Tender playful words; the old Christine was in them. She said Sunday

afternoon, and it was now only Saturday morning. He wished she had said

to-day; that short revival of her image had vitalized to sudden heat

feelings that had almost been stilled. Whatever she might have to

explain as to her position-and it was awkwardly narrowed, no doubt-he

could not give her up. Miss Everard or Mrs. Bellston, what mattered it?-

she was the same Christine.

He did not go outside the inn all Saturday. He had no wish to see or do

anything but to await the coming interview. So he smoked, and read the

local newspaper of the previous week, and stowed himself in the chimney-

corner. In the evening he felt that he could remain indoors no longer,

and the moon being near the full, he started from the inn on foot in the

same direction as that of yesterday, with the view of contemplating the

old village and its precincts, and hovering round her house under the

cloak of night.

With a stout stick in his hand he climbed over the five miles of upland

in a comparatively short space of time. Nicholas had seen many strange

lands and trodden many strange ways since he last walked that path, but

as he trudged he seemed wonderfully like his old self, and had not the

slightest difficulty in finding the way. In descending to the meads the

streams perplexed him a little, some of the old foot-bridges having been

removed; but he ultimately got across the larger water-courses, and

pushed on to the village, avoiding her residence for the moment, lest

she should encounter him, and think he had not respected the time of her

appointment.

He found his way to the churchyard, and first ascertained where lay the

two relations he had left alive at his departure; then he observed the

gravestones of other inhabitants with whom he had been well acquainted,

till by degrees he seemed to be in the society of all the elder Froom-

Everard population, as he had known the place. Side by side as they had

lived in his day here were they now. They had moved house in mass.

But no tomb of Mr. Bellston was visible, though, as he had lived at the

manor-house, it would have been natural to find it here. In truth

Nicholas was more anxious to discover that than anything, being curious

to know how long he had been dead. Seeing from the glimmer of a light in

the church that somebody was there cleaning for Sunday he entered, and

looked round upon the walls as well as he could. But there was no

monument to her husband, though one had been erected to the Squire.

Nicholas addressed the young man who was sweeping. 'I don't see any

monument or tomb to the late Mr. Bellston?'

'O no, sir; you won't see that,' said the young man drily.

'Why, pray?'

'Because he's not buried here. He's not Christian-buried anywhere, as

far as we know. In short, perhaps he's not buried at all; and between

ourselves, perhaps he's alive.'

Nicholas sank an inch shorter. 'Ah,' he answered.

'Then you don't know the peculiar circumstances, sir?'

'I am a stranger here-as to late years.'

'Mr. Bellston was a traveller-an explorer-it was his calling; you may

have heard his name as such?'

'I remember.' Nicholas recalled the fact that this very bent of Mr.

Bellston's was the incentive to his own roaming.

'Well, when he married he came and lived here with his wife and his

wife's father, and said he would travel no more. But after a time he got

weary of biding quiet here, and weary of her-he was not a good husband

to the young lady by any means-and he betook himself again to his old

trick of roving-with her money. Away he went, quite out of the realm of

human foot, into the bowels of Asia, and never was heard of more. He was

murdered, it is said, but nobody knows; though as that was nine years

ago he's dead enough in principle, if not in corporation. His widow

lives quite humble, for between her husband and her brother she's left

in very lean pasturage.'

Nicholas went back to the Buck's Head without hovering round her

dwelling. This then was the explanation which she had wanted to make.

Not dead, but missing. How could he have expected that the first fair

promise of happiness held out to him would remain untarnished? She had

said that she was free; and legally she was free, no doubt. Moreover,

from her tone and manner he felt himself justified in concluding that

she would be willing to run the risk of a union with him, in the

improbability of her husband's existence. Even if that husband lived,

his return was not a likely event, to judge from his character. A man

who could spend her money on his own personal adventures would not be

anxious to disturb her poverty after such a lapse of time.

Well, the prospect was not so unclouded as it had seemed. But could he,

even now, give up Christine?

CHAPTER VII

Two months more brought the year nearly to a close, and found Nicholas

Long tenant of a spacious house in the market-town nearest to Froom-

Everard. A man of means, genial character, and a bachelor, he was an

object of great interest to his neighbours, and to his neighbours' wives

and daughters. But he took little note of this, and had made it his

business to go twice a week, no matter what the weather, to the now

farmhouse at Froom-Everard, a wing of which had been retained as the

refuge of Christine. He always walked, to give no trouble in putting up

a horse to a housekeeper whose staff was limited.

The two had put their heads together on the situation, had gone to a

solicitor, had balanced possibilities, and had resolved to make the

plunge of matrimony. 'Nothing venture, nothing have,' Christine had

said, with some of her old audacity.

With almost gratuitous honesty they had let their intentions be widely

known. Christine, it is true, had rather shrunk from publicity at first;

but Nicholas argued that their boldness in this respect would have good

results. With his friends he held that there was not the slightest

probability of her being other than a widow, and a challenge to the

missing man now, followed by no response, would stultify any unpleasant

remarks which might be thrown at her after their union. To this end a

paragraph was inserted in the Wessex papers, announcing that their

marriage was proposed to be celebrated on such and such a day in

December.

His periodic walks along the south side of the valley to visit her were

among the happiest experiences of his life. The yellow leaves falling

around him in the foreground, the well-watered meads on the left hand,

and the woman he loved awaiting him at the back of the scene, promised a

future of much serenity, as far as human judgment could foresee. On

arriving, he would sit with her in the 'parlour' of the wing she

retained, her general sitting-room, where the only relics of her early

surroundings were an old clock from the other end of the house, and her

own piano. Before it was quite dark they would stand, hand in hand,

looking out of the window across the flat turf to the dark clump of

trees which hid further view from their eyes.

'Do you wish you were still mistress here, dear?' he once said.

'Not at all,' said she cheerfully. 'I have a good enough room, and a

good enough fire, and a good enough friend. Besides, my latter days as

mistress of the house were not happy ones, and they spoilt the place for

me. It was a punishment for my faithlessness. Nic, you do forgive me?

Really you do?'

The twenty-third of December, the eve of the wedding-day, had arrived at

last in the train of such uneventful ones as these. Nicholas had

arranged to visit her that day a little later than usual, and see that

everything was ready with her for the morrow's event and her removal to

his house; for he had begun to look after her domestic affairs, and to

lighten as much as possible the duties of her housekeeping.

He was to come to an early supper, which she had arranged to take the

place of a wedding-breakfast next day-the latter not being feasible in

her present situation. An hour or so after dark the wife of the farmer

who lived in the other part of the house entered Christine's parlour to

lay the cloth.

'What with getting the ham skinned, and the black-puddings hotted up,'

she said, 'it will take me all my time before he's here, if I begin this

minute.'

'I'll lay the table myself,' said Christine, jumping up. 'Do you attend

to the cooking.'

'Thank you, ma'am. And perhaps 'tis no matter, seeing that it is the

last night you'll have to do such work. I knew this sort of life

wouldn't last long for 'ee, being born to better things.'

'It has lasted rather long, Mrs. Wake. And if he had not found me out it

would have lasted all my days.'

'But he did find you out.'

'He did. And I'll lay the cloth immediately.'

Mrs. Wake went back to the kitchen, and Christine began to bustle about.

She greatly enjoyed preparing this table for Nicholas and herself with

her own hands. She took artistic pleasure in adjusting each article to

its position, as if half an inch error were a point of high importance.

Finally she placed the two candles where they were to stand, and sat

down by the fire.

Mrs. Wake re-entered and regarded the effect. 'Why not have another

candle or two, ma'am?' she said. ''Twould make it livelier. Say four.'

'Very well,' said Christine, and four candles were lighted. 'Really,'

she added, surveying them, 'I have been now so long accustomed to little

economies that they look quite extravagant.'

'Ah, you'll soon think nothing of forty in his grand new house! Shall I

bring in supper directly he comes, ma'am?'

'No, not for half an hour; and, Mrs. Wake, you and Betsy are busy in the

kitchen, I know; so when he knocks don't disturb yourselves; I can let

him in.'

She was again left alone, and, as it still wanted some time to

Nicholas's appointment, she stood by the fire, looking at herself in the

glass over the mantel. Reflectively raising a lock of her hair just

above her temple she uncovered a small scar. That scar had a history.

The terrible temper of her late husband-those sudden moods of

irascibility which had made even his friendly excitements look like

anger-had once caused him to set that mark upon her with the bezel of a

ring he wore. He declared that the whole thing was an accident. She was

a woman, and kept her own opinion.

Christine then turned her back to the glass and scanned the table and

the candles, shining one at each corner like types of the four

Evangelists, and thought they looked too assuming-too confident. She

glanced up at the clock, which stood also in this room, there not being

space enough for it in the passage. It was nearly seven, and she

expected Nicholas at half-past. She liked the company of this venerable

article in her lonely life: its tickings and whizzings were a sort of

conversation. It now began to strike the hour. At the end something

grated slightly. Then, without any warning, the clock slowly inclined

forward and fell at full length upon the floor.

The crash brought the farmer's wife rushing into the room. Christine had

well-nigh sprung out of her shoes. Mrs. Wake's enquiry what had happened

was answered by the evidence of her own eyes.

'How did it occur?' she said.

'I cannot say; it was not firmly fixed, I suppose. Dear me, how sorry I

am! My dear father's hall-clock! And now I suppose it is ruined.'

Assisted by Mrs. Wake, she lifted the clock. Every inch of glass was, of

course, shattered, but very little harm besides appeared to be done.

They propped it up temporarily, though it would not go again.

Christine had soon recovered her composure, but she saw that Mrs. Wake

was gloomy. 'What does it mean, Mrs. Wake?' she said. 'Is it ominous?'

'It is a sign of a violent death in the family.'

'Don't talk of it. I don't believe such things; and don't mention it to

Mr. Long when he comes. He's not in the family yet, you know.'

'O no, it cannot refer to him,' said Mrs. Wake musingly.

'Some remote cousin, perhaps,' observed Christine, no less willing to

humour her than to get rid of a shapeless dread which the incident had

caused in her own mind. 'And-supper is almost ready, Mrs. Wake?'

'In three-quarters of an hour.'

Mrs. Wake left the room, and Christine sat on. Though it still wanted

fifteen minutes to the hour at which Nicholas had promised to be there,

she began to grow impatient. After the accustomed ticking the dead

silence was oppressive. But she had not to wait so long as she had

expected; steps were heard approaching the door, and there was a knock.

Christine was already there to open it. The entrance had no lamp, but it

was not particularly dark out of doors. She could see the outline of a

man, and cried cheerfully, 'You are early; it is very good of you.'

'I beg pardon. It is not Mr. Bellston himself-only a messenger with his

bag and great-coat. But he will be here soon.'

The voice was not the voice of Nicholas, and the intelligence was

strange. 'I-I don't understand. Mr. Bellston?' she faintly replied.

'Yes, ma'am. A gentleman-a stranger to me-gave me these things at

Casterbridge station to bring on here, and told me to say that Mr.

Bellston had arrived there, and is detained for half-an-hour, but will

be here in the course of the evening.'

She sank into a chair. The porter put a small battered portmanteau on

the floor, the coat on a chair, and looking into the room at the spread

table said, 'If you are disappointed, ma'am, that your husband (as I

s'pose he is) is not come, I can assure you he'll soon be here. He's

stopped to get a shave, to my thinking, seeing he wanted it. What he

said was that I could tell you he had heard the news in Ireland, and

would have come sooner, his hand being forced; but was hindered crossing

by the weather, having took passage in a sailing vessel. What news he

meant he didn't say.'

'Ah, yes,' she faltered. It was plain that the man knew nothing of her

intended re-marriage.

Mechanically rising and giving him a shilling, she answered to his

'good-night,' and he withdrew, the beat of his footsteps lessening in

the distance. She was alone; but in what a solitude.

Christine stood in the middle of the hall, just as the man had left her,

in the gloomy silence of the stopped clock within the adjoining room,

till she aroused herself, and turning to the portmanteau and great-coat

brought them to the light of the candles, and examined them. The

portmanteau bore painted upon it the initials 'J. B.' in white letters-

the well-known initials of her husband.

She examined the great-coat. In the breast-pocket was an empty spirit

flask, which she firmly fancied she recognized as the one she had filled

many times for him when he was living at home with her.

She turned desultorily hither and thither, until she heard another tread

without, and there came a second knocking at the door. She did not

respond to it; and Nicholas-for it was he-thinking that he was not heard

by reason of a concentration on to-morrow's proceedings, opened the door

softly, and came on to the door of her room, which stood unclosed, just

as it had been left by the Casterbridge porter.

Nicholas uttered a blithe greeting, cast his eye round the parlour,

which with its tall candles, blazing fire, snow-white cloth, and

prettily-spread table, formed a cheerful spectacle enough for a man who

had been walking in the dark for an hour.

'My bride-almost, at last!' he cried, encircling her with his arms.

Instead of responding, her figure became limp, frigid, heavy; her head

fell back, and he found that she had fainted.

It was natural, he thought. She had had many little worrying matters to

attend to, and but slight assistance. He ought to have seen more

effectually to her affairs; the closeness of the event had over-excited

her. Nicholas kissed her unconscious face-more than once, little

thinking what news it was that had changed its aspect. Loth to call Mrs.

Wake, he carried Christine to a couch and laid her down. This had the

effect of reviving her. Nicholas bent and whispered in her ear, 'Lie

quiet, dearest, no hurry; and dream, dream, dream of happy days. It is

only I. You will soon be better.' He held her by the hand.

'No, no, no!' she said, with a stare. 'O, how can this be?'

Nicholas was alarmed and perplexed, but the disclosure was not long

delayed. When she had sat up, and by degrees made the stunning event

known to him, he stood as if transfixed.

'Ah-is it so?' said he. Then, becoming quite meek, 'And why was he so

cruel as to-delay his return till now?'

She dutifully recited the explanation her husband had given her through

the messenger; but her mechanical manner of telling it showed how much

she doubted its truth. It was too unlikely that his arrival at such a

dramatic moment should not be a contrived surprise, quite of a piece

with his previous dealings towards her.

