beyond all expectationin clearing the Mellor estate. He had made skilful use of a railwaylately opened on the edge of his property; had sold building land inthe neighbourhood of a small country town on the line, within aconvenient distance of London; had consolidated and improved several ofhis farms and relet them at higher rents; was, in fact, according toWharton's local informant, in a fair way to be some day, if he lived, quite as prosperous as his grandfather, in spite of old scandals andinvalidism. Wharton knew, or thought he knew, that he would not live, and that Marcella would be his heiress. The prospect was not perhapsbrilliant, but it was something; it affected the outlook. 

Although, however, this consideration counted, it was, to do himjustice, _Marcella_, the creature herself, that he desired. But for herpresence in his life he would probably have gone heiress-hunting withthe least possible delay. As it was, his growing determination to winher, together with his advocacy of the Damesley workers--amply sufficed, during the days that followed his evening talk with Lady Selina, tomaintain his own illusions about himself and so to keep up the zest oflife. 

Yes!--to master and breathe passion into Marcella Boyce, might safely bereckoned on, he thought, to hurry a man's blood. And after it had goneso far between them--after he had satisfied himself that her fancy, hertemper, her heart, were all more or less occupied with him--was he tosee her tamely recovered by Aldous Raeburn--by the man whose advancingparliamentary position was now adding fresh offence to the old grievanceand dislike? No! not without a dash--a throw for it!

For a while, after Lady Selina's confidences, jealous annoyance, together with a certain reckless state of nerves, turned him almost intothe pining lover. For he could not see Marcella. She came no more toMrs. Lane; and the house in James Street was not open to him. Heperfectly understood that the Winterbournes did not want to know him. 

At last Mrs. Lane, a shrewd little woman with a half contemptuous likingfor Wharton, let him know--on the strength of a chance meeting with LadyErmyntrude--that the Winterbournes would be at the Masterton party onthe 26th. They had persuaded Miss Boyce to stay for it, and she would goback to her work the Monday after. Wharton carelessly replied that hedid not know whether he would be able to put in an appearance at theMastertons'. He might be going out of town. 

Mrs. Lane looked at him and said, "Oh, really!" with a little laugh. 

 * * * * *

Lady Masterton was the wife of the Colonial Secretary, and her grandmansion in Grosvenor Square was the principal rival to Alresford Housein the hospitalities of the party. Her reception on July 25 was to bethe last considerable event of a protracted but now dying season. Marcella, detained in James Street day after day against her will by theweakness of the injured arm and the counsels of her doctor, had at lastextracted permission to go back to work on the 27th; and to please BettyMacdonald she had promised to go with the Winterbournes to the Mastertonparty on the Saturday. Betty's devotion, shyly as she had opened herproud heart to it, had begun to mean a good deal to her. There was balmin it for many a wounded feeling; and, besides, there was the constant, half eager, half painful interest of watching Betty's free and childishways with Aldous Raeburn, and of speculating upon what would ultimatelycome out of them. 

So, when Betty first demanded to know what she was going to wear, andthen pouted over the dress shown her, Marcella submitted humbly to being"freshened up" at the hands of Lady Ermyntrude's maid, bought what Bettytold her, and stood still while Betty, who had a genius for such things, chattered, and draped, and suggested. 

"I wouldn't make you fashionable for the world!" cried Betty, with amouthful of pins, laying down masterly folds of lace and chiffon thewhile over the white satin with which Marcella had provided her. "Whatwas it Worth said to me the other day?--Ce qu'on porte, Mademoiselle? Opas grand'chose!--presque pas de corsage, et pas du tout demanches!'--No, that kind of thing wouldn't suit you. But _distinguished_you shall be, if I sit up all night to think it out!"

In the end Betty was satisfied, and could hardly be prevented fromhugging Marcella there and then, out of sheer delight in her ownhandiwork, when at last the party emerged from the cloak-room into theMastertons' crowded hall. Marcella too felt pleasure in the reflectionsof herself as they passed up the lavishly bemirrored staircase. Thechatter about dress in which she had been living for some days hadamused and distracted her; for there were great feminine potentialitiesin her; though for eighteen months she had scarcely given what she worea thought, and in her pre-nursing days had been wont to waver between akind of proud neglect, which implied the secret consciousness of beauty, and an occasional passionate desire to look well. So that she played herpart to-night very fairly; pinched Betty's arm to silence the elf'stongue; and held herself up as she was told, that Betty's handiworkmight look its best. But inwardly the girl's mood was very tired andflat. She was pining for her work; pining even for Minta Hurd's peevishlook, and the children to whom she was so easily an earthly providence. 

In spite of the gradual emptying of London, Lady Masterton's rooms werevery full. Marcella found acquaintances. Many of the people whom she hadmet at Mrs. Lane's, the two Cabinet Ministers of the House of Commonsdinner, Mr. Lane himself--all were glad or eager to recall themselves toher as she stood by Lady Winterbourne, or made her way half absentlythrough the press. She talked, without shyness--she had never been shy, and was perhaps nearer now to knowing what it might mean than she hadbeen as a schoolgirl--but without heart; her black eye wanderingmeanwhile, as though in quest. There was a gay sprinkling of uniforms inthe crowd, for the Speaker was holding a _levée_, and as it grew latehis guests began to set towards Lady Masterton. Betty, who had beenturning up her nose at the men she had so far smiled upon, all of whomshe declared were either bald or seventy, was a little propitiated bythe uniforms; otherwise, she pronounced the party very dull. 

"Well, upon my word!" she cried suddenly, in a tone that made Marcellaturn upon her. The child was looking very red and very upright--wasusing her fan with great vehemence, and Frank Leven was humbly holdingout his hand to her. 

"I don't like being startled, " said Betty, pettishly. "Yes, you _did_startle me--you did--you did! And then you begin to contradict beforeI've said a word! I'm sure you've been contradicting all the wayupstairs--and why don't you say 'How do you do?' to Miss Boyce?"

Frank, looking very happy, but very nervous, paid his respects ratherbashfully to Marcella--she laughed to see how Betty's presence subduedhim--and then gave himself up wholly to Betty's tender mercies. 

Marcella observed them with an eager interest she could not whollyexplain to herself. It was clear that all thought of anything or anybodyelse had vanished for Frank Leven at the sight of Betty. Marcellaguessed, indeed knew, that they had not met for some little time; andshe was touched by the agitation and happiness on the boy's handsomeface. But Betty? what was the secret of her kittenish, teasing ways--orwas there any secret? She held her little head very high and chatteredvery fast--but it was not the same chatter that she gave to Marcella, nor, so far as Marcella could judge, to Aldous Raeburn. New elements ofcharacter came out in it. It was self-confident, wilful, imperious. Frank was never allowed to have an opinion; was laughed at before hiswords were out of his mouth; was generally heckled, played with, andshaken in a way which seemed alternately to enrage and enchant him. Inthe case of most girls, such a manner would have meant encouragement;but, as it was Betty, no one could be sure. The little thing was a greatpuzzle to Marcella, who had found unexpected reserves in her. She mighttalk of her love affairs to Aldous Raeburn; she had done nothing of thesort with her new friend. And in such matters Marcella herself was farmore reserved than most modern women. 

"Betty!" cried Lady Winterbourne, "I am going on into the next room. "

Then in a lower tone she said helplessly to Marcella:

"Do make her come on!"

Marcella perceived that her old friend was in a fidget. Stooping hertall head, she said with a smile:

"But look how she is amusing herself!"

"My dear!--that's just it! If you only knew how her mother--tiresomewoman--has talked to me! And the young man has behaved so beautifullytill now--has given neither Ermyntrude nor me any trouble. "

Was that why Betty was leading him such a life? Marcella wondered, --thensuddenly--was seized with a sick distaste for the whole scene--forBetty's love affairs--for her own interest in them--for her own self andpersonality above all. Her great black eyes gazed straight before them, unseeing, over the crowd, the diamonds, the lights; her whole beinggave itself to a quick, blind wrestle with some vague overmasteringpain, some despair of life and joy to which she could give no name. 

She was roused by Betty's voice:

"Mr. Raeburn! will _you_ tell me who people are? Mr. Leven's no more usethan my fan. Just imagine--I asked him who that lady in the tiarais--and he vows he doesn't know! Why, it just seems that when you go toOxford, you leave the wits you had before, behind! And then--ofcourse"--Betty affected a delicate hesitation--"there's the difficultyof being quite sure that you'll ever get any new ones!--Butthere--look!--I'm in despair!--she's vanished--and I shall _never_know!"

"One moment!" said Raeburn, smiling, "and I will take you in pursuit. She has only gone into the tea-room. "

His hand touched Marcella's. 

"Just a _little_ better, " he said, with a sudden change of look, inanswer to Lady Winterbourne's question. "The account to-night iscertainly brighter. They begged me not to come, or I should have beenoff some days ago. And next week, I am thankful to say, they will behome. "

Why should she be standing there, so inhumanly still andsilent?--Marcella asked herself. Why not take courage again--joinin--talk--show sympathy? But the words died on her lips. Afterto-night--thank heaven!--she need hardly see him again. 

He asked after herself as usual. Then, just as he was turning away withBetty, he came back to her, unexpectedly. 

"I should like to tell you about Hallin, " he said gently. "His sisterwrites to me that she is happier about him, and that she hopes to beable to keep him away another fortnight. They are at Keswick. "

For an instant there was pleasure in the implication of common ground, acommon interest--here if no-where else. Then the pleasure was lost inthe smart of her own strange lack of self-government as she made arather stupid and awkward reply. 

Raeburn's eyes rested on her for a moment. There was in them a flash ofinvoluntary expression, which she did not notice--for she had turnedaway--which no one saw--except Betty. Then the child followed him to thetea-room, a little pale and pensive. 

Marcella looked after them. 

In the midst of the uproar about her, the babel of talk fighting againstthe Hungarian band, which was playing its wildest and loudest in thetea-room, she was overcome by a sudden rush of memory. Her eyes weretracing the passage of those two figures through the crowd; the man inhis black court suit, stooping his refined and grizzled head to the girlbeside him, or turning every now and then to greet an acquaintance, withthe manner--cordial and pleasant, yet never quite gay even when hesmiled--that she, Marcella, had begun to notice of late as a new thing;the girl lifting her small face to him, the gold of her hair showingagainst his velvet sleeve. But the inward sense was busy with a numberof other impressions, past, and, as it now seemed, incredible. 

The little scene when Aldous had given her the pearls, returned so longago--why! she could see the fire blazing in the Stone Parlour, feel hisarm about her!--the drive home after the Gairsley meeting--that poignantmoment in his sitting-room the night of the ball--his face, his anxious, tender face, as she came down the wide stairs of the Court towards himon that terrible evening when she pleaded with him and his grandfatherin vain:--had these things, incidents, relations, been ever a real partof the living world? Impossible! Why, there he was--not ten yards fromher--and yet more irrevocably separate from her than if the Saharastretched between them. The note of cold distance in his courteousmanner put her further from him than the merest stranger. 

Marcella felt a sudden terror rush through her as she blindly followedLady Winterbourne; her limbs trembled under her; she took advantage of aconversation between her companion and the master of the house to sinkdown for a moment on a settee, where she felt out of sight and notice. 

What was this intolerable sense of loss and folly, this smartingemptiness, this rage with herself and her life? She only knew thatwhereas the touch, the eye of Aldous Raeburn had neither compelled northrilled her, so long as she possessed his whole heart andlife--_now_--that she had no right to either look or caress; now that hehad ceased even to regard her as a friend, and was already perhapsmaking up that loyal and serious mind of his to ask from another womanthe happiness she had denied him; now, when it was absurdly too late, she could--

Could what? Passionate, wilful creature that she was!--with that breathof something wild and incalculable surging through the inmost places ofthe soul, she went through a moment of suffering as she sat pale anderect in her corner--brushed against by silks and satins, chatteredacross by this person and that--such as seemed to bruise all theremaining joy and ease out of life. 

But only a moment! Flesh and blood rebelled. She sprang up from herseat; told herself that she was mad or ill; caught sight of Mr. Lanecoming towards them, and did her best by smile and greeting to attracthim to her. 

"You look very white, my dear Miss Boyce, " said that cheerful andfatherly person. "Is it that tiresome arm still? Now, don't please goand be a heroine any more!"

CHAPTER XIII. 

Meanwhile, in the tea-room, Betty was daintily sipping her claret-cup, while Aldous stood by her. 

"No, " said Betty, calmly, looking straight at the lady in the tiara whowas standing by the buffet, "she's not beautiful, and I've torn my dressrunning after her. There's only one beautiful person here to-night!"

Aldous found her a seat, and took one himself beside her, in a cornerout of the press. But he did not answer her remark. 

"Don't you think so, Mr. Aldous?" said Betty, persisting, but with alittle flutter of the pulse. 

"You mean Miss Boyce?" he said quietly, as he turned to her. 

"Of course!" cried Betty, with a sparkle in her charming eyes; "what_is_ it in her face? It excites me to be near her. One feels that shewill just have lived _twice_ as much as the rest of us by the time shecomes to the end. You don't mind my talking of her, Mr. Aldous?"

There was an instant's silence on his part. Then he said in aconstrained voice, looking away from his companion, "I don't _mind_ it, but I am not going to pretend to you that I find it easy to talk ofher. "

"It would be a shame of you to pretend anything, " said Betty, fervently, "after all I've told you! I confessed all my scrapes to you, turned outall my rubbish bag of a heart--well, nearly all"--she checked herselfwith a sudden flush--"And you've been as kind to me as any big brothercould be. But you're dreadfully lofty, Mr. Aldous! You keep yourself toyourself. I don't think it's fair!"

Aldous laughed. 

"My dear Miss Betty, haven't you found out by now that I am a goodlistener and a bad talker? I don't talk of myself or"--hehesitated--"the things that have mattered most to me--because, in thefirst place, it doesn't come easy to me--and, in the next, I can't, yousee, discuss my own concerns without discussing other people's. "

"Oh, good gracious!" said Betty, "what you must have been thinking aboutme! I declare I'll never tell you anything again!"--and, beating hertiny foot upon the ground, she sat, scarlet, looking down at it. 

Aldous made all the smiling excuses he could muster. He had found Bettya most beguiling and attaching little companion, both at the Court inthe Easter recess, and during the Italian journey. Her total lack ofreserve, or what appeared so, had been first an amazement to him, andthen a positive pleasure and entertainment. To make a friend ofhim--difficult and scrupulous as he was, and now more than ever--a womanmust be at the cost of most of the advances. But, after the firstevening with him, Betty had made them in profusion, without the smallestdemur, though perfectly well aware of her mother's ambitions. There wasa tie of cousinship between them, and a considerable difference of age. Betty had decided at once that a mother was a dear old goose, and thatgreat friends she and Aldous Raeburn should be--and, in a sense, greatfriends they were. 

Aldous was still propitiating her, when Lady Winterbourne came into thetea-room, followed by Marcella. The elder lady threw a hurried and notvery happy glance at the pair in the corner. Marcella appeared to be inanimated talk with a young journalist whom Raeburn knew, and did notlook their way. 

"Just _one_ thing!" said Betty, bending forward and speaking eagerly inAldous's ear. "It was all a mistake--wasn't it? Now I know her I feelsure it was. You don't--you don't--really think badly of her?"

Aldous heard her unwillingly. He was looking away from her towards thebuffet, when she saw a change in the eyes--a tightening of the lip--asomething keen and hostile in the whole face. 

"Perhaps Miss Boyce will be less of a riddle to all of us before long!"he said hastily, as though the words escaped him. "Shall we get out ofthis very uncomfortable corner?"

Betty looked where he had looked, and saw a young man greeting Marcellawith a manner so emphatic and intimate, that the journalist hadinstantly moved out of his way. The young man had a noticeable pile offair curls above a very white and rounded forehead. 

"Who is that talking to Miss Boyce?" she asked of Aldous; "I have seenhim, but I can't remember the name. "

"That is Mr. Wharton, the member for one of our divisions, " saidAldous, as he rose from his chair. 

Betty gave a little start, and her brow puckered into a frown. As shetoo rose, she said resentfully to Aldous:

"Well, you _have_ snubbed me!"

As usual, he could not find the effective or clever thing to say. 

"I did not mean to, " he replied simply; but Betty, glancing at him, sawsomething in his face which gripped her heart. A lump rose in herthroat. 

"Do let's go and find Ermyntrude!" she said. 

 * * * * *

But Wharton had barely begun his talk with Marcella when a gentleman, onhis way to the buffet with a cup to set down, touched him on the arm. Wharton turned in some astonishment and annoyance. He saw a youngish, good-looking man, well known to him as already one of the most importantsolicitors in London, largely trusted by many rich or eminent persons. 

"May I have a word with you presently?" said Mr. Pearson, in a pleasantundertone. "I have something of interest to say to you, and it occurredto me that I might meet you to-night. Excuse my interrupting you. "

He glanced with admiration at Marcella, who had turned away. 

Wharton had a momentary qualm. Then it struck him that Mr. Pearson'smanner was decidedly friendly. 

"In a moment, " he said. "We might find a corner, I think, in thatfurther room. "

He made a motion of the head towards a little boudoir which lay beyondthe tea-room. 

Mr. Pearson nodded and passed on. 

Wharton returned to Marcella, who had fallen back on Frank Leven. At theapproach of the member for West Brookshire, Lady Winterbourne and herdaughter had moved severely away to the further end of the buffet. 

"A tiresome man wants me on business for a moment, " he said; then hedropped his voice a little; "but I have been looking forward to thisevening, this chance, for days--shall I find you here again in fiveminutes?"

Marcella, who had flushed brightly, said that would depend on the timeand Lady Winterbourne. He hurried away with a little gesture of despair. Frank followed him with a sarcastic eye. 

"Any one would think he was prime minister already! I never met him yetanywhere that he hadn't some business on hand. Why does he behave asthough he had the world on his shoulders? Your _real_ swells always seemto have nothing to do. "

"Do you know so many busy people?" Marcella asked him sweetly. 

"Oh, you shan't put me down, Miss Boyce!" said the boy, sulkilythrusting his hands into his pockets. "I am going to work like blazesthis winter, if only my dons will let a fellow alone. I say, isn't she_ripping_ to-night--Betty?"

And, pulling his moustache in helpless jealousy and annoyance, he staredat the Winterbourne group across the room, which had been now joined byAldous Raeburn and Betty, standing side by side. 

"What do you want me to say?" said Marcella, with a little cold laugh. "I shall make you worse if I praise her. Please put my cup down. "

At the same moment she saw Wharton coming back to her--Mr. Pearsonbehind him, smiling, and gently twirling the seals of his watch-chain. She was instantly struck by Wharton's look of excitement, and by themanner in which--with a momentary glance aside at the Winterbourneparty--he approached her. 

"There is such a charming little room in there, " he said, stooping hishead to her, "and so cool after this heat. Won't you try it?"

The energy of his bright eye took possession of her. He led the way; shefollowed. Her dress almost brushed Aldous Raeburn as she passed. 

He took her into a tiny room. There was no one else there, and he founda seat for her by an open window, where they were almost hidden fromview by a stand of flowers. 

As he sat down again by her, she saw that a decisive moment had come, and blanched almost to the colour of her dress. Oh! what to do! Herheart cried out vaguely to some power beyond itself for guidance, thengave itself up again to the wayward thirst for happiness. 

He took her hand strongly in both his own, and bending towards her asshe sat bowered among the scent and colours of the flowers, he made hera passionate declaration. From the first moment that he had seen herunder the Chiltern beeches, so he vowed, he had felt in her the supreme, incomparable attraction which binds a man to one woman, and one only. His six weeks under her father's roof had produced in him feelingswhich he knew to be wrong, without thereby finding in himself any powerto check them. They had betrayed him into a mad moment, which he hadregretted bitterly because it had given her pain. Otherwise--his voicedropped and shook, his hand pressed hers--"I lived for months on thememory of that one instant. " But he had respected her suffering, herstruggle, her need for rest of mind and body. For her sake he had goneaway into silence; he had put a force upon himself which had aloneenabled him to get through his parliamentary work. 

Then, with his first sight of her in that little homely room anddress--so changed, but so lovely!--everything--admiration, passion--hadrevived with double strength. Since that meeting he must have oftenpuzzled her, as he had puzzled himself. His life had been a series ofperplexities. He was not his own master; he was the servant of a cause, in which--however foolishly a mocking habit might have led him at timesto be-little his own enthusiasms and hers--his life and honour wereengaged; and this cause and his part in it had been for long hampered, and all his clearness of vision and judgment dimmed by the pressure of anumber of difficulties and worries he could not have discussed withher--worries practical and financial, connected with the _Clarion_, withthe experiments he had been carrying out on his estate, and with othertroublesome matters. He had felt a thousand times that his fortunes, political or private, were too doubtful and perilous to allow him to askany woman to share them. --Then, again, he had seen her--and hisresolution, his scruple, had melted in his breast!

Well! there were still troubles in front! But he was no longer cowed bythem. In spite of them, he dared now to throw himself at her feet, toask her to come and share a life of combat and of labour, to bring herbeauty and her mind to the joint conduct of a great enterprise. To _her_a man might show his effort and his toil, --from _her_ he might claim asympathy it would be vain to ask of any smaller woman. 

Then suddenly he broke down. Speech seemed to fail him. Only hiseyes--more intense and piercing under their straight brows than she hadever known them--beseeched her--his hand sought hers. 

She meanwhile sat in a trance of agitation, mistress neither of reasonnor of feeling. She felt his spell, as she had always done. The woman inher thrilled at last to the mere name and neighbourhood of love. Theheart in her cried out that pain and loss could only be deadened so--thepast could only be silenced by filling the present with movement andwarm life. 

Yet what tremors of conscience--what radical distrust of herself andhim! And the first articulate words she found to say to him were verymuch what she had said to Aldous so long ago--only filled with abitterer and more realised content. 

"After all, what do we know of each other! You don't know me--not as Iam. And I feel--"

"Doubts?" he said, smiling. "Do you imagine that that seems anything butnatural to me? _I_ can have none; but _you_--After all, we are not quiteboy and girl, you and I; we have lived, both of us! But askyourself--has not destiny brought us together? Think of it all!"

Their eyes met again. Hers sank under the penetration, the flame of his. Yet, throughout, he was conscious of the doorway to his right, of thefigures incessantly moving across it. His own eloquence had convincedand moved himself abundantly. Yet, as he saw her yielding, he was filledwith the strangest mixture of passion--and a sort of disillusion--almostcontempt! If she had turned from him with the dignity worthy of thathead and brow, it flashed across him that he could have tasted more ofthe _abandonment_ of love--have explored his own emotion more perfectly. 

Still, the situation was poignant enough--in one sense complete. WasRaeburn still there--in that next room?

"My answer?" he said to her, pressing her hand as they sat in theshelter of the flowers. For _he_ was aware of the practical facts--thehour, the place--if she was not. 

She roused herself. 

"I can't, " she said, making a movement to rise, which his strong grasp, however, prevented. "I _can't_ answer you to-night, Mr. Wharton. Ishould have much to think over--so much! It might all look quitedifferent to me. You must give me time. "

"To-morrow?" he said quietly. 

"No!" she said impetuously, "not to-morrow; I go back to my work, and Imust have quiet and time. In a fortnight--not before. I will write. "

"Oh, impossible!" he said, with a little frown. 

And still holding her, he drew her towards him. His gaze ran over theface, the warm whiteness under the lace of the dress, the beautifularms. She shrank from it--feeling a sudden movement of dislike and fear;but before she could disengage herself he had pressed his lips on thearm nearest to him. 

"I gave you no leave!" she said passionately, under her breath, as helet her go. 

He met her flashing look with tender humbleness. 

"_Marcella_!"

The word was just breathed into the air. She wavered--yet a chill hadpassed over her. She could not recover the moment of magic. 

"_Not_ to-morrow, " she repeated steadily, though dreading lest sheshould burst into tears, "and not till I see clearly--till I can--" Shecaught her breath. "Now I am going back to Lady Winterbourne. "

CHAPTER XIV. 

For some hours after he reached his own room, Wharton sat in front ofhis open window, sunk in the swift rushing of thought, as a bramblesways in a river. The July night first paled, then flushed into morning;the sun rose above the empty street and the light mists enwrapping thegreat city, before he threw himself on his bed, exhausted enough at lastto fall into a restless sleep. 

The speculation of those quick-pulsed hours was in the end about equallydivided between Marcella and the phrases and turns of his interview withMr. Pearson. It was the sudden leap of troubled excitement stirred inhim by that interview--heightened by the sight of Raeburn--that haddriven him past recall by the most natural of transitions, into hisdeclaration to Marcella. 

But he had no sooner reached his room than, at first with iron will, heput the thought of Marcella, of the scene which had just passed, awayfrom him. His pulses were still quivering. No matter! It was the brainhe had need of. He set it coolly and keenly to work. 

Mr. Pearson? Well!--Mr. Pearson had offered him a _bribe_; there couldbe no question as to that. His clear sense never blinked the matter foran instant. Nor had he any illusions as to his own behaviour. Even nowhe had no further right to the sleep of the honest man. 

Let him realise, however, what had happened. He had gone to LadyMasterton's party, in the temper of a man who knows that ruin is uponhim, and determined, like the French criminal, to exact his cigar and_eau de vie_ before the knife falls. Never had things looked sodesperate; never had all resource seemed to him so completely exhausted. Bankruptcy must come in the course of a few weeks; his entailed propertywould pass into the hands of a receiver; and whatever recovery might beultimately possible, by the end of August he would be, for the moment, socially and politically undone. 

There could be no question of his proposing seriously to Marcella Boyce. Nevertheless, he had gone to Lady Masterton's on purpose to meet her;and his manner on seeing her had asserted precisely the same intimateclaim upon her, which, during the past six weeks, had alternatelyattracted and repelled her. 

Then Mr. Pearson had interrupted. 

Wharton, shutting his eyes, could see the great man lean against thewindow-frame close to the spot where, a quarter of an hour later, Marcella had sat among the flowers--the dapper figure, the long, fairmoustaches, the hand playing with the eye-glass. 

"I have been asked--er--er--" What a conceited manner the fellowhad!--"to get some conversation with you, Mr. Wharton, on the subject ofthe Damesley strike. You give me leave?"

Whereupon, in less than ten minutes, the speaker had executed animportant commission, and, in offering Wharton a bribe of the mostbare-faced kind, had also found time for supplying him with a number ofthe most delicate and sufficient excuses for taking it. 

The masters, in fact, sent an embassy. They fully admitted the power ofthe _Clarion_ and its owner. No doubt, it would not be possible for thepaper to keep up its strike fund indefinitely; there were perhapsalready signs of slackening. Still it had been maintained for aconsiderable time; and so long as it was reckoned on, in spite of thewide-spread misery and suffering now prevailing, the men would probablyhold out. 

In these circumstances, the principal employers concerned had thought itbest to approach so formidable an opponent and to put before himinformation which might possibly modify his action. They had authorisedMr. Pearson to give him a full account of what was proposed in the wayof re-organisation of the trade, including the probable advantages whichthe work-people themselves would be likely to reap from it in thefuture. 

Mr. Pearson ran in a few sentences through the points of the scheme. Wharton stood about a yard away from him, his hands in his pockets, alittle pale and frowning--looking intently at the speaker. 

Then Mr. Pearson paused and cleared his throat. 

Well!--that was the scheme. His principals believed that, when both itand the employers' determination to transfer their business to theContinent rather than be beaten by the men were made fully known to theowner of the _Clarion_, it must affect his point of view. Mr. Pearsonwas empowered to give him any details he might desire. Meanwhile--soconfident were they in the reasonableness of the case that they evensuggested that the owner of the _Clarion_ himself should take part inthe new Syndicate. On condition of his future co-operation--it beingunderstood that the masters took their stand irrevocably on theaward--the men at present responsible for the formation of the Syndicateproposed to allot Mr. Wharton ten Founder's Shares in the newundertaking. 

Wharton, sitting alone, recalling these things, was conscious again ofthat start in every limb, that sudden rush of blood to the face, asthough a lash had struck him. 

For in a few seconds his mind took in the situation. Only the daybefore, a city acquaintance had said to him, "If you and your confoundedpaper were out of the way, and this thing could be placed properly onthe market, there would be a boom in it at once. I am told that intwenty-four hours the Founder's Shares would be worth 2, 000 _l. _apiece!"

There was a pause of silence. Then Wharton threw a queer dark look atthe solicitor, and was conscious that his pulse was thumping. 

"There can be no question I think, Mr. Pearson--between you and me--asto the nature of such a proposal as that!"

"My dear sir, " Mr. Pearson had interrupted hastily, "let me, above all, ask you to take _time_--time enough, at any rate, to turn the matterwell over in your mind. The interests of a great many people, besidesyourself, are concerned. Don't give me an answer to-night; it is thelast thing I desire. I have thrown out my suggestion. Consider it. To-morrow is Sunday. If you are disposed to carry it further, come andsee me Monday morning--that's all. I will be at your service at anyhour, and I can then give you a much more complete outline of theintentions of the Company. Now I really must go and look for Mrs. Pearson's carriage. "

Wharton followed the great man half mechanically across the little room, his mind in a whirl of mingled rage and desire. Then suddenly he stoppedhis companion:

"Has George Denny anything to do with this proposal, Mr. Pearson?"

