Man and Wife (part 2 of 3)

Man and Wife (part 2 of 3)

He was simply incapable of conceiving that the horror of seeing herself set up as an obstacle to Blanche’s marriage might have been vivid enough to overpower all sense of her own wrongs, and to hurry her away, resolute, in her ignorance of what else to do, never to return again, and never to let living eyes rest on her in the character of Arnold’s wife. “It’s clean beyond my making out,” was the final conclusion at which Geoffrey arrived. “If it’s her interest to hold her tongue, it’s my interest to hold mine, and there’s an end of it for the present!”

He put up his feet on a chair, and rested his magnificent muscles after his walk, and filled another pipe, in thorough contentment with himself. No interference to dread from Anne, no more awkward questions (on the terms they were on now) to come from Arnold. He looked back at the quarrel on the heath with a certain complacency--he did his friend justice; though they had disagreed. “Who would have thought the fellow had so much pluck in him!” he said to himself as he struck the match and lit his second pipe.

An hour more wore on; and Sir Patrick was the next person who returned.

He was thoughtful, but in no sense depressed. Judging by appearances, his errand to Craig Fernie had certainly not ended in disappointment. The old gentleman hummed his favorite little Scotch air--rather absently, perhaps--and took his pinch of snuff from the knob of his ivory cane much as usual. He went to the library bell and summoned a servant.

“Any body been here for me?”--“No, Sir Patrick.”--“No letters?”--“No, Sir Patrick.”--“Very well. Come up stairs to my room, and help me on with my dressing-gown.” The man helped him to his dressing-gown and slippers “Is Miss Lundie at home?”--“No, Sir Patrick. They’re all away with my lady on an excursion.”--“Very good. Get me a cup of coffee; and wake me half an hour before dinner, in case I take a nap.” The servant went out. Sir Patrick stretched himself on the sofa. “Ay! ay! a little aching in the back, and a certain stiffness in the legs. I dare say the pony feels just as I do. Age, I suppose, in both cases? Well! well! well! let’s try and be young at heart. ‘The rest’ (as Pope says) ‘is leather and prunella.’” He returned resignedly to his little Scotch air. The servant came in with the coffee. And then the room was quiet, except for the low humming of insects and the gentle rustling of the creepers at the window. For five minutes or so Sir Patrick sipped his coffee, and meditated--by no means in the character of a man who was depressed by any recent disappointment. In five minutes more he was asleep.

A little later, and the party returned from the ruins.

With the one exception of their lady-leader, the whole expedition was depressed--Smith and Jones, in particular, being quite speechless. Lady Lundie alone still met feudal antiquities with a cheerful front. She had cheated the man who showed the ruins of his shilling, and she was thoroughly well satisfied with herself. Her voice was flute-like in its melody, and the celebrated “smile” had never been in better order. “Deeply interesting!” said her ladyship, descending from the carriage with ponderous grace, and addressing herself to Geoffrey, lounging under the portico of the house. “You have had a loss, Mr. Delamayn. The next time you go out for a walk, give your hostess a word of warning, and you won’t repent it.” Blanche (looking very weary and anxious) questioned the servant, the moment she got in, about Arnold and her uncle. Sir Patrick was invisible up stairs. Mr. Brinkworth had not come back. It wanted only twenty minutes of dinner-time; and full evening-dress was insisted on at Windygates. Blanche, nevertheless, still lingered in the hall in the hope of seeing Arnold before she went up stairs. The hope was realized. As the clock struck the quarter he came in. And he, too, was out of spirits like the rest!

“Have you seen her?” asked Blanche.

“No,” said Arnold, in the most perfect good faith. “The way she has escaped by is not the way by the cross-roads--I answer for that.”

They separated to dress. When the party assembled again, in the library, before dinner, Blanche found her way, the moment he entered the room, to Sir Patrick’s side.

“News, uncle! I’m dying for news.”

“Good news, my dear--so far.”

“You have found Anne?”

“Not exactly that.”

“You have heard of her at Craig Fernie?”

“I have made some important discoveries at Craig Fernie, Blanche. Hush! here’s your step-mother. Wait till after dinner, and you may hear more than I can tell you now. There may be news from the station between this and then.”

The dinner was a wearisome ordeal to at least two other persons present besides Blanche. Arnold, sitting opposite to Geoffrey, without exchanging a word with him, felt the altered relations between his former friend and himself very painfully. Sir Patrick, missing the skilled hand of Hester Dethridge in every dish that was offered to him, marked the dinner among the wasted opportunities of his life, and resented his sister-in-law’s flow of spirits as something simply inhuman under present circumstances. Blanche followed Lady Lundie into the drawing-room in a state of burning impatience for the rising of the gentlemen from their wine. Her step-mother--mapping out a new antiquarian excursion for the next day, and finding Blanche’s ears closed to her occasional remarks on baronial Scotland five hundred years since--lamented, with satirical emphasis, the absence of an intelligent companion of her own sex; and stretched her majestic figure on the sofa to wait until an audience worthy of her flowed in from the dining-room. Before very long--so soothing is the influence of an after-dinner view of feudal antiquities, taken through the medium of an approving conscience--Lady Lundie’s eyes closed; and from Lady Lundie’s nose there poured, at intervals, a sound, deep like her ladyship’s learning; regular, like her ladyship’s habits--a sound associated with nightcaps and bedrooms, evoked alike by Nature, the leveler, from high and low--the sound (oh, Truth what enormities find publicity in thy name!)--the sound of a Snore.

Free to do as she pleased, Blanche left the echoes of the drawing-room in undisturbed enjoyment of Lady Lundie’s audible repose.

She went into the library, and turned over the novels. Went out again, and looked across the hall at the dining-room door. Would the men never have done talking their politics and drinking their wine? She went up to her own room, and changed her ear-rings, and scolded her maid. Descended once more--and made an alarming discovery in a dark corner of the hall.

Two men were standing there, hat in hand whispering to the butler. The butler, leaving them, went into the dining-room--came out again with Sir Patrick--and said to the two men, “Step this way, please.” The two men came out into the light. Murdoch, the station-master; and Duncan, the valet! News of Anne!

“Oh, uncle, let me stay!” pleaded Blanche.

Sir Patrick hesitated. It was impossible to say--as matters stood at that moment--what distressing intelligence the two men might not have brought of the missing woman. Duncan’s return, accompanied by the station-master, looked serious. Blanche instantly penetrated the secret of her uncle’s hesitation. She turned pale, and caught him by the arm. “Don’t send me away,” she whispered. “I can bear any thing but suspense.”

“Out with it!” said Sir Patrick, holding his niece’s hand. “Is she found or not?”

“She’s gone by the up-train,” said the station-master. “And we know where.”

Sir Patrick breathed freely; Blanche’s color came back. In different ways, the relief to both of them was equally great.

“You had my orders to follow her,” said Sir Patrick to Duncan. “Why have you come back?”

“Your man is not to blame, Sir,” interposed the station-master. “The lady took the train at Kirkandrew.”

Sir Patrick started and looked at the station-master. “Ay? ay? The next station--the market-town. Inexcusably stupid of me. I never thought of that.”

“I took the liberty of telegraphing your description of the lady to Kirkandrew, Sir Patrick, in case of accidents.”

“I stand corrected, Mr. Murdoch. Your head, in this matter, has been the sharper head of the two. Well?”

“There’s the answer, Sir.”

Sir Patrick and Blanche read the telegram together.

“Kirkandrew. Up train. 7.40 P.M. Lady as described. No luggage. Bag in her hand. Traveling alone. Ticket--second-class. Place--Edinburgh.”

“Edinburgh!” repeated Blanche. “Oh, uncle! we shall lose her in a great place like that!”

“We shall find her, my dear; and you shall see how. Duncan, get me pen, ink, and paper. Mr. Murdoch, you are going back to the station, I suppose?”

“Yes, Sir Patrick.”

“I will give you a telegram, to be sent at once to Edinburgh.”

He wrote a carefully-worded telegraphic message, and addressed it to The Sheriff of Mid-Lothian.

“The Sheriff is an old friend of mine,” he explained to his niece. “And he is now in Edinburgh. Long before the train gets to the terminus he will receive this personal description of Miss Silvester, with my request to have all her movements carefully watched till further notice. The police are entirely at his disposal; and the best men will be selected for the purpose. I have asked for an answer by telegraph. Keep a special messenger ready for it at the station, Mr. Murdoch. Thank you; good-evening. Duncan, get your supper, and make yourself comfortable. Blanche, my dear, go back to the drawing-room, and expect us in to tea immediately. You will know where your friend is before you go to bed to-night.”

With those comforting words he returned to the gentlemen. In ten minutes more they all appeared in the drawing-room; and Lady Lundie (firmly persuaded that she had never closed her eyes) was back again in baronial Scotland five hundred years since.

Blanche, watching her opportunity, caught her uncle alone.

“Now for your promise,” she said. “You have made some important discoveries at Craig Fernie. What are they?”

Sir Patrick’s eye turned toward Geoffrey, dozing in an arm-chair in a corner of the room. He showed a certain disposition to trifle with the curiosity of his niece.

“After the discovery we have already made,” he said, “can’t you wait, my dear, till we get the telegram from Edinburgh?”

“That is just what it’s impossible for me to do! The telegram won’t come for hours yet. I want something to go on with in the mean time.”

She seated herself on a sofa in the corner opposite Geoffrey, and pointed to the vacant place by her side.

Sir Patrick had promised--Sir Patrick had no choice but to keep his word. After another look at Geoffrey, he took the vacant place by his niece.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.

BACKWARD.

“WELL?” whispered Blanche, taking her uncle confidentially by the arm.

“Well,” said Sir Patrick, with a spark of his satirical humor flashing out at his niece, “I am going to do a very rash thing. I am going to place a serious trust in the hands of a girl of eighteen.”

“The girl’s hands will keep it, uncle--though she is only eighteen.”

“I must run the risk, my dear; your intimate knowledge of Miss Silvester may be of the greatest assistance to me in the next step I take. You shall know all that I can tell you, but I must warn you first. I can only admit you into my confidence by startling you with a great surprise. Do you follow me, so far?”

“Yes! yes!”

“If you fail to control yourself, you place an obstacle in the way of my being of some future use to Miss Silvester. Remember that, and now prepare for the surprise. What did I tell you before dinner?”

“You said you had made discoveries at Craig Fernie. What have you found out?”

“I have found out that there is a certain person who is in full possession of the information which Miss Silvester has concealed from you and from me. The person is within our reach. The person is in this neighborhood. The person is in this room!”

He caught up Blanche’s hand, resting on his arm, and pressed it significantly. She looked at him with the cry of surprise suspended on her lips--waited a little with her eyes fixed on Fir Patrick’s face--struggled resolutely, and composed herself.

“Point the person out.” She said the words with a self-possession which won her uncle’s hearty approval. Blanche had done wonders for a girl in her teens.

“Look!” said Sir Patrick; “and tell me what you see.”

“I see Lady Lundie, at the other end of the room, with the map of Perthshire and the Baronial Antiquities of Scotland on the table. And I see every body but you and me obliged to listen to her.”

“Every body?”

Blanche looked carefully round the room, and noticed Geoffrey in the opposite corner; fast asleep by this time in his arm-chair.

“Uncle! you don’t mean--?”

“There is the man.”

“Mr. Delamayn--!”

“Mr. Delamayn knows every thing.”

Blanche held mechanically by her uncle’s arm, and looked at the sleeping man as if her eyes could never see enough of him.

“You saw me in the library in private consultation with Mr. Delamayn,” resumed Sir Patrick. “I have to acknowledge, my dear, that you were quite right in thinking this a suspicious circumstance, And I am now to justify myself for having purposely kept you in the dark up to the present time.”

With those introductory words, he briefly reverted to the earlier occurrences of the day, and then added, by way of commentary, a statement of the conclusions which events had suggested to his own mind.

The events, it may be remembered, were three in number. First, Geoffrey’s private conference with Sir Patrick on the subject of Irregular Marriages in Scotland. Secondly, Anne Silvester’s appearance at Windygates. Thirdly, Anne’s flight.

The conclusions which had thereupon suggested themselves to Sir Patrick’s mind were six in number.

First, that a connection of some sort might possibly exist between Geoffrey’s acknowledged difficulty about his friend, and Miss Silvester’s presumed difficulty about herself. Secondly, that Geoffrey had really put to Sir Patrick--not his own case--but the case of a friend. Thirdly, that Geoffrey had some interest (of no harmless kind) in establishing the fact of his friend’s marriage. Fourthly, that Anne’s anxiety (as described by Blanche) to hear the names of the gentlemen who were staying at Windygates, pointed, in all probability, to Geoffrey. Fifthly, that this last inference disturbed the second conclusion, and reopened the doubt whether Geoffrey had not been stating his own case, after all, under pretense of stating the case of a friend. Sixthly, that the one way of obtaining any enlightenment on this point, and on all the other points involved in mystery, was to go to Craig Fernie, and consult Mrs. Inchbare’s experience during the period of Anne’s residence at the inn. Sir Patrick’s apology for keeping all this a secret from his niece followed. He had shrunk from agitating her on the subject until he could be sure of proving his conclusions to be true. The proof had been obtained; and he was now, therefore, ready to open his mind to Blanche without reserve.

“So much, my dear,” proceeded Sir Patrick, “for those necessary explanations which are also the necessary nuisances of human intercourse. You now know as much as I did when I arrived at Craig Fernie--and you are, therefore, in a position to appreciate the value of my discoveries at the inn. Do you understand every thing, so far?”

“Perfectly!”

“Very good. I drove up to the inn; and--behold me closeted with Mrs. Inchbare in her own private parlor! (My reputation may or may not suffer, but Mrs. Inchbare’s bones are above suspicion!) It was a long business, Blanche. A more sour-tempered, cunning, and distrustful witness I never examined in all my experience at the Bar. She would have upset the temper of any mortal man but a lawyer. We have such wonderful tempers in our profession; and we can be so aggravating when we like! In short, my dear, Mrs. Inchbare was a she-cat, and I was a he-cat--and I clawed the truth out of her at last. The result was well worth arriving at, as you shall see. Mr. Delamayn had described to me certain remarkable circumstances as taking place between a lady and a gentleman at an inn: the object of the parties being to pass themselves off at the time as man and wife. Every one of those circumstances, Blanche, occurred at Craig Fernie, between a lady and a gentleman, on the day when Miss Silvester disappeared from this house And--wait!--being pressed for her name, after the gentleman had left her behind him at the inn, the name the lady gave was, ‘Mrs. Silvester.’ What do you think of that?”

“Think! I’m bewildered--I can’t realize it.”

“It’s a startling discovery, my dear child--there is no denying that. Shall I wait a little, and let you recover yourself?”

“No! no! Go on! The gentleman, uncle? The gentleman who was with Anne? Who is he? Not Mr. Delamayn?”

“Not Mr. Delamayn,” said Sir Patrick. “If I have proved nothing else, I have proved that.”

“What need was there to prove it? Mr. Delamayn went to London on the day of the lawn-party. And Arnold--”

“And Arnold went with him as far as the second station from this. Quite true! But how was I to know what Mr. Delamayn might have done after Arnold had left him? I could only make sure that he had not gone back privately to the inn, by getting the proof from Mrs. Inchbare.”

“How did you get it?”

“I asked her to describe the gentleman who was with Miss Silvester. Mrs. Inchbare’s description (vague as you will presently find it to be) completely exonerates that man,” said Sir Patrick, pointing to Geoffrey still asleep in his chair. “He is not the person who passed Miss Silvester off as his wife at Craig Fernie. He spoke the truth when he described the case to me as the case of a friend.”

“But who is the friend?” persisted Blanche. “That’s what I want to know.”

“That’s what I want to know, too.”

“Tell me exactly, uncle, what Mrs. Inchbare said. I have lived with Anne all my life. I must have seen the man somewhere.”

“If you can identify him by Mrs. Inchbare’s description,” returned Sir Patrick, “you will be a great deal cleverer than I am. Here is the picture of the man, as painted by the landlady: Young; middle-sized; dark hair, eyes, and complexion; nice temper, pleasant way of speaking. Leave out ‘young,’ and the rest is the exact contrary of Mr. Delamayn. So far, Mrs. Inchbare guides us plainly enough. But how are we to apply her description to the right person? There must be, at the lowest computation, five hundred thousand men in England who are young, middle-sized, dark, nice-tempered, and pleasant spoken. One of the footmen here answers that description in every particular.”

“And Arnold answers it,” said Blanche--as a still stronger instance of the provoking vagueness of the description.

“And Arnold answers it,” repeated Sir Patrick, quite agreeing with her.

They had barely said those words when Arnold himself appeared, approaching Sir Patrick with a pack of cards in his hand.

There--at the very moment when they had both guessed the truth, without feeling the slightest suspicion of it in their own minds--there stood Discovery, presenting itself unconsciously to eyes incapable of seeing it, in the person of the man who had passed Anne Silvester off as his wife at the Craig Fernie inn! The terrible caprice of Chance, the merciless irony of Circumstance, could go no further than this. The three had their feet on the brink of the precipice at that moment. And two of them were smiling at an odd coincidence; and one of them was shuffling a pack of cards!

“We have done with the Antiquities at last!” said Arnold; “and we are going to play at Whist. Sir Patrick, will you choose a card?”

“Too soon after dinner, my good fellow, for me. Play the first rubber, and then give me another chance. By-the-way,” he added “Miss Silvester has been traced to Kirkandrew. How is it that you never saw her go by?”

“She can’t have gone my way, Sir Patrick, or I must have seen her.”

Having justified himself in those terms, he was recalled to the other end of the room by the whist-party, impatient for the cards which he had in his hand.

“What were we talking of when he interrupted us?” said Sir Patrick to Blanche.

“Of the man, uncle, who was with Miss Silvester at the inn.”

“It’s useless to pursue that inquiry, my dear, with nothing better than Mrs. Inchbare’s description to help us.”

Blanche looked round at the sleeping Geoffrey.

“And he knows!” she said. “It’s maddening, uncle, to look at the brute snoring in his chair!”

Sir Patrick held up a warning hand. Before a word more could be said between them they were silenced again by another interruption.

The whist-party comprised Lady Lundie and the surgeon, playing as partners against Smith and Jones. Arnold sat behind the surgeon, taking a lesson in the game. One, Two, and Three, thus left to their own devices, naturally thought of the billiard-table; and, detecting Geoffrey asleep in his corner, advanced to disturb his slumbers, under the all-sufficing apology of “Pool.” Geoffrey roused himself, and rubbed his eyes, and said, drowsily, “All right.” As he rose, he looked at the opposite corner in which Sir Patrick and his niece were sitting. Blanche’s self-possession, resolutely as she struggled to preserve it, was not strong enough to keep her eyes from turning toward Geoffrey with an expression which betrayed the reluctant interest that she now felt in him. He stopped, noticing something entirely new in the look with which the young lady was regarding him.

“Beg your pardon,” said Geoffrey. “Do you wish to speak to me?”

Blanche’s face flushed all over. Her uncle came to the rescue.

“Miss Lundie and I hope you have slept well Mr. Delamayn,” said Sir Patrick, jocosely. “That’s all.”

“Oh? That’s all?” said Geoffrey still looking at Blanche. “Beg your pardon again. Deuced long walk, and deuced heavy dinner. Natural consequence--a nap.”

Sir Patrick eyed him closely. It was plain that he had been honestly puzzled at finding himself an object of special attention on Blanche’s part. “See you in the billiard-room?” he said, carelessly, and followed his companions out of the room--as usual, without waiting for an answer.

“Mind what you are about,” said Sir Patrick to his niece. “That man is quicker than he looks. We commit a serious mistake if we put him on his guard at starting.”

“It sha’n’t happen again, uncle,” said Blanche. “But think of his being in Anne’s confidence, and of my being shut out of it!”

“In his friend’s confidence, you mean, my dear; and (if we only avoid awakening his suspicion) there is no knowing how soon he may say or do something which may show us who his friend is.”

“But he is going back to his brother’s to-morrow--he said so at dinner-time.”

“So much the better. He will be out of the way of seeing strange things in a certain young lady’s face. His brother’s house is within easy reach of this; and I am his legal adviser. My experience tells me that he has not done consulting me yet--and that he will let out something more next time. So much for our chance of seeing the light through Mr. Delamayn--if we can’t see it in any other way. And that is not our only chance, remember. I have something to tell you about Bishopriggs and the lost letter.”

“Is it found?”

“No. I satisfied myself about that--I had it searched for, under my own eye. The letter is stolen, Blanche; and Bishopriggs has got it. I have left a line for him, in Mrs. Inchbare’s care. The old rascal is missed already by the visitors at the inn, just as I told you he would be. His mistress is feeling the penalty of having been fool enough to vent her ill temper on her head-waiter. She lays the whole blame of the quarrel on Miss Silvester, of course. Bishopriggs neglected every body at the inn to wait on Miss Silvester. Bishopriggs was insolent on being remonstrated with, and Miss Silvester encouraged him--and so on. The result will be--now Miss Silvester has gone--that Bishopriggs will return to Craig Fernie before the autumn is over. We are sailing with wind and tide, my dear. Come, and learn to play whist.”

He rose to join the card-players. Blanche detained him.

“You haven’t told me one thing yet,” she said. “Whoever the man may be, is Anne married to him?”

“Whoever the man may be,” returned Sir Patrick, “he had better not attempt to marry any body else.”

So the niece unconsciously put the question, and so the uncle unconsciously gave the answer on which depended the whole happiness of Blanche’s life to come, The “man!” How lightly they both talked of the “man!” Would nothing happen to rouse the faintest suspicion--in their minds or in Arnold’s mind--that Arnold was the “man” himself?

“You mean that she is married?” said Blanche.

“I don’t go as far as that.”

“You mean that she is not married?”

“I don’t go so far as that.”

“Oh! the law!”

“Provoking, isn’t it, my dear? I can tell you, professionally, that (in my opinion) she has grounds to go on if she claims to be the man’s wife. That is what I meant by my answer; and, until we know more, that is all I can say.”

“When shall we know more? When shall we get the telegram?”

“Not for some hours yet. Come, and learn to play whist.”

“I think I would rather talk to Arnold, uncle, if you don’t mind.”

“By all means! But don’t talk to him about what I have been telling you to-night. He and Mr. Delamayn are old associates, remember; and he might blunder into telling his friend what his friend had better not know. Sad (isn’t it?) for me to be instilling these lessons of duplicity into the youthful mind. A wise person once said, ‘The older a man gets the worse he gets.’ That wise person, my dear, had me in his eye, and was perfectly right.”

He mitigated the pain of that confession with a pinch of snuff, and went to the whist table to wait until the end of the rubber gave him a place at the game.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.

FORWARD.

BLANCHE found her lover as attentive as usual to her slightest wish, but not in his customary good spirits. He pleaded fatigue, after his long watch at the cross-roads, as an excuse for his depression. As long as there was any hope of a reconciliation with Geoffrey, he was unwilling to tell Blanche what had happened that afternoon. The hope grew fainter and fainter as the evening advanced. Arnold purposely suggested a visit to the billiard-room, and joined the game, with Blanche, to give Geoffrey an opportunity of saying the few gracious words which would have made them friends again. Geoffrey never spoke the words; he obstinately ignored Arnold’s presence in the room.

At the card-table the whist went on interminably. Lady Lundie, Sir Patrick, and the surgeon, were all inveterate players, evenly matched. Smith and Jones (joining the game alternately) were aids to whist, exactly as they were aids to conversation. The same safe and modest mediocrity of style distinguished the proceedings of these two gentlemen in all the affairs of life.

The time wore on to midnight. They went to bed late and they rose late at Windygates House. Under that hospitable roof, no intrusive hints, in the shape of flat candlesticks exhibiting themselves with ostentatious virtue on side-tables, hurried the guest to his room; no vile bell rang him ruthlessly out of bed the next morning, and insisted on his breakfasting at a given hour. Life has surely hardships enough that are inevitable without gratuitously adding the hardship of absolute government, administered by a clock?

It was a quarter past twelve when Lady Lundie rose blandly from the whist-table, and said that she supposed somebody must set the example of going to bed. Sir Patrick and Smith, the surgeon and Jones, agreed on a last rubber. Blanche vanished while her stepmother’s eye was on her; and appeared again in the drawing-room, when Lady Lundie was safe in the hands of her maid. Nobody followed the example of the mistress of the house but Arnold. He left the billiard-room with the certainty that it was all over now between Geoffrey and himself. Not even the attraction of Blanche proved strong enough to detain him that night. He went his way to bed.

