"Are you not going to ride?" she heard Guy Miller ask of Sophy, who was

decidedly the best looking and the pleasantest of the sisters.

"No, we have never ridden at all; mamma never thought we had the time for

it," answers Sophy.

"I think," said Mrs. Macpherson, turning to her hostess, "that I shall

pursue a different course with my younger girls. I feel sorry now that

Sophy and Jessie do not ride. Music and painting are, of course, the most

charming accomplishments that a woman can have; but still it is not at

all times that they are useful."

"No, you cannot be always painting and playing."

"Neither can you be always riding," said Mrs. Macpherson, with some

asperity, for there was a little natural jealousy between these ladies on

the subject of their girls; "but still----"

"But still, you will acknowledge that I have done right in letting

Beatrice hunt. You may be quite sure that there is no accomplishment

which brings a girl so much into notice in the country. Look at her now."

Mrs. Macpherson looked and saw Beatrice in her habit at the far end of

the dining-room surrounded by a group of men in pink, and she also saw

her own daughters sitting neglected by themselves on the other side of

the room. She made no observation upon the contrast, for it would hardly

have been polite to have done so; but she made a mental note of the fact

that Mrs. Miller was a very clever woman, and that, if you want an ugly

daughter to marry, you had better let her learn how to ride across

country. And she furthermore decided that her third daughter, Alice, who

was not blessed with the gift of beauty, should forthwith abandon the

cultivation of a very feeble and uncertain vocal organ and be sent to the

nearest riding-school the very instant she returned to her home.

Beatrice Miller rode very well indeed; it was the secret of her uncle's

affection for her, and many a good day's sport had the two enjoyed side

by side across the flat fields and the strong fences and wide ditches of

their native country. Her brothers, Guy and Edwin, were fond of hunting

too, but they rode clumsily and awkwardly, floundering across country in

what their uncle called, contemptuously, a thoroughly "provincial style."

But Beatrice had the true Esterworth seat and hand; she looked as if she

were born to her saddle, and, in truth, she was never so happy as when

she was in it. It was a proof of how great and real was her love to

Herbert Pryme that she fully recognized that, in becoming his wife, she

would have to live in London entirely and to give up her beloved hunting

for his sake.

A woman who rides, as did Beatrice, is sure to be popular on a hunting

morning; and, with the consciousness of her lover's hands resting upon

the back of her chair, with her favourite uncle by her side, and with

several truly ardent admirers of her good riding about her, Miss Miller

was evidently enjoying herself thoroughly.

The scene, indeed, was animated to the last degree. The long dining-room

was filled with guests, the table was covered with good things, a repast,

half breakfast, half luncheon, being laid out upon it. Everybody helped

themselves, with much chattering and laughter, and there was a pleasant

sense of haste and excitement, and a charming informality about the

proceedings, which made the Shadonake Hunt breakfast, which Tom

Esterworth had been prevailed upon by his niece's entreaties to allow,

a thorough and decided success.

Outside there were the hounds, drawn up in patient expectation on the

grass beyond the gravel sweep, the bright coats and velvet caps of the

men, and the gray horses--on which it was the Meadowshire tradition that

they should be always mounted--standing out well against the dark

background of the leafless woods behind. Then there were a goodly company

who had not dismounted, and to whom glasses of sherry were being handed

by the servants, and who also were chattering to each other, or to those

on foot, whilst before the door, an object of interest to those within as

to those without, Sir John Kynaston was putting Miss Nevill upon her

horse.

There was not a man present who did not express his admiration for her

beauty and her grace; hardly a woman who did not instantly make some

depreciatory remark. The latter fact spoke perhaps more convincingly for

the undoubted success she had created than did the former.

Maurice was standing by one of the dining-room windows, Mrs. Romer, as

usual, by his side. He alone, perhaps, of all the men who saw her vault

lightly into her saddle, made no audible remark, but perhaps his

admiration was all too plainly written in his eyes, for it called

forth a contemptuous remark from his companion--

"She is a great deal too tall to look well on a horse; those big women

should never ride."

"What! not with a figure so perfect as hers?"

"Yes, that is the third time you have spoken about her figure to-day,"

said Helen, irritably. "What on earth can you see in it?" for Mrs. Romer,

who was slight almost to angularity, was, as all thin women are, openly

indignant at the masculine foible for more flowing outlines, which was

displayed with greater candour than discretion by her quasi-lover.

"What do I see in it?" repeated Maurice, who was dimly conscious of her

jealousy, and was injudicious enough to lose his temper slightly over its

exhibition. "I see in it the beauty of a goddess, and the perfection of

a woman!"

"Really!" with a sarcastic laugh; "how wonderfully enthusiastic and

poetical you become over Miss Nevill's charms; it is something quite new

in you, Maurice. Your interest in this 'goddess-like' young lady strikes

me as singularly warmly expressed; it is more lover-like than fraternal."

"What do you mean?" he said, looking at her coldly and angrily. Helen had

seen that look of hard contempt in his face before; she quailed a little

before it, and was frightened at what she had said.

"Of course," she said, reddening, "I know it's all right; but it does

really sound peculiar, your admiring her so much; and--and--it is hardly

flattering to me."

"I don't see that it has anything to do with you," and he turned shortly

away from her.

She made a step or two after him. "You will ride with me, will you not,

Maurice? You know I can't go very hard; you might give me a lead or two,

and keep near me."

"You must not ask me to make any promises," he said, politely, but

coldly. "Guy Miller says there is a groom told off to look after you

ladies. Of course, if I can be of any use to you, I shall be happy, but

it is no use making rash engagements as to what one will do in a run."

"Come, come, it's time we were off," cries out Tom Esterworth at the

further end of the room, and his stalwart figure makes its way in the

direction of the door.

In a very few minutes the order "to horse" has gone forth, and the whole

company have sallied forth and are busy mounting their horses in front of

the house.

Off goes the master, well in front, at a sharp trot, towards the woods on

the further slope of the hill, and off go the hounds and the whips, and

the riders, in a long and gay procession after him, down the wide avenue.

"Promise me you will not stop out long, Vera," says Sir John to her as

they go side by side down the drive. "You look white and tired as it is.

Have you got a headache?"

"Yes, a little," confesses Vera, with a blush. "I did not sleep well."

"This sitting up late night after night is not good for you," says her

lover, anxiously; "and there is the ball to-morrow night."

"Yes; and I want to look my best for your mother," she said, smiling. "I

will take care of myself, John; I will go home early in time for lunch."

"You are always so ready to do what I ask you. Oh, Vera, how good you

are! how little I deserve such a treasure!"

"Don't," she answers, almost sharply, whilst an expression of pain

contracts her brow for an instant. "Don't say such things to me, John;

don't call me good."

John Kynaston looks at her fondly. "I will not call you anything you

don't wish," he says, gently, "but I am free to think it, Vera!"

The first covert is successfully drawn without much delay. A fox is

found, and breaks away across the open, and a short but sharp burst of

fifteen or twenty minutes follows. The field is an unusually large one,

and there are many out who are not in it at all. Beatrice, however, is

well up, and so is Herbert Pryme, who is not likely to be far from her

side. Close behind them follows Sir John Kynaston, and Mrs. Romer, who is

well mounted upon one of Edwin Miller's horses, keeps well up with the

rest.

Vera never quite knew how it was that somehow or other she got thrown out

of that short but exciting run. She was on the wrong side of the covert

to begin with; several men were near her, but they were all strangers,

and at the time "Gone away!" was shouted, there was no one to tell her

which way to take. Two men took the left side of the copse, three others

turned to the right. Vera followed the latter, and found that the hounds

must have gone in the opposite direction, for when she got round the wood

not a trace of them was to be seen.

She did not know the country well, and she hardly knew which way to turn.

It seemed to her, however, that by striking across a small field to the

left of her she would cut off a corner, and eventually come up with the

hounds again.

She turned her mare short round, and put her at a big straggling hedge

which she had no fears of her being unable to compass. There was,

however, more of a drop on the further side than she had counted upon,

and in some way, as the mare landed, floundering on the further side,

something gave way, and she found that her stirrup-leather had broken.

Vera pulled up and looked about her helplessly. She found herself in

a small spinney of young birch-trees, filling up the extremity of a

triangular field into which she had come. Not a sign of the hounds, or,

indeed, of any living creature was to be seen in any direction. She did

not feel inclined to go on--or even to go back home with her broken

stirrup-leather. It occurred to her that she would get off and see what

she could do towards patching it together herself.

With some little difficulty, her mare being fidgety, and refusing to

stand still, she managed to dismount; but in doing so her wrist caught

against the pommel of her saddle, and was so severely wrenched backwards,

as she sprang to the ground, that she turned quite sick with the pain.

It seemed to her that her wrist must be sprained; at all events, her

right hand was, for the minute, perfectly powerless. The mare, perceiving

that nothing further was expected of her, amused herself by cropping the

short grass at her feet, whilst Vera stood by her side in dire perplexity

as to what she was to do next. Just then she heard the welcome sound of a

horse's hoofs in the adjoining field, and in another minute a hat and

black coat, followed by a horse's head and forelegs appeared on the top

of the fence, and a man dropped over into the spinney just ten yards in

front of her.

Vera took it to be her lover, for the brothers both hunted in black, and

there was a certain family resemblance between their broad shoulders and

the square set of their heads. She called out eagerly,

"Oh, John! how glad I am to see you! I have come to grief!"

"So I see; but I am not John. I hope, however, I may do as well. What is

the matter?"

"It is you, Maurice? Oh, yes, you will do quite as well. I have broken my

stirrup-leather, and I am afraid I have sprained my wrist."

"That sounds bad--let me see."

In an instant he had sprung from his horse to help her.

She looked up at him as he came, pushing the tall brushwood away as

he stepped through it. It struck her suddenly how like he was to the

photograph she had found of him at Kynaston long ago, and what a

well-made man he was, and how brave and handsome he looked in his

hunting gear.

"How have you managed to hurt your wrist? Let me see it."

"I wrenched it somehow in jumping down; but I don't think that it can be

sprained, for I find I can move it now a little; it is only bruised, but

it hurts me horribly."

She turned back her cuff and held out the injured hand to him. Maurice

stooped over it. There was a moment's silence, the two horses stood

waiting patiently by, the solitary fields lay bare and lifeless on every

side of them, the little birch-trees rustled mysteriously overhead, the

leaden sky, with its chill curtain of unbroken gray cloud, spread

monotonously above them; there was no living thing in all the winter

landscape besides to listen or to watch them.

Suddenly Maurice Kynaston caught the hand that he held to his lips, and

pressed half a dozen passionate kisses upon its outstretched palm.

It was the work of half a minute, and in the next Maurice felt as if he

should die of shame and remorse.

"For God's sake, forgive me!" he cried, brokenly. "I am a brute--I forgot

myself--I must be mad, I think; for Heaven's sake tell me that I have not

offended you past forgiveness, Vera!"

His pulses were beating wildly, his face was flushed, the hands that

still held hers shook with a nameless emotion; he looked imploringly into

her face, as if to read his sentence in her eyes, but what he saw there

arrested the torrent of repentance and regret that was upon his lips.

Upon Vera's face there was no flush either of shame or anger. No storm

of indignation, no passion of insulted feeling; only eyes wide open and

terror-stricken, that met his with the unspeakable horror that one sees

sometimes in those of a hunted animal. She was pale as death. Then

suddenly the colour flushed hotly back into her face; she averted her

eyes.

