Rhoda Fleming, entire by George Meredith (page 7)

now. Nobody cares for me. I don’t know what happiness is. I was born under a bad star. My fate’s written.” Following his youthful wisdom, this wounded hart dragged his slow limbs toward the halls of brandy and song.

One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them: and the fool, though Nature is wise, is next door to Nature. He is naked in his simplicity; he can tell us much, and suggest more. My excuse for dwelling upon him is, that he holds the link of my story. Where fools are numerous, one of them must be prominent now and then in a veracious narration. There comes an hour when the veil drops on him, he not being always clean to the discreeter touch.

Algernon was late at the Bank next day, and not cheerful, though he received his customary reprimand with submission. This day was after the pattern of the day preceding, except that he did not visit the Park; the night likewise.

On Wednesday morning, he arose with the conviction that England was no place for him to dwell in. What if Rhoda were to accompany him to one of the colonies? The idea had been gradually taking shape in his mind from the moment that he had possessed the Thousand. Could she not make butter and cheeses capitally, while he rode on horseback through space? She was a strong girl, a loyal girl, and would be a grateful wife.

“I’ll marry her,” he said; and hesitated. “Yes, I’ll marry her.” But it must be done immediately.

He resolved to run down to Wrexby, rejoice her with a declaration of love, astound her with a proposal of marriage, bewilder her little brain with hurrying adjectives, whisk her up to London, and in little more than a week be sailing on the high seas, new born; nothing of civilization about him, save a few last very first-rate cigars which he projected to smoke on the poop of the vessel, and so dream of the world he left behind.

He went down to the Bank in better spirits, and there wrote off a straightforward demand of an interview, to Rhoda, hinting at the purpose of it. While at his work, he thought of Harry Latters and Lord Suckling, and the folly of his dining with men in his present position. Settling-day, it or yesterday might be, but a colonist is not supposed to know anything of those arrangements. One of his fellow-clerks reminded him of a loan he had contracted, and showed him his name written under obligatory initials. He paid it, ostentatiously drawing out one of his fifties. Up came another, with a similar strip of paper. “You don’t want me to change this, do you?” said Algernon; and heard a tale of domestic needs–and a grappling landlady. He groaned inwardly: “Odd that I must pay for his landlady being a vixen!” The note was changed; the debt liquidated. On the door-step, as he was going to lunch, old Anthony waylaid him, and was almost noisily persistent in demanding his one pound three and his five pound ten. Algernon paid the sums, ready to believe that there was a suspicion abroad of his intention to become a colonist.

He employed the luncheon hour in a visit to a colonial shipping office, and nearly ran straight upon Sedgett at the office-door. The woman who had hailed him from the cab, was in Sedgett’s company, but Sedgett saw no one. His head hung and his sullen brows were drawn moodily. Algernon escaped from observation. His first inquiry at the office was as to the business of the preceding couple, and he was satisfied by hearing that Sedgett wanted berths for himself and wife.

“Who’s the woman, I wonder!” Algernon thought, and forgot her.

He obtained some particular information, and returning to the Bank, was called before his uncle, who curtly reckoned up his merits in a contemptuous rebuke, and confirmed him in his resolution to incur this sort of thing no longer. In consequence, he promised Sir William that he would amend his ways, and these were the first hopeful words that Sir William had ever heard from him.

Algernon’s design was to dress, that evening, in the uniform of society, so that, in the event of his meeting Harry Latters, he might assure him he was coming to his Club, and had been compelled to dine elsewhere with his uncle, or anybody. When he reached the door of his chambers, a man was standing there, who said,–

“Mr. Algernon Blancove?”

“Yes,” Algernon prolonged an affirmative, to diminish the confidence it might inspire, if possible.

“May I speak with you, sir?”

Algernon told him to follow in. The man was tall and large-featured, with an immense blank expression of face.

“I’ve come from Mr. Samuels, sir,” he said, deferentially.

Mr. Samuels was Algernon’s chief jeweller.

“Oh,” Algernon remarked. “Well, I don’t want anything; and let me say, I don’t approve of this touting for custom. I thought Mr. Samuels was above it.”

The man bowed. “My business is not that, sir. Ahem! I dare say you remember an opal you had from our house. It was set in a necklace.”

“All right; I remember it, perfectly,” said Algernon; cool, but not of the collected colour.

“The cost of it was fifty-five pounds, sir.”

“Was it? Well, I’ve forgotten.”

“We find that it has been pawned for five-and-twenty.”

“A little less than half,” said Algernon. “Pawnbrokers are simply cheats.”

“They mayn’t be worse than others,” the man observed.

Algernon was exactly in the position where righteous anger is the proper weapon, if not the sole resource. He flushed, but was not sure of his opportunity for the explosion. The man read the flush.

“May I ask you, did you pawn it, sir? I’m obliged to ask the question.”

“I?–I really don’t–I don’t choose to answer impudent questions. What do you mean by coming here?”

“I may as well be open with you, sir, to prevent misunderstandings. One of the young men was present when you pawned it. He saw the thing done.”

“Suppose he did?”

“He would be a witness.”

“Against me? I’ve dealt with Samuels for three-four years.”

“Yes, sir; but you have never yet paid any account; and I believe I am right in saying that this opal is not the first thing coming from our house that has been pledged–I can’t say you did it on the other occasions.”

“You had better not,” rejoined Algernon.

He broke an unpleasant silence by asking, “What further?”

“My master has sent you his bill.”

Algernon glanced at the prodigious figures.

“Five hun–!” he gasped, recoiling; and added, “Well, I can’t pay it on the spot.”

“Let me tell you, you’re liable to proceedings you’d better avoid, sir, for the sake of your relations.”

“You dare to threaten to expose me to my relatives?” Algernon said haughtily, and immediately perceived that indignation at this point was a clever stroke; for the man, while deprecating the idea of doing so, showed his more established belief in the possible virtue of such a threat.

“Not at all, sir; but you know that pledging things not paid for is illegal, and subject to penalties. No tradesman likes it; they can’t allow it. I may as well let you know that Mr. Samuels–“

“There, stop!” cried Algernon, laughing, as he thought, heartily. “Mr. Samuels is a very tolerable Jew; but he doesn’t seem to understand dealing with gentlemen. Pressure comes;” he waved his hand swimmingly; “one wants money, and gets it how one can. Mr. Samuels shall not go to bed thinking he has been defrauded. I will teach Mr. Samuels to think better of us Gentiles. Write me a receipt.”

“For what amount, sir?” said the man, briskly.

“For the value of the opal–that is to say, for the value put upon it by Mr. Samuels. Con! hang! never mind. Write the receipt.”

He cast a fluttering fifty and a fluttering five on the table, and pushed paper to the man for a receipt.

The man reflected, and refused to take them.

“I don’t think, sir,” he said, “that less than two-thirds of the bill will make Mr. Samuels easy. You see, this opal was in a necklace. It wasn’t like a ring you might have taken off your finger. It’s a lady’s ornament; and soon after you obtain it from us; you make use of it by turning it into cash. It’s a case for a criminal prosecution, which, for the sake of your relations, Mr. Samuels wouldn’t willingly bring on. The criminal box is no place for you, sir; but Mr. Samuels must have his own. His mind is not easy. I shouldn’t like, sir, to call a policeman.”

“Hey!” shouted Algernon; “you’d have to get a warrant.”

“It’s out, sir.”

Though inclined toward small villanies, he had not studied law, and judging from his own affrighted sensations, and the man’s impassive face, Algernon supposed that warrants were as lightly granted as writs of summons.

He tightened his muscles. In his time he had talked glibly of Perdition; but this was hot experience. He and the man measured the force of their eyes. Algernon let his chest fall.

“Do you mean?” he murmured.

“Why, sir, it’s no use doing things by halves. When a tradesman says he must have his money, he takes his precautions.”

“Are you in Mr. Samuels’ shop?”

“Not exactly, sir.”

“You’re a detective?”

“I have been in the service, sir.”

“Ah! now I understand.” Algernon raised his head with a strain at haughtiness. “If Mr. Samuels had accompanied you, I would have discharged the debt: It’s only fair that I should insist upon having a receipt from him personally, and for the whole amount.”

With this, he drew forth his purse and displayed the notable Five hundred.

His glow of victory was short. The impassive man likewise had something to exhibit.

“I assure you, sir,” he said, “Mr. Samuels does know how to deal with gentlemen. If you will do me the honour, sir, to run up with me to Mr. Samuels’ shop? Or, very well, sir; to save you that annoyance here is his receipt to the bill.”

Algernon mechanically crumpled up his note.

“Samuels?” ejaculated the unhappy fellow. “Why, my mother dealt with Samuels. My aunt dealt with Samuels. All my family have dealt with him for years; and he talks of proceeding against me, because–upon my soul, it’s too absurd! Sending a policeman, too! I’ll tell you what–the exposure would damage Mister Samuels most materially. Of course, my father would have to settle the matter; but Mister–Mister Samuels would not recover so easily. He’d be glad to refund the five hundred–what is it?–and twenty-five–why not, ‘and sixpence three farthings?’ I tell you, I shall let my father pay. Mr. Samuels had better serve me with a common writ. I tell you, I’m not going to denude myself of money altogether. I haven’t examined the bill. Leave it here. You can tear off the receipt. Leave it here.”

The man indulged in a slight demonstration of dissent.

“No, sir, that won’t do.”

“Half the bill,” roared Algernon; “half the bill, I wouldn’t mind paying.”

“About two-thirds, sir, is what Mr. Samuels asked for, and he’ll stop, and go on as before.”

“He’ll stop and he’ll go on, will he? Mr. Samuels is amazingly like one of his own watches,” Algernon sneered vehemently. “Well,” he pursued, in fancied security, “I’ll pay two-thirds.”

“Three hundred, sir.”

“Ay, three hundred. Tell him to send a receipt for the three hundred, and he shall have it. As to my entering his shop again, that I shall have to think over.”

