.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 40111
   :PG.Title: In Silk Attire
   :PG.Released: 2012-06-30
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: William Black
   :DC.Title: In Silk Attire
              A Novel
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1879

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IN SILK ATTIRE
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      IN SILK ATTIRE.

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      A Novel

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      BY

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      WILLIAM BLACK,

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      AUTHOR OF "A DAUGHTER OF HETH," "THREE FEATHERS," ETC.

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      SEVENTH EDITION.

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      LONDON:
      SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON,
      CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
      1879.

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      [*All Rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved.*]

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   |   "And ye shall walk in silk attire
   |     And siller hae to spare,
   |   Gin ye'll consent to be his bride,
   |     Nor think o' Donald mair."
   |
   |   "O, wha wad buy a silken gown
   |     Wi' a puir broken heart?
   |   Or what's to me a siller crown
   |     Gin frae my love I part?"

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      CONTENTS.

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      I.  `OVER, AND SAFE`_
      II.  `THE LOOK BACK`_
      III.  `THE MARCHIONESS`_
      IV.  `THE ACTRESS`_
      V.  `ST. MARY-KIRBY`_
      VI.  `CHESNUT BANK`_
      VII.  `BALNACLUITH PLACE`_
      VIII.  `JULIET`_
      IX.  `THE COUNT'S BROTHER`_
      X.  `MISS BRUNEL AT HOME`_
      XI.  `IN THE PARK`_
      XII.  `GOOD-BYE`_
      XIII.  `"MIT DEINEN SCHÖNEN AUGEN"`_
      XIV.  `THE OUTCAST`_
      XV.  `SCHÖN-ROHTRAUT`_
      XVI.  `SCHÖNSTEIN`_
      XVII.  `THE COUNT DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF`_
      XVIII.  `ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE`_
      XIX.  `FLIGHT`_
      XX.  `HOMEWARDS`_
      XXI.  `IN ENGLAND`_
      XXII.  `ROSALIND`_
      XXIII.  `HOME AGAIN`_
      XXIV.  `A LAST WORD`_
      XXV.  `EVIL TIDINGS`_
      XXVI.  `THE COUNT'S CHANCE`_
      XXVII.  `DOUBTFUL`_
      XXVIII.  `MOTHER CHRISTMAS'S STORY`_
      XXIX.  `LEFT ALONE`_
      XXX.  `THE COUNT HESITATES`_
      XXXI.  `THE DECISION`_
      XXXII.  `CONFESSION`_
      XXXIII.  `THE BAIT IS TAKEN`_
      XXXIV.  `THE NEW GOVERNESS`_
      XXXV.  `ANOTHER BLUNDER`_
      XXXVI.  `AN OLD ADMIRER`_
      XXXVII.  `POSSESSION`_
      XXXVIII.  `ORMOND PLACE`_
      XXXIX.  `"THE COULIN"`_

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.. _`OVER, AND SAFE`:

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   IN SILK ATTIRE.

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   CHAPTER I.

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   OVER, AND SAFE.

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"I am gathering myself together for a great leap,
Jack."

"Don't look so sad about it, then.  Take it as you
would one of your Berkshire fences, Harry, with a
firm seat and a cool hand."

"If I only knew what was on the other side,
Jack—that bothers me."

"By the way, did you hear of the dinner at old
Thornhill's on Tuesday?  I declare everybody was
drunk but the dogs; and they were turned out at
night to find their way home by themselves.  The
Squire got very, very bad—port and brandy
alternately—tumbled twice off his horse before he got
out of the gate; and then, half an hour after, when
the rest of us rode home, we found him sitting in the
middle of the road, in the dark, trying to ward off
the dogs that had gathered round him and were for
licking his face, while he hiccuped to them 'G—go
away, my good people—g—go away—I've really
nothing for you; 'pon my soul, I've forgot my
p—purse.'  But what's the matter, Harry?  You
haven't heard a word of my story; and you're
looking as glum as a parson."

"Jack, I'm going to marry."

"Don't be a fool."

"I am, though.  It's all over with me, Jack.  I
told you I was gathering myself together for a great
leap."

"Who is it, Harry?"

"Annie Napier."

There was an interval of dead silence.  Mr. John
Palk was too prudent a man to hazard a hasty
witticism, knowing as he did the somewhat fiery
temperament of Harry Ormond, Marquis of Knottingley.

"Do you mean that, Harry?"

"I do."

"You're in luck, then, lad.  But what a host of
rivals you'll have blaspheming you!  Why, all
London is at Miss Napier's feet.  Lord Sotheby and
I went to see her last night—the people in the pit
were half crazy about her.  And when we went
round to Millington House for some supper, Sotheby
swore he'd give his soul to the devil for a hundred
years to get an introduction to Annie—I beg your
pardon, to Miss Napier."

"Fellows like Sotheby are rather free in offering
their soul to the devil," said Lord Knottingley, with a
sneer, "perhaps because it is the thing of least value
they have about them; or because they know the
devil will have it for nothing by-and-by."

"If you marry Miss Napier, Harry, you'll be
killed in a month.  I tell you, man, London won't
stand it.  Why, they say that the Duke of Nor——"

Knottingley started to his feet—his face scarlet,
his eyes hot and angry.

"By God, I will drive a sword through the man
who breathes that lie in my hearing!"

"Don't scowl at me, Harry.  I don't believe it."

"Do I care a straw who believes it?  But we
needn't waste angry words, Jack.  I have known
Annie Napier for years; and our family has been
rather celebrated for its jealousy.  If I, an Ormond,
marry that girl, people may conclude that there
will be no longer a market for their scandalous
wares.  And mind you, Jack—don't you talk of it to
any living soul; for I haven't even asked her yet;
but she, or nobody, will be my wife."

John Palk went home to order supper for a little
party of card-players who were to meet at his house
that night; and Harry Ormond had promised to
call in during the evening—that is, the card-playing
evening, which began when the men got home from
the theatre.

Knottingley was himself at the theatre that
evening.  From his box he sent round the following
note to the lady who, at that time, held London
captive with the fascination of her genius and her
personal loveliness:

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"DEAREST ANNIE,—I shall await your coming
home.  I have something particular to say to my
little sister.  H."

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He was alone in the box; and he sate there,
alternately entranced by the sweet tones of the voice he
loved, and enraged by the thought that all this
houseful of people were sharing a satisfaction which
by right belonged to him alone.  When they
applauded—as they did often and vehemently, for Miss
Napier was the idol of the time—he scowled at them
as though they were insulting the woman whom he
hoped to make his wife.  He resented their rude
staring as an indignity visited upon himself; and
when, at the end of the act, they turned and talked
to each other about the great actress, his family
passion drew dark meanings from their smiles and
whispered conversations, and his heart burned within
him.  A night at the theatre was not a pleasure to
Harry Ormond.  He left so maddened by love and
jealousy that he became a joke to his companions—behind
his back, be it understood, for he had a quick
temper and a sure eye with which the wits did not
care to trifle.  He was not a man to be provoked or
thwarted lightly; and in this period of contrariety,
disquietude, and gusty passion, which falls, in some
measure or other, to the lot of most young men, a
discreet avoidance of irritating topics was the course
which wisdom dictated to Lord Knottingley's friends.
Not that he was a sullen boor or bravo, eager to
tread on any man's corns, and kill him for swearing.
He was naturally light-hearted, fickle, generous;
impulsive in every mood of affection or dislike; and
at this time, when these uncomfortable love-measles
were strong upon him, he as often quarrelled with
himself as with his neighbours.  He was sensitive
and proud; he was naturally jealous; his sweetheart,
worse luck, was an actress; and it was a time,
as some of us can remember, when scandal was
cultivated as an art.  It is not to be wondered at,
therefore, that Harry Ormond suffered all the tortures,
while enjoying few of the amenities of love.

That night he was sitting in Miss Napier's house,
alone and moody.  He had an uneasy feeling that
the strength of his passion was forcing him to a step
from which his calmer reason might otherwise have
caused him to shrink.  He had not sufficient
self-criticism to know that his impulsiveness, under
these circumstances, might hereafter beget all the
mutual miseries of inconstancy; and yet there were
vague forebodings in his mind.  He crossed the
room, which was very prettily furnished and
brilliantly lit, and leaning his arms on the mantelpiece,
proceeded to study a small and daintily-executed
miniature which hung against the wall.  Was he
trying to trace in these calm and beautiful features
his own destiny? or was he wondering how his
passion might alter the future of her whom he loved so
much? or was he bitterly thinking that this portrait,
like the original, was but a thing at which all men
might gaze as well as he?

At that moment the door was opened, and there
entered the actress herself, flushed with the
evening's triumph, and smiling a happy welcome to her
friend.  That first glimpse of her young and happy
face settled the matter—there was no more doubt,
no more regret, possible.  And as it was not in
the nature of the man to prepare his utterances, or
use any discretion in choosing them, he at once went
forward, took her hands in his, and looking into her
face with a sad earnestness, uttered his complaint
and prayer.

"Annie, I cannot bear your going upon the stage
any longer.  It is a monstrous thing—a degradation—I
cannot bear it.  Listen to me, Annie, for your
own dear sake; and tell me you will never go back
to the theatre any more.  You are my little sister,
are you not? and you will do what is best for
yourself and me, my dearest?  How can I bear to hear
the women talk of you—how can I bear to see the
men stare at you?—and such men and such women,
Annie!  You do not know what they say and think
of actresses—but not of you, Annie!  I did not
mean that—and so I beseech you, darling, to do
what I ask you; will you not?"

Her eyes fell.

"And what would you have me do *afterwards*?"
she asked, in a low voice.

"Be my wife, Annie; there, I have told you!
Look in my face, my dearest.  You know I have
loved you always; trust me now!"

"Trust you!" she said, looking up with sweet
wet eyes; "you know I trust you, Harry.  Whom
should I trust but you?"

"And you say——"

"I say I will do anything for you, Harry, except
that—anything except that," she said, with a white,
downcast face and trembling lips.  "You have been
too good to me, Harry; you have given me too
much of your love and your kindness, for me to
let you do such a thing.  It is for your sake only
I refuse.  You remember when you said you would
always be a brother to me; and I was thankful within
my heart to hear you say that; and after having been
my dear brother and my friend for all this time,
do you think I would make such a poor return for
all your love as to let you marry—an actress?  I
will leave the stage, if it will please you; I will lie
down in my grave, if it will please you, and be happy
enough if I knew you wished it.  I will do anything
for you, Harry; but not that—not that!"

Wherewith he caught her in his arms, and kissed
her—passionately, despairingly.

"My angel, my dearest, are you mad, to talk in
that way?  Do you not see that the great favour
would fall upon me only?  Is there a woman in all
England to be compared with you, my queen, my
darling?  What matters your being an actress to
me?  It is you, not the actress, whom I beg for a
wife; and if you would see in what way I should
ask you for so great a blessing—here at your feet I
kneel, you an empress, and I your slave."

And so he knelt down before her, and took her
hand and looked up into her eyes.  That may have
been the fashion in which lovers spoke in those days,
or it may be that the strong passion of the young
man thrilled him into using stage language.  But
there could be no doubt about the absolute sincerity
of the words; and the girl, with a sort of sad, wistful
pleasure in her face, heard his urgent prayer.

"See, Annie, am I low enough?  For God's sake
do not mock me by saying you cannot be my wife
because you are an actress.  You are to me the
noblest and tenderest of women, and there is nothing
I hope for but your love.  What do you say, Annie?
Will you not speak a word to me?"

She stooped down and gently kissed away the tears
from his cheeks.

"I am ashamed of your goodness, dear," she said,
in her low, intense voice, "and I wish you had not
asked me.  But oh!  Harry, Harry, how can I hide
that I love you with my whole heart!"

She placed her hand on his soft brown hair—that
hand which half London would have died to have
kissed—and looked for a moment into his
love-stricken eyes.  In that brief moment the compact
was sealed between them, and they were thenceforth
husband and wife.  She uttered a few words—rather
indistinctly, to be sure—of farewell; and then she
lightly kissed his forehead and left the room.

He rose, bewildered, pale, and full of an
indescribable happiness; and then he went downstairs,
and out into the open air.  There was a light in
her bedroom as he turned and looked up; and he said:

"I leave my heart in her dear keeping, for good
or ill."

Shortly afterwards he made his appearance in
Mr. John Palk's rooms; and by that time there was
nothing on his face but a happy, audacious trust in
the future; an expression which immediately struck
one of his friends who was seated at one of the small
tables.

"Knottingley, come here," said this gentleman.
"I see you bring good luck in your face.  Back me!"

"I will.  A hundred guineas on Lord Wriothesly's
next hand!"

"Done with you, Harry," said Mr. John Palk,
to whom a hundred guineas was an acceptable sum,
now that he had managed, by aid of ace, king, and
queen (with occasional help from a racing favourite)
to scatter one of the finest estates possessed by any
private gentleman in England.

As it happened, too, Lord Wriothesly and his
partner won; and Mr. Palk made a little grimace.
At a sign from Ormond, he followed the young
marquis into a corner, where their conversation could
not be overheard.

"You'll have to take paper, Harry," said Palk.

"What do you mean?"

"The hundred guineas——"

"Confound your hundred guineas!  Sit down, and
listen to me.  I am an expatriated man."

"How?" said Mr. Palk, quietly taking a chair.

"Miss Napier is going to be my wife; and I know
she will never have the courage to confront my
friends—rather, I should say, I shall never allow her
to sue in any way for recognition from them.  You
see?  Then I shouldn't like to have my wife brought
face to face with people who have paid to see her;
and so—and so, Jack, I am going to give up England."

"You are paying a long price for wedded happiness,
Harry."

"There I differ with you, Jack.  But never mind.
I want you to help me in getting up a quiet little
wedding down in Berks; for I know she will never
consent to meeting my relatives and all the riff-raff
of my acquaintances——"

"Thank you, Harry."

"And I am sure she will be glad to leave the stage
at once, if that is possible."

"What a pace you have!  You're at the end of
everything when other people are thinking of the
beginning.  But, in good faith, Harry, you are to be
congratulated; and you may rely on my services
and secrecy to the last."

And to Harry Ormond, when he went outside that
night, it seemed as if all the air around him were
full of music.





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.. _`THE LOOK BACK`:

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   CHAPTER II.


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   THE LOOK BACK.

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How still the lake of Thun lay, under the fierce heat!
The intense blue of it stretched out and over to the
opposite shore, and there lost itself in the soft green
reflection of the land; while the only interruption
of the perfect surface was a great belt of ruffled light
stirred by the wind underneath the promontory of
Spiez.  Then overhead the misty purple mass of the
Niessen; and beyond that again the snowy peaks of
the Schreckhorn, Mönch, and Jungfrau glimmering
through the faint and luminous haze of the
sunlight; and over these the serene blue of a Swiss sky.
Down in front of the house the lake narrowed to the
sharp point at which it breaks suddenly away into
the rapid, surging green-white waters of the Aar;
and at this moment, as seen from the open window,
two men in a low flat boat were vainly endeavouring
to make head against the powerful current.

At the window sate a little girl of about four years
old, with large dark grey eyes, a bright, clear face,
and magnificent jet-black curls; a doll-looking little
thing, perhaps, but for the unusual depth and meaning
of those soft, large eyes.  All at once she put her
elbows on a tiny card-table opposite her, clasped her
hands, and said, with a piteous intonation:

"Nu, Nu; oh, I don't know what to do!"

Her father, who had been lying silent and listless
on a couch in the shadow of the room, looked up and
asked her what was the matter.

"My doll is lying out in the sun," she said, in
accents of comic despair, "and the poor thing must
be getting a headache, and I am not allowed, Nu says,
to go out just now."

"What a little actress she is!" her father muttered,
as he returned, with a slight laugh, to his day
dreaming.

And she *was* an actress—every atom of her.  She
had not the least self-consciousness; the assuming
of appropriate speech and gesture was to her more
natural than the bashful sense of personality with
which most children are burdened.  A true actress
will smile quite naturally into the Polyphemus eye
of a camera; a false actress will be conscious of
deceit even in dressing herself to have her portrait
taken.  This child of four had the self-abandonment
of genius in her mimetic efforts.  She coaxed her
mother and wheedled her father with an artless art
which was quite apparent; and her power of copying
the tender phrases she heard used was only equalled
by the dramatic manner in which she delivered them.
The appeal to "Nu"—which was a contraction for
"nurse"—was her invariable method of expressing
intense despair.  If her mamma reprimanded her;
if she lost one of her toys; or if she merely felt out
of sorts—it was all the same: down went the elbows
and out came the pitiful exclamation, "Oh, Nu, Nu,
I don't know what to do."  This little girl was the
daughter of the Marquis of Knottingley, who now
lay upon the couch over there; and it is of her that
the present history purposes to speak.

For Harry Ormond had been right in his surmise.
The young actress begged him not to insist upon
her meeting his friends and acquaintances; and he,
to whom no sacrifice was then great enough to show
his gratitude for her love, readily consented to go
abroad after the quiet little ceremony which took
place down in Berkshire.  They went to Thun, and
lived in this house which lay some short distance
from the village, overlooking the beautiful lake; and
here Lord Knottingley forgot his old world, as he
was by it forgotten.  His marriage was known only
to a few, though it was suspected by many, and
coupled with the unexpected withdrawal from the
stage of Annie Napier.  In the end, however, the
matter dropped into oblivion, and Harry Ormond
was no more thought of.

For several years they lived there a still and
peaceful existence, varied only by an occasional
excursion southward into Italy.  The halo of his
romantic passion still lingered around his young wife;
and in the calm delight of her presence he forgot old
associations, old friends, old habits.

"You cannot expatriate a married man," he used
to say, "for he carries with him that which makes a
home for him wherever he goes."

She, too, was very happy in those days.  She
could never be persuaded that her husband had not
made a great sacrifice in coming abroad for her sake;
and she strove to repay him with all the tenderness
and gratitude and love of a noble nature.  She
simply worshipped this man; not even the great
affection she bore her bright-eyed quaint little
daughter interfered with the one supreme passion.
To her he was a miracle of all honourable and
lovable qualities; never had any man been so generous,
heroic, self-denying.

And yet Harry Ormond was a weak man—weak
by reason of that very impulsiveness which often
drove him into pronounced and vigorous action.  As
he leant back on his couch, after hearing the pathetic
complaint of his little daughter, there were some
such thoughts as these vaguely flitting before him:

"She will be an actress, too; a real actress, not a
made one, thank God.  And if I take her back to
England as my child, will not all the poor would-be
actresses of my acquaintance assume a fine air of
patronage towards her and her mother?  But, after
all, Annie was on the stage—I cannot deny it; and
I cannot quarrel with anybody for reminding me of
the fact.  All the tipsy ruffians of the town have
sate and stared at her—d——m them!  And just as
surely is it impossible that I can remain here all my
life.  Annie is very well, and very affectionate; but
I did not bargain for a life-long banishment.  And
one might as well be dead as live always out of
London."

This was the first seed sown; and it grew rapidly
and throve in such a mind as his.  He became
peevish at times; would occasionally grumble over
the accidents of his present life, and then took to
grumbling at that itself; sometimes held long
conversations with the small Annie about England, and
strove to impress her with the knowledge that
everything fine and pleasant abode there; finally—and
this process had been the work of only a week
or two—he announced his intention of going to
London on business.

His wife looked up from her work, with dismay
on her face; he had never proposed such a thing
before.

"Why cannot Mr. Chetwynd do that business for
you also, Harry?" she asked.

"Because it is too important," he said, a little
impatiently.  "You need not fear so much my going
to London for a fortnight."

He spoke in almost an irritated tone.  Indeed, he
did not himself know how impatient he was to get
away from trammels which he had found irksome.

She went over to him, and placed her hand gently
on his head.

"Am I too jealous of you, Harry?  I hate
England because I think sometimes you have still a
lingering wish to be back there.  But I do not *fear*
your going; I know you will be as anxious to come
to me as I shall be to see you."

So Lord Knottingley went forth from that house,
which he never saw again.  His wife and daughter
were at the window; the former pale and calm, the
latter vaguely unhappy over an excitement and
disturbance which she could not understand.  As the
horses started he kissed his hands to them both,
tenderly as he had kissed them three minutes before
on the threshold; and as the carriage disappeared
round the first turning of the road he waved his
handkerchief.  Annie Napier had seen the last of
her husband she was to see in this world.  She came
away from the window, still quite calm, but with
a strange look on her pale and beautiful face; and
then she sate down, and took her little girl on her
knee, and put her arms round her, and drew her
closely to her.

"Mamma, why do you cry?" the little one said,
looking up into the sad, silent face.

Her mother did not speak.  Was the coming
shadow already hovering over her?  She drew her
daughter the more closely to her; and the little
girl, thrown back on her usual resource for expressing
her alarm, only murmured disconsolately, "Oh,
Nu, Nu, I don't know what to do."





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.. _`THE MARCHIONESS`:

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   CHAPTER III.


.. class:: center medium

   THE MARCHIONESS.

.. vspace:: 2

Of what befel Lord Knottingley in England—of the
influences brought to bear on him, of the
acquaintances and relatives who counselled him (if he did
receive any counsel but from his own inclination)—his
wife never knew anything.  Week after week
passed, and she heard nothing from England.
Again and again she wrote: there was no answer.
But at length there arrived at Thun his lordship's
man of business, Mr. Chetwynd, who brought with
him all the news for which she had sought.

She was seated at the window overlooking the
lake, oppressed and almost terrified by the strange
shadows which the sunset was weaving among the
mountains opposite.  The sun had so far sunk that
only the peaks of the splendid hills burned like
tongues of fire; and in the deep valleys on the
eastern side the thick purple darkness was giving
birth to a cold grey mist which crept along in
nebulous masses like the progress of a great army.
Down at the opposite shore the mist got bluer and
denser; and over all the lake the faint haze dulled
the sombre glow caught from the lurid red above.
Up there, high over the mountains, there were
other mountains and valleys; and, as she looked,
she thought she saw an angel, with streaming violet
hair which floated away eastward, and he held to
his mouth a trumpet, white as silver, which almost
touched the peak of the Wetterhorn; and then the
long, flowing robes of scarlet and gold became an
island, with a fringe of yellow light that dazzled
her sad eyes.  When she turned rapidly to see that
a servant had brought her a letter, the same
cloud-visions danced before her, pictured in flames upon
the darkness of the room.

"Will it please your ladyship to see Mr. Chetwynd
this evening or to-morrow morning?" the
servant inquired.

"Did Mr. Chetwynd bring this letter?" she
asked, hurriedly.

"Yes, your ladyship," said the man.

"Tell him I will see him this evening—by-and-by—in
half an hour."

Standing there, with a faint pink light streaming
in upon the paper, she read these words:

.. vspace:: 2

"DEAR ANNIE,—Things have changed greatly
since I was in England before; and my present
visit seems to have brought me back again to life.
It would be impossible for me to let you know how
many reflections have been suggested to me since I
came here; and perhaps I ought to go on at once
to the main purport of my letter.  You are my
wife—*legally married*—as you know; and no one can
deprive you of the privileges pertaining to your
rank, any more than they can deprive you of my
esteem and affection.  At the same time you know
how *very* exclusive my friends are; and I am
*convinced* that for you to seek companionship with
them would only bring you *discomfort* and *vexation*.
Now your own good sense, my dear, will show you
that I cannot always remain away from England
and allow my property to be left in the hands of
agents.  I see so many alterations for the worse,
and so much *urgent need* for improvement, that I
am certain I must remain in England for several
years, if not for life.  Now, my dear, I have
a proposal to make which you will think cruel at
first; but which—I know well—you will
afterwards regard as being the wisest thing you could do
for all of us.  Nobody here seems to know of our
marriage; certainly none of my own family seem to
take it for granted that I have a wife living; and if
I were to bring you over I should have to introduce
you, with explanations which would be awkward to
both you and me—which, indeed, would be *insulting*
to you.  What I desire you to do is to remain in
the house you now occupy, which shall be yours; a
sufficient income—to be named by yourself—will
be settled upon you; and Annie will be supplied
with whatever governesses and masters she requires.
I hope you will see the propriety of this arrangement;
and more particularly on account of one
circumstance which, unfortunately, I am compelled to
explain.  You know I never allowed you to become
friends with any of the English people we met in
Italy.  The reason was simply that they, in common
with my relatives, believed that you and I were not
married; and could I drag you, my dear, into the
ignominy of an explanation?  For the same reason,
I hope you will conceal your real rank in the event
of your ever meeting with English people at Thun;
and while I wait your answer—which I trust you
will *calmly* consider—I am, whatever unhappy
circumstances may divide us,

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: medium white-space-pre-line

   "Your loving husband,
       "HARRY ORMOND."

.. vspace:: 2

She read this letter to the very end, and seemed
not to understand it; she was only conscious of a
dull sense of pain.  Then she turned away from
it—from its callous phrases, its weak reasoning, its
obvious lies, all of which seemed a message from a
stranger, not from Harry Ormond—and accidentally
she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror.  She
saw there what recalled her to herself; for the
ghastly face she beheld, tinged with the faint glow
of the sunset, was terror-stricken and wild.  In the
next second she had banished that look; she rang
the bell; and then stood erect and firm, with all the
fire of her old profession tingling in her.

"Bid Mr. Chetwynd come here," she said to the
servant.

In a minute or two the door was again opened,
and there entered a tall, grey-haired man, with a
grave and rather kindly expression of face.

She held out the letter, and said, in a cold, clear tone:

"Do you know the contents of this letter?"

"I do, your ladyship," said he.

"And you have been sent to see what money I
should take for keeping out of the way, and not
troubling Lord Knottingley?  Very well——"

"I assure your ladyship——"

"You need not speak," she said, with a dignity of
gesture which abashed him—which made him regard
her with the half-frightened, half-admiring look she
had many a time seen on the faces of the
scene-shifters after one of her passionate climaxes—"I
presume I am still the Marchioness of Knottingley?"

"Certainly."

"And my husband has commissioned you to receive
my instructions?"

"He has, your ladyship; and if you would only
allow me to explain the circumstances——"

"Mr. Chetwynd, you and I used to talk frankly
with each other.  I hope you will not embarrass
yourself by making an apology for his lordship,
when he himself has done that so admirably in this
letter.  Now, be good enough to attend to what I
say.  You will secure for me and my daughter a
passage to America by the earliest vessel we can
reach from here; and to-morrow morning you will
accompany us on the first stage of the journey.  I
will take so much money from you as will land us in
New York; whatever surplus there may be will be
returned to Lord Knottingley."

"May I beg your ladyship to consider—to remain
here until I communicate with his lordship?"

"I have considered," she said, calmly, in a tone
which put an end to further remonstrance, "and I
do not choose to remain in this house another day."

So Mr. Chetwynd withdrew.  He saw nothing of
this strangely self-possessed woman until the
carriage was at the door next morning, ready to take
her from the house which she had cast for ever
behind her.

When he did see her he scarcely recognised her.
She was haggard and white; her eyes were red and
wild; she appeared to be utterly broken down.  She
was dressed in black, and so was the little girl she
led by the hand.  He did not know that she had spent
the entire night in her daughter's room, and that it
was not sleep which had occupied those long hours.

So it was that Annie Napier and her daughter
arrived in America; and there she went again upon
the stage, under the name of Annie Brunel, and
earned a living for both of them.  But the old fire
had gone out; and there was not one who recognised
in the actress her who had several years before been
the idol of London.  One message only she sent to
her husband; and it was written, immediately on
her reaching New York, in these words:

.. vspace:: 2

"HARRY ORMOND,—I married you for your love.
When you take that from me, I do not care to have
anything in its place.  Nor need you try to buy my
silence; I shall never trouble you.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: left medium

"ANNIE NAPIER."

.. vspace:: 2

On the receipt of that brief note, Harry Ormond
had a severe fit of compunction.  The freedom of
his new life was strong upon him, however; and in
process of time he, like most men of his stamp, grew
to have a conviction that he was not responsible for
the wrong he had done.  If she had wilfully
relinquished the luxury he offered her, was he to blame?

Ten years afterwards, Lord Knottingley lay very
sick.  He was surrounded by attentive relatives, who,
having affectionately interested themselves in him
during his life, naturally expected to be paid for
their solicitude at his death.  But at the last
moment remorse struck him.  As the drowning man
is said to be confronted by a ghastly panorama of
his whole life, so he, in these last hours, recalled
the old tenderness and love of his youth, which he
had so cruelly outraged.  He would have sent for
her then; he would have braved the ridicule and
indignation which he had once so feared; but it
was too late.  One act of reparation was alone
possible.  When Harry Ormond Marquis of Knottingley
died, it was found that he had left, by a will
dated only a few days before his death, his whole
property to his wife, of whom nobody knew
anything, accompanying the bequest with such expressions
of affection and penitence as sorely puzzled his
lady relatives.

Not for several months did the lawyers who acted
for the trustees discover where the missing wife had
taken up her abode in America; and then an elderly
gentleman waited upon the actress to break the news
of her husband's death, and to invite her to become
the mistress of a large property and the wearer of a
proud title.

"How pleased she will be!" he had said to himself,
before seeing her.

Once in her presence, however, he did not so
tastily judge the tender-eyed, beautiful, melancholy
woman; and it was with all the delicacy he could
command that he told his story, and watched its
effect upon her handsome, sad face.

But these ten years of labour had not quite broken
Annie Napier's spirit.  Out of her grief and her
tears—for she was a woman, and could not help still
loving the lover of her youth—she rose with her old
grandeur of manner, and refused the offer.  Not
theatrically, nor angrily, but simply and definitely,
so that the messenger from England, perplexed and
astonished, could only beg of her to think, not of
herself, but of her daughter.

"My daughter," she said, perhaps rather bitterly,
"will never seek, any more than myself, to go amongst
those people.  God knows that it is she alone whom
I consider in everything I do.  I have taught her to
earn her own bread; and I will teach her that her
only chance of happiness is to marry, if she does
marry, in her own profession.  You appear to be
surprised, sir; but what I say to you is not the
result of any hasty impulse.  Have you seen her?"
she added, with a touch of pride.  "Have you seen
her since you came over?  Some years hence you
may find her in England, and she will reap my old
triumphs again."

"If you will only consider what you are taking
from her—the position she would hold—the——"

For an instant the large dark eyes of the actress
were filled with a strange, wistful look; was she
striving—as we often do strive—to anticipate the
current of years, and look over the long future lying
in wait for this girl of hers?

"I have considered, sir, many a year ago.  She
has been brought up in perfect ignorance of her
birth and name; and there is no one of her
associates who knows our secret.  So she will remain."

This unlooked-for termination to his mission so
astounded the lawyer, that he could not at first
comprehend the decision of her tone.

"You will understand, madam," he said, "that
professionally I have no resource but to return to
England with your message.  But may I not beg
you to reflect?  Is it not possible that you have
been moved to this decision by a—what shall I say?—a
view of things which may appear natural to you
in your professional life, but which is looked upon
otherwise by the outside world?——"

"You think I am led astray by theatrical notions
of life?" she said, with a smile.  "It was my
experience of your 'outside world' which made me resolve
that my girl should never suffer that which I have
suffered.  The resolution is a very old one, sir.  But
supposing that I should die, would she then have
this property—would it belong to her?"

"Undoubtedly, if she chooses to accept it."

After a few moments' silence, the prudent and
tender mother having calculated every possibility
which might affect her daughter's happiness, she said
to him:

"In that case, sir, I can always provide against
her suffering want.  I will give her to-day your
address in England, and tell her that if at any future
time I am taken from her, and if she should ever be
in need, she can go to you; and then, sir, you will
remember who Annie Brunel is."

"And you absolutely condemn your daughter to
be an actress, when a word from you could make her
an English lady——"

The woman before him drew herself up.

"When my daughter ceases to believe that an
actress may be a lady, it will be time for her to apply
to you for the rank she has lost."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE ACTRESS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER IV.


.. class:: center medium

   THE ACTRESS.

.. vspace:: 2

It was near midnight when an unusually notable
and brilliant little party sate down to supper in
the largest hall of an hotel in the neighbourhood
of Charing Cross.  Brilliant the meeting was, for
beneath the strong lights shone the long white
table with its gleaming crystal, and silver, and
flowers; and notable it was in that the persons
sitting there were, every one of them, marked by
an obvious individualism of face and dress.  They
wore no mere company of cultivated nothings, as
like each other in brain, costume, and manner, as
the wine-glasses before them; scarcely a man or
woman of them had not his or her own special
character rendered apparent by this or that peculiarity
of facial line or intentional adornment.

But there was one woman there—or girl, rather,
for she was clearly not over twenty—whose
character you could not easily catch.  You might watch
the expression of her eyes, listen to her bright,
rapid, cheerful talk, and study her bearing towards
her associates; and then confess that there was
something elusive about her—she had not exhibited
her real nature to you—you knew nothing of her
but those superficial characteristics which were no
index to the spirit underneath.

Slight in figure, and somewhat pale and dark,
there was nevertheless a certain dignity about her
features, and a stateliness in her gestures, which
gave an almost massive grandeur to her appearance.
Then her magnificent black hair lay around the
clear, calm face, which was rendered the more
intensely spiritual by large eyes of a deep and tender
grey.  They were eyes, under these long eyelashes,
capable of a great sadness, and yet they were not
sad.  There seemed to play around the beautiful,
intellectual face a bright, superficial, unconscious
vivacity; and she herself appeared to take a quite
infantine interest in the cheerful trivialities around
her.  For the rest, she was dressed in a gleaming
white *moiré*, with tight sleeves which came down to
her tiny wrists, and there ended in a faint line of
blue; and through the great braided masses of her
black hair there was wound a thick cord of twisted
silver, which also had a thread of blue cunningly
interwoven with it.  The artistic possibilities of her
fine face and complexion were made the most of; for
she *was* an artist, one of the few true artists who
have been seen upon our modern stage.

This was Miss Annie Brunel, who in three months
from the date of her arrival in this country had
won the heart of London.  The young American
actress, with her slight and nervous physique, her
beautiful head, and the dark lustre of her eyes, was
photographed, lithographed, and written about
everywhere: people went and wept covertly beneath the
spell of her voice; for once unanimity prevailed
among all the critics who were worth attention, and
they said that the new actress was a woman of
genius.  Who could doubt it that had witnessed the
utter self-abandonment of her impersonations?  She
did not come upon the stage with a thought about
her jewellery, a consciousness of her splendid hair,
and an eye to the critical corner of the stalls.  On
the stage she was no longer mistress of herself.  Her
eyes deepened until they were almost black; her
face was stirred with the white light of passion;
and her words were instinct with the tenderness
which thrills a theatre to its core.  When the
sudden intensity died down, when she resumed her
ordinary speech and dress, she seemed to have come
out of a trance.  Not a trace remained of that fire
and those intonations, which were the result of
unconscious creation; her eyes resumed their serene,
happy indifference, her face its pleased, childlike
expression.  Swift, active, dexterous she was, full of
all sorts of genial and merry activities; that kindling
of the eye and tremor of the voice belonged to the
dream-life she led elsewhere.

The supper was rather a nondescript affair,
resembling the little entertainment sometimes given
by an author on the production of his new piece.
As the play, however, in which Miss Brunel had
just appeared was "Romeo and Juliet," there was a
little difficulty about the author's being present to
perform the ordinary duties; and so the manager's
very good friend, the Graf von Schönstein, had
stepped in and offered to play the part of host on
the occasion.

The Graf, indeed, occupied the chair—a large and
corpulent man, with a broad, fair face, small blue
eyes, red hands, a frilled shirt, flowered waistcoat,
and much jewellery.  He had made the acquaintance
of Miss Brunel during the previous year in
America, and lost no time in renewing it now that she
had so suddenly become famous in England.  Of the
Graf, who it may be mentioned was once a respectable
tea-broker in Thames Street, E.C., we shall hear more.

On the left of the chairman sate the manager, a
middle-aged man, with grey hair and a melancholy
face; on the right Miss Brunel, and next to her a
young man of the name of Will Anerley, a friend of
Count Schönstein.  Then followed several members
of the company, an elderly little woman who
officiated as Miss Brunel's guardian, two or three critics,
and a young man who spoke to nobody, but kept his
eyes intently fixed upon a charming *soubrette* (with
whom he had quarrelled some days before) who was
wickedly flirting with Mercutio.  There was no lack
of jest and talk down both sides of the table, for the
wine-glasses were kept well filled; and occasionally
there rang out, clear and full, the mellifluous laughter
of the Nurse—a stout, big, red-faced woman, who
had a habit of using her pocket handkerchief where
a table-napkin might have been more appropriate—as
she cracked her small jokes with Benvolio, who
sate opposite to her.  Then Friar Lawrence, who had
thrown aside his robe and become comic, happened
to jolt a little champagne into Lady Capulet's lap;
and the angrier she grew over his carelessness, the
more did the people laugh, until she herself burst
out with a big, good-natured guffaw.

Meanwhile the small clique at the upper end
of the table was engaged in a conversation by
itself, Count Schönstein appealing to the manager
vehemently:

"Was I not right in begging you to give the
public Miss Brunel's 'Juliet?'  There never was
such a triumph, Miss Brunel; I assure you, you
have taken London by storm.  And with the public
satisfied, will the critics object?  You will not see a
dissentient voice in the papers on Monday morning.
What do you say to that, Mr. Helstone?"

The man whom he addressed had forsaken the
cluster of his brother critics, and was busily engaged
in amusing the pretty *soubrette*, whom he had entirely
drawn away from poor Mercutio.

"Why," he said, with a faint smile, apparently
bent upon puzzling the gorgeous-looking gentleman
who had imprudently interrupted him, "I should be
sorry to see such unanimity, for Miss Brunel's sake.
Conscientious journalism, like every conscientious
journalist, knows that there are two sides to every
question, and will do its best to write on both.  The
odds will be the truth."

"Do you mean to tell me," asked the Count,
somewhat pompously, "that you have no more
conscience than to advocate different things in different
papers?"

"If I write what I know on one side of a subject
in one paper, and write up the other side in another
paper, I free myself from a charge of suppressing
truth; and I——"

Whereupon the *soubrette*, with the brown curls and
the wicked blue eyes, pulled his sleeve and made him
upset a claret glass.

"What a clumsy creature you are," she whispered.
"And what is the use of talking to that ridiculous
old fool?  Tell me, do you think Miss Brunel
handsome?"

"I think she has the face of a woman of genius,"
he said, with a glance of genuine admiration.

"Bah! that means nothing.  Don't you think she
shows her teeth on purpose when she laughs; and
then those big, soft eyes make her look affectedly
sentimental.  Why do you grin so?  I suppose I
am not as handsome as she is; but I wonder if she
could put on my gloves and boots?"

"You have adorable hands and feet, Miss Featherstone;
everybody allows that."

"Thank you.  They say that every ugly woman
has pretty hands and feet."

"Nature leaves no creature absolutely unprotected,
my dear.  Let me give you some vanilla cream."

"You are a brute.  I hate you."

"I have generally found that when a young lady
says she hates you, she means she loves you—if you
have a good income."

"I have generally found that when a young lady
rejects her suitor because of his want of brain, he
instantly says she cast him off because of his want
of money.  But I wish you'd keep quiet, and let me
hear what Mr. Melton is saying about next week.
If he thinks I'll play the people in with a farce, as
well as play in the burlesque, he is mistaken.
However, since you people have taken to write up Miss
Brunel, she will order everything; and if the poor
dear thinks seven too soon for her nerves after tea,
I suppose she will get played whatever she wants."

"Spiteful thing!  You're thinking of her handsome
face and eyes and hair: why don't you look in
the mirror and calm yourself?"

The little group at the head of the table had now
split itself into two sections; and while Count
Schönstein talked almost exclusively to Mr. Melton, Miss
Brunel was engaged in what was apparently an
interesting conversation with Will Anerley, who sate
next her.  But a patient observer would have noticed
that the stout and pompous Count kept his eyes
pretty well fixed upon the pair on his right; and
that he did not seem wholly pleased by the amused
look which was on Miss Brunel's face as she spoke,
in rather a low tone, to her companion:

"You confess you are disappointed with me.  That
is quite natural; but tell me how I differ from what
you expected me to be."

She turned her large, lustrous eyes upon him; and
there was a faint smile on her face.

"Well," he said, "on the stage you are so unlike
any one I ever saw that I did not expect to find you
in private life like—like any one else, in fact."

"Do you mean that I am like the young ladies
you would expect to find in your friends' house, if
you were asked to go and meet some strangers?"

"Precisely."

"You are too kind," she said, looking down.  "I
have always been taught, and I know, that private
people and professional people are separated by the
greatest differences of character and habits; and
that if I went amongst those young ladies of whom
you speak, I should feel like some dreadfully wicked
person who had got into heaven by mistake and was
very uncomfortable.  Have you any sisters?"

"One.  Well, she is not my sister, but a distant
relation who has been brought up in my father's
house as if she were my sister."

"Am I like her?"

"No.  I mean, you are not like her in appearance;
but in manner, and in what you think, and so forth,
you would find her as like yourself as possible.  I
cannot understand your strange notion that some
unaccountable barrier exists between you and other
people."

"That is because you have never lived a professional
life," she said.  "I know, myself, that there
is the greatest difference between me now and when
I am in one of my parts.  Then I am almost
unconscious of myself—I scarcely know what I'm doing;
and now I should like to go on sitting like this,
making fun with you or with anybody, or amusing
myself in any way.  Do you know, I fancy nothing
would give me so much delight as battledore and
shuttlecock if I might have it in my own house; but
I am afraid to propose such a thing to my guardian,
Mrs. Christmas, or she would think I was mad.  Did
you never wish you were only ten years old again,
that you might get some fun without being laughed at?"

"I used constantly to go bird's-nesting in Russia,
when we were too lazy to go on a regular shooting-party,
and never enjoyed anything half so much.
And you know cricket has been made a manly game
in order to let men think themselves boys for an hour
or two."

"I should like you to become acquainted with my
dear old Christmas—do you see her down there?—and
then you would know how a professional life
alters one.  It was she, not my dear mother, who
taught me all the gestures, positions, and elocution
which are the raw material we actresses use to
deceive you.  How she scolds me when I do anything
that differs from her prescriptions!  And indeed she
cannot understand how one, in the hurry of a part,
should abandon one's-self to chance, and forget the
ordinary 'business.'  Now the poor old creature has
to content herself with a little delicate compliment
or two instead of the applause of the pit; and I am
sometimes put to my wits' end to say something
kind to her, being her only audience.  Won't you
come and help me some afternoon?"

The unconscious audacity of the proposal, so
quietly and so simply expressed, staggered the young
man; and he could only manage to mention something
about the very great pleasure it would give
him to do so.

He was very much charmed with his companion;
but he was forced to confess to himself that she did,
after all, differ a good deal from the gentlewomen
whom he was in the habit of meeting.  Nor was it
wonderful that she should: the daughter of an
actress, brought up from her childhood among
stage-traditions, driven at an early period, by her mother's
death, to earn her own living, and having encountered
for several years all the vicissitudes and experience of
a half-vagrant life, it would have been a miracle had
she not caught up some angular peculiarities from this
rough-and-ready education.  Anerley was amazed to
find that easy audacity and frankness of speech, her
waywardness and occasional eccentricity of
behaviour, conjoined with an almost ridiculous simplicity.
The very attitude her Bohemianism led her to adopt
towards the respectable in life, was in itself the
result of a profound childlike ignorance; and, as he
afterwards discovered, was chiefly the result of the
tuition of a tender and anxious mother, who was
afraid of her daughter ever straying from the folds
of a profession which is so generous and kindly to
the destitute and unprotected.  All this, and much
more, he was afterwards to learn of the young
girl who had so interested him.  In the meantime
she seemed to him to be a spoilt child, who had
something of the sensitiveness and sagacity of a woman.

"Look how he blushes," said the charming *soubrette*
to her companion.

"Who?"

"The gentleman beside Miss Brunel."

"Are you jealous, that you watch these two so
closely?"

"I'm not; but I do consider him handsome—handsomer
than any man I know.  He is not smooth,
and fat, and polished, like most gentlemen who do
nothing.  He looks like an engine-driver cleaned—and
then his great brown moustache and his thick
hair—no, I'll tell you what he's like; he is precisely
the Ancient Briton you see in bronzes, with the thin
face and the matted hair——"

"And the scanty dress.  I suppose the ancient
Britons, like Scotchmen nowadays, wore an
indelicate costume, in order to save cloth."

"I *do* consider him handsome; but *her*!  And
as for her being a great actress, and a genius, and
all that, I don't consider her to be a bit better than
any of us."

"If that is the case, I can quite understand and
approve your depreciation of her."

"I will box your ears."

"Don't.  They might tell tales; and you know
I'm married."

"*Tant pis pour toi.*"

The Ancient Briton had meanwhile recovered his
equanimity; and both he and Miss Brunel had
joined in an argument Mr. Melton was setting forth
about the deliciousness of being without restraint.
The grave manager, under the influence of a little
champagne, invariably rose into the realm of abstract
propositions; and indeed his three companions, all
of them in a merry mood, helped him out with a
dozen suggestions and confirmations.

"And worst of all," said Miss Brunel, "I dislike
being bound down by time.  Why must I go home
just now, merely because it is late?  I should like
at this very moment to go straight out into the
country, without any object, and without any
prospect of return."

"And why not do so?" cried Count Schönstein.
"My brougham can be brought round in a few
minutes; let us four get in and drive straight away
out of London—anywhere."

"A capital idea," said Melton.  "What do you
say, Miss Brunel?"

"I will go with pleasure," she replied, with bright
childish fun in her eyes.  "But we must take
Mrs. Christmas with us.  And that will be five?"

"Then let me go outside and smoke," said Will
Anerley.

The supper party now broke up; and the ladies
went off to get their bonnets, wrappers, and cloaks.
In a few minutes Count Schönstein's brougham was
at the door; and Miss Brunel, having explained to
Mrs. Christmas the position of affairs, introduced
her to Will Anerley.  She had come forward to the
door of the brougham, and Anerley saw a very small
bright-eyed woman, with remarkably white hair, who
was in an extreme nervous flutter.  He was about
to go outside, as he had promised, when Count
Schönstein made the offer, which his position demanded,
to go instead.

"Yes, do," said Miss Brunel, putting her hand
lightly on Will Anerley's arm.

The Count was, therefore, taken at his word;
Anerley remained by the young actress's side; and
Mrs. Christmas being dragged in, away rolled the
brougham.

"And wherever are you going at this time of
night, Miss Annie?" said the old woman in amazement.

"For a drive into the country, mother.  Look
how bright it is!"

And bright it was.  There was no moon as yet,
but there was clear starlight; and as they drove
past the Green Park, the long rows of ruddy lamps
hung in the far darkness like strings of golden
points, the counterpart of the gleaming silver points
above.  And there, away in the north, glimmered
the pale jewels of Cassiopeia; the white star on
Andromeda's forehead stood out from the dark sea;
Orion coldly burned in the south, and the red eye of
Aldebaran throbbed in the strange twilight.  The
dark grey streets, and the orange lamps, and the
tall houses, and the solitary figures of men and
women hurried past and disappeared; but the great
blue vault, with its twinkling eyes, accompanied the
carriage-windows, rolled onward with them, and
always glimmered in.

This mad frolic was probably pleasant enough for
every one of the merry little party inside the vehicle;
but it could scarcely be very fascinating to the
victimized Count, who found himself driving through
the chill night-air in company with his own
coachman.  Perhaps, however, he wished to earn the
gratitude of Miss Brunel by this dumb obedience to
her whim; for he did not seek to arrest or alter the
course of the brougham as it was driven blindly out
into the country.  He could hear the laughter from
within the carriage; for they were all in the hest of
moods—except, perhaps, Miss Brunel, whom the sight
of the stars rather saddened.

At length they came to a toll-bar.  Melton put
his head out and asked the Count where they were.

"Hounslow."

"Is that the Bell Inn?"

"Yes."

"Then suppose we get out, wake the people up,
and give the horses a rest, while we have a little
trip on foot to Hounslow Heath?"

"Is not that where all the murders and robberies
used to be committed?" Miss Brunel was heard to say.

"This is the very inn," said Will Anerley, "which
the gentlemen of the road used to frequent; but
unfortunately, the Heath has been all enclosed.
There is no more Heath."

"We shall find something that will do for it,"
said Melton, as the party left the brougham, and
passed down the opposite road.

Once out of the glare of the lamp at the toll-bar,
they had nothing to guide them but the cold, clear
starlight.  Black lay the hedges on either side; black
stood the tall trees against the sky; blacker still
the deep ditch which ran along the side of the path,
or disappeared under the gravelled pathway leading
up to some roadside cottage.  How singularly the
light laughter of the little party smote upon the
deep, intense silence of the place; and what a strange
contrast there was between their gay abandonment
and the sombre gloom around them!  There was
something weird and striking running through the
absurdity of this incomprehensible excursion.

"There," said Melton, going up to a gate, and
peering over into a vague, dark meadow, "is a bit of
the old Heath, I know.  Was it here, I wonder, that
Claude Duval danced his celebrated dance with the
lady?"

"Let us suppose it was," said the Count.  "And
why should we not have a dance now on the Heath?
Mr. Melton, will you give us some music?"

"With pleasure," said the manager, opening the
gate, and allowing his merry companions to pass
into the meadow.

They went along until they were within a short
distance of a clump of trees; and then, the Count
having been ingeniously compelled to take
Mrs. Christmas as his partner, Miss Brunel being
Anerley's *vis-à-vis*, the manager proceeded to sing a set
of quadrilles in rather an unmelodious manner,
varying *la, la, la*, with *tow, row, row*.  The great,
pompous Count puffed, and blew, and guffawed; the little
Mrs. Christmas danced with a prim and grave precision;
while all did their best to help out the figures,
and stumbled, and set each other right again, and
laughed right heartily over the mad performance.

Then there was a sudden shriek, clear and sharp,
that rang through the darkness; the dancing
suddenly ceased; and Anerley sprang forward just in
time to prevent Miss Brunel from sinking to the
ground, her face pale as death.

"Did you not see it?" she gasped, still trembling.
"Something white flashed past through the trees
there—in a moment—and it seemed to have no
shape."

"By Jove, I saw it too!" said Melton, who had
abruptly ceased his singing; "and for the life of
me I can't imagine what it was."

"A white cow," suggested Anerley.

"I tell you it flew past like a streak of lightning,"
said Melton.

"More likely a white doe belonging to the park
over there," said the Count, who was inwardly the
most terrified person present.

"Let us get away from here," said Miss Brunel,
who had recovered her self-composure, but was very
grave.  "Whatever it was, the grass is too wet for
us to remain."

So they left the meadow, and walked rather
silently back to the toll-bar, got into the brougham,
and were driven to their respective homes.





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.. _`ST. MARY-KIRBY`:

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   CHAPTER V.


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   ST. MARY-KIRBY.

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Champagne has many good qualities, but none more
marked than the mild and temporary nature of the
stimulus it affords.  The bright and cheerful
excitement it produces—so long as it is neither Russian
champagne, nor one of those highly ingenious
products which chemistry and the wit of man have
devised—does not last so long as to interfere with
any serious occupation, even should that be merely
sleep; while it involves none of the gloomy reaction
which too often haunts the sparkle of other wines
with a warning shadow.  When Will Anerley got
up on the morning following the wild escapade on
Hounslow Heath, it was not indulgence in wine
which smote him with a half-conscious remorse.  He
had neither a throbbing headache nor a feverish
pulse.  But as he looked out of his bedroom window
and saw the pale sun glimmering down on the empty
streets, the strange calm of a Sunday morning—touching
even in the cramped thoroughfares of
London—fell upon him, and he thought of the hectic
gaiety of the previous night, and knew that all the
evening one tender girlish heart had been wearying
for his coming, away down in a quiet Kentish vale.

His absence was the more inexcusable in that it
was uncertain how soon he might have to leave
England.  He was a civil engineer; and from the
time he had left the apprentice stool his life had
been a series of foreign excursions.  He had been
two years in Turkey, another year in Canada, six
months in Russia, and so on; and at this moment
he had been but a short time home from Wallachia,
whence he had returned with his face browner his
frame tougher than ever.  There was little of the
young Englishman about him.  There was a Celtic
intensity in him which had long ago robbed him of
the loose fat, the lazy gait, the apathetic indifference
which generally fall to the lot of lads born and
brought up as he had been; and now—with his big
brown moustache, thick hair, and hazel eyes, and
with that subdued determination in his look, which
had made the little *soubrette* call him an Ancient
Briton—he was a man whom some would call
handsome, but whom most people would admire chiefly
on account of the intelligence, firmness of character,
and determination written upon his face.

He dressed and breakfasted hastily; got a cab,
and was just in time to catch the train.  After
nearly an hour's drive down through Kent—pleasant
enough on that bright Spring morning—he reached
Horton, the station nearest to St. Mary-Kirby.

Horton stands on the top of a hill sloping down
into the valley in which lies St. Mary-Kirby; and if
you climb, as Will Anerley did, to the top of a coal
heap which generally stands besides the empty
trucks of the station, you will see the long wooded
hollow from end to end, with its villages, churches,
and breadths of field and meadow.  It was not to
look again, however, on that pretty bit of scenery
which he knew so well that he scrambled to the top
of the coals, and stood there, with his hand shading
his eyes from the sunlight.  It was Dove Anerley he
wished to see come along the valley, on her way to
church; and he waited there to discover what route
she should take, that so he might intercept her.

Yet there seemed to be no living thing in the quiet
valley.  Sleepily lay the narrow river in its winding
channel, marked by twin rows of pollard willows,
now green with their first leaves; sleepily lay the
thin blue smoke above the far white cottages and
the grey churches; sleepily lay the warm sunlight
over the ruddy ploughed fields, the green meadows,
the dark fir-wood along the top of the hill; and
sleepily it struck on the great, gleaming chalk-pit
on the side of the incline; while a faint blue haze
hung around the dim horizon, half hiding the white
specks of houses on the distant uplands.  It was a
beautiful picture in the tender light of the young
spring; but there was no Dove Anerley there.

He looked at his watch.

"Half-past ten," he thought, "and as our church
is under repair, she is sure to walk to Woodhill
church.  But if I go down into the valley, I shall
be sure to miss her."

As he spoke, there was visible a tiny speck of grey
and brown crossing a broad meadow near the river;
and almost at the same moment the subdued and
distant music of the church bells floated up on the
air.  Will Anerley leaped from the coal-heap to the
ground; and then straight down the hill he went,
making free use of the fields on his way.

He suddenly found that the still valley was full of
life, and sound, and gladness; that the morning
was a miracle of mornings; that the breath of the
sweet spring air seemed laden with the secret odours
of innumerable flowers.  And, indeed, as he walked
on, there was plenty to delight him, even had Dove
Anerley not been there.  For the lamblike March
had bequeathed to his fickle sister a legacy of golden
weather, and she now carried it in her open hand,
sharing it with all of us.  The orchards were
white with bloom, here and there a rose-red
apple-tree among the snowy bunches of the pears; the
meadows were thick with daisies and cowslips, the
grey sheep throwing sharp black shadows on the
glowing green; the tall elms, sprinkled over with
young leaves, rose from rough and ragged earth
banks that were covered with withered brier, and
glistening celandine, dull coltsfoot, and ruddy
dead-nettle; the stately chesnuts had burst their resinous
buds and were already showing brown spikes of
closed flowers; along the hedges, where the
blackbird was nursing her young, and the thrush sitting
on her second nestful of blue eggs, the blossoms of
the blackthorn sparkled here and there like white
stars among the rich, thick green of the elm; and
through all these colours and lights and shadows
ran, and hummed, and sung the coarse cawing of
rooks, the murmur of bees, the splashing of the river
down at the mill, and the silvery music of a lark
which hung as if suspended by a thread from the
cold, clear blue above.

St. Mary-Kirby was just visible and no more.
You could see the quaint old mill down by the
riverside, and near it an ancient farm-house, with black
cattle and horses in the yard, and white pigeons
flying about the rusty-red tiles of the farm
buildings.  Further up, the old grey church, built of
"Kentish rag," shone brightly in the sunshine; and
then, among the trees, you caught a glimpse of the
cottages, of Mr. Anerley's house, fronting the
village-green, and of the old inn with its swaying sign.
There is not in Kent a more thoroughly English
village than St. Mary-Kirby; and one, at least, of
its inhabitants used to pray fervently every Sunday
morning that no railway should ever come near its
precincts.

When Will Anerley reached the bottom of the
valley, he found a number of St. Mary-Kirby people
walking in isolated groups, towards Woodhill church;
but one only of these people had chosen a somewhat
circuitous route through the meadows lying on the
south side of the river.  Why she had chosen this
route was probably known only to herself; but, at
any rate, Will paused by the side of a stile to which
the path through the meadows led.  He had recognised
from a considerable distance the slate-grey silk
dress and brown velvet jacket which she wore; and
now, as he watched her coming along, he saw that
she, too, had recognised him, and that there was a
pleased look in her eyes.

"Why did you come this way?" he asked, as she
drew near.

"Because I thought I should meet you," she
replied, with a frank smile.

He helped her up and down the rude wooden steps,
and as she alit upon the other side she suffered him
to touch her cheek with his lips.

"Good morning, Dove."

"Good morning, Will.  I made up my mind to
scold you dreadfully; and all the way over from
St. Mary I have been thinking what I should say to
you; and now I haven't it in my heart to say a single
word."

"Heaght" for "heart," she said, and "woghd"
for "word;" and there was a quaint softness in this
purring, half-foreign pronunciation which made her
utterances all the more tender, and seemed to
harmonize with the childlike prettiness of the large
violet eyes set in the delicate face, which was
surrounded by crisp and wavy light-brown hair.

"That's a good girl," he said; and then she put
her hand on his arm, and they walked away between
the green hedges, towards Woodhill Church.

It was at a concert in St. James's Hall that I
first saw Dove Anerley; and while the people sang
"Athalie," I sate and wondered what was the story
written on that beautiful, almost sad face.  It was
one of those rare faces which tantalize you in the
very act of admiring them.  There was nothing in it
of that mature, vigorous, definite beauty of form and
complexion which a man may calmly observe and
criticise in the face of a woman; but a tender
uncertainty, a half-suggested and shrinking loveliness,
which made one vaguely conscious that this frail
and beautiful smile of nature might suddenly vanish
from the fine features.  It was not that the girl
seemed unwell, or even in any degree fragile; but
simply that one, in looking at her face, could not
help regretting that her loveliness was not less
delicate and more pronounced, that there was not more
life and less sensitiveness in her large violet eyes.
How beautiful she looked that evening!  The
passionate music seemed to have called up a flush upon
her bright complexion, and lent some strange
wistfulness to her big eyes; and then, when she turned
to her companions and smiled, her pretty mouth and
nut-white teeth might have driven a painter mad.
Indeed, I know of at least one artist then present
who forgot all about Mendelssohn in trying so to fix
her expression on his memory that he might
afterwards reproduce it on canvas—her expression, her
face, and the loose golden-brown hair bound down by
a band of dark-blue velvet.  It was two years
afterwards that accident threw me in the way of the
Anerleys.  I had never forgotten the meaning
apparently written on that sensitive face; but Dove's
story, as I then heard it, differed entirely from what
I had imagined.

"Why have you come alone this morning?" said
Will Anerley to his companion, as they walked.

"You know papa never goes to church," said the
young girl.  "And mamma has never gone to hear
Mr. Oldham since he spoke to her about the Athanasian
creed.  I suppose you did not hear about that
since you came home?"

"No," said Will; though he had an idea why his
mother—whom Dove had also been taught to call
"mamma"—feared the Athanasian creed.

"You know," continued the girl, very seriously,
"how anxious mamma is because papa won't go to
church, and because of his studies and the strange
things he says at times; and sometimes she gets very
sad about it.  It is the only thing she is ever sad
about; and when I tell her that there can't be much
wrong in what so good a man believes, she only gets
the sadder, and sometimes cries a little bit.  Well,
this Sunday morning she and I were talking about it
all the way to church, and she was very much
disturbed.  I don't think she had ever paid any attention
to the Athanasian creed before; but on that morning,
Mr. Oldham read it, and I saw her look strangely at
him and at the book.  Then all at once her face got
quite white, she shut the book, and without a word
to me walked out of the church and went straight home."

"And I suppose my father laughed a little, and
tried to make her believe that he had already
constructed some theoretical fire-escape from the dangers
with which he was threatened?"

"Mr. Oldham came over next day to call upon
mamma, and he was talking very seriously to her,
and making her very miserable—indeed, she was
crying nearly all the time—when papa came into
the room."

"Oh—was it by the door that Mr. Oldham left?"

"What do you mean?  Papa stood there, with
that curious smile he has on his face when he puzzles
and perplexes people, you know; and in a few minutes
Mr. Oldham was in a terrible rage.  I remember
distinctly one thing papa said.  'Mr. Oldham,' he said,
with a sort of twinkle in his eye, 'I am not surprised
that you have the Athanasian creed in your service;
for clergymen, like other men, must be allowed the
use of bad language occasionally.  But you should
indulge yourself privately, and not frighten women
when they go to pray in your church.'"

"How very wicked of him!  But then, Dove,
Mr. Oldham belongs to the next parish; and he had no
business to go poaching on Mr. Bexley's manor."

"And so very anxious she is about you also, Will.
She is sometimes very sad about papa; but she can't
help seeing what a good man he is.  She says to me
that you are young, and that if you grow up to
believe what he believes, you may not be quite the
same—you know, dear, that is only a feeling she has."

"Who wouldn't be orthodox to please such a
mother?" said Will.

"And I, too," said the girl, with a touch of colour
in her cheek, and in rather a lower voice, "I should
be grieved to think that—that—that you did not
care about going to church, and that you did not
believe as we do."

"What should have made you think about all
these things?" asked Anerley, with some astonishment.

"Well, when you wrote to us from Jassy, saying
you were coming home, mamma came to papa and
begged him to lock up all those dangerous books
he is so fond of.  'My dear,' he said to her, 'Will
knows more about such matters than I know; for he
has breathed the new atmosphere of these new times,
whereas I have nothing to help me but reading.'  Is
it true, Will?"

"Is what true?  I tell you, darling, I will be
whatever you wish me to be; so don't distress your
mind about it."

It was their arrival at the church-door which
stopped this conversation.  They entered, and seated
themselves in a tall, damp pew, while a small organ
was sending its smooth and solemn notes through
the hushed little building.

They were not "engaged," these two; but
themselves and everybody connected with them looked
forward to their marriage as a matter of course.
Dove Anerley was the daughter of a distant relative
of Mrs. Anerley's, who had gladly escaped from a
variety of misfortunes by the easy gateway of death;
and Mr. Anerley had adopted the child, brought her
up, and grown passionately fond of her.  He was a
man of very peculiar notions, which had earned for
him among the vulgar the charitable title of atheist
and materialist; and so this dangerous and wicked
person sat down one day before his son, when the
young man had come home from college, and said to him:

"Attend to what I am going to say, Will.  You
have a good prospect before you: you have a sound
constitution, a tolerable education, and plenty of
natural ability.  I am not going to spoil your chances
in life by letting you fancy that you will have any
money at my death—do you understand?  I will
start you in any profession you choose; thereafter
you must fight your own battle, as befits a man;
and whatever I leave will go to your mother and to
Dove.  If you were a fool, I should make some
provision for you; as it is, I won't."

"Why, you don't suppose, father, I would rob
either Dove or my mother of anything you could
give them?"

That was all that passed between the two men on
the subject; and in time it came to be regarded as a
matter of course that Dove Anerley was to inherit
whatever wealth her foster-father should leave behind
him, irrespective of the provision for his widow.
Had Will Anerley stayed at home, and been accustomed
to regard Dove as his sister, he would never
have thought of marrying her.  But even in his
boyhood he had been of a singularly active and
inquiring character; always anxious to study new
subjects, new scenes, new faces; never satisfied with
any achievement as an ultimate result; and so, his
apprenticeship completed, instead of hiring himself
out as an assistant to the engineer of some railway
or other company, and spending a dull life in a dingy
office, he threw himself boldly upon the world, and
went up and down, acquiring such knowledge as no
man can gain by the study of books.  Nor was it
only in professional directions that his inquiries
extended!  He had caught what is called "the spirit"
of these times; was full of vague idealisms, particularly
of a philanthropic kind; and was moved by a
restless desire to trace back to first principles the
commonest conditions of modern existence.  That is
a phase through which most young men who read
books pass.  Now and again only do we find a man
of sufficient strength of character to preserve those
gentle tendencies against the rough wear and tear of
travel and its consequent experience.  Great,
therefore, was his delight to have a profession which
allowed him to move freely about; and wherever he
went the tender remembrance of Dove Anerley went
with him.

As for her, she had never taken any pains to
conceal from anybody her fondness for him—a fondness
which had grown to be a part of her life.  He was
mixed up in all the finest aspirations, he was the
creator of all the noblest idealisms, of her too
delicately sensitive organization.  In that supreme
religious exaltation which is produced by fine music,
by earnest prayer, or by a beautiful sunset, his was
the human face towards which, unconsciously to
herself, she looked for the divine sympathy and
compassion which in such moments man begs from the
Deity.  Even now, as they stood in the old oaken
pew, and as she sang sweetly and clearly that
tenderest of hymns—

   |   "Abide with me.  Fast falls the eventide;
   |   The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide!
   |   When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
   |   Help of the helpless, O abide with me!"

—was she guilty of any great crime in involuntarily
making him the object of that impassioned cry?
Her love was her religion, her religion her love; she
knew not how to distinguish between them, and like
the old Romans had but one word to describe this
holiest feeling of her nature.

"Now, Will," she said, cheerfully, as the people
streamed out of the close little building into the
sweet-smelling air, "let us have a nice long walk
through Woodhill Wood on our way home; it is
covered with flowers just now; and then you will
tell me why you did not come down last night.
Everybody expected you, and dinner was as dull as
it could be without you.  The Hepburns were over,
you know, and Mr. Drysdale, and they came half an
hour too soon and sate in the drawing-room, and
talked of nothing but the number of breeding
partridges, and the condition of the trout, and how they
hoped the orchards wouldn't suffer by this early hot
weather.  Only big John Hepburn—who does nothing
in the world but shoot and go to hounds, you
know—made papa laugh very much by stretching his
long legs, yawning, and saying disconsolately, 'Ah,
yes, Mr. Anerley, we're getting into the dreary
summer months.'  He couldn't understand why papa
laughed, and said he had made no joke he was
aware of."

By this time they had walked through the tall
green grass of the churchyard, had clambered up the
hill a bit, and left the warm sunshine for the cool
shade of the wood.  Only here and there did the
sunlight glimmer down through the dense forest of
young oak and birch; but there was no need of
sunlight to make that tangled carpeting of moss and
grass and wild-flowers any the brighter.  All around
them, and as far as they could see down the glades
between the trees, the earth was thick with anemones
and great clusters of primroses, here and there a few
wild hyacinths among patches of tenderly veined
wood-sorrel, and everywhere the blush-coloured
cuckoo-flower with its coronet of pale pink buds.
Hushed and still the place was, except when a jay
went screaming from one tall tree to another, or
some cawing rook flew past through the width of
fleecy blue and white overhead.

"I stayed in town, then, Dove, to go to a little
supper, and there I met Miss Brunel."

"The actress whom everybody is talking about?"

"Yes."

"You met her privately?"

"Yes; why should that astonish you?"

"Do tell me what she is like—what she said to
you—did she speak to you?"

"She is a very handsome girl, with splendid hair
and eyes, and the most charming manner.  What
amused me chiefly was the half-maternal way in
which she talked to me—who might have been her
father,—and the airs of profound experience which
she quite unconsciously gave herself.  Then all the
time she was ready to be amused by the tiniest things;
indeed, it was quite a pleasure to sit near her and
watch the comfortable, self-satisfied, almost childish
way in which she delighted herself with everything."

Will spoke quite warmly; his companion was
silent for some time afterwards.

"Why are you so quiet this morning, Dove?" he
asked.

"Am I more than usually quiet?" she said.

"Indeed," he continued, without taking further
notice of the matter, "I *was* vexed with myself for
not coming down last evening.  The fact is, I may
not have many Saturday afternoons down at the old
place before I leave again.  I am thinking of going
to Honduras——"

"To Honduras!" she repeated, rather faintly;
"why should you go to Honduras?"

"They want to sink some Artesian wells about——"

"Is there no one in Honduras can sink Artesian
wells?" she asked, with a scarcely-concealed pout of
vexation.  "Your father says you have thrown away
plenty of your life in going abroad, and that now
you should settle here and get up a good connexion
in your own country."

"Although Miss Brunel made me feel old by her
efforts to play the mother to me, Dove, I am young
enough to feel a touch of wandering blood stir in me
yet."

"Send Miss Brunel to make the Artesian wells!"
said Dove, with a quick flush on her face, and then
she broke out laughing, partly because she was
amused at herself, and partly because she was out of
humour with him.

Indeed nothing delighted him so much as to see a
little harmless break in the even gentleness of the
young girl's manner.  It was like the rustling of a
piece of tissue paper, or the crumpling of a rose-leaf;
the little petulances of which she was sometimes
guilty were but a source of amusement to both of them.





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.. _`CHESNUT BANK`:

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   CHAPTER VI.


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   CHESNUT BANK.

.. vspace:: 2

At last they reached the brow of the hill, and beneath
them lay St. Mary-Kirby, the sunlight falling lightly
on the grey church, the white wooden cottages, the
broad green common, and on two tall-necked swans
floating on the glasslike mill-head.

Mr. Anerley's house—known in the neighbourhood
as Chesnut Bank—was separated from the common
by a large circular pond which was fed by a spring,
and that again was divided from the house by a tall
hedge, a row of short limes with black stems and
young green leaves, and a pretty large lawn.  Behind
the house was a long garden now almost smothered
in blossom, and along the carriage-drive stood rows
of lilacs and acacias, with here and there an
almond-tree, which bore a sprinkling of deep pink flowers.
It was an old-fashioned house of red brick, the
original builder's intention having clearly been to
sacrifice to inside comfort outside appearance.  When
Mr. Anerley, therefore, had one side of it partly
rebuilt, he had no scruple in adorning the drawing-room
with French windows, which opened out upon the
lawn, while the dining-room at the other side of the
building had two large bay windows of the usual
height from the ground.  The house, nevertheless,
was very snug and comfortable; and if you looked
across the common and the pond, and saw it nestled
among the thick foliage of lime and lilac and birch,
you would say it was a very charming little country
residence.

When Dove and her companion got down to this
sheltered little place, they found it as usual alive
with children.  The gathering together from all his
friends and relations of whatever small boys and
girls they could spare, was a hobby of Mr. Anerley's.
He liked to keep a perpetual children's party going
at Chesnut Bank; and there was not a governess in
one of his friends' houses who did not owe to him
many a grateful holiday.  Then this monstrous ogre
of a materialist, who already smelt of brimstone in
the nostrils of the people around, was as careful about
the proprieties and go-to-bed prayers of the little
ones as he was convinced that amusement ought to
be their chief education.  Indeed he once caught the
Buttons of the small establishment amusing himself
and a companion by teaching a little boy to repeat
some highly improper phrases, and before the
youthful joker knew where he was he felt the lithe curl
of a horsewhip round his legs—a sensation he
remembered for many a day after while gaily polishing
his spoons and washing out his decanters.

