CHAPTER I

Produced by Al Haines

The

Honour of the Clintons

By

Archibald Marshall

_Author of_

"Elton Manor," "The Squire's Daughter,"

"The Eldest Son," etc.

New York

Dodd, Mead and Company

1919

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

_To_

_ARTHUR MARWOOD_

CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTER

I A Home-Coming

II A Vulgar Theft

III The Squire Is Drawn In

IV Joan Gives Her Evidence

V A Quiet Talk

VI The Young Birds

VII The Verdict

BOOK II

I Bobby Trench Is Asked to Kencote

II Joan and Nancy

III Humphrey and Susan

IV Coming Home from the Ball

V Robert Recumbent

VI Joan Rebellious

VII Disappointments

VIII Proposals

BOOK III

I The Squire Confronted

II A Very Present Help

III The Burden

IV This Our Sister

BOOK IV

I A Return

II Payment

III The Straight Path

IV A Conclave

V Waiting

VI The Power of the Storm

VII Thinking It Out

VIII Skies Clearing

IX Skies Clear

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

A HOME-COMING

The lilacs in the station-yard at Kencote were heavy with their trusses

of white and purple; the rich pastures that stretched away on either

side of the line were yellow with buttercups.

Out of the smiling peace of the country-side came puffing the busy

little branch-line train. It came to and fro half a dozen times a day,

making a rare contact between the outside world and this sunny placid

corner of meadow and brook and woodland. Here all life that one could

see was so quiet and so contented that the train seemed to lose its

character as it crept across the bright levels, and to be less a noisy

determined machine of progress than a trail of white steam, floating

out over the grazing cattle and the willows by the brookside, as much

in keeping with the scene as the wisps of cloud that made delicate the

blue of the fresh spring sky.

The white cloud detached itself from the engine and melted away into

the sky, and the train slid with a cheerful rattle alongside the

platform and came to a stand-still. Nancy Clinton, who had been

awaiting its arrival with some impatience, waved her hand and hurried

to the carriage from which she had seen looking out a face exactly like

her own. By the time she had reached it her twin sister, Joan, had

alighted, and was ready with her greeting.

"Hullo, old girl!"

"You're nearly ten minutes late."

The twins had been parted for a fortnight, which had very seldom

happened to them before in the whole nineteen years of their existence,

and both of them were pleased to be together once more. If they had

been rather less pleased they might have said rather more.

More was, in fact, said by the maid who stood at the carriage door with

Joan's dressing-bag in her hand.

"Good-afternoon, Miss Nancy. Lor, you _are_ looking well, and a sight

for sore eyes. We've come back again, you see, and don't want to go

away from you no more. Miss Joan, please ketch 'old of this, and I'll

get the other things out. Where's that porter? He wants somebody

be'ind 'im with a stick."

"Hullo, Hannah!" said Nancy. "As talkative as ever! Come along, Joan.

She can look after the things."

The two girls went out through the booking-office, at the door of which

the station-master expressed respectful pleasure at the return of the

traveller, and got into the carriage waiting for them. There was a

luggage cart as well, and the groom in charge of it touched his hat and

grinned with pleasure; as did also the young coachman on the box.

"I seem to be more popular than ever," said Joan as she got into the

carriage. "Why aren't we allowed a footman?"

"You won't find you're at all popular when you get home," said Nancy.

"The absence of a footman is intended to mark father's displeasure with

you. He sent out to say there wasn't to be one, and William was to

drive, instead of old Probyn. Father is very good at making his ritual

expressive."

"What's the trouble?" enquired Joan. "My going to Brummels for the

week-end?"

"Yes. Without a _with_-your-leave or _by_-your-leave. Such a house as

that is no place for a well-brought-up girl, and what on earth Humphrey

and Susan were thinking of in taking you there he can't think. I say,

why _did_ you all go in such a hurry? You didn't say anything about it

when you wrote on Friday."

"Because it was arranged all in a hurry. Lady Sedbergh is going

through a month's rest cure at Brummels, and she thought she'd have a

lively party to say good-bye before she shuts herself up. It was Bobby

Trench who made her ask us, at the last moment."

"Joan, is Bobby Trench paying you attentions? You never told me

anything in your letters, but he seems to have been always about."

Joan laughed. "I'll tell you all about Bobby Trench later on," she

said. "I've been saving it up. Mother isn't annoyed at my going to

Brummels, is she?"

"I don't think so. But she said Humphrey and Susan ought not to have

taken you there without asking."

"There wasn't time to ask. Besides, I wanted to go, just to see how

the smart set really do behave when they're all at home together."

"Well, how do they?"

"It really is what Frank calls '_chaude etoffe_.' I don't wonder that

Lady Sedbergh wants a rest cure if that's how she spends her life. On

Sunday we had a fancy dress dinner--anything we could find--and she

came down as the Brummels ghost in a sort of nightgown with her hair

down her back and her face whitened. She looked a positive idiot

sitting at the head of the table. She must be at least fifty and the

ghost was only seventeen."

"What did you wear?"

"Oh, I borrowed Hannah's cap and apron; and Susan's maid lent me a

black dress. I was much admired. Susan was a flapper. She had on

some clothes of Betty Trench's, who is only fourteen, and about her

size. She looked rather silly. Humphrey was properly dressed, except

that he wore white trousers and a pink silk pyjama jacket. He said he

was Night and Morning. He looked the most respectable of all the men,

except Lord Sedbergh, who said he wasn't playing. He's a dear old

thing and lets them all do just what they like, and laughs all the

time. Bobby Trench was a bathing woman, with a sponge bag thing on his

head. He was really awfully funny, but he was funniest of all when he

forgot what he looked like and languished at me. I was having soup,

and I choked, and Lord Rokeby, who was sitting next to me, thumped me

on the back. All their manners are delightfully free and natural."

"Well, you seem to have enjoyed yourself."

"We finished up the evening with a pillow fight. Fancy!--Lady Sedbergh

and some of the other older women joined in, and made as much noise as

anybody. You should have seen Hannah's face when I did at last get

into my room, where she was waiting for me. She said a judgment was

sure to fall on us for such goings on."

"A judgment is certainly going to fall on _you_, my dear. Father will

seize you the moment you get into the house and ask you what you mean

by it."

"Dear father!" said Joan affectionately. "It _is_ jolly to be home

again, Nancy. How lovely the chestnuts are looking! Dear peaceful old

Kencote!"

They drove in through the lodge gates, where Joan received a smile and

a curtsey, and along the short drive through the park, and drew up

beneath the porch of the big ugly square house. Mrs. Clinton was at

the door, and Joan enveloped her in an ardent embrace, which was

interrupted by the appearance of the Squire, big and burly, with a

grizzled beard and a look of self-contented authority.

"I've got something to say to you, Miss Joan. Come into my room."

He turned his back and marched off to the library, in which he spent

most of his time when he was indoors.

Joan, after another hug and kiss, followed him. It may or may not have

been a sign of the deterioration in manner, wrought by her visit to

Brummels, that she winked at Nancy over her shoulder as she did so.

"Aren't you going to kiss me, father?" she asked, going up to him. "I

am very pleased to see you again, and I'm sure you're just as pleased

to see me."

The face that she lifted up to him could not possibly have been

resisted by any man who had not the privilege of close relationship.

The Squire, however, successfully resisted it.

"I don't want to kiss you," he said. "I'm very displeased with you.

What on earth possessed Humphrey and Susan to take you off to a house

like that, without a with-your-leave or a by-your-leave? And what do

you mean by going to places where you knew perfectly well you wouldn't

be allowed to go?"

"But, father darling," expostulated Joan, with an expression of puzzled

innocence, "I knew Lord Sedbergh was an old friend of yours. I didn't

think you could _possibly_ object to my going there with Humphrey and

Susan. They only got up their party on Friday evening, and there

wasn't time to write home. Why do you mind so much?"

"You know perfectly well why I mind," returned the Squire irritably.

"All sorts of things go on in houses like that, and all sorts of people

are welcomed there that I won't have a daughter of mine mixed up with.

You've been brought up in a God-fearing house, and you've got to

content yourself with the life we live here. I tell you I won't have

it."

"Well, I'm sorry, father dear. I won't do it again. Now give me a

kiss."

But the Squire was not yet ready for endearments.

"Won't do it again!" he echoed. "No, you won't do it again. I'll take

good care of that. If you can't go on a visit to your relations

without getting into mischief you'll stop at home."

"I don't want anything better," replied Joan tactfully. "I didn't know

how ripping Kencote was till I drove home just now. Everything is

looking lovely. How are the young birds doing?"

"Never mind about the young birds," said the Squire. "We've got to get

to the bottom of this business. You must have known very well that I

should object to your going to a house like Brummels. When that young

Trench came here a few years ago you heard me object very strongly to

the way he behaved himself. Cards on Sunday, and using the house like

an hotel, never keeping any hours except what suited himself, and I

don't know what all. Did they play cards on Sunday at Brummels?"

Joan was obliged to confess that they did.

"Of course! Did _you_ play? Did Humphrey and Susan play?"

"Oh no, father; I don't know how to play and I wouldn't think of it,"

replied Joan hurriedly, to the first question.

"Did you go to church?"

"Oh yes, father. I went with Lord Sedbergh. He is a dear old man, and

hates cards now."

"I don't know why you should call him an old man. He is just the same

age as I am. It's quite true that we were friends as young fellows.

But that's a good many years ago. He has gone his way and I have gone

mine. I don't suppose he is responsible for all the folly and

extravagance that goes on in his house; still, he lives an altogether

different sort of life, and we haven't met for years. If he remembers

my name it's about as much as he would do."

"Oh, but he talked a lot about you, father. He told me all sorts of

stories about when you were at Cambridge together. He said once you

began to play cards after dinner and didn't leave off until breakfast

time the next morning."

"H'm! ha!" said the Squire. "Of course young fellows do a number of

foolish things that they don't do afterwards. Did anyone but you and

Lord Sedbergh go to church on Sunday?"

Joan was obliged to confess that they had been the only attendants.

"Well, there it is!" said the Squire. "Out of all that household, only

two willing to do their duty towards God Almighty! I shall give

Humphrey and Susan a piece of my mind. I blame them more for it than I

do you. But at the same time you ought not to have gone, and I hope

you fully understand that."

"Oh, yes, father dear," replied Joan. "You have made it quite plain

now. Don't be cross any more, and give me a kiss. I've been longing

for one ever since I came in."

The Squire capitulated. "Now run away," he said when he had satisfied

the calls of filial affection, and paternal no less. "I've got some

papers to look through. What you've got to do is to put it all out of

your mind, and settle down and make yourself happy at home. God knows

I do all _I_ can to make my children happy. The amount that goes out

in a house like this would frighten a good many people, and I expect

some return of obedience to my wishes for all the sacrifices I make."

When Joan had left him the Squire went to find his wife.

"Nina," he said, "I'm infernally worried about Joan going to a house

like Brummels. The child's a good child, but wants looking after. She

ought never to have been allowed to go up to Susan. I thought trouble

would come of it when it was suggested."

Mrs. Clinton did not remind her husband that both the twins had stayed

with their sister-in-law before, and that beyond a grumble at anybody

preferring London to Kencote he had never made any objection.

"I think they ought not to have taken her away on a visit without

asking," said Mrs. Clinton. "But Joan and Nancy are grown-up now, and

I think they are both too sensible to take any harm by being with

Susan. What I feel is that they must see things for themselves, and

not be kept always shut up at home."

"Shut up!" repeated the Squire. "That's a foolish way of talking.

Home is the best place for young girls; and who could wish for a better

home than Kencote? The fact is that this London life is getting looser

and more immoral every day. Look what an effect it is having on

Humphrey and Susan! What with all that money that old Aunt Laura left

them, and the allowance I make to Humphrey, and the few hundreds a year

that Susan has, they could very well afford to keep up quite a nice

little place in the country, and live a sensible healthy life. As it

is they live in a poky flat that you can hardly turn round in, and yet

they spend twice as much money as Dick, who is my eldest son, and is

quite content to live here quietly in the Dower House and not go

running about all over the place. And they spend twice as much as

Walter, who has a family to keep. And they don't really get on well

together, either. Their marriage has been a great disappointment--a

disappointment in every way. The fact is that a young couple without

any children to look after and keep them steady are bound to get into

mischief, especially if they've got the tastes that Humphrey and Susan

have, and enough money to gratify them. Nina, I _hate_ this set of

people that they make their friends of. Did you know that that Mrs.

Amberley was staying at Brummels?"

"I saw her name in the paper," said Mrs. Clinton.

"A nice sort of woman for a young girl like Joan to be asked to meet!

She's a notoriously loose character; and a good many other members of

the party are no better than they should be. Lady Sedbergh herself is

a frivolous fool, if she's no worse, and as for that young cub who came

here a year or two ago, I don't know when I've seen a young fellow I

object to more. I believe Sedbergh himself has the remains of decency

and dignity; but what does one person count amongst all that vicious

gang? Upon my word, Humphrey and Susan ought to be whipped for taking

a girl of Joan's age to such a place. The children shan't go to stay

with them again. The fact is that they can't be trusted in anything.

Well, I can't stay talking here; I must go back to my papers."

In the meantime Joan had retired with Nancy to their own quarters.

They still occupied one of the large nurseries as their bedroom, and

used the old schoolroom as a place where they could enjoy the privacy

necessary for their own intimate pursuits. Their elder sister and

three of their brothers were married, their governess had left them at

the end of the previous year, and as a rule they had these rooms on the

second floor of the East wing entirely to themselves. But at this

time, Frank, their sailor brother, was at home on leave, and had taken

up his old quarters there. He was a rising young lieutenant of

twenty-six, and the twins had been presented to their sovereign and let

loose generally on a grown-up world. But between them they managed to

produce a creditable revival of the period when the East wing had been

full of the noise and games of childhood; for they were all three young

at heart and the cares of life as yet sat lightly on them.

"Frank and I have started schoolroom tea again," said Nancy, as she and

Joan went up to their bedroom together. "He says he wants eggs, after

being out the whole afternoon; and mother doesn't mind. You will

preside over the urn at five o'clock."

"Jolly!" said Joan. "Where is Frank?"

"He hacked over to Mountfield to see Jim and Cicely." (Cicely, the

eldest of the Clinton girls, had married a country neighbour, Jim

Graham, and lived about five miles from Kencote.) "But he said he

would be back for tea. I suppose you calmed father down all right?"

"Oh yes. He's a dear old lamb, but he must have his say out. You only

have to give him his head, and he works it all off. You know, Nancy,

although father is rather tiresome at times, he is much better than all

those silly old men you meet about London. He is over sixty, and he

doesn't mind behaving like it. A lot of _them_ expect you to treat

them as if they were your own age, whether they are married or not."

"You seem to have gone through some eye-opening experiences."

"I have. I feel that I know the world now."

She had taken off her hat, and stood in front of the glass, touching

the twined masses of her pretty fair hair. The lines of her slim body,

and her delicate tapering fingers, were those of a woman; but the

child's soul had not yet faded out of her eyes, and still set its

impress on the curves of her mouth.

"Tell me about Bobby Trench."

Joan laughed, with a ringing note of amusement. "Of course you know

_why_ we were all given such a sudden and pressing invitation to

Brummels," she said.

Nancy jumped the implied question and answer. "Well, it was bound to

come sooner or later," she said. "With _both_ of us, I mean; not you

only. There is no doubt we possess great personal attractions. But I

don't think you have much to boast about, if it's only Bobby Trench.

What is he like? Has he changed at all since he came here?"

"Oh, he is just as silly and conceited as ever; but love has softened

him."

"I shouldn't want him softened, myself. He'd be sillier than ever.

Tell me all about it, Joan. How did he behave?"

Joan told her all about it; and the recital would not have pleased Mr.

Robert Trench, if he had heard it. With those cool young eyes she had

remorselessly regarded the antics of the attracted male, and found them

only absurd. But she had not put a stop to them.

"You know, Nancy," she said guilelessly, "it's all very well to talk as

they do in books about a man being able to make a girl like him if he

keeps at her long enough; but I am quite sure Bobby Trench could never

make me like him--in that way--if he tried for a hundred years. Still,

it _is_ rather nice to feel that one is grown up at last."

"The fact of the matter is, you have been flirting with Bobby Trench,"

said Nancy; "and you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

But Joan indignantly denied this. "What I did," she said, "was to

prevent his flirting with me."

There was a moment's pause. Then Nancy said unconcernedly, "I suppose

I told you that John Spence came here."

Joan turned round sharply, and looked at her. "No, you didn't," she

said.

After another moment's pause, she said, "You know you didn't."

Then came the question: "Why didn't you?"

"He was only here for two nights," said Nancy. "At the Dower House, of

course. If I didn't tell you, I meant to."

Joan scrutinised her closely, and then turned away.

"He was awfully sorry to miss you," Nancy said. "He told me to give

you his love."

"Thank you," said Joan, rather stiffly.

John Spence was a friend of Dick Clinton, who had managed his estates

for him for a year. He had first come to Kencote when the twins were

about fifteen, and had impressed himself on their youthful

imaginations. He was nearly twenty years older than they, but simple

of mind, free of his laughter, and noticeably warm-hearted. He liked

all young things; and the Clinton twins had afforded him great

amusement. He had been to Kencote occasionally as they were growing

up, and the elder-brotherly intimacy with which he had treated them at

the first had not altered. He was the friend of both of them, but when

he had come twice to Kencote to shoot, during the previous season, he

had seemed to show a very slight preference for the society of Joan.

It had been so slight that the twins, who had never had thoughts which

they had not shared, had made no mention of it between them.

But now, at a stroke, the great fact of sex came rushing in to affect

these young girls, who had played with it in a light unknowing way, but

had never felt it. They could amuse themselves, and each other, with

the amorous advances of Bobby Trench, but the fact that Nancy had

omitted to tell Joan of John Spence's visit was portentous, slight as

the omission might seem. Their habitual intercourse was one of

intimate humour, varied by frank disputes, which never touched the

close ties that bound them. But this was a subject on which they could

neither joke nor quarrel. It was likely to alter the relations that

had always existed between them, if it was not faced at once.

It was impossible for either of them not to face it. For the whole of

their lives each had known exactly what was in the mind of the other.

Each knew now, and the knowledge could not be ignored.

"Well, he was awfully nice," said Nancy, rather as if she were saying

something she did not want to. "I liked him better than ever. But he

sent his love to you."

"I don't see why you shouldn't have told me that he had come," said

Joan.

But she saw very well, and in the light of her seeing John Spence

ceased to be the openly admired friend of her and Nancy's childhood,

and became something quite different.

CHAPTER II

A VULGAR THEFT

In the great square dining-room at Kencote the Squire was sitting over

his wine, with his eldest and youngest sons.

From the walls looked down portraits of Clintons dead and gone, and of

the horses and dogs that they had loved, as well as some pictures that

by-gone owners of Kencote had brought back from their travels, or

bought from contemporary rising and since famous artists. There were

some good pictures at Kencote, but nobody ever took much notice of

them, except a visitor now and then.

Yet their presence had its effect on these latest members of a healthy,

ancient line. No family portraits went back further than two hundred

years, because Elizabethan Kencote, with nearly all its treasures of

art and antiquity, had been burnt down, and Georgian Kencote built in

its place. Even Georgian Kencote had suffered at the beginning of the

nineteenth century, at the hands of a rich and progressive owner; rooms

had been stripped of panelling, windows had been enlarged; and, but for

a few old pieces here and there, the furniture was massive but ugly.

The Clintons were as old as any commoner's family in England, and had

lived at Kencote without any intermission for something like six

hundred years; but there was little to show it in their surroundings as

they were at present. Only the portraits of the last six or seven

generations spoke mutely but insistently of the past, and their

prototypes were as well-known by name and character to their

descendants as if they had been known in the flesh.

To us, observing Edward Clinton, twentieth century Squire of Kencote,

with the eldest son who would some day succeed him, and the youngest

son, who had taken to one of those professions to which the younger

sons of a line undistinguished for all except wealth and lineage had

taken as a matter of course throughout long generations, this

background of family portraits is full of suggestion. One might ask

how much of the continuity of life and habit it represents is stable,

how much of it dependent upon fast-changing circumstance. How far is

this robust elderly man, living on his lands and desiring to live

nowhere else, and the handsome younger man, whose life has been spent

in the centre of all modern happenings,--how far are they what they

appear to be, representative of the well-to-do classes of modern

England; how far is their attitude to the life about them affected by

ideas inherent in their long descent? Are they really of the twentieth

century, or in spite of superficial modernity, of a time already passed

away?

One might say that the life lived by the Squire was the same life, in

all but accidentals, as that of the squires who had gone before him,

and whose portraits hung on the walls, and that it would be lived in

much the same way by the son who was to come after him. And so it was.

But the lives of those dead squires had been part of the natural order

of things of their time. Their lands had provided for it, and of

themselves would provide for it no longer. It was only by the accident

of our Squire being a rich man, and being able to leave his son a rich

man, that either of them could go on living it. To this extent his

life was not based upon his descent, and was indeed as much cut off

from that of the previous owners of Kencote as if he had been a man of

no ancestry at all, whose wealth, gained elsewhere, enabled him to

enjoy an exotic existence as a country gentleman. If wealth

disappeared the long chain would be broken, for a reason that would not

have broken it before.

But, when that is said, there still remains the whole ponderous weight

of tradition, which makes of him something different from the rich

outsider who, with no more than a generation or two behind him, or

perhaps none at all, comes in to take the place of the dispossessed

owner whose land alone will no longer support his state. What that

counts for in inherited benevolence and sense of responsibility,

qualified by strange spots of blindness where the awakened conscience

of a community is beginning to see more clearly, it would be difficult

to gauge. What one may say is that some flower whose perfume one can

distinguish should be produced of a plant so many centuries rooted;

that twenty generations of men preserved from the struggle for

existence, and having power over their fellows, should end in something

easily distinguishable from a man of yesterday; that such old

established gentility should have some feelings not shared by the

common mass, some peculiar sense of honour, some quality not dependent

upon wealth alone, some clear principle emerging from the mists of

prejudice and the mere dislike of all change.

So we come back to the Squire sitting with his sons over their wine,

their pictured forebears looking down on them from the walls, and

wonder a little whether there is anything in it all, or whether we are

merely in the company of a man to whom chance has given the opportunity

of ordering his life on obviously opulent lines, like many another with

no forebears that he knows anything of.

Dick Clinton had held a commission in His Majesty's Brigade of Guards

up to the time of his marriage four years before, and had been very

much in the swim of everything that was going on in the world of rank

and fashion. Now he lived for the most part quietly at the Dower

House, which lay just across the park of Kencote, and busied himself

with country pursuits and the management of the estate to which he

would one day succeed. He was beginning ever so little to put on

flesh, to look more like his father, to lose his interest in the world

outside the manor of Kencote and the adjacent lands that went with it.

But he was not yet a stay-at-home, as the Squire had long since become,

and he and his wife had just returned from a fortnight in London, well

primed with the interests of their former associates.

"Have you heard about this business at Brummels?" he said, as he passed

the decanter.

The Squire frowned at the mention of Brummels. "No. What business?"

he asked.

"Lady Sedbergh has had a pearl necklace stolen. It's said to be worth

ten thousand pounds; say five. She says that she kept it in a secret

hiding-place, and the only person who could have known where it was is

Rachel Amberley. She accuses her of stealing it. There's going to be

a pretty scandal."

The Squire frowned more ferociously than ever. "That's the sort of

thing that goes on amongst people like that!" he said with disgust.

"They have no more sense of honour than a set of convicts. A vulgar

theft! And there's hardly one of the whole lot that wouldn't be

capable of it."

"Well, I don't know about that," said Dick; "but if Mary Sedbergh can

be believed, there's not much doubt that Mrs. Amberley walked off with

it. It seems that there's an old hiding-place in the morning-room at

Brummels. You press a spring in the wainscot, and find a cupboard."

"There are plenty of those about," said the Squire. "Anybody might

find it. Still, I've no doubt that she's right, and it was that Mrs.

Amberley who actually did steal it."

Frank laughed suddenly. He was accustomed to suck amusement out of the

most unlikely sources, and his father, whether unlikely or not, was one

of them. "Why does she think Mrs. Amberley found it?" he asked.

"Because she showed her the hiding-place in a moment of expansion. It

isn't just a cupboard behind the panelling. When you've found that you

have only begun. There is another secret place behind the cupboard

itself. Only Sedbergh and his wife knew of it. It's a secret that has

been handed down; and well kept."

"Then why on earth did she tell a woman like Mrs. Amberley about it?"

enquired the Squire.

"I don't know; though it's just like her to do it. I think Mrs.

Amberley was at school with her, or something of that sort. She had a

big party at Brummels, and then emptied the house and went through a

month's rest cure there. At the end of the month she looked for her

necklace, and found it gone. A diamond star had gone as well; but

other things she had put away had been left."

"So, whoever the thief was, she had a month's start," said Frank.

"Yes. Sedbergh was called in, and they both went straight to Rachel

Amberley and offered to hush it all up if she would give back the

necklace."

The Squire snorted.

"Rachel Amberley bluffed it out. She said she would have them up for

scandal if they breathed a word of suspicion anywhere. They have been

breathing a good many. In fact, it's all over the place. And nothing

has happened yet. Everybody is wondering who will make the first move."

"_She_ won't," said the Squire, who had never met Mrs. Amberley. "I am

not in the way of hearing much that goes on amongst people of that

sort, now, but she's a notoriously loose woman. That's why I was so

annoyed when I heard that Joan had been taken to a house where she was

staying. By the by, this affair didn't take place at that particular

time, did it?"

"Yes. That's when it happened."

The Squire's face was blacker than ever. "Then it will be known who

was of the party," he said. "Our name will be dragged into one of

these disgraceful scandals, and every Dick, Tom, and Harry in the

country will be talking about us. Upon my word, it's maddening. I

suppose I can't prevent Humphrey and Susan keeping what company they

please, but it makes me furious every time I think of it--their taking

Joan there."

"I don't suppose Joan's name will come out," said Dick. "There were

lots of people in the house at the time, and they are not likely to

mention all of them."

The Squire was forced to be content with this. "Well, don't say

anything about it to her," he said. "It's an unsavoury business, and

the less she knows about that sort of thing the better."

"You can't keep her shut up for ever," said Dick; but his father

pressed more insistently for silence. "I don't want it mentioned," he

said irritably. "Please don't say anything to her--or you either,

Frank."

Frank was mindful of this injunction when he next found himself alone

with his sisters, which was at tea-time the next day. But he saw no

harm in mentioning the name of Mrs. Amberley. What had Joan thought of

her during that visit to Brummels, made memorable by the disturbance

that had affected her home-coming?

"Oh, I'm sick of Brummels," she said. "Anyone would think it

was--well, I won't sully my lips by repeating the name of the place.

Anyhow, it was a good deal more amusing than Kencote."

"Kencote is the jolliest place in the world," said Frank. "You and

Nancy are always running it down."

"It may be the jolliest place in the world to you," said Nancy,

"because you are here so seldom, and you do exactly what you want to do

when you _are_ here. It is pretty slow for Joan and me, boxed up here

all the year round."

"Well, never mind about that," said Frank, "I want to know how the

notorious Mrs. Amberley struck you, Joan."

"Is she notorious?" asked Joan. "She struck me as being old, if you

want to know. Much older than mother, although I suppose they are

about the same age, and mother's hair is white, and hers is vermilion."

"Did you talk to her at all?"

"Not much. She isn't the sort of person who would care about girls.

And I don't suppose they would care much about her, unless they were

pretty advanced. I'm not, you know, Frank. I'm a bread and butter

Miss from the country. I keep my mouth shut and my eyes open."

"At the same time," said Nancy, "our splendid youth is really a great

attraction. If Joan and I had lived in the eighteenth century, we

should have been known as the beautiful Miss Clintons. And we should

have had a very good time."

"You have a very good time as it is," said Frank, "only you're not

sensible enough to know it. You ought not to want anything much

jollier than this."

The windows of the big airy upstairs room were wide open to the summer

breezes. Outside, the spreading lawns of the garden, bordered by

ancient trees, and the grassy level of the park lay quiet and spacious,

flooded with soft sunshine. There was an air of leisure and

undisturbed seclusion about the scene, which was summed up in this

room, retired from the rest of the house, where the happiness of

childhood still lingered. It was not surprising that Frank, coming

back to it after his long sea wanderings, should have been seized by

the opulent tranquillity of his home. He was as happy as he could be,

all day and every day, woke up to a clear sensation of pleasure at

finding himself where he was, and watched the dwindling tail of his

leave with hardly less regret than the end of the holidays had brought

him during his schooldays. At twenty-six, with ten years of the sea

and the responsibilities of his profession behind him, he had stepped

straight back into his boyhood. He was not reflective enough to

realise that time would not stand still for him in this way for ever.

It seemed to him that, whatever else might change, Kencote would always

be the same, and he could always recapture his boyhood there. That was

partly why he disliked to hear his young sisters belittling its

comparative stagnation, which was to him so delightful. He had thought

them absurdly grown-up when he had first come home; but that effect had

worn off. He was a boy, and they were children in the schoolroom

again, their father and mother downstairs, out of the way of their

noise. So it would be when he came home again in two or three years'

time. So it would always be, as far as it was in him to look ahead.

But his sisters had other ideas. Their wing-feathers were growing, and

they were already beginning to flutter them. Perhaps in after years,

whatever happiness might come to them--and all life in the future was,

of course, to be happy, as well as much more exciting--they too would

look back upon these midsummer months with regret, and wish for their

childhood back again.

A few days later Joan and Nancy were taking a country walk with their

dogs. They were about a mile away from Kencote, when a motor-car came

suddenly along the road towards them, driven by a smart-looking young

man in a green hat and a blue flannel suit. The girls were on the

grass by the side of the road holding two of the dogs until it should

have passed, when to their surprise it stopped, and a cheerful voice

called out, "Hullo, Miss Joan! Here's a piece of luck! I was just on

my way to see you."

Joan stood upright with a blush on her face, which she would have

preferred not to have shown, while Mr. Robert Trench jumped down from

the car and advanced to shake hands with her. He also shook hands with

Nancy, remarking that he remembered her very well, and should have

known her anywhere by her likeness to her sister.

"What remarkable powers of observation you have!" observed Joan,

rallying her forces.

Bobby Trench only grinned at her. "Chaffing, as usual!" he said.

"But, bless you, I don't mind. I say, I suppose you have heard about

this beastly thing that has happened at Brummels--about my mother's

necklace?"

"No, I haven't," said Joan.

"What, not heard that it was stolen! Why, it was when you were staying

in the house too. Everybody is talking about it. Wherever have you

been burying yourself that you've heard nothing?"

"At home at Kencote," replied Joan. "You don't think I brought the

necklace away with me, do you?"

Bobby Trench grinned again. "We were talking it over last night," he

said. "I think we have seen everybody that was in the house at the

time except you, and I said, 'By Jove! I wonder whether Miss Joan

noticed anything?' We don't want to leave any stone upturned, so I

said I would run down and look you all up. It must be years since I

came to Kencote. You were both jolly little kids then."

"I beg your pardon," said Nancy, "we were fifteen. We weren't kids at

all."

"I apologise," said Bobby. "Anyhow, I thought it was a chance not to

be missed. Now, did you notice anything, Miss Joan? Oh, I forgot; I

haven't told you the story yet."

"I think you had better do that first," said Joan.

Bobby Trench then told them the story, and when he came to describe the

hiding-place Joan gave an exclamation.

"Is it just where that little Dutch picture hangs?" she asked. "The

one with the old woman cleaning a copper pot?"

"Yes. That's the place," said Bobby. "Why? Do you know anything

about it?"

Joan's face was serious. "Are you quite sure that Mrs. Amberley took

the necklace?" she asked.

"We're about as sure as we could be, unless we had actually seen her

doing it. I'll tell you what we have found out afterwards. You didn't

see her opening the cupboard by any chance, did you?"

Joan did not reply for a moment. Nancy looked at her with some

excitement on her face. "What _did_ you see?" she asked.

Still Joan seemed unwilling to speak, and Bobby Trench said, "If you

did see something, you ought to let us know. It's a very serious

business. The things stolen are worth pots of money, and we know

perfectly well that it can only be Mrs. Amberley who has taken them.

Besides, we've pretty well proved it now. We have found people to whom

she sold separate pearls; but for goodness' sake don't let that out

yet. I only tell you so that you may know that it wouldn't only rest

on you."

Joan raised her eyes to his. "I went into the morning-room," she said,

"and Mrs. Amberley was standing with her back to me by the fireplace."

"By Jove!" exclaimed Bobby Trench, staring at her as if fascinated.

"She turned sharp round when I came in," said Joan, "and then she asked

me if I didn't love old Dutch pictures, and showed me that one. That

is why I remembered about it."

"Was she actually looking at it when you came in?"

"Well, no. I don't think she was. It was just a little to the right

of where she was standing. I had forgotten all about it, but I

remember now that when she mentioned the picture I thought to myself

that she seemed to have been looking at the bare panels, and not at the

picture at all. Besides, she was blushing scarlet, and it was just as

if I had caught her in something."

"By Jove! you must jolly nearly have caught her with the panel open.

Did you notice anything odd about the wall she was standing in front of

as you came in?"

Joan thought for a moment. "No, I didn't," she said decidedly.

"Had she got anything in her hand?"

Joan thought again. "I didn't notice," she said. "But I believe she

kept her hands behind her while she was talking to me. She didn't talk

long. Just as I was looking at the picture she suddenly said she had

some letters to write, and went out of the room."

Bobby Trench, with growing excitement, asked her further questions--as

to the time at which this had happened, as to the exact words that Mrs.

Amberley had said.

"We've hit the bull's eye this time," he said. "What a brilliant idea

it was of mine to come and ask you! Look here, hadn't we better go and

talk to Mr. Clinton about it? He's an old friend of my father's. I

expect he'll be pleased to be able to give us a hand up over this

business."

"I should think he would be delighted," said Nancy drily. "Will Joan

have to give evidence at a trial?"

"Oh yes. There'll be a trial all right. We've got the good lady

sitting, now. But you won't mind that, will you, Miss Joan? If you'll

both hop in, I'll drive you back. We can take the dogs, too, if you

like. I hope Mr. Clinton will be in. I shall be glad to see him

again."

CHAPTER III

THE SQUIRE IS DRAWN IN

If Bobby Trench really felt the pleasure he had expressed at the

prospect of seeing Mr. Clinton again, it was a sensation not shared by

the Squire, when his motor-car came swishing up the drive, and he

alighted from it in company with Joan and Nancy.

Some few years before, Humphrey Clinton had brought him to Kencote for

some winter balls. Lady Susan Clinton, a distant connection, now

Humphrey's wife, and her mother, had been members of the house-party,

and trouble had ensued. They belonged to the fast modern world, which

the Squire abominated. They had essayed to play Bridge on Sunday;

Bobby Trench had tried to get out of going to church, had made havoc of

punctuality, had, in fact, seriously disturbed the serene,

self-satisfied atmosphere of Kencote. And the Squire had never

forgiven him. He was a "young cub," the sort of youth he never wished

to see at Kencote again, outside the pale of that God-fearing,

self-respecting country aristocracy which was to the Squire the head

and front of all that was most admirable and best worth preserving in

the body politic.

Bobby Trench had been hardly less free of criticism on his own account.

Kencote was a cemetery of the dead, a little bit of Hampstead stuck

down ten miles from nowhere, which came to the same thing; its owner

was an old clodhopper. Never again would he permit himself to be

inveigled into paying such a visit.

Yet here he was, advancing across the turf to where the tea-table was

spread in the shade of a great cedar, with an ingratiating smile on his

face, and apparently no doubt of the prospective warmth of his welcome.

"How do you do, Mrs. Clinton? Years since I saw you. How do you do,

Mr. Clinton? You don't look a day older. The governor sent you

messages, in case I should be lucky enough to see you. We are all at

Brummels for the week-end. I started at ten this morning; made about a

hundred miles of it; lunched at Bathgate. By Jove, you live in a past

century here! Wonderful peaceful country, but a bit dull, eh?"

The Squire had somewhat recovered from his surprise during this speech,

and was prepared to abide by his principles of hospitality, in spite of

his distaste for Bobby Trench, and all he represented. But the last

comment aroused his resentment, and emphasised the distance that lay

between him and this glib young man.

"We don't find it dull," he said; "but I dare say people who spend

their lives rushing about from one place to another and never settling

to anything might. They are welcome to their tastes, but the less I

have to do with them the better I'm pleased."

Bobby Trench laughed good-humouredly. "Well, it's true we _are_ rather

a rackety lot nowadays," he said. "I don't know that you haven't got

the best of it, after all. I sometimes think I shouldn't mind settling

down in the country myself, and doing a bit of gardening. We've

started gardening at Brummels. We quarrel like anything about it; it's

the greatest sport. You don't go in for it here, I see. But it's a

jolly place. You've got lots of opportunities."

The Squire found himself fast losing patience. It was true that he did

not go in for gardening, in the modern way, judging that pursuit to be

more fitted for the women of the family. Mrs. Clinton had her Spring

garden, in which she was allowed to have her own way, within limits, in

the matter of designing patterns of bright-coloured flowers; and she

was also allowed a say in the arrangement of the summer bedding, as

long as she did not interfere too much with the ideas of the head

gardener. But as for altering anything on a large scale, or even

additional planting of anything more permanent than spring or summer

flowers, that was not to be heard of.

And yet the Squire did love his garden, as he loved everything else

about his home. He knew every tree and every shrub in it, and was

immensely proud of the few rarities which every old garden that has at

some time or other been in possession of an owner who has taken a

living interest in it possesses. He knew nothing of the modern

nurseryman's catalogue, but would gratefully accept a cutting or a root

of something he admired from somebody else's garden, and see that it

was brought on well and planted in the right place. He belonged to the

days of Will Wimble, who was pleased "to carry a tulip-root in his

pocket from one to another, or exchange a puppy between a couple of

friends that lived perhaps on the opposite sides of the county"; and

who shall say that that intimate sort of knowledge of an

old-established garden gives less pleasure than the constant changes

which modern gardening involves? If his great grandfather, who had

called in an eighteenth century innovator to sweep away the old formal

gardens of the Elizabethan Kencote, and lay the ground they covered all

out afresh, had stayed his hand in the same way, he would have done a

good deal better.

The Squire swallowed a cup of tea and rose from his seat. "Well, I

have a great deal of work to get through," he said, "so I'll ask you to

excuse me. Remember me to your father. It's years since we met, but

we were a good deal together as young fellows."