'But perhaps it may be true-and he may have become kind now-not as he

used to be,' she faltered. 'Yes, perhaps, Nicholas, he is an altered

man-we'll hope he is. I suppose I ought not to have listened to my legal

advisers, and assumed his death so surely! Anyhow, I am roughly received

back into-the right way!'

Nicholas burst out bitterly: 'O what too, too honest fools we were!-to

so court daylight upon our intention by putting that announcement in the

papers! Why could we not have married privately, and gone away, so that

he would never have known what had become of you, even if he had

returned? Christine, he has done it to . . . But I'll say no more. Of

course we-might fly now.'

'No, no; we might not,' said she hastily.

'Very well. But this is hard to bear! "When I looked for good then evil

came unto me, and when I waited for light there came darkness." So once

said a sorely tried man in the land of Uz, and so say I now! . . . I

wonder if he is almost here at this moment?'

She told him she supposed Bellston was approaching by the path across

the fields, having sent on his great-coat, which he would not want

walking.

'And is this meal laid for him, or for me?'

'It was laid for you.'

'And it will be eaten by him?'

'Yes.'

'Christine, are you sure that he is come, or have you been sleeping over

the fire and dreaming it?'

She pointed anew to the portmanteau with the initials 'J. B.,' and to

the coat beside it.

'Well, good-bye-good-bye! Curse that parson for not marrying us fifteen

years ago!'

It is unnecessary to dwell further upon that parting. There are scenes

wherein the words spoken do not even approximate to the level of the

mental communion between the actors. Suffice it to say that part they

did, and quickly; and Nicholas, more dead than alive, went out of the

house homewards.

Why had he ever come back? During his absence he had not cared for

Christine as he cared now. If he had been younger he might have felt

tempted to descend into the meads instead of keeping along their edge.

The Froom was down there, and he knew of quiet pools in that stream to

which death would come easily. But he was too old to put an end to

himself for such a reason as love; and another thought, too, kept him

from seriously contemplating any desperate act. His affection for her

was strongly protective, and in the event of her requiring a friend's

support in future troubles there was none but himself left in the world

to afford it. So he walked on.

Meanwhile Christine had resigned herself to circumstances. A resolve to

continue worthy of her history and of her family lent her heroism and

dignity. She called Mrs. Wake, and explained to that worthy woman as

much of what had occurred as she deemed necessary. Mrs. Wake was too

amazed to reply; she retreated slowly, her lips parted; till at the door

she said with a dry mouth, 'And the beautiful supper, ma'am?'

'Serve it when he comes.'

'When Mr. Bellston-yes, ma'am, I will.' She still stood gazing, as if

she could hardly take in the order.

'That will do, Mrs. Wake. I am much obliged to you for all your

kindness.' And Christine was left alone again, and then she wept.

She sat down and waited. That awful silence of the stopped clock began

anew, but she did not mind it now. She was listening for a footfall in a

state of mental tensity which almost took away from her the power of

motion. It seemed to her that the natural interval for her husband's

journey thither must have expired; but she was not sure, and waited on.

Mrs. Wake again came in. 'You have not rung for supper-'

'He is not yet come, Mrs. Wake. If you want to go to bed, bring in the

supper and set it on the table. It will be nearly as good cold. Leave

the door unbarred.'

Mrs. Wake did as was suggested, made up the fire, and went away. Shortly

afterwards Christine heard her retire to her chamber. But Christine

still sat on, and still her husband postponed his entry.

She aroused herself once or twice to freshen the fire, but was ignorant

how the night was going. Her watch was upstairs and she did not make the

effort to go up to consult it. In her seat she continued; and still the

supper waited, and still he did not come.

At length she was so nearly persuaded that the arrival of his things

must have been a dream after all, that she again went over to them, felt

them, and examined them. His they unquestionably were; and their

forwarding by the porter had been quite natural. She sighed and sat down

again.

Presently she fell into a doze, and when she again became conscious she

found that the four candles had burnt into their sockets and gone out.

The fire still emitted a feeble shine. Christine did not take the

trouble to get more candles, but stirred the fire and sat on.

After a long period she heard a creaking of the chamber floor and stairs

at the other end of the house, and knew that the farmer's family were

getting up. By-and-by Mrs. Wake entered the room, candle in hand,

bouncing open the door in her morning manner, obviously without any

expectation of finding a person there.

'Lord-a-mercy! What, sitting here again, ma'am?'

'Yes, I am sitting here still.'

'You've been there ever since last night?'

'Yes.'

'Then-'

'He's not come.'

'Well, he won't come at this time o' morning,' said the farmer's wife.

'Do 'ee get on to bed, ma'am. You must be shrammed to death!'

It occurred to Christine now that possibly her husband had thought

better of obtruding himself upon her company within an hour of revealing

his existence to her, and had decided to pay a more formal visit next

day. She therefore adopted Mrs. Wake's suggestion and retired.

CHAPTER VIII

Nicholas had gone straight home, neither speaking to nor seeing a soul.

From that hour a change seemed to come over him. He had ever possessed a

full share of self-consciousness; he had been readily piqued, had shown

an unusual dread of being personally obtrusive. But now his sense of

self, as an individual provoking opinion, appeared to leave him. When,

therefore, after a day or two of seclusion, he came forth again, and the

few acquaintances he had formed in the town condoled with him on what

had happened, and pitied his haggard looks, he did not shrink from their

regard as he would have done formerly, but took their sympathy as it

would have been accepted by a child.

It reached his ears that Bellston had not appeared on the evening of his

arrival at any hotel in the town or neighbourhood, or entered his wife's

house at all. 'That's a part of his cruelty,' thought Nicholas. And when

two or three days had passed, and still no account came to him of

Bellston having joined her, he ventured to set out for Froom-Everard.

Christine was so shaken that she was obliged to receive him as she lay

on a sofa, beside the square table which was to have borne their evening

feast. She fixed her eyes wistfully upon him, and smiled a sad smile.

'He has not come?' said Nicholas under his breath.

'He has not.'

Then Nicholas sat beside her, and they talked on general topics merely

like saddened old friends. But they could not keep away the subject of

Bellston, their voices dropping as it forced its way in. Christine, no

less than Nicholas, knowing her husband's character, inferred that,

having stopped her game, as he would have phrased it, he was taking

things leisurely, and, finding nothing very attractive in her limited

mode of living, was meaning to return to her only when he had nothing

better to do.

The bolt which laid low their hopes had struck so recently that they

could hardly look each other in the face when speaking that day. But

when a week or two had passed, and all the horizon still remained as

vacant of Bellston as before, Nicholas and she could talk of the event

with calm wonderment. Why had he come, to go again like this?

And then there set in a period of resigned surmise, during which

So like, so very like, was day to day,

that to tell of one of them is to tell of all. Nicholas would arrive

between three and four in the afternoon, a faint trepidation influencing

his walk as he neared her door. He would knock; she would always reply

in person, having watched for him from the window. Then he would

whisper-'He has not come?'

'He has not,' she would say.

Nicholas would enter then, and she being ready bonneted, they would walk

into the Sallows together as far as to the spot which they had

frequently made their place of appointment in their youthful days. A

plank bridge, which Bellston had caused to be thrown over the stream

during his residence with her in the manor-house, was now again removed,

and all was just the same as in Nicholas's time, when he had been

accustomed to wade across on the edge of the cascade and come up to her

like a merman from the deep. Here on the felled trunk, which still lay

rotting in its old place, they would now sit, gazing at the descending

sheet of water, with its never-ending sarcastic hiss at their baffled

attempts to make themselves one flesh. Returning to the house they would

sit down together to tea, after which, and the confidential chat that

accompanied it, he walked home by the declining light. This proceeding

became as periodic as an astronomical recurrence. Twice a week he came-

all through that winter, all through the spring following, through the

summer, through the autumn, the next winter, the next year, and the

next, till an appreciable span of human life had passed by. Bellston

still tarried.

Years and years Nic walked that way, at this interval of three days,

from his house in the neighbouring town; and in every instance the

aforesaid order of things was customary; and still on his arrival the

form of words went on-'He has not come?'

'He has not.'

So they grew older. The dim shape of that third one stood continually

between them; they could not displace it; neither, on the other hand,

could it effectually part them. They were in close communion, yet not

indissolubly united; lovers, yet never growing cured of love. By the

time that the fifth year of Nic's visiting had arrived, on about the

five-hundredth occasion of his presence at her tea-table, he noticed

that the bleaching process which had begun upon his own locks was also

spreading to hers. He told her so, and they laughed. Yet she was in good

health: a condition of suspense, which would have half-killed a man, had

been endured by her without complaint, and even with composure.

One day, when these years of abeyance had numbered seven, they had

strolled as usual as far as the waterfall, whose faint roar formed a

sort of calling voice sufficient in the circumstances to direct their

listlessness. Pausing there, he looked up at her face and said, 'Why

should we not try again, Christine? We are legally at liberty to do so

now. Nothing venture nothing have.'

But she would not. Perhaps a little primness of idea was by this time

ousting the native daring of Christine. 'What he has done once he can do

twice,' she said. 'He is not dead, and if we were to marry he would say

we had "forced his hand," as he said before, and duly reappear.'

Some years after, when Christine was about fifty, and Nicholas fifty-

three, a new trouble of a minor kind arrived. He found an inconvenience

in traversing the distance between their two houses, particularly in

damp weather, the years he had spent in trying climates abroad having

sown the seeds of rheumatism, which made a journey undesirable on

inclement days, even in a carriage. He told her of this new difficulty,

as he did of everything.

'If you could live nearer,' suggested she.

Unluckily there was no house near. But Nicholas, though not a

millionaire, was a man of means; he obtained a small piece of ground on

lease at the nearest spot to her home that it could be so obtained,

which was on the opposite brink of the Froom, this river forming the

boundary of the Froom-Everard manor; and here he built a cottage large

enough for his wants. This took time, and when he got into it he found

its situation a great comfort to him. He was not more than five hundred

yards from her now, and gained a new pleasure in feeling that all sounds

which greeted his ears, in the day or in the night, also fell upon hers-

the caw of a particular rook, the voice of a neighbouring nightingale,

the whistle of a local breeze, or the purl of the fall in the meadows,

whose rush was a material rendering of Time's ceaseless scour over

themselves, wearing them away without uniting them.

Christine's missing husband was taking shape as a myth among the

surrounding residents; but he was still believed in as corporeally

imminent by Christine herself, and also, in a milder degree, by

Nicholas. For a curious unconsciousness of the long lapse of time since

his revelation of himself seemed to affect the pair. There had been no

passing events to serve as chronological milestones, and the evening on

which she had kept supper waiting for him still loomed out with

startling nearness in their retrospects.

In the seventeenth pensive year of this their parallel march towards the

common bourne, a labourer came in a hurry one day to Nicholas's house

and brought strange tidings. The present owner of Froom-Everard-a non-

resident-had been improving his property in sundry ways, and one of

these was by dredging the stream which, in the course of years, had

become choked with mud and weeds in its passage through the Sallows. The

process necessitated a reconstruction of the waterfall. When the river

had been pumped dry for this purpose, the skeleton of a man had been

found jammed among the piles supporting the edge of the fall. Every

particle of his flesh and clothing had been eaten by fishes or abraded

to nothing by the water, but the relics of a gold watch remained, and on

the inside of the case was engraved the name of the maker of her

husband's watch, which she well remembered.

Nicholas, deeply agitated, hastened down to the place and examined the

remains attentively, afterwards going across to Christine, and breaking

the discovery to her. She would not come to view the skeleton, which lay

extended on the grass, not a finger or toe-bone missing, so neatly had

the aquatic operators done their work. Conjecture was directed to the

question how Bellston had got there; and conjecture alone could give an

explanation.

It was supposed that, on his way to call upon her, he had taken a short

cut through the grounds, with which he was naturally very familiar, and

coming to the fall under the trees had expected to find there the plank

which, during his occupancy of the premises with Christine and her

father, he had placed there for crossing into the meads on the other

side instead of wading across as Nicholas had done. Before discovering

its removal he had probably overbalanced himself, and was thus

precipitated into the cascade, the piles beneath the descending current

wedging him between them like the prongs of a pitchfork, and effectually

preventing the rising of his body, over which the weeds grew. Such was

the reasonable supposition concerning the discovery; but proof was never

forthcoming.

'To think,' said Nicholas, when the remains had been decently interred,

and he was again sitting with Christine-though not beside the waterfall-

'to think how we visited him! How we sat over him, hours and hours,

gazing at him, bewailing our fate, when all the time he was ironically

hissing at us from the spot, in an unknown tongue, that we could marry

if we chose!'

She echoed the sentiment with a sigh.

'I have strange fancies,' she said. 'I suppose it must have been my

husband who came back, and not some other man.'

Nicholas felt that there was little doubt. 'Besides-the skeleton,' he

said.

'Yes . . . If it could not have been another person's-but no, of course

it was he.'

'You might have married me on the day we had fixed, and there would have

been no impediment. You would now have been seventeen years my wife, and

we might have had tall sons and daughters.'

'It might have been so,' she murmured.

'Well-is it still better late than never?'

The question was one which had become complicated by the increasing

years of each. Their wills were somewhat enfeebled now, their hearts

sickened of tender enterprise by hope too long deferred. Having

postponed the consideration of their course till a year after the

interment of Bellston, each seemed less disposed than formerly to take

it up again.

'Is it worth while, after so many years?' she said to him. 'We are

fairly happy as we are-perhaps happier than we should be in any other

relation, seeing what old people we have grown. The weight is gone from

our lives; the shadow no longer divides us: then let us be joyful

together as we are, dearest Nic, in the days of our vanity; and

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.'

He fell in with these views of hers to some extent. But occasionally he

ventured to urge her to reconsider the case, though he spoke not with

the fervour of his earlier years.

Autumn, 1887.

