CHAPTER I.

Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by Google Books

Transcriber's Notes:

1. Page scan source: Google Books

https://books.google.com/books?id=JKxBAAAAYAAJ

(Princeton University)

BESSY RANE.

A Novel.

BY

MRS. HENRY WOOD.

AUTHOR OF

"EAST LYNNE," "THE CHANNINGS," "JOHNNY LUDLOW," ETC.

Forty-second Thousand.

LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,

Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.

1897.

(_All rights reserved_.)

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

CONTENTS.

-----

PART THE FIRST.

I. The Anonymous Letter.

II. Ellen Adair.

III. In Mrs. Gass's Parlour.

IV. Alone with the Truth.

V. Retrospect.

VI. Watching the Funeral.

VII. After the Funeral.

VIII. Madam's Listening Closet.

IX. In Lawyer Dale's Office

X. Put to his Conscience.

XI. A Quiet Wedding.

XII. Jelly's Indiscretion

XIII. Coming Home.

PART THE SECOND.

I. What was, and what might be.

II. Mrs. Gass amid the Workmen.

III. Morning Visitors.

IV. Three Letters for Dr. Rane.

V. Madam's Advice.

VI. Mary Dallory.

VII. Love among the Roses.

VIII. The Tontine.

IX. At the Sea-side.

X. A Last Proposal.

XI. Under the Cedar-tree.

XII. An Interruption.

XIII. Panic.

XIV. What Jelly saw.

XV. Desolation.

XVI. In the Churchyard.

XVII. At Sir Nash Bohun's.

XVIII. Jelly's Troubles.

XIX. Coming Home to Die.

XX. Richard North's Revelation.

XXI. Under the Same Roof.

XXII. Tangled Threads.

XXIII. Jelly's Two Evening Visits.

XXIV. Mischief brewing in North Inlet.

XXV. Days of Pain.

XXVI. Mrs. Gass at Home.

XXVII. Once Again.

XXVIII. Coming very Near.

XXIX. In the Shrubbery.

XXX. Lying in Wait.

XXXI. Disturbing the Grave.

XXXII. A Night Expedition.

PART THE THIRD.

I. In Grosvenor Place.

II. No Hope.

III. Brought Home to him.

IV. Conclusion.

BESSY RANE.

PART THE FIRST.

CHAPTER I.

THE ANONYMOUS LETTER.

It was an intensely dark night. What with the mist that hung around

from below, and the unusual gloom above, Dr. Rane began to think he

might have done well to bring a lantern with him, to guide his steps

up Ham Lane, when he should turn into it. He would not be able to

spare time to pick his way there. A gentleman--so news had been

brought to him--was lying in sudden extremity, and his services as a

medical man were being waited for.

Straight down, on the road before him, at only half-a-mile distance,

lay the village of Dallory; so called after the Dallory family, who

had been of importance in the neighbourhood in the years gone by. This

little off-shoot was styled Dallory Ham. The latter name had given

rise to disputes amidst antiquarians. Some maintained that the word

Ham was only a contraction of hamlet, and that the correct name would

be Dallory Hamlet: others asserted that the appellation arose from the

circumstance that the public green, or common, was in the shape of a

ham. As both sides brought logic and irresistible proof to bear on

their respective opinions, contention never flagged. At no very remote

period the Ham had been a grassy waste, given over to stray donkeys,

geese, and gipsies. They were done away with now that houses encircled

it; pretty villas of moderate dimensions, some cottages and a few

shops: the high-road ran, as it always had done, straight through the

middle of it. Dallory Ham had grown to think itself of importance,

especially since the time when two doctors had established themselves

in it: Dr. Rane and Mr. Alexander. Both lived in what might be called

the neck of the Ham, which was nearest to Dallory proper.

Standing with your face towards Dallory (in the direction the doctor

was hastening), his house was on the right-hand side. He had only now

turned out of it. Dallory Hall, to which place Dr. Rane had been

summoned, stood a little beyond the entrance to the Ham, lying back on

the right in its grounds, and completely hidden by trees. It was

inhabited by Mr. North.

Oliver Rane had come forth in haste and commotion. He could not

understand the message, excepting the one broad fact that Edmund

North, Mr. North's eldest son, was supposed to be dying. The servant,

who brought it, did not seem to understand it either. He spoke of an

anonymous letter that had been received by Mr. North, of disturbance

thereupon, of a subsequent encounter--a sharp, brief quarrel--between

Edmund North and Mr. Alexander, the surgeon; and of some sort of fit

in which Edmund North was now lying senseless.

Dr. Rane was a gentlemanly man of middle height and slender frame, his

age about thirty. The face in its small regular features might have

been held to possess a dash of effeminacy, but for the resolute

character of the firm mouth and the pointed chin. His eyes--rather too

close together--whiskers and hair, were of a reddish brown, the latter

worn brushed aside from the forehead; his teeth were white and even:

altogether a good-looking man; but one of rather too silent manners,

of too inscrutable a countenance to be very pleasing.

"An anonymous letter!" Dr. Rane had repeated to himself, with a sort

of groan, hastening from his house as one greatly startled, and

pursued his course down the Ham. Glancing across at Mr. Alexander's

house, he felt a momentary temptation to go over and learn

particulars--if, haply, the surgeon should be at home. The messenger

had said that Mr. Alexander flung out of Dallory Hall in a passion,

right in the middle of the quarrel; hence the summons for Dr. Rane.

For Mr. Alexander, not Dr. Rane, was the Hall's medical attendant:

this was the first time the latter had been so called upon.

They had come to Dallory within a day of each other, these two

doctors, in consequence of the sudden death of its old practitioner;

each hoping to secure the practice for himself. It was Mr. Alexander

who chiefly gained it. Both were clever men; and it might have been at

least an even race between them, but for the fact that Mrs. North, of

Dallory Hall, set her face resolutely against Dr. Rane. The reason was

inexplicable, since he had been led to believe that he should have the

countenance of Mr. and Mrs. North. She did her best in a covert way to

prevent his obtaining practice, pushing his rival--whom she really

despised, and did not care a tittle for--into favour. Her object might

not be to drive Oliver Rane from the spot, but it certainly seemed to

look like it. So Mr. Alexander had obtained the lion's share of the

practice in the best families, Dr. Rane but little; as to the poor,

they were divided between them pretty equally. Both acted as general

practitioners, and Mr. Alexander dispensed his own medicines. The

rivals were outwardly cordial with each other; but Dr. Rane, no doubt,

felt an inward smart at his want of success.

The temptation to dash over to Mr. Alexander's passed with the

thought; there was no time for it. Dr. Rane pursued his course until

he came to Ham Lane, an opening on the right, into which he turned,

for it was a nearer way to the Hall. A narrow lane, green and lovely

in early summer, with wild flowers nestling on its banks, dog-roses

and honeysuckles clustering in its hedges. Here was the need of the

lantern. But Dr. Rane sped on without regard to inadvertent steps

that might land him in the ditch. Some excitement appeared to be upon

him, far beyond any that might arise from the simple fact of being

called out to a gentleman in a fit; yet he was by temperament very

self-possessed, one of the calmest-mannered men living. A stile in the

hedge on the left, which he found as if by instinct, took him at once

into the grounds of Dallory Hall; whence there came wafting to him the

scent of hyacinths, daffodils, and other spring flowers in delicious

sweetness, spite of the density of the night-air. Not that Dr. Rane

derived much advantage from the sweetness; nothing could seem

delicious to him just then.

It was more open here, as compared with the lane, and not so intensely

dark. Three minutes of the same heedless pace in and out of the

winding walks, when he turned a point, and the old stone mansion was

before him. A long, grey, sensible-looking house, of only two stories

high, suggesting spacious rooms within. Lights shone from some of the

windows and through the fan-light over the entrance-door. One of the

gardeners crossed Dr. Rane's path.

"Is that you, Williams? Do you know how young Mr. North is?"

"I've not been told, sir. There's something wrong with him, we hear."

"Is this blight?" called back the doctor, alluding to the curiously

dark mist.

"Not it, sir. It's nothing but the vapour rising from the day's heat.

It have been hot for the first day o' May."

The door yielded to Dr. Rane's hand, and he went into the hall

it was of fair size, and paved with stone. On the left were the

drawing-rooms, on the right the dining-room, and also a room that was

called Mr. North's parlour; a handsome staircase of stone wound up at

the back. All the doors were closed; and as Dr. Rane stood for a

moment in hesitation, a young lady in grey silk came swiftly and

silently down the stairs. Her figure was small and slight, her face

fair, pale, gentle, with the meekest look in her dove-like grey eyes.

Her smooth, fine hair, of an exceedingly light brown, was worn in

curls all round the head, after the manner of girls in a bygone time.

It made her look very young, but she was in reality thirty years of

age; three months younger than Dr. Rane. Miss North was very simple in

tastes and habits, and adhered to many customs of her girlhood.

Moreover, since an illness seven years ago, her hair had never grown

very long or thick. She saw Dr. Rane, and came swiftly to him. Their

hands met in silence.

"What is this trouble, Bessy?"

"Oh, I am so glad you are here!" she exclaimed, in the soft, subdued

tones characteristic of dangerous sickness in a house. "He is lying as

though he were dead. Papa is with him. Will you come?"

"One moment," he whispered. "Tell me, in a word, what it all is. The

cause, I mean, not the illness."

"It was caused by an anonymous letter to papa. Edmund----"

"But how could any anonymous letter to your papa have caused illness

to Edmund?" he interrupted. And the tone of his voice was so sharp,

and the dropping of her hand, clasped until then, so sudden, that Miss

North thought he was angry with her, and glanced upwards through her

tears.

"I beg your pardon, Bessy. My dear, I feel so grieved and confounded

at this, that I am scarcely myself. It is to me utterly

incomprehensible. What were the contents of the letter?" he continued,

as they hastened upstairs to the sick-chamber. And Bessy North told

him in a whisper as much as she knew.

The facts of the case were these. By the six o'clock post that same

evening, Mr. North received an anonymous letter, reflecting on his son

Edmund. His first wife, dead now just eight-and-twenty years, had left

him three children, Edmund, Richard, and Bessy. When the letter

arrived, the family had sat down to dinner, and Mr. North did not open

it until afterwards. He showed it to his son Edmund, as soon as they

were left alone. The charges it contained were true, and Edmund North

jumped to the conclusion that only one man in the whole world could

have written it, and that was Alexander, the surgeon. He went into a

frightful passion; he was given to doing so on occasions; and he had,

besides, taken rather more wine at dinner than was good for him--which

also he was somewhat addicted to. As ill fate had it, Mr. Alexander

called just at the moment, and Mr. North, a timid man in nervous

health, grew frightened at the torrent of angry words, and left them

together in the dining-room. There was a short, sharp storm. Mr.

Alexander came out almost immediately, saying, "You are mad; you are

mad. I will talk to you when you are calmer." "I would rather be mad

than bad," shouted Edmund North, coming after him. But the surgeon had

already let himself out at the hall-door; and Edmund North went back

to the dining-room, and shut himself in. Two of the servants,

attracted by the sounds of dispute, had been lingering in the hall,

and they saw and heard this. In a few minutes Mr. North went in, and

found his son lying on the ground, senseless, He was carried to his

chamber, and medical men were sent for: Dr. Rane (as being the

nearest), and two physicians from the more distant market town,

Whitborough.

Edmund North was not dead. Dr. Rane, bending over him, saw that. He

had not been well of late, and was under the care of Mr. Alexander.

Only a week ago (as was to transpire later) he had gone to consult a

physician in Whitborough, one of those now summoned to him. This

gentleman suspected he had heart-disease, and warned him against

excitement. But the family knew nothing as yet of this; neither did

Oliver Rane. Another circumstance Edmund North had not disclosed. When

sojourning in London the previous winter, he had been attacked by a

sort of fit. It had looked like apoplexy more than heart; and the

doctors gave him sundry injunctions to be careful. This one also, Dr.

Rane thought, knowing nothing of the former, looked like apoplexy.

Edmund North was a very handsome man, but a great deal too stout.

"Is he dead, Oliver?" asked the grieving father; who, when alone with

the doctor, and unrestrained by the presence of his wife, often called

him by his Christian name.

"No; he is not dead."

And, indeed, a spasm at that moment passed over the prostrate face.

All the means that Oliver Rane could think of, and use, he tried with

the best heart and efforts--hoping to recall the fast-fleeting life.

But when the two doctors arrived from Whitborough, Oliver Rane found

he was not wanted. They were professionals of long standing, men of

note in their local arena; and showed themselves condescendingly

patronizing to the young practitioner. Dr. Rane had rather a strong

objection to be patronized: he withdrew, and went to Mr. North's

parlour. It was a dingy room; the shaded lamp on the table not

sufficing to light it up. Red moreen curtains were drawn before the

large French window that opened to the flower-garden at the side.

Mr. North was standing before the fire. He was a little shrivelled man

with stooping shoulders, his scanty hair smoothed across a low, broad

forehead, his lips thin and querulous; his eyes, worn and weary now,

had once been mild and loving as his daughter Bessy's. Time and care

and (as some people said) his second wife, had changed him. Oliver

Rane thought he had never seen him look so shrunken, nervous, and

timid as to-night.

"What a pity it was that you should have mentioned the letter to him,

Mr. North!" began the doctor, speaking at once of what lay uppermost

in his thoughts.

"Mentioned the letter to him!--why, it concerned him," was the

surprised answer. "But I never gave a thought to its having this

effect upon him."

"What was in the letter, sir?" was the doctor's next question, put

with considerable gloom, and after a long silence.

"You can read it, Oliver."

Opening the document, he handed it to Dr. Rane. It looked like any

ordinary letter. The doctor took it to the lamp.

"Mr. North,

"Pardon a friend who ventures to give you a caution. Your eldest son

is in some sort of embarrassment, and is drawing bills in conjunction

with Alexander, the surgeon. Perhaps a word from you would arrest

this: it is too frequently the first step of a man's downward

career--and the writer would not like to see Edmund North enter on

such."

Thus, abruptly and without signature, ended the fatal letter. Dr. Rane

slowly folded it, and left it on the table.

"Who could have written it?" he murmured.

"Ah, there it is!" rejoined Mr. North. "Edmund said no one could have

done it but Alexander."

Standing over the fire, to which he had turned, Dr. Rane warmed his

hands. The intensely hot day had given place to a cold night. His

red-brown eyes took a dreamy gaze, as he mentally revolved facts and

suppositions. In his private opinion, judging only from the contents

of the letter, Mr. Alexander was the last man who would have been

likely to write it.

"It is not like Alexander's writing," observed Mr. North.

"Not in the least."

"But of course this is in a thoroughly disguised hand."

"Most anonymous letters are so, I expect. Is it true that he and your

son have been drawing bills together?"

"I gather that they have drawn one; perhaps two, Edmund's passion was

so fierce that I could not question him. What I don't like is,

Alexander's going off in the manner he did, without seeing me: it

makes me think that perhaps he did write the letter. An innocent man

would have remained to defend himself. It might have been written from

a good motive, after all, Oliver! My poor son!--if he had only taken

it quietly!"

Mr. North wrung his hands. His tones were feeble, meekly complaining;

his manner and bearing were altogether those of a man who has been

constantly put down and no longer attempts to struggle against the

cares and crosses of the world, or the will of those about him.

"I must be going," said Oliver Rane, arousing himself from a reverie.

"I have to see a poor man at Dallory."

"Is it Ketler?"

"Yes, sir. Goodnight. I trust you will have reason to be in better

spirits in the morning."

"Goodnight, Oliver."

But the doctor could not get off at once. He was waylaid by a servant,

who said madam wished to see him. Crossing the hall, the man threw

open the doors of the drawing-room, a magnificent apartment. Gilded

and gleaming mirrors; light blue satin curtains and furniture; a

carpet softer and thicker than moss: and all kinds of bright and

resplendent things were there.

"Dr. Rane, madam."

Mrs. North sat on a couch by the fire. In the house she was called

Madam--out of the house, too, for that matter. A severely handsome

woman, with a cold, pale, imperious face, the glittering jewels in her

black hair looking as hard as she did. A _cruel_ face, as some might

have deemed it. When Mr. North married her, she was the widow of Major

Bohun, and had one son. Underneath the chandelier, reading by its

light, sat her daughter, a young lady whose face bore a strong

resemblance to hers. This daughter and a son had been born since her

second marriage.

"You wished to see me, Mrs. North?"

Dr. Rane so spoke because they took no manner of notice of him. Mrs.

North turned then, with her dark, inscrutable eyes; eyes that Oliver

Rane hated, as he hated the cruelty glittering in their depths, He

believed her to be a woman unscrupulously selfish. She did not rise;

merely motioned him to a seat with a haughty wave of her white arm:

and the bracelets shone on it, and her ruby velvet dress gleamed with

amazing richness. He sat down with perfect self-possession, every whit

as independent as herself.

"You have seen this infamous letter, I presume, Dr. Rane?"

"I have."

"Who sent it?"

"I cannot tell you, Mrs. North."

"Have you no idea at all?"

"Certainly not. How should I have?"

"Could you detect no resemblance in the writing to any one's you

know?"

He shook his head.

"Not to--for instance--Alexander's?" she resumed, looking at him

steadfastly. But Dr. Rane saw with a sure instinct that Alexander's

was not the name she had meant to speak.

"I feel sure that Mr. Alexander no more wrote the letter than--than

you did, Mrs. North."

"Does it bear any resemblance to Richard North's?" she continued,

after a faint pause.

"To Richard North's!" echoed the doctor, the words taking him by

surprise. "No."

"Are you familiar with Richard North's handwriting?"

Oliver Rane paused to think, and then replied with a passing laugh. "I

really believe I do not know his handwriting, madam."

"Then why did you speak so confidently?"

"I spoke in the impulse of the moment. Richard North, of all men, is

the lest likely to do such a thing as this."

The young lady, Matilda North, turned round from her book. An opera

cloak of scarlet gauze was on her shoulders, as if she were cold; she

drew it closer with an impatient hand.

"Mamma, why do you harp upon Richard? He _couldn't_ do it; papa told

you so. If Dick saw need to find fault with any one, or tell tales, he

would do it openly."

One angry gleam from madam's eyes as her daughter settled to her book

again, and then she proceeded to close the interview.

"As you profess yourself unable to give me information or to detect

any clue, I will not detain you longer, Dr. Rane."

He stood for a second, expecting, perhaps, that she might offer her

hand. She did nothing of the sort, only bowed coldly. Matilda North

took no notice of him whatever: she was content to follow her mother's

teachings when they did not clash with her own inclination. Dr. Rane

had ceased to marvel why he was held in disfavour by Mrs. North: to

try to guess at it seemed a hopeless task. Neither could he imagine

why she opposed his marriage with Bessy; for to Bessy and her

interests she was utterly indifferent.

As he left the drawing-room, Bessy North joined him, and they went

together to the hall-door. No servant had been rung for--it was one of

Mrs. North's ways of showing contempt--and they stood together

outside, speaking softly. Again the tears shone in Bessy's eyes: her

heart was a very tender one, and she had loved her brother dearly.

"Oliver, is there any hope?"

"Do not distress yourself, Bessy. I cannot tell you one way or the

other."

"How can I help distressing myself?" she rejoined, her hand resting

quietly in both his. "It is all very well for you to be calm; a

medical man meets these sad things every day. You cannot be expected

to care."

"Can I not?" he answered; and there was a touch of passionate emotion

in the usually calm tones. "If any effort or sacrifice of mine would

bring back his health and life, I would freely make it. Goodnight,

Bessy."

As he stooped to kiss her, quick, firm footsteps were heard

approaching, and Bessy went indoors. He who came up was a rather tall

and very active man, with a plain, but nevertheless an attractive

face. Plain in its irregular features; attractive from its open

candour and strong good sense, from the earnest, truthful look in the

deep-set hazel eyes. People were given to saying that Richard North

was the best man of business for miles round. It was so: and he was

certainly, in mind, manners, and person, a gentleman.

"Is it you, Rane? What is all this trouble? I have been away for a few

hours, unfortunately. Mark Dawson met me just now with the news that

my brother was dying."

The voice would have been pleasing to a degree if only from its tone

of ready decision: but it was also musical as voices seldom are, clear

and full of sincerity. From the voice alone, Richard North might have

been trusted to his life's end. Dr. Rane gave a short summary of the

illness and the state he was lying in.

"Dawson spoke of a letter that had excited him," said Richard.

"True; a letter to Mr. North."

"A dastardly anonymous letter. Just so."

"An anonymous letter," repeated the doctor. "But the effect on your

brother seems altogether disproportioned to the cause."

"Where is the letter? I cannot look upon Edmund until I have seen the

letter."

Dr. Rane told him where the letter was, and went out. Richard North

passed on to the parlour. Mr. North, sitting by the fire, had his face

bent in his hands.

"Father, what is all this?"

"Oh, Dick, I am glad you have come!" and in the tone there sounded an

intense relief, as if he who came brought with him strength and hope.

"I can't make top or tail of this; and I think he is dying."

"Who is with him?--Arthur?"

"No; Arthur has been out all day. The doctors are with him still."

"Let me see the letter."

Mr. North gave it him, reciting at the same time the chief incidents

of the calamity in a rambling sort of manner. Richard North read the

letter twice: once hastily, to gather in the sense; then attentively,

giving to every word full consideration. His father watched him.

"It was not so much the letter itself that excited him, Richard, as

the notion that Alexander wrote it."

"Alexander did not write this," decisively spoke Richard.

"You think not?"

"Why, of course he did not. It tells against himself as much as

against Edmund."

"Edmund said no one knew of the matter except Alexander, and therefore

no one else could have written it. Besides, Dick, where is Alexander?

Why is he staying away?"

"We shall hear soon, I daresay. I have faith in Alexander. Keep this

letter jealously, father. It may have been right to give you the

information it contains; I say nothing at present about that; but an

anonymous writer is generally a scoundrel, deserving no quarter."

"And none shall he get from me," spoke Mr. North, emphatically. "It

was posted at Whitborough, you see, Dick."

"I see," shortly answered Richard. He threw his coat back as if he

were too hot; and moved to the door on his way to his brother's

chamber.

Meanwhile Oliver Rane went down the avenue to the entrance-gates, and

took the road to Dallory. He had to see a patient there: a poor man

who was lying in danger. _He_ threw his coat back, in spite of the

chilling fog, and wiped his brow, as if the weather or his reflections

were too hot for him.

"What a fool! what a fool!" murmured he, half aloud, apostrophizing,

doubtless, the writer of the anonymous letter. Or, it might be, the

unfortunate young man who had allowed it to excite within him so fatal

an amount of passion.

The road was smooth and broad: a fine highway, well kept. For a short

distance there were no houses, but they soon began. Dallory was a

bustling village, both poor and rich inhabiting it. The North Works,

as they were familiarly called, from the fact of Mr. North's being

their chief proprietor, lay a little further on, and Dallory Church

still beyond. It was a straggling parish at best.

Amidst the first good houses that Dr. Rane came to was one superior to

the rest. A large, square, handsome dwelling, with a pillared portico

close to the village pathway, and a garden behind it.

"I wonder how Mother Gass is to-night?" thought the doctor, arresting

his steps. "I may as well ask."

His knock was answered by the lady herself, whom he had so

unceremoniously styled "Mother Gass." A stout, comfortable-looking

dame, richly dressed, with a face as red as it was good-natured, and a

curiously-fine lace cap, standing on end with yellow ribbon. Mrs. Gass

possessed neither birth nor breeding; she had made an advantageous

match, as you will hear further on: she owned many good qualities, and

was popularly supposed to be rich enough to buy up the whole of

Dallory Ham. Her late husband had been uncle to Oliver Rane, but

neither she nor Oliver presumed upon the relationship in their

intercourse with each other. In fact they had never met until two

years ago.

"I knew your knock, Dr. Rane, and came to the door myself. Step into

the parlour. I want to speak to you."

The doctor did not want to go in by any means, and felt caught. He

said he had no time to stay; had merely called, in passing, to ask how

she was.

"Well, I'm better this evening: the swimming in the head is less. You

just come in, now. I won't keep you two minutes. Shut the door, girl,

after Dr. Rane."

This was to a smart housemaid, who had followed her mistress down the

wide, handsome passage. Dr. Rane perforce stepped in, very

unwillingly. He felt instinctively convinced that Mrs. Gass had heard

of the calamity at the Hall and wished to question him. To avoid this

he would have gone a mile any other way.

"I want to get at the truth about Edmund North, doctor. One of the

maids from the Hall called in just now and said he had been frightened

into a fit through some letter; and that you were fetched to him."

"Well, that is true," said the doctor, accepting the situation.

"My patience!" ejaculated Mrs. Gass. "What was writ in the letter? She

said it was one of them enonymous things."

"So it was."

"Was it writ to himself?"

"No. To Mr. North."

"Well, now,"--dropping her voice--"was it about that young woman he

got acquainted with? You know."

"No, no; nothing of that sort." And Dr. Rane, as the shortest way of

ending the matter, gave her the details.

"There was not much in the letter," he said, in confidential tones.

"No harm would have come of it but for Edmund North's frightful access

of passion. If he dies, mind,"--the doctor added this in a dreamy

tone, gazing out as if looking into the future--"if he dies, it

will not be the letter that has killed him, but his own want of

self-control."

"Don't talk of dying, doctor. It is to be hoped it won't come to

that."

"It is, indeed."

"And Mr. Richard was not at home, the girl said!"

"Neither he nor Captain Bohun. Richard has just come in now."

Mrs. Gass would fain have kept him longer, but he told her the sick

man Ketler was waiting for him. This man was one of the North workmen,

who had been terribly injured in the arm; Dr. Rane hoped to save both

arm and life.

"That receipt for the rhubarb jam Mrs. Cumberland promised: is it ever

coming?" asked Mrs. Gass as Dr. Rane was quitting the room.

Turning back, he put his hat on the table and took out his pocketbook.

Mrs. Cumberland had sent it at last. He selected the paper from

amongst several others and handed it to her.

"I forgot to leave it when I was here this morning, Mrs. Gass. My

mother gave it me yesterday."

Between them they dropped the receipt. Both stooped for it, and their

heads came together. There was a slight laugh; in the midst of which

the pocketbook fell on the carpet. Some papers fluttered out of it,

which the doctor picked up and replaced.

"Have you got them all, doctor? How is the young lady's cold?"

"What young lady's?" he questioned.

"Miss Adair's."

"I did not know she had one."

"Ah, them lovely girls with their bright faces never show their

ailments; and she is lovely, if ever one was lovely in this terrestial

world. Goodnight to you, doctor; you're in a mortal hurry."

He strode to the street-door and it closed sharply after him. Mrs.

Gass looked out of her parlour and saw the same smart maid hastening

along the passage: a little too late.

"Drat it, wench! is that the way you let gentlefolk show themselves

out?--scuttering to the door when they've got clean away from it.

D'you call that manners?"

CHAPTER II.

ELLEN ADAIR.

The day promised to be as warm as the preceding one. The night and

morning mists were gone; the sun shone hot and bright. Summer seemed

to have come in before its time.

Two white gothic villas stood side by side just within the neck of

Dallory Ham, a few yards of garden and some clustering shrubs between

them. They were built alike. The side windows, facing each other over

this strip of ground, were large projecting bay-windows, and belonged

to the dining-rooms. These houses were originally erected for two

maiden sisters. A large and beautiful garden lay at the back,

surrounding the two villas, only a slender wire fence, that a child

might have stepped over, dividing it. Entering the Ham from the

direction of Dallory, these houses stood on the left; in the first of

them lived Mrs. Cumberland, the mother of Oliver Rane. She had been

married twice: hence the difference in name. The second house was

occupied by Dr. Rane himself. They lay back with a strip of grass

before them, the entrance-doors being level with the ground.

Let us go into the doctor's: turning the handle of the door without

ceremony, as Dr. Rane's more familiar patients are wont to do. The

hall is small, narrowing off at the upper end to a passage, and

lighted with stained glass. On the left of the entrance is the

consulting-room, not much larger than a closet; beyond it is the

dining-room, a spacious apartment, with its bay-window, already spoken

of, looking to the other house. Opposite the dining-room across the

passage is the white-flagged kitchen; and the drawing-room lies in

front, on the right of the entrance. Not being furnished it is chiefly

kept shut up. A back-door opens to the garden.

Oliver Rane sat in his consulting-room; the _Whitborough Journal_,

damp from the press, in his hand. It was just twelve o'clock and he

had to go out, but the newspaper was attracting him. By seven o'clock

that morning he had been at the Hall, and learnt that there was no

material change in the patient lying there: he had then gone on, early

though it was, to see the man, Ketler. The journal gave the details of

Mr. North's seizure with tolerable accuracy, and concluded its account

in these words: "We have reason to know that a clue has been obtained

to the anonymous writer."

"A clue to the writer!" repeated Dr. Rane, his eyes appearing glued to

the words. "I wonder if it's true?--No, no; it is not likely," came

the quiet, contemptuous decision. "How should any clue----"

He stopped suddenly; rose from the chair, and stood erect and

motionless, as if some thought had struck him. A fine man; almost as

good-looking at a casual glance as another who was stepping in upon

him. The front-door had opened, and this one was lightly tapped at.

Dr. Rane paused before he answered it, and a fierce look of inquiry,

as if he did not care to be interrupted, shot from his eyes.

"Come in."

A tall, slender, and very handsome man, younger than Dr. Rane, opened

the door slowly. There was a peculiar refinement in his proud fair

features; a dreamy look in his dark blue eyes. An attractive face at

all times and seasons, whose owner it was impossible to mistake for

anything but an upright, well-bred gentleman. It was Arthur Bohun;

Captain Bohun, as he was very generally called. He was the only son of

Mrs. North by her former marriage with Major Bohun, and of course

stepson to Mr. North.

"Any admittance, doctor?"

"Always admittance to you," answered the doctor, who could be affable

or not, as suited his mood. "Why don't you come in?"

He came in with his pleasant smile; a smile that hid the natural pride

of the face. Oliver Rane put down the newspaper.

"Well, is there any change in Edmund North?"

"The very slightest in the world, the doctors think; and for the

better," replied Captain Bohun. "Dick told me. I have not been in

myself since early morning. I cannot bear to look on extreme

suffering."

A ghost of a smile flitted across Dr. Rane's features at the avowal.

He could understand a woman disliking to look on suffering, but not a

man. And the one before him had been a soldier!

Captain Bohun sat down on an uncomfortable wooden stool as he spoke,

gently throwing back his light summer overcoat. He imparted the idea

of never being put out over any earthly thing. The movement displayed

his cool white waistcoat, across which fell a dainty gold chain with

its transparent sapphire seal of rare and costly beauty.

"You have begun summer early!" remarked the doctor, glancing at

Captain Bohun's attire.

The clothes were of a delicate shade of grey; looking remarkably cool

and nice in conjunction with the white waistcoat. Captain Bohun was

always well dressed; it seemed a part of himself. To wear the rude and

rough attire that some men affect nowadays, would have been against

his instincts.

"Don't sit on that stool of penitence; take the patient's chair," said

the doctor, pointing to an elbow-chair opposite the window.

"But I am not a patient."

"No. Or you'd be at the opposition shop over the way."

Arthur Bohun laughed. "It was of the opposition shop I came to speak

to you--if I came for anything in particular, Where's Alexander? Is he

keeping out of the way; or has he really gone to London as people

say?"

"I know nothing about him," returned Dr. Rane. "Look here--I was

reading the account they give in the newspaper. Is this last hint

true?"--holding out the journal--"that a clue has been obtained to the

writer of the letter?"

Arthur Bohun ran his eyes over the sentence to which the doctor's

finger pointed.

"No, this has no foundation," he promptly answered. "At least so far

as the Hall is concerned. As yet we have not found any clue whatever."

"I thought so. These newsmongers put forth lies by the bushel. Just as

we might do, if we had to cater for an insatiably curious public. But

I fear I must be going out."

Arthur Bohun brought down the fore-legs of the stool, which he had

kept on the tilt, rose, and said a word of apology for having detained

him from his patients. His was essentially a courteous nature,

sensitively regardful of other people's feelings, as men of great

innate refinement are sure to be.

They went into the dining-room, Dr. Rane having left his hat there,

and passed out together by the large bay-window. The doctor crossed at

once to a door in the wall that bound the premises at the back, and

made his exit to the lane beyond, leaving Arthur Bohun in the garden.

A garden that on a summer's day seemed as a very paradise. With its

clustering shrubs, its overhanging trees, its leafy glades, its

shrubberies, its miniature rocks, its sweet repose, its sweeter

flowers. Seated in a remote part of that which belonged to Mrs.

Cumberland, was one of the loveliest girls that eye had ever looked

upon. She wore a morning dress of light-coloured muslin, with an

edging of lace at the neck and wrists. Slight, gentle, charming, with

a peculiar look of grace and refinement, a stranger would have been

almost startled at her beauty. It was a delightful face; the features

clearly cut; the complexion soft, pure, and delicate, paling and

flushing with every emotion. In the dark brown eyes there was a

singularly sweet expression; the dark brown hair took a lustrously

bright tinge in the sunlight.

A natural arbour of trees and branches had been formed overhead: she

sat on a garden bench, behind a rustic table. Before her, at a short

distance, a falling cascade trickled down the artificial rocks, and

thence wound away, a tiny stream, amidst ferns, violets, primroses,

and other wild plants. A plot of green grass, smooth and soft as the

moss of the rocks, lay immediately at her feet, and glimpses of

statelier flowers were caught through the trees. Their rich perfume

came wafted in a sudden breeze to the girl's senses, and she looked up

gratefully from her work; some small matter of silken embroidery.