At this moment a little girl was seated at the
piano laboriously playing a hymn-tune possessed of
no very recondite chords; while on the lawn in front
Mr. Anerley lay at full length, a book between his
face and the sunshine.  Mrs. Anerley sat on a low
chair beside him, also reading, a large deerhound at
her feet; while two or three more children were
scampering over the lawn, occasionally "coming a
cropper" over a croquet-hoop.  She was a pretty
little woman, with dark brown hair and eyes—nervous,
sensitive, and full of the tenderest idealisms—altogether
a noble, affectionate, and lovable little
woman.  Her husband was a rather tall and spare
man, with short rough grey hair and whiskers, an
aquiline nose, and gentle grey eyes.  He was a keen
sportsman and a languid student: a man who liked
to cover his weaknesses of sentiment with a veil of
kindly humour; and seemed to live very easily and
comfortably, considering that he was accused of
harbouring materialism—that terrible quicklime,
which, according to some profound calculators, is
about to shrivel up the heavens and the earth, and all
the gentle humanities which have been growing up
through so many thousand years.

"Hillo, Will," said Mr. Anerley, as the young man
approached and kissed his mother, "why didn't you
come down last night?"

"Old Hubbard got me to stay in town with him
that we might go to a supper."

"He told me he would likely see you; and asked
us all to walk over to the Place in the evening.
Poor man, he has never been himself since the Lord
Chamberlain refused to let him attend a levee as the
Count von Schönstein.  Will, when anybody offers
you 30,000*l.* a year, don't take it."

"I won't, father."

"Hubbard used to be as jolly, happy, and stupid
a man as you could wish to meet; and since he got
that money left him, he has been the most miserable
of mortals.  I asked him yesterday why he did not
go amongst the city people, become a councillor, or
alderman, or mayor, or get a baronetcy by buying a
railway, or do something of the kind; and he crushed
me with his contemptuous silence.  He must have
spent a lot of money in buying his countship; and
yet he can't get one of the old families to look at
him.  If some indigent lady does not marry him, or
if the Prince of Wales does not pick him up as a butt,
he will die of spleen."

"And he is a good sort of fellow, too," said Will.
"It is a shame to invent stories about his frantic
efforts to get among the aristocracy, as they're doing
in town just now.  I think it's one's duty to cheer
him up a bit.  Fancy him living all by himself in
that great house—a man who can no more read
than he can shoot, or fish, or ride.  By the way, he
tumbled off his horse in the Park on Friday morning,
and nearly knocked over a little girl of Lady
Charlton's, who was out for the first time.  And I had
half promised to introduce him to Lady Charlton; I
suppose he'll decline now, after making an exhibition
of himself."

"He won't, you'll see.  My poor Hubbard would
kiss the ground on which Lady Charlton treads,
although I suppose he hasn't seen her yet."

"I think you are two spiteful wretches," said
Dove, "lying there, on such a beautiful day, and
laughing at one of your own friends.  I think the
Count a very nice gentleman, and——"

"And he brought you down a coronet of blue
pearls the other day," said Mrs. Anerley, with a
smile.

"Why, I've never seen that wonderful head-gear
you were talking about, Dove," said Will.  "Do go
and put it on now."

Dove was nowise loth; she knew as well as
anybody how pretty she looked in her new article of
attire.  In a few minutes she returned, and stood at
the open glass door, the creepers on the front of the
house framing her in as if she were a picture.  This
head-dress—which I cannot describe scientifically—the
Count had purchased abroad; and, had he gone
over Europe, he could not have found anything to
suit Dove's face and hair so well.  There was first a
simple tiara of blue pearls fixed on a gleaming blue
band; then there were one or two loose strings of
the pearls taken back to bind down a soft thick
swathe of white muslin which came down under the
chin and encompassed the pretty head.  The blue
strings among the light brown hair, the thick, soft,
snowy circle round the slightly flushed face, the
pleased, self-conscious eyes, and the half-smiling
mouth—altogether they formed such a bright, soft,
charming little picture that Mr. Anerley cried out:

"Come here at once, Dove, and kiss me, or I shall
believe you're a fairy!"

And when he had his arm round her neck, he said:

"I expected every moment to see you fly right
away up into the air, and then we should have seen
no more of you than if you were a little white pigeon
quite lost up in the blue."

"But I should come down again, papa, when I
wanted something to eat."

"Or your glass of port wine after dinner, eh?"

They had dinner early at Chesnut Bank on Sundays,
to let the servants get to afternoon church.
And on Sundays, also, all the children dined
downstairs; so that they had quite a fine party to-day,
when they assembled round the table.  Dove had
seen that all the little boys' and girls' costume was
correct; had got fresh flowers for the table; and
wore herself a pretty white dress with blue ribbons—adding
considerably to the brightness and liveliness
of the family gathering.

"Had you a good sermon to-day, Dove?" asked
Mr. Anerley.

"Yes, papa; but I don't like Mr. Oldham."

She had never forgiven the good man for his too
great anxiety about the Athanasian Creed.

"By the way, mamma," continued Mr. Anerley,
"don't let me forget to tell you what I was reading
in the papers this morning—although it will shock
you, I know.  They are going to secularize the
Church."

Mrs. Anerley looked up—vaguely conscious that
something dreadful was going to happen.

"The Ecclesiastical Commissioners are to be
abolished; the churches are to be turned into
schoolrooms; and the clergymen may, if they like, remain
and be schoolmasters.  If they don't, they must walk out."

"Quite true, mother," continued Will, taking up
the wondrous tale; "and the Government means to
cut up the entire ecclesiastical property, the
glebe-lands, and what not, into small farms for the use of
the poor people all over the three Kingdoms."

"The Prime Minister himself says it is useless
trying to save the soul of a man until you give him
a soul; and says that no man has a soul who is not
properly fed and educated."

"He says no man can have a soul," repeated
Will, "who has less than twenty shillings a week;
and until that minimum is reached, the clergymen
must turn farm-bailiffs or teachers.  After then, the
people may think about getting up churches once
more.  All the bishops are to be provided with a
home in the Dramatic College at Maybury; the
archbishops, in consideration of their inexperience of
the world——"

"They're only laughing at you, mamma," said Dove.

"And a pretty example to set the children," said
Mrs. Anerley.  "Whoever laughs at mamma is sent
upstairs to bed at once."

"Dove," said Will, suddenly, "do you know where
you are going to-morrow?"

"No."

"Up to town.  We're all going, except those
young people who must remain in expectation of
what we shall bring them when we return.  You
shall see, Dove—what shall you not see?  I have
always promised to give you a good dose of town;
and now you shall have it.  You shall sit up in a
wire cage in the House of Commons, and look over
the heads of the reporters on the drowsy gentlemen
beneath.  You shall see Mr. Gladstone, lying back,
with his head in the air; you shall see Mr. Disraeli,
apparently going to cry; and Lord Stanley, with his
hat on the back of his head, and his hands in his
pockets, looking as if he had just lost a bet."

"I shouldn't care a bit about one of them," said Dove.

"Then you shall go to another wire cage at
Evans's; and you shall see a row of pale little boys
in black, with their hands behind them, singing to
rows of decorous gentlemen; or you may light upon
the audience in its idiotic stage, and find them
applauding Philistinic politics over their raw chops.
Then—and listen, mamma!—the programme begins
with a box, to-morrow evening, at the —— theatre,
where Miss Annie Brunel is playing her 'Juliet.'"

"The new actress, Will?" asked his father.

"Yes."

"Ah! *now* you promise us something worth
seeing," said Dove, with glad eyes.  "And oh, mamma,
Will knows Miss Brunel, and has spoken to her, and
says that she is——"

"Lovely," she was about to say; but she added
"pretty," moderating her enthusiasm.

"Yes, I think she is rather pghetty," said Will;
at which all the children laughed.  "But you'll
judge for yourself to-morrow night."

After dinner, and when the children had received
a tiny sip of port wine along with their fruit,
Mr. Anerley proposed to Will that they should smoke
outside; and so a small table, some decanters and
glasses, and a few chairs were carried out, and placed
under a great cedar tree, which was now beginning
to get a soft green velvet over its dark shelves of
branches.

"Dove," whispered Mr. Anerley, "go and ask
mamma if I mayn't have my song to-day?"

"But, papa, it's Sunday."

"Tell mamma to take all the children into the
meadow, with some bread for the pony.  They won't
hear it, then."

This was accordingly done; and then Dove,
opening the French window of the drawing-room, so that
the music might pass out to the gentlemen
underneath the cedar, sang, very prettily indeed,
Mr. Anerley's particular song—"Where the bee sucks."  Her
voice was not a powerful one, but it was very
tender and expressive; and there was a quaint
softness in that purring habit of hers which made her
sing, "Meghily, meghily shall I sleep now."

And when she went outside to Mr. Anerley, and
knelt down beside him, to ask him if he was satisfied,
he put his arm round her waist and said, with a
smile,

"Meghily, meghily shall I sleep now, my darling.
I should have been miserable all the afternoon if I
had not heard my own song.  I believe I wrote it,
Dove."

"You mustn't sleep now, papa," she said, blushing
a little over her bad pronunciation, "for you said we
were going to walk over to the Place this afternoon."

"So I did; and we will start presently."





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.. _`BALNACLUITH PLACE`:

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   CHAPTER VII.


.. class:: center medium

   BALNACLUITH PLACE.

.. vspace:: 2

"It often surprises me," said Mr. Anerley, as the
little party made its way across the common of
St. Mary-Kirby in the warm evening glow, "that
Hubbard cares to keep up acquaintance with us.
We always dislike people who have known us in
ill-fortune, or penury, or great depression.  I even hate
the flavour of cigars that I have smoked when
recovering from sickness; I must have others when I
get quite well again.  Now, Hubbard, with his
deer-park, and harriers, and thirty thousand a year, ought
to be disgusted with people who knew him as a tea-broker."

"Don't be so ill-natured about Mr. Hubbard,
dear," said his wife, with a smile.  "I'm sure he is
a big, soft, stupid, well-meaning sort of man."

Mr. Anerley was not quite so certain about the
softness and good intentions of the Count; but he
charitably forbore to speak.  Dove and Will, who
had stood for a few seconds on the bridge, to watch
the two swans come sailing towards them in expectation
of crumbs—cleaving the burnished gold of the
mill-head into long purple lines—now came up; and
they walked away from the still little village, along
the green lanes, until they drew near the Place.

It was a great, sombre, fine old building, which
had figured in history under another name—a large
building of gloomy red brick, with innumerable
mullioned windows, and peaks, and stone griffins—a
building that had here and there grown grey and
orange with the lichens and rain and wind of many
years.  It stood upon a high terrace on the side of
a hill sloping down to the river, which ran along
the valley to St. Mary-Kirby; and at this point the
stream—a line of flashing gold winding through the
soft green—divided the terrace and lawn of the
house from the great park opposite, with its
magnificent elms and its small close-lying herd of
deer.  Round about the Place, too, were some fine
trees, on a particular cluster of which a colony of
rooks had established themselves at some bygone
time.  Altogether a noble and handsome old building
was this Balnacluith Place, for which the Graf
von Schönstein had—not without a purpose—expended
a large sum of money, on his accession to
fortune.  Alas! the influence of the Place had fled
the moment he bought it.  The brilliant gentlemen
and lovely ladies whom the Count had pictured to
himself dining in the great hall, or walking in the
broad park, never appeared.  The grand old house
had lost its mesmeric power; and no longer drew
down from London those brilliant parties of wits,
and beaux, and belles who once—as the Count had
informed himself—held their merry revels there.
He had sparkling wines at his command; lights he
could have in abundance; when he chose, the
dining-hall was brilliant with plate, and flowers,
and fruit—but the ladies and gentlemen whom he
had mentally invited stayed away.  And he was
not the man to go out into the highways and
byways, and gather in beggars to his feast.  He had
aimed at a particular kind of guests: they had not
come; but there was yet hope of their coming.

When the Anerleys drew near they perceived
the figure of a man walking solitarily up and down
the stone terrace in front of the house.  His only
companions were the couchant lions at each end of
the terrace, which had kept guard there, over the
few steps, for nearly a couple of centuries.

"It is Hubbard himself," said Mr. Anerley.

"He looks like the ghost of some dead owner of
the house, come back to take his accustomed stroll,"
said Will.

"At all events, he is smoking," said Dove.

When the Count perceived his visitors, he threw
away his cigar, and came down to meet them, saluting
them with florid and formal courtesy.

"No need to ask how *you* are, Miss Anerley—charming
as ever.  Persuaded our friend Will to
give up his wandering life, eh?"

This was the Count's great joke: it had never
been known to fail—at least in rendering Dove very
uncomfortable.

"What a fine evening!  Look how beautiful the
trees are down there!" he continued, allowing his
eye to roam over the prospect before him in
innocent pride—looking, indeed, as if he thought that
God had prepared the sunset simply to light up
Count Schönstein's park.

"It is a fine park; and a beautiful evening, too,"
said Mr. Anerley.  "It is a pity that most beautiful
things make one sad."

"That is because we don't possess them," said
the Count, laughing; he was of a practical turn
of mind.

The Count turned to the ladies, and—as was his
universal custom when he wished to be polite—he
insisted on their going inside and having a glass
of wine.

"Look here, Anerley," he said, when both of
them declined, "you must come and try some port I
got down last night—bought it at the sale of Major
Benson's cellar on Thursday—10*l.* a dozen, and
cheap at the money."

"If it was sent home last night, I'd rather not,"
said Mr. Anerley, with a smile.

"I didn't mean that particular wine," replied the
Count, unblushingly.  "Or will you all stay and
dine with me?  Do; I dine at eight."

This was what is bluntly called a lie; the
Count—except when circumstances compelled him—never
forsook his old dinner-hour of five.  He had, in
fact, only begun his second cigar after dinner when
the Anerley's arrived.  But the Count probably
fancied that a mere courtesy-lie wasn't much, and
trusted to his visitors declining the invitation,
which they did.

"I would rather go down and see the deer," said
Dove.  "Didn't you say you had some roe-deer
amongst them?"

"Those I had brought from Schönstein?" said
the Count, rather pompously.  "They all died, as
Hermann said they would.  But it was an
experiment, you know.  I must get Hermann, if we're
going into the park; the deer won't come to me."

He went into the house for a few moments, and
reappeared, followed by the keeper, a splendid-looking
fellow, with a brown, handsome face, great
shoulders, and long legs encased in rough top-boots.
This Hermann had been the head-keeper, chief
forester, and what not, of Schönstein, when
Mr. Hubbard bought the place; and on the principle of
the Portuguese navigators, who brought home men
and women from the Guinea Coast to prove that
they had been there, the Count carried the big
Schwarzwalder over to England with him, as a
specimen of what he had purchased abroad.
Unlike most of his Schwarzwald brethren, Hermann
knew not a word of English; Hubbard knew not a
word of German; and for many a month after his
expatriation the efforts of master and man to
understand each other formed a constant comedy at
the Place.  In one or two cases Mr. Anerley was
besought to act as interpreter; and even now
nothing delighted the stalwart, good-natured
Blackforester so much as a long talk in his native
language with any of his master's guests who were
complaisant enough to humour him.

"Hermann," said the Count, loudly, to let his
visitors know that *now* he could support his rank
by talking in the language of the country which
gave it him, "das Fräulein wunscht die—die Rehe
zu sehen——"

"The Rehe are all died, Herr Graf," said the
sturdy keeper, who would not have his native tongue
burlesqued.

"Ich meine die—die—the deer that are there,"
said the Count, sharply and hotly, "und sie
müssen, wissen Sie, etwas—etwas—eh—ah—etwas
Speise——"

"Futter, nicht wahr?" suggested Will, looking
gravely at Dove.

"Yes, yes, of course; the fellow knows well
enough.  I mean to get the deer to come up to him."

"They will come without nothing, Herr Graf,"
said the tall forester.

They crossed the small iron bridge leading from
the lawn over the river into the park.  The deer
were for the most part lying down, underneath the
shadow of three large oaks, one or two only still
standing and nibbling the grass.  When our party
drew near, however, the whole herd rose and
retreated a little, while one of the bucks came proudly
to the front and stood with his small head and tall
horns erect, watching the approach of the strangers.

"Will you come with me, Fräulein?" said
Hermann; and Dove went forward with him, leaving
the others behind.

No sooner had the keeper thus made himself
distinctly visible, than two or three of the does came
timidly forward, alternating a little quiet canter
with a distrustful pause, and at last one of them
came quite up to the keeper, and looked rather
wistfully at his hand with her large soft brown eyes.

"This is her I call *Lämmchen*," said Hermann,
stroking the small neck of the hind, "she is so tame.
And there is *Leopard* over there, with the spots on
him.  I speak to them in German; they know it all
the same."

One of the bucks now seemed also desirous to
approach; looking about him in a sheepish way,
however, as if it were beneath his dignity for him
to follow the example of the women of his tribe.

"Komm her, du furchtsamer Kerl!" said Hermann,
going forward, and taking hold of him by one
of his broad, palmated horns; "he is a fine deer, is
he not?  Look at his horns and his bright colours.
He is better than for to be in a park, like the cows.
He should be in the woods."

He took a piece of brown bread from his pocket
and gave it to Dove, who held it to the small mouth
of the buck, where it was speedily nibbled up.  Then
she stroked his neck, and looked at his big,
apprehensive eyes; and then they went back to the group
whom they had left.

"Miss Anerley," said the Count, "won't you
persuade those people to go inside and have some tea?
I ought to be able to give you good tea, you know."

It was when the Count wished to be very modest
and complaisant indeed that he joked about his old
calling.

They went inside, and sat in a large, sombre,
oaken-panelled room, with the fast fading light
coldly falling through the diamond panes of the
tall and narrow windows.  Then lamps were brought
in, and tea; and they sat talking and chatting for
nearly an hour.

When they went out upon the terrace again to go
home, there was a pale moonlight lying over the
lawn, hitting sharply here and there on the stone
mullions of the windows, and touching greyly and
softly a thin mist which had settled down upon the
park.  It was a beautiful, still night; and as Dove
and Will went home, they allowed Mr. and
Mrs. Anerley to get on so far in front of them, that at
last they were only visible as dark specks on the
white road.

For some time they walked on in silence; and
then Will said, carelessly:

"Will you go up to town with me to-morrow morning,
Dove, and I'll devote the whole day to you; or
will you come up with my father in the afternoon?"

She did not answer him; and then, in a second or
two, when he looked down, he was surprised to find
her eyes full of tears.

"Whatever is the matter, Dove?"

"Oh, Will," she said, turning the beautiful, wet
eyes up to his face—and they were very beautiful in
the soft moonlight—"I have been wanting to speak
to you all day; and I have been so afraid.  I wanted
to ask you not to—not to go to Honduras—won't
you give it up, if I ask you, Will?"

"Why should that trouble you, Dove?  If I do
go, it will only be a short trip; and then it will be
of great advantage to me in this way, that if——"

"But Will, dear, listen to me for a moment," she
said, with a piteous entreaty in her voice.  "I know
why you have always to go away from England,
although you have been too kind-hearted to speak
of it—I know it quite well—it's because I am to
have the money that belongs to you, and you have
to fight your way all by yourself, and leave your
family year after year, and all because of me—and
I won't have the money, Will—I hate it—and it's
making me more miserable every day."

"Darling, don't distress yourself like that," he
said, soothingly, for she was now crying very
bitterly.  "I assure you, you mistake the whole affair.
I won't go to Honduras, if you like—I'll do anything
you ask me.  But really, Dove, I go abroad merely
because, as I believe, one of my ancestors must have
married a gipsy.  I like to wander about, and see
people, and live differently, and get generally woke
up to what's going on in the world.  Bless you, my
darling, if it were money I wanted, I ought to have
remained at home from the beginning.  My father
has only done what any well-thinking man would
have done in his place—and you mustn't fret
yourself about such a trifle——"

"I knew you would never acknowledge I was
robbing you, Will; but I am.  And all the time
you were in Russia, and in Canada, whenever there
was a heavy storm blowing, I used to lie awake at
night and cry; because I knew it was I who had
sent you away out there, and I thought you might
be in a ship and in danger—all through me.  And
this morning, when you—when you said you were
going to Honduras, I made up my mind then to go
to papa to-morrow morning, and I'll tell him I won't
have the money—I'll go away from you altogether
rather, and be a governess——"

"Now, now, Dove, don't vex me and yourself
about nothing," he said to her kindly.  "I won't go
to Honduras."

"You won't?"

"I won't."

She raised her head a little bit—in an entreating
way—and the compact was sealed.

"I'll tell you what I shall do," he said, taking the
hand that lay on his arm into his own.  "I will
stay at home, get myself into some regular work,
take a small house somewhere near here, and then
you'll come and be my wife, won't you, Dove?"

There was a slight pressure on his hand: that
was her only answer.  They walked on for some
little time in silence; and then, catching a glimpse
of her face, he stopped to dry the tears from her
cheeks.  While engaged in that interesting occupation,
she said to him, with a little smile:

"It looks as if *I* had asked *you*, Will—doesn't it?"

"I don't think so," he said.

"It wouldn't matter, if I did—would it?" she
asked, simply.  "For you know how fond I am of
you, Will."

They talked of that and a good many other
relevant matters until they had reached St. Mary-Kirby.
They paused for a moment on the bridge—to look at
the dark shadows about the mill and the white sheen
of the moonlight on the water; and then she
whispered timidly:

"When shall we be married, Will?"

"We shall be maghied whenever you like, Dove,"
he said, lightly and cheerfully.





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.. _`JULIET`:

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   CHAPTER VIII.


.. class:: center medium

   JULIET.

.. vspace:: 2

By the time the "playing-in" farce was over, the
house was quite full.  That morning's papers had
written in such a fashion about the new triumph of
Miss Brunel on Saturday night, that long before the
box-office was closed there was not a registered place
in the building which had not been seized upon.
Will foresaw what was likely to happen, and had
asked Mr. Melton to secure him a box.

When the little party drove from the Langham—Will's
rooms in town scarcely offering them the
accommodation they required—Dove was in high
spirits.  It was the first time she had gone anywhere
with the young gentleman opposite her since their
"engagement;" and she already felt that comfortable
sense of extended possession which married people
enjoy.  She took her seat in the brougham, which
Count Schönstein had kindly placed at their disposal,
with a new and fluttering pleasure; she already
imagined herself to have the importance and the claims
to attention of a wife; and she accepted Will's little
courtesies in this light, and made herself very happy
over the altered aspect of their relations.

When her opera-cloak had been hung up, and her
tiny bouquet, opera-glass, and bill placed daintily
before her, the graceful little woman ensconced
herself in the corner, and timidly peeped round the
curtain.  She was dressed in a very faint blue silk,
with sharp broad lines of white about it; and over
and through her rippling brown hair ran the strings
of blue pearls which Count Schönstein had given her.
Not even Mrs. Anerley, who saw her often enough,
could forbear to look with a tender pride upon the
girl; and as for Mr. Anerley, whose tall, upright
figure was hid in the shadow of the box, he would
fain have sat down beside his adopted daughter, with
his arm round her waist, and forgotten all about what
they had come to see.

The orchestra finished its overture, chiefly
composed of the delicate "Sonnambula" music, and the
curtain rose.  Dove was disappointed at not seeing
Miss Brunel; and paid but little attention to the
preliminary scenes.

Suddenly there was an extraordinary commotion
throughout the house, and a burst of that fine, strong,
thunderous music which artists love to hear—and
then Dove saw advance a girlish-looking creature
with a calm, somewhat pale, and interesting face,
and beautiful black hair.  She was only girlish in
the slightness of her figure: there was an artistic
completeness in her motions and a self-possession in
her bearing which gave her something of a queenly
look.  She wore a magnificent white satin dress, the
train of which lay in splendid masses behind her;
and down over this white and gold fell a black lace
veil, partly hiding the rich hair, and enclosing the
clear, beautiful dark face.  Dove was spell-bound by
that face.  It somehow suggested Italy to her, and
blue skies, and music, and the passionate artistic
warmth of the South.  Nor was the illusion destroyed
by the low chest-voice with which the girl replied
to the questions of Lady Capulet.  And from that
moment, Dove thought no more of Miss Brunel and
Will's friend.  She was only Juliet, and Dove
followed her sad story with an aching heart and a
trembling lip.

During the matchless balcony scene, Will saw this
intense sympathetic emotion growing upon the girl.
I believe it is considered to be the proper thing for
young ladies to be able to turn round and smile
compassionately to each other, when the tragic
sadness on the stage is making the women in the pit
sob bitterly, and raising great lumps in the throats
of the men.  It is a pretty accomplishment, in its
way; and may be indicative of other qualities which
these young persons are accused of possessing.
Dove's emotional tendencies had never been
educated, however; and in this balcony-scene, as I say,
she watched the lovers with a painful interest, which
wrote its varying story every moment on her face.
The theatre was still as death.  The scarcely-uttered
tendernesses of Juliet were heard as distinctly as if
they had been breathed into one's ear; and the eyes
of the audience drank in the trembling lights and
shadows of her girlish passion with an unconscious
delight and admiration.  The abandonment of her
affection, the reluctant declarations, the coy shrinkings,
and piteous, playful, tender apologies were so
blended as to make the scene an artistic marvel;
and Dove sat "laughin' maist like to greet," as the
old Scotch song says.  Indeed she scarcely knew
whether to laugh or cry with the delight—the
absolute delight—which this piece of true art gave her;
and when at last Juliet had forced herself to the
parting—

   |   "'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:
   |   And yet no farther than a wanton's bird;
   |   Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
   |   Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
   |   And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
   |   So loving-jealous of his liberty"—

when, lingeringly and sadly, she had withdrawn from
the balcony, Dove rose suddenly, and with a
half-choked sob in her voice, said:

"Oh, Will, I should like so much to see her—and—and——"

"Kiss her," she had nearly said; but thinking it
might be ridiculous, she stopped.

"It's against the rules, Dove," said Will, with a
smile.  "Besides, that isn't Miss Brunel you've been
looking at; that is Juliet.  Both are very nice ladies;
but they are quite unlike each other."

Dove was terribly disappointed.  She would like
to have declared her conviction that Miss Brunel
was Juliet, that she had every bit the same
tenderness, and sweetness, and loveliness; but she was
afraid her enthusiasm might make Mrs. Anerley
laugh at her, and so she bore the rebuff patiently.

Presently, however, some one tapped at the
box-door; and the next moment Will was introducing
the manager, Mr. Melton, to his companions.

"My young friend here," said Will to Melton,
while Dove's pretty face assumed an extra tinge of
colour, "has been so much struck by Miss Brunel,
that she would like to go and thank her personally."

Now Mr. Melton was in a very good humour.
The house was crammed; there was almost no
"paper" in it; and the prospect of a good run
through the popularity of his new acquisition had
warmed up his impassive nature into quite a
pronounced geniality.

"Then you ought to introduce the young lady to
Miss Brunel," said Mr. Melton, blithely.  "If you
like, I'll take you round at the end of the act, when
Miss Brunel will have a little 'wait.'"

"Will you go, Dove?" asked Will.

"Yes," she said, timidly.

Just as the curtain fell upon the scene in Friar
Lawrence's cell, at the end of the second act,
Mr. Melton conducted Dove and Will down a
tortuous little stone stair into a narrow passage, from
which they entered into the wings.  A noisy and
prolonged recall was thundering throughout the
house, and Miss Brunel was being led on to the
stage by Romeo to receive renewed plaudits.  When
she returned and passed under the glare of the jets
in one of the entrances, Will went forward to shake
hands with her.

"I have to congratulate you again," he said.

"Thank you," she said, simply.

There had been a pleased smile of welcome in her
eyes when they met; and yet it seemed to him that
there was a strange, intense expression in her look
which was not natural to it.  Once or twice before
he had seen her in the same circumstances; and
invariably this unconscious, mesmeric intensity was
present in her eyes.  He explained it to himself by
supposing that the emotional idealism of her assumed
character had not quite died out of her yet.

Then she turned and saw Dove standing with
Mr. Melton.  Will begged to introduce his "sister;"
and the brief ceremony was sufficiently singular.
For a moment the dark, lambent eyes of Miss Brunel
were fixed upon the fair young girl with a sort of
hesitating look—an inquiring, apprehensive look,
which Will never forgot; then all at once she
frankly extended her hand.  Dove, a little
frightened, approached and shook hands with her.

"Mr. Anerley has spoken to me about you," said
Annie Brunel; and Dove was conscious that the
dark-haired girl before her knew her secret.

How singular it was to hear herself addressed in
those low, rich tones which a few minutes ago were
addressing Romeo in the moonlight!  Dove almost
felt herself enchanted; and could have believed at
that moment that she herself belonged to the old,
sad, sweet play, which seems to contain everything
that was ever uttered about man's love and woman's
devotion.

"I must go down to my dressing-room now," said
Miss Brunel to Dove.  "Will you come with me, if
you are curious to see the place?  I will send some
one round with you to your box afterwards."

Will saw that Dove would like to go, so he settled
the proposal by telling her not to be in Miss Brunel's
way; and then he and Melton returned to the front
of the house.

Dove was now conducted by her companion down
into the theatrical Hades which lies beneath the
stage.  She saw the figures of the carpenters gliding
like the spirits of the damned through the dusky
twilight; she saw the cumbrous woodwork, the
machinery of the traps, and what not, rendered
faintly visible by the glimmering jets; and then she
was led into the bright little room which was
appropriated to Miss Brunel's use.

"You may go home if you like, now, Sarah," said
the latter to her dresser.  "Mrs. Christmas is in the
theatre, and will be here presently."

"Thank you, miss," said the tidy little woman,
who immediately hurried away home to get supper
ready for her husband, a gasman in the theatre.

It was the best single dressing-room in the place;
but it was not a very grand apartment.  There was,
however, a full-length mirror at one end, which had
been privately presented (with a hint as to its
destination) by Count Schönstein to Mr. Melton;
and the manager had thought that the least *he* could
do was to newly paper the little chamber.  At
present it was in a state of confusion which largely
excited Dove's curiosity.  The implements of stage
effect were displayed before her, on the floor, on the
table, and on the marble slab underneath the smaller
looking-glass; and all around lay or hung divers
articles of costume and ornament, the peculiarly
bright materials and prominent decorations of which
were very new to her.  But it needed only a glance at
Juliet's clear, beautiful face to see that she required
very little "making-up," nor was Dove less
surprised to find that the lace and similar little
delicacies of the young actress's costume were real and
valuable.

"My mother taught me to make all these things
myself," she explained to Dove.  "She was very
particular about them; and used to say that when
one meant to spend one's life in a profession, one
ought to have as much pride in wearing real lace on
the stage as out of doors."

"And do you mean to spend all your life in your
profession?" asked Dove, timidly.

"Yes; why not?" said the girl, with a smile.

"I—I don't know," stammered Dove, blushing
dreadfully.

"Come, be frank with me," said Annie Brunel,
taking the girl's hand in hers.  "Don't you think it
very wicked to be an actress?"

Dove was now forced to explain herself.

"I don't, indeed," she said.  "But I couldn't help
thinking that you are too young and—and too
pretty—to waste all your life in a theatre."

"Oh, nonsense," said Miss Brunel, laughing in a
motherly sort of way.  "I live only in the theatre.
I find my life wasted whenever I go out of it, and
spend my time in amusing myself like a child.  I
have nothing to interest me but the theatre; nothing
to live for out of it; and it is only when I get into
the spirit of my part that I feel myself all throbbing
over with a delicious life.  You cannot understand
that?  Why, my very fingers tingle with
enjoyment; I get quite a new warmth within me; and
many a time I can't help laughing or crying quite
naturally when the scene suggests it.  I'm sure no
one in front has half the delight in a play that I
have.  I scarcely see the wings, and the prompter,
and the scene-shifters; I forget the abominable
smell of gas; and I should like to keep on the
character for ever—if it is one that pleases me.  When
I get a new and unpleasant part, I hate acting.  I
feel as if I were doing exactly what Mrs. Christmas
taught me; and that the people must be laughing
at me; and I become afraid of the critics, and hope
that I shan't forget the cues."

Here the call-boy came running to the door;
Juliet was wanted for the second scene.  She hastily
departed; and Dove was left alone.

"How very friendly she must be with Will, to
receive me so kindly, and talk to me so frankly,"
thought Dove; when it was her own pretty face
that had won upon the young actress's heart.

The scene in Capulet's House is a short one, and
Annie Brunel was speedily back in her room.  She
brought with her Mrs. Christmas; and the bright,
white-haired little woman made a pert courtesy when
she was introduced, and said how sorry she was to
hear that the young lady had been sitting alone.  The
next moment she was running into a series of ludicrous
stories about the mistakes inexperienced people
had made in trying to find their way about the
theatre by themselves; and it must be confessed that
her anecdotes were sometimes so very humorous that
it was as well that only ladies heard them.

"And something of the same kind," she
continued, with her merry little eyes sparkling,
"happened to Mr. ——, the celebrated author, you know,
with Nelly Featherstone, who is in this theatre at
the present moment—or ought to be.  You know it
was a benefit night, Miss—Anerley?—yes, Miss
Anerley; and there was a general hurry-scurry, and
he had been left in the wings.  He asked a super
how he should get to Mr. Crimp (and it was his
benefit, my dear, and he had several friends with
him, all drinking in his room), and the man told
him to go to the first dressing-room on the right
when he went downstairs.  But his right was our
left, as you know, my dear; and there were in the
first dressing-room on the left Nelly Featherstone
and her sister, and another girl, all dressing as hard
as ever they could for the burlesque.  Nelly was
'Perseus,' and before she had got on her tights, she
was in—in a transition state, shall we say, my dear?"

Here the merry little woman laughed until the
tears ran down her withered grey cheeks.  "And
up to the door goes Mr. ——, and opens it without
thinking.  Oh, Lor! what a fright he must have
got!  Nelly screamed at the pitch of her voice, and
fell into a chair, and screamed again; and her sister
Jeanie (*she* had some clothes on) ran at the poor
man, and said something very offensive, and slammed
the door in his face.  Poor fellow, he nearly died of
shame; and Nelly's scream told everybody of his
blunder, and Crimp and all his friends shrieked over
it—but not before him, my dear, for he was much
too celebrated a man to be laughed at.  Only he
sent her next day an explanation and an apology
through the manager, and as beautiful a bouquet as
ever you saw; and he got a friend of his to write a
lovely notice of her in the *Diurnal* itself, when old
Yellowjaw's piece was—Mercy, gracious me!  There's
the call-boy again—run, Miss Annie!"

"Good-bye," said Miss Brunel, hurriedly, shaking
hands with Dove.  "I should like you to come often
and see me."

She bent over her for a moment, kissed her lightly,
and left.

"You know what that means?" said Mrs. Christmas
to Dove.  "That means that she will speak to
no one this night again until her part is finished.
All the theatre knows her way, and humours her.
It's when the genius is working on her—that's what
I say; and I know it, for I've seen it in her mother.
*There* was the sweetest woman you ever heard of—not
very friendly, Miss, you know, in the way of
talking of her own affairs—and it's nothing I could
ever make out about her life before I knew her—but
the sweetest creature! the tenderest creature!  And
she was such a rare good actress, too—but nothing
like her daughter; she knew that, and used to sit
and talk for hours—it was the only thing she would
talk about—over what she expected Miss Annie to
be.  And once she said to me, with tears running
down her face, 'I pray every night that my little
girl may be kept always an actress; and that she
may never look for happiness outside her own
profession.'  But it's a shame to keep you here, Miss, if
you've never seen Miss Annie's 'Juliet;' she said I
was to take you back to your box when you wished
to go."

So once more Dove passed through the gloomy
region and worked her way upward to the light of
the theatre.  Her friends were astonished at her
long absence; but they were too much enthralled by
what was going on upon the stage to speak to her.
And again Dove looked down upon that queenly little
person with whom she had been talking; and could
not explain to herself the strange sensation she then
experienced.  It seemed as if her visit to the dressing-room
had been a trance; and that she had really been
speaking with Juliet.  In the dressing-room she had
seen before her only a fine-looking, intellectual, and
very courteous lady; but now upon the stage, she
could not see this lady at all.  She even lost the
power of remembering her.  Those jet-black tresses,
those fine eyes, and that pale, beautiful forehead—above
all, that rich, majestic voice—all these belonged
to Juliet, were Juliet, and she knew that it was a
Juliet in nature, if not in name, who had spoken to
her, and taken her hand, and kissed her.

This is perhaps the severest test to which an artist
can be put.  When you know the writer of a book,
you cannot help under-estimating the book.  You are
familiar with the author's personality, his habit of
thought, perhaps with the material on which he
works; you think of him more than of his book;
and nothing but the soundest and most concentrated
effort will overcome the influence of this unwittingly
unjust scrutiny.  When you know an actor or an
actress, you involuntarily search for himself or
herself in the assumed character; you look at the
character from within, not from without; you destroy
the illusion by a knowledge of its material elements.
Nothing but the power of genius will force upon
you under these circumstances the idealism which
the artist is labouring to complete.

But Dove was an easy subject for the spiritual
magnetism of art.  Her keenly sympathetic nature
vibrated to the least motion of the magician's hand;
and when the passionate climax of Juliet's misery
was reached, Dove had entirely lost self-control.
For a little time she tried to retain her composure,
although Mrs. Anerley saw her lips suddenly tremble
when Juliet begged the Friar to show her some means
of remaining faithful to her husband—

   |   "And I will do it without fear or doubt,
   |   To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love."
   |

But in the final scene she quite broke down.  She
rose and went to the back of the box, and stood in a
corner, sobbing bitterly.  Mr. Anerley drew her
towards him; and tried to soothe her, in his quiet,
kindly way.

"My darling, why should you vex yourself?  You
will see 'Juliet' alive in a few minutes."

"I know it well enough," she said, trying to
assume her ordinary manner, "but it's very wrong for
any one to write things like that, to make people cry."

"The naughty Shakespeare shan't do it again, that
he shan't," said Will, compassionately.  "And as
for Miss Brunel, who is most in fault—but here she
comes!"

Will picked out of the corner the large bouquet
which lay there; and returned in time to let it
drop—nearly the first of a fine collection of similar
tributes which welcomed the triumph of the young
actress—almost at her feet.  Romeo picked it up,
along with two others; she took this particular one
and sent a single bright look so clearly up to the
box, that a good many heads were turned thither.
When Romeo had picked up the remaining bouquets,
and when she had again and again bowed her
acknowledgments of the cordial applause of the theatre,
the girl with the pale face and the black hair retired,
and the people calmed down.

"Now, Dove," said Will, "if you wish to be cheered
up a bit before going, there is as absurd a farce as
ever was written to follow.  Shall we stay?"

"Just as you please, Will," said Dove, looking down.

The first of her new duties, she thought, was
submission and obedience; and she hoped neither
Mr. nor Mrs. Anerley noticed her little conjugal effort.

It was agreed, however, that they should go home
at once; and Will went off to hunt up Count
Schönstein's brougham.  In a short space of time they
were seated in the Langham hotel, awaiting supper.

"And not the least pleasant part of a play,"
said Mr. Anerley, dogmatically, as he fingered one of
his wine-glasses, "is the supper after.  You come
out of the gas and the heat into a cool, fresh room;
and—and—waiter! bring some ice, please."

"Yes, sir."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE COUNT'S BROTHER`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER IX.


.. class:: center medium

   THE COUNT'S BROTHER.

.. vspace:: 2

On that same evening Herr Graf von Schönstein
dined with his brother, Mr. John Hubbard, at his
residence, Rose Villa, Haverstock Hill.  The Count,
since his grand accession to fortune, was not a
frequent visitor at his brother's house; but when he
did go there he was treated with much deference
and apparent kindness.

There were at dinner only the Count, his brother,
his brother's wife, and her sister.  When the two
ladies rose to go into the drawing-room, Mrs. Hubbard
said to the Count, who had sprung to the door:

"Pray don't leave us two poor creatures all to
ourselves; you may smoke in the drawing-room
whenever you please to come in."

"Jack," said the Count, returning to the table and
pulling out his cigar-case, "that wife of yours is an
angel."

And so she was an angel—that is, a being without
predicates.  She was a mild, colourless, pretty woman,
never out of temper, never enthusiastic, absolutely
ignorant of everything beyond drawing-room
accomplishments, scarcely proud even of her smooth,
light-brown hair, her blue eyes, and rounded cheeks.  She
knew, of course, that there were few women of her
age looked so well and so young; she did not know
to attribute that rotundity and youthfulness of face
to her easy temperament, her good disposition, and
lack of brain.  Mrs. John Hubbard was conscious of
thinking seriously only upon one subject; and that
was whether the Count, her brother-in-law, could be
induced to marry her sister, or whether he would
remain unmarried, and leave his large fortune to her
eldest boy Alexander, a young gentleman of eight,
who now, in Highland dress, was about to sit down
to the piano and delight his mother and aunt with a
*staccato* rendering of "La ci darem la mano."

There were reasons why Mrs. Hubbard should be
disquieted upon this point.

"Quite an angel," said the Count, oracularly.
"But we mustn't go into the drawing-room just yet.
I want to talk to you, Jack, about that young lady,
you know."

"Miss Brunel?"

"Yes.  Will you mind my taking a glass of that
pale port of yours with my cigar?  I know it's a
shame, but——"

"Don't mention it, Fred; I wish you'd come oftener
and try it."

John Hubbard straightened himself up in the wide
easy chair, and prepared to receive his brother's
disclosures or questions on a matter which was deeply
interesting to them both.  John was very unlike his
stout, pompous brother; a thin little man, with grey
hair and grey eyes; troubled by a certain twitching
of the eyebrows, and affected generally by a weak
and extremely nervous constitution.  An avaricious
man who sees his younger brother become possessed
of thirty thousand a year, which he himself expected
to get, generally exhibits other than fraternal
feelings; but whatever John Hubbard may have felt,
the fact remains, that so soon as his brother
Frederick became the undoubted owner of this money, he,
John, began to observe towards him a severe
deference and courtesy.  When the Count went to dine at
Rose Villa, there were no tricks played upon him in
the matter of wine.  The claret-cup was not
composed of "sudden death," at ten shillings a dozen,
with a superabundance of water, and cucumber peel
instead of borage.  The dry sherry was not removed
with the fish, in the hope that the dulled after-dinner
palate might accept some Hambro' decoction with
equanimity.  One wine was pretty much the same as
another wine to the Count von Schönstein; but he
was pleased to know that his brother thought so
much of him as to be regardless of expense.

"Are you quite sure, Jack," said the younger
brother, drawing his chair near, "that nobody,
beyond those you mentioned to me, knows who Miss
Brunel is?"

"As far as I know, Fred; as far as I know," said
the other, in an injured querulous tone.  "I can't
hold myself responsible, and I'm not infallible."

"In a matter of this kind," said the Count, smiling
benignly, "most people seem to think that Cayley
and Hubbard are infallible.  They say you are the
repositories of all the scandals of the aristocracy;
and that you might turn England upside down by
publishing what you know.  But I daresay that's
exaggerated.  Now, don't you think that some one
who remembers that story of twenty-five years ago,
and happens to see Miss Brunel, might recognise
the resemblance between her and her mother, and
then begin to inquire into the affair?"

There was a strong twitching of John Hubbard's
eyebrows.  He was far from being a good-tempered
man; and to be compelled to sit and play the
hypocrite was almost too much for him.  He saw clearly
whither these questions tended.  He knew his
brother's ruling passion; he knew there was nothing
he would not do to be admitted among those people
who had refused to recognise his purchased title.
Again and again he had inwardly cursed his folly
in telling the Count the story of Annie Napier and
her daughter; that breach of professional confidence
was likely to lose his family thirty thousand a year.
Can one conceive a more tantalising position for a
narrow-minded and avaricious man to assume than
the involuntary prompting and guidance of a scheme
which is likely, in the most gratuitous way, to
deceive his own most dearly cherished hopes?  If some
one else had suggested to the Count a marriage with
Miss Brunel as a possible passport to society, John
Hubbard would not have been so chagrined.  He
would have been able to dissuade his brother from
the step with such reasons as he could discover.
But he had himself told the Count the real history of
Annie Brunel; he was compelled to furnish him with
all sorts of information; and saw, through his own
instrumentality, that money slipping out of his fingers
which otherwise might have been his or his son's.

"I have explained it to you before, Fred," he said,
patiently.  "Old Mr. Cayley, who went out to
America to see the Marquis of Knottingley's wife, lives
down in Suffolk, where he is not likely to meet
people who have much interest in Miss Brunel.
Besides, he has a very fine sense of honour in these
matters, and would not break a pledge he gave to
Miss Brunel's mother, not to seek in any way to
induce her daughter to leave the stage.  And you
know the people who knew of the marriage were
very few; and most of them are dead.  Mr. Palk is
in his dotage, and lives in Westmoreland.  Then
who is likely to remember Miss Napier's appearance:
or to perceive a likeness between her and Miss Brunel
beyond the casual likenesses which occur constantly
on the stage?  I believe I could count on my ten
fingers all the people who know who Miss Brunel
really is.  There's my wife—one; old Mr. Cayley—two;
Cayley, my partner—three; you yourself——"

He stopped; for his brother was evidently not
listening to him.  So pre-occupied was the Count,
indeed, that he broke the ash off the end of his cigar
upon the edge of his wine-glass, allowing the ash to
fall into the port.

"I hope I haven't poisoned you with some of my
wines," said John Hubbard, with a thin laugh.

"I beg your pardon!" said his brother, reaching
over for another glass; "I really didn't know what I
was about.  The whole affair seems to me so romantic
and impossible—like a play, you know, or something
of that sort.  I can scarcely believe it; and yet you
lawyer fellows must sometimes meet with such cases."

"I have one of my people down in Southend just
now, trying if he can trace anything about a woman
and her child who, we believe, lived there eighteen
years ago.  If we find her, a curious story will come
out.  But I never in the whole course of my life
heard of any woman, except Miss Napier, who
refused a title and a fortune, which were by right her
own.  I suppose the common-sense of actresses gets
poisoned by the romantic sentiment in which they
live and breathe."

"If you mean as regards money," said the Count,
with a patronising smile, "I can assure you that
most actresses have an uncommonly small proportion
of sentiment and a very tolerable share of sense.
Miss Brunel's mother must have been an
extraordinary woman in many respects—what you and I
would consider a fool, though many people would
give her folly a fine name.  Now, about revealing
this secret, to Miss Brunel, don't you think some of
the Marquis's relatives might do that?"

"They would cut their fingers off first," said John
Hubbard, with nervous decision.  "They knew every
action of her mother after she left this country—so
old Mr. Cayley told me; they now watch her
daughter closely, and try to discover everything they
can about her; and their intensest hope is that she
may never learn what a splendid property lies at her
command, so that it may revert to them or their
heirs, as the will directs.  And what a property it
is, Fred!"

"Ah!  I suppose so," said the Count, with a sigh.

To do him justice, he did not consider so much as
another might have done the money he would get by
marrying Miss Brunel: his desire to marry her was
wholly selfish, but the selfishness was begotten of no
greed of money.

"The trustees are as diligent in looking after the
property as though it were to be given up to-morrow.
And how those rents accumulate!  It was Lord
Belsford who proposed to use up some of the money
in buying off the mortgages which still hung over
the Northamptonshire estate from the time of the
Marquis's father; and now that has been done, it is
nothing but a huge machine turning out money for
nobody's use."

The little nervous lawyer seemed to be quite
overwhelmed by the contemplation of such a thing.  If
*he* had had the option of becoming the proprietor of
this valuable coining machine, he would not have
allowed the opportunity to pass.  And even now it
occurred to him that in the event of his brother
marrying Miss Brunel, and acquiring this vast
wealth, the Count might, out of gratitude for the
service done him in the matter, leave his thirty
thousand pounds a year to the young gentleman in
the adjoining drawing-room.  The alternative was
possible, but it was remote; John Hubbard would
vastly have preferred his brother remaining unmarried.

"You know why I am so anxious to know all
about this matter, Jack," said the Count, uneasily.

His brother nodded.

"It is a hazardous thing—seems to me almost
impossible," continued the Count—and he was never
tired of reiterating his doubts on the subject—"that
such a fortune and title should belong to anybody
without their knowing it."

"It was her mother's wish," said John Hubbard.

"Oh, I know," said the Count, "that she has been
brought up to regard with apprehension every one
out of her profession; and I know she believes that
under no circumstances ought she to leave the stage.
And yet I fancy she will not be very grateful either
to her mother, or to old Mr. Cayley, or to the trustees,
for keeping her in ignorance of her good fortune.
And if she should consent to be my wife, she will
probably accuse me of having used the secret for my
own purpose."

The Count spoke as if such an accusation would
do him a great injury.  But the possibility of the
future he had chalked out for himself drove away
this ugly after-thought.  He became quite excited.
His face was flushed; his hand trembled as he lifted
his glass.

"God knows," he said, earnestly, "that it is not
her money I want.  I'm not a fortune-hunter."

"You have a lot of money," said his brother,
gently; while he watched his face with those mild
grey eyes.  "If you were to marry Miss Brunel, you
could afford to part with what you have now."

"What do you take me for?" said the Count, with
a touch of virtuous indignation.  "If I were to marry
Miss Brunel, I should insist on her settling all her
money on herself.  I have enough to live upon, thank
God!"

John Hubbard's mind was made up on the spot.

"You will never marry Miss Brunel, Fred," he
said, quietly.

"Why?" said the other, suddenly putting down
the glass he had been lifting.

"Simply because her relatives on the father's side
won't allow it."

"You said they——"

"They are content to say nothing while they
hope to secure the reversion of the property through
Miss Brunel's dying intestate," said John Hubbard,
calmly, though his eyebrows were twitching
nervously.  "When, however, they understand that you,
a brother of mine, and therefore likely to know how
matters stand, are about to marry Miss Brunel, they
will inform her of her true position, and implore
her not to marry a man beneath her in rank.  And
you know, Fred, they will be able to point to your
previous silence as a witness against you."

The first impulse of Count Schönstein was to dart
an angry glance at the pale, quiet little man before
him, as though the latter had dealt him an unprovoked
blow; then, when he saw in his brother's calm
face only corroborative testimony of the appalling
truth he had uttered, the Count leant back in his
chair, unable to conceal his fright and dismay.

At that moment, Master Alexander entered the
room, and said:

"Please, Uncle Frederick, mamma says coffee is
in the drawing-room, and will you come and have some?"

"Yes, yes, my boy," said the Count, jumping up
from his chair.

He scarcely knew what he was about.  John
Hubbard rose also, and then they walked into the
drawing-room, where Mrs. Hubbard saw something
in her brother-in-law's face which she not
unnaturally, but quite wrongly, attributed to his having
taken too much wine.

Miss Fleet, Mrs. Hubbard's sister, was singing a
certain popular ballad, expressing her wish that the
laird might marry the lady of high degree, and
declaring that, for her part, she would sooner dance
upon the green with Donald.  Miss Fleet's voice
trembled consciously when the Count entered the
room.  She was a fine, roseate, country-looking woman
of twenty-six or twenty-seven, much coarser and
stouter than her elder sister; and she sang with
those broad alternations of *piano* and *forte* which
some girls, and nearly all actresses, consider to be
effective.  Miss Fleet, now that the Count had come
in, simply roared in the louder passages, and then
subsided into an almost inaudible whisper when she
meant to be particularly tender.

"Thank you—thank you," said the Count, absently,
when she had finished; but her ear detected no
particular emphasis in the words for which she had been
waiting.

Rose Villa was not a large place, but it possessed
the advantage of being enclosed; and from the
drawing-room one could slip out into a small garden
which was quite surrounded and guarded by a row of
trees.  The Count sate at the French window leading
out into this garden; and was so forgetful of all
common politeness as to stare persistently out into
the darkness, where the tall black trees were grouped
in masses against the faint twinkling sky.

Like a government suddenly knocked out of its
reckoning by an adverse vote, he "wished to consider
his position."  There had been plenty of difficulties
in the way before; but this last stumbling-block so
cruelly pointed out by his brother seemed the most
irremovable of all.  In a moment of temporary
spleen, he was almost ready to give the whole thing
up; and return to——

Then a vision of that lonely great house near
St. Mary-Kirby arose before him, and he shrank from
the weariness and dullness of his life there, from the
restless hoping against hope which he had pursued
there, from the constant disappointments following
his best-directed efforts.

If he were to marry the girl, would not his path
be clear?  Beautiful in person, graceful in manner,
with an intellect a thousand times superior to that
of any woman she was likely to meet, he would have
every reason to be proud of his wife; and then,
as the husband of Lady Annie Ormond, the only
daughter of the Marquis of Knottingley, and the
owner of those fine estates which had such tempting
shooting, would not their friendship be sought after
and valued by the very persons who now, taking
their cue from the Lord Chamberlain, doubtless, were
graceless enough to look upon him as an interloper
or adventurer?

Not by means of any chain of philosophic reasoning,
but through a bitter experience, Count Schönstein
had arrived at the conclusion that a large sum
of money, *per se*, was not happiness.  It was doubtless
very well that he could have the finest wines and
cigars, drive in comfortable vehicles, and be
unhampered in spending money ostentatiously; but even
when he was only a tea-broker, he had a modest
brougham, such wine and cigars as he required, and
spent quite as much in fashionable charities as he
did now.  He had found out that a man cannot, by
doubling his income, eat two dinners a day instead
of one.  With thirty thousand a year he could drink
no more wine than was possible to him when his
annual income was to be counted in hundreds.
Consequently he got tired of material pleasures which
could not be increased; and sometimes he even
ceased to enjoy boasting of the high prices he paid
for such luxuries as he used.  Like every other human
being, he was forced to fix his desires upon something
he did not possess; and he stupidly chose a difficult
thing.  Unaided, he might as well have sought to
get up a crusade among Scotchmen for the
restoration of the sacred stone which now rests in
Westminster Abbey.  He had set his heart upon gaining
admission to the aristocracy; and the moon for
which he cried was to be reached by no ladder of his
making.

Mrs. Hubbard thought he was ill.  Having attentively
but covertly regarded him for some time,
she went to her husband, who was getting himself
another cup of coffee.

"John," she whispered, "has your brother been
drinking Miss Betham's sherry by mistake?"

"No, my dear: how could he?  There was none
on the table."

Off goes Master Alexander to his uncle.

"Uncle Frederick, mamma wants to know if
you've been drinking Miss Betham's sherry."

"If you will tell mo who Miss Betham is, I shall
be able to——"

"Don't you know Miss Betham, our governess?
She has some sherry every day for lunch, and
nobody else will take the sherry that's kept for
her, and——"

"Never mind the boy," said John Hubbard,
coming hastily forward, with an awkward laugh.
"It was only a joke.  I said you looked as dull as
though you'd been drinking Miss Betham's sherry;
we do keep a light wholesome wine for her, and for
the servants, when they get ill, you know."

Master Alexander said nothing; but he resolved
to inform Miss Betham of the "crammer" his papa
had made use of.  Nor did Uncle Frederick care to
ask how a light and wholesome wine (which in
reality would have blushed at the sight of a grape)
was likely to have made him ill.

The Count rose abruptly, opened the glass door,
and, without a word of apology to the ladies,
beckoned his brother to follow.  They passed out into
the garden, and the Count began to pace heavily up
and down the gravelled pathway under the trees.

"I can't afford to give up this so easily as you
seem to think, Jack," he said; and he spoke roughly
and angrily.

"I always knew you had a strong will, Frederick,"
said his brother, gently.

"I've set my heart on it, I tell you.  What's the
use of my money to me?  D—n it, Jack, I might
as well be down in Thames Street again!"

"Few people would grumble if they had your
good luck," said the elder brother, in his mildest
voice.

"I don't care what few people, or what many
people, would do.  I know that when I make up my
mind to a thing, I stick to it; and instead of you
sitting quietly by and throwing obstacles in my
way, the least you ought to do would be to help me."

"You're very unfair, Fred," said John Hubbard,
in an injured tone; "wasn't I the first to tell you
about Miss Brunel?  And now——"

"And now you try to throw cold water on the
whole business.  But I am not a child.  Miss Brunel's
friends may be very aristocratic and very fine;
but they have not all the power in their hands.
Look here, Jack, what's to prevent my marrying
Miss Brunel before they know anything about it?
And after the marriage is over they may make
what disclosures they please; I shall be beforehand
with them."

"Are you sure that Miss Brunel will marry you,
Fred?" said his brother, insidiously.

The Count laughed out, in his stormy and
contemptuous way:

"Your brain has been turned, Jack, by hearing of
that one actress who refused a lot of money.  Take
my word for it, you will never hear of another.  If
I offer Annie Brunel Balnacluith Place, my house in
Bayswater, the place over in Baden, what horses
and carriages she pleases, with as much company at
home and gadding about abroad as she can wish
for, I am not very apprehensive about her answer.
When we were younger, Jack, we could have
imagined some Joan of Arc declining these things; but
now we know better."

"It is a strong temptation," said his brother,
absently: he did not like to say how very uncertain
he considered Annie Brunel's acceptance of the
offer.

"And, besides," added the Count, with virtuous
warmth, "I do not think I flatter myself when I
look upon the money as not the only inducement.
I'll make as good a husband to her as any one I
know; and I don't think my disposition is quarrelsome
or niggardly.  And besides, Jack, she must
remember that it is not every one who would marry
an actress, and consent never to look into her past
life, which in the case of an actress must have been
made up of a good many experiences, you know.
Of course I don't mean to depreciate her.  She is
doubtless a very honest, and good, and ladylike
girl; but still—she mustn't expect too much."

And the Count was quite sincere in making this
ingenuous speech.  He rather considered himself a
praiseworthy person in stooping to this unequal
match.  He had not the least perception of the
selfishness of the view he took of the whole matter.
It was quite natural to him to think only of his own
ends and purposes, and he took no shame to himself
for it.  He never for a moment regarded the scheme
from her point of view, nor stayed to inquire what
might be the possible results of it where she was
concerned.  He did not even consider what her
regard for him would probably be after she
discovered the reasons which had induced him to
marry her; nor that she was likely to have little
respect for a man who had played upon her
ignorance to further his own designs.  The Count was
conscious of acting quite honestly (to his own
nature), and never thought that any one would
accuse him of deceit in so doing.





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.. _`MISS BRUNEL AT HOME`:

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   CHAPTER X.


.. class:: center medium

   MISS BRUNEL AT HOME.

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Will Anerley did not forget his promise to visit
Annie Brunel, but he seemed in no hurry to fulfil
it.  Had he been a young man about town, the
temptation of having something special to say at
his club or at dancing parties about the new actress,
of whom everybody was talking, would have proved
too much for him.  When a man, however, spends
most of his dancing years abroad, and gets a good
deal knocked about the world, he ceases to long for
the petty celebrity of social gossip, and has no great
desire to become a temporary hero among a lot of
well-meaning but not very profound people, who are
sure to mispronounce his name and take him for
somebody else.

It happened one morning, however, that he had
been invited to breakfast with a noble lord, then in
the government, who was desirous of getting some
special information wherewith to confound an
opposition member who had given notice of his intention
to ask a particularly ugly question in the House.
His lordship thanked Will heartily for his kindness,
hoped he might be able to return the service in
some slight way; hinted something about a day's
fishing if Anerley happened to be in the neighbourhood
of a place of which he had never heard before;
and then proceeded to get in order the catapult
with which he hoped that evening to demolish the
indiscreet member.

Having nothing particular to do just then, Will
thought he would take a stroll in Kensington
Gardens, and proceeded to take a short cut in that
direction.  Passing a little *cul-de-sac* of a street,
which had not above half-a-dozen houses on each
side, it struck him that the name on the wall was
familiar to him.  He then remembered that this was
the place in which Annie Brunel lived; and
thinking the occasion very opportune, he turned the
corner and walked down to the proper house.  They
were very pretty little houses, with white pillars
and porticoes draped with Virginian creepers, and
with a good many trees around them.  Miss Brunel
had been fortunate enough to get the offer of one of
these houses, furnished, at a moderate rent, and she
and Mrs. Christmas had decided at once to accept it.
It was a quiet little place, pleasantly situated, with
a tolerably large garden behind.

Will passed inside the gate, and was about to
ascend the steps, when the door above was opened,
and a young lady came out of the house.  Somehow
he fancied he had seen her before—where, he knew
not.  She was rather an attractive-looking little
person, with a pert, slightly up-turned nose, big and
rather wicked blue eyes, short, loose brown curls,
and a decided look of violet-powder about her
forehead and neck.  The saucy bright eyes looked at
Will for a moment with a bold familiar glance, and
there was a shadow of a smile on her pretty lips.

Of course he took off his hat, and muttered
something like "Good morning."

"Good morning," she said, holding out her hand,
and looking at him with those dangerous blue eyes.
"Don't you remember me?"

The moment he heard the voice, he recognised it.
It was the thrilling voice of "Perseus," of
"Good-for-nothing" Nan, of "Peggy Green," of "The Little
Rebel," of "Mrs. White," of "Fatima," of "Rose
Dufard"—of Nelly Featherstone.  Had her eyelashes
been caked with cosmetique, her lips reddened
with salve, and the violet-powder of her face
tempered with glycerine and rouge, he would have
recognised her at once; but there was a good deal of
difference between Miss Featherstone in morning
costume, with cold daylight on her face, and Miss
Featherstone in the dashing and glittering garments
of "Conrad the Corsair," with the glare of the
footlights on her forced complexion and brilliant
ornaments.  For the rest, he had only heard of her as a
good and well-meaning little girl, to whom Nature
had given a deadly pair of eyes and a warm
temperament.  He was at first rather taken aback by
her proffered friendship; but a few commonplaces
relieved him from the predicament.  She gave him a
parting smile full of sweetness; and he went up to
the door, and entered the house, leaving his card
with the servant.

Presently Mrs. Christmas entered the drawing-room,
and said that Miss Brunel would be glad to
see him out in the garden, where she was then
engaged.

"You seem to have been ill, Mrs. Christmas," said
Will.  "I hope that wild adventure upon Hounslow
Heath had nothing to do with it."

"Indeed, I'm afraid it had, Mr. Anerley," said the
little woman, whose bright eyes were unnaturally
bright, her face also being unusually pale.  "I have
never been well since; but old folks like me mustn't
complain, you know, Mr. Anerley.  We mustn't
complain if we get ill at times."

"I'm sorry you've been ill.  You ought to go and
live in the warm fresh air of the country, when the
summer's fully in."

"I've never left Miss Annie for a day since her
mother died, Mr. Anerley; and I'm not going to
forsake her now.  It would be hard on both of us."

"But she might go with you?"

"That's easy saying."

They went out and crossed a little bit of lawn,
which had a few vases upon it, and here and there a
plot of spring annuals.  A short distance down the
side-path they came to a small summer-house, which
was arched over with a piece of light framework; and
in front of this framework stood Annie Brunel, on a
chair, tying up with loops of string the bright-leaved
creepers, which were yet in their erratic youth.  Her
hands were busy over her head, and her face was
upturned, showing the fine outline of her neck and
figure—a shapeliness of bust which was not lessened
by a tight-fitting and pretty morning dress, which
Will thought the most graceful thing he had ever
seen, particularly as it caught streaks of sunlight
now and again through the diamond spaces above.

When he went up to her and shook hands with
her, he fancied he observed a slight tinge of
embarrassment in her face; but that quickly wore off, and
she returned to her usual bright happiness of manner,
continuing her work by fits and snatches.  And every
position into which her beautiful figure fell seemed
more admirable than its predecessor.

"I wonder," thought Will, "if any man ever lifted
her down from the saddle; and did he immediately
die of joy?"

Perhaps he was sorry at the moment that one's
descent from a chair is so obviously an easy feat.

"I'm doing this out of pure mischief," she said,
"and earning for myself such heaps of muttered
scolding and ill will.  The gardener comes to us twice
a week; and he is quite savage if I have meddled
with anything in the meantime.  I can't pacify him.
I have tried every means; but he is too obdurate.
Miss Featherstone says I ought to hire a young
gardener, and I might have the garden done any way I
wished."

"Sulky servants are always the best servants,"
said Will, rather absently; for the clear, dark Italian
face, and the bright smile, and the white teeth,
oppressed him with a vague, delicious melancholy.
"But a gardener, whether he is good or bad, is
always sulky.  My mother is afraid to touch one of the
plants in the greenhouse until it is half withered;
and when some people come, and she carries off a
lot of the plants for the hall and dinner-table, she
trembles to meet the old man next morning.  I
suppose gardeners get so fond of their flowers as to be
jealous, and jealousy is always cross.  By-the-bye,
wasn't that Miss Featherstone who left as I came in?"

"Yes."

"I scarcely knew her.  In fact, I only saw her
once before off the stage—at that supper; and yet
she was kind enough to bid me good morning."

"Then she must have thought you were a newspaper
gentleman," said Mrs. Christmas, with a
good-natured little laugh.  "She is very partial to them.
And that one she knows just now teaches her such
dreadful things, and the heedless girl repeats them
wherever she goes, to make people laugh.  What was
it she said this morning, Miss Annie?—that on
St. Patrick's Day there were so many wicked things done
in Ireland, that the recording angel had to take to
shorthand."

"Well, Lady Jane," said Miss Brunel, "you need
not have repeated what she said; and it's very wrong
of you to say anything against poor Nelly, who is a
warm-hearted, mad little creature."

"She's not so simple as she looks," said Mrs. Christmas,
nodding her head sagaciously.  "I am an
old woman, and I know.  And the way she uses that
poor young gentleman—him in the government office,
who was at the supper, you know, Mr. Anerley—is
downright shameful.  She told me this morning
that he made her swear on an open prayer-book
never to put bismuth on her arms or neck again;
I suppose because he expects to marry her, and
doesn't want to have her all shrivelled up, and
bismuth is very bad, you know, for that; and that
newspaper gentleman whom she knows said, whenever
she wanted to quarrel with the poor young
man, and make him believe that she had perjured
herself all for the love of shiny white arms, she ought
to——!"

"Mr. Anerley," said the young girl, looking down
from her work, "will you silence that talkative child
by giving it a piece of sugar?  What must you
think of us actresses if she goes on like that?"

"*She*—bah!" said the old woman, in a melodramatic
whisper, with a nod towards Miss Brunel.
"She knows no more of Nelly Featherstone and the
rest of 'em than an infant does.  They don't talk to
her like they do to an old woman like me."

"Now I have finished," said the young lady,
jumping lightly down from the chair (Will did not
even get the chance of taking her hand), "and we'll
go inside, if you please."

"Shall I bring in the chair?" asked Will.

"Oh, no!  We leave the old thing out here: it is
for no other use."

Somehow it seemed to be quite a valuable chair in
his eyes: he would have given a good deal to be its
owner just then.

As they got indoors, Mrs. Christmas went
upstairs, and Will followed Annie Brunel into the
drawing-room, which was rather prettily furnished,
and had a good deal of loose music scattered about
the tables and piano.  He had been in finer
drawing-rooms, with grander ladies; and yet he had never
before felt so rough and uncultivated.  He wished
he had looked particularly at his hair and moustache
before corning out, and hoped they were not very
matted, and loose, and reckless—which they
certainly were.  Indeed, he looked like some stalwart
and bronzed seaman who had just come off a long
voyage, and who seemed to regard with a sort of
wonder the little daintinesses of land-life.

"I thought you had quite run away with my
sis——, with that young lady, the other evening
when she went to see you," he said.

"You would have been sorry for that," she replied,
with a quiet smile.

Will was not at all so pleased with the gentle
motherly tone in which she uttered these words as
he ought to have been.  She seemed to take it for
granted that his love-secret was known to her; he
would have preferred—without any particular
reason—its not being known.

"What a gentle, loveable girl she is!" continued
the young actress.  "I never knew any one who
so thoroughly won me over in a few minutes.  She
was so sweet, and quiet, and frank; one could tell
by her face everything she thought.  She must be
very sensitive and affectionate; I hope so tender a
creature will never have to suffer much.  And
you—you must be very proud of her."

"We all are."

Miss Brunel widened her eyes slightly, but said
nothing.

"By the way," said Will, with an evident effort, "I
gathered together a number of Suabian peasant-songs
when I was out there, which I should like to hear
you sing.  I know you will like them, they are so
tender and simple.  Dove has tried one or two of
them, but her voice is scarcely low and full enough
for them——"

"Dove is your *sister's* name, is it not?"

"Yes."

"And how do you know I can sing at all?" she
asked, with a smile.

"As well ask a star if it has light," said he, warmly.

"You have lived too long in the East," she retorted,
gently.

When Mrs. Christmas came into the room at that
moment, there was a slight constraint visible upon
both the young people.  Will felt that he had gone
a little too far; while Annie Brunel seemed to think
that she had rather rudely warned him off such
dangerous ground.  The danger was not in the words,
but in his tone.

Mrs. Christmas had just received an East London
local paper, in which some youthful poet had poured
forth his rhapsodies over Annie Brunel and her
'Juliet.'  There was nothing remarkable in the
verses, except that the author hoped to meet Miss
Brunel in heaven.  This was natural enough.  The
almost inevitable climax of a commonplace poem is
heaven, simply because heaven is the only idealism
of commonplace minds.  It is almost a matter of
necessity, therefore, that hymns should end with
"above," or "Eden," or "Paradise;" and that
magazine poets should lay down their pen with a sigh of
relief when they have left their readers somewhere
among the fixed stars.

"It is kind of him to suppose that an actress may
get to heaven at all," said Annie Brunel, when
Mrs. Christmas had read the verses.

Once or twice before Will had remarked this
tendency towards bitterness of feeling in the young
girl's contemplation of the non-professional world.
He could not divine its cause.  He was vexed to see
it; and now he said, boldly:

"You ought not to speak like that, Miss Brunel.
You wrong both yourself and those of whom you
speak.  You really have imbibed—I don't know
how—a singular prejudice against people out of
your own profession."

"Don't they refuse in France to bury actors in
consecrated ground?"

"If they did, the freaks of a clergy should never be
blamed upon the people of any country.  I suppose
the priests, through the use of the confessional, were
so dismayed about the prospects of their charge in
the next world, that they thought this distinction the
only piece of worldly consolation they could give
them.  But indeed, Miss Brunel, you must abandon
that touch of Bohemianism which you unconsciously
allow to escape you sometimes, and which is unfair
to——"

"I won't have you argue for these people," she
said, with a smile.  "I was glad you came here this
morning, for I want to win you over to us.  Didn't
I say, Lady Jane, when I first met him, that he was
so unlike the other—what shall I call them?—outsiders?
Well, perhaps it is foolish of me to talk
about these people, for I know nothing whatever of
them; but I have been educated to consider them
as so much raw material to be deluded and impressed
by stage effect, and I shall never be able to regard
them as anything else than strangers.  Haven't you
seen the little girl in pink cotton and spangles who
stands by while her father is performing tricks
before a lot of village people?  Haven't you seen her
watch all the faces round, calculating the effect of
the performance, and wondering how much it will
produce in halfpence?  No, you needn't laugh: that
is precisely my attitude and feeling towards the
public."

"You may tell that to one who has never seen
you on the stage," said Will.  "I *know* that you
have no more thought of calculating the effect of
what you are doing than the music of a violin has."

"That is because I am then a performer myself,
and have to attend to my business.  When I stand
in one of the entrances, and hear the buzz of the
theatre, I say to myself, 'My big children up there
in the boxes, you have paid so much to be amused,
and you don't care much for me; but in a few
minutes I'll have you all as quiet as mice, and in a
few minutes more I'll have the prettiest and best
among you crying.'"

