He is, after all, only a very ordinary type of a good-looking soldierly

young Englishman, just such a one as may be seen any day in our parks or

our drawing-rooms. He has clearly-cut and rather _prononcé_ features, a

strong-built, well made figure, a long moustache, close-shaven cheeks,

and eyes that are rather deep-set, and are, when you are near enough to

see them well, of a deep blue-gray. In all that Maurice Kynaston is in no

way different from scores of other good-looking young men whom we may

have met. But there is just something that makes his face a remarkable

one: it is a strong-looking face--a face that looks as if he had a will

of his own and knew how to stick to it; a face that looks, too, as if he

could do and dare much for truth and honour's sake. It is almost stern

when he is silent; it can soften into the tenderness of a woman when he

speaks.

Look at him now as he catches sight of his mother, and steps forward for

a minute to press her loving hands. All the hardness and all the strength

are gone out of his face now; he only looks down at her with eyes full of

love and gentleness--for life as yet holds nothing dearer or better for

him than that little white-haired old woman. Only for a minute, and then

he leaves go of her hands, and passes on down the room, speaking to the

guests whom he knows.

"He does not see me," says Helen, bitterly, to herself; "he will go on

into the next room, and never know that I am here."

But he had seen her perfectly. Next to the woman he most wishes to see in

a room, the one whom a man first catches sight of is the woman he would

sooner were not there. He had seen Helen the very instant he came in, but

he had noticed thankfully that some one was talking to her, and he said

to himself that there was no occasion for him to hurry to her side; it

was not as if they were openly engaged; there could be no necessity for

him to rush into slavery at once; he would speak to her, of course,

by-and-by; and whenever he came to her he well knew that he would be

equally welcomed: he was so sure of her. Nothing on earth or under Heaven

is so fatal to a man's love as that. There was no longer any uncertainty;

there was none of the keenness of pursuit dear to the old hunting

instinct inherent in man; there was not even the charm of variety in her

moods. She was always the same to him; always she pouted a little at

first, and looked ill-tempered, and reproached him; and always she came

round again at his very first kind word, and poured out her heart in a

torrent of worship at his feet. Maurice knew it all by heart, the sulks

and the cross words, and then the passionate denials, and the wild

protestations of her undying love. He was sorry for her, too, in his way;

he was too tender-hearted, too chivalrous, to be anything but kind to

her; but though he was sorry, he could not love her; and, oh! how

insufferably weary of her he was!

Presently he did come up to her, and took the seat by her side just

vacated by the attaché. The little serio-comedy instantly repeated

itself.

A little pout and a little toss of the head.

"You have been as long coming to speak to me as you possibly could be."

"Do you think it would look well if I had come rushing up to you the

instant I came in?"

"You need not, at all events, have stood talking for ten minutes to that

great black-eyed Lady Anderleigh. Of course, if you like her better than

me, you can go back to her."

"Of course I can, if I choose, you silly little woman; but seeing that

I am by you, and not by her, I suppose it is a proof that I prefer your

society, is it not?"

Very polite, but not strictly true, Captain Maurice! At his heart he

preferred talking to Lady Anderleigh, or to any other woman in the room.

The admission, however, was quite enough for Helen.

"Dear Maurice," she whispered, "forgive me; I am a jealous, bad-tempered

wretch, but," lower still, "it is only because I love you so much."

And had there been no one in the room, Maurice knew perfectly that at

this juncture Mrs. Romer would have cast her arms around his neck--as

usual.

To his unspeakable relief, a man--a clever lawyer, whose attention was a

flattering thing to any woman--came up to Helen at this moment, and took

a vacant chair beside her. Maurice thankfully slipped away, leaving his

inamorata in a state of rage and disgust with that talented and elderly

lawyer, such as no words can describe.

Captain Kynaston took the favourable opportunity of escaping across the

hall, where he spent the remainder of the evening, dividing his attention

between the music and supper rooms, and Helen saw him no more that night.

She saw, however, some one she had not reckoned upon seeing. Glancing

carelessly across to the end of the room, she perceived, talking to Lady

Kynaston, a little French gentleman, with a smooth black head, a neat,

pointed, little black beard, and the red ribbon of the Légion d'Honneur

in his button-hole.

What there was in the sight of so harmless and inoffensive a personage to

upset her it may be difficult to say; but the fact is that, when Mrs.

Romer perceived this polite little Frenchman talking to her hostess, she

turned suddenly so sick and white, that a lady sitting near her asked her

if she was going to faint.

"I feel it a little hot," she murmured; "I think I will go into the next

room." She rose and attempted to escape--whether from the heat or the

observation of the little Frenchman was best known to herself.

Her maneuver, however, was not destined to succeed. Before she could

work her way half-way through the crush to the door, the man whom she was

bent upon avoiding turned round and saw her. A look of glad recognition

flashed into his face, and he instantly left Lady Kynaston's side, and

came across the room to speak to her.

"This is an unlooked-for pleasure, madame."

"I certainly never expected to meet you here, Monsieur D'Arblet,"

faltered Helen, turning red and white alternately.

"Will you not come and have a little conversation with me?"

"I was just going away."

"So soon! Oh, bien! then I will take you to your carriage." He held out

his arm, and Helen was perforce obliged to take it.

There was a little delay in the hall, whilst Helen waited for her, or

rather for her grandfather's carriage, during which she stood with her

hand upon her unwelcome friend's arm. Whilst they were waiting he

whispered something eagerly in her ear.

"No, no; it is impossible!" reiterated Helen, with much apparent

distress.

Monsieur D'Arblet whispered something more.

"Very well, if you insist upon it!" she said, faintly, and then got into

her carriage and was driven away.

Before, however, she had left Walpole Lodge five minutes, she called out

to the servants to stop the carriage. The footman descended from the box

and came round to the window.

They had drawn up by the side of a long wall quite beyond the crowd of

carriages that was waiting at Lady Kynaston's house.

"I want to wait here a few minutes, for--for a gentleman I am going to

drive back to town," she said to the servant, confusedly. She was ashamed

to give such an order to him.

She was frightened too, and trembled with nervousness lest any one should

see her waiting here.

It was a cold, damp night, and Helen shivered, and drew her fur cloak

closer about her in the darkness. Presently there came footsteps along

the pathway, and a man came through the fog up to the door. It was opened

for him in silence, and he got in, and the carriage drove off again.

Monsieur Le Vicomte D'Arblet had a mean, cunning-looking countenance;

strictly speaking, indeed, he was rather handsome, his features being

decidedly well-shaped, but the evil and vindictive expression of his

face made it an unpleasant one to look upon. As he took his seat in the

brougham by Helen's side she shrank instinctively away from him.

"So, ma mie!" he said, peering down into her face with odious

familiarity, "here I find you again after all this time, beautiful as

ever! It is charming to be with you again, once more."

"Monsieur D'Arblet, pray understand that nothing but absolute necessity

would have induced me to drive you home to-night," said Helen, who was

trembling violently.

"You are not polite, ma belle--there is a charming _franchise_ about you

Englishwomen, however, which gives a piquancy to your conversation."

"You know very well why it is that I am obliged to speak to you alone,"

she interrupted, colouring hotly under his bold looks of admiration.

"_Le souvenir du beau passé!_" murmured the Frenchman, laughing softly.

"Is that it, ma belle Hélène?"

"Monsieur," she cried, almost in tears, "pray listen to me; for pity's

sake tell me what you have done with my letters--have you destroyed

them?"

"Destroyed them! What, those dear letters that are so precious to my

heart? Ah, madame, could you believe it of me?"

"You have kept them?" she murmured, faintly.

"Mais si, certainement, that I have kept them, every one--every single

one of them," he repeated, looking at her meaningly, with a cold glitter

in his black eyes.

"Not that--_that_ one?" pleaded Helen, piteously.

"Yes--that one too--that charming and delightful letter in which you so

generously offered to throw yourself upon my protection--do you remember

it?"

"Alas, only too well!" she murmured, hiding her face in her hands.

"Ah!" he continued, with a sort of relish in torturing her, which

resembled the feline cruelty of a wild beast playing with its prey. "Ah!

it was a delightful letter, that; what a pity it was that I was out of

Paris that night, and never received it till, alas! it was too late to

rush to your side. You remember how it was, do you not? Your husband was

lying ill at your hotel; you were very tired of him--ce pauvre mari!

Well, you had been tired of him for some time, had you not? And he was

not what you ladies call 'nice;' he did drink, and he did swear, and I

had been often to see you when he was out, and had taken you to the

theatre and the bal d'Opéra--do you remember?"

"Ah, for Heaven's sake spare me these horrible reminiscences!" cried

Helen, despairingly.

He went on pitilessly, as though he had not heard her, "And you were good

enough to write me several letters--there were one, two, three, four of

them," counting them off upon his fingers; "and then came the fifth--that

one you wrote when he was ill. Was it not a sad pity that I had gone out

of Paris for the day, and never received it till you and your husband had

left for England? But think you that I will part with it ever? It is my

consolation, my trésor!"

"Monsieur D'Arblet, if you have one spark of honour or of gentleman-like

feeling, you will give me those mad, foolish letters again. I entreat you

to do so. You know that I was beside myself when I wrote them, I was so

unhappy--do you not see that they compromise me fatally; that it is my

good name, my reputation, which are at stake?" In her agony she had half

sunk at his feet on the floor of the carriage, clasping her hands

entreatingly together.

Monsieur D'Arblet raised her with _empressement_.

"Ah, madame, do not thus humiliate yourself at my feet. Why should you be

afraid? Are not your good name and your reputation safe in my hands?"

Helen burst into bitter tears.

"How cruel, how wicked you are!" she cried; "no Englishman would treat a

lady in this way."

"Your Englishmen are fools, ma chère--and I--I am French!" he replied,

shrugging his shoulders expressively.

"But what object, what possible cause can you have for keeping those

wretched letters?"

He bent his face down close to hers.

"Shall I tell you, belle Hélène? It is this: You are beautiful and you

have talent; I like you. Some day, perhaps, when the grandpapa dies, you

will have money--then Lucien D'Arblet will come to you, madame, with

that precious little packet in his hands, and he will say, 'You will

marry me, ma chère, or I will make public these letters.' Do you see?

Till then, amusez vous, ma belle; enjoy your life and your liberty as

much as you desire; I will not object to anything you do. Only you will

not venture to marry--because I have these letters?"

"You would prevent my marrying?" said Helen, faintly.

"Mais, certainement that I should. Do you suppose any man would care to

be your husband after he had read that last letter--the fifth, you know?"

No answer, save the choking sobs of his companion.

Monsieur D'Arblet waited a few minutes, watching her; then, as she did

not raise her head from the cushions of the carriage, where she had

buried it, the Frenchman pulled the check-string of the carriage.

"Now," he said, "I will wish you good-night, for we are close to your

house. We have had our little talk, have we not?"

The brougham, stopped, and the footman opened the door.

"Good-night, madame, and many thanks for your kindness," said D'Arblet,

raising his hat politely.

In another minute he was gone, and Helen, hoping that the darkness had

concealed the traces of her agitation from the servant's prying eyes, was

driven on, more dead than alive, to her grandfather's house.

CHAPTER VII.

EVENING REVERIES.

For nothing on earth is sadder

Than the dream that cheated the grasp,

The flower that turned to the adder,

The fruit that changed to the asp,

When the dayspring in darkness closes,

As the sunset fades from the hills,

With the fragrance of perished roses,

And the music of parched-up rills.