ALICIA'S DIARY

CHAPTER I.-SHE MISSES HER SISTER

July 7.-I wander about the house in a mood of unutterable sadness, for

my dear sister Caroline has left home to-day with my mother, and I shall

not see them again for several weeks. They have accepted a long-

standing invitation to visit some old friends of ours, the Marlets, who

live at Versailles for cheapness-my mother thinking that it will be for

the good of Caroline to see a little of France and Paris. But I don't

quite like her going. I fear she may lose some of that childlike

simplicity and gentleness which so characterize her, and have been

nourished by the seclusion of our life here. Her solicitude about her

pony before starting was quite touching, and she made me promise to

visit it daily, and see that it came to no harm.

Caroline gone abroad, and I left here! It is the reverse of an ordinary

situation, for good or ill-luck has mostly ordained that I should be the

absent one. Mother will be quite tired out by the young enthusiasm of

Caroline. She will demand to be taken everywhere-to Paris continually,

of course; to all the stock shrines of history's devotees; to palaces

and prisons; to kings' tombs and queens' tombs; to cemeteries and

picture-galleries, and royal hunting forests. My poor mother, having

gone over most of this ground many times before, will perhaps not find

the perambulation so exhilarating as will Caroline herself. I wish I

could have gone with them. I would not have minded having my legs walked

off to please Caroline. But this regret is absurd: I could not, of

course, leave my father with not a soul in the house to attend to the

calls of the parishioners or to pour out his tea.

July 15.-A letter from Caroline to-day. It is very strange that she

tells me nothing which I expected her to tell-only trivial details. She

seems dazzled by the brilliancy of Paris-which no doubt appears still

more brilliant to her from the fact of her only being able to obtain

occasional glimpses of it. She would see that Paris, too, has a seamy

side if you live there. I was not aware that the Marlets knew so many

people. If, as mother has said, they went to reside at Versailles for

reasons of economy, they will not effect much in that direction while

they make a practice of entertaining all the acquaintances who happen to

be in their neighbourhood. They do not confine their hospitalities to

English people, either. I wonder who this M. de la Feste is, in whom

Caroline says my mother is so much interested.

July 18.-Another letter from Caroline. I have learnt from this epistle,

that M. Charles de la Feste is 'only one of the many friends of the

Marlets'; that though a Frenchman by birth, and now again temporarily at

Versailles, he has lived in England many many years; that he is a

talented landscape and marine painter, and has exhibited at the Salon,

and I think in London. His style and subjects are considered somewhat

peculiar in Paris-rather English than Continental. I have not as yet

learnt his age, or his condition, married or single. From the tone and

nature of her remarks about him he sometimes seems to be a middle-aged

family man, sometimes quite the reverse. From his nomadic habits I

should say the latter is the most likely. He has travelled and seen a

great deal, she tells me, and knows more about English literature than

she knows herself.

July 21.-Letter from Caroline. Query: Is 'a friend of ours and the

Marlets,' of whom she now anonymously and mysteriously speaks, the same

personage as the 'M. de la Feste' of her former letters? He must be the

same, I think, from his pursuits. If so, whence this sudden change of

tone? . . . I have been lost in thought for at least a quarter of an

hour since writing the preceding sentence. Suppose my dear sister is

falling in love with this young man-there is no longer any doubt about

his age; what a very awkward, risky thing for her! I do hope that my

mother has an eye on these proceedings. But, then, poor mother never

sees the drift of anything: she is in truth less of a mother to Caroline

than I am. If I were there, how jealously I would watch him, and

ascertain his designs!

I am of a stronger nature than Caroline. How I have supported her in the

past through her little troubles and great griefs! Is she agitated at

the presence of this, to her, new and strange feeling? But I am assuming

her to be desperately in love, when I have no proof of anything of the

kind. He may be merely a casual friend, of whom I shall hear no more.

July 24.-Then he is a bachelor, as I suspected. 'If M. de la Feste ever

marries he will,' etc. So she writes. They are getting into close

quarters, obviously. Also, 'Something to keep my hair smooth, which M.

de la Feste told me he had found useful for the tips of his moustache.'

Very naively related this; and with how much unconsciousness of the

intimacy between them that the remark reveals! But my mother-what can

she be doing? Does she know of this? And if so, why does she not allude

to it in her letters to my father? . . . I have been to look at

Caroline's pony, in obedience to her reiterated request that I would not

miss a day in seeing that she was well cared for. Anxious as Caroline

was about this pony of hers before starting, she now never mentioned the

poor animal once in her letters. The image of her pet suffers from

displacement.

August 3.-Caroline's forgetfulness of her pony has naturally enough

extended to me, her sister. It is ten days since she last wrote, and but

for a note from my mother I should not know if she were dead or alive.

CHAPTER II.-NEWS INTERESTING AND SERIOUS

August 5.-A cloud of letters. A letter from Caroline, another from

mother; also one from each to my father.

The probability to which all the intelligence from my sister has pointed

of late turns out to be a fact. There is an engagement, or almost an

engagement, announced between my dear Caroline and M. de la Feste-to

Caroline's sublime happiness, and my mother's entire satisfaction; as

well as to that of the Marlets. They and my mother seem to know all

about the young man-which is more than I do, though a little extended

information about him, considering that I am Caroline's elder sister,

would not have been amiss. I half feel with my father, who is much

surprised, and, I am sure, not altogether satisfied, that he should not

have been consulted at all before matters reached such a definite stage,

though he is too amiable to say so openly. I don't quite say that a good

thing should have been hindered for the sake of our opinion, if it is a

good thing; but the announcement comes very suddenly. It must have been

foreseen by my mother for some time that this upshot was probable, and

Caroline might have told me more distinctly that M. de la Feste was her

lover, instead of alluding so mysteriously to him as only a friend of

the Marlets, and lately dropping his name altogether. My father, without

exactly objecting to him as a Frenchman, 'wishes he were of English or

some other reasonable nationality for one's son-in-law,' but I tell him

that the demarcations of races, kingdoms, and creeds, are wearing down

every day, that patriotism is a sort of vice, and that the character of

the individual is all we need think about in this case. I wonder if, in

the event of their marriage, he will continue to live at Versailles, or

if he will come to England.

August 7.-A supplemental letter from Caroline, answering, by

anticipation, some of the aforesaid queries. She tells me that

'Charles,' though he makes Versailles his present home, is by no means

bound by his profession to continue there; that he will live just where

she wishes, provided it be not too far from some centre of thought, art,

and civilization. My mother and herself both think that the marriage

should not take place till next year. He exhibits landscapes and canal

scenery every year, she says; so I suppose he is popular, and that his

income is sufficient to keep them in comfort. If not, I do not see why

my father could not settle something more on them than he had intended,

and diminish by a little what he had proposed for me, whilst it was

imagined that I should be the first to stand in need of such.

'Of engaging manner, attractive appearance, and virtuous character,' is

the reply I receive from her in answer to my request for a personal

description. That is vague enough, and I would rather have had one

definite fact of complexion, voice, deed, or opinion. But of course she

has no eye now for material qualities; she cannot see him as he is. She

sees him irradiated with glories such as never appertained and never

will appertain to any man, foreign, English, or Colonial. To think that

Caroline, two years my junior, and so childlike as to be five years my

junior in nature, should be engaged to be married before me. But that is

what happens in families more often than we are apt to remember.

August 16.-Interesting news to-day. Charles, she says, has pleaded that

their marriage may just as well be this year as next; and he seems to

have nearly converted my mother to the same way of thinking. I do not

myself see any reason for delay, beyond the standing one of my father

having as yet had no opportunity of forming an opinion upon the man, the

time, or anything. However, he takes his lot very quietly, and they are

coming home to talk the question over with us; Caroline having decided

not to make any positive arrangements for this change of state till she

has seen me. Subject to my own and my father's approval, she says, they

are inclined to settle the date of the wedding for November, three

months from the present time, that it shall take place here in the

village, that I, of course, shall be bridesmaid, and many other

particulars. She draws an artless picture of the probable effect upon

the minds of the villagers of this romantic performance in the chancel

of our old church, in which she is to be chief actor-the foreign

gentleman dropping down like a god from the skies, picking her up, and

triumphantly carrying her off. Her only grief will be separation from

me, but this is to be assuaged by my going and staying with her for long

months at a time. This simple prattle is very sweet to me, my dear

sister, but I cannot help feeling sad at the occasion of it. In the

nature of things it is obvious that I shall never be to you again what I

hitherto have been: your guide, counsellor, and most familiar friend.

M. de la Feste does certainly seem to be all that one could desire as

protector to a sensitive fragile child like Caroline, and for that I am

thankful. Still, I must remember that I see him as yet only through her

eyes. For her sake I am intensely anxious to meet him, and scrutinise

him through and through, and learn what the man is really made of who is

to have such a treasure in his keeping. The engagement has certainly

been formed a little precipitately; I quite agree with my father in

that: still, good and happy marriages have been made in a hurry before

now, and mother seems well satisfied.

August 20.-A terrible announcement came this morning; and we are in deep

trouble. I have been quite unable to steady my thoughts on anything to-

day till now-half-past eleven at night-and I only attempt writing these

notes because I am too restless to remain idle, and there is nothing but

waiting and waiting left for me to do. Mother has been taken dangerously

ill at Versailles: they were within a day or two of starting; but all

thought of leaving must now be postponed, for she cannot possibly be

moved in her present state. I don't like the sound of haemorrhage at all

in a woman of her full habit, and Caroline and the Marlets have not

exaggerated their accounts I am certain. On the receipt of the letter my

father instantly decided to go to her, and I have been occupied all day

in getting him off, for as he calculates on being absent several days,

there have been many matters for him to arrange before setting out-the

chief being to find some one who will do duty for him next Sunday-a

quest of no small difficulty at such short notice; but at last poor old

feeble Mr. Dugdale has agreed to attempt it, with Mr. Highman, the

Scripture reader, to assist him in the lessons.

I fain would have gone with my father to escape the irksome anxiety of

awaiting her; but somebody had to stay, and I could best be spared.

George has driven him to the station to meet the last train by which he

will catch the midnight boat, and reach Havre some time in the morning.

He hates the sea, and a night passage in particular. I hope he will get

there without mishap of any kind; but I feel anxious for him, stay-at-

home as he is, and unable to cope with any difficulty. Such an errand,

too; the journey will be sad enough at best. I almost think I ought to

have been the one to go to her.

August 21.-I nearly fell asleep of heaviness of spirit last night over

my writing. My father must have reached Paris by this time; and now here

comes a letter . . .

Later.-The letter was to express an earnest hope that my father had set

out. My poor mother is sinking, they fear. What will become of Caroline?

O, how I wish I could see mother; why could not both have gone?

Later.-I get up from my chair, and walk from window to window, and then

come and write a line. I cannot even divine how poor Caroline's marriage

is to be carried out if mother dies. I pray that father may have got

there in time to talk to her and receive some directions from her about

Caroline and M. de la Feste-a man whom neither my father nor I have

seen. I, who might be useful in this emergency, am doomed to stay here,

waiting in suspense.

August 23.-A letter from my father containing the sad news that my

mother's spirit has flown. Poor little Caroline is heart-broken-she was

always more my mother's pet than I was. It is some comfort to know that

my father arrived in time to hear from her own lips her strongly

expressed wish that Caroline's marriage should be solemnized as soon as

possible. M. de la Feste seems to have been a great favourite of my dear

mother's; and I suppose it now becomes almost a sacred duty of my father

to accept him as a son-in-law without criticism.

CHAPTER III.-HER GLOOM LIGHTENS A LITTLE

September 10.-I have inserted nothing in my diary for more than a

fortnight. Events have been altogether too sad for me to have the spirit

to put them on paper. And yet there comes a time when the act of

recording one's trouble is recognized as a welcome method of dwelling

upon it . . .

My dear mother has been brought home and buried here in the parish. It

was not so much her own wish that this should be done as my father's,

who particularly desired that she should lie in the family vault beside

his first wife. I saw them side by side before the vault was closed-two

women beloved by one man. As I stood, and Caroline by my side, I fell

into a sort of dream, and had an odd fancy that Caroline and I might be

also beloved of one, and lie like these together-an impossibility, of

course, being sisters. When I awoke from my reverie Caroline took my

hand and said it was time to leave.

September 14.-The wedding is indefinitely postponed. Caroline is like a

girl awakening in the middle of a somnambulistic experience, and does

not realize where she is, or how she stands. She walks about silently,

and I cannot tell her thoughts, as I used to do. It was her own doing to

write to M. de la Feste and tell him that the wedding could not possibly

take place this autumn as originally planned. There is something

depressing in this long postponement if she is to marry him at all; and

yet I do not see how it could be avoided.

October 20.-I have had so much to occupy me in consoling Caroline that I

have been continually overlooking my diary. Her life was much nearer to

my mother's than mine was. She has never, as I, lived away from home

long enough to become self-dependent, and hence in her first loss, and

all that it involved, she drooped like a rain-beaten lily. But she is of

a nature whose wounds soon heal, even though they may be deep, and the

supreme poignancy of her sorrow has already passed.

My father is of opinion that the wedding should not be delayed too long.

While at Versailles he made the acquaintance of M. de la Feste, and

though they had but a short and hurried communion with each other, he

was much impressed by M. de la Feste's disposition and conduct, and is

strongly in favour of his suit. It is odd that Caroline's betrothed

should influence in his favour all who come near him. His portrait,

which dear Caroline has shown me, exhibits him to be of a physique that

partly accounts for this: but there must be something more than mere

appearance, and it is probably some sort of glamour or fascinating

power-the quality which prevented Caroline from describing him to me

with any accuracy of detail. At the same time, I see from the photograph

that his face and head are remarkably well formed; and though the

contours of his mouth are hidden by his moustache, his arched brows show

well the romantic disposition of a true lover and painter of Nature. I

think that the owner of such a face as this must be tender and

sympathetic and true.

October 30.-As my sister's grief for her mother becomes more and more

calmed, her love for M. de la Feste begins to reassume its former

absorbing command of her. She thinks of him incessantly, and writes

whole treatises to him by way of letters. Her blank disappointment at

his announcement of his inability to pay us a visit quite so soon as he

had promised, was quite tragic. I, too, am disappointed, for I wanted to

see and estimate him. But having arranged to go to Holland to seize some

aerial effects for his pictures, which are only to be obtained at this

time of the autumn, he is obliged to postpone his journey this way,

which is now to be made early in the new year. I think myself that he

ought to have come at all sacrifices, considering Caroline's recent

loss, the sad postponement of what she was looking forward to, and her

single-minded affection for him. Still, who knows; his professional

success is important. Moreover, she is cheerful, and hopeful, and the

delay will soon be overpast.