"My poor Dove's eyes were tremulous all the
evening after seeing you," he said.

"I like to hear you speak kindly of her," she
replied, looking him straight in the face with her clear
and frank eyes.  "She will need all the tenderness
that friends can give her to make her life a happy one."

Will felt a dull sense of pain at his heart (why, he
knew not) on hearing these true and touching words:
somehow he fancied there was a sympathy almost
prophetic in them.

"Come," she said, briskly, as she rose and went to
the piano, "I am going to put you to the test.  I
make all my new friends submit to it; and according
as they pass through it I regard them afterwards.
I am going to play three funeral marches—Handel's,
Beethoven's, and Mendelssohn's.  When
the person experimented on prefers a certain one of
them, I consider her—I have not tried the
experiment on a gentleman as yet—merely emotional and
commonplace; therefore I don't care much for her.
If she likes a certain other one, I think she is rather
more intellectual, with some dramatic sensitiveness;
and then I like her a good deal better.  When she
likes the third, then I think she must have the
divinest sympathies, and I am ready to fall in love
with her."

She had sat down to the piano.

"But the peril of failure is too great; I dare not
risk it," said Will.  "It is as hard a trial as the three
caskets in the 'Merchant of Venice;' only, if the
prize were to be the same, the chance——"

He had spoken quite thoughtlessly; but he saw in
a moment, by the pain and confusion of the young
actress, what a blunder he had made.

"Pray don't mind what I said, Miss Brunel," he
urged.  "I was talking to you without thinking, as
I should have talked to Dove.  I will submit to the
three funeral marches, if you like——"

"I will spare you," she said, good-naturedly.  "If
you had some of your Suabian songs here just now, I
should sing them to you.  But really it seems a pity
to use up such fine weather indoors; are you
particularly engaged to-day?"

"I have no engagement if I can be of service to you."

"Mr. Anerley, I am neither a bulbul nor a gazelle.
Shall I be trespassing on your time if I ask you to
take a walk with me?"

"No."

"Lady Jane—Mrs. Christmas, I mean—and I take
a stroll under the trees in Kensington Gardens every
forenoon when I have no rehearsal."

"And I," said Will, "was on my way to the same
place, for the same purpose, when I happened to see
the name of the street, and thought I might venture
to trespass on your patience."

So she went and dressed; and then together they
passed out into the open air and the sunlight.

Will Anerley left that house a very different man
from him who had entered it an hour and a half
before.  Nor was he conscious of the change.





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.. _`IN THE PARK`:

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   CHAPTER XI.


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   IN THE PARK.

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He only knew that he experienced a subtle pleasure
in listening to the talk of this young girl, in
watching the varying expression of her face, in admiring
her beautiful eyes.  The easy and graceful friendship
they both seemed to entertain for each other was the
simplest, most natural thing in the world.  There
could be no danger in it.  Anerley's life had been too
full of action to give him the deadly gift of
introspection; but in no possible mood of self-analysis
could he have regarded the temporary satisfaction of
being near to and talking with the young actress as
anything else than a pleasant and ordinary and
harmless accident.  He never for a moment dreamed
of its producing any great result.  Had the thing
been suggested to him, he would have replied that
both he and she understood each other perfectly:
they had plenty to think of in life without indulging
in folly: they had their separate work and interests
and duties, and the casual pleasure they might
obtain by meeting as acquaintances was nobody's
concern but their own.

The first attitude of affection is exclusiveness.
When one sees two young people sending glances
across a dinner-table which are intelligible to
themselves alone; when one perceives them whispering
to each other while elsewhere the talk is general;
when one observes them, on opposite sides at
croquet, missing hoops, and slipping balls, and
playing to aid each other in the most gratuitous,
open, and unblushing manner, it needs no profound
divination to detect a secret co-partnership between
them.  Two quite unselfish lovers immediately
become selfish in their united position of antagonism
to the rest of the world.  And when the girl is
pretty, the rest of the world consider such
selfishness to be simply hateful.

These two young people, who were not lovers, nor
had any intention of becoming lovers, walked up
Victoria Road, and so made their way into the cool
green shadow of the great elms and leafy lindens
which make Kensington Gardens so delightful a
lounge.  It was now May—the only month in which
London trees seem to look cheerful—and the weather
was at its freshest and best.

"Mr. Melton proposes to close the theatre in a
week or so," said Annie Brunel, "for a month, in
order to have it done up anew.  He is very anxious
that I should not accept any engagement for that
month; and I have been thinking I ought to take
Mrs. Christmas down to the seaside, or perhaps over
to the warm banks of the Rhine, for a week or two.
Did you remark how very poorly she is?"

"I did," said Will.  "I asked her about it.  She
seems to fancy that our madcap journey to Hounslow
Heath brought the attack on."

"The grass was so wet, you know.  I blame myself
for it all; and indeed there's nothing I wouldn't
do for the dear old creature.  She was my only
companion and friend for many a year."

"Won't you find it very dull going away all by
yourselves?"

"Well, no.  She is never dull.  I never tire of
her society a moment—she is so full of vivacity and
kindliness and funny stories; but I do not like the
idea of our going away anywhere alone.  Hitherto,
you know, I have always been in a manner
compelled to go by an engagement."

"Bring her down to St. Mary-Kirby, and let Dove
and you go about with her."

"Thank you.  You have told me so much of that
quiet little valley, and the quiet way of living there,
that I should feel like an evil spirit invading
paradise."

"Now, now—you are at it again," he said, laughing.
"I won't have you malign our honest country folks
like that.  My mother would make you her daughter:
she has a general faculty for making pets of
everybody.  And my father would give you a touch of the
old squirelike courtesy he sometimes brings out when
he is very grand and polite to some London young
lady who comes down to see us."

She only smiled in reply—a trifle sadly.

"I should like to see a little of that peaceful sort
of life—perhaps even to try it.  Day after day to
be always the same, always meeting the same people,
always looking out on the same trees and fields and
river, and hoping only for some change in the weather,
or for a favourable turn to the fortunes of one's
pet hero.  But then other cares must come.  That
gentle little Dove, for instance—isn't she sitting
just now wondering when you will come to see her,
and getting quite vexed because you stay so long away?"

"You seem to have a great affection for Dove,"
he said.

"Haven't you?"

"Well, of course; who could help it?"

"If I were a man I should not try to help it; I
should be prouder of the love of such a girl than of
anything under heaven."

Such conversations are not common between young
unmarried people, but neither of these two seemed
to consider it strange that they should so talk; for,
indeed, Annie Brunel assumed towards Will an
amusingly matter-of-fact, kindly, almost maternal
manner—so much so that, without hesitation she
would have told him that a little more attention to
the brushing of his rough brown hair and moustache
might not have been inappropriate before visiting a
lady.  Sometimes he was amused, sometimes
tantalized by this tone.  He was a man verging towards
thirty, who had all his wits about him, who had seen
plenty of the world, and knew far more of its ways
and beliefs and habits than he would have liked to
reveal to his companion then beside him; and he
could scarcely refrain from laughing at the airs of
superior worldly wisdom which the young actress gave
herself, revealing in the assumption the charming
simplicity of her character.

They walked down one of the long avenues and
crossed over into Hyde Park.  The Row was very
full at this time; and the brightness of the day
seemed to have awoke an artificial briskness among
the melancholy men and plethoric girls who had
come out for their forced exercise.

"I have been in nearly every capital in Europe,"
said Will to his companion, "and I have never seen
such a company of handsome men and women as you
may see here almost any day.  And I never saw
anywhere people out to enjoy themselves looking so
intensely sad over it."

"These are my employers;" said Miss Brunel, with
a smile on her pale dark face.  "These are the
people who pay me to amuse them."

"Look at this big heavy man coming up now,"
said Will.  "Look how he bobs in his saddle; one
doesn't often see such a——  Why, it is——"

"Count Schönstein," said Miss Brunel.

It was.  And as the Count came up and saw Will
walking by the side of a closely-veiled and gracefully-dressed
young lady, he took off his hat in his finest
manner, and was about to ride on.  Perhaps it was
the luxuriant black hair or the graceful figure of
the young girl which made him pause for a second
and recognise her.  At all events, he no sooner saw
who she was than he stopped his horse, clumsily got
down from the saddle, and drawing the reins over
the animal's head, came forward to the railing.

"The very two people whom I wished to see," he
observed, with a pompous magnanimity.  (Indeed
there were several reasons why he was glad just then
to observe that Annie Brunel had taken kindly to
the young man whom he had introduced to her.)  "Do
you know, Miss Brunel, that Melton is going
to close his theatre for a month?"

"Yes."

"Could anything be more opportune?  Now listen
to what I have to propose.  You want a good holiday
in this fine weather.  Very well.  I must go over to
Schönstein at once to see about some alterations and
improvements I want made; and I propose to make
it worth Mr. Anerley's while to go with me and
superintend part of these improvements.  That is
an affair of necessity and business on my part and
his; but why should you and Mrs. Christmas not
accept our convoy over there?  Even if you only go
as far as one of the Rhine villages, we could see you
safely that distance.  Or if I could persuade you to
come and see my place, such as it is—for a week or
two.  I think the excursion would be delightful;
and if I can't entertain you as sumptuously as a king,
yet I won't starve you, and I'll give you the best wine
to be bought for good money in Baden."

Will coloured up at the hideous barbarity of the
closing sentence; but Miss Brunel answered,
good-naturedly:

"You're very kind indeed, Count; and I am sure
the wine must be a great inducement to Mr. Anerley.
But if I go anywhere for a holiday, it will be for
Mrs. Christmas' sake; and I must see what she says
about it first."

"Oh, if it is Mrs. Christmas," said the Count, with
a laugh, "I must try to persuade her."

"No; I won't have any coercion.  I will place
the matter before her in all its details, and she shall
decide.  If we don't go, I hope you'll have a pleasant
journey all the same."

"And as for you, Anerley, what do you say?"

"As our arrangement will be a business matter,
we'll settle it another time," said Will, in a decided
tone, which prevented the Count making further
reference to buying and selling.

"I won't take any denial from any one of you,"
said the Count, with a prodigious laugh.  "As for
Mrs. Christmas, if that little woman dares to thwart
me, I'll have her portrait published in the illustrated
papers as the wife of Rip Van Winkle."

With which astounding witticism, the Count proceeded
to get on horseback again—a rather difficult
matter.  Will held the stirrup for him, however;
and eventually he shook himself into the saddle.

Annie Brunel had lifted her veil to speak to the
Count; and as her companion now saw that there
was a good deal of whispering and nodding going on
among several knots of riders, he thought it prudent
to withdraw himself and her into the Park.  From
thence they took their way back through Kensington
Gardens, and so home.

"Would it look strange in English eyes," asked
Miss Brunel, frankly, "if Mrs. Christmas and I, in
travelling about, were to visit the Count's place?"

"I don't think so," said Will.  "And if it did, it
wouldn't matter.  I think the party would be a very
merry and pleasant one; and you would not allow
Mrs. Christmas to feel that for her sake you were
moping alone in some dull seaside lodgings.  The
Count is really very good-natured and kind; and I
think you would enjoy the quaint old people and
their manners down in the Black Forest."

"Have you been there?"

"Oh, yes.  I have had a passing glance at every
place, pretty nearly.  There you may have a little
deer-shooting, if you like: I have seen two ladies
go out with guns, though they never did anything
beyond letting one of the guns fall and nearly killing
a keeper."

"Will it be very expensive going over?" she
asked quite naïvely, as though she had been
calculating the propriety of accepting a country
engagement.

"Not at all.  Are you going to say 'Yes'?"

"If Mrs. Christmas does, I will."





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.. _`GOOD-BYE`:

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   CHAPTER XII.


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   GOOD-BYE.

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"Cras ingens iterabimus æquor; do you know what
that means, Dove?" asked Will.

"Something dreadful, I suppose," she said.

"*Cras*, on Monday night, *iterabimus*, I must leave,
*ingens æquor*, for Germany.  Didn't I say I should
never leave England again without you, Dove?  But
this is only for a week or two, my darling; and it is
on business; and I am come to crave your forgiveness
and permission."

What did she say?  Not one word.  But, being
seated at the piano just then, and having some
knowledge of how she could most easily reach her lover's
heart and make him sorry for his fickleness, she
began to play, with great tenderness, with graceful
and touching chords, that weird, wild, cruel air,
'The Coulin,'—the old Irish air that seems to have
in it all the love and agony of parting which
mankind has ever experienced.  It is only now and again
that humanity has expressed its pain or passion in
one of those strong audible throbs—as when, for
instance, God put the *Marseillaise* into the bursting
heart of Rouget de Lille.  One wonders how men
live after writing such things.

And as for Will, he never could bear 'The Coulin;'
he put his hand on her shoulder, and said:

"Don't play that any more, Dove.  That isn't the
parting of love at all—it is the parting of death."

"Ah, why should you say that?" she said, rising
and creeping close to him, with tears suddenly
starting to her eyes.  "Why should you say that, Will?
You don't expect us to be parted *that* way?"

"Come," he said, leading her out of the drawing-room
into the open air.  "The man who wrote 'The
Coulin' had probably a broken heart; but that is
no reason why we should break ours over his misery.
My father is teaching Carry and Totty to fish for
sticklebacks in the pond; shall we go and help them?"

He had gone down to bid good-bye to St. Mary-Kirby
and its people.  The warm valley was very
tempting at this time; but did not peremptory
business call him away?  For after the first yellow
flush of the buttercups had died out of the meadows,
they were growing white with the snow of the
ox-eye; and the walnut trees were changing from brown
to green; and instead of the lilacs, the bushy,
red-budded honeysuckle was opening, and burdening the
air with its perfume.

Then they had fine weather just then; would it
be finer on the Rhine?  The white heat of midday
was without haze.  Sharp and clear were the white
houses, specks only, on the far uplands; the
fir-woods lay black against the blinding sky; and down
here in the valley the long-grassed meadows seemed
to grow dark in the heat, though there was a light
shimmering of sunny green surrounding like a halo
each pollard-willow by the riverside.  In the clear
pools the grey trout threw black shadows on the sand
beneath, and lay motionless, with their eyes
watching your every movement on the bank.  St. Mary-Kirby
lay hot and white among the green meadows,
and by the side of the cool stream; but the people
of St. Mary-Kirby prayed for rain to swell the fruit
of their orchards and fields.

On their way down to a little gate, which, at one
end of Mr. Anerley's garden, allowed you to go out
upon a small bank overlooking the pond, Will
explained to his companion the necessity for his going
abroad, the probabilities of his stay, and so forth.
She knew that he was going with Count Schönstein;
but she did not know that Annie Brunel was to be
of the party.  Will had no particular reason for not
mentioning the circumstance; but as he strictly
confined himself to the business aspect of the case,
Miss Brunel was somehow omitted.

Nor, when they arrived at the pond, and found
Mr. Anerley superintending the operations of two
young anglers, did he consider it necessary to tell
his father that Annie Brunel was going with them.
Perhaps she had slipped out of his mind altogether.
Perhaps he fancied he had no right to reveal the
Count's private arrangements.  At all events, Miss
Brunel's name was not at that time mentioned.

"The stickleback," observed Mr. Anerley,
sententiously, when they drew near, "must be of very
ancient lineage.  Any long-continued necessity on
the part of any animal produces a corresponding
organ or function; can you explain to me, therefore,
why Scotchmen are not born with a mackintosh?"

"No," said Dove.

"Because Nature has not had time to develope it.
You observe that my stickleback here, whom I have
just caught, has had time to acquire special means
of defence and attack.  I, a man, can only clumsily
use for defence or attack limbs which are properly
adapted for other purposes——"

"Which proves that mankind has never experienced
the necessity of having specially destructive
organs," said Will, to Dove's great delight.

She knew not which, if either, was right but the
philosopher of Chesnut Bank had such a habit of
inflicting upon his womankind theories which they
did not understand, and could not contradict, that
she had a malicious pleasure in witnessing what she
supposed was his discomfiture.

"It serves you right, papa," she said.  "You
presume on our ignorance, when you have only mamma
and me.  Now you have somebody to talk to you in
your own way."

"When I observed," continued Mr. Anerley, "that
mankind had no special organ of attack and defence,
I ought to have excluded women.  The tongue of
woman, an educational result which owes its origin
to——"

"Don't let him go on, Dove," said Will, "or he'll
say something very wicked."

"Has papa been talking nonsense to you all day,
Carry?" asked Dove.

"No," said the matter-of-fact Carry, "it was the
story of the 'King of the White Bears.'"

"I pghesumed on theigh ignoghance," said Mr. Anerley,
mimicking his adopted daughter's pronunciation.

"We must give him up, Dove," said Will.  "A man
who will employ ridicule in a scientific argument is
not worth answering.  If he were not my father,
I should express my feelings more strongly; as it
is——"

Here Mrs. Anerley appeared, her pretty kindly
face lit up by some unusual and pleasurable
excitement.  She was almost out of breath too.

"Hubert, do you know what's going to happen?"

"Never having been able, my dear, to calculate
the probable line of *your* actions——"

"Be quiet.  The Bishop is coming to open the
church, when the alterations are complete.  And,
Mrs. Bexley says, that as their house is so far off,
he will lunch with us."

"Dear me!" observed Mr. Anerley, "a bishop!
I shall become quite respectable.  What sort of
wine will the exalted creature propose to drink—if
a bishop drinks at all?"

"There will be several clergymen, you know,
and——"

"With a bishop in the house, shall I be able to
see any lesser lights?  I shall allow you women to
sit down in the chair he has used, as you all do
when the Prince of Wales appears in public.  There
is a Hindoo custom resembling this—not wholly a
religious observance, you know——"

Mr. Anerley stopped, perhaps luckily; pretending
to have a dreadful struggle with an obstinate
stickleback.

"Mr. Bexley is charmed with the embroidery
that Dove has done for the altar-cloth," continued
Mrs. Anerley; "and even poor old Mr. Ribston
came hobbling up to me and said 'as it was werry
nice indeed; only, ma'am, I should ha' preferred it
without the bits o' red, which is the mark of the
Scarlet Woman.  Not as I mean,' he said, though,
'that either you, ma'am, or Mrs. Bexley, would
turn us into Papishes without our knowin' of it;
only there's some games up as I hear of, and one
has to be p'tickler, and not be mixed up wi' them as
is ruinin' the Church!'"

"Very proper, too," said Mr. Anerley, having
arranged the stickleback question.  "I should think
that old Ribston fancied he had hit you and Dove
pretty hard there.  Would you think Dove was a
pupil of the Scarlet Woman, Carry?"

"Who is the Scarlet Woman?" said Carry, with
her big brown eyes staring.

"Mother Redcap," said Mr. Anerley.  "A relation
of the old woman who lived in a shoe."

"Hubert," said Mrs. Anerley, sharply, "you may
teach the children stickleback fishing; but you'd
better leave other things alone.  You may be
pulling down more than you can build up again,
as Mr. Ribston said about these old pillars in the
nave."

"Mr. Ribston, my dear, is not a reflective man.
He laments the destruction of anything old, not
seeing that as we destroy antiquities so the years
are making other antiquities.  Mamma, box that
girl's ears! she is laughing at me."

In the evening Will had to walk over to Balnacluith
Place, in order to complete the arrangements
with the Count as to their starting on the Monday
evening.  Dove went with him; and when they
got there the red sunset was flaring over the
gloomy old house, and lighting up its windows with
streaks of fire.  Here and there, too, the tall bare
trunks of one or two Scotch firs turned scarlet
against the faint grey-green of the east; and the
smooth river had broad splashes of crimson upon
it, as it lay down there among the cool meadows,
apparently motionless.

Will's reticence was unfortunate.  They had
scarcely begun to talk about their journey when
Count Schönstein mentioned something about Miss
Brunel's probable arrangements.

"Is Miss Brunel going with you?" said Dove, her
soft eyes lighting up with a faint surprise.

"Yes.  Didn't you know?" replied Count Schönstein.
"She is going to take a short holiday, and we
hope to be honoured by her presence at Schönstein."

Dove looked at Will; he was examining a cartridge-pouch
the Count had brought in, and did not observe
her inquiring glance.

On their way home, he observed that she was very
quiet.  At first he thought she was subdued by the
exceeding beauty of the twilight, which had here and
there a yellow star lying lambent in the pale grey;
or that she was listening to the strong, luscious music
of the nightingales, which abound in the valley of
St. Mary-Kirby.  Presently, however, he saw that she
was wilfully silent, and then he asked her what had
displeased her.  Her sense of wrong was of that
tremulous and tender character which never reached
the length of indignation; and just now, when she
wanted to be very angry with him, she merely said,
not in a very firm voice:

"I did not think you would deceive me, Will."

"Well, now," he said, "you have been wasting all
this beautiful time and annoying yourself by nursing
your grievance silently.  Why didn't you speak out
at once, Dove, and say how I have deceived you?"

"You said you were going abroad on business."

"So I am."

"Count Schönstein talks as if it were merely a
pleasure excursion."

"So it is, to him."

"Miss Brunel is going with you."

"Well?"

"You know quite well what I mean," she said,
petulantly.  "Why didn't you tell me she was
going with you?  Why did you conceal her going
from me, as if there was no confidence between
us?——"

"My darling, I didn't conceal her going from
you.  I didn't tell you, because her going was no
business of mine—because—because——"

"Because you thought I would be jealous," she
said, with a little wilful colour in her face.

"My darling," said Will, gravely, "you don't
consider what you're saying.  You wrong Annie
Brunel quite as much as you wrong me and
yourself.  I don't know what you've seen in her to
warrant your supposing for an instant that——"

"Oh, Will, Will," she cried, passionately,
imploringly, "don't talk like that to me, or you'll
break my heart.  Be friends with me, Will—dear
Will—for if I'm not friends with you, what's the use
of living?  And I'm very sorry, Will; and I didn't
mean it; but all the same you should have told me,
*and I hate her*!"

"Now you are yourself, Dove," he said, laughing.
"And if Miss Brunel were here just now, you
would fling your arms round her neck, and beg her
to forgive you——"

"I am never going to fling my arms round any
person's neck," said Dove, "except, perhaps, one
person—that is, when the person deserves it—but I
don't think he ever will; and as for Miss Brunel, I
don't know what business she has going abroad just
now, and I don't know why I should be so fond
of her, although I hate her quite the same; and
if she were here just now, as you say, I would
tell her she ought to be ashamed of herself, cheating
people into liking her."

"You talk very prettily, Dove, but with a touch
of incoherence.  You ought to hear how Annie
Brunel speaks of *you*; and you ought to know what
a kindly, tender, almost motherly interest she has
in you."

"Then you have seen her lately?" said Dove,
peeping up.

"Yes, once or twice."

"Does she know that we are to be married?"
asked Dove, looking down again.

"She knows that we are to be magghied.  You
foolish little darling, she saw it in your face the
moment you met her; and you might have seen
that she knew your secret."

"Actresses are witches, dear," said Dove, gravely.
"They know everything."

"They are like witches in having suffered a good
deal of persecution at the hands of the ignorant
and vulgar."

"Is that me, dear?" she asked, demurely.  "No?
Then, I shan't make fun any more.  But if you're
really going away on Monday evening, Will, I want
to bid you good-bye to-night—and not before all
the people you know; and I'll tell you all that you
have got to do when you are away in thinking about
me.  There's the moon getting up now behind
Woodhill Church; and every night at ten, Will, all
the time you are away, I'll go up to my room
and look up at her, and you'll do the same, darling,
won't you, just to please me?  And then I'll know
that my Will is thinking of me, and of St. Mary-Kirby;
and then you'll know, darling, that I'm
thinking of you, and if I could only send a kiss
over to you, I'd do it.  It won't be much trouble to
you, will it?  And if I'm lonely and miserable all
the day, and if the 'Coulin,' that I can't help
playing sometimes, makes me cry, I shall know that at
ten you and I will be able to speak to each other
that way——"

"I'll do everything you ask me," said Will, to
her gently; "but—but don't play the 'Coulin' any
more, Dove."

"Why, dear?  Ah! you said it was the parting
of death.  Why did you say that?"





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.. _`"MIT DEINEN SCHÖNEN AUGEN"`:

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   CHAPTER XIII.


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   "MIT DEINEN SCHÖNEN AUGEN."

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Well, the first time Will fulfilled his promise to
Dove was when he and Annie Brunel, Mrs. Christmas
and the Count (Hermann and another of the
Count's servants being in another carriage), were
rolling southwards in the Dover express.  Here
and there he caught a glimpse of the moon, as it
loomed suddenly and nearly over the top of some
tall embankment; but somehow his attention was
so much taken up by the young girl opposite him,
that Dove and her pretty request were in danger of
being forgotten.

Besides themselves there was only a young
Frenchman in the carriage—a grave, handsome young man,
with melancholy black eyes and a carefully waxed
moustache—who sate and covertly stared at Miss
Brunel all the way.  Perhaps he had seen her in
the theatre; but in any case, the beautiful, clear,
dark artist-face of the young actress, with its large
deep eyes, was quite sufficient to imbue a susceptible
young Frenchman with a vague sadness.  Fortunately,
she dropped a glove; and he, having picked
it up and handed it to her with a grave and earnest
politeness, leant back in his seat, apparently thrilled
with a secret happiness.

The little party was in very good spirits; and
Annie Brunel was especially bright and cheerful
in her subdued, motherly way.  Will suddenly found
himself released from the irritating pleasure of
having to humour the whims and coax the moods
of an almost childish, petulant, pretty and engaging
girl; and talking instead with one who seemed to
have a gift of beautifying and ennobling everything
of which she spoke.  Whatever she mentioned,
indeed, acquired a new importance in his eyes.  He
had never discovered so many things of which he
would like to know more; he had never discovered
that the things he did know, and the places he had
seen, and the people he had met, were so full of life,
and colour, and dramatic interest.

"You two people talk like children going off for
holidays," said the Count, disentangling himself from
a series of discursive theatrical reminiscences offered
him by Mrs. Christmas.

"So we are," said Annie Brunel.

The Count introduced himself into the conversation;
and then the colour and light seemed to Will
to die out of it.  The fact was, Count Schönstein
was very much pleased to see that Miss Brunel took
so kindly to his friend, as it rendered his own
relations with her more secure.  He was very grateful
to Will, also, for coming with him on this particular
excursion; knowing thoroughly that he could never
have induced Mrs. Christmas and Miss Brunel to go
with him alone.  These considerations were well
enough in their way; but at the same time he did
not think it quite fair that Will should have all the
pleasure of Miss Brunel's society to himself.  To be
shut out from their conversation not only annoyed
him, but made him feel old.  As it was, Miss Brunel
had a provoking habit of speaking to him as if he
really were old, and only capable of affording her
information.  Worst of all, she sometimes inadvertently
spoke of herself and Will as "we;" and
referred to the Count as if he were some third party
whom the two young people were good enough to
patronise.

"But then," said the Count to himself, "she has
not seen Schönstein.  Anerley is perhaps a more
suitable companion for her; but then she knows
that he has no money, and that he has already
mated himself.  Once I have shown her Schönstein,
I shall be able to dispense with his services: she
will need no further inducement.  And I never should
have had the chance of showing her Schönstein but
for him."

The night was so fine that they all remained on
deck during the short passage over to Calais;
walking up and down in the pale moonlight, that lay
along the sea and touched the great black funnels
and the tall, smooth masts and yards.  Looking
down upon the deck beneath, Will had seen
Hermann tenderly wrap up the fat little English girl
who was to be Miss Brunel's maid, and who was
very melancholy indeed over parting with her
mother, the Count's Kentish housekeeper; and then
the stalwart keeper went forward to the bow and
smoked cheap cigars fiercely for the rest of the
voyage, thinking probably of the old companions
he was going to see.

The Count was very quiet.  He scarcely spoke.
He sate down and wrapped himself up in his great
Viennese travelling-coat; allowing Will and Miss
Brunel to promenade the deck.  It was simply
impossible for any one to become sick on such a night;
but I do not think the Count considered himself
quite safe until he stood, tall, stout, and pompous,
on Calais pier.

"You are a good sailor, I suppose, Anerley?" he
said, grandly.  "I do think it ridiculous when a man
can't cross the Channel without becoming sick."

"A man would have to try very hard to be sick
to-night.  Hermann, you speak French, don't you?"

"Yes, sir," said the tall keeper, as he bundled the
trembling Polly up the gangway, and then began to
look out for such articles of his master's luggage as
had not been booked to Cologne.

They were going the Rhine way, instead of *viâ*
Paris and Strasbourg; and so in due time they
found themselves in the Brussels and Cologne train.
We have at present nothing to do with their
journey, or any incident of it, except that which befel
two of the party that evening in a commonplace
hotel overlooking the Rhine.

Romance in a Rhine hotel! exclaims the reader;
and I submit to the implied indignation of the
protest.

Perhaps the first time you saw the Rhine you
thought romance possible.  Perhaps you went round
that way on your wedding trip; but in any case,
the man who lingers about the noble river, and
hides himself away from hasty tourists in some
little village, and finds himself for the first time
in the dreamland of the German ballad-singers,
with a faint legendary mist still hanging about
the brown ruins, and with a mystic glamour of
witchcraft touching the green islands and the dark
hills, may forget the guide-books and grow to love
the Rhine.  Then let him never afterwards use the
river as a highway.  The eight or ten hours of
perspiring Cockney—the odour of cooking—the
exclamations and chatter—the parasol-and-smelling-bottle
element which one cannot help associating
with the one day's journey up or down the Rhine,
are a nightmare for after years.  One should never
visit the Rhine twice; unless one has plenty of
time, no companions, an intimacy with German
songs, a liking for Rüdesheimer, a stock of English
cigars, and a thorough contempt for practical
English energy.

Yet it was the Rhine did all the mischief that
night.  Imagine for a moment the position.  They
had arrived in Cologne somewhere about five in the
afternoon, and had driven to the Hôtel de Hollande,
which, as everybody knows, overlooks the river.
Then they had dined.  Then they had walked round
to the Cathedral, where the Count proudly
contributed a single Friedrich towards helping King
William in his efforts to complete the building.  Then
they had gone to one of the shops opposite, where
the Count, in purchasing some photographs, insisted
on talking German to a man who knew English
thoroughly.  Then he had stalked into Jean Marie
Farina's place at the corner, and brought out one of
Farina's largest bottles for Miss Brunel; he carrying
it down to the hotel, the observant townspeople
turning and staring at the big Englishman.  By this
time the sun had gone down, the twilight was growing
darker, the faint lights of the city beginning to
tell through the grey.

There were gardens, said the porter, at the top of
the hotel—beautiful gardens, looking down on the
river; if the gentlemen wished to smoke, wine could
be carried up.

"No," said the Count.  "I must commit the rudeness
of going off to my room.  I did not sleep, like
you people, in the train."

So he bade them good-night and disappeared.

"But we ought to go up and see the gardens,"
said Annie Brunel.

"I think so," said Will.  "Mrs. Christmas, will
you take my arm?  It is a long climb.  And now
that you have surrendered yourself to my care, may
I recommend a luxury peculiar to the place?  One
ought never to sit in Rhine gardens without sparkling
Muscatel, seltzer-water, and ice, to be drank out of
frosted champagne-glasses, in the open air, with
flowers around us, and the river below——"

"You anticipate," said Miss Brunel.  "Perhaps
the gardens are only a smoking-room, filled with
people."

The "gardens" turned out to be a long and
spacious balcony, not projecting from the building,
but formed out of the upper floor.  There were
tables and chairs about; and a raised seat which
ran along the entire front.  The pillars supporting
the roof were wound round with trailing evergreens,
the tendrils and leaves of which scarcely
stirred in the cool night air; finally, the place was
quite empty.

Annie Brunel stepped over to the front of the
balcony, and looked down; then a little cry of
surprise and delight escaped her.

"Come," she said to Mrs. Christmas—"come over
here; it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

Beautiful enough it was—far too beautiful to be
put down here in words.  The moon had arisen by
this time—the yellow moon of the Rhine—and it
had come up and over the vague brown shadows of
Deutz until it hung above the river.  Where it
touched the water there was a broad lane of broken,
rippling silver; but all the rest of the wide and
silent stream was of a dull olive hue, on which
(looking from this great height) you saw the sharp
black hulls of the boats.  Then far along the
opposite bank, and across the bridges, and down on the
quays underneath were glittering beads of orange
fire; and on the river there were other lights—moving
crimson and green spots which marked the
lazy barges and the steamers out there.  When one
of the boats came slowly up, the olive-green plain
was cleft in two, and you saw waving lines of silver
widening out to the bank on either side; then the
throb of the paddle and the roar of the steam ceased;
a green lamp was run up to the masthead, to beam
there like a fire-fly; the olive river grew smooth and
silent again; and the perfect, breathless peace of the
night was unbroken.  A clear, transparent night,
without darkness; and yet these points of orange,
and green, and scarlet burned sharply; and the soft
moonlight on the river shone whiter than phosphorus.
So still a night, too, that the voices on the quays
floated up to this high balcony—vague, echo-like,
undistinguishable.

Annie Brunel was too much impressed by the
singular loveliness of the night and of the picture
before her to say anything.  She sate up on the
raised bench; and looking out from between the
pillars, Will could see her figure, framed, as it were,
by the surrounding leaves.  Against the clear dark
sky her head was softly defined, and her face caught
a pale tinge of the moonlight as she sate quite still
and seemed to listen.

He forgot all about the iced wine and his cigar.
He forgot even Mrs. Christmas, who sate in the
shadow of one of the pillars, and also looked down
on the broad panorama before her.

Then Miss Brunel began to talk to him; and it
seemed to him that her voice was unusually low, and
sad, and tender.  It may have been the melancholy
of the place—for all very beautiful things haunt us
and torture us with a vague, strange longing—or it
may be that some old recollections had been awakened
within her; but she spoke to him with a frank, close,
touching confidence, such as he had never seen her
exhibit to any one.  Nor was he aware of the manner
in which he reciprocated these confidences; nor of
the dangerous simplicity of many things he said
to her—suggestions which she was too much
preoccupied to notice.  But even in such rare moments
as these, when we seem to throw off the cold attudinizing
of life and speak direct to each other, heart
to heart, a double mental process is possible, and we
may be unconsciously shaping our wishes in
accordance with those too exalted sentiments born of
incautious speech.  And Will went on in this fashion.
The past was past; let no harm be said of it; and
yet it had been unsatisfactory to him.  There had
been no generous warmth in it; no passionate glow;
only the vague commonplaces of pleasure, which
left no throb of regret behind them.  And now he
felt within him a capacity, a desire, for a fuller and
richer life—a new, fresh, hopeful life, with undreamed
of emotions and sensations.  Why should he not
leave England for ever?  What was England to
him?  With only one companion, who had aspirations
like his own, who could receive his confidences, who
might love with a passion strong as that he knew
lay latent in his own heart, who had these divine,
exalted sympathies—

He was looking up at the beautiful face of the
young girl, cold and clear-cut like marble, in the
moonlight; and he was not aware that he had been
thinking of her.  All at once that horrible consciousness
flashed in upon him like a bolt of consuming
fire; his heart gave one big throb, and he almost
staggered back as he said to himself, with remorse,
and horror, and shame—

"O God, I love this woman with my whole soul;
and what shall I say to my poor Dove?"

She sate up there, pure and calm, like some
glorified saint, and saw nothing of the hell of
contending emotions which raged below in her
companion's breast.  Unconscious of it all, she sate and
dreamed the dreams of a happy and contented soul.
As for him, he was overwhelmed with shame, and
pity, and despair.  And as he thought of Dove, and
St. Mary-Kirby, the dull sonorous striking of some
great bell suddenly reminded him of his promise.

He hastily pulled out his watch—half-past ten,
English time.  She, down in the quiet Kentish vale,
had remembered his promise (indeed, had she not
dreamed of it all day?) had gone to her window,
and tenderly thought of her lover, and with happy
tears in her eyes had sent him many a kindly
message across the sea; *he*—what his thoughts had been
at the same moment he scarcely dared confess to his
awakened self.





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.. _`THE OUTCAST`:

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   CHAPTER XIV.


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   THE OUTCAST.

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"Quite true, my dear," said Mr. Anerley, gently.
"If I had risen at six, gone and dipped myself in the
river, and then taken a walk, I should have been in
a sufficiently self-satisfied and virtuous frame of
mind to have accompanied you to church.  But I try
to avoid carnal pride.  Indeed, I don't know how
Satan managed to develop so much intolerable
vanity, unless he was in the habit of rising at a
prodigiously early hour and taking a cold bath."

"Oh, papa, how dare you say such a thing?" said
a soft voice just beside him; and he turned to the
open breakfast-room window to see Dove's pretty
face, under a bright little summer bonnet, looking in
at him reproachfully.

"Come, get away to church, both of you," he said.
"There goes the cracked bell."

So Mrs. Anerley and Dove went alone to church;
the former very silent and sad.  The tender little
woman could do nothing for this husband of hers—nothing
but pray for him, in an inaudible way, during
those moments of solemn silence which occur between
divisions of the service.

A quarter of an hour afterwards Mr. Anerley rose,
and also walked along to the little grey building.
All the people by this time were inside; and as he
entered the churchyard the choir was singing.  He
sate down on one of the gravestones that were placed
among the long, green, rank grass; and having pulled
his straw hat over his forehead, to shelter his eyes
and face from the strong sunlight, he listened, in a
dreamy way, to the sweet singing of the children
and the solemn and soft intoning of the organ.

It was his favourite method of going to church.

"You get all the emotional exaltation of the service,"
he used to say, "without having your intellect
ruffled.  And when the children have done their
singing, instead of listening to a feeble sermon, you
sit out in the clear sunlight and look down on the
quiet valley, and the river, and the trees."

So he sate, and listened and dreamed, while the
softened music played upon his fancies, and produced
a moving panorama of pious scenes—of the old
Jew-life, the early Christian wanderings, the mediæval
mysteries, and superstitions, and heroisms.

"How fortunate religion has been," he thought,
"to secure the exclusive aid of music and architecture!
Philosophy and science have had to fight their
way single-handed; but she has come armed with
weapons of emotional coercion to over-awe and
convince the intellectually unimpressionable.  In a great
cathedral, with slow, sonorous chanting reverberating
through the long stone galleries, and tapers lit
in the mysterious twilight, every man thinks it is
religion, not art, which almost forces him down upon
his knees."

Here the music ceased abruptly, and presently
there was a confused murmur of syllables—the
clergyman either preaching or reading.

"Sermons are like Scotch bagpipes," said
Mr. Anerley to himself, as he rose and left the
churchyard to wander down to the riverside.  "They
sound very well when one doesn't hear them."

That very day there was a conspiracy formed
against the carnal peace of mind of this aimlessly
speculating philosopher.  Mr. Bexley's sermon had
been specially touching to the few ladies who
attended the little church; and the tender, conjugal
soul of Mrs. Anerley was grieved beyond measure as
she thought of the outcast whom she had left behind.
Rhetorical threats of damnation passed lightly over
her; indeed, you cannot easily persuade a woman
that the lover of her youth has any cause to fear
eternal punishment; but a far less sensitive woman
than Mrs. Anerley might well have been saddened by
that incomprehensible barrier which existed between
her and her husband.

"And it is only on this one point," she thought to
herself, bitterly.  "Was there ever such a husband as
he is—so forbearing, and kind, and generous?  Was
there ever such a father as he has shown himself to
be, both to Will and to this poor Dove?  And yet
they talk of him as if he were a great sinner; and I
know that Mrs. Bexley said she feared he was among
the lost."

Be sure Mrs. Bexley did not gain in Mrs. Anerley's
esteem by that unhappy conjecture.  From the
moment of its utterance, the two women, though they
outwardly met with cold courtesy, were sworn
enemies; and a feud which owed its origin to the
question of the eternal destiny of a human soul,
condescended to exhibit itself in a bitter rivalry as
to which of the two disputants should be able to
wear the most stylish bonnet.  Was it the righteousness
of her cause, or her husband's longer purse,
which generally gave Mrs. Anerley the victory over
the chagrined and mortified wife of the pastor?

But with Mr. Bexley, Mrs. Anerley continued on
the most friendly terms; and on this day, so anxious
was she, poor soul, to see her husband united to her
in the bonds of faith, that she talked to Mr. Bexley
for a few minutes, and begged him to call round in
the evening and try the effect of spiritual counsel on
this sheep who had wandered from the fold.

Mr. Bexley was precisely the man to undertake
such a responsibility with gladness—nay, with
eagerness.  Many a time had he dined at Mr. Anerley's
house; but, being a gentleman as well as a clergyman,
he did not seek to take advantage of his position,
and turn the kindly after-dinner talk of the
household into a professional *séance*.  But when he
was appealed to by the wife of the mentally sick man
he responded joyously.  He was a very shy and
nervously sensitive man—as you might have seen by
his fine, lank, yellow hair, the singular purity of his
complexion, the weakness of his eyes, and a certain
spasmodic affection of the corner of his lips—but he
had no fear of ridicule when he was on his Master's
service.  Mr. Anerley and he, indeed, were great
friends; and the former, though he used to laugh at
the clergyman's ignorance of guns and rods, and at
his almost childish optimism, respected him as one
honest man respects another.  The rationalist looked
upon the supernaturalisms of this neighbour of his
with much curiosity, some wonder, and a little
admiration.  Yet he never could quite account for these
phenomena.  He could not understand, for instance,
why one of the most subtle and dispassionate minds
of our day should sadly address an old friend as from
the other side of the grave, simply because the latter
was removed from him by a few (to Mr. Anerley)
unimportant and merely technical doctrinal points.
Mr. Bexley was a constant puzzle to him.  Indeed,
the firmest facts in Mr. Bexley's theory of life were
what a Sensationalist would at once put down as
delusions or mere hypotheses.  He was full of the
most exalted ideas of duty, of moral responsibility,
of the value of fine shades of opinion and psychical
experience.  He worshipped Dr. Newman, whose
verses he regarded as a new light thrown upon the
history of the soul.  He had a passionate admiration
for the *Spectator*; and shed, at least, a good deal of
political enlightenment upon his parish by insisting
on the farmers around reading each number as it was
sent down from London.  Mr. Bexley ought never to
have been in the service of a State church.  He had
the "prophetic" instinct.  Proselytism came as
natural to him as the act of walking.  He abhorred
and detested leaving things alone, and letting them
right themselves.  This Kentish Jonah found a
Nineveh wherever he went; he was never afraid to
attack it single-handed; and most of all, he raised
his voice against the materialists and sensationalists—the
destroyers of the beautiful idealisms of the soul.

When one's wife and her favourite clergyman enter
into league against one's convictions, the chances are
that the convictions will suffer.  Such combinations
are unfair.  There are some men, for example, who
would refuse to be attended by a doctor who was on
very friendly terms with an undertaker; they fear
the chance of collusion.

It was almost dusk when Mr. Bexley went round
to Chesnut Bank, and then he found Mr. Anerley
seated outside, on a carved oaken bench, under some
lime-trees fronting the lawn.  He was alone, and on
the rude table before him were some decanters
and bottles, one or two fruit-plates, and a box of
cigars.

"Oh, good evening, Mr. Bexley," said the lost one;
"will you have a cigar?"

"Thank you."

"Sit down.  That's claret next you, and there's
still some sparkling Burgundy in the bottle.  The
children are very fond of it—I suppose because it
looks like currant-jelly in hysterics."

Cigars and claret don't seem quite the avenue by
which to approach an inquiry into the condition of a
man's soul; but Mr. Bexley was too excited to heed
what he did.  He had the proselytising ecstasy upon
him.  He was like one of the old crusaders about to
ride up to the gate of a godless Saracen city and
demand its surrender.  Did not Greatheart, when
about to engage with the giant, refresh himself with
the wine which Christiana carried?

"You were not at church this morning," he said,
carelessly.

But his assumed carelessness was too evident; his
*forte* was not diplomacy.

"Well, no," said Mr. Anerley, quietly: he did not
take the trouble to reflect on the object of the
question, for he had been considering graver matters
when Mr. Bexley arrived.

"You have not been to church for a long time,"
continued the yellow-haired, soft-voiced preacher,
insidiously but nervously.  "Indeed, you don't seem
to think church-going of any importance."

Mr. Anerley made no answer.  Then the other,
driven out of the diplomatic method of approach into
his natural manner, immediately said—

"Mr. Anerley, do you never think that it is a
man's duty to think about things which are not of
this world?  Do you expect always to be satisfied
with worldly good?  You and I have had long
conversations together; and I have found you so reasonable,
so unprejudiced, so free to conviction, that I
am amazed you do not recognise the necessity of
thinking of something beyond this life that we lead
just now."

"Cannot people think of these things outside a
church, Mr. Bexley?" he said; but his face was quite
grave, if not sad.  "As you came into the garden
just now, I was perplexing myself with that very
question.  I was sitting wondering if I should die
and become nothing without having discovered how
it was I came to live.  It seems so singular that one
should pass out of consciousness into the inorganic
earth without having discovered what the earth is,
and without having the least notion of how he
himself came to be.  Geology only presents you with a
notion of tremendous time and change—it gives no
clue to the beginning.  And if there was no
beginning, how is it that my brief consciousness only
flickers up for a short time, and dies down again
into darkness and night?  How did there come to
be a beginning to my consciousness?"

Mr. Bexley was astounded and grieved.  He was
accustomed, even in that little parish, to find people
who had painful doubts about the Mosaic record of
creation, who seemed perplexed about the sun, moon,
and stars having all been created in order to light
up the earth, and who accepted with joy and gladness
any possible theory of reconciliation which gave
them a more rational view of the world and their
belief in the Bible at the same time.  But he had
not met a man who had passed to one side, as quite
unworthy of attention, all theologic solutions of the
difficulty whatever.

The very novelty of the obstacle, however, only
excited his evangelical fervour.  He avowed his
object in having visited Chesnut Bank that evening
(without, however, revealing at whose suggestion he
had undertaken the task), and boldly endeavoured to
grapple with the demon of unbelief which had
possession of his friend's mind.  He insisted on the
fallibility of human reason.  He pointed out that,
without religion, morality was unable to make its
way among the uneducated.  He demonstrated that
every age had its own proper religion, and that an
age without a religion was on the brink of suicide.
All these things, and many more, he urged with
much eloquence and undoubted sincerity, and at the
end he was surprised to learn that his auditor quite
coincided with everything he had uttered.

"I know," he said, "that the present attitude of
the majority of intellectual men in this country is a
dangerous and impossible one.  Men cannot live in
an atmosphere of criticism.  What we want just now
is a new gospel fitted for the times; we want a
crusade of some sort—a powerful belief that will
develop all sorts of sympathetic emotions and idealisms,
instead of leaving one a prey to cold analysis.
But we haven't got it; and those who have gone
beyond this tidal flow of the last great religious
flood, find themselves stranded on dry land, without
a blade of grass or a drop of water in sight.  Give
me a gospel, and I'll take it with pleasure.  Whether
it be a new series of religious symbolisms, or a
splendid system of ethics, demanding action, or even a
belief in humanity as a supreme and beautiful
power—anything that can convince me and compel me to
admire, I will take.  But I don't want to deal in old
symbols, and old beliefs, and old theories, that fit me
no more than the monkey-jacket in which my mother
sent me to school."

"You say you have got beyond us, and yet you
acknowledge that you have been disappointed," urged
Mr. Bexley.  "Why not return to the Church, if only
for personal satisfaction?  You cannot be happy in
your present position.  You must be tormented by
the most fearful doubts and anticipations.  Are you
not afflicted by moments of utter darkness, in which
you long for the kindly hand of some spiritual
authority to assist you and comfort you?  In such
perilous moments I believe I should go mad if I were
to assure myself, for a single passing instant, that I
was alone and unaided—that I had been teaching
lies and superstitions all my life—that the world was
a big machine, and we the accidental dust thrown out
by its great chemic motions—that all the aspirations
of our soul, and the voice of conscience, and the
standards of right at which we aim, were all
delusions and mockeries.  I would not have life on such
terms.  I should know that I only existed through
the brute ignorance and superstition of my stronger-made
fellow-men not permitting them to kill me and
all such as I, and then to seize our means of living.
I should look forward to the time when these
superstitions should be cleared away, and the world
become a general scramble, handed over to those who
had the longest claws and the fiercest teeth."

"Then," said Mr. Anerley, with a smile, "if the
first glimpse of change is likely to derange your
intellect in that fashion, and force you to so many
absurd conclusions, you are better where you are.
And about those moments of spiritual darkness, and
torture, and longing of which you speak—I do not
understand what they are.  I am never visited by
them.  I thank God I have a tolerable digestion."

"Digestion!" repeated the other, bitterly.  "It all
comes to that.  Eat, drink, and be merry, for
to-morrow ye die; and the only resurrection you hope
for is to breathe the sunlight again as a buttercup
or a dandelion.  What is it, may I ask, entices you
to remain in the position you occupy—that of being
an honest man, credited with constant generous
actions, kindly to your inferiors, and what not?  Why
should you be moral at all?  Why should you not, if
it pleased you, go into any depths of dissipation and
debauchery?  There is nothing to restrain you."

"Pardon me, there is.  If it were worth the trouble,
I dare say I could convince you that my code of
morality is not only more comprehensive and more strict
than yours, but that it rests on more explicable and
more permanent foundations.  But it is not worth
the trouble to convince a single man at a time in
which we are waiting for some great and general
renovation."

So they went on, in the faint darkness, under the
black branches and the grey sky.  Mr. Bexley was
not going to relinquish hope at the very outset; and
he proceeded from point to point, adducing all the
considerations which made it very much more
advantageous to be orthodox than to be not orthodox.
He might have persuaded a man who was hovering
between the two states to go over to the bosom of
the Church; but his entreaties, and representations,
and arguments had little effect upon a man who was
separated from him by the great chasm of a dawning era.

"Perhaps I may lament my present negative,
critical attitude," said Mr. Anerley, quite frankly,
"but I prefer it to yours.  The successive tides of
faith which pass over the world leave little circling
eddies, and I have been caught in one of these; I
cannot tell in what direction the next great
movement will be—I only know I shall not see it."

The end of it was, just then, that Mr. Anerley
begged of his neighbour and counsellor to go in-doors
and have some supper with them.  Mr. Bexley, a
little disheartened, but still confident in his spiritual
power to overcome, some time or other, the strong
resistance of the unconverted man's heart, agreed;
and so they both went into the house and entered
the dining-room, where the supper-table had just
been prepared.  Mrs. Anerley started up, with her
face red as fire, when she saw her husband and the
clergyman enter together; and this obvious
departure from her usual self-possessed and easy manner
at once struck Mr. Anerley as being very peculiar.
Nay, the poor little woman, feeling herself very
guilty—harbouring a secret notion that she had tried to
entrap her generous and open-minded husband—was
more than ordinarily attentive and courteous to him.
She was far more civil, and obliging, and formal
towards him than towards her stranger-guest; and she
never by any chance lifted her eyes to his.

Mr. Anerley saw it all, understood it all, and
thought of it with an inward, pitying smile that was
scarcely visible upon his lips.  "There is a creature,"
he said to himself, "who might convert any man to
anything, if she had the least logical chance on her
side."

He saw also, or perhaps feared, that this
embarrassment and restraint would only make her
uncomfortable for the evening; and so, in his kindly
way, he called Dove to him.  The young girl went
over to him, and he put his arm round her waist,
and said:

"Do you see that small woman over there, who
looks so guilty?  She is guilty; and that gentleman
there, whom you have been accustomed to regard as
the very pattern of all the virtues in the parish, is
her accomplice."

Mrs. Anerley started again, and glanced in a
nervous way towards Mr. Bexley.  Even her desire
for her husband's salvation was lost in the inward
vow that never, never again would she seek for aid
out of the domestic circle.

"Their secret having been found out, Dove, it
remains to award them their punishment.  In my
royal clemency, however, I leave the sentence in
your hands."

"What have they been doing, papa?"

"Ask them.  Call upon the female prisoner to
stand forward and say why sentence should not be
pronounced against her."

"It is not a subject for merriment, Hubert," said
his wife, blushing hotly, "and if I did ask Mr. Bexley
to speak to you as a friend——"

"You hear, Dove, she confesses to the conspiracy,
and also criminates her fellow-prisoner.  If I had a
black cowl, and some sherry at 12s. a dozen, I should
sentence them to drink half a bottle each, having
first bade them a final and affectionate farewell."

"As it is, papa," said Dove, maliciously, "you had
better give them some of that white Italian wine you
are so fond of, and if they survive——"

"Mamma, order this girl to bed."

"That is what poor papa says whenever any one
beats him in an argument, or says his wine isn't
good," said Dove to Mr. Bexley.

But she went, nevertheless.  For it was nearly
ten o'clock, and although there was only a faint
sickle of the moon now visible, that was still big
enough to bear the thin thread of thought which so
subtly connected her and her lover.  She took out
of her bosom a letter which she had received that
morning, and she kissed it and held it in her hand,
and said, looking up to the pale starlight and the
clear white crescent—

"Moon, moon, will you tell him that I've got his
letter, and that I've read it twenty times—a hundred
times over, and yet he doesn't say a word about
coming home?  Will you ask him when he is coming
back to me—and tell him to come quick, quick, for
the days are getting wearier and wearier?  Couldn't
you come down for a little minute, and whisper to
me, and tell me what he has been doing all this
time, and what he is looking like, and what he is
saying to you just now?  Couldn't you give me a
little glimpse of him, instead of keeping him to
yourself, and staring down as if you didn't see anything
at all?  And you might as well tell him that I
shall begin and hate Miss Brunel if he doesn't come
back soon—and I'll play the 'Coulin' all day to
myself when I'm alone, and be as miserable and
wretched as ever I please.  But here is a kiss for
him anyway: and you wouldn't be so cruel as not to
give him that!"

And Dove, having completed her orisons, went
downstairs, with a smile on her sweet face—perhaps
not thinking that the nightly staring at the moon,
as the reader may perhaps suspect, had somewhat
affected her brain.  And she found Mr. Bexley more
brilliant and eloquent than ever in his exposition of
certain spiritual experiences; and she was in such a
mood of half-hysteric delight and happiness that she
could have put her arm round Mr. Anerley's neck,
and begged him, for her sake, to be a little, just a
little, more orthodox.  As it was, he had promised
to go inside the church next Sunday; and his wife
was very happy.





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.. _`SCHÖN-ROHTRAUT`:

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   CHAPTER XV.


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   SCHÖN-ROHTRAUT.

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Do you know the ballad of 'Schön-Rohtraut'—the
king's daughter who would neither spin nor sew,
but who fished, and hunted, and rode on horseback
through the woods, with her father's page for her
only companion?  Was there any wonder that the
youth grew sad, and inwardly cried to himself—

   |   "O dass ich doch ein Königssohn wär,
   |   Rohtraut, Schön-Rohtraut lieb' ich so sehr.
   |   Schweig stille, mein Herze!"
   |

One day they rested themselves under a great
oak, and the merry Schön-Rohtraut laughed aloud
at her woe-stricken page, and cried—

"Why do you look at me so longingly?  If you
have the heart to do it, come and kiss me, then!"

Whereupon the lad, with a terrible inward tremor,
probably, went up and kissed Schön-Rohtraut's
laughing lips.  And they two rode quite silently
home; but the page joyously said to himself, "I
do not care now whether she were to be made
Empress to-day; for all the leaves in the forest
know that I have kissed Schön-Rohtraut's mouth."

There are many of us whose chief consolation it
is to know that we have kissed Schön-Rohtraut's
mouth.  The middle-aged man, getting a trifle grey
above the ears, sits by the fire of a winter evening,
and thinks of his own particular Schön-Rohtraut.

"I did not marry her; but I loved her in the
long-bygone time, and that is enough for me.  I had my
'liberal education.'  If I had married her, perhaps I
should not be loving her now; and all my tender
memories of her, and of that pleasant time, would
have disappeared.  But now no one can dispossess
me of the triumphant consciousness that it was my
good fortune to have kissed Schön-Rohtraut's mouth."

There is much sympathy abroad upon this matter;
and I think we men never get nearer to each other
than when we talk, after our wives have gone
upstairs to bed, of our lost loves.

This was partly what Will Anerley said to himself
as the little party sate under the white awning
of the *König Wilhelm*, and slowly steamed up the
yellow-green waters of the Rhine.  Not without a
tremor of conscience he said it; for he had a vague
impression that he had been wantonly cruel to Dove.
In the first moments of remorse after awaking to a
sense of his present position, he had said—

"There remains but one thing to be done.  I will
at once return to England, and see Annie Brunel no
more."

But a man approaching thirty has taught himself
to believe that he has great fortitude, especially
where the tenderer emotions are concerned; and his
next reflection was—

"My sudden departure will only be a revelation
to her, and happily she knows nothing about it.
Besides, have I not sufficient strength of mind to
spend a few days in the pleasant society of this
young girl, without committing myself?  The mischief
is done, and I must suffer for my carelessness;
but——"

But he would go on to Schönstein all the same,
whither the two ladies had also consented to go.
He did not deceive himself when he submitted to
his own conscience this theory.  He knew there
was no danger of his disturbing Miss Brunel's peace
of mind, and he knew that Dove would have no
further injustice done her.  It was he who was to
suffer.  His thoughtlessness had permitted the
growth of a hopeless passion: it would never be
known to her who had inspired it, nor to her whom
it had dispossessed.  He only should carry about
with him the scourge; and he was not without a
hope that time and travel would for once accommodate
themselves to an absurd superstition, and
cure him of an unfortunate love.

For the rest, he was almost glad that he had
mentally kissed Schön-Rohtraut's mouth.  The
consciousness of this passionate and hopeless
attachment was in itself a pure and elevated feeling—a
maiden delight which had no earthly element mixed
with it.  It was so different from the kindly,
affectionate interest he took in Dove—so different from
that familiar liking which made him think nothing
of kissing the young girl in an easy fraternal way.
To think of kissing Annie Brunel!  The page could
only look wonderingly and longingly at his beautiful
mistress, at her pretty lips and nut-white teeth, and
say, "Schweig' stille, mein Herze!"

Quite assured of his own strength of will, he did
not seek for a moment to withdraw himself from her,
or raise any subtle barrier between them.  In fact,
he mockingly explained to himself, that as
compensation for the pain which he would afterwards
have to suffer, he would now sup to the full the
delicious enjoyment of her society.  He would study
as much as he chose the fine artistic head, the
beautiful, warm, Italian colour of her face, and her
charming figure; and he would gaze his fill into the
deep-grey eyes, which were always brightened up by
an anticipatory kindliness when he approached.  He
remarked, however, that he had never seen them
intensified by that passionate glow which he had
observed on the stage—the emotional earnestness
which belonged to what she called her "real life;"
there was in the eyes merely a pleased satisfaction
and good nature.

"When shall we get away from the Rhine?" she
asked, as they were sailing past the black Loreleiberg.

"To-night," said the Count, "we shall stop at
Mayence, and go on by rail to Freiburg to-morrow.
Then we shall be away from the line of the tourists."

This was an extraordinary piece of generosity and
concession on the part of Count Schönstein; for
there was scarcely anything he loved more dearly
on earth than to linger about the well-known routes,
and figure as a German Count before the Cockney-tourists
who crowded the railway stations and *tables d'hôte*.

"I am so glad," said Miss Brunel.  "I cannot
bear to be among those people.  I feel as if I were
a parlourmaid sitting in a carriage with her master
and mistress, and fancying that she was being stared
at for her impertinence by every passer-by.  Don't
tell me it is absurd, Mr. Anerley; for I know it is
absurd.  But I cannot help feeling so all the same.
When anybody stares at me, I say to myself, 'Well,
perhaps you've paid five shillings to stare at me in
the theatre, and you think, of course, you have the
same right here.'"

Will was very vexed to hear her speak so, partly
because he knew that no reasoning would cure her
of this cruel impression, and partly because he knew
that she had some ground for speaking as she did.
Continually, along that insufferably Cockney route,
he had seen her stared at and ogled by lank youths
from Oxford Street or Mincing Lane, who had got a
holiday from counter or desk, and had hoisted a
good deal of bunting to celebrate the occasion—bright
green ties, striped collars, handkerchiefs
marked with Adelina Patti's portrait, white sun
hats with scarlet bands, yellow dust-coats and
skin gloves.  In the intervals between their descents
to the cabin, where they drank cognac in preference
to "that beastly sour wine," they would sit at a
little distance, suck fiercely at their cheap cigars,
and stare at the young actress as they were
accustomed to stare at the baboons in the Zoological
Gardens, or at the Royal Family, or at their favourite
barmaid.  Then would follow confidential
communications to Tom or 'Arry that she was very like
"Miss Trebelli," and another head or tails for
another "go" of brandy.

"If these creatures were to get to heaven," said
Anerley to the Count, in a moment of jealous spleen,
"they would ask their nearest way to the Holborn
Casino."

It was partly this semi-Bohemian feeling which
drew the young artiste towards Count Schönstein
and Will Anerley, and allowed her to relish the
society of people "out of the profession."  Of the
personal history of the Count she had got to know
something; and while she tolerated his self-sufficiency,
and admired his apparent good-nature and
even temper, she almost sympathised with him in his
attitude towards society.  It was the same people
whom she had been taught to distrust, who were in
league against the poor Count.  They would not
permit him to mix in their society, because, like
herself, he was an adventurer, a person whose
position was not secured to him by an ancient royal
grant.  Will she looked upon in another fashion.

"You have been so much abroad, and mixed with
so many people, that you seem not to belong to
England.  There is nothing English about you—nothing
of vanity, and self-importance, and suspicion
of outsiders."

But against this praise, as against the whole tone
of her mind on the subject, he had uttered many
a serious protest.

"You blame us English with the impertinences
of a few boys out for a holiday.  You have heard
stories of actors and actresses having received
injuries from persons out of the profession; and you
necessarily think there must be a mutual antagonism
between the classes."

"I don't think anything about it," she used to
say; "I only know what my impression is, however
it has been taught me.  And I know that there is
no sympathy between me and the people whom I
try to amuse, and that they despise me and my
calling.  I don't blame them for it; but how can
you expect me to like them?  I don't say they are
narrow-minded, or prejudiced; but I know that an
English lady would not sit down to dinner with an
actress, that an English mother would think her
son lost if he married an actress; and that a girl in
good society who marries an actor is thought to have
done something equivalent to running away with
her father's footman."

These were the bitter precepts which the Marchioness
of Knottingley had left with her daughter;
and they had been instilled into the girl at a time
when beliefs become part of our flesh and blood.

"There are ignorant and ill-educated women who
think so," said Will, calmly; "but you do an
injustice to women of education, and good taste, and
intelligent sympathies, when you suppose that every
one——"

"Let us take your own mother," said Annie Brunel,
hastily.  "Would she be anxious, supposing she
knew me, to introduce me to the rest of her
acquaintances?  Would she ask me to visit her?
Would she be willing that I should be a companion
to that pretty little Dove?"

"I think I have answered all these questions
before," said Will.  "I tell you I can't answer for
all the women of England; but for those of them
whom I respect I can answer, and my mother is one
of them.  Has she not already allowed Dove to make
your acquaintance?"

"Because I was a curiosity, and she was allowed
to come and look at me in my cage," said the actress,
with that cruel smile on her lips.

"Miss Brunel," said Will, simply and frankly,
"you are exhibiting far more prejudice than you will
find in the women you speak about.  And I don't know
whether you will forgive my saying that it seems
a pity one of your years should already possess
such suspicions and opinions of other people——"

Wherewith she looked him straight in the face,
with a clear searching glance of those big and
honest eyes of hers, which would have made a less
disinterested advocate falter.

"Are you telling me what you believe to be true?"
she said.

"Could I have any object in deceiving you?"

"You believe that your mother, a carefully pious
and correct lady, who has lived all her life in the
country, would dare to avow that she knew an actress?"

"She would be proud to avow it."

"Would she take me to church with her, and
give me a seat in her pew, before all her neighbours?"

"Certainly she would."

"And what would they think?"

"Perhaps the parish clerk's wife," said Will, with
a mental glance at Mrs. Bexley, "and the vet.'s wife,
and a few women of similar extraction or education,
might be shocked; but the educated and intelligent
of them would only be envious of my mother.
Wherever you go, you will find people who believe
in witches, and the eternal damnation of unconverted
niggers, and the divine right of the nearest squire;
but you don't suppose that we are all partial idiots?
And even these people, if you went into the
St. Mary-Kirby Church, would only have to look at
you——"

"You said something like that to me before," she
replied, with the same nervous haste to exhibit every
objection—was it that she the more wished them to
be explained away?—"and I told you I did not
think much of the charity that was only extended
to me personally because my face was not old and
haggard.  Suppose that I were old and painted,
and——"

"But if you were old, you would not be painted."

"I might."

"In that case, all the women would have some
ground to be suspicious of you; and many of them
would be angry because you were allowed a luxury
denied them by their husbands.  Really, Miss Brunel,
you do the 'outsiders' an injustice," he added,
warming to his work.  "Stupid people and uneducated
people do not care for nice discriminations.  They
have always decided opinions.  They like to have
clear lines of thought and positive decisions.  They
ticket things off, and stick to their classifications
through thick and thin, as if they were infallible.
But you do wrong to care for the opinion of the
stupid and uneducated."

"I should like to believe you; but how can I?  If,
as you say, we have fallen so low as even to earn the
contempt of the stupid——"

"My darling," he said, and then he stopped as if
a bullet had gone through him, "I—I beg your
pardon; but I really fancied for the moment I was
quarrelling with some of Dove's nonsense——"

She smiled in such an easy way at the mistake,
however, that he saw she put no importance upon it.

"I was going to say—how could stupid people
exist if they did not despise their superiors in wit,
and intellect, and artistic perception?  There is a
man at my club, for instance, who is intellectually,
as he is physically, a head and shoulders taller than
any of his brother members.  What reputation has
he?  Simply that of being 'an amusing young fellow,
but—but very shallow, don't you know.'  The
empty-headed idiots of the smoking-room sit and laugh at
his keen humour, and delicate irony, and witty
stories; and rather patronise and pity him in that
he is weak enough to be amusing.  A dull man always
finds his refuge in calling a man of brighter parts
than himself 'shallow.'  You should see this friend
of mine when he goes down into the country to see
his relations; how he is looked upon at the dinner-table
as being only fit to make the women smile;
and how some simpering fool of a squire, with nothing
more brilliant in his library than a pair of
hunting-boots, will grin compassionately to some other
thick-headed boor, as though it were a ludicrous thing to
see a man make himself so like a woman in being
witty and entertaining."

"And you think the women in these country-houses
more intelligent and amusing than the men?"

"God help country-houses when the women are
taken out of them!"

"What a large portion of my life have I wasted
over this abominable Bradshaw!" said Count
Schönstein, coming up at that moment, and their
conversation was for the present stopped.

But Will now recognised more firmly than ever
the invisible barrier that was placed between her
and the people among whom his life had been cast;
and, perhaps, for Dove's sake, he was a little glad
that he could never look upon this too-charming
young actress but as the inhabitant of another world.
And sometimes, too, he involuntarily echoed Dove's
exclamation, "You are too beautiful to be an actress?"

When, after a pleasant little supper-party in the
Mayence Hotel, at which they stopped, they parted
for the night, Will congratulated himself on the
resolution he had taken in the morning.  It had
been such a pleasant day; and who was the worse
for it?  He was sick at heart when he thought the
time would come in which he could no more enjoy
the keen pleasure of sitting near this tender creature,
of watching her pretty ways, and listening to her
voice.  The love he felt for her seemed to give him
a right of property in her, and he thought of her
going for ever away from him as an irreparable and
painful loss.  There was a quick, anxious throbbing
at his heart as he attempted to picture that last
interview; for he had resolved that after their return
to England, he would not permit himself to see her
again.  He thought of her going away from him
without once knowing of that subtle personal link
which seemed to unite them in a secret friendship.
She would be quite unconscious of the pain of that
parting; she might even think that he had yielded
to the prejudices of which she had spoken, and had
become ashamed of her friendship.

"That, too, must be borne," he said, with a sigh.
"I cannot explain why I should cease to see her;
and yet we must never meet again after we return
to England.  If it were not for Dove, I should look
out for some appointment abroad, and so get an
excuse; for it is hard to think that I must wound
the self-respect of so gentle a creature by appearing
to refuse her proffered friendship without a cause."

Then he sat down and wrote a long letter to Dove;
and for the first time he felt a great constraint upon
him in so doing.  He was so anxious, too, that she
should not notice the constraint, that he wrote in a
more than usually affectionate strain, and strove to
impress her with the necessity of their being married
very soon.

"Once married," he said to himself, "I shall soon
forget this unhappy business.  In any case, we must
all suffer more or less; and it is entirely owing to
my carelessness in enjoying Miss Brunel's society
without looking at what it might lead to.  But how
should a man of my years have anticipated such a
thing?  Have I not been intimate with as pretty
and as accomplished women in all parts of the world,
without ever dreaming of falling in love with them?"

But no, there was no woman so pretty and charming
as *this* one, he reflected.  No one at all.  And so,
counting up in his mind, like a miser counting his
guineas, one by one, the few days he would yet have
to spend in the torturing delight of being near to
her, he got him to bed, and did *not* dream of
St. Mary-Kirby.

The next day they reached Freiburg, and here the
Count had a carriage awaiting them, with a couple
of swarthy Schwarzwalders in his somewhat
ostentatious livery.

"Now we are getting home," he said, with a bland
laugh to Mrs. Christmas; "and you must have a
very long rest after so much travelling.  We shall
see what the air of Schönstein will do for you, and a
little of the Schönstein wine—eh, eh?"

Their entrance to the Black Forest was inauspicious.
It was towards the afternoon before they
left Freiburg; and the air was oppressively hot and
sultry.  Just as they were approaching the
Hollenthal—the Valley of Hell—a strange noise attracted
Will's attention; and, looking over the back of the
open carriage, he saw behind them a great red cloud,
that entirely shut out the landscape.  Two minutes
afterwards a sudden gust of wind smote them with
the violence of a tornado; they were enveloped in a
dense lurid pall of sand; and before they could cover
over the carriage, great drops of rain began to fall.
Then the far-off rumbling of thunder, and an
occasional gleam of reflected lightning, told what was
coming.

The Count looked much alarmed.

"The Hollenthal is a fearful place," said he, to the
ladies: "overhanging rocks, dark as pitch, precipices,
you know—and—and hadn't we better return
to Freiburg?  That is, if you think you will be
afraid.  For myself, I'd rather go on to-night, and
save a day."

"Don't think of turning on our account," said
Annie Brunel.  "Mrs. Christmas and I have been
together in a good many storms."

So they went on, and entered that gloomy gorge,
which is here the gateway into the Black Forest.
They had just got themselves closed in by the mighty
masses of rock, when the storm thoroughly broke
over their head.  It was now quite dark, and the
thin white shafts of lightning shot down through the
ravine, lighting up the fantastic and rugged sides of
the pass with a sudden sharpness.  Then the thunder
crackled overhead, and was re-echoed in hollow
rumbles, as if they were in a cavern with huge waves
beating outside; and the rain fell in torrents,
hissing on the road, and swelling the rapid stream that
foamed and dashed down its rocky channel by their
side.  Every flash whitened the four faces inside the
carriage with a spectral glare; and sometimes they
got a passing glance down the precipice, by the side
of which the road wound, or up among the overhanging
blocks and crags of the mountains.

