'Hush! not so loud!' she answered, rising from her seat and going to the

door of the next room, whither her daughter had betaken herself. To Mrs.

Dornell's alarm, there sat Betty in a reverie, her round eyes fixed on

vacancy, musing so deeply that she did not perceive her mother's

entrance. She had heard every word, and was digesting the new knowledge.

Her mother felt that Falls-Park was dangerous ground for a young girl of

the susceptible age, and in Betty's peculiar position, while Dornell

talked and reasoned thus. She called Betty to her, and they took leave.

The Squire would not clearly promise to return and make King's-Hintock

Court his permanent abode; but Betty's presence there, as at former

times, was sufficient to make him agree to pay them a visit soon.

All the way home Betty remained preoccupied and silent. It was too plain

to her anxious mother that Squire Dornell's free views had been a sort

of awakening to the girl.

The interval before Dornell redeemed his pledge to come and see them was

unexpectedly short. He arrived one morning about twelve o'clock, driving

his own pair of black-bays in the curricle-phaeton with yellow panels

and red wheels, just as he had used to do, and his faithful old Tupcombe

on horseback behind. A young man sat beside the Squire in the carriage,

and Mrs. Dornell's consternation could scarcely be concealed when,

abruptly entering with his companion, the Squire announced him as his

friend Phelipson of Elm-Cranlynch.

Dornell passed on to Betty in the background and tenderly kissed her.

'Sting your mother's conscience, my maid!' he whispered. 'Sting her

conscience by pretending you are struck with Phelipson, and would ha'

loved him, as your old father's choice, much more than him she has

forced upon 'ee.'

The simple-souled speaker fondly imagined that it as entirely in

obedience to this direction that Betty's eyes stole interested glances

at the frank and impulsive Phelipson that day at dinner, and he laughed

grimly within himself to see how this joke of his, as he imagined it to

be, was disturbing the peace of mind of the lady of the house. 'Now Sue

sees what a mistake she has made!' said he.

Mrs. Dornell was verily greatly alarmed, and as soon as she could speak

a word with him alone she upbraided him. 'You ought not to have brought

him here. Oh Thomas, how could you be so thoughtless! Lord, don't you

see, dear, that what is done cannot be undone, and how all this foolery

jeopardizes her happiness with her husband? Until you interfered, and

spoke in her hearing about this Phelipson, she was as patient and as

willing as a lamb, and looked forward to Mr. Reynard's return with real

pleasure. Since her visit to Falls-Park she has been monstrous close-

mouthed and busy with her own thoughts. What mischief will you do? How

will it end?'

'Own, then, that my man was best suited to her. I only brought him to

convince you.'

'Yes, yes; I do admit it. But oh! do take him back again at once! Don't

keep him here! I fear she is even attracted by him already.'

'Nonsense, Sue. 'Tis only a little trick to tease 'ee!'

Nevertheless her motherly eye was not so likely to be deceived as his,

and if Betty were really only playing at being love-struck that day, she

played at it with the perfection of a Rosalind, and would have deceived

the best professors into a belief that it was no counterfeit. The

Squire, having obtained his victory, was quite ready to take back the

too attractive youth, and early in the afternoon they set out on their

return journey.

A silent figure who rode behind them was as interested as Dornell in

that day's experiment. It was the staunch Tupcombe, who, with his eyes

on the Squire's and young Phelipson's backs, thought how well the latter

would have suited Betty, and how greatly the former had changed for the

worse during these last two or three years. He cursed his mistress as

the cause of the change.

After this memorable visit to prove his point, the lives of the Dornell

couple flowed on quietly enough for the space of a twelvemonth, the

Squire for the most part remaining at Falls, and Betty passing and

repassing between them now and then, once or twice alarming her mother

by not driving home from her father's house till midnight.

The repose of King's-Hintock was broken by the arrival of a special

messenger. Squire Dornell had had an access of gout so violent as to be

serious. He wished to see Betty again: why had she not come for so long?

Mrs. Dornell was extremely reluctant to take Betty in that direction too

frequently; but the girl was so anxious to go, her interests latterly

seeming to be so entirely bound up in Falls-Park and its neighbourhood,

that there was nothing to be done but to let her set out and accompany

her.

Squire Dornell had been impatiently awaiting her arrival. They found him

very ill and irritable. It had been his habit to take powerful medicines

to drive away his enemy, and they had failed in their effect on this

occasion.

The presence of his daughter, as usual, calmed him much, even while, as

usual too, it saddened him; for he could never forget that she had

disposed of herself for life in opposition to his wishes, though she had

secretly assured him that she would never have consented had she been as

old as she was now.

As on a former occasion, his wife wished to speak to him alone about the

girl's future, the time now drawing nigh at which Reynard was expected

to come and claim her. He would have done so already, but he had been

put off by the earnest request of the young woman herself, which

accorded with that of her parents, on the score of her youth. Reynard

had deferentially submitted to their wishes in this respect, the

understanding between them having been that he would not visit her

before she was eighteen, except by the mutual consent of all parties.

But this could not go on much longer, and there was no doubt, from the

tenor of his last letter, that he would soon take possession of her

whether or no.

To be out of the sound of this delicate discussion Betty was accordingly

sent downstairs, and they soon saw her walking away into the

shrubberies, looking very pretty in her sweeping green gown, and

flapping broad-brimmed hat overhung with a feather.

On returning to the subject, Mrs. Dornell found her husband's reluctance

to reply in the affirmative to Reynard's letter to be as great as ever.

'She is three months short of eighteen!' he exclaimed. ''Tis too soon. I

won't hear of it! If I have to keep him off sword in hand, he shall not

have her yet.'

'But, my dear Thomas,' she expostulated, 'consider if anything should

happen to you or to me, how much better it would be that she should be

settled in her home with him!'

'I say it is too soon!' he argued, the veins of his forehead beginning

to swell. 'If he gets her this side o' Candlemas I'll challenge en-I'll

take my oath on't! I'll be back to King's-Hintock in two or three days,

and I'll not lose sight of her day or night!'

She feared to agitate him further, and gave way, assuring him, in

obedience to his demand, that if Reynard should write again before he

got back, to fix a time for joining Betty, she would put the letter in

her husband's hands, and he should do as he chose. This was all that

required discussion privately, and Mrs. Dornell went to call in Betty,

hoping that she had not heard her father's loud tones.

She had certainly not done so this time. Mrs. Dornell followed the path

along which she had seen Betty wandering, but went a considerable

distance without perceiving anything of her. The Squire's wife then

turned round to proceed to the other side of the house by a short cut

across the grass, when, to her surprise and consternation, she beheld

the object of her search sitting on the horizontal bough of a cedar,

beside her being a young man, whose arm was round her waist. He moved a

little, and she recognized him as young Phelipson.

Alas, then, she was right. The so-called counterfeit love was real. What

Mrs. Dornell called her husband at that moment, for his folly in

originally throwing the young people together, it is not necessary to

mention. She decided in a moment not to let the lovers know that she had

seen them. She accordingly retreated, reached the front of the house by

another route, and called at the top of her voice from a window,

'Betty!'

For the first time since her strategic marriage of the child, Susan

Dornell doubted the wisdom of that step.

Her husband had, as it were, been assisted by destiny to make his

objection, originally trivial, a valid one. She saw the outlines of

trouble in the future. Why had Dornell interfered? Why had he insisted

upon producing his man? This, then, accounted for Betty's pleading for

postponement whenever the subject of her husband's return was broached;

this accounted for her attachment to Falls-Park. Possibly this very

meeting that she had witnessed had been arranged by letter.

Perhaps the girl's thoughts would never have strayed for a moment if her

father had not filled her head with ideas of repugnance to her early

union, on the ground that she had been coerced into it before she knew

her own mind; and she might have rushed to meet her husband with open

arms on the appointed day.

Betty at length appeared in the distance in answer to the call, and came

up pale, but looking innocent of having seen a living soul. Mrs. Dornell

groaned in spirit at such duplicity in the child of her bosom. This was

the simple creature for whose development into womanhood they had all

been so tenderly waiting-a forward minx, old enough not only to have a

lover, but to conceal his existence as adroitly as any woman of the

world! Bitterly did the Squire's lady regret that Stephen Reynard had

not been allowed to come to claim her at the time he first proposed.

The two sat beside each other almost in silence on their journey back to

King's-Hintock. Such words as were spoken came mainly from Betty, and

their formality indicated how much her mind and heart were occupied with

other things.

Mrs. Dornell was far too astute a mother to openly attack Betty on the

matter. That would be only fanning flame. The indispensable course

seemed to her to be that of keeping the treacherous girl under lock and

key till her husband came to take her off her mother's hands. That he

would disregard Dornell's opposition, and come soon, was her devout

wish.

It seemed, therefore, a fortunate coincidence that on her arrival at

King's-Hintock a letter from Reynard was put into Mrs. Dornell's hands.

It was addressed to both her and her husband, and courteously informed

them that the writer had landed at Bristol, and proposed to come on to

King's-Hintock in a few days, at last to meet and carry off his darling

Betty, if she and her parents saw no objection.

Betty had also received a letter of the same tenor. Her mother had only

to look at her face to see how the girl received the information. She

was as pale as a sheet.

'You must do your best to welcome him this time, my dear Betty,' her

mother said gently.

'But-but-I-'

'You are a woman now,' added her mother severely, 'and these

postponements must come to an end.'

'But my father-oh, I am sure he will not allow this! I am not ready. If

he could only wait a year longer-if he could only wait a few months

longer! Oh, I wish-I wish my dear father were here! I will send to him

instantly.' She broke off abruptly, and falling upon her mother's neck,

burst into tears, saying, 'O my mother, have mercy upon me-I do not love

this man, my husband!'

The agonized appeal went too straight to Mrs. Dornell's heart for her to

hear it unmoved. Yet, things having come to this pass, what could she

do? She was distracted, and for a moment was on Betty's side. Her

original thought had been to write an affirmative reply to Reynard,

allow him to come on to King's-Hintock, and keep her husband in

ignorance of the whole proceeding till he should arrive from Falls on

some fine day after his recovery, and find everything settled, and

Reynard and Betty living together in harmony. But the events of the day,

and her daughter's sudden outburst of feeling, had overthrown this

intention. Betty was sure to do as she had threatened, and communicate

instantly with her father, possibly attempt to fly to him. Moreover,

Reynard's letter was addressed to Mr. Dornell and herself conjointly,

and she could not in conscience keep it from her husband.

'I will send the letter on to your father instantly,' she replied

soothingly. 'He shall act entirely as he chooses, and you know that will

not be in opposition to your wishes. He would ruin you rather than

thwart you. I only hope he may be well enough to bear the agitation of

this news. Do you agree to this?'

Poor Betty agreed, on condition that she should actually witness the

despatch of the letter. Her mother had no objection to offer to this;

but as soon as the horseman had cantered down the drive toward the

highway, Mrs. Dornell's sympathy with Betty's recalcitration began to

die out. The girl's secret affection for young Phelipson could not

possibly be condoned. Betty might communicate with him, might even try

to reach him. Ruin lay that way. Stephen Reynard must be speedily

installed in his proper place by Betty's side.

She sat down and penned a private letter to Reynard, which threw light

upon her plan.

'It is Necessary that I should now tell you,' she said, 'what I have

never Mentioned before-indeed I may have signified the Contrary-that her

Father's Objection to your joining her has not as yet been overcome. As

I personally Wish to delay you no longer-am indeed as anxious for your

Arrival as you can be yourself, having the good of my Daughter at Heart-

no course is left open to me but to assist your Cause without my

Husband's Knowledge. He, I am sorry to say, is at present ill at Falls-

Park, but I felt it my Duty to forward him your Letter. He will

therefore be like to reply with a peremptory Command to you to go back

again, for some Months, whence you came, till the Time he originally

stipulated has expir'd. My Advice is, if you get such a Letter, to take

no Notice of it, but to come on hither as you had proposed, letting me

know the Day and Hour (after dark, if possible) at which we may expect

you. Dear Betty is with me, and I warrant ye that she shall be in the

House when you arrive.'

Mrs. Dornell, having sent away this epistle unsuspected of anybody, next

took steps to prevent her daughter leaving the Court, avoiding if

possible to excite the girl's suspicions that she was under restraint.

But, as if by divination, Betty had seemed to read the husband's

approach in the aspect of her mother's face.

'He is coming!' exclaimed the maiden.

'Not for a week,' her mother assured her.

'He is then-for certain?'

'Well, yes.'

Betty hastily retired to her room, and would not be seen.

To lock her up, and hand over the key to Reynard when he should appear

in the hall, was a plan charming in its simplicity, till her mother

found, on trying the door of the girl's chamber softly, that Betty had

already locked and bolted it on the inside, and had given directions to

have her meals served where she was, by leaving them on a dumb-waiter

outside the door.

Thereupon Mrs. Dornell noiselessly sat down in her boudoir, which, as

well as her bed-chamber, was a passage-room to the girl's apartment, and

she resolved not to vacate her post night or day till her daughter's

husband should appear, to which end she too arranged to breakfast, dine,

and sup on the spot. It was impossible now that Betty should escape

without her knowledge, even if she had wished, there being no other door

to the chamber, except one admitting to a small inner dressing-room

inaccessible by any second way.

But it was plain that the young girl had no thought of escape. Her ideas

ran rather in the direction of intrenchment: she was prepared to stand a

siege, but scorned flight. This, at any rate, rendered her secure. As to

how Reynard would contrive a meeting with her coy daughter while in such

a defensive humour, that, thought her mother, must be left to his own

ingenuity to discover.

Betty had looked so wild and pale at the announcement of her husband's

approaching visit, that Mrs. Dornell, somewhat uneasy, could not leave

her to herself. She peeped through the keyhole an hour later. Betty lay

on the sofa, staring listlessly at the ceiling.

'You are looking ill, child,' cried her mother. 'You've not taken the

air lately. Come with me for a drive.'

Betty made no objection. Soon they drove through the park towards the

village, the daughter still in the strained, strung-up silence that had

fallen upon her. They left the park to return by another route, and on

the open road passed a cottage.

Betty's eye fell upon the cottage-window. Within it she saw a young girl

about her own age, whom she knew by sight, sitting in a chair and

propped by a pillow. The girl's face was covered with scales, which

glistened in the sun. She was a convalescent from smallpox-a disease

whose prevalence at that period was a terror of which we at present can

hardly form a conception.

An idea suddenly energized Betty's apathetic features. She glanced at

her mother; Mrs. Dornell had been looking in the opposite direction.

