COLLECTION

OF

BRITISH AUTHORS

TAUCHNITZ EDITION. 

VOL. 1811. 

VIXEN BY M. E. BRADDON

IN THREE VOLUMES. 

VOL. III. 

VIXEN

A NOVEL

BY

M. E. BRADDON, AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET, " ETC. ETC. 

_COPYRIGHT EDITION_. 

IN THREE VOLUMES. 

VOL. III. 

LEIPZIG

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

1879. 

_The Right of Translation is reserved_. 

CONTENTS

OF VOLUME III. 

CHAPTER I. Going into Exile

CHAPTER II. Chiefly Financial

CHAPTER III. "With weary Days thou shalt be clothed and fed"

CHAPTER IV. Love and AEsthetics

CHAPTER V. Crumpled Rose-Leaves

CHAPTER VI. A Fool's Paradise

CHAPTER VII. "It might have been"

CHAPTER VIII. Wedding Bells

CHAPTER IX. The nearest Way to Norway

CHAPTER X. "All the Rivers run into the Sea"

CHAPTER XI. The Bluebeard Chamber

Epilogue

VIXEN. 

CHAPTER I. 

Going into Exile. 

After a long sleepless night of tossing to and fro, Vixen rose with thefirst stir of life in the old house, and made herself ready to face thebleak hard world. Her meditations of the night had brought no new lightto her mind. It was very clear to her that she must go away--as far aspossible--from her old home. Her banishment was necessary foreverybody's sake. For the sake of Rorie, who must behave like a man ofhonour, and keep his engagement with Lady Mabel, and shut his oldplayfellow out of his heart. For the sake of Mrs. Winstanley, who couldnever be happy while there was discord in her home; and last of all, for Violet herself, who felt that joy and peace had fled from the AbbeyHouse for ever, and that it would be better to be anywhere, in thecoldest strangest region of this wide earth, verily friendless andalone among strange faces, than here among friends who were but friendsin name, and among scenes that were haunted with the ghosts of deadjoys. 

She went round the gardens and shrubberies in the early morning, looking sadly at everything, as if she were bidding the trees andflowers a long farewell. The rhododendron thickets were shining withdew, the grassy tracks in that wilderness of verdure were wet and coldunder Vixen's feet. She wandered in an out among the groups of wildgrowing shrubs, rising one above another to the height of forest trees, and then she went out by the old five-barred gate which Titmouse usedto jump so merrily, and rambled in the plantation till the sun washigh, and the pines began to breathe forth their incense as the day-godwarmed them into life. 

It was half-past eight. Nine was the hour for breakfast, a meal atwhich, during the Squire's time, the fragile Pamela had rarelyappeared, but which, under the present _régime_, she generally gracedwith her presence. Captain Winstanley was an early riser, and was notsparing in his contempt for sluggish habits. 

Vixen had made up her mind never again to sit at meat with herstepfather; so she went straight to her own den, and told Phoebe tobring her a cup of tea. 

"I don't want anything else, " she said wearily when the girl suggesteda more substantial breakfast; "I should like to see mamma presently. Doyou know if she has gone down?"

"No, miss. Mrs. Winstanley is not very well this morning. Pauline hastaken her up a cup of tea. "

Vixen sat idly by the open window, sipping her tea, and caressingArgus's big head with a listless hand, waiting for the next stroke offate. She was sorry for her mother, but had no wish to see her. Whatcould they say to each other--they, whose thoughts and feelings were sowide apart? Presently Phoebe came in with a little three-cornered note, written in pencil. 

"Pauline asked me to give you this from your ma, miss. "

The note was brief, written in short gasps, with dashes between them. 

"I feel too crushed and ill to see you--I have told Conrad what youwish--he is all goodness--he will tell you what we have decided--try tobe worthier of his kindness--poor misguided child--he will see you inhis study, directly after breakfast--pray control your unhappy temper. "

"His study, indeed!" ejaculated Vixen, tearing up the little note andscattering its perfumed fragments on the breeze; "my father's room, which he has usurped. I think I hate him just a little worse in thatroom than anywhere else--though that would seem hardly possible, when Ihate him so cordially everywhere. "

She went to the looking-glass, and surveyed herself proudly as shesmoothed her shining hair, resolved that he should see no indication oftrouble or contrition in her face. She was very pale, but her tears oflast night had left no traces. There was a steadiness in her look thatbefitted an encounter with an enemy. A message came from the Captain, while she was standing before her glass, tying a crimson ribbon underthe collar of her white morning-dress. 

Would she please to go to Captain Winstanley in the study? She wentwithout an instant's delay, walked quietly into the room, and stoodbefore him silently as he sat at his desk writing. 

"Good-morning, Miss Tempest, " he said, looking up at her with hisblandest air; "sit down, if you please. I want to have a chat with you. "

Vixen seated herself in her father's large crimson morocco chair. Shewas looking round the room absently, dreamily, quite disregarding theCaptain. The dear old room was full of sadly sweet associations. Forthe moment she forgot the existence of her foe. His cold level tonesrecalled her thoughts from the lamented past to the bitter present. 

"Your mother informs me that you wish to leave the Abbey House, " hebegan; "and she has empowered me to arrange a suitable home for youelsewhere. I entirely concur in your opinion that your absence fromHampshire for the next year or so will be advantageous to yourself andothers. You and Mr. Vawdrey have contrived to get yourselvesunpleasantly talked about in the neighbourhood. Any further scandal maypossibly be prevented by your departure. "

"It is not on that account I wish to leave home, " said Vixen proudly. "I am not afraid of scandal. If the people hereabouts are so wickedthat they cannot see me riding by the side of an old friend for two orthree days running without thinking evil of him and me, I am sorry forthem, but I certainly should not regulate my life to please them. Thereason I wish to leave the Abbey House is that I am miserable here, andhave been ever since you entered it as its master. We may as well dealfrankly with each other in this matter. You confessed last night thatyou hated me. I acknowledge to-day that I have hated you ever since Ifirst saw you. It was an instinct. "

"We need not discuss that, " answered the Captain calmly. He had letpassion master him last night, but he had himself well in hand to-day. She might be as provoking as she pleased, but she should not provokehim to betray himself as he had done last night. He detested himselffor that weak outbreak of passion. 

"Have you arranged with my mother for my leaving home?" inquired Vixen. 

"Yes, it is all settled. "

"Then I'll write at once to Miss McCroke. I know she will leave thepeople she is with to travel with me. "

"Miss McCroke has nothing to do with the question. You roaming aboutthe world with a superannuated governess would be too preposterous. Iam going to take you to Jersey by this evening's boat. I have an auntliving there who has a fine old manor house, and who will be happy totake charge of you. She is a maiden lady, a woman of superiorcultivation, who devotes herself wholly to intellectual pursuits. Herrefining influence will be valuable to you. The island is lovely, theclimate delicious. You could not be better off than you will be at LesTourelles. "

"I am not going to Jersey, and I am not going to your intellectualaunt, " said Vixen resolutely. 

"I beg your pardon, you are going, and immediately. Your mother and Ihave settled the matter between us. You have expressed a wish to leavehome, and you will be pleased to go where we think proper. You hadbetter tell Phoebe to pack your trunks. We shall leave here at teno'clock in the evening. The boat starts from Southampton at midnight. "

Vixen felt herself conquered. She had stated her wish, and it wasgranted; not in the mode and manner she had desired; but perhaps sheought to be grateful for release from a home that had become loathsometo her, and not take objection to details in the scheme of her exile. To go away, quite away, and immediately, was the grand point. To flybefore she saw Rorie again. 

"Heaven knows how weak I might be if he were to talk to me again as hetalked last night!" she said to herself. "I might not be able to bearit a second time. Oh Rorie, if you knew what it cost me to counsel youwisely, to bid you do your duty; when the vision of a happy life withyou was smiling at me all the time, when the warm grasp of your dearhand made my heart thrill with joy, what a heroine you would think me!And yet nobody will ever give me credit for heroism; and I shall beremembered only as a self-willed young woman, who was troublesome toher relations, and had to be sent away from home. "

She was thinking this while she sat in her father's chair, deliberatingupon the Captain's last speech. She decided presently to yield, andobey her mother and stepfather. After all, what did it matter where shewent? That scheme of being happy in Sweden with Miss McCroke was but anidle fancy. In the depths of her inner consciousness Violet Tempestknew that she could be happy nowhere away from Rorie and the Forest. What did it matter, then, whether she went to Jersey or Kamtchatka, thesandy desert of Gobi or the Mountains of the Moon? In either case exilemeant moral death, the complete renunciation of all that had been sweetand precious in her uneventful young life--the shadowy beech-groves;the wandering streams; the heathery upland plains; the deep fernyhollows, where the footsteps of humanity were almost unknown; thecluster of tall trees on the hill tops, where the herons came sailinghome from their flight across Southampton Water; her childhood'scompanion; her horse; her old servants. Banishment meant a longfarewell to all these. 

"I suppose I may take my dog with me?" she asked, after a long pause, during which she had wavered between submission and revolt, "and mymaid?"

"I see no objection to your taking your dog; though I doubt whether myaunt will care to have a dog of that size prowling about her house. Hecan have a kennel somewhere, I daresay. You must learn to do without amaid. Feminine helplessness is going out of fashion; and one wouldexpect an Amazon like you to be independent of lady's-maids andmilliners. "

"Why don't you state the case in plain English?" cried Vixenscornfully. "If I took Phoebe with me she would cost money. There wouldbe her wages and maintenance to be provided. If I leave her behind, youcan dismiss her. You have a fancy for dismissing old servants. "

"Had you not better see to the packing of your trunks?" asked CaptainWinstanley, ignoring this shaft. 

"What is to become of my horse?"

"I think you must resign yourself to leave him to fate and me, " repliedthe Captain coolly; "my aunt may submit to the infliction of your dog, but that she should tolerate a young lady's roaming about the island ona thoroughbred horse would be rather too much to expect from herold-fashioned notions of propriety. "

"Besides, even Arion would cost something to keep, " retorted Vixen, "and strict economy is the rule of your life. If you sell him--and, ofcourse, you will do so--please let Lord Mallow have the refusal of him. I think he would buy, him and treat him kindly, for my sake. "

"Wouldn't you rather Mr. Vawdrey had him?"

"Yes, if I were free to give him away; but I suppose you would deny myright of property even in the horse my father gave me. "

"Well, as the horse was not specified in your father's will, and as allhis horses and carriages were left to your mother, I think there cannotbe any doubt that Arion is my wife's property. "

"Why not say your property? Why give unnatural prominence to a cipher?Do you think I hold my poor mother to blame for any wrong that is doneto me, or to others, in this house? No, Captain Winstanley, I have noresentment against my mother. She is a blameless nullity, dressed inthe latest fashion. "

"Go and pack your boxes!" cried the Captain angrily. "Do you want toraise the devil that was raised last night? Do you want anotherconflagration? It might be a worse one this time. I have had a night offever and unrest. "

"Am I to blame for that?'

"Yes--you beautiful fury. It was your image kept me awake. I shallsleep sounder when you are out of this house. "

"I shall be ready to start at ten o'clock, " said Vixen, in abusiness-like tone which curiously contrasted this sudden gust ofpassion on the part of her foe, and humiliated him to the dust. Heloathed himself for having let her see her power to hurt him. 

She left him, and went straight upstairs to her room, and gave Phoebedirections about the packing of her portmanteaux, with no more outwardsemblance of emotion than she might have shown had she been starting ona round of pleasant visits under the happiest circumstances. Thefaithful Phoebe began to cry when she heard that Miss Tempest was goingaway for a long time, and that she was not to go with her; and poorVixen had to console her maid instead of brooding upon her own griefs. 

"Never mind, Phoebe, " she said; "it is as hard for me to lose you as itis for you to lose me. I shall never forget what a devoted little thingyou have been, and all the muddy habits you have brushed without amurmur. A few years hence I shall be my own mistress, and have plentyof money, and then, wherever I may be, you shall come to me. If you aremarried you shall be my housekeeper, and your husband shall be mybutler, and your children shall run wild about the place, and be madeas much of as the litter of young foxes Bates reared in a corner of thestable-yard, when Mr. Vawdrey was at Eton. "

"Oh, miss, I don't want no husband nor no children, I only want you formy missus. And when you come of age, will you live here, miss?"

"No, Phoebe. The Abbey House will belong to mamma all her life. Poormamma! may it be long before the dear old house comes to me. But when Iam of age, and my own mistress I shall find a place somewhere in theForest, you may be sure of that, Phoebe. "

Phoebe dried her honest tears, and made haste with the packing, believing that Miss Tempest was leaving home for her own pleasure, andthat she, Phoebe, was the only victim of adverse fate. 

The day wore on quickly, though it was laden with sorrow. Vixen had agreat deal to do in her den; papers to look over, old letters, pen-and-ink sketches, and scribblings of all kinds to destroy, booksand photographs to pack. There were certain things she could not leavebehind her. Then there was a melancholy hour to spend in the stable, feeding, caressing, and weeping over Arion, who snorted his tenderestsnorts, and licked her hands with abject devotion--almost as if he knewthey were going to part, Vixen thought. 

Last of all came the parting with her mother. Vixen had postponed thiswith an aching dread of a scene, in which she might perchance lose hertemper, and be betrayed into bitter utterances that she wouldafterwards repent with useless tears. She had spoken the truth to herstepfather when she told him that she held her mother blameless; yetthe fact that she had but the smallest share in that mother's heart wascruelly patent to her. 

It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon when Pauline came toViolet's room with a message from Mrs. Winstanley. She had been veryill all the morning, Pauline informed Miss Tempest, suffering severelyfrom nervous headache, and obliged to lie in a darkened room. Even nowshe was barely equal to seeing anyone. 

"Then she had better not see me, " said Vixen icily; "I can write her alittle note to say good-bye. Perhaps it would be just as well. Tellmamma that I will write, Pauline. "

Pauline departed with this message, and returned in five minutes with adistressed visage. 

"Oh, miss!" she exclaimed, "your message quite upset your poor mamma. She said, 'How could she?' and began to get almost hysterical. Andthose hysterical fits end in such fearful headaches. "

"I will come at once, " said Vixen. 

Mrs. Winstanley was lying on a sofa near an open window, the Spanishblinds lowered to exclude the afternoon sunshine, the perfume of thegardens floating in upon the soft summer air. A tiny teapot and cup andsaucer on a Japanese tray showed that the invalid had been luxuriatingin her favourite stimulant. There were vases of flowers about the room, and an all-pervading perfume and coolness--a charm half sensuous, halfaesthetic. 

"Violet, how could you send me such a message?" remonstrated theinvalid fretfully. 

"Dear mamma, I did not want to trouble you. I know how you shrink fromall painful things; and you and I could hardly part without pain, as weare parting to-day. Would it not have been better to avoid anyfarewell?"

"If you had any natural affection, you would never have suggested sucha thing. "

"Then perhaps I have never had any natural affection, " answered Vixen, with subdued bitterness; "or only so small a stock that it ran outearly in my life, and left me cold and hard and unloving. I am sorry weare parting like this, mamma. I am still more sorry that you could notspare me a little of the regard which you have bestowed so lavishlyupon a stranger. "

"Violet, how can you?" sobbed her mother. "To accuse me of withholdingmy affection from you, when I have taken such pains with you from yourvery cradle! I am sure your frocks, from the day you were short-coated, were my constant care; and when you grew a big, lanky girl, who wouldhave looked odious in commonplace clothes, it was my delight to inventpicturesque and becoming costumes for you. I have spent hours poringover books of prints, studying Vandyke and Sir Peter Lely, and I havelet you wear some of my most valuable lace; and as for indulgence ofyour whims! Pray when have I ever thwarted you in anything?"

"Forgive me, mamma!" cried Vixen penitently. She divined dimly--even inthe midst of that flood of bitter feeling in which her young soul wasoverwhelmed--that Mrs. Winstanley had been a good mother, according toher lights. The tree had borne such fruit as was natural to its kind. "Pray forgive me! You have been good and kind and indulgent, and weshould have gone on happily together to the end of the chapter, if fatehad been kinder. "

"It's no use your talking of fate in that way, Violet, " retorted hermother captiously. "I know you mean Conrad. "

"Perhaps I do, mamma; but don't let us talk of him any more. We shouldnever agree about him. You and he can be quite happy when I am gone. Poor, dear, trusting, innocent-minded mamma!" cried Vixen, kneeling byher mother's chair, and putting her arms round her ever so tenderly. "May your path or life be smooth and strewn with flowers when I amgone. If Captain Winstanley does not always treat you kindly, he willbe a greater scoundrel than I think him. But he has always been kind toyou, has he not, mamma? You are not hiding any sorrow of yours fromme?' asked Vixen, fixing her great brown eyes on her mother's face withearnest inquiry. She had assumed the maternal part. She seemed ananxious mother questioning her daughter. 

"Kind to me, " echoed Mrs. Winstanley. "He has been all goodness. Wehave never had a difference of opinion since we were married. "

"No, mamma, because you always defer to his opinion. "

"Is not that my duty, when I know how clever and far-seeing he is?"

"Frankly, dear mother, are you as happy with this new husband ofyours--so wise and far-seeing, and determined to have his own way ineverything--as you were with my dear, indulgent, easy-tempered father?"

Pamela Winstanley burst into a passion of tears. 

"How can you be so cruel?" she exclaimed. "Who can give back the past, or the freshness and brightness of one's youth? Of course I was happierwith your dear father than I can ever be again. It is not in naturethat it should be otherwise. How could you be so heartless as to ask mesuch a question?"

She dried her tears slowly, and was not easily comforted. It seemed asif that speech of Violet's had touched a spring that opened a fountainof grief. 

"This means that mamma is not happy with her second husband, in spiteof her praises of him, " thought Vixen. 

She remained kneeling by her mother's side comforting her as best shecould, until Mrs. Winstanley had recovered from the wound herdaughter's heedless words had inflicted, and then Violet began to saygood-bye. 

"You will write to me sometimes, won't you, mamma, and tell me how thedear old place is going on, and about the old people who die--dearfamiliar white heads that I shall never see again--and the young peoplewho get married, and the babies that are born? You will write often, won't you, mamma?"

"Yes, dear, as often as my strength will allow. "

"You might even get Pauline to write to me sometimes, to tell me howyou are and what you are doing; that would be better than nothing. "

"Pauline shall write when I am not equal to holding a pen, " sighed Mrs. Winstanley. 

"And, dear mamma, if you can prevent it, don't let any more of the oldservants be sent away. If they drop off one by one home will seem likea strange place at last. Remember how they loved my dear father, howattached and faithful they have been to us. They are like our own fleshand blood. "

"I should never willingly part with servants who know my ways, Violet. But as to Bates's dismissal--there are some things I had rather notdiscuss with you--I am sure that Conrad acted for the best, and fromthe highest motives. "

"Do you know anything about this place to which I am going, mamma?"asked Vixen, letting her mother's last speech pass without comment; "orthe lady who is to be my duenna?"

"Your future has been fully discussed between Conrad and me, Violet. Hetells me that the old Jersey manor house--Les Tourelles it iscalled--is a delightful place, one of the oldest seats in Jersey, andMiss Skipwith, to whom it belongs, is a well-informed conscientious oldlady, very religious, I believe, so you will have to guard against yoursad habit of speaking lightly about sacred things, my dear Violet. "

"Do you intend me to live there for ever, mamma?"

"For ever! What a foolish question. In six years you will be of age, and your own mistress. "

"Six years--six years in a Jersey manor house--with a pious old lady. Don't you think that would seem very much like for ever, mamma?" askedVixen gravely. 

"My dear Violet, neither Conrad nor I want to banish you from yournatural home. We only want you to learn wisdom. When Mr. Vawdrey ismarried, and when you have learnt to think more kindly of my dearhusband----"

"That last change will never happen to me, mamma. I should have to dieand be born again first, and, even then, I think my dislike of CaptainWinstanley is so strong that purgatorial fires would hardly burn itout. No, mamma, we had better say good-bye without any forecast of thefuture. Let us forget all that is sad in our parting, and think we areonly going to part for a little while. "

Many a time in after days did Violet Tempest remember those lastserious words of hers. The rest of her conversation with her mother wasabout trifles, the trunks and bonnet-boxes she was to carry withher--the dresses she was to wear in her exile. 

"Of course in a retired old house in Jersey, with an elderly maidenlady, you will not see much society, " said Mrs. Winstanley; "but MissSkipwith must know people--no doubt the best people in the island--andI should not like you to be shabby. Are you really positive that youhave dresses enough to carry you over next winter?"

This last question was asked with deepest solemnity. 

"More than enough, mamma. "

"And do you think your last winter's jacket will do?"

"Excellently. "

"I'm very glad of that, " said her mother, with a sigh of relief, "for Ihave an awful bill of Theodore's hanging over my head. I have beenpaying her sums on account ever since your poor papa's death; and youknow that is never quite satisfactory. All that one has paid hardlyseems to make any difference in the amount due at the end. "

"Don't worry yourself about your bill, mamma. Let it stand over till Icome of age, and then I can help you to pay it. "

"You are very generous, dear; but Theodore would not wait so long, evenfor me. Be sure you take plenty of wraps for the steamer. Summer nightsare often chilly. "

Vixen thought of last night, and the long straight ride through thepine wood, the soft scented air, the young moon shining down at her, and Rorie by her side. Ah, when should she ever know such a summernight as that again?

"Sit down in this low chair by me, and have a cup of tea, dear, " saidMrs. Winstanley, growing more affectionate as the hour of parting drewnearer. "Let us have kettledrum together for the last time, till youcome back to us. "

"For the last time, mamma!" echoed Violet sadly. 

She could not imagine any possible phase of circumstances that wouldfavour her return. Could she come back to see Roderick Vawdrey happywith his wife? Assuredly not. Could she school herself to endure lifeunder the roof that sheltered Conrad Winstanley? A thousand times no. Coming home was something to be dreamt about when she lay asleep in adistant land; but it was a dream that never could be realised. She mustmake herself a new life, somehow, among new people. The old life diedto-day. 

She sat and sipped her tea, and listened while her mother talkedcheerfully of the future, and even pretended to agree; but her heartwas heavy as lead. 

An hour was dawdled away thus, and then, when Mrs. Winstanley began tothink about dressing for dinner, Vixen went off to finish her packing. She excused herself from going down to dinner on the plea or having somuch to do. 

"You could send me up something, please, mamma, " she said. "I am sureyou and Captain Winstanley will dine more pleasantly without me. Ishall see you for a minute in the hall, before I start. "

"You must do as you please, dear, " replied her mother. "I hardly feelequal to going down to dinner myself; but it would not be fair to letConrad eat a second meal in solitude, especially when we are to beparted for two or three days and he is going across the sea. I shallnot have a minute's rest to-night, thinking of you both. "

"Sleep happily, dear mother, and leave us to Providence. The voyagecannot be perilous in such weather as this, " said Vixen, with assumedcheerfulness. 

Two hours later the carriage was at the door, and Violet Tempest wasready to start. Her trunks were on the roof of the brougham, herdressing-bag, and travelling-desk, and wraps were stowed away inside;Argus was by her side, his collar provided with a leather strap, bywhich she could hold him when necessary. Captain Winstanley was smokinga cigar on the porch. 

Mrs. Winstanley came weeping out of the drawing-room, and hugged herdaughter silently. Violet returned the embrace, but said not a wordtill just at the last. 

"Dear mother, " she whispered earnestly, "never be unhappy about me. Letme bear the blame of all that has gone amiss between us. "

"You had better be quick, Miss Tempest, if you want to be in time forthe boat, " said the Captain from the porch. 

"I am quite ready, " answered Vixen calmly. 

Phoebe was at the carriage-door, tearful, and in everybody's way, butpretending to help. Argus was sent up to the box, where he sat besidethe coachman with much gravity of demeanour, having first assuredhimself that his mistress was inside the carriage. Mrs. Winstanleystood in the porch, kissing her hand; and so the strong big horses borethe carriage away, through the dark shrubberies, between banks ofshadowy foliage, out into the forest-road, which was full of ghosts atthis late hour, and would have struck terror to the hearts of anyhorses unaccustomed to its sylvan mysteries. 

They drove through Lyndhurst, where the twinkling little lights in theshop-windows were being extinguished by envious shutters, and where theshop-keepers paused in their work of extinction to stare amazedly atthe passing carriage; not that a carriage was a strange apparition inLyndhurst, but because the inhabitants had so little to do except stare. 

Anon they came to Bolton's Bench, beneath a cluster of pine-trees on ahilly bit of common, and then the long straight road to Southampton laybefore them in the faint moonshine, with boggy levels, blackfurze-bushes, and a background of wood on either side. Violet satlooking steadily out of the window, watching every bit of the road. Howcould she tell when she would see it again--or if ever, save in sadregretful dreams?

They mounted the hill, from whose crest Vixen took one last backwardslook at the wide wild land that lay behind them--a look of ineffablelove and longing. And then she threw herself back in the carriage, andgave herself up to gloomy thought. There was nothing more that shecared to see. They had entered the tame dull world of civilisation. They drove through the village of Eling, where lights burned dimly hereand there in upper windows; they crossed the slow meandering river atRedbridge. Already the low line of lights in Southampton city began toshine faintly in the distance. Violet shut her yes and let thelandscape go by. Suburban villas, suburban gardens on a straight roadbeside a broad river with very little water in it. There was nothinghere to regret. 

It was past eleven when they drove under the old bar, and through thehigh street of Southampton. The town seemed strange to Vixen at thisunusual hour. The church clocks were striking the quarter. Down by thedocks everything had a gray and misty look, sky and waterindistinguishable. There lay the Jersey boat, snorting and puffing, amidst the dim grayness. Captain Winstanley conducted his charge to theladies' cabin, with no more words than were positively necessary. Theyhad not spoken once during the drive from the Abbey House toSouthampton. 

"I think you had better stay down here till the vessel has started, atany rate, " said the Captain, "there will be so much bustle andconfusion on deck. I'll take care of your dog. "

"Thanks, " answered Vixen meekly. "Yes, I'll stay here--you need nottrouble yourself about me. "

"Shall I send you something? A cup of tea, the wing of a chicken, alittle wine and water?"

"No, thanks, I don't care about anything. "

The Captain withdrew after this to look after the luggage, and tosecure his own berth. The stewardess received Violet as if she hadknown her all her life, showed her the couch allotted to her, and tosecure which the Captain had telegraphed that morning from Lyndhurst. 

"It was lucky your good gentleman took the precaution to telegraph, mum, " said the cordial stewardess; "the boats are always crowded atthis time of the year, and the _Fanny_ is such a favourite. "

The cabin was wide and lofty and airy, quite an exceptional thing inladies' cabins; but presently there came a troop of stout matrons withtheir olive-branches, all cross and sleepy, and dazed at findingthemselves in a strange place at an unearthly hour. There was the usualsprinkling of babies, and most of the babies cried. One baby wasafflicted with unmistakable whooping cough, and was a source of terrorto the mothers of all the other babies. There was a general opening ofhand-bags and distribution of buns, biscuits, and sweeties for thecomfort and solace of this small fry. Milk was imbibed noisily out ofmysterious bottles, some of them provided with gutta-percha tubes, which made the process of refreshment look like laying on gas. Vixenturned her back upon the turmoil, and listened to the sad sea wavesplashing lazily against the side of the boat. 

She wondered what Rorie was doing at this midnight hour? Did he knowyet that she was gone--vanished out of his life for ever? No; he couldhardly have heard of her departure yet awhile, swiftly as all tidingstravelled in that rustic world of the Forest. Had he made up his mindto keep faith with Lady Mabel? Had he forgiven Vixen for refusing toabet him in treachery against his affianced?

"Poor Rorie, " sighed the girl; "I think we might have been happytogether. "

And then she remembered the days of old, when Mr. Vawdrey was free, andwhen it had never dawned upon his slow intelligence that his oldplayfellow, Violet Tempest, was the one woman in all this wide worldwho had the power to make his life happy. 

"I think he thought lightly of me because of all our foolishness whenhe was a boy, " mused Vixen. "I seemed to him less than otherwomen--because of those old sweet memories--instead of more. "

It was a dreary voyage for Violet Tempest--a kind of maritimepurgatory. The monotonous thud of the engine, the tramping of feetoverhead, the creaking and groaning of the vessel, the squallingbabies, the fussy mothers, the dreadful people who could not travelfrom Southampton to Jersey on a calm summer night without exhibitingall the horrors of seasickness. Vixen thought of the sufferings of poorblack human creatures in the middle passage, of the ghastly terrors ofa mutiny, of a ship on fire, of the Ancient Mariner on his slimy sea, when

 The very deep did rot; O Christ, That ever this should be; Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea!

She wondered in her weary soul whether these horrors, which literaturehad made familiar to her, were much worse than the smart white and goldcabin of the good ship _Fanny_, filled to overflowing with the contentsof half-a-dozen nurseries. 

Towards daybreak there came a lull. The crossest of the babies hadexhausted its capacity for making its fellow-creatures miserable. Thesea-sick mothers and nurses had left off groaning, and startingconvulsively from their pillows, with wild shrieks for the stewardess, and had sunk into troubled slumbers. Vixen turned her back upon thedreadful scene--dimly lighted by flickering oil-lamps, like those thatburn before saintly shrines in an old French cathedral--and shut hereyes and tried to lose herself in the tangled wilderness of sleep. Butto-night that blessed refuge of the unhappy was closed against her. Thecalm angel of sleep would have nothing to do with a soul so troubled. She could only lie staring at the port-hole, which stared back at herlike a giant's dark angry eye, and waiting for morning. 

Morning came at last, with the skirmishing toilets of the children, fearful struggles for brushes and combs, towel fights, perpetualclamour for missing pieces of soap, a great deal of talk about stringsand buttons, and a chorus of crying babies. Then stole through thestuffy atmosphere savoury odours of breakfast, the fumes of coffee, fried bacon, grilled fish. Sloppy looking cups of tea were administeredto the sufferers of last night. The yellow sunshine filled the cabin. Vixen made a hasty toilet, and hurried up to the deck. Here all wasglorious. A vast world of sunlit water. No sign yet of rock-boundisland above the white-crested waves. The steamer might have been inthe midst of the Atlantic. Captain Winstanley was on the bridge, smoking his morning cigar. He gave Violet a cool nod, which shereturned as coolly. She found a quiet corner where she could sit andwatch the waves slowly rising and falling, the white foam-crests slowlygathering, the light spray dashing against the side of the boat, thecataract of white roaring water leaping from the swift paddle-wheel andmelting into a long track of foam. By-and-by they came to Guernsey, which looked grim and military, and not particularly inviting, even inthe morning sunlight. That picturesque island hides her beauties fromthose who only behold her from the sea. Here there was an exodus ofpassengers, and of luggage, and an invasion of natives with baskets offruit. Vixen bought some grapes and peaches of a female native in acap, whose patois was the funniest perversion of French and Englishimaginable. And then a bell rang clamorously, and there was a generalstampede, and the gangway was pulled up and the vessel was steaminggaily towards Jersey; while Vixen sat eating grapes and lookingdreamily skyward, and wondering whether her mother was sleepingpeacefully under the dear old Abbey House roof, undisturbed by any pangof remorse for having parted with an only child so lightly. 

An hour or so and Jersey was in sight, all rocky peaks andpromontories. Anon the steamer swept round a sudden curve, and lo, Vixen beheld a bristling range of fortifications, a rather untidyharbour, and the usual accompaniments of a landing-place, the midsummersun shining vividly upon the all pervading whiteness. 

"Is this the bay that some people have compared to Naples?" Violetasked her conductor, with a contemptuous curl of her mobile lip, as sheand Captain Winstanley took their seats in a roomy old fly, upon whichthe luggage was being piled in the usual mountainous andinsecure-looking style. 

"You have not seen it yet from the Neapolitan point of view, " said theCaptain. "This quay is not the prettiest bit of Jersey. "

"I am glad of that, very glad, " answered Vixen acidly; "for if it were, the Jersey notion of the beautiful would be my idea of ugliness. Ohwhat an utterly too horrid street!" she cried, as the fly drove throughthe squalid approach to the town, past dirty gutter-bred children, andwomen with babies, who looked to the last degree Irish, and the deadhigh wall of the fortifications. "Does your aunt live hereabouts, _parexemple_, Captain Winstanley?"

"My aunt lives six good miles from here, Miss Tempest, in one of theloveliest spots in the island, amidst scenery that is almost as fine asthe Pyrenees. "

"I have heard people say that of anything respectable in the shape of ahill, " answered Vixen, with a dubious air. 

She was in a humour to take objection to everything, and had a flippantair curiously at variance with the dull aching of her heart. She wasdetermined to take the situation lightly. Not for worlds would she havelet Captain Winstanley see her wounds, or guess how deep they were. Sheset her face steadily towards the hills in which her place of exile washidden, and bore herself bravely. Conrad Winstanley gave her many afurtive glance as he sat opposite her in the fly, while they droveslowly up the steep green country lanes, leaving the white town in thevalley below them. 

"The place is not so bad, after all, " said Vixen, looking back at theconglomeration of white walls and slate roofs, of docks and shipping, and barracks, on the edge of a world of blue water, "not nearly soodious as it looked when we landed. But it is a little disappointing atbest, like all places that people praise ridiculously. I had picturedJersey as a tropical island, with cactuses and Cape jasmine growing inthe hedges, orchards of peaches and apricots, and melons running wild. "

"To my mind the island is a pocket edition of Devonshire with a dash ofBrittany, " answered the Captain. "There's a fig-tree for you!" hecried, pointing to a great spreading mass of five-fingered leaveslolloping over a pink plastered garden-wall--an old untidy tree thathad swallowed up the whole extent of a cottager's garden. "You don'tsee anything like that in the Forest. "

"No, " answered Vixen, tightening her lips; "we have only oaks andbeeches that have been growing since the Heptarchy. "

And now they entered a long lane, where the interlaced tree-tops madean arcade of foliage--a lane whose beauty even Vixen could not gainsay. Ah, there were the Hampshire ferns on the steep green banks! She gave alittle choking sob at sight of them, as if they had been living things. Hart's-tongue, and lady-fern, and the whole family of osmundas. Yes;they were all there. It was like home--with a difference. 