"Let me go home," she said, in a faint voice; "help me to get on to my

horse, Maurice."

There was neither resentment nor anger in her voice, only a great

weariness.

He obeyed her in silence. Possibly he felt that he had stood for one

instant upon the verge of a precipice, and that miraculously her face had

saved him, he knew not how, where words would only have dragged him down

to unutterable ruin.

What had it been that had thus saved him? What was the meaning of that

terror that had been written in her lovely eyes? Since she was not angry,

what had she feared?

Maurice asked himself these questions vainly all the way home. Not a word

was spoken between them; they rode in absolute silence side by side until

they reached the house.

Then, as he lifted her off her horse at the hall-door, he whispered,

"Have you forgiven me?"

"There was nothing to forgive," she answered, in a low, strained voice.

She spoke wearily, as one who is suffering physical pain. But, as she

spoke, the hand that he still held seemed almost, to his fancy, to linger

for a second with a gentle fluttering pressure within his grasp.

Miss Nevill went into the house, having utterly forgotten that she had

sprained her wrist; a fact which proves indisputably, I suppose, that the

injury could not have been of a very serious nature.

CHAPTER XIII.

PEACOCK'S FEATHERS.

That practised falsehood under saintly show,

Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge.

Milton, "Paradise Lost."

Old Lady Kynaston arrived at Shadonake in the worst possible temper. Her

butler and factotum, who always made every arrangement for her when she

was about to travel, had for once been unequal to cope with Bradshaw;

he had looked out the wrong train, and had sent off his lady and her maid

half-an-hour too late from Walpole Lodge.

The consequence was that, instead of reaching Shadonake comfortably at

half-past six in the afternoon, Lady Kynaston had to wait for the next

train. She ate her dinner alone, in London, at the Midland Railway Hotel,

and never reached her destination till half-past nine on the night of the

ball.

Before she had half completed her toilette the guests were beginning to

arrive.

"I am afraid I must go down and receive these people, dear Lady

Kynaston," said Mrs. Miller, who had remained in her guest's room full

of regret and sympathy at the _contretemps_ of her journey.

"Oh, dear me! yes, Caroline--pray go down. I shall be all the quicker for

being left alone. Not _that_ cap, West; the one with the Spanish point,

of course. Dear me, how I do hate all this hurry and confusion!"

"I am so afraid you will be tired," murmured Mrs. Miller, soothingly.

"Would you like me to send Miss Nevill up to your room? It might be

pleasanter for you than to meet her downstairs."

"Good gracious, no!" exclaimed the elder lady, testily. "What on earth

should I be in such a hurry for! I shall see quite as much of her as I

want by-and-by, I have no doubt."

Mrs. Miller retired, and the old lady was left undisturbed to finish

her toilette, during which it may fairly be assumed that that dignified

personage, Mrs. West, had a hard time of it.

When she issued forth from her room, dressed, like a little fairy

godmother, in point lace and diamonds, the dancing downstairs was in

full swing.

Lady Kynaston paused for a minute at the top of the broad staircase to

look down upon the bright scene below. The hall was full of people. Girls

in many-coloured dresses passed backwards and forwards from the ball-room

to the refreshment-room, laughing and chatting to their partners; elderly

people were congregated about the doorways gossiping and shaking hands

with new-comers, or watching their daughters with pleased or anxious

faces, according to the circumstances of their lot. Everybody was talking

at once. There came up a pleasant confusion of sound--happy voices

mingling with the measured strains of the dance-music. In a sheltered

corner behind the staircase, Beatrice and Herbert Pryme had settled

themselves down comfortably for a chat. Lady Kynaston saw them.

"Caroline is a fool!" she muttered to herself. "All the balls in the

world won't get that girl married as she wishes. She has set her heart

upon that briefless barrister. I saw it as plain as daylight last season.

As to entertaining all this _cohue_ of aborigines, Caroline might spare

her trouble and her money, as far as the girl is concerned."

And then, coming slowly down the staircase, Lady Kynaston saw something

which restored her to good temper at once.

The something was her younger son. She had caught sight of him through an

open doorway in the conservatory. His back was turned to her, and he was

bending over a lady who was sitting down, and whose face was concealed

behind him.

Lady Kynaston stood still with that sudden _serrement de coeur_ which

comes to us all when we see the creature we love best on earth. He did

not see her, and she could not see his face, because it was turned away

from her; but she knew, by his very attitude, the way he bent down over

his companion, by the eager manner in which he was talking to her, and by

the way in which he was evidently entirely engrossed and absorbed in what

he was saying--that he was enjoying himself, and that he was happy.

The mother's heart all went out towards him; the mother's eyes moistened

as she looked.

The couple in the conservatory were alone. A Chinese lantern, swung high

up above, shed down a soft radiance upon them. Tall camellia bushes,

covered with waxen blossoms and cool shiny leaves, were behind them;

banks of long-fronded, feathery ferns framed them in like a picture.

Maurice's handsome figure stood up tall and strong amongst the greenery;

the dress of the woman he was with lay in soft diaphanous folds upon the

ground beyond him. One white arm rested on her lap, one tiny foot peeped

out from below the laces of her skirt. But Lady Kynaston could not see

her face.

"I wonder who she is," she said to herself. "It is not Helen. She has

peacock's feathers on her dress--bad luck, I believe! Dear boy, he looks

thoroughly happy. I will not disturb him now."

And she passed on through the hall into the large drawing-room, where the

dancing was going on.

The first person she caught sight of there was her eldest son. He was

dancing a quadrille, and his partner was a short young lady in a

strawberry-coloured tulle dress, covered with trails of spinach-green

fern leaves. This young person had a round, chubby face, with bright

apple-hued cheeks, a dark, bullet-shaped head, and round, bead-like eyes

that glanced about her rapidly like those of a frightened dickey-bird.

Her dress was cut very low, and the charms she exhibited were not

captivating. Her arms were very red, and her shoulders were mottled: the

latter is considered to be a healthy sign in a baby, but is hardly a

beautiful characteristic in a grown woman.

"_That_ is my daughter-in-law," said Lady Kynaston to herself, and she

almost groaned aloud. "She is _worse_ even than I thought! Countrified

and common to the last degree; there will be no licking that face or that

figure into shape--they are hopeless! Elise and Worth combined could do

nothing with her! John must be mad. No wonder she is good, poor thing,"

added the naughty little old lady, cynically. "A woman with _that_

appearance can never be tempted to be anything else!"

The quadrille came to an end, and Sir John, after depositing his partner

at the further side of the room, came up to his mother.

"My dear mother, how are you? I am so sorry about your journey; you must

be dead beat. What a fool Bates was to make such a mistake." He was

looking about the room as he spoke. "I must introduce you to Vera."

"Yes, introduce me to her at once," said his mother, in a resigned and

depressed tone of voice. She would like to have added, "And pray get it

over as soon as you can." What she did say was only, "Bring her up to me

now. The young lady you have just been dancing with, I suppose!"

"What!" cried Sir John, and burst out laughing. "Good Heavens, mother!

that was Miss Smiles, the daughter of the parson of Lutterton. You don't

mean to say you thought a little ugly chit like _that_ was my Vera!"

His mother suddenly laid her hand upon his arm.

"Who is that lovely woman who has just come in with Maurice?" she

exclaimed.

Her son followed the direction of her eyes, and beheld Vera standing in

the doorway that led from the conservatory by his brother's side.

Without a word he passed his mother's hand through his arm and led her

across the room.

"Vera, this is my mother," he said. And Lady Kynaston owned afterwards

that she never felt so taken aback and so utterly struck dumb with

astonishment in her life.

Her two sons looked at her with amusement and some triumph. The little

surprise had been so thoroughly carried out; the contrast of the truth to

what they knew she had expected was too good a joke not to be enjoyed.

"Not much what you expected, little mother, is it?" said Maurice,

laughingly. But to Vera, who knew nothing, it was no laughing matter.

She put both her hands out tremblingly and hesitatingly--with a pretty

pleading look of deprecating deference in her eyes--and the little old

lady, who valued beauty and grace and talent so much that she could

barely tolerate goodness itself without them, was melted at once.

"My dear," she said, "you are beautiful, and I am going to love you; but

these naughty boys made me think you were something like little Miss

Smiles."

"Nay, mother, it was your own diseased imagination," laughed Maurice;

"but come, Vera, I am not going to be cheated of this waltz--if John does

not want you to dance with him, that is to say."

John nodded pleasantly to them, and the two whirled away together into

the midst of the throng of dancers.

"Well, mother?"

"My dear, she is a very beautiful creature, and I have been a silly,

prejudiced old woman."

"And you forgive her for being poor, and for living in a vicarage instead

of a castle?"

"She would be a queen if she were a beggar and lived in a mud hovel!"

answered his mother, heartily, and Sir John was satisfied.

Lady Kynaston's eyes were following the couple as they danced: for all

her admiration and her enthusiasm, there was a little anxiety in their

gaze. She had not forgotten the little picture she had caught a glimpse

of in the conservatory, nor had her woman's eyes failed to notice that

Vera's dress was trimmed with peacock's feathers.

Where was Helen? Lady Kynaston said to herself; and why was Maurice

devoting himself to his future sister-in-law instead of to her?

Mrs. Romer, you may be sure, had not been far off. Her sharp eyes had

seen Vera and Maurice disappear together into the conservatory. She could

have told to a second how long they had remained there; and again, when

they came out, she had watched the little family scene that had taken

place at the door. She had seen the look of delighted surprise on Lady

Kynaston's face; she had noted how pleased and how proud of Vera the

brothers had looked, and then how happily Maurice and Vera had gone off

again together.

"What does it mean?" Helen asked herself, bitterly. "Is Sir John a fool

or blind that he does not see what is going on under his nose? She has

got him, and his money, and his place; what does she want with Maurice

too? Why can't she let him alone--she is taking him from me."

She watched them eagerly and feverishly. They stood still for a moment

near her; she could not hear what they said, but she could see the look

in Maurice's eyes as he bent towards his partner.

Can a woman who has known what love is ever be mistaken about that?

Vera, all wondering and puzzled, might be but dimly conscious of the

meaning in the eyes that met hers; her own drooped, half troubled, half

confused, before them. But to Helen, who knew what love's signals were,

there was no mystery whatever in the passion in his down-bent glance.

"He loves her!" she said to herself, whilst a sharp pang, almost of

physical pain, shot through her heart. "She shall never get him!--never!

never! Not though one of us die for it! They are false, both of them. I

swear they shall never be happy together!"

"Why are you not dancing, Mrs. Romer?" said a voice at her elbow.

"I will dance with you, Sir John, if you will ask me," answers Helen,

smiling.

Sir John responds, as in duty bound, by passing his arm around her waist.

"When are you going to be married, Sir John?" she asks him, when the

first pause in the dance gives her the opportunity of speech.

Sir John looks rather confused. "Well, to tell you the truth, I have

not spoken to Vera yet. I have not liked to hurry her--I thought,

perhaps----"

"Why don't you speak to her? A woman never thinks any better of a man

for being diffident in such matters."

"You think not? But you see Vera is----"

"Vera is very much like all other women, I suppose; and you are not

versed in the ways of the sex."

Sir John demurred in his own mind as to the first part of her speech.

Vera was certainly not like other women; but then he acknowledged the

truth of Mrs. Romer's last remark thoroughly.

"No, I dare say I don't know much about women's ways," he admitted; "and

you think----"

"I think that Vera would be glad enough to be married as soon as she can.