Mr. Pearson paused, with a little air of vague cogitation. 

"George Denny? Mr. George Denny, the member for Westropp? I have had nodealings whatever with that gentleman in the matter. "

Wharton let him pass. 

Then as he himself entered the tea-room, he perceived the bending formof Aldous Raeburn chatting to Lady Winterbourne on his right, and thattall whiteness close in front, waiting for him. 

His brain cleared in a flash. He was perfectly conscious that a bribehad just been offered him, of the most daring and cynical kind, and thathe had received the offer in the tamest way. An insult had been put uponhim which had for ever revealed the estimate held of him by certainshrewd people, for ever degraded him in his own eyes. 

Nevertheless, he was also conscious that the thing was done. The bribewould be accepted, the risk taken. So far as his money-matters wereconcerned he was once more a free man. The mind had adjusted itself, reached its decision in a few minutes. 

And the first effect of the mingled excitement and self-contempt whichthe decision brought with it had been to drive him into the scene withMarcella. Instinctively he asked of passion to deliver him quickly fromthe smart of a new and very disagreeable experience. 

 * * * * *

Well! why should he not take these men's offer?

He was as much convinced as they that this whole matter of the strikehad of late come to a deadlock. So long as the public would give, theworkers, passionately certain of the justice of their own cause, andfilled with new ambitions after more decent living, would hold out. Onthe other hand, he perfectly understood that the masters had also inmany ways a strong case, that they had been very hard hit by the strike, and that many of them would rather close their works or transfer thembodily to the Continent than give way. Some of the facts Pearson hadfound time to mention had been certainly new and striking. 

At the same time he never disguised from himself for an instant that butfor a prospective 20, 000 _l. _ the facts concerned would not haveaffected him in the least. Till to-night it had been to his interest toback the strike, and to harass the employers. Now things were changed;and he took a curious satisfaction in the quick movements of his ownintelligence, as his thought rapidly sketched the "curve" the _Clarion_would have to take, and the arguments by which he would commend it. 

As to his shares, they would be convertible of course into immediatecash. Some man of straw would be forthcoming to buy what he wouldpossess in the name of another man of straw. It was not supposed--hetook for granted--by the men who had dared to tempt him, that he wouldrisk his whole political reputation and career for anything less than abird in the hand. 

Well! what were the chances of secrecy?

Naturally _they_ stood to lose less by disclosure, a good deal, than hedid. And Denny, one of the principal employers, was his personal enemy. He would be likely enough for the present to keep his name out of theaffair. But no man of the world could suppose that the transaction wouldpass without his knowledge. Wharton's own hasty question to Mr. Pearsonon the subject seemed to himself now, in cold blood, a remarkablyfoolish one. 

He walked up and down thinking this point out. It was the bitter pill ofthe whole affair. 

In the end, with a sudden recklessness of youth and resource, heresolved to dare it. There would _not_ be much risk. Men of business donot as a rule blazon their own dirty work, and public opinion would beimportant to the new Syndicate. 

_Some_ risk, of course, there would be. Well! his risks, as they stood, were pretty considerable. He chose the lesser--not without something ofa struggle, some keen personal smart. He had done a good many mean andquestionable things in his time, but never anything as gross as this. The thought of what his relation to a certain group of men--to Dennyespecially--would be in the future, stung sharply. But it is the partof the man of action to put both scruple and fear behind him onoccasion. His career was in question. 

Craven? Well, Craven would be a difficulty. He would telegraph to himfirst thing in the morning before the offices closed, and see him onMonday. For Marcella's sake the man must be managed--somehow. 

And--Marcella! How should she ever know, ever suspect! She alreadydisliked the violence with which the paper had supported the strike. Hewould find no difficulty whatever in justifying all that she or thepublic would see, to her. 

Then insensibly he let his thoughts glide into thinking of the money. Presently he drew a sheet of paper towards him and covered it withcalculations as to his liabilities. By George! how well it worked out!By the time he threw it aside, and walked to the window for air, healready felt himself a _bonâ-fide_ supporter of the Syndicate--thepromoter in the public interest of a just and well-considered scheme. 

Finally, with a little joyous energetic movement which betrayed theinner man, he flung down his cigarette, and turned to write an ardentletter to Marcella, while the morning sun stole into the dusty room. 

Difficult? of course! Both now and in the future. It would take him halfhis time yet--and he could ill afford it--to bring her bound andcaptive. He recognised in her the southern element, so strangely matedwith the moral English temper. Yet he smiled over it. The subtleties ofthe struggle he foresaw enchanted him. 

And she would be mastered! In this heightened state of nerve his man'sresolution only rose the more fiercely to the challenge of herresistance. 

Nor should she cheat him with long delays. His income would be his ownagain, and life decently easy. He already felt himself the vain showmanof her beauty. 

A thought of Lady Selina crossed his mind, producing amusement andcompassion--indulgent amusement, such as the young man is apt to feeltowards the spinster of thirty-five who pays him attention. A certainsense of re-habilitation, too, which at the moment was particularlywelcome. For, no doubt, he might have married her and her fortune had heso chosen. As it was, why didn't she find some needy boy to take pity onher? There were plenty going, and she must have abundance of money. OldAlresford, too, was fast doddering off the stage, and then where wouldshe be--without Alresford House, or Busbridge, or those various otherpedestals which had hitherto held her aloft?

 * * * * *

Early on Sunday morning Wharton telegraphed to Craven, directing him to"come up at once for consultation. " The rest of the day the owner of the_Clarion_ spent pleasantly on the river with Mrs. Lane and a party ofladies, including a young Duchess, who was pretty, literary, andsocialistic. At night he went down to the _Clarion_ office, and produceda leader on the position of affairs at Damesley which, to the practisedeye, contained one paragraph--but one only--wherein the dawn of a newpolicy might have been discerned. 

Naturally the juxtaposition of events at the moment gave himconsiderable anxiety. He knew very well that the Damesley bargain couldnot be kept waiting. The masters were losing heavily every day, and werenot likely to let him postpone the execution of his part of the contractfor a fortnight or so to suit his own convenience. It was like the saleof an "old master. " His influence must be sold now--at the ripemoment--or not at all. 

At the same time it was very awkward. In one short fortnight the meetingof the party would be upon him. Surrender on the Damesley question wouldgive great offence to many of the Labour members. It would have to bevery carefully managed--very carefully thought out. 

By eleven o'clock on Monday he was in Mr. Pearson's office. After thefirst involuntary smile, concealed by the fair moustaches, and instantlydismissed, with which the eminent lawyer greeted the announcement of hisvisitor's name, the two augurs carried through their affairs withperfect decorum. Wharton realised, indeed, that he was being firmlyhandled. Mr. Pearson gave the _Clarion_ a week in which to accomplishits retreat and drop its strike fund. And the fund was to be "checked"as soon as possible. 

A little later, when Wharton abruptly demanded a guarantee of secrecy, Mr. Pearson allowed himself his first--visible--smile. 

"My dear sir, are such things generally made public property? I cangive you no better assurance than you can extract yourself from thecircumstances. As to writing--well!--I should advise you very stronglyagainst anything of the sort. A long experience has convinced me that inany delicate negotiation the less that is _written_ the better. "

Towards the end Wharton turned upon his companion sharply, and asked:

"How did you discover that I wanted money?"

Mr. Pearson lifted his eyebrows pleasantly. 

"Most of the things in this world, Mr. Wharton, that one wants to know, can be found out. Now--I have no wish to hurry you--not in the least, but I may perhaps mention that I have an important appointment directly. Don't you think--we might settle our business?"

Wharton was half-humorously conscious of an inward leap of fury with thenecessities which had given this man--to whom he had taken aninstantaneous dislike--the power of dealing thus summarily with themember for West Brookshire. However, there was no help for it; hesubmitted, and twenty minutes afterwards he left Lincoln's Inn carryingdocuments in the breast-pocket of his coat which, when brought under hisbankers' notice, would be worth to him an immediate advance of someeight thousand pounds. The remainder of the purchase-money for his"shares" would be paid over to him as soon as his part of the contracthad been carried out. 

He did not, however, go to his bank, but straight to the _Clarion_office, where he had a mid-day appointment with Louis Craven. 

At first sight of the tall, narrow-shouldered form and anxious facewaiting for him in his private room, Wharton felt a movement ofill-humour. 

Craven had the morning's _Clarion_ in his hand. 

"This _cannot_ mean"--he said, when they had exchanged a briefsalutation--"that the paper is backing out?"

He pointed to the suspicious paragraph in Wharton's leader, his delicatefeatures quivering with an excitement he could ill repress. 

"Well, let us sit down and discuss the thing, " said Wharton, closing thedoor, "that's what I wired to you for. "

He offered Craven a cigarette, which was refused, took one himself, andthe two men sat confronting each other with a writing-table betweenthem. Wharton was disagreeably conscious at times of the stiff papers inhis coat-pocket, and was perhaps a little paler than usual. Otherwise heshowed no trace of mental disturbance; and Craven, himself jaded andsleepless, was struck with a momentary perception of his companion'sboyish good looks--the tumbling curls, that Wharton straightened now andthen, the charming blue eyes, the athlete's frame. Any stranger wouldhave taken Craven for the older man; in reality it was the other way. 

The conversation lasted nearly an hour. Craven exhausted both argumentand entreaty, though when the completeness of the retreat resolved uponhad been disclosed to him, the feeling roused in him was so fierce thathe could barely maintain his composure. He had been living among scenesof starvation and endurance, which, to his mind, had all the characterof martyrdom. These men and women were struggling for two objects--thepower to live more humanly, and the free right of combination--to bothof which, if need were, he would have given his own life to help themwithout an instant's hesitation. Behind his blinking manner he saweverything with the idealist's intensity, the reformer's passion. To befair to an employer was not in his power. To spend his last breath, wereit called for, in the attempt to succour the working-man against hiscapitalist oppressors, would have seemed to him the merest matter ofcourse. 

And his mental acuteness was quite equal to his enthusiasm, and far moreevident. In his talk with Wharton, he for a long time avoided, asbefore, out of a certain inner disdain, the smallest touch of sentiment. He pointed out--what, indeed, Wharton well knew--that the next two orthree weeks of the strike would be the most critical period in itshistory; that, if the work-people could only be carried through them, they were almost sure of victory. He gave his own reasons for believingthat the employers could ultimately be coerced, he offered proof ofyielding among them, proof also that the better men in their ranks werefully alive to and ashamed of the condition of the workers. As to theSyndicate, he saw no objection to it, _provided_ the workers' claimswere first admitted. Otherwise it would only prove a more powerfulengine of oppression. 

Wharton's arguments may perhaps be left to the imagination. He wouldhave liked simply to play the proprietor and the master--to say, "Thisis my decision, those are my terms--take my work or leave it. " ButCraven was Miss Boyce's friend; he was also a Venturist. Chafing underboth facts, Wharton found that he must state his case. 

And he did state it with his usual ability. He laid great stress on"information from a private source which I cannot disregard, " to theeffect that, if the resistance went on, the trade would be broken up;that several of the largest employers were on the point of makingarrangements for Italian factories. 

"I know, " he said finally, "that but for the _Clarion_ the strike woulddrop. Well! I have come to the conclusion that the responsibility is tooheavy. I shall be doing the men themselves more harm than good. There isthe case in a nutshell. We differ--I can't help that. The responsibilityis mine. "

Craven rose with a quick, nervous movement. The prophet spoke at last. 

"You understand, " he said, laying a thin hand on the table, "that thecondition of the workers in this trade is _infamous_!--that the awardand your action together plunge them back into a state of things whichis a _shame_ and a _curse_ to England!"

Wharton made no answer. He, too, had risen, and was putting away somepapers in a drawer. A tremor ran through Craven's tall frame; and for aninstant, as his eye rested on his companion, the idea of foul playcrossed his mind. He cast it out, that he might deal calmly with his ownposition. 

"Of course, you perceive, " he said, as he took up his hat, "that I canno longer on these terms remain the _Clarion's_ correspondent. Somebodyelse must be found to do this business. "

"I regret your decision, immensely, " said Wharton, with perfectsuavity, "but of course I understand it. I trust, however, that you willnot leave us altogether. I can give you plenty of work that will suityou. Here, for instance"--he pointed to a pile of Blue Books from theLabour Commission lying on the table--"are a number of reports that wantanalysing and putting before the public. You could do them in town atyour leisure. "

Craven struggled with himself. His first instinct was to fling the offerin Wharton's face. Then he thought of his wife; of the tiny newhousehold just started with such small, happy, self-denying shifts; ofthe woman's inevitable lot, of the hope of a child. 

"Thank you, " he said, in a husky voice. "I will consider, I will write. "

Wharton nodded to him pleasantly, and he went. 

The owner of the _Clarion_ drew a long breath. 

"Now I think on the whole it would serve my purpose best to sit down andwrite to _her_--after that. It would be well that _my_ account shouldcome first. "

A few hours later, after an interview with his bankers and a furtherspell of letter-writing, Wharton descended the steps of his club in acurious restless state. The mortgage on the _Clarion_ had been arrangedfor, his gambling debts settled, and all his other money matters weresuccessfully in train. Nevertheless, the exhilaration of the morning hadpassed into misgiving and depression. 

Vague presentiments hung about him all day, whether in the House ofCommons or elsewhere, and it was not till he found himself on his legsat a crowded meeting at Rotherhithe, violently attacking the GovernmentBill and the House of Lords, that he recovered that easy confidence inthe general favourableness of the universe to Harry Wharton, and HarryWharton's plans, which lent him so much of his power. 

A letter from Marcella--written before she had received either ofhis--reached him at the House just before he started for his meeting. Atouching letter!--yet with a certain resolution in it which disconcertedhim. 

"Forget, if you will, everything that you said to me last night. Itmight be--I believe it would be--best for us both. But if you willnot--if I must give my answer, then, as I said, I must have time. It isonly quite recently that I have _realised_ the enormity of what I didlast year. I must run no risks of so wrenching my own life--oranother's--a second time. Not to be _sure_ is for me torment. Whyperfect simplicity of feeling--which would scorn the very notion ofquestioning itself--seems to be beyond me, I do not know. That it is sofills me with a sort of shame and bitterness. But I must follow mynature. 

"So let me think it out. I believe you know, for one thing, that your'cause, ' your life-work, attracts me strongly. I should not any longeraccept all you say, as I did last year. But mere opinion mattersinfinitely less to me than it did. I can imagine now agreeing with afriend 'in everything except opinion. ' All that would matter to me nowwould be to feel that _your_ heart was wholly in your work, in yourpublic acts, so that I might still admire and love all that I mightdiffer from. But there--for we must be frank with each other--is just mydifficulty. _Why_ do you do so many contradictory things? Why do youtalk of the poor, of labour, of self-denial, and live whenever you canwith the idle rich people, who hate all three in their hearts? You talktheir language; you scorn what they scorn, or so it seems; you accepttheir standards. Oh!--to the really 'consecrate' in heart and thought Icould give my life so easily, so slavishly even! There is no one weakerthan I in the world. I must have strength to lean upon--and a strength, pure at the core, that I can respect and follow. 

"Here in this nursing life of mine, I go in and out among people to thebest of whom life is very real and simple--and often, of course, verysad. And I am another being in it from what I was at LadyWinterbourne's. Everything looks differently to me. No, no! you mustplease wait till the inner voice speaks so that I can hear itplainly--for your sake at least as much as for mine. If you persisted incoming to see me now, I should have to put an end to it all. "

"Strange is the modern woman!" thought Wharton to himself, not withoutsharp pique, as he pondered that letter in the course of his drive homefrom the meeting. "I talk to her of passion, and she asks me in returnwhy I do things inconsistent with my political opinions! puts me througha moral catechism, in fact! What is the meaning of it all--confound it!--her state of mind and mine? Is the good old _ars amandi_ perishing outof the world? Let some Stendhal come and tell us why!"

But he sat up to answer her, and could not get free from an inwardpleading or wrestle with her, which haunted him through all theintervals of these rapid days. 

Life while they lasted was indeed a gymnast's contest of breath andendurance. The _Clarion_ made its retreat in Wharton's finest style, andthe fact rang through labouring England. The strike-leaders came up fromthe Midlands; Wharton had to see them. He was hotly attacked in theHouse privately, and even publicly by certain of his colleagues. Bennettshowed concern and annoyance. Meanwhile the Conservative papers talkedthe usual employers' political economy; and the Liberal papers, whosesupport of the strike had been throughout perfunctory, and of noparticular use to themselves or to other people, took a lead they wereglad to get, and went in strongly for the award. 

Through it all Wharton showed extraordinary skill. The columns of the_Clarion_ teemed with sympathetic appeals to the strikers, flanked bylong statements of "hard fact"--the details of foreign competition andthe rest, the plans of the masters--freely supplied him by Mr. Pearson. With Bennett and his colleagues in the House he took a bold line;admitted that he had endangered his popularity both inside Parliamentand out of it at a particularly critical moment; and implied, though hedid not say, that some men were still capable of doing independentthings to their own hurt. Meanwhile he pushed a number of other mattersto the front, both in the paper and in his own daily doings. He made atleast two important speeches in the provinces, in the course of thesedays, on the Bill before the House of Lords; he asked questions inParliament on the subject of the wages paid to Government employés; andhe opened an attack on the report of a certain Conservative Commissionwhich had been rousing the particular indignation of a large mass ofSouth London working men. 

At the end of ten days the strike was over; the workers, sullen andenraged, had submitted, and the plans of the Syndicate were in all thepapers. Wharton, looking round him, realised to his own amazement thathis political position had rather gained than suffered. The generalimpression produced by his action had been on the whole that of a manstrong enough to take a line of his own, even at the risk ofunpopularity. There was a new tone of respect among his opponents, and, resentful as some of the Labour members were, Wharton did not believethat what he had done would ultimately damage his chances on the 10th atall. He had vindicated his importance, and he held his head high, adopting towards his chances of the leadership a strong and carelesstone that served him well. 

Meanwhile there were, of course, clever people behind the scenes wholooked on and laughed. But they held their tongues, and Wharton, who hadcarefully avoided the mention of names during the negotiations withPearson, did his best to forget them. He felt uncomfortable, indeed, when he passed the portly Denny in the House or in the street. Denny hada way of looking at the member for West Brookshire out of the corner ofa small, slit-like eye. He did it more than usual during these days, and Wharton had only to say to himself that for all things there is aprice--which the gods exact. 

Wilkins, since the first disclosure of the _Clarion_ change of policy, had been astonishingly quiet. Wharton had made certain of violent attackfrom him. On the contrary, Wilkins wore now in the House a subdued andpre-occupied air that escaped notice even with his own party in thegeneral fulness of the public mind. A few caustic north-countryisms onthe subject of the _Clarion_ and its master did indeed escape him nowand then, and were reported from mouth to mouth; but on the whole he layvery low. 

Still, whether in elation or anxiety, Wharton seemed to himselfthroughout the whole period to be a _fighter_, straining every muscle, his back to the wall and his hand against every man. There at the end ofthe fortnight stood the three goal-posts that must be passed, in victoryor defeat; the meeting that would for the present decide hisparliamentary prospects, his interview with Marcella, and--theconfounded annual meeting of the "People's Banking Company, " with allits threatened annoyances. 

He became, indeed, more and more occupied with this latter business asthe days went on. But he could see no way of evading it. He would haveto fight it; luckily, now, he had the money. 

The annual meeting took place two days before that fixed for thecommittee of the Labour party. Wharton was not present at it, and inspite of ample warning he gave way to certain lively movements ofdisgust and depression when at his club he first got hold of theevening papers containing the reports. His name, of course, figuredamply in the denunciations heaped upon the directors of all dates; thesums which he with others were supposed to have made out of the firstdealings with the shares on the Stock Exchange were freely mentioned;and the shareholders as a body had shown themselves most uncomfortablyviolent. He at once wrote off a letter to the papers disclaiming allresponsibility for the worst irregularities which had occurred, andcourting full enquiry--a letter which, as usual, both convinced andaffected himself. 

Then he went, restless and fuming, down to the House. Bennett passed himin the lobby with an uneasy and averted eye. Whereupon Wharton seizedupon him, carried him into the Library, and talked to him, till Bennett, who, in spite of his extraordinary shrewdness and judgment in certaindepartments, was a babe in matters of company finance, wore a somewhatcheered countenance. 

They came out into the lobby together, Wharton holding his head veryhigh. 

"I shall deal with the whole thing in my speech on Thursday!" he saidaloud, as they parted. 

Bennett gave him a friendly nod and smile. 

There was in this little man, with his considerable brain and his poet'sheart, something of the "imperishable child. " Like a wholesome child, hedid not easily "think evil"; his temper towards all men--even the ownersof "way-leaves" and mining royalties--was optimist. He had the mostnaïve admiration for Wharton's ability, and for the academicattainments he himself secretly pined for; and to the young complexpersonality itself he had taken from the beginning an unaccountableliking. The bond between the two, though incongruous and recent, wasreal; Wharton was as glad of Bennett's farewell kindness as Bennett hadbeen of the younger man's explanations. 

So that during that day and the next, Bennett went about contradicting, championing, explaining; while Wharton, laden with parliamentarybusiness, vivid, unabashed, and resourceful, let it be known to all whomit concerned that in his solicitor's opinion he had a triumphant answerto all charges; and that meanwhile no one could wonder at the sorenessof those poor devils of shareholders. 

The hours passed on. Wednesday was mainly spent by Wharton in a seriesof conferences and intrigues either at the House or at his club; when hedrove home exhausted at night he believed that all was arranged--thetrain irrevocably laid, and his nomination to the chairmanship of theparty certain. 

Wilkins and six or seven others would probably prove irreconcilable; butthe vehemence and rancour shown by the great Nehemiah during the summerin the pursuit of his anti-Wharton campaign had to some extent defeatedthemselves. A personal grudge in the hands of a man of his type is not aformidable weapon. Wharton would have felt perfectly easy on the subjectbut for some odd bits of manner on Wilkins's part during the lastforty-eight hours--whenever, in fact, the two men had run across eachother in the House--marked by a sort of new and insolent good humour, that puzzled him. But there is a bravado of defeat. Yes!--he thoughtWilkins was disposed of. 

From his present point of ease--debts paid, banker propitiated, incomeassured--it amazed him to look back on his condition of a fortnightbefore. Had the Prince of Darkness himself offered such a bargain itmust have been accepted. After all his luck had held! Once get throughthis odious company business--as to which, with a pleasingconsciousness of turning the tables, he had peremptorily instructed Mr. Pearson himself--and the barque of his fortunes was assured. 

Then, with a quick turn of the mind, he threw the burden of affairs fromhim. His very hopefulness and satisfaction had softened his mood. Therestole upon him the murmurs and voices of another world of thought--aworld well known to his versatility by report, though he had as a rulesmall inclination to dwell therein. But he was touched and shakento-night by his own achievement. The heavenly powers had beenunexpectedly kind to him, and he was half moved to offer them somethingin return. 

"Do as you are done by"--that was an ethic he understood. And in momentsof feeling he was as ready to apply it to great Zeus himself as to hisfriends or enemies in the House of Commons. He had done this doubtfulthing--but why should it ever be necessary for him to do another? Vaguephilosophic yearnings after virtue, moderation, patriotism, crossed hismind. The Pagan ideal sometimes smote and fired him, the Christiannever. He could still read his Plato and his Cicero, whereas gulfs ofunfathomable distaste rolled between him and the New Testament. Perhapsthe author of all authors for whom he had most relish was Montaigne. Hewould have taken him down to-night had there been nothing more kindlingto think of. 

_Marcella_!--ah! Marcella! He gave himself to the thought of her with anew and delightful tenderness which had in it elements of compunction. After those disagreeable paragraphs in the evening papers, he hadinstantly written to her. "Every public man"--he had said to her, finding instinctively the note of dignity that would appeal to her--"isliable at some period of his career to charges of this sort. They are atonce exaggerated and blackened, because he is a public man. To you I oweperfect frankness, and you shall have it. Meanwhile I do not ask--Iknow--that you will be just to me, and put the matter out of yourthoughts till I can discuss it with you. Two days more till I see yourface! The time is long!"

To this there had been no answer. Her last letter indeed had rung sadlyand coldly. No doubt Louis Craven had something to do with it. It wouldhave alarmed him could he simply have found the time to think about it. Yet she was ready to see him on the 11th; and his confidence in his ownpowers of managing fate was tougher than ever. What pleasant lies he hadtold her at Lady Masterton's! Well! What passion ever yet but had itssubterfuges? One more wrestle, and he would have tamed her to his wish, wild falcon that she was. Then--pleasure and brave living! And she alsoshould have her way. She should breathe into him the language of thosegreat illusions he had found it of late so hard to feign with her; andthey two would walk and rule a yielding world together. Action, passion, affairs--life explored and exploited--and at last--"_que la mort metreuve plantant mes choulx--mais nonchalant d'elle!--et encore plus demon jardin imparfaict_!"

He declaimed the words of the great Frenchman with something of the sametemper in which the devout man would have made an act of faith. Then, with a long breath and a curious emotion, he went to try and sleephimself into the new day. 

CHAPTER XV. 

The following afternoon about six o'clock Marcella came in from hersecond round. After a very busy week, work happened to be slack; and shehad been attending one or two cases in and near Brown's Buildings ratherbecause they were near than because they seriously wanted her. Shelooked to see whether there was any letter or telegram from the officewhich would have obliged her to go out again. Nothing was to be seen;and she put down her bag and cloak, childishly glad of the extra hour ofrest. 

She was, indeed, pale and worn. The moral struggle which had filled thepast fortnight from end to end had deepened all the grooves and strainedthe forces of life; and the path, though glimmering, was not whollyplain. 

A letter lay unfinished in her drawer--if she sent it that night, therewould be little necessity or inducement for Wharton to climb thosestairs on the morrow. Yet, if he held her to it, she must see him. 

As the sunset and the dusk crept on she still sat silent and alone, sunkin a depression which showed itself in every line of the drooping form. She was degraded in her own eyes. The nature of the impulses which hadled her to give Wharton the hold upon her she had given him had becomeplain to her. What lay between them, and the worst impulses that poisonthe lives of women, but differences of degree, of expression? Afterthose wild hours of sensuous revolt, a kind of moral terror was uponher. 

What had worked in her? What was at the root of this vehemence of moralreaction, this haunting fear of losing for ever the _best_ inlife--self-respect, the comradeship of the good, communion with thingsnoble and unstained--which had conquered at last the mere _woman_, theweakness of vanity and of sex? She hardly knew. Only there was in her asort of vague thankfulness _for her daily work_. It did not seem to bepossible to see one's own life solely under the aspects of selfishdesire while hands and mind were busy with the piteous realities ofsickness and of death. From every act of service--from every contactwith the patience and simplicity of the poor--_something_ had spoken toher, that divine ineffable something for ever "set in the world, " likebeauty, like charm, for the winning of men to itself. "Follow truth!" itsaid to her in faint mysterious breathings--"the truth of your ownheart. The sorrow to which it will lead you is the only _joy_ thatremains to you. "

Suddenly she looked round her little room with a rush of tenderness. Thewindows were open to the evening and the shouts of children playing inthe courtyard came floating up. A bowl of Mellor roses scented the air;the tray for her simple meal stood ready, and beside it a volume of "TheDivine Comedy, " one of her mother's very rare gifts to her, in hermotherless youth--for of late she had turned thirstily to poetry. Therewas a great peace and plainness about it all; and, besides, touches ofbeauty--tokens of the soul. Her work spoke in it; called to her;promised comfort and ennobling. She thought with yearning, too, of herparents; of the autumn holiday she was soon to spend with them. Herheart went out--sorely--to all the primal claims upon it. 

 * * * * *

Nevertheless, clear as was the inner resolution, the immediate futurefilled her with dread. Her ignorance of herself--her excitablefolly--had given Wharton rights which her conscience admitted. He wouldnot let her go without a struggle, and she must face it. 

As to the incidents which had happened during the fortnight--LouisCraven's return, and the scandal of the "People's Banking Company"--theyhad troubled and distressed her; but it would not be true to say thatthey had had any part in shaping her slow determination. Louis Cravenwas sore and bitter. She was very sorry for him; and his reports of theDamesley strikers made her miserable. But she took Wharton's "leaders"in the _Clarion_ for another equally competent opinion on the samesubject; and told herself that she was no judge. As for the Companyscandal, she had instantly and proudly responded to the appeal of hisletter, and put the matter out of her thoughts, till at least he shouldgive his own account. So much at any rate she owed to the man who hadstood by her through the Hurd trial. Marcella Boyce would not readilybelieve in his dishonour! She did not in fact believe it. In spite oflater misgivings, the impression of his personality, as she had firstconceived it, in the early days at Mellor, was still too strong. 

No--rather--she had constantly recollected throughout the day what wasgoing on in Parliament. These were for him testing and critical hours, and she felt a wistful sympathy. Let him only rise to his part--take uphis great task. 