A. L. Gordon.

It had been the darkest chapter of her life, that fatal month in Paris,

when she had foolishly and recklessly placed herself in the power of a

man so unscrupulous and so devoid of principle as Lucien D'Arblet.

It had begun in all innocence--on her part, at least. She had been very

miserable; she had discovered to the full how wild a mistake her marriage

had been. She had felt herself to be fatally separated from Maurice, the

man she loved, for ever; and Monsieur D'Arblet had been kind to her; he

had pitied her for being tied to a husband who drank and who gambled, and

Helen had allowed herself to be pitied. D'Arblet had charming manners,

and an accurate knowledge of the weakness of the fair sex; he knew when

to flatter and when to cajole her, when to be tenderly sympathetic to her

sorrows, and when to divert her thoughts to brighter and pleasanter

topics than her own miseries. He succeeded in fascinating her completely.

Whilst her husband was occupied with his own disreputable friends, Helen,

sooner than remain alone in their hotel night after night, was persuaded

to accept Monsieur D'Arblet's escort to theatres and operas, and other

public places, where her constant presence with him very soon compromised

her amongst the few friends who knew her in Paris.

Then came scenes with her husband; frantic letters of misery to this

French vicomte, whom she imagined to be so devotedly attached to her,

and, finally, one ever-to-be-repented letter, in which she offered to

leave her husband for ever and to come to him.

True, this letter did not reach its destination till too late, and Helen

was mercifully saved from the fate which, in her wicked despair, she was

ready to rush upon. Twenty-four hours after her return to England she saw

the horrible abyss upon which she had stood, and thanked God from the

bottom of her heart that she had been rescued, in spite of herself, from

so dreadful a deed. But the letter had been written, and was in Lucien

D'Arblet's possession. Later on she learnt, by a chance conversation, the

true character of the man, and shuddered when she remembered how nearly

she had wrecked her whole life for him. And when her husband's death had

placed her once more in the security and affluence of her grandfather's

house, with fresh hopes and fresh chances before her, she had but one

wish with regard to that Parisian episode of her life,--to forget it as

though it had never been.

She hoped, and, as time went on, she felt sure, that she would never see

Monsieur D'Arblet again. New hopes and new excitements occupied her

thoughts. The man to whom in her youth she had given her heart once more

came across her life; she was thrown very much into his society; she

learnt to love him more devotedly than ever, and when at last she had

succeeded in establishing the sort of engagement which existed between

them, she had assured him, and also assured herself, that no other man

had ever, for one instant, filled her fancy. That stormy chapter of her

married life was forgotten; she resolutely wiped it out of her memory, as

if it had never existed.

And now, after all this time--it was five years ago--she had met him

again--this Frenchman, who had once compromised her name, and who now had

possession of her letters.

There was a cruel irony of fate in the fact that she should be destined

to meet him again at Lady Kynaston's, the very house of all others where

she would least have wished to see him.

There was, however, had she thought of it, nothing at all extraordinary

in her having done so. No house in all London society was so open to

foreigners as Walpole Lodge, and Monsieur Le Vicomte D'Arblet was no

unknown upstart; he bore a good old name; he was clever, had taken an

active part in diplomatic life, and was a very well-known individual in

Parisian society. He had been brought to Lady Kynaston's by a member of

the French Embassy, who was a frequenter of her soirées.

Neither, however, was meeting with Mrs. Romer entirely accidental on

Monsieur D'Arblet's part. He had never forgotten the pretty Englishwoman

who had so foolishly and recklessly placed herself in his power.

It is true he had lost sight of her, and other intrigues and other

pursuits had filled his leisure hours; but when he came to England he had

thought of her again, and had made a few careless inquiries after her. It

was not difficult to identify her; the Mrs. Romer who was now a widow,

who lived with her rich grandfather, who was very old, who would probably

soon die and leave her all his wealth, was evidently the same Mrs. Romer

whom he had known. The friend who gave him the information spoke of her

as lovely and _spirituelle_, and as a woman who would be worth marrying

some day. "She is often at Lady Kynaston's receptions," he had added.

"Mon cher, take me to your Lady Kynaston's soirées," had been Lucien

D'Arblet's lazy rejoinder as they finished their evening smoke together.

"I would like to meet my friend, la belle veuve, again, and I will see if

she has forgotten me."

Bitter, very bitter, were Mrs. Romer's remorseful meditations that night

when she reached her grandfather's house at Prince's Gate. Every detail

of her acquaintance with Lucien D'Arblet came back to her with a horrible

and painful distinctness. Over and over again she cursed her own folly,

and bewailed the hardness of the fate which placed her once more in the

hands of this man.

Would he indeed keep his cruel threats to her? Would he bring forward

those letters to spoil her life once more--to prevent her from marrying

Maurice should she ever have the chance of doing so?

Stooping alone over her fire, with all the brightness, and all the

freshness gone out of her, with an old and almost haggard look in the

face that was so lately beaming with smiles and dimples, Helen Romer

asked herself shudderingly these bitter questions over and over again.

Had she been sure of Maurice's love, she would have been almost tempted

to have confessed her fault, and to have thrown herself upon his mercy;

but she knew that he did not love her well enough to forgive her. Too

well she knew with what disgust and contempt Maurice would be likely to

regard her past conduct; such a confession would, she knew, only induce

him to shake himself clear of her for ever. Indeed, had he loved her, it

is doubtful whether Maurice would have been able to condone so grave a

fault in the past history of a woman; his own standard of honour stood

too high to allow him to pass over lightly any disgraceful or

dishonourable conduct in those with whom he had to do. But, loving her

not, she would have been utterly without excuse in his eyes.

She knew it well enough. No, her only chance was in silence, and in vague

hopes that time might rescue her out of her difficulties.

Meanwhile, whilst Helen Romer sat up late into the early morning,

thinking bitterly over her past sins and her future dangers, Maurice

Kynaston and his mother also kept watch together at Walpole Lodge after

all the guests had gone away, and the old house was left alone again to

the mother and son.

"Something troubles you, little mother," said Maurice, as he stretched

himself upon the rug by her bedroom fire, and laid his head down

caressingly upon her knees.

Lady Kynaston passed her hand fondly over the short dark hair. "How well

you know my face, Maurice! Yes, something has worried me all day--it is a

letter from your brother."

Maurice looked up laughingly. "What, is old John in trouble? That would

be something new. Has he taken a leaf out of my book, mother, and dropped

his money at Newmarket, too?"

"No, you naughty boy? John has got more sense. No!" with a sigh--"I wish

it were only money; I fear it is a worse trouble than that."

"My dear mother, you alarm me," cried Maurice, looking up in mock dismay;

"why, whatever has he been and gone and done?"

"Oh, Maurice, it is nothing to laugh at--it is some woman--a girl he has

met down at Kynaston; some nobody--a clergyman's daughter, or sister, or

something--whom he says he is going to marry!" Lady Kynaston looked the

picture of distress and dismay.

Maurice laughed softly. "Well, well, mother; there is nothing very

dreadful after all--I am sure I wish him joy."

"My boy," she said, below her breath, "I had so hoped, so trusted he

would never marry--it seemed so unlikely--he seemed so completely happy

in his bachelor's life; and I had hoped that you--that you----"

"Yes, yes, mother dear, I know," he said, quickly, and twisted himself

round till he got her hand between his, kissing it as he spoke; "but I--I

never thought of that--dear old John, he has been the best of brothers to

me; and, mother dear, I know it is all your love to me; but you and I,

dear, we will not grudge him his happiness, will we?"

He knew so well her weakness--how that she had loved him at the expense

of the other son, who was not so dear to her; he loved her for it, and

yet he did not at his heart think it right.

Lady Kynaston wiped a few tears away. "You are always right, my boy,

always, and I am a foolish old woman. But oh, Maurice, that is only half

the trouble! Who is this woman whom he has chosen? Some country girl,

ignorant of the ways of the world, unformed and awkward--not fitted to be

his wife!"

"Does he say so?" laughed Maurice.

"No, no, of course not. Stay, where is his letter? Oh, there, on the

dressing-table; give it me, my dear. No, this is what he says: 'Miss

Nevill seems to me in every way to fulfil my ideal of a good and perfect

woman, and, if she will consent to marry me, I intend to make her my

wife.'"

"Well, a good and perfect woman is a _rara avis_, at all events mother."

"Oh, dear! but all men say that of a girl when they are in love--it

amounts to very little."

"You see, he has evidently not proposed to her yet; perhaps she will

refuse him."

"Refuse Sir John Kynaston, of Kynaston Hall! A poor clergyman's daughter!

My dear Maurice, I gave you credit for more knowledge of the world.

Besides, John is a fine-looking man. Oh, no, she is not in the least

likely to refuse him."

"Then all we have got to do is to make the best of her," said Maurice,

composedly.

"That is easily said for you, who need see very little of her. But

John's wife is a person who will be of great importance to my

happiness. Dear me! and to think he might have had Lady Mary Hendrie

for the asking: a charming creature, well born, highly educated and

accomplished--everything that a man could wish for. And there were the De

Vallery girls--either of them would have married him, and been a suitable

wife for him; and he must needs go and throw himself away on a little

country chit, who could have been equally happy, and much more suitably

mated, with her father's curate. Maurice, my dear," with a sudden change

of voice, "I wish you would go down and cut him out; if you made love to

her ever so little you could turn her head, you know."

Maurice burst out laughing. "Oh, you wicked, immoral little mother! Did I

ever hear such an iniquitous proposition! Do you want _me_ to marry her?"

"No, no!" laughed his mother; "but you might make her think you meant to,

and then, perhaps, she would refuse John."

"I have not Kynaston Hall at my back, remember, after which you have

given her the credit of angling. Besides, mother dear, to speak plainly,

I honestly do not think my taste in women is in the least likely to be

the same as John's. No, I think I will keep out of the way whilst the

love-making is going on. I will go down and have a look at the young

woman by-and-by when it is all settled, and let you know what I think of

her. I dare say a good, honest country lass will suit John far better

than a beautiful woman of the world, who would be sure to be miserable

with him. Don't fret, little mother; make the best of her if you can."

He rose and stretched himself up to his full height before the fire. Lady

Kynaston looked up at him admiringly. Oh, she thought, if the money and

the name could only have been his! How well he would have made use of it;

how proud she would have been of him--her handsome boy, whom all men

liked, and all women would gladly love.

"A good son makes a good husband," she said aloud, following her own

thoughts.

"And John has been a good son, mother," said Maurice, cordially.

"Yes, yes, in his way, perhaps; but I was thinking of you, my boy, not

of him, and how lucky will be the woman who is your wife, Maurice--will

it be----"

Maurice stooped quickly, and laid his hand playfully over her lips.

"I don't know, mother dear--never ask me--for I don't know it myself."

And then he kissed her, and wished her good-night, and left her.

She sat long over her fire, dreaming, by herself, thinking a little,

perhaps, of the elder son, and the bride he was going to bring her, whom

she should have to welcome whether she liked her or no, but thinking more

of the younger, whose inner life she had studied, and who was so entirely

dear and precious to her. It was very little to her that he had been

extravagant and thoughtless, that he had lost money in betting and

racing--these were minor faults--and she and John between them had always

managed to meet his difficulties; they had not been, in truth, very

tremendous. But for that, he had never caused her one day's anxiety,

never given her one instant's pain. "God grant he may get a wife who

deserves him," was the mother's prayer that night. "I doubt if Helen

be worthy of him; but if he loves her, as I believe he must do, no word

of mine shall stand between him and his happiness."