An engagement is a trying ordeal. One is glad enough to get settled down.

What is the use of waiting when once everything is arranged?"

Sir John flushed a little. The prospect of a speedy marriage was pleasant

to him. It was what he had been secretly longing for--only that, in his

slow way, he had not yet been able to suggest it.

"Do you really think she would like it?" he asked, earnestly.

"Of course she would; any woman would."

"And how long do you think the preparations would take?"

"Oh, a month or three weeks is ample time to get clothes in."

His pulses beat hotly at the bare possibility of such a thing. To possess

his Vera in so short a time seemed something too great and too wonderful

to be true.

"Do not lose any more time," continued Helen, following up the impression

she saw she had made upon him. "Speak to her this evening; get her to fix

your wedding-day within the month; believe me, a man gets no advantage by

putting things off too long; and there are dangers, too, in your case."

"Dangers! How do you mean?" he said, quickly.

"Oh, nothing particular--only she is very handsome, and she is young, and

not accustomed, I dare say, to admiration. Other men may admire her as

well as you."

"If they did, it could do her no harm," he answered, stiffly.

"Oh, no, of course not; but you can't keep other men from looking at

her. When once she is your wife you will have her more completely to

yourself."

Sir John made no particular answer to this; but when he had done dancing

with Mrs. Romer, he led her back to her seat and thanked her gravely and

courteously for her suggestions.

"You have done me a great service, Mrs. Romer, and I am infinitely

obliged to you," he said, and then went his way to find Vera.

He was not jealous; but there was a certain uneasiness in his mind. It

might be, indeed, true that others would admire and love Vera; others

more worthy of her, more equally mated with her youth and loveliness; and

he, he said to himself in his humility with regard to her, he had so

little to offer her--nothing but his love. He knew himself to be grave

and quiet; there was nothing about him to enchain her to him. He lacked

brilliancy in manner and conversation; he was dull; he was, perhaps,

even prosy. He knew it very well himself; but suppose Vera should find it

out, and find that she had made a mistake! The bare thought of it was

enough to make him shudder.

No; Mrs. Romer was a clever, well-intentioned little woman. She had meant

to give him a hint in all kindness, and he would not be slow to take it.

What she had meant to say was, "Take her yourself quickly, or some one

else will take her from you."

And Sir John said to himself that he would so take her, and that as

quickly as possible.

Standing talking to her younger son, later on that evening, Lady Kynaston

said to him, suddenly,

"Why does Vera wear peacock's feathers?"

"Why should she not?"

"They are bad luck."

Maurice laughed. "I never knew you to be superstitious before, mother."

"I am not so really; but from choice I would avoid anything that bears an

unlucky interpretation. I saw her with you in the conservatory as I came

downstairs."

Maurice turned suddenly red. "Did you?" he asked, a little anxiously.

"Yes. I did not know it was her, of course. I did not see her face, only

her dress, and I noticed that it was trimmed with peacock's feathers;

that was what made me recognize her afterwards."

"That was bad luck, at all events," said Maurice, almost involuntarily.

"Why?" asked Lady Kynaston, looking up at him sharply. But Maurice would

not tell her why.

Lady Kynaston asked no more questions; but she pondered, and she watched.

Captain Kynaston did not dance again with Vera that night, and he did

dance several times with Mrs. Romer; it did not escape her notice,

however, that he seemed absent and abstracted, and that his face bore its

hardest and sternest aspect throughout the remainder of the evening.

So the ball at Shadonake came to an end, as balls do, with the first

gleams of daylight; and nothing was left of all the gay crowd who had so

lately filled the brilliant rooms but several sleepy people creeping up

slowly to bed, and a great _chiffonade_ of tattered laces, and flowers,

and coloured scraps littered all over the polished floor of the

ball-room.

CHAPTER XIV.

HER WEDDING DRESS.

Those obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,

Fallings from us, vanishings,

Blank misgivings--

High instincts before which our moral nature

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.

Wordsworth.

"Vera, are you not coming to look at it?"

"Presently."

"It is all laid out on your bed, and you ought to try it on; it might

want alterations."

"Oh, there is plenty of time!"

"It is downright affectation!" says old Mrs. Daintree, angrily, to her

daughter-in-law, as she and Marion leave the room together; "no girl can

really be indifferent to a wedding dress covered with yards of lovely

Brussels lace flounces; she ought to be ashamed of herself for her

ingratitude to Lady Kynaston for such a present; she must really want

to see it, only she likes playing the fine lady beforehand!"

"I don't think it is that," says Marion, gently; "I don't believe Vera is

well."

"Fiddlesticks!" snorts her mother-in-law. "A woman who is going to marry

ten thousand a year within ten days is bound to be well."

Vera sits alone; she leans her head against the window, her hands lie

idle in her lap, her eyes mechanically follow the rough, gray clouds that

rack across the winter sky. In little more than a week she will be Vera

Nevill no longer; she will have gained all that she desired and tried

for--wealth, position, Kynaston--and Sir John! She should be well

content, seeing that it has been her own doing all along. No one has

forced or persuaded her into this engagement, no one has urged her on to

a course contrary to her own inclination, or her own judgment. It has

been her own act throughout. And yet, as she sits alone in the twilight,

and counts over on her fingers the few short days that intervene between

to-day and her bridal morning, hot miserable tears rise to her eyes,

and fall slowly down, one by one, upon her clasped hands. She does not

ask herself why she weeps; possibly she dares not. Only her thoughts

somehow--by that strange connection of ideas which links something in

our present to some other thing in our past, and which apparently is in

no way dependent upon it--go back instinctively, as it were, to her dead

sister, the Princess Marinari.

"Oh, my poor darling Theodora!" she murmurs, half aloud; "if you had

lived, you would have taken care of your Vera; if you had not died, I

should never have come here, nor ever have known--any of them."

And then she hears Marion's voice calling to her from the top of the

stairs.

"Vera! Vera! do come up and see it before it gets quite dark."

She rises hastily and dashes away her tears.

"What is the matter with me to-day!" she says to herself, impatiently.

"Have I not everything in the world I wish for? I am happy--of course

I am happy. I am coming, Marion, instantly."

Upstairs her wedding dress, a soft cloud of rich silk and fleecy lace,

relieved with knots of flowers, dark-leaved myrtle, and waxen orange

blossoms, lies spread out upon her bed. Marion stands contemplating it,

wrapt in ecstatic admiration; old Mrs. Daintree has gone away.

"It is perfectly lovely! I am so glad you had silk instead of satin;

nothing could show off Lady Kynaston's lace so well: is it not beautiful?

you ought to try it on. Why, Vera! what is the matter? I believe you have

been crying."

"I was thinking of Theodora," she murmurs.

"Ah! poor dear Theodora!" assents Marion, with a compassionate sigh; "how

she would have liked to have known of your marriage; how pleased she

would have been."

Vera looks at her sister. "Marion," she says, in a low earnest voice;

"if--if I should break it off, what would you say?"

"Break it off!" cries her sister, horror-struck. "Good heavens, Vera!

what can you mean? Have you gone suddenly mad? What is the matter with

you? Break off a match like this at the last minute? You must be

demented!"

"Oh, of course," with a sudden change of manner; "of course I did not

mean it, it only came into my head for a minute; of course, as you say,

it is a splendid match for me. What should I want to break it off for?

What should I gain? what, indeed?" She spoke feverishly and excitedly,

laughing a little harshly as she spoke.

Marion looked at her anxiously. "I hope to goodness you will never say

such horrid things to anybody else; it sounds dreadful, Vera, as if

Eustace and I were forcing you into it; as if you did not want to marry

Sir John yourself."

"Of course I want to marry him!" interrupted Vera, with unreasonable

sharpness.

"Then, pray don't make a fool of yourself, my dear, by talking about

breaking it off."

"It was only a joke. Break it off! how could I? The best match in the

county, as you say. I am not going to make a fool of myself; don't be

afraid, Marion. It would be so inconvenient, too; the trousseau all

bought, the breakfast ordered, the guests invited; even the wedding dress

here, all finished and ready to put on, and ten thousand a year waiting

for me! Oh, no, I am not going to be such an utter fool!"

She laughed; but her laughter was almost more sad than her tears, and her

sister left her, saddened and puzzled by her manner.

It was now nearly two months since the ball at Shadonake; and, soon after

that eventful visit, Vera had begun to be employed in preparing for her

wedding-day, which had been fixed for the 27th of February; for Sir John

had taken Mrs. Romer's hint, and had pressed an early marriage upon her.

Vera had made no objection; what objection, indeed, could she have found

to make? She had acquiesced readily in her lover's suggestions, and had

set to work to prepare herself for her marriage.

All this time Captain Kynaston had not been in Meadowshire at all; he had

declined his brother's hospitality, and had gone to spend his leave

amongst other friends in Somersetshire, where he had started a couple of

hunters, and wrote word to Sir John that the sport was of such a very

superior nature that he was unable to tear himself away.

Within a fortnight, however, of Sir John's wedding, Maurice did yield at

last to his brother's pressing request, and came up from Somersetshire to

Kynaston. Last Sunday he had suddenly appeared in the Kynaston pew in

Sutton Church by Sir John's side, and had shaken hands with Vera and her

relations on coming out of church, and had walked across the vicarage

garden by the side of Mrs. Daintree, Vera having gone on in front with

Tommy and Minnie. And it was from that moment that Vera had as suddenly

discovered that she was utterly and thoroughly wretched, and that she

dreaded her wedding-day with a strange and unaccountable terror.

She told herself that she was out of health, that the excitement and

bustle of the necessary preparations had over-tried her, that her nerves

were upset, her spirits depressed by reason of the solemnity a woman

naturally feels at the approach of so important a change in her life.

She assured herself aloud, day after day, that she was perfectly happy

and content, that she was the very luckiest and most fortunate of women,

and that she would sooner be Sir John's wife than the wife of any one

else in the world. And she told it to herself so often and so

emphatically, that there were whole hours, and even whole days together,

when she believed in these self-assurances implicitly and thoroughly.

All this time she saw next to nothing of Maurice Kynaston; the weather

was mild and open, and he went out hunting every day. Sir John, on the

other hand, was much with her; a constant necessity for his presence

seemed to possess her. She was never thoroughly content but when he was

with her; ever restless and ill at ease in his absence.

No one could be more thoroughly convinced than Vera of the entire wisdom

of the marriage she was about to make. It was, she felt persuaded, the

best and the happiest thing she could have done with her life. Wealth,

position, affection, were all laid at her feet; and her husband,

moreover, would be a man whose goodness and whose devotion to her could

never fail to command her respect. What more could a woman who, like

herself, was fully alive to the importance of the good things of this

world desire? Surely nothing more. Vera, when she was left alone with

the glories of her wedding garment, took herself to task for her foolish

words to her sister.

"I am a fool!" she said to herself, half angrily, as she bundled all the

white silk and the rich lace unceremoniously away into an empty drawer of

her wardrobe. "I am a fool to say such things even to Marion. It looks,

as she says, as if I were being forced into a rich marriage by my

friends. I am very fond of John; I shall make him a most exemplary wife,

and I shall look remarkably well in the family diamonds, and that is all

that can possibly be required of me."

Having thus settled things comfortably in her own mind, she went

downstairs again, and was in such good spirits, and so radiant with

smiles for the rest of the evening, that Mr. Daintree remarked to his

wife, when they had retired into their conjugal chamber, that he had

never seen Vera look so well or so happy.