Here and there they passed a modern villa, in its park-like grounds, and the Captain, who evidently wished to be pleasant, tried to expoundto Violet the conditions of Jersey leases, and the difficulties whichattend the purchase of land or tenements in that feudal settlement. ButVixen did not even endeavour to understand him. She listened with anair of polite vacancy which was not encouraging. 

They passed various humbler homesteads, painted a lively pink, or arefreshing lavender, with gardens where the fuchsias were trees coveredwith crimson bloom, and where gigantic hydrangeas bloomed in palestpink and brightest azure in wildest abundance. Here Vixen beheld forthe first time those preposterous cabbages from whose hyper-naturalgrowth the islanders seem to derive a loftier pride than from any otherproductions of the island, not excepting its grapes and its lobsters. 

"I don't suppose you ever saw cabbages growing six feet high before, "said the Captain. 

"No, " answered Vixen; "they are too preposterous to be met with in acivilised country. Poor Charles the Second! I don't wonder that he waswild and riotous when he came to be king. "

"Why not?"

"Because he had spent several months of exile among his loyal subjectsin Jersey. A man who had been buried alive in such a fragmentary bit ofthe world must have required some compensation in after life. "

They had mounted a long hill which seemed the pinnacle of the island, and from whose fertile summit the view was full of beauty--a greenundulating garden-world, ringed with yellow sands and bright blue sea;and now they began to descend gently by a winding lane where again thetopmost elm-branches were interwoven, and where the glowing June daywas softened to a tender twilight. A curve in the lane brought themsuddenly to an old gateway, with a crumbling stone bench in a nookbeside it--a bench where the wayfarer used to sit and wait for alms, when the site of Les Tourelles was occupied by a monastery. 

The old manor house rose up behind the dilapidated wall--a goodly oldhouse as to size and form--overlooking a noble sweep of hillside andvalley; a house with a gallery on the roof for purposes of observation, but with as dreary and abandoned a look about its blank curtainlesswindows as if mansion and estate had been in Chancery for the lasthalf-century. 

"A fine old place, is it not?" asked the Captain, while a cracked bellwas jingling in remote distance, amidst the drowsy summer stillness, without eliciting so much as the bark of a house-dog. 

"It looks very big, " Violet answered dubiously, "and very empty. "

"My aunt has no relatives residing with her. "

"If she had started in life with a large family of brothers andsisters, I should think they would all be dead by this time, " said thegirl, with a stifled yawn that was half a sigh. 

"How do you mean?"

"They would have died of the stillness and solitude and all-pervadingdesolation of Les Tourelles. "

"Strange houses are apt to look desolate. "

"Yes. Particularly when the windows have neither blinds nor curtains, and the walls have not been painted for a century. "

After this conversation flagged. The jingling bell was once more setgoing in the unknown distance; Vixen sat looking sleepily at the archedroof of foliage chequered with blue sky. Argus lolled against thecarriage-door with his tongue out. 

They waited five minutes or so, languidly expectant. Vixen began towonder whether the gates would ever open--whether there were really anyliving human creatures in that blank dead-looking house--whether theywould not have to give up all idea of entering, and drive back to theharbour, and return to Hampshire by the way they had come. 

While she sat idly wondering thus, with the sleepy buzz of summerinsects and melodious twittering of birds soothing her senses like alullaby, the old gate groaned upon its rusty hinges, and a middle-agedwoman in a black gown and a white cap appeared--a female who recognisedCaptain Winstanley with a curtsey, and came out to receive the smallerpackages from the flyman. 

"Antony will take the portmanteaux, " she said; "the boat must have comein earlier than usual. We did not expect you so soon. "

"This is one of Miss Skipwith's servants, " thought Vixen; "rather avinegary personage. I hope the other maids are nicer. "

The person spoken of as Antony now appeared, and began to hale aboutViolet's portmanteaux. He was a middle-aged man, with a bald head and amelancholy aspect. His raiment was shabby; his costume somethingbetween that of a lawyer's clerk and an agricultural labourer. Argussaluted this individual with a suppressed growl. 

"Sh!" cried the female vindictively, flapping her apron at the dog, "whose dog is this, sir? He doesn't belong to you, surely?"

"He belongs to Miss Tempest. You must find a corner for him somewherein the outbuildings, Hannah, " said the Captain. "The dog is harmlessenough, and friendly enough when he is used to people. "

"That won't be much good if he bites us before he gets used to us, andwe die of hydrophobia in the meantime, " retorted Hannah; "I believe hehas taken a dislike to Antony already. "

"Argus won't bite anyone, " said Vixen, laying her hand upon the dog'scollar, "I'll answer for his good conduct. Please try and find him anice snug nest somewhere--if I mustn't have him in the house. "

"In the house!" cried Hannah. "Miss Skipwith would faint at the mentionof such a thing. I don't know how she'll ever put up with a huge beastlike that anywhere about the place. He must be kept as much out of hersight as possible. "

"I'm sorry Argus isn't welcome, " said Vixen proudly. 

She was thinking that her own welcome at Les Tourelles could hardly bemore cordial than that accorded to Argus. She had left home becausenobody wanted her there. How could she expect that anyone wanted herhere, where she was a stranger, preceded, perhaps, by the reputation ofher vices? The woman in the rusty mourning-gown, the man in the shabbyraiment and clod-hopper boots, gave her no smile of greeting. Over thisnew home of hers there hung an unspeakable melancholy. Her heart sankas she crossed the threshold. 

Oh, what a neglected, poverty-stricken air the garden had, after thegardens Violet Tempest had been accustomed to look upon! Ragged trees, rank grass, empty flower-beds, weeds in abundance. A narrow pavedcolonnade ran along one side of the house. They went by this paved wayto a dingy little door--not the hall-door, that was never opened--andentered the house by a lobby, which opened into a small parlour, darkand shabby, with one window looking into a court-yard. There were agood many books upon the green baize table-cover; pious books mostly, Vixen saw, with a strange revulsion of feeling; as if that were theculmination of her misery. There was an old-fashioned work-table, witha faded red silk well, beside the open window. A spectacle-case on thework-table, and an armchair before it, indicated that the room had beenlately occupied. It was altogether one of the shabbiest rooms Vixen hadever seen--the furniture belonging to the most odious period ofcabinet-making, the carpet unutterably dingy, the walls mildewed andmouldy, the sole decorations some pale engravings of naval battles, which might be the victories or defeats of any maritime hero, fromDrake to Nelson. 

"Come and see the house, " said the Captain, reading the disgust in hisstepdaughter's pale face. 

He opened a door leading into the hall, a large and lofty apartment, with a fine old staircase ascending to a square gallery. The heavy oakbalusters had been painted white, so had the panelling in the hall. Time had converted both to a dusky gray. Some rusty odds and ends ofarmour, and a few dingy family portraits decorated the walls; but offurniture there was not a vestige. 

Opening out of the hall there was a large long room with four windowslooking into a small wilderness that had once been a garden, andcommanding a fine view of land and sea. This the Captain called thedrawing-room. It was sparsely furnished with a spindle-legged table, half-a-dozen armchairs covered with faded tapestry, an antiquewalnut-wood cabinet, another of ebony, a small oasis of carpet in themiddle of the bare oak floor. 

"This and the parlour you have seen are all the sitting-rooms my auntoccupies, " said Captain Winstanley; "the rest of the rooms on thisfloor are empty, or only used for storehouses. It is a fine old house. I believe the finest in the island. "

"Is there a history hanging to it?" asked Vixen, looking drearily roundthe spacious desolate chamber. "Has it been used as a prison, or amadhouse, or what? I never saw a house that filled me with suchnameless horrors. "

"You are fanciful, " said the Captain. "The house has no story exceptthe common history of fallen fortunes. It has been in the Skipwithfamily ever since it was built. They were Leicestershire people, andcame to Jersey after the civil war--came here to be near their princein his exile--settled here and built Les Tourelles. I believe theyexpected Charles would do something handsome for them when he came intohis own, but he didn't do anything. Sir John Skipwith stayed in theisland and became a large landowner, and died at an advanced age--thereis nothing to kill people here, you see--and the Skipwiths have beenJersey people ever since. They were once the richest family in theisland. They are now one of the poorest. When I say they, I mean myaunt. She is the last of her race. The Skipwiths have crystallised intoone maiden lady, my mother's only sister. "

"Then your mother was a Skipwith?" asked Violet. 

"Yes. "

"And she was born and brought up here?"

"Yes. She never left Jersey till my father married her. He was herewith his regiment when they met at the governor's ball. Oh, here is myaunt, " said the Captain, as a rustling of silk sounded in the emptyhall. 

Vixen drew herself up stiffly, as if preparing to meet a foe. She hadmade up her mind to detest Miss Skipwith. 

The lady of the manor entered. She shook hands with her nephew, andpresented him with a pale and shrivelled cheek, which he respectfullysaluted. 

She was an elderly and faded person, very tall and painfully thin, butaristocratic to the highest degree. There was the indication of race inher aquiline nose, high narrow brow and neatly cut chin, her taperinghand and small slender foot. She was dressed in black silk, rustier andolder than any silk Vixen had ever seen before: not even excepting Mrs. Scobel's black silk dresses, when they had been degraded from theiroriginal rank to the scrubbery of early services and daily wear. Herthin gray hair was shaded by a black lace cap, decorated with buglesand black weedy grasses. She wore black mittens, and jet jewellery, andwas altogether as deeply sable as if she had been in mourning for thewhole of the Skipwith race. 

She received Miss Tempest with a formal politeness which was notencouraging. 

"I hope you will be able to make yourself happy here, " she said; "andthat you have resources within yourself that will suffice for theemployment of your time and thoughts. I receive no company, and I nevergo out. The class of people who now occupy the island are a class withwhich I should not care to associate, and which, I daresay, would notappreciate me. I have my own resources, and my life is fully employed. My only complaint is that the days are not long enough. A quietexistence like mine offers vast opportunities for culture andself-improvement. I hope you will take advantage of them, Miss Tempest. "

Poor Violet faltered something vaguely civil, looking sorely bewilderedall the time. Miss Skipwith's speech sounded so like the address of aschoolmistress that Vixen began to think she had been trapped unawaresin a school, as people are sometimes trapped in a madhouse. 

"I don't think Miss Tempest is given much to study, " said the Captaingraciously, as if he and Violet were on the friendliest terms; "but sheis very fond of the country, and I am sure the scenery of Jersey willdelight her. By-the-way, we ventured to bring her big dog. He will be acompanion and protector for her in her walks. I have asked Doddery tofind him a kennel somewhere among your capacious outbuildings. "

"He must not come into the house, " said Miss Skipwith grimly; "Icouldn't have a dog inside my doors. I have a Persian that has been myattached companion for the last ten years. What would that dearcreature's feelings be if he saw himself exposed to the attacks of asavage dog?"

"My dog is not savage, to Persians or anyone else, " cried Vixen, wondering what inauspicious star had led the footsteps of an orientalwander to so dreary a refuge as Les Tourelles. 

"You would like to see your bedroom, perhaps?" suggested Miss Skipwith, and on Violet's assenting, she was handed over to Hannah Doddery, thewoman who had opened the gate. 

Hannah led the way up the broad old staircase, all bare and carpetless, and opened one of the doors in the gallery. The room into which sheushered Violet was large and airy, with windows commanding the fairgarden-like island, and the wide blue sea. But there was the same bare, poverty-stricken look in this room as in every other part of the manorhouse. The bed was a tall melancholy four-poster, with scantiestdraperies of faded drab damask. Save for one little islet of threadbareBrussels beside the bed, the room was carpetless. There was an ancientwainscot wardrobe with brass handles. There was a modern dealdressing-table skimpily draped with muslin, and surmounted by thesmallest of looking-glasses. There were a couple of chairs and athree-cornered washhand-stand. There was neither sofa norwriting-table. There was not an ornament on the high woodenmantelshelf, or a picture on the panelled walls. Vixen shivered as shesurveyed the big barren room. 

"I think you will find everything comfortable, " said Mrs. Doddery, witha formal air, which seemed to say, "and whether you do or do notmatters nothing to me. "

"Thank you, yes, I daresay it is all right, " Vixen answered absently, standing at one of the windows, gazing out over the green hills andvalleys to the fair summer sea, and wondering whether she would be ableto take comfort from the fertile beauty of the island. 

"The bed has been well aired, " continued Mrs. Doddery, "and I cananswer for the cleanliness of everything. "

"Thanks! Will you kindly send one of the maids to help me unpack myportmanteau?"

"I can assist you, " Mrs. Doddery answered. "We have no maid-servant. Myhusband and I are able to do all that Miss Skipwith requires. She is alady who gives so little trouble. "

"Do you mean to say there are no other servants in this great house--nohousemaids, no cooks?"

"I have cooked for Miss Skipwith for the last thirty years. The houseis large, but there are very few rooms in occupation. "

"I ought to have brought my maid, " cried Vixen. "It will be quitedreadful. I don't want much waiting upon; but still, I'm afraid I shallgive some trouble until I learn to do everything for myself. Just as ifI were cast on a desert island, " she said to herself in conclusion; andthen she thought of Helen Rolleston, the petted beauty in CharlesReade's "Foul Play, " cast with her faithful lover on an unknown islandof the fair southern sea. But in this island of Jersey there was nofaithful lover to give romance and interest to the situation. There wasnothing but dull dreary reality. 

"I daresay I shall be able to do all you require, without feeling itany extra trouble, unless you are very helpless, " said Mrs. Doddery, who was on her knees unstrapping one of the portmanteaux. 

"I am not helpless, " replied Vixen, "though I daresay I have beenwaited on much more than was good for me. "

And then she knelt down before the other portmanteau, and undid thebuckles of the thick leather straps, in which operation she broke morethan one of her nails, and wounded her rosy finger-tips. 

"Oh dear, what a useless creature I am, " she thought; "and why dopeople strap portmanteaux so tightly? Never mind, after a month'sresidence at Les Tourelles I shall be a Spartan. "

"Would you like me to unpack your trunks for you?" inquired Mrs. Doddery, with an accent which sounded slightly ironical. 

"Oh no, thanks, I can get on very well now, " answered Vixen quickly;whereupon the housekeeper opened the drawers and cupboards in the bigwainscot wardrobe, and left Miss Tempest to her own devices. 

The shelves and drawers were neatly lined with white paper, and strewedwith dried lavender. This was luxury which Vixen had not expected. Shelaid her pretty dresses on the shelves, smiling scornfully as shelooked at them. Of what use could pretty dresses be in a desert island?And here were her riding-habit and her collection of whips--uselesslumber where there was no hope of a horse. She was obliged to put herbooks in the wardrobe, as there was no other place for them. Her deskand workbox she was fain to place on the floor, for the smalldressing-table would accommodate no more than her dressing-case, devotional books, brushes and combs, pomatum-pots, and pinboxes. 

"Oh dear, " she sighed. "I have a great deal too much property for adesert island. I wonder whether in some odd corner of Les Tourelles Icould find such a thing as a spare table?"

When she had finished her unpacking she went down to the hall. Notseeing anyone about, and desiring rather to avoid Captain Winstanleyand his aunt than to rejoin them, she wandered out of the hall into oneof the many passages of the old manor house, and began a voyage ofdiscovery on her own account. 

"If they ask me what I have been doing I can say I lost myself, " shethought. 

She found the most curious rooms--or rather rooms that had once beenstately and handsome, now applied to the most curious purposes--adining-hall with carved stone chimney-piece and painted ceiling, usedas a storehouse for apples; another fine apartment in which a heap ofpotatoes reposed snugly in a corner, packed in straw; there was aspacious kitchen with a fire-place as large as a moderate-sized room--akitchen that had been abandoned altogether to spiders, beetles, rats, and mice. A whole army of four-footed vermin scampered off as Vixencrossed the threshold. She could see them scuttling and scurrying alongby the wall, with a whisking of slender tails as they vanished intotheir holes. The beetles were disporting themselves on the desolatehearth, the spiders had woven draperies for the dim dirty windows. Therustling leaves of a fig-tree, that had grown close to this side of thehouse, flapped against the window-panes with a noise of exceedingghostliness. 

From the kitchen Vixen wandered to the out-houses, and found Argushowling dismally in a grass-grown court-yard, evidently believinghimself abandoned by the world. His rapture at beholding his mistresswas boundless. 

"You darling, I would give the world to let you loose, " cried Vixen, after she had been nearly knocked down by the dog's affectionategreeting; "but I mustn't just yet. I'll come by-and-by and take you fora walk. Yes, dear old boy, we'll have a long ramble together, just aswe used to do at home. "

Home, now she had left it, seemed so sweet a word that her lipstrembled a little as she pronounced it. 

Everything without the house was as dreary as it was within. Povertyhad set its mark on all things, like a blight. Decay was visibleeverywhere--in the wood-work, in the stone-work, in hinges and handles, thresholds and lintels, ceilings and plastered walls. It would havecost a thousand pounds to put the manor house in decent habitableorder. To have restored it to its original dignity and comeliness wouldhave cost at least five thousand. Miss Skipwith could afford to spendnothing upon the house she lived in; indeed she could barely afford thenecessaries of life. So for the last thirty years Les Tourelles hadbeen gradually decaying, until the good old house had arrived at astage in which decay could hardly go farther without lapsing intodestruction. 

A door opened out of the court-yard into the weedy garden. This was notwithout a kind of beauty that had survived long neglect. The spreadingfig-trees, the bushes of bright red fuchsia, and the unpruned rosesmade a fertile wilderness of flowers and foliage. There was a terracein front of the drawing-room windows, and from this a flight ofcrumbling moss-grown stone steps led down to the garden, which was onthe slope of the hill, and lay considerably below the level of thehouse. 

While Vixen was perambulating the garden, a bell rang in a cupola onthe roof; and as this sounded like the summons to a meal, she felt thatpoliteness, if not appetite, demanded her return to the house. 

"Three o'clock, " she said, looking at her watch. "What a late hour forluncheon!"

She made her way back to the small side-door at which she had enteredwith Captain Winstanley, and went into the parlour, where she found theCaptain and his aunt. The table was laid, but they had not seatedthemselves. 

"I hope I have not kept you waiting, " Vixen said apologetically. 

"My aunt has been waiting five minutes or so; but I'm sure she willforgive you, as you don't yet know the ways of the house, " replied theCaptain amiably. 

"We have early habits at Les Tourelles, Miss Tempest, " said the lady ofthe manor: "we breakfast at half-past seven and dine at three; thatarrangement gives me a long morning for study. At six we drink tea, and, if you care for supper, it can be served for you on a tray athalf-past nine. The house is shut, and all lamps put out, at ten. "

"As regularly as on board ship, " said the Captain. "I know the customsof the manor of old. "

"You have never favoured me with a long visit, Conrad, " remarked MissSkipwith reproachfully. 

"My life has been too busy for making long visits anywhere, my dearaunt. "

They took their places at the small square table, and Miss Skipwithsaid grace. Antony Doddery was in attendance, clad in rusty black, andlooking as like a butler as a man who cleaned windows, scrubbed floors, and hewed wood could be fairly expected to look. He removed the coverof a modest dish of fish with a grand air, and performed all theservices of the table with as much dignity as if he had never beenanything less than a butler. He poured out a glass of ale for theCaptain and a glass of water for his mistress. Miss Skipwith seemedrelieved when Violet said she preferred water to ale, and did notparticularly care about wine. 

"I used to drink wine at home very often, just because it was put in myglass, but I like water quite as well, " said Vixen. 

After the fish there came a small joint of lamb, and a couple of dishesof vegetables; then a small custard pudding, and some cheese cut up invery minute pieces in a glass dish, some raw garden-stuff which Dodderycalled salad, and three of last year's pears in an old Derbydessert-dish. The dinner could hardly have been smaller, but it waseminently genteel. 

The conversation was entirely between Captain Winstanley and his aunt. Vixen sat and listened wonderingly, save at odd times, when herthoughts strayed back to the old life which she had done with for ever. 

"You still continue your literary labours, I suppose, aunt, " said theCaptain. 

"They are the chief object of my existence. When I abandon them I shallhave done with life, " replied Miss Skipwith gravely. 

"But you have not yet published your book. "

"No; I hope when I do that even you will hear of it. "

"I have no doubt it will make a sensation. "

"If it does not I have lived and laboured in vain. But my book may makea sensation, and yet fall far short of the result which I have toiledand hoped for. "

"And that is----"

"The establishment of a universal religion. "

"That is a large idea!"

"Would a small idea be worth the devotion of a life? For thirty years Ihave devoted myself to this one scheme. I have striven to focus all thecreeds of mankind in one brilliant centre--eliminating all that is baseand superstitious in each several religion, crystallising all that isgood and true. The Buddhist, the Brahmin, the Mohamedan, theSun-worshipper, the Romanist, the Calvinist, the Lutheran, theWesleyan, the Swedenborgian--each and all will find the best andnoblest characteristics of his faith resolved and concentred in myuniversal religion. Here all creeds will meet. Gentler and wiser thanthe theology of Buddha; more humanitarian than the laws of Brahma; moretemperate than the Moslem's code of morality; with a wider grasp ofpower than the Romanist's authoritative Church; severely self-denyingas Calvin's ascetic rule; simple and pious as Wesley's scheme of man'sredemption; spiritual as Swedenborg's vast idea of heaven;--my faithwill open its arms wide enough to embrace all. There need be no moredissent. The mighty circle of my free church will enclose all creedsand all divisions of man, and spread from the northern hemisphere tothe southern seas. Heathenism shall perish before it. The limited viewof Christianity which missionaries have hitherto offered to the heathenmay fail; but my universal church will open its doors to all theworld--and, mark my words, Conrad, all the world will enter in. I maynot live to see the day. My span of life has not long to run--but thatday will come. "

"No doubt, " replied Captain Winstanley gravely. "There is aslovenliness, so to speak, about the present arrangement of things, anda great deal of useless expense; every small town with its half-a-dozenchurches and chapels of different denominations--Episcopalians, Wesleyans, Baptists, Roman Catholics, Primitive Methodists. Now on yourplan one large building would do for all, like the town hall, or thegeneral post office. There would be a wonderful economy. "

"I fear you contemplate the question from an entirely temporal point ofview, " said Miss Skipwith, flattered but yet reproachful. "It is itsspiritual aspect that is grandest. "

"Naturally. But a man of the world is apt to consider thepracticability of a scheme. And yours seems to me eminently practical. If you can only get the Mohamedans and the Brahmins to come in! TheRoman Catholics might of course be easily won, though it would involvedoing away with the Pope. There was a prophecy, by-the-way, that afterthe ninth Pius there would be only eleven more Popes. No doubt thatprophecy pointed at your universal religion. But I fear you may havesome difficulty about the Buddhists. I fancy they are rather a bigotedsect. "

"The greatest bigots have but to be convinced, " said Miss Skipwith. "St. Paul was a bigot. "

"True. Is your book nearly finished?"

"No. There are still some years of labour before me. I am now workingat the Swedenborgian portion, striving to demonstrate how that greatman's scheme of religion, though commonly supposed to be a new andoriginal emanation of one mind, is in reality a reproduction ofspiritual views involved in other and older religions. The Buddhistswere Swedenborgians without knowing it, just as Swedenborgunconsciously was a Buddhist. "

"I begin to understand. The process which you are engaged in is a kindof spiritual chemistry, in which you resolve each particular faith intoits primary elements: with a view to prove that those elements areactually the same in all creeds; and that the differences whichheretofore have kept mankind apart are mere divergencies of detail. "

"That, crudely and imperfectly stated, is my aim, " replied MissSkipwith graciously. 

This kind of conversation continued all through dinner. Miss Skipwithtalked of Buddha, and Confucius, and Mahomet, and Zuinglius, andCalvin, and Luther, as familiarly as if they had been her most intimatefriends; and the Captain led her on and played her as he would haveplayed a trout in one of the winding Hampshire streams. His gravity wasimperturbable. Vixen sat and wondered whether she was to hear this kindof thing every day of her life, and whether she would be expected toask Miss Skipwith leading questions, as the Captain was doing. It wasall very well for him, who was to spend only one day at Les Tourelles;but Vixen made up her mind that she would boldly avow her indifferenceto all creeds and all theologians, from Confucius to Swedenborg. Shemight consent to live for a time amidst the dullness and desolation ofLes Tourelles, but she would not be weighed down and crushed by MissSkipwith's appalling hobby. The mere idea of the horror of having everyday to discuss a subject that was in its very nature inexhaustible, filled her with terror. 

"I would sooner take my meals in that abandoned kitchen, in the companyof the rats and beetles, than have to listen every day to this kind ofthing, " she thought. 

When dinner was over the Captain went off to smoke his cigar in thegarden, and this Vixen thought a good time for making her escape. 

"I should like to take a walk with my dog, if you will excuse me, MissSkipwith, " she said politely. 

"My dear, you must consider yourself at liberty to employ and amuseyourself as you please, of course always keeping strictly within thebounds of propriety, " solemnly replied the lady of the manor. "I shallnot interfere with your freedom. My own studies are of so grave anature that they in a measure isolate me from my fellow-creatures, butwhen you require and ask for sympathy and advice, I shall be ready togive both. My library is at your service, and I hope ere long you willhave found yourself some serious aim for your studies. Life withoutpurpose is a life hardly worth living. If girls of your age could onlyfind that out, and seek their vocation early, how much grander andnobler would be woman's place in the universe. But, alas! my dear, thecommon aim of girlhood seems to be to look pretty and to get married. "

"I have made up my mind never to marry, " said Violet, with a smile thatwas half sad half cynical; "so there at least you may approve of me, Miss Skipwith. "

"My nephew tells me that you refused an excellent offer from an Irishpeer. "

"I would not have done the Irish peer so great a wrong as to havemarried him without loving him. "

"I admire your honourable feeling, " said Miss Skipwith, with solemnapproval; "I, too, might have married, but the man towards whom myheart most inclined was a man of no family. I could not marry a manwithout family. I am weak enough to be prouder of my pedigree thanother women are of beauty and fortune. I am the last of the Skipwiths, and I have done nothing to degrade my race. The family name and thefamily pride will die with me. There was a time when a Skipwith owned athird of the island. Our estate has dwindled to the garden and meadowsthat surround this old house; our family has shrunk into one old woman;but if I can make the name of Skipwith famous before I go down to mygrave, I shall not have lived and laboured in vain. "

Vixen felt a thrill of pity as she listened to this brief confession ofa self-deluded solitary soul, which had built its house upon sand, ashopefully as if the foundations were solidest rock. The line ofdemarcation between such fanaticism as Miss Skipwith's and thehallucination of an old lady in Bedlam, who fancies herself QueenVictoria, seemed to Vixen but a hair's breadth. But, after all, if theold lady and Miss Skipwith were both happy in their harmlessself-deceptions, why should one pity them? The creature to be pitied isthe man or woman who keenly sees and feels the hard realities of life, and cannot take pleasure in phantoms. 

Vixen ran off to her room to get her hat and gloves, delighted to findherself free. Miss Skipwith was not such a very bad sort of person, after all, perhaps. Liberty to roam about the island with her dog Vixenesteemed a great boon. She would be able to think about her troubles, unmolested by inquisitive looks or unwelcome sympathy. 

She went down to the court-yard, untied the faithful Argus, and theyset out together to explore the unknown, the dog in such wild spiritsthat it was almost impossible for Vixen to be sad. The afternoon sunwas shining in all his glory, birds were singing, flickering lights andshadows playing on the grassy banks. Argus scampered up and down thelanes, and burst tumultuously through gaps in the hedges, like a dogpossessed of demons. 

It was a pretty little island, after all; Vixen was fain to admit asmuch. There was some justification for the people who sang its praiseswith such enthusiasm. One might have fancied it a fertile corner ofDevonshire that had slipped its moorings and drifted westward on asummer sea. 

"If I had Arion here, and--Rorie, I think I could be almost happy, "Vixen said to herself with a dreamy smile. 

"And Rorie!"

Alas, poor child! faintly, feebly steadfast in the barren path ofhonour: where could she not have been happy with the companion of herchildhood, the one only love of her youth? Was there ever a spot ofland or sea, from Hudson's Bay to the unmapped archipelago orhypothetical continent of the Southern Pole, where she could not havebeen happy with Roderick Vawdrey? She thought again of Helen Rollestonand her lover on the South Sea island. Ah what a happy fate was that ofthe consumptive heroine! Alone, protected, cherished, and saved fromdeath by her devoted lover. 

Poor Rorie! She knew how well she loved him, now that the wide searolled between them, now that she had said him nay, denied her love, and parted from him for ever. 

She thought of that scene in the pine-wood, dimly lit by the youngmoon. She lived again those marvellous moments--the concentrated blissand pain of a lifetime. She felt again the strong grasp of his hands, his breath upon her cheek, as he bent over her shoulder. Again sheheard him pleading for the life-long union her soul desired as the mostexquisite happiness life could give. 

 "I had not loved thee, dear, so well Loved I not honour more. "

Those two familiar lines flashed into her mind as she thought of herlover. To have degraded herself, to have dishonoured him; no, it wouldhave been too dreadful. Were he to plead again she must answer again asshe had answered before. 

"His mother despised me, " she thought. "If people in a better world arereally _au courant_ as to the affairs of this, I should like Lady JaneVawdrey to know that I am not utterly without the instincts of agentlewoman. "

She wandered on, following the winding of the lanes, careless where shewent, and determined to take advantage of her liberty. She met fewpeople, and of those she did not trouble herself to ask her way. 

"If I lose myself on my desert island it can't much matter, " shethought. "There is no one to be anxious about me. Miss Skipwith will bedeep in her universal creed, and Captain Winstanley would be very gladfor me to be lost. My death would leave him master for life of theAbbey House and all belonging to it. "

She roamed on till she came to the open seashore; a pretty littleharbour surrounded with quaint-looking houses; two or three whitevillas in fertile gardens, on a raised road; and, dominating all thescene, a fine old feudal castle, with keep, battlements, drawbridge, portcullis, and all that becomes a fortress. 

This was Mount Orgueil, the castle in which Charles Stuart spent ashort period of his life, while Cromwell was ruling by land and sea, and kingly hopes were at their lowest ebb. The good old fortress hadsuffered for its loyalty, for the Parliament sent Admiral Blake, with afleet, to reduce the rebellious island to submission, and Mount Orgueilhad not been strong enough to hold out against its assailants. 

Violet wont up the sloping path that led to the grim old gateway underthe gloomy arch, and still upward till she came to a sunny battlementedwall above the shining sea. The prospect was more than worth thetrouble. Yonder, in the dim distance, were the towers of CoutanceCathedral; far away, mere spots in the blue water, were the smaller fryof the Channel Islands; below her, the yellow sands were smiling in thesun, the placid wavelets reflecting all the colour and glory of thechangeful sky. 

"This would not be a bad place to live in, Argus, if----"

She paused with her arm round her dog's neck, as he stood on end, looking over the parapet, with a deep interest in possible rats orrabbits lurking in some cavity of the craggy cliff below. If! Ah, whata big "if" that was! It meant love and dear familiar companionship. Itmeant all Vixen's little world. 

She lingered long. The scene was beautiful, and there was nothing tolure her home. Then, at last, feeling that she was treating poor MissSkipwith badly, and that her prolonged absence might give alarm in thatdreary household, she retraced her steps, and at the foot of the craggymount asked the nearest way to Les Tourelles. 

The nearest way was altogether different from the track by which shehad come, and brought her back to the old monastic gate in a littlemore than an hour. She opened the gate and went in. There was nothingfor the most burglarious invader to steal at Les Tourelles, and boltsand locks were rarely used. Miss Skipwith was reading in her parlour, awhite Persian cat dozing on a cushioned arm-chair beside her, some cupsand saucers and a black teapot on a tray before her, and the rest ofthe table piled with books. There was no sign of Captain Winstanley. 

"I'm afraid I'm rather late, " Vixen said apologetically. 

She felt a kind of half-pitying respect for Miss Skipwith, as aharmless lunatic. 

"My dear, I daresay that as an absolute fact you are late, " answeredthe lady of the manor, without looking up from her book, "but as timeis never too long for me, I have been hardly conscious of the delay. Your stepfather has gone down to the club at St. Helier's to see someof his old acquaintances. Perhaps you would like a cup of tea?"

Vixen replied that she would very much like some tea, whereupon MissSkipwith poured out a weak and tepid infusion, against which the girlinwardly protested. 

"If I am to exist at Les Tourelles, I must at least have decent tea, "she said to herself. "I must buy an occasional pound for my ownconsumption, make friends with Mrs. Doddery, and get her to brew it forme. "

And then Vixen knelt down by the arm-chair and tried to get uponintimate terms with the Persian. He was a serious-minded animal, andseemed inclined to resent her advances, so she left him in peace on hispatchwork cushion, a relic of those earlier days when Miss Skipwith hadsquandered her precious hours on the feminine inanity of needle-work. 

Vixen thought of the German _Volkslied_, as she looked at the old ladyin the black cap, bending over a ponderous volume, with thesolemn-visaged cat coiled on the chair beside her. 

"Minerva's Vogel war ein Kauz. "

The Persian cat seemed as much an attribute of the female theologian asthe bird of the goddess. 

Vixen went to her room soon after dark, and thus avoided the Captain, who did not return till ten. She was worn out with the fatigue of thevoyage, her long ramble, the painful thoughts and manifold agitationsof the last two days. She set her candle on the dressing-table, andlooked round the bare empty room, feeling as if she were in a dream. Itwas all strange, and unhomely, and comfortless; like one of those wilddream-pictures which seem so appallingly real in their hideousunreality. 

"And I am to live here indefinitely--for the next six years, perhaps, until I come of age and am my own mistress. It is too dreadful!"

She went to bed and slept a deep and comforting sleep, for veryweariness: and she dreamt that she was walking on the battlements ofMount Orgueil, in the drowsy afternoon sunlight, with Charles Stuart;and the face of the royal exile was the face of Roderick Vawdrey, andthe hand that held hers as they two stood side by side in the sunshinewas the broad strong hand of her girlhood's friend. 