And then she went to bed, and dreamed, as mothers dream of the child they

love best.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MEMBER FOR MEADOWSHIRE.

Honour and shame from no condition rise;

Act well your part, there all the honour lies.

Pope, "Essay on Man."

About five miles from Kynaston Hall, as the crow flies, across the

fields, stood, as the house-agents would have described it, "a large

and commodious modern mansion, standing in about eighty acres of

well-timbered park land."

I do not know that any description that could be given of Shadonake would

so well answer to the reality as the above familiar form of words.

The house was undoubtedly large, very large, and it was also modern, very

modern. It was a handsome stone structure, with a colonnade of white

pillars along the entrance side, and with a multiplicity of large

plate-glass windows stretching away in interminable vistas in every

direction. A broad gravel sweep led up to the front door; to the right

were the stables, large and handsome too, with a clock-tower and a belfry

over the gateway; and to the left were the gardens and the shrubberies.

There had been an old house once at Shadonake, old and picturesque and

uncomfortable; but when the property had been purchased by the present

owner--Mr. Andrew Miller--after he had been returned as Conservative

member for the county, the old house was swept away, and a modern

mansion, more suited to the wants and requirements of his family, arose

in its place.

The park was flat, but well wooded. The old trees, of course, remained

intact; but the gardens of the first house, being rambling and

old-fashioned, had been done away with, to make room for others on a

larger and more imposing scale; and vineries and pineries, orchid-houses,

and hot-houses of every description arose rapidly all over the site of

the old bowling-green and the wilderness, half kitchen garden, half

rosary, that had served to content the former owners of Shadonake, now

all lying dead and buried in the chancel of the village church.

The only feature of the old mansion which had been left untouched was

rather a remarkable one. It was a large lake or pond, lying south of the

gardens, and about a quarter of a mile from the house. It lay in a sort

of dip in the ground, and was surrounded on all four sides--for it was

exactly square--by very steep high banks, which had been cut into by

steep stone steps, now gray, and broken, and moss-grown, which led down

straight into the water. This pool was called Shadonake Bath. How long

the steps had existed no one knew; probably for several hundred years,

for there was a ghost story connected with them. Somebody was supposed,

before the memory of any one living, to have been drowned there, and to

haunt the steps at certain times of the year.

It is certain that but for the fact of a mania for boating, and punting,

and skating indulged in by several of his younger sons, Mr. Miller, in

his energy for sweeping away all things old, and setting up all things

new, would not have spared the Bath any more than he had spared the

bowling-green. He had gone so far, indeed, as to have a plan submitted to

him for draining it, and turning it into a strawberry garden, and for

doing away with the picturesque old stone steps altogether in order to

encase the banks in red brick, suitable to the cultivation of peaches and

nectarines; but Ernest and Charley, the Eton boys, had thought about

their punts and their canoes, and had pleaded piteously for the Bath; so

the Bath was allowed to remain untouched, greatly to the relief of many

of the neighbours, who were proud of its traditions, and who, in the

general destruction that had been going on at Shadonake, had trembled for

its safety.

Where Mr. Miller had originally come from nobody exactly knew. It was

generally supposed that he had migrated early in life from northern and

manufacturing districts, where his father had amassed a large fortune.

In spite, however, of his wealth, it is doubtful whether he would ever

have achieved the difficult task of being returned for so exclusive and

aristocratic a county as Meadowshire had he not made a most prudent and

politic marriage. He had married one of the Miss Esterworths, of

Lutterton.

Now, everybody who has the slightest knowledge of Meadowshire and its

internal politics will see at once that Andrew Miller could not have done

better for himself. The Esterworths are the very oldest and best of the

old county families; there can be no sort of doubt whatever as to their

position and standing. Therefore, when Andrew Miller married Caroline

Esterworth, there was at once an end of all hesitation as to how he was

to be treated amongst them. Meadowshire might wonder at Miss Caroline's

taste, but it kept its wonder to itself, and held out the right hand of

fellowship to Andrew Miller then and ever after.

It is true that there were five Miss Esterworths, all grown up, and all

unmarried, at the time when Andrew came a-wooing to Lutterton Castle;

they were none of them remarkable for beauty, and Caroline, who was the

eldest of the five, less so than the others. Moreover, there were many

sons at Lutterton, and the daughters' portions were but small. Altogether

the love-making had been easy and prosperous, for Caroline, who was a

sensible young woman, had readily recognized the superior advantages

of marrying an excellent man of no birth or breeding, with twenty

thousand a year, to remaining Miss Esterworth to her dying day, in

dignified but impecunious spinsterhood. Time had proved the wisdom of her

choice. For some years the Millers had rented a small but pretty little

house within two miles of Lutterton, where, of course, everybody visited

them, and got used to Andrew's squat, burly figure, and agreed to

overlook his many little defects of speech and manner in consideration of

his many excellent qualities--and his wealth--and where, in course of

time, all their children, two daughters and six sons, were born.

And then, a vacancy occurring opportunely, Mrs. Miller determined that

her husband should stand in the Conservative interest for the county. She

would have made a Liberal of him had she thought it would answer better.

How she toiled and how she slaved, and how she kept her Andrew, who was

not by any means ambitious of the position, up to the mark, it boots not

here to tell. Suffice it to say, that the deed was accomplished, and that

Andrew Miller became M.P. for North Meadowshire.

Almost at the same time Shadonake fell into the market, and Mrs. Miller

perceived that the time had now come for her husband's wealth to be

recognized and appreciated; or, as he himself expressed it, in vernacular

that was strictly to the point if inelegant in diction, the time was

come for him "to cut a splash."

She had been very clever, this daughter of the Esterworths. She had kept

a tight rein over her husband all through the early years of their

married life. She would have no ostentation, no vulgar display of wealth,

no parading and flaunting of that twenty thousand per annum in their

neighbours' faces. And she had done what she had intended; she had

established her husband's position well in the county--she had made him

to be accepted, not only by reason of his wealth, but also because he was

her husband; she had roused no one's envy--she had never given cause for

spite or jealousy--she had made him popular as well as herself. They had

lived quietly and unobtrusively; they had, of course, had everything of

the best; their horses and carriages were irreproachable, but they had

not had more of them than their neighbours. They had entertained freely,

and they had given their guests well-cooked dinners and expensive wines;

but there had been nothing lavish in their entertainments, nothing that

could make any of them go away and say to themselves, with angry

discontent, that "those Millers" were purse-proud and vulgar in their

wealth. When she had gone to her neighbours' houses Mrs. Miller had been

handsomely but never extravagantly dressed; she had praised their cooks,

and expressed herself envious of their flowers, and had bemoaned her own

inability to vie with their peaches and their pineapples; she had never

talked about her own possessions, nor had she ever paraded her own eight

thousand pounds' worth of diamonds before the envious eyes of women who

had none.

In this way she had made herself popular--and in this way she had won the

county seat for her husband.

When, however, that great end and aim of her existence was accomplished,

Caroline Miller felt that she might now fairly launch out a little. The

time was come when she might reap the advantage of her long years of

repression and patient waiting. Her daughters were growing up, her sons

were all at school. For her children's sake, it was time that she should

take the lead in the county which their father's fortune and new position

entitled them to, and which no one now was likely to grudge them.

Shadonake therefore was bought, and the house straightway pulled down,

and built up again in a style, and with a magnificence, befitting Mr.

Miller's wealth.

Bricks and mortar were Andrew Miller's delight. He was never so happy as

during the three years that Shadonake House was being built; every stone

that was laid was a fresh interest to him; every inch of brick wall a

keen and special delight. He had been disappointed not to have had the

spoliation of Shadonake Bath; it had been a distinct mortification to him

to have to forego the four brick walls which would have replaced its

ancient steps; but then he had made it up to himself by altering the

position of the front door three times before it was finally settled

to his satisfaction.

But all this was over by this time, and when my story begins Shadonake

new House, as it was sometimes called, was built, and furnished and

inhabited in every corner of its lofty rooms, and all along the spacious

length of its many wide corridors.

One afternoon--it is about a week later than that soirée at Walpole

Lodge, mentioned in a previous chapter--Mrs. Miller and her eldest

daughter are sitting together in the large drawing-room at Shadonake. The

room is furnished in that style of high artistic decoration that is now

the fashion. There are rich Persian rugs over the polished oak floor; a

high oak chimney-piece, with blue tiles inserted into it in every

direction, and decorated with old Nankin china bowls and jars; a wide

grate below, where logs of wood are blazing between brass bars;

quantities of spindle-legged Chippendale furniture all over the room,

and a profusion of rich gold embroidery and "textile fabrics" of all

descriptions lighting up the carved oak "dado" and the sombre sage green

of the walls. There are pictures, too, quite of the best, and china of

every period and every style, upon every available bracket and shelf and

corner where a cup or a plate can be made to stand. Four large windows on

one side open on to the lawn; two, at right angles to them, lead into

a large conservatory, where there is, even at this dead season of the

year, a blaze of exotic blossoms that fill the room with their sweet rich

odour.

Mrs. Miller sits before a writing bureau of inlaid satin-wood of an

ancient pattern. She has her pen in her hand, and is docketing her

visiting list. Beatrice Miller sits on a low four-legged stool by her

mother's side, with a large Japanese china bowl on her knees filled with

cards, which she takes out one after the other, reading the names upon

them aloud to her mother before tossing them into a basket, also of

Japanese structure, which is on the floor in front of her.

Beatrice is Mrs. Miller's eldest daughter, and she is twenty. Guy is only

eleven months older, and Edwin is a year younger--they are both at

Oxford; next comes Geraldine, who is still in the school-room, but who is

hoping to come out next Easter; then Ernest and Charley, the Eton boys;

and lastly, Teddy and Ralph, who are at a famous preparatory school,

whence they hope, in process of time, to be drafted on to Eton, following

in the footsteps of their elder brothers.

Of all this large family it is Beatrice, the eldest daughter, who causes

her mother the most anxiety. Beatrice is like her mother--a plain but

clever-looking girl, with the dark swart features and colouring of the

Esterworths, who are not a handsome race. Added to which, she inherits

her father's short and somewhat stumpy figure. Such a personal appearance

in itself is enough to cause uneasiness to any mother who is anxious for

her daughter's future; but when these advantages of looks are rendered

still more peculiar by the fact that her hair had to be shaved off some

years ago when she had scarlet fever, and that it has never grown again

properly, but is worn short and loose about her face like a boy's, with

its black tresses tumbling into her eyes every time she looks down--and

when, added to this, Mrs. Miller also discovered to her mortification

that Beatrice possessed a will of her own, and so decided a method of

expressing her opinions and convictions, that she was not likely to be

easily moulded to her own views, you will, perhaps, understand the extent

of the difficulties with which she has to deal.

For, of course, so clever and so managing a woman as Mrs. Miller has not

allowed her daughter to grow up to the age of twenty without making the

most careful and judiciously-laid schemes for her ultimate disposal. That

Beatrice is to marry is a matter of course, and Mrs. Miller has well

determined that the marriage is to be a good one, and that her daughter

is to strengthen her father's position in Meadowshire by a union with one

or other of its leading families. Now, when Mrs. Miller came to pass the

marriageable men of Meadowshire under review, there was no such eligible

bachelor amongst them all as Sir John Kynaston, of Kynaston Hall.

