'I am getting on fairly well, thank you.'

The force of her utterance was scarcely borne out by her look; but

Barnet courteously reproached himself for not having guessed a thing so

natural; and to dissipate all embarrassment, added, as he bent over the

table, 'What were you doing when I came?-painting flowers, and by

candlelight?'

'O no,' she said, 'not painting them-only sketching the outlines. I do

that at night to save time-I have to get three dozen done by the end of

the month.'

Barnet looked as if he regretted it deeply. 'You will wear your poor

eyes out,' he said, with more sentiment than he had hitherto shown. 'You

ought not to do it. There was a time when I should have said you must

not. Well-I almost wish I had never seen light with my own eyes when I

think of that!'

'Is this a time or place for recalling such matters?' she asked, with

dignity. 'You used to have a gentlemanly respect for me, and for

yourself. Don't speak any more as you have spoken, and don't come again.

I cannot think that this visit is serious, or was closely considered by

you.'

'Considered: well, I came to see you as an old and good friend-not to

mince matters, to visit a woman I loved. Don't be angry! I could not

help doing it, so many things brought you into my mind . . . This

evening I fell in with an acquaintance, and when I saw how happy he was

with his wife and family welcoming him home, though with only one-tenth

of my income and chances, and thought what might have been in my case,

it fairly broke down my discretion, and off I came here. Now I am here I

feel that I am wrong to some extent. But the feeling that I should like

to see you, and talk of those we used to know in common, was very

strong.'

'Before that can be the case a little more time must pass,' said Miss

Savile quietly; 'a time long enough for me to regard with some calmness

what at present I remember far too impatiently-though it may be you

almost forget it. Indeed you must have forgotten it long before you

acted as you did.' Her voice grew stronger and more vivacious as she

added: 'But I am doing my best to forget it too, and I know I shall

succeed from the progress I have made already!'

She had remained standing till now, when she turned and sat down, facing

half away from him.

Barnet watched her moodily. 'Yes, it is only what I deserve,' he said.

'Ambition pricked me on-no, it was not ambition, it was wrongheadedness!

Had I but reflected . . . ' He broke out vehemently: 'But always

remember this, Lucy: if you had written to me only one little line after

that misunderstanding, I declare I should have come back to you. That

ruined me!' he slowly walked as far as the little room would allow him

to go, and remained with his eyes on the skirting.

'But, Mr. Barnet, how could I write to you? There was no opening for my

doing so.'

'Then there ought to have been,' said Barnet, turning. 'That was my

fault!'

'Well, I don't know anything about that; but as there had been nothing

said by me which required any explanation by letter, I did not send one.

Everything was so indefinite, and feeling your position to be so much

wealthier than mine, I fancied I might have mistaken your meaning. And

when I heard of the other lady-a woman of whose family even you might be

proud-I thought how foolish I had been, and said nothing.'

'Then I suppose it was destiny-accident-I don't know what, that

separated us, dear Lucy. Anyhow you were the woman I ought to have made

my wife-and I let you slip, like the foolish man that I was!'

'O, Mr. Barnet,' she said, almost in tears, 'don't revive the subject to

me; I am the wrong one to console you-think, sir,-you should not be

here-it would be so bad for me if it were known!'

'It would-it would, indeed,' he said hastily. 'I am not right in doing

this, and I won't do it again.'

'It is a very common folly of human nature, you know, to think the

course you did not adopt must have been the best,' she continued, with

gentle solicitude, as she followed him to the door of the room. 'And you

don't know that I should have accepted you, even if you had asked me to

be your wife.' At this his eye met hers, and she dropped her gaze. She

knew that her voice belied her. There was a silence till she looked up

to add, in a voice of soothing playfulness, 'My family was so much

poorer than yours, even before I lost my dear father, that-perhaps your

companions would have made it unpleasant for us on account of my

deficiencies.'

'Your disposition would soon have won them round,' said Barnet.

She archly expostulated: 'Now, never mind my disposition; try to make it

up with your wife! Those are my commands to you. And now you are to

leave me at once.'

'I will. I must make the best of it all, I suppose,' he replied, more

cheerfully than he had as yet spoken. 'But I shall never again meet with

such a dear girl as you!' And he suddenly opened the door, and left her

alone. When his glance again fell on the lamps that were sparsely ranged

along the dreary level road, his eyes were in a state which showed

straw-like motes of light radiating from each flame into the surrounding

air.

On the other side of the way Barnet observed a man under an umbrella,

walking parallel with himself. Presently this man left the footway, and

gradually converged on Barnet's course. The latter then saw that it was

Charlson, a surgeon of the town, who owed him money. Charlson was a man

not without ability; yet he did not prosper. Sundry circumstances stood

in his way as a medical practitioner: he was needy; he was not a coddle;

he gossiped with men instead of with women; he had married a stranger

instead of one of the town young ladies; and he was given to

conversational buffoonery. Moreover, his look was quite erroneous. Those

only proper features in the family doctor, the quiet eye, and the thin

straight passionless lips which never curl in public either for laughter

or for scorn, were not his; he had a full-curved mouth, and a bold black

eye that made timid people nervous. His companions were what in old

times would have been called boon companions-an expression which, though

of irreproachable root, suggests fraternization carried to the point of

unscrupulousness. All this was against him in the little town of his

adoption.

Charlson had been in difficulties, and to oblige him Barnet had put his

name to a bill; and, as he had expected, was called upon to meet it when

it fell due. It had been only a matter of fifty pounds, which Barnet

could well afford to lose, and he bore no ill-will to the thriftless

surgeon on account of it. But Charlson had a little too much brazen

indifferentism in his composition to be altogether a desirable

acquaintance.

'I hope to be able to make that little bill-business right with you in

the course of three weeks, Mr. Barnet,' said Charlson with hail-fellow

friendliness.

Barnet replied good-naturedly that there was no hurry.

This particular three weeks had moved on in advance of Charlson's

present with the precision of a shadow for some considerable time.

'I've had a dream,' Charlson continued. Barnet knew from his tone that

the surgeon was going to begin his characteristic nonsense, and did not

encourage him. 'I've had a dream,' repeated Charlson, who required no

encouragement. 'I dreamed that a gentleman, who has been very kind to

me, married a haughty lady in haste, before he had quite forgotten a

nice little girl he knew before, and that one wet evening, like the

present, as I was walking up the harbour-road, I saw him come out of

that dear little girl's present abode.'

Barnet glanced towards the speaker. The rays from a neighbouring lamp

struck through the drizzle under Charlson's umbrella, so as just to

illumine his face against the shade behind, and show that his eye was

turned up under the outer corner of its lid, whence it leered with

impish jocoseness as he thrust his tongue into his cheek.

'Come,' said Barnet gravely, 'we'll have no more of that.'

'No, no-of course not,' Charlson hastily answered, seeing that his

humour had carried him too far, as it had done many times before. He was

profuse in his apologies, but Barnet did not reply. Of one thing he was

certain-that scandal was a plant of quick root, and that he was bound to

obey Lucy's injunction for Lucy's own sake.

III

He did so, to the letter; and though, as the crocus followed the

snowdrop and the daffodil the crocus in Lucy's garden, the harbour-road

was a not unpleasant place to walk in, Barnet's feet never trod its

stones, much less approached her door. He avoided a saunter that way as

he would have avoided a dangerous dram, and took his airings a long

distance northward, among severely square and brown ploughed fields,

where no other townsman came. Sometimes he went round by the lower lanes

of the borough, where the rope-walks stretched in which his family

formerly had share, and looked at the rope-makers walking backwards,

overhung by apple-trees and bushes, and intruded on by cows and calves,

as if trade had established itself there at considerable inconvenience

to Nature.

One morning, when the sun was so warm as to raise a steam from the

south-eastern slopes of those flanking hills that looked so lovely above

the old roofs, but made every low-chimneyed house in the town as smoky

as Tophet, Barnet glanced from the windows of the town-council room for

lack of interest in what was proceeding within. Several members of the

corporation were present, but there was not much business doing, and in

a few minutes Downe came leisurely across to him, saying that he seldom

saw Barnet now.

Barnet owned that he was not often present.

Downe looked at the crimson curtain which hung down beside the panes,

reflecting its hot hues into their faces, and then out of the window. At

that moment there passed along the street a tall commanding lady, in

whom the solicitor recognized Barnet's wife. Barnet had done the same

thing, and turned away.

'It will be all right some day,' said Downe, with cheering sympathy.

'You have heard, then, of her last outbreak?'

Downe depressed his cheerfulness to its very reverse in a moment. 'No, I

have not heard of anything serious,' he said, with as long a face as one

naturally round could be turned into at short notice. 'I only hear vague

reports of such things.'

'You may think it will be all right,' said Barnet drily. 'But I have a

different opinion . . . No, Downe, we must look the thing in the face.

Not poppy nor mandragora-however, how are your wife and children?'

Downe said that they were all well, thanks; they were out that morning

somewhere; he was just looking to see if they were walking that way. Ah,

there they were, just coming down the street; and Downe pointed to the

figures of two children with a nursemaid, and a lady walking behind

them.

'You will come out and speak to her?' he asked.

'Not this morning. The fact is I don't care to speak to anybody just

now.'

'You are too sensitive, Mr. Barnet. At school I remember you used to get

as red as a rose if anybody uttered a word that hurt your feelings.'

Barnet mused. 'Yes,' he admitted, 'there is a grain of truth in that. It

is because of that I often try to make peace at home. Life would be

tolerable then at any rate, even if not particularly bright.'

'I have thought more than once of proposing a little plan to you,' said

Downe with some hesitation. 'I don't know whether it will meet your

views, but take it or leave it, as you choose. In fact, it was my wife

who suggested it: that she would be very glad to call on Mrs. Barnet and

get into her confidence. She seems to think that Mrs. Barnet is rather

alone in the town, and without advisers. Her impression is that your

wife will listen to reason. Emily has a wonderful way of winning the

hearts of people of her own sex.'

'And of the other sex too, I think. She is a charming woman, and you

were a lucky fellow to find her.'

'Well, perhaps I was,' simpered Downe, trying to wear an aspect of being

the last man in the world to feel pride. 'However, she will be likely to

find out what ruffles Mrs. Barnet. Perhaps it is some misunderstanding,

you know-something that she is too proud to ask you to explain, or some

little thing in your conduct that irritates her because she does not

fully comprehend you. The truth is, Emily would have been more ready to

make advances if she had been quite sure of her fitness for Mrs.

Barnet's society, who has of course been accustomed to London people of

good position, which made Emily fearful of intruding.'

Barnet expressed his warmest thanks for the well-intentioned

proposition. There was reason in Mrs. Downe's fear-that he owned. 'But

do let her call,' he said. 'There is no woman in England I would so soon

trust on such an errand. I am afraid there will not be any brilliant

result; still I shall take it as the kindest and nicest thing if she

will try it, and not be frightened at a repulse.'

When Barnet and Downe had parted, the former went to the Town Savings-

Bank, of which he was a trustee, and endeavoured to forget his troubles

in the contemplation of low sums of money, and figures in a network of

red and blue lines. He sat and watched the working-people making their

deposits, to which at intervals he signed his name. Before he left in

the afternoon Downe put his head inside the door.

'Emily has seen Mrs. Barnet,' he said, in a low voice. 'She has got Mrs.

Barnet's promise to take her for a drive down to the shore to- morrow,

if it is fine. Good afternoon!'

Barnet shook Downe by the hand without speaking, and Downe went away.

IV

The next day was as fine as the arrangement could possibly require. As

the sun passed the meridian and declined westward, the tall shadows from

the scaffold-poles of Barnet's rising residence streaked the ground as

far as to the middle of the highway. Barnet himself was there inspecting

the progress of the works for the first time during several weeks. A

building in an old-fashioned town five-and-thirty years ago did not, as

in the modern fashion, rise from the sod like a booth at a fair. The

foundations and lower courses were put in and allowed to settle for many

weeks before the superstructure was built up, and a whole summer of

drying was hardly sufficient to do justice to the important issues

involved. Barnet stood within a window-niche which had as yet received

no frame, and thence looked down a slope into the road. The wheels of a

chaise were heard, and then his handsome Xantippe, in the company of

Mrs. Downe, drove past on their way to the shore. They were driving

slowly; there was a pleasing light in Mrs. Downe's face, which seemed

faintly to reflect itself upon the countenance of her companion-that

politesse du coeur which was so natural to her having possibly begun

already to work results. But whatever the situation, Barnet resolved not

to interfere, or do anything to hazard the promise of the day. He might

well afford to trust the issue to another when he could never direct it

but to ill himself. His wife's clenched rein-hand in its lemon-coloured

glove, her stiff erect figure, clad in velvet and lace, and her boldly-

outlined face, passed on, exhibiting their owner as one fixed for ever

above the level of her companion-socially by her early breeding, and

materially by her higher cushion.

Barnet decided to allow them a proper time to themselves, and then

stroll down to the shore and drive them home. After lingering on at the

house for another hour he started with this intention. A few hundred

yards below 'Ch�teau Ringdale' stood the cottage in which the late

lieutenant's daughter had her lodging. Barnet had not been so far that

way for a long time, and as he approached the forbidden ground a curious

warmth passed into him, which led him to perceive that, unless he were

careful, he might have to fight the battle with himself about Lucy over

again. A tenth of his present excuse would, however, have justified him

in travelling by that road to-day.

He came opposite the dwelling, and turned his eyes for a momentary

glance into the little garden that stretched from the palings to the

door. Lucy was in the enclosure; she was walking and stooping to gather

some flowers, possibly for the purpose of painting them, for she moved

about quickly, as if anxious to save time. She did not see him; he might

have passed unnoticed; but a sensation which was not in strict unison

with his previous sentiments that day led him to pause in his walk and

watch her. She went nimbly round and round the beds of anemones, tulips,

jonquils, polyanthuses, and other old-fashioned flowers, looking a very

charming figure in her half-mourning bonnet, and with an incomplete

nosegay in her left hand. Raising herself to pull down a lilac blossom

she observed him.