It was past one o’clock. The final rubber was at an end, the accounts were settled at the card-table; the surgeon had strolled into the billiard-room, and Smith and Jones had followed him, when Duncan came in, at last, with the telegram in his hand.

Blanche turned from the broad, calm autumn moonlight which had drawn her to the window, and looked over her uncle’s shoulder while he opened the telegram.

She read the first line--and that was enough. The whole scaffolding of hope built round that morsel of paper fell to the ground in an instant. The train from Kirkandrew had reached Edinburgh at the usual time. Every passenger in it had passed under the eyes of the police, and nothing had been seen of any person who answered the description given of Anne!

Sir Patrick pointed to the two last sentences in the telegram: “Inquiries telegraphed to Falkirk. If with any result, you shall know.”

“We must hope for the best, Blanche. They evidently suspect her of having got out at the junction of the two railways for the purpose of giving the telegraph the slip. There is no help for it. Go to bed, child--go to bed.”

Blanche kissed her uncle in silence and went away. The bright young face was sad with the first hopeless sorrow which the old man had yet seen in it. His niece’s parting look dwelt painfully on his mind when he was up in his room, with the faithful Duncan getting him ready for his bed.

“This is a bad business, Duncan. I don’t like to say so to Miss Lundie; but I greatly fear the governess has baffled us.”

“It seems likely, Sir Patrick. The poor young lady looks quite heart-broken about it.”

“You noticed that too, did you? She has lived all her life, you see, with Miss Silvester; and there is a very strong attachment between them. I am uneasy about my niece, Duncan. I am afraid this disappointment will have a serious effect on her.”

“She’s young, Sir Patrick.”

“Yes, my friend, she’s young; but the young (when they are good for any thing) have warm hearts. Winter hasn’t stolen on them, Duncan! And they feel keenly.”

“I think there’s reason to hope, Sir, that Miss Lundie may get over it more easily than you suppose.”

“What reason, pray?”

“A person in my position can hardly venture to speak freely, Sir, on a delicate matter of this kind.”

Sir Patrick’s temper flashed out, half-seriously, half-whimsically, as usual.

“Is that a snap at Me, you old dog? If I am not your friend, as well as your master, who is? Am I in the habit of keeping any of my harmless fellow-creatures at a distance? I despise the cant of modern Liberalism; but it’s not the less true that I have, all my life, protested against the inhuman separation of classes in England. We are, in that respect, brag as we may of our national virtue, the most unchristian people in the civilized world.”

“I beg your pardon, Sir Patrick--”

“God help me! I’m talking polities at this time of night! It’s your fault, Duncan. What do you mean by casting my station in my teeth, because I can’t put my night-cap on comfortably till you have brushed my hair? I have a good mind to get up and brush yours. There! there! I’m uneasy about my niece--nervous irritability, my good fellow, that’s all. Let’s hear what you have to say about Miss Lundie. And go on with my hair. And don’t be a humbug.”

“I was about to remind you, Sir Patrick, that Miss Lundie has another interest in her life to turn to. If this matter of Miss Silvester ends badly--and I own it begins to look as if it would--I should hurry my niece’s marriage, Sir, and see if that wouldn’t console her.”

Sir Patrick started under the gentle discipline of the hair-brush in Duncan’s hand.

“That’s very sensibly put,” said the old gentleman. “Duncan! you are, what I call, a clear-minded man. Well worth thinking of, old Truepenny! If the worst comes to the worst, well worth thinking of!”

It was not the first time that Duncan’s steady good sense had struck light, under the form of a new thought, in his master’s mind. But never yet had he wrought such mischief as the mischief which he had innocently done now. He had sent Sir Patrick to bed with the fatal idea of hastening the marriage of Arnold and Blanche.

The situation of affairs at Windygates--now that Anne had apparently obliterated all trace of herself--was becoming serious. The one chance on which the discovery of Arnold’s position depended, was the chance that accident might reveal the truth in the lapse of time. In this posture of circumstances, Sir Patrick now resolved--if nothing happened to relieve Blanche’s anxiety in the course of the week--to advance the celebration of the marriage from the end of the autumn (as originally contemplated) to the first fortnight of the ensuing month. As dates then stood, the change led (so far as free scope for the development of accident was concerned) to this serious result. It abridged a lapse of three months into an interval of three weeks.

The next morning came; and Blanche marked it as a memorable morning, by committing an act of imprudence, which struck away one more of the chances of discovery that had existed, before the arrival of the Edinburgh telegram on the previous day.

She had passed a sleepless night; fevered in mind and body; thinking, hour after hour, of nothing but Anne. At sunrise she could endure it no longer. Her power to control herself was completely exhausted; her own impulses led her as they pleased. She got up, determined not to let Geoffrey leave the house without risking an effort to make him reveal what he knew about Anne. It was nothing less than downright treason to Sir Patrick to act on her own responsibility in this way. She knew it was wrong; she was heartily ashamed of herself for doing it. But the demon that possesses women with a recklessness all their own, at the critical moments of their lives, had got her--and she did it.

Geoffrey had arranged overnight, to breakfast early, by himself, and to walk the ten miles to his brother’s house; sending a servant to fetch his luggage later in the day.

He had got on his hat; he was standing in the hall, searching his pocket for his second self, the pipe--when Blanche suddenly appeared from the morning-room, and placed herself between him and the house door.

“Up early--eh?” said Geoffrey. “I’m off to my brother’s.”

She made no reply. He looked at her closer. The girl’s eyes were trying to read his face, with an utter carelessness of concealment, which forbade (even to his mind) all unworthy interpretation of her motive for stopping him on his way out.

“Any commands for me?” he inquired

This time she answered him. “I have something to ask you,” she said.

He smiled graciously, and opened his tobacco-pouch. He was fresh and strong after his night’s sleep--healthy and handsome and good-humored. The house-maids had had a peep at him that morning, and had wished--like Desdemona, with a difference--that “Heaven had made all three of them such a man.”

“Well,” he said, “what is it?”

She put her question, without a single word of preface--purposely to surprise him.

“Mr. Delamayn,” she said, “do you know where Anne Silvester is this morning?”

He was filling his pipe as she spoke, and he dropped some of the tobacco on the floor. Instead of answering before he picked up the tobacco he answered after--in surly self-possession, and in one word--“No.”

“Do you know nothing about her?”

He devoted himself doggedly to the filling of his pipe. “Nothing.”

“On your word of honor, as a gentleman?”

“On my word of honor, as a gentleman.”

He put back his tobacco-pouch in his pocket. His handsome face was as hard as stone. His clear blue eyes defied all the girls in England put together to see into his mind. “Have you done, Miss Lundie?” he asked, suddenly changing to a bantering politeness of tone and manner.

Blanche saw that it was hopeless--saw that she had compromised her own interests by her own headlong act. Sir Patrick’s warning words came back reproachfully to her now when it was too late. “We commit a serious mistake if we put him on his guard at starting.”

There was but one course to take now. “Yes,” she said. “I have done.”

“My turn now,” rejoined Geoffrey. “You want to know where Miss Silvester is. Why do you ask Me?”

Blanche did all that could be done toward repairing the error that she had committed. She kept Geoffrey as far away as Geoffrey had kept her from the truth.

“I happen to know,” she replied “that Miss Silvester left the place at which she had been staying about the time when you went out walking yesterday. And I thought you might have seen her.”

“Oh? That’s the reason--is it?” said Geoffrey, with a smile.

The smile stung Blanche’s sensitive temper to the quick. She made a final effort to control herself, before her indignation got the better of her.

“I have no more to say, Mr. Delamayn.” With that reply she turned her back on him, and closed the door of the morning-room between them.

Geoffrey descended the house steps and lit his pipe. He was not at the slightest loss, on this occasion, to account for what had happened. He assumed at once that Arnold had taken a mean revenge on him after his conduct of the day before, and had told the whole secret of his errand at Craig Fernie to Blanche. The thing would get next, no doubt, to Sir Patrick’s ears; and Sir Patrick would thereupon be probably the first person who revealed to Arnold the position in which he had placed himself with Anne. All right! Sir Patrick would be an excellent witness to appeal to, when the scandal broke out, and when the time came for repudiating Anne’s claim on him as the barefaced imposture of a woman who was married already to another man. He puffed away unconcernedly at his pipe, and started, at his swinging, steady pace, for his brother’s house.

Blanche remained alone in the morning-room. The prospect of getting at the truth, by means of what Geoffrey might say on the next occasion when he consulted Sir Patrick, was a prospect that she herself had closed from that moment. She sat down in despair by the window. It commanded a view of the little side-terrace which had been Anne’s favorite walk at Windygates. With weary eyes and aching heart the poor child looked at the familiar place; and asked herself, with the bitter repentance that comes too late, if she had destroyed the last chance of finding Anne!

She sat passively at the window, while the hours of the morning wore on, until the postman came. Before the servant could take the letter bag she was in the hall to receive it. Was it possible to hope that the bag had brought tidings of Anne? She sorted the letters; and lighted suddenly on a letter to herself. It bore the Kirkandrew postmark, and It was addressed to her in Anne’s handwriting.

She tore the letter open, and read these lines:

“I have left you forever, Blanche. God bless and reward you! God make you a happy woman in all your life to come! Cruel as you will think me, love, I have never been so truly your sister as I am now. I can only tell you this--I can never tell you more. Forgive me, and forget me, our lives are parted lives from this day.”

Going down to breakfast about his usual hour, Sir Patrick missed Blanche, whom he was accustomed to see waiting for him at the table at that time. The room was empty; the other members of the household having all finished their morning meal. Sir Patrick disliked breakfasting alone. He sent Duncan with a message, to be given to Blanche’s maid.

The maid appeared in due time Miss Lundie was unable to leave her room. She sent a letter to her uncle, with her love--and begged he would read it.

Sir Patrick opened the letter and saw what Anne had written to Blanche.

He waited a little, reflecting, with evident pain and anxiety, on what he had read--then opened his own letters, and hurriedly looked at the signatures. There was nothing for him from his friend, the sheriff, at Edinburgh, and no communication from the railway, in the shape of a telegram. He had decided, overnight, on waiting till the end of the week before he interfered in the matter of Blanche’s marriage. The events of the morning determined him on not waiting another day. Duncan returned to the breakfast-room to pour out his master’s coffee. Sir Patrick sent him away again with a second message,

“Do you know where Lady Lundie is, Duncan?”

“Yes, Sir Patrick.”

“My compliments to her ladyship. If she is not otherwise engaged, I shall be glad to speak to her privately in an hour’s time.”

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH.

DROPPED.

SIR PATRICK made a bad breakfast. Blanche’s absence fretted him, and Anne Silvester’s letter puzzled him.

He read it, short as it was, a second time, and a third. If it meant any thing, it meant that the motive at the bottom of Anne’s flight was to accomplish the sacrifice of herself to the happiness of Blanche. She had parted for life from his niece for his niece’s sake! What did this mean? And how was it to be reconciled with Anne’s position--as described to him by Mrs. Inchbare during his visit to Craig Fernie?

All Sir Patrick’s ingenuity, and all Sir Patrick’s experience, failed to find so much as the shadow of an answer to that question.

While he was still pondering over the letter, Arnold and the surgeon entered the breakfast-room together.

“Have you heard about Blanche?” asked Arnold, excitedly. “She is in no danger, Sir Patrick--the worst of it is over now.”

The surgeon interposed before Sir Patrick could appeal to him.

“Mr. Brinkworth’s interest in the young lady a little exaggerates the state of the case,” he said. “I have seen her, at Lady Lundie’s request; and I can assure you that there is not the slightest reason for any present alarm. Miss Lundie has had a nervous attack, which has yielded to the simplest domestic remedies. The only anxiety you need feel is connected with the management of her in the future. She is suffering from some mental distress, which it is not for me, but for her friends, to alleviate and remove. If you can turn her thoughts from the painful subject--whatever it may be--on which they are dwelling now, you will do all that needs to be done.” He took up a newspaper from the table, and strolled out into the garden, leaving Sir Patrick and Arnold together.

“You heard that?” said Sir Patrick.

“Is he right, do you think?” asked Arnold.

“Right? Do you suppose a man gets his reputation by making mistakes? You’re one of the new generation, Master Arnold. You can all of you stare at a famous man; but you haven’t an atom of respect for his fame. If Shakspeare came to life again, and talked of playwriting, the first pretentious nobody who sat opposite at dinner would differ with him as composedly as he might differ with you and me. Veneration is dead among us; the present age has buried it, without a stone to mark the place. So much for that! Let’s get back to Blanche. I suppose you can guess what the painful subject is that’s dwelling on her mind? Miss Silvester has baffled me, and baffled the Edinburgh police. Blanche discovered that we had failed last night and Blanche received that letter this morning.”

He pushed Anne’s letter across the breakfast-table.

Arnold read it, and handed it back without a word. Viewed by the new light in which he saw Geoffrey’s character after the quarrel on the heath, the letter conveyed but one conclusion to his mind. Geoffrey had deserted her.

“Well?” said Sir Patrick. “Do you understand what it means?”

“I understand Blanche’s wretchedness when she read it.”

He said no more than that. It was plain that no information which he could afford--even if he had considered himself at liberty to give it--would be of the slightest use in assisting Sir Patrick to trace Miss Silvester, under present circumstances, There was--unhappily--no temptation to induce him to break the honorable silence which he had maintained thus far. And--more unfortunately still--assuming the temptation to present itself, Arnold’s capacity to resist it had never been so strong a capacity as it was now.

To the two powerful motives which had hitherto tied his tongue--respect for Anne’s reputation, and reluctance to reveal to Blanche the deception which he had been compelled to practice on her at the inn--to these two motives there was now added a third. The meanness of betraying the confidence which Geoffrey had reposed in him would be doubled meanness if he proved false to his trust after Geoffrey had personally insulted him. The paltry revenge which that false friend had unhesitatingly suspected him of taking was a revenge of which Arnold’s nature was simply incapable. Never had his lips been more effectually sealed than at this moment--when his whole future depended on Sir Patrick’s discovering the part that he had played in past events at Craig Fernie.

“Yes! yes!” resumed Sir Patrick, impatiently. “Blanche’s distress is intelligible enough. But here is my niece apparently answerable for this unhappy woman’s disappearance. Can you explain what my niece has got to do with it?”

“I! Blanche herself is completely mystified. How should I know?”

Answering in those terms, he spoke with perfect sincerity. Anne’s vague distrust of the position in which they had innocently placed themselves at the inn had produced no corresponding effect on Arnold at the time. He had not regarded it; he had not even understood it. As a necessary result, not the faintest suspicion of the motive under which Anne was acting existed in his mind now.

Sir Patrick put the letter into his pocket-book, and abandoned all further attempt at interpreting the meaning of it in despair.

“Enough, and more than enough, of groping in the dark,” he said. “One point is clear to me after what has happened up stairs this morning. We must accept the position in which Miss Silvester has placed us. I shall give up all further effort to trace her from this moment.”

“Surely that will be a dreadful disappointment to Blanche, Sir Patrick?”

“I don’t deny it. We must face that result.”

“If you are sure there is nothing else to be done, I suppose we must.”

“I am not sure of anything of the sort, Master Arnold! There are two chances still left of throwing light on this matter, which are both of them independent of any thing that Miss Silvester can do to keep it in the dark.”

“Then why not try them, Sir? It seems hard to drop Miss Silvester when she is in trouble.”

“We can’t help her against her own will,” rejoined Sir Patrick. “And we can’t run the risk, after that nervous attack this morning, of subjecting Blanche to any further suspense. I have thought of my niece’s interests throughout this business; and if I now change my mind, and decline to agitate her by more experiments, ending (quite possibly) in more failures, it is because I am thinking of her interests still. I have no other motive. However numerous my weaknesses may be, ambition to distinguish myself as a detective policeman is not one of them. The case, from the police point of view, is by no means a lost case. I drop it, nevertheless, for Blanche’s sake. Instead of encouraging her thoughts to dwell on this melancholy business, we must apply the remedy suggested by our medical friend.”

“How is that to be done?” asked Arnold.

The sly twist of humor began to show itself in Sir Patrick’s face.

“Has she nothing to think of in the future, which is a pleasanter subject of reflection than the loss of her friend?” he asked. “You are interested, my young gentleman, in the remedy that is to cure Blanche. You are one of the drugs in the moral prescription. Can you guess what it is?”

Arnold started to his feet, and brightened into a new being.

“Perhaps you object to be hurried?” said Sir Patrick.

“Object! If Blanche will only consent, I’ll take her to church as soon as she comes down stairs!”

“Thank you!” said Sir Patrick, dryly. “Mr. Arnold Brinkworth, may you always be as ready to take Time by the forelock as you are now! Sit down again; and don’t talk nonsense. It is just possible--if Blanche consents (as you say), and if we can hurry the lawyers--that you may be married in three weeks’ or a month’s time.”

“What have the lawyers got to do with it?”

“My good fellow, this is not a marriage in a novel! This is the most unromantic affair of the sort that ever happened. Here are a young gentleman and a young lady, both rich people; both well matched in birth and character; one of age, and the other marrying with the full consent and approval of her guardian. What is the consequence of this purely prosaic state of things? Lawyers and settlements, of course!”

“Come into the library, Sir Patrick; and I’ll soon settle the settlements! A bit of paper, and a dip of ink. ‘I hereby give every blessed farthing I have got in the world to my dear Blanche.’ Sign that; stick a wafer on at the side; clap your finger on the wafer; ‘I deliver this as my act and deed;’ and there it is--done!”

“Is it, really? You are a born legislator. You create and codify your own system all in a breath. Moses-Justinian-Mahomet, give me your arm! There is one atom of sense in what you have just said. ‘Come into the library’--is a suggestion worth attending to. Do you happen, among your other superfluities, to have such a thing as a lawyer about you?”

“I have got two. One in London, and one in Edinburgh.”

“We will take the nearest of the two, because we are in a hurry. Who is the Edinburgh lawyer? Pringle of Pitt Street? Couldn’t be a better man. Come and write to him. You have given me your abstract of a marriage settlement with the brevity of an ancient Roman. I scorn to be outdone by an amateur lawyer. Here is my abstract: You are just and generous to Blanche; Blanche is just and generous to you; and you both combine to be just and generous together to your children. There is a model settlement! and there are your instructions to Pringle of Pitt Street! Can you do it by yourself? No; of course you can’t. Now don’t be slovenly-minded! See the points in their order as they come. You are going to be married; you state to whom, you add that I am the lady’s guardian; you give the name and address of my lawyer in Edinburgh; you write your instructions plainly in the fewest words, and leave details to your legal adviser; you refer the lawyers to each other; you request that the draft settlements be prepared as speedily as possible, and you give your address at this house. There are the heads. Can’t you do it now? Oh, the rising generation! Oh, the progress we are making in these enlightened modern times! There! there! you can marry Blanche, and make her happy, and increase the population--and all without knowing how to write the English language. One can only say with the learned Bevorskius, looking out of his window at the illimitable loves of the sparrows, ‘How merciful is Heaven to its creatures!’ Take up the pen. I’ll dictate! I’ll dictate!”

Sir Patrick read the letter over, approved of it, and saw it safe in the box for the post. This done, he peremptorily forbade Arnold to speak to his niece on the subject of the marriage without his express permission. “There’s somebody else’s consent to be got,” he said, “besides Blanche’s consent and mine.”

“Lady Lundie?”

“Lady Lundie. Strictly speaking, I am the only authority. But my sister-in-law is Blanche’s step-mother, and she is appointed guardian in the event of my death. She has a right to be consulted--in courtesy, if not in law. Would you like to do it?”

Arnold’s face fell. He looked at Sir Patrick in silent dismay.

“What! you can’t even speak to such a perfectly pliable person as Lady Lundie? You may have been a very useful fellow at sea. A more helpless young man I never met with on shore. Get out with you into the garden among the other sparrows! Somebody must confront her ladyship. And if you won’t--I must.”

He pushed Arnold out of the library, and applied meditatively to the knob of his cane. His gayety disappeared, now that he was alone. His experience of Lady Lundie’s character told him that, in attempting to win her approval to any scheme for hurrying Blanche’s marriage, he was undertaking no easy task. “I suppose,” mused Sir Patrick, thinking of his late brother--“I suppose poor Tom had some way of managing her. How did he do it, I wonder? If she had been the wife of a bricklayer, she is the sort of woman who would have been kept in perfect order by a vigorous and regular application of her husband’s fist. But Tom wasn’t a bricklayer. I wonder how Tom did it?” After a little hard thinking on this point Sir Patrick gave up the problem as beyond human solution. “It must be done,” he concluded. “And my own mother-wit must help me to do it.”

In that resigned frame of mind he knocked at the door of Lady Lundie’s boudoir.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH.

OUTWITTED.

SIR PATRICK found his sister-in-law immersed in domestic business. Her ladyship’s correspondence and visiting list, her ladyship’s household bills and ledgers; her ladyship’s Diary and Memorandum-book (bound in scarlet morocco); her ladyship’s desk, envelope-case, match-box, and taper candlestick (all in ebony and silver); her ladyship herself, presiding over her responsibilities, and wielding her materials, equal to any calls of emergency, beautifully dressed in correct morning costume, blessed with perfect health both of the secretions and the principles; absolutely void of vice, and formidably full of virtue, presented, to every properly-constituted mind, the most imposing spectacle known to humanity--the British Matron on her throne, asking the world in general, When will you produce the like of Me?

“I am afraid I disturb you,” said Sir Patrick. “I am a perfectly idle person. Shall I look in a little later?”

Lady Lundie put her hand to her head, and smiled faintly.

“A little pressure here, Sir Patrick. Pray sit down. Duty finds me earnest; Duty finds me cheerful; Duty finds me accessible. From a poor, weak woman, Duty must expect no more. Now what is it?” (Her ladyship consulted her scarlet memorandum-book.) “I have got it here, under its proper head, distinguished by initial letters. P.--the poor. No. H.M.--heathen missions. No. V.T.A.--Visitors to arrive. No. P. I. P.--Here it is: private interview with Patrick. Will you forgive me the little harmless familiarity of omitting your title? Thank you! You are always so good. I am quite at your service when you like to begin. If it’s any thing painful, pray don’t hesitate. I am quite prepared.”

With that intimation her ladyship threw herself back in her chair, with her elbows on the arms, and her fingers joined at the tips, as if she was receiving a deputation. “Yes?” she said, interrogatively. Sir Patrick paid a private tribute of pity to his late brother’s memory, and entered on his business.

“We won’t call it a painful matter,” he began. “Let us say it’s a matter of domestic anxiety. Blanche--”

Lady Lundie emitted a faint scream, and put her hand over her eyes.

“Must you?” cried her ladyship, in a tone of touching remonstrance. “Oh, Sir Patrick, must you?”

“Yes. I must.”

Lady Lundie’s magnificent eyes looked up at that hidden court of human appeal which is lodged in the ceiling. The hidden court looked down at Lady Lundie, and saw--Duty advertising itself in the largest capital letters.

“Go on, Sir Patrick. The motto of woman is Self-sacrifice. You sha’n’t see how you distress me. Go on.”

Sir Patrick went on impenetrably--without betraying the slightest expression of sympathy or surprise.

“I was about to refer to the nervous attack from which Blanche has suffered this morning,” he said. “May I ask whether you have been informed of the cause to which the attack is attributable?”

“There!” exclaimed Lady Lundie with a sudden bound in her chair, and a sudden development of vocal power to correspond. “The one thing I shrank from speaking of! the cruel, cruel, cruel behavior I was prepared to pass over! And Sir Patrick hints on it! Innocently--don’t let me do an injustice--innocently hints on it!”

“Hints on what, my dear Madam?”

“Blanche’s conduct to me this morning. Blanche’s heartless secrecy. Blanche’s undutiful silence. I repeat the words: Heartless secrecy. Undutiful silence.”

“Allow me for one moment, Lady Lundie--”

“Allow me, Sir Patrick! Heaven knows how unwilling I am to speak of it. Heaven knows that not a word of reference to it escaped my lips. But you leave me no choice now. As mistress of the household, as a Christian woman, as the widow of your dear brother, as a mother to this misguided girl, I must state the facts. I know you mean well; I know you wish to spare me. Quite useless! I must state the facts.”

Sir Patrick bowed, and submitted. (If he had only been a bricklayer! and if Lady Lundie had not been, what her ladyship unquestionably was, the strongest person of the two!)