When she went downstairs between eight and nine next morning she foundMiss Skipwith pacing slowly to and fro the terrace in front of thedrawing-room windows, conning over the pencil notes of her yesterday'sstudies. 

"Your stepfather has been gone half-an-hour, my dear, " said the lady ofthe manor. "He was very sorry to have to go without wishing yougood-bye. "

CHAPTER II. 

Chiefly Financial. 

Violet was gone. Her rooms were empty; her faithful little waiting-maidwas dismissed; her dog's deep-toned thunder no longer sounded throughthe house, baying joyous welcome when his mistress came down for herearly morning ramble in the shrubberies. Arion had been sent to grass, and was running wild in fertile pastures, shoeless and unfettered asthe South American mustang on his native prairie. Nothing associatedwith the exiled heiress was left, except the rooms she had inhabited;and even they looked blank and empty and strange without her. It wasalmost as if a whole family had departed. Vixen's presence seemed tohave filled the house with youth and freshness, and free joyous life. Without her all was silent as the grave. 

Mrs. Winstanley missed her daughter sorely. She had been wont tocomplain fretfully of the girl's exuberance; but the blank her absencemade struck a chill to the mother's heart. She had fancied that lifewould be easier without Violet; that her union with her husband wouldbe more complete; and now she found herself looking wistfully towardsthe door of her morning-room, listening vaguely for a footstep; and thefigure she looked for at the door, and the footsteps she listened forin the corridor were not Conrad Winstanley's. It was the buoyant stepof her daughter she missed; it was the bright frank face of herdaughter she yearned for. 

One day the captain surprised her in tears, and asked the reason of hermelancholy. 

"I daresay it's very weak of me, Conrad, " she said piteously, "but Imiss Violet more and more every day. "

"It is uncommonly weak of you, " answered the Captain with agreeablecandour, "but I suppose it's natural. People generally get attached totheir worries; and as your daughter was an incessant worry, you verynaturally lament her absence. I am honest enough to confess that I amvery glad she is gone. We had no domestic peace while she was with us. "

"But she is not to stay away for ever, Conrad. I cannot be separatedfrom my only daughter for ever. That would be too dreadful. "

"'For ever' is a long word, " answered the Captain coolly. "She willcome back to us--of course. "

"When, dear?"

"When she is older and wiser. "

This was cold comfort. Mrs. Winstanley dried her tears, and resumed hercrewel-work. The interesting variety of shades in green which modernart has discovered were a source of comfort to the mother's troubledmind. Moved to emulation by the results that had been achieved inartistic needle-work by the school at South Kensington and the RoyalTapestry Manufactory at Windsor, Pamela found in her crewel-work anall-absorbing labour. Matilda of Normandy could hardly have toiled moreindustriously at the Bayeux tapestry than did Mrs. Winstanley, in theeffort to immortalise the fleeting glories of woodland blossom orcostly orchid upon kitchen towelling. 

It was a dull and lonely life which the mistress of the Abbey House ledin these latter days of glowing summer weather; and perhaps it was onlythe distractions of crewels and point-lace which preserved her frommelancholy madness. The Captain had been too long a bachelor torenounce the agreeable habits of a bachelor's existence. His amusementswere all masculine, and more or less solitary. When there was nohunting, he gave himself up to fishing, and found his chief delight inthe persecution of innocent salmon. He supplied the Abbey House larderwith fish, sent an occasional basket to a friend, and dispatched thesurplus produce of his rod to a fishmonger in London. He was anenthusiast at billiards, and would play with innocent Mr. Scobel ratherthan not play at all. He read every newspaper and periodical of markthat was published. He rode a good deal, and drove not a little in ahigh-wheeled dog-cart; quite an impossible vehicle for a lady. Hetransacted all the business of house, stable, gardens, and home-farm, and that in the most precise and punctual manner. He wrote a good manyletters, and he smoked six or seven cigars every day. It must beobvious, therefore, that he had very little time to devote to hispretty middle-aged wife, whose languid airs and vapourish graces werelikely to pall upon an ardent temper after a year of married life. Yet, though she found her days lonely, Mrs. Winstanley had no ground forcomplaint. What fault could a woman find in a husband who was alwayscourteous and complimentary in his speech, whose domestic tastes wereobvious, who thought it no trouble to supervise the smallest details ofthe household, who could order a dinner, lay out a garden, stock aconservatory, or amend the sanitary arrangements of a stable with equalcleverness; who never neglected a duty towards wife or society?

Mrs. Winstanley could see no flaw in the perfection of her husband'scharacter; but it began about this time slowly to dawn upon her languidsoul that, as Captain Winstanley's wife, she was not so happy as shehad been as Squire Tempest's widow. 

Her independence was gone utterly. She awoke slowly to thecomprehension of that fact. Her individuality was blotted out, orabsorbed into her husband's being. She had no more power or influencein her own house, than the lowest scullion in her kitchen. She hadgiven up her banking account, and the receipt of her rents, which inthe days of her widowhood had been remitted to her half-yearly by thesolicitor who collected them. Captain Winstanley had taken upon himselfthe stewardship of his wife's income. She had been inclined to cling toher cheque-book and her banking account at Southampton; but the Captainhad persuaded her of the folly of such an arrangement. 

"Why two balances and two accounts, when one will do?" he argued. "Youhave only to ask me for a cheque when you want it, or to give me yourbills. "

Whereupon the bride of six weeks had yielded graciously, and thebalance had been transferred from the Southampton bank to CaptainWinstanley's account at the Union. 

But now, with Theodore's unsettled account of four years' standinghanging over her head by the single hair of the penny post, and likelyto descend upon her any morning, Mrs. Winstanley regretted hersurrendered banking account, with its balance of eleven hundred poundsor so. The Captain had managed everything with wondrous wisdom, nodoubt. He had done away with all long credits. He paid all his bills onthe first Saturday in the month, save such as could be paid weekly. Hehad reduced the price of almost everything supplied to the Abbey House, from the stable provender to the wax candles that lighted the fadedsea-green draperies and white panelling of the drawing-room. The onlyexpenditure over which he had no control was his wife's privatedisbursement; but he had a habit of looking surprised when she askedhim for a cheque, and a business-like way of asking the amountrequired, which prevented her applying to him often. Still, there wasthat long-standing account of Madame Theodore's in the background, andMrs. Winstanley felt that it was an account which must be settledsooner or later. Her disinclination to ask her husband for money hadtended to swell Theodore's bill. She had bought gloves, ribbons, shoes, everything from that tasteful purveyor, and had even obtained thesomewhat expensive material for her fancy work through Madame Theodore;a temporary convenience which she could hardly hope to enjoy gratis. 

Like all weak women she had her occasional longings for independence, her moments of inward revolt against the smooth tyrant. The income washers, she argued with herself sometimes, and she had a right to spendher own money as she pleased. But then she recalled her husband's gravewarnings about the future and its insecurity. She had but a brief leaseof her present wealth, and he was labouring to lay by a provision forthe days to come. 

"It would be wicked of me to thwart him in such a wise purpose, " shetold herself. 

The restriction of her charities pained the soft-hearted Pamela not alittle. To give to all who asked her had been the one unselfishpleasure of her narrow soul. She had been imposed upon, of course; hadfed families whose fathers squandered their weekly wages in the cosytaproom of a village inn; had in some wise encouraged idleness andimprovident living; but she had been the comforter of many a wearyheart, the benefactor of many a patient care-oppressed mother, theraiser-up of many a sickly child drooping on its bed of pain. 

Now, under the Captain's rule, she had the pleasure of seeing her namehonourably recorded in the subscription list of every local charity:but her hand was no longer open to the surrounding poor, her good oldSaxon name of Lady had lost its ancient significance. She was no longerthe giver of bread to the hungry. She sighed and submitted, acknowledging her husband's superior wisdom. 

"You would not like to live in a semi-detached villa on the SouthamptonRoad, would you, my dear Pamela?" asked the Captain. 

"I might die in a semi-detached house, Conrad. I'm sure I could notlive in one, " she exclaimed piteously. 

"Then, my love, we must make a tremendous effort and save all we canbefore your daughter comes of age, or else we shall assuredly have toleave the Abbey House. We might go abroad certainly, and live at Dinan, or some quiet old French town where provisions are cheap. "

"My dear Conrad, I could not exist in one of those old French towns, smelling perpetually of cabbage-soup. "

"Then, my dear love, we must exercise the strictest economy, or lifewill be impossible six years hence. "

Pamela sighed and assented, with a sinking of her heart. To her mindthis word economy was absolutely the most odious in the Englishlanguage. Her life was made up of trifles; and they were all expensivetrifles. She liked to be better dressed than any woman of heracquaintance. She liked to surround herself with pretty things; and theprettiness must take the most fashionable form, and be frequentlyrenewed. She had dim ideas which she considered aesthetic, and whichinvolved a good deal of shifting and improving of furniture. 

Against all these expensive follies Captain Winstanley set his facesternly, using pretty words to his wife at all times, but provinghimself as hard as rock when she tried to bend him to her will. He hadnot yet interfered with her toilet, for he had yet to learn what thatcost. 

This knowledge came upon him like a thunder-clap one sultry morning inJuly--real thunder impending in the metallic-tinted sky--about a monthafter Vixen's departure. 

Theodore's long-expected bill was among the letters in the morning'sbag--a bulky envelope which the Captain handed to his wife with hisusual politeness. He never opened her letters, but he invariably askedto see them, and she always handed her correspondence over to him witha childlike meekness. To-day she was slow to hand the Captain herletter. She sat looking at the long list of items with a clouded brow, and forgot to pour out her husband's coffee in the abstraction of atroubled mind. 

"I'm afraid your letters of this morning are not of a very pleasantcharacter, my love, " said the Captain, watchful of his wife's cloudedcountenance. "Is that a bill you are examining? I thought we paid readymoney for everything. "

"It is my dressmaker's bill, " faltered Mrs. Winstanley. 

"A dressmaker's bill! That can't be very alarming. You look as awful, and the document looks as voluminous, as if it were a lawyer's bill, including the costs of two or three unlucky Chancery suits, orhalf-a-dozen conveyances. Let me have the account, dear, and I'll sendyour dressmaker a cheque next Saturday. "

He held out his hand for the paper, but Pamela did not give it to him. 

"I'm afraid you'll think it awfully high, Conrad, " she said, in adeprecating tone. "You see it has been running a long time--since theChristmas before dear Edward's death, in fact. I have paid Theodoresums on account in the meanwhile, but those seem to go for very littleagainst the total of her bill. She is expensive, of course. All theWest End milliners are; but her style is undeniable, and she is indirect association with Worth. "

"My dear Pamela, I did not ask you for her biography, I asked only forher bill. Pray let me see the total, and tell me if you have anyobjections to make against the items. "

"No, " sighed Mrs. Winstanley, bending over the document with aperplexed brow, "I believe--indeed, I am sure--I have had all thethings. Many of them are dearer than I expected; but there is no ruleas to the price of anything thoroughly Parisian, that has not been seenin London. One has to pay for style and originality. I hope you won'tbe vexed at having to write so large a cheque, Conrad, at a time whenyou are so anxious to save money. Next year I shall try my best toeconomise. "

"My dearest Pamela, why beat about the bush? The bill must be paid, whatever its amount. I suppose a hundred pounds will cover it?"

"Oh, Conrad, when many women give a hundred pounds for a single dress!"

"When they do I should say that Bedlam must be their natural andfitting abode, " retorted the Captain, with suppressed ire. "The bill ismore than a hundred then? Pray give it me, Pamela, and make an end ofthis foolishness. "

This time Captain Winstanley went over to his wife, and took the paperout of her hand. He had not seen the total, but he was white with ragealready. He had made up his mind to squeeze a small fortune out of theAbbey House estate during his brief lease of the property; and here wasthis foolish wife of his squandering hundreds upon finery. 

"Be kind enough to pour me out a cup of coffee, " he said, resuming hisseat, and deliberately spreading out the bill. 

"Great Heaven!" he cried, after a glance at the total. "This is toopreposterous. The woman must be mad. "

The total was seventeen hundred and sixty-four pounds fourteen andsixpence. Mrs. Winstanley's payments on account amounted to fourhundred pounds; leaving a balance of thirteen hundred and sixty-fourpounds for the Captain to liquidate. 

"Indeed, dear Conrad, it is not such a very tremendous account, "pleaded Pamela, appalled by the expression of her husband's face. "Theodore has customers who spend two thousand a year with her. "

"Very laudable extravagance, if they are wives of millionaires, andhave their silver-mines, or cotton-mills, or oil-wells to maintainthem. But that the widow of a Hampshire squire, a lady who six yearshence will have to exist upon a pittance, should run up such a bill asthis is to my mind an act of folly that is almost criminal. From thismoment I abandon all my ideas of nursing your estate, of providingcomfortably for our future. Henceforward we must drift towardsinsolvency, like other people. It would be worse than useless for me togo on racking my brains in the endeavour to secure a given result, whenbehind my back your thoughtless extravagance is stultifying all myefforts. "

Here Mrs. Winstanley dissolved into tears. 

"Oh Conrad! How can you say such cruel things?" she sobbed. "I gobehind your back! I stultify you! When I have allowed myself to beruled and governed in everything! When I have even parted with my onlychild to please you!"

"Not till your only child had tried to set the house on fire. "

"Indeed, Conrad, you are mistaken there. She never meant it. "

"I know nothing about her meaning, " said the Captain moodily. "She didit. "

"It is too cruel, after all my sacrifices, that I should be calledextravagant--and foolish--and criminal. I have only dressed as a ladyought to dress--out of mere self-respect. Dear Edward always liked tosee me look nice. He never said an unkind word about my bills. It is asad--sad change for me. "

"Your future will be a sadder change, if you go on in the way you aregoing, " retorted the Captain. "Let me see: your income, after Violetcomes of age, is to fifteen hundred a year. You have been spending sixhundred a year upon millinery. That leaves nine hundred for everythingelse--stable, garden, coals, taxes, servants' wages, wine--to saynothing of such trifling claims as butcher and baker, and the rest ofit. You will have to manage with wonderful cleverness to make both endsmeet. "

"I am sure I would sacrifice anything rather than live unhappily withyou, Conrad, " Mrs. Winstanley murmured piteously, drinking much strongtea in her agitation, the cup shaking in her poor little white weakhand. "Nothing could be so dreadful to me as to live on bad terms withyou. I have surrendered so much for your love, Conrad. What wouldbecome of me, if I lost that? I will give up dealing with Theodore, ifyou like--though it will be a hard trial, after she has worked for meso many years, and has studied my style and knows exactly what suitsme. I will dress ever so plainly, and even have my gowns made by aSouthampton dressmaker, though that will be too dreadful. You willhardly recognise me. But I will do anything--anything, Conrad, ratherthan hear you speak so cruelly. "

She went over to him and laid her hand tremulously on his shoulder, andlooked down at him with piteous, pleading eyes. No Circassian slave, afraid of bowstring and sack, could have entreated her master'sclemency with deeper self-abasement. 

Even Conrad Winstanley's hard nature was touched by the piteousness ofher look and tone. He took the hand gently and raised it to his lips. 

"I don't mean to be cruel, Pamela, " he said. "I only want you to facethe truth, and to understand your future position. It is your own moneyyou are squandering, and you have a right to waste it, if it pleasesyou to do so. But it is a little hard for a man who has laboured andschemed for a given result, suddenly to find himself out in hiscalculations by so much as thirteen hundred and sixty-four pounds. Letus say no more about it, my dear. Here is the bill, and it must bepaid. We have only to consider the items, and see if the prices arereasonable. "

And then the Captain, with bent brow and serious aspect, began to readthe lengthy record of an English lady's folly. Most of the items hepassed over in silence, or with only a sigh, keeping his wife by hisside, looking over his shoulder. 

"Point out anything that is wrong, " he said; but as yet Mrs. Winstanleyhad found no error in the bill. 

Sometimes there came an item which moved the Captain to speech. "Adinner-dress, _pain brûlé_ brocade, mixed _poult de soie_, _manteau decour_, lined ivory satin, trimmed with hand-worked embroidery of wildflowers on Brussels net, sixty-three pounds. "

"What in the name of all that's reasonable is _pain brûlé?_" asked theCaptain impatiently. 

"It's the colour, Conrad. One of those delicate tertiaries that havebeen so much worn lately. "

"Sixty guineas for a dinner-dress! That's rather stiff. Do you knowthat a suit of dress-clothes costs me nine pounds, and lasts almost asmany years?"

"My dear Conrad, for a man it is so different. No one looks at yourclothes. That dress was for Lady Ellangowan's dinner. You made me veryhappy that night, for you told me I was the best-dressed woman in theroom. "

"I should not have been very happy myself if I had known the cost ofyour gown, " answered the Captain grimly. "Fifteen guineas for a Honiton_fichu!_" he cried presently. "What in mercy's name is a _fichu?_ Itsounds like a sneeze. "

"It is a little half-handkerchief that I wear to brighten a dark silkdress when we dine alone, Conrad. You know you have always said thatlace harmonises a woman's dress, and gives a softness to the complexionand contour. "

"I shall be very careful what I say in future, " muttered the Captain, as he went on with the bill. "French cambric _peignoir_, trimmed realValenciennes, turquoise ribbon, nineteen guineas, " he read presently. "Surely you would never give twenty pounds for a gown you wear when youare having your hair dressed?"

"That is only the name, dear. It is really a breakfast-dress. You knowyou always like to see me in white of a morning. "

The Captain groaned and said nothing. 

"Come, " he said, by-and-by, "this surely must be a mistake. 'Shootingdress, superfine silk corduroy, trimmed and lined with cardinal _poultde soie_, oxydised silver buttons, engraved hunting subjects, twenty-seven guineas. ' Thank Heaven you are not one of those masculinewomen who go out shooting, and jump over five-barred gates. "

"The dress is quite right, dear, though I don't shoot. Theodore sent itto me for a walking-dress, and I have worn it often when we have walkedin the Forest. You thought it very stylish and becoming, though just alittle fast. "

"I see, " said the Captain, with a weary air, "your not shooting doesnot hinder your having shooting-dresses. Are there anyfishing-costumes, or riding-habits, in the bill?"

"No, dear. It was Theodore's own idea to send me the corduroy dress. She thought it so new and _recherché_, and even the Duchess admired it. Mine was the first she had ever seen. "

"That was a triumph worth twenty-seven guineas, no doubt, " sighed theCaptain. "Well, I suppose there is no more to be said. The bill to meappears iniquitous. If you were a duchess or a millionaire's wife, ofcourse it would be different. Such women have a right to spend all theycan upon dress. They encourage trade. I am no Puritan. But when a womandresses beyond her means--above her social position--I regret the wiseold sumptuary laws which regulated these things in the days when a furcoat was a sign of nobility. If you only knew, Pamela, how useless thisexpensive finery is, how little it adds to your social status, howlittle it enhances your beauty! Why, the finest gown this MadameTheodore ever made cannot hide one of your wrinkles. "

"My wrinkles!" cried Pamela, sorely wounded. "That is the first time Iever heard of them. To think that my husband should be the first totell me I am getting an old woman! But I forgot, you are younger thanI, and I daresay in your eyes I seem quite old. "

"My dear Pamela, be reasonable. Can a woman's forehead at forty bequite as smooth as it was at twenty? However handsome a woman is atthat age--and to my mind it is almost the best age for beauty, just asthe ripe rich colouring of a peach is lovelier than the poor littlepale blossom that preceded it--however attractive a middle-aged womanmay be there must be some traces to show that she has lived half herlife; and to suppose that pain brûlé brocade, and hand-workedembroidery, can obliterate those, is extreme folly. Dress in rich anddark velvets, and old point-lace that has been twenty years in yourpossession, and you will be as beautiful and as interesting as aportrait by one of the old Venetian masters. Can Theodore's highest artmake you better than that? Remember that excellent advice of oldPolonius's, Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy. 

It is the fancy that swells your milliner's bill, the newly-inventedtrimmings, the complex and laborious combinations. "

"I will be dreadfully economical in future, Conrad. For the last year Ihave dressed to please you. "

"But what becomes of all these gowns?" asked the Captain, folding upthe bill; "what do you do with them?"

"They go out. "

"Out where? To the colonies?"

"No, dear; they go out of fashion; and I give them to Pauline. "

"A sixty-guinea dress flung to your waiting-maid! The Duchess ofDovedale could not do things in better style. "

"I should be very sorry not to dress better than the Duchess, " saidMrs. Winstanley, "she is always hideously dowdy. But a duchess canafford to dress as badly as she likes. "

"I see. Then it is we only who occupy the border-land of society whohave to be careful. Well, my dear Pamela, I shall send Madame Theodoreher cheque, and with your permission close her account; and, unless youreceive some large accession of fortune I should recommend you not toreopen it. "

His wife gave a heart-breaking sigh. 

"I would sacrifice anything for your sake, Conrad, " she said, "but Ishall be a perfect horror, and you will hate me. "

"I fell in love with you, my dear, not with your gown. "

"But you fell in love with me in my gown, dear; and you don't know howdifferent your feelings might have been if you had seen me in a gowncut by a country dressmaker. "

CHAPTER III. 

"With weary Days thou shalt be clothed and fed. "

Captain Winstanley never again alluded to the dressmaker's bill. He wastoo wise a man to reopen old wounds or to dwell upon small vexations. He had invested every penny that he could spare, leaving the smallestbalance at his banker's compatible with respectability. He had to sellsome railway shares in order to pay Madame Theodore. Happily the shareshad gone up since his purchase of them, and he lost nothing by thetransaction; but it galled him sorely to part with the money. It was asif an edifice that he had been toilfully raising, stone by stone, hadbegun to crumble under his hands. He knew not when or whence the nextcall might come. The time in which he had to save money was so short. Only six years, and the heiress would claim her estate, and Mrs. Winstanley would be left with the empty shell of her presentposition--the privilege of occupying a fine old Tudor mansion, withenormous stables, and fifteen acres of garden and shrubberies, and anannuity that would barely suffice to maintain existence in a third-rateLondon square. 

Mrs. Winstanley was slow to recover from the shock of her husband'sstrong language about Theodore's bill. She was sensitive about allthings that touched her own personality, and she was peculiarlysensitive about the difference between her husband's age and her own. She had married a man who was her junior; but she had married him withthe conviction that, in his eyes at least, she had all the bloom andbeauty of youth, and that he admired and loved her above all otherwomen. That chance allusion to her wrinkles had pierced her heart. Shewas deeply afflicted by the idea that her husband had perceived thesigns of advancing years in her face. And now she fell to perusing herlooking-glass more critically than she had ever done before. She sawherself in the searching north light; and the north light was morecruel and more candid than Captain Winstanley. There were lines on herforehead--unmistakable, ineffaceable lines. She could wear her hair inno way that would hide them, unless she had hidden her foreheadaltogether under a bush of frizzy fluffy curls. There was a faded lookabout her complexion, too, which she had never before discovered--awanness, a yellowness. Yes, these things meant age! In such a spirit, perchance, did Elizabeth of England survey the reflection in hermirror, until all the glories of her reign seemed as nothing to herwhen weighed against this dread horror of fast-coming age. And lucklessMary, cooped up in the narrow rooms at Fotheringay, may have deemedcaptivity, and the shadow of doom, as but trifling ills compared withthe loss of youth and beauty. Once to have been exquisitely beautiful, the inspiration of poets, the chosen model of painters, and to see theglory fading--that, for a weak woman, must be sorrow's crown of sorrow. 

Anon dim feelings of jealousy began to gnaw Pamela's heart. She grewwatchful of her husband's attentions to other women, suspicious oflooks and words that meant no more than a man's desire to please. Society no longer made her happy. Her Tuesday afternoons lost theircharm. There was poison in everything. Lady Ellangowan's flirting ways, which had once only amused her, now tortured her. Captain Winstanley'sdevotion to this lively matron, which had heretofore seemed only thecommoner's tribute of respect to the peeress, now struck his wife as atoo obvious infatuation for the woman. She began to feel wretched inthe society of certain women--nay, of all women who were younger, orpossibly more attractive, than herself. She felt that the only securityfor her peace would be to live on a desert island with the husband shehad chosen. She was of too weak a mind to hide these growing doubts andever-augmenting suspicions. The miserable truth oozed out of her infoolish little speeches; those continual droppings that wear thehardest stone, and which wore even the adamantine surface of theCaptain's tranquil temper. There was a homoeopathic admixture of thisjealous poison in all the food he ate. He could rarely get through a_tête-à-tête_ breakfast or dinner undisturbed by some invidious remark. 

One day the Captain rose up in his strength, and grappled with thisjealous demon. He had let the little speeches, the random shots, passunheeded until now; but on one particularly dismal morning, a bleakMarch morning, when the rain beat against the windows, and the deodorasand cypresses were lashed and tormented by the blusterous wind, and thelow sky was darkly gray, the captain's temper suddenly broke out. 

"My dear Pamela, is it possible that these whimpering little speechesof yours mean jealousy?" he asked, looking at her severely from underbent brows. 

"I'm sure I never said that I was jealous, " faltered Pamela, stirringher tea with a nervous movement of her thin white band. 

"Of course not; no woman cares to describe herself in plain words as anidiot; but of late you have favoured me with a good many imbecileremarks, which all seem to tend one way. You are hurt and wounded whenI am decently civil to the women I meet in society. Is that sensible orreasonable, in a woman of your age and experience?"

"You used not to taunt me with my age before we were married, Conrad. "

"Do I taunt you with it now? I only say that a woman of forty, "--Mrs. Winstanley shuddered--"ought to have more sense than a girl ofeighteen; and that a woman who had had twenty years' experience ofwell-bred society ought not to put on the silly jealousies of aschool-girl trying to provoke a quarrel with her first lover. "

"It is all very well to pretend to think me weak and foolish, Conrad. Yes, I know I am weak, ridiculously weak, in loving you as intensely asI do. But I cannot help that. It is my nature to cling to others, asthe ivy clings to the oak. I would have clung to Violet, if she hadbeen more loving and lovable. But you cannot deny that your conduct toLady Ellangowan yesterday afternoon was calculated to make any wifeunhappy. "

"If a wife is to be unhappy because her husband talks to another womanabout her horses and her gardens, I suppose I gave you sufficient causefor misery, " answered the Captain sneeringly. "I can declare that LadyEllangowan and I were talking of nothing more sentimental. "

"Oh, Conrad, it is not _what_ you talked about, though your voice wasso subdued that it was impossible for anyone to know what you weresaying----"

"Except Lady Ellangowan. "

"It was your manner. The way you bent over her, your earnestexpression. "

"Would you have had me stand three yards off and bawl at the lady? Oram I bound to assume that bored and vacuous countenance which someyoung men consider good form? Come, my dear Pamela, pray let us bereasonable. Here are you and I settled for life beside the domestichearth. We have no children. We are not particularly well off--it willbe as much as we shall be able to do, by-and-by, to make both endsmeet. We are neither of us getting younger. These things are seriouscares, and we have to bear them. Why should you add to these animaginary trouble, a torment that has no existence, save in your ownperverse mind? If you could but know my low estimate of the women towhom I am civil! I like society: and to get on in society a man mustmake himself agreeable to influential women. It is the women who havethe reins in the social race, and by-and-by, if I should go intoParliament----"

"Parliament!" cried his wife affrightedly. "You want to become a Memberof Parliament, and to be out at all hours of the night! Our home-lifewould be altogether destroyed then. "

"My dear Pamela, if you take such pains to make our home-lifemiserable, it will be hardly worth preserving, " retorted the Captain. 

"Conrad, I am going to ask you a question--a very solemn question. "

"You alarm me. "

"Long ago--before we were married--when Violet was arguing with meagainst our marriage--you know how vehemently she opposed it--"

"Perfectly. Go on. "

"She told me that you had proposed to her before you proposed to me. Oh, Conrad, could that be true?"

The heart-rending tone in which the question was asked, the patheticlook that accompanied it, convinced Captain Winstanley that, if hevalued his domestic peace, he must perjure himself. 

"It had no more foundation than many other assertions of that younglady's, " he said. "I may have paid her compliments, and praised herbeauty; but how could I think of her for a wife, when you were by? Yoursoft confiding nature conquered me before I knew that I was hit. "

He got up and went over to his wife and kissed her kindly enough, feeling sorry for her as he might have done for a wayward child thatweeps it scarce knows wherefore, oppressed by a vague sense ofaffliction. 

"Let us try to be happy together, Pamela, " he pleaded, with a sigh, "life is weary work at best. "

"That means that you are not happy, Conrad. "

"My love, I am as happy as you will let me be. "

"Have I ever opposed you in anything?"

"No, dear; but lately you have indulged in covert upbraidings that haveplagued me sorely. Let us have no more of them. As for yourdaughter"--his face darkened at the mention of that name--"understandat once and for ever that she and I can never inhabit the same house. If she comes, I go. If you cannot live without her you must learn tolive without me. "

"Conrad, what have I done that you should talk of such a thing? Have Iasked you to let Violet come home?"

"No, but you have behaved mopishly of late, as if you were pining forher return. "

"I pine for nothing but your love. "

"That has always been yours. "

With this assurance Mrs. Winstanley was fain to content herself, buteven this assurance did not make her happy. The glory and brightnesshad departed from her life somehow; and neither kind words nor friendlysmiles from the Captain could lure them back. There are stages in thelives of all of us when life seems hardly worth living: not periods ofgreat calamity, but dull level bits of road along which the journeyseems very weary. The sun has hidden himself behind gray clouds, coldwinds are blowing up from the bitter east, the birds have left offsinging, the landscape has lost its charm. We plod on drearily, and cansee no Pole Star in life's darkening sky. 

It had been thus of late with Pamela Winstanley. Slowly and graduallythe conviction had come to her that her second marriage had been afoolish and ill-advised transaction, resulting inevitably in sorrow andunavailing remorse. The sweet delusion that it had been a love-match onCaptain Winstanley's side, as well as on her own, abandoned her all atonce, and she found herself face to face with stern common-sense. 

That scene about Theodore's bill had exercised a curious effect uponher mind. To an intellect so narrow, trifles were important, and thatthe husband who had so much admired and praised the elegance of herappearance could grudge the cost of her toilet galled her sorely. Itwas positively for her the first revelation of her husband's character. His retrenchments in household expenses she had been ready to applaudas praiseworthy economies; but when he assailed her own extravagance, she saw in him a husband who loved far too wisely to love well. 

"If he cared for me, if he valued my good looks, he could never objectto my spending a few pounds upon a dress, " she told herself. 

She could not take the Captain's common-sense view of a subject soimportant to herself. Love in her mind meant a blind indulgence likethe Squire's. Love that could count the cost of its idol's caprices, and calculate the chances of the future, was not love. That feeling ofpoverty, too, was a new sensation to the mistress of the Abbey House, and a very unpleasant one. Married very young to a man of ample means, who adored her, and never set the slightest restriction upon herexpenditure, extravagance had become her second nature. To have tostudy every outlay, to ask herself whether she could not do without athing, was a hard trial; but it had become so painful to her to ask theCaptain for money that she preferred the novel pain of self-denial tothat humiliation. And then there was the cheerless prospect of thefuture always staring her in the face, that dreary time after Violet'smajority, when it would be a question whether she and her husband couldafford to go on living at the Abbey House. 

"Everybody will know that my income is diminished, " she thought. "However well we may manage, people will know that we are pinching. "

This was a vexatious reflection. The sting of poverty itself could notbe so sharp as the pain of being known to be poor. 

Captain Winstanley pursued the even tenor of his way all this time, andtroubled himself but little about his wife's petty sorrows. He did hisduty to her according to his own lights, and considered that she had noground for complaint. He even took pains to be less subdued in hismanner to Lady Ellangowan, and to give no shadow of reason for thefoolish jealousy he so much despised. His mind was busy about his ownaffairs. He had saved money since his marriage, and he employed himselfa good deal in the investment of his savings. So far he had been luckyin all he touched, and had contrived to increase his capital by one ortwo speculative ventures in foreign railways. If things went on as wellfor the next six years he and his wife might live at the Abbey House, and maintain their station in the county, till the end of the chapter. 

"I daresay Pamela will outlive me, " thought the Captain; "thosefragile-looking invalid women are generally long lived. And I have allthe chances of the hunting-field, and vicious horses, and other men'sblundering with loaded guns, against me. What can happen to a woman whosits at home and works crewel antimacassars and reads novels all day, and never drinks anything stronger than tea, and never eats enough todisturb her digestion? She ought to be a female Methuselah. "

Secure in this idea or his wife's longevity, and happy in hisspeculations, Captain Winstanley looked forward cheerfully to thefuture: and the evil shadow of the day when the hand of fate shouldthrust him from the good old house where he was master had never fallenacross his dreams. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Love and AEsthetics. 

Spring had returned, primroses and violets were being sold at thestreet-corners, Parliament was assembled, and London had reawakenedfrom its wintry hibernation to new life and vigour. The Dovedales wereat their Kensington mansion. The Duchess had sent forth her cards foralternate Thursday evenings of a quasi-literary and scientificcharacter. Lady Mabel was polishing her poems with serious thoughts ofpublication, but with strictest secrecy. No one but her parents andRoderick Vawdrey had been told of these poetic flights. The book wouldbe given to the world under a _nom de plume_. Lady Mabel was not somuch a Philistine as to suppose that writing good poetry could be adisgrace to a duke's daughter; but she felt that the house of Ashbournewould be seriously compromised were the critics to find her guilty ofwriting doggerel; and critics are apt to deal harshly with the titledmuse. She remembered Brougham's savage onslaught upon the boy Byron. 

Mr. Vawdrey was in town. He rode a good deal in the Row, spent an houror so daily at Tattersall's, haunted three or four clubs of a juvenileand frivolous character, drank numerous bottles of Apolinaris, andfound the task of killing time rather hard labour. Of course there werecertain hours in which he was on duty at Kensington. He was expected toeat his luncheon there daily, to dine when neither he nor the ducalhouse had any other engagement, and to attend all his aunt's parties. There was always a place reserved for him at the dinner-table, howevermiddle-aged and politically or socially important the assembly might me. 