Betty said that she wished to go back to the cottage for a moment to

speak to a girl in whom she took an interest. Mrs. Dornell appeared

suspicious, but observing that the cottage had no back-door, and that

Betty could not escape without being seen, she allowed the carriage to

be stopped. Betty ran back and entered the cottage, emerging again in

about a minute, and resuming her seat in the carriage. As they drove on

she fixed her eyes upon her mother and said, 'There, I have done it

now!' Her pale face was stormy, and her eyes full of waiting tears.

'What have you done?' said Mrs. Dornell.

'Nanny Priddle is sick of the smallpox, and I saw her at the window, and

I went in and kissed her, so that I might take it; and now I shall have

it, and he won't be able to come near me!'

'Wicked girl!' cries her mother. 'Oh, what am I to do! What-bring a

distemper on yourself, and usurp the sacred prerogative of God, because

you can't palate the man you've wedded!'

The alarmed woman gave orders to drive home as rapidly as possible, and

on arriving, Betty, who was by this time also somewhat frightened at her

own enormity, was put into a bath, and fumigated, and treated in every

way that could be thought of to ward off the dreadful malady that in a

rash moment she had tried to acquire.

There was now a double reason for isolating the rebellious daughter and

wife in her own chamber, and there she accordingly remained for the rest

of the day and the days that followed; till no ill results seemed likely

to arise from her wilfulness.

Meanwhile the first letter from Reynard, announcing to Mrs. Dornell and

her husband jointly that he was coming in a few days, had sped on its

way to Falls-Park. It was directed under cover to Tupcombe, the

confidential servant, with instructions not to put it into his master's

hands till he had been refreshed by a good long sleep. Tupcombe much

regretted his commission, letters sent in this way always disturbing the

Squire; but guessing that it would be infinitely worse in the end to

withhold the news than to reveal it, he chose his time, which was early

the next morning, and delivered the missive.

The utmost effect that Mrs. Dornell had anticipated from the message was

a peremptory order from her husband to Reynard to hold aloof a few

months longer. What the Squire really did was to declare that he would

go himself and confront Reynard at Bristol, and have it out with him

there by word of mouth.

'But, master,' said Tupcombe, 'you can't. You cannot get out of bed.'

'You leave the room, Tupcombe, and don't say "can't" before me! Have

Jerry saddled in an hour.'

The long-tried Tupcombe thought his employer demented, so utterly

helpless was his appearance just then, and he went out reluctantly. No

sooner was he gone than the Squire, with great difficulty, stretched

himself over to a cabinet by the bedside, unlocked it, and took out a

small bottle. It contained a gout specific, against whose use he had

been repeatedly warned by his regular physician, but whose warning he

now cast to the winds.

He took a double dose, and waited half an hour. It seemed to produce no

effect. He then poured out a treble dose, swallowed it, leant back upon

his pillow, and waited. The miracle he anticipated had been worked at

last. It seemed as though the second draught had not only operated with

its own strength, but had kindled into power the latent forces of the

first. He put away the bottle, and rang up Tupcombe.

Less than an hour later one of the housemaids, who of course was quite

aware that the Squire's illness was serious, was surprised to hear a

bold and decided step descending the stairs from the direction of Mr.

Dornell's room, accompanied by the humming of a tune. She knew that the

doctor had not paid a visit that morning, and that it was too heavy to

be the valet or any other man-servant. Looking up, she saw Squire

Dornell fully dressed, descending toward her in his drab caped riding-

coat and boots, with the swinging easy movement of his prime. Her face

expressed her amazement.

'What the devil beest looking at?' said the Squire. 'Did you never see a

man walk out of his house before, wench?'

Resuming his humming-which was of a defiant sort-he proceeded to the

library, rang the bell, asked if the horses were ready, and directed

them to be brought round. Ten minutes later he rode away in the

direction of Bristol, Tupcombe behind him, trembling at what these

movements might portend.

They rode on through the pleasant woodlands and the monotonous straight

lanes at an equal pace. The distance traversed might have been about

fifteen miles when Tupcombe could perceive that the Squire was getting

tired-as weary as he would have been after riding three times the

distance ten years before. However, they reached Bristol without any

mishap, and put up at the Squire's accustomed inn. Dornell almost

immediately proceeded on foot to the inn which Reynard had given as his

address, it being now about four o'clock.

Reynard had already dined-for people dined early then-and he was staying

indoors. He had already received Mrs. Dornell's reply to his letter; but

before acting upon her advice and starting for King's-Hintock he made up

his mind to wait another day, that Betty's father might at least have

time to write to him if so minded. The returned traveller much desired

to obtain the Squire's assent, as well as his wife's, to the proposed

visit to his bride, that nothing might seem harsh or forced in his

method of taking his position as one of the family. But though he

anticipated some sort of objection from his father-in-law, in

consequence of Mrs. Dornell's warning, he was surprised at the

announcement of the Squire in person.

Stephen Reynard formed the completest of possible contrasts to Dornell

as they stood confronting each other in the best parlour of the Bristol

tavern. The Squire, hot-tempered, gouty, impulsive, generous, reckless;

the younger man, pale, tall, sedate, self-possessed-a man of the world,

fully bearing out at least one couplet in his epitaph, still extant in

King's-Hintock church, which places in the inventory of his good

qualities

'Engaging Manners, cultivated Mind, Adorn'd by Letters, and in Courts

refin'd.'

He was at this time about five-and-thirty, though careful living and an

even, unemotional temperament caused him to look much younger than his

years.

Squire Dornell plunged into his errand without much ceremony or preface.

'I am your humble servant, sir,' he said. 'I have read your letter writ

to my wife and myself, and considered that the best way to answer it

would be to do so in person.'

'I am vastly honoured by your visit, sir,' said Mr. Stephen Reynard,

bowing.

'Well, what's done can't be undone,' said Dornell, 'though it was mighty

early, and was no doing of mine. She's your wife; and there's an end

on't. But in brief, sir, she's too young for you to claim yet; we

mustn't reckon by years; we must reckon by nature. She's still a girl;

'tis onpolite of 'ee to come yet; next year will be full soon enough for

you to take her to you.'

Now, courteous as Reynard could be, he was a little obstinate when his

resolution had once been formed. She had been promised him by her

eighteenth birthday at latest-sooner if she were in robust health. Her

mother had fixed the time on her own judgment, without a word of

interference on his part. He had been hanging about foreign courts till

he was weary. Betty was now as woman, if she would ever be one, and

there was not, in his mind, the shadow of an excuse for putting him off

longer. Therefore, fortified as he was by the support of her mother, he

blandly but firmly told the Squire that he had been willing to waive his

rights, out of deference to her parents, to any reasonable extent, but

must now, in justice to himself and her insist on maintaining them. He

therefore, since she had not come to meet him, should proceed to King's-

Hintock in a few days to fetch her.

This announcement, in spite of the urbanity with which it was delivered,

set Dornell in a passion.

'Oh dammy, sir; you talk about rights, you do, after stealing her away,

a mere child, against my will and knowledge! If we'd begged and prayed

'ee to take her, you could say no more.'

'Upon my honour, your charge is quite baseless, sir,' said his son-in-

law. 'You must know by this time-or if you do not, it has been a

monstrous cruel injustice to me that I should have been allowed to

remain in your mind with such a stain upon my character-you must know

that I used no seductiveness or temptation of any kind. Her mother

assented; she assented. I took them at their word. That you was really

opposed to the marriage was not known to me till afterwards.'

Dornell professed to believe not a word of it. 'You sha'n't have her

till she's dree sixes full-no maid ought to be married till she's dree

sixes!-and my daughter sha'n't be treated out of nater!' So he stormed

on till Tupcombe, who had been alarmedly listening in the next room,

entered suddenly, declaring to Reynard that his master's life was in

danger if the interview were prolonged, he being subject to apoplectic

strokes at these crises. Reynard immediately said that he would be the

last to wish to injure Squire Dornell, and left the room, and as soon as

the Squire had recovered breath and equanimity, he went out of the inn,

leaning on the arm of Tupcombe.

Tupcombe was for sleeping in Bristol that night, but Dornell, whose

energy seemed as invincible as it was sudden, insisted upon mounting and

getting back as far as Falls-Park, to continue the journey to King's-

Hintock on the following day. At five they started, and took the

southern road toward the Mendip Hills. The evening was dry and windy,

and, excepting that the sun did not shine, strongly reminded Tupcombe of

the evening of that March month, nearly five years earlier, when news

had been brought to King's-Hintock Court of the child Betty's marriage

in London-news which had produced upon Dornell such a marked effect for

the worse ever since, and indirectly upon the household of which he was

the head. Before that time the winters were lively at Falls-Park, as

well as at King's-Hintock, although the Squire had ceased to make it his

regular residence. Hunting-guests and shooting-guests came and went, and

open house was kept. Tupcombe disliked the clever courtier who had put a

stop to this by taking away from the Squire the only treasure he valued.

It grew darker with their progress along the lanes, and Tupcombe

discovered from Mr. Dornell's manner of riding that his strength was

giving way; and spurring his own horse close alongside, he asked him how

he felt.

'Oh, bad; damn bad, Tupcombe! I can hardly keep my seat. I shall never

be any better, I fear! Have we passed Three-Man-Gibbet yet?'

'Not yet by a long ways, sir.'

'I wish we had. I can hardly hold on.' The Squire could not repress a

groan now and then, and Tupcombe knew he was in great pain. 'I wish I

was underground-that's the place for such fools as I! I'd gladly be

there if it were not for Mistress Betty. He's coming on to King's-

Hintock to-morrow-he won't put it off any longer; he'll set out and

reach there to-morrow night, without stopping at Falls; and he'll take

her unawares, and I want to be there before him.'

'I hope you may be well enough to do it, sir. But really-'

'I must, Tupcombe! You don't know what my trouble is; it is not so much

that she is married to this man without my agreeing-for, after all,

there's nothing to say against him, so far as I know; but that she don't

take to him at all, seems to fear him-in fact, cares nothing about him;

and if he comes forcing himself into the house upon her, why, 'twill be

rank cruelty. Would to the Lord something would happen to prevent him!'

How they reached home that night Tupcombe hardly knew. The Squire was in

such pain that he was obliged to recline upon his horse, and Tupcombe

was afraid every moment lest he would fall into the road. But they did

reach home at last, and Mr. Dornell was instantly assisted to bed.

Next morning it was obvious that he could not possibly go to King's-

Hintock for several days at least, and there on the bed he lay, cursing

his inability to proceed on an errand so personal and so delicate that

no emissary could perform it. What he wished to do was to ascertain from

Betty's own lips if her aversion to Reynard was so strong that his

presence would be positively distasteful to her. Were that the case, he

would have borne her away bodily on the saddle behind him.

But all that was hindered now, and he repeated a hundred times in

Tupcombe's hearing, and in that of the nurse and other servants, 'I wish

to God something would happen to him!'

This sentiment, reiterated by the Squire as he tossed in the agony

induced by the powerful drugs of the day before, entered sharply into

the soul of Tupcombe and of all who were attached to the house of

Dornell, as distinct from the house of his wife at King's-Hintock.

Tupcombe, who was an excitable man, was hardly less disquieted by the

thought of Reynard's return than the Squire himself was. As the week

drew on, and the afternoon advanced at which Reynard would in all

probability be passing near Falls on his way to the Court, the Squire's

feelings became acuter, and the responsive Tupcombe could hardly bear to

come near him. Having left him in the hands of the doctor, the former

went out upon the lawn, for he could hardly breathe in the contagion of

excitement caught from the employer who had virtually made him his

confidant. He had lived with the Dornells from his boyhood, had been

born under the shadow of their walls; his whole life was annexed and

welded to the life of the family in a degree which has no counterpart in

these latter days.

He was summoned indoors, and learnt that it had been decided to send for

Mrs. Dornell: her husband was in great danger. There were two or three

who could have acted as messenger, but Dornell wished Tupcombe to go,

the reason showing itself when, Tupcombe being ready to start, Squire

Dornell summoned him to his chamber and leaned down so that he could

whisper in his ear:

'Put Peggy along smart, Tupcombe, and get there before him, you know-

before him. This is the day he fixed. He has not passed Falls cross-

roads yet. If you can do that you will be able to get Betty to come-d'ye

see?-after her mother has started; she'll have a reason for not waiting

for him. Bring her by the lower road-he'll go by the upper. Your

business is to make 'em miss each other-d'ye see?-but that's a thing I

couldn't write down.'

Five minutes after, Tupcombe was astride the horse and on his way-the

way he had followed so many times since his master, a florid young

countryman, had first gone wooing to King's-Hintock Court. As soon as he

had crossed the hills in the immediate neighbourhood of the manor, the

road lay over a plain, where it ran in long straight stretches for

several miles. In the best of times, when all had been gay in the united

houses, that part of the road had seemed tedious. It was gloomy in the

extreme now that he pursued it, at night and alone, on such an errand.

He rode and brooded. If the Squire were to die, he, Tupcombe, would be

alone in the world and friendless, for he was no favourite with Mrs.

Dornell; and to find himself baffled, after all, in what he had set his

mind on, would probably kill the Squire. Thinking thus, Tupcombe stopped

his horse every now and then, and listened for the coming husband. The

time was drawing on to the moment when Reynard might be expected to pass

along this very route. He had watched the road well during the

afternoon, and had inquired of the tavern-keepers as he came up to each,

and he was convinced that the premature descent of the stranger-husband

upon his young mistress had not been made by this highway as yet.

Besides the girl's mother, Tupcombe was the only member of the household

who suspected Betty's tender feelings towards young Phelipson, so

unhappily generated on her return from school; and he could therefore

imagine, even better than her fond father, what would be her emotions on

the sudden announcement of Reynard's advent that evening at King's-

Hintock Court.

So he rode and rode, desponding and hopeful by turns. He felt assured

that, unless in the unfortunate event of the almost immediate arrival of

her son-in law at his own heels, Mrs. Dornell would not be able to

hinder Betty's departure for her father's bedside.

It was about nine o'clock that, having put twenty miles of country

behind him, he turned in at the lodge-gate nearest to Ivell and King's-

Hintock village, and pursued the long north drive-itself much like a

turnpike road-which led thence through the park to the Court. Though

there were so many trees in King's-Hintock park, few bordered the

carriage roadway; he could see it stretching ahead in the pale night

light like an unrolled deal shaving. Presently the irregular frontage of

the house came in view, of great extent, but low, except where it rose

into the outlines of a broad square tower.

As Tupcombe approached he rode aside upon the grass, to make sure, if

possible, that he was the first comer, before letting his presence be

known. The Court was dark and sleepy, in no respect as if a bridegroom

were about to arrive.

