‘I fear your pleasure will not be consulted on that point, my

daughter,’ said he, with a strange half-smile, half-pity, half-deep

amusement. ‘Ah! Adrienne, when men have lived--or existed--as I have

done, and for so long, they are not sorry when the machinery comes to a

stop, and they know no more.’

Much moved and much distressed, she listened to him until he sent her

away, telling her to sleep undisturbedly, for he would yet live to talk

with her, and convince her that it was for the best.

But he was wrong. When morning dawned, Richard Blisset was at rest, and

free from the mantle of pain and weakness which he had worn so long.

CHAPTER VI.

‘TO THE DREGS.’

The merry month of May, in the year of grace 1862, and in that part

of her Majesty’s dominions known as the County Palatine of Lancaster,

wore a face even less smiling and colder than usual. Despite the

gaudy sunshine, despite the unusual chances offered to external

nature, of showing herself to the best advantage through the absence

of smoke--despite this, all was sad, penitential, silent. One missed

the burst of talk and laughter, the chaffing and shouting in the

streets when the mills were loosed. One missed the tramp, tramp, of the

thousands of clogs over the flags at the appointed times.

Trade had collapsed. King Cotton was discrowned; his subjects had

become a nation of paupers; some of whom were begging their bread,

all of whom were living chiefly on help from outside. There was a

vast organisation kept up, chiefly by unpaid, voluntary toil, for

discovering distress, and distributing relief. Thanshope had now added

herself to the list of towns which had instituted Relief Committees,

and Sebastian’s schools had been merged into the larger ones belonging

to the public body. They had served as a sort of model or introduction,

and the others were founded upon the same plan. He himself was one of

the most powerful and active members of the committee, while Adrienne

and Helena, from their previous experience, were in reality the head

and front of the ladies’ committee, though duly subordinated in outward

order to Mrs. Ponsonby, and one or two other dames of place and

importance.

But while the great complicated machine was working with such

regularity and smoothness, so that it and its movements were praised

by all who beheld them, what were those doing on whose behalf all this

mechanism had been set a-going? What was happening in the thousands of

homes whose most cherished hopes and traditions had to be given up and

forsaken in this terrible emergency? In the one home in which we are

interested it was going hardly enough.

It was in the very beginning of the month, a bright, glaring, sunny

May morning, to look upon, with a dry pitiless east wind blowing

round the corners and sweeping down the shady side of the streets.

It was the middle of the forenoon, and the Heywoods’ kitchen did

not get the morning sun. There was no fire. Mary and her next-door

neighbour, Mrs. Mitchell, took turns at having a fire, for the cooking

of both households now was less extensive than it once had been, and

each alternately undertook the responsibility of the other’s baking

and boiling. This was the day on which Mrs. Mitchell had the fire;

consequently Mary’s kitchen was all the colder from its bareness and

its spotless neatness. She was sitting in the window, sewing. Myles

was at the centre table with some books from the library before him,

ostensibly reading--really gazing blankly at the page, and looking, as

it is not good that a young man, or any man, should look--looking as

men only do look when their affairs are in a very bad way.

His sister stole occasional side-glances at his face, and her heart

wept, if her eyes did not. She and Edmund had been living all this time

upon the weekly sum allowed by Sebastian Mallory to such of his hands

as chose to accept it. They had been aided by Myles from his own store,

in order that Edmund might have the things he required; and that store,

Mary knew now, was at an end, had come to an end some days ago. She did

not quite know how Myles had lived during those few dreadful days. He

had accepted nothing from her, because what she offered had been bought

with Sebastian Mallory’s money. He had smiled when she had implored him

to take something and repay her when times mended, if he would not have

it as a gift; smiled in a way that had not encouraged her to repeat

the offer. He had made no complaints, had been very quiet, but those

days had been the most wretched Mary had ever spent in her life. She

knew what her brother had been trying to hold out for, but the hope

continued to be deferred; and even if it must now be soon fulfilled,

she feared the relief would come too late to save him from what he and

she both considered the supreme and ultimate disgrace and shame, of

having to apply for relief. Some fortnight ago, the Relief Committee

had advertised for two clerks, to relieve their honorary secretaries

of the burden of accounts and correspondence, which had grown greater

than they could bear. Candidates of the artisan class were invited

to apply, and it was intimated that, if competent, they would be

preferred rather than others, on the principle of helping them to

help themselves. Myles Heywood had been one of the applicants, and the

decision would not be known for two days yet. The day before, Mary had

met Mr. Mallory, and had hurriedly implored him to use his influence,

if he had any, to get her brother in; but never, never to say she had

asked him, or she did not know what would happen if Myles ever knew

of it. He had promised; but there still remained a dreadful blank two

days, and then, even with Sebastian’s efforts, the answer might be that

Myles was rejected.

Thus she sat this morning, with a sick heart, furtively watching her

brother in an anguish of pity. Would it really come to the worst?

Would he actually have to turn his steps--her brother, of whom she was

so proud--towards those dreadful doors above which glared, in white

letters a foot long, ‘Relief Committee’s Offices’? those doors which,

she thanked her God every night, she had not yet been obliged to enter?

He had had no breakfast, she knew; she did not know when he had last

eaten, or of what the meal had consisted. His face was terribly wasted;

so was the muscular, long-fingered hand which lay before him on the

table. There was lassitude in his attitude, a drawn look about his lips

and his eyes; his eyes haunted her, and made her very heart bleed when

she encountered them. What would he do? At eleven the committee began

their sitting, and it was ten minutes to eleven now, and the offices

were some distance away. If he were going it was time he----

She started violently as he, at this moment, pushed his books away from

him with a slow, resolute sweep of his hand, and rose. What a terrible

change had taken place in the whole figure and deportment of the man!

Myles took his cap from the nail on which it hung, and turned to her.

‘I’m going out, Molly,’ said he.

‘Yes,’ she answered; and something in the muffled toneless accent of

her voice made him look at her. She was gazing intently at him, with

a fixed, almost staring look--a glance of blank pain and suffering,

passive, yet terrible.

‘Mary,’ said he, pausing, ‘you know what it is. It must be. You think

it is the worst; but I tell you it is not so. It is not so bad as what

you would have me do.’

With that he left the room and the house.

He had a pretty long walk, up and down hill. He felt inexpressibly

tired--and worse than tired: his stomach was empty: he had a sick,

gnawing sense of hunger--absolute, grinding hunger, such as he had read

of others--destitute people--feeling; but such as he had never before

felt, till now that he was destitute himself. His head felt weak and

dizzy; his mind dull and stupid--he found he could only walk slowly, as

he took first this turning and then that, and presently arrived at his

destination--the one place in Thanshope where, in these hard times, a

flourishing business was being carried on.

About the door was a crowd of people--men and women; young and old. The

expressions upon the different faces varied from callousness, through

every variety of unwillingness, pain, and shame, up to a careless

hardihood that felt no disgrace, and was only wishful to make the most

of the opportunity.

Into this crowd stepped the tall figure of the young workman; his

face white, half with exhaustion, half with emotion; his lips set,

his deep-set eyes glooming beneath the pain-drawn brows. He looked

neither to right nor left of him, but leaning against the wall, plunged

his hands into his pockets and waited. There was a kind of network

of railings before the door, through which the people had to pass in

single file, to prevent their all crowding in together, and Myles, like

the rest, had to wait his turn.

Most men have to go through one or two _mauvais quarts d’heure_ in the

course of their lives, but few can have surpassed in bitterness the

minutes which Myles Heywood spent, waiting his turn, before the door

of the committee-room. Some one recognised him, spoke to him, and said

she had never expected to see him there. He answered mechanically and

composedly, but felt his face suddenly grow fierily hot; and then a

little push from behind warned him to move on, and he obeyed it.

He entered the large room in company with several other people, and

there were more than a dozen gentlemen seated round the table in the

middle of the room. But from the moment in which he entered and saw a

face raised, a pair of eyes fixed in pitying astonishment upon him, he

felt as if he were alone with one man, and that man Sebastian Mallory.

Strange to say, he had never remembered, had scarcely been conscious of

the fact, that Mallory was one of the most important members of this

very committee. He knew it now--realised it with heart and brain and

consciousness, as the face of his rival

‘Flashed like a cymbal on his face,’

and for a moment the sense of degradation, of humiliation, burned and

scorched him, and he felt almost mad.

Almost--but no; reason was still the stronger. The remembrance of his

own utter destitution, the distinct, imperative call of sickness and

hunger, the clear knowledge that there was no alternative, prevailed.

He did not turn round and walk away. He remained, but how he dragged

his feet towards the desk of the man who was asking questions, he

knew not. How he answered those questions remained also a mystery to

him. The gentlemen heard him, noted his address, and said he would

see that the case was inquired into. Myles felt no resentment at the

idea of his statements being thought to require investigation: whether

because his pride had been once for all laid low, or whether from sheer

weakness and dulness of sense, he did not know. He was turning away

and wondering when the inquiries would be made, and how much longer he

would be able to hold out, when Sebastian Mallory, for the first time

removing his attention from the writing in which he had apparently been

engrossed, said composedly,

‘There is no need to trouble the visitor to inquire into that case,

Mr. Whitaker. I can vouch for the truth of every word of it. I should

recommend you to write a ticket and pay the sum required at once.’

Then he turned to his writing again. Mr. Whitaker said, ‘Ah, that is

all right, then,’ and immediately took a ticket and began to write.

Myles felt as if everything was reeling around him, and himself

with the rest. He caught at the top of a chair by the table and

steadied himself, feeling as if he were some one else, some strange,

alien, degraded being--one of the beggars of whom he used to read in

advanced periodicals, that they ought not to be relieved by private,

miscellaneous almsgiving; but should all be ticketed and classified,

and strictly watched and overlooked. It was as the bitterness of death,

and must be borne unmoved, standing composedly and decently.

All the time he still supported himself by the back of the chair,

unable, from very weakness and dizziness, to move. The gentleman

who sat in it rose, and looked at him from a pair of keen, stern,

steel-gray eyes.

‘You look ill, young man,’ said he. ‘Come with me, and I will show you

where to get the money.’

He took the ticket in his hand, and, taking Myles’s arm, led him away

through a side-door, into a small sort of anteroom. Here he bade Myles

sit down, and he took from a cupboard some wine--red wine, which he

poured into a glass and gave to Myles with a piece of bread.

‘Take that,’ said he, ‘and drink the wine, or you will be ill before

you get home. You have fasted long. You should have come sooner. How

long is it since you had any food?’

‘About thirty-six hours, I think,’ said Myles, looking at him as

he took the glass in his hand. It was Canon Ponsonby, ‘the radical

parson,’ the man who ought to have been a prime minister, but who, as

Rector of Thanshope, earned more love than falls to the lot of most

prime ministers, charm they never so wisely.

His stern face softened as he looked upon the figure before him.

‘You have a right spirit,’ said he. ‘I know your name, and who you are.

Your sister attends the parish church. You----’

‘Attend no church at all. I’m a free thinker.’

‘Are you? I don’t think you will ever solve your riddle by

free-thinking. But shake hands. I wish you were one of my flock.’

‘If anything could make me one of a flock, it would be that you are the

shepherd, sir,’ said Myles, finishing his bread and wine, and feeling a

warmed life in his veins and at his heart.

‘See!’ said Canon Ponsonby, ‘here is the weekly allowance to which

your ticket entitles you. Do not trouble to call at the office. Good

morning.’ He took the young man’s hand. ‘I have long known of you. I am

glad to have seen you. God have you in His keeping!’

Strangely moved and grateful, Myles silently clasped the noble old

man’s hand. He could not speak. Canon Ponsonby showed him out by a

side-door, so that he avoided that dreadful crowd round the entrance.

He was in the street again, with the white ticket, and some money in

his hand. After what Canon Ponsonby had said to him, he had ceased to

feel that dreadful agony of shame, but he felt utterly crushed, and

reduced to the most perfect insignificance.

Dreamily pursuing his homeward way, he turned over the money in his

hand, and remembered that he must buy some food with it! Food! for

himself? When he had gone through that age of anguish, as it had seemed

to him, he should take the coins which had been so hardly earned, and

buy bread with them, and eat them? It struck him as being absurd--as if

one had used a steam-hammer to crush a midge withal.

Nevertheless, he went into a shop, and bought some bread and cheese,

and was carrying it home, still with the same sense of incongruity

between the means and the end. But, as he passed a doorstep, at the end

of a street, he beheld a little girl sitting on it, and crying bitterly.

‘Little one, what’s the matter?’ he asked, stopping, and looking down

at her.

‘I’m--so--hungry!’ said the child, with a sob between each word, as she

looked piteously up into his face, and held a thin little pinafore,

soaked with tears, in two small, tremulous hands.

‘So hungry!’ he said, stooping over her, with the sense that perhaps,

after all, he had not gone through the furnace to find nothing at the

other side. ‘Hast had no breakfast?’

‘Nay, none at o’.’

‘How’s that?’

Here a thin, clean-looking, poorly clad woman, with a baby in her arms,

came to the door.

‘Come in, Sarah Emily,’ said she. ‘For shame o’ thisel, to sit bawlin’

on th’ dur-step. Thi’ feyther’s gone to see about summat to ayt. Coom

in, and hold thi’ din.’