CHAPTER IV.-SHE BEHOLDS THE ATTRACTIVE STRANGER

February 16.-We have had such a dull life here all the winter that I

have found nothing important enough to set down, and broke off my

journal accordingly. I resume it now to make an entry on the subject of

dear Caroline's future. It seems that she was too grieved, immediately

after the loss of our mother, to answer definitely the question of M. de

la Feste how long the postponement was to be; then, afterwards, it was

agreed that the matter should be discussed on his autumn visit; but as

he did not come, it has remained in abeyance till this week, when

Caroline, with the greatest simplicity and confidence, has written to

him without any further pressure on his part, and told him that she is

quite ready to fix the time, and will do so as soon as he arrives to see

her. She is a little frightened now, lest it should seem forward in her

to have revived the subject of her own accord; but she may assume that

his question has been waiting on for an answer ever since, and that she

has, therefore, acted only within her promise. In truth, the secret at

the bottom of it all is that she is somewhat saddened because he has not

latterly reminded her of the pause in their affairs-that, in short, his

original impatience to possess her is not now found to animate him so

obviously. I suppose that he loves her as much as ever; indeed, I am

sure he must do so, seeing how lovable she is. It is mostly thus with

all men when women are out of their sight; they grow negligent. Caroline

must have patience, and remember that a man of his genius has many and

important calls upon his time. In justice to her I must add that she

does remember it fairly well, and has as much patience as any girl ever

had in the circumstances. He hopes to come at the beginning of April at

latest. Well, when he comes we shall see him.

April 5.-I think that what M. de la Feste writes is reasonable enough,

though Caroline looks heart-sick about it. It is hardly worth while for

him to cross all the way to England and back just now, while the sea is

so turbulent, seeing that he will be obliged, in any event, to come in

May, when he has to be in London for professional purposes, at which

time he can take us easily on his way both coming and going. When

Caroline becomes his wife she will be more practical, no doubt; but she

is such a child as yet that there is no contenting her with reasons.

However, the time will pass quickly, there being so much to do in

preparing a trousseau for her, which must now be put in hand in order

that we may have plenty of leisure to get it ready. On no account must

Caroline be married in half-mourning; I am sure that mother, could she

know, would not wish it, and it is odd that Caroline should be so

intractably persistent on this point, when she is usually so yielding.

April 30.-This month has flown on swallow's wings. We are in a great

state of excitement-I as much as she-I cannot quite tell why. He is

really coming in ten days, he says.

May 9. Four p.m.-I am so agitated I can scarcely write, and yet am

particularly impelled to do so before leaving my room. It is the

unexpected shape of an expected event which has caused my absurd

excitement, which proves me almost as much a school-girl as Caroline.

M. de la Feste was not, as we understood, to have come till to-morrow;

but he is here-just arrived. All household directions have devolved upon

me, for my father, not thinking M. de la Feste would appear before us

for another four-and-twenty hours, left home before post time to attend

a distant consecration; and hence Caroline and I were in no small

excitement when Charles's letter was opened, and we read that he had

been unexpectedly favoured in the dispatch of his studio work, and would

follow his letter in a few hours. We sent the covered carriage to meet

the train indicated, and waited like two newly strung harps for the

first sound of the returning wheels. At last we heard them on the

gravel; and the question arose who was to receive him. It was, strictly

speaking, my duty; but I felt timid; I could not help shirking it, and

insisted that Caroline should go down. She did not, however, go near the

door as she usually does when anybody is expected, but waited

palpitating in the drawing-room. He little thought when he saw the

silent hall, and the apparently deserted house, how that house was at

the very same moment alive and throbbing with interest under the

surface. I stood at the back of the upper landing, where nobody could

see me from downstairs, and heard him walk across the hall-a lighter

step than my father's-and heard him then go into the drawing-room, and

the servant shut the door behind him and go away.

What a pretty lover's meeting they must have had in there all to

themselves! Caroline's sweet face looking up from her black gown-how it

must have touched him. I know she wept very much, for I heard her; and

her eyes will be red afterwards, and no wonder, poor dear, though she is

no doubt happy. I can imagine what she is telling him while I write

this-her fears lest anything should have happened to prevent his coming

after all-gentle, smiling reproaches for his long delay; and things of

that sort. His two portmanteaus are at this moment crossing the landing

on the way to his room. I wonder if I ought to go down.

A little later.-I have seen him! It was not at all in the way that I

intended to encounter him, and I am vexed. Just after his portmanteaus

were brought up I went out from my room to descend, when, at the moment

of stepping towards the first stair, my eyes were caught by an object in

the hall below, and I paused for an instant, till I saw that it was a

bundle of canvas and sticks, composing a sketching tent and easel. At

the same nick of time the drawing-room door opened and the affianced

pair came out. They were saying they would go into the garden; and he

waited a moment while she put on her hat. My idea was to let them pass

on without seeing me, since they seemed not to want my company, but I

had got too far on the landing to retreat; he looked up, and stood

staring at me-engrossed to a dream-like fixity. Thereupon I, too,

instead of advancing as I ought to have done, stood moonstruck and

awkward, and before I could gather my weak senses sufficiently to

descend, she had called him, and they went out by the garden door

together. I then thought of following them, but have changed my mind,

and come here to jot down these few lines. It is all I am fit for . . .

He is even more handsome than I expected. I was right in feeling he must

have an attraction beyond that of form: it appeared even in that

momentary glance. How happy Caroline ought to be. But I must, of course,

go down to be ready with tea in the drawing-room by the time they come

indoors.

11 p.m.-I have made the acquaintance of M. de la Feste; and I seem to be

another woman from the effect of it. I cannot describe why this should

be so, but conversation with him seems to expand the view, and open the

heart, and raise one as upon stilts to wider prospects. He has a good

intellectual forehead, perfect eyebrows, dark hair and eyes, an animated

manner, and a persuasive voice. His voice is soft in quality-too soft

for a man, perhaps; and yet on second thoughts I would not have it less

so. We have been talking of his art: I had no notion that art demanded

such sacrifices or such tender devotion; or that there were two roads

for choice within its precincts, the road of vulgar money-making, and

the road of high aims and consequent inappreciation for many long years

by the public. That he has adopted the latter need not be said to those

who understand him. It is a blessing for Caroline that she has been

chosen by such a man, and she ought not to lament at postponements and

delays, since they have arisen unavoidably. Whether he finds hers a

sufficiently rich nature, intellectually and emotionally, for his own, I

know not, but he seems occasionally to be disappointed at her simple

views of things. Does he really feel such love for her at this moment as

he no doubt believes himself to be feeling, and as he no doubt hopes to

feel for the remainder of his life towards her?

It was a curious thing he told me when we were left for a few minutes

alone; that Caroline had alluded so slightly to me in her conversation

and letters that he had not realized my presence in the house here at

all. But, of course, it was only natural that she should write and talk

most about herself. I suppose it was on account of the fact of his being

taken in some measure unawares, that I caught him on two or three

occasions regarding me fixedly in a way that disquieted me somewhat,

having been lately in so little society; till my glance aroused him from

his reverie, and he looked elsewhere in some confusion. It was fortunate

that he did so, and thus failed to notice my own. It shows that he, too,

is not particularly a society person.

May 10.-Have had another interesting conversation with M. de la Feste on

schools of landscape painting in the drawing-room after dinner this

evening-my father having fallen asleep, and left nobody but Caroline and

myself for Charles to talk to. I did not mean to say so much to him, and

had taken a volume of Modern Painters from the bookcase to occupy myself

with, while leaving the two lovers to themselves; but he would include

me in his audience, and I was obliged to lay the book aside. However, I

insisted on keeping Caroline in the conversation, though her views on

pictorial art were only too charmingly crude and primitive.

To-morrow, if fine, we are all three going to Wherryborne Wood, where

Charles will give us practical illustrations of the principles of

coloring that he has enumerated to-night. I am determined not to occupy

his attention to the exclusion of Caroline, and my plan is that when we

are in the dense part of the wood I will lag behind, and slip away, and

leave them to return by themselves. I suppose the reason of his

attentiveness to me lies in his simply wishing to win the good opinion

of one who is so closely united to Caroline, and so likely to influence

her good opinion of him.

May 11. Late.-I cannot sleep, and in desperation have lit my candle and

taken up my pen. My restlessness is occasioned by what has occurred to-

day, which at first I did not mean to write down, or trust to any heart

but my own. We went to Wherryborne Wood-Caroline, Charles and I, as we

had intended-and walked all three along the green track through the

midst, Charles in the middle between Caroline and myself. Presently I

found that, as usual, he and I were the only talkers, Caroline amusing

herself by observing birds and squirrels as she walked docilely

alongside her betrothed. Having noticed this I dropped behind at the

first opportunity and slipped among the trees, in a direction in which I

knew I should find another path that would take me home. Upon this track

I by and by emerged, and walked along it in silent thought till, at a

bend, I suddenly encountered M. de la Feste standing stock still and

smiling thoughtfully at me.

'Where is Caroline?' said I.

'Only a little way off,' says he. 'When we missed you from behind us we

thought you might have mistaken the direction we had followed, so she

has gone one way to find you and I have come this way.'

We then went back to find Caroline, but could not discover her anywhere,

and the upshot was that he and I were wandering about the woods alone

for more than an hour. On reaching home we found she had given us up

after searching a little while, and arrived there some time before. I

should not be so disturbed by the incident if I had not perceived that,

during her absence from us, he did not make any earnest effort to

rediscover her; and in answer to my repeated expressions of wonder as to

whither she could have wandered he only said, 'Oh, she's quite safe; she

told me she knew the way home from any part of this wood. Let us go on

with our talk. I assure you I value this privilege of being with one I

so much admire more than you imagine;' and other things of that kind. I

was so foolish as to show a little perturbation-I cannot tell why I did

not control myself; and I think he noticed that I was not cool. Caroline

has, with her simple good faith, thought nothing of the occurrence; yet

altogether I am not satisfied.

CHAPTER V.-HER SITUATION IS A TRYING ONE

May 15.-The more I think of it day after day, the more convinced I am

that my suspicions are true. He is too interested in me-well, in plain

words, loves me; or, not to degrade that phrase, has a wild passion for

me; and his affection for Caroline is that towards a sister only. That

is the distressing truth; how it has come about I cannot tell, and it

wears upon me.

A hundred little circumstances have revealed this to me, and the longer

I dwell upon it the more agitating does the consideration become. Heaven

only can help me out of the terrible difficulty in which this places me.

I have done nothing to encourage him to be faithless to her. I have

studiously kept out of his way; have persistently refused to be a third

in their interviews. Yet all to no purpose. Some fatality has seemed to

rule, ever since he came to the house, that this disastrous inversion of

things should arise. If I had only foreseen the possibility of it before

he arrived, how gladly would I have departed on some visit or other to

the meanest friend to hinder such an apparent treachery. But I blindly

welcomed him-indeed, made myself particularly agreeable to him for her

sake.

There is no possibility of my suspicions being wrong; not until they

have reached absolute certainty have I dared even to admit the truth to

myself. His conduct to-day would have proved them true had I entertained

no previous apprehensions. Some photographs of myself came for me by

post, and they were handed round at the breakfast table and criticised.

I put them temporarily on a side table, and did not remember them until

an hour afterwards when I was in my own room. On going to fetch them I

discovered him standing at the table with his back towards the door

bending over the photographs, one of which he raised to his lips.

The witnessing this act so frightened me that I crept away to escape

observation. It was the climax to a series of slight and significant

actions all tending to the same conclusion. The question for me now is,

what am I to do? To go away is what first occurs to me, but what reason

can I give Caroline and my father for such a step; besides, it might

precipitate some sort of catastrophe by driving Charles to desperation.

For the present, therefore, I have decided that I can only wait, though

his contiguity is strangely disturbing to me now, and I hardly retain

strength of mind to encounter him. How will the distressing complication

end?

May 19.-And so it has come! My mere avoidance of him has precipitated

the worst issue-a declaration. I had occasion to go into the kitchen

garden to gather some of the double ragged-robins which grew in a corner

there. Almost as soon as I had entered I heard footsteps without. The

door opened and shut, and I turned to behold him just inside it. As the

garden is closed by four walls and the gardener was absent, the spot

ensured absolute privacy. He came along the path by the asparagus-bed,

and overtook me.

'You know why I come, Alicia?' said he, in a tremulous voice.

I said nothing, and hung my head, for by his tone I did know.

'Yes,' he went on, 'it is you I love; my sentiment towards your sister

is one of affection too, but protective, tutelary affection-no more. Say

what you will I cannot help it. I mistook my feeling for her, and I know

how much I am to blame for my want of self-knowledge. I have fought

against this discovery night and day; but it cannot be concealed. Why

did I ever see you, since I could not see you till I had committed

myself? At the moment my eyes beheld you on that day of my arrival, I

said, "This is the woman for whom my manhood has waited." Ever since an

unaccountable fascination has riveted my heart to you. Answer one word!'

'O, M. de la Feste!' I burst out. What I said more I cannot remember,

but I suppose that the misery I was in showed pretty plainly, for he

said, 'Something must be done to let her know; perhaps I have mistaken

her affection, too; but all depends upon what you feel.'

'I cannot tell what I feel,' said I, 'except that this seems terrible

treachery; and every moment that I stay with you here makes it worse! .

. . Try to keep faith with her-her young heart is tender; believe me

there is no mistake in the quality of her love for you. Would there

were! This would kill her if she knew it!'

He sighed heavily. 'She ought never to be my wife,' he said. 'Leaving my

own happiness out of the question, it would be a cruelty to her to unite

her to me.'

I said I could not hear such words from him, and begged him in tears to

go away; he obeyed, and I heard the garden door shut behind him. What is

to be the end of the announcement, and the fate of Caroline?