'Mr. Barnet!' she said, innocently smiling. 'Why, I have been thinking

of you many times since Mrs. Barnet went by in the pony-carriage, and

now here you are!'

'Yes, Lucy,' he said.

Then she seemed to recall particulars of their last meeting, and he

believed that she flushed, though it might have been only the fancy of

his own supersensitivenesss.

'I am going to the harbour,' he added.

'Are you?' Lucy remarked simply. 'A great many people begin to go there

now the summer is drawing on.'

Her face had come more into his view as she spoke, and he noticed how

much thinner and paler it was than when he had seen it last. 'Lucy, how

weary you look! tell me, can I help you?' he was going to cry out.-'If I

do,' he thought, 'it will be the ruin of us both!' He merely said that

the afternoon was fine, and went on his way.

As he went a sudden blast of air came over the hill as if in

contradiction to his words, and spoilt the previous quiet of the scene.

The wind had already shifted violently, and now smelt of the sea.

The harbour-road soon began to justify its name. A gap appeared in the

rampart of hills which shut out the sea, and on the left of the opening

rose a vertical cliff, coloured a burning orange by the sunlight, the

companion cliff on the right being livid in shade. Between these cliffs,

like the Libyan bay which sheltered the shipwrecked Trojans, was a

little haven, seemingly a beginning made by Nature herself of a perfect

harbour, which appealed to the passer-by as only requiring a little

human industry to finish it and make it famous, the ground on each side

as far back as the daisied slopes that bounded the interior valley being

a mere layer of blown sand. But the Port-Bredy burgesses a mile inland

had, in the course of ten centuries, responded many times to that mute

appeal, with the result that the tides had invariably choked up their

works with sand and shingle as soon as completed. There were but few

houses here: a rough pier, a few boats, some stores, an inn, a residence

or two, a ketch unloading in the harbour, were the chief features of the

settlement. On the open ground by the shore stood his wife's pony-

carriage, empty, the boy in attendance holding the horse.

When Barnet drew nearer, he saw an indigo-coloured spot moving swiftly

along beneath the radiant base of the eastern cliff, which proved to be

a man in a jersey, running with all his might. He held up his hand to

Barnet, as it seemed, and they approached each other. The man was local,

but a stranger to him.

'What is it, my man?' said Barnet.

'A terrible calamity!' the boatman hastily explained. Two ladies had

been capsized in a boat-they were Mrs. Downe and Mrs. Barnet of the old

town; they had driven down there that afternoon-they had alighted, and

it was so fine, that, after walking about a little while, they had been

tempted to go out for a short sail round the cliff. Just as they were

putting in to the shore, the wind shifted with a sudden gust, the boat

listed over, and it was thought they were both drowned. How it could

have happened was beyond his mind to fathom, for John Green knew how to

sail a boat as well as any man there.

'Which is the way to the place?' said Barnet.

It was just round the cliff.

'Run to the carriage and tell the boy to bring it to the place as soon

as you can. Then go to the Harbour Inn and tell them to ride to town for

a doctor. Have they been got out of the water?'

'One lady has.'

'Which?'

'Mrs. Barnet. Mrs. Downe, it is feared, has fleeted out to sea.'

Barnet ran on to that part of the shore which the cliff had hitherto

obscured from his view, and there discerned, a long way ahead, a group

of fishermen standing. As soon as he came up one or two recognized him,

and, not liking to meet his eye, turned aside with misgiving. He went

amidst them and saw a small sailing-boat lying draggled at the water's

edge; and, on the sloping shingle beside it, a soaked and sandy woman's

form in the velvet dress and yellow gloves of his wife.

V

All had been done that could be done. Mrs. Barnet was in her own house

under medical hands, but the result was still uncertain. Barnet had

acted as if devotion to his wife were the dominant passion of his

existence. There had been much to decide-whether to attempt restoration

of the apparently lifeless body as it lay on the shore-whether to carry

her to the Harbour Inn-whether to drive with her at once to his own

house. The first course, with no skilled help or appliances near at

hand, had seemed hopeless. The second course would have occupied nearly

as much time as a drive to the town, owing to the intervening ridges of

shingle, and the necessity of crossing the harbour by boat to get to the

house, added to which much time must have elapsed before a doctor could

have arrived down there. By bringing her home in the carriage some

precious moments had slipped by; but she had been laid in her own bed in

seven minutes, a doctor called to her side, and every possible

restorative brought to bear upon her.

At what a tearing pace he had driven up that road, through the yellow

evening sunlight, the shadows flapping irksomely into his eyes as each

wayside object rushed past between him and the west! Tired workmen with

their baskets at their backs had turned on their homeward journey to

wonder at his speed. Halfway between the shore and Port-Bredy town he

had met Charlson, who had been the first surgeon to hear of the

accident. He was accompanied by his assistant in a gig. Barnet had sent

on the latter to the coast in case that Downe's poor wife should by that

time have been reclaimed from the waves, and had brought Charlson back

with him to the house.

Barnet's presence was not needed here, and he felt it to be his next

duty to set off at once and find Downe, that no other than himself might

break the news to him.

He was quite sure that no chance had been lost for Mrs. Downe by his

leaving the shore. By the time that Mrs. Barnet had been laid in the

carriage, a much larger group had assembled to lend assistance in

finding her friend, rendering his own help superfluous. But the duty of

breaking the news was made doubly painful by the circumstance that the

catastrophe which had befallen Mrs. Downe was solely the result of her

own and her husband's loving-kindness towards himself.

He found Downe in his office. When the solicitor comprehended the

intelligence he turned pale, stood up, and remained for a moment

perfectly still, as if bereft of his faculties; then his shoulders

heaved, he pulled out his handkerchief and began to cry like a child.

His sobs might have been heard in the next room. He seemed to have no

idea of going to the shore, or of doing anything; but when Barnet took

him gently by the hand and proposed to start at once, he quietly

acquiesced, neither uttering any further word nor making any effort to

repress his tears.

Barnet accompanied him to the shore, where, finding that no trace had as

yet been seen of Mrs. Downe, and that his stay would be of no avail, he

left Downe with his friends and the young doctor, and once more hastened

back to his own house.

At the door he met Charlson. 'Well!' Barnet said.

'I have just come down,' said the doctor; 'we have done everything, but

without result. I sympathize with you in your bereavement.'

Barnet did not much appreciate Charlson's sympathy, which sounded to his

ears as something of a mockery from the lips of a man who knew what

Charlson knew about their domestic relations. Indeed there seemed an odd

spark in Charlson's full black eye as he said the words; but that might

have been imaginary.

'And, Mr. Barnet,' Charlson resumed, 'that little matter between us-I

hope to settle it finally in three weeks at least.'

'Never mind that now,' said Barnet abruptly. He directed the surgeon to

go to the harbour in case his services might even now be necessary

there: and himself entered the house.

The servants were coming from his wife's chamber, looking helplessly at

each other and at him. He passed them by and entered the room, where he

stood mutely regarding the bed for a few minutes, after which he walked

into his own dressing-room adjoining, and there paced up and down. In a

minute or two he noticed what a strange and total silence had come over

the upper part of the house; his own movements, muffled as they were by

the carpet, seemed noisy, and his thoughts to disturb the air like

articulate utterances. His eye glanced through the window. Far down the

road to the harbour a roof detained his gaze: out of it rose a red

chimney, and out of the red chimney a curl of smoke, as from a fire

newly kindled. He had often seen such a sight before. In that house

lived Lucy Savile; and the smoke was from the fire which was regularly

lighted at this time to make her tea.

After that he went back to the bedroom, and stood there some time

regarding his wife's silent form. She was a woman some years older than

himself, but had not by any means overpassed the maturity of good looks

and vigour. Her passionate features, well-defined, firm, and statuesque

in life, were doubly so now: her mouth and brow, beneath her purplish

black hair, showed only too clearly that the turbulency of character

which had made a bear-garden of his house had been no temporary phase of

her existence. While he reflected, he suddenly said to himself, I wonder

if all has been done?

The thought was led up to by his having fancied that his wife's features

lacked in its complete form the expression which he had been accustomed

to associate with the faces of those whose spirits have fled for ever.

The effacement of life was not so marked but that, entering uninformed,

he might have supposed her sleeping. Her complexion was that seen in the

numerous faded portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds; it was pallid in

comparison with life, but there was visible on a close inspection the

remnant of what had once been a flush; the keeping between the cheeks

and the hollows of the face being thus preserved, although positive

colour was gone. Long orange rays of evening sun stole in through chinks

in the blind, striking on the large mirror, and being thence reflected

upon the crimson hangings and woodwork of the heavy bedstead, so that

the general tone of light was remarkably warm; and it was probable that

something might be due to this circumstance. Still the fact impressed

him as strange. Charlson had been gone more than a quarter of an hour:

could it be possible that he had left too soon, and that his attempts to

restore her had operated so sluggishly as only now to have made

themselves felt? Barnet laid his hand upon her chest, and fancied that

ever and anon a faint flutter of palpitation, gentle as that of a

butterfly's wing, disturbed the stillness there-ceasing for a time, then

struggling to go on, then breaking down in weakness and ceasing again.

Barnet's mother had been an active practitioner of the healing art among

her poorer neighbours, and her inspirations had all been derived from an

octavo volume of Domestic Medicine, which at this moment was lying, as

it had lain for many years, on a shelf in Barnet's dressing-room. He

hastily fetched it, and there read under the head 'Drowning:'-

'Exertions for the recovery of any person who has not been immersed for

a longer period than half-an-hour should be continued for at least four

hours, as there have been many cases in which returning life has made

itself visible even after a longer interval.

'Should, however, a weak action of any of the organs show itself when

the case seems almost hopeless, our efforts must be redoubled; the

feeble spark in this case requires to be solicited; it will certainly

disappear under a relaxation of labour.'

Barnet looked at his watch; it was now barely two hours and a half from

the time when he had first heard of the accident. He threw aside the

book and turned quickly to reach a stimulant which had previously been

used. Pulling up the blind for more light, his eye glanced out of the

window. There he saw that red chimney still smoking cheerily, and that

roof, and through the roof that somebody. His mechanical movements

stopped, his hand remained on the blind-cord, and he seemed to become

breathless, as if he had suddenly found himself treading a high rope.

While he stood a sparrow lighted on the windowsill, saw him, and flew

away. Next a man and a dog walked over one of the green hills which

bulged above the roofs of the town. But Barnet took no notice.

We may wonder what were the exact images that passed through his mind

during those minutes of gazing upon Lucy Savile's house, the sparrow,

the man and the dog, and Lucy Savile's house again. There are honest men

who will not admit to their thoughts, even as idle hypotheses, views of

the future that assume as done a deed which they would recoil from

doing; and there are other honest men for whom morality ends at the

surface of their own heads, who will deliberate what the first will not

so much as suppose. Barnet had a wife whose pretence distracted his

home; she now lay as in death; by merely doing nothing-by letting the

intelligence which had gone forth to the world lie undisturbed-he would

effect such a deliverance for himself as he had never hoped for, and

open up an opportunity of which till now he had never dreamed. Whether

the conjuncture had arisen through any unscrupulous, ill-considered

impulse of Charlson to help out of a strait the friend who was so kind

as never to press him for what was due could not be told; there was

nothing to prove it; and it was a question which could never be asked.

The triangular situation-himself-his wife-Lucy Savile-was the one clear

thing.

From Barnet's actions we may infer that he supposed such and such a

result, for a moment, but did not deliberate. He withdrew his hazel eyes

from the scene without, calmly turned, rang the bell for assistance, and

vigorously exerted himself to learn if life still lingered in that

motionless frame. In a short time another surgeon was in attendance; and

then Barnet's surmise proved to be true. The slow life timidly heaved

again; but much care and patience were needed to catch and retain it,

and a considerable period elapsed before it could be said with certainty

that Mrs. Barnet lived. When this was the case, and there was no further

room for doubt, Barnet left the chamber. The blue evening smoke from

Lucy's chimney had died down to an imperceptible stream, and as he

walked about downstairs he murmured to himself, 'My wife was dead, and

she is alive again.'

It was not so with Downe. After three hours' immersion his wife's body

had been recovered, life, of course, being quite extinct. Barnet on

descending, went straight to his friend's house, and there learned the

result. Downe was helpless in his wild grief, occasionally even

hysterical. Barnet said little, but finding that some guiding hand was

necessary in the sorrow-stricken household, took upon him to supervise

and manage till Downe should be in a state of mind to do so for himself.

VI

One September evening, four months later, when Mrs. Barnet was in

perfect health, and Mrs. Downe but a weakening memory, an errand-boy

paused to rest himself in front of Mr. Barnet's old house, depositing

his basket on one of the window-sills. The street was not yet lighted,

but there were lights in the house, and at intervals a flitting shadow

fell upon the blind at his elbow. Words also were audible from the same

apartment, and they seemed to be those of persons in violent

altercation. But the boy could not gather their purport, and he went on

his way.

Ten minutes afterwards the door of Barnet's house opened, and a tall

closely-veiled lady in a travelling-dress came out and descended the

freestone steps. The servant stood in the doorway watching her as she

went with a measured tread down the street. When she had been out of

sight for some minutes Barnet appeared at the door from within.

'Did your mistress leave word where she was going?' he asked.

'No, sir.'

'Is the carriage ordered to meet her anywhere?'

'No, sir.'

'Did she take a latch-key?'

'No, sir.'