“Permit me to draw a veil, for your sake,” said Lady Lundie, “over the horrors--I can not, with the best wish to spare you, conscientiously call them by any other name--the horrors that took place up stairs. The moment I heard that Blanche was ill I was at my post. Duty will always find me ready, Sir Patrick, to my dying day. Shocking as the whole thing was, I presided calmly over the screams and sobs of my step-daughter. I closed my ears to the profane violence of her language. I set the necessary example, as an English gentlewoman at the head of her household. It was only when I distinctly heard the name of a person, never to be mentioned again in my family circle, issue (if I may use the expression) from Blanche’s lips that I began to be really alarmed. I said to my maid: ‘Hopkins, this is not Hysteria. This is a possession of the devil. Fetch the chloroform.’”

Chloroform, applied in the capacity of an exorcism, was entirely new to Sir Patrick. He preserved his gravity with considerable difficulty. Lady Lundie went on:

“Hopkins is an excellent person--but Hopkins has a tongue. She met our distinguished medical guest in the corridor, and told him. He was so good as to come to the door. I was shocked to trouble him to act in his professional capacity while he was a visitor, an honored visitor, in my house. Besides, I considered it more a case for a clergyman than for a medical man. However, there was no help for it after Hopkins’s tongue. I requested our eminent friend to favor us with--I think the exact scientific term is--a Prognosis. He took the purely material view which was only to be expected from a person in his profession. He prognosed--am I right? Did he prognose? or did he diagnose? A habit of speaking correctly is so important, Sir Patrick! and I should be so grieved to mislead you!”

“Never mind, Lady Lundie! I have heard the medical report. Don’t trouble yourself to repeat it.”

“Don’t trouble myself to repeat it?” echoed Lady Lundie--with her dignity up in arms at the bare prospect of finding her remarks abridged. “Ah, Sir Patrick! that little constitutional impatience of yours!--Oh, dear me! how often you must have given way to it, and how often you must have regretted it, in your time!”

“My dear lady! if you wish to repeat the report, why not say so, in plain words? Don’t let me hurry you. Let us have the prognosis, by all means.”

Lady Lundie shook her head compassionately, and smiled with angelic sadness. “Our little besetting sins!” she said. “What slaves we are to our little besetting sins! Take a turn in the room--do!”

Any ordinary man would have lost his temper. But the law (as Sir Patrick had told his niece) has a special temper of its own. Without exhibiting the smallest irritation, Sir Patrick dextrously applied his sister-in-law’s blister to his sister-in-law herself.

“What an eye you have!” he said. “I was impatient. I am impatient. I am dying to know what Blanche said to you when she got better?”

The British Matron froze up into a matron of stone on the spot.

“Nothing!” answered her ladyship, with a vicious snap of her teeth, as if she had tried to bite the word before it escaped her.

“Nothing!” exclaimed Sir Patrick.

“Nothing,” repeated Lady Lundie, with her most formidable emphasis of look and tone. “I applied all the remedies with my own hands; I cut her laces with my own scissors, I completely wetted her head through with cold water; I remained with her until she was quite exhausted--I took her in my arms, and folded her to my bosom; I sent every body out of the room; I said, ‘Dear child, confide in me.’ And how were my advances--my motherly advances--met? I have already told you. By heartless secrecy. By undutiful silence.”

Sir Patrick pressed the blister a little closer to the skin. “She was probably afraid to speak,” he said.

“Afraid? Oh!” cried Lady Lundie, distrusting the evidence of her own senses. “You can’t have said that? I have evidently misapprehended you. You didn’t really say, afraid?”

“I said she was probably afraid--”

“Stop! I can’t be told to my face that I have failed to do my duty by Blanche. No, Sir Patrick! I can bear a great deal; but I can’t bear that. After having been more than a mother to your dear brother’s child; after having been an elder sister to Blanche; after having toiled--I say toiled, Sir Patrick!--to cultivate her intelligence (with the sweet lines of the poet ever present to my memory: ‘Delightful task to rear the tender mind, and teach the young idea how to shoot!’); after having done all I have done--a place in the carriage only yesterday, and a visit to the most interesting relic of feudal times in Perthshire--after having sacrificed all I have sacrificed, to be told that I have behaved in such a manner to Blanche as to frighten her when I ask her to confide in me, is a little too cruel. I have a sensitive--an unduly sensitive nature, dear Sir Patrick. Forgive me for wincing when I am wounded. Forgive me for feeling it when the wound is dealt me by a person whom I revere.”

Her ladyship put her handkerchief to her eyes. Any other man would have taken off the blister. Sir Patrick pressed it harder than ever.

“You quite mistake me,” he replied. “I meant that Blanche was afraid to tell you the true cause of her illness. The true cause is anxiety about Miss Silvester.”

Lady Lundie emitted another scream--a loud scream this time--and closed her eyes in horror.

“I can run out of the house,” cried her ladyship, wildly. “I can fly to the uttermost corners of the earth; but I can not hear that person’s name mentioned! No, Sir Patrick! not in my presence! not in my room! not while I am mistress at Windygates House!”

“I am sorry to say any thing that is disagreeable to you, Lady Lundie. But the nature of my errand here obliges me to touch--as lightly as possible--on something which has happened in your house without your knowledge.”

Lady Lundie suddenly opened her eyes, and became the picture of attention. A casual observer might have supposed her ladyship to be not wholly inaccessible to the vulgar emotion of curiosity.

“A visitor came to Windygates yesterday, while we were all at lunch,” proceeded Sir Patrick. “She--”

Lady Lundie seized the scarlet memorandum-book, and stopped her brother-in-law, before he could get any further. Her ladyship’s next words escaped her lips spasmodically, like words let at intervals out of a trap.

“I undertake--as a woman accustomed to self-restraint, Sir Patrick--I undertake to control myself, on one condition. I won’t have the name mentioned. I won’t have the sex mentioned. Say, ‘The Person,’ if you please. ‘The Person,’” continued Lady Lundie, opening her memorandum-book and taking up her pen, “committed an audacious invasion of my premises yesterday?”

Sir Patrick bowed. Her ladyship made a note--a fiercely-penned note that scratched the paper viciously--and then proceeded to examine her brother-in-law, in the capacity of witness.

“What part of my house did ‘The Person’ invade? Be very careful, Sir Patrick! I propose to place myself under the protection of a justice of the peace; and this is a memorandum of my statement. The library--did I understand you to say? Just so--the library.”

“Add,” said Sir Patrick, with another pressure on the blister, “that The Person had an interview with Blanche in the library.”

Lady Lundie’s pen suddenly stuck in the paper, and scattered a little shower of ink-drops all round it. “The library,” repeated her ladyship, in a voice suggestive of approaching suffocation. “I undertake to control myself, Sir Patrick! Any thing missing from the library?”

“Nothing missing, Lady Lundie, but The Person herself. She--”

“No, Sir Patrick! I won’t have it! In the name of my own sex, I won’t have it!”

“Pray pardon me--I forgot that ‘she’ was a prohibited pronoun on the present occasion. The Person has written a farewell letter to Blanche, and has gone nobody knows where. The distress produced by these events is alone answerable for what has happened to Blanche this morning. If you bear that in mind--and if you remember what your own opinion is of Miss Silvester--you will understand why Blanche hesitated to admit you into her confidence.”

There he waited for a reply. Lady Lundie was too deeply absorbed in completing her memorandum to be conscious of his presence in the room.

“‘Carriage to be at the door at two-thirty,’” said Lady Lundie, repeating the final words of the memorandum while she wrote them. “‘Inquire for the nearest justice of the peace, and place the privacy of Windygates under the protection of the law.’--I beg your pardon!” exclaimed her ladyship, becoming conscious again of Sir Patrick’s presence. “Have I missed any thing particularly painful? Pray mention it if I have!”

“You have missed nothing of the slightest importance,” returned Sir Patrick. “I have placed you in possession of facts which you had a right to know; and we have now only to return to our medical friend’s report on Blanche’s health. You were about to favor me, I think, with the Prognosis?”

“Diagnosis!” said her ladyship, spitefully. “I had forgotten at the time--I remember now. Prognosis is entirely wrong.”

“I sit corrected, Lady Lundie. Diagnosis.”

“You have informed me, Sir Patrick, that you were already acquainted with the Diagnosis. It is quite needless for me to repeat it now.”

“I was anxious to correct my own impression, my dear lady, by comparing it with yours.”

“You are very good. You are a learned man. I am only a poor ignorant woman. Your impression can not possibly require correcting by mine.”

“My impression, Lady Lundie, was that our so friend recommended moral, rather than medical, treatment for Blanche. If we can turn her thoughts from the painful subject on which they are now dwelling, we shall do all that is needful. Those were his own words, as I remember them. Do you confirm me?”

“Can I presume to dispute with you, Sir Patrick? You are a master of refined irony, I know. I am afraid it’s all thrown away on poor me.”

(The law kept its wonderful temper! The law met the most exasperating of living women with a counter-power of defensive aggravation all its own!)

“I take that as confirming me, Lady Lundie. Thank you. Now, as to the method of carrying out our friend’s advice. The method seems plain. All we can do to divert Blanche’s mind is to turn Blanche’s attention to some other subject of reflection less painful than the subject which occupies her now. Do you agree, so far?”

“Why place the whole responsibility on my shoulders?” inquired Lady Lundie.

“Out of profound deference for your opinion,” answered Sir Patrick. “Strictly speaking, no doubt, any serious responsibility rests with me. I am Blanche’s guardian--”

“Thank God!” cried Lady Lundie, with a perfect explosion of pious fervor.

“I hear an outburst of devout thankfulness,” remarked Sir Patrick. “Am I to take it as expressing--let me say--some little doubt, on your part, as to the prospect of managing Blanche successfully, under present circumstances?”

Lady Lundie’s temper began to give way again--exactly as her brother-in-law had anticipated.

“You are to take it,” she said, “as expressing my conviction that I saddled myself with the charge of an incorrigibly heartless, obstinate and perverse girl, when I undertook the care of Blanche.”

“Did you say ‘incorrigibly?’”

“I said ‘incorrigibly.’”

“If the case is as hopeless as that, my dear Madam--as Blanche’s guardian, I ought to find means to relieve you of the charge of Blanche.”

“Nobody shall relieve me of a duty that I have once undertaken!” retorted Lady Lundie. “Not if I die at my post!”

“Suppose it was consistent with your duty,” pleaded Sir Patrick, “to be relieved at your post? Suppose it was in harmony with that ‘self-sacrifice’ which is ‘the motto of women?’”

“I don’t understand you, Sir Patrick. Be so good as to explain yourself.”

Sir Patrick assumed a new character--the character of a hesitating man. He cast a look of respectful inquiry at his sister-in-law, sighed, and shook his head.

“No!” he said. “It would be asking too much. Even with your high standard of duty, it would be asking too much.”

“Nothing which you can ask me in the name of duty is too much.”

“No! no! Let me remind you. Human nature has its limits.”

“A Christian gentlewoman’s sense of duty knows no limits.”

“Oh, surely yes!”

“Sir Patrick! after what I have just said your perseverance in doubting me amounts to something like an insult!”

“Don’t say that! Let me put a case. Let’s suppose the future interests of another person depend on your saying, Yes--when all your own most cherished ideas and opinions urge you to say, No. Do you really mean to tell me that you could trample your own convictions under foot, if it could be shown that the purely abstract consideration of duty was involved in the sacrifice?”

“Yes!” cried Lady Lundie, mounting the pedestal of her virtue on the spot. “Yes--without a moment’s hesitation!”

“I sit corrected, Lady Lundie. You embolden me to proceed. Allow me to ask (after what I just heard)--whether it is not your duty to act on advice given for Blanche’s benefit, by one the highest medical authorities in England?” Her ladyship admitted that it was her duty; pending a more favorable opportunity for contradicting her brother-in-law.

“Very good,” pursued Sir Patrick. “Assuming that Blanche is like most other human beings, and has some prospect of happiness to contemplate, if she could only be made to see it--are we not bound to make her see it, by our moral obligation to act on the medical advice?” He cast a courteously-persuasive look at her ladyship, and paused in the most innocent manner for a reply.

If Lady Lundie had not been bent--thanks to the irritation fomented by her brother-in-law--on disputing the ground with him, inch by inch, she must have seen signs, by this time, of the snare that was being set for her. As it was, she saw nothing but the opportunity of disparaging Blanche and contradicting Sir Patrick.

“If my step-daughter had any such prospect as you describe,” she answered, “I should of course say, Yes. But Blanche’s is an ill-regulated mind. An ill-regulated mind has no prospect of happiness.”

“Pardon me,” said Sir Patrick. “Blanche has a prospect of happiness. In other words, Blanche has a prospect of being married. And what is more, Arnold Brinkworth is ready to marry her as soon as the settlements can be prepared.”

Lady Lundie started in her chair--turned crimson with rage--and opened her lips to speak. Sir Patrick rose to his feet, and went on before she could utter a word.

“I beg to relieve you, Lady Lundie--by means which you have just acknowledged it to be your duty to accept--of all further charge of an incorrigible girl. As Blanche’s guardian, I have the honor of proposing that her marriage be advanced to a day to be hereafter named in the first fortnight of the ensuing month.”

In those words he closed the trap which he had set for his sister-in-law, and waited to see what came of it.

A thoroughly spiteful woman, thoroughly roused, is capable of subordinating every other consideration to the one imperative necessity of gratifying her spite. There was but one way now of turning the tables on Sir Patrick--and Lady Lundie took it. She hated him, at that moment, so intensely, that not even the assertion of her own obstinate will promised her more than a tame satisfaction, by comparison with the priceless enjoyment of beating her brother-in-law with his own weapons.

“My dear Sir Patrick!” she said, with a little silvery laugh, “you have wasted much precious time and many eloquent words in trying to entrap me into giving my consent, when you might have had it for the asking. I think the idea of hastening Blanche’s marriage an excellent one. I am charmed to transfer the charge of such a person as my step-daughter to the unfortunate young man who is willing to take her off my hands. The less he sees of Blanche’s character the more satisfied I shall feel of his performing his engagement to marry her. Pray hurry the lawyers, Sir Patrick, and let it be a week sooner rather than a week later, if you wish to please Me.”

Her ladyship rose in her grandest proportions, and made a courtesy which was nothing less than a triumph of polite satire in dumb show. Sir Patrick answered by a profound bow and a smile which said, eloquently, “I believe every word of that charming answer. Admirable woman--adieu!”

So the one person in the family circle, whose opposition might have forced Sir Patrick to submit to a timely delay, was silenced by adroit management of the vices of her own character. So, in despite of herself, Lady Lundie was won over to the project for hurrying the marriage of Arnold and Blanche.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.

STIFLED.

IT is the nature of Truth to struggle to the light. In more than one direction, the truth strove to pierce the overlying darkness, and to reveal itself to view, during the interval between the date of Sir Patrick’s victory and the date of the wedding-day.

Signs of perturbation under the surface, suggestive of some hidden influence at work, were not wanting, as the time passed on. The one thing missing was the prophetic faculty that could read those signs aright at Windygates House.

On the very day when Sir Patrick’s dextrous treatment of his sister-in-law had smoothed the way to the hastening of the marriage, an obstacle was raised to the new arrangement by no less a person than Blanche herself. She had sufficiently recovered, toward noon, to be able to receive Arnold in her own little sitting-room. It proved to be a very brief interview. A quarter of an hour later, Arnold appeared before Sir Patrick--while the old gentleman was sunning himself in the garden--with a face of blank despair. Blanche had indignantly declined even to think of such a thing as her marriage, at a time when she was heart-broken by the discovery that Anne had left her forever.

“You gave me leave to mention it, Sir Patrick--didn’t you?” said Arnold.

Sir Patrick shifted round a little, so as to get the sun on his back, and admitted that he had given leave.

“If I had only known, I would rather have cut my tongue out than have said a word about it. What do you think she did? She burst out crying, and ordered me to leave the room.”

It was a lovely morning--a cool breeze tempered the heat of the sun; the birds were singing; the garden wore its brightest look. Sir Patrick was supremely comfortable. The little wearisome vexations of this mortal life had retired to a respectful distance from him. He positively declined to invite them to come any nearer.

“Here is a world,” said the old gentleman, getting the sun a little more broadly on his back, “which a merciful Creator has filled with lovely sights, harmonious sounds, delicious scents; and here are creatures with faculties expressly made for enjoyment of those sights, sounds, and scents--to say nothing of Love, Dinner, and Sleep, all thrown into the bargain. And these same creatures hate, starve, toss sleepless on their pillows, see nothing pleasant, hear nothing pleasant, smell nothing pleasant--cry bitter tears, say hard words, contract painful illnesses; wither, sink, age, die! What does it mean, Arnold? And how much longer is it all to go on?”

The fine connecting link between the blindness of Blanche to the advantage of being married, and the blindness of humanity to the advantage of being in existence, though sufficiently perceptible no doubt to venerable Philosophy ripening in the sun, was absolutely invisible to Arnold. He deliberately dropped the vast question opened by Sir Patrick; and, reverting to Blanche, asked what was to be done.

“What do you do with a fire, when you can’t extinguish it?” said Sir Patrick. “You let it blaze till it goes out. What do you do with a woman when you can’t pacify her? Let her blaze till she goes out.”

Arnold failed to see the wisdom embodied in that excellent advice. “I thought you would have helped me to put things right with Blanche,” he said.

“I am helping you. Let Blanche alone. Don’t speak of the marriage again, the next time you see her. If she mentions it, beg her pardon, and tell her you won’t press the question any more. I shall see her in an hour or two, and I shall take exactly the same tone myself. You have put the idea into her mind--leave it there to ripen. Give her distress about Miss Silvester nothing to feed on. Don’t stimulate it by contradiction; don’t rouse it to defend itself by disparagement of her lost friend. Leave Time to edge her gently nearer and nearer to the husband who is waiting for her--and take my word for it, Time will have her ready when the settlements are ready.”

Toward the luncheon hour Sir Patrick saw Blanche, and put in practice the principle which he had laid down. She was perfectly tranquil before her uncle left her. A little later, Arnold was forgiven. A little later still, the old gentleman’s sharp observation noted that his niece was unusually thoughtful, and that she looked at Arnold, from time to time, with an interest of a new kind--an interest which shyly hid itself from Arnold’s view. Sir Patrick went up to dress for dinner, with a comfortable inner conviction that the difficulties which had beset him were settled at last. Sir Patrick had never been more mistaken in his life.

The business of the toilet was far advanced. Duncan had just placed the glass in a good light; and Duncan’s master was at that turning point in his daily life which consisted in attaining, or not attaining, absolute perfection in the tying of his white cravat--when some outer barbarian, ignorant of the first principles of dressing a gentleman’s throat, presumed to knock at the bedroom door. Neither master nor servant moved or breathed until the integrity of the cravat was placed beyond the reach of accident. Then Sir Patrick cast the look of final criticism in the glass, and breathed again when he saw that it was done.

“A little labored in style, Duncan. But not bad, considering the interruption?”

“By no means, Sir Patrick.”

“See who it is.”

Duncan went to the door; and returned, to his master, with an excuse for the interruption, in the shape of a telegram!

Sir Patrick started at the sight of that unwelcome message. “Sign the receipt, Duncan,” he said--and opened the envelope. Yes! Exactly as he had anticipated! News of Miss Silvester, on the very day when he had decided to abandon all further attempt at discovering her. The telegram ran thus:

“Message received from Falkirk this morning. Lady, as described, left the train at Falkirk last night. Went on, by the first train this morning, to Glasgow. Wait further instructions.”

“Is the messenger to take any thing back, Sir Patrick?”

“No. I must consider what I am to do. If I find it necessary I will send to the station. Here is news of Miss Silvester, Duncan,” continued Sir Patrick, when the messenger had gone. “She has been traced to Glasgow.”

“Glasgow is a large place, Sir Patrick.”

“Yes. Even if they have telegraphed on and had her watched (which doesn’t appear), she may escape us again at Glasgow. I am the last man in the world, I hope, to shrink from accepting my fair share of any responsibility. But I own I would have given something to have kept this telegram out of the house. It raises the most awkward question I have had to decide on for many a long day past. Help me on with my coat. I must think of it! I must think of it!”

Sir Patrick went down to dinner in no agreeable frame of mind. The unexpected recovery of the lost trace of Miss Silvester--there is no disguising it--seriously annoyed him.

The dinner-party that day, assembling punctually at the stroke of the bell, had to wait a quarter of an hour before the hostess came down stairs.

Lady Lundie’s apology, when she entered the library, informed her guests that she had been detained by some neighbors who had called at an unusually late hour. Mr. and Mrs. Julius Delamayn, finding themselves near Windygates, had favored her with a visit, on their way home, and had left cards of invitation for a garden-party at their house.

Lady Lundie was charmed with her new acquaintances. They had included every body who was staying at Windygates in their invitation. They had been as pleasant and easy as old friends. Mrs. Delamayn had brought the kindest message from one of her guests--Mrs. Glenarm--to say that she remembered meeting Lady Lundie in London, in the time of the late Sir Thomas, and was anxious to improve the acquaintance. Mr. Julius Delamayn had given a most amusing account of his brother. Geoffrey had sent to London for a trainer; and the whole household was on the tip-toe of expectation to witness the magnificent spectacle of an athlete preparing himself for a foot-race. The ladies, with Mrs. Glenarm at their head, were hard at work, studying the profound and complicated question of human running--the muscles employed in it, the preparation required for it, the heroes eminent in it. The men had been all occupied that morning in assisting Geoffrey to measure a mile, for his exercising-ground, in a remote part of the park--where there was an empty cottage, which was to be fitted with all the necessary appliances for the reception of Geoffrey and his trainer. “You will see the last of my brother,” Julius had said, “at the garden-party. After that he retires into athletic privacy, and has but one interest in life--the interest of watching the disappearance of his own superfluous flesh.” Throughout the dinner Lady Lundie was in oppressively good spirits, singing the praises of her new friends. Sir Patrick, on the other hand, had never been so silent within the memory of mortal man. He talked with an effort; and he listened with a greater effort still. To answer or not to answer the telegram in his pocket? To persist or not to persist in his resolution to leave Miss Silvester to go her own way? Those were the questions which insisted on coming round to him as regularly as the dishes themselves came round in the orderly progression of the dinner.

Blanche---who had not felt equal to taking her place at the table--appeared in the drawing-room afterward.

Sir Patrick came in to tea, with the gentlemen, still uncertain as to the right course to take in the matter of the telegram. One look at Blanche’s sad face and Blanche’s altered manner decided him. What would be the result if he roused new hopes by resuming the effort to trace Miss Silvester, and if he lost the trace a second time? He had only to look at his niece and to see. Could any consideration justify him in turning her mind back on the memory of the friend who had left her at the moment when it was just beginning to look forward for relief to the prospect of her marriage? Nothing could justify him; and nothing should induce him to do it.

Reasoning--soundly enough, from his own point of view--on that basis, Sir Patrick determined on sending no further instructions to his friend at Edinburgh. That night he warned Duncan to preserve the strictest silence as to the arrival of the telegram. He burned it, in case of accidents, with his own hand, in his own room.

Rising the next day and looking out of his window, Sir Patrick saw the two young people taking their morning walk at a moment when they happened to cross the open grassy space which separated the two shrubberies at Windygates. Arnold’s arm was round Blanche’s waist, and they were talking confidentially with their heads close together. “She is coming round already!” thought the old gentleman, as the two disappeared again in the second shrubbery from view. “Thank Heaven! things are running smoothly at last!”

Among the ornaments of Sir Patrick’s bed room there was a view (taken from above) of one of the Highland waterfalls. If he had looked at the picture when he turned away from his window, he might have remarked that a river which is running with its utmost smoothness at one moment may be a river which plunges into its most violent agitation at another; and he might have remembered, with certain misgivings, that the progress of a stream of water has been long since likened, with the universal consent of humanity, to the progress of the stream of life.

FIFTH SCENE.--GLASGOW.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH.

ANNE AMONG THE LAWYERS.

ON the day when Sir Patrick received the second of the two telegrams sent to him from Edinburgh, four respectable inhabitants of the City of Glasgow were startled by the appearance of an object of interest on the monotonous horizon of their daily lives.

The persons receiving this wholesome shock were--Mr. and Mrs. Karnegie of the Sheep’s Head Hotel--and Mr. Camp, and Mr. Crum, attached as “Writers” to the honorable profession of the Law.

It was still early in the day when a lady arrived, in a cab from the railway, at the Sheep’s Head Hotel. Her luggage consisted of a black box, and of a well-worn leather bag which she carried in her hand. The name on the box (recently written on a new luggage label, as the color of the ink and paper showed) was a very good name in its way, common to a very great number of ladies, both in Scotland and England. It was “Mrs. Graham.”