Mrs. Christmas had been in many a thunderstorm,
but never in the Hollenthal; and the little
woman was terrified out of her life.  At every
rattling report of the thunder she squeezed Miss
Brunel's hand the more tightly, and muttered
another sentence of an incoherent prayer.

"Unless you want to kill your horses, Count,"
said Will, "you'll stop at the first inn we come to;
that is about a mile farther on.  I can tell by the
sound of the wheels that the horses are dragging
them through the mud and ruts by main force; and
up this steep ascent that won't last long."

"Think of poor Mary and Hermann," said Annie
Brunel.  "Where must they be?"

"I'll answer for Hermann coming on to-night, if
he's alive," said the Count.  "And I hope that he
and the luggage and Mary won't be found in the
morning down in that tremendous hole where the
stream is.  Bless my life, did any mortal ever see
such a place, and such a night!  What a flash that
was!"

It was about midnight when they reached the
Stern inn; and very much astonished were the
simple people, when they were woke up, to find that
a party of visitors had ventured to come through the
Hell Valley on such a night.

"And the hired carriage from Freiburg, Herr
Graf," said the chief domestic of the little hostelry;
"it won't come up the valley before the morning."

"What does the fool say?" the Count inquired of Will.

"He says that the trap with the luggage won't
come up to-night."

"Bah!" said the Count, grandly.  "Sie wissen
nicht dass mein Förster kommt; und er kommt
durch zwanzig—durch zwanzig—zwanzig—damme,
get some supper, and mind your own business."

"Yes, eef you please, my lord," said the man, who
knew a little English.

The Count was right.  Hermann did turn up, and
Mary, and the luggage.  But the hired vehicle had
been a badly-fitting affair, and the rain had got in
so copiously that Mary was discovered sitting with
Hermann's coat wrapped round her, while the tall
keeper had submitted to be drenched with the
inevitable good-humour of six-feet-two.  Some of the
luggage also was wet; but it was carried into the
great warm kitchen, and turned out and examined.

At supper, the Count, who was inclined to be
merry, drank a good quantity of Affenthaler, and
congratulated Mrs. Christmas on her heroic fortitude.
Annie Brunel was quiet and pleasant as usual—a
trifle grave, perhaps, after that passage through
the Hollenthal.  Will was at once so happy and so
miserable—so glad to be sitting near the young
Italian-looking girl, so haunted by the dread of
having to separate from her in a short week or
two—that he almost wished the storm had hurled the
vehicle down into the bed of the stream, and that
there he and Schön-Rohtraut might have been found
dead together in the grey morning.





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.. _`SCHÖNSTEIN`:

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   CHAPTER XVI.


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   SCHÖNSTEIN.

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"Welcome to Schönstein!" cried the Count, gaily,
as a turn in the road brought them in sight of a
little hamlet, a small church, and beyond
these—somewhat back from the village—an immense white
house with green sunshades over the windows.

"Friend Anerley," said the Count to himself, "if
you ever had a thought of paying your addresses to
the lady opposite you, your case is rather hopeless
*now*!"

Annie Brunel looked forward through the ruddy
mist that the sunset was pouring over the picture
before them, and thought that it was very beautiful
indeed.  She paid little attention to the gaunt white
house.  But this little village, set in a clearing of
the great forest—its brown wooden houses, with
their heavy projecting eaves and numerous windows;
the small white church, with a large sundial
painted in black on the gable; the long, sloping
hill behind, covered, away even, to the horizon,
with the black-green pines of the Schwarzwald—all
these things, steeped in the crimson glow of
the western light, were indeed most charming and
picturesque.

"Why do they project the roofs so much?" she
said, looking especially at the inn of the little hamlet
they were approaching.  "I thought these splendid
old houses only existed in Swiss lithographs."

"For the snow," said the Count, grandly, as if the
intensity of the Black Forest winters belonged to
him.  "You should see a regular snowstorm in this
country, with half the houses buried, the
mail-coaches turned into sledges—why, every man who
keeps a carriage here must keep it in duplicate—a
wheel-carriage for the summer, a sledge for the
winter."

With which they drove through the village.
Hans Halm, the sturdy innkeeper, was at the door
of that palace in brown wood which he called his
house; and to Hermann's hurried—"Wie geht's?
Wie geht's, Halm?" he returned a joyous "Danke
schön, Hermann."

"But where is Grete?" said Hermann, in a
bewildered way, to the English Mary who sate beside
him in the second carriage.  "She not here?  She
know I come; she is not at the door of the inn——"

"Who is Grete?" said Mary, who had made great
friends with the big keeper in England.

"Why, Grete is—you know, Grete."

At that moment Margarethe Halm was in the
courtyard of the Count's house, whither she had
stolen away from her father's house, with her heart
beating, and her ears listening for the sound of
the carriage-wheels.  A young, swarthy, handsome
girl, with an innocent, dumb, animal-like fondness
and honesty in her big, soft, black eyes, she stood
there in her very best clothes—her Sunday
head-dress of black velvet and gold beads; her short
petticoats and dress; her elaborately embroidered
boddice; her puffed white sleeves, coming down to
the elbow, and there exposing her round, fat,
sunburnt arms.  She it was with whom Hermann had
sung, on the night before he left for England, the
old ballad in which the wanderer bids farewell to
his native vale; and ever since, when she heard the
pitiful words—

   |   "Muss aus dem Thal jetzt scheiden,
   |     Wo alles Lust und Klang;
   |   Das ist mein herbstes Leiden
   |     Mein letzter Gang.
   |   Dich, mein stilles Thal, grüss ich tausend Mal!
   |     Das ist mein herbstes Leiden,
   |   Mein letzter Gang!"

—the big black eyes were wont to overflow, and her
round brown cheeks grew wet with tears.  She was
always very silent, this Grete Halm, and you might
have thought her dull; but she was so extraordinarily
sensitive to emotional impressions, and there
was such a mute, appealing look in her eyes for
kindness and affection, that half the young men in
the neighbourhood would have given their ears to
be permitted to walk about with Grete, and go to
church with her, and sing with her in the evening.
There was the young schoolmaster, for
example—everybody knew how he came to have that ugly
mark on his nose the last time he came home from
Göttingen, to undertake the tuition of his
neighbours' children.  It was at a beer-drinking bout,
and a few got tipsy; and one especially, Friedrich
Schefer, disliking young Gersbach, came round to
him, and said—

"I see you have Margarethe Halm written on one
of your books.  If that is the name of your sweetheart,
my friend Seidl says she is a rogue, and not
to be trusted."

"I challenge you," says Gersbach, calmly, but
blinking fiercely through his spectacles.

"Further, muthiger Herr Gersbach, my friend
Seidl says your Margarethe Halm has half-a-dozen
sweethearts, and that you give her money to buy
presents for them."

"You are a liar, Friedrich Schefer!" shouts
Gersbach, starting to his feet; "and I challenge you,
'*ohne, ohne,*'" [#]_

.. [#] The extended phrase is, "Ich fordere Ihnen auf, *ohne Mützen,
   ohne Secundanten*"—"I challenge you, *without either masks or
   seconds*."  Such a challenge being given (and it is only given in
   cases of extreme provocation), the duellists fight without cessation
   until one of them is put *hors de combat*.

So the next morning the meeting took place; and
the unfortunate Gersbach, who had had little
practice, and was slow of eye, suddenly received a blow
which divided the under part of his nose from the
upper.  The wound was sewn up again on the spot;
but when Gersbach came home he looked a hideous
spectacle, and though he never spoke of it, it leaked
out that the wound had been got in fighting about
Margarethe Halm.  Gersbach was a great friend of
Hans Halm's, and spent every evening in the inn
chatting with the keepers, or reading Greek, and
drinking white wine and water; but Grete showed
him no particular favour, and he seemed rather sad.

"Ach, Gott," said Margarethe to herself, as she
stood in the stone courtyard; "if they should not
come—and if my father should see me——"

The next moment she caught sight of the two
carriages coming along through the village; and
her heart waxed a little faint as she saw that
Hermann was sitting with a rosy young English girl by
his side.

"He never wrote to me anything about her," she
thought, in those scrawled letters which always
ended, "*Denke an mich, Gretchen; und mit
herzlichsten Grüssen*," &c., &c.

It seemed part of the tall head-forester's pride
that he would not permit himself to show any joyful
surprise on finding that Grete was in the courtyard.
On the contrary, with a curt "*'n Abend, Grete*," he
passed her, and busied himself in seeing that the
Count and his guests were being properly attended
to by the servants, and that the luggage was being
straightway carried in.

Margarethe Halm, with her heart beating worse
than ever, came timidly forward, then hung about
a little, and at last ventured to say, with a little
quivering of the mouth:

"Thou hast never even shaken hands with me,
Hermann."

"But thou seest that I am busy, Grete,
and—*Donnerwetter*, idiot, look what you do with the lady's
box!—and thou shouldst not have come at such a
time, when the Herr Graff and his visitors have just
arrived, and expect——"

He proceeded to give some more orders; for the
head-forester was an important man in Schönstein,
and looked upon the Count's domestics as he looked
upon his own keepers.  But happening to turn, he
caught a glimpse of what suddenly smote down his
gruff pride—Margarethe Halm was standing by, with
her soft black eyes brimming over with tears.  Of
course his stalwart arms were round her shoulders
in a moment, and he was talking pettingly and
caressingly to her, as if she were an infant, with
ever so many *du's*, and *klein's*, and *chen's*.

The Count's big mansion, though it looked like a
whitewashed cotton-factory outside, was inside very
prettily furnished; and the long, low-roofed rooms,
with their polished wooden floors and gaily-decorated
walls, were very cool and pleasant.  There was little
garden about the house; the ground behind was laid
out in formal walks between avenues of acacias and
limes; there was a little pond with a plaster-boy in
the centre, who spouted a thin jet of water through
a pipe; and there was, at the further end of the
trees, an artificial ruin which the previous proprietor
had failed to complete when the Count took possession
of the place.

"How lovely the village looks in that red light!"
said Annie Brunel, as they all went out on the
balcony of the room in which dinner had been laid for
them.

"But the glory of Schönstein," said the Count,
slapping Will on the shoulder—"I say, the glory of
Schönstein, my boy, lies in those miles and miles
of trees—the deer, my lad, the deer!  Ah, Miss
Brunel, when I see you take a gun upon your
shoulder, and march into the forest with us—like
Diana, you know——"

He looked at her with the admiring smile of an
elderly Adonis.  Had he not the right, now that
she had seen his splendour and his wealth?  Could
he doubt any longer about his chance of winning
that white little hand?

"You are too kind, Count," she said, laughingly.
"Lady Jane will tell you that the very name of
Diana has been always hateful to me."

"It's Diana Vernon she means," said Mrs. Christmas,
with a pretty little laugh; "that she used to
play before she became a grand lady.  And play it
she did, Count, take my word for it, as well as ever
you could think of: and as for me, I never *could*
understand how she so hated the part, which is a
a very good part for a young miss that can sing.  I
declare the dialogue is quite beautiful."

Here she gave, with great feeling and correct,
impassioned emphasis, some passages in which the
Diana and Francis of that ridiculous drama talk
bombastic sentiment to each other, causing Miss
Brunel to laugh until the tears ran down her cheeks.

"You may laugh as you like, Miss Annie, but it's
a beautiful piece; and how many years is it since
you played it for my benefit?"

"You're making me quite old, Lady Jane,"
protested the young actress.

"People have only to look at you, my dear,"
continued the bright little old woman, "and they won't
make a mistake.  That was the very last time I went
on the stage, Count; and do you know what I played?—why,
'Miami' in the 'Green Bushes.'  And Miss
Annie, here, just to please me, consented to play
'Nelly O'Neil,' and, will you believe me, Mr. Anerley,
I stood in the wings and cried—me, an old woman,
who had heard it all a thousand times—when she
began to sing the 'Green Bushes.'  Have you heard
it, Count?—don't you know the words of it?

   |   "'As I was a-walking one morning in May,
   |   To hear the birds singing, and see lambkins play,
   |   I espied a young damsel, so sweetly sung she,
   |   Down by the Green Bushes, where she chanced to meet me."

There was Polly Hastings—she played 'Geraldine'
then—came to me after that last night, and said,
solemnly, that she would give herself over to the
devil if he would only make her able to sing the
ballad as Miss Annie sung it that night.  The people
in the pit——"

"Mrs. Christmas will go on romancing all the
evening, Mr. Anerley, if you don't stop her," said
Miss Brunel.

"And poor Tom Mulloney—he played 'Wild
Murtogh' for me—do you remember, Miss Annie,
that morning at rehearsal when they came and told
him that his wife and the little boy were drowned?
He didn't speak a word—not a word; he only shook
a little, and was like to fall; then he walked out,
and he was never on the boards of a theatre again.
He took to drinking as if he was mad; and he was
put in an asylum at last; and they say he used to
sing all his old songs at the amateur concerts in the
place, you know, better nor ever he had sung them
in the theatre—that was 'The Dance on the Flure,'
and 'The Jug o' Punch,' and 'Savourneen Deelish,'
and 'The Coulin'——"

"The Coulin!" said Will, with a sort of chill at
the heart; he had forgotten all about Dove, and
St. Mary-Kirby; and the remembrance of them, at that
moment, seemed to reproach him somehow.

"Do you know 'The Coulin'?" asked Miss Brunel,
wondering at his sudden gravity.

"Yes," said he, with an affectation of carelessness.
"It is one of Dove's favourite airs.  But she won't
accept the modern words as representing the song;
she will have it that the melody describes the parting
of two friends——"

"Come, then," said the Count, briskly, "dinner is
ready.  Miss Brunel, you shall play us the—the
what, did you say?—to-morrow, after the man has
come from Donaueschingen to tune the piano.  Not
a bad piano, either, as you'll see; and now I don't
grudge having bought it along with the rest of the
furniture, when I find that *you* will charm us with
an occasional song.  Four hundred florins, I think
it was; but I don't know."

As they retired into the long dining-saloon, where
a sufficiently good dinner was placed on the table,
Hermann came out into the courtyard, surrounded
by a lot of yelping little beagles, with short stumpy
legs, long ears, long noses, and sagacious eyes.
Further, there was a huge brown mastiff, with long
lithe limbs, and tremendous jaws, at sight of which
Grete shrank back, for the brute was the terror of
the village.

"Go down, then, thou stupid dog, thou worthless
follow! seest thou not the young lady is afraid?
Ah, du guter Hund, du Rudolph, and so thou knowest
me again?  Come along, Grete, he won't touch
you; and we'll go to see your father."

"You won't tell him I was waiting for you,
Hermann?" said the girl, shyly.

Hans Halm stood at the door of his *châlet*-looking
hostelry, in a thin white coat and a broad straw hat,
with a complacent, benevolent smile on his stout
visage and shrewd blue eyes.  Sometimes he looked
up and down the road, wondering what had become
of Grete, who, Frau Halm being dead, had taken her
mother's place in the management of the inn.
Perhaps Hans suspected where his tender-hearted,
black-eyed daughter had gone; at least, he was in nowise
surprised to see her coming back with Hermann,
Rudolph joyously barking by their side.  The two
men shook hands heartily, and kissed each other;
for had they not, some years before, pledged
themselves solemnly to call each other "du," and sworn
eternal friendship, and drank a prodigious quantity
of Affenthaler over that ceremony?

"Gretchen, get you indoors; the house is quite
full, and you can't expect your grandmother to do
everything."

Hermann looked into the passage.  On the pegs
along the wall were hung a number of guns—nearly
all of them double-barrelled breechloaders; with
white barrels, and broad green straps for the slinging
of them over the shoulder.

"My men are within, *nicht wahr*?" he said.

"Listen, and you will hear," said Hans Halm.

From the door by which Grete had disappeared,
there issued a faint murmur of voices and a strong
odour of tobacco-smoke.  Hermann went forward
and opened this door, meeting there a picture with
which he was quite familiar, but which it is wholly
impossible to describe.  The chief room of the inn,
monopolising all the ground-floor, and lighted by
ten or twelve small windows, was almost filled with
a cloud of pale-blue smoke, in which picturesque
groups of men were seen seated round the long
narrow tables.  Brown-faced, bearded men, they wore
the foresters' dress of green and grey, with a tall
beaver hat in which were stuck some capercailzie
feathers, with a large cartridge-pouch of roe-skin
slung over their shoulder by a green strap, with a
horn slung round their neck by means of a twisted
green cord with tattered tassels, and with a long
killing-knife lying on the table before them, with
which they from time to time cut a lump off the
brown loaf.  All round the low-roofed room, forming
a sort of cornice, ran a row of deers' horns,
tastefully mounted, each marked with the date on which
the animal had been shot.  These were, for the most
part, the product of Hans Halm's personal skill;
though the finest pair had been presented to him by
Hermann.  Besides the under-keepers, there were
one or two villagers, and in a corner sat young
Gersbach, his spectacles firmly fixed on the book before
him, except when Margarethe Halm happened to pass
before him, as she brought in fresh chopins of white
wine to the swarthy, sinewy, picturesque foresters.

Of course Hermann's entrance was the signal for
a general uproar, all the keepers starting from the
benches and crowding round him to bid him
welcome.  At last he managed to get clear of them,
and then he sat down on one of the benches.

"Listen, friends!" he said, in a loud voice,
bringing down his hand with a bang on the table.

There was instant silence.

"The Herr Graf and his friend go shooting
to-morrow morning.  Every man will be here by four
o'clock—four o'clock, do you understand?  In placing
the guns, you will take care that the Herr Graf, and
the other Englander, have the *Haupt-platz* [#]_
alternately.  Four o'clock, every one of you, remember.
And now, in God's name, Hans Halm, let us have
some of your white wine, that I haven't tasted for
many a day!"

.. [#] The Haupt-platz is the point at which the deer are most likely
   to break cover, and therefore the best position for the sportsman.
   There are generally one or two of those good places, which are
   invariably given, as a compliment, to strangers.

There was a new life in the big forester, now that
he had sniffed the resinous odour of his native woods,
and was once more among his own people.  He
languished in the dull solitude of Kent; here he knew
his business, he was respected of men, and he speedily
showed that there was none of the old swing and
vigour gone out of him.

He had scarcely spoken of the wine, when Grete
came up with it in a tall white measure, a modest
and pleased smile on her face.

"She does not smile like that to the young
Mr. Schoolmaster," whispered one keeper to another.
"Our Gretchen has her favourites."

"God give her courage if she marries Hermann!"
said the other.  "He will drive her as we drive the roe."

"Nonsense!  Hermann Löwe is an infant with
women.  You should see how his sister-in-law in
Donaueschingen manages him."

At this moment the schoolmaster, whom nobody
had noticed, came forward and said to his rival—

"How do you find yourself, Hermann Löwe?"

"Ah, right well, Herr Schulmeister," replied the
other, giving him a hearty grasp of the hand.  "And
I'll tell you what I've got for you in my box.  I
looked for all the beetles, and creeping things, and
butterflies I could in England, and all the strange
ones I have brought for you, with a fine big pin run
through their body."

"You are very kind, Hermann Löwe."

"No, I'm not.  You did a good turn to my sister-in-law's
child when he was nearly dead with eating
those berries—that's all.  And do you still read as
much, and gather beetles yourself?  Now, look here—I
must have all the lads in the neighbourhood to
drive for me in the morning, and they'll have to
work hard, for the Herr Graf is not a patient man,
and he gets angry if there are not plenty of bucks;
and so, if the boys are too tired to go to the evening
school—you understand?"

Gersbach nodded.

"And the Herr Graf will be pleased if you come
with us yourself, Gersbach," added Hermann.

Later in the evening the Count's party came round
to visit the inn.  By this time Hermann had gone;
but there still remained a few of the keepers, who,
on seeing the Count, politely rose from their seats.

"Nein," said the Count, in a lordly way, "eh—ah—sitzen
sie, gute freundin—eh, freunde—und wie
sind Sie, Herr Halm und sein Tochter?"

Halm, with admirable gravity, replied to the Count
as if his highness's manner and grammar had quite
impressed the poor innkeeper.

"Very well indeed, Herr Graf; and Grete, she
will be here this moment.  I understand you are
going to shoot to-morrow morning, Herr Graf; I
hope you will have much sport."

"He says the deer are very plentiful," observed
the Count, oracularly, to Annie Brunel.  "So you
really must come with us to-morrow and see our luck."

"Are these roe-deers' horns?" the young lady
asked.  "Pray ask him how he came to have so
many.  Did he shoot them all himself?"

The Count turned, with rather an uncomfortable
expression, towards the innkeeper, and said (in German)—

"The lady loves to know if—you have—everything shot."

Halm looked aghast.  Was the Count going to
impeach him with having thinned the neighbouring
woods during the owner's absence?  He immediately
broke into a long explanation and description of all
the drives they had had that season, and told how
the deer were so plentiful that the people were
complaining bitterly of having their fields and gardens
eaten up, and so forth, and so forth.  But the
embarrassment of the Count's face only deepened, and
still further deepened, until, in a querulous tone, he
cried out—

"I say, Anerley, I think you'd better come and
listen to what he says about the sport you're likely
to get to-morrow, rather than waste time in showing
Mrs. Christmas things she doesn't care about!"—this
with a hot face and an excited air.

"If you listen, isn't that enough?" said Anerley.

"But, damme, I can't understand a word he says—he
talks like an engine, and all in that horrid
*patois*—Herr Halm, I comprehend; but do you
know, the lady loves to drink your white
wine."  (This in German.)

"Some white wine, Herr Graf?"

"Yes.  Not many.  We wish to drink all—four
glasses, you understand."

"It is so difficult," continued the Count, addressing
Miss Brunel, "to get these people to understand
German, if you don't speak their barbarous form of
it.  However, I have told him we all wished to taste
the white wine they drink here—not a bad wine, and
remarkably cheap."

"Let me introduce you, Miss Brunel," said Will,
"to Miss Grete Halm, who says she speaks French,
and will be delighted to escort you to-morrow at any
time you may wish to join us.  Grete says she once
shot a deer herself; but I suspect somebody else
pulled the trigger while she held the gun."

Gretchen came forward with a warm blush on her
brown cheek; and then it was arranged (she speaking
French fluently enough, but with a Schwarzwald
accent) that she and Annie Brunel would seek out
the shooting party towards the forenoon of the
following day.





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.. _`THE COUNT DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVII.


.. class:: center medium

   THE COUNT DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF.

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In the dusk of the early morning the keepers, drivers,
and dogs had assembled in the large room of Hans
Halm's inn.  Hermann was there too, with the
great-jawed Rudolph; and Margarethe, with a shadowy
reminiscence of recent dreams in her soft black eyes,
stood quietly on one side, or brought some beer to
this or that gruff forester, who had perhaps walked
a dozen miles that morning to the place of rendezvous.
The dogs lay under the chairs, the guns and
deerskin pouches of the men were on the table before
them, by the side of their tall feathered beavers;
and if the whole scene did not look as if it had been
cut out of an opera, it was because the picturesque
trappings of the keepers had been sobered in colour
by the rain and sun of many years, and because there
dwelt over the party an austere silence.  The
excitement of the day had not commenced.

When the Count and Will arrived at the place of
meeting, a faint flush of rose-colour was beginning
to steal along the dark violet of the dawn; and as
the whole party set out, in straggling twos and threes
along the grey road, daylight began to show itself
over the fields and the mist-covered woods.

Hermann, who led the way, was accompanied by a
little old man with a prodigious black moustache,
twinkling eyes, and comical gravity of face, who was
captain over the drivers, and named Spiegelmann.
The venerable Spiegelmann, with his tall hat and
slung horn, was a man of importance; and he had
already, with much seriousness, pronounced his
opinion on the direction of the wind, and on the
necessity for beginning the driving some considerable
distance further on.

Then came Will Anerley, who had made friends
with the young schoolmaster, Gersbach, and was very
anxious to know how life was to be made tolerable if
one lived at Schönstein all the year round.  Indeed,
Anerley's having travelled so much, and among so
many different people, combined with a certain
natural breadth of sympathy, gave him a peculiar interest
in trying to imagine himself in the position of almost
every man whom he met.  How did those men regard
the rest of the world?  What had they to look forward
to?  What was their immediate aim—their immediate
pleasure?  Anerley would take as much interest
in the affairs of an applewoman, and talk as gravely
and freely to her about them, as he would in the
more ambitious projects of an artist or a man of
letters.  The gratifying of this merely intellectual
curiosity was a constant habit and source of
satisfaction to him; and while it offended some people by
the frankness of speech, and charmed others by the
immediate generosity and self-denial which were its
natural results, it promised to leave him, sooner or
later, in the attitude of negative criticism and social
isolation which his father exhibited.  Fortunately, he
had inherited from his mother a certain warmth of
heart and impulse, which corrected his transmitted
tendency to theorize: it was this side of his
temperament which had brought upon him his present
misfortune, while he had been engaged, out of pure
curiosity, in studying Annie Brunel's character, and
endeavouring to enter into her views of the people
and things around her.  In fact, the pursuit of which
I speak, though extremely enticing and pleasant,
should never be attempted by an unmarried man who
has not passed his fortieth year.

In the present case the young Herr Schulmeister
took an instant liking for the grave, cheerful,
plain-spoken man beside him, who seemed to concern
himself about other people, and was so ready with excuses
for them.

"I should not take you to be an Englishman," said
Gersbach.

"Why?"

"You have none of the English character.  Count
Schönstein is an Englishman—a typical Englishman—conceited,
bigoted in his own opinions, generous
when it is permitted to him to be ostentatious,
dull and stupid, and jealous of people who are not
so——"

"My friend," said Will, "why didn't you leave
your dolls behind you in the nursery?  Or is this
typical Englishman one of your university puppets?
You know there is no such thing as a typical Englishman,
or typical Frenchman, or typical German; and
I have almost come to believe that there is no such
thing as national character.  The most reckless
prodigals I have met have been Scotchmen; the keenest
business-men I have met have been Irishmen; the
dullest and most melancholy, Frenchmen——"

"And the Germans?" asked Gersbach, with a laugh.

"The Germans are like anybody else, so far as
disposition goes, although they happen to be
educationally and intellectually a little ahead of other
nations.  And as for the poor Graf, I don't think
you, for example, would make half as good a man as
he is if you were in his position."

"Perhaps not; but why?"

"I can't exactly explain it to you in German; but
doctrinairism is not the first requisite in a landlord;
and if you were the Graf, you would be for coercing
the people under you and about you, into being
logical, and you would withdraw yourself from people
who opposed you, and you would gradually weaken
your influence and destroy your chances of doing
good.  Why are our Tory country gentlemen always
better liked by the people than the Radical proprietors?
Why are Tories, as a rule, pleasanter companions
than Radicals?  I am a Radical; but I
always prefer dining with a Tory?"

"Is the Count a Tory?" asked the Schulmeister.

"Yes.  Men who have been in business and earned,
or gained, a lot of money, almost invariably become
fierce Tories.  It is their first passport to respectability;
and there is no step one can take so cheaply
as that of changing one's political theories."

"What a singular social life you have in England!"
cried Gersbach, blinking with a curious sort of
humour behind his big spectacles.  "There is the
demi-monde, for example.  Why, you talk of that, and your
writers speak of it, as if there was an acknowledged
rivalry openly carried on between the members of it
and your married women."

"But our married women," said Will, "are going
to form a trades-union among themselves in order to
crush that institution."

At which Franz Gersbach looked puzzled: these
English were capable of trying any mad expedient;
and somehow their devices always worked well, except
in such matters as popular education, military
efficiency, music, scholarship, and so forth.  As for a
trades-union of any kind, it was sure to flourish in
England.

They had now reached the edge of the forest, and
here Hermann called the party around him, and gave
his orders in a loud peremptory tone, which had the
effect of considerably frightening his master; the
Count hoped that he would do nothing inaccurate.

"You, Herr Schulmeister, will accompany the
drivers, and Spiegelmann will give you one of the
return-posts.  Falz, you will go down to the
new-cut road—Greef on your right, Beigel further along.
Spiegelmann will sound his horn when you are
all posted, and the second horn when the drive
commences.  Forward, then, in God's name, all of us!"

And away trooped the lads under the surveillance
of the venerable Spiegelmann, who had a couple of
brace of leashed beagles pulling and straining and
whining to get free into the brushwood.  Hermann,
Will, and the Count at once dived into the twilight
of the tall pines, that almost shut out the red flames
of the morning over their peaks.  The soft,
succulent yellow moss was heavy with dew, and so were
the ferns and the stoneberry bushes.  A dense carpet
of this low brushwood deadened the sound of their
progress; and they advanced, silent as phantoms,
into the dim recesses of the wood.  Here and there
occurred an opening or clearance, with a few felled
trees lying about; then they struggled through a
wilderness of younger fir and oak, and finally came
into a tract of the forest where nothing was to be
seen, as far as the eye could reach, but innumerable
tall trunks, coated with the yellow and grey lichens
of many years, branchless almost to their summit,
and rising from a level plain of damp green moss.
There was not even the sound of a bird, or of a
falling leaf, to break the intense silence of the
place; nor was there the shadow of any living thing
to be seen down those long narrow avenues between
the closely-growing stems of the trees.

"Count Schönstein," said Will, in a whisper, as
they drew near the Haupt-platz, "what gun is that
you have with you?"

"My ordinary breech-loader."

"Carries far?"

"I should think so.  Shoots hard and close as a rifle."

"Will it kill at fifty yards?"

"It might."

"Hermann," said Will, turning to the head-keeper,
"I insist on being posted eighty yards distant from
the Count."

"You think that is a joke," said the Count
peevishly.

"I don't think it a joke at all," said Will.
"Breech-loaders have a wonderful faculty of going
off when nobody expects them; and though you
may explain the thing satisfactorily afterwards, that
won't remove a few buck-shot out of your leg."

"I am not in the habit of letting my gun go off
accidentally," said the Count, grandly.  "Indeed, I
flatter myself that few men better understand the
use of——"

"The *Haupt-platz*, Herr," said Hermann,
unceremoniously breaking in upon his master.  "The Herr
Graf will be stationed farther down this path; you
must not shoot in that direction.  You may shoot
in front as the deer comes to you, or after them
when they have passed; not along this line, only."

"Danke schön, Hermann, and tell the same thing
to the Count."

He now found himself opposite a tall tree, which
had a cross in red paint traced upon the trunk.  The
Count and Hermann passed on, and when the three
were posted, each held out his arm, and signalled
that he understood his immediate neighbour's
position, and would remember it.

Scarcely had they done so when a long and loud
*tantara!* from Spiegelmann's horn told them that
the drivers were ready.  A faint echo now came
from the other side of the strip of forest, showing
that there the keepers were posted; and finally a
return-blast from Hermann's horn proclaimed that
all were waiting.

Once more a brilliant trill from Spiegelmann—this
time an audacious and elaborate effort, full of
noisy anticipation—came through the wood; and
then were heard the faint and far-off sounds of
yelping dogs, and shouting men, and sticks being beaten
against the stumps of the trees.  The drive had
commenced.  Count Schönstein began to tremble;
his heart went faster and faster, as his excited brain
peopled all the dim vistas of the trees with living
forms.  He could scarcely breathe with absolute
fear.  Again and again he looked at his triggers,
and the hammers, and the little spikes of brass
which he hoped would strike death into the ribs
of some splendid buck.  He began to assure himself
that he *could not* tell a buck from a doe if the animal
ran quickly; that he *must* shoot at once, and trust
to Providence keeping the tender feminine members
of the herd out of the way.  Indeed, he had already
framed an excuse for having shot a doe, and he was
busily picturing his assumed regret, and his inner
delight at being able to shoot anything, when——

By this time a dead silence had intervened.  The
first joyous yelping of the dogs had quite died down;
and now the broad-footed, stump-legged, big-headed
little animals were wiring themselves through the
brushwood, and jumping over the soft moss, with an
occasional toss of their long ears or a slight whine.
The only sound to be heard was the occasional
rattling of sticks by the beaters, accompanied by their
peculiar guttural cry.

Suddenly—and the whole empty space of the wood
seemed to quiver for a moment with this instantaneous
throb of life—Will caught a glimpse of a
light shimmer of brown away at the end of one of
the long avenues.  For a moment the apparition
was lost; when it reappeared, it was evident that the
deer was bearing down upon Count Schönstein's
position.  The next second, a fine lithe, thin-limbed,
supple, and handsome buck came along in a light
easy canter into the grey light of the opener space.
He had no thought of danger before him; he only
thought of that behind; and for a brief space he
stood right in front of the Count, apparently
listening intently for the strange sounds from which he
fled.

In despair, and rage, and amazement, Will saw
him pause there, out of the range of *his* shot, and
yet without an effort being made to secure the fine
pair of horns which graced the animal's head.  Will
now saw that the Count's gun was levelled, and that
he was apparently pulling at the trigger, but no puff
of smoke came out of the barrel.  Almost at the
same moment the deer must have seen the Count;
for all at once he shrank back on his limbs, as if he
had been struck, shivered lightly through his entire
frame, and then, with a sudden leap, he was off and
away out of sight, in the direction of Hermann!

In that brief moment of time the Count had taken
down his gun, looked at the hammers, found they
were on half-cock, cocked them, and put up his gun
again; and then, as the deer was just vanishing,
bang! bang! went both the barrels.  Of course the buck
was quite untouched; but the next moment Will
heard the sharp crack of a gun in the neighbourhood
of Hermann's post; and he knew what *that* meant.

Even at that distance he could hear the Count
breathing out incomprehensible curses at his own
stupidity, as he put another couple of cartridges
into the barrels.  Doubtless, in his excitement, he
had been trying so often whether the hammers were
on full-cock—pulling at them, letting them down,
and so forth—that accidentally they remained at
half-cock, and so spoiled for him the easiest shot he
was likely to get that day.

The silence which had been broken by the report
of the guns now fell again over the forest.  The
sun came out, too; and soon there were straggling
lanes of gold running down into the blue twilight of
the distance; while the heat seemed to have suddenly
awakened a drowsy humming of insect life.  Now
and then a brightly-plumaged jay would flash
through the trees, screaming hoarsely; and then
again the same dead, hot stillness prevailed.  It was
in this perfect silence that a living thing stole out
of some short bushes, and softly made its way over
the golden and green moss until it caught sight of
Will.  Then it cocked up its head, and calmly
regarded him with a cold, glassy, curious stare.  The
moment it lifted its head he saw that it was a fox,
not reddish-brown, but blackish-grey, with extraordinarily
bright eyes; and as they had been specially
invited to shoot foxes—which are of no use for
hunting purposes, and do much damage, in the Black
Forest—he instinctively put up his gun.  As
instinctively, he put it down again.

"My old prejudices are too strong," he said;
wherewith he contented himself with lifting a lump
of dried wood and hurling it at the small animal,
which now slunk away in another direction.

Then burst out the joyous howl of the beagles—here
and there, as if every one of them had started
his own particular game; the yelping bark rising at
times sharp and clear as if in the immediate
neighbourhood, at other times fading away into the
distance.  The fun had commenced.  First there came
trotting along a long-necked, thin-legged doe, with
a little fawn by her side; and these, catching sight
of Will, made a sharp turn to the right and bore
down upon the Count.  The latter, either too frightened
or too savage to care for distinctions of sex or
age, again blazed both barrels into the air, with
what effect Will was too much occupied to see.

For at the same moment there came down the
line, transversely, crossing in front of the Count, a
fine buck which Hermann had taken a long shot at
and missed.  The deer was going at full speed,
careless of anything in front, his whole energy bent on
speeding from the danger behind, and every thew
and muscle of his body straining its utmost.  As he
passed, Will fired his right barrel into the flashing
streak of brown—not a hair was touched!  The next
moment the buck, seeing that no further enemy
stood in front, wheeled round and made off to cross
the path on which Will stood, at some distance
farther down.  Just as the shoulder of the animal
appeared before the lane of trees, the other barrel
was sent after him; there was a shrill scream, the
buck leapt a dozen feet into the air and fell, without
a parting groan in him, head-foremost on the soft moss.

"There is one pair of horns, at least, for Miss
Brunel," thought Will, hastily pushing in two more
cartridges.

The Count had certainly plenty of good fortune,
so far as the deer were concerned.  One particularly
handsome buck which had been running straight at
him, without seeing him, he received with a hurriedly-aimed
shot which did no damage.  The animal, however,
got such a fright that it turned and galloped
right back and through the ring of the beaters,
escaping a parting shot which old Spiegelmann
aimed at him.  Here and there a shot had been heard
round the sides of the drive; but as yet no one knew
what the other had done.  In a few minutes,
however, the dogs and then the boys began to show
themselves, approaching through the trees.  That
particular drive was over.

Will hastened up to the Count.

"What have you shot?"

"Nothing."

The Count looked very much vexed; and Will
attributed it, of course, to his having missed so
many shots.

"Why didn't you shoot sooner at the deer that
came up and looked at you?"

"Why?" re-echoed the Count, with a savage
laugh.  "Why?  Because these —— barrels were
both on half-cock, and I pulled like to break my
fingers over the —— things.  What did you shoot?"

"I believe I've left a buck lying down there."

"Why don't you go and look after him, and get
somebody to carry him home, instead of waiting here?"

The Count was evidently very uncomfortable.  He
bit his lip, he worked with the trigger of his gun;
and finally he walked abruptly away from Will, and
addressed, in a whisper, the first of the boys who
came up:

"Kommen Sie hier."

The boy stared in amazement at being called
"Sie."  Of course he dared not think that the Count
was joking.

"Ich habe geschossen—wissen Sie——?"

"Ja, Herr," said the boy, vaguely, though he did
not understand what the Count meant.

"Ein kleines—ein gar kleines—d—n it, look here!"

He caught the boy by the shoulder, as if he meant
to kick him, and dragged him a few yards farther
on, and pointed to the ground.  The boy opened his
eyes: if he had seen the corpse of his first-cousin
lying there, he could not have been more astonished.

"Sie sehen es," remarked the Count, hurriedly,
with a fine red flush burning in his stout face.

"Ja, Herr."

There lay there a tiny, soft, pretty little animal,
scarcely bigger than a King Charles' spaniel, with a
glossy light-brown coat, and large meek eyes, now
glazed and dull.  Blood was trickling from the little
thing's mouth, and also from its shoulder: the fact
being that the Count, on seeing the doe and her
fawn coming up, had fired both his barrels at them
on chance, and had managed to destroy the helpless
youngling.

If you had told the Count then, that before
evening every man, woman, and child in Schönstein
would have heard of what he had done, that the
keepers would be sneering at him and the neighbours
laughing at him, he would probably have put another
cartridge into his gun and shot himself (if he were
able) on the spot.  His present anxiety was to get
this little lad to take away the fawn under his
blouse and bury it somewhere; but all he could do
failed to impress the incorrigible young Schwarzwalder
with his meaning.

"Verstehen Sie mir nicht?"

"Ja, Herr."

It was always "Ja, Herr;" and here were the
people coming up.  Fortunately, Hermann, having
sent a long blast of his horn to recall any straggling
beater or keeper, had walked down to the place
where Will's slain buck was lying, accompanied by
the rest of the keepers, who, as they came up, gravely
shook hands with Will, according to custom, and
wished him many more such shots.  Then Spiegelmann,
selecting a peculiarly-shaped branch of young
fir, stuck it into Will's hat; by which all and
sundry—particularly they of the village—as the
shooting-party returned at night, might know that he had
brought down a buck.

At this moment two of the lads dragged up the
deer which Hermann had shot; and one of the
keepers, with his long killing-knife in hand,
proceeded to disembowel the animals, previous to their
being carried home.  The rest of the party seated
themselves on the driest spot they could find, and
somebody produced a couple of chopins of white
wine, which were forthwith handed round.

But what of the Count?  They had all been so
eager to compliment Will on his good fortune, that
no one had noticed the Graf's uneasy loitering about
the fatal spot where his murdered victim lay.

Presently up came the boy.

"Hermann Löwe, the Herr Graf wants to see you.
He has shot a little fawn; but he won't let me bring
it."

Hermann rose up, with a flush of vexation over
his face.  He did not look at his companions, but he
knew that they were smiling.

"Young idiot!" he said, when they were out of
earshot, "why didst thou come and say so before all
the people?"

"The Herr Graf——"

"Der Teufel!  Hast thou no head on thy shoulders?"

The Count was mortally frightened to meet
Hermann.  He did not know in what manner to conduct
himself: whether he should carelessly joke away the
matter, or overawe his forester by the grandeur of
his demeanour.

"I see," said Hermann, when he came up; "the
Herr Graf will not believe me that there is always
time to look—that when there is no time to look,
one need not waste powder."

"Bah! stuff! nonsense!  I tell you, when they
are running like infernal hares, how am I to look
at their size to a nicety?"

"The fawns don't run so quickly," said Hermann,
respectfully, but firmly.

"Hermann Löwe," said the Count, hotly, "I
suppose you're my servant?"

"I have that honour, Herr Graf."

"Then you'll please to shut up, that's all, and get
that wretched little animal out of the road.  Not run
quickly!  D—n his impudence!  I'll have to teach
these German thieves some better manners."

With which, and many more muttered grumblings,
the Count walked off, leaving Hermann to cover up
the dead body of the fawn, and mark the place, so
that it could be afterwards taken away and securely
buried.

When the Count came up to the rest of the party,
he was smiling urbanely.

"Stolen a march upon me, eh?" he said to Will.
"On my own ground, too.  'Gad, I'll show you
something before we've done.  I hadn't the ghost of a
chance either time I shot; and it was lucky I missed
the second time, because I saw immediately
afterwards that it was a doe."

"She had a fawn with her, hadn't she?" said Will.

"Yes," replied the Count, with a sharp glance all
round the circle of faces.

Hermann now came up, and chose two of the
strongest lads to carry home the two deer.  Each
lad had one of the animals slung round his shoulders,
while he grasped two of its thin legs in either hand,
and allowed the neck, head, and horns of the buck
to hang down in a picturesque fashion behind him.
Will went privately up to one of the boys:

"You know Grete Halm?"

"Yes."

"When you go down to the village, tell Grete to
ask the English lady to come back with you;
because, if she remains till midday, we may be gone
too far from Schönstein.  You understand?"

"Yes."

"And you may go up to the Herr Graf's house,
and tell any one you may see to send up luncheon
an hour earlier than was arranged.  You understand?"

"Ja, Herr."

And so the two lads went on their way; and
Hermann began to sketch out to his keepers the plan of
the next drive.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVIII.


.. class:: center medium

   ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE.

.. vspace:: 2

It was, however, midday before Grete Halm and
Annie Brunel arrived; and as they entered the
forest at the point where the shooting-party was
now stationed, they found that the drive had already
commenced.  Will happening to be at the corner
post, it devolved upon him to enjoin strict silence
upon the newcomers—a command which Miss
Brunel obeyed by sitting down on the trunk of a
felled tree, and beginning to ask Will a series of
questions about his morning's adventures.

They were now in a clearance in the forest some
forty yards broad, and on the other side of this strip
of open ground ran a long dense mass of brushwood,
lying still and silent in the luminous quivering heat.
Will, Grete, and Annie Brunel were in the shadow
of a patch of young firs, and between them and the
dense brushwood extended the forty yards of clearance,
with the strong sunlight beating down on the
crimson and golden moss, and on the yellow stumps
of the felled trees.  The air was hot and moist, filled
with the pungent resinous odour of the pine—a
languid, delicious scented atmosphere, which made
one prone to day-dreaming or sleep.

Suddenly, without the rustle of a leaf, and long
before any of the dogs had given tongue, there
leapt out from the close brushwood into the open
sunlight a fine young buck, with his head and horns
high in air.  The warm light fell on his ruddy
light-brown coat, and showed his shapely throat, his
sinewy form, and tall thin legs, as he stood irresolute
and afraid, sniffing the air with his black nostrils,
and watching with his full large eyes.  He saw
nothing, however, of the people before him in the
shadow of the firs; and for several seconds he
remained motionless, apparently the only living thing
in the dead silence of the place.  Then the bark of
a dog was heard behind him; he cantered a few steps
farther on, caught sight of the little party as he
passed, and then, doubly nerved, was off like a bolt
into the heart of the forest.

"But, really——" said Will.

"Now, don't make me angry with you," said
Annie, releasing his right arm, which she had tightly
held for three minutes.  "I should never have
forgiven you if you had shot that poor creature, who
looked so timid and handsome——"

"I should have given him the chance of running."

"But you would have killed him.  Didn't I see the
two you sent home, and their pitiful glazed eyes?"

"Then you have come out to stop our shooting
altogether, I suppose?" said Will, with a laugh,
though he was much more vexed than he chose to show.

But he had his revenge.  He had scarcely spoken
when a buck, followed by two does, came out of the
brushwood some distance farther down, the buck
springing lightly and buoyantly over the soft moss,
the does running more warily in his wake.  Before
Annie Brunel could do anything beyond utter a
short cry, the contents of Will's right barrel had
caught the buck on his shoulder.  He rolled over,
struggled to his feet again, and then, with a last
effort, made a few stumbling steps, and sank unseen
among the ferns.  Will turned, with a smile, to Miss
Brunel.  She had covered her face with her hands.
Grete, on the other hand, was in a wonderful state
of delight.

"You killed him, Herr, I know you did.  I saw
him fall; and how handsome he was—and his horns,
too, they are large; how pleased you will be to have
them!  My father will get them mounted for you,
if you like; and if you would have the deer's feet
for pegs, that can be done.  Oh, I wish the drive was
over, that I might go to see him!"

The drive was very nearly over, for the dogs were
heard in the immediate neighbourhood—particularly
the low sonorous baying of Rudolph, who had
escaped from the leash, and was tearing backwards and
forwards through the wood, with foam-flakes lying
along his glistening brown coat.  But all at once
the baying of Rudolph was turned into a terrific
yell, subsiding into a howl; and at the same moment
the report of a gun was heard at some distance
farther along.  Immediately afterwards Will caught
sight of a doe disappearing through the trees behind
him, and from the way it ran he judged that it had
a broken leg; while down in front of them came
Rudolph, going at full speed, with his tail between
his legs, and the front of his mouth covered with
blood.  The next thing seen was Count Schönstein,
who came running to Will in a wonderful state of
excitement.

"I've shot him!—I've shot him!" he cried, "but
we must go after him!"

"Is it Rudolph you mean?" said Will.

"A buck—a splendid buck——"

"Well, don't point your gun in my face."

"It's on half-cock."

"It isn't; and I don't like the muzzle of a gun
staring at me."

"Will that do?" cried the Count, in vexation,
dropping the gun on the ferns.  "*Do* come and help
me to catch him——"

"Catch a deer!  Listen, Miss Brunel——"

But the Count was off in the direction the wounded
doe had taken.

The beaters now made their appearance through
the brushwood, and Hermann's horn soon brought
the keepers to the rendezvous.  Will explained to
Hermann that the Graf had gone in pursuit of a
doe with a broken leg.

"Has he Rudolph with him?"

"No; I believe he shot Rudolph at the same time
that he broke the hind-leg of the doe."

"Shot Rudolph!" said Hermann, and then he
turned to the keepers: "Where is Rudolph?  Who
has seen Rudolph?  Who allowed Rudolph to escape?"

The only answer he could get was from a
messenger, who came up to say that luncheon had
arrived, and wished to know where the Herr Graf
wanted it placed.  This messenger gave Hermann a
graphic description of his having seen Rudolph flying
in the direction of Schönstein in a state of utter
demoralization.  Wherewith Hermann sat himself
down on the stump of a tree, and said resignedly—

"Spiegelmann, take one of the dogs after the
wounded doe, and send back the Herr Graf.  As
for you, Fritz, ask the lady where luncheon is to be
placed."

By the time Count Schönstein and Spiegelmann
returned, the latter carrying on his shoulder the doe
that the Count had shot, luncheon had been laid out
by the servants; and round the large white cloth
were placed a series of travelling rugs and other
appliances for smoothing down the roughnesses of
fern, and stoneberry, and moss.  The keepers,
Hermann, and the young schoolmaster were seated some
little distance off, in picturesque groups, surrounding
the dead game, which consisted of two bucks, the
Count's doe, a fox shot by Gersbach, and a hare shot
by some one else.  The men had also their luncheon
with them—apples, brown bread, a piece of smoked
ham, and a bottle or two of white wine.  All the
incidents of the drive had now to be recapitulated;
and there ensued a perfect Babel of guttural
Schwarzwald German.

The Count had ordered out a very nice luncheon
indeed; and so pleased was he with his success in
having shot something, that he called one of the
boys and gave him two bottles of champagne, a
drinking-cup, and a lump of ice to take over to the
keepers.  Indeed, he would have given Hermann and
the schoolmaster an invitation to sit down at the
white cloth, only he wished to postpone that
explanation about Rudolph until Annie Brunel and
Will were out of the way.  As for Grete Halm, she
equally dreaded the thought of sitting with the
Count's party, and of having to go alone among the
men and boys opposite; and it was only by much
coaxing and ordering that she was made to sit down
by Miss Brunel, and submit to have the Count
himself carve for her, and offer her wine in a beautiful
little silver cup.

"Süsse an die Süssen," said he, gallantly, as he
poured out the champagne; and Grete's soft black
eyes looked puzzled.

"Look at the boy in the red blouse," said Annie
Brunel, "lying beside the two deer.  I believe the
Count has got the whole scene made up in imitation
of a hunting-picture, and that the boy knows well
enough how fine his brown face and red smock-frock
are in the sunlight.  Then see how that deer's head
lies back, precisely as if it were in a lithograph;
and the streaks of sunlight falling across the green
dress of the keepers and the stretched-out dogs—and
Hermann, there, cutting an apple with a dagger,
his hair all matted with perspiration—the schoolmaster
sitting on the trunk of the tree, looking
vaguely at the fox before him——"

"Wondering," observed Will, "what sort of
chemical change has occurred within the last half-hour,
or why life should go out of an organism when lead
goes in."

"That is a German picture, and here are we making
a French picture—only that Grete is such a thorough
Black Forester, with her bodice, and white sleeves,
and head-dress."

The Count was intensely flattered and pleased by
her admiration of the impromptu pictures.  He had
been striving hard to interest and amuse her—most
of all had he tried to charm her with the delights
which he held at his own command; and here were
the very sunlight, and the colours of the forest, and
the shape of deers' necks aiding him!

"You don't see the like of that in England, do
you?" he said, with his mouth full of cold chicken.
"I hope, Miss Brunel, you and Mrs. Christmas
will make your stay with us as long as ever you can."

"I should be very glad," she said; "but I must see
what Lady Jane says in a day or two—whether she
finds herself getting better.  If she should prefer the
cooler air of mountain scenery, we may go on to
Switzerland."

"But don't you dread the idea of travelling
alone—looking after your own luggage, and what not?"
asked the Count, with his mouth this time full of
some other animal's tongue.

"It was not entirely on a pleasure excursion we
came," she said, quietly.

"And then," said Will, "you can get plenty of
cool mountain air in the Black Forest.  You can go
and live comfortably on the top of the Feldberg,
about 5000 feet high, with a dozen mountains all
round you over 4000 feet.  In the meantime, don't
trouble yourself with thoughts of change; but let me
give you some of this jelly.  You are very fond of
sweets, I know."

"I am.  You have been watching me."

He had been watching her too much, he thought.
The intense curiosity with which he had regarded
the singular change in the girl's nature so soon as
she left the stage, with the study of her pretty
superficial carelessness, her frank audacious manner,
and her quaint, maternal, matter-of-fact attitude
towards himself, had wrought its inevitable work;
and at the very moment when she was thinking that
Mr. Anerley took a friendly pleasure in her society,
he was longing to get away from it as from a torture
too heavy to be borne—longing to get away, and
unable to go.  He might easily have avoided her
on this very day, for example, by pleading business
occupations; instead, he had looked with impatience
for her arrival all the morning and forenoon.

And if he had any intellectual pleasure in studying
the curious shades of the young actress's character,
it was well that he improved his time; for this was
the last day on which she should ever appear to him
that enigmatical compound of a childlike gaiety and
mimicry, with a matronly air which was quite as
amusingly unnatural.  From this period henceforth,
the reader who takes the trouble to follow Annie
Brunel's history will find her a changed woman—drawing
nearer to that beautiful ideal which one who
knew her mother would have expected to find in
Annie Napier's only child.

At present she was chiefly concerned with the
various sweets which Count Schönstein's cook had
sent, and also in trying the effect of squeezing the
juice of different kinds of fruit into the iced
champagne which she sipped from time to time.  She
came to the conclusion that sliced apple added to
champagne and iced water greatly improved its
flavour; and she appealed to Grete Halm, who had
tried all her different specifics, the two drinking out
of the same glass.  Grete began to fancy that
English ladies, though they were very beautiful and had
magnificent hair, were little better than children, to
amuse themselves with such nonsense.

"I see that Hermann is getting dreadfully impatient,"
said Miss Brunel, at last; "let us go."

"Pardon, mademoiselle," said Will.  "Let us have
an understanding first."

She laughed a bright and merry laugh that puzzled
the Count extremely.

"Was gibt's, Grete?" said he.

Grete began to explain, with a demure smile, how
the Fräulein had held the Herr's arm when a buck
was going past; but the Count soon lost the thread
of the story, and had to beg Will for a translation.

"I really can't bear to see any one else shoot when
I am looking on," said Miss Brunel.  "But if I were
myself shooting, I dare say I shouldn't care."

"Come, then," said Will, "will you take my gun
during the next drive?  I will teach you how to hold
it and fire——"

"I know that already," she said.  It was not the
first time she had fired a gun—on the stage.

"And I will fix the gun so that you need have no
trouble."

"Agreed," she said; while Grete, who was about
to remain behind to assist in packing up the luncheon
things, assured her that the holding of the gun was
quite easy, and that she would be sure to kill a
splendid deer.

They had to walk nearly half a mile before they
came to the next beat; and by that time they had
arrived at a sort of broad ravine or hollow, the hill
leading down to which was covered with tall, branchless
pines.  Down in the valley commenced a tract
of young trees and brushwood, which was supposed
to be full of deer.  While the beaters were drawing
a circle round this tract of brushwood, Hermann
posted the guns and courteously gave Will the
Hauptplatz, understanding that the young lady was about
to try her luck.  At this point there was a mass of
earth and roots which had been torn up by the falling
of a pine—a little embankment some five feet high,
over which one could easily command the whole line
of brushwood lying in front.  This was the spot
where Will posted Annie Brunel.  He placed the
barrel of the gun on the edge of this natural rampart,
and then showed her how, whenever she saw a deer
spring out into the sunlight down below in the valley,
she was noiselessly to point the gun, keep the stock
well against her shoulder, and fire.

"Only take care," said he, "that it isn't a clog or
a boy that comes out of the bushes."

"What if I shoot you?" she said.

"You can't shoot me, any more than you can shoot
yourself.  I shall go up the hill a bit to overlook you,
and if it should be a dog, I'll shout out before you
murder him."

Here the long, low, steady call of Spiegelmann's
horn was heard, with Hermann's reply.

"When the next horn calls, you may begin to
look out.  Hold out your hand."

She held out her right hand, wonderingly, and
showed him the small white fingers.

"It is quite steady; but your heart beats."

"It generally does," she said, with a smile.  "It is
a weakness, I know, but——"

Here the fine anticipatory flourish of the keeper's
bugle again came echoing through the trees.  Will
gave over the gun to her, told her to take time and
not be afraid, and then retired somewhat farther up
the hill.  He ensconced himself behind a tall grey
pine, whence, without being seen, he could command
a view of the entire length of brushwood, and of
Miss Brunel in her place of concealment.

"If she only remains cool," he thought, "she is
certain to be successful."

Once only she looked round and up the hill towards
him, and there was a sort of constrained smile
about her lips.

"I am afraid she is getting frightened," he thought now.

The intense sultry silence of the place certainly
heightened her nervous expectation, for she could
distinctly hear her heart thumping against her side.
Expectancy became a positive pain—an agony that
seemed to be choking her; but never for a moment
did she think of abandoning her post.

Meanwhile Will's experienced eye failed to detect
the least motion among the bushes, nor could he hear
the faintest noise from the dogs.  Yet Hermann had
told him that this was one of the best beats in the
neighbourhood; and so he patiently waited, knowing
that it was only a matter of time.

At length one of the dogs was heard to bellow
forth his joyous discovery.  Will's breath began to
come and go more quickly, in his intense anxiety
that his pupil should distinguish herself at the
approaching crisis.  Then it seemed to him that at
some distance off he saw one or two of the young firs
tremble, when there was not a breath of wind to stir
them.

He watched these trees and the bushes adjoining
intently, but they were again quite motionless; the
dog, too, only barked at intervals.  All at once,
however, he saw, coming down a lane in the brushwood,
two branched yellow tips, which paused and remained
stationary, with only a single bush between them
and the open space fronting Miss Brunel.  They were
the horns of a deer which now stood there, uncertain
by which way to fly from the dogs behind him.

"If she could only catch sight of these horns," he
said to himself, "and understand to fire through the
bush, she would kill him to a certainty."

Evidently, however, she did not see the horns;
perhaps her position prevented her.  So, with his
own heart beating rapidly now, Will waited for the
moment when the dogs would drive the deer out
into the clear sunlight, immediately underneath the
muzzle of her gun.

A sharp bark from one of the beagles did it.  Will
saw the light spring of the deer out into the open,
and the same glance told him that Annie Brunel had
shrunk back with a light cry, and that the gun,
balanced for a moment on the edge of the mass of
roots, was about to fall on the ground.

At the same moment he received an astounding
blow on the side that nearly knocked him over; and
his first instinct was that of an Englishman—to utter
an oath, clench his fist, and turn round to find a face
to strike at.  But before the instinct had shaped
itself into either thought or action, the sudden spasm
passed into a sort of giddiness; he fancied the
pine-tree before him wavered, put out his hand to guard
himself, and then fell, with a loud noise in his ears.

When Miss Brunel saw the gun tumble on the
ground and heard the report, she clasped her hands
over her eyes in a vague instantaneous horror of any
possible result.  The next moment she looked up, and
there was a black mass lying on the ground behind
the tall tree.  Her only thought was that he lay dead
there as she ran to him, and knelt down by him, and
caught him round the neck.  White-lipped, trembling
in every limb, and quite unconscious of what she did,
she put her head down to his, and spoke to him.
There were three words that she uttered in that
moment of delirious pity, and self-reproach, and
agony, which it was as well he did not hear; but
uttered they were, never to be recalled.

When he came to himself, he saw a white face
bending over him, and had but a confused notion of
what had occurred.  With a vigorous effort, however,
mental and physical, he pulled himself together and
got into a sitting posture.

"I must have given you such a fright through my
stupidity," he said; but all the time he wondered to
see a strange look in her eyes—a look he had never
seen there before *off the stage*—as she knelt by him
and held his hand in hers.  She did not speak; she
only looked at him, with a vague absent delight, as
if she were listening to music.

"Poor creature!" he thought, "she does not know
how to say that she is sorry for having hurt me."

So he managed to get up a quite confident smile,
and struggled to his feet, giving her his hand to raise
her also.

"I suppose you thought you had killed me," he
said, with a laugh, "but it was only the fright
knocked me over.  I am not hurt at all.  Look here,
the charge has lodged in the tree."

He showed her a splinter or two knocked off the
bark of the tree, and a few round holes where the
buck-shot had lodged; but at the same time he was
conscious of a warm and moist sensation creeping
down his side, and down his arm likewise.  Further,
he pretended not to see that there was a line of red
blood trickling gently over his hand, and that her
dress had already caught a couple of stains from the
same source.

"What's that?" she said, with a terrified look,
looking from her own hand, which was likewise
stained, to his.  "It is blood—you have been hurt,
and you won't tell me.  Don't be so cruel," she added,
piteously; "but tell me what I am to do, for I know
you are hurt.  What shall I do?  Shall I run to
Hermann?  Shall I go for the Count?  There is no water
about here——"

"Sit down on those ferns—that's what you must
do," said Will, "and don't distress yourself.  I
suppose one of the spent shot has scratched me, or
something like that; but it is of no importance, and
you mustn't say anything about it.  When the drive
is over, I shall walk home.  If I had only a
little—a little——"

By this time he had sate down, and as he uttered
the words, another giddiness came over him, and ha
would have fallen back had she not hastily caught
him and supported him.

"It is the blood," he said, angrily; "one would
think I couldn't afford to lose as much as the scratch
of a penknife would let.  Will you allow me to take
off my coat?—and if you could tie a handkerchief
tightly round my arm——"

"Oh, why did you not ask me to do so before?"
she said, as she helped to uncover the limb that was
by this time drenched in blood.

"Think of what the deer would have suffered, if
you had hit him instead of me," said Will, with a
ghastly smile.  "He was a dozen yards nearer you.
You seem to like long shots."

But there was a mute pleading look in her eyes
that seemed to appeal against his banter.  She seemed
to say to him by that dumb expression, "You wrong
me.  You try to make us strangers by that assumed
fun.  You do it to cheer me; but you make me a
stranger to you, for you are not honest with me."

And somehow he read the meaning of her face;
and said to her, in a low voice—

"Shall I be frank with you?  This accident is
likely to make us too close friends; and it is better
I should return to England, if you remain here."

For a moment their eyes met—on his side revealing
a secret which she inwardly shuddered to read
there—on hers repeating only that mystic, unfathomable
expression which he remembered to have seen
when he awakened out of his dream.

That was all of explanation that passed between
them.  She knew now his secret, and by the sudden
light of the revelation she looked swiftly back over
some recent occurrences, and saw the purport of
them written in words of fire.  Her eyes fell; her
own secret was safe; but this new burden of
consciousness was almost as difficult to bear.

At this moment the Count and Hermann came up,
followed by the nearest keepers and beaters.

"There has been a slight accident," said Will,
briefly.  "Get some one to carry my gun; and I'll
walk back to Schönstein."

"If you would like to ride," said Hermann—who,
with the others, was quite deceived by Will's
manner—"you can get Hans Halm's *wagen*, that was
waiting for the baskets and things.  Spiegelmann
will show you the way.  You are not badly hurt?"

"Not at all; not at all.  Miss Brunel, will you
continue with the party?"

"No," she said, firmly; "I am going back to
Schönstein."

"And I," said the Count.  "I can't allow you to
go unattended.  I don't care about any more shooting——"

"Nonsense," said Will (with an inward conviction
that two minutes' more talking would find him
stretched on the ground); "go on with your sport;
and I'll come out to meet you in the evening."

Fortunately, when they reached the shaky old
travelling-carriage outside the forest, they found
some wine, a good draught of which somewhat
revived the wounded man.  The hampers and other
things were speedily thrown out, and, Spiegelmann
having returned to the shooting-party, Will and
Miss Brunel got into the vehicle and were driven
homewards.

Neither spoke a single word all the way.  Once,
and quite inadvertently, her hand touched his; and
she drew it away.  The next moment she looked
into his face, and perhaps saw some slight shade of
vexation there, for she immediately covered his
stained fingers with her own.  It was as though she
said, "I know your sad secret, but we may at least
continue friends."





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.. _`FLIGHT`:

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   CHAPTER XIX.


.. class:: center medium

   FLIGHT.

.. vspace:: 2

It was a change indeed!  Life all at once became
solemn and full of mystery to her—full of trouble,
too, and perplexity.  So soon as a messenger had
been despatched to Donaueschingen, for a surgeon
who was skilled in the extraction of buck-shot,
Annie Brunel went up to her own room, and sat
down there alone.  And she felt as if the air had
grown thick around her, and was pressing on her;
she felt that the old audacious cheerfulness had gone
from her; and that the passion, and glow, and terrible
earnestness of her stage-life were invading this other
life, which used to be full of a frivolous, careless
happiness.

Do the other animals become frightened and
nervous when the love-making season comes suddenly
upon them?  Does the lark, when her lover comes
down from the sky and sings, "My dear soft-breasted
little thing, will you be my wife; will you come and
build a nest with me, and let me bring you scraps of
food when you are tired?"—does she get into a state
of great tremor, and fancy that the world has
suddenly shifted its axis?  We know how the least
impressionable of men are overawed by this strange
natural phenomenon.  The old ridiculousness of
love—its silliness and comic aspects—are immediately
blotted out from their mind by the contemplation of
the awful truth—the awful change that lies before
them.  They shrink from physiology as a species of
blasphemy.  They will not accept scientific
explanation of their idealisms; nor will they believe that
any man has ever experienced the sensation they
now experience.

But the ordinary awakening of a man or woman
to the consciousness of being in love was a very
different thing from the sudden revelation which
confronted the young actress, as she sat there and
pondered, in a bewildered way, over the events of the
past hour.  To love this man was a crime—and its
fatal consequences seemed to stretch on and on, and
interweave themselves with her whole future life.
How had she fallen into the snare?  And he was
equally guilty; for his eyes, more fully than his
words, had in that supreme moment told her his
tragic story.

She thought of the violet-eyed Dove down in that
Kentish vale.  She thought of her, and mentally
prayed for forgiveness.

She had but one sad consolation in the matter—her
secret was her own.  There now remained
for her but to leave Schönstein at once, and the
morning's events had paved the way for her decision.
So she sent for Mrs. Christmas, and said to her—

"Don't you think a cooler air than what we have
here would suit you better?"

The old woman scrutinized her face curiously.

"What's the matter with you, Miss Annie?  You
look as if you had just come off the stage, and
were half-bewildered by the part you had been
playing!"

"I want an answer, Mrs. Christmas.  But I may
tell you that I ask because I wish to leave this place
at once.  You needn't ask why; but if it will not
incommode you to travel, I should like to go away
now.  There is Switzerland, not a day's journey
from here; and there are some mountainous districts
in this neighbourhood—you may choose which you
please——"

"Only I must choose to go," said the old woman,
patting her cheek.  "That's yourself all over as you
used to be in the days when you tyrannized over me,
and would always have your own way about arranging
your parts.  Well, Miss Annie, I'm ready to go
now, if you like—only Hermann promised to give
me two of the most beautiful deer-skins to be got
in the Black Forest——"

"They can be sent after us."

The evening was drawing towards dusk when the
Count returned.  He was greatly shocked on
discovering that the accident Will had met with was
much more serious than had been fancied, and that
the surgeon only stared in astonishment when asked
if his patient could come downstairs to dinner.

"A man who has lost so much blood," said he,
significantly, and speaking slowly, that the Count
might understand him, "and who suffers from four
or five gunshot wounds, is not likely to sit at table
for a day or two."

Annie Brunel did not hear this conversation, and
as she still believed that Will had only been slightly
hurt, and would be able to go about as usual, she
informed the Count at dinner of her intended
departure.  The Herr Graf looked from one to the
other of his guests, without being able to utter a
syllable.  He had been congratulating himself on
the brilliant success of this excursion—on the
evident gratification experienced by Miss Brunel, on
her expressed admiration for Schönstein and all its
surroundings.  This decision of hers quashed his
dearest hopes.

"You surely do not intend to leave us so soon?"
he said.  "Mrs. Christmas, are you the traitor in
the camp?"

Mrs. Christmas prudently forbore to reply.

"Think of leaving Mr. Anerley, after having
knocked him over in that sportsmanlike fashion!"
exclaimed the Count.  "He will think it very
ungenerous of you."

"I am extremely sorry," she said, with a look of
pained embarrassment on her dark beautiful face;
"but I hope he will forgive our going."

"He may, but I shan't," said the Count.  "However,
if you will, you will.  In any case, I hope I
may be allowed to escort you towards your new
resting-place."

"We should be more cruel still," said the young
girl, "if we took you away from your friend.
Believe me, we shall want no assistance."

The tone with which she uttered the words was
decisive.  It said, "You are very kind; but we
mean to go alone."

The Count did not enjoy his dinner that evening.
He fancied there was something wrong in the
arrangement of things—something incomprehensible,
provoking, beyond the reach of his alteration.
When he persuaded Annie Brunel and her guardian
to accept his escort as far as Schönstein, he fancied
his skilful calculations had delivered her into his
hand.  Was there a creature on earth—especially a
woman—who could fail to be smitten with a covetous
desire for the possession of Schönstein?  During
that moody meal, while he sate almost angrily silent,
two suggestions occurred to him.

Could she have failed to perceive that she might
be mistress of Schönstein if she liked?  The Count
confessed that he had not made any demonstration
of affection to her, simply because he wished the
natural effect of living at Schönstein to influence
her first, and predispose her towards accepting his
more openly-avowed attentions.

Or was it possible that she had discovered her
true position, and learned for herself the wealth and
rank to which she was entitled?  But if she had
made this discovery, he argued with himself, she
would not have allowed herself to be the guest of a
parvenu Count; while he knew that she had received
no letters since his arrival.

Seizing the more probable alternative, he bitterly
regretted his not having made it more clear to her
that a handsome fortune awaited her acceptance.
In the meantime these regrets had the effect of
making the dinner a somewhat dull affair; and it
was rather gruffly that he consented, after dinner,
to go round to the inn in order to inquire of Hans
Halm the various routes to Switzerland.

As they were going out, she said—

"Will you send word to Mr. Anerley that we
shall only be absent for a short time, and that I
hope he may be able to come down and see us when
we return?"

"The surgeon is still with him," said the Count.
"I shall go up and see him myself when we come back."

It was a clear starlight night; the waning moon
had not yet risen.  As they neared the few houses
of Schönstein, and saw the orange lights gleaming
through the dusk, Mrs. Christmas caught her
companion's arm.

They were by the side of the garden adjoining
the inn, and from a summer-house which was half
hid among apple and plum trees, there came the
sweet and tender singing of two young girls—a
clear and high but somewhat undeveloped soprano,
and a rich, full, mellow contralto.  The three stood
for a moment to listen, and the singers in the
darkness proceeded to another song—the old *Volksweise*
that Grete and Hermann had been wont to sing:

   |     "Im sohönsten Wiesen-grunde
   |       Ist meiner Heimath Haus,
   |     Da zog ich manche Stunde,
   |       In's Thal hinaus:
   |   Dich, mein stilles Thal, grüss ich tausend Mal!
   |   Da zog ich manche Stunde, in's Thal hinaus."
   |

"It is Grete who sings, and I want to see her,"
said Annie Brunel, stepping softly into the garden,
and advancing to the summer-house.

Grete was quite alone with her companion—a
young girl who, Miss Brunel could see even in that
partial darkness, was very pretty, and of a type
much more common in the north of Baden and
Bavaria than in the Schwarzwald.  She was not
over twelve years of age; but she had the soft
grave eyes, the high forehead, the flaxen hair, and
general calm of demeanour which characterize the
intellectual South German.  She was Grete's
confidante and companion; and together, whenever they
got a chance, they were accustomed to steal away to
this summer-house, and sing those concerted melodies
which the children of the Black Forest drink in with
their mothers' milk.

Grete gave a little cry of surprise when she saw
the dark form of the young English lady appear;
and then her thought was that something had gone
wrong with the gentleman who was wounded.

"I want you, Grete, for a moment," said Annie
Brunel in French to her.

"Ah, mademoiselle," she said, dislocating her
French in sudden compassion; "ce n'est pas que
Monsieur Anerley se sent encore malade?  L'homme
qui mon père envoyait chercher le médecin me dit
qu'il ya meilleur——"

"Don't disquiet yourself, Grete," said Miss Brunel.
"Mr. Anerley is not severely hurt.  I wanted to ask
you if you would come with me to Switzerland——

"To Switzerland!" said Grete; and her companion's
soft eyes looked up with a mystic wonder
in them.

"Would you like to go?"

"Yes, mademoiselle, very much; but I have
promised to go to see my cousin Aenchen Baumer, at
the Feldberg, in a day or two."