And now you could see the singular refinement and delicacy of the

face, the pleasant expression of the soft bright eyes. A bird lodged

itself on a branch close by, and began a song. Her lips parted with a

smile of greeting. By way of rewarding it, off he flew, dipped his

beak into the running stream, and soared away out of her sight. As is

the case sometimes in life.

On the table lay a handful of violets, picked short off at the

blossoms. Almost unconsciously, as it seemed, her thoughts far away,

she began toying with them, and fell insensibly into the French

schoolgirls' play, telling off the flowers. "M'aime-t-il?" was the

first momentous question; and then the pastime, a blossom being told

off with every answer. "Oui. Non. Un peu. Beaucoup. Pas du tout.

Passionnément." And so the round went on, until the last violet was

reached. It came, as chance had it, with the last word, and she, in an

access of rapture, her soft cheeks glowing, her sweet lips parting,

caught up the flower and pressed it to her lips.

"Il m'aime passionnément!"

Ah, foolish girl! The oracle seemed as true as if it had come direct

from heaven. But can we not remember the ecstasy such necromancy once

brought to ourselves!

With her blushes deepening as she woke, startling, into reality; with

a smile at her own folly; with a sense of maidenly shame for indulging

in the pastime, she pushed the violets together, threaded a needleful

of green floss silk, and went on soberly with her work. A few minutes,

and then either eye or ear was attracted by something ever so far off,

and she sat quite still. Quite still outwardly; but oh! the sudden

emotion that rose like a lightning flash within! and she knew the

footsteps. Every vein was tingling; every pulse throbbing; the pink on

her cheeks deepened; the life blood of her heart rushed wildly on, and

she pressed her hand upon her bosom to still it.

He was passing on from Dr. Rane's to the other house, when he caught a

glimpse of her dress through the trees, and turned aside. Nothing

could have been quieter or more undemonstrative than the meeting; and

yet a shrewd observer, skilled in secrets, had not failed to read the

truth--that both alike loved. Captain Bohun went up, calm as befitted

a well-bred man: shaking hands after the fashion of society, and

apparently with as little interest: but on his face the flush also

shone with all its tell-tale vividness; the hand that touched hers

thrilled almost to pain. She had risen to receive him: as calm

outwardly as he, but her senses were in wild confusion.

She began to go on with her work again in a hurried, trembling sort of

fashion when he sat down. The day, for her, had turned to Eden; all

things seemed to discourse sweet music.

True love--passionate, pure love--is not fluent of speech, whatever

the world may say, or poets teach. Dr. Rane and Miss North thought

they loved each other: and so they did, after a sensible, sober

manner: they could have conversed with mutual fluency for ever and a

day; but their love was not _this_ love. It is the custom of modern

writers to ignore it: the prevailing fashion is to be matter-of-fact;

realistic; people don't talk of love now, and of course don't feel it:

the capacity for it has died out; habits have changed. It is false

sophistry. We cannot put off human nature as we do a garment.

Captain Bohun was the first to break the silence. _She_ had been

content to live in it by his side for ever: it was more eloquent, too,

than his words were.

"What a lovely day it is, Ellen!"

"Yes. I think summer has come: we shall scarcely have it warmer than

this in July. And oh, how charming everything is!"

"Yes. Yesterday I had a ride of ten miles between green hedges in

which the May is beginning to blossom. Envious darkness had shut out

the world before I reached home again."

"And I sat out here all the afternoon," she answered--and perhaps she

unconsciously spoke in pursuance of the thought, that she had sat out

waiting and hoping for him. "Where did you go, Arthur?"

"To Bretchley. Some of my old brother officers are quartered there:

and I spent the day with them. What's that for?"

He alluded to the piece of work. She smiled as she held it out in her

right hand, on the third finger of which was a plain gold ring. A

small piece of white canvas with a pink rose and part of a green leaf

already worked upon it in bright floss silk.

"Guess."

"Nay, how can I? For a doll's cushion?"

"Oh, Arthur!" came the laughing exclamation. "If I tell you, you must

keep counsel, mind that, for it is a secret, and I am working it under

difficulties, out of Mrs. Cumberland's sight. Don't you think I have

done a great deal? I only began it yesterday."

"Well, what's it for?" he asked, putting his hand underneath it as an

excuse, perhaps, for touching the fingers that held it. "A fire-screen

for pretty faces?"

The young lady shook her head. "It's for a kettle-holder."

"A kettle-holder! What a prosy ending!"

"It is for Mrs. Cumberland's invalid kettle that she keeps in her

bedroom. The handle got hot a day or two ago, and she burnt her hand.

I shall put it on some morning to surprise her."

A silence ensued. Half their intercourse was made up of pauses:

the eloquent language of true love. Captain Bohun, thinking how

sweet-natured was the girl by his side, played abstractedly with the

blossoms lying on the table.

"What have you been doing with all these violets, Ellen?"

"Nothing," she replied; and down went the scissors. But that she

stooped at once, Captain Bohun might have seen the sudden flush on the

delicate face, and wondered at it: a flush of remembrance. _Il m'aime

passionnément_. Well, so he did.

"Please don't entangle my silk, Captain Bohun."

He laughed as he put down the bright gold skein. "Shall I help you to

wind it, Ellen?"

"Thank you, but we don't wind floss silk. It would deaden its beauty.

Arthur! do you know that the swallows have come?"

"The swallows! Then this summer weather will stay with us, for those

birds have a sure instinct. It is early for them to be here."

"I saw one this morning. It may be only an avant-courier, come to

report on the weather to the rest."

She laughed lightly at her own words, and there ensued another pause.

Captain Bohun broke it.

"What a shocking thing this is about Edmund North!"

"What is a shocking thing?" she asked, with indifference, going on

with her work as she spoke. Arthur Bohun, who was busy again with the

pale blue violets, scarcely as blue as his own eyes, lifted his face

and looked at her.

"I mean altogether. The illness; the letter; the grief at home. It is

all shocking."

"Is Edmund North ill? I did not know it."

"Ellen!"

Living in the very atmosphere of the illness, amidst its bustle,

distress, and attendant facts, to Arthur Bohun it seemed almost

impossible that she should be ignorant of it.

"Why, what has Rane been about, not to tell you?"

"I don't know. What is the matter with Edmund North?"

Captain Bohun explained the illness and its cause. Her work dropped on

her knee as she listened; her face grew pale with interest. She never

once interrupted him; every sympathetic feeling within her was aroused

to warm indignation.

"An anonymous letter!" she at length exclaimed. "That's worse than a

stab."

"A fellow, writing one of malice, puts himself beyond the pale of

decent society: shooting would be too good for him," quietly remarked

Captain Bohun. "Here comes a summons for you, I expect, Ellen."

Even so. One of the maids approached, saying Mrs. Cumberland was

downstairs; and so the interview was broken up. Captain Bohun would

perforce have taken his departure, but Miss Adair invited him in--to

tell the sad story to Mrs. Cumberland. Only too glad was he of any

plea that kept him by Ellen's side.

Putting her work away in her pocket, she took the arm that was held

out, and they went wandering through the garden; lingering by the

cascade, dreaming in the dark cypress walk, standing over the beds of

beautiful flowers. A seductive time; life's summer; but a time that

never stays, for the frosts of winter and reality succeed it surely

and swiftly.

Nothing had been said between them, but each was conscious of what the

other felt. Neither had whispered in so many words, "I love you."

Ellen did not hint that she had watched for him the whole of the past

livelong day with love's sick longing; he did not confess how lost

the day had been to him, how worse than weary, because it did not

bring him to her presence. These avowals might come in time, but they

would not be needed.

Stepping in through the centre doors of the bay window, as Arthur

Bohun had made his exit from the opposite one, they looked round for

Mrs. Cumberland, and did not see her. She was in the drawing-room on

the other side the small hall, sitting near the Gothic windows that

faced the road. A pale, reticent, lady-like woman, always suffering,

but making more of her sufferings than she need have done--as her son,

Dr. Rane, not over-dutifully thought. Her eyes were light and cold;

her flaxen hair, banded smoothly under a cap, was turning grey. But

that Mrs. Cumberland was quite occupied with self, and very little

with her ward, Ellen Adair, she might have noticed before now the

suggestive intimacy between that young lady and Arthur Bohun.

"Captain Bohun is here, Mrs. Cumberland," said Ellen, when they

entered. "He has some sad news to tell you."

"And the extraordinary part of the business is that you should not

have heard it before," added Arthur, as he shook hands with Mrs.

Cumberland.

Mrs. Cumberland's rich black silk gown rustled a very little as she

responded to the greeting; but there was no smile on her grey face,

her cold eyes wore no brighter light. In her way she was glad to see

him: that is, she had no objection to seeing him; but gladness and

Mrs. Cumberland seemed to have parted company. The suffering that

arises from constant pain makes a self-absorbed nature doubly selfish.

"What is the news that Ellen speaks of, Captain Bohun?"

He stood leaning against the mantelpiece as he told the tale: told it

systematically; the first advent of the anonymous letter to Mr. North;

the angry, passionate spirit in which Edmund North had taken it up;

his stormy interview with the surgeon, Alexander; the subsequent

attack, and the hopelessness in which he was lying. For once Mrs.

Cumberland was aroused to feeling sympathy in another's sufferings:

she listened with painful interest.

"And it was _Oliver_ who was called in first to Edmund North!" she

presently exclaimed, with emphasis, as if unable to credit the fact.

"Yes."

"But how was it he did not step in here afterwards to tell me the

news?" she added, resentfully.

Captain Bohun could not answer that so readily. Ellen Adair, ever

ready to find a charitable excuse for the world, turned to Mrs.

Cumberland.

"Dr. Rane may have had patients to see. Perhaps he did not return home

until too late to come here."

"Yes, he did; I saw his lamp burning before ten o'clock," was Mrs.

Cumberland's answer. "Ah! this is another proof that I am being

forgotten," she went on, bitterly. "When a woman has seen fifty years

of life, she is old in the sight of her children, and they go then

their own way in the world, leaving her to coldness and neglect."

"But, dear Mrs. Cumberland, Dr. Rane does not neglect you," said

Ellen, struck with the injustice of the complaint. "He is ever the

first to come in and amuse you with what news he has."

"And in this instance he may have kept silence from a good motive--the

wish to spare you pain," added Captain Bohun.

"True, true," murmured Mrs. Cumberland, her mind taking a more

reasonable view of the matter. "Oliver has always been dutiful to me."

Departing, Captain Bohun crossed the road to Mr. Alexander's; a slight

limp visible in his gait. The mystery that appeared to surround the

surgeon's movements at present, puzzled him not a little; his

prolonged absence seemed unaccountable. The surgery, through which he

entered, was empty, and he opened the door leading from it to the

house. A maid-servant met him.

"Is Mr. Alexander at home?"

"No, sir."

"Papa's gone to London," called out a young gentleman of ten, who came

running along the passage, cracking a whip. "He went last night. They

sent for him."

"Who sent for him?" asked Captain Bohun.

"The people. Mamma's gone too. They are coming home to-day; and

mamma's going to bring me a Chinese puzzle and a box of chocolate if

she had time to buy them."

Not much information, this. As Captain Bohun turned out again, he

stood at the door, wishing he had a decent plea to take him over to

Mrs. Cumberland's again. He was an idle man; living only in the sweet

pastime of making that silent love.

But Mrs. North never suspected that he was making it, or knew that he

was intimate at Mrs. Cumberland's. Still less did she suspect that

Mrs. Cumberland had a young lady inmate named Ellen Adair. It would

have startled her to terror.

CHAPTER III.

IN MRS. GASS'S PARLOUR.

Early on the following morning the death-bell ringing out from the

church at Dallory proclaimed to those who heard it that Edmund North

had passed to his rest. He had never recovered consciousness, and died

some thirty-six hours after the attack.

Amongst those who did not hear it was Oliver Rane. The doctor had been

called out at daybreak to a country patient in an opposite direction,

returning between eight and nine o'clock.

He sat at breakfast in the dining-room, unconscious of the morning's

calamity. The table stood in front of the large bay-window.

"She has done it too much--stupid thing!" exclaimed Dr. Rane, cutting

a slice of ham in two and apostrophizing his unconscious servant.

"Yesterday it was hardly warmed through. Just like them!--make a

complaint, and they rush to the other extreme. I wonder how things are

going on there this morning?"

He glanced up towards the distant quarter where the Hall was situated,

for his query had reference to Edmund North; and this gave him the

opportunity of seeing something else: a woman stepping out of Mrs.

Cumberland's dining-room. She was getting on for forty, tall as a

may-pole, with inquisitive green eyes, sallow cheeks, remarkably thin,

as if she had lost her teeth, and a bunch of black ringlets on either

side of her face. She wore the white apron and cap of a servant, but

looked one of a superior class. Emerging from the opposite window, she

stepped across the wire fence and approached Dr. Rane.

"What does Jelly want now?" he mentally asked.

A curious name, no doubt, but it was hers. Fanny Jelly. When Mrs.

Cumberland had engaged her as upper maid, she decided to call her by

the latter name, Fanny being her own.

Jelly entered without ceremony--she was not given to observing much at

the best of times. She had come to say that he need not provide

anything for dinner; her mistress meant to send him in a fowl--if he

would accept it.

"With pleasure, tell her," said Dr. Rane. "How is my mother this

morning, Jelly?"

"She has had a good night, and is pretty tolerable," replied Jelly,

giving a backward fling to her flying cap-strings. "The foreign

letters have come in; two for her, one for Miss Adair."

Dr. Rane, not particularly interested in the said foreign letters,

went on with his breakfast. Jelly, with characteristic composure,

stood at ease just inside the window watching the process.

"That ham is dried up to fiddle-strings," she suddenly said.

"Yes. Phillis has done it too much."

"And I should like to have the doing of her!" spoke Jelly in wrathful

tones. "It is a sin to spoil good food."

"So it is," said Dr. Rane.

"So that poor young man's gone!" she resumed, as he cracked an egg.

The doctor lifted his head quickly. "What young man?"

"Edmund North. He died at half-past seven this morning."

"Who says so?" cried Dr. Rane, a startled look crossing his face.

"The milkman told me: he heard the passing-bell toll out. You needn't

be surprised, sir: there has been no hope from the first."

"But there has been hope," disputed the doctor. "There was hope

yesterday at midday, there was hope last night. I don't believe he is

dead."

"Well, sir, then you must disbelieve it," equably answered Jelly; but

she glanced keenly at him from her green eyes. "Edmund North is as

certainly dead as that I stand here."

He seemed strangely moved at the tidings: a quiver stirred his lips,

the colour in his face faded to whiteness. Jelly, having looked as

much as she chose, turned to depart.

"Then we may send in the fowl, sir?"

"Yes, yes."

He watched her dreamily as she crossed the low fence and disappeared

within her proper domains; he pushed the neglected ham from him, he

turned sick at the lightly done egg, of which the shell had just been

broken. What, though he preferred eggs lightly done in calm times?

calm times were not these. The news did indeed trouble him in no

measured degree: it was so sad for a man in the prime of early life to

be cut off thus. Edmund North was only a year or two older than

himself: two days ago he had been as full of health and life, deep in

the plans and projects of this world, thinking little of the next.

Sad? it was horrible. And Dr. Rane's breakfast was spoiled for that

day.

He got up to walk the room restlessly: he looked at himself in the

glass; possibly to see how the news might have affected his features;

in all he did there was a hurried, confused sort of motion, betraying

that the mind must be in a state of perturbation. By-and-by he

snatched up his hat, and went forth, taking the direction of the Hall.

"I ought to call. It will look well for me to call. It is a civility I

owe them," he kept repeating at intervals, as he strode along. Just as

though he thought in his inmost heart he ought _not_ to call, and were

seeking arguments to excuse himself from doing so.

How eager he was to be there and see and hear all that was

transpiring, he alone knew. No power could have stopped him, whether

to go were suitable or unsuitable; for he had a strong will. He did

not take the lane this time, but went straight along the high-road,

turning in at the iron gates, and up the chestnut avenue. The tender

green of the trees was beautiful: birds sang; the blue sky flickered

through the waving leaves. Winding on, Dr. Rane met Thomas Hepburn,

the undertaker and carpenter: a sickly looking but intelligent and

respectable man.

"Is it you, Hepburn?"

"Yes, sir; I've been in to take the orders. What an awful thing it

is!" he continued in a low tone, glancing round at the closed windows,

as if fearful they might detect what he was saying. "The scoundrel who

wrote that letter ought to be tried for murder when they discover him.

And they are safe to do that, sooner or later."

"The writer could have done no great harm but for Edmund North's

allowing himself to go into that fatal passion."

"An anonymous writer is a coward," rejoined Hepburn with scorn. "They

say there'll not be an inquest."

"An inquest!" repeated the doctor, to whom the idea had never

occurred. "There's no necessity for an inquest."

"Well, doctor, I suppose the law would in strictness exact it. But Mr.

North is against it, and it's thought his wishes will be respected."

"Any of the medical men can furnish a certificate of the cause of

death. I could do it myself."

"Yes, of course. But I've no time to stay talking," added the

undertaker. "Good-day to you, sir."

The next to come forth from the house was Alexander, the surgeon. Dr.

Rane rubbed his eyes, almost thinking they deceived him. The brother

practitioners shook hands; and Mr. Alexander--a little man with dark

hair--explained what had seemed inexplicable.

It seemed that the very same evening delivery which brought Mr. North

the anonymous letter, had brought one to Mr. Alexander. His was from

London, informing him that he had been appointed to a post connected

with one of the hospitals, and requesting him to go up _at once_ for a

few hours. Mr. Alexander made ready, sent for a fly, and started with

his wife for the station, bidding the driver halt at Mr. North's iron

gates. As he was in attendance at that time on Edmund North, he wished

to give notice of his temporary absence. To be furiously attacked by

Edmund North the moment he entered the doors, and as it seemed to him,

without rhyme or reason, put Mr. Alexander into somewhat of a passion

also. There was no time for elucidation, neither was a single word he

said listened to, and the surgeon hastened out to his fly. He had

returned by the first train this morning--London was not much more

than an hour's journey by rail--and found that Edmund North had died

of that self-same passion. Half paralyzed with grief and horror, Mr.

Alexander hastened to the Hall; and was now coming from it, having

fully exculpated himself in all ways in the sight of its master.

Almost as fully he spoke now to Dr. Rane; in his grief, in his

straightforward candour, nothing selfish or sinister could hide

itself.

The transaction in regard to drawing the bill had been wholly Edmund

North's, Some months ago he had sought Mr. Alexander, saying he was

in want of a sum of money--a hundred pounds; he did not know how to

put his hands just then upon it, not wishing to apply to his own

family; would he, the surgeon, like a good fellow, lend it? At

first, Mr. Alexander had excused himself; for one thing he had not the

money--fancy a poor country surgeon with a hundred pounds loose cash,

he said; but eventually he fell in with Edmund North's pleadings. A

bill was drawn, both of them being liable, and was discounted by Dale,

the lawyer, of Whitborough. When the bill had become due (about a week

ago) neither of them could meet it; and the matter was arranged with

Dale by a second bill.

"What I cannot understand is, how Edmund North, poor fellow, could

have pitched upon me as the writer of that letter," observed the

surgeon to Dr. Rane, when he had finished his recital. "He must have

gone clean daft to think it. I had no reason for disclosing it; I did

not fear but he would eventually meet the bill."

"I told them you could not have written it," quietly rejoined the

doctor.

Mr. Alexander lifted his hand with angry emphasis. "Rane, I'd give a

thousand pounds out of my pocket--if I were a rich man and had it--to

know who wrote the letter and worked the mischief. I never disclosed

the transaction to a living soul; I don't believe Edmund North did;

besides ourselves, it was known only to the discounter. Dale is a safe

man; so it seems a perfect mystery. And mark you, Rane--that letter

was written to damage me at the Hall, not Edmund North."

Dr. Rane gazed at the other in great surprise. "To damage you?"

"It is the view I take of it. And so, on reflection, does Richard

North."

"Nonsense, Alexander!"

"If ever the hidden particulars come to light, you will find that it

is not nonsense, but truth," was the surgeon's answer. "I must have

some enemies in the neighbourhood, I suppose; most professional men

have; and they no doubt hoped to do for me with Mr. North. The Norths

in a degree sway other people here, and so I should have lost my

practice, and been driven away."

Oliver had raised his cane, and was lightly flicking the shrub by

which he stood, his air that of one in deep thought.

"I confess I do not follow you, Alexander. Your ill-doing or

well-doing is nothing to Mr. North; his son's of course was. If you

lived by drawing bills, it could be no concern of his."

"Drawing bills on my own score would certainly be of no moment to Mr.

North; but drawing them in _conjunction with his son_ would be. Upon

which of us would he naturally lay the blame? Upon a young, heedless

man, as Edmund North was; or upon me, a middle-aged, established

member of society, with a home and a family? The case speaks for

itself."

Oliver Rane did not appear quite to admit this. He thought the

probability lay against Mr. Alexander's theory, rather than with it.

"Of course," he slowly said, "looking at it in that light, the letter

would tell either way. But I think you must be wrong."

"No, I am not. Whoever wrote that missive did it to injure me. I

seemed to see it, as by instinct, the minute Mr. North gave me the

letter to read. If the motive was to drive me from Dallory, it might

have been spared, and Edmund North saved, for I am going to quit it of

my own accord."

"To quit Dallory?"

"In a month's time from this I and mine will have left it for London.

The situation now given to me I have been trying for, under the rose,

these six months past."

"But why do you wish to leave Dallory?"

"To better myself, as the servants say," replied Mr. Alexander, "and

the move will do that considerably. Another reason is that my wife

dislikes Dallory. Madam turned up her nose at us socially when we

first settled here; and that, in a degree, kept the best society

closed to Mrs. Alexander. She is well-born, has been reared a lady;

and of course it was: enough to set her against the place. Besides,

all our friends are in London; and so, you see, if my exit into the

wilderness was what that anonymous individual was driving at, he might

have gained his ends without crime, had he waited only a short time."

"I hate Mrs. North," dreamily spoke Dr. Rane; "and I am sure she hates

me, though the wherefore to me is incomprehensible."

"Look there," spoke the surgeon, dropping his voice.

Both had simultaneously caught sight of Mrs. North. She was passing

the shrubbery close by, and looked out at them. They raised their

hats. Mr. Alexander made a movement to approach her; she saw it, and

turned from him back to the dark wall with her usual sweeping step. So

he remained where he was.

"She asked to see me on Tuesday night when I was leaving; wanting to

know if I could tell her who wrote the letter," said Dr. Rane.

"She suspected me, I suppose."

"She appeared to suspect--_not_ you, but some one else; and that was

Richard North."

"Richard North!" ironically repeated Mr. Alexander. "She knows quite

well that he is above suspicion; perhaps she was only trying to divert

attention from some other person: she is made up of craft. Who knows

but she wrote the letter herself?"

"Mrs. North!"

"Upon my word and honour, the thought is in my mind, Rane. If the

motive of the letter were as you think--to do Edmund North damage with

his father--I know of only one person who would attempt it, and that

is Mrs. North."

Their eyes met: a strange light shone momentarily in Oliver Rane's. In

saying that he hated Mrs. North, he spoke truth; but there was every

excuse for the feeling, for it was quite certain that Mrs. North had

long been working him what ill she could. His marriage with Bessy was

being delayed, and delayed entirely through her covert opposition.

"That she is an entirely unscrupulous woman, and would stand at

nothing, I feel sure," spoke Dr. Rane, drawing a deep breath. "But, as

to the letter----"

"Well, as to the letter?" cried the surgeon, in the pause. "I don't

say she foresaw that it would kill him."

"This would disprove your theory of its being written to damage you,

Alexander."

"Not altogether. The damaging another, more or less, would be of no

moment at all to Mrs. North; she would crush any one without scruple."

"I'm sure she would crush me," spoke Dr. Rane. "Heaven knows why; I

don't."

"Well, if she did write the letter, I think her conscience must smite

her as she looks at the poor dead man lying there. Good-day, Rane: I

have not been home to see my little ones yet. Mrs. Alexander is

remaining in town for a day or two."

In talking, they had walked slowly to the end of the avenue; Mr.

Alexander passed through the gates, and took the road towards the Ham.

"I may as well go on at once, and see Ketler," thought Dr. Rane. "Time

enough to call at the Hall as I return."

So he went on towards Dallory. Two gentlemen passed him on horseback,

county magistrates, who were probably going to the Hall. The sight of

them turned his thoughts to the subject of an inquest: he began

speculating why Mr. North wished to evade it, and whether he would

succeed in doing so. For his own part, he did not see that the case,

speaking in point of law, called for one. Hepburn said it did; and he

was supposed, as chief undertaker in Dallory, to understand these

things.

Deep in reflection, the doctor strode on; when, in passing Mrs. Gass's

house, a sharp tapping at the window saluted his ear. It came from

that lady herself, and she threw up the sash.

"Just come in, will you, Dr. Rane? I want you for something very

particular."

He felt sure she only wanted to question him about the death, and

would a great deal rather have gone on: but with her red and smiling

face inviting him in peremptorily, he did not see his way to refusing

her.

"And so he is _gone_--that poor young man!" she began, meeting him in

her smart dress and pink cap. "When I heard the death-bell ring out

this morning, it sounded to me a'most like my own knell."

"Yes, he is gone--unhappily," murmured Dr. Rane.

"Well, now, doctor, the next thing is--what became of you yesterday?"

The change of subject appeared peculiar.

"Became of me?" repeated Dr. Rane. "How do you mean?"

"All the mortal day I was stuck at this parlour window, waiting to see

you go by," proceeded Mrs. Gass. "You never passed once."

"Yes, I did. I passed in the morning."

"My eyes must have gone a-maying then, for they never saw you," was

Mrs. Gass's answer.

"It was before my usual hour. I was called out early to a sick man in

Dallory, and I took the opportunity to see Ketler at the same time."

"Then that accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nuts; and I wasted my

time for nothing," was her good-tempered rejoinder.

"Why did you want to see me pass?"

Mrs. Gass paused for a moment before replying. She glanced round to

see that the door was closed, and dropped her voice almost to a

whisper.

"Dr. Rane, who wrote that fatal letter?"

"I cannot tell."

"Did _you?_"

Oliver Rane stared at her, a sudden flush of anger dyeing his brow. No

wonder: the question, put with emphatic earnestness, seemed an

assertion, almost like that startling reproach of Nathan to David.

"Mrs. Gass, I do not know what you mean."

"I see you don't relish it, doctor. But I am a plain body, as you

know; and when in doubt about a thing, pleasant or unpleasant, I like

to ask an explanation straight out."

"But why should you be in doubt about this?" he inquired wonderingly.

"What can induce you to connect me with the letter?"

Mrs. Gass took her portly person across the room to a desk; unlocked

it, and brought forth a folded piece of paper. She handed it to Dr.

Rane.

It was not a letter; it could not be the copy of one: but it did

appear to be the rough sketch of the anonymous missive that had

reached Mr. North. Some of the sentences were written two or three

times over; in a close hand, in a scrawling hand, in a reversed hand,

as if the writer were practising different styles; in others the

construction was altered, words were erased, others substituted.

Oliver Rane gazed upon it as one in complete bewilderment.

"What _is_ this, Mrs. Gass?"

"Is it not the skeleton of the letter?"

"No, certainly not. And yet----" Dr. Rane broke off and ran his eye

over the lines again and again. "There is a similarity in some of the

phrases," he suddenly said.

"Some of the phrases is identical," returned Mrs. Gass. "When Mr.

Richard North was here yesterday, I got him to repeat over to me the

words of the letter; word for word, so far as he remembered 'em, and I

know 'em for _these_ words. Whoever writ that letter to Mr. North,

doctor, first of all tried his sentences and his hand, on this paper,

practising how he could best do it."

"How did you come by this?"

"You left it here the night before last."

"_I_ left it here!" repeated Dr. Rane, looking as if he mentally

questioned whether Mrs. Gass was in her right senses.

"Yes. You."

"But you must be dreaming, Mrs. Gass."

"I never do dream--that sort of dreaming," replied Mrs. Gass. "Look

here"--putting her stout hand, covered with costly rings, on his

coat-sleeve--"didn't you upset your pocketbook here that night? Well,

this piece of paper fell out of it."

"It could not have done anything of the sort," he repeated, getting

flushed and angry again. "All the papers that fell out of my

pocketbook I picked up and returned to it."

"You didn't pick this up; it must have fluttered away unseen. Just

after you were gone I dropped my spectacle-case, and in stooping for

it, I saw this piece of paper lying under the claw of the table."

"But it could not have come out of my pocketbook. Just tell me, if

you please, Mrs. Gass, what should bring such a document in my

possession?"

"That's just what I can't tell. The paper was not there before

candle-light; I'll answer for that much; so where else could it have

come from?"

The last words were not spoken as an assertion of her view, but as a

question. Dr. Rane looked at her, she at him; both seeming equally

puzzled.

"Had you any visitor last evening besides myself?" he asked.

"Not a soul. The only person that came into the parlour, barring my

own servants, was Molly Green, under-housemaid at the Hall. She lived

with me once, and calls in sometimes in passing to ask how I am. They

sent her into Dallory for something wanted at the chemist's, and she

looked in to tell me. The thing had just happened."

Dr. Rane's brow lost its perplexity: an easy smile, as if the mystery

were solved, crossed his face. The hint recently given him by Mr.

Alexander was in his mind.

"I'm glad you've told me this, Mrs. Gass. The paper was more likely to

have been left by Molly Green than by me. It may have dropped from her

petticoats."

"Goodness bless the man! From her petticoats! Why, she had run all the

way from the Hall. And how was she likely to pick it up in _that_

house--even though her gown had been finished off with fish-hooks?"

"What cause have I given you to suspect _me_ of this?" retorted Dr.

Rane in harsh tones.

"Only this--that I don't see where the paper could have come from but

out of your own pocketbook," replied Mrs. Gass frankly. "I have no

other reason to suspect you; I'd as soon suspect myself. It is just a

mystery, and nothing else."

"Whatever the mystery may be, it is not connected with my pocketbook,

Mrs. Gass," he emphatically said. "Did you mention this to Richard

North?"

"No. Nor to anybody else. It was not a pleasant thing to speak of, you

see."

"Not a pleasant thing for me, certainly, to be suspected of having

dropped that paper. The culprit, an innocent one, no doubt, must have

been Molly Green."

"I never was so brought up in all my life," cried the puzzled woman.

"As to Molly Green--it must be just a fancy of yours, doctor, for it

never can be fact."

Oliver Rane drew his chair a little nearer to Mrs. Gass, and whispered

a word of the doubt touching Mrs. North. He only spoke of it _as_ a

doubt; a hint at most; but Mrs. Gass was not slow to take it.

"Heaven help the woman!--if it's her work."

"But this must not be breathed aloud," he said, taking alarm. "It may

be a false suspicion."

"Don't fear me: it's a thing too grave for me to mix myself up in,"

was the reply: and to give Mrs. Gass her due, she did look scared in

no slight degree. "Dr. Rane, I am sorry for saying what I did to you.

It was the impossibility, as I took it, of anything's having left it

here but that flutter of papers from your pocketbook. Whoever would

have given a thought to Molly Green?"

Dr. Rane made no answer.

"She put her basket down by the door there, and came up the room to

look at my geraniums; I held the candle for her. I remember she caught

her crinoline on the corner of the iron fender, and it gave her a

twist round. The idiots that girls make of themselves with them big

crinolines! Perhaps it dropped from her then."

"Well, let us bury it in silence, Mrs. Gass; it is only a doubt at

best," said the prudent but less eloquent physician. "You will allow

me to take this," he added alluding to the paper. "I should like to

examine it at leisure."

"Take it, and welcome," she answered; "I'm glad to be rid of it. As to

burying it in silence, we had better, I expect, both do that."

"Even to Richard North," he enjoined rather anxiously.

"Even to Richard North. I have kept secrets in my day, doctor, and can

keep 'em again."

Dr. Rane put the paper in his pocketbook, deposited that in the

breast-pocket of his coat, and took his departure. But now, being a

shrewd man, a suspicion that he would not have given utterance to for

the whole world, lay on Dr. Rane--that it was more in accordance with

probability that the paper had dropped out of his pocketbook than

from Molly Green's petticoats, seeing they were _not_ finished off with

fish-hooks.

A heavy weight lying there on his breast! And he went along with a

loitering step, asking himself how the paper could have originally

come there.

CHAPTER IV.

ALONE WITH THE TRUTH.

Oliver Rane was in his bedchamber; a front apartment facing the road.

It will be as well to give a word of description to this first floor,

for it may prove needed as the tale goes on. It consisted of a large

landing-place, its boards white and bare, with a spacious window

looking to the side of the other house, as the dining-room beneath it

did. Wide, low and curtainless was this window; giving, in conjunction

with the bare floors and walls, a staring appearance to the place.

Mrs. Cumberland's opposite landing (could you have seen it) presented

a very different aspect, with its rich carpet, its statues, vases,

bookcases, and its pretty window-drapery. Dr. Rane could not afford

luxuries yet; or, indeed, superfluous furniture of any sort. The

stairs led almost close to this window, so that in coming down from

any of the bedrooms, or the upper floor, you had to face it.

To get into Dr. Rane's chamber--the best in the house--an ante-room

had to be passed through, and its door was opposite the large window.

Two chambers opened from the back of the landing: they faced the back

lane that ran along beyond the garden wall. Above, in the roof, were

two other rooms, both three-cornered. Phillis, the old serving-woman,

slept on that floor in one of them, Dr. Rane on this: the house had no

other inmates.

The ante-room had no furniture: unless some curious-looking articles

lying on the floor could be called so. They seemed to consist chiefly

of glass: jars covered in dust, a cylindrical glass-pump, and other

things belonging to chemistry, of which science the doctor was fond.