He held out his hand. It was as near a dismissal as he could bring

himself to utter under the circumstances. He would have liked to be in

a position to tell Bobby Trench that he did not want him at Kencote,

and the sooner he went the better; but he could not very well put his

meaning into words.

"Oh, but wait a minute," said the totally unabashed Bobby. "I've come

over on important business, Mr. Clinton. I particularly want to have a

word with you."

"Well, then, come into my room when you have had your tea," said the

Squire. "One of the girls will show you the way."

"Well, it's about Miss Joan I wanted to talk to you," persisted Bobby.

"Of course, you've heard of that unfortunate business at Brummels when

she was there a few weeks ago--my mother's necklace being stolen, I

mean."

The Squire's face showed rising temper. "I did hear of it," he said.

"Dick told me, and I asked him particularly not to say anything about

it to Joan. I don't want my girls to be mixed up in that sort of

thing. Have you told her about it?"

Bobby Trench, marking the air of annoyance, chose to meet it with

diplomatic lightness. "Well, none of us want to be mixed up with that

sort of thing," he said with a smile. "But I'm afraid we can't help

ourselves in this instance. Yes, I told Miss Joan. Of course I

thought she knew."

The Squire sat down again, the frown on his brow heavier than ever. "I

must say it's very annoying," he said. "To be perfectly frank with

you, I was annoyed at my daughter being taken to Brummels at all. Your

father is an old friend of mine, and I should say the same to him. I

don't like the sort of thing that goes on in houses like yours, and I

don't want my children to know the sort of people that go to them. I

may be old-fashioned; I dare say I am; but to my mind a woman like that

Mrs. Amberley is no fit person for a young girl to come into contact

with, and----"

"Well, you're about right there," broke in Bobby Trench, who may have

been surprised at this exordium, but was unwilling to have to meet it

directly. "She's no fit person for anybody to come in contact with, as

it turns out. Still, she's all right in a way, you know. She and my

mother were friends as girls, and, of course, her people are all right.

We couldn't tell that----"

"I don't care who her people were," interrupted the Squire in his turn.

"She might be a royal princess for all I care; I say she would still be

a disreputable woman. What's happened since only shows that she will

stick at nothing. I should have objected just as much to a daughter of

mine being asked to meet her if this vulgar theft hadn't happened. In

fact, I did object. And a good many other people that haven't got

themselves into trouble by stealing necklaces are no better than she

is. It's the whole state of society, or what is called such nowadays,

that I object to. I won't have my girls mixing with it. There are

plenty of good people left who wouldn't have such women as Mrs.

Amberley inside their houses, and they can find their friends amongst

them. I'm annoyed that you should have said anything to Joan about

what has happened, and I don't want the subject mentioned again."

"Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Clinton," said Bobby. "But we were bound to

leave no stone unturned to get at the truth of things; and as it turns

out Miss Joan will be a very valuable witness on our side. She saw

Mrs. Amberley at the hiding-place, and can only just have escaped

seeing her take out what was in it. She----"

"What's this?" exclaimed the Squire terrifically.

Joan met his gaze unflinchingly. The state of her conscience being

serene, she was in truth rather enjoying herself, and her father's

asperities had long ceased to terrify either her or Nancy. "I told Mr.

Trench what I saw," she said. "Of course I hadn't thought about it

before, because I knew nothing of what had happened."

"What did you see?" enquired the Squire.

She told him. He received the information with a snort. "You saw a

lady looking at a picture," he said. "What is there in that? I've no

doubt that Mrs. Amberley did take the necklace, but if she is going to

be charged with it there's not the slightest necessity for your name to

be brought in at all. What you saw amounted to nothing."

"Oh, but I think it did," said Bobby Trench. "It was what she looked

like when Miss Joan caught her. You said yourself that she looked as

if she had been doing something she oughtn't to have done, and was

startled at your coming in, didn't you, Miss Joan?"

"Yes," said Joan. "It was just like that. And she blushed scarlet,

and then ran away suddenly."

"The fact is," said her father, "that you have imagined all this,

because of what you were told. You think you will gain importance by

telling a story of that sort; but I tell you I won't have it."

"Oh, father dear," expostulated Joan, "I wouldn't tell stories, you

know. I haven't imagined anything. It was all just as I have said."

"Well, then, you had better forget it as soon as you can," said the

Squire, changing his ground. "It's a most unpleasant subject, and I

won't have you talking about it, do you hear?--either you or Nancy.

Now mind what I say."

He rose from his seat again, as if the subject was finally disposed of.

And again Bobby Trench arrested his departure. "I'm afraid we can't

leave it like that, you know, Mr. Clinton," he said. "Miss Joan's

evidence is of the greatest possible importance to us. I'm bound to

tell my people. Besides, surely you wouldn't want to keep a fact like

that back, would you? The necklace is worth six or seven thousand

pounds, and if we bring the theft home to Mrs. Amberley, my mother may

get some of the pearls back. We've already traced some of them, and

know that she has been disposing of them separately."

"Tell your people by all means," said the Squire. "But don't let

Joan's name be brought into the trial. I insist upon that. I won't

have it."

Bobby Trench stared at this exhibition of blindness to the necessities

of the case. He made no reply, probably reflecting that the subpoena

which would be served upon Joan would bring those necessities home to

the Squire as readily as anything, and that it would be unnecessary to

bring additional wrath upon himself by explaining matters beforehand.

It was Mrs. Clinton who, observing his face, said, "I think Mr. Trench

means that it will be necessary for Joan to give evidence of what she

saw at the trial, if it comes to that," she said.

"What!" exclaimed the Squire, bending his brows upon her. "What can

you be thinking of to suggest such a thing, Nina? A girl of Joan's age

to give evidence at a criminal trial! A pretty idea, indeed!"

He transferred his glare upon Bobby, who felt uncomfortable. "Absurd

old creature!" was his inward comment, but as he made it he looked at

Joan, standing in her white frock under the shade of her big hat, and

the picture she made appealed so forcibly to his aesthetic sense that he

was impelled to an endeavour to put the situation on a better footing.

It would never do to go away saying nothing, and then to launch the

bombshell of a subpoena into peaceful, prejudiced Kencote. It would

bring Joan into the witness-box, but it would certainly keep Bobby

Trench away from her, in the worst possible odour with her resentful

parent.

"I know it's a most awful bore, Mr. Clinton," he said. "I'll promise

you this, that if Miss Joan can be kept out of it in any way, she shall

be. I should hate to see her in the court myself."

"You won't see her there," said the Squire decisively. "But you'll

excuse my saying that it won't matter to you one way or the other where

you see her. I will write to your father about this business. It's

all most infernally annoying, and I wish to goodness you had kept away

from us--although I should have been glad enough to see you here if

this hadn't happened."

The last statement was not in the least true, but was drawn from him by

the contest going on in his mind between his strong dislike of Bobby

Trench and his sense of what was required of him towards a guest. He

compelled himself to shake hands of farewell, and marched into the

house, the set of his back and the way he held his head indicating

plainly that he would give free rein to the acute irritation he was

feeling when he got there.

There was a pause when he had disappeared through the windows of the

library, and then Mrs. Clinton asked quietly, "Do you think there is

any chance of Joan not being required to give evidence at the trial?"

"Well, I'll tell you exactly how it is, Mrs. Clinton," said Bobby,

relieved at being able to address himself to somebody who was

apparently capable of accepting facts. "If Mrs. Amberley would admit

that she had stolen the necklace, and give back the pearls she hadn't

made away with, we should drop it, and there wouldn't be any more

bother. But I'm bound to say that I don't think she will now. It's

gone too far. She brazened it out when my father and mother charged

her with it, and she'll go on brazening it out. I think it is bound to

come into the courts."

"Will she be charged with the theft?"

"That's not quite settled on. She threatened to bring an action

against us if we talked about it. And, of course, we _have_ talked.

We are quite ready to meet her action, and would rather it came on in

that way. But if she doesn't make a move soon, we shall be obliged to.

It will be the only chance of getting anything back. We have had

detectives working, and it is quite certain that she has sold pearls in

Paris within the last month. They are ready to swear to her. She has

pawned one in London, too--in the city. So you see we're quite certain

about her. Yet it would only be circumstantial evidence, for, of

course, nobody could swear to separate pearls; and she might get off.

What Miss Joan saw would clinch it. I'm awfully sorry about it, since

Mr. Clinton feels as he does, but I'm bound to say that I think she

ought to be prepared to give her evidence. It wouldn't be fair on us

to hold it back, even if it was possible--now would it?"

Mrs. Clinton seemed unwilling to express an opinion, but she told her

husband later on, when Bobby Trench had taken himself off, that she

feared there would be no help for it, Joan would have to give her

evidence, whether they liked it or no.

And so it proved. In answer to his letter to Lord Sedbergh, the Squire

received an intimation from his old friend that they had decided to

prosecute at once. They had learnt that Mrs. Amberley, who was getting

cold-shouldered everywhere, was making arrangements to leave England

altogether. They were on the point of having her arrested. He was

very sorry that a girl of Joan's age should be mixed up in such an

unpleasant affair, but it must be plain that her evidence could not be

dispensed with, and he hoped that, after all, the ordeal might not be

such a very trying one for her. She would only have to tell her story

and stick to it. Everything should be done on their side that was

possible to make things easy for her, and the affair would soon blow

over.

The Squire, raging inwardly and outwardly, had to bow to circumstances.

The day after he had received Lord Sedbergh's letter a summons came for

Joan to present herself at a certain police court, and he and Mrs.

Clinton took her up to London the same afternoon.

CHAPTER IV

JOAN GIVES HER EVIDENCE

The June sunshine, beating through the dusty windows of the Police

Court, fell upon a very different assembly from that which was usually

to be found in that place of mean omen.

The gay London crowd that was accustomed to pass continuously within a

stone's throw of its walls, without giving a thought to those dubious

stories of the underworld which were daily elucidated there, had made

of it the centre of their interest this morning. Many more than could

be accommodated had sought for admission, in order to witness a scene

in which the parts would be taken, not by the squalid professionals of

crime, but by amateurs of their own high standing. The seedy loafers

who were accustomed to congregate there had been shouldered out by a

fashionable crowd, amongst which the actors who were to take part in

the play found themselves the objects of attentions which some of them

could well have dispensed with.

Joan sat between her father and mother, outwardly subdued, inwardly

deeply interested. Behind the natural shrinking of a young girl,

compelled to stand up and be questioned in public, there was the pluck

of her race to support her. It would not be worse than having a tooth

stopped, and that prospect had never deterred her from appreciation of

the illustrated papers in the dentist's waiting-room. So now she sat

absorbed by the expectation of what was about to happen, and felt

exactly as if she were waiting for the curtain to go up on the first

scene of a play she eagerly wanted to see.

She had almost come to feel as if she had been brought up to London to

be accused of a crime herself. Her father had been very trying,

continually harping back upon that old grievance of her having gone to

Brummels in the first instance, and adding to it irritable censure of

her fault in unburdening herself to Bobby Trench without consulting him

beforehand. She held herself free of offence on either count, but had

diplomatically refrained from asserting her innocence, to avoid still

further arraignment. She had been inundated with instructions, often

contradictory, as to how she should act and speak in the ordeal that

lay before her; and if she had been of a nervous temperament might well

have been driven into a panic long before she had come within

measurable distance of undergoing it, and thus have acquitted herself

in such a way as to draw an entirely new range of rebukes upon her

head. Her mother had simply told her that she must think before she

said anything, and not say more than was necessary; and her uncle, the

Judge, at whose house they were staying, had repeated much the same

advice, and had made light of what she would have to undergo. So, with

her mind not greatly disturbed on that score, she felt a sense of

relief at being now beyond her father's fussy attempts to blame and

direct her at the same time, and able to turn her mind to the interests

at hand.

The Squire would probably, even now, have been at her ear with

repetitions of oft-given advice had not his own ear been engaged by

Lord Sedbergh, who sat on the other side of him.

Lord Sedbergh was an amiable, easy-going nobleman, not without some

force of character, but too well off and indolent to care to exercise

it in opposition to the society in which circumstances compelled him to

move. He and the Squire had been friends at Eton, and also at

Cambridge, after which Lord Sedbergh had embraced a diplomatic career,

until such time as he had succeeded to the family honours, while Edward

Clinton, after a brief period of metropolitan glory as a cornet in the

Royal Horse Guards, had married early and settled down to a life of

undiluted squiredom. The two had actually never met for over thirty

years, and were now discovering that their youthful intimacy had not

entirely evaporated during that period. At a moment more free from

preoccupation they would have embarked on reminiscences which would

have shed considerable warmth on this late meeting; and even as it was

the Squire felt that his old friend was still a friend, and that it was

not such a bad thing after all to be in a position to lend strength to

his just cause.

"That's a very charming girl of yours, Edward," Lord Sedbergh was

saying. "Bright and clever and pretty without being spoilt, as young

women so quickly are now-a-days. We made great friends, she and I,

when she stayed with us. I wish we could have spared her this, but I

don't think she will be much bothered. They are bound to send the case

for trial, and I should think the lady would reserve any defence she

may have thought of putting up. Still, I don't like to see young girls

brought into a business of this sort, and if we could have done without

little Joan's evidence I should have been pleased."

The Squire was soothed by the expression of this very proper spirit,

and after a little further conversation was even inclined to think with

less annoyance of Joan's disastrous visit to Brummels, since the owner

of that house was apparently sane and right-minded, whatever might be

said of his family and their associates.

"My boy Bobby," said Lord Sedbergh, "has thrown himself into clearing

this up heart and soul. He has a head on his shoulders, and I doubt if

we should have been in the position we are if it hadn't been for him."

But the Squire was still incensed against Bobby Trench, and was not

prepared to give him credit for being anything but the shallow-pated

young fool with the over-free manners who had figured so frequently of

late in his diatribes. He might have given some expression to this

view of his friend's son, for he had not been accustomed in those early

years of comradeship to hold back his opinions, and he was getting to

feel more than ever that time and absence had wrought little change

between them. But at this moment the curtain rang up for the play, and

his attention was diverted.

There was something of a sensation when Mrs. Amberley stood up before

the Court ready to meet her accusers. The Squire's face, as he set

eyes upon her for the first time, expressed surprise, condemnation, and

disgust. The surprise was at the appearance of a woman of striking if

somewhat strange and to him repellent beauty, whose eyes and cheeks

flamed indignant protest against her situation, when he had expected to

see some sort of haggard siren in an attitude combined of shame and

impudence. The condemnation was directed against her air of arrogant

scorn, and the bold way in which she looked round upon the assembled

throng, allowing her gaze to rest upon those who had brought her there

in such a way that she seemed to be the accuser and they the accused,

and Lady Sedbergh for one dropped her eyes, unable to meet it. The

disgust was at her appearance and attire, which seemed to the Squire a

bold flaunting of impudent wickedness in face of highly-placed

respectability, as represented by the wives of people like himself, who

were not ashamed to show the years which the Almighty had caused to

pass over their heads, and wore clothes which might indicate their

rank, but were not intended to exhibit the unholy seductions of sex.

Joan, with the merciless arrogance of youth, had said that Mrs.

Amberley had struck her as being old. She would not have said so if

she had seen her now for the first time. Whether it was owing to art,

or to the stimulating flame of her indignation, her face showed none of

the ravages of years. If that was owing to art alone, it was supreme

art, for on a skin that was almost ivory in its pallor the flush stood,

not crudely contrasted, but as if a rare variant of that strange

whiteness. The great masses of her dull red hair even Lady Sedbergh,

now violently antagonistic to her, must have acknowledged herself

familiar with from before a time when art would have been brought to

their production, whatever share it may have had now in preserving

their arresting effect. Her figure, in a gown of clear green, had all

the slim suppleness of youth; her great black hat with its heavy

plumes, might have been worn by Joan herself. And yet, if she did not

look old, or even middle-aged, still less did she look young. Her

eager lustrous eyes had seen the weariness of life as well as its

consuming pleasures, and could not hide their knowledge; the lines of

her face, delicate enough, were not those of youth.

When the preliminaries had been gone through, Lady Sedbergh had to tell

her story, which she did with a jumpy loquacity that seemed to indicate

that whatever benefit she had obtained from her late rest-cure had by

this time evaporated.

The gist of it was that she and Mrs. Amberley had been discussing jewel

robberies, and Mrs. Amberley had said that no place was safe for jewels

if a clever thief was determined to get hold of them. They had been

sitting by the morning-room fire, and the hiding-place in which she had

always kept her own more valuable jewels was just at her side. She had

not been able to refrain from mentioning it, and showing, under a

promise of secrecy, where it was. You pressed a spring in the

panelling, and found a recess in the stone of the thick wall behind.

That might well have been discovered by chance; but what no one who did

not know of the secret would expect was that, by turning one of the

solid-looking stones on a pivot, a further receptacle was disclosed.

No one had known of this but herself and husband, until she had told

Mrs. Amberley.

She was accustomed to carry her more valuable jewels with her wherever

she went, especially the pearl necklace, and the diamond star, which

had also been stolen. This she valued for sentimental reasons, which

she did not disclose to the Court. They were both in the secret

receptacle when she showed it to Mrs. Amberley, as well as a few other

cases containing more or less valuable jewels, none of which had been

taken.

It was on the day before her party was to break up that she had showed

Mrs. Amberley her hiding-place. She had not worn any of the jewels she

had put there that evening, nor visited it again until a month later,

when she was about to return to London. Then she had missed the

necklace and the star. She had sent a telegram to her husband, who had

come down at once, and after hearing her story had gone to see Mrs.

Amberley with her. Neither of them had any doubt that she was the only

person who could possibly have taken the jewels, as she was the only

person who knew where they were kept.

"Have you any questions to ask of the witness?"

"Yes."

Mrs. Amberley spoke in a low-pitched vibrating voice. She was

completely at her ease, and the contemptuous tone in which she asked

her questions, and the significant pauses which she made after each

confused voluble reply, not commenting upon it, but passing on to the

next question, would have been effective if she had been a skilled

criminal lawyer, and was much more so considering what she was and what

she had at stake.

"We have been intimate friends all our lives, you and I, haven't we?"

Lady Sedbergh admitted it, but explained that she would never have made

an intimate friend of anyone who would behave in that way, if she had

known what she was really like.

She was permitted to have her say out, with those scornful eyes fixed

on her, until she trailed off into ineffective silence, when the next

question came.

"What was the first thing that I said to you when you had shown me the

cupboard, and shut it up again?"

It needed more than one intervention on the part of the magistrate

before it was elicited that Mrs. Amberley had said, "Well, now, if

anything happens you can't accuse me. You would know I should be the

last person." Lady Sedbergh volunteered the additional information

that she had remembered those words, and even repeated them to her

husband, but added that she put them down to Mrs. Amberley's cunning.

"But isn't it true that if I had stolen your necklace I should have

known positively that you would have suspected me at once?"

No volubility would disguise the truth of that, and it had what weight

it deserved.

Mrs. Amberley asked no more questions, but her solicitor cross-examined

Lady Sedbergh as to the means she had taken to preserve the knowledge

of the hiding-place from her own maid, for instance, or from the other

servants of the house. He made it appear rather absurd that in a great

house, overrun with servants, like Brummels, she could always have

carried cases of jewels to and fro without being observed, or that her

own maid would have had no curiosity as to where she kept them. The

poor lady explained eagerly that she seldom wore the things she kept in

her hiding-place when she was in the country, and that there was a safe

in her husband's room in which she was supposed to keep what valuables

she did not keep upstairs; but she explained so much and so

incoherently that it had small effect in view of his persistence. It

did seem rather absurd to everybody when her cross-examination was

over, that anyone so foolish as she should have been able for so long

to keep such a secret from everybody about her, especially in view of

the irresponsible and causeless way in which she was shown finally to

have let it out. If the case had rested on her testimony alone, Mrs.

Amberley would have been acquitted, with hardly an additional stain on

her character.

Joan, standing up bravely in her fresh girlhood to tell her story, was

far more damaging. Between Mrs. Amberley, completely self-possessed,

and showing indignation only by the vibrations of her low voice, and

Lady Sedbergh, with her flurried, rather pathetic efforts to put

herself everywhere in the right, the advantage was on the side of the

accused. She had no such foil in the frank bearing of the young girl,

whose delicate bloom contrasted with her own exotic beauty only to show

that whatever quality it may have had was not that of innocence. Joan

repeated what she had told Bobby Trench, in much the same words, and

the only discount that could be taken off her evidence was the

admission that she had thought nothing of it at all until after she had

been told of what Mrs. Amberley was suspected.

It was when she was just about to leave the witness-stand, and the

Squire, who had been following the process of question and answer with

spasms of nervousness at each fresh speech, was beginning to breathe

freely once more, that Mrs. Amberley looked at her with a glance from

which, with all her care to avoid the expression of feeling, she could

not banish the malice, and asked her, "Would you have said what you did

if it had been anybody but Mr. Trench who asked you?"

The insinuation was plain enough, and Joan met it with a warm blush

which she would have given worlds to have been able to hold back. She

felt the blood warming and reddening her cheeks and her neck, but she

answered immediately in spite of it, "It was my sister who asked me

what I had seen, when Mr. Trench told us both of what you were

suspected"; and Mrs. Amberley let the answer pass, with an air of not

finding it worth while to take further notice of such a childish person.

Joan made her way back to her seat between her father and mother, the

blush slowly fading from her cheeks. She felt outraged at having had

such a question put to her, and in such a tone, before all these

knowing, sniggering people; and her distress was not lightened by her

father saying to her in an angry whisper, "There now, you see what

comes of making yourself free in that sort of company." He added,

"Confound the woman's impudence!" in a tone still more angry, which

took off a little of the edge of his previous speech; and Mrs. Clinton

took Joan's hand in hers and pressed it. So presently she recovered

her equanimity, and only blushed intermittently when she remembered

what had been said to her.

A French jeweller gave evidence of Mrs. Amberley having sold pearls to

him in Paris. She had been veiled and hooded, but he was sure it was

the same lady. He should have recognised her by her voice alone. He

gave the dates of the transactions, three in number; and other evidence

was duly brought forward to show that Mrs. Amberley had been in Paris

on each of those dates.

A London pawnbroker's assistant gave evidence of her having pawned a

single pearl, which he produced. She had done it in her own name. He

proved to be an indecisive witness under the pressure of Mrs.

Amberley's lawyer, and said he was not sure now that it was the same

lady, although he was nearly sure. But there was the transaction duly

recorded, and Mrs. Amberley's name and London address entered in his

books at the time. Asked whether he thought it likely that a lady who

was pawning stolen property, obviously with no idea of redeeming it,

would give her own well-known name and address, he recovered himself

sufficiently to answer very properly that he had nothing to do with

what was likely or unlikely; there was his book.

When all the witnesses had been examined, Mrs. Amberley's lawyer said

that he should not oppose the case going for trial. He had advised his

client to reserve her defence, but he might say that she had a full and

convincing answer to the charge.

When Mrs. Amberley had been duly committed for trial, there was a

wrangle as to her being admitted to bail. It was stated in opposition

that she was known to have contemplated leaving the country; she had in

no way met the convincing evidence that had been brought against her,

and in view of the gravity of the offence, &c., &c. Finally, she was

admitted to bail on heavy securities, which were immediately

forthcoming. One of them was offered by Sir Roger Amberley, her late

husband's father, an old man who looked bowed down by shame; the other

by Lord Colne, an elderly roue, who, so far from showing shame,

appeared proud of his position as friend and supporter of the accused

lady. Mrs. Amberley left the court with her father-in-law, and some

who were within hearing when she thanked her other sponsor remarked

that he did not seem likely to get much change out of his liability of

two thousand pounds.

The Squire, with his wife and daughter, lunched at the extremely

private hotel which he had patronised all his life, and left London for

Kencote by an early afternoon train. They were accompanied by Humphrey

and Lady Susan Clinton, who had paid no visit to Kencote since they had

committed the fault of taking Joan to Brummels; and would not have paid

the visit now if they could have got out of it.

But the Squire had insisted. He had sent Mrs. Clinton and Joan on to

his brother-in-law's house on their arrival in London the afternoon

before, and had gone himself to his son's flat, with the object of

unburdening his mind both to Humphrey and his wife. But Humphrey and

Susan had been out. He had waited for an hour, getting more and more

angry, and convinced that they were seeking to evade him. He had then

written a peremptory note, ordering them to join him at the station on

the following afternoon, ready to go down to Kencote, with instructions

to wire acquiescence immediately on receipt of the order.

The wire had arrived at his brother-in-law's house before he had

reached it. "Exceedingly sorry to have missed you. Both delighted

come Kencote to-morrow. Humphrey."

The uncalled for expression of delight had not in the least softened

his mood of anger, but he had gained a grim satisfaction from feeling

that his word was law if he chose to make it so. This was added to by

the determination to make the visit anything but an occasion of

delight, and the anticipation of having somebody fresh on whom to wreak

his anger; the satisfaction of relieving his feelings by censure of

Joan having now begun to wear rather thin.

If Humphrey was bent on smoothing out the situation, as was probably

the case, it was impolitic of him to bring his own man to Kencote as

well as his wife's maid. The Squire himself never took a man away with

him, except on the rare occasions on which he went anywhere to shoot,

and Humphrey's servant was an additional offence. The Squire's temper

was not improved when Humphrey, relieved of all anxieties about luggage

and tickets and the rest of it, strolled up to him on the platform,

dressed in the latest variety of summer country clothes, with the

correct thing in spats, and the most modern shade in soft felt hats,

and found him fussing over details that he might safely have left to

Mrs. Clinton's capable maid.

"Oh, here you are," he said ungraciously. "If you're quite sure that

your fellow has done everything for your own comfort, you might tell

him to help Parker with those things. I've engaged a carriage, but if

I had thought you couldn't travel without your whole establishment I'd

have told 'em to put on a saloon."

"We've left the cook and the housemaid behind," said Humphrey,

outwardly undisturbed. "Here, Grant, take these things into your

carriage."

The Squire turned his back and went up to the compartment at which his

wife was standing with her daughter-in-law and Joan. "Better get in.

Better get in," he said. "We don't want to be left behind. How are

you, Susan? We've just had a pleasant result from your taking Joan

into the company of people like your precious Mrs. Amberley."

Lady Susan made no attempt to avert his displeasure, which had

evidently worked itself up to a point at which it must have immediate

vent. She shook hands with him, and got into the carriage after Mrs.

Clinton. She was a tall, fashionably-dressed woman, with a young,

rather foolish face, not remarkably good-looking, but making the most

of such points as she possessed. The Squire rather liked her, in spite

of his disapproval of many of her ways, partly because she had always

treated him with deference, partly--although he would indignantly and

conscientiously have denied it--because her title was a suitable

ornament to the name she bore. He himself was the head of the family

of which hers was a junior branch, but that branch had been ennobled at

a date of quite respectable antiquity, and an Earl's daughter is an

Earl's daughter wherever she may be found. The mild degree of

satisfaction, however, that he felt on this head was quite

sub-conscious, and did not lead him to pay any more deference to Lady

Susan than he was accustomed to pay to the rest of the women of his

family. The only lady in that position whom he treated with marked

deference was the wife of his eldest son, who was an American, of no

ancestry that he would have recognised as significant, who had once for

a short period lowered even the ancestry she could claim by dancing on

the stage. That story has been told elsewhere, and if the reader is

inclined to cry snob, because the Squire is admitted to have been

pleased that one of his daughters-in-law bore a title, let it be

considered that Virginia, Dick's wife, had made a complete conquest of

him, and that he valued her little finger above Lady Susan's body.

He began directly the train had started. "Now look here, I've got a

word to say to you two, and I may as well say it at once and get it

over."

Humphrey, knowing that it was bound to come, was quite ready, but was

also aware that to get it over was really the last thing his father

wanted. Whatever attitude he might take upon the subject, it would be

returned to again and again as long as his visit to the paternal

mansion should last. The best he could do was to get it over for the

time being, and gain a respite in which to read the "Field" and the

other papers with which he had provided himself. To this end he put up

no opposition, but admitted with grave face that he and his wife had

done wrong, and agreed that subsequent events proved that they had done

very wrong indeed.

The Squire would perhaps have preferred to have his annoyance warmed up

by a difference of opinion, and was obliged to express it with all the

more force, so that it might spontaneously acquire the requisite amount

of heat.

The end of it was rather surprising. He was getting along swimmingly,

on a high note of displeasure, when he was brought to a sudden stop by

Lady Susan bursting into tears.

Now tears from a woman were what the Squire never could stand. He was

essentially kind, and even tender-hearted, in spite of his usual

attitude of irritable authority, and, since he had never lived with

women who cried easily, he took tears from them very seriously. They

meant, of course, for one thing, complete capitulation; for of tears of

mere temper he had had no experience whatever; and they appealed to his

chivalry as emphasising the weakness of the vessels from which they

came.

"Oh, come now!" he said soothingly, and with an expression of

discomfort. "No need to cry over it. It's over and done with for the

present, and now I've pointed out quietly what a wrong thing it was,

I'm quite sure it won't be repeated."

But Susan still continued to sob freely, and Humphrey said with some

indignation, "She's very much upset at what's happened. She's taken it

much more to heart than you think. It doesn't want rubbing in any

more."

"Well, perhaps I've said enough," admitted the Squire, "but you've got

to consider that we haven't done with this business yet. We shall have

it hanging over us for months, until the trial comes on; and then we

shall have to go through it all again. Still, you know, Susan, _you_

won't be called as a witness. _You've_ nothing to cry about. Now, do

leave off, my dear girl. Let's put it out of our minds now, and think

no more about it till we're obliged to. My dear child, what is the

matter?"

For Susan's sobs had increased in volume, and now showed some signs of

becoming hysterical. Mrs. Clinton essayed to soothe her in her calm

sensible way, and Humphrey said kindly, "All right, Susan, we're not

going to talk about it any more. We're both sorry we made the mistake

we did, and you are not so much to blame for it as I am."

But perhaps it was Joan, who was not greatly moved by a woman's tears,

who brought Susan's to an end by remarking, "We are getting near

Lemborough. I think this train stops there."

When Susan had dried her eyes, and was able to speak with no more than

an occasional hiccough, she said, "I am sorry for Mrs. Amberley. I

don't know her very well, and I don't like her, but it's a horrible

position to be put in."

"Well, I don't think you need waste much sympathy on her," said the

Squire. "If that's all you are crying about you might have saved your

tears, my dear. She won't get more than she deserves."

"It isn't what I was crying about," said Susan. "You spoke as if all

of us who were at Brummels were just the same as she is."

The Squire did privately think that most of them, except Humphrey and

Susan themselves, and Lord Sedbergh, and of course Joan, would have

been capable of acting in the same way as Mrs. Amberley, if necessity

and opportunity had prompted them, but he said, "Oh no, Susan. I

didn't mean to go nearly so far as that. Still, there's a proverb

about evil communications, you know, and I do hope you will take a

lesson from this nasty business and steer clear of the sort of people

who go in for that kind of thing."

He spoke as if the people received into fashionable society who "went

in" for stealing pearl necklaces were easily distinguishable from the

rest. This was probably not precisely what he meant, and as Susan

plucked up a smile and said, "Well, you've said some very unkind things

to me, but I'm going to be a good girl now, and I hope you won't say

any more," he allowed the subject to drop altogether, and the rest of

the journey passed in peace.

CHAPTER V

A QUIET TALK

Frank and Nancy were on the platform at Kencote. The Squire, longing

for his home whenever he was away from it, like any schoolboy detached

from the dear familiar, was pleased to see their smiling faces. They

were agreeably surprised by the warmth of his greeting, having expected

him to reach home in even a worse state of mind than that in which he

had left it, and not having realised that a dreaded ordeal has lost

most of its sting when it has been gone through, even if its terrors

have been worse than fancy had painted them.

"Well, young people," was his hearty greeting, "I hope you haven't been

up to any pranks while we've been away."

Not a word about the police court proceedings; no black looks! They

responded suitably to his geniality, and passed on to greet the other

members of the family, looking on to the time when one of them could be

detached to tell the story of what had happened.

There was no stint of carriages in the Squire's stables, nor of horses

to draw or men to drive them. He himself invariably drove his phaeton

from the station, enjoying, whatever the weather, the sense of being in

the open air, doing one of the things that was a part of his natural

life, after being cooped up for a couple of hours in a train. On this

occasion there was also an open carriage, and the station omnibus for

the servants and the luggage. This involved six horses, and five men,

in the sober Clinton livery of black cloth with dark green facings, and

a general turn out in the way of fine upstanding satin-coated

horseflesh, gloss of silver-plated harness, mirror-like carriage

varnish, and spick and span retainerhood that would not have disgraced

royalty itself. It was indeed with a sense almost akin to that of

royalty that the Squire took the salutes of his servants, and threw his

eye over such of his vehicular possessions as met it. He was

undisputed lord of this little corner of the world, and it was good to

find himself back in his kingdom, after having been an undistinguished

unit amongst London's millions, and especially to breathe its serene

air after having had his nostrils filled with the sordid atmosphere of

the police court. He took the reins of his pair of greys from his head

coachman with a deep sense of satisfaction, and swung himself actively

up on to his seat, but not before he had settled exactly who was to

ride in which carriage.

Mrs. Clinton always sat by the side of her husband, and did so now.

But all the rest had wished to walk. The landau, however, was there,

and could not be sent back empty. At least, the Squire asked what was

the good of having it sent down if nobody used it. So Humphrey and

Susan sacrificed their desire for exercise to his sense of fitness, and

Joan, Nancy, and Frank set out to walk the short mile that lay between

the station and the house, well pleased to find themselves alone

together.

The Squire had completely recovered his equanimity for the time being,

and his satisfaction at finding himself at home again translated itself

into an impulse of good will towards his wife, sitting by his side.

With her soft white hair and comely face, Mrs. Clinton looked a fitting

helpmate for a country gentleman getting on in years, but still full of

manly vigour. There was rather a splendid air about the Squire, with

his massive frame and his look of health and vigour, as he sat up

driving his handsome horses; and his wife did not share it. He had

married her for love when he had been a young man who might be called

splendid without any qualification whatever, the owner of a fine estate

at the pitch of its fruitfulness, and an admitted match for all but the

very highest. He had chosen her, the daughter of an Indian officer who

lived in a small way on the outskirts of the neighbouring town, and had

been considered by many to have made a misalliance. But he had never

thought so himself. He had made of her a slave to his own preferences,

kept her shut up from the time of her marriage, away from the pursuits

and the friendships for which her understanding fitted her, and

unconsciously belittled that understanding by demanding that in all

things she should bring her intelligence down on a level with his. But

he had trusted her more than he knew, and on the rare occasions on

which she had quietly asserted herself to influence him he had followed

her, and, without acknowledging or even feeling himself to have been in

the wrong, had afterwards been glad of it. By giving way to him on an

infinity of small matters, but not so small to her as to have avoided a

sacrifice of many strong inclinations, she had kept her power to guide

him in greater matters. Whatever it may have been to her, his marriage

had brought him all that he could ever have desired. She had brought

him, perhaps, more submission than had been good for him. His native

capacity for domineering had thriven on it; because he had never had to

meet any big troubles in his married life, he had always made much of

little ones; because she had so seldom opposed him, he took opposition

from any quarter like a thwarted child. But she had made him always

beneath the surface contented with her; never once in the forty years

of their marriage, when he had gone about angrily chewing a grievance,

had she been the cause of it. Nothing that she might have struggled

for and won in her own life would have outweighed that.

Now, with her own thoughts about what had happened strong in her, she

had to sit and listen to his views, which were fortunately more

cheerfully coloured than they had been for some days past.

"Well, that's over for the present," was the burden of his speech, but

when he had so expressed himself with sundry variations, he found

something else to comment upon.

Susan's tears! They had moved him. "I think she's all right at

heart," he said. "She's had a shock."

"Yes," said Mrs. Clinton. "I am glad that she is to be with us for a

day or two."

The Squire considered this. Without any remarkable powers of

discernment, he was yet not entirely incapable of interpreting his

wife's sober judgments.

"It will be a rest for her," he said. "She will want to forget it.

Yes. That's all very well--if she's learnt her lesson."

Mrs. Clinton left him to make his own decision. "I shall certainly

have a talk with Humphrey," he said, rather grudgingly.

"Yes, Edward. If you have a quiet talk with him, I feel sure that he

will respond. He is in the mood for it."

A quiet talk was not exactly what the Squire had promised himself when

he had summoned Humphrey and Susan to Kencote. But perhaps his wife

was right. She often was in these matters. And he had worked off a

good deal of his irritation already in the train. Yes, a quiet talk

would be the thing; and Susan should be left out of it. She had been

reduced to tears once, and it would be disturbing if that should happen

again. She might be considered to have learnt her lesson, as far as a

woman could learn any lesson. The wholesome influence of Kencote might

be left to work in her repentant soul. He would deny himself the

satisfaction of rubbing it in.

The quiet talk took place as father and son walked out together after

tea to see the young birds. Frank had to be prevented from making a

third in the expedition, and there was interruption from keepers, from

dogs, and from the young birds themselves, whose place in the scheme of

things it was to be discussed, in the month of June. But it was a

satisfactory talk all the same, and the Squire was pleased, and a

little surprised, at his own kindly reasonableness.

"I was sorry to make Susan cry in the train. At least I wasn't

altogether sorry--it showed she took to heart what I had said to her."

"Oh yes. She took it to heart all right. The whole business has given

her a bit of a shock."

"Exactly what I said to your mother. She's had a shock. Well, it

isn't a bad thing to have a shock sometimes. It brings you to your

senses if you've been going wrong. I don't want to be hard on you, my

boy; but I shan't regret all the worry and unpleasantness I've been put

to if it has the effect of making you think a bit about the way you

have been going on, and changing your way of life--you and Susan both."

"Yes." Humphrey had not yet realised that the talk was to be a quiet

one. It was not unusual for openings of this sort to develop into

something that, however it might be viewed, could not be described as

quiet. He was ready to be quiet himself; but he would give no handles

if he could help it.

The Squire, however, could not altogether dispense with some sort of a

handle, although he was prepared to grasp it softly.

"You feel that yourself, eh?" he said. "You do recognise that you've

been going wrong, what?"

"Oh yes," said Humphrey readily. "We've been spending too much money,

and I'm sick of it. It isn't good enough."

This was not quite what the Squire wanted. If Humphrey had been

spending too much money, he must be in debt; and if he was sick of it,

he would obviously want to get out of debt. He did not want the quiet

talk to follow the path of suggestions as to how that might be done.