Barnet went in again, sat down in his chair, and leaned back. Then in

solitude and silence he brooded over the bitter emotions that filled his

heart. It was for this that he had gratuitously restored her to life,

and made his union with another impossible! The evening drew on, and

nobody came to disturb him. At bedtime he told the servants to retire,

that he would sit up for Mrs. Barnet himself; and when they were gone he

leaned his head upon his hand and mused for hours.

The clock struck one, two; still his wife came not, and, with impatience

added to depression, he went from room to room till another weary hour

had passed. This was not altogether a new experience for Barnet; but she

had never before so prolonged her absence. At last he sat down again and

fell asleep.

He awoke at six o'clock to find that she had not returned. In searching

about the rooms he discovered that she had taken a case of jewels which

had been hers before her marriage. At eight a note was brought him; it

was from his wife, in which she stated that she had gone by the coach to

the house of a distant relative near London, and expressed a wish that

certain boxes, articles of clothing, and so on, might be sent to her

forthwith. The note was brought to him by a waiter at the Black-Bull

Hotel, and had been written by Mrs. Barnet immediately before she took

her place in the stage.

By the evening this order was carried out, and Barnet, with a sense of

relief, walked out into the town. A fair had been held during the day,

and the large clear moon which rose over the most prominent hill flung

its light upon the booths and standings that still remained in the

street, mixing its rays curiously with those from the flaring naphtha

lamps. The town was full of country-people who had come in to enjoy

themselves, and on this account Barnet strolled through the streets

unobserved. With a certain recklessness he made for the harbour-road,

and presently found himself by the shore, where he walked on till he

came to the spot near which his friend the kindly Mrs. Downe had lost

her life, and his own wife's life had been preserved. A tremulous

pathway of bright moonshine now stretched over the water which had

engulfed them, and not a living soul was near.

Here he ruminated on their characters, and next on the young girl in

whom he now took a more sensitive interest than at the time when he had

been free to marry her. Nothing, so far as he was aware, had ever

appeared in his own conduct to show that such an interest existed. He

had made it a point of the utmost strictness to hinder that feeling from

influencing in the faintest degree his attitude towards his wife; and

this was made all the more easy for him by the small demand Mrs. Barnet

made upon his attentions, for which she ever evinced the greatest

contempt; thus unwittingly giving him the satisfaction of knowing that

their severance owed nothing to jealousy, or, indeed, to any personal

behaviour of his at all. Her concern was not with him or his feelings,

as she frequently told him; but that she had, in a moment of weakness,

thrown herself away upon a common burgher when she might have aimed at,

and possibly brought down, a peer of the realm. Her frequent

depreciation of Barnet in these terms had at times been so intense that

he was sorely tempted to retaliate on her egotism by owning that he

loved at the same low level on which he lived; but prudence had

prevailed, for which he was now thankful.

Something seemed to sound upon the shingle behind him over and above the

raking of the wave. He looked round, and a slight girlish shape appeared

quite close to him, He could not see her face because it was in the

direction of the moon.

'Mr. Barnet?' the rambler said, in timid surprise. The voice was the

voice of Lucy Savile.

'Yes,' said Barnet. 'How can I repay you for this pleasure?'

'I only came because the night was so clear. I am now on my way home.'

'I am glad we have met. I want to know if you will let me do something

for you, to give me an occupation, as an idle man? I am sure I ought to

help you, for I know you are almost without friends.'

She hesitated. 'Why should you tell me that?' she said.

'In the hope that you will be frank with me.'

'I am not altogether without friends here. But I am going to make a

little change in my life-to go out as a teacher of freehand drawing and

practical perspective, of course I mean on a comparatively humble scale,

because I have not been specially educated for that profession. But I am

sure I shall like it much.'

'You have an opening?'

'I have not exactly got it, but I have advertised for one.'

'Lucy, you must let me help you!'

'Not at all.'

'You need not think it would compromise you, or that I am indifferent to

delicacy. I bear in mind how we stand. It is very unlikely that you will

succeed as teacher of the class you mention, so let me do something of a

different kind for you. Say what you would like, and it shall be done.'

'No; if I can't be a drawing-mistress or governess, or something of that

sort, I shall go to India and join my brother.'

'I wish I could go abroad, anywhere, everywhere with you, Lucy, and

leave this place and its associations for ever!'

She played with the end of her bonnet-string, and hastily turned aside.

'Don't ever touch upon that kind of topic again,' she said, with a quick

severity not free from anger. 'It simply makes it impossible for me to

see you, much less receive any guidance from you. No, thank you, Mr.

Barnet; you can do nothing for me at present; and as I suppose my

uncertainty will end in my leaving for India, I fear you never will. If

ever I think you can do anything, I will take the trouble to ask you.

Till then, good-bye.'

The tone of her latter words was equivocal, and while he remained in

doubt whether a gentle irony was or was not inwrought with their sound,

she swept lightly round and left him alone. He saw her form get smaller

and smaller along the damp belt of sea-sand between ebb and flood; and

when she had vanished round the cliff into the harbour-road, he himself

followed in the same direction.

That her hopes from an advertisement should be the single thread which

held Lucy Savile in England was too much for Barnet. On reaching the

town he went straight to the residence of Downe, now a widower with four

children. The young motherless brood had been sent to bed about a

quarter of an hour earlier, and when Barnet entered he found Downe

sitting alone. It was the same room as that from which the family had

been looking out for Downe at the beginning of the year, when Downe had

slipped into the gutter and his wife had been so enviably tender towards

him. The old neatness had gone from the house; articles lay in places

which could show no reason for their presence, as if momentarily

deposited there some months ago, and forgotten ever since; there were no

flowers; things were jumbled together on the furniture which should have

been in cupboards; and the place in general had that stagnant,

unrenovated air which usually pervades the maimed home of the widower.

Downe soon renewed his customary full-worded lament over his wife, and

even when he had worked himself up to tears, went on volubly, as if a

listener were a luxury to be enjoyed whenever he could be caught.

'She was a treasure beyond compare, Mr. Barnet! I shall never see such

another. Nobody now to nurse me-nobody to console me in those daily

troubles, you know, Barnet, which make consolation so necessary to a

nature like mine. It would be unbecoming to repine, for her spirit's

home was elsewhere-the tender light in her eyes always showed it; but it

is a long dreary time that I have before me, and nobody else can ever

fill the void left in my heart by her loss-nobody-nobody!' And Downe

wiped his eyes again.

'She was a good woman in the highest sense,' gravely answered Barnet,

who, though Downe's words drew genuine compassion from his heart, could

not help feeling that a tender reticence would have been a finer tribute

to Mrs. Downe's really sterling virtues than such a second-class lament

as this.

'I have something to show you,' Downe resumed, producing from a drawer a

sheet of paper on which was an elaborate design for a canopied tomb.

'This has been sent me by the architect, but it is not exactly what I

want.'

'You have got Jones to do it, I see, the man who is carrying out my

house,' said Barnet, as he glanced at the signature to the drawing.

'Yes, but it is not quite what I want. I want something more striking-

more like a tomb I have seen in St. Paul's Cathedral. Nothing less will

do justice to my feelings, and how far short of them that will fall!'

Barnet privately thought the design a sufficiently imposing one as it

stood, even extravagantly ornate; but, feeling that he had no right to

criticize, he said gently, 'Downe, should you not live more in your

children's lives at the present time, and soften the sharpness of regret

for your own past by thinking of their future?'

'Yes, yes; but what can I do more?' asked Downe, wrinkling his forehead

hopelessly.

It was with anxious slowness that Barnet produced his reply-the secret

object of his visit to-night. 'Did you not say one day that you ought by

rights to get a governess for the children?'

Downe admitted that he had said so, but that he could not see his way to

it. 'The kind of woman I should like to have,' he said, 'would be rather

beyond my means. No; I think I shall send them to school in the town

when they are old enough to go out alone.'

'Now, I know of something better than that. The late Lieutenant Savile's

daughter, Lucy, wants to do something for herself in the way of

teaching. She would be inexpensive, and would answer your purpose as

well as anybody for six or twelve months. She would probably come daily

if you were to ask her, and so your housekeeping arrangements would not

be much affected.'

'I thought she had gone away,' said the solicitor, musing. 'Where does

she live?'

Barnet told him, and added that, if Downe should think of her as

suitable, he would do well to call as soon as possible, or she might be

on the wing. 'If you do see her,' he said, 'it would be advisable not to

mention my name. She is rather stiff in her ideas of me, and it might

prejudice her against a course if she knew that I recommended it.'

Downe promised to give the subject his consideration, and nothing more

was said about it just then. But when Barnet rose to go, which was not

till nearly bedtime, he reminded Downe of the suggestion and went up the

street to his own solitary home with a sense of satisfaction at his

promising diplomacy in a charitable cause.

VII

The walls of his new house were carried up nearly to their full height.

By a curious though not infrequent reaction, Barnet's feelings about

that unnecessary structure had undergone a change; he took considerable

interest in its progress as a long-neglected thing, his wife before her

departure having grown quite weary of it as a hobby. Moreover, it was an

excellent distraction for a man in the unhappy position of having to

live in a provincial town with nothing to do. He was probably the first

of his line who had ever passed a day without toil, and perhaps

something like an inherited instinct disqualifies such men for a life of

pleasant inaction, such as lies in the power of those whose leisure is

not a personal accident, but a vast historical accretion which has

become part of their natures.

Thus Barnet got into a way of spending many of his leisure hours on the

site of the new building, and he might have been seen on most days at

this time trying the temper of the mortar by punching the joints with

his stick, looking at the grain of a floor-board, and meditating where

it grew, or picturing under what circumstances the last fire would be

kindled in the at present sootless chimneys. One day when thus occupied

he saw three children pass by in the company of a fair young woman,

whose sudden appearance caused him to flush perceptibly.

'Ah, she is there,' he thought. 'That's a blessed thing.'

Casting an interested glance over the rising building and the busy

workmen, Lucy Savile and the little Downes passed by; and after that

time it became a regular though almost unconscious custom of Barnet to

stand in the half-completed house and look from the ungarnished windows

at the governess as she tripped towards the sea-shore with her young

charges, which she was in the habit of doing on most fine afternoons. It

was on one of these occasions, when he had been loitering on the first-

floor landing, near the hole left for the staircase, not yet erected,

that there appeared above the edge of the floor a little hat, followed

by a little head.

Barnet withdrew through a doorway, and the child came to the top of the

ladder, stepping on to the floor and crying to her sisters and Miss

Savile to follow. Another head rose above the floor, and another, and

then Lucy herself came into view. The troop ran hither and thither

through the empty, shaving-strewn rooms, and Barnet came forward.

Lucy uttered a small exclamation: she was very sorry that she had

intruded; she had not the least idea that Mr. Barnet was there: the

children had come up, and she had followed.

Barnet replied that he was only too glad to see them there. 'And now,

let me show you the rooms,' he said.

She passively assented, and he took her round. There was not much to

show in such a bare skeleton of a house, but he made the most of it, and

explained the different ornamental fittings that were soon to be fixed

here and there. Lucy made but few remarks in reply, though she seemed

pleased with her visit, and stole away down the ladder, followed by her

companions.

After this the new residence became yet more of a hobby for Barnet.

Downe's children did not forget their first visit, and when the windows

were glazed, and the handsome staircase spread its broad low steps into

the hall, they came again, prancing in unwearied succession through

every room from ground-floor to attics, while Lucy stood waiting for

them at the door. Barnet, who rarely missed a day in coming to inspect

progress, stepped out from the drawing-room.

'I could not keep them out,' she said, with an apologetic blush. 'I

tried to do so very much: but they are rather wilful, and we are

directed to walk this way for the sea air.'

'Do let them make the house their regular playground, and you yours,'

said Barnet. 'There is no better place for children to romp and take

their exercise in than an empty house, particularly in muddy or damp

weather such as we shall get a good deal of now; and this place will not

be furnished for a long long time-perhaps never. I am not at all decided

about it.'

'O, but it must!' replied Lucy, looking round at the hall. 'The rooms

are excellent, twice as high as ours; and the views from the windows are

so lovely.'

'I daresay, I daresay,' he said absently.

'Will all the furniture be new?' she asked.

'All the furniture be new-that's a thing I have not thought of. In fact

I only come here and look on. My father's house would have been large

enough for me, but another person had a voice in the matter, and it was

settled that we should build. However, the place grows upon me; its

recent associations are cheerful, and I am getting to like it fast.'

A certain uneasiness in Lucy's manner showed that the conversation was

taking too personal a turn for her. 'Still, as modern tastes develop,

people require more room to gratify them in,' she said, withdrawing to

call the children; and serenely bidding him good afternoon she went on

her way.

Barnet's life at this period was singularly lonely, and yet he was

happier than he could have expected. His wife's estrangement and

absence, which promised to be permanent, left him free as a boy in his

movements, and the solitary walks that he took gave him ample

opportunity for chastened reflection on what might have been his lot if

he had only shown wisdom enough to claim Lucy Savile when there was no

bar between their lives, and she was to be had for the asking. He would

occasionally call at the house of his friend Downe; but there was

scarcely enough in common between their two natures to make them more

than friends of that excellent sort whose personal knowledge of each

other's history and character is always in excess of intimacy, whereby

they are not so likely to be severed by a clash of sentiment as in cases

where intimacy springs up in excess of knowledge. Lucy was never visible

at these times, being either engaged in the school-room, or in taking an

airing out of doors; but, knowing that she was now comfortable, and had

given up the, to him, depressing idea of going off to the other side of

the globe, he was quite content.

The new house had so far progressed that the gardeners were beginning to

grass down the front. During an afternoon which he was passing in

marking the curve for the carriage-drive, he beheld her coming in boldly

towards him from the road. Hitherto Barnet had only caught her on the

premises by stealth; and this advance seemed to show that at last her

reserve had broken down.