 * * * * *

An imperious knocking on her thin outer door roused her. She went toopen it and saw Anthony Craven, --the perspiration standing on his brow, his delicate cripple's face white and fierce. 

"I want to talk to you, " he said without preface. "Have you seen theafternoon papers?"

"No, " she said in astonishment, "I was just going to send for them. Whatis wrong?"

He followed her into the sitting-room without speaking; and then heunfolded the _Pall Mall_ he had in his hand and pointed to a large-printparagraph on the central page with a shaking hand. 

Marcella read:

"EXCITING SCENES IN THE HOUSE. --MEETING OF THE LABOUR MEMBERS. --Acommittee of the Labour representatives in Parliament met this afternoonat 2 o'clock for the purpose of electing a chairman, and appointingwhips to the party, thus constituting a separate parliamentary group. Much interest was felt in the proceedings, which it was universallysupposed would lead to the appointment of Mr. H. S. Wharton, the memberfor West Brookshire, as chairman and leader of the Labour party. Theexcitement of the meeting and in the House may be imagined when--after ashort but very cordial and effective speech from Mr. Bennett, the memberfor North Whinwick, in support of Mr. Wharton's candidature--Mr. Wilkins, the miner's member for Derlingham, rose and made a series ofastounding charges against the personal honour of the member for WestBrookshire. Put briefly, they amount to this: that during the recentstrike at Damesley the support of the _Clarion_ newspaper, of which Mr. Wharton is owner and practically editor, was _bought_ by the employersin return for certain shares in the new Syndicate; that the money forthese shares--which is put as high as 20, 000 _l. _--had already gone intoMr. Wharton's private pocket; and that the change of policy on the partof the _Clarion_, which led to the collapse of the strike, was thusentirely due to what the Labour members can only regard under thecircumstances as a bribe of a most disgraceful kind. The effect producedhas been enormous. The debate is still proceeding, and reporters havebeen excluded. But I hope to send a fuller account later. "

Marcella dropped the paper from her hand. 

"What does it mean?" she said to her companion. 

"Precisely what it says, " replied Anthony, with a nervous impatience hecould not repress. "Now, " he added, as his lameness forced him to sitdown, "will you kindly allow me some conversation with you? It wasyou--practically--who introduced Louis to that man. You meant well toLouis, and Mr. Wharton has been your friend. We therefore feel that weowe you some explanation. For that paragraph"--he pointed to thepaper--"is, substantially--Louis's doing, and mine. "

"_Yours?_" she said mechanically. "But Louis has been going on workingfor the paper--I persuaded him. "

"I know. It was not we who actually discovered the thing. But we set afriend to work. Louis has had his suspicions all along. And at last--bythe merest chance--we got the facts. "

Then he told the story, staring at her the while with his sparklingeyes, his thin invalid's fingers fidgeting with his hat. If there was intruth any idea in his mind that the relations between his companion andHarry Wharton were more than those of friendship, it did not avail tomake him spare her in the least. He was absorbed in vindictive feeling, which applied to her also. He might _say_ for form's sake that she hadmeant well; but in fact he regarded her at this moment as a sort ofodious Canidia whose one function had been to lure Louis to misfortune. Cut off himself, by half a score of peculiarities, physical and other, from love, pleasure, and power, Anthony Craven's whole affections andambitions had for years centred in his brother. And now Louis was notonly violently thrown out of employment, but compromised by theconnection with the _Clarion_; was, moreover, saddled with a wife--andin debt. 

So that his explanation was given with all the edge he could put uponit. Let her stop him, if she pleased!--but she did not stop him. 

The facts were these:

Louis had, indeed, been persuaded by Marcella, for the sake of his wifeand bread and butter, to go on working for the _Clarion_, as a reviewer. But his mind was all the time feverishly occupied with the apostasy ofthe paper and its causes. Remembering Wharton's sayings and lettersthroughout the struggle, he grew less and less able to explain theincident by the reasons Wharton had himself supplied, and more and moreconvinced that there was some mystery behind. 

He and Anthony talked the matter over perpetually. One evening Anthonybrought home from a meeting of the Venturists that George Denny, the sonof one of the principal employers in the Damesley trade, whose name hehad mentioned once before in Marcella's ears. Denny was by this time thecandidate for a Labour constituency, an ardent Venturist, and thelaughing-stock of his capitalist family, with whom, however, he wasstill on more or less affectionate terms. His father thought him anincorrigible fool, and his mother wailed over him to her friends. Butthey were still glad to see him whenever he would condescend to visitthem; and all friction on money matters was avoided by the fact thatDenny had for long refused to take any pecuniary help from his father, and was nevertheless supporting himself tolerably by lecturing andliterature. 

Denny was admitted into the brothers' debate, and had indeed puzzledhimself a good deal over the matter already. He had taken a livelyinterest in the strike, and the articles in the _Clarion_ which led toits collapse had seemed to him both inexplicable and enraging. 

After his talk with the Cravens, he went away, determined to dine athome on the earliest possible opportunity. He announced himselfaccordingly in Hertford Street, was received with open arms, and thendeliberately set himself, at dinner and afterwards, to bait his fatheron social and political questions, which, as a rule, were avoidedbetween them. 

Old Denny fell into the trap, lost his temper and self-controlcompletely, and at a mention of Harry Wharton--skilfully introduced atthe precisely right moment--as an authority on some matter connectedwith the current Labour programme, he threw himself back in his chairwith an angry laugh. 

"Wharton? _Wharton_? You quote that fellow to _me?_"

"Why shouldn't I?" said the son, quietly. 

"Because, my good sir, --he's a _rogue_, --that's all!--a common rogue, from my point of view even--still more from yours. "

"I know that any vile tale you can believe about a Labour leader you do, father, " said George Denny, with dignity. 

Whereupon the older man thrust his hand into his coat-pocket, anddrawing out a small leather case, in which he was apt to carry importantpapers about with him, extracted from it a list containing names andfigures, and held it with a somewhat tremulous hand under his son'seyes. 

"Read it, sir! and hold your tongue! Last week my friends and I _bought_that man--and his precious paper--for a trifle of 20, 000 _l. _ orthereabouts. It paid us to do it, and we did it. I dare say _you_ willthink the preceding questionable. In my eyes it was perfectlylegitimate, a piece of _bonne guerre_. The man was ruining a wholeindustry. Some of us had taken his measure, had found out too--by goodluck!--that he was in sore straits for money--mortgages on the paper, gambling debts, and a host of other things--discovered a shrewd man toplay him, and made our bid! He rose to it like a gudgeon--gave us notrouble whatever. I need not say, of course"--he added, looking up athis son--"that I have shown you that paper in the _very strictestconfidence_. But it seemed to me it was my duty as a father to warn youof the nature of some of your associates!"

"I understand, " said George Denny, as, after a careful study of thepaper--which contained, for the help of the writer's memory, a list ofthe sums paid and founders' shares allotted to the various "promoters"of the new Syndicate--he restored it to its owner. "Well, I, father, have _this_ to say in return. I came here to-night in the hope ofgetting from you this very information, and in the public interest Ihold myself not only free but _bound_ to make public use of it, at theearliest possible opportunity!"

The family scene may be imagined. But both threats and blandishmentswere entirely lost upon the son. There was in him an idealist obstinacywhich listened to nothing but the cry of a _cause_, and he declared thatnothing would or should prevent him from carrying the story of the bribedirect to Nehemiah Wilkins, Wharton's chief rival in the House, and sosaving the country and the Labour party from the disaster and disgraceof Wharton's leadership. There was no time to lose, the party meeting inthe House was only two days off. 

At the end of a long struggle, which exhausted everybody concerned, andwas carried on to a late hour of the night, Denny _père_, influenced bya desire to avoid worse things--conscious, too, of the abundant evidencehe possessed of Wharton's acceptance and private use of the money--and, probably, when it came to the point, not unwilling, --undercompulsion!--to tumble such a hero from his pedestal, actually wrote, under his son's advice, a letter to Wilkins. It was couched in the mostcautious language, and professed to be written in the interests ofWharton himself, to put an end "to certain ugly and unfounded rumoursthat have been brought to my knowledge. " The negotiation itself wasdescribed in the driest business terms. "Mr. Wharton, upon cause shown, consented to take part in the founding of the Syndicate, and in returnfor his assistance, was allotted ten founders' shares in the newcompany. The transaction differed in nothing from those of ordinarybusiness"--a last sentence slily added by the Socialist son, andinnocently accepted by one of the shrewdest of men. 

After which Master George Denny scarcely slept, and by nine o'clock nextmorning was in a hansom on his way to Wilkins's lodgings in Westminster. The glee of that black-bearded patriot hardly needs description. Heflung himself on the letter with a delight and relief so exuberant thatGeorge Denny went off to another more phlegmatic member of theanti-Wharton "cave, " with entreaties that an eye should be kept on themember for Derlingham, lest he should do or disclose anything before thedramatic moment. 

Then he himself spent the next forty-eight hours in ingenious efforts toput together certain additional information as to the current value offounders' shares in the new company, the nature and amount of Wharton'sdebts, and so on. Thanks to his father's hints he was able in the endto discover quite enough to furnish forth a supplementary statement. Sothat, when the 10th arrived, the day rose upon a group of menbreathlessly awaiting a play within a play--with all their partsrehearsed, and the prompter ready. 

 * * * * *

Such in substance, was Anthony's story. So carried away was he by theexcitement and triumph of it, that he soon ceased to notice what itseffect might be upon his pale and quick-breathing companion. 

"And now what has happened?" she asked him abruptly, when at last hepaused. 

"Why, you saw!" he said in astonishment, pointing to the eveningpaper--"at least the beginning of it. Louis is at the House now. Iexpect him every moment. He said he would follow me here. "

Marcella pressed her hands upon her eyes a moment as though in pain. Anthony looked at her with a tardy prick of remorse. 

"I hear Louis's knock!" he said, springing up. "May I let him in?" And, without waiting for reply, he hobbled as fast as his crutch would carryhim to the outer door. Louis came in. Marcella rose mechanically. Hepaused on the threshold, his short sight trying to make her out in thedusk. Then his face softened and quivered. He walked forward quickly. 

"I know you have something to forgive us, " he said, "and that this willdistress you. But we could not give you warning. Everything was sorapid, and the public interests involved so crushing. "

He was flushed with vengeance and victory, but as he approached her hislook was deprecating--almost timid. Only the night before, Anthony forthe first time had suggested to him an idea about her. He did notbelieve it--had had no time in truth to think of it in the rush ofevents. But now he saw her, the doubt pulled at his heart. Had he indeedstabbed the hand that had tried to help him?

Anthony touched him impatiently on the arm. "What has happened, Louis? Ihave shown Miss Boyce the first news. "

"It is all over, " said Louis, briefly. "The meeting was breaking up as Icame away. It had lasted nearly five hours. There was a fierce fight, ofcourse, between Wharton and Wilkins. Then Bennett withdrew hisresolution, refused to be nominated himself--nearly broke down, in fact, they say; he had always been attached to Wharton, and had set his heartupon making him leader--and finally, after a long wrangle, Molloy wasappointed chairman of the party. "

"Good!" cried Anthony, not able to suppress the note of exultation. 

Louis did not speak. He looked at Marcella. 

"Did he defend himself?" she asked in a low, sharp voice. 

Louis shrugged his shoulders. 

"Oh, yes. He spoke--but it did him no good. Everybody agreed that thespeech was curiously ineffective. One would have expected him to do itbetter. But he seemed to be knocked over. He said, of course, that hehad satisfied himself, and given proof in the paper, that the strikecould not be maintained, and that being so he was free to join anysyndicate he pleased. But he spoke amid dead silence, and there was ageneral groan when he sat down. Oh, it was not this business only!Wilkins made great play in part of his speech with the Company scandaltoo. It is a complete smash all round. "

"Which he will never get over?" said Marcella, quickly. 

"Not with our men. What he may do elsewhere is another matter. Anthonyhas told you how it came out?"

She made a sign of assent. She was sitting erect and cold, her handsround her knees. 

"I did not mean to keep anything from you, " he said in a low voice, bending to her. "I know--you admired him--that he had given you cause. But--my mind has been on _fire_--ever since I came back from thoseDamesley scenes!"

She offered no reply. Silence fell upon all three for a minute or two;and in the twilight each could hardly distinguish the others. Every nowand then the passionate tears rose in Marcella's eyes; her heartcontracted. That very night when he spoke to her, when he used all thosebig words to her about his future, those great ends for which he hadclaimed her woman's help--he had these things in his mind. 

"I think, " said Louis Craven presently, touching her gently on thearm--he had tried once in vain to attract her attention--"I think I hearsome one asking for you outside on the landing--Mrs. Hurd seems to bebringing them in. "

As he spoke, Anthony suddenly sprang to his feet, and the outer dooropened. 

"Louis!" cried Anthony, "it is _he_!"

"Are yer at home, miss?" said Minta Hurd, putting in her head; "I canhardly see, it's so dark. Here's a gentleman wants to see you. "

As she spoke, Wharton passed her, and stood--arrested--by the sight ofthe three figures. At the same moment Mrs. Hurd lit the gas in thelittle passage. The light streamed upon his face, and showed him theidentity of the two men standing beside Marcella. 

Never did Marcella forget that apparition--the young grace and power ofthe figure--the indefinable note of wreck, of catastrophe--the Luciferbrightness of the eyes in the set face. She moved forward. Anthonystopped her. 

"Good-night, Miss Boyce!"

She shook hands unconsciously with him and with Louis. The two Cravensturned to the door. Wharton advanced into the room, and let them pass. 

"You have been in a hurry to tell your story!" he said, as Louis walkedby him. 

Contemptuous hate breathed from every feature, but he was perfectlyself-controlled. 

"Yes--" said Craven, calmly--"Now it is your turn. "

The door was no sooner shut than Wharton strode forward and caught herhand. 

"They have told you everything? Ah!--"

His eye fell upon the evening paper. Letting her go, he felt for a chairand dropped into it. Throwing himself back, his hands behind his head, he drew a long breath and his eyes closed. For the first time in hislife or hers she saw him weak and spent like other men. Even his nervehad been worn down by the excitement of these five fighting hours. Theeyes were lined and hollow--the brow contracted; the young roundness ofthe cheek was lost in the general pallor and patchiness of the skin; thelower part of the face seemed to have sharpened and lengthened, --andover the whole had passed a breath of something aging and withering thetraces of which sent a shiver through Marcella. She sat down near him, still in her nurse's cloak, one trembling hand upon her lap. 

"Will you tell me what made you do this?" she asked, not being able tothink of anything else to say. 

He opened his eyes with a start. 

In that instant's quiet the scene he had just lived through had beenrushing before him again--the long table in the panelled committee-room, the keen angry faces gathered about it. Bennett, in his blue tie andshabby black coat, the clear moist eyes vexed and miserable--Molloy, small and wiry, business-like in the midst of confusion, cool in themidst of tumult--and Wilkins, a black, hectoring leviathan, thunderingon the table as he flung his broad Yorkshire across it, or mouthing outDenny's letter in the midst of the sudden electrical silence of somethirty amazed and incredulous hearers. 

"_Spies, _ yo call us?" with a finger like a dart, threatening theenemy--"Aye; an' yo're aboot reet! I and my friends--we _have_ beentrackin' and spyin' for weeks past. We _knew_ those men, those starvin'women and bairns, were bein' _sold_, but we couldn't prove it. Nowwe've come at the how and the why of it! And we'll make it harder formen like you to _sell 'em again_! Yo call it infamy?--well, _we_ call itdetection. "

Then rattling on the inner ear came the phrases of the attack whichfollowed on the director of "The People's Banking Association, " theinjured innocent of as mean a job, as unsavoury a bit of vulturousfinance, as had cropped into publicity for many a year--and finally thelast dramatic cry:

"But it's noa matter, yo say! Mester Wharton has nobbut played his partyand the workin' man a dirty trick or two--_an' yo mun have a gentleman!_Noa--the workin' man isn't fit _himself_ to speak wi' his own enemies i'th' gate--_yo mun have a gentleman_!--an' Mester Wharton, he says he'lltak' the post, an' dea his best for yo--an', remember, _yo mun have agentleman_! Soa now--Yes! or No!--wull yo?--or _woan't yo_?"

And at that, the precipitation of the great unwieldy form half acrossthe table towards Wharton's seat--the roar of the speaker's immediatesupporters thrown up against the dead silence of the rest!

As to his own speech--he thought of it with a soreness, a disgust whichpenetrated to bones and marrow. He had been too desperately taken bysurprise--had lost his nerve--missed the right tone throughout. Cooldefiance, free self-justification, might have carried him through. Instead of which--faugh!

All this was the phantom-show of a few seconds' thought. He rousedhimself from a miserable reaction of mind and body to attend toMarcella's question. 

"Why did I do it?" he repeated; "why--"

He broke off, pressing both his hands upon his brow. Then he suddenlysat up and pulled himself together. 

"Is that tea?" he said, touching the tray. "Will you give me some?"

Marcella went into the back kitchen and called Minta. While the boilingwater was brought and the tea was made, Wharton sat forward with hisface on his hands and saw nothing. Marcella whispered a word in Minta'sear as she came in. The woman paused, looked at Wharton, whom she hadnot recognised before in the dark--grew pale--and Marcella saw her handsshaking as she set the tray in order. Wharton knew nothing and thoughtnothing of Kurd's widow, but to Marcella the juxtaposition of the twofigures brought a wave of complex emotion. 

Wharton forced himself to eat and drink, hardly speaking the while. Then, when the tremor of sheer exhaustion had to some extent abated, hesuddenly realised who this was that was sitting opposite to himministering to him. 

She felt his hand--his quick powerful hand--on hers. 

"To _you_ I owe the whole truth--let me tell it!"

She drew herself away instinctively--but so softly that he did notrealise it. He threw himself back once more in the chair beside her--oneknee over the other, the curly head so much younger to-night than theface beneath it supported on his arms, his eyes closed again forrest--and plunged into the story of the _Clarion_. 

It was admirably told. He had probably so rehearsed it to himselfseveral times already. He described his action as the result of a doubleinfluence working upon him--the influence of his own debts andnecessities, and the influence of his growing conviction that themaintenance of the strike had become a blunder, even a misfortune forthe people themselves. 

"Then--just as I was at my wit's end, conscious besides that the paperwas on a wrong line, and must somehow be got out of it--came theovertures from the Syndicate. I knew perfectly well I ought to haverefused them--of _course_ my whole career was risked by listening tothem. But at the same time they gave me assurances that the workpeoplewould ultimately gain--they proved to me that I was helping toextinguish the trade. As to the _money_--when a great company has to belaunched, the people who help it into being get _paid_ for it--it isinvariable--it happens every day. I like the system no more than you maydo--or Wilkins. But consider. I was in such straits that _bankruptcy_lay between me and my political future. Moreover--I had lost nerve, sleep, balance. I was scarcely master of myself when Pearson firstbroached the matter to me--"

"Pearson!" cried Marcella, involuntarily. She recalled the figure of thesolicitor; had heard his name from Frank Leven. She remembered Wharton'simpatient words--"There is a tiresome man wants to speak to me onbusiness--"

It was _then I_--that evening! Something sickened her. 

Wharton raised himself in his chair and looked at her attentively withhis young haggard eyes. In the faint lamplight she was a pale vision ofthe purest and noblest beauty. But the lofty sadness of her face filledhim with a kind of terror. Desire--impotent pain--violent resolve, sweptacross him. He had come to her, straight from the scene of his ruin, asto the last bulwark left him against a world bent on his destruction, and bare henceforward of all delights. 

"Well, what have you to say to me?" he said, suddenly, in a low changedvoice--"as I speak--as I look at you--I see in your face that youdistrust--that you have judged me; those two men, I suppose, have donetheir work! Yet from you--_you_ of all people--I might look not only forjustice--but--I will dare say it--for kindness!"

She trembled. She understood that he appealed to the days at Mellor, andher lips quivered. 

"No, " she exclaimed, almost timidly--"I try to think the best. I see thepressure was great. "

"And consider, please, " he said proudly, "what the reasons were for thatpressure. "

She looked at him interrogatively--a sudden softness in her eyes. If atthat moment he had confessed himself fully, if he had thrown himselfupon her in the frank truth of his mixed character--and he could havedone it, with a Rousseau-like completeness--it is difficult to say whatthe result of this scene might have been. In the midst of shock andrepulsion, she was filled with pity; and there were moments when she wasmore drawn to his defeat and undoing, than she had ever been to hissuccess. 

Yet how question him? To do so, would be to assume a right, which inturn would imply _his_ rights. She thought of that mention of "gamblingdebts, " then of his luxurious habits, and extravagant friends. But shewas silent. Only, as she sat there opposite to him, one slim handpropping the brow, her look invited him. 

He thought he saw his advantage. 

"You must remember, " he said, with the same self-assertive bearing, "that I have never been a rich man, that my mother spent my father'ssavings on a score of public objects, that she and I started a number ofexperiments on the estate, that my expenses as a member of Parliamentare very large, and that I spent thousands on building up the _Clarion_. I have been ruined by the _Clarion_, by the cause the _Clarion_supported. I got no help from my party--where was it to come from? Theyare all poor men. I had to do everything myself, and the struggle hasbeen more than flesh and blood could bear! This year, often, I have notknown how to move, to breathe, for anxieties of every sort. Then camethe crisis--my work, my usefulness, my career, all threatened. The menwho hated me saw their opportunity. I was a fool and gave it them. Andmy enemies have used it--to the bitter end!"

Tone and gesture were equally insistent and strong. What he was sayingto himself was that, with a woman of Marcella's type, one must "bear itout. " This moment of wreck was also with him the first moment ofall-absorbing and desperate desire. To win her--to wrest her from theCravens' influence--that had been the cry in his mind throughout hisdazed drive from the House of Commons. Her hand in his--her strength, her beauty, the romantic reputation that had begun to attach to her, athis command--and he would have taken the first step to recovery, hewould see his way to right himself. 

Ah! but he had missed his chance! Somehow, every word he had been sayingrang false to her. She could have thrown herself as a saving angel onthe side of weakness and disaster which had spoken its proper language, and with a reckless and confiding truth had appealed to the largeness ofa woman's heart. But this patriot--ruined so nobly--for suchdisinterested purposes--left her cold! She began to think even--hatingherself--of the thousands he was supposed to have made in the gamblingover that wretched company--no doubt for the "cause" too!

But before she could say a word he was kneeling beside her. 

"_Marcella_ I give me my answer!--I am in trouble and defeat--be awoman, and come to me!"

He had her hands. She tried to recover them. 

"No!" she said, with passionate energy, "_that_ is impossible. I hadwritten to you before you came, before I had heard a word of this. Please, _please_ let me go!"

"Not till you explain!"--he said, still holding her, and roused to awhite heat of emotion--"_why_ is it impossible? You said to me once, with all your heart, that you thanked me, that I had taught you, helpedyou. You cannot ignore the bond between us! And you are free. I have aright to say to you--you thirst to save, to do good--come and save aman that cries to you!--he confesses to _you_, freely enough, that hehas made a hideous mistake--help him to redeem it!"

She rose suddenly with all her strength, freeing herself from him, sothat he rose too, and stood glowering and pale. 

"When I said that to you, " she cried, "I was betraying "--her voicefailed her an instant--"we were both false--to the obligation thatshould have held us--restrained us. No! _no!_ I will never be your wife!We should hurt each other--poison each other!"

Her eyes shone with wild tears. As he stood there before her she wasseized with a piteous sense of contrast--of the irreparable--of whatmight have been. 

"What do you mean?" he asked her, roughly. 

She was silent. 

His passion rose. 

"Do you remember, " he said, approaching her again, "that you have givenme cause to hope? It is those two fanatics that have changedyou--possessed your mind. "

She looked at him with a pale dignity. 

"My letters must have warned you, " she said simply. "If you had cometo-morrow--in prosperity--you would have got the same answer, at once. To-day--now--I have had weak moments, because--because I did not knowhow to add pain to pain. But they are gone--I see my way! _I do not loveyou_--that is the simple, the whole truth--I could not follow you!"

He stared at her an instant in a bitter silence. 

"I have been warned, "--he said slowly, but in truth losing control ofhimself, "not only by you--and I suppose I understand! You repent lastyear. Your own letter said as much. You mean to recover, the ground--theplace you lost. Ah, well!--most natural!--most fitting! When the timecomes--and my bones are less sore--I suppose I shall have my secondcongratulations ready! Meanwhile--"

She gave a low cry and burst suddenly into a passion of weeping, turningher face from him. But when in pale sudden shame he tried to excusehimself--to appease her--she moved away, with a gesture that overawedhim. 

"_You_ have not confessed yourself"--she said, and his look waveredunder the significance of hers--"but you drive me to it. Yes, _Irepent!_"--her breast heaved, she caught her breath. "I have been tryingto cheat myself these last few weeks--to run away from grief--and theother night when you asked me--I would have given all I have and am tofeel like any happy girl, who says 'Yes' to her lover. I tried to feelso. But even then, though I was miserable and reckless, I knew in myheart--it was impossible! If you suppose--if you like to suppose--thatI--I have hopes or plans--as mean as they would be silly--you must--ofcourse. But I have given no one any _right_ to think so or say so. Mr. Wharton--"

Gathering all her self-control, she put out her white hand to him. "Please--please say good-bye to me. It has been hideous vanity--andmistake--and wretchedness--our knowing each other--from the beginning. I _am_ grateful for all you did, I shall always be grateful. I hope--oh!I hope--that--that you will find a way through this trouble. I don'twant to make it worse by a word. If I could do anything! But I can't. You must please go. It is late. I wish to call my friend, Mrs. Hurd. "

Their eyes met--hers full of a certain stern yet quivering power, hisstrained and bloodshot, in his lined young face. 

Then, with a violent gesture--as though he swept her out of his path--hecaught up his hat, went to the door, and was gone. 

She fell on her chair almost fainting, and sat there for long in thesummer dark, covering her face. But it was not his voice that hauntedher ears. 

"_You have done me wrong--I pray God you may not do yourself a greaterwrong in the future!_"

Again and again, amid the whirl of memory, she pressed the sadremembered words upon the inward wound and fever--tasting, cherishingthe smart of them. And as her trance of exhaustion and despair graduallyleft her, it was as though she crept close to some dim beloved form inwhom her heart knew henceforward the secret and sole companion of itsinmost life. 

BOOK IV. 

"You and I--Why care by what meanders we are hereI' the centre of the labyrinth? Men have diedTrying to find this place which we have found. "

CHAPTER I. 

Ah! how purely, cleanly beautiful was the autumn sunrise! After her longhardening to the stale noisomeness of London streets, the taint ofLondon air, Marcella hung out of her window at Mellor in a thirstydelight, drinking in the scent of dew and earth and trees, watching theways of the birds, pouring forth a soul of yearning and of memory intothe pearly silence of the morning. 

High up on the distant hill to the left, beyond the avenue, the paleapricots and golds of the newly-shorn stubbles caught the mountinglight. The beeches of the avenue were turning fast, and the chestnutsgirdling the church on her right hand were already thin enough to letthe tower show through. That was the bell--the old bell given to thechurch by Hampden's friend, John Boyce--striking half-past five; andclose upon it came the call of a pheasant in the avenue. There he was, fine fellow, with his silly, mincing run, redeemed all at once by thesudden whirr of towering flight. 

To-day Mary Harden and the Rector would be at work in the church, andto-morrow was to be the Harvest Festival. Was it two years?--or in anhour or two would she be going with her basket from the Cedar Garden, tofind that figure in the brown shooting-coat standing with the Hardens onthe altar steps?

Alas!--alas!--her head dropped on her hands as she knelt by the openwindow. How changed were all the aspects of the world! Three weeksbefore, the bell in that little church had tolled for one who, in thebest way and temper of his own generation, had been God's servant andman's friend--who had been Marcella's friend--and had even, in his lastdays, on a word from Edward Hallin, sent her an old man's kindlyfarewell. 

"Tell her, " Lord Maxwell had written with his own hand to Hallin, "shehas taken up a noble work, and will make, I pray God, a noble woman. Shehad, I think, a kindly liking for an old man, and she will not disdainhis blessing. "

He had died at Geneva, Aldous and Miss Raeburn with him. For instead ofcoming home in August, he had grown suddenly worse, and Aldous had goneout to him. They had brought him to the Court for burial, and the newLord Maxwell, leaving his aunt at the Court, had almost immediatelyreturned to town, --because of Edward Hallin's state of health. 

Marcella had seen much of Hallin since he and his sister had come backto London in the middle of August. Hallin's apparent improvement hadfaded within a week or two of his return to his rooms; Aldous was atGeneva; Miss Hallin was in a panic of alarm; and Marcella found herselfboth nurse and friend. Day after day she would go in after her nursingrounds, share their evening meal, and either write for Hallin, or helpthe sister--by the slight extra weight of her professional voice--tokeep him from writing and thinking. 