He was to be married early in August. Everything was arranged. Thehoneymoon was to be spent in Sweden and Norway--the only accessiblepart of Europe which Lady Mabel had not explored. They were to seeeverything remarkable in the two countries, and to do Denmark as well, if they had time. Lady Mabel was learning Swedish and Norwegian, inorder to make the most of her opportunities. 

"It is so wretched to be dependent upon couriers and interpreters, " shesaid. "I shall be a more useful companion for you, Roderick, if Ithoroughly know the language of each country. "

"My dear Mabel, you are a most remarkable girl, " exclaimed herbetrothed admiringly. "If you go on at this rate, by the time you areforty you will be as great a linguist as Cardinal Wiseman. "

"Languages are very easy to learn when one has the habit of studyingthem, and a slight inclination for etymology, " Lady Mabel repliedmodestly. 

Now that the hour of publication was really drawing nigh, the poetessbegan to feel the need of a confidante. The Duchess was admiring butsomewhat obtuse, and rarely admired in the right place. The Duke wasout of the question. 

If a new Shakespeare had favoured him with the first reading of atragedy as great as "Hamlet, " the Duke's thoughts would have wanderedoff to the impending dearth of guano, or the probable exhaustion ofSuffolk punches, and the famous breed of Chillingham oxen. So, for wantof anyone better, Lady Mabel was constrained to read her verses to herfuture husband; just as Molière reads his plays to his housekeeper, forwant of any other hearer, the two Béjarts, aunt and niece, havingnaturally plays enough and to spare in the theatre. 

Now, in this crucial hour of her poetic career, Mabel Ashbourne wantedsomething more than a patient listener. She wanted a critic with a fineear for rhythm and euphony. She wanted a judge who could nicely weighthe music of a certain combination of syllables, and who could decidefor her when she hesitated between two epithets of equal force, butvarying depths of tone. 

To this nice task she invited her betrothed sometimes on a sunny Aprilafternoon, when luncheon was over, and the lovers were free to repairto Lady Mabel's own particular den--an airy room on an upper floor, with quaint old Queen Anne casements opening upon a balcony crammedwith flowers, and overlooking the umbrageous avenues of KensingtonGarden, with a glimpse of the old red palace in the distance. 

Rorie did his best to be useful, and applied himself to his duty withperfect heartiness and good-temper; but luncheon and the depressingLondon atmosphere made him sleepy, and he had sometimes hard work tostifle his yawns, and to keep his eyes open, while Lady Mabel was deepin the entanglement of lines which soared to the seventh heaven ofmetaphysics. Unhappily Rorie knew hardly anything about metaphysics. Hehad never read Victor Cousin, or any of the great German lights; and afeeling of despair took possession of him when his sweetheart's poetrydegenerated into diluted Hegelism, or rose to a feeble imitation ofBrowning's obscurest verse. 

"Either I must be intensely stupid or this must be rather difficult tounderstand, " he thought helplessly, when Mabel had favoured him withthe perusal of the first act of a tragedy or poetic dialogue, in whichthe hero, a kind of milk-and-watery Faustus, held converse, and arguedupon the deeper questions of life and faith, with a very mild Mephisto. 

"I'm afraid you don't like the opening of my 'Tragedy of the ScepticSoul', " Lady Mabel said with a somewhat offended air, as she looked upat the close of the act, and saw poor Rorie gazing at her with wateryeyes, and an intensely despondent expression of countenance. 

"I'm afraid I'm rather dense this afternoon, " he said with hastyapology, "I think your first act is beautifully written--the lines arefull of music; nobody with an ear for euphony could doubt that; butI--forgive me, I fancy you are sometimes a shade too metaphysical--andthose scientific terms which you occasionally employ, I fear will be alittle over the heads of the general public----"

"My dear Roderick, do you suppose that in an age whose highestcharacteristic is the rapid advance of scientific knowledge, there canbe anybody so benighted as not to understand the terminology ofscience?"

"Perhaps not, dear. I fear I am very much behind the times. I havelived too much in Hampshire. I frankly confess that some expressions inyour--er--Tragedy of--er--Soulless Scept--Sceptic Soul--were Greek tome. "

"Poor dear Roderick, I should hardly take you as the highest example ofthe _Zeitgeist;_ but I won't allow you to call yourself stupid. I'mglad you like the swing of the verse. Did it remind you of anycontemporary poet?"

"Well, yes, I think it dimly suggested Browning. "

"I am glad of that. I would not for worlds be an imitator; but Browningis my idol among poets. "

"Some of his minor pieces are awfully jolly, " said the incorrigibleRorie. "That little poem called 'Youth and Art, ' for instance. And'James Lee's Wife' is rather nice, if one could quite get at what itmeans. But I suppose that is too much to expect from any great poet?"

"There are deeper meanings beneath the surface--meanings which requirestudy, " replied Mabel condescendingly. "Those are the religion ofpoetry----"

"No doubt, " assented Rorie hastily; "but frankly, my dear Mabel, if youwant your book to be popular----"

"I don't want my book to be popular. Browning is not popular. If I hadwanted to be popular, I should have worked on a lower level. I wouldeven have stooped to write a novel. "

"Well then I will say, if you want your poem to be understood by theaverage intellect, I really would sink the scientific terminology, andthrow overboard a good deal of the metaphysics. Byron has not ascientific or technical phrase in all his poems. "

"My dear Roderick, you surely would not compare me to Byron, the poetof he Philistines. You might as well compare me with the author of'Lalla Rookh, ' or advise me to write like Rogers or Campbell. "

"I beg your pardon, my dear Mabel. I'm afraid I must be an out and outPhilistine, for to my mind Byron is the prince of poets. I would ratherhave written 'The Giaour' than anything that has ever been publishedsince it appeared. "

"My poor Roderick!" exclaimed Mabel, with a pitying sigh. "You might aswell say you would be proud of having written 'The Pickwick Papers'. "

"And so I should!" cried Rorie heartily. "I should think no end ofmyself if I had invented Winkle. Do you remember his ride fromRochester to Dingley Dell?--one of the finest things that was everwritten. "

And this incorrigible young man flung himself back in the lowarm-chair, and laughed heartily at the mere recollection of thatepisode in the life of the famous Nathaniel. Mabel Ashbourne closed hermanuscript volume with a sigh, and registered an oath that she wouldnever read any more of her poetry to Roderick Vawdrey. It was quiteuseless. The poor young man meant well, but he was incorrigiblystupid--a man who admired Byron and Dickens, and believed Macaulay thefirst of historians. 

"In the realm of thought we must dwell apart all our lives, " Mabel toldherself despairingly. 

"The horses are ordered for five, " she said, as she locked the preciousvolume in her desk; "will you get yours and come back for me?"

"I shall be delighted, " answered her lover, relieved at being let offso easily. 

It was about this time that Lord Mallow, who was working with all hismight for the regeneration of his country, made a great hit in theHouse by his speech on the Irish land question. He had been doingwonderful things in Dublin during the winter, holding forth topatriotic assemblies in the Round Room of the Rotunda, boldly declaringhimself a champion of the Home Rulers' cause, demanding Repeal andnothing but Repeal. He was one of the few Repealers who had a stake inthe country, and who was likely to lose by the disruption of socialorder. If foolish, he was at least disinterested, and had the courageof his opinions. This was in the days when Mr. Gladstone was PrimeMinister, and when Irish Radicals looked to him as the one man whocould and would give them Home Rule. 

In the House of Commons Lord Mallow was not ashamed to repeat thearguments he had used in the Round Room. If his language was lessvehement at Westminster than it had been in Dublin, his opinions wereno less thorough. He had his party here, as well as on the other sideof the Irish Channel; and his party applauded him. Here was a statesmanand a landowner willing to give an ell, where Mr. Gladstone's Land Actgave only an inch. Hibernian newspapers sung his praises in glowingwords, comparing him to Burke, Curran, and O'Connell. He had for sometime been a small lion at evening parties; he now began to be lionisedat serious dinners. He was thought much of in Carlton Gardens, and hisname figured at official banquets in Downing Street. The Duchess ofDovedale considered it a nice trait in his character that, although hewas so much in request, and worked so hard in the House, he nevermissed one of her Thursday evenings. Even when there was an importantdebate on he would tear up Birdcage Walk in a hansom, and spend an hourin the Duchess's amber drawing-rooms, enlightening Lady Mabel as to thelatest aspect of the Policy of Conciliation, or standing by the pianowhile she played Chopin. 

Lord Mallow had never forgotten his delight at finding a young ladythoroughly acquainted with the history of his native land, thoroughlyinterested in Erin's struggles and Erin's hopes; a young lady who knewall about the Protestants of Ulster, and what was meant by Fixity ofTenure. He came to Lady Mabel naturally in his triumphs, and he came toher in his disappointments. She was pleased and flattered by his faithin her wisdom, and was always ready to lend a gracious ear. She, whosesoul was full of ambition, was deeply interested in the career of anambitious young man--a man who had every excuse for being shallow andidle, and yet was neither. 

"If Roderick were only like him there would be nothing wanting in mylife, " she thought regretfully. "I should have felt much a pride in ahusband's fame, I should have worked so gladly to assist him in hiscareer. The driest blue-books would not have been too weary for me--thedullest drudgery of parliamentary detail would have been pleasant work, if it could have helped him in his progress to political distinctions. "

One evening, when Mabel and Lord Mallow were standing in the embrasureof a window, walled in by the crowd of aristocratic nobodies andintellectual eccentricities, talking earnestly of poor Erin and herchances of ultimate happiness, the lady, almost unawares, quoted acouplet of her own which seemed peculiarly applicable to the argument. 

"Whose lines are those?" Lord Mallow asked eagerly; "I never heard thembefore. "

Mabel blushed like a schoolgirl detected in sending a valentine. 

"Upon my soul, " cried the Irishman, "I believe they are your own! Yes, I am sure of it. You, whose mind is so high above the common level, must sometimes express yourself in poetry. They are yours, are theynot?"

"Can you keep a secret?" Lady Mabel asked shyly. 

"For you? Yes, on the rack. Wild horses should not tear it out of myheart; boiling lead, falling on me drop by drop, should not extort itfrom me. "

"The lines are mine. I have written a good deal--in verse. I am goingto publish a volume, anonymously, before the season is over. It isquite a secret. No one--except mamma and papa, and Mr. Vawdrey--knowsanything about it. "

"How proud they--now especially proud Mr. Vawdrey must be of yourgenius, " said Lord Mallow. "What a lucky fellow he is. "

He was thinking just at that moment of Violet Tempest, to whose secretpreference for Roderick Vawdrey he attributed his own rejection. Andnow here--where again he might have found the fair ideal of hisyouthful dreams--here where he might have hoped to form an alliance atonce socially and politically advantageous--this young Hampshire'ssquire was before him. 

"I don't think Mr. Vawdrey is particularly interested in my poeticalefforts, " Lady Mabel said with assumed carelessness. "He doesn't carefor poetry. He likes Byron. "

"What an admirable epigram!" cried the Hibernian, to whom flattery wassecond nature. "I shall put that down in my commonplace book when I gohome. How I wish you would honour me--but it is to ask too much, perhaps--how proud I should be if you would let me hear, or see, someof your poems. "

"Would you really lik----?" faltered Lady Mabel. 

"Like! I should deem it the highest privilege your friendship couldvouchsafe. "

"If I felt sure it would not bore you, I should like much to have youropinion, your candid opinion, " (Lord Mallow tried to look the essenseof candour) "upon some things I have written. But it would be really toimpose too much upon your good-nature. "

"It would be to make me the proudest, and--for that one brief hour atleast--the happiest of men, " protested Lord Mallow, looking intenselysentimental. 

"And you will deal frankly with me? You will not flatter? You will beas severe as an Edinburgh reviewer?"

"I will be positively brutal, " said Lord Mallow. "I will try to imaginemyself an elderly feminine contributor to the 'Saturday, ' looking atyou with vinegar gaze through a pair of spectacles, bent upon spottingevery fleck and flaw in your work, and predetermined not to seeanything good in it. "

"Then I will trust you!" cried Lady Mabel, with a gush. "I have longedfor a listener who could understand and criticise, and who would be toohonourable to flatter. I will trust you, as Marguerite of Valoistrusted Clement Marot. "

Lord Mallow did not know anything about the French poet and his royalmistress, but he contrived to look as if he did. And, before he ranaway to the House presently, he gave Lady Mabel's hand a tender littlepressure which she accepted in all good faith as a sign manual of thecompact between them. 

They met in the Row next morning, and Lord Mallow asked--as earnestlyas if the answer involved vital issues--when he might be permitted tohear those interesting poems. 

"Whenever you can spare time to listen, " answered Lady Mabel, moreflattered by his earnestness than by all the adulatory nigar-plumswhich had been showered upon her since her _début_. "If you havenothing better to do this afternoon----"

"Could I have anything better to do?"

"We won't enter upon so wide a question, " said Lady Mabel, laughingprettily. "If committee-rooms and public affairs can spare you for anhour or two, come to tea with mamma at five. Ill get her to denyherself to all the rest of the world, and we can have an undisturbedhour in which you can deal severely with my poor little efforts. "

Thus it happened that, in the sweet spring weather, while Roderick wason the stand at Epsom, watching the City and Suburban winner pursue hismeteor course along the close-cropped sward, Lord Mallow was sitting atease in a flowery fauteuil in the Queen Anne morning-room atKensington, sipping orange-scented tea out of eggshell porcelain, andlistening to Lady Mabel's dulcet accents, as she somewhat monotonouslyand inexpressively rehearsed "The Tragedy of a Sceptic Soul. "

The poem was long, and, sooth to say, passing dreary; and, much as headmired the Duke's daughter, there were moments when Lord Mallow felthis eyelids drooping, and heard a buzzing, as of summer insects, in hisears. 

There was no point of interest in all this rhythmical meanderingwhereon the hapless young nobleman could fix his attention. Anotherminute and his sceptic soul would be wandering at ease in the floweryfields of sleep. He pulled himself together with an effort, just as theeggshell cup and saucer were slipping from his relaxing grasp. He askedthe Duchess for another cup of that delicious tea. He gazed resolutelyat the fair-faced maiden, whose rosy lips moved graciously, discoursingshallowest platitudes clothed in erudite polysyllables, and then at thefirst pause--when Lady Mabel laid down her velvet-bound volume, andlooked timidly upward for his opinion--Lord Mallow poured forth atorrent of eloquence, such as he always had in stock, and praised "TheSceptic Soul" as no poem and no poet had ever been praised before, saveby Hibernian critic. 

The richness, the melody, the depth, colour, brilliance, tone, variety, far-reaching thought, &c. , &c. , &c. 

He was so grateful to Providence for having escaped falling asleep thathe could have gone on for ever in this strain. But if anyone had askedLord Mallow what "The Tragedy of a Sceptic Soul" was about, Lord Mallowwould have been spun. 

When a strong-minded woman is weak upon one particular point she is aptto be very weak. Lady Mabel's weakness was to fancy herself a secondBrowning. She had never yet enjoyed the bliss of having her own idea ofherself confirmed by independent evidence. Her soul thrilled as LordMallow poured forth his praises; talking of "The Book and the Ring, "and "Paracelsus, " and a great deal more, of which he knew very little, and seeing in the expression of Lady Mabel's eyes and mouth that he wassaying exactly the right thing, and could hardly say too much. 

They were _tête-à-tête_ by this time, for the Duchess was sleepingfrankly, her crewel-work drooping from the hands that lay idle in herlap; her second cup of tea on the table beside her, half-finished. 

"I don't know how it is, " she was wont to say apologetically, afterthese placid slumbers. "There is something in Mabel's voice that alwayssends me to sleep. Her tones are so musical. "

"And do you really advise me to publish?" asked Lady Mabel, flutteredand happy. 

"It would be a sin to keep such verses hidden from the world. "

"They will be published anonymously, of course. I could not endure tobe pointed at as the author of 'The Sceptic Soul. ' To feel that everyeye was upon me--at the opera--in the Row--everywhere! It would be toodreadful. I should be proud to know that I had influenced my age--givena new bent to thought--but no one must be able to point at me. "

"'Thou canst not say I did it, '" quoted Lord Mallow. "I entirelyappreciate your feelings. Publicity of that sort must be revolting to adelicate mind. I should think Byron would have enjoyed life a greatdeal better if he had never been known as the author of 'ChildeHarold. ' He reduced himself to a social play-actor--and always had topose in his particular rôle--the Noble Poet. If Bacon really wrote theplays we call Shakespeare's, and kept the secret all his life, he wasindeed the wisest of mankind. "

"You have done nothing but praise me, " said Lady Mabel, after athoughtful pause, during which she had trifled with the golden clasp ofher volume; "I want you to do something more than that. I want you toadvise--to tell me where I am redundant--to point out where I am weak. I want you to help me in the labour of polishing. "

Lord Mallow pulled his whisker doubtfully. This was dreadful. He shouldhave to go into particulars presently, to say what lines pleased himbest, which of the various meters into which the tragedy was brokenup--like a new suburb into squares and crescents and streets--seemed tohim happiest and most original. 

"Can you trust me with that precious volume?" he asked. "If you can, Iwill spend the quiet hours of the night in pondering over its pages, and will give you the result of my meditations to-morrow. "

Mabel put the book into his hand with a grateful smile. 

"Pray be frank with me, " she pleaded. "Praise like yours is perilous. "

Lord Mallow kissed her hand this time, instead of merely pressing it, and went away radiant, with the velvet-bound book under his arm. 

"She's a sweet girl, " he said to himself, as he hailed a cab. "I wishshe wasn't engaged to that Hampshire booby, and I wish she didn't writepoetry. Hard that I should have to do the Hampshire booby's work! If Iwere to leave this book in a hansom now--there'd be an awful situation!"

Happily for the rising statesman, he was blest with a clever youngsecretary, who wrote a good many letters for him, read blue-books, gotup statistics, and interviewed obtrusive visitors from the Green Isle. To this young student Lord Mallow, in strictest secrecy, confided LadyMabel's manuscript. 

"Read it carefully, Allan, while I'm at the house, and make a note ofeverything that's bad on one sheet of paper, and of everything that'sgood on another. You may just run your pencil along the margin whereveryou think I might write 'divine!' 'grandly original!' 'what pathos!' oranything of that sort. "

The secretary was a conscientious young man, and did his work nobly. Hesat far into the small hours, ploughing through "The Sceptic Soul. " Itwas tough work; but Mr. Allan was Scotch and dogged, and prided himselfupon his critical faculty. This autopsy of a fine lady's poem was acongenial labour. He scribbled pages of criticism, went into theminutest details of style, found a great deal to blame and not much topraise, and gave his employer a complete digest of the poem beforebreakfast next morning. 

Lord Mallow attended the Duchess's kettledrum again that afternoon, andthis time he was in no wise at sea. He handled "The Sceptic Soul" as ifevery line of it had been engraven on the tablet of his mind. 

"See here now, " he cried, turning to a pencilled margin; "I call this aremarkable passage, yet I think it might be strengthened by sometrifling excisions;" and then he showed Lady Mabel how, by pruningtwenty lines off a passage of thirty-one, a much finer effect might beattained. 

"And you really think my thought stands out more clearly?" asked Mabel, looking regretfully at the lines through which Lord Mallow had run hispencil--some of her finest lines. 

"I am sure of it. That grand idea of yours was like a star in a hazysky. We have cleared away the fog. "

Lady Mabel sighed. "To me the meaning of the whole passage seemed soobvious, " she said. 

"Because it was your own thought. A mother knows her own childrenhowever they are dressed. "

This second tea-drinking was a very serious affair. Lord Mallow went atthe poem like a professional reviewer, and criticised without mercy, yet contrived not to wound the author's vanity. 

"It is because you have real genius that I venture to be brutallycandid, " he said, when, by those slap-dash pencil-marks of his--alwayswith the author's consent--he had reduced the "Tragedy of the ScepticSoul" to about one-third of its original length. "I was carried awayyesterday by my first impressions; to-day I am coldly critical. I haveset my heart upon your poem making a great success. "

This last sentence, freely translated, might be taken to mean: "Ishould not like such an elegant young woman to make an utter fool ofherself. "

Mr. Vawdrey came in while critic and poet were at work, and was toldwhat they were doing. He evinced no unworthy jealousy, but seemed gladthat Lord Mallow should be so useful. 

"It's a very fine poem, " he said, "but there's too much metaphysics init. I told Mabel so the other day. She must alter a good deal of it ifshe wants to be understanded of the people. "

"My dear Roderick, my poem is metaphysical or it is nothing, " Mabelanswered pettishly. 

She could bear criticism from Lord Mallow better than criticism fromRoderick. After this it became an established custom for Lord Mallow todrop in every day to inspect the progress of Lady Mabel's poems in thecourse of their preparation for the press. The business part of thematter had been delegated to him, as much more _au fait_ in such thingsthan homely rustic Rorie. He chose the publisher and arranged the sizeof the volume, type, binding, initials, tail-pieces, every detail. Thepaper was to be thick and creamy, the type mediaeval, the borders wereto be printed in carmine, the initials and tail-pieces specially drawnand engraved, and as quaint as the wood-cuts in an old edition of "_LeLutrin_. " The book was to have red edges, and a smooth gray linenbinding with silver lettering. It was to be altogether a gem oftypographic art, worthy of Firmin Didot. 

By the end of May, Lady Mabel's poems were all in type, and there wasmuch discussion about commas and notes of admiration, syllables toomuch or too little, in the flowery morning-room at Kensington, whattime Roderick Vawdrey--sorely at a loss for occupation--wasted thesummer hours at races or regattas within easy reach of London, or wentto out-of-the-way places, to look at hunters of wonderful repute, which, on inspection, were generally disappointing. 

CHAPTER V. 

Crumpled Rose-Leaves. 

Violet Tempest had been away from home nearly a year, and to the fewold servants remaining at the Abbey House, and to the villagers who hadknown and loved her, it seemed as if a light had gone out. 

"It's like it was after the Squire's death, when miss and her ma wasaway, " said one gossip to another; "the world seems empty. "

Mrs. Winstanley and her husband had been living as became people ofsome pretension to rank and fashion. They saw very little of eachother, but were seen together on all fitting occasions. The morningservice in the little church at Beechdale would not have seemedcomplete without those two figures. The faded beauty in trailing silkendraperies and diaphanous bonnet, the slim, well-dressed Captain, withhis bronzed face and black whiskers. They were in everybody's idea thehappiest example of married bliss. If the lady's languid loveliness hadfaded more within the last year or so than in the ten years that wentbefore it, if her slow step had grown slower, her white hand moretransparent, there were no keen loving eyes to mark the change. 

"That affectation of valetudinarianism is growing on Mrs. Winstanley, "Mrs. Scobel said one day to her husband. "It is a pity. I believe theCaptain encourages it. "

"She has not looked so well since Violet went away, " answered thekindly parson. "It seems an unnatural thing for mother and daughter tobe separated. "

"I don't know that, dear. The Bible says a man should leave mother andfather and cleave to his wife. Poor Violet was a discordant element inthat household. Mrs. Winstanley must feel much happier now she is away. "

"I can't tell how she feels, " answered the Vicar doubtfully; "but shedoes not look so happy as she did when Violet was at home. "

"The fact is she gives way too much, " exclaimed active little Mrs. Scobel, who had never given way in her life. "When she has a head-acheshe lies in bed, and has the venetian blinds kept down, just as if shewere dying. No wonder she looks pale and----"

"Etiolated, " said the Vicar; "perishing for want of light. But Ibelieve it's moral sunshine that is wanted there, my dear Fanny, saywhat you will. "

Mr. Scobel was correct in his judgment. Pamela Winstanley was a mostunhappy woman--an unhappy woman without one tangible cause ofcomplaint. True that her daughter was banished; but she was banishedwith the mother's full consent. Her personal extravagances had beencurtailed; but she was fain to admit that the curtailment was wise, necessary, and for her own future benefit. Her husband was allkindness; and surely she could not be angry with him if he seemed togrow younger every day--rejuvenated by regular habits and rusticlife--while in her wan face the lines of care daily deepened, until itwould have needed art far beyond the power of any modern Medea toconceal Time's ravages. Your modern Medeas are such poorcreatures--loathsome as Horace's Canidia, but without her genius or herpower. 

"I am getting an old woman, " sighed Mrs. Winstanley. "It is lucky I amnot without resources against solitude and age. "

Her resources were a tepid appreciation of modern idyllic poetry, asexemplified in the weaker poems of Tennyson, and the works of AdelaideProctor and Jean Ingelow, a talent for embroidering conventionalfoliage and flowers on kitchen towelling, and for the laboriousconversion of Nottingham braid into Venetian point-lace. 

She had taken it into her head of late to withdraw herself altogetherfrom society, save from such friends who liked her well enough, or weresufficiently perplexed as to the disposal of their lives, to waste anoccasional hour over gossip and orange pekoe. She had now permanentlyassumed that _rôle_ of an invalid which she had always somewhataffected. 

"I am really not well enough to go to dinner-parties, Conrad, " shesaid, when her husband politely argued against her refusal of aninvitation, with just that mild entreaty which too plainly means, "Idon't care a jot whether you go with me or stay at home. "

"But, my dear Pamela, a little gaiety would give you a fillip. "

"No, it would not, Conrad. It would worry me to go to Lady Ellangowan'sin one of last season's dresses; and I quite agree with you that I mustspend no more money with Theodore. "

"Why not wear your black velvet?"

"Too obvious a _pis aller_. I have not enough diamonds to carry offblack velvet. "

"But your fine old lace--rose-point, I think you call it--surely thatwould carry off black velvet for once in a way. "

"My dear Conrad, Lady Ellangowan knows my rose-point by heart. Shealways compliments me about it--an artful way of letting me know oftenshe has seen it. 'Oh there is that rose-point of yours, dear Mrs. Winstanley; it is too lovely. ' I know her! No, Conrad; I will not go tothe Ellangowans in a dress made last year; or in any _réchauffé_ ofvelvet and lace. I hope I have a proper pride that would alwayspreserve me from humiliation of that kind. Besides, I am not strongenough to go to parties. You may not believe me, Conrad, but I amreally ill. "

The Captain put on an unhappy look, and murmured something sympathetic:but he did not believe in the reality of his wife's ailments. She hadplayed the invalid more or less ever since their marriage; and he hadgrown accustomed to the assumption as a part of his wife's dailyexistence--a mere idiosyncrasy, like her love of fine dress and strongtea. If at dinner she ate hardly enough for a bird, he concluded thatshe had spoiled her appetite at luncheon, or by the consumption ofsweet biscuits and pound-cake at five o'clock. Her refusal of allinvitations to dinners and garden-parties he attributed to her follyabout dress, and to that alone. Those other reasons which she putforward--of weakness, languor, low spirits--were to CaptainWinstanley's mind mere disguises for temper. She had not, in her heartof hearts, forgiven him for closing Madame Theodore's account. 

Thus, wilfully blind to a truth which was soon to become obvious to allthe world, he let the insidious foe steal across his threshold, andguessed not how soon that dark and hidden enemy was to drive him fromthe hearth by which he sat, secure in self-approval and sagaciousschemes for the future. 

Once a week, through all the long year, there had come a dutiful letterfrom Violet to her mother. The letters were often brief--what could thegirl find to tell in her desert island?--but they were always kind, andthey were a source of comfort to the mother's empty heart. Mrs. Winstanley answered unfailingly, and her Jersey letter was one of thechief events of each week. She was fonder of her daughter at a distancethan she had ever been when they were together. "That will be somethingto tell Violet, " she would say of any inane bit of gossip that waswhispered across the afternoon tea-cups. 

CHAPTER VI. 

A Fool's Paradise. 

At Ashbourne preparations had already begun for the wedding in August. It was to be a wedding worthy a duke's only daughter, the well-belovedand cherished child of an adoring father and mother. Kinsfolk and oldfriends were coming from far and wide to assist at the ceremony, forwhom temporary rooms were to be arranged in all manner of places. TheDuchess's exquisite dairy was to be transformed into a bachelordormitory. Lodges and gamekeepers' cottages were utilised. Every nookand corner in the ducal mansion would be full. 

"Why not rig up a few hammocks in the nearest pine plantation?" Rorieasked, laughing, when he heard of all these doings. "One couldn't havea better place to sleep on a sultry summer night. "

There was to be a ball for the tenantry in the evening of thewedding-day, in a marquee on the lawn. The gardens were to beilluminated in a style worthy of the château of Vaux, when Fouquet wassquandering a nation's revenues on lamps and fountains and venalfriends. Lady Mabel protested against all this fuss. 

"Dear mamma, I would so much rather have been married quietly, ' shesaid. 

"My dearest, it is all your papa's doing. He is so proud of you. Andthen we have only one daughter; and she is not likely to be marriedmore than once, I hope. Why should we not have all our friends round usat such a time?"

Mabel shrugged her shoulders, with an air of repugnance to all thefriends and all the fuss. 

"Marriage is such a solemn act of one's life, " she said. "It seemsdreadful that it should be performed in the midst of a gaping, indifferent crowd. "

"My love, there will not be a creature present who can feel indifferentabout your welfare, " protested the devoted mother. "If our dearRoderick had been a more distinguished person, your papa would have hadyou married in Westminster Abbey. There of course there would have beena crowd of idle spectators. "

"Poor Roderick, " sighed Mabel. "It is a pity he is so utterly aimless. He might have made a career for himself by this time, if he had chosen. "

"He will do something by-and-by, I daresay, " said the Duchess, excusingly. "You will be able to mould him as you like, pet. "

"I have not found him particularly malleable hitherto, " said Mabel. 

The bride elect was out of spirits, and inclined to look despondentlyupon life. She was suffering the bitter pain of disappointed hopes. "The Tragedy of a Sceptic Soul, " despite its depth of thought, itsexquisite typography and vellumlike paper, had been a dire andirredeemable failure. The reviewers had ground the poor littlearistocratic butterfly to powder upon the wheel of ridicule. They hadanatomised Lady Mabel's involved sentences, and laughed at her eruditephrases. Her mild adaptations of Greek thought and fancy had been foundout, and held up to contempt. Her petty plagiarisms from French andGerman poets had been traced to their source. The whole work, no smoothand neatly polished on the outside, had been turned the seamy sidewithout, and the knots and flaws and ravelled threads had been exposedwithout pity. 

Happily the book was anonymous: but Mabel writhed under the criticism. There was the crushing disappointment of expectations that had soaredhigh as the topmost throne on Parnassus. She had a long way to descend. And then there was the sickening certainty that in the eyes of her ownsmall circle she had made herself ridiculous. Her mother took thosecruel reviews to heart, and wept over them. The Duke, a coarse-mindedman, at best, with a soul hardly above guano and chemical composts, laughed aloud at his poor little girl's failure. 

"It's a sad disappointment, I daresay, " he said, "but never mind, mypet, you'll do better next time, I've no doubt. Or if you don't, itdoesn't much matter. Other people have fancied themselves poets, andhave been deceived, before to-day. "

"Those horrid reviewers don't understand her poetry, " protested theDuchess, who would have been hard pushed to comprehend it herself, butwho thought it was a critic's business to understand everything. 

"I'm afraid I have written above their heads, " Lady Mabel saidpiteously. 

Roderick Vawdrey was worst of all. 

"Didn't I tell you 'The Sceptic Soul' was too fine for ordinaryintellects, Mab?" he said. "You lost yourself in an ocean of obscurity. You knew what you meant, but there's no man alive who could follow you. You ought to have remembered Voltaire's definition of a metaphysicaldiscussion, a conversation in which the man who is talked to doesn'tunderstand the man who talks, and the man who talks doesn't understandhimself. You must take a simpler subject and use plainer English if youwant to please the multitude. "

Mabel had told her lover before that she did not aspire to please themultitude, that she would have esteemed such cheap and tawdry success ahumiliating failure. It was almost better not to be read at all than tobe appreciated only by the average Mudie subscriber. But she would haveliked someone to read her poems. She would have liked critics to praiseand understand her. She would have liked to have her own small world ofadmirers, an esoteric few, the salt of the earth, literary Essenes, holding themselves apart from the vulgar herd. It was dreadful to findherself on a height as lonely as one of those plateaux in the TyroleanAlps where the cattle crop a scanty herbage in summer, and where theIce King reigns alone through the long winter. 

"You are mistaken, Roderick, " Mabel said with chilling dignity; "I havefriends who can understand and admire my poetry, incomprehensible anduninteresting as it may be to you. "

"Dear Mabel, I never said it was uninteresting, " Roderick cried humbly;"everything you do must be interesting to me. But I frankly own I donot understand your verses as clearly as I think all verse should beunderstood. Why should I keep all my frankness till after the first ofAugust? Why should the lover be less sincere than the husband? I willbe truthful even at the risk of offending you. "

"Pray do, " cried Mabel, with ill-suppressed irritation. "Sincerity issuch a delightful thing. No doubt my critics are sincere. They give methe honest undisguised truth. "

Rorie saw that his betrothed's literary failure was a subject to becarefully avoided in future. 

"My poor Vixen, " he said to himself, with oh! what deep regret, "perhaps it was not one of the least of your charms that you neverwrote poetry. "

Lord Mallow was coming to Ashbourne for the fortnight before thewedding. He had made himself wondrously agreeable to the Duke, and theDuke had invited him. The House would be up by that time. It was adelightful season for the Forest. The heather would be in bloom on allthe open heights, the glades of Mark Ash would be a solemn world ofgreenery and shadow, a delicious place for picnics, flirtation, andgipsy tea-drinkings. Lord Mallow had only seen the Forest in thewinter. It would be a grand opportunity for him. 

He came, and Lady Mabel received him with a sad sweet smile. Thereviews had all appeared by this time: and, except in the _WestDulmarsh Gazette_ and the _Ratdiff Highway Register_, there had notbeen one favourable notice. 

"There is a dreadful unanimity about my critics, is there not?" saidthe stricken poetess, when she and Lord Mallow found themselves alonetogether in one of the orchid-houses, breathing a perfumed atmosphereat eighty degrees, vaporous, balmy, slumberous. 

"You have made a tremendous mistake, Lady Mabel, " said Lord Mallow. 