Certainly the architect had not made the most of this floor, or he

would never have given so much space to the landing. But if this

ante-room was not furnished, Dr. Rane's chamber was; and well

furnished too. The walls were white and gold, the dressing-table and

glass stood before the window and opposite the door. On the left was

the fireplace; the handsome white Arabian bedstead was picked out with

gold, and its hangings of green damask, matched the window drapery and

the soft colours of the carpet.

Seated at the round table in the middle of the room, his hand raised

to support his head, was Dr. Rane. He had only just come in, and it

was now one o'clock--his usual dinner hour. It was that same morning

mentioned in the last chapter, when he had quitted Mrs. Gass's house

with that dangerous piece of paper weighing upon his pocket and his

heart. He had been detained out. As he was entering the house of the

sick man, Ketler, whom he had proceeded at once to see, a bustle in

the street, and much wild running of women, warned him that something

must have happened. Two men had fallen into the river at the back of

the North Works; and excited people were shouting that they were

drowned. Not quite: as Dr. Rane saw when he reached the spot: not

beyond hope of restoration. Patiently the doctor persevered in his

endeavours. He brought life into them at length; and stayed afterwards

caring for them. After that, he had Ketler and other patients to see,

and it was nearly one when he bent his steps towards home. In the

morning he had said to himself that he would call at the Hall on his

return; but he passed its gates; perhaps because it was his dinner

hour, for one o'clock was striking.

Hanging up his hat in the small hall, leaving his cane in the

corner--a pretty trifle with a gold stag for its handle--he was making

straight for the stairs, when the servant, Phillis, came out of the

kitchen. A little woman of some five-and-fifty years, with high

shoulders, and her head carried forward. Her chin and nose were

sharp now, but the once good-looking face was meek and mild, the sweet

dark eyes were subdued, and the hair, peeping from beneath the close

white cap, was grey. She wore a dark cotton gown and check apron. A

tidy-looking, respectable woman, in spite of her unfashionable

appearance.

"Is that you, sir? Them folks have been over from the brick-kilns,

saying the woman's not so well to-day, if you'd please to go to her."

Dr. Rane nodded. He went on up the stairs and into his own room, the

door of which he locked. Why? Phillis was not in the habit of

intruding upon him, and there was no one else in the house. The first

thing he did was to take the paper received from Mrs. Gass out of his

pocketbook, and read it attentively twice over. Then he struck a

match, set fire to it, and watched it consume away in the empty grate.

A dangerous memento, whosesoever hand had penned it; and the physician

did well, in the interests of humanity, to put it out of sight for

ever. The task over, he leaned against the window-frame, and lapsed

into thought. He was dwelling upon the death at Dallory Hall, and what

it might bring forth.

Hepburn, the undertaker, was right. There was to be no inquest. So

much Dr. Rane had learned from Richard North: who had hastened to the

works on hearing of the accident to his men. The two Whitborough

doctors had given the certificate of death: apoplexy, to which there

had been a previous tendency, though immediately brought on by

excitement: and nothing more was required by law. From a word spoken

by Richard, Dr. Rane gathered that it was madam who had set her veto

against an inquest. And quite right too; there was no necessity

whatever for one, had been the comment made by Oliver Rane to Richard.

But now--now when he was alone with himself and the naked truth: when

there was no man at hand whose opinion it might be well to humour or

deceive: no eye upon him save God's, he could not help acknowledging

that had he been Mr. North, had it been his son who was thus cut off

from life, he should have caused an inquest to be held. Ay, ten

inquests, an' the law would have allowed them; if by that means he

might have traced the letter home to its writer.

Quitting the window, he sat down at the table and bent his forehead

upon his hand. Never in his whole life had anything so affected him as

this death: and it was perhaps natural that he should set himself to

see whether, or not, any sort of excuse might be found for the

anonymous writer.

He began by putting himself in idea in the writer's place, and argued

the point for him: for and against. Chiefly _for_; it was on that side

his bias leaned. It is very easy, as the world knows, to find a plea

for those in whom we are interested or on whom misfortune falls; it is

so natural to indulge for their sakes in a little sophistry. Such

sophistry came now to the help of the physician.

"What need had Edmund North to fly into a furious passion?" ran the

self-argument. "Only a madman might have been expected to do so. There

was nothing in the letter that need have excited him, absolutely

nothing. It was probably written with a very harmless intention;

certainly the writer never could have dreamt that it might have the

effect of destroying a life."

_Destroying a man's life!_ A flush passed into Oliver Rane's face at

the thought, dyeing neck and brow. And, with it, recurred the words of

Hepburn--that the writer was a murderer and might come to be tried for

it. A murderer! There is no other self-reproach under heaven that can

bring home so much anguish to the conscience. But--could a man be

justly called a murderer if he had never had thought or intention of

doing anything of the kind?

"Halt here," said Dr. Rane, suddenly speaking aloud, as if he were a

special pleader arguing in a law court. "Can a man be called a

murderer who has never had the smallest intention of murdering--who

would have flown in horror from the bare idea? Let us suppose it

was--Mrs. North--who wrote the letter? Alexander suspects her, at any

rate. Put it that she had some motive for writing it. It might have

been a good motive--that of stopping Edward North in his downward

career, as the letter intimated--and she fancied this might be best

accomplished by letting his father hear of what he, in conjunction

with Alexander, was doing. According to Alexander, she does not

interfere openly between the young men and their father; it isn't her

policy to do so: and she may have considered that the means she took

were legitimate under the circumstances. Well, could she for a moment

imagine that any terrible consequences would ensue? A rating from Mr.

North to his son, and the matter would be over. Just so: she was

innocent of any other thought. Then how could she be thought guilty?"

Dr. Rane paused. A book lay on the table: he turned its leaves

backwards and forwards in abstraction, his mind revolving the subject.

Presently he resumed.

"Or--take Alexander's view of the letter--that it was written to

damage him with Mr. North and the neighbourhood generally. Madam--say

again--had conceived a dislike to Alexander, wished him dismissed from

the house, but had no plea for doing it, and so took _that_ means of

accomplishing her end. Could she suspect that the result would be

fatal to Edmund North? Would she not have shrunk with abhorrence from

writing the letter, had she foreseen it? Certainly. Then, under these

circumstances, how can a man--I mean a woman--be responsible, legally

or morally, for the death? It would be utterly unjust to charge her

with it. Edmund North is alone to blame. Clearly so. The case is

little better than one of unintentional suicide."

Having arrived at this view of the subject--so comforting for the

unknown writer--Dr. Rane rose briskly, and began to wash his hands and

brush his hair. He took a note-case from his pocket, in which he was

in the habit of entering his daily engagements, to see at what hour he

could most conveniently visit the brick-fields, in compliance with the

message received. The sick woman was in no danger, as he knew, and he

might choose his own time. In passing through the ante-room--a room,

by the way, generally distinguished as the Drab Room, from the unusual

colour of the hideous walls--he took up one of the glass jars,

requiring it for some purpose downstairs. And then he noticed

something that displeased him.

"Phillis!" he called, going out to the landing: "Phillis!" And the

woman, a very active little body, came running up.

"You have been sweeping the Drab Room?"

"It was so dirty, sir."

"Now look here," he cried, angrily. "If you sweep out a room again,

when I tell you it is not to be swept, I'll keep every place in the

house locked up. Some of the glass here is valuable, and I won't run

the risk of having it broken with your brooms and brushes."

Down went Phillis, taking the reproof in silence. As Dr. Rane crossed

the landing to follow her, his eyes fell on his mother's house through

the large window. The window opposite was being cleaned by one of the

servants: at the window of the dining-room underneath, his mother was

sitting. It reminded Dr. Rane that he had not been in to see her for

nearly two days; not since Edmund North----

Suddenly a sense of the delusive nature of the sophistry he had been

indulging, flashed into his brain, and the truth shone out distinct

and bare. Edmund North was dead; had been killed by the anonymous

letter. But for that fatal letter he had been alive and well now. A

sickening sensation, as of some great oppression, came over Oliver

Rane, and his nerveless fingers dropped the jar.

Out ran Phillis, lifting her hands at the crash of glittering

particles lying in the passage. "He has broken one himself now,"

thought she, referring to the recent reproof.

"Sweep the pieces carefully into a dust-pan, and throw them away,"

said her master as he passed on. "The jar slipped out of my fingers."

Phillis stared a minute, exhausting her surprise, and then turned away

for the dust-pan. The doctor went on to the front-door, instead of

into the dining-room, as Phillis expected.

"Sir," she called out, hastening after him, "your dinner's waiting.

Will you not take it now?"

But Dr. Rane passed on as though he had not heard her, and shut the

door loudly.

He turned into his mother's house. Not by the open window; not by

stepping over the slight fence; but he knocked at the front-door, and

was admitted as an ordinary visitor. Whether it was from having lived

apart for so many years of their lives, or that a certain cordiality

was wanting in the disposition of each, certain it was that Dr. Rane

and his mother observed more ceremony with each other than usually

obtains between mother and son.

Mrs. Cumberland sat at the open dining-room window just as he had seen

her from his staircase landing; a newspaper lay behind her on a small

table, as if just put down. Ellen Adair, as might be heard, was at the

piano in the drawing-room, playing, perhaps from unconscious

association, and low and softly as it was her delight to play, the

"Dead March in Saul." The dirge grated on the ears of Dr. Rane.

"What a melancholy performance!" he involuntarily exclaimed; and Mrs.

Cumberland looked up, there was so much irritation in his tone.

He shook hands with his mother, but did not kiss her, which he was not

accustomed to do, and stood back against the broad window, his face

turned to it.

"You are a stranger, Oliver," she said. "What has kept you away?"

"I have been busy. To-day especially. They had an accident at the

works--two men were nearly drowned--and I have been with them all the

morning."

"I heard of it. Jelly brought me in the news; she seems to hear

everything. How fortunate that you were at hand!"

He proceeded, rather volubly for him, to give particulars of the

accident and of the process he adopted to recover the men. Mrs.

Cumberland looked and listened with silent, warm affection; but that

she was a particularly undemonstrative woman, she would have betrayed

it in her manner. In her eyes, there was not so fine and handsome and

estimable a man in all Dallory as this her only son.

"Oliver, what a dreadful thing this is about Edmund North! I have not

seen you since. Why did you not come in and tell me the same night?"

He turned his eyes on her for a moment in surprise, and paused.

"I am not in the habit of coming in to tell you when called out to

patients, mother. How was I to know you wished it?"

"Nonsense, Oliver! This is not an ordinary thing: the Norths were

something to me once. I have had Edmund on my knee when he was a baby;

and I should have liked you to pay me the attention of bringing in the

news. It appears to be altogether a more romantic event than one meets

with every day, and such things, you know, are of interest to lonely

women."

Dr. Rane made no rejoinder, possibly not having sufficient excuse for

his carelessness. He stood looking dreamily from a corner of the

window. Phillis, as might be seen from there, was carrying away the

fowl prepared for his dinner, and a tureen of sauce. Mrs. Cumberland

probably thought he was watching with critical curiosity the movements

of his handmaid. She resumed:

"They say, Oliver, there has been no hope of him from the first."

"There was very little. Of course, as it turns out, there could have

been none."

"And who wrote the letter? With what motive was it written?" proceeded

Mrs. Cumberland, her grey face bent slightly forward, as she waited

for an answer.

"It is of no use to ask me, mother. Some people hold one opinion, some

another; mine would go for little."

"They are beginning now to think that it was not written at all to

injure Edmund, but Mr. Alexander."

"Who told you that?" he asked, a sharper accent discernible in his

tone.

"Captain Bohun. He came in this morning to tell me of the death.

Considering that I have no claim upon him, that a year ago I had never

spoken to him, I must say that Arthur Bohun is very kind and attentive

to me. He is one in a thousand."

Perhaps the temptation to say, "It's not for your sake he is so

attentive," momentarily assailed Oliver Rane. But he was good-natured

in the main, and he knew when to be silent, and when to speak: no man

better. Besides, it was no business of his.

"I entertain a different opinion," he observed, referring to the point

in discussion. "Of course it is all guess work as to the writer's

motive: there can be no profit in discussing it, mother: and I must be

going, for my dinner's waiting. Thank you for sending me the chicken."

"A moment yet, Oliver," she interposed, as he was moving away. "Have

you heard that Alexander is going to leave?"

"Yes: he was talking to me about it this morning."

If ever a glow of light had been seen lately on Mrs. Cumberland's

marble face, it was seen then. The tightly-drawn features had lost

their grey tinge.

"Oliver, I could go down on my knees and thank Heaven for it. You

don't know how grieved I have felt all through these past two years,

to see you put into the shade by that man, and to know that it was I

who had brought you here! It will be all right now. New houses are to

be built, they say, at the other end of the Ham, and the practice will

be worth a great deal. I shall sleep well to-night."

He smiled as he shook hands with her; partly in affection, partly at

her unusual vehemence. In passing the drawing-room, Ellen Adair

happened to be coming out of it, but he went on. She supposed he had

not observed her, and spoke.

"Ah! how do you do, Miss Adair?" he said, turning back, and offering

his hand. "Forgive my haste; I am busy to-day."

And before she had time to make any reply, he was gone; leaving an

impression on her mind, she could not well have told why or wherefore,

that he was ill at ease; that he had hastened away, not from pressure

of work, but because he did not care to talk to her.

If that feeling was possessing Dr. Rane, and had reference to the

world in general, and not to the young lady in particular, it might

not have been agreeable to him to encounter an acquaintance as he

turned out of his mother's house. Mr. Alexander was swiftly passing on

his way towards home from the lower part of the Ham, and stopped.

"I wish I had never said a syllable about going away until I was off,"

cried he in his off-hand manner--a pleasanter and more sociable manner

than Dr. Rane's. "The news has been noised abroad, and the whole place

is upon me; asking this, that, and the other. One man comes and wants

to know if I'll sell my furniture; another thinks he'd like the house

as it stands. My patients are up in arms;--say I'm doing it to kill

them. I shall have some of them in a fever before the day's over."

"Perhaps you won't go, after all," observed Dr. Rane.

"Not go! How can I help going? I'm elected to the post. Why, it's what

I've been looking out for ever so long--almost ever since I came here.

No, no, Rane: a short time, and Dallory Ham will have seen the last of

me."

He hastened across the road to his house, like a man who has the

world's work on his busy shoulders. Dr. Rane's thoughts, as he glanced

after him, reverted to the mental argument he had held in his chamber,

and he unconsciously resumed it, putting himself in the place of the

unknown, unhappy writer, as before.

"It's almost keener than the death itself--if the motive was to injure

Alexander in his profession, or drive him from the place--to know that

he, or she--Mrs. North--might have spared her pains! Heavens! what

remorse it must be!--to commit a crime, and then find there was no

necessity for doing it!"

Dr. Rane passed his white handkerchief over his brow--the day was very

warm--and turned into his house. Phillis once more placed the dinner

on the table, and he sat down to it.

But not a mouthful could he swallow; his throat felt like so much

dried-chip, and the food would not go down. Phillis, who was coming in

for something or other, saw him leave his plate and rise from table.

"Is the fowl not tender, sir?"

"Tender?" he responded, as though the sense of the question had not

reached him, and paused. "Oh, it's tender enough: but I must go off to

a patient. Get your own dinner, Phillis."

"Surely you'll come back to yours, sir?"

"I've had as much as I want. Take the things away."

"I wonder what's come to him?" mused the woman as his quick steps

receded from the house, and she was left with the rejected dishes. A

consciousness came dimly penetrating to her hazy brain that there was

some change upon him. What it was, or where it lay, she did not

define. It was unusual for his strong firm fingers to drop a glass; it

was still more unusual for him to explain cause and effect. "The jar

slipped from my fingers." "I've had as much as I want. I must go off

to a patient." It was quite out of the order of routine for Dr. Rane

to be explanatory to his servant on any subject whatever: and perhaps

it was his having been so in these two instances that impressed

Phillis.

"How quick he must have eaten his dinner!"

Phillis nearly dropped the dish. The words were spoken close behind

her, and she had believed herself alone in the house. Turning, she saw

Jelly, standing half in, half out of the window.

"Well, I'm sure!" cried Phillis, in wrath. "You needn't come startling

a body in that way, Mrs. Jelly. How did you know but the doctor might

be at table?"

"I've just seen him go down the lane," returned Jelly, who had plenty

of time for gossiping with her neighbours, and had come strolling over

the fence now with no other object. "Has he had his dinner? It's but

the other minute he was in at our house."

"He has had as much as he means to have," answered Phillis, her anger

evaporating, for she liked a gossip also. "I'm sure it's not worth the

trouble of serving meals, if they are to be left in this fashion. It

was the same thing at breakfast."

Jelly recollected the scene at breakfast; the startled pallor on Dr.

Rane's face, when told that Edmund North was dead: she supposed that

had spoiled his appetite. Her inquisitive eyes turned unceremoniously

to the fowl, and she saw that the merest slice off the wing was alone

eaten.

"Perhaps he is not well to-day," said Jelly.

"I don't know about his being well; he's odder than I ever saw him,"

answered Phillis. "I shouldn't wonder but he has had his stomach

turned over them two half-drowned men."

She carried the dinner-things across to the kitchen. Jelly, who

assisted at the ceremony, as far as watching and talking went, was

standing in the passage, when her quick eyes caught sight of two small

pieces of glass. She stooped to pick them up.

"Look, Phillis! You have been breaking something. It's uncommonly

careless to leave the bits about."

"Is it!" retorted Phillis. "Your eyes are in everything. I thought I

took 'em all up," she added, looking on the ground.

"What did you break?"

"Nothing. It was the doctor. He dropped one of them dusty glass jars

down the stairs. It did give me a start. You should have heard the

smash."

"What made him drop it?" asked Jelly.

"Goodness knows," returned the older woman. "He's not a bit like

himself to-day; it's just as if something had come to him."

She began her dinner as she spoke, standing, her usual mode of taking

it. Jelly, following her free-and-easy habits, stood against the

door-post, apparently interested in the progress of the meal. They

presented a contrast, these two women, the one a thin, upright

giantess, the other a dwarf stooping forward. Jelly, a lady's-maid,

held herself of course altogether above Phillis, an ignorant (as Jelly

would have described her) servant-of-all-work, though condescending to

drop in for the sake of gossip.

"Did you happen to hear how the doctor found Ketler?"

"As if I should be likely to hear!" was Phillis's retort. "He'd not

tell me, and I couldn't ask. My master's not one you can put questions

to, Jelly."

A silence ensued. The gossip apparently flagged to-day. Phillis had it

chiefly to herself, for Jelly vouchsafed only a brief remark now and

again. She was engaged in the mental process of wondering what _had_

come to Dr. Rane.

CHAPTER V.

RETROSPECT.

There must be a little retrospect to make things intelligible to the

reader; and it may as well be given at once.

Mr. North, now of Dallory Sail, had got on entirely by his own

industry. Of obscure, though in a certain way respectable, parentage,

he had been placed as apprentice to a firm in Whitborough. It was a

firm in extensive work, not confining itself to one branch. They took

contracts for public buildings, small and large: did mechanical

engineering; had planned one of the early railways. John North--plain

Jack North he was known as, then--remained with the firm when he was

out of his time, and got on in it. Steady and plodding, he rose from

one step to another; and at length, in conjunction with one who had

been in the same firm, he set up for himself. This other was Thomas

Gass. Gass had not risen from the ranks as North had: his connections

were good, and he had received a superior education; but his friends

were poor. North and Gass, as the new firm called itself, began

business near to Dallory; quietly at first--as all people, who really

expect to get on, generally do begin. They rose rapidly. The narrow

premises expanded; the small contracts grew into large ones. People

said luck was with them--and in truth it seemed so. The Dallory works

became noted in the county, employing quite a colony of people: the

masters were respected and sought after. Both lived at Whitborough;

Mr. North with his wife and family; Mr. Gass a bachelor.

Thomas Gass had one brother; a clergyman. Their only sister, Fanny, a

very pretty girl, had her home with him in his rectory, but she came

often to Whitborough on a visit to Thomas. Suddenly it was announced

to the world that she had become engaged to marry a Captain Rane,

entirely against the wish of her two brothers. She was under twenty.

Captain Rane, a poor naval man on half-pay, was almost old enough to

be her grandfather. Their objection lay not so much in this, as in

himself. For some reason or other, neither of them liked him. The

Reverend William Gass forbid his sister to think of him; Mr. Thomas

Gass, a fiery man, swore he would never afterwards look upon her as a

sister, if she persisted in thus throwing herself away.

Miss Gass did persist. She possessed the obstinate spirit of her

brother Thomas, though without his fire. She chose to take her own

way, and married Captain Rane. They sailed at once for Madras; Captain

Rane having obtained some post there, connected with the Government

ships.

Whether Miss Gass repented her marriage, her brothers had no means of

learning: for she, retaining her anger, never wrote to them during her

husband's lifetime. It was a very short one. Barely a twelvemonth had

elapsed after the knot was tied, when there came a pitiful letter from

her. Captain Rane had died, just as her little son Oliver (named after

a friend, she said) was born. Thomas Gass, to whom the letter had been

specially written, gathered that she was left badly off; though she

did not absolutely say so. He went into one of his angry moods, and

tossed the epistle across the desk to his partner. "You must do

something for her, Gass," said John North when he had read it. "I

never will," hotly affirmed Mr. Gass. "Fanny knows what I promised if

she married Rane--that I would never help her during my lifetime or

after it. She knows another thing--that I am not one to go from my

word. William may help her if he likes; he has not much to give away,

but he can have her home to live with him." "Help the child, then,"

suggested Mr. North, knowing further remonstrance to be useless. "No,"

returned obstinate Thomas Gass; "I'll stick to the spirit of my

promise as well as the letter." And Mr. North bent his head again--he

was going over some estimates--feeling that the affair was none of

his. "I don't mind putting the boy in the tontine, North," presently

spoke the junior partner. "The tontine!" echoed John North in

surprise, "what tontine?" "What tontine?" returned the hard

man--though in truth he was not hard in general, "why, the one that

you and others are getting up; the one you have just put your baby,

Bessy, into; I know of no other tontine." "But that will not benefit

the boy," urged Mr. North: "certainly not now; and the chances are ten

to one against its ever benefiting him in the future." "Never mind;

I'll put him into it," said Mr. Gass, whose obstinacy always came out

well under opposition. "You want a tenth child to close the list, and

I'll put him into it." So into the tontine Oliver Rane, unconscious

infant, was put.

But Mrs. Rane did not further trouble either of her brothers; or, as

things turned out, require assistance from them. She remained in

India; and after a year married a Government chaplain there, the

Reverend George Cumberland, who possessed some private property.

Little, if any, communication took place afterwards between her and

her brothers; she cherished resentment for old grievances, and would

not write to them. And so the sister and the brothers seemed to fade

away from each other from henceforth. We all know how relatives,

parted by time and distance, become estranged, disappearing almost

from memory.

Whilst the firm, North and Gass, was rising higher and higher in

wealth and importance, the wife of its senior partner died. She left

three children, Edmund, Richard, and Bessy. Subsequently, during a

visit to London, chance drew Mr. North into a meeting with a handsome

young woman, the widow of Major Bohun. She had not long returned from

India, where she had buried her husband. A designing, attractive

syren, who began forthwith to exercise her dangerous fascinations on

plain, unsuspicious Mr. North. She had only a poor pittance; what

money there was belonged to her only child, Arthur; a little lad: sent

out of sight already to a preparatory school. Report had magnified Mr.

North's wealth into something fabulous; and Mrs. Bohun did not cease

her scheming until she had caught him in her toils and he had made her

Mrs. North.

Men do things sometimes in a hurry, only to repent of them at leisure.

That Mr. North had been in a hurry in this case was indisputable--it

was just as though Mrs. Bohun had thrown a spell over him; whether he

repented when he woke up and found himself with a wife, a stepmother

for his children at home, was not so certain. He was a sufficiently

wise man in those days to conceal what he did not want known.

Whom he had married, beyond the fact that she was the widow of Major

Bohun, he did not know from Adam. For all she disclosed about her own

family, in regard to whom she maintained an absolute reticence, she

might have dropped from the moon, or "growed" like Topsy; but, from

the airs and graces she assumed, Mr. North might have concluded they

were dukes and duchesses at least. Her late husband's family were

irreproachable, both in character and position. The head of it was Sir

Nash Bohun, representative of an ancient baronetcy, and elder brother

of the late major. Before the wedding tour was over, poor Mr. North

found that his wife was a cold, imperious, extravagant woman, not to

be questioned by any means if she so chose. When her fascinations were

in full play (while she was only Mrs. Bohun) Mr. North had been ready

to think her an angel. Where had all the amiability flown to? People

do change after marriage somehow. At least, there have been instances

known of it.

A little circumstance occurred one day that--to put it mildly--had

surprised Mr. North. He had been given to understand by his wife that

Major Bohun died suddenly of sunstroke; she had certainly told him

so. In talking at a dinner-party at Sir Nash Bohun's with some

gentlemen not long from India, he and Mr. North being side by side at

the table after the ladies had retired, the subject of sunstrokes

came up. "My wife's former husband, Major Bohun, died of one,"

innocently observed Mr. North. "Died of _what?_" cried the other,

putting down his claret-glass, which he was conveying to his

mouth. "Of sunstroke," repeated Mr. North. "Bohun did not die of

sunstroke," came the impulsive answer; "who told you he died of

that?" "She did--my wife," was Mr. North's answer. "Oh!" said his

friend; and took up his claret again. "Why, what did he die of, if it

was not sunstroke?" asked Mr. North, with curiosity. "Well,--I--I

don't know; I'd rather say no more about it," was the conclusive

reply: "of course Mrs. North must know better than I." And nothing

more would he say on the subject.

They were staying at this time at Sir Nash Bohun's. In passing through

London after the Continental wedding trip on their way to Whitborough,

Sir Nash had invited them to make his house their resting-place. Not

until the day following his conversation at the dinner-table had Mr.

North an opportunity of questioning his wife; but, that some false

representation, intentionally or otherwise, had been made to him on

the subject of her late husband's death, he felt certain. They were

alone in her dressing-room. Mrs. North, who had a great deal of

beautiful black hair, was standing before the glass, doing something

to a portion of it, when her husband suddenly accosted her. He called

her by her Christian name in those first married days. It was a very

fine one.

"Amanda, you told me, I think, that Major Bohun died of sunstroke."

"Well?" she returned carelessly, occupied with her hair.

"But he did not die of sunstroke. He died of--of something else."

Mr. North had watched women's faces turn to pallor, but never in his

whole life had he seen so livid a look of terror as now overspread his

wife's. Her hair dropped from her nerveless hands.

"Why, what is the matter?" he exclaimed.

She murmured something about a spasm of the heart, to which she was

subject: an excuse, as he saw. Another moment, and she had recovered

her composure, and was busy with her hair again.

"You were asking me something, were you not, Mr. North?"

"About Major Bohun: what was it he died of---if it was not

sunstroke?"

"But it was of sunstroke," she said, in a sharp, ringing accent, that

would have required only a little more to be a scream. "What else

should he die of suddenly in India's burning climate? He went out in

the blazing midday sun, and was brought home dead!"

And nothing more, then or afterwards, did Mr. North learn. Her manner

rendered it impossible to press the subject. He might have applied to

Sir Nash for information, but an instinct prevented his doing so.

After all, it did not matter to him what Major Bohun had died of, Mr.

North said to himself and determined to forget the incident. But that

some mystery must have attended Major Bohun's death, some painful

circumstances which could blanch his wife's face with sickly terror,

remained on Mr. North's mind as a fact not to be disputed.

Mrs. North effected changes. Almost the very day she was taken home to

Whitborough, she let it be known that she should rule with an

imperious will. Her husband became a very reed in her hands; yielding

passively to her sway, as if all the spirit he had ever owned had gone

out of him. Mrs. North professed to hate the very name of trade; that

any one with whom she was so nearly connected should be in business,

brought her a sense of degradation and a great deal of talk about it.

The quiet, modest, comfortable home at Whitborough was at once given

up for the more pretentious Manor Hall at Dallory Ham, which happened

to be in the market. And they set up there in a style that might have

more properly belonged to the lord-lieutenant of the county. Perhaps

it was her assumption of grandeur indoors and out, combined with the

imperious manner, the like of which had never before been seen in the

simple neighbourhood, that caused people to call her "Madam." Or, it

might have been to distinguish her from the first Mrs. North.

In proportion as Mrs. North made herself hated and feared by her

husband, his children, and the household, so did she become popular

with society. It sometimes happens that the more fascination a woman

displays to the world, the more unbearable is she in her own house. It

was the case here. Madam put on all her attractions when out-of-doors;

she visited and dressed and dined; and gave fêtes again at Dallory

Hall utterly regardless of expense. Little wonder that she swayed the

neighbourhood.

Not the immediate neighbourhood. With the exception of the Dallory

family (and they did not live there always), there was not a single

person she would have visited. A few gentle-people resided at Dallory

Ham; Mrs. North did not condescend to know any of them. People living

at a greater distance she made friends with, but not those around her;

and with as many of the county families as would make friends with

her. The pleasantest times were those when she would betake herself

off on long visits, to London or elsewhere: they grew to be looked

forward to.

But the most decided raid made by Mrs. North was on her husband's

business connections. Had Thomas Gass been a chimney-sweeper, she

could not have treated him with more intense contempt. Thomas Gass had

his share of sense, and pitied his partner far more than he would have

done had that gentleman gone in for hanging instead of second

marriage. Mr. Gass was a very wealthy man now; and had built himself a

handsome and comfortable residence in Dallory.

But, as the years went on, he was doomed to furnish food himself to

all the gossips within miles. Dallory rose from its couch one fine

morning, to hear that Thomas Gass, the confirmed old bachelor, had

married his housekeeper. Not one of your "lady-housekeepers," but a

useful, good, hard-working damsel, who had passed the first bloom of

youth, and had not much beauty to recommend her. It was a nine days'

wonder. Of course, however much the neighbours might solace their

feelings by ridiculing him and abusing her, they could not undo the

marriage. All that remained to them was, to make the best of it; and

by degrees they wisely did so. The new Mrs. Gass glided easily into

her honours. She made an excellent wife to her ailing husband--for

Thomas Gass's health had begun to fail before his marriage--she put on

no airs of being superior to what she was; she turned out to be a

thoroughly capable woman of business, giving much judicious advice to

those about her: she was very good to the sick and suffering, caring

for the poor, ready to give a helping hand wherever and whenever it

might be needed. In spite of her fine dresses, which sat ludicrously

upon her, and of her manner of talking, which she did not attempt to

improve; above all, in spite of their own prejudices, Dallory grew to

like and respect Mrs. Gass, and its small gentle-people admitted her

to their houses on an equality.

And so time and years went on, Mr. North withdrawing himself more and

more from personal attendance on the business, which seemed to have

grown utterly distasteful to him. His sons had become young men.

Edmund was a civil engineer: by profession at least, not much by

practice. Never in strong health, given to expensive and idle habits,

Edmund North was generally either in trouble abroad, or leading a lazy

life at home, his time being much divided between going into needless

passions and writing poetry. Richard was at the works, the mainspring

of the business. Mr. Gass had become a confirmed invalid, and could

not personally attend to it; Mr. North did not do so. There was only

Richard--Dick, as they all called him; but he was a host in himself.

Of far higher powers than Mr. North had ever possessed, cultivated in

mind, he was a thorough man of business, and at the same time a

finished gentleman. Energetic, persevering, firm in controlling, yet

courteous and considerate to the very lowest, Richard North was

loved and respected. He walked through life doing his duty by his

fellow-men: striving to do it to God. He had been tried at home in

many ways since his father's second marriage, and borne all with

patient endurance: how much he was tried out of home, he alone knew.

For a long time past there had been trouble in the firm, ill-feeling

between the two old partners; chiefly because Mr. North put no limit

to the sums he drew out for his private account. Poor Mr. North at

length confessed that he could not help it: the money was wanted by

his wife: though how on earth she contrived to get rid of so much,

even with all her extravagance, he could not conceive. Mr. Gass

insisted on a separation: John North must withdraw from the firm;

Richard might take his place. Poor Mr. North yielded meekly. "Don't

let it get abroad," he only stipulated, speaking as if he were half

heartbroken, which was nothing new; "I should not like the world to

know that I was superseded." They respected his wishes, and the change

was made privately: very few being aware that the senior partnership

in the firm had passed into the hands of a young man. Thenceforth Mr.

North ceased to have any control in the business; in fact, to have any

actual connection with it. Dallory suspected it not: Mrs. North had

not the faintest idea of it. Richard North signed the cheques as he

had done before, "North and Gass:" and perhaps the bank at Whitborough

alone knew that he signed them now as principal.

Richard was the scape-goat now. Mr. North's need of money, or rather

his wife's, did not cease: the sum arranged to be paid to him as a

retiring pension--a very liberal sum, and Mr. Gass grumbled at

it--seemed to be as nothing; it melted in madam's hands like so much

water. Richard was constantly appealed to by his father; and responded

generously, though it crippled him.

The next change came in the shape of Mr. Gass's death. The bulk of his

property was left to his wife; a small portion, comparatively

speaking, to charities and servants; two thousand pounds to Richard

North. He also bequeathed to his wife his interest in the business,

which by the terms of the deed of partnership he had power to do. So

that his share of the capital was not drawn out, and the firm

remained, actually as well as virtually, North and Gass. People

generally supposed that the "North" was Mr. North; and madam went into

a world of indignation at her husband's name being placed in

conjunction with "that woman's." In the years gone by, Mr. North had

had a nice time of it, finding it a difficult matter to steer his

course between his partner and madam, and give offence to neither.