‘I’m--so--hungry!’ was the only answer.

‘Ne’er heed her, lad!’ said the woman to Myles. ‘My measter’s going to

th’ committee to-day. We’ve had to come to that, and we’ll likely get

summat to ayt afore neet.’

‘Nay, but it’s very hard for such a bit of a lass to wait so long,’

said Myles. ‘If you’ll trust her to me, I’ll give her some breakfast.

I’m just going to get my own.’

‘Eh, thank you, you’re very kind,’ said the woman, her voice suddenly

breaking, as she looked at him, and then turned aside again.

‘Come, my lass!’ said Myles gently, and he took the open-mouthed Sarah

Emily in his arms, and carried her to his home.

In the kitchen, he seated her in Mary’s rocking-chair, explaining

briefly to his sister that the child was clemming, and must be fed, and

then he cut her some bread and cheese, and watched her with an intense

and altogether unaccountable interest while she ate it. He felt almost

light-hearted. If he had not, so to speak, walked up to the cannon’s

mouth this morning, little Sarah Emily might have been sickening with

hunger until eventide.

‘Good! good!’ she cried, when she had eaten as much as she could.

And she laughed at him, while he slowly ate something himself.

‘Look here!’ he suggested; ‘do you think you could find your way from

your home to this another day?’

‘Eh, ay! It’s none so far,’ said Sarah Emily.

‘Then, if you come every morning--every morning, mind--I’ll give you

something to eat always, eh?’ he suggested.

‘But I can ayt such a lot, when I’m hungry,’ said Sarah Emily

bashfully, putting her forefinger into her mouth.

‘Never mind! There’ll always be something. Wilt come?’

‘Eh, I will so!’ said the child, clapping her hands, jumping upon his

knee, and kissing him.

Thus was the bargain struck.

There is this day, in Thanshope, a dark-eyed young woman, of some

twenty-four years, who has a husband, and some young children. When the

little ones clamour for breakfast or dinner, she is in the habit of

reproving them, by telling them that they don’t know what real hunger

is; and, as an instance in point, she is given to relating the story

how she sat on the doorstep one day in the ‘panic’ crying with hunger,

and how the tall, pale-faced young man with the kind eyes picked her

up, and carried her home, and gave her food; and how either he or his

sister welcomed their hungry little visitor daily for----

‘How long, mother?’

‘Three months, child; every day--eh, they were kind; they were so.’

‘Is he alive now, mother?’

‘Ay, for sure he is, and----’

But the dark-eyed young woman always makes rather a long story of it,

and freely intersperses remarks and comments, which, though doubtless

interesting to her family, might not be considered of value by the

public in general.

Two days later, the postman brought Myles a summons to attend at the

Central Offices of the Relief Committee that day, as he was one of the

successful candidates for the clerkship, and the announcement that his

salary would be twenty shillings a week.

Thus the worst, materially, was tided over; but the bitterness of the

cup he had drunk that terrible morning did not lightly pass away.

CHAPTER VII.

A PAUSE.

When Myles began his work at the Committee Office, one conspicuous

member of the Ladies’ Committee was temporarily absent. Adrienne

Blisset was then occupied in learning the condition of her own affairs,

and found herself soon in a totally different position from any she had

ever expected to fill--very rich, as it seemed to her, and a person

of great importance; and, what was strangest of all, with Sebastian

Mallory coming and going and fulfilling his duties as executor, and

explaining everything to her. She repeatedly told him that she could

not believe it; it was impossible--there must be a mistake. All that

money hers to do as she liked with, and she had not earned it, nor

worked for it!

‘What an idea you have of working for everything you get!’ he exclaimed

suddenly one day. ‘Do you carry it so far as to demand a service from

every one to whom you accord a sign of favour?’

‘Really I don’t know what you mean,’ replied she. ‘I only know that I

have got, you tell me, between six and seven hundred a year, and I have

done nothing to deserve it.’

‘No. I suppose you have to deserve it now, by using it properly,’ said

he sedately.

That was in fact the amount of Adrienne’s means, and it was natural

that it should appear to her as wealth unbounded. She had also

Stonegate on a lease, which had yet somewhat over two years to run. And

when she had learnt all this, and that she really was the mistress of

such means, with the only drawback that there was no one to share them

with, no one to consult with--herself alone, and her own pleasure and

convenience to study; when she had grasped these facts, and had begun

to feel rather sad and lonely, she returned to her work one morning

in a black dress, looking rather thinner and paler than she had done

before. The people with whom she had become acquainted in her work, and

who had heard the reason of her absence, came round her, and, though

not openly, congratulated her, hoped she would now take a recognised

place amongst them, asked if they might call, and so on. And as she

somewhat vaguely and sadly answered these efforts at friendship, she

looked up, and saw some one pass the window. It was Myles Heywood going

to his work.

Adrienne’s name had become well known in Thanshope during the last

three months. It was but a provincial town, and every one seemed

thoroughly acquainted with every one else’s affairs. Mrs. Mallory had

been much annoyed at finding Sebastian ‘mixed up,’ as she called it,

with Mr. Blisset’s affairs, and above all, with those of Miss Blisset.

She had had to explain it as well as she could to certain friends who

had asked her who this Miss Blisset was, and what it all meant.

Sebastian, she said, was so very good-natured; she feared he would be

imposed on some time. Did she know Miss Blisset? Certainly she did, in

a way; but as for being a friend of hers, certainly not! Sebastian had

consented to act as Mr. Blisset’s executor out of pure goodwill and

kindness, because the man was so much to be pitied, and seemed to have

absolutely no friends. That was all.

But despite all Mrs. Mallory’s efforts, it got known that her son

and the young lady, who had lately come into a fortune, and who was

reported to be both charming and accomplished, were very great friends.

Helena Spenceley took rather a malicious pleasure in upholding this

theory in Mrs. Mallory’s very presence, so that that lady would have

boxed her ears with pleasure, if one could box the ears of a person who

would have one hundred thousand pounds some day.

Thus Miss Blisset and Mr. Mallory were already talked about in a

certain set, and Adrienne’s duties had made her name and herself

familiar to another and a less distinguished public--to the

working-people of Thanshope. She had been a notability amongst them

before her sudden accession to wealth and friends; she was doubly well

known to them now. She was busy and preoccupied, thought Myles, as he

sat at his desk in the second office, and saw her almost daily pass the

windows on her way to the Ladies’ Committee-room. She was a lady of

property, sought after and busy, and he was a clerk on a high stool, to

whom she scarce spoke a word from one week’s end to the other.

Those years of distress brought about some strange acquaintances, and

led to some unusual events. Though everything appeared on the outside

to work so smoothly, there were active emotions stirring amongst the

members of that Thanshope Relief Committee--emotions, quite unconnected

with the wants of those for whose benefit they had assembled

themselves. The circumstances were exceptional, and it was only under

exceptional circumstances that those particular people could have not

only met, but continued almost daily to meet and come in contact with

one another. Gradually circumstances drew them together--gradually as

they met, the half-forgotten, smouldering feelings of love and hate,

contempt and pity, sprang into life and activity again, and emotion

stepped to the front, and all these things acted and reacted one upon

the other, till every story was modified, every life received a bend

this way or that, a change in the even tenor of its way.

CHAPTER VIII.

A MEETING.

Mr. Spenceley, the millionaire, the richest man in Thanshope, the man

of boundless wealth and boundless callousness, was amongst those cotton

lords who, to their lasting shame and disgrace, were determined at

this crisis not to come forward and give of their abundance, but who

preferred to hang back until the popular voice left them no option, and

the universal indignation absolutely thrust them to the front.

For a long time Mr. Spenceley had contented himself with abusing the

sorely tried work-people, demanding to know why they did not all

emigrate, and vowing that he would not waste his money upon them. He

amused himself by everywhere calling Sebastian Mallory, behind his

back, a fool and a madman, a spendthrift, a pernicious leveller, and so

on: and by behaving to him before his face with the utmost courtesy and

politeness, excusing conduct which might savour of double dealing by

saying that such fools could never be made to see that they were fools,

and that it was best to take them as you found them, and let them go

their own way.

When the Public Relief Committee was established, and one and all, rich

and poor, young and old, contributed something either in money, or

kind, or assistance, or all, the chief inhabitant of Thanshope could

no longer hold back. He allowed his name to appear as a member of the

committee, sent a subscription of a hundred pounds, and deputed his son

to act as his proxy at councils, committee meetings, and so on. Despite

the bad times, he himself was so much engaged with business, that he

had no time to attend to such things.

Accordingly, Fred Spenceley periodically shed the light of his

countenance upon the council board and those surrounding it. He

continued to come, despite a terrible rebuff he received on the

occasion of his first appearance upon the scene.

It was that rebuff, and one or two incidents connected with it, which

filled him with rage and bitterness; so that if he had been an Irish

reaper, or an Oldham weaver, he would have proceeded to drink himself

blind, and then gone home and maltreated his wife, or any other

feminine creature within the range of his arm. Being in a different

station from that occupied by reapers and weavers, and thinly veneered

over into a poor, tinselly, outward semblance of a gentleman, he only

raged frantically within himself, and cast about to find an instrument

to execute a moral revenge, which, he had sense enough in his dull

brutal brain to know, would far more torture the objects of it than all

the corporal punishment in the world.

He arrived one afternoon, thinking the whole business a great piece of

‘tomfoolery.’ The Relief Committee’s offices consisted of three rooms,

opening one out of the other. The first was the Ladies’ Committee-room,

a large, spacious place, where the ladies could meet, decide upon their

proceedings, and hear the accounts of their wants and troubles brought

to them by mothers, wives, and daughters from all parts of the town.

Passing through this room, a second and smaller one was reached, in

which sat the two clerks, Myles Heywood, and a lad who was under him.

Through this second apartment, ingress was obtained to the Gentlemen’s

Committee-room, where the council assembled, three times a week as a

rule, and oftener if necessary.

Coming to attend his first committee meeting, Fred Spenceley entered

the first of these rooms, and, glancing round, beheld different groups

scattered in different parts of the room. No one took any notice of

him; they were all much too busy; but as he looked round, he perceived,

in one of the windows apart from the rest, three persons: Sebastian

Mallory, whom he had hated since first he saw his face, as only a

true ‘cad’ can hate a true gentleman; and two ladies--one in black,

whose back was turned towards him, the other his sister Helena, erect,

animated, with her dark eyes flashing and her silks in some agitation.

He walked up to the group, and touched Helena on the shoulder,

inquiring graciously,

‘Well, little one, what’s the matter now?’

‘Fred! How you startled me! Have you come to the meeting?’

‘Yes, I have. Much good it will do me or any one else, my being here.

But the governor was----’

‘Oh yes! I know. But stop! You know Mr. Mallory. Miss Blisset, let

me----’

Adrienne interrupted her. She was standing, pale, haughty, and erect,

with eyes full of cold contempt; and she interposed, in a cool, decided

voice,

‘Pardon me, Miss Spenceley, I do not wish for any introduction. I must

decline to make that--gentleman’s acquaintance.’

With which she turned away, in perfect outward composure, and, seating

herself at a desk, calmly looked out of the window, leaving Sebastian

surprised, and yet not surprised, Fred furious, and Helena overwhelmed

with confusion; for she knew her brother, and felt sure that he must

have distinguished himself in some far from desirable manner towards

Miss Blisset, to cause that gentle lady openly to manifest discourtesy.

Helena’s humiliation was increased as she realised, with lightning-like

rapidity, that Adrienne must have some excellent reason for repeatedly

refusing to visit her at Castle Hill. Crimson, she stood where she

had received the rebuff, and knew not what to do. It was Sebastian

who, after the unavoidable momentary pause, and when Mr. Spenceley had

turned upon his heel, said just as if nothing had happened,

‘I shall lay the matter before the Board to-day, Miss Spenceley, and I

am sure it will be attended to immediately.’

Helena met his eyes as she looked up at him, and the burning blush of

mortification glowed more deeply than before.

‘You are very kind,’ said she, in a low, choked voice; ‘but you cannot

do away with the fact that I have to blush for my nearest relations.’

With that, she too turned away, as if not knowing where to go to; and

Sebastian decided that the best thing he could do would be to follow

Mr. Spenceley to the council-room.

For Mr. Spenceley, muttering an anathema, had directed his steps away

from such dangerous ground, and with raging hatred in his heart,

entered the second of the three rooms. In that moment he would gladly

have strangled some one, or kicked his dog, or flogged his horse, or

sworn at his mother; and if he had had a wife, he would have caused her

to spend a joyful evening on his return home.

As it was, he found himself in a small room, in the window of which

stood a long desk, at which desk sat two men busily writing. One of

them rose, as he entered, to fetch a ledger from a shelf at the other

side of the room. Spenceley’s rage gave way to a momentary start of

surprise; then the blood came surging to his face and ears, as he

found that he was confronting that insolent, unknown operative who had

disgraced and branded him, and degraded and punished him, ten months

ago in the club billiard-room.