A smile gained strength upon her face as she approached, and it was

quite radiant when she came up, and said, without a trace of

embarrassment, 'I find I owe you a hundred thanks-and it comes to me

quite as a surprise! It was through your kindness that I was engaged by

Mr. Downe. Believe me, Mr. Barnet, I did not know it until yesterday, or

I should have thanked you long and long ago!'

'I had offended you-just a trifle-at the time, I think?' said Barnet,

smiling, 'and it was best that you should not know.'

'Yes, yes,' she returned hastily. 'Don't allude to that; it is past and

over, and we will let it be. The house is finished almost, is it not?

How beautiful it will look when the evergreens are grown! Do you call

the style Palladian, Mr. Barnet?'

'I-really don't quite know what it is. Yes, it must be Palladian,

certainly. But I'll ask Jones, the architect; for, to tell the truth, I

had not thought much about the style: I had nothing to do with choosing

it, I am sorry to say.'

She would not let him harp on this gloomy refrain, and talked on bright

matters till she said, producing a small roll of paper which he had

noticed in her hand all the while, 'Mr. Downe wished me to bring you

this revised drawing of the late Mrs. Downe's tomb, which the architect

has just sent him. He would like you to look it over.'

The children came up with their hoops, and she went off with them down

the harbour-road as usual. Barnet had been glad to get those words of

thanks; he had been thinking for many months that he would like her to

know of his share in finding her a home such as it was; and what he

could not do for himself, Downe had now kindly done for him. He returned

to his desolate house with a lighter tread; though in reason he hardly

knew why his tread should be light.

On examining the drawing, Barnet found that, instead of the vast altar-

tomb and canopy Downe had determined on at their last meeting, it was to

be a more modest memorial even than had been suggested by the architect;

a coped tomb of good solid construction, with no useless elaboration at

all. Barnet was truly glad to see that Downe had come to reason of his

own accord; and he returned the drawing with a note of approval.

He followed up the house-work as before, and as he walked up and down

the rooms, occasionally gazing from the windows over the bulging green

hills and the quiet harbour that lay between them, he murmured words and

fragments of words, which, if listened to, would have revealed all the

secrets of his existence. Whatever his reason in going there, Lucy did

not call again: the walk to the shore seemed to be abandoned: he must

have thought it as well for both that it should be so, for he did not go

anywhere out of his accustomed ways to endeavour to discover her.

VIII

The winter and the spring had passed, and the house was complete. It was

a fine morning in the early part of June, and Barnet, though not in the

habit of rising early, had taken a long walk before breakfast; returning

by way of the new building. A sufficiently exciting cause of his

restlessness to-day might have been the intelligence which had reached

him the night before, that Lucy Savile was going to India after all, and

notwithstanding the representations of her friends that such a journey

was unadvisable in many ways for an unpractised girl, unless some more

definite advantage lay at the end of it than she could show to be the

case. Barnet's walk up the slope to the building betrayed that he was in

a dissatisfied mood. He hardly saw that the dewy time of day lent an

unusual freshness to the bushes and trees which had so recently put on

their summer habit of heavy leafage, and made his newly-laid lawn look

as well established as an old manorial meadow. The house had been so

adroitly placed between six tall elms which were growing on the site

beforehand, that they seemed like real ancestral trees; and the rooks,

young and old, cawed melodiously to their visitor.

The door was not locked, and he entered. No workmen appeared to be

present, and he walked from sunny window to sunny window of the empty

rooms, with a sense of seclusion which might have been very pleasant but

for the antecedent knowledge that his almost paternal care of Lucy

Savile was to be thrown away by her wilfulness. Footsteps echoed through

an adjoining room; and bending his eyes in that direction, he perceived

Mr. Jones, the architect. He had come to look over the building before

giving the contractor his final certificate. They walked over the house

together. Everything was finished except the papering: there were the

latest improvements of the period in bell- hanging, ventilating, smoke-

jacks, fire-grates, and French windows. The business was soon ended, and

Jones, having directed Barnet's attention to a roll of wall-paper

patterns which lay on a bench for his choice, was leaving to keep

another engagement, when Barnet said, 'Is the tomb finished yet for Mrs.

Downe?'

'Well-yes: it is at last,' said the architect, coming back and speaking

as if he were in a mood to make a confidence. 'I have had no end of

trouble in the matter, and, to tell the truth, I am heartily glad it is

over.'

Barnet expressed his surprise. 'I thought poor Downe had given up those

extravagant notions of his? then he has gone back to the altar and

canopy after all? Well, he is to be excused, poor fellow!'

'O no-he has not at all gone back to them-quite the reverse,' Jones

hastened to say. 'He has so reduced design after design, that the whole

thing has been nothing but waste labour for me; till in the end it has

become a common headstone, which a mason put up in half a day.'

'A common headstone?' said Barnet.

'Yes. I held out for some time for the addition of a footstone at least.

But he said, "O no-he couldn't afford it."'

'Ah, well-his family is growing up, poor fellow, and his expenses are

getting serious.'

'Yes, exactly,' said Jones, as if the subject were none of his. And

again directing Barnet's attention to the wall-papers, the bustling

architect left him to keep some other engagement.

'A common headstone,' murmured Barnet, left again to himself. He mused a

minute or two, and next began looking over and selecting from the

patterns; but had not long been engaged in the work when he heard

another footstep on the gravel without, and somebody enter the open

porch.

Barnet went to the door-it was his manservant in search of him.

'I have been trying for some time to find you, sir,' he said. 'This

letter has come by the post, and it is marked immediate. And there's

this one from Mr. Downe, who called just now wanting to see you.' He

searched his pocket for the second.

Barnet took the first letter-it had a black border, and bore the London

postmark. It was not in his wife's handwriting, or in that of any person

he knew; but conjecture soon ceased as he read the page, wherein he was

briefly informed that Mrs. Barnet had died suddenly on the previous day,

at the furnished villa she had occupied near London.

Barnet looked vaguely round the empty hall, at the blank walls, out of

the doorway. Drawing a long palpitating breath, and with eyes downcast,

he turned and climbed the stairs slowly, like a man who doubted their

stability. The fact of his wife having, as it were, died once already,

and lived on again, had entirely dislodged the possibility of her actual

death from his conjecture. He went to the landing, leant over the

balusters, and after a reverie, of whose duration he had but the

faintest notion, turned to the window and stretched his gaze to the

cottage further down the road, which was visible from his landing, and

from which Lucy still walked to the solicitor's house by a cross path.

The faint words that came from his moving lips were simply, 'At last!'

Then, almost involuntarily, Barnet fell down on his knees and murmured

some incoherent words of thanksgiving. Surely his virtue in restoring

his wife to life had been rewarded! But, as if the impulse struck

uneasily on his conscience, he quickly rose, brushed the dust from his

trousers and set himself to think of his next movements. He could not

start for London for some hours; and as he had no preparations to make

that could not be made in half-an-hour, he mechanically descended and

resumed his occupation of turning over the wall-papers. They had all got

brighter for him, those papers. It was all changed-who would sit in the

rooms that they were to line? He went on to muse upon Lucy's conduct in

so frequently coming to the house with the children; her occasional

blush in speaking to him; her evident interest in him. What woman can in

the long run avoid being interested in a man whom she knows to be

devoted to her? If human solicitation could ever effect anything, there

should be no going to India for Lucy now. All the papers previously

chosen seemed wrong in their shades, and he began from the beginning to

choose again.

While entering on the task he heard a forced 'Ahem!' from without the

porch, evidently uttered to attract his attention, and footsteps again

advancing to the door. His man, whom he had quite forgotten in his

mental turmoil, was still waiting there.

'I beg your pardon, sir,' the man said from round the doorway; 'but

here's the note from Mr. Downe that you didn't take. He called just

after you went out, and as he couldn't wait, he wrote this on your

study-table.'

He handed in the letter-no black-bordered one now, but a practical-

looking note in the well-known writing of the solicitor.

'DEAR BARNET'-it ran-'Perhaps you will be prepared for the information I

am about to give-that Lucy Savile and myself are going to be married

this morning. I have hitherto said nothing as to my intention to any of

my friends, for reasons which I am sure you will fully appreciate. The

crisis has been brought about by her expressing her intention to join

her brother in India. I then discovered that I could not do without her.

'It is to be quite a private wedding; but it is my particular wish that

you come down here quietly at ten, and go to church with us; it will add

greatly to the pleasure I shall experience in the ceremony, and, I

believe, to Lucy's also. I have called on you very early to make the

request, in the belief that I should find you at home; but you are

beforehand with me in your early rising.-Yours sincerely, C. Downe.'

'Need I wait, sir?' said the servant after a dead silence.

'That will do, William. No answer,' said Barnet calmly.

When the man had gone Barnet re-read the letter. Turning eventually to

the wall-papers, which he had been at such pains to select, he

deliberately tore them into halves and quarters, and threw them into the

empty fireplace. Then he went out of the house; locked the door, and

stood in the front awhile. Instead of returning into the town, he went

down the harbour-road and thoughtfully lingered about by the sea, near

the spot where the body of Downe's late wife had been found and brought

ashore.

Barnet was a man with a rich capacity for misery, and there is no doubt

that he exercised it to its fullest extent now. The events that had, as

it were, dashed themselves together into one half-hour of this day

showed that curious refinement of cruelty in their arrangement which

often proceeds from the bosom of the whimsical god at other times known

as blind Circumstance. That his few minutes of hope, between the reading

of the first and second letters, had carried him to extraordinary

heights of rapture was proved by the immensity of his suffering now. The

sun blazing into his face would have shown a close watcher that a

horizontal line, which he had never noticed before, but which was never

to be gone thereafter, was somehow gradually forming itself in the

smooth of his forehead. His eyes, of a light hazel, had a curious look

which can only be described by the word bruised; the sorrow that looked

from them being largely mixed with the surprise of a man taken unawares.

The secondary particulars of his present position, too, were odd enough,

though for some time they appeared to engage little of his attention.

Not a soul in the town knew, as yet, of his wife's death; and he almost

owed Downe the kindness of not publishing it till the day was over: the

conjuncture, taken with that which had accompanied the death of Mrs.

Downe, being so singular as to be quite sufficient to darken the

pleasure of the impressionable solicitor to a cruel extent, if made

known to him. But as Barnet could not set out on his journey to London,

where his wife lay, for some hours (there being at this date no railway

within a distance of many miles), no great reason existed why he should

leave the town.

Impulse in all its forms characterized Barnet, and when he heard the

distant clock strike the hour of ten his feet began to carry him up the

harbour-road with the manner of a man who must do something to bring

himself to life. He passed Lucy Savile's old house, his own new one, and

came in view of the church. Now he gave a perceptible start, and his

mechanical condition went away. Before the church-gate were a couple of

carriages, and Barnet then could perceive that the marriage between

Downe and Lucy was at that moment being solemnized within. A feeling of

sudden, proud self-confidence, an indocile wish to walk unmoved in spite

of grim environments, plainly possessed him, and when he reached the

wicket-gate he turned in without apparent effort. Pacing up the paved

footway he entered the church and stood for a while in the nave passage.

A group of people was standing round the vestry door; Barnet advanced

through these and stepped into the vestry.

There they were, busily signing their names. Seeing Downe about to look

round, Barnet averted his somewhat disturbed face for a second or two;

when he turned again front to front he was calm and quite smiling; it

was a creditable triumph over himself, and deserved to be remembered in

his native town. He greeted Downe heartily, offering his

congratulations.

It seemed as if Barnet expected a half-guilty look upon Lucy's face; but

no, save the natural flush and flurry engendered by the service just

performed, there was nothing whatever in her bearing which showed a

disturbed mind: her gray-brown eyes carried in them now as at other

times the well-known expression of common-sensed rectitude which never

went so far as to touch on hardness. She shook hands with him, and Downe

said warmly, 'I wish you could have come sooner: I called on purpose to

ask you. You'll drive back with us now?'

'No, no,' said Barnet; 'I am not at all prepared; but I thought I would

look in upon you for a moment, even though I had not time to go home and

dress. I'll stand back and see you pass out, and observe the effect of

the spectacle upon myself as one of the public.'

Then Lucy and her husband laughed, and Barnet laughed and retired; and

the quiet little party went gliding down the nave and towards the porch,

Lucy's new silk dress sweeping with a smart rustle round the base-

mouldings of the ancient font, and Downe's little daughters following in

a state of round-eyed interest in their position, and that of Lucy,

their teacher and friend.

So Downe was comforted after his Emily's death, which had taken place

twelve months, two weeks, and three days before that time.

When the two flys had driven off and the spectators had vanished, Barnet

followed to the door, and went out into the sun. He took no more trouble

to preserve a spruce exterior; his step was unequal, hesitating, almost

convulsive; and the slight changes of colour which went on in his face

seemed refracted from some inward flame. In the churchyard he became

pale as a summer cloud, and finding it not easy to proceed he sat down

on one of the tombstones and supported his head with his hand.

Hard by was a sexton filling up a grave which he had not found time to

finish on the previous evening. Observing Barnet, he went up to him, and

recognizing him, said, 'Shall I help you home, sir?'

'O no, thank you,' said Barnet, rousing himself and standing up. The

sexton returned to his grave, followed by Barnet, who, after watching

him awhile, stepped into the grave, now nearly filled, and helped to

tread in the earth.

The sexton apparently thought his conduct a little singular, but he made

no observation, and when the grave was full, Barnet suddenly stopped,

looked far away, and with a decided step proceeded to the gate and

vanished. The sexton rested on his shovel and looked after him for a few

moments, and then began banking up the mound.

In those short minutes of treading in the dead man Barnet had formed a

design, but what it was the inhabitants of that town did not for some

long time imagine. He went home, wrote several letters of business,

called on his lawyer, an old man of the same place who had been the

legal adviser of Barnet's father before him, and during the evening

overhauled a large quantity of letters and other documents in his

possession. By eleven o'clock the heap of papers in and before Barnet's

grate had reached formidable dimensions, and he began to burn them.