"Dear child," he said, "it is a great comfort to me to see it, for just

at first I feared that she had been influenced by the money and the

position, and that her heart was not in it; but now she has evidently

become much attached to Sir John, and is perfectly happy; and he is a

most excellent man, and in every way worthy of her. Did I tell you,

Marion, that he told me the chancel should be begun immediately after the

wedding? It is a pity it could not have been done before; but we shall

just get it finished by Easter."

"I am glad of that. We must fill the church with flowers for the 27th,

and then its appalling ugliness will not be too visible. Of course, the

building could hardly have been begun in the middle of winter."

But if Mrs. Eustace Daintree differed at all from her husband upon the

subject of her sister's serene and perfect happiness, she, like a wise

woman, kept her doubts to herself, and spoke no word of them to destroy

the worthy vicar's peace of mind upon the subject.

The next morning Sir John came down from the Hall to the vicarage with

a cloud upon his brow, and requested Vera to grant him a few minutes'

private conversation. Vera put on her sable cloak and hat, and went out

with him into the garden.

"What is the matter?"

"I am exceedingly vexed with my brother," he answered.

"What has Maurice done?"

"He tells me this morning that he will not stop for the wedding, nor be

my best man. He talks of going away to-morrow."

Vera glanced at him. He looked excessively annoyed; his face, usually so

kind and placid, was ruffled and angry; he flicked the grass impatiently

with his stick.

"I have been talking to him for an hour, and cannot get him to change his

mind, or even to tell me why he will not stay; in fact, he has no good

reason for going. He _must_ stay."

"Does it matter very much?" she asked, gently.

"Of course it matters. My mother is not able to be present; it would not

be prudent after her late attack of bronchitis. My only brother surely

might make a point of being at my wedding."

"But if he has other engagements----"

"He has no other engagement!" he interrupted, angrily; "He cannot find

any but the most paltry excuses. It is behaving with great unkindness to

myself, but that is a small matter. What I do mind and will not submit to

is, that it is a deliberate insult to you."

"An insult to me! Oh! John, how can that be?" she said, in some surprise;

and then, suddenly, she flushed hotly. She knew what he meant. There had

been plenty of people to say that Sir John Kynaston was marrying beneath

himself--a nobody who was unworthy of him: these murmurs had reached

Vera's ears, but she had not heeded them since Lady Kynaston had been on

her side. She saw, however, that Sir John feared that the absence of his

mother and his brother at his wedding might be misconstrued into a sign

that they also disapproved of his bride.

"I don't think Maurice would wish to slight me," she said, gently.

"No; but, then, he must not behave as though he did. I assure you, Vera,

if he perseveres in his determination, I shall be most deeply hurt. I

have always endeavoured to be a kind brother to him, and, if he cannot do

this small thing to please me, I shall consider him most ungrateful."

"That I am sure he is not," she answered, earnestly; "little as I know

him, I can assure you that he never loses an occasion of saying how much

he feels your goodness and generosity to him."

"Then he must prove it. Look here, Vera, will you go up to the Hall now

and talk to him? He is not hunting to-day; you will find him in the

library."

"I?" she cried, looking half frightened; "what can I do? You had much

better ask him yourself."

"I have asked him over and over again, till I am sick of asking! If you

were to put it as a personal request from yourself, I am sure he would

see how important to us both it is that he should be present at our

wedding."

"Pray don't ask me to do such a thing; I really cannot," she said,

hastily.

Sir John looked at her in some surprise; there was an amount of distress

in her face that struck him as inadequate to the small thing he had asked

of her.

"Why, Vera! have you grown shy? Surely you will not mind doing so small a

thing to please me? You need not stay long, and you have your hat on all

ready. I have to speak to your brother-in-law about the chancel; I have a

letter from the architect this morning; and everything must be settled

about it before we go. If you will go up and speak to Maurice now, I will

join you--say in twenty minutes from now," consulting his watch, "at the

lodge gates. You will go, won't you, dear, just to please me?"

She did not know how to refuse; she had no excuse to give, no reason that

she could put into words why she should shrink with such a dreadful

terror from this interview with his brother which he was forcing upon

her. She told him that she would go, and Sir John, leaving her, went into

the house well satisfied to do his business with the vicar.

And Vera went slowly up the lane alone towards the Hall. She did not know

what she was going to say to Maurice; she hardly knew, indeed, what it

was she had been commissioned to ask of him; nor in what words her

request was to be made. She thought no longer of her wedding-day, nor of

the lover who had just parted with her. Only before her eyes there came

again the little wintry copse of birch-trees; the horses standing by, the

bare fields stretching around, and back into her heart there flashed the

memory of those quick, hot kisses pressed upon her outstretched hand; the

one short--and alas! all too perilous--glimpse that had been revealed to

her of the inner life and soul of the man whose lightest touch she had

learnt that day to fear as she feared no other living thing.

CHAPTER XV.

VERA'S MESSAGE.

Alas! how easily things go wrong,

A word too much, or a sigh too long;

And there comes a mist and a driving rain,

And life is never the same again.

The library at Kynaston was the room which Sir John had used as his only

sitting-room since he had come down to stay in his own house. When his

wedding with Miss Nevill had been definitely fixed, there had come down

from town a whole army of decorators and painters and upholsterers, who

had set to work to renovate and adorn the rest of the house for the

advent of the bride, who was so soon to be brought home to it.

They had altered things in various ways, they had improved a few, and

they had spoiled a good many more; they had, at all events, introduced a

wholesome and thorough system of cleansing and cleaning throughout the

house, that had been very welcome to the soul of Mrs. Eccles; but into

the library they had not penetrated. The old bookshelves remained

untouched; the old books, in their musty brown calf bindings, were

undesecrated by profaning hands. All sorts of quaint chairs and bureaus,

gathered together out of every other room in the house, had congregated

here. The space over the mantelpiece was adorned by a splendid portrait

by Vandyke, flanked irreverently on either side by a series of old

sporting prints, representing the whole beginning, continuation, and

end of a steeple-chase course, and which, it is melancholy to state, were

far more highly appreciated by Sir John than the beautiful and valuable

picture which they surrounded. Below these, and on the mantelpiece

itself, were gathered together a heterogeneous collection of pipes,

spurs, horse-shoes, bits, and other implements, which the superintending

hands of any lady would have straightway relegated to the stables.

In this library Sir John and his brother fed, smoked, wrote and read,

and lived, in fact, entirely in full and disorderly enjoyment of their

bachelorhood and its privileges. The room, consequently, was in a

condition of untidiness and confusion, which was the despair of Mrs.

Eccles and the delight of the two men themselves, who had even forbidden

the entrance of any housemaid into it upon pain of instant dismissal.

Mrs. Eccles submitted herself with resignation to the inevitable, and

comforted herself with the reflection that the time of unchecked

masculine dominion was well-nigh over, and that the days were very near

at hand when "Miss Vera" was coming to alter all this.

"Ah, well, it won't last long, poor gentleman!" the worthy lady said to

herself, in allusion to Sir John's uninvaded sanctum; "let him enjoy his

pigstye while he can. When his wife comes she will soon have the place

swept clean out for him."

So the papers, and the books, and the pipes, and the tobacco-tins were

left heaped up all over the tables and chairs, and the fox-terriers sat

in high places on the sofa cushions; and the brothers smoked their pipes

after their meals, emptied their ashes on to the tables, threw their

empty soda-water bottles into a corner of the room, wore their slippers

at all hours, and lapsed, in fact, into all those delightful methods of

living at ease practised by the vicious nature inherent in man when he is

unchecked by female influence; whilst Mrs. Eccles groaned in silence, but

possessed her soul in patience by reason of that change which she knew to

be coming over the internal economy of Kynaston Hall.

Maurice Kynaston reclines at ease in the most comfortable arm-chair in

the room, his feet reposing upon a second chair; his pipe is in his

mouth, and his hands in his trouser pockets; he wears a loose, gray

shooting-jacket, and Sir John's favourite terrier, Vic, has curled

herself into a little round white ball upon his outstretched legs.

Maurice has just been reading his morning's correspondence, and a letter

from Helen, announcing that her grandfather is ill and confined to his

room by bronchitis, is still in his hand. He looks gloomily and

abstractedly into the red logs of the wood fire. The door opens.

"Any orders for the stable, Captain?"

"None to-day, Mrs. Eccles."

"You are not going out hunting?"

"No, I am going to take a rest. By the way, Mrs. Eccles, I shall be

leaving to-morrow, so you can see about packing my things."

"Dear me! sir, I hope we shall see you again, at the wedding."

"Very unlikely; I don't like weddings, Mrs. Eccles; the only one I ever

mean to dance at is yours. When you get married, you let me know."

"Law! sir, how you do go on!" said the old lady, laughing; not

ill-pleased at the imputation. "Dear me," she went on, looking round the

room uneasily, "did I ever see such a mess in all my born days. Now Sir

John is out, sir, I suppose you couldn't let me----"

"_Certainly not_--if you mean bring in a broom and a dust-pan! Just let

me catch you at it, that's all!"

The housekeeper shook her head with a resigned sigh.

"Ah, well! it can't last long; when Miss Vera comes she'll turn the whole

place inside-out, and all them nasty pipes, and dogs and things will be

cleared away."

"Do you think so?" suddenly sitting upright in his chair. "Wait a bit,

Mrs. Eccles; don't go yet. Do you think Miss Vera will have things her

own way with my brother?"

"Oh! sir, what do you ask me for?" she answered, with discreet

evasiveness. "Surely you must know more about Miss Vera than I can tell

you."

Mrs. Eccles went away, and Maurice got up and leant against the

mantelpiece looking down gloomingly, into the fire. Vic, dislodged from

his knee, sat up beside him, resting her little white paws on the edge of

the fender, warming her nose.

"What a fool I am!" said Maurice, aloud to himself. "I can't even hear

her name mentioned by a servant without wanting to talk about her. Yes,

it's clear he loves her--but does she love him? Will she be happy? Yes,

of course, she will get her own way. Will that be enough for her? Ah!"

turning suddenly round and taking half-a-dozen steps across the room. "It

is high time I went. I am a coward and a traitor to linger on here; I

will go. Why did I say to-morrow--why have I not settled to go this very

day? If I were not so weak and so irresolute, I should be gone by this

time. I ought never, knowing what I do know of myself--I ought never to

have come back at all." He went back to the fire and sat down again,

lifting the little dog back on to his knee. "I shall get over it, I

suppose," he murmured. "Men don't die of this sort of thing; she will

marry, and she will think me unkind because I shall never come near her;

but even if she knew the truth, it would never make any difference to

her; and by-and-by I too, I suppose, shall marry." The soliloquy died

away into silence. Maurice stroked the dog and looked at the fire

dreamily and somewhat drearily.

Some one tapped at the door.

"Come in! What is it, Mrs. Eccles?" he cried, rousing himself.

The door softly opened and there entered, not Mrs. Eccles, but Vera

Nevill.

Captain Kynaston sprang hastily to his feet. "Oh, Vera! I beg your

pardon--how do you do? I suppose you have come for John? You must have

missed him; he started for the vicarage half-an-hour ago."

"No, I have seen him. I have come to see you, Maurice, if you don't

mind." She spoke rather timidly, not looking at him.

"I am delighted, of course," he answered, a little constrainedly.

Vera stood up on the hearth divesting herself of her long fur cloak; she

flung it over the back of a chair, and then took off her hat and gloves.