Madam had never condescended to notice Thomas Gass's wife in the least

degree: she took to abusing her now, asking her husband how he could

suffer himself to be associated with her. Mr. North, when goaded

almost beyond endurance, had hard work to keep his tongue from

retorting that it was not himself that was associated with her, but

Richard.

Mrs. Gass showed her good sense in regard to the partnership, as she

did in most things. She declined to interfere actively in the

business. Richard North went to her house two or three times a-week to

keep her cognizant of what was going on; he consulted her opinion on

great matters, just as he had consulted her husband's. She knew she

could trust to him. Ever and anon she would volunteer some advice to

himself personally: and it was invariably good advice. It could not be

concealed from her that large sums (exclusively Richard's) were ever

finding their way to the Hall, and for this she took him to task.

"Stop it, Mr. Richard," she said--always as respectful to him as she

had been in her housekeeping days: "Stop it, sir. Their wants are like

a cullender, the more water you pour into it the more you may. It's

doing them no good. An end must come to it some time, or you'll be in

the workhouse. The longer it goes on, the more difficult it will be to

put an end to, and the harder it will be for them." But Richard,

sorely tried between prudence and filial duty, could not bring himself

to stop it so easily; and the thing went on.

We must now go back to Mrs. Cumberland. It was somewhat singular that,

the very week Thomas Gass died, she should make her unexpected

appearance at Dallory. But so it was. Again a widow, she had come home

to settle near her brother Thomas. She arrived just in time to see him

put into his coffin. The other brother, William, had been dead for

years. Mrs. Gass, who knew all about the estrangement, received her

with marked kindness, and heartily offered her a home for the future.

Yet that was declined. Mrs. Cumberland preferred to have a home of her

own, possessing ample means to establish one in a moderate way. She

gave a sketch of her past life to Mrs. Gass. After her marriage with

the Reverend George Cumberland, they had remained for some time at his

chaplaincy in the Madras presidency; but his health began to fail, and

he exchanged to Australia. Subsequently to that, years later, he

obtained a duty in Madeira. Upon his death, which occurred recently,

she came to England. Her only son, Oliver Rane, had been sent home at

the age of seven, and was placed with a tutor in London. When the time

came for him to choose a profession he decided on the medical, and

qualified himself for it, studying in London, Paris, and Vienna. He

passed all the examinations with great credit, including that of the

College of Physicians. He next paid a visit to Madeira, remaining

three months with his mother and stepfather, and then came home and

established himself in London, with money furnished by his mother. But

practice does not always come quickly to young beginners, and Oliver

Rane found his means lessening. He had a horror of debt, and wisely

decided to keep out of it: taking a situation as assistant, and giving

up the expensive house he had entered on. This had just been effected

when Mrs. Cumberland returned. For the present she let her son remain

as he was: Oliver had all a young man's pride and ambition, and she

thought the discipline might do him good.

Mrs. Cumberland took on lease one of the two handsome gothic villas on

the Ham, and established herself in it; with Jelly for a waiting-maid,

and two other servants. This necessitated spending the whole of her

income, which was a very fair one. A portion of it would die with her,

the rest was willed to her son Oliver.

In the old days when she was Fanny Gass, and Mr. North, plain John

North--Jack with his friends--they were intimate as elder brother and

young sister. If Mrs. Cumberland expected this agreeable state of

affairs to be resumed, she was destined to find herself mistaken.

Madam set her scornful face utterly against Mrs. Cumberland: just as

she had against others. It did not matter. Mrs. Cumberland simply

pitied the underbred woman: her health was very delicate, and she did

not intend to visit any one. The gentle-people of the neighbourhood

called upon her; she returned the call, and there the acquaintance

ended. When invitations first came in, she wrote a refusal, explaining

clearly and courteously why she was obliged to do so--that her health

did not allow her to visit. If she and Mr. North met each other, as by

chance happened, they would linger in conversation, and be happy in

the reminiscences of past days.

Mrs. Cumberland had thus lived on in retirement for some time, when

the medical man who had the practice of Dallory Ham, and some of that

of Dallory, died suddenly. She saw what an excellent opportunity it

would be for her son to establish himself, if he would but take up

general practice, and she sent a summons for him. When Oliver arrived

in answer to it, he entered into the prospect warmly; left his

mother to make arrangements, and returned to London, to superintend

his removal. Mrs. Cumberland went to Mr. North, and obtained his

promise to do what he could to further Oliver's interests. It was

equivalent to an assurance of success--for Dallory Hall swayed its

neighbours--and Mrs. Cumberland did not hesitate to secure the gothic

villa adjoining her own, which happened to be vacant, believing that

the future practice would justify it. In a week's time Oliver Rane

came down and took possession.

But fate was against him. Dr. Rane said treachery. A young fellow whom

he knew in London had told a medical friend--a Mr. Alexander--of this

excellent practice that had fallen in at Dallory, and that Rane was

hoping to secure it for himself. What was Dr. Rane's mortification

when, upon arriving at the week's end at Dallory Ham to take

possession, he found another there before him. Mr. Alexander had

arrived the previous day, was already established in an opposite

house, and had called on every one. Dr. Rane went over and reproached

him with treachery--they had not previously been personally

acquainted. Mr. Alexander received the charge with surprise; he

declared that the field was as open to him as to Dr. Rane--that if he

had not thought so, nothing would have induced him to enter it. He

spoke his true sentiments, for he was a straightforward man. An agent

in Whitborough had also written up to tell him of this opening; he

came to look at it, and decided to try it. The right to monopolize it,

was no more Dr. Rane's, he urged, than it was his. Dr. Rane took a

different view, and said so: but contention would not help the matter

now, and he could only yield to circumstances. So each held to his

right in apparent amicability, and Dallory had two doctors instead of

one; secret rivals from henceforth.

Not for a moment did Oliver Rane think Mr. Alexander could long hold

out against him, as he had secured, through his mother, the favour of

Dallory Hall. Alas, a very short time showed him that this was a

mistake; Dallory Hall turned round upon him, and was doing what it

could to forward his rival. Mrs. Cumberland went to Mr. North, seeking

an explanation. He could only avow the truth--his wife, who was both

master and mistress, had set her face against Oliver, and was

recommending Alexander. "John, you promised me," urged Mrs.

Cumberland, "I know I did, and I'd keep to it if I could," was Mr.

North's mournful answer; "but no one can hold out against her." "Why

should she have taken this dislike to Oliver?" rejoined Mrs.

Cumberland. "Heaven knows; a caprice, I suppose. She sets herself

against people without reason: she has never taken to either Richard

or Bessy; and only a little to Edmund. If I can do anything for Oliver

under the rose, I'll do it. I have every desire to help him, Fanny, in

remembrance of our friendship of the old days."

Mrs. Cumberland carried home news of her non-success to Oliver. As to

madam, she simply ignored him, bestowing her patronage upon his rival.

How bitterly the slight touched his heart, none but himself could

tell. Mrs. Cumberland resented it; but ah, not as he did. A sense of

wrong was ever weighing upon his spirit, and he thought Fate was

against him. One puzzle remained on his mind unsolved--what he could

have done to offend Mrs. North.

Mr. Alexander obtained a fair practice: Dr. Rane barely sufficient to

keep himself. His wants and those of the old servant Phillis were few.

Perhaps the entire fault did not lie with madam. Alexander had a more

open manner and address than Dr. Rane, and they go a long way with

people; he was also an older man, and a married man, and was supposed

to have had more experience. A sense of injury rankled ever in Oliver

Rane's heart; of injury inflicted by Alexander. Meanwhile he became

engaged to Bessy Rane. During an absence from home of madam's, the

doctor grew intimate at the Hall, and an attachment sprang up between

him and Bessy. When madam returned, his visits had to cease, but he

saw Bessy at Mrs. Gass's and elsewhere.

I think that is all the retrospect that need be gone into. It brings

us down to the present time, the period of the anonymous letter and

Edmund North's death. Exactly two years ago this same month, May, the

rival doctors had appeared in Dallory Ham; and now one of them was

about to leave it.

One incident must be told, bearing on something that has been related,

and then the chapter shall close.

The summer of the past year had been a very hot one. A labouring man,

working on Mr. North's grounds, suddenly fell; and died on the spot.

Mr. Alexander, summoned hastily, thought it must have been sunstroke.

"That is what my father died of," remarked Captain Bohun, who stood

with the rest. Mr. North turned to him: "Do you say your father died

of sunstroke, Arthur?" "Yes, sir, that is what he died of. Did you

not know it?" was the ready reply. "You are sure of that?" continued

Mr. North. "Quite sure, sir," repeated Arthur, turning his dreamy blue

eyes full upon his stepfather, in all their proud truthfulness.

Mr. North knew that he spoke in the sincerity of belief. Arthur Bohun

possessed in an eminent degree the pride of his father's race. That

innate, self-conscious sense of superiority that is a sort of

safeguard to those who possess it: the _noblesse oblige_ feeling that

keeps them from wrong-doing. It is true, Arthur Bohun held an exalted

view of his birth and family: in so far as that his pride in it

equalled that of any man living or dead. He was truthful, generous,

honourable; the very opposite in all respects to his mother. Her pride

was an assumed pride; a despicable, false, contemptible pride,

offensive to those with whom she came into contact. Arthur's was one

that you admired in spite of yourself. Of a tarnish to his honour, he

could almost have died; to bring disgrace on his own name or on his

family, would have caused him to bury his head for ever. Sensitively

regardful of other people's feelings, courteous in manner to all, he

yet unmistakably held his own in the world. His father had been just

the same; and in his day was called "Proud Bohun."

To have asserted that Major Bohun died of sunstroke, had any doubt of

the fact lain on his mind, would have been simply impossible to Arthur

Bohun. Therefore, Mr. North saw that, whatever the mystery might be,

regarding the real cause of Major Bohun's death, Arthur was not

cognizant of it.

CHAPTER VI.

WATCHING THE FUNERAL.

In Mrs. Gass's comfortable dining-room, securely ensconced behind the

closed blinds, drawn to-day, sat that lady and a visitor. It was the

day of the funeral of Edmund North; and Mrs. Gass had put on mourning

out of respect to the family: a black silk gown and white net cap. It

need not be said that the change improved her appearance greatly: she

looked, as she herself would have phrased it, genteel to-day. This was

her favourite sitting-room; she rarely used any other: for one thing

it gave her the opportunity of seeing the movements of her neighbours.

The drawing-room faced the garden at the back: a large and beautiful

apartment, opening to the smooth green lawn.

The visitor was Mrs. Cumberland. For once in her life Mrs. Cumberland

emerged from her shell of indifference and condescended to show a

little of the curiosity of ordinary people. She had come to Mrs.

Gass's to see the funeral pass: and that lady made much of her,

for their meetings were rare. Mrs. Cumberland was also in black

silk: but she rarely wore anything else. The two women sat together,

talking in subdued voices of bygone times: not that they had known

each other then; but each had interest in the past. Mrs. Gass was

full of respect, never presuming on her elevation; though they were

sisters-in-law, she did not forget that she had once been only a

servant in Mrs. Cumberland's family. They had little in common,

though, and the topics of conversation exhausted themselves. Mrs.

Cumberland was of a silent nature, not at all given to gossip in

general. She began to think the waiting long. For the convenience of

two mourners, who were coming from a distance, the funeral had been

put off until four o'clock.

"Holidays don't improve the working class--unless they've the sense to

use 'em as they ought," observed Mrs. Gass. "Just look at them three,

ma'am. They've been at the tap--and more shame to 'em! They'd better

let Mr. Richard catch his eye upon 'em. Putting themselves into that

state, when he is following his brother to the grave."

She alluded to some men belonging to the Dallory Works, closed to-day.

They had taken more than was becoming, and were lounging against the

opposite shutters, quarrelling together. Mrs. Gass could bear it no

longer; in defiance of appearances she drew up the blind and dashed

open the window.

"Are you three men not ashamed of yourselves? I thought it was you,

Dawson! When there's any ill-doing going on, you're safe to be in it.

As to you, Thomas, you'll not like to show your face tomorrow. Don't

come to me again, Smith, to beg grace for you of Mr. Richard North."

The men slunk away and disappeared down an entry. Mrs. Gass, in one

sense of the word, was their mistress; at any rate, their master's

partner. She closed the window and drew down the blind.

"Are the men paid for to-day, or do they lose it?" asked Mrs.

Cumberland.

"They're paid, ma'am, of course. It would be very unjust to dock them

when the holiday's none of their making. Neither Mr. Richard nor me

would like to be unjust."

"And he--Richard--seems to act entirely for his father."

Mrs. Gass coughed. "Mr. North is took up with his garden, and that; he

don't care to bother his head about business. It's better in younger

hands."

Another pause. Mrs. Cumberland felt weary.

"Is this funeral ever coming?" she exclaimed. "There seems to be some

delay."

"It was a late hour to fix it for, ma'am. Old Sir what's-his-name

wrote word he couldn't be here before the afternoon; so they put it

off to four o'clock for his convenience."

Mrs. Cumberland looked up inquiringly. She did not understand.

"I mean young Bohun's relatives, ma'am. Madam's brother-in-law by her

first husband."

"Sir Nash Bohun! Is he coming?"

"Sir Nash; that's the name," remarked Mrs. Gass. "I know when Mr.

Richard said it, it put me in mind of grinding the teeth."

"What could have induced them to ask him?" wondered Mrs. Cumberland.

"He is no relative."

"It sounds grand to have him, ma'am--and that's all _she_ thinks of,"

returned Mrs. Gass, with slighting allusion to madam. "Or maybe, as it

was an uncommon death, they want to make it an uncommon funeral. _I_

look upon it as no better than a murder."

"It is very strange about that piece of paper," observed Mrs.

Cumberland.

She lowered her voice as she spoke, as if the subject would not bear

the broad light of day. Any surprise, greater than appeared in Mrs.

Gass's face at hearing it could not well be imagined.

"Ma'am! Did he tell you of _that?_"

"Did who tell me?"

"Your son."

They looked questioningly at each other; both unconscious that they

were alluding to two totally different circumstances. Cross-purposes

are sometimes productive of more evil than straightforward ones.

It appeared that a night or two after Edmund North's death, Captain

Bohun found in his own desk a sheet of folded notepaper in an

envelope. It contained a few words in Edmund's handwriting, not

apparently addressed to any one in particular, but to the world in

general. No date was added, but the ink looked fresh, as if it had

recently been written.

"When the end comes, make no fuss with me, but bury me quietly out of

sight.--E. N."

Captain Bohun, not having the faintest idea as to who put it in his

desk, or how it came there, carried it to Richard North. Richard

showed it to his father. Thence it spread to the house, and to one or

two others. Opinions were divided. Mr. North thought his ill-fated son

had intended to allude to his own death: must have felt some

foreshadowing of it on his spirit. On the contrary, Arthur Bohun and

Richard both thought that it was nothing more than one of his scraps

of poetry: and this last idea was at length adopted. Arthur Bohun had

related the circumstance to Mrs. Cumberland, and it was _this_ she

meant to speak of to Mrs. Gass. Mrs. Gass, who knew nothing about it,

thought, quite naturally, that she spoke of the paper found on her

carpet.

"Of course it _might_ have been nothing more than some ideas he had

dotted down, poor fellow, connected with his nonsensical poetry,"

slightingly observed Mrs. Cumberland, who was the first to continue

speaking: "Richard North and Captain Bohun both hold to that opinion.

I don't. It may be that I am inclined to look always on the gloomy

side of life; but I can only think he was alluding to his own death."

"'Twas odd sort of poetry," cried Mrs. Gass, after a pause and a

stare.

"The only curious part about it to my mind is, that it should have

been found in Arthur Bohun's desk," pursued Mrs. Cumberland, the

two being still delightfully unconscious that they were at the

cross-purposes. "He says he has not left his desk unlocked at all,

that he is aware of--but of course he might have done so. Why Edmund

North should have chosen to put it there, is a mystery."

"What has Captain Bohun's desk to do with it?" inquired Mrs. Gass,

beginning to feel a little at sea.

"The paper was found in Captain Bohun's desk. Though why Edmund North

should have placed it there, remains a mystery."

"Ma'am, whoever told you that, must have been just trying to deceive

you. It was found on this carpet."

"Found on this carpet!"

"On this very blessed carpet, ma'am. Right back under the claw of that

centre dining-table."

Again they gazed at each other. Mrs. Cumberland thought her friend

must be dreaming.

"But you are quite mistaken, Mrs. Gass. The paper--note, or whatever

it was--could not have been on this carpet at all: nor in your house,

in fact. Captain Bohun discovered it in his desk three days ago, and

he has not the slightest idea as to how it came there. Mr. North took

possession of it, and it has never since been out of his hands."

"My dear lady, they have been mystifying of you," cried Mrs. Gass.

"Seeing's believing. The paper was first found by me. By me, ma'am, on

this carpet, and it was the same night that Edmund North was first

took; not an hour after the fit."

Mrs. Cumberland made no reply. She was drifting into the conclusion

that all the circumstances had not been related to her.

"I picked the paper up myself," continued Mrs. Gass, straightforwardly

anxious for the truth. "I kept it safe here for a day and a night,

ma'am, waiting to give it back to your son: what I thought was that he

had dropped it out of his pocketbook. I never spoke of it to a single

soul, and as soon as I had the opportunity I gave it up to him. If it

was found in Captain Bohun's desk afterwards--why, Dr. Rane, or

somebody else must have put it there. Ma'am, if, as I conclude, you've

heard about the paper from your son, I wonder he did not tell you

this."

"What paper was this?" inquired Mrs. Cumberland, a dim idea arising in

her mind that they could not be talking of the same thing.

"It was the copy of that anonymous letter."

"The copy of the anonymous letter!"

"Leastways, its skeleton."

Rapidly enough came elucidation now. Without in the least intending to

break faith with Dr. Rane, or with her own resolution to keep the

matter secret, Mrs. Gass told all she knew, with one exception. Led on

by the miserable, but very natural misapprehension that Mrs.

Cumberland was a depositary of the secret as well as herself, she

spoke, and had not the least idea that she was betraying trust. That

exception was the hinted suspicion that madam might have been the

writer. Mrs. Cumberland sat listening, still as a statue.

"And you thought that--this rough copy of the letter--was dropped by

Oliver?" she exclaimed at length, moved out of her usual calmness.

"What else could I think?" debated Mrs. Gass. "Dr. Rane had let fall

some papers from his pocketbook five minutes before, and I picked

this up as soon as he had gone. I'm sure I never so much as gave a

thought to Molly Green--though she had come straight from the Hall.

Dr. Rane said it might have dropped from her petticoats: but it was a

puzzle to me how; and it's a puzzle still."

A keen, inquiring glance shot from the speaker's eyes with the last

words. It was momentary and not intentional; nevertheless, something

in it caused Mrs. Cumberland's heart to quail. A greyer hue spread

over her grey face; a cold shade of recollection deadened her heart.

Captain Bohun had told her of Mr. Alexander's theory: that the letter

was written to damage himself.

"I am sorry I spoke of this, ma'am," struck in Mrs. Gass. "More

particular that it should have been you: you'll naturally tell Dr.

Rane, and he _will_ say I know how to keep secrets--just about as the

jackdaws keep theirs. It was your telling of the other paper that

misled me."

"I am quite safe," answered Mrs. Cumberland, with a sickly smile. "The

matter's nothing to me, that I should speak of it again."

"Of course not, ma'am. After all Halloa! here it comes!"

This sudden break was caused by the roll of a muffled drum, first

advent of the advancing funeral procession. Edmund North had belonged

to a local military corps, and was to be attended to the grave with

honours. Mrs. Gass drew up the white blind an inch above the Venetian,

which enabled them to look out unseen. The road suddenly became lined

with spectators; men, women and children collecting one hardly knew

from whence.

The band came first--their instruments in rest; then the muffled drum,

on which its bearer struck a note now and again. The hearse and three

mourning coaches followed, some private carriages, and the soldiers on

foot. And that was all: except some straggling spectators in the rear,

with Hepburn the undertaker and his men on either side the black

coaches. The hearse was exactly opposite Mrs. Cumberland when the band

struck up the Dead March in Saul. Suddenly there flashed across her a

recollection of the morning, only a very few days ago, when Ellen

Adair had been playing that same dirge, and it had grated on Oliver's

ear. Her eyes fixed themselves on the hearse as it passed, and she saw

in mental vision the corpse lying within. In another moment, the

music, her son, the dead, and the fatal letter, all seemed to blend

confusedly in her brain: and Mrs. Cumberland sat, down white and

faint, and almost insensible. The lady of the house, her eyes riveted

on the window, made her comments and suspected nothing of the

indisposition.

"Mr. North in the first coach with his white hankecher held to his

nose. And well he may hold it, poor berefted gentleman! Mr. Richard

is sitting by the side of him. Captain Bohun's on the opposite

seat:--and--who's the other? Why! it's young Sidney North. Then

they've sent for him from college, or wherever it is he stays at:

madam's doings, I'll lay. What a little whipper-snapper of a fellow

it is!--like nobody but himself. He'll never be half the man his

stepbrothers are."

Mrs. Gass's remarks ceased with the passing of the coach. In her

curiosity she did not observe that she received no response. The

second coach came in sight, and she began again.

"An old gent, upright as a dart, with snow-white hair and them

features called aquiline! A handsome face, if ever I saw one; his eyes

as blue and as fine as Captain Bohun's. There's a likeness between

'em. It must be his uncle, Sir Nash. A young man sits next him with a

white, unhealthy face; and the other two--why, if I don't believe it's

the young Dallorys!"

There was no reply. Mrs. Gass turned to see the reason. Her visitor

was sitting back in a chair, a frightfully grey shade upon her face

and lips.

"My patience! Don't you feel well, ma'am?"

"I am a little tired," replied Mrs. Cumberland, smiling languidly as

she roused herself. "Looking out at passing things always fatigues

me."

"Now, don't you stir, ma'am; I'll tell it off to you," came the

rejoinder, spoken with sympathy. "There's only one coach more. And

that have but two inside it--the doctors from Whitborough," added Mrs.

Gass. "I wonder they didn't invite Mr. Oliver--the first called in to

the poor young man--and Alexander. Not thought good enough by madam,

perhaps, to be mixed with all these dons."

She looked after the swiftly passing pageantry with lingering

admiration. Mrs. Cumberland sat still in the chair and closed her

eyes, as if all interest in the funeral--and in life too, for that

matter--had passed away.

The procession wound along: through the long straggling village

street, past the Dallory Works, an immense group of buildings that lay

on the left, and so to the church. It was the only church in the

parish, inconveniently distant for some of the inhabitants. Dallory

Ham spoke about building one for itself; but that honour had not yet

been attained to. In a corner of the large churchyard lay Mrs. North,

Mr. North's first wife and Edmund's mother. The new grave was dug by

her side.

Amidst the spectators, numbers of whom had collected in the burial

ground, stood Jelly. Very much no doubt to the astonishment of her

mistress, had she seen her. To peep surreptitiously from behind

blinds, was one thing; but to stand openly staring in the churchyard,

was another; and Mrs. Cumberland would assuredly have ordered her

away. Jelly had come to it with a cousin of hers, Susan Ketler, the

wife of the sick man who was being attended by Dr. Rane. Jelly had

curiosity enough for ten ordinary women--which is saying a great

deal--and would not have missed the sight for the world.

It was soon over: our burial service is not a long one: and the

coaches and mourners moved away again, leaving the field in possession

of the mob. A rush ensued to obtain a view of the coffin, as yet

scarcely sprinkled with earth. Jelly and her friend approached, and

the former read the inscription.

"Edmund, son of John North and of Mary, his first wife. Died May 3rd,

18--, aged 33."

"I should not have put 'died,' but 'murdered,' if it was me had the

writing of it," spoke Mrs. Ketler.

"And so should I, Susan," significantly replied Jelly. "Here! let's

get out of this throng."

Jelly, in her loftiness of stature and opinion, was above the throng

literally and figuratively; but it was dense and troublesome. Neither

death nor funeral had been of an ordinary description; and others

besides the great unwashed were crowding there. The two women elbowed

their way out, and passed back down the broad highway to Ketler's

house in Dallory. He was one of the best of the North workmen, earning

good wages; and the family lived in comfort.

Ketler was in the parlour, sitting up for the first time. Under Dr.

Rane's skilful treatment he was getting rapidly better. A child sat on

his knee, held by his able arm; the rest were around. The children had

wanted, as a matter of course, to go out and see the funeral. "No,"

said their father; "they might get playing, and that would be

unseemly." He was a short, dark, honest-looking man; a good husband

and father. Jelly sat talking for a short time, and then rose to

leave.

But she was not allowed to do so. To let her depart at that hour

without first partaking of tea, would have been a breach of

hospitality that the well-to-do workpeople of Dallory would never hear

of. Jelly, too easily persuaded where gossip was concerned, took off

her bonnet, and the tray was brought in.

Cups of beer induce men to a long sitting; cups of tea women. Jelly

sat on, oblivious of the lapse of time. The chief topic of

conversation was the anonymous letter. Jelly found to her surprise and

anger, that here, the prevailing belief was that it had been written

by a clerk named Wilks, who was in the office of Dale the lawyer, and

might have, become cognizant of the transaction between his master,

Mr. Alexander, and Edmund North.

"Who told you that, Ketler?" sharply demanded Jelly, fixing her

indignant eyes on the man.

"I can't rightly say who told me," replied Ketler; "it's the talk of

the place. Wilks denies it out and out; but when he's in his evening

cups--and that's not seldom--he does things that next morning he has

no recollection of. Doctor Rane laughed at me, though, for saying so:

a lawyer knows better than to let private matters get out to his

clerks, says the doctor. But he don't know that Tim Wilks as some of

us do."

"Well, I would not say too much about it's being Tim Wilks, if I were

you, Ketler," cried Jelly, in suppressed wrath, brushing the crumbs

from her black gown. "You might find yourself in hot water."

And then Ketler suddenly remembered that Wilks was her particular

friend, so he turned the subject.

Jelly tore herself away at last, very unwillingly: gossip and

tea-drinking formed her idea of an earthly paradise. Night was setting

in; a light, beautiful night, the moon sailing majestically in the

sky.

Just past the gates of Dallory Hall, in a bend of the road where

the overhanging trees on either side gave it a lonely appearance at

night: and by day too, for that matter: no dwelling of any sort being

within view, stood a bench at the side of the path. It was a welcome

resting-place to tired wayfarers; it was no less welcome to wandering

lovers in their evening rambles. As Jelly went hastening on, a faint

sound of voices broke upon her ear from this spot, and she arrested

her steps instinctively. The chance of pouncing unexpectedly upon a

pair exchanging soft vows, was perfectly delightful to Jelly;

especially if it should happen to be a pair who had no business to

exchange them.

Stealing softly along, went she, until she came to the turning, and

then she looked cautiously round. The projecting bushes favoured her.

To do Jelly justice, it must be affirmed that she had neither malice

nor ill-will in her nature; rather the contrary; but a little innocent

prying into her neighbours' affairs presented an irresistible

temptation. What, then, was her astonishment to see--not a dying swain

and his mistress, side by side: but her own mistress, Mrs. Cumberland,

seated on the bench in an agony of grief, and Dr. Rane standing with

folded arms before her.

Jelly, great at divining probabilities, easily comprehended the

situation. Her mistress must have stayed to take tea with Mrs. Gass,

and encountered her son in walking home.

To come down upon lovers with a startling reprimand was one thing; to

intrude upon her mistress and Dr. Rane would be quite another. Jelly

wished she had not gone stealing up like a mouse, and felt inclined to

steal back again.

But the attitude and appearance of Mrs. Cumberland riveted her to the

spot. Her face, never so grey as now, as seen in the moonlight, was

raised to her son's, its expression one of yearning agony; her hands

were lifted as if imploring some boon, or warding off some fear.

Jelly's eyes opened to their utmost width, and in her astonishment she

failed to catch the purport of the first low-breathed words.

"I tell you, you are mistaken, mother," said Dr. Rane in answer, his

own voice ringing out clearly enough in the still night; though it

nevertheless bore a hushed tone. "Is it probable? Is it likely? _I_

drop the copy of the letter out of my pocketbook! What next will you

suppose me capable of?"

"But--Oliver,"--and the voice was raised a little--"how else could it

have been found upon her carpet?"

"I have my theory about that," he rejoined with decision. "Mother,

come home: I will tell you more then. Is this a fitting time or place

to have thus attacked me?"

Air, voice, action, were sharp, with authority, as he bent and took

her hand. Mrs. Cumberland, saying something about "having been

surprised into speaking," rose from the bench. Jelly watched them

along the road; and then sat down on the bench herself to recover her

amazement.

"What on earth docs it mean?"

Ah! what did it mean? Jelly was pretty sharp, but she was afraid to

give full range to her thoughts. Other steps fell on her ear. They

proved to be those of Mr. Alexander.

"Is it you, Jelly! Waiting for your sweetheart?"

Jelly rose. "Standing about to look at funerals, and such things,

tires one worse than a ten-mile run."

"Then why do you do it?"

"One fool makes many," returned Jelly with composure. "Sir, I'd like

to know who wrote that letter."

"It strikes me the letter was written by a woman."

"A woman!" echoed Jelly, in genuine surprise. "Good gracious, Mr.

Alexander!"

"They are go sharp upon us at times, are women," he continued,

smiling. "Men don't attack one another."

"And what woman do you suspect, sir?" cried Jelly, in her insatiable

curiosity.

"Ah! there's the rub. I have been speaking of women in general, you

see. Perhaps it was you?"

"_Me!_" exclaimed Jelly.

Mr. Alexander laughed. "I was only joking, Jelly. Goodnight."

But Jelly, sharp Jelly, rather thought he had not been joking, and

that the suspicion had slipped out inadvertently.

She went straight home. And when she arrived there, Mrs. Cumberland

was seated by the drawing-room fire, her face calm and still as usual,

listening to the low sweet singing of Ellen Adair.

And Oliver Rane had passed in to his own house with his weight of

care. Half wishing that he could exchange places with Edmund North in

Dallory churchyard.

CHAPTER VII.

AFTER THE FUNERAL.

The two guests, Sir Nash Bohun and his son, were departing from

Dallory Hall. They had arrived the previous afternoon in time to

attend the funeral, had dined and slept there, and were now going

again. Their coming had originated with Sir Nash. In his sympathy with

the calamity--the particulars of which had been written to him by his

nephew, Arthur Bohun--Sir Nash had proposed to show his concern and

respect for the North family by coming with his son to attend the

funeral. The offer was accepted; albeit Mrs. North was not best

pleased to receive them. From some cause or other, madam had never

been anxious to court intimacy with her first husband's brother: when

thrown into his society, there was something in her manner that almost

seemed to say she did not feel at ease with him.

Neither at dinner last night nor at breakfast this morning had the

master of the house been present; the entertainment of the guests had

fallen on Richard North as his father's representative. Captain Bohun

was of course with them; also the rest of the family, including madam.

Madam played her part gracefully in black crape elaborately set off

with jet. For once in her life she was honest and did not affect to

feel the grief for Edmund that she would have felt for a son.

Sitting disconsolately before the open window of his parlour was Mr.

North. His black clothes looked too large for him, his whole air was

that of one who seems to have lost interest in the world. It is

astonishing how aged, as compared with other moments, men will look in

their seasons of abandonment. While we battle with our cares, they

spare the features in a degree: but in the abandonment of despair,

when all around seems dreary, and we are sick and faint because to

fight longer seems impossible, then look at the poor sunken face!

The room was dingy; it has already been said; rather long but narrow;

and it seemed uncared for. Opposite the fireplace stood an old

secretaire filled with seeds and papers relating to gardening, and

near it was a closet-door. This closet--but it was more a small,

dark passage than a closet--had an opposite door opening to the

dining-room. But, if the parlour was dingy, the capacious window and

the prospect on which it looked, brightened it. Stretching out before

it, broad and large, was the gay parterre of many-coloured flowers,

Mr. North's only delight for years past. In the cultivation of these

flowers, he had found a refuge from life's daily vexations and petty

cares. Heaven is merciful, and some counterbalancing interest to

long-continued sorrow is often supplied to us.

Mr. North sat looking at his flowers. He had been sitting there for

the past hour, buried in reflections that were not pleasant, and the

morning was getting on. He thought of his embarrassments: those

applications for money from madam, that he strove to hide from his

well-beloved son Richard, and that made the terror of his life. They

were apt to come upon him at the most unexpected times, in season and

out of season; it seemed to him that he was never free from them;

could never be sure at any moment she would not come down upon him the

next. For the past few days the house had been, so to say, sacred from

these carping concerns; even she had respected the sorrow in it; but

with this morning, the return to everyday life, business and the world

resumed its sway. Mr. North was looked upon as a man perfectly at his

ease in money matters; "rolling in wealth," people would say, as they

talked of the handsome portion his two daughters might expect on their

wedding-day. Local debts, the liabilities of ordinary life, were kept

punctually paid; Richard saw to that; and perhaps no one in the whole

outer world, excepting Mrs. Gass, suspected the truth and the

embarrassment. Mr. North thought of his other son, he who had gone

from his view for ever; but the edge of grief was wearing off, though

he was as eager as ever to discover the anonymous writer.

But there is a limit to all things--I don't know what would become of

some of us if there were not--and the mind cannot dwell for ever upon

its own bitterness. Unhappy topics, as if in very weariness, gradually

drifted away from Mr. North's mind, and were replaced by thoughts of

his flowers. How could it be otherwise, when their scent came floating

to him through the broad open window in delicious perfume. The colours

charmed the eye, the aroma took captive the senses. Spring flowers,

all; and simple ones. Further on, beyond the trees that bounded the

grounds, a fine view was obtained of the open country over Dallory

Ham. Hills and dales, woods and sunny plains, with here and there a

gleam of glistening water, lay under the distant horizon. Mr. North

looked not at the landscape, which was a familiar book to him, but at

his flowers.