This, owing to their quantity, it was not so easy to do as he had

expected, and he sat long into the night to complete the task.

The next morning Barnet departed for London, leaving a note for Downe to

inform him of Mrs. Barnet's sudden death, and that he was gone to bury

her; but when a thrice-sufficient time for that purpose had elapsed, he

was not seen again in his accustomed walks, or in his new house, or in

his old one. He was gone for good, nobody knew whither. It was soon

discovered that he had empowered his lawyer to dispose of all his

property, real and personal, in the borough, and pay in the proceeds to

the account of an unknown person at one of the large London banks. The

person was by some supposed to be himself under an assumed name; but

few, if any, had certain knowledge of that fact.

The elegant new residence was sold with the rest of his possessions; and

its purchaser was no other than Downe, now a thriving man in the

borough, and one whose growing family and new wife required more roomy

accommodation than was afforded by the little house up the narrow side

street. Barnet's old habitation was bought by the trustees of the

Congregational Baptist body in that town, who pulled down the time-

honoured dwelling and built a new chapel on its site. By the time the

last hour of that, to Barnet, eventful year had chimed, every vestige of

him had disappeared from the precincts of his native place, and the name

became extinct in the borough of Port-Bredy, after having been a living

force therein for more than two hundred years.

IX

Twenty-one years and six months do not pass without setting a mark even

upon durable stone and triple brass; upon humanity such a period works

nothing less than transformation. In Barnet's old birthplace vivacious

young children with bones like india-rubber had grown up to be stable

men and women, men and women had dried in the skin, stiffened, withered,

and sunk into decrepitude; while selections from every class had been

consigned to the outlying cemetery. Of inorganic differences the

greatest was that a railway had invaded the town, tying it on to a main

line at a junction a dozen miles off. Barnet's house on the harbour-

road, once so insistently new, had acquired a respectable mellowness,

with ivy, Virginia creepers, lichens, damp patches, and even

constitutional infirmities of its own like its elder fellows. Its

architecture, once so very improved and modern, had already become stale

in style, without having reached the dignity of being old-fashioned.

Trees about the harbour-road had increased in circumference or

disappeared under the saw; while the church had had such a tremendous

practical joke played upon it by some facetious restorer or other as to

be scarce recognizable by its dearest old friends.

During this long interval George Barnet had never once been seen or

heard of in the town of his fathers.

It was the evening of a market-day, and some half-dozen middle-aged

farmers and dairymen were lounging round the bar of the Black-Bull

Hotel, occasionally dropping a remark to each other, and less frequently

to the two barmaids who stood within the pewter-topped counter in a

perfunctory attitude of attention, these latter sighing and making a

private observation to one another at odd intervals, on more interesting

experiences than the present.

'Days get shorter,' said one of the dairymen, as he looked towards the

street, and noticed that the lamp-lighter was passing by.

The farmers merely acknowledged by their countenances the propriety of

this remark, and finding that nobody else spoke, one of the barmaids

said 'yes,' in a tone of painful duty.

'Come fair-day we shall have to light up before we start for home-

along.'

'That's true,' his neighbour conceded, with a gaze of blankness.

'And after that we shan't see much further difference all's winter.'

The rest were not unwilling to go even so far as this.

The barmaid sighed again, and raised one of her hands from the counter

on which they rested to scratch the smallest surface of her face with

the smallest of her fingers. She looked towards the door, and presently

remarked, 'I think I hear the 'bus coming in from station.'

The eyes of the dairymen and farmers turned to the glass door dividing

the hall from the porch, and in a minute or two the omnibus drew up

outside. Then there was a lumbering down of luggage, and then a man came

into the hall, followed by a porter with a portmanteau on his poll,

which he deposited on a bench.

The stranger was an elderly person, with curly ashen white hair, a

deeply-creviced outer corner to each eyelid, and a countenance baked by

innumerable suns to the colour of terra-cotta, its hue and that of his

hair contrasting like heat and cold respectively. He walked meditatively

and gently, like one who was fearful of disturbing his own mental

equilibrium. But whatever lay at the bottom of his breast had evidently

made him so accustomed to its situation there that it caused him little

practical inconvenience.

He paused in silence while, with his dubious eyes fixed on the barmaids,

he seemed to consider himself. In a moment or two he addressed them, and

asked to be accommodated for the night. As he waited he looked curiously

round the hall, but said nothing. As soon as invited he disappeared up

the staircase, preceded by a chambermaid and candle, and followed by a

lad with his trunk. Not a soul had recognized him.

A quarter of an hour later, when the farmers and dairymen had driven off

to their homesteads in the country, he came downstairs, took a biscuit

and one glass of wine, and walked out into the town, where the radiance

from the shop-windows had grown so in volume of late years as to flood

with cheerfulness every standing cart, barrow, stall, and idler that

occupied the wayside, whether shabby or genteel. His chief interest at

present seemed to lie in the names painted over the shop-fronts and on

door-ways, as far as they were visible; these now differed to an ominous

extent from what they had been one-and-twenty years before.

The traveller passed on till he came to the bookseller's, where he

looked in through the glass door. A fresh-faced young man was standing

behind the counter, otherwise the shop was empty. The gray-haired

observer entered, asked for some periodical by way of paying for

admission, and with his elbow on the counter began to turn over the

pages he had bought, though that he read nothing was obvious.

At length he said, 'Is old Mr. Watkins still alive?' in a voice which

had a curious youthful cadence in it even now.

'My father is dead, sir,' said the young man.

'Ah, I am sorry to hear it,' said the stranger. 'But it is so many years

since I last visited this town that I could hardly expect it should be

otherwise.' After a short silence he continued-'And is the firm of

Barnet, Browse, and Company still in existence?-they used to be large

flax-merchants and twine-spinners here?'

'The firm is still going on, sir, but they have dropped the name of

Barnet. I believe that was a sort of fancy name-at least, I never knew

of any living Barnet. 'Tis now Browse and Co.'

'And does Andrew Jones still keep on as architect?'

'He's dead, sir.'

'And the Vicar of St. Mary's-Mr. Melrose?'

'He's been dead a great many years.'

'Dear me!' He paused yet longer, and cleared his voice. 'Is Mr. Downe,

the solicitor, still in practice?'

'No, sir, he's dead. He died about seven years ago.'

Here it was a longer silence still; and an attentive observer would have

noticed that the paper in the stranger's hand increased its

imperceptible tremor to a visible shake. That gray-haired gentleman

noticed it himself, and rested the paper on the counter. 'Is Mrs. Downe

still alive?' he asked, closing his lips firmly as soon as the words

were out of his mouth, and dropping his eyes.

'Yes, sir, she's alive and well. She's living at the old place.'

'In East Street?'

'O no; at Ch�teau Ringdale. I believe it has been in the family for some

generations.'

'She lives with her children, perhaps?'

'No; she has no children of her own. There were some Miss Downes; I

think they were Mr. Downe's daughters by a former wife; but they are

married and living in other parts of the town. Mrs. Downe lives alone.'

'Quite alone?'

'Yes, sir; quite alone.'

The newly-arrived gentleman went back to the hotel and dined; after

which he made some change in his dress, shaved back his beard to the

fashion that had prevailed twenty years earlier, when he was young and

interesting, and once more emerging, bent his steps in the direction of

the harbour-road. Just before getting to the point where the pavement

ceased and the houses isolated themselves, he overtook a shambling,

stooping, unshaven man, who at first sight appeared like a professional

tramp, his shoulders having a perceptible greasiness as they passed

under the gaslight. Each pedestrian momentarily turned and regarded the

other, and the tramp-like gentleman started back.

'Good-why-is that Mr. Barnet? 'Tis Mr. Barnet, surely!'

'Yes; and you are Charlson?'

'Yes-ah-you notice my appearance. The Fates have rather ill-used me. By-

the-bye, that fifty pounds. I never paid it, did I? . . . But I was not

ungrateful!' Here the stooping man laid one hand emphatically on the

palm of the other. 'I gave you a chance, Mr. George Barnet, which many

men would have thought full value received-the chance to marry your

Lucy. As far as the world was concerned, your wife was a drowned woman,

hey?'

'Heaven forbid all that, Charlson!'

'Well, well, 'twas a wrong way of showing gratitude, I suppose. And now

a drop of something to drink for old acquaintance' sake! And Mr. Barnet,

she's again free-there's a chance now if you care for it-ha, ha!' And

the speaker pushed his tongue into his hollow cheek and slanted his eye

in the old fashion.

'I know all,' said Barnet quickly; and slipping a small present into the

hands of the needy, saddening man, he stepped ahead and was soon in the

outskirts of the town.

He reached the harbour-road, and paused before the entrance to a well-

known house. It was so highly bosomed in trees and shrubs planted since

the erection of the building that one would scarcely have recognized the

spot as that which had been a mere neglected slope till chosen as a site

for a dwelling. He opened the swing-gate, closed it noiselessly, and

gently moved into the semicircular drive, which remained exactly as it

had been marked out by Barnet on the morning when Lucy Savile ran in to

thank him for procuring her the post of governess to Downe's children.

But the growth of trees and bushes which revealed itself at every step

was beyond all expectation; sun-proof and moon-proof bowers vaulted the

walks, and the walls of the house were uniformly bearded with creeping

plants as high as the first-floor windows.

After lingering for a few minutes in the dusk of the bending boughs, the

visitor rang the door-bell, and on the servant appearing, he announced

himself as 'an old friend of Mrs. Downe's.'

The hall was lighted, but not brightly, the gas being turned low, as if

visitors were rare. There was a stagnation in the dwelling; it seemed to

be waiting. Could it really be waiting for him? The partitions which had

been probed by Barnet's walking-stick when the mortar was green, were

now quite brown with the antiquity of their varnish, and the ornamental

woodwork of the staircase, which had glistened with a pale yellow

newness when first erected, was now of a rich wine-colour. During the

servant's absence the following colloquy could be dimly heard through

the nearly closed door of the drawing-room.

'He didn't give his name?'

'He only said "an old friend," ma'am.'

'What kind of gentleman is he?'

'A staidish gentleman, with gray hair.'

The voice of the second speaker seemed to affect the listener greatly.

After a pause, the lady said, 'Very well, I will see him.'

And the stranger was shown in face to face with the Lucy who had once

been Lucy Savile. The round cheek of that formerly young lady had, of

course, alarmingly flattened its curve in her modern representative; a

pervasive grayness overspread her once dark brown hair, like morning

rime on heather. The parting down the middle was wide and jagged; once

it had been a thin white line, a narrow crevice between two high banks

of shade. But there was still enough left to form a handsome knob

behind, and some curls beneath inwrought with a few hairs like silver

wires were very becoming. In her eyes the only modification was that

their originally mild rectitude of expression had become a little more

stringent than heretofore. Yet she was still girlish-a girl who had been

gratuitously weighted by destiny with a burden of five-and-forty years

instead of her proper twenty.

'Lucy, don't you know me?' he said, when the servant had closed the

door.

'I knew you the instant I saw you!' she returned cheerfully. 'I don't

know why, but I always thought you would come back to your old town

again.'

She gave him her hand, and then they sat down. 'They said you were

dead,' continued Lucy, 'but I never thought so. We should have heard of

it for certain if you had been.'

'It is a very long time since we met.'

'Yes; what you must have seen, Mr. Barnet, in all these roving years, in

comparison with what I have seen in this quiet place!' Her face grew

more serious. 'You know my husband has been dead a long time? I am a

lonely old woman now, considering what I have been; though Mr. Downe's

daughters-all married-manage to keep me pretty cheerful.'

'And I am a lonely old man, and have been any time these twenty years.'

'But where have you kept yourself? And why did you go off so

mysteriously?'

'Well, Lucy, I have kept myself a little in America, and a little in

Australia, a little in India, a little at the Cape, and so on; I have

not stayed in any place for a long time, as it seems to me, and yet more

than twenty years have flown. But when people get to my age two years go

like one!-Your second question, why did I go away so mysteriously, is

surely not necessary. You guessed why, didn't you?'

'No, I never once guessed,' she said simply; 'nor did Charles, nor did

anybody as far as I know.'

'Well, indeed! Now think it over again, and then look at me, and say if

you can't guess?'

She looked him in the face with an inquiring smile. 'Surely not because

of me?' she said, pausing at the commencement of surprise.

Barnet nodded, and smiled again; but his smile was sadder than hers.

'Because I married Charles?' she asked.

'Yes; solely because you married him on the day I was free to ask you to

marry me. My wife died four-and-twenty hours before you went to church

with Downe. The fixing of my journey at that particular moment was

because of her funeral; but once away I knew I should have no inducement

to come back, and took my steps accordingly.'

Her face assumed an aspect of gentle reflection, and she looked up and

down his form with great interest in her eyes. 'I never thought of it!'

she said. 'I knew, of course, that you had once implied some warmth of

feeling towards me, but I concluded that it passed off. And I have

always been under the impression that your wife was alive at the time of

my marriage. Was it not stupid of me!-But you will have some tea or

something? I have never dined late, you know, since my husband's death.

I have got into the way of making a regular meal of tea. You will have

some tea with me, will you not?'

The travelled man assented quite readily, and tea was brought in. They

sat and chatted over the meal, regardless of the flying hour. 'Well,

well!' said Barnet presently, as for the first time he leisurely

surveyed the room; 'how like it all is, and yet how different! Just

where your piano stands was a board on a couple of trestles, bearing the

patterns of wall-papers, when I was last here. I was choosing them-

standing in this way, as it might be. Then my servant came in at the

door, and handed me a note, so. It was from Downe, and announced that

you were just going to be married to him. I chose no more wall- papers-

tore up all those I had selected, and left the house. I never entered it

again till now.'