"Well, if you've been spending too much money," he said, not without

adroitness, "you can easily spend less. You have a very handsome

income between you, and could have anything anybody could reasonably

want if you only spent half of it. The fact is, you know, my boy, that

you can't live the life you and Susan have been living with any lasting

satisfaction. Your Uncle Tom preached a capital sermon about that last

Sunday. It was something to the effect of doing your duty in the world

instead of looking out for pleasure, and it would be all the better for

you, both here and hereafter. I don't pose as a saint--never

have--but, after all, your religion's a real thing, or it isn't. I can

only say that mine has been a comfort to me, many's the time. I have

had my fair share of annoyances, and it has enabled me to get through

them, hoping for a better time to come. And it has done more than

that; it's made me see that a life of pleasure is a dangerous thing, by

Jove, and the man's a fool who goes in for it."

"Well, it depends on what you mean by pleasure."

"That's not very difficult to see, is it? Dancing about after

amusement all day and half the night; rushing here, rushing there;

never doing anything for the good of your fellow-creatures; getting

more and more bored with yourself and everybody else; never----"

"Is that what you would call pleasure?"

"What _I_ should call pleasure? No, thank God, it isn't. I'd sooner

break stones on the road than live a life like that."

"Well, there you are, you see. What you would really call pleasure is

something quite different. I suppose it would be to live quietly at

home in the country, just as you _are_ doing. There's nothing

dangerous in that."

"Of course there isn't. It's the best life for any man, if the

Almighty has put him into the position of enjoying it. It's a life of

pleasure in a way--yes, that's perfectly true; but it's a life of duty

too, and stern duty, by Jove, very often. You can't be always thinking

about yourself. You've got responsibilities, in a position like mine,

and you've got to remember that some day you'll have to give an account

of them. We'll just go in here and see Gotch; I want a word with him

about his bill for meal."

Gotch's bill for meal, and the welfare of the young birds under his

charge having been duly discussed, the walk and the quiet talk were

resumed.

"Well, as I was saying--what was it I was saying?"

"You were pointing out that a big landowner had a jolly good time, but

that he would have to give an account of all the fun he'd had by and

by."

"Eh? Well, that wasn't quite how I meant to put it. But you say

yourself you are sick of the life you've been leading--and I don't

wonder at it--and I wanted to show you that you can gain much more

satisfaction by living quietly in the country, and amusing yourself in

a healthy way, and doing your duty towards those dependent on you, than

by living that unhealthy rackety London life. Look at Dick. There's

no fellow who lived more in the thick of things than he did; but he

kept his head through it all, and now the time has come for him to

settle down here he's ready to do it, and I should think enjoys his

life as much as any man could. It was just the same with me, only I

gave it up sooner than he did. I had my two years in the Blues, and

then I married and settled down here; and I've never regretted it."

"No, I don't suppose you have. The life suits you down to the ground,

and Dick too. It would suit me if I were in your place, or Dick's."

"Well, you could easily live the life that Dick lives, and you would

find your money went a good deal further, if you made up your mind to

do it. I wish you would. You would be a happier man in every way, and

Susan would be a happier woman."

"I'm not sure of that. We might for a time, but we should miss a lot

of things. You can amuse yourself in the country well enough half the

year, but not all the year round; and we couldn't afford both."

"My dear boy, I've been trying to tell you. You are going on the wrong

tack altogether if you are always thinking about amusing yourself. It

isn't the way to look at life. Every man has duties to perform."

"What duties should I have to perform? I'm not a landowner, and never

likely to be one. If I lived in the country I should hunt a bit and

shoot a bit; and for the rest of the time I don't know what I should

do."

"Well, if you lived near here, you could be put on the bench. There's

a lot of useful work that a man living on the income you have can do in

keeping things going. In these times the more gentry there are living

in a place, the better it is for the country all round. What do you do

as it is? It can't be satisfactory to anybody to live year after year

in a whirl. There's not a single thing you do in London that's good

for you that you couldn't do better in the country."

"I don't know about that. There's music for one thing, and pictures

and plays. I'm not altogether the brainless voluptuary, you know.

There's a lot goes on in London that keeps your mind alive, and you

drop that if you bury yourself in the country."

"Stuff and nonsense!" exclaimed the Squire, but with persistent good

humour. "Don't I keep my mind alive? You'd have the 'Times' and the

'Spectator'; and there are lots of clever people in the country. Look

at Tom! He hardly ever goes near London. Hates the place. But I'll

guarantee that he reads as much as any Bishop, and knows what's going

on in the world as well as anybody. No, my dear boy, it won't do. I

don't say there aren't people it suits to be in London. Herbert

Birkett, for instance!" (This was Mrs. Clinton's brother, the Judge.)

"But he's been brought up to it. He hasn't got the tastes of a country

gentleman, wouldn't be happy away from the Athenaeum Club, and all that

sort of thing. And George Senhouse, with his Parliament and his

committees and so on. That's a different thing. They've got their

work to do. But don't tell me you are like that. Yours is a different

life altogether. They spend theirs amongst sober, God-fearing

people--at least George Senhouse does. Of course, Herbert Birkett was

a Radical, and I shouldn't like to answer for the morals of all _his_

friends, even now. But, anyhow, they're not the sort that would make a

bosom friend of a woman like that Mrs. Amberley."

"Well, I don't know that I should make a bosom friend of her myself.

But she's no worse than a lot of others. She's been found out--that's

all--and, of course, the whole pack are in full cry after her now."

"My dear boy, you are surely not going to stand up for a woman

convicted of a vulgar theft!"

"She hasn't been convicted yet. But even if she is guilty, as I

suppose she is, one can't help feeling a bit sorry for her. You don't

know what may have driven her to it. Amberley left her badly off, and

it's a desperate thing for a woman to be worried night and day by debt.

That's what Susan feels. She's known it in a sort of way herself. You

know the dust-up we had a couple of years ago, when you kindly came to

the rescue. Well, I suppose that brings it home to her. She doesn't

care for Rachel Amberley any more than I do, but she can't take the

line about this business that most people take; and I'm inclined to

think she's right. After all--you were talking about religion just

now--it seems to me that religion ought to prevent you judging harshly

of people who have got into trouble."

The Squire's upper lip went down. "Flagrant dishonesty is not a thing

that you can judge leniently, and no religion in the world would tell

you to do so," he said. "You've got to keep to certain lines, or

everything goes by the board. I don't like to hear you upholding such

views."

"It is all a question of how you are situated. It would be impossible

to think of you, for instance, stealing anything. You wouldn't have

the smallest temptation to. But you might do something else that would

be just as bad."

"_I_ might do something just as bad--something dishonourable!"

"You never know. You might have a sudden temptation. Of course, it

wouldn't come in any way you expected! You might act on the spur of

the moment."

The Squire stopped and faced his son. "That's a very foolish thing to

say," he said with a frown. "A man of principle doesn't act

dishonourably on the spur of the moment. Doesn't honour count for

anything with you?"

Humphrey walked on, and the Squire walked with him.

"I say you don't know what you'd do if an unexpected temptation came.

You don't know how strong your principles are till they are tried."

"They are tried. They are always being tried, in little ways. A man

leads an upright life, as far as in him lies, and if a big question

comes up, he's ready for it."

"It depends on how much he is tried," said Humphrey. "I say you never

know."

CHAPTER VI

THE YOUNG BIRDS

"It's a horrid thing for a young girl to have to go through."

John Spence fitted two walnuts together in the palms of his big hands

and cracked them with a sudden tightening of the muscles. His

good-humoured ruddy face was solicitous. "I think they ought to have

kept her out of it," he said.

The dark-panelled dining-room of the Dower House framed a warm picture

of two men and two women sitting at the round table, bright with lights

and flowers, old silver and sparkling glass. A fire of applewood

twinkled on the hearth; for September had come round, and one section

at least of the young birds, now adolescent, were about to discover for

themselves what their elders had possibly warned them of: that those

great brown creatures, whom they had hitherto known only as protective

census-takers, became as dangerous as stoats and weasels when the dew

began to lie thick on the grass.

John Spence had come down for the first day among the Kencote

partridges, leaving his own stubbles, which were more copiously

populated, until later. Dick Clinton had generally started the season

with him. The Kencote partridges ranked second to the Kencote

pheasants, and could very well bide the convenience of those who were

to kill them. But they had done very well this year, and it was

becoming less easy to draw Dick away from his home.

"It's good of old John to put off his own shoot and come down here," he

had said to his wife, when he had received the somewhat unexpected

acceptance of his invitation.

Virginia had looked at him out of her great dark eyes, and there had

been amusement in them, as well as the half-protective affection which

they always showed towards her handsome husband; but she had said

nothing to explain the amusement, and he had not noticed it.

The party at the dinner-table was discussing Mrs. Amberley's trial,

which was to come on in the following month.

"Joan has got her wits about her," said Dick. "She answered up very

well in the police court, and I don't suppose it will be any more

terrible next month."

"Still, I think it's beastly for her," persisted his friend. "That

woman--putting it to her publicly about Trench! I read it in the

evidence."

"It was a piece of bluff," said Dick. "Still, she ought to have her

neck wrung for it."

"A cat!" said Miss Dexter, Virginia's friend, square-faced and

square-figured. "A spiteful, pilfering cat!"

"Poor darling little Joan!" said Virginia. "She hates the very name of

Bobby Trench now, and she used to make all sorts of fun of him and his

love-making before."

"Oh, he made love to her, did he?" asked Spence.

"Don't talk such nonsense, Virginia," said Dick maritally. "He knew

the twins when they were children; looks on them as children now. So

they are. He's years older than Joan."

"Still, she's a very pretty girl," said John Spence. "And so is Nancy."

Virginia laughed. "It's the same thing," she said.

"Well, I don't know," said John Spence judicially. "In appearance,

yes--perhaps so. But there is a difference. You see it more now they

are grown up. I think Nancy is cleverer. Of course, they're both

clever, but I should say Nancy read more books and things. And what I

like about Nancy is that with all her brains she's a real good country

girl. I must say I don't care about these knowing young women you meet

about London, and in other people's houses."

Virginia laughed again. "Tell Mr. Clinton that," she said. "He will

think you one of the most sensible of men."

"Well, I don't profess to be a clever fellow myself," said John Spence

modestly; "but I like a girl to have brains and know how to use 'em,

and I like her to like the country. It's what I like myself; and if

Mr. Clinton thinks the same I'm with him all the time."

"Mr. Clinton might not insist upon the brains," said Miss Dexter.

Virginia held up her finger. "Toby!" she said warningly, "we don't

criticise our relations-in-law."

Dick grinned indulgently at his neighbour. "How you'll let us have it

when you go away from here!" he said.

"I always do let you have it," she replied uncompromisingly. "You

think such a deal of yourselves that it does you all the good in the

world. But I don't wait till I go away."

"I was rather sorry that Joan got let into that gang of people at all,"

said John Spence. "They're no good to anybody. It hasn't altered her

at all, has it? She and Nancy were the jolliest pair. Lord, how they

made me laugh when they were kids, and I first came down here!"

He laughed now at the remembrance, a jolly, robust laugh which wrinkled

his firm, weathered skin, and showed his white teeth. "I shouldn't

like to see either of them spoiled by going about to houses like

Brummels," he said, with a return to seriousness. "I don't believe

Nancy would have cared about it."

"She would have gone just the same as Joan," said Miss Dexter, "if she

had happened to be in the way of it, and she would have behaved just

the same; that is, just as she ought to have behaved. You seem to

think that Joan is smirched because she has been let in, through no

fault of hers, for this horrid thing. You're as bad as Mrs. Amberley."

John Spence received this charge with an "Oh, I say!" But he added,

"All the same, I wish it hadn't happened."

The guns met the next morning at the corner by the Dower House. The

Squire brought with him Sir Herbert Birkett, the judge, and Sir George

Senhouse, who had married the judge's daughter. Neither of them would

be expected to do much execution amongst the young birds, but the

Squire was strong on family ties, and liked to have his relatives to

shoot with him, more especially when he was going to shoot partridges.

The twins and Lady Senhouse were of the party, and Virginia and Miss

Dexter. It was a family occasion, and John Spence, knowing that it was

to be so, had felt glad, when he had looked out of his window in the

morning, that he had put off the inauguration of his campaign amongst

his own young birds in order to take part in it.

Joan and Nancy, in workmanlike tweeds, gave him smiling welcome.

Previously, when he had shot at Kencote, and they had gone out with the

guns, they had disputed amicably as to which of them should walk and

stand with him, and the one who had won the dispute had taken bold

possession of him. Neither did so this morning, and it was left to him

to give an invitation.

"Well, Joan," he said, when they were ready to move off, "are you going

to keep me company?"

"Yes," said Nancy instantly. "I am going with Uncle Herbert."

"But you will come with me after lunch," said John Spence, with a

trifle of anxiety.

"All right," she threw over her shoulder.

They walked over a field of roots. A single bird got up some little

distance away and flew parallel to the line. Spence snapped it off

neatly. "I'm going to shoot well to-day," he said with satisfaction.

"I like a gallery, you know, Joan. I say, Nancy's not annoyed about

anything, is she?"

"Not that I know of. Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. I thought she seemed as if she didn't much want to

come with me."

"You see we're grown up now," said Joan. "We can't seize you by the

arm, as we used to do, and see which can pull hardest. We have to wait

till you ask us."

They had come to a high, rather blind fence, and the line had spread

out, and was waiting. Joan and John Spence were practically alone,

except for Spence's wise and calm retriever.

He looked down at her with the kind elder brotherly smile which, with

his frank and simple appreciation of their humours, had so endeared him

to the twins. "I say, that's awful rot, you know," he said.

Joan was conscious of pleasure and some relief as she met his eyes.

She wanted nothing more than that things should be between the three of

them as they had always been. She had come to think that perhaps,

after all, Nancy wanted nothing more, either; but she did not know,

because they had not talked about John Spence together lately. If this

visit should show him to be what he had always been, they would talk

about him together again, and perhaps that was what she wanted at the

moment more than anything; for it was a source of discomfort to her

that there was a subject taboo between Nancy and herself.

"It may be sad," she said. "But it isn't rot. We are grown up, and

there is no getting over it."

A shadow came over his face. "They've been teaching you things," he

said. "When I came down here last, and you were away in London--and at

Brummels--Nancy was just the same as she had always been. I don't see

any reason why you should alter."

"Dear old Jonathan! We'll never alter--to you," said Joan

affectionately. But she was conscious of a little pang.

The birds began to come over. John Spence accounted for his due share

of them. "I wish I'd got another gun," he said. "You've done well

with them this year."

When they all came together for lunch, Nancy said to Joan, "Uncle

Herbert is in splendid form--I don't mean over shooting, for he has

hardly hit anything. Has Jonathan been amusing?"

"No, not at all," said Joan. "He has been lecturing me. He is getting

old; he is just like father. I will gladly change with you."

Nancy stared, but said nothing. She and Joan were accustomed to

criticise everybody. But they had never yet criticised John Spence.

"Well, my dear Joan," said the Judge, as she took her place by his side

after lunch, "I heaped disgrace upon myself this morning, and I very

much doubt if I shall wipe any of it off this afternoon. The Kencote

partridges are too many for me--too many and too fast. Why do I still

pursue them, at my age and with my reputation? Is it a genuine love of

sport, or mere vanity?"

"Vanity, I think," said Joan. "You don't really care about it, you

know. You are not like Mr. Spence, and father, and the boys, who think

about nothing else."

"It is true that I do think of other things occasionally. But where

does the vanity come in? Enlighten me for my good."

"Men are like that. Mr. Spence wouldn't be in the least ashamed at

being ignorant of all the things that you know about, but you would be

quite ashamed of not knowing something about sport."

"A searching indictment, my dear Joan. It comes home to me. I am a

foolish and contemptible old man. And yet I do rather like it, you

know. The colours of the trees and the fields, this delicious Autumn

air--the expectation--ah!"

The advance guard of a covey had whizzed over his head unharmed; the

rest came on, swerving in their rapid flight as if to dodge the charges

from his barrels, which all except one of them succeeded in doing.

"More coming. I shall be ready for them next time," he said, hastily

ramming cartridges into his breach.

More came--and most of them went. He had been in the best place, and

had only killed three birds.

"I must be content with that," he said with a sigh. "It is not bad for

me. Your John Spence would have shot three times as many, but he would

not have got more fun out of it than I have. Joan, it is not all

vanity."

Joan spent a pleasant afternoon, but she did not feel as happy over it

as she would have done a year ago. When she and Nancy summed up the

experiences of the day she said, "I don't mind whether Uncle Herbert

can shoot or not. It is much more amusing to be with him than with any

of the others."

"Jonathan said you weren't half as keen on sport as you used to be,"

said Nancy. "He thinks you are becoming fashionable."

"Idiot!" said Joan. Then she suddenly felt as if she wanted to cry,

but terror at the idea of doing anything so unaccountable--before

Nancy--dried up the desire almost as soon as it was felt. "I am afraid

I am getting too old for Jonathan," she said. "He is beginning to bore

me."

CHAPTER VII

THE VERDICT

The Squire rang his bell violently, with a loud exclamation of

impatience. It was a handbell, on a table by the side of his easy

chair, in front of which was a baize-covered rest, with his foot,

voluminously swathed, upon it.

A servant answered the bell with but little loss of time. "Hasn't the

groom come back yet?" asked the Squire, in a tone of acute annoyance.

"I told him to waste no time. He must have been dawdling."

"He was just a-coming into the yard when your bell rang, sir," replied

the man.

"Well, then, why----? Ah, here they are at last. Give them to me,

Porter."

The butler had come in with a big roll of newspapers, which the Squire

seized from him and opened hurriedly, choosing the most voluminous of

them, and throwing the others on to the floor by his side.

THE SOCIETY TRIAL. FULL REPORT.

VERDICT.

It filled a whole page, and a column besides.

The Squire read steadily; his face, set to a frowning censure, showed

gleams of surprise, and every now and then his lips forced an

expression of disgust. He was not a rapid reader, and it was half an

hour before he put down the paper, and after looking into the fire for

a minute, took up another from the floor. At that moment the door

opened, and a large elderly man with a mild and pleasant face came into

the room. He was dressed in a dark pepper-and-salt suit, with a white

tie, and shut the door carefully behind him.

"Ah, my dear Tom!" said the Squire. "You had Nina's telegram, I

suppose. I sent it down to you directly it came."

"Yes," said the Rector. "I was surprised that it should all have been

over so quickly. How is your foot this morning, Edward?"

"Oh, all right. At least, it isn't all right. I had a horrible

night--never slept a wink. I've got the papers here. The woman ought

to have got penal servitude. Yes, it was over quickly. It was all as

plain as possible, and I'm glad she did herself no good by her

monstrous lies. The gross impudence of it! Evidently she'll stick at

nothing. But I forgot. You haven't seen the evidence. Here, read

this! Would it be believed that she could have put up such a defence?

That bit there!"

The Rector deliberately fixed a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on to his

nose, and took the paper, looking up occasionally from his reading as

his brother interjected remarks, which interrupted but did not seem to

irritate him.

"I don't quite understand, Edward," he said, when he had finished the

passage to which his attention had been drawn. "She says the pearls

she sold were given to her by somebody, but the name is not mentioned.

Apparently there was a wrangle about it."

"Oh, my dear Tom," said the Squire, "can't you see what it all means?

It is as plain as the nose on your face. A wicked, baseless scandal."

The Rector returned to the newspaper, but his air of bewilderment

remained.

"Oh well," said the Squire with an impatient glance at him. "You don't

live in the world where these things are talked about. I don't either,

thank God. But one hears things. This infamous woman has posed as

the--the friend--the mistress--yes, actually wanted it to be thought

that she was the mistress, of---- No, I'm not going to say it; I won't

sully my lips, or put ideas into your head. It's untrue, absolutely

untrue, and people in that position are defenceless. She ought not to

bring in their names even in idle talk. I'm very glad indeed that

there was a strong stand made in the court."

The Rector had re-read the passage, and looked up with a slight flush

on his cheeks--almost the look that an innocent girl might have shown

if some shameful suggestion had come home to her. "It is not----" he

hazarded.

"Oh, not here," the Squire took him up. "Paris. But it is all the

more abominable. I don't believe a word of it. And even if it were

true---- But is it a likely story?"

"I hope not," said the Rector gravely.

"Oh, these things do happen; I don't deny that. One can't judge these

people quite the same as ourselves. But what a preposterous idea!

Pearls worth thousands! And at the very time when this necklace of

Lady Sedbergh's was missing, and she was practically seen taking it!

Joan saw her. I'm glad they didn't worry Joan too much over her

evidence. I'm glad it's over for the child. It's annoyed me most

infernally to be tied by the leg here, and not knowing what might be

going on, where I couldn't direct or advise. However, she did very

well--gave her answers simply and stuck to them, and there was no more

of that impudent suggestion about young Trench, I'm glad to say, except

that they tried to make out he had put it all into her head. He's

quite a decent fellow, that woman's counsel. Herbert Birkett knows

him. It's pretty plain that he was only making the best of a bad

job--couldn't expect to get the woman off, especially after she had put

herself out of court in the way she did."

"I see," said the Rector, who had been reading steadily while this

speech was being delivered, "that there was evidence from several

people that she had worn a pearl necklace, before the time Lady

Sedbergh's was stolen."

"Yes, and if you'll read further, you'll see that her maid declares

that it was a sham one. She told her so herself. They tried to make

out that she wanted to put her off the scent. But that won't wash.

The maid gave her evidence very well. You'll see it towards the end.

It is what clinched it. She had seen the diamond star in the woman's

jewel-box. Of course she has made away with it somehow, since; but the

maid described it exactly. She had had it in her hands, and there was

an unusual sort of catch, which she couldn't have heard about. She

told her young man, and he went to the police. Oh, it's _proved_. It

isn't only circumstantial evidence, it's damning proof. And she's got

far less than her deserts. A year's imprisonment! She ought to have

had ten years' hard labour."

"They seem to have convicted her on the theft of the diamond star

alone."

"Yes, I don't quite understand why, except that there is no conceivable

doubt as to that. I suppose her impudent lie about the necklace saved

her, as far as that goes. It led them to drop the charge, as they had

got her on the other. I must read the evidence again."

The Rector put the paper aside, and took off his glasses. "Poor

woman!" he said, with a sigh. "Her life ruined! But it is well for

her that she has been found out. Her punishment will balance the

account against her; she will get another start."

"Not in this country," said the Squire vindictively. "She is done for.

Nobody will look at her again. I think one can say that much, at any

rate. Society is disgracefully loose now-a-days; but there are some

things it can't stomach. I'm glad to think that this woman is one of

them. We shall hear no more of Mrs. Amberley."

"Ah, well," said the Rector, after a pause. "The world is not made up

of what is called Society. Thank God there are men and women who will

not turn away from a repentant sinner. Who knows but what this poor

woman may win her soul out of the disgrace that has befallen her?"

"Oh, my dear Tom!" said the Squire. "You live in the clouds. A woman

like that hasn't got a soul."

Mrs. Clinton and Joan, with Dick and Virginia, returned to Kencote that

evening. The Squire received his wife and daughter as if they had been

playing truant, and intimated that now they had come home they had

better put everything that had been happening out of their heads. They

had seen for themselves what came of mixing with those sort of people,

and he hoped that the lesson had not been wasted. The whole affair had

given him an infinity of worry, and had no doubt brought on the attack

from which he was suffering. It was all over now, and he didn't want

to hear another word about it. In fact, it was not to be mentioned in

the house. Did Joan understand that? He would not have her and Nancy

talking about it. They had plenty of other things to talk about. Did

she understand that?

Joan said that she quite understood it, and went off to give Nancy a

full account of her experiences.

"My dear, she looked awful," she said. "She was wonderfully dressed,

and had got herself up so that only a woman could have known that she

was got up at all. But she looked as old as the hills. Honestly, I

felt sorry for her, although I hated her for what she said to me

before. But she was fighting for her life, and she made a brave show."

"But she couldn't say anything, could she? I thought the counsel did

it all."

"Yes, that was the worst of it--for her. She had to stand there while

they fought over her, and look all the time as if she didn't care.

Awful! Poor thing, she's in prison now, and I should think she's glad

of it."

"I don't know in the least what happened, except that she was sent to

prison for a year. Father kept all the papers in his room."

"I don't know much either. Directly I had given my evidence mother

took me away."

"We'll get hold of a paper."

"No, we mustn't. Mother asked me not to."

"What a bore! What was it like, giving your evidence? Were you

alarmed?"

"No, not much. It wasn't worse than the other place. It wasn't so

bad. Sir Edward Logan, the Sedberghs' counsel, was awfully sweet. He

made me say exactly what I had seen, and when Sir Herbert Jessop--that

was _her_ man--tried to worry me into saying that Bobby Trench had put

it all into my head, he got up and objected."

"Did he try to----"

"No. He was quite nice about it, really. I suppose he had to try and

make it out different, somehow. He left off directly our counsel

objected, and the old Judge said I had given my evidence very well and

clearly. I don't think he really believed that I was making it all up."

"You didn't hear what anybody else said?"

"Not a word. Except when I was in the witness-box myself, I might just

as well have been at home."

"I wonder what the papers said about you. I wish we could see them."

What those of the papers had said which gave their readers a

description as well as a report of what had occurred, was that Miss

Joan Clinton had appeared in the witness-box in a simple but becoming

costume, which some of them described, and given her evidence clearly

and modestly. Some of them said that she was pretty, and one, with a

special appeal to the nonconformist conscience, said that it was a pity

to see a young lady who from her appearance could not long since have

left the schoolroom, and who looked and spoke as if she had been well

brought up, involved in the sordid life of what was known as the higher

circles, brought to light by these proceedings. The Squire had read

this comment with a snort of indignation. But for the quarter from

which it came he would have recognised it as coinciding with his own

frequently expressed opinion. As it was, he considered it an

impertinent reflection upon himself and his order.

When Dick came up to see him that evening he did not insist that the

subject should not be mentioned again. He asked him why he had not

come in on his way from the station. "There has been nobody to tell me

a thing," he said with some irritation. "I only know what I have read

in the papers. Upon my word, the woman's brazen insolence! Was that

why they dropped the charge of stealing the necklace, Dick?"

"The other was dead certain," said Dick.

"Ah, that's what I thought. But people don't think--er----"

"He _did_ give her pearls," said Dick, with a matter-of-course air of

inner knowledge. "And plenty of people have seen her wearing them,

though she never seems to have worn them in London."

"Then it's true about----"

"About him? Of course it is."

"Oh! I thought she had made it up, shamelessly, because she knew it

couldn't be contradicted."

"It could have been contradicted easily enough if it hadn't been true.

Everybody has known about it for years."

"But she told the maid the pearls were sham ones."

"I dare say she did. But they weren't."

"Then there is really a doubt whether she did steal the necklace?"

"Oh, I don't think so. It makes it all the more likely. She would

think, if it was found out she had got rid of single pearls, she could

explain it by her own necklace. The mistake she made was in not being

satisfied with taking the pearls. If she had left that rotten little

star alone, which can't have been worth more than a hundred pounds or

so, I doubt if they would have brought it home to her."

"But she may have taken the star, and not have had time to find the

necklace, when Joan came in."

"Oh no. If she had been in the middle of it Joan would have caught her

at it. There was the stone to push back, as well as the panel to shut.

Besides, the necklace went. Who did take it, if she didn't? Nobody

else knew."

"Oh, it's plain enough, of course. I haven't a doubt about it. But I

thought you meant that there was some doubt."

"No. I only meant there might have been, if she hadn't taken the star.

Of course, what she did was to get rid of those pearls as well as her

own. She hasn't known which way to turn for money for ever so long.

She went out of favour in _that_ quarter a couple of years ago, or

more."

"Did she make any attempt to get her story backed up?"

"Moved heaven and earth, but found the doors shut. She found herself

up against the police over there. They told her that if she dared to

whisper such a story she would get into more serious trouble than she

was in already. She's got pluck, you know. She must have seen it was

no good, but she was in a royal rage, and made her people bring it up,

out of spite. They say there were hints given; but I doubt that--in a

court of law. Anyhow, they wouldn't have it, and it didn't do her any

good."

"Well, it's a most unsavoury story altogether," said the Squire. "The

woman's in prison now, and she richly deserves it."

He and Dick discussed the matter for another hour, and when the Squire

was helped up to bed he repeated his injunctions to Mrs. Clinton that

it was not to be mentioned in the house again.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

BOBBY TRENCH IS ASKED TO KENCOTE

"Well, old fellow, I think you might."

It was Bobby Trench who spoke, in a voice of injured pleading.

Humphrey laughed. "My dear chap," he said, "I would, like a shot; but,

to be perfectly honest with you, you haven't succeeded in commending

yourself to the Governor, and, after all, it's his house and not mine."

They were driving to a meet of hounds. Humphrey had so far taken to

heart his father's criticisms upon his metropolitan mode of life that

he had let his flat for the winter and taken a hunting box in

Northamptonshire, at which Bobby Trench was a frequent visitor. He was

being asked by his friend to repeat the invitation he had given him

some years before, to stay at Kencote for some country balls, and he

was kindly but firmly resisting the request.

"I suppose you know what I want to go there for?"

"Well, I can form a rough guess. As far as I'm concerned, I should

welcome the idea; but I won't disguise it from you that the Governor

wouldn't."

"Well, hang it! I may have trod on his corns--though I certainly never

meant to, and I like him and all that--but you can't say that I'm not

all right. I'm an only son, and all that sort of thing. I don't see

how he could expect to get anybody better."

"Do you really mean business, Bobby?"

"Yes, I do; if I can hit it off with her. She's bowled me over. She's

as pretty as paint, and as bright and clever as they make 'em.

Sweet-tempered and kind-hearted too; and I like that about a girl. She

was as nice as possible to my old Governor; took a lot of trouble about

him. He thinks the world of her. I tell you, he'd be as pleased as

Punch."

"Have you said anything to him?"

"No, not yet. To tell you the truth--I'm a modest fellow, though I'm

not always given the credit for it--I'm not in the least certain

whether she'll see it in the same light as I do. I dare say that's

what's brought it on, you know. They've been after me for years--it's

only natural, I suppose--but what these old dowagers, and lots of the

young women themselves too, don't seem to understand is that a man

doesn't _like_ being run after. It puts him off. That's human nature.

Well, I needn't tell _you_ that it's me that's got to do all the

running this time; and it's a pleasant change. I suppose she's never

said anything to you about me, has she?"

Humphrey laughed. He remembered a few of the things that Joan had said

to him about his friend.

"She looks on you as a stupendous joke so far," he said. "Still, she's

hardly more than a kid."

"Oh, I know. Tell you the truth, when I first felt myself drawn that

way, I said, 'No, Robert. Plenty of time yet. If you feel the same in

a couple of years' time, you can let yourself go.' But I don't know.

Some other fellow might come along; and I'm not fool enough to think

I've made such an impression that I can afford to keep away and let my

hand play itself. No, what I want is to get my chance; I know now what

I'm going to do with it, and I tell you I'm keener than I've ever been

about anything in my life. Look here, Humphrey, you've got to get me

down to Kencote somehow after Christmas. I never see her anywhere

else. You ought not to keep those girls shut up as you do, you know."

"_I_ keep them shut up! You talk as if I were the head of my respected

family. Well, look here. If it has really gone as far as you say it

has, you'd better write to the Governor. I tell you plainly, he

doesn't think much of _you_; but he's an old friend of your father's,

and he'd probably be no more averse to seeing one of his daughters

marry a future peer than anybody else would. It wouldn't go all the

way with him, but it would go some of the way."

"No, thanks. That's not my way of doing things. I want to be loved

for myself. If he did take to the idea, it wouldn't do me any good to

be shoved forward in that sort of light. Besides, to tell you the

truth, I don't believe I should be half so keen if I was asked down

with that idea."

"Oh, well!" said Humphrey with a spurt of offence. "If that's how you

feel about it----! I don't care a damn about your peerage, and all

that sort of thing; I was only thinking it might help you over a fence

with the Governor. My young sister is good enough for any fellow."

"I know that. I should consider myself jolly lucky if she took me.

You needn't get shirty. It's just because she is the girl I want that

I'm not going to lose any of the fun of winning off my own bat."

"I'll see what I can do," said Humphrey, after further conversation.

"But if you go to Rome you've got to do as Rome does. You know what my

Governor is; and he's got a perfect right to run his own show as it

suits him, and not as it suits other people. As far as I'm concerned,

I've come to feel that Kencote is a precious sight nicer house to go to

than a great many. It's different, and the others are all just the

same. You've got to keep to the rules, but if you do you have a very

good time. It's a pleasant rest."

"Oh, I know. I feel just the same as you about it. It reminds you of

the days of your childhood, and your mother's knee, and all that sort

of thing. Besides, they do you top-hole; I will say that. I'm old

enough to appreciate it now; of course, five or six years ago I dare

say I did think it a bit dull, and I may have shown it, though I never

meant to rub your old Governor up the wrong way. Still, it will be

quite different now. I'll teach in the Sunday school if he wants me

to."

"If you go, you must observe strict punctuality as to meals, and you

must do without games on Sunday, and bally-ragging generally. That's

about all, and it isn't so very desperate."

"Not a bit; and with your sister there it will be like heaven. Oh,

you've got to get me asked, Humphrey."

"I'll do what I can. By the by, don't say a word about the Amberley

business at Kencote. He doesn't like that mentioned."

"Doesn't he? Righto! It was the way your young sister showed up in

that that clinched it with me. She was topping. Looked as pretty as a

picture, and never let them rattle her once. They took her off the

moment she'd given her evidence, and I never got the chance of a word

with her. I've actually never seen her since, and that's a couple of

months ago now. Well, here we are. I'm going to enjoy myself to-day."

Humphrey used his own discretion as to disclosing something of the

state of his friend's affections when he and Susan went down to Kencote

for Christmas.

"Look here, father, I've got something rather interesting to tell you.

Bobby Trench--oh, I know you don't like him, but you'll find him much

improved--wants to pay his addresses to Joan."

"What!" The Squire's expression was a mixture of disgust and

incredulity.

"It would be a very good match for her. They've been chasing him for

years. He'll come in for all that money of Lady Sophia's, you know, as

well as everything else."

"Oh, a good match!" exclaimed the Squire impatiently. "I wouldn't have

him about the place if he was the heir to a dukedom. And Joan is

hardly more than a child. Time enough for all that in three or four

years. And when the time comes I hope it will bring somebody as unlike

Master Trench as possible."

Humphrey was rather dashed at this reception of his news. He was not

quite so unaffected by Bobby Trench's place in the world and his

prospective wealth as he had declared himself to be. To see one of his

sisters married thus had struck him more and more as being desirable,

and he had thought that his father would take much the same view, after

a first expression of surprise and independence.

"I know he annoyed you when he came here before," he said. "I told him

that, and said I wasn't surprised at it."

"Well, I'm not sorry you told him that. I should have told him so

myself pretty plainly if he hadn't been a guest in my house. What had

he got to say to it?"

"He said he was sorry he had offended you. But it was a good many

years ago, and he was a fool in those days."

"He's a fool now," said the Squire. "When he came over here last

summer, and let us in for all that infernal annoyance, which I shan't

forgive him readily, he was just as impudent and superior as ever. A

young cub like that--not that he's so very young now, but he's a cub

all the same--seems to think that because a man chooses to live on his

own property, and do his duty by the country, every smart gad-about

with a handle to his name has got a right to look down upon him. There

were Clintons at Kencote when _his_ particular Trenches were

pettifogging tradesmen in Yorkshire, and centuries before that. I

don't deny that Sedbergh's title is a respectable one, as these things

go nowadays, but to talk as if I ought to think myself honoured because

a son of his wants to marry a daughter of mine is pure nonsense. Does

Sedbergh know anything about this?"

"No. But Bobby says that he'll be as pleased as possible. He took a

great fancy to Joan. He said she had been better brought up than any

girl he knew."

"Yes, he told me that himself, and I dare say it's true. I've brought

up my children to fear God and behave themselves properly. If he'd

done the same, or his idiot of a wife, I don't know that I should have

objected to the idea. But your 'Bobby' Trench isn't what his father

was at his age, and not likely to be. I suppose he hasn't had the

impudence to say anything to Joan yet?"

"Oh no. She doesn't know anything about it. In fact, he's not in the

least sure about his chances with her. He only wants an opportunity of

what I believe is called preferring his suit."

"Well, then, he won't get it. I don't care about the arrangement, and

you can tell him so, if you like--from me."

With this the Squire strode out of the room, leaving Humphrey not so

convinced that Bobby Trench would not be given his opportunity as might

have seemed likely.

The Squire spoke to his wife about it. What nonsense was this about

something between Joan and that young Trench? Surely a girl of Joan's

age might be doing something better than giving encouragement to every

crack-brained young fool to make free with her name! That's what came

of letting her run about all over the place, and in all sorts of

company, instead of keeping her quietly at home, as girls of that age

ought to be kept. When the proper time came he should have no

objection to seeing her suitably married. No doubt some nice young

fellow would come forward, whom they could welcome into the family,

just as Jim Graham had come forward for Cicely. In the meantime Joan

had better be kept from making herself too cheap. She seemed to think

she could do anything she liked, now that she had done with her

governess. If he heard any more of it, the governess should come back,

and Joan and Nancy should go into the school-room again.

Mrs. Clinton always had the advantage of time to think, when surprises

of this sort were sprung upon her. When his speech came to an end she

looked up at him and said, "I am sure that Joan has not done or said

anything that you could blame her for, Edward. She does not like Mr.

Trench. I do not like him either, and I know you don't. What is it

you have heard?"

"Oh, I don't say that Joan is to blame. I don't know. No, I don't

think she is. Sedbergh took to her, and said that she had been very

well brought up. He told me that himself, and it is quite true. I've

no fault to find with Joan in this respect. She and Nancy are good

girls enough, though troublesome sometimes. They will grow out of

that. She doesn't know anything about this, and I don't want it

mentioned to her. Young Trench has been talking to Humphrey. He wants

to come here and pay his addresses to Joan. That's what it comes to.

I told Humphrey I wouldn't have it, and there's an end of it."

"I am glad of that, Edward. I don't think he would have any chance

with Joan, and I should be sorry if it were otherwise."

"Well, as to that, Joan needn't be encouraged to think that she's got

the whole world to pick and choose from. If this young Trench was the

man his father was, it would be a very satisfactory arrangement. I

don't deny that. He is the only son; and I shouldn't be entitled to

expect a better marriage for a girl of mine, if position and money and

all that sort of thing were everything."