"Come indoors, and let us hear what your father
says.  Your friend will forgive me for a few minutes."

They all then left the garden and went round to
the front of the inn.  They found the Count and
Mrs. Christmas standing outside, and listening to
the prodigious singing-bout which was being held
within by the keepers and the beaters; the chorus
following each verse of the various hunting-songs
being accompanied by the measured beating of hands
and feet on the tables and wooden floor.

"If mademoiselle goes forward to the window,"
said the little grave German girl with the yellow
hair, "she will hear better, and Herr Spiegelmann
is about to sing 'Der Weisse Hirsch.'"

They all went forward to one of the many small
windows, and looked in.  The men were sitting in a
picturesque undress round the table, their
long-bowled china pipes in their fingers or mouth, and
chopins of pale-yellow wine before them.  Grete's
father was standing by, laughing and joking with
them; the old grandmother from time to time
replenishing the tall transparent bottles.  They had
all been singing the elaborate chorus to the
hunting-song, "Im Wald und auf der Haide"—all except
the ancient Spiegelmann, who sat solemnly over his
pipe-tube, and winked his small black eyes
occasionally, as if trying to shut in the internal pleasure
the rattling melody gave him.  His large black
moustache caught the tobacco-smoke that issued
from his lips; and his wrinkled weather-tanned face,
like the other sunburnt faces around, caught a
bronzed glow from the solitary candle before him.

"The Spiegelmann missed a buck in the second
drive," said one.  "He will pay the forfeit of a
song."

"I was driving, not shooting, the roe," growled
the Spiegelmann, though he was not displeased to
be asked to sing.

All at once, before any of his comrades were prepared,
the venerable keeper, blinking fiercely, began
to sing, in a low, querulous, plaintive voice, the first
stanza of a well-known ballad, which ran somewhat
in this fashion—

   |   "'Twas into the forest three sportsmen went,
   |   On shooting the white deer they were bent."

Suddenly, and while Miss Brunel fancied that the
old man was singing a pathetic song of his youth,
there rang out a great hoarse chorus from a dozen
bass voices—the time struck by a couple of dozen
horny hands on the table—

   |   "Husch, husch! bang, bang! trara!"

Then Spiegelmann, gravely and plaintively as before,
took up the thread of the wondrous story—

   |   "They laid themselves down beneath a fir-tree,
   |   And a wonderful dream then dreamed the three,
   |   (*All.*)   Husch, husch! bang, bang! trara!"

Here a tall Italian-looking keeper, who hailed from
the Tyrol, and who was sitting next to Spiegelmann,
sang forth the experiences of the first dreamer—

   |   "I dreamt that as I went beating the bush,
   |   There ran out before me the deer—husch, husch!"

His neighbour, Bagel, who had once been complimented
by Kaiser Francis of Austria, and was never
done with the story, personated the second dreamer—

   |   "And as from the yelp of the beagle he sprang,
   |   I riddled his bide for him there—bang, bang!"

The third from Spiegelmann, a short stout little
man, called Falz, who had once been a clockmaker
in Whitechapel, was the next dreamer—

   |   "So soon as the deer on the ground I saw,
   |   I merrily sounded my horn—trara!"

The burden of the tale now returned to Spiegelmann,
who thus finished it, and pointed the moral—

   |   "Lo! as they lay there and chatted, these three,
   |   Swiftly the wild deer ran past the tree:
   |   And ere the three huntsmen had seen him aright,
   |   O'er hill and o'er valley he'd vanished from sight!
   |   (*All.*)  Husch, husch! bang, bang! trara!
   |             Husch, husch! bang, bang! trara!"
   |

"I declare," said little Mrs. Christmas, standing
on tiptoe, to peep in at the window on the bronzed
faces, and the dim candle, and the long narrow tables
in the low-roofed room, "it is quite like a scene in a
play, though they don't sing very well."

"They keep capital time," said the Count, who
looked upon them as so many performing animals,
belonging to himself.

"Voulez-vous entrer, mademoiselle?" said Grete,
hesitatingly.  "La fumée—j'en suis bien fâchée——"

She went into the inn, nevertheless; and Hans
Halm was summoned to give his opinion about the
various roads leading down to Basle or Schaff hausen.
Meanwhile, the keepers had sent a polite message,
through Margarethe, to the young English lady,
hoping that she enjoyed the day's sport; that her
companion's accident had not been serious; and
that she would not be annoyed to hear one or two of
the old Schwarzwald songs.

It was now for the first time that Annie learned
the true extent of the injury which Will had suffered;
and this had the effect of immediately altering her
resolutions.  It was with a dangerous throb of the
heart that she was told how he might not leave
his bed for days, or even weeks, so prostrated
was he by loss of blood; and anxious—terribly
anxious, as she was to get free from the place,
she could not bear the thought of stealing away,
and leaving him to the unknown chances of the
future.

The Count had almost begun to fancy that it was
the horror of the accident that she had caused
which was driving her away from the too painful
witnessing of its results; but she now said that she
would not leave until Will was entirely out of
danger.  He could not understand her, or her
motives; above all, he was puzzled by the unwonted
earnestness of her expression—its new life and
intensity.  He knew nothing of the fire at the heart
which kept that slumbering light in the dark eyes.

"And in a few days, Grete, you go to the
Feldberg?" she asked.

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"Is there an inn there at which one can stay?"

"There is, mademoiselle—right on the top of the
mountain, if you choose to go so high.  My cousin
Aenchen lives down in the valley."

"I hope, Miss Brunel," said the Count, anxiously,
"you won't think of leaving Schönstein so long as
you remain in this district.  The accident which has
happened, I know, may rob the neighbourhood of
some of its attractions; but what better will the
Feldberg be?"

She paid no attention to him.  She was only
determined not to see Will Anerley again; and yet
there was in her heart a vague desire to be near
him—to be under the same daylight—to look on
the same scenes, and hear the same quaint strange
talk that he listened to.

"When must you go to see your cousin?" she asked.

"Very shortly," said Grete.  "Aenchen Baumer
goes to a convent in Freiburg, where she will learn
English, and fine needlework, and many things.
She is a good friend of mine, and a companion
once; and I want to see her before she goes."

"If you wait a few days, we shall go to the
Feldberg together."

Grete clasped her hands with delight.

"And will madame, your mamma, go also?" she
asked, rejoiced to think she had not the journey to
make alone.

"Yes; but the lady is not my mamma, Grete.
*She* died when I was scarcely your age; and this
is my second mother, who has been with me ever
since."

All the next day she waited, lingering about, and
unable to do anything in her feverish anxiety and
impatience.  She was not afraid to see him.  She
had suddenly been awakened to a sweet and new
consciousness of strength—a fulness of life and will
which she knew would sustain her in any emergency.
She had no fear whatever, so far as she herself was
concerned.  But she dreaded the possible effect of
their meeting again in these too seductive
circumstances; she dreaded it, while she thought of Dove.
Already there lay over her the shadow of the wrong
done to the bright young English girl whose pretty
ways and violet eyes she so well remembered—a
wrong inscrutable, not to be condoned or forgotten.
Whose was the fault?  She only knew that she dared
no longer stay there after having once read Will's
secret in that quick mutual glance in the forest.

Another day passed, and yet another: the torment
was becoming unbearable.  She could not leave the
place while danger yet hung over him: on the other
hand, her delay was provoking the chances of that
very meeting which she had resolved should not
take place.  Many a time she thought she could go
away happy and content if only she might shake
hands with him and look once in his eyes; then
there came a misty remembrance of Dove's face
floating before her, and the young girl seemed to
regard her reproachfully.

She began to think that a little far-off glimpse of
him would do: moderating her desires, she grew to
long for that as the one supreme boon, bearing which
with her she could go away with a glad heart.  Only
a glimpse of him to see how he looked, to bid a mute
farewell to him, herself unseen.

"Our patient is much better this morning," said
the Count to her, on the fourth day.  "Won't you
come upstairs, and see him?"

"No," she said, softly, looking down.

She was more incomprehensible to him than ever.
Formerly she seemed to be quite familiar with him;
she was happy and careless in his presence; she
responded to his nonsense with nonsense of her own.
Now she seemed to have been translated to another
sphere.  He was no longer jovial and jocular with
her.  He watched and studied the Madonna-like
calm of the clear dark face, until he felt a sort of
awe stealing over him; the intense dark life of her
eyes was a mystery to him.

In these few days she began to wonder if she
were not rapidly growing old: it seemed to her that
everything around her was becoming so serious and
so sad.

"And if I do look old, who will care?" she said to
herself, bitterly.

The Count, on the other hand, fancied she had
never been so beautiful; and, as he looked on her,
he tried to gladden his heart by the thought that he
was not a mercenary man.  To prove to her and
himself that he was not, he swore a mental oath that
he would be rejoiced to see her a beggar, that so he
might lift her up to his high estate.  Indeed, so mad
was the man at the time—so much beside himself
was he—that he was ready to forswear the only aim
of his life, and would have married Annie Brunel
only too willingly, had it been proved to him that
she was the daughter of a gipsy.

"Another day's rest is all that the doctor has
prescribed," said the Count.  "I hope to see our
friend down to breakfast to-morrow morning."

"Is he so much better?" she asked.

She inquired in so earnest a tone that he fancied
her anxiety was to know if the damage she had done
was nearly mended—and so he said:

"Better?  He is quite better now.  I think he
might come down and see us this morning, unless
you would prefer paying him a visit."

Immediately after breakfast Miss Brunel went
over to the inn, and there she found Hans Halm
and his daughter.

"Grete," she said, "could you go to the Feldberg
to-day?"

"Yes," said Grete.

"Could you be ready to start by twelve o'clock?"

"My father's *wagen* has gone to Donaueschingen,
mademoiselle," she said.

"The Count will lend us a carriage, and you must
come with me."

The matter having been arranged, she returned to
the Count, and told him of her intention, firmly and
quietly.  A week previous he would have laughed,
and pooh-poohed the notion; now he was excessively
courteous, and, though he regretted her decision, he
would do everything in his power, &c.

"Will you let Hermann come with us as far as
the Feldberg?"

"I devote Hermann entirely to your service for a
week—a month—as long as you choose," said the
Count.

English Polly was got up from the kitchen—where
she had established a species of freemasonry
between herself and the German servants—to assist
in the packing; and while she and Mrs. Christmas
were so engaged, Annie Brunel sate down, and wrote
these lines on a slip of paper:

.. vspace:: 2

"*I am glad to hear you are letter.  You wished us
not to meet again, and as it is easier for me to go than
you, I leave here in an hour.  You will forgive me
for having caused you so much pain.  Good-bye.*

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: left medium

   *A.B.*"

.. vspace:: 2

She put the paper in an envelope, and took it
down to the Count.

"I have written a note to Mr. Anerley, explaining
our going away so abruptly.  Will you please send
it to him?"

"I will take it to him myself," said the Count, and
he took it.

A few minutes afterwards, when the Count
returned, she was seated at the window, looking out
with vague absent eyes on the great undulations of
the black-green forest, on the soft sunlight that lay
upon the hills along the horizon, and on the little
nook of Schönstein with the brown houses, the white
church, and the large inn.  She started slightly as
he entered.  He held another envelope in his hand.

"I have brought a reply," he said, "but a man does
not write much with his left hand, in bed."

On a corner of the sheet of paper she had sent,
there were written these words, "*I thank you heartily.
God bless you!—W.A.*"  And her only thought as
she read them was, "Not even in England—not even
in England."

Grete appeared, blushing in her elaborate finery.
Her violet bodice was resplendent, with its broad
velvet collar embroidered with gold; her snow-white
sleeves were full-blown and crimp; and her hair
was braided, and hung down in two long tails from
underneath the imposing black head-dress, with its
ornamentation of gold beads.  Grete had manufactured
another of those embroidered miracles, which
she was now carrying in her trunk to Aenchen
Baumer.  It was with a little sob of half-hysteric
delight that she drove out of the stone courtyard,
and realised the stupendous fact that Hermann Löwe
was to accompany them to the Feldberg.

Mrs. Christmas, studying the strange expression
of her adopted daughter's face, thought she was
becoming remarkably like the Annie Napier whom
she knew long ago.

"May she have a very different fate!" said the
old woman to herself, as she thought of the weary
and solitary life-struggle, the self-denial, the heroic
fortitude of those bygone and bitter days.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HOMEWARDS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XX.


.. class:: center medium

   HOMEWARDS.

.. vspace:: 2

"If mademoiselle chooses," said Grete, "we can walk
along the side of the Titi See, and allow the carriage
to go on by itself.  The road is very pretty from
the lake onwards to the Feldberg."

Mademoiselle was in that frame of mind when any
change involving action was a delicious relief, and
she gladly embraced the proposal.

"If the old lady prefers to drive all the way," said
Grete, with a touch of maidenly pride, "Hermann
ought to accompany her.  I can find the way for us
two, mademoiselle."

That also was agreed to, the distance being too
great for Mrs. Christmas to walk.  And so Annie
Brunel and Grete Halm set out upon the winding
path, or rather track, which runs along the shore of
the beautiful Titi See—here skirting the edge of
the rocky promontories which jut out into the still
blue lake, there cutting through the dense coppices
lying in the sunshine along the foot of the hills, or
again passing some deep-roofed and sleepy
farmhouse, with its small stone chapel standing in the
yard.  Grete reverentially crossed herself every time
they passed one of these numerous private chapels;
and her companion, peeping in through the wooden
bars, generally saw within the sanctuary a large
framed lithograph of the Virgin Mary in red and
blue, with a vast number of little gilt trinkets and
other pious offerings lying on the altar.  Some of
these chapels had forms within capable of
accommodating a congregation of from twelve to twenty
persons.  One or two people had built no chapel
at all, but had hollowed out a niche in the wall
surrounding their garden, and had placed therein
a wooden crucifix, more or less painted, exhibiting
the details of the Crucifixion with mediæval
exactitude.  And Grete, being a good girl, crossed herself
as she saw these humble memorials of a devout faith.

"Why did you send Hermann away, Grete?" said
Annie Brunel, as they walked along.

"Because, mademoiselle, I wished him to know
that I could do without him," said Grete Halm.

"You are very fond of him, are you not?"

"Yes, mademoiselle, but——"

"And he of you?"

"He is very fond of me, I know," said Grete, simply.

"I don't wonder at it; but have you ever asked
yourself why he is fond of you?"

"Why, mademoiselle?  Because—because I am a
girl and he is a man, and he wants to be married."

Annie Brunel laughed; it was the first smile her
companion had seen on her face for some days.

"But suppose he did not want to be married—suppose
he could not be married to you—would he
be fond of you?  Or suppose you knew, Grete, that
he was to marry some one else, what would you do?"

"I should do nothing, mademoiselle; I should be
miserable."

"You would not cease to love him?"

"If I could, yes; if not,——"

"If not, you would only be miserable."

The tone in which the words were uttered caused
Grete to look up suddenly in her companion's face.
She saw nothing there but the inwardly-reflecting
eyes, the beautiful, pale, dark complexion, and the
placid sweetness of the unkissed lips.

"In England, Grete, I am an actress.  They say
that an actress must never reflect, that she lives for
immediate gratification, that she educates impulses,
and that she cannot pause, and regard her position,
and criticise herself.  If I cease to feel any pleasure
in immediate gratifications, if I feel ill at ease and
dissatisfied with myself, and fancy that the stage
would no longer give me any pleasure—must I cease
to be an actress?"

"Is mademoiselle in earnest?"

Grete Halm could not believe that her companion
was an actress.  Had she ever seen, even in Carlsruhe
itself, an actress with such a noble air, with such a
face, and such a manner?

"I am in earnest, Grete.  I have been an actress
all my life; I feel as if I were one no longer."

"What has changed you, mademoiselle, may I be
permitted to ask?"

"I do not know myself, Grete.  But I have turned
an old woman since I came to the Black Forest; and
I shall go back to England with a sort of fear, as if
I had never been there before."

*Since she came to the Black Forest*.  For a moment
a suspicion crossed Grete's mind that she must be
miserable through loving some one; but so
completely had she been imbued with the idea of her
companion being some mysteriously beautiful and noble
creature, who could not be moved by the meaner
loves and thoughts of a girl like herself, that she at
once dismissed the supposition.  Perhaps, she thought,
the shock of severely injuring her friend still affected
her, and had induced a temporary despondency.  Grete
therefore resolved, in her direct way, to be as
amusing as possible; and she never tired of directing her
companion's attention to the beautiful and wonderful
things they saw on their way—the scarlet
grasshoppers which rattled their wings among the warm
grass, the brilliantly-coloured beetles, the picturesque
crucifixes by the wayside, or the simultaneous splash
of a lot of tiny fish among the reeds as some savage
pike made a rush at them from the deeper water.

In process of time they left the soft blue breadth
of the lake behind them, and found themselves in the
valley leading up to the Feldberg.  Grete struck an
independent zigzag course up the hill's side,
clambering up rocky slopes, cutting through patches of
forest, and so on, until they found themselves on the
high mountain-road loading to their destination.
Nothing was to be seen of the carriage; and so they
went on alone, into the silence of the tall pines,
while the valley beneath them gradually grew wider,
and the horizon beyond grew more and more distant.
Now they were really in the Black Forest of the old
romances—not the low-lying districts, where the
trees are of modern growth, but up in the rocky
wilderness, where the magnificent trunks were encrusted
and coated with lichens of immemorial age—where
the spongy yellow-green moss, here and there of a
dull crimson, would let a man sink to the waist—where
the wild profusion of underwood was rank and
strong with the heat of the sun and the moisture of
innumerable streams trickling down their rocky
channels in the hillside—where the yellow light, falling
between the splendid stems of the trees, glimmered
away down the narrow avenues, and seemed to
conjure up strange forms and faces out of the still
brushwood and the fantastic grey lichens which hung
everywhere around.  Several times a cock capercailzie,
with two or three hens under his protection,
would rise with a prodigious noise and disappear in
the green darkness overhead; occasionally a
mountain-hare flew past; and Grete, with an inherited
interest, pointed out to her friend the tiny footmarks
of the deer on the sand of the rough and winding road.

"See, mademoiselle, there is Aenchen Baumer's house."

They had come to an opening in the pines which
revealed the broad yellow valley beneath, with its
sunlit road running like a thread of silk through
it.  Grete's friend's house was a little white building,
with green casements, and a few vines growing up
one of the gables; it was separated from the road by
a paling which interrupted the long line of rough
stone posts which a paternal government had stuck
in the ground to prevent carriages tumbling still
farther down into the bed of the hollow.

"You have come a long way out of your road,
Grete," said Miss Brunel.

"I came to accompany you, mademoiselle.  I can
easily go back to Aenchen's house before the evening."

The upward road now grew more and more jagged,
rough, and full of mud-holes, until, at last, they left
the forest region altogether, and got into the high
pasture districts of the mountain.  Finally, as the
path became a track, grass-grown and rocky, they
arrived at a square grey building, with a small
garden attached, which stood on the summit of the
shoulder of the hill.

"It is the Feldberg Inn," said Grete.

"Is it pleasant to live on the top of the
mountain?" asked her companion.

"Oh, yes, mademoiselle; only it is a little cold.
And when you look out at night—in the moonlight—it
frightens one; for all the house seems
surrounded by a yellow mist, which floats about and
makes figures, and then it sweeps away, and you see
the garden sharp and clear.  It is the clouds, you
know.  Franz Gersbach has told me of his having
been on the top of the Niessen one morning before
sunrise, and while all the great mountains
opposite—the Jungfrau, and the Mönch, and the Eiger, and
all these—were still cold and dark, he saw Monte
Rosa and Mont Blanc, away down in the south, with
a pale pink flame on their peaks in the midst of the
green sky.  Here we have no snow on our mountains,
except in the winter-time; and then sometimes the
people up here have their supplies cut off for a long
time."

There was a tall, fair-faced, sleepy-looking man
standing at the door of the inn, with whom Grete
shook hands.  The giant blushed slightly, answered
her questions in laconic monosyllables, and then led
the way into the house, apparently relieved to be out
of the observation of the two girls.

"It is the landlord's brother," said Grete, "and a
friend of mine."

"You have a number of friends," said Annie
Brunel, with a smile; "and they seem to be all big
men.  If you were as small as I am, one might
account for your liking big men."

Grete Halm looked at her companion.  There could
be no doubt about the German girl being the taller
and certainly the stouter of the two; and yet until
that moment she had fancied that Miss Brunel was
ever so much taller than she.

"It is the manner of your walk, mademoiselle, and
your figure—and perhaps the expression of your
face—that make me think you tall.  No, I see you are
not tall."

For a moment Margarethe's soft brown eyes dwelt
on her companion—perhaps with a touch of wistful,
puzzled longing to know why grace of form should
so touch our sympathies; then she turned to the
large Heinrich Holzmann—whose big shoulders
should have been more attractive to a girl's eye than
another girl's waist—and said that the young English
lady wished the best apartments in the house.
Margarethe further gave him to understand that his
guests would be very particular about their cookery;
and, above all, that they would not submit to have
but one fork and knife to attend them through four
or five courses.  Heinrich said "Yaw" in a grave
manner to all her directions, and begged her to tell
the English lady that his brother, who spoke French,
would be home next day.

"But the lady and her friend—who will be here
presently—must not starve till to-morrow," said the
practical Grete.

"Nein," said Heinrich, absently.

"I mean they must have dinner here, and you
must look after it, Heinrich Holzmann."

"Ja, ja."

"You have plenty in the house?"

"Ja."

"The lady says that after the carriage arrives,
you can have dinner prepared: that is, the lady and
her friend at one table, and Hermann Löwe, the
coachman, and I at another.  Do you understand?"

"Freilich.",

"If the girls want help, ask me."

"Danke schön, Grete."

"And as you don't seem to have anybody here,
shall I take the lady upstairs and pick out what
rooms she wants?"

"Yes, if that pleases you," said the fair-haired
giant; and therewith he opened the door for Miss
Brunel, and made her a grave bow as she went with
Grete into the passage, and so up to the rooms above.

It was nearly half an hour afterwards that the
carriage arrived, and Mrs. Christmas, with much
excitement, caught Annie in her arms and kissed her,
declaring she had never expected to see her again.
The road they had come!—the precipices they had
skirted, with the three horses slipping on the smooth
rocks at the very brink!—the vehicle leaning over
as if it were about to topple headlong down!—the
jolting into deep ruts and over blocks of stone!

"I screamed," she said, "and insisted on being
helped out of the carriage; for they would have me sit
still, declaring there was no danger.  Danger!——"

And the little woman shivered.

"So you walked all the way?"

"Until we got down into the valley."

Grete and Hermann were invited to dine with the
two ladies; and, in the evening, they all convoyed
the young German girl down to the house of her
friend.

For several days they remained on the Feldberg,
beguiling the time as best they might.  Mrs. Christmas
had now quite recovered her normal condition of
health and spirits, and laboured hard to discover
why her companion was so preoccupied, restless, and
absent in manner.  Why, too, was this journey down
through Switzerland being indefinitely postponed?
Every morning it was——

"Miss Annie, do we start to-day?"

"Not to-day, mother.  Let us have another day's
quiet."

"You will kill yourself with dulness, Miss Annie.
There is nothing for you to do."

"Let us climb to the top of the peak, and see the
tower——"

"I have tried twice, and failed.  And if you persist
in going up there alone, you will tumble down into
that horrible lake you told me of."

"Then let us descend to the lake to-day, if you
please."

She could not leave the neighbourhood.  She
lingered there, day after day, that she might have
tidings from Schönstein.  Two letters she had
received from the Count told her nothing definite;
they were very polite, grave, respectful communications,
in which he hoped she would visit Schönstein
again on her return.  Hermann, on going back to
his master, had written to Grete Halm, and merely
mentioned that the English gentleman was still in
his room, and that the surgeon did not speak very
confidently of the case.

This day, also, she prevailed on Mrs. Christmas to
stay; and together, after breakfast, they set out in
quest of the Feldsee, the small lake that lies deep
down in the heart of the mountain.  They were
furnished with a few directions from Heinrich
Holzmann's brother; but as neither time nor direction
was of much consequence to them, they plunged
carelessly into the forest, and proceeded slowly to
descend the side of the mountain.  At last, they
came upon a path which led down through the
jumbled and picturesque confusion of shattered rock,
smooth boulder, moss, fern, and herbage, that lay
around the foot of the tall, resinous-smelling pines;
and this track they leisurely followed until, from the
twilight of the trees, it led them out into the obscure
daylight which dwelt over the gloomy tarn they sought.

Nothing could well be more lonely or melancholy
than this dark and silent lake lying in its circular
bed—evidently an extinct volcanic crater—overshadowed
by tall and perpendicular crags hemming
it in on every side, and scarcely ever having a breath
of wind to stir its leaden-like surface.  The tall
thinly-clad rocks, rising to the circular breadth of
white sky above, were faintly mirrored in the black
water underneath; and the gloomy stillness of the
quiet motionless picture was not relieved by the least
stir or sound of any living thing.  This hideous hole,
its surface nearly four thousand feet above the level
of the sea, is of unknown depth: no wonder that the
superstitious Schwarzwalders have legends about it,
and that the children tell you of the demon-deer
that was wont to spring over the tall precipices above,
and so lure on the unwary huntsman and his horse
to destruction.

There was a boat lying moored in a creek at one
corner of the lake, and of this Annie Brunel at once
took possession.  She insisted on Mrs. Christmas
getting into it; and then, with a few strokes of the
oars, she pulled out to the centre of the lake.
Mrs. Christmas did not at all like the aspect of the place;
and, if she had known that she was floating over
an extinct volcano, she would probably have liked
it less.

"It looks like a place for murders to be committed,"
she said.

When they had reached the centre of the dark
water, Annie laid aside the oars, and seated herself
in the stern of the boat with her companion.  There
was no wind, no current: the boat remained almost
motionless.

The old woman took the young girl's hand, and
said to her—

"Come now, Miss Annie, you must tell me what
has been the matter with you lately—what has vexed
you—or what troubles you?"

"I have been thinking of returning to England,"
she said, absently.

"Why should that trouble you?"

"I am afraid of going back."

"Bah!  I have no patience with you.  You are as
much a child as ever—as when you used to whimper
in a makebelieve way, and cause your mother to
laugh and cry together over your natural turn for
acting."

"My natural turn for acting is going—is nearly
gone," said she, with a smile; "and that is what I am
afraid about.  I am beginning to fear a lot of faces."

"Then *why* will you remain in such a dreadfully
lonely place as this mountain inn?  That it is which
breeds strange fancies in you, my girl, don't doubt
of it.  Afraid of faces!  Didn't you use to tell me
that you were never conscious of seeing a face at all
when you were on the stage?"

"I may have said so," she replied, musingly.  "I
don't think I ever did see faces—except as vague
orange-coloured lamps in a sort of ruddy darkness—over
the blaze of the footlights, you know.  Certainly
I never thought of them, nor heeded them.
When I went off, and heard the noise of their hands
and feet, it seemed like the sound of some machine
with which I had no concern.  I don't think I ever
feared an audience in my life.  My mother used to
be my audience, as she stood in the wings and looked
at me with the half-smile and kindly eyes I
remember so well; and then I used to try to please you,
you know, and never succeeded, as you also know,
Lady Jane; and lately I have not thought of pleasing
anybody, but of satisfying a sort of delirium that
came over me."

"You never pleased me!  You wicked creature!
If I were blind and came into a theatre where I
heard you playing your 'Juliet,' my eyes would open
of their own accord."

"That time has passed over, Lady Jane.  I am
afraid of going to England.  I should see all the
faces now, and wonder what the people were
saying of my hands outstretched, or of my kneeling
posture, or of my elocution.  I feel that if I were
to get up just now, in this boat, and speak two
sentences——"

"You would have us both laughing.  But did you
ever try before, my dear, to act to a scene?  You
might as well try to speak to an empty theatre as
to that horrible loneliness over there.  It was
Mr. Bridges, the stage-manager at N——, if you
remember, Miss Annie, who used to rehearse in the
morning his speech before the curtain—used to wave
his hand and smile to the empty benches, and then
bow himself out backward.  But at night, when the
people were there, he always forgot the smile and
the wave of the hand, and mumbled like a schoolboy.
And as for your not being able to act when you hear
the stir of a crowded house on the other side of the
curtain, and know there are a dozen bouquets waiting
for you in the boxes, why it's nonsense, my dear."

"I am afraid of it none the less, mother, and I
shall dread putting myself to the test."

"All the result of this living out of the world,"
said Mrs. Christmas, dogmatically.  "Say, shall we
start to-morrow morning, Miss Annie?"

"Yes."

When they returned to the inn there was a letter
from Schönstein awaiting Miss Brunel.  She knew
from the peculiar handwriting who had sent it, and
opened it joyfully, knowing that he was at least well
enough to write.  These were the words:—

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left medium

   "Schönstein, Thursday.

"MY DEAR MISS BRUNEL,—Ever since you left I
have bitterly reproached myself for having given
you so much annoyance and trouble.  I hear that
you are living, without amusement or companions,
in the Feldberg Inn.  May I beg of you to return
here, adding the assurance that you will not be
troubled by my presence in any way whatever?
Whether you do or not, I cannot permit you to leave
without bidding you good-bye—especially as we may
not see each other in England—and so, if you will
forgive me this once, I propose to cross over to the
Feldberg to-morrow and visit you," &c., &c.

.. vspace:: 2

She read no more; the cramped left-hand writing
had told her enough.  She hurriedly wrote a reply,
peremptorily forbidding him to be at the trouble and
danger of such an expedition; and added that,
before he could possibly be at the Feldberg, she would
be on her way to Freiburg and Basle.  Then she
called the elder Holzmann, desired him to get a
messenger to take over this letter to Schönstein that
day, and informed him that on the next morning
she and her companion would set out for the south.

It was a point of maidenly honour with her that
she should go away with her sad secret her own;
and who could tell what disclosure might happen,
were she to see him suffering from the effects of
the wound, entreating her to stay, and with his
own love for her speaking in his eyes?  He was a
man, and it did not matter; as for her, she closed
this fatal tenderness in her heart, and would fain
have deceived herself into denying its existence.
Truth to say, she felt a touch of shame at her own
weakness; was dimly conscious that her virginal
purity of soul was tainted by a passion which she
dreamed was a guilty one; and knew that her
punishment lay in the loss of that innocent gaiety
and thoughtlessness which had hitherto made her
life so pleasant.

"We may not see each other in England," she
said to herself, gazing at the crooked and trembling
lines on the paper.  "Not in England, nor elsewhere,
will be my constant prayer so long as I live."

.. vspace:: 2

So they left the gloomy mountain, and passing
through the Hollenthal once more, reached
Freiburg; and from thence, by easy stages, they made
the round of the Swiss lakes until, as fate would
have it, they came to Thun.  There they rested for
a day or two, preparatory to their undertaking the
voyage to England.

Here a strange incident befel Annie Brunel.
Their first walk lay along the shore of the lake;
and no sooner had they left the side of the rapid
bright-green Aar, than Mrs. Christmas noticed a
strange intense look of wonder settling over her
companion's face.  Wistfully, and yet curiously, the
dark-grey eyes dwelt on the expanding lake, on the
long curving bays, on the sunlit mountains opposite,
and on the far-off snow-peaks of the Bernese Alps.

"I have seen all this in a dream," she said.

"Or in a picture," suggested Mrs. Christmas.

"It is more than a dream or a picture," she
continued, in a half-frightened way, as they walked
along.  "I know the place—I know it—the shore
over there—the village down yonder at the point,
and the smoke hanging over the trees;—I am getting
quite giddy with—remembering——"

"My dear!" said Mrs. Christmas.

Her companion was now quite pale, and stood
fixed to the spot, looking over the long scene in
front of her with a wild stare.  Then she turned
round, as if almost in fear, and no sooner had she
done so than she uttered a slight cry, and seemed
ready to sink to the ground.

"I knew it!—I knew it!" she said.  "I knew the
house was there before I turned my head."

She looked up at the handsome building on the
plateau above, as if it were some horrible thing
come to torture her.  It was only the house in which
Harry Ormond had bidden her mother farewell.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`IN ENGLAND`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXI.


.. class:: center medium

   IN ENGLAND.

.. vspace:: 2

Mr. Melton was overjoyed to see Annie Brunel in
London again.  He had spent half his fortune in
beautifying his theatre, in getting up elaborate
scenery for the new piece with which he was to
welcome the return to town of his patrons, and in
providing costly properties.  So long as the heroine
of the piece was wandering among the mountains
of the Schwarzwald, it was impossible that the
manager's mind could be well at ease.

"You shall come round now, and see what we
have done for you, and give us your opinion," said
he, politely.

Indeed, he would like to have kissed her just then,
in a fatherly way, to show how delighted he was to
have her back again.  He saw pictures of overflowing
audiences before his mind as he looked on the
quiet little figure before him, on the dark face, and
the large grave eyes.

It was about eleven o'clock in the forenoon.  A
tolerably clear light fell upon the stage, a duskier
twilight hung over the rows of empty benches in the
pit, and the gloomy darkness behind the galleries
was here and there lit up by a solitary lamp.  One
or two gilders were still at work on the front of the
dress-circle; overhead an echoing clang of hammer
and nail told that carpenters were busy; and a vague
shouting from the dusky region of the "flies"
revealed the presence of human beings in those dim
Olympian heights.  Everywhere, as usual, the smell
of escaped gas; here and there an odour of size or paint.

As they descended from the dark corridor behind
the dress-circle into the wings, a mass of millinery
ran full-tilt against Mr. Melton, and then started
back with a slight cry and a giggle.

"God bless my soul!" said the manager, piously,
although that was not the part of his body which
had suffered.

The next moment Miss Featherstone had thrown
her arms around Annie Brunel's neck, and was
kissing her and calling her "My dear" with that
profusion of sentiment which most actresses love to scatter
over the object, *pro tem.*, of their affection.  Miss
Featherstone was attired in a green silk dress—in
many a love-scene had *that* rather dingy piece of
costume figured, on the stage and elsewhere—a blue
cloth jacket, a white hat with a scarlet feather, and
yellow gloves.  During this outburst of emotion,
Mr. Melton had caught sight of a young gentleman—to
whom he gave thirty shillings a week in order
that he might dress as a gentleman should, and
always have a good hat to keep on his head while
walking about in a drawing-room—who had been in
pursuit of Miss Featherstone, and who now sneaked
away in another direction.

"And so you've come back, my dear, and none of
the German princes have run away with you!  And
how well you look!  I declare I'm quite ashamed of
myself when I see the colour in your cheeks; but
what with rehearsals, you know, my dear, and other
troubles——"

She heaved a pretty and touching sigh.  She
intimated that these quarrels with the young gentleman
who escorted her to and from the stage-door—quarrels
which came off at a rate of about seven per
week—were disturbing the serenity of her mind so
far as to compel her to assist nature with
violet-powder and rouge.

"Do you know, my dear," she said, in a whisper
that sent Mr. Melton away on his own business, "he
swears he will forsake me for ever if I accept a part
in which I must wear tights.  How can I help it,
my dear?  What is a poor girl to do?"

"Wear trousers," said Annie Brunel, with a smile.

"Nothing will please him.  He would have all my
comic parts played in a train half a mile long.  At
last I told him he had better go and help my mother
to cut my skirts and petticoats of a proper length;
and he pretended to be deeply hurt, and I haven't
seen him since."

Then she tossed her wilful little head with an air
of defiance.

"He will write to me before I write to him."

"It is too cruel of you," said her companion.

"Yes, my dear, you may laugh; but you have no
burlesque parts to play.  And you have nobody
sitting in the stalls watching your every movement,
and keeping you in a fright about what he is
thinking of you."

"No," said Annie Brunel, rather absently, "I have
nobody to watch me like that.  If I had, I should
not be able to go upon the stage, I think."

"And the bitter things he says about the
profession—and particularly about Mr. Gannet, and
Mr. Marks, and Mr. Jobson—all because they are young
men, and he fancies they may be so polite as to lift
a glove for me if I let it fall.  You know, my dear,
that *I* don't encourage them.  If there's any fun at
rehearsal, you know that *I* don't begin it."

"When we met you just now——"

"That was only some of Mr. Murphy's nonsense.
Oh, I declare to you, no one knows what I have
suffered.  The other evening, when he and I got
into a cab, he glared at the man who opened the
door for us.  And the fuss he makes about cosmetique
and bismuth is something dreadful."

"He must be a monster."

There now ensued a little fragment of thorough
comedy.  For a moment the elderly young lady, who
had been assuming throughout the tone of a spoiled
child, stood irresolute.  There was a petulance on
her face, and she had half a mind to go away in high
dudgeon from one who was evidently laughing at
her.  Then through this petulance there broke a
sort of knowing smile, while a glimmer of mischievous
intelligence appeared in her eyes; and then, with an
unaffected comical giggle, she once more threw her
arms round Annie Brunel's neck and kissed her.

"I'm very wicked, I know," she said, with a shrug
of the shoulders, "but I can't help it.  What's bred
in the bone, you know.  And it's all the men's fault,
for they keep teasing one so.  As for *him*, if he
writes to me, and makes an apology, and promises to
be a good boy, I'll make friends with him.  And I'll
be very good myself—for a week."

It was with a cold inward shiver that Annie
Brunel stepped out upon the stage and looked round
the empty theatre.  She tried to imagine it full of
people, and yellow light, and stir, and she knew
within herself she dared not venture before them.
Even without that solitary pair of eyes watching her
movements, and without the consciousness that she
might be producing a strong impression, for good or
evil, on one particular person whose estimation she
desired, she trembled to think of the full house, and
the rows of faces, and her own individual weakness.

"What do you think of the decorations, Miss
Brunel?" said Mr. Melton, coming up.

"They are very pretty," she said, mechanically.

"With your 'Rosalind,' the theatre should draw
all London to it."

"It is 'Rosalind' you mean to play?" she asked,
scarcely knowing what she said.

"Certainly," replied the manager, with astonishment.
"Don't you remember our agreement?  If
you turn round, you will see the new forest-scene
Mr. Gannet has painted; perhaps it may remind
you of something in the Black Forest."

For a moment or two she glanced over the great
breadth of canvas, covered with gnarled oaks,
impossible brushwood, and a broad, smooth stream.
With a short "No, it is not like the Black Forest,"
she turned away again.

"Miss Featherstone will play 'Celia;' and you
know there is not a 'Touchstone' in the world
to come near Bromley's.  Mrs. Wilkes refuses to
play 'Audrey,' luckily, and Miss Alford will play
it a deal better.  I have had several rehearsals,
everybody is declared letter-perfect; and we only
you to put the keystone to the arch, as one might say."

She turned quickly round and said to him—

"If I were at the last moment prevented from
playing in the piece, could Miss Featherstone take
'Rosalind,' and some one else play 'Celia?'"

"What do you mean, my dear Miss Brunel?"
said the manager, aghast.  "You frighten me, I
assure you.  I calculated upon you; and after all
this expense, and your agreement, and——"

"Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Melton," she said,
quietly.  "I mean to play the part so as to give
every satisfaction both to you and myself, if I can.
I only asked in the event of any accident."

"Come," said he, kindly, "I can't have you talk
in that strain, with such a prospect before us.  Why,
we are going to set all London, as well as the
Thames, on fire, and have the prices of the stalls
going at a hundred per cent. premium.  An
accident!  Bah!  I wish Count Schönstein were here
to laugh the notion out of your head."

So it was, therefore, that the play was put in full
rehearsal for several days, and Mr. Melton looked
forward hopefully to the success of his new venture.
Sometimes he was a little disquieted by the
remembrance of Miss Brunel's singular question; but he
strove to banish it from his mind.  He relied upon
his new scenery and decorations, and upon Annie
Brunel; the former were safe, and he would take
care to secure the latter.

The gentlemen of the press had been good enough
to mention the proposed revival in terms of generous
anticipation.  Altogether, Mr. Melton had every
reason to hope for the best.

Occasionally he observed an unusual constraint in
the manner of his chief favourite, and sometimes a
listless indifference to what was going on around
her.  One or twice he had caught her standing idly
behind the foot-lights, gazing into the empty theatre
with a vague earnestness which revealed some
inward purpose.  He still trusted that all would go
well; and yet he confessed to himself that there
was something about the young actress's manner
that he had never noticed before, and which he
could not at all understand.

Mrs. Christmas seemed to share with him this
uneasy feeling.  He knew that the old lady was
now in the habit of lecturing her pupil in a derisive
way, as if trying to banish some absurd notion from
her mind; and whenever he approached,
Mrs. Christmas became silent.

For the first time during their long companionship
Mrs. Christmas found her young friend
incomprehensibly obstinate, not to say intractable.
Night and day she strove to convince her that in
anticipating nervousness and failure, she was
rendering both inevitable; and yet she could not, by all
her arguments and entreaties, remove this gloomy
apprehension.

"I cannot explain the feeling," was the constant
reply.  "I only know it is there."

"But you, of all people, Miss Annie!  Girls who
have suddenly come to try the stage get fits of
stage-fright naturally: but people who are born
and bred to it, who have been on the stage since
their childhood——"

"Why should you vex yourself, mother?  I have
no dread of stage-fright.  I shall be as cool as I am
now.  Don't expect that I shall blunder in my part,
or make mistakes otherwise—that is not what I
mean.  What I fear is, that the moment I go upon
the stage, and see the men and women all around
me, I shall feel that I am just like one of them, only
a little lower in having to amuse them.  I shall feel
as if I ought to be ashamed of myself in imitating
the real emotions of life."

"You never had any of those fantastic notions
before.  Didn't you use to pride yourself on your
indifference to the people?"

"I *used* to."

"What has changed you?"

"My growing older," she replied, with a sad
smile.  "I begin to feel as if those things that
make up acting had become part of my own life
now, and that I had no business to burlesque them
any more on the stage.  I begin to wonder what
the people will think of my lending myself to a
series of tricks."

And here she fell into a reverie, which Mrs. Christmas
saw it was useless to interrupt.  The worthy
old woman was sorely puzzled and grieved by the
apostacy of her most promising pupil, and ceased
not to speculate on what subtle poison had been
allowed to creep into her mind.

Meanwhile the opening night had arrived.  People
had come back from the moors and Mont Blanc,
and every place in the theatre had been taken.
Mr. Melton already enjoyed his triumph by
anticipation, and tried every means of keeping up Annie
Brunel's spirits.  She was bound to achieve the
most brilliant of all her successes, as he confidently
told her.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ROSALIND`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXII.


.. class:: center medium

   ROSALIND.

.. vspace:: 2

"*Ah, mon bon petit public*, be kind to my leetel
child!" says Achille Talma Dufard, when his
daughter is about to go on the stage for the first
time.  The words were in the heart, if not on the
lips, of Mrs. Christmas, as the kindly old woman
busied herself in Annie Brunel's dressing-room, and
prepared her favourite for the coming crisis.  She
had a vague presentiment that it was to be a crisis,
though she did not know why.

By the time the inevitable farce was over, the
house was full.  Miss Featherstone, rushing
downstairs to change her costume of a barmaid for that
of 'Celia,' brought word that all the critics were
present, that Royalty was expected, and that her
own particular young gentleman had laughed so
heartily at the farce that she was sure he was in
a good humour, and inclined to let bygones be bygones.

"So you must cheer up," said Mrs. Christmas,
blithely, when Nelly had gone; "you must cheer
up, and do great things, my dear."

"Am I not sufficiently cheerful, Lady Jane?"

"Cheerful?  Cheerful?  Yes, perhaps cheerful.
But you must forget all you have been saying about
the people, and mind only your character, and put
fire and spirit into it.  Make them forget who *you*
are, my dear, and then you'll only think of yourself
as 'Rosalind.'  Isn't your first cue '*Be merry*'?"

"Then I will be merry, mother, or anything else
you wish.  So don't vex your poor little head about
me.  I shall add a grey hair to it if you bother
yourself so much."

"You would find it hard to change it now, unless
you changed it to black," said Lady Jane.

When 'Rosalind' and 'Celia' together appeared
on the stage, a long and hearty welcome was given
forth from every part of the house.  Mr. Melton was
standing in the wings with Mrs. Christmas, and his
dry grey face brightened up with pleasure.

"They have not forgotten her, have they?" he
said, triumphantly.

"How could they?" was the natural response.

From that moment the old woman's eyes never
left the form of her scholar during the progress of
the play.  Keenly and narrowly she watched the
expression of her face, her manner of acting, the
subtle harmony of word and gesture which, in careful
keeping, make the part of 'Rosalind' an artistic
wonder.  And the more narrowly she studied her
pupil's performance, the more she convinced herself
that there was nothing to be found fault with.  The
timid pleasantries, the tender sadness, the coy love
advances, tempered and beautified by that
unconscious halo of modesty and virgin grace which
surrounds the gentlest of all Shakspeare's heroines,
were there before her eyes, and she was forced to
say to herself that no 'Rosalind' could be more
charming than this 'Rosalind.'  She did not reflect
that never before had she been constrained so to
convince herself, and that never before had she been
so anxious to know the effect on the audience.

That, so far as was yet appreciable, was satisfactory.
The mere charm of admirably artistic acting,
combined with a graceful figure and a pretty face,
was enough to captivate any body of spectators.
Mrs. Christmas, however, dared not confess to herself
that they seemed to want that electric thrill of
sympathy which had been wont to bring them and the
young actress immediately *en rapport*.  Once only
did they in the first act catch that swift contagion of
delight which flashes through an audience bound by
the master-spell of genius.  It was where 'Rosalind,'
having graced the victorious wrestler with a chain
from her own neck, is about to go away with 'Celia,'
and yet is loth to go without having had speech
of the young man who has so awakened her interest.
The half-interpreted longing, the hesitating glance,
and maiden bashfulness with which she turned to
him and said:

   |           "Did you call, sir?—
   |   Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown
   |   More than your enemies,"

—her eyes first seeking his face, and then being
cast down, as the words became almost
inaudible—provoked the house into a sudden tempest of
applause which covered her disappearance from the
scene, Mrs. Christmas caught her as she came off,
and kissed her, with nervous tears in her eyes.

At the end of the first act she was called before
the curtain.  Any one calmly observing the house
would have seen that it was not very enthusiastic,
and that it fell to talking almost before she had
passed behind the curtain at the opposite side.
Then she went down to her dressing-room.

Mrs. Christmas welcomed her and complimented
her with an emphasis which was a little forced and
unnecessary.  Annie Brunel said nothing, but stood
and contemplated, with her straight-looking honest
eyes, the poor little woman who was courageously
trying to act her part naturally.  Then she sate down.

"Do you think I did my best, mother?" she said.
And again she fixed her large eyes, with a kind
conciliation in them, on her aged friend.

"Of course——"

"And you were watching me, I think?"

"Yes."

"And the house?"

"A little," said Mrs. Christmas, rather nervously.

"Then you know," she said, calmly, "that I have
made a total failure, that the people think so, and
that to-morrow every one, including the papers, will
say so."

"My dear!——"

"Why should we not speak frankly, mother?  I
felt it within myself, and I saw it in their faces.
*And I knew it before I went on the stage.*"

"That is it!  That has done it all!" exclaimed
the old woman, inclined to wring her hands in
despair and grief.  "You convinced yourself that
you were going to fail, and then, when you went
on the stage, you lost command over yourself."

"Had I not command over myself?" the young
girl asked, with a smile.  "I had so great command
of myself that I knew and was conscious of everything
I did—the tiniest thing—and kept continually
asking myself how it would impress the people.  I
was never in the least excited; had I been—but
there is no use talking, Lady Jane.  Help me to
change my dress; I suppose I must go through
with it."

So Mrs. Christmas officiated in place of Sarah,
whom she always ordered out of the way on grand
occasions; and, as she did so, she still administered
counsel and reproof, not having quite given up hope.

Two of the most distinguished of the critics met
in the lobby leading to the stalls.

"A pity, is it not?" said one.

The other merely shrugged his shoulders.

The general run of the critics fancied that Annie
Brunel had added another to her list of brilliant
successes, and were already shaping in their brain
elaborate sentences overflowing with adjectives.

Lord Weyminster, whom people considered to have
a share in the proprietary of the theatre, went behind
the scenes and met Mr. Melton.

"This won't do, my boy," he said.

"Do you think not?" said the manager, anxiously.
"They received her very warmly."

"They received Miss Brunel warmly, but not her
'Rosalind.'"

"What's to be done?"

"Change the piece."

"I can't.  Perhaps it was only a temporary indisposition."

"Perhaps," said his lordship, carelessly.  "I never
saw such a difference in the acting of any woman.
Formerly she was full of fire; to-night she was
wooden—pretty enough, and proper enough, but
wooden."

Further consolation or advice Mr. Melton could
not get out of his patron.  In despair, he said that
his lordship was exaggerating a temporary constraint
on the part of the young actress, and that the
succeeding scenes would bring her out in full force.

The wood scene was of course charming.  Miss
Featherstone's young gentleman, sitting in the stalls,
surrendered himself to the delicious intoxication of
the moment ('Celia,' it will be remembered, wears
long petticoats), and wondered whether he could
write a poem on the forest of Ardennes.  He was in
that fond period of existence when the odour of
escaped gas, anywhere, at once awoke for him visions
of greenwood scenery and romantic love-affairs; and
when the perfume of cold cream conjured up the
warm touch of a certain tender cheek—for Miss
Featherstone, when in a hurry to get home from the
theatre, occasionally left her face unwashed.

The people never lost interest in the play.  Indeed,
being Londoners, they were sufficiently glad to see
any character played with careful artistic propriety,
and it was only as an afterthought that they missed
the old thrill of Annie Brunel's acting.  It could
always be said of the part that it was gracefully
and tenderly done, void of coarse comedy and of
clap-trap effects.  It struck a certain low and
chastened key of sweetness and harmony that
partially atoned for the absence of more daring and
thrilling chords.

And yet Annie Brunel went home sick at heart.
The loss of popular favour did not trouble her; for
had not the people been remarkably kind, and even
enthusiastic, in their final call?  It was the certain
consciousness that the old power had passed away
from her for ever—or rather, that the intensity and
emotional abandonment of her artistic nature had
been sucked into her own personal nature, and was
never more to be separately exhibited as a beautiful
and wonderful human product.

"Mother, I am tired of acting," she said.  "It
has been weighing upon me ever so long; but I
thought I ought to give myself one more chance,
and see if the presence of a big audience would not
remove my sickness.  No; it has not.  Everything
I had anticipated occurred.  I was not frightened:
but I knew that all the people were there, and that I
could not command them.  I was not 'Rosalind' either
to them or to myself; and it was not 'Rosalind'
whom they applauded.  The noise they made seemed
to me to have a tone of pity in it, as if they were
trying to deceive me into thinking well of the part."

All this she said quietly and frankly; and
Mrs. Christmas sate stunned and silent.  It seemed to
the old woman that some terrible calamity had
occurred.  She could not follow the subtle
sympathies and distinctions of which the young actress
spoke: she knew only that something had happened
to destroy the old familiar compact between them,
and that the future was full of a gloomy uncertainty.

"I don't know what to say, Miss Annie.  You
know best what your feelings are.  I know there's
something wrong somewhere——"

"Don't talk so mournfully," said she.  "If I
don't act any more we shall find something else to
keep us out of starvation."

"If you don't act any more!" said the old woman,
in a bewildered way.  "If you don't act any more!
Tell me, Miss Annie, what you mean.  You're not
serious?  You don't mean that because your
'Rosalind' mayn't have gone off pretty well, you intend to
give up the stage altogether—at your time of life—with
your prospects—my darling, tell me what you mean?"

She went over and took her companion's two hands
in her own.

"Why, mother, you tremble as if you expected
some terrible misfortune to happen to us.  You will
make me as nervous as yourself if you don't collect
yourself.  You have not been prepared for it as
I have been.  I have known for some time that
I should not be able to act when I returned to
London——"

With a slight scream, she started up and caught
her friend, who was tottering and like to fall in her
arms.  The old woman had been unable to receive
this intelligence all at once.  It was too appalling
and too sudden; and when at last some intimation
of it came home to her mind, she reeled under the
shock.  She uttered some incoherent words—"*my
charge of you*," "*your mother*," "*the future*"—and
then she sank quite insensible upon the sofa to
which Annie Brunel had half-carried her.





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.. _`HOME AGAIN`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXIII.


.. class:: center medium

   HOME AGAIN.

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Count Schönstein was in love.  His ponderous
hilarity had quite gone out of him.  After Miss
Brunel's departure, he moved about the house alone
and disconsolate; he was querulous about his meals;
he forgot to tell lies about the price of his wines.
He ceased to joke about marriage; he became
wonderfully polite to the people about him, and above
all to Will Anerley; and every evening after dinner
he was accustomed to sit and smoke silently in his
chair, going over in his mind all the incidents of
Annie Brunel's visit, and hoping that nothing had
occurred to offend her.

Sometimes, in a fit of passionate longing, he wished
he was again a tea-dealer and she the daughter of
one of his clerks.  He grew sick of his ambitious
schemes; inwardly cursed the aristocracy of this and
every other country; and prayed for some humble
cottage, with Annie Brunel for his wife, and with
nothing for himself to do but sit and smoke, and
watch the grape-clusters over the verandah.

Twenty years before he had been afflicted by the
same visions.  They did not alter much his course
of life then; nor did he permit them to move him
much now—except after dinner, when most people
become generously impulsive and talkative.  In one
of these moods he confessed to Will the passion
which disturbed his repose.

Will stared at him, for the mere thought of such
a thing seemed to him a sort of sacrilege; but the
next moment he asked himself what right he had to
resent the Count's affection for Annie Brunel as an
insult, and then he was silent.

"Tell me, have I a chance?" said the Count.

"How can I tell you?" he replied.

"You were very friendly with her.  You do not
imagine there is anybody else in the young lady's
graces?"

"I don't know of any one whom Miss Brunel is
likely to marry; but, as I say, how can I tell?"

"You imagine I have a fair field?" asked the
Count, rather timidly.

"Oh, yes!" said Will, with a laugh, in which there
was just a touch of bitterness.  "But that is not the
way you used to talk about women, and marriage,
and so forth.  Do you remember how you gloated
over the saying of that newspaper man who was at
the 'Juliet' supper—about being 'sewn up in a
theological sack with a partner for life?'  I suppose
you were only whistling in the dark, to scare the
ghosts away, and now——"

There was no need to complete the sentence.  The
doleful look on the Count's rubicund face told its own
tale.  He shook his head, rather sadly, and contemplatively
stirred his Moselle with a bit of biscuit.

"It's time a man like me was married.  I have
plenty of money to give my wife her own way: we
shan't quarrel.  There's that big house standing
empty; you can't expect people to come and visit
you, if you've nobody to receive them.  Look how
perfectly Miss Brunel could do that.  Look at the
grace of her demeanour, and her courtesy, and all
that: why, though she's ever so little a thing, she
looks like an empress when she comes into a room.
I never could get elsewhere such a wife as she would
make."

"Doubtless not; but the point is to get her," said
Will, almost defiantly—he did not know whether
to laugh at or be indignant with the Count's cool
assumption.

"I tell you I would marry her if she was nothing
but what she is——" the Count said, vehemently,
and then he suddenly paused, with a look of
frightened embarrassment on his face.

"How could she be anything else than what she
is?" asked Will, carelessly: he had not observed the
Count's trepidation.

"Oh—well—ah—if she were nothing more than
an ordinary actress, without the manners of a lady,
I should be inclined to marry her, on account of
her—her sweetness of disposition, you know."

"What magnanimity!" said Will.

"Laugh as you please," said the Count, with a
touch of offended dignity, "there are few men in my
position who would marry an actress.  If I *should*
marry Miss Brunel, I should consider that while she
did me a favour I paid her quite as great a compliment.
Look at the estimation in which actresses are
held.  Look at those women of the —— theatre; at
Miss ——, and Miss ——, and Miss ——.  Don't the
public know all about them?  And the public won't
stop to pick out one respectable actress from the lot,
and be just to her.  They all suffer for the sins of
the majority; and any actress, whatever may be her
personal character, ought to know that she lies under
the ban of social suspicion, and——"

"Excuse my interrupting you.  But you needn't
seek to lower Miss Brunel in *my* opinion: I am not
going to marry her.  And I should advise you not to
attempt to lower her in her own opinion, if you mean
to remain friends with her.  You can't humble a
woman into accepting you; you may flatter her into
accepting you.  If a woman does not think she is
conferring a favour in marrying you, she won't at
all—that is, if she is the sort of a woman any man
would care to marry."

"Leave that to me, my boy, leave that to me,"
said the Count, with a superb smile.  "I rather
fancy, if flattery is to win the day, that I shall not
be far behind."

"And yet I heard you one evening say to Nelly
Featherstone that 'all pretty women were idiots.'  How
could any woman help being offended by such a remark?"

"Why, don't you see, you greenhorn, that Nelly
isn't pretty——"

"And you as good as told her so," said Will.
"Besides, Nelly, like every other woman, fancies she
is pretty in a certain way, and would rather that you
had informed her of her idiotcy than of her plainness."

The Count blushed deeply.  In making the remark
to Miss Featherstone, he had imagined he was exhibiting
a most remarkable and subtle knowledge of human
weakness; and hoped to console her for the shape of
her nose by sneering at the stupidity of prettier
women.  But the Count was a rich man, and a
great favourite of Mr. Melton; and Nelly, being a
prudent young woman, pocketed the affront.

A variety of circumstances now transpired to hasten
the return of both Will and the Count to England.
The former could do scarcely anything to the
business for which he had come, through his inability to
use his right arm.  There were, besides, certain
growing symptoms of irritation in the wounds which he
had fancied were slowly healing, which made him
anxious to consult some experienced English surgeon.
Such were *his* ostensible reasons.

Under these circumstances, what pleasure could
the Count have in remaining in Schönstein alone?
He preferred to have Will's company on the homeward
journey; and besides, he was personally interested
in learning whether the injuries his friend
had suffered were likely to become more dangerous.
Such were *his* ostensible reasons.

But the crowning thought of both of them, as they
turned their back upon Schönstein, was—"I shall
soon see Annie Brunel."

As they passed through the village, Margarethe
Halm came out from under her father's door, and
the driver stopped the carriage.

"You will see the young English lady when you
return home?" said Grete to Will, with a blush on
her pretty brown face.

"And if I do?"

"Will you give her this little parcel? it is my work."

With that she slipped the parcel into his hand.
At this moment Hans Halm came forward and bade
both the gentlemen good-bye; and in that moment
Grete, unnoticed, timidly handed up to Hermann,
who was seated beside the driver, another little
parcel.  There was a slight quivering of the lips as
she did so; and then she turned away, and went up
to her own room, and threw herself, sobbing, on the
bed in quite a passion of grief, not daring to look
after the carriage as it rolled away into the forest.

Hermann stealthily opened the packet, and found
therein a little gilt *Gebetbuch*, with coloured pictures
of the saints throughout it, and a little inscription
in front in Grete's handwriting.  Franz Gersbach,
having been over at Donaueschingen, had secretly
bought the tiny prayer-book for her; and he knew
all the time for whom it was intended.

"She is a good girl," said Hermann, "and a good
girl makes a good wife.  I will go once more to
England, but never after that—no, not if I had seven
hundred Counts for my master."

They stopped a day at Strasbourg, and there they
found a lot of English newspapers of recent date.

"Look what the people are saying of Miss Brunel!"
said Will, utterly confounded by the tone in which
the journals spoke of 'Rosalind.'

The Count took up paper after paper, and eagerly
scanned such notices of the pieces as he could find.

"They are not very enthusiastic," said he; "but
they are really most complimentary——"

"Complimentary?  Yes; but only to Miss Brunel,
not to 'Rosalind.'  Don't you see in every one of
them how the writer, wishing to speak as highly as
possible of her, scarcely knows how to throw cold
water on the play?  And yet cold water is thrown
abundantly.  The unanimity of these critiques simply
says this—that Miss Brunel's 'Rosalind' is a failure."

"How will she bear it?" said the Count.

"She will bear it with the self-possession and
sweetness that always cling to her."

For a moment he thought of an old simile of his
of her being like an Æolian harp, which struck
harshly or softly, by the north wind or the gentle
south, could only breathe harmony in return.  Would
that fine perfection of composure still remain with
her, now that her generous artistic aspirations seemed
to have been crushed in some way?  He knew
himself—for the divine light of her face in certain
moments had taught him—that there is no joy upon
earth to be compared with the joy of artistic creation.
He could imagine, then, that the greatest possible
misery is that which results from strong desire and
impotent faculty.

"It is 'Rosalind' that is wrong, not she," he said.
"Or she may be suffering from some indisposition—at
any rate they may spare their half-concealed
compassion.  Let her get a part to suit her—and then!"

He was not quite satisfied.  How was it that none
of the critics—and some of them were men of the
true critical, sensitive temperament, quick to discern
the subtle personal relations existing between an
artist and his art—dwelt upon the point that the
part was obviously unsuited to her?  Indeed, did
not every one who had seen her in divers parts know
that there were few parts which were so obviously
suited to her?

"I know what it is!" said the Count.  "There
aren't enough people returned to town to fill the
theatre, and she has been disheartened."  And he
already had some recklessly extravagant idea of filling
the house with "paper" at his own expense.

"But there you read that the theatre was crammed,"
said Will.

"True," said the Count, gravely.  "I hope there's
nobody whom she has refused to see, or something
like that, has been bribing all the papers out of
spite?"

"They do that only in French plays," said Will.
"I should think it more likely that the girl has been
put out of sorts by some private affliction.  We shall
see when we get home."

Then he reflected with a bitter pang that now he
was debarred from ever approaching that too dear
friend of his and asking about her welfare.
Whatever she might be suffering, through private sorrow
or public neglect, he could no longer go forward and
offer a comforting hand and a comforting word.
When he thought that this privilege was now
monopolised by the big, well-meaning, blundering
Count, he was like to break his own resolve and vow
to go straight to her the moment his feet touched
English soil.

They crossed the Channel during the day; when
they arrived in London, towards the evening, Will
drove straight to his chambers, and the Count went
home.

"You won't go down to St. Mary-Kirby," the
latter had said, "to see that charming little Dove? what
a devilish fine woman she'll make!—you ought
to consider yourself a happy fellow."

"It is too late," said Will, "to go down to-night.
Besides, they don't expect me until to-morrow."

So he went to his lodgings; and there, having
changed his dress, he found himself with the evening
before him.  He walked round to his club, read one
or two letters that awaited him, went up to the
smoking-room and found not a human being in the
place—nothing but empty easy-chairs, chess-board
tables, dishevelled magazines, and a prevailing odour
of stale cigars—and then he went out and proceeded
in the direction of the theatre in which Annie Brunel
was at that moment playing.  That goal had been
uppermost in his thoughts ever since he left Calais
pier in the morning.

The tall, pale, muscular man—and people noticed
that he had his right arm in a sling—who now paid
his four or five shillings, walked upstairs, and slunk
into the back seat of the dress-circle, was as nervous
and as much afraid of being seen as a schoolboy
thieving fruit.  Perhaps it was the dread of seeing,
as much as the fear of being seen, that made his
heart beat; perhaps it was only expectation; but
he bethought himself that in the twilight of the
back seats of the circle his figure would be too dusky
to be recognised, especially by one who had to
look—if she looked at all—over the strong glare of the
footlights.

The act drop was down when he entered—the
orchestra playing the last instalment of Offenbach's
confectionery music.  The whole house was in the
act of regarding two young ladies, dressed as little
as possible in white silk, with wonderful complexions,
towers of golden hair on their heads, and on their
faces an assumed unconsciousness of being stared at,
who occupied a box by themselves.  The elder of
them had really beautiful features of an old French
type—the forehead low and narrow, the eyelids
heavy, the eyes large, languid, melancholy, the nose
thin and a little *retroussée*, the mouth small, the lips
thin and rather sad, the cheeks blanched and a trifle
sunken, the line of the chin and neck magnificent.
The beautiful, sad woman sate and stared wistfully
at the glare of the gas; sometimes smiling, in a cold
way, to her companion, a plump, commonplace beauty
of a coarse English type, who had far too much white
on her forehead and neck.  Together, however, they
seemed to make a sufficiently pretty picture to
provoke that stolid British gaze which has something
of the idiot but more of the animal in it.

When the curtain rose again the spectators found
themselves in Arden forest, with the Duke and his
lords before them; and they listened to the talk of
these poor actors as though they heard some creatures
out of the other world converse.  But from Will
Anerley all the possibility of this generous delusion
had fled.  He shrank back, lest some of the men
might have recognised him, and might carry the
intelligence of his presence to Annie Brunel.
Perhaps the Duke had just spoken to her; perhaps she
was then looking on the scene from the wings.  It
was no longer Arden forest to him.  The perspective
of the stream and of the avenues of the trees
vanished, and he saw only a stained breadth of canvas
that hid *her* from his sight.  Was she walking
behind that screen?  Could the actors on the stage
see her in one of the entrances?  And was it not a
monstrous and inconceivable thing that these poor,
wretched, unambitious, and not very clean-shaven
men were breathing the same atmosphere with her,
that they sometimes touched her dress in passing,
that her soft dark eyes regarded them?

You know that 'Rosalind' comes into this forest
of Arden weary, dispirited, almost broken-hearted,
in company with the gentle 'Celia' and the friendly
'Touchstone.'  As the moment approached for her
entrance, Anerley's breath came and went all the
quicker.  Was she not now just behind that board or
screen?  What was the expression of her face; and
how had she borne up against the dull welcome that
awaited her in England?  He thought he should see
only 'Rosalind' when she came upon the stage—that
Annie Brunel might now be standing in the wings,
but that 'Rosalind' only would appear before him.

He never saw 'Rosalind' at all.  He suddenly
became conscious that Annie Brunel—the intimate
companion who had sate beside him in long
railway-journeys, who had taken breakfast with him, and
played cards with him in the evening—had come
out before all these people to amuse or interest
them; and that the coarse, and stupid, and vicious,
and offensive faces that had been staring a few
minutes ago at the two creatures in white silk were
now staring in the same manner at her—at her who
was his near friend.  A wonderful new throb went
through his heart at that thought—a throb that
reddened his pale cheek.  He saw no more of
'Rosalind,' nor of Annie Brunel either.  He watched only
the people's faces—watched them with eyes that had
no pleasant light in them.  Who were these people,
that they dared to examine her critically, that they
presumed to look on her with interest, that they had
the unfathomable audacity to look at all?  He could
not see the costermongers in the gallery; but he
saw the dress-coated publicans and grocers around
him, and he regarded their stupidly delighted
features with a savage scorn.  This spasm of
ungovernable hatred for the stolid, good-hearted,
incomprehensible British tradesman was not the result
of intellectual pride; but the consequence of a far
more powerful passion.  How many years was it
since Harry Ormond had sate in his box, and glared
with a bitter fury upon the people who dared to
admire and applaud Annie Brunel's mother?

In especial there were two men, occupying a box
by themselves, against whom he was particularly
vengeful.  As he afterwards learned from Mr. Melton,
they were the promoters of a company which sold
the best port, sherry, champagne, hock, burgundy,
and claret at a uniform rate of ten shillings a dozen;
and, in respect of their long advertisements,
occasionally got a box for nothing through this or that
newspaper.  They were never known to drink their
own wines; but they were partial to the gin of the
refreshment-room; and, after having drunk a sufficient
quantity of that delicious and cooling beverage,
they grew rather demonstrative.  Your honest cad
watches a play attentively; the histrionic cad
assumes the part of those florid-faced gentlemen—mostly
officers—who come down to a theatre after
dinner and laugh and joke during the progress of the
piece, with their backs turned on the performers.  A
gentleman who has little brains, much loquacity, and
an extra bottle of claret, is bad enough; but the
half-tipsy cad who imitates him is immeasurably
worse.  The two men in question, wishing to be
considered "d—d aristocratic," talked so as to be heard
across the theatre, ogled the women with their
borrowed opera-glasses instead of looking at the play,
and burst forth with laughter at the "sentimental"
parts.  It was altogether an inspiriting exhibition,
which one never sees out of England.

And the gentle 'Rosalind,' too, was conscious that
these men were looking at her.  How could it be Arden
forest to her—how could she be 'Rosalind' at all—if
she was aware of the presence of such people, if she
feared their inattention, and shrank from their laugh?

"What the papers have said about her is right,"
said Will to himself.  "Something must have happened
to dispirit her or upset her, and she seems not
to care much about the part."

The charm of her acting was there—one could sit
and watch with an extreme delight the artistic
manipulation of those means which are obviously at the
actor's hand—but there was a subtle something
wanting in the play.  It was pretty and interesting
while it lasted; but one could have permitted it to
drop at any moment without regret.

There is, as everybody knows, a charming scene
in the drama, in which 'Rosalind,' disguised as a
youth, coaxes 'Orlando' to reveal all his love for
her.  There is in it every variety of coy bashfulness,
and wayward fun, and half-suggested tenderness
which an author could conceive or the most
accomplished actress desire to represent.  When 'Orlando'
wishes he could convince this untoward page of his
extreme love for 'Rosalind,' the disguised 'Rosalind'
says merrily, "Me believe it?  You may as
soon make her that you love believe it; which, I
warrant, she is apter to do, than to confess she does:
that is one of the points in the which women still
give the lie to their consciences.  But, in good
sooth," she adds, suddenly changing her tone into
tender, trustful entreaty, "are you he that hangs
the verses on the trees, wherein 'Rosalind' is so
admired?"  And then again she asks, "But *are* you
so much in love as your rhymes speak?"

'Rosalind' turned the side of her face to her
lover, as if her ear wished to drink in the sweet
assurance; and her eyes, which fronted the audience,
stared vacantly before her, as if they too were only
interested in listening; while a light, happy smile
dawned upon her lips.  Suddenly the eyes, vacantly
gazing into the deep theatre, seemed to start into a
faint surprise, and a deadly pallor overspread her
face.  She tried to collect herself—'Orlando' had
already answered—she stumbled, looked half-wildly
at him for a moment, and then burst into tears.
The house was astonished, and then struck with a fit
of admiration which expressed itself in rounds of
applause.  To them it was no hysterical climax to a
long series of sad and solitary reveries, but a
transcendant piece of stage effect.  It was the over-excited
'Rosalind' who had just then burst into tears of joy
on learning how much her lover loved her.

'Orlando' was for the moment taken aback; but
the applause of the people gave him time to recover
himself, and he took her hand, and went on with the
part as if nothing had happened.  He and the people
in the stage-boxes saw that her tears were real, and
that she could scarcely continue the part for a sort
of half-hysterical sobbing; but the majority of those
in the theatre were convinced that Annie Brunel was
the greatest actress they had ever seen, and wondered
why the newspapers had spoken so coldly of her
performance.

Will knew that she had seen him; he had caught
that swift, electric glance.  But, not knowing any
reason why the seeing him should produce such
profound emotion, he, too, fancied that her bursting into
tears was a novel and pretty piece of acting.  However,
for his own sake, he did not wish to sit longer
there; and so he rose and left.

But the streets outside were so cold and dark
compared with Arden!  The chill night air, the gloomy
shadows of the broad thoroughfare, the glare of
gas-lamps on the pavement, and the chatter of cabmen,
were altogether too great a change from 'Rosalind'
and the poetry-haunted forest.  Nor could he bear
the thought of leaving her there among those happy
faces, in the warm and joyous atmosphere of romance,
while he walked solitarily home to his solitary
chambers.  He craved for her society, and was content to
share it with hundreds of strangers.  Merely to look
upon her face was such a delight to him that he
yielded himself to it irrespective of consequences.
So he walked round to another entrance, and stole
into a corner of the pit.