It was on him, therefore, that her hopes with regard to Beatrice were

fixed. Fortune hitherto had seemed to smile favourably upon her. Beatrice

had had one season in town, during which she had met Sir John frequently,

and he had, contrary to his usual custom, asked her to dance several

times when he had met her at balls. Mrs. Miller said to herself that Sir

John, not being a very young man, did not set much store upon mere

personal beauty; that he probably valued mental qualities in a woman more

highly than the transient glitter of beauty; and that Beatrice's good

sense and sharp, shrewd conversation had evidently made a favourable

impression upon him.

She never was more mistaken in her life. True, Sir John did like Miss

Miller, he found her unconventional and amusing; but his only object in

distinguishing her by his attentions had been to pay a necessary

compliment to the new M.P.'s daughter, a duty which he would have

fulfilled equally had she been stupid as well as plain: moreover, as we

have seen, few men were so intensely sensitive to beauty in a woman as

was Sir John Kynaston. Mrs. Miller, however, was full of hopes concerning

him. To do her justice, she was not exactly vulgarly ambitious for her

daughter; she liked Sir John personally, and had a high respect for his

character, and she considered that Beatrice's high spirit and self-willed

disposition would be most desirably moderated and kept in check by a

husband so much older than herself. Lady Kynaston, moreover, was one of

her best and dearest friends, and was her beau-idéal of all that a clever

and refined lady should be. The match, in every respect, would have been

a very acceptable one to her. Whether or no Miss Beatrice shared her

mother's views on her behalf remains to be seen.

The mother and daughter are settling together the preliminaries of a

week's festivities which Mrs. Miller has decided shall be held at

Shadonake this winter. The house is to be filled, and there are to be a

series of dinner parties, culminating in a ball.

"The Bayleys, the Westons, the Foresters, and two daughters, I suppose,"

reads Mrs. Miller, aloud, from the list in her hand, "Any more for the

second dinner-party, Beatrice?"

"Are you not going to ask the Daintrees, of Sutton, mother?"

"Oh, dear me, another parson, Beatrice! I really don't think we can; I

have got three already. They shall have a card for the ball."

"You will ask that handsome girl who lives with them, won't you?"

"Not the slightest occasion for doing so," replied her mother, shortly.

Beatrice lifted her eyebrows.

"Why, she is the best-looking woman in all Meadowshire; we cannot leave

her out."

"I know nothing about her, not even her name; she is some kind of poor

relation, I believe--acts as the children's governess. We have too many

women as it is. No, I certainly shall not ask her. Go on to the next,

Beatrice."

"But, mother, she is so very handsome! Surely you might include her."

"Dear me, Beatrice, what a stupid girl you are! What is the good of

asking handsome girls to cut you out in your own house? I should have

thought you would have had the sense to see that for yourself," said Mrs.

Miller, impatiently.

"I think you are horribly unjust, mamma," says Miss Beatrice,

energetically; "and it is downright unkind to leave her out because

she is handsome--as if I cared."

"How can I ask her if I do not know her name?" said her mother,

irritably, with just that amount of dread of her daughter's rising temper

to make her anxious to conciliate her. "If you like to find out who she

is and all about her----"

"Yes, I will find out," said Beatrice, quietly; "give me the note, I will

keep it back for the present."

"Now, for goodness sake, go on, child, and don't waste any more time. Who

are coming from town to stay in the house?"

"Well, there will be Lady Kynaston, I suppose."

"Yes. She won't come till the end of the week. I have heard from her; she

will try and get down in time for the ball."

"Then there will be the Macpherson girls and Helen Romer. And, as a

matter of course, Captain Kynaston must be asked?"

"Yes. What a fool that woman is to advertise her feelings so openly that

one is obliged to ask her attendant swain to follow her wherever she

goes!"

"On the contrary, I think her remarkably clever; she gets what she wants,

and the cleverest of us can do no more. It is a well-known fact to all

Helen's acquaintances that not to ask Captain Kynaston to meet her would

be deliberately to insult her--she expects it as her right."

"All the same, it is in very bad taste and excessively underbred of her.

However, I should ask Captain Kynaston in any case, for his mother's

sake, and because I like him. He is a good shot, too, and the coverts

must be shot that week. Who next?"

"Mr. Herbert Pryme."

"Goodness me! Beatrice, what makes you think of _him_? We don't know

anything about him--where he comes from or who are his belongings--he is

only a nobody!"

"He is a barrister, mamma!"

"Yes, of course, I know that--but, then, there are barristers of all

sorts. I am sure I do not know what made you fix upon him; you only met

him two or three times in town."

"I liked him," said Beatrice, carelessly; "he is a gentleman, and would

be a pleasant man to have in the house."

Her mother looked at her sharply. She was playing with the gold locket

round her neck, twisting it backwards and forwards along its chain, her

eyes fixed upon the heap of cards on her lap. There was not the faintest

vestige of a blush upon her face.

"However," she continued, "if you don't care about having him, strike his

name out. Only it is a pity, because Sophy Macpherson is rather fond of

him, I fancy."

This was a lie; it was Miss Beatrice herself who was fond of him, but not

even her mother, keen and quick-scented as she was, could have guessed it

from her impassive face. Mrs. Miller was taken in completely.

"Oh," she said, "if Sophy Macpherson likes him, that alters the case. Oh,

yes, I will ask him by all means--as you say, he is a gentleman and

pleasant."

"Look, mamma!" exclaimed Beatrice, suddenly; "there is uncle Tom riding

up the drive."

Now, Tom Esterworth was a very important personage; he was the present

head of the Esterworth family, and, as such, the representative of its

ancient honours and traditions. He was a bachelor, and reigned in

solitary grandeur at Lutterton Castle, and kept the hounds as his

fathers had done before him.

Uncle Tom was thought very much of at Shadonake, and his visits always

caused a certain amount of agitation in his sister's mind. To her dying

day she would be conscious that in Tom's eyes she had been guilty of a

_mésalliance_. She never could get that idea out of her head; it made her

nervous and ill at ease in his presence. She hustled all her notes and

cards hurriedly together into her bureau.

"Uncle Tom! Dear me, what can he have come to-day for! I thought the

hounds were out. Ring the bell, Beatrice; he will like some tea. Where

is your father?"

"Papa is out superintending the building of the new pigsties," said

Beatrice as she rang the bell. "I think uncle Tom has been hunting; he is

in boots and breeches I see."

"Dear me, I hope your father won't come in with his muddy feet and his

hands covered with earth," said Mrs. Miller, nervously.

Uncle Tom came in, a tall, dark-faced, strong-limbed man of fifty--an

ugly man, if you will, but a gentleman, and an Esterworth, every inch of

him. He kissed his sister, and patted his niece on the cheek.

"Why weren't you out to-day, Pussy?"

"You met so far off, uncle. I had no one to ride with to the meet. The

boys will be back next week. Have you had a good run?"

"No, we've done nothing but potter about all the morning; there isn't a

scrap of scent."

"Uncle Tom, will you give us a meet here when we have our house-warming?"

"Humph! you haven't got any foxes at Shadonake," answered her uncle. He

had drawn his chair to the fire, and was warming his hands over the

blazing logs. Beatrice was rather a favourite with him. "I will see about

it, Pussy," he added, kindly, seeing that she looked disappointed. Mrs.

Miller was pouring him out a cup of tea.

"Well, I've got a piece of news for you women!" says Mr. Esterworth,

stretching out his hand for his tea. "John Kynaston's going to be

married!"

Mrs. Miller never knew how it was that the old Worcester tea-cup in her

hand did not at this juncture fall flat on the ground into a thousand

atoms at her brother's feet. It is certain that only a very strong

exercise of self-control and presence of mind saved it from destruction.

"Engaged to be married!" she said, with a gasp.

"That is news indeed," cried Beatrice, heartily, "I am delighted."

"Don't be so foolish, Beatrice," said her mother, quite sharply. "How on

earth can you be delighted when you don't even know who it is? Who is it,

Tom?"

"Ah, that is the whole pith of the matter," said Mr. Esterworth, who was

not above the weakness of liking to be the bearer of a piece of gossip.

"I'll give you three guesses, and I'll bet you won't hit it."

"One of the Courtenay girls?"

"No."

"Anna Vivian?"

"I know," says Beatrice, nodding her head sagely; "it is that girl who

lives with the Daintrees."

"Beatrice, how silly you are!" cries her mother.

Tom Esterworth turns round in his chair, and looks at his niece.

"By Jove, you've hit it!" he exclaims. "What a clever pussy you are to be

sure."

And then the soul of the member's wife became filled with consternation

and disgust.

"Well, I call it downright sly of John Kynaston!" she exclaims, angrily;

"picking out a nobody like that behind all our backs, and keeping it so

quiet, too; he ought to be ashamed of himself for such an unsuitable

selection!"

Beatrice laughed. "You know, uncle Tom, mamma wanted him to marry me."

"Beatrice, you should not say such things," said her mother, colouring.

"Whew!" whistled Mr. Esterworth. "So that was the little game, Caroline,

was it? John Kynaston has better taste. He wouldn't have looked at an

ugly little girl like our pussy here, would he, Puss? Miss Nevill is one

of the finest women I ever saw in my life. She was at the meet to-day on

one of his horses; and, by Jove! she made all the other women look plain

by the side of her! Kynaston is a very lucky fellow."

"I think, mamma, there can be no doubt about sending Miss Nevill an

invitation to our ball now," said Beatrice, laughingly.

"She will have to be asked to stay in the house," said Mrs. Miller, with

something akin to a groan. "I cannot leave her out, as Lady Kynaston is

coming. Oh, dear! oh, dear! what fools men are, to be sure!"

But Beatrice was wicked enough to laugh again over her mother's

discomfiture.

CHAPTER IX.

ENGAGED.

I wonder did you ever count

The value of one human fate,

Or sum the infinite amount

Of one heart's treasures, and the weight

Of one heart's venture.

A. Procter.

It was quite true what Mr. Thomas Esterworth had said, that Vera was

engaged to Sir John Kynaston.

It had all come about so rapidly, and withal so quietly, that, when Vera

came to think of it, it rather took her breath away. She had expected it,

of course; indeed, she had even planned and tried for it; but, when it

had actually come to her, she felt herself to be bewildered by the

suddenness of it.

In the end the climax of the love-making had been prosaic enough. Sir

John had not felt himself equal to the task of a personal interview with

the lady of his affections, with the accompanying risks of a personal

rejection, which, in his modesty and humility with reference to her, he

had believed to be quite on the cards. So he had written to her. The note

had been taken up to the vicarage by the footman, and had been brought

into the dining-room by the vicarial parlour-maid, just as the three

ladies were finishing breakfast, and after the vicar himself had left the

room.

"A note from Kynaston, please 'm," says rosy-cheeked Hannah, holding it

forth before her, upon a small japanned tray, as an object of general

family interest and excitement.

"For your master, Hannah?" says old Mrs. Daintree. "Are they waiting for

an answer? You will find him in his study."

"No, ma'am, it's for Miss Vera."

"Dear me!" with a suspicious glance across the table; "how very odd!"

Vera takes up the note and opens it.