Like a lurid dream it all started up again in his brain. There the man

stood--he tingled from head to foot as he beheld him--with face pinched

and worn, but with that same broad, unstained brow, the same scornful

grey eyes, the same muscular fingers--he seemed to feel them at his

collar again--and he could not grind him to powder, as he would like

to do, nor put him to any kind of horrible torture, such as he would

have deemed desirable for him. Myles’s eyes fell upon him, and a sudden

gleam of scornful contemptuous amusement shot into them; his head flung

itself backwards--his lips curved into a kind of smile, but otherwise

he did not deign to notice Mr. Spenceley.

Into the heart of the latter the old devils of revengeful desire and

frantic hatred came leaping back. Why had he been so quiet? Why had

he suffered himself to be laughed at and diverted from his original

purpose of punishment? Why had he sat down patiently all this time with

that--a black cloud of fury overshadowed his mind. His thoughts were

scarcely coherent. But it was incredible. The fellow should and must

be made to pay dearly for his insolence. He had sworn it once, and he

would carry it out now. With wrath and rage contending madly in his

stupid, brutal soul, he went on into the committee-room, where he was

immediately followed by Sebastian Mallory, and business commenced.

Fred Spenceley was too much occupied with his own private fury, with

thinking, with a sort of hatred and love combined, of the sweet,

contemptuous face of Adrienne Blisset, which he could not banish from

his mind--of these and of other things, to take any particular notice

of the man called James Hoyle, who was summoned to read a report to the

Board that afternoon.

He had been intrusted with the task of visiting certain courts in a

low part of the town, whither, it was said, a number of the factory

hands had been obliged to retire, in consequence of being unable any

longer to pay the rent of more respectable houses. Mr. Hoyle had

offered himself to the Board as peculiarly suited for the work, being

himself a minister of the gospel, and used to strange scenes and low

neighbourhoods.

‘He speaks the truth there, at all events,’ Sebastian Mallory had

remarked _sotto voce_ to Canon Ponsonby, ‘but the Father of Lies has

had some share in his parentage, all the same, sir--don’t you think so?’

‘Or else he has selected him as his peculiar adversary, and left the

traces of his attempts to corrupt him,’ replied Canon Ponsonby, fixing

his piercing eyes upon Mr. Hoyle.

But as Mr. Hoyle really did seem well fitted and anxious for the work,

he was allowed to undertake it.

His report was considered clear and succinct. He was told that he had

done well; a further commission of the same kind was given him, and he

was told to present himself again as soon as possible with the required

information.

Expressing himself humbly gratified at having been of any service

in such a cause, Mr. Hoyle bowed to the assembled Board, carefully

avoiding two pairs of eyes--a pair of lazy brown ones and a pair of

piercing grey ones, and, with a long sidelong look at the sullen,

averted countenance of Frederick Spenceley, took his departure.

A fortnight passed. The middle of May had come and gone. Every day

the distress grew more tremendous--the efforts needed to meet it more

strenuous and unceasing. The whole time and the whole energies of those

who had begun the work were gradually absorbed into it. Still the cruel

war raged on across the Atlantic, and Mid-summer and Famine advanced

hand in hand, with long, devouring strides.

CHAPTER IX.

‘FOR A PRICE.’

A committee meeting had been called for a certain Tuesday afternoon. An

appeal for help had been sent out to all the persons of any position

in the neighbourhood. Canon Ponsonby’s name headed the list with a

donation of fifty pounds, which was more to him than fifty hundred

would have been to Mr. Spenceley. Some half-dozen large manufacturing

firms followed with sums varying from one to five hundred pounds. ‘S.

M., five hundred pounds.’ ‘Mrs. Mallory, five pounds.’ Mrs. Mallory had

so many calls upon her charity just then, she said, she really could

not afford more, or the yearly sum she set apart for such purposes

would be exceeded.

‘The yearly distress to be relieved is also considerably exceeded,’

murmured her son, as he took possession of the contribution. ‘H. v. B.,

five pounds.’

‘Our money!’ as Mrs. Mallory indignantly observed to herself, and

tossed her head angrily.

‘H. S., ten pounds.’ This stood for Helena Spenceley, who delivered the

money over to Sebastian with a kind of chuckle. ‘You would never guess

how I got it,’ said she, with a broad smile of triumph and satisfaction.

‘Begged, borrowed, or stolen?’ he asked, smiling too.

‘Neither one nor the other. Nor yet was it a free gift, nor yet did I

find it at the back of a drawer, having quite forgotten that I had put

it there, as I once before did with a five-pound note. Oh, you will

never know how I got it.’ And she laughed.

But Sebastian learnt from Adrienne how she had come by the money.

‘Her father would not give her a penny,’ said she, ‘because he had made

up his mind with his narrow income to sacrifice twenty-five pounds,

which he was sadly in need of himself, so what do you think she did?’

‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.’

‘She sold a lot of her dresses and things. I expect the poor girl has

been awfully cheated,’ Adrienne added, a touch of real feminine feeling

and regret in her tone. ‘She said she had left herself only half a

dozen--and fancy getting no more than ten pounds for the rest of her

wardrobe--it is awful to think of. But the money was there, she said,

and she could not resist it. She is as pleased as if it had been a

hundred.’

‘Like somebody else’s,’ suggested Sebastian.

‘Somebody else’s?’

He pointed to the written subscription list which they had been looking

over. ‘Life let us Cherish, £100,’ stood inscribed on the page.

‘Do you think I don’t know what hand traced that?’

‘But you won’t tell, please!’ said Adrienne.

‘Ah, you have confessed. No; I will not tell, unless I think it would

be for your good.’

‘Nonsense! But was it not nice and generous in that girl?’ persisted

Adrienne, who always would talk to Sebastian, much more than he liked,

about Helena.

‘Yes; it was. But she has a generous disposition,’ he admitted, still

looking affectionately at his favourite inscription.

The celebrated twenty-five pounds spoken of by Adrienne--it is lucky

that money has not an organised nervous system, or it might suffer

keenly under the touch of some fingers!--was committed by Mr. Spenceley

the elder to Mr. Spenceley the younger, with the remark that he

wondered how much longer people who had honestly earned their money

would be expected to pour it out like water ‘in that way;’ and the

request that he would deliver it into the hands of Sebastian Mallory,

the treasurer.

Mr. Frederick Spenceley, who did not appear to find business so

engrossing as his father, strolled down to the committee-rooms,

arriving on the scene of action some ten minutes or quarter of an

hour before any signs of action had begun to manifest themselves. The

well-known _mauvais quart d’heure_ may be evil in many ways, kinds, and

degrees of badness. Frederick Spenceley had no intention of spending

his fifteen minutes more aimlessly or mischievously than usual; but

his guardian demon had ordained that they should be consumed more

reprehensibly, perhaps, than all the rest of his existence put together.

There was no one in the first room, no one in the second room; in the

third room was a solitary figure standing in one of the windows--a

figure in black cloth clothes, with a bundle of documents under one

arm--the figure of Mr. James Hoyle.

There were two windows to the room. Mr. Spenceley, jingling the coin in

his pockets, strolled up to the other one, and stood at it, whistling

to himself, and looking out upon the prospect--what there was of it.

The two windows were on the same side of the room, and looked upon a

kind of open yard, separated from the street by a low wall. It was

a slanting street, like so many others in that up-and-down town,

Thanshope. Exactly opposite the window in which Spenceley stood was a

gate, through which any one coming to the committee-rooms must pass,

and, going under the windows (to the right) of the other two rooms, at

last arrive at the door opening into the Ladies’ Committee-room. There

was also a separate door, leading into the second room, or clerk’s

office, where Myles Heywood and his fellow-clerk sat.

Half absently, Spenceley began to collect the money together that

his father had given him, and to lay it out, two five-pound notes

and fifteen sovereigns, upon the window-ledge before him. He looked

at it pensively, and Mr. Hoyle’s little sharp eyes were fixed with a

sidelong gaze, full of interest, upon his face. Mr. Hoyle had surveyed

the prospect to more purpose than Mr. Spenceley, and was very anxious

that the latter should give over counting out his money, and return to

the apparently innocent pursuit of looking out of the window, which he

presently did.

He plunged his hands into his pockets, and gazed out again, swaying

to and fro from his toes to his heels, in the rhythmic manner common

to persons in his position. Presently the rhythmic movement ceased.

Mr. Spenceley’s attention became concentrated on outside objects, on

a figure some two hundred yards distant, approaching down the hill.

He looked at her as she came along, in her black dress, with her pale

face and her warmly tinted hair. He hated her for a thousand reasons,

and because she looked sad and lovely at once, because she was gentle

to others and to him an icicle; and most of all, because he had made

a great mistake about her in his gross, clumsy, blundering way, and

knew now, that if he had but known what she was he would never have

insulted her, but would have tried with all his might, though he was

not clever, to become good enough for her. But she had prevented that,

she had refused him the faintest chance of letting her know that he

repented, and by ----, he thought savagely, he did not repent. These

women were all alike; either worse than the devil himself, or too icily

cold and pure to glance aside at such as he. He watched and watched, as

if fascinated; watched how she came along, looking tired and pale, but

lovely; despite his hatred he felt, with all the finer feeling he had,

that she was lovely, and his head turned, his eyes followed her steps,

till she arrived at the gate, and then her face changed, and he gave

a great start, for, standing there, exactly as she came up, was Myles

Heywood, who had been coming (as the astute Mr. Hoyle had perceived) up

the hill from the opposite direction.

They met at the gate. Adrienne’s face, after a faint smile, seemed to

grow still paler and calmer. She held out her hand. Myles took off his

cap, and though he did not smile--unless a slight quiver about the

comers of his mouth could be called a smile--yet he took her hand, and

they spoke together for a moment at the gate. It was quite evident

that it was Adrienne, and not Myles, who made the pause and carried on

the conversation which took place before they both came on, past the

windows (which had the lower panes frosted, on purpose to baffle vulgar

curiosity), without seeing the two striking countenances that were

watching them.

Myles left Adrienne at the door of the second room, and she went on to

the ladies’ room.

Frederick Spenceley had entirely forgotten the presence of any one but

himself. He gave vent to his feelings in a low but distinctly audible--

‘D--n them!’

He suddenly felt a touch on his arm, and, turning round with his usual

disproportionate start, beheld Mr. Hoyle at his elbow, looking into his

face.

‘Oh! Confound you! What do you want, creeping up to a fellow in that

way?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir. I have been looking at that man Myles

Heywood....’

‘What, that’s the blackguard’s name, is it?’

‘Yes, sir. My step-son. A--_some_ young ladies choose strange friends,

sir; don’t you think so?’

Spenceley was about to ask roughly what business of his it was; but

something in the intent, glittering fixity of the man’s gaze held him

fast.

‘Perhaps they do,’ said he, slowly. ‘What then?’

‘Only this. That young man’s mother is now my wife. I ought to know

what sort of a character he is. I ought to know something about the

young lady, too. If the facts about both of them, the real facts, were

known, _she_ would be in a different position from what she has, and

he----’

Mr. Hoyle laughed.

‘He--what about him?’ asked Mr. Spenceley, almost breathlessly.

‘Well, I don’t think that young fool of a master of his----’

‘Who is his master?’

‘Mallory.’

‘Ah--h!’

‘He’s taken a fancy to him; he’s offered to help him. He did help him

to his present place. But it was in ignorance of the facts. If he knew

the facts, my young gentleman would not be in such a hurry to patronise

him. In fact--he’d be ruined.’

‘Facts--what facts?’

‘Ah!’ said Mr. Hoyle. ‘That’s just it. Properly to investigate and

establish those facts might be rather expensive.’

‘Oh! you are certain that if they were known they would have the

requisite effect?’

‘You mean----’

‘Of parting him and her--of punishing her?’

‘I tell you, he would leave the place, and she would cry her eyes out.

I know it.’

‘And about how expensive would that be?’ demanded Spenceley.

‘It would cost a hundred pounds, and I should want five-and-twenty to

go on with--the rest down when I tell you he has gone.’

Spenceley put his hand on the money.

‘This is five-and-twenty,’ he remarked. ‘I must give them a cheque for

it, instead of money down. But remember, if you’re cheating me----’

‘On my soul and honour, sir,’ said Hoyle, with almost vehement

earnestness, ‘you may trust me. It’s as much my cause as yours. And

meantime, if you should hear any reports to the disadvantage of a

certain lady, don’t deny them--I told you I knew some queer facts about

them both.’

Scarcely had the money been transferred to the keeping of Mr. Hoyle,

than the door was opened, and Canon Ponsonby, Sebastian Mallory,

and others, came in. Mr. Hoyle began to study his documents, and

Fred Spenceley to look out of the window again, his heart beating

unheroically fast, with a sense of peril of which he felt ashamed, and

an undercurrent of eager thirst for revenge, the stronger in that there

was now some prospect of its being gratified.

CHAPTER X.

‘Bear not false witness; let the lie

Have time on its own wings to fly.’

One fine morning, Mrs. Mallory, her son, and Hugo von Birkenau sat

at breakfast, and the young men maintained a decorous silence while

the lady held forth on what was at present her favourite topic, the

approaching ball at Castle Hill, in honour of Helena’s coming of age.

‘Helena will be the belle at her own ball,’ she observed. ‘I called the

other day, and Mrs. Spenceley showed me her dress. It had just come

from Paris. It is perfectly exquisite. Even you, Sebastian, will be

able to find no fault with that toilette.’