“That’s what gentlemen in Mr. Samuels’ position have to run risk of, sir,” said the man.

Algernon, more in astonishment than trepidation, observed him feeling at his breast-pocket. The action resulted in an exhibition of a second bill, with a legal receipt attached to it, for three hundred pounds.

“Mr. Samuels is anxious to accommodate you in every way, sir. It isn’t the full sum he wants; it’s a portion. He thought you might prefer to discharge a portion.”

After this exhibition of foresight on the part of the jeweller, there was no more fight in Algernon beyond a strenuous “Faugh!” of uttermost disgust.

He examined the bill and receipt in the man’s hand with great apparent scrupulousness; not, in reality, seeing a clear syllable.

“Take it and change it,” he threw his Five hundred down, but recovered it from the enemy’s grasp; and with a “one, two, three,” banged his hundreds on the table: for which he had the loathsome receipt handed to him.

“How,” he asked, chokingly, “did Mr. Samuels know I could–I had money?”

“Why, sir, you see,” the man, as one who throws off a mask, smiled cordially, after buttoning up the notes; “credit ‘d soon give up the ghost, if it hadn’t its own dodges,’ as I may say. This is only a feeler on Mr. Samuels’ part. He heard of his things going to pledge. Halloa! he sings out. And tradesmen are human, sir. Between us, I side with gentlemen, in most cases. Hows’-ever, I’m, so to speak, in Mr. Samuels’ pay. A young gentleman in debt, give him a good fright, out comes his money, if he’s got any. Sending of a bill receipted’s a good trying touch. It’s a compliment to him to suppose he can pay. Mr. Samuels, sir, wouldn’t go issuing a warrant: if he could, he wouldn’t. You named a warrant; that set me up to it. I shouldn’t have dreamed of a gentleman supposing it otherwise. Didn’t you notice me show a wall of a face? I shouldn’t ha’ dared to have tried that on an old hand–begging your pardon; I mean a real–a scoundrel. The regular ones must see features: we mustn’t be too cunning with them, else they grow suspicious: they’re keen as animals; they are. Good afternoon to you, sir.”

Algernon heard the door shut. He reeled into a chair, and muffling his head in his two arms on the table, sobbed desperately; seeing himself very distinctly reflected in one of the many facets of folly. Daylight became undesireable to him. He went to bed.

A man who can, in such extremities of despair, go premeditatingly to his pillow, obeys an animal instinct in pursuit of oblivion, that will befriend his nerves. Algernon awoke in deep darkness, with a delicious sensation of hunger. He jumped up. Six hundred and fifty pounds of the money remained intact; and he was joyful. He struck a light to look at his watch: the watch had stopped;–that was a bad sign. He could not forget it. Why had his watch stopped? A chilling thought as to whether predestination did not govern the world, allayed all tumult in his mind. He dressed carefully, and soon heard a great City bell, with horrid gulfs between the strokes, tell him that the hour was eleven toward midnight. “Not late,” he said.

“Who’d have thought it?” cried a voice on the landing of the stairs, as he went forth.

It was Sedgett.

Algernon had one inclination to strangle, and another to mollify the wretch.

“Why, sir, I’ve been lurking heer for your return from your larks. Never guessed you was in.”

“It’s no use,” Algernon began.

“Ay; but it is, though,” said Sedgett, and forced his way into the room. “Now, just listen. I’ve got a young woman I want to pack out o’ the country. I must do it, while I’m a–a bachelor boy. She must go, or we shall be having shindies. You saw how she caught me out of a cab. She’s sure to be in the place where she ain’t wanted. She goes to America. I’ve got to pay her passage, and mine too. Here’s the truth: she thinks I’m off with her. She knows I’m bankrup’ at home. So I am. All the more reason for her thinking me her companion. I get her away by train to the vessel, and on board, and there I give her the slip.

“Ship’s steaming away by this time t’morrow night. I’ve paid for her– and myself too, she thinks. Leave it to me. I’ll manage all that neatly enough. But heer’s the truth: I’m stumped. I must, and I will have fifty; I don’t want to utter ne’er a threat. I want the money, and if you don’t give it, I break off; and you mind this, Mr. Blancove: you don’t come off s’ easy, if I do break off, mind. I know all about your relations, and by–! I’ll let ’em know all about you. Why, you’re as quiet heer, sir, as if you was miles away, in a wood cottage, and ne’er a dog near.”

So Algernon was thinking; and without a light, save the gas lamp in the square, moreover.

They wrangled for an hour. When Algernon went forth a second time, he was by fifty pounds poorer. He consoled himself by thinking that the money had only anticipated its destination as arranged, and it became a partial gratification to him to reflect that he had, at any rate, paid so much of the sum, according to his bond in assuming possession of it.

And what were to be his proceedings? They were so manifestly in the hands of fate, that he declined to be troubled on that head.

Next morning came the usual short impatient scrawl on thin blue paper from Edward, scarce worthy of a passing thought. In a postscript, he asked: “Are there, on your oath, no letters for me? If there are, send them immediately–every one, bills as well. Don’t fail. I must have them.”

Algernon was at last persuaded to pack up Dahlia’s letters, saying: “I suppose they can’t do any harm now.” The expense of the postage afflicted him; but “women always cost a dozen to our one,” he remarked. On his way to the City, he had to decide whether he would go to the Bank, or take the train leading to Wrexby. He chose the latter course, until, feeling that he was about to embark in a serious undertaking, he said to himself, “No! duty first;” and postponed the expedition for the day following.

CHAPTER XXXII

Squire Blancove, having business in town, called on his brother at the Bank, asking whether Sir William was at home, with sarcastic emphasis on the title, which smelt to him of commerce. Sir William invited him to dine and sleep at his house that night.

“You will meet Mrs. Lovell, and a Major Waring, a friend of hers, who knew her and her husband in India,” said the baronet.

“The deuce I shall,” said the squire, and accepted maliciously.

Where the squire dined, he drank, defying ladies and the new-fangled subserviency to those flustering teabodies. This was understood; so, when the Claret and Port had made a few rounds, Major Waring was permitted to follow Mrs. Lovell, and the squire and his brother settled to conversation; beginning upon gout. Sir William had recently had a touch of the family complaint, and spoke of it in terms which gave the squire some fraternal sentiment. From that, they fell to talking politics, and differed. The breach was healed by a divergence to their sons. The squire knew his own to be a scamp.

“You’ll never do anything with him,” he said.

“I don’t think I shall,” Sir William admitted.

“Didn’t I tell you so?”

“You did. But, the point is, what will you do with him?”

“Send him to Jericho to ride wild jackasses. That’s all he’s fit for.”

The superior complacency of Sir William’s smile caught the squire’s attention.

“What do you mean to do with Ned?” he asked.

“I hope,” was the answer, “to have him married before the year is out.”

“To the widow?”

“The widow?” Sir William raised his eyebrows.

“Mrs. Lovell, I mean.”

“What gives you that idea?”

“Why, Ned has made her an offer. Don’t you know that?”

“I know nothing of the sort.”

“And don’t believe it? He has. He’s only waiting now, over there in Paris, to get comfortably out of a scrape–you remember what I told you at Fairly–and then Mrs. Lovell’s going to have him–as he thinks; but, by George, it strikes me this major you’ve got here, knows how to follow petticoats and get in his harvest in the enemy’s absence.”

“I think you’re quite under a delusion, in both respects,” observed Sir William.

“What makes you think that?”

“I have Edward’s word.”

“He lies as naturally as an infant sucks.”

“Pardon me; this is my son you are speaking of.”

“And this is your Port I’m drinking; so I’ll say no more.”

The squire emptied his glass, and Sir William thrummed on the table.

“Now, my dog has got his name,” the squire resumed. “I’m not ambitious about him. You are, about yours; and you ought to know him. He spends or he don’t spend. It’s not the question whether he gets into debt, but whether he does mischief with what he spends. If Algy’s a bad fish, Ned’s a bit of a serpent; damned clever, no doubt. I suppose, you wouldn’t let him marry old Fleming’s daughter, now, if he wanted to?”

“Who is Fleming?” Sir William thundered out.

“Fleming’s the father of the girl. I’m sorry for him. He sells his farm-land which I’ve been looking at for years; so I profit by it; but I don’t like to see a man like that broken up. Algy, I said before, ‘s a bad fish. Hang me, if I think he’d have behaved like Ned. If he had, I’d have compelled him to marry her, and shipped them both off, clean out of the country, to try their luck elsewhere.

“You’re proud; I’m practical. I don’t expect you to do the same. I’m up in London now to raise money to buy the farm–Queen’s Anne’s Farm; it’s advertized for sale, I see. Fleeting won’t sell it to me privately, because my name’s Blancove, and I’m the father of my son, and he fancies Algy’s the man. Why? he saw Algy at the theatre in London with this girl of his;–we were all young fellows once!–and the rascal took Ned’s burden on his shoulders. So, I shall have to compete with other buyers, and pay, I dare say, a couple of hundred extra for the property. Do you believe what I tell you now?”

“Not a word of it,” said Sir William blandly.

The squire seized the decanter and drank in a fury.

“I had it from Algy.”

“That would all the less induce me to believe it.”

“H’m!” the squire frowned. “Let me tell you–he’s a dog–but it’s a damned hard thing to hear one’s own flesh and blood abused. Look here: there’s a couple. One of them has made a fool of a girl. It can’t be my rascal–stop a minute–he isn’t the man, because she’d have been sure to have made a fool of him, that’s certain. He’s a soft-hearted dog. He’d aim at a cock-sparrow, and be glad if he missed. There you have him. He was one of your good boys. I used to tell his poor mother, ‘When you leave off thinking for him, he’ll go to the first handy villain–and that’s the devil.’ And he’s done it. But, here’s the difference. He goes himself; he don’t send another. I’ll tell you what: if you don’t know about Mr. Ned’s tricks, you ought. And you ought to make him marry the girl, and be off to New Zealand, or any of the upside-down places, where he might begin by farming, and soon, with his abilities, be cock o’ the walk. He would, perhaps, be sending us a letter to say that he preferred to break away from the mother country and establish a republic. He’s got the same political opinions as you. Oh! he’ll do well enough over here; of course he will. He’s the very fellow to do well. Knock at him, he’s hard as nails, and ‘ll stick anywhere. You wouldn’t listen to me, when I told you about this at Fairly, where some old sweetheart of the girl mistook that poor devil of a scapegoat, Algy, for him, and went pegging at him like a madman.”