While pausing he distinctly heard the tread of a horse upon the track

behind him, and for a moment despaired of arriving in time: here,

surely, was Reynard! Pulling up closer to the densest tree at hand he

waited, and found he had retreated nothing too soon, for the second

rider avoided the gravel also, and passed quite close to him. In the

profile he recognized young Phelipson.

Before Tupcombe could think what to do, Phelipson had gone on; but not

to the door of the house. Swerving to the left, he passed round to the

east angle, where, as Tupcombe knew, were situated Betty's apartments.

Dismounting, he left the horse tethered to a hanging bough, and walked

on to the house.

Suddenly his eye caught sight of an object which explained the position

immediately. It was a ladder stretching from beneath the trees, which

there came pretty close to the house, up to a first-floor window-one

which lighted Miss Betty's rooms. Yes, it was Betty's chamber; he knew

every room in the house well.

The young horseman who had passed him, having evidently left his steed

somewhere under the trees also, was perceptible at the top of the

ladder, immediately outside Betty's window. While Tupcombe watched, a

cloaked female figure stepped timidly over the sill, and the two

cautiously descended, one before the other, the young man's arms

enclosing the young woman between his grasp of the ladder, so that she

could not fall. As soon as they reached the bottom, young Phelipson

quickly removed the ladder and hid it under the bushes. The pair

disappeared; till, in a few minutes, Tupcombe could discern a horse

emerging from a remoter part of the umbrage. The horse carried double,

the girl being on a pillion behind her lover.

Tupcombe hardly knew what to do or think; yet, though this was not

exactly the kind of flight that had been intended, she had certainly

escaped. He went back to his own animal, and rode round to the servants'

door, where he delivered the letter for Mrs. Dornell. To leave a verbal

message for Betty was now impossible.

The Court servants desired him to stay over the night, but he would not

do so, desiring to get back to the Squire as soon as possible and tell

what he had seen. Whether he ought not to have intercepted the young

people, and carried off Betty himself to her father, he did not know.

However, it was too late to think of that now, and without wetting his

lips or swallowing a crumb, Tupcombe turned his back upon King's-Hintock

Court.

It was not till he had advanced a considerable distance on his way

homeward that, halting under the lantern of a roadside-inn while the

horse was watered, there came a traveller from the opposite direction in

a hired coach; the lantern lit the stranger's face as he passed along

and dropped into the shade. Tupcombe exulted for the moment, though he

could hardly have justified his exultation. The belated traveller was

Reynard; and another had stepped in before him.

You may now be willing to know of the fortunes of Miss Betty. Left much

to herself through the intervening days, she had ample time to brood

over her desperate attempt at the stratagem of infection-thwarted,

apparently, by her mother's promptitude. In what other way to gain time

she could not think. Thus drew on the day and the hour of the evening on

which her husband was expected to announce himself.

At some period after dark, when she could not tell, a tap at the window,

twice and thrice repeated, became audible. It caused her to start up,

for the only visitant in her mind was the one whose advances she had so

feared as to risk health and life to repel them. She crept to the

window, and heard a whisper without.

'It is I-Charley,' said the voice.

Betty's face fired with excitement. She had latterly begun to doubt her

admirer's staunchness, fancying his love to be going off in mere

attentions which neither committed him nor herself very deeply. She

opened the window, saying in a joyous whisper, 'Oh Charley; I thought

you had deserted me quite!'

He assured her he had not done that, and that he had a horse in waiting,

if she would ride off with him. 'You must come quickly,' he said; 'for

Reynard's on the way!'

To throw a cloak round herself was the work of a moment, and assuring

herself that her door was locked against a surprise, she climbed over

the window-sill and descended with him as we have seen.

Her mother meanwhile, having received Tupcombe's note, found the news of

her husband's illness so serious, as to displace her thoughts of the

coming son-in-law, and she hastened to tell her daughter of the Squire's

dangerous condition, thinking it might be desirable to take her to her

father's bedside. On trying the door of the girl's room, she found it

still locked. Mrs. Dornell called, but there was no answer. Full of

misgivings, she privately fetched the old house-steward and bade him

burst open the door-an order by no means easy to execute, the joinery of

the Court being massively constructed. However, the lock sprang open at

last, and she entered Betty's chamber only to find the window unfastened

and the bird flown.

For a moment Mrs. Dornell was staggered. Then it occurred to her that

Betty might have privately obtained from Tupcombe the news of her

father's serious illness, and, fearing she might be kept back to meet

her husband, have gone off with that obstinate and biassed servitor to

Falls-Park. The more she thought it over the more probable did the

supposition appear; and binding her own head-man to secrecy as to

Betty's movements, whether as she conjectured, or otherwise, Mrs.

Dornell herself prepared to set out.

She had no suspicion how seriously her husband's malady had been

aggravated by his ride to Bristol, and thought more of Betty's affairs

than of her own. That Betty's husband should arrive by some other road

to-night, and find neither wife nor mother-in-law to receive him, and no

explanation of their absence, was possible; but never forgetting

chances, Mrs. Dornell as she journeyed kept her eyes fixed upon the

highway on the off-side, where, before she had reached the town of

Ivell, the hired coach containing Stephen Reynard flashed into the

lamplight of her own carriage.

Mrs. Dornell's coachman pulled up, in obedience to a direction she had

given him at starting; the other coach was hailed, a few words passed,

and Reynard alighted and came to Mrs. Dornell's carriage-window.

'Come inside,' says she. 'I want to speak privately to you. Why are you

so late?'

'One hindrance and another,' says he. 'I meant to be at the Court by

eight at latest. My gratitude for your letter. I hope-'

'You must not try to see Betty yet,' said she. 'There be far other and

newer reasons against your seeing her now than there were when I wrote.'

The circumstances were such that Mrs. Dornell could not possibly conceal

them entirely; nothing short of knowing some of the facts would prevent

his blindly acting in a manner which might be fatal to the future.

Moreover, there are times when deeper intriguers than Mrs. Dornell feel

that they must let out a few truths, if only in self-indulgence. So she

told so much of recent surprises as that Betty's heart had been

attracted by another image than his, and that his insisting on visiting

her now might drive the girl to desperation. 'Betty has, in fact, rushed

off to her father to avoid you,' she said. 'But if you wait she will

soon forget this young man, and you will have nothing to fear.'

As a woman and a mother she could go no further, and Betty's desperate

attempt to infect herself the week before as a means of repelling him,

together with the alarming possibility that, after all, she had not gone

to her father but to her lover, was not revealed.

'Well,' sighed the diplomatist, in a tone unexpectedly quiet, 'such

things have been known before. After all, she may prefer me to him some

day, when she reflects how very differently I might have acted than I am

going to act towards her. But I'll say no more about that now. I can

have a bed at your house for to-night?'

'To-night, certainly. And you leave to-morrow morning early?' She spoke

anxiously, for on no account did she wish him to make further

discoveries. 'My husband is so seriously ill,' she continued, 'that my

absence and Betty's on your arrival is naturally accounted for.'

He promised to leave early, and to write to her soon. 'And when I think

the time is ripe,' he said, 'I'll write to her. I may have something to

tell her that will bring her to graciousness.'

It was about one o'clock in the morning when Mrs. Dornell reached Falls-

Park. A double blow awaited her there. Betty had not arrived; her flight

had been elsewhither; and her stricken mother divined with whom. She

ascended to the bedside of her husband, where to her concern she found

that the physician had given up all hope. The Squire was sinking, and

his extreme weakness had almost changed his character, except in the

particular that his old obstinacy sustained him in a refusal to see a

clergyman. He shed tears at the least word, and sobbed at the sight of

his wife. He asked for Betty, and it was with a heavy heart that Mrs.

Dornell told him that the girl had not accompanied her.

'He is not keeping her away?'

'No, no. He is going back-he is not coming to her for some time.'

'Then what is detaining her-cruel, neglectful maid!'

'No, no, Thomas; she is- She could not come.'

'How's that?'

Somehow the solemnity of these last moments of his gave him

inquisitorial power, and the too cold wife could not conceal from him

the flight which had taken place from King's-Hintock that night.

To her amazement, the effect upon him was electrical.

'What-Betty-a trump after all? Hurrah! She's her father's own maid!

She's game! She knew he was her father's own choice! She vowed that my

man should win! Well done, Bet!-haw! haw! Hurrah!'

He had raised himself in bed by starts as he spoke, and now fell back

exhausted. He never uttered another word, and died before the dawn.

People said there had not been such an ungenteel death in a good county

family for years.

Now I will go back to the time of Betty's riding off on the pillion

behind her lover. They left the park by an obscure gate to the east, and

presently found themselves in the lonely and solitary length of the old

Roman road now called Long-Ash Lane.

By this time they were rather alarmed at their own performance, for they

were both young and inexperienced. Hence they proceeded almost in

silence till they came to a mean roadside inn which was not yet closed;

when Betty, who had held on to him with much misgiving all this while,

felt dreadfully unwell, and said she thought she would like to get down.

They accordingly dismounted from the jaded animal that had brought them,

and were shown into a small dark parlour, where they stood side by side

awkwardly, like the fugitives they were. A light was brought, and when

they were left alone Betty threw off the cloak which had enveloped her.

No sooner did young Phelipson see her face than he uttered an alarmed

exclamation.

'Why, Lord, Lord, you are sickening for the small-pox!' he cried.

'Oh-I forgot!' faltered Betty. And then she informed him that, on

hearing of her husband's approach the week before, in a desperate

attempt to keep him from her side, she had tried to imbibe the

infection-an act which till this moment she had supposed to have been

ineffectual, imagining her feverishness to be the result of her

excitement.

The effect of this discovery upon young Phelipson was overwhelming.

Better-seasoned men than he would not have been proof against it, and he

was only a little over her own age. 'And you've been holding on to me!'

he said. 'And suppose you get worse, and we both have it, what shall we

do? Won't you be a fright in a month or two, poor, poor Betty!'

In his horror he attempted to laugh, but the laugh ended in a weakly

giggle. She was more woman than girl by this time, and realized his

feeling.

'What-in trying to keep off him, I keep off you?' she said miserably.

'Do you hate me because I am going to be ugly and ill?'

'Oh-no, no!' he said soothingly. 'But I-I am thinking if it is quite

right for us to do this. You see, dear Betty, if you was not married it

would be different. You are not in honour married to him we've often

said; still you are his by law, and you can't be mine whilst he's alive.

And with this terrible sickness coming on, perhaps you had better let me

take you back, and-climb in at the window again.'

'Is this your love?' said Betty reproachfully. 'Oh, if you was sickening

for the plague itself, and going to be as ugly as the Ooser in the

church-vestry, I wouldn't-'

'No, no, you mistake, upon my soul!'

But Betty with a swollen heart had rewrapped herself and gone out of the

door. The horse was still standing there. She mounted by the help of the

upping-stock, and when he had followed her she said, 'Do not come near

me, Charley; but please lead the horse, so that if you've not caught

anything already you'll not catch it going back. After all, what keeps

off you may keep off him. Now onward.'

He did not resist her command, and back they went by the way they had

come, Betty shedding bitter tears at the retribution she had already

brought upon herself; for though she had reproached Phelipson, she was

staunch enough not to blame him in her secret heart for showing that his

love was only skin-deep. The horse was stopped in the plantation, and

they walked silently to the lawn, reaching the bushes wherein the ladder

still lay.

'Will you put it up for me?' she asked mournfully.

He re-erected the ladder without a word; but when she approached to

ascend he said, 'Good-bye, Betty!'

'Good-bye!' said she; and involuntarily turned her face towards his. He

hung back from imprinting the expected kiss: at which Betty started as

if she had received a poignant wound. She moved away so suddenly that he

hardly had time to follow her up the ladder to prevent her falling.

'Tell your mother to get the doctor at once!' he said anxiously.

She stepped in without looking behind; he descended, withdrew the

ladder, and went away.

Alone in her chamber, Betty flung herself upon her face on the bed, and

burst into shaking sobs. Yet she would not admit to herself that her

lover's conduct was unreasonable; only that her rash act of the previous

week had been wrong. No one had heard her enter, and she was too worn

out, in body and mind, to think or care about medical aid. In an hour or

so she felt yet more unwell, positively ill; and nobody coming to her at

the usual bedtime, she looked towards the door. Marks of the lock having

been forced were visible, and this made her chary of summoning a

servant. She opened the door cautiously and sallied forth downstairs.

In the dining-parlour, as it was called, the now sick and sorry Betty

was startled to see at that late hour not her mother, but a man sitting,

calmly finishing his supper. There was no servant in the room. He

turned, and she recognized her husband.

'Where's my mamma?' she demanded without preface.

'Gone to your father's. Is that-' He stopped, aghast.

'Yes, sir. This spotted object is your wife! I've done it because I

don't want you to come near me!'

He was sixteen years her senior; old enough to be compassionate. 'My

poor child, you must get to bed directly! Don't be afraid of me-I'll

carry you upstairs, and send for a doctor instantly.'

'Ah, you don't know what I am!' she cried. 'I had a lover once; but now

he's gone! 'Twasn't I who deserted him. He has deserted me; because I am

ill he wouldn't kiss me, though I wanted him to!'

'Wouldn't he? Then he was a very poor slack-twisted sort of fellow.

Betty, I've never kissed you since you stood beside me as my little

wife, twelve years and a half old! May I kiss you now?'

Though Betty by no means desired his kisses, she had enough of the

spirit of Cunigonde in Schiller's ballad to test his daring. 'If you

have courage to venture, yes sir!' said she. 'But you may die for it,

mind!'

He came up to her and imprinted a deliberate kiss full upon her mouth,

saying, 'May many others follow!'

She shook her head, and hastily withdrew, though secretly pleased at his

hardihood. The excitement had supported her for the few minutes she had

passed in his presence, and she could hardly drag herself back to her

room. Her husband summoned the servants, and, sending them to her

assistance, went off himself for a doctor.

The next morning Reynard waited at the Court till he had learnt from the

medical man that Betty's attack promised to be a very light one-or, as

it was expressed, 'very fine'; and in taking his leave sent up a note to

her:

'Now I must be Gone. I promised your Mother I would not see You yet, and

she may be anger'd if she finds me here. Promise to see me as Soon as

you are well?'

He was of all men then living one of the best able to cope with such an

untimely situation as this. A contriving, sagacious, gentle-mannered

man, a philosopher who saw that the only constant attribute of life is

change, he held that, as long as she lives, there is nothing finite in

the most impassioned attitude a woman may take up. In twelve months his

girl-wife's recent infatuation might be as distasteful to her mind as it

was now to his own. In a few years her very flesh would change-so said

the scientific;-her spirit, so much more ephemeral, was capable of

changing in one. Betty was his, and it became a mere question of means

how to effect that change.