‘Black velvet, diamonds, and point lace?’ he suggested. ‘That would

be just like her, and then it is a costume on which you may spend an

indefinite amount of money.’

‘How ill-natured you are! It is a charming dress, and she will look

lovely in it. I hope you have secured one dance, at any rate, or you

will have no chance now.’

He confessed that he had not acted with sufficient spirit in that

respect; he had never even thought of asking for a dance.

‘Then I am sure she will be very much hurt. She let me see the other

day that she thought a great deal about your coming.’

‘If she did, she is not the girl I take her for,’ said he, looking

rather impatient. It was not Mrs. Mallory’s fault if her son remained

sceptical on the subject of Helena Spenceley’s _penchant_ for him.

She had long ago seen that it was useless for her to dangle Helena’s

hundred thousand pounds before his eyes; he would none of it, whereas

to Mrs. Mallory it was an ornament which grew more becoming and more

desirable the longer she looked at it. She had discovered, or thought

she had discovered, that Sebastian was very anxious not to hurt the

feelings of any one, by neglect or unkindness, ‘that is, of any one

but myself,’ as she plaintively told herself--and she thought that

if she pictured in colours strong enough the affection which she was

determined Helena had for him, this sensitiveness of his might lead to

the desired results--sooner or later.

‘Any other man,’ Mrs. Mallory said to herself, ‘would have fallen in

love with the girl for her beauty alone, if she had not had a penny;

but in that case, of course, he would have fallen in love with her.’

Then she tried to excite his self-esteem, and pique his _amour propre_,

by telling him that Helena was very difficult to please, and had

already had half a dozen more or less eligible offers, all of which she

had refused _sans façon_.

‘I can quite believe it,’ was the tranquil reply. ‘_Sans façon_ exactly

describes her manner and her character as well. She has no idea of any

medium. Wild enthusiasms and extravagant hatreds----’

(‘Like me,’ murmured Hugo to his plate.)

‘And I have no doubt she did refuse the “six braw gentlemen” you

mention, unceremoniously enough.’

Mrs. Mallory would have despaired, if she had not taken comfort in

the idea that Sebastian liked to conceal his feelings from her, which

argued that perhaps he cherished a secret passion for Helena, and would

do as he ought to do, if he were let alone.

Her fears as to the influence of Adrienne Blisset were fitful and

intermittent. Sometimes that adventuress did not particularly disturb

her mental peace, but at other moments a dread fear seized her lest the

game should be going in the very direction she least wished it to take;

lest the obstacle which interfered with her plans and wishes was not

Sebastian’s utter and unaccountable indifference to beauty, love, and

a hundred thousand pounds, but a misguided, infatuated inclination on

his part, for a daughter of Heth, with neither beauty (compared with

Helena) nor pretensions. When attacked by such thoughts, Mrs. Mallory

felt herself turn cold and numb with fear. The idea of Adrienne Blisset

promoted to her place was the most thoroughly unpleasant--not to say

altogether hideous--that had ever occurred to her.

On the morning in question, Sebastian, on being asked what his plans

were, said he should be in his office all morning, and at a committee

meeting in the afternoon. Would he be in to lunch at half-past one?

Yes, he fully expected so; and with that, he said good morning, and

went away.

The others went their several ways. Hugo retired to the drawing-room,

to a packet of new transcendental German music, and to the spinning out

certain music of his own. Mrs. Mallory, after an interview with her

housekeeper, ordered her carriage for half-past eleven, wrote letters

in the breakfast-room till that time, and then got ready and drove out

in the said carriage. The proverbial ‘spectator might have seen’ the

equipage go from one place to another in the town, and afterwards to

certain mansions in the vicinity of the same, where its mistress made

state calls. (It was the fashion in Thanshope to make state calls in

full dress between twelve and one.) It was quite half-past one when

Mrs. Mallory forsook the war-path, and returning home, came into the

dining-room. She sat down to lunch without removing her bonnet. She

was dressed in her favourite lavender and black, and so attired, with

a new and unusual expression of animation and amiability upon her high

fair features, she looked a very handsome, agreeable, though rather

thin-lipped English matron.

The gong sounded. First Hugo strolled in, and raised his dark eyes in

astonishment when the lady graciously and sweetly inquired,

‘May I give you some soup, Mr. von Birkenau?’

‘No, thank you,’ he replied, politely but tentatively.

‘How warm it is, is it not? So unlike the end of May. May is generally

such a bad month in England; don’t you think so?’

‘You should know best,’ said Hugo, bowing solemnly, and somewhat

nervous under this excessive amiability.

‘I wonder what Sebastian is doing,’ she remarked, still graciously. ‘He

really seems to have his hands quite full.’

At that moment he came in.

‘Sorry to be so late, but Sutcliffe kept me. Soup? No, thanks. I’ll

trouble you for some of that cold fowl, Hugo, please.’

‘And will you give me a little sherry, my dear?’ said his mother.

Sebastian, too, changed countenance at this tone, privately wondering

‘what next?’ but poured out the sherry with imperturbable gravity.

The meal proceeded in silence for some little time, until it occurred

to Sebastian to ask,

‘Where have you been all morning, mother?’

‘Driving,’ was the vague reply, and another pause ensued.

Sebastian poured out a glass of sherry, drank some of it, and then

thought he would trouble Hugo again; he was so awfully hungry. Hugo,

with a gravity amounting to gloom, wrenched the second wing from the

fowl before him, and placed it upon Sebastian’s plate.

Sebastian was watching the operation with the intense eagerness of a

mind quite at ease; and it was at this juncture that Mrs. Mallory said,

‘Sebastian, I am sorry to hear of a very strange thing in connection

with that girl--what is her name?--whose uncle’s affairs you somehow

got mixed up with.’

Hugo’s eyes gave a flash. That was what was coming.

‘Do you mean Miss Adrienne Blisset?’ asked Sebastian, in a distinct

voice.

‘Blisset--yes, Miss Blisset. She professes to take a great interest in

the relief affairs.’

‘So far as I know, the interest is real--at least if hard work is any

test of reality.’

‘She appears to choose very strange people as her intimate friends.’

‘Myself, _par exemple_?’ he suggested.

War was now declared. The blandness had disappeared from Mrs. Mallory’s

countenance. The excitement remained. Her son did not appear to her to

be excited, but Hugo, glancing at him, felt a little thrill as he saw

all the slight signs which he so well understood, and which told him

that his friend was moved, much moved, unpleasantly moved.

Mrs. Mallory, all unconscious how much Sebastian knew, and reckless of

the storm she was inviting to descend upon herself, continued,

‘I must say, I hope you are not amongst her intimate friends, unless

you wish to be placed on the level of low, immoral, atheistical

work-people; the very dregs of the lower orders.’

‘It is asserted that Miss Blisset selects her friends from the dregs of

the lower orders?’ he inquired, with ominous politeness.

‘The case does not rest on mere assertion. Her uncle professed peculiar

opinions, and she carries them to extremes, as is the way with those

women who have been brought up amongst men, and always led a vagabond

life.’

Sebastian smiled slightly as he carefully balanced a fork upon his

little finger.

‘_Après?_’ he inquired.

‘She made the acquaintance of a young man of whose character the less

is said the better--picked him up at some reading-room where she used

to go in an evening--an _evening_,’ said Mrs. Mallory, in an utterly

indescribable tone. ‘She encouraged him to visit her, and he did so

repeatedly; he is a socialist, an atheist, and altogether immoral. How

far the connection may have gone I cannot pretend to say, but this I

know, that Frederick Spenceley, who is not exactly strait-laced----’

‘No, certainly not.’

‘Frederick Spenceley declined to make her acquaintance, and took his

sister away, and declined to let her converse with her.’

‘You have this information from a reliable source?’

‘Perfectly reliable. I am not at liberty to say who told me, but I must

say the news exactly agrees with what my own judgment led me to expect.

I always said....’

‘Pardon! No matter what you have always said, or what other people say.

I can tell you the truth, not from any second-hand source, but from my

own personal knowledge of the circumstances. The young man of whom you

have heard such a delightful character was, though he no longer is, one

of my own work-people. He is perfectly respectable, and of unstained

character. If Frederick Spenceley were one hundredth part--if he could

ever become one hundredth part as much of a gentleman as Myles Heywood

naturally is, he might congratulate himself. He--Heywood, I mean--is a

friend of Miss Blisset’s, and the fact honours both him and her. I have

met him at her uncle’s house, and I have shaken hands with him in his

own house. He is a man whom I honour and respect very much. So much for

that part of your information. For the rest, that Frederick Spenceley

refused to make Miss Blisset’s acquaintance--my dear mother, I am

surprised that a woman with your knowledge of the world should believe

such a story. I happened to be present then, too. Miss Spenceley wished

to introduce her brother to Miss Blisset, and the latter declined

the acquaintance; I believe she had excellent reasons for doing so.

I pitied Miss Spenceley, from my soul, for she is as superior to her

blackguard of a brother as heaven is to earth. But--I trust you will

see the wisdom of making the best of Miss Blisset, and not the worst,

for I shall ask her to be my wife--to-day, if I get the chance, and if

not, on the very first opportunity.’

Mrs. Mallory had sat, during this prolonged harangue, drawing deep

breaths, but at the last announcement, made with an emphasis unusual to

Sebastian, it seemed suddenly to burst upon her, how entirely she had

overreached herself, and she rose from her chair very pale; and, but

that her pride forbade it, would have burst into tears of mortification.

‘There is no ingratitude like that of a child to a mother,’ said she,

in an icy voice. ‘You have done all you could to humiliate me and cross

my wishes ever since your return, and now you insult me by seeking out

the least----’

They were at the door. He had opened it for her, but as she looked up

in uttering those words, she paused, subdued by a certain expression in

his eyes and mouth.

‘Don’t speak too recklessly of that lady. It will do no good, and you

would repent it,’ he remarked.

She did not finish her sentence, but swept out of the room, and he

gently closed the door after her.

He stood in the middle of the room, biting his lip, till Hugo came up

to him and took his hand.

‘Dear Sebastian, I wish you success, though, _freilich_, I fancied you

would marry Miss Spenceley.’

‘Why, I wonder?’ asked Sebastian, impatiently. ‘I cannot imagine why

I am supposed to be destined for Miss Spenceley, or she for me. She

cannot endure me, and makes no secret of her dislike....

‘You could overcome that,’ suggested his counsellor audaciously.

‘Could I? She is perfectly charming, I don’t wish to deny, but I have

loved Adrienne Blisset for years, and I am not going to give her up

unless she refuses me.’

‘Fellows don’t always give up when they are refused,’ suggested Hugo

again.

‘Finish your lunch and hold your tongue. What I was going to say is,

that my mother is answerable for a great deal of mischief by persisting

in marrying me to Miss Spenceley.’

‘If there had been no such person as you, then there would have been no

mischief,’ said Hugo, apparently throwing in the observation between

two sips of claret, for he had obediently returned to the table.

‘What do you mean?’ asked his friend, stopping in his promenade between

the two windows.

‘I mean what I say.’

‘Why, do you mean that I have ever encouraged----’

‘Miss Spenceley? _I, bewahre!_ No. But----’

‘I shall do you some serious bodily injury if you don’t curb your

boundless impertinence. Do you mean that I ever encouraged my mother’s

scheme in any way?’

‘Can’t say. I’ve done. Adieu!’ said Hugo, going out of the room, and

singing in an insultingly loud voice--

‘Willst du dein Herz mir schenken,

So fang’ es heimlich an!’

CHAPTER XI.

‘Opportunity is always golden and beautiful. It is the use it is

sometimes put to that is--imperfect.’

Sebastian did not find any opportunity that afternoon for carrying out

his purpose. He was fully occupied; so was Adrienne, and he was forced

to see her, half an hour before he could leave himself, walk away alone

in the direction of Blake Street, without having been able to exchange

a word with her. This annoyed him, and made him feel nervous and

anxious. Three months ago he would, without any inordinate vanity, have

felt almost secure of being accepted if he proposed to Adrienne; now he

felt very far from sure of it. The unpleasant scene with Mrs. Mallory

left him determined to wait no longer, no more to ‘fear his fate too

much,’ but ‘to put it to the touch, and win or lose it all,’ that very

day, be it early or late.

Accordingly, he returned home after the meeting, dined alone before

the usual time, and, knowing that Adrienne was usually at home about

half-past seven, set off a little after seven.

His shortest way to Blake Street was to go past the town-hall, and

proceed through the pleasure-grounds on the hillside, through the park

at the top, and so across the Townfield into Blake Street.

This he did, and having ascended the hill, entered the park by one

of its gates, and found that it was almost deserted. There was a

nursemaid, and some children playing about the croquet lawn; there was

a man reclining upon a bench in a rocky recess--a man who seemed tired,

for he was almost crouched together; his face was completely hidden by

his arm and hand, which were stretched on the back of the bench. There

was also a woman’s figure advancing from the other end of the park, and

Sebastian’s heart gave a spring as he recognised Adrienne Blisset.

He walked up to her, and met her.

‘You here, Mr. Mallory, at this time? That is unusual, isn’t it?’