“No,” said Sir William; “No, I would not. Nor do I now. At least,” he struck out his right hand deprecatingly, “I listen.”

“Can you tell me what he was doing when he went to Italy?”

“He went partly at my suggestion.”

“Turns you round his little finger! He went off with this girl: wanted to educate her, or some nonsense of the sort. That was Mr. Ned’s business. Upon my soul, I’m sorry for old Fleming. I’m told he takes it to heart. It’s done him up. Now, if it should turn out to be Ned, would you let him right the girl by marrying her? You wouldn’t!”

“The principle of examining your hypothesis before you proceed to decide by it, is probably unknown to you,” Sir William observed, after bestowing a considerate smile on his brother, who muffled himself up from the chilling sententiousness, and drank.

Sir William, in the pride of superior intellect, had heard as good as nothing of the charge against his son.

“Well,” said the squire, “think as you like, act as you like; all’s one to me. You’re satisfied; that’s clear; and I’m some hundred of pounds out of pocket. This major’s paying court to the widow, is he?”

“I can’t say that he is.”

“It would be a good thing for her to get married.”

“I should be glad.”

“A good thing for her, I say.”

“A good thing for him, let us hope.”

“If he can pay her debts.”

Sir William was silent, and sipped his wine.

“And if he can keep a tight hand on the reins. That’s wanted,” said the squire.

The gentleman whose road to happiness was thus prescribed stood by Mrs. Lovell’s chair, in the drawing-room. He held a letter in his hand, for which her own was pleadingly extended.

“I know you to be the soul of truth, Percy,” she was saying.

“The question is not that; but whether you can bear the truth.”

“Can I not? Who would live without it?”

“Pardon me; there’s more. You say, you admire this friend of mine; no doubt you do. Mind, I am going to give you the letter. I wish you simply to ask yourself now, whether you are satisfied at my making a confidant of a man in Robert Eccles’s position, and think it natural and just–you do?”

“Quite just,” said Mrs. Lovell; “and natural? Yes, natural; though not common. Eccentric; which only means, hors du commun; and can be natural. It is natural. I was convinced he was a noble fellow, before I knew that you had made a friend of him. I am sure of it now. And did he not save your life, Percy?”

“I have warned you that you are partly the subject of the letter.”

“Do you forget that I am a woman, and want it all the more impatiently?”

Major Waring suffered the letter to be snatched from his hand, and stood like one who is submitting to a test, or watching the effect of a potent drug.

“It is his second letter to you,” Mrs. Lovell murmured. “I see; it is a reply to yours.”

She read a few lines, and glanced up, blushing. “Am I not made to bear more than I deserve?”

“If you can do such mischief, without meaning any, to a man who is in love with another woman–,” said Percy.

“Yes,” she nodded, “I perceive the deduction; but inferences are like shadows on the wall–they are thrown from an object, and are monstrous distortions of it. That is why you misjudge women. You infer one thing from another, and are ruled by the inference.”

He simply bowed. Edward would have answered her in a bright strain, and led her on to say brilliant things, and then have shown her, as by a sudden light, that she had lost herself, and reduced her to feel the strength and safety of his hard intellect. That was the idea in her brain. The next moment her heart ejected it.

“Petty, when I asked permission to look at this letter, I was not aware how great a compliment it would be to me if I was permitted to see it. It betrays your friend.”

“It betrays something more,” said he.

Mrs. Lovell cast down her eyes and read, without further comment.

These were the contents:–

“My Dear Percy,–Now that I see her every day again, I am worse than ever; and I remember thinking once or twice that Mrs. L. had cured me. I am a sort of man who would jump to reach the top of a mountain. I understand how superior Mrs. L. is to every woman in the world I have seen; but Rhoda cures me on that head. Mrs. Lovell makes men mad and happy, and Rhoda makes them sensible and miserable. I have had the talk with Rhoda. It is all over. I have felt like being in a big room with one candle alight ever since. She has not looked at me, and does nothing but get by her father whenever she can, and takes his hand and holds it. I see where the blow has struck her: it has killed her pride; and Rhoda is almost all pride. I suppose she thinks our plan is the best. She has not said she does, and does not mention her sister. She is going to die, or she turns nun, or marries a gentleman. I shall never get her. She will not forgive me for bringing this news to her. I told you how she coloured, the first day I came; which has all gone now. She just opens her lips to me. You remember Corporal Thwaites–you caught his horse, when he had his foot near wrenched off, going through the gate–and his way of breathing through the under-row of his teeth–the poor creature was in such pain–that’s just how she takes her breath. It makes her look sometimes like that woman’s head with the snakes for her hair. This bothers me–how is it you and Mrs. Lovell manage to talk together of such things? Why, two men rather hang their heads a bit. My notion is, that women– ladies, in especial, ought never to hear of sad things of this sort. Of course, I mean, if they do, it cannot harm them. It only upsets me. Why are ladies less particular than girls in Rhoda’s place?”

(“Shame being a virtue,” was Mrs. Lovell’s running comment.)

“She comes up to town with her father to-morrow. The farm is ruined. The poor old man had to ask me for a loan to pay the journey. Luckily, Rhoda has saved enough with her pennies and two- pences. Ever since I left the farm, it has been in the hands of an old donkey here, who has worked it his own way. What is in the ground will stop there, and may as well.

“I leave off writing, I write such stuff; and if I go on writing to you, I shall be putting these things ‘ -!–!–!’ The way you write about Mrs. Lovell, convinces me you are not in my scrape, or else gentlemen are just as different from their inferiors as ladies are from theirs. That’s the question. What is the meaning of your ‘not being able to leave her for a day, for fear she should fall under other influences’? Then, I copy your words, you say, ‘She is all things to everybody, and cannot help it.’ In that case, I would seize my opportunity and her waist, and tell her she was locked up from anybody else. Friendship with men–but I cannot understand friendship with women, and watching them to keep them right, which must mean that you do not think much of them.”

Mrs. Lovell, at this point, raised her eyes abruptly from the letter and returned it.

“You discuss me very freely with your friend,” she said.

Percy drooped to her. “I warned you when you wished to read it.”

“But, you see, you have bewildered him. It was scarcely wise to write other than plain facts. Men of that class.” She stopped.

“Of that class?” said he.

“Men of any class, then: you yourself: if any one wrote to you such things, what would you think? It is very unfair. I have the honour of seeing you daily, because you cannot trust me out of your sight? What is there inexplicable about me? Do you wonder that I talk openly of women who are betrayed, and do my best to help them?”.

“On the contrary; you command my esteem,” said Percy.

“But you think me a puppet?”

“Fond of them, perhaps?” his tone of voice queried in a manner that made her smile.

“I hate them,” she said, and her face expressed it.

“But you make them.”

“How? You torment me.”

“How can I explain the magic? Are you not making one of me now, where I stand?”

“Then, sit.”

“Or kneel?”

“Oh, Percy! do nothing ridiculous.”

Inveterate insight was a characteristic of Major Waring; but he was not the less in Mrs. Lovell’s net. He knew it to be a charm that she exercised almost unknowingly. She was simply a sweet instrument for those who could play on it, and therein lay her mighty fascination. Robert’s blunt advice that he should seize the chance, take her and make her his own, was powerful with him. He checked the particular appropriating action suggested by Robert.

“I owe you an explanation,” he said. “Margaret, my friend.”

“You can think of me as a friend, Percy?”

“If I can call you my friend, what would I not call you besides? I did you a great and shameful wrong when you were younger. Hush! you did not deserve that. Judge of yourself as you will; but I know now what my feelings were then. The sublime executioner was no more than a spiteful man. You give me your pardon, do you not? Your hand?”

She had reached her hand to him, but withdrew it quickly.

“Not your hand, Margaret? But, you must give it to some one. You will be ruined, if you do not.”

She looked at him with full eyes. “You know it then?” she said slowly; but the gaze diminished as he went on.

“I know, by what I know of you, that you of all women should owe a direct allegiance. Come; I will assume privileges. Are you free?”

“Would you talk to me so, if you thought otherwise?” she asked.

“I think I would,” said Percy. “A little depends upon the person. Are you pledged at all to Mr. Edward Blancove?”

“Do you suppose me one to pledge myself?”

“He is doing a base thing.”

“Then, Percy, let an assurance of my knowledge of that be my answer.”

“You do not love the man?”

Despise him, say!”

“Is he aware of it?”

“If clear writing can make him.”

“You have told him as much?”

“To his apprehension, certainly.”

“Further, Margaret, I must speak:–did he act with your concurrence, or knowledge of it at all, in acting as he has done?”

“Heavens! Percy, you question me like a husband.”

“It is what I mean to be, if I may.”

The frame of the fair lady quivered as from a blow, and then her eyes rose tenderly.

“I thought you knew me. This is not possible.”

“You will not be mine? Why is it not possible?”

“I think I could say, because I respect you too much.”

“Because you find you have not the courage?”

“For what?”

“To confess that you were under bad influence, and were not the Margaret I can make of you. Put that aside. If you remain as you are, think of the snares. If you marry one you despise, look at the pit. Yes; you will be mine! Half my love of my country and my profession is love of you. Margaret is fire in my blood. I used to pray for opportunities, that Margaret might hear of me. I knew that gallant actions touched her; I would have fallen gladly; I was sure her heart would leap when she heard of me. Let it beat against mine. Speak!”