'Ah, at last I understand it all,' she murmured.

They had both risen and gone to the fireplace. The mantel came almost on

a level with her shoulder, which gently rested against it, and Barnet

laid his hand upon the shelf close beside her shoulder. 'Lucy,' he said,

'better late than never. Will you marry me now?'

She started back, and the surprise which was so obvious in her wrought

even greater surprise in him that it should be so. It was difficult to

believe that she had been quite blind to the situation, and yet all

reason and common sense went to prove that she was not acting.

'You take me quite unawares by such a question!' she said, with a forced

laugh of uneasiness. It was the first time she had shown any

embarrassment at all. 'Why,' she added, 'I couldn't marry you for the

world.'

'Not after all this! Why not?'

'It is-I would-I really think I may say it-I would upon the whole rather

marry you, Mr. Barnet, than any other man I have ever met, if I ever

dreamed of marriage again. But I don't dream of it-it is quite out of my

thoughts; I have not the least intention of marrying again.'

'But-on my account-couldn't you alter your plans a little? Come!'

'Dear Mr. Barnet,' she said with a little flutter, 'I would on your

account if on anybody's in existence. But you don't know in the least

what it is you are asking-such an impracticable thing-I won't say

ridiculous, of course, because I see that you are really in earnest, and

earnestness is never ridiculous to my mind.'

'Well, yes,' said Barnet more slowly, dropping her hand, which he had

taken at the moment of pleading, 'I am in earnest. The resolve, two

months ago, at the Cape, to come back once more was, it is true, rather

sudden, and as I see now, not well considered. But I am in earnest in

asking.'

'And I in declining. With all good feeling and all kindness, let me say

that I am quite opposed to the idea of marrying a second time.'

'Well, no harm has been done,' he answered, with the same subdued and

tender humorousness that he had shown on such occasions in early life.

'If you really won't accept me, I must put up with it, I suppose.' His

eye fell on the clock as he spoke. 'Had you any notion that it was so

late?' he asked. 'How absorbed I have been!'

She accompanied him to the hall, helped him to put on his overcoat, and

let him out of the house herself.

'Good-night,' said Barnet, on the doorstep, as the lamp shone in his

face. 'You are not offended with me?'

'Certainly not. Nor you with me?'

'I'll consider whether I am or not,' he pleasantly replied. 'Good-

night.'

She watched him safely through the gate; and when his footsteps had died

away upon the road, closed the door softly and returned to the room.

Here the modest widow long pondered his speeches, with eyes dropped to

an unusually low level. Barnet's urbanity under the blow of her refusal

greatly impressed her. After having his long period of probation

rendered useless by her decision, he had shown no anger, and had

philosophically taken her words as if he deserved no better ones. It was

very gentlemanly of him, certainly; it was more than gentlemanly; it was

heroic and grand. The more she meditated, the more she questioned the

virtue of her conduct in checking him so peremptorily; and went to her

bedroom in a mood of dissatisfaction. On looking in the glass she was

reminded that there was not so much remaining of her former beauty as to

make his frank declaration an impulsive natural homage to her cheeks and

eyes; it must undoubtedly have arisen from an old staunch feeling of

his, deserving tenderest consideration. She recalled to her mind with

much pleasure that he had told her he was staying at the Black-Bull

Hotel; so that if, after waiting a day or two, he should not, in his

modesty, call again, she might then send him a nice little note. To

alter her views for the present was far from her intention; but she

would allow herself to be induced to reconsider the case, as any

generous woman ought to do.

The morrow came and passed, and Mr. Barnet did not drop in. At every

knock, light youthful hues flew across her cheek; and she was abstracted

in the presence of her other visitors. In the evening she walked about

the house, not knowing what to do with herself; the conditions of

existence seemed totally different from those which ruled only four-and-

twenty short hours ago. What had been at first a tantalizing elusive

sentiment was getting acclimatized within her as a definite hope, and

her person was so informed by that emotion that she might almost have

stood as its emblematical representative by the time the clock struck

ten. In short, an interest in Barnet precisely resembling that of her

early youth led her present heart to belie her yesterday's words to him,

and she longed to see him again.

The next day she walked out early, thinking she might meet him in the

street. The growing beauty of her romance absorbed her, and she went

from the street to the fields, and from the fields to the shore, without

any consciousness of distance, till reminded by her weariness that she

could go no further. He had nowhere appeared. In the evening she took a

step which under the circumstances seemed justifiable; she wrote a note

to him at the hotel, inviting him to tea with her at six precisely, and

signing her note 'Lucy.'

In a quarter of an hour the messenger came back. Mr. Barnet had left the

hotel early in the morning of the day before, but he had stated that he

would probably return in the course of the week.

The note was sent back, to be given to him immediately on his arrival.

There was no sign from the inn that this desired event had occurred,

either on the next day or the day following. On both nights she had been

restless, and had scarcely slept half-an-hour.

On the Saturday, putting off all diffidence, Lucy went herself to the

Black-Bull, and questioned the staff closely.

Mr. Barnet had cursorily remarked when leaving that he might return on

the Thursday or Friday, but they were directed not to reserve a room for

him unless he should write.

He had left no address.

Lucy sorrowfully took back her note went home, and resolved to wait.

She did wait-years and years-but Barnet never reappeared.

April 1880.

INTERLOPERS AT THE KNAP

I

The north road from Casterbridge is tedious and lonely, especially in

winter-time. Along a part of its course it connects with Long-Ash Lane,

a monotonous track without a village or hamlet for many miles, and with

very seldom a turning. Unapprized wayfarers who are too old, or too

young, or in other respects too weak for the distance to be traversed,

but who, nevertheless, have to walk it, say, as they look wistfully

ahead, 'Once at the top of that hill, and I must surely see the end of

Long-Ash Lane!' But they reach the hilltop, and Long-Ash Lane stretches

in front as mercilessly as before.

Some few years ago a certain farmer was riding through this lane in the

gloom of a winter evening. The farmer's friend, a dairyman, was riding

beside him. A few paces in the rear rode the farmer's man. All three

were well horsed on strong, round-barrelled cobs; and to be well horsed

was to be in better spirits about Long-Ash Lane than poor pedestrians

could attain to during its passage.

But the farmer did not talk much to his friend as he rode along. The

enterprise which had brought him there filled his mind; for in truth it

was important. Not altogether so important was it, perhaps, when

estimated by its value to society at large; but if the true measure of a

deed be proportionate to the space it occupies in the heart of him who

undertakes it, Farmer Charles Darton's business to-night could hold its

own with the business of kings.

He was a large farmer. His turnover, as it is called, was probably

thirty thousand pounds a year. He had a great many draught horses, a

great many milch cows, and of sheep a multitude. This comfortable

position was, however, none of his own making. It had been created by

his father, a man of a very different stamp from the present

representative of the line.

Darton, the father, had been a one-idea'd character, with a buttoned-up

pocket and a chink-like eye brimming with commercial subtlety. In Darton

the son, this trade subtlety had become transmuted into emotional, and

the harshness had disappeared; he would have been called a sad man but

for his constant care not to divide himself from lively friends by

piping notes out of harmony with theirs. Contemplative, he allowed his

mind to be a quiet meeting-place for memories and hopes. So that,

naturally enough, since succeeding to the agricultural calling, and up

to his present age of thirty-two, he had neither advanced nor receded as

a capitalist-a stationary result which did not agitate one of his

unambitious, unstrategic nature, since he had all that he desired. The

motive of his expedition to-night showed the same absence of anxious

regard for Number One.

The party rode on in the slow, safe trot proper to night-time and bad

roads, Farmer Darton's head jigging rather unromantically up and down

against the sky, and his motions being repeated with bolder emphasis by

his friend Japheth Johns; while those of the latter were travestied in

jerks still less softened by art in the person of the lad who attended

them. A pair of whitish objects hung one on each side of the latter,

bumping against him at each step, and still further spoiling the grace

of his seat. On close inspection they might have been perceived to be

open rush baskets-one containing a turkey, and the other some bottles of

wine.

'D'ye feel ye can meet your fate like a man, neighbour Darton?' asked

Johns, breaking a silence which had lasted while five-and-twenty

hedgerow trees had glided by.

Mr. Darton with a half-laugh murmured, 'Ay-call it my fate! Hanging and

wiving go by destiny.' And then they were silent again.

The darkness thickened rapidly, at intervals shutting down on the land

in a perceptible flap, like the wave of a wing. The customary close of

day was accelerated by a simultaneous blurring of the air. With the fall

of night had come a mist just damp enough to incommode, but not

sufficient to saturate them. Countrymen as they were-born, as may be

said, with only an open door between them and the four seasons-they

regarded the mist but as an added obscuration, and ignored its humid

quality.

They were travelling in a direction that was enlivened by no modern

current of traffic, the place of Darton's pilgrimage being an old-

fashioned village-one of the Hintocks (several villages of that name,

with a distinctive prefix or affix, lying thereabout)-where the people

make the best cider and cider-wine in all Wessex, and where the

dunghills smell of pomace instead of stable refuse as elsewhere. The

lane was sometimes so narrow that the brambles of the hedge, which hung

forward like anglers' rods over a stream, scratched their hats and

curry-combed their whiskers as they passed. Yet this neglected lane had

been a highway to Queen Elizabeth's subjects and the cavalcades of the

past. Its day was over now, and its history as a national artery done

for ever.

'Why I have decided to marry her,' resumed Darton (in a measured musical

voice of confidence which revealed a good deal of his composition), as

he glanced round to see that the lad was not too near, 'is not only that

I like her, but that I can do no better, even from a fairly practical

point of view. That I might ha' looked higher is possibly true, though

it is really all nonsense. I have had experience enough in looking above

me. "No more superior women for me," said I-you know when. Sally is a

comely, independent, simple character, with no make-up about her, who'll

think me as much a superior to her as I used to think-you know who I

mean-was to me.'

'Ay,' said Johns. 'However, I shouldn't call Sally Hall simple. Primary,

because no Sally is; secondary, because if some could be, this one

wouldn't. 'Tis a wrong denomination to apply to a woman, Charles, and

affects me, as your best man, like cold water. 'Tis like recommending a

stage play by saying there's neither murder, villainy, nor harm of any

sort in it, when that's what you've paid your half-crown to see.'

'Well; may your opinion do you good. Mine's a different one.' And

turning the conversation from the philosophical to the practical, Darton

expressed a hope that the said Sally had received what he'd sent on by

the carrier that day.

Johns wanted to know what that was.

'It is a dress,' said Darton. 'Not exactly a wedding-dress; though she

may use it as one if she likes. It is rather serviceable than showy-

suitable for the winter weather.'

'Good,' said Johns. 'Serviceable is a wise word in a bridegroom. I

commend ye, Charles.'

'For,' said Darton, 'why should a woman dress up like a rope-dancer

because she's going to do the most solemn deed of her life except

dying?'

'Faith, why? But she will, because she will, I suppose,' said Dairyman

Johns.

'H'm,' said Darton.

The lane they followed had been nearly straight for several miles, but

it now took a turn, and winding uncertainly for some distance forked

into two. By night country roads are apt to reveal ungainly qualities

which pass without observation during day; and though Darton had

travelled this way before, he had not done so frequently, Sally having

been wooed at the house of a relative near his own. He never remembered

seeing at this spot a pair of alternative ways looking so equally

probable as these two did now. Johns rode on a few steps.

'Don't be out of heart, sonny,' he cried. 'Here's a handpost. Enoch-come

and climm this post, and tell us the way.'

The lad dismounted, and jumped into the hedge where the post stood under

a tree.

'Unstrap the baskets, or you'll smash up that wine!' cried Darton, as

the young man began spasmodically to climb the post, baskets and all.

'Was there ever less head in a brainless world?' said Johns. 'Here,

simple Nocky, I'll do it.' He leapt off, and with much puffing climbed

the post, striking a match when he reached the top, and moving the light

along the arm, the lad standing and gazing at the spectacle.

'I have faced tantalization these twenty years with a temper as mild as

milk!' said Japheth; 'but such things as this don't come short of

devilry!' And flinging the match away, he slipped down to the ground.

'What's the matter?' asked Darton.

'Not a letter, sacred or heathen-not so much as would tell us the way to

the great fireplace-ever I should sin to say it! Either the moss and

mildew have eat away the words, or we have arrived in a land where the

natyves have lost the art o' writing, and should ha' brought our compass

like Christopher Columbus.'

'Let us take the straightest road,' said Darton placidly; 'I shan't be

sorry to get there-'tis a tiresome ride. I would have driven if I had

known.'

'Nor I neither, sir,' said Enoch. 'These straps plough my shoulder like

a zull. If 'tis much further to your lady's home, Maister Darton, I

shall ask to be let carry half of these good things in my innerds-hee,

hee!'

'Don't you be such a reforming radical, Enoch,' said Johns sternly.

'Here, I'll take the turkey.'

This being done, they went forward by the right-hand lane, which

ascended a hill, the left winding away under a plantation. The pit-a-

pat of their horses' hoofs lessened up the slope; and the ironical

directing-post stood in solitude as before, holding out its blank arms

to the raw breeze, which brought a snore from the wood as if Skrymir the

Giant were sleeping there.

II

Three miles to the left of the travellers, along the road they had not

followed, rose an old house with mullioned windows of Ham-hill stone,

and chimneys of lavish solidity. It stood at the top of a slope beside

King's-Hintock village-street; and immediately in front of it grew a

large sycamore-tree, whose bared roots formed a convenient staircase

from the road below to the front door of the dwelling. Its situation

gave the house what little distinctive name it possessed, namely, 'The

Knap.' Some forty yards off a brook dribbled past, which, for its size,

made a great deal of noise. At the back was a dairy barton, accessible

for vehicles and live-stock by a side 'drong.' Thus much only of the

character of the homestead could be divined out of doors at this shady

evening-time.