The spring had been continuously cold and wet, retarding the

appearance of these early flowers to a very late period. For the past

week or two the weather had been lovely, and the flowers seemed to

have sprung up all at once. A little later the tulip beds would be in

bloom. A rare collection; a show for the world to flock to. Later on

still, the roses would be out, and many thought they were the best

show of all. And so the year went on, the flowers replacing each other

in their loveliness.

Sadness sat on them to-day: for we see things, you know, in accordance

with our own mood, not as they actually are. Mr. North rose with a

sigh and stood at the open window. Only that very day week, about this

time in the morning, his eldest son had stood there with him side by

side. For this was the eighth of May. "Poor fellow!" sighed the

father, as he thought of this.

Some one went sauntering down the path that led round from the front

of the house, and disappeared beyond the trees; a short, slight young

man. Mr. North recognized his son Sidney; madam's son as well as his

own; and he gave a sigh almost as profound as the one he had given to

the lost Edmund. Sidney North was dreadfully dissipated, and had

already caused a great deal of trouble. It was suspected--and with

truth--that some of madam's superfluous money went to this son. She

had brought him up badly, fostering his vanity, indulging him in

everything. By the very way in which he walked now--his head moodily

lowered, his gait slouching, his hands thrust into his pockets, Mr.

North judged him to be in some dilemma. He had not wished him to be

summoned home to the funeral; no, though the dead had stood to him as

half-brother; but madam took her own way and wrote for him. "He'll be

a thorn in her side if he lives," thought the father, his reflections

unconsciously going out to that future time when he himself should be

no more.

The door opened, and Richard came in. Mr. North stepped back from the

window at which he had been standing.

"Sir Nash and his son are going, sir. You will see them first, will

you not?"

"Going already! Why--I declare it is past eleven! Bless me! I hope I

have not been rude, Dick? Where are my boots?"

The boots were at hand, ready for him. He put them on, and hid his

slippers out of sight in the closet. What with his present grief, and

his disinclination for society, or, as he called it, company, that for

some time had been growing upon him, Mr. North had held aloof from his

guests. But he was one of the last men to show incivility, and it

suddenly struck him that perhaps he had been guilty of it.

"Dick, I suppose I ought to have been at the breakfast-table?"

"Not at all, my dear father; not at all. Your remaining in privacy is

perfectly natural, and I am sure Sir Nash feels it to be so. Don't

disturb yourself: they will come to you here."

Almost as he spoke they entered, Captain-Bohun with them. Sir Nash was

a very fine man with a proud face, that put you in mind at once of

Arthur Bohun's, and of the calmest, pleasantest, most courteous

manners possible. His son was not in the least like him; a studious,

sickly man, his health delicate, his dark hair scanty. James Bohun's

time was divided between close classical reading and philanthropic

pursuits. He strove to have what he called a mission in life: and to

make it one that might do him some service in the next world.

"I am so very sorry! I had no idea you would be going so soon: I ought

to have been with you before this," began Mr. North in a flutter.

But the baronet laid his hands upon him kindly, and calmed the storm.

"My good friend, you have done everything that is right and

hospitable. I would have stayed a few hours longer with you, but James

has to be in London this afternoon to keep an engagement."

"It is an engagement that I cannot well put off," interposed James

Bohun in his small voice that always sounded too weak for a man. "I

would not have made it, had I known what was to intervene."

"He has to preside at a public missionary meeting," explained Sir

Nash. "It seems to me that he has something or other of the kind on

hand every day in the year. I tell him that he is wearing himself

out."

"Not every day in the year," spoke the son, taking the words

literally. "This is the month for such meetings, you know, Sir Nash."

"You do not look strong," observed Mr. North, studying James Bohun.

"Not in appearance perhaps, but I'm wiry, Mr. North: and we wiry

fellows last the longest. What sweet flowers," added Mr. Bohun,

stepping to the window. "I could not dress myself this morning for

looking at them. I longed to open the window."

"And why did you not?" sensibly asked Mr. North.

"I can't do with the early morning air, sir. I don't accustom myself

to it.

"A bit of a valetudinarian," remarked Sir Nash.

"Not at all, father," answered the son. "It is as well to be

cautious."

"I sleep with my window open, James, summer and winter. But we all

have our different tastes and fancies. And now, my good friend," added

the baronet, taking the hands of Mr. North, "when will you come and

see me? A change may do you good."

"Thank you; not just yet. Thank you all the same, Sir Nash; but

later--perhaps," was Mr. North's answer. He knew that the kindness was

meant, the invitation sincere; and of late he had grown to feel

grateful for any shown to him. Nevertheless he thought he should never

accept this.

"I will not receive you in that hot, bustling London: it is becoming a

penance to myself to stay there. You shall come to my place in Kent,

and be as quiet as you please. You've never seen Peveril: it cannot

boast the charming flowers that you show here, but it is worth seeing.

Promise to come."

"If I can. Later. Thank you, Sir Nash; and I beg you and Mr. Bohun to

pardon me for all my seeming discourtesy. It has not been meant so."

"No, no."

They walked through the hall to the door, where Mr. North's carriage

waited. The large shut-up carriage. Some dim idea was pervading those

concerned that to drive to the station in an open dog-cart would be

hardly the right thing for these mourners after the recent funeral.

Sir Nash and his son stepped in, followed by Captain Bohun and Richard

North, who would accompany them to the station. As Mr. North turned

indoors again after watching the carriage away, he ran against his

daughter Matilda, resplendent in glittering black silk and jet.

"They have invited you to visit them, have they not, papa?"

"They have invited me--yes. But I shall be none the nearer going

there, Matilda."

"Then I wish you would, for I want to go," she returned, speaking

imperiously. "Uncle Nash asked me. He asked mamma, and said would I

accompany her: and I should like to go. Do you hear, papa? I should

like to go."

It was all very well for Miss Matilda North to say "Uncle Nash." Sir

Nash was no relation to her whatever: but that he was a baronet, she

might have remembered it.

"You and your mamma can go," said Mr. North with animation, as the

seductive vision of the house, relieved of madam's presence for an

indefinite period, rose mentally before him.

"But mamma says she shall not go."

"Oh, does she?" he cried, his spirits and the vision sinking together.

"She'll change her mind perhaps, Matilda. _I_ can't do anything in it,

you know."

As if to avoid further colloquy, he passed on to his parlour and shut

the door sharply. Matilda North turned into the dining-room, her

handsome black silk train following her, her discontented look

preceding her. Just then Mrs. North came downstairs, a coquettish,

fascinating sort of black lace hood upon her head, one she was in the

habit of wearing in the grounds. Matilda North heard the rustle of the

robes, and looked out again.

"Are you going to walk, mamma?"

"I am. Have you anything to say against it?"

"It would be all the same if I had," was the pert answer. Not very

often did Matilda North gratuitously retort upon her mother; but she

was in an ill humour: the guests had gone away much sooner than she

had wished or expected, and madam had vexed her.

"That lace hood is not mourning," resumed Miss Matilda North,

defiantly viewing madam from top to toe.

Madam turned the hood and the haughty face it encircled on her

presuming daughter. The look was enough in itself; and what she might

have said was interrupted by the approach of Bessy.

"Have you any particular orders to give this morning, madam?" Bessy

asked of her stepmother--whom she as often called madam as mamma, the

latter word never meeting with fond response from Mrs. North to _her_.

"If I have I'll give them later," imperiously replied madam, sweeping

out at the hall-door.

"What has angered her now?" thought Bessy. "I hope and trust it is

nothing connected with papa. He has enough trouble without having to

bear ill-temper."

Bessy North was housekeeper. And a troublesome time she had of it!

Between madam's capricious orders, issued at all sorts of inconvenient

hours, and the natural resentment of the servants, a less meek and

patient spirit would have been worried beyond endurance. Bessy made

herself the scape-goat; labouring, both by substantial help and by

soothing words, to keep peace in the household. None knew how much

Bessy did, or the care that was upon her. Miss Matilda North had never

soiled her fingers in her life, never done more than ring the bell,

and issue her imperious orders after the fashion of madam, her mother.

The two half-sisters were a perfect contrast. Certainly they presented

such outwardly, as witness this morning: the one not unlike a peacock,

her ornamented head thrown up, her extended train trailing, and her

odds and ends of jet gleaming; the other a meek little woman in a

black gown of some soft material with some quiet crape upon it, and

her smooth hair banded back--for she wore it plain to-day.

On her way to the kitchens, Bessy halted at her father's sitting-room,

and opened the door quietly. Mr. North was standing against the

window-frame, half inside the room half out of it.

"Can I do anything for you, papa?"

"There's nothing to be done for me, child. What time do we dine

to-day, Bessy?" he asked, after a pause.

"I suppose at six. Mrs. North has not given orders to the contrary."

"Very well. I'll have my luncheon in here, child."

"To be sure. Dear papa, you are not looking well," she added,

advancing to him.

"No? Looks don't matter much, Bessy, when folk get to be as old as I

am. A thought comes over me at odd moments--that it is good to grow

ugly, and yellow, and wrinkled. It makes us wish to become young and

fair and pleasant to the sight again: and we can only do that through

immortality. Through immortality, child."

Mr. North lifted his hand, the fingers of which had always now a

trembling sort of movement in them, to his shrivelled face, as he

repeated the concluding words, passing it twice over the weak, scanty

brown hair that time and care had left him. Bessy kissed him fondly,

and quitted the room with a sigh, one sad thought running through her

mind.

"How sadly papa is breaking!"

Mrs. North swept down the broad gravel-walk leading from the entrance,

until she came to a path on the left, which led to the covered portion

of the grounds: where the trees in places grew so thick and close that

shade might be had at midday. This part of the grounds was near the

dark portion of the Dallory highway, already mentioned (where Jelly

had surprised her mistress and Oliver Rane in the moonlight the past

night), only the boundary hedges being between them. It was a sweet

spot, affording retirement from the world and shelter from the fierce

rays of the sun. Madam was fond of frequenting this spot: and all the

more so because sundry loop-holes gave her the opportunity of peering

out beyond. She could see all who passed to and from the Hall, without

being herself seen. One high enclosed wall was especially liked by

her; concealed within its shade, quietly resting on one of its rustic

seats, she could hear as well as see. Before she had quite gained this

walk, however, her son Sidney crossed her path. A young man of twenty

now, undersized, insufferably vain, fast, and conceited. His face

might be called a pretty face: his auburn curls were arranged after

the models in a hairdresser's window; his very blue unmeaning eyes had

no true look in them. Sidney North as like neither father nor mother:

like no one but his own contemptible self; madam looked upon him as

next door to an angel; he was her well-beloved. There can be no

blindness equal to that of a doting mother.

"My dear, I thought you had gone with them to the station," she said.

"Didn't ask me to go; Dick and Arthur made room for themselves, not

for me," responded Sidney, taking his pipe from his mouth to speak,

and his voice was as consequential as his mother's.

A frown crossed madam's face. Dick and Arthur were rather in the habit

of putting Sidney in the shade, and she hated them for it. Arthur was

her own son, but she had never regarded him with any sort of

affection.

"I'm going back this afternoon, mamma."

"This afternoon! No, my boy; I can't part with you to-day."

"Must," laconically responded Sidney, puffing away at his pipe. And

madam had come to learn that it was of no use saying he was to stay if

he wanted to go. "How much tin can you let me have?"

"How much do you want?"

"As much as you can give me."

His demands for money seemed to be as insatiable as madam knew her

husband found hers. The fact was beginning to give her some concern.

Only two weeks ago she had despatched him all she could afford: and

now here he was, asking again. A slight frown crossed her brow.

"Sidney, you spend too much."

"Must do as others do," responded Sidney.

"But, my sweet boy, I can't let you have it. You don't know the

trouble it causes."

"Trouble!--with those rich North Works to draw upon!" cried Sidney.

"The governor must be putting by mines of wealth."

"I don't think he is, Sidney. He always pleads poverty; says we drain

him. I suppose it's true."

"Flam! All old paters cry that. Look at Dick--the loads of gold he

must be netting. He gets his equal share, they say; goes thirds with

the other two."

"Who says it?"

"A fellow told me so yesterday. It's an awful shame that Dick should

be a millionaire, and I obliged to beg for every paltry coin I want!

There's not so many years between us."

"Dick has his footing at the works, you see," observed madam. "Let

him! I wouldn't have _you_ degrade yourself to it for the world. He's

fit for nothing but work; has been brought up to it; and we can

spend."

"Just so," complacently returned the young man. "And you must shell

out liberally for me this afternoon, mamma."

Without further ceremony of adieu or apology, Mr. Sidney North

sauntered away. Madam proceeded to her favourite shaded walk, where

she kept her eyes looking out on all sides for intruders, friends or

enemies. On this occasion she had the satisfaction of being gratified.

Her arms folded over the black lace shawl she wore, its hood gathered

on her head, altogether very much after the fashion of a Spanish

mantilla, and her train with its crape and jet falling in stately

folds behind her, madam had been pacing this retreat for the best part

of an hour, when she caught sight, through the interstices of the

leaves, of two ladies slowly approaching. The one she recognized at

once as Mrs. Cumberland; the other she did not recognize at all. "What

a lovely face!" was her involuntary thought.

A young, fair, lovely face. The face of Ellen Adair.

CHAPTER VIII.

MADAM'S LISTENING CLOSET.

Many years before, when the Reverend George Cumberland held his

chaplaincy in Madras, there were two friends also there with whom he

was intimate--Major Bohun and Mr. Adair. The latter held a civil

appointment under Government. At that time, Mr. Adair was not married.

Later, this gentleman went to Australia: Mr. and Mrs. Cumberland also

went there. Mr. Adair had married in the course of time. His wife

died, leaving one little child, a daughter: who was, despatched to

England for her education. Upon its completion, William Adair wrote

and begged Mrs. Cumberland to receive her: he thought it probable that

he should be returning home; and if so, it would not be worth while

for Ellen to go out to him. Mrs. Cumberland consented, and the young

lady became an inmate of her house at Dallory Ham. Very liberal terms

were offered by Mr. Adair: but this was a matter entirely between

himself and Mrs. Cumberland.

Holding herself, as she did, so aloof from her neighbours, there was

little wonder in madam's having remained unconscious of the fact that

some months ago, nearly twelve now, a young lady had come to reside

with Mrs. Cumberland. Part of the time Mrs. Cumberland had been away.

Madam had also been away: and when at home her communication with

Dallory and Dallory Ham consisted solely in being whirled through its

roads in a carriage: no one indoors spoke unnecessarily in her hearing

of any gossip connected with those despised places; and to church she

rarely went, for she did not get up in time. And so the sweet girl,

who had for some time now been making Arthur Bohun's heart's

existence, had never yet been seen or heard of by his mother.

For Mrs. Cumberland to be seen abroad so early was something

marvellous; indeed, she was rarely seen abroad at all. On this morning

she came out of her room between eleven and twelve o'clock, dressed

for a walk; and bade Ellen Adair prepare to accompany her. Ellen

obeyed, silently wondering. The truth was, Mrs. Cumberland had picked

up a very unpleasant doubt the previous day, and would give the whole

world to lay it to rest. It was connected with her son. His assurances

had partly pacified her, but not quite: and she determined to have a

private word with Mr. North. Ellen, walking by her side along the

road, supposed they were going in to Dallory. Mrs. Cumberland kept

close to the hedge for the sake of the shade: as she brushed the bench

in passing, where she had sat the past night, a slight shudder seized

her frame. Ellen did not observe it; she was revelling in the beauty

of the sweet spring day. The gates of Dallory Hall gained, Mrs.

Cumberland turned in. Ellen Adair wondered more and more; but Mrs.

Cumberland was not one to be questioned at will on any subject.

On they came, madam watching with all her eyes. Mrs. Cumberland was in

her usual black silk attire, and walked with the slow step of an

invalid. Ellen wore a morning dress of lilac muslin. It needed not the

lilac parasol she carried to reflect an additional lovely hue on that

most lovely face. A stately, refined girl, as madam saw, with charming

manners, the reverse of pretentious.

But as madam, fascinated for once in her life, gazed outwards, a

certain familiarity in the face dawned upon her senses. That she had

seen it before, or one very like it, became a conviction to her. "Who

on earth is she?" murmured the lady to herself--for madam was by no

means stilted in her phrases in leisure moments.

"Are you going to call at the Hall, Mrs. Cumberland?" inquired Ellen,

venturing to ask the question at length in her increasing surprise.

And every word could be distinctly heard by madam, for they were very

close to her.

"I think so," was the answer, given in hesitating tones. "I--I should

like to tell Mr. North that I feel for his loss."

"But is it not early to do so--both in the hour of the day, and after

the death?" rejoined Ellen, with deprecation.

"For a stranger it would be; for me, no. I and John North were once as

brother and sister. Besides, I have something else to say to him."

Had Miss Adair asked what the something else was--which she would not

have presumed to do--Mrs. Cumberland might have replied that she

wished again to enlist the Hall's influence on behalf of her son, now

that Mr. Alexander was about to leave. A sure indication that it was

_not_ the real motive that was drawing her to the Hall, for she was

one of those reticent women who rarely, if ever, observe candour even

to friends. Suddenly she halted.

"I prefer to go on alone, Ellen. You can sit down and wait for me.

There are benches about in the covered walks."

Mrs. Cumberland went forward. Ellen turned and began to walk towards

the entrance-gates with the lingering step of one who waits. Mrs.

Cumberland had gone well on, when she turned and called.

"Ellen."

But Ellen did not hear.

"Ellen! Ellen Adair!"

A louder call, this, falling on the warm summer air, echoing in the

curious ears covered by the lace mantilla. Mrs. North gave a quick,

sharp start. It looked very like a start of terror.

"Ellen Adair!" she repeated to herself, her eyes, in their fear,

flashing out on the beautiful face, to see whether she could trace the

resemblance _now_. "Ellen Adair? Good Heavens!"

Ellen had turned at once. "Yes, Mrs. Cumberland."

"Do not go within sight of the road, my dear. I don't care that all

the world should know I am calling at Dallory Hall. Find a bench and

sit down, as I bade you."

Obedient as it was in her nature to be, the young lady turned into one

of the side paths, which brought her within nearer range of madam's

view. She, madam, with a face from which every atom of colour had

faded, leaving it white as ashes, stood still as a statue, as one

confounded.

"I see the likeness: it is to _him_," she muttered. "Can he have come

home?"

Ellen Adair passed out of sight and hearing. Madam, shaking herself

from her fear, turned with stealthy steps to seek the house, keeping

in the private paths as long as possible, which was a more circuitous

way. Madam intended, unseen, to make a third at the interview between

her husband and Mrs. Cumberland. The sight of that girl's face had

frightened her. There might be treason in the air.

Mrs. Cumberland was already in Mr. North's parlour. Strolling out

amongst his flowers, he had encountered her in the garden, and taken

her in through the open window. Madam arriving a little later, passed

through the hall to the dining-room. Rather inopportunely, there sat

Bessy, busy with her housekeeping books.

"Take them elsewhere," said madam, with an imperious sweep of the

hand.

She was not in the habit of giving a reason for any command whatever:

let it be reasonable or the contrary, the rule was to hear and obey.

Bessy gathered her books up and went away, madam fastening the bolt of

the door after her.

Then she stole across the soft Turkey carpet and slipped into the

closet already spoken of, that formed a communication--though never

used--between the dining-room and Mr. North's parlour. The door

opening to the parlour was unlatched, and had been ever since he put

his slippers inside it an hour ago. When her eyes became accustomed to

the darkness, madam saw them there; she also saw one or two of his old

brown gardening coats hanging on the pegs. Against the wall was a

narrow table with an unlocked desk upon it, belonging to herself. It

was clever of madam to keep it there. Opening the lid silently, she

pulled up a few of its valueless papers, and let them appear. Of

course, if the closet were suddenly entered from the parlour--a most

unlikely thing to happen, but madam was cautious--she was only getting

something from her desk. In this manner she had occasionally made an

unsuspected third at Richard North's interviews with his father.

Letting the lace hood slip off, madam bent her ear to the crevice of

the door, and stood there listening. She was under the influence of

terror still: her lips were drawn, her face wore the hue of death.

Apparently the ostensible motive of the interview--Mrs. Cumberland's

wish to express her sympathy for the blow that had fallen on the

Hall--was over; she had probably also been asking for Mr. North's

influence in favour of her son. The first connected words madam caught

were these:--

"I will do what I can, Mrs. Cumberland. I wished to do it before, as

you know. But Mrs. North took a dislike--I mean took a fancy to

Alexander."

"You mean took a dislike to Oliver," corrected Mrs. Cumberland. "In

the old days, when you were John North without thought of future

grandeur, and I was Fanny Gass, we spoke out freely to each other."

"True," said poor Mr. North. "I've never had such good days since. Ah,

what a long time it seems to look back to! I have grown into an old

man, Fanny, older in feeling than in years; and you--you wasted the

best days of your life in a hot and unhealthy climate."

"Unhealthy in places and at certain seasons," corrected Mrs.

Cumberland. "My husband was stationed in the beautiful climate of the

Blue Mountains, as we familiarly call the region of the Neilgherry

Hills. It is pleasant there."

"Ay, I've heard so. Getting the cool breezes and all that."

"People used to come up there from the hot plains to regain their lost

health," continued Mrs. Cumberland, whose thoughts were apt to wander

back to the earlier years of her exile. "Ootacamund is resorted to

there, just as the colder seaside places are here. But I and Mr.

Cumberland were stationary."

"Ootacamund?" repeated Mr. North, struck with the name. "Ootacamund

was where my wife's first husband died; Major Bohun."

"No, he did not die there," quietly rejoined Mrs. Cumberland.

"Was it not there? Ah! well, it does not matter. One is apt to confuse

these foreign names and places in the memory."

Mrs. Cumberland made no rejoinder, and a momentary silence ensued.

Madam, who with the mention of the place, Ootacamund, bit her lip

almost to bleeding, bent forward, and looked through the opening of

the door. She could just see the smallest portion of the cold, calm,

grey face, and waited in sickening apprehension of what the next words

might be. They came from Mrs. Cumberland and proved an intense relief,

for the subject was changed for another.

"I am about to make a request to you, John: I hope you will grant it

for our old friendship's sake. Let me see the anonymous letter that

proved so fatal to Edmund. Every incident connected with this calamity

is to me so full of painful interest!" she continued, as if seeking to

apologize for her request. "As I lay awake last night, unable to

sleep, it came into my mind that I would ask you to let me see the

letter."

"You may see it, and welcome," was Mr. North's ready reply, as he

unlocked a drawer in his old secretaire, and handed the paper to her.

"I only wish I could show it to some purpose--to someone who would

recognize the handwriting. You won't do that."

Mrs. Cumberland answered by a sickly smile. Her hands trembled as

she took the letter, and Mr. North noticed how white her lips had

become--as if with some inward suspense or emotion. She studied the

letter well, reading it three times over; looking at it critically in

all lights. Madam in the closet could have struck her for her

inquisitive curiosity.

"You are right, John," she said, with an unmistakable sigh of relief

as she gave the missive back to him; "I certainly do not recognize

that handwriting. It is like no one's that I ever saw."

"It is a disguised hand, you see," he answered. "No doubt about that:

and accomplished in the cleverest manner."

"Is it true that poor Edmund had been drawing bills in conjunction

with Alexander?"

"Only one. He had drawn a good many I'm afraid during his short

lifetime in conjunction with other people, but only one with

Alexander--which they got renewed. No blame attaches to Alexander; not

a scrap of it."

"Oliver told me that."

"Ay. I have a notion that poor Edmund did not get into this trouble

for his own sake, but to help that young scamp, his brother."

"Which brother?"

"Which brother!" echoed Mr. North, rather in mockery. "As if you need

ask that. There's only one of them who could deserve the epithet, and

that's Sidney. An awful scamp. He is but twenty years of age, and he

is as deep in the ways of a bad world as though he were forty."

"I am very sorry to hear you say it. Whispers go abroad about him, as

I dare say you know, but I would rather not have heard them confirmed

by you."

"People can't say much too bad of him. We have Mrs. North to thank for

it: it is all owing to the way she has brought him up. When I would

have corrected his faults, she stepped in between us. Oftentimes have

I thought of the enemy that sowed the tares amidst the wheat in his

neighbour's field."

"The old saying comes home to many of us," observed Mrs. Cumberland

with a suppressed sigh, as she rose to leave. "When our children are

young they tread upon our toes, but when they grow older they tread

upon our hearts."

"Ay, ay! Don't go yet," added Mr. North. "It is pleasant in times of

sorrow to see an old friend. I have no friends now."

"I must go, John. Ellen Adair is waiting for me, and will find the

time long. And I expect it would not be very agreeable to your wife to

see me here. Not that I know wherefore, or what I can have done to

her."

"She encourages no one; no one of the good old days," was the

confidential rejoinder. "There's no fear of her; I saw her going off

towards the shrubberies--after Master Sidney, I suppose. She takes

what she calls her constitutional walks there. They last a couple of

hours sometimes."

As Mr. North turned to put the letter into the drawer again, he caught

sight of a scrap of poetry that had been found in Arthur Bohun's desk.

This he also showed his visitor. He would have kept nothing from her;

she was the only link left to him of the days when he and the world

(to him) were alike young. Had Mrs. Cumberland stayed there till

night, he would then have thought it too soon for her to depart.

"I will do all I can for your son, Fanny," said Mr. North, as they

stood for a moment at the glass-doors. "I like Oliver. He is a steady,

persevering fellow, and I'll help him on if I can. If I do not, the

fault will not lie with me. You understand?" he added, looking at her.

Mrs. Cumberland understood perfectly--the fault would lie with madam.

She nodded in answer.

"Mr. Alexander is going, John--as you know. Should Oliver succeed in

getting the whole of the practice--and there's nothing to prevent

it--he will soon be making a large income. In that case, I suppose he

will be asking you to give him something else."

"You mean Bessy. I wish to goodness he had her!" continued Mr. North

impulsively; "I do heartily wish it sometimes. She has not a very

happy life of it here. Well, well; I hope Oliver will get on with all

my heart; tell him so from me, Fanny. He shall have her when he does."

"_Shall_ he!" ejaculated madam from her closet, and in her most

scornfully defiant tone--for the conversation had not pleased her.

They went strolling away amidst the flowers, madam peering after them

with angry eyes. She heard her husband tell Mrs. Cumberland to come

again; to come in often; whenever she would. Mr. North went on with

her down the broad path, after they had lingered some minutes with the

sweet flowers. In strolling back alone, who should pounce upon Mr.

North from a side path but madam!

"Was not that woman I saw you with the Cumberland, Mr. North?"

"It was Mrs. Cumberland: my early friend. She came in to express her

sympathy at my loss. I took it as very kind of her, madam."

"I take it as very insolent," retorted madam. "She had some girl with

her when she came in. Who was it?"

"Some girl!" repeated Mr. North, whose memory was anything but

retentive. "Ah yes, I remember: she said her ward was waiting for

her."

"Who is her ward?"

"The daughter of a friend whom they knew in India, madam. In India or

Australia; I forget which: George Cumberland was stationed in both

places. A charming young lady with a romantic name: Ellen Adair."

Madam toyed with the black lace that shielded her face. "You seem to

know her, Mr. North."

"I have seen her in the road; and in coming out of church. The first

time I met them was in Dallory, one day last summer, and Mrs.

Cumberland told me who she was. That is all I know of her, madam--as

you seem to be curious."

"Is she living at Mrs. Cumberland's?"

"Just now she is. I--I think they said she was going out to join her

father," added Mr. North, whose impressions were always hazy in

matters that did not immediately concern him. "Yes, I'm nearly sure,

madam: to Australia."

"Her father--whoever he may be--is not in Europe then?" slightingly

spoke madam, stooping to root up mercilessly a handful of blue-bells.

"Her father lives over yonder. That's why the young lady has to go out

to him."

Madam tossed away the rifled flowers and raised her head to its

customary haughty height. The danger had passed. "Over yonder" meant,

as she knew, some far-off antipodes. She flung aside the girl and the

interlude from her recollections, just as ruthlessly as she had flung

the blue-bells.

"I want some money, Mr. North."

Mr. North went into a flutter at once. "I--I have none by me, madam."

"Then give me a cheque."

"Nor cheque either. I don't happen to have a signed cheque in the

house, and Richard is gone for the day."

"What have I repeatedly told you--that you must _keep_ money by you;

and cheques too," was her stern answer. "Why does Richard always sign

the cheques? Why can't you sign them?"

She had asked the same thing fifty times, and he had never been goaded

to give the true answer.

"I have not signed a cheque since Thomas Gass died, except on my own

private account, madam; no, nor for long before it. My account is

overdrawn. I shan't have a stiver in the bank until next quarter-day."

"You told me that last week," she said contemptuously. "Draw then upon

the firm account."

He shook his head. "The bank would not cash it."

"Why?"

"Because only Richard can sign. Oh dear, this is going over and over

the old ground again. You'll wear me out, madam. When Richard took the

management at the works, it was judged advisable that he should alone

sign the business cheques--for convenience' sake, madam; for

convenience' sake. Gass's hands were crippled with gout; I was here

with my flowers."

"I don't care who signs the cheques so that I get the money," she

retorted in rude, rough tones. "You must give me some to-day."

"It is for Sidney; I know it is for Sidney," spoke Mr. North

tremulously. "Madam, you are ruining that lad. For his own sake some

check must be put upon him: and therefore I am thankful that to-day I

have no money to give."

He took some short hurried steps over the corners of paths and

flower-beds, with the last words, and got into his own room. Madam

calmly followed. Very sure might he be that she would not allow him

to escape her.

Ellen Adair, waiting for Mrs. Cumberland, had _not_ felt the time

long. Very shortly after she was left alone, the carriage came back

from the station, bringing Arthur Bohun: Richard had been left at

Whitborough. Captain Bohun got out at the gates, intending to walk up

to the house. Ellen saw him come limping along--the halt in his gait

was always more visible when he had been sitting for any length of

time--and he at the same time caught sight of the bright hues of the

lilac dress gleaming through the trees.

Some years back, the detachment commanded by Arthur Bohun was

quartered in Ireland. One ill-starred night it was called out to

suppress some local disturbances, and he was desperately wounded:

shot, as was supposed, unto death. That he would never be fit for

service again; that his death, though it might be lingering, was

inevitable; surgeons and friends alike thought. For nearly two years

he was looked upon as a dying man: that is, as a man who could not

possibly recover. But Time, the great healer, restored him; and he

came out of his sickness and danger with only a slight limp, more or

less perceptible. When walking slowly, or when he took any one's arm,

it was not seen at all. Mrs. North (who was proud of her handsome and

distinguished son, although she had no love for him) was wont to tell

friends confidentially that he had a bullet in his hip yet--at which

Arthur would laugh.

The sight of the lilac dress caused him to turn aside. Ellen rose and

stood waiting; her whole being was thrilling with the rapture the

meeting brought. He took her hand in his, his face lighting.

"Is it indeed you, Ellen! I should as soon have expected to see a

fairy here."

"Mrs. Cumberland has gone to call on Mr. North. She told me to wait

for her."

"I have been with Dick to take my uncle and James to the station,"

spoke Captain Bohun, pitching upon it as something to say, for his

tongue was never too fluent when alone with her. "He has been asking

me to go and stay with him."

"Sir Nash has?"

"Yes. Jimmy invites no one; he is taken up with his missionaries, and

that."

"Shall you go?"

Their eyes met as she put the question. Go! away from her!

"I think not," he quietly answered. "Not at present. Miss Bohun's turn

must come first: she has been writing for me this long time."

"That's your aunt."

"My aunt. And a good old soul she is. Won't you walk about a little,

Ellen?"

She took the arm he held out, and they paced the covered walks, almost

in silence. The May birds were singing, the budding leaves were green.

Eloquence enough for them: and each might have detected the beating of

the other's heart. Madam had her ear glued to that closet-door, and so

missed the sight. A sight that would have made her hair stand on end.

Minutes, for lovers, fly on swift wings. When Mrs. Cumberland

appeared, it seemed that she had been away no time. Ellen went forward

to meet her: and Captain Bohun said he had just come home from the

station. Mrs. Cumberland, absorbed in her own cares, complaining of

fatigue, took little or no notice of him: he strolled by their side up

the Ham. Standing at Mrs. Cumberland's gate for a moment in parting,

Oliver Rane came so hastily out of his house that he ran against them.

"Don't knock me down, Rane," spoke Arthur Bohun in his lazy but very

pleasing manner.

"I beg your pardon. When I am in a hurry I believe I am apt to drive

on in a blindfold fashion."

"Is any one ill, Oliver?" questioned his mother.

"Yes. At Mrs. Gass's. I fear it is herself. The man who brought the

message did not know."

"You ought to keep a horse," spoke Captain Bohun, as the doctor

recommenced his course. "So much running about must wear out a man's

legs."

"Oughts go for a great deal, don't they?" replied the doctor, looking

back. "I ought to be rich enough to keep one, but I'm not."

Captain Bohun wished them good-day, and they went indoors. Ellen

wondered at hearing that Mrs. Cumberland was going out again. Feeling

uneasy--as she said--about the sudden illness, she took her way to the

house of Mrs. Gass, in spite of the fatigue she had been complaining

of. A long walk for her at any time. Arrived there she found that lady

in perfect health; it was one of her servants to whom Oliver had been

summoned. The young woman had scalded her hand and arm.