Encountering the landlord at the entrance to the hotel, “Mrs. Graham” asked to be accommodated with a bedroom, and was transferred in due course to the chamber-maid on duty at the time. Returning to the little room behind the bar, in which the accounts were kept, Mr. Karnegie surprised his wife by moving more briskly, and looking much brighter than usual. Being questioned, Mr. Karnegie (who had cast the eye of a landlord on the black box in the passage) announced that one “Mrs. Graham” had just arrived, and was then and there to be booked as inhabiting Room Number Seventeen. Being informed (with considerable asperity of tone and manner) that this answer failed to account for the interest which appeared to have been inspired in him by a total stranger, Mr. Karnegie came to the point, and confessed that “Mrs. Graham” was one of the sweetest-looking women he had seen for many a long day, and that he feared she was very seriously out of health.

Upon that reply the eyes of Mrs. Karnegie developed in size, and the color of Mrs. Karnegie deepened in tint. She got up from her chair and said that it might be just as well if she personally superintended the installation of “Mrs. Graham” in her room, and personally satisfied herself that “Mrs. Graham” was a fit inmate to be received at the Sheep’s Head Hotel. Mr. Karnegie thereupon did what he always did--he agreed with his wife.

Mrs. Karnegie was absent for some little time. On her return her eyes had a certain tigerish cast in them when they rested on Mr. Karnegie. She ordered tea and some light refreshment to be taken to Number Seventeen. This done--without any visible provocation to account for the remark--she turned upon her husband, and said, “Mr. Karnegie you are a fool.” Mr. Karnegie asked, “Why, my dear?” Mrs. Karnegie snapped her fingers, and said, “That for her good looks! You don’t know a good-looking woman when you see her.” Mr. Karnegie agreed with his wife.

Nothing more was said until the waiter appeared at the bar with his tray. Mrs. Karnegie, having first waived the tray off, without instituting her customary investigation, sat down suddenly with a thump, and said to her husband (who had not uttered a word in the interval), “Don’t talk to Me about her being out of health! That for her health! It’s trouble on her mind.” Mr. Karnegie said, “Is it now?” Mrs. Karnegie replied, “When I have said, It is, I consider myself insulted if another person says, Is it?” Mr. Karnegie agreed with his wife.

There was another interval. Mrs. Karnegie added up a bill, with a face of disgust. Mr. Karnegie looked at her with a face of wonder. Mrs. Karnegie suddenly asked him why he wasted his looks on her, when he would have “Mrs. Graham” to look at before long. Mr. Karnegie, upon that, attempted to compromise the matter by looking, in the interim, at his own boots. Mrs. Karnegie wished to know whether after twenty years of married life, she was considered to be not worth answering by her own husband. Treated with bare civility (she expected no more), she might have gone on to explain that “Mrs. Graham” was going out. She might also have been prevailed on to mention that “Mrs. Graham” had asked her a very remarkable question of a business nature, at the interview between them up stairs. As it was, Mrs. Karnegie’s lips were sealed, and let Mr. Karnegie deny if he dared, that he richly deserved it. Mr. Karnegie agreed with his wife.

In half an hour more, “Mrs. Graham” came down stairs; and a cab was sent for. Mr. Karnegie, in fear of the consequences if he did otherwise, kept in a corner. Mrs. Karnegie followed him into the corner, and asked him how he dared act in that way? Did he presume to think, after twenty years of married life, that his wife was jealous? “Go, you brute, and hand Mrs. Graham into the cab!”

Mr. Karnegie obeyed. He asked, at the cab window, to what part of Glasgow he should tell the driver to go. The reply informed him that the driver was to take “Mrs. Graham” to the office of Mr. Camp, the lawyer. Assuming “Mrs. Graham” to be a stranger in Glasgow, and remembering that Mr. Camp was Mr. Karnegie’s lawyer, the inference appeared to be, that “Mrs. Graham’s” remarkable question, addressed to the landlady, had related to legal business, and to the discovery of a trust-worthy person capable of transacting it for her.

Returning to the bar, Mr. Karnegie found his eldest daughter in charge of the books, the bills, and the waiters. Mrs. Karnegie had retired to her own room, justly indignant with her husband for his infamous conduct in handing “Mrs. Graham” into the cab before her own eyes. “It’s the old story, Pa,” remarked Miss Karnegie, with the most perfect composure. “Ma told you to do it, of course; and then Ma says you’ve insulted her before all the servants. I wonder how you bear it?” Mr. Karnegie looked at his boots, and answered, “I wonder, too, my dear.” Miss Karnegie said, “You’re not going to Ma, are you?” Mr. Karnegie looked up from his boots, and answered, “I must, my dear.”

Mr. Camp sat in his private room, absorbed over his papers. Multitudinous as those documents were, they appeared to be not sufficiently numerous to satisfy Mr. Camp. He rang his bell, and ordered more.

The clerk appearing with a new pile of papers, appeared also with a message. A lady, recommended by Mrs. Karnegie, of the Sheep’s Head, wished to consult Mr. Camp professionally. Mr. Camp looked at his watch, counting out precious time before him, in a little stand on the table, and said, “Show the lady in, in ten minutes.”

In ten minutes the lady appeared. She took the client’s chair and lifted her veil. The same effect which had been produced on Mr. Karnegie was once more produced on Mr. Camp. For the first time, for many a long year past, he felt personally interested in a total stranger. It might have been something in her eyes, or it might have been something in her manner. Whatever it was, it took softly hold of him, and made him, to his own exceeding surprise, unmistakably anxious to hear what she had to say!

The lady announced--in a low sweet voice touched with a quiet sadness--that her business related to a question of marriage (as marriage is understood by Scottish law), and that her own peace of mind, and the happiness of a person very dear to her, were concerned alike in the opinion which Mr. Camp might give when he had been placed in possession of the facts.

She then proceeded to state the facts, without mentioning names: relating in every particular precisely the same succession of events which Geoffrey Delamayn had already related to Sir Patrick Lundie--with this one difference, that she acknowledged herself to be the woman who was personally concerned in knowing whether, by Scottish law, she was now held to be a married woman or not.

Mr. Camp’s opinion given upon this, after certain questions had been asked and answered, differed from Sir Patrick’s opinion, as given at Windygates. He too quoted the language used by the eminent judge--Lord Deas--but he drew an inference of his own from it. “In Scotland, consent makes marriage,” he said; “and consent may be proved by inference. I see a plain inference of matrimonial consent in the circumstances which you have related to me and I say you are a married woman.”

The effect produced on the lady, when sentence was pronounced on her in those terms, was so distressing that Mr. Camp sent a message up stairs to his wife; and Mrs. Camp appeared in her husband’s private room, in business hours, for the first time in her life. When Mrs. Camp’s services had in some degree restored the lady to herself, Mr. Camp followed with a word of professional comfort. He, like Sir Patrick, acknowledged the scandalous divergence of opinions produced by the confusion and uncertainty of the marriage-law of Scotland. He, like Sir Patrick, declared it to be quite possible that another lawyer might arrive at another conclusion. “Go,” he said, giving her his card, with a line of writing on it, “to my colleague, Mr. Crum; and say I sent you.”

The lady gratefully thanked Mr. Camp and his wife, and went next to the office of Mr. Crum.

Mr. Crum was the older lawyer of the two, and the harder lawyer of the two; but he, too, felt the influence which the charm that there was in this woman exercised, more or less, over every man who came in contact with her. He listened with a patience which was rare with him: he put his questions with a gentleness which was rarer still; and when he was in possession of the circumstances---behold, his opinion flatly contradicted the opinion of Mr. Camp!

“No marriage, ma’am,” he said, positively. “Evidence in favor of perhaps establishing a marriage, if you propose to claim the man. But that, as I understand it, is exactly what you don’t wish to do.”

The relief to the lady, on hearing this, almost overpowered her. For some minutes she was unable to speak. Mr. Crum did, what he had never done yet in all his experience as a lawyer. He patted a client on the shoulder, and, more extraordinary still, he gave a client permission to waste his time. “Wait, and compose yourself,” said Mr. Crum--administering the law of humanity. The lady composed herself. “I must ask you some questions, ma’am,” said Mr. Crum--administering the law of the land. The lady bowed, and waited for him to begin.

“I know, thus far, that you decline to claim the gentleman,” said Mr. Cram. “I want to know now whether the gentleman is likely to claim you.”

The answer to this was given in the most positive terms. The gentleman was not even aware of the position in which he stood. And, more yet, he was engaged to be married to the dearest friend whom the lady had in the world.

Mr. Crum opened his eyes--considered--and put another question as delicately as he could. “Would it be painful to you to tell me how the gentleman came to occupy the awkward position in which he stands now?”

The lady acknowledged that it would be indescribably painful to her to answer that question.

Mr. Crum offered a suggestion under the form of an inquiry:

“Would it be painful to you to reveal the circumstances--in the interests of the gentleman’s future prospects--to some discreet person (a legal person would be best) who is not, what I am, a stranger to you both?”

The lady declared herself willing to make any sacrifice, on those conditions--no matter how painful it might be--for her friend’s sake.

Mr. Crum considered a little longer, and then delivered his word of advice:

“At the present stage of the affair,” he said, “I need only tell you what is the first step that you ought to take under the circumstances. Inform the gentleman at once--either by word of mouth or by writing--of the position in which he stands: and authorize him to place the case in the hands of a person known to you both, who is competent to decide on what you are to do next. Do I understand that you know of such a person so qualified?”

The lady answered that she knew of such a person.

Mr. Crum asked if a day had been fixed for the gentleman’s marriage.

The lady answered that she had made this inquiry herself on the last occasion when she had seen the gentleman’s betrothed wife. The marriage was to take place, on a day to be hereafter chosen, at the end of the autumn.

“That,” said Mr. Crum, “is a fortunate circumstance. You have time before you. Time is, here, of very great importance. Be careful not to waste it.”

The lady said she would return to her hotel and write by that night’s post, to warn the gentleman of the position in which he stood, and to authorize him to refer the matter to a competent and trust-worthy friend known to them both.

On rising to leave the room she was seized with giddiness, and with some sudden pang of pain, which turned her deadly pale and forced her to drop back into her chair. Mr. Crum had no wife; but he possessed a housekeeper--and he offered to send for her. The lady made a sign in the negative. She drank a little water, and conquered the pain. “I am sorry to have alarmed you,” she said. “It’s nothing--I am better now.” Mr. Crum gave her his arm, and put her into the cab. She looked so pale and faint that he proposed sending his housekeeper with her. No: it was only five minutes’ drive to the hotel. The lady thanked him--and went her way back by herself.

“The letter!” she said, when she was alone. “If I can only live long enough to write the letter!”

CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH.

ANNE IN THE NEWSPAPERS.

MRS. KARNEGIE was a woman of feeble intelligence and violent temper; prompt to take offense, and not, for the most part, easy to appease. But Mrs. Karnegie being--as we all are in our various degrees--a compound of many opposite qualities, possessed a character with more than one side to it, and had her human merits as well as her human faults. Seeds of sound good feeling were scattered away in the remoter corners of her nature, and only waited for the fertilizing occasion that was to help them to spring up. The occasion exerted that benign influence when the cab brought Mr. Crum’s client back to the hotel. The face of the weary, heart-sick woman, as she slowly crossed the hall, roused all that was heartiest and best in Mrs. Karnegie’s nature, and said to her, as if in words, “Jealous of this broken creature? Oh, wife and mother is there no appeal to your common womanhood here?”

“I am afraid you have overtired yourself, ma’am. Let me send you something up stairs?”

“Send me pen, ink, and paper,” was the answer. “I must write a letter. I must do it at once.”

It was useless to remonstrate with her. She was ready to accept any thing proposed, provided the writing materials were supplied first. Mrs. Karnegie sent them up, and then compounded a certain mixture of eggs and hot wine for which The Sheep’s Head was famous, with her own hands. In five minutes or so it was ready--and Miss Karnegie was dispatched by her mother (who had other business on hand at the time) to take it up stairs.

After the lapse of a few moments a cry of alarm was heard from the upper landing. Mrs. Karnegie recognized her daughter’s voice, and hastened to the bedroom floor.

“Oh, mamma! Look at her! look at her!”

The letter was on the table with the first lines written. The woman was on the sofa with her handkerchief twisted between her set teeth, and her tortured face terrible to look at. Mrs. Karnegie raised her a little, examined her closely--then suddenly changed color, and sent her daughter out of the room with directions to dispatch a messenger instantly for medical help.

Left alone with the sufferer, Mrs. Karnegie carried her to her bed. As she was laid down her left hand fell helpless over the side of the bed. Mrs. Karnegie suddenly checked the word of sympathy as it rose to her lips--suddenly lifted the hand, and looked, with a momentary sternness of scrutiny, at the third finger. There was a ring on it. Mrs. Karnegie’s face softened on the instant: the word of pity that had been suspended the moment before passed her lips freely now. “Poor soul!” said the respectable landlady, taking appearances for granted. “Where’s your husband, dear? Try and tell me.”

The doctor made his appearance, and went up to the patient.

Time passed, and Mr. Karnegie and his daughter, carrying on the business of the hotel, received a message from up stairs which was ominous of something out of the common. The message gave the name and address of an experienced nurse--with the doctor’s compliments, and would Mr. Karnegie have the kindness to send for her immediately.

The nurse was found and sent up stairs.

Time went on, and the business of the hotel went on, and it was getting to be late in the evening, when Mrs. Karnegie appeared at last in the parlor behind the bar. The landlady’s face was grave, the landlady’s manner was subdued. “Very, very ill,” was the only reply she made to her daughter’s inquiries. When she and her husband were together, a little later, she told the news from up stairs in greater detail. “A child born dead,” said Mrs. Karnegie, in gentler tones than were customary with her. “And the mother dying, poor thing, so far as I can see.”

A little later the doctor came down. Dead? No.--Likely to live? Impossible to say. The doctor returned twice in the course of the night. Both times he had but one answer. “Wait till to-morrow.”

The next day came. She rallied a little. Toward the afternoon she began to speak. She expressed no surprise at seeing strangers by her bedside: her mind wandered. She passed again into insensibility. Then back to delirium once more. The doctor said, “This may last for weeks. Or it may end suddenly in death. It’s time you did something toward finding her friends.”

(Her friends! She had left the one friend she had forever!)

Mr. Camp was summoned to give his advice. The first thing he asked for was the unfinished letter.

It was blotted, it was illegible in more places than one. With pains and care they made out the address at the beginning, and here and there some fragments of the lines that followed. It began: “Dear Mr. Brinkworth.” Then the writing got, little by little, worse and worse. To the eyes of the strangers who looked at it, it ran thus: “I should ill requite * * * Blanche’s interests * * * For God’s sake! * * * don’t think of me * * *” There was a little more, but not so much as one word, in those last lines, was legible.

The names mentioned in the letter were reported by the doctor and the nurse to be also the names on her lips when she spoke in her wanderings. “Mr. Brinkworth” and “Blanche”--her mind ran incessantly on those two persons. The one intelligible thing that she mentioned in connection with them was the letter. She was perpetually trying, trying, trying to take that unfinished letter to the post; and she could never get there. Sometimes the post was across the sea. Sometimes it was at the top of an inaccessible mountain. Sometimes it was built in by prodigious walls all round it. Sometimes a man stopped her cruelly at the moment when she was close at the post, and forced her back thousands of miles away from it. She once or twice mentioned this visionary man by his name. They made it out to be “Geoffrey.”

Finding no clew to her identity either in the letter that she had tried to write or in the wild words that escaped her from time to time, it was decided to search her luggage, and to look at the clothes which she had worn when she arrived at the hotel.

Her black box sufficiently proclaimed itself as recently purchased. On opening it the address of a Glasgow trunk-maker was discovered inside. The linen was also new, and unmarked. The receipted shop-bill was found with it. The tradesmen, sent for in each case and questioned, referred to their books. It was proved that the box and the linen had both been purchased on the day when she appeared at the hotel.

Her black bag was opened next. A sum of between eighty and ninety pounds in Bank of England notes; a few simple articles belonging to the toilet; materials for needle-work; and a photographic portrait of a young lady, inscribed, “To Anne, from Blanche,” were found in the bag--but no letters, and nothing whatever that could afford the slightest clew by which the owner could be traced. The pocket in her dress was searched next. It contained a purse, an empty card-case, and a new handkerchief unmarked.

Mr. Camp shook his head.

“A woman’s luggage without any letters in it,” he said, “suggests to my mind a woman who has a motive of her own for keeping her movements a secret. I suspect she has destroyed her letters, and emptied her card-case, with that view.” Mrs. Karnegie’s report, after examining the linen which the so-called “Mrs. Graham” had worn when she arrived at the inn, proved the soundness of the lawyer’s opinion. In every case the marks had been cut out. Mrs. Karnegie began to doubt whether the ring which she had seen on the third finger of the lady’s left hand had been placed there with the sanction of the law.

There was but one chance left of discovering--or rather of attempting to discover--her friends. Mr. Camp drew out an advertisement to be inserted in the Glasgow newspapers. If those newspapers happened to be seen by any member of her family, she would, in all probability, be claimed. In the contrary event there would be nothing for it but to wait for her recovery or her death--with the money belonging to her sealed up, and deposited in the landlord’s strongbox.

The advertisement appeared. They waited for three days afterward, and nothing came of it. No change of importance occurred, during the same period, in the condition of the suffering woman. Mr. Camp looked in, toward evening, and said, “We have done our best. There is no help for it but to wait.”

Far away in Perthshire that third evening was marked as a joyful occasion at Windygates House. Blanche had consented at last to listen to Arnold’s entreaties, and had sanctioned the writing of a letter to London to order her wedding-dress.

SIXTH SCENE.--SWANHAVEN LODGE.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST

SEEDS OF THE FUTURE (FIRST SOWING).

“NOT SO large as Windygates. But--shall we say snug, Jones?”

“And comfortable, Smith. I quite agree with you.”

Such was the judgment pronounced by the two choral gentlemen on Julius Delamayn’s house in Scotland. It was, as usual with Smith and Jones, a sound judgment--as far as it went. Swanhaven Lodge was not half the size of Windygates; but it had been inhabited for two centuries when the foundations of Windygates were first laid--and it possessed the advantages, without inheriting the drawbacks, of its age. There is in an old house a friendly adaptation to the human character, as there is in an old hat a friendly adaptation to the human head. The visitor who left Swanhaven quitted it with something like a sense of leaving home. Among the few houses not our own which take a strong hold on our sympathies this was one. The ornamental grounds were far inferior in size and splendor to the grounds at Windygates. But the park was beautiful--less carefully laid out, but also less monotonous than an English park. The lake on the northern boundary of the estate, famous for its breed of swans, was one of the curiosities of the neighborhood; and the house had a history, associating it with more than one celebrated Scottish name, which had been written and illustrated by Julius Delamayn. Visitors to Swanhaven Lodge were invariably presented with a copy of the volume (privately printed). One in twenty read it. The rest were “charmed,” and looked at the pictures.

The day was the last day of August, and the occasion was the garden-party given by Mr. and Mrs. Delamayn.

Smith and Jones--following, with the other guests at Windygates, in Lady Lundie’s train--exchanged their opinions on the merits of the house, standing on a terrace at the back, near a flight of steps which led down into the garden. They formed the van-guard of the visitors, appearing by twos and threes from the reception rooms, and all bent on going to see the swans before the amusements of the day began. Julius Delamayn came out with the first detachment, recruited Smith and Jones, and other wandering bachelors, by the way, and set forth for the lake. An interval of a minute or two passed--and the terrace remained empty. Then two ladies--at the head of a second detachment of visitors--appeared under the old stone porch which sheltered the entrance on that side of the house. One of the ladies was a modest, pleasant little person, very simply dressed. The other was of the tall and formidable type of “fine women,” clad in dazzling array. The first was Mrs. Julius Delamayn. The second was Lady Lundie.

“Exquisite!” cried her ladyship, surveying the old mullioned windows of the house, with their framing of creepers, and the grand stone buttresses projecting at intervals from the wall, each with its bright little circle of flowers blooming round the base. “I am really grieved that Sir Patrick should have missed this.”

“I think you said, Lady Lundie, that Sir Patrick had been called to Edinburgh by family business?”

“Business, Mrs. Delamayn, which is any thing but agreeable to me, as one member of the family. It has altered all my arrangements for the autumn. My step-daughter is to be married next week.”

“Is it so near as that? May I ask who the gentleman is?”

“Mr. Arnold Brinkworth.”

“Surely I have some association with that name?”

“You have probably heard of him, Mrs. Delamayn, as the heir to Miss Brinkworth’s Scotch property?”

“Exactly! Have you brought Mr. Brinkworth here to-day?”

“I bring his apologies, as well as Sir Patrick’s. They went to Edinburgh together the day before yesterday. The lawyers engage to have the settlements ready in three or four days more, if a personal consultation can be managed. Some formal question, I believe, connected with title-deeds. Sir Patrick thought the safest way and the speediest way would be to take Mr. Brinkworth with him to Edinburgh--to get the business over to-day--and to wait until we join them, on our way south, to-morrow.”

“You leave Windygates, in this lovely weather?”

“Most unwillingly! The truth is, Mrs. Delamayn, I am at my step-daughter’s mercy. Her uncle has the authority, as her guardian--and the use he makes of it is to give her her own way in every thing. It was only on Friday last that she consented to let the day be fixed--and even then she made it a positive condition that the marriage was not to take place in Scotland. Pure willfulness! But what can I do? Sir Patrick submits; and Mr. Brinkworth submits. If I am to be present at the marriage I must follow their example. I feel it my duty to be present--and, as a matter of course, I sacrifice myself. We start for London to-morrow.”

“Is Miss Lundie to be married in London at this time of year?”

“No. We only pass through, on our way to Sir Patrick’s place in Kent--the place that came to him with the title; the place associated with the last days of my beloved husband. Another trial for me! The marriage is to be solemnized on the scene of my bereavement. My old wound is to be reopened on Monday next--simply because my step-daughter has taken a dislike to Windygates.”

“This day week, then, is the day of the marriage?”

“Yes. This day week. There have been reasons for hurrying it which I need not trouble you with. No words can say how I wish it was over.--But, my dear Mrs. Delamayn, how thoughtless of me to assail you with my family worries! You are so sympathetic. That is my only excuse. Don’t let me keep you from your guests. I could linger in this sweet place forever! Where is Mrs. Glenarm?”

“I really don’t know. I missed her when we came out on the terrace. She will very likely join us at the lake. Do you care about seeing the lake, Lady Lundie?”

“I adore the beauties of Nature, Mrs. Delamayn--especially lakes!”

“We have something to show you besides; we have a breed of swans on the lake, peculiar to the place. My husband has gone on with some of our friends; and I believe we are expected to follow, as soon as the rest of the party--in charge of my sister--have seen the house.”

“And what a house, Mrs. Delamayn! Historical associations in every corner of it! It is such a relief to my mind to take refuge in the past. When I am far away from this sweet place I shall people Swanhaven with its departed inmates, and share the joys and sorrows of centuries since.”

As Lady Lundie announced, in these terms, her intention of adding to the population of the past, the last of the guests who had been roaming over the old house appeared under the porch. Among the members forming this final addition to the garden-party were Blanche, and a friend of her own age whom she had met at Swanhaven. The two girls lagged behind the rest, talking confidentially, arm in arm--the subject (it is surely needless to add) being the coming marriage.

“But, dearest Blanche, why are you not to be married at Windygates?”

“I detest Windygates, Janet. I have the most miserable associations with the place. Don’t ask me what they are! The effort of my life is not to think of them now. I long to see the last of Windygates. As for being married there, I have made it a condition that I am not to be married in Scotland at all.”

“What has poor Scotland done to forfeit your good opinion, my dear?”

“Poor Scotland, Janet, is a place where people don’t know whether they are married or not. I have heard all about it from my uncle. And I know somebody who has been a victim--an innocent victim--to a Scotch marriage.”

“Absurd, Blanche! You are thinking of runaway matches, and making Scotland responsible for the difficulties of people who daren’t own the truth!”

“I am not at all absurd. I am thinking of the dearest friend I have. If you only knew--”

“My dear! I am Scotch, remember! You can be married just as well--I really must insist on that--in Scotland as in England.”

“I hate Scotland!”

“Blanche!”

“I never was so unhappy in my life as I have been in Scotland. I never want to see it again. I am determined to be married in England--from the dear old house where I used to live when I was a little girl. My uncle is quite willing. He understands me and feels for me.”