‘I am here because I was on my way to your house, hoping very much to

find you in. I am glad I have not missed you altogether.’

‘I am glad too. I was going to see Mary Heywood, and should most likely

have sat with her some time, for my conscience accuses me of having

neglected her. But shall we return to my house?’

‘Not on any account--that is, if you are not tired, and do not object

to walking about on this terrace for a short time.’

‘Not in the least. What a lovely evening it is! And how clear! Look

at those purple moors to the north. I have often longed to get to the

top of one of those moors. What do you think I should see at the other

side?’

‘Yorkshire--and more moors.’

‘Those are the moors on the other side of which Charlotte and Emily

Brontë lived,’ said Adrienne, her thoughts taking any direction but the

one Sebastian wished.

‘Yes, I believe so. Haworth and Keighley, and all about there. You

should go there some time. But don’t look at the prospect now. I want

to ask you something.’

‘Yes,’ said Adrienne, turning to him with a half-smile.

The smile died away. She found his eyes fixed upon hers with an

unmistakable meaning in their earnest gaze. Her own face flushed

deeply, as he gently took her hand and said,

‘I have tried in vain to take an opportunity--at last I have had to

make one. I must know something, certainly. I cannot wait any longer.

Adrienne, I love you dearly--I have loved you ever since I lost sight

of you on that unhappy morning after you left Wetzlar. I knew it then,

and my love has only grown stronger ever since. Can you return it? Will

you--some time--be my wife?’

He felt his happy confidence falling from him on all sides, as he

beheld her face, and stood there, cold, as if a warm mantle had dropped

from his shoulders.

‘You--I am very sorry,’ she stammered. ‘Oh, Mr. Mallory----’

‘Mr. Mallory!’ he echoed drearily. ‘Adrienne, I see what you are going

to say, but think again! I must have been a terrible, conceited fool

all this time; but will you not think again? Wait till to-morrow. Don’t

speak to-day. Let me explain.’

Adrienne’s face was full of pain as she said, tremulously but

decisively,

‘No. It would be wrong. I know what I feel, and must always feel, now.

I admire you very much; I respect you, oh, more than I can tell you. I

have a sort of affection for you. Indeed, I am very fond of you. You

were so good to me,’ said Adrienne, with tears swimming in her eyes;

‘but I cannot marry you.... Oh, do not look like that!’ she exclaimed,

in an agony, ‘I am so sorry; I am so sorry.’

‘Are you quite certain?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘Have I all along

been so utterly indifferent to the woman I----’

‘Not indifferent. You were never indifferent to me. And once----’

‘Once!’ he echoed eagerly.

‘I thought--I believed----’

‘That you could love me--perhaps that you did love me?’

She bowed.

‘Ah, that was when I was away. But why should you not love me now,

dearest? If you would only let me show you how I love you--you

must--you could not help--so good and so loving as you are.’

‘No, no! Do not speak to me of it. _It can never be._ I know my own

heart now--too well,’ she said, looking at him almost appealingly, and

with distracted, troubled eyes.

‘And there is no love in it for me?’

‘Not that kind of love. Oh, heavens! why must I have such things to

say to _you_! You must know that you ought to have a very different

kind of wife from me. Your wife should be rich and beautiful, and quite

different. You will see it yourself some day, when you meet a woman

worthy of you, who will love you as you deserve to be loved.’

‘That is cold comfort when the woman I worship won’t have me. I cannot

make you love me.’

‘Only because another man has all the love I have to give,’ said

Adrienne, scarcely audibly, as she turned aside her face.

Sebastian stood still for a moment.

‘Forgive me!’ said he; ‘it is hopeless, I see. I will never speak to

you of it again.’

‘Forgive _me_!’ she said, much moved. ‘I ought--no, I could not tell

you. I have been distracted.... I----’

‘Do not reproach yourself,’ said he, chivalrously. ‘I understand. After

this’ (they had begun to move towards the farther gate of the park,

along the broad terrace where the man was sitting on the seat in the

trees)--‘after this I have not another word to say. We shall have to

meet as before, Adrienne. May I call you Adrienne sometimes?’

‘Always, if you like.’

‘Will you try to overlook this--to treat me as if I had not annoyed you

thus?’

‘Annoyed me--_you_! Oh, how can you ask?’

‘And then slander will be silenced, and then there will be no more

misunderstandings. All will be clear between us.’

The tenderness he felt he could not banish from his voice, and hers

trembled as she answered.

‘Quite clear--as it should be.’

He raised her hand to his lips, and they passed on. The man on the

bench had not moved, and they, as they uttered these last words, which

were in effect a farewell, saw nothing and no one but each other.

‘I must go home. I cannot go on now,’ said Adrienne, as they arrived at

the gate.

‘I will leave you. Good-bye.’

‘Good-bye,’ said she, putting her hand in his, but not looking at him.

He kept her hand in his so long that at last she looked up.

‘Dear Sebastian, I----’

‘There, that is all I wanted,’ said he, with a rather faint smile. ‘God

keep you, child. Good-bye!’

When Adrienne had left her home, it had been with the firm resolution

to see Mary Heywood before returning. But she met Sebastian, and the

visit was not accomplished.

CHAPTER XII.

‘Great Mother Nature!

Eternal good and blessed!

Hear me! Hear my prayer!

Forsake me not in this my need!’

Myles Heywood’s life had become worse and darker than merely a sad

life. It was filled with a wretched pain and unrest, which had been

growing like a disease for weeks. His was an earnest, passionate

nature, deep and intense; but there was in it a well-spring of

contentment, a something essentially sweet and wholesome, which,

so long as no very disturbing element intruded, left him tolerably

at ease with his life, in spite of the vague dissatisfaction and

striving which had led him in earlier days to associate himself with

radical working-men’s clubs; which had made him eagerly devour all

kinds of iconoclastic literature, and which had often sent him home,

on pay-day, meditating upon the unequal manner in which wealth was

distributed. But he had had nothing to make him feel this inequality,

keenly and cruelly, until, with one single circumstance, one single

evening’s adventure, the turning-point in his life came, and he seemed

all at once to realise the significance of all these things--wealth,

station, and culture--in the shape of Adrienne Blisset. From that time

his view of things was changed. He had seen what he felt to be the

best, and most beautiful, and desirable thing in the world; and he

did desire it with the ardour of a young man and a poet and a lover

all combined, and with an ardour deeper still--the ardour of one who

feels that everything great and high and satisfactory lies in one

direction, and in the other, blackness, emptiness, death, if death be

the opposite of life. He could never look back or down again; and yet,

the more he looked forwards and upwards, the more did all he saw in

the distance seem unattainable and impossible. He had quite ceased to

visit Adrienne. To be with her now was only a prolonged ache and pain.

He watched her wistfully, and noted in his heart each day that passed

over without a visit from her. She used to come so often; now she never

came at all. He knew--every one knew, that her uncle was dead, and that

she was his heiress. More than once he had heard it was likely that she

and Sebastian Mallory would be married. He felt it to be very likely

himself; but to go and see her, to hear such a thing from her own lips,

was more than his will had strength to accomplish.

Myles had at one time heartily despised Sebastian Mallory; and later,

with little more reason, had as intensely disliked him. Now that was

all changed, and he himself was surprised to find how utterly and

entirely his resentment had burnt out, vanished, evaporated. He could

see his (as he considered him) successful rival without any other

feeling than one of quiet, despairing indifference. His most active

wish, when he was conscious of actively wishing anything, was that all

this could somehow come to an end, that some change would soon take

place.

The change was approaching, in a manner so unexpected, so utterly

terrible and unthought of, that if his sore and weary heart led him

somewhat astray, a just and righteously acting world must not blame him

too severely. When the eyes are dim with watching, when every nerve is

irritable from long strain and a cruel endless tension, when calamity

quickly succeeds calamity, it is not given to all men to act exactly as

they ought to do.

On the morning of the day on which Mrs. Mallory had been so signally

defeated as regarded Miss Blisset, Myles Heywood received a letter.

Address and contents were alike in a handwriting unknown to him.

The epistle was simply headed ‘Thanshope,’ with the date following.

He turned it over, and the subscription puzzled him--‘A Christian

Well-wisher,’ it was signed. Marvelling at the whole thing, he began at

the beginning, and read it through.

‘Do you know,’ began the ‘Christian Well-wisher,’ ‘what position you

are standing in? Do you know to whom you really owe your situation?

You owe it to your friend Mr. Sebastian Mallory. Ask him if he did

not get Canon Ponsonby’s casting vote, which, with his own, got you

in. I thought you were determined to owe nothing to him. Do you know

that, with all his fair professions, he is stealing a march upon you

in one direction--that if you don’t either make sure of a certain

young lady, or give her up altogether, you will soon look a great

fool? I say this because it is well known that you and she are, or

were, great friends. Ask any one you know, almost any one in the town

of Thanshope, what is said about you and her, and see if I have not

written the truth. There is one way open to you out of this, and one

only--you can leave the place. I take a real interest in you, and

advise this, supposing that you do feel some grief at having caused

her to be spoken about in such a manner. Of course you are at liberty

either to take my advice or leave it. I should think there cannot be

much doubt which is the most manly, not to say Christian, course.

A CHRISTIAN WELL-WISHER.’

He laid the letter down, feeling that he was trembling--feeling almost

as if his limbs failed him. He did not speculate as to who had written

the letter. Much of it seemed true to him. Sebastian’s love for

Adrienne was no delusion of his jealous fancy. Nothing was said against

her; he was blamed, and it was hinted that others spoke lightly of her.

He was told to test the report, to inquire for himself; the challenge

was a fair one.

That he owed his situation to Sebastian Mallory’s influence was

nothing; such things as that had now lost the slightest power to

distress him. That Sebastian was ‘stealing a march’ upon him--that

idea was so ludicrous and so pitiable as to make him smile drily in

the midst of his own torture. There was no sting in that. If Sebastian

chose to woo Adrienne, if she chose to receive his wooing, who should

say them nay? He had no such right, at least. He dwelt for a moment

on these points, and then came the rush of horror and disgust, the

sickening, dreadful part of it. He shook with fury, and with misery

too, as he realised that there were people who had watched him and

her; that wrong constructions had been put upon their friendship; that

people gossiped about her--coupled her name with his. It stung him into

madness. There must be something in it. ‘Ask,’ said the writer, ‘ask,

and see if I have not written the truth.’ To advise him to go away--to

appeal to his manly feeling! It was like a hideous dream, which he

could not at first grasp. His heart was sore and aching already; this

blow seemed to crush him. His nerves had been strained for weeks past;

he saw nothing in its proper light or just proportions. He thrust the

letter into his breast-pocket, and, driven by necessity, went out to

his work. How he got that work accomplished he could not tell. Adrienne

was not there, or he did not think he could have struggled through with

it.

At noon he took his way home again. Crossing the Townfield, he met

Harry Ashworth, who joined him, wishing him good-day, and observing,

‘Myles, lad, you don’t look so well. What ails you?’

‘Nothing, nothing ails me,’ said Myles; and then there flashed a sudden

thought into his mind: that letter--that ‘Ask, and see if I have not

written the truth.’ He would put it to the test now; no time like the

present.

‘I am telling lies,’ said he; ‘something does ail me. Harry, are you my

friend?’

‘Ay, for sure I am, old lad.’

‘Then come and prove it. Come with me into our house; I want to show

you something.’

They were close at home. Myles led the way, and Harry followed him into

the parlour, the front room, now stripped of almost all the furniture

and ornaments which had formerly been the pride of Mary’s life.

‘See here!’ said Myles, his eyes filled with a sombre fire, and his

lips twitching a little as he pulled out the letter: ‘read this, and

tell me, when you’ve done, if you know who’s meant in it.’

Harry looked surprised, but took the letter and read it. Myles watched

him, thinking what a good idea it was to make him read the letter. If

the report were unfounded, he would not guess who was referred to;

and if it were true, he would. Harry’s face changed, grew amazed,

embarrassed as he read on. When he had finished the letter, he folded

it up, and returned it, without speaking, to its owner. He did not look

at Myles, but out of the window, as he said,

‘It’s a very queer kind of a letter.’

‘Well,’ said Myles, obliged to raise his voice, but desirous that

neither Mary nor Edmund should overhear the conversation, ‘can you give

a guess, lad, as to who the lady is that’s spoken of?’

‘Well,’ said Harry, rather confusedly, ‘I have heard some talk about

you and--and--that lady.’

‘Suppose I don’t know who is meant? Suppose it’s all a riddle to me?’

said Myles.

But Harry shook his head, saying,

‘Nay, nay, that won’t do.’

‘But tell me who you think it is,’ said Myles, impatiently,

desperately; ‘tell me, for God’s sake! I will know, Harry, so out with

it.’

‘You must remember, it’s no tale of mine--it’s only what I’ve heard;

and I believe the lady meant is Miss Blisset. Fact is,’ he added

decisively, ‘I know it is!’

Again Myles’s lips quivered a little as he said,

‘You said you were my friend, Harry. You must tell me what you’ve

heard.’

‘Well, it’s useless to deny that there’s a story going about that

before her uncle died she was in love with you, and that you said so

often; but _I_ don’t believe it, old chap. You never think I believe it

all?’