Maurice was strangely unlike himself this morning, for he never offered

to help her in these operations, he only stood leaning against the corner

of the mantelpiece opposite her, looking at her.

Vera stooped down and stroked the little fox-terrier; when she had done

so, she raised her head and met his eyes.

Did she see, ere he hastily averted them, all the hunger and all the

longing that filled them as he watched her? He, in his turn, stooped and

replenished the fire.

"John sent me to talk to you, Maurice," began Vera, hurriedly, like one

repeating a lesson; "he tells me you will not be with us on the 27th; is

that so?"

"I am sorry, but I am obliged to go away," he answered.

"John is dreadfully hurt, Maurice. I hope you will alter your mind."

"Is it John for whom you are speaking, or for yourself?" he asked,

looking at her.

"For both of us. Of course it will be a great disappointment if you are

not there. You are his only brother, and he will feel it deeply."

"And you; will you feel it?" he persisted. She coloured a little.

"Yes, I shall be very sorry," she answered, nervously. "I should not like

John to be vexed on his wedding-day; he has been a kind brother to you,

Maurice, and it seems hard that you cannot do this little thing to show

your sense of it."

"Believe me, I show my gratitude to my brother just as well in staying

away as in remaining," he answered, earnestly. "Do not urge me any

further, Vera; I would do anything in the world to please John, but

I cannot be present at your wedding."

There was a moment's silence; the fire flickered up merrily between them;

a red-hot cinder fell out noisily from the grate; the clock ticked

steadily on the chimney-piece; the little terrier sniffed at the edge

of Vera's dress.

Suddenly there came into her heart a wild desire _to know_, to eat for

once of that forbidden fruit of the tree of Eden, whence the flaming

swords in vain beckoned her back; to eat, and afterwards, perchance, to

perish of the poisonous food.

A wild conflict of thought thronged into her soul. Prudence, wisdom, her

very heart itself counselled her to be still and to go. But something

stronger than all else was within her too; and something that was new and

strange, and perilously sweet to her; a something that won the day.

She turned to him, stretching out her hands; the warm glow of the fire

lit up her lovely face and her eloquent pleading eyes, and flickered over

the graceful and beautiful figure, whose perfect outlines haunted his

fancy for ever.

"Stay, for my sake, because I ask you!" she cried, with a sudden passion;

"or else tell me why you must go."

There came no answering flash into his eyes, only he lowered them beneath

hers; he sat down suddenly, as though he was weary, on the chair whence

he had risen at her entrance, so that she stood before him, looking down

at him.

There was a certain repression in his face which made him look stern and

cold, as one who struggles with a mortal temptation. He stooped over the

little dog, and became seemingly engrossed in stroking it.

"I cannot stop," he said, in a cold, measured voice; "it is an

impossibility. But, since you ask me, I will tell you why. It can make no

possible difference to you to know; it may, indeed, excite your interest

or your pity for a few moments whilst you listen to me; but when it is

over and you go away you will forget it again. I do not ask you to

remember it or me; it is, in fact, all I ask, that you should forget.

This is what it is. Your wedding-day is very near; it is bringing you

happiness and love. I can rejoice in your happiness. I am not so selfish

as to lament it; but you will not wish me to be there to see it when I

tell you that I have been fool enough to dare to love you myself. It is

the folly of a madman, is it not? since I have never had the slightest

hope or entertained the faintest wish to alter the conditions of your

life; nor have I even asked myself what effect such a confession as this

that you have wrung from me can have upon you. Whether it excites your

pity or your contempt, or even your amusement, it cannot in any case make

any difference to me. My folly, at all events, cannot hurt you or my

brother; it can hurt no one but myself: it cannot even signify to you.

It is only for my own sake that I am going, because one cannot bear more

than a certain amount, can one? I thought I might have been strong

enough, but I find that it would be too much; that is all. You will not

ask me to stay any more, will you?"

Not once had he looked at her; not by a single sign or token had he

betrayed the slightest emotion or agitation. His voice had been steady

and unbroken; he spoke in a low and somewhat monotonous manner; it was

as though he had been relating something that in no way concerned

himself--some story that was of some other, and that other of no great

interest either to him who told it or to her who listened to the tale.

Any one suddenly coming into the room would have guessed him to be

entirely engrossed in the contemplation of the little dog between his

hands; that he was relating the story of his own heart would not have

been imagined for an instant.

When he had done speaking there was an absolute silence in the room. What

he had spoken seemed to admit of no answer of any sort or kind from his

listener. He had asked for nothing; he had pleaded neither for her

sympathy nor her forgiveness, far less for any definite expression of the

effect of his words upon her. He had not, seemingly, cared to know how

they affected her. He had simply told his own story--that was all; it

concerned no one but himself. She might pity him, she might even be

amused at him, as he had said: anyhow, it made no difference to him;

he had chosen to present a picture of his inner life to her as a

doctor might have described some complicated disease to a chance

acquaintance--it was a physiological study, if she cared to look upon it

as such; if not, it did not matter. There was no possible answer that she

could make to him; no form of words by which she could even acknowledge

that she had heard him speak.

She stood perfectly silent for the space of some two or three seconds;

she scarcely breathed, her very heart seemed to have ceased to beat; it

was as if she had been turned to stone. She knew not what she felt; it

was neither pain, nor joy, nor regret; it was only a sort of dull apathy

that oppressed her very being.

Presently she put forth her hands, almost mechanically, and reached her

cloak and hat from the chair behind her.

The soft rustle of her dress upon the carpet struck his ear; he looked up

with a start, like one waking out of a painful dream.

"You are going!" he said, in his usual voice.

"Yes; I am going."

He stood up, facing her.

"There is nothing more to be said, is there?" He said it not as though he

asked her a question, but as one asserting a fact.

"Nothing, I suppose," she answered, rather wearily, not looking at him as

she spoke.

"I shall not see you again, as I leave to-morrow morning by the early

train. You will, at least, wish me good-bye?"

"Good-bye, Maurice."

"Good-bye, Vera; God bless you."

She opened the door softly and went out. She went slowly away down the

avenue, wrapping her cloak closely around her; the wind blew cold and

chill, and she shivered a little as she walked. Presently she struck

aside along a narrow pathway through the grass that led her homewards by

a shorter cut. She had forgotten that Sir John was to wait for her at the

lodge-gates.

She had forgotten his very existence. For she _knew_. She had eaten of

the tree of knowledge, and the scales had fallen for ever from her eyes.

She knew that Maurice loved her--and, alas! for her--she knew also that

she loved him. And between them a great gulf was fixed; deep, and wide,

and impassable as the waters of Lethe.

Out of the calm, unconscious lethargy of her maidenhood's untroubled

dreams the soul of Vera had awakened at length to the realization of the

strong, passionate woman's heart that was within her.

She loved! It had come to her at last; this thing that she had scorned

and disbelieved in, and yet that, possibly, she had secretly longed for.

She had deemed herself too cold, too wise, too much set upon the good

things of earth, to be touched by that scorching fire; but now she was no

colder than any other love-sick maiden, no wiser than every other foolish

woman who had been ready to wreck her life for love in the world's

history.

Surely no girl ever learnt the secret of her own heart with such dire

dismay as did Vera Nevill. There was neither joy nor gladness within her,

only a great anger against herself and her fate, and even against him

who, as he had said, had dared to love her. She had courted the avowal

from his lips, and yet she resented the words she had wrung from him.

But, more than all, she resented the treachery of the heart that was

within her.

"Why did I ever see him?" she cried aloud in her bitterness, striking her

hands wildly against each other. "What evil fate brought us together?

What fool's madness induced me to go near him to-day? I was happy enough;

I had all I wanted; I was content with my fate--and now--now!" Her

passionate words died away into a wail. In her haste and her abstraction

her foot caught against a long, withered bramble trail that lay across

her path; she half stumbled. It was sufficient to arrest her steps. She

stood still, and leant against the smooth, whitened trunk of a beech

tree. Her hands locked themselves tightly together; her face, white and

miserable, lifted itself despairingly towards the pitiless winter sky

above her.

"How am I to live out my life?" she asked herself, in her anguish.

It had not entered into her head that she could alter it. It did not

occur to her to imagine that she could give up anything to which she now

stood pledged. To be John Kynaston's wife, and to love his brother, that

was what struck upon her with horror; no other possible contingency had

as yet suggested itself to her.

Presently, as she moved slowly onwards, still absorbed in her new-found

misfortune, a fresh train of thought came into her mind. She thought no

longer about herself, but about him.

"How cruel I was to leave him like that," she said to herself,

reproachfully; "without a word, or so much as a look, of

consolation--for, if I suffer, has not he suffered too!"

She forgot that he had asked her for nothing; she only knew that, little

enough as she had to give him, she had withheld that little from him.

"What must he think of me?" she repeated to herself, in dismay. "How

heartless and how cold I must be in his eyes to have parted from him thus

without one single kind word. I might, at least, have told him that I was

grateful for the love I cannot take. I wonder," she continued, half aloud

to herself, "I wonder what it is like to be loved by Maurice----" She

paused again, this time leaning against the wicket-gate that led out of

the park into the high road.

A little smile played for one instant about her lips, a soft, far-away

look lingered in her dreaming eyes for just a moment--just the space of

time it might take you to count twenty; she let her fancy carry her

away--_where_?

Ah, sweet and perilous reverie! too dear and too dangerous to be safely

indulged in. Vera roused herself with a start, passing her hand across

her brow as though to brush away the thoughts that would fain have

lingered there.

"Impossible!" she said aloud to herself, moving on again rapidly. "I must

be a fool to stand here dreaming--I, whose fate is irrevocably fixed; and

I would sooner die than alter it. The best match in the county, it is

called. Well, so it is; and nothing less would satisfy me. But--but--I

think I will see him once again, and wish him good-bye more kindly."

CHAPTER XVI.

"POOR WISDOM."

No; vain, alas! the endeavour

From bonds so sweet to sever,

Poor Wisdom's chance against a glance

Is now as weak as ever!

Thos. Moore.

The station at Sutton stood perched up above the village on a high

embankment, upon which the railway crossed the valley from the hills that

lay to the north to those that lay to the south of it. Up at the station

it was always draughty and generally cold. To-day, this very early

morning, about ten minutes before the first up train is due, it is not

only cold and draughty, but it is also wet and foggy. A damp, white mist

fills the valley below, and curls up the bare hill sides above; it hangs

chillingly about the narrow, open shed on the up side of the station,

covering the wooden bench within it with thick beads of moisture, so that

no man dare safely sit down on it, and clinging coldly and penetratingly

to the garments of a tall young lady in a long ulster and a thick veil,

who is slowly walking up and down the platform.

The solitary porter on duty eyes her inquiringly. "Going by the up train,

Miss?" he says, touching his hat respectfully as he passes her.

"No," says Vera, blushing hotly under the thick shelter of her veil, and

then adds with that readiness of explanation to which persons who have a

guilty conscience are prone, "I am only waiting to see somebody off." An

uncalled-for piece of information which has only the effect of setting

the bucolic mind of the local porter agog with curiosity and wonderment.

Presently the few passengers for the early train begin to arrive; a

couple of farmers going into the market town, a village girl in a smart

bonnet, an old woman in a dirty red shawl, carrying a bundle; that is

all. Maurice is very late. Vera remembers that he always puts off

starting to catch a train till the very last minute. She stands waiting

for him at the further end of the platform, as far away as she can from

the knot of rustic passengers, with a beating heart and a fever of

impatience within her.