“I will,” said Mrs. Lovell, and she suppressed the throbs of her bosom. Her voice was harsh and her face bloodless. “How much money have you, Percy?”

This sudden sluicing of cold water on his heat of passion petrified him.

“Money,” he said, with a strange frigid scrutiny of her features. As in the flash of a mirror, he beheld her bony, worn, sordid, unacceptable. But he was fain to admit it to be an eminently proper demand for enlightenment.

He said deliberately, “I possess an income of five hundred a year, extraneous, and in addition to my pay as major in Her Majesty’s service.”

Then he paused, and the silence was like a growing chasm between them.

She broke it by saying, “Have you any expectations?”

This was crueller still, though no longer astonishing. He complained in his heart merely that her voice had become so unpleasant.

With emotionless precision, he replied, “At my mother’s death–“

She interposed a soft exclamation.

“At my mother’s death there will come to me by reversion, five or six thousand pounds. When my father dies, he may possibly bequeath his property to me. On that I cannot count.”

Veritable tears were in her eyes. Was she affecting to weep sympathetically in view of these remote contingencies?

“You will not pretend that you know me now, Percy,” she said, trying to smile; and she had recovered the natural feminine key of her voice. “I am mercenary, you see; not a mercenary friend. So, keep me as a friend– say you will be my friend.”

“Nay, you had a right to know,” he protested.

“It was disgraceful–horrible; but it was necessary for me to know.”

“And now that you do know?”

“Now that I know, I have only to say–be as merciful in your idea of me as you can.”

She dropped her hand in his, and it was with a thrill of dismay that he felt the rush of passion reanimating his frozen veins.

“Be mercenary, but be mine! I will give you something better to live for than this absurd life of fashion. You reckon on what our expenditure will be by that standard. It’s comparative poverty; but–but you can have some luxuries. You can have a carriage, a horse to ride. Active service may come: I may rise. Give yourself to me, and you must love me, and regret nothing.”

“Nothing! I should regret nothing. I don’t want carriages, or horses, or luxuries. I could live with you on a subaltern’s pay. I can’t marry you, Percy, and for the very reason which would make me wish to marry you.”

“Charade?” said he; and the contempt of the utterance brought her head close under his.

“Dearest friend, you have not to learn how to punish me.”

The little reproach, added to the wound to his pride, required a healing medicament; she put her lips to his fingers.

Assuredly the comedy would not have ended there, but it was stopped by an intrusion of the squire, followed by Sir William, who, while the squire– full of wine and vindictive humours–went on humming, “Ah! h’m–m–m! Soh!” said in the doorway to some one behind him: “And if you have lost your key, and Algernon is away, of what use is it to drive down to the Temple for a bed? I make it an especial request that you sleep here tonight. I wish it. I have to speak with you.”

Mrs. Lovell was informed that the baronet had been addressing his son, who was fresh from Paris, and not, in his own modest opinion, presentable before a lady.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Once more Farmer Fleming and Rhoda prepared for their melancholy journey up to London. A light cart was at the gateway, near which Robert stood with the farmer, who, in his stiff brown overcoat, that reached to his ankles, and broad country-hat, kept his posture of dumb expectation like a stalled ox, and nodded to Robert’s remarks on the care which the garden had been receiving latterly, the many roses clean in bud, and the trim blue and white and red garden beds. Every word was a blow to him; but he took it, as well as Rhoda’s apparent dilatoriness, among the things to be submitted to by a man cut away by the roots from the home of his labour and old associations. Above his bowed head there was a board proclaiming that Queen Anne’s Farm, and all belonging thereunto, was for sale. His prospect in the vague wilderness of the future, was to seek for acceptance as a common labourer on some kind gentleman’s property. The phrase “kind gentleman” was adopted by his deliberate irony of the fate which cast him out. Robert was stamping fretfully for Rhoda to come. At times, Mrs. Sumfit showed her head from the window of her bed-room, crying, “D’rectly!” and disappearing.

The still aspect of the house on the shining May afternoon was otherwise undisturbed. Besides Rhoda, Master Gammon was being waited for; on whom would devolve the driving of the cart back from the station. Robert heaped his vexed exclamations upon this old man. The farmer restrained his voice in Master Gammon’s defence, thinking of the comparison he could make between him and Robert: for Master Gammon had never run away from the farm and kept absent, leaving it to take care of itself. Gammon, slow as he might be, was faithful, and it was not he who had made it necessary for the farm to be sold. Gammon was obstinate, but it was not he who, after taking a lead, and making the farm dependent on his lead, had absconded with the brains and energy of the establishment. Such reflections passed through the farmer’s mind.

Rhoda and Mrs. Sumfit came together down the trim pathway; and Robert now had a clear charge against Master Gammon. He recommended an immediate departure.

“The horse ‘ll bring himself home quite as well and as fast as Gammon will,” he said.

“But for the shakin’ and the joltin’, which tells o’ sovereigns and silver,” Mrs. Sumfit was observing to Rhoda, “you might carry the box– and who would have guessed how stout it was, and me to hit it with a poker and not break it, I couldn’t, nor get a single one through the slit;–the sight I was, with a poker in my hand! I do declare I felt azactly like a housebreaker;–and no soul to notice what you carries. Where you hear the gold, my dear, go so”–Mrs. Sumfit performed a methodical “Ahem!” and noised the sole of her shoe on the gravel “so, and folks ‘ll think it’s a mistake they made.”

“What’s that?”–the farmer pointed at a projection under Rhoda’s shawl.

“It is a present, father, for my sister,” said Rhoda.

“What is it?” the farmer questioned again.

Mrs. Sumfit fawned before him penitently–“Ah! William, she’s poor, and she do want a little to spend, or she will be so nipped and like a frost-bitten body, she will. And, perhaps, dear, haven’t money in her sight for next day’s dinner, which is–oh, such a panic for a young wife! for it ain’t her hunger, dear William–her husband, she thinks of. And her cookery at a stand-still! Thinks she, ‘he will charge it on the kitchen;’ so unreasonable’s men. Yes,” she added, in answer to the rigid dejection of his look, “I said true to you. I know I said, ‘Not a penny can I get, William,’ when you asked me for loans; and how could I get it? I can’t get it now. See here, dear!”

She took the box from under Rhoda’s shawl, and rattled it with a down turn and an up turn.

“You didn’t ask me, dear William, whether I had a money-box. I’d ha’ told you so at once, had ye but asked me. And had you said, “Gi’ me your money-box,” it was yours, only for your asking. You do see, you can’t get any of it out. So, when you asked for money I was right to say, I’d got none.”

The farmer bore with her dreary rattling of the box in demonstration of its retentive capacities. The mere force of the show stopped him from retorting; but when, to excuse Master Gammon for his tardiness, she related that he also had a money-box, and was in search of it, the farmer threw up his head with the vigour of a young man, and thundered for Master Gammon, by name, vehemently wrathful at the combined hypocrisy of the pair. He called twice, and his face was purple and red as he turned toward the cart, saying,–

“We’ll go without the old man.”

Mrs. Sumfit then intertwisted her fingers, and related how that she and Master Gammon had one day, six years distant, talked on a lonely evening over the mischances which befel poor people when they grew infirm, or met with accident, and what “useless clays” they were; and yet they had their feelings. It was a long and confidential talk on a summer evening; and, at the end of it, Master Gammon walked into Wrexby, and paid a visit to Mr. Hammond, the carpenter, who produced two strong saving-boxes excellently manufactured by his own hand, without a lid to them, or lock and key: so that there would be no getting at the contents until the boxes were full, or a pressing occasion counselled the destruction of the boxes. A constant subject of jest between Mrs. Sumfit and Master Gammon was, as to which first of them would be overpowered by curiosity to know the amount of their respective savings; and their confessions of mutual weakness and futile endeavours to extract one piece of gold from the hoard.

“And now, think it or not,” said Mrs. Sumfit, “I got that power over him, from doctorin’ him, and cookin’ for him, I persuaded him to help my poor Dahly in my blessed’s need. I’d like him to do it by halves, but he can’t.”

Master Gammon appeared round a corner of the house, his box, draped by his handkerchief, under his arm. The farmer and Robert knew, when he was in sight, that gestures and shouts expressing extremities of the need for haste, would fail to accelerate his steps, so they allowed him to come on at his own equal pace, steady as Time, with the peculiar lopping bend of knees which jerked the moveless trunk regularly upward, and the ancient round eyes fixed contemplatively forward. There was an affectingness in this view of the mechanical old man bearing his poor hoard to bestow it.

Robert said out, unawares, “He mustn’t be let to part with h’ old pennies.”

“No; the farmer took him up; “nor I won’t let him.”

“Yes, father!” Rhoda intercepted his address to Master Gammon. “Yes, father!” she hardened her accent. “It is for my sister. He does a good thing. Let him do it.”

“Mas’ Gammon, what ha’ ye got there?” the farmer sung out.

But Master Gammon knew that he was about his own business. He was a difficult old man when he served the farmer; he was quite unmanageable in his private affairs.

Without replying, he said to Mrs. Sumfit,–

“I’d gummed it.”

The side of the box showed that it had been made adhesive, for the sake of security, to another substance.

“That’s what’s caused ye to be so long, Mas’ Gammon?”

The veteran of the fields responded with a grin, designed to show a lively cunning.

“Deary me, Mas’ Gammon, I’d give a fortnight’s work to know how much you’m saved, now, I would. And, there! Your comfort’s in your heart. And it shall be paid to you. I do pray heaven in mercy to forgive me,” she whimpered, “if ever knowin’ly I hasted you at a meal, or did deceive you when you looked for the pickings of fresh-killed pig. But if you only knew how–to cookit spoils the temper of a woman! I’d a aunt was cook in a gentleman’s fam’ly, and daily he dirtied his thirteen plates– never more nor never less; and one day–was ever a woman punished so! her best black silk dress she greased from the top to the bottom, and he sent down nine clean plates, and no word vouchsafed of explanation. For gentlefolks, they won’t teach themselves how it do hang together with cooks in a kitchen–“

“Jump up, Mas’ Gammon,” cried the farmer, wrathful at having been deceived by two members of his household, who had sworn to him, both, that they had no money, and had disregarded his necessity. Such being human nature!