"May I have the crest, auntie?" clamours Tommy before she had read three

words of it.

"Is it about the horse he has offered you to ride?" asks his mother.

But Vera answers nothing; she gets up quietly, and leaves the room

without a word.

"Extraordinary!" gasps Mrs. Daintree; "Vera's manners are certainly most

abrupt and unlady-like at times, Marion. I think you ought to point it

out to her."

Marion murmurs some unintelligible excuse and follows her sister--leaving

the unfortunate Tommy a prey to his grandmother's tender mercies. So

brilliant an opportunity is not, of course, to be thrown away. Tommy's

fingers, having incontinently strayed in the direction of the

sugar-basin, are summarily slapped for their indiscretion, and an

admonition is straightway delivered to him in forcible language

concerning the pains and penalties which threaten the ulterior destiny of

naughty little boys in general and of such of them in particular who are

specially addicted to the abstraction of lumps of sugar from the

breakfast-table.

Meanwhile, Marion has found her sister in the adjoining room standing up

alone upon the hearthrug with Sir John Kynaston's letter in her hands.

She is not reading it now, she is looking steadfastly into the fire. It

has fulfilled--nay, more than fulfilled--her wishes. The triumph of her

success is pleasant to her, and has brought a little more than their

usual glow into her cheeks, and yet--Heaven knows what vague and

intangible dreams and fancies have not somehow sunk down chill and cold

within her during the last five minutes.

Gratified ambition--flattered vanity--the joy of success--all this she

feels to the full; but nothing more! There is not one single other

sensation within her. Her pulses have not quickened, ever so little, as

she read her lover's letter; her heart has not throbbed, even once, with

a sweeter, purer delight--such as she has read and heard that other women

have felt.

"I suppose I have no heart," said Vera to herself; "it must be that I am

cold by nature. I am happy; but--but--I wonder what it feels like--this

_love_--that there is so much talked and written about?"

And then Marion came in breathlessly.

"Oh, Vera, what is it?"

Vera turns round to her, smiling serenely, and places the note in her

hands.

This is what Sir John Kynaston has written:--

"Dear Miss Nevill,--I do not think what I am about to say will be

altogether unexpected by you. You must have surely guessed how sincere

an affection I have learnt to feel for you. I know that I am unworthy

of you, and I am conscious of how vast a disparity there is between

my age and your own youth and beauty. But if my great love and devotion

can in any way bridge over the gap that lies between us, believe me,

that if you will consent to be my wife, my whole life shall be devoted

to making you happy. If you can give me an answer to-day, I shall be

very grateful, as suspense is hard to bear. But pray do not decide

against me in haste, and without giving me every chance in your power.

"Yours devotedly,

"John Kynaston."

"Oh! Vera, my darling sister, I am so glad!" cries Marion, in tearful

delight, throwing her arms up round the neck of the young sister, who is

so much taller than she is; "I had guessed it, dearest; I saw he was in

love with you; and oh, Vera, I shall have you always near me!"

"Yes, that will be nice," assents Vera, quietly, and a trifle absently,

stroking her sister's cheek, with her eyes still fixed on the fire; "and

of course," rousing herself with an effort, "of course I am a very lucky

woman."

And then Mr. Daintree came in, and his wife rushed to him rapturously to

impart the joyful news. There was a little pleasant confusion of broken

words and explanations between the three, and then Marion whisked away,

brimming over with triumphant delight to wave the flags of victory

exultingly in her mother-in-law's face.

Eustace Daintree and Vera were alone. He took her hands within his, and

looked steadfastly in her face.

"Vera, are you sure of yourself, my dear, in this matter?"

Her eyes met his for a moment, and then fell before his earnest gaze. She

coloured a little.

"I am quite sure that I mean to accept Sir John's proposal," she said,

with a little uneasy laugh.

"Child, do you love him?"

Her eyes met his again; there was a vague trouble in them. The man had a

power over her, the power of sheer goodness of soul. She could never be

untrue to herself with Eustace Daintree; she was always at her very best

with him, humble and gentle; and she could no more have told him a lie,

or put him off with vague conventionalities, than she could have

committed a deadly sin.

What is it about some people that, in spite of ourselves, they thus force

out of us the best part of our nature; that base and unworthy thoughts

cannot live in us before them,--that they melt out of our hearts as the

snow before the rays of the sun? Even though the effect may be transient,

such is the power of their faith, and their truth, and their goodness,

that it must needs call forth in us something of the same spirit as their

own.

Such was Eustace Daintree's influence over Vera. It was not because of

his office, for no one was less susceptible than Vera--a Protestant

brought up, with but vague ideas of her own faith, in a Catholic land--to

any of those recognized associations with which a purely English-bred

girl might have felt the character of the clergyman of the parish where

she lived to be invested. It was nothing of that sort that made him great

to her; it was, simply and solely, the goodness of the man that impressed

her. His guilelessness, his simplicity of mind, his absolute uprightness

of character, and, with it all, the absence in him of any assumption of

authority, or of any superiority of character over those about him. His

very humility made her humble with him, and exalted him into something

saintly in her eyes.

When Eustace looked at her fixedly, with all his good soul in his earnest

eyes, and said to her again, "Do you love him, Vera?" Vera could but

answer him simply and frankly, almost against her will, as it were.

"I don't think I do, Eustace; but then I do not quite know what love is.

I do not think, however, that it can be what I feel."

"My child, no union can be hallowed without love. Vera, you will not run

into so great a danger?" he said anxiously.

She looked up at him smiling.

"I like him better than any one else, at all events. Better than Mr.

Gisburne, for instance. And I think, I do really think, Eustace, it will

be for my happiness."

The vicar looked grave. "If Sir John Kynaston were a poor man, would you

marry him?"

And Vera answered bravely, though with a heightened colour--

"No; but it is not only for the money, Eustace; indeed it is not.

But--but--I should be miserable without it; and I must do something with

my life."

He drew her near to him, and kissed her forehead. He understood her. With

that rare gift of sympathy--the highest, the most God-like of all human

attributes--he felt at once what she meant. It was wonderful that this

man, who was so unworldly, so unselfish, so pure of the stains of earth

himself, should have seen at once her position from her own point of

view; that was neither a very exalted one, nor was it very free from the

dross of worldliness. But it was so. All at once he seemed to know by a

subtle instinct what were the weaknesses, and the temptations, and the

aims of this girl, who, with all her faults, was so dear to him. He

understood her better, perhaps, than she understood herself. Her soul was

untouched by passion; the story of her life was unwritten; there was no

danger for her yet; and perchance it might be that the storms of life

would pass her by unscathed, and that she might remain sheltered for ever

in the safe haven which had opened so unexpectedly to receive her.

"There is a peril in the course you have chosen," he said, gravely; "but

your soul is pure, and you are safe. And I know, Vera, that you will

always do your duty."

And the tears were in her eyes as he left her.

When he had gone she sat down to write her answer to Sir John Kynaston.

She dipped her pen into the ink, and sat with it in her hand, thinking.

Her brother-in-law's words had aroused a fresh train of thought within

her. There seemed to be an amount of solemnity in what she was about to

do that she had not considered before. It was true that she did not love

him; but then, as she had told Eustace just now, she loved no one else;

she did not rightly understand what love meant, indeed. And is a woman to

wait on in patience for years until love comes to her? Would it ever

come? Probably not, thought Vera; not to her, who thought herself to be

cold, and not easily moved. There must be surely many women to whom this

wonderful thing of love never comes. In all her experience of life there

was nothing to contradict this. It was not as if she had been a girl who

had never left her native village, never tasted of the pleasures of life,

never known the sweet incense of flattery and devotion. Vera had known it

all. Many men had courted her; one or two had loved her dearly, but she

had not loved them. Amongst them all, indeed, there had been never one

whom she had liked with such a sincere affection as she now felt for this

man, who seemed to love her so much, and who wrote to her so diffidently,

and yet so devotedly.

"I love him as well as I am ever likely to love any one," said Vera, to

herself. Yet still she leant her chin upon her hand and looked out of the

window at the gray bare branches of the elm-trees across the damp green

lawn, and still her letter was unwritten.

"Vera!" cries Marion, coming in hurriedly and breaking in upon her

reverie, "the footman from Kynaston is waiting all this time to know if

there is any answer! Shall I send him away? Or have you made up your

mind?"

"Oh yes, I have made up my mind. My note will be ready directly; he may

as well take it. It will save the trouble of sending up to the Hall

later." For Vera remembers that there is not a superfluity of servants

at the vicarage, and that they all of them have plenty to do.

And thus, a mere trifle--a feather, as it were, on the river of

life--settled her destiny for her out of hand.

She dipped her pen into the ink once more, and wrote:--

"Dear Sir John,--You have done me a great honour in asking me to be

your wife. I am fully sensible of your affection, and am very grateful

for it. I fear you think too highly of me; but I will endeavour to

prove myself worthy of your good opinion, and to make you as good a

wife as you deserve.

"Yours,

"Vera Nevill."

She was conscious herself of the excessive coldness of her note, but she

could not help it. She could not, for the life of her, have made it

warmer. Nothing, indeed, is so difficult as to write down feelings that

do not exist; it is easier to simulate with our spoken words and our

looks; but the pen that is urged beyond its natural inclination seems to

cool into ice in our fingers. But, at all events, she had accepted him.

It was a relief to her when the thing was done, and the note sent off

beyond the possibility of recall.

After that there had been no longer any leisure for her doubting

thoughts. There was her sister's delighted excitement, Mrs. Daintree's

oppressive astonishment, and even Eustace's calmer satisfaction in her

bright prospects, to occupy and divert her thoughts. Then there came her

lover himself, tender and grateful, and with so worshipful a respect in

every word and action that the most sensitive woman could scarcely have

been ruffled or alarmed by the prospects of so deferential a husband.

In a few days Vera became reconciled to her new position, which was in

truth a very pleasant one to her. There were the congratulations of

friends and acquaintances to be responded to; the pleasant flutter of

adulation that surrounded her once more; the little daily excitement

of John Kynaston's visits--all this made her happy and perfectly

satisfied with the wisdom of her decision.

Only one thing vexed her.

"What will your mother say, John?" she had asked the very first day she

had been engaged to him.

"It will not make much difference to me, dearest, whatever she may say."

Nor in truth would it, for Sir John, as we have seen, had never been a

devoted son, nor had he ever given his confidence to his mother; he had

always gone his own way independently of her.

"But it must needs make a difference to me," Vera had insisted. "You have

written to her, of course."

"Oh, yes; I wrote and told her I was engaged to you."

"And she has not written?"

"Yes, there was a message for you--her love or something."

Sir John evidently did not consider the subject of much importance. But

Vera was hurt that Lady Kynaston had not written to her.

"I will never enter any family where I am not welcome," she had said to

her lover, proudly.

And then Sir John had taken fright, for she was so precious to him that

the fear of losing her was becoming almost as a nightmare to him, and,

possibly, at the bottom of his heart he knew how feeble was his hold

over her. He had written off to his mother that day a letter that was

almost a command, and had told her to write to Vera.

This letter was not likely to prepossess Lady Kynaston, who was a

masterful little lady herself, in her daughter-in-law's favour; it did

more harm than good. She had obeyed her son, it is true, because he was

the head of the family, and because she stood in awe of him; but the

letter, thus written under compulsion, was not kind--it was not even

just.