“Is that as much as to say that I don’t understand you and feel for you? Perhaps I had better relieve you of my company, Blanche?”

“If you are going to speak to me in that way, perhaps you had!”

“Am I to hear my native country run down and not to say a word in defense of it?”

“Oh! you Scotch people make such a fuss about your native country!”

“We Scotch people! you are of Scotch extraction yourself, and you ought to be ashamed to talk in that way. I wish you good-morning!”

“I wish you a better temper!”

A minute since the two young ladies had been like twin roses on one stalk. Now they parted with red cheeks and hostile sentiments and cutting words. How ardent is the warmth of youth! how unspeakably delicate the fragility of female friendship!

The flock of visitors followed Mrs. Delamayn to the shores of the lake. For a few minutes after the terrace was left a solitude. Then there appeared under the porch a single gentleman, lounging out with a flower in his mouth and his hands in his pockets. This was the strongest man at Swanhaven--otherwise, Geoffrey Delamayn.

After a moment a lady appeared behind him, walking softly, so as not to be heard. She was superbly dressed after the newest and the most costly Parisian design. The brooch on her bosom was a single diamond of resplendent water and great size. The fan in her hand was a master-piece of the finest Indian workmanship. She looked what she was, a person possessed of plenty of superfluous money, but not additionally blest with plenty of superfluous intelligence to correspond. This was the childless young widow of the great ironmaster--otherwise, Mrs. Glenarm.

The rich woman tapped the strong man coquettishly on the shoulder with her fan. “Ah! you bad boy!” she said, with a slightly-labored archness of look and manner. “Have I found you at last?”

Geoffrey sauntered on to the terrace--keeping the lady behind him with a thoroughly savage superiority to all civilized submission to the sex--and looked at his watch.

“I said I’d come here when I’d got half an hour to myself,” he mumbled, turning the flower carelessly between his teeth. “I’ve got half an hour, and here I am.”

“Did you come for the sake of seeing the visitors, or did you come for the sake of seeing Me?”

Geoffrey smiled graciously, and gave the flower another turn in his teeth. “You. Of course.”

The iron-master’s widow took his arm, and looked up at him--as only a young woman would have dared to look up--with the searching summer light streaming in its full brilliancy on her face.

Reduced to the plain expression of what it is really worth, the average English idea of beauty in women may be summed up in three words--youth, health, plumpness. The more spiritual charm of intelligence and vivacity, the subtler attraction of delicacy of line and fitness of detail, are little looked for and seldom appreciated by the mass of men in this island. It is impossible otherwise to account for the extraordinary blindness of perception which (to give one instance only) makes nine Englishmen out of ten who visit France come back declaring that they have not seen a single pretty Frenchwoman, in or out of Paris, in the whole country. Our popular type of beauty proclaims itself, in its fullest material development, at every shop in which an illustrated periodical is sold. The same fleshy-faced girl, with the same inane smile, and with no other expression whatever, appears under every form of illustration, week after week, and month after month, all the year round. Those who wish to know what Mrs. Glenarm was like, have only to go out and stop at any bookseller’s or news-vendor’s shop, and there they will see her in the first illustration, with a young woman in it, which they discover in the window. The one noticeable peculiarity in Mrs. Glenarm’s purely commonplace and purely material beauty, which would have struck an observant and a cultivated man, was the curious girlishness of her look and manner. No stranger speaking to this woman--who had been a wife at twenty, and who was now a widow at twenty-four--would ever have thought of addressing her otherwise than as “Miss.”

“Is that the use you make of a flower when I give it to you?” she said to Geoffrey. “Mumbling it in your teeth, you wretch, as if you were a horse!”

“If you come to that,” returned Geoffrey, “I’m more a horse than a man. I’m going to run in a race, and the public are betting on me. Haw! haw! Five to four.”

“Five to four! I believe he thinks of nothing but betting. You great heavy creature, I can’t move you. Don’t you see I want to go like the rest of them to the lake? No! you’re not to let go of my arm! You’re to take me.”

“Can’t do it. Must be back with Perry in half an hour.”

(Perry was the trainer from London. He had arrived sooner than he had been expected, and had entered on his functions three days since.)

“Don’t talk to me about Perry! A little vulgar wretch. Put him off. You won’t? Do you mean to say you are such a brute that you would rather be with Perry than be with me?”

“The betting’s at five to four, my dear. And the race comes off in a month from this.”

“Oh! go away to your beloved Perry! I hate you. I hope you’ll lose the race. Stop in your cottage. Pray don’t come back to the house. And--mind this!--don’t presume to say ‘my dear’ to me again.”

“It ain’t presuming half far enough, is it? Wait a bit. Give me till the race is run--and then I’ll presume to marry you.”

“You! You will be as old as Methuselah, if you wait till I am your wife. I dare say Perry has got a sister. Suppose you ask him? She would be just the right person for you.”

Geoffrey gave the flower another turn in his teeth, and looked as if he thought the idea worth considering.

“All right,” he said. “Any thing to be agreeable to you. I’ll ask Perry.”

He turned away, as if he was going to do it at once. Mrs. Glenarm put out a little hand, ravishingly clothed in a blush-colored glove, and laid it on the athlete’s mighty arm. She pinched those iron muscles (the pride and glory of England) gently. “What a man you are!” she said. “I never met with any body like you before!”

The whole secret of the power that Geoffrey had acquired over her was in those words.

They had been together at Swanhaven for little more than ten days; and in that time he had made the conquest of Mrs. Glenarm. On the day before the garden-party--in one of the leisure intervals allowed him by Perry--he had caught her alone, had taken her by the arm, and had asked her, in so many words, if she would marry him. Instances on record of women who have been wooed and won in ten days are--to speak it with all possible respect--not wanting. But an instance of a woman willing to have it known still remains to be discovered. The iron-master’s widow exacted a promise of secrecy before the committed herself When Geoffrey had pledged his word to hold his tongue in public until she gave him leave to speak, Mrs. Glenarm, without further hesitation, said Yes--having, be it observed, said No, in the course of the last two years, to at least half a dozen men who were Geoffrey’s superiors in every conceivable respect, except personal comeliness and personal strength.

There is a reason for every thing; and there was a reason for this.

However persistently the epicene theorists of modern times may deny it, it is nevertheless a truth plainly visible in the whole past history of the sexes that the natural condition of a woman is to find her master in a man. Look in the face of any woman who is in no direct way dependent on a man: and, as certainly as you see the sun in a cloudless sky, you see a woman who is not happy. The want of a master is their great unknown want; the possession of a master is--unconsciously to themselves--the only possible completion of their lives. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred this one primitive instinct is at the bottom of the otherwise inexplicable sacrifice, when we see a woman, of her own free will, throw herself away on a man who is unworthy of her. This one primitive instinct was at the bottom of the otherwise inexplicable facility of self-surrender exhibited by Mrs. Glenarm.

Up to the time of her meeting with Geoffrey, the young widow had gathered but one experience in her intercourse with the world--the experience of a chartered tyrant. In the brief six months of her married life with the man whose grand-daughter she might have been--and ought to have been--she had only to lift her finger to be obeyed. The doting old husband was the willing slave of the petulant young wife’s slightest caprice. At a later period, when society offered its triple welcome to her birth, her beauty, and her wealth--go where she might, she found herself the object of the same prostrate admiration among the suitors who vied with each other in the rivalry for her hand. For the first time in her life she encountered a man with a will of his own when she met Geoffrey Delamayn at Swanhaven Lodge.

Geoffrey’s occupation of the moment especially favored the conflict between the woman’s assertion of her influence and the man’s assertion of his will.

During the days that had intervened between his return to his brother’s house and the arrival of the trainer, Geoffrey had submitted himself to all needful preliminaries of the physical discipline which was to prepare him for the race. He knew, by previous experience, what exercise he ought to take, what hours he ought to keep, what temptations at the table he was bound to resist. Over and over again Mrs. Glenarm tried to lure him into committing infractions of his own discipline--and over and over again the influence with men which had never failed her before failed her now. Nothing she could say, nothing she could do, would move this man. Perry arrived; and Geoffrey’s defiance of every attempted exercise of the charming feminine tyranny, to which every one else had bowed, grew more outrageous and more immovable than ever. Mrs. Glenarm became as jealous of Perry as if Perry had been a woman. She flew into passions; she burst into tears; she flirted with other men; she threatened to leave the house. All quite useless! Geoffrey never once missed an appointment with Perry; never once touched any thing to eat or drink that she could offer him, if Perry had forbidden it. No other human pursuit is so hostile to the influence of the sex as the pursuit of athletic sports. No men are so entirely beyond the reach of women as the men whose lives are passed in the cultivation of their own physical strength. Geoffrey resisted Mrs. Glenarm without the slightest effort. He casually extorted her admiration, and undesignedly forced her respect. She clung to him, as a hero; she recoiled from him, as a brute; she struggled with him, submitted to him, despised him, adored him, in a breath. And the clew to it all, confused and contradictory as it seemed, lay in one simple fact--Mrs. Glenarm had found her master.

“Take me to the lake, Geoffrey!” she said, with a little pleading pressure of the blush-colored hand.

Geoffrey looked at his watch. “Perry expects me in twenty minutes,” he said.

“Perry again!”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Glenarm raised her fan, in a sudden outburst of fury, and broke it with one smart blow on Geoffrey’s face.

“There!” she cried, with a stamp of her foot. “My poor fan broken! You monster, all through you!”

Geoffrey coolly took the broken fan and put it in his pocket. “I’ll write to London,” he said, “and get you another. Come along! Kiss, and make it up.”

He looked over each shoulder, to make sure that they were alone then lifted her off the ground (she was no light weight), held her up in the air like a baby, and gave her a rough loud-sounding kiss on each cheek. “With kind compliments from yours truly!” he said--and burst out laughing, and put her down again.

“How dare you do that?” cried Mrs. Glenarm. “I shall claim Mrs. Delamayn’s protection if I am to be insulted in this way! I will never forgive you, Sir!” As she said those indignant words she shot a look at him which flatly contradicted them. The next moment she was leaning on his arm, and was looking at him wonderingly, for the thousandth time, as an entire novelty in her experience of male human kind. “How rough you are, Geoffrey!” she said, softly. He smiled in recognition of that artless homage to the manly virtue of his character. She saw the smile, and instantly made another effort to dispute the hateful supremacy of Perry. “Put him off!” whispered the daughter of Eve, determined to lure Adam into taking a bite of the apple. “Come, Geoffrey, dear, never mind Perry, this once. Take me to the lake!”

Geoffrey looked at his watch. “Perry expects me in a quarter of an hour,” he said.

Mrs. Glenarm’s indignation assumed a new form. She burst out crying. Geoffrey surveyed her for a moment with a broad stare of surprise--and then took her by both arms, and shook her!

“Look here!” he said, impatiently. “Can you coach me through my training?”

“I would if I could!”

“That’s nothing to do with it! Can you turn me out, fit, on the day of the race? Yes? or No?”

“No.”

“Then dry your eyes and let Perry do it.”

Mrs. Glenarm dried her eyes, and made another effort.

“I’m not fit to be seen,” she said. “I’m so agitated, I don’t know what to do. Come indoors, Geoffrey--and have a cup of tea.”

Geoffrey shook his head. “Perry forbids tea,” he said, “in the middle of the day.”

“You brute!” cried Mrs. Glenarm.

“Do you want me to lose the race?” retorted Geoffrey.

“Yes!”

With that answer she left him at last, and ran back into the house.

Geoffrey took a turn on the terrace--considered a little--stopped--and looked at the porch under which the irate widow had disappeared from his view. “Ten thousand a year,” he said, thinking of the matrimonial prospect which he was placing in peril. “And devilish well earned,” he added, going into the house, under protest, to appease Mrs. Glenarm.

The offended lady was on a sofa, in the solitary drawing-room. Geoffrey sat down by her. She declined to look at him. “Don’t be a fool!” said Geoffrey, in his most persuasive manner. Mrs. Glenarm put her handkerchief to her eyes. Geoffrey took it away again without ceremony. Mrs. Glenarm rose to leave the room. Geoffrey stopped her by main force. Mrs. Glenarm threatened to summon the servants. Geoffrey said, “All right! I don’t care if the whole house knows I’m fond of you!” Mrs. Glenarm looked at the door, and whispered “Hush! for Heaven’s sake!” Geoffrey put her arm in his, and said, “Come along with me: I’ve got something to say to you.” Mrs. Glenarm drew back, and shook her head. Geoffrey put his arm round her waist, and walked her out of the room, and out of the house--taking the direction, not of the terrace, but of a fir plantation on the opposite side of the grounds. Arrived among the trees, he stopped and held up a warning forefinger before the offended lady’s face. “You’re just the sort of woman I like,” he said; “and there ain’t a man living who’s half as sweet on you as I am. You leave off bullying me about Perry, and I’ll tell you what I’ll do--I’ll let you see me take a Sprint.”

He drew back a step, and fixed his big blue eyes on her, with a look which said, “You are a highly-favored woman, if ever there was one yet!” Curiosity instantly took the leading place among the emotions of Mrs. Glenarm. “What’s a Sprint, Geoffrey?” she asked.

“A short run, to try me at the top of my speed. There ain’t another living soul in all England that I’d let see it but you. Now am I a brute?”

Mrs. Glenarm was conquered again, for the hundredth time at least. She said, softly, “Oh, Geoffrey, if you could only be always like this!” Her eyes lifted themselves admiringly to his. She took his arm again of her own accord, and pressed it with a loving clasp. Geoffrey prophetically felt the ten thousand a year in his pocket. “Do you really love me?” whispered Mrs. Glenarm. “Don’t I!” answered the hero. The peace was made, and the two walked on again.

They passed through the plantation, and came out on some open ground, rising and falling prettily, in little hillocks and hollows. The last of the hillocks sloped down into a smooth level plain, with a fringe of sheltering trees on its farther side--with a snug little stone cottage among the trees--and with a smart little man, walking up and down before the cottage, holding his hands behind him. The level plain was the hero’s exercising ground; the cottage was the hero’s retreat; and the smart little man was the hero’s trainer.

If Mrs. Glenarm hated Perry, Perry (judging by appearances) was in no danger of loving Mrs. Glenarm. As Geoffrey approached with his companion, the trainer came to a stand-still, and stared silently at the lady. The lady, on her side, declined to observe that any such person as the trainer was then in existence, and present in bodily form on the scene.

“How about time?” said Geoffrey.

Perry consulted an elaborate watch, constructed to mark time to the fifth of a second, and answered Geoffrey, with his eye all the while on Mrs. Glenarm.

“You’ve got five minutes to spare.”

“Show me where you run, I’m dying to see it!” said the eager widow, taking possession of Geoffrey’s arm with both hands.

Geoffrey led her back to a place (marked by a sapling with a little flag attached to it) at some short distance from the cottage. She glided along by his side, with subtle undulations of movement which appeared to complete the exasperation of Perry. He waited until she was out of hearing--and then he invoked (let us say) the blasts of heaven on the fashionably-dressed head of Mrs. Glenarm.

“You take your place there,” said Geoffrey, posting her by the sapling. “When I pass you--” He stopped, and surveyed her with a good-humored masculine pity. “How the devil am I to make you understand it?” he went on. “Look here! when I pass you, it will be at what you would call (if I was a horse) full gallop. Hold your tongue--I haven’t done yet. You’re to look on after me as I leave you, to where the edge of the cottage wall cuts the trees. When you have lost sight of me behind the wall, you’ll have seen me run my three hundred yards from this flag. You’re in luck’s way! Perry tries me at the long Sprint to-day. You understand you’re to stop here? Very well then--let me go and get my toggery on.”

“Sha’n’t I see you again, Geoffrey?”

“Haven’t I just told you that you’ll see me run?”

“Yes--but after that?”

“After that, I’m sponged and rubbed down--and rest in the cottage.”

“You’ll come to us this evening?”

He nodded, and left her. The face of Perry looked unutterable things when he and Geoffrey met at the door of the cottage.

“I’ve got a question to ask you, Mr. Delamayn,” said the trainer. “Do you want me? or don’t you?”

“Of course I want you.”

“What did I say when I first come here?” proceeded Perry, sternly. “I said, ‘I won’t have nobody a looking on at a man I’m training. These here ladies and gentlemen may all have made up their minds to see you. I’ve made up my mind not to have no lookers-on. I won’t have you timed at your work by nobody but me. I won’t have every blessed yard of ground you cover put in the noospapers. I won’t have a living soul in the secret of what you can do, and what you can’t, except our two selves.’--Did I say that, Mr. Delamayn? or didn’t I?”

“All right!”

“Did I say it? or didn’t I?”

“Of course you did!”

“Then don’t you bring no more women here. It’s clean against rules. And I won’t have it.”

Any other living creature adopting this tone of remonstrance would probably have had reason to repent it. But Geoffrey himself was afraid to show his temper in the presence of Perry. In view of the coming race, the first and foremost of British trainers was not to be trifled with, even by the first and foremost of British athletes.

“She won’t come again,” said Geoffrey. “She’s going away from Swanhaven in two days’ time.”

“I’ve put every shilling I’m worth in the world on you,” pursued Perry, relapsing into tenderness. “And I tell you I felt it! It cut me to the heart when I see you coming along with a woman at your heels. It’s a fraud on his backers, I says to myself--that’s what it is, a fraud on his backers!”

“Shut up!” said Geoffrey. “And come and help me to win your money.” He kicked open the door of the cottage--and athlete and trainer disappeared from view.

After waiting a few minutes by the little flag, Mrs. Glenarm saw the two men approaching her from the cottage. Dressed in a close-fitting costume, light and elastic, adapting itself to every movement, and made to answer every purpose required by the exercise in which he was abo ut to engage, Geoffrey’s physical advantages showed themselves in their best and bravest aspect. His head sat proud and easy on his firm, white throat, bared to the air. The rising of his mighty chest, as he drew in deep draughts of the fragrant summer breeze; the play of his lithe and supple loins; the easy, elastic stride of his straight and shapely legs, presented a triumph of physical manhood in its highest type. Mrs. Glenarm’s eyes devoured him in silent admiration. He looked like a young god of mythology--like a statue animated with color and life. “Oh, Geoffrey!” she exclaimed, softly, as he went by. He neither answered, nor looked: he had other business on hand than listening to soft nonsense. He was gathering himself up for the effort; his lips were set; his fists were lightly clenched. Perry posted himself at his place, grim and silent, with the watch in his hand. Geoffrey walked on beyond the flag, so as to give himself start enough to reach his full speed as he passed it. “Now then!” said Perry. In an instant more, he flew by (to Mrs. Glenarm’s excited imagination) like an arrow from a bow. His action was perfect. His speed, at its utmost rate of exertion, preserved its rare underlying elements of strength and steadiness. Less and less and less he grew to the eyes that followed his course; still lightly flying over the ground, still firmly keeping the straight line. A moment more, and the runner vanished behind the wall of the cottage, and the stop-watch of the trainer returned to its place in his pocket.

In her eagerness to know the result, Mrs. Glenarm forget her jealousy of Perry.

“How long has he been?” she asked.

“There’s a good many besides you would be glad to know that,” said Perry.

“Mr. Delamayn will tell me, you rude man!”

“That depends, ma’am, on whether I tell him.”

With this reply, Perry hurried back to the cottage.

Not a word passed while the trainer was attending to his man, and while the man was recovering his breath. When Geoffrey had been carefully rubbed down, and clothed again in his ordinary garments, Perry pulled a comfortable easy-chair out of a corner. Geoffrey fell into the chair, rather than sat down in it. Perry started, and looked at him attentively.

“Well?” said Geoffrey. “How about the time? Long? short? or middling?”

“Very good time,” said Perry.

“How long?”

“When did you say the lady was going, Mr. Delamayn?”

“In two days.”

“Very well, Sir. I’ll tell you ‘how long’ when the lady’s gone.”

Geoffrey made no attempt to insist on an immediate reply. He smiled faintly. After an interval of less than ten minutes he stretched out his legs and closed his eyes.

“Going to sleep?” said Perry.

Geoffrey opened his eyes with an effort. “No,” he said. The word had hardly passed his lips before his eyes closed again.

“Hullo!” said Perry, watching him. “I don’t like that.”

He went closer to the chair. There was no doubt about it. The man was asleep.

Perry emitted a long whistle under his breath. He stooped and laid two of his fingers softly on Geoffrey’s pulse. The beat was slow, heavy, and labored. It was unmistakably the pulse of an exhausted man.

The trainer changed color, and took a turn in the room. He opened a cupboard, and produced from it his diary of the preceding year. The entries relating to the last occasion on which he had prepared Geoffrey for a foot-race included the fullest details. He turned to the report of the first trial, at three hundred yards, full speed. The time was, by one or two seconds, not so good as the time on this occasion. But the result, afterward, was utterly different. There it was, in Perry’s own words: “Pulse good. Man in high spirits. Ready, if I would have let him, to run it over again.”

Perry looked round at the same man, a year afterward--utterly worn out, and fast asleep in the chair.

He fetched pen, ink, and paper out of the cupboard, and wrote two letters--both marked “Private.” The first was to a medical man, a great authority among trainers. The second was to Perry’s own agent in London, whom he knew he could trust. The letter pledged the agent to the strictest secrecy, and directed him to back Geoffrey’s opponent in the Foot-Race for a sum equal to the sum which Perry had betted on Geoffrey himself. “If you have got any money of your own on him,” the letter concluded, “do as I do. ‘Hedge’--and hold your tongue.”

“Another of ‘em gone stale!” said the trainer, looking round again at the sleeping man. “He’ll lose the race.”

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND.

SEEDS OF THE FUTURE (SECOND SOWING).

AND what did the visitors say of the Swans?

They said, “Oh, what a number of them!”--which was all that was to be said by persons ignorant of the natural history of aquatic birds.

And what did the visitors say of the lake?

Some of them said, “How solemn!” Some of them said, “How romantic!” Some of them said nothing--but privately thought it a dismal scene.

Here again the popular sentiment struck the right note at starting. The lake was hidden in the centre of a fir wood. Except in the middle, where the sunlight reached them, the waters lay black under the sombre shadow of the trees. The one break in the plantation was at the farther end of the lake. The one sign of movement and life to be seen was the ghostly gliding of the swans on the dead-still surface of the water. It was solemn--as they said; it was romantic--as they said. It was dismal--as they thought. Pages of description could express no more. Let pages of description be absent, therefore, in this place.

Having satiated itself with the swans, having exhausted the lake, the general curiosity reverted to the break in the trees at the farther end--remarked a startlingly artificial object, intruding itself on the scene, in the shape of a large red curtain, which hung between two of the tallest firs, and closed the prospect beyond from view--requested an explanation of the curtain from Julius Delamayn--and received for answer that the mystery should be revealed on the arrival of his wife with the tardy remainder of the guests who had loitered about the house.

On the appearance of Mrs. Delamayn and the stragglers, the united party coasted the shore of the lake, and stood assembled in front of the curtain. Pointing to the silken cords hanging at either side of it, Julius Delamayn picked out two little girls (children of his wife’s sister), and sent them to the cords, with instructions to pull, and see what happened. The nieces of Julius pulled with the eager hands of children in the presence of a mystery--the curtains parted in the middle, and a cry of universal astonishment and delight saluted the scene revealed to view.

At the end of a broad avenue of firs a cool green glade spread its grassy carpet in the midst of the surrounding plantation. The ground at the farther end of the glade rose; and here, on the lower slopes, a bright little spring of water bubbled out between gray old granite rocks.

Along the right-hand edge of the turf ran a row of tables, arrayed in spotless white, and covered with refreshments waiting for the guests. On the opposite side was a band of music, which burst into harmony at the moment when the curtains were drawn. Looking back through the avenue, the eye caught a distant glimpse of the lake, where the sunlight played on the water, and the plumage of the gliding swans flashed softly in brilliant white. Such was the charming surprise which Julius Delamayn had arranged for his friends. It was only at moments like these--or when he and his wife were playing Sonatas in the modest little music-room at Swanhaven--that Lord Holchester’s eldest son was really happy. He secretly groaned over the duties which his position as a landed gentleman imposed upon him; and he suffered under some of the highest privileges of his rank and station as under social martyrdom in its cruelest form.

“We’ll dine first,” said Julius, “and dance afterward. There is the programme!”