"Oh, but they are not, are they?" said Mrs. Clinton. "They would not

count at all if the man to whom they belonged were not what you could

wish him to be."

"Well, I don't know that I should welcome a son-in-law who had no

position and no money. I've a right to expect a daughter of mine to

marry into the position in which she has been brought up. I wouldn't

actually demand more than that. Cicely did it, and I was quite

satisfied. Still, I shouldn't turn up my nose at a better match, and

there's no doubt that this young Trench, if he were all right, would be

an excellent match."

"But he is not, is he? You have always objected to him."

"I can't say I know anything actually against him. I certainly

shouldn't want to see more of him than I could help for my own sake.

What is it _you_ object to in him?"

"Much the same as you do, Edward. I dislike the sort of life he and

those about him live. It is a different sort of life from that which

we have encouraged any of our children to look forward to. I should be

sorry to see Joan thrown into it."

"Oh, thrown into it! Nobody is going to throw her into it. I have

said quite plainly that I don't like the idea. I may be

old-fashioned--I dare say I am--but I'm not the sort of man to lose my

head with pride because the heir to a peerage wants to marry my

daughter."

Mrs. Clinton looked down and said nothing, but her heart was rather

heavy.

"Joan hasn't said anything about him, has she? Nothing to show that

she is aware that he--what shall I say--admires her?"

"She has made fun of him constantly," said Mrs. Clinton. "I am glad

that you have refused to have Mr. Trench here. If he came, and paid

court to her, I cannot believe that she would have anything to say to

him. Nothing would come of it, except irritation and annoyance to you,

and pain to me, and very possibly to Joan."

The Squire left her and took his news to Dick. "Your mother has taken

a strong prejudice against him," he said. "As far as I'm aware he has

never done anything to deserve it, but women are like that. They take

an idea into their heads and nothing will get it out."

"Well, you've never shown any strong partiality for him yourself, that

I know of," said Dick. "I don't care much about him, but he's a

harmless sort of idiot. I always thought you were a bit rough on him."

"Did you? Well, perhaps I am. I must say that he did annoy me

infernally when he came here before, and if he comes here again it will

be on the distinct understanding that he follows the rules of the house

and behaves himself. Kencote isn't Brummels, and never will be as long

as I'm alive. That has got to be made quite plain."

"Do you want him to marry Joan, then?"

"Want it? No, I don't want it. Why should I want anything of the

sort? I'm not in the position of having to say 'thank you' to the

first man who comes along and wants to marry one of my daughters.

They'll marry well enough when the time comes. Still, this young

fellow is the son of one of my oldest friends, and I've never heard

that there's actually anything against him; have you?"

"No more than what's on the surface. If he married Joan, I shouldn't

want to live hand in glove with him."

"You wouldn't object to the marriage if it came about?"

Dick did not reply at once.

"It would be a good enough match from the worldly point of view," said

the Squire.

Dick looked up quickly. "I'm the wrong man to come to for that point

of view," he said. "I didn't marry from it myself; nor did you."

The Squire digested this. "It's different for men," he said, with a

shade of unwillingness. "You've got to take it into account with

women."

"I'm not going to advise either one way or the other," said Dick. "If

Joan likes that sort of fellow, she's welcome to him; if she doesn't, I

shan't blame her."

"You think it's a matter for her to decide?"

"It isn't a matter for me to decide."

"She can't very well decide unless she sees him."

"Then let her see him, if you're satisfied with him yourself. He's not

my fancy; but he may be hers, for all I can tell."

The Squire went back to his wife and told her that Dick didn't care for

Bobby Trench any more than he did himself, but had never heard anything

against him. He didn't see any reason against his seeing Joan. She

could decide for herself. Nobody would bring any pressure to bear on

her. That wasn't the way things were done in these days. But Lord

Sedbergh was one of his oldest friends, and wouldn't like it if he

heard that they had refused to have his son in the house. He shouldn't

like it himself. Young Trench had better be asked to Kencote with the

rest, for these balls that were coming on after Christmas. If he

showed that he had anything in him, well and good. If not, he needn't

be asked again, and no harm would be done.

"I will write to Mr. Trench," said Mrs. Clinton. "But I am sorry that

you have decided to ask him here."

The Squire went away vaguely dissatisfied with himself, but took

comfort in the thought that women didn't understand these things.

CHAPTER II

JOAN AND NANCY

"My sweet old Joan, tell me all about it."

Joan buried her fair head in Virginia's skirts and burst into tears.

She was sitting on the rug in front of the fire by Virginia's side, in

the gloaming.

Virginia put her slim hand on to her shoulder, and caressed her

lightly. "It's too bad," she said gently, with her soft, hardly

distinguishable American intonation.

"I'm such a fool," said Joan. "I don't know what I want. I don't want

anything."

She dried her eyes, but still kept her head on Virginia's knee, and put

up her hand to give Virginia's a little squeeze. It was comforting to

be with her, looking into the fire.

"It's about John Spence, isn't it, dear?" Virginia asked.

"I'm a fool," said Joan again. "I don't like him as much as I used to."

"Is that why you're a fool?" asked Virginia with a little laugh.

"No," said Joan seriously. "For caring about things changing, because

one is grown up. I used to think it would be nothing but bliss to be

grown up. Now I wish Nancy and I were little girls again. We used to

be very happy together. We always talked about everything, it didn't

matter what it was."

"And now you don't. You don't talk about John Spence."

Joan's tears flowed afresh. "I don't want to talk about it, Virginia,"

she said. "I am sure you would never understand what I feel. Whatever

I said you would think I meant something else; and I don't a bit. I

don't mind his liking Nancy best. I don't want him to like me more

than he does."

"Oh, my darling girl! I think I understand it all better than you do

yourself. You are unhappy, and you don't know why."

"Then tell me why."

"Well, to begin with, you are just a little jealous."

"Oh, Virginia! And you said you understood!"

"You are jealous, just as you would be if Dick were suddenly to show

that he liked Nancy better than you."

"We used to have such fun together, all three of us. It never entered

the heads of either of us to think which he liked the best. He liked

us both just the same. Why couldn't it go on like that? I've done

nothing. It was after I came back from that horrid Brummels. He

didn't like my going there--not that it had anything to do with him.

He was just like father about it, and tried to make out that it had

altered me. It hadn't altered me at all. I was just the same as I had

always been. It was he that had altered."

"Can't you see, little girl, that it couldn't always go on as it used

to?"

"Why not?"

"How can a man fall in love with two girls at once? He must choose one

of them, or neither."

"I didn't want him to fall in love with me," said Joan quickly. "I am

not in love with him. That's why it's so difficult to say anything.

If I'm unhappy, it looks as if I must be."

"Not to me, dearest Joan. But you can be jealous about people without

being in love with them. You know, darling, I think John Spence was

almost bound to fall in love with one of you almost directly you grew

up. I should have been very much surprised if he hadn't. But I could

never tell which it would be. It was just as it happened to turn out.

He came here when you were away, and that just turned the scale. After

that it couldn't possibly be as it had been before, when you were both

children; not even if you had behaved well about it."

"What!" exclaimed Joan, sitting up sharply.

Virginia smiled, and drew her back to her. "You haven't been kind to

Nancy, you know," she said.

Joan did not resist her, but said rather stiffly, "It's she who hasn't

been kind to me."

"How?"

"She has said nothing to me. I don't know even what she thinks about

it all. If you say I am jealous, that is what I am jealous about. I

don't even know that he _is_ in love with her; and if he is, whether

she knows it. She acts _exactly_ as we always used to with him, and as

I did, until I saw he didn't want me to."

"And then you became offended, and rather ostentatiously left them

together whenever he came on the scene."

"Well, if he wanted Nancy, and didn't want me, I wasn't going to push

myself forward."

"Poor John Spence!" said Virginia. "He is very disturbed about you. I

think he is very much in love with Nancy. It has become plain even to

my obtuse old Dick now. But he might so easily have been very much in

love with you, instead, that it troubles his dear simple candid old

soul to think you have so changed. As far as he is concerned, he would

like nothing better than to be on the old terms with you. He wouldn't

like you any the less because he likes Nancy more."

"It is Nancy I am thinking of," said Joan after a pause. "She always

has been just a little hard, and she is hard without a doubt now.

Fancy, Virginia--somebody being in love with her, and showing it, and

her never saying one single word to me about it! Talking about

anything else, but never about the only thing that she must be thinking

about!"

"Don't you think she may be thinking you just a little hard?

Fancy--somebody being in love with her, and showing it, and Joan not

saying a word to her about it! Talking about anything else, but never

the one thing!"

Joan put her handkerchief to her eyes. "If it hadn't begun as it did I

should have done everything I could to please her," she said. "I

should have been just as interested and perhaps excited about it, for

her sake, as she could have been herself. She could have told me

everything she was feeling, and now she tells me nothing. I suppose

when he has proposed to her, if he does, she will tell me, just as she

might tell me if anybody had asked her the time; and then she will ask

me what I am going to wear. Oh, everything ought to be different

between us just now."

"Yes, it ought," said Virginia. "Dear Joan, you and Nancy mustn't go

on like this. I don't think Nancy is hard; I am sure she isn't in this

case. She must be feeling it--not to be able to talk to you."

"If I thought that!"

"Darling, you know her so well--almost as well as you know yourself.

Can't you see that it must be so? Can't you make it easy for her to

talk to you? It would do away with your own unhappiness. It is that

that you are really unhappy about. Life is changing all about you.

You are a child no longer, and you have nothing to put in the place of

what you are losing. You are feeling lonely, and out of it all. Isn't

that it?"

"Yes, I suppose that is it. It used to be so jolly only a very short

time ago--when Frank was home in the summer. Now Kencote doesn't seem

like the same place. I should like to go away."

"You wouldn't feel the change so much if you and Nancy were what you

have always been to each other. Joan dear, it is for you to take the

first step. Show Nancy that you, of all people, are the most pleased

at the happiness that is coming to her. I am quite sure she will

respond."

Joan's tears came again. "I don't think she wants me now," she said.

"She has somebody else, and I have nobody. At least, I have you--and

mother. But Nancy and I have been almost like one person."

"She does want you, Joan. She must want you, just as much as you want

her. But she won't say so unless you give her the chance."

"Dear old Nancy!" said Joan softly. "I have been rather a pig to her.

But I won't be any more."

There was a long silence. Then Joan said, "There is something else,

Virginia. Why has Bobby Trench been asked to come here to-morrow?"

Virginia laughed, after a momentary pause. "I expect he asked

himself," she said. "Hasn't he shown himself to be a great admirer of

yours, Joan?"

"Oh!" said Joan without a smile. "I have never shown myself to be a

great admirer of his. Virginia, I can't understand it. I know mother

wrote to him. I asked her why, and she said Humphrey had wanted him

asked, and father had said that he might be. She didn't seem to want

to talk about him, and I could see that she didn't like him, and was

sorry to have to ask him. It is father I don't understand. He has

almost foamed at the mouth whenever Bobby Trench's name has been

mentioned, and you know what a frightful fuss he made when I went to

Brummels, and when Bobby Trench came here about that Amberley affair.

He said he shouldn't be let in if he came again."

"Well, my dear, you know what your father is. He could no more act

inhospitably to anybody than----"

"Oh, Virginia, that's nonsense. He was quite rude to him when he came.

Besides, it's a different thing altogether, _asking_ him to come. He

needn't have done that. Why did he do it?"

"Isn't Lord Sedbergh an old friend of his?"

"Virginia, I believe you are in the conspiracy against me. I _hate_

Bobby Trench, and when he comes here I won't have a thing to say to

him. If father wants him here, he can look after him himself. I

couldn't believe it when it first came into my head; but father said

something to me, after he had looked at me once or twice in an odd sort

of way, almost as if I were a person he didn't know."

"What did he say to you?"

"Oh, something about _him_, I forget what now. And when I said what an

idiot I thought he was, he was quite annoyed, and said I ought not to

talk about people in that way. How _can_ father be so changeable? He

treats us as if nobody had any sense but himself, and lays down the

law; and then, even in a question in which you agree with him, you find

that all his sound and fury means nothing at all, and he has turned

completely round."

"Well, my dear, we are not all the same. Your father speaks very

strongly whatever is in his mind at the moment, and if he has cause to

change his mind he is just as strong on the other side. It was so with

me, you know well enough. He wouldn't hear a word in my favour; and

now he likes me almost as much as Dick does. You have to dig down

deeper than his speech to find what is fixed in him."

"I don't believe that anything is fixed. Anyone would have said that

he had a _real_ dislike to Brummels, and all that goes with it. I am

sure he made fuss enough when I went there, and has gone on making it

ever since; and Bobby Trench summed it all up for him. He wouldn't

have this and he wouldn't have that; and Kencote, and the way we live

here, was the only sort of life that anybody ought to live. Oh, _you_

know it all by heart. And then, just as one is beginning to think

there is something in it, and that we _have_ been very happy living

quietly here, one finds that _he_, of all people, wants something else."

"What does he want?"

"What does he want for _me_? Does he want Bobby Trench, Virginia?

There! You don't say anything. You _are_ in the conspiracy. I

_won't_. Nothing will make me."

"My dear child, there is no conspiracy. And if there were, I shouldn't

be in it. _I_ don't want Bobby Trench for you; I want somebody much

better. But I don't want anybody, yet awhile. I want to keep you."

"Doesn't mother want to keep me? Does _she_ want Bobby Trench for me?"

"No, I am quite sure she doesn't."

"Then what is it all about? Oh, I am very unhappy, Virginia. I want

to talk it all over with Nancy; but I can't now. It is just as if

everything were falling away from me. Nobody cares. A little time ago

I should have gone to mother if I had hurt my finger. I feel all

alone. Why does father want to bring Bobby Trench worrying me, of all

the people in the world?"

"Dearest Joan, you are making too much of it. You talk as if you were

going to be forced into something you don't like."

"That is just what I feel is happening. It isn't like Kencote; not

like anything I have known. Oh, I wish I were a little girl again."

"My dear, put it like this; somebody is bound to want you, sooner or

later. I suppose somebody wants you now. He moves mountains to get at

you, and find out whether you want _him_. You don't, and that is all

there is to say about it."

"It might be," said Joan, "if it weren't that father is one of the

mountains. He is one that is very easily shifted. Oh, I'm not a child

any longer. I do know something about the world. I do know quite well

that if he were not who he is, father would not have him near the

place. Money and rank--those are what he really cares about, though he

pretends to despise them--in anybody else. What is the good of

belonging to an old and proud family, as we do, if you can't be just a

little prouder than the rest?"

"Well, my dear, as a product of a country where those things don't

count for much, I am bound to say that I think it isn't much good.

People are what their characters and surroundings make them."

"Father wouldn't say that. He would say that blood counted for a lot.

I am quite sure he would say that people like us had a finer sense of

honour than people who are nobodies by birth. I don't think he comes

out of the test very well. I think if anything were to happen to him

where his birth and his position wouldn't help him, his honour wouldn't

be finer than anybody else's. If he were to lose all his money, for

instance--I think he would feel that more than anything in the world.

He would be stripped of almost everything. No-one would know him."

"Oh, Joan darling, you mustn't say things like that. It isn't like

you."

Poor Joan, her mind at unrest, her first glimpse of the world outside

the sheltered garden of her childhood showing her only the chill

loneliness of its battling crowds, was not in a mood to insist upon her

discoveries.

"It does make me feel rather bitter," she said through her tears. "But

I don't want to be."

As she and Nancy were dressing for dinner, she said lightly, but with a

strained look in her eyes, "The conquering Bobby Trench will be here by

this time to-morrow. Nancy, you are not to go leaving me alone with

him."

Nancy looked up at her sharply, but her face was hidden, and she did

not see the look in it, the look which hoped for a warm return to their

old habit of discussing everything and everybody together.

"I suppose you would like me to take him off your hands so that you can

devote yourself to John Spence?" she said.

If Joan was ready to mention names, she was ready too. Her meaning was

not so unkind as her words; but how was Joan, ready to smart at a

touch, to know that?

She could not speak for a moment. Then she said with a quiver, "I

don't want to devote myself to him. He likes you best."

Nancy heard the quiver, and it moved her; but not enough to soothe the

soreness she felt against Joan. Joan might be ready now, unwillingly,

to accept the fact that John Spence liked Nancy best; but she had stood

out against it for a long time, and had not taken the discovery in the

way that Nancy was convinced she would have taken it herself, if Joan

had been the preferred.

"If he does, it is your fault," she said. "I've not tried to make him.

I have only been just the same as I always was; and you have been quite

different."

There was nothing in this speech that would have struck Joan as unkind

a few months before. But the tension was too great now to bear of the

old outspokenness between them. How could Virginia say that Nancy

wasn't hard? She only wanted to make friends, but Nancy wanted to

quarrel. But she would not be hard in return.

"Perhaps I have been rather a pig," she said. "I haven't meant to be;

and I shan't be any more."

Nancy was conquered. The tears came into her own eyes. All that

Virginia said of her was true. She had been aching for the old

intimacy with Joan, more than ever now that such wonderful things were

happening to her, and she had to keep them uncomfortably locked up in

her own breast.

But Nancy would never cry if she could possibly stop herself. It was a

point of honour with her, which Joan, with whom tears came more

readily, had always understood. If they were to get back on to the old

ground, signs of emotion on Joan's part would properly be met by a dry

carelessness on hers.

"Well, you _have_ been rather a pig," she said, ready to fall on Joan's

neck, and give way to her own feelings without restraint, when the

proprieties had once been observed. "But if you're not going to be any

more, I'll forgive you."

Joan was too troubled to recognise this speech as a prelude to complete

capitulation. She had gone as far as she could, and thought that Nancy

was repulsing her. She now burst into open tears, into which wounded

pride entered as much as wounded affection. "You're a beast," she

cried, using the free language of their childhood. "I don't want you

to forgive me. I've done nothing to be forgiven for. I only thought

you might want to be friends again. But if you don't, I don't either.

I shan't try again."

Nancy wavered for a moment. Then the memory of her own grievances

rushed back upon her, and she shrugged her shoulders. "All right," she

said. "If you're satisfied, I'm sure I am. I should have been quite

ready to be friends, but it's impossible with you as you are now. I

should leave off crying if I were you. You won't be fit to be seen."

CHAPTER III

HUMPHREY AND SUSAN

Humphrey and Susan arrived at Kencote on a waft of good fortune. A

widowed aunt of Susan's, a lady of unaccountable actions, from whom it

had never been safe to expect anything, whether good or bad, had died

and left her niece a "little place."

In the satisfaction induced by this acquisition, which seemed to

endorse, almost supernaturally, his own oft-tendered advice, the Squire

looked upon his daughter-in-law with new eyes. Her faults were

forgotten; she was no longer, at best, a mere ornamental luxury of a

wife, at worst a too expensive one; she had brought land into the

family, or, at any rate--for there was very little land--property. She

took her stand, in a small way, with those heiresses with whom the

Clintons had from time to time allied themselves, not infrequently to

the permanent enhancement of the rooted Kencote dignity, and

occasionally to the swelling of one of the buds of the prolific Clinton

tree into the proud state of a branch. This had happened, many

generations before, in the case of the ancestor from whom Susan, a born

Clinton, had herself sprung, and had helped to the nurture of that

particular branch so effectively that its umbrage was more conspicuous

than that of the parent stem itself.

What Susan now brought would hardly have that effect. Looked at

rigorously in the mouth, her gift-horse might even have received a cool

welcome in some stables. There was the house, situated on the borders

of the New Forest, charmingly enough, photographed as a pleasant,

two-storied, creeper-decked villa suitable for the occupation of a lady

of high rank and not more than adequate means. And there were gardens,

paddocks, and a few acres of half-tamed forest, not more than twenty or

five and twenty in all. There were also the contents of the house,

faded carpets, crowded knick-knacks, Berlin wool-work, theological

library, crayon drawings, and all. But there was no money. That had

been left to old servants, to "Societies," and to the support of

otherwise homeless cats and dogs, whose sad friendless state this old

lady had had much at heart.

"It will want a great deal of doing up," Lady Susan said. "The papers

are too hideous for words, there's no sign of a bathroom, and the

outbuildings are tumbling to pieces."

Nevertheless she seemed to be in high spirits over her legacy, and the

Squire, shutting his eyes to the state of the wallpapers and the

outbuildings, and remembering only the acreage, congratulated her, and

himself, warmly on the heritage.

"My dear girl," he said, "it is a great piece of luck. You _are_

lucky, you know, you and Humphrey. He could never have expected the

life interest of practically the whole of old Aunt Laura's money, and

now this has come just to point out the way in which you ought to enjoy

your good fortune. The place produces nothing--well, that can't be

helped. At any rate you live rent free, with your foot on your own

little piece of ground; and you throw over all that nonsense which by

this time I should think you're getting heartily sick and tired of."

There was hint of interrogation in the tone of the last sentence, and

it was responded to in a way to bring the Squire into still closer

approving accord with his daughter-in-law.

"Oh yes. We are both tired of it. We are going to get rid of the flat

directly Denny Croft is ready for us. I am going to turn into a

regular countrywoman. I shall wear thick boots, and keep chickens. We

are going to economise too. We shall only keep three horses and a

pony. And Humphrey says he shall drink a great deal of beer. We are

going to like ourselves tremendously in the country."

The Squire told Mrs. Clinton that nothing had pleased him better for a

long time than the way Susan was taking up with the idea of country

life. "It is the best thing in the world," he said. "It has made a

different woman of her already. She is brighter and steadier at the

same time. It proves what I have always said, that that London life,

if you go on living it year after year, is simply another name for

boredom. Who would have thought a year or two ago that Susan would

have been satisfied with anything else? Yet here she is, overjoyed at

the idea of escaping from it. Nina, I can't help thinking that the

finger of Providence is to be seen here. The property is nothing much,

after all--just a little bit of land to give them a hold on things.

But if it hadn't come, I doubt if they would have made the change. I

think we ought to be very thankful that things are ordered for us in

the way they are."

Humphrey, accepting Dick's congratulations on Susan's legacy, expressed

himself moderately satisfied. "It's not going to make millionaires of

us," he said. "In fact, it will be a pretty tight squeeze to get the

place made habitable. The old lady might have left something to go

with it, instead of muddling away everything quite uselessly as she

did. It would have made all the difference to us. Still, it has

shoved us into making the change, and I'm glad of it."

"I should think you would be able to amuse yourself there all right,"

said Dick. "You'll save three hundred a year over your rent, for one

thing. But I don't know--if you get into the way of going up to London

constantly, you'll soon mop that up."

"Oh, I know. I'm not going to. I don't say we're going to bury

ourselves there entirely, but we shall stick to it pretty well. And

when we do go up to town we can put up with Susan's people, or

somewhere."

"Yes. If you'll take a word of warning, it's quite possible you may

find it a bit slow after the novelty has worn off. I don't myself,

because I've got what amounts to a job here. But you won't have; and

you were always keener on town pleasures than I was. You'll have to

watch it a bit after the first month or two."

"Oh, my dear fellow, I've got all that in my mind. One has to do one

or the other; one can't do both; or, at least, most of us can't. I

tell you, I've had a sickener of the other. It isn't good enough.

This will be a change, and I want a change."

More seemed to be coming, and Dick waited for it to come, after saying

rather perfunctorily, "Susan seems to like the idea too."

"I'm glad to say she does," said Humphrey; "more than I should have

thought she would. Of course, she's excited at having the place left

to her, and she's going to have no end of fun over rigging it up. I

shall have to be careful how I go, there. It's a new toy; and my

experience is that new toys are apt to run you into a lot of money.

Still, I've warned her about that, and told her that when we go to

Denny Croft we stop there; and she says she doesn't want anything

better. I tell you, it's a weight off my mind to find her ready to

take a sensible view of things."

Still Dick waited for more.

"We _ought_ to have been able to do all right," said Humphrey, after a

slight pause. "I don't like giving up London, and that's a fact. I

can amuse myself in the country all right, couldn't do without it

altogether--I'm not a born townsman, like some fellows--but I prefer it

to go to, not to live in. But I'm ready to do anything and go

anywhere, to get rid of the beastly burden of things. That's why I

welcome the change."

"You won't find it such an unpleasant change."

"As things are, it will be the greatest relief. And yet other people

manage to get on, and do everything we have done, on less than we have."

"Well, you've neither of you got what you might call a passion for

economy."

"I believe I'm getting it," said Humphrey with a laugh. "I've begun to

keep accounts. When I looked into things a year or two ago, and the

Governor squared us up, I told Susan that it mustn't happen again. I

made estimates and got her to agree with them."

"It is the only way, if you want to know what you're spending. I do it

as a matter of principle. Besides, you get more for your money. The

difficulty is to keep to your estimates, I suppose, if you've been

spending too much."

"I've kept to mine--the personal ones, I mean. But I don't know how it

is--Susan doesn't seem to be able to."

"Well, then, you've got to make her," said Dick firmly. He had no love

for his sister-in-law, and was prepared to resist on his father's

behalf the further demands which he thought he saw coming. "After all,

it's mostly your money, and it's for you to say how it shall be spent."

Humphrey, understanding quite well the source of this decisive speech,

flushed. "I'm not in debt," he said shortly.

"Oh!" Dick was rather taken aback.

"I suppose when you've once played the fool, everybody you talk to

about money thinks you must be trying to get something out of them. I

believe the Governor has an idea in his head that I'm coming to him

shortly with another tale of woe. If you get an opportunity, you might

disabuse his mind of it. I don't say I don't owe a bill or two, but

they are nothing to count."

"I'm sorry if I misunderstood you. I've had some experience of keeping

within limits, and if I can lend you a hand over getting your house put

into order without wasting money, I shall be glad to do so. In fact,

if you want a hundred or two towards it, I dare say I can manage to let

you have it. Pleased to."

"Thanks, Dick, it's awfully good of you." Humphrey was moved by this

offer. Dick was generous with money, but knew its value. An offer of

this sort from him meant more than was betokened by the matter-of-fact

tone in which it was made. "As a loan, it might help me over a corner,

for I've nothing in hand. But I shall keep things down for a year or

two, and take the cost of doing up the place into account."

"Right you are, old chap. We'll go into it, and I'll let you know what

I can do."

"Thanks. It will make things a good deal easier. I'm a reformed

character. I hate not seeing my way, now."

The phrase struck Dick agreeably. It was what, with his cool robust

sense, he regarded as the one thing necessary, if life was to be

ordered on a satisfactory basis. He would have had no anxiety about

money if his own income had been cut down to a pittance. He would have

done without anything rather than forestall it by a week. He had

expressed himself freely about Humphrey's insane blindness, as it

seemed to him, in this respect; but now he seemed to have learnt his

lesson, and Dick's feelings warmed towards him.

"How has it gone wrong?" he asked, with more interest than he had shown

hitherto.

"It hasn't gone particularly wrong, lately. But we never seem to have

a bob in hand; and it has meant doing without every sort of thing that

one used to have as a matter of course."

"Oh, come now! Only the two of you! You ought not to have to go

without much."

"I can only tell you that I've come to thinking twice before I take a

taxi, and I've given up smoking cigars. It has to begin somewhere; but

nothing seems to make any difference. Susan's housekeeping! But what

can I do? I put it at so much; I asked people about it, and they said

it was ample. But she seems to want double as much as anybody else for

whatever she does. She says it _must_ cost more because we chucked

dining at restaurants, except occasionally. I don't know what it is.

Money simply flows away in London, and you get nothing for it. I

chucked a couple of clubs at the beginning of this year. Seems to me

I've got to chuck everything if I'm to keep straight. And that's just

what I'm going to do. It's been easier since we went up to

Northamptonshire, although even there you'd think we inhabited a

mansion by the housekeeping bills, instead of a little dog's hole of a

place just big enough to hold us. Still, the main expense there is

outside, and I've got that in hand."

"She must spend a tremendous lot on clothes."

"Well, to do her justice, she's clever at that, and I haven't had any

trouble with her beastly dressmakers and milliners since that time two

years ago. They were the devil then, of course. She has got hold of

some cheap woman who turns her out extraordinarily well for very

little. I wish she'd tackle other things as she does that. No, I'm

not going to put all the blame on Susan. I really believe she's doing

her best; but she doesn't seem to have it in her, except about her

clothes. Anyhow, she's ready to do anything, and it shows that she's

as worried about what has gone on, in her way, as I am, that she's so

keen to go and live at Denny Croft. She's going to garden, and all the

rest of it, and she swears she'll keep to half her dress allowance and

put the rest into doing up the house."

"That's the way to go about it," said Dick. "She certainly does seem

much keener on it than I should have thought she would have been.

Virginia says so too. Let's hope it will last."

"It's going to," said Humphrey. "I'll see to that."

Dick told Virginia something of the conversation between himself and

Humphrey, and what he had offered to do for him.

"Oh, Dick!" she cried, "make him a present of it. You must have lots

laid by. We haven't been spending nearly up to our income."

"It's what I meant," he said, smiling at her quick generosity. "But I

don't think I will--not until later."

"Oh, why not? I can spare it, if you can't."

"I can spare it. But it won't do him any harm to save a bit. When he

offers to pay me back, I shall tell him he can keep it. Go a bust with

it, if he likes. He's tackling the situation well. I'm pleased about

it. He does like his London pleasures, and he's quite ready to give

them up."

"So is Susan, isn't she? She seems a different creature. As if a load

were lifted off her mind."

"I'm not so sure about Susan. My idea is that Humphrey will have to

keep her to it. It will give him something to do. The trouble with

him is that he has always been at a loose end. All the rest of us have

got our jobs. It will be his job to keep his expenditure down, and

look after Susan. I've always thought she was a rotter, and I don't

trust her simply because, as Humphrey says himself, she's got a new toy

to play with."

"Oh, I think she means it. I like her better than I did. She sees her

faults. Nobody who can do that is worthless. I'm sure she is not

worthless."

Dick pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger. He was still

in love with this slim sweet candid creature, whose great eyes were

lustrous with the flame of her eager spirit. "Nobody is worthless in

your eyes," he said. "You could even find excuses for Rachel Amberley."

A shadow fell across her bright face. "Poor woman!" she said. "Oh,

poor, poor woman! Here we are, all of us together, happy at

Christmas-time; and she----! Oh, Dick--'for all prisoners and

captives'! I thought of her in church this morning. The

loneliness--the cold! I think we ought to pray to be forgiven, as well

as she."

Dick kissed her gently. "You don't want to think too much about her,"

he said. "She's paying the price."

CHAPTER IV

COMING HOME FROM THE BALL

"This is where we are going to shoot to-morrow. We've kept this side

entirely until now. We ought to do pretty well."

Bobby Trench, muffled up to the cigar he was smoking, sat by the side

of Dick, who was driving the big omnibus back from the West Meadshire

Hunt Ball. The two fine horses, making nothing of the load behind

them, trotted rhythmically homewards. Heavy rain had ceased, and the

moon peeping through scudding clouds shone on pools of water lying on

the muddy road. The yellow lamp-rays tinged the wide strips of turf

bordering the roadway, and lit up successive tree trunks, posted

sentinel-like, behind the oak fences.

Bobby Trench had chosen to sit outside, with Dick and Frank. His

evening had been disappointing. He had arrived at Kencote in time for

dinner, prepared to make himself pleasant all round, which he seemed to

have succeeded in doing to everybody except Joan, who had held somewhat

coldly aloof, although he had kept strictly to his predetermined plan

of treating her with cool friendliness until the ball should give him

opportunities of carefully graded tenderness. But the ball had given

him no opportunities, or none that Joan would allow him to take

advantage of. She had snubbed him, had shown herself, indeed,

determined to find occasions for snubbing him; for he was agile in

skipping out of the way of such occasions, but she had pursued his

skippings and dealt her strokes in spite of them. She had primly

refused him more than two dances, and had refused to go in to supper

with him. His anticipated pleasure having thus resolved itself into

puzzled pain, Bobby Trench had declared himself for tobacco and the

night air, and left Joan to her reflections inside, barbing them, as he

handed her in, with a careless example of his own peculiar humour,

which was founded on the basis of a cheery and always ready loquacity.

Snubs, or attempted snubs, received with no diminution of

self-assurance or good-temper, at both of which they may be supposed to

be aimed, are apt to recoil on those who administer them; and Joan,

taking refuge between the comforting skirts of Virginia and Miss

Dexter, was already reproaching herself for her treatment of one who

had given her no cause for it except his presence, and whose persistent

cheerfulness under persecution was a shining lesson to ill-temper. She

was feeling miserable enough, in all conscience, and need not have

beaten down the last sparks of enjoyment that she might have gained

from the bright movement, hitherto eagerly anticipated, by setting

herself to a task so little productive of satisfaction.

But she did not occupy her thoughts for long with Bobby Trench. She

made up her mind that, having shown him that particular attention from

him would not be welcome, she might safely return to the chaffing

intimacy which had hitherto been the note of their intercourse, and had

been quite as efficacious in keeping him at the requisite distance as

her recent manner. And having so decided she dismissed him from her

mind and wrapped herself round with her unhappiness.

It was dreadful to be going home from a ball, not only with no

retrospective pleasure, but with nothing to look forward to in the way

of disrobing talk. She and Nancy, since her wrecked attempt at

reconciliation, had carried their respective heads in the air, and had

hardly spoken to one another, except in the presence of their handmaid,

for the purpose of averting comment. And yet she knew that Nancy's

happy fate was marching upon her, and reproached herself a thousand

times for her inability to cross the gulf between them, and share her

sister's doubts and sweet tremors. John Spence had danced with her

three times--many times with Nancy--and his manner had been

brotherly-kind and protecting, as if to soothe her soreness, which yet

he did not seem to have divined. His thoughts had not been much with

her, that had been plain--but his quietness and simplicity had

comforted her a little, and she had not wanted to talk. She had taken

refuge in a plea of headache, and held to it on the homeward drive.

Nobody seemed to want to talk. Something had gone wrong with the lamp

inside the carriage, and they were in darkness, except for the faint

irradiation of the moon. Mrs. Clinton had driven home earlier, with

Sir George and Lady Senhouse and Muriel Clinton, Walter's wife. In the

absence of Bobby Trench, the eight of them inside the omnibus were of

such family intimacy that there was no necessity for conversation, if

private thoughts sufficed, or snatches of slumber. John Spence, the

one exception, had no great initiative in conversation at any time, and

in the far corner beside Nancy much preferred the silent, ruminative

progression through the dark country roads and lanes. Greatly daring,

he advanced his large muscular hand under the warm fur billowing down

the carriage, and sought for Nancy's. He found it and gave it a

squeeze. She returned the squeeze and withdrew her hand. A year

before, such a sign of appreciative affection might very well have come

from her--or from Joan--instead of from him. Perhaps her ready

acceptance of it might mean no more than that her affectionate

appreciation was still of the same quality. But the chance of its

meaning something more thrilled his big frame, and on it his thoughts

fed sweetly in the dark silence.

Virginia was right. He was head over ears in love with Nancy, but he

shrank from telling her so. He was years older than she, almost as old

as Dick, almost an old bachelor, except that at heart he had kept his

simple youthfulness; and his great body, hardened and kept fine by

field-sports, was still as responsive to his mind as that of a youth in

his glorious twenties. But modesty was a great part of him, and he

could not envisage himself as a man likely to gain prizes usually

reserved for gallant youth. The fresh, laughing friendliness of the

twins, when he had first known them as girls of fifteen, had attracted

him delightfully, and he had been surprised to find that the attraction

had changed its quality; also, at first, a little incredulous. It was

only when he discovered that he thrilled to Nancy's touch and voice,

and not to Joan's, that he accepted his fate; and, ever since, he had

been tormented with doubts as to whether an avowal of his new feeling

would bring him a response, or only destroy the frank confidence with

which he still loved to be treated. The poor man sometimes imagined

Nancy regarding him in the light of a fun-producing uncle, and felt

that it would be sacrilege to her innocence to reveal himself as a

lover. If he risked all, he might lose all, and be for ever disgraced

in her eyes. He trembled, in his more darksome moods, at the thought.

But love was urging him on. The time would soon come when the

avuncular character would be more difficult to support than that of a

rejected absentee.

Dick pulled up his horses at a gate opening on to a broad grass ride

between the trees. A groom got down from behind and opened it.

"We cut off nearly a mile and a half here," Dick said. "But I'm afraid

it will be rather soft going after this rain. We'll chance it.

There's only one place where we might get stuck."

The horses broke gently into a slow trot, their hoofs and the iron-shod

wheels of the heavy carriage making no sound on the thick grass. They

went down a long and very easy slope, and then Dick pulled them to a

walk through soft ground in the cup of the almost indistinguishable

hollow. With a tightening of traces and no more than the stroke of a

whip-lash they pulled the omnibus through, leaving sharp ruts behind

it, and were once more on springy turf. Just as they were about to

quicken into a trot again, Bobby Trench seized Dick's arm. "What's

that!" he cried. "Did you hear it?"

"Somebody shouted," said Frank, standing up behind them; and had no

sooner spoken when the silence of the woods was sharply broken by a

gun-shot.

"Poachers, by Jove!" said Dick. "We shall catch them." He drove

quickly on towards the point from which the report had come.

Suddenly there were shouts of men, and another report from a gun; then

more shouting, and the cracking of trampled twigs quite near to them.

"The keepers are out. Good boys!" cried Dick, in excitement, reining

in his horses.

Frank and Bobby Trench were down and off into the covert. Humphrey,

who had been sitting next to the door, had followed them. Dick was for

doing the same, but paused irresolute when he had called a groom to

take the reins, and swung himself down from his seat. There was a

commotion inside the omnibus. The women must be thought of.

Walter stood at the door, calming them. John Spence was on his feet

ready to push out, but Nancy had hold of his hand, and Susan Clinton

was clinging to him terrified. "All right, I'll stay, but I must get

out," he said, torn between his desire to be in the fray, and the

appeal, not of Susan's frightened cries, but of Nancy's silent call for

protection.

"If you two will stay here, I'll go and see what's happening," said

Dick. "It's all right, Virginia; there can't be many of them, and the

men are there."

Another shot rang out above the sounds, hard by, of an angry struggle,

and was followed by a cry of pain. Dick began to run towards the sound.

The moon now shining brightly made his progress easy. He saw three or

four men, locked in a fierce struggle, and thought he recognised Frank

as one of them. Then a cry to his right brought him round to see

another group in combat. Someone was lying prone on the grass. A few

yards from the still figure two others were reeling to and fro, and as

he approached went down. The one underneath was wrapped in a long

coat, the uppermost was unhampered, a giant figure of a man as he

seemed, with a gun in his hands, on the barrels of which a shaft of

moonlight glinted. He looked to be striking at the head of the other

figure, and a cry for help rose up, urgently.