"Horrid girl!" had said Lady Kynaston, angrily, to herself, as she had

sat down to her writing-table to fulfil her son's mandate. "It is not

likely that I can be very loving to her--some wretched, second-rate girl,

evidently--for not even Caroline Miller who, goodness knows, rakes up all

the odds and ends of society--ever heard of her before!"

It is not to be supposed that a letter undertaken under such auspices

could be in any way conciliatory or pleasant in its tone. Such as it was,

Vera put it straight into the fire directly she had read it; no one ever

saw it but herself.

"I have heard from your mother," she said to Sir John.

"Yes? I am very glad. She wrote everything that was kind, no doubt."

"I dare say she meant to be kind," said Vera; which was not true, because

she knew perfectly that there had been no kindness intended. But she

pursued the subject no further.

"I hope you will like Maurice," said Sir John, presently; "he is a

good-hearted boy, though he has been sadly extravagant, and given me

a good deal of trouble."

"I shall be glad to know your brother," said Vera, quietly. "Is he coming

to Kynaston?"

"Yes, eventually; but you will meet him first at Shadonake when you go

to stay there: they have asked a large party for that week, I hear, and

Maurice will be there."

Now, by this time Vera knew that the photograph she had once found in the

old writing-table drawer at Kynaston was that of her lover's brother

Maurice.

CHAPTER X.

A MEETING ON THE STAIRS.

Since first I saw your face

I resolved to honour and renown you;

If now I be disdained,

I wish my heart had never known you.

The Sun whose beams most glorious are

Rejecteth no beholder,

And your sweet beauty past compare

Made my poor eyes the bolder.

Thomas Ford.

I have often wondered why, in the ordering of human destinies,

some special Providence, some guardian spirit who is gifted with

foreknowledge, is not mercifully told off to each of us so to order the

trifles of our lives that they may combine to the working together of our

weal, instead of conspiring, as they too often and too evidently do, for

our woe.

Look back upon your own life, and upon the lives of those whose story you

have known the most intimately, and see what straws, what nonentities,

what absurd trivialities have brought about the most important events of

existence. Recollect how, and in what manner, those people whom it would

have been well for you never to have known came across you. How those

whose influence over you is for good were kept out of your way at the

very crisis of your life. Think what a different life you would have led;

I do not mean only happier, but how much better and purer, if some absurd

trifle had not seemed to play into the hands, as it were, of your

destiny, and to set you in a path whereof no one could at the time

foresee the end.

Some one had looked out their train in last month's Bradshaw, unwitting

of the autumn alterations, and was kept from you till the next day. You

took the left instead of the right side of the square on your way home,

or you stood for a minute gossiping at your neighbour's door, and there

came by some one who ultimately altered and embittered your whole life,

and who, but for that accidental meeting, you would, probably, never have

seen again; or some evil adviser was at hand, whilst one whose opinion

you revered, and whose timely help would have saved you from taking that

false step you ever after regretted, was kept to the house, by Heaven

knows what ridiculous trifle--a cold in the head, or finger-ache--and

did not see you to warn and to keep you back from your own folly until it

was too late.

People say these things are ordered for us. I do not know; it may be so,

but sometimes it seems rather as if we were irresponsible puppets, tossed

and buffeted about, blindly and helplessly, upon life's river, as

fluttering dead leaves are danced wildly along the swift current of a

Highland stream. Such a trifle might have saved us! yet there was no

pitying hand put forth to avert that which, in our human blindness,

appeared to us to be as unimportant as any other incident of our lives.

Life is an unsolvable problem. Shall we ever, in some other world,

I wonder, read its riddles aright?

All these moral dissertations have been called forth because Vera Nevill

went to stay for a week at Shadonake. If she had known--what we none of

us know--the future, she doubtless would have stayed away. Fate--a

beneficent fate, indeed--made, I am bound to confess, a valiant effort in

her behalf. Little Minnie fell ill the day before her departure; and the

symptoms were such that everybody in the house believed that she was

sickening for scarlet fever. The doctor, however, having been hastily

summoned, pronounced the disease to be an infantile complaint of a

harmless and innocuous nature, which he dignified by the delusively

poetical name of "Rosalia."

"It is not infectious, Mr. Smee, I hope?" asked Marion, anxiously.

"Nothing to prevent my sister going to stay at the Millers' to morrow?"

"Not in the least infectious, Mrs. Daintree, and anybody in the house can

go wherever they like, except the child herself, who must be kept in a

warm room for two days, when she will probably be quite well again."

"I am glad, dear, there is nothing to put a stop to your visit; it would

have been such a pity," said Marion, in her blindness, to her sister

afterwards.

So the fates had a game of pitch and toss with Vera's future, and settled

it amongst them to their own satisfaction, probably, but not, it will be

seen, for Vera's own good or ultimate happiness.

On the afternoon of the 3rd day of January, therefore, Eustace

Daintree drove his sister-in-law over to Shadonake in the open

basket pony-carriage, and deposited her and her box safely at the

stone-colonnaded door of that most imposing mansion, which she entered

exactly ten minutes before the dressing-bell rang, and was conducted

almost immediately upstairs to her own room.

Some twenty minutes later there are still two ladies sitting on in the

small tea-room, where it is the fashion at Shadonake to linger between

the hours of five and seven, who alone have not yet moved to obey the

mandate of the dressing-bell.

"What _is_ the good of waiting?" says Beatrice, impatiently; "the train

is often late, and, besides, he may not come till the nine o'clock

train."

"That is just what I want to wait for," answers Helen Romer. "I want

just to hear if the carriage has come back, and then I shall know for

certain."

"Well, you know how frightfully punctual papa is, and how angry it makes

him if anybody is late."

"Just two minutes more, Beatrice; I can dress very quickly when once

I set to work," pleads Helen.

Beatrice sits down again on the arm of the sofa, and resigns herself to

her fate; but she looks rather annoyed and vexed about it.

Mrs. Romer paces the room feverishly and impatiently.

"What did you think of Miss Nevill?" asks Beatrice.

"I could hardly see her in her hat and that thick veil; but she looked as

if she were handsome."

"She is _beautiful_!" says Beatrice, emphatically, "and uncle Tom

says----"

"Hush!" interrupts Helen, hurriedly. "Is not that the sound of

wheels?--Yes, it is the carriage."

She flies to the door.

"Take care, Helen," says Beatrice, anxiously; "don't open the door

wide, don't let the servants think we have been waiting, it looks so

bad--so--so unlady-like."

But Helen Romer does not even hear her; she is listening intently to the

approaching sounds, with the half-opened door in her hand.

The tea-room door opens into a large inner hall, out of which leads the

principal staircase; the outer or entrance-hall is beyond; and presently

the stopping of the carriage, the opening and shutting of doors from the

servants' departments, and all the usual bustle of an arrival are heard.

The two girls stand close together listening, Beatrice hidden in the

shadow of the room.

"There are _two_ voices!" cries Helen, in a disappointed tone; "he is not

alone!"

"I suppose it is Mr. Pryme--mamma said he might come by this train,"

answers Beatrice, so quietly that no one could ever have guessed how her

heart was beating.

"Helen, _do_ let us run upstairs; I really cannot stay. Let _me_ go, at

all events!" she adds, with a sudden agony of entreaty as the guests were

heard advancing towards the door of the inner hall. And as Helen made not

the slightest sign of moving, Beatrice slipped past her and ran lightly

and swiftly across the hall upstairs, and disappeared along the landing

above just as Captain Kynaston and Mr. Herbert Pryme appeared upon the

scene below.

No such scruples of modesty troubled Mrs. Romer. As the young men entered

the inner hall preceded by the butler, who was taking them up to their

rooms, and followed by two footmen who were bearing their portmanteaus,

Helen stepped boldly forward out of the shelter of the tea-room, and held

out her hand to Captain Kynaston.

"How do you do? How late your train is."

Maurice looked distinctly annoyed, but of course he shook hands with her.

"How are you, Mrs. Romer? I did not expect you to be here till to-morrow.

Yes, we are late," consulting his watch; "only twenty minutes to dress

in--I must look sharp."

Meanwhile the stranger, Mr. Pryme, was following the butler upstairs.

Helen lowered her voice.

"I _must_ speak to you a minute, Maurice; it is six weeks since we have

met, and to meet in public would be too trying. Please dress as quickly

as ever you can; I know you can dress quickly if you choose; and wait for

me here at the bottom of the stairs--we might get just three minutes

together before dinner."

There were the footmen and the portmanteaus within six yards of them, and

Mr. Pryme and the butler still within earshot. What was Maurice to do? He

could not really listen to a whole succession of prayers, and entreaties,

and piteous appeals. There was neither the time, nor was it the place,

for either discussion or remonstrance. All he could do was to nod a hasty

assent to her request.

"Then I must make haste," he said, and ran quickly upstairs in the wake

of the other guest.

The staircase at Shadonake was very wide and very handsome, and

thoroughly in keeping with the spacious character of the house. It

consisted of one wide flight of shallow steps, with a richly-carved

balustrade on either side of it, leading straight down from a large

square landing above. Both landing and steps were carpeted with thick

velvet-pile carpet, so that no jarring footfall was ever heard upon them.

The hall into which the staircase led was paved in coloured mosaic tiles,

and was half covered over with rich Persian rugs. A great many doors,

nearly all the sitting-rooms of the house, in fact, opened into it,

and the blank spaces of the wall were filled in with banks of large

handsome plants, palms and giant ferns, and azaleas in full bloom, which

were daily rearranged by the gardeners in every available corner.

At the foot of the staircase, and with his back to it, leaning against

the balustrade, stood Captain Kynaston, exactly four minutes before the

dinner was announced.

Most people were in the habit of calling Maurice a good-looking man, but

if anybody had seen him now for the first time it is doubtful whether

they would have endorsed that favourable opinion upon his personal

appearance. A thoroughly ill-tempered expression of face seldom enhances

any one's good looks, and if ever a man looked in a bad temper, Maurice

Kynaston did so at the present moment.

He stood with his hands in his trousers pockets, and his eyes fixed upon

his own boots, and he looked as savage as it was well possible for a man

to look.

He was waiting here for Helen, because he had told her that he would do

so, and when Captain Kynaston promised anything to a lady he always kept

his word.

But to say that he hated being there is but a mild term for the rage and

disgust he experienced.

To be waylaid and attacked thus, directly he had set foot in the house,

with a stranger and three servants looking on so as to render him

absolutely helpless; to be uncomfortably hurried over his toilet, and

inveigled into a sort of rendezvous at the foot of a public staircase,

where a number of people might at any minute enter from any one of the

six or eight surrounding doors, was enough of itself to try his temper;

but when he came to consider how Helen, in thus appropriating him and

making him obey her caprices, was virtually breaking her side of the

treaty between them; that she was exacting from him the full amount of

servitude and devotion which an open engagement would demand, and yet she

had agreed to deny any such engagement between them openly--it was, he

felt, more than he could continue to bear with meekness.

Meekness, indeed, was in no way Maurice Kynaston's distinguishing

characteristic. He was masterful and imperious by nature; to be the slave

of any woman was neither pleasant nor profitable to him. Honour, indeed,

had bound him to Helen, and had he loved her she might have led him. Her

position gave her a certain hold over him, and she knew how to appeal to

his heart; but he loved her not, and to control his will and his spirit

was beyond her power.