‘That I said she was in love with me?’ said Myles in a voice that had

grown almost hoarse.

‘Yes; and that when you went to their house it wasn’t exactly to see

the old gentleman, but----’

‘There, that will do!’ said the other, holding up his hand and turning

away sickened. It was too hideous. If any such rumour had penetrated to

her ears? He could not speak, till Harry, in an ill-judged moment, said,

‘Nay, there’s nothing to take on about so much, Myles. Some enemy of

yours has written that letter--some one as wants you out of the way.

Can’t you see what he’s driving at when he advises you to go? Likely

enough some one as thinks he might get your place if you were gone. But

you’re not the sort of chap to pay any attention----’

‘The advice is good,’ said Myles, curtly. ‘Very likely I shall take it.

Do you know who set this tale going?’ he asked, turning to Harry with a

look which startled the latter.

‘That’s just what no one can tell,’ said he. ‘It seems to be known

everywhere, and yet we can’t tell where it comes from.’

‘Though you give it the benefit of free discussion. Well, I’ve found

out what I wanted to know. There’s only one thing more--if you care for

me or mine--and we’ve known each other a good many years now--you’ll

never speak of what we have spoken of this morning.’

‘My hand upon it,’ said his friend. ‘Never, so long as I live.’

They left the room. Harry departed by the back way to have a word with

Mary, and to offer to come and sit up that night with Edmund, who was

much worse. The offer was accepted, and Harry went away.

The midday meal was again a very sad one. Myles ate nothing, and said

nothing; and Mary, full of fears and forebodings, was almost as bad.

After dinner the young man went out again--up the street he hated, to

the room which had become a purgatory to him. How he loathed the sight

of that long building with the many windows and the well-known faces!

It seemed to him as if every eye must be fixed upon him, every finger

pointing at him.

Work was not over until late that afternoon. It was six o’clock, or

after, when Myles got home again, and on going into the house found

that Mary was sitting upstairs with Edmund; so, after brooding a

little, his mind full of wild, half-chaotic projects and ideas, he

left the house and wandered out, he knew not whither. At last he found

himself in the park, pacing about the broad terrace, and looking with

eyes that saw nothing, across the idle town and the nearer hills, to

the blue, calm, moorland ridges far away to the north. It was a scene

he had loved, half unconsciously, from his childhood up, but to-day it

was without joy--almost without existence for him.

At last he seated himself on a bench situated in a kind of rockery

which ran along one side of the terrace; the seat was a little retired

in a hollow of the rockwork, and there he remained, and gradually he

turned his back upon the prospect and his face to the wall, and hid

his face in his arm and fought alone, as well as he could, with the

misery and despair which rushed over him like a flood. He saw no point

of cheerfulness or light in all his life’s sky. All was black and thick

and overcast.

‘This is no fit place for me to stay in,’ he thought. ‘I must get away

as soon as I can. If I go, all the lies will die out quickly enough,

and then--there’s another man who is ready to fight her battles for

her, and he may see her as much as he pleases, and there’s no harm in

it.’

How long he had remained there motionless and miserable he did not

know. He had forgotten all outside things, and was busied solely with

his wretched self-introspection. At last, however, distant voices

first, and then approaching footsteps, which advanced slowly and with

many pauses, penetrated to his abstracted ear. He did not move; why

should any one notice him, or think of him? Still less did he move when

he distinctly heard and recognised Sebastian Mallory’s voice close to

him saying,

‘And then slander will be silenced, and there will be no more

misunderstandings. All will be clear between us.’

His voice was deep with love as he spoke, and to each vibration of it

Myles’s heart seemed to give an answering throb.

‘Quite clear, as it should be,’ replied the voice he loved best, and it

trembled too.

They paced past. Myles hid his face more deeply in his folded arms. He

heard Sebastian kiss her hand, and then their voices died away--their

footsteps too, and at last Myles raised his head and changed his

position. He was half puzzled at the change which had come over him,

at the quiet apathy which seemed to fill his whole soul. He had heard

those words spoken which he had thought would be harder than any other

words for him to bear, and yet he found himself sitting on in the same

place, his pulses beating no faster, his breath coming no more quickly.

Such utter indifference he felt to be ominous, and yet, though he

tried, he could bring no different feelings forward; he repeated to

himself all that he thought he had lost, all he believed Sebastian had

won--conned it over as a devotee might tell his beads, but it had no

effect. He felt no special pain or indignation.

And yet, when he rose with the instinctive intention of turning his

steps homeward, he found that he was incapable of going home. He

recoiled from the very idea of entering the house, or speaking to any

one he knew. He stood reasoning within himself about it.

‘Why shouldn’t I go home? Home is surely the best place. Molly is

there, and Ned. I ought to go and stay with him; he’s so ill.’ And he

forced his feet towards home. But it was useless, he felt it impossible

to enter the house.

‘I know what I want,’ he reasoned within himself. ‘I want a good

stretch of a walk, right over the moors, and away from this smoky hole.

There’s nothing like a moorland breeze for blowing away unhealthy

fancies. Harry used to say so, and he’s tried it often enough, and in

trouble enough, poor lad.’

He smiled. He found himself pitying Harry Ashworth with an intensity of

commiseration such as he could not by any means wring out for his own

sorrows.

But he congratulated himself. A long, long walk, a walk of twenty

miles or so, to prove to himself that he was still young and strong,

and swift of foot, and that six weeks of clerkship drudgery, and six

months’ alternate hot and cold, hope and fear, doubt and despair,

had not impaired one iota his strength and endurance! That glorious

moorland air, blowing keen and fresh, though it was pure, from the

north over the top of Blackrigg! There was surely not a grief, not a

solitude-nourished fear and sorrow, that its strong, bracing breath

would not blow clean away!

By this time he had left the park, and was walking quickly down

the street in a northerly direction. He met one or two friends and

acquaintances before he got fairly out of the town; he returned their

salutations quite mechanically, and still walked on. Just outside

Thanshope, as the suburb of Bridgefold began, there stood a well-known

public-house, the _Craven Heifer_; and, as he was passing its door,

some one hailed him.

‘Eh, Myles! I say, Myles, is yon you?’

He looked up, and saw a man standing in the doorway--a man whom he

had known years ago, who had once worked side by side with him in the

factory, and had left and gone over into Rossendale before Myles had

been promoted from the weaving shed to the warehouse. He stared blankly

at the man, who had been drinking, and though by no means drunk, was

decidedly elevated.

‘Come in, mon?’ he cried. ‘It’s years sin’ I saw you. Come in, and have

a glass, for old acquaintance sake. I’ll stand it.’

He would not be gainsaid, but rolled out, and pulled his former friend

into the taproom. There were half a dozen men there, all more or less

happy and free from care, as it seemed to Myles. They welcomed him

noisily, and his friend asked him, with unnecessary affectionateness of

tone and manner, what it should be.

‘What? Oh, anything. What you are having yourself,’ said Myles,

greeting first one and then another of them, and thinking, with a

kind of savage mirth, within himself, that there were more kinds of

pleasure in the world than one; since he could not have one kind, he

might as well try another. He would see whether these men, who seemed

so pleased to see him, were really such bad company after all. And he

sat down, and waited until a girl brought him a glass of steaming hot

punch--whisky punch; that was what they were drinking.

‘Now, then,’ cried his acquaintance, ‘good luck to you, Myles! Here’s

to our next merry meeting, eh?’

‘To our next!’ said Myles, raising the glass to his lips, and then,

even as it touched them, feeling as if he had suddenly come to his

senses, he put the glass down on the table. ‘Not yet,’ he said, half

aloud, and got up from his seat and walked out of the room, shaking off

the hands that were outstretched to stay him, and unheeding the loud

and angry expostulations which came after him.

‘Pah!’ he exclaimed, as he took his way along the road again; ‘I’m not

come to that yet!’

It was a long and toilsome road that led from the town of Thanshope,

through some outlying suburbs, to a large manufacturing village, called

Hamerton, which lay on the very skirts of Yorkshire, closed in on all

sides by the great ridges of Blackrigg, and some neighbouring wild and

desolate moors. He took the road along which Hugo and Sebastian had

once driven, and the sun had set as he turned his face towards the

hills with that strange sensation of oppressive apathy and indifference

ever at his heart. The night was descending, the ‘stars rushed out,’ as

he at length gained the complete solitude of the moors, and, turning

aside from the road, plunged half knee-deep into the thick heather and

ling, which was the only vegetation about there. He walked, for a very

short time as it seemed to him--really, for hours--battling with the

horrible sensations of a great, black, yawning, hideous blank, a huge

emptiness, an _ewiges Nichts_, which completely overpowered him. He

was unconscious how far he had gone, or where he was, or that he was

even weary, when suddenly he found himself stumbling over the knolls of

heather, and looking up, found that it was dark. The summer night had

closed in, and he, for aught he knew, might be twenty miles away, or

thirty, from Thanshope.

He thought he would sit down and rest a little, so he sank down upon

the friendly heather, and found that it formed a soft and yielding bed,

and that the air which played around his head and face was cool, and

pure, and sweet. For a moment he found a blessed sensation of rest and

relief, and then all things seemed softly to swim and fade around him;

with sweeping wing sleep came upon him, and laid her finger upon his

eyelids, and bade the weary brain rest. He sank gradually down in the

hollow of the heather, and a deep, dreamless slumber overcame him, and

saved him. Never had sleep been a more beneficent visitant; never had

kindly Nature taken to her soft arms a more weary, heart-sick child of

hers, than she did that summer night, when she offered to Myles Heywood

rest upon her own broad bosom.

CHAPTER XIII.

SUNRISE.

Mary Heywood, all the weary afternoon of that weary day, sat beside

Edmund’s bed and nursed him, with fear at her heart that the nursing

would be of no long duration. The fever which had consumed him was

over, but the weakness which remained was terrible--it was a weakness

from which, as Mary dimly felt, there would never be any rallying.

She had brought sewing and knitting upstairs into the little bedroom,

and she drew down the blind ‘to keep the sun out,’ as they both said.

Edmund lay perfectly still. She asked him if she should read to him,

but he smiled a little, and shook his head. Neither of them knew how

very near the end was. Edmund, if he could have known, would have been

very glad, and Mary would have been so miserable, that it was well she

did not know.

‘I could like to see Myles a bit,’ said Edmund at last; ‘I ne’er see

him now, hardly. He’s quite different from what he was.’

‘He’s not happy,’ said Mary. ‘I don’t rightly know what ails him, but

it’s summat very bad, I’m sure.’

‘Oh, he doesn’t like bein’ out o’ work. No more should I, if I was him.

He’s ne’er been used to such pinchin’ work as this. They keep him a

long time at yon shop.’

‘Ay, they do. Harry Ashworth said he’d come and sit wi’ thee to-neet,

Ned. Would thou like it?’

Edmund assented, with a look of pleasure, and there was silence, while

the afternoon wore on, and at last Mary’s head began to droop. She was

weary with sorrow, with working, and with watching. The atmosphere of

the room was close and heavy, although Mary had conscientiously tried

to follow out the doctor’s directions about keeping it ventilated. She

could not keep her eyes open, but slept in her chair until Edmund’s

feeble touch on her arm awoke her, and she started up.

‘Eh, what is it, lad?’

‘I could so like summat to drink, Molly,’ said he, gaspingly. ‘And I

think there’s summat not reet wi’ Myles. I heard him come in, and sit

quite still for a bit, and now he’s gone out again, without coming up

here, or waitin’ for his tea, or anything.’

Thoroughly awake, Mary hurried downstairs, and found emptiness and

solitude. She could see that Myles had been in. She could see the

chair that he had drawn up to the table and pushed away again, and she

wondered, and was uneasy at his going out thus, without word or message.

The kitchen, too, felt close. She drew up the window, and set the back

door open to let some air in. Then she roused the fire, and set the

gently singing kettle upon it, and brought out the tea-things. She

prepared some tea for Edmund, and took it upstairs to him. He had said

he was very thirsty, and he took the cup eagerly, and put his lips to

it, then put it down again.

‘I feel very faint, Mary; I can’t take that. I mun have a

little--bran----’

He had fainted, and it was some time before she succeeded in restoring

him to consciousness.

‘Eh, I wish Myles was here; I wish Harry would come,’ she kept

murmuring to herself, looking with anguish upon the poor worn

face, which had now the stamp of the approaching end set upon it in

unmistakable characters.

At last a knock at the outer door informed her that Harry Ashworth had

come. She ran downstairs and let him in, drawing him into the kitchen;

and when they were there, sat down upon her rocking-chair, and began to

cry heartily.

‘Why, Mary, what ails thee, lass?’ said Harry, taking her hand.

‘Myles is gone out--I don’t know where, and yon poor lad upstairs

hasn’t so much longer to be here,’ said Mary, looking at him with her

tearful eyes. ‘Thou munnot leave me yet awhile, Harry.’

Whether the presence of a great mutual sorrow broke the barrier which

had hitherto existed between these two, I know not. As Mary begged him

not to leave her, their eyes met, and something in those eyes gave

Harry the courage he had never before been able to summon to his aid.