"How do you mean?"

"You have given the world your great book without first educating yourpublic to receive and understand it. If Browning had done the samething--if Browning had burst at once upon the world with 'The Ring andthe Book' he would have been as great a failure as--as--you at presentimagine yourself to be. You should have sent forth something smaller. You should have made the reading world familiar with a style, toooriginal, and of too large a power and scope, to please quickly. Avolume of ballads and idyls--a short story in simple verse--would haveprepared the way for your dramatic poem. Suppose Goethe had begun hisliterary career with the second part of 'Faust'! He was too wise forthat, and wrote himself into popularity with a claptrap novel. "

"I could not write a claptrap novel, or claptrap verses, " sighed LadyMabel. "If I cannot soar above the clouds, I will never spread my poorlittle wings again. "

"Then you must be content to accept your failure as an evidence of thetendencies of an essentially Philistine age--an age in which peopleadmire Brown, and Jones, and Robinson. "

Here Lord Mallow gave a string of names, sacrificing the most famousreputations of the age to Mabel Ashbourne's vanity. 

This brief conversation in the orchid-house was the first healing balmthat had been applied to the bleeding heart of the poetess. She wasdeeply grateful to Lord Mallow. This was indeed sympathy. How differentfrom Roderick's clumsy advice and obtrusive affectation of candour. Mabel determined that she would do her best to make Lord Mallow's visitpleasant. She gave him a good deal of her society, in fact all shecould spare from Roderick, who was not an exacting lover. They were sosoon to be married that really there was no occasion for them to begreedy of _tête-à-tête_ companionship. They would have enough of eachother's company among the Norwegian fjords. 

Lord Mallow did not care about riding under an almost tropical sun, nordid he care to expose his horse to the exasperating attacks offorest-flies; so he went about with the Duchess and her daughter inLady Mabel's pony carriage--he saw schools and cottages--and told thetwo ladies all the grand things he meant to do on his Irish estate whenhe had leisure to do them. 

"You must wait till you are married, " said the Duchess good-naturedly. "Ladies understand these details so much better than gentlemen. Mabelmore than half planned those cottages you admired just now. She tookthe drawings out of the architect's hands, and altered them accordingto her own taste. "

"And as a natural result, the cottages are perfection!" exclaimed LordMallow. 

That visit to Ashbourne was one of the most memorable periods in LordMallow's life. He was an impressible young man, and he had beenunconsciously falling deeper in love with Lady Mabel every day duringthe last three months. Her delicate beauty, her culture, her elegance, her rank, all charmed and fascinated him; but her sympathy with Erinwas irresistible. It was not the first time that he had been in love, by a great many times. The list of the idols he had worshippedstretched backwards to the dim remoteness of boyhood. But to-day, awakening all at once to a keen perception of his hapless state, hetold himself that he had never loved before as he loved now. 

He had been hard hit by Miss Tempest. Yes, he acknowledged that pastweakness. He had thought her fairest and most delightful among women, and he had left the Abbey House dejected and undone. But he had quicklyrecovered from the brief fever: and now, reverentially admiring LadyMabel's prim propriety, he wondered that he could have ever seriouslyoffered himself to a girl of Vixen's undisciplined and unbrokencharacter. 

"I should have been a miserable man by this time if she had acceptedme, " he thought. "She did not care a straw about the People of Ireland. "

He was deeply, hopelessly, irrecoverably in love; and the lady he lovedwas to be married to another man in less than a week. The situation wastoo awful. What could such a woman as Mabel Ashbourne see in such a manas Roderick Vawdrey. That is a kind of question which has been askedvery often in the history of men and women. Lord Mallow could find nosatisfactory answer thereto. Mr. Vawdrey was well enough in his way--hewas good-looking, sufficiently well-bred; he rode well, was afirst-rate shot, and could give an average player odds at billiards. Surely these were small claims to the love of a tenth muse, a rarelyaccomplished and perfect woman. If Lord Mallow, in his heart of hearts, thought no great things of Lady Mabel's poetic effusions, he not theless respected her for the effort, the high-souled endeavour. A womanwho could read Euripides, who knew all that was best in modernliterature, was a woman for a husband to be proud of. 

In this desperate and for the most part unsuspected condition of mind, Lord Mallow hung upon Lady Mabel's footsteps during the daysimmediately before the wedding. Roderick was superintending thealterations at Briarwood, which were being carried on upon rather anextravagant scale, to make the mansion worthy of the bride. Lord Mallowwas always at hand, in the orchid-houses, carrying scissors andadjusting the hose, in the library, in the gardens, in the boudoir. Hewas drinking greedily of the sweet poison. This fool's paradise of afew days must end in darkness, desolation, despair--everything dreadfulbeginning with _d;_ but the paradise was so delicious an abode thatalthough an angel with a flaming sword, in the shape of conscience, wasalways standing at the gate, Lord Mallow would not be thrust out. Heremained; in defiance of conscience, and honour, and all those goodsentiments that should have counselled his speedy departure. 

CHAPTER VII. 

"It might have been. "

"They are the most curious pair of lovers I ever saw in my life, " saidone of the visitors at Ashbourne, a young lady who had been engaged tobe married more than once, and might fairly consider herself anauthority upon such matters. "One never sees them together. "

"They are cousins, " replied her companion. "What can you expect from acourtship between cousins? It must be the most humdrum affair possible. "

"All courtships are humdrum, unless there is opposition from parents, or something out of the common order to enliven them, " said somebodyelse. 

The speakers were a party of young ladies, who were getting through anidle hour after breakfast in the billiard-room. 

"Lady Mabel is just the sort of girl no man could be desperately inlove with, " said another. "She is very pretty, and elegant, andaccomplished, and all that sort of thing--but she is so overpoweringlywell satisfied with herself that it seems superfluous for anyone toadmire her. '

"In spite of that I know of someone in this house who does immenselyadmire her, " asserted the young lady who had spoken first. "Much morethan I should approve if I were Mr. Vawdrey. "

"I think I know----" began somebody, and then abruptly remarked: "Whata too ridiculous stroke! And I really thought I was going to make acannon. "

This sudden change in the current of the talk was due to the appearanceof the subject of this friendly disquisition. Lady Mabel had thatmoment entered, followed by Lord Mallow, not intent on billiards, likethe frivolous damsels assembled round the table. There were book-casesall along one side of the billiard-room, containing the surplus booksthat had overrun the shelves in the library; and Mabel had come to lookfor a particular volume among these. It was a treatise upon theantiquities of Ireland. Lord Mallow and Lady Mabel had been disputingabout the Round Towers. 

"Of course you are right, " said the Irishman, when she had triumphantlyexhibited a page which supported her side of the argument. "What awonderful memory you have! What a wife you would make for a statesman!You would be worth half-a-dozen secretaries!"

Mabel blushed, and smiled faintly, with lowered eyelids. 

"Do you remember that concluding picture in 'My Novel, '" she asked, "where Violante tempts Harley Lestrange from his idle musing overHorace, to toil through blue-books; and, when she is stealing softlyfrom the room, he detains her and bids her copy an extract for him? 'Doyou think I would go through this labour, ' he says, 'if you were not tohalve this success? Halve the labour as well. ' I have always enviedViolante that moment in her life. "

"And who would not envy Harley such a wife as Violante, " returned LordMallow, "if she was like--the woman I picture her?"

Three hours later Lord Mallow and Lady Mabel met by accident in thegarden. It was an afternoon of breathless heat and golden sunlight, theblue ether without a cloud--a day on which the most restless spiritmight be content to yield to the drowsiness of the atmosphere, and lieat ease upon the sunburnt grass and bask in the glory of summer. LordMallow had never felt so idle, in the whole course of his vigorousyoung life. 

"I don't know what has come to me, " he said to himself; "I can't settleto any kind of work; and I don't care a straw for sight-seeing with apack of nonentities. "

A party had gone off in a drag, soon after breakfast, to see somedistant ruins; and Lord Mallow had refused to be of that party, thoughit included some of the prettiest girls at Ashbourne. He had stayed athome, on pretence of writing important letters, but had not, so far, penned a line. "It must be the weather, " said Lord Mallow. 

An hour or so after luncheon he strolled out into the gardens, havinggiven up all idea of writing those letters, There was a wide lawn, thatsloped from the terrace in front of the drawing-room windows, a lawnencircled by a belt of carefully-chosen timber. It was not very oldtimber, but it was sufficiently umbrageous. There were tulip-trees, andcopper-beeches, and Douglas pines, and deodoras. There were shrubs ofevery kind, and winding paths under the trees, and rustic benches hereand there to repose the wearied traveller. 

On one of these benches, placed in a delicious spot, shaded by a groupof pines, commanding the wide view of valley and distant hill far awaytowards Ringwood, Lord Mallow found Lady Mabel seated reading. She waslooking delightfully cool amidst the sultry heat of the scene, perfectly dressed in soft white muslin, with much adornment of delicatelace and pale-hued ribbon: but she was not looking happy. She wasgazing at the open volume on her knee, with fixed and dreamy eyes thatsaw not the page; and as Lord Mallow came very near, with steps thatmade no sound on the fallen pine-needles, he saw that there were tearsupon her drooping eyelids. 

There are moments in every man's life when impulse is stronger thandiscretion. Lord Mallow gave the reins to impulse now, and seatedhimself by Lady Mabel's side, and took her hand in his, with an air ofsympathy so real that the lady forgot to be offended. 

"Forgive me for having surprised your tears, " he murmured gently. 

"I am very foolish, " she said, blushing deeply as she became aware ofthe hand clasping hers, and suddenly withdrawing her own; "but thereare passages of Dante that are too pathetic. "

"Oh, it was Dante!" exclaimed Lord Mallow, with a disappointed air. 

He looked down at the page on her lap. 

"Yes, naturally. "

She had been reading about Paolo and Francesca--that one episode, inall the catalogue of sin and sorrow, which melts every heart; a page atwhich the volume seems to open of its own accord. 

Lord Mallow leaned down and read the lines in a low voice, slowly, withconsiderable feeling; and then he looked softly up at Mabel Ashbourne, and at the landscape lying below them, in all the glow and glory of thesummer light, and looked back to the lady, with his hand still on thebook. 

The strangeness of the situation: they two alone in the garden, unseen, unheard by human eye or ear; the open book between them--a subtle bondof union--hinting at forbidden passion. 

"They were deeply to be pitied, " said Lord Mallow, meaning the guiltylovers. 

"It was very sad, " murmured Lady Mabel. 

"But they were neither the first nor the last who have found out toolate that they were created to be happy in each other's love, and hadby an accident missed that supreme chance of happiness, " said LordMallow, with veiled intention. 

Mabel sighed, and took the book from the gentleman's hand, and drew alittle farther off on the bench. She was not the kind of young woman toyield tremblingly to the first whisper of an unauthorised love. It wasall very well to admire Francesca, upon strictly aesthetic grounds, asthe perfection of erring womanhood, beautiful even in her guilt. Francesca had lived so long ago--in days so entirely mediaeval, thatone could afford to regard her with indulgent pity. But it was not tobe supposed that a modern duke's daughter was going to follow thatunfortunate young woman's example, and break plighted vows. Betrothal, in the eyes of so exalted a moralist as Lady Mabel, was a tie but onedegree less sacred than marriage. 

"Why did you not go to see the ruins?" she asked, resuming her societytone. 

"Because I was in a humour in which ruins would have been unutterablyodious. Indeed, Lady Mabel, I am just now very much of Macbeth'stemper, when he began to be a-weary of the sun. "

"Has the result of the session disappointed you?"

"Naturally. When was that ever otherwise? Parliament opens full ofpromise, like a young king who has just ascended the throne, andeverybody is to be made happy; all burdens are to be lightened, theseeds of all good things that have been hidden deep in earth throughthe slow centuries are to germinate all at once, and blossom, and bearfruit. And the session comes to an end; and, lo! a great many goodthings have been talked about, and no good thing has been done. That isin the nature of things. No, Lady Mabel, it is not that which makes meunhappy. "

He waited for her to ask him what his trouble was, but she kept silence. 

"No, " he repeated, "it is not that. "

Again there was no reply; and he went on awkwardly, like an actor whohas missed his cue. 

"Since I have known you I have been at once too happy and too wretched. Happy--unspeakably happy in your society; miserable in the knowledgethat I could never be more to you than an unit in the crowd. "

"You were a great deal more to me than that, " said Mabel softly. Shebad been on her guard against him just now, but when he thus abasedhimself before her she took pity upon him, and became dangerouslyamiable. "I shall never forget your kindness about those wretchedverses. "

"I will not hear you speak ill of them, " cried Lord Mallow indignantly. "You have but shared the common fate of genius, in having a mind inadvance of your age. "

Lady Mabel breathed a gentle sigh of resignation. 

"I am not so weak as to think myself a genius, " she murmured; "but Iventure to hope my poor verses will be better understood twenty yearshence than they are now. "

"Undoubtedly!" cried Lord Mallow, with conviction. "Look at Wordsworth;in his lifetime the general reading public considered him a prosy oldgentleman, who twaddled pleasantly about lakes and mountains, andpretty little peasant girls. The world only awakened ten years ago tothe fact of his being a great poet and a sublime philosopher; and Ishouldn't be very much surprised, " added Lord Mallow meditatively, "ifin ten years more the world were to go to sleep again and forget him. "

Lady Mabel looked at her watch. 

"I think I will go in and give mamma her afternoon cup of tea, " shesaid. 

"Don't go yet, " pleaded Lord Mallow, "it is only four, and I know theDuchess does not take tea till five. Give me one of your last hours. Alady who is just going to be married is something like Socrates afterhis sentence. Her friends surround her; she is in their midst, smiling, serene, diffusing sweetness and light; but they know she is going fromthem--they are to lose her, yes, to lose her almost as utterly as ifshe were doomed to die. "

"That is taking a very dismal view of marriage, " said Mabel, pale, andtrifling nervously with her watch-chain. 

This was the first time Lord Mallow had spoken to her of theapproaching event. 

"Is it not like death? Does it not bring change and parting to oldfriends? When you are Lady Mabel Vawdrey, can I ever be with you as Iam now? You will have new interests, you will be shut in by a networkof new ties. I shall come some morning to see you amidst your newsurroundings, and shall find a stranger. My Lady Mabel will be dead andburied. "

There is no knowing how long Lord Mallow might have meandered on inthis dismal strain, if he had not been seasonably interrupted by thearrival of Mr. Vawdrey, who came sauntering along the windingshrubbery-walk, with his favourite pointer Hecate at his heels. Headvanced towards his betrothed at the leisurely pace of a man whosecourtship is over, whose fate is sealed, and from whom society exactsnothing further, except a decent compliance with the arrangements otherpeople make for him. 

He seemed in no wise disconcerted at finding his sweetheart and LordMallow seated side by side, alone, in that romantic and solitary spot. He pressed Mabel's hand kindly, and gave the Irishman a friendly nod. 

"What have you been doing with yourself all the morning, Roderick?"asked Lady Mabel, with that half-reproachful air which is almost thenormal expression of a betrothed young lady in her converse with herlover. 

"Oh, pottering about at Briarwood. The workmen are such fools. I ammaking some slight alterations in the stables, on a plan of myown--putting in mangers, and racks, and pillars, and partitions, fromthe St. Pancras Ironworks, making sanitary improvements and so on--andI have to contend with so much idiocy in our local workmen. If I didnot stand by and see drain-pipes put in and connections made, I believethe whole thing would go wrong. "

"It must be very dreadful for you, " exclaimed Lady Mabel. 

"It must be intolerable!" cried Lord Mallow; "what, when the momentsare golden, when 'Love takes up the glass of Time, and turns it in hisglowing hands, ' when 'Love takes up the harp of life, and smites on allthe chords with might, ' you have to devote your morning to watching thelaying of drain-pipes and digging of sewers! I cannot imagine a moreafflicted man. "

Lady Mabel saw the sneer, but her betrothed calmly ignored it. 

"Of course it's a nuisance, " he said carelessly; "but I had rather bemy own clerk of the works than have the whole thing botched. I thoughtyou were going to Wellbrook Abbey with the house party, Mabel?"

"I know every stone of the Abbey by heart. No, I have been dawdlingabout the grounds all the afternoon. It is much too warm for riding ordriving. "

Lady Mabel strangled an incipient yawn. She had not yawned once in allher talk with Lord Mallow. Rorie stifled another, and Lord Mallowwalked up and down among the pine-needles, like a caged lion. It wouldhave been polite to leave the lovers to themselves, perhaps. They mighthave family matters to discuss, settlements, wedding presents, Heavenknows what. But Lord Mallow was not going to leave them alone. He wasin a savage humour, in which the petty rules and regulations of atraditionary etiquette were as nothing to him. So he stayed, pacingrestlessly, with his hands in his pockets, and inwardly delighted atthe stupid spectacle presented by the affianced lovers, who had nothingto say to each other, and were evidently bored to the last degree bytheir own society. 

"This is the deplorable result of trying to ferment the small beer ofcousinly affection into the Maronean wine of passionate love, " thoughtLord Mallow. "Idiotic parents have imagined that these two people oughtto marry, because they were brought up together, and the little girltook kindly to the little boy. What little girl does not take kindly toanything in the shape of a boy, when they are both in the nursery?Hence these tears. "

"I am going to pour out mamma's tea, " Lady Mabel said presently, keenlysensible of the stupidity of her position. "Will you come, Roderick?Mamma will be glad to know that you are alive. She was wondering aboutyou all the time we were at luncheon. "

"I ought not to have been off duty so long, " Mr. Vawdrey answeredmeekly; "but if you could only imagine the stupidity of thosebricklayers! The day before yesterday I found half-a-dozen stalwartfellows sitting upon a wall, with their hands in their corduroypockets, smoking short pipes, and, I believe, talking politics. Theypretended to be at a standstill because their satellites--their _âmesdamnées_, the men who hold their hods and mix their mortar--had notturned up. 'Don't disturb yourselves, gentlemen, ' I said. 'There'snothing like taking things easy. It's a time-job. I'll send you themorning papers and a can of beer. ' And so I did, and since that day, doyou know, the fellows have worked twice as hard. They don't mind beingbullied; but they can't stand chaff. "

"What an interesting bit of character, " said Lady Mabel, with a faintlyperceptible sneer. "Worthy of Henri Constant. "

"May I come to the Duchess's kettledrum?' asked Lord Mallow humbly. 

"By all means, " answered Mabel. "How fond you gentlemen pretend to beof afternoon tea, nowadays. But I don't believe it is the tea youreally care for. It is the gossip you all like. Darwin has found outthat the male sex is the vain sex: but I don't think he has gone so faras to discover another great truth. It is the superior sex for whomscandal has the keenest charm. "

"I have never heard the faintest hiss of the serpent slander at theDuchess's tea-table, " said Lord Mallow. 

"No; we are dreadfully behind the age, " assented Lady Mabel. "Wecontinue to exist without thinking ill of our neighbours. "

They all three sauntered towards the house, choosing the shelteredways, and skirting the broad sunny lawn, whose velvet sward, green evenin this tropical July, was the result of the latest improvements incultivation, ranging from such simple stimulants as bone-dust andwood-ashes to the last development of agricultural chemistry. LadyMabel and her companions were for the most part silent during thisleisurely walk home, and, when one of them hazarded an observation, theattempt at conversation had a forced air, and failed to call forth anyresponsive brilliancy in the others. 

The Duchess looked provokingly cool and comfortable in hermorning-room, which was an airy apartment on the first-floor, with awide window opening upon a rustic balcony, verandahed and trellised, garlanded with passion-flowers and Australian clematis, and altogethersheltered from sun and wind. The most reposeful sofas, the roomiestarm-chairs in all the house were to be found here, covered with a coolshining chintz of the good old-fashioned sort, apple-blossoms andspring-flowers on a white ground. 

A second window in a corner opened into a small fernery, in which therewas a miniature water-fall that trickled with a slumberous sound overmoss-grown rockwork. There could hardly have been a better room forafternoon tea on a sultry summer day; and afternoon tea at Ashbourneincluded iced coffee, and the finest peaches and nectarines that weregrown in the county; and when the Duke happened to drop in for a chatwith his wife and daughter, sometimes went as far as sherry andAngustura bitters. 

The Duchess received her daughter with her usual delighted air, as ifthe ethereal-looking young lady in India muslin had verily been agoddess. 

"I hope you have not been fatiguing yourself in the orchid-houses onsuch an afternoon as this, my pet, " she said anxiously. 

"No, indeed, mamma; it is much too warm for the orchid-houses. I havebeen in the shrubbery reading, or trying to read, but it is dreadfulsleepy weather. We shall all be glad to get some tea. Oh, here itcomes. "

A match pair of footmen brought a pair of silver trays: caddy, kettle, and teapot, and cups and saucers on one; and a lavish pile of fruit, such as Lance would have loved to paint, on the other. 

Lady Mabel took up the quaint little silver caddy and made the tea. Roderick began to eat peaches. Lord Mallow, true to his nationality, seated himself by the Duchess, and paid her a compliment. 

"There are some more parcels for you, Mabel, " said the fond motherpresently, glancing at a side-table, where sundry neatly-paperedpackets suggested jewellery. 

"More presents, I suppose, " the young lady murmured languidly. "Now Ido hope people have not sent me any more jewellery. I wear so little, and I--"

Have so much, she was going to say, but checked herself on the verge ofa remark that savoured of vulgar arrogance. 

She went on with the tea-making, uncurious as to the inside of thosedainty-looking parcels. She had been surfeited with presents before sheleft her nursery. A bracelet or a locket more or less could not makethe slightest difference in her feelings. She entertained acondescending pity for the foolish people who squandered their money inbuying her such things, when they ought to know that she had asuperfluity of much finer jewels than any they could give her. 

"Don't you want to see your presents?" asked Rorie, looking at her, inhalf-stupid wonder at such calm superiority. 

"They will keep till we have done tea. I can guess pretty well whatthey are like. How many church-services have people sent me, mamma?"

"I think the last made fourteen, " murmured the Duchess, trifling withher tea-spoon. 

"And how many 'Christian Years'?"

"Nine. "

"And how many copies of Doré's 'Idylls of the King'?"

"One came this morning from Mrs. Scobel. I think it was the fifth. "

"How many lockets inscribed with A. E. I. Or 'Mizpah'?"

"My darling, I could not possibly count those. There were three more bypost this morning. "

"You see there is rather a sameness in these things, " said Lady Mabel;"and you can understand why I am not rabidly curious about the contentsof these parcels. I feel sure there will be another 'Mizpah' amongthem. "

She had received Lord Mallow's tribute, an Irish jaunting-car, builtupon the newest lines, and altogether a most perfect vehicle fordriving to a meet in, so light and perfectly balanced as to travelsafely through the ruttiest glade in Mark Ash. 

Rorie's gifts had all been given, so Lady Mabel could afford to makelight of the unopened parcels without fear of wounding the feelings ofanyone present. 

They were opened by-and-by, when the Duke came in from his farm, sorelydisturbed in his mind at the serious indisposition of asix-hundred-guinea cart-horse, which hapless prize animal had beenfatted to such an inflammatory condition that in his case the commonestailment might prove deadly. Depressed by this calamity, the Dukerequired to be propped up with sherry and Angustura bitters, whichtonic mixture was presently brought to him by one of the match footmen, who looked very much as if he were suffering from the same plethoricstate that was likely to prove fatal to the cart-horse. Happily, thefootman's death would be but a temporary inconvenience. The Duke hadnot given six hundred guineas for him. 

Lady Mabel opened her parcels, in the hope of distracting her fatherfrom the contemplation of his trouble. 

"From whom can this be?" she asked wonderingly, "with the Jerseypost-mark? Do I know anyone in Jersey?"

Roderick grew suddenly crimson, and became deeply absorbed in thebusiness of peeling a nectarine. 

"I surely cannot know anyone in Jersey, " said Lady Mabel, in languidwonderment. "It is an altogether impossible place. Nobody in societygoes there. It sounds almost as disreputable as Boulogne. "

"You'd better open the packet, " said Rorie, with a quiver in his voice. 

"Perhaps it is from some of your friends, " speculated Mabel. 

She broke the seal, and tore the cover off a small morocco case. 

"What a lovely pair of earrings!" she exclaimed. 

Each eardrop was a single turquoise, almost as large, and quite asclear in colour, as a hedge-sparrow's egg. The setting was Roman, exquisitely artistic. 

"Now I can forgive anyone for sending me such jewellery as that, " saidLady Mabel. "It is not the sort of thing one sees in every jeweller'sshop. "

Rorie looked at the blue stones with rueful eyes. He knew them well. Hehad seen them contrasted with ruddy chestnut hair, and the whitest skinin Christendom--or at any rate the whitest he had ever seen, and aman's world can be but the world he knows. 

"There is a letter, " said Lady Mabel. "Now I shall find out all aboutmy mysterious Jersey friend. "

She read the letter aloud. 

"Les Tourelles, Jersey, July 25th. 

"Dear Lady Mabel, --I cannot bear that your wedding-day should go bywithout bringing you some small token of regard from your husband's oldfriend. Will you wear these earrings now and then, and believe thatthey come from one who has nothing but good wishes for Rorie'swife?--Yours very truly, "VIOLET TEMPEST. "

"Why, they are actually from your old playfellow!" cried Mabel, with alaugh that had not quite a genuine ring in its mirth. "The young ladywho used to follow the staghounds, in a green habit with brass buttons, ever so many years ago, and who insisted on calling you Rorie. She doesit still, you see. How very sweet of her to send me a wedding-present. I ought to have remembered. I heard something about her being sent offto Jersey by her people, because she had grown rather incorrigible athome. "

"She was not incorrigible, and she was not sent off to Jersey, " saidRoderick grimly. "She left home of her own free will; because she couldnot hit it with her stepfather. "

"That is another way of expressing it, but I think we both mean prettymuch the same thing, " retorted Mabel. "But I don't want to know why shewent to Jersey. She has behaved very sweetly in sending me such apretty letter; and when she is at home again I shall be very happy tosee her at my garden-parties. "

Lord Mallow had no share in this conversation, for the Duke hadbuttonholed him, and was giving him a detailed account of thecart-horse's symptoms. 

The little party dispersed soon after this, and did not foregatheragain until just before dinner, when the people who had been to see theruins were all assembled, full of their day's enjoyment, and of sundryconversational encounters which they had had with the natives of thedistrict. They gave themselves the usual airs which people who havebeen laboriously amusing themselves inflict upon those wiserindividuals who prefer the passive pleasure of repose, and made a meritof having exposed themselves to the meridian sun, in the pursuit ofarchaeological knowledge. 

Lady Mabel looked pale and weary all that evening. Roderick was soevidently distrait that the good-natured Duke thought that he must beworrying himself about the cart-horse, and begged him to make his mindeasy, as it was possible the animal might even yet recover. 

Later on in the evening Lady Mabel and Lord Mallow sat in theconservatory and talked Irish politics, while Rorie and the youngermembers of the house party played Nap. The conservatory was deliciouslycool on this summer evening, dimly lighted by lamps that were halfhidden among the palms and orange-trees. Lady Mabel and her companioncould see the stars shining through the open doorway, and the mysticaldarkness of remote woods. Their voices were hushed; there were pausesof silence in their talk. Never had the stirring question of Home Rulebeen more interesting. 

Lady Mabel did not go back to the drawing-room that evening. There wasa door leading from the conservatory to the hall; and, while Rorie andthe young people were still somewhat noisily engaged in the game ofNapoleon, Lady Mabel went out to the hall with Lord Mallow inattendance upon her. When he had taken her candle from the table andlighted it, he paused for a moment or so before he handed it to her, looking at her very earnestly all the while, as she stood at the footof the staircase, with saddened face and downcast eyes, gravelycontemplative of the stair-carpet. 

"Is it--positively--too late?" he asked. 

"You must feel and know that it is so, " she answered. 

"But it might have been?"

"Yes, " she murmured with a faint sigh, "it might have been. "

He gave her the candlestick, and she went slowly upstairs, without aword of good-night. He stood in the hall, watching the slim figure asit ascended, aerial and elegant in its palely-tinted drapery. 

"It might have been, " he repeated to himself: and then he lighted hiscandle and went slowly up the staircase. He was in no humour forbilliards, cigars, or noisy masculine talk to-night. Still less was heinclined to be at ease and to make merry with Roderick Vawdrey. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Wedding Bells. 

Vixen had been more than a year in the island of Jersey. She had livedher lonely and monotonous existence, and made no moan. It was a drearyexile; but it seemed to her that there was little else for her to do inlife but dawdle through the long slow days, and bear the burden ofliving; at least until she came of age, and was independent, and couldgo where she pleased. Then there would be the wide world for her towander over, instead of this sea-girdled garden of Jersey. She hadreasons of her own for so quietly submitting to this joyless life. Mrs. Winstanley kept her informed of all that was doing in Hampshire, andeven at the Queen Anne house at Kensington. She knew that RoderickVawdrey's wedding-day was fixed for the first of August. Was it notbetter that she should be far away, hidden from her small world; whilethose marriage bells were ringing across the darkening beech-woods?

Her sacrifice had not been in vain. Her lover had speedily forgottenthat brief madness of last midsummer, and had returned to hisallegiance. There had been no cloud upon the loves of the plightedcousins--no passing gust of dissension. If there had been, Mrs. Winstanley would have known all about it. Her letters told only ofharmonious feeling and perpetual sunshine. 

"Lady Mabel is looking prettier than ever, " she wrote, in the last weekof July, "that ethereal loveliness which I so much admire. Her waistcannot be more than eighteen inches. I cannot find out who makes herdresses, but they are exquisitely becoming to her; though, for my ownpart, I do not think the style equal to Theodore's. But then I alwayssupplemented Theodore's ideas with my own suggestions. 

"I hear that the _trousseau_ is something wonderful. The _lingerie_ isin quite a new style; a special make of linen has been introduced atBruges on purpose for the occasion, and I have heard that the loom isto be broken and no more made. But this is perhaps exaggeration. Thelace has all been made in Buckinghamshire, from patterns a hundredyears old--very quaint and pretty. There is an elegant simplicity abouteverything, Mrs. Scobel tells me, which is very charming. The costumesfor the Norwegian tour are heather-coloured water-proof cloth, withstitched borders, plain to the last degree, but with a _chic_ thatredeems their plainness. 

"Conrad and I received an early invitation to the wedding. He will go;but I have refused, on the ground of ill-health. And, indeed, my dearViolet, this is no idle excuse. My health has been declining ever sinceyou left us. I was always a fragile creature, as you know, even in yourdear papa's time; but of late the least exertion has made me tremblelike a leaf. I bear up, for Conrad's sake. He is so anxious and unhappywhen he sees me suffer, and I am glad to spare him anxiety. 

"Your old friend, Mr. Vawdrey, looks well and happy, but I do not seemuch of him. Believe me, dear, you acted well and wisely in leavinghome when you did. It would have been a dreadful thing if Lady Mabel'sengagement had been broken off on account of an idle flirtation betweenyou and Rorie. It would have left a stain upon your name for life. Girls do not think of these things. I'm afraid I flirted a littlemyself when I was first out, and admiration was new to me; but Imarried so young that I escaped some of the dangers you have had topass through. 

"Roderick is making considerable improvements and alterations atBriarwood. He is trying to make the house pretty--I fear an impossibletask. There is a commonplace tone about the building that defiesimprovement. The orchid-houses at Ashbourne are to be taken down andremoved to Briarwood. The collection has been increasing ever sinceLady Jane Vawdrey's death, and is now one of the finest in England. Butto my mind the taste is a most foolish one. Dear Conrad thinks meextravagant for giving sixty guineas for a dress--what might he notthink if I gave as much for a single plant? Lord Mallow is staying atAshbourne for the wedding. His success in the House of Commons has madehim quite a lion. He called and took tea with me the other day. He isvery nice. Ah, my dearest Violet, what a pity you could not like him. It would have been such a splendid match for you, and would have madeConrad and me so proud and happy. "

Vixen folded the letter with a sigh. She was sitting in her favouritespot in the neglected garden, the figs ripening above her among theirbroad ragged leaves, and the green slopes and valleys lying beneathher--orchards and meadows and pink homesteads, under a sultry summerhaze. 

The daughter was not particularly alarmed by her mother's complaint ofdeclining health. It was that old cry of "wolf, " which Violet had heardever since she could remember. 

"Poor mamma!" she said to herself, with a half-pitying tenderness, "ithas always been her particular vanity to fancy herself an invalid; andyet no doctor has ever been able to find out anything amiss. She oughtto be very happy now, poor dear; she has the husband of her choice, andno rebellious daughter to make the atmosphere stormy. I must write toMrs. Scobel, and ask if mamma is really not quite so well as when Ileft home. "

And then Vixen's thoughts wandered away to Rorie, and the alterationsthat were being made at Briarwood. He was preparing a bright home forhis young wife, and they would be very happy together, and it would beas if Violet had never crossed his path. 

"But he was fond of me, last midsummer twelvemonth, " thought Vixen, half seated half reclining against a grassy bank, with her handsclasped above her head, and her open book flung aside upon the longgrass, where the daisies and dandelions grew in such wild abundance. "Yes, he loved me dearly then, and would have sacrificed interest, honour, all the world for my sake. Can he forget those days, when theyare thus ever present to my mind? He seemed more in love than I: yet, alittle year, and he is going to be married. Have men no memories? I donot believe that he loves Lady Mabel any better than he did a year ago, when he asked me to be his wife. But he has learnt wisdom; and he isgoing to keep his word, and to be owner of Briarwood and Ashbourne, anda great man in the county. I suppose it is a glorious destiny. "

In these last days of July a strange restlessness had taken possessionof Violet Tempest. She could not read or occupy herself in any way. Those long rambles about the island, to wild precipices looking down onpeaceful bays, to furzy hills where a few scattered sheep were her solecompanions, to heathery steeps that were craggy and precipitous anddangerous to climb, and so had a certain fascination for the lonelywanderer--these rambles, which had been her chief resource and solaceuntil now, had suddenly lost their charm. She dawdled in the garden, orroamed restlessly from the garden to the orchard, from the orchard tothe sloping meadow, where Miss Skipwith's solitary cow, lastrepresentative of a once well-stocked farm, browsed in a dignifiedseclusion. The days were slow, and oh, how lengthy! and yet there was afever in Vixen's blood which made it seem to her as if time werehurrying on at a breathless break-neck pace. 