He led the way to the tables, with the two ladies nearest to him--utterly careless whether they were or were not among the ladies of the highest rank then present. To Lady Lundie’s astonishment he took the first seat he came to, without appearing to care what place he occupied at his own feast. The guests, following his example, sat where they pleased, reckless of precedents and dignities. Mrs. Delamayn, feeling a special interest in a young lady who was shortly to be a bride, took Blanche’s arm. Lady Lundie attached herself resolutely to her hostess on the other side. The three sat together. Mrs. Delamayn did her best to encourage Blanche to talk, and Blanche did her best to meet the advances made to her. The experiment succeeded but poorly on either side. Mrs. Delamayn gave it up in despair, and turned to Lady Lundie, with a strong suspicion that some unpleasant subject of reflection was preying privately on the bride’s mind. The conclusion was soundly drawn. Blanche’s little outbreak of temper with her friend on the terrace, and Blanche’s present deficiency of gayety and spirit, were attributable to the same cause. She hid it from her uncle, she hid it from Arnold--but she was as anxious as ever, and as wretched as ever, about Anne; and she was still on the watch (no matter what Sir Patrick might say or do) to seize the first opportunity of renewing the search for her lost friend.

Meanwhile the eating, the drinking, and the talking went merrily on. The band played its liveliest melodies; the servants kept the glasses constantly filled: round all the tables gayety and freedom reigned supreme. The one conversation in progress, in which the talkers were not in social harmony with each other, was the conversation at Blanche’s side, between her step-mother and Mrs. Delamayn.

Among Lady Lundie’s other accomplishments the power of making disagreeable discoveries ranked high. At the dinner in the glade she had not failed to notice--what every body else had passed over--the absence at the festival of the hostess’s brother-in-law; and more remarkable still, the disappearance of a lady who was actually one of the guests staying in the house: in plainer words, the disappearance of Mrs. Glenarm.

“Am I mistaken?” said her ladyship, lifting her eye-glass, and looking round the tables. “Surely there is a member of our party missing? I don’t see Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn.”

“Geoffrey promised to be here. But he is not particularly attentive, as you may have noticed, to keeping engagements of this sort. Every thing is sacrificed to his training. We only see him at rare intervals now.”

With that reply Mrs. Delamayn attempted to change the subject. Lady Lundie lifted her eye-glass, and looked round the tables for the second time.

“Pardon me,” persisted her ladyship--“but is it possible that I have discovered another absentee? I don’t see Mrs. Glenarm. Yet surely she must be here! Mrs. Glenarm is not training for a foot-race. Do you see her? I don’t.”

“I missed her when we went out on the terrace, and I have not seen her since.”

“Isn’t it very odd, dear Mrs. Delamayn?”

“Our guests at Swanhaven, Lady Lundie, have perfect liberty to do as they please.”

In those words Mrs. Delamayn (as she fondly imagined) dismissed the subject. But Lady Lundie’s robust curiosity proved unassailable by even the broadest hint. Carried away, in all probability, by the infection of merriment about her, her ladyship displayed unexpected reserves of vivacity. The mind declines to realize it; but it is not the less true that this majestic woman actually simpered!

“Shall we put two and two together?” said Lady Lundie, with a ponderous playfulness wonderful to see. “Here, on the one hand, is Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn--a young single man. And here, on the other, is Mrs. Glenarm--a young widow. Rank on the side of the young single man; riches on the side of the young widow. And both mysteriously absent at the same time, from the same pleasant party. Ha, Mrs. Delamayn! should I guess wrong, if I guessed that you will have a marriage in the family, too, before long?”

Mrs. Delamayn looked a little annoyed. She had entered, with all her heart, into the conspiracy for making a match between Geoffrey and Mrs. Glenarm. But she was not prepared to own that the lady’s facility had (in spite of all attempts to conceal it from discovery) made the conspiracy obviously successful in ten days’ time.

“I am not in the secrets of the lady and gentleman whom you mention,” she replied, dryly.

A heavy body is slow to acquire movement--and slow to abandon movement, when once acquired. The playfulness of Lady Lundie, being essentially heavy, followed the same rule. She still persisted in being as lively as ever.

“Oh, what a diplomatic answer!” exclaimed her ladyship. “I think I can interpret it, though, for all that. A little bird tells me that I shall see a Mrs. Geoffrey Delamayn in London, next season. And I, for one, shall not be surprised to find myself congratulating Mrs. Glenarm.”

“If you persist in letting your imagination run away with you, Lady Lundie, I can’t possibly help it. I can only request permission to keep the bridle on mine.”

This time, even Lady Lundie understood that it would be wise to say no more. She smiled and nodded, in high private approval of her own extraordinary cleverness. If she had been asked at that moment who was the most brilliant Englishwoman living, she would have looked inward on herself--and would have seen, as in a glass brightly, Lady Lundie, of Windygates.

From the moment when the talk at her side entered on the subject of Geoffrey Delamayn and Mrs. Glenarm--and throughout the brief period during which it remained occupied with that topic--Blanche became conscious of a strong smell of some spirituous liquor wafted down on her, as she fancied, from behind and from above. Finding the odor grow stronger and stronger, she looked round to see whether any special manufacture of grog was proceeding inexplicably at the back of her chair. The moment she moved her head, her attention was claimed by a pair of tremulous gouty old hands, offering her a grouse pie, profusely sprinkled with truffles.

“Eh, my bonny Miss!” whispered a persuasive voice at her ear, “ye’re joost stairving in a land o’ plenty. Tak’ my advice, and ye’ll tak’ the best thing at tebble--groose-poy, and trufflers.”

Blanche looked up.

There he was--the man of the canny eye, the fatherly manner, and the mighty nose--Bishopriggs--preserved in spirits and ministering at the festival at Swanhaven Lodge!

Blanche had only seen him for a moment on the memorable night of the storm, when she had surprised Anne at the inn. But instants passed in the society of Bishopriggs were as good as hours spent in the company of inferior men. Blanche instantly recognized him; instantly called to mind Sir Patrick’s conviction that he was in possession of Anne’s lost letter; instantly rushed to the conclusion that, in discovering Bishopriggs, she had discovered a chance of tracing Anne. Her first impulse was to claim acquaintance with him on the spot. But the eyes of her neighbors were on her, warning her to wait. She took a little of the pie, and looked hard at Bishopriggs. That discreet man, showing no sign of recognition on his side, bowed respectfully, and went on round the table.

“I wonder whether he has got the letter about him?” thought Blanche.

He had not only got the letter about him--but, more than that, he was actually then on the look-out for the means of turning the letter to profitable pecuniary account.

The domestic establishment of Swanhaven Lodge included no formidable array of servants. When Mrs. Delamayn gave a large party, she depended for such additional assistance as was needed partly on the contributions of her friends, partly on the resources of the principal inn at Kirkandrew. Mr. Bishopriggs, serving at the time (in the absence of any better employment) as a supernumerary at the inn, made one among the waiters who could be spared to assist at the garden-party. The name of the gentleman by whom he was to be employed for the day had struck him, when he first heard it, as having a familiar sound. He had made his inquiries; and had then betaken himself for additional information, to the letter which he had picked up from the parlor floor at Craig Fernie.

The sheet of note-paper, lost by Anne, contained, it may be remembered, two letters--one signed by herself; the other signed by Geoffrey--and both suggestive, to a stranger’s eye, of relations between the writers which they were interested in concealing from the public view.

Thinking it just possible--if he kept his eyes and ears well open at Swanhaven--that he might improve his prospect of making a marketable commodity of the stolen correspondence, Mr. Bishopriggs had put the letter in his pocket when he left Kirkandrew. He had recognized Blanche, as a friend of the lady at the inn--and as a person who might perhaps be turned to account, in that capacity. And he had, moreover, heard every word of the conversation between Lady Lundie and Mrs. Delamayn on the subject of Geoffrey and Mrs. Glenarm. There were hours to be passed before the guests would retire, and before the waiters would be dismissed. The conviction was strong in the mind of Mr. Bishopriggs that he might find good reason yet for congratulating himself on the chance which had associated him with the festivities at Swanhaven Lodge.

It was still early in the afternoon when the gayety at the dinner-table began, in certain quarters, to show signs of wearing out.

The younger members of the party--especially the ladies--grew restless with the appearance of the dessert. One after another they looked longingly at the smooth level of elastic turf in the middle of the glade. One after another they beat time absently with their fingers to the waltz which the musicians happened to be playing at the moment. Noticing these symptoms, Mrs. Delamayn set the example of rising; and her husband sent a message to the band. In ten minutes more the first quadrille was in progress on the grass; the spectators were picturesquely grouped round, looking on; and the servants and waiters, no longer wanted, had retired out of sight, to a picnic of their own.

The last person to leave the deserted tables was the venerable Bishopriggs. He alone, of the men in attendance, had contrived to combine a sufficient appearance of waiting on the company with a clandestine attention to his own personal need of refreshment. Instead of hurrying away to the servants’ dinner with the rest, he made the round of the tables, apparently clearing away the crumbs--actually, emptying the wine-glasses. Immersed in this occupation, he was startled by a lady’s voice behind him, and, turning as quickly as he could, found himself face to face with Miss Lundie.

“I want some cold water,” said Blanche. “Be so good as to get me some from the spring.”

She pointed to the bubbling rivulet at the farther end of the glade.

Bishopriggs looked unaffectedly shocked.

“Lord’s sake, miss,” he exclaimed “d’ye relly mean to offend yer stomach wi’ cauld water--when there’s wine to be had for the asking!”

Blanche gave him a look. Slowness of perception was not on the list of the failings of Bishopriggs. He took up a tumbler, winked with his one available eye, and led the way to the rivulet. There was nothing remarkable in the spectacle of a young lady who wanted a glass of spring-water, or of a waiter who was getting it for her. Nobody was surprised; and (with the band playing) nobody could by any chance overhear what might be said at the spring-side.

“Do you remember me at the inn on the night of the storm?” asked Blanche.

Mr. Bishopriggs had his reasons (carefully inclosed in his pocketbook) for not being too ready to commit himself with Blanche at starting.

“I’m no’ saying I canna remember ye, miss. Whar’s the man would mak’ sic an answer as that to a bonny young leddy like you?”

By way of assisting his memory Blanche took out her purse. Bishopriggs became absorbed in the scenery. He looked at the running water with the eye of a man who thoroughly distrusted it, viewed as a beverage.

“There ye go,” he said, addressing himself to the rivulet, “bubblin’ to yer ain annihilation in the loch yonder! It’s little I know that’s gude aboot ye, in yer unconvairted state. Ye’re a type o’ human life, they say. I tak’ up my testimony against that. Ye’re a type o’ naething at all till ye’re heated wi’ fire, and sweetened wi’ sugar, and strengthened wi’ whusky; and then ye’re a type o’ toddy--and human life (I grant it) has got something to say to ye in that capacity!”

“I have heard more about you, since I was at the inn,” proceeded Blanche, “than you may suppose.” (She opened her purse: Mr. Bishopriggs became the picture of attention.) “You were very, very kind to a lady who was staying at Craig Fernie,” she went on, earnestly. “I know that you have lost your place at the inn, because you gave all your attention to that lady. She is my dearest friend, Mr. Bishopriggs. I want to thank you. I do thank you. Please accept what I have got here?”

All the girl’s heart was in her eyes and in her voice as she emptied her purse into the gouty (and greedy) old hand of Bishopriggs.

A young lady with a well-filled purse (no matter how rich the young lady may be) is a combination not often witnessed in any country on the civilized earth. Either the money is always spent, or the money has been forgotten on the toilet-table at home. Blanche’s purse contained a sovereign and some six or seven shillings in silver. As pocket-money for an heiress it was contemptible. But as a gratuity to Bishopriggs it was magnificent. The old rascal put the money into his pocket with one hand, and dashed away the tears of sensibility, which he had not shed, with the other.

“Cast yer bread on the waters,” cried Mr. Bishopriggs, with his one eye raised devotionally to the sky, “and ye sall find it again after monny days! Heeh! hech! didna I say when I first set eyes on that puir leddy, ‘I feel like a fether to ye?’ It’s seemply mairvelous to see hoo a man’s ain gude deeds find him oot in this lower warld o’ ours. If ever I heard the voice o’ naitural affection speaking in my ain breast,” pursued Mr. Bishopriggs, with his eye fixed in uneasy expectation on Blanche, “it joost spak’ trumpet-tongued when that winsome creature first lookit at me. Will it be she now that told ye of the wee bit sairvice I rendered to her in the time when I was in bondage at the hottle?”

“Yes--she told me herself.”

“Might I mak’ sae bauld as to ask whar’ she may be at the present time?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Bishopriggs. I am more miserable about it than I can say. She has gone away--and I don’t know where.”

“Ow! ow! that’s bad. And the bit husband-creature danglin’ at her petticoat’s tail one day, and awa’ wi’ the sunrise next mornin’--have they baith taken leg-bail together?”

“I know nothing of him; I never saw him. You saw him. Tell me--what was he like?”

“Eh! he was joost a puir weak creature. Didn’t know a glass o’ good sherry-wine when he’d got it. Free wi’ the siller--that’s a’ ye can say for him--free wi’ the siller!”

Finding it impossible to extract from Mr. Bishopriggs any clearer description of the man who had been with Anne at the inn than this, Blanche approached the main object of the interview. Too anxious to waste time in circumlocution, she turned the conversation at once to the delicate and doubtful subject of the lost letter.

“There is something else that I want to say to you,” she resumed. “My friend had a loss while she was staying at the inn.”

The clouds of doubt rolled off the mind of Mr. Bishopriggs. The lady’s friend knew of the lost letter. And, better still, the lady’s friend looked as if she wanted it!

“Ay! ay!” he said, with all due appearance of carelessness. “Like eneugh. From the mistress downward, they’re a’ kittle cattle at the inn since I’ve left ‘em. What may it ha’ been that she lost?”

“She lost a letter.”

The look of uneasy expectation reappeared in the eye of Mr. Bishopriggs. It was a question--and a serious question, from his point of view--whether any suspicion of theft was attached to the disappearance of the letter.

“When ye say ‘lost,’” he asked, “d’ye mean stolen?”

Blanche was quite quick enough to see the necessity of quieting his mind on this point.

“Oh no!” she answered. “Not stolen. Only lost. Did you hear about it?”

“Wherefore suld I ha’ heard aboot it?” He looked hard at Blanche--and detected a momentary hesitation in her face. “Tell me this, my young leddy,” he went on, advancing warily near to the point. “When ye’re speering for news o’ your friend’s lost letter--what sets ye on comin’ to me?”

Those words were decisive. It is hardly too much to say that Blanche’s future depended on Blanche’s answer to that question.

If she could have produced the money; and if she had said, boldly, “You have got the letter, Mr. Bishopriggs: I pledge my word that no questions shall be asked, and I offer you ten pounds for it”--in all probability the bargain would have been struck; and the whole course of coming events would, in that case, have been altered. But she had no money left; and there were no friends, in the circle at Swanhaven, to whom she could apply, without being misinterpreted, for a loan of ten pounds, to be privately intrusted to her on the spot. Under stress of sheer necessity Blanche abandoned all hope of making any present appeal of a pecuniary nature to the confidence of Bishopriggs.

The one other way of attaining her object that she could see was to arm herself with the influence of Sir Patrick’s name. A man, placed in her position, would have thought it mere madness to venture on such a risk as this. But Blanche--with one act of rashness already on her conscience--rushed, woman-like, straight to the commission of another. The same headlong eagerness to reach her end, which had hurried her into questioning Geoffrey before he left Windygates, now drove her, just as recklessly, into taking the management of Bishopriggs out of Sir Patrick’s skilled and practiced hands. The starving sisterly love in her hungered for a trace of Anne. Her heart whispered, Risk it! And Blanche risked it on the spot.

“Sir Patrick set me on coming to you,” she said.

The opening hand of Mr. Bishopriggs--ready to deliver the letter, and receive the reward--closed again instantly as she spoke those words.

“Sir Paitrick?” he repeated “Ow! ow! ye’ve een tauld Sir Paitrick aboot it, have ye? There’s a chiel wi’ a lang head on his shouthers, if ever there was ane yet! What might Sir Paitrick ha’ said?”

Blanche noticed a change in his tone. Blanche was rigidly careful (when it was too late) to answer him in guarded terms.

“Sir Patrick thought you might have found the letter,” she said, “and might not have remembered about it again until after you had left the inn.”

Bishopriggs looked back into his own personal experience of his old master--and drew the correct conclusion that Sir Patrick’s view of his connection with the disappearance of the letter was not the purely unsuspicious view reported by Blanche. “The dour auld deevil,” he thought to himself, “knows me better than that!”

“Well?” asked Blanche, impatiently. “Is Sir Patrick right?”

“Richt?” rejoined Bishopriggs, briskly. “He’s as far awa’ from the truth as John o’ Groat’s House is from Jericho.”

“You know nothing of the letter?”

“Deil a bit I know o’ the letter. The first I ha’ heard o’ it is what I hear noo.”

Blanche’s heart sank within her. Had she defeated her own object, and cut the ground from under Sir Patrick’s feet, for the second time? Surely not! There was unquestionably a chance, on this occasion, that the man might be prevailed upon to place the trust in her uncle which he was too cautious to confide to a stranger like herself. The one wise thing to do now was to pave the way for the exertion of Sir Patrick’s superior influence, and Sir Patrick’s superior skill. She resumed the conversation with that object in view.

“I am sorry to hear that Sir Patrick has guessed wrong,” she resumed. “My friend was anxious to recover the letter when I last saw her; and I hoped to hear news of it from you. However, right or wrong, Sir Patrick has some reasons for wishing to see you--and I take the opportunity of telling you so. He has left a letter to wait for you at the Craig Fernie inn.”

“I’m thinking the letter will ha’ lang eneugh to wait, if it waits till I gae back for it to the hottle,” remarked Bishopriggs.

“In that case,” said Blanche, promptly, “you had better give me an address at which Sir Patrick can write to you. You wouldn’t, I suppose, wish me to say that I had seen you here, and that you refused to communicate with him?”

“Never think it!” cried Bishopriggs, fervently. “If there’s ain thing mair than anither that I’m carefu’ to presairve intact, it’s joost the respectful attention that I owe to Sir Paitrick. I’ll make sae bauld, miss, au to chairge ye wi’ that bit caird. I’m no’ settled in ony place yet (mair’s the pity at my time o’ life!), but Sir Paitrick may hear o’ me, when Sir Paitrick has need o’ me, there.” He handed a dirty little card to Blanche containing the name and address of a butcher in Edinburgh. “Sawmuel Bishopriggs,” he went on, glibly. “Care o’ Davie Dow, flesher; Cowgate; Embro. My Patmos in the weelderness, miss, for the time being.”

Blanche received the address with a sense of unspeakable relief. If she had once more ventured on taking Sir Patrick’s place, and once more failed in justifying her rashness by the results, she had at least gained some atoning advantage, this time, by opening a means of communication between her uncle and Bishopriggs. “You will hear from Sir Patrick,” she said, and nodded kindly, and returned to her place among the guests.

“I’ll hear from Sir Paitrick, wull I?” repeated Bishopriggs when he was left by himself. “Sir Paitrick will wark naething less than a meeracle if he finds Sawmuel Bishopriggs at the Cowgate, Embro!”

He laughed softly over his own cleverness; and withdrew to a lonely place in the plantation, in which he could consult the stolen correspondence without fear of being observed by any living creature. Once more the truth had tried to struggle into light, before the day of the marriage, and once more Blanche had innocently helped the darkness to keep it from view.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-THIRD.

SEEDS OF THE FUTURE (THIRD SOWING).

AFTER a new and attentive reading of Anne’s letter to Geoffrey, and of Geoffrey’s letter to Anne, Bishopriggs laid down comfortably under a tree, and set himself the task of seeing his position plainly as it was at that moment.

The profitable disposal of the correspondence to Blanche was no longer among the possibilities involved in the case. As for treating with Sir Patrick, Bishopriggs determined to keep equally dear of the Cowgate, Edinburgh, and of Mrs. Inchbare’s inn, so long as there was the faintest chance of his pushing his own interests in any other quarter. No person living would be capable of so certainly extracting the correspondence from him, on such ruinously cheap terms as his old master. “I’ll no’ put myself under Sir Paitrick’s thumb,” thought Bishopriggs, “till I’ve gane my ain rounds among the lave o’ them first.”

Rendered into intelligible English, this resolution pledged him to hold no communication with Sir Patrick--until he had first tested his success in negotiating with other persons, who might be equally interested in getting possession of the correspondence, and more liberal in giving hush-money to the thief who had stolen it.

Who were the “other persons” at his disposal, under these circumstances?

He had only to recall the conversation which he had overheard between Lady Lundie and Mrs. Delamayn to arrive at the discovery of one person, to begin with, who was directly interested in getting possession of his own letter. Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn was in a fair way of being married to a lady named Mrs. Glenarm. And here was this same Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn in matrimonial correspondence, little more than a fortnight since, with another lady--who signed herself “Anne Silvester.”

Whatever his position between the two women might be, his interest in possessing himself of the correspondence was plain beyond all doubt. It was equally clear that the first thing to be done by Bishopriggs was to find the means of obtaining a personal interview with him. If the interview led to nothing else, it would decide one important question which still remained to be solved. The lady whom Bishopriggs had waited on at Craig Fernie might well be “Anne Silvester.” Was Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn, in that case, the gentleman who had passed as her husband at the inn?

Bishopriggs rose to his gouty feet with all possible alacrity, and hobbled away to make the necessary inquiries, addressing himself, not to the men-servants at the dinner-table, who would be sure to insist on his joining them, but to the women-servants left in charge of the empty house.

He easily obtained the necessary directions for finding the cottage. But he was warned that Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn’s trainer allowed nobody to see his patron at exercise, and that he would certainly be ordered off again the moment he appeared on the scene.

Bearing this caution in mind, Bishopriggs made a circuit, on reaching the open ground, so as to approach the cottage at the back, under shelter of the trees behind it. One look at Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn was all that he wanted in the first instance. They were welcome to order him off again, as long as he obtained that.

He was still hesitating at the outer line of the trees, when he heard a loud, imperative voice, calling from the front of the cottage, “Now, Mr. Geoffrey! Time’s up!” Another voice answered, “All right!” and, after an interval, Geoffrey Delamayn appeared on the open ground, proceeding to the point from which he was accustomed to walk his measured mile.

Advancing a few steps to look at his man more closely, Bishopriggs was instantly detected by the quick eye of the trainer. “Hullo!” cried Perry, “what do you want here?” Bishopriggs opened his lips to make an excuse. “Who the devil are you?” roared Geoffrey. The trainer answered the question out of the resources of his own experience. “A spy, Sir--sent to time you at your work.” Geoffrey lifted his mighty fist, and sprang forward a step. Perry held his patron back. “You can’t do that, Sir,” he said; “the man’s too old. No fear of his turning up again--you’ve scared him out of his wits.” The statement was strictly true. The terror of Bishopriggs at the sight of Geoffrey’s fist restored to him the activity of his youth. He ran for the first time for twenty years; and only stopped to remember his infirmities, and to catch his breath, when he was out of sight of the cottage, among the trees.

He sat down to rest and recover himself, with the comforting inner conviction that, in one respect at least, he had gained his point. The furious savage, with the eyes that darted fire and the fist that threatened destruction, was a total stranger to him. In other words, not the man who had passed as the lady’s husband at the inn.

At the same time it was equally certain that he was the man involved in the compromising correspondence which Bishopriggs possessed. To appeal, however, to his interest in obtaining the letter was entirely incompatible (after the recent exhibition of his fist) with the strong regard which Bishopriggs felt for his own personal security. There was no alternative now but to open negotiations with the one other person concerned in the matter (fortunately, on this occasion, a person of the gentler sex), who was actually within reach. Mrs. Glenarm was at Swanhaven. She had a direct interest in clearing up the question of a prior claim to Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn on the part of another woman. And she could only do that by getting the correspondence into her own hands.

“Praise Providence for a’ its mercies!” said Bishopriggs, getting on his feet again. “I’ve got twa strings, as they say, to my boo. I trow the woman’s the canny string o’ the twa--and we’ll een try the twanging of her.”

He set forth on his road back again, to search among the company at the lake for Mrs. Glenarm.

The dance had reached its climax of animation when Bishopriggs reappeared on the scene of his duties; and the ranks of the company had been recruited, in his absence, by the very person whom it was now his foremost object to approach.

Receiving, with supple submission, a reprimand for his prolonged absence from the chief of the servants, Bishopriggs--keeping his one observant eye carefully on the look-out--busied himself in promoting the circulation of ices and cool drinks.