May 20.-I put a good deal on paper yesterday, and yet not all. I was, in

truth, hoping against hope, against conviction, against too conscious

self-judgment. I scarcely dare own the truth now, yet it relieves my

aching heart to set it down. Yes, I love him-that is the dreadful fact,

and I can no longer parry, evade, or deny it to myself though to the

rest of the world it can never be owned. I love Caroline's betrothed,

and he loves me. It is no yesterday's passion, cultivated by our

converse; it came at first sight, independently of my will; and my talk

with him yesterday made rather against it than for it, but, alas, did

not quench it. God forgive us both for this terrible treachery.

May 25.-All is vague; our courses shapeless. He comes and goes, being

occupied, ostensibly at least, with sketching in his tent in the wood.

Whether he and she see each other privately I cannot tell, but I rather

think they do not; that she sadly awaits him, and he does not appear.

Not a sign from him that my repulse has done him any good, or that he

will endeavour to keep faith with her. O, if I only had the compulsion

of a god, and the self-sacrifice of a martyr!

May 31.-It has all ended-or rather this act of the sad drama has ended-

in nothing. He has left us. No day for the fulfilment of the engagement

with Caroline is named, my father not being the man to press any one on

such a matter, or, indeed, to interfere in any way. We two girls are, in

fact, quite defenceless in a case of this kind; lovers may come when

they choose, and desert when they choose; poor father is too urbane to

utter a word of remonstrance or inquiry. Moreover, as the approved of my

dead mother, M. de la Feste has a sort of autocratic power with my

father, who holds it unkind to her memory to have an opinion about him.

I, feeling it my duty, asked M. de la Feste at the last moment about the

engagement, in a voice I could not keep firm.

'Since the death of your mother all has been indefinite-all!' he said

gloomily. That was the whole. Possibly, Wherryborne Rectory may see him

no more.

June 7 .-M. de la Feste has written-one letter to her, one to me. Hers

could not have been very warm, for she did not brighten on reading it.

Mine was an ordinary note of friendship, filling an ordinary sheet of

paper, which I handed over to Caroline when I had finished looking it

through. But there was a scrap of paper in the bottom of the envelope,

which I dared not show any one. This scrap is his real letter: I scanned

it alone in my room, trembling, hot and cold by turns. He tells me he is

very wretched; that he deplores what has happened, but was helpless. Why

did I let him see me, if only to make him faithless. Alas, alas!

June 21 .-My dear Caroline has lost appetite, spirits, health. Hope

deferred maketh the heart sick. His letters to her grow colder-if indeed

he has written more than one. He has refrained from writing again to me-

he knows it is no use. Altogether the situation that he and she and I

are in is melancholy in the extreme. Why are human hearts so perverse?

CHAPTER VI.-HER INGENUITY INSTIGATES HER

September 19.-Three months of anxious care-till at length I have taken

the extreme step of writing to him. Our chief distress has been caused

by the state of poor Caroline, who, after sinking by degrees into such

extreme weakness as to make it doubtful if she can ever recover full

vigour, has to-day been taken much worse. Her position is very critical.

The doctor says plainly that she is dying of a broken heart-and that

even the removal of the cause may not now restore her. Ought I to have

written to Charles sooner? But how could I when she forbade me? It was

her pride only which instigated her, and I should not have obeyed.

Sept. 26.-Charles has arrived and has seen her. He is shocked,

conscience-stricken, remorseful. I have told him that he can do no good

beyond cheering her by his presence. I do not know what he thinks of

proposing to her if she gets better, but he says little to her at

present: indeed he dares not: his words agitate her dangerously.

Sept. 28.-After a struggle between duty and selfishness, such as I pray

to Heaven I may never have to undergo again, I have asked him for pity's

sake to make her his wife, here and now, as she lies. I said to him that

the poor child would not trouble him long; and such a solemnization

would soothe her last hours as nothing else could do. He said that he

would willingly do so, and had thought of it himself; but for one

forbidding reason: in the event of her death as his wife he can never

marry me, her sister, according to our laws. I started at his words. He

went on: 'On the other hand, if I were sure that immediate marriage with

me would save her life, I would not refuse, for possibly I might after a

while, and out of sight of you, make myself fairly content with one of

so sweet a disposition as hers; but if, as is probable, neither my

marrying her nor any other act can avail to save her life, by so doing I

lose both her and you.' I could not answer him.

Sept. 29.-He continued firm in his reasons for refusal till this

morning, and then I became possessed with an idea, which I at once

propounded to him. It was that he should at least consent to a form of

marriage with Caroline, in consideration of her love; a form which need

not be a legal union, but one which would satisfy her sick and enfeebled

soul. Such things have been done, and the sentiment of feeling herself

his would inexpressibly comfort her mind, I am sure. Then, if she is

taken from us, I should not have lost the power of becoming his lawful

wife at some future day, if it indeed should be deemed expedient; if, on

the other hand, she lives, he can on her recovery inform her of the

incompleteness of their marriage contract, the ceremony can be repeated,

and I can, and I am sure willingly would, avoid troubling them with my

presence till grey hairs and wrinkles make his unfortunate passion for

me a thing of the past. I put all this before him; but he demurred.

Sept. 30.-I have urged him again. He says he will consider. It is no

time to mince matters, and as a further inducement I have offered to

enter into a solemn engagement to marry him myself a year after her

death.

Sept. 30. Later.-An agitating interview. He says he will agree to

whatever I propose, the three possibilities and our contingent acts

being recorded as follows: First, in the event of dear Caroline being

taken from us, I marry him on the expiration of a year: Second, in the

forlorn chance of her recovery I take upon myself the responsibility of

explaining to Caroline the true nature of the ceremony he has gone

through with her, that it was done at my suggestion to make her happy at

once, before a special licence could be obtained, and that a public

ceremony at church is awaiting her: Third, in the unlikely event of her

cooling, and refusing to repeat the ceremony with him, I leave England,

join him abroad, and there wed him, agreeing not to live in England

again till Caroline has either married another or regards her attachment

to Charles as a bygone matter. I have thought over these conditions, and

have agreed to them all as they stand.

11 p.m.-I do not much like this scheme, after all. For one thing, I have

just sounded my father on it before parting with him for the night, my

impression having been that he would see no objection. But he says he

could on no account countenance any such unreal proceeding; however good

our intentions, and even though the poor girl were dying, it would not

be right. So I sadly seek my pillow.

October 1.-I am sure my father is wrong in his view. Why is it not

right, if it would be balm to Caroline's wounded soul, and if a real

ceremony is absolutely refused by Charles-moreover is hardly practicable

in the difficulty of getting a special licence, if he were agreed? My

father does not know, or will not believe, that Caroline's attachment

has been the cause of her hopeless condition. But that it is so, and

that the form of words would give her inexpressible happiness, I know

well; for I whispered tentatively in her ear on such marriages, and the

effect was great. Henceforth my father cannot be taken into confidence

on the subject of Caroline. He does not understand her.

12 o'clock noon.-I have taken advantage of my father's absence to-day to

confide my secret notion to a thoughtful young man, who called here this

morning to speak to my father. He is the Mr. Theophilus Higham, of whom

I have already had occasion to speak-a Scripture reader in the next

town, and is soon going to be ordained. I told him the pitiable case,

and my remedy. He says ardently that he will assist me-would do anything

for me (he is, in truth, an admirer of mine); he sees no wrong in such

an act of charity. He is coming again to the house this afternoon before

my father returns, to carry out the idea. I have spoken to Charles, who

promises to be ready. I must now break the news to Caroline.

11 o'clock p.m.-I have been in too much excitement till now to set down

the result. We have accomplished our plan; and though I feel like a

guilty sinner, I am glad. My father, of course, is not to be informed as

yet. Caroline has had a seraphic expression upon her wasted, transparent

face ever since. I should hardly be surprised if it really saved her

life even now, and rendered a legitimate union necessary between them.

In that case my father can be informed of the whole proceeding, and in

the face of such wonderful success cannot disapprove. Meanwhile poor

Charles has not lost the possibility of taking unworthy me to fill her

place should she-. But I cannot contemplate that alternative unmoved,

and will not write it. Charles left for the South of Europe immediately

after the ceremony. He was in a high-strung, throbbing, almost wild

state of mind at first, but grew calmer under my exhortations. I had to

pay the penalty of receiving a farewell kiss from him, which I much

regret, considering its meaning; but he took me so unexpectedly, and in

a moment was gone.

Oct. 6.-She certainly is better, and even when she found that Charles

had been suddenly obliged to leave, she received the news quite

cheerfully. The doctor says that her apparent improvement may be

delusive; but I think our impressing upon her the necessity of keeping

what has occurred a secret from papa, and everybody, helps to give her a

zest for life.

Oct. 8.-She is still mending. I am glad to have saved her-my only

sister-if I have done so; though I shall now never become Charles's

wife.

CHAPTER VII.-A SURPRISE AWAITS HER

Feb. 5.-Writing has been absolutely impossible for a long while; but I

now reach a stage at which it seems possible to jot down a line.

Caroline's recovery, extending over four months, has been very

engrossing; at first slow, latterly rapid. But a fearful complication of

affairs attends it!

O what a tangled web we weave When first we practise to deceive!

Charles has written reproachfully to me from Venice, where he is. He

says how can he fulfil in the real what he has enacted in the

counterfeit, while he still loves me? Yet how, on the other hand, can he

leave it unfulfilled? All this time I have not told her, and up to this

minute she believes that he has indeed taken her for better, for worse,

till death them do part. It is a harassing position for me, and all

three. In the awful approach of death, one's judgment loses its balance,

and we do anything to meet the exigencies of the moment, with a single

eye to the one who excites our sympathy, and from whom we seem on the

brink of being separated for ever.

Had he really married her at that time all would be settled now. But he

took too much thought; she might have died, and then he had his reason.

If indeed it had turned out so, I should now be perhaps a sad woman; but

not a tempest-tossed one . . . The possibility of his claiming me after

all is what lies at the root of my agitation. Everything hangs by a

thread. Suppose I tell her the marriage was a mockery; suppose she is

indignant with me and with him for the deception-and then? Otherwise,

suppose she is not indignant but forgives all; he is bound to marry her;

and honour constrains me to urge him thereto, in spite of what he

protests, and to smooth the way to this issue by my method of informing

her. I have meant to tell her the last month-ever since she has been

strong enough to bear such tidings; but I have been without the power-

the moral force. Surely I must write, and get him to come and assist me.

March 14.-She continually wonders why he does not come, the five months

of his enforced absence having expired; and still more she wonders why

he does not write oftener. His last letter was cold, she says, and she

fears he regrets his marriage, which he may only have celebrated with

her for pity's sake, thinking she was sure to die. It makes one's heart

bleed to hear her hovering thus so near the truth, and yet never

discerning its actual shape.

A minor trouble besets me, too, in the person of the young Scripture

reader, whose conscience pricks him for the part he played. Surely I am

punished, if ever woman were, for a too ingenious perversion of her

better judgment!

April 2.-She is practically well. The faint pink revives in her cheek,

though it is not quite so full as heretofore. But she still wonders what

she can have done to offend 'her dear husband,' and I have been obliged

to tell the smallest part of the truth-an unimportant fragment of the

whole, in fact, I said that I feared for the moment he might regret the

precipitancy of the act, which her illness caused, his affairs not

having been quite sufficiently advanced for marriage just then, though

he will doubtless come to her as soon as he has a home ready. Meanwhile

I have written to him, peremptorily, to come and relieve me in this

awful dilemma. He will find no note of love in that.

April 10.-To my alarm the letter I lately addressed to him at Venice,

where he is staying, as well as the last one she sent him, have received

no reply. She thinks he is ill. I do not quite think that, but I wish we

could hear from him. Perhaps the peremptoriness of my words had offended

him; it grieves me to think it possible. I offend him! But too much of

this. I must tell her the truth, or she may in her ignorance commit

herself to some course or other that may be ruinously compromising. She

said plaintively just now that if he could see her, and know how

occupied with him and him alone is her every waking hour, she is sure he

would forgive her the wicked presumption of becoming his wife. Very

sweet all that, and touching. I could not conceal my tears.

April 15.-The house is in confusion; my father is angry and distressed,

and I am distracted. Caroline has disappeared-gone away secretly. I

cannot help thinking that I know where she is gone to. How guilty I

seem, and how innocent she! O that I had told her before now!

1 o'clock.-No trace of her as yet. We find also that the little waiting-

maid we have here in training has disappeared with Caroline, and there

is not much doubt that Caroline, fearing to travel alone, has induced

this girl to go with her as companion. I am almost sure she has started

in desperation to find him, and that Venice is her goal. Why should she

run away, if not to join her husband, as she thinks him? Now that I

consider, there have been indications of this wish in her for days, as

in birds of passage there lurk signs of their incipient intention; and

yet I did not think she would have taken such an extreme step, unaided,

and without consulting me. I can only jot down the bare facts-I have no

time for reflections. But fancy Caroline travelling across the continent

of Europe with a chit of a girl, who will be more of a charge than an

assistance! They will be a mark for every marauder who encounters them.

Evening: 8 o'clock.-Yes, it is as I surmised. She has gone to join him.

A note posted by her in Budmouth Regis at daybreak has reached me this

afternoon-thanks to the fortunate chance of one of the servants calling

for letters in town to-day, or I should not have got it until to-morrow.

She merely asserts her determination of going to him, and has started

privately, that nothing may hinder her; stating nothing about her route.

That such a gentle thing should suddenly become so calmly resolute quite

surprises me. Alas, he may have left Venice-she may not find him for

weeks-may not at all.

My father, on learning the facts, bade me at once have everything ready

by nine this evening, in time to drive to the train that meets the night

steam-boat. This I have done, and there being an hour to spare before we

start, I relieve the suspense of waiting by taking up my pen. He says

overtake her we must, and calls Charles the hardest of names. He

believes, of course, that she is merely an infatuated girl rushing off

to meet her lover; and how can the wretched I tell him that she is more,

and in a sense better than that-yet not sufficiently more and better to

make this flight to Charles anything but a still greater danger to her

than a mere lover's impulse. We shall go by way of Paris, and we think

we may overtake her there. I hear my father walking restlessly up and

down the hall, and can write no more.