Was the delight or the torture the greater?  He
was now within view of the rows of well-dressed
men and women in the stalls, who seemed so pleased
with 'Rosalind.'  It is one of the profound
paradoxes of lore, that while making selfish men
unselfish and generous to a degree, it begets in the
most unselfish of men an unreasoning and brutal
self-regard.  He hated them for their admiration.
He hated them the more especially that their
admiration was worth having.  He hated them because
their admiration was likely to please Annie Brunel.

It might have been imagined that his anger would
have been directed chiefly against those idiotic
drapers' assistants and clerks who sate and burlesqued
the piece, and sneered at the actress.  But no; it
was the admiration of the intelligent and
accomplished part of the audience he feared; was it not
sufficient to interpose between him and her a subtle
barrier?  He could have wished that the whole
theatre was hissing her, that so his homage and
tenderness and respect might be accounted as of
some worth.  He fancied she was in love with the
theatre, and he hated all those attractions of the
theatre which caused her love with a profound and
jealous hatred.

At length the play came to an end, and there was
no longer an excuse for his remaining, as Annie
Brunel, of course, did not play in the short piece
which followed.  So he went outside, and in getting
into the street he found himself behind the two
wine-merchants who had been in the box.

"Why not?" said the one to the other, gaily.

"If she gets into a rage, so much the better fun.
'Rosalind' must be d—d pretty in a fury."

"All right," said the other, with a hiccup.

Will had heard the words distinctly; and the mere
suspicion they suggested caused his blood to boil.
When the two men turned into the narrow lane
leading round to the stage-door of the theatre, he
followed them with his mouth hard and firm, and his
eyes not looking particularly amiable.

At the entrance to the lane stood Miss Brunel's
cab.  He recognised the face of the venerable jarvie
who was accustomed to wait for her every evening.

He passed up the lane; the two men had paused
in front of the small wooden door, and were trying
to decipher, by the aid of the lamp overhead, the
features of whomsoever passed in or out.

"She won't be here for an hour," said one of them.

"Shouldn't wonder if she went home in Rosalind's
dress," said the other, with another hiccup.

"She'll 'it you, 'Arry, if you speak to her."

"Let her.  I'd rather like it, 'pon my soul."

The stage-door was continually being swung to
and fro by some one passing in or out, but as yet
there was no sign of Annie Brunel.  At length,
however, some of the people who had been engaged in
the play came out, and Will knew that she would
soon follow.

"Was she likely to be alone?  Would they dare
to speak to her?"  He glanced down at the sling
which supported his right arm.  Deprive an Englishman
of the use of his right arm, and he feels himself
utterly helpless.  There was one happy thought,
however: even if she were alone she would be closely
veiled; and how were these half-tipsy cads to recognise her?

She came out; she was alone, and veiled, but Will
knew the graceful figure, and the carriage of the
queenly head.

By some demoniac inspiration the two men seemed
also to take it for granted that the veiled face was
that of Annie Brunel.  The less tipsy of the two
went forward, overtook her as she was going down
the lane, and said to her—

"I beg your pardon, Miss—Miss Brunel——"

She turned her head, and in the gaslight Anerley
saw that there was a quick, frightened look of
interrogation in her eyes.  She turned away again, and
had hurried on almost to the open street, when the
man caught her arm with his hand.

"Not so fast, my dear.  Won't you look at my card——"

"Out of the way, idiot!" was the next thing she
heard, in a voice that made her heart beat; and in a
moment the man had been sent reeling against the
opposite wall.

That was the work of an instant.  Inflamed with
rage and fury, he recovered himself, and was about
to aim a blow at his assailant's face, when Anerley's
left arm so successfully did duty without the aid of
the wounded right one, that the man went down like
a log, and lay there.  His companion, stupefied,
neither stirred nor spoke.

"Get into the cab, Miss Brunel," said Will, abruptly.

He accompanied her across the pavement: an
utter stranger could not have been more calm and
cold.  For a second she looked into his face, with
pain, and wonder, and entreaty in her eyes; and then
she took his hand, which had been outstretched to
bid her good-bye, and said—

"Won't you come with me?  I—I am afraid——"

He got into the cab; the driver mounted his box
and drove off; and so it was that Will, scarcely
knowing how it had come about, found himself
sitting once more beside Annie Brunel, with her hand
still closed upon his.





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.. _`A LAST WORD`:

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   CHAPTER XXIV.


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   A LAST WORD.

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Every one knows Noel Paton's 'Dante and Beatrice'—the
picture of the two lovers caught together in
a supreme moment of passion—their faces irradiated
with the magical halo of a glowing twilight.  His,
tender, entreating, wistful, worshipful; hers, full of
the unconscious sweetness and superb repose of a
rare and exalted beauty.  His eyes are upturned to
hers; but hers dwell vaguely on the western glow
of colour.  And there is in the picture more than
one thing which suggests the strange dissociation
and the sadness, as well as the intercommunion and
fellowship, of the closest love.

Why, asks the impatient reader, should not a
romance be always full of this glow, and colour, and
passion?  The warm light that touches the oval
outline of a tender woman's face is a beautiful thing,
and even the sadness of love is beautiful: why should
not a romance be full of these supreme elements?
Why should not the romancist cut out the long prose
passages of a man's life, and give us only those
wonderful moments in which being glows with a sort of
transformation?

The obvious reason is, that a romance written in
such an exalted key would be insufferably unreal
and monotonous: even in the 'Venetianisches
Grondellied,' full of pure melody as it is, one finds jarring
chords, which are only introduced to heighten the
keen delight of the harmony which is to follow.  Add
to this the difficulty of setting down in words any
tolerable representation of one of those passionate
joyous moments of love-delight which are the familiar
theme of the musician and the painter.

That moment, however, in which Will Anerley met
Annie Brunel's eyes, and took her hand, and sat down
beside her, was one of these.  For many past days
and weeks his life had been so unbearably dull,
stagnant, prosaic, that the mere glad fact of this meeting
drove from his mind all consideration of consequences.
He looked in her eyes—the beautiful eyes that could
not conceal their pleasure—and forgot everything
else.  For a time, neither of them spoke—the delight
of being near to each other was enough; and when
they began to recall themselves to the necessity of
making some excuse to each other for having broken
a solemn promise, they were driving along Piccadilly;
and, away down in the darkness, they could see the
luminous string of orange points that encircle the
Green Park.

"I only returned to London to-day," he said, and
there was a smile on his face, for he half-pitied his
own weakness; "and I could not help going to see
you.  That was how I kept my promise.  But you
are not very angry?"

"No," she said, looking down.

There was no smile upon her face.  The events of
the last few weeks had been for her too tragic to
admit of humorous lights.

"You ought not to have come," she said the next
minute, hurriedly.  "You ought to have stayed away.
You yourself spoke of what might happen; and the
surprise and the pain of seeing you—I had no thought
of your being there—and I was sufficiently miserable
at the time not to need any other thing to disturb
me—and now—and now you are here, and you and I
are the friends we have been——"

The passionate earnestness of this speech, to say
nothing of its words, surprised and astounded him:
why should she have reason to be disturbed?

"Why should we not be friends?" he said.

She looked at him, with her big, tender, frank eyes,
with a strange expression.

"You force me to speak.  Because we cannot continue
friends," she said, in a voice which was almost
harsh in its distinctness.  "After what you said to
me, you have no right to see me.  I cannot forget
your warning; and I know where you ought to
be this evening—not here, but down in St. Mary-Kirby."

"That is true enough," said Will, gloomily.  "I
couldn't have gone down to St. Mary-Kirby to-night:
but, as you say, I have no business to be near
you—none whatever.  I should not have gone to the
theatre; I ought to have stayed at home, and spent
the time in thinking of you—why shouldn't I say it,
now that you have been so frank with me?  You and
I know each other pretty well, do we not?  There is
no reason, surely, why we may not regard each other
as friends, whatever may happen.  And why should
I not tell you that I fear to go down to St. Mary-Kirby,
and meet that poor Dove who has given me her heart?"

She said nothing: what could she say?  It was
not for her to blame him.

"And when I went to the theatre, I said, 'It is the
last time!'  I could not help going.  I did not intend
to meet you when you came out."

"You did not?" she said.

There was, despite herself, a touch of disappointment
in her tone.  The strange joyous light that had
passed over her face on seeing him was the result of
a sudden thought that he loved her so well that he
was forced to come to her.

"No," he answered, "I did not intend to meet you;
but the sudden pleasure of seeing you was so great
that I had not the heart to refuse to come into the
cab.  And, now you know my secret, you may blame
me as you please.  I suppose I am weaker than other
men; but I did not err wilfully.  And now the thing
is done, it is Dove whom I most consider.  How can
I go to her with a lie in every word, and look, and
action?  Or how could I tell her the truth?  Whichever
way one turns, there is nothing but sadness and
misery."

And still there was no word from the young girl
opposite.

"I have not even the resource of blaming destiny,"
he continued.  "I must blame my own blindness.
Only you, looking at these things in your friendly
and kindly way, will not blame me further for having
indulged myself a last time in going to see you
to-night.  You will never have to complain again—never;
and, indeed, I went to-night in a manner to
bid you good-bye—so you won't be hard on me——"

He was surprised to see, by the gleam of the lamp
they passed, that the girl was covertly sobbing, and
that the large soft eyes were full of tears.  At the
same moment, however, the cabman pulled up at the
corner of the little square in which Annie Brunel
lived; and so they both got out.  When Will turned
from paying the cabman, she had walked on a bit in
advance, and had not entered the square.  He
overtook her, and offered her his arm.  The night was
fine and still; a large lambent planet lay like a
golden bell-flower in the soft purple before them,
and a large harvest-moon, bronzed and discoloured,
glimmered through the tall elms on the other side of
the way, as it slowly rose up from the horizon.

"I have something to say to you," he heard the
soft low voice say, "which I had hoped never to
have said.  It is better it should be said."

"If you have cause to blame me, or if you wish to
prevent my seeing you again, by upbraiding me for
having spoken honestly to you, I beg of you to say
nothing that way.  It is not needed.  You will run
no danger whatever of being annoyed again.  I blame
myself more than you can; and since we must part,
let us part friends, with a kindly recollection of each
other——"

"Don't speak like that!" she said, imploringly,
with another convulsive sob, "or you will break my
heart.  Is it not enough that—that—oh!  I cannot,
cannot tell you, and yet I must tell you!"

"What have you to tell me?" he said, with a cold
feeling creeping over him.  He began to suspect
what her emotion meant; and he shrank from the
suggestion, as from some great evil he had himself
committed.

"You will think me shameless; I cannot help it.
You say this is our last meeting; and I cannot bear
to have you go away from me with the thought that
you have to suffer alone.  You think I ought to give
you my sympathy, because I am your friend, and you
will not be happy.  But—but I will suffer too; and
I am a woman—and alone—and whom have I to
look to——?"

He stopped her, and looked down into her face.

"Annie, is this true?" he said, sadly and gravely.

He got no answer beyond the sight of her streaming
eyes and quivering lips.

"Then are we the two wretchedest of God's
creatures," he said.

"Ah, don't say that," she murmured, venturing to
look up at him through her tears.  "Should we not
be glad to know that we can think kindly of each
other, without shame?  Unhappy, yes!—but surely
not the very wretchedest of all.  And you won't
misunderstand me?  You won't think, afterwards, that
it was because I was an actress that I confessed this
to you——?"

Even in such a moment a touch of Bohemianism!—a
fear that her mother's profession should suffer
by her weakness.

"Dearest!" he said, tenderly—"for you are, God
help me! my very, very dearest—we now know each
other too well to have to make excuses for our
confidence in each other."

They walked on now quite silently; there was
too much for both of them to think about to admit
of speech.  As they walked southward, down the
long and sombre thoroughfares, the large moon on
their left slowly rose, and still rose, at every minute
losing its ruddy hues, and gaining in clear, full
light.  They knew not whither they were going.
There was no passer-by to stare at them; they were
alone in the world, with the solitary houses, and the
great moon.

"You have not told me a minute too soon," he
said, suddenly, with a strange exultation in his
tone.

"What do you mean?"

"You and I, Annie, love each other.  If the future
is to be taken from us, let us recompense ourselves
*now*.  When you walk back to your house to-night
and the door closes, you and I see each other no
more.  To-morrow, and all the to-morrows after
that, we are only strangers.  But for the next
half-hour—my dearest, my dearest! show me your face,
and let me see what your eyes say!—why should
we not forget all these coming days, and live that
half-hour for ourselves?  It is but a little time;
the sweetness of it will be a memory to us.  Let us
be lovers, Annie!—only for this little time we shall
be together, my dearest!  Let us try to imagine
that you and I are to be married to-morrow—that
all the coming years we are to be together—that
now we have nothing to do but to yield ourselves up
to our love——"

"I am afraid," she said, in a low voice, trembling.

"Why afraid, then?"

"That afterwards the recollection will be too
bitter."

"Darling, nothing that you can imagine is likely
to be more bitter than what you and I must bear.
Just now, we have a little time our own; let us
forget what is to come, and——"

"Whisper, then," she said.

He bent down his head to her, and she came close
to his ear:

"*Will, I love you, and if I could I would be your
wife to-morrow.*"

"And you will kiss me, too," he said.

He felt a slight, warm touch on his lips; and
when he raised his head his face was quite white,
and his eyes were wild.

"Why, we *are* to be married to-morrow!" he said.
"It will be about eleven when I reach the church,
and I shall walk up and down between the empty
pews until you come.  I see the whole thing now—you
walking in at the door with your friends, your
dear eyes a little frightened, looking at me as if you
wanted me to take you away at once from among
the people.  Then we shall be off, dearest, sharp
and fast, up to your house; you will hurry to
change your things, and then, with a good-bye to
everybody, we are off—we two, you and I, Annie,
away anywhere, so that we may be alone together.
And I wish to God, Annie, that you and I were
lying down there beneath that water, dead and
drowned!"

They had come to the river—the broad smooth
river, with the wonderful breadths of soft light
upon it, and the dark olive-green shadows of the
sombre wharves and buildings on the other side.

"Will, Will, you frighten me so!" she said,
clinging to his arm.

"You needn't be frightened," he said, sadly.  "I
am only telling you what might happen.  Can't you
see all these things when you try to see them?
For many a night past—ever since the evening we
spent overlooking the Rhine—I have seen that
marriage-scene before my eyes, and it is always
you who are there.  You remember that evening
when you sate up in the balcony, among the
vine-leaves, with the moon hanging up over the river?
There's a German song I once heard that warns
you never to go near the Rhine, because life is
too sweet there; and we have been there, and have
received the curse of this discontent and undying
regret."

Then he broke out into a bitter laugh.

"We were to be lovers; and this is pretty lovers'
talk."

"You really do frighten me, Will," she said.  "I
never saw you look so before.  Oh, my dear, don't
be so very, very sad and despairing, for I have
nothing to comfort you with—not even one poor word;
and it seems so wretched that we two should not be
able to comfort each other."

He was fighting with the bonds of circumstance;
and his impotence embittered him.  The spectacle of
these two wretched creatures—despairing, rebellious,
and driven almost beyond the bounds of reason by their
perplexity—walking along the side of the still and
peaceful stream, was one to have awakened the
compassion, or at least the sympathetic merriment, of
the most careless of the gods.  What a beautiful
night it was!  The deep olive shadows of the
moonlight hid away the ragged and tawdry buildings
that overhung the river; and the flood of yellow-tinged
light touched only here and there on the
edge of a bank or the stem of a tree, and then fell
gently on the broad bosom of the stream.  The
gas-lamps of the nearest bridge glimmered palely in
that white light; but deep in the shadows along
the river, the lamps burned strong and red, and sent
long quivering lines of fire down into the dark
water beneath.  Farther up the stream lay broad
swathes of moonlight, vague and indeterminate as
the grey continents visible in the world of silver
overhead.  In all this universe of peace, and quiet,
and harmony, there seemed to be only these two
beings restless—embittered, and hopeless.

"Let us go home," he said, with an effort.  "I
can do nothing but frighten you, and myself too.  I
tell you there are other things pass before my eyes
as well as the marriage-scene, and I don't want to
see any more of them.  It will be time enough to
think of what may happen when it does happen."

"And whatever happens, Will, shall we not at
least know that we sometimes—occasionally—think
tenderly of each other?"

"So you wish us to be lovers still!" he said.
"The delusion is too difficult to keep up.  Have
you reflected that when once I am married, neither
of us may think of each other at all?"

"Will!  Will! don't talk like that!  You speak
as if somebody had cruelly injured you, and you
were angry and revengeful.  Nobody has done it.
It is only our misfortune.  It cannot be helped.  If
I am not to think of you—and I shall pray God to
help me to forget you—so much the better."

"My poor darling!" he said, "I am so selfish
that I think less of what your future may be than
of my own.  You dare not confide your secret to
any one; and I, who know it, must not see you nor
try to comfort you.  Is not the very confidence
that prompted you to tell me, a proof that we
are—that we might have been happy as husband and
wife?"

"Husband and wife," she repeated, musingly, as
they once more drew near home.  "You will be a
husband, but I shall never be a wife."

"And yet, so long as you and I live," he said, quite
calmly, "you will have my whole love.  It cannot
be otherwise: we need not seek to conceal it.
Whatever happens, and wherever we may be, my
love goes with you."

"And if mine," she whispered, "could go with
you, and watch over you, and teach your heart to
do right, it would lead your love back to the poor
girl whom you are going to marry, and make her
happy."

At parting he kissed her tenderly, almost solemnly.
Then she quickly undid from her neck a little brooch,
and put it in his hand with these words:

"Give that to her, with my love, *and with yours*."




.. vspace:: 4

.. _`EVIL TIDINGS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXV.


.. class:: center medium

   EVIL TIDINGS.

.. vspace:: 2

Very early did Dove get up that cool September
morning.  Away down the valley there lay a faintly
yellow haze, which made one feel that the sun was
behind it, and would soon drink it up.  In the
meantime the grass was wet.  A birch-tree that
almost touched her bedroom window had its
drooping branches of shivering leaves glistening with
moisture.  The willows along the riverside were
almost hid.  The withered and red chestnut-leaves
which floated on the pond had a cold autumn look
about them.  Then old Thwaites, the keeper,
appeared, with a pointer and a curly black retriever;
and when the old man went into the meadow, to
knock down some walnuts from the trees, his breath
was visible in the damp thick atmosphere.  She
saw these things vaguely; she only knew with
certainty that the sunlight and Will were coming.

A hundred times she made up her mind as to the
mood in which she ought to receive him.  Indeed,
for weeks back she had done nothing but mentally
rehearse that meeting; and every scene that she
described to herself was immediately afterwards
abandoned.

She was hurt, she knew; and in her secret heart
she longed to——  No! he had been very neglectful
about letters, and she would——  But in the
meantime it was important, whatever *rôle* she might
assume, that she should look as pretty as possible.

This was all her immediate care—a care that had
awoke her an hour too soon.  But if she had changed
her mind about the manner in which she should
receive him, how much more about the costume
which was to add effect to the scene?  Every
detail—every little ornament, and bit of ribbon, and
dexterous fold—she studied, and altered, and studied
and altered again, until she was very nearly losing
temper, and wishing that people had been born to
look their best without the necessity of clothing
themselves.

Perhaps one might be allowed to make a remark
about those ladies who, dressing for a ball or the
theatre, imagine that the less they clothe
themselves the better they look.  It is merely a question
of the relative artistic value of certain surfaces.
And, as a general rule, it may be accepted that the
natural complexion of women's shoulders is inferior
in fineness of hue and texture to the same extent of
white satin or dove-coloured silk.

Downstairs she went.  Mr. Anerley was engaged
in turning in the edge of his cartridges, and had
succeeded in vigorously scratching the marble
mantelpiece with the machine he was using.

"Good morning, papa."

She was very much embarrassed, she did not know
why.  She hoped he would not look at her; but he
did, and kissed her, and returned to his work.

"Dear me!" he said, "that I, an old man, should
have received such a compliment!  A young lady
getting up at a prodigiously early hour, and
dressing herself in her very smartest way, in order to
come down and make my breakfast!"

"Shall I pour out your coffee now, papa?" she
said, with a great blush.

"Yes, you may, my dear.  But don't put anchovy
into it instead of cream.  I make the suggestion
because I see you are a little disturbed.  It is the
early rising; or the chill of the autumn; or the
remembrance of last Sunday's sermon, I daresay."

She did not speak a word, but placed the coffee at
his end of the table, and returned to her seat.  When
he had finished his cartridge-making, he sate down,
and, as a preliminary to breakfast, swallowed a
mouthful of the coffee.  The next moment there
was an exclamation of horror—he ran to the
sideboard, seized a bottle of hock that had been left
from yesterday's dinner, hurriedly filled a coffee-cup
with the wine, and drank off the contents—his face
all the while in contortions.  Dove sat silent and
wilful, with a smile on her lips, and a hot flush on
her cheeks.  She would neither look at him nor
speak to him.

"Cayenne pepper!" he gasped, taking another
gulp of the cold Rhine wine.

She only played with her teaspoon.

"You might have killed me, you malicious
creature!" he cried, amid intervals of coughing.
"Cayenne!  Well, don't suppose that *you* would have got
much out of my life-insurance!"

At this she rose and walked to the door—proud,
spiteful, half laughing, and half crying.

"You had no business to tease me," she said.

"Come here, Dove," he said, taking her by the
arm and leading her back; "do you know what the
effect of cayenne is on the human throat?"

"I don't care."

"I say you might have killed me."

"I don't care."

"Now, if I were a young man, I should probably
be proud of such a mark of your favour, but——"

"It served you right.  I can't bear people to talk
to me like that, and you always do it, papa—you
know you do."

"But, as I am an old man, I mean to have my
revenge.  Firstly, there shall be no dogcart or
other vehicle leave this house this day for Horton
Station.  Secondly, should any guest arrive, he will
be asked to follow me over to the East Meadows,
where I shall be shooting.  Thirdly, should that
guest dine with us, he will be confined to the
dining-room during the entire evening, and any
persons waiting in the drawing-room may play 'The
Coulin,' or such music as they prefer, for their own
benefit.  Fourthly——"

"Fourthly, none of these things will happen,"
said Dove, with a touch of contempt in her tone.

And Dove was right.  For she herself was driven
in the dogcart over to Horton Station, and she took
care to make the man start half an hour before the
proper time.  The station-master, then and now
one of the civillest of men, endeavoured to relieve
the tedium of waiting by chatting to her; but she
only half listened to him, and talked nonsense in
reply.

She walked about the station, stared up the long
perspective of narrowing lines, then walked in again
to the small waiting-room, and wondered why the
people about did not bestir themselves to receive
the coming train.  Then, with a flutter of the heart,
she saw the signals changed, and presently there
was a far-off noise which told of Will's approach:
for he had written from Paris to say, that unless
they got other notice from him, he would be down
by this particular train.

A railway-station is not the proper place for a
piece of acting.  Scenes of the most tender and
tragic kind—never to be forgotten—have been
witnessed there; but the gentle drawing-room comedies
with which lovers amuse themselves do not
harmonize with the rough-and-ready accessories of a
railway line.  Dove resolved to leave her proper
reception of Will until they should be in the house
together; at present it was to be nothing but a
hurried delicious kissing, scrambling after luggage,
and swift getting home.

There was no head thrust out from one of the
approaching carriages—no handkerchief waved.
She did not know which of the dull, dark, and
heavy carriages might not have him inside; but
she was sure he could not escape her at the station.

The train stopped, the guard bustled about, the
people descended from the carriages, the porters
looked out for luggage and sixpences.  With a
half-realised fear—a dread of some vague evil—Dove
glanced quickly along the people, then more
narrowly; finally she turned to the carriages.  The
doors were again shut; the guard blew his whistle,
and leisurely stepped into his box; and the train
moved slowly out of the station.  There was no
Will Anerley there.

Sick at heart she turned away, it was a cruel
disappointment.  For weeks she had been planning
the whole scene; she had dreamt of the meeting,
had thought of it during the drowsy hush of the
Sunday-morning sermon, had looked forward to it
as the crowning compensation for the microscopic
troubles of her daily life.  There was not even a
letter to say that he was in England; perhaps he
was still in France.

So she went home, vexed, and disappointed, and
sad.  Mr. Anerley was out shooting; Mrs. Anerley
soothingly said that doubtless Will would be down
by a later train; and then Dove went away into a
corner of the drawing-room, and plunged herself
into a volume of old music, turning over the leaves
and supping a surfeit of sad memories.

Before going to the train that morning, Will had
found it necessary to call upon a doctor.  From him
he learned, firstly, that the original dressing of the
wounds in his arm had been far from satisfactory;
and secondly, that owing to some disturbant cause
renewed inflammation had set in.  Indeed, the doctor
gave him to understand that only prompt attention
and great care could prevent the wounds assuming
a very serious aspect.

"Your arm must have suffered some violence quite
recently," said the doctor.

"Well, last night," said Will, "I knocked a man
down with my left arm, and very likely I instinctively
twitched up the right to guard myself."

"These are little amusements which a man in
your condition had better forego," said the other,
quietly.  "The best thing you can do is go home
and get to bed, give your arm perfect rest, and I
will call in the afternoon and see what is to be done."

"I can't do that," said Will, "I'm going down to
the country."

"You will do so at your peril."

"All the same, I must go.  Nothing is likely to
happen between to-day and Monday.  If you had
seen the leg I had in Turkey!—without any doctor
but a servant who could not even infuse our
tea—constant rain—walking every day—our tent letting
in water at night——"

"I don't know about your leg in Turkey," said
the doctor, tartly; "but I see the condition in which
your arm is now.  If you think it will get well by
exposing it to rain, well and good——"

"Can you do anything to it *now*?"

"No, unless you give the limb perfect rest."

"Very well.  If it gets very bad, I shall come up
to town to-morrow.  If not, I shall visit you on
Monday, and do everything you tell me then."

He got into a cab and drove back to his chambers.
The man had already taken his portmanteau downstairs,
when Count Schönstein's brougham drove up,
and the Count jumped out.

"Where are you going?"

"To St. Mary-Kirby."

"Not now.  Come inside; I have something to
tell you."

They stepped inside: never before had Will
observed the Count to be so disturbed.

"Miall & Welling," he said, hurriedly, "I have
just heard—not ten minutes ago—have collapsed—the
announcement will be made to-day—the directors
were in the place till twelve last night.  It will
be the most fearful crash, they say; for the bank
has lately been making the wildest efforts to save
itself——"

"I thought Miall & Welling's was as safe as the
Bank of England," said Will—just a trifle pale.

Every farthing of his father's money was in this
bank, which had never even been suspected in the
most general crises.

"It may be only a rumour," continued the Count.
"But you may as well wait, to see if the evening
papers have anything about it."

"It will be a pretty story to carry down with me
to Kent," said Will.

"That's what I was thinking of," said the Count,
kindly—indeed he was not wholly a selfish man;
"and I thought I might go down with you, if you
liked, and try to help your father over the first
shock.  It will be a terrible blow to him—a man
who has lived a quiet and easy life, with a little
hunting, and shooting, and so on.  I shouldn't
wonder if it entirely upset him and did some harm——"

"You don't know my father," said Will.

They had not to wait for the evening papers.  By
twelve o'clock the news was current in the city.
Miall & Welling had sent out their circular: the
bank had suspended payment.

This was the cause of Will's missing the train.
When he took his seat in the next train going down,
it was with a feeling that now ill-fortune had done
its worst, and there was nothing more to encounter.
He thought of that wild scene of last night by the
banks of the river,—of the strange, sad, unfathomable
look of the young actress's eyes,—of their bitter
parting, and the tender words she spoke as he left.
Then he looked forward to meeting Dove with a cold
fear at his heart: and he was almost glad that the
more immediate and terrible business he had on
hand would distract his attention.

He left his portmanteau at the station, and walked
round to the brow of the hill.  Before him lay the
well-known valley, still and silent under the yellow
autumn sunlight; and down there by the river he
saw a tall spare man—accompanied by another man
and a couple of dogs—whose figure he easily
recognised.  He walked in that direction, crossing the
low-lying meadows and the river, and rounding a bit
of coppice which skirted a turnip-field.

As he turned the corner, a covey of birds rose just
in front of him, with a prodigious whirr of wings.

"Mark!" he called, instinctively, though he was
quite unaware of the proximity of anybody with a gun.

The next second there was a double report; two
of the birds came tumbling down, scattering their
feathers in the air, and there was a muttered
admonition to the pointer.  A few steps further brought
him into view of Mr. Anerley and old Thwaites,
both of whom were marking down the remaining
birds of the covey, as the low, swift, sailing flight
seemed to near the ground.

"Why did you come round that way?" said Mr. Anerley
when he saw his son.  "I might have shot you."

"I shouldn't have minded, sir," said Will.  "I'm
getting used to it."

"You have your arm in a sling yet?  I thought
it was all right."

"The doctor pulls long faces over it.  I fancy the
man in the Black Forest bungled it."

"If the Black Foresters don't know how to cure
men shot by mistake, they ought to," said
Mr. Anerley, with a thoroughly English contempt for
any kind of shooting but his own.  "Such a set of
sparrow-shooting shoemakers I never saw.  I
suppose I needn't offer you my gun?"

"No, thank you.  I'll walk down the turnips with
you, on my way to the house."

There was little left in the turnips, however.  A
solitary bird got up, almost out of shot, and
Mr. Anerley knocked him over very cleverly.  There was
no smile of triumph, however, on the firm-set lips
of the tall, keen-faced, grey-haired sportsman.  He
quietly put another cartridge into the barrel and
walked on, occasionally growling at the dog, which
was continually making false points.  Almost at
the end of the turnips the dog made a very decided
point.

"Ware lark! gr-r-r-r!" cried old Thwaites; and
at the same instant a fine covey of birds, startled by
the cry, got up out of shot.  The dog had really been
on the scent of the partridges.

Mr. Anerley said nothing, but he did not look
particularly pleased.

"If that had not been old Thwaites," muttered
Will, "I should have said it was an old fool."

So Will walked on to Chesnut Bank.  He had not
the heart to tear the old man away from his favourite
sport in order to give him this bad news.  After
dinner, he now thought, would be time enough; and
he himself seemed to have gained a respite until then.

But if he was in the meanwhile relieved from the
necessity of bearing the evil tidings to his father,
there remained his meeting with Dove, which he had
for long looked forward to with a half-conscious fear.
As he drew near the house, he began to think this
the greater trial of the two.

Dove, still sitting in the drawing-room, heard
footsteps on the gravelled pathway leading down
through the garden.  The music almost dropped
from her hands as she listened intently for a
moment—then a flush of joyous colour stole over her face.
But, all the same, she opened the book again, and
sate obstinately looking at pages which she did not see.

"Dove," said Will, tapping at the French window,
"open and let me in."

No answer—Dove still intently regarding the music.

So he had to go on to the hall-door, ring the bell,
and enter the drawing-room from the passage.

"Oh, you are come back again!" said Dove, with
mimic surprise, and with admirably simulated carelessness.

She held out her hand to him.  She fancied he
would be dreadfully astonished and perturbed by
this cold reception—that they would have a nice
little quarrel, and an explanation, and all the divine
joys of making-up, before Mrs. Anerley could come
down from the apple-closet, in which she had been
engaged since breakfast-time.  But, on the contrary,
Will was neither surprised nor disturbed.  He looked
quite grave, perhaps a little sad, and took her hand,
saying kindly—

"Yes, back again.  I hope you have been well
while I was away, Dove; and that you amused yourself."

Dove was alarmed; he had not even offered to kiss her.

"What is the matter with you, Will?" she said,
with a vague fear in her pretty violet eyes.

"Why, nothing much."

"Is it I, then?  Are you vexed with me, that you
should be so cold with me after being away so long
a time?"

There she stood, with her eyes downcast, a troubled
look on her face, and both her hands pulling to pieces
a little engraving she held.

"Why should I be vexed with you, Dove?" he
said, putting his hand on her shoulder.  He dared
not kiss her: there dwelt on his lips yet the memory
of that sad leave-taking of the night before.

"Then why are you and I standing here like
strangers?" she said, stamping her little foot.

She could not tell how things had all gone wrong;
but they had gone wrong; and the meeting she had
looked forward to with such pleasurable anticipation
was an embarrassing failure.

At this moment Mrs. Anerley entered, and the
girl saw her receive the kiss which had been denied
to herself.

"You are not looking well, Will," said the
observant mother.  "Is your arm healing rightly?"

"Oh, yes, well enough."

"You are fatigued, then?  Let me bring you some
sherry."

She left the room, and then Dove—looking
hesitatingly for a moment—ran forward to him, and
buried her face in his bosom, and burst into tears.

"It was all my fault, dear," she sobbed.  "I
wanted to be angry with you, for not coming down
by the first train—and—and I thought you would
pet me, and make it up, you know—and I even
forgot to ask about your arm; but it wasn't, dear,
because I didn't think of it——"

"There, it's all right," he said.  "I didn't notice
you were vexed with me, or I should have made
friends with you at once.  There, now, you're only
ruffling all your pretty hair, and such a delicate little
collar you've got!"

"Oh!" she said, with smiles breaking through her
tears, "you don't know what I have been making for you."

"Tell me."

"Twenty times I was near telling you in my
letters; but I stopped.  I tried to get it done, to give
it you to-day, but I couldn't; and—and perhaps it
was that made me vexed with you."

"Very likely," said Will, who thoroughly understood
the charming byways of Dove's logic.

"It is a worsted waistcoat," she said, in a solemn
whisper, "all knitted by myself.  And I've put in
some of my hair, so that you never could see it
unless I showed it to you.  They say that to give any
one some of your hair is so unlucky—that it always
means parting; but I couldn't help putting in just a
little."

"To represent a little parting—from Saturday to
Monday, for example."

"Are you going up to town again to-morrow?"
she said, with fresh alarm.

"The doctor says I ought; but we shall see when
to-morrow comes."

So peace was established between them.  It was
only as an afterthought she remembered that he had
never once kissed her.

During dinner, Will was almost silent.  They
supposed he was tired with the journey home.  When
Mrs. Anerley and Dove had left the room, he knew
the time was come.

"I have bad news for you, father," he said.

"Out with it, then," said Mr. Anerley.  "Everybody
in the house is well in health; anything else
does not much matter."

"Miall & Welling are down."

The old man put back his wineglass on the table.

"Miall & Welling's bank is down?" he said, slowly.

"Yes."

"Are you sure of it?"

"There is their circular."

He read the paper carefully, and laid it down.

"They say," said Will, "that their affairs are in a
terrible plight—quite hopeless."

"That means that I have not a farthing of money
beyond what is in the house."

He remained silent for several minutes, his eyes
fixed on the table before him.  Then he said—

"Very well.  There are four of us.  If we two men
cannot support ourselves and these two women,
should not every one have a right to laugh at us?"

"But that you, at your age——"

"My age?  I am in the prime of life.  Indeed, it
is time I did something to show that I could have
earned my own bread all along."

"I'm glad you look at it in that way," said Will,
rather sadly.  "Here am I, unable to earn a penny
until my arm gets better.  You know nothing
specially of any business——"

"It is not too late to learn, my lad.  There are
plenty of things to which I could turn my hand.
Imagine what a capital keeper I should be; and how I
should overawe the trembling Cockneys invited down
to a grand battue into giving me monstrous tips!
Now let us look at the thing in another light."

He straightened himself up, as if throwing some
weight off his shoulders.  Then he relapsed into his old
manner, and there was a sort of sad smile on his face.

"Edmond About," he said, "declares that all men
are producers, and have therefore a right to the
property they possess, except robbers, beggars, and
gamblers.  Doubtless the money I possessed was
very valuable to the people to whom I lent it, and
they paid me for putting its working powers at their
disposal.  You understand?"

"Yes."

"I was, in that sense, a producer, and had a right
to the money on which I lived.  M. About tells me
that I had.  But, in spite of that, I was always
bothered by an uneasy conviction that the ancestor
of mine who brought the money into the family
could not have made it by his own hands.  Indeed, I
am convinced that my rich progenitor—who, let us
say, came over with William—was nothing else than
a prodigious thief, who either stole money in the
shape of taxes, or the means of making money in
the shape of land, from the people who then owned
it.  I therefore, you see, have no right to the
possession of money acquired by robbery."

"You only discover that when the money is gone,"
said Will, accustomed to his father's philosophic and
easy way of taking things.

"Not at all.  I have for some time back been
proud to class myself amongst the richest and oldest
families of England, in regard to the moral shadiness
of our right to live on the produce of gigantic
thievery.  You see——"

"I see, sir, that the moment you lose your money,
you become a philosophic Radical."

"Ah, well," said Mr. Anerley, sending a sigh after
his vanished riches, "I don't think the misfortune
has touched us much, when we can transfer it into
the region of first principles.  Perhaps I had better
go up to town with you to-morrow, and see what
practical issues it must lead to."

"And in the meantime," said Will, "don't tell
either of the women."





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.. _`THE COUNT'S CHANCE`:

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   CHAPTER XXVI


.. class:: center medium

   THE COUNT'S CHANCE.

.. vspace:: 2

"Where is Mr. Melton?" asked the Count.

"Up in the 'flies,' sir, I believe," said the prompter.
"Shall I send for him?"

"No, I shall go up to him," said the Count.

It was on the evening of the day on which he had
told Will of Miall & Welling's downfall.  After
having ascertained the truth of the report, he had
gone to spend the remainder of the day at his club,
in talking, reading, and dining; and when he did
think of going round to the theatre, he found that
the piece in which Annie Brunel played would be
over, and she gone home.  This was as he wished.

So he made his way up the well-worn wooden steps
until he reached the "flies," where he found
Mr. Melton, seated on the drum which rolled up the
drop-scene, in earnest talk with a carpenter.  On seeing
the Count, the man walked away, and Mr. Melton rose.

"Welcome back to England!" said the manager,
rather nervously.  "I have been most anxious to
see you."

"Ah," said the Count.

"Indeed, the strangest thing has happened—completely
floored me—never heard the like," continued
Mr. Melton, hurriedly.  "Have you seen Miss Brunel?"

"No," said the Count.

"Not since you returned?"

"No."

"You are not acquainted with her resolution?"

"No."

"Then let me tell you what happened not half an
hour ago in this very theatre.  You see that scenery?
It's all new.  The dresses are new—new music, new
decorations, a new theatre, and—d——n it all!—it's
enough to make a man mad!"

"But what is it?" asked the Count of the
abnormally excited manager.

"A few minutes ago Miss Brunel comes to me and
says, 'Mr. Melton, a word with you.'

"'Certainly,' said I.

"Then she turned a little pale; and had that
curious look in her eyes that she used to wear on
the stage, you know; and said, clearly, 'I am not
going to act any more.'

"When I had recovered breath, I said:

"'Pardon me, Miss Brunel; you must.  Look at
the expense I have been put to in getting up this
revival——'

"And then she grew excited, as if she were
half-mad, and implored me not to compel her to fulfil
her engagement.  She said her acting was a failure;
that everybody knew it was a failure; that she
had an invincible repugnance to going on the stage
again; and that nothing would tempt her to begin a
new piece, either with me or with anybody else.  I
can assure you, Count Schönstein, now that I think
over it, there never was a finer scene in any play
than she acted then—with her despair, and her
appeals, and her determination.  I thought at first
she was bewitched; and then I declare she was so
nearly on the point of bewitching me, that I was
almost agreeing to everything she asked, only——"

"Only what?"

"Only I remembered that the theatre was not
only my own affair, and that I had no business to
compromise its interests by—you understand?"

"Quite right—quite right," said the Count, hastily.
"And then——?"

"Then she left."

"But what—what is the reason of her wishing to
leave the stage?"

"I don't know."

"Had she heard any—any news, for example?"

"I don't know."

"Why, Melton, what a fellow you are!" cried the
Count, peevishly.  "I'm sure you could easily have
found out, if you cared, what she meant by it."

"I tell you I was quite dumfoundered—"

"And she said nothing about any news—or her
prospects—or a change——?"

"Nothing.  From what she said, I gathered that
she had come to dislike acting, and that she was
convinced her future career would be wretched, both
for herself and the house.  You have never asked me
about the theatre at all.  The first two or three
nights the curiosity of people to see her in the new
part gave us some good business; but now the papers
have changed their tune, and the public——"

Mr. Melton shrugged his shoulders; but Count
Schönstein was paying no attention to him.

"*If she has discovered the secret,*" he was reasoning
with himself, "*she would be in no such desperate hurry
to leave the stage.  If she has not, now is the time for me.*"

"Melton," he said, "what would be a reasonable
forfeit if she broke her engagement?"

"I don't know.  I should say 200*l*.  She said she
could not offer me compensation in money, and that's
why she begged so hard of me for the favour.  God
knows, if I could afford it, and were my own master,
I should not make the poor creature keep to her
engagement.  Look at the money she used to put
into the treasury every week."

"Very good.  Come downstairs to your room; I
want to transact some business with you."

When they had gone down to the stage and passed
through the wings to Mr. Melton's private room,
both men sate down in front of a table on which
were writing materials.

"Take a sheet of paper, like a good fellow," said
the Count, "and write to my dictation."

Melton took the pen in his hand, and the Count
continued—

"*My dear Miss Brunel,—In consideration of your
past services, and of the great success attending*—should
that be attendant, Melton?—*upon your previous
labours in this theatre, I beg to offer you entire liberty
to break your present engagement, at whatever time
you please.—Yours sincerely, Charles Melton.*"

"And what do you propose to do with that, Count?"
said Melton, with a smile.

"I propose to give you this bit of paper for it,"
said the Count.

He handed the manager an *I.O.U.* for 200*l.*;
and then carefully folded up the letter and put it
in his pocket.





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.. _`DOUBTFUL`:

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   CHAPTER XXVII.


.. class:: center medium

   DOUBTFUL.

.. vspace:: 2

Without taking off either bonnet or cloak, Annie
Brunel, on reaching home that night, went at once
to Mrs. Christmas's room, and flung herself down
on the edge of the bed where the poor old woman
lay, ailing and languid.

"Oh, mother, mother," cried the girl, "I can
never go to the theatre any more!"

She buried her face in the bed-clothes, and only
stretched out her hand for sympathy.  The old
woman tried to put her arm round the girl's neck,
but relinquished the attempt with a sigh.

"What is to become of us, Miss Annie?"

"I don't know—I don't know," she said, almost
wildly, "and why should I care any longer?"

"What new trouble is this that has fallen on us?"
said Mrs. Christmas, faintly.  "Why do you speak
like that?"

"Because I don't know what to say, mother—because
I would rather die than go to the theatre
again—and he says I must.  I cannot go—I cannot
go—and there is no one to help me!"

The old woman turned her eyes—and they looked
large in the shrivelled and weakly face—on her
companion.

"Annie, you won't tell me what is the matter.
Why should you hate the stage?  Hasn't it been
kind to you?  Wasn't it kind to your mother—for
many a long year, when she and you depended on
it for your lives?  The stage is a kind home for
many a poor creature whom the world has cast
out—and you, Miss Annie, who have been in a
theatre all your life, what has taken you now?
The newspapers?"

The girl only shook her head.

"Because the business isn't good?"

No answer.

"Has Mr. Melton been saying anything——?"

"I tell you, mother," said the girl, passionately,
"that I will not go upon the stage, because I hate
it!  And I hate the people—I hate them for staring
at me, and making me ashamed of myself.  I hate
them because they are rich, and happy, and full of
their own concerns—indeed, mother, I can't tell
you—I only know that I will never go on the stage
again, let them do what they like.  Oh, to feel their
eyes on me, and to know that I am only there for
their amusement, and to know that I cannot compel
them to—to anything but sit and compassionately
admire my dress, and my efforts to please them.  I
can't bear it, Lady Jane—I can't bear it."

And here she broke out into a fit of hysterical
sobbing.

"My poor dear, when I should be strong and
ready to comfort you, here I am weaker and more
helpless than yourself.  But don't go back to the
theatre, sweetheart, until your taste for it
returns——"

"It will never return.  I hate the thought of it."

"But it may.  And in the meantime haven't we
over 40*l.* in the house of good savings?"

"That is nothing to what I must undertake to
give Mr. Melton if I break my engagement.  But I
don't mind that much, Lady Jane—I don't mind
anything except going back there, and you must
never ask me to go back.  Say that you won't!  We
shall get along somehow——"

"My darling, how can you imagine I would seek
to send you back?"

Annie Brunel did not sleep much that night; but
by the morning she had recovered all her wonted
courage and self-composure.  Indeed, it was with a
new and singular sense of freedom and cheerfulness
that she rose to find the world before her, her own
path through it as yet uncertain and full of risks.
But she was now mistress of herself; she went to
bid Mrs. Christmas good morning with a blithe air,
and then, as every Englishwoman does under such
circumstances, she sent for the *Times*.

She had no definite impression about her capabilities
for earning her living out of the dramatic
profession; but she expected to find all the requisite
suggestions in the *Times*.  Here was column after
column of proffered employment; surely one little
bit might be allotted to her.  So she sate down
hopefully before the big sheet, and proceeded to put
a well-defined cross opposite each advertisement
which she imagined offered her a fair chance.

While she was thus engaged, Count Schönstein's
brougham was announced; and a few minutes
thereafter, the Count, having sent up his card, was
permitted to enter the room.

Outwardly his appearance was elaborate, and he
wore a single deep crimson rose in the lapel of his
tightly-buttoned frock-coat.  His eyes, however,
were a little anxious.  And it was soon apparent
that he had for the present relinquished his grand
manner.

"I am delighted to see you looking so well," he
said, "and I hope Mrs. Christmas is also the better
for her holiday——"

"Poor Lady Jane is very ill," said Miss Brunel,
"though she will scarcely admit it."

"Have I disturbed your political studies?" he
asked, looking at the open newspaper.

"I have been reading the advertisements of
situations," she said, frankly.

"Not, I hope," he remarked, "with any reference
to what I heard from Mr. Melton last night about
your retiring from the stage?"

"Indeed, it is from no other cause," she said,
cheerfully.  "I have resolved not to play any more; but
we cannot live without my doing something——"

"In the meantime," said the Count, drawing a
letter from his pocket, "I have much pleasure in
handing you this note from Mr. Melton.  You will find
that it releases you from your present engagement,
whenever you choose to avail yourself of the power."

The young girl's face was lit up with a sudden
glow of happiness and gratitude.

"How can I ever thank him for this great
kindness?" she said,—"so unexpected, so generous!
Indeed, I must go and see him and thank him personally;
it is the greatest kindness I have received for years."

The Count was a little puzzled.

"You understand, Miss Brunel, that—that paper,
you see, was not quite Mr. Melton's notion until——"

"Until you asked him?  Then I am indebted to
you for many kindnesses, but for this more than all.
I feel as if you had given me a pair of wings.  How
shall I ever thank you sufficiently——?"

"*By becoming my wife.*"

He had nearly uttered the words; but he did not.
He felt that his mission that morning was too serious
to be risked without the most cautious introduction.
Besides, she was in far too good spirits to have such
a suggestion made to her.  He felt instinctively that,
in her present mood, she would certainly laugh at
him—the most frightful catastrophe that can happen
to a man under the circumstances.  And Count
Schönstein had sufficient acquaintance with actresses
to know, that while they have the most astonishing
capacity for emotion, if their sympathies be properly
excited, there are no people who, in cold blood, can
so accurately detect the ridiculous in a man's exterior.
An actress in love forgets everything but her love;
an actress not in love has the cruellest eye for the
oddities or defects of figure and costume.

At the present moment, Count Schönstein felt
sure that if he spoke of love, and marriage, and so
forth, Miss Brunel would be looking at the rose
in his button-hole, or scanning his stiff necktie
and collar, or the unblushing corpulence of his
waist.  In his heart he wished he had no rose in
his button-hole.

It would be very easy to make fun of this poor
Count (and he was aware of the fact himself) as he
stood there, irresolute, diffident, anxious.  But there
was something almost pathetic as well as comic in
his position.  Consider how many vague aspirations
were now concentrated upon this visit.  Consider how
he had thought about it as he had dressed himself
many a morning, as he had gone to bed many a night;
how, with a strange sort of loyalty, he had striven to
exalt his motives and persuade himself that he was
quite disinterested; how the dull pursuit of his life,
position and influence, had been tinged with a glow
of sentiment and romance by meeting this young girl.

"She has no friends," he said to himself, many a
time, "neither have I.  Why should not we make
common cause against the indifference and hauteur of
society?  I can make a good husband—I would yield
in all things to her wishes.  And away down in Kent
together—we two—even if we should live only for
each other——"

The Count tried hard to keep this view of the
matter before his eyes.  When sometimes his errant
imagination would picture his marriage with the
poor actress,—then his claim, on behalf of his wife,
for the estates and title of the Marquis of Knottingley's
daughter—then the surprise, the chatter of the
clubs, the position in society he would assume, the
money he would have at his command, the easy
invitations to *battues* he could dispense like so many
worthless coppers among the young lords and
venerable baronets—and so forth, and so forth—he dwelt
upon the prospect with an unholy and ashamed
delight, and strove to banish it from his mind as a
temptation of the devil.

These conflicting motives, and the long train of
anticipations connected with them, only served to
render his present situation the more tragic.  He
knew that one great crisis of his life had come;
and it is not only incomparable heroes, possessed
of all human graces and virtues, who meet with such
crises.

"When do you propose to leave the stage?" he asked.

"I have left," she answered.

"You won't play to-night?"

"No."

"But Mr. Melton——?"

"Since he has been so kind as to give me, at your
instigation, this release, must get Miss Featherstone
to play 'Rosalind.'  Nelly will play it very nicely,
and my best wishes will go with her."

"Then I must see him instantly," said the Count,
"and give him notice to get a handbill printed."

"If you would be so kind——"

But this was too bad.  She intimated by her manner
that she expected him to leave at once, merely for the
sake of the wretched theatre.  He took up the
newspaper, by way of excuse, and for a minute or two
glanced down its columns.

"Have you any fixed plans about what you mean
to do?" he asked.

"None whatever," she replied.  "Indeed I am in
no hurry.  You have no idea how I love this sense of
freedom you have just given me, and I mean to enjoy
it for a little time."

"But after then?"

She shrugged her shoulders, and smiled: he
thought he had never seen her look so charming.

"You don't know what lies before you," he said,
gravely, "if you think of battling single-handed
against the crowds of London.  You don't know the
thousands who are far more eager in the fight for
bread than you are; because you haven't experienced
the necessity yet——"

"I have fought for my bread ever since my poor
mother died," she said.

"With exceptional advantages, and these you now
abandon.  My dear Miss Brunel," he added, earnestly,
"you don't know what you're doing.  I shudder to
think of the future that you seem to have chalked
out for yourself.  On the other hand, I see a probable
future for you in which you would not have to depend
upon any one for your support; you would be
independent of those people whom you profess to dislike;
you would be rich, happy, with plenty of amusement,
nothing to trouble you, and you would also secure a
pleasant home for Mrs. Christmas——"

"Have you imagined all that out of one of these
advertisements?" she asked, with a smile.

"No, Miss Brunel," said the Count, whose earnestness
gave him an eloquence which certainly did not
often characterise his speech.  "Can't you guess
what I mean?  I am sure you know how I esteem
you—you must have seen it—and perhaps you
guessed what feelings lay behind that—and—and—now
you are alone, as it were, you have no friends—why
not accept my home, and become my wife?"

"Your wife?" she repeated, suddenly becoming
quite grave, and looking down.

"Yes," he said, delighted to find that she did not
get up in a towering passion, as he had seen so
many ladies do, under similar circumstances, on the
stage.  "I hope you do not feel offended.  I have
spoken too abruptly, perhaps—but now it is out, let
me beg of you to listen to me.  Look at this, Miss
Brunel, fairly: I don't think I have an unkind
disposition—I am sincerely attached to you—you are
alone, as I say, with scarcely a friend—we have
many tastes in common, and as I should have nothing
to do but invent amusements for you, I think we
should lead an agreeable life.  I am not a very young
man, but on the other hand I haven't my way to
make in the world.  You don't like the stage.  I am
glad of it.  It assures me that if you would only
think well of my proposal, we should lead a very
agreeable life.  I'm sure we should have a pleasant
agreeable life; for, after all,—it is absurd to
mention this just now, perhaps—but one has a good deal
of latitude in 30,000*l.* a year—and you don't have to
trouble your mind—and if the most devoted affection
can make you happy, then happy you'll be."

Annie Brunel sate quite silent, and not very much
affected or put out.  She had been in good spirits
all the morning, had been nerving herself for a heroic
and cheerful view of the future; and now here was
something to engage her imagination!  There is no
woman in the world, whatever her training may
have been, who, under such circumstances, and
with such a picturesque offer held out to her, would
refuse at least to regard and try to realise the
prospect.

"You are very kind," she said, "to do me so much
honour.  But you are too kind.  You wish to
prevent my being subjected to the hardships of being
poor and having to work for a living, and you think
the easiest way to do that is to make me the mistress
of all your money——"

"I declare, Miss Brunel, you wrong me," said the
Count, warmly.  "Money has nothing to do with it.
I mentioned these things as inducements—unwisely,
perhaps.  Indeed it has nothing to do with it.
Won't you believe me when I say that I could hope
for no greater fortune and blessing in the world, if
neither you nor I had a farthing of money, than to
make you my wife?"

"I am afraid you would be sadly disappointed,"
she said, with a smile.

"Will you let me risk that?" he said, eagerly, and
trying to take her hand.

She withdrew her hand, and rose.

"I can't tell you yet," she said; "I can scarcely
believe that we are talking seriously.  But you have
been always very kind, and I'm very much obliged
to you——"

"Miss Brunel," said the Count, hurriedly—he did
not like to hear a lady say she was much obliged by
his offer of 30,000*l.* a year—"don't make any abrupt
decision, if you have not made up your mind.  At
any rate, you don't refuse to consider the matter?
I knew you would at least do me that justice—in a
week's time, perhaps——"

She gave him her hand, as he lifted his hat and
cane, and he gratefully bowed over it, and ventured
to kiss it; and then he took his leave, with a radiant
smile on his face as he went downstairs.

"Club.  And, d—n it, be quick!" he said to his
astonished coachman.

Arrived there, he ordered the waiter to take up to
the smoking-room a bottle of the pale port which
the Count was in the habit of drinking there.  Then
he countermanded the order.

"I needn't make a beast of myself because I feel
happy," he said to himself, wisely, as he went into
the dining-room.  "Alfred, I'll have a bit of cold
chicken, and a bottle of the wine that you flatter
yourself is Château Yquem."

Alfred, who was a tall and stately person, with red
hair and no *h*'s, was not less astonished than the
Count's coachman had been.  However, he brought
the various dishes, and then the wine.  The Count
poured the beautiful amber fluid into a tumbler, and
took a draught of it:

"Here's to her health, whether the wine came
from Bordeaux or Biberich!"

But as a rule the Château Yquem of clubs is a cold
drink, which never sparkled under the warm sun of
France; and so, as the Count went upstairs to the
smoking-room, he returned to his old love, and told
them to send him a pint-bottle of port.  He had
already put twenty-two shillings' worth of wine into
his capacious interior; and he had only to add a
glass or two of port, and surround his face with the
perfume of an old, hard, and dry cigar, in order to
get into that happy mood when visions are born of
the half-somnolent brain.

"... I have done it—I have broken the ice, and
there is still hope.  Her face was pleased, her smile
was friendly, her soft clear eyes—fancy having that
smile and those eyes at your breakfast-table every
morning, to sweeten the morning air for you, and
make you snap your fingers at the outside world.
'Gad, I could write poetry about her.  I'll *live*
poetry—which will be something better...."

At this moment there looked into the room a
handsome and dressy young gentleman who was the funny
fellow of the club.  He lived by his wits, and
managed to make a good income, considering the material
on which he had to work.

"What a courageous man—port in the forenoon!"
he said, to the Count.

The other said nothing, but inwardly devoted the
newcomer to the deeps of Hades.

"And smoking to our old port!"

"A cigar doesn't make much difference to club-wines,
young gentleman," said the Count, grandly.

"Heard a good thing just now.  Fellow was
abusing Scotchmen to a Scotch tradesman, and of
course Bannockburn was mentioned.  'Why,' says
the Englishman, 'plenty of my countrymen were
buried at Bannockburn, and there you have rich
harvests of grain.  Plenty of *your* countrymen
were buried at Culloden, and there you have only a
barren waste.  Scotchmen can't even fatten the
land.'"

"Did he kill him?"

"No; the Englishman was a customer."

Once more the Count was left to his happy
imaginings.

"Then the marriage," he thought to himself,
"then the marriage,—the girls in white, champagne,
fun, horses, and flowers, and away for France!  No
Trouville for me, no Etretât, no Biarritz.  A quiet
old Norman town, with an old inn, and an old priest;
and she and I walking about like the lord and lady
of the place, with all the children turning and
looking at her as if she were an Italian saint come down
from one of the pictures in the church.  This is
what I offer her—instead of what?  A sempstress's
garret in Camden Town, or a music-mistress's
lodgings in Islington, surrounded by squalid and dingy
people, glaring publichouses, smoke, foul air,
wretchedness, and misery.  I take her from the slums of
Islington, and I lead her down into the sweet air of
Kent, and I make a queen of her!"

The Count's face beamed with pleasure, and port.
The very nimbleness of his own imagination tickled
him—

"Look at her!  In a white cool morning-dress, with
her big heaps of black hair braided up, as she goes
daintily down into the garden in the warm sunshine,
and her little fingers are gathering a bouquet for her
breast.  The raw-boned wives of your country
gentry, trying to cut a dash on the money they get from
selling their extra fruit and potatoes, turn and look
at my soft little Italian princess as she lies back in
her barouche, and regards them kindly enough, God
bless her!  What a job I shall have to teach her her
position—to let her know that now she is a lady the
time for general good-humour is gone!  Mrs. Anerley,
yes; but none of your clergymen's wives, nor your
doctors' wives, nor your cow-breeding squires' wives
for her!  Day after day, week after week, nothing
but brightness, and pleasure, and change.  All this
I am going to give her in exchange for the squalor
of Islington!"

The Count regarded himself as the best of men.
At this moment, however, there strolled into the
smoking-room a certain Colonel Tyrwhitt, who was
connected by blood or marriage with half-a-dozen
peerages, had a cousin in the Cabinet, and wore on
his finger a ring given him by the decent and devout
old King of Saxony.  This colonel—"a poor devil I
could buy up twenty times over," said the Count,
many a time—walked up to the fireplace, and turning,
proceeded to contemplate the Count, his wine, and
cigar, as if these objects had no sensible existence.
He stroked his grey moustache once or twice, yawned
very openly, and then walked lazily out of the room
again without having uttered a word.

"D—n him!" said the Count, mentally; "the
wretched pauper, who lives by loo, and looks as grand
as an emperor because he has some swell relations,
who won't give him a farthing.  These are the people
who will be struck dumb with amazement and envy
by-and-by.  My time is coming.

"'Ah! my dear fellah!' says this colonel to me,
some morning; 'I've heard the news.  Congratulate
you—all my heart.  Lord Bockerminster tells me
you've some wonderful shooting down in Berks.'

"'So I have,' says I; 'and I should be glad,
Colonel, to ask you down, but you know my wife and
I have to be rather select in our choice of visitors——'

"'What the devil do you mean?' says he.

"'Only that our list of invitations is closed for
the present.'

"Suppose he gets furious?  Let him!  I don't
know much about fencing or pistol-shooting, but I'd
undertake to punch his head twenty times a week."

The Count took another sip of port, and pacified
himself.

"Then the presentations to Her Majesty.  I
shouldn't wonder if the Queen took us up when she
gets to learn Annie's story.  It would be just like
the Queen to make some sort of compensation; and
once she saw her it would be all right.  The *Court
Circular*—'Osborne, May 1.  Count Schönstein and
Lady Annie Knottingley had the honour of dining
with the Queen and the Royal Family.'  Lord
Bockerminster comes up to me, and says—

"'Schönstein, old boy, when are you going to give
me a turn at your pheasants?  I hear you have the
best preserves in the South of England.'

"'Well, you see, my lord,' I say, carelessly, 'I
have the Duke of S—— and a party of gentlemen
going down on the 1st, and the Duke is so particular
about the people he meets that I—you understand?'

"And why only a Duke?  The Prince of Wales is
as fond of pheasant-shooting as anybody else, I
suppose.  Why shouldn't he come down with the
Princess and a party?  And I'd make the papers talk of
the splendid hospitality of the place, if I paid, damme,
a thousand pounds for every dish.  Then to see the
Princess—God bless her, for she's the handsomest
woman in England, bar one!—walking down on the
terrace with Annie, while the Prince comes up to me
and chaffs me about some blunder I made the day
before.  Then I say—

"'Well, your Royal Highness, if your Royal
Highness was over at Schönstein and shooting with
my keepers there, perhaps you might put your foot
in it too.'

"'Count Schönstein,' says he, 'you're a good
fellow and a trump, and you'll come with your pretty
wife and see us at Marlborough House?'"

The Count broke into a loud and triumphant
laugh, and had nearly demolished the glass in front
of him by an unlucky sweep of the arm.  Indeed,
further than this interview with these celebrated
persons, the imagination of the Count could not
carry him.  He could wish for nothing beyond these
things except the perpetuity of them.  The Prince of
Wales should live for ever, if only to be his friend.

And if this ultimate and royal view of the future
was even more pleasing than the immediate and
personal one, it never occurred to him that there could
be any material change in passing from one to the
other.  Annie Brunel was to be grateful and loving
towards him for having taken her from "the squalor
of Islington" to give her a wealthy station; she was
to be equally grateful and loving when she found
herself the means of securing to her husband that
position and respect which he had deceived her to
obtain.  Such trifling points were lost in the full
glory which now bathed the future that lay before
his eyes.  Annie Brunel had shown herself not
unwilling to consent, which was equivalent to consenting;
and there only remained to be reaped all the
gorgeous happiness which his imagination, assisted
by a tolerable quantity of wine, could conceive.





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.. _`MOTHER CHRISTMAS'S STORY`:

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   CHAPTER XXVIII.


.. class:: center medium

   MOTHER CHRISTMAS'S STORY.

.. vspace:: 2

Annie Brunel ran into Mrs. Christmas's room the
moment Count Schönstein had left, and, sitting down
by the bedside, took the old woman's lean hand in hers.

"Lady Jane, I have been looking over the advertisements
in the *Times*, and do you know what I have found?"

"No."

"One offering me a marvellous lot of money, and
a fine house in the country, with nice fresh air and
constant attendance for you.  Horses, carriages,
opera-boxes, months at the seaside—everything
complete.  There!"

"Why don't you take it, sweetheart?" said the
old woman, with a faint smile.

"Because—I don't say that I shan't take it—there
is a condition attached, and such a condition!
Not to puzzle you, mother, any more, Count Schönstein
wants me to be his wife.  Now!"

"Are you serious, Annie?" said Mrs. Christmas,
her aged eyes full of astonishment.

"I can't say.  I don't think the Count was.  You
know he is not a witty man, mother, and it *might*
be a joke.  But if it was a joke, he acted the part
admirably—he pulled two leaves out of my photographic
album, and nibbled a hole in the table-cover
with his nail.  He sate *so*, Lady Jane, and said, in a
deep bass voice, 'Miss Brunel, I have 30,000*l.* a year;
I am old; I am affectionate; and will you marry
me?'  Anything more romantic you could not
imagine: and the sighs he heaved, and the anxiety
of his face, would have been admirable, had he been
dressed as 'Orlando,' and playing to my 'Rosalind.'  '*For
these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.*'  '*Alas,
dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours!*'"

"Sweetheart, have you grown mad?  What do
you mean?"

"I mean what I say.  Must I describe the whole
scene to you?—my lover's fearful diffidence, my
gentle silence, his growing confidence, my wonder
and bewilderment, finally, his half-concealed joy,
and my hasty rush to you, Lady Jane, to tell you
the news?"

"And a pretty return you are making for any
man's confidence and affection, to go on in that way.
What did you say to him?"

"Nothing."

"And what do you mean to say?"

"Nothing.  What can I say, Lady Jane?  I am
sure he must have been joking; and, if not, he
ought to have been.  At the same time, I don't
laugh at the Count himself, mother, but at his
position a few minutes ago."

"And as you laugh at that, you laugh at the
notion of becoming his wife."

The smile died away from the girl's face, and for
some time she sate and gazed wistfully before her.
Then she said—

"You ought to be able to say what I ought to do,
mother.  I did not say no, I did not say yes; I was
too afraid to say either.  And now, if we are to talk
seriously about it, I am quite as much afraid.  Tell
me what to do, Lady Jane."

"Is it so entirely a matter of indifference that
you can accept my advice?"

"It is quite a matter of indifference," said the
girl, calmly.

"Do you love him, Annie?" said the old woman.

For one brief second the girl's thoughts flashed to
the man whom she did love; but they returned
with only a vague impression of pain and doubt.
She had not had time to sit down and reason out
her course of duty.  She could only judge as yet by
the feelings awakened by the Count's proposal, and
the pictures which it exhibited to her mind.

"Do I love him, mother?" she said, in a low
voice.  "I like him very well, and I am sure he is
very fond of me; I am quite sure of that."

"And what do you say yourself about it?"

"What can I say?  If I marry him," she said,
coldly, "it will give him pleasure, and I know he
will be kind to me and to you.  It is his wish—not
mine.  We should not be asking or receiving a
favour, mother.  I suppose he loves me as well as
he loves any one; and I suppose I can make as good
a wife as any one else."

There was in this speech the faint indication of a
bitterness having its root in a far deeper bitterness,
which had suggested the whole tone of this
interview.  When Mrs. Christmas thought the girl was
laughing cruelly at a man who had paid her the
highest compliment in his power, when she saw this
girl exhibiting an exaggerated heartlessness in
talking of the proposed marriage as a marriage of
convenience, she did not know that this indifference and
heartlessness were but the expression of a deep, and
hopeless, and despairing love.

"Poverty is not a nice thing, mother; and until
I should have established myself as a teacher of
music, we should have to be almost beggars.  The
Count offers us a pleasant life; and I dare say I can
make his dull house a little more cheerful to him.
It is a fair bargain.  He did not ask me if I loved
him: probably he did not see the necessity any
more than I do.  What he proposes will be a
comfortable arrangement for all of us."

Mrs. Christmas looked at the calm, beautiful, sad
face, and said nothing.

"I think the Count is an honourable, well-meaning
man," continued the girl, in the same cold tone.
"If he sometimes makes himself ridiculous, so do
most of us; and doubtless he is open to improvement.
I think he is remarkably good-natured and
generous, and I am sure he will be kind to us."

Consider Mrs. Christmas's position.  An old
woman, almost bedridden, ailing, and requiring
careful and delicate attention,—one who has seen
much of the folly of love and much of the power of
money,—is asked for her advice by a young girl
who is either on the one hand to marry a wealthy
good-natured man, willing to give both a
comfortable home, or, on the other hand, to go out alone
into the world of London, unprotected and
friendless, to earn bread for two people.  Even admitting
that no grain of selfishness should colour or shape
her advice, what was she likely to say?

Ninety-nine women out of a hundred, under such
circumstances, would say: "My dear, be sensible,
and accept the offer of a worthy and honourable
gentleman, instead of exposing yourself to the
wretchedness and humiliation of poverty.  Romance
won't keep you from starving; and besides, in your
case, there is no romantic affection to compel you to
choose between love and money.  People who have
come to my time of life know the advantages of
securing a happy home and kind friends."

This, too, is probably what Mrs. Christmas would
have said—if she had not been born and bred an
actress.  This is what she did say:—

"My dear" (with a kindly smile on the wan face),
"suppose you and I are going forward to the footlights,
and I take your hand in mine, and look into
your face, and say, 'Listen to the sad story of your
mother's life?'"

"Well, Lady Jane?"

"You are supposed to be interested in it, and take
its moral deeply to heart.  Well, I'm going to tell
you a story, sweetheart, although you may not see
any moral in it—it's a story your mother knew."

"If she were here now!" the girl murmured,
inadvertently.

"When I was three years younger than you, I
was first chambermaid in the Theatre Royal, Bristol.
Half the pit were my sweethearts; and I got heaps
of letters, of the kind that you know, Annie—some
of them impudent, some of them very loving and
respectful.  Sometimes it was, 'My dear Miss, will
you take a glass of wine with me at such and such a
place, on such and such a night?' and sometimes it
was, 'I dare not seek an introduction, lest I read my
fate in your refusal.  I can only look at you from
afar off, and be miserable.'  Poor boys! they were all
very kind to me, and used to take such heaps of
tickets for my benefits, for in Bristol, you know, the
first chambermaid had a benefit like her betters."

"There were none better than you in the theatre,
I'm sure, mother," said Annie.

"Don't interrupt the story, my dear; for we are
at the footlights, and the gallery is supposed to be
anxious to hear it.  I declare I have always loved
the top gallery.  There you find critics who are
attentive, watchful, who are ready to applaud when
they're pleased, and to hiss when they're not.  Well,
there was one poor lad, out of all my admirers, got
to be acquainted with our little household, and he
and I became—friends.  He was a wood-engraver,
or something like that, only a little older than
myself—long fair hair, a boyish face, gentleness like a
girl about him; and nothing would do but that I
should engage to be his wife, and he was to be a
great artist and do wonders for my sake."

The hard look on the young girl's face had died
away now, and there was a dreaminess in her eyes.

"I did promise; and for about two years we were
a couple of the maddest young fools in the world—I
begging him to make haste, and get money, and
marry me—he full of audacious schemes, and as
cheerful as a lark in the certainty of marrying me.
He tried painting pictures; then he began
scene-painting, and succeeded so well that he at last got
an engagement in a London theatre, and nearly
broke his heart when he went away there to make
money for both of us."

The old woman heaved a gentle sigh.

"Whenever I'm very sad, all the wretchedness of
that first parting of my life comes over me, and I
see the wet streets of Bristol, and the shining lamps,
and his piteous face, though he tried to be very
brave over it, and cheer me up.  I felt like a stone,
and didn't know what was going on; I only wished
that I could get away into a corner and cry myself
dead.  Very well, he went, and I remained in Bristol.
I needn't tell you how it came about—how I was a
little tired of waiting, and we had a quarrel, and, in
short, I married a gentleman who had been very
kind and attentive to me.  He was over thirty, and
had plenty of money, for he was a merchant in
Bristol, and his father was an old man who had
made a fine big fortune in Jamaica.  He was very
kind to me, in his way, and for a year or two we
lived very well together; but I knew that he
thought twenty times of his business for once he
thought of me.  And what was I thinking of?  Ah,
Miss Annie, don't consider me very wicked if I tell
you, that from the hour in which I was married
there never passed a single day in which I did not
think of the *other one*."

"Poor mother!" said the girl.

"Every day; and I used to go down on my knees
and pray for him, that so I might be sure my interest
in him was harmless.  We came to London, too;
and every time I drove along the streets—I sate in
ray own carriage, then, my dear—I used to wonder
if I should see *him*.  I went to the theatre in which
he was scene-painter, thinking I might catch a
glimpse of him from one of the boxes, passing
through the wings; but I never did.  I knew his
house, however, and sometimes I passed it; but I
never had the courage to look at the windows, for
fear he should be there.  It was very wicked, very
wicked, Annie."