"I was at the Hall this morning, and Mr. North showed me the anonymous

letter," Mrs. Cumberland took occasion to say. "It evidently comes

from a stranger; a stranger to us. The handwriting is quite strange."

"So much the better, ma'am," heartily spoke Mrs. Gass. "It would be

too bad to think it was wrote by a friend."

"Oliver thinks it was madam," pursued Mrs. Cumberland, lowering her

voice. "At least--he has not gone so far as to say _he_ thinks it, but

that Mr. Alexander does."

"That's just what he said to me, ma'am. Alexander thought it, he said,

but that he himself didn't know what to think, one way or the other.

As well, perhaps, for us not to talk of it: least said is soonest

mended."

"Of course. But I cannot help recalling a remark once innocently made

by Arthur Bohun in my hearing: that he did not know any one who could

imitate different handwritings so well as his mother. Did you"--Mrs.

Cumberland looked cautiously round--"observe the girl, Molly Green,

take her handkerchief from her pocket whilst she stood here?"

"I didn't see her with any handkercher," was the answer, given after a

slight pause. "Shouldn't think the girl has one. She put her basket on

the sideboard there, to come forward to my geraniums, and stood stock

still while she looked at 'em. I don't say she didn't go to her

pocket; but I never saw her do it."

"It might have been so. These little actions often pass unnoticed. And

it is so easy for any other article to slip out unseen when a

handkerchief is drawn from a pocket," concluded Mrs. Cumberland in a

suppressed, almost eager tone. Which Mrs. Gass noticed, and did not

quite like.

But there is still something to relate of Dallory Hall. When madam

followed her husband through the glass-doors into his parlour, an

unusually unpleasant scene ensued. For once Mr. North held out

resolutely. He had no other resource, for he had not the money to give

her, and did not know where to get it. That it was for Sidney, he well

believed; and for that reason only would have denied it to the utmost

of his feeble strength. Madam flounced out in one of her worst moods.

Mrs. Cumberland's visit and the startling sight of Ellen Adair had

brought to her unusual annoyance. As ill-luck had it, she encountered

Bessy in the hall, and upon her vented her temper. The short scene was

a violent one. When it was over, the poor girl went shivering and

trembling into her father's parlour. He had been standing with the

door ajar, shrinking almost as much as Bessy, and utterly powerless to

interfere.

"Oh, child! if I could only save you from this!" he murmured, as they

stood together before the window, and he fondly stroked the head that

lay on his breast. "It's cue of the troubles that are wearing me out,

Bessy: wearing me out before my time."

Bessy North was patient, meek, enduring; but meekness and patience can

both be tried beyond their strength.

"Oliver Rane wants you: you know that, Bessie. If he could see his way

to keeping you, you should go to him tomorrow. Ay! though your poor

brother has just been put into his grave."

Bessy lifted her head. In these moments of emotion, the heart speaks

out without reticence.

"Papa, I would go to Oliver as he is now, and risk it," she said

through her blinding tears. "I should not be afraid of our getting on:

we would make shift together, until better times came. He spoke a word

of this to me not long ago, but his lips were sealed, he said, and he

could not press it."

"He thought he had not enough for you?"

"He thought you would not consider it so. _I_ should, papa. And I

think those who bravely set out to struggle on together, have as much

happiness in their makeshifts and economies as others who begin with a

fortune."

"We'll see; we'll see, Bessy. I should like you to try it, if you are

not afraid. I'll talk to Dick. But--mind!--not a word here," he added,

glancing round to indicate the precincts of Mrs. North. "We shall have

to keep it to ourselves if we would not have it frustrated. I wonder

how much Oliver makes a year."

"Not much; but he is advancing slowly. He has talked to me about it.

What keeps one will keep two, papa."

"He comes into about two hundred a-year when his mother dies. And I

fear she won't live long, from what she tells me. Poor Fanny! Not that

I'd counsel any one to reckon on dead men's shoes, child. Life's

uncertain: he might die before her."

"He would not reckon on anything but his own exertions, papa. He told

me a secret--that he is engaged on a medical work, writing it all his

spare time. It is quite certain to become a standard work, he says,

and bring him good returns. Oh! papa, there will be no doubt about our

getting on. Let us risk it!"

She spoke in a bright, hopeful tone--her mild eyes shining. Mr. North

caught a little of the glad spirit, and resolved--Dick being willing:

sensible Dick--that they should risk it.

CHAPTER IX.

IN LAWYER DALE'S OFFICE.

Whitborough was a good-sized, bustling town, sending two members to

parliament. In the heart of it lived Mr. Dale, the lawyer, who did a

little in money-lending as well. He was a short stout man, with a red

face and no whiskers, nearly bald on the top of his round head; and he

usually attired himself in the attractive costume of a brown tail coat

and white neckcloth.

On this same morning which had witnessed the departure of Sir Nash

Bohun and his son from Dallory Hall, Mr. Dale, known commonly amongst

his townsfolks as Lawyer Dale--was seated in his office at

Whitborough. It was a small room, containing a sort of double desk, at

which two people might face each other. The lawyer's seat was against

the wall, his face to the room; a clerk sometimes sat, or stood on the

other side when business was pressing. Adjoining this office was one

for the clerks, three of whom were kept; and clients had to pass

through their room to reach the lawyer's.

Mr. Dale was writing busily. The clock was on the stroke of twelve,

and a great deal of the morning's work had still to be done, when one

of the clerks came in: a tall, thin, cadaverous youth with black hair,

parted into a flat curl on his forehead.

"Are you at home, sir?"

"Who is it?" asked Mr. Dale, growling at the interruption.

"Mr. Richard North."

"Send him in."

Richard came in; a fine looking man in his mourning clothes; the

lawyer could not help thinking so. After shaking hands--a ceremony Mr.

Dale liked to observe with all his clients, when agreeable to them--he

came from behind his desk to seat himself in his elbow-chair of red

leather, and gave Richard a seat opposite. The room was small, the

desk and other furniture large, and they sat very close together.

Richard held his hat on his knee.

"You guess, no doubt, what has brought me here, Mr. Dale. Now that my

ill-fated brother is put out of our sight in his last resting-place, I

have leisure and inclination to look into the miserable event that

sent him there. I shall spare neither expense nor energy in

discovering--if it may be--the traitor."

"You allude to the anonymous letter."

"Yes. And I have come to ask you to give me all the information you

can about it."

"But, my good sir, I have no information to give. I don't possess

any."

"I ought to have said details of the attendant circumstances. Let me

hear your history of the transaction from beginning to end: and if you

can give me any hint as to the writer--that is, if you have formed any

private opinion about him--I trust you will do so."

Mr. Dale could be a little tricky on occasion; he was sometimes

engaged in transactions that would not have borne the light of day,

and that most certainly he would never have talked about. On the other

hand, he could be honest and truthful where there existed no reason

for being the contrary: and this anonymous letter business came under

the latter category.

"The transaction was as open and straightforward as possible," spoke

the lawyer--and Richard, a judge of character and countenances, saw he

was speaking the truth. "Mr. Edmund North came to me one day some

short time ago, wanting me to let him have a hundred pounds on his own

security. I didn't care to do that--I knew about his bill

transactions, you see--and I proposed that some one should join him.

Eventually he came with Alexander the surgeon, and the matter was

arranged."

"Do you know for what purpose he wanted the money?"

"For his young brother, Sidney North. A fast young man, that, Mr.

Richard," added the lawyer in significant tones.

"Yes. Unfortunately."

"Well, he had got into some secret trouble, and came praying to

Mr. Edmund to get him out of it. Whatever foolish ways Edmund North

had wasted money in, there's this consolation remaining to his

friends--that the transaction which eventually sent him to his grave

was one of pure kindness," added the lawyer warmly. "'My father has

enough trouble,' he remarked to me; 'with one thing and another, his

life's almost worried out of him; and I don't care that he should hear

what Master Sidney's been up to, if it can be kept from him.' Yes; the

motive was a good one."

"How was it he did not apply to me?" asked Richard.

"Well--had you not, just about that time, assisted your brother Edmund

in some scrape of his own?"

Richard North nodded.

"Just so. He said he had not the face to apply to you so soon again;

should be ashamed of himself. Well, to go on, Mr. Richard North. I

gave him the money on the bill; and when it became due, neither he nor

Alexander could meet it: so I agreed to renew it. Only one day after

that, the anonymous letter found its way to Dallory Hall."

"You are sure of that?"

"Certain. The bill was renewed on the 30th of April; here, in this

very room. Mr. North received the letter on the 1st of May."

"It was so. By the evening post."

"So that, if the transaction got wind through that renewing, the

writer did not lose much time about it."

"Well now, Mr. Dale, in what way could that transaction have got wind,

and who heard of it?"

"I never spoke of it to a human being," impetuously cried the lawyer.

And Richard North again felt sure that he spoke the truth.

"The transaction, from the beginning, was known only to us three men:

Edmund North, the surgeon, and myself. I don't believe either of them

mentioned it at all. I know I did not. It's just possible Edmund North

might have told his stepbrother Sidney how he got the money--the young

scamp. I beg your pardon, Mr. Richard; I forgot he was your brother

also."

"It would be to Sidney's interest to keep it quiet," remarked Richard.

"Our men at the works have a report amongst them--I know not where

picked up, and I don't think they know either--that the writer was

your clerk, Wilks."

"Nonsense!" contemptuously rejoined the lawyer. "I've heard the report

also. Why should Wilks trouble his head about it? Don't believe

anything so foolish."

"I don't believe it," returned Richard North. "Wilks could have no

motive whatever for it, as far as I can see. But I think that he may

have become cognizant of the affair, and talked of it abroad."

"Not one of my clerks knew anything about it," protested Mr. Dale.

"I've three of 'em: Wilks and two others. You don't suppose, sir, I

take them into my confidence in all things."

"But, is it quite impossible that any one of them--say Wilks--could

have found it out surreptitiously?" urged Richard.

"Wilks has nothing surreptitious about him," said the lawyer. "He is

too shallow for it. A thoroughly useful clerk, but a man without

guile."

"I did not mean to apply the word to him personally. I'll change it if

you like. Could Wilks, or either of the other two, have accidentally

learnt this, without your knowledge? Was there a possibility of it?

Come, Mr. Dale; be open with me. Even if it were so, no blame would

attach to you."

"It is just this," answered Mr. Dale: "I don't see how it was possible

for any one of them to have learnt it; and yet at the same time, I see

no other way in which it could have transpired. That's the candid

truth. I lay awake one night for half-an-hour, turning the puzzle over

in my mind. Alexander says he never opened his lips about it; I know I

did not; and poor Edmund North went into his fatal passion thinking

Alexander wrote the letter, because he said Alexander alone knew of

it; a pretty sure proof he had not talked about it himself."

"Which brings us back to your clerks," remarked Richard North. "They

might have overheard a few chance words when the bill was renewed."

"I'm sure the door was shut," debated Mr. Dale, in a tone as if he

were _not_ sure, but rather sought to persuade himself that he was so.

"Only Wilks was in, that morning; the other two had gone out."

"Rely upon it that's how it happened. The door could not have been

quite closed."

"Well, I don't know. I generally shut it myself, and carefully too,

when important clients are in here. I confess," honestly added Mr.

Dale, "that it's the only explanation I can see in the matter. If the

door was unlatched, Wilks might have heard. I had him in last night,

and taxed him with it. He denies it out and out: says that, even if

the affair had come to his knowledge, he knows his duty better than to

have talked about it."

"I don't doubt that he does, when in his sober senses. But he is not

always in them."

"Oh, come, Mr. Richard North, it is not as bad as that."

Richard was silent. If Mr. Dale was satisfied with his clerk and his

clerk's discretion, he had no desire to render him otherwise.

"He takes too much now and then, you know, Mr. Dale; and he may have

dropped a word in some enemy's hearing: who perhaps caught it up and

then wrote the letter. Would you mind my questioning him?"

"He is not here to be questioned, or you might do it and welcome,"

replied Mr. Dale. "Wilks is lying up to-day. He has not been well for

more than a week past; could hardly do his work yesterday."

"I'll take an opportunity of seeing him then," said Richard. "My

father won't rest until the writer of this letter has been traced;

neither, in truth, shall I."

The lawyer said good-morning to his visitor, and returned to his desk.

But ere he recommenced work, he thought over the chief subject of

their conversation. Had the traitor been Wilks, he asked himself. What

Richard North had said was perfectly true--the young man sometimes

took too much after work was over. But Mr. Dale had hitherto found no

reason to complain of his discretion; and, difficult as it seemed to

find any other loophole of suspicion, he finally concluded that he had

no reason to do so now.

Meanwhile Richard North walked back to Dallory--it was nearly two

miles from Whitborough. Passing his works, he continued his way a

little further, to a turning called North Inlet, in which were some

houses, large and small, chiefly tenanted by his workpeople. In one of

these, a pretty cottage standing back, lodged Timothy Wilks. The

landlady was a relative of Wilks's, and as he paid very little for his

two rooms, he did not mind the walk once a-day to and from

Whitborough.

"Good-morning, Mrs. Green. Is Timothy Wilks in?"

Mrs. Green, an ancient matron in a mob-cap, was on her knees,

whitening the door-step. She rose at the salutation, saw it was

Richard North, and curtsied.

"Tim have just crawled out to get a bit o' sunshine, sir. He's very

bad to-day. Would you please to walk in, Mr. Richard?"

Amidst this colony of his workpeople he was chiefly known as "Mr.

Richard." Mrs. Green's husband was timekeeper at the North Works.

"What's the matter with him?" asked Richard, as he stepped over the

threshold and the bucket to the little parlour.

"Well, sir, I only hope it's not low fever; but it looks to me

uncommon like it."

"Since when has he been ill?"

"He have been ailing this fortnight past. The fact is, sir, he _won't_

keep steady," she added in deploring tones. "Once a-week he's safe to

come home the worse for drink, and that's pay night; and sometimes

it's oftener than that. Then for two days afterwards he can't eat; and

so it goes on, and he gets as weak as a rat. It's not that he takes

much drink; it is that a little upsets him. Some men could take

half-a-dozen glasses a'most to his one."

"What a pity it is!" exclaimed Richard.

"He had a regular bout of it a week or so ago," resumed Mrs. Green;

who once set off on the score of Timothy's misdoings, never knew when

to stop. It was so well known to North Inlet, this failing of the

young man's, that she might have talked of it in the market-place and

not betrayed confidence. "He had been ailing before, as I said, Mr.

Richard; off his food, and that; but one night he caught it smartly,

and he's been getting worse ever since."

"Caught what smartly?" asked Richard, not posted up in North Inlet

idioms.

"Why, the drink, sir. He came home reeling, and give his head such a

bang again the door-post that it knocked him back'ards. I got him up

somehow--Green was out--and on to his bed, and there he went off in a

dead faint. I'd no vinegar in the house: if you want a thing in a

hurry you're sure to be out of it: so I burnt a feather up his nose,

and that brought him to. He began to talk all sorts of nonsense then,

about doing 'bills,' whatever that might mean, and old Dale's

money-boxes, running words into one another like mad, so that you

couldn't make top or tail of it. I'd never seen him as bad as this,

and got frightened."

She paused to take breath, always short with Mrs. Green. The words

"doing bills" struck Richard North. He immediately perceived that

hence might have arisen the report--for she had no doubt talked of

this publicly--that Timothy Wilks was the traitor. Other listeners

could put two and two together as well as he.

"I thought I'd get in the vinegar, in case he went off again,"

resumed Mrs. Green. "And when I was running round to the shop for

it--leastways walking, for I can't run now--who should I meet, turning

out of Ketler's but Dr. Rane. I stopped to tell him, and he said he'd

look in and see Tim. He's a kind man in sickness, Mr. Richard."

"Did Dr. Rane come?" asked Richard.

"Right off, sir, there and then. When I got back he had put cloths of

cold water on Tim's head. And wasn't Tim talking! You might have

thought him a show-man at the fair. The doctor wrote something on

paper with his pencil and sent me off again to Stevens the druggist's,

and Stevens he gave me a little bottle of white stuff ta bring back.

The doctor gave Tim some of it in a teacup of cold water, and it sent

him into a good sleep. But he has never been well, sir, since then:

and now I misdoubt me but it will end in low fever."

"Do you remember what night this was?" asked Richard.

"Ay, that I do, sir. For the foolish girls was standing out by twos

and threes, making bargains with their sweethearts to go a-maying at

morning dawn. I told 'em they'd a deal better stop indoors to mend

their stockings. 'Twas the night afore the first of May, Mr. Richard."

"The evening of the day the bill was renewed," thought Richard. He

possessed the right clue now. If he had entertained any doubt of Wilks

before, this set it at rest.

"Did any of the neighbours hear Tim talking?" he asked.

"Not a soul but me and Dr. Rane here, sir. But I believe he had been

holding forth to a room-full at the Wheatsheaf. They say he was in

part gone when he got there. Oh, it does make me so vexed, the ranting

way he goes on when the drink's in him. If his poor father and mother

could look up from their graves, they'd be fit to shake him in very

shame. Drink is the worst curse that's going, Mr. Richard--and poor

Tim's weak head won't stand hardly a drop of it."

She had told all she knew. Richard North stepped over the bucket

again, remarking that he might meet Tim. Sure enough he did so. In

taking a cross-cut to the works, he came upon him, leaning against the

wooden railings that bordered a piece of waste land. He looked very

ill: Richard saw that: a small, slight young man with a mild, pleasant

countenance and inoffensive manners. His mother had been a cousin of

Mrs. Green's, but superior to the Greens in station. Timothy would

have held his head considerably above North Inlet, but for being

brought down both in consequence and pocket by his oft-recurring

failing.

Kindly and courteously, but with a resolute tone not to be mistaken,

Richard North entered on his questioning. He did not suspect Wilks of

having written the anonymous letter; he told him this candidly; but he

suspected, nay, knew, that it must have been written by some one who

had gathered certain details from Wilks's gossip. Wilks, weak and ill,

acknowledged that the circumstance of the drawing of the bill; or

rather the renewing of one; had penetrated to his hearing in Mr.

Dale's office; but he declared that he had not, as far as he knew,

repeated it again.

"I'd no more talk of our office business, sir, than I'd write an

anonymous letter," said he, much aggrieved. "Mr. Dale never had a more

faithful clerk about him than I am."

"I dare say you would not, knowingly," was Richard's rejoinder.

"Answer me one question, Wilks. Have you any recollection of

haranguing the public at the Wheatsheaf?"

Mr. Wilks's reply to this was, that he had not harangued the public at

the Wheatsheaf. He remembered being at the house quite well, and there

had been a good deal of argument in the parlour; chiefly, he thought,

touching the question as to whether masters in general ought not to

give holiday on the first of May. There had been no particular

haranguing on his part, he declared; and he could take his oath that

he never opened his lips there about what had come to his knowledge.

One thing he did confess, on being pressed by Richard--that he had no

remembrance of quitting the Wheatsheaf, or of how he reached home. He

retained a faint idea of having seen Dr. Rane's face bending over him

later, but could not say whether it was dream or reality.

Nothing more could be got out of Timothy Wilks. That the man was

guiltless of intentional treachery was as undoubted as that the

treachery had occurred through his talking. Richard North bent his

steps to the Wheatsheaf, to hold conference with Packerton, the

landlord of that much-frequented hostelrie.

And any information that Packerton could give, he was willing to give;

but it amounted to little. Richard wanted the names of all who went

into the parlour on the night of the 30th of April, during the time

that Wilks was there. The landlord mentioned as many as he could

remember; but said that others might have gone in and out. One

man--who looked like a gentleman and sat by Wilks--was a stranger, he

said; he had never seen him before or since. This man grew quite

friendly with Wilks, and went out with him, propping up his steps.

Packerton's son, a smart youth of thirteen, going out on an errand,

had overtaken them on their way across the waste ground. (In the very

path where Richard had only now encountered Wilks.) Wilks was holding

on by the railings, the boy said, talking with the other as fast as he

could talk, and the other was laughing. Richard North wished he could

find out who this man was, and where he might be seen; for, of all the

rest mentioned by the landlord, not one was at all likely to have

written the anonymous letter. Packerton's opinion was that Wilks had

not spoken of the matter there; he was then hardly "far enough gone"

to have committed the imprudence.

"But I suppose he was when he left you," said Richard.

"Yes, sir, I'm afraid he might have been. He could talk; but every bit

of reason had gone out of him. I never saw anybody but Wilks just like

this when they've taken too much."

Again Richard North sought Wilks, and questioned him who this

stranger, man or gentleman, might be. He might as well have questioned

the moon. Wilks had a hazy impression of having been with a tall,

thin, strange man: but where, or when, or how, he knew not.

"I'll ask Rane what sort of a condition Wilks was in when he saw him,"

thought Richard.

But Richard could not carry out his intentions until night. Business

claimed him for the rest of the day, and then he went home to dinner.

Dr. Rane was in his dining-room that night, the white blind drawn

before the window, and writing by the light of a shaded candle. Bessy

North had said to her father that Oliver was busy with a medical work

from which he expected good returns when published. It was so. He

spared himself no labour; over that, or anything else: often writing

far into the small hours. He was a patient, persevering man: once give

him a chance of success, a fair start on life's road, and he would be

sure to go on to fortune. He said this to himself continually; and he

was not mistaken. But the chance had not come yet.

The clock was striking eight, when the doctor heard a ring at his

door-bell, and Phillis appeared, showing in Richard North. A thrill

passed through Oliver Rane; perhaps he could not have told why or

wherefore.

Richard sat down and began to talk about Wilks, asking what he had to

ask, entering into the question generally. Dr. Rane listened in

silence.

"I beg your pardon," he suddenly said, remembering his one shaded

candle. "I ought to have asked for more light."

"It's quite light enough for me," replied Richard. "Don't trouble. To

go back to Wilks: Did he say anything about the bill in your hearing,

Rane?"

"Not a word; not a syllable. Or, if he did, I failed to catch it."

"Old Mother Green says he talked about 'bills,'" said Richard. "That

was before you saw him."

"Does she?" carelessly remarked the doctor. "I heard nothing of the

kind. There was no coherence whatever in his words, so far as I

noticed: one never pays much attention to the babblings of a drunken

man."

"Was he quite beside himself?--quite unconscious of what he said,

Rane?"

"Well, I am told that it is the peculiar idiosyncrasy of Wilks to be

able to talk and yet to be unconscious for all practical purposes, and

for recollection afterwards. Otherwise I should not have considered

him quite so far gone as that. He talked certainly; a little; seemed

to answer me in a mechanical sort of way when I asked him a question,

slipping one word into another. If I had tried to understand him, I

don't suppose I could have done so. He did not say much; and I was

away from him a good deal about the house, looking for water and rags

to put on his head."

"Then _you_ heard nothing about it, Rane?"

"Absolutely nothing."

The doctor sat so that the green shade of the candle happened to fall

on his face, making it look very pale. Richard North, absorbed in

thought about Wilks, could not have told whether the face was in

shadow or in light. He spoke next about the stranger who had joined

Wilks, saying he wished he could find out who it was.

"A tall thin man, bearing the appearance of a gentleman?" returned Dr.

Rane. "Then I think I saw him, and spoke to him."

"Where?" asked Richard with animation.

"Close to your works. He was looking in through the iron gates. After

quitting Green's cottage, I crossed the waste ground, and saw him

standing at the gates, under the middle gas-lamp. I had to visit a

patient down by the church, and took the nearer way."

"You did not recognize him?"

"Not at all. He was a stranger to me. As I was passing, he turned and

asked me whether he was going right for Whitborough. I pointed to the

high-road and told him to keep straight on. Depend upon it, this was

the same man."

"What could he have been looking in at my gates for?" muttered

Richard. "And what--for this is of more consequence--had he been

getting out of Wilks?"

"It seems rather curious altogether," remarked Dr. Rane.

"I'll find this man," said Richard, as he got up to say goodnight; "I

must find him. Thank you, Rane."

But after his departure Oliver Rane did not settle to his work as

before. A man, once interrupted, cannot always do so. All he did was

to pace the room restlessly with bowed head, as a man in some uneasy

dream. The candle burnt lower, the flame grew above the shade,

throwing its light on his face, showing up its lines and angles. But

it was not any brighter than when the green shade had cast over it its

cadaverous hue.

"Edmund North! Edmund North!"

Did the words in all their piteous, hopeless appeal come from him? Or

was it some supernatural cry in the air?

CHAPTER X.

PUT TO HIS CONSCIENCE.

A fine morning in June. Lovely June; with its bright blue skies and

its summer flowers. Walking about amidst his rose-trees, was Mr.

North, a rake in his hand. He fancied he was gardening; he knew he was

trifling. What did it matter?--his face looked almost happy. The glad

sunshine was overhead, and he felt as free as a bird of the air.

The anonymous letter, that had caused so much mischief, was passing

into a thing of the past. In spite of Richard North's efforts to trace

him out, the writer remained undiscovered. Timothy Wilks was the chief

sufferer, and bitterly resentful thereon. To have been openly accused

of having sent it by at least six persons out of every dozen

acquaintances he met, disturbed the mind and curdled the temper of

ill-starred Timothy Wilks. As to the general public, they were

beginning to forget all about the trouble--as it is in the nature of a

faithless public to do. Only in the hearts of a few individuals did

the sad facts remain in all their sternness; and of those, one was

Jelly.

Poor Mr. North could afford to be happy to-day, and for many days to

come. Bessy also. Madam had relieved them of her presence yesterday,

and gone careering off to Paris with her daughter. They hoped she

might be away for weeks. In the seductive freedom of the home, Richard

North had stayed late that morning. Mr. North was just beginning to

talk with him, when some one called on business, and Richard shut

himself up with the stranger. The morning had gone on; the interview

was prolonged; but Richard was coming out now. Mr. North put down the

rake.

"Has Wilson gone, Richard?"

"Yes, sir."

"What did he want? He has stayed long enough."

"Only a little business with me, father," was Richard's answer in his

filial care. It had not been agreeable business, and Richard wished to

spare his father.

"And now for Bessy, sir?" he resumed, as they paced side by side

amongst the sweet-scented roses. "You were beginning to speak about

her."

"Yes, I want to talk to you. Bessy would be happier with Rane than she

is here, Dick."

Richard looked serious. He had no objection whatever to his sister's

marrying Oliver Rane: in fact, he regarded it as an event certain to

take place, sooner or later; but he did not quite see that the way was

clear for it yet.

"I have no doubt of that, father."

"And I think, Dick, she had better go to him now, whilst we are at

liberty to do as we please at home."

"Now!" exclaimed Richard.

"Yes; now. That is before madam comes back again. Poor Edmund is only

just put under the sod; but--considering the circumstances--I think

the memory of the dead must give place to the welfare of the living."

"But how about ways and means, sir?"

"Ay: how about ways and means. Nothing can be spared from the works at

present, I suppose, Dick."

"Nothing to speak of, sir."

Mr. North had felt ashamed even to ask the question. In fact, it was

more a remark than a question, for he knew as well as Richard did that

there was no superfluous money to draw upon.

"Of course not, Dick. Rane gets just enough to live upon now, and no

more. Yesterday, after madam and Matilda had driven off, I was at the

front-gates when Rane passed. So he and I got talking about Bessy. He

said his income was small now, but that of course it would

considerably augment as soon as Alexander had left. As he and Bessy

are willing to try it, I don't see why they should not do so, Dick."

Richard gave no immediate reply. He had a rose in his hand and was

looking at it absently, deep in thought. His father continued:

"It's not as if Rane had no expectations whatever. Two hundred a-year

must come to him at his mother's death. And--Dick--have you any idea

how Mrs. Gass's will is left?"

"Not the least, sir."

"Oliver Rane is the nearest living relative to her late husband, Mrs.

Cumberland excepted. He is Thomas Gass's own nephew--and all the money

was his. It seems to me, Dick, that Mrs. Gass is sure to remember him:

perhaps largely."

"She may do so."

"Yes; and I think will do so. Bessy shall go to him; and be

emancipated from her thraldom here."

"Oliver Rane has no furniture in his house."

"He has some. The dining-room and his bedroom are as handsomely

furnished as need be. We can send in a little more. There are some

things at the Hall that were Bessy's own mother's, and she shall have

them. They have not been thought much of here, Dick, amidst the grand

things that madam has filled the house with."

"She'll make a fuss, though, at their being removed," remarked Dick.

"Let her," retorted Mr. North, who could be brave as the best when two

or three hundred miles lay between him and madam. "Those things were

your own dear mother's, Dick; she bought them with her own money

before she married me, and I have always regarded them as heir-looms

for Bessy. It's just a few plain solid mahogany things, as good as

ever they were. It was our drawing-room furniture in the early days,

and it will do for their drawing-room now. When Rane is making his six

or seven hundred a-year, they can buy finer if they choose. We thought

great things of it; I know that."

Richard smiled. "I remember once when I was a very little fellow, my

mother came in and caught me drawing a horse on the centre-table with

pen-and-ink. The trouble she had to get the horse out!--and the

whipping I had!"

"Poor Dick! She did not whip often."

"It did me good, sir. I have been scrupulously careful of furniture

ever since."

"Ah, nothing like the lessons of early childhood for making an

impression," spoke Mr. North. "'Spare the rod and spoil the child!'

There was never a truer saying than that."

"Then you really intend them to marry at once," said Richard,

returning to the question.

"I do," replied Mr. North in more decisive tones than he usually

spoke. "They both wish it: and why should I hold out against them?

Bessy's thirty this year, you know, Dick: if girls are not wives at

that age, they begin to think it hard. It's better to marry tolerably

young: a man and woman don't shake down into each other's ways if they

come together late in life. You are silent, Dick."

"I was thinking, sir, whether I could not manage a couple of hundred

pounds for them from myself."

"You are ever generous, Dick. I don't know what we should all do

without you."

"The question is--shall I give it over to them in money, or spend it

for them in furniture?"

"In money; in money, Dick," advised Mr. North. "The furniture can be

managed; and cash is cash. Spend it in chairs and tables and it seems

as if there were nothing tangible to show for it."

Richard smiled. "It strikes me that the argument lies the other way,

sir. However, I think it will be better to do as you advise. Bessy

shall have two hundred pounds handed to her after her marriage, and

they can do what they consider best with it."

"To be sure; to be sure, Dick. Let them be married. Bessy has a

miserable life of it here; and she'll be thirty on the twenty-ninth of

this month. Oliver Rane was thirty the latter end of March."

"Only thirty!" cried Richard. "I think he must be more than that,

sir."

"But he's not more," returned Mr. North. "I ought to know; and so

ought you, Dick. Don't you remember they are both in the tontine? All

the children put into that tontine were born in the same year."

"Oh, was it so? I had forgotten," returned Richard carelessly, for the

tontine had never troubled him very much. He could just recollect that

when they were children he and his brother were wont to teaze little

Bessy, saying if she lived to be a hundred she would come into a

fortune.

"That was an unlucky tontine, Dick," said Mr. North, shaking his head.

"Of ten children who were entered for it, only three remain. The other

seven are dead. Four of them died in the first or second year."

"How came Oliver Rane to be put into the tontine?" asked Richard. "I

thought he came to life in India--and lived there for the first few

years of his life. The tontine children were all Whitborough

children."

"Thomas Gass did that, Richard. When he received news that his sister

had this baby--Oliver--he insisted upon putting him into the tontine.

It was a sort of salve to Tom Gass's conscience; at least I thought

so: what his sister and the poor baby wanted then was money--not to be

put into a useless tontine. Ah, well, Rane has got on without any

one's assistance, and I dare say will flourish in the end."

Richard glanced at his watch; twelve o'clock; and increased his pace;

a hundred and one things were wanting him at the works. Mr. North

walked with him to the gate.

"Yes, it's all for the best, Dick. And we'll get the wedding

comfortably over while madam's away."

"What has been her motive, sir, for opposing Bessy's engagement to

Rane?"

"Motive!" returned Mr. North. "Do you see that white butterfly, Dick,

fluttering about?--as good ask me what _its_ motive is, as ask me

madam's. I don't suppose she has any motive--except that she is given

to opposing us all."

Richard concluded it was so. Something might lie also in Bessy's

patient excellence as a housekeeper; madam, ever selfish, did not

perhaps like to lose her.

As they reached the iron gates, Mrs. Cumberland passed, walking

slowly. She looked very ill. Mr. North arrested her, and began to

speak of the projected marriage of Oliver and Bessy. Mrs. Cumberland

changed colour and looked almost frightened. Unobservant Mr. North saw

nothing. Richard did.

"Has Oliver not told you what's afoot?" said the former. "Young men

are often shyer in these matters than women."

"It's a very small income for them to begin upon," she observed

presently, when Mr. North had said his say--and Richard thought he

detected some private objection to the union. "So very small for

Bessy--who has been used to Dallory Hall."

"It won't always remain small," said Mr. North. "His practice will

increase when Alexander goes; and he'll have other money, may be,

later. Oh, they'll get on, Fanny. Young couples like to be

sufficiently poor to make struggling upwards a pleasure. I dare say

you married upon less."

"Of course, if you are satisfied--it must be all right," murmured Mrs.

Cumberland. "You and Bessy."

She drew her veil over her grey face, said good-morning, and moved

away. Not in the direction of Dallory--as she was previously

walking--but back to the Ham. Mr. North turned into his grounds again;

Richard went after Mrs. Cumberland.

"I beg your pardon," he said--he was not as familiar with her as his

father was--"will you allow me a word. You do not like this proposed

marriage. Have you anything to urge against it?"

"Only for Bessy's sake. I was thinking of her."

"_Why_ for Bessy's sake?"

There was some slight hesitation in Mrs. Cumberland's answer. She

appeared to be drawing her veil straight.