CHAPTER VIII.-SHE TRAVELS IN PURSUIT

April 16. Evening, Paris, H�tel �-.-There is no overtaking her at this

place; but she has been here, as I thought, no other hotel in Paris

being known to her. We go on to-morrow morning.

April 18. Venice.-A morning of adventures and emotions which leave me

sick and weary, and yet unable to sleep, though I have lain down on the

sofa of my room for more than an hour in the attempt. I therefore make

up my diary to date in a hurried fashion, for the sake of the riddance

it affords to ideas which otherwise remain suspended hotly in the brain.

We arrived here this morning in broad sunlight, which lit up the sea-

girt buildings as we approached so that they seemed like a city of cork

floating raft-like on the smooth, blue deep. But I only glanced from the

carriage window at the lovely scene, and we were soon across the

intervening water and inside the railway station. When we got to the

front steps the row of black gondolas and the shouts of the gondoliers

so bewildered my father that he was understood to require two gondolas

instead of one with two oars, and so I found him in one and myself in

another. We got this righted after a while, and were rowed at once to

the hotel on the Riva degli Schiavoni where M. de la Feste had been

staying when we last heard from him, the way being down the Grand Canal

for some distance, under the Rialto, and then by narrow canals which

eventually brought us under the Bridge of Sighs-harmonious to our

moods!-and out again into open water. The scene was purity itself as to

colour, but it was cruel that I should behold it for the first time

under such circumstances.

As soon as I entered the hotel, which is an old-fashioned place, like

most places here, where people are taken en pension as well as the

ordinary way, I rushed to the framed list of visitors hanging in the

hall, and in a moment I saw Charles's name upon it among the rest. But

she was our chief thought. I turned to the hall porter, and-knowing that

she would have travelled as 'Madame de la Feste'-I asked for her under

that name, without my father hearing. (He, poor soul, was making

confused inquiries outside the door about 'an English lady,' as if there

were not a score of English ladies at hand.)

'She has just come,' said the porter. 'Madame came by the very early

train this morning, when Monsieur was asleep, and she requested us not

to disturb him. She is now in her room.'

Whether Caroline had seen us from the window, or overheard me, I do not

know, but at that moment I heard footsteps on the bare marble stairs,

and she appeared in person descending.

'Caroline!' I exclaimed, 'why have you done this?' and rushed up to her.

She did not answer; but looked down to hide her emotion, which she

conquered after the lapse of a few seconds, putting on a practical tone

that belied her.

'I am just going to my husband,' she said. 'I have not yet seen him. I

have not been here long.' She condescended to give no further reason for

her movements, and made as if to move on. I implored her to come into a

private room where I could speak to her in confidence, but she objected.

However, the dining-room, close at hand, was quite empty at this hour,

and I got her inside and closed the door. I do not know how I began my

explanation, or how I ended it, but I told her briefly and brokenly

enough that the marriage was not real.

'Not real?' she said vacantly.

'It is not,' said I. 'You will find that it is all as I say.'

She could not believe my meaning even then. 'Not his wife?' she cried.

'It is impossible. What am I, then?'

I added more details, and reiterated the reason for my conduct as well

as I could; but Heaven knows how very difficult I found it to feel a jot

more justification for it in my own mind than she did in hers.

The revulsion of feeling, as soon as she really comprehended all, was

most distressing. After her grief had in some measure spent itself she

turned against both him and me.

'Why should have I been deceived like this?' she demanded, with a bitter

haughtiness of which I had not deemed such a tractable creature capable.

'Do you suppose that anything could justify such an imposition? What, O

what a snare you have spread for me!'

I murmured, 'Your life seemed to require it,' but she did not hear me.

She sank down in a chair, covered her face, and then my father came in.

'O, here you are!' he said. 'I could not find you. And Caroline!'

'And were you, papa, a party to this strange deed of kindness?'

'To what?' said he.

Then out it all came, and for the first time he was made acquainted with

the fact that the scheme for soothing her illness, which I had sounded

him upon, had been really carried out. In a moment he sided with

Caroline. My repeated assurance that my motive was good availed less

than nothing. In a minute or two Caroline arose and went abruptly out of

the room, and my father followed her, leaving me alone to my

reflections.

I was so bent upon finding Charles immediately that I did not notice

whither they went. The servants told me that M. de la Feste was just

outside smoking, and one of them went to look for him, I following; but

before we had gone many steps he came out of the hotel behind me. I

expected him to be amazed; but he showed no surprise at seeing me,

though he showed another kind of feeling to an extent which dismayed me.

I may have revealed something similar; but I struggled hard against all

emotion, and as soon as I could I told him she had come. He simply said

'Yes' in a low voice.

'You know it, Charles?' said I.

'I have just learnt it,' he said.

'O, Charles,' I went on, 'having delayed completing your marriage with

her till now, I fear-it has become a serious position for us. Why did

you not reply to our letters?'

'I was purposing to reply in person: I did not know how to address her

on the point-how to address you. But what has become of her?'

'She has gone off with my father,' said I; 'indignant with you, and

scorning me.'

He was silent: and I suggested that we should follow them, pointing out

the direction which I fancied their gondola had taken. As the one we got

into was doubly manned we soon came in view of their two figures ahead

of us, while they were not likely to observe us, our boat having the

'felze' on, while theirs was uncovered. They shot into a narrow canal

just beyond the Giardino Reale, and by the time we were floating up

between its slimy walls we saw them getting out of their gondola at the

steps which lead up near the end of the Via 22 Marzo. When we reached

the same spot they were walking up and down the Via in consultation.

Getting out he stood on the lower steps watching them. I watched him. He

seemed to fall into a reverie.

'Will you not go and speak to her?' said I at length.

He assented, and went forward. Still he did not hasten to join them,

but, screened by a projecting window, observed their musing converse. At

last he looked back at me; whereupon I pointed forward, and he in

obedience stepped out, and met them face to face. Caroline flushed hot,

bowed haughtily to him, turned away, and taking my father's arm

violently, led him off before he had had time to use his own judgment.

They disappeared into a narrow calle, or alley, leading to the back of

the buildings on the Grand Canal.

M. de la Feste came slowly back; as he stepped in beside me I realized

my position so vividly that my heart might almost have been heard to

beat. The third condition had arisen-the least expected by either of us.

She had refused him; he was free to claim me.

We returned in the boat together. He seemed quite absorbed till we had

turned the angle into the Grand Canal, when he broke the silence. 'She

spoke very bitterly to you in the salle-�-manger,' he said. 'I do not

think she was quite warranted in speaking so to you, who had nursed her

so tenderly.'

'O, but I think she was,' I answered. 'It was there I told her what had

been done; she did not know till then.'

'She was very dignified-very striking,' he murmured. 'You were more.'

'But how do you know what passed between us,' said I. He then told me

that he had seen and heard all. The dining-room was divided by folding-

doors from an inner portion, and he had been sitting in the latter part

when we entered the outer, so that our words were distinctly audible.

'But, dear Alicia,' he went on, 'I was more impressed by the affection

of your apology to her than by anything else. And do you know that now

the conditions have arisen which give me liberty to consider you my

affianced?' I had been expecting this, but yet was not prepared. I

stammered out that we would not discuss it then.

'Why not?' said he. 'Do you know that we may marry here and now? She has

cast off both you and me.'

'It cannot be,' said I, firmly. 'She has not been fairly asked to be

your wife in fact-to repeat the service lawfully; and until that has

been done it would be grievous sin in me to accept you.'

I had not noticed where the gondoliers were rowing us. I suppose he had

given them some direction unheard by me, for as I resigned myself in

despairing indolence to the motion of the gondola, I perceived that it

was taking us up the Canal, and, turning into a side opening near the

Palazzo Grimani, drew up at some steps near the end of a large church.

'Where are we?' said I.

'It is the Church of the Frari,' he replied. 'We might be married there.

At any rate, let us go inside, and grow calm, and decide what to do.'

When we had entered I found that whether a place to marry in or not, it

was one to depress. The word which Venice speaks most constantly-decay-

was in a sense accentuated here. The whole large fabric itself seemed

sinking into an earth which was not solid enough to bear it. Cobwebbed

cracks zigzagged the walls, and similar webs clouded the window-panes. A

sickly-sweet smell pervaded the aisles. After walking about with him a

little while in embarrassing silences, divided only by his cursory

explanations of the monuments and other objects, and almost fearing he

might produce a marriage licence, I went to a door in the south transept

which opened into the sacristy.

I glanced through it, towards the small altar at the upper end. The

place was empty save of one figure; and she was kneeling here in front

of the beautiful altarpiece by Bellini. Beautiful though it was she

seemed not to see it. She was weeping and praying as though her heart

was broken. She was my sister Caroline. I beckoned to Charles, and he

came to my side, and looked through the door with me.

'Speak to her,' said I. 'She will forgive you.'

I gently pushed him through the doorway, and went back into the

transept, down the nave, and onward to the west door. There I saw my

father, to whom I spoke. He answered severely that, having first

obtained comfortable quarters in a pension on the Grand Canal, he had

gone back to the hotel on the Riva degli Schiavoni to find me; but that

I was not there. He was now waiting for Caroline, to accompany her back

to the pension, at which she had requested to be left to herself as much

as possible till she could regain some composure.

I told him that it was useless to dwell on what was past, that I no

doubt had erred, that the remedy lay in the future and their marriage.

In this he quite agreed with me, and on my informing him that M. de la

Feste was at that moment with Caroline in the sacristy, he assented to

my proposal that we should leave them to themselves, and return together

to await them at the pension, where he had also engaged a room for me.

This we did, and going up to the chamber he had chosen for me, which

overlooked the Canal, I leant from the window to watch for the gondola

that should contain Charles and my sister.

They were not long in coming. I recognized them by the colour of her

sunshade as soon as they turned the bend on my right hand. They were

side by side of necessity, but there was no conversation between them,

and I thought that she looked flushed and he pale. When they were rowed

in to the steps of our house he handed her up. I fancied she might have

refused his assistance, but she did not. Soon I heard her pass my door,

and wishing to know the result of their interview I went downstairs,

seeing that the gondola had not put off with him. He was turning from

the door, but not towards the water, intending apparently to walk home

by way of the calle which led into the Via 22 Marzo.

'Has she forgiven you?' said I.

'I have not asked her,' he said.

'But you are bound to do so,' I told him.

He paused, and then said, 'Alicia, let us understand each other. Do you

mean to tell me, once for all, that if your sister is willing to become

my wife you absolutely make way for her, and will not entertain any

thought of what I suggested to you any more?'

'I do tell you so,' said I with dry lips. 'You belong to her-how can I

do otherwise?'

'Yes; it is so; it is purely a question of honour,' he returned. 'Very

well then, honour shall be my word, and not my love. I will put the

question to her frankly; if she says yes, the marriage shall be. But not

here. It shall be at your own house in England.'

'When?' said I.

'I will accompany her there,' he replied, 'and it shall be within a week

of her return. I have nothing to gain by delay. But I will not answer

for the consequences.'

'What do you mean?' said I. He made no reply, went away, and I came back

to my room.

CHAPTER IX.-SHE WITNESSES THE END

April 20. Milan, 10.30 p.m.-We are thus far on our way homeward. I,

being decidedly de trop, travel apart from the rest as much as I can.

Having dined at the hotel here, I went out by myself; regardless of the

proprieties, for I could not stay in. I walked at a leisurely pace along

the Via Allesandro Manzoni till my eye was caught by the grand Galleria

Vittorio Emanuele, and I entered under the high glass arcades till I

reached the central octagon, where I sat down on one of a group of

chairs placed there. Becoming accustomed to the stream of promenaders, I

soon observed, seated on the chairs opposite, Caroline and Charles. This

was the first occasion on which I had seen them en t�te-�-t�te since my

conversation with him. She soon caught sight of me; averted her eyes;

then, apparently abandoning herself to an impulse, she jumped up from

her seat and came across to me. We had not spoken to each other since

the meeting in Venice.

'Alicia,' she said, sitting down by my side, 'Charles asks me to forgive

you, and I do forgive you.'

I pressed her hand, with tears in my eyes, and said, 'And do you forgive

him?'

'Yes,' said she, shyly.

'And what's the result?' said I.

'We are to be married directly we reach home.'

This was almost the whole of our conversation; she walked home with me,

Charles following a little way behind, though she kept turning her head,

as if anxious that he should overtake us. 'Honour and not love' seemed

to ring in my ears. So matters stand. Caroline is again happy.

April 25.-We have reached home, Charles with us. Events are now moving

in silent speed, almost with velocity, indeed; and I sometimes feel

oppressed by the strange and preternatural ease which seems to accompany

their flow. Charles is staying at the neighbouring town; he is only

waiting for the marriage licence; when obtained he is to come here, be

quietly married to her, and carry her off. It is rather resignation than

content which sits on his face; but he has not spoken a word more to me

on the burning subject, or deviated one hair's breadth from the course

he laid down. They may be happy in time to come: I hope so. But I cannot

shake off depression.

May 6.-Eve of the wedding. Caroline is serenely happy, though not

blithe. But there is nothing to excite anxiety about her. I wish I could

say the same of him. He comes and goes like a ghost, and yet nobody

seems to observe this strangeness in his mien.

I could not help being here for the ceremony; but my absence would have

resulted in less disquiet on his part, I believe. However, I may be

wrong in attributing causes: my father simply says that Charles and

Caroline have as good a chance of being happy as other people. Well, to-

morrow settles all.

May 7.-They are married: we have just returned from church. Charles

looked so pale this morning that my father asked him if he was ill. He

said, 'No: only a slight headache;' and we started for the church.

There was no hitch or hindrance; and the thing is done.

4 p.m.-They ought to have set out on their journey by this time; but

there is an unaccountable delay. Charles went out half-an-hour ago, and

has not yet returned. Caroline is waiting in the hall; but I am

dreadfully afraid they will miss the train. I suppose the trifling

hindrance is of no account; and yet I am full of misgivings . . .