But within there was plenty of light to see by, as plenty was construed

at Hintock. Beside a Tudor fireplace, whose moulded four-centred arch

was nearly hidden by a figured blue-cloth blower, were seated two women-

mother and daughter-Mrs. Hall, and Sarah, or Sally; for this was a part

of the world where the latter modification had not as yet been effaced

as a vulgarity by the march of intellect. The owner of the name was the

young woman by whose means Mr. Darton proposed to put an end to his

bachelor condition on the approaching day.

The mother's bereavement had been so long ago as not to leave much mark

of its occurrence upon her now, either in face or clothes. She had

resumed the mob-cap of her early married life, enlivening its whiteness

by a few rose-du-Barry ribbons. Sally required no such aids to pinkness.

Roseate good-nature lit up her gaze; her features showed curves of

decision and judgment; and she might have been regarded without much

mistake as a warm-hearted, quick-spirited, handsome girl.

She did most of the talking, her mother listening with a half-absent

air, as she picked up fragments of red-hot wood ember with the tongs,

and piled them upon the brands. But the number of speeches that passed

was very small in proportion to the meanings exchanged. Long experience

together often enabled them to see the course of thought in each other's

minds without a word being spoken. Behind them, in the centre of the

room, the table was spread for supper, certain whiffs of air laden with

fat vapours, which ever and anon entered from the kitchen, denoting its

preparation there.

'The new gown he was going to send you stays about on the way like

himself,' Sally's mother was saying.

'Yes, not finished, I daresay,' cried Sally independently. 'Lord, I

shouldn't be amazed if it didn't come at all! Young men make such kind

promises when they are near you, and forget 'em when they go away. But

he doesn't intend it as a wedding-gown-he gives it to me merely as a

gown to wear when I like-a travelling-dress is what it would be called

by some. Come rathe or come late it don't much matter, as I have a dress

of my own to fall back upon. But what time is it?'

She went to the family clock and opened the glass, for the hour was not

otherwise discernible by night, and indeed at all times was rather a

thing to be investigated than beheld, so much more wall than window was

there in the apartment. 'It is nearly eight,' said she.

'Eight o'clock, and neither dress nor man,' said Mrs. Hall.

'Mother, if you think to tantalize me by talking like that, you are much

mistaken! Let him be as late as he will-or stay away altogether-I don't

care,' said Sally. But a tender, minute quaver in the negation showed

that there was something forced in that statement.

Mrs. Hall perceived it, and drily observed that she was not so sure

about Sally not caring. 'But perhaps you don't care so much as I do,

after all,' she said. 'For I see what you don't, that it is a good and

flourishing match for you; a very honourable offer in Mr. Darton. And I

think I see a kind husband in him. So pray God 'twill go smooth, and

wind up well.'

Sally would not listen to misgivings. Of course it would go smoothly,

she asserted. 'How you are up and down, mother!' she went on. 'At this

moment, whatever hinders him, we are not so anxious to see him as he is

to be here, and his thought runs on before him, and settles down upon us

like the star in the east. Hark!' she exclaimed, with a breath of

relief, her eyes sparkling. 'I heard something. Yes-here they are!'

The next moment her mother's slower ear also distinguished the familiar

reverberation occasioned by footsteps clambering up the roots of the

sycamore.

'Yes it sounds like them at last,' she said. 'Well, it is not so very

late after all, considering the distance.'

The footfall ceased, and they arose, expecting a knock. They began to

think it might have been, after all, some neighbouring villager under

Bacchic influence, giving the centre of the road a wide berth, when

their doubts were dispelled by the new-comer's entry into the passage.

The door of the room was gently opened, and there appeared, not the pair

of travellers with whom we have already made acquaintance, but a pale-

faced man in the garb of extreme poverty-almost in rags.

'O, it's a tramp-gracious me!' said Sally, starting back.

His cheeks and eye-orbits were deep concaves-rather, it might be, from

natural weakness of constitution than irregular living, though there

were indications that he had led no careful life. He gazed at the two

women fixedly for a moment: then with an abashed, humiliated demeanour,

dropped his glance to the floor, and sank into a chair without uttering

a word.

Sally was in advance of her mother, who had remained standing by the

fire. She now tried to discern the visitor across the candles.

'Why-mother,' said Sally faintly, turning back to Mrs. Hall. 'It is

Phil, from Australia!'

Mrs. Hall started, and grew pale, and a fit of coughing seized the man

with the ragged clothes. 'To come home like this!' she said. 'O, Philip-

are you ill?'

'No, no, mother,' replied he impatiently, as soon as he could speak.

'But for God's sake how do you come here-and just now too?'

'Well, I am here,' said the man. 'How it is I hardly know. I've come

home, mother, because I was driven to it. Things were against me out

there, and went from bad to worse.'

'Then why didn't you let us know?-you've not writ a line for the last

two or three years.'

The son admitted sadly that he had not. He said that he had hoped and

thought he might fetch up again, and be able to send good news. Then he

had been obliged to abandon that hope, and had finally come home from

sheer necessity-previously to making a new start. 'Yes, things are very

bad with me,' he repeated, perceiving their commiserating glances at his

clothes.

They brought him nearer the fire, took his hat from his thin hand, which

was so small and smooth as to show that his attempts to fetch up again

had not been in a manual direction. His mother resumed her inquiries,

and dubiously asked if he had chosen to come that particular night for

any special reason.

For no reason, he told her. His arrival had been quite at random. Then

Philip Hall looked round the room, and saw for the first time that the

table was laid somewhat luxuriously, and for a larger number than

themselves; and that an air of festivity pervaded their dress. He asked

quickly what was going on.

'Sally is going to be married in a day or two,' replied the mother; and

she explained how Mr. Darton, Sally's intended husband, was coming there

that night with the groomsman, Mr. Johns, and other details. 'We thought

it must be their step when we heard you,' said Mrs. Hall.

The needy wanderer looked again on the floor. 'I see-I see,' he

murmured. 'Why, indeed, should I have come to-night? Such folk as I are

not wanted here at these times, naturally. And I have no business here-

spoiling other people's happiness.'

'Phil,' said his mother, with a tear in her eye, but with a thinness of

lip and severity of manner which were presumably not more than past

events justified; 'since you speak like that to me, I'll speak honestly

to you. For these three years you have taken no thought for us. You left

home with a good supply of money, and strength and education, and you

ought to have made good use of it all. But you come back like a beggar;

and that you come in a very awkward time for us cannot be denied. Your

return to-night may do us much harm. But mind-you are welcome to this

home as long as it is mine. I don't wish to turn you adrift. We will

make the best of a bad job; and I hope you are not seriously ill?'

'O no. I have only this infernal cough.'

She looked at him anxiously. 'I think you had better go to bed at once,'

she said.

'Well-I shall be out of the way there,' said the son wearily. 'Having

ruined myself, don't let me ruin you by being seen in these togs, for

Heaven's sake. Who do you say Sally is going to be married to-a Farmer

Darton?'

'Yes-a gentleman-farmer-quite a wealthy man. Far better in station than

she could have expected. It is a good thing, altogether.'

'Well done, little Sal!' said her brother, brightening and looking up at

her with a smile. 'I ought to have written; but perhaps I have thought

of you all the more. But let me get out of sight. I would rather go and

jump into the river than be seen here. But have you anything I can

drink? I am confoundedly thirsty with my long tramp.'

'Yes, yes, we will bring something upstairs to you,' said Sally, with

grief in her face.

'Ay, that will do nicely. But, Sally and mother-' He stopped, and they

waited. 'Mother, I have not told you all,' he resumed slowly, still

looking on the floor between his knees. 'Sad as what you see of me is,

there's worse behind.'

His mother gazed upon him in grieved suspense, and Sally went and leant

upon the bureau, listening for every sound, and sighing. Suddenly she

turned round, saying, 'Let them come, I don't care! Philip, tell the

worst, and take your time.'

'Well, then,' said the unhappy Phil, 'I am not the only one in this

mess. Would to Heaven I were! But-'

'O, Phil!'

'I have a wife as destitute as I.'

'A wife?' said his mother.

'Unhappily!'

'A wife! Yes, that is the way with sons!'

'And besides-' said he.

'Besides! O, Philip, surely-'

'I have two little children.'

'Wife and children!' whispered Mrs. Hall, sinking down confounded.

'Poor little things!' said Sally involuntarily.

His mother turned again to him. 'I suppose these helpless beings are

left in Australia?'

'No. They are in England.'

'Well, I can only hope you've left them in a respectable place.'

'I have not left them at all. They are here-within a few yards of us. In

short, they are in the stable.'

'Where?'

'In the stable. I did not like to bring them indoors till I had seen

you, mother, and broken the bad news a bit to you. They were very tired,

and are resting out there on some straw.'

Mrs. Hall's fortitude visibly broke down. She had been brought up not

without refinement, and was even more moved by such a collapse of

genteel aims as this than a substantial dairyman's widow would in

ordinary have been moved. 'Well, it must be borne,' she said, in a low

voice, with her hands tightly joined. 'A starving son, a starving wife,

starving children! Let it be. But why is this come to us now, to-day,

to-night? Could no other misfortune happen to helpless women than this,

which will quite upset my poor girl's chance of a happy life? Why have

you done us this wrong, Philip? What respectable man will come here, and

marry open-eyed into a family of vagabonds?'

'Nonsense, mother!' said Sally vehemently, while her face flushed.

'Charley isn't the man to desert me. But if he should be, and won't

marry me because Phil's come, let him go and marry elsewhere. I won't be

ashamed of my own flesh and blood for any man in England-not I!' And

then Sally turned away and burst into tears.

'Wait till you are twenty years older and you will tell a different

tale,' replied her mother.

The son stood up. 'Mother,' he said bitterly, 'as I have come, so I will

go. All I ask of you is that you will allow me and mine to lie in your

stable to-night. I give you my word that we'll be gone by break of day,

and trouble you no further!'

Mrs. Hall, the mother, changed at that. 'O no,' she answered hastily;

'never shall it be said that I sent any of my own family from my door.

Bring 'em in, Philip, or take me out to them.'

'We will put 'em all into the large bedroom,' said Sally, brightening,

'and make up a large fire. Let's go and help them in, and call Rebekah.'

(Rebekah was the woman who assisted at the dairy and housework; she

lived in a cottage hard by with her husband, who attended to the cows.)

Sally went to fetch a lantern from the back-kitchen, but her brother

said, 'You won't want a light. I lit the lantern that was hanging

there.'

'What must we call your wife?' asked Mrs. Hall.

'Helena,' said Philip.

With shawls over their heads they proceeded towards the back door.

'One minute before you go,' interrupted Philip. 'I-I haven't confessed

all.'

'Then Heaven help us!' said Mrs. Hall, pushing to the door and clasping

her hands in calm despair.

'We passed through Evershead as we came,' he continued, 'and I just

looked in at the "Sow-and-Acorn" to see if old Mike still kept on there

as usual. The carrier had come in from Sherton Abbas at that moment, and

guessing that I was bound for this place-for I think he knew me-he asked

me to bring on a dressmaker's parcel for Sally that was marked

"immediate." My wife had walked on with the children. 'Twas a flimsy

parcel, and the paper was torn, and I found on looking at it that it was

a thick warm gown. I didn't wish you to see poor Helena in a shabby

state. I was ashamed that you should-'twas not what she was born to. I

untied the parcel in the road, took it on to her where she was waiting

in the Lower Barn, and told her I had managed to get it for her, and

that she was to ask no question. She, poor thing, must have supposed I

obtained it on trust, through having reached a place where I was known,

for she put it on gladly enough. She has it on now. Sally has other

gowns, I daresay.'

Sally looked at her mother, speechless.

'You have others, I daresay!' repeated Phil, with a sick man's

impatience. 'I thought to myself, "Better Sally cry than Helena freeze."

Well, is the dress of great consequence? 'Twas nothing very ornamental,

as far as I could see.'

'No-no; not of consequence,' returned Sally sadly, adding in a gentle

voice, 'You will not mind if I lend her another instead of that one,

will you?'

Philip's agitation at the confession had brought on another attack of

the cough, which seemed to shake him to pieces. He was so obviously

unfit to sit in a chair that they helped him upstairs at once; and

having hastily given him a cordial and kindled the bedroom fire, they

descended to fetch their unhappy new relations.

III

It was with strange feelings that the girl and her mother, lately so

cheerful, passed out of the back door into the open air of the barton,

laden with hay scents and the herby breath of cows. A fine sleet had

begun to fall, and they trotted across the yard quickly. The stable-

door was open; a light shone from it-from the lantern which always hung

there, and which Philip had lighted, as he said. Softly nearing the

door, Mrs. Hall pronounced the name 'Helena!'

There was no answer for the moment. Looking in she was taken by

surprise. Two people appeared before her. For one, instead of the

drabbish woman she had expected, Mrs. Hall saw a pale, dark-eyed,

ladylike creature, whose personality ruled her attire rather than was

ruled by it. She was in a new and handsome gown, of course, and an old

bonnet. She was standing up, agitated; her hand was held by her

companion-none else than Sally's affianced, Farmer Charles Darton, upon

whose fine figure the pale stranger's eyes were fixed, as his were fixed

upon her. His other hand held the rein of his horse, which was standing

saddled as if just led in.

At sight of Mrs. Hall they both turned, looking at her in a way neither

quite conscious nor unconscious, and without seeming to recollect that

words were necessary as a solution to the scene. In another moment Sally

entered also, when Mr. Darton dropped his companion's hand, led the

horse aside, and came to greet his betrothed and Mrs. Hall.