It was as if by a mutual impulse that they bent towards each other,

and their lips met for consolation and reassurance; and Harry, with a

wonderful sense of strength of courage, put his arm round Mary’s waist,

saying,

‘There’s nought I’d like so well as never to leave thee at all, Mary,

if thou could look at such a poor, deaf, marred chap as me. Sometimes I

think thou could, and sometimes I’m sure thou couldn’t. Dost think thou

could make up thy mind to take me?’

‘I made up my mind long ago what I’d do if ever thou asked me,’ said

Mary, naïvely.

‘And what was that?’

‘Why, to take thee, for sure,’ she answered.

Harry, smiling, looking on her with amaze and admiration, ventured on

another kiss, and said,

‘Eh, but I have been a fool not to speak to thee before.’

She smiled a little, and then the remembrance of the troubled present

returning to her, said,

‘I’m very happy, but we mun think o’ poor Ned just now. Thee go

upstairs, and tell him what thou’s done. He always _were_ suspicious

about thee. It’ll cheer him up like, and I’ll come after thee in a

minute or two.’

Just for a few moments the news had the desired effect upon Edmund. He

shook hands with Harry, smiled and looked what he had not voice enough

to say. But the same chill look of coming death was upon his face; and

Mary, as Myles still did not come, could not rest until she had been

out and brought the doctor back with her. The doctor was a busy man.

He made a very brief visit--said nothing much in the sick-room, but

ordered some restorative, and, when Mary followed him downstairs and

tremulously asked his opinion, said brusquely, but not at all unkindly,

‘My good girl, you must make up your mind to lose him. I cannot even

assure you that he will live till morning.’

Restraining her tears, Mary went upstairs again, and, with Harry,

resumed her watch by the sick lad. They were slow and solemn hours.

They saw the end approaching under their very eyes; they saw Death’s

grey seal stamping its impress more and more visibly upon the features,

and one on either side the narrow little bed they sat, while it grew

deep night, and still Myles did not come home.

‘What can be keeping him?’ the girl uneasily wondered again and again;

but she dared not speak her wonder, for every time that Edmund roused

from the lethargy which was settling more and more heavily upon him,

he looked round with an anxious gaze, and a vague astonishment at the

absence of that brother who had been his stay and protection all his

weak and painful life.

Midnight passed, and still the sorrowful watch lasted. One o’clock

struck, and still he came not; and still the face on the pillow grew

grayer and more deathlike. Two o’clock passed, and yet all was as it

had been. Towards half-past two, Mary, going softly to the window,

raised a corner of the blind, and beheld the first flush of dawn in the

east, as it may be seen at that hour on a June morning. Her heavy eyes

looked across the houses, across the town, to where the pure sky, with

a cool, bright light, showed the ridges of the moors. She looked back

into the room. Harry’s eyes had followed her, and hung upon her face;

and Edmund’s eyes too were opened, wide, bright, and clear. His voice

had regained a last flicker of strength, as he said distinctly,

‘Wind up the blind, Molly, and open the window a bit. Let _me_ see the

sun rise.’

Speechless, Mary complied. A waft of pure, fresh morning air was

borne into the room through the open window. Then there was a pause.

From where he lay, Edmund could see the broadening rose flush in the

east, and then suddenly the chimes from the spire rang out; three was

solemnly tolled, and in a moment there rang out upon the sleeping town,

resting from its troubles, the sweet old tune, ‘Life let us cherish!’

Mary heard the tune, ‘Myles’s tune,’ as she called it, and wondered

longingly where he was. She returned to the bedside, and Harry went to

the window. Edmund had closed his eyes again, and another quarter had

chimed, when Harry exclaimed,

‘He’s there! He’s coming!’

In a few moments more Myles stood in the room. There were very few

words more. They all stood round the bed, and Edmund held his brother’s

hand. In the watching him, the others had no time to notice the haggard

look on Myles’s face. Day grew broader, and life waned. Four was chimed

melodiously; the first stir of life was audible, as Edmund quietly

breathed his last.

Mary was sobbing--the sunrise was over--and day, full, glowing, and

brilliant, poured in upon the dead face.

CHAPTER XIV.

DUST AND ASHES.

The day that followed was naturally a sad one. Mary was too much

occupied in mourning her loss to notice Myles as she otherwise might

have done. Harry left the house about five o’clock, promising to call

again about dinner-time. A friendly neighbour came in and helped Mary

to perform all that remained to be done for the dead. At last all was

finished. The woman had gone, and Mary paused as she left the room,

looking round it with a kind of sorrowful pride. It looked very white,

and pure, and still.

She had drawn the blind down and set everything in the most exquisite

order. The dead figure lay stretched out in its eternal repose,

with calm, beautiful face, and quietly closed eyes. At the door she

returned, and ran up to the bedside, and kissed the cold forehead.

‘Poor lad! poor lad!’ she whispered between her tears, ‘thine has been

a hard life, but thou’rt in heaven now, if ever anybody was.’

When Myles came in, during the forenoon, she was struck, for the first

time, with his great stillness and the strange, haggard look upon his

face. She remembered that he had been out all night, and asked him what

he had been doing.

‘I dare say it seemed unkind,’ he replied, ‘but you may trust me,

Molly, I couldn’t help it. I can’t explain to you why it was; something

had happened. I couldn’t help it.’

He sat down beside her, and took her hand, and they both remained

there, looking mournfully into the little fire; she with the sorrow of

deep affection which knows its object removed; he sad too, but with a

more incurable sadness than hers. They were both oppressed with sorrow,

but he

‘Beneath a rougher sea,

And whelmed in deeper gulfs than she.’

On this scene entered Harry Ashworth, with offers of his services if

they were wanted, and also with the object of telling Myles what had

passed between him and Mary.

Myles heard it all out, down to Mary’s acknowledgment that she wished

to marry Harry, ‘supposing thou hast nothing against it, Myles.’

‘Against it? What could I have against it? You’ve my hearty consent and

good wishes, both of you. There won’t be a better wife in Thanshope,

nor in England, than you’ll get, Harry; and I know you so well that I’m

not afraid to trust Molly to you. I’m glad it is so, for I don’t think

I shall stay here long, and I should have been unhappy to leave her

alone. I hope you’ll both be as happy as you deserve.’

He shook hands with Harry and kissed Mary, but he could not force

a smile. They saw that he was glad, relieved to find that they had

decided to be married; but they also saw that he had some sorrow behind

it all, which was greater than the joy.

* * * * *

It was a little after eight on the same evening. Myles found himself

standing opposite the Townhall, with his hand on the latch of the

Oakenrod gate. He paused a moment before lifting it, then summoning up

courage, did so, and stood within the garden of the house against which

he had had so long and so strong a prejudice.

He had never been so near it before. His feet were strange within the

gates of rich or important people of any kind, but particularly here.

It was with a sort of thrill that he looked round at the smoothly

shaven grass, the dazzling flower-beds, in all the splendour of their

June garments, the softly rolled gravel beneath his feet. The errand he

came upon was one which, a month ago, he would have repudiated, would

have said that no imaginable combination of circumstances could make

him undertake. Yes, truly; but the combinations of circumstances which

force us into the actions that humble us, and wound us, and sting our

self-esteem with hornet-stings, are always such combinations as we

should never imagine beforehand, because it never occurs to us that

deserving persons, such as ourselves, can be put into positions only

appropriate to ill-regulated conduct.

Myles was conscious of no bad conduct or evil intentions, but only of

a great, ever-growing misery, which was so strong as to force him to

try in some way to escape from it, and this was the only path which

presented itself as practicable; so he took it, as is generally the

case.

He walked up to the front door, past the open windows with the lace

curtains fluttering inside, and pulled the bell. An unpleasant fear

seized him, lest Sebastian should be out, gone to see Adrienne,

perhaps, and he would have his hard task to do all over again.

A page-boy opened the door, and Myles inquired if Mr. Mallory were at

home.

‘I believe so,’ said the youth, a little wondering at the unusual

visitor.

‘I wish to see him,’ said Myles, stepping in, ‘if he is not engaged,

that is; and my business is rather particular.’

The boy, after serious consideration, decided to show the visitor into

the library, and asked him to take a seat. This he did, and inquired,

‘Who shall I say wishes to see him?’

‘Tell him that Myles Heywood would be glad to speak to him, if he is

disengaged.’

The page disappeared. Myles was left alone in the library, and his

quick, restless eyes roamed round it, and took everything in, and the

full significance of everything--the soft carpets, the harmonious,

subdued hues of walls, hangings, and furniture; the relief afforded by

gleams of gold here and there; the book-cases filled with books of all

times and in all languages; the great bronze busts of Aristotle and

Sophocles; the quaint blue and white vases; the two curious paintings

by Sebastian’s favourite German artist; the reading-stands; the

writing-tables; the pleasant luxury and taste, and abundance of every

appointment.

‘No wonder!’ said he to himself. ‘And between the man and me--his

manners and mine, his mind and mine--there is just the same difference

as there is between this library of his and our little flagged kitchen

at home. This is the place for her, and I feel as if I could see her

here sitting at that writing-table, or standing in the window there

looking out.’

He heaved a deep sigh, and at that moment some one began to play a

melody on a piano in another room; a soft, sad, melancholy air, to

which he listened so intently that he did not hear the door open, and

was first roused by Sebastian’s voice.

‘Good evening. I am sorry to have kept you waiting; but I was engaged

and could not escape.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ said Myles, rising; and as each man’s eyes fell

upon the other man’s face, both felt surprise. Sebastian almost showed

his, in a suppressed exclamation, but Myles was too sad and oppressed

to experience more than a vague wonder and astonishment that a man

in what he thought was Sebastian’s position should wear that subdued,

grave, downcast look.

‘I noticed that you were not in your place to-day,’ began Mallory, by

way of opening the conversation; ‘nothing wrong at home, I hope?’

‘Yes; we are in trouble at home. My brother, who has been ill for a

long time, died this morning, early.’

‘I am very sorry indeed. Of course you would not think of coming to

work, at present. It is not----’

‘It was not to excuse myself from work that I came,’ said Myles, in the

same quiet, constrained way. ‘My brother’s death is a grief to me, of

course; but one does not talk about such things. I was going to trouble

you on a matter of business, if you can spare the time----’

‘Perfectly well. In what can I help you?’

Myles bit his lips. He had strong ideas about what it was fitting for

a man to say and do under certain circumstances. Probably if he had

formulated some of his ideas upon ethics, most sophisticated persons

would have broken into inextinguishable laughter. One favourite maxim

of his was that, to use his own language, ‘To blackguard a man high

and low, and then go and ask a favour of him, was a mean, dirty trick;

fit for a hound, perhaps, but not for an honest man.’ If he could

not be said to have ‘blackguarded’ Sebastian high and low, he had

certainly spoken with less than courtesy, both of him and to him; it

was impossible to ignore that fact, and proceed to his real errand.

‘You may think it a very strange thing, but I’ve come to ask a favour

of you,’ said he.

‘Is it strange? I shall be glad to grant it if I can.’

Myles lifted his hand a moment, and then went on,

‘You may not know that I have often spoken very bitterly of you, but

you do know that I have not been particularly civil to you--have I?’

‘Well, not exactly effusive,’ admitted Sebastian, with a slight smile,

wondering whether he had at last completed his much-desired conquest.

‘It is true,’ said Myles. ‘I had a bad opinion of you--a prejudice

against you--and I expressed it. If it had not been for troubles I have

had lately,’ he added, with that little nervous twitch of the lips

which had only lately been present with him; ‘but for those troubles, I

might have gone on thinking and speaking evil of you without a cause,

but my eyes have been opened. I see how utterly wrong I was--blind and

bigoted. You have proved yourself a very different man from what I

thought you--a very much wiser and better man than I should have been

in your place--and I beg your pardon for what I have said against you.’

‘But, my dear fellow, you must not take it so terribly in earnest;

so--so tragically. Every one has his prejudices; I have some most

preposterous ones, I believe. All the same, I confess to you that I

was excessively piqued by your bad opinion of me. It has been a matter

of some moment, with me, to overcome that prejudice, and enlist you

amongst my friends. If I can say that you are amongst them now, I must

feel that I have won a kind of victory.’

‘Mr. Mallory, I can never be amongst your enemies, never again. Let

that be enough. I can say no more. You are wiser and more generous,

too, than I am; but you can afford to be so. The reason I came to-night

was to ask you if you still remembered an offer you made me a short

time ago--the offer to give me a place away from Thanshope and _out of

England_, you said?’

‘I remember it perfectly well, and that I said I could still do it if

you changed your mind about it. Well?’

‘I have changed my mind about it If you can carry your generosity

a little farther, and get me that place, or something like it--the

farther away from here the better--I shall be--God knows, how grateful

to you: I can never express it.’

‘I can still do it,’ said Sebastian, looking attentively and kindly

at the eager, haggard face of the other. ‘But I am sorry you think of

leaving Thanshope.’

‘I _must_ leave Thanshope. It is to get away from here that I ask. Will

the work be hard? I hope so. I care for nothing but hard work--hard

work,’ he repeated, in a sort of restless, prolonged sigh.

‘You will have what you wish for. The work is certainly pretty stiff.