Mrs. Sumfit confided the termination of her story to Rhoda; or suggested rather, at what distant point it might end; and then, giving Master Gammon’s box to her custody, with directions for Dahlia to take the boxes to a carpenter’s shop–not attempting the power of pokers upon them–and count and make a mental note of the amount of the rival hoards, she sent Dahlia all her messages of smirking reproof, and delighted love, and hoped that they would soon meet and know happiness.

Rhoda, as usual, had no emotion to spare. She took possession of the second box, and thus laden, suffered Robert to lift her into the cart. They drove across the green, past the mill and its flashing waters, and into the road, where the waving of Mrs. Sumfit’s desolate handkerchief was latest seen.

A horseman rode by, whom Rhoda recognized, and she blushed and had a boding shiver. Robert marked him, and the blush as well.

It was Algernon, upon a livery-stable hack. His countenance expressed a mighty disappointment.

The farmer saw no one. The ingratitude and treachery of Robert, and of Mrs. Sumfit and Master Gammon, kept him brooding in sombre disgust of life. He remarked that the cart jolted a good deal.

“If you goes in a cart, wi’ company o’ four, you expects to be jolted,” said Master Gammon.

“You seem to like it,” Robert observed to the latter.

“It don’t disturb my in’ards,” quoth the serenest of mankind.

“Gammon,” the farmer addressed him from the front seat, without turning his head: “you’ll take and look about for a new place.”

Master Gammon digested the recommendation in silence. On its being repeated, with, “D’ ye hear?” he replied that he heard well enough.

“Well, then, look about ye sharp, or maybe, you’ll be out in the cold,” said the farmer.

“Na,” returned Master Gammon, “ah never frets till I’m pinched.”

“I’ve given ye notice,” said the farmer.

“No, you ha’n’t,” said Master Gammon.

“I give ye notice now.”

“No, you don’t.”

“How d’ ye mean?”

“Cause I don’t take ne’er a notice.”

“Then you’ll be kicked out, old man.”

“Hey! there y’ have me,” said Master Gammon. “I growed at the farm, and you don’t go and tell ne’er a tree t’ walk.”

Rhoda laid her fingers in the veteran’s palm.

“You’re a long-lived family, aren’t you, Master Gammon?” said Robert, eyeing Rhoda’s action enviously.

Master Gammon bade him go to a certain churchyard in Sussex, and inspect a particular tombstone, upon which the ages of his ancestry were written. They were more like the ages of oaks than of men.

“It’s the heart kills,” said Robert.

“It’s damned misfortune,” murmured the farmer.

“It is the wickedness in the world,” thought Rhoda.

“It’s a poor stomach, I reckon,” Master Gammon ruminated.

They took leave of him at the station, from which eminence it was a notable thing to see him in the road beneath, making preparations for his return, like a conqueror of the hours. Others might run, and stew, if they liked: Master Gammon had chosen his pace, and was not of a mind to change it for anybody or anything. It was his boast that he had never ridden by railway: “nor ever means to, if I can help it,” he would say. He was very much in harmony with universal nature, if to be that is the secret of human life.

Meantime, Algernon retraced his way to the station in profound chagrin: arriving there just as the train was visible. He caught sight of the cart with Master Gammon in it, and asked him whether all his people were going up to London; but the reply was evidently a mile distant, and had not started; so putting a sovereign in Master Gammon’s hand, together with the reins of his horse, Algernon bade the old man conduct the animal to the White Bear Inn, and thus violently pushing him off the tramways of his intelligence, left him stranded.

He had taken a first-class return-ticket, of course, being a gentleman. In the desperate hope that he might jump into a carriage with Rhoda, he entered one of the second-class compartments; a fact not only foreign to his tastes and his habits, but somewhat disgraceful, as he thought. His trust was, that the ignoble of this earth alone had beheld him: at any rate, his ticket was first class, as the guard would instantly and respectfully perceive, and if he had the discomforts, he had also some of the consolations of virtue.

Once on his way, the hard seat and the contemptible society surrounding him, assured his reflective spirit that he loved: otherwise, was it in reason that he should endure these hardships? “I really love the girl,” he said, fidgeting for cushions.

He was hot, and wanted the window up, to which his fellow-travellers assented. Then, the atmosphere becoming loaded with offence to his morbid sense of smell, he wanted the windows down; and again they assented. “By Jove! I must love the girl,” ejaculated Algernon inwardly, as cramp, cold, and afflicted nostrils combined to astonish his physical sensations. Nor was it displeasing to him to evince that he was unaccustomed to bare boards.

“We’re a rich country,” said a man to his neighbour; “but, if you don’t pay for it, you must take your luck, and they’ll make you as uncomfortable as they can.”

“Ay,” said the other. “I’ve travelled on the Continent. The second-class carriages there are fit for anybody to travel in. This is what comes of the worship of money–the individual is not respected. Pounds alone!”

“These,” thought Algernon, “are beastly democrats.”

Their remarks had been sympathetic with his manifestations, which had probably suggested them. He glowered out of the window in an exceedingly foreign manner. A plainly dressed woman requested that the window should be closed. One of the men immediately proceeded to close it. Algernon stopped him.

“Pardon me, sir,” said the man; “it’s a lady wants it done;” and he did it.

A lady! Algernon determined that these were the sort of people he should hate for life. “Go among them and then see what they are,” he addressed an imaginary assembly of anti-democrats, as from a senatorial chair set in the after days. Cramp, cold, ill-ordered smells, and eternal hatred of his fellow-passengers, convinced him, in their aggregation, that he surmounted not a little for love of Rhoda.

The train arrived in London at dusk. Algernon saw Rhoda step from a carriage near the engine, assisted by Robert; and old Anthony was on the platform to welcome her; and Anthony seized her bag, and the troop of passengers moved away. It may be supposed that Algernon had angry sensations at sight of Robert; and to a certain extent this was the case; but he was a mercurial youth, and one who had satisfactorily proved superior strength enjoyed a portion of his respect. Besides, if Robert perchance should be courting Rhoda, he and Robert would enter into another field of controversy; and Robert might be taught a lesson.

He followed the party on foot until they reached Anthony’s dwelling- place, noted the house, and sped to the Temple. There, he found a telegraphic message from Edward, that had been awaiting him since the morning.

“Stop It,” were the sole words of the communication brief, and if one preferred to think so, enigmatic.

“What on earth does he mean?” cried Algernon, and affected again and again to see what Edward meant, without success. “Stop it?–stop what?– Stop the train? Stop my watch? Stop the universe? Oh! this is rank humbug.” He flung the paper down, and fell to counting the money in his possession. The more it dwindled, the more imperative it became that he should depart from his country.

Behind the figures, he calculated that, in all probability, Rhoda would visit her sister this night. “I can’t stop that,” he said: and hearing a clock strike, “nor that” a knock sounded on the door; “nor that.” The reflection inspired him with fatalistic views.

Sedgett appeared, and was welcome. Algernon had to check the impulse of his hand to stretch out to the fellow, so welcome was he: Sedgett stated that everything stood ready for the morrow. He had accomplished all that had to be done.

“And it’s more than many’d reckon,” he said, and rubbed his hands, and laughed. “I was aboard ship in Liverpool this morning, that I was. That ere young woman’s woke up from her dream”, (he lengthened the word inexpressibly) “by this time, that she is. I had to pay for my passage, though;” at which recollection he swore. “That’s money gone. Never mind: there’s worse gone with it. Ain’t it nasty–don’t you think, sir– to get tired of a young woman you’ve been keepin’ company with, and have to be her companion, whether you will, or whether you won’t? She’s sick enough now. We travelled all night. I got her on board; got her to go to her bed; and, says I, I’ll arrange about the luggage. I packs myself down into a boat, and saw the ship steam away a good’n. Hanged if I didn’t catch myself singin’. And haven’t touched a drop o’ drink, nor will, till tomorrow’s over. Don’t you think “Daehli”‘s a very pretty name, sir? I run back to her as hard as rail ‘d carry me. She’s had a letter from her sister, recommending o’ her to marry me: ‘a noble man,’ she calls me–ha, ha! that’s good. ‘And what do you think, my dear?’ says I; and, bother me, if I can screw either a compliment or a kiss out of her. She’s got fine lady airs of her own. But I’m fond of her, that I am. Well, sir, at the church door, after the ceremony, you settle our business, honour bright–that’s it, en’t it?”

Algernon nodded. Sedgett’s talk always produced discomfort in his ingenuous bosom.

“By the way, what politics are you?” he asked.

Sedgett replied, staring, that he was a Tory, and Algernon nodded again, but with brows perturbed at the thought of this ruffian being of the same political persuasion as himself.

“Eh?” cried Sedgett; “I don’t want any of your hustings pledges, though. You’ll be at the door tomorrow, or I’ll have a row–mind that. A bargain’s a bargain. I like the young woman, but I must have the money. Why not hand it over now?”

“Not till the deed’s done,” said Algernon, very reasonably.

Sedgett studied his features, and as a result remarked: “You put me up to this: I’ll do it, and trust you so far, but if I’m played on, I throw the young woman over and expose you out and out. But you mean honourable?”

“I do,” Algernon said of his meaning.

Another knock sounded on the door. It proved to be a footman in Sir William’s livery, bearing a letter from Edward; an amplification of the telegram

“Dear Algy, Stop it. I’m back, and have to see my father. I may be down about two, or three, or four, in the morning. No key; so, keep in. I want to see you. My whole life is changed. I must see her. Did you get my telegram? Answer, by messenger; I shall come to you the moment my father has finished his lecture.
“Yours,
“E.B.”