During the day Mrs. Dornell, having closed her husband's eyes, returned

to the Court. She was truly relieved to find Betty there, even though on

a bed of sickness. The disease ran its course, and in due time Betty

became convalescent, without having suffered deeply for her rashness,

one little speck beneath her ear, and one beneath her chin, being all

the marks she retained.

The Squire's body was not brought back to King's-Hintock. Where he was

born, and where he had lived before wedding his Sue, there he had wished

to be buried. No sooner had she lost him than Mrs. Dornell, like certain

other wives, though she had never shown any great affection for him

while he lived, awoke suddenly to his many virtues, and zealously

embraced his opinion about delaying Betty's union with her husband,

which she had formerly combated strenuously. 'Poor man! how right he

was, and how wrong was I!' Eighteen was certainly the lowest age at

which Mr. Reynard should claim her child-nay, it was too low! Far too

low!

So desirous was she of honouring her lamented husband's sentiments in

this respect, that she wrote to her son-in-law suggesting that, partly

on account of Betty's sorrow for her father's loss, and out of

consideration for his known wishes for delay, Betty should not be taken

from her till her nineteenth birthday.

However much or little Stephen Reynard might have been to blame in his

marriage, the patient man now almost deserved to be pitied. First

Betty's skittishness; now her mother's remorseful volte-face: it was

enough to exasperate anybody; and he wrote to the widow in a tone which

led to a little coolness between those hitherto firm friends. However,

knowing that he had a wife not to claim but to win, and that young

Phelipson had been packed off to sea by his parents, Stephen was

complaisant to a degree, returning to London, and holding quite aloof

from Betty and her mother, who remained for the present in the country.

In town he had a mild visitation of the distemper he had taken from

Betty, and in writing to her he took care not to dwell upon its

mildness. It was now that Betty began to pity him for what she had

inflicted upon him by the kiss, and her correspondence acquired a

distinct flavour of kindness thenceforward.

Owing to his rebuffs, Reynard had grown to be truly in love with Betty

in his mild, placid, durable way-in that way which perhaps, upon the

whole, tends most generally to the woman's comfort under the institution

of marriage, if not particularly to her ecstasy. Mrs. Dornell's

exaggeration of her husband's wish for delay in their living together

was inconvenient, but he would not openly infringe it. He wrote tenderly

to Betty, and soon announced that he had a little surprise in store for

her. The secret was that the King had been graciously pleased to inform

him privately, through a relation, that His Majesty was about to offer

him a Barony. Would she like the title to be Ivell? Moreover, he had

reason for knowing that in a few years the dignity would be raised to

that of an Earl, for which creation he thought the title of Wessex would

be eminently suitable, considering the position of much of their

property. As Lady Ivell, therefore, and future Countess of Wessex, he

should beg leave to offer her his heart a third time.

He did not add, as he might have added, how greatly the consideration of

the enormous estates at King's-Hintock and elsewhere which Betty would

inherit, and her children after her, had conduced to this desirable

honour.

Whether the impending titles had really any effect upon Betty's regard

for him I cannot state, for she was one of those close characters who

never let their minds be known upon anything. That such honour was

absolutely unexpected by her from such a quarter is, however, certain;

and she could not deny that Stephen had shown her kindness, forbearance,

even magnanimity; had forgiven her for an errant passion which he might

with some reason have denounced, notwithstanding her cruel position as a

child entrapped into marriage ere able to understand its bearings.

Her mother, in her grief and remorse for the loveless life she had led

with her rough, though open-hearted, husband, made now a creed of his

merest whim; and continued to insist that, out of respect to his known

desire, her son-in-law should not reside with Betty till the girl's

father had been dead a year at least, at which time the girl would still

be under nineteen. Letters must suffice for Stephen till then.

'It is rather long for him to wait,' Betty hesitatingly said one day.

'What!' said her mother. 'From you? not to respect your dear father-'

'Of course it is quite proper,' said Betty hastily. 'I don't gainsay it.

I was but thinking that-that-'

In the long slow months of the stipulated interval her mother tended and

trained Betty carefully for her duties. Fully awake now to the many

virtues of her dear departed one, she, among other acts of pious

devotion to his memory, rebuilt the church of King's-Hintock village,

and established valuable charities in all the villages of that name, as

far as to Little-Hintock, several miles eastward.

In superintending these works, particularly that of the church-building,

her daughter Betty was her constant companion, and the incidents of

their execution were doubtless not without a soothing effect upon the

young creature's heart. She had sprung from girl to woman by a sudden

bound, and few would have recognized in the thoughtful face of Betty now

the same person who, the year before, had seemed to have absolutely no

idea whatever of responsibility, moral or other. Time passed thus till

the Squire had been nearly a year in his vault; and Mrs. Dornell was

duly asked by letter by the patient Reynard if she were willing for him

to come soon. He did not wish to take Betty away if her mother's sense

of loneliness would be too great, but would willingly live at King's-

Hintock awhile with them.

Before the widow had replied to this communication, she one day happened

to observe Betty walking on the south terrace in the full sunlight,

without hat or mantle, and was struck by her child's figure. Mrs.

Dornell called her in, and said suddenly: 'Have you seen your husband

since the time of your poor father's death?'

'Well-yes, mamma,' says Betty, colouring.

'What-against my wishes and those of your dear father! I am shocked at

your disobedience!'

'But my father said eighteen, ma'am, and you made it much longer-'

'Why, of course-out of consideration for you! When have ye seen him?'

'Well,' stammered Betty, 'in the course of his letters to me he said

that I belonged to him, and if nobody knew that we met it would make no

difference. And that I need not hurt your feelings by telling you.'

'Well?'

'So I went to Casterbridge that time you went to London about five

months ago-'

'And met him there? When did you come back?'

'Dear mamma, it grew very late, and he said it was safer not to go back

till next day, as the roads were bad; and as you were away from home-'

'I don't want to hear any more! This is your respect for your father's

memory,' groaned the widow. 'When did you meet him again?'

'Oh-not for more than a fortnight.'

'A fortnight! How many times have ye seen him altogether?'

'I'm sure, mamma, I've not seen him altogether a dozen times.'

'A dozen! And eighteen and a half years old barely!'

'Twice we met by accident,' pleaded Betty. 'Once at Abbot's-Cernel, and

another time at the Red Lion, Melchester.'

'O thou deceitful girl!' cried Mrs. Dornell. 'An accident took you to

the Red Lion whilst I was staying at the White Hart! I remember-you came

in at twelve o'clock at night and said you'd been to see the cathedral

by the light o' the moon!'

'My ever-honoured mamma, so I had! I only went to the Red Lion with him

afterwards.'

'Oh Betty, Betty! That my child should have deceived me even in my

widowed days!'

'But, my dearest mamma, you made me marry him!' says Betty with spirit,

'and of course I've to obey him more than you now!'

Mrs. Dornell sighed. 'All I have to say is, that you'd better get your

husband to join you as soon as possible,' she remarked. 'To go on

playing the maiden like this-I'm ashamed to see you!'

She wrote instantly to Stephen Reynard: 'I wash my hands of the whole

matter as between you two; though I should advise you to openly join

each other as soon as you can-if you wish to avoid scandal.'

He came, though not till the promised title had been granted, and he

could call Betty archly 'My Lady.'

People said in after years that she and her husband were very happy.

However that may be, they had a numerous family; and she became in due

course first Countess of Wessex, as he had foretold.

The little white frock in which she had been married to him at the

tender age of twelve was carefully preserved among the relics at King's-

Hintock Court, where it may still be seen by the curious-a yellowing,

pathetic testimony to the small count taken of the happiness of an

innocent child in the social strategy of those days, which might have

led, but providentially did not lead, to great unhappiness.

When the Earl died Betty wrote him an epitaph, in which she described

him as the best of husbands, fathers, and friends, and called herself

his disconsolate widow.

Such is woman; or rather (not to give offence by so sweeping an

assertion), such was Betty Dornell.

It was at a meeting of one of the Wessex Field and Antiquarian Clubs

that the foregoing story, partly told, partly read from a manuscript,

was made to do duty for the regulation papers on deformed butterflies,

fossil ox-horns, prehistoric dung-mixens, and such like, that usually

occupied the more serious attention of the members.

This Club was of an inclusive and intersocial character; to a degree,

indeed, remarkable for the part of England in which it had its being-

dear, delightful Wessex, whose statuesque dynasties are even now only

just beginning to feel the shaking of the new and strange spirit

without, like that which entered the lonely valley of Ezekiel's vision

and made the dry bones move: where the honest squires, tradesmen,

parsons, clerks, and people still praise the Lord with one voice for His

best of all possible worlds.

The present meeting, which was to extend over two days, had opened its

proceedings at the museum of the town whose buildings and environs were

to be visited by the members. Lunch had ended, and the afternoon

excursion had been about to be undertaken, when the rain came down in an

obstinate spatter, which revealed no sign of cessation. As the members

waited they grew chilly, although it was only autumn, and a fire was

lighted, which threw a cheerful shine upon the varnished skulls, urns,

penates, tesser�, costumes, coats of mail, weapons, and missals,

animated the fossilized ichthyosaurus and iguanodon; while the dead eyes

of the stuffed birds-those never-absent familiars in such collections,

though murdered to extinction out of doors-flashed as they had flashed

to the rising sun above the neighbouring moors on the fatal morning when

the trigger was pulled which ended their little flight. It was then that

the historian produced his manuscript, which he had prepared, he said,

with a view to publication. His delivery of the story having concluded

as aforesaid, the speaker expressed his hope that the constraint of the

weather, and the paucity of more scientific papers, would excuse any

inappropriateness in his subject.

Several members observed that a storm-bound club could not presume to be

selective, and they were all very much obliged to him for such a curious

chapter from the domestic histories of the county.

The President looked gloomily from the window at the descending rain,

and broke a short silence by saying that though the Club had met, there

seemed little probability of its being able to visit the objects of

interest set down among the agenda.

The Treasurer observed that they had at least a roof over their heads;

and they had also a second day before them.

A sentimental member, leaning back in his chair, declared that he was in

no hurry to go out, and that nothing would please him so much as another

county story, with or without manuscript.

The Colonel added that the subject should be a lady, like the former, to

which a gentleman known as the Spark said 'Hear, hear!'

Though these had spoken in jest, a rural dean who was present observed

blandly that there was no lack of materials. Many, indeed, were the

legends and traditions of gentle and noble dames, renowned in times past

in that part of England, whose actions and passions were now, but for

men's memories, buried under the brief inscription on a tomb or an entry

of dates in a dry pedigree.

Another member, an old surgeon, a somewhat grim though sociable

personage, was quite of the speaker's opinion, and felt quite sure that

the memory of the reverend gentleman must abound with such curious tales

of fair dames, of their loves and hates, their joys and their

misfortunes, their beauty and their fate.

The parson, a trifle confused, retorted that their friend the surgeon,

the son of a surgeon, seemed to him, as a man who had seen much and

heard more during the long course of his own and his father's practice,

the member of all others most likely to be acquainted with such lore.

The bookworm, the Colonel, the historian, the Vice-president, the

churchwarden, the two curates, the gentleman-tradesman, the sentimental

member, the crimson maltster, the quiet gentleman, the man of family,

the Spark, and several others, quite agreed, and begged that he would

recall something of the kind. The old surgeon said that, though a

meeting of the Mid-Wessex Field and Antiquarian Club was the last place

at which he should have expected to be called upon in this way, he had

no objection; and the parson said he would come next. The surgeon then

reflected, and decided to relate the history of a lady named Barbara,

who lived towards the end of the last century, apologizing for his tale

as being perhaps a little too professional. The crimson maltster winked

to the Spark at hearing the nature of the apology, and the surgeon

began.

DAME THE SECOND-BARBARA OF THE HOUSE OF GREBE By the Old Surgeon

It was apparently an idea, rather than a passion, that inspired Lord

Uplandtowers' resolve to win her. Nobody ever knew when he formed it, or

whence he got his assurance of success in the face of her manifest

dislike of him. Possibly not until after that first important act of her

life which I shall presently mention. His matured and cynical doggedness

at the age of nineteen, when impulse mostly rules calculation, was

remarkable, and might have owed its existence as much to his succession

to the earldom and its accompanying local honours in childhood, as to

the family character; an elevation which jerked him into maturity, so to

speak, without his having known adolescence. He had only reached his

twelfth year when his father, the fourth Earl, died, after a course of

the Bath waters.

Nevertheless, the family character had a great deal to do with it.

Determination was hereditary in the bearers of that escutcheon;

sometimes for good, sometimes for evil.

The seats of the two families were about ten miles apart, the way

between them lying along the now old, then new, turnpike-road connecting

Havenpool and Warborne with the city of Melchester: a road which, though

only a branch from what was known as the Great Western Highway, is

probably, even at present, as it has been for the last hundred years,

one of the finest examples of a macadamized turnpike-track that can be

found in England.

The mansion of the Earl, as well as that of his neighbour, Barbara's

father, stood back about a mile from the highway, with which each was

connected by an ordinary drive and lodge. It was along this particular

highway that the young Earl drove on a certain evening at Christmastide

some twenty years before the end of the last century, to attend a ball

at Chene Manor, the home of Barbara, and her parents Sir John and Lady

Grebe. Sir John's was a baronetcy created a few years before the

breaking out of the Civil War, and his lands were even more extensive

than those of Lord Uplandtowers himself; comprising this Manor of Chene,

another on the coast near, half the Hundred of Cockdene, and well-

enclosed lands in several other parishes, notably Warborne and those

contiguous. At this time Barbara was barely seventeen, and the ball is

the first occasion on which we have any tradition of Lord Uplandtowers

attempting tender relations with her; it was early enough, God knows.

An intimate friend-one of the Drenkhards-is said to have dined with him

that day, and Lord Uplandtowers had, for a wonder, communicated to his

guest the secret design of his heart.

'You'll never get her-sure; you'll never get her!' this friend had said

at parting. 'She's not drawn to your lordship by love: and as for

thought of a good match, why, there's no more calculation in her than in

a bird.'

'We'll see,' said Lord Uplandtowers impassively.

He no doubt thought of his friend's forecast as he travelled along the

highway in his chariot; but the sculptural repose of his profile against

the vanishing daylight on his right hand would have shown his friend

that the Earl's equanimity was undisturbed. He reached the solitary

wayside tavern called Lornton Inn-the rendezvous of many a daring

poacher for operations in the adjoining forest; and he might have

observed, if he had taken the trouble, a strange post-chaise standing in

the halting-space before the inn. He duly sped past it, and half-an-

hour after through the little town of Warborne. Onward, a mile farther,

was the house of his entertainer.