"Was your husband kind to you?"

"In a distant sort of way that tormented me.
He seemed always to consider me an actress, and a
baby; and he invariably went out into society alone,
lest I should compromise him, I suppose.  I think I
grew mad altogether; for one day, I left his house
resolved never to go back again——"

"And you said he was kind to you!" repeated
the girl, with a slight accent of reproach.

"I suppose I was mad, Annie; at any rate I felt
myself driven to it, and couldn't help myself.  I
went straight to the street in which *he* lived, and
walked up and down, expecting to meet him.  He
did not come.  I took lodgings in a coffeehouse.
Next day I went back to that street; even then I
did not see him.  On the third afternoon, I saw him
come down the steps from his house, and I all at
once felt sick and cold.  How different he looked
now!—firm, and resolute, and manly, but still with
the old gentleness about the eyes.  He turned very
pale when he saw me, and was about to pass on.
Then he saw that my eyes followed him, and
perhaps they told him something, for he turned and
came up to me, and held out his hand, without
saying a word."

There were tears in the old woman's eyes now.

"'You forgive me?' I said, and he said 'Yes' so
eagerly that I looked up again.  I took his arm,
and we walked on, in the old fashion, and I forgot
everything but the old, old days, and I wished I
could have died just then.  It seemed as if all the
hard intervening years had been swept out, and we
were still down in Bristol, and still looking forward
to a long life together.  I think we were both out
of our senses for several minutes; and I shall never
forget the light there was on his face and in his
eyes.  Then he began to question me, and all at
once he turned to me, with a scared look, and
said—

"'What have you done?'

"It was past undoing then.  I knew he loved me
at that moment as much as ever, by the terrible
state he got into.  He implored me to go back to
my husband.  I told him it was too late.  I had
already been away two days from home.

"'If I could only have seen you on the day you
left your husband's house," he said, 'this would
never have happened.  I should have made you go
back.'

"Then I began to feel a kind of fear, and I said—

"'What am I to do, Charlie?  What are you
going to do with me?'

"'I?' he said.  'Do you ask me what I must do?
Would you have me leave my wife and children——?'

"I did not know he was married, you see, Miss
Annie.  Oh, the shame that came over me when I
heard these words!  The moment before I scarcely
knew that I walked at all, so deliriously full of joy
I was; *then* I wished the ground would open beneath
my feet.  He offered to go to my husband and
intercede for me; but I would have drowned myself
rather than go back.  I was the wretchedest woman
in the whole world.  And I could see that he loved
me as much as ever, though he never would say so.
That is all of my story that need concern you; but
shall I tell you the rest, Miss Annie?"

"Yes, Lady Jane."

"Your mother was then the most popular actress
in London; she could do anything she liked in the
theatre; and it was for that theatre that *he* chiefly
worked then, though he became a great artist
afterwards.  Well, he took me back to the coffeehouse,
and left me then; and then he went and persuaded
your mother to take an interest in me, and through
her means I got an engagement in the same theatre.
From the moment I was settled there, he treated me
almost like a stranger.  He took off his hat to me in
the street, and passed on without speaking.  If I
met him in the theatre, he would say 'Good
evening' as he would to the other ladies.  He used to
send me little presents, and he never forgot my
birthday; but they were always sent anonymously,
and if I saw him the next day he seemed more
distant than ever, as if to keep me away.  Oh, many
and many a time have I been on the point of throwing
myself at his feet, and clasping his knees, and
thanking him with my whole heart for his goodness
to me.  I used to hate his wife, whom I had never
seen, until one Sunday morning I saw her and him
going to church, one little girl at his hand, another
at hers—and the sweet face she had turned my heart
towards her.  Would you believe it, he bowed to me
as kindly and respectfully as ever, and I think he
would have stopped and spoken to me *then*, only I
hurried away out of his sight."

"And you never went back?" said the girl, softly.

"How could I go back, clothed with shame, and
subject myself to his suspicion?  Besides, he was the
last man to have taken me back.  Once he felt sure
I had left his house wilfully, I am certain he did not
trouble himself much about me—as why should
he?—why should he?"

"It is a very sad story, Lady Jane."

"And it has a moral."

"But not for me.  You are afraid I should marry
Count Schönstein out of pique, and so be wretched?
But there is no other person whom I could marry."

"Come closer to me, sweetheart.  There, bend
your head down, and whisper.  *Is there no other
person whom you love?*"

The girl's head was so close down to the pillow
that the blush on her face was unseen as she said, in
a scarcely audible voice—

"*There is, mother.*"

"I thought so, my poor girl.  And he loves you,
does he not?"

"He does, Lady Jane.  That is the misery of it."

"You think he is not rich enough?  He has his
way to make?  Or perhaps his friends?"

"You are speaking of——?"

"Mr. Anerley."

"But all your conjectures are wrong, mother—all
quite wrong.  Indeed, I cannot explain it to you.
I only know, mother, that I am very unhappy."

"And you mean to marry Count Schönstein to
revenge yourself——?"

"I did not say I would marry Count Schönstein,"
said the girl, fretfully, "and I have nothing to
revenge.  I am very sorry, Lady Jane, to think of
the sad troubles you have had, and you are very
good to warn me; but I have not quarrelled with
anybody, and I am not asked to wait in order to
marry anybody, and——"

Here she raised herself up, and the old bitter
hard look came to the sad and gentle face.

"——And if I should marry Count Schönstein, I
shall disappoint no one, and break no promise.
Before I marry Count Schönstein, he shall know
what he may expect from me.  I can give him my
esteem, and confidence, and a certain amount of
liking; and many people have lived comfortably
on less.  And you, mother, should be the last to
say anything against an arrangement which would
give you comfort, and relieve your mind from anxiety——"

"And you have lived so long with me," said old
Mother Christmas, reproachfully, "and you don't
know yet that sooner than let my comfort bring you
to harm, Annie, or tempt you to a false step, I would
twenty times rather beg my bread?"

"Forgive me, mother!" said the girl, impetuously,
"but I don't know what I've been saying.  Everything
seems wrong, and cruel, and if I forget that
you have been a mother to me, it is—it is
because—I am—so miserable that——"

And here the two women had a hearty cry together,
which smoothed down their troubles for the
present, and drew them closer to each other.





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   CHAPTER XXIX.


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   LEFT ALONE.

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"No," said Dove, blocking up the doorway with her
slight little figure, as the waggonette was driven
round, "neither of you stirs a step until you tell me
where you are going."

Will's last injunction to his father had been,
"Don't let the women know."  So the women did
not know; and on this Monday morning both men
were stealthily slipping away up to London when
the heroic little Dove caught them in the act.

"We are going to London, my dear," said Mr. Anerley.

"On business," said Will.

"Yes, on business!" said Dove, pouting.  "I
know what it is.  You go into somebody's office
in the forenoon and talk a little; and then both
of you go away and play billiards; then you dine
at Will's club or at a hotel, and then you go to the
theatre."

"Will has been telling tales," said Mr. Anerley.

"And to-day of all days," continued the implacable
Dove, "when you know very well, papa, and you
needn't try to deny it, that you promised to help me
in getting down the last of the walnuts.  No;
neither of you shall stir this day; so you may as
well send back the waggonette."

"My dear, the most important business——" said
Mr. Anerley, gravely.

"I don't care," said Dove.  "If you two people
are going up to amuse yourselves in London, you
must take me.  Else stay at home."

"But how can you go?" said Will.  "We have
now barely time to catch the train."

"Go by the ten-o'clock train," said Dove, resolutely,
"and I shall be dressed by then.  Or the
walnuts, if you like."

"Of the two evils, I prefer to take you," said Will.
"So run and get your things ready; and we shall
take you to the theatre to-night."

"My boy," said his father, when she was gone,
"look at the additional expense——"

"In for a penny, in for a pound, father," said
Will.  "I shall allow my finances to suffer for the
stall-tickets; and you, having just been ruined,
ought to be in a position to give us a very nice
dinner.  People won't believe you have lost your
money unless you double your expenditure and
scatter money about as freely as dust."

"You both look as if I had thrust myself on you!"
said Dove, reproachfully, as they all got into the
waggonette and drove off.  "But I forgive you, as
you're going to take me to the theatre.  Shall I tell
you which, Will?  Take me to see Miss Brunel,
won't you?"

She looked into his face for a moment; but there
was evidently no covert intention in her words.

From Charing Cross Station they drove to the
Langham Hotel.  Dove said she was not afraid to
spend an hour or so (under the shelter of a thick
veil) in looking at the Regent-street and
Oxford-street shops, while the gentlemen were gone into
the city.  At the expiry of that time she was to
return to the hotel and wait for them.  They then
took a Hansom and drove to Mr. Anerley's solicitor.

"And there," said Mr. Anerley, on the way, "as
if we were not sufficiently penniless, Hubbard's
brougham and a pair of his horses are coming over
to-morrow."

"Did you buy them?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"For Dove.  I was afraid of her driving in an
open vehicle during the winter, as she has been
rather delicate all the time you were away.  I had
calculated on selling the waggonette and Oscar; and
now I have the whole lot on my hands."

"How much have you promised him for them?"

"200*l*.  I hope he'll let me withdraw from the
bargain."

"He won't.  I know the Count very well," said
the young man.  "He is a good fellow in his way,
but he wants credit for his goodness.  He'll stick to
this bargain, because he thinks it advantageous to
himself; and *then* he will, with the greatest freedom,
lend you the 200*l.*, or a larger sum, if you require it.
Nor will he lend you the money at interest; but he
will let you know what interest he would have
received had he lent it to somebody else."

"Perhaps so.  But how to pay him the 200*l.*?"

"Tell him, if he does not take back his brougham
and horses, you will become bankrupt, and only pay
him tenpence in the pound."

Mr. Anerley's solicitor—a stout, cheerful little
man—did his very best to look sorrowful, and would
probably have shed tears, had he been able, to give
effect to his condolences.  Any more material
consolation he had none.  There was no doubt about
it: Miall & Welling had wholly collapsed.  Ultimately
the lawyer suggested that things might pull
together again; but in the meantime shareholders
were likely to suffer.

"They do hint queer things about the directors,"
he continued, "and if what I hear whispered be true,
I'd have some of them put in the stocks until they
told what they had done with the money.  I'd make
'em disgorge it, sir.  Why, sir, men settling their
forty or fifty thousand a year on their wives out of
money belonging to all sorts of people who have
worked for it, who have nothing else to live on, who
are likely to starve——"

"My dear sir," said Mr. Anerley, calmly, "you
don't look at the matter in its proper light.  You
don't see the use of such men.  You don't reflect
that the tendency to excess of reproduction in
animals is wholesomely checked by the ravages of
other animals.  But who is to do that for men, except
men?  There is, you see, a necessity for human
tigers, to prey on their species, kill the weakly
members, and improve the race by limiting its
numbers and narrowing the conditions of existence."

"That's very nice as a theory, Mr. Anerley; but
it wouldn't console me for losing the money that you
have lost."

"Because you don't believe in it.  Tell me now,
how is a penniless man, without a trade, but with
some knowledge of the multiplication-table, to gain
a living in London?"

"There are too many trying to solve the problem,
Mr. Anerley," said the lawyer.

"You say there is a chance of the bank retrieving
itself in a certain time?"

"Yes.  I have shown you how the money has been
sunk.  But in time——"

"Until then, those who are in a position like
myself must contrive to exist somehow?"

"That's it."

"Unfortunately, I never settled, as you know, a
farthing on my wife; and as for my life-insurance,
they illogically and unreasonably exclude suicide from
their list of casualties.  Your ordinary suicide does
not compass his own death any more doggedly than
the man who persists in living in an undrained
house, or in drinking brandy until his brain gives
way, or in lighting his pipe in a coal-mine.  However,
that's neither here nor there.  You have been
my lawyer, Mr. Green, for a great many years, and
you have given me some good advice.  But at the
most critical moment, I find you without a scrap.
Still I bear you no malice; for I don't owe you any
money."

"It isn't very easy, sir, to tell a gentleman how
to recover his fortune," said Mr. Green, with a
smile—glad that his client was taking matters so coolly.

"I was a gentleman three days ago," said
Mr. Anerley.  "Now I am a man, very anxious to live,
and not seeing my way clearly towards that end."

"Come, sir," said Will, "Mr. Green is anxious to
live too; and we are taking up his time."

"But really, Mr. Anerley," said the lawyer, "I
should like to know what your views are?"

"Ah, you want to know what I propose to do.  I
am not good at blacking boots; I am indifferent at
cookery.  Gardening—well, no.  I should like to be
head-keeper to a duke; or, if they start any more of
these fancy stage-coaches between London and the
seaside, I can drive pretty well."

"You are joking," said the other, dubiously.

"A man with empty pockets never jokes, unless
he hopes to fill them.  At present—well, good day
to you—you will let me know if you hear of anything
to my advantage."

No sooner were they outside, than Will earnestly
remonstrated with his father.

"You should not suddenly lose your pride, sir."

"I never had any, my boy.  If I had, it is time I
should lose it."

"And why need you talk of taking a situation?
If you can only tide over a little time, Miall &
Welling will come all right."

"My lad, the bladders that help you to float in
that little time are rather expensive."

"I have a few pounds——"

"And you will lend me them.  Good.  What we
must do now is this.  Get your landlord to give us
a couple of bedrooms in the house, and we can all
use your sitting-room.  Then we shall be together;
and the first opportunity I have offered me of earning
money, in whatever employment, I will accept it."

"If I were not disabled, sir, by this confounded
arm, you would not need to do anything of the kind."

"Tuts!  Every man for himself, and all of us for
poor Dove, who, at present, will be moping up in
that great room, terrified by the attentions of the
waiters."

How they passed the day does not matter to us.
In the evening they went to the theatre, and chose,
at Will's instigation, the dress-circle instead of the
stalls.  He hoped that he might escape being seen.

He had scarcely cast his eye over the bill handed
to him by the box-keeper, when he discovered that
Annie Brunel's name was not there at all.

"Dove," he said, "here's a disappointment for
you.  Miss Featherstone plays 'Rosalind' to-night,
not Miss Brunel."

"Doesn't she appear at all to-night?" said Dove,
with a crestfallen face.

"Apparently not.  Will you go to some other theatre?"

"No," said Dove, decidedly.  "I want to see
'Rosalind,' whoever is 'Rosalind.'  Don't you, papa?"

"My dear, I want to see anything that you want
to see; and I'm sure to be pleased if you laugh."

"It isn't a laughing part, and you know that quite
well, you tedious old thing!" said Dove.

Will went and saw Mr. Melton, from whom he
learned little beyond the fact that Annie Brunel did
not intend to act any more in his theatre.

"She is not unwell?"

"I believe not."

"Has she given up the stage altogether?"

"I fancy so.  You'd better ask Count Schönstein:
he seems to know all about it," said Mr. Melton, with
a peculiar smile.

"Why should *he* know all about it?" asked
Will, rather angrily: but Melton only shrugged
his shoulders.

He returned to his place by Dove's side; but the
peculiar meaning of that smile—or rather the
possible meaning of it—vexed and irritated him so that
he could not remain there.  He professed himself
tired of having seen the piece so often; and said he
would go out for a walk, to cure himself of a
headache he had, and return before the play was over.

So he went out into the cool night-air, and
wandered carelessly on along the dark streets, bearing
vaguely westward.  He was thinking of many things,
and scarcely knew that he rambled along Piccadilly,
and still westward, until he found himself in the
neighbourhood of Kensington.

Then he stopped; and when he recognised the
place in which he stood, he laughed slightly and
bitterly.

"Down here, of course.  I had persuaded myself
I had no wish to go to the theatre beyond that of
taking Dove there, and that I was not disappointed
when I found she did not play.  Well, my feet are
honester than my head."

He took out his watch.  He had walked down so
quickly that there were nearly two hours before he
had to return to the theatre.  Then he said to
himself that, as he had nothing to do, he might as well
walk down and take a look at the house which he
knew so well.  Perhaps it was the last time he might
look on it, and know that she was inside.

So he walked in that direction, taking little heed
of the objects around him.  People passed and
repassed along the pavement; they were to him vague
and meaningless shadows, occasionally lit up by the
glare of a shop-window or a lamp.  Here and there he
noticed some tall building, or other object, which
recalled old scenes and old times; and, indeed, he
walked on in a kind of dream, in which the past was
as clearly around him as the present.

At the corner of the street leading down to the
smaller street, or square, in which Annie Brunel
lived, there was a chemist's shop, with large windows
looking both ways.  Also at the corner of the
pavement was a lamp, which shed its clear orange light
suddenly on the faces of the men and women who
passed.

He paused there for a moment, uncertain whether
to turn or venture on, when a figure came out of the
shop which—without his recognising either the dress
or the face—startled him, and made him involuntarily
withdraw a step.  It was the form, perhaps,
or the motion, that told him who it was; at all
events he knew that she herself was there, within a
few yards of him.  He did not know what to do.
There was a vague desire in his heart to throw to
the wind all considerations—his promise, his duty to
one very dear to him; but he only looked
apprehensively at her.  It was all over in a second, in
half a second.  She caught sight of him, shrank
back a little, uncertain, trembling, and then
appeared as if she were about to pass on.  But the
great yearning in both their hearts suddenly became
master of the situation; for, at the same moment,
apparently moved by the same impulse, they
advanced to each other, he caught her hands in his,
and there was between them only one intense look
of supreme and unutterable joy.

Such a look it is given to most men to receive once
or twice—seldom oftener—in their lives.  It is never
to be forgotten.  When a strong revulsion of feeling,
from despondency and despair to the keen delight of
meeting again, draws away from a girl's eyes that
coy veil of maiden bashfulness that generally
half-shrouds their light, when the spirit shines full and
frank there, no disguise being longer possible, and
it seems as if the beautiful eyes had speech in
them—but how is it possible to describe such a moment
in cold and brittle words?  The remembrance of one
such meeting colours a man's life.  You know that
when you have lain and dreamed of enjoying
companionship with one hopelessly separated from
you—of seeing glad eyes you can never see again, and
hearing sweet talk that you can never again hear—you
rise with a confused sense of happiness, as if
the morning air were full of tender thrills; you still
hear the voice, and you seem to be walking by the
side of the sea, and there is sunshine and the sound
of waves abroad.  That dizzy remembrance, in itself
a perplexing, despairing joy, is something like the
thought of such a moment and such a look as that
I speak of, when one glances backward, after long
years, and wonders how near heaven earth has been.

When she went towards him, and looked up into
his face, and when they walked away together, there
was no thought of speech between them.  Silence
being so full of an indescribable joy, why should
they break it?  It was enough that they were near
each other—that, for the present, there was no wide
and mournful space between them, full of dim
longings and bitter regrets.  To-morrow was afar off,
and did not concern them.

"Did you come to see me?" she said at last, very
timidly.

"No."

Another interval of supreme silence, and then he
said—

"Have you got quite reconciled yet?  I was
afraid of seeing you—of meeting you; but now it
seems as if it were a very harmless pleasure.  Do
you remember the last terrible night?"

"There is no use talking of that," she said; "and
yet we ought not to meet each other—except—you
know——"

"As friends, of course," he said, with a smile.
"Well, Annie, we shan't he enemies; but I do think,
myself, it were rather more prudent, you understand,
that we should not see each other—for a long time,
at least.  Now, tell me, why are you not at the
theatre?"

"I have given up the theatre."

"You do not mean to act any more?"

"No."

There suddenly recurred to him Mr. Melton's
significant smile; and dead silence fell upon him.
If there could be anything in the notion that the
Count——

Clearly, it was no business of his whether she
married the Count or no.  Nay, if it were possible
that her marriage with the Count should blot out
certain memories, he ought to have been rejoiced at
it.  And yet a great dread fell upon him when he
thought of this thing; and he felt as though the
trusting little hand which was laid upon his arm had
no business there, and was an alien touch.

"But," he said, in rather an embarrassed way, "if
you have given up the theatre, it must have been for
some reason——"

"For the reason that I could not bear it a moment
longer."

"And now——"

"Now I am free."

"Yes, of course, free; but still—what do you
propose to do?"

"I don't know yet.  I have been looking at some
advertisements——"

"Have you actually no plan whatever before you?"
he said, with surprise—and yet the surprise was not
painful.

"*None.*"

"Why," he said, "we have all of us got into a
nice condition, just as in a play.  I shouldn't wonder
if the next act found the whole of us in a garret, in
the dead of winter, of course."

"What do you mean?"

"My father has lost all his money, and doesn't
know where to turn to keep his household alive.
I——"

Here he stopped.

"Ah," she said, "and you find yourself unable to
help them because of your arm."

"That will soon be better," he said, cheerfully,
"and we will try not to starve.  But you—what are
you going to do?  You do not know people in London;
and you do not know the terrible struggle that lies in
wait for any unaided girl trying to make a living."

"So the Count says."

"Oh, you have told the Count?"

"Yes."

"What did he suggest?"

"He thinks I ought to marry him," she said, frankly.

"*You* marry *him*?"

"Yes.  That was the only way, I daresay, in
which he thought he could be of service to me.  He
really is so very kind, and thoughtful, and unselfish."

"And you answered——?"

He uttered these words with an air of forced
carelessness.  He wished her to understand that he
would be rather glad if she thought well of the
proposal.  For a moment she looked at him, questioningly,
as if to ask whether there was honest advice in that
tone, and then she said, slowly—

"I said neither yes nor no.  At the moment I did
not know what to think.  I—I knew that he would
be kind to me, and that—he knew—that I liked him
pretty well—as an acquaintance——"

"And you have not decided whether you ought to
make the Count happy or no?"

The false cheerfulness of his voice did not deceive
her.

"Yes, I have decided," she said, in a low voice.

"And you will——?"

"Why not be frank with me?" she said, passionately,
and turning to him with imploring eyes.
"Why speak like that?—would you not despise me
if I married that man?—would I not despise myself?
You see I talk to you frankly, for you are my friend:
I could not marry him—I dare not think of my being
his *wife*.  I shall never be his wife—I shall never be
any man's wife."

"Annie, be reasonable——"

"Perhaps it is not to you I should say that, and
yet I know it.  I am ashamed of myself when I think
that I let him go away with the thought that I *might*
accept his offer.  But then I had not decided—I did
not see it properly, not until I looked in your face to-night."

"It seems that I must always come between you
and happiness."

"Do you call that happiness?  But I must go
back, now; poor Lady Jane is rather worse to-day,
and I was at the chemist's, with a prescription from
the doctor, when I met you.  I hope we have not
done wrong in speaking to each other."

So they went back, and he bade her farewell tenderly,
and yet not so sadly as at their former parting.

It seemed to him, as he passed away from the door,
that he heard a faint sharp cry from inside the house.
He took no notice of it, however.  He was already
some distance off when he heard swift footsteps
behind him, and then the maidservant of the house,
breathless and wild-eyed, caught him by the arm.

"Oh, sir, please come back; Mrs. Christmas is
dead, sir! and the young missis is in such a dreadful
state!"

He at once hurried back, and found that the terrible
intelligence was too true.  Annie Brunel seemed
almost to have lost her senses,—so bitterly did she
reproach herself for having neglected the bedside of
her old friend.

"She was well enough, ma'am, when you went
out," the servant maintained, consoling her mistress,
"and there was nothing you could have done.  I was
in the room, and she asked for those letters as always
lies in that drawer, ma'am; and when I took them
over to her, she tried to put up her hand, and then
she sank back, and in a minute it was all over.
What could you have done, ma'am?  She couldn't
ha' spoken a word to you."

But the girl was inconsolable, and it was past
midnight when Will left her, having wholly failed in his
efforts to soothe the bitterness of her grief and desolation.





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   CHAPTER XXX.


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   THE COUNT HESITATES.

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When Will returned to the hotel, he found his father
waiting up for him, alone.  He was too much
overcome by the terrible scene he had just witnessed to
make any but the barest apology for his discourtesy,
and even that his father interrupted as unnecessary.

"I left the theatre early," he said gloomily.  "Dove
was feverish and unwell.  I think she must have
caught cold when coming up with us in the morning.
When I got her here, her cheeks were flushed and hot,
and I saw that she was restless and languid by
turns—in short, very feverish."

"Did you send for a doctor?"

"Oh, no; there was nothing one could speak to
him about.  To-morrow morning, if these symptoms
are not gone, it might be advisable to consult some
one."

They sate up very late that night discussing their
future plans.  There were but two alternatives before
them.  It was considered possible that with a few
thousand pounds Mr. Anerley could meet present
liabilities, and wait over for the time at which it was
hoped the affairs of the bank would, through the
realisation of certain securities, be in a fair way of
recovery.  If, on the other hand, this present money
was not forthcoming, the only course for Mr. Anerley
was to remove from St. Mary-Kirby to London, and
try to find some means of subsistence in the great city.

"There is only Hubbard, of all my old acquaintances,
in a position to help me," said Mr. Anerley;
"and he is the last whom I should like to ask for any
such favour."

"I think you are inclined to misjudge the Count,
sir," said Will; "and in this case you ought at least
to see what he has to say before impeaching his good
feeling.  After all, you will find a good many men
with as much money as the Count, and as little to
spend it on, quite as unwilling to oblige an old friend
as you half expect him to be."

After a good deal of argument, it was arranged
that Mr. Anerley should see the Count on the
following morning.  Will forced him to this decision by
a long description of what would fall upon the
St. Mary-Kirby household in the event of his refusal.

"What is your pride compared with their wretchedness?"
he said.

"My boy," he replied, "I have no pride, except
when I have a good gun in my hand and a good dog
working bravely in front of me.  Further, do you
know so little of your own family as to think that
poverty, the nightmare of novelists, would be so
appalling to them?"

"Not to them, perhaps; but to you, looking at them."

And that was true of the Chesnut Bank household.
Misfortune was as bitter to them as to any
other family; only it was for one another that they
grieved.  They had been educated into a great
unselfishness through the constant kindly and
half-mocking counsel of the head of the house; but that
unselfishness only embittered misfortune.  They did
not brood over their individual mishaps, but they
exaggerated the possible effects of misfortune on
each other, and shared this imaginary misery.
Mr. Anerley was not much put out by the knowledge
that henceforth he would scarcely have the wherewithal
to keep himself decently clothed; but it was
only when he thought of Dove being deprived of her
port-wine, and of Mrs. Anerley being cabined up in
London lodgings (though these two were as careless
of these matters as he about his matters), that he
vowed he would go and see Count Schönstein, and
beg him for this present assistance.

"As for Dove, poor girl!" he said to Will, "you
know what riches she prizes.  You know what she
craves for.  A look from one she loves is riches to
her; you can make her as wealthy as an empress
by being kind to her."

"I'm sure no one ever could be unkind to *her*,"
said Will.

But the visit to Count Schönstein was postponed
next morning; for Dove was worse than on the
previous night, and was fain to remain in bed.  Of
course a physician was called in.  He had a long
talk with Mr. Anerley, afterwards; and perhaps it
was his manner, more than anything he actually
said, that disquieted Dove's guardian.  What he
actually did say was that the young girl was
evidently very delicate; that on her tender constitution
this slight febrile attack might lead to graver
consequences; and that she must at once have careful,
womanly nursing and country air.  *Per se*, her
ailment was not of a serious character.

Mrs. Anerley was at once telegraphed for.  Under
the circumstances, they did not care to remove Dove
to St. Mary-Kirby, with the chance of her having to
return a few days afterwards to London.

"And if I had any misgivings about asking the
Count to lend me the money," said Mr. Anerley,
"I have none now.  If country air is necessary to
Dove's health, country air she shall have, somehow
or other."

"If we cannot manage *that*, sir," said Will, "we
had better go and bury ourselves for a couple of
imbeciles."

So it was on the next morning that Mr. Anerley
went to Count Schönstein's house in Bayswater.  He
went early, and found that the Count had just
breakfasted.  He was shown up to the drawing-room.

It was a large and handsome apartment, showily
and somewhat tawdrily furnished.  A woman's hand
was evidently wanted in the place.  The pale lavender
walls, with their stripes of delicately-painted
panelling, were scratched and smudged here and there;
the chintz coverings of the couches and chairs were
ragged and uneven; and the gauzy drapery of the
chandeliers and mirrors was about as thick with dust
as the ornate books which lay uncovered on the
tables.  There were a hundred other little points
which a woman's eye would have detected, but which,
on the duller masculine perception, only produced a
vague feeling of uncomfortable disorder and want of
cleanliness.

The Count entered in a gorgeously embroidered
dressing-gown, above the collar of which a black
satin neckerchief was tied round his neck in a series
of oily folds.

"Good morning, Anerley," he said, in his grandest
manner—so grand, indeed, that his visitor was
profoundly surprised.  Indeed, the Count very rarely
attempted seignorial airs with his Chesnut Bank
neighbour.

It is unnecessary to repeat the details of a very
unpleasant interview.  Mr. Anerley explained his
position; the Count, while not actually refusing to
lend him the money, took occasion to betray his
resentment against Will.  The upshot of it was that
Mr. Anerley, with some dignity, refused the help
which the Count had scarcely offered, and walked
out of the house.

He was a little angry, doubtless, and there was a
contemptuous curl on his lips as he strode down the
street; but these feelings soon subsided into a gentler
sadness, as he thought of Dove and the chances of her
getting country air.

He looked up at the large houses on both sides of
him, and thought how the owners of these houses
had only to decide between one sheltered seaside
village and another, between this gentle climate and
that gentler one, for pleasure's sake; while he, with
the health of his darling in the balance, was tied
down to the thick and clammy atmosphere of the
streets.  And then he thought of how many a tramp,
footsore and sickeningly hungry, must have looked
up at Chesnut Bank, and wondered why God had
given all His good things—sweet food, and grateful
wine, and warm clothing, and pleasant society, and
comfortable sleep—to the occupant of that pleasant-looking
place.  It was now his turn to be envious;
but it was for Dove alone that he coveted a portion
of their wealth.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE DECISION`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXXI.


.. class:: center medium

   THE DECISION.

.. vspace:: 2

Dark as was the night on which Will and Annie
Brunel had wandered along the lonely pavements of
Kensington, they had not escaped observation.  On
whatever errand he was bent, Count Schönstein
happened to be down in that neighbourhood on this
night; and while these two were so much engaged
in mutual confidences as scarcely to take notice of
any passer-by, the Count had perceived them, and
determined to watch them.

This he did during the whole of the time they
remained outside.  What he gathered from his
observations was not much.  At another time he
would have paid little attention to their walking
together for an hour or two; but that at this very time,
when she was supposed to be considering whether
she would become the Count's wife, she should be
strolling about at night with one who was evidently
on very intimate terms with her—this awakened
the Count's suspicions and wrath.  But the more he
watched, the more he was puzzled.  They did not
bear the demeanour of lovers; yet what they said
was evidently of deep interest to them both.  There
was no self-satisfied joy in their faces—rather an
anxious and tender sadness; and yet they seemed
to find satisfaction in this converse, and were
evidently in no hurry to return to the house.

Once Miss Brunel had returned to the house, the
Count relinquished further watch.  He therefore
did not witness Will's recall.  But he had seen
enough greatly to disquiet him; and as he went
homeward, he resolved to have a clear understanding
with Miss Brunel on the following morning.  He
believed he had granted her sufficient time to make
up her mind; and, undoubtedly, when he came to
put the question point-blank, he found that her
mind was made up.

Briefly, she gave him to understand that she
never could, and that she never would, be his wife.
Perhaps she announced her determination all the
more curtly, in that her sorrow for the loss of
Mrs. Christmas seemed to render the Count's
demand at such a moment an insult.

The poor Count was in a dreadful way.  In this
crisis he quite forgot all about the reasons which
had first induced him to cultivate Annie Brunel's
society, and honestly felt that if her present decision
were persevered in, life was of no further use or
good to him.

"I am sorry," she said, "I have given you pain.
But you asked me to speak plainly, and I have done so."

"You have so astonished me—your tone when we
last saw each other at least gave me the right to
anticipate——"

"There I have to beg for your forgiveness.  I
was very wrong.  I did not know my own mind—I
could come to no decision."

"May I venture to ask what enabled you to come
to a decision?"

"I would rather not answer the question," she
replied, coldly.

"Will you tell me if your mind was made up
yesterday morning?" he asked, insidiously.

"It was not.  But pray, Count Schönstein, don't
say anything more about this at present.  Consider
the position I am in just now——"

"I only wish to have a few words from you for
my further guidance, Miss Brunel," he said.  "You
came to this decision last night.  Last night you
saw Mr. Anerley.  Have I not a right to ask you if
he had anything to do with it?"

"You have no such right," she said, indignantly.

"Then I take your refusal to mean that he had.
Are you aware that he is engaged to be married?
Do you know that he is a beggar, and his father
also?  Do you know——?"

"I hope I may be allowed to be free from insult
in my own house," she said, as she rose and—with a
wonderful dignity, and pride, and grace that abashed
and awed him—walked out of the room.

A dim sort of compunction seized him, and he
would willingly have followed her, and begged her
to pardon what he had said.  Then he, too, felt a
little hurt, remembering that he was a Count, and
she an actress.  Finally, he quietly withdrew, found
a servant at the door waiting to let him out, and
departed from the house with a heavy heart.

"A woman's 'no' generally means 'yes,'" he said
to himself, disconsolately trying to extract comfort
from the old proverb.

He would not despair.  Perhaps the time had
been inopportune.  Perhaps he should have
postponed the crisis when he learned of Mrs. Christmas's
death.  Then he reflected, that he had been so
intent on his own purpose as to forget to offer the
most ordinary condolences.

"That is it," he said.  "She is offended by my
having spoken at such a time."

The Count was a shifty man, and invariably found
hope in the mere fact of having something to do.
There was yet opportunity to retrieve his blunder.
So he drove to the office of Cayley & Hubbard, and
found his meek brother sitting in his room.

"I never come to see you except when I am in
trouble," said the Count, with a grim smile.

"I am always glad to see you, Frederick.  What
is your trouble now?"

"Oh, the old affair.  She has left the theatre, as
you know; she has lost that old woman; she is
quite alone and penniless; and, this morning, when
I offered to make her my wife, she said no."

"What were her reasons?"

"A woman never has any.  But I think I vexed
her in making the proposal when the corpse was
lying in the next room.  It was rather rum, wasn't
it?  And then she had been crying, and very likely
did not wish to be disturbed.  However, I don't
despair.  No.  Look at her position.  She *can't live*
unless she accepts assistance from me."

"Unless——"

Mr. John Hubbard did not complete the sentence,
but his face twitched more nervously than ever.

"Who *could* tell her?" asked the Count, angrily.

"She may get assistance from those other people——"

"The Anerleys?" replied the Count, with a
splendid laugh.  "Why, man, every penny of old
Anerley's money is with Miall & Welling.  Safe keeping
there, eh?  Bless you, she has no alternative—except
this, that she's sure to run off and disappear
suddenly in some wild attempt at becoming a
governess.  I know she means something that way."

"And then you'll lose sight of her," said the
thin-faced brother, peering into the slip of grey sky
visible through the small and dusty window.

What *his* thoughts were at this moment he
revealed to his wife at night.

"My dear," he said, in dulcet tones, "I am afraid
my brother is a very selfish man, and wants to get
this poor girl's money.  If she were to become
friends with us, we might guard her against him.
Indeed, it might only be fair to tell her what money
awaits her, whenever she chooses to take it; and
perhaps, you know, Jane, she might give a little
present to the children, out of gratitude, you know."

"A few thousand pounds would be nothing to
her, John," said the wife, thinking of her darling
boys.

"And Fred's money he's sure to keep to himself.
He seems to have no idea that his family have claims
upon him."

However, to return to the Count, he then proceeded
to unfold to his brother the plan he had
conceived for the entrapping of this golden-crested
wren which was so likely to fly away:

"All the little money she may have saved will be
swallowed up in the funeral expenses.  After
that—what?  Music-lessons, or French, or something.
Very good.  I know she has been already watching
the advertisements in the *Times*.  Now what I want
you to do is this—publish an advertisement which
will attract her attention, and secure her as a
governess."

The two men had thought of the same thing, at
the same moment, each for his own purpose.  But
John Hubbard suddenly began to fear that he would
be made a cat's-paw of by his more favoured brother.

"The name, Frederick, might suggest to her——"

"I don't think she knows my personal name,"
said the Count, coldly.  "Besides, you would not
advertise as Cayley & Hubbard, which might
remind her of *one* resource open to her, and you
would not advertise as my brother, which would
frighten her away.  Let Jane advertise—she will do
it better than either of us; and if it is necessary to
get rid of your present governess, you can give her
some small *solatium*, which I will repay you."

This was the advertisement which was finally
concocted between them—

"*Wanted, a Governess.  Must be thoroughly proficient
in music and French.  One who could assist in
arranging private theatricals preferred.  Apply,*"
*&c., &c.*

It was submitted by Mr. John Hubbard to the
inspection of his wife; and the mild, fat, pretty
little woman approved of it:

"That is how I fancy we might get acquainted
with her, my dear; and you know Frederick dare
not come near the house at first, or she would be
frightened away at once.  Then, you know, we could
be very kind to her, and make her grateful.  She
ought to be grateful, considering her position."

Jane acquiesced, but was not hopeful.  She had
heard her husband frequently speak of the strange
things he encountered in his professional career;
but she had never herself seen any of them.  She did
not believe, therefore, that any portion of a romance
could be enacted in her prosaic house.

"It would be very nice," she said to her husband,
"if it all came right; and we were to be friends
with such a rich lady, and if she would only give the
children something to make them independent of
their uncle Frederick.  I'm not fond of money for its
own sake; but for the children, my dear——"

"Yes, the children are to be considered," said
John, wondering whether his pretty, placid, good-natured
little wife believed that he believed that she
believed what she said.

"I am sure a lady so well-born will be a charming
companion," said Mrs. John, "whether she has been
an actress or not."

"And we must change the sherry," said her husband.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CONFESSION`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXXII.


.. class:: center medium

   CONFESSION.

.. vspace:: 2

By the time that Mrs. Anerley arrived, Dove was
sufficiently well to suffer removal from the hotel;
and as there was now no help for it, the whole family
removed to those rooms which Will had engaged for
them from his landlord.  The position of affairs had
now to be disclosed; and with all the cheerfulness
and mutual consolation they could muster, the
prospect seemed doleful enough.  Every one seemed
to be chiefly concerned for Dove, and Dove was the
least concerned of all.  She put her arm round
Mr. Anerley's neck, as he bent over the couch on
which she lay, and whispered to him—

"You have lost all your shooting, poor papa."

"Yes."

"But then you have me.  I'm as good as the
biggest partridge you ever saw, am I not?"

"I think you are, darling."

"And you have lost all your fishing, poor papa."

"Yes, that too."

"But did you ever get a trout to kiss you as I do?"

Which was followed by the usual caress.

"And you won't have such lots of wine; but you
know, papa, how angry you used to be when people
did not appreciate what you thought was good."

"And where is my little Dove to get her port-wine
after dinner on Sunday?" said he.

"You'll see, papa.  Just after dinner, when we're
all sitting at the table, and you are looking sadly at
the dry walnuts, and everybody is thinking about
the nice Sundays down in the country, you know,
there will be a little rustling, and a little murmur of
music in the air—somewhere near the roof; and all
at once two bottles of wine will be hung round your
neck by the fairies—for it's only you who care about
it, you know—and everybody will laugh at you.
That is the punishment for thinking about
port-wine.  Do I want port-wine?  You're an old cheat,
papa, and try to make me believe I am ill that you
may have your port-wine on Sunday.  But I am not,
and I won't have any extravagance."

He, with a great pain at his heart, saw the forced
look of cheerfulness on her sweet face, and made some
abominable vow about selling his mother's marriage-ring
before Dove should want her port-wine.

Dove was really so well, however, when Mrs. Anerley
came, that the anxious and tender mamma
was almost at a loss how to expend the care and
sympathy with which she had charged herself.  It
was at this juncture that Will proposed that Mr. and
Mrs. Anerley should go and see Annie Brunel, and
give her what comfort and assistance lay in their
power.  And no sooner were the circumstances of
the girl's position mentioned, than both at once, and
gladly, consented.

"But why not come with us?" said his mother.

"I would rather you went by yourselves.  She
will be only too grateful if you go to see her.  She
does not know how to manage a funeral.  Then she
is alone; you will be able to speak to her better
than I, and in any case I must remain with Dove."

So they went, and when they were gone, Dove
asked him to come and seat himself beside her couch.
She put out her little white hand to him, and he
noticed that her eyes were singularly large and clear.
They were fixed upon him with the old tender
sadness, and he was forced to think of the time when
heaven itself seemed open to him in those beautiful,
transparent depths.  But why should they be sad?
He remembered the old delight of them, the mystery
of them, the kindness of them; and perhaps he
thought that in a little time he would be able to
awaken the old light in them, and rejoice in the
gladness, and be honestly, wholly in love with his
future wife.

"Why didn't you go with them?" she asked.

"And leave you alone?"

He could have wished that those eyes were less
frank and less penetrating.

"Sometimes I fancy, Will, that you think me a
great baby, and that there is no use explaining
things to me, and that I am only to be petted and
treated like a child.  And so you have always petted
me, like the rest, and I liked it very well, as you
know.  But if I am to be your wife, Will, you
mustn't treat me as a child any more."

"Would you like to be old and wise and motherly,
Dove?  How must I treat you?  You know you are
only a poor little child, my dearest; but then, when
we marry, you will suddenly grow very old."

There was no glad pleasure and hope in his voice,
and doubtless she caught the tone of his speech, for
the large eyes were absent and troubled.

"You are not frank with me, Will," she said, in a
low voice.  "You won't explain the difference there
has been in you ever since you came back from
Germany.  Ah, such a difference!" she added, with a
sigh, and her eyes were withdrawn from his face.
"Perhaps I only imagine it, but everything seems
altered.  We are not to each other what we used to
be: you are kinder than ever, I think, and you want
to be what you were; but something has come
between us, Will."

Every word she uttered lacerated his heart, for
how could he look upon the patient, kind, sweet
face, and tell a lie?—and how dared he tell the truth?

"Come closer, Will.  Bend your head down, and
I'll whisper something to you.  It is this: Ever
since you came back from Germany I have been
wretched, without knowing why.  Many a time I
was going to tell you; then you always looked as
if you were not as much my friend as you used to
be, and I dared not do it.  You have not been frank
with me, and I have seen it often and often as I
have watched you, and my heart used to lie cold and
still like lead.  And oh, Will, do you know what
I've been thinking?—I've been thinking that you
don't love me any more!"

She turned away her agonised face from him, and
a slight shudder ran through her frame.

"Dove, listen to me——"

"And if it is true, Will," she said, with trembling
lips, her face still being turned from him—"if it is
true, don't tell me that it is, Will; how could I bear
to hear you say that?  I should only wish to die at
once, and be out of everybody's way—out of your
way too, Will, if I am in the way.  I never expected
to talk like this to you—never, never; for I used to
think—down there in St. Mary-Kirby, you know—that
you could never do anything but love me, and
that we should always go on the same wherever we
were.  But things are all changed, Will.  It was
never the same after you left the last time, and
since you have come back, they have changed more
and more.  And now up here in London, it seems as
if all the old life were broken away, and we two had
only been dreaming down there.  And I have been
sick at heart, and wretched; and when I found
myself ill the other day, I wished I might die."

He had destroyed that beautiful world; and he
knew it, although there was no chorus of spirits to
sing to him—

   |   "Weh! weh!
   |   Du hast sie zerstört,
   |   Die schöne Welt!
   |   Mit mächtiger Faust;
   |   Sie stürzt, sie zerfallt!
   |     *    *    *    *    *
   |   Prächtiger
   |   Baue sie wieder
   |   In deinem Busen baue sie auf!
   |   Neuen Lebenslauf
   |   Beginne,
   |   Wit hellem Sinne
   |   Und neue Lieder
   |   Tönen darauf!"
   |

Was it possible for him to build it up again, and
restore the old love and the old confidence?  It was
not until this heartbroken wail was wrung from the
poor girl that he fully saw the desolation that had
fallen upon them.  Bitterly he accused himself of
all that had happened, and vainly he looked about
for some brief solace he might now offer her.

"You don't say anything," she murmured, "because
you have been always kind to me, and you do
not wish to pain me.  But I know it is true, Will,
whether you speak or not.  Everything is changed
now—everything; and—and I've heard, Will, that
when one is heartbroken, one dies."

"If you do not wish to break my heart, Dove,
don't talk like that," he said, beside himself with
despair and remorse.  "See, give me your hand, and
I'll tell you all about it.  Turn your eyes to me,
dearest.  We are a little changed, I know; but what
does it matter?  So soon as ever we can, we shall
marry, Dove; and then the old confidence will come
back again.  I have been away so much from you
that we have lost our old familiarity; but when we
are married, you know——"

Then she turned, and the beautiful violet eyes
were once more reading his face.

"You *wish* us to be married, Will?"

"My darling, I do," he said eagerly, honestly,
joyously—for in the mere thought that thereby he
*might* make some reparation there lay peace and
assurance for the future.  "I wish that we could be
married to-morrow morning."

She pressed his hand and lay back on the cushion
with a sigh.  There was a pale, wan pleasure in her
face, and a satisfied languor in her eyes.

"I think I shall make a very good wife," she said,
a little while after, with the old smile on her face.
"But I shall have to be petted, and cared for, and
spoiled, just as before.  I don't think I should wish
to be treated differently if I knew you were frank
with me, and explained your griefs to me, and so
on.  I wished, darling, to be older, and out of this
spoiling, because I thought you considered me such
a baby——"

"You will be no longer a baby when you are
married.  Think of yourself as a married woman,
Dove—the importance you will have, the dignity
you will assume.  Think of yourself presiding over
your own tea-table—think of yourself choosing a
house down near Hastings, and making wonderful
arrangements with the milkman, and the butcher;
and getting into a terrible rage when they forget
your orders, and blaming all their negligence on me."

"My dear, I don't think I shall have anything to
do with butchers and milkmen."

"Why?"

"Because I don't think you will ever have any
money to pay them with."

"So long as I have only one arm with which
to work for you, Dove, you must learn to live on
little; but still——"

"I shall not want much, shall I, if I have you
beside me to make me forget that I am hungry?
But it all looks like a dream, just like what is past.
Are they both dreams, dearest?  Were those real
times down in the old house, when you and I used
to sit together, or walk out together, over the
common, you know, and over the bridge by the
mill-head, and away over the meadows down by that
strip of wood, and so on, and so on, until we came to
the river again, and the road, and Balnacluith House,
and the deer-park?  How pleasant it was, in the
summer evenings; but that seems so long ago!"

"How sad you have been these last few days, Dove!"

"Because I have been thinking, Will.  And all
that seems a dream, and all that is coming seems a
dream, and there is nothing real but just now, and
then I find you and me estranged from each other.
Ah, yes, Will; you are very kind in speaking of our
marriage; but we are not now what we were once."

"Dove," he said, with a desperate effort, "I cannot
bear this any longer.  If you go on moping like
this, you will kill yourself.  It is better you should
know all the truth at once—you will listen, dearest,
and forgive me, and help me to make the best we
can of the future."

There was a quick sparkle of joy in her eyes.

"Oh, Will, Will, are you going to tell me all now?"

"Yes, dearest."

"Then you needn't speak a word—not a word—for
I know you love me, after all.  Perhaps not
altogether; but quite enough to satisfy me, Will, and I
am so glad—so glad!"

She burst into tears, and hid her face from him.

He scarcely knew whether grief or joy was the
cause of this emotion; but in a minute or two she
said—

"I am going to whisper something to you.  You
fell in love with Miss Brunel when you were over in
Germany, and you found it out when it was too late,
and you did not know what to do.  Your kindness
brought you back to me, though your thoughts were
with her.  Is it not all true I have been telling you?
And I was afraid it would be so always, and that you
and I were parted for ever; for you hid the secret
from me, and dared not tell me.  But the moment I
saw in your eyes that you were going to tell me, I
knew some of the old love must be there—some of
our old confidence; and now—now—oh, my darling,
I can trust you with my life, and my heart, and all
the love I can offer you!"

"You have spoken the truth, Dove," he said, and
he knew that her rare womanly instinct had not
lied to her, "and you have made me happier than I
have been for many a day.  You do not blame me
much for what is past and gone?  And you see
that after all the old love may come back between
us; and you will help me to bring it back, and keep
it safe."

"And I will be a true wife to you, Will."

She fixed her eyes gravely and earnestly upon
him.  Then she lifted his hand to her lips,
and—bethinking herself, perhaps, of some quaint foreign
custom of which she may have heard—she kissed
it, in token of meek submission and wifely self-surrender.





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.. _`THE BAIT IS TAKEN`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXXIII.


.. class:: center medium

   THE BAIT IS TAKEN.

.. vspace:: 2

Mrs. Anerley felt very nervous in going to visit
Miss Brunel.  She had never seen an actress in
private life; and, on the stage, this particular actress
had seemed so grand and majestic—so thoroughly
out of and beyond the ordinary sphere of everyday
existence—that she almost feared to approach so
glorious a creature.

She was very particular about her dress; and
perhaps she inwardly composed a few phrases to break
the difficulty of introduction.

But there was no awkwardness where Mr. Anerley
was concerned.  He went forward, and took the girl
by the hand, and told her, in as gentle a way as
possible, the object of their mission.  She was apparently
much touched by this sign of their thoughtfulness
and goodness; and said so briefly.  Mrs. Anerley
forgot all her prepared little speeches.  While her
husband talked to Annie Brunel, she stood and
watched the strange intensity of the girl's large
dark-grey eyes.  There was no embarrassment there,
and no scanning of the embarrassment of others;
they were too absent, and yet full of a strong
personal feeling, which showed itself as she accepted,
with great gratitude, Mr. Anerley's offer.

"There is one other thing you ought to do," he
said.  "Get away from the house at once."

"If we could only have asked you to come down
to our house in the country for a few days," said
Mrs. Anerley, in her kindly way, "that would have
been the best thing for you, and a great pleasure to us."

"You would have asked me to visit your home?"
said the young girl, suddenly flashing her clear
honest eyes on Mrs. Anerley's face.

"Yes—why not?" said Mrs. Anerley, almost in
fright, fancying she had committed herself.

"You are very kind indeed," said Annie Brunel.
"Actresses are not accustomed to such
kindness—especially from strangers."

"But you mustn't call us strangers," said
Mr. Anerley, good-naturedly.  "We have the pleasure
of knowing you very well; and in a few days we
hope you will know something of us, if we can be of
any service to you.  To live in this house, alone,
with these sad remembrances, is very unwise; and,
in a day or two, you must leave it."

"Yes, I must leave it—because I must go where I
can earn my bread.  Has your son told you, sir, that
I have left the stage?  So I have; but at present I
have no clear idea of what I must do—and yet I must
do something."

"I am afraid you have placed yourself in a very
perilous position," said Mr. Anerley.

"But I got to dislike the stage so much that I had
to leave it."

"Why *you* should have left the stage!" exclaimed
Mrs. Anerley, in open admiration, leaving the
sentence unfinished.

Annie Brunel looked at her for a moment, and
said, slowly—

"I have been very fortunate in giving you a good
impression of myself.  I thought most ladies outside
the theatre looked down upon us theatre folk; and
I was afraid you had come here only at your son's
solicitation, with a sort of——"

"Ah, don't say any more," said Mrs. Anerley, with
a genuine pain on her face.  "It is not right to judge
of people like that.  I wish I could only show you
what Dove and I would like to do in taking you
among us, and making you comfortable, until you
should forget this sad blow."

"As for *her*," said Miss Brunel, with a smile, "I
knew she was too gentle and good to despise any one,
the moment I saw her.  But she was so much sweeter
and truer than ordinary women that I accounted for
it on that ground; and I grew so fond of her in a
few minutes.  And you, too—what can I offer you
for your goodness to me but my gratitude and my love?"

"My poor girl!" said Mrs. Anerley, with a touch
of moisture in the corner of her eyes, "I hope we
may have some opportunity of proving to you what
we think of you."

Mr. Anerley found that Will had explained to Miss
Brunel the circumstances in which the family were
now placed; so that he was relieved from the
embarrassment of saying that whatever aid he might
give her would not be pecuniary aid.  But he had
not much experience yet of the girl to whom he was
speaking—of the quaint plainness and directness of
her speech, the very antithesis of the style and
manner which Mrs. Anerley had expected to meet.

Annie Brunel told him what small savings she
possessed, and asked him if these could be made to
cover all the expenses of the funeral, so that she
might start on her new career unencumbered with
debt.  He thought it might be done, and he at once
assumed the management of the sad details of the
business before them.

"But then," she said, "I have the servant to pay:
and I don't know what arrangement I may be able
to make with the landlord of the house.  Hitherto
he has been very obliging."

"That, also, I will look after," said Mr. Anerley,
"if you can put confidence in a man who has so
successfully managed his own affairs as to bring his
whole family into poverty."

"And I?  Can I do nothing for you?" said
Mrs. Anerley.  "We who are all suffering from some kind
of trouble should be glad to accept help from each
other.  Now, tell me—the clothes you may
want—what have you done?"

"I had just begun to look over some things when
you came in."

"Shall I stay and help you until dinner-time?
Do let me."

And so, whilst Mr. Anerley went off to see the
landlord, Mrs. Anerley stayed behind and lent her
assistance to that work in which the feminine heart,
even when overshadowed by a funeral, finds
consolation and delight.  And she afterwards declared
that she had never worked with a pleasanter companion
than this patient, self-possessed, and cheerful
girl, whose queenly gestures, and rich voice, and
dark clear face had so entranced and awed her when
'Juliet' came upon the stage.

The two women became confidential with each
other in the most natural and easy way.
Mrs. Anerley entirely forgot the actress, and became
wonderfully fond of and familiar with this quaint-mannered
girl, with the splendid hair and the honest eyes.

"For my own part," she said to her, "I am not
at all sorry that my husband has lost this money, if
it were not likely to affect Dove's comfort.  You
know he is such a very good man, and the very
kindest and best husband a woman could wish to
have; but I cannot tell you how it troubles me
sometimes to think that he is not of the same
religious opinions as the rest of us.  That is the only
thing; and I am sure it has been brought on by his
being too well-off, and having nothing to do but
read and speculate.  He has never been put in a
position requiring that aid and comfort we get from
religious service; and it is only carelessness, I am
convinced, has led him away."

"And now you think this misfortune——"

"Not the misfortune altogether, but the rougher
fight he will have with the world.  He will be glad to
have that sense of peace and rest with which people
sit together in church, and forget their everyday
troubles.  If it will only do that for him—if it will
only bring him back to us—I shall be glad that we
have lost every penny we had in the world.  It has
been my trouble for years to think of his perilous
state."

"He does not look like a man who would believe
anything dangerous."

"I hope not—I hope not," said the tender wife;
"I hope it is not dangerous.  And yet I shall never
feel that he is safe until he returns to the old faith
and opinions he had when I first knew him.  Even
then, when a very young man, I was never sure of
him.  But he was always so respectful to every kind
of religion, whether he believed in it or not, that
I—yes, I—took him on trust."

"You do not seem to have regretted your choice,"
said Annie Brunel.

"No," she said, with a pleased and proud smile,
"You won't find many people live more comfortably
than we.  But there is that one thing you see——"

"And your son—does he go with his father in
these things?"

"I don't think so.  I hope not.  But both of them
are such good men that I can't make up my mind
to go and speak to them as if—as if they were
sinners, you know."

A perplexed, humorous smile came over her face;
and yet Annie saw that her friend was very much
in earnest over this matter.  It was the one bitter
thing in this good woman's contented and peaceful lot.

After that interview Mrs. Anerley spent the better
part of each day with her new protégée, and a
wonderful love grew up between the two women—motherly
and tender on the one side, trusting and childlike on
the other.  And for the first day or two Mr. Anerley
paid far more attention to Annie Brunel's affairs than
he did to his own, until Mrs. Christmas was hidden
away from a world that had perhaps not been over-kind
to her, and until the young girl was ready to go
forth and seek her own existence.  Will during this
time never came near.  He was trying to repair the
beautiful world that he had shattered, and he kept
faithfully to the task.

Finally, there came the question as to how Annie
Brunel was to earn a living, and the *Times* was
again called into requisition.  Many a weary hour
did Mrs. Anerley and her charge spend in reading
through the advertisements, and writing letters in
reply to those which seemed most suitable.  No
answer came to any one of these applications.  For
some reason or other they had not thought it worth
while to reply to the advertisement about music,
French, and private theatricals; but at last the
pertinacity with which the lines appeared in the
newspaper drew discussion down upon them.

"If I were to be asked how I became proficient
in theatricals, I should have to say I was on the
stage; and I don't wish to do that."

"Why, dear?"

"Because the people might say they did not wish
to have an actress in the house, and I want to avoid
the insult."

"My dear, you have the absurdest notions.  If
they had seen you on the stage, they will be all the
more delighted to have you.  It was because you
were an actress, I firmly believe, that I came to see
you; and in a few days I have made a daughter
of you."

"Nobody seems inclined to answer my letters,"
said the girl, ruefully.

"You may wait, and wait, for months," said
Mrs. Anerley.  "Add this one to the number, and tell
them who you are.  But you must tell them that
you only want a small salary, or they will never think
of engaging you."

So the letter was written in accordance with these
suggestions, and posted with several others.  By
that night's post—and the exceeding swiftness of
the response might have provoked some suspicion in
less unworldly minds—there came a letter.  Annie
Brunel was alone.  She saw by the unknown
handwriting that the letter was likely to be a reply to
one of her applications; and for a minute or two she
allowed the envelope to remain unopened, while she
wondered what sort of destiny lay folded within it.

These were the words she read—

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left medium

   "Rose Villa, Haverstock Hill, October 29, 18—.

"Mrs. John Hubbard presents compliments to
Miss Brunel; is exceedingly obliged by the offer of
her valuable assistance, and would Miss Brunel be
good enough to call, at her convenience, any forenoon
between ten and two?  Mrs. Hubbard hopes that if
Miss Brunel can be induced to accept the situation
which lies at her disposal, nothing will be wanting
to render her position in the house more that of a
friend than an instructress.  Mrs. Hubbard hopes
her proposal, when properly explained to Miss Brunel,
will meet with Miss Brunel's favourable consideration."

.. vspace:: 2

This to a governess!  The girl scarcely knew how
to regard the letter—so familiar, so respectful, so
anxious.

"Here is another person who does not object to
my being an actress.  And I am to be her friend."

She came to the conclusion that a lady who could
so write to a perfect stranger, must either be mad,
or have an idea that, in asking Annie Brunel to her
house, it was 'Juliet' or 'Rosalind' who might be
expected to come.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE NEW GOVERNESS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXXIV.


.. class:: center medium

   THE NEW GOVERNESS.

.. vspace:: 2

It was a cold wet day, in the beginning of November,
when Annie Brunel got out of the Hampstead 'bus,
and found herself in the muddy highway of
Haverstock Hill: a wet and cheerless day, with a damp
and cutting wind, and a perpetual drizzling rain,
that made the black stems of the leafless trees glisten
and drip; a day to make the people who passed each
other in the street, vainly muffled-up against the
wet and the keen cold, hate each other with a vague
and gratuitous hatred.  There was scarcely a traveller
on foot who did not regard all others in similar
plight as somehow responsible for the contrariety of
the elements.

"What a pity you should have come to-day!"
cried Mrs. John Hubbard, as she came into the hall
to receive her visitor.  "I would rather you had
broken a dozen appointments.  I hope you are not
wet.  I hope you are not cold.  Come into the
drawing-room at once; there is a nice warm fire to bring
the blood to your fingers again."

During this speech Annie Brunel had time to
examine her future mistress.  She was not obviously
mad.  Indeed, the coal-black hair, the rosy cheeks,
the small and pretty mouth, the neat figure and
small hands, were the natural ornaments of a person
who seemed mentally far too colourless and contented
ever to be troubled by intellectual derangement.
Yet the new governess was as much puzzled by her
reception as by the letter she had received.

"There now, take this easy-chair—let me draw it
in for you—and we shall have a chat over the matter.
I have hitherto only had a morning governess, you
know; the poor girl took unwell some time ago, and
she has not been here for some days now."

At this precise moment, Miss Betham was upstairs,
packing her music and preparing for final departure.
But to the good-natured and mentally limp Mrs. Hubbard,
lying came as easily as telling the truth.  She
would not have told a lie to secure a particular end;
but in the course of conversation she did not seem to
recognise the necessity of being exact in her statements.
She lied broadly and often; but she lied harmlessly—at
least she meant to do no harm by her lying.

"I won't ask you any questions, Miss Brunel—not
one.  You have your own reasons for leaving the
stage; and I'm not going to quarrel with what
enables me to have your assistance (if we can make
arrangements, that is), which I don't doubt for a
moment."

"I am quite inexperienced, as I told you in my
letter——"

"Oh, that does not signify," said the other, affably.

Annie Brunel looked up with a glance of astonishment,
which any woman not a fool would have noticed.

"And if you think that I know enough to attempt
to get into the way of teaching, I shall leave all the
other arrangements to you.  I am not anxious about
the salary you may be inclined to give me; because,
after all, it is only a trial.  And if you think I am
worth to you, in the meantime, so much per week as
will keep me in food and pay my lodgings——"

"Your lodgings!  I could not think of submitting
you to the misery of lodgings so long as I have a
comfortable room to offer you."

Mrs. Hubbard did not look like a practical joker;
but her reception of the new governess looked
uncommonly like a practical joke.

"You are very kind," said Annie, the wide eyes
being a little wider than usual; "but I thought it
was as a day-governess——"

"To be sure, we have always had a day-governess.
But in *your* case I should prefer a resident governess,
especially if you are about to leave your home
and take lodgings."

"I meant to take lodgings somewhere near you, if
I had the good fortune to please you."

"In this neighbourhood you couldn't get lodgings;
and if you go down to Camden Town, or over to
Kentish Town—oh, my dear, I couldn't think of it.
My husband is very particular about everybody
connected with us being treated fairly—like one of
ourselves, you understand; and as soon as he heard
of your being inclined to answer the advertisement,
he said—

"'I hope Miss Brunel will find a comfortable home here.'"

This was another lie—indeed, what little intellect
the poor woman had chiefly took the form of invention.

"I am not anxious to go into lodgings," said
Annie Brunel, with a smile, "as I had a good deal of
experience of them at one time."

"Shall we consider it settled, then?"

"But you do not know whether I am fit for the
duties you require."

"What an objection!  I know you are."

"Then, as to terms——"

"We shan't quarrel about terms.  Come and stay
with us as soon as you can, and we'll make everything
comfortable and agreeable for you, and we'll
settle about terms afterwards.  Then, you know, we
shall have private theatricals to amuse you."

In certain stories, and in not a few dramas, Annie
Brunel had seen a perfect stranger suddenly determine
to play the part of a special Providence towards
the heroine; but she was lost in astonishment to
meet that incomprehensible friend in real life.  Here
she was, however; and when it is manna that the
clouds rain, there is little reason in putting up an
umbrella.

Mrs. Hubbard rang the bell, and sent a servant for
the children.  They came trooping down to the
drawing-room, pushing each other, and looking very
shy and a trifle sulky.

"This is the lady who will help you with your
lessons now, my dears, since Miss Betham has gone."

"Miss Betham hasn't gone—she is upstairs yet,"
said Master Alexander, "and she has just told Kate
to fetch her her sherry."

"Ah, come to look after some music she has left
behind, perhaps," said Mrs. Hubbard, with a
significant nod to Annie.

"You will find the children very obedient," she
continued, "and nothing shall be wanting to add to
your comfort.  May we conclude the bargain to be
settled?"

"Certainly, so far as I am concerned," said the girl.

These were the agreeable tidings which awaited
Mr. John Hubbard when he returned home that night.

"She is such a charming person," said his wife;
"I don't wonder at your brother being fond of her."

"He is fond of her money," said John Hubbard,
gloomily, "and fancies himself sure of it now."

"It would be very wicked to take advantage of the
girl's innocence in any way," said Mrs. Hubbard, a
proposition to which her husband assented.

"But if we can touch her *gratitude*, my dear,"
said he, "there is no saying, as I told you before,
what might happen."





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.. _`ANOTHER BLUNDER`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXXV.


.. class:: center medium

   ANOTHER BLUNDER.

.. vspace:: 2

The old year died out; the new one came in—not
attended with any very bright auspices for the
persons concerned in this story.  John Hubbard was,
perhaps, the only one of them who was pleased with
present events, and hopeful for the future.  During
many a secret conclave with his good-natured,
pretty, limp, and lying little wife, he speculated on
what shape his governess's gratitude would ultimately assume.

Mr. Anerley had not succeeded in getting any
employment.  Several times he was offered certain
situations, and was on the point of accepting, when
his son peremptorily forbade any such notion.

"If you can get proper employment, and proper
remuneration," said Will, "well and good; if not,
the pound or two you would get would not compensate
for the trouble and ignominy of such a
position."

Will's voice in the matter was powerful, for he was
supporting the household with such exertions as he
was yet permitted to make.  The old man did not
think of trouble or ignominy.  He thought only of
Dove, and the numerous little luxuries to which she
was accustomed.  Nor dared he speak of this, except
to his wife; for both saw the perpetual endeavours
that Will was making for all of them.  Sometimes
the old man distrusted the audacious cheerfulness
with which Will insisted on his mother and Dove
having this or that particular luxury; and once he
made a discovery that led him to think
retrospectively of many things.

Down in St. Mary-Kirby there was no home
entertainment which afforded Dove so much pleasure
as having red mullet and champagne for supper;
and the disgraceful little epicure picked so daintily
her tiny morsel of fish, and sipped so quaintly, with
coquettish eyes thrown at her father, her glass of
wine, that to the other people the feast was much
more æsthetic than sensuous.

"Mother," said Will, one evening, when he came
home (but his words were directed to Dove), "we
haven't had red mullet for supper for a long time.
I've brought home some; and I've brought home a
small case of champagne for the especial use of
people who behave themselves."

"Oh, Will!" said the mother, "what extravagance!"

"The boy's mad!" said the father.

"Do you hear them, Dove?  Now they have misconducted
themselves, you and I shall have all the
champagne to ourselves."

What a merry little party it was, that evening!
The landlord of the house lent them the proper
wineglasses; Dove went and put on part of the blue
pearl head-dress the Count had given her, to
make-believe she had been at the theatre; and when they
sate down at the bright white cloth, with everything
on the table as brilliant and clean as fingers could
make it, it was quite like old times.

"Now, Will," said Mr. Anerley, "let's see what
you've brought.  Mind you, my taste isn't dulled by
want of exercise."

"I didn't consider your taste a bit, sir.  I got the
wine for Dove, and it is as sweet as——"

"Herself!  These young people are too bashful
to pay compliments nowadays.  Ah, Dove, don't
these bits of blue paper hold wonders within them—the
treasures of the deep—the only fish worth calling
a fish—and every one of them with a diamond ring
in its mouth?  Here, Will, give me your ring, that
I may see how it looks on the nose of this famous
fellow which I mean to give to Dove."

The young man darted a hasty deprecating look
towards his father, and the blood rushed over his
face.  The father caught that swift look, and glanced
at the finger on which Will generally wore this
ring—one he had brought from Turkey.  There was no
ring there; it *had* been there that morning.

Mr. Anerley did not enjoy the supper.  Sometimes
the fish seemed to stick in his throat; and the
wine had a bitter flavour.

But he did not spoil the enjoyment of the others;
and Dove's delight at recalling one of the old bygone
evenings was immense.  She persisted in making-believe
that they had been to the theatre, and criticized
the actors gravely and severely.  She pecked
at her little piece of fish like a thrush at a ripe white
cherry; and she wore on her pretty, small, blue-veined
wrist a wonderful bracelet that Will had
brought her from abroad.

"Shall I kiss the goblet for you, Sir Knight?"
she said, taking a little sip out of Will's glass.

"And yours, venerable sir?"

"It seems to me," said Mr. Anerley, "that the
old custom was a system of levying blackmail on all
the wineglasses round.  Still, I will pay the price.
Well, now it isn't bad wine; but the bouquet is
clearly owing to you, Dove."

"I didn't like the lover to-night," said Dove,
critically.  "He seemed as if his clothes were quite
new.  I can't bear a lover coming with new clothes,
and trying to make an effect.  A lover should forget
his tailor when he is in love.  And I am against
people being married in new clothes, with bridesmaids
in new clothes, and everybody in new clothes,
and everybody feeling cramped, and stiff, and
embarrassed.  When I marry, I shall have my husband
wear the old, old suit in which I used to see him
come home from his work!—the clothes which I've
got to love about as much as himself.  I shan't have
the tailor come between him and me."

"The heroine was rather pretty," hazarded Will,
concerning the imaginary play.

"Well, yes.  But she made love to us, and not to
him.  And I can't bear kissing on the stage—before
such a lot of people—why don't they do all that
before they come on the stage, and then appear as
engaged or married?"

"But you would have to employ a chorus to come
and explain to the audience what was going on in
the 'wings,'" said Will.

And so they chatted, and gossiped, and laughed,
and it seemed as if they were again down in the old
and happy Kentish valley.

When they had retired for the night, Mr. Anerley
told his wife his suspicions about the ring.

"I was afraid he had done something like that,"
she said.  "But who could regret it, seeing Dove so
delighted?  I hope he won't do it again, however.
I should tell him of it but that I know he will be
vexed if we mention it."

By common consent the case of champagne was
relegated to the grand occasions of the future.  The
family was not in a position to pay a wine-merchant's
bill; and so they remained contented with the
knowledge that on any sudden prompting they had it in
their power to become extravagant and luxurious.

Then Dove was better, so far as they could see;
and they bore their little hardships with wonderful
equanimity.  She was better, doubtless, but she
was very delicate; and the doctor had had a long
and serious conversation with Mr. Anerley, in which
he was advised to take Dove to spend the rest of the
winter in Italy.  Sirius was quite as possible a
destination.

By this time Annie Brunel had become familiar
with the Hubbard family, and had definitely entered
upon her new duties.  The longer she stayed in the
house, the more she was puzzled by the consideration
with which every one, except her pupils, treated
her; and even they were impertinent not through
intention, but by habit.  Mrs. Hubbard was almost
obtrusively affectionate towards her governess.
Everything was done to make her residence in the
house agreeable.  She lunched and dined with
Mrs. Hubbard, so that poor Miss Betham's sherry was
never called into requisition.  When there was a
dinner-party or a dance in the house, Annie Brunel
was invited as a guest, introduced to visitors as a
guest, treated with all the courtesy due to a guest.
She was never asked to sing by the Hubbards;
although she played and sang enough at the solicitation
of other people.  The children were taught to
consider her, not as a governess, but as a friend of
their mamma's.  When there were people at the
house, they were obliged to treat her as a gracious
and distinguished lady who had come to spend the
evening, not as a poor governess expected to find
correct accompaniments for people who gratuitously
changed the key three or four times in the course of
a song.

As a governess, she ought to have been very
grateful for such treatment.  Yet she felt far from
happy or contented.  She did not like the pale,
round-shouldered, nervous man who never looked one in
the face.  Despite the gratitude she could not but
feel towards Mrs. Hubbard, she did not admire or
love much that lady, whose unnecessary mendacity
she had once or twice discovered.  Here, however,
was a home.  Outside, the cold elements, the chiller
hearts of strangers, the vicissitudes, trials, struggles,
martyrdom of a fight for life; inside, warmth and
comfort, apparently true friends, and easy duties.
She tried to be grateful for all these things; and
when moods of lonely despair and melancholy
overwhelmed her, she upbraided her own weakness, and
resolved to be more thankful in the future.