Dick sprang forward, but caught his foot on a root and fell. As he

picked himself up, another figure ran past him with a raised cudgel.

"All right, sir, coming!"

The thick stick went down resoundingly on the ruffian's head, who let

go of the gun-barrels, and turned with his arm raised to guard himself.

Dick had him by the neck, and was screwing his knuckles into the

throat. He gulped, put hands like vices on to his sleeves, and kicked

with a great iron-shod boot. Dick felt his shin peel through his thin

trousers, but no pain. In a moment the keeper had thrown himself on to

him, he ceased to struggle, and, Dick's fists relaxing their hold,

choked out submission. "All right, you got me. You can give over now."

Humphrey rose from the ground, white and shaking, the blood trickling

from a wound over his eyebrow. "The brute!" he said. "He'd have

killed me. Lucky you came along. Where's Bobby?"

Bobby Trench lay on the dark ground, motionless, his arm stretched at a

peculiar angle. As they bent over him, he fluttered an eyelid, then

opened both. "Winged me," he said in a faint voice. "Ugh!" Then

fainted again.

"He shot at him," said Humphrey. "I was just behind. He got it in the

shoulder. Look here; all torn; he'll bleed to death."

Dick set up a shout. The wood was still now of the louder clamour.

The mimic battle was over.

Gotch, the keeper, had secured their captive with a rope. He took it

calmly; even good-humouredly. "'Aven't done for 'im, 'ave I,

Governor?" he called out.

"Hold your tongue, you swine!" said Gotch, hitting him on the mouth, at

which he expostulated mildly, as at an unreasonable act. "All right,

mate; you got me. It's a lifer if I done for him. I on'y wanted to

know."

CHAPTER V

ROBERT RECUMBENT

Bobby Trench, lying in bed, the seams of his pyjama jacket cut and

ribboned at the left arm and shoulder to accommodate the bandages, was

an interesting figure. He had gone through his time of fever and fiery

pain, his probings and dressings; now, but for occasional discomfort,

and a languorous but convalescent weakness, he was himself again, and

prepared to take up his affairs at the point at which they had been

interrupted by what had befallen him.

The nurse, moving capably about the large, airy, chintz-bedecked room,

in her trim livery, was besieged for news of the household. Tall,

handsome, and still young, she was on very good terms with her patient.

Regarded as a "case," he did her credit; and she couldn't help liking

him, as she wrote to her relations.

"Look here, Sarah Gamp, you're a deceitful woman. You're keeping them

all away from me; you know you are. I'm as fit as a fiddle, or shall

be in about five minutes; and I want to see company."

The nurse permitted herself a smile. "You're to be kept quiet for a

day or two. Doctor's orders."

"Doctor's orders! Walter Clinton! What sort of a Bob Sawyer is he, to

give orders? You know much more about things than he does, don't you

now? You want to keep me to yourself, that's what it is."

"Indeed, you're very ungrateful. Dr. Clinton is a rising man in the

profession. There isn't a doctor in London could have done better for

you."

"You think so, Mrs. Gamp?"

"Yes, I do. It was lucky for you that he was there when you were shot."

"Yes, that was a piece of luck, wasn't it? He had a busy night of it.

I say, who has been asking for me?"

"Oh, everybody, of course. You will have plenty of visitors when you

are well enough to receive them."

"I'm well enough now. You're trying to keep me to yourself, Sarah.

There's a sort of fatal fascination about me that no good-looking woman

can resist? I say, do the doctors make love to you in the hospital?"

"I think you are getting light-headed. You have talked quite enough

for the present. Would you like some jelly?"

"I should like some strawberries and cream and a pint of champagne.

Look here, tell me about the doctors. Are there any good-looking

fellows amongst them?"

The conversation was interrupted at this point by the arrival of Walter

Clinton, whose knickerbockered homespuns only served to heighten the

effect of his cool professional manner.

"Well, nurse, how's your patient?"

"Going on well, doctor; but you must please tell him that he must keep

quiet for the present. He wants to see everybody in the house."

Walter took his seat by the bed and felt his patient's pulse. "You can

see people to-morrow," he said, as he pocketed his watch. "You're

doing all right. Better have one more day to yourself, though. You've

had a narrow squeak."

"I know. Mrs. Gamp says that if it hadn't been for you, I should have

snuffed out. She revels in gore. I don't think she's the woman for

her job."

"Don't you believe what he says, doctor. He's full of his nonsense."

"How's Humphrey?" asked Bobby.

"Oh, he's all right. He got off with a scalp wound. Poor old Dick had

his shin laid bare. I've got him on my hands. But we're well out of

it. That was a brute of a fellow. And there were two others; tough

customers, all of them. If we hadn't come along they might have got

the better of our fellows. They've quodded them. The Governor went

over to Petty Sessions to-day. By the by, he'd like to see you when

you're ready."

"I'm ready now. Ask him to step up."

"To-morrow--if you get a good night."

"What are they all doing downstairs?"

"Slacking, and playing with my kiddies. They all sent messages to you."

"They must have got a pretty good shock. You turned them out of the

bus, didn't you? I don't remember much of what happened."

"Yes, but I'd sent one of the grooms on to get some more carriages.

They didn't have to wait long. They're all right. Joan got a bit of a

chill, and is seedy."

"I suppose she was--upset about it all? Pretty funking to see a fellow

brought along in the state I was in!"

"Oh, they all took it very well. Susan was the worst, but of course

Humphrey looked worse than he really was--luckily."

Bobby Trench, an incurable optimist, allowed himself the solace of

imagining that Joan's indisposition had been brought on by her

agitation on his account, which it well might have been without undue

partiality on her part. For after waiting for minutes that had seemed

like hours, while the fight was going on in the wood, and being

forsaken by Walter, who had left them in answer to Dick's shouts for

help, they had been turned out of the omnibus, so that the bleeding,

senseless figure of Bobby Trench might be laid there for Walter to

examine and bind up. Humphrey had also needed attention, and Susan had

been frightened almost into hysterics by his appearance. They had

walked for half a mile in satin shoes, mostly over grass wringing wet,

until the carriages from Kencote had picked them up; and after the

fatigue of the ball and in her state of low spirits, it was small

wonder that Joan should have succumbed to her experiences.

But her indisposition had caused some lessening of the tension between

herself and Nancy, who, possibly supported by the tender attentions of

John Spence, had escaped all ill effect from the excitements of the

night. Their differences were ignored. There had been no real

reconciliation, but the events in which they had participated had

formed a skin over the wounds that each had dealt the other, and they

could behave with some approach to former freedom.

Bobby Trench's first unofficial visitor was the Squire, as was only

fitting. Mrs. Clinton had been with him constantly until the arrival

of the nurse, but he had then been delirious, and had not known her,

and she had not entered his room since.

The Squire came in, bringing with him a breath of the now frosty outer

air, but treading Agag-like on complimentary slippers.

"Well, sir," was his hearty greeting, tuned to suitable lowness of

pitch, "this is a pretty business to have brought you into! Lucky it

wasn't worse, eh? I told them on the Bench to-day that you were the

first in the field. There were many enquiries after you; and we've got

those blackguards safely by the leg. You've got everything you want, I

hope. Nurse looking after you well?"

"You wouldn't think it to look at her, but she's a bully, Mr. Clinton.

If you get ill you send for somebody else."

The Squire, after a glance at the nurse's demurely smiling face,

checked a laugh at the witticism. "Keep up your spirits," he said.

"That's capital. You'll soon be out of the wood if you take it

cheerfully. We shall make a lot of you when you come downstairs. You

did well; and I've written to tell your father so."

Bobby Trench felt that a few torn muscles and splintered bones were a

small price to pay for this approving geniality. On his arrival, the

Squire seemed to have swung back from the acquiescent mood in which he

had caused his former aversion to be invited to Kencote, and had

greeted him with a manner not much more conciliatory than he had

previously shown him. Bobby Trench, on reflection, had attributed his

invitation to Humphrey's having imparted as much of his confidence as

would secure it; and, in view of his acknowledged eligibility, had

expected a rather warmer welcome than he had received, either from his

host or hostess. It had seemed to him that he would have other

obstacles to surmount, in order to win Joan, than those which she might

be inclined to put between herself and him of her own accord. It was

therefore gratifying to find the face of his host thus turned towards

him, and would have been worth a substantial reduction in the sentence

to be presently passed upon his assailant, if he had had the computing

of his punishment.

"I must write a line to my father," he said. "I'm glad you've written

to him. He doesn't suggest coming here, I suppose?"

"Well, yes, he does. We shall be pleased to see him--and her ladyship

too, if she cares about it."

"Oh, save us from her ladyship!" said Bobby, unfilially. "She'd be

hopeless in a sick-room; and this is a real keep-your-distance,

Sundays-only sick-room, ain't it, Sarah Gamp?"

"Mr. Trench must be kept as quiet as possible," said the nurse; and the

Squire, with an unintentionally obvious lift of spirits, said that he

did not gather that Lady Sedbergh was anything but content to leave her

son in present hands. "I've said we are looking after you as well as

we can," he said. "You'll have plenty of company when you're well

enough to receive it. Humphrey wants to have a look at you later on.

If you hadn't been so sharp at the start, I expect he would have come

in for what you got. He'd have been pretty well knocked out as it was,

if it hadn't been for that young fellow, Gotch, and Dick. It's the

first time anything of this sort has happened at Kencote since my

grandfather's time. I don't say we haven't had to teach our local

sportsmen a lesson or two occasionally, but these were regular

professional ruffians from a distance--Ganton they come from--and that

class of gentry sticks at nothing when he's interfered with. You see

we've done very well with our young birds this year, and they must have

got wind of the fact that we'd kept those coverts. That's why they

turned their kind attentions on to us. They've been all round about,

but mostly on more fully stocked places than mine generally is, and

they've never been nabbed. Fortunately my keeper had an idea that they

might pay us a visit, and had all his watchers out there. Otherwise

you might have come upon them driving home, and then I don't know what

would have happened. It's providential all round--the keepers being

there, and you coming just in the nick of time to reinforce them.

We're rid of a dangerous pest; and no particular harm is done--except

to you, I'm afraid. I don't want to make light of that."

But if the Squire did not, Bobby Trench was not unwilling to do so, now

that the worst was over. He saw himself an interesting, not to say

petted, figure, with a perhaps undeserved but none the less convenient

aura of heroism, and hoped accordingly.

"You must have got a bit of a shock when you first heard of it," he

said. "I suppose that was when the ladies came in."

"I was waiting for them," said the Squire on a note of detailed

reminiscence. "They had knocked me up and told me that the groom had

come in for carriages, and I had had him in and learnt what he could

tell me. I should have gone myself, but thought it better to stay and

direct any preparations that had to be made. I didn't know but what

there might have been serious accidents, and it turned out I was right.

My wife had the idea too; but women are apt to lose their heads in

these emergencies, so I stayed to see that everything was got ready. I

went down into the cellar myself for a bottle of my oldest brandy. You

want to keep a cool head on these occasions."

"The ladies were pretty much upset, eh?"

"Oh, I soon stopped their fuss. 'Look here, _you're_ not hurt,' I

said. 'You'd better all swallow something hot, and then tuck

yourselves up in your blankets.' I packed them all off, except Virginia

and Miss Dexter--oh, and Susan, who wouldn't go till she'd seen

Humphrey safe; and Nancy was helping her mother; she's turning into a

useful girl, that--didn't turn a hair."

"Then Miss Joan was the only one who went up?"

"Yes, she was upset--hasn't quite the head that Nancy has. She's in

bed now, but there's nothing really the matter with her. We're over it

all very well, and ought to be thankful for it. Depend upon it,

there's a Providence that looks after these things; and I say we're not

doing our duty unless we recognise it, and show that we have some sense

of gratitude. Sure you've got everything you want here?"

He looked round the large comfortable room with an air of complacent

proprietorship. He kept habitually to half-a-dozen rooms of the big

house, and had no such feeling for it and its hoarded contents as would

impel some men and most women to occasional tours of inspection and

appraisal. But it was all his, and it was all as it should be. He had

not put foot inside this room perhaps for years, and took it in with a

pleased feeling of proprietorship and recognition.

"Oh, every mortal thing, thanks," said Bobby. "It's a jolly room,

this; cheery and peaceful at the same time. Just the room to be laid

up in, if you've got to be laid up."

"My grandfather died in this room," said the Squire, by way of adding

to its impression of cheerfulness. "Had it before his father died and

never would shift downstairs. It was done up later, but I see there

are one or two of his pictures still on the walls. This was his

wardrobe, too. A good piece of mahogany; they don't make furniture so

solid now-a-days."

He had got up to examine one or two of the old sporting prints on the

walls, which he did with informative comment. "Most of the furniture

is the same," he said, now looking round him from the vantage point of

the hearthrug, where he seemed more spaciously at his ease than sitting

in a chair by the bedside. "Yes, they only papered it, and put a new

carpet and curtains. He wouldn't have curtains at all; liked to see

the sun rise, and wasn't much behind it himself as a rule. He was a

fine old fellow. Have you read his diaries?"

"Yes, I have," said Bobby, stretching the truth not unduly, for the two

volumes of Colonel Clinton of Kencote's record of his lifelong pursuit

of fur and feathers were in every adequately furnished country house

library, and had been at least dipped into by countless sportsmen.

"Jolly interesting! We don't take things so seriously now-a-days.

Good thing if we did. A book like that shows you that half the things

we do aren't nearly as amusing as sticking at home in the country and

looking about you."

The Squire warmed to him. "That's a very sensible thing to say. The

nonsense people talk about the country being dull! Dull! It's the

people that say it who are dull. They've got no resources in

themselves. Now my grandfather--you can see what he knew about nature

by his diaries. But that wasn't his only interest by any means. He

had an electrical apparatus, when they weren't nearly as common as they

are now. He read books--stiff books, some of them. He was a man of

brains as well as muscle, and in the life he chose to lead he had time

and opportunity for exercising his brains. Oh, I say that the country

life is the best life, undoubtedly. And I go further, and say that

those who have a stake in the country--own land, and so forth--are

doing a criminal thing if they don't spend a good part of their lives

on their properties, instead of spending the money they get from them

elsewhere."

"I quite agree with you," said Bobby Trench, anxious to fix the good

impression he had made, and also to put a point to these observations.

"Have your fling for a year or two when you're young, and then marry

and settle down. You don't want to tie yourself by the leg, especially

if you have a certain place in the world--House of

Lords--Committees--all that sort of thing. But make your _home_ in the

country, I say. Bring up your children in pure air--fresh milk, and

all that. You know, Mr. Clinton, a house like Kencote makes you think

how jolly a simple country life may be made for everybody concerned.

Early to bed, early to rise, church on Sundays, good food and drink,

something to shoot, and all that sort of thing, and your family and

relations coming down to liven you up--oh, it's life, that's what it

is. All the rest is footle, compared with it."

A Daniel come to judgment! Saul among the prophets! Never had the

shining example of Kencote, where wealth and ancestry adorned but did

not overpower a God-fearing simplicity of life, received a more

effective testimonial. Forgotten were Bobby Trench's offences against

its ordered ways, withdrawn the Squire's strictures on his manners and

character. He had found salvation. Kencote--and its owner--had

triumphed exceedingly.

But Bobby Trench's speech, while offering most acceptable incense, had

brought to mind the object with which he had installed himself at

Kencote. This the Squire had, for the time, completely forgotten, and

was not yet ready to exercise his mind upon it. So with a "Well, I

mustn't make you talk too much," he took his leave, promising to come

again shortly, and in the meantime to send other visitors.

These did not, on the first day of Bobby Trench's convalescence,

include any of the ladies of the house; but, on the day after, Mrs.

Clinton, urged by the Squire, paid him a visit.

Bobby Trench could make no headway with her. She was solicitous as to

his welfare, ready to talk in an unembarrassed and even friendly

fashion; but kept him, beneath her ostensible approach, so at arm's

length that when she left him he had not found it possible to ask, as

he had meant to do, that Joan or Nancy--he was prepared to blunt the

point of his request by including Nancy--might pay him a visit. And

what Bobby Trench did not find it possible to ask of anybody was not

likely to come about of itself. For further female society he had to

be content with that of Susan Clinton, who, on already intimate terms

with him, promised to do what she could to make things "easy all round."

This she essayed to do by hymning his courage at the call of danger,

patience in affliction, and amiability under all weathers; but found

none to take up her praises, except Humphrey, to a politic degree of

indifference, and the Squire, who admitted that he had been mistaken in

that young fellow, and had found him with a head on his shoulders, and

a very proper idea as to what he should do with his place in the world

when he should succeed to it.

This positive praise, after a long course of unmeasured abuse, only

seemed to Joan, listening to it dispiritedly, a flick of the lash to

start her on the road along which she conceived her father wishing to

drive her, and caused her, if the ungallant simile may be carried out,

to set her feet the more obstinately against it. It had much the same

effect upon Mrs. Clinton, who foresaw herself plied with an enlargement

on this theme, and forced either to obey, or else openly resist,

directions founded upon it. Susan's intervention had only affected the

already converted, except to insubordination, and would have been

better omitted.

But what lover can eschew the use of weapons so ready to hand as the

good nature of uninterested parties, or gauge their dangerous futility?

Only in the case of the adored object being predisposed to adore is

intentionally distilled praise treated without suspicion, and likely to

achieve its object; which in that case is already achieved.

CHAPTER VI

JOAN REBELLIOUS

Joan, more or less recovered from her indisposition, still looked upon

the world as a place from which all happiness had for ever fled. She

mooned about the house doing nothing, and only felt that youth had not

altogether departed from her when she was with her mother, who, in her

calm stability, was a refuge from the buffetings of life, but seemed to

be holding aloof from the troubles she must have known her girl to be

undergoing.

Dick had gone up to Yorkshire to shoot with John Spence, and taken

Virginia and Nancy with him. The invitation had been extended to Joan;

but the Squire had said, with what she felt to be treacherous

affection, "Surely, you're not _both_ going to desert your old father!"

and she had refused; partly because she had dreaded lest acceptance

should bring down upon her a direct prohibition, and the obliquity of a

parent, whom she still wished to respect if she could, would stand

revealed in all its nakedness; partly because Nancy had given her no

encouragement, and as things were between them, it would be a relief to

be apart for a time. Her mother had said nothing to influence her

either way.

Walter had taken his wife and children back to London, leaving Bobby

Trench in the care of the local surgeon. Frank had gone back to

Greenwich, where he was taking a course. Humphrey and Susan were

paying a flying visit to Hampshire, to arrange about the work to be

done at Denny Croft. But there would be a mild recrudescence of

Christmas gaieties in a week's time, when there was to be another ball,

for which most of the party would reassemble.

Joan was sitting in the schoolroom, feeling very low and miserable, and

wondering what was coming of it all, when she was surprised by the

entrance of her father, who visited this quarter of the house at

intervals so rare as to have permitted it to assume the character of a

retreat.

"Well, my girl," he said paternally. "The house seems so empty that I

thought I'd come up for a little chat."

It was the hour when Mrs. Clinton visited her recumbent guest, leaving

the nurse free for an airing. Joan had occasionally accompanied her in

her walks, but found them too apt to be filled with talk about her

patient, couched in such laudatory language that Joan suspected the

patient of having taken her into his confidence. In justice to him it

must be said that the suspicion was unfounded, and in justice to the

nurse that she had eyesight not less acute than the rest of her sex.

There were times when Joan felt drawn to put her head on her father's

broad shoulder, and receive the protective petting which in his milder

moods he was as capable of administering as the most consistently

doting of parents. This would have been one of those times if it had

been possible to regard him as the solace as well as the occasion of

her trouble. But enough of the impulse remained to cause her to

welcome him with a sense of forgiveness, and to make room for him by

her side on the broad sofa.

He would have done well to respond to the movement, but, instead, he

took up his attitude of harangue in front of her, with his back to the

fire, and cleared his throat. She saw what was coming, and stiffened.

"Well, we shall have our invalid downstairs to-morrow," he made his

clumsy opening. "Wonderful recovery! 'Pon my word I'm beginning to

think that we shall see Walter a medical knight and I don't know what

all, before we're much older."

"I dare say it wasn't so bad, after all, as it was thought to be," said

Joan. "Men make such a fuss about a little pain. Women bear it much

better."

This speech caused the Squire to bend his brows upon her, traversing as

it did all the traditions in which she had been brought up as to the

relative values of the sexes, and challenging that prompt verbal

chastisement with which precocious rebellion must be dealt with, if

those values were to be preserved in his own household. But Joan's

eyes were downcast, and he took warning, without perceiving its source,

from a certain angle between the lines of her neck and her back, not to

pursue a by-path which would draw him--might indeed have been opened up

to draw him--from the road he had sought her out to pursue.

"Well, that's as may be," he said, dismissing the offence; "but the

pain has been borne well enough by this particular man; and if a charge

of shot at such close quarters that it lays bare the bone and splinters

it isn't pretty serious, I don't know what is. Walter told me that he

would never be able to raise that arm above his shoulder again, however

well it might heal."

Joan shuddered at the staring picture, and felt herself convicted of

brutal callousness.

"However," proceeded her father, who might advantageously have left an

interval for his words to make their effect, "the worst is over now,

and we ought to do what we can to cheer him up and help him to forget

it. It's been pretty dull for him, lying there, mostly alone. Your

mother has seen fit to object for some reason or other to your paying

him a visit in his room, though I think those ideas can be carried too

far, and there couldn't be any harm in it, especially as he's now on

the sofa."

Then her mother _was_ on her side, although she had said nothing to

her. Joan perceived quite plainly that her father had asked that she

might be taken to see Bobby Trench, and her mother had refused, as she

sometimes did refuse the requests of her lord and master, but only if

she considered them quite beyond reason. Joan was drawn to one parent,

and all the more set against the other.

"I don't like Mr. Trench," she said. "I shouldn't have gone to see

him, even if mother had said I might; unless she had said that I must."

"Well, she wouldn't be likely to say that, if you didn't want to," said

the Squire, determined to keep the interview on a note of mild

reasonableness, in spite of provocation. "But now, I should like to

know why you have taken a dislike to young Trench. I saw nothing of it

when he was here before."

"You told me, after he had come here in the summer, that I had been

making too free with him, and that you didn't want me to have anything

to do with young cubs like that; and that if I wasn't careful how I

behaved I should find myself back in the schoolroom with Miss Phipp."

The Squire had an uneasy feeling that he had given his younger

daughters too much rope, and should have to bring them up with a round

turn one of these days. But this was not the occasion.

"Well, I remember I did say something of the sort," he said. "I was

upset by that Amberley business, and I've never gone back from the view

I took then that if you had behaved sensibly you need never have been

brought into it at all."

"How could I have helped it, father?"

"How could you have helped it? Why---- But I don't want to go into

all that again. It's over and done with, thank God, and we can put it

out of our minds."

"I'm sure I don't want to talk about it. But it's rather hard to know

what to do, when you scold me for having anything to do with Mr. Trench

one day, and want to know why I won't have anything to do with him the

next."

It was probably at this moment that the Squire realised that his

daughter was grown up. She spoke to him as his sons were accustomed to

speak, with an offhand air of equality, to which, in them, he did not

object. It was not, however, fitting in his eyes that he should be

thus addressed by Joan, and he turned aside from his purpose to say,

"I'm sure you don't mean to be impertinent, but that's not the way to

speak to your father. Besides--one day and the next day! That's

nonsense, you know. It must be over six months since I said whatever

it was I did say, and you were a good deal younger then."

"I was six months younger--that's all."

"Well, six months is six months; and a good deal can happen in six

months. I've nothing to regret in what I said six months ago, except

that I may have said it rather more strongly than I need have done,

annoyed as I was."

"Then you don't think that Mr. Trench was really a young cub, after

all?"

"I wish you wouldn't keep on repeating those words. They are not words

for you to say, whatever _I_ may say. But if you ask me a plain

question, and put it properly, I don't mind telling you that I was to a

certain extent mistaken in young Trench. He has a way with him, on the

surface, that I didn't care about, though I don't know that it means

anything more than that he has naturally high spirits, which are not a

bad thing to have when you are young."

"But he isn't so very young. He must be at least thirty-five. _I_

think his way is a very silly way, and he is quite old enough to know

better."

It was a choice of repeating her words, "_You_ think!" and going on to

explain with strong irritability that it didn't matter what she

thought; or swallowing the offence. For he could not very well follow

his inclination to upbraid, without seriously impairing his efficacy

for reasoning with her. He chose the latter course.

"A man of thirty-five is a young man in these days, especially if he

has led an active, temperate, open-air life, as young fellows in good

circumstances do lead now-a-days."

"But I thought one of your objections to him was that he lived too much

in London."

He waved the interruption aside. "Even people who live for the most

part in London--work there, perhaps--well, like Walter does--have a

taste for country life, and go in for sport and so forth whenever they

have the opportunity. In the old days it wasn't so. There was a story

of some big political wig--I forget who it was--Fox or Walpole or Pitt,

or one of those fellows--who had the front of his country house paved

with cobble stones, and made them drive carriages about half the night

whenever he had to be there, so as to make him think he was in St.

James's, with the hackney-coaches. Said he couldn't sleep otherwise.

Ha, ha!"

"What a good idea!" said Joan, brightening to an opportunity of

diverting the conversation. "I think stories about people in the

eighteenth century are awfully interesting. Father, you have books of

reminiscences about them in the library, haven't you?"

"Oh yes. Your great grandfather used to read them. He knew Fox; saw

him come into the Cocoa-Tree one night and call for a bumper of----

However, that's not what we were talking about. But it's got this much

to do with it, that men like Fox were looked upon as middle-aged men at

five and thirty, and old men, by George, at fifty; but a man of

thirty-five now is a young man, and it's all owing to the revival of

country life and country sport, which, as I say, everybody who is

anybody takes part in now-a-days, whether he's a Londoner or not."

"Yes, I see. But I like the people who live regularly in the country,

like you, and Dick, and Jim. I think it's much the best life for a

man, and a girl too. I should like to live it always, myself."

"Yes, well, I hope you will--for a good part of the year, at any rate.

Of course, you can't expect to live at home--here at Kencote, I

mean--all your life. You're grown up, now, and when young fledglings

feel their wings, you know, the parent birds must make up their minds

to lose them out of the nest."

"But they would like to keep them if they could. You don't want to

lose me, father, do you?"

She looked up at him for the first time, and he was checked in the

march of his desires. A doubt came to him whether he did want her to

leave the nest just yet awhile. It was so very short a time since he

had looked upon her and Nancy as still children, hardly longer, indeed,

as it seemed, since they had made their somewhat disconcerting arrival,

and from being a laughable addition to his family, of which he had been

the least little bit ashamed, had found their way to his heart, and

sensibly heightened the already strong attraction of his home. If

Nancy was about to leave him, as to his great surprise he had recently

heard was likely to happen, and to take just the kind of husband whom

he had always desired for his daughters, could he not make up his mind

to forego for a few years the advantages held out to Joan, who had

always been a little closer to the centre of his heart? Was it so very

important that she should marry a man of rank, if he took the form of

Bobby Trench, when there were men like John Spence--good, honest,

well-born, wealthy country gentlemen, men after his own heart--who were

ready to come forward in due time?

These questions presented themselves to him in the form of an uneasy

feeling that he might find himself obliged to change his course, if he

should consider them carefully. He therefore shut his mind to them as

quickly as possible; for there is nothing a hasty obstinate character

dislikes more than to be compelled to prove himself in the wrong. When

others try to prove him in the wrong, he can stand up to them.

"My dear child," he said, "of course I don't want to lose you. But

when one is getting on in years, you know--not that I'm an old

man--hope to have many years in front of me yet, please God--one

doesn't live only in the present. You look forward into the future,

and you like to see your children married and settled down before the

time comes when you must get ready to go. And now we've got on to the

subject of marrying and settling down, I just want to say a word to you

which you mustn't misunderstand, or think I'm trying in any way to

influence you, which is the very last thing I should wish to do--but as

a father one is bound to put these matters in a light--not the most

important light perhaps, but still one that a young girl can hardly be

expected to take much into consideration herself--it wouldn't be

advisable that she should. In short--well, now we _are_ on the

subject--this very young man--young Trench, whom we've been discussing,

as it turns out--er---- This is what I want to say to you--that I've

reason to believe that--er--there's a certain young lady--ha! ha! that

_he'd_ like to marry and settle down with, and--er----"

"But wasn't that exactly what you came upstairs to say to me, father?"

asked Joan, with innocent open eyes, inwardly girding herself to

contempt against this transparent duplicity, and hardening herself to

make it as uncomfortable as possible for him to say what he had to say,

even to the point of exhibiting herself as almost immodestly

experienced.

He stared at her. "What!" he exclaimed. "You have had it in your mind

all along?"

"You put it there, father," she retorted. "I'm grown up now. I've got

eyes in my head. I knew there must be _some_ reason for your making

mother ask him here, when she dislikes him just as much as I do, and

after you had always said that _you_ disliked him just as much, or

more."

He gulped down oceans of displeasure and inclination to rebuke. "Now

look here," he said. "Let's have no more harping on that string, and

no more silly and undutiful speeches. You say you are grown-up. Very

well, then, you can listen to sense; and you can talk sense if you wish

it. I've already said that young Trench displeased me when he stayed

here before; and, as you keep on reminding me, I said so at the time

pretty plainly. It's my custom to speak plainly, and I've nothing to

regret in that. If he acted in the same way now, I should object just

as strongly. But the whole point is that he would _not_ act in the

same way now. It is not I that have changed; it is he. Perhaps you're

right, to a certain extent, in saying that he was old enough to know

better. But a young fellow in his position is apt to keep on sowing

his wild oats when others who have to begin to take a serious view of

life more early have left off doing it. Anyhow, he has left off doing

it now. He told me himself, and I was gratified to hear it, that

seeing how life went in a house like this turned him round to see that

he had been playing the fool. There's nothing wrong with him at

bottom, any more than there is anything wrong with Humphrey, who played

the fool in much the same way for years after he ought to have done,

but has come to see you can't go on playing the fool all your life, and

is now quite ready to settle down in a sensible way. You'll find when

you come to talk to young Trench--when he comes down

to-morrow--that----"

"I'm not going to talk to him," Joan interrupted. "I don't like him."

Well, really! Was it possible to talk sensibly to women at all? Would

the clearest logic and reason weigh a grain against their obstinate

likes and dislikes? Was it worth while going on?

"Are you going to listen to what I have to say, or not?" he asked

impatiently. "Or do you want to be----"

"Sent to bed?" Joan took him up. "Yes, father, I think you had better

send me to bed. I know I'm being a very naughty girl, but you won't

make me like Mr. Trench, however long you talk."

"You _are_ naughty. You are laying yourself out to annoy me. There is

no question of my _making_ you like Mr. Trench, and you know that as

well as I do. I am simply asking you to behave with ordinary courtesy

to a visitor in my house, who has been seriously hurt in coming to the

rescue of my own men--and in the pluckiest way too, and might very well

have been killed. Is that too much to expect my own daughter to do, I

should like to know, or----?"

"Oh no, father. Of course I shall be polite. I didn't know that was

all you wanted."

"Yes, it _is_ all I want. You are taking up a most extraordinary and

unwarrantable position. Anyone would think, to hear you talk, that I

had come up here to order you to marry young Trench out of hand. You

see how outrageous it sounds when you put it plainly."

"Yes, I know it does; but I thought it was what you meant."

"Well, then, it is _not_ what I meant, or anything like it. I'm the

last man in the world who would put any pressure on his daughters to

marry anybody; and when no word of marriage has been mentioned it seems

to me indelicate in the highest degree for a girl as young as you to be

turning it over and discussing it in the open way you do. It's what

comes of letting you gad about here and there and everywhere, amongst

all sorts of people; and I tell you I won't have it."

Joan was enchanted. His leg was over the back of his favourite horse

now, and she only had to give it a flick in the flank to set it

galloping off with him.

"But, father dear, I haven't been gadding about. It is six months and

more since I went to Brummels; and I'm sure I never want to go there

again, after all you said about it, and the people I met there."

He reined in. The course was too difficult. "You're in a very

tiresome and obstinate mood," he said, "and I don't like it. I come up

here to spend a quiet half-hour with you, and you do nothing but set

yourself to annoy me. But there's one thing I insist upon; I won't

have you making yourself disagreeable to a guest in my house. When

young Trench comes downstairs to-morrow, it's our common duty to cheer

him up and try to make up to him for all he has gone through on our

account. And you have got to do your share of it, and Nancy too, when

she comes home. Now do you quite understand that?"

"Oh yes, father," said Joan. "I quite understand that."

"Very well, then. Mind you do it."

With which words the Squire left the room with an air of victory.

CHAPTER VII

DISAPPOINTMENTS

Joan was so far fortified by her conversation with her father that she

was quite prepared to play her part in entertaining Bobby Trench when

he exchanged the sofa in his bedroom for one in the morning-room.

She had proved to herself that there was little to fear. Her own

weapons had been effective in turning aside any that had been brought,

or could be brought, against her. Her mother, although she had not

spoken, was on her side, her father had been routed and was sulking.

No one else was likely to assail her, unless it was Bobby Trench

himself; and him alone she had never feared.

She was even well-disposed towards him, and ready to amuse herself in

the momentary dulness of the house, as well as him, by playing games,

and forgetting, as far as was possible, in his spirited society, the

troubles that beset her.

She was, to tell the truth, not unsympathetically shocked at his

appearance when she first gave him greeting. Although his speech was

as fluent and lively as ever, his face was pale and thin, and there was

no ignoring the seriousness of his bound-up wound. But he took it all

so lightly that some sense of the ready pluck he had shown came home to

her, and abated her prejudice against him, which, indeed, had hardly

existed until he had been presented to her mind as an encouraged wooer.

As for him, his enforced absence from her society, while yet he knew

that she was under the same roof, had set him thinking about her with

ever-increasing desire; and to find her, in her fresh young beauty, not

holding him at arm's length, as she had done on the night of the ball,

but smiling and friendly--this was to bind the cords of love till more

tightly around him, and cause him most sweet discomfort in keeping them

hidden.

And yet, by the time the house filled again, he could not congratulate

himself on having made any progress with her. She would laugh with him

and at him, and keep him agreeable company for an hour or two hours

together, during which time their intimacy appeared to be founded on a

complete and happy community of taste; but at a word or hint of

love-making she would freeze, and if it was persisted in, she would

leave him.

The poor man was in torments, underneath his gay exterior. If her

behaviour had been designed to draw him on and enmesh him completely,

it could not have been more effective. She was merry with him, because

now she liked him, as a diversion from her lonely, sad-coloured

thoughts. She could forget her estrangement from Nancy when she was

playing with him, and the overcasting of her long-familiar life; and

she felt so confident of being able to hold him in his place that the

designs she knew him to be cherishing no longer troubled her at all.

But how was he to escape the perpetual hope that her obvious increase

of liking for him was developing into something warmer than mere

liking? And how was he to avoid now and then putting that hope to the

test, seeing her so frank and so sweetly desirable? He was always cast

down to the ground when he did so. Love had not blunted his native

acuteness, and there was no mistaking the state of rising aversion in

which she met and parried his tentative advances. In that only was she

different from what she had been; for, before, she had parried them

with a demure mischievousness, which had shown her taking enjoyment in

the exercise of her wits. Now she used other weapons, and made it

plain that her friendliness would not stand the strain, if she was to

be put to those contests.

And yet liking and love cannot be kept in separate compartments in such

circumstances as these. Liking, if it grows big enough, becomes love

some day or other. He knew that, and she didn't; which was why he put

very strong constraint on himself, made few mistakes in the way of

premature soundings, and set himself diligently to be the indispensable

companion of her days. The underlying contest, viewed from without,

would have been seen to turn upon the question of his possessing

qualities which would satisfy the deeper currents of her nature.

Gaiety and courage he had, and self-control, if he cared to exercise

it. Some amount of goodwill towards the world at large, also; but that

was apt to hang upon the satisfaction or otherwise that he received

from it. It was likely to come out at its strongest in his present

condition of mind, and to throw into shadow his innate triviality.

It always seemed to Joan that he showed up least attractively in the

presence of her mother, and this although he seemed more anxious to

please her than he did to please Joan herself.

Bobby Trench could never have said that Mrs. Clinton was not giving him

his chance. She never came into the room as if she wished to keep

guard, nor turned a disapproving face upon the merriment that he made

with Joan. She would respond to his sallies, and her smile was free,

if it was aroused at all.

He thought that he had taken her measure. She was at heart a serious

woman, and on that account she could not be expected to take very

readily to him, for he hated seriousness, and it was out of his power

to disguise it. But she was a nonentity in this house: he had heard

her husband speak to her. The Squire was warmly in his favour, for

reasons which were too obvious to need stating, and those reasons might

be expected to appeal equally to Mrs. Clinton, who would also follow

her husband's lead in everything. He did think that it was owing to

her that Joan had been prevented from visiting him upstairs, for the

Squire had given him that hint, without intending to do so. But he put

that down to her old-fashioned prudery, and had forgiven her for it,

since she now seemed quite willing to leave Joan alone with him. She

might practically be disregarded as far as effective opposition was

concerned; but it would be as well to keep on her right side, for Joan

was evidently very fond of her, and by commending himself to her he

would commend himself to Joan.

None but a shallow brain could have judged of Mrs. Clinton as a

nonentity, when opportunities for observing her were such as Bobby

Trench enjoyed. The very fact that when she was present his humour

seemed even to him to wear thin, and the conversation always followed

the paths into which she directed it, might have warned him of that

error. The paths she chose were not such as he could disport himself

in to any advantage, although she trod them naturally enough, and Joan

followed her as if she liked taking them.

Ideas make the best talk, someone has said, then things, then people.

Bobby Trench could talk about people all day and all night if he were

to be called upon; his experience had been wide, he had a fund of

anecdote, and a quick eye for a point. To talk well about "things,"

you want reading and knowledge, of which he had little. To talk well

about ideas, you want some of your own, and he had but few. He heard

Joan, to his surprise, venturing herself with interest on subjects to

which he had never given a moment's thought, and on which his readily

produced speeches were like those of a child pushing into and spoiling

the converse of its elders. Joan would sometimes look at him in

surprise, as if he had said something particularly foolish, when he was

not aware of having done so. He felt at a disadvantage.

He could not see that the question of woman's suffrage, which he

started himself, was not satisfactorily covered by funny stories about

the suffragettes, and thought Mrs. Clinton a bore for going on with it.