At this date it was an imposing edifice-or, rather, congeries of

edifices-as extensive as the residence of the Earl himself; though far

less regular. One wing showed extreme antiquity, having huge chimneys,

whose substructures projected from the external walls like towers; and a

kitchen of vast dimensions, in which (it was said) breakfasts had been

cooked for John of Gaunt. Whilst he was yet in the forecourt he could

hear the rhythm of French horns and clarionets, the favourite

instruments of those days at such entertainments.

Entering the long parlour, in which the dance had just been opened by

Lady Grebe with a minuet-it being now seven o'clock, according to the

tradition-he was received with a welcome befitting his rank, and looked

round for Barbara. She was not dancing, and seemed to be preoccupied-

almost, indeed, as though she had been waiting for him. Barbara at this

time was a good and pretty girl, who never spoke ill of any one, and

hated other pretty women the very least possible. She did not refuse him

for the country-dance which followed, and soon after was his partner in

a second.

The evening wore on, and the horns and clarionets tootled merrily.

Barbara evinced towards her lover neither distinct preference nor

aversion; but old eyes would have seen that she pondered something.

However, after supper she pleaded a headache, and disappeared. To pass

the time of her absence, Lord Uplandtowers went into a little room

adjoining the long gallery, where some elderly ones were sitting by the

fire-for he had a phlegmatic dislike of dancing for its own sake,-and,

lifting the window-curtains, he looked out of the window into the park

and wood, dark now as a cavern. Some of the guests appeared to be

leaving even so soon as this, two lights showing themselves as turning

away from the door and sinking to nothing in the distance.

His hostess put her head into the room to look for partners for the

ladies, and Lord Uplandtowers came out. Lady Grebe informed him that

Barbara had not returned to the ball-room: she had gone to bed in sheer

necessity.

'She has been so excited over the ball all day,' her mother continued,

'that I feared she would be worn out early . . . But sure, Lord

Uplandtowers, you won't be leaving yet?'

He said that it was near twelve o'clock, and that some had already left.

'I protest nobody has gone yet,' said Lady Grebe.

To humour her he stayed till midnight, and then set out. He had made no

progress in his suit; but he had assured himself that Barbara gave no

other guest the preference, and nearly everybody in the neighbourhood

was there.

''Tis only a matter of time,' said the calm young philosopher.

The next morning he lay till near ten o'clock, and he had only just come

out upon the head of the staircase when he heard hoofs upon the gravel

without; in a few moments the door had been opened, and Sir John Grebe

met him in the hall, as he set foot on the lowest stair.

'My lord-where's Barbara-my daughter?'

Even the Earl of Uplandtowers could not repress amazement. 'What's the

matter, my dear Sir John,' says he.

The news was startling, indeed. From the Baronet's disjointed

explanation Lord Uplandtowers gathered that after his own and the other

guests' departure Sir John and Lady Grebe had gone to rest without

seeing any more of Barbara; it being understood by them that she had

retired to bed when she sent word to say that she could not join the

dancers again. Before then she had told her maid that she would dispense

with her services for this night; and there was evidence to show that

the young lady had never lain down at all, the bed remaining unpressed.

Circumstances seemed to prove that the deceitful girl had feigned

indisposition to get an excuse for leaving the ball-room, and that she

had left the house within ten minutes, presumably during the first dance

after supper.

'I saw her go,' said Lord Uplandtowers.

'The devil you did!' says Sir John.

'Yes.' And he mentioned the retreating carriage-lights, and how he was

assured by Lady Grebe that no guest had departed.

'Surely that was it!' said the father. 'But she's not gone alone, d'ye

know!'

'Ah-who is the young man?'

'I can on'y guess. My worst fear is my most likely guess. I'll say no

more. I thought-yet I would not believe-it possible that you was the

sinner. Would that you had been! But 'tis t'other, 'tis t'other, by G-

�! I must e'en up, and after 'em!'

'Whom do you suspect?'

Sir John would not give a name, and, stultified rather than agitated,

Lord Uplandtowers accompanied him back to Chene. He again asked upon

whom were the Baronet's suspicions directed; and the impulsive Sir John

was no match for the insistence of Uplandtowers.

He said at length, 'I fear 'tis Edmond Willowes.'

'Who's he?'

'A young fellow of Shottsford-Forum-a widow-woman's son,' the other told

him, and explained that Willowes's father, or grandfather, was the last

of the old glass-painters in that place, where (as you may know) the art

lingered on when it had died out in every other part of England.

'By G�- that's bad-mighty bad!' said Lord Uplandtowers, throwing himself

back in the chaise in frigid despair.

They despatched emissaries in all directions; one by the Melchester

Road, another by Shottsford-Forum, another coastwards.

But the lovers had a ten-hours' start; and it was apparent that sound

judgment had been exercised in choosing as their time of flight the

particular night when the movements of a strange carriage would not be

noticed, either in the park or on the neighbouring highway, owing to the

general press of vehicles. The chaise which had been seen waiting at

Lornton Inn was, no doubt, the one they had escaped in; and the pair of

heads which had planned so cleverly thus far had probably contrived

marriage ere now.

The fears of her parents were realized. A letter sent by special

messenger from Barbara, on the evening of that day, briefly informed

them that her lover and herself were on the way to London, and before

this communication reached her home they would be united as husband and

wife. She had taken this extreme step because she loved her dear Edmond

as she could love no other man, and because she had seen closing round

her the doom of marriage with Lord Uplandtowers, unless she put that

threatened fate out of possibility by doing as she had done. She had

well considered the step beforehand, and was prepared to live like any

other country-townsman's wife if her father repudiated her for her

action.

'D�- her!' said Lord Uplandtowers, as he drove homeward that night. 'D�-

her for a fool!'-which shows the kind of love he bore her.

Well; Sir John had already started in pursuit of them as a matter of

duty, driving like a wild man to Melchester, and thence by the direct

highway to the capital. But he soon saw that he was acting to no

purpose; and by and by, discovering that the marriage had actually taken

place, he forebore all attempts to unearth them in the City, and

returned and sat down with his lady to digest the event as best they

could.

To proceed against this Willowes for the abduction of our heiress was,

possibly, in their power; yet, when they considered the now unalterable

facts, they refrained from violent retribution. Some six weeks passed,

during which time Barbara's parents, though they keenly felt her loss,

held no communication with the truant, either for reproach or

condonation. They continued to think of the disgrace she had brought

upon herself; for, though the young man was an honest fellow, and the

son of an honest father, the latter had died so early, and his widow had

had such struggles to maintain herself; that the son was very

imperfectly educated. Moreover, his blood was, as far as they knew, of

no distinction whatever, whilst hers, through her mother, was compounded

of the best juices of ancient baronial distillation, containing

tinctures of Maundeville, and Mohun, and Syward, and Peverell, and

Culliford, and Talbot, and Plantagenet, and York, and Lancaster, and God

knows what besides, which it was a thousand pities to throw away.

The father and mother sat by the fireplace that was spanned by the four-

centred arch bearing the family shields on its haunches, and groaned

aloud-the lady more than Sir John.

'To think this should have come upon us in our old age!' said he.

'Speak for yourself!' she snapped through her sobs. 'I am only one-and-

forty! . . . Why didn't ye ride faster and overtake 'em!'

In the meantime the young married lovers, caring no more about their

blood than about ditch-water, were intensely happy-happy, that is, in

the descending scale which, as we all know, Heaven in its wisdom has

ordained for such rash cases; that is to say, the first week they were

in the seventh heaven, the second in the sixth, the third week

temperate, the fourth reflective, and so on; a lover's heart after

possession being comparable to the earth in its geologic stages, as

described to us sometimes by our worthy President; first a hot coal,

then a warm one, then a cooling cinder, then chilly-the simile shall be

pursued no further. The long and the short of it was that one day a

letter, sealed with their daughter's own little seal, came into Sir John

and Lady Grebe's hands; and, on opening it, they found it to contain an

appeal from the young couple to Sir John to forgive them for what they

had done, and they would fall on their naked knees and be most dutiful

children for evermore.

Then Sir John and his lady sat down again by the fireplace with the

four-centred arch, and consulted, and re-read the letter. Sir John

Grebe, if the truth must be told, loved his daughter's happiness far

more, poor man, than he loved his name and lineage; he recalled to his

mind all her little ways, gave vent to a sigh; and, by this time

acclimatized to the idea of the marriage, said that what was done could

not be undone, and that he supposed they must not be too harsh with her.

Perhaps Barbara and her husband were in actual need; and how could they

let their only child starve?

A slight consolation had come to them in an unexpected manner. They had

been credibly informed that an ancestor of plebeian Willowes was once

honoured with intermarriage with a scion of the aristocracy who had gone

to the dogs. In short, such is the foolishness of distinguished parents,

and sometimes of others also, that they wrote that very day to the

address Barbara had given them, informing her that she might return home

and bring her husband with her; they would not object to see him, would

not reproach her, and would endeavour to welcome both, and to discuss

with them what could best be arranged for their future.

In three or four days a rather shabby post-chaise drew up at the door of

Chene Manor-house, at sound of which the tender-hearted baronet and his

wife ran out as if to welcome a prince and princess of the blood. They

were overjoyed to see their spoilt child return safe and sound-though

she was only Mrs. Willowes, wife of Edmond Willowes of nowhere. Barbara

burst into penitential tears, and both husband and wife were contrite

enough, as well they might be, considering that they had not a guinea to

call their own.

When the four had calmed themselves, and not a word of chiding had been

uttered to the pair, they discussed the position soberly, young Willowes

sitting in the background with great modesty till invited forward by

Lady Grebe in no frigid tone.

'How handsome he is!' she said to herself. 'I don't wonder at Barbara's

craze for him.'

He was, indeed, one of the handsomest men who ever set his lips on a

maid's. A blue coat, murrey waistcoat, and breeches of drab set off a

figure that could scarcely be surpassed. He had large dark eyes, anxious

now, as they glanced from Barbara to her parents and tenderly back again

to her; observing whom, even now in her trepidation, one could see why

the sang froid of Lord Uplandtowers had been raised to more than

lukewarmness. Her fair young face (according to the tale handed down by

old women) looked out from under a gray conical hat, trimmed with white

ostrich-feathers, and her little toes peeped from a buff petticoat worn

under a puce gown. Her features were not regular: they were almost

infantine, as you may see from miniatures in possession of the family,

her mouth showing much sensitiveness, and one could be sure that her

faults would not lie on the side of bad temper unless for urgent

reasons.

Well, they discussed their state as became them, and the desire of the

young couple to gain the goodwill of those upon whom they were literally

dependent for everything induced them to agree to any temporizing

measure that was not too irksome. Therefore, having been nearly two

months united, they did not oppose Sir John's proposal that he should

furnish Edmond Willowes with funds sufficient for him to travel a year

on the Continent in the company of a tutor, the young man undertaking to

lend himself with the utmost diligence to the tutor's instructions, till

he became polished outwardly and inwardly to the degree required in the

husband of such a lady as Barbara. He was to apply himself to the study

of languages, manners, history, society, ruins, and everything else that

came under his eyes, till he should return to take his place without

blushing by Barbara's side.

'And by that time,' said worthy Sir John, 'I'll get my little place out

at Yewsholt ready for you and Barbara to occupy on your return. The

house is small and out of the way; but it will do for a young couple for

a while.'

'If 'twere no bigger than a summer-house it would do!' says Barbara.

'If 'twere no bigger than a sedan-chair!' says Willowes. 'And the more

lonely the better.'

'We can put up with the loneliness,' said Barbara, with less zest. 'Some

friends will come, no doubt.'

All this being laid down, a travelled tutor was called in-a man of many

gifts and great experience,-and on a fine morning away tutor and pupil

went. A great reason urged against Barbara accompanying her youthful

husband was that his attentions to her would naturally be such as to

prevent his zealously applying every hour of his time to learning and

seeing-an argument of wise prescience, and unanswerable. Regular days

for letter-writing were fixed, Barbara and her Edmond exchanged their

last kisses at the door, and the chaise swept under the archway into the

drive.

He wrote to her from Le Havre, as soon as he reached that port, which

was not for seven days, on account of adverse winds; he wrote from

Rouen, and from Paris; described to her his sight of the King and Court

at Versailles, and the wonderful marble-work and mirrors in that palace;

wrote next from Lyons; then, after a comparatively long interval, from

Turin, narrating his fearful adventures in crossing Mont Cenis on mules,

and how he was overtaken with a terrific snowstorm, which had well-nigh

been the end of him, and his tutor, and his guides. Then he wrote

glowingly of Italy; and Barbara could see the development of her

husband's mind reflected in his letters month by month; and she much

admired the forethought of her father in suggesting this education for

Edmond. Yet she sighed sometimes-her husband being no longer in evidence

to fortify her in her choice of him-and timidly dreaded what

mortifications might be in store for her by reason of this m�salliance.

She went out very little; for on the one or two occasions on which she

had shown herself to former friends she noticed a distinct difference in

their manner, as though they should say, 'Ah, my happy swain's wife;

you're caught!'

Edmond's letters were as affectionate as ever; even more affectionate,

after a while, than hers were to him. Barbara observed this growing

coolness in herself; and like a good and honest lady was horrified and

grieved, since her only wish was to act faithfully and uprightly. It

troubled her so much that she prayed for a warmer heart, and at last

wrote to her husband to beg him, now that he was in the land of Art, to

send her his portrait, ever so small, that she might look at it all day

and every day, and never for a moment forget his features.

Willowes was nothing loth, and replied that he would do more than she

wished: he had made friends with a sculptor in Pisa, who was much

interested in him and his history; and he had commissioned this artist

to make a bust of himself in marble, which when finished he would send

her. What Barbara had wanted was something immediate; but she expressed

no objection to the delay; and in his next communication Edmund told her

that the sculptor, of his own choice, had decided to increase the bust

to a full-length statue, so anxious was he to get a specimen of his

skill introduced to the notice of the English aristocracy. It was

progressing well, and rapidly.

Meanwhile, Barbara's attention began to be occupied at home with

Yewsholt Lodge, the house that her kind-hearted father was preparing for

her residence when her husband returned. It was a small place on the

plan of a large one-a cottage built in the form of a mansion, having a

central hall with a wooden gallery running round it, and rooms no bigger

than closets to follow this introduction. It stood on a slope so

solitary, and surrounded by trees so dense, that the birds who inhabited

the boughs sang at strange hours, as if they hardly could distinguish

night from day.