He would not himself admit that he was ill at all, and his wholeenergies at the time were devoted to the preparation of a series ofthree addresses on the subject of Land Reform, which were to bedelivered in October to the delegates of a large number of working-men'sclubs from all parts of London. So strong was Hallin's position amongworking-men reformers, and so beloved had been his personality, that assoon as his position towards the new land nationalising movement, nowgathering formidable strength among the London working men, had come tobe widely understood, a combined challenge had been sent him by somehalf-dozen of the leading Socialist and Radical clubs, asking him togive three weekly addresses in October to a congress of Londondelegates, time to be allowed after the lecture for questions anddebate. 

Hallin had accepted the invitation with eagerness, and was throwing anintensity of labour into the writing of his three lectures which oftenseemed to his poor sister to be not only utterly beyond his physicalstrength, but to carry with it a note as of a last effort, a farewellmessage, such as her devoted affection could ill endure. For all thetime he was struggling with cardiac weakness and brain irritabilitywhich would have overwhelmed any one less accustomed to make his accountwith illness, or to balance against feebleness of body a marvellousdiscipline of soul. 

Lord Maxwell was still alive, and Hallin, in the midst of his work, waslooking anxiously for the daily reports from Aldous, living in hisfriend's life almost as much as in his own--handing on the reports, too, day by day to Marcella, with a manner which had somehow slipped intoexpressing a new and sure confidence in her sympathy--when she oneevening found Minta Hurd watching for her at the door with a telegramfrom her mother: "Your father suddenly worse. Please come at once. " Shearrived at Mellor late that same night. 

On the same day Lord Maxwell died. Less than a week later he was buriedin the little Gairsley church. Mr. Boyce was then alarmingly ill, andMarcella sat in his darkened room or in her own all day, thinking fromtime to time of what was passing three miles away--of the great house inits mourning--of the figures round the grave. Hallin, of course, wouldbe there. It was a dripping September day, and she passed easily frommoments of passionate yearning and clairvoyance to worry herself aboutthe damp and the fatigue that Hallin must be facing. 

Since then she had heard occasionally from Miss Hallin. Everything wasmuch as it had been, apparently. Edward was still hard at work, stillill, still serene. "Aldous"--Miss Hallin could not yet reconcile herselfto the new name--was alone in the Curzon Street house, much occupied andharassed apparently by the legal business of the succession, by theelection presently to be held in his own constituency, and by thewinding-up of his work at the Home Office. He was to resign hisunder-secretaryship; but with the new session and a certainrearrangement of offices it was probable that he would be brought backinto the Ministry. Meanwhile he was constantly with them; and shethought that his interest in Edward's work and anxiety about his healthwere perhaps both good for him as helping to throw off something of hisown grief and depression. 

Whereby it will be noticed that Miss Hallin, like her brother, had bynow come to speak intimately and freely to Marcella of her old lover andtheir friend. 

Now for some days, however, she had received no letter from eitherbrother or sister, and she was particularly anxious to hear. For thiswas the fourth of October, and on the second he was to have deliveredthe first of his addresses. How had the frail prophet sped? She had herfears. For her weekly "evenings" in Brown's Buildings had shown her agood deal of the passionate strength of feeling developed during thepast year in connection with this particular propaganda. She doubtedwhether the London working man at the present moment was likely to giveeven Hallin a fair hearing on the point. However, Louis Craven was to bethere. And he had promised to write even if Susie Hallin could find notime. Some report ought to reach Mellor by the evening. 

Poor Cravens! The young wife, who was expecting a baby, had behaved withgreat spirit through the _Clarion_ trouble; and, selling their bits offurniture to pay their debts, they had gone to lodge near Anthony. Louishad got some odds and ends of designing and artistic work to do throughhis brother's influence; and was writing where he could, here and there. Marcella had introduced them to the Hallins, and Susie Hallin was takinga motherly interest in the coming child. Anthony, in his gloomy way, wasdoing all he could for them. But the struggle was likely to be a hardone, and Marcella had recognised of late that in Louis as in Anthonythere were dangerous possibilities of melancholy and eccentricity. Herheart was often sore over their trouble and her own impotence. 

Meantime for some wounds, at any rate, time had brought swift cautery!Not three days after her final interview with Wharton, while thecatastrophe in the Labour party was still in every one's mouth, and theair was full of bitter speeches and recriminations, Hallin one eveninglaid down his newspaper with a sudden startled gesture, and then pushedit over to Marcella. There, in the columns devoted to personal news ofvarious sorts, appeared the announcement:

"A marriage has been arranged between Mr. H. S. Wharfon, M. P. For WestBrookshire, and Lady Selina Farrell, only surviving daughter of LordAlresford. The ceremony will probably take place somewhere about Easternext. Meanwhile Mr. Wharton, whose health has suffered of late from hisexertions in and out of the House, has been ordered to the East for restby his medical advisers. He and his friend Sir William Ffolliot startfor French Cochin China in a few days. Their object is to explore thefamous ruined temples of Angkor in Cambodia, and if the season isfavourable they may attempt to ascend the Mekong. Mr. Wharton is pairedfor the remainder of the session. "

"Did you know anything of this?" said Hallin, with that carefulcarelessness in which people dress a dubious question. 

"Nothing, " she said quietly. 

Then an impulse not to be stood against, springing from very mingleddepths of feeling, drove her on. She, too, put down the paper, andlaying her finger-tips together on her knee she said with an odd slightlaugh:

"But I was the last person to know. About a fortnight ago Mr. Whartonproposed to me. "

Hallin sprang from his chair, almost with a shout. "And you refusedhim?"

She nodded, and then was angrily aware that, totally against her will orconsent, and for the most foolish and remote reasons, those two eyes ofhers had grown moist. 

Hallin went straight over to her. 

"Do you mind letting me shake hands with you?" he said, half ashamed ofhis outburst, a dancing light of pleasure transforming the thin face. "There--I am an idiot! We won't say a word more--except about LadySelina. Have you seen her?"

"Three or four times. "

"What is she like?"

Marcella hesitated. 

"Is she fat--and forty?" said Hallin, fervently--she beat him?"

"Not at all. She is very thin--thirty-five, elegant, terribly of her ownopinion--and makes a great parade of 'papa. '"

She looked round at him, unsteadily, but gaily. 

"Oh! I see, " said Hallin, with disappointment, "she will only take carehe doesn't beat her--which I gather from your manner doesn't matter. Andher politics?"

"Lord Alresford was left out of the Ministry, " said Marcella slily. "Heand Lady Selina thought it a pity. "

"Alresford--_Alresford_? Why, of course! He was Lord Privy Seal in theirlast Cabinet--a narrow-minded old stick!--did a heap of mischief in theLords. _Well!_"--Hallin pondered a moment--"Wharton will go over!"

Marcella was silent. The tremor of that wrestler's hour had not yetpassed away. The girl could find no words in which to discuss Whartonhimself, this last amazing act, or its future. 

As for Hallin, he sat lost in pleasant dreams of a whitewashed Wharton, comfortably settled at last below the gangway on the Conservative side, using all the old catch-words in slightly different connections, andliving gaily on his Lady Selina. Fragments from the talk ofNehemiah--Nehemiah the happy and truculent, that new "scourge of God"upon the parasites of Labour--of poor Bennett, of Molloy, and of variousothers who had found time to drop in upon him since the Labour smash, kept whirling in his mind. The same prediction he had just made toMarcella was to be discerned in several of them. He vowed to himselfthat he would write to Raeburn that night, congratulate him and theparty on the possibility of so eminent a recruit--and hint another itemof news by the way. She had trusted her confidence to him without anypledge--an act for which he paid her well thenceforward, in the coin ofa friendship far more intimate, expansive, and delightful than anythinghis sincerity had as yet allowed him to show her. 

But these London incidents and memories, near as they were in time, looked many of them strangely remote to Marcella in this morningsilence. When she drew back from the window, after darkening the nowsun-flooded room in a very thorough business-like way, in order that shemight have four or five hours' sleep, there was something symbolic inthe act. She gave back her mind, her self, to the cares, the anxieties, the remorses of the past three weeks. During the night she had beensitting up with her father that her mother might rest. Now, as she laydown, she thought with the sore tension which had lately become habitualto her, of her father's state, her mother's strange personality, her ownshort-comings. 

 * * * * *

By the middle of the morning she was downstairs again, vigorous andfresh as ever. Mrs. Boyce's maid was for the moment in charge of thepatient, who was doing well. Mrs. Boyce was writing some household notesin the drawing-room. Marcella went in search of her. 

The bare room, just as it ever was--with its faded antique charm--lookedbright and tempting in the sun. But the cheerfulness of it did butsharpen the impression of that thin form writing in the window. Mrs. Boyce looked years older. The figure had shrunk and flattened into thatof an old woman; the hair, which two years before had been still youngand abundant, was now easily concealed under the close white cap she hadadopted very soon after her daughter had left Mellor. The dress wasstill exquisitely neat; but plainer and coarser. Only the beautifulhands and the delicate stateliness of carriage remained--sole relics ofa loveliness which had cost its owner few pangs to part with. 

Marcella hovered near her--a little behind her--looking at her from timeto time with a yearning compunction--which Mrs. Boyce seemed to be awareof, and to avoid. 

"Mamma, can't I do those letters for you? I am quite fresh. "

"No, thank you. They are just done. "

When they were all finished and stamped, Mrs. Boyce made some carefulentries in a very methodical account-book, and then got up, locking thedrawers of her little writing-table behind her. 

"We can keep the London nurse another week I think, " she said. 

"There is no need, " said Marcella, quickly. "Emma and I could divide thenights now and spare you altogether. You see I can sleep at any time. "

"Your father seems to prefer Nurse Wenlock, " said Mrs. Boyce. 

Marcella took the little blow in silence. No doubt it was her due. During the past two years she had spent two separate months at Mellor;she had gone away in opposition to her father's wish; and had foundherself on her return more of a stranger to her parents than ever. Mr. Boyce's illness, involving a steady extension of paralytic weakness, with occasional acute fits of pain and danger, had made steady thoughvery gradual progress all the time. But it was not till some days afterher return home that Marcella had realised a tenth part of what hermother had undergone since the disastrous spring of the murder. 

She passed now from the subject of the nurse with a half-timid remarkabout "expense. "

"Oh! the expense doesn't matter!" said Mrs. Boyce, as she stood absentlybefore the lately kindled fire, warming her chilled fingers at theblaze. 

"Papa is more at ease in those ways?" Marcella ventured. And kneelingdown beside her mother she gently chafed one of the cold hands. 

"There seems to be enough for what is wanted, " said Mrs. Boyce, bearingthe charing with patience. "Your father, I believe, has made greatprogress this year in freeing the estate. Thank you, my dear. I am notcold now. "

And she gently withdrew her hand. 

Marcella, indeed, had already noticed that there were now no weeds onthe garden-paths, that instead of one gardener there were three, thatthe old library had been decently patched and restored, that there wasanother servant, that William, grown into a very--tolerable footman, wore a reputable coat, and that a plain but adequate carriage and horsehad met her at the station. Her pity even understood that part of herfather's bitter resentment of his ever-advancing disablement came fromhis feeling that here at last--just as death was in sight--he, thatsqualid failure, Dick Boyce, was making a success of something. 

Presently, as she knelt before the fire, a question escaped her, which, when it was spoken, she half regretted. 

"Has papa been able to do anything for the cottages yet?"

"I don't think so, " said Mrs. Boyce, calmly. After a minute's pause sheadded, "That will be for your reign, my dear. "

Marcella looked up with a sharp thrill of pain. 

"Papa is better, mamma, and--and I don't know what you mean. I shallnever reign here without you. "

Mrs. Boyce began to fidget with the rings on her thin left hand. 

"When Mellor ceases to be your father's it will be yours, " she said, notwithout a certain sharp decision; "that was settled long ago. I must befree--and if you are to do anything with this place, you must give youryouth and strength to it. And your father is not better--except for themoment. Dr. Clarke exactly foretold the course of his illness to me twoyears ago, on my urgent request. He may live four months--six, if we canget him to the South. More is impossible. "

There was something ghastly in her dry composure. Marcella caught herhand again and leant her trembling young cheek against it. 

"I could not live here without you, mamma!"

Mrs. Boyce could not for once repress the inner fever which in generalher will controlled so well. 

"I hardly think it would matter to you so much, my dear. "

Marcella shrank. 

"I don't wonder you say that!" she said in a low voice. "Do you think itwas all a mistake, mamma, my going away eighteen months ago--a wrongact?"

Mrs. Boyce grew restless. 

"I judge nobody, my dear!--unless I am obliged. As you know, I am forliberty--above all"--she spoke with emphasis--"for letting the pastalone. But I imagine you must certainly have learnt to do without us. Now I ought to go to your father. "

But Marcella held her. 

"Do you remember in the _Purgatorio_, mamma, the lines about the loserin the game: 'When the game of dice breaks up, he who lost lingerssorrowfully behind, going over the throws, and _learning by his grief_'?Do you remember?"

Mrs. Boyce looked down upon her, involuntarily a little curious, alittle nervous, but assenting. It was one of the inconsistencies of herstrange character that she had all her life been a persistent Dantestudent. The taste for the most strenuous and passionate of poets haddeveloped in her happy youth; it had survived through the loneliness ofher middle life. Like everything else personal to herself she neverspoke of it; but the little worn books on her table had been familiar toMarcella from a child. 

"_E tristo impara?_" repeated Marcella, her voice wavering. "Mamma"--she laid her face against her mother's dress again--"I have lost morethrows than you think in the last two years. Won't you believe I mayhave learnt a little?"

She raised her eyes to her mother's pinched and mask-like face. Mrs. Boyce's lips moved as though she would have asked a question. But shedid not ask it. She drew, instead, the stealthy breath Marcella knewwell--the breath of one who has measured precisely her own powers ofendurance, and will not risk them for a moment by any digression intoalien fields of emotion. 

"Well, but one expects persons like you to learn, " she said, with alight, cold manner, which made the words mere convention. There wassilence an instant; then, probably to release herself, her hand justtouched her daughter's hair. "Now, will you come up in half an hour?That was twelve striking, and Emma is never quite punctual with hisfood. "

 * * * * *

Marcella went to her father at the hour named. She found him in hiswheeled chair, beside a window opened to the sun, and overlooking theCedar Garden. The room in which he sat was the state bedroom of the oldhouse. It had a marvellous paper of branching trees and parrots andred-robed Chinamen, in the taste of the morning room downstairs, acarved four-post bed, a grate adorned with purplish Dutch tiles, anarray of family miniatures over the mantelpiece, and on a neighbouringwall a rack of old swords and rapiers. The needlework hangings of thebed were full of holes; the seats of the Chippendale chairs were frayedor tattered. But, none the less, the inalienable character and dignityof his sleeping-room were a bitter satisfaction to Richard Boyce, evenin his sickness. After all said and done, he was king here in hisfather's and grandfather's place; ruling where they ruled, and--whetherthey would or no--dying where they died, with the same family faces tobear him witness from the walls, and the same vault awaiting him. 

When his daughter entered, he turned his head, and his eyes, deep andblack still as ever, but sunk in a yellow relic of a face, showed acertain agitation. She was disagreeably aware that his thoughts weremuch occupied with her; that he was full of grievance towards her, andwould probably before long bring the pathos of his situation as well asthe weight of his dying authority to bear upon her, for purposes shealready suspected with alarm. 

"Are you a little easier, papa?" she said, as she came up to him. 

"I should think as a nurse you ought to know better, my dear, than toask, " he said testily. "When a person is in my condition, enquiries ofthat sort are a mockery!"

"But one may be in less or more pain, " she said gently. "I hoped Dr. Clarke's treatment yesterday might have given you some relief. "

He did not vouchsafe an answer. She took some work and sat down by him. Mrs. Boyce, who had been tidying a table of food and medicine, came andasked him if he would be wheeled into another room across the gallery, which had been arranged as a sitting-room. He shook his head irritably. 

"I am not fit for it. Can't you see? And I want to speak to Marcella. "

Mrs. Boyce went away. Marcella waited, not without a tremor. She wassitting in the sun, her head bent over the muslin strings she washemming for her nurse's bonnet. The window was wide open; outside, theleaves under a warm breeze were gently drifting down into the CedarGarden, amid a tangled mass of flowers, mostly yellow or purple. To oneside rose the dark layers of the cedars; to the other, the grey frontof the library wing. 

Mr. Boyce looked at her with the frown which had now become habitual tohim, moved his lips once or twice without speaking; and at last made hiseffort. 

"I should think, Marcella, you must often regret by now the step youtook eighteen months ago!"

She grew pale. 

"How regret it, papa?" she said, without looking up. 

"Why, good God!" he said angrily; "I should think the reasons for regretare plain enough. You threw over a man who was devoted to you, and couldhave given you the finest position in the county, for the mostnonsensical reasons in the world--reasons that by now, I am certain, youare ashamed of. "

He saw her wince, and enjoyed his prerogative of weakness. In his normalhealth he would never have dared so to speak to her. But of late, duringlong fits of feverish brooding--intensified by her return home--he hadvowed to himself to speak his mind. 

"Aren't you ashamed of them?" he repeated, as she was silent. 

She looked up. 

"I am not ashamed of anything I did to save Hurd, if that is what youmean, papa. "

Mr. Boyce's anger grew. 

"Of course you know what everybody said?"

She stooped over her work again, and did not reply. 

"It's no good being sullen over it, " he said in exasperation; "I'm yourfather, and I'm dying. I have a right to question you. It's my duty tosee something settled, if I can, before I go. Is it _true_ that all thetime you were attacking Raeburn about politics and the reprieve, andwhat not, you were really behaving as you never ought to have behaved, with Harry Wharton?"

He gave out the words with sharp emphasis, and, bending towards her, helaid an emaciated hand upon her arm. 

"What use is there, papa, in going back to these things?" she said, driven to bay, her colour going and coming. "I may have been wrong in ahundred ways, but you never understood that the real reason for it allwas that--that--I never was in love with Mr. Raeburn. "

"Then why did you accept him?" He fell back against his pillows with ajerk. 

"As to that, I will confess my sins readily enough, " she said, while herlip trembled, and he saw the tears spring into her eyes. "I accepted himfor what you just now called his position in the county, though notquite in that way either. "

He was silent a little, then he began again in a voice which graduallybecame unsteady from self-pity. 

"Well, now look here! I have been thinking about this matter a greatdeal--and God knows I've time to think and cause to think, consideringthe state I'm in--and I see no reason whatever why I should nottry--before I die--to put this thing _straight_. That man was head overears in love with you, _madly_ in love with you. I used to watch him, and I know. Of course you offended and distressed him greatly. He couldnever have expected such conduct from you or any one else. But _he's_not the man to change round easily, or to take up with any one else. Now, if you regret what you did or the way in which you did it, whyshouldn't I--a dying man may be allowed a little licence I shouldthink!--give him a hint?"

"_Papa!_" cried Marcella, dropping her work, and looking at him with apale, indignant passion, which a year ago would have quelled himutterly. But he held up his hand. 

"Now just let me finish. It would be no good my doing a thing of thiskind without saying something to you first, because you'd find it out, and your pride would be the ruin of it. You always had a demoniacalpride, Marcella, even when you were a tiny child; but if you make upyour mind now to let me tell him you regret what you did--justthat--you'll make him happy, and yourself, for you know very well he's aman of the highest character--and your poor father, who never did _you_much harm anyway!" His voice faltered. "I'd manage it so that thereshould be nothing humiliating to you in it whatever. As if there couldbe anything humiliating in confessing such a mistake as that; besides, what is there to be ashamed of? You're no pauper. I've pulled Mellor outof the mud for you, though you and your mother do give me credit for soprecious little!"

He lay back, trembling with fatigue, yet still staring at her withglittering eyes, while his hand on the invalid table fixed to the sideof his chair shook piteously. Marcella dreaded the effect the wholescene might have upon him; but, now they were in the midst of it, bothfeeling for herself and prudence for him drove her into the strongestspeech she could devise. 

"Papa, if _anything_ of that sort were done, I should take care Mr. Raeburn knew I had had nothing to do with it--in such a way that itwould be _impossible_ for him to carry it further. Dear papa, don'tthink of such a thing any more. Because I treated Mr. Raeburn unjustlylast year, are we now to harass and persecute him? I would soonerdisappear from everybody I know--from you and mamma, from England--andnever be heard of again. "

She stopped a moment--struggling for composure--that she might notexcite him too much. 

"Besides, it would be absurd! You forget I have seen a good deal of Mr. Raeburn lately--while I have been with the Winterbournes. He hasentirely given up all thought of me. Even my vanity could see thatplainly enough. His best friends expect him to marry a bright, fascinating little creature of whom I saw a good deal in James Street--aMiss Macdonald. "

"Miss how--much?" he asked roughly. 

She repeated the name, and then dwelt, with a certain amount ofconfusion and repetition, upon the probabilities of the matter--halfconscious all the time that she was playing a part, persuading herselfand him of something she was not at all clear about in her own innermind--but miserably, passionately determined to go through with it allthe same. 

He bore with what she said to him, half disappointed and depressed, yetalso half incredulous. He had always been obstinate, and the approach ofdeath had emphasised his few salient qualities, as decay had emphasisedthe bodily frame. He said to himself stubbornly that he would find someway yet of testing the matter in spite of her. He would think it out. 

Meanwhile, step by step, she brought the conversation to less dangerousthings, and she was finally gliding into some chat about theWinterbournes when he interrupted her abruptly--

"And that other fellow--Wharton. Your mother tells me you have seen himin London. Has he been making love to you?"

"Suppose I won't be catechised!" she said gaily, determined to allow nomore tragedy of any kind. "Besides, papa, you can't read your gossip asgood people should. Mr. Wharton's engagement to a certain Lady SelinaFarrell--a distant cousin of the Winterbournes--was announced, inseveral papers with great plainness three weeks ago. "

At that moment her mother came in, looking anxiously at them both, andhalf resentfully at Marcella. Marcella, sore and bruised in every moralfibre, got up to go. 

Something in the involuntary droop of her beautiful head as she left theroom drew her father's eyes after her, and for the time his feelingtowards her softened curiously. Well, _she_ had not made very much ofher life so far! That old strange jealousy of her ability, her beauty, and her social place, he had once felt so hotly, died away. He wishedher, indeed, to be Lady Maxwell. Yet for the moment there was a certainbalm in the idea that she too--her mother's daughter--with her Merrittblood--could be unlucky. 

Marcella went about all day under a vague sense of impendingtrouble--the result, no doubt, of that intolerable threat of herfather's, against which she was, after all, so defenceless. 

But whatever it was, it made her all the more nervous and sensitiveabout the Hallins; about her one true friend, to whom she was slowlyrevealing herself, even without speech; whose spiritual strength hadbeen guiding and training her; whose physical weakness had drawn to himthe maternal, the _spending_ instincts which her nursing life had sorichly developed. 

She strolled down the drive to meet the post. But there were no lettersfrom London, and she came in, inclined to be angry indeed with LouisCraven for deserting her, but saying to herself at the same time thatshe must have heard if anything had gone wrong. 

An hour or so later, just as the October evening was closing in, she wassitting dreaming over a dim wood-fire in the drawing-room. Her father, as might have been expected, had been very tired and comatose all day. Her mother was with him; the London nurse was to sit up, and Marcellafelt herself forlorn and superfluous. 

Suddenly, in the silence of the house, she heard the front-door bellring. There was a step in the hall--she sprang up--the door opened, andWilliam, with fluttered emphasis, announced--

"Lord Maxwell!"

In the dusk she could just see his tall form--the short pause as heperceived her--then her hand was in his, and the paralysing astonishmentof that first instant had disappeared under the grave emotion of hislook. 

"Will you excuse me, " he said, "for coming at this hour? But I amafraid you have heard nothing yet of our bad news--and Hallin himselfwas anxious I should come and tell you. Miss Hallin could not write, andMr. Craven, I was to tell you, had been ill for a week with a chill. Youhaven't then seen any account of the lecture in the papers?"

"No; I have looked yesterday and to-day in our paper, but there wasnothing--"

"Some of the Radical papers reported it. I hoped you might have seen it. But when we got down here this afternoon, and there was nothing fromyou, both Miss Hallin and Edward felt sure you had not heard--and Iwalked over. It was a most painful, distressing scene, and he--is veryill. "

"But you have brought him to the Court?" she said trembling, lost in thethought of Hallin, her quick breath coming and going. "He was able tobear the journey? Will you tell me?--will you sit down?"

He thanked her hurriedly, and took a seat opposite to her, within thecircle of the firelight, so that she saw his deep mourning and the lookof repressed suffering. 

"The whole thing was extraordinary--I can hardly now describe it, " hesaid, holding his hat in his hands and staring into the fire. "It beganexcellently. There was a very full room. Bennett was in the chair--andEdward seemed much as usual. He had been looking desperately ill, but hedeclared that he was sleeping better, and that his sister and I coddledhim. Then, --directly he was well started!--I felt somehow that theaudience was very hostile. And _he_ evidently felt it more and more. There was a good deal of interruption and hardly any cheers--and I sawafter a little--I was sitting not far behind him--that he wasdiscouraged--that he had lost touch. It was presently clear, indeed, that the real interest of the meeting lay not in the least in what hehad to say, but in the debate that was to follow. They meant to let himhave his hour--but not a minute more. I watched the men about me, and Icould see them following the clock--thirsting for their turn. Nothingthat he said seemed to penetrate them in the smallest degree. He wasthere merely as a ninepin to be knocked over. I never saw a meeting so_possessed_ with a madness of fanatical conviction--it was amazing!"

He paused, looking sadly before him. She made a little movement, and heroused himself instantly. 

"It was just a few minutes before he was to sit down--I wasthankful!--when suddenly--I heard his voice change. I do not know nowwhat happened--but I believe he completely lost consciousness of thescene before him--the sense of strain, of exhaustion, of making no way, must have snapped something. He began a sort of confession--a reverie inpublic--about himself, his life, his thoughts, his prayers, hishopes--mostly his religious hopes--for the working man, for England--I_never_ heard anything of the kind from him before--you know hisreserve. It was so intimate--so painful--oh! so painful!"--he drewhimself together with an involuntary shudder--"before this crowd, thiseager hostile crowd which was only pining for him to sit down--to getout of their way. The men near me began to look at each other andtitter. They wondered what he meant by maundering on like that--'damnedcanting stuff'--I heard one man near me call it. I tore off a bit ofpaper, and passed a line to Bennett asking him to get hold of Edward, tostop it. But I think Bennett had rather lost his presence of mind, and Isaw him look back at me and shake his head. Then time was up, and theybegan to shout him down. "

Marcella made an exclamation of horror. He turned to her. 

"I think it was the most tragic scene I ever saw, " he said with afeeling as simple as it was intense. "This crowd so angry andexcited--without a particle of understanding or sympathy--laughing, andshouting at him--and he in the midst--white as death--talking thisstrange nonsense--his voice floating in a high key, quite unlike itself. At last just as I was getting up to go to him, I saw Bennett rise. Butwe were both too late. He fell at our feet!"

Marcella gave an involuntary sob! "What a horror!" she said, "what amartyrdom!"

"It was just that, " he answered in a low voice--"It was a martyrdom. Andwhen one thinks of the way in which for years past he has held these bigmeetings in the hollow of his hand, and now, because he crosses theirpassion, their whim, --no kindness!--no patience--nothing but a blindhostile fury! Yet _they_ thought him a traitor, no doubt. Oh! it was alla tragedy!"

There was silence an instant. Then he resumed:

"We got him into the back room. Luckily there was a doctor on theplatform. It was heart failure, of course, with brain prostration. Wemanaged to get him home, and Susie Hallin and I sat up. He was deliriousall night; but yesterday he rallied, and last night he begged us to movehim out of London if we could. So we got two doctors and an invalidcarriage, and by three this afternoon we were all at the Court. My auntwas ready for him--his sister is there--and a nurse. Clarke was there tomeet him. He thinks he cannot possibly live more than a fewweeks--possibly even a few days. The shock and strain have beenirreparable. "

Marcella lay back in her chair, struggling with her grief, her head andface turned away from him, her eyes hidden by her handkerchief. Then insome mysterious way she was suddenly conscious that Aldous was no longerthinking of Hallin, but of her. 

"He wants very much to see you, " he said, bending towards her; "but Iknow that you have yourself serious illness to nurse. Forgive me for nothaving enquired after Mr. Boyce. I trust he is better?"

She sat up, red-eyed, but mistress of herself. The tone had been allgentleness, but to her quivering sense some slight indefinablechange--coldness--had passed into it. 

"He _is_ better, thank you--for the present. And my mother does not letme do very much. We have a nurse too. When shall I come?"

He rose. 

"Could you--come to-morrow afternoon? There is to be a consultation ofdoctors in the morning, which will tire him. About six?--that was whathe said. He is very weak, but in the day quite conscious and rational. My aunt begged me to say how glad she would be--"

He paused. An invincible awkwardness took possession of both of them. She longed to speak to him of his grandfather but could not find thecourage. 

When he was gone, she, standing alone in the firelight, gave onepassionate thought to the fact that so--in this tragic way--they had metagain in this room where he had spoken to her his last words as a lover;and then, steadily, she put everything out of her mind but herfriend--and death. 

CHAPTER II. 