The train is signalled, and at that very minute the dog-cart from

Kynaston drives up at last! Even then he has to get his ticket, and to

convey himself and his portmanteau across from the other side of the

line. Their good-bye will be short indeed!

The train steams up, and Maurice hurries forward followed by the porter

bearing his rugs and sticks; he does not even see her, standing a little

back, as she does, so as not to attract more attention than need be. But

when all his things are put into the carriage, and the porter has been

duly tipped and has departed, Captain Kynaston hears a soft voice behind

him.

"I have come to wish you good-bye again." He turns, flushing at the sound

of the sweet familiar voice, and sees Vera in her long ulster, and her

face hidden behind her veil, by his side.

"Good Heavens, Vera! _you_--out on such a morning?"

"I could not let you go away without--without--one kind word," she

begins, stammering painfully, her voice shaking so, as she speaks, that

he cannot fail to divine her agitation, even though he cannot see the

lovely troubled face that has been so carefully screened from his gaze.

"This is too good of you," he begins. That very minute a brougham dashes

rapidly up to the station.

"It is the Shadonake carriage!" cried Vera, casting a terrified glance

behind her. "Who can it be? they will see me."

"Jump into the train," he answers, hurriedly, and, without a thought

beyond an instinct of self-preservation for the moment, she obeys him.

Maurice follows her quickly, closing the carriage door behind him.

"Nobody can have seen you," he says. "I daresay it is only some visitors

going away; they could not have noticed you. Oh! Vera," turning with

sudden earnestness to her; "how am I ever to thank you for this great

kindness to me?"

"It is nothing; only a five minutes' walk before breakfast. It is no

trouble to me; and I did not want you to think me unfeeling, or unkind

to you."

Before she could speak another word the carriage door was violently

slammed to, and the guard's sharp shrill whistle heralded the departure

of the train. With a cry, Vera sprang towards the door; before she could

reach it, Maurice, who had perceived instantly what had happened, had let

down the window and was shouting to the porter. It was too late. The

train was off.

Vera sank back hopelessly upon the seat; and Maurice, according to the

manners and customs of infuriated Britons, gave utterance to a very

laconic word of bad import below his breath.

"I wouldn't have had this happen for ten thousand pounds!" he said, after

a minute, looking at her in blank despair.

Vera was taking off her veil mechanically; when he could see her face, he

perceived that she was very white.

"Never mind," she said, with a faint smile; "there is no real harm done.

It is unfortunate, that is all. The train stops at Tripton. I can get out

there and walk home."

"Five miles! and it is I who have got you into this scrape! What a

confounded fool I was to make you get into the carriage! I ought to have

remembered how late it was. How are you to walk all that way?"

"Pray don't reproach yourself, Maurice; I shall not mind the walk a bit.

I shall have to confess my escapade to Marion, and tell her why I am late

for breakfast--that is all; as it is, I can, at all events, finish what I

wanted to say to you."

And then she was silent, looking away from him out of the further window.

The train, gradually accelerating its pace, sped quickly on through the

fog-blotted landscape. Hills, villages, church spires, all that made the

country familiar, were hidden in the mist; only here and there, in the

nearer hedge-rows, an occasional tree stood out bleak and black against

the white veil beyond like a sentinel alone on a limitless plain.

Absolute silence--only the train rushing on faster and faster through

the white, wet world without.

Then, at last, it was Maurice, not Vera, that spoke.

"I blame myself bitterly for this, Vera," he said in a low, pained voice.

"Had it not been for my foolish, unthinking words to you yesterday, you

would not have been tempted to do this rash act of kindness. I spoke to

you in a way that I had no right to speak, believing that my words would

make no impression upon you beyond the fact of showing you that it was

impossible for me to stay for your wedding. I never dreamt that your

kindly interest in me would lead you to waste another thought upon me.

I did not know how good and pitying your nature is, nor give you credit

for so much generosity."

She turned round to him sharply and suddenly. "What are you saying?" she

cried, with a harsh pain in her voice. "What words are you using to me?

_Kindness, pity, generosity_!--have they any place here between you

and me?"

There was a moment in which neither of them spoke, only their eyes met,

and the secret that was hidden in their souls lay suddenly revealed to

each of them.

In another instant Vera had sunk upon her knees before him.

"While you live," she cried, passionately, lifting her beautiful dark

eyes, that were filled with a new light and a new glory, to his--"while

you live I will never be another man's wife!"

And there was no other word spoken. Only a shower of close, hot kisses

upon her lips, and two strong arms that drew her nearer and tighter to

the beating heart against which she rested, for he was only human after

all.

Oh, swift and divine moment of joy, that comes but once in a man's life,

when he holds the woman he loves for the first time to his heart! Once,

and once only, he tastes of heaven and forgets life itself in the short

and delirious draught. What envious deity shall grudge him those moments

of rapture, all too sweet, and, alas! all too short!

To Vera and Maurice, locked in each other's arms, time had no shore, and

life was not. It might have been ten seconds, it might have been an

eternity--they could not have told--no pang entered that serene haven

where their souls were lapped in perfect happiness; no serpent entered

into Eden; no harsh note struck upon their enchanted ears, nor jarring

sight upon their sun-dazzled vision. Where in that moment was the duty

and the honour that was a part of the man's very self? What to Vera was

the rich marriage and the life of affluence, and all the glitter and

tinsel which it had been her soul's desire to attain? She remembered it

not; like a house of cards, it had fallen shattered to the ground.

They loved, and they were together. There was neither duty, nor faith,

nor this world's wisdom between them; nothing but that great joy which on

earth has no equal, and which Heaven itself cannot exceed.

But brief are the moments whilst joy, with bated breath and folded wings,

pauses on his flight; too soon, alas! is the divine elixir dashed away

from our lingering lips.

Already, for Maurice and for Vera, it is over, and they have awakened to

earth once more.

It is the man who is the first to remember. "Good God, Vera!" he cries,

pushing her back from him, "what terrible misfortune is this? Can it be

true that you must suffer too, that you love me?"

"Why not?" she answered, looking at him; happy still, but troubled too;

for already for her also Paradise is over. "Is it so hard to believe? And

yet many women must have loved you. But I--I have never loved before.

Listen, Maurice: when I accepted your brother, I liked him, I thought I

could be very happy with him; and--and--do not think ill of me--I wanted

so much to be rich; it was so miserable being poor and dependent, and I

knew life so well, and how hard the struggle is for those who are poor.

I was so determined I would do well for myself; and he was good, and I

liked him."

At the mention of the brother, whom he had wronged, Maurice hid his face

in his hands and groaned aloud.

She laid her hand softly upon his knee; she had half raised herself upon

the seat by his side, and her head, from which her hat had fallen,

pillowed itself with a natural caressing action against his shoulder.

At the soft touch he shivered.

"It was dreadful, was it not? But then, I am not perfect, and I liked the

idea of being rich, and I had never loved--I did not even know what it

meant. And then I met you--long ago your photograph had arrested my

fancy; and do you remember that evening at Shadonake when I first saw

you?"

Could he ever forget one single detail of that meeting?

"You stood at the foot of the staircase, waiting, and I came down softly

behind you. You did not see me till I was close to you, and then you

turned, and you took my hands, and you looked and looked at me till my

eyes could no longer meet yours. There came a vague trouble into my

heart; I had never felt anything like it before. Maurice, from that

instant I must have loved you."

"For God's sake, Vera!" he cried out wildly, as though the gentle words

gave him positive pain, "do not speak of it. Do you not see the abyss

which lies between us--which must part us for ever?"

"Loving you, I will never marry your brother!" she answered, earnestly.

"And I will never rob my brother of his bride. Darling, darling, do not

tempt me too far, or God knows what I may say and do! To reach you, love,

would be to dip my hands in dishonour and basest treachery. Not even for

you can I do this vile thing. Kiss me once more, sweet, and let me go out

of your life for ever; believe me, it is better so; best for us both. In

time you will forget, you will be happy. He will be good to you, and you

will be glad that you were not tempted to betray him."

"You do not know what you ask of me," she cried, lifting her face, all

wet with tears, to his. "Leave me, if you will--go your way--forget

me--it is all the same to me; henceforth there is no other man on earth

to me but you. I will never swear vows at God's altar that I cannot keep,

or commit the frightful sin of marrying one man whilst I know that I love

another. Yes, yes; I know it is a horrible, dreadful misfortune. Have I

sought it, or gone out of my way to find it? Have I not struggled to

keep it away from me? striven to blind my eyes to it and to go on as I

was, and never to acknowledge it to myself? Do I not love wealth above

all things; do I not know that he is rich, and you poor? And yet I cannot

help loving you!"

He took her clasped, trembling hands within his own, and held them

tightly. In that moment the woman was weak, and the man was her master.

"Listen," he said. "Yes, you are right, I am poor; but that is not all.

Vera, for Heaven's sake, reflect, and pause before you wreck your whole

life. I cannot marry you--not only because I am poor, but also, alas!

because I am bound to another woman."

"Helen Romer!" she murmured, faintly; "and you love _her_?" A sick, cold

misery rushed into her heart. She strove to withdraw her hands from his;

but he only held them the tighter.

"No; by the God above us, I love you, and only you," he answered her,

almost roughly; "but I am bound to her. I cannot afford to marry her--we

have neither of us any money; but I am bound all the same. Only one thing

can set me free; if, in five years, we are, neither of us, better off

than now, she has told me that I may go free. Under no other conditions

can I ever marry any one else. That is my secret, Vera. At any moment she

can claim me, and for five years I must wait for her."

"Then I will wait for you five years too," she cried, passionately. "Is

my love less strong, less constant, than hers, do you think? Can I not

wait patiently too?" She wound her arms about his neck, and drew his face

down to hers.

"Five years," she murmured; "it is but a small slice out of one's life

after all; and when it is over, it seems such a little space to look back

upon. Dearest, some day we shall remember how miserable, and yet how

happy too, we have been this morning; and we shall smile, as we remember

it all, out of the fulness of our content."

How was he to gainsay so sweet a prophet? Already the train was

slackening, and the moment when they must part drew near. The beautiful

head lay upon his breast; the deep, shadowy eyes, which love for the

first time had softened into the perfection of their own loveliness,

mirrored themselves in his; the flower-shaped, trembling lips were close

up to his. How could he resist their gentle pleading? There was no time

for more words, for more struggles between love and duty.

"So be it, then," he murmured, and caught her in one last, passionate

embrace to his heart.

Five minutes later a tall young lady, deeply veiled as when she had

entered the train, got out of it and walked swiftly away from Tripton

station down the hill towards the high road. So absorbed was she in her

own reflections that she utterly failed to notice another figure, also

female and also veiled, who, preceding her through the mist, went on

swiftly before her down the road. Nor did she pay the slightest attention

to the fact until a turn in the road brought her suddenly face to face

with two persons who stood deep in conversation under the shelter of

the tall, misty hedge-row.

As Vera approached these two persons sprang apart with a guilty

suddenness, and revealed to her astonished eyes--Beatrice Miller and Mr.

Herbert Pryme.

CHAPTER XVII.

AN UNLUCKY LOVE-LETTER.

Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,

Some banished lover, or some captive maid.

Pope, "Eloisa and Abelard."