During the progress of repairs at this bower Barbara frequently visited

it. Though so secluded by the dense growth, it was near the high road,

and one day while looking over the fence she saw Lord Uplandtowers

riding past. He saluted her courteously, yet with mechanical stiffness,

and did not halt. Barbara went home, and continued to pray that she

might never cease to love her husband. After that she sickened, and did

not come out of doors again for a long time.

The year of education had extended to fourteen months, and the house was

in order for Edmond's return to take up his abode there with Barbara,

when, instead of the accustomed letter for her, came one to Sir John

Grebe in the handwriting of the said tutor, informing him of a terrible

catastrophe that had occurred to them at Venice. Mr Willowes and himself

had attended the theatre one night during the Carnival of the preceding

week, to witness the Italian comedy, when, owing to the carelessness of

one of the candle-snuffers, the theatre had caught fire, and been burnt

to the ground. Few persons had lost their lives, owing to the superhuman

exertions of some of the audience in getting out the senseless

sufferers; and, among them all, he who had risked his own life the most

heroically was Mr. Willowes. In re-entering for the fifth time to save

his fellow-creatures some fiery beams had fallen upon him, and he had

been given up for lost. He was, however, by the blessing of Providence,

recovered, with the life still in him, though he was fearfully burnt;

and by almost a miracle he seemed likely to survive, his constitution

being wondrously sound. He was, of course, unable to write, but he was

receiving the attention of several skilful surgeons. Further report

would be made by the next mail or by private hand.

The tutor said nothing in detail of poor Willowes's sufferings, but as

soon as the news was broken to Barbara she realized how intense they

must have been, and her immediate instinct was to rush to his side,

though, on consideration, the journey seemed impossible to her. Her

health was by no means what it had been, and to post across Europe at

that season of the year, or to traverse the Bay of Biscay in a sailing-

craft, was an undertaking that would hardly be justified by the result.

But she was anxious to go till, on reading to the end of the letter, her

husband's tutor was found to hint very strongly against such a step if

it should be contemplated, this being also the opinion of the surgeons.

And though Willowes's comrade refrained from giving his reasons, they

disclosed themselves plainly enough in the sequel.

The truth was that the worst of the wounds resulting from the fire had

occurred to his head and face-that handsome face which had won her heart

from her,-and both the tutor and the surgeons knew that for a sensitive

young woman to see him before his wounds had healed would cause more

misery to her by the shock than happiness to him by her ministrations.

Lady Grebe blurted out what Sir John and Barbara had thought, but had

had too much delicacy to express.

'Sure, 'tis mighty hard for you, poor Barbara, that the one little gift

he had to justify your rash choice of him-his wonderful good looks-

should be taken away like this, to leave 'ee no excuse at all for your

conduct in the world's eyes . . . Well, I wish you'd married t'other-

that do I!' And the lady sighed.

'He'll soon get right again,' said her father soothingly.

Such remarks as the above were not often made; but they were frequent

enough to cause Barbara an uneasy sense of self-stultification. She

determined to hear them no longer; and the house at Yewsholt being ready

and furnished, she withdrew thither with her maids, where for the first

time she could feel mistress of a home that would be hers and her

husband's exclusively, when he came.

After long weeks Willowes had recovered sufficiently to be able to write

himself; and slowly and tenderly he enlightened her upon the full extent

of his injuries. It was a mercy, he said, that he had not lost his sight

entirely; but he was thankful to say that he still retained full vision

in one eye, though the other was dark for ever. The sparing manner in

which he meted out particulars of his condition told Barbara how

appalling had been his experience. He was grateful for her assurance

that nothing could change her; but feared she did not fully realize that

he was so sadly disfigured as to make it doubtful if she would recognize

him. However, in spite of all, his heart was as true to her as it ever

had been.

Barbara saw from his anxiety how much lay behind. She replied that she

submitted to the decrees of Fate, and would welcome him in any shape as

soon as he could come. She told him of the pretty retreat in which she

had taken up her abode, pending their joint occupation of it, and did

not reveal how much she had sighed over the information that all his

good looks were gone. Still less did she say that she felt a certain

strangeness in awaiting him, the weeks they had lived together having

been so short by comparison with the length of his absence.

Slowly drew on the time when Willowes found himself well enough to come

home. He landed at Southampton, and posted thence towards Yewsholt.

Barbara arranged to go out to meet him as far as Lornton Inn-the spot

between the Forest and the Chase at which he had waited for night on the

evening of their elopement. Thither she drove at the appointed hour in a

little pony-chaise, presented her by her father on her birthday for her

especial use in her new house; which vehicle she sent back on arriving

at the inn, the plan agreed upon being that she should perform the

return journey with her husband in his hired coach.

There was not much accommodation for a lady at this wayside tavern; but,

as it was a fine evening in early summer, she did not mind-walking about

outside, and straining her eyes along the highway for the expected one.

But each cloud of dust that enlarged in the distance and drew near was

found to disclose a conveyance other than his post-chaise. Barbara

remained till the appointment was two hours passed, and then began to

fear that owing to some adverse wind in the Channel he was not coming

that night.

While waiting she was conscious of a curious trepidation that was not

entirely solicitude, and did not amount to dread; her tense state of

incertitude bordered both on disappointment and on relief. She had lived

six or seven weeks with an imperfectly educated yet handsome husband

whom now she had not seen for seventeen months, and who was so changed

physically by an accident that she was assured she would hardly know

him. Can we wonder at her compound state of mind?

But her immediate difficulty was to get away from Lornton Inn, for her

situation was becoming embarrassing. Like too many of Barbara's actions,

this drive had been undertaken without much reflection. Expecting to

wait no more than a few minutes for her husband in his post-chaise, and

to enter it with him, she had not hesitated to isolate herself by

sending back her own little vehicle. She now found that, being so well

known in this neighbourhood, her excursion to meet her long-absent

husband was exciting great interest. She was conscious that more eyes

were watching her from the inn-windows than met her own gaze. Barbara

had decided to get home by hiring whatever kind of conveyance the tavern

afforded, when, straining her eyes for the last time over the now

darkening highway, she perceived yet another dust-cloud drawing near.

She paused; a chariot ascended to the inn, and would have passed had not

its occupant caught sight of her standing expectantly. The horses were

checked on the instant.

'You here-and alone, my dear Mrs. Willowes?' said Lord Uplandtowers,

whose carriage it was.

She explained what had brought her into this lonely situation; and, as

he was going in the direction of her own home, she accepted his offer of

a seat beside him. Their conversation was embarrassed and fragmentary at

first; but when they had driven a mile or two she was surprised to find

herself talking earnestly and warmly to him: her impulsiveness was in

truth but the natural consequence of her late existence-a somewhat

desolate one by reason of the strange marriage she had made; and there

is no more indiscreet mood than that of a woman surprised into talk who

has long been imposing upon herself a policy of reserve. Therefore her

ingenuous heart rose with a bound into her throat when, in response to

his leading questions, or rather hints, she allowed her troubles to leak

out of her. Lord Uplandtowers took her quite to her own door, although

he had driven three miles out of his way to do so; and in handing her

down she heard from him a whisper of stern reproach: 'It need not have

been thus if you had listened to me!'

She made no reply, and went indoors. There, as the evening wore away,

she regretted more and more that she had been so friendly with Lord

Uplandtowers. But he had launched himself upon her so unexpectedly: if

she had only foreseen the meeting with him, what a careful line of

conduct she would have marked out! Barbara broke into a perspiration of

disquiet when she thought of her unreserve, and, in self-chastisement,

resolved to sit up till midnight on the bare chance of Edmond's return;

directing that supper should be laid for him, improbable as his arrival

till the morrow was.

The hours went past, and there was dead silence in and round about

Yewsholt Lodge, except for the soughing of the trees; till, when it was

near upon midnight, she heard the noise of hoofs and wheels approaching

the door. Knowing that it could only be her husband, Barbara instantly

went into the hall to meet him. Yet she stood there not without a

sensation of faintness, so many were the changes since their parting!

And, owing to her casual encounter with Lord Uplandtowers, his voice and

image still remained with her, excluding Edmond, her husband, from the

inner circle of her impressions.

But she went to the door, and the next moment a figure stepped inside,

of which she knew the outline, but little besides. Her husband was

attired in a flapping black cloak and slouched hat, appearing altogether

as a foreigner, and not as the young English burgess who had left her

side. When he came forward into the light of the lamp, she perceived

with surprise, and almost with fright, that he wore a mask. At first she

had not noticed this-there being nothing in its colour which would lead

a casual observer to think he was looking on anything but a real

countenance.

He must have seen her start of dismay at the unexpectedness of his

appearance, for he said hastily: 'I did not mean to come in to you like

this-I thought you would have been in bed. How good you are, dear

Barbara!' He put his arm round her, but he did not attempt to kiss her.

'O Edmond-it is you?-it must be?' she said, with clasped hands, for

though his figure and movement were almost enough to prove it, and the

tones were not unlike the old tones, the enunciation was so altered as

to seem that of a stranger.

'I am covered like this to hide myself from the curious eyes of the inn-

servants and others,' he said, in a low voice. 'I will send back the

carriage and join you in a moment.'

'You are quite alone?'

'Quite. My companion stopped at Southampton.'

The wheels of the post-chaise rolled away as she entered the dining-

room, where the supper was spread; and presently he rejoined her there.

He had removed his cloak and hat, but the mask was still retained; and

she could now see that it was of special make, of some flexible material

like silk, coloured so as to represent flesh; it joined naturally to the

front hair, and was otherwise cleverly executed.

'Barbara-you look ill,' he said, removing his glove, and taking her

hand.

'Yes-I have been ill,' said she.

'Is this pretty little house ours?'

'O-yes.' She was hardly conscious of her words, for the hand he had

ungloved in order to take hers was contorted, and had one or two of its

fingers missing; while through the mask she discerned the twinkle of one

eye only.

'I would give anything to kiss you, dearest, now, at this moment!' he

continued, with mournful passionateness. 'But I cannot-in this guise.

The servants are abed, I suppose?'

'Yes,' said she. 'But I can call them? You will have some supper?'

He said he would have some, but that it was not necessary to call

anybody at that hour. Thereupon they approached the table, and sat down,

facing each other.

Despite Barbara's scared state of mind, it was forced upon her notice

that her husband trembled, as if he feared the impression he was

producing, or was about to produce, as much as, or more than, she. He

drew nearer, and took her hand again.

'I had this mask made at Venice,' he began, in evident embarrassment.

'My darling Barbara-my dearest wife-do you think you-will mind when I

take it off? You will not dislike me-will you?'

'O Edmond, of course I shall not mind,' said she. 'What has happened to

you is our misfortune; but I am prepared for it.'

'Are you sure you are prepared?'

'O yes! You are my husband.'

'You really feel quite confident that nothing external can affect you?'

he said again, in a voice rendered uncertain by his agitation.

'I think I am-quite,' she answered faintly.

He bent his head. 'I hope, I hope you are,' he whispered.

In the pause which followed, the ticking of the clock in the hall seemed

to grow loud; and he turned a little aside to remove the mask. She

breathlessly awaited the operation, which was one of some tediousness,

watching him one moment, averting her face the next; and when it was

done she shut her eyes at the hideous spectacle that was revealed. A

quick spasm of horror had passed through her; but though she quailed she

forced herself to regard him anew, repressing the cry that would

naturally have escaped from her ashy lips. Unable to look at him longer,

Barbara sank down on the floor beside her chair, covering her eyes.

'You cannot look at me!' he groaned in a hopeless way. 'I am too

terrible an object even for you to bear! I knew it; yet I hoped against

it. Oh, this is a bitter fate-curse the skill of those Venetian surgeons

who saved me alive! . . . Look up, Barbara,' he continued beseechingly;

'view me completely; say you loathe me, if you do loathe me, and settle

the case between us for ever!'

His unhappy wife pulled herself together for a desperate strain. He was

her Edmond; he had done her no wrong; he had suffered. A momentary

devotion to him helped her, and lifting her eyes as bidden she regarded

this human remnant, this �corch�, a second time. But the sight was too

much. She again involuntarily looked aside and shuddered.

'Do you think you can get used to this?' he said. 'Yes or no! Can you

bear such a thing of the charnel-house near you? Judge for yourself;

Barbara. Your Adonis, your matchless man, has come to this!'

The poor lady stood beside him motionless, save for the restlessness of

her eyes. All her natural sentiments of affection and pity were driven

clean out of her by a sort of panic; she had just the same sense of

dismay and fearfulness that she would have had in the presence of an

apparition. She could nohow fancy this to be her chosen one-the man she

had loved; he was metamorphosed to a specimen of another species. 'I do

not loathe you,' she said with trembling. 'But I am so horrified-so

overcome! Let me recover myself. Will you sup now? And while you do so

may I go to my room to-regain my old feeling for you? I will try, if I

may leave you awhile? Yes, I will try!'

Without waiting for an answer from him, and keeping her gaze carefully

averted, the frightened woman crept to the door and out of the room. She

heard him sit down to the table, as if to begin supper though, Heaven

knows, his appetite was slight enough after a reception which had

confirmed his worst surmises. When Barbara had ascended the stairs and

arrived in her chamber she sank down, and buried her face in the

coverlet of the bed.

Thus she remained for some time. The bed-chamber was over the dining-

room, and presently as she knelt Barbara heard Willowes thrust back his

chair, and rise to go into the hall. In five minutes that figure would

probably come up the stairs and confront her again; it,-this new and

terrible form, that was not her husband's. In the loneliness of this

night, with neither maid nor friend beside her, she lost all self-

control, and at the first sound of his footstep on the stairs, without

so much as flinging a cloak round her, she flew from the room, ran along

the gallery to the back staircase, which she descended, and, unlocking

the back door, let herself out. She scarcely was aware what she had done

till she found herself in the greenhouse, crouching on a flower- stand.

Here she remained, her great timid eyes strained through the glass upon

the garden without, and her skirts gathered up, in fear of the field-

mice which sometimes came there. Every moment she dreaded to hear

footsteps which she ought by law to have longed for, and a voice that

should have been as music to her soul. But Edmond Willowes came not that

way. The nights were getting short at this season, and soon the dawn

appeared, and the first rays of the sun. By daylight she had less fear

than in the dark. She thought she could meet him, and accustom herself

to the spectacle.