Mrs. Boyce received Marcella's news with more sympathy than her daughterhad dared to hope for, and she made no remark upon Aldous himself andhis visit, for which Marcella was grateful to her. 

As they left the dining-room, after their short evening meal, to go upto Mr. Boyce, Marcella detained her mother an instant. 

"Mamma, will you please not tell papa that--that Lord Maxwell came herethis afternoon? And will you explain to him why I am going thereto-morrow?"

Mrs. Boyce's fair cheek flushed. Marcella saw that she understood. 

"If I were you, I should not let your father talk to you any more aboutthose things, " she said with a certain proud impatience. 

"If I can help it!" exclaimed Marcella. "Will you tell him, mamma, --about Mr. Hallin?--and how good he has been to me?"

Then her voice failed her, and, hurriedly leaving her mother at the topof the stairs, she went away by herself to struggle with a grief andsmart almost unbearable. 

That night passed quietly at the Court. Hallin was at intervals slightlydelirious, but less so than the night before; and in the early morningthe young doctor, who had sat up with him, reported him to Aldous ascalmer and a little stronger. But the heart mischief was hopeless, andmight bring the bruised life to an end at any moment. 

He could not, however, be kept in bed, owing to restlessness anddifficulty of breathing, and by midday he was in Aldous's sitting-room, drawn close to the window, that he might delight his eyes with the widerange of wood and plain that it commanded. After a very wet September, the October days were now following each other in a settled and sunnypeace. The great woods of the Chilterns, just yellowing towards thatfull golden moment--short, like all perfection, --which only beechesknow, rolled down the hill-slopes to the plain, their curving lines cuthere and there by straight fir stems, drawn clear and dark on the palebackground of sky and lowland. In the park, immediately below thewindow, groups of wild cherry and of a slender-leaved maple made spotsof "flame and amethyst" on the smooth falling lawns; the deer wanderedand fed, and the squirrels were playing and feasting among the beechnuts. 

Since Aldous and his poor sister had brought him home from the BethnalGreen hall in which the Land Reform Conference had been held, Hallin hadspoken little, except in delirium, and that little had been marked bydeep and painful depression. But this morning, when Aldous was summonedby the nurse, and found him propped up by the window, in front of thegreat view, he saw gracious signs of change. Death, indeed, already inpossession, looked from the blue eyes so plainly that Aldous, on hisfirst entrance, had need of all his own strength of will to keep hiscomposure. But with the certainty of that great release, and with theabandonment of all physical and mental struggle--the struggle of alifetime--Hallin seemed to-day to have recovered something of hischaracteristic serenity and blitheness--the temper which had made himthe leader of his Oxford contemporaries, and the dear comrade of hisfriend's life. 

When Aldous came in, Hallin smiled and lifted a feeble hand towards thepark and the woods. 

"Could it have greeted me more kindly, " he said, in his whisperingvoice, "for the end?"

Aldous sat down beside him, pressing his hand, and there was silencetill Hallin spoke again. 

"You will keep this sitting-room, Aldous?"

"Always. "

"I am glad. I have known you in it so long. What good talks we have hadhere in the old hot days! I was hot, at least, and you bore with me. Land Reform--Church Reform--Wages Reform--we have threshed them all outin this room. Do you remember that night I kept you up till it was toolate to go to bed, talking over my Church plans? How full I was ofit!--the Church that was to be the people--reflecting their life, theirdifferences--governed by them--growing with them. You wouldn't join it, Aldous--our poor little Association!"

Aldous's strong lip quivered. 

"Let me think of something I _did_ join in, " he said. 

Hallin's look shone on him with a wonderful affection. 

"Was there anything else you didn't help in? I don't remember it. I'vedragged you into most things. You never minded failure. And I have nothad so much of it--not till this last. This has been failure--absoluteand complete. "

But there was no darkening of expression. He sat quietly smiling. 

"Do you suppose anybody who could look beyond the moment would dream ofcalling it failure?" said Aldous, with difficulty. 

Hallin shook his head gently, and was silent for a little time, gathering strength and breath again. 

"I ought to suffer"--he said, presently. "Last week I dreaded my ownfeeling if I should fail or break down--more than the failure itself. But since yesterday--last night--I have no more regrets. I see that mypower is gone--that if I were to live I could no longer carry on thebattle--or my old life. I am out of touch. Those whom I love and wouldserve, put me aside. Those who invite me, I do not care to join. So Idrop--into the gulf--and the pageant rushes on. But the curious thing isnow--I have no suffering. And as to the future--do you remember Jowettin the Introduction to the Phaedo--"

He feebly pointed to a book beside him, which Aldous took up. Hallinguided him and he read--

"_Most persons when the last hour comes are resigned to the order ofnature and the will of God. They are not thinking of Dante's 'Inferno'or 'Paradiso, ' or of the 'Pilgrim's Progress. ' Heaven and Hell are notrealities to them, but words or ideas_--_the outward symbols of somegreat mystery, they hardly know what_. "

"It is so with me, " said Hallin, smiling, as, at his gesture, Aldouslaid the book aside; "yet not quite. To my _mind_, that mystery indeedis all unknown and dark--but to the heart it seems unveiled--with theheart, I see. "

A little later Aldous was startled to hear him say, very clearly andquickly:

"Do you remember that this is the fifth of October?"

Aldous drew his chair closer, that he might not raise his voice. 

"Yes, Ned. "

"Two years, wasn't it, to-day? Will you forgive me if I speak of her?"

"You shall say anything you will. "

"Did you notice that piece of news I sent you, in my last letter toGeneva? But of course you did. Did it please you?"

"Yes, I was glad of it, " said Aldous, after a pause, "extremely glad. Ithought she had escaped a great danger. "

Hallin studied his face closely. 

"She is free, Aldous--and she is a noble creature--she has learnt fromlife--and from death--this last two years. And--you still love her. Isit right to make no more effort?"

Aldous saw the perspiration standing on the wasted brow--would havegiven the world to be able to content or cheer him--yet would not, forthe world, at such a moment be false to his own feeling or deceive hisquestioner. 

"I think it is right, " he said deliberately, "--for a good many reasons, Edward. In the first place I have not the smallest cause--not thefraction of a cause--to suppose that I could occupy with her now anyother ground than that I occupied two years ago. She has been kind andfriendly to me--on the whole--since we met in London. She has evenexpressed regret for last year--meaning, of course, as I understood, forthe pain and trouble that may be said to have come from her not knowingher own mind. She wished that we should be friends. And"--he turned hishead away--"no doubt I could be, in time.... But, you see--in all that, there is nothing whatever to bring me forward again. My fatal mistakelast year, I think now, lay in my accepting what she gave me--acceptingit so readily, so graspingly even. That was my fault, my blindness, and--it was as unjust to her--as it was hopeless for myself. For hers isa nature"--his eyes came back to his friend; his voice took a new forceand energy--"which, in love at any rate, will give all or nothing--andwill never be happy itself, or bring happiness, till it gives all. Thatis what last year taught me. So that even if she--out of kindness orremorse for giving pain--were willing to renew the old tie--I should beher worst enemy and my own if I took a single step towards it. Marriageon such terms as I was thankful for last year, would be humiliation tome, and bring no gain to her. It will never serve a man with her"--hisvoice broke into emotion--"that he should make no claims! Let him claimthe uttermost far-thing--her whole self. If she gives it, _then_ he mayknow what love means!"

Hallin had listened intently. At Aldous's last words his expressionshowed pain and perplexity. His mind was full of vague impressions, memories, which seemed to argue with and dispute one of the chief thingsAldous had been saying. But they were not definite enough to be putforward. His sensitive chivalrous sense, even in this extreme weakness, remembered the tragic weight that attaches inevitably to dying words. Let him not do more harm than good. 

He rested a little. They brought him food; and Aldous sat beside himmaking pretence to read, so that he might be encouraged to rest. Hissister came and went; so did the doctor. But when they were once morealone, Hallin put out his hand and touched his companion. 

"What is it, dear Ned?"

"Only one thing more, before we leave it. Is that _all_ that standsbetween you now--the whole? You spoke to me once in the summer offeeling _angry_, more angry than you could have believed. Of course, Ifelt the same. But just now you spoke of its all being your fault. Isthere anything changed in your mind?"

Aldous hesitated. It was extraordinarily painful to him to speak of thepast, and it troubled him that at such a moment it should troubleHallin. 

"There is nothing changed, Ned, except that perhaps time makes _some_difference always. I don't want now"--he tried to smile--"as I did then, to make anybody else suffer for my suffering. But perhaps I marvel evenmore than I did at first, that--that--she could have allowed some thingsto happen as she did!"

The tone was firm and vibrating; and, in speaking, the whole face haddeveloped a strong animation most passionate and human. 

Hallin sighed. 

"I often think, " he said, "that she was extraordinarily immature--muchmore immature than most girls of that age--as to feeling. It was reallythe brain that was alive. "

Aldous silently assented; so much so that Hallin repented himself. 

"But not now, " he said, in his eager dying whisper; "not now. The plantis growing full and tall, into the richest life. "

Aldous took the wasted hand tenderly in his own. There was somethinginexpressibly touching in this last wrestle of Hallin's affection withanother's grief. But it filled Aldous with a kind of remorse, and withthe longing to free him from that, as from every other burden, in theselast precious hours of life. And at last he succeeded, as he thought, indrawing his mind away from it. They passed to other things. Hallin, indeed, talked very little more during the day. He was very restless andweak, but not in much positive suffering. Aldous read to him atintervals, from Isaiah or Plato, the bright sleepless eyes followingevery word. 

At last the light began to sink. The sunset flooded in from theBerkshire uplands and the far Oxford plain, and lay in gold and purpleon the falling woods and the green stretches of the park. The distantedges of hill were extraordinarily luminous and clear, and Aldous, looking into the west with the eye of one to whom every spot and linewere familiar landmarks, could almost fancy he saw beyond the invisibleriver, the hill, the "lovely tree against the western sky, " which keepfor ever the memory of one with whose destiny it had often seemed to himthat Hallin's had something in common. To him, as to Thyrsis, the sameearly joy, the same "happy quest, " the same "fugitive and graciouslight" for guide and beacon, that--

 does not come with houses or with gold, With place, with honour and a flattering crew;

and to him, too, the same tasked pipe and tired throat, the samestruggle with the "life of men unblest, " the same impatient tryst withdeath. 

The lovely lines ran dirge-like in his head, as he sat, sunk in grief, beside his friend. Hallin did not speak; but his eye took note of everychange of light, of every darkening tone, as the quiet English scenewith its villages, churches, and woods, withdrew itself plane by planeinto the evening haze. His soul followed the quiet deer, the homingbirds, loosening itself gently the while from pain and from desire, saying farewell to country, to the poor, to the work left undone, andthe hopes unrealised--to everything except to love. 

It had just struck six when he bent forward to the window beneath whichran the wide front terrace. 

"That was her step!" he said, while his face lit up, "will you bring herhere?"

 * * * * *

Marcella rang the bell at the Court with a fast beating heart. The oldbutler who came gave what her shrinking sense thought a forbiddinganswer to her shy greeting of him, and led her first into thedrawing-room. A small figure in deep black rose from a distant chair andcame forward stiffly. Marcella found herself shaking hands with MissRaeburn. 

"Will you sit and rest a little before you go upstairs?" said that ladywith careful politeness, "or shall I send word at once? He is hardlyworse--but as ill as he can be. "

"I am not the least tired, " said Marcella, and Miss Raeburn rang. 

"Tell his lordship, please, that Miss Boyce is here. "

The title jarred and hurt Marcella's ear. But she had scarcely time tocatch it before Aldous entered, a little bent, as it seemed to her, fromhis tall erectness, and speaking with an extreme quietness, evenmonotony of manner. 

"He is waiting for you--will you come at once?"

He led her up the central staircase and along the familiar passages, walking silently a little in front of her. They passed the long line ofCaroline and Jacobean portraits in the upper gallery, till just outsidehis own door Aldous paused. 

"He ought not to talk long, " he said, hesitating, "but you will know--ofcourse--better than any of us. "

"I will watch him, " she said, almost inaudibly, and he gently opened thedoor and let her pass, shutting it behind her. 

The nurse, who was sitting beside her patient, got up as Marcellaentered, and pointed her to a low chair on his further side. SusieHallin rose too, and kissed the new-comer hurriedly, absently, withouta word, lest she should sob. Then she and the nurse disappeared throughan inner door. The evening light was still freely admitted; and therewere some candles. By the help of both she could only see himindistinctly. But in her own mind, as she sat down, she determined thathe had not even days to live. 

Yet as she bent over him she saw a playful gleam on the cavernous face. 

"You won't scold me?" said the changed voice--"you did warn me--you andSusie--but--I was obstinate. It was best so!"

She pressed her lips to his hand and was answered by a faint pressurefrom the cold fingers. 

"If I could have been there!" she murmured. 

"No--I am thankful you were not. And I must not think of it--or of anytrouble. Aldous is very bitter--but he will take comfort by and by--hewill see it--and them--more justly. They meant me no unkindness. Theywere full of an idea, as I was. When I came back to myself--first--allwas despair. I was in a blank horror of myself and life. Now it hasgone--I don't know how. It is not of my own will--some hand has lifted aweight. I seem to float--without pain. "

He closed his eyes, gathering strength again in the interval, by astrong effort of will--calling up in the dimming brain what he had tosay. She meanwhile, spoke to him in a low voice, mainly to prevent histalking, telling him of her father, of her mother's strain ofnursing--of herself--she hardly knew what. Hew grotesque to be givinghim these little bits of news about strangers--to him, this hovering, consecrated soul, on the brink of the great secret!

In the intervals, while he was still silent, she could not sometimesprevent the pulse of her own life from stirring. Her eye wandered roundthe room--Aldous's familiar room. There, on the writing-table with itsload of letters and books, stood the photograph of Hallin; another, herown, used to stand beside it; it was solitary now. 

Otherwise, all was just as it had been--flowers, books, newspapers--thesigns of familiar occupation, the hundred small details of character andpersonality which in estrangement take to themselves such a smartingsignificance for the sad and craving heart. The date--theanniversary--echoed in her mind. 

Then, with a rush of remorseful pain, her thoughts came back to thepresent and to Hallin. At the same moment she saw that his eyes wereopen, and fixed upon her with a certain anxiety and expectancy. He madea movement as though to draw her towards him; and she stooped to him. 

"I feel, " he said, "as though my strength were leaving me fast. Let meask you one question--because of my love for you--and _him_. I havefancied--of late--things were changed. Can you tell me--will you?--or isit unfair?"--the words had all their bright, natural intonation--"Isyour heart--still where it was?--or, could you ever--undo the past--"

He held her fast, grasping the hand she had given him with unconsciousforce. She had looked up startled, her lip trembling like a child's. Then she dropped her head against the arm of her chair, as though shecould not speak. 

He moved restlessly, and sighed. 

"I should not, " he said to himself; "I should not--it was wrong. Thedying are tyrannous. "

He even began a word of sweet apology. But she shook her head. 

"Don't!" she said, struggling with herself; "don't say that! It would dome good to speak--to you--"

An exquisite smile dawned on Hallin's face. 

"Then!"--he said--"confess!"

 * * * * *

A few minutes later they were still sitting together. She stronglywished to go; but he would not yet allow it. His face was full of amystical joy--a living faith, which must somehow communicate itself inone last sacramental effort. 

"How strange that you--and I--and he--should have been so mixed togetherin this queer life. Now I seem to regret nothing--I _hope_ everything. One more little testimony let me bear!--the last. We disappear one byone--into the dark--but each may throw his comrades--a token--before hegoes. You have been in much trouble of mind and spirit--I have seen it. Take my poor witness. There is one clue, one only--_goodness_--_thesurrendered will_. Everything is there--all faith--all religion--allhope for rich or poor. --Whether we feel our way through consciously tothe Will--that asks our will--matters little. Aldous and I have differedmuch on this--in words--never at heart! I could use words, symbols hecannot--and they have given me peace. But half my best life I owe tohim. "

At this he made a long pause--but, still, through that weak grasp, refusing to let her go--till all was said. Day was almost gone; thestars had come out over the purple dusk of the park. 

"That Will--we reach--through duty and pain, " he whispered at last, sofaintly she could hardly hear him, "is the root, the source. It leads usin living--it--carries us in death. But our weakness and vagueness--wanthelp--want the human life and voice--to lean on--to drink from. WeChristians--are orphans--without Christ! There again--what does itmatter what we think--_about_ him--if only we think--_of_ him. In _one_such life are all mysteries, and all knowledge--and our fathers havechosen for us--"

The insistent voice sank lower and lower into final silence--though thelips still moved. The eyelids too fell. Miss Hallin and the nurse camein. Marcella rose and stood for one passionate instant looking down uponhim. Then, with a pressure of the hand to the sister beside her, shestole out. Her one prayer was that she might see and meet no one. Sosoft was her step that even the watching Aldous did not hear her. Shelifted the heavy latch of the outer door without the smallest noise, andfound herself alone in the starlight. 

 * * * * *

After Marcella left him, Hallin remained for some hours in what seemedto those about him a feverish trance. He did not sleep, but he showed nosign of responsive consciousness. In reality his mind all through wasfull of the most vivid though incoherent images and sensations. But hecould no longer distinguish between them and the figures and movementsof the real people in his room. Each passed into and intermingled withthe other. In some vague, eager way he seemed all the time to be waitingor seeking for Aldous. There was the haunting impression of some word tosay--some final thing to do--which would not let him rest. But somethingseemed always to imprison him, to hold him back, and the veil betweenhim and the real Aldous watching beside him grew ever denser. 

At night they made no effort to move him from the couch and thehalf-sitting posture in which he had passed the day. Death had come toonear. His sister and Aldous and the young doctor who had brought himfrom London watched with him. The curtains were drawn back from both thewindows, and in the clearness of the first autumnal frost a crescentmoon hung above the woods, the silvery lawns, the plain. 

Not long after midnight Hallin seemed to himself to wake, full ofpurpose and of strength. He spoke, as he thought, to Aldous, asking tobe alone with him. But Aldous did not move; that sad watching gaze ofhis showed no change. Then Hallin suffered a sudden sharp spasm ofanguish and of struggle. Three words to say--only three words; but thosehe _must_ say! He tried again, but Aldous's dumb grief still satmotionless. Then the thought leapt in the ebbing sense, "Speech is gone;I shall speak no more!"

It brought with it a stab, a quick revolt. But something checked both, and in a final offering of the soul, Hallin gave up his last desire. 

What Aldous saw was only that the dying man opened his hand as though itasked for that of his friend. He placed his own within those seekingfingers, and Hallin's latest movement--which death stopped half-way--wasto raise it to his lips. 

 * * * * *

So Marcella's confession--made in the abandonment, the blind passionatetrust, of a supreme moment--bore no fruit. It went with Hallin to thegrave. 

CHAPTER III. 

"I think I saw the letters arrive, " said Mrs. Boyce to her daughter. "And Donna Margherita seems to be signalling to us. "

"Let me go for them, mamma. "

"No, thank you, I must go in. "

And Mrs. Boyce rose from her seat, and went slowly towards the hotel. Marcella watched her widow's cap and black dress as they passed alongthe _pergola_ of the hotel garden, between bright masses of geraniumsand roses on either side. 

They had been sitting in the famous garden of the Cappucini Hotel atAmalfi. To Marcella's left, far below the high terrace of the hotel, thegreen and azure of the Salernian gulf shone and danced in the sun, toher right a wood of oak and arbutus stretched up into a purple cliff--awood starred above with gold and scarlet berries, and below withcyclamen and narcissus. From the earth under the leafy oaks--for theoaks at Amalfi lose and regain their foliage in winter and spring byimperceptible gradations--came a moist English smell. The air was dampand warm. A convent bell tolled from invisible heights above the garden;while the olives and vines close at hand were full of the chatteringvoices of gardeners and children, and broken here and there by clouds ofpink almond-blossom. March had just begun, and the afternoons were fastlengthening. It was little more than a fortnight since Mr. Boyce'sdeath. In the November of the preceding year Mrs. Boyce and Marcella hadbrought him to Naples by sea, and there, at a little villa on Posilippo, he had drawn sadly to his end. It had been a dreary time, from whichMarcella could hardly hope that her mother would ever fully recover. Sheherself had found in the long months of nursing--nursing of which, withquiet tenacity, she had gradually claimed and obtained her full share--adeep moral consolation. They had paid certain debts to conscience, andthey had for ever enshrined her father's memory in the silence of anunmeasured and loving pity. 

But the wife? Marcella sorely recognised that to her mother these lastdays had brought none of the soothing, reconciling influences they hadinvolved for herself. Between the husband and wife there had been dumbfriction and misery--surely also a passionate affection!--to the end. The invalid's dependence on her had been abject, her devotion wonderful. Yet, in her close contact with them, the daughter had never been able toignore the existence between them of a wretched though tacitdebate--reproach on his side, self-defence or spasmodic effort onhers--which seemed to have its origin deep in the past, yet to bestimulated afresh by a hundred passing incidents of the present. Underthe blight of it, as under the physical strain of nursing, Mrs. Boycehad worn and dwindled to a white-haired shadow; while he had both clungto life and feared death more than would normally have been the case. At the end he had died in her arms, his head on her breast; she hadclosed his eyes and performed every last office without a tear; nor hadMarcella ever seen her weep from then till now. The letters she hadreceived, mostly, Marcella believed, from her own family, remainedunopened in her travelling-bag. She spoke very little, and wasconstantly restless, nor could Marcella as yet form any idea of thefuture. 

After the funeral at Naples Mrs. Boyce had written immediately to herhusband's solicitor for a copy of his will and a statement of affairs. She had then allowed herself to be carried off to Amalfi, and had there, while entirely declining to admit that she was ill, been clearly doingher best to recover health and nerve sufficient to come to somedecision, to grapple with some crisis which Marcella also felt to beimpending--though as to why it should be impending, or what the natureof it might be, she could only dread and guess. 

There was much bitter yearning in the girl's heart as she sat, breathedon by the soft Italian wind blowing from this enchanted sea. The innercry was that her mother did not love her, had never loved her, and mighteven now--weird, incredible thought!--be planning to desert her. Hallinwas dead--who else was there that cared for her or thought of her? BettyMacdonald wrote often, wild, "_schwärmerisch_" letters. Marcella lookedfor them with eagerness, and answered them affectionately. But Bettymust soon marry, and then all that would be at an end. MeanwhileMarcella knew well it was Betty's news that made Betty's adorationdoubly welcome. Aldous Raeburn--she never did or could think of himunder his new name--was apparently in London, much occupied in politics, and constantly, as it seemed, in Betty's society. What likelihood wasthere that her life and his would ever touch again? She thought often ofher confession to Hallin, but in great perplexity of feeling. She had, of course, said no word of secrecy to him at the time. Such a demand ina man's last hour would have been impossible. She had simply followed acertain mystical love and obedience in telling him what he asked toknow, and in the strong spontaneous impulse had thought of nothingbeyond. Afterwards her pride had suffered fresh martyrdom. Could he, with his loving instinct, have failed to give his friend some sign? Ifso, it had been unwelcome, for since the day of Hallin's funeral she andAldous had been more complete strangers than before. Lady Winterbourne, Betty, Frank Leven, had written since her father's death; but from him, nothing. 

By the way, Frank Leven had succeeded at Christmas, by old Sir CharlesLeven's unexpected death, to the baronetcy and estates. How would thataffect his chances with Betty?--if indeed there were any such chancesleft. 

As to her own immediate future, Marcella knew from many indications thatMellor would be hers at once. But in her general tiredness of mind andbody she was far more conscious of the burden of her inheritance than ofits opportunities. All that vivid castle-building gift which wasspecially hers, and would revive, was at present in abeyance. She hadpined once for power and freedom, that she might make a Kingdom ofHeaven of her own, quickly. Now power and freedom, up to a certainpoint, were about to be put into her hands; and instead of plans foracting largely and bountifully on a plastic outer world, she was sayingto herself, hungrily, that unless she had something close to her to loveand live for, she could do nothing. If her mother would end theseunnatural doubts, if she would begin to make friends with her owndaughter, and only yield herself to be loved and comforted, why _then_it might be possible to think of the village and the straw-plaiting!Otherwise--the girl's attitude as she sat dreaming in the sun showed herdespondency. 

She was roused by her mother's voice calling her from the other end ofthe _pergola_. 

"Yes, mamma. "

"Will you come in? There are some letters. "

"It is the will, " thought Marcella, as Mrs. Boyce turned back to thehotel, and she followed. 

Mrs. Boyce shut the door of their sitting-room, and then went up to herdaughter with a manner which suddenly struck and startled Marcella. There was natural agitation and trouble in it. 

"There is something in the will, Marcella, which will, I fear, annoy anddistress you. Your father inserted it without consulting me. I want toknow what you think ought to be done. You will find that Lord Maxwelland I have been appointed joint executors. "

Marcella turned pale. 

"Lord Maxwell!" she said, bewildered. "_Lord Maxwell--Aldous_! What doyou mean, mamma?"

Mrs. Boyce put the will into her hands, and, pointing the way among thetechnicalities she had been perusing while Marcella was still lingeringin the garden, showed her the paragraph in question. The words of thewill were merely formal: "I hereby appoint, " &c. , and no more; but in acommunication from the family solicitor, Mr. French, which Mrs. Boycesilently handed to her daughter after she had read the legaldisposition, the ladies were informed that Mr. Boyce had, beforequitting England, written a letter to Lord Maxwell, duly sealed andaddressed, with instructions that it should be forwarded to itsdestination immediately after the writer's burial. "Those instructions, "said Mr. French, "I have carried out. I understand that Lord Maxwell wasnot consulted as to his appointment as executor prior to the drawing upof the will. But you will no doubt hear from him at once, and as soon aswe know that he consents to act, we can proceed immediately to probate. "

"Mamma, how _could_ he?" said Marcella, in a low, suffocated voice, letting will and letter fall upon her knee. 

"Did he give you no warning in that talk you had with him at Mellor?"said Mrs. Boyce, after a minute's silence. 

"Not the least, " said Marcella, rising restlessly and beginning to walkup and down. "He spoke to me about wishing to bring it on again--askedme to let him write. I told him it was all done with--for ever! As to myown feelings, I felt it was no use to speak of them; but I thought--I_believed_, I had proved to him that Lord Maxwell had absolutely givenup all idea of such a thing; and that it was already probable he wouldmarry some one else. I told him I would rather disappear from every oneI knew than consent to it--he could only humiliate us all by saying aword. And _now_, after that!--"

She stopped in her restless walk, pressing her hands miserably together. 

"What _does_ he want with us and our affairs?" she broke out. "Hewishes, of course, to have no more to do with me. And now we forcehim--_force_ him into these intimate relations. What can papa have saidin that letter to him? What _can_ he have said? Oh! it is unbearable!Can't we write at once?"

She pressed her hands over her eyes in a passion of humiliation anddisgust. Mrs. Boyce watched her closely. 

"We must wait, anyway, for his letter, " she said. "It ought to be hereby to-morrow morning. "

Marcella sank on a chair by an open glass door, her eyes wandering, through the straggling roses growing against the wall of the stonebalcony outside, to the laughing purples and greens of the sea. 

"Of course, " she said unhappily, "it is most probable he will consent. It would not be like him to refuse. But, mamma, you must write. _I_ mustwrite and beg him not to do it. It is quite simple. We can manageeverything for ourselves. Oh! how _could_ papa?" she broke out again ina low wail, "how could he?"

Mrs. Boyce's lips tightened sharply. It seemed to her a foolishquestion. _She_, at least, had had the experience of twenty years out ofwhich to answer it. Death had made no difference. She saw her husband'scharacter and her own seared and broken life with the same tragicalclearness; she felt the same gnawing of an affection not to be pluckedout while the heart still beat. This act of indelicacy and injustice waslike many that had gone before it; and there was in it the same evasionand concealment towards herself. No matter. She had made her accountwith it all twenty years before. What astonished her was, that the forceof her strong coercing will had been able to keep him for so long withinthe limits of the smaller and meaner immoralities of this world. 

"Have you read the rest of the will?" she asked, after a long pause. 

Marcella lifted it again, and began listlessly to go through it. 

"Mamma!" she said presently, looking up, the colour flushing back intoher face, "I find no mention of you in it throughout. There seems to beno provision for you. "

"There is none, " said Mrs. Boyce, quietly. "There was no need. I have myown income. We lived upon it for years before your father succeeded toMellor. It is therefore amply sufficient for me now. "

"You cannot imagine, " cried Marcella, trembling in every limb, "that Iam going to take the whole of my father's estate, and leavenothing--_nothing_ for his wife. It would be impossible--unseemly. Itwould be to do _me_ an injustice, mamma, as well as yourself, " she addedproudly. 