It is in Germany--in a rough, mining district near a large town. There

is a cotton factory, and some collieries. They have a lot of English

and Irish work-people there. The master and owner, Herr Süsmeyer, is

a very intimate friend of mine. He wants a sort of superintendent--an

Englishman, and one who is not afraid of work. He himself is as much an

Englishman as a German. Still, you must know a little of the language.

Did you not learn something of it from Miss Blisset?’ he added

deliberately.

‘Yes,’ said Myles, curtly.

‘Ah, you will soon pick up more; you are quick, and you must study when

work is over. That will give you as much occupation as even you could

wish, I think. I shall give you a very high recommendation, indeed, as

being personally known to me.’

‘And as having been always polite, reasonable, and amiable with my

superiors; not ready to take offence, and willing to own myself in the

wrong!’ suggested Myles, with grim humour.

Sebastian smiled, in silence, as he drew a paper-case and inkstand

towards him, and wrote rapidly. He fastened up the letter, and

addressed it to--HERRN GUSTAV SÜSMEYER, Eisendorf, Westphalien,

Prussia, and handed it to Myles, saying,

‘I know the situation is still open, and that letter will secure it for

you. I shall also write to Herr Süsmeyer to-night, so as to lose no

time. From what you say, I suppose you will want to go soon?’

‘As soon as ever I can--in a few days, when poor Ned is buried, and I

can leave Mary.’

‘You will leave your sister behind you?’

‘For a good reason,’ said Myles. ‘She’s going to be married, and I know

I leave her in good hands.’

‘May I ask whom she will marry?’

‘Harry Ashworth, a friend of ours. He has loved her long,’ said Myles,

not even feeling surprised that he should be relating such things to

Sebastian.

‘I am very glad; I wish them all happiness. I am sure the man is

fortunate who marries your sister.’

‘Yes, he is,’ assented Myles. ‘Then,’ he added, ‘you think I may go any

day?’

‘Any day; but before you go, I hope you will see me again, so that I

can give you some idea of the place, and tell you what route to take.

It is an out-of-the-way sort of place; and excuse me, the journey is

somewhat expensive, and----’

‘You are very kind. My friend Harry has money which he will lend me.

I shall soon repay him if I once get work. He won’t want it till he

is married. Let me see: the day after to-morrow--Mary will stay with

Harry’s mother. Would it be convenient if I called the day after

to-morrow, in the evening?’

‘The day after to-morrow--to-morrow is Mrs. Spenceley’s ball,’ said

Sebastian, half to himself. ‘Yes; the day after to-morrow will suit me

perfectly well.’

‘And the day after that I can go,’ exclaimed Myles, the first ray

of anything like pleasure flashing across his face. ‘I can go,’ he

repeated.

Sebastian looked at him, not feeling at all satisfied with his victory.

All that he had ever wished to himself, with regard to Myles, had come

to pass. The latter had owned himself wrong; had apologised for his own

frowardness; had descended so far as to ask a favour, and to express

himself in tones of unmistakable emotion as deeply grateful when it was

granted. And yet--the effect was not in the least what it ought to have

been. The sensations of the victor were anything but jubilant.

‘You seem very anxious to get away?’ he remarked, involuntarily and

inquiringly.

‘Yes, I am; it’s the only thing I care for, just at present,’ said

Myles. ‘Good night,’ he added, rising. ‘I can’t express my gratitude to

you. You would have been justified in treating me very differently.’

‘Indeed I should not!’ exclaimed Sebastian; and the sense that his

victory was a barren one was borne still more strongly in upon him.

What was it worth if, after all, it had only been won _for_ him by

Myles’s adverse circumstances, not _by_ him, through his own influence

over the conquered one?

‘Heywood,’ he exclaimed earnestly, ‘is there nothing behind all this

that you could tell me? Can I do nothing for you but help you to get

away from this place, which seems to have grown so unbearable to you?

I do not ask from ordinary curiosity--you must know that; it is from

sympathy, and a sincere wish to be your friend, if possible.’

Myles shook his head.

‘I can speak to no man of what troubles me, thank you,’ said he. ‘All

the same, I am not ungrateful.’

He held out his hand, which the other grasped heartily, and in another

minute found himself alone.

All that evening, all the night, he was haunted by a vision of the pale

face and miserable eyes of Myles Heywood--a vision of suffering whose

very remembrance oppressed him.

CHAPTER XV.

HUGO.

The few days intervening between her dispute with her son and the

Spenceleys’ ball were, as may be supposed, not particularly pleasant

ones to Mrs. Mallory. Sebastian, after his interview with Adrienne,

came home, and looking into the drawing-room found his mother alone.

She did not deign to notice him, but he, coming in, said to her,

‘Mother, I want to speak to you.’

‘Well?’

‘I proposed to Miss Blisset this evening.’

‘Indeed!’

‘You do not ask what reception my offer met with.’

‘I imagine, considering your relative positions, there cannot be much

need to inquire.’

‘Still, I may as well tell you that she refused me.’

Mrs. Mallory was profoundly astonished, of course; but as, after a

moment’s reflection, she did not perceive herself any nearer her real

and cherished object, Sebastian’s marriage with Helena, she contented

herself with uttering a sneering little laugh, and saying, in an

exasperating tone--

‘Really!’

‘So that you will not have the annoyance of knowing her your

daughter-in-law. But I think it better to mention that such remarks as

you made about her this morning must not be repeated in my presence. I

do not choose to hear anything spoken of that young lady which is not

quite respectful.’

‘Though she _has_ jilted you,’ said Mrs. Mallory, with an amiable smile.

‘I was not aware of it.’

‘Very likely not; men seldom do know when women make fools of them. The

better for them and their conviction as to their superior wisdom.’

‘You may possibly be right,’ he rejoined, with perfect temper; ‘but the

point I wish to impress upon you is, that nothing disrespectful is ever

to be uttered of Miss Blisset in my presence. The other questions are

quite supplementary.’

She made no answer, and Sebastian, politely wishing her good night,

retired to his study.

Mrs. Mallory sat alone, very angry, after her phlegmatic, batrachian

fashion, at what had happened, and longing very much, for the relief

of her own feelings, to punish some one in some way. It was too

exasperating that Sebastian should behave in that manner, after all

her plans for his good and welfare. Helena Spenceley was at the moment

perfection in her eyes.

‘At any rate, he must go to the ball the day after to-morrow,’ she said

to herself. ‘It is a good chance. There is no time when a man is so

likely to fall in love with a woman as when he has just been “refused”

by another woman.’

But here her thoughts wandered off to Adrienne, and she felt as angry

with her for her presumption in refusing Sebastian as she would have

felt with her success had she accepted him. Indeed, her audacity in

attracting him at all was thoroughly odious; she was a little dog in

the manger, who would neither accept the man’s love herself nor leave

him free to wander aside to where beauty and a hundred thousand pounds

waited for him to lift his hand in order to utter a rapturous ‘Yes.’

‘For Helena _is_ in love with him, let her pretend what she likes,’ she

muttered angrily. ‘I can see it distinctly. He might have her for the

asking.... I wonder if all children are born to break their mothers’

hearts?’

With which speculation agitating her brain she retired to rest.

Her spirit was still ruffled and ill at ease all the next day, and by

degrees she concentrated her ill-temper upon a single object--a sort

of focus to her anger and vexation--and that object was no other than

Hugo von Birkenau. She had always regarded him with little favour: he

was poor, dependent, and behaved himself as if he were rich and free.

Now, everything that he said or did appeared an offence--a purposely

intended, premeditated insult directed at herself, with the purpose

of angering her--a very strange frame of mind, dear reader, and one

which, from its being so utterly unknown to you and me and eminently

reasonable persons like ourselves, would almost seem to require some

elucidation or description.

Mrs. Mallory found the day go over, and Hugo continue to be insultingly

cheerful and conversational, without her being able to find any actual

ground for quarrelling with him. It would come, she was determined; it

should come: he was too impertinent to be tolerated without an attempt

to repress him.

On the evening on which Myles came to see Sebastian, the latter and

Hugo were sitting together in Sebastian’s study. Hugo had heard of

Adrienne’s refusal, and though condoling, did not feel so sorry as he

considered he ought to have done. By degrees the conversation drifted

off to Hugo’s own affairs and prospects. Sebastian told him he thought

he ought seriously to think about what he meant to do.

‘I have thought about it, and decided,’ said Hugo. ‘I’m going to write

an opera. That has been my ambition ever since I could strum upon a

piano.’

‘But, my dear lad, you will never learn all that you must know in

order to write an opera by staying in Thanshope. You must go away,

Hugo, to your native land, where alone true music flourishes, and

you must study. You ought to go to Köln or Leipzig or some other

conservatorium. I should recommend Leipzig.’

‘I have always thought of Leipzig,’ answered the boy, ‘and I will go as

soon as you like, Sebastian, but it will be very dreary without you.’

‘Oh, bah! Yours is a fickle, artist nature, Hugo, revelling in the

delight of the moment. You will think Leipzig heaven a week after you

get there, and all the other pupils in the conservatorium seraphs and

angels, and you will wonder how you ever lived here.’

‘Not fickle, Sebastian!’ he cried, with the tragic earnest which

sometimes made Sebastian think him so like Helena Spenceley. ‘Anything

but that! Anything but fickle to you! If I thought I ever _could_ be

fickle to you, I’d put an end to myself to-night, and have no qualms

of conscience about it. Such a wretch would be better out of the world

than in it.’

‘Oh, nonsense! But one thing I do wish you would promise me. I’ve often

thought of asking you before, but I was afraid it might seem like

trying to entrap your youth and innocence.’

‘What is it? Quick, tell me what it is!’ asked Hugo, his eyes ablaze

with eagerness.

‘Well, it is this: that you will never, before you are one-and-twenty,

take any very important step, without _telling_ me what you intend to

do. I don’t say asking my permission. I trust too much to your honour

and purity of heart to keep you from doing anything bad,’ he added,

with a smile. ‘I would not harass and fetter you by any such stupid

restriction; but, as I trust you, I want you to trust me. Don’t do

anything important without telling me that you intend to do it, and

giving me a chance to offer you a specimen of my superior wisdom, you

know.’

‘What a question! I swear it!’ said Hugo, enthusiastically. ‘As if I

_could_ do anything without consulting you!’

‘Not so fast!’ said his friend, laughing. ‘Wait till the time comes. I

shall most likely seem then a wearisome old formalist, who----’

‘_Never!_’

‘But I tell you, it will be so, you obstinate young dog! There are

temptations, Hugo, and you, with your temperament, will find them as

hard to resist as if they were red-hot fiery hail. I am such a slow,

phlegmatic sort of fellow. They don’t affect me in the same way. My

temptations always come too late. By the time I begin to think I should

like to do something either bad or idiotic, the chance is over, and I

am saved. So I have got the reputation of being a very well-conducted

sort of person, and not caring for the things other fellows care about.’

‘At any rate, I solemnly give the promise you ask, and should have

done so if it had been ten times as binding--and there’s my hand upon

it,’ said Hugo, to whom the idea of binding himself to any particular

thing, by ‘solemn oaths and execrations,’ was especially fascinating

and delightful. It seemed to surround him and his friend with a little

romance, and to separate them from the outer crowd. It opened up vague

possibilities of self-denial, trial, and probation, and a prospect of

endurance through good and evil, thick and thin, which delighted his

ardent soul.

‘Then that is settled,’ said Sebastian, contentedly. ‘We can talk about

your going away later.’

It was towards the close of this conversation that Sebastian had been

called away to Myles Heywood--the day, therefore, before the ball at

Castle Hill.

On the following afternoon Sebastian had to go out. His mother asked

him at lunch if he intended to go to the dance, and he said yes, he

supposed he did--he must now, but he did not care about it, and did

not think it was in very good taste to be having balls at such a time.

Moreover, he had heard a rumour that Mr. Spenceley’s own affairs caused

him some anxiety.

Mrs. Mallory said she supposed it was Mr. Spenceley’s own business;

he ought to know best whether he were able to give balls at such a

time. He could not put off his daughter’s twenty-first birthday for an

indefinite time.

‘No,’ said Sebastian, ‘and that is just what makes the whole affair

such a melancholy farce. His daughter is very anxious not to have any

ball. She told me so, and nearly cried with vexation about it.’

Mrs. Mallory made no reply, and Sebastian, saying he had a meeting to

attend, went out.

Hugo was that afternoon in one of his oft-recurring idle moods, and

wandered about, apparently not knowing what to do with himself. He was

anticipating the ball eagerly enough, having extracted from Helena the

promise of no less than three waltzes--less of a distinction than he

imagined, perhaps, since Helena, in granting them, had been thinking

chiefly of escaping from the defective dancing and fatuous remarks of

the Thanshope young men, amongst whom she enjoyed what she considered

a fatal popularity. She had wondered whether to keep any dances for

Sebastian. Would he ask her to dance at all?

‘Of course he will!’ she thought, ‘as a matter of duty, and I think I

shall fill up my programme, and show it him without any comment when he

asks me. Then he will raise his eyebrows in that way I hate, and make

a little bow, and smile a little smile, and remark, “I see I am indeed

too late;” and stand on one side, perfectly content not to dance, since

the nicest girl he ever knew is not there.’