"The day after to-morrow he will be married, " she said to herself, onthe morning of the thirtieth. "By this time on the day after to-morrow, the bride will be putting on her wreath of orange blossoms, and thechurch will be decorated with flowers, and there will be a flutter ofexpectation in all the little villages, from one end of the Forest tothe other. A duke's daughter is not married every day in the year. Ahme! there will not be an earthquake, or anything to prevent thewedding, I daresay. No, I feel sure that all things are going smoothly. If there had been a hitch of any kind, mamma would have written to tellme about it. "

Miss Skipwith was not a bad person to live with in a time of secrettrouble such as this. She was so completely wrapped up in her grandscheme of reconciliation for all the creeds, that she was utterly blindto any small individual tragedy that might be enacted under her nose. Those worn cheeks and haggard eyes of Vixen's attracted no attentionfrom her as they sat opposite to each other at the sparely-furnishedbreakfast-table, in the searching summer light. 

She had allowed Violet perfect liberty, and had been too apathetic tobe unkind. Having tried her hardest to interest the girl in Swedenborg, or Luther, or Calvin, or Mahomet, or Brahma, or Confucius, and havingfailed ignominiously in each attempt, she had dismissed all idea ofcompanionship with Violet from her mind, and had given her over to herown devices. 

"Poor child, " she said to herself, "she is not unamiable, but she isutterly mindless. What advantages she might have derived fromintercourse with me, if she had possessed a receptive nature! But myhighest gifts are thrown away upon her. She will go through life inlamentable ignorance of all that is of deepest import in man's past andfuture. She has no more intellect than Baba. "

Baba was the Persian cat, the silent companion of Miss Skipwith'sstudious hours. 

So Violet roamed in and out of the house, in this languid weather, andtook up a book only to throw it down again, and went out to thecourt-yard to pat Argus, and strolled into the orchard and leanedlistlessly against an ancient apple-tree, with her loose hairglistening in the sunshine--just as if she were posing herself for apre-Raphaelite picture--and no one took any heed of her goings andcomings. 

She was supremely lonely. Even looking forward to the future--when shewould be of age and well off, and free to do what she liked with herlife--she could see no star of hope. Nobody wanted her. She stood quitealone amidst a strange, unfriendly world. 

"Except poor old McCroke, I don't think there is a creature who caresfor me; and even her love is tepid, " she said to herself. 

She had kept up a regular correspondence with her old governess, sinceshe had been in Jersey, and had developed to Miss McCroke the scheme ofher future travels. They were to see everything strange and rare andbeautiful, that was to be seen in the world. 

"I wonder if you would much mind going to Africa?" she wrote, in one ofher frank girlish letters. "There must be something new in Africa. Onewould get away from the beaten ways of Cockney tourists, and one wouldescape the dreary monotony of a _table d'hôte_. There is Egypt for usto do; and you, who are a walking encyclopaedia, will be able to tellme all about the Pyramids, and Pompey's Pillar, and the Nile. If we gottired of Africa we might go to India. We shall be thoroughlyindependent. I know you are a good sailor; you are not like poor mamma, who used to suffer tortures in crossing the Channel. "

There was a relief in writing such letters as these, foolish thoughthey might be. That idea of distant wanderings with Miss McCroke wasthe one faint ray of hope offered by the future--not a star, assuredly, but at least a farthing candle. The governess answered in her friendlymatter-of-fact way. She would like much to travel with her dearestViolet. The life would be like heaven after her present drudgery infinishing the Misses Pontifex, who were stupid and supercilious. ButMiss McCroke was doubtful about Africa. Such a journey would be afearful undertaking for two unprotected females. To have a peep atAlgiers and Tunis, and even to see Cairo and Alexandria, might bepracticable; but anything beyond that Miss McCroke thought wild andadventurous. Had her dear Violet considered the climate, and thepossibility of being taken prisoners by black people, or even devouredby lions? Miss McCroke begged her dear pupil to read Livingstone'stravels and the latest reports of the Royal Geographical Society, before she gave any further thought to Africa. 

The slowest hours, days the most wearisome, long nights that know notsleep, must end at last. The first of August dawned, a long streak ofred light in the clear gray east. Vixen saw the first glimmer as shelay wide awake in her big old bed, staring through the curtainlesswindows to the far sea-line, above which the morning sky grew red. 

"Hail, Rorie's wedding-day!" she cried, with a little hysterical laugh;and then she buried her face in the pillow and sobbed aloud--sobbed asshe had not done till now, through all her weary exile. 

There had been no earthquake; this planet we live on had not rolledbackwards in space; all things in life pursued their accustomed course, and time had ripened into Roderick Vawdrey's wedding-day. 

"I did think _something_ would happen, " said Vixen piteously. "It wasfoolish, weak, mad to think so. But I could not believe he would marryanyone but me. I did my duty, and I tried to be brave and steadfast. But I thought something would happen. "

A weak lament from the weak soul of an undisciplined girl. The redlight grew and glowed redder in the east, and then the yellow sun shonethrough gray drifting clouds, and the new day was born. Slumber andViolet had parted company for the last week. Her mind had been too fullof images; the curtain of sleep would not hide them. Frame and mindwere both alike worn out, as she lay in the broadening light, lonely, forsaken, unpitied, bearing her great sorrow, just as she must haveborne the toothache, or any other corporal pain. 

She rose at seven, feeling unspeakably tired, dressed herself slowlyand dawdlingly, thinking of Lady Mabel. What an event her rising anddressing would be this morning--the flurried maids, the indulgentmother; the pure white garments, glistening in the tempered sunlight;the luxurious room, with its subdued colouring, its perfume offreshly-cut flowers; the dainty breakfast-tray, on a table by an openwindow; the shower of congratulatory letters, and the last delivery ofwedding gifts. Vixen could imagine the scene, with its every detail. 

And Roderick, what of him? She could not so easily picture thecompanion of her childhood on this fateful morning of his life. Shecould not imagine him happy: she dared not fancy him miserable. It wassafer to make a great effort and shut that familiar figure out of hermind altogether. 

Oh, what a dismal ceremony the eight--o'clock breakfast, _tête-à-tête_with Miss Skipwith, seemed on this particular morning! Even thatpreoccupied lady was constrained to notice Violet's exceeding pallor. 

"My dear, you are ill!" she exclaimed. "Your face is as white as asheet of paper, and your eyes have dark rings around them. "

"I am not ill, but I have been sleeping badly of late. "

"My dear child, you need occupation; you want an aim. The purposelesslife you are leading must result badly. Why can you not devise somepursuit to fill your idle hours? Far be it from me to interfere withyour liberty; but I confess that it grieves me to see youth, and nodoubt some measure of ability, so wasted. Why do you not strive tocontinue your education? Self-culture is the highest form ofimprovement. My books are at your disposal. "

"Dear Miss Skipwith, your books are all theological, " said Vixenwearily, "and I don't care for theology. As for my education, I am notutterly neglecting it. I read Schiller till my eyes ache. "

"One shallow German poet is not the beginning and end of education, "replied Miss Skipwith. "I should like you to take larger views ofwoman's work in the world. "

"My work in the world is to live quietly, and not to trouble anyone, "said Vixen, with a sigh. 

She was glad to leave Miss Skipwith to her books, and to wander outinto the sunny garden, where the figs were ripening or droppinghalf-ripened amongst the neglected grass, and the clustering bloom ofthe hydrangeas was as blue as the summer sky. There had been anunbroken interval of sultry weather--no rain, no wind, no clouds--onlyendless sunshine. 

"If it would hail, or blow, or thunder, " sighed Vixen, with her handsclasped above her head, "the change might be some small relief to myfeelings; but this everlasting brightness is too dreadful. What a lyingworld it is, and how Nature smiles at us when our hearts are aching. Well, I suppose I ought to wish the sunshine to last till after Rorie'swedding; but I don't, I don't, I don't! If the heavens were to darken, and forked lightnings to cleave the black vault, I should dance forjoy. I should hail the storm, and cry, 'This is sympathy!'"

And then she flung herself face downwards on the grass and sobbed, asshe had sobbed on her pillow that morning. 

"It rends my heart to know we are parted for ever, " she said. "Oh whydid I not say Yes that night in the fir plantation? The chance oflifelong bliss was in my hand, and I let it go. It would have been lesswicked to give way then, and accept my happy fate, than to suffer theseevil feelings that are gnawing at my heart to-day--vain rage, cruelhatred of the innocent!"

The wedding bells must be ringing by this time. She fancied she couldhear them. Yes, the summer air seemed alive with bells. North, south, east, west, all round the island, they were ringing madly, with tunefulmarriage peal. They beat upon her brain. They would drive her mad. Shetried to stop her ears, but then those wedding chimes seemed ringinginside her head. She could not shut them out. She remembered how thejoybells had haunted her ears on Rorie's twenty-first birthday--thatday which had ended so bitterly, in the announcement of the engagementbetween the cousins. Yes, that had been her first real trouble, Howwell she remembered her despair and desolation that night, the ragethat possessed her young soul. 

"And I was little more than a child, then, " she said to herself. "Surely I must have been born wicked. My dear father was living then;and even the thought of his love did not comfort me. I felt myselfabandoned and alone in the world. How idiotically fond I must have beenof Rorie. Ever so many years have come and gone, and I have not curedmyself of this folly. What is there in him that I should care for him?"

She got up from the grass, plucked herself out of that paroxysm ofmental pain which came too near lunacy, and began to walk slowly roundthe garden-paths, reasoning with herself, calling womanly pride to therescue. 

"I hate myself for this weakness, " she protested dumbly. "I did notthink I was capable of it. When I was a child, and was taken to thedentist, did I ever whine and howl like vulgar-minded children? No; Ibraced myself for the ordeal, and bore the pain, as my father's childought. "

She walked quickly to the house, burst into the parlour, where MissSkipwith was sitting at her desk, the table covered with open volumes, over which flowers of literature the student roved, beelike, collectinghoney for her intellectual hive. 

"Please, Miss Skipwith, will you give me some books about Buddha?" saidVixen, with an alarming suddenness. "I am quite of your opinion: Iought to study. I think I shall go in for theology. "

"My dearest child!" cried the ancient damsel, enraptured. "ThankHeaven! the seed I have sown has germinated at last. If you are onceinspired with the desire to enter that vast field of knowledge, therest will follow. The flowers you will find by the wayside will lureyou onward, even when the path is stony and difficult. "

"I suppose I had better begin with Buddha, " said Vixen, with a hard andresolute manner that scarcely seemed like the burning desire forknowledge newly kindled in the breast of a youthful student. "That isbeginning at the beginning, is it not?"

"No, my dear. In comparison with the priesthood of Egypt, Buddha iscontemptibly modern. If we want the beginning of things, we must revertto Egypt, that cradle of learning and civilisation. "

"Then let me begin with Egypt!" cried Vixen impatiently. "I don't carea bit how I begin. I want occupation for my mind. "

"Did I not say so?" exclaimed Miss Skipwith, full of ardent welcome forthe neophyte whose steps had been so tardy in approaching the shrine. "That pallor, those haggard eyes are indications of a troubled mind;and no mind can be free from trouble when it lacks an object. We createour own sorrows. "

"Yes, we are wretched creatures!" cried Vixen passionately, "thepoorest examples of machinery in all this varied universe. Look at thatcow in your orchard, her dull placid life, inoffensive, useful, askingnothing but a fertile meadow and a sunny day to fill her cup ofhappiness. Why did the great Creator make the lower animals exempt fromsorrow, and give us such an infinite capacity for grief and pain? Itseems hardly fair. "

"My dear, our Creator gave us minds, and the power of working out ourown salvation, " replied Miss Skipwith. "Here are half-a-dozen volumes. In these you will find the history of Egyptian theology, from thegolden age of the god Râ to the dark and troubled period of Persianinvasion. Some of these works are purely philosophical. I shouldrecommend you to read the historical volumes first. Make copious notesof what you read, and do not hesitate to refer to me when you arepuzzled. "

"I am afraid that will be very often, " said Vixen, piling up the booksin her arms with a somewhat hopeless air. "I am not at all clever; butI want to employ my mind. "

She carried the books up to her bedroom, and arranged them on a stoutold oak table, which Mrs. Doddery had found for her accommodation. Sheopened her desk, and put a quire of paper ready for any notes she mightbe tempted to make, and then she began, steadily and laboriously, witha dry-as-dust history of ancient Egypt. 

Oh, how her poor head ached as the summer noontide wore on, and thebees hummed in the garden below, and the distant waves danced gaily inthe sunlight; and the knowledge that the bells were really ringing atAshbourne could not be driven from her mind. How the Shepherd Kings, and the Pharaohs, and the comparatively modern days of Joseph and hisbrethren, and the ridiculously recent era of Moses, passed, like dimshifting shadows, before her mental vision. She retraced her steps inthat dreary book, again and again, patiently, forcing her mind to theuncongenial task. 

"I will not be such a slave as to think of him all this long summerday, " she said to herself. "I _will_ think of the god Râ, and lotusflowers, and the Red Nile, and the Green Nile, and all this wonderfulland where I am going to take dear old McCroke by-and-by. "

She read on till dinner-time, only pausing to scribble rapid notes ofthe dates and names and facts which would not stand steadily in herwhirling brain; and then she went down to the parlour, no longer pale, but with two hectic spots on her cheeks, and her eyes unnaturallybright. 

"Ah, " ejaculated Miss Skipwith, delightedly. "You look better already. There is nothing like severe study for bracing the nerves. "

Violet talked about Egypt all dinner-time, but she ate hardly anything, and that hectic flush upon her cheeks grew more vivid as she talked. 

"To think that after the seed lying dormant all this time, it shouldhave germinated at last with such sudden vigour, " mused Miss Skipwith. "The poor girl is talking a good deal of nonsense; but that is only theexuberance of a newly awakened intellect. "

Vixen went back to the Egyptians directly after dinner. She toiledalong the arid road with an indomitable patience. Her ideas of Egypthad hitherto been of the vaguest. Vast plains of barren sand, a pyramidor two, Memnon's head breathing wild music in the morning sunshine, crocodiles, copper-coloured natives, and Antony and Cleopatra. Thesethings were about as much as Miss McCroke's painstaking tuition hadimplanted in her pupil's mind. And here, without a shadow of vocation, this poor ignorant girl was poring over the driest details that everinterested the scholar. The mysteries of the triple language, theRosetta Stone, Champollion--_tout le long de la rivière_. Was it anywonder that her head ached almost to agony, and that the ringing ofimaginary wedding bells sounded distractingly in her ears?

She worked on till tea-time, and was too engrossed to hear the bell, which clanged lustily for every meal in the orderly household: a bellwhose clamour was somewhat too much for the repast it heralded. 

This evening Vixen did not hear the bell, inviting her to weak tea andbread-and-butter. The ringing of those other bells obscured the sound. She was sitting with her book before her, but her eyes fixed onvacancy, when Miss Skipwith, newly interested in her charge, came toinquire the cause of her delay. The girl looked at her languidly, andseemed slow to understand what she said. 

"I don't care for any tea, " she replied at last. "I would rather go onwith the history. It is tremendously interesting, especially thehieroglyphics. I have been trying to make them out. It is so nice toknow that a figure like a chopper means a god, and that a goose with ablack ball above his hack means Pharaoh, son of the sun. And then thetable of dynasties: can anything be more interesting than those? Itmakes one's head go round just a little at first, when one has to gropebackwards through so many centuries, but that's nothing. "

"My dear, you are working too hard. It is foolish to begin with suchimpetuosity. A fire that burns so fiercely will soon exhaust itself. _Festina lente_. We must hasten slowly, if we want to make solidprogress. Why, my poor child, your fore-head is burning. You will readyourself into a fever. "

"I think I am in a fever already, " said Vixen. 

Miss Skipwith was unusually kind. She insisted upon helping her chargeto undress, and would not leave her till she was lying quietly in bed. She was going to draw down the blinds, but against this Vixen protestedvehemently. 

"Pray leave me the sky, " she cried; "it is something to look at throughthe long blank night. The stars come and go, and the clouds are alwayschanging. I believe I should go mad if it were not for the sky. "

Poor Miss Skipwith felt seriously uneasy. The first draught from thefountain of knowledge had evidently exercised an intoxicating effectupon Violet Tempest. It was as if she had been taking opium or hashish. The girl's brain was affected. 

"You have studied too long, " she said. "This must not occur again. Ifeel myself responsible to your parents for your health. "

"To my parents, " echoed Vixen, with a sudden sigh; "I have only one, and she is happier in my absence than when I was with her. You need notbe uneasy about me if I fall ill. No one will care. If I were to die, no one would be sorry. I have no place in the world. No one would missme. "

"My dear, it is absolutely wicked to talk in this strain; just as youare developing new powers, an intellect which may make you a pillar anda landmark in your age. "

"I don't want to be a pillar or a landmark, " said Vixen impatiently. "Idon't want to have my name associated with 'movements, ' or to writeletters to The Times. I should like to have been happy my own way. "

She turned her back upon Miss Skipwith, and lay so still that theexcellent lady supposed she was dropping off to sleep. 

"A good night's rest will restore her, and she will awake with renewedappetite for knowledge, " she murmured benevolently as she went back toher Swedenborgian studies. 

CHAPTER IX. 

The nearest Way to Norway. 

No such blessing as a good night's rest was in store for Violet Tempeston that night of the first of August. She lay in a state ofhalf-consciousness that was near akin to delirium. When she closed hereyes for a little while the demon of evil dreams took hold of her. Shewas in the old familiar home-scenes with her dear dead father. Sheacted over again that awful tragedy of sudden death. She was upbraidingher mother about Captain Winstanley. Bitter words were on her lips;words more bitter than even she had ever spoken in all her intensity ofadverse feeling. She was in the woody hollow by Rufus's stone, blindfold, with arms stretched helplessly out, seeking for Rorie amongthe smooth beech-boles, with a dreadful sense of loneliness, and a fearthat he was far away, and that she would perish, lost and alone, inthat dismal wood. 

So the slow night wore on to morning. Sometimes she lay staring idly atthe stars, shining so serenely in that calm summer sky. She wonderedwhat life was like, yonder, in those remote worlds. Was humanity'sportion as sad, fate as adverse, there as here? Then she thought ofEgypt, and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra--that story of a wild, undisciplined love, grand in its lawless passion--its awful doom. Tohave loved thus, and died thus, seemed a higher destiny than to doright, and patiently conquer sorrow, and live on somehow to the dismalend of the dull blameless chapter. 

At last, with what laggard steps, with what oppressive tardiness, camethe dawn, in long streaks of lurid light above the edge of the distantwaters. 

"'Red sky at morning is the shepherd's warning!'" cried Vixen, with drylips. "Thank God there will be rain to-day! Welcome change after thehot arid skies, and the cruel brazen sun, mocking all the miseries ofthis troubled earth. "

She felt almost as wildly glad as the Ancient Mariner, at the idea ofthat blessed relief; and then, by-and-by, with the changeful lightshining on her face, she fell into a deep sleep. 

Perhaps that morning sleep saved Vixen from an impending fever. It wasthe first refreshing slumber she had had for a week--a sweet dreamlesssleep. The breakfast-bell rang unheeded. The rain, forecast by that redsky, fell in soft showers upon the verdant isle, and the grateful earthgave back its sweetest perfumes to the cool, moist air. 

Miss Skipwith came softly in to look at her charge, saw her sleepingpeacefully, and as softly retired. 

"Poor child! the initiation has been too much for her unformed mind, "she murmured complacently, pleased with herself for having secured adisciple. "The path is narrow and rugged at the beginning, but it willbroaden out before her as she goes on. "

Violet awoke, and found that it was mid-day. Oh, what a blessed reliefthat long morning sleep had been. She woke like a creature cured ofmortal pain. She fell on her knees beside the bed, and prayed as shehad not often prayed in her brief careless life. 

"What am I that I should question Thy justice!" she cried. "Lord, teachme to submit, teach me to bear my burden patiently, and to do some goodin the world. "

Her mood and temper were wondrously softened after a long interval ofthought and prayer. She was ashamed of her waywardness ofyesterday--her foolish unreasonable passion. 

"Poor Rorie, I told him to keep his promise, and he has obeyed me, " shesaid to herself. "Can I be angry with him for that? I ought to feelproud and glad that we were both strong enough to do our duty. "

She dressed slowly, languid after the excitement of yesterday, and thenwent slowly down the broad bare staircase to Miss Skipwith's parlour. 

The lady of the manor received her with affectionate greeting, and hada special pot of tea brewed for her, and insisted upon her eating somedry toast, a form of nourishment which this temperate lady deemed apanacea in illness. 

"I was positively alarmed about you last night, my dear, " she said;"you were so feverish and excited. You read too much, for the firstday. "

"I'm afraid I did, " assented Vixen, with a faint smile; "and the worstof it is, I believe I have forgotten every word I read. "

"Surely not!" cried Miss Skipwith, horrified at this admission. "Youseemed so impressed--so interested. You were so full of your subject. "

"I have a faint recollection of the little men in the hieroglyphics, "said Vixen; "but all the rest is gone. The images of Antony andCleopatra, in Shakespeare's play, bring Egypt more vividly before methan all the history I read yesterday. "

Miss Skipwith looked shocked, just as if some improper character inreal life had been brought before her. 

"Cleopatra was very disreputable, and she was not Egyptian, " sheremarked severely. "I am sorry you should waste your thoughts upon sucha person. "

"I think she is the most interesting woman in ancient history, " saidVixen wilfully, "as Mary Queen of Scots is in modern history. It is notthe good people whose images take hold of one's fancy, What a faintidea one has of Lady Jane Grey, And, in Schiller's 'Don Carlos, ' Iconfess the Marquis of Posa never interested me half so keenly asPhilip of Spain. "

"My dear, you are made up of fancies and caprices. Your mind wantsbalance, " said Miss Skipwith, affronted at this frivolity. "Had you notbetter go for a walk with your dog? Doddery tells me that poor Argushas not had a good run since last week. "

"How wicked of me!" cried Vixen. "Poor old fellow! I had almostforgotten his existence. Yes, I should like a long walk, if you willnot think me idle. "

"You studied too many hours yesterday, my dear. It will do you good torelax the bow to-day. _Non semper arcum tendit Apollo!_"

"I'll go for my favourite walk to Mount Orgueil. I don't think there'llbe any more rain. Please excuse me if I am not home in time for dinner. I can have a little cold meat, or an egg, for my tea. "

"You had better take a sandwich with you, " said Miss Skipwith, withunusual thoughtfulness. "You have been eating hardly anything lately. "

Vixen did not care about the sandwich, but submitted, to please herhostess, and a neat little paper parcel, containing about three ouncesof nutriment, was made up for her by Mrs. Doddery. Never had the islandlooked fairer in its summer beauty than it did to-day, after themorning's rain. These showers had been to Jersey what sleep had been toVixen. The air was soft and cool; sparkling rain-drops fell likediamonds from the leaves of ash and elm. The hedge-row ferns had takena new green, as if the spirit of spring had revisited the island. Theblue bright sea was dimpled with wavelets. 

What a bright glad world it was, and how great must be the sin of arebellious spirit, cavilling at the dealings of its Creator! The happydog bounced and bounded round his mistress, the birds twittered in thehedges, the passing farm-labourer with his cartload of seaweed smackedhis whip cheerily as he urged his patient horse along the narrow lane. A huge van-load of Cockney tourists, singing a boisterous chorus of thelast music-hall song, passed Vixen at a turn of the road, and made ablot on the serene beauty of the scene. They were going to eat lobstersand drink bottled beer and play skittles at Le Tac. Vixen rejoiced whentheir raucous voices died away on the summer breeze. 

"Why is Jersey the peculiar haunt of the vulgar?" she wondered. "It issuch a lovely place that it deserves to be visited by something betterthan the refuse of Margate and Ramsgate. "

There was a meadow-path which lessened the distance between LesTourelles and Mount Orgueil. Vixen had just left the road and enteredthe meadow when Argus set up a joyous bark, and ran back to salute apassing vehicle. It was a St. Helier's fly, driving at a tremendouspace in the direction from which she had come. A young man lay back inthe carriage, smoking a cigar, with his hat slouched over his eyes. Vixen could just see the strong sunburnt hand flung up above his head. It was a foolish fancy, doubtless, but that broad brown hand remindedher of Rorie's. Argus leaped the stile, rushed after the vehicle, andsaluted it clamorously. The poor brute had been mewed up for a week ina dull courtyard, and was rejoiced at having something to bark at. 

Vixen walked on to the seashore, and the smiling little harbour, andthe brave old castle. There was the usual party of tourists followingthe guide through narrow passages and echoing chambers, and peeringinto the rooms where Charles Stuart endured his exile, and making thoselively remarks and speculations whereby the average tourist is prone toreveal his hazy notions of history. Happily Vixen knew of quiet cornersupon the upward walls whither tourists rarely penetrated; nooks inwhich she had sat through many an hour of sun and shade, reading, musing, or sketching with free untutored pencil, for the mere idledelight of the moment. Here in this loneliness, between land and sea, she had nursed her sorrow and made much of her grief. She liked theplace. No obtrusive sympathy had ever made it odious to her. Here shewas mistress of herself and her own thoughts. To-day she went to herfavourite corner, a seat in an angle of the battlemented wall, and satthere with her arms folded on the stone parapet, looking dreamilyseaward, across the blue channel to the still bluer coast of Normandy, where the tower of Coutance showed dimly in the distance. 

Resignation. Yes, that was to be her portion henceforward. She mustlive out her life, in isolation almost as complete as Miss Skipwith's, without the innocent delusions which gave substance and colour to thatlonely lady's existence. 

"If I could only have a craze, " she thought hopelessly, "some harmlessmonomania which would fill my mind! The maniacs in Bedlam, who fancythemselves popes or queens, are happy in their foolish way. If I couldonly imagine myself something which I am not--anything except pooruseless Violet Tempest, who has no place in the world!"

The sun was gaining power, the air was drowsy, the soft ripple of thetide upon the golden sand was like a lullaby. Even that long sleep ofthe morning had not cured Vixen's weariness. There were long arrears ofslumber yet to be made up. Her eyelids drooped, then closed altogether, the ocean lullaby took a still softer sound, the distant voices of thetourists grew infinitely soothing, and Vixen sank quietly to sleep, herhead leaning on her folded arms, the gentle west wind faintly stirringher loose hair. 

"'Oh, happy kiss that woke thy sleep!'" cried a familiar voice close inthe slumberer's ear, and then a warm breath, which was not the summerwind, fanned the cheek that lay upmost upon her arm, two warm lips werepressed against that glowing cheek in ardent greeting. The girl startedto her feet, every vein tingling with the thrilling recognition of herassailant. There was no one else--none other than he--in this wideworld who would do such a thing! She sprang up, and faced him, her eyesflashing, her cheeks crimson. 

"How dare you?" she cried. "Then it was you I saw in the fly? Pray, isthis the nearest way to Norway?"

Yes, it was Rorie; looking exactly like the familiar Rorie of old; notone whit altered by marriage with a duke's only daughter; a stalwartyoung fellow in a rough gray suit, a dark face sunburnt to deepestbronze, eyes with a happy smile in them, firmly-cut lips half hidden bythe thick brown beard, a face that would have looked well under alifted helmet--such a face as the scared Saxons must have seen amongthe bold followers of William the Norman, when those hardy Norsewarriors ran amuck in Dover town. 

"Not to my knowledge, " answered this audacious villain, in his lightesttone. "I am not very geographical. But I should think it was rather outof the way. "

"Then you and Lady Mabel have changed your plans?" said Vixen, trembling very much, but trying desperately to be as calmly commonplaceas a young lady talking to an ineligible partner at a ball. "You arenot going to the north of Europe?"

"Lady Mabel and I have changed our plans. We are not going to the northof Europe. "

"Oh!"

"In point of fact, we are not going anywhere. "

"But you have come to Jersey. That is part of your tour, I suppose?"

"Do not be too hasty in your suppositions, Miss Tempest. _I_ have cometo Jersey--I am quite willing to admit as much as that. "

"And Lady Mabel? She is with you, of course?"

"Not the least bit in the world. To the best of my knowledge, LadyMabel--I beg her pardon--Lady Mallow is now on her way thefishing-grounds of Connemara with her husband. "

"Rorie!"

What a glad happy cry that was! It was like a gush of sudden music froma young blackbird's throat on a sunny spring morning. The crimson dyehad faded from Violet's cheeks a minute ago and left her deadly pale. Now the bright colour rushed back again, the happy brown eyes, thesweet blush-rose lips, broke into the gladdest smile that ever Roriehad seen upon her face. He held out his arms, he clasped her to hisbreast, where she rested unresistingly, infinitely happy. Great Heaven!how the whole world and herself had become transformed in this momentof unspeakable bliss! Rorie, the lost, the surrendered, was her owntrue lover after all!

"Yes, dear, I obeyed you. You were hard and cruel to me that night inthe fir plantation; but I knew in my heart of hearts that you werewise, and honest, and true; and I made up my mind that I would keep theengagement entered upon beside my mother's death-bed. Loving orunloving I would marry Mabel Ashbourne, and do my duty to her, and godown to my grave with the character of a good and faithful husband, asmany a man has done who never loved his wife. So I held on, Vixen--yes, I will call you by the old pet name now: henceforward you are mine, andI shall call you what I like--I held on, and was altogether anexemplary lover; went wherever I was ordered to go, and always camewhen they whistled for me; rode at my lady's jog-trot pace in the Row, stood behind her chair at the opera, endured more classical music thanever man heard before and lived, listened to my sweetheart's manuscriptverses, and, in a word, did my duty in that state of life to which ithad pleased God to call me; and my reward has been to be jilted withevery circumstance of ignominy on my wedding-morning. "

"Jilted!" cried Vixen, her big brown eyes shining, in pleasantestmockery. "Why I thought Lady Mabel adored you?"

"So did I, " answered Roderick naïvely, "and I pitied the poor dearthing for her infatuation. Had I not thought that, I should have brokenmy bonds long ago. It was not the love of the Duke's acres that heldme. I still believe that Mabel was fond of me once, but Lord Mallowbowled me out. His eloquence, his parliamentary success, and, aboveall, his flattery, proved irresistible. The scoundrel brought amarriage certificate in his pocket when he came to stay at Ashbourne, and had the art to engage rooms at Southampton and sleep there a night_en passant_. He left a portmanteau and a hat-box there, and thatconstituted legal occupancy; so, when he won Lady Mabel's consent to anelopement--which I believe he did not succeed in doing till the nightbefore our intended wedding-day--he had only to ride over toSouthampton and give notice to the parson and clerk. The whole thingwas done splendidly. Lady Mabel went out at eight o'clock, under thepretence of going to early church. Mallow was waiting for her with afly, half a mile from Ashbourne. They drove to Southampton together, and were married at ten o'clock, in the old church of St. Michael. While the distracted Duchess and her women were hunting everywhere forthe bride, and all the visitors at Ashbourne were arraying themselvesin their wedding finery, and the village children were filling theirbaskets with flowers to strew upon the pathway of the happy pair, emblematical of the flowers which do _not_ blossom in the highway oflife, the lady was over the border with Jock o' Hazeldean! Wasn't itfun, Vixen?"

And the jilted one flung back his handsome head and laughed long andloud. It was too good a joke, the welcome release coming at the lastmoment. 

"At half-past ten there came a telegram from my runaway bride:

"'Ask Roderick to forgive me, dear mamma. I found at the last that myheart was not mine to give, and I am married to Lord Mallow. I do notthink my cousin will grieve very much. '

"That last clause was sensible, anyhow, was it not, Vixen?"

"I think the whole business was very sensible, " said Vixen, with asweet grave smile; "Lord Mallow wanted a clever wife and you did not. It was very wise of Lady Mabel to find that out before it was too late. "

"She will be very happy as Lady Mallow, " said Roderick. "Mallow willlegislate for Ireland, and she will rule him. He will have quite enoughof Home Rule, poor beggar. Hibernia will be Mabelised. She is a deargood little thing. I quite love her, now she has jilted me. "

"But how did you come here?" asked Vixen, looking up at her lover insimple wonder. "All this happened only yesterday morning. "

"Is there not a steamer that leaves Southampton nightly? Had there notbeen one I would have chartered a boat for myself. I would have come ina cockle-shell--I would have come with a swimming-belt--I would havedone anything wild and adventurous to hasten to my love. I started forSouthampton the minute I had seen that too blessed telegram; went toSt. Michael's, saw the register with its entry of Lord Mallow'smarriage, hardly dry; and then went down to the docks and booked myberth. Oh, what a long day yesterday was--the longest day of my life!"

"And of mine, " sighed Vixen, between tears and laughter, "in spite ofthe Shepherd Kings. "

"Are those Jersey people you have picked up?" Rorie asked innocently. 

This turned the scale, and Vixen burst into a joyous peal of laughter. 

"How did you find me here?" she asked. 

"Very easily. Your custodian--what a grim-looking personage she is, by-the-way--told me where you were gone, and directed me how to followyou. I told her I had a most important message to deliver to you fromyour mother. You don't mind that artless device, I hope?"

"Not much. How is dear mamma? She complains in her letters of notfeeling very well. "

"I have not seen her lately. When I did, I thought her looking ill andworn. She will get well when you go back to her, Vixen. Your presencewill be like sunshine. "

"I shall never go back to the Abbey House. "

"Yes, you will--for one fortnight at least. After that your home willbe at Briarwood. You must be married from your father's house. "

"Who said I was going to be married, sir?" asked Vixen, with deliciouscoquetry. 