"No, I think not, " said Mrs. Boyce, with her usual cold absence ofemotion. "You do not yet understand the situation. Your father'smisfortunes nearly ruined the estate for a time. Your grandfather wentthrough great trouble, and raised large sums to--" she paused for theright phrase--"to free us from the consequences of your father'sactions. I benefited, of course, as much as he did. Those sums crippledall your grandfather's old age. He was a man to whom I wasattached--whom I respected. Mellor, I believe, had never beenembarrassed before. Well, your uncle did a little towards recovery--buton the whole he was a fool. Your father has done much more, and you, nodoubt, will complete it. As for me, I have no claim to anything morefrom Mellor. The place itself is"--again she stopped for a word of whichthe energy, when it came, seemed to escape her--"hateful to me. I shallfeel freer if I have no tie to it. And at last I persuaded your fatherto let me have my way. "

Marcella rose from her seat impetuously, walked quickly across the room, and threw herself on her knees beside her mother. 

"Mamma, are you still determined--now that we two are alone in theworld--to act towards me, to treat me as though I were not yourdaughter--not your child at all, but a stranger?"

It was a cry of anguish. A sudden slight tremor swept over Mrs. Boyce'sthin and withered face. She braced herself to the inevitable. 

"Don't let us make a tragedy of it, my dear, " she said, with a lighttouch on Marcella's hands. "Let us discuss it reasonably. Won't you sitdown? I am not proposing anything very dreadful. But, like you, I havesome interests of my own, and I should be glad to follow them--now--alittle. I wish to spend some of the year in London; to make that, perhaps, my headquarters, so as to see something of some old friendswhom I have had no intercourse with for years--perhaps also of myrelations. " She spoke of them with a particular dryness. "And I shouldbe glad--after this long time--to be somewhat taken out of oneself, toread, to hear what is going on, to feed one's mind a little. "

Marcella, looking at her, saw a kind of feverish light, a sparklingintensity in the pale blue eyes, that filled her with amazement. What, after all, did she know of this strange individuality from which her ownbeing had taken its rise? The same flesh and blood--what an irony ofnature!

"Of course, " continued Mrs. Boyce, "I should go to you, and you wouldcome to me. It would only be for part of the year. Probably we shouldget more from each other's lives so. As you know, I long to see thingsas they are, not conventionally. Anyway, whether I were there or no, youwould probably want some companion to help you in your work and plans. Iam not fit for them. And it would be easy to find some one who could actas chaperon in my absence. "

The hot tears sprang to Marcella's eyes. "Why did you send me away fromyou, mamma, all my childhood, " she cried. "It was wrong--cruel. I haveno brother or sister. And you put me out of your life when I had nochoice, when I was too young to understand. "

Mrs. Boyce winced, but made no reply. She sat with her delicate handacross her brow. She was the white shadow of her former self; but herfragility had always seemed to Marcella more indomitable than anybodyelse's strength. 

Sobs began to rise in Marcella's throat. 

"And now, " she said, in half-coherent despair, "do you know what you aredoing? You are cutting yourself off from me--refusing to have any realbond to me just when I want it most. I suppose you think that I shall besatisfied with the property and the power, and the chance of doing whatI like. But"--she tried her best to gulp back her pain, her outragedfeeling, to speak quietly--"I am not like that really any more. I cantake it all up, with courage and heart, if you will stay with me, andlet me--let me--love you and care for you. But, by myself, I feel as ifI could not face it! I am not likely to be happy--for a longtime--except in doing what work I can. It is very improbable that Ishall marry. I dare say you don't believe me, but it is true. We areboth sad and lonely. We have no one but each other. And then you talk inthis ghastly way of separating from me--casting me off. "

Her voice trembled and broke, she looked at her mother with a frowningpassion. 

Mrs. Boyce still sat silent, studying her daughter with a strange, brooding eye. Under her unnatural composure there was in reality ahalf-mad impatience, the result of physical and moral reaction. Thisbeauty, this youth, talk of sadness, of finality! What folly! Still, shewas stirred, undermined in spite of herself. 

"There!" she said, with a restless gesture, "let us, please, talk of itno more. I will come back with you--I will do my best. We will let thematter of my future settlement alone for some months, at any rate, ifthat will satisfy you or be any help to you. "

She made a movement as though to rise from her low chair. But the greatwaters swelled in Marcella--swelled and broke. She fell on her kneesagain by her mother, and before Mrs. Boyce could stop her she had thrownher young arms close round the thin, shrunken form. 

"Mother!" she said. "Mother, be good to me--love me--you are all Ihave!"

And she kissed the pale brow and cheek with a hungry, almost a violenttenderness that would not be gainsaid, murmuring wild incoherent things. 

Mrs. Boyce first tried to put her away, then submitted, being physicallyunable to resist, and at last escaped from her with a sudden sob thatwent to the girl's heart. She rose, went to the window, struggled hardfor composure, and finally left the room. 

But that evening, for the first time, she let Marcella put her on thesofa, tend her, and read to her. More wonderful still, she went to sleepwhile Marcella was reading. In the lamplight her face looked piteouslyold and worn. The girl sat for long with her hands clasped round herknees, gazing down upon it, in a trance of pain and longing. 

 * * * * *

Marcella was awake early next morning, listening to the full voice ofthe sea as it broke three hundred feet below, against the beach androcky walls of the little town. She was lying in a tiny white room, oneof the cells of the old monastery, and the sun as it rose above theSalernian mountains--the mountains that hold Paestum in their blue andpurple shadows--danced in gold on the white wall. The bell of thecathedral far below tolled the hour. She supposed it must be sixo'clock. Two hours more or so, and Lord Maxwell's letter might be lookedfor. 

She lay and thought of it--longed for it, and for the time of answeringit, with the same soreness that had marked all the dreams of a restlessnight. If she could only see her father's letter! It was inconceivablethat he should have mentioned _her_ name in his plea. He might haveappealed to the old friendship between the families. That was possible, and would have, at any rate, an _appearance_ of decency. But who couldanswer for it--or for him? She clasped her hands rigidly behind herhead, her brows frowning, bending her mind with an intensity of will tothe best means of assuring Aldous Raeburn that she and her mother wouldnot encroach upon him. She had a perpetual morbid vision of herself asthe pursuer, attacking him now through his friend, now through herfather. Oh! when would that letter come, and let her write her own!

She tried to read, but in reality listened for every sound of awakeninglife in the hotel. When at last her mother's maid came in to call her, she sprang up with a start. 

"Deacon, are the letters come?"

"There are two for your mother, miss; none for you. "

Marcella threw on her dressing-gown, watched her opportunity, andslipped in to her mother, who occupied a similar cell next door. 

Mrs. Boyce was sitting up in bed, with a letter before her, her paleblue eyes fixed absently on the far stretch of sea. 

She looked round with a start as Marcella entered. "The letter is to me, of course, " she said. 

Marcella read it breathlessly. 

"Dear Mrs. Boyce, --I have this morning received from your solicitor, Mr. French, a letter written by Mr. Boyce to myself in November of lastyear. In it he asks me to undertake the office of executor, to which, Ihear from Mr. French, he has named me in his will. Mr. French alsoenquires whether I shall be willing to act, and asks me to communicatewith you. 

"May I, then, venture to intrude upon you with these few words? Mr. Boyce refers in his touching letter to the old friendship between ourfamilies, and to the fact that similar offices have often been performedby his relations for mine, or _vice versa_. But no reminder of the kindwas in the least needed. If I can be of any service to yourself and toMiss Boyce, neither your poor husband nor you could do me any greaterkindness than to command me. 

"I feel naturally some diffidence in the matter. I gather from Mr. French that Miss Boyce is her father's heiress, and comes at once intothe possession of Mellor. She may not, of course, wish me to act, inwhich case I should withdraw immediately; but I sincerely trust that shewill not forbid me the very small service I could so easily and gladlyrender. 

"I cannot close my letter without venturing to express the deepsympathy I have felt for you and yours during the past six months. Ihave been far from forgetful of all that you have been going through, though I may have seemed so. I trust that you and your daughter will nothurry home for any business cause, if it is still best for your healthto stay in Italy. With your instructions Mr. French and I could arrangeeverything. 

 "Believe me, "Yours most sincerely, "MAXWELL. "

"You will find it difficult, my dear, to write a snub in answer to thatletter, " said Mrs. Boyce, drily, as Marcella laid it down. 

Marcella's face was, indeed, crimson with perplexity and feeling. 

"Well, we can think it over, " she said as she went away. 

Mrs. Boyce pondered the matter a good deal when she was left alone. Thesigns of reaction and change in Marcella were plain enough. What theyprecisely meant, and how much, was another matter. As to him, Marcella'sidea of another attachment might be true, or might be merely thecreation of her own irritable pride. Anyway, he was in the mood to writea charming letter. Mrs. Boyce's blanched lip had all its natural ironyas she thought it over. To her mind Aldous Raeburn's manners had alwaysbeen a trifle too good, whether for his own interests or for this wickedworld. And if he had any idea now of trying again, let him, forHeaven's sake, not be too yielding or too eager! "It was always theway, " thought Mrs. Boyce, remembering a child in white frock and babyshoes--"if you wished to make her want anything, you had to take it awayfrom her. "

Meanwhile the mere thought that matters might even yet so settlethemselves drew from the mother a long breath of relief. She had spentan all but sleepless night, tormented by Marcella's claim upon her. After twenty years of self-suppression this woman of forty-five, naturally able, original, and independent, had seen a glimpse ofliberty. In her first youth she had been betrayed as a wife, degraded asa member of society. A passion she could not kill, combined with somestoical sense of inalienable obligation, had combined to make her boththe slave and guardian of her husband up to middle life; and her familyand personal pride, so strong in her as a girl, had found its onlyoutlet in this singular estrangement she had achieved between herselfand every other living being, including her own daughter. Now herhusband was dead, and all sorts of crushed powers and desires, mostly ofthe intellectual sort, had been strangely reviving within her. Justemerged, as she was, from the long gloom of nursing, she already wishedto throw it all behind her--to travel, to read, to makeacquaintances--she who had lived as a recluse for twenty years! Therewas in it a last clutch at youth, at life. And she had no desire toenter upon this new existence--in comradeship with Marcella. They wereindependent and very different human beings. That they were mother anddaughter was a mere physical accident. 

Moreover, though she was amply conscious of the fine development inMarcella during the past two years, it is probable that she felt herdaughter even less congenial to her now than of old. For the rich, emotional nature had, as we have seen, "suffered conviction, " had turnedin the broad sense to "religion, " was more and more sensitive, especially since Hallin's death, to the spiritual things and symbols inthe world. At Naples she had haunted churches; had read, as her motherknew, many religious books. 

Now Mrs. Boyce in these matters had a curious history. She had begunlife as an ardent Christian, under evangelical influences. Her husband, on the other hand, at the time she married him was a man of purelysceptical opinions, a superficial disciple of Mill and Comte, and fondof an easy profanity which seemed to place him indisputably with thesuperior persons of this world. To the amazement and scandal of herfriends, Evelyn Merritt had not been three months his wife before shehad adopted his opinions _en bloc_, and was carrying them out to theirlogical ends with a sincerity and devotion quite unknown to her teacher. Thenceforward her conception of things--of which, however, she seldomspoke--had been actively and even vehemently rationalist; and it hadbeen one of the chief sorenesses and shames of her life at Mellor that, in order to suit his position as country squire, Richard Boyce had sunkto what, in her eyes, were a hundred mean compliances with thingsorthodox and established. 

Then, in his last illness, he had finally broken away from her, and hisown past. "Evelyn, I should like to see a clergyman, " he had said toher in his piteous voice, "and I shall ask him to give me theSacrament. " She had made every arrangement accordingly; but her bittersoul could see nothing in the step but fear and hypocrisy; and he knewit. And as he lay talking alone with the man whom they had summoned, twoor three nights before the end, she, sitting in the next room, had beenconscious of a deep and smarting jealousy. Had not the hard devotion oftwenty years made him at least her own? And here was this black-coatedreciter of incredible things stepping into her place. Only in death sherecovered him wholly. No priest interfered while he drew his last breathupon her bosom. 

And now Marcella! Yet the girl's voice and plea tugged at her witheredheart. She felt a dread of unknown softnesses--of being invaded andweakened by things in her akin to her daughter, and so captured afresh. Her mind fell upon the bare idea of a revival of the Maxwell engagement, and caressed it. 

Meanwhile Marcella stood dressing by the open window in the sunlight, which filled the room with wavy reflections caught from the sea. Fishing-boats were putting off from the beach, three hundred feet belowher; she could hear the grating of the keels, the songs of the boatmen. On the little breakwater to the right an artist's white umbrella shonein the sun; and a half-naked boy, poised on the bows of a boat mooredbeside the painter, stood bent in the eager attitude of one about todrop the bait into the blue wave below. His brown back burnt against thewater. Cliff, houses, sea, glowed in warmth and light; the air was fullof roses and orange-blossom; and to an English sense had already themagic of summer. 

And Marcella's hands, as she coiled and plaited her black hair, movedwith a new lightness; for the first time since her father's death herlook had its normal fire, crossed every now and then by something thatmade her all softness and all woman. No! as her mother said, one couldnot snub that letter or its writer. But how to answer it! In imaginationshe had already penned twenty different replies. How not to be graspingor effusive, and yet to show that you could feel and repaykindness--there was the problem!

Meanwhile, from that letter, or rather in subtle connection with it, herthoughts at last went wandering off with a natural zest to her new realmof Mellor, and to all that she would and could do for the dwellerstherein. 

CHAPTER IV. 

It was a bleak east-wind day towards the end of March. Aldous was atwork in the library at the Court, writing at his grandfather's table, where in general he got through his estate and county affairs, keepinghis old sitting-room upstairs for the pursuits that were moreparticularly his own. 

All the morning he had been occupied with a tedious piece of localbusiness, wading through endless documents concerning a dispute betweenthe head-master of a neighbouring grammar-school and his governing body, of which Aldous was one. The affair was difficult, personal, odious. Tohave wasted nearly three hours upon it was, to a man of Aldous's type, to have lost a day. Besides he had not his grandfather's knack in suchthings, and was abundantly conscious of it. 

However, there it was, a duty which none but he apparently could orwould do, and he had been wrestling with it. With more philosophy thanusual, too, since every tick of the clock behind him bore him nearer toan appointment which, whatever it might be, would not be tedious. 

At last he got up and went to the window to look at the weather. Acutting wind, clearly, but no rain. Then he walked into thedrawing-room, calling for his aunt. No one was to be seen, either thereor in the conservatory, and he came back to the library and rang. 

"Roberts, has Miss Raeburn gone out?"

"Yes, my lord, " said the old butler addressed. "She and Miss Macdonaldhave gone out driving, and I was to tell your lordship that Miss Raeburnwould drop Miss Macdonald at Mellor on her way home. "

"Is Sir Frank anywhere about?"

"He was in the smoking-room a little while ago, my lord. "

"Will you please try and find him?"

"Yes, my lord. "

Aldous's mouth twitched with impatience as the old servant shut thedoor. 

"How many times did Roberts manage to be-lord me in a minute?" he askedhimself; "yet if I were to remonstrate, I suppose I should only make himunhappy. "

And walking again to the window, he thrust his hands into his pocketsand stood looking out with a far from cheerful countenance. 

One of the things that most tormented him indeed in this recentexistence was a perpetual pricking sense of the contrast between thissmall world of his ancestral possessions and traditions, with all itsceremonial and feudal usage, and the great rushing world outside it ofaction and of thought. Do what he would, he could not un-king himselfwithin the limits of the Maxwell estate. To the people living upon it hewas the man of most importance within their ken, was inevitably theirpotentate and earthly providence. He confessed that there was a realneed of him, if he did his duty. But on this need the class-practice ofgenerations had built up a deference, a sharpness of class-distinction, which any modern must find more and more irksome in proportion to hismodernness. What was in Aldous's mind, as he stood with drawn browslooking out over the view which showed him most of his domain, was asort of hot impatience of being made day by day, in a hundred foolishways, to play at greatness. 

Yet, as we know, he was no democrat by conviction, had no comfortingfaith in what seemed to him the rule of a multitudinous ignorance. Stillevery sane man of to-day knows, at any rate, that the world has takenthe road of democracy, and that the key to the future, for good or ill, lies not in the revolts and speculations of the cultivated few, but inthe men and movements that can seize the many. Aldous's temper wasdespondently critical towards the majority of these, perhaps; he had, constitutionally, little of that poet's sympathy with the crowd, assuch, which had given Hallin his power. But, at any rate, they filledthe human stage--these men and movements--and his mind as a beholder. Beside the great world-spectacle perpetually in his eye and thought, thesmall old-world pomps and feudalisms of his own existence had a way oflooking ridiculous to him. He constantly felt himself absurd. It wasludicrously clear to him, for instance, that in this kingdom he hadinherited it would be thought a huge condescension on his part if hewere to ask the secretary of a trades union to dine with him at theCourt. Whereas, in his own honest opinion, the secretary had a far moreimportant and interesting post in the universe than he. 

So that, in spite of a strong love of family, rigidly kept to himself, he had very few of the illusions which make rank and wealth delightful. On the other hand, he had a tyrannous sense of obligation, which kepthim tied to his place and his work--to such work as he had been spendingthe morning on. This sense of obligation had for the present withdrawnhim from any very active share in politics. He had come to theconclusion early in the year, just about the time when, owing to somerearrangements in the _personnel_ of the Government, the Premier hadmade him some extremely flattering overtures, that he must for thepresent devote himself to the Court. There were extensive changes andreforms going on in different parts of the estate: some of the schoolswhich he owned and mainly supported were being rebuilt and enlarged; andhe had a somewhat original scheme for the extension of adult educationthroughout the property very much on his mind--a scheme which must beorganised and carried through by himself apparently, if it was to thriveat all. 

Much of this business was very dreary to him, some of it altogetherdistasteful. Since the day of his parting with Marcella Boyce his onlyreal _pleasures_ had lain in politics or books. Politics, just as theywere growing absorbing to him, must, for a while at any rate, be putaside; and even books had not fared as well as they might have beenexpected to do in the country quiet. Day after day he walked or rodeabout the muddy lanes of the estate, doing the work that seemed to himto be his, as best he could, yet never very certain of its value;rather, spending his thoughts more and more, with regard to his ownplace and function in the world, on a sort of mental apologetic whichwas far from stimulating; sorely conscious the while of the unmatchedcharm and effectiveness with which his grandfather had gone about thesame business; and as lonely at heart as a man can well be--the wound oflove unhealed, the wound of friendship still deep and unconsoled. Tobring social peace and progress, as he understood them, to this bit ofMidland England a man of first-rate capacities was perhaps sacrificingwhat ambition would have called his opportunities. Yet neither was he ahero to himself nor to the Buckinghamshire farmers and yokels whodepended on him. They had liked the grandfather better, and had becomestolidly accustomed to the grandson's virtues. 

The only gleam in the grey of his life since he had determined aboutChristmas-time to settle down at the Court had come from Mr. French'sletter. That letter, together with Mr. Boyce's posthumous note, whichcontained nothing, indeed, but a skilful appeal to neighbourliness andold family friendship, written in the best style of the ex-BalkanCommissioner, had naturally astonished him greatly. He saw at once what_she_ would perceive in it, and turned impatiently from speculation asto what Mr. Boyce might actually have meant, to the infinitely moreimportant matter, how she would take her father's act. Never had hewritten anything with greater anxiety than he devoted to his letter toMrs. Boyce. There was in him now a craving he could not stay, to bebrought near to her again, to know how her life was going. It had firstraised its head in him since he knew that her existence and Wharton'swere finally parted, and had but gathered strength from theself-critical loneliness and tedium of these later months. 

Mrs. Boyce's reply couched in terms at once stately and grateful, whichaccepted his offer of service on her own and her daughter's behalf, hadgiven him extraordinary pleasure. He turned it over again and again, wondering what part or lot Marcella might have had in it, attributing toher this cordiality or that reticence; picturing the two women togetherin their black dresses--the hotel, the _pergola_, the cliff--all ofwhich he himself knew well. Finally, he went up to town, saw Mr. French, and acquainted himself with the position and prospects of the Mellorestate, feeling himself a sort of intruder, yet curiously happy in thebusiness. It was wonderful what that poor sickly fellow had been able todo in the last two years; yet his thoughts fell rather into amusedsurmise as to what _she_ would find it in her restless mind to do in the_next_ two years. 

Nevertheless, all the time, the resolution of which he had spoken toHallin seemed to himself unshaken. He recognised and adored the womanlygrowth and deepening which had taken place in her; he saw that shewished to show him kindness. But he thought he could trust himself nowand henceforward not to force upon her a renewed suit for which therewas in his eyes no real or abiding promise of happiness. 

Marcella and her mother had now been at home some three or four days, and he was just about to walk over to Mellor for his first interviewwith them. A great deal of the merely formal business consequent on Mr. Boyce's death had been already arranged by himself and Mr. French. Yethe had to consult Marcella as to certain investments, and in a pleasantthough quite formal little note he had that morning received from hershe had spoken of asking his advice as to some new plans for the estate. It was the first letter she herself had as yet written to him; hithertoall his correspondence had been carried on with Mrs. Boyce. It hadstruck him, by the way, as remarkable that there was no mention of thewife in the will. He could only suppose that she was otherwise providedfor. But there had been some curious expressions in her letters. 

Where was Frank? Aldous looked impatiently at the clock, as Roberts didnot reappear. He had invited Leven to walk with him to Mellor, and thetiresome boy was apparently not to be found. Aldous vowed he would notwait a minute, and going into the hall, put on coat and hat with mostbusiness-like rapidity. 

He was just equipped when Roberts, somewhat breathless with longsearching, arrived in time to say that Sir Frank was on the frontterrace. 

And there Aldous caught sight of the straight though somewhat heavilybuilt figure, in its grey suit with the broad band of black across thearm. 

"Hullo, Frank! I thought you were to look me up in the library. Robertshas been searching the house for you. "

"You said nothing about the library, " said the boy, rather sulkily, "andRoberts hadn't far to search. I have been in the smoking-room till thisminute. "

Aldous did not argue the point, and they set out. It was presentlyclear to the elder man that his companion was not in the best oftempers. The widowed Lady Leven had sent her firstborn over to the Courtfor a few days that Aldous might have some discussion as to hisimmediate future with the young man. She was a silly, frivolous woman;but it was clear, even to her, that Frank was not doing very well forhimself in the world; and advice she would not have taken from her son'sOxford tutor seemed cogent to her when it came from a Raeburn. "Do atleast, for goodness' sake, get him to give up his absurd plan of goingto America!" she wrote to Aldous; "if he can't take his degree atOxford, I suppose he must get on without it, and certainly his dons seemvery unpleasant. But at least he might stay at home and do his duty tome and his sisters till he marries, instead of going off to the'Rockies' or some other ridiculous place. He really never seems to thinkof Fanny and Rachel, or what he might do to help me to get them settlednow that his poor father is gone. "

No; certainly the young man was not much occupied with "Fanny andRachel!" He spoke with ill-concealed impatience, indeed, of both hissisters and his mother. If his people would get in the way of everythinghe wanted to do, they needn't wonder if he cut up rough at home. For thepresent it was settled that he should at any rate go back to Oxford tillthe end of the summer term--Aldous heartily pitying the unfortunate donswho might have to do with him--but after that he entirely declined to bebound. He swore he would not be tied at home like a girl; he must andwould see the world. This in itself, from a lad who had been accustomedto regard his home as the centre of all delights, and had on twooccasions stoutly refused to go with his family to Rome, lest he shouldmiss the best month for his father's trout-stream, was sufficientlysurprising. 

However, of late some tardy light had been dawning upon Aldous! Thenight after Frank's arrival at the Court Betty Macdonald came down tospend a few weeks with Miss Raeburn, being for the moment that lady'sparticular pet and _protégée_. Frank, whose sulkiness during thetwenty-four hours before she appeared had been the despair of both hishost and hostess, brightened up spasmodically when he heard she wasexpected, and went fishing with one of the keepers, on the morningbefore her arrival, with a fair imitation of his usual spirits. Butsomehow, since that first evening, though Betty had chattered, anddanced, and frolicked her best, though her little figure running up anddown the big house gave a new zest to life in it, Frank's manners hadgone from bad to worse. And at last Aldous, who had not as yet seen thetwo much together, and was never an observant man in such matters, hadbegun to have an inkling. Was it _possible_ that the boy was in love, and with Betty? He sounded Miss Raeburn; found that she did not rise tohis suggestion at all--was, in fact, annoyed by it--and with the usualstupidity of the clever man failed to draw any reasonable inference fromthe queerness of his aunt's looks and sighs. 

As to the little minx herself, she was inscrutable. She teased them allin turns, Frank, perhaps, less than the others. Aldous, as usual, foundher a delightful companion. She would walk all over the estate with himin the most mannish garments and boots conceivable, which only made herchildish grace more feminine and more provocative than ever. She took aninterest in all his tenants; she dived into all his affairs; sheinsisted on copying his letters. And meanwhile, on either side were MissRaeburn, visibly recovering day by day her old cheeriness and bustle, and Frank--Frank, who ate nothing, or nothing commensurate to his bulk, and, if possible, said less. 

Aldous had begun to feel that the situation must be probed somehow, andhad devised this walk, indeed, with some vague intention of plyingremonstrances and enquiries. He had an old affection for the boy, whichLady Leven had reckoned upon. 

The first difficulty, of course, was to make him talk at all. Aldoustried various sporting "gambits" with very small success. At last, bygood-luck, the boy rose to something like animation in describing anencounter he had had the week before with a piebald weasel in the courseof a morning's ferreting. 

"All at once we saw the creature's head poke out of the hole--_purewhite_, with a brown patch on it. When it saw us, back it scooted!--andwe sent in another ferret after the one that was there already. Mygoodness! there _was_ a shindy down in the earth--you could hear themrolling and kicking like anything. We had our guns ready, --but all of asudden everything stopped--not a sound or a sign of anything! We threwdown our guns and dug away like blazes. Presently we came on the twoferrets gorging away at a dead rabbit, --nasty little beasts!--thataccounted for _them_; but where on earth was the weasel? I really beganto think we had imagined the creature, when, whish! came a flash ofwhite lightning, and out the thing bolted--pure white with a splash ofbrown--its winter coat, of course. I shot at it, but it was no go. IfI'd only put a bag over the hole, and not been an idiot, I should havecaught it. "

The boy swung along, busily ruminating for a minute or two, andforgetting his trouble. 

"I've seen one something like it before, " he went on--"ages ago, when Iwas a little chap, and Harry Wharton and I were out rabbiting. By theway--" he stopped short--"do you see that that fellow's come back?"

"I saw the paragraph in the _Times_ this morning, " said Aldous, drily. 

"And I've got a letter from Fanny this morning, to say that he and LadySelina are to be married in July, and that she's going about making amartyr and a saint of him, talking of the 'persecution' he's had to putup with, and the vulgar fellows who couldn't appreciate him, andgenerally making an ass of herself. Oh! he won't ask any of us to hiswedding--trust him. It is a rum business. You know Willie Ffolliot--thatqueer dark fellow--that used to be in the 10th Hussars--did all thosewild things in the Soudan?"

"Yes--slightly. "

"I heard all about it from him. He was one of that gambling set atHarry's club there's been all that talk about you know, since Harry cameto grief. Well!--he was going along Piccadilly one night last summer, quite late, between eleven and twelve, when Harry caught hold of himfrom behind. Willie thought he was out of his mind, or drunk. He told mehe never saw anybody in such a queer state in his life. 'You come alongwith me, ' said Harry, 'come and talk to me, or I shall shoot myself!' SoWillie asked him what was up. 'I'm engaged to be married, ' said Harry. Whereupon Willie remarked that, considering his manner and hisappearance, he was sorry for the young lady. '_Young_!' said Harry asthough he would have knocked him down. And then it came out that he hadjust--that moment!--engaged himself to Lady Selina. And it was the verysame day that he got into that precious mess in the House--the _verysame night_! I suppose he went to her to be comforted, and thought he'dpull something off, anyway! Why she took him! But of course she's nochicken, and old Alresford may die any day. And about the briberybusiness--I suppose he made her think him an injured innocent. Anyway, he talked to Willie, when they got to his rooms, like a raving lunatic, and you know he was always such a cool hand. 'Ffolliot, ' he said, 'canyou come with me to Siam next week?' 'How much?' said Will. 'I thoughtyou were engaged to Lady Selina. ' Then he swore little oaths, and vowedhe had told her he must have a year. 'We'll go and explore those templesin Siam, ' he said, and then he muttered something about 'Why should Iever come back?' Presently he began to talk of the strike--and thepaper--and the bribe, and all the rest of it, making out a longrigmarole story. Oh! of course he'd done everything for the best--trusthim!--and everybody else was a cur and a slanderer. And Ffolliotdeclared he felt quite pulpy--the man was such a wreck; and he said he'dgo with him to Siam, or anywhere else, if he'd only cheer up. And theygot out the maps, and Harry began to quiet down, and at last Will gothim to bed. Fanny says Ffolliot reports he had great difficulty indragging him home. However, Lady Selina has no luck!--there he is. "

"Oh! he will be one of the shining lights of our side before long, " saidAldous, with resignation. "Since he gave up his seat here, there hasbeen some talk of finding him one in the Alresfords' neighbourhood, Ibelieve. But I don't suppose anybody's very anxious for him. He is toaddress a meeting, I see, on the Tory Labour Programme next week. The_Clarion_, I suppose, will go round with him. "

"Beastly rag!" said Frank, fervently. "It's rather a queer thing, isn'tit, that such a clever chap as that should have made such a mess of hischances. It almost makes one not mind being a fool. "

He laughed, but bitterly, and at the same moment the cloud that for sometwenty minutes or so seemed to have completely rolled away descendedagain on eye and expression. 