"Their income will be so small. _I_ know what a small income is, and

therefore I feel for her."

"Is that all your hesitation, Mrs. Cumberland?--the narrowness of the

income?"

"All."

"Then I think, as my father says, you may safely leave the decision

with themselves. But--_was_ this all?" added Richard: for an idea to

the contrary had taken hold of him. "You have no personal objection to

Bessy?"

"Certainly it was all," was Mrs. Cumberland's reply. "As to any

personal objection to Bessy, that I could never have. When Oliver

first told me they were engaged, I thought how lucky he was to win

Bessy North; I wished them success with all my heart.

"Forgive me, Mrs. Cumberland. Thank you. Good-morning."

Reassured, Richard North turned, and strode hastily away in the

direction of Dallory. He fancied she had heard Bessy would have no

fortune, and was feeling disappointed on her son's account. It struck

him that he might as well confirm this; and he wheeled round.

Mrs. Cumberland had gone on and was already seated on the bench before

spoken of, in the shady part of the road. Richard, in a few concise

words, entering into no details of any sort, said to her that his

sister would have no marriage portion.

"_That_ I have long taken as a matter of course; knowing what the

expenses at the Hall must be," she answered with a friendly smile.

"Bessy is a fortune in herself; she would make a good wife to any man.

Provided they have sufficient for comfort--and I hope Oliver will soon

be making that--they can be as happy without wealth as with it, if

your sister can only think so. Have you--pardon me for recalling what

must be an unpleasant topic, Richard--have you yet gained any clue to

the writer of that anonymous letter?"

"Not any. It presents mystery on all sides."

"Mystery?"

"As it seems to me. Going over the various circumstances, as I do on

occasion when I have a minute to myself, I try to fit the probability

into another, and I cannot compass it. We must trust to time, Mrs.

Cumberland. Good-morning."

Richard raised his hat, and left her. She sat on with her pain. Mrs.

Cumberland was as strictly rigid a woman in tenets as in temperament;

her code of morality was a severe one. Over and over again had she

asked herself whether--it is of no use to mince the matter any

longer--Oliver had or had not written that anonymous letter which had

killed Edmund North: and she could not answer the question. But, if he

had done it, why then surely he ought not to wed the sister. It would

be little less than sin.

Since this secret trouble had been upon her, more than a month now,

her face had seemed to assume a greyer tinge. How grey it looked now,

as she sat on the bench, passers-by saw, and almost started. One of

them was Mr. Alexander. Arresting his quick steps--he always walked

quickly--he inquired after her health.

"Not any better and not much worse," she answered. "Complaints, such

as mine, are always tediously prolonged."

"They are less severe to bear, however, than sharper ones," said the

doctor, willing to administer a grain of comfort if he could. "What a

lovely day! And madam's off for a couple of months, I hear."

"Have the two any connection with each other, Mr. Alexander?"

"I don't know," he said laughing. "Her presence makes winter at the

Hall, and her absence its sunshine. If I had such a wife, I'm not sure

that I should think it any sin to give her an overdose of laudanum

some day, out of regard to the general peace. Did you hear of her

putting Miss Bessy's wrist out?"

"No."

"She did it, then. Something sent her into a passion with Miss Bessy;

she caught her hand and flung it away so violently that the wrist

began to swell. I was sent for to bind it up. Why such women are

allowed to live, I can't imagine."

"I suppose because they are not fit to die," said Mrs. Cumberland.

"When are you leaving?"

"Sometime in July, I think, or during August. I enter on my new post

the first of September, so there's no especial hurry in the matter."

Mrs. Cumberland rose and continued her slow way homewards. Passing her

own house, she entered that of her son. Dr. Rane was engaged with a

patient, so she went on to the dining-room and waited.

He came in shortly, perhaps thinking it might be another patient, his

face bright. It fell a little when he saw his mother. Her visits to

him were so exceedingly rare that some instinct whispered him nothing

pleasant had brought her there. She rose and faced him.

"Oliver, is what I hear true--that you are shortly to be married?"

"I suppose it is, mother," was his answer.

"But--is there no impediment that should bar it?" she asked in a

whisper.

"Well--as to waiting, I may wait to the end, and not find the skies

raining gold. If Bessy's friends see no risk in it, it is not for me

to see it. At any rate, this will be a more peaceful home for her than

the Hall."

"I am not talking of waiting--or of gold--or of risk, Oliver," she

continued solemnly, placing both her hands on his arm. "Is there

nothing on your mind that ought to bar this marriage? Is your

conscience at rest? If--wait and let me speak, my son; I understand

what you would say; what you have already told me--that you were

innocent--and I know, that I ought to believe you. But a doubt

continually flashes up in my mind, Oliver; it is not my fault; truth

knows my will is good to bury it for ever. Bear with me a moment; I

must speak. If the death of Edmund North lies at your door, however

indirectly it was caused, to make his sister your wife will be a thing

altogether wrong; little less than a sin in the sight of Heaven. I do

not accuse you, Oliver; I suggest this as a possible case; and now I

leave it with you for your own reflection. Oh, my son, believe me--for

it seems to me as though to-day I spoke with a prophet's inspiration!

If your conscience tells you that you were not innocent, to bring

Bessy North home to this roof will be wrong, and I think no blessing

will rest upon it."

She was gone. Before Oliver Rane in his surprise could answer a word,

Mrs. Cumberland was gone. Passing swiftly out at the open window, she

stepped across the garden and the wire-fence, and so entered her own

home.

CHAPTER XI.

A QUIET WEDDING.

Apparently Dr. Rane found nothing on his conscience that could present

an impediment, and the preparation for the wedding went quietly on.

Secretly might almost be the better word. In their dread lest the news

should reach madam in her retreat over the water, and bring her back

to thwart it, those concerned deemed it well to say nothing; and no

suspicion of what was afloat transpired to the world in general.

Bessy--upon whom, from her isolated position, having no lady about

her, the arrangements fell--was desired to fix a day. She named the

twenty-ninth of June, her birthday. After July should come in, there

was no certainty about madam's movements; she might come home, or she

might not, and it was necessary that all should be over by that time,

if it was to be gone through in peace. The details of the ceremony

were to be of the simplest nature: Edmund North's recent death and the

other attendant and peculiar circumstances forbidding the usual

gaiety. The bridal party would go to church with as little ceremony as

they went to service on Sundays, Bessy in a plain silk dress and a

plain bonnet. Mr. North would give his daughter away, if he were well

enough; if not, Richard. Ellen Adair was to be bridesmaid; Arthur

Bohun had offered himself to Dr. Rane as best man. It might be very

undutiful, but Arthur enjoyed stealing a march on madam as much as the

best of them.

Mrs. Cumberland was no doubt satisfied with regard to the scruples she

had raised, since she intended to countenance the wedding, and go to

church. Dr. Rane and his bride would drive away from the church-door

to the railway-station at Whitborough. The bridal tour was to last one

week only. The doctor did not care to be longer away from his

patients, and Bessy confessed that she would rather be at home,

setting her house in order, than prolonging her stay at small inns in

Wales. But for the disconcerting fact of madam's being in Paris, Dr.

Rane would have liked to take Bessy across the Channel and give her

her first glimpse of the French capital. Under madam's unjust rule,

poor Bessy had never gone anywhere: Matilda North had been taken half

over the world.

The new household arrangements at Dr. Rane's were to be accomplished

during their week's absence: the articles of furniture--that Mr. North

chose to consider belonged to Bessy--to be taken there from the Hall;

the new carpet, Mrs. Cumberland's present, to be laid down in the

drawing-room; Molly Green to enter as helpmate to Phillis. Surely

madam would not grumble at _that?_ Molly Green, going into a temper

one day at some oppression of madam's, had given warning on the spot.

Bessy liked the girl, and there could be no harm in engaging her as

her own housemaid.

One of those taken into the secret had been Mrs. Gass. Richard, who

greatly respected her in spite of her grammar, and liked her also,

unfolded the news. She received it in silence: a very rare thing for

Mrs. Gass to do. Just as it had struck Richard in regard to Mrs.

Cumberland, so it struck him now--Mrs. Gass did not quite like the

tidings.

"Well, I hope they'll be happy," she said at length, breaking the

silence, "and I hope he deserves to be. I hope it with all my heart.

Do you think he does, Mr. Richard?"

"Rane? Deserves to be happy? For all I see, he does. Why should he

not?"

"_I_ don't know," answered Mrs. Gass, looking into Richard's face.

"Oliver Rane is my late husband's nephew, but he's three parts a

stranger to me, except as a doctor; for he attends here, you know,

sir,--as is natural--and not Alexander. Is he truthful, Mr. Richard?

Is he trustworthy?"

"He is, for anything I know to the contrary," replied Richard North, a

little wondering at the turn the conversation was taking. "If I

thought he was not, I should be very sorry to give Bessy to him."

"Then let us hope that he is, Mr. Richard, and wish 'em joy with all

our hearts."

That a doubt was lying on Mrs. Gass's mind, in regard to the scrap of

paper found in her room, was certain. Being a sensible woman, it could

only be that--when surrounding mists had cleared away--she should see

that the only likely place for it to have dropped from, was Dr. Rane's

pocketbook. Molly Green had been subjected to a cross-examination,

very cleverly conducted, as Mrs. Gass thought, which left the matter

exactly as it was before. But the girl's surprise was so genuine, at

supposing any receipt for making plum-pudding (for thus had Mrs. Gass

put it) could have been dropped by her, that Mrs. Gass's mind could

only revert to the pocketbook. How far Oliver Rane was guilty, whether

guilty at all, she was quite unable to decide. A doubt remained in her

mind, though she was glad enough to put it from her. One thing struck

her as curious, if not suspicious--that from the hour she had handed

him over the paper to this, Dr. Rane had never once spoken of the

subject to her. It almost seemed to Mrs. Gass that an innocent man

would have done so, though it had only been to say, I have found no

clue to the writer.

And if a little of the same doubt rose to Richard North during his

interview with Mrs. Gass, it was due to her manner. But he was upright

himself, unsuspicious as the day. The impression faded again; and he

came away believing that Mrs. Gass, zealous for the Norths' honours,

rather disapproved of the marriage for Bessy, on account of the

doctor's poverty.

And so, there was no one to give a word of warning where it might have

been effectual, and the day fixed for the wedding drew on. After all,

the programme was not strictly carried out, for Mr. North had one of

his nervous attacks, and could not go to church.

At five minutes past nine o'clock, in the warm bright June morning,

the Dallory Hall carriage drove up to Dallory Church. Richard North,

his sister, and Arthur Bohun were within it. The forms and etiquette

usually observed at weddings were slighted here, else how came

Arthur Bohun, the bridegroom's best man, to come to church with the

bride? What did it matter? Closely in its wake came up the other

carriage--which ought to have been the first. In after days, when a

strange ending had come to the marriage life of Oliver Rane and his

wife, and Oliver was regarded with dread, assailed with reproach,

people said the marriage had been the Norths' doings more than his. At

any rate, Bessy was first at church, and both were a little late.

But Mr. North was not the only one who failed them; the other was Mrs.

Cumberland. She assigned no reason for absenting herself from the

ceremony, excepting a plea that she did not feel equal to it--which

her son believed or not, as he pleased. Her new bright dress and

bonnet were spread out on the bed; but she never as much as looked at

them: and Ellen Adair found that she and Dr. Rane had to drive to

church alone, in the hired carriage, arriving there almost

simultaneously with the other party.

Richard North conducted his sister up the aisle, the bridegroom

following close on their steps. Ellen Adair and Captain Bohun, left

behind, walked side by side. Bessy wore a pretty grey silk and plain

white bonnet: she had a small bouquet in her hand that the gardener,

Williams, had arranged for her, Ellen Adair was in a similar dress,

and looked altogether lovely. Mr. Lea, the clergyman, stood ready,

book in hand. The spectators in the church--for the event had got wind

at the last moment, as these events almost always do, and many

came--rose up with expectation.

Of all the party, the bridegroom alone seemed to suffer from

nervousness. His answering voice was low, his words were abrupt. It

was the more remarkable, because he was in general so self-contained

and calm a man. Bessy, always timid and yielding, spoke with gentle

firmness; not a shade of doubt or agitation seemed to cross her. But

there occurred a frightful contretemps.

"The ring, if you please," whispered the officiating clergyman to the

bridegroom at that part of the service where the ring was needed.

The ring! Oliver Rane felt in his waistcoat-pocket, and went into an

agony of consternation. The ring was not there. He must have left it

on his dressing-table. The little golden symbol had been wrapped in

white tissue paper, and he certainly remembered putting it into his

waistcoat-pocket. It was as certainly not there now: and he supposed

he must have put it out again.

"I have not got the ring!" he exclaimed hurriedly.

To keep a marriage ceremony waiting while a messenger ran a mile off

for the ring and then ran a mile back again, was a thing that had

never been heard of by the clergyman or any other of the startled

individuals around him. What was to be done? It was suggested that

perhaps some one present could furnish a ring that might suffice.

Ellen Adair, standing in her beauty behind the bride, gently laid down

the glove and bouquet she was holding, took off her own glove, and

gave Oliver Rane a plain gold ring from her finger: one she always

wore there. Arthur Bohun alone knew the history of the ring; the rest

had never taken sufficient interest in _her_ to inquire it; perhaps

had never noticed that she wore one.

The service proceeded to its end. Had Oliver Rane gone a pilgrimage to

all the jewellers' shops in Whitborough, he could not have chosen a

more perfectly fitting wedding-ring than this. When they went into

the vestry, Bessy, agitated by the mishap and the emotional position

altogether, burst into tears, asking Ellen how _she_ came by a

wedding-ring.

The history was very simple. It arose--that is the possession of the

ring--through the foolish romance of two young girls. Ellen and one of

her schoolfellows named Maria Warne had formed a sincere and lasting,

attachment to each other. At the time of parting, when Ellen was

leaving school for Mrs. Cumberland's, each had bought a plain gold

ring to give the other, over which eternal friendship had been vowed,

together with an undertaking to wear the ring always. Alas, for time

and change! In less than six months afterwards, Ellen Adair received

notice of the death of Maria Warne. The ring had in consequence become

really precious to Ellen; but in this emergency she had not scrupled

to part with it.

As they came out of the vestry, Ellen found herself face to face with

Jelly. The clerk, and the two women pew-openers, and the sexton,

considering themselves privileged people, pressed up where they chose:

Jelly, who of course--living with Mrs. Cumberland--could not be at all

confounded with the common spectators, chose to press with them. Her

face was long and serious, as she caught "hold of Miss Adair.

"How _could_ you, Miss Ellen?" she whispered. "Don't you know that

nothing is more unlucky than for a bride to be married with anybody

else's wedding-ring?"

"But it was not a wedding-ring, Jelly. Only a plain gold one."

"Anyway it was unlucky for _you_. We have a superstition in these

parts, Miss Ellen, that if a maid takes off a ring from her own finger

to serve at a pinch for a bride, she will never be a wife herself. I

wouldn't have risked it, miss."

Ellen laughed gaily, Jelly's dismay was so real and her face so grave.

But there was no time for more. Richard held out his arm to her; and

Oliver Rane was already taking out his bride. Close up against the

door stood Mr. North's carriage, into which stepped the bride and

bridegroom.

"My shawl! where's the shawl?" asked Bessy, looking round.

She had sat down upon it; and laughed gaily when Oliver drew it out.

This shawl--a thin cashmere of quiet colours--was intended to be

thrown on ere they reached the station. Her silk dress covered with

that, and a black lace veil substituted for the white one on her

bonnet, the most susceptible maid or matron who might happen to be

travelling, would never take her for a bride.

Arthur Bohun deliberately flung an old white satin slipper after the

carriage--it struck the old coachman's head, and the spectators

shouted cheerily. Richard was going to the works. He placed Ellen in

the carriage that had brought her.

"Will you pardon me, if I depute Captain Bohun to see you safely home

instead of myself, Miss Adair? It is a very busy day at the works, and

I must go there. Arthur, will you take charge of this young lady?"

What Ellen answered, she scarcely knew. Captain Bohun entered the

carriage. The situation was wholly unexpected: and if their hearts

beat a little faster in the tumult of the moment's happiness, Richard

at least was unconscious of it.

"It is the first wedding I ever was at," began Ellen, feeling that she

must talk to cover the embarrassment of the position. Both were

feeling it: and moved as far apart from each other as if they had

quarrelled: she in one corner, he in the further one opposite. "Of

course it had been arranged that I should go home with Mrs.

Cumberland."

"Is she ill?"

"Dr. Rane thinks it is only nervousness: he said so as we came along.

I had to come with him alone. I am sure the people we passed on the

road, who had not heard about Bessy thought it was I who was going to

be married to him, they stared so into the carriage."

Ellen laughed as she said it. Arthur Bohun, drinking in draughts of

her wondrous beauty, glanced at her meaningly, his blue eyes

involuntarily betraying his earnest love.

"It may be your turn next, Ellen."

She blushed vividly, and looked from the window as though she saw

something passing. He felt tempted there and then to speak of his

love. But he had a keen sense of the fitness of time and place; and

she had been placed for these few minutes under his protection: it

seemed like putting him on his honour, as schoolboys say. Besides, he

had fully made up his mind not to speak until he saw his way clear to

marry.

Ellen Adair brought her face round again. "Jelly is in a terrible way

about the ring, foretelling all sorts of ill-luck to every one

concerned, and is thankful it did not happen to _her_. Will Bessy keep

my ring always, do you think? Perhaps she would not be legally married

if she gave it me back and took to her own--when it is found?"

Arthur Bohun's eyes danced a little. "Perhaps not," he replied in the

gravest tones. "I don't know what they, would have done without it,

Ellen."

"I did not tell Bessy one thing, when she asked me about it in the

vestry. I will never tell her if I can help it--that Maria Warne is

dead. How was it Mr. North did not come?"

"Nervousness too, in my opinion. He said he was ill."

"Why should he be nervous?"

"Lest it should come to his wife's ears that he had so far

countenanced the marriage as to be present at it."

"Can you tell why Mrs. North should set her face against it?"

"No. Unless it is because other people have wished it. I should only

say as much to you, though, Ellen: she is my mother."

The implied confidence sounded very precious in her ears. She turned

to the window again.

"I hope they will be happy. I think there is no doubt of it. Bessy is

very sweet-tempered and gentle."

"He is good-tempered too."

"Yes, I think so. I have seen very little of him. There's Mrs. Gass!"

They were passing that lady's house. She sat at the open window; a

grand amber gown on, white satin ribbons in her cap. Leaning out, she

shook her handkerchief at them in violent greeting, just as though

they had been the bride and bridegroom. As Ellen drew back in her

corner after bowing, her foot touched something on the carpet at the

bottom of the carriage.

"Why! what is this?"

They both stooped at once. It was the wedding-ring enclosed in its

tissue paper. Captain Bohun unfolded the paper.

"Dr. Rane must have lost it out of his pocket as we went along," cried

Ellen. "He said, you know, that he felt so sure he had put it in. What

is to be done with it?"

"Wear it instead of your own until they come back again," said Arthur.

"Bessy can then take her choice of the two."

Accepting the suggestion without thought of dissent, Ellen took off

her right glove and held out the other hand for the ring. He did not

give it. Bending forward, he took her right hand and put it on for

her.

"It fits as well as my own did."

Their eyes met. He had her hand still, as if trying how far the ring

fitted. Her sweet face was like a damask rose.

"I trust I may put one on to better purpose some day, Ellen," came the

murmuring, whispered, tremulous words. "Meanwhile--if Bessy does not

claim this, remember that I have placed it on your finger."

Not another syllable, not another look from either. Captain Bohun sat

down in his corner; Ellen in hers, her hot face bent over the glove

she was putting on, and fully believing that earth had changed to

Paradise.

CHAPTER XII.

JELLY'S INDISCRETION.

The days went on, and Dr. Rane's house was being made ready for the

reception of the bride. No time could be lost, as the wedding tour was

intended to be so short a one. As Jelly said, They would be at home

before folk could look round. Mrs. Cumberland presented the new carpet

for the drawing-room; the furniture that had been the first Mrs.

North's, arrived from Dallory Hall. Molly Green arrived with it,

equally to take up her abode in the house of Dr. Rane. The arranging

of these things, with the rest of the preparations, was carried on

with a considerable amount of bustle and gossip, Jelly being at the

doctor's house continually, and constituting herself chief mistress of

the ceremonies. Phillis and Molly Green, with native humility,

deferred to her in all things.

It was said in a previous chapter that Jelly was one of those who

retained an interest in the anonymous letter. She had a special cause

for it. Jelly in her propensity to look into her neighbours' affairs,

was given to taking up any mysterious cause, and making it her own.

Her love of the marvellous was great, her curiosity insatiable. But

Jelly's interest in this matter was really a personal one and

concerned herself. It was connected with Timothy Wilks.

Amongst Jelly's other qualities and endowments, might be ranked one

that was pre-eminent--love of admiration. Jelly could not remember to

have been without an "acquaintance" for above a month at a time since

the days when she left off pinafores. No sooner did she quarrel with

one young man and dismiss him, than she took up another. Dallory

wondered that of all her numerous acquaintances she had never married:

but, as Jelly coolly said, to have a suitor at your beck and call was

one thing, and to be tied to a husband was quite another. So Jelly was

Jelly still; and perhaps it might be conceded that the fault was her

own. She liked her independence.

The reigning "acquaintance" at this period happened to be Timothy

Wilks. Jelly patronized _him_; _he_ was devoted to her. There was a

trifling difference in their ages--some ten years probably, and all on

Jelly's side--but such a disparity had often happened before. Jelly

had distinguished Tim by the honour of taking him to be her young man;

and when the damaging whisper fell upon him, that he had probably

written the anonymous letter resulting in the death of Edmund North,

Jelly resented the aspersion far more than Timothy did. "I'll find out

who did do it, if it costs me a year's wages and six months'

patience," avowed Jelly to herself in the first burst of indignation.

But Jelly found she could not arrive at that satisfactory result any

sooner than other people. It is true, she possessed a slight clue that

they did not, in the few memorable words she had overheard that

moonlight night between her mistress and Dr. Rane, but they did not

assist her. The copy of the letter was said to have dropped out of Dr.

Rane's pocketbook on somebody's carpet, and he denied that it had so

dropped. Neither more nor less could Jelly make of the matter than

this: and she laboured under the disadvantage of not being able to

speak of what she had overheard, unless she confessed that she had

been a listener. Considering who had been the speakers, Jelly did not

choose to do that. From that time until this, quite two months, had

the matter rankled in Jelly's mind; she had kept her ears open and put

cautious questions whenever she thought they might avail, and all to

no purpose. But in this, the first week of July, Jelly had a little

light thrown on the clue by Molly Green. The very day that damsel

arrived at Dr. Rane's as helpmate to Phillis, and Jelly had gone in

with her domineering orders, the conversation happened to turn on

plum-pudding--Phillis having made a currant-dumpling for dinner, and

let the water get into it--and Molly Green dropped a few words which

Jelly's ears caught up. They were only to the effect that Mrs. Gass

had asked her whether she did not let fall on her carpet a receipt for

making plum-pudding, the night of Edmund North's attack; which receipt

Mrs. Gass had said, might have belonged to madam, and been brought

from the Hall by Molly Green's petticoats. Jelly put a wary question

or two to the girl, and then let the topic pass without further

comment. That same evening she betook herself to Mrs. Gass, acting

craftily. "Where's that paper that was found on your carpet the night

Edmund North was taken?" asked Jelly boldly. Upon which Mrs. Gass was

seized with astonishment so entire that in the moment's confusion she

made one or two inconvenient admissions, just stopping short of the

half-suspicion she had entertained of Dr. Rane.

In the days gone by, when Mrs. Gass was a servant herself, Jelly's

relatives--really respectable people--had patronized her. Mrs. Gass

was promoted to what she was; but she assumed no fine airs in

consequence, as the reader has heard, and she and Jelly had remained

very good friends. Vexed with herself for having incautiously admitted

that the paper found was the copy of the anonymous letter, Mrs. Gass

turned on Jelly and gave her a sharp reprimand for taking her

unawares, and for trying to pry into what did not concern her. Jelly

came away, not very much wiser than she went, but with a spirit of

unrest that altogether refused to be soothed. She dared not pursue the

inquiry openly, out of respect to her mistress and Dr. Rane, but she

resolved to pump Molly Green. This same Molly was niece to the people

with whom Timothy Wilks lodged, and rather more friendly with the

latter gentleman than Jelly liked.

On the following morning when Jelly had swallowed her breakfast, she

went into the next house with her usual want of ceremony. Phillis and

Molly Green were on their knees laying down the new carpet in the

drawing-room, tugging and hammering to the best of their ability,

their gowns pinned round their waists, their sleeves up to the elbows;

Phillis little and old, and weak-looking; Molly a comely girl of

twenty, with rosy cheeks.

"Well, you must be two fools!" was Jelly's greeting, after taking in

appearances. "As if you could expect to put down a heavy Brussels

yourselves! Why didn't you get Turtle's men here? They served the

carpet, and they ought to put it down."

"They promised to be here at seven o'clock this morning, and now it's

nine," mildly responded Phillis, her pleasant dark eyes raised to

Jelly's. "We thought we'd try and do it ourselves, so as to be able to

get the table and chairs in, and the room finished. Perhaps Turtles

have forgot it."

"I'd forget them, I know, if it was me, when I wanted to buy another

carpet," said Jelly, tartly.

But, even as she spoke, a vehicle was heard to stop at the gate.

Inquisitive Jelly looked from the window, and recognized it as

Turtle's. It seemed to contain one or two pieces of new furniture.

Phillis did not know that any had been coming, and went out. Molly

Green rose from her knees, and stood regarding the carpet. This was

Jelly's opportunity.

"Now, then!" she cried sharply, confronting the girl with imperious

gesture. "Did you drop that, or did you not, Molly Green?"

Molly Green seemed quite bewildered by the address--as well she might

be. "Drop what?" she asked.

"That plum-pudding receipt on Mrs. Gass's parlour carpet."

"Well, I never!" returned Molly after a pause of surprise. "What is it

to you, Jelly, if I did?"

Now the girl only spoke so by way of retort; in a spirit of banter.

Jelly, hardly believing her ears, accepted it as an admission that

she had dropped it. And so the two went floundering on, quite at

cross-purposes.

"Don't stare at me like that, Molly Green. I want a straightforward

answer. Did it drop from your skirts?"

"It didn't drop from my hands. As to staring, it's you that's doing

that, Jelly, not me."

"Where had you picked up the receipt? Out of Mr. Edmund North's room?"

"Out of Mr. Edmund North's room!" echoed Molly in wonder. "Whatever

should have brought me doing that?"

"It was the night he was taken ill."

"And if it was! I didn't go a-nigh him."

A frightful thought now came over Jelly, turning her quite faint. What

if the girl had gone to her aunt Green's that night and picked the

paper up there? In that case it could not fail to be traced home to

Timothy Wilks.

"Did you call in at your aunt's that same evening, Molly Green?"

"Suppose I did?" retorted Molly.

"And how _dare_ you call in there, and bring--bring--receipts away

with you surreptitious?" shrieked Jelly in her anger.

Molly Green stooped to pick up the hammer lying at her feet, speaking

quietly as she did so. Some noise was beginning to be heard outside,

caused by Turtle's men getting a piano into the house, and Phillis

talking to them.

"I can't think what you are a-driving at, Jelly. As to calling in at

aunt's, I have a right to do it when I'm out, if time allows. Which it

had not that night, at any rate, for I never went nowhere but to the

druggist's and Mrs. Gass's. I ran all the way to Dallory, and ran back

again; and I don't think I stopped to speak to a single soul, but

Timothy Wilks."

Jelly's spirits, which had been rising, fell to wrath again at the

name. "You'd better say you got it from _him_, Molly Green. Don't

spare him, poor fellow; whiten yourself."

Molly was beginning to feel just a little wrathful in her turn. Though

Jelly was a lady's-maid and superior to herself with her red arms and

rough hands, that could be no reason for attacking her in this way.

"And what if I did get it from him, pray? A plum-pudding

prescription's no crime."

"But a copy of an anonymous letter _is_," retorted Jelly, the moment's

anger causing her to forget caution. "Don't you try to brazen it out

to me, girl."

"WHAT?" cried Molly, staring with all her eyes.

But in a moment Jelly's senses had come back to her. She set herself

coolly to remedy the mischief.

"To think that my mind should have run off from the pudding-receipt to

that letter of poor Mr. Edmund's! It's your fault, Molly Green,

bothering my wits out of me! Where _did_ you pick up the paper? There.

Answer that; and let's end it."

Molly thought it might be as well to end it; she was growing tired of

the play: besides, here were Turtle's men coming into the room to

finish the carpet.

"I never had the receipt at all, Jelly, and it's not possible it could

have dropped from me: that's the blessed truth. After talking to me,

just as you've done, and turning me inside out, as one may say, Mrs.

Gass as good as confessed that it might have fell out of her own

bundle of receipts that she keeps in the sideboard drawer."

Slowly, Jelly arrived at a conviction that Molly Green, in regard to

knowing nothing about the paper, must be telling the truth. It did not

tend to lessen her anger.

"Then why on earth have you been keeping up this farce with me? I'll

teach you manners with your betters, girl."

"Well, why did you set upon me?" was the good-humoured answer.

"There's no such great treason in dropping a plum-pudding-receipt,

even if I had done it--which I didn't. I don't like to be brow-beat

for nothing: and it's not your place to do it, Jelly."

Jelly said no more. Little did she suspect that Mr. Richard North,

leaning against the door-post of the half-open drawing-room door,

whilst he watched the movements of the men, had heard every syllable

of the colloquy. Coming round to see what progress was being made in

the house, before he went to the works for the day, it chanced that he

arrived at the same time as Turtle's cart. The new piano was a present

from himself to Bessy.

Turtle's men leaving the piano in the hall, went into the room to

finish the carpet, and Jelly came out of it. She found her arm touched

by Mr. Richard North. He motioned her into the dining-room: followed,

and closed the door.

"Will you tell me the meaning of what you have just been saying to

Molly Green?"

The sudden question--as Jelly acknowledged to herself afterwards--made

her creep all over. For once in her life she was dumb.

"I heard all you said, Jelly, happening to be standing accidentally at

the door. What was it that was dropped on Mrs. Gass's carpet the night

of my brother's illness?"

"It--was--a receipt for making plum-pudding, sir," stammered Jelly,

turning a little white.

"I think not, Jelly," replied Richard North, gazing into her eyes with

quiet firmness. "You spoke of a copy of an anonymous letter; and I am

sure, by your tone, you were then speaking the truth. As I have

overheard so much, you must give me a further explanation."

"I'd have spent a pound out of my pocket, rather than this should have

happened," cried Jelly, with much ardour.

"You need not fear to tell _me_. I am no tattler, as you know."

Had there been only the ghost of a chance to stand out against the

command, Jelly would have caught at it. But there was none. She

disclosed what she knew: more than she need have done. Warming with

her subject, when the narrative had fairly set in--as it was in

Jelly's gossiping nature to warm--she also told of the interview she

had been a partial witness to between Mrs. Cumberland and the doctor,

and the words she had overheard.

Richard North looked grave--startled. He said very little: only

cautioned Jelly never to speak of the subject again to other people.

"I suppose you will be asking Mrs. Gass about it, sir," cried Jelly,

as he was turning to leave.

"I shall. And should be thankful to hear from her that it really was

nothing more than a receipt for plum-pudding, Jelly."

Jelly's head gave an incredulous toss. "I hope you'll not let her

think that I up and told you spontaneous, Mr. Richard. After saying to

her that I should never open my lips about it to living mortal, she'd

think I can't keep my word, sir."

"Be at ease, Jelly; she shall not suppose I learnt it by any thing but

accident."

"And I am glad he knows it, after all!" decided Jelly to herself, as

she watched him away up the Ham. "Perhaps he'll now be able to get at

the rights and the wrongs of the matter."

Richard North walked along, full of trouble. It could not be but

that he should have taken up a suspicion that Oliver Rane--now his

brother-in-law--might have been the author of the anonymous letter.

How, else, could its copy have dropped from his pocketbook--if,

indeed, it had so dropped? Jelly had not thrown so much as a shadow of

hint upon the doctor; either she failed to see the obvious inference,

or controlled herself to caution: but Richard North could put

two-and-two together. He went straight to Mrs. Gass's, and found that

lady at breakfast in her dining-room, with window thrown up to the

warm summer air.

"What is it you, Mr. Richard?" she cried, rising to shake hands. "I'm

a'most ashamed to be found breakfasting at this hour; but the truth

is, I overslept myself: and that idiot of a girl never came to tell me

the time. The first part of the night I had no sleep at all: 'twas

three o'clock before I closed my eyes."

"Were you not well?" asked Richard.

"I'd a touch of my pain; nothing more. Which is indigestion, Dr. Rane

says: and he's about right. Is it a compliment to ask you to take some

breakfast, Mr. Richard? The eggs are fresh, and here's some downright

good tea."

Richard answered that it would be only a compliment; he had

breakfasted with his father and Arthur Bohun before leaving home. His

eyes ran dreamily over the white damask cloth, as if he were admiring

what stood on it; the pretty china, the well-kept silver, the vase of

fresh roses. Mrs. Gass liked to have things nice about her, although

people called her vulgar. In reality Richard saw nothing. His mind was

absorbed with what he had to ask, and with how he should ask it.

In a pause, made by Mrs. Gass's draining her cup of tea, Richard North

bent forward and opened the communication, speaking in low and

confidential tones.

"I have come to you thus early for a little information, Mrs. Gass.