Sept. 14.-Four months have passed; only four months! It seems like

years. Can it be that only seventeen weeks ago I set on this paper the

fact of their marriage? I am now an aged woman by comparison!

On that never to be forgotten day we waited and waited, and Charles did

not return. At six o'clock, when poor little Caroline had gone back to

her room in a state of suspense impossible to describe, a man who worked

in the water-meadows came to the house and asked for my father. He had

an interview with him in the study. My father then rang his bell, and

sent for me. I went down; and I then learnt the fatal news. Charles was

no more. The waterman had been going to shut down the hatches of a weir

in the meads when he saw a hat on the edge of the pool below, floating

round and round in the eddy, and looking into the pool saw something

strange at the bottom. He knew what it meant, and lowering the hatches

so that the water was still, could distinctly see the body. It is

needless to write particulars that were in the newspapers at the time.

Charles was brought to the house, but he was dead.

We all feared for Caroline; and she suffered much; but strange to say,

her suffering was purely of the nature of deep grief which found relief

in sobbing and tears. It came out at the inquest that Charles had been

accustomed to cross the meads to give an occasional half-crown to an old

man who lived on the opposite hill, who had once been a landscape

painter in an humble way till he lost his eyesight; and it was assumed

that he had gone thither for the same purpose to-day, and to bid him

farewell. On this information the coroner's jury found that his death

had been caused by misadventure; and everybody believes to this hour

that he was drowned while crossing the weir to relieve the old man.

Except one: she believes in no accident. After the stunning effect of

the first news, I thought it strange that he should have chosen to go on

such an errand at the last moment, and to go personally, when there was

so little time to spare, since any gift could have been so easily sent

by another hand. Further reflection has convinced me that this step out

of life was as much a part of the day's plan as was the wedding in the

church hard by. They were the two halves of his complete intention when

he gave me on the Grand Canal that assurance which I shall never forget:

'Very well, then; honour shall be my word, not love. If she says "Yes,"

the marriage shall be.'

I do not know why I should have made this entry at this particular time;

but it has occurred to me to do it-to complete, in a measure, that part

of my desultory chronicle which relates to the love-story of my sister

and Charles. She lives on meekly in her grief; and will probably outlive

it; while I-but never mind me.

CHAPTER X.-SHE ADDS A NOTE LONG AFTER

Five-years later.-I have lighted upon this old diary, which it has

interested me to look over, containing, as it does, records of the time

when life shone more warmly in my eye than it does now. I am impelled to

add one sentence to round off its record of the past. About a year ago

my sister Caroline, after a persistent wooing, accepted the hand and

heart of Theophilus Higham, once the blushing young Scripture reader who

assisted at the substitute for a marriage I planned, and now the fully-

ordained curate of the next parish. His penitence for the part he played

ended in love. We have all now made atonement for our sins against her:

may she be deceived no more. 1887.

THE GRAVE BY THE HANDPOST

I never pass through Chalk-Newton without turning to regard the

neighbouring upland, at a point where a lane crosses the lone straight

highway dividing this from the next parish; a sight which does not fail

to recall the event that once happened there; and, though it may seem

superfluous, at this date, to disinter more memories of village history,

the whispers of that spot may claim to be preserved.

It was on a dark, yet mild and exceptionally dry evening at Christmas-

time (according to the testimony of William Dewy of Mellstock, Michael

Mail, and others), that the choir of Chalk-Newton-a large parish situate

about half-way between the towns of Ivel and Casterbridge, and now a

railway station-left their homes just before midnight to repeat their

annual harmonies under the windows of the local population. The band of

instrumentalists and singers was one of the largest in the county; and,

unlike the smaller and finer Mellstock string-band, which eschewed all

but the catgut, it included brass and reed performers at full Sunday

services, and reached all across the west gallery.

On this night there were two or three violins, two 'cellos, a tenor

viol, double bass, hautboy, clarionets, serpent, and seven singers. It

was, however, not the choir's labours, but what its members chanced to

witness, that particularly marked the occasion.

They had pursued their rounds for many years without meeting with any

incident of an unusual kind, but to-night, according to the assertions

of several, there prevailed, to begin with, an exceptionally solemn and

thoughtful mood among two or three of the oldest in the band, as if they

were thinking they might be joined by the phantoms of dead friends who

had been of their number in earlier years, and now were mute in the

churchyard under flattening mounds-friends who had shown greater zest

for melody in their time than was shown in this; or that some past voice

of a semi-transparent figure might quaver from some bedroom-window its

acknowledgment of their nocturnal greeting, instead of a familiar living

neighbour. Whether this were fact or fancy, the younger members of the

choir met together with their customary thoughtlessness and buoyancy.

When they had gathered by the stone stump of the cross in the middle of

the village, near the White Horse Inn, which they made their starting

point, some one observed that they were full early, that it was not yet

twelve o'clock. The local waits of those days mostly refrained from

sounding a note before Christmas morning had astronomically arrived, and

not caring to return to their beer, they decided to begin with some

outlying cottages in Sidlinch Lane, where the people had no clocks, and

would not know whether it were night or morning. In that direction they

accordingly went; and as they ascended to higher ground their attention

was attracted by a light beyond the houses, quite at the top of the

lane.

The road from Chalk-Newton to Broad Sidlinch is about two miles long and

in the middle of its course, where it passes over the ridge dividing the

two villages, it crosses at right angles, as has been stated, the lonely

monotonous old highway known as Long Ash Lane, which runs, straight as a

surveyor's line, many miles north and south of this spot, on the

foundation of a Roman road, and has often been mentioned in these

narratives. Though now quite deserted and grass-grown, at the beginning

of the century it was well kept and frequented by traffic. The

glimmering light appeared to come from the precise point where the roads

intersected.

'I think I know what that mid mean!' one of the group remarked.

They stood a few moments, discussing the probability of the light having

origin in an event of which rumours had reached them, and resolved to go

up the hill.

Approaching the high land their conjectures were strengthened. Long Ash

Lane cut athwart them, right and left; and they saw that at the junction

of the four ways, under the hand-post, a grave was dug, into which, as

the choir drew nigh, a corpse had just been thrown by the four Sidlinch

men employed for the purpose. The cart and horse which had brought the

body thither stood silently by.

The singers and musicians from Chalk-Newton halted, and looked on while

the gravediggers shovelled in and trod down the earth, till, the hole

being filled, the latter threw their spades into the cart, and prepared

to depart.

'Who mid ye be a-burying there?' asked Lot Swanhills in a raised voice.

'Not the sergeant?'

The Sidlinch men had been so deeply engrossed in their task that they

had not noticed the lanterns of the Chalk-Newton choir till now.

'What-be you the Newton carol-singers?' returned the representatives of

Sidlinch.

'Ay, sure. Can it be that it is old Sergeant Holway you've a-buried

there?'

''Tis so. You've heard about it, then?'

The choir knew no particulars-only that he had shot himself in his

apple-closet on the previous Sunday. 'Nobody seem'th to know what 'a did

it for, 'a b'lieve? Leastwise, we don't know at Chalk-Newton,' continued

Lot.

'O yes. It all came out at the inquest.'

The singers drew close, and the Sidlinch men, pausing to rest after

their labours, told the story. 'It was all owing to that son of his,

poor old man. It broke his heart.'

'But the son is a soldier, surely; now with his regiment in the East

Indies?'

'Ay. And it have been rough with the army over there lately. 'Twas a

pity his father persuaded him to go. But Luke shouldn't have twyted the

sergeant o't, since 'a did it for the best.'

The circumstances, in brief, were these: The sergeant who had come to

this lamentable end, father of the young soldier who had gone with his

regiment to the East, had been singularly comfortable in his military

experiences, these having ended long before the outbreak of the great

war with France. On his discharge, after duly serving his time, he had

returned to his native village, and married, and taken kindly to

domestic life. But the war in which England next involved herself had

cost him many frettings that age and infirmity prevented him from being

ever again an active unit of the army. When his only son grew to young

manhood, and the question arose of his going out in life, the lad

expressed his wish to be a mechanic. But his father advised

enthusiastically for the army.

'Trade is coming to nothing in these days,' he said. 'And if the war

with the French lasts, as it will, trade will be still worse. The army,

Luke-that's the thing for 'ee. 'Twas the making of me, and 'twill be the

making of you. I hadn't half such a chance as you'll have in these

splendid hotter times.'

Luke demurred, for he was a home-keeping, peace-loving youth. But,

putting respectful trust in his father's judgment, he at length gave

way, and enlisted in the �-d Foot. In the course of a few weeks he was

sent out to India to his regiment, which had distinguished itself in the

East under General Wellesley.

But Luke was unlucky. News came home indirectly that he lay sick out

there; and then on one recent day when his father was out walking, the

old man had received tidings that a letter awaited him at Casterbridge.

The sergeant sent a special messenger the whole nine miles, and the

letter was paid for and brought home; but though, as he had guessed, it

came from Luke, its contents were of an unexpected tenor.

The letter had been written during a time of deep depression. Luke said

that his life was a burden and a slavery, and bitterly reproached his

father for advising him to embark on a career for which he felt

unsuited. He found himself suffering fatigues and illnesses without

gaining glory, and engaged in a cause which he did not understand or

appreciate. If it had not been for his father's bad advice he, Luke,

would now have been working comfortably at a trade in the village that

he had never wished to leave.

After reading the letter the sergeant advanced a few steps till he was

quite out of sight of everybody, and then sat down on the bank by the

wayside.

When he arose half-an-hour later he looked withered and broken, and from

that day his natural spirits left him. Wounded to the quick by his son's

sarcastic stings, he indulged in liquor more and more frequently. His

wife had died some years before this date, and the sergeant lived alone

in the house which had been hers. One morning in the December under

notice the report of a gun had been heard on his premises, and on

entering the neighbours found him in a dying state. He had shot himself

with an old firelock that he used for scaring birds; and from what he

had said the day before, and the arrangements he had made for his

decease, there was no doubt that his end had been deliberately planned,

as a consequence of the despondency into which he had been thrown by his

son's letter. The coroner's jury returned a verdict of felo de se.

'Here's his son's letter,' said one of the Sidlinch men. ''Twas found in

his father's pocket. You can see by the state o't how many times he read

it over. Howsomever, the Lord's will be done, since it must, whether or

no.'

The grave was filled up and levelled, no mound being shaped over it. The

Sidlinch men then bade the Chalk-Newton choir good-night, and departed

with the cart in which they had brought the sergeant's body to the hill.

When their tread had died away from the ear, and the wind swept over the

isolated grave with its customary siffle of indifference, Lot Swanhills

turned and spoke to old Richard Toller, the hautboy player.

''Tis hard upon a man, and he a wold sojer, to serve en so, Richard. Not

that the sergeant was ever in a battle bigger than would go into a half-

acre paddock, that's true. Still, his soul ought to hae as good a chance

as another man's, all the same, hey?'

Richard replied that he was quite of the same opinion. 'What d'ye say to

lifting up a carrel over his grave, as 'tis Christmas, and no hurry to

begin down in parish, and 'twouldn't take up ten minutes, and not a soul

up here to say us nay, or know anything about it?'

Lot nodded assent. 'The man ought to hae his chances,' he repeated.

'Ye may as well spet upon his grave, for all the good we shall do en by

what we lift up, now he's got so far,' said Notton, the clarionet man

and professed sceptic of the choir. 'But I'm agreed if the rest be.'

They thereupon placed themselves in a semicircle by the newly stirred

earth, and roused the dull air with the well-known Number Sixteen of

their collection, which Lot gave out as being the one he thought best

suited to the occasion and the mood

He comes' the pri'-soners to' re-lease', In Sa'-tan's bon'-dage held'.

'Jown it-we've never played to a dead man afore,' said Ezra Cattstock,

when, having concluded the last verse, they stood reflecting for a

breath or two. 'But it do seem more merciful than to go away and leave

en, as they t'other fellers have done.'

'Now backalong to Newton, and by the time we get overright the pa'son's

'twill be half after twelve,' said the leader.

They had not, however, done more than gather up their instruments when

the wind brought to their notice the noise of a vehicle rapidly driven

up the same lane from Sidlinch which the gravediggers had lately

retraced. To avoid being run over when moving on, they waited till the

benighted traveller, whoever he might be, should pass them where they

stood in the wider area of the Cross.

In half a minute the light of the lanterns fell upon a hired fly, drawn

by a steaming and jaded horse. It reached the hand-post, when a voice

from the inside cried, 'Stop here!' The driver pulled rein. The carriage

door was opened from within, and there leapt out a private soldier in

the uniform of some line regiment. He looked around, and was apparently

surprised to see the musicians standing there.

'Have you buried a man here?' he asked.

'No. We bain't Sidlinch folk, thank God; we be Newton choir. Though a

man is just buried here, that's true; and we've raised a carrel over the

poor mortal's natomy. What-do my eyes see before me young Luke Holway,

that went wi' his regiment to the East Indies, or do I see his spirit

straight from the battlefield? Be you the son that wrote the letter-'

'Don't-don't ask me. The funeral is over, then?'

'There wer no funeral, in a Christen manner of speaking. But's buried,

sure enough. You must have met the men going back in the empty cart.'

'Like a dog in a ditch, and all through me!'

He remained silent, looking at the grave, and they could not help

pitying him. 'My friends,' he said, 'I understand better now. You have,

I suppose, in neighbourly charity, sung peace to his soul? I thank you,

from my heart, for your kind pity. Yes; I am Sergeant Holway's miserable

son-I'm the son who has brought about his father's death, as truly as if

I had done it with my own hand!'

'No, no. Don't ye take on so, young man. He'd been naturally low for a

good while, off and on, so we hear.'

'We were out in the East when I wrote to him. Everything had seemed to

go wrong with me. Just after my letter had gone we were ordered home.

That's how it is you see me here. As soon as we got into barracks at

Casterbridge I heard o' this . . . Damn me! I'll dare to follow my

father, and make away with myself, too. It is the only thing left to

do!'

'Don't ye be rash, Luke Holway, I say again; but try to make amends by

your future life. And maybe your father will smile a smile down from

heaven upon 'ee for 't.'