Algernon told Sedgett to wait while he dressed in evening uniform, and gave him a cigar to smoke.

He wrote:–

“Dear Ned, Stop what? Of course, I suppose there’s only one thing, and how can I stop it? What for? You ridiculous old boy! What a changeable old fellow you are!–Off, to see what I can do. After eleven o’clock to-morrow, you’ll feel comfortable.–If the Governor is sweet, speak a word for the Old Brown; and bring two dozen in a cab, if you can. There’s no encouragement to keep at home in this place. Put that to him. I, in your place, could do it. Tell him it’s a matter of markets. If I get better wine at hotels, I go to hotels, and I spend twice–ten times the money. And say, we intend to make the laundress cook our dinners in chambers, as a rule. Old B. an inducement.

“Yours aff.
“A.B.”

This epistle he dispatched by the footman, and groaned to think that if, perchance, the Old Brown Sherry should come, he would, in all probability, barely drink more than half-a-dozen bottles of that prime vintage. He and Sedgett, soon after, were driving down to Dahlia’s poor lodgings in the West. On the way, an idea struck him:

Would not Sedgett be a noisier claimant for the thousand than Edward? If he obeyed Edward’s direction and stopped the marriage, he could hand back a goodly number of hundreds, and leave it to be supposed that he had advanced the remainder to Sedgett. How to do it? Sedgett happened to say: “If you won’t hand the money now, I must have it when I’ve married her. Swear you’ll be in the vestry when we’re signing. I know all about marriages. You swear, or I tell you, if I find I’m cheated, I will throw the young woman over slap.”

Algernon nodded: “I shall be there,” he said, and thought that he certainly would not. The thought cleared an oppression in his head, though it obscured the pretty prospect of a colonial but and horse, with Rhoda cooking for him, far from cares. He did his best to resolve that he would stop the business, if he could. But, if it is permitted to the fool to create entanglements and set calamity in motion, to arrest its course is the last thing the Gods allow of his doing.

CHAPTER XXXIV

In the shadowy library light, when there was dawn out of doors, Edward sat with his father, and both were silent, for Edward had opened his heart, and his father had breathed some of the dry stock of wisdom on it. Many times Edward rose to go; and Sir William signalled with his finger that he should stay: an impassive motion, not succeeded by speech. And, in truth, the baronet was revolving such a problem as a long career of profitable banking refreshed by classical exercitations does not help us to solve. There sat the son of his trust and his pride, whose sound and equal temperament, whose precocious worldly wit, whose precise and broad intelligence, had been the visionary comfort of his paternal days to come; and his son had told him, reiterating it in language special and exact as that of a Chancery barrister unfolding his case to the presiding judge, that he had deceived and wronged an under-bred girl of the humbler classes; and that, after a term of absence from her, he had discovered her to be a part of his existence, and designed “You would marry her?” Sir William asked, though less forcibly than if he could have put on a moral amazement.

“That is my intention, sir, with your permission,” Edward replied firmly, and his father understood that he had never known this young man, and dealt virtually with a stranger in his son–as shrewd a blow as the vanity which is in paternal nature may have to endure.

He could not fashion the words, “Cerritus fuit,” though he thought the thing in both tenses: Edward’s wits had always been too clearly in order: and of what avail was it to repeat great and honoured prudential maxims to a hard-headed fellow, whose choice was to steer upon the rocks? He did remark, in an undertone,–

“The ‘misce stultitiam’ seems to be a piece of advice you have adopted too literally. I quote what you have observed of some one else.”

“It is possible, sir,” said Edward. “I was not particularly sparing when I sat in the high seat. ‘Non eadem est aetas, non mens.” I now think differently.”

“I must take your present conduct as the fruit of your premature sagacity, I suppose. By the same rule, your cousin Algernon may prove to be some comfort to his father, in the end.”

“Let us hope he will, sir. His father will not have deserved it so well as mine.”

“The time is morning,” said Sir William, looking at his watch, and bestowing, in the bitterness of his reflections, a hue of triumph on the sleep of his brother upstairs. “You are your own master, Edward. I will detain you no more.”

Edward shook his limbs, rejoicing.

“You prepare for a life of hard work,” Sir William resumed, not without some instigation to sternness from this display of alacrity. “I counsel you to try the Colonial Bar.”

Edward read in the first sentence, that his income would be restricted; and in the second, that his father’s social sphere was no longer to be his.

“Exactly, sir; I have entertained that notion myself,” he said; and his breast narrowed and his features grew sharp.

“And, if I may suggest such matters to you, I would advise you to see very little company for some years to come.”

“There, sir, you only anticipate my previously formed resolution. With a knavery on my conscience, and a giddy-pated girl on my hands, and the doors of the London world open to me, I should scarcely have been capable of serious work. The precious metal, which is Knowledge, sir, is only to be obtained by mining for it; and that excellent occupation necessarily sends a man out of sight for a number of years. In the meantime, ‘mea virtute me involvo.'”

“You need not stop short,” said his father, with a sardonic look for the concluding lines.

“The continuation is becoming in the mouth of a hero; but humbler persons must content themselves not to boast the patent fact, I think.” Edward warmed as he spoke. “I am ready to bear it. I dislike poverty; but, as I say, I am ready to bear it. Come, sir; you did me the honour once to let me talk to you as a friend, with the limits which I have never consciously overstepped; let me explain myself plainly and simply.”

Sir William signified, “Pray speak,” from the arms of his chair! and Edward, standing, went on: “After all, a woman’s devotion is worth having, when one is not asked for the small change every ten minutes. I am aware of the philosophic truth, that we get nothing in life for which we don’t pay. The point is, to appreciate what we desire; and so we reach a level that makes the payment less–” He laughed. Sir William could hardly keep back the lines of an ironical smile from his lips.

“This,” pursued the orator, “is not the language for the Colonial Bar. I wish to show you that I shall understand the character of my vocation there. No, sir; my deeper wish is that you may accept my view of the sole course left to a man whose sense of honour is of accord with the inclination of his heart, and not in hostility to his clearer judgement.”

“Extremely forensic,” said Sir William, not displeased by the promise of the periods.

“Well, sir, I need not remark to you that rhetoric, though it should fail to convey, does not extinguish, or imply the absence of emotion in the speaker; but rather that his imagination is excited by his theme, and that he addresses more presences than such as are visible. It is, like the Roman mask, fashioned for large assemblages.”

“By a parity of reasoning, then,”–Sir William was seduced into colloquy,–“an eternal broad grin is not, in the instance of a dualogue, good comedy.”

“It may hide profound grief.” Edward made his eyes flash. “I find I can laugh; it would be difficult for me to smile. Sir, I pray that you will listen to me seriously, though my language is not of a kind to make you think me absolutely earnest in what I say, unless you know me.”

“Which, I must protest, I certainly do not,” interposed Sir William.

“I will do my best to instruct you, sir. Until recently, I have not known myself. I met this girl. She trusted herself to me. You are aware that I know a little of men and of women; and when I tell you that I respect her now even more than I did at first–much more–so thoroughly, that I would now put my honour in her hands, by the counsel of my experience, as she, prompted by her instinct and her faith in me, confided hers to mine,–perhaps, even if you persist in accusing me of rashness, you will allow that she must be in the possession of singularly feminine and estimable qualities. I deceived her. My object in doing so was to spare you. Those consequences followed which can hardly fail to ensue, when, of two living together, the woman is at a disadvantage, and eats her heart without complaining. I could have borne a shrewish tongue better, possibly because I could have answered it better. It is worse to see a pale sad face with a smile of unalterable tenderness. The very sweetness becomes repugnant.”

“As little boys requiring much medicine have anticipated you by noting in this world,” observed Sir William.

“I thank you for the illustration.” Edward bowed, but he smarted. “A man so situated lives with the ghost of his conscience.”

“A doubtful figure of speech,” Sir William broke in. “I think you should establish the personality before you attempt to give a feature to the essence. But, continue.”

Edward saw that by forfeiting simplicity, in order to catch his father’s peculiar cast of mind, he had left him cold and in doubt as to the existence of the powerful impulse by which he was animated. It is a prime error in the orator not to seize the emotions and subdue the humanity of his hearers first. Edward perceived his mistake. He had, however, done well in making a show of the unabated vigour of his wits. Contempt did not dwell in the baronet’s tone. On the contrary, they talked and fenced, and tripped one another as of old; and, considering the breach he had been compelled to explode between his father and himself, Edward understood that this was a real gain.

He resumed: “All figures of speech must be inadequate–“

“Ah, pardon me,” said Sir William, pertinaciously; “the figure I alluded to was not inadequate. A soap-bubble is not inadequate.”

“Plainly, sir, in God’s name, hear me out,” cried Edward. “She–what shall I call her? my mistress, my sweetheart, if you like–let the name be anything ‘wife’ it should have been, and shall be–I left her, and have left her and have not looked on her for many months. I thought I was tired of her–I was under odd influences–witchcraft, it seems. I could believe in witchcraft now. Brutal selfishness is the phrase for my conduct. I have found out my villany. I have not done a day’s sensible work, or had a single clear thought, since I parted from her. She has had brain-fever. She has been in the hospital. She is now prostrate with misery. While she suffered, I–I can’t look back on myself. If I had to plead before you for more than manly consideration, I could touch you. I am my own master, and am ready to subsist by my own efforts; there is no necessity for me to do more than say I abide by the choice I make, and my own actions. In deciding to marry her, I do a good thing–I do a just thing. I will prove to you that I have done a wise thing.

“Let me call to your recollection what you did me the honour to remark of my letters from Italy. Those were written with her by my side. Every other woman vexed me. This one alone gives me peace, and nerve to work. If I did not desire to work, should I venture to run the chances of an offence to you? Your girls of society are tasteless to me. And they don’t makes wives to working barristers. No, nor to working Members.