Maurice said to himself that he would put a stop to this system of

persecution once and for all--that this interview, which she herself had

contrived, should be made the opportunity of a few forcible words, that

should frighten her into submission.

So he stood fretting, and fuming, and raging, waiting for her at the foot

of the stairs.

There was a soft rustle, as of a woman's dress, behind him. He turned

sharply round.

Halfway down the stairs came a woman whom he had never seen before.

A black velvet dress, made high in the throat, with a wide collar of

heavy lace upon her shoulders, hung clingingly about the outlines of her

tall and perfect figure; her hands, with some lace ruffles falling about

her wrists, were simply crossed before her. The light of a distant

hanging-lamp shone down upon her, just catching one diamond star that

glittered among the thick coils of her hair--she wore no other ornament.

She came down the stairs slowly, almost lingeringly, with a certain

grace in her movements, and without a shadow of embarrassment or

self-consciousness.

Maurice drew aside to let her pass him--looking at her--for how could he

choose but look? But when she reached the bottom of the steps, she turned

her face towards him.

"You are Maurice--are you not?" she said, and put forth both her hands

towards him.

An utter bewilderment as to who she was made him speechless; his mind had

been full of Helen and his own troubles; everything else had gone out of

his head. She coloured a little, still holding out her hands to him.

"I am Vera," she said, simply, and there was a little deprecating appeal

in the words as though she would have added, "Be my friend."

He took the hands--soft slender hands that trembled a very little in his

grasp--within his own, and some nameless charm in their gentle touch

brought a sudden flush into his face, but no appropriate words concerning

his pleasure at meeting her, or his gratification at their future

relations, fell from Maurice Kynaston's lips. He only held her thus by

her hands, and looked at her--looked at her as if he could never look at

her enough--from her head to her feet, and from her feet up again to her

head, till a sudden wave of colour flooded her face at the earnestness

of his scrutiny.

"Vera--_Vera Nevill_!" was all he said; and then below his breath, as

though his absolute amazement were utterly irrepressible: "_By Jove!_"

And Vera laughed softly at the thoroughly British character of the

exclamation.

"How like an Englishman!" she said. "An Italian would have paid me fifty

pretty compliments in half the time you have taken just to stare at me!"

"What a charming _tableau vivant_!" exclaims a voice above them as Mrs.

Romer comes down the staircase. "You really look like a scene in a play!

Pray don't let me disturb you."

"I am making friends with my sister-in-law that is to be, Mrs. Romer,"

says Maurice, who has dropped Vera's hands with a guilty suddenness, and

now endeavours to look completely at his ease--an effort in which he

signally fails.

"Were you? Dear me! I thought you and Miss Nevill were practising the

pose of the 'Huguenots'!"

Now the whole armoury of feminine weapons--impertinence, spite, and bad

manners, born of jealousy--is utterly beneath the contempt of such a

woman as Vera; but she is no untried, inexperienced country girl such as

Mrs. Romer imagines her to be disconcerted or stricken dumb by such an

attack. She knew instantly that she had been attacked, and in what

manner, and she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

"I have never seen that picture, the 'Huguenots,' Mrs. Romer," she

said, quietly; "do you think there is a photograph or a print of it

at Kynaston, Maurice? If so, you or John must show it to me."

And how Mrs. Romer hated her then and there, from that very minute until

her life's end, it would not be easy to set forth!

The utter _insouciance_, the lady-like ignoring of Helen's impertinence,

the quiet assumption of what she knew her own position in the Kynaston

family to be, down to the sisterly "Maurice," whereby she addressed the

man whom in public, at least, Mrs. Romer was forced to call by a more

formal name--all proved to that astute little woman that Vera Nevill was

no ordinary antagonist, no village maiden to be snubbed or patronised at

her pleasure, but a woman of the world, who understood how to fight her

own battles, and was likely, as she was forced to own to herself, to

"give back as good as she got."

Not another single word was spoken between them, for at that very minute

a door was thrown open, and the whole of the party in the house came

trooping forth in pairs from the drawing-room in a long procession on

their way to the dining-room.

First came Mr. Miller with old Mrs. Macpherson on his arm. Then Mr. Pryme

and Miss Sophy Macpherson; her sister behind with Guy Miller; Beatrice,

looking melancholy, with the curate in charge; and her mother last with

Sir John, who had come over from Kynaston to dinner. Edwin Miller, the

second son, by himself brought up the rear.

There was some laughter at the expense of the three defaulters, who, of

course, were supposed to have only just hurried downstairs.

"Aha! just saved your soup, ladies!" cried Mr. Miller, laughingly. "Fall

in, fall in, as best you can!"

Mrs. Miller came to the rescue, and, by a rapid stroke of generalship,

marshalled them into their places.

Miss Nevill, of course, was a stranger; Helen had been on intimate terms

with them all for years; Vera, besides, was standing close to Maurice.

"Please take in Miss Nevill, Captain Kynaston; and Edwin, my dear, give

your arm to Mrs. Romer."

Edwin, who was a pleasant-looking boy, with plenty to say for himself,

hurried forward with alacrity; and Helen had to accept her fate with the

best grace she could.

"Well, how did you get on with Vera, and how did you like her?" asked Sir

John, coming round to his brother's side of the table when the ladies had

left the room. He had noted with pleasure that Vera and Maurice had

talked incessantly throughout the dinner.

"My dear fellow!" cried Maurice, heartily, "she is the handsomest woman I

ever met in my life! I give you my word that, when she introduced herself

to me coming downstairs, I was so surprised, she was so utterly different

to what I and the mother have been imagining, that upon my life I

couldn't speak a word--I could do nothing but stare at her!"

"You like her, then?" said his brother, smiling, well pleased at his

openly expressed admiration.

"I think you are a very lucky fellow, old man! Like her! of course I do;

she's a downright good sort!"

And if Sir John was slightly shocked at the irreverence of alluding to so

perfect and pure a woman as his adored Vera by so familiar a phrase as "a

good sort," he was, at all events, too pleased by Maurice's genuine

approval of her to find any fault with his method of expressing it.

CHAPTER XI.

AN IDLE MORNING.

We loved, sir; used to meet;

How sad, and bad, and mad it was;

But then, how it was sweet!

Browning.

Leaning against a window-frame at the end of a long corridor on the

second floor, and idly looking out over the view of the wide lawns and

empty flower-beds which it commands, stands Mr. Herbert Pryme, on the

second morning after his arrival at Shadonake House.

It is after breakfast, and most of the gentlemen of the house have

dispersed; that is to say, Mr. Miller has gone off to survey his new

pigsties, and his sons and a Mr. Nethercliff, who arrived last night,

have ridden to a meet some fifteen miles distant, which the ladies had

voted to be too far off to attend.

Mr. Pryme, however, is evidently not a keen sports-man; he has declined

the offer of a mount which Guy Miller has hospitably pressed upon him,

and he has also declined to avail himself of his host's offer of the

services of the gamekeeper. Curiously enough, another guest at Shadonake,

whose zeal for hunting has never yet been impeached, has followed his

example.

"What on earth do they meet at Fretly for!" Maurice Kynaston had

exclaimed last night to young Guy, as the morrow's plans had been

discussed in the smoking-room; "it's the worst country I ever was in, all

plough and woodlands, and never a fox to be found. Your uncle ought to

know better than to go there. I certainly shan't take the trouble to get

up early to go to that place."

"Not go?" repeated Guy, aghast; "you don't mean to say you won't go,

Kynaston?"

"That's just what I do mean, though."

"What the deuce will you do with yourself all day?"

"Lie in bed," answered Maurice, between the puffs of his pipe; "we've

had a precious hard day's shooting to-day, and I mean to take it easy

to-morrow."

And Captain Kynaston was as good as his word. He did not appear in the

breakfast-room the next morning until the men who were bound for Fretly

had all ridden off and were well out of sight of the house. What he had

stayed for he would have been somewhat puzzled to explain. He was not the

kind of man who, as a rule, cared to dawdle about all day with women when

there was any kind of sport to be had from hunting down to ratting; more

especially was he disinclined for any such dawdling when Helen Romer was

amongst the number of the ladies so left to be danced attendance upon.

And yet he distinctly told himself that he meant to be devoted for this

one day to the fair sex. All yesterday he had been crossed and put out;

the men had been out shooting from breakfast till dinner; some of the

ladies had joined them with the Irish-stew at lunch time; Helen had been

amongst them, but not Miss Nevill. Maurice, in spite of the pheasants

having been plentiful and the sport satisfactory, had been in a decidedly

bad temper all the afternoon in consequence. In the evening the party at

dinner had been enlarged by an influx of country neighbours; Vera had

been hopelessly divided from him and absorbed by other people the whole

evening; he had not exchanged a single word with her all day.

Captain Kynaston was seized with an insatiable desire to improve his

acquaintance with his sister-in-law to be. It was his duty, he told

himself, to make friends with her; his brother would be hurt, he argued,

and his mother would be annoyed if he neglected to pay a proper attention

to the future Lady Kynaston. There could be no doubt that it was his

duty; that it was also his pleasure did not strike him so forcibly as it

should have done, considering the fact that a man is only very keen to

create duties for himself when they are proportionately mingled with that

which is pleasant and agreeable. The exigencies of his position, with

regard to his elder brother's bride having been forcibly borne in upon

him--combined possibly with the certain knowledge that the elder brother

himself would be hunting all day--compelled him to stop at home and

devote himself to Vera. Mr. Herbert Pryme, however, had no such excuse,

real or imaginary, and yet he stands idly by the corridor window, idly,

yet perfectly patiently--relieving the tedium of his position by the

unexciting entertainment of softly whistling the popular airs from the

"Cloches de Corneville" below his breath.

Herbert Pryme is a good-looking young fellow of about six-and-twenty; he

looks his profession all over, and is a good type of the average young

barrister of the present day. He has fair hair, and small, close-cropped

whiskers; his face is retrieved from boyishness by strongly-marked

and rather heavy features; he studiously affects a solemn and imposing

gravity of face and manner, and a severe and elderly style of dress,

which he hopes may produce a favourable effect upon the non-legal minds

of his somewhat imaginary clients.

It is doubtful, however, whether Mr. Pryme has not found a shorter and

pleasanter road to fortune than that slow and toilsome route along which

the legal muse leads her patient votaries.

Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes elapse, and still Mr. Pryme looks patiently

out of the window, and still he whistles the Song of the Bells. The only

sign of weariness he gives is to take out his watch, which, by the way,

is suspended by a broad black ribbon, and lives, not in his waistcoat

pocket, but in a "fob," and is further decorated by a very large and

old-fashioned seal. Having consulted a time piece which for size and

thickness might have belonged to his great-grandfather, he returns it to

his fob, and resumes his whistling.

Presently a door at the further end of the corridor softly opens and

shuts, and Mr. Pryme looks up quickly.

Beatrice Miller, looking about her a little guiltily, comes swiftly

towards him along the passage.

"Mamma kept me such ages!" she says, breathlessly; "I thought I should

never get away."

"Never mind, so long as you are here," he answers, holding her by

both hands. "My darling, I must have a kiss; I hungered for one all

yesterday."

He looks into her face eagerly and lovingly. To most people Beatrice is a

plain girl, but to this man she is beautiful; his own love for her has

invested her with a charm and a fascination that no one else has seen in

her.