The Count had not ventured to go near her.  He
was satisfied to know that she was in safe keeping.
He could bide his time.  He had made one blunder;
he would not again commit the mistake of forcing
marital concerns upon her while she was moved by
grief for the loss of an old friend.  He allowed the
slow passing days and weeks to work for him; trusting
that in time he would only have to step in and reap
the rich harvest his prudence had prepared.

But he called frequently at the office of his brother,
to receive reports.  And the tone of the Count, on one
or two occasions, was sufficient to stir up a mild
remonstrance from even that patient and
much-enduring person.

"You talk to me as if you had paid me to engage
her and keep her in the house for you."

"Did you engage her for yourself?  You know I
suggested the thing to you; and am prepared to
reimburse you for any extra expense you may have been
put to."

"I declare," said the milder brother, "you talk as
if you were fattening a pig, and I was watching the
yard.  You come and look over the palings, and
gloat over your future satisfaction, and compliment
me if the prospect is pleasing to you.  Mind you, I
don't think you have any supreme claim on the girl."

"Have *you*?"

"Certainly not."

"Well, what's the use of talking nonsense, Jack?
If I marry her, it will be as good for you as for me."

"How?" said the lawyer, coldly, and with affected
carelessness.

"Well," replied the Count, with some embarrassment,
"there's the money, you see, coming into the
family.  That's a great matter."

"Yes, to *you*," said John Hubbard.

The Count looked at him for a moment; perhaps
a thought struck him just then that, after all, his
brother might be sincere in his view of the matter,
and might testify his sincerity by carrying off the
prize for himself.

"Gad, he can't do that very well," said the Count
to himself, with a merry laugh, when he came to
reflect on the conversation, "or what would Jane
say?  The girl is useless to him, so what's the use of
his talking nonsense?  Her money is safe from him,
if safe from anybody."

But the more the Count thought over the affair,
the less did he like the tone that his brother had
lately assumed in talking of Annie Brunel.  Further,
he would have been as well pleased had he known
that Miss Brunel was not *quite* so comfortable in his
brother's house.

These things were the subject of much conjecture
and calculation on his part.  They were also the
theme of his after-dinner musings.  Now, after-dinner
dreams and resolves are very beautiful at times; but
they should never be put down on paper.  In an evil
hour—it was one evening after he had dined, all by
himself, in that great house down in Kent—he placed
the following words in a letter to his brother:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left medium white-space-pre-line

   "Balnacluith House, near St. Mary-Kirby,
        "Jan. 17, 18—.

"DEAR JOHN,

"Let me add a word to what I recently said
about Miss Brunel.  It is *your* interest to forward
*my* interest, as you will discover.  Now, I am afraid
you are treating her with so much mistaken kindness
that she will get to consider the position of governess
pleasant.  This is misleading her.  She will only
suffer for it afterwards.  Nothing like wholesome
severity at the time—nothing.  Hubert Anerley came
to me and asked me to lend him some money and let
him off a bargain about my brougham and a pair of
horses.  Did I?  I knew it would only delude him
with absurd hopes, and I said no; and so he accepted
his fate, and I suppose has set about repairing a
fortune lost by his own carelessness.  That's *my* way,
Jack; and you're too kind to the girl.  Get Jane to
try some wholesome severity—to teach her what a
governess is—frighten her—threaten to turn her out
without a character, or something of the sort.
Anything, so she is made to understand how insecure her
position is.  You understand?  Then I step in, and
our family becomes one of the richest in England.
What do you say to that?  Do it at once—and firmly.
It will be better to be done *decisively—very
decisively—and soon*.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: left medium white-space-pre-line

   "Your affectionate brother,
      "FRED. v. SCHÖNSTEIN."

.. vspace:: 2

Frederick von Schönstein should have seen his
brother's face when that letter arrived.  It was not
an expressive face; but on this occasion there were
several emotions clearly visible in it, and they were
not of a mournful kind.  Indeed, John Hubbard looked
upon this letter as worth thousands of pounds to him.
It was the key of the position.  He showed it to his wife.

"What a brute!" she said, "to think of harming
the poor girl.  I have never liked your brother, my
dear, since he began to try to entrap this girl, but
now I am beginning to hate him."

And doubtless Mrs. Hubbard imagined, quite
honestly, that it was merely compassion for her
charming and unprotected governess which provoked
her mild wrath and contempt.

"Fred's a fool, my dear, or he wouldn't have
written that letter."

"Why?"

"Don't you see?" observed the husband, proud of
his superior masculine perspicacity; "whenever he
seeks to interfere with her, or with our relations
towards her, we have only to show her this letter,
and I think that will considerably cook his goose."

It was not often that the meek and proper brother
of the Count was tempted into slang; but on this
great occasion, when a lucky chance had delivered
everything into his hands, he could not forbear.

Count Schönstein never waited for that course of
severity which was to render Annie Brunel an easy
capture.  His solitary life at Balnacluith House was
becoming more and more unbearable; and so, at
length, he resolved to precipitate matters.

One forenoon, when he knew his brother would be
out, he went up to Haverstock Hill.  His sister-in-law
was a little frightened by his appearance.  She
so far knew her own nature as to be aware that the
Count had only to command and she would obey.
*How* she wished that her husband were at home!

The Count was gracious, but firm.  He begged her
to grant him an interview with Miss Brunel, in
tones which expressed his resolution to obtain the
interview, whether his gentle sister-in-law agreed or
not.  For a moment a lie hovered on her lips; but
probably she knew it would be of no avail; and so
she only ventured on a remonstrance.

"If you do this now," said Mrs. John, "you will
terrify her.  She is not prepared.  She does not know
you are connected with us——"

"I can explain all these matters," said the Count,
peremptorily.

"Very well," said his sister-in-law, meekly.

In a minute afterwards, Annie Brunel entered the
room.  No sooner did she see who the visitor was,
than a surprised pleased light came into her eyes,
and the heart of the Count leapt for joy.  How
beautiful she was to him then!  The big bright eyes,
the delicately rounded chin, the pretty mouth, the
fine southern languor, and grace, and softness of
her face and figure—and the cold, cheerless, empty
desolation of Balnacluith House!

She shook hands with him.

"How did you discover me here?"

"Don't you know?" he asked.  "Don't you know
that Mrs. Hubbard is my sister-in-law—that her
husband is my brother—have they never spoken of me?"

In an instant the whole thing was laid bare to her.
She understood now the extraordinary courtesy of
her mistress; she understood now the references
made by the children to the deer that their uncle
Frederick kept; and the advertisement—she saw that
that was a trap.  The discovery shocked her a little,
but it also nerved her.  She knew she had been
deceived; she was yet unaware of any purpose that
the deception could serve; but she confronted the
Count with an intrepid spirit, and looked him in the
face.

That look terrified him.  "Have I," he thought,
"made another blunder?"

The next moment found him entering on a long
series of explanations, entreaties, and superfluous
assertions.  It had all been done honestly.  They
were afraid she would be homeless.  They had
advertised out of friendly intention—in perfect good
faith.  He had refrained from visiting the house,
lest she should consider herself persecuted.  The
Hubbards had not mentioned his name, fearing that
even that might frighten her.

For a minute or two these rapid revelations and
confessions somewhat confused her.  But out of the
blundering representations of the Count arose certain
facts strong and clear as the daylight.

"That advertisement *was* a trap?" she said, fixing
her large honest eyes upon him.

"But, you see——"

"And they have been treating me kindly, and
deceiving me at the same time, that you might
come——?"

"Don't say that," said the Count, deprecatingly.
"They deceived you with the best intentions towards
yourself.  And have I not the same intentions?
Look at your position—a governess, dependent on
other people for your bread, liable to be out of a
situation and starving at any moment, bound down
to certain duties every day, and living a solitary
monotonous life.  Then look at what you would be
if you would only listen to me; you would have
nothing to do but enjoy yourself from January to
December—you would have everything at your
command——"

"I think I have heard quite enough, Count
Schönstein," she said, firmly.  "And you would have
spared both of us some pain if you had taken the
answer I gave you before."

"And that is your only answer?"

"It is."

"How can you be so cruel?—so unreasonable?
What do you mean to do?"

"I mean to leave this house."

"Why?" he said, struck with astonishment.

"*You* need not ask me why.  You have been a
good friend to me, and I do not wish to part from
you in anger.  You have been kind to me.  I am
sorry it is impossible for me to ask you to see me
again.  I do not wish to see you again, or Mr. or
Mrs. Hubbard, after what you have just told me."

She left the room, and the Count sate staring
blindly before him, remotely conscious that
something terrible had befallen him.  The next thing he
saw was Annie Brunel entering the drawing-room,
followed by Mrs. John.  The younger lady was
dressed in black, and had now her bonnet and
shawl on.

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Hubbard.  "You astonish
me.  Deceive you?  Never such a thought entered
my head.  And as for that advertisement, it was no
trap at all, but addressed to all governesses.  Of
course we knew that you *might* see it, and we were
very glad when you did see it; but that we intentionally
deceived you, I appeal to Count Schönstein,
Miss Brunel."

"What I know of these matters, Mrs. Hubbard, I
have just learned from Count Schönstein," she said,
coldly.  "I don't accuse any one.  Perhaps you did
nothing unusual.  I don't know anything about the
customs among ladies.  I have been brought up
amongst another kind of people.  Good morning."

There was no resentment on the calm and beautiful
face, nor the least touch of sarcasm in the low
soft voice.  There was sadness, however—a resigned,
patient sadness, that smote the heart of both her
auditors, and kept them silent there, while she went
outside—into London, alone.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AN OLD ADMIRER`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXXVI.


.. class:: center medium

   AN OLD ADMIRER.

.. vspace:: 2

Nelly Featherstone was busy that night.  The
small room in which she sate working was littered
with all sorts of beautiful dressmaking materials;
and Nelly herself was diligently engaged—sewing
heavy golden fringe upon a resplendent Venetian
doublet of green satin, which had glimmerings of
white and crimson silk across the chest, and white
satin sleeves, tightened and crisped with gold.
Indeed, the sheen of satin and glitter of gold lay all
over the dingy little room.  These were the raw
material of the new grand burlesque; and Nelly,
who made all her dresses herself, was famous for
the historical accuracy of her costume.  On this
occasion, however, there was a green satin Glengarry
lying on a chair, and green satin boots, with
the heels not much bigger than a fourpenny-piece,
on the table: and she wore on her fingers, to try
their lustre, two large rings of cut-glass—the one a
shining emerald, the other a brilliant crimson.

When Annie Brunel tapped at the door and
stepped in, Nelly threw all these things aside, and
rushed to her old friend, and hugged and kissed her
in her usual impulsive manner, with a dozen "my
dears" to every sentence.  Her friend's story was
soon told; she wanted Nelly to help her to get some
cheap lodgings in the neighbourhood.

"And so you know where to come first when
you're down in your luck," said the girl, giving her
another kiss, with the tears coming into her eyes—for
Nelly's well-worn heart had still a true and
tender throb in it.  "So sit you down and take
everything off your mind—and share my room
to-night, and to-morrow we'll see about business.  Give
me your bonnet, there now.  Poor dear mother
Christmas!—and I'll give you something to do until
supper-time comes, and then we shall have a bit of
cold mutton and bottled stout.  Oh, I've had my
trials, too, my dear, since I saw you."

"What's been the matter with you, Nelly?  That
young gentleman, I suppose——?"

"Oh, yes, he's always at it.  But, thank goodness,
I've got rid of him at last."

"Quite sure?" said the other, with a smile.

"Oh, quite.  Such a fearful row we had, my dear.
First about lip-salve; he accused me of using that
to make my lips red, when I declare I haven't used
it for two years.  Very well, just as we had made
that up, you know, dear, we were walking along
Oxford Street, and there was a match-boy amusing
himself, opposite a publichouse, with a lot of other
boys, and he was dancing a very, *very* clever breakdown
step, and I said I'd give my ears if I could do
that, just in fun, you know; and, lor, the passion he
got into!  Stormed about my low tastes, abused the
British drama, said I had no more sentiment than a
clown; and then I ordered him off, and walked home
by myself."

"And which of you was the more miserable, Nelly?"

"I miserable?  Not I.  That very night Mr. Helstone
sent me the most beautiful little speech about
politics and other stuff, and Mr. Melton says I may
use it in my part."

"You'll break that young gentleman's heart,
Nelly.  Indeed, it is a shame——"

"Nonsense!  But I'll have my revenge upon him
this time for his quarrelling with me.  You see this
is a boy's dress.  I've made the skirt of it two inches
shorter than I should have done.  There.  And I
shall be in tights; and dance a breakdown; and
sing a music-hall song; and when the lime-light
comes on at the end, *I'll stare into it as hard as ever
I can*."

"But why should you injure your eyes?"

"To provoke him.  He will be there.  And he
hates to see me in a boy's dress; and he hates to see
me dance——"

"But I thought you were never to see him again."

"Neither I shall.  Never."

Miss Featherstone's landlady tapped at the door,
and entered with a letter.

"Please, miss, he says he's sorry to trouble you,
but is there an answer?"

Nelly hurriedly ran over the letter, and there was
a wicked smile of triumph on her face.

"It's *him*," she said to her companion.  "Would
you like to see him?  Shall I ask him to come up,
since you are here?"

"By all means."

"Mrs. Goddridge, tell him I have a friend with
me, and he may come up, if he likes."

Blushing, embarrassed, delighted, shamefaced,
and yet radiant with joy, Mr. Frank Glyn was
introduced to Annie Brunel.  He was a good-looking
slightly-built young fellow, with a sensitive cast of
face, pleasant large blue eyes, and a certain tenderness
about the lines of the mouth which boded ill
for his future reminiscences of his acquaintance with
Miss Nelly Featherstone.  That young person should
have been flirted with by a man of stronger mettle
than Frank Glyn.

"I hope I am not disturbing you," he said,
nervously, looking at the table.

"I hope you are in a better temper than when I
last saw you," said she.

"We may let bygones be bygones now, Nelly.
It wouldn't do to fight before Miss Brunel.  She
might have a strange impression of us."

"I think you are two foolish children," said
Annie Brunel, "who don't spend a peaceable life
when you might."

"I say so, too," said Nelly.  "Life is not so long,
as I have told him, that we can afford to throw it
away in quarrels.  And yet he *will* quarrel.
Confess that you always do quarrel, Frank.  There's
only one person in the world who is always good to
me; and I do so love him!  When the dear old
gentleman who made me these boots brought them
home, and when I looked at them, I could have
thrown my arms round his neck."

"I dare say you could, without looking at the
boots," said her lover, with a fierce and terrible
sneer.

"I suppose it's a weakness," said Nelly, with
philosophic equanimity, "but I confess that I love a
pair of beautiful little, bright, neat, soft,
close-fitting boots better than any man I ever saw."

She caught up that charming little pair of gleaming
boots, and pressed them to her bosom, and folded
her hands over them, and then took them and kissed
them affectionately before placing them again on
the table.

An awful thundercloud dwelt on poor Frank's brow.

"I shall take them to bed with me," said the
young lady, with loving eyes still on the small
heels and the green satin; "and I'll put them
underneath my pillow, and dream of them all the night
through."

Mr. Glyn got up.  There was a terrible look in
his eyes, and a terrible cold harshness in his voice,
as he said:

"I am interrupting your work and your
conversation, ladies.  Good-night, Miss Brunel;
good-bye, *Miss Featherstone*."

With which he shook hands and departed—to
spend the rest of the evening in walking recklessly
along dark suburban roads, wondering whether a
few drops of prussic acid might not be his gentlest
and truest friend.

First love had been awakened in Frank Glyn's
heart by the unlucky instrumentality of Miss
Featherstone.  Delighted with this new and beautiful
idealism, he was eager to repay her with an
extravagant gratitude for what, after all, was only his
own gift to himself.  Nelly knew nothing of this
occult psychical problem; but was aware of the
extravagant gratitude, and conducted herself towards
it and him with such results as do not concern this
present history.

"You are very hard upon the poor boy," said
Annie Brunel.

Nelly pouted prettily, as if she had been ten years
younger than she was, and said he had no business
to be so quick-tempered.  But after supper, when
they were retiring for the night, and she had grown
confidential, she confessed she was very fond of him,
and hoped he would come again and "make it up."

"I can't help quarrelling with him, and he can't
help quarrelling with me; and so we'll go on, and
on, and on——"

"Until you marry."

"No, until I marry somebody else, for the sake of
peace and quiet.  And yet I declare if he were to
come boldly up to-morrow and insist on my marrying
him, I'd do it at once.  But he is always too
sensitive and respectful, and I can't help teasing
him.  Why doesn't he *make* me do what he wants?
He's a man, and I'm a woman, and yet I never feel
as if he were stronger than I was—as if I ought to
look to him for strength, and advice, and what not.
He's too much of a girl in his delicate frightened ways."

Next morning Nelly got a messenger and sent
him up to Mr. John Hubbard's for Annie Brunel's
boxes, which had been left packed up.  Then they
two went out to inspect some lodgings which had
been recommended to them by Miss Featherstone's
landlady.  The house was a dingy building in
Howland Street, Tottenham Court Road; but the rent of
the two rooms was small, and Miss Brunel engaged
them.  She had very little money now in her purse.
Mrs. Hubbard and she had been on so peculiar terms
that both refrained from talking about salary; and
when the boxes were brought down to Nelly's place
by the messenger, no communication of any kind
accompanied them.

"If they want to see me, Nelly," said Annie
Brunel, "they will send to your house, thinking
that my address.  But I don't want my address to
be given them, mind, on any consideration."

"But how are you to live, my dear?"

"I must find out, like other people," she said,
with a smile.

"Won't your Anerley friends help you?"

"What help could I take from them?  Besides,
they are worse off than myself, and that pretty girl
of theirs, about whom I have so often spoken to you,
is very poorly, and wants to be taken out of London.
I should rather like to help them than think of their
helping me."

"Won't you come back to the stage, then?"

"Not until I'm starving."

The rehearsals for the new burlesque began, and a
farce was put on in which Nelly played; so that, for
several days, she was so busy from morning till night
that she never had time to run up to see her friend
in these poor Howland-street lodgings.  So Annie
Brunel was left alone.  The Anerleys had not her
address.  The Hubbards she was only too anxious
to avoid.  Mrs. Christmas, her old companion, was
gone; and around her were thousands of her
fellow-creatures all struggling to get that bit of bread and
that glass of water which were necessary to her
existence.

The landlady and her husband treated her with
great respect, because, when asked for a month's
rent in advance, she at once gave them the two
sovereigns demanded.  There remained to her, in
available money, about twenty-four shillings, which
is not a great sum wherewith to support a person
looking out for a situation in London.

In about a week's time Nelly Featherstone called.
After the usual osculation and "my dearing," Nelly
assumed a serious air, and said that it wouldn't do.

"You're looking remarkably ill, and you'll be
worse if you sit moping here, and doing nothing.
You must be a descendant of Don Quixote.  Why
not come down to the theatre, see Mr. Melton, and
get an engagement?"

"I can't do it, Nelly.

"You mean you won't.  Then, at all events, you'll
spend to-day as a holiday.  The rehearsals are all
over.  I shall send for Frank, and he will take us
into the country."

"For shame!—to drive that poor fellow mad, and
then call him back whenever you want a service
from him!"

"It will give him far more delight than it will us."

"No, Nelly; I have no heart to go anywhere.  If
you have promised to meet your Frank, as I imagine,
you ought to go off by yourself at once."

"I'm not going to do anything of the kind.  Tell
me what you mean to do if you remain in the house."

"See if there are any more letters I can write, and
watch the postman as he comes round from Tottenham
Court Road."

"Then you can't go on doing that for ever.  Put
on your bonnet, and let us have a walk down Regent
Street, and then come and have dinner with me,
and spend the afternoon with me, until I go to the
theatre."

This she was ultimately persuaded to do.  Nelly
did her utmost to keep her friend in good spirits;
and altogether the day was passed pleasantly enough.

But the reaction came when Nelly had to go down
to the theatre alone.

"You look so very wretched and miserable," said
she, to Annie.  "I can't bear the idea of your going
home to that dull room.  And what nonsense it is
not to have a fire because you can't afford it!  Come
you down to the theatre; Mr. Melton will give you
a stage-box all to yourself; then you'll go home with
me to-night, and stay with me."

She would not do that.  She went home to the
cold dark room—she lit only one candle for economy's
sake—and she asked if there were any letters.  There
were none.

She had only a few shillings left now.  She
abhorred the idea of getting into debt with her
landlady; but that, or starvation, lay clearly before her.
And as she sate and pondered over her future, she
wondered whether her mother had ever been in the
like straits—whether she, too, had ever been alone,
with scarcely a friend in the world.  She thought of
the Count, too.

"If the beggar would marry the king, and exchange
her rags for silk attire," she said to herself, bitterly,
"now would be the time."

By the nine-o'clock post no letter came; but a few
minutes after the postman had passed, the landlord
came up to the door of her room.

"A letter, please, miss—left by a boy."

Hoping against hope, she opened it as soon as the
man had left.  Something tumbled out and fell on
the floor.  On the page before her she saw inscribed,
in a large, coarse, masculine handwriting, these
words—

"*An old admirer begs the liberty to send the enclosed
to Miss Brunel, with love and affection.*"

But in that assumed handwriting Nelly Featherstone's
*e*'s and *r*'s were plainly legible.  The recipient
of the letter picked up the folded paper that had
fallen.  It was a five-pound note.

"Poor Nelly!" she said, with a sort of nervous
smile; and then her head fell on her hands, which
were on the table, and she burst into tears over the
scrawled bit of paper.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`POSSESSION`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXXVII.


.. class:: center medium

   POSSESSION.

.. vspace:: 2

Mr. Joseph Cayley., Junr., sate in his private room
in the office of Cayley & Hubbard.  He was an
unusually tall man, with a thin, cold, hard face, black
eyes, black hair, and an expression of extraordinary
solemnity.  He looked as if none of his ancestors
had ever laughed.  A shrewd and clear-headed man
of business, he was remarkable at once for his upright
conduct of professional affairs, and for the
uncompromising frankness, with the extreme courtesy, of his
personal demeanour.  His friends used to wonder how
such a man and John Hubbard ever pulled together;
but they did, and their business was even better now
than when old Mr. Cayley took John Hubbard into
partnership.

A card was handed to Mr. Cayley by one of the
youths in the office.  He glanced at the card, looked
at it attentively, and then there came over his face a
singular expression of concern, surprise, and almost
fear.

"Show her in," he said, sharply, to the lad.

He rose and paced up and down the room for a
moment; then he found himself bowing into a chair
a lady completely dressed in black, who had just
entered.

"Will you permit me," he said, fixing his big
black eyes upon her, "to ask my partner to join us?
I anticipate the object of your visit—and—and——"

"Does your partner live at Haverstock Hill?"

"Yes."

"I would rather speak with you alone, then," said
the young lady, calmly.  "I have here a letter from
my mother, Mrs. Brunel, to you.  I need not explain
to you why the letter has not been delivered for
years.  I was not to deliver it until necessity——"

"You need not explain," said Mr. Cayley, hurriedly
taking the letter.  "This is addressed to my father;
but I may open it.  I know its contents; I know
everything you wish to know, Miss Brunel."

When he had opened the letter, he read it, and
handed it to Annie Brunel, who read these words—

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: medium left white-space-pre-line

   "*Mr. Cayley,*

   "*My daughter claims her rights.*
        "*Annie Marchioness of Knottingley.*"

.. vspace:: 2

She looked at him, vaguely, wonderingly, and then
at the faded brown writing again.  The words
seemed to disappear in a mist; then there was a soft
sound in her ears, as of her mother's voice; and
then a sort of languor stole over her, and it seemed
to her that she was falling asleep.

"Take this glass of wine," was the next thing she
heard.  "You have been surprised, alarmed,
perhaps.  But you know the handwriting to be your
mother's?"

"Yes," was the reply, in a low voice.

"And you understand now why you were to call upon us?"

"I don't know—I don't understand—my mother
ought to be here now," said the girl, in hurried,
despairing accents.  "If that letter means anything,
if my mother was a rich lady, why did she keep
always to the stage?  Why conceal it from me?
And my father?—where was he that he allowed her
to travel about, and work day after day and night
after night?"

"He was dead."

Many and many a time had Joseph Cayley rehearsed
this scene upon which he had now entered.
His earliest initiation into the secrets of the office
was connected with it.  It had been a legacy to him
from his father; and the unusual mystery and
importance of the case had so impressed him, that he
used to imagine all the circumstances of the young
girl's coming to claim her own, and of his speeches
and bearing during the interview.  He forgot all his
elaborate speeches, and remembering only the bare
facts of the case, related them with as great delicacy
as he could.  Now for the first time did Annie Brunel
understand the sad circumstances of her mother's
story, and for the moment she lost sight of everything
else.  She was away back in that strange and
mournful past, recalling her mother's patient bearing,
her heroic labour, her more than heroic cheerfulness
and self-denial, and the bitter loneliness of
her last hours.

"It was his friends who kept him from her?" she
asked, not daring to look up.

The lawyer knew better; but he dared not tell
the cruel truth to the girl.

"Doubtless," he said.  "Your father's friends
were very proud, and very much against his
marrying an actress."

"And my mother feared my going among them?"

"Doubtless.  But you need not do so now."

"Do they know who I am?"

"Yes, *my lady*."

He uttered the words, not out of compliment, but
of set purpose.  It was part of the information he
had to give her.  She looked up to him with a
curious look, as if he were some magician who had
suddenly given her sacksful of gold, and was about
to change the gold again into flints.

"If all this is true, why did I never hear it from
any one else?"

"We alone knew, and your father's friends.  They
concealed the marriage as well as they could, and
certainly never would speak to any one about you."

"And all these estates you speak of are mine?"
she said, with a bewildered look on her face.

"Yes."

"And all that money?"

"Certainly."

"Without the chance of anybody coming forward
and saying it is not mine?"

"There is no such chance that I know of, once
you have been identified as Lady Knottingley's
daughter, and that will not be difficult."

"And I can do with the money what I like?" she
asked, the bewilderment turning to a look of joy.

"Most undoubtedly."

"Out of such sums as you mention, I could give
20,000*l.* to one person, and the same amount to
another?"

"Certainly.  But you will forgive my saying that
such bequests are not usual—perhaps you will get
the advice of a friend."

"I have only two friends—a Miss Featherstone,
and an old gentleman called Mr. Anerley.  These
are the two I mean."

Mr. Cayley opened his eyes with astonishment.

"Miss Featherstone of the —— Theatre?"

"Yes."

"You propose to give her 20,000*l.*?"

"Yes," said the young girl, frankly, and with a
bright happy look on her face.

"The imprudence—the indiscretion—if I may say
so!—(although it is no business of mine, my lady,
and we shall be glad to fulfil any of your instructions).
What could such a girl do with that sum of money?"

"What shall I do with all the rest—if it is real,
which I can scarcely believe yet?  But I wish you
to tell me truly what was my mother's intention in
keeping this secret from me.  I was only to apply to
you in extreme need.  No one knows how extreme
my need is—how extreme it was last night, when it
drove me to take out that letter and resolve to
appeal to you."

"Your mother told my father why she should
keep the secret from you.  She wished you never to
undergo the wrongs she had suffered by coming in
contact with those people whose influence over your
father she feared and hated."

"And how she used to teach me always to rely
upon the stage!" she said, musingly, and scarcely
addressing herself to the man before her.  "Perhaps
I have done very wrong in relinquishing it.  Perhaps
I am to have as miserable a life as she had; but it
will not be through *them*."

"Now, my lady, there is no necessity why you
should ever see one of the family."

"And it was her wish that I should come to you
when I was in extreme distress——?"

"Distress!  I hope not pecuniary——"

"That, and nothing else," said the girl, calmly.

Mr. Cayley was only too glad to become her
banker until the legal arrangements should permit
of her stepping into a command of money such as
Harry Ormond himself had never owned.

"And in the meantime," she added, "you will not
mention to any one my having seen you.  I do not
know what I shall do yet.  I fear there is something
wrong about it all—something unreal or dangerous;
and when I think of my poor mother's life, I do not
wish to do anything in haste.  I cannot believe that
all this money is mine.  And the title, too—I should
feel as if I were on the stage again, and were
assuming a part that I should have to drop in an
hour.  I don't want all that money; I should be
afraid of it.  If my mother were only here to tell me!"

Mr. Cayley was called away at this moment to see
some other visitor.  In his absence John Hubbard
came to the door of the room and looked in.

He saw before him a figure which he instantly
recognised.  The girl was looking at the sheet of
brown paper which bore her mother's name, her eyes
were wet, and her hands were clasped together, as if
in mute supplication to that scrap of writing to say
something more and guide her in this great
emergency.  John Hubbard guessed the whole situation
of affairs directly.  Without a moment's hesitation,
he entered, and Annie Brunel looked up.

"My poor girl!" he said, in accents of deep
compassion, with his pale face twitching nervously, "I
understand your sad position; and if you had only
remained in our house a few days longer, our counsel
and advice might have been of service to you in this
crisis.  How deeply you must feel the want of a true
and faithful adviser——!"

John Hubbard became aware that he had made a
mistake.  All the return that his sympathetic
consolation provoked was a calm and penetrating look:
and then, with a sudden change of manner, that
surprised and half frightened him, she rose to her
feet, and said, coldly and proudly—

"I am here on business; it is Mr. Cayley I wish
to see."

Bewildered alike by her manner and her speech,
Mr. Hubbard only blundered the worse.

"My lady," he said hurriedly, and with profound
respect, "you will forgive me if I have been too
forgetful in offering you my sympathy.  But as an
old friend—our old relations—the pleasant evenings——"

"Mr. Hubbard," she said, in the same tone (and
before the clear, cold, cruel notes of her voice the
walls of his imaginative Jericho fell down and
crumbled into dust), "I am much obliged to you and your
wife for having employed me.  I hope I did my
work in return for the food I received.  As to your
kindness, and the pleasant evenings spent in your
house, I have an impression which I need not put
into words.  You know I had a conversation with
your brother before I left your house which seemed
to explain your kindness to me.  At the same time,
I am as grateful to you as I can be."

"That brother of mine again!" thought John
Hubbard, with an inward groan.

Mr. Cayley came into the room, and was surprised
to find his partner there.

"I wish to speak to you in private, sir," said Miss
Brunel to Mr. Cayley; and thus dismissed, John
Hubbard retired, thinking of the poor children who
had been deprived of handsome little presents all
through the blundering folly of their uncle.

"Hang him!" said John Hubbard; "the best thing
the fool can do is to shoot himself and leave his money
to the boys.  As for *her*, he has set her dead against
me for ever.  And now she will be Lady Annie
Knottingley, and my wife might have been her best
friend, and we might have lived, almost, at that
splendid place in Berks—and the children——"

There was no more miserable creature in London
that day than the Count's brother; and he
considered himself an injured, ill-used, and virtuous
man.

The appearance of John Hubbard had done this
one good thing—it had determined Annie Brunel to
make up her mind.  It recalled so forcibly the
loneliness and misery, the humiliation and wretchedness
of these past months, that she instantly resolved never,
if she could help it, to come into contact with such
people again.  With this wealth at her command,
she was free.  She could choose such friends, and
scenes, and pursuits as she liked best; she could—and
here the warm heart of her leapt up with joy—she
could reach out her hand to those friends who
might be in want—she could be their secret
protector, and glide in like an invisible fairy to scare
away the wolf from their door by the sunshine of
her gilded and luminous presence.  This splendid
potentiality she hugged to her heart with a great
joy; and as she went away from Mr. Cayley's office
(after a long interview, in which he explained to her
the legal aspects and requirements of the situation)
there was a fine happy light on her face.  She no
longer doubted that it was all real.  She already
felt the tingling of a full hand; and her brain was
busy with pictures of all the people to whom that
hand was to be freely extended.  In many a romance
had she played; but never a romance like this, in
which all the world but herself was ignorant of the
secret.  She would go about, like an emperor with a
bundle of pardons in his pocket, like a kindly spirit
who would transform the coals in poor men's grates
into lumps of gleaming rubies, and diamonds, and
emeralds.  She would conceal her mysterious power;
and lo! the invisible will would go forth, and this
or that unhappy man or woman—ready to sink in
despair before the crushing powers of circumstance—would
suddenly receive her kindly help, and find
himself or herself enriched and made comfortable
by an unknown agency.

Like every one who has suffered the trials of
poverty, she fancied that nearly all the ills of life
were attributable to want of money, and she saw in
this wealth which had become hers a magnificent
instrument of amelioration.  She had a very
confused notion of Mr. Cayley's figures.  She knew the
value of five pounds, or twenty, or even a hundred;
but when it came to thousands, comprehension failed
her.  She could not tell the difference between a
hundred and fifty thousand pounds and the same
sum per annum; both quantities were not reducible
to the imagination, and consequently conveyed no
distinct impression.  She knew vaguely that the
money at her command was inexhaustible; she could
give each of her friends—certainly she had not
many—a fortune without affecting (sensibly to
herself) this accumulation of banker's ciphers.

So she walked westward through the crowded
city, weaving dreams.  Habit had so taught her to
dread the expense of a cab, that she never thought
of employing a conveyance, although she had in her
pocket fifty pounds which Mr. Cayley had pressed
upon her.  She was unaware of the people, the noise,
the cold January wind, and the dust.  Her heart was
sick with the delight of these vague imaginings,
and the inexpressible joy of her anticipations was
proof against those physical inconveniences which,
indeed, she never perceived.

Yet her joy was troubled.  For among all the
figures that her heart loved to dwell upon,—all the
persons whom she pictured as receiving her munificent
and secret kindness—there was one with whom
she knew not how to deal.  What should she give
to Will Anerley?  The whole love of her heart he
already possessed; could she, even though he were
to know nothing of the donor, offer him money?
She shrank from such a suggestion with apprehensive
dislike and repugnance; but yet her love for
him seemed to ask for something, and that something
was not money.

"What can I do better than make him marry
Dove, and forget me?" she said to herself; and she
was aware of a pang at her heart which all Harry
Ormond's money, and twenty times that, could not
have removed.

For a little while the light died away from her
face; but by-and-by the old cheerful resolute spirit
returned, and she continued her brisk walk through
the grey and busy streets.

"Mr. Cayley," she said to herself, talking over
her projects as a child prattles to its new toys,
"fancies Mr. Anerley had thirty or forty thousand
pounds.  If I send him that, they will all go down
to Kent again, and Dove will win her lover back to
her with the old associations.  They might well
marry then, if Will were not as fiercely independent
as if he were a Spanish Duke.  I could not send
him money; if he were to discover it, I should die
of shame.  But it might be sent to him indirectly
as a professional engagement; and then—then they
would marry, I know—and perhaps they might even
ask me to the wedding.  And I should like to go,
to see Dove dressed as a bride, and the look on her face!"

Dove did not know at that moment what beautiful
and generous spirit was scheming with a woman's
wit to secure her welfare—what tender projects were
blossoming up, like the white flowers of charity and
love, in the midst of the dull and selfish London
streets.  But when Annie Brunel, having walked
still farther westward, entered the house which the
Anerleys occupied, and when she came into the
room, Dove thought she had never seen the beautiful
dark face look so like the face of an angel.





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.. _`ORMOND PLACE`:

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   CHAPTER XXXVIII.


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   ORMOND PLACE.

.. vspace:: 2

A still, cold, beautiful morning in March,—the
dark crimson sun slowly creeping up behind the tall
and leafless trees of the wood on this Berkshire hill.
There is snow everywhere,—snow on the far
uplands, snow on this sloping forest, snow on the
shelving ground that glides down to the banks of
the smooth blue waters of the Thames.  There is a
ruddy glow over that wintry waste of white; for the
eastern vapours deaden the light of the sun, and
redden it, and steep the far horizon in a soft purple
haze.  There is not a breath of wind.  The sere and
withered stems of the tall grey rushes by the
riverside are motionless, except when the wild ducks stir
in their marshy secrecy, or the water-hens swim out
to take a cautious look up and down the stream.
Here and there, too, the river catches a streak of
crimson and purple, as it lies hushed and still in the
hushed, still white meadows.

Back from these meadows lies the long low hill
which slopes downward to the east, and loses itself
in illimitable woods.  Up here on its summit is the
little village of Steyne—only a church, with a square
grey tower, a vicarage smothered in dark ivy, and
two or three cottages.  Farther along the great
bank you come to the woods of Ormond Place; and
right in the centre of them, in a great clearance
visible for miles round, stands, fronting the river
and the broad valley and the far landscape, the
house in which Harry Ormond, Marquis of Knottingley, died.

It is a modern house, large, roomy, and stately,
with oval-roofed greenhouses breaking the sharp
descent of the walls to the ground; a house so tall
and well-placed as to overlook the great elms in the
park, which, on the other side of the broad and
banked-up lawn, slopes down into the valley.  As
the red sun rises over the purple fog, it catches the
pale front of the house, and sheds over it a glimmer
of gold.  The snow gleams cold and yellow on the
evergreens, on the iron railings of the park, on the
lawn where it is crossed and recrossed with a
network of rabbits' footprints.  Finally, as the sun
masters the eastern vapours, and strikes with a
wintry radiance on the crimson curtains inside the
large windows (and they have on this morning a
wanner light flickering upon them from within),
Ormond Place, all white and gold, shines like a
palace of dreams, raised high and clear over that
spacious English landscape that lies cold and
beautiful along the noblest of English rivers.

There was life and stir in Ormond Place this
morning.  The carriage-drive had been swept; the
principal rooms in the house stripped of their chintz
coverings; great fires lit; the children of the lodge
dressed in their smartest pinafores; the servants in
new liveries; harness, horses, carriages, and stables
alike polished to the last degree.  The big fires
shone in the grates, and threw lengthening splashes
of soft crimson on the thick carpets and up the
palely-decorated walls.  The sleeping palace had
awoke, and the new rush of life tingled in its veins.

About twelve o'clock in the forenoon the carriage
that had been sent to Corchester Station returned
with two occupants inside.  The children at the
lodge, drawn up in line, bobbed a curtsey as they
stared wonderingly at the carriage-window, where
they saw nothing.  A few minutes afterwards Annie
Brunel, pale a little, and dressed entirely and simply
in black, walked into her father's house between the
servants, who were unconsciously trying to learn
their future fate in the expression of her face.  And
if they did not read in that face a calm forbearance,
a certain sad sympathy and patience, they had less
penetration than servants generally have.

She entered one of the rooms—a great place with
panelled pillars in the centre, and a vague vision
of crystal and green leaves at the farther end—and
sate down in one of the chairs near the blazing fire.
It was not a moment of triumph—it was a moment
of profound, unutterable sadness.  The greatness of
the place, the strange faces around her, increased
the weight of loneliness she felt.  And then all the
reminiscences of her mother's life were present to
her, and she seemed to have established a new and
strange link between herself and her.  It seemed as
if the great chasm of time and circumstance had
been bridged over, and that in discovering her
mother's house, and the old associations of these
bygone years, she should have discovered her also,
and met the kindly face she once knew.  If Annie
Napier had walked into the room just then, and laid
her hand on her daughter's shoulder, I do not think
the girl would have been surprised.

"Was my mother ever in this house?" she asked
of Mr. Cayley, not noticing that he was still standing
with his hat in his hand.

"Doubtless.  She was married in that little
church we passed."

"And instead of spending her life here in comfort
and quiet, he let her go away to America, and work
hard and bitterly for herself and me."

Mr. Cayley said nothing.

"Do you know anything of her life here?  How
long she stayed?  What were her favourite rooms?
Where she used to sit?"

"No, your ladyship; I only presume Lady Knottingley
must have lived here for a little while before
going to Switzerland.  My father might be able to
tell me."

"I am very anxious to see him,—he is the only
person I am anxious to see.  He knew my mother;
perhaps he can tell me something about her life
here and in Switzerland.  She *may* have left some
things in the house—a book or a picture—that he
might tell me was hers; don't you think so?"

Mr. Cayley, against his knowledge, was forced to
admit that it *was* possible, for he saw there were
tears in the girl's eyes.

"Would you care to go through the house now?"
he suggested.  "Mrs. Tillotson will go with you,
and see what arrangements or alterations you want
made.  And about your future residence here——"

"I cannot stay here," she said; "the place is too
big and too lonely.  I could not bear to live alone
in this great place."

"Your ladyship need not want for society.  Both
of the trustees, Lord Sefton and——"

"I will not see one of them!" she said, with
flashing eyes.  "I consented to see them, when you
said it was necessary—but to meet them as friends!
They knew my mother; they must have seen her
and known her; and they never tried to help her.
They were men; and they let a woman be treated
like that!"

The bitter scorn of the words sounded so strangely
as it came from the gentle face; but there was an
indignant flush in her cheeks, and indignation in
her eyes.

"My mother spent years of weary labour that she
might never go amongst these people.  With all her
love for me, she thought it better that I, too, should
work for my living, and run the chances of illness,
rather than go amongst them; and am I to make
friends with them now?  Their condescension is great;
but when a woman has lived the life that I have; she
begins to mistrust people who want to be friends
with you only when you become fortunate.  And why
do they want to be friends with me?  They will take
me into society?—I don't wish to go.  They will offer
me their wives and sisters as companions?—I prefer
other companions.  I would rather walk out of this
house a beggar to-morrow morning, than pretend to
be friends with people *whom I hate*!"

"Your ladyship is unjust," said Mr. Cayley.  "These
gentlemen tried to induce your mother to return to
England, and accept that effort at compensation which
Lord Knottingley made when it was too late.  Nor
could they show any interest in your welfare before
now without revealing that secret which your mother
had imposed on us all.  As well blame me for not
seeking you out before you came to our office.  We
all of us knew who you were; we were bound to let
you make the first overtures yourself."

"Compensation?  You imagine that a woman who
had her heart broken should have accepted that tardy
acknowledgment of her rights as a sufficient compensation?"

"It was all Lord Knottingley could then offer,"
said the lawyer, who stuck manfully to the clear
outlines of the case as they lay mapped out in his
brain, without regard to the distortion produced by
the generous impulses of love, and pity, and
indignation.  These disturbant influences, in the present
case, he could not well understand; for he failed to
comprehend the powerful caste-hatred which the
girl had sucked in with her mother's milk—a bitter
and illogical prejudice, which neither the tenderness
of her own nature, nor the provoked arguments of
Will, nor the wise counsel and example of
Mr. Anerley, had in any way tempered.

Shortly afterwards, they went on a tour of
inspection through the house, accompanied by
Mrs. Tillotson, a tall, thin-faced, dark woman, with placid
melancholy eyes and a soft voice.  The first question
asked of the housekeeper by her new mistress was
whether she remembered Lord Knottingley's wife.
But neither Mrs. Tillotson, nor any one of the
servants, had been with Lord Knottingley at that time.

"Except Brooks, my lady, perhaps; he has been
with the family since he was a boy.

"Who is Brooks?"

"The lodge-keeper.  Perhaps your ladyship didn't
see him at the gate, for he is old, and seldom moves
out-of-doors.  But surely on such a day as this——"

"I saw some children——"

"They are his grandchildren—John Brooks's children.
They all live in the lodge.  But he is sure to
present himself during the day; and I hope your
ladyship won't be offended by his—his manner—his
bluntness of speaking——"

When they had gone through the house, and the
young girl had indicated what rooms she should
occupy, they returned downstairs.  There was an old
man in the hall, his cap in his hand, his long white
hair falling on the neck of his fine Sunday coat, which
was considerably too small for him.  He regarded
Annie Brunel with a curious look, and said to her, as
she approached—

"Pardon, my lady; I thought I'd come up and see
as it were all true.  And true it is—true it is."

"That is Brooks," said Mrs. Tillotson.

The girl bade the old man go into the great
drawing-room.

"You don't remember me," he said.  "I remember
you; but as you came down them stairs, I'd 'a sworn
it wasn't you.  If they hadn't told me you were
coming, I should ha' said it was a ghost—the ghost
o' your mother as come down them stairs."

"You remember her?" she said, with an eager
bright look.

"Ay, and you too.  You don't remember me; but
I nearly killed you once—when your pony tried to
take the upper 'and on ye, and I 'it 'im, and afoor I
knew where I was——"

"But where did all this happen?"

"Why, in Switzerland, where you and your mother
was.  I've good eyes; I can remember.  And there's
lots more o' the old folk as might, only they've turned
'em all off, and brought in new uns, as doesn't know
nothin' o' the family, or the Place.  It was your father
as said I should live here till I died, and then they
can turn me out, if they like; and I came up to see
if it was true you had come home, and whether you'd
want me to go with the rest.  If you mean it, say it,
plump and plain.  I'm not afear'd to go; I can earn
my living as well as younger men I knows on about
this 'ere very place——"

"My good man, don't disquiet yourself.  You will
never have to leave your house through me.  But I
want you to tell me all you know about my
mother—everything.  Won't you sit down?  And you will
have some wine?"

Mr. Cayley rang for some wine; and Annie Brunel
herself poured some into a glass, and gave it to the
old man.

"I like the wine—and it's not the first time by
forty year as I've tasted his lordship's wine—but I
can't abide them big blazing fires as melts a man's
marrow."

"Come outside, then," said the girl; "the day is
pleasant enough out-of-doors."

"Ah, that's better," he said; and his keen fresh
face brightened up as he stepped outside into the
brisk cold air, with the brilliant sunshine lying on
the crisp snow.

The two of them walked up and down the long
carriage-drive, between the tall rows of bleak trees;
and as the old man garrulously gossiped about the
past times, and his more or less confused memories,
it seemed to Annie Brunel as though the whole scene
around her were unreal.  The narrowing avenue of
trees, the heaped-up snow, the broad shafts of
sunlight falling across the path, the glimpses of the
white meadows, and the blue stream, and the wintry
sunshine hitting on the vane of the village church,
were all so very like a theatrical "set;" while the
man beside her, whom she had never seen before,
seemed to be some strange link connecting her with
a forgotten and inscrutable past.  The assurance that
he would not be "turned off to follow the rest" had
softened old Brooks's usually querulous and
pugnacious manner; and in his most genial fashion he
recalled and recounted whatever stories he could
remember of Annie Brunel's old childhood, and of
her mother's happy life on the margin of that Swiss lake.

He actually gossiped his companion into cheerfulness.
Forgetting all about Mr. Cayley, she went
with Brooks down to the lodge; and there the old
man, intensely proud of the familiarity he had already
established between himself and her, presented to
her, with calm airs of superiority, his overawed son
and daughter-in-law.  And the new mistress made
herself quite at home; and had two of the children
on her knee at once; and was interested in Tom's
pet blackbird; and expressed her admiration of Jack's
string of blown eggs; and finally invited all the young
ones to tea, in the housekeeper's room, that evening
at six punctually.  Another visitor was expected that
evening.  Much as Annie Brunel desired to play the
part of a secret and invisible benefactor to all her
friends, she found that this would cut off from her
any chance of companionship; and so, before going
down into Berks, she had told the story of her altered
fortunes to Nelly Featherstone, and begged of that
young person to come down and stay with her for a
time.  Nelly burst into tears of joy; was profoundly
conscious of the benefit of having so desirably rich a
friend; was honestly delighted and prudently speculative
at the same moment, and accepted the invitation.

Nelly was a girl of spirit.  She knew she would be
inspected by critical servants, and perhaps by visitors
of exalted rank, and she resolved not to shame her
old friend.  She accurately sketched beforehand the
character she would assume; fixed her demeanour;
decided the tone she would adopt in speaking to Lady
Annie Knottingley; and, finally, bought the current
number of *Punch*, and dressed her hair and herself
in imitation of one of the ladies of that periodical.

The carriage was sent to meet her at Corchester
in the evening.  The calm dignity with which she
treated the servants was admirable.  Nor was her
dress less admirable, so far as a faithful copy of the
*Punch* lady was concerned, except in point of colour.
Unfortunately she had no guide to colour, except
her own rather whimsical taste; and as several parts
of her attire belonged to her dramatic wardrobe,
she looked like a well-dressed lady seen through a
prism.

When she entered the house, confronted the
servants, was introduced to Mr. Cayley, and quietly
went up to kiss Annie Brunel, her manner was
excellent.  A woman who makes a living by studying
the ridiculous, and imitating it, can lay it aside when
she chooses.  Nor was her assumption of womanly
dignity and reserve less a matter of ease.  Nelly
Featherstone was clever enough to conceal herself
from the eyes of a critical London audience; surely
she was able to impose on a lot of country servants,
and a lawyer inexperienced in theatrical affairs.

When she came into the drawing-room before
dinner, her make-up was magnificent.  She was a
little too gorgeous, certainly; but in these days
considerable latitude is allowed in colour and shape.
Miss Brunel was alone.

"Why, Nelly," she said, "what was the use of
your troubling to make yourself so fine?  I must
have put you to so much expense."

"Well, you have," said the other.  "But it isn't
every day I dine at a grand house."

"And you mustn't talk to me as if I were a
duchess merely because Mr. Cayley is present.  I
have asked him to dine with us.  You must speak to
me as you are speaking now."

"Oh, no, my dear, it would never do," said the
practical Nelly, with a wise shake of the head.  "If
you don't remember who you are, I must.  You are
a fine lady; I am an actress.  If you ask me to
visit you, it is because you wish me to amuse you.
But when I'm not amusing you, I must be respectful.
Mr. Cayley knows who I am; the servants don't.  I
can be grand to them; but with him——"

"My absurd girl, why won't you be yourself?
You don't need to care for Mr. Cayley, or the
servants, or any one else.  Mr. Cayley knows I was an
actress; if the servants don't, they will very soon.
And you are here merely as my friend; and I am
deeply indebted to you for coming; and if Mr. Melton
will only refrain from changing the pieces for weeks
to come, we shall have a pleasant romp together
down here.  By the way, did you hear some absurd
noises a few minutes ago?"

"I did."

"That was my first token of popularity.  I had
the lodge-keeper's children up here to tea; and as they
all got a lump of cake when they went away, they
collected round the door outside and cheered.  I
think they call that intimidation and bribery—buying
the popular vote, or something of the kind."

During dinner an obvious battle was being waged
between Nelly and the butler.  But the official and
cumbrous dignity of the one was no match for the
splendid and haughty languor of Nelly's eyes, and
the indolent indifference of her manner and tone.
Somehow the notice of the servants was chiefly
drawn to Miss Featherstone; but she decidedly
managed to conquer them, and that in a style which
puzzled and amused her friend at the head of the
table.  Nor would Nelly permit the least familiarity
of approach on the part of her hostess.  And as it
would have been preposterous to have chatted
confidentially with a person who returned these advances
with a marked deference and respect, "my lady"
fell into her friend's whim, and the conversation at
dinner was consequently somewhat peculiar.

When the two women were left alone, however,
Annie Brunel strongly remonstrated.  But Nelly
was firm:

"If you don't know who you are, I do."

Drawing two low easy-chairs in towards the fire,
they sat down and entered into mutual confidences.
The one had much to tell—the other much to
suggest; and never had two children more delight in
planning what they would do if they were emperors,
than had these two girls in concocting plots for the
benefit of all the persons they knew, and a great
many more.

Miss Brunel took a note from her pocket, and gave
it to her companion to read.

"In strict confidence," she added.

These were the words Nelly saw:—"*A friend, who
has urgent reasons for remaining unknown has placed
to the credit of Mr. Hubert Anerley, at the London and
Westminster Bank, the sum of* 30,000*l.  Mr. Anerley
is asked to accept this money as a free and frankly-offered
gift, to be used on behalf of himself and his
family.  A bank-note of* 100*l. is enclosed, to satisfy
Mr. Anerley that this communication is made in good
faith.*"

"Thirty thousand pounds!" said Nelly, in an
awed whisper.  "I have often thought of some one
sending me a lot of money—thousands, millions of
money—but I think if any one were actually to send
me a hundred pounds, I should die of surprise first
and joy afterwards."

"The money has already been placed to his
account at the bank; and this note will be sent to
him to-morrow, when Mr. Cayley returns to town.
How I should like to send old White the prompter a
hundred pounds—the poor old man who has that
dreadful wife!"

"Don't do anything of the kind, my dear," said
Nelly, sagely.  "He would starve his wife worse
than ever, because he wouldn't earn a penny until
he had drunk every farthing of the money you sent
him."

"Perhaps you will forbid my giving you anything?"

"Certainly not; I should be glad of a cup of
tea or coffee."

"Which?"

"I like coffee best, but I prefer tea," said Nelly,
with grave impartiality.

Tea and coffee having been procured, they
continued their talk.

"You went to my lodgings?"

"Yes."

"And secured them for an indefinite time?"

"Yes."

"And all my clothes and things are as I left them?"

"Yes—that is, as far as I could look over them.
Mr. Glyn was with me."

"Oh, he has forgiven you again!"

"Certainly not," said Nelly, with a touch of
indignation.  "*He* has not forgiven me, for I never
provoked a quarrel with him in my life.  He has
come to his senses, that is all; and he is no sooner
come to them than he is off again.  But this is the
final blow; he will never get over this."

"This what?"

"My disappearance from London without telling
him.  I go back.  He comes to see me; is surprised,
offended; wants me to be penitent for having annoyed
him by my silence.  Of course I am not.  Then he
becomes angry, demands to know where I have
been.  I tell him that is my business, and he goes
off in a fury.  *That's* nothing new.  But then he
sends me a formal note, saying that unless I write to
him and explain my absence from London he will
never see me again."

"Which you will do?"

"How could I without telling him about you?"

"Say you went to visit a friend."

"Then he says, 'What friend?' with a face as black
as thunder.  I reply that I won't be subjected to his
suspicions.  He retorts that he is not suspicious; but
that common-sense, and what not, and what not.  I
tell him that he dare not talk to a lady of his own
class in the way he talks to me; and that it is
because I am an actress that he is suspicious, taking up
the vulgar prejudices against actresses.  Now, all the
time I have known him, I don't think we ever passed
a day without having a quarrel about the profession."

"Your acquaintanceship must have been agreeable?"

"It has.  There is nothing both of us like so much
as quarrelling and making-up.  For my part, I couldn't
bear to have a sweetheart always pleasant, and reasonable,
and sensible.  I like one who is madly in love,
who does extravagant things, who quarrels fearfully,
and gets frantic with delight when you let him be
friends again."

"But the very last time we spoke of Mr. Glyn you
said he and you would never get on together, because
he wanted those very virtues of solidity, and common-sense,
and manly forbearance.  You said he was too
like yourself."

"Did I say so?  Well, I have a different explanation
of it every day.  I only know that we perpetually
quarrel, and that the making-up of quarrels is very
nice."

"What would you do if I were to give you £500 a-year?"

"Go to Paris, and drive in the Bois de Boulogne
with a pair of ponies," replied Nelly, with admirable
precision.

"Wouldn't you marry Mr. Glyn, leave the stage,
and be comfortable in some small house at Hampstead?"

"No," she said, frankly; "I haven't got the domestic
faculty.  I should worry his life out in a few
months."

"What do you say, then, to going with me to
America?  I mean to leave England for a long time—for
some years—and I shall spend most of the time
in America, visiting the places my mother and I used
to know."

"You are going to leave England?" said Nelly,
looking up with earnest, curious eyes.

"Yes."

"You will forgive my saying it—you have had
some peculiar secret from me for a long time—not
your coming here, but something quite different.  I
knew that when you suddenly left the stage, and
wouldn't return, for no reason whatever.  Why
should *you* have left the stage, of all people?"

"I left it simply because I got to dislike it—to
hate it!"

Nelly Featherstone said nothing, but she was evidently
not satisfied with the answer.  She remained
unusually thoughtful for some time.

"And now you are going to America," she said.
"Is there no other reason besides your wish to visit
those places you speak of?"

"There is; but it is of no consequence to any one."





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.. _`"THE COULIN"`:

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   CHAPTER XXXIX.


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   'THE COULIN.'

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The snow that shone and gleamed in the sunlight
along the Berkshire hills lay thick in the London
squares, and was trampled brown and dry in the
London streets; and yet even in the City it was
white enough to throw a light upon the faces of the
passers-by, until commonplace countenances underwent
a sort of transfiguration; and there was in the
atmosphere a pearly radiance that brightened the
fronts of the grey houses, and glimmered into small
and dingy rooms.

"Let all the light come in," said Dove, lying in
bed, with a strange transparent colour in her cheeks,
and a wan lustre in her beautiful violet eyes; and
when they let the strong light in, it fell on her face,
and painted away the shadows under the eyebrows
until the head that lay on the soft pillow acquired a
strange ethereal glory—a vision coloured with sunlight.

"You haven't played 'The Coulin' for me for a
long time now, Dove," said Mr. Anerley.

"You used never to like my playing 'The Coulin;'
why do you want me to play it now?"

"I wish you were well enough to play anything,
my darling."

The girl stretched out her tiny pale hand towards his:

"How you have petted me lately!  If I were to
get up just now and sing you the song I used to sing
you, you wouldn't laugh at my 'meghily' any more,
would you?"

"*Meghily, meghily shall I sleep now*"—the words
sounded in his ears as the refrain of some spirit-song,
heard long ago, in happy times, down in the far-off
legendary Kentish Eden, where they had once lived.

"A letter for you, papa," said Mrs. Anerley,
entering the room.

"I don't want it," he said, petulantly and angrily
turning away—quarrelling with the mist of bitter
tears that rose around his eyes.

She glanced from him to Dove (her kindly eyes
brightened as they met the quiet look of the girl),
laid the letter down, and left the room again.
Mechanically he took up the letter, opened it, and read
it.  Before he had finished, however, he seemed to
recall himself; and then he read it again from the
beginning—carefully, anxiously, with strange surprise
on his face.  He looked at the envelope, again at the
letter, and finally at the bank-note which he held in
his hand.

"Dove, Dove!" he said, "look at this!  Here is
the money that is to take us all down to St. Mary-Kirby
again—back to the old house, you know, and
your own room upstairs; and in a little while the
springtime will be in, and you and I shall go down
to the river for primroses, as we used to do.  Here it
is, Dove—everything we want; and we can go,
whenever you brighten up and get strong enough to move."

"But where did you get the money, papa?"

"God must have looked at your face, my darling,
and seen that you wanted to go to St. Mary-Kirby."

"And you have plenty of money, papa, to spend
on anything?"

All his ordinary prudence forsook him.  Even
without that guarantee of the bank-note, he would
at once have believed in the genuineness of the
letter, so eager was he to believe it for Dove's dear
sake.

"Plenty of money, Dove?  Yes.  But not to
spend on anything.  Only to spend on you."

"There was Will's knock," she said; "he has just
come in time to hear the news.  But go and tell him
in another room, papa, for I am tired."

So he left the room, and, as Will had come in, the
two men had a long consultation over this strange
letter.

"You need not remain long in suspense, sir," said
Will; "write me out a cheque for fifty pounds, and
I will take it down to the bank."

"But I have none of the printed cheques of the bank."

"You don't need one.  That is a vulgar error.
Any bit of paper with a stamp on it will do."

"But they must know that my signature is genuine."

"True.  You must come down with me and see
the manager.  In any case, we can bear the
disappointment, if the thing is a hoax.  When you
have ascertained that you are a rich man, father, I'll
give you another piece of good news."

Mrs. Anerley was left with Dove, and the two men
drove off to the bank.  The manager had expected
the visit.  He warded off Will's bold inquiries with
a grave silence; he had received certain instructions—it
was not his business to say from whom.

"Before I can avail myself of this money," said
Mr. Anerley, "you must at least answer me one
question.  Was it placed in your hands by Frederick
Hubbard—by Count Schönstein?"

"No."

"Thank you."

So they went out into the free air, and lo!  London
was changed.  It was no longer a cruel and bitter
mother, starving her children, heedless of their cries
and their sufferings; but a gracious empress, profuse
of feasts, with stores of pleasures in her capacious
lap.  And this generous creature was to exercise all
her power on behalf of Dove; and pure air, and the
sweet sunlight, and the sharp hunger of health, were
once more to make the young girl's face less shadowy
and unreal.

"Now for your news, Will," said the old man, cheerfully.

"Nothing much, sir," said he.  "Only that I have
gained the appointment, and the company guarantees
me 1000*l.* a year for three years.  It never rains but
it pours, you see; and if Heaven would only send
one more good——"

"My poor girl's health," said the old man; and
he would have given up all his money, and been glad
to suffer far greater privations than he had done for
the rest of his life, only to secure that one supreme
blessing.

When they returned to the house, Mrs. Anerley
came to say that Dove wanted to see Will, alone.  He
went into the room, and stooped over her, and kissed
her forehead, and took her hand.  She looked very
pleased and happy.

"Papa won't be vexed any more.  He has got
plenty of money, has he not?" she said.

"Yes; but that money is for them.  *Our* money,
Dove, must come from me; and I have got it—I
have got the appointment—and so hurry, hurry fast
and get well; and then, hey! for a carriage, and
cream-white horses, and jingling bells to take my
Dove to church."

She pressed his hand slightly; and her eyes were
wistful and absent.  The beautiful land lay along
the horizon, and she strained her vision to see it, and
the sight of it—for it was so very beautiful—made
her sad.

"Come close down, Will, and let me whisper to
you.  I have taken a fancy into my head lately.  I
never spoke of it, for I knew neither you nor papa
had money; but now it is different.  You said we
were to be married."

"Why talk of our 'maghiage' in that melancholy
way, you provoking mouse!"

"Don't laugh at me, Will!  What I have been
thinking is this: that I should like to know that I
could be married to you at any time without having
to wait until I was better—which might be for such
a long, long time; and I should like to know that at
any moment I could say to you, 'Will, make me
your wife *now*,' and you could come into the room,
and all the people would know that I was your wife."

There are ghastly dreams in which the sleeper,
gazing on a broad and sunny landscape, suddenly
becomes conscious of a cold and terrible pressure,
and lifting up his eyes sees a broad cloth, white and
black like a funeral pall, descending slowly from the
sky, and shutting out the glad sunlight, and gliding
down upon the earth.  All living things fly from it;
if they remain, they grow fixed and immovable, and
their eyes become glazed as the eyes of death.

As terrible as such a dream was the vague,
scarcely-to-be-imagined suggestion which these patient
simple words of Dove bore with them; and Will,
horror-stricken by the picture on which her absent eyes
seemed now to be gazing (with its dreadful hint
about the people standing around), demanded why
she should ask this thing, or why she troubled her
mind with it.

"My dearest," she said, with a faint smile stealing
across the childlike face, "it does not vex me.  It
pleases me.  There is nothing dreadful about the
idea to you, is there?  I cannot go with you to
church to be married.  When you talk of a carriage,
and white horses, and bells, it seems to me to be so
far off—so very, very far away—that it is of no use,
and it makes me miserable.  But now, if we were
married here, how I should like to hear you call me
your wife, as you went about the room!"

"And so you shall, my pet, whenever you please.
But for you to turn such a dreadful heretic, Dove,
and imagine that a marriage outside a church is a
marriage at all!  Why, even a dispensation from the
Archbishop of Canterbury seems sacrilegious where
there are no bridecake, and old slippers, and a lot of
carriages."

"Now you're becoming kind again, Will.  And
you'll do as I ask without bothering me about
reasons?  What I should like, you know, would be
the power of getting married when I wanted—if I
could have the dispensation, as you say, all ready,
and just at any moment I might terrify you by
crying out, 'Will, come and marry me!'  I might be
merciful, too, you know, Will; and perhaps let you
off, if you were very good and attentive.  I'd tell
you some day to go to the drawer and take out the
paper and burn it.  It would be like giving a slave
his freedom."

"You will be such a dreadful tyrant when you're
married, Dove, that I shudder to think of what you'll
do to me."

"I think I should have been very kind to you,
Will," said the girl, suddenly bursting into tears, and
turning away her face from him.

Next morning Dove was a great deal better,
everybody thought.  Even the doctor spoke cheerfully,
and the whole house was radiant.  A thaw had
set in; the air was foggy, and damp, and close; and
the streets were in that condition which melted snow
and drizzling rain generally produce in London; but
inside the house there was sunlight enough for all
concerned.  And when, on the following morning,
the weather cleared, and the sun painted bars of
yellow on the curtains of the windows, it seemed as
if the old sad anxious time were past, and the dawn
of a new and happy life had broken over them.

Nevertheless, Dove did not give up her idea of the
special licence and the private marriage.  Rather she
lay and brooded over it; and sometimes her face was
moved with a happy delight which those around her
could not well understand.  Indeed, her heart was
so bent upon it, that they all agreed to acquiesce in
her wishes, and the necessary steps were taken to
secure the legalization of the ceremony.  The covert
opposition which the proposal had met was surely
not due to any opposition to the marriage, on the
part of any one concerned, but to another and vaguer
feeling, which no one of them dared to reveal to the
other.

Said Dove to him suddenly this morning—

"Is Miss Brunel in town, Will?"

"I don't know, Dove."

"It is such a long time since she came to see me;
I wonder if it was because you treated her so coldly
the last time she was here."

"I?"

"You did not speak to her as you ought to have
clone.  You kept near me, and kept speaking to me,
as if you imagined I was afraid she would take you
away from me again.  I know you did it to please
me; but I could see something in her face, Will,
that seemed to say that I needn't be afraid, and that
she wouldn't come again.  I should be sorry for that.
Will you go and ask her to come again?"

"Certainly, if you wish it."

"And you will speak to her just as you speak to
me.  I can't be jealous, Will—of her, because she
did not try to take you from me."

"I will go if you like, Dove," said Will; "but
considering——"

"I have considered" (with petulant haste).  "I
have nothing to do all day but lie and consider—and
how many things I have considered within this
day or two!  I have altered my mind completely
about the marriage.  I won't have you marry me,
Will——"

"But all the forms have been gone through——"

She lay silent and meditative for some time, and
then she said—

"I am sorry to have given you so much trouble;
but I should like to alter all my plans.  You know
the betrothals they have in French stories and in the
operas: I should like to have a betrothal, Will, and
all you will have to get for me is a big sheet of paper
and a marriage-ring."

How eagerly he accepted the offer!  This pretty
notion of hers, which was obviously only meant to
please a passing whim, was so much more grateful
to him than the marriage proposal, with its black
background:

"We will have it at once, Dove; and I think you
are so well that you might drink a little champagne
with us to grace the ceremony.  Then I shall be
able to call you my wife all the same, and you shall
wear the wedding-ring; and then, you know, we can
have the white horses and the carriages afterwards.
But I am afraid the betrothal contract will be
frightfully inaccurate; I don't know the terms——"

"Get a sheet of paper, Will, and I will tell you
what to write down."

He got the paper, and, at her dictation, wrote
down the following words—

"We two, loving each other very dearly, write our
names underneath in token that we have become
husband and wife, and as a pledge of our constant love."

She smiled faintly when he placed the writing
before her, and then she leant back on the pillow,
with a satisfied air.  Mrs. Anerley now came into
the room, and Will, obeying some further commands,
went off to see whether Annie Brunel was yet in
her old lodgings, and also to purchase a wedding-ring
for the ceremony on which Dove had set her heart.

Miss Brunel's landlady told Will that her
lady-lodger would probably return the next day, with
which piece of information he returned.  He also
showed Dove the wedding-ring; and she placed it
on her finger, and kept it there.

.. vspace:: 2

But that evening the insidious disease from which
the girl was suffering withdrew the treacherous
semblance of health it had lent to her burning
cheeks, and it was obvious that she had grown
rapidly worse.  They all saw it, and would not
confess it to each other.  They only noticed that
Mrs. Anerley did not stir now from Dove's bedside.

Mr. Anerley spent nearly the whole of that night
in walking up and down his own room—from time
to time stealthily receiving messages, for they would
not admit to Dove that they felt much anxiety about
her.  The man seemed to have grown greyer; or
perhaps it was the utter wretchedness of his face
that made him look so old and careworn.  Will sate
in an easy-chair, gloomily staring into the fire.  The
appointment he had so eagerly sought and so
joyfully gained, fancying it was to bring them all back
again into pleasant circumstances, was only a bitter
mockery now.  He could not bear to think of it.
He could bear to think of nothing when this terrible
issue was at stake in the next room.

In the morning, when the first grey light was
sufficiently clear to show Dove's face to the nurse
and Mrs. Anerley, the latter looked at the girl for a
long time.

"Why do you look at me so, mamma?" she asked.

She could not answer.  She went into the next
room, and crying, "Oh, Hubert, Hubert, go and
look at my Dove's face!" burst into tears on her
husband's bosom.  And yet there was nothing
remarkable about the girl's face—except, perhaps, to
one who had watched it critically all the night
through, and was alarmed by the transition from
the ruddy lamplight to the grey and haggard tone
of the morning.

The doctor came, and went away again, saying nothing.

Towards the forenoon, Dove said to Will—

"I want to hear 'The Coulin'——"

"Not 'The Coulin,' Dove," he pleaded.

"When Miss Brunel comes, perhaps she will play
it.  The music is simple.  Put it on the piano—and—and
send for her."

He himself went for her—out into the bright
light of that fresh spring morning.  Annie Brunel,
when he found her, was in her poor lodgings, dressed
in the simple black dress in which he had last seen her.

"I was going up to see Dove," she said, "when I
heard she had sent for me.  But—is there anything
the matter?"

"Dove is ill," he said, abruptly.  "I—I cannot
tell you.  But she wants you to come and—play a
piece of music for her."

Neither of them spoke a word all the way to the
house.  When Annie Brunel, pale and calm and
beautiful, went to the girl, and took up her white
hand, and kissed her, there was a pleased smile on
Dove's face.

"Why didn't they tell me you were ill?" she said.
"I should have been here before."

"I know that," said Dove, in a whisper, "for—for
you have always been kind to me.  You have come
in time—but I am too weak to tell you—ask
Will—the betrothal——"

The brief explanation was speedily given; and
then Dove said—

"I am very tired.  Will you go into the next
room, and play me 'The Coulin;' and when you come
back——?"

She went to Dove's piano, and found there the air
which she knew so well.  And as she played it, so
softly that it sounded like some bitter sad
leave-taking that the sea had heard and murmured over,
Dove lay and listened with a strange look on her
face.  Will's hand was in hers, and she drew him
down to her, and whispered—

"I could have been so happy with you, Will: so
very happy, I think.  But I had no right to be.
Where is the—the paper—I was to sign?"

He brought it, and put it on the table beside her
bedside; and Miss Brunel came into the room, and
went over to Dove.

"That is the paper I must sign," said the girl.
"But how can I?  Will you—will you do it for me?
But come closer to me and listen, for I have—a
secret——"

When Annie Brunel bent down her head to listen,
Dove drew the wedding-ring off her finger, kissed it
tenderly, and put it on her companion's hand; and
then she said, looking Annie in the face with a faint
smile in the peaceful violet eyes—"It is your own
name you must sign."

At the same moment she lay back exhausted, and
to Mr. Anerley, who had hurriedly stepped forward
to take her hand, she sighed wearily—"I am so tired;
I shall rest."  And presently a beautiful happy
light stole over the girlish features; and he heard
her murmur indistinctly—as if the words were
addressed to him from the other world—the old familiar
line, "*Meghily, meghily shall I sleep now*."

They were the last words that Dove uttered; and
the cause of the last smile that was on her sweet face.

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THE END.

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