“They are very ornamental and excellent, and, as I think you would call them, accomplished. All England would leap to arms to defend their incontestible superiority to their mothers and their duties. I have not the wish to stand opposed to my countrymen on any question, although I go to other shores, and may be called upon to make capital out of opposition. They are admirable young persons, no doubt. I do not offer you a drab for your daughter-in-law, sir. If I rise, she will be equal to my station. She has the manners of a lady; a lady, I say; not of the modern young lady; with whom, I am happy to think, she does not come into competition. She has not been sedulously trained to pull her way, when she is to go into harness with a yokefellow.

“But I am laying myself open to the charge of feeling my position weak, seeing that I abuse the contrary one. Think what you will of me, sir, you will know that I have obeyed my best instinct and my soundest judgement in this matter; I need not be taught, that if it is my destiny to leave England I lose the association with him who must ever be my dearest friend. And few young men can say as much of one standing in the relation of father.”

With this, Edward finished; not entirely to his satisfaction; for he had spoken with too distinct a sincerity to please his own critical taste, which had been educated to delight in acute antithesis and culminating sentences–the grand Biscayan billows of rhetorical utterance, in comparison wherewith his talk was like the little chopping waves of a wind-blown lake. But he had, as he could see, produced an impression. His father stood up.

“We shall be always friends; I hope,” Sir William said. “As regards a provision for you, suitable to your estate, that will be arranged. You must have what comforts you have been taught to look to. At the same time, I claim a personal freedom for my own actions.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Edward, not conceiving any new development in these.

“You have an esteem for Mrs. Lovell, have you not?”

Edward flushed. “I should have a very perfect esteem for her, if–” he laughed slightly–“you will think I want everybody to be married and in the traces now; she will never be manageable till she is married.”

“I am also of that opinion,” said Sir William. “I will detain you no longer. It is a quarter to five in the morning. You will sleep here, of course.”

“No, I must go to the Temple. By the way, Algy prefers a petition for Sherry. He is beginning to discern good wine from bad, which may be a hopeful augury.”

“I will order Holmes to send some down to him when he has done a week’s real duty at the Bank.”

“Sooner or later, then. Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning.” Sir William shook his son’s hand.

A minute after, Edward had quitted the house. “That’s over!” he said, sniffing the morning air gratefully, and eyeing certain tinted wisps of cloud that were in a line of the fresh blue sky.

CHAPTER XXXV

A shy and humble entreaty had been sent by Dahlia through Robert to Rhoda, saying that she wished not to be seen until the ceremony was at an end; but Rhoda had become mentally stern toward her sister, and as much to uphold her in the cleansing step she was about to take, as in the desire to have the dear lost head upon her bosom, she disregarded Dahlia’s foolish prayer, and found it was well that she had done so; for, to her great amazement, Dahlia, worn, shorn, sickened, and reduced to be a mark for the scorn of the cowardice which is in the world, through the selfishness of a lying man, loved the man still, and wavered, or rather shrank with a pitiful fleshly terror from the noble husband who would wipe the spot of shame from her forehead.

When, after their long separation, the sisters met, Dahlia was mistress of herself, and pronounced Rhoda’s name softly, as she moved up to kiss her. Rhoda could not speak. Oppressed by the strangeness of the white face which had passed through fire, she gave a mute kiss and a single groan, while Dahlia gently caressed her on the shoulder. The frail touch of her hand was harder to bear than the dreary vision had been, and seemed not so real as many a dream of it. Rhoda sat by her, overcome by the awfulness of an actual sorrow, never imagined closely, though she had conjured up vague pictures of Dahlia’s face. She had imagined agony, tears, despair, but not the spectral change, the burnt-out look. It was a face like a crystal lamp in which the flame has died. The ghastly little skull-cap showed forth its wanness rigidly. Rhoda wondered to hear her talk simply of home and the old life. At each question, the then and the now struck her spirit with a lightning flash of opposing scenes. But the talk deepened. Dahlia’s martyrdom was near, and their tongues were hurried into plain converse of the hour, and then Dahlia faltered and huddled herself up like a creature swept by the torrent; Rhoda learnt that, instead of hate or loathing of the devilish man who had deceived her, love survived. Upon Dahlia’s lips it was compassion and forgiveness; but Rhoda, in her contempt for the word, called it love. Dahlia submitted gladly to the torture of interrogation; “Do you, can you care for him still?” and sighed in shame and fear of her sister, not daring to say she thought her harsh, not daring to plead for escape, as she had done with Robert.

“Why is there no place for the unhappy, who do not wish to live, and cannot die?” she moaned.

And Rhoda cruelly fixed her to the marriage, making it seem irrevocable, and barring all the faint lights to the free outer world, by praise of her–passionate praise of her–when she confessed, that half inanimate after her recovery from the fever, and in the hope that she might thereby show herself to her father, she had consented to devote her life to the only creature who was then near her to be kind to her. Rhoda made her relate how this man had seen her first, and how, by untiring diligence, he had followed her up and found her. “He–he must love you,” said Rhoda; and in proportion as she grew more conscious of her sister’s weakness, and with every access of tenderness toward her, she felt that Dahlia must be thought for very much as if she were a child.

Dahlia tried to float out some fretting words for mercy, on one or other of her heavy breathings; but her brain was under lead. She had a thirst for Rhoda’s praise in her desolation; it was sweet, though the price of it was her doing an abhorred thing. Abhorred? She did not realize the consequences of the act, or strength would have come to her to wrestle with the coil: a stir of her blood would have endued her with womanly counsel and womanly frenzy; nor could Rhoda have opposed any real vehemence of distaste to the union on Dahlia’s part. But Dahlia’s blood was frozen, her brain was under lead. She clung to the poor delight in her sister’s praise, and shuddered and thirsted. She caught at the minutes, and saw them slip from her. All the health of her thoughts went to establish a sort of blind belief that God; having punished her enough, would not permit a second great misery to befall her. She expected a sudden intervention, even though at the altar. She argued to herself that misery, which follows sin, cannot surely afflict us further when we are penitent, and seek to do right: her thought being, that perchance if she refrained from striving against the current, and if she suffered her body to be borne along, God would be the more merciful. With the small cunning of an enfeebled spirit, she put on a mute submissiveness, and deceived herself by it sufficiently to let the minutes pass with a lessened horror and alarm.

This was in the first quarter of the night. The dawn was wearing near. Sedgett had been seen by Rhoda; a quiet interview; a few words on either side, attention paid to them by neither. But the girl doated on his ugliness; she took it for plain proof of his worthiness; proof too that her sister must needs have seen the latter very distinctly, or else she could not have submitted.

Dahlia looked at the window-blinds and at the candlelight. The little which had been spoken between her and her sister in such a chasm of time, gave a terrible swiftness to the hours. Half shrieking, she dropped her head in Rhoda’s lap. Rhoda, thinking that with this demonstration she renounced the project finally, prepared to say what she had to say, and to yield. But, as was natural after a paroxysm of weakness, Dahlia’s frenzy left no courage behind it.

Dahlia said, as she swept her brows, “I am still subject to nervous attacks.”

“They will soon leave you,” said Rhoda, nursing her hand.

Dahlia contracted her lips. “Is father very unforgiving to women?”

“Poor father!” Rhoda interjected for answer, and Dahlia’s frame was taken with a convulsion.

“Where shall I see him to-morrow?” she asked; and, glancing from the beamless candle to the window-blinds “Oh! it’s day. Why didn’t I sleep! It’s day! where am I to see him?”

“At Robert’s lodgings. We all go there.”

“We all go?–he goes?”

“Your husband will lead you there.”

“My heaven! my heaven! I wish you had known what this is, a little–just a little.”

“I do know that it is a good and precious thing to do right,” said Rhoda.

“If you had only had an affection, dear! Oh I how ungrateful I am to you.”

“It is only, darling, that I seem unkind to you,” said Rhoda.

“You think I must do this? Must? Why?”

“Why?” Rhoda pressed her fingers. “Why, when you were ill, did you not write to me, that I might have come to you?”

“I was ashamed,” said Dahlia.

“You shall not be ashamed any more, my sister.”

Dahlia seized the window-blind with her trembling finger-tips, and looked out on the day. As if it had smitten her eyeballs, she covered her face, giving dry sobs.

“Oh! I wish–I wish you had known what this is. Must I do it? His face! Dear, I am very sorry to distress you. Must I do it? The doctor says I am so strong that nothing will break in me, and that I must live, if I am not killed. But, if I might only be a servant in father’s house- -I would give all my love to a little bed of flowers.”

“Father has no home now,” said Rhoda.

“I know–I know. I am ready. I will submit, and then father will not be ashamed to remain at the Farm. I am ready. Dear, I am ready. Rhoda, I am ready. It is not much.” She blew the candle out. “See. No one will do that for me. We are not to live for ourselves. I have done wrong, and I am going to be humble; yes, I am. I never was when I was happy, and that proves I had no right to be happy. All I ask is for another night with you. Why did we not lie down together and sleep? We can’t sleep now–it’s day.”

“Come and lie down with me for a few hours, my darling,” said Rhoda.

While she was speaking, Dahlia drew the window-blind aside, to look out once more upon the vacant, inexplicable daylight, and looked, and then her head bent like the first thrust forward of a hawk’s sighting quarry; she spun round, her raised arms making a cramped, clapping motion.

“He is there.”

CHAPTER XXXVI

At once Rhoda perceived that it was time for her to act. The name of him who stood in the street below was written on her sister’s face. She started to her side, got possession of her hands, murmuring,–

“Come with me. You are to come with me. Don’t speak. I know. I will go down. Yes; you are to obey, and do what I tell you.”

Dahlia’s mouth opened, but like a child when it is warned not to cry, she uttered a faint inward wailing, lost her ideas, and was passive in a shuddering fit.

“What am I to do?” she said supplicatingly, as Rhoda led her to her bedroom.