Will you kindly tell me what were the contents of the paper that was

found here on your carpet, the night of Edmund's seizure?"

From the look that Mrs. Gass's countenance assumed at the question, it

might have been thought that she was about to have a seizure herself.

Her eyes grew round, her cheek and nose red. For a full minute she

made no answer.

"What cause can you have to ask me that, Mr. Richard? _You_ can't know

nothing about it."

"Yes, I can; and do. I know that such a paper was found; I fear it was

a copy of the anonymous letter. But I have come to you for

particulars."

"My patience!" ejaculated Mrs. Gass. "To think you should have got

hold of it at last. Who in the world told you, sir?"

"Jelly. But----"

"Drat that girl!" warmly interposed Mrs. Gass. "Her tongue is as long

as from here to yonder."

"But not intentionally, I was about to add. I overheard her say a

chance word, and I insisted upon her disclosing to me what she knew.

There is no blame due to Jelly, Mrs. Gass."

"I say Yes there is, Mr. Richard. What right has she to blab out

chance words about other folk's business? Let her stick to her own.

That tongue of hers is worse than a steam-engine; once set going, it

won't be stopped."

"Well, we will leave Jelly. It may be for the better that I should

know this. Tell me all about it, my dear old friend."

Thus adjured, Mrs. Gass spoke; telling the tale from the beginning.

Richard listened in silence.

"He denied that it came out of his pocketbook?" was the first remark

he made.

"Denied it out and out. And then my thoughts turned naturally to Molly

Green; for no other stranger had been in the room but them two. He

said perhaps she had brought it in her petticoats from the Hall;

but I don't think it could have been. I'm afraid--I'm _afraid_, Mr.

Richard--that it must have dropped from his pocketbook."

Their eyes met: each hesitating to speak out the conviction lying at

heart, notwithstanding there had been confidential secrets between

them before to-day. Richard was thinking that he ought not to have

married Bessy--at least, until it was cleared up.

"Why did you not tell me, Mrs. Gass?"

"It was in my mind to do so--I said a word or two--but then, you see,

I _couldn't_ think it was him that wrote it," was her answer. "Mrs.

Cumberland told me she saw the anonymous letter itself; Mr. North

showed it her; and that it was not a bit like any handwriting she ever

met with. Suppose he is innocent--would it have been right for me to

come out with a tale, even to you, Mr. Richard, that he might have

been guilty?"

On this point Richard said no more. All the talking in the world now

could not undo the marriage, and he was never one to reproach

uselessly. Mrs. Gass resumed.

"If I had spoke ever so, I don't suppose it would have altered things,

Mr. Richard. There was no proof; and, failing that, you wouldn't have

liked to say anything at all to Miss Bessy. Any way they are man and

wife now."

"I hope--I _hope_ he did not write it!" said Richard, fervently.

Mrs. Gass gave a sweep with her arm to all the china together, as she

bent her earnest face nearer to Richard's.

"Let's remember this much to our comfort, Mr. Richard: if it _was_

him, he never thought to harm a hair of your brother's head. He must

have wrote it to damage Alexander. Oliver Rane has looked upon

Alexander as his mortal enemy--as a man who did him a right down bad

turn and spoilt his prospects--as a man upon whom it was a'most a duty

to be revenged."

"Do you think this?" cried Richard, rather at sea.

"No; but I say he thinks it. He never meant worse nor better by the

letter than to drive Alexander away from the place where, as Rane

fancies, he only had a footing by treachery. That is, _if_ he wrote it.

Sometimes I think he did, and sometimes I think he didn't."

"What is to be done?"

"Nothing. You can do nothing. You and me must just bury it between us,

sir, for Miss Bessy's sake. It would be a nasty thing for her if a

whisper of this should go abroad, let him be as innocent as the babe

unborn. They are fond of one another, and it would just be a cruelty

to have stopped the marriage with _this_. He is a well-intentioned man,

and I don't see but what they'll be happy together. Let us hope that

he has made his peace with the Lord, and that it won't be visited upon

him."

"Amen!" Was the mental response of Richard North.

CHAPTER XIII.

COMING HOME.

Dashing up to Dallory Hall, just a week and a day after the wedding,

came Mrs. North. Madam had learnt the news. Whilst she was reposing in

all security in Paris, amidst a knot of friends who had chosen to be

there at that season, Matilda North happened to take up a _Times_

newspaper of some two or three days old, and saw the account of the

marriage: "Oliver Rane, M.D., of Dallory Ham to Bessy, daughter of

John North, of Dallory Hall, and of Elizabeth, his first wife." Madam

rose up, her face flaming, and clutched the journal: she verily

believed Miss Matilda was playing a farce upon her. No: the

announcement was there in plain black and white. Making her hasty

arrangements to quit the French capital, she came thundering home: and

arrived the very day that Dr. and Mrs. Rane returned.

A letter had preceded her. A letter of denouncing wrath, that had made

her husband shake in his shoes. Poor Mr. North looked tremblingly out

for the arrival, caught a glimpse of the carriage and of madam's face,

and slipped out by the back-door into the fields. Where he remained

wandering about for hours.

So madam found no one to receive her. Richard was at the works,

Captain Bohun had been out all the afternoon.

Nothing increases wrath like having no object to expend it on; and

madam foiled, might have sat for a picture of fury. The passion that

had been bubbling higher and higher all the way from Paris, found no

escape at boiling point.

One of the servants happened to come in her way; the first housemaid,

who had been head over Molly Green. Madam stopped her; bit her lips

for calmness, and then inquired particulars of the wedding with a

smooth face.

"Was it a runaway match, Lake?"

"Goodness, no, madam!" was Lake's answer, who was apt to be outspoken,

even to her imperious mistress. "Things were being got ready for a

month beforehand; and my master would have gone to church to give Miss

Bessy away himself, but for not being well. All us servants went to

see it."

Little by little, madam heard every detail. Captain Bohun was

best man; Mr. Richard took out Miss Adair, who was bridesmaid, and

looked lovely. The bride and bridegroom drove right away from the

church-door. Captain Bohun went back in the carriage with Miss Adair;

Mr. Richard went off on foot to the works. Miss Bessy--leastways Mrs.

Oliver Rane now--had had some furniture sent to her new home from the

Hall, and Molly Green was there as housemaid. That Lake should glow

with intense gratification at being enabled to tell all this, was only

in accordance with frail humanity: she knew what a dose it was for

madam; and madam was disliked in the household more than poison. But

Lake was hardly prepared for the ashy, tint that spread over madam's

features, when she came to the part that told of the homeward drive of

her son with Ellen Adair.

The girl was in the midst of her descriptions when Arthur Bohun came

in. Madam saw him sauntering lazily up the gravel-drive, and swept

down in her fine Parisian costume of white-and-black brocaded silk,

lappets of lace floating from her hair. They met in the Hall.

"Why! is it you, mother?" cried Arthur in surprise--for he had no idea

the invasion might be expected so soon. "Have you come home?"

He advanced to kiss her. Striving to be as dutiful as she would allow

him to be, he was willing to observe all ordinary relations between

mother and son: but of affection there existed none. Mrs. North drew

back from the offered embrace, and haughtily motioned him to the

drawing-room. Matilda sat there, sullen and listless: she was angry at

being brought away summarily from Paris.

"Why did I assist at Bessy's wedding?" replied Arthur, parrying the

attack with light good humour, as he invariably strove to do on these

occasions. "Because I liked it. It was great fun. Especially to see

Rane hunting in every pocket for the ring, and turning as red as a

salamander."

"What business had you to do such a thing?" retorted madam, her face

dark with the passion she was suppressing. "How dared you do it?"

"Do what, madam?"

Madam stamped a little. "You know without asking, sir; personally

countenance the wedding."

"Was there any reason why I should not do so? Bessy stands to me as a

sister: and I like her. I am glad she is married, and I hope sincerely

they'll have the best of luck."

"I had forbidden the union with Oliver Rane," stamped madam. "Do you

hear?--_forbidden it_. You knew that as well as she did."

"But then, don't you see, mother mine, you had no particular right to

forbid it. If Matilda, there, took it into her head to marry some

knight or other, you would have a voice in the matter, for or against;

but Bessy was responsible to her father only."

"Don't bring my name into your nonsense, Arthur," struck in Matilda,

with a frown.

Madam, looking from one to the other, was biting her lips.

"They had the wedding whilst you were away that it might be got over

quietly," resumed Arthur, in his laughing way, determined not to give

in an inch, even though he had to tell a home truth or two. "For my

part, mother, I have never understood what possible objection you

could have to Rane."

"That is my business," spoke Mrs. North. "I wish he and those

Cumberland people were all at the bottom of the sea. How dared you

disgrace yourself, Arthur Bohun?"

"Disgrace myself?"

"You did. You, a Bohun, to descend to companionship with _them!_ Fie

upon you! And you have been said to inherit your father's pride."

"As I hope I do, in all proper things. I am unable to understand your

distinctions, madam," he added, laughingly. "Rane is as good as Bessy,

for all I see. As good as we are."

Madam caught up a hand-screen, as if she would have liked to throw it

at him. Her hand trembled, with emotion or temper.

"There's some girl living with them. They tell me you went home with

her in the carriage!"

Arthur Bohun suddenly turned his back upon them, as if to see who

might be coming, for distant footsteps were heard advancing. But for

that, madam might have seen a hot flush illumine his face.

"Well? What else, mother? Of course I took her home--Miss Adair."

"In the face and eyes of Dallory!"

"Certainly. And we had faces and eyes out that morning, I can tell

you. It is not every day a Miss North gets married."

"How came _you_ to take her home?"

"Dick asked me to do so. There was no one else to ask, you see. Mrs.

Gass cheered us in going by, as if we had been an election. She had a

shining yellow gown on and white bows in her cap."

His suavity was so great, his determination not to be ruffled so

evident, that Mrs. North felt partly foiled. It was not often she

attacked Arthur; he always met it in this way, and no satisfaction

came of it. She could have struck him as he stood.

"What is the true tale about the ring, Arthur?" asked Matilda, in the

silence come to by Mrs. North. "Lake says Oliver Rane really lost it."

"Really and truly, Matty."

"Were they married without a ring?"

"Some one present produced one," he replied carelessly, in his

invincible dislike to mention Ellen Adair before his mother and

sister: a dislike that had ever clung to him. Did it arise from the

reticence that invariably attends love, this feeling?--or could it

have been some foreshadowing, some dread instinct of what the future

was to bring forth?

"How came Dr. Rane to lose the ring?"

"Carelessness, I suppose. We found it in the carriage, going home. He

must have dropped it accidentally."

"Peace, Matilda! Keep your foolish questions for a fitting time,"

stormed madam. "How dare you turn your back upon me, Arthur? What

money has gone out with the girl?"

Arthur turned to answer. In spite of his careless manner, he was

biting his lips with shame and vexation. It was so often he had to

blush for his mother.

"I'm sure I don't know, if you mean with Bessy; it is not my business

that I should presume to ask. Here comes Dick: I thought it was his

step. You can inquire of him, madam."

Richard North looked into the drawing-room, unconscious of the storm

awaiting him. Matilda sat back in an easy-chair tapping her foot

discontentedly; Arthur Bohun toyed with a rose at the window; madam,

standing upright by the beautiful inlaid table, her train sweeping the

rich carpet, confronted him.

But there was something about Richard North that instinctively subdued

madam; she had never domineered over him as she did over her husband,

and Bessy, and Arthur; and at him she did not rave and rant. Calm

always, sufficiently courteous to her, and yet holding his own in

self-respect, Richard and madam seldom came to an issue. But she

attacked him now: demanding why this iniquity--the wedding--had been

allowed to be enacted.

"Pardon me, Mrs. North, if I meet your question by another," calmly

spoke Richard. "You complain of my sister's marriage as though it were

a wrong against yourself. What is your reason?"

"I said it should not take place."

"Will you tell me why you oppose it?"

"No. It is sufficient that, to my mind, it did not present itself as

suitable. I have resolutely set my face against Dr. Rane and his

statue of a mother, who presumes to call the Master of Dallory Hall

John! And I forbade Bessy to think of him."

"But--pardon me, Mrs. North--Bessy was not bound to obey you. Her

father and I saw no objection to Dr. Rane."

"Was it right, was it honourable, that you should seize upon my

absence to marry her in this indecent manner?--before Edmund was cold

in his grave?"

"Circumstances control cases," said Richard. "As for marrying her

whilst you were away, it was done in the interests of peace. Your

opposition, had you been at home, would not have prevented the

marriage; it was therefore as well to get it over in quietness."

A bold avowal. Richard stood before madam when he made it, upright as

herself. She saw it was useless to contend: and all the abuse in the

world would not undo it now.

"What money has gone out with her?"

It was a question that she had no right to put. Richard answered it,

however.

"At present, not any. To-morrow I shall give Rane a cheque for two

hundred pounds. Time was, madam, when I thought my sister would have

gone from us with twenty thousand."

"We are not speaking of what was, but of what is," said madam, an

unpleasant sneer on her face. "Mr. North--to hear him speak--cannot

spare the two hundred."

"Quite true; Mr. North has it not to spare," said Richard. "It is I

who give it to my sister. Drained though we constantly are for money,

I could not, for very shame, suffer Bessy to go to her husband quite

penniless."

"She has not gone penniless," retorted madam, brazening the thing out.

"I hear the Hall has been dismantled for her."

"Oh, mother!" interposed Arthur in a rush of pain.

"Hold your tongue; it is no affair of _yours_," spoke Mrs. North. "A

cartload of furniture has gone out of the Hall."

"Bessy's own," said Richard. "It was her mother's; and we have always

considered it Bessy's. A few trifling mahogany things, madam, that you

have never condescended to take notice of, and that never, in point of

fact, have belonged to you. They have gone with Bessy, poor girl; and

I trust Rane will make her a happier home than she has had here."

"I trust they will both be miserable," flashed madam.

Equable in temper though Richard North was, there are limits to

endurance; he found his anger rising, and quitted the room abruptly.

Arthur Bohun went limping after him: in any season of emotion, he was

undeniably lame.

"I would beg your pardon for her, Dick, in all entreaty," he

whispered, putting his arm within Richard's, "but that my tongue is

held by shame and humiliation. It was an awful misfortune for you all

when your father married her."

"We can only make the best of it, Arthur," was the kindly answer. "It

was neither your fault nor mine."

"Where is the good old pater?"

"Hiding somewhere. Not a doubt of it."

"Let us go and find him, Dick. He may be the better for having us with

him to-day. If she was not my mother--and upon my word and honour,

Richard, I sometimes think she is not--I'd strap on my armour and do

brave battle for him."

The bride and bridegroom were settling down in their house. Bessy,

arranging her furniture in her new home, was busy and happy as the

summer day was long. Some of the mahogany things were terribly

old-fashioned, but the fact never occurred to Bessy. The carpet was

bright; the piano, Richard's present, and a great surprise, was

beautiful. It was so kind of him to give her one--she who was only a

poor player at best, and had thought of asking madam to be allowed to

have the unused old thing in the old schoolroom at Dallory Hall. She

clung to Richard with tears in her eyes as she kissed and thanked him.

He kissed her again, and gave his good wishes for her happiness, but

Bessy thought him somewhat out of spirits. Richard North handed over

two hundred pounds to them: a most acceptable offering to Dr. Rane.

"Thank you, Richard," he heartily said, grasping his brother-in-law's

hand. "I shall be getting on so well shortly as to need no help for my

wife's sake or for mine." And Richard knew that he was anticipating

the period when the other doctor should have left, and the whole

practice be in his own hands.

It was on the third or fourth morning after their return, that Dr.

Rane, coming home from seeing his patients, met his fellow-surgeon,

arm-in-arm with a stranger. Mr. Alexander stopped to introduce him.

"Mr. Seeley, Rane," he said. "My friend and successor."

Had a shot been fired at Dr. Rane, he could scarcely have felt more

astounded. In the moment's confused blow, he almost stammered.

"Your successor? Here?"

"My successor in the practice. I have sold him the goodwill, and he

has come down to be introduced."

Dr. Rane bowed. The new doctor put out his hand. That same day Dr.

Rane went over to Mr. Alexander's and reproached him.

"You might at least have given me the refusal had you wanted to sell

it."

"My good fellow, I promised it to Seeley ages ago," was the answer.

"He knew I had a prospect of the London appointment: in fact, helped

me to get it."

What was to be said? Nothing. But Oliver Rane felt as though a bitter

blow had again fallen upon him, blighting the fair vista of the

future.

"Don't be down-hearted, Oliver," whispered Bessy, hopefully, as she

clung around him when he went in and spoke of the disappointment. "We

shall be just as happy with a small practice as a large one. It will

all come right--with God's blessing on us."

But Oliver Rane, looking back on a certain deed of the past, felt by

no means sure in his heart of hearts that the blessing would be upon

them.

PART THE SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

OF WHAT WAS, AND OF WHAT MIGHT BE.

Bessy Rane sat at the large window of her dining-room in the coming

twilight. Some twelve months had elapsed since her marriage, and

summer was round again. Her work had dropped on her lap: it was that

of stitching some wristbands for her husband: and she sat inhaling the

sweet scent of the flowers, and watching Jelly's movements in Mrs.

Cumberland's dining-room, facing her. Jelly had a candle in her hand,

apparently searching for something. Bessy leaned forward to pluck a

sprig of sweet verbena, and sat on tranquilly.

At the table behind her sat Dr. Rane, writing as fast as the waning

light would permit him. Some unusual and peculiar symptoms had

manifested themselves in a patient he had been recently attending, and

he was making them and the case into a paper for a medical

publication, in the hope that it would bring him back a remunerative

guinea or two.

"Oliver, I am sure you can't see," said Bessy presently, looking

round.

"It is almost blindman's holiday, dear. Will you ring for the lamp?"

Mrs. Rane rose. But, instead of ringing for the lamp, she went up to

him, and put her hand on his shoulder persuasively.

"Take a quarter-of-an-hour's rest, Oliver. You will find all the

benefit of it; and it is not quite time to light the lamp. Let us take

a stroll in the garden."

"You are obstructing what little light is left, Bessy; standing

between me and the window."

"Of course I am. I'm doing it on purpose. Come, Oliver! You ought to

know a great deal better than I do that it is bad to try the eyes,

sir. _Please_, Oliver."

Yielding to her entreaties, he pushed the paper from him with a sigh

of weariness, and they stepped from the window into the garden. Bessy

passed her hand within his arm; and, turning towards the more secluded

paths, they began to converse with one another in low tones.

Many a twilight half-hour had they thus paced together of late,

talking together of what was and of what might be. The first year of

their marriage had not been one of success in a pecuniary point of

view; for Dr. Rane's practice did not improve. He earned barely

sufficient for their moderate wants. Bessy, as cash-keeper, had a

difficulty in making both ends meet. But the fact was not known; never

a syllable of it transpired from either of them. Dr. Rane was seen out

and about a great deal, going to and fro amongst his patients; and the

world did not suspect that his returns were so small.

The new surgeon, Seeley, had stepped into all Mr. Alexander's

practice, and was flourishing. Dr. Rane's, as before, was chiefly

confined to the lower classes, especially those belonging to the North

Works; and from certain circumstances, these men were not so supplied

with funds as they had been, and consequently were not so well able to

pay him. That Dr. Rane was bitterly mortified at not getting on

better, for his wife's sake as well as his own, could not be mistaken.

Bessy preached of hope cheerfully; of a bright future yet in store;

but he had lost faith in it.

It seemed to Dr. Rane that everything was a failure. The medical book

he had been engaged upon with persevering industry at the time of his

marriage, from which he had anticipated great things both in fame and

fortune, had not met with success. He had succeeded in getting it

published; but as yet there were no returns. He had sacrificed a sum

of money towards its publication; not a very large sum, it is true,

but larger than they could afford, and no one but themselves knew how

it had crippled them. Bessy said it would come back some day with

interest; for the present they had only to keep up a good heart and

live frugally.

Poor Bessy herself had one grief that she never spoke of even to

him--the want of offspring. There had been no prospect of it whatever;

and she so loved children! As week after week, month after month went

by, her disappointment was very keen. She was beginning to grow a

little reconciled to it now; and became only the more devoted to her

husband.

Mrs. Rane was an excellent manager in the household, spending the

smallest fraction that she could, consistently with comfort. It had

not yet come to the want of _that_. At the turn of the previous winter

old Phillis became ill and had to leave; and Bessy had since kept only

Molly Green. By a fortunate chance Molly understood cooking; she had

become a really excellent servant. At the small expense they lived at

now, Dr. Rane might perhaps have managed to continue to meet it whilst

he waited patiently for better luck; but he did not intend to do

anything of the sort. His only anxiety was to remove to another place,

as far away from Dallory Ham as possible.

Whether this thirst for migration would have arisen had his practice

become successful, cannot be told. We can only record things as they

were. With the disappointment--and other matters--lying upon him, the

getting away from Dallory had grown into a wild, burning desire, that

never left him by night or day. That one fatal mistake of his life

seemed to hang over him like a curse. It is true that when he penned

the letter so disastrous in its result, he had no more intention in

his heart of slaying or killing than had the paper he wrote on; he had

only thought of putting Alexander into disfavour at Dallory Hall; but

it had turned out otherwise, and Dr. Rane felt that he had a life to

answer for. He might have borne this; and at any rate his running away

from Dallory would neither lessen the heart's burden nor add to it;

but what he could not bear was the prospect of detection. Not a day

passed but he saw some one or other whose face tacitly reminded him

that such discovery might take place. He felt sure that Mrs. Gass

still suspected him of having written the letter; he knew that his

mother doubted it; he gathered a half suspicion of Jelly; he had more

than half one of Richard North; and how many others there might be he

knew not. Ever since the time when he had returned from his marriage

trip, he thought there had been an involuntary constraint in Richard's

manner to him; it could not be fancy. As to Jelly, the way he

sometimes caught her green eyes observing him, was enough to give the

shivers to a nervous man, which Dr. Rane was not. How he could have

committed the fatal mistake of putting that copy of the miserable

letter into his pocketbook, he never knew. He had tried his writing

and his sentences on two or three pieces of paper, but he surely

thought he had torn all up and burnt the pieces. Over and over again,

looking back upon his carelessness, he said to himself that it was

Fate. Not carelessness, in one sense of the word. Carelessness if you

will, but a carelessness that he could not go from in the arbitrary

dominions of Fate. Fate had been controlling him with her iron hand,

to bring his crime home to him; and he could not escape it. Whatever

it might have been, however--Fate, or want of caution--it had led to

his being a suspected man by some few around him; and continue to live

amongst them he would not. Dr. Rane was a proud man, liking in an

especial degree to stand well in the estimation of his fellows; to

have such a degradation as this brought publicly home to him would

well-nigh kill him with shame. Rather than face it he would have run

away to the remotest quarter of the habitable globe.

And he had quite imbued Bessy with the wish for change. She only

thought as he thought. Never suspecting the true reason of his wish to

get away and establish himself elsewhere, she only saw how real it

was. Of this they talked, night after night, pacing the garden paths.

"There seems to have been a spell of ill-luck attending me ever since

I settled in this place," he would say to her; "and I know it won't be

lifted whilst I stop here." He was saying it this very night.

"I hate the place, Bessy," he observed, looking up at the bright

evening star that began to show itself in the clear blue sky. "But for

my mother and you I should never have stayed in it. I wish I had the

money to buy a practice elsewhere. As it is, I must establish one."

"Yes," acquiesced Bessy. "But where? The great thing is--what other

place to decide upon."

Of course that was the chief thing. Dr. Rane looked down and kept

silence, pondering various matters in his mind. He thought it had

better be London. A friend of his, one Dr. Jones, who had been a

fellow-student in their hospital days, was doing a large practice as a

medical man in the neighbourhood of New York: he wanted assistance,

and had proposed to Dr. Rane to go over and join him. Nothing in the

world would Dr. Rane have liked better; and Bessy was willing to go

where he went, even to quit her native land for good; but Dr. Jones

did not offer this without an equivalent, and the terms he named, five

hundred pounds, were quite beyond the reach of Oliver Rane. So he

supposed it must be London. With the two hundred pounds that he hoped

to get for the goodwill of his own practice in Dallory Ham--at this

very moment he was trying to negociate with a gentleman for it in

private---he should set up in London, or else purchase a small share

in an established practice. Anything, anywhere, to get away, and to

leave the nightmare of daily-dreaded discovery behind him!

"Once we are away from this place, Bessy, we shall get on. I feel sure

of it. You won't long have to live like a hermit, from dread of the

cost of entertaining company, or to look at every sixpence before you

lay it out."

"I don't mind it, Oliver. You know how sorry I should be if you

thought of giving up our home here for my sake."

"But I don't; it's for my own as well," he hastily added. "You can't

realize what it is, Bessy, for a clever medical man--and I am that--to

be beaten back for ever into obscurity; to find no field for his

talents; to watch others of this generation rising into note and

usefulness. I have not got on here! Madam has schemed to prevent it.

Why she should have patronized Alexander; why she should patronize

Seeley; not for their sakes, but to oppose me; I have never been able

to imagine. Unless it was that my mother, when Fanny Gass, and Mr.

North were intimate as brother and sister in early life."

"And madam despises the Gass family and ours equally. It was a

black-letter day for us all when papa married her."

"That is no reason why she should have set her face against _me_. It

has been a fatal blight on me: worse than you and the world think for,

Bessy."

"I am sure you must have felt it so," murmured Bessy. "And she would

have stopped our marriage if she could."

"Whoever succeeds me here will speedily make a good practice of it.

You'll see. She has kept me from doing it. There's one blessed

thing--her evil influence cannot follow us elsewhere."

"I should like to become rich and have a large house, and get poor

papa to live with us," said Bessy hopefully. "Madam is worrying him

into his grave with her cruel temper. Oh, Oliver, I should like him to

come to us!"

"I'm sure I wouldn't object," replied Dr. Rane good-naturedly. "How

they will keep up the expenses at Dallory Hall if this strike is

prolonged, I cannot think. Serve madam right!"

"Do you hear much of the trouble, Oliver?"

"Much of it! Why, I hear nothing else. The men are fools. They'll cut

their own throats as sure as a gun. Your brother Richard sees it

coming."

"Sees what?" asked Bessy, not exactly understanding.

"Ruin," emphatically replied Dr. Rane. "The men will play at bo-peep

with reason until the trade has left them. Fools! Fools!"

"It's not the poor men, Oliver. I have lived amongst them--some of

them at any rate--since I was a child, and I don't like to hear them

blamed. It is that they are misled. Misled by the Trades' Unions."

"Nonsense!" replied Dr. Rane. "A man who has his living to earn ought

not to allow himself to be misled. There's his work to hand; let him

do it. A body of would-be autocrats might come down on me and say,

'Oliver Rane, we want you to join our society: which forbids doctors

to visit patients except under its own rules and regulations.' Suppose

I listened to them?--and stayed at home, and let Seeley, or any one

else, snap up my practice, and awoke presently to find my means of

living irrevocably gone?--nothing left for me but the workhouse?

Should I deserve pity? Certainly not."

Bessy laughed a little. They were going in, and she--still keeping her

hand within his arm--coaxed him yet for another moment's recreation

into the drawing-room. Sitting down to the piano in the fading

light--the piano that Richard had given her--she began a song that her

husband was fond of, "O Bay of Dublin." That sweet song set to the air

of "Groves of Blarney," by the late Lady Dufferin. Bessy's voice was

weak and of no compass, but it was true and rather sweet; and she had

that, by no means common, gift of rendering every word as distinctly

heard as though it were spoken: so that her singing was pleasant to

listen to. Her husband liked it. He leaned against the window-frame,

now as she sang, in a deep reverie, gazing out on Dallory Ham, and at

the man lighting the roadside lamps. Dr. Rane never heard this song

but he wished he was the emigrant singing it, with some wide ocean

flowing between him and home.

"What's this, I wonder?"

Some woman, whom he did not recognize, had turned in at his gate and

was ringing the door-bell. Dr. Rane found he was called out to a

patient: one of the profitless people as usual.

"Piersons want me, Bessy," he looked into the room to say. "The man's

worse. I shall not be long."

And Bessy rose when she heard the street-door closed.

Taking a duster from the drawer, she carefully passed it over the keys

before closing her piano for the night. Very much did Bessy cherish

her drawing-room and its furniture. They did not use it very much: not

from fear of spoiling it, but because the other room with its large

bay window seemed the more cheerful; and people feel more at ease

in the room they usually sit in. Bessy took as much pride in

her house as though it had been one of the grandest in all Dallory:

happy as a queen in it, felt she. Stepping lightly over the

drawing-room carpet--fresh as the day when it came out of Turtle's

warehouse--touching, with a gentle finger, some pretty thing or other

on the tables as she passed, she opened the door and called to the

servant.

"Molly, it is time these shutters were shut."

Molly Green, in an apology of a cap tilted on her hair, and a white

muslin apron, came out of the kitchen. Molly liked to be as smart as

the best of them, although she had all the work to do. Which all was

not very much when aided by her mistress's good management.

"You had better light the hall-lamp," added Mrs. Rane, as she went

upstairs.

It was tolerably light still. Bessy often did what she was about to

do--namely, draw down the window-blinds; it saved Molly trouble. The

wide landing was less bare than it used to be; at the time of Dr.

Rane's marriage he had covered it with some green drugget, and put a

chair and a book-shelf there. It still looked too large, still

presented a contrast to the luxuriously furnished landing of Mrs.

Cumberland's opposite, especially when the two wide windows happened

to be open; but Bessy thought her own quite good enough. Of the two

back-rooms, one had been furnished as a spare bedchamber; the other

had not much in it besides Bessy's boxes that had come from the Hall.

Richard had spoken kindly to her about this last chamber. "Should any

contingency arise; sickness, or other; that you should require its

use, Bessy," he said, "and Rane does not find it quite convenient to

spare money for furniture, let me know, and I'll do it for you." She

had thanked him gratefully: but the contingency had not come yet.

Into this back-room first went Bessy, passed by her boxes, closed the

window, and drew the white blind down. From thence into the next

chamber--a pretty room with chintz curtains to the window and the

Arabian bed. Dr. Rane was very particular about having plenty of air

in his house, and would have every window open all day long. Next,

Bessy crossed the landing again to her own chamber. She had to pass

through the drab room (as may be remembered) to get to it. The drab

room was in just the same state that it used to be; Dr. Rane's glass

jars and other articles used in chemistry lying on one side its bare

floor. Formerly they were strewed about anywhere: under Bessy's neat

rule they were gathered into a small space. Sometimes Bessy thought

she should like to make this her own sitting and work-room: its window

looked towards the fields beyond Dallory Ham. Often, when she first

came to the house, she would softly say to her heart, "What a nice

day-nursery it would make!" She had left off saying it now.

Taking some work from a drawer in her own room, which was what she

went up for--for she knew that Oliver would tell her to leave off if

she attempted to stitch the wristbands by candle-light--she stood for

a minute at the window and saw some gentleman, whom she did not

recognize, turn out of Mr. Seeley's, and go towards Dallory.

"A fresh patient," she thought to herself, with a sigh very like envy.

"He gets them all. I wish a few would come to Oliver."

As she watched the stranger up the road, something in his height and

make put her in mind of her dead brother, Edmund. All her thoughts

went back to the unhappy time of his death, and to the letter that had

led to it.

"It's very good of Oliver to comfort me, saying he could not in any

case have lived long--and I suppose it was so," murmured Bessy; "but

that does not make it any the less shocking. He was killed. Cut off

without warning by that wicked, anonymous letter. And I don't believe

the writer will be ever traced now: even Richard seems to have cooled

in the pursuit, since he discovered it was not the man he had

suspected."

Close upon the return of Dr. and Mrs. Rane after their marriage, the

tall, thin stranger who had been seen with Timothy Wilks the night

before the anonymous letter was sent, and whom Richard North and

others fully believed to have been the writer, was discovered.

It proved to be a poor artist, travelling the country to take

sketches--who was sometimes rather too fond of being a boon companion

with whatever company he might happen to fall into. Hovering here some

days, hovering there, in pursuit of his calling, he at length made his

headquarters at Whitborough. Hearing he was suspected, he came forward

voluntarily, and convinced Richard North that he at least had had

nothing to do with the letter. Richard's answer was that he quite

believed him. And perhaps it was Richard North's manner at this time,

coupled with a remark he made to the effect that "it might be better

to allow all speculation on the point to rest," that first gave Dr.

Rane the idea of Richard's suspicion of himself. Things had been left

at rest since then: and oven Bessy, as we see, thought her brother was

growing cold.

Turning from the window with a sigh, given to the memory of her dead

brother, she passed through the ante-room to the landing on her way

downstairs. Mrs. Cumberland's landing opposite gave forth a brilliant

light as usual--for that lady liked to burn many lamps in her hall and

staircases--and Ann, the housemaid, was drawing down the window blind.

Mrs. Rane's window had never had a blind.

Molly Green was taking the supper-tray into the dining-room when she

went down. Bessy hovered about it, seeing that things were as her

husband liked them. She put his slippers ready, she drew his arm-chair

forward; ever solicitous for his comfort. To wait on him and make

things pleasant for him was the great happiness of her life. After

that she sat down and worked by lamplight, awaiting his return.

Whilst Dr. Rane, walking forth to see his patient and walking home

again, was buried in an unpleasant reverie, like a man in a dream.

That one dreadful mistake lay always with heavier weight upon him at

the solitary evening hour. Now and again he would almost fancy he

should see Edmund North looking out at him from the roadside hedges or

behind trees. At any sacrifice he must get away from the place, and

then perhaps a chance of peace might come to him: at least from this

ever-haunting dread of discovery. He would willingly give the half of

his remaining life to undo that past dark night's work.