"I said it--I say it. Do you think I am too bold, darling? Ought I togo on my knees, love, and make you a formal offer? Why I have loved youall my life; and I think you have loved me as long. "

"So I have, Rorie, " she answered softly, shyly, sweetly. "I forsworemyself that night in the fir-wood. I always loved you; there was nostage of my life when you were not dearer to me than anyone on earth, except my father. "

"Dear love, I am ashamed of my happiness, " said Roderick tenderly. "Ihave been so weak and unworthy. I gave away my hopes of bliss in onefoolishly soft moment, to gratify my mother's dying wish--a wish thathad been dinned into my ear the last years of her life--and I have donenothing but repent my folly ever since. Can you forgive me, Violet? Ishall never forgive myself. "

"Let the past be like a dream that we have dreamt. It will make thefuture seem so much the brighter. "

"Yes. "

And then under the blue August sky, fearless and unabashed, these happylovers gave each other the kiss of betrothal. 

"What am I to do with you?" Vixen asked laughingly. "I ought to go hometo Les Tourelles. "

"Don't you think you might take me with you? I am your young man now, you know. I hope it is not a case of 'no followers allowed. '"

"I'm afraid Miss Skipwith will feel disappointed in me. She thought Iwas going to have a mission. "

"A mission!"

"Yes; that I was going for theology. And for it all to end in my beingengaged to be married! It seems such a commonplace ending, does it not?"

"Decidedly. As commonplace as the destiny of Adam and Eve, whom Godjoined together in Eden. Take me back to Les Tourelles, Vixen. I thinkI shall be able to manage Miss Skipwith. "

They left the battlements, and descended the narrow stairs, and wentside by side, through sunlit fields and lanes, to the old Carolianmanor house, happy with that unutterable, immeasurable joy whichbelongs to happy love, and to love only; whether it be the romanticpassion of a Juliet leaning from her balcony, the holy bliss of amother hanging over her child's cradle, or the sober affection of thewife who has seen the dawn and close of a silver wedding and yet loveson with love unchangeable--a monument of constancy in an age of easydivorce. 

The distance was long; but to these two the walk was of the shortest. It was as if they trod on flowers or airy cloud, so lightly fell theirfootsteps on the happy earth. 

What would Miss Skipwith say? Vixen laughed merrily at the image ofthat cheated lady. 

"To think that all my Egyptian researches should end in--Antony!" shesaid, with a joyous look at her lover, who required to be informedwhich Antony she meant. 

"I remember him in Plutarch, " he said. "He was a jolly fellow. "

"And in Shakespeare. "

"_Connais pas_, " said Rorie. "I've read some of Shakespeare's plays, ofcourse, but not all. He wrote too much. "

It was five o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived at LesTourelles. They had loitered a little in those sunny lanes, stopping tolook seaward through a gap in the hedge, or to examine a fern which waslike the ferns of Hampshire. They had such a world of lovers' nonsenseto say to each other, such confessions of past unhappiness, suchschemes of future bliss. 

"I'm afraid you'll never like Briarwood as well as the Abbey House, "said Rorie humbly. "I tried my best to patch it up for Lady Mabel; for, you see, as I felt I fell short in the matter of affection, I wanted todo the right thing in furniture and decorations. But the house islamentably modern and commonplace. I'm afraid you'll never be happythere. "

"Rorie, I could be happy with you if our home were no better than thecharcoal-burner's hut in Mark Ash, " protested Vixen. 

"It's very good of you to say that. Do you like sage-green?" Rorieasked with a doubtful air. 

"Pretty well. It reminds me of mamma's dress-maker, Madame Theodore. "

"Because Mabel insisted upon having sage-green curtains, andchair-covers, and a sage-green wall with a chocolate dado--did you everhear of a dado?--in the new morning-room I built for her. I'm ratherafraid you won't like it; I should have preferred pink or blue myself, and no dado. It looks so much as if one had run short of wall-paper. But it can all be altered by-and-by, if you don't like it. "

They found Miss Skipwith pacing the weedy gravel walk in front of herparlour window, with a disturbed air, and a yellow envelope in her hand. 

"My dear, this has been an eventful day, " she exclaimed. "I have beenvery anxious for your return. Here is a telegram for you; and as it isthe first you have had since you have been staying here, I conclude itis of some importance. "

Vixen took the envelope eagerly from her hand. 

"If you were not standing by my side, a telegram would frighten me, "she whispered to Roderick. "It might tell me you were dead. "

The telegram was from Captain Winstanley to Miss Tempest:

"Come home by the next boat. Your mother is ill, and anxious to seeyou. The carriage will meet you at Southampton. "

Poor Vixen looked at her lover with a conscience-stricken countenance. 

"Oh, Rorie, and I have been so wickedly, wildly happy!" she cried, asif it were a crime to have so rejoiced. "And I made so light of mamma'slast letter, in which she complained of being ill. I hardly gave it athought. "

"I don't suppose there is anything very wrong, " said Rorie, in acomforting tone, after he had studied those few bold words in thetelegram, trying to squeeze the utmost meaning out of the briefsentence. "You see, Captain Winstanley does not say that your mother isdangerously ill, or even very ill; he only says ill. That might meansomething quite insignificant--hay-fever or neuralgia, or a nervousheadache. "

"But he tells me to go home--he who hates me, and was so glad to get meout of the house. "

"It is your mother who summons you home, no doubt. She is mistress inher own house, of course. "

"You would not say that if you knew Captain Winstanley. "

They were alone together on the gravel walk, Miss Skipwith havingretired to make tea in her dingy parlour. It had dawned upon her thatthis visitor of Miss Tempest's was no common friend; and she hadjudiciously left the lovers together. "Poor misguided child!" shemurmured to herself pityingly; "just as she was developing a vocationfor serious things! But perhaps if is all for the best. I doubt if shewould ever have had breadth of mind to grapple with the great problemsof natural religion. "

"Isn't it dreadful?" said Vixen, walking up and down with the telegramin her hand. "I shall have to endure hours of suspense before I canknow how my poor mother is. There is no boat till to-morrow morning. It's no use talking, Rorie. " Mr. Vawdrey was following her up and downthe walk affectionately, but not saying a word. "I feel convinced thatmamma must be seriously ill; I should not be sent for unless it wereso. In all her letters there has not been a word about my going home. Iwas not wanted. "

"But, dearest love, you know that your mother is apt to think seriouslyof trifles. "

"Rorie, you told me an hour ago that she was looking ill when last yousaw her. "

Roderick looked at his watch. 

"There is one thing I might do, " he said, musingly. "Has Miss Skipwitha horse and trap?"

"Not the least in the world. "

"That's a pity; it would have saved time. I'll get down to St. Helier'ssomehow, telegraph to Captain Winstanley to inquire the exact state ofyour mother's health, and not come back till I bring you his answer. "

"Oh, Rorie, that would be good of you!" exclaimed Vixen. "But it seemstoo cruel to send you away like that; you have been travelling so long. You have had nothing to eat. You must be dreadfully tired. "

"Tired! Have I not been with you? There are some people whose presencemakes one unconscious of humanity's weaknesses. No, darling, I amneither tired nor hungry; I am only ineffably happy. I'll go down andset the wires in motion; and then I'll find out all about the steamerfor to-morrow morning, and we will go back to Hampshire together. "

And again the rejoicing lover quoted the Laureate:

 "And on her lover's arm she leant, And round her waist she felt it fold; And far across the hills they went, In that new world which is the old. "

Rorie had to walk all the way to St. Helier's. He dispatched an urgentmessage to Captain Winstanley, and then dined temperately at a Frenchrestaurant not far from the quay, where the _bon vivants_ of Jersey arewont to assemble nightly. When he had dined he walked about theharbour, looking at the ships, and watching the lights beginning toglimmer from the barrack-windows, and the straggling street along theshore, and the far-off beacons shining out, as the rosy sunset darkenedto purple night. 

He went to the office two or three times before the return message hadcome; but at last it was handed to him, and he read it by theoffice-lamp:

"_Captain Winstanley, Abbey House, Hampshire, to Mr. Vawdrey, St. Heliers_. 

"My wife is seriously ill, but in no immediate danger. The doctorsorder extreme quiet; all agitation is to be carefully avoided. Let MissTempest bear this in mind when she comes home. "

Roderick drove back to Les Tourelles with this message, which was insome respects reassuring, or at any rate afforded a certainty lessappalling than Violet's measureless fears. 

Vixen was sitting on the pilgrim's bench beside the manor housegateway, watching for her lover's return. Oh, happy lover, to be thuswatched for and thus welcomed; thrice, nay, a thousandfold happy in thecertainty that she was his own for ever! He put his arm round her, andthey wandered along the shadowy lane together, between dewy banks oftangled verdure, luminous with glow-worms. The stars were shining abovethe overarching roof of foliage, the harvest moon was rising over thedistant sea. 

"What a beautiful place Jersey is!" exclaimed Vixen innocently, as shestrolled lower down the lane, circled by her lover's arm. "I had noidea it was half so lovely. But then of course I was never allowed toroam about in the moonlight. And, indeed, Rorie, I think we had bettergo in directly. Miss Skipwith will be wondering. "

"Let her wonder, love. I can explain everything when we go in. She wasyoung herself once upon a time, though one would hardly give her creditfor it; and you may depend she has walked in this lane by moonlight. Yes, by the light of that very same sober old moon, who has looked downwith the same indulgent smile upon endless generations of lovers. "

"From Adam and Eve to Antony and Cleopatra, " suggested Vixen, whocouldn't get Egypt out of her head. 

"Antony and Cleopatra were middle-aged lovers, " said Rorie. "The moonmust have despised them. Youth is the only season when love is wisdom, Vixen. In later life it means folly and drivelling, wrinkles badlyhidden under paint, pencilled eyebrows, and false hair. Aphroditeshould be for ever young. "

"Perhaps that's why the poor thing puts on paint and false hair whenshe finds youth departed, " said Vixen. 

"Then she is no longer Aphrodite, but Venus Pandemos, and a wicked oldharridan, " answered Rorie. 

And then he began to sing, with a rich full voice that rolled far uponthe still air. 

 "Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles to-day To-morrow will be dying, "Then be not coy, but use your time, And while ye may, go marry; For having lost but once your prime, You may for ever tarry. "

"What a fine voice you have, Rorie!" cried Vixen. 

"Have I really? I thought that it was only Lord Mallow who could sing. Do you know that I was desperately jealous of that nobleman, once--whenI fancied he was singing himself into your affections. Little did Ithink that he was destined to become your greatest benefactor. "

"I shall make you sing duets with me, sir, by-and-by. "

"You shall make me stand on my head, or play clown in an amateurpantomime, or do anything supremely ridiculous, if you like. 'Beingyour slave what can I do----'"

"Yes, you must sing Mendelssohn with me. 'I would that my love, ' and'Greeting. '"

"I have only one idea of greeting, after a cruel year of parting andsadness, " said Rorie, drawing the bright young face to his own, andcovering it with kisses. 

Again Vixen urged that Miss Skipwith would be wondering, and this timewith such insistence, that Rorie was obliged to turn back and ascendthe hill. 

"How cruel it is of you to snatch a soul out of Elysium, " heremonstrated. "I felt as if I was lost in some happy dream--wanderingdown this path, which leads I know not where, into a dim wooded vale, such as the fairies love to inhabit?"

"The road leads down to the inn at Le Tac, where Cockney excursionistsgo to eat lobsters, and play skittles, " said Vixen, laughing at herlover. 

They went back to the manor house, where they found Miss Skipwithannotating a tremendous manuscript on blue foolscap, a work whoseoutward semblance would have been enough to frighten and deter anypublisher in his right mind. 

"How late you are, Violet, " she said, looking up dreamily from hermanuscript. "I have been rewriting and polishing portions of my essayon Buddha. The time has flown, and I had no idea of the hour tillDoddery came in just now to ask if he could shut up the house. And thenI remembered that you had gone out to the gate to watch for Mr. Vawdrey. "

"I'm afraid you must think our goings on rather eccentric, " Rorie beganshyly; "but perhaps Vix----Miss Tempest has told you what old friendswe are; that, in fact, I am quite the oldest friend she has. I came toJersey on purpose to ask her to marry me, and she has been goodenough"--smiling blissfully at Vixen, who tried to look daggers athim--"to say Yes. "

"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Skipwith, looking much alarmed; "this is veryembarrassing. I am so unversed in such matters. My life has been givenup to study, far from the haunts of man. My nephew informed me thatthere was a kind of--in point of fact--a flirtation between MissTempest and a gentleman in Hampshire, of which he highly disapproved, the gentleman being engaged to marry his cousin. "

"It was I, " cried Rorie, "but there was no flirtation between MissTempest and me. Whoever asserted such a thing was a slanderer and----Iwon't offend you by saying what he was, Miss Skipwith. There was noflirtation. I was Miss Tempest's oldest friend--her old playfellow, andwe liked to see each other, and were always friendly together. But itwas an understood thing that I was to marry my cousin. It was MissTempest's particular desire that I should keep an engagement madebeside my mother's death-bed. If Miss Tempest had thought otherwise, Ishould have been at her feet. I would have flung that engagement to thewinds; for Violet Tempest is the only woman I ever loved. And now allthe world may know it, for my cousin has jilted me, and I am a freeman. "

"Good gracious! Can I really believe this?" asked Miss Skipwith, appealing to Violet. 

"Rorie never told a falsehood in his life, " Vixen answered proudly. 

"I feel myself in a most critical position, my dear child, " said MissSkipwith, looking from Roderick's frank eager face to Vixen's downcasteyelids and mantling blushes. "I had hoped such a different fate foryou. I thought the thirst for knowledge had arisen within you, that theaspiration to distinguish yourself from the ruck of ignorant womenwould follow the arising of that thirst, in natural sequence. And hereI find you willing to marry a gentleman who happens to have been thecompanion of your childhood, and to resign--for his sake--all hopes ofdistinction. "

"My chances of distinction were so small, dear Miss Skipwith, " falteredVixen. "If I had possessed your talents!"

"True, " sighed the reformer of all the theologies. "We have not all thesame gifts. There was a day when I thought it would be my lot to marryand subside into the dead level of domesticity; but I am thankful tothink I escaped the snare. "

"And the gentleman who wanted to marry you, how thankful must he be!"thought Rorie dumbly. 

"Yet there have been moments of depression when I have been weak enoughto regret those early days, " sighed Miss Skipwith. "At best ourstrength is tempered with weakness. It is the fate of genius to belonely. And now I suppose I am to lose you, Violet?"

"I am summoned home to poor mamma, " said Vixen. 

"And after poor mamma has recovered, as I hope she speedily may, Violetwill be wanted by her poor husband, " said Rorie. "You must come acrossthe sea and dance at our wedding, Miss Skipwith. "

"Ah, " sighed Miss Skipwith, "if you could but have waited for theestablishment of my universal church, what a grand ceremonial yourmarriage might have been!"

Miss Skipwith, though regretful, and inclined to take a dismal view ofthe marriage state and its responsibilities under the existingdispensation, was altogether friendly. She had a frugal supper of coldmeat and salad, bread and cheese and cider, served in honour of Mr. Vawdrey, and they three sat till midnight talking happily--MissSkipwith of theology, the other two of themselves and the smilingfuture, and such an innocent forest life as Rosalind and Orlando mayhave promised themselves, when they were deep in love, and the banishedduke's daughter sighed for no wider kingdom than a shepherd's hut inthe woodland, with the lover of her choice. 

There were plenty of spare bedrooms at the manor house, but so bare andempty, so long abandoned of human occupants, as to be fit only for thehabitation of mice and spiders, stray bat or wandering owl. So Roderickhad to walk down the hill again to St. Helier's, where he foundhospitality at an hotel. He was up betimes, too happy to need muchsleep, and at seven o'clock he and Vixen were walking in the dewygarden, planning the wonderful life they were to lead at Briarwood, andall the good they were to do. Happiness was to radiate from their home, as heat from the sun. The sick, and the halt, and the lame were to cometo Briarwood; as they had come to the Abbey House before CaptainWinstanley's barren rule of economy. 

"God has been so good to us, Rorie, " said Vixen, nestling at her loversside. "Can we ever be good enough to others?"

"We'll do our best, anyhow, little one, " he answered gently. "I am notlike Mallow, I've no great ideas about setting my native country inorder and doing away with the poor laws; but I've always tried to makethe people round me happy, and to keep them out of the workhouse andthe county jail. "

They went to the court-yard where poor Argus lived his life ofisolation, and they told him they were going to be married, and thathis pathway henceforward would be strewn with roses, or at all eventsSpratt's biscuits. He was particularly noisy and demonstrative, andappeared to receive this news with a wild rapture that was eminentlyencouraging, doing his best to knock Roderick down, in the tumult ofhis delight. The lovers and the dog were alike childish in theirinfinite happiness, unthinking beings of the present hour, too happy tolook backward or forward, this little space of time called "now"holding all things needful for delight. 

These are the rare moments of life, to which the heart of man cries, "Oh stay, thou art so beautiful!" and could the death-bell toll then, and doom come then, life would end in a glorious euthanasia. 

Violet's portmanteaux were packed. Alt was ready. There would be justtime for a hurried breakfast with Miss Skipwith, and then the fly fromSt. Helier's would be at the gate to carry the exile on the first stageof the journey home. 

"Poor mamma!" sighed Vixen. "How wicked of me to feel go happy, whenshe is ill. "

And then Rorie comforted her with kindly-meant sophistries. Mrs. Winstanley's indisposition was doubtless more an affair of the nervesthan a real illness. She would be cheered and revived immediately byher daughter's return. 

"How could she suppose she would be able to live without you!" criedRorie. "I know I found life hard to bear. "

"Yet you bore it for more than a year with admirable patience, "retorted Vixen, laughing at him; "and I do not find you particularlyaltered or emaciated. "

"Oh, I used to eat and drink, " said Rorie, with a look ofself-contempt. "I'm afraid I'm a horribly low-minded brute. I used evento enjoy my dinner, sometimes, after a long country ride; but I couldnever make you understand what a bore life was to me all last year, howthe glory and enjoyment seemed to have gone out of existence. Thedismal monotony of my days weighed upon me like a nightmare. Life hadbecome a formula. I felt like a sick man who has to take so many dosesof medicine, so many pills, so many basins of broth, in the twenty-fourhours. There was no possible resistance. The sick-nurse was there, inthe shape of Fate, ready to use brute force if I rebelled. I never didrebel. I assure you, Vixen, I was a model lover. Mabel and I had not asingle quarrel. I think that is a proof that we did not care a strawfor each other. "

"You and I will have plenty of quarrels, " said Vixen. "It will be sonice to make friends again. "

Now came the hurried breakfast--a cup of tea drunk, standing, not acrumb eaten; agitated adieux to Miss Skipwith, who wept very womanlytears over her departing charge, and uttered good wishes in a chokingvoice. Even the Dodderys seemed to Vixen more human than usual, nowthat she was going to leave them, in all likelihood for ever. MissSkipwith came to the gate to see the travellers off, and ascended thepilgrim's bench in order to have the latest view of the fly. From thiseminence she waved her handkerchief as a farewell salutation. 

"Poor soul!" sighed Vixen; "she has never been unkind to me; but oh!what a dreary life I have led in that dismal old house!"

They had Argus in the fly with them, sitting up, with his mouth open, and his tail flapping against the bottom of the vehicle in perpetualmotion. He kept giving his paw first to Vixen and then to Rorie, andexacted a great deal of attention, insomuch that Mr. Vawdrey exclaimed:

"Vixen, if you don't keep that dog within bounds, I shall think him asgreat a nuisance as a stepson. I offered to marry you, you know, notyou and your dog. "

"You are very rude!" cried Vixen. 

"You don't expect me to be polite, I hope. What is the use of marryingone's old playfellow if one cannot be uncivil to her now and then? Tome you will always be the tawny-haired little girl I used to tease. "

"Who used to tease you, you mean. You were very meek in those days. "

Oh, what a happy voyage that was, over the summer sea! They sat side byside upon the bridge, sheltered from wind and sun, and talked the happynonsense lovers talk: but which can hardly be so sweet between loverswhose youth and childhood have been spent far apart, as between thesetwo who had been reared amidst the same sylvan world, and had everydesire and every thought in unison. How brief the voyage seemed. It wasbut an hour or so since Roderick had been buying peaches and grapes, asthey lay at the end of the pier at Guernsey, and here were the Needlesand the chalky cliffs and undulating downs of the Wight. The Wight!That meant Hampshire and home!

"How often those downs have been our weather-glass, Rorie, when we havebeen riding across the hills between Lyndhurst and Beaulieu, " saidVixen. 

She had a world of questions to ask him about all that had happenedduring her exile. She almost expected to hear that Lyndhurst steeplehad fallen; that the hounds had died of old age; that the KnightwoodOak had been struck by lightning; or that some among those calamitieswhich time naturally brings had befallen the surroundings of her home. It was the strangest thing in the world to hear that nothing hadhappened, that everything was exactly the same as it had been when shewent away. That dreary year of exile had seemed long enough forearthquakes and destructions, or even for slow decay. 

"Do you know what became of Arion?" asked Vixen, almost afraid to shapethe question. 

"Oh, I believe he was sold, soon after you left home, " Rorie answeredcarelessly. 

"Sold!" echoed Vixen drearily. "Poor dear thing! Yes, I felt sureCaptain Winstanley would sell him. But I hoped----"

"What?"

"That some one I knew might buy him. Lord Mallow perhaps. "

"Lord Mallow! Ah, you thought he would buy your horse, for love of therider. But you see constancy isn't one of that noble Irishman'svirtues. He loves and he rides away--when the lady won't have him, bienentendu. No, Arion was sent up to Tattersall's, and disposed of in theusual way. Some fellow bought him for a covert hack. "

"I hope the man wasn't a heavy weight, " exclaimed Vixen, almost intears. 

She thought Rorie was horribly unfeeling. 

"What does it matter? A horse must earn his salt. "

"I had rather my poor pet had been shot, and buried in one of themeadows at home, " said Vixen plaintively. 

"Captain Winstanley was too wise to allow that. Your poor pet fetched ahundred and forty-five guineas under the hammer. "

"I don't think it is very kind of you to talk of him so lightly, " saidVixen. 

This was the only little cloud that came between them in all thevoyage. Long before sunset they were steaming into Southampton Water, and the yellow light was still shining on the furzy levels, when thebrougham that contained Vixen and her fortunes drove along the road toLyndhurst. 

She had asked the coachman for news of his mistress, and had been toldthat Mrs. Winstanley was pretty much the same. The answer was in somemeasure reassuring: yet Violet's spirits began to sink as she drewnearer home, and must so soon find herself face to face with the truth. There was a sadness too in that quiet evening hour; and the shadowydistances seemed full of gloom, after the dancing waves, and the gaymorning light. 

The dusk was creeping slowly on as the carriage passed the lodge, anddrove between green walls of rhododendron to the house. CaptainWinstanley was smoking his cigar in the porch, leaning against theGothic masonry, in the attitude Vixen knew so well of old. 

"If my mother were lying in her coffin I daresay he would be just thesame, " she thought bitterly. 

The Captain came down to open the carriage-door. Vixen's first glanceat his face showed her that he looked worn and anxious. 

"Is mamma very ill?" she asked tremulously. 

"Very ill, " he answered, in a low voice. "Mind, you are to do or saynothing that can agitate her. You must be quiet and cheerful. If yousee a change you must take care to say nothing about it. "

"Why did you leave me so long in ignorance of her illness? Why did younot send for me sooner?"

"Your mother has only been seriously ill within the past few days. Isent for you directly I saw any occasion for your presence, " theCaptain answered coldly. 

He now for the first time became aware of Mr. Vawdrey, who had got outof the brougham on the other side and came round to assist in theunshipment of Violet's belongings. 

"Good evening, Mr. Vawdrey. Where in Heaven's name did you springfrom?" he inquired, with a vexed air. 

"I have had the honour of escorting Miss Tempest from Jersey, where Ihappened to be when she received your telegram. "

"Wasn't that rather an odd proceeding, and likely to cause scandal?"

"I think not; for before people can hear that Miss Tempest and Icrossed in the same boat I hope they will have heard that Miss Tempestand I are going to be married. "

"I see, " cried the Captain, with a short laugh of exceeding bitterness;"being off with the old love you have made haste to be on with the new. "

"I beg your pardon. It is no new love, but a love as old as myboyhood, " answered Rorie. "In one weak moment of my life I was foolishenough to let my mother choose a wife for me, though I had made my ownchoice, unconsciously, years before. "

"May I go to mamma at once?" asked Vixen. 

The Captain said Yes, and she went up the staircase and along thecorridor to Mrs. Winstanley's room. Oh, how dear and familiar the oldhouse looked, how full of richness and colour after the bareness anddecay of Les Tourelles; brocaded curtains hanging in heavy foldsagainst the carved oaken framework of a deep-set window; gleams ofevening light stealing through old stained glass; everywhere a richvariety of form and hue that filled and satisfied the eye; a houseworth living in assuredly, with but a little love to sanctify andhallow all these things. But how worthless these things if discord andhatred found a habitation among them. 

The door of Mrs. Winstanley's room stood half open, and the lamplightshone faintly from within. Violet went softly in. Her mother was lyingon a sofa by the hearth, where a wood-fire had been newly lighted. Pauline was sitting opposite her, reading aloud in a very sleepy voiceout of the _Court Journal:_ "The bride was exquisitely attired in ivorysatin, with flounces of old _Duchesse_ lace, the skirt covered with_tulle_, _bouilloné_, and looped with garlands of orange-blossom----"

"Pauline, " murmured the invalid feebly, "will you never learn to readwith expression? You are giving me the vaguest idea of Lady EvelynFitzdamer's appearance. "

Violet went over to the sofa and knelt by her mother's side andembraced her tenderly, looking at her earnestly all the while, in theclear soft lamp-light. Yes, there was indeed a change. The alwaysdelicate face was pinched and shrunken. The ivory of the complexion hadaltered to a dull gray. Premature age had hollowed the cheeks, andlined the forehead. It was a change that meant decline and death. Violet's heart sank as she beheld it: but she remembered the Captain'swarning, and bravely strove to put on an appearance of cheerfulness. 

"Dear mother, I am so happy to come home to you, " she said gaily; "andI am going to nurse and pet you, for the next week or so; till you gettremendously well and strong, and are able to take me to innumerableparties. "

"My dear Violet, I have quite given up parties; and I stall never bestrong again. "

"Dearest, it has always been your habit to fancy yourself an invalid. "

"Yes, Violet, once I may have been full of fancies: but now I know thatI am ill. You will not be unkind or unjust to Conrad, will you, dear?He sent for you directly I asked him. He has been all goodness to me. Try and get on with him nicely, dear, for my sake. "

This was urged with such piteous supplication, that it would haveneeded a harder heart than Violet's to deny the prayer. 

"Dear mother, forget that the Captain and I ever quarrelled, " saidVixen. "I mean to be excellent friends with him henceforward. And, darling, I have a secret to tell you if you would like to hear it. "

"What secret, dear?"

"Lady Mabel Ashbourne has jilted Roderick!"

"My love, that is no secret. I heard all about it day before yesterday. People have talked of nothing else since it happened. Lady Mabel hasbehaved shamefully. "

"Lady Mabel has behaved admirably. If other women were wise enough todraw back at the last moment there would be fewer unhappy marriages. But Lady Mabel's elopement is only the prologue to my story. "

"What can you mean, child?"

"Roderick came to Jersey to make me an offer. "

"So soon! Oh, Violet, what bad taste!"

"Ought he to have gone into mourning? He did not even sing willow, butcame straight off to me, and told me he had loved me all his life; sonow you will have my _trousseau_ to think about, dearest, and I shallwant all your good taste. You know how little I have of my own. "

"Ah, Violet, if you had only married Lord Mallow! I could have given mywhole mind to your _trousseau_ then; but it is too late now, dear. Ihave not strength enough to interest myself in anything. "

The truth of this complaint was painfully obvious. Pamela's day wasdone. She lay, half effaced among her down pillows, as weak andhelpless-looking as a snowdrop whose stem is broken. The life that wasleft in her was the merest remnant of life. It was as if one could seethe last sands running down in the glass of time. 

Violet sat by her side, and pressed her cold hands in both her own. Mrs. Winstanley was very cold, although the log had blazed up fiercely, and the room seemed stifling to the traveller who had come out of thecool night air. 

"Dear mother, there will be no pleasure for me in being married if youdo not take an interest in my _trousseau_, " pleaded Vixen, trying tocheer the invalid by dwelling on the things her soul had most loved inhealth. 

"Do not talk about it, my dear, " her mother exclaimed peevishly. "Idon't know where the money is to come from. Theodore's bill waspositively dreadful. Poor Conrad had quite a struggle to pay it. Youwill be rich when you are of age, but we are awfully poor. If we do notsave money during the next few years we shall be destitute. Conrad saysso. Fifteen hundred a year, and a big house like this to maintain. Itwould be starvation. Conrad has closed Theodore's account. I am sure Idon't know where your _trousseau_ is to come from. "

Here the afflicted Pamela began to sob hysterically, and Vixen found ithard work to comfort her. 

"My dearest mother, how can you be poor and I rich?" she said, when theinvalid had been tranquillised, and was lying helpless and exhausted. "Do you suppose I would not share my income with you? Rorie has plentyof money. He would not want any of mine. You can have it all, if youlike. "

"You talk like a child, Violet. You know nothing of the world. Do youthink I would take your money, and let people say I robbed my owndaughter? I have a little too much self-respect for that. Conrad isdoing all he can to make our future comfortable. I have been foolishand extravagant. But I shall never be so any more. I do not care aboutdress or society now. I have outlived those follies. "

"Dear mother, I cannot bear to hear you talk like that, " said Vixen, feeling that when her mother left off caring about fine dresses shemust be getting ready for that last garment which we must all wear someday, the fashion whereof changes but little. "Why should you relinquishsociety, or leave off dressing stylishly? You are in the prime of life. "

"No, Violet, I am a poor faded creature, " whimpered Mrs. Winstanley, "stout women are handsome at forty, or even"--with ashudder--"five-and-forty. The age suits their style. But I was alwaysslim and fragile, and of late I have grown painfully thin. No one but aParisian dressmaker could make me presentable; and I have done withParis dresses. The utmost I can hope for is to sit alone by thefireside, and work antimacassars in crewels. "

"But, dear mother, you did not marry Captain Winstanley in order tolead such a life as that? You might as well be in a _béguinage_. "

Vain were Vixen's efforts to console and cheer. A blight had fallenupon her mother's mind and spirits--a blight that had crept slowly on, unheeded by the husband, till one morning the local practitioner--agentleman who had lived all his life among his patients, and knew themso well externally that he might fairly be supposed to have a minuteacquaintance with their internal organism--informed Captain Winstanleythat he feared there was something wrong with his wife's heart, andthat he thought that it would be well to get the highest opinion. 

The Captain, startled out of his habitual self-command, looked up fromhis desk with an ashy countenance. 

"Do you mean that Mrs. Winstanley has heart disease--somethingorganically wrong?"

"Unhappily I fear it is so. I have been for some time aware that shehad a weak heart. Her complexion, her feeble circulation, severalindications have pointed to that conclusion. This morning I have made athorough examination, and I find mischief, decided mischief. "

"That means she may die at any moment, suddenly, without an instant'swarning. "

"There would always be that fear. Or she might sink gradually from wantof vital power. There is a sad deficiency of power. I hardly ever knewanyone remain so long in so low a state. "

"You have been attending her, off and on, ever since our marriage. Youmust have seen her sinking. Why have you not warned me before?"

"It seemed hardly necessary. You must have perceived the changeyourself. You must have noticed her want of appetite, her distaste forexertion of any kind, her increasing feebleness. "

"I am not a doctor. "

"No; but these are things that speak plainly to every eye--to the eyeof affection most of all. "

"We are slow to perceive the alteration in anyone we see daily andhourly. You should have drawn my attention to my wife's health. It isunfair, it is horrible to let this blow come upon me unawares. "

If the Captain had appeared indifferent hitherto, there was no doubt ofthe intensity of his feeling now. He had started up from his chair, andwalked backwards and forwards, strongly agitated. 

"Shall we have another opinion?" asked Dr. Martin. 

"Certainly. The highest in the land. "

"Dr. Lorrimer, of Harley Street, is the most famous man for heartdisease. "

"I'll telegraph to him immediately, " said the Captain. 

He ordered his horse, rode into Lyndhurst and dispatched his telegramwithout the loss of a minute. Never had Dr. Martin seen anyone more inearnest, or more deeply stricken by an announcement of evil. 

"Poor fellow, he must be very fond of her, " mused the surgeon, as herode off to his next call. "And yet I should have thought she must berather a tiresome kind of woman to live with. Her income dies with herI suppose. That makes a difference. "

The specialist from Harley Street arrived at the Abbey House on thefollowing afternoon. He made his examination and gave his opinion, which was very much the same as Dr. Martin's, but clothed in morescientific language. 

"This poor lady's heart has been wearing out for the last twentyyears, " he told the local surgeon; "but she seems, from your account, to have been using it rather worse for the last year or so. Do you knowif she has had any particular occasion for worry?"

"Her only daughter has not got on very well with the second husband, Ibelieve, " said Dr. Martin. "That may have worried her. "

"Naturally. Small domestic anxieties of that kind are among the mostpotent causes of heart disease. " And then Dr. Lorrimer gave hisinstructions about treatment. He had not the faintest hope of savingthe patient, but he gave her the full benefit of his science. A mancould scarcely come so far and do less. When he went out into the halland met the Captain, who was waiting anxiously for his verdict, hebegan in the usual oracular strain; but Captain Winstanley cut himshort without ceremony. 

"I don't want to hear details, " he said. "Martin will do everything youtell him. I want the best or the worst you can tell me in straightestlanguage. Can you save my wife, or am I to lose her?"

"My dear sir, while there is life there is hope, " answered thephysician, with the compassionate air that had grown habitual, like hisblack frock-coat and general sobriety of attire. "I have seen wonderfulrecoveries--or rather a wonderful prolongation of life, for cure is, ofcourse, impossible--in cases as bad as this. But----"

"Ah!" cried the Captain, bitterly, "there is a 'but. '"

"In this case there is a sad want of rallying power. Frankly, I havevery little hope. Do all you can to cheer and comfort your wife's mind, and to make her last days happy. All medicine apart, that is about thebest advice I can give you. "

After this the doctor took his fee, gave the Captain's hand a cordialgrip, expressive of sympathy and kindliness, and went his way, feelingassured that a good deal hung upon that little life which he had leftslowly ebbing away, like a narrow rivulet dwindling into dryness undera July sun. 