So the much-tried young woman unfastened the door of the hot-house, and

went back by the way she had emerged a few hours ago. Her poor husband

was probably in bed and asleep, his journey having been long; and she

made as little noise as possible in her entry. The house was just as she

had left it, and she looked about in the hall for his cloak and hat, but

she could not see them; nor did she perceive the small trunk which had

been all that he brought with him, his heavier baggage having been left

at Southampton for the road-waggon. She summoned courage to mount the

stairs; the bedroom-door was open as she had left it. She fearfully

peeped round; the bed had not been pressed. Perhaps he had lain down on

the dining-room sofa. She descended and entered; he was not there. On

the table beside his unsoiled plate lay a note, hastily written on the

leaf of a pocket-book. It was something like this:

'My ever-beloved Wife-The effect that my forbidding appearance has

produced upon you was one which I foresaw as quite possible. I hoped

against it, but foolishly so. I was aware that no human love could

survive such a catastrophe. I confess I thought yours divine; but, after

so long an absence, there could not be left sufficient warmth to

overcome the too natural first aversion. It was an experiment, and it

has failed. I do not blame you; perhaps, even, it is better so. Good-

bye. I leave England for one year. You will see me again at the

expiration of that time, if I live. Then I will ascertain your true

feeling; and, if it be against me, go away for ever. E. W.'

On recovering from her surprise, Barbara's remorse was such that she

felt herself absolutely unforgiveable. She should have regarded him as

an afflicted being, and not have been this slave to mere eyesight, like

a child. To follow him and entreat him to return was her first thought.

But on making inquiries she found that nobody had seen him: he had

silently disappeared.

More than this, to undo the scene of last night was impossible. Her

terror had been too plain, and he was a man unlikely to be coaxed back

by her efforts to do her duty. She went and confessed to her parents all

that had occurred; which, indeed, soon became known to more persons than

those of her own family.

The year passed, and he did not return; and it was doubted if he were

alive. Barbara's contrition for her unconquerable repugnance was now

such that she longed to build a church-aisle, or erect a monument, and

devote herself to deeds of charity for the remainder of her days. To

that end she made inquiry of the excellent parson under whom she sat on

Sundays, at a vertical distance of twenty feet. But he could only adjust

his wig and tap his snuff-box; for such was the lukewarm state of

religion in those days, that not an aisle, steeple, porch, east window,

Ten-Commandment board, lion-and-unicorn, or brass candlestick, was

required anywhere at all in the neighbourhood as a votive offering from

a distracted soul-the last century contrasting greatly in this respect

with the happy times in which we live, when urgent appeals for

contributions to such objects pour in by every morning's post, and

nearly all churches have been made to look like new pennies. As the poor

lady could not ease her conscience this way, she determined at least to

be charitable, and soon had the satisfaction of finding her porch

thronged every morning by the raggedest, idlest, most drunken,

hypocritical, and worthless tramps in Christendom.

But human hearts are as prone to change as the leaves of the creeper on

the wall, and in the course of time, hearing nothing of her husband,

Barbara could sit unmoved whilst her mother and friends said in her

hearing, 'Well, what has happened is for the best.' She began to think

so herself; for even now she could not summon up that lopped and

mutilated form without a shiver, though whenever her mind flew back to

her early wedded days, and the man who had stood beside her then, a

thrill of tenderness moved her, which if quickened by his living

presence might have become strong. She was young and inexperienced, and

had hardly on his late return grown out of the capricious fancies of

girlhood.

But he did not come again, and when she thought of his word that he

would return once more, if living, and how unlikely he was to break his

word, she gave him up for dead. So did her parents; so also did another

person-that man of silence, of irresistible incisiveness, of still

countenance, who was as awake as seven sentinels when he seemed to be as

sound asleep as the figures on his family monument. Lord Uplandtowers,

though not yet thirty, had chuckled like a caustic fogey of threescore

when he heard of Barbara's terror and flight at her husband's return,

and of the latter's prompt departure. He felt pretty sure, however, that

Willowes, despite his hurt feelings, would have reappeared to claim his

bright-eyed property if he had been alive at the end of the twelve

months.

As there was no husband to live with her, Barbara had relinquished the

house prepared for them by her father, and taken up her abode anew at

Chene Manor, as in the days of her girlhood. By degrees the episode with

Edmond Willowes seemed but a fevered dream, and as the months grew to

years Lord Uplandtowers' friendship with the people at Chene-which had

somewhat cooled after Barbara's elopement-revived considerably, and he

again became a frequent visitor there. He could not make the most

trivial alteration or improvement at Knollingwood Hall, where he lived,

without riding off to consult with his friend Sir John at Chene; and

thus putting himself frequently under her eyes, Barbara grew accustomed

to him, and talked to him as freely as to a brother. She even began to

look up to him as a person of authority, judgment, and prudence; and

though his severity on the bench towards poachers, smugglers, and

turnip-stealers was matter of common notoriety, she trusted that much of

what was said might be misrepresentation.

Thus they lived on till her husband's absence had stretched to years,

and there could be no longer any doubt of his death. A passionless

manner of renewing his addresses seemed no longer out of place in Lord

Uplandtowers. Barbara did not love him, but hers was essentially one of

those sweet-pea or with-wind natures which require a twig of stouter

fibre than its own to hang upon and bloom. Now, too, she was older, and

admitted to herself that a man whose ancestor had run scores of Saracens

through and through in fighting for the site of the Holy Sepulchre was a

more desirable husband, socially considered, than one who could only

claim with certainty to know that his father and grandfather were

respectable burgesses.

Sir John took occasion to inform her that she might legally consider

herself a widow; and, in brief; Lord Uplandtowers carried his point with

her, and she married him, though he could never get her to own that she

loved him as she had loved Willowes. In my childhood I knew an old lady

whose mother saw the wedding, and she said that when Lord and Lady

Uplandtowers drove away from her father's house in the evening it was in

a coach-and-four, and that my lady was dressed in green and silver, and

wore the gayest hat and feather that ever were seen; though whether it

was that the green did not suit her complexion, or otherwise, the

Countess looked pale, and the reverse of blooming. After their marriage

her husband took her to London, and she saw the gaieties of a season

there; then they returned to Knollingwood Hall, and thus a year passed

away.

Before their marriage her husband had seemed to care but little about

her inability to love him passionately. 'Only let me win you,' he had

said, 'and I will submit to all that.' But now her lack of warmth seemed

to irritate him, and he conducted himself towards her with a

resentfulness which led to her passing many hours with him in painful

silence. The heir-presumptive to the title was a remote relative, whom

Lord Uplandtowers did not exclude from the dislike he entertained

towards many persons and things besides, and he had set his mind upon a

lineal successor. He blamed her much that there was no promise of this,

and asked her what she was good for.

On a particular day in her gloomy life a letter, addressed to her as

Mrs. Willowes, reached Lady Uplandtowers from an unexpected quarter. A

sculptor in Pisa, knowing nothing of her second marriage, informed her

that the long-delayed life-size statue of Mr. Willowes, which, when her

husband left that city, he had been directed to retain till it was sent

for, was still in his studio. As his commission had not wholly been

paid, and the statue was taking up room he could ill spare, he should be

glad to have the debt cleared off, and directions where to forward the

figure. Arriving at a time when the Countess was beginning to have

little secrets (of a harmless kind, it is true) from her husband, by

reason of their growing estrangement, she replied to this letter without

saying a word to Lord Uplandtowers, sending off the balance that was

owing to the sculptor, and telling him to despatch the statue to her

without delay.

It was some weeks before it arrived at Knollingwood Hall, and, by a

singular coincidence, during the interval she received the first

absolutely conclusive tidings of her Edmond's death. It had taken place

years before, in a foreign land, about six months after their parting,

and had been induced by the sufferings he had already undergone, coupled

with much depression of spirit, which had caused him to succumb to a

slight ailment. The news was sent her in a brief and formal letter from

some relative of Willowes's in another part of England.

Her grief took the form of passionate pity for his misfortunes, and of

reproach to herself for never having been able to conquer her aversion

to his latter image by recollection of what Nature had originally made

him. The sad spectacle that had gone from earth had never been her

Edmond at all to her. O that she could have met him as he was at first!

Thus Barbara thought. It was only a few days later that a waggon with

two horses, containing an immense packing-case, was seen at breakfast-

time both by Barbara and her husband to drive round to the back of the

house, and by-and-by they were informed that a case labelled 'Sculpture'

had arrived for her ladyship.

'What can that be?' said Lord Uplandtowers.

'It is the statue of poor Edmond, which belongs to me, but has never

been sent till now,' she answered.

'Where are you going to put it?' asked he.

'I have not decided,' said the Countess. 'Anywhere, so that it will not

annoy you.'

'Oh, it won't annoy me,' says he.

When it had been unpacked in a back room of the house, they went to

examine it. The statue was a full-length figure, in the purest Carrara

marble, representing Edmond Willowes in all his original beauty, as he

had stood at parting from her when about to set out on his travels; a

specimen of manhood almost perfect in every line and contour. The work

had been carried out with absolute fidelity.

'Phoebus-Apollo, sure,' said the Earl of Uplandtowers, who had never

seen Willowes, real or represented, till now.

Barbara did not hear him. She was standing in a sort of trance before

the first husband, as if she had no consciousness of the other husband

at her side. The mutilated features of Willowes had disappeared from her

mind's eye; this perfect being was really the man she had loved, and not

that later pitiable figure; in whom love and truth should have seen this

image always, but had not done so.

It was not till Lord Uplandtowers said roughly, 'Are you going to stay

here all the morning worshipping him?' that she roused herself.

Her husband had not till now the least suspicion that Edmond Willowes

originally looked thus, and he thought how deep would have been his

jealousy years ago if Willowes had been known to him. Returning to the

Hall in the afternoon he found his wife in the gallery, whither the

statue had been brought.

She was lost in reverie before it, just as in the morning.

'What are you doing?' he asked.

She started and turned. 'I am looking at my husb�- my statue, to see if

it is well done,' she stammered. 'Why should I not?'

'There's no reason why,' he said. 'What are you going to do with the

monstrous thing? It can't stand here for ever.'

'I don't wish it,' she said. 'I'll find a place.'

In her boudoir there was a deep recess, and while the Earl was absent

from home for a few days in the following week, she hired joiners from

the village, who under her directions enclosed the recess with a

panelled door. Into the tabernacle thus formed she had the statue

placed, fastening the door with a lock, the key of which she kept in her

pocket.

When her husband returned he missed the statue from the gallery, and,

concluding that it had been put away out of deference to his feelings,

made no remark. Yet at moments he noticed something on his lady's face

which he had never noticed there before. He could not construe it; it

was a sort of silent ecstasy, a reserved beatification. What had become

of the statue he could not divine, and growing more and more curious,

looked about here and there for it till, thinking of her private room,

he went towards that spot. After knocking he heard the shutting of a

door, and the click of a key; but when he entered his wife was sitting

at work, on what was in those days called knotting. Lord Uplandtowers'

eye fell upon the newly-painted door where the recess had formerly been.

'You have been carpentering in my absence then, Barbara,' he said

carelessly.

'Yes, Uplandtowers.'

'Why did you go putting up such a tasteless enclosure as that-spoiling

the handsome arch of the alcove?'

'I wanted more closet-room; and I thought that as this was my own

apartment-'

'Of course,' he returned. Lord Uplandtowers knew now where the statue of

young Willowes was.

One night, or rather in the smallest hours of the morning, he missed the

Countess from his side. Not being a man of nervous imaginings he fell

asleep again before he had much considered the matter, and the next

morning had forgotten the incident. But a few nights later the same

circumstances occurred. This time he fully roused himself; but before he

had moved to search for her, she entered the chamber in her dressing-

gown, carrying a candle, which she extinguished as she approached,

deeming him asleep. He could discover from her breathing that she was

strangely moved; but not on this occasion either did he reveal that he

had seen her. Presently, when she had lain down, affecting to wake, he

asked her some trivial questions. 'Yes, Edmond,' she replied absently.

Lord Uplandtowers became convinced that she was in the habit of leaving

the chamber in this queer way more frequently than he had observed, and

he determined to watch. The next midnight he feigned deep sleep, and

shortly after perceived her stealthily rise and let herself out of the

room in the dark. He slipped on some clothing and followed. At the

farther end of the corridor, where the clash of flint and steel would be

out of the hearing of one in the bed-chamber, she struck a light. He

stepped aside into an empty room till she had lit a taper and had passed

on to her boudoir. In a minute or two he followed. Arrived at the door

of the boudoir, he beheld the door of the private recess open, and

Barbara within it, standing with her arms clasped tightly round the neck

of her Edmond, and her mouth on his. The shawl which she had thrown

round her nightclothes had slipped from her shoulders, and her long

white robe and pale face lent her the blanched appearance of a second

statue embracing the first. Between her kisses, she apostrophized it in

a low murmur of infantine tenderness:

'My only love-how could I be so cruel to you, my perfect one-so good and

true-I am ever faithful to you, despite my seeming infidelity! I always

think of you-dream of you-during the long hours of the day, and in the

night-watches! O Edmond, I am always yours!' Such words as these,

intermingled with sobs, and streaming tears, and dishevelled hair,

testified to an intensity of feeling in his wife which Lord Uplandtowers

had not dreamed of her possessing.

'Ha, ha!' says he to himself. 'This is where we evaporate-this is where

my hopes of a successor in the title dissolve-ha, ha! This must be seen

to, verily!'

Lord Uplandtowers was a subtle man when once he set himself to strategy;

though in the present instance he never thought of the simple stratagem

of constant tenderness. Nor did he enter the room and surprise his wife

as a blunderer would have done, but went back to his chamber as silently

as he had left it. When the Countess returned thither, shaken by spent

sobs and sighs, he appeared to be soundly sleeping as usual. The next

day he began his countermoves by making inquiries as to the whereabouts

of the tutor who had travelled with his wife's first husband; this

gentleman, he found, was now master of a grammar-school at no great

distance from Knollingwood. At the first convenient moment Lord

Uplandtowers went thither and obtained an interview with the said

gentleman. The schoolmaster was much gratified by a visit from such an

influential neighbour, and was ready to communicate anything that his

lordship desired to know.

After some general conversation on the school and its progress, the

visitor observed that he believed the schoolmaster had once travelled a

good deal with the unfortunate Mr. Willowes, and had been with him on

the occasion of his accident. He, Lord Uplandtowers, was interested in

knowing what had really happened at that time, and had often thought of

inquiring. And then the Earl not only heard by word of mouth as much as

he wished to know, but, their chat becoming more intimate, the

schoolmaster drew upon paper a sketch of the disfigured head, explaining

with bated breath various details in the representation.

'It was very strange and terrible!' said Lord Uplandtowers, taking the

sketch in his hand. 'Neither nose nor ears!'