She asked him about plays which he had seen and of which she had read,

and he told her about actors and actresses. Of books he knew nothing.

They were not much talked about at Kencote, but Mrs. Clinton read a

good deal, and so did Joan and Nancy, and talked between themselves of

what they read. It was impossible to keep allusion altogether out of

their talk, although they spared him as much as possible, having been

trained to do so in the similar case of the Squire, whose broad view of

literature was that as nobody had written better than Shakespeare, it

was waste of time to read anything else until you had thoroughly

mastered _him_, in which modest feat, however, he had not himself made

any startling progress. But Bobby Trench, otherwise quite at ease as

to his ignorance on such negligible matters, felt that it would have

been to his benefit with Mrs. Clinton, and possibly with Joan, if he

could have done with rather less explanation of points that were

readily appreciated by either of them.

And yet no intellectual demands would have been made of a man like John

Spence that would have shown him to disadvantage if he had not been

able to meet them. His simple modesty would have fared better than

Bobby Trench's superficial smartness, because he would never have tried

to shine, and, failing, made a parade of his ignorance. He would have

been tried by other tests, and come through them.

It was by these other tests that Bobby Trench stood or fell with Mrs.

Clinton, not by his lack of intellectual interests.

What did he ask of life for himself?

A good time.

How did he stand with regard to the wealth and position which were the

unacknowledged cause of his being where he was? Were they to be held

as opportunities?

Yes, for giving him a good time.

What had he to bestow on others?

Luncheons, dinners, suppers, boxes at theatres, motor trips, yachting

trips--all the material for a good time--on his equals; money tips,

drinks, an occasional patronising cigar, on such of his inferiors as

served or pleased him, so that he might imagine them also to be having

a good time, according to their degree.

What did he demand from those of whom he made his friends?

Assistance in the great aim of having a good time, which cannot be

enjoyed alone. Nothing beyond that; no steadfastness in friendship, no

character; only the power to amuse or to share amusement.

That was Bobby Trench, as he revealed himself from day to day to the

woman whom he treated with almost patronising attention, and considered

a nonentity. Whether he so revealed himself to Joan there was nothing

yet to show; but it was unlikely that she would have so clear a vision,

or indeed that a good time, if he could persuade her that it was in his

power to offer it, would not appeal to her, at her age, as of more

importance than her mother could have desired.

Joan scanned Nancy's face on her return home for signs of relenting,

and of a story completed. Neither appeared. Nancy kissed her lightly,

and said, "We've had an awfully cold journey." Joan's heart sank again.

"How did you enjoy yourself?" she asked.

"Oh, awfully. It is a splendid great house, bigger than this, and much

older. There were a lot of people staying there. We danced in the

ball-room every night, and had great fun. Dick's leg is pretty well

right now, though he had to shoot from a pony. How is Mr. Trench?"

The bald sentences marked the gulf that had opened between them. And

there had not been a word of John Spence.

He dined at Kencote that night. Joan saw how much in love he was with

Nancy; and indeed it was plain to everybody. The Squire was in the

highest state of good humour. He had had no more trouble with Joan,

and no longer sulked with her, having frequently made a third or fourth

in the society of the morning-room, and judged everything to be going

on there as he would have had it. And now there was this other affair,

going also exactly as he would have it. He felt that Providence was

busily at work on his behalf, and showed that it had the welfare of the

landed interest, in a general sort of way, at heart.

The landed interest, though, had to keep a look-out on its own account,

if those responsible were to be properly treated by the rank and file

partly concerned in its continuance. There was a slight set-back the

next morning, which the Squire took more to heart than seemed warranted.

The under-keeper, Gotch, who had come to Humphrey's rescue in the wood,

and behaved well in the affair generally, had been thanked, and told

that some substantial recognition of his merits would be considered,

and in due course certainly made.

The Squire now had the satisfaction of being able to see his way to a

more handsome reward than he had at first thought of, or than was,

indeed, called for in the case of a man who had merely acted well in

the course of his duty. But he prided himself on taking an interest in

the welfare of all his servants; he was accustomed to say that he was

not like those who treated them as machines; and he was genuinely

pleased that circumstances brought it about that he could do Gotch a

very good turn, also at the prospect of telling him so.

Gotch came to see him, on summons, in his business room. He was a fine

specimen of country-bred manhood, about thirty years of age, upright

and clean of limb, with a resourceful look on his open, weather-tanned

face, and speech quiet, but readier and more direct than is usual with

men of his class. He stood in his well-kept velveteens, cap in hand

before his master, and looked him in the face when he addressed him.

"Well, Gotch," said the Squire, taking up his usual position in front

of the fire. "I hear you've been making love, what?"

"Yes, sir," said Gotch, dropping his eyes for a moment.

"Clark, eh? Lady Susan Clinton's maid. Well, she seems a very

respectable young woman, from what I've seen of her, and her ladyship

tells me she's saved a bit of money, which is satisfactory, what? And

I dare say you've saved a bit yourself."

"Yes, sir."

"When do you want to get married?"

The question was asked with business-like curtness, and was answered as

shortly. "Soon as possible, sir."

"Yes. Well now, I've been turning things over in my mind, Gotch. I

told you that I should do something for you, to mark my appreciation of

the way you behaved in the affair with those scoundrels in Buckle Wood.

In one way, you only did your duty, as anybody in my employ is expected

to do it; but that's not the way I look at things. Those who do well

by me--I like to do well by them; and there's not much doubt that if

you hadn't--or somebody hadn't--hit that ruffian on the head--and just

at the moment you did, too, by George--it might have gone very hard for

Mr. Humphrey. I don't like to think of what would have happened."

"Thank you, sir," said Gotch, as there came a pause in the flow of

eloquence.

"Very well, then. You want to get married. In the ordinary way you

couldn't just yet, because there isn't a cottage. Now, Gotch, I'll

build you a cottage. I've been talking it over with Captain Clinton,

and we've decided to do that. There's a site in Buckle Wood about a

hundred yards in from the gate on the Bathgate Road that'll be the very

thing. I dare say you know the place I mean--that clearing hard by the

brook. You shall have a good six-roomed house and a nice bit of garden

and so forth, and everything that you can want for bringing up a

family. Ha! ha! must look forward a bit, you know, in these matters.

And there you'll be till the time comes when--well, I won't make any

promises, and Rattray isn't an old man yet--but when he comes to the

end of his time, if you go on as you've begun, you take his place as

head-keeper. And let me tell you that head-keeper on a place like

Kencote is about as good a job as any man has a right to look forward

to. You'll follow some good men--men that have been written about in

books, amongst them--and I believe you'll fill the place as well as any

of them. You've got that to look forward to, Gotch, and in the

meantime you'll be very nearly as well off as Rattray. In fact, your

house will be a better house than his. We did think of moving him

there and putting you into his cottage, but decided not. Now what have

you got to say, Gotch? Will that meet your views?"

Gotch turned his cap in his hands. "Well, sir," he said. "I'm sure

I'm very much obliged to you and Captain Clinton too. It's a handsome

return for what I done, and kindly thought of."

"Well, we think kindly of you, Gotch," said the Squire. "I hope we

think kindly of all the people on the place, and do what we can for

their happiness. But we owe you something special, and it's right that

we should _do_ something special."

It was not, in fact, anything remarkably self-sacrificing that the

Squire intended to do. There was a dearth of cottages at Kencote, as

there is on so many otherwise well-managed country estates. Young

people who wished to marry were sometimes prevented from doing so for

years, and there were cases of overcrowding in existing cottages,

which, while not amounting to a scandal, might possibly be worked up

into one by hostile critics. A new medical officer of health, residing

outside the sphere of the Squire's social influence, and more than

suspected of Radical tendencies, had caused notices to be served during

the past year; and, worse than that, a London journalist spending his

holidays at a farmhouse just outside the manor of Kencote had poked his

nose in where he had no business to take it, and written a very

one-sided article on the depopulation of rural England, with Kencote

and its owner as a text. The Squire had been greatly scandalised, and

would have rushed instantly into print had not Dick's cooler head

restrained him. Unfair and ill-informed as both of them judged the

article to be, there was enough truth in it to give the enemy a handle.

There _was_ overcrowding, though not to any serious extent; and there

_was_ a dearth of cottage accommodation.

"Much better build a few, and stop their mouths," said Dick.

"It doesn't pay to build cottages," said the Squire. "It can't pay,

with these ridiculous bye-laws."

"Can't be helped," said Dick. "We can afford to make this property a

model one up to a point, and we'd much better take the bone out of

their mouths. It isn't a very big one. It will only cost us a few

hundreds to satisfy everybody. And they'll like our doing it less than

anything. Besides, we've got to do something. That fellow Moxon has a

wife and five children sleeping in two rooms, and that sort of thing

simply doesn't do now-a-days."

The Squire looked at him suspiciously. "I think Virginia has been

putting some of her American notions into your head," he said. "It did

well enough in my grandfather's time, and he was much ahead of his time

in that sort of thing. He built model cottages before anybody, almost,

and Kencote has always been considered----"

"Oh, well, we needn't go into all that," interrupted Dick. "Moxon has

been served with a notice, and if we don't do something for him we

shall lose him. Let's be ahead of _our_ time. There hasn't been a

brick laid on the place for fifty years or more, except at the home

farm and the stables here. It won't do any harm to improve the

property in that way, and we've got the money in hand. We might begin

with another keeper's cottage. We ought to have somebody in Buckle

Wood."

And that was how it all came to fit in so nicely with the reward due to

Gotch, turning his cap round in his hands in front of his master.

"Well, sir," said Gotch, "if I was thinking of keeping to what I've

been doing--and comfortable enough at it under you and Captain

Clinton--for the rest of my life, nothing wouldn't have suited me

better, and I take leave to thank you for it. But as you was so good

as to say you was going to do something substantial for me, me and 'er

talked it over, and we were going to ask you if you'd help us to get

over to Canada, to start farming. She's got a brother there what's

doing well, and I'd look to do as well as him if I could get a fair

start."

The Squire heard him out, but his heavy brows came together, and by the

end of the speech had met in a frown of displeasure. One of the points

made by the London journalist had been that the best blood and muscle

of the countryside was being drafted overseas, because by the

selfishness of landowners there was no room for them in rural England;

and here was a man for whom room was being made in the most generous

manner, who wished to join in the altogether unnecessary stampede.

"Canada!" he echoed impatiently. "I think you fellows think that the

soil is made of gold in Canada. What do _you_, of all people, want to

go dancing off to Canada for? You're not a practical farmer, and even

if you were there'd be better chances for you in the old country than

in all the Canadas in the world."

"Well, you know more about these things than I do, sir," said Gotch

respectfully. "And I don't say as I should want to go if it was all in

the air like. But there's 'er brother's offer open to me. He'll put

me into the way of doing as well as he done himself, if I can take a

bit of money out with me. He's a well-to-do man, and he wasn't no

better than me when he went over there ten years ago."

"Well, and ain't I giving you the offer of being a well-to-do man,

without pulling up stakes and starting again in a new country? What

more can a man want than to have a good home and situation secured to

him, on which he can marry and bring up a family, and work that he's

fitted for and likes? You do like your work, don't you?"

"Yes, sir, I should like it better than anything, if----"

"If what?"

"Well, I hope you won't take it amiss what I says, sir; but every man

what's worth anything likes to be his own master, sir. It don't mean

that he's any complaint to make of them as he serves; and I haven't no

complaint--far otherwise. I've done my best by you, sir, and knowed as

I should get credit for it, and be well treated, as I 'ave been most

handsome, by your kind offer. But it isn't just what I want, sir, and

I make bold to say so, hoping not to be misunderstood."

"Oh, you're not misunderstood," said the Squire, unsoftened by this

straightforward speech. "The fact is that you've got some pestilent

socialistic notion in your head that I'm very sorry to see there. I

didn't think it of you, Gotch, and I don't like it. I don't like it at

all. It's ungrateful."

"I'm sure I shouldn't wish to be that, sir."

"But you are that. Don't you see that you are? A master has his duty

towards those under him, and in my case I'm going out of my way to do

more than my duty to you. But a man has his duty towards his master

too. That's what seems to be forgotten now-a-days. It's all self.

I'm offering you something that ninety-nine men out of a hundred would

jump at in your position, and you throw it in my face. You won't be

any happier as your own master, I can tell you that. You've learnt

your Catechism, and you know what it says about doing your duty in the

state of life to which you are called. You are called plainly to the

state of life in which you can do your share in keeping up the

institutions that have made this country what it is; and you won't be

doing right if you try to go outside it."

"Well, you'll excuse me, sir, if I don't see things quite in the same

light. As long as I'm in your service, sir, I'll do my duty as well as

I know how. But every man has got a right to try and better himself,

to my way of thinking, and I did hope as how you'd see that, and lend

me a hand to do well for myself."

The Squire straightened himself. "I see it's no use talking sensibly

to you, Gotch," he said. "You simply repeat the same things over and

over again. If you want me to promise you money to take you out of the

country when I think it's plainly pointed out by Providence that you

should stay in it, I'm sorry I don't see my way to oblige you. In the

meantime you may consider the offer I made to you open for the present.

It's a very good one, and you'll be a fool if you don't take it. And I

shan't keep it open indefinitely. I shouldn't keep it open at all,

after the way you have spoken, if it hadn't been for what you did a

fortnight ago. And it's that or nothing."

He turned towards his writing table. Gotch, after a pause as if he

were going to say something more, glanced at the profile presented to

him, said, "Thank you, sir," and went out.

CHAPTER VIII

PROPOSALS

"Well, my dear, everybody seems to be busily employed except you and

me. It's a fine morning. Supposing we go for a walk together!"

Lord Sedbergh beamed upon Joan affectionately. He was a stoutish,

elderly man, with a large, clean-shaven face, not unhandsome, and

noticeably kind, and a bald head fringed with grey-white hair. He had

arrived at Kencote the afternoon before, to find his son recovering as

fast as could be hoped for, and to make a pleasant impression on the

company there assembled by his readiness to make friends all round. He

and the Squire were cronies already, and took delight in reminiscences

of their bright youth, which seemed to come nearer to them at every

story told.

The sky was clear and frosty, the sun bestowed mild brilliance on the

browns and purples and greens of the winter landscape, the roads were

hard and clean under foot. It was the right morning for a long walk,

that form of recreation so seldom enjoyed for its own sake by the

Squire of Kencote and his likes. He came to the door as Joan and Lord

Sedbergh were setting out together, and expressed a hope that Joan was

not boring her companion. "I've got things that I _must_ do for

another hour or so," he said; "but we could go up to the home farm at

eleven o'clock if that suited you; and the papers will be here in

half-an-hour."

"My dear Edward," said Lord Sedbergh, "I wouldn't lose my walk with my

friend Joan for all the home farms in the world, or all the papers that

were ever written. And as for her boring me, she couldn't do it if she

tried. Come along, Joan."

Lord Sedbergh had a trace of the garrulity that distinguished the

conversation of his son, but it was a ripe garrulity, founded on wide

experience of the world, and great good will towards mankind. And he

had gifts of taste and knowledge besides, although his indolence had

prevented him making any significant use of them. Joan found him the

most agreeable company, almost as diverting as her uncle, Sir Herbert

Birkett, and just as informative as an elderly man has a right to be

with an intelligent young girl for her entertainment, and no more.

He told her about his early life in foreign cities, and amused her with

his stories. An easy strain of past intimacy with notable people and

events ran through his talk.

"Life was very interesting in those days," he said. "I often wish I

had stuck to diplomacy. I might have been an ambassador by this

time--probably should have been."

"Why did you give it up?" asked Joan.

"Well, to tell you the truth, my dear, if I hadn't given it up when I

did I should have been appointed to the Embassy at Washington; and

don't breathe a word of it to your charming sister-in-law, but I have

no particular use for America. There it is, you see--probably, after

all, I should not have been made an ambassador. It wasn't the

diplomatic game I so much cared about, or Washington would have done as

well as any other place to play it in. No, it was the life of foreign

cities I liked as a young man. I like it still. I go abroad a great

deal, and wander all over the place. I like pictures and churches now,

though I can't say I paid much attention to that sort of thing in the

old days. Yes, it is one of my chief pleasures now, to go abroad. I

have been all over Europe."

"I should love to go abroad," said Joan. "I have never been out of

England, and very seldom away from Kencote."

He looked at her affectionately. "You have a great deal of pleasure to

come," he said, "and I am very much hoping that it may come to me to

give you some of it. Tell me, my little Joan, are you going to give

that boy of mine what he wants?"

The abrupt transition threw her into confusion. She put her muff to

her mouth, and took it away again to stammer, "I don't know. I mean I

haven't thought of it--of anything."

He withdrew his eyes from her face. "Well, I suppose it is rather

impertinent of me to ask such a question," he said, "before he has

asked it himself. But I think it is plain enough that he wants to ask

it, if you will let him; and you see I'm so interested in the answer

you are going to give him, on my own account, that I find it difficult

to keep away from it. You must put it down to the impatience of old

age, Joan. The things old people want they want quickly."

"You are not old," said Joan in a turmoil.

"Not so old, my dear, but what we shall have many good times together,

if you come to us, as I hope you will. I shouldn't allow Bobby to

monopolise you, you know. When he did his bit of soldiering in the

summer you and I would go off on a trip together. And we'd drag him

away from his hunting sometimes, and go off in search of

sunshine--Egypt, Algiers, all sorts of places--make up a little party.

And you and I would get together at Brummels occasionally, and amuse

ourselves quietly while the rest of them were making a noise, as we did

before. Oh, I tell you, I've got very selfish designs on you, my dear;

but I shouldn't be in the way, you know; I should never be in the way.

I shouldn't want to make Bobby jealous."

It crossed Joan's mind that if he were to be always in the way, and

Bobby out of it, the proposal would be more attractive than it was at

present. But so many thoughts crossed her mind while he was speaking,

and she could not give expression to any one of them.

He looked at her with kind eyes. "You do like him, little Joan, don't

you?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, "but--oh, not in that way." Again her muff went to

her face.

A shade of disappointment crossed his. "Then I mustn't press you," he

said. "But you are very young, my dear. Perhaps some day----! And I

shall be a very pleased old man if I can one day have you for a

daughter. There would be a house ready for you, and all--a charming

house--you saw it--the Lodge, you know. I lived there when I was first

married. I should like to see _you_ there. I'd do it up for you from

top to toe, exactly as you liked it. And I'd give you a motorcar of

your own to get about in and pay your visits; and there are good

stables if you want to ride. I hope you would live there a good part

of the year, and there would be plenty of room for your friends and

relations. You would come to us, I hope, in London. Your own rooms

would be kept for you in my house, and you could have them as you

wanted them. There would be Scotland in the Autumn. You've never seen

Glenmuick. We're out all day there, and I don't know that it isn't

even better than going abroad. Bobby doesn't care about fishing, but I

think you would. We'd leave him to his stalking, and go off and spend

long days on the loch and by the river. You'd never get tired of that.

Then there's the yacht. You'd get lots of fun out of the yacht, if you

like that sort of thing. We generally go to Cowes, and have a little

cruise afterwards, just to blow away the cobwebs we get from amusing

ourselves too hard in London. You'd get lots of change, and your

pretty house as a background to it all, where you'd be queen of your

own kingdom, my little Joan. There now, it looks as if I were trying

to tempt you, with all sorts of things that wouldn't really matter,

unless you---- Well, of course, they do matter. Love in a cottage is

all very well, but I think young people are likely to get on better

together if they've both got something to do. And you'd have plenty to

do. I don't think you would ever feel dull."

If Mrs. Clinton had heard this speech she might not have felt so

confident of its failing of its purpose as she did when Bobby Trench

disclosed his views on life at its most attractive. It amounted to the

same exaltation of "a good time," but it sounded different from Lord

Sedbergh's lips--fresher, opening up vistas, to a country-bred girl,

who had only just sipped at the delights of change, and was in the

first flush of adventurous youth. The inherent tendency of such a life

as he had set forth to lose its salience, to satisfy no more than the

stay-at-home life, which Joan was beginning to find so dull, could

hardly be known to her at her age. It held of itself glamorous

possibilities, of which not the least was the astonishing change viewed

in herself. The girl who was liable to be told at any moment that if

she did not behave herself she should be sent to bed, by her father,

was the same girl that her father's friend thought of as the honoured

mistress of a household, one on whom gifts were to be showered, whose

society was to be courted, whose every wish was to be considered.

If only Bobby Trench were not included in the bright picture! And yet

she liked him now, and his society was never irksome.

"You are awfully kind to me," she fluttered. "But----"

"Oh, I know, my dear," he soothed her. "You couldn't possibly give me

any answer that I should like to have now. Only, I hope---- Well, I

do want you for Bobby, my little Joan. And he's very fond of you, you

know. It has made a different man of him--er--wanting you as he does.

That's the effect that the right sort of girl ought to have on a man.

Bobby will make a good husband, if he does get the right sort of girl;

I'm quite sure of that. She would be able to do anything with him that

she liked; make anything of him."

This was flattery of a searching kind, and it did seem to Joan that she

would be able to do anything she liked with Bobby Trench. As for Bobby

Trench's father, she would have liked to go home and tell Nancy that he

was the sweetest old lamb in the world. He had healed to some extent

the wound caused by her sad discovery that nobody wanted her, caused in

its turn--although she did not know it--by the discovery that John

Spence didn't want her. The fact that Bobby Trench wanted her didn't

count; that Lord Sedbergh wanted her, did. Wonderful things were

happening to her as well as to Nancy, and if Nancy had a secret to hug,

so had she.

But her secret did not support her long; she was made of stuff too

tender. A few hours after her exaltation at the hands of Lord Sedbergh

she was shedding lonely tears because Nancy had been so unkind to her,

having coldly repulsed an effort to draw out of her some admission as

to how she stood with regard to her own now plainly confessed lover.

"I don't want to talk about that--to you," she said. "You seem to have

affairs of your own to attend to, and you can leave mine alone."

Lord Sedbergh took his departure, and with him went much of the glamour

that he had thrown over the proposal which Joan now knew must come.

Bobby Trench, undiluted, pleased her less than before, and in a house

full of people, with most of whom he had been wont to make common

merriment, it vexed her to be constantly left with him in a solitude of

two.

There was an air of expectancy about the house. It hovered with amused

gratification over John Spence and Nancy, but blew more coldly watchful

upon herself and Bobby Trench. It seemed that if she did what she

bitterly told herself was expected of her, she would not please anybody

particularly, except Bobby Trench himself. Even her father seemed to

watch her suspiciously, but that she supposed was because he was

doubtful whether naughtiness would not prevail in her after all. As

for her mother, she invited no confidences. Joan felt more and more

alone, and more and more dissatisfied with herself and everybody about

her. Her intercourse with Bobby Trench was less evenly amicable than

it had been, for she felt her power to make him suffer for some of her

moods. But he did, sometimes, with his unfailing cheerfulness lift her

out of them, and she wavered between resentment against him for being

the past cause of her present troubles, and remorseful gratitude for

his unconquerable fidelity.

She had been unusually fractious with him on the afternoon preceding

the ball. Perhaps it was because she could not go to it herself, being

out of sorts, and confined to the house by doctor's orders. The

house-party was on the ice on the lake, enjoying itself exceedingly.

She and Bobby were sitting in front of the fire in the morning-room.

"I say, you seem to have got out of bed the wrong side this morning,"

he said with a conciliatory grin. "What have you got the hump about?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Joan. "Everything is so dull, and everybody

is so horrid."

"You're not such good pals with Nancy as you used to be, are you?" he

asked after a pause.

"That has nothing to do with you," she said, following her mood of

snappish domination over him.

His reply startled her. "Look here," he said, "I'm getting fed up with

this. I seem to be about the only person in the house who takes any

trouble to make themselves agreeable to you, and I'm the only person

you can't treat with ordinary politeness. What's the matter? What

have I done?"

He spoke sharply, as he had not spoken before, and his words brought

home to her the sad state of isolation in which she imagined herself to

be living.

"I know perfectly well how things are going," he went on, as she did

not reply. "There's going to be an engagement in this house in about

five minutes, and a general flare up of congratulations and excitement

all round; and you're feeling out of it. I can understand that; but

why you should turn round upon me, when I've laid myself out to be

agreeable to you--and haven't worried you either--I _don't_ understand.

I call it devilish unfair."

Joan felt that it _was_ unfair. It was true that he had often caused

her to forget her troubles; and it was true that he had not "worried"

her for days.

"I am rather unhappy, sometimes, about things I don't want to talk

about," she said; "but I'm sorry if I've been disagreeable. I won't be

any more. Shall we play bezique?"

"No, we won't play bezique. We'll talk. Look here, you know quite

well what I want of you. I've been----"

"I don't want to talk about that."

"Well, I do, and you've got to listen this time. I've been playing the

game exactly as you wanted it so far, and you can't refuse to give me

my innings."

This also was fair; and as love-making was apparently not to be

introduced into the game, Joan sat silent, looking into the fire, her

chin on her hand, and a flush on her cheeks.

"It's pretty plain," he went on, "that I haven't got much farther with

you in the way I should like to have done. You've always shown you

didn't want me to make love to you, and I haven't bothered you much in

that way; now have I?"

"No," said Joan. "And I shan't listen to you if you do."

"All right. I'm not going to. But there's another way of looking at

things. We do get on well together, and you do like me a bit better

than you used to, don't you? Now answer straight."

"I don't like you any better in the way I suppose you want me to, if

that's what you mean."

"No, it isn't what I mean. I've said that. I mean, we _are_ friends,

aren't we? If I were to go away to-morrow, and you were never to see

anything more of me, you would remember me as a friend, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Well, then, look here! Can't we fix it up together? No, don't say

anything yet; I want to put it to you. You're having a pretty dull

time here, and you'll have a jolly sight duller time when your sister

gets married and goes away. But we'll give you the time of your life.

My old governor is almost as much in love with you as I am, and that's

saying a good deal, though you won't let me say it. He's longing to

have you, and there's nothing he won't do for us in the way of setting

us up. Look here, Joan, I'll do every mortal thing I can to make you

happy; and so will all of us. You'll be the chief performer in _our_

little circus; and it won't be such a little one, either. We can give

you anything, pretty well, that anybody could want, and will lay

ourselves out to do it. You won't find me such a bad fellow to live

with, Joan. We _are_ pals, you know, already; you've said so. Can't

you give it a chance?"

Dispossessed of its emotional constituents, the proposal was not

without its allure; and, so dispossessed, could be faced, or at least

glanced at, without undue confusion of face.

Joan glanced at it, and said, "Lord Sedbergh is very sweet to me."

"Well, he's sweet _on_ you, you know," said Bobby with a grin. "Do say

yes, Joan. It'll make him the happiest man in the world--except me. I

_know_ you won't regret it. I shan't let you. I shall lay myself out

to do exactly what you want; and there's such a lot I can do, if you'll

only let me. For one thing, you'd be taken out of everything that's

bothering you now, at a stroke. You'll have such a lot of attention

paid to you that you'll be likely to get your head turned; but I shan't

mind that, if it's turned the right way. Joan, let my old Governor and

me show what we can do to look after you and give you a good time."

She twisted her handkerchief in her hands. "Oh, it's awfully good of

you both to want me so much," she said; and his eyes brightened,

because hitherto she had shown that she thought it anything but good of

him to want her so much. "But how can I? I don't love you, Bobby."

She said it almost as if she wished she did; and the childish

plaintiveness in her voice moved him deeply. His voice shook a little

as he replied, still in the same dispassionate tone, "I know you don't,

my dear, but I'll put up with that. _I_ love _you_; and that will have

to do for both of us."

She looked at him with a smile. "That would be rather a one-sided

bargain, wouldn't it?"

"_I_ don't think so. It's as a pal I should want you chiefly, and you

would be that. You are already."

She looked into the fire again, with a slight frown on her face. But

it was only a frown of indecision. How should she have known enough

about men to detect the unreality in _that_ plea?

He waited for her to speak, putting strong constraint on himself.

"Oh, I can't," she said at last.

He took her hand. "Joan, my dear," he said, "will you marry me? I'll

wait for what you can't give me now, and never worry you for it.

Honour bright, I won't."

She let her hand remain in his for a moment, and then sprang up. "Oh,

they're coming in," she cried.

He swore under his breath, but rose too, and said, as voices were heard

approaching, "Think over it, and tell me to-morrow."

Joan lay awake for a long time that night. She had gone to bed when

the others had driven off to their ball, about nine o'clock.

She was offered a way of escape--she did not examine herself as to what

from. Bobby had been very nice to her--not silly, at all. Nobody else

wanted her, Nancy least of all. Very likely Nancy was even now being

offered _her_ escape; the idea had got about that John Spence would

unbosom himself to the sound of the violins. She would have liked to

have talked to her mother, but had not had an opportunity. When she

considered what she should say to her, when the opportunity came, she

discovered that she did not want to say anything. If she had been able

to tell her that she loved Bobby Trench, it would have been different.

No, she did not love him. But she liked him--very much. And she liked

Lord Sedbergh even more. She supposed she loved her father, in fact

she was sure she did; but Lord Sedbergh would also be in the place of a

father to her, if she married Bobby Trench, and it would not be wrong

to love him, perhaps rather better. He would certainly know how to

treat her better.

Should she--should she not?

She had not quite made up her mind when she dropped off to sleep.

She was awakened by Nancy coming into the room, with Hannah, both of

them speaking softly. She pretended not to have been awakened, but

through her lashes sought for signs in Nancy's face.

There were none, except that she seemed unusually gay for that time of

the morning, made soft laughter with Hannah, and dismissed her suddenly

before she had finished undressing.

When Hannah had left the room Nancy looked straight at Joan, lying with

her face turned towards her. Joan shut her eyes, and did not see the

expression with which she looked at her. When she opened them again

Nancy was standing by the fire, looking into the embers; and now there

was no mistaking the look on her face. It was tender and radiant.

All Joan's soreness was wiped out. Nancy was very happy, and she

wanted to kiss her again and again, and cry, and tell her how much she

loved her. She moved in her bed, coughed, and opened her eyes. Nancy

was looking at her with a face from which the radiance had melted; she

left the fireplace and went to the dressing-table.

"Hullo!" she said. "Are you feeling better?"

"Yes, thanks," said Joan, choking her emotion. "Have you enjoyed

yourself?"

"Yes, thanks. I wish you'd been there. The band was ripping, and the

floor was perfect."

She talked on a little longer, and Joan began to think nothing had

happened after all. Then she said suddenly, "By the by, I'm engaged to

John Spence. I thought you'd like to know."

Joan could not speak for the moment. Nancy drew aside the curtain and

looked out. "It's freezing hard," she said. "I shall wear my tweed

coat and skirt to-morrow. Well, good-night!"

She did not look at Joan as she turned away from the window, but blew

out the lights and got into bed.

There was a long silence. Both girls lay perfectly still. By and by

sounds came from Joan's pillow, as if she were crying softly and trying

to hide it. Nancy lay quite still, and the sounds ceased.

There was another long silence.

"Nancy, are you awake?" came in a voice that shook a little.

"Yes."

"I'm m-most awfully glad."

"Then what are you crying for?"

"Because I'm sorry I've been such a pig; and I d-do so want to be

friends again; and you won't."

"Oh, I will, darling old Joan."

Nancy was out of bed, and had thrown herself on Joan's neck. They were

mingling tears and kisses together, Nancy crying quite as freely as

Joan. They lay talking together for an hour or more, and fell asleep

in one another's arms. When morning came, Joan had the happiest waking

she had known for many months.

That afternoon she told Bobby Trench that she could not marry him.

"I'm very sorry," she said. "I do like you, Bobby, and I hope we shall

always be friends; but I don't love you the least little bit, and I'm

quite sure now that one ought not to marry anyone one doesn't love."

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

THE SQUIRE CONFRONTED

The lilacs in the station-yard at Kencote were blossoming again. Again

the train crawled over the sun-dappled meadows, and Joan was on the

platform to meet it. This time it was Humphrey who got out of it.

"Hullo!" she said brightly. "They've sent the luggage-cart. I thought

you'd like to walk."

He had hardly smiled when she greeted him, and now frowned. "I wanted

to see the Governor," he said. "However, it won't take long to walk.

Come along."

"How's Susan?" Joan asked as they set out.

"All right," said Humphrey shortly. "She's gone to her people."

He cleared the preoccupation from his face, and looked at his sister.

"You look blooming," he said. "Do you miss Nancy?"

"Yes, awfully," she said, "but I'm going to stay with them the moment

they get back. I hear from her every day. They're having a gorgeous

time. They are going to take me abroad with them next year. I shall

love it."

"I've got a piece of news for you," said Humphrey after a pause.

"Bobby Trench is engaged to be married."

A flush crept over her face and died away again before she said,

"That's rather sudden, isn't it? Who is he going to marry?"

"Lady Bertha Willersley. Can't say I admire his taste much. She's

amusing enough for a time, but I should think she'd tire you to death

if you had too much of her. She can't be much younger than he is,

either. She's been about almost ever since I can remember."

"Oh, well," said Joan, with an embarrassed laugh, "it shows I was

right."

"I'm not sure that it doesn't," Humphrey admitted. "Bobby has always

been a friend of mine, and I like him well enough; but he _is_ rather a

rotter. I think you're pretty well out of it, Joan."

"I'm sure I am," she said. "But you didn't say so at the time."

"Poor old girl," he said. "We gave you rather a bad time, didn't we?

But you did lead him on a bit, didn't you?"

"I didn't," said Joan indignantly. "I always said I wouldn't have him."

"Well, he told me himself that you would have said 'yes' one evening if

somebody hadn't come in."

She was silent.

"It's true then?" he said, with a glance at her.

"Oh, I don't know. I _might_ have done, but I should have been very

sorry for it afterwards."

"You'd have had a topping good time."

"I suppose that is what tempted me, just a little. But it would be

horrid to marry for that."

"What made you change? He was most awfully in love with you, to do him

justice, though he seems to have got over it pretty quickly."

"Yes, he did seem to be. But it shows how little it was worth. It

wasn't the sort of way John was in love with Nancy."

"It was when Nancy fixed up her little affair that you sent Bobby about

his business."

"Yes. Don't let's talk about it any more. I'm sick of Bobby Trench."

"Governor been at you about him?"

"He has never forgiven me. Perhaps he will now. But I know mother was

glad, so I don't much care."

"How is the Governor?" asked Humphrey, rather gloomily. "Fairly

amiable?"

"Fairly. I think he misses Nancy; but of course he is glad she married

John. He is so well off."

Humphrey took no notice of this shaft. He hardly spoke again until

they reached the house, when he went straight into his father's room.

"Well, my boy," said the Squire. "What good wind blows you here? I

thought you were moving down to Hampshire this week."

"The house isn't quite ready yet. Susan has gone to her people. I

thought I'd run down. And--I've got something to talk to you about."

"Yes, well!" The Squire was a little suspicious. He didn't want to

part with any money for the moment.

"What have you decided about Gotch? Clark is leaving us, and wants

things settled. She doesn't want to find another place. She wants to

get married."

"Well, then, let her get married," said the Squire, with some show of

heat. "It's nothing to do with me. Let Gotch marry her, and find a

place to take her to, if he can. I've no room for another married

keeper here, as I've filled up the place that Mr. Gotch saw fit to

refuse."

"Yes, I know," said Humphrey. "But look here, father, can't you forget

that now, and do what he wants? He did me a jolly good turn, you know.

I might have been killed, or injured for life, if it hadn't been for

him."

"I know all that, and I was ready to make him the most handsome reward

for what he did. He saw fit to refuse it, as I think in the most

ungrateful way, and there's an end. I kept the offer open for a month.

I did everything that could be expected of me, and a good deal more.

I've washed my hands of Mr. Gotch altogether."

"I don't think he's ungrateful. But he has this exceptionally good

offer in Canada, if he can put down a few hundred pounds, and----"

"Then let him put down his few hundred pounds. I've no objection."

"He hasn't got it, you know," said Humphrey, with weary patience. "He

and Clark have both got a bit, but not enough, and I can't do anything

for them at the moment. Denny Croft has cost a lot more than I thought

it would to put right, and I haven't got a bob to spare."

"Now, look here, Humphrey. I'm not going to do it, and that's flat.

Apart altogether from the fact that I don't think Gotch has behaved

well, and I feel myself relieved of all obligation to him now, I object

to this emptying of the country that's going on. As long as there are

places in England for men like Gotch, I say it's their duty to stay by

the old country. Supposing every keeper and farm-hand and so on on

this place took it into his head to go off to Canada, where should we

be, I should like to know? It's the duty of the people on the land to

stick together, or the whole basis of society goes. _I_ stick here and

do my duty in _my_ sphere; _I_ don't want to go rushing off to Canada;

and I expect others in _their_ sphere to do the same. It's quite

certain I'm not going to put down money to help them to run away from

their duty. So let's have no more talk about it."

Humphrey did not seem to have been listening very closely to this

speech. He did not reply to it.

"Something very disagreeable has happened," he said. "I don't want to

tell you the details of it. But it is important that Clark should be

got out of the country as soon as possible."

The Squire stared at him, and marked for the first time his serious

face. "What do you mean?" he asked. "What has happened?"

"I don't want to tell you more than this, that Clark has it in her

power to make mischief. I hope you won't ask any more, but will take

my word for it; it's very serious mischief. It's _she_ who wants to go

to Canada. I think if Gotch had been left to himself he would have

accepted your offer; and I know he is upset at the way you have taken

his refusal. Do, for God's sake, let him have what he wants, and take

her off, or I don't know what won't happen."

His ordinary level speech had become agitated, but he returned to

himself again as he said quietly, "I've said more than I meant to.

Take it from me that I'm not exaggerating, and do what I ask, for your

own sake as well as mine."

A stormy gleam of light had broken over the Squire's puzzled features.

"Do you mean to tell me that you're in disgrace--with this woman?" he

asked.

Humphrey looked at him, and then laughed, without amusement. "Oh, it's

nothing like that," he said. "But disgrace--yes. It will amount to

that for all of us. Mud will stick, and she's prepared to throw it.

She has said nothing to Gotch, and has promised not to. She'll say

nothing to anybody, if we lend Gotch the money. That's all he wants,

you know. He'll pay it back when he's made his way. We must lend him

three hundred pounds. He's a steady man and safe. I'd give it him, if

I had it. It's the greatest luck in the world that we can close her

mouth in that way. Oh, you _must_ do it, father."

He had become agitated again; and it was the rarest thing for him to

show agitation.

The Squire was impressed. "I don't say I won't," he said; "but you

must show me some cause, Humphrey. I don't understand it yet. And

anyhow, I'm not going to pay blackmail, you know. What's the story

this woman has got hold of--if you've done nothing, as you say?"