Oh! divine passion, that can thus glorify its object. It is like a dash

of sunshine over a winter landscape, which transforms it into the

loveliness of spring; or the magic brush of the painter, which can turn a

ploughed field and a barren common into the golden glories of a Cuyp or a

Turner.

Thus it was with Herbert Pryme. He looked at Beatrice with the blinding

glamour of his own love in his eyes, and she was beautiful to him. Truth

to say, Beatrice was a woman whom to love once was to love always. There

was so much that was charming and loveable in her character, so great a

freshness of mind and soul about her, that, although from lack of beauty

she had hitherto failed to attract love, having once secured it, she

possessed that rare and valuable faculty of being able to retain it,

which many women, even those who are the most beautiful, are incapable

of.

"It is just as I imagined about Mr. Nethercliff," says Beatrice,

laughing; "he has been asked here for my benefit. Mamma has just been

telling me about him; he is Lord Garford's nephew and his heir. Lord

Garford's place, you know, is quite the other side of the county; he is

poor, so I suppose I might do for him," with a little grimace. "At all

events, I am to sit next to him at dinner to-night, and make myself

civil. You see, I am to be offered to all the county magnates in

succession."

Herbert Pryme still holds her hands, and looks down with grave vexation

into her face.

"And how do you suppose I shall feel whilst Mr. Nethercliff is making

love to you?"

"You may make your mind quite easy; it is impossible that there should be

another man foolish enough in all England to want to make love to such an

'ugly duckling' as I am!"

"Don't be silly, child, and don't fish for compliments," he answers,

fondly, stroking her short dark hair, which he thinks so characteristic

of herself.

Beatrice looks up happily at him. A woman is always at her very best when

she is alone with the man she loves. Unconsciously, all the charms she

possesses are displayed in her glistening eyes, and in the colour which

comes and goes in her contented face. There is no philtre which beauty

can use, there is neither cosmetic nor rouge that can give that tender,

lovely glow with which successful love transforms even a plain face into

radiance and fascination.

"I wish, Beatrice, you would let me speak to your father," continued

Herbert; "I cannot bear to be here under false pretences. Why will you

not let me deal fairly and openly with your parents?"

"And be sent about your business by the evening train. No, thank you!

My dear boy, speaking to papa would be as much use as speaking to the

butler; they would both of them refer you instantly to mamma; and with

an equally lamentable result. Please leave things to me. When mamma has

offered me ineffectually to every marriageable man in Meadowshire, she

will get quite sick of it, and, I dare say, I shall be allowed to do as

I like then without any more fuss."

"And how long is this process to last?"

"About a year; by which time Geraldine will be nearly eighteen, and ready

to step into my shoes. Mamma will be glad enough to be rid of me then,

and to try her hand upon her instead. Geraldine is meek and tractable,

and will be quite willing to do as she is told."

"And, meanwhile, what am I to do?"

"You! You are to make love to Sophy Macpherson. Do you not know that she

is the excuse for your having been asked here at all?"

"I don't like it, Beatrice," repeats her lover, gravely--not, however,

alluding to the duties relating to Miss Macpherson, which she had been

urging upon him. "Upon my life, I don't." He looks away moodily out of

the window. "I hate doing things on the sly. And, besides, I am a poor

man, and your parents are rich. I could not afford to support a wife at

present on my own income."

"All the more reason that we should wait," she interrupts, quickly.

"Yes; but I ought not to have spoken to you; I'd no business to steal

your heart."

"You did not steal it," she says, nestling up to his side. "I presented

it to you, free, gratis."

Where is the man who could resist such an appeal! Away went duty,

prudence, and every other laudable consideration to the winds; and

Herbert Pryme straightway became insanely and blissfully oblivious of his

own poverty, of Mr. Miller's wealth, and of everything else upon earth

and under the sun that was not entirely and idiotically delightful and

ecstatic.

"You will do as I tell you?" whispers Beatrice.

"Of course I will," answers her lover. And then there is a complete

stagnation of the power of speech on both sides for the space of five

minutes, during which the clock ticking steadily on at the far end of the

corridor has things entirely its own way.

"There is another couple who are happy," says Herbert Pryme, breaking the

charmed silence at length, and indicating, by a sign, two people who are

wandering slowly down the garden. Beatrice Miller, following the

direction of his eyes, sees Maurice Kynaston and Vera.

"Those two?" she exclaims. "Oh dear, no! They are not happy--not in our

way. Miss Nevill is engaged to his brother, you know."

"Umph! if I were Sir John Kynaston, I would look after my brother then."

"Herbert! what _can_ you mean?" cries Beatrice, opening her eyes in

astonishment. "Why, Captain Kynaston is supposed to be engaged to Mrs.

Romer; at any rate, she is desperately in love with him."

"Yes, everybody knows that: but is he in love with her?"

"Herbert, I am sure you must be mistaken!" persists Beatrice, eagerly.

"Perhaps I am. Never mind, little woman," kissing her lightly; "I only

said they looked happy. If you will take the trouble to remark them

through the day, you will, perhaps, be struck by the same blissful aspect

that I have noticed. If they are happy, it won't last long. Why should

not one be glad to see other people enjoying themselves? Let them be

happy whilst they can."

Herbert Pryme was right. Maurice and Vera wandering side by side along

the broad gravel walks in the wintry gardens were happy--without so much

as venturing to wonder what it was that made them so.

"I did not want to hunt to-day," Maurice is saying; "I thought I would

stop at home and talk to you."

"That was kind of you," answers Vera, with a smile.

If she had known him better, she would have been more sensible of the

compliment implied. To give up a day's hunting for a woman's sake is what

very few keen sports-men have been known to do; the attraction must be

great indeed.

"You will go out, of course, on Monday, the day the hounds meet here?

I should like to see you on a horse."

"I shall at all events put on a habit and get up on the mare John has

given me. But I know very little of English hunting; I have only ridden

in Italy. We used to go out in winter over the Campagna--that is very

different to England."

"You must look very well in a habit." He turned to look at her as he

spoke. There was no reticence in his undisguised admiration of her.

Vera laughed a little. "You shall look at me if you like when I have it

on," she said, blushing faintly under his scrutiny.

"I am grateful to you for the permission; but I am bound to confess that

I should look all the same had you forbidden me to do so."

Vera was pleased. She felt glad that he admired her. Was it not quite

right and most desirable that her husband's brother should appreciate her

beauty and ratify his good taste?

"When does your mother come?" she said, changing the subject quietly, but

without effort.

"Only the very night of the ball, I am afraid. Tuesday, is it not?"

"Have you written to her about me? She does not like me, I fear."

"No; I will not write. She shall see you and judge for herself. I am not

the least afraid of her not liking you when she knows you; and you will

love her."

By this time they had wandered away from the house through the belt of

shrubbery, and had emerged beyond upon the margin of the pool of water.

Vera stood still, suddenly struck with the sight.

"Is this Shadonake Bath?" she asked, below her breath.

"Yes; have you never seen it before?" he answered, in some surprise.

"Never. I have not lived in Meadowshire long, you know, and the Millers

were moving into the house and furnishing it all last summer. I have

never been in the gardens till to-day. How strangely sad the place looks!

Let us walk round it."

They went round to the further side.

The pool of water lay dark and silent within its stone steps; not a

ripple disturbed its surface; not a dead leaf rested on its bosom. Only

the motionless water looked up everlastingly at the gray winter skies

above, and reflected them back blackly and gloomily upon its solemn face.

Vera stood still and looked at it. Something in its aspect--she could not

have told what--affected her powerfully. She went down two or three steps

towards the water, and stooped over it intently.

Maurice, watching her curiously, saw, to his surprise, that she trembled.

She turned round to him.

"Does it not look dark and deep? Is it very deep?"

"I believe it is. There are all sorts of stories about it. Come up, Vera;

why do you tremble so?"

"How dreadful to be drowned here!" she said, below her breath, and she

shuddered.

He stretched out his hand to her.

"Do not say such horrid things! Give me your hand--the steps are

slippery. What has put drowning into your head? And--why, how pale you

are; what has frightened you?"

She took his hand and came back again to where he stood.

"Do you believe in presentiments?" she said, slowly, with her eyes fixed

still, as though by some fascination, upon the dark waters beneath them.

"Not in the very least," he answered, cheerily; "do not think of such

things. John would be the first to scold you--and to scold me for

bringing you here."

He stood, holding her hand, looking at her kindly and compassionately;

suddenly she looked at him, and as their eyes met once more, she trembled

from head to foot.

"Vera, you are frightened; tell me what it is!"

"I don't know! I don't know!" she cried, with a sudden wail, like a

person in pain; "only--oh! I wish I had not seen it for the first time

with _you_!"

Before he could answer her, some one, _beckoning_ to them from the

further side of the pool, caused them both to turn suddenly round.

It was not only Herbert Pryme who had seen them wander away down the

garden from the house. Mrs. Romer, too, had been at another window and

had noticed them. To run lightly upstairs, put on her hat and jacket, and

to follow them, had been the work of but a very few minutes. Helen was

not minded to allow Maurice to wander about all the morning with Vera.

"Are you going for a walk?" she called out to them across the water.

"Wait for me; I am coming with you."

Vera turned quickly to her companion.

"Is it true that you are engaged to her?" she asked him rapidly, in a low

voice.

Maurice hesitated. Morally speaking, he was engaged to her; but, then, it

had been agreed between them that he was to deny any such engagement. He

felt singularly disinclined to let Vera know what was the truth.

"People say you are," she said, once more. "Will you tell me if it is

true?"

"No; there is no engagement between us," he answered, gravely.

"I am very glad," she answered, earnestly. He coloured, but he had no

time to ask her why she was glad--for Helen came up to them.

"How interested you look in each other's conversation!" she said, looking

suspiciously at them both. "May I not hear what you have been talking

about?"

"Anybody might hear," answered Vera, carelessly, "were it worth one's

while to take the trouble of repeating it."

Maurice said nothing. He was angry with Helen for having interrupted

them, and angry with himself for having denied his semi-engagement. He

stood looking away from them both, prodding his stick into the gravel

walk.

For half a minute they stood silently together.

"Let us go on," said Vera, and they began to walk.

Once again in the days that were to come those three stood side by side

upon the margin of Shadonake Bath.

CHAPTER XII.

THE MEET AT SHADONAKE.

The desire of the moth for the star,

Of the night for the morrow,

The devotion to something afar.

Shelley.

Mrs. Macpherson had brought up her daughters with one fixed and

predominant idea in her mind. Each of them was to excel in some one taste

or accomplishment, by virtue of which they might be enabled to shine in

society. They were taught to do one thing well. Thus, Sophy, the eldest,

played the piano remarkably, whilst Jessie painted in water-colours with

charming exactitude and neatness. They had both had first-rate masters,

and no pains had been spared to make each of them proficient in the

accomplishment that had been selected for her. But, as neither of these

young ladies had any natural talent, the result was hardly so

satisfactory as their fond mother could have desired. They did exactly

what they had been taught to do with precision and conscientiousness; no

less and no more; and the further result of their entire devotion to one

kind of study was, that they could do nothing else.

Mrs. Macpherson began to realize that her system of education had

possibly left something to be desired on the Monday morning that Mr.

Esterworth brought up his hounds to Shadonake House. It was provoking

to see all the other ladies attired in their habits, whilst her own

daughters had to come down to breakfast in their ordinary morning

dresses, because they had never been taught to ride.