To ascertain rightly how Mr. Pryme and Miss Miller came to be found in

the parish of Tripton at nine o'clock in the morning, standing together

under a wet hedge-row, it will be necessary to take a slight retrospect

of what had taken place in the history of these two people since the time

when the young barrister had spent that memorable week at Shadonake.

The visit had come to an end uneventfully for either of them; but two

days after his departure from the house Mr. Pryme had been guilty of a

gross piece of indiscretion. He had forgotten to observe a golden rule

which should be strongly impressed upon every man and woman. The maxim

should be inculcated upon the young with at least as much earnestness as

the Catechism or the Ten Commandments. In homely language, it runs

something in this fashion: "Say what you like, but never commit yourself

to paper."

Mr. Pryme had observed the first portion of this maxim religiously, but

he had failed to pay equal regard to the latter. He _had_ committed

himself to paper in the shape of a very bulky and very passionate

love-letter, which was duly delivered by the morning postman and laid at

the side of Miss Miller's plate upon the breakfast-table.

Now, Miss Miller, as it happened on that particular morning, had a

very heavy influenza cold, and had stayed in bed for breakfast. When,

therefore, Mrs. Miller prepared to send a small tray up to her daughter's

bedroom with her breakfast, she took up her letters also from the table

to put upon it with her tea and toast. The very thick envelope of one

of them first attracted her notice; then the masculine nature of the

handwriting; and when, upon turning it over, she furthermore perceived a

very large-sized monogram of the letters "H. P." upon the envelope, her

mind underwent a sudden revolution as to the sending of her daughter's

correspondence upstairs.

"There, that will do," she said to the lady's maid, "you can take up

the tray; I will bring Miss Miller's letters up to her myself after

breakfast."

After which, without more ado, she walked to the window and opened the

letter. Some people might have had scruples as to such a strong measure.

Mrs. Miller had none at all. Her children, she argued, were her own

property and under her own care; as long as they lived under her roof,

they had no right over anything that they possessed independently of

their mother.

Under ordinary circumstances she would not have opened a letter addressed

to any of her children; but if there was anything of a suspicious nature

in their correspondence, she certainly reserved to herself the perfect

right of dealing with it as she thought fit.

She opened the letter and read the first line; it ran thus:--

"My dearest darling Beatrice." She then turned to the end of it and read

the last; it was this: "Your own most devoted and loving Herbert."

That was quite enough for Mrs. Miller; she did not want to read any more

of it. She slipped the letter into her pocket, and went back to the

breakfast-table and poured out the tea and coffee for her husband and her

sons.

But when the family meal was over, it was with a very angry aspect that

Mrs. Miller went upstairs and stood by her eldest daughter's bedside.

"Beatrice, here is a letter which has come for you this morning, of which

I must ask you an explanation."

"You have read it, mamma!" flushing angrily, as she took it from her

mother's hand.

"I have read the first line and the last. I certainly should not take the

trouble to wade all through such contemptible trash!" Which was an

unprovoked insult to poor Beatrice's feelings.

She snatched the letter from her mother's hand, and crumpled it jealously

under her pillow.

"How can you call it trash, then, if you have not read it?"

It was hard, certainly; to have her letter opened was bad enough, but to

have it called names was worse still. The letter, which to Beatrice would

be so full of sacred charm and delight--such a poem on love and its

sweetness--was nothing more to her mother than "contemptible trash!"

But where in the whole world has a love-letter been indited, however

delightful and perfect it may be to the writer and the receiver of it,

that is nothing but an object of ridicule or contempt to the whole world

beside? Love is divine as Heaven itself to the two people who are

concerned in its ever new delights; but to us lookers-on its murmurs are

but fooleries, its sighs are ludicrous, and its written words absolute

imbecilities; and never a memory of our own lost lives can make the

spectacle of it in others anything but an irritating and idiotic

exhibition.

"I have read quite enough," continued Mrs. Miller, sternly, "to

understand the nature of it. It is from Mr. Pryme, I imagine?"

"Yes, mamma."

"And by what right, may I ask, does Mr. Pryme commence a letter to you in

the warm terms of affection which I have had the pleasure of reading?"

"By the right which I myself have given him," she answered, boldly.

Regardless of her cold, she sat upright in her bed; a flush of defiance

in her face, her short dark hair flung back from her brow in wild

confusion. She understood at once that all had been discovered, and she

was going to do battle for her lover.

"Do you mean to tell me, Beatrice, that you have engaged yourself to this

Mr. Pryme?"

"Certainly I have."

"You know very well that your father and I will never consent to it."

"Never is a long day, mamma."

"Don't take up my words like that. I consider, Beatrice, that you have

deceived me shamefully. You persuaded me to ask that young man to the

house because you said that Sophy Macpherson was fond of him."

"So she is."

"Beatrice, how can you be so wicked and tell such lies in the face of

that letter to yourself?"

"I never said he was fond of her," she answered, with just the vestige of

a twinkle in her eyes.

"If I had known, I would never have asked him to come," continued her

mother.

"No; I am sure you would not. But I did not tell you, mamma."

"I have other views for you. You must write to this young man and tell

him you will give him up."

"I certainly shall not do that."

"I shall not give my consent to your engagement."

"I never imagined that you would, mamma, and that is why I did not ask

for it."

And then Mrs. Miller got very angry indeed.

"What on earth do you intend to do, you ungrateful, disobedient,

rebellious child?"

"I mean to marry Herbert some day because I love him," answered her

daughter, coolly; "but I will not run away with him unless you force me

to it; and I hope, by-and-by, when Geraldine is grown up and can take my

place, that you will give us your consent and your blessing. I am quite

willing to wait a reasonable time for the chance of it."

"Is it likely that I shall give my consent to your marrying a young man

picked up nobody knows where--out of the gutter, most likely? Who are his

people, I should like to know?"

"I daresay his father is as well connected as mine," answered Beatrice,

who knew all about her mother's having married a _parvenu_.

"Beatrice, I am ashamed of you, sneering at your own father!"

"I beg your pardon, mamma; I did not mean to sneer, but you say very

trying things; and Mr. Pryme is a gentleman, and every bit as good as we

are!"

"And where is the money to be found for this precious marriage, I should

like to know? Do you suppose Mr. Pryme can support you?"

"Oh dear, no; but I know papa will not let me starve."

And Mrs. Miller knew it too. However angry she might be, and however

unsuitably Beatrice might choose to marry, Mr. Miller would never allow

his daughter to be insufficiently provided for. Beatrice's marriage

portion would be a small fortune to a poor young man.

"It is your money he is after!" she said, angrily.

"I don't think so, mamma; and of course of that I am the best judge."

"He shall never set foot here again. I shall write to him myself and

forbid him the house."

"That, of course, you may do as you like about, mamma; I cannot prevent

your doing so, but it will not make me give him up, because I shall never

marry any one else."

And there Mrs. Miller was, perforce, obliged to let the matter rest. She

went her way angry and vexed beyond measure, and somewhat baffled too.

How is a mother to deal with a daughter who is so determined and so

defiant as was Beatrice Miller? There is no known method in civilized

life of reducing a young lady of twenty to submission in matters of the

heart. She could not whip her, or put her on bread and water, nor could

she shut her up in a dark cupboard, as she might have done had she been

ten years old.

All she could do was to write a very indignant letter to Mr. Pryme,

forbidding him ever to enter her doors, or address himself in any way to

her daughter again. Having sent this to the post, she was at the end of

her resources. She did, indeed, confide the situation with very strong

and one-sided colouring to her husband; but Mr. Miller had not the strong

instincts of caste which were inherent in his wife. She could not make

him see what dreadful deed of iniquity Herbert Pryme and his daughter

had perpetrated between them.

"What's wrong with the young fellow?" he asked, looking up from the pile

of parliamentary blue-books on the library table before him.

"Nothing is wrong, Andrew; but he isn't a suitable husband for Beatrice."

"Why? you asked him here, Caroline. I suppose, if he was good enough to

stay in the house, he is no different to the boys, or anybody else who

was here."

"It is one thing to stay here, and quite another thing to want to marry

your daughter."

"Well, if he's an honest man, and the girl loves him, I don't see the

good of making a fuss about it; she had better do as she likes."

"But, Andrew, the man hasn't a penny; he has made nothing at the bar

yet." It was no use appealing to his exclusiveness, for he had none; it

was a better move to make him look at the money-point of the question.

"Oh, well, he will get on some day, I daresay, and meanwhile I shall give

Beatrice quite enough for them both when she marries."

"You don't understand, Andrew."

"No, my dear," very humbly, "perhaps I don't; but there, do as you think

best, of course; I am sure I don't wish to interfere about the children;

you always manage all these kind of things; and if you wouldn't mind, my

dear, I am so very busy just now. You know there is to be this attack

upon the Government as soon as the House meets, and I have the whole of

the papers upon the Patagonian and Bolivian question to look up, and most

fraudulent misstatements of the truth I believe them to be; although, as

far as I've gone, I haven't been able to make it quite out yet, but I

shall come to it--no doubt I shall come to it. I am going to speak upon

this question, my dear, and I mean to tell the House that a grosser

misrepresentation of facts was never yet promulgated from the Ministerial

benches, nor flaunted in the faces of an all too leniently credulous

Opposition; that will warm 'em up a bit, I flatter myself; those fellows

in office will hang their heads in shame at the word Patagonia for weeks

after."

"But who cares about Patagonia?"

"Oh, nobody much, I suppose. But there's bound to be an agitation against

the Government, and that does as well as anything else. We can't afford

to neglect a single chance of kicking them out. I have planned my speech

pretty well right through; it will be very effective--withering, I

fancy--but it's just these plaguy blue-books that won't quite tally with

what I've got to say. I must go through them again though----"

"You had better have read the papers first, and settled your speech

afterwards," suggested his wife.

"Oh dear, no! that wouldn't do at all; after all, you know, between you

and me, the facts don't go for much; all we want is, to denounce them;

any line of argument, if it is ingenious enough, will do; lay on the big

words thickly--that's what your constituents like. Law bless you! _they_

don't read the blue books; they'll take my word for granted if I say they

are full of lies; it would be a comfort, however, if I could find a few.

Of course, my dear, this is only between you and me."

A man is not always heroic to the wife of his bosom. Mrs. Miller went

her way and left him to his righteous struggle among the Patagonian

blue-books. After all, she said to herself, it had been her duty to

inform him of his daughter's conduct, but it was needless to discuss

the question further with him. He was incapable of approaching it from

her own point of view. It would be better for her now to go her own way

independently of him. She had always been accustomed to manage things her

own way. It was nothing new to her.

Later in the day she attempted to wrest a promise from Beatrice that

she would hold no further communication with the prohibited lover. But

Beatrice would give no such promise.

"Is it likely that I should promise such a thing?" she asked her mother,

indignantly.

"You would do so if you knew what your duty to your mother was."

"I have other duties besides those to you, mamma; when one has promised

to marry a man, one is surely bound to consider him a little. If I have

the chance of meeting him, I shall certainly take it."

"I shall take very good care that you have no such chances, Beatrice."

"Very well, mamma; you will, of course, do as you think best."

It was in consequence of these and sundry subsequent stormy conversations

that Mr. Herbert Pryme suddenly discovered that he had a very high regard

and affection for Mr. Albert Gisburne, the vicar of Tripton, the same

to whom once Vera's relations had wished to unite her.