"No, I've done nothing. I don't want to tell you her story, father;

and it will do you no good to hear it. Besides, it simply _must_ be

kept from getting out. You tell a thing in confidence to one person,

and they tell it in confidence to another; and it's public property and

the mischief done before you know where you are."

"I shan't tell a soul."

"Can't you just trust me, and think no more about it?"

"No, I can't, Humphrey. You must tell me what it's all about. I can't

act in the dark."

Humphrey sat silent, looking on the ground, while the Squire, with a

troubled look on his face, waited for him to speak.

He looked up. "Will you promise me definitely that you'll keep it

absolutely to yourself?" he asked. "Mother mustn't know, or Dick, or

anybody."

"Why not? Neither of them would breathe a word."

"I won't tell it to more than one person. If you won't promise to keep

it sacred and give nobody a hint that might put them on the scent, I'll

tell somebody else. I _must_ tell somebody, and get advice, as well as

money."

"I don't keep things from Dick," said the Squire slowly, "and very

seldom from your mother. I'm not a man who likes hugging a secret. If

I give you this promise it will be a weight on me. But I'll do it if

you assure me that there is some special reason why neither of those

two shall be told. I think they ought to be, if it's a question of

disgrace, and a way of averting it. I shouldn't like to trust myself

to give you the right advice, without consulting them--or at any rate,

Dick."

Humphrey considered again. "No, I won't risk it," he said. "Yes;

there _is_ a special reason. It is not to be a matter of consultation,

except between you and me."

"Very well," said the Squire unwillingly, "I will tell nobody."

"Not even if they see something is wrong, and press you?"

"You have my word, Humphrey," said the Squire simply.

Humphrey wrung his hands together nervously. "Oh, it's a miserable

story," he said. "Clark accuses Susan of stealing that necklace from

Brummels."

"What!" exclaimed the Squire, horrified.

"She's prepared to swear to it, and says she will go and lay

information, unless we do what they want--help Gotch to settle in

Canada."

The Squire sprang from his seat and strode the length of the room. His

face was terrific as he turned and stood before Humphrey. "But that's

the most scandalous case of blackmail I ever heard of," he said. "You

mean to say you are prepared to give in to that! And expect me to help

you! You ought to be ashamed of asking such a thing, Humphrey. And to

extract a promise from me to keep _that_ to myself! What can you be

thinking of? I've not much difficulty in advising you if that's the

sort of trouble you're in. Send for a policeman, and have the woman

locked up at once. The brazen insolence of it! Let the whole world

know of it, if they want to, I say. Your honour can't stand much if

_that_ sort of mud is going to stain it. It's your positive duty. I

can't think what you can have been thinking of not to do it at once.

To give in to the woman! Why, it's shameful, Humphrey! Disgrace!

That's where the disgrace is."

Humphrey had sat silent under this exordium, his head bent and his eyes

on the ground. He said no word when his father had finished.

A half-frightened look came over the Squire's face. "You've allowed

this woman to impose upon you," he said in a quieter voice. "You've

lost your head, my boy. Take hold of yourself, and fling the lie back

in her face. _Punish_ her for it."

There was another pause before Humphrey said, raising his head, but not

his eyes: "It isn't a lie. It's the truth. Oh, my God!"

His frame was shaken by a great sob. He leant forward and buried his

face in his hands.

The Squire sat down heavily in his chair. He picked up a paper-knife

from the writing-table and balanced it in his hand. For a moment his

face was devoid of all expression. Then he turned round to his son and

said in a firm voice: "You say Susan did steal them? Are you sure of

that? Joan as good as saw that Mrs. Amberley take them. Yes, and it

was proved that she sold them, at her trial! Aren't you allowing this

woman to bluff you, Humphrey?"

His voice had taken a note of confidence. Humphrey sat up, his face

white and hard.

"Mrs. Amberley's selling pearls was a coincidence--unlucky for her," he

said. "We know where she got them from. The story they wouldn't

listen to was true."

"But Joan!--seeing her at the very cupboard itself!"

"She may have _wanted_ to steal them. She did steal the diamond star."

The Squire drooped. "Still, it may be bluff," he said weakly. "How

did Clark know of it?"

"Oh, don't turn the knife round, father," said Humphrey. "It isn't

Clark; it's Susan. She told me herself."

"She told you she was a thief!" The Squire's voice had changed, and

was harder.

"Yes. It's a wretched story. Don't make it harder for me to tell."

The control in which he had held himself, coming down in the train,

walking from the station with Joan, and first addressing his father,

was gone. He spoke as if he were broken, but in a hard, monotonous

voice.

The Squire's face softened. "Go on, my boy," he said. "Tell me

everything. I'll help you if I can."

"I taxed her with it. She's frightened to death. I could only get at

it by degrees; and there are some things I don't understand now. I

shall clear them up when she's better. She's ill now, and I don't

wonder at it."

"Where is she?"

"With her mother. _She_ doesn't know anything. She thinks we've had a

row."

"Well, tell me."

"I was a fool not to suspect what was going on. She was head over ears

in debt. What she must have been spending on clothes it frightens me

to think of. She told me that she had got somebody to make them for

almost nothing, but I might have known that was nonsense, if I'd

thought about it at all. I remember now some woman or other laughing

at me when I told her she dressed herself on two hundred a year. 'I

suppose you mean two thousand,' she said, and I should think it

couldn't have been much less than that. She had things put away that

I'd never seen. She didn't disclose half what she owed when you helped

us two years ago. Then she'd been playing Bridge with a lot of

harpies--Auction--at sixpenny points--and she's no more head for it

than an infant in arms."

"Sixpenny points!" repeated the Squire.

"Well, it means she could easily lose forty or fifty pounds in an

afternoon, and probably did, often enough. She had to find ready money

for that. I haven't got at it all yet, but when we went down to

Brummels she didn't know which way to turn, and was desperate--ready to

do anything. I know there was a---- No, I can't tell you that; and it

doesn't matter. I'm not sure it isn't as well for her, and for me,

that she did get the money in the way she did."

The Squire's face was very grave. "You know, Humphrey, if she has

deceived you, and is capable of this horrible theft, you ought to

satisfy yourself----"

Humphrey broke down again, but recovered himself quickly. "Thank God,

I know everything," he said. "Everything that matters. She was

terrified. She turned to me. There's nothing between us. It's all

partly my fault. I'd been in debt myself, and hadn't helped her to

keep straight. And we'd had rows, and she was afraid to tell me

things."

"Go on, my dear boy," said the Squire very kindly.

"It's soon told. She heard Lady Sedbergh and Mrs. Amberley talking

about the hiding-place."

"Was she in the room?"

"She was just outside. The door was open."

"She listened?"

"Yes. She stayed outside, and listened. They went out by another

door, and she went into the room at once and took the necklace. She

pawned pearls here and there, going out in the evening, veiled, but in

a foolish, reckless way. I can't conceive why something didn't come

out at the trial. It was she who gave Rachel Amberley's name at that

place in the city. She's about the same height. But imagine the folly

of it! She says that it 'came over her' to do it, and she only did it

that once. She seems to have made up names at the other places."

"Did she get rid of all the pearls?"

"That's what I can't make out yet. She got enough money to pay up

everything; but not more. She can't say how much, but it can't

possibly have been what the pearls were worth. Perhaps she let some of

them go at an absurd value, which would be a reason for those who had

got them to lie low. I couldn't get at everything; there was so much

that I had to ask about; and she wasn't in a state---- Oh, she'd have

been capable of any folly--even throwing some of them away, if she got

frightened. We've been dancing on gunpowder. Clark knew all along; or

almost from the first."

"Did she help her?"

"Oh no. She was fond of her; she was the daughter of one of their

gardeners."

"Are you _sure_ she didn't help her? What do you mean--she was fond of

her?"

"I mean that she might have given her away."

"She knew at the time of the trial?"

"Yes."

"Did she threaten Susan, then?"

"No. I think she never meant to do anything at all. Susan had given

her a lot of things. She was in with her to that extent--knew about

her dressmaking bills. And she wanted to marry Gotch, and Gotch is

loyal to us. She didn't want to make trouble. It was only Gotch being

kept hanging on about Canada that put it into her head that she had a

weapon."

"But you say she threatened you. She must be a bad woman."

"Well, I put her back up. She came to me and said she wanted something

done at once, and hinted that she knew things. I was angry at being

pressed in that way, and made her speak out. I believe, at first, she

thought I was in it; or she wouldn't have come to me in the way she

did. I soon disabused her of that idea, if she really held it, and I

was furious. I thought it was blackmail, as you did. I threatened to

have her up. That scandalised her, and she convinced me that she was

telling the truth. She told me to go and ask Susan, if I didn't

believe her. It was then, when she had burnt her boats, that she

threatened."

"Well--however you look at it--it is blackmail. She's ready to

compound a felony. And we are asked to do the same. Humphrey, this is

a terrible story. It's the blackest day I've ever known. I don't

think I've quite taken it all in yet. Susan a thief! All that we've

said and thought about that other woman--and justly too, if she'd been

guilty--applies to--to one of ourselves--to a Clinton. I feel stunned

by it. I don't know what to say or do."

His face was grey. His very tranquillity showed how deeply he had been

hit.

"What we have to do," said Humphrey, "is to avert the disgrace to our

name. Fortunately that can be done. It isn't blackmail; Clark never

thought of it in that light, or she would have moved long ago. She

thought we were not treating Gotch well in refusing him what he asked,

after what he had done, and the promises we had made him. _He'll_

never know anything about it. Have him in and tell him that you will

lend him the money he wants. That cuts the whole horrible knot."

The Squire made no answer to this. "She is _more_ guilty than the

other woman," he went on, as if Humphrey had not spoken. "She stood by

and saw an innocent woman suffer. Humphrey, it was very base."

"Mrs. Amberley _wasn't_ innocent," said Humphrey. "She went to steal

the necklace, and found it gone. She _did_ steal the star, and that

was what she was punished for. Her punishment was deserved. Besides,

it's over now. You know that she was let out. She has gone to

America. We shall never hear of her over here again."

"It's a very terrible story," said the Squire again. "I don't know

what's to be done. I'm all at sea. I must---- Humphrey, why did you

make me promise to keep this a secret? Dick ought to be told. He's

got a cooler head than I have."

"Dick shall _not_ be told," said Humphrey, almost with violence. "Nor

anyone else. We've got to settle this between ourselves. Nobody must

suspect anything, and nobody must be put in the position of treating

Susan so that others will be tempted to talk about it. If she came

down here, and there were two besides you--and me--who knew what she

had done, it would be an impossible position. I've made up my mind

absolutely about that, and you gave me your word."

"Susan down here!" repeated the Squire, in a tone that made Humphrey

wince.

"You won't be asked to have more to do with her than is necessary to

keep away all suspicion," he said. "It isn't Susan you have to think

of--that's my business--it's yourself, and the whole lot of us. The

scandal doesn't bear thinking of if it comes out. Think what it would

mean. Think of all you said yourself about Mrs. Amberley. Think of

the whole country saying that about one of us; and saying much more,

because of what you said--of her keeping quiet about it. Oh, I'm not

trying to defend her--but think of the ghastly disgrace. We should

never hold up our heads again. Think of the dock for her--and prison!

Father, you must put an end to it. Thank God it can be done, without

touching your honour."

The knife had gone right home. The Squire sprang up from his chair and

strode down the room again. "My honour!" he cried. "Oh, Humphrey,

what honour is left to us after this?"

"Susan is sorry," Humphrey went on quickly. "Bitterly sorry. She has

been quite different lately. She had a terrible shock. She is

spending next to nothing now, and----"

"Oh!" The Squire glared at him, looking more like himself than he had

done since Humphrey's disclosure. "She paid her debts out of stolen

money. Yes, she was different, when she thought the danger had been

removed, and that other woman was safe in prison. She was gay and

light-hearted when she came here at Christmas, with that--that crime on

her conscience. You say that as if it was to her credit!"

"I don't!" said Humphrey sullenly. "But she is sorry now. She's

punished. It isn't for us to punish her again; and punish ourselves.

It's too ghastly to think about. Oh, what's the use of going on

talking about it, father, while the risk is still hanging over us? Let

me send a wire to Clark; or let Gotch do it, this evening. Then we can

breathe freely, and talk about all the rest later."

The Squire took another turn down the room. "I won't be hurried into

anything," he said with some indignation. "I won't think of what may

happen until I've made up my mind, in case I should do something wrong,

out of fear. Oh, why can't you let me call in Dick?"

"I won't. And you've _got_ to think of what will happen. The name of

Clinton horribly disgraced--held up to the most public scorn--not a

corner to hide yourself in. It will last all _your_ lifetime, and mine

too, and go on to your grandchildren. You will never know another

happy moment. The stain will never come out; it will stick to every

one of us."

"Oh, that's enough," said the Squire, seating himself again.

He turned sharply round again. "What do you want me to do?" he asked

angrily.

"Send for Gotch--send for him now this moment--and tell him that you

have changed your mind. You will arrange to let him have the money he

has asked for, and he can go off as soon as he likes."

"I'm to say I've changed my mind?"

"Yes, of course. You don't want to set him wondering."

"Then he will let this woman, Clark, know----" He began to speak more

slowly.

"Yes. I shall go back to-morrow morning and see her. I shall have a

hold over her, and she will certainly keep quiet, for her own sake."

"She will be liable to prosecution if the truth becomes known from any

other source."

"It won't be. She is the only person who knows anything."

"And _I_ shall have compounded a felony too, if it becomes known."

"No. That isn't so. _You_ will have nothing to do with her at all.

You will never see her."

"That's true. But she will know why I pay this money."

"Not necessarily. No, she needn't know. I shall tell her I persuaded

you. She doesn't know you were so definitely against it. She thinks

it was just hanging fire."

The Squire rose from his seat, and went to the empty fireplace, where

he took his stand, facing his son.

He looked at him steadily, and said in a quiet but firm voice, "I won't

do it, Humphrey."

CHAPTER II

A VERY PRESENT HELP

Virginia among her flowers, in the sweet, old-fashioned retired garden

of the Dower House was a sight to refresh the eyes. She was gathering

a sheaf of long-stalked May-flowering tulips as Humphrey pushed open

the gate leading from the park, and came in.

He was not able to keep all signs of the terrible blow that had been

dealt him, and the disappointment that had come of the appeal he had

just made to his father, from showing on his face; but he had schooled

himself, walking across the park, to a natural bearing. He had to make

another effort to avert such ruin and disgrace as would overwhelm him

utterly, and make the rest of his life a burden and a reproach.

The sun was setting behind the tall elms that bordered the garden of

the Dower House. The rooks were busy with their evening conference.

The westward windows of the ancient, mellowed house were shining.

Peace and hope sat brooding on the fair, home-enchanted place, and a

lump sprang up in Humphrey's throat as he came upon it, and saw his

brother's wife, so sweet and gracious, protected here and shut in from

the ugliness of life, and quietly happy in her seclusion. The contrast

between Virginia in her garden, and the desperate wreck of his own

married life, was too poignant. He turned round to shut the door in

the wall, but by the time she had looked up and seen him he had

hardened himself against emotion.

She gave a little cry of pleasure. "Why, Humphrey!" she said, "I had

no idea you were here. I am so glad to see you. I am all alone. Dick

has gone up to dine and sleep in London."

The disappointment was so keen that his taut-stretched nerves gave way

for a moment, and he felt physically ill.

"Why, what's the matter?" she said. "Is there any bad news? You look

dreadful, Humphrey."

He forced a laugh. "I'm not very fit," he said. "But I had made sure

of seeing Dick, about something rather important. When will he be

back?"

"To-morrow afternoon. But isn't there anything that I can do? Do tell

me, Humphrey. Dick has no secrets from me, you know."

He was afraid to make any mystery. "Oh, it's only about the keeper,

Gotch," he said at once. "Clark is leaving us, and they want to get

married. They have both set their hearts on going to Canada, and I

came down to see if I could get the Governor to consent to helping

them. But he won't do it, and I was going to ask Dick if _he_ could

possibly raise the money."

"Oh, but, Humphrey--easily--if it isn't too much. What do they want?"

"Three hundred pounds--only as a loan. He would pay it back after the

first year--in instalments--when he had got himself settled. He has a

fine opportunity waiting for him over there. He ought not to miss it.

I do feel that I owe him a lot. That scoundrel would have battered me

to death, very likely, if he hadn't come on the scene. I wish to

goodness I could give him the money myself. I _could_ raise it, but it

would take time. I want to go back to-morrow and tell Clark that it is

all settled."

"Oh, you shall, Humphrey. Let me do it for you. I have heaps of money

that I don't know what to do with. Dick won't let me spend a penny on

living here. I believe he hates to think he has married a rich woman.

I can write you a cheque now. Come indoors."

The relief was enormous. But many things had to be thought of. It was

not only the money he had come for. He could have got that, as he had

said, elsewhere, and no sacrifice would have been too great to make for

it, if it had been all that was wanted.

"My dear Virginia," he said, "you are generosity itself; but I

shouldn't like to take it from you without Dick knowing of it."

"Oh, I shall tell him, of course. But he won't mind. Why should he?"

"I don't know how he feels about Gotch going. The Governor is up in

arms at his wanting to leave Ken cote at all. Dick may feel the same,

for all I know."

She laughed. "Oh, I see," she said. "We are up against the dear old

feudal system. I am always forgetting about that; and I do try so hard

to be British, Humphrey."

Humphrey smiled. "You'll do as you are," he said. "I think myself

that every fellow ought to have his chance. If he sees his way to

doing well for himself it isn't fair to expect him to throw it away

just because he's your servant, as his fathers were before him."

Virginia's face showed mock horror. "But, Humphrey!" she said, "this

is rank Radicalism! _What_! A man who can have as many blankets and

as much soup as he likes--to make up for the smallness of his

wages--has a right to go off and be his own master! To think that I

should hear such words from a Clinton!"

Humphrey could not keep it up. He smiled, but had no light answer

ready. "Keepers get quite decent wages," he said, "and the Governor

was prepared to put Gotch into that new cottage he's building; do well

for him, in fact. That's why he thinks it ungrateful of him to want to

go, and won't help in any way. The question is whether Dick won't feel

the same."

"Oh, I think not," she said. "Dick is getting quite democratic. I,

Virginia Clinton, have made him so. Why, the other day he actually

said that the will of the people ought to prevail--if we could only

find out what it was. He is getting on fast. No, Humphrey, I'm sure

Dick won't mind. If I thought he would, I wouldn't do it--without

asking him first. I am going to do it. I _want_ to do it. I like to

think of a young man like Gotch, good and strong, going off to carve

himself out a place in a new country. You have all been very patient

with me, and I love you all dearly, but I shall _never_ come to think

that it is a proper life for a man to spend all his days in bringing up

birds for other people to kill. Now who shall I make the cheque out

to--you or Gotch?"

She was at her writing-table with her cheque-book in front of her, and

a pen in her hand. It was difficult to restrain her. But the cheque

was not all that Humphrey wanted.

"Wait a minute," he said. "Let's get it right in our minds. Gotch

doesn't want charity."

She put down her pen, and her delicate skin flushed. "I shouldn't

offer it to him," she said. "I hate charity--the charity of the

money-bags."

"Oh, my dear girl!" he said, "I didn't mean to hurt you. We're a

clumsy race, you know; we think things out aloud. I was only wondering

what would be the best way."

She smiled up at him, standing over her, her momentary offence gone.

"Why, of course," she said. "We must help him without putting him

under any obligation. How shall we do it?"

"You see, the money ought to come from the Governor, or Dick. If you

or I were to give it him, and they had no hand in it, he would be

leaving Kencote under a sort of cloud. He wouldn't want that, and I

shouldn't like it for him. And I don't want the money to come from me.

That would look as if I thought a money payment would be a suitable

acknowledgment of what he did in coming to my rescue."

There was more earnestness in his voice than his words seemed to

warrant. Virginia looked a little puzzled. But her brow cleared

again. Perhaps this was only one of those little niceties of feudal

honour which she never did and never would understand.

"Well then, I'll tell you what I'll do," she said. "Let us go to Gotch

together, and I'll give him my cheque and tell him that it comes from

Dick, who is away."

He breathed deeply. "Are you sure Dick won't mind?" he asked.

"Quite sure. He said the other day that Gotch ought to be allowed to

go if he wanted to."

"Did he really say that, Virginia?"

"Yes, it was when your father settled that the other man should have

the new cottage. No, Dick won't mind. By the bye, are you sure that

Mr. Clinton won't? If he objects to Gotch going----"

"He objects to helping him to go. I told him I should ask Dick."

"What did he say?"

"He said he should wash his hands of it."

"Oh, then, that's all right. Here is the cheque; we'll go and find

Gotch, and give it him, and wish him joy. There is just time before

dinner."

"Virginia," said Humphrey devoutly, "you are an angel."

That night Humphrey and his father sat up late together.

The Squire had gone through a terrible time since Humphrey had left him

to go down to the Dower House, with the words, "Whatever you do, or

don't do, I'm going to fight hard to save our name." All the usual

outlets through which he was accustomed to relieve the pressure of an

offence were denied him. Irritability would cause remark. And this

was too deep and dreadful an offence to create irritability. High

words would not assuage it; cries raised to heaven about the

ingratitude of mankind, and his own liability to suffer from it, had

been used too often over small matters to make them anything but a

mockery as applied to this great one. He was stricken dumb by it.

The night was black all around him. There was no light to guide his

steps. Even the one he had already taken he was in doubt about, now he

had taken it. He did not question his own action in refusing to cut

the knot. He had simply felt unable to do it, and had followed that

light, as far as it had led him. But when Humphrey had gone away to

find Dick, and ask him to provide money for Gotch, without telling him

why it _must_ be found, somewhere or other, he had hoped that Dick

would consent; and this troubled him.

When he went upstairs to dress for dinner, after sitting motionless in

the library for over an hour, he locked the door and knelt down by the

bed in his dressing-room and prayed to God for help in his trouble and

guidance in his difficulties. He had felt increasingly, as he sat and

thought downstairs, that prayer was the only thing that would help him;

but he could not kneel down in the library, and it was dishonouring to

God Almighty not to kneel down when you prayed. So he went upstairs,

earlier than his wont, to the bedside at which he had said his daily

and nightly prayers for over forty years. He never slept in this bed;

it was the altar of his private devotions, which were never

pretermitted, although by lapse of time they had slid into a kind of

home-made liturgy, which demanded small effort of spirit, and less of

mind. But now he prayed earnestly, with bowed head and broken words,

repeating the Lord's Prayer at the close of his petitions, and rising

from his knees purged somewhat of his fears, and supported in his deep

trouble.

At dinner he was a good deal silent, but not perceptibly brooding over

disclosures made to him, as Humphrey had feared of him. He even smiled

once or twice, and spoke courteously to his wife and affectionately to

Joan. He took Joan's hand in his as she passed him to go out of the

room with her mother, and she gave him a hug, and a kiss, which he

returned. She thought that Humphrey had told him about Bobby Trench's

engagement, and this was his way of showing that she was finally

forgiven for rejecting that fickle suit. But it was his desire to find

contact with innocence, and the tranquillity of his home, that had

prompted the caress.

"Dick has gone up to London," he said, raising his eyes, when Humphrey

had shut the door and come back to the table.

"Yes," said Humphrey. "But Virginia had the money, and said that Dick

would like her to give it. He had told her that Gotch ought to be

helped to go away."

"He never said that to me," said the Squire, with no clear sense of

relief at the news, except that it meant that a decision had been taken

out of his hands.

"Well, he had said it to her, or she wouldn't have done it. She and I

went to Gotch together. She said just the right things, and he was as

grateful as possible. He takes it that he's forgiven for holding out.

I told him that you wouldn't do it yourself after all you had said, but

you had withdrawn your opposition."

"Why do you say these things, Humphrey?" asked the Squire, in a pained

and almost querulous voice. "None of them are lies, exactly, but they

are not the truth, either."

"I shouldn't care if they _were_ lies," said Humphrey. "I'm long past

caring about that."

The Squire sighed deeply. "I won't talk about it over the table," he

said, rising, and leaving his glass of port half full. "We will go and

ask Joan to play to us, and talk in my room later."

As Joan played, he sat in his chair thinking. Relief was beginning to

find its way into his sombre thoughts. He took it to be in answer to

his prayer. If you took your difficulties to God, a way of escape

would be opened out. The old aunts who had brought him up in his

childhood had impressed that upon him, and he had never doubted it,

although he had had no occasion hitherto to try the experiment. He had

not made it a subject of prayer when Walter had so annoyed him by

refusing to take Holy Orders with a view to the family living, and

insisted on studying medicine, which no Clinton had ever done before;

or when Cicely had gone off to stay in London without a with-your-leave

or a by-your-leave; or when Dick had gone against his strong wishes and

insisted upon marrying Virginia; or when Humphrey had come to him with

debts; or even when Joan had refused to make a marriage which he

thought to be well for her to make. Soothed by Joan's playing, his

thoughts ran reflectively through these and other disturbances and

difficulties that had marked his otherwise equable, prosperous life,

and he saw for the first time how little he had really had to complain

of.

But that enlightenment only seemed to deepen the black shadows that lay

in the gulf opened out before him. The props of position and wealth

that had sustained him were of no avail here. They had supported him

in other troubles; they would only make this one worse to bear. It

would find him stripped naked for the world to jeer at. This was the

sort of trouble in which a man wanted help from above.

And the help had come, promptly; perhaps all the more promptly because

he had acted uprightly. He could not have given in to Humphrey's

request, whatever the consequences, knowing what he did. But that it

should have been immediately met, in a way to which no objection could

be taken, elsewhere, seemed to show that it was not the will of God

that disgrace should overwhelm the innocent as well as the guilty. He

could look that disgrace in the face now, or rather in the flank, as a

peril past; and he went through almost unendurable pangs as he did so.

He turned in his chair, and the perspiration broke out on his brow as

the horror of what he had escaped came home to him. He thanked God

that he had acted aright. If he had pictured to himself fully what

might come from his refusal, he might have stained his honour with

almost any act that would avert such appalling humiliation.

When he and Humphrey were alone together he spoke with more of his

usual manner than he had hitherto done. "I can't justly complain of

what you have done," he said. "Whether it would have been right to

take any steps to save Susan herself from the consequence of what she

has done--to hush it up--fortunately we haven't got to decide on. We

can leave that in the hands of a higher power."

"She has been pretty well punished already," said Humphrey. "Right or

wrong, I'm going to do what I can to keep the rest of her life from

being ruined. Thank God, it _has_ been done."

"Well, I think I can say 'Thank God' too. Others would have had to

suffer--grievously--and, after all, no wrong has been done to anybody.

With regard to Gotch, I can wash my hands of it. I couldn't have given

him money myself, knowing what I did, and you must take the

responsibility of it--with Dick."

"Oh, I'll take the responsibility," said Humphrey with a shade of

contempt. "It won't trouble my conscience much."

"But now we have to consider what is to be done," said the Squire. "I

can't have Susan here, Humphrey. She must never come here again. I

won't add to your troubles, my boy, by talking about what she has done.

I couldn't trust myself to do it. But I couldn't see her and behave as

I always have done. It would be beyond my power."

"Very well," said Humphrey shortly. "I'll shoulder that, with the

rest."

The Squire looked at him. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"What do you mean? With her?"

"Yes. How are you going to live together, after this?"

"As we always have done. I took her for better or worse. I'm going to

do my duty by her. I'm going to protect her first of all from

suffering any more; and then I'm going to help her to live it

down--with herself. I haven't helped her much, so far. She is weak,

and I've been weak with her--weak and selfish. I've got something more

in me than I've shown yet, and now's the time to show it, and to help

her on as well as myself."

The Squire was deeply touched. "My dear boy," he said, "I'm glad to

hear you talk like that. Yes, you're right; you must be right. One

can't judge of her leniently, perhaps, but what she must have gone

through at the time of that trial--and before! You will be able to

work on her; and nobody else could. Perhaps, later on--I don't know--I

might bring myself---"

"I don't know that you need. I am going to take her away for some

time--for some years, perhaps."

"What! You're not going to live in your new house?"

"No. I couldn't, yet awhile. So far, I've talked as if nothing

mattered except getting clear of this horrible exposure that threatened

us. I can't feel that anything does matter much until that is done.

But that's not all I have been thinking of, father, since this blow

came to me. It has gone pretty deep. I couldn't go on living the same

sort of life, under rather different surroundings, but amongst people

that we have known, and who would expect us to be just the same as we

have always been. We've got to start together afresh, and get used to

ourselves--to our new selves, if you like to put it so. We're going

abroad. Susan is ill now, and we can make it seem natural enough. We

shall stay abroad for some time, and then I shall let the house, if I

can, so that it won't seem odd that we shouldn't come back. In a few

years, if we want to, we can come back; and then perhaps we shall live

there."

"Well, it wants thinking over carefully, Humphrey; but I think you are

right. Still, I shouldn't like to lose sight of you--for years."

Humphrey was silent.

"I don't know--perhaps I was rather hasty, just now, when I said I

couldn't have Susan here. I couldn't, now. But later on---- Oh, my

boy, I don't want to make it harder for you than it is already. You've

set yourself a big task. God help you to carry it through! Bring her

here, Humphrey, in a year or so. I'm your father; I'll do what I can

to help you."

"Thank you, father. You've been very good."

"If you want any money----"

"Oh no. We shan't be spending much--not for a long time."

Neither spoke for some minutes. Then the Squire frowned and cleared

his throat. "There's one thing that has to be done," he said.

"The--the taking of that necklace--Lady Sedbergh's--she has had this

loss----"

"You mean about paying back the money. I've thought of that. I must

do it by degrees. That's one reason why I'm going abroad. I can save

more than half my income."

"Oh, you've thought of that."

"Yes. You didn't suppose I was going to hush it up, and do nothing

about the money! I've not quite come down to that, father."

"Oh no, no, my boy. Only--well, it didn't occur to me for some time.

But how could you do it--if it were left to you? How could you send

money by degrees?"

"I haven't thought much about how to do it. Perhaps I should have to

wait until I had got it all. Then I could send it in a lump, from some

place where it couldn't be traced."

The Squire spoke after a thoughtful pause. "I don't like that,

Humphrey."

"Well, there is plenty of time to think out a way. I haven't got a

penny of it yet."

"No; and it can't wait until you have saved it. I should never have a

moment's peace of mind while it was owing. I must help you there,

Humphrey. It's what I can do to help."

"Oh no, father. It's part of the price. I mean to pay it. It will

keep it before us--going short. I wish I could have raised the money

at once. I wish you hadn't made old Aunt Laura put that clause into

her will."

The Squire rather wished he hadn't, too. Seven thousand pounds was a

large sum to find. Something like thirty thousand pounds had been left

to Humphrey, with reversion to Walter and his children. But the Squire

had advised that Humphrey should be restrained from anticipation of his

life interest, and this had been effected.

"Well," he said, "that's done. But this money must be paid at once.

It will only be fair to the others, Humphrey, that it shall come off

your share. But I will find it for you now. If you like to pay it, or

some of it, back again, I won't say no. But that shall be as you like.

It will be the same in the end."

"You are very good, father. But how can you do it without Dick's

knowing?"

"Dick doesn't take part in all my affairs; only in matters that have to

do with the land. I can raise it without affecting the estate

accounts. He will know, probably, that something is being done, but he

won't ask questions. Dick is very careful not to touch on my right to

do what I please with my own."

At any other time Humphrey would have been interested in this

statement. Like the sons of many rich men, he knew little of his

father's affairs, and had only the vaguest ideas as to the amount and

sources of his wealth. But he was only interested now in the fact that

his father was able, and willing, to provide so large a sum as seven

thousand pounds at once.

"It would be a tremendous relief to be rid of that burden," he said.

"If you can do it, I would pay you back what I don't spend out of my

income."

"Yes, I can do it, and I will, as soon as possible. But, Humphrey, my

boy, this money can't be sent anonymously."

"Why not?"

"I don't think you can be expected to see everything very clearly yet.

If you will think it over, you will see that we can't act in that way.

You mustn't expect me to do it."

Humphrey thought for a time. "What do you suggest?" he asked.

"Either you or I must make a clean breast of it to Sedbergh!"

"Oh, father!"

"Yes. That must be done. Our honour demands it. You will see it

plainly enough if you think it over. I believe you were right in

stipulating for secrecy on my part, as you did. Certainly I couldn't

behave as I want to do to Susan, when the time comes, if I knew that

others in the house besides myself knew her story. But this is

different. We mustn't act like cowards."

"Isn't he annoyed with us--about Joan?"

"Not annoyed. He was sorry. So was I--though I'm not sure now. I

think my first instinct was the right one. The sort of life that's

lived in houses like Brummels--well, you see what it leads to."

It was the old familiar song; but set to how different a tune!

Humphrey, even in his pre-occupation, noted the change, and felt a

sense of comfort and support in something stable, underlying the

habitual crudities and inconsistencies in his father.

"Jim Sedbergh was a very intimate friend of mine," said the Squire,

"many years ago. He is a friend still. We found we hadn't changed

much to each other when he came here. I can trust him as I would trust

myself. He will take the view I do, whatever it is. You had better

let me see him, Humphrey. He'll keep whatever I tell him to himself."

They settled that he should go up to London the next day. That was all

there was to settle for the present, and it was already very late.

"Well, good night, Humphrey, my dear boy," said the Squire. "You'll

get through this great trouble. We shall all get through it in time.

You know where to go for help and comfort. I've been there already,

and I've got what I went for. God bless you, my dear boy. He will, if

you ask Him."

CHAPTER III

THE BURDEN

"My dear Edward, I am deeply sorry for you."

The Squire leant back in the big easy-chair and wiped his brow, which

was beaded with perspiration. He had told his story, and it had been

the bitterest task he had ever undertaken.

Lord Sedbergh's face was very serious. The two men had lunched

together at his club, and were sitting in the inner upstairs library,

with coffee and liqueurs at their elbows, by the window looking on to

the green of the park--two men of substantial fortune and accredited

position, entrenched in one of the rich retreats dedicated to the

leisure of their exclusive kind.

But the Squire's curacoa was untouched, and his cigar had gone out.

The retired and tranquil luxury of his surroundings brought no sense of

refuge; he felt naked before those others of his untroubled equals who,

out of hearing in the larger room, would have looked up with

reprehensive curiosity if they could have imagined what breath from the

sordid outer world was tainting the temple of their comfort.

"I appreciate your courage in coming to tell me this; it must have cost

you a deal. But I almost wish you hadn't."

The Squire sat forward again, and drank his liqueur at a gulp.

"I couldn't leave it as it was," he said.

"Perhaps not; though most men in your case would have been inclined to

do so. Have another cigar, Edward. That one hasn't lighted well."

The Squire accepted this offer. The worst was over; and his friend had

taken the disclosure with all the kindness he had expected of him.

"I couldn't do anything myself to stop its coming out," he said, when

his wants had been supplied. "But I can't find it in my heart to blame

Humphrey for what he did. You couldn't say that this money that has

been paid to somebody who knows nothing about it, by somebody who knows

nothing about it, is in any way hush-money."

Whether you could or not, Lord Sedbergh was not prepared to say it.

"No, no," he said comfortably, "you were quite right there, Edward.

You acted honourably--nothing to reproach yourself with. But what an

astonishing story it is! To think that we were wrong all the time!

And Susan Clinton, of all people! Did you say she was hidden in the

room when my wife was talking about the secret?"

His mind was running on details which had long ceased to occupy the

Squire. His curiosity had to be satisfied to some extent, and his

surprise vanquished, before he was ready to consider the story in its

actual bearings. Without intending to add to the pangs of his friend,

he made clear by the way he discussed it, the position that Susan must

occupy in the view of anyone not influenced by the fact of

relationship. She was the thief, found out and condemned, to the loss

of all reputation and right of intercourse with her equals. So had

Mrs. Amberley been condemned, by the self-protective code of society.

The Squire saw Susan in Mrs. Amberley's place, more vividly and

afflictively than he had seen her hitherto.

"She will be kept out of the way," he said, struggling against the hurt

to his pride. "Humphrey is going to take her abroad. You don't think

it is necessary for anyone else to know?"

"Oh no, no. Good heavens, no! What you have told me shall be kept

absolutely sacred, Edward. I shouldn't breathe a word, or a hint, to

any living soul."

The Squire breathed more freely. "We shall look after her," he said

with a stronger feeling of the measure to be dealt out to the culprit

than he had yet experienced. "She won't go scot-free. But exposure

would bear so hard on the innocent--I couldn't have come to you, I

believe--though I know it's the only right thing to do--if I hadn't

been pretty sure that you would have felt that."

"Oh, of course, I feel it. It mustn't happen. It won't happen. It

needn't happen."

"Thank you, Jim," said the Squire simply. "You were always a good

friend of mine."

"Don't think any more of it, Edward. Lord, what a terrible time you

must have gone through! Let's put it out of our minds, for good. You

and I have done nothing wrong, at any rate. Why shouldn't we sustain

ourselves with another----"

"There's a detail that has to be settled between us," interrupted the

Squire, "before we can put it aside. What did you value that necklace

at? Seven thousand pounds, wasn't it? I have been to my people this

morning. I can let you have it within a week or ten days."

"That's a matter," said Lord Sedbergh after a pause of reflection,

"that can only be considered with the help of some very old brandy. It

hadn't occurred to me."

"Wonderful stuff this." Neither of them had spoken since the brandy

had been ordered. "I don't believe you'll get anything like it

anywhere else. Well now, my dear Edward, I think we shall have to

leave that business alone."

"Oh, I couldn't do that. Humphrey doesn't want to, either. He

mentioned it before I did. It is he who will pay it in the long run.

That's only fair. But I can provide the money now, and he can't."

"Well, I don't want the money; and I'm glad to be in the position of

being able to say so. What could I do with it? Buy another necklace?

That would be running the risk of questions being asked that it might

be difficult to answer."

"I don't think so. You are rich enough to be able to replace an

heirloom--it was an heirloom, wasn't it?--and make up to your wife what

has been lost, without occasioning remark. Oh, you must take the

money, Jim. You're as generous as any man living--I know that. But

the loss cannot fall on you, now it is known where the money went to.

That poor misguided creature had it and spent it. It would be a burden

on me all my life, if I couldn't put that right--and on Humphrey too.

He would feel it as much as I should."

"I'm afraid you can't put it right," said Lord Sedbergh, speaking more

seriously. "And it's a burden that you and Humphrey will have to

shoulder. I'll do everything I can for you, Edward; but I won't carry

that burden."