A poor man in the town nearest to Knollingwood Hall, who combined the

art of sign-painting with ingenious mechanical occupations, was sent for

by Lord Uplandtowers to come to the Hall on a day in that week when the

Countess had gone on a short visit to her parents. His employer made the

man understand that the business in which his assistance was demanded

was to be considered private, and money insured the observance of this

request. The lock of the cupboard was picked, and the ingenious mechanic

and painter, assisted by the schoolmaster's sketch, which Lord

Uplandtowers had put in his pocket, set to work upon the god-like

countenance of the statue under my lord's direction. What the fire had

maimed in the original the chisel maimed in the copy. It was a fiendish

disfigurement, ruthlessly carried out, and was rendered still more

shocking by being tinted to the hues of life, as life had been after the

wreck.

Six hours after, when the workman was gone, Lord Uplandtowers looked

upon the result, and smiled grimly, and said:

'A statue should represent a man as he appeared in life, and that's as

he appeared. Ha! ha! But 'tis done to good purpose, and not idly.'

He locked the door of the closet with a skeleton key, and went his way

to fetch the Countess home.

That night she slept, but he kept awake. According to the tale, she

murmured soft words in her dream; and he knew that the tender converse

of her imaginings was held with one whom he had supplanted but in name.

At the end of her dream the Countess of Uplandtowers awoke and arose,

and then the enactment of former nights was repeated. Her husband

remained still and listened. Two strokes sounded from the clock in the

pediment without, when, leaving the chamber-door ajar, she passed along

the corridor to the other end, where, as usual, she obtained a light. So

deep was the silence that he could even from his bed hear her softly

blowing the tinder to a glow after striking the steel. She moved on into

the boudoir, and he heard, or fancied he heard, the turning of the key

in the closet-door. The next moment there came from that direction a

loud and prolonged shriek, which resounded to the farthest corners of

the house. It was repeated, and there was the noise of a heavy fall.

Lord Uplandtowers sprang out of bed. He hastened along the dark corridor

to the door of the boudoir, which stood ajar, and, by the light of the

candle within, saw his poor young Countess lying in a heap in her

nightdress on the floor of the closet. When he reached her side he found

that she had fainted, much to the relief of his fears that matters were

worse. He quickly shut up and locked in the hated image which had done

the mischief; and lifted his wife in his arms, where in a few instants

she opened her eyes. Pressing her face to his without saying a word, he

carried her back to her room, endeavouring as he went to disperse her

terrors by a laugh in her ear, oddly compounded of causticity,

predilection, and brutality.

'Ho-ho-ho!' says he. 'Frightened, dear one, hey? What a baby 'tis! Only

a joke, sure, Barbara-a splendid joke! But a baby should not go to

closets at midnight to look for the ghost of the dear departed! If it do

it must expect to be terrified at his aspect-ho-ho-ho!'

When she was in her bed-chamber, and had quite come to herself; though

her nerves were still much shaken, he spoke to her more sternly. 'Now,

my lady, answer me: do you love him-eh?'

'No-no!' she faltered, shuddering, with her expanded eyes fixed on her

husband. 'He is too terrible-no, no!'

'You are sure?'

'Quite sure!' replied the poor broken-spirited Countess. But her natural

elasticity asserted itself. Next morning he again inquired of her: 'Do

you love him now?'

She quailed under his gaze, but did not reply.

'That means that you do still, by G�-!' he continued.

'It means that I will not tell an untruth, and do not wish to incense my

lord,' she answered, with dignity.

'Then suppose we go and have another look at him?' As he spoke, he

suddenly took her by the wrist, and turned as if to lead her towards the

ghastly closet.

'No-no! Oh-no!' she cried, and her desperate wriggle out of his hand

revealed that the fright of the night had left more impression upon her

delicate soul than superficially appeared.

'Another dose or two, and she will be cured,' he said to himself.

It was now so generally known that the Earl and Countess were not in

accord, that he took no great trouble to disguise his deeds in relation

to this matter. During the day he ordered four men with ropes and

rollers to attend him in the boudoir. When they arrived, the closet was

open, and the upper part of the statue tied up in canvas. He had it

taken to the sleeping-chamber. What followed is more or less matter of

conjecture. The story, as told to me, goes on to say that, when Lady

Uplandtowers retired with him that night, she saw near the foot of the

heavy oak four-poster, a tall dark wardrobe, which had not stood there

before; but she did not ask what its presence meant.

'I have had a little whim,' he explained when they were in the dark.

'Have you?' says she.

'To erect a little shrine, as it may be called.'

'A little shrine?'

'Yes; to one whom we both equally adore-eh? I'll show you what it

contains.'

He pulled a cord which hung covered by the bed-curtains, and the doors

of the wardrobe slowly opened, disclosing that the shelves within had

been removed throughout, and the interior adapted to receive the ghastly

figure, which stood there as it had stood in the boudoir, but with a

wax-candle burning on each side of it to throw the cropped and distorted

features into relief. She clutched him, uttered a low scream, and buried

her head in the bedclothes. 'Oh, take it away-please take it away!' she

implored.

'All in good time namely, when you love me best,' he returned calmly.

'You don't quite yet-eh?'

'I don't know-I think-O Uplandtowers, have mercy-I cannot bear it-O, in

pity, take it away!'

'Nonsense; one gets accustomed to anything. Take another gaze.'

In short, he allowed the doors to remain unclosed at the foot of the

bed, and the wax-tapers burning; and such was the strange fascination of

the grisly exhibition that a morbid curiosity took possession of the

Countess as she lay, and, at his repeated request, she did again look

out from the coverlet, shuddered, hid her eyes, and looked again, all

the while begging him to take it away, or it would drive her out of her

senses. But he would not do so as yet, and the wardrobe was not locked

till dawn.

The scene was repeated the next night. Firm in enforcing his ferocious

correctives, he continued the treatment till the nerves of the poor lady

were quivering in agony under the virtuous tortures inflicted by her

lord, to bring her truant heart back to faithfulness.

The third night, when the scene had opened as usual, and she lay staring

with immense wild eyes at the horrid fascination, on a sudden she gave

an unnatural laugh; she laughed more and more, staring at the image,

till she literally shrieked with laughter: then there was silence, and

he found her to have become insensible. He thought she had fainted, but

soon saw that the event was worse: she was in an epileptic fit. He

started up, dismayed by the sense that, like many other subtle

personages, he had been too exacting for his own interests. Such love as

he was capable of, though rather a selfish gloating than a cherishing

solicitude, was fanned into life on the instant. He closed the wardrobe

with the pulley, clasped her in his arms, took her gently to the window,

and did all he could to restore her.

It was a long time before the Countess came to herself, and when she did

so, a considerable change seemed to have taken place in her emotions.

She flung her arms around him, and with gasps of fear abjectly kissed

him many times, at last bursting into tears. She had never wept in this

scene before.

'You'll take it away, dearest-you will!' she begged plaintively.

'If you love me.'

'I do-oh, I do!'

'And hate him, and his memory?'

'Yes-yes!'

'Thoroughly?'

'I cannot endure recollection of him!' cried the poor Countess

slavishly. 'It fills me with shame-how could I ever be so depraved! I'll

never behave badly again, Uplandtowers; and you will never put the hated

statue again before my eyes?'

He felt that he could promise with perfect safety. 'Never,' said he.

'And then I'll love you,' she returned eagerly, as if dreading lest the

scourge should be applied anew. 'And I'll never, never dream of thinking

a single thought that seems like faithlessness to my marriage vow.'

The strange thing now was that this fictitious love wrung from her by

terror took on, through mere habit of enactment, a certain quality of

reality. A servile mood of attachment to the Earl became distinctly

visible in her contemporaneously with an actual dislike for her late

husband's memory. The mood of attachment grew and continued when the

statue was removed. A permanent revulsion was operant in her, which

intensified as time wore on. How fright could have effected such a

change of idiosyncrasy learned physicians alone can say; but I believe

such cases of reactionary instinct are not unknown.

The upshot was that the cure became so permanent as to be itself a new

disease. She clung to him so tightly, that she would not willingly be

out of his sight for a moment. She would have no sitting-room apart from

his, though she could not help starting when he entered suddenly to her.

Her eyes were well-nigh always fixed upon him. If he drove out, she

wished to go with him; his slightest civilities to other women made her

frantically jealous; till at length her very fidelity became a burden to

him, absorbing his time, and curtailing his liberty, and causing him to

curse and swear. If he ever spoke sharply to her now, she did not

revenge herself by flying off to a mental world of her own; all that

affection for another, which had provided her with a resource, was now a

cold black cinder.

From that time the life of this scared and enervated lady-whose

existence might have been developed to so much higher purpose but for

the ignoble ambition of her parents and the conventions of the time-was

one of obsequious amativeness towards a perverse and cruel man. Little

personal events came to her in quick succession-half a dozen, eight,

nine, ten such events,-in brief; she bore him no less than eleven

children in the eight following years, but half of them came prematurely

into the world, or died a few days old; only one, a girl, attained to

maturity; she in after years became the wife of the Honourable Mr.

Beltonleigh, who was created Lord D'Almaine, as may be remembered.

There was no living son and heir. At length, completely worn out in mind

and body, Lady Uplandtowers was taken abroad by her husband, to try the

effect of a more genial climate upon her wasted frame. But nothing

availed to strengthen her, and she died at Florence, a few months after

her arrival in Italy.

Contrary to expectation, the Earl of Uplandtowers did not marry again.

Such affection as existed in him-strange, hard, brutal as it was-seemed

untransferable, and the title, as is known, passed at his death to his

nephew. Perhaps it may not be so generally known that, during the

enlargement of the Hall for the sixth Earl, while digging in the grounds

for the new foundations, the broken fragments of a marble statue were

unearthed. They were submitted to various antiquaries, who said that, so

far as the damaged pieces would allow them to form an opinion, the

statue seemed to be that of a mutilated Roman satyr; or if not, an

allegorical figure of Death. Only one or two old inhabitants guessed

whose statue those fragments had composed.

I should have added that, shortly after the death of the Countess, an

excellent sermon was preached by the Dean of Melchester, the subject of

which, though names were not mentioned, was unquestionably suggested by

the aforesaid events. He dwelt upon the folly of indulgence in sensuous

love for a handsome form merely; and showed that the only rational and

virtuous growths of that affection were those based upon intrinsic

worth. In the case of the tender but somewhat shallow lady whose life I

have related, there is no doubt that an infatuation for the person of

young Willowes was the chief feeling that induced her to marry him;

which was the more deplorable in that his beauty, by all tradition, was

the least of his recommendations, every report bearing out the inference

that he must have been a man of steadfast nature, bright intelligence,

and promising life.

The company thanked the old surgeon for his story, which the rural dean

declared to be a far more striking one than anything he could hope to

tell. An elderly member of the Club, who was mostly called the Bookworm,

said that a woman's natural instinct of fidelity would, indeed, send

back her heart to a man after his death in a truly wonderful manner

sometimes-if anything occurred to put before her forcibly the original

affection between them, and his original aspect in her eyes,-whatever

his inferiority may have been, social or otherwise; and then a general

conversation ensued upon the power that a woman has of seeing the actual

in the representation, the reality in the dream-a power which (according

to the sentimental member) men have no faculty of equalling.

The rural dean thought that such cases as that related by the surgeon

were rather an illustration of passion electrified back to life than of

a latent, true affection. The story had suggested that he should try to

recount to them one which he had used to hear in his youth, and which

afforded an instance of the latter and better kind of feeling, his

heroine being also a lady who had married beneath her, though he feared

his narrative would be of a much slighter kind than the surgeon's. The

Club begged him to proceed, and the parson began.

DAME THE THIRD-THE MARCHIONESS OF STONEHENGE By the Rural Dean

I would have you know, then, that a great many years ago there lived in

a classical mansion with which I used to be familiar, standing not a

hundred miles from the city of Melchester, a lady whose personal charms

were so rare and unparalleled that she was courted, flattered, and

spoilt by almost all the young noblemen and gentlemen in that part of

Wessex. For a time these attentions pleased her well. But as, in the

words of good Robert South (whose sermons might be read much more than

they are), the most passionate lover of sport, if tied to follow his

hawks and hounds every day of his life, would find the pursuit the

greatest torment and calamity, and would fly to the mines and galleys

for his recreation, so did this lofty and beautiful lady after a while

become satiated with the constant iteration of what she had in its

novelty enjoyed; and by an almost natural revulsion turned her regards

absolutely netherward, socially speaking. She perversely and

passionately centred her affection on quite a plain-looking young man of

humble birth and no position at all; though it is true that he was

gentle and delicate in nature, of good address, and guileless heart. In

short, he was the parish-clerk's son, acting as assistant to the land-

steward of her father, the Earl of Avon, with the hope of becoming some

day a land-steward himself. It should be said that perhaps the Lady

Caroline (as she was called) was a little stimulated in this passion by

the discovery that a young girl of the village already loved the young

man fondly, and that he had paid some attentions to her, though merely

of a casual and good-natured kind.

Since his occupation brought him frequently to the manor-house and its

environs, Lady Caroline could make ample opportunities of seeing and

speaking to him. She had, in Chaucer's phrase, 'all the craft of fine

loving' at her fingers' ends, and the young man, being of a readily-

kindling heart, was quick to notice the tenderness in her eyes and

voice. He could not at first believe in his good fortune, having no

understanding of her weariness of more artificial men; but a time comes

when the stupidest sees in an eye the glance of his other half; and it

came to him, who was quite the reverse of dull. As he gained confidence

accidental encounters led to encounters by design; till at length when

they were alone together there was no reserve on the matter. They

whispered tender words as other lovers do, and were as devoted a pair as

ever was seen. But not a ray or symptom of this attachment was allowed

to show itself to the outer world.

Now, as she became less and less scrupulous towards him under the

influence of her affection, and he became more and more reverential

under the influence of his, and they looked the situation in the face

together, their condition seemed intolerable in its hopelessness. That

she could ever ask to be allowed to marry him, or could hold her tongue

and quietly renounce him, was equally beyond conception. They resolved

upon a third course, possessing neither of the disadvantages of these

two: to wed secretly, and live on in outward appearance the same as

before. In this they differed from the lovers of my friend's story.

Not a soul in the parental mansion guessed, when Lady Caroline came

coolly into the hall one day after a visit to her aunt, that, during

that visit, her lover and herself had found an opportunity of uniting

themselves till death should part them. Yet such was the fact; the young

woman who rode fine horses, and drove in pony-chaises, and was saluted

deferentially by every one, and the young man who trudged about, and

directed the tree-felling, and the laying out of fish-ponds in the park,

were husband and wife.