'Ah!' he said, smiling-with something like forced composure-'this is a

roundabout way of arriving, you will say, my dear Mrs. Hall. But we lost

our way, which made us late. I saw a light here, and led in my horse at

once-my friend Johns and my man have gone back to the little inn with

theirs, not to crowd you too much. No sooner had I entered than I saw

that this lady had taken temporary shelter here-and found I was

intruding.'

'She is my daughter-in-law,' said Mrs. Hall calmly. 'My son, too, is in

the house, but he has gone to bed unwell.'

Sally had stood staring wonderingly at the scene until this moment,

hardly recognizing Darton's shake of the hand. The spell that bound her

was broken by her perceiving the two little children seated on a heap of

hay. She suddenly went forward, spoke to them, and took one on her arm

and the other in her hand.

'And two children?' said Mr. Darton, showing thus that he had not been

there long enough as yet to understand the situation.

'My grandchildren,' said Mrs. Hall, with as much affected ease as

before.

Philip Hall's wife, in spite of this interruption to her first

rencounter, seemed scarcely so much affected by it as to feel any one's

presence in addition to Mr. Darton's. However, arousing herself by a

quick reflection, she threw a sudden critical glance of her sad eyes

upon Mrs. Hall; and, apparently finding her satisfactory, advanced to

her in a meek initiative. Then Sally and the stranger spoke some

friendly words to each other, and Sally went on with the children into

the house. Mrs. Hall and Helena followed, and Mr. Darton followed these,

looking at Helena's dress and outline, and listening to her voice like a

man in a dream.

By the time the others reached the house Sally had already gone upstairs

with the tired children. She rapped against the wall for Rebekah to come

in and help to attend to them, Rebekah's house being a little 'spit-and-

dab' cabin leaning against the substantial stone-work of Mrs. Hall's

taller erection. When she came a bed was made up for the little ones,

and some supper given to them. On descending the stairs after seeing

this done Sally went to the sitting-room. Young Mrs. Hall entered it

just in advance of her, having in the interim retired with her mother-

in-law to take off her bonnet, and otherwise make herself presentable.

Hence it was evident that no further communication could have passed

between her and Mr. Darton since their brief interview in the stable.

Mr. Japheth Johns now opportunely arrived, and broke up the restraint of

the company, after a few orthodox meteorological commentaries had passed

between him and Mrs. Hall by way of introduction. They at once sat down

to supper, the present of wine and turkey not being produced for

consumption to-night, lest the premature display of those gifts should

seem to throw doubt on Mrs. Hall's capacities as a provider.

'Drink hearty, Mr. Johns-drink hearty,' said that matron magnanimously.

'Such as it is there's plenty of. But perhaps cider-wine is not to your

taste?-though there's body in it.'

'Quite the contrairy, ma'am-quite the contrairy,' said the dairyman.

'For though I inherit the malt-liquor principle from my father, I am a

cider-drinker on my mother's side. She came from these parts, you know.

And there's this to be said for't-'tis a more peaceful liquor, and don't

lie about a man like your hotter drinks. With care, one may live on it a

twelvemonth without knocking down a neighbour, or getting a black eye

from an old acquaintance.'

The general conversation thus begun was continued briskly, though it was

in the main restricted to Mrs. Hall and Japheth, who in truth required

but little help from anybody. There being slight call upon Sally's

tongue, she had ample leisure to do what her heart most desired, namely,

watch her intended husband and her sister-in-law with a view of

elucidating the strange momentary scene in which her mother and herself

had surprised them in the stable. If that scene meant anything, it

meant, at least, that they had met before. That there had been no time

for explanations Sally could see, for their manner was still one of

suppressed amazement at each other's presence there. Darton's eyes, too,

fell continually on the gown worn by Helena as if this were an added

riddle to his perplexity; though to Sally it was the one feature in the

case which was no mystery. He seemed to feel that fate had impishly

changed his vis-�-vis in the lover's jig he was about to foot; that

while the gown had been expected to enclose a Sally, a Helena's face

looked out from the bodice; that some long-lost hand met his own from

the sleeves.

Sally could see that whatever Helena might know of Darton, she knew

nothing of how the dress entered into his embarrassment. And at moments

the young girl would have persuaded herself that Darton's looks at her

sister-in-law were entirely the fruit of the clothes query. But surely

at other times a more extensive range of speculation and sentiment was

expressed by her lover's eye than that which the changed dress would

account for.

Sally's independence made her one of the least jealous of women. But

there was something in the relations of these two visitors which ought

to be explained.

Japheth Johns continued to converse in his well-known style,

interspersing his talk with some private reflections on the position of

Darton and Sally, which, though the sparkle in his eye showed them to be

highly entertaining to himself, were apparently not quite communicable

to the company. At last he withdrew for the night, going off to the

roadside inn half-a-mile back, whither Darton promised to follow him in

a few minutes.

Half-an-hour passed, and then Mr. Darton also rose to leave, Sally and

her sister-in-law simultaneously wishing him good-night as they retired

upstairs to their rooms. But on his arriving at the front door with Mrs.

Hall a sharp shower of rain began to come down, when the widow suggested

that he should return to the fire-side till the storm ceased.

Darton accepted her proposal, but insisted that, as it was getting late,

and she was obviously tired, she should not sit up on his account, since

he could let himself out of the house, and would quite enjoy smoking a

pipe by the hearth alone. Mrs. Hall assented; and Darton was left by

himself. He spread his knees to the brands, lit up his tobacco as he had

said, and sat gazing into the fire, and at the notches of the chimney-

crook which hung above.

An occasional drop of rain rolled down the chimney with a hiss, and

still he smoked on; but not like a man whose mind was at rest. In the

long run, however, despite his meditations, early hours afield and a

long ride in the open air produced their natural result. He began to

doze.

How long he remained in this half-unconscious state he did not know. He

suddenly opened his eyes. The back-brand had burnt itself in two, and

ceased to flame; the light which he had placed on the mantelpiece had

nearly gone out. But in spite of these deficiencies there was a light in

the apartment, and it came from elsewhere. Turning his head he saw

Philip Hall's wife standing at the entrance of the room with a bed-

candle in one hand, a small brass tea-kettle in the other, and his gown,

as it certainly seemed, still upon her.

'Helena!' said Darton, starting up.

Her countenance expressed dismay, and her first words were an apology.

'I-did not know you were here, Mr. Darton,' she said, while a blush

flashed to her cheek. 'I thought every one had retired-I was coming to

make a little water boil; my husband seems to be worse. But perhaps the

kitchen fire can be lighted up again.'

'Don't go on my account. By all means put it on here as you intended,'

said Darton. 'Allow me to help you.' He went forward to take the kettle

from her hand, but she did not allow him, and placed it on the fire

herself.

They stood some way apart, one on each side of the fireplace, waiting

till the water should boil, the candle on the mantel between them, and

Helena with her eyes on the kettle. Darton was the first to break the

silence. 'Shall I call Sally?' he said.

'O no,' she quickly returned. 'We have given trouble enough already. We

have no right here. But we are the sport of fate, and were obliged to

come.'

'No right here!' said he in surprise.

'None. I can't explain it now,' answered Helena. 'This kettle is very

slow.'

There was another pause; the proverbial dilatoriness of watched pots was

never more clearly exemplified.

Helena's face was of that sort which seems to ask for assistance without

the owner's knowledge-the very antipodes of Sally's, which was self-

reliance expressed. Darton's eyes travelled from the kettle to Helena's

face, then back to the kettle, then to the face for rather a longer

time. 'So I am not to know anything of the mystery that has distracted

me all the evening?' he said. 'How is it that a woman, who refused me

because (as I supposed) my position was not good enough for her taste,

is found to be the wife of a man who certainly seems to be worse off

than I?'

'He had the prior claim,' said she.

'What! you knew him at that time?'

'Yes, yes! Please say no more,' she implored.

'Whatever my errors, I have paid for them during the last five years!'

The heart of Darton was subject to sudden overflowings. He was kind to a

fault. 'I am sorry from my soul,' he said, involuntarily approaching

her. Helena withdrew a step or two, at which he became conscious of his

movement, and quickly took his former place. Here he stood without

speaking, and the little kettle began to sing.

'Well, you might have been my wife if you had chosen,' he said at last.

'But that's all past and gone. However, if you are in any trouble or

poverty I shall be glad to be of service, and as your relation by

marriage I shall have a right to be. Does your uncle know of your

distress?'

'My uncle is dead. He left me without a farthing. And now we have two

children to maintain.'

'What, left you nothing? How could he be so cruel as that?'

'I disgraced myself in his eyes.'

'Now,' said Darton earnestly, 'let me take care of the children, at

least while you are so unsettled. You belong to another, so I cannot

take care of you.'

'Yes you can,' said a voice; and suddenly a third figure stood beside

them. It was Sally. 'You can, since you seem to wish to?' she repeated.

'She no longer belongs to another . . . My poor brother is dead!'

Her face was red, her eyes sparkled, and all the woman came to the

front. 'I have heard it!' she went on to him passionately. 'You can

protect her now as well as the children!' She turned then to her

agitated sister-in-law. 'I heard something,' said Sally (in a gentle

murmur, differing much from her previous passionate words), 'and I went

into his room. It must have been the moment you left. He went off so

quickly, and weakly, and it was so unexpected, that I couldn't leave

even to call you.'

Darton was just able to gather from the confused discourse which

followed that, during his sleep by the fire, this brother whom he had

never seen had become worse; and that during Helena's absence for water

the end had unexpectedly come. The two young women hastened upstairs,

and he was again left alone.

After standing there a short time he went to the front door and looked

out; till, softly closing it behind him, he advanced and stood under the

large sycamore-tree. The stars were flickering coldly, and the dampness

which had just descended upon the earth in rain now sent up a chill from

it. Darton was in a strange position, and he felt it. The unexpected

appearance, in deep poverty, of Helena-a young lady, daughter of a

deceased naval officer, who had been brought up by her uncle, a

solicitor, and had refused Darton in marriage years ago-the passionate,

almost angry demeanour of Sally at discovering them, the abrupt

announcement that Helena was a widow; all this coming together was a

conjuncture difficult to cope with in a moment, and made him question

whether he ought to leave the house or offer assistance. But for Sally's

manner he would unhesitatingly have done the latter.

He was still standing under the tree when the door in front of him

opened, and Mrs. Hall came out. She went round to the garden-gate at the

side without seeing him. Darton followed her, intending to speak.

Pausing outside, as if in thought, she proceeded to a spot where the sun

came earliest in spring-time, and where the north wind never blew; it

was where the row of beehives stood under the wall. Discerning her

object, he waited till she had accomplished it.

It was the universal custom thereabout to wake the bees by tapping at

their hives whenever a death occurred in the household, under the belief

that if this were not done the bees themselves would pine away and

perish during the ensuing year. As soon as an interior buzzing responded

to her tap at the first hive Mrs. Hall went on to the second, and thus

passed down the row. As soon as she came back he met her.

'What can I do in this trouble, Mrs. Hall?' he said.

'O-nothing, thank you, nothing,' she said in a tearful voice, now just

perceiving him. 'We have called Rebekah and her husband, and they will

do everything necessary.' She told him in a few words the particulars of

her son's arrival, broken in health-indeed, at death's very door, though

they did not suspect it-and suggested, as the result of a conversation

between her and her daughter, that the wedding should be postponed.

'Yes, of course,' said Darton. 'I think now to go straight to the inn

and tell Johns what has happened.' It was not till after he had shaken

hands with her that he turned hesitatingly and added, 'Will you tell the

mother of his children that, as they are now left fatherless, I shall be

glad to take the eldest of them, if it would be any convenience to her

and to you?'

Mrs. Hall promised that her son's widow should he told of the offer, and

they parted. He retired down the rooty slope and disappeared in the

direction of the inn, where he informed Johns of the circumstances.

Meanwhile Mrs. Hall had entered the house, Sally was downstairs in the

sitting-room alone, and her mother explained to her that Darton had

readily assented to the postponement.

'No doubt he has,' said Sally, with sad emphasis. 'It is not put off for

a week, or a month, or a year. I shall never marry him, and she will!'

IV

Time passed, and the household on the Knap became again serene under the

composing influences of daily routine. A desultory, very desultory

correspondence, dragged on between Sally Hall and Darton, who, not quite

knowing how to take her petulant words on the night of her brother's

death, had continued passive thus long. Helena and her children remained

at the dairy-house, almost of necessity, and Darton therefore deemed it

advisable to stay away.

One day, seven months later on, when Mr. Darton was as usual at his

farm, twenty miles from Hintock, a note reached him from Helena. She

thanked him for his kind offer about her children, which her mother-in-

law had duly communicated, and stated that she would be glad to accept

it as regarded the eldest, the boy. Helena had, in truth, good need to

do so, for her uncle had left her penniless, and all application to some

relatives in the north had failed. There was, besides, as she said, no

good school near Hintock to which she could send the child.

On a fine summer day the boy came. He was accompanied half-way by Sally

and his mother-to the 'White Horse,' at Chalk Newton-where he was handed

over to Darton's bailiff in a shining spring-cart, who met them there.

He was entered as a day-scholar at a popular school at Casterbridge,

three or four miles from Darton's, having first been taught by Darton to

ride a forest-pony, on which he cantered to and from the aforesaid fount

of knowledge, and (as Darton hoped) brought away a promising headful of

the same at each diurnal expedition. The thoughtful taciturnity into

which Darton had latterly fallen was quite dissipated by the presence of

this boy.

When the Christmas holidays came it was arranged that he should spend

them with his mother. The journey was, for some reason or other,

performed in two stages, as at his coming, except that Darton in person

took the place of the bailiff, and that the boy and himself rode on

horseback.

Reaching the renowned 'White Horse,' Darton inquired if Miss and young

Mrs. Hall were there to meet little Philip (as they had agreed to be).

He was answered by the appearance of Helena alone at the door.

'At the last moment Sally would not come,' she faltered.