"What does the London doctor say of me, Conrad?" asked Mrs. Winstanley, when her husband went to her presently, with his countenance composedand cheerful. "He tired me dreadfully with his stethoscope. Does hethink me very ill? Is there anything wrong with my lungs?"

"No, love. It is a case of weakness and languor. You must make up yourmind to get strong; and you will do more for yourself than all thephysicians in London can do. "

"But what does he say of my heart? How does he explain that dreadfulfluttering--the suffocating sensation--the----?'

"He explains nothing. It is a nervous affection, which you must combatby getting strong. Dear love!" exclaimed the Captain, with a very realburst of feeling, "what can I do to make your life happy? what can I doto assure you of my love?"

"Send for Violet, " faltered his wife, raising herself upon her elbow, and looking at him with timorous eagerness. "I have never been happysince she left us. It seems as if I had turned her out of doors--out ofher own house--my kind husband's only daughter. It has preyed upon mymind continually, that--and other things. "

"Dearest, I will telegraph to her in an hour. She shall be with you assoon as the steamer can bring her. "

"A thousand thanks, Conrad. You are always good. I know I have beenweak and foolish to think----"

Here she hesitated, and tears began to roll down her hollow cheeks. 

"To think what, love?" asked her husband tenderly. 

If love, if tenderness, if flattery, if all sweetest things that everman said to a woman could lure this feeble spirit back to life, sheshould be so won, vowed the Captain. He had never been unkind to her, or thought unkindly of her. If he had never loved her, he had, atleast, been tolerant. But now, clinging to her as the representative offortune, happiness, social status, he felt that she was assuredly hisbest and dearest upon earth. 

"To think that you never really cared for me!" she whimpered; "that youmarried me for the sake of this house, and my income!"

"Pamela, do you remember what Tom Jones said to his mistress when shepretended to doubt his love?"

"My dear Conrad, I never read 'Tom Jones, ' I have heard dear Edwardtalk of it as if it was something too dreadful. "

"Ah, I forgot. Of course, it is not a lady's book. Tom told his Sophiato look in the glass, if she were inclined to question his love forher, and one look at her own sweet face would convince her of histruth. Let it be so with yourself, dear. Ask yourself why I should notlove the sweetest and most lovable of women. "

If sugarplums of speech, if loverlike attentions could have curedPamela Winstanley's mortal sickness, she might yet have recovered. Butthe hour had gone by when such medicaments might have prevailed. Whilethe Captain had shot, and hunted, and caught mighty salmon, andinvested his odd hundreds, and taken his own pleasure in various ways, with almost all the freedom of bachelor life, his wife had, unawares, been slowly dying. The light had burned low in the socket; and whoshall reillumine that brief candle when its day is over? It needed nowbut a breath to quench the feeble flame. 

"Great Heaven!" cried Captain Winstanley, pacing up and down his study, distraught with the pangs of wounded self-interest; "I have been takingcare of her money, when I ought to have taken care of her. It is herlife that all hangs upon: and I have let that slip through my fingerswhile I have planned and contrived to save a few beggarly hundreds. Short-sighted idiot that I have been! Poor Pamela! And she has been soyielding, so compliant to my every wish! A month--a week, perhaps--andshe will be gone: and that handsome spitfire will have the right tothrust me from this house. No, my lady, I will not afford you thattriumph. My wife's coffin and I will go out together. "

CHAPTER X. 

"All the Rivers run into the Sea. "

For some days Violet's return seemed to have a happy effect upon theinvalid. Never had daughter been more devoted, more loving, fuller ofsweet cares and consolations for a dying mother, than this daughter. Seeing the mother and child together in this supreme hour, no onlookercould have divined that these two had been ever less fondly united thanmother and child should be. The feeble and fading woman seemed to leanon the strong bright girl, to gain a reflected strength from herfulness of life and vigour. It was as if Vixen, with her shining hairand fair young face, brought healthful breezes into the sickly perfumedatmosphere of the invalid's rooms. 

Roderick Vawdrey had a hard time of it during these days of sadness andsuspense. He could not deny the right of his betrothed to devote allher time and thought to a dying mother; and yet, having but newly wonher for his very own, after dreary years of constraint and severance, he longed for her society as lover never longed before; or at least hethought so. He hung about the Abbey House all day, heedless of thegloomy looks he got from Captain Winstanley, and of the heavy air ofsadness that pervaded the house, and was infinitely content and happywhen he was admitted to Mrs. Winstanley's boudoir to take an afternooncup of tea, and talk for half-an-hour or so, in subdued tones, withmother and daughter. 

"I am very glad that things have happened as they have, Roderick, " Mrs. Winstanley said languidly; "though I'm afraid it would make your poormamma very unhappy if she could know about it. She had so set her hearton your marrying Lady Mabel. "

"Forgetting that it was really my heart which was concerned in thebusiness, " said Rorie. "Dear Mabel was wise enough to show us all theeasiest way out of our difficulties. I sent her my mother's emeraldcross and earrings, the day before yesterday, with as pretty a letteras I could write. I think it was almost poetical. "

"And those emeralds of Lady Jane Vawdrey's are very fine, " remarkedMrs. Winstanley. "I don't think there is a feather in one of thestones. "

"It was almost like giving away your property, wasn't it, Vixen?" saidRorie, looking admiringly at his beloved. "But I have a lot of mymother's jewels for you, and I wanted to send Mabel something, to showher that I was not ungrateful. "

"You acted very properly, Rorie; and as to jewellery, you know verywell I don't care a straw for it. "

"It is a comfort to me to know you will have Lady Jane's pearlnecklace, " murmured Mrs. Winstanley. "It will go so well with mydiamond locket. Ah, Rorie, I wish I had been strong enough to see toViolet's _trousseau_. It is dreadful to think that it may have to bemade by a provincial dressmaker, and with no one to supervise anddirect. "

"Dearest mother, you are going to supervise everything, " exclaimedVixen. "I shall not think of being married till you are well and strongagain. "

"That will be never, " sighed the invalid. 

Upon this point she was very firm. They all tried--husband, daughter, and friends--to delude her with false hopes, thinking thus to fan theflame of life and keep the brief candle burning a little longer. Shewas not deceived. She felt herself gradually, painlessly sinking. Shecomplained but little; much less than in the days when her ailments hadbeen in some part fanciful; but she knew very surely that her day wasdone. 

"It is very sweet to have you with me, Violet, " she said. "Yourgoodness, and Conrad's loving attentions, make me very happy. I feelalmost as if I should like to live a few years longer. "

"Only almost, mother darling?" exclaimed Violet reproachfully. 

"I don't know, dear. I have such a weary feeling; as if life at thevery best were not worth the trouble it cost us. I shouldn't mind goingon living if I could always lie here, and take no trouble aboutanything, and be nursed and waited upon, and have you or Conrad alwaysby my side--but to get well again, and to have to get up, and go aboutamong other people, and take up all the cares of life--no dear, I ammuch too weary for that. And then if I could get well to-morrow, oldage and death would still be staring me in the face. I could not escapethem. No, love, it is much better to die now, before I am very old, orquite hideous; even before my hair is gray. "

She took up one of the soft auburn tresses from her pillow, and lookedat it, half sadly. 

"Your dear papa used to admire my hair, Violet, " she said. "There are afew gray hairs, but you would hardly notice them; but my hair is muchthinner than it used to be, and I don't think I could ever have made upmy mind to wear false hair. It never quite matches one's own. I haveseen Lady Ellangowan wearing three distinct heads of hair; and yetgentlemen admire her. "

Mrs. Winstanley was always at her best during those afternoontea-drinkings. The strong tea revived her; Roderick's friendly face andvoice cheered her. They took her back to the remote past, to the kindSquire's day of glory, which she remembered as the happiest time of herlife; even now, when her second husband was doing all things possibleto prove his sincerity and devotion. She had never been completelyhappy in this second marriage. There had always been a flavour ofremorse mingled with her cup of joy; the vague consciousness that shehad done a foolish thing, and that the world--her little world within aradius of twenty miles--was secretly laughing at her. 

"Do you remember the day we came home from our honeymoon, Conrad, " shesaid to her husband, as he sat by her in the dusk one evening, sad andsilent, "when there was no carriage to meet us, and we had to come homein a fly? It was an omen, was it not?"

"An omen of what, dearest?"

"That all things were not to go well with us in our married life; thatwe were not to be quite happy. "

"Have you not been happy, Pamela? I have tried honestly to do my dutyto you. "

"I know you have, Conrad. You have been all goodness; I always havesaid so to Violet--and to everyone. But I have had my cares. I feltthat I was too old for you. That has preyed upon my mind. "

"Was that reasonable, Pamela, when I have never felt it?"

"Perhaps not at first; and even if you had felt the disparity in ourages you would have been too generous to let me perceive the change inyour feelings. But I should have grown an old woman while you werestill a young man. It would have been too dreadful. Indeed, dear, it isbetter as it is. Providence is very good to me. "

"Providence is not very good to me, in taking you from me, " said theCaptain, with a touch of bitterness. 

It seemed to him passing selfish in his wife to be so resigned toleaving life, and so oblivious of the fact that her income died withher, and that he was to be left out in the cold. One evening, however, when they were sitting alone together, this fact presented itselfsuddenly to her mind. 

"You will lose the Abbey House when I am gone, Conrad. "

"My love, do you think I could live in this house without you?"

"And my income, Conrad; that dies with me, does it not?"

"Yes, love. "

"That is hard for you. "

"I can bear that, Pamela, if I am to bear the loss of you. "

"Dearest love, you have always been disinterested. How could I everdoubt you? Perhaps--indeed I am sure--if I were to ask Violet, shewould give you the fifteen hundred a year that I was to have had aftershe came of age. "

"Pamela, I could not accept any favour from your daughter. You woulddeeply offend me if you were to suggest such a thing. "

This was true. Much as he valued money, he would have rather starvedthan taken sixpence from the girl who had scorned him; the girl whosevery presence gave rise to a terrible conflict in hisbreast--passionate love, bitterest antagonism. 

"There are the few things that I possess myself--jewels, books, furniture--special gifts of dear Edward's. Those are my own, to disposeof as I like. I might make a will leaving them to you, Conrad. They aretrifles, but----"

"They will be precious _souvenirs_ of our wedded life, " murmured theCaptain, who was very much of Mr. Wemmick's opinion, that portableproperty of any kind was worth having. 

A will was drawn up and executed next day, in which Mrs. Winstanleyleft her diamonds to her daughter, her wardrobe to the faithful andlong-suffering Pauline--otherwise Mary Smith--and all the rest of herbelongings to her dearly-beloved husband, Conrad Winstanley. TheCaptain was a sufficient man of business to take care that this willwas properly executed. 

In all this time his daily intercourse with Violet was a source ofexceeding bitterness. She was civil, and even friendly in her manner tohim--for her mother's sake. And then, in the completeness of her unionwith Rorie, she could afford to be generous and forgiving. The oldspirit of antagonism died out: her foe was so utterly fallen. A fewweeks and the old home would be her own--the old servants would comeback, the old pensioners might gather again around the kitchen-door. All could be once more as it had been in her father's lifetime; and notrace of Conrad Winstanley's existence would be left; for, alas! it wasnow an acknowledged fact that Violet's mother was dying. The mostsanguine among her friends had ceased to hope. She herself was utterlyresigned. She spent some part of each day in gentle religious exerciseswith kindly Mr. Scobel. Her last hours were as calm and reasonable asthose of Socrates. 

So Captain Winstanley had to sit quietly by, and see Violet and herlover grouped by his fading wife's sofa, and school himself, as he bestmight, to endure the spectacle of their perfect happiness in eachother's love, and to know that he--who had planned his future days sowisely, and provided, like the industrious ant, for the winter of hislife--had broken down in his scheme of existence, after all, and had nomore part in this house which he had deemed his own than a traveller atan inn. 

It was hard, and he sat beside his dying wife, with anger and envygnawing his heart--anger against fate, envy of Roderick Vawdrey, whohad won the prize. If evil wishes could have killed, neither Violet norher lover would have outlived that summer. Happily the Captain was toocautious a man to be guilty of any overt act of rage or hatred. Hisrancorous feelings were decently hidden under a gentlemanly iciness ofmanner, to which no one could take objection. 

The fatal hour came unawares, one calm September afternoon, about sixweeks after Violet's return from Jersey. Captain Winstanley had beenreading one of Tennyson's idyls to his wife, till she sank into agentle slumber. He left her, with Pauline seated at work by one of thewindows, and went to his study to write some letters. Five o'clock wasthe established hour for kettledrum, but of late the invalid had beenunable to bear even the mild excitement of two or three visitors atthis time. Violet now attended alone to her mother's afternoon tea, kneeling by her side as she sipped the refreshing infusion, and coaxingher to eat a waferlike slice of bread-and-butter, or a few morsels ofsponge-cake. 

This afternoon, when Violet went softly into the room, carrying thelittle Japanese tray and tiny teapot, she found her mother lying justas the Captain had left her an hour before. 

"She's been sleeping so sweetly, miss, " whispered Pauline. "I neverknew her sleep so quiet since she's been ill. "

That stillness which seemed so good a thing to the handmaid frightenedthe daughter. Violet set her tray down hastily on the nearest table, and ran to her mother's sofa. She looked at the pale and sunken cheek, just visible in the downy hollow of the pillows; she touched the handlying on the silken coverlet. That marble coldness, that waxen hue ofthe cheek, told her the awful truth. She fell on her knees beside thesofa, with a cry of sharp and sudden sorrow. 

"Oh mother, mother! I ought to have loved you better all my life!"

CHAPTER XI. 

The Bluebeard Chamber. 

The day before the funeral Captain Winstanley received a letter fromhis stepdaughter, offering to execute any deed he might choose to haveprepared, settling upon him the income which his wife was to have hadafter Violet's majority. 

"I know that you are a heavy loser by my mother's death, " she wrote, "and I shall be glad to do anything in my power to lessen that loss. Iknow well that it was her earnest wish that your future should beprovided for. I told her a few days before she died that I should makeyou this offer. I do it with all my heart; and I shall consider myselfobliged by your acceptance of it. "

The Captain's reply was brief and firm. 

"I thank you for your generous offer, " he said, "which I feel assuredis made in good faith; but I think you ought to know that there arereasons why it is impossible I should accept any benefit from yourhand. I shall not re-enter the Abbey House after my wife's funeral. Youwill be sole and sovereign mistress of all things from that hour. "

He kept his word. He was chief mourner at the quiet but stately burialunder the old yew-tree in Beechdale churchyard. When all was over hegot into a fly, and drove to the station at Lyndhurst Road, whence hedeparted by the first train for London. He told no one anything abouthis plans for the future; he left no address but his club. He was nextheard of six months later, in South America. 

Violet had telegraphed to her old governess directly after Mrs. Winstanley's death; and that good and homely person arrived on the dayafter the funeral, to take up her abode with her old pupil, ascompanion and chaperon, until Miss Tempest should have become Mrs. Vawdrey, and would have but one companion henceforward in all thejourney of life. Rorie and Vixen were to be married in six months. Mrs. Winstanley had made them promise that her death should delay theirmarriage as little as possible. 

"You can have a very quiet wedding, you know, dear, " she said. "You canbe married in your travelling-dress--something pretty in gray silk andterry velvet, or with chinchilla trimming, if it should be winter. Chinchilla is so distinguished-looking. You will go abroad, I suppose, for your honeymoon. Pau, or Monaco, or any of those places on theMediterranean. "

It had pleased her to settle everything for the lovers. Violetremembered all these speeches with a tender sorrow. There was comfortin the thought that her mother had loved her, according to her lights. 

It had been finally settled between the lovers that they were to liveat the Abbey House. Briarwood was to be let to any wealthy individualwho might desire a handsome house, surrounded by exquisitely arrangedgardens, and burdened with glass that would cost a small fortuneannually to maintain. Before Mr. Vawdrey could put his property intothe hands of the auctioneers, he received a private offer which was inevery respect satisfactory. 

Lady Mallow wished to spend some part of every year near her father andmother, who lived a good deal at Ashbourne, the Duke becoming yearlymore devoted to his Chillingham oxen and monster turnips. Lord Mallow, who loved his native isle to distraction, but always found six weeks ina year a sufficient period of residence there, was delighted to pleasehis bride, and agreed to take Briarwood, furnished, on a seven-years'lease. The orchid-houses were an irresistible attraction, and by thisfriendly arrangement Lady Mallow would profit by the alterations andimprovements her cousin had made for her gratification, when hebelieved she was to be his wife. 

Briarwood thus disposed of, Rorie was free to consider the Abbey Househis future home; and Violet had the happiness of knowing that the goodold house in which her childhood had been spent would be her habitationalways, till she too was carried to the family vault under the oldyew-tree. There are people who languish for change, for whom the newestis ever the best; but it was not thus with Violet Tempest. The peopleshe had known all her life, the scenes amidst which she had played whena child, were to her the dearest people and the loveliest scenes uponearth. It would be pleasant to her to travel with her husband, and seefair lands across the sea: but pleasanter still would be thehome-coming to the familiar hearth beside which her father had sat, theold faces that had looked upon him, the hands that had served him, thegardens he had planted and improved. 

"I should like to show you Briarwood before it is let, Vixen, " Mr. Vawdrey said to his sweetheart, one November morning. "You may at leastpay my poor patrimony the compliment of looking at it before it becomesthe property of Lord and Lady Mallow. Suppose you and Miss McCrokedrive over and drink tea with me this afternoon? I believe myhousekeeper brews pretty good tea. "

"Very well, Rorie, we'll come to tea. I should rather like to see theimprovements you made for Lady Mabel, before your misfortune. I thinkLord Mallow must consider it very good of you to let him have thebenefit of all the money you spent, instead of bringing an action forbreach of promise against his wife, as you might very well have done. "

"I daresay. But you see I am of a forgiving temper. Well, I shall tellmy housekeeper to have tea and buns, and jam, and all the thingschildren--and young ladies--like, at four o'clock. We had better makeit four instead of five, as the afternoons are so short. "

"If you are impertinent we won't come. "

"Oh yes you will. Curiosity will bring you. Remember this will be yourlast chance of seeing the Bluebeard chamber at Briarwood. "

"Is there a Bluebeard chamber?"

"Of course. Did you ever know of a family mansion without one?"

Vixen was delighted at the idea of exploring her lover's domain, nowthat he and it were her own property. How well she remembered goingwith her father to the meet on Briarwood lawn. Yet it seemed a centuryago--the very beginning of her life--before she had known sorrow. 

Miss McCroke, who was ready to do anything her pupil desired, wasreally pleased at the idea of seeing the interior of Briarwood. 

"I have never been inside the doors, you know, dear, " she said, "oftenas I have driven past the gates with your dear mamma. Lady Jane Vawdreywas not the kind of person to invite a governess to go and see her. Shewas a strict observer of the laws of caste. The Duchess has much lesspride. "

"I don't think Lady Jane ever quite forgave herself for marrying acommoner, " said Vixen. "She revenged her own weakness upon otherpeople. "

Violet had a new pair of ponies, which her lover had chosen for her, after vain endeavours to trace and recover the long-lost Titmouse. These she drove to Briarwood, Miss McCroke resigning herself to thewill of Providence with a blind submission worthy of a Moslem; feelingthat if it were written that she was to be flung head foremost out of apony-carriage, the thing would happen sooner or later. Staying at hometo-day would not ward off to-morrow's doom. So she took her place inthe cushioned valley by Violet's side, and sat calm and still, whilethe ponies, warranted quiet to drive in single or double harness, stoodup on end and made as if they had a fixed intention of scaling therhododendron bank. 

"They'll settle down directly I've taken the freshness out of them, "said Vixen, blandly, as she administered a reproachful touch of thewhip. 

"I hope they will, " replied Miss McCroke; "but don't you think Batesought to have seen the freshness taken out of them before we started?"

They were soon tearing along the smooth Roman road at a splendid pace, "the ponies going like clockwork, " as Vixen remarked approvingly; butpoor Miss McCroke thought that any clock which went as fast as thoseponies would be deemed the maddest of timekeepers. 

They found Roderick standing at his gates, waiting for them. There wasa glorious fire in the amber and white drawing-room, a dainty tea tabledrawn in front of the hearth, the easiest of chairs arranged on eachside of the table, an urn hissing, Rorie's favourite pointer stretchedupon the hearth, everything cosy and homelike. Briarwood was not such abad place after all, Vixen thought. She could have contrived to behappy with Roderick even here; but of course the Abbey House was, inher mind, a hundred times better, being just the one perfect home inthe world. 

They all three sat round the fire, drinking tea, poured out by Vixen, who played the mistress of the house sweetly. They talked of old times, sometimes sadly, sometimes sportively, glancing swiftly from one oldmemory to another. All Rorie's tiresome ways, all Vixen's mischievoustricks, were remembered. 

"I think I led you a life in those days, didn't I, Rorie?" asked Vixen, leaving the teatray, and stealing softly behind her lover's chair tolean over his shoulder caressingly, and pull his thick brown beard. "There is nothing so delightful as to torment the person one loves bestin the world. Oh, Rorie, I mean to lead you a life by-and-by!"

"Dearest, the life you lead me must needs be sweet, for it will bespent with you. "

After tea they set out upon a round of inspection, and admired the newmorning-room that had been devised for Lady Mabel, in the very lateststyle of Dutch Renaissance--walls the colour of muddy water, glorifiedginger-jars, ebonised chairs and tables, and willow-pattern plates allround the cornice; curtains mud-colour, with a mediaeval design indirty yellow, or, in upholsterer's language, "old gold. "

"I should like to show you the stables before it is quite dark, " saidRorie presently. "I made a few slight improvements there while thebuilders were about. "

"You know I have a weakness for stables, " answered Vixen. "How many alecture I used to get from poor mamma about my unfortunate tastes. Butcan there be anything in the world nicer than a good old-fashionedstable, smelling of clover and newly-cut hay?"

"Stables are very nice indeed, and very useful, in their proper place, "remarked Miss McCroke sententiously. 

"But one ought not to bring the stables into the drawing-room, " saidVixen gravely. "Come, Rorie, let us see your latest improvements instable-gear. "

They all went out to the stone-paved quadrangle, which was as neatlykept as a West-End livery-yard. Miss McCroke had an ever-present dreadof the ubiquitous hind-legs of strange horses: but she followed hercharge into the stable, with the same heroic fidelity with which shewould have followed her to the scaffold or the stake. 

There were all Rorie's old favourites--Starlight Bess, with her shiningbrown coat, and one white stocking; Blue Peter, broad-chested, well-ribbed, and strong of limb; Pixie, the gray Arab mare, which LadyJane used to drive in a park-phaeton--quite an ancient lady; Donald, the iron-sinewed hunter. 

Vixen knew them all, and went up to them and patted their gracefulheads, and made herself at home with them. 

"You are all coming to the Abbey House to live, you dear things, " shesaid delightedly. 

There was a loose-box, shut off by a five-foot wainscot partition, surmounted by a waved iron rail, at one end of the stable, and onapproaching this enclosure Vixen was saluted with sundry grunts andsnorting noises, which seemed curiously familiar. 

At the sound of these she stopped short, turning red, and then pale, and looked intently at Rorie, who was standing close by, smiling at her. 

"That is my Bluebeard chamber, " he said gaily. "There's something tooawful inside. "

"What horse have you got there?" cried Vixen eagerly. 

"A horse that I think will carry you nicely, when we hunt together. "

"What horse? Have I ever seen him? Do I know him?"

The grunts and snortings were continued with a crescendo movement; aneager nose was rattling the latch of the door that shut off theloose-box. 

"If you have a good memory for old friends, I think you will know thisone, " said Rorie, withdrawing a bolt. 

A head pushed open the door, and in another moment Vixen's arms wereround her old favourite's sleek neck, and the velvet nostrils weresniffing her hair and cheek, in most loving recognition. 

"You dear, dear old fellow!" cried Vixen; and then turning to Rorie:"You told me he was sold at Tattersall's!" she exclaimed. 

"So he was, and I bought him. "

"Why did you not tell me that?"

"Because you did not ask me. "

"I thought you so unkind, so indifferent about him. "

"You were unkind when you could think it possible I should let yourfavourite horse fall into strange hands. But perhaps you would ratherLord Mallow had bought him?"

"To think that you should have kept the secret all this time!" saidVixen. 

"You see I am not a woman, and can keep a secret. I wanted to have onelittle surprise for you, as a reward when you had been especially good. 

"You are good, " she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. "And though Ihave loved you all my life, I don't think I have loved you the leastlittle bit too much. "

EPILOGUE. 

Vixen and Rorie were married in the spring, when the forest glades wereyellow with primroses, the mossy banks blue with violets, and thecuckoo was heard with monotonous iteration from sunrise to sundown. They were married in the little village church at Beechdale, and Mrs. Scobel declared that Miss Tempest's wedding was the prettiest that everhad been solemnised in that small Gothic temple. Never, perhaps, evenat Eastertide, had been seen such a wealth of spring blossoms, thewildlings of the woods and hills. The Duchess had offered the contentsof her hot-houses, Lady Ellangowan had offered waggon-loads of azaleasand camellias, but Vixen had refused them all. She would allow nodecorations but the wild flowers which the school-children couldgather. Primroses, violets, bluebells, the firstlings of the ferntribe, cowslips, and all the tribe of innocent forest blossoms, withtheir quaint rustic names, most of them as old as Shakespeare. 

It was a very quiet wedding. Vixen would have no one present except theScobels, Miss McCroke, her two bridesmaids, and Sir Henry Tolmash, anold friend of her father, who was to give her away. He was awhite-haired old man, who had given his latter days up to farming, andhad not a thought above turnips and top-dressing; but Violet honouredhim, because he had been her father's oldest friend. For bride-maidsshe had Colonel Carteret's daughters, a brace of harmless young ladies, whose conversation was as stereotyped as a French and Englishvocabulary, but who dressed well and looked pretty. 

There was no display of wedding gifts, no ceremonious weddingbreakfast. Vixen remembered the wedding feast at her mother's secondmarriage, and what a dreary ceremonial it had been. 

The bride wore her gray silk travelling-dress, with gray hat andfeather, and she and her husband went straight from the church to therailway station, on their way to untrodden paths in the Engadine, whence they were to return at no appointed time. 

"We are coming back when we are tired of mountain scenery and of eachother, " Violet told Mrs. Scobel in the church porch. 

"That will be never!" exclaimed Rorie, looking ineffably happy, but notvery much like a bride-groom, in his comfortable gray suit. "You mightjust as well say that we are going to live among the mountains as longas Rip Van Winkle. No, Mrs. Scobel, we are not going to remain awayfrom you fifty years. We are coming back in time for the hunting. "

Then came kissing and handshaking, a shower of violets and primrosesupon the narrow churchyard path, a hearty huzza from the assembledvillage, all clustered about the oaken gate-posts. The enviouscarriage-door shut in bride and bride-groom, the coachman touched hishorses, and they were gone up the hill, out of the peaceful valley, toLyndhurst and the railway. 

"How dreadfully I shall miss them, " said Mrs. Scobel, who had spentmuch of her leisure with the lovers. "They are both so full of life andbrightness!"

"They are young and happy!" said her husband quietly. "Who would notmiss youth and happiness?"

When the first frosts had seared the beeches to a fiery red, and theberries were bright on the hawthorns, and the latest bloom of theheather had faded on hill and plain, and the happy pigs had devouredall the beech-nuts, Mr. Vawdrey and his wife came back from theirexploration of Alpine snows and peaceful Swiss villages, to the goodold Abbey House. Their six months' honeymoon had been all gladness. They were the veriest boy and girl husband and wife who had evertrodden those beaten tracks. They teased each other, and quarrelled, and made friends again like children, and were altogether happy. Andnow they came back to the Forest, bronzed by many a long day'ssunshine, and glowing with health and high spirits. The glass of Timeseemed to be turned backwards at the Abbey House; for all the oldservants came back, and white-haired old Bates ruled in the well-filledstables, and all things were as in the dead and gone Squire's time. 

Among Roderick's wedding gifts was one from Lord Mallow: Bullfinch, thebest horse in that nobleman's stable. 

"I know your wife would like you to have her father's favouritehunter, " wrote Lord Mallow. "Tell her that he has never been sick orsorry since he has been in my stable, and that I have always takenparticular care of him, for her sake. "

Among Violet's presents was a diamond bracelet from Lady Mallow, accompanied by a very cordial letter; and almost the first visit thatthe Vawdreys received after they came home was from Lord and LadyMallow. The first great dinner to which they were bidden was atBriarwood, where it seemed a curious thing for Rorie to go as a guest. 

Matrimony with the man of her choice had wondrously improved MabelAshbourne. She was less self-sufficient and more conciliating. Herambition, hitherto confined to the desire to excel all other women inher own person, had assumed a less selfish form. She was now onlyambitious for her husband; greedy of parliamentary fame for him; fullof large hopes about the future of Ireland. She looked forwardcomplacently to the day when she and Lord Mallow would be reigning atDublin Castle, and when Hibernian arts and industries would revive andflourish under her fostering care. Pending that happy state of thingsshe wore Irish poplin, and Irish lace, Irish stockings, and Irishlinen. She attended Her Majesty's Drawing-room on St. Patrick's Day, with a sprig of real shamrock--sent her by one of her husband'stenantry--among the diamonds that sparkled on her bosom. She was moreintensely Irish than the children of the soil; just as converts toRomanism are ever more severely Roman than those born and nurtured inthe faith. 

Her husband was intensely proud of his wife, and of his alliance withthe house of Ashbourne. The Duke, at first inclined to resent thescandal of an elopement and the slight offered to his favourite, Rorie, speedily reconciled himself to a marriage which was more materiallyadvantageous than the cousinly alliance. 

"I should like Rorie to have had Ashbourne, " he said mournfully. "Ithink he would have kept up my breed of Chillingham cattle. Mallow's agood fellow, but he knows nothing about farming. He'll never spendenough money on manure to maintain the soil at its present producingpower. The grasp of his mind isn't large enough to allow him to sinkhis money in manuring his land. He would be wanting to see an immediateresult. "

As time went on the Duke became more and more devoted to his farm. HisScottish castle delighted him not, nor the grand old place in theMidlands. Ashbourne, which was the pleasure-dome he had built forhimself, contained all he cared about. Too heavy and too lazy to hunt, he was able to jog about his farm, and supervise the work that wasgoing on, to the smallest detail. There was not a foot of drain-pipe ora bit of thatch renewed on the whole estate, without the Duke having afinger in the pie. He bred fat oxen and prize cart-horses, and made agreat figure at all the cattle-shows, and was happy. The Duchess, whohad never believed her paragon capable of wrong-doing, had beeninfinitely shocked by Lady Mabel's desperate course; but it was not inher nature to be angry with that idolised daughter. She very soon cameback to her original idea, that whatever Mabel Ashbourne did was right. And then the marriage was so thoroughly happy; and the world gladlyforgives a scandal that ends so pleasantly. 

So Lord and Lady Mallow go their way--honoured, beloved, very active ingood works--and the pleasant valleys around Mallow are dotted with redbrick school-houses, and the old stone hovels are giving place to modelcottages, and native industries receive all possible encouragement fromthe owner of the soil; and, afar off, in the coming years, the gloriesof Dublin Castle shine like the Pole Star that guides the wanderer onhis way. 

In one thing only has Lady Mallow been false to the promise of hergirlhood. She has not achieved success as a poet. The Duchess wondersvaguely at this, for though she had often found it difficult to keepawake during the rehearsal of her daughter's verses, she had a fixedbelief in the excellence of those efforts of genius. The secret of LadyMallow's silence rests between her husband and herself; and it is justpossible that some too candid avowal of Lord Mallow's may be the reasonof her poetic sterility. It is one thing to call the lady of one'schoice a tenth muse before marriage, and another thing to foster aself-delusion in one's wife which can hardly fail to become adiscordant element in domestic life. "If your genius had developed, andyou had won popularity as a poet, I should have lost a perfect wife, "Lord Mallow told Mabel, when he wanted to put things pleasantly. "Literature has lost a star; but I have gained the noblest and sweetestcompanion Providence ever bestowed upon man. " Lady Mallow has notdegenerated into feminine humdrum. She assists in the composition ofher husband's political pamphlets, which bristle with lines fromEuripides, and noble thoughts from the German poets. She writes a goodmany of his letters, and is altogether his second self. 

While the Irishman and his wife pursue their distinguished career, Rorie and Vixen live the life they love, in the Forest where they wereborn, dispensing happiness within a narrow circle, but dearly lovedwheresoever they are known; and the old men and women in the scatteredvillages round about the Abbey House rejoice in the good old times thathave come again; just as hearty pleasure-loving England was glad whenthe stern rule of the Protector and his crop-headed saints gave placeto the reign of the Merry King. 

From afar there comes news of Captain Winstanley, who has married aJewish lady at Frankfort, only daughter and heiress of a well-knownmoney-lender. The bride is reported ugly and illiterate; but there isno doubt as to her fortune. The Captain has bought a villa at Monaco--avilla in the midst of orange-groves, the abandoned plaything of anAustrian princess; and he has hired an apartment in one of the newavenues, just outside the Arc de Triomphe, where, as his friendsanticipate, he will live in grand style, and receive the pleasantestpeople in Paris. He, too, is happy after his kind, and has won thetwenty-thousand-pound prize in the lottery of life; but it isaltogether a different kind of happiness from the simple and unalloyeddelight of Rorie and Vixen, in their home among the beechen woods whosefoliage sheltered them when they were children. 

THE END. 

PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER. 

Transcriber's note: Typographical errors silently corrected:

volume 3 chapter 1: =an instant's delay?= replaced by =an instant's delay, =

chapter 1: =latest fashion?= replaced by =latest fashion. =

chapter 3: =like the Squires= replaced by =like the Squire's=

epilogue: =young and happy!= replaced by =young and happy!"=