"Well, there are worse things than being a fool, " said Aldous, withinsidious emphasis--"sulking, and shutting up with your best friends, for instance. "

Frank flushed deeply, and turned upon him with a sort of uncertain fury. 

"I don't know what you mean. "

Whereupon Aldous slipped his arm inside the boy's, and prepared himselfwith resignation for the scene that had to be got through somehow, whenFrank suddenly exclaimed:

"I say, there's Miss Boyce!"

Never was a man more quickly and completely recalled from altruism tohis own affairs. Aldous dropped his companion's arm, straightenedhimself with a thrill of the whole being, and saw Marcella some distanceahead of them in the Mellor drive, which they had just entered. She wasstooping over something on the ground, and was not apparently aware oftheir approach. A ray of cold sun came out at the moment, touched thebending figure and the grass at her feet--grass starred with primroses, which she was gathering. 

"I didn't know you were going to call, " said Frank, bewildered. "Isn'tit too soon?"

And he looked at his companion in astonishment. 

"I came to speak to Miss Boyce and her mother on business, " said Aldous, with all his habitual reserve. "I thought you wouldn't mind the walkback by yourself. "

"Business?" the boy echoed involuntarily. 

Aldous hesitated, then said quietly:

"Mr. Boyce appointed me executor under his will. "

Frank lifted his eyebrows, and allowed himself at least an inward "ByJove!"

By this time Marcella had caught sight of them, and was advancing. Shewas in deep mourning, but her hands were full of primroses, which shoneagainst the black; and the sun, penetrating the thin green of somelarches to her left, danced in her eyes and on a face full of sensitiveand beautiful expression. 

They had not met since they stood together beside Hallin's grave. Thisfact was in both their minds. Aldous felt it, as it were, in the touchof her hand. What he could not know was, that she was thinking quite asmuch of his letter to her mother and its phrases. 

They stood talking a little in the sunshine. Then, as Frank was takinghis leave, Marcella said:

"Won't you wait for--for Lord Maxwell, in the old library? We can get atit from the garden, and I have made it quite habitable. My mother, ofcourse, does not wish to see anybody. "

Frank hesitated, then, pushed by a certain boyish curiosity, and by theangry belief that Betty had been carried off by Miss Raeburn, and wasout of his reach till luncheon-time, said he would wait. Marcella ledthe way, opened the garden-door of the lower corridor, close to the spotwhere she had seen Wharton standing in the moonlight on anever-to-be-forgotten night, and then ushered them into the library. Thebeautiful old place had been decently repaired, though in no sensemodernised. The roof had no holes, and its delicate stucco-work, formerly stained and defaced by damp, had been whitened, so that thebrown and golden tones of the books in the latticed cases told againstit with delightful effect. The floor was covered with a cheap matting, and there were a few simple chairs and tables. A wood fire burnt on theold hearth. Marcella's books and work lay about, and some shallowearthenware pans filled with home-grown hyacinths scented the air. Whatwith the lovely architecture of the room itself, its size, its booksand old portraits, and the signs it bore of simple yet refined use, itwould have been difficult to find a gentler, mellower place. Aldouslooked round him with delight. 

"I hope to make a village drawing-room of it in time, " she said casuallyto Frank as she stooped to put a log on the fire. "I think we shall getthem to come, as it has a separate door, and scraper, and mat all toitself. "

"Goodness!" said Frank, "they won't come. It's too far from thevillage. "

"Don't you be so sure, " said Marcella, laughing. "Mr. Craven has allsorts of ideas. "

"Who's Mr. Craven?"

"Didn't you meet him at my rooms?"

"Oh! I remember, " ejaculated the boy--"a frightful Socialist!"

"And his wife's worse, " said Marcella, merrily. "They've come down tosettle here. They're going to help me. "

"Then for mercy's sake keep them to yourself, " cried Frank, "and don'tlet them go loose over the county. We don't want them at our place. "

"Oh! your turn will come. Lord Maxwell"--her tone changed--became shyand a little grave. "Shall we go into the Stone Parlour? My mother willcome down if you wish to see her, but she thought that--that--perhaps wecould settle things. "

Aldous had been standing by, hat in hand, watching her as she chatteredto Frank. As she addressed him he gave a little start. 

"Oh! I think we can settle everything, " he said. 

"Well, this is rum!" said Frank to himself, as the door closed behindthem, and instead of betaking himself to the chair and the newspaperwith which Marcella had provided him, he began to walk excitedly up anddown. "Her father makes him executor--he manages her property forher--and they behave nicely to each other, as though nothing had everhappened at all. What the deuce does it mean? And all the timeBetty--why, Betty's devoted to him!--and it's as plain as a pikestaffwhat that old cat, Miss Raeburn, is thinking of from morning till night!Well, I'm beat!"

And throwing himself down on a stool by the fire, his chin between hishands, he stared dejectedly at the burning logs. 

CHAPTER V. 

Meanwhile Marcella and her companion were sitting in the Stone Parlourside by side, save for a small table between them, which held thevarious papers Aldous had brought with him. At first, there had been onher side--as soon as they were alone--a feeling of stiflingembarrassment. All the painful, proud sensations with which she hadreceived the news of her father's action returned upon her; she wouldhave liked to escape; she shrank from what once more seemed anencroachment, a situation as strange as it was embarrassing. 

But his manner very soon made it impossible, indeed ridiculous, tomaintain such an attitude of mind. He ran through his business with hisusual clearness and rapidity. It was not complicated; her views provedto be the same as his; and she was empowered to decide for her mother. Aldous took notes of one or two of her wishes, left some papers with herfor her mother's signature, and then his work was practically done. Nothing, throughout, could have been more reassuring or more everydaythan his demeanour. 

Then, indeed, when the end of their business interview approached, andwith it the opportunity for conversation of a different kind, both wereconscious of a certain tremor. To him this old parlour was torturinglyfull of memories. In this very place where they sat he had given herhis mother's pearls, and taken a kiss in return from the cheek that wasonce more so near to him. With what free and exquisite curves the hairset about the white brow! How beautiful was the neck--the hand! Whatripened, softened charm in every movement! The touching and rebukingthought rose in his mind that from her nursing experience, and its frankcontact with the ugliest realities of the physical life--a contact hehad often shrunk from realising--there had come to her, not so muchadded strength, as a new subtlety and sweetness, some delicate, vibrating quality, that had been entirely lacking to her first splendidyouth. 

Suddenly she said to him, with a certain hesitation:

"There was one more point I wanted to speak to you about. Can you adviseme about selling some of those railway shares?"

She pointed to an item in a short list of investments that lay besidethem. 

"But why?" said Aldous, surprised. "They are excellent property already, and are going up in value. "

"Yes, I know. But I want some ready money immediately--more than wehave--to spend on cottage-building in the village. I saw a builderyesterday and came to a first understanding with him. We are alteringthe water-supply too. They have begun upon it already, and it will costa good deal. "

Aldous was still puzzled. 

"I see, " he said. "But--don't you suppose that the income of the estate, now that your father has done so much to free it, will be enough to meetexpenses of that kind, without trenching on investments? A certainamount, of course, should be systematically laid aside every year forrebuilding, and estate improvements generally. "

"Yes; but you see I only regard half of the income as mine. "

She looked up with a little smile. 

He was now standing in front of her, against the fire, his grey eyes, which could be, as she well knew, so cold and inexpressive, bent uponher with eager interest. 

"Only half the income?" he repeated. "Ah!"--he smiled kindly--"is thatan arrangement between you and your mother?"

Marcella let her hand fall with a little despairing gesture. 

"Oh no!" she said--"oh no! Mamma--mamma will take nothing from me orfrom the estate. She has her own money, and she will live with me partof the year. "

The intonation in the words touched Aldous profoundly. 

"Part of the year?" he said, astonished, yet not knowing how to questionher. "Mrs. Boyce will not make Mellor her home?"

"She would be thankful if she had never seen it, " said Marcella, quickly--"and she would never see it again if it weren't for me. It'sdreadful what she went through last year, when--when I was in London. "

Her voice fell. Glancing up at him involuntarily, her eye looked withdread for some chill, some stiffening in him. Probably he condemned her, had always condemned her for deserting her home and her parents. Butinstead she saw nothing but sympathy. 

"Mrs. Boyce has had a hard life, " he said, with grave feeling. 

Marcella felt a tear leap, and furtively raised her handkerchief tobrush it away. Then, with a natural selfishness, her quick thought tookanother turn. A wild yearning rose in her mind to tell him much morethan she had ever done in old days of the miserable home-circumstancesof her early youth; to lay stress on the mean unhappiness which haddepressed her own child-nature whenever she was with her parents, andhad withered her mother's character. Secretly, passionately, she oftenmade the past an excuse. Excuse for what? For the lack of delicacy andloyalty, of the best sort of breeding, which had marked the days of herengagement?

Never--_never_ to speak of it with him!--to pour out everything--to askhim to judge, to understand, to forgive!--

She pulled herself together by a strong effort, reminding herself in aflash of all that divided them:--of womanly pride--of Betty Macdonald'spresence at the Court--of that vain confidence to Hallin, of which herinmost being must have been ashamed, but that something calming andsacred stole upon her whenever she thought of Hallin, lifting everythingconcerned with him into a category of its own. 

No; let her selfish weakness make no fettering claim upon the man beforeher. Let her be content with the friendship she had, after all, achieved, that was now doing its kindly best for her. 

All these images, like a tumultuous procession, ran through the mind ina moment. He thought, as she sat there with her bent head, the handsclasped round the knee in the way he knew so well, that she was full ofher mother, and found it difficult to put what she felt into words. 

"But tell me about your plan, " he said gently, "if you will. "

"Oh! it is nothing, " she said hurriedly. "I am afraid you will think itimpracticable--perhaps wrong. It's only this: you see, as there is noone depending on me--as I am practically alone--it seemed to me I mightmake an experiment. Four thousand a year is a great deal more than Ineed ever spend--than I _ought_, of course, to spend on myself. I don'tthink altogether what I used to think. I mean to keep up this house--tomake it beautiful, to hand it on, perhaps _more_ beautiful than I foundit, to those that come after. And I mean to maintain enough service init both to keep it in order and to make it a social centre for all thepeople about--for everybody of all classes, so far as I can. I want itto be a place of amusement and delight and talk to us all--especially tothe very poor. After all"--her cheek flushed under the quickening of herthought--"_everybody_ on the estate, in their different degree, hascontributed to this house, in some sense, for generations. I want it tocome into their lives--to make it _their_ possession, _their_ pride, --aswell as mine. But then that isn't all. The people here can enjoynothing, use nothing, till they have a worthier life of their own. Wageshere, you know, are terribly low, much lower"--she added timidly--"thanwith you. They are, as a rule, eleven or twelve shillings a week. Nowthere seem to be about one hundred and sixty labourers on the estatealtogether, in the farmers' employment and in our own. Some, of course, are boys, and some old men earning a half-wage. Mr. Craven and I haveworked it out, and we find that an average weekly increase of fiveshillings per head--which would give the men of full age and in fullwork about a pound a week--would work out at about two thousand a year. "

She paused a moment, trying to put her further statement into its bestorder. 

"Your farmers, you know, " he said, smiling, after a pause, "will be yourchief difficulty. "

"Of course! But I thought of calling a meeting of them. I have discussedit with Mr. French--of course he thinks me mad!--but he gave me someadvice. I should propose to them all fresh leases, with certain smalladvantages that Louis Craven thinks would tempt them, at a reducedrental exactly answering to the rise in wages. Then, in return they mustaccept a sort of fair-wage clause, binding them to pay henceforward thestandard wage of the estate. "

She looked up, her face expressing urgent though silent interrogation. 

"You must remember, " he said quickly, "that though the estate isrecovering, and rents have been fairly paid about here during the lasteighteen months, you may be called upon at any moment to make thereductions which hampered your uncle. These reductions will, of course, fall upon you as before, seeing that the farmers, in a different way, will be paying as much as before. Have you left margin enough?"

"I think so, " she said eagerly. "I shall live here very simply, andaccumulate all the reserve fund I can. I have set all my heart upon it. I know there are not many people _could_ do such a thing--otherobligations would, must, come first. And it may turn out a mistake. But--whatever happens--whatever any of us, Socialists or not, may hopefor in the future--here one _is_ with one's conscience, and one's money, and these people, who like oneself have but the one life? In all labour, it is the modern question, isn't it?--_how much_ of the product oflabour the workman can extract from the employer? About here there is nounion to act for the labourers--they have practically no power. But _inthe future_, we must surely _hope_ they will combine, that they will bestronger--strong enough to _force_ a decent wage. What ought to preventmy free will anticipating a moment--since I _can_ do it--that we allwant to see?"

She spoke with a strong feeling; but his ear detected a newnote--something deeper and wistfuller than of old. 

"Well--as you say, you are for experiments!" he replied, not finding iteasy to produce his own judgment quickly. Then, in another tone--"it wasalways Hallin's cry. "

She glanced up at him, her lips trembling. 

"I know. Do you remember how he used to say--'the big changes maycome--the big Collectivist changes. But neither you nor I will see them. I pray _not_ to see them. Meanwhile--all still hangs upon, comes backto, the individual, Here are you with your money and power; there arethose men and women whom you can share with--in new and honourableways--_to-day_. '"

Then she checked herself suddenly. 

"But now I want you to tell me--will you tell me?--all the objectionsyou see. You must often have thought such things over. "

She was looking nervously straight before her. She did not see the flashof half-bitter, half-tender irony that crossed his face. Her tone ofhumility, of appeal, was so strange to him, remembering the past. 

"Yes, very often, " he answered. "Well, I think these are the kind ofarguments you will have to meet. "

He went through the objections that any economist would be sure to weighagainst a proposal of the kind, as clearly as he could, and at somelength--but without zest. What affected Marcella all through was not somuch the matter of what he said, as the manner of it. It was socharacteristic of the two voices in him--the voice of the idealistchecked and mocked always by the voice of the observer and the student. A year before, the little harangue would have set her aflame withimpatience and wrath. Now, beneath the speaker, she felt and yearnedtowards the man. 

Yet, as to the scheme, when all demurs were made, she was "of the sameopinion still"! His arguments were not new to her; the inward eagernessover-rode them. 

"In my own case"--he said at last, the tone passing instantly intoreserve and shyness, as always happened when he spoke of himself--"myown wages are two or three shillings higher than those paid generally bythe farmers on the estate; and we have a pension fund. But so far, Ihave felt the risks of any wholesale disturbance of labour on theestate, depending, as it must entirely in my case, on the individuallife and will, to be too great to let me go further. I sometimes believethat it is the farmers who would really benefit most by experiments ofthe kind!"

She protested vehemently, being at the moment, of course, not at all inlove with mankind in general, but only with those members of mankind whocame within the eye of imagination. He was enchanted to see the old selfcome out again--positive, obstinate, generous; to see the old confidentpose of the head, the dramatic ease of gesture. 

Meanwhile something that had to be said, that must, indeed, be said, ifhe were to give her serious and official advice, pressed uncomfortablyon his tongue. 

"You know, " he said, not looking at her, when at last she had for themoment exhausted argument and prophecy, "you have to think of those whowill succeed you here; still more you have to think--of marriage--beforeyou pledge yourself to the halving of your income. "

Now he must needs look at her intently, out of sheer nervousness. Thedifficulty he had had in compelling himself to make the speech at allhad given a certain hardness and stiffness to his voice. She felt asudden shock and chill--resented what he had dismally felt to be animperative duty. 

"I do not think I have any need to think of it--in this connection, " shesaid proudly. And getting up, she began to gather her papers together. 

The spell was broken, the charm gone. He felt that he was dismissed. 

With a new formality and silence, she led the way into the hall, hefollowing. As they neared the library there was a sound of voices. 

Marcella opened the door in surprise, and there, on either side of thefire, sat Betty Macdonald and Frank Leven. 

"_That's_ a mercy!" cried Betty, running forward to Marcella and kissingher. "I really don't know what would have happened if Mr. Leven and Ihad been left alone any longer. As for the Kilkenny cats, my dear, don'tmention them!"

The child was flushed and agitated, and there was an angry light in herblue eyes. Frank looked simply lumpish and miserable. 

"Yes, here I am, " said Betty, holding Marcella, and chattering as fastas possible. "I made Miss Raeburn bring me over, that I might _just_catch a sight of you. She would walk home, and leave the carriage forme. Isn't it like all the topsy-turvy things nowadays? When _I'm_ herage I suppose I shall have gone back to dolls. Please to look at thoseponies!--they're pawing your gravel to bits. And as for my watch, justinspect it!"--She thrust it reproachfully under Marcella's eyes. "You'vebeen such a time in there talking, that Sir Frank and I have had time toquarrel for life, and there isn't a minute left for anything rational. Oh! good-bye, my dear, good-bye. I never kept Miss Raeburn waiting forlunch yet, did I, Mr. Aldous? and I mustn't begin now. Come along, Mr. Aldous! You'll have to come home with me. I'm frightened to death ofthose ponies. You shan't drive, but if they bolt, I'll give them to youto pull in. Dear, _dear_ Marcella, let me come again--soon--directly!"

A few more sallies and kisses, a few more angry looks at Frank andappeals to Aldous, who was much less responsive than usual, and thechild was seated, very erect and rosy, on the driving seat of the littlepony-carriage, with Aldous beside her. 

"Are you coming, Frank?" said Aldous; "there's plenty of room. "

His strong brow had a pucker of annoyance. As he spoke he looked, not atFrank, but at Marcella. She was standing a trifle back, among theshadows of the doorway, and her attitude conveyed to him an impressionof proud aloofness. A sigh that was half pain, half resignation, passedhis lips unconsciously. 

"Thank you, I'll walk, " said Frank, fiercely. 

 * * * * *

"Now, will you please explain to me why you look like that, and talklike that?" said Marcella, with cutting composure, when she was oncemore in the library, and Frank, crimson to the roots of his hair, andsaying incoherent things, had followed her there. 

"I should think you might guess, " said Frank, in reproachful misery, ashe hung over the fire. 

"Not at all!" said Marcella; "you are rude to Betty, and disagreeable tome, by which I suppose that you are unhappy. But why should _you_ beallowed to show your feelings, when other people don't?"

Frank fairly groaned. 

"Well, " he said, making efforts at a tragic calm, and looking for hishat, "you will, none of you, be troubled with me long. I shall go hometo-morrow, and take my ticket for California the day after. "

_"You, "_ said Marcella, "go to California! What right have you to go toCalifornia?"

"What right?" Frank stared, then he went on impetuously. "If a girltorments a man, as Betty has been tormenting me, there is nothing forit, I should think, but to clear out of the way. I am going to clear outof the way, whatever anybody says. "

"And shoot big game, I suppose--amuse yourself somehow?"

Frank hesitated. 

"Well, a fellow can't do nothing, " he said helplessly. "I suppose Ishall shoot. "

"And what right have you to do it? Have you any more right than a publicofficial would have to spend public money in neglecting his duties?"

Frank stared at her. 

"Well, I don't know what you mean, " he said at last, angrily; "give itup. "

"It's quite simple what I mean. You have inherited your father'sproperty. Your tenants pay you rent, that comes from their labour. Areyou going to make no return for your income, and your house, and yourleisure?"

"Ah! that's your Socialism!" cried the young fellow, roused by her tone. "No return? Why, they have the land. "

"If I were a thorough-going Socialist, " said Marcella, steadily, "Ishould say to you, Go! The sooner you throw off all ties to yourproperty, the sooner you prove to the world that you and your class aremere useless parasites, the sooner we shall be rid of you. Butunfortunately _I_ am not such a good Socialist as that. I waver--I amnot sure of what I wish. But one thing I _am_ sure of, that unlesspeople like you are going to treat their lives as a profession, to taketheir calling seriously, there are no more superfluous drones, no moreidle plunderers than you, in all civilised society!"

Was she pelting him in this way that she might so get rid of some of herown inner smart and restlessness? If so, the unlucky Frank could notguess it. He could only feel himself intolerably ill-used. He had meantto pour himself out to her on the subject of Betty and his woes, andhere she was rating him as to his _duties_, of which he had hardly asyet troubled himself to think, being entirely taken up either with hisgrievances or his enjoyments. 

"I'm sure you know you're talking nonsense, " he said sulkily, though heshrank from meeting her fiery look. "And if I _am_ idle, there areplenty of people idler than me--people who live on their money, with noland to bother about, and nothing to do for it at all. "

"On the contrary, it is they who have an excuse. They have no naturalopening, perhaps--no plain call. You have both, and, as I said before, you have no _right_ to take holidays before you have earned them. Youhave got to learn your business first, and then do it. Give your eighthours' day like other people! Who are you that you should have all thecake of the world, and other people the crusts?"

Frank walked to the window, and stood staring out, with his back turnedto her. Her words stung and tingled; and he was too miserable to fight. 

"I shouldn't care whether it were cake or crusts, " he said at last, in alow voice, turning round to her, "if only Betty would have me. "

"Do you think she is any the more likely to have you, " said Marcella, unrelenting, "if you behave as a loafer and a runaway? Don't you supposethat Betty has good reasons for hesitating when she sees the differencebetween you--and--and other people?"

Frank looked at her sombrely--a queer mixture of expressions on theface, in which the maturer man was already to be discerned at war withthe powerful young animal. 

"I suppose you mean Lord Maxwell?"

There was a pause. 

"You may take what I said, " she said at last, looking into the fire, "asmeaning anybody who pays honestly with work and brains for what societyhas given him--as far as he can pay, at any rate. "

"Now look here, " said Frank, coming dolefully to sit down beside her;"don't slate me any more. I'm a bad lot, I know--well, an idle lot--Idon't think I am a _bad_ lot--But it's no good your preaching to mewhile Betty's sticking pins into me like this. Now just let me tell youhow she's been behaving. "

Marcella succumbed, and heard him. He glanced at her surreptitiouslyfrom time to time, but he could make nothing of her. She sat very quietwhile he described the constant companionship between Aldous and Betty, and the evident designs of Miss Raeburn. Just as when he made his firstconfidences to her in London, he was vaguely conscious that he was doinga not very gentlemanly thing. But again, he was too unhappy to restrainhimself, and he longed somehow to make an ally of her. 

"Well, I have only one thing to say, " she said at last, with an oddnervous impatience--"go and ask her, and have done with it! She mighthave some respect for you then. No, I won't help you; but if you don'tsucceed, I'll pity you--I promise you that. And now you must go away. "

He went, feeling himself hardly treated, yet conscious nevertheless of acertain stirring of the moral waters which had both stimulus and balm init. 

She, left behind, sat quiet in the old library for a few lonely minutes. The boy's plight made her alternately scornful and repentant of hersharpness to him. As to his report, one moment it plunged her in ananguish she dared not fathom; the next she was incredulous--could notsimply make herself take the thing as real. 

But one thing had been real--that word from Aldous to her of"_marriage_"! The nostril dilated, the breast heaved, as she lost allthought of Frank in a resentful passion that could neither justify norcalm itself. It seemed still as though he had struck her. Yet she knewwell that she had nothing to forgive. 

 * * * * *

Next morning she went down to the village meaning to satisfy herself ontwo or three points connected with the new cottages. On the way sheknocked at the Rectory garden-door, in the hope of finding Mary Hardenand persuading her to come with her. 

She had not seen much of Mary since their return. Still, she had hadtime to be painfully struck once or twice with the white and bloodlesslook of the Rector's sister, and with a certain patient silence abouther which seemed to Marcella new. Was it the monotony of the life? orhad both of them been overworking and underfeeding as usual? The Rectorhad received Marcella with his old gentle but rather distant kindness. Two years before he had felt strongly about many of her proceedings, andhad expressed himself frankly enough, at least to Mary. Now he had puthis former disapprovals out of his mind, and was only anxious to worksmoothly with the owner of Mellor. He had a great respect for"dignities, " and she, as far as the village was concerned, was to be his"dignity" henceforward. Moreover, he humbly and truly hoped that shemight be able to enlighten him as to a good many modern conceptions andideas about the poor, for which, absorbed as he was, either inalmsgiving of the traditional type, or spiritual ministration, orsacramental theory, he had little time, and, if the truth were known, little affinity. 

In answer to her knock Marcella heard a faint "Come in" from theinterior of the house. She walked into the dining-room, and found Marysitting by the little table in tears. There were some letters beforeher, which she pushed away as Marcella entered, but she did not attemptto disguise her agitation. 

"What is it, dear? Tell me, " said Marcella, sitting down beside her, andkissing one of the hands she held. 

And Mary told her. It was the story of her life--a simple tale ofordinary things, such as wring the quiet hearts and train the unnoticedsaints of this world. In her first youth, when Charles Harden was for atime doing some divinity lecturing in his Oxford college, Mary had goneup to spend a year with him in lodgings. Their Sunday teas and othersmall festivities were frequented by her brother's friends, men of liketype with himself, and most of them either clergymen or about to beordained. Between one of them, a young fellow looking out for his firstcuracy, and Mary an attachment had sprung up, which Mary could not evennow speak of. She hurried over it, with a trembling voice, to thetragedy beyond. Mr. Shelton got his curacy, went off to a parish in theLincolnshire Fens, and there was talk of their being married in a yearor so. But the exposure of a bitter winter's night, risked in thestruggle across one of the bleakest flats of the district to carry theSacrament to a dying parishioner, had brought on a peculiar andagonising form of neuralgia. And from this pain, so nobly earned, hadsprung--oh! mystery of human fate!--a morphia-habit, with all that sucha habit means for mind and body. It was discovered by the poor fellow'sbrother, who brought him up to London and tried to cure him. Meanwhilehe himself had written to Mary to give her up. "I have no will left, andam no longer a man, " he wrote to her. "It would be an outrage on mypart, and a sin on yours, if we did not cancel our promise. " Charles, who took a hard, ascetic view, held much the same language, and Marysubmitted, heart-broken. 

Then came a gleam of hope. The brother's care and affection prevailed;there were rumours of great improvement, of a resumption of work. "Justtwo years ago, when you first came here, I was beginning tobelieve"--she turned away her head to hide the rise of tears--"that itmight still come right. " But after some six or eight months of clericalwork in London fresh trouble developed, lung mischief showed itself, andthe system, undermined by long and deep depression, seemed to capitulateat once. 

"He died last December, at Madeira, " said Mary, quietly. "I saw himbefore he left England. We wrote to each other almost to the end. He wasquite at peace. This letter here was from the chaplain at Madeira, whowas kind to him, to tell me about his grave. "

That was all. It was the sort of story that somehow might have beenexpected to belong to Mary Harden--to her round, plaintive face, to hernarrow, refined experience; and she told it in a way eminentlycharacteristic of her modes of thinking, religious or social, withold-fashioned or conventional phrases which, whatever might be the casewith other people, had lost none of their bloom or meaning for her. 

Marcella's face showed her sympathy. They talked for half an hour, andat the end of it Mary flung her arms round her companion's neck. 

"There!" she said, "now we must not talk any more about it. I am glad Itold you. It was a comfort. And somehow--I don't mean to be unkind; butI couldn't have told you in the old days--it's wonderful how much betterI like you now than I used to do, though perhaps we don't agree muchbetter. "

Both laughed, though the eyes of both were full of tears. 

 * * * * *

Presently they were in the village together. As they neared the Hurds'old cottage, which was now empty and to be pulled down, a sudden look ofdisgust crossed Marcella's face. 

"Did I tell you my news of Minta Hurd?" she said. 

No; Mary had heard nothing. So Marcella told the grotesque and uglynews, as it seemed to her, which had reached her at Amalfi. Jim Hurd'swidow was to be married again, to the queer lanky "professor ofelocution, " with the Italian name and shifty eye, who lodged on thefloor beneath her in Brown's Buildings, and had been wont to come in ofan evening and play comic songs to her and the children. Marcella wasvehemently sure that he was a charlatan--that he got his living by anumber of small dishonesties, that he had scented Minta's pension. Butapart from the question whether he would make Minta a decent husband, orlive upon her and beat her, was the fact itself of her re-marriage, initself hideous to the girl. 

"_Marry_ him!" she said. "Marry any one! Isn't it incredible?"

They were in front of the cottage. Marcella paused a moment and lookedat it. She saw again in sharp vision the miserable woman fainting on thesettle, the dwarf sitting, handcuffed, under the eye of his captors;she felt again the rush of that whirlwind of agony through which she hadborne the wife's helpless soul in that awful dawn. 

And after that--exit!--with her "professor of elocution. " It made thegirl sick to think of. And Mary, out of a Puseyite dislike of secondmarriage, felt and expressed much the same repulsion. 

Well--Minta Hurd was far away, and if she had been there to defendherself her powers of expression would have been no match for theirs. Nor does youth understand such pleas as she might have urged. 

"Will Lord Maxwell continue the pension?" said Mary. 