He shook his head. 'I don't know about that!' he answered bitterly.

'Try and be worthy of your father at his best. 'Tis not too late.'

'D'ye think not? I fancy it is! . . . Well, I'll turn it over. Thank you

for your good counsel. I'll live for one thing, at any rate. I'll move

father's body to a decent Christian churchyard, if I do it with my own

hands. I can't save his life, but I can give him an honourable grave. He

shan't lie in this accursed place!'

'Ay, as our pa'son says, 'tis a barbarous custom they keep up at

Sidlinch, and ought to be done away wi'. The man a' old soldier, too.

You see, our pa'son is not like yours at Sidlinch.'

'He says it is barbarous, does he? So it is!' cried the soldier. 'Now

hearken, my friends.' Then he proceeded to inquire if they would

increase his indebtedness to them by undertaking the removal, privately,

of the body of the suicide to the churchyard, not of Sidlinch, a parish

he now hated, but of Chalk-Newton. He would give them all he possessed

to do it.

Lot asked Ezra Cattstock what he thought of it.

Cattstock, the 'cello player, who was also the sexton, demurred, and

advised the young soldier to sound the rector about it first. 'Mid be he

would object, and yet 'a mid'nt. The pa'son o' Sidlinch is a hard man, I

own ye, and 'a said if folk will kill theirselves in hot blood they must

take the consequences. But ours don't think like that at all, and might

allow it.'

'What's his name?'

'The honourable and reverent Mr. Oldham, brother to Lord Wessex. But you

needn't be afeard o' en on that account. He'll talk to 'ee like a common

man, if so be you haven't had enough drink to gie 'ee bad breath.'

'O, the same as formerly. I'll ask him. Thank you. And that duty done-'

'What then?'

'There's war in Spain. I hear our next move is there. I'll try to show

myself to be what my father wished me. I don't suppose I shall-but I'll

try in my feeble way. That much I swear-here over his body. So help me

God.'

Luke smacked his palm against the white hand-post with such force that

it shook. 'Yes, there's war in Spain; and another chance for me to be

worthy of father.'

So the matter ended that night. That the private acted in one thing as

he had vowed to do soon became apparent, for during the Christmas week

the rector came into the churchyard when Cattstock was there, and asked

him to find a spot that would be suitable for the purpose of such an

interment, adding that he had slightly known the late sergeant, and was

not aware of any law which forbade him to assent to the removal, the

letter of the rule having been observed. But as he did not wish to seem

moved by opposition to his neighbour at Sidlinch, he had stipulated that

the act of charity should be carried out at night, and as privately as

possible, and that the grave should be in an obscure part of the

enclosure. 'You had better see the young man about it at once,' added

the rector.

But before Ezra had done anything Luke came down to his house. His

furlough had been cut short, owing to new developments of the war in the

Peninsula, and being obliged to go back to his regiment immediately, he

was compelled to leave the exhumation and reinterment to his friends.

Everything was paid for, and he implored them all to see it carried out

forthwith.

With this the soldier left. The next day Ezra, on thinking the matter

over, again went across to the rectory, struck with sudden misgiving. He

had remembered that the sergeant had been buried without a coffin, and

he was not sure that a stake had not been driven through him. The

business would be more troublesome than they had at first supposed.

'Yes, indeed!' murmured the rector. 'I am afraid it is not feasible

after all.'

The next event was the arrival of a headstone by carrier from the

nearest town; to be left at Mr. Ezra Cattstock's; all expenses paid. The

sexton and the carrier deposited the stone in the former's outhouse; and

Ezra, left alone, put on his spectacles and read the brief and simple

inscription:-

HERE LYETH THE BODY OF SAMUEL HOLWAY, LATE SERGEANT IN HIS MAJESTY'S �-

D REGIMENT OF FOOT, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE DECEMBER THE 20TH, 180-.

ERECTED BY L. H. 'I AM NOT WORTHY TO BE CALLED THY SON.'

Ezra again called at the riverside rectory. 'The stone is come, sir. But

I'm afeard we can't do it nohow.'

'I should like to oblige him,' said the gentlemanly old incumbent. 'And

I would forego all fees willingly. Still, if you and the others don't

think you can carry it out, I am in doubt what to say.'

Well, sir; I've made inquiry of a Sidlinch woman as to his burial, and

what I thought seems true. They buried en wi' a new six-foot hurdle-

saul drough's body, from the sheep-pen up in North Ewelease though they

won't own to it now. And the question is, Is the moving worth while,

considering the awkwardness?'

'Have you heard anything more of the young man?'

Ezra had only heard that he had embarked that week for Spain with the

rest of the regiment. 'And if he's as desperate as 'a seemed, we shall

never see him here in England again.'

'It is an awkward case,' said the rector.

Ezra talked it over with the choir; one of whom suggested that the stone

might be erected at the crossroads. This was regarded as impracticable.

Another said that it might be set up in the churchyard without removing

the body; but this was seen to be dishonest. So nothing was done.

The headstone remained in Ezra's outhouse till, growing tired of seeing

it there, he put it away among the bushes at the bottom of his garden.

The subject was sometimes revived among them, but it always ended with:

'Considering how 'a was buried, we can hardly make a job o't.'

There was always the consciousness that Luke would never come back, an

impression strengthened by the disasters which were rumoured to have

befallen the army in Spain. This tended to make their inertness

permanent. The headstone grew green as it lay on its back under Ezra's

bushes; then a tree by the river was blown down, and, falling across the

stone, cracked it in three pieces. Ultimately the pieces became buried

in the leaves and mould.

Luke had not been born a Chalk-Newton man, and he had no relations left

in Sidlinch, so that no tidings of him reached either village throughout

the war. But after Waterloo and the fall of Napoleon there arrived at

Sidlinch one day an English sergeant-major covered with stripes and, as

it turned out, rich in glory. Foreign service had so totally changed

Luke Holway that it was not until he told his name that the inhabitants

recognized him as the sergeant's only son.

He had served with unswerving effectiveness through the Peninsular

campaigns under Wellington; had fought at Busaco, Fuentes d'Onore,

Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo;

and had now returned to enjoy a more than earned pension and repose in

his native district.

He hardly stayed in Sidlinch longer than to take a meal on his arrival.

The same evening he started on foot over the hill to Chalk-Newton,

passing the hand-post, and saying as he glanced at the spot, 'Thank God:

he's not there!' Nightfall was approaching when he reached the latter

village; but he made straight for the churchyard. On his entering it

there remained light enough to discern the headstones by, and these he

narrowly scanned. But though he searched the front part by the road, and

the back part by the river, what he sought he could not find-the grave

of Sergeant Holway, and a memorial bearing the inscription: 'I AM NOT

WORTHY TO BE CALLED THY SON.'

He left the churchyard and made inquiries. The honourable and reverend

old rector was dead, and so were many of the choir; but by degrees the

sergeant-major learnt that his father still lay at the cross-roads in

Long Ash Lane.

Luke pursued his way moodily homewards, to do which, in the natural

course, he would be compelled to repass the spot, there being no other

road between the two villages. But he could not now go by that place,

vociferous with reproaches in his father's tones; and he got over the

hedge and wandered deviously through the ploughed fields to avoid the

scene. Through many a fight and fatigue Luke had been sustained by the

thought that he was restoring the family honour and making noble amends.

Yet his father lay still in degradation. It was rather a sentiment than

a fact that his father's body had been made to suffer for his own

misdeeds; but to his super-sensitiveness it seemed that his efforts to

retrieve his character and to propitiate the shade of the insulted one

had ended in failure.

He endeavoured, however, to shake off his lethargy, and, not liking the

associations of Sidlinch, hired a small cottage at Chalk-Newton which

had long been empty. Here he lived alone, becoming quite a hermit, and

allowing no woman to enter the house.

The Christmas after taking up his abode herein he was sitting in the

chimney corner by himself, when he heard faint notes in the distance,

and soon a melody burst forth immediately outside his own window, it

came from the carol-singers, as usual; and though many of the old hands,

Ezra and Lot included, had gone to their rest, the same old carols were

still played out of the same old books. There resounded through the

sergeant-major's window-shutters the familiar lines that the deceased

choir had rendered over his father's grave:-

He comes' the pri'-soners to' re-lease', In Sa'-tan's bon'-dage held'.

When they had finished they went on to another house, leaving him to

silence and loneliness as before.

The candle wanted snuffing, but he did not snuff it, and he sat on till

it had burnt down into the socket and made waves of shadow on the

ceiling.

The Christmas cheerfulness of next morning was broken at breakfast-time

by tragic intelligence which went down the village like wind. Sergeant-

Major Holway had been found shot through the head by his own hand at the

cross-roads in Long Ash Lane where his father lay buried.

On the table in the cottage he had left a piece of paper, on which he

had written his wish that he might be buried at the Cross beside his

father. But the paper was accidentally swept to the floor, and

overlooked till after his funeral, which took place in the ordinary way

in the churchyard.

Christmas 1897.

ENTER A DRAGOON

I lately had a melancholy experience (said the gentleman who is

answerable for the truth of this story). It was that of going over a

doomed house with whose outside aspect I had long been familiar-a house,

that is, which by reason of age and dilapidation was to be pulled down

during the following week. Some of the thatch, brown and rotten as the

gills of old mushrooms, had, indeed, been removed before I walked over

the building. Seeing that it was only a very small house-which is

usually called a 'cottage-residence'-situated in a remote hamlet, and

that it was not more than a hundred years old, if so much, I was led to

think in my progress through the hollow rooms, with their cracked walls

and sloping floors, what an exceptional number of abrupt family

incidents had taken place therein-to reckon only those which had come to

my own knowledge. And no doubt there were many more of which I had never

heard.

It stood at the top of a garden stretching down to the lane or street

that ran through a hermit-group of dwellings in Mellstock parish. From a

green gate at the lower entrance, over which the thorn hedge had been

shaped to an arch by constant clippings, a gravel path ascended between

the box edges of once trim raspberry, strawberry, and vegetable plots,

towards the front door. This was in colour an ancient and bleached green

that could be rubbed off with the finger, and it bore a small long-

featured brass knocker covered with verdigris in its crevices. For some

years before this eve of demolition the homestead had degenerated, and

been divided into two tenements to serve as cottages for farm labourers;

but in its prime it had indisputable claim to be considered neat,

pretty, and genteel.

The variety of incidents above alluded to was mainly owing to the nature

of the tenure, whereby the place had been occupied by families not quite

of the kind customary in such spots-people whose circumstances,

position, or antecedents were more or less of a critical happy-go-lucky

cast. And of these residents the family whose term comprised the story I

wish to relate was that of Mr. Jacob Paddock the market-gardener, who

dwelt there for some years with his wife and grown-up daughter. I

An evident commotion was agitating the premises, which jerked busy

sounds across the front plot, resembling those of a disturbed hive. If a

member of the household appeared at the door it was with a countenance

of abstraction and concern.

Evening began to bend over the scene; and the other inhabitants of the

hamlet came out to draw water, their common well being in the public

road opposite the garden and house of the Paddocks. Having wound up

their bucketsfull respectively they lingered, and spoke significantly

together. From their words any casual listener might have gathered

information of what had occurred.

The woodman who lived nearest the site of the story told most of the

tale. Selina, the daughter of the Paddocks opposite, had been surprised

that afternoon by receiving a letter from her once intended husband,

then a corporal, but now a sergeant-major of dragoons, whom she had

hitherto supposed to be one of the slain in the Battle of the Alma two

or three years before.

'She picked up wi'en against her father's wish, as we know, and before

he got his stripes,' their informant continued. 'Not but that the man

was as hearty a feller as you'd meet this side o' London. But Jacob, you

see, wished her to do better, and one can understand it. However, she

was determined to stick to him at that time; and for what happened she

was not much to blame, so near as they were to matrimony when the war

broke out and spoiled all.'

'Even the very pig had been killed for the wedding,' said a woman, 'and

the barrel o' beer ordered in. O, the man meant honourable enough. But

to be off in two days to fight in a foreign country-'twas natural of her

father to say they should wait till he got back.'

'And he never came,' murmured one in the shade.

'The war ended but her man never turned up again. She was not sure he

was killed, but was too proud, or too timid, to go and hunt for him.'

'One reason why her father forgave her when he found out how matters

stood was, as he said plain at the time, that he liked the man, and

could see that he meant to act straight. So the old folks made the best

of what they couldn't mend, and kept her there with 'em, when some

wouldn't. Time has proved seemingly that he did mean to act straight,

now that he has writ to her that he's coming. She'd have stuck to him

all through the time, 'tis my belief; if t'other hadn't come along.'

'At the time of the courtship,' resumed the woodman, 'the regiment was

quartered in Casterbridge Barracks, and he and she got acquainted by his

calling to buy a penn'orth of rathe-ripes off that tree yonder in her

father's orchard-though 'twas said he seed her over hedge as well as the

apples. He declared 'twas a kind of apple he much fancied; and he called

for a penn'orth every day till the tree was cleared. It ended in his

calling for her.'

''Twas a thousand pities they didn't jine up at once and ha' done wi'

it.

'Well; better late than never, if so be he'll have her now. But, Lord,

she'd that faith in 'en that she'd no more belief that he was alive,

when a' didn't come, than that the undermost man in our churchyard was

alive. She'd never have thought of another but for that-O no!'

''Tis awkward, altogether, for her now.'

'Still she hadn't married wi' the new man. Though to be sure she would

have committed it next week, even the licence being got, they say, for

she'd have no banns this time, the first being so unfortunate.'

'Perhaps the sergeant-major will think he's released, and go as he

came.'

'O, not as I reckon. Soldiers bain't particular, and she's a tidy piece

o' furniture still. What will happen is that she'll have her soldier,

and break off with the master-wheelwright, licence or no-daze me if she

won't.'

In the progress of these desultory conjectures the form of another

neighbour arose in the gloom. She nodded to the people at the well, who

replied 'G'd night, Mrs. Stone,' as she passed through Mr. Paddock's

gate towards his door. She was an intimate friend of the latter's

household, and the group followed her with their eyes up the path and

past the windows, which were now lighted up by candles inside. II