While he was thus occupied, his attention was attracted by two persons who, in very different ways, stood out prominently as marked characters among the rank and file of the guests.

The first person was a vivacious, irascible old gentleman, who persisted in treating the undeniable fact of his age on the footing of a scandalous false report set afloat by Time. He was superbly strapped and padded. His hair, his teeth, and his complexion were triumphs of artificial youth. When he was not occupied among the youngest women present--which was very seldom--he attached himself exclusively to the youngest men. He insisted on joining every dance. Twice he measured his length upon the grass, but nothing daunted him. He was waltzing again, with another young woman, at the next dance, as if nothing had happened. Inquiring who this effervescent old gentleman might be, Bishopriggs discovered that he was a retired officer in the navy; commonly known (among his inferiors) as “The Tartar;” more formally described in society as Captain Newenden, the last male representative of one of the oldest families in England.

The second person, who appeared to occupy a position of distinction at the dance in the glade, was a lady.

To the eye of Bishopriggs, she was a miracle of beauty, with a small fortune for a poor man carried about her in silk, lace, and jewelry. No woman present was the object of such special attention among the men as this fascinating and priceless creature. She sat fanning herself with a matchless work of art (supposed to be a handkerchief) representing an island of cambric in the midst of an ocean of lace. She was surrounded by a little court of admirers, who fetched and carried at her slightest nod, like well-trained dogs. Sometimes they brought refreshments, which she had asked for, only to decline taking them when they came. Sometimes they brought information of what was going on among the dancers, which the lady had been eager to receive when they went away, and in which she had ceased to feel the smallest interest when they came back. Every body burst into ejaculations of distress when she was asked to account for her absence from the dinner, and answered, “My poor nerves.” Every body said, “What should we have done without you!”--when she doubted if she had done wisely in joining the party at all. Inquiring who this favored lady might be, Bishopriggs discovered that she was the niece of the indomitable old gentleman who would dance--or, more plainly still, no less a person than his contemplated customer, Mrs. Glenarm.

With all his enormous assurance Bishopriggs was daunted when he found himself facing the question of what he was to do next.

To open negotiations with Mrs. Glenarm, under present circumstances, was, for a man in his position, simply impossible. But, apart from this, the prospect of profitably addressing himself to that lady in the future was, to say the least of it, beset with difficulties of no common kind.

Supposing the means of disclosing Geoffrey’s position to her to be found--what would she do, when she received her warning? She would in all probability apply to one of two formidable men, both of whom were interested in the matter. If she went straight to the man accused of attempting to marry her, at a time when he was already engaged to another woman--Bishopriggs would find himself confronted with the owner of that terrible fist, which had justly terrified him even on a distant and cursory view. If, on the other hand she placed her interests in the care of her uncle--Bishopriggs had only to look at the captain, and to calculate his chance of imposing terms on a man who owed Life a bill of more than sixty years’ date, and who openly defied time to recover the debt.

With these serious obstacles standing in the way, what was to be done? The only alternative left was to approach Mrs. Glenarm under shelter of the dark.

Reaching this conclusion, Bishopriggs decided to ascertain from the servants what the lady’s future movements might be; and, thus informed, to startle her by anonymous warnings, conveyed through the post, and claiming their answer through the advertising channel of a newspaper. Here was the certainty of alarming her, coupled with the certainty of safety to himself! Little did Mrs. Glenarm dream, when she capriciously stopped a servant going by with some glasses of lemonade, that the wretched old creature who offered the tray contemplated corresponding with her before the week was out, in the double character of her “Well-Wisher” and her “True Friend.”

The evening advanced. The shadows lengthened. The waters of the lake grew pitchy black. The gliding of the ghostly swans became rare and more rare. The elders of the party thought of the drive home. The juniors (excepting Captain Newenden) began to flag at the dance. Little by little the comfortable attractions of the house--tea, coffee, and candle-light in snug rooms--resumed their influence. The guests abandoned the glade; and the fingers and lungs of the musicians rested at last.

Lady Lundie and her party were the first to send for the carriage and say farewell; the break-up of the household at Windygates on the next day, and the journey south, being sufficient apologies for setting the example of retreat. In an hour more the only visitors left were the guests staying at Swanhaven Lodge.

The company gone, the hired waiters from Kirkandrew were paid and dismissed.

On the journey back the silence of Bishopriggs created some surprise among his comrades.

“I’ve got my ain concerns to think of,” was the only answer he vouchsafed to the remonstrances addressed to him. The “concerns” alluded to, comprehended, among other changes of plan, his departure from Kirkandrew the next day--with a reference, in case of inquiries, to his convenient friend at the Cowgate, Edinburgh. His actual destination--to be kept a secret from every body--was Perth. The neighborhood of this town--as stated on the authority of her own maid--was the part of Scotland to which the rich widow contemplated removing when she left Swanhaven in two days’ time. At Perth, Bishopriggs knew of more than one place in which he could get temporary employment--and at Perth he determined to make his first anonymous advances to Mrs. Glenarm.

The remainder of the evening passed quietly enough at the Lodge.

The guests were sleepy and dull after the excitement of the day. Mrs. Glenarm retired early. At eleven o’clock Julius Delamayn was the only person left up in the house. He was understood to be in his study, preparing an address to the electors, based on instructions sent from London by his father. He was actually occupied in the music-room--now that there was nobody to discover him--playing exercises softly on his beloved violin.

At the trainer’s cottage a trifling incident occured, that night, which afforded materials for a note in Perry’s professional diary.

Geoffrey had sustained the later trial of walking for a given time and distance, at his full speed, without showing any of those symptoms of exhaustion which had followed the more serious experiment of running, to which he had been subjected earlier in the day. Perry, honestly bent--though he had privately hedged his own bets--on doing his best to bring his man in good order to the post on the day of the race, had forbidden Geoffrey to pay his evening visit to the house, and had sent him to bed earlier than usual. The trainer was alone, looking over his own written rules, and considering what modifications he should introduce into the diet and exercises of the next day, when he was startled by a sound of groaning from the bedroom in which his patron lay asleep.

He went in, and found Geoffrey rolling to and fro on the pillow, with his face contorted, with his hands clenched, and with the perspiration standing thick on his forehead--suffering evidently under the nervous oppression produced by the phantom-terrors of a dream.

Perry spoke to him, and pulled him up in the bed. He woke with a scream. He stared at his trainer in vacant terror, and spoke to his trainer in wild words. “What are your horrid eyes looking at over my shoulder?” he cried out. “Go to the devil--and take your infernal slate with you!” Perry spoke to him once more. “You’ve been dreaming of somebody, Mr. Delamayn. What’s to do about a slate?” Geoffrey looked eagerly round the room, and heaved a heavy breath of relief. “I could have sworn she was staring at me over the dwarf pear-trees,” he said. “All right, I know where I am now.” Perry (attributing the dream to nothing more important than a passing indigestion) administered some brandy and water, and left him to drop off again to sleep. He fretfully forbade the extinguishing of the light. “Afraid of the dark?” said Perry, with a laugh. No. He was afraid of dreaming again of the dumb cook at Windygates House.

SEVENTH SCENE.--HAM FARM.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FOURTH.

THE NIGHT BEFORE.

THE time was the night before the marriage. The place was Sir Patrick’s house in Kent.

The lawyers had kept their word. The settlements had been forwarded, and had been signed two days since.

With the exception of the surgeon and one of the three young gentlemen from the University, who had engagements elsewhere, the visitors at Windygates had emigrated southward to be present at the marriage. Besides these gentlemen, there were some ladies among the guests invited by Sir Patrick--all of them family connections, and three of them appointed to the position of Blanche’s bridesmaids. Add one or two neighbors to be invited to the breakfast--and the wedding-party would be complete.

There was nothing architecturally remarkable about Sir Patrick’s house. Ham Farm possessed neither the splendor of Windygates nor the picturesque antiquarian attraction of Swanhaven. It was a perfectly commonplace English country seat, surrounded by perfectly commonplace English scenery. Snug monotony welcomed you when you went in, and snug monotony met you again when you turned to the window and looked out.

The animation and variety wanting at Ham Farm were far from being supplied by the company in the house. It was remembered, at an after-period, that a duller wedding-party had never been assembled together.

Sir Patrick, having no early associations with the place, openly admitted that his residence in Kent preyed on his spirits, and that he would have infinitely preferred a room at the inn in the village. The effort to sustain his customary vivacity was not encouraged by persons and circumstances about him. Lady Lundie’s fidelity to the memory of the late Sir Thomas, on the scene of his last illness and death, persisted in asserting itself, under an ostentation of concealment which tried even the trained temper of Sir Patrick himself. Blanche, still depressed by her private anxieties about Anne, was in no condition of mind to look gayly at the last memorable days of her maiden life. Arnold, sacrificed--by express stipulation on the part of Lady Lundie--to the prurient delicacy which forbids the bridegroom, before marriage, to sleep in the same house with the bride, found himself ruthlessly shut out from Sir Patrick’s hospitality, and exiled every night to a bedroom at the inn. He accepted his solitary doom with a resignation which extended its sobering influence to his customary flow of spirits. As for the ladies, the elder among them existed in a state of chronic protest against Lady Lundie, and the younger were absorbed in the essentially serious occupation of considering and comparing their wedding-dresses. The two young gentlemen from the University performed prodigies of yawning, in the intervals of prodigies of billiard playing. Smith said, in despair, “There’s no making things pleasant in this house, Jones.” And Jones sighed, and mildly agreed with him.

On the Sunday evening--which was the evening before the marriage--the dullness, as a matter of course, reached its climax.

But two of the occupations in which people may indulge on week days are regarded as harmless on Sunday by the obstinately anti-Christian tone of feeling which prevails in this matter among the Anglo-Saxon race. It is not sinful to wrangle in religious controversy; and it is not sinful to slumber over a religious book. The ladies at Ham Farm practiced the pious observance of the evening on this plan. The seniors of the sex wrangled in Sunday controversy; and the juniors of the sex slumbered over Sunday books. As for the men, it is unnecessary to say that the young ones smoked when they were not yawning, and yawned when they were not smoking. Sir Patrick staid in the library, sorting old letters and examining old accounts. Every person in the house felt the oppression of the senseless social prohibitions which they had imposed on themselves. And yet every person in the house would have been scandalized if the plain question had been put: You know this is a tyranny of your own making, you know you don’t really believe in it, you know you don’t really like it--why do you submit? The freest people on the civilized earth are the only people on the civilized earth who dare not face that question.

The evening dragged its slow length on; the welcome time drew nearer and nearer for oblivion in bed. Arnold was silently contemplating, for the last time, his customary prospects of banishment to the inn, when he became aware that Sir Patrick was making signs to him. He rose and followed his host into the empty dining-room. Sir Patrick carefully closed the door. What did it mean?

It meant--so far as Arnold was concerned--that a private conversation was about to diversify the monotony of the long Sunday evening at Ham Farm.

“I have a word to say to you, Arnold,” the old gentleman began, “before you become a married man. Do you remember the conversation at dinner yesterday, about the dancing-party at Swanhaven Lodge?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember what Lady Lundie said while the topic was on the table?”

“She told me, what I can’t believe, that Geoffrey Delamayn was going to be married to Mrs. Glenarm.”

“Exactly! I observed that you appeared to be startled by what my sister-in-law had said; and when you declared that appearances must certainly have misled her, you looked and spoke (to my mind) like a man animated by a strong feeling of indignation. Was I wrong in drawing that conclusion?”

“No, Sir Patrick. You were right.”

“Have you any objection to tell me why you felt indignant?”

Arnold hesitated.

“You are probably at a loss to know what interest I can feel in the matter?”

Arnold admitted it with his customary frankness.

“In that case,” rejoined Sir Patrick, “I had better go on at once with the matter in hand--leaving you to see for yourself the connection between what I am about to say, and the question that I have just put. When I have done, you shall then reply to me or not, exactly as you think right. My dear boy, the subject on which I want to speak to you is--Miss Silvester.”

Arnold started. Sir Patrick looked at him with a moment’s attention, and went on:

“My niece has her faults of temper and her failings of judgment,” he said. “But she has one atoning quality (among many others) which ought to make--and which I believe will make--the happiness of your married life. In the popular phrase, Blanche is as true as steel. Once her friend, always her friend. Do you see what I am coming to? She has said nothing about it, Arnold; but she has not yielded one inch in her resolution to reunite herself to Miss Silvester. One of the first questions you will have to determine, after to-morrow, will be the question of whether you do, or not, sanction your wife in attempting to communicate with her lost friend.”

Arnold answered without the slightest reserve

“I am heartily sorry for Blanche’s lost friend, Sir Patrick. My wife will have my full approval if she tries to bring Miss Silvester back--and my best help too, if I can give it.”

Those words were earnestly spoken. It was plain that they came from his heart.

“I think you are wrong,” said Sir Patrick. “I, too, am sorry for Miss Silvester. But I am convinced that she has not left Blanche without a serious reason for it. And I believe you will be encouraging your wife in a hopeless effort, if you encourage her to persist in the search for her lost friend. However, it is your affair, and not mine. Do you wish me to offer you any facilities for tracing Miss Silvester which I may happen to possess?”

“If you can help us over any obstacles at starting, Sir Patrick, it will be a kindness to Blanche, and a kindness to me.”

“Very good. I suppose you remember what I said to you, one morning, when we were talking of Miss Silvester at Windygates?”

“You said you had determined to let her go her own way.”

“Quite right! On the evening of the day when I said that I received information that Miss Silvester had been traced to Glasgow. You won’t require me to explain why I never mentioned this to you or to Blanche. In mentioning it now, I communicate to you the only positive information, on the subject of the missing woman, which I possess. There are two other chances of finding her (of a more speculative kind) which can only be tested by inducing two men (both equally difficult to deal with) to confess what they know. One of those two men is--a person named Bishopriggs, formerly waiter at the Craig Fernie inn.”

Arnold started, and changed color. Sir Patrick (silently noticing him) stated the circumstances relating to Anne’s lost letter, and to the conclusion in his own mind which pointed to Bishopriggs as the person in possession of it.

“I have to add,” he proceeded, “that Blanche, unfortunately, found an opportunity of speaking to Bishopriggs at Swanhaven. When she and Lady Lundie joined us at Edinburgh she showed me privately a card which had been given to her by Bishopriggs. He had described it as the address at which he might be heard of--and Blanche entreated me, before we started for London, to put the reference to the test. I told her that she had committed a serious mistake in attempting to deal with Bishopriggs on her own responsibility; and I warned her of the result in which I was firmly persuaded the inquiry would end. She declined to believe that Bishopriggs had deceived her. I saw that she would take the matter into her own hands again unless I interfered; and I went to the place. Exactly as I had anticipated, the person to whom the card referred me had not heard of Bishopriggs for years, and knew nothing whatever about his present movements. Blanche had simply put him on his guard, and shown him the propriety of keeping out of the way. If you should ever meet with him in the future--say nothing to your wife, and communicate with me. I decline to assist you in searching for Miss Silvester; but I have no objection to assist in recovering a stolen letter from a thief. So much for Bishopriggs.--Now as to the other man.”

“Who is he?”

“Your friend, Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn.”

Arnold sprang to his feet in ungovernable surprise.

“I appear to astonish you,” remarked Sir Patrick.

Arnold sat down again, and waited, in speechless suspense, to hear what was coming next.

“I have reason to know,” said Sir Patrick, “that Mr. Delamayn is thoroughly well acquainted with the nature of Miss Silvester’s present troubles. What his actual connection is with them, and how he came into possession of his information, I have not found out. My discovery begins and ends with the simple fact that he has the information.”

“May I ask one question, Sir Patrick?”

“What is it?”

“How did you find out about Geoffrey Delamayn?”

“It would occupy a long time,” answered Sir Patrick, “to tell you how--and it is not at all necessary to our purpose that you should know. My present obligation merely binds me to tell you--in strict confidence, mind!--that Miss Silvester’s secrets are no secrets to Mr. Delamayn. I leave to your discretion the use you may make of that information. You are now entirely on a par with me in relation to your knowledge of the case of Miss Silvester. Let us return to the question which I asked you when we first came into the room. Do you see the connection, now, between that question, and what I have said since?”

Arnold was slow to see the connection. His mind was running on Sir Patrick’s discovery. Little dreaming that he was indebted to Mrs. Inchb are’s incomplete description of him for his own escape from detection, he was wondering how it had happened that he had remained unsuspected, while Geoffrey’s position had been (in part at least) revealed to view.

“I asked you,” resumed Sir Patrick, attempting to help him, “why the mere report that your friend was likely to marry Mrs. Glenarm roused your indignation, and you hesitated at giving an answer. Do you hesitate still?”

“It’s not easy to give an answer, Sir Patrick.”

“Let us put it in another way. I assume that your view of the report takes its rise in some knowledge, on your part, of Mr. Delamayn’s private affairs, which the rest of us don’t possess.--Is that conclusion correct?”

“Quite correct.”

“Is what you know about Mr. Delamayn connected with any thing that you know about Miss Silvester?”

If Arnold had felt himself at liberty to answer that question, Sir Patrick’s suspicions would have been aroused, and Sir Patrick’s resolution would have forced a full disclosure from him before he left the house.

It was getting on to midnight. The first hour of the wedding-day was at hand, as the Truth made its final effort to struggle into light. The dark Phantoms of Trouble and Terror to come were waiting near them both at that moment. Arnold hesitated again--hesitated painfully. Sir Patrick paused for his answer. The clock in the hall struck the quarter to twelve.

“I can’t tell you!” said Arnold.

“Is it a secret?”

“Yes.”

“Committed to your honor?”

“Doubly committed to my honor.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Geoffrey and I have quarreled since he took me into his confidence. I am doubly bound to respect his confidence after that.”

“Is the cause of your quarrel a secret also?”

“Yes.”

Sir Patrick looked Arnold steadily in the face.

“I have felt an inveterate distrust of Mr. Delamayn from the first,” he said. “Answer me this. Have you any reason to think--since we first talked about your friend in the summer-house at Windygates--that my opinion of him might have been the right one after all?”

“He has bitterly disappointed me,” answered Arnold. “I can say no more.”

“You have had very little experience of the world,” proceeded Sir Patrick. “And you have just acknowledged that you have had reason to distrust your experience of your friend. Are you quite sure that you are acting wisely in keeping his secret from me? Are you quite sure that you will not repent the course you are taking to-night?” He laid a marked emphasis on those last words. “Think, Arnold,” he added, kindly. “Think before you answer.”

“I feel bound in honor to keep his secret,” said Arnold. “No thinking can alter that.”

Sir Patrick rose, and brought the interview to an end.

“There is nothing more to be said.” With those words he gave Arnold his hand, and, pressing it cordially, wished him good-night.

Going out into the hall, Arnold found Blanche alone, looking at the barometer.

“The glass is at Set Fair, my darling,” he whispered. “Good-night for the last time!”

He took her in his arms, and kissed her. At the moment when he released her Blanche slipped a little note into his hand.

“Read it,” she whispered, “when you are alone at the inn.”

So they parted on the eve of their wedding day.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIFTH.

THE DAY.

THE promise of the weather-glass was fulfilled. The sun shone on Blanche’s marriage.

At nine in the morning the first of the proceedings of the day began. It was essentially of a clandestine nature. The bride and bridegroom evaded the restraints of lawful authority, and presumed to meet together privately, before they were married, in the conservatory at Ham Farm.

“You have read my letter, Arnold?”

“I have come here to answer it, Blanche. But why not have told me? Why write?”

“Because I put off telling you so long; and because I didn’t know how you might take it; and for fifty other reasons. Never mind! I’ve made my confession. I haven’t a single secret now which is not your secret too. There’s time to say No, Arnold, if you think I ought to have no room in my heart for any body but you. My uncle tells me I am obstinate and wrong in refusing to give Anne up. If you agree with him, say the word, dear, before you make me your wife.”

“Shall I tell you what I said to Sir Patrick last night?”

“About this?”

“Yes. The confession (as you call it) which you make in your pretty note, is the very thing that Sir Patrick spoke to me about in the dining-room before I went away. He told me your heart was set on finding Miss Silvester. And he asked me what I meant to do about it when we were married.”

“And you said--?”

Arnold repeated his answer to Sir Patrick, with fervid embellishments of the original language, suitable to the emergency. Blanche’s delight expressed itself in the form of two unblushing outrages on propriety, committed in close succession. She threw her arms round Arnold’s neck; and she actually kissed him three hours before the consent of State and Church sanctioned her in taking that proceeding. Let us shudder--but let us not blame her. These are the consequences of free institutions.

“Now,” said Arnold, “it’s my turn to take to pen and ink. I have a letter to write before we are married as well as you. Only there’s this difference between us--I want you to help me.”

“Who are you going to write to?”

“To my lawyer in Edinburgh. There will be no time unless I do it now. We start for Switzerland this afternoon--don’t we?’

“Yes.”

“Very well. I want to relieve your mind, my darling before we go. Wouldn’t you like to know--while we are away--that the right people are on the look-out for Miss Silvester? Sir Patrick has told me of the last place that she has been traced to--and my lawyer will set the right people at work. Come and help me to put it in the proper language, and the whole thing will be in train.”

“Oh, Arnold! can I ever love you enough to reward you for this!”

“We shall see, Blanche--in Switzerland.”

They audaciously penetrated, arm in arm, into Sir Patrick’s own study--entirely at their disposal, as they well knew, at that hour of the morning. With Sir Patrick’s pens and Sir Patrick’s paper they produced a letter of instructions, deliberately reopening the investigation which Sir Patrick’s superior wisdom had closed. Neither pains nor money were to be spared by the lawyer in at once taking measures (beginning at Glasgow) to find Anne. The report of the result was to be addressed to Arnold, under cover to Sir Patrick at Ham Farm. By the time the letter was completed the morning had advanced to ten o’clock. Blanche left Arnold to array herself in her bridal splendor--after another outrage on propriety, and more consequences of free institutions.

The next proceedings were of a public and avowable nature, and strictly followed the customary precedents on such occasions.

Village nymphs strewed flowers on the path to the church door (and sent in the bill the same day). Village swains rang the joy-bells (and got drunk on their money the same evening). There was the proper and awful pause while the bridegroom was kept waiting at the church. There was the proper and pitiless staring of all the female spectators when the bride was led to the altar. There was the clergyman’s preliminary look at the license--which meant official caution. And there was the clerk’s preliminary look at the bridegroom--which meant official fees. All the women appeared to be in their natural element; and all the men appeared to be out of it.

Then the service began--rightly-considered, the most terrible, surely, of all mortal ceremonies--the service which binds two human beings, who know next to nothing of each other’s natures, to risk the tremendous experiment of living together till death parts them--the service which says, in effect if not in words, Take your leap in the dark: we sanctify, but we don’t insure, it!

The ceremony went on, without the slightest obstacle to mar its effect. There were no unforeseen interruptions. There were no ominous mistakes.

The last words were spoken, and the book was closed. They signed their names on the register; the husband was congratulated; the wife was embraced. They went back aga in to the house, with more flowers strewn at their feet. The wedding-breakfast was hurried; the wedding-speeches were curtailed: there was no time to be wasted, if the young couple were to catch the tidal train.

In an hour more the carriage had whirled them away to the station, and the guests had given them the farewell cheer from the steps of the house. Young, happy, fondly attached to each other, raised securely above all the sordid cares of life, what a golden future was theirs! Married with the sanction of the Family and the blessing of the Church--who could suppose that the time was coming, nevertheless, when the blighting question would fall on them, in the spring-time of their love: Are you Man and Wife?

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SIXTH.

THE TRUTH AT LAST.

Two days after the marriage--on Wednesday, the ninth of September a packet of letters, received at Windygates, was forwarded by Lady Lundie’s steward to Ham Farm.

With one exception, the letters were all addressed either to Sir Patrick or to his sister-in-law. The one exception was directed to “Arnold Brinkworth, Esq., care of Lady Lundie, Windygates House, Perthshire”--and the envelope was specially protected by a seal.

Noticing that the post-mark was “Glasgow,” Sir Patrick (to whom the letter had been delivered) looked with a certain distrust at the handwriting on the address. It was not known to him--but it was obviously the handwriting of a woman. Lady Lundie was sitting opposite to him at the table. He said, carelessly, “A letter for Arnold”--and pushed it across to her. Her ladyship took up the letter, and dropped it, the instant she looked at the handwriting, as if it had burned her fingers.

“The Person again!” exclaimed Lady Lundie. “The Person, presuming to address Arnold Brinkworth, at My house!”

“Miss Silvester?” asked Sir Patrick.