The connection between Mr. Gisburne and Herbert Pryme was a slender one;

he had been at college with an elder brother of his, who had died in his

(Herbert's) childhood. He did not indeed very clearly recollect what this

elder brother had been like; but having suddenly called to mind that,

during the course of his short visit to Shadonake, he had discovered the

fact of the college friendship, of which, indeed, Mr. Gisburne had

informed him, he now was unaccountably inflamed by a desire to cultivate

the acquaintance of the valued companion of his deceased brother's youth.

He opened negotiations by the gift of a barrel of oysters, sent down

from Wilton's, with an appropriate and graceful accompanying note. Mr.

Gisburne was surprised, but not naturally otherwise than pleased by the

attention. Next came a box of cigars, which again were shortly followed

by two brace of pheasants purporting to be of Herbert's own shooting, but

which, as a matter of fact, he had purchased in Vigo Street.

This munificent succession of gifts reaped at length the harvest for

which they had been sown. In his third letter of grateful acknowledgment

for his young friend's kind remembrance of him, Mr. Gisburne, with some

diffidence, for Tripton Rectory was neither lively nor remarkably

commodious, suggested how great the pleasure would be were his friend to

run down to him for a couple of days or so; he had nothing, in truth, to

offer him but a bachelor's quarters and a hearty welcome; there was next

to no attraction beyond a pretty rural village and a choral daily

service; but still, if he cared to come, Mr. Gisburne need not say how

delighted he would be, etc., etc.

It is not too much to say that the friend jumped at it. On the shortest

possible notice he arrived, bag and baggage, professing himself charmed

with the bachelor's quarters; and, burning with an insatiable desire to

behold the rurality of the village, to listen to the beauty and the

harmony of the daily choral performances, he took up his abode in the

clergyman's establishment; and the very next morning he sent a rural

villager over to Shadonake with a half-crown for himself and a note to be

given to Miss Miller the very first time she walked or rode out alone.

This note was duly delivered, and that same afternoon Beatrice met her

lover by appointment in an empty lime-kiln up among the chalk hills. This

romantic rendezvous was, however, discontinued shortly, owing to the fact

of Mrs. Miller having become suspicious of her daughter's frequent and

solitary walks, and insisting on sending out Geraldine and her governess

with her.

A few mornings later a golden chance presented itself. Mr. and Mrs.

Miller went away for the night to dine and sleep at a distant country

house. Beatrice had not been invited to go with them. She did not venture

to ask her lover to the house he had been forbidden to enter, but she

ordered the carriage for herself, caught the early train to Tripton, met

Herbert, by appointment, outside the station, and stood talking to him in

the fog by the wayside, where Vera suddenly burst upon their astonished

gaze.

There was nothing for it but to take Vera into their confidence; and they

were so much engrossed in their affairs that they entirely failed to

notice how mechanically she answered, and how apathetically she appeared

for the first few minutes to listen to their story. Presently, however,

she roused herself into a semblance of interest. She promised not to

betray the fact of the stolen interview, all the more readily because it

did not strike either of them to inquire what she herself was doing in

the Tripton road.

In the end Vera walked on slowly by herself, and the Shadonake carriage,

ordered to go along at a foot's pace from Sutton station towards Tripton,

picked both girls up and conveyed them safely, each to their respective

homes.

"You will never tell of me, will you, Vera?" said Beatrice to her, for

the twentieth time, ere they parted.

"Of course not; indeed, I would gladly help you if I could," she

answered, heartily.

"You will certainly be able to help us both very materially some day,"

said Beatrice, who had visions of being asked to stay at Kynaston, to

meet Herbert.

"I am afraid not," answered Vera, with a sigh. Already there was regret

in her mind for the good things of life which she had elected to

relinquish. "Put me down at this corner, Beatrice; I don't want to drive

up to the vicarage. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, Vera--and--and you won't mind my saying it--but I like you so

much."

Vera smiled, and, with a kiss, the girls parted; and Mrs. Daintree never

heard after all the story of her sister's early visit to Tripton, for she

returned so soon that she had not yet been missed. The vicar and his

family had but just gathered round the breakfast-table, when, after

having divested herself of her walking garments, she came in quietly and

took her vacant place amongst them unnoticed and unquestioned.

CHAPTER XVIII.

LADY KYNASTON'S PLANS.

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,

Brief as the lightning in the collied night.

And ere a man hath power to say, "Behold!"

The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

So quick bright things come to confusion.

"Midsummer Night's Dream."

Sir John Kynaston sat alone in his old-bachelor rooms in London. They

were dark, dingy rooms, such as are to be found in countless numbers

among the narrow streets that encompass St. James's Street. They were

cheerless and comfortless, and, withal, high-rented, and possessed of

no other known advantage than that of their undeniably central situation.

They were not rooms that one would suppose any man would care to linger

in in broad daylight; and yet Sir John remained in them now a days

almost from morning till night.

He sat for the most part as he is sitting now--in a shabby, leathern

arm-chair, stooping a little forward, and doing nothing. Sometimes he

wrote a few necessary letters, sometimes he made a feint of reading the

paper; but oftenest he did nothing, only sat still, staring before him

with a hopeless misery in his face.

For in these days Sir John Kynaston was a very unhappy man. He had

received a blow such as strikes at the very root and spring of a man's

life--a blow which a younger man often battles through and is none the

worse in the end for, but under which a man of his age is apt to be

crushed and to succumb. Within a week of his wedding-day Vera Nevill

had broken her engagement to him. It had been a nine days' wonder in

Meadowshire--the county had rung with the news--everybody had marvelled

and speculated, but no one had got any nearer to the truth than that Vera

was supposed to have "mistaken her feelings." The women had cried shame

upon her for such capriciousness, and had voted her a fool into the

bargain for throwing over such a match; and if a male voice, somewhat

less timid than the rest, had here and there uplifted itself in her

defence and had ventured to hint that she might have had sufficient and

praiseworthy motives for her conduct, a chorus of feminine indignation

had smothered the kindly suggestion in a whole whirl-wind of abuse and

reviling.

As to Sir John, he blamed her not, and yet he knew no more about it than

any of them; he, too, could only have told you that Vera had mistaken her

feelings--he knew no more than that--for it was but half the truth that

she had told him. But it had been more than enough to convince him that

she was perfectly right. When, after telling him plainly that she found

she did not love him enough, that there had been other and extraneous

reasons that had blinded her to the fact at the time she had accepted

him, but that she had found it out later on; when, after saying this she

had asked him plainly whether he would wish to have a wife who valued his

name, and his wealth, and his fine old house at least as much as he did

himself, Sir John had been able to give her but one answer. No, he would

not have a wife who loved him in such a fashion. And he had thought well

of her for telling him the truth beforehand instead of leaving him to

find it out for himself later. If there had been a little, a very little,

falling of his idol from the high pillar upon which he had set her up, in

that she should at any time have been guided by mercenary and worldly

motives; there had been at the same time a very great amount of respect

for her brave and straightforward confession of her error at a time when

most women would have found themselves unequal to the task of drawing

back from the false position into which they had drifted. No, he could

not blame her in any way.

But, all the same, it was hard to bear. He said to himself that he was

a doomed and fated man; twice had love and joy and domestic peace been

within his grasp, and twice they had been wrested from his arms; these

things, it was plain, were not for him. He was too old, he told himself,

ever to make a further effort. No, there was nothing before him now but

to live out his loveless life alone, to sink into a peevish, selfish old

bachelor, and to make a will in Maurice's favour, and get himself out of

the world that wanted him not with as much expedition as might be.

And he loved Vera still. She was still to him the most pure and perfect

of women--good as she was beautiful. Her loveliness haunted him by day

and by night, till the bitter thought of what might have been and the

contrast of the miserable reality drove him half wild with longings

which he did not know how to repress. He sat at home in his rooms and

moped; there were more streaks of white in his hair than of old, and

there were new lines of care upon his brow--he looked almost an old man

now. He sat indoors and did nothing. It was April by this time, and the

London season was beginning; invitations of all kinds poured in upon him,

but he refused them all; he would go nowhere. Now and then his mother

came to see him and attempted to cheer and to rouse him; she had even

asked him to come down to Walpole Lodge, but he had declined her request

almost ungraciously.

He never had much in common with his mother, and he felt no desire now

for her sympathy; besides, the first time she had come she had been

angry, and had called Vera a jilt, and that had offended him bitterly; he

had rebuked her sternly, and she had been too wise to repeat the offence;

but he had not forgotten it. Maurice, indeed, he would have been glad to

see, but Maurice did not come near him. His regiment had lately moved to

Manchester, and either he could not or would not get leave; and yet he

had been idle enough at one time, and glad to run up to town upon the

smallest pretext. Now he never came. It added a little to his irritation,

but scarcely to his misery. On this particular afternoon, as he sat as

usual brooding over the past, there came the sudden clatter of carriage

wheels over the flagged roadway of the little back street, followed by a

sharp ring at his door. It was his mother, of course; no other woman came

to see him; he heard the rustle of her soft silken skirts up the narrow

staircase, and her pleasant little chatter to the fat old landlady who

was ushering her up, and presently the door opened and she came in.

"Good morning, John. Dear me, how hot and stuffy this room is," holding

up her soft old face to her son.

He just touched her cheek. "I am sorry you find it so--shall I open the

window?"

"Oh!" sinking down in a chair, and throwing back her cloak; "how can you

stand a fire in the room, it is quite mild and spring-like out. Have you

not been out, John? it would do you good to get a little fresh air."

"I shall go round to the club presently, I daresay," he answered,

abstractedly, sitting down in his arm-chair again; all the pleasant

flutter that the bright old lady brought with her, the atmosphere of life

and variety that surrounded her, only vexed and wearied him, and jarred

upon his nerves. She was always telling him to go somewhere or to do

something; why couldn't she let him alone? he thought, irritably.

"To your club? No further than that? Why, you might as well stay at home.

Really, my dear, it's a great pity you don't go about and see some of

your old friends; you can't mean to shut yourself up like a dormouse for

ever, I suppose!"

"I haven't the least idea what I mean to do," he answered, not

graciously; she was his mother, and so he could not very well put her out

at the door, but that was what he would have liked to do.

"I don't see," continued Lady Kynaston, with unwonted courage, "I don't

at all see why you should let this unfortunate affair weigh on you for

ever; there is really no reason why you should not console yourself and

marry some nice girl; there is Lady Mary Hendrie and plenty more only too

ready to have you if you will only take that trouble----"

"Mother, I wish you would not talk to me like that," he said,

interrupting suddenly the easy flow of her consoling suggestions, and

there was a look of real pain upon his face that smote her somewhat.

"Never speak to me of marrying again. I shall never marry any one." He

looked away from her, stern and angry, stooping again over the red ashes

in the grate; if he had only given her one plea for her pity--if he had

only added, "I have suffered too much, I love her still"--all her

mother's heart must have gone out to him who, though he was not her

favourite, was her first born after all; but he did not want her pity,

he only wanted her to go away.

"It is a great pity," she answered, stiffly, "because of Kynaston."

"I shall never set foot at Kynaston again."

Her colour rose a little--after all, she was a cunning little old lady.

The little fox-terrier lay on the rug between them; she stooped down and

patted it. "Good dog, good little Vic," she said, a little nervously;

then, with a sudden courage, she looked up at her son again. "John, it

is a sad thing that Kynaston must be left empty to go to rack and ruin;

though I have never cared to live there myself, I have always hoped that

you would. It would have grieved your poor father sadly to have thought

that the old place was always to lie empty."

"I cannot help it," he answered, moodily, wishing more than ever that she

would go.