"What do you mean?" asked the Squire.

Lord Sedbergh did not speak for a moment. Then he looked up and asked,

"What about Mrs. Amberley?"

The Squire frowned deeply. The question was a surprise to him. He had

not thought much about Mrs. Amberley, except as an example of what

Susan might be made to appear before the world.

"I ought to have told you how I regard that," he said unwillingly. "I

didn't, because it seems to me perfectly plain, and I thought you would

see it in the same light as I do."

Lord Sedbergh waited for him to explain the light in which he saw it.

"She isn't in prison any longer. They let her out, because she was

ill--or so they said. She's as free as you or I. Nothing that could

be done--somebody else suffering in the same way--would wipe out what

she has already undergone--and done with. Besides, it wasn't on

account of the necklace that she was sent to prison. It was on account

of the other thing; and that she did steal."

"Yes, that's perfectly true. She has had no more than her

deserts--rather less in fact. No, you couldn't reinstate her by

publishing the truth."

"Well, then, what's the difficulty?"

"There's no difficulty, Edward, in my mind, about keeping quiet. It

would be too much to expect any man in your situation to bring the

heaviest possible misfortune on himself, and others, for the sake of

doing justice to someone who could hardly benefit by it. At least

that's how it seems to me."

"Justice!" echoed the Squire. "There's no question of justice. She

was punished for something quite different. If she had been found

guilty of stealing the necklace, and were still undergoing punishment

for it, the whole question would be different altogether. Thank God,

we haven't got to face that question. It would be terrible. As it has

so mercifully turned out, no injustice is done to her at all. Can't

you see that?"

"Well, do you think _she_ would, if she were asked?"

Lord Sedbergh did not leave time for his question to sink in. "My dear

fellow," he went on, "your course is as difficult as it could be. Who

am I that I should put my finger on any one of its difficulties, and

make it heavier? You have done nothing that I shouldn't have done

myself if I had been in your place. At the same time, you have to take

the responsibility for whatever you do, and I haven't."

"Yes, I know that; and it's just what I want to do--put things right

wherever I can."

"But you wouldn't be putting anything right by paying me money. You

would only be making me share your difficulties--your great and very

disagreeable difficulties; and that, with all the good will in the

world towards you, my dear Edward, I won't do."

The Squire saw it dimly, and what he saw did not please him. Nor was

his light enough to prevent him from pressing his point.

When Lord Sedbergh had combated it for some time, with firm good

humour, he said more seriously, "Can't you see that if this story were

ever to come out, and I had taken your money, I should be in a very

awkward position?"

"It never will come out now."

"That's your risk, Edward. I may be a monster of selfishness, but I

won't make it mine."

When the Squire left the club half-an-hour later, his face was not that

of a man who had been set free of a debt of seven thousand pounds.

CHAPTER IV

THIS OUR SISTER

"Clinton. On the 16th inst. the Lady Susan Clinton, aged 28."

How could such an announcement, to the Squire reading it in the

obituary column of his paper, cause any emotion stronger than the

feeling that all was for the best?

For one thing, although the direct cause of Susan's death had been

pneumonia, there was little doubt, to him who knew the state of mind

she had been in when her illness had first attacked her, that she had

succumbed to that, and not to any ailment of the body, which,

otherwise, she could have shaken off. She had paid the price, poor

girl! The account as against her was closed, her name dropped from the

ledger.

That she had died in full repentance, and would therefore escape the

ultimate fate of branded sinners, his easy creed allowed him to take

for granted. The very fact that she _had_ died seemed to make her

state in the hereafter secure. For her it was well.

And not less so for those whom she had, in the phrase that came readily

to his lips, left behind. Humphrey--poor Humphrey--who was overwhelmed

with grief, as it was only natural he should be, would come to feel in

time that her death had been, if not a blessing in disguise--which

would be a harsh way of putting it--then a merciful dispensation of

Providence. He had nothing to reproach himself with. He had cloven to

his wife at a time when he might, justifiably, have played a very

different part; had been prepared to share with her such of the

punishment for her crime as could not be avoided; had even

accepted--quixotically, as the Squire thought--part responsibility for

it; and in short had fulfilled his duty towards her with a fine loyalty

such as his father, remembering certain episodes in his career, had

hardly thought to be in him. He had been tried as by fire, and had

come well out of the ordeal, a better man in every way.

No, Humphrey had nothing to reproach himself with. Indeed, it would

comfort him in the future to think that he had been tender to the poor

girl in her disgrace, comforted her, been ready to throw over the life

that suited him, so as to help her to recover herself, stood up for

her, when she could not with reason be defended, been with her at the

last, broken down when it was all over. His thoughts ran smoothly into

the worn phrases apt to these sad occasions, when grief is subdued to

not unpleasing melancholy, and melancholy is the shade of the tree of

death, in which we are sitting for a time, but with the sunshine of

life still before us.

Humphrey was still young. He could travel for a time, if he wanted to,

or, perhaps better still, stay quietly at Kencote, until he had got

over his loss; and then he could take up his life as before. When time

had healed his wound he might even marry again. But that was to look

too far ahead, with poor Susan not yet under the ground, and the Squire

checked the thought at once. If she had lived he would certainly have

had a very difficult time with her. A high resolve is one thing; the

power to carry it out, day by day, when the exaltation in which it was

made has faded away, is another. Humphrey was not trained to such

efforts. He might have tired of it. Susan might have "broken out"

again. All sorts of trouble might have arisen, which--well, which, by

the mercy of Providence, it was not necessary now to conjecture. For

Humphrey, all was for the best.

The Squire was glad, on his own account, that he had withdrawn his

embargo upon Susan's visiting Kencote, before this had happened. He

had been very near to imposing it again after his interview with Lord

Sedbergh; but Susan had even then been dangerously ill; and the

absorption caused by the rapid progress of her illness, and the

contingent comings and goings, had fortunately taken his mind off the

details of her past misdemeanour. He had been

preserved--mercifully--from dealing his son that extra blow.

And yet he doubted whether he would have been able to play his part

with her. It was plain now, whatever it had been when he had walked

down the steps of Lord Sedbergh's club, that strong reproaches would

not have helped matters; that nothing he had had it in his mind, then,

to do or say to ease himself of the burden, whose weight his old friend

had made him compute by refusing to touch it, would have lightened it;

and that the effect of his knowledge would only have been to make

things more difficult alike for himself and for Humphrey. His anger

against the poor girl would be buried in her grave. It would not be

difficult to speak of her now with that regretful affection that would

be expected of him.

And her death made him less vulnerable. He perceived now, not without

a shudder, that his safety depended upon the silence of a woman who,

wherever the responsibility lay, had been bought, and might be bought

again; or, if that were unlikely, might lightly let loose the hint

which, gathering other hints to itself, would grow into the avalanche

that would involve him in the disgrace he so much feared. But an

accusation against a dead woman--if it were made it would be less

readily believed, more reprehensible, easier to cast off. And Susan

would not be there, a possible weakness to her own defence.

Here again he checked his thoughts. He was not ready to face a

situation in which he would either have to deny untruthfully, or to

keep damaging silence. But, certainly, for him, all was for the best.

Dick came in, as he was sitting with the paper on his knee. He wore a

black tie, but was otherwise dressed as usual. His face was becomingly

grave. They talked over details of the funeral. Susan was to be

buried at Kencote, in the churchyard where so many generations of

Clintons had been buried, her own distant ancestors among them, but

none within living memory who had not lived out the full tale of their

years. Her body would lie in the church that night, and the house

would fill up with many of those who would follow her to the grave on

the morrow, including some members of her own family, all of whom the

Squire disliked or was prepared to dislike. He ardently wished himself

done with the painful ordeal. He doubted whether he would be able to

acquit himself unremittingly in the manner that would be expected of

him. He would have to wear a face of gloom, when he was already

itching to be rid of these cheerless trailing postscripts to the

message of death, and commit himself once more to the warm current of

life. He would have to say so many things that he did not feel, and do

so much that he hated doing.

The shadow, not of grief but of the adjuncts of grief, lay over the

house, and darkened the bright June sunshine, or such of it as was

allowed to filter through the blinded windows. Not for fifty years or

more had such an assemblage been made at Kencote. The successive

funerals of the Squire's six aunts, who had lived since his marriage at

the Dower House, and the last of whom had died at another house in the

village only two years ago, had been untroublous, not to say brisk,

ceremonies, occasions of meeting between seldom-seen relations, and of

hospitality almost festive, but tempered by affectionate reminiscence

of the departed, and the feeling that one might talk naturally and

freely, so long as one did not actually laugh. Ripe age had fallen on

the rest laid up for it; there had been no occasion to feign deep

sorrow.

But--"the Lady Susan Clinton, aged 28"!--there was material for sharp

sorrow there; and the Squire was disturbed by the fear that he might

not be able to show it; might even, if he were off his guard, show that

he did not feel it.

"Did you hear from mother this morning?" asked Dick, when they had

disposed of the details he had come to discuss.

"Yes. Humphrey is bearing up; but, of course, poor fellow, he can't

get used to the idea yet. We must keep him here for a bit, after we

rid the house of all these people; and he'll soon come round to

himself."

"Was there any trouble between them latterly?" Dick asked, in a

matter-of-fact voice, but gave the Squire time to collect his thoughts

by going on immediately, "I don't want to pry into your affairs or his,

but I had an idea that that business of Gotch's wasn't all he came to

see you about the other day."

"Why do you think that?" asked the Squire with undiplomatic directness.

"Well--your going up to town with him the next day, for one thing. I

only wanted to say that if it's a question of money again, which hasn't

been put right by poor Susan's death, you can count on me for help if

there's any difficulty in raising it."

What a good son this was--safe, level-headed, coolly and responsibly

generous! The Squire would have given a good deal to have been

released from his promise, and able to take him into full confidence

then and there.

"Well," he said, "there _was_ trouble about money, and I was prepared

to find it, without interfering with estate affairs. That's why I

didn't come to you. But the necessity is over now."

He mentally patted himself on the back for this masterpiece of

statement, transgressing the strict truth by no more than perfectly

allowable omission.

"Her settlement falls in, I suppose," said Dick. "I'm glad you were

spared the worry, although the way out of it is sad enough. I've been

sorry for Humphrey for some time. He had come to see that he had

always played the fool about money, and was beginning to get his ideas

straight; but poor Susan--well, one doesn't want to think about her in

that way now--but there's no doubt she was a terrible drag on him. I'd

seen it coming for some time, and when he talked to me at Christmas

about settling down, I was pretty sure that he didn't know everything,

and would be coming with another story soon."

"Why did you think that?" asked the Squire, with the sensation of

treading on very thin ice.

"Oh, it was common talk of how she was going on--_had_ been, I should

say, for she did seem to have calmed down within the last year.

Otherwise, I think I should have made up my mind to give Humphrey a

hint, disagreeable as it would have been. Things were being hinted at

about a year ago that made me think we might find ourselves involved in

some bad scandal before we were much older."

"Oh, Dick," the Squire broke out, "we mustn't talk like this about a

dead woman. Humphrey told me everything. It's all wiped out and done

with now, for her, poor girl."

"Yes," said Dick. "But I'm not going to pretend that I think her death

is a calamity. I don't; although any feeling one may have had against

her is wiped out, as you say. In fact, if she had begun to pull

herself up, as I think she had, and had got it all off her mind before

she died, as I suppose she did, it's possible to feel kindly towards

her. Still, I think she had made too big a mess of things. It would

have come between them. As it is, he'll be able to think of her

without bitterness. He'll get over the shock in time."

This was all so much what the Squire felt himself, summed up as it

might have been in the comfortable phrase, "all for the best," that its

effect upon him was much the same as if he had had the relief of

telling Dick everything. He cheered up palpably, until he remembered

what lay immediately in front of him; but faced even that with more

equanimity, upheld by Dick's sympathetic support, and relieved of some

doubt as to whether his thoughts about poor Susan were quite of the

right colour.

The afternoon train, which in the course of these histories we have so

often met at Kencote Station, brought the coffin and the mourners.

Humphrey looked pale and worn, but collected. He stood with his

mother's arm in his while the coffin, covered with flowers, was taken

out of the purple-lined van, and lifted on to a hand bier. The church

was much nearer to the station than the house, and the little

procession walked there, past the cottages with blinds all drawn, and

the villagers standing by them, mostly in black, which only served to

heighten the bright colours of the flowers with which the gardens were

full. The sky was of the purest blue, and larks trilled unseen in its

translucent vapours, as if to draw the thoughts of the mourners away

from the earth in which they were presently to see these mortal remains

laid. The elms and chestnuts whispered of life going on and renewing

itself year by year until the end. The rich springing growth of early

summer in this quiet country village spoke of life and of hope; and the

black line of mourners moving slowly along was not incongruous with it,

if the poor clay they were escorting was really only the husk from

which new life had already sprung.

The Squire, sobered to becoming gravity by the sight of the coffin, yet

felt his thoughts tuned to the beauty of the sky and the familiar

surroundings. It was he who had planned this walking escort. There

would be carriages, and a state suitable to the occasion on the morrow.

This was to be a home-coming, a token of his forgiveness of her for the

trouble she had caused him, a sort of last taste of the everyday life

of Kencote, into the intimacy of which she was finally to be received

as a daughter of the house. It appealed also to that sense of common

human life, which is the fine flower of squiredom. Death levels all;

he had no feeling that the cottagers standing at their garden gates

were intruding their curiosity, as was felt by Susan's mother for one,

who thought this public tramp between a station and a church an outrage

on her nobility. The cottagers were his friends on an occasion like

this, had a right to share mourning as well as festival with the family

in whose interests they were hereditarily bound up. He took comfort

from seeing them there. They were his people; without them this quiet

home-coming would have been incomplete.

The coffin was taken into the chancel of the ancient church, and set

down over the brass of a knightly Clinton who had died and been buried

there five centuries before. Almost without exception those who

followed it were his direct descendants, and the same stones surrounded

them as had sheltered the mourners at his funeral. So many years, so

little change! Christening, marriage, burial--the renewal of life in

the same stock had gone on through the centuries. This new burial was

only a ripple in the steady, pauseless flow, and would have been no

more if the head of the house himself had lain where this poor,

foolish, erring girl, now hardly regretted, and soon to be forgotten,

was laid.

A few prayers were said, and a hymn sung, and then she was left to lie

there alone. Shafts of sunlight would slant across the stones, and

fading, give place to twilight, then to dusk, then to darkness. The

church would be very still. Dawn would come, with the sweet twittering

of birds, and the sun would once more strike through the armorial glass

of the East window, and paint stone and timber with bright colour; and

still she would be lying there, dead to the glory of a new day as she

had been dead to the darkness of the night. Nothing would matter to

her any more. In a little while her dust would mingle with that of

long generations of Clintons forgotten, and her memory would pass away

as theirs had passed. Her life had been everything to her, her wants

and hopes and regrets the centre of her being. Now it was as if it had

never been--for her, lying in the still church.

But her acts lived. The ripples she had caused in the pond of life

would spread, intersecting other ripples caused by other acts, until

they reached the border.

When they had returned to the house Nancy went up with Joan into her

room--the room in which they had slept side by side for all but a few

nights in their lives until Nancy's marriage. There was only one bed

in the room now.

"How odd it looks!" said Nancy. "Do you miss me, my precious old Joan?"

"Of course I do," said Joan. "I had to make them take your bed out.

It made me feel so horribly lonely."

"If John is ever unkind to me," said Nancy, "I shall come here and have

it put back."

She checked herself. No vestige of a joke was to be allowed until

after to-morrow. She thought herself unfeeling for even inclining to

light speech. To her and Joan the death of someone not much older than

themselves was a startling thing; and the death of anyone so close to

them, in their inexperience of death, would have subdued them for a

time.

"Let's go and talk in the schoolroom," Nancy said. "Nobody will come

there."

They sat together on the old comfortable sofa, arms entwined. The

absence of sentiment with which they had been accustomed to treat one

another had given place to frequent signs of affection. They had

hardly been more together during their childhood than since Nancy had

come to Kencote after her honeymoon the day before. Their stream of

talk flowed unceasingly. Oceans of separate experience had to be

bridged.

Now they put aside for a time their own affairs of the past and future,

and talked about the immediate present.

"Did you speak to Humphrey?" Joan asked. "I didn't; but I thought he

looked awful."

"He kissed me when we came in," said Nancy, "and said he was glad I had

come back in time. He spoke much the same as usual, but went away

directly. Joan, how awful he must be feeling! Just think what John

would feel if he were to lose me!"

"You haven't been married so long," said Joan; but immediately added,

"I suppose that wouldn't make any difference, though. I do feel

frightfully sorry for Humphrey. I almost think it would have been

better if the funeral had been at once, instead of making it like two.

It must be awful for him to think of her lying there all alone in the

church. You know, Uncle Tom wanted to have tapers and somebody to

watch; but father wouldn't."

"No; I didn't know that. Why?"

"He said candles were Roman Catholic; and that there would be nobody

who wanted to watch. I think he was right there. You know, Nancy, I

think the saddest thing about it is that there is nobody who is very

sorry for poor Susan's death--except Humphrey. I don't think her own

people are. None of them looked it."

"Lady Aldeburgh cried."

"She pretended to. Her eyes were quite dry."

"I liked Susan. So did you."

"Yes, in a way. Perhaps not very much. I wish I had liked her more,

now. I _am_ sorry, of course. But I feel much more glad at having you

again, than sorry because she is dead."

Nancy gave her a squeeze. "I can't realise that she is dead," she

said, "that she was in that coffin. I felt just a little bit like

choking when Uncle Tom read that part about a place of rest and peace.

It was so dreadful to think of her being dead; but that seemed to alter

it all. If she is somewhere alive still--and happy!"

"Yes," said Joan seriously. "I hope Humphrey is thinking about that."

On the morrow there was a difficult time to get through before the

funeral, at twelve o'clock. The Squire took the "Times" into his room

when it came, but only glanced over it, standing up. He made occasion

to go to the Rectory, and to the Dower House, and spent some little

time at each; and the hour came round.

It was over quickly. The large company walked and drove back to the

house, which stood once more normally unshuttered, and ate and drank.

There was a buzz of conversation in the crowded dining-room, which at

times swelled beyond the limits of strict propriety, and suddenly

subsided, only to rise and sink again.

Departures began to be taken. This was the hardest time for the Squire

to go through, for he had to say something in answer to the words of

each. The end came with a rush, when most of those who had been

staying in the house, with those who had come down that morning, left

to take the special train back to London.

When the last carriage had departed the Squire turned back into the

hall with a great sigh of relief. He went into his room and stood by

the open window, breathing deeply of the soft summer air, as if his

lungs had been cleared of some obstacle. "Well, that's over," he said

aloud as he turned away.

The sound of his words checked him. He went to the window again, and

looked across the garden and the park to where the church tower showed

between the trees. "Poor girl!" he said slowly. And then, after a

pause, "Poor dear girl!"

This satisfied him, and he went briskly to the table where the

newspapers were laid in order.

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I

A RETURN

The Squire shut to the gate in the garden wall of the Dower House and

stepped out across the park. His face was lit up with gratification,

his step was as light as that of an elderly man of seventeen stone very

well could be.

He had been to see Virginia, and she had given him the news that had

caused this elation.

She had just come down from Scotland, where John Spence had taken a

moor, leaving Dick amongst the grouse. Mrs. Clinton was there too, and

Joan, and a large house-party besides. The Squire had been asked, but

it was many years since the twelfth had caused a stir in his movements,

and he had refused. Didn't care much about it; might come to them

later, when they moved down, for the pheasants. It was a not

unpleasant change for him to have the house entirely to himself. But

he had got a little tired of his solitary condition after a fortnight,

and had been extremely glad to see Virginia, who had come South to meet

a friend on her way from America to Switzerland.

It seemed that young Inverell--the Earl of Inverell, twenty-seven years

of age, master of mines as well as acres, handsome and amiable as well

as high-principled--in fact the very type and picture of young

Earls--whose Highland property marched with that which John Spence had

rented, had been constantly of their party, even to the extent of

putting off one of his own.

The attraction? Joan.

There could be no doubt about it, Virginia had said. He was head over

ears. And Joan was as gay as a lark. It was the sweetest thing to see

them together--a picture of adorable youth, and love, unspoken as yet,

but shining out of their eyes and ringing in their laughter for

everyone to see and hear.

She had enlarged on the enchanting spectacle, and the Squire had

listened to her tale, not so much because he "cared about that sort of

thing," but so as to assure himself that it was undoubtedly a true one,

on both sides, and that Joan, especially, would not be likely to rebel

a second time.

How providentially things worked out! Young Inverell was a _parti_

beside whom the eligibility of Bobby Trench paled perceptibly. Bobby

Trench, socially and financially, would have been a good match. This

would be a great one. If it would not "lift" the Clintons of Kencote,

which the Squire was persuaded no marriage whatever could do, it would

at least point their retiring worth. It would bring them into that

prominence in which, to speak truth, they had always been somewhat

lacking.

And he was a nice young fellow too, so the Squire had always heard;

already beginning modestly to play the part in public affairs which was

expected of the head of his house; untouched as yet by the staleness of

the world, which had touched Bobby Trench so much to the Squire's

disgust, until he had closed his senses to it; and a fitting mate in

point of youth and good looks for a beautiful young girl like Joan,

which Bobby Trench could hardly have been said to be, in spite of his

ever youthful behaviour.

Really, it was highly gratifying. It just showed that there was no

need to hurry these things. If Joan had taken the first person that

came along--a young fellow he had never thought much of himself, but

had allowed to take his chances out of old friendship to his

father--she would have missed this. The child was a good child. She

would do credit to any station. Countess of Inverell! Nothing in

that, of course, but--well, really the whole thing was highly

gratifying.

Why hadn't his wife written about it?

There was nothing in that. She always left out of her letters the

things she might have known he would like to hear. Virginia was quite

certain; and she could be trusted on such a subject, or indeed on any.

Well, one got through one's troubles. It was extraordinary how

sunshine came after rain, or would be if one didn't believe in a wise

Providence overruling everything for our good. A few months ago there

had been that terrible affair, now buried and forgotten----

The brightness left his face as his thoughts touched on that subject.

It was buried, sadly, though perhaps mercifully, enough; but it was not

forgotten. It was thought of as little as possible, but the debt still

rankled--the debt that could not be paid. It came up at nights, when

sleep tarried, which fortunately happened seldom. But time was

adjusting the burden. It would not be felt much longer.

The thought of it now came only as a passing shadow to heighten the

sunshine of the present. In fact this gleam of sunshine seemed to

remove the shadow finally. He had done, all that he could do, had kept

back nothing, had satisfied his honour. An obligation to so old a

friend as Sedbergh need not weigh on any man.

It would be ungrateful not to recognise how plainly things had been

"ordered." Apart from the curious accidents of the problem--the fact

that "the woman" had not been condemned for _that_ crime; that she had

already paid her penalty; that the other woman had been connected in

such a way that it had been possible to silence her by a perfectly

innocent transaction, carried out by perfectly innocent people--facts

surely beyond coincidence, and of themselves demanding belief in an

overruling Providence--apart from all this there had been poor Susan's

death, no longer demanding the least pretence of lamentation, but to be

regarded as a clear sign that the account had been squared and no

further penalty would be exacted.

And now there was this new satisfaction, as a further most bountiful

token of favour. How was it possible that there could be those who did

not believe in a God above, when signs were so plain to those who could

read them? It would be churlish now not to throw off all disagreeable

thoughts of the past, and not to take full pleasure in the brightness

of present and future.

As the Squire came round a group of shrubs that masked the lawn from

the carriage drive he saw a woman approaching the house. As he caught

sight of her she caught sight of him, changed her course, and came

towards him.

He stopped short with a gasp of dismay. It was Mrs. Amberley.

"Mr. Clinton," she said, "I have never had the pleasure of meeting you,

but I expect you know who I am. I have come down from London on

purpose to have a little talk with you."

She had altered in no way that he could have described. She was

fashionably dressed, in a manner suitable for the country, her

wonderful hair had not lost its lustre, her face was still the

beautiful mask of whatever lurked in secret behind it. Yet she seemed

to him a thing of horror, degraded and stained for all the world to

see. And even the world might have been aware of some subtle change.

Whether it was that her neat boots were slightly filmed with dust, or

that her clothes, smart as they were, were not of the very latest; or

that it was no outward sign, but the consciousness of disgrace

affecting her bearing, however she might try to conceal it--whatever it

was, it was there. This was a woman who had come down very low, knew

that the world was against her, and would fight the world with no shame

for what it could still withhold from her.

He stared at her open-mouthed, unable for the moment either to speak or

think.

She laughed at him elaborately. "You don't seem very pleased to see

me," she said. "May we go into the house and sit down? I have walked

from the station, and am rather tired."

"No," he said quickly, reacting to his immediate impulse. "You will

not enter my house."

She looked at him with careful insolence. "Shall we go into the

churchyard?" she said, "and talk over Susan Clinton's grave?"

The infamous taunt brought him to himself. "Come this way," he said,

and turned his back on her to stride off along a path between the

shrubs.

She followed him for a few steps, and then, feeling probably that this

rapid progress in his wake did not accord with her dignity, stopped and

said, "Where are you taking me to, please? I haven't come here to look

at your garden."

He turned sharply and faced her. "I am taking you to where we can be

neither seen nor heard," he said, and waited for her to speak.

"Very well," she said. "That will suit me very well--for a _first_

conversation--as long as it is not too far, and I am not expected to

race there."

He turned his back on her and went on again, but at a slower pace.

They went through a thick shrubbery and out on to a little sloping lawn

at the edge of the lake, which was entirely surrounded by great

rhododendrons. There was a boat-house here, and a garden seat, to

which he motioned her.

She sat down, and looked up at him. "I am not going to talk to you

standing over me like that," she said. "It will be giving you an

unfair advantage."

He sat down on the same seat, as far away from her as possible.

"Well, what have you got to say for yourself?" she asked him, in much

the same tone as a schoolmaster might have asked the question of an

errant schoolboy.

He said nothing. He had nothing to say. His thoughts were still in a

turmoil.

Perhaps silence was the best retort to her air of insolence. She had

to find another opening.

"You call yourself a man of honour!" she said in a slow contemptuous

voice. "You pay hush-money, so that the innocent may suffer, and the

guilty go free."

"It's a lie," he said. "I paid no money. I refused to pay money."

"Ah, then you did know everything. It was what I could not be quite

certain about. The story was confused. Thank you for clearing it up."

He felt himself trapped at the first opening of his mouth. He would

need all his wits to cope with this shameless, cunning woman. He tried

to break through her deliberate artifices. "What do you want?" he

asked. "What have you come here for?"

"You didn't pay the money yourself?" she went on. "That would hardly

have done, would it? You let somebody else pay it, and washed your

hands of it, I suppose."

It had been his own phrase. Her chance lighting on it seemed to make

her uncannily aware of everything that had passed. How had she got

hold of her information? He had not had time to think about that yet.

"I refused to pay anything," he repeated. "Nothing was paid to anybody

who had anything to do with you. I refuse to discuss these affairs

with you."

"Oh, do you?" she taunted him. "Will you refuse to discuss them when

you are brought up on a charge of conspiracy? You will be allowed to

do it through Counsel, of course. They allowed me Counsel, when I was

brought up on a charge of stealing something that a member of your

family stole. I wish I could have done without him. I should have

liked to defend myself. But it will suit _you_. You can shelter

behind him. You seem rather good at that."

"What do you want?" he asked her again. "What have you come here for?"

"To talk it over quietly," she said, with the same mocking intonation.

"Do you want to know how I found out about it all? You seem to have

forgotten entirely that I _knew_ that somebody staying in the house at

the same time that I was must have stolen the things. It wasn't very

difficult, afterwards, to decide on the thief. I have a few friends

still, Mr. Clinton, and I heard that your precious Susan, whom every

one knew to have been head over ears in debt, had suddenly and

miraculously become out of debt, and had money to throw about. I had

enquiries made, and heard that the woman whom you bought--I beg your

pardon, whom you made somebody else a cat's-paw to buy, so as to save

your own skin, had been sent over to the other side of the water, to

get her out of the way. It was the finger of Providence, I think, that

led me to follow her up. I expect you have been thinking that

Providence had been specially engaged in your interests; and it

certainly did look like it--for a time."

Again the uncanny cognisance of his very thoughts! But this was only a

very clever woman, who knew her man, and his type.

"I went over myself, and found her," she went on. "She was going West

to make a start on the money that her poor fool of a husband thought

had been given him for his own sweet sake. She didn't intend to

undeceive him. At one time I had had an idea of going 'West' myself.

You see I had been hounded out of London for the crime that one of you

Clintons had committed, and as you had so chivalrously left me to bear

the burden of it, and hushed up the truth, instead of clearing my name,

I didn't know then that I should be able to come back again. I wanted

to get away as far as possible."

He was unendurably taunted. "Your name couldn't have been cleared," he

said. "You were not condemned for that; it was for stealing the other

thing; and that will stick to you still."

She affected bewilderment, and then enlightenment seemed to come to

her, and she laughed. "Oh, that's it, is it?" she said. "Your mind

seems to run so much in twists and curves that anyone who expects a

straight sense of right and wrong in honourable men must be pardoned

for being a little slow in following them. But I didn't steal that

either, you know. The sainted Susan stole it as well as the

necklace--she was an expert in such things--and this woman Clark told

_my_ woman about it--the one who committed perjury at my trial, and is

now going to suffer for it, if I can find her."

The sneer at the dead girl pierced something in him which set his brain

clear. This was a wicked woman, and she was lying to him. "That's a

likely story!" he said with rough contempt, and she winced for the

first time, although, with his eyes on the ground, he did not mark it.

"It is one that will keep for the present," she said, instantly

recovering her coolness. "Well, fortunately I was able to make friends

with Susan's maid. It is a way I have with that sort of person,

although it is true that my own brute of a woman gave me away."

"Yes, she gave you away," said the Squire, more quick-witted than

ordinarily.

"Lied about me, I ought to have said," she corrected herself, with a

blink of the eyelids. "I see I must be careful to choose my words.

Words mean so much with you, don't they? Acts so little. If you can

say you haven't paid a bribe, it doesn't in the least matter that you

have let it be done and taken advantage of it. Well, I made friends

with her to begin with. She had just heard of Susan's death and wanted

to talk about it. She couldn't keep her foolish mind off the

connection between me and Susan, and spoke in such a way that I soon

knew I had been right to follow her up. I drew her on--I have always

been considered rather clever, you know--and before she knew she had

done it she had let out her story. You may be sure I frightened her,

when I could safely do so, into telling me the whole of it. I heard

what a fright dear Humphrey was in--a nice young man that--came to my

trial, I believe, jingling the stolen money in his pocket."

"That's not true," said the Squire. "He knew nothing of it whatever."

"He may have told you so. But six or seven thousand pounds! To repeat

your own words: 'That's a likely story, isn't it?'"

"He didn't know. You can go on."

"Thank you. I heard how he came posting down here, to get the

hush-money; and how it came by return of post--telegraph, I believe; I

think he telegraphed to the woman, 'Blackmail will be paid,' I suppose,

'on condition do not say from father.'"

She laughed at her jest. The Squire kept miserable silence.

"Well, there it is," she said. "To use my words more carefully this

time--she gave you away. You never thought you could be given away,

did you? You thought you were safe. Your conscience hasn't troubled

you much, I should think, to judge by your healthy appearance.

Conscience never does trouble cowards much, when they can once assure

themselves they won't be found out."

In the turbulent confusion of his mind, the Squire still clung to

certain fixities. He had acted for the best; he had acted so that the

innocent should not suffer; and if he himself had been amongst the

innocent who were to escape suffering, his own safety had not been his

chief thought. And if his actions, or his refraining from action, had

added to the burden justly borne by the guilty, that had been

inevitable if the innocent were to be saved; in any case it had added

so little that he could not be blamed for ignoring it. Cowardice at

least, he had thought, was no crime that could ever be laid to his

charge, and he had not shown it when he had braved all consequences in

refusing to lift a finger to avert the disaster that was now, in spite

of all, threatening him.

But she was dragging from him all his armour, piece by piece. He let

it go, and clung to his naked manhood.

"You may say what you like," he said, squaring himself and looking out

over the water in front of him. "I simply stood aside. What could

you--no, not you, what could anyone--have expected me to do? Publish

the truth--overwhelm the innocent with the guilty; and all for what?

For nothing. You were free. You----"

"Free! Yes. They had let me out of prison, that's quite true. Would

_you_ consider yourself free with that taint hanging over you? Was I

free to come back to my friends? Was I free even to settle down

anywhere where my story was known? Susan, the thief, was to be

sheltered, because she bore the honoured name of Clinton. _She_ was to

go free. Yes. But _I_, who had taken her punishment, was to be left

to bear the bitter results of it all my life. What meanness! What

base cowardice!"

He hardened himself, but said nothing.

"Susan had stolen this necklace, worth thousands of pounds," she went

on. "She had----"

"But not the jewel that you were imprisoned for stealing," he put in

again.

"I have already told you that she did; and I can prove it by that

woman's evidence."

He wavered, but stuck to his point. "I don't believe it," he said,

"and you can leave it out."

"I will, because it doesn't really matter whether you believe it or

not. You will believe it when you see her in the witness-box."

"You won't get her into the witness-box, to swear to that."

"Well, we shall see. There's no sense in haggling with you over that.

We will leave it out, as you advised. I was talking about Susan. She

and your precious Humphrey had spent the money that they had got from

the sale, or pawning, or whatever it was, of the pearls she had stolen."

"I have already said," he interposed quietly, "that Humphrey knew

nothing of it."

"And I have already said, 'That's a likely story!' However, we need not

press the point now. Say she had had all the money if you like, and

that he--dear innocent--never noticed that she was spending some

thousands of pounds more than he allowed her. If you like to believe

that it's your affair; we shall have plenty of opportunities of judging

what view other people will take of it, by and by. At any rate, the

money was spent--the stolen money--and you, a rich man, can sit down

quietly and let somebody else bear the loss of it."

He knew he was giving himself into her hands, but he could not help

himself. "That's not true," he said.

She looked at him, her lip curling. "Oh! you sent it back--anonymously

perhaps. You did have that much honesty."

"You can make what use of the admission you like," he said. "I told

Lord Sedbergh the story, and offered him the money."

This set her a little aback. "_He_ knows the truth, then," she

exclaimed. "Another man of honour! _He_ lets me lie under the stigma

of having stolen something that he's got the price of in his pocket all

the time. Upon my word! You're a pretty pair! I'm not certain that

he's not worse than you are."

He struggled with himself, but only for a moment, and then said, "He

refused to take the money."

She was quick to take that up. "Oh! I see. Dear me, how I should

have enjoyed being present at that interview. You go to him with the

delightful proposal that he shall make himself party to your meanness,

and he refuses. Yes. I suppose he would. I've no reason to suppose

there are two men of supposed honour who could act quite as vilely as

you have done. Come now, Mr. Clinton, I've given you a piece of

gratuitous information. Supposing you return it by telling me what he

said to you. Did he tell you what he really thought of you, or only

hint it?"

"Oh, let's have an end of this," he said, with agonised impatience.

"What have you come here for? What do you want?"

Her manner changed. "Yes, we will have an end of it," she said, with

quick scorn. "It's useless to tell you what I think of your meanness,

and how I despise your cowardice. I should have respected you much

more if you had paid your blackmail down like a man, and then kept

quiet about it, instead of running snivelling about trying to salve

your own conscience. But a man who can believe as you have has no

shame. You can't touch him by showing him up to himself. You can,

though, by making him pay for it. And I'm going to make _you_ pay--to

the last rag of reputation you've got left."

She clenched her fist, and bent towards him fiercely. On his

fathomless trouble her change of attitude made no new impression. What

mattered it whether she sneered or stormed? The truth would be known;

the pit of disgrace was already yawning for him.

"I can't touch Susan," she went on. "If I could, I'd drag her out of

her grave and set her up for all the world to mock at."

The intensity with which she said this affected him not merely to

horror. He began to see dimly what an adversary he had to cope with,

and the burning rage against circumstance that must consume her. Even

if all he had comforted himself with was true--if she was guilty of

stealing the diamonds, and had suffered for that alone--still, she had

suffered for Susan's crime. For if Susan had been found out, she

would, or might, have gone undetected. How that knowledge must

smoulder or blaze in her mind, night and day--all the worse if she was

partly guilty! He might expect no mercy from her.

"I _will_ make her name a mockery," she cried, "and I'll make yours

stink in the nostrils of every decent honest man and woman in the

country. I've only to tell my story. You can't deny it; you won't be

allowed to. But I'll do more than that. I'll make you stand where I

stood; first in the police court, then in the dock--you and Humphrey

together, and your other son too and his wife, who paid the money.

Tell your story _then_, and see what's thought of you! Some of them

may get off--but _you_ won't. You'll go where I went--to a vile and

horrible prison, where you'll be with the scum of the earth; where

you'll have plenty of time to think it all over, and whether it

wouldn't have been better for you, after all, to tell the truth and

shame the devil,--you dastardly coward!"

Her voice had risen almost to a shriek. He looked round him, in fear

that it would bring someone to the scene. But the lake was retired,

and seldom visited. They were quite alone.

"Yes, I suppose you would like to move away," she said in a voice more

controlled, but still quivering with rage. "You can't run away.

You'll have to face it now; you and your whole family, guilty and

innocent. I'll make you suffer through them, as well as in yourself.

You'll never wipe off the blot, never in all your life, not even when

you come out of prison and come back here--a man that nobody will speak

to again, for all your wealth and position. You can think of that when

you're in your cell. They give you plenty of time to think. It's not

more than _I_ suffered; it's not so much, because I was innocent. But

I'd no children and grandchildren to make it worse. You have. It's

your _name_ you've blackened. Clinton will mean thief, and

conspirator, and everything that's vile long after _you_ are dead."

He had heard enough. He got up, turned his back on her, and began to

walk very slowly across the little lawn, his head bent. She watched

him with a look of hate, which gradually faded to scorn, then to

cunning, then to expectation. But it became dismay when, having

crossed the grass, he did not turn, but kept on between the shrubs, as

if he had forgotten her, and were going to leave her there alone.

She had to call to him. "Where are you going?"

He turned at once, and the look on his face might have made her pity

him, if she had had any pity in her.

"You must do what you will," he said. "There is nothing more to be

said."

Then he turned from her again, and pursued his slow, contemplative walk

along the path, his shoulders bent, his steps dragging a little, like

those of an old man.