“Rest here. Be perfectly quiet. Trust everything to me. I am your sister.”

Leaving her under the spell of coldly-spoken words, Rhoda locked the door on her. She was herself in great agitation, but nerved by deeper anger there was no faltering in her movements. She went to the glass a minute, as she tied her bonnet-strings under her chin, and pinned her shawl. A night’s vigil had not chased the bloom from her cheek, or the swimming lustre from her dark eyes. Content that her aspect should be seemly, she ran down the stairs, unfastened the bolts, and without hesitation closed the door behind her. At the same instant, a gentleman crossed the road. He asked whether Mrs. Ayrton lived in that house? Rhoda’s vision danced across his features, but she knew him unerringly to be the cruel enemy.

“My sister, Dahlia Fleming, lives there,” she said.

“Then, you are Rhoda?”

“My name is Rhoda.”

“Mine–I fear it will not give you pleasure to hear it–is Edward Blancove. I returned late last night from abroad.”

She walked to a distance, out of hearing and out of sight of the house, and he silently followed. The streets were empty, save for the solitary footing of an early workman going to his labour.

She stopped, and he said, “I hope your sister is well.”

“She is quite well.”

“Thank heaven for that! I heard of some illness.”

“She has quite recovered.”

“Did she–tell me the truth–did she get a letter that I sent two days ago, to her? It was addressed to ‘Miss Fleming, Wrexby, Kent, England.’ Did it reach her?”

“I have not seen it.”

“I wrote,” said Edward.

His scrutiny of her features was not reassuring to him. But he had a side-thought, prompted by admiration of her perfect build of figure, her succinct expression of countenance, and her equable manner of speech: to the effect, that the true English yeomanry can breed consummate women. Perhaps–who knows? even resolute human nature is the stronger for an added knot–it approved the resolution he had formed, or stamped with a justification the series of wild impulses, the remorse, and the returned tenderness and manliness which had brought him to that spot.

“You know me, do you not?” he said.

“Yes,” she answered shortly.

“I wish to see Dahlia.”

“You cannot.”

“Not immediately, of course. But when she has risen later in the morning. If she has received my letter, she will, she must see me.”

“No, not later; not at all,” said Rhoda.

“Not at all? Why not?”

Rhoda controlled the surging of her blood for a vehement reply; saying simply, “You will not see her.”

“My child, I must.”

“I am not a child, and I say what I mean.”

“But why am I not to see her? Do you pretend that it is her wish not to see me? You can’t. I know her perfectly. She is gentleness itself.”

“Yes; you know that,” said Rhoda, with a level flash of her eyes, and confronting him in a way so rarely distinguishing girls of her class, that he began to wonder and to ache with an apprehension.

“She has not changed? Rhoda–for we used to talk of you so often! You will think better of me, by-and-by.

“Naturally enough, you detest me at present. I have been a brute. I can’t explain it, and I don’t excuse myself. I state the fact to you– her sister. My desire is to make up for the past. Will you take a message to her from me?”

“I will not.”

“You are particularly positive.”

Remarks touching herself Rhoda passed by.

“Why are you so decided?” he said more urgently. “I know I have deeply offended and hurt you. I wish, and intend to repair the wrong to the utmost of my power. Surely it’s mere silly vindictiveness on your part to seek to thwart me. Go to her; say I am here. At all events, let it be her choice not to see me, if I am to be rejected at the door. She can’t have had my letter. Will you do that much?”

“She knows that you are here; she has seen you.”

“Has seen me?” Edward drew in his breath sharply. “Well? and she sends you out to me?”

Rhoda did not answer. She was strongly tempted to belie Dahlia’s frame of mind.

“She does send you to speak to me,” Edward insisted.

“She knows that I have come.”

“And you will not take one message in?”

“I will take no message from you.”

“You hate me, do you not?”

Again she controlled the violent shock of her heart to give him hard speech. He went on:–

“Whether you hate me or not is beside the matter. It lies between Dahlia and me. I will see her. When I determine, I allow of no obstacles, not even of wrong-headed girls. First, let me ask, is your father in London?”

Rhoda threw a masculine meaning into her eyes.

“Do not come before him, I advise you.”

“If,” said Edward, with almost womanly softness, “you could know what I have passed through in the last eight-and-forty hours, you would understand that I am equal to any meeting; though, to speak truth, I would rather not see him until I have done what I mean to do. Will you be persuaded? Do you suppose that I have ceased to love your sister?”

This, her execrated word, coming from his mouth, vanquished her self-possession.

“Are you cold?” he said, seeing the ripple of a trembling run over her.

“I am not cold. I cannot remain here.” Rhoda tightened her intertwisting fingers across under her bosom. “Don’t try to kill my sister outright. She’s the ghost of what she was. Be so good as to go. She will soon be out of your reach. You will have to kill me first, if you get near her. Never! you never shall. You have lied to herbrought disgrace on her poor head. We poor people read our Bibles, and find nothing that excuses you. You are not punished, because there is no young man in our family. Go.”

Edward gazed at her for some time. “Well, I’ve deserved worse,” he said, not sorry, now that he saw an opponent in her, that she should waste her concentrated antagonism in this fashion, and rejoiced by the testimony it gave him that he was certainly not too late.

“You know, Rhoda, she loves me.”

“If she does, let her pray to God on her knees.”

“My good creature, be reasonable. Why am I here? To harm her? You take me for a kind of monster. You look at me very much, let me say, like a bristling cat. Here are the streets getting full of people, and you ought not to be seen. Go to Dahlia. Tell her I am here. Tell her I am come to claim her for good, and that her troubles are over. This is a moment to use your reason. Will you do what I ask?”

“I would cut my tongue out, if it did you a service,” said Rhoda.

“Citoyenne Corday,” thought Edward, and observed: “Then I will dispense with your assistance.”

He moved in the direction of the house. Rhoda swiftly outstripped him. They reached the gates together. She threw herself in the gateway. He attempted to parley, but she was dumb to it.

“I allow nothing to stand between her and me,” he said, and seized her arm. She glanced hurriedly to right and left. At that moment Robert appeared round a corner of the street. He made his voice heard, and, coming up at double quick, caught Edward Blancove by the collar, swinging him off. Rhoda, with a sign, tempered him to muteness, and the three eyed one another.

“It’s you,” said Robert, and, understanding immediately the tactics desired by Rhoda, requested Edward to move a step or two away in his company.

Edward settled the disposition of his coat-collar, as a formula wherewith to regain composure of mind, and passed along beside Robert, Rhoda following.

“What does this mean?” said Robert sternly.

Edward’s darker nature struggled for ascendancy within him. It was this man’s violence at Fairly which had sickened him, and irritated him against Dahlia, and instigated him, as he remembered well, more than Mrs. Lovell’s witcheries, to the abhorrent scheme to be quit of her, and rid of all botheration, at any cost.

“You’re in some conspiracy to do her mischief, all of you,” he cried.

“If you mean Dahlia Fleming,” said Robert, “it’d be a base creature that would think of doing harm to her now.”

He had a man’s perception that Edward would hardly have been found in Dahlia’s neighbourhood with evil intentions at this moment, though it was a thing impossible to guess. Generous himself, he leaned to the more generous view.

“I think your name is Eccles,” said Edward. “Mr. Eccles, my position here is a very sad one. But first, let me acknowledge that I have done you personally a wrong. I am ready to bear the burden of your reproaches, or what you will. All that I beg is, that you will do me the favour to grant me five minutes in private. It is imperative.”

Rhoda burst in–“No, Robert!” But Robert said, “It is a reasonable request;” and, in spite of her angry eyes, he waved her back, and walked apart with Edward.

She stood watching them, striving to divine their speech by their gestures, and letting her savage mood interpret the possible utterances. It went ill with Robert in her heart that he did not suddenly grapple and trample the man, and so break away from him. She was outraged to see Robert’s listening posture. “Lies! lies!” she said to herself, “and he doesn’t know them to be lies.” The window-blinds in Dahlia’s sitting-room continued undisturbed; but she feared the agency of the servant of the house in helping to release her sister. Time was flowing to dangerous strands. At last Robert turned back singly. Rhoda fortified her soul to resist.

“He has fooled you,” she murmured, inaudibly, before he spoke.

“Perhaps, Rhoda, we ought not to stand in his way. He wishes to do what a man can do in his case. So he tells me, and I’m bound not to disbelieve him. He says he repents–says the word; and gentlemen seem to mean it when they use it. I respect the word, and them when they’re up to that word. He wrote to her that he could not marry her, and it did the mischief, and may well be repented of; but he wishes to be forgiven and make amends–well, such as he can. He’s been abroad, and only received Dahlia’s letters within the last two or three days. He seems to love her, and to be heartily wretched. Just hear me out; you’ll decide; but pray, pray don’t be rash. He wishes to marry her; says he has spoken to his father this very night; came straight over from France, after he had read her letters. He says–and it seems fair–he only asks to see Dahlia for two minutes. If she bids him go, he goes. He’s not a friend of mine, as I could prove to you; but I do think he ought to see her. He says he looks on her as his wife; always meant her to be his wife, but things were against him when he wrote that letter. Well, he says so; and it’s true that gentlemen are situated–they can’t always, or think they can’t, behave quite like honest men. They’ve got a hundred things to consider for our one. That’s my experience, and I know something of the best among ’em. The question is about this poor young fellow who’s to marry her to-day. Mr. Blancove talks of giving him a handsome sum–a thousand pounds–and making him comfortable–“

“There!” Rhoda exclaimed, with a lightning face. “You don’t see what he is, after that? Oh!–” She paused, revolted.

“Will you let me run off to the young man, wherever he’s to be found, and put the case to him–that is, from Dahlia? And you know she doesn’t like the marriage overmuch, Rhoda. Perhaps he may think differently when he comes to hear of things. As to Mr. Blancove, men change and change when they’re young. I mean, gentlemen. We must learn to forgive. Either