Marcella stopped again, involuntarily. 

"So that was his doing?" she said. "I supposed as much. "

"You did not know?" cried Mary, in distress. "Oh! I believe I ought notto have said anything about it. "

"I always guessed it, " said Marcella, shortly, and they walked on insilence. 

Presently they found themselves in front of Mrs. Jellison's very trimand pleasant cottage, which lay farther along the common, to the left ofthe road to the Court. There was an early pear-tree in blossom over theporch, and a swelling greenery of buds in the little garden. 

"Will you come in?" said Mary. "I should like to see Isabella Westall. "

Marcella started at the name. 

"How is she?" she asked. 

"Just the same. She has never been in her right mind since. But she isquite harmless and quiet. "

They found Mrs. Jellison on one side of the fire, with her daughter onthe other, and the little six-year-old Johnnie playing between them. Mrs. Jellison was straw-plaiting, twisting the straws with amazingrapidity, her fingers stained with red from the dye of them. Isabellawas, as usual, doing nothing. She stared when Marcella and Mary came in, but she took no other notice of them. Her powerful and tragic face hadthe look of something originally full of intention, from which spiritand meaning had long departed, leaving a fine but lifeless outline. Marcella had seen it last on the night of the execution, in ghastlyapparition at Minta Hurd's window, when it might have been caught bysome sculptor in quest of the secrets of violent expression, fixed inclay or marble, and labelled "Revenge, " or "Passion. "

Its passionless emptiness now filled her with pity and horror. She satdown beside the widow and took her hand. Mrs. Westall allowed it for amoment, then drew her own away suddenly, and Marcella saw a curious andsinister contraction of the eyes. 

"Ah! yo never know how much Isabella unnerstan's, an' how much shedon't, " Mrs. Jellison was saying to Mary. "I can't allus make her out, but she don't give no trouble. An' as for that boy, he's a chirruper, heis. He gives 'em fine times at school, he do. Miss Barton, she ast himin class, Thursday, 'bout Ananias and Sappira. 'Johnnie, ' says she, 'whatever made 'em do sich a wicked thing?' 'Well, _I_ do'n' know, ' sayshe; 'it was jus' their nassty good-for-nothink, ' says he; 'but they wasgreat sillies, ' says he. Oh! he don't mean no harm!--lor' bless yer, the men is all born contrary, and they can't help themselves. Oh! thankyer, miss, my 'ealth is pretty tidy, though I 'ave been plagued thiswinter with a something they call the 'flenzy. I wor very bad! 'Yo go tobed, Mrs. Jellison, ' says Dr. Sharpe, 'or yo'll know of it. ' But Iworn't goin' to be talked to by 'im. Why, I knowed 'im when he wor no'igher nor Johnnie. An' I kep' puddlin' along, an' one mornin' I worfairly choked, an' I just crawled into that parlour, an' I took a sup o'brandy out o' the bottle"--she looked complacently at Mary, quiteconscious that the Rector's sister must be listening to her withdisapproving ears--"an', lor' bless yer, it cut the phlegm, it did, thatvery moment. My! I did cough. I drawed it up by the yard, I did--and Icrep' back along the wall, and yo cud ha' knocked me down wi' one o' myown straws. But I've been better iver since, an' beginnin' to eat myvittles, too, though I'm never no great pecker--I ain't--not at notime. "

Mary managed to smother her emotions on the subject of the brandy, andthe old woman chattered on, throwing out the news of the village in aseries of humorous fragments, tinged in general with the lowest opinionof human nature. 

When the girls took leave of her, she said slily to Marcella:

"An' 'ow about your plaitin', miss?--though I dessay I'm a bold 'un forastin'. "

Marcella coloured. 

"Well, I've got it to think about, Mrs. Jellison. We must have a meetingin the village and talk it over one of these days. "

The old woman nodded in a shrewd silence, and watched them depart. 

"Wull, I reckon Jimmy Gedge ull lasst my time, " she said to herself witha chuckle. 

 * * * * *

If Mrs. Jellison had this small belief in the powers of the new mistressof Mellor over matters which, according to her, had been settledgenerations ago by "the Lord and natur', " Marcella certainly was in nomood to contradict her. She walked through the village on her returnscanning everything about her--the slatternly girls plaiting on thedoorsteps, the children in the lane, the loungers round the various"publics, " the labourers, old and young, who touched their caps toher--with a moody and passionate eye. 

"Mary!" she broke out as they neared the Rectory, "I shall betwenty-four directly. How much harm do you think I shall have done hereby the time I am sixty-four?"

Mary laughed at her, and tried to cheer her. But Marcella was in thedepths of self-disgust. 

"What is wanted, really wanted, " she said with intensity, "is not _my_help, but _their_ growth. How can I make them _take forthemselves_--take, roughly and selfishly even, if they will only take!As for my giving, what relation has it to anything real or lasting?"

Mary was scandalised. 

"I declare you are as bad as Mr. Craven, " she said. "He told Charlesyesterday that the curtseys of the old women in the village to him andCharles--women old enough to be their grandmothers--sickened him of thewhole place, and that he should regard it as the chief object of hiswork here to make such things impossible in the future. Or perhapsyou're still of Mr. --Mr. Wharton's opinion--you'll be expecting Charlesand me to give up charity. But it's no good, my dear. We're not'advanced, ' and we never shall be. "

At the mention of Wharton Marcella threw her proud head back; wave afterwave of changing expression passed over the face. 

"I often remember the things Mr. Wharton said in this village, " she saidat last. "There was life and salt and power in many of them. It's notwhat he said, but what he was, that one wants to forget. "

They parted presently, and Marcella went heavily home. The rising of thespring, the breath of the April air, had never yet been sad andoppressive to her as they were to-day. 

CHAPTER VI. 

"Oh! Miss Boyce, may I come in?"

The voice was Frank Leven's. Marcella was sitting in the old libraryalone late on the following afternoon. Louis Craven, who was now herpaid agent and adviser, had been with her, and she had accounts andestimates before her. 

"Come in, " she said, startled a little by Frank's tone and manner, andlooking at him interrogatively. 

Frank shut the heavy old door carefully behind him. Then, as he advancedto her she saw that his flushed face wore an expression unlike anythingshe had yet seen there--of mingled joy and fear. 

She drew back involuntarily. 

"Is there anything--anything wrong?"

"No, " he said impetuously, "no! But I have something to tell you, and Idon't know how. I don't know whether I ought. I have run almost all theway from the Court. "

And, indeed, he could hardly get his breath. He took a stool she pushedto him, and tried to collect himself. She heard her heart beat as shewaited for him to speak. 

"It's about Lord Maxwell, " he said at last, huskily, turning his headaway from her to the fire. "I've just had a long walk with him. Then heleft me; he had no idea I came on here. But something drove me; I feltI must come, I must tell. Will you promise not to be angry with me--tobelieve that I've thought about it--that I'm doing it for the best?"

He looked at her nervously. 

"If you wouldn't keep me waiting so long, " she said faintly, while hercheeks and lips grew white. 

"Well, --I was mad this morning! Betty hasn't spoken to me sinceyesterday. She's been always about with him, and Miss Raeburn let me seeonce or twice last night that she thought I was in the way. I neverslept a wink last night, and I kept out of their sight all the morning. Then, after lunch, I went up to him, and I asked him to come for a walkwith me. He looked at me rather queerly--I suppose I was pretty savage. Then he said he'd come. And off we went, ever so far across the park. And I let out. I don't know what I said; I suppose I made a beast ofmyself. But anyway, I asked him to tell me what he meant, and to tellme, if he could, what Betty meant. I said I knew I was a cool hand, andhe might turn me out of the house, and refuse to have anything more todo with me if he liked. But I was going to rack and ruin, and shouldnever be any good till I knew where I stood--and Betty would never beserious--and, in short, was he in love with her himself? for any onecould see what Miss Raeburn was thinking of. "

The boy gulped down something like a sob, and tried to give himself timeto be coherent again. Marcella sat like a stone. 

"When he heard me say that--'in love with her yourself, ' he stoppeddead. I saw that I had made him angry. 'What right have you or any oneelse, ' he said, very short, 'to ask me such a question?' Then I justlost my head, and said anything that came handy. I told him everybodytalked about it--which, of course, was rubbish--and at last I said, 'Askanybody; ask the Winterbournes, ask Miss Boyce--they all think it asmuch as I do. ' '_Miss Boyce_!' he said--'Miss Boyce thinks I want tomarry Betty Macdonald?' Then I didn't know what to say--for, of course, I knew I'd taken your name in vain; and he sat down on the grass besidea little stream there is in the park, and he didn't speak to me for along time--I could see him throwing little stones into the water. And atlast he called me. 'Frank!' he said; and I went up to him. And then--"

The lad seemed to tremble all over. He bent forward and laid his hand onMarcella's knee, touching her cold ones. 

"And then he said, 'I can't understand yet, Frank, how you or anybodyelse can have mistaken my friendship for Betty Macdonald. At any rate, Iknow there's been no mistake on her part. And if you take my advice, you'll go and speak to her like a man, with all your heart, and see whatshe says. You don't deserve her yet, that I can tell you. As for me'--Ican't describe the look of his face; I only know I wanted to goaway--'you and I will be friends for many years, I hope, so perhaps youmay just understand this, once for all. For me there never has been, andthere never will be, but one woman in the world--to love. And you know, 'he said after a bit, 'or you ought to know, very well, who that womanis. ' And then he got up and walked away. He did not ask me to come, andI felt I dared not go after him. And then I lay and thought. Iremembered being here; I thought of what I had said to you--of what Ihad fancied now and then about--about you. I felt myself a brute allround; for what right had I to come and tell you what he told me? Andyet, there it was--I had to come. And if it was no good my coming, why, we needn't say anything about it ever, need we? But--but--just lookhere, Miss Boyce; if you--if you could begin over again, and make Aldoushappy, then there'd be a good many other people happy too--I can tellyou that. "

He could hardly speak plainly. Evidently there was on him anovermastering impulse of personal devotion, gratitude, remorse, whichfor the moment even eclipsed his young passion. It was but vaguelyexplained by anything he had said; it rested clearly on the whole of hisafternoon's experience. 

But neither could Marcella speak, and her pallor began to alarm him. 

"I say!" he cried; "you're not angry with me?"

She moved away from him, and with her shaking finger began to cut thepages of a book that lay open on the mantelpiece. The little mechanicalaction seemed gradually to restore her to self-control. 

"I don't think I can talk about it, " she said at last, with an effort;"not now. "

"Oh! I know, " said Frank, in penitence, looking at her black dress;"you've been upset, and had such a lot of trouble. But I--"

She laid her hand on his shoulder. He thought he had never seen her sobeautiful, pale as she was. 

"I'm not the least angry. I'll tell you so--another day. Now, are yougoing to Betty?"

The young fellow sprang up, all his expression changing, answering tothe stimulus of the word. 

"They'll be home directly, Miss Raeburn and Betty, " he said steadily, buttoning his coat; "they'd gone out calling somewhere. Oh! she'll leadme a wretched life, will Betty, before she's done!"

A charming little ghost of a smile crossed Marcella's white lips. 

"Probably Betty knows her business, " she said; "if she's quiteunmanageable, send her to me. "

In his general turmoil of spirits the boy caught her hand and kissedit--would have liked, indeed, to kiss her and all the world. But shelaughed, and sent him away, and with a sly, lingering look at her hedeparted. 

She sank into her chair and never moved for long. The April sun was justsinking behind the cedars, and through the open south window of thelibrary came little spring airs and scents of spring flowers. There wasan endless twitter of birds, and beside her the soft chatter of the woodfire. An hour before, her mood had been at open war with the spring, andwith all those impulses and yearnings in herself which answered to it. Now it seemed to her that a wonderful and buoyant life, akin to all thevast stir, the sweet revivals of Nature, was flooding her whole being. 

She gave herself up to it, in a trance interwoven with all the loveliestand deepest things she had ever felt--with her memory of Hallin, withher new gropings after God. Just as the light was going she got uphurriedly and went to her writing-table. She wrote a little note, satover it a while, with her face hidden in her hands, then sealed, addressed, and stamped it. She went out herself to the hall to put it inthe letter-box. For the rest of the evening she went about in a state ofdream, overcome sometimes by rushes of joy, which yet had in themexquisite elements of pain; hungering for the passage of the hours, forsleep that might cancel some of them; picturing the road to the Courtand Widrington, along which the old postman had by now carried herletter--the bands of moonlight and shade lying across it, the quiet ofthe budding woods, and the spot on the hillside where he had spoken toher in that glowing October. It must lie all night in a dull office--herletter; she was impatient and sorry for it. And when he got it, it wouldtell him nothing, though she thought it would rather surprise him. Itwas the merest formal request that he would, if he could, come and seeher again the following morning on business. 

During the evening Mrs. Boyce lay on the sofa and read. It always stillgave the daughter a certain shock of surprise when she saw the slightform resting in this way. In words Mrs. Boyce would allow nothing, andher calm composure had been unbroken from the moment of their returnhome, though it was not yet two months since her husband's death. Inthese days she read enormously, which again was a new trait--especiallynovels. She read each through rapidly, laid it down without a word ofcomment, and took up another. Once or twice, but very rarely, Marcellasurprised her in absent meditation, her hand covering the page. From thehard, satiric brightness of her look on these occasions it seemedprobable that she was speculating on the discrepancies between fictionand real life, and on the falsity of most literary sentiment. 

To-night Marcella sat almost silent--she was making a frock for avillage child she had carried off from its mother, who was very ill--andMrs. Boyce read. But as the clock approached ten, the time when theygenerally went upstairs, Marcella made a few uncertain movements, andfinally got up, took a stool, and sat down beside the sofa. 

 * * * * *

An hour later Marcella entered her own room. As she closed the doorbehind her she gave an involuntary sob, put down her light, and hurryingup to the bed, fell on her knees beside it and wept long. Yet her motherhad not been unkind to her. Far from it. Mrs. Boyce had praised her--infew words, but with evident sincerity--for the courage that could, ifnecessary, put convention aside; had spoken of her own relief; had saidpleasant things of Lord Maxwell; had bantered Marcella a little on hersocial schemes, and wished her the independence to stick to them. Finally, as they got up to go to bed, she kissed Marcella twice insteadof once, and said:

"Well, my dear, I shall not be in your way to-morrow morning; I promiseyou that. "

The speaker's satisfaction was plain; yet nothing could have been lessmaternal. The girl's heart, when she found herself alone, was very sore, and the depression of a past which had been so much of a failure, solacking in any satisfied emotion and the sweet preludes of familyaffection, darkened for a while even the present and the future. 

After a time she got up, and leaving her room, went to sit in a passageoutside it. It was the piece of wide upper corridor leading to thewinding stairs she had descended on the night of the ball. It was one ofthe loneliest and oddest places in the house, for it communicated onlywith her room and the little staircase, which was hardly ever used. Itwas, indeed, a small room in itself, and was furnished with a few hugeold chairs with moth-eaten frames and tattered seats. A flowery paper oflast-century date sprawled over the walls, the carpet had many holes init, and the shallow, traceried windows, set almost flush in the outersurface of the wall, were curtainless now, as they had been two yearsbefore. 

She drew one of the old chairs to a window, and softly opened it. Therewas a young moon, and many stars, seen uncertainly through the rush ofApril cloud. Every now and then a splash of rain moved the creepers andswept across the lawn, to be followed by a spell of growing andbreathing silence. The scent of hyacinths and tulips mounted through thewet air. She could see a long ghostly line of primroses, from which rosethe grey base of the Tudor front, checkered with a dim light and shade. Beyond the garden, with its vague forms of fountain and sun-dial, thecedars stood watching; the little church slept to her left. 

So, face to face with Nature, the old house, and the night, she tookpassionate counsel with herself. After to-night surely, she would be nomore lonely! She was going for ever from her own keeping to that ofanother. For she never, from the moment she wrote her letter, had thesmallest doubt as to what his answer to her would be; never the smallestdread that he would, even in the lightest passing impression, connectwhat she was going to do with any thought of blame or wonder. Her prideand fear were gone out of her; only, she dared not think of how he wouldlook and speak when the moment came, because it made her sick and faintwith feeling. 

How strange to imagine what, no doubt, would be said and thought abouther return to him by the outside world! His great place in society, hiswealth, would be the obvious solution of it for many--too obvious evento be debated. Looking back upon her thoughts of this night in afteryears, she could not remember that the practical certainty of such aninterpretation had even given her a moment's pain. It was too remotefrom all her now familiar ways of thinking--and his. In her early Mellordays the enormous importance that her feverish youth attached to wealthand birth might have been seen in her very attacks upon them. Now allher standards were spiritualised. She had come to know what happinessand affection are possible in three rooms, or two, on twenty-eightshillings a week; and, on the other hand, her knowledge of Aldous--a manof stoical and simple habit, thrust, with a student's tastes, into theposition of a great landowner--had shown her, in the case at least ofone member of the rich class, how wealth may be a true moral burden andtest, the source of half the difficulties and pains--of half thenobleness also--of a man's life. Not in mere wealth and poverty, shethought, but in things of quite another order--things of social sympathyand relation--alterable at every turn, even under existing conditions, by the human will, lie the real barriers that divide us man from man. 

Had they ever really formed a part of historical time, those eightmonths of their engagement? Looking back upon them, she saw herselfmoving about in them like a creature without eyes, worked, blindfold, bya crude inner mechanism that took no account really of impressions fromwithout. Yet that passionate sympathy with the poor--that hatred ofoppression? Even these seemed to her to-night the blind, spasmodicefforts of a mind that all through _saw_ nothing--mistook its ownviolences and self-wills for eternal right, and was but traitor to whatshould have been its own first loyalties, in seeking to save and reform. 

Was _true_ love now to deliver her from that sympathy, to deaden in herthat hatred? Her whole soul cried out in denial. By daily life innatural relations with the poor, by a fruitful contact with fact, by theclash of opinion in London, by the influence of a noble friendship, bythe education of awakening passion--what had once been mere tawdry andviolent hearsay had passed into a true devotion, a true thirst forsocial good. She had ceased to take a system cut and dried from theVenturists, or any one else; she had ceased to think of whole classesof civilised society with abhorrence and contempt; and there had dawnedin her that temper which is in truth implied in all the more majesticconceptions of the State--the temper that regards the main institutionsof every great civilisation, whether it be property, or law, orreligious custom, as necessarily, in some degree, divine and sacred. Forman has not been their sole artificer! Throughout there has been workingwith him "the spark that fires our clay. "

Yes!--but modification, progress, change, there must be, for us as forour fathers! Would marriage fetter her? It was not the least probablethat he and she, with their differing temperaments, would think alike inthe future, any more than in the past. She would always be forexperiments, for risks, which his critical temper, his larger brain, would of themselves be slow to enter upon. Yet she knew well enough thatin her hands they would become bearable and even welcome to him. And forhimself, she thought with a craving, remorseful tenderness of thatpessimist temper of his towards his own work and function that she knewso well. In old days it had merely seemed to her inadequate, if nothypocritical. She would have liked to drive the dart deeper, to make himstill unhappier! Now, would not a wife's chief function be to reconcilehim with himself and life, to cheer him forward on the lines of his ownnature, to believe, understand, help?

Yet always in the full liberty to make her own sacrifices, to realiseher own dreamlands! She thought with mingled smiles and tears of herplans for this bit of earth that fate had brought under her hand; shepledged herself to every man, woman, and child on it so to live her lifethat each one of theirs should be the richer for it; she set out, so faras in her lay, to "choose equality. " And beyond Mellor, in the greatchanging world of social speculation and endeavour, she prayed alwaysfor the open mind, the listening heart. 

"There is one conclusion, one cry, I always come back to at last, " sheremembered hearing Hallin say to a young Conservative with whom he hadbeen having a long economic and social argument. "_Never resignyourself_!--that seems to be the main note of it. Say, if youwill--believe, if you will, that human nature, being what it is, andwhat, so far as we can see, it always must be, the motives which workthe present social and industrial system can never be largelysuperseded; that property and saving--luck, too!--struggle, success, andfailure, must go on. That is one's intellectual conclusion; and one hasa right to it--you and I are at one in it. But then--on the heels of itcomes the moral imperative! 'Hold what you please about systems andmovements, and fight for what you hold; only, as an individual--_neversay--never think!_--that it is in the order of things, in the purpose ofGod, that one of these little ones--this Board-School child, this manhonestly out of work, this woman "sweated" out of her life--shouldperish!' A contradiction, or a commonplace, you say? Well and good. Theonly truths that burn themselves into the conscience, that workthemselves out through the slow and manifold processes of the personalwill into a pattern of social improvement, are the contradictions andthe commonplaces!"

So here, in the dark, alone with the haunting, uplifting presences of"admiration, hope, and love, " Marcella vowed, within the limits of herpersonal scope and power, never to give up the struggle for a noblerhuman fellowship, the lifelong toil to understand, the passionate effortto bring honour and independence and joy to those who had them not. Butnot alone; only, not alone! She had learnt something of the darkaspects, the crushing complexity of the world. She turned from themto-night, at last, with a natural human terror, to hide herself in herown passion, to make of love her guide and shelter. Her whole rich beingwas wrought to an intoxication of self-giving. Oh! let the night gofaster! faster! and bring his step upon the road, her cry of repentanceto his ear. 

 * * * * *

"I trust I am not late. Your clocks, I think, are ahead of ours. Yousaid eleven?"

Aldous advanced into the room with hand outstretched. He had beenushered into the drawing-room, somewhat to his surprise. 

Marcella came forward. She was in black as before, and pale, but therewas a knot of pink anemones fastened at her throat, which, in the playthey made with her face and hair, gave him a start of pleasure. 

"I wanted, " she said, "to ask you again about those shares--how tomanage the sale of them. Could you--could you give me the name of someone in the City you trust?"

He was conscious of some astonishment. 

"Certainly, " he said. "If you would rather not entrust it to Mr. French, I can give you the name of the firm my grandfather and I have alwaysemployed; or I could manage it for you if you would allow me. You havequite decided?"

"Yes, " she said mechanically, --"quite. And--and I think I could do itmyself. Would you mind writing the address for me, and will you readwhat I have written there?"

She pointed to the little writing-table and the writing materials uponit, then turned away to the window. He looked at her an instant withuneasy amazement. 

He walked up to the table, put down his hat and gloves beside it, andstooped to read what was written. 

_"It was in this room you told me I had done you a great wrong. Butwrongdoers may be pardoned sometimes, if they ask it. Let me know by asign, a look, if I may ask it. If not it would be kind to go awaywithout a word. "_

She heard a cry. But she did not look up. She only knew that he hadcrossed the room, that his arms were round her, her head upon hisbreast. 

"Marcella!--wife!" was all he said, and that in a voice so low, sochoked, that she could hardly hear it. 

He held her so for a minute or more, she weeping, his own eyes dim withtears, her cheek laid against the stormy beating of his heart. 

At last he raised her face, so that he could see it. 

"So this--this was what you had in your mind towards me, while I havebeen despairing--fighting with myself, walking in darkness. Oh, mydarling! explain it. How can it be? Am I real? Is this face--these lipsreal?"--he kissed both, trembling. "Oh! when a man is raised thus--in amoment--from torture and hunger to full joy, there are no words--"

His head sank on hers, and there was silence again, while he wrestledwith himself. 

At last she looked up, smiling. 

"You are to please come over here, " she said, and leading him by thehand, she took him to the other side of the room. "That is the chair yousat in that morning. Sit down!"

He sat down, wondering, and before he could guess what she was going todo she had sunk on her knees beside him. 

"I am going to tell you, " she said, "a hundred things I never told youbefore. You are to hear me confess; you are to give me penance; you areto say the hardest things possible to me. If you don't I shall distrustyou. "

She smiled at him again through her tears. "Marcella, " he cried indistress, trying to lift her, to rise himself, "you can't imagine that Ishould let _you_ kneel to _me_!"

"You must, " she said steadily; "well, if it will make you happier, Iwill take a stool and sit by you. But you are there above me--I am atyour feet--it is the same chair, and you shall not move"--she stooped ina hasty passion, as though atoning for her "shall, " and kissed hishand--"till I have said it all--every word!"

So she began it--her long confession, from the earliest days. He wincedoften--she never wavered. She carried through the sharpest analysis ofher whole mind with regard to him; of her relations to him and Whartonin the old days; of the disloyalty and lightness with which she hadtreated the bond, that yet she had never, till quite the end, thoughtseriously of breaking; of her selfish indifference to, even contemptfor, his life, his interests, his ideals; of her calm forecasts of amarried state in which she was always to take the lead and always to bein the right--then of the real misery and struggle of the Hurd trial. 

"That was my first true _experience_, " she said; "it made me wild andhard, but it burnt, it purified. I began to live. Then came the daywhen--when we parted--the time in hospital--the nursing--the evening onthe terrace. I had been thinking of you--because remorse made me thinkof you--solitude--Mr. Hallin--everything. I wanted you to be kind to me, to behave as though you had forgotten everything, because it would havemade me comfortable and happy; or I thought it would. And then, thatnight you wouldn't be kind, you wouldn't forget--instead, you made mepay my penalty. "

She stared at him an instant, her dark brows drawn together, strugglingto keep her tears back, yet lightening from moment to moment into adivine look of happiness. He tried to take possession of her, to stopher, to silence all this self-condemnation on his breast. But she wouldnot have it; she held him away from her. 

"That night, though I walked up and down the terrace with Mr. Whartonafterwards, and tried to fancy myself in love with him--that night, forthe first time, I began to love you! It was mean and miserable, wasn'tit, not to be able to appreciate the gift, only to feel when it wastaken away? It was like being good when one is punished, because onemust--"

She laid down her head against his chair with a long sigh. He could bearit no longer. He lifted her in his arms, talking to her passionately ofthe feelings which had been the counterpart to hers, the longings, jealousies, renunciations--above all, the agony of that moment at theMastertons' party. 

"Hallin was the only person who understood, " he said; "he knew all thetime that I should love you to my grave. I could talk to him. "

She gave a little sob of joy, and pushing herself away from him aninstant, she laid a hand on his shoulder. 

"I told him, " she said--"I told him, that night he was dying. "

He looked at her with an emotion too deep even for caresses. 

"He never spoke--coherently--after you left him. At the end he motionedto me, but there were no words. If I could possibly love you more, itwould be because you gave him that joy. "

He held her hand, and there was silence. Hallin stood beside them, living and present again in the life of their hearts. 

Then, little by little, delight and youth and love stole again upontheir senses. 

"Do you suppose, " he exclaimed, "that I yet understand in the least howit is that I am here, in this chair, with you beside me? You have toldme much ancient history!--but all that truly concerns me this morninglies in the dark. The last time I saw you, you were standing at thegarden-door, with a look which made me say to myself that I was the sameblunderer I had always been, and had far best keep away. Bridge me thegap, please, between that hell and this heaven!"

She held her head high, and changed her look of softness for a frown. 

"You had spoken of '_marriage!_'" she said. "Marriage in the abstract, with a big _M_. You did it in the tone of my guardian giving me away. Could I be expected to stand that?"

He laughed. The joy in the sound almost hurt her. 

"So one's few virtues smite one, " he said as he captured her hand again. "Will you acknowledge that I played my part well? I thought to myself, in the worst of tempers, as I drove away, that I could hardly have beenmore official. But all this is evasion. What I desire to know, categorically, is, what made you write that letter to me last night, after--after the day before?"

She sat with her chin on her hand, a smile dancing. 

"Whom did you walk with yesterday afternoon?" she said slowly. 

He looked bewildered. 

"There!" she cried, with a sudden wild gesture; "when I have told you itwill undo it all. Oh! if Frank had never said a word to me; if I had hadno excuse, no assurance, nothing to go upon, had just called to you inthe dark, as it were, there would be some generosity, some atonement inthat! Now you will think I waited to be meanly sure, instead of--"

She dropped her dark head upon his hand again with an abandonment whichunnerved him, which he had almost to brace himself against. 

"So it was Frank, " he said--"_Frank!_ Two hours ago, from my window, Isaw him and Betty down by the river in the park. They were supposed tobe fishing. As far as I could see they were sifting or walking hand inhand, in the face of day and the keepers. I prepared wise things to sayto them. None of them will be said now, or listened to. As Frank'smentor I am undone. "

He held her, looking at her intently. 

"Shall I tell you, " he asked, in a lower voice--"shall I show yousomething--something that I had on my heart as I was walking here?"

He slipped his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat, and drew out alittle plain black leather case. When he opened it she saw that itcontained a pen-and-ink sketch of herself that had been done one eveningby a young artist staying at the Court, and--a bunch of traveller's joy. 

She gazed at it with a mixture of happiness and pain. It reminded her ofcold and selfish thoughts, and set them in relief against his constancy. But she had given away all rights--even the right to hate herself. Piteously, childishly, with seeking eyes, she held out her hand to him, as though mutely asking him for the answer to her outpouring--the lastword of it all. He caught her whisper. 

"Forgive?" he said to her, scorning her for the first and only time intheir history. "Does a man _forgive_ the hand that sets him free, thevoice that recreates him? Choose some better word--my wife!"