“No,” said her ladyship, shutting her teeth with a snap. “The Person may insult me by addressing a letter to my care. But the Person’s name shall not pollute my lips. Not even in your house, Sir Patrick. Not even to please you.”

Sir Patrick was sufficiently answered. After all that had happened--after her farewell letter to Blanche--here was Miss Silvester writing to Blanche’s husband, of her own accord! It was unaccountable, to say the least of it. He took the letter back, and looked at it again. Lady Lundie’s steward was a methodical man. He had indorsed each letter received at Windygates with the date of its delivery. The letter addressed to Arnold had been delivered on Monday, the seventh of September--on Arnold’s wedding day.

What did it mean?

It was pure waste of time to inquire. Sir Patrick rose to lock the letter up in one of the drawers of the writing-table behind him. Lady Lundie interfered (in the interest of morality).

“Sir Patrick!”

“Yes?”

“Don’t you consider it your duty to open that letter?”

“My dear lady! what can you possibly be thinking of?”

The most virtuous of living women had her answer ready on the spot.

“I am thinking,” said Lady Lundie, “of Arnold’s moral welfare.”

Sir Patrick smiled. On the long list of those respectable disguises under which we assert our own importance, or gratify our own love of meddling in our neighbor’s affairs, a moral regard for the welfare of others figures in the foremost place, and stands deservedly as number one.

“We shall probably hear from Arnold in a day or two,” said Sir Patrick, locking the letter up in the drawer. “He shall have it as soon as I know where to send it to him.”

The next morning brought news of the bride and bridegroom.

They reported themselves to be too supremely happy to care where they lived, so long as they lived together. Every question but the question of Love was left in the competent hands of their courier. This sensible and trust-worthy man had decided that Paris was not to be thought of as a place of residence by any sane human being in the month of September. He had arranged that they were to leave for Baden--on their way to Switzerland--on the tenth. Letters were accordingly to be addressed to that place, until further notice. If the courier liked Baden, they would probably stay there for some time. If the courier took a fancy for the mountains, they would in that case go on to Switzerland. In the mean while nothing mattered to Arnold but Blanche--and nothing mattered to Blanche but Arnold.

Sir Patrick re-directed Anne Silvester’s letter to Arnold, at the Poste Restante, Baden. A second letter, which had arrived that morning (addressed to Arnold in a legal handwriting, and bearing the post-mark of Edinburgh), was forwarded in the same way, and at the same time.

Two days later Ham Farm was deserted by the guests. Lady Lundie had gone back to Windygates. The rest had separated in their different directions. Sir Patrick, who also contemplated returning to Scotland, remained behind for a week--a solitary prisoner in his own country house. Accumulated arrears of business, with which it was impossible for his steward to deal single-handed, obliged him to remain at his estates in Kent for that time. To a man without a taste for partridge-shooting the ordeal was a trying one. Sir Patrick got through the day with the help of his business and his books. In the evening the rector of a neighboring parish drove over to dinner, and engaged his host at the noble but obsolete game of Piquet. They arranged to meet at each other’s houses on alternate days. The rector was an admirable player; and Sir Patrick, though a born Presbyterian, blessed the Church of England from the bottom of his heart.

Three more days passed. Business at Ham Farm began to draw to an end. The time for Sir Patrick’s journey to Scotland came nearer. The two partners at Piquet agreed to meet for a final game, on the next night, at the rector’s house. But (let us take comfort in remembering it) our superiors in Church and State are as completely at the mercy of circumstances as the humblest and the poorest of us. That last game of Piquet between the baronet and the parson was never to be played.

On the afternoon of the fourth day Sir Patrick came in from a drive, and found a letter from Arnold waiting for him, which had been delivered by the second post.

Judged by externals only, it was a letter of an unusually perplexing--possibly also of an unusually interesting--kind. Arnold was one of the last persons in the world whom any of his friends would have suspected of being a lengthy correspondent. Here, nevertheless, was a letter from him, of three times the customary bulk and weight--and, apparently, of more than common importance, in the matter of news, besides. At the top the envelope was marked “Immediate..” And at one side (also underlined) was the ominous word, “Private..”

“Nothing wrong, I hope?” thought Sir Patrick.

He opened the envelope.

Two inclosures fell out on the table. He looked at them for a moment. They were the two letters which he had forwarded to Baden. The third letter remaining in his hand and occupying a double sheet, was from Arnold himself. Sir Patrick read Arnold’s letter first. It was dated “Baden,” and it began as follows:

“My Dear Sir Patrick,--Don’t be alarmed, if you can possibly help it. I am in a terrible mess.”

Sir Patrick looked up for a moment from the letter. Given a young man who dates from “Baden,” and declares himself to be in “a terrible mess,” as representing the circumstances of the case--what is the interpretation to be placed on them? Sir Patrick drew the inevitable conclusion. Arnold had been gambling.

He shook his head, and went on with the letter.

“I must say, dreadful as it is, that I am not to blame--nor she either, poor thing.”

Sir Patrick paused again. “She?” Blanche had apparently been gambling too? Nothing was wanting to complete the picture but an announcement in the next sentence, presenting the courier as carried away, in his turn, by the insatiate passion for play. Sir Patrick resumed:

“You can not, I am sure, expect me to have known the law. And as for poor Miss Silvester--”

“Miss Silvester?” What had Miss Silvester to do with it? And what could be the meaning of the reference to “the law?”

Sir Patrick had re ad the letter, thus far, standing up. A vague distrust stole over him at the appearance of Miss Silvester’s name in connection with the lines which had preceded it. He felt nothing approaching to a clear prevision of what was to come. Some indescribable influence was at work in him, which shook his nerves, and made him feel the infirmities of his age (as it seemed) on a sudden. It went no further than that. He was obliged to sit down: he was obliged to wait a moment before he went on.

The letter proceeded, in these words:

“And, as for poor Miss Silvester, though she felt, as she reminds me, some misgivings--still, she never could have foreseen, being no lawyer either, how it was to end. I hardly know the best way to break it to you. I can’t, and won’t, believe it myself. But even if it should be true, I am quite sure you will find a way out of it for us. I will stick at nothing, and Miss Silvester (as you will see by her letter) will stick at nothing either, to set things right. Of course, I have not said one word to my darling Blanche, who is quite happy, and suspects nothing. All this, dear Sir Patrick, is very badly written, I am afraid, but it is meant to prepare you, and to put the best side on matters at starting. However, the truth must be told--and shame on the Scotch law is what I say. This it is, in short: Geoffrey Delamayn is even a greater scoundrel than you think him; and I bitterly repent (as things have turned out) having held my tongue that night when you and I had our private talk at Ham Farm. You will think I am mixing two things up together. But I am not. Please to keep this about Geoffrey in your mind, and piece it together with what I have next to say. The worst is still to come. Miss Silvester’s letter (inclosed) tells me this terrible thing. You must know that I went to her privately, as Geoffrey’s messenger, on the day of the lawn-party at Windygates. Well--how it could have happened, Heaven only knows--but there is reason to fear that I married her, without being aware of it myself, in August last, at the Craig Fernie inn.”

The letter dropped from Sir Patrick’s hand. He sank back in the chair, stunned for the moment, under the shock that had fallen on him.

He rallied, and rose bewildered to his feet. He took a turn in the room. He stopped, and summoned his will, and steadied himself by main force. He picked up the letter, and read the last sentence again. His face flushed. He was on the point of yielding himself to a useless out burst of anger against Arnold, when his better sense checked him at the last moment. “One fool in the family is, enough,” he said. “My business in this dreadful emergency is to keep my head clear for Blanche’s sake.”

He waited once more, to make sure of his own composure--and turned again to the letter, to see what the writer had to say for himself, in the way of explanation and excuse.

Arnold had plenty to say--with the drawback of not knowing how to say it. It was hard to decide which quality in his letter was most marked--the total absence of arrangement, or the total absence of reserve. Without beginning, middle, or end, he told the story of his fatal connection with the troubles of Anne Silvester, from the memorable day when Geoffrey Delamayn sent him to Craig Fernie, to the equally memorable night when Sir Patrick had tried vainly to make him open his lips at Ham Farm.

“I own I have behaved like a fool,” the letter concluded, “in keeping Geoffrey Delamayn’s secret for him--as things have turned out. But how could I tell upon him without compromising Miss Silvester? Read her letter, and you will see what she says, and how generously she releases me. It’s no use saying I am sorry I wasn’t more cautious. The mischief is done. I’ll stick at nothing--as I have said before--to undo it. Only tell me what is the first step I am to take; and, as long as it don’t part me from Blanche, rely on my taking it. Waiting to hear from you, I remain, dear Sir Patrick, yours in great perplexity, Arnold Brinkworth.”

Sir Patrick folded the letter, and looked at the two inclosures lying on the table. His eye was hard, his brow was frowning, as he put his hand to take up Anne’s letter. The letter from Arnold’s agent in Edinburgh lay nearer to him. As it happened, he took that first.

It was short enough, and clearly enough written, to invite a reading before he put it down again. The lawyer reported that he had made the necessary inquiries at Glasgow, with this result. Anne had been traced to The Sheep’s Head Hotel. She had lain there utterly helpless, from illness, until the beginning of September. She had been advertised, without result, in the Glasgow newspapers. On the 5th of September she had sufficiently recovered to be able to leave the hotel. She had been seen at the railway station on the same day--but from that point all trace of her had been lost once more. The lawyer had accordingly stopped the proceedings, and now waited further instructions from his client.

This letter was not without its effect in encouraging Sir Patrick to suspend the harsh and hasty judgment of Anne, which any man, placed in his present situation, must have been inclined to form. Her illness claimed its small share of sympathy. Her friendless position--so plainly and so sadly revealed by the advertising in the newspapers--pleaded for merciful construction of faults committed, if faults there were. Gravely, but not angrily, Sir Patrick opened her letter--the letter that cast a doubt on his niece’s marriage.

Thus Anne Silvester wrote:

“GLASGOW, September 5.

“DEAR MR. BRINKWORTH,--Nearly three weeks since I attempted to write to you from this place. I was seized by sudden illness while I was engaged over my letter; and from that time to this I have laid helpless in bed--very near, as they tell me, to death. I was strong enough to be dressed, and to sit up for a little while yesterday and the day before. To-day, I have made a better advance toward recovery. I can hold my pen and control my thoughts. The first use to which I put this improvement is to write these lines.

“I am going (so far as I know) to surprise--possibly to alarm--you. There is no escaping from it, for you or for me; it must be done.

“Thinking of how best to introduce what I am now obliged to say, I can find no better way than this. I must ask you to take your memory back to a day which we have both bitter reason to regret--the day when Geoffrey Delamayn sent you to see me at the inn at Craig Fernie.

“You may possibly not remember--it unhappily produced no impression on you at the time--that I felt, and expressed, more than once on that occasion, a very great dislike to your passing me off on the people of the inn as your wife. It was necessary to my being permitted to remain at Craig Fernie that you should do so. I knew this; but still I shrank from it. It was impossible for me to contradict you, without involving you in the painful consequences, and running the risk of making a scandal which might find its way to Blanche’s ears. I knew this also; but still my conscience reproached me. It was a vague feeling. I was quite unaware of the actual danger in which you were placing yourself, or I would have spoken out, no matter what came of it. I had what is called a presentiment that you were not acting discreetly--nothing more. As I love and honor my mother’s memory--as I trust in the mercy of God--this is the truth.

“You left the inn the next morning, and we have not met since.

“A few days after you went away my anxieties grew more than I could bear alone. I went secretly to Windygates, and had an interview with Blanche.

“She was absent for a few minutes from the room in which we had met. In that interval I saw Geoffrey Delamayn for the first time since I had left him at Lady Lundie’s lawn-party. He treated me as if I was a stranger. He told me that he had found out all that had passed between us at the inn. He said he had taken a lawyer’s opinion. Oh, Mr. Brinkworth! how can I break it to you? how can I write the words which repeat what he said to me next? It must be done. Cruel as it is, it must be done. He refused to my face to marr y me. He said I was married already. He said I was your wife.

“Now you know why I have referred you to what I felt (and confessed to feeling) when we were together at Craig Fernie. If you think hard thoughts, and say hard words of me, I can claim no right to blame you. I am innocent--and yet it is my fault.

“My head swims, and the foolish tears are rising in spite of me. I must leave off, and rest a little.

“I have been sitting at the window, and watching the people in the street as they go by. They are all strangers. But, somehow, the sight of them seems to rest my mind. The hum of the great city gives me heart, and helps me to go on.

“I can not trust myself to write of the man who has betrayed us both. Disgraced and broken as I am, there is something still left in me which lifts me above him. If he came repentant, at this moment, and offered me all that rank and wealth and worldly consideration can give, I would rather be what I am now than be his wife.

“Let me speak of you; and (for Blanche’s sake) let me speak of myself.

“I ought, no doubt, to have waited to see you at Windygates, and to have told you at once of what had happened. But I was weak and ill and the shock of hearing what I heard fell so heavily on me that I fainted. After I came to myself I was so horrified, when I thought of you and Blanche that a sort of madness possessed me. I had but one idea--the idea of running away and hiding myself.

“My mind got clearer and quieter on the way to this place; and, arrived here, I did what I hope and believe was the best thing I could do. I consulted two lawyers. They differed in opinion as to whether we were married or not--according to the law which decides on such things in Scotland. The first said Yes. The second said No--but advised me to write immediately and tell you the position in which you stood. I attempted to write the same day, and fell ill as you know.

“Thank God, the delay that has happened is of no consequence. I asked Blanche, at Windygates, when you were to be married--and she told me not until the end of the autumn. It is only the fifth of September now. You have plenty of time before you. For all our sakes, make good use of it.

“What are you to do?

“Go at once to Sir Patrick Lundie, and show him this letter. Follow his advice--no matter how it may affect me. I should ill requite your kindness, I should be false indeed to the love I bear to Blanche, if I hesitated to brave any exposure that may now be necessary in your interests and in hers. You have been all that is generous, all that is delicate, all that is kind in this matter. You have kept my disgraceful secret--I am quite sure of it--with the fidelity of an honorable man who has had a woman’s reputation placed in his charge. I release you, with my whole heart, dear Mr. Brinkworth, from your pledge. I entreat you, on my knees, to consider yourself free to reveal the truth. I will make any acknowledgment, on my side, that is needful under the circumstances--no matter how public it may be. Release yourself at any price; and then, and not till then, give back your regard to the miserable woman who has laden you with the burden of her sorrow, and darkened your life for a moment with the shadow of her shame.

“Pray don’t think there is any painful sacrifice involved in this. The quieting of my own mind is involved in it--and that is all.

“What has life left for me? Nothing but the barren necessity of living. When I think of the future now, my mind passes over the years that may be left to me in this world. Sometimes I dare to hope that the Divine Mercy of Christ--which once pleaded on earth for a woman like me--may plead, when death has taken me, for my spirit in Heaven. Sometimes I dare to hope that I may see my mother, and Blanche’s mother, in the better world. Their hearts were bound together as the hearts of sisters while they were here; and they left to their children the legacy of their love. Oh, help me to say, if we meet again, that not in vain I promised to be a sister to Blanche! The debt I owe to her is the hereditary debt of my mother’s gratitude. And what am I now? An obstacle in the way of the happiness of her life. Sacrifice me to that happiness, for God’s sake! It is the one thing I have left to live for. Again and again I say it--I care nothing for myself. I have no right to be considered; I have no wish to be considered. Tell the whole truth about me, and call me to bear witness to it as publicly as you please!

“I have waited a little, once more, trying to think, before I close my letter, what there may be still left to write.

“I can not think of any thing left but the duty of informing you how you may find me if you wish to write--or if it is thought necessary that we should meet again.

“One word before I tell you this.

“It is impossible for me to guess what you will do, or what you will be advised to do by others, when you get my letter. I don’t even know that you may not already have heard of what your position is from Geoffrey Delamayn himself. In this event, or in the event of your thinking it desirable to take Blanche into your confidence, I venture to suggest that you should appoint some person whom you can trust to see me on your behalf--or, if you can not do this that you should see me in the presence of a third person. The man who has not hesitated to betray us both, will not hesitate to misrepresent us in the vilest way, if he can do it in the future. For your own sake, let us be careful to give lying tongues no opportunity of assailing your place in Blanche’s estimation. Don’t act so as to risk putting yourself in a false position again! Don’t let it be possible that a feeling unworthy of her should be roused in the loving and generous nature of your future wife!

“This written, I may now tell you how to communicate with me after I have left this place.

“You will find on the slip of paper inclosed the name and address of the second of the two lawyers whom I consulted in Glasgow. It is arranged between us that I am to inform him, by letter, of the next place to which I remove, and that he is to communicate the information either to you or to Sir Patrick Lundie, on your applying for it personally or by writing. I don’t yet know myself where I may find refuge. Nothing is certain but that I can not, in my present state of weakness, travel far.

“If you wonder why I move at all until I am stronger, I can only give a reason which may appear fanciful and overstrained.

“I have been informed that I was advertised in the Glasgow newspapers during the time when I lay at this hotel, a stranger at the point of death. Trouble has perhaps made me morbidly suspicious. I am afraid of what may happen if I stay here, after my place of residence has been made publicly known. So, as soon as I can move, I go away in secret. It will be enough for me, if I can find rest and peace in some quiet place, in the country round Glasgow. You need feel no anxiety about my means of living. I have money enough for all that I need--and, if I get well again, I know how to earn my bread.

“I send no message to Blanche--I dare not till this is over. Wait till she is your happy wife; and then give her a kiss, and say it comes from Anne.

“Try and forgive me, dear Mr. Brinkworth. I have said all. Yours gratefully,

“ANNE SILVESTER.”

Sir Patrick put the letter down with unfeigned respect for the woman who had written it.

Something of the personal influence which Anne exercised more or less over all the men with whom she came in contact seemed to communicate itself to the old lawyer through the medium of her letter. His thoughts perversely wandered away from the serious and pressing question of his niece’s position into a region of purely speculative inquiry relating to Anne. What infatuation (he asked himself) had placed that noble creature at the mercy of such a man as Geoffrey Delamayn?

We have all, at one time or another in our lives, been perplexed as Sir Patrick was perplexed now.

If we know any thing by experience, we know that women cast themselves away impulsively on unworthy men, and that men ruin themselves headlong for unworthy w omen. We have the institution of Divorce actually among us, existing mainly because the two sexes are perpetually placing themselves in these anomalous relations toward each other. And yet, at every fresh instance which comes before us, we persist in being astonished to find that the man and the woman have not chosen each other on rational and producible grounds! We expect human passion to act on logical principles; and human fallibility--with love for its guide--to be above all danger of making a mistake! Ask the wisest among Anne Silvester’s sex what they saw to rationally justify them in choosing the men to whom they have given their hearts and their lives, and you will be putting a question to those wise women which they never once thought of putting to themselves. Nay, more still. Look into your own experience, and say frankly, Could you justify your own excellent choice at the time when you irrevocably made it? Could you have put your reasons on paper when you first owned to yourself that you loved him? And would the reasons have borne critical inspection if you had?

Sir Patrick gave it up in despair. The interests of his niece were at stake. He wisely determined to rouse his mind by occupying himself with the practical necessities of the moment. It was essential to send an apology to the rector, in the first place, so as to leave the evening at his disposal for considering what preliminary course of conduct he should advise Arnold to pursue.

After writing a few lines of apology to his partner at Piquet--assigning family business as the excuse for breaking his engagement--Sir Patrick rang the bell. The faithful Duncan appeared, and saw at once in his master s face that something had happened.

“Send a man with this to the Rectory,” said Sir Patrick. “I can’t dine out to-day. I must have a chop at home.”

“I am afraid, Sir Patrick--if I may be excused for remarking it--you have had some bad news?”

“The worst possible news, Duncan. I can’t tell you about it now. Wait within hearing of the bell. In the mean time let nobody interrupt me. If the steward himself comes I can’t see him.”

After thinking it over carefully, Sir Patrick decided that there was no alternative but to send a message to Arnold and Blanche, summoning them back to England in the first place. The necessity of questioning Arnold, in the minutest detail, as to every thing that had happened between Anne Silvester and himself at the Craig Fernie inn, was the first and foremost necessity of the case.

At the same time it appeared to be desirable, for Blanche’s sake, to keep her in ignorance, for the present at least, of what had happened. Sir Patrick met this difficulty with characteristic ingenuity and readiness of resource.

He wrote a telegram to Arnold, expressed in the following terms:

“Your letter and inclosures received. Return to Ham Farm as soon as you conveniently can. Keep the thing still a secret from Blanche. Tell her, as the reason for coming back, that the lost trace of Anne Silvester has been recovered, and that there may be reasons for her returning to England before any thing further can be done.”

Duncan having been dispatched to the station with this message, Duncan’s master proceeded to calculate the question of time.

Arnold would in all probability receive the telegram at Baden, on the next day, September the seventeenth. In three days more he and Blanche might be expected to reach Ham Farm. During the interval thus placed at his disposal Sir Patrick would have ample time in which to recover himself, and to see his way to acting for the best in the alarming emergency that now confronted him.

On the nineteenth Sir Patrick received a telegram informing him that he might expect to see the young couple late in the evening on the twentieth.

Late in the evening the sound of carriage-wheels was audible on the drive; and Sir Patrick, opening the door of his room, heard the familiar voices in the hall.

“Well!” cried Blanche, catching sight of him at the door, “is Anne found?”

“Not just yet, my dear.”

“Is there news of her?”

“Yes.”

“Am I in time to be of use?”

“In excellent time. You shall hear all about it to-morrow. Go and take off your traveling-things, and come down again to supper as soon as you can.”

Blanche kissed him, and went on up stairs. She had, as her uncle thought in the glimpse he had caught of her, been improved by her marriage. It had quieted and steadied her. There were graces in her look and manner which Sir Patrick had not noticed before. Arnold, on his side, appeared to less advantage. He was restless and anxious; his position with Miss Silvester seemed to be preying on his mind. As soon as his young wife’s back was turned, he appealed to Sir Patrick in an eager whisper.

“I hardly dare ask you what I have got it on my mind to say,” he began. “I must bear it if you are angry with me, Sir Patrick. But--only tell me one thing. Is there a way out of it for us? Have you thought of that?”

“I can not trust myself to speak of it clearly and composedly to-night,” said Sir Patrick. “Be satisfied if I tell you that I have thought it all out--and wait for the rest till to-morrow.”

Other persons concerned in the coming drama had had past difficulties to think out, and future movements to consider, during the interval occupied by Arnold and Blanche on their return journey to England. Between the seventeenth and the twentieth of September Geoffrey Delamayn had left Swanhaven, on the way to his new training quarters in the neighborhood in which the Foot-Race at Fulham was to be run. Between the same dates, also, Captain Newenden had taken the opportunity, while passing through London on his way south, to consult his solicitors. The object of the conference was to find means of discovering an anonymous letter-writer in Scotland, who had presumed to cause serious annoyance to Mrs. Glenarm.

Thus, by ones and twos, converging from widely distant quarters, they were now beginning to draw together, in the near neighborhood of the great city which was soon destined to assemble them all, for the first and the last time in this world, face to face.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SEVENTH.

THE WAY OUT.

BREAKFAST was just over. Blanche, seeing a pleasantly-idle morning before her, proposed to Arnold to take a stroll in the grounds.

The garden was blight with sunshine, and the bride was bright with good-humor. She caught her uncle’s eye, looking at her admiringly, and paid him a little compliment in return. “You have no idea,” she said, “how nice it is to be back at Ham Farm!”

“I am to understand then,” rejoined Sir Patrick, “that I am forgiven for interrupting the honey-moon?”

“You are more than forgiven for interrupting it,” said Blanche--“you are thanked. As a married woman,” she proceeded, with the air of a matron of at least twenty years’ standing, “I have been thinking the subject over; and I have arrived at the conclusion that a honey-moon which takes the form of a tour on the Continent, is one of our national abuses which stands in need of reform. When you are in love with each other (consider a marriage without love to be no marriage at all), what do you want with the excitement of seeing strange places? Isn’t it excitement enough, and isn’t it strange enough, to a newly-married woman to see such a total novelty as a husband? What is the most interesting object on the face of creation to a man in Arnold’s position? The Alps? Certainly not! The most interesting object is the wife. And the proper time for a bridal tour is the time--say ten or a dozen years later--when you are beginning (not to get tired of each other, that’s out of the question) but to get a little too well used to each other. Then take your tour to Switzerland--and you give the Alps a chance. A succession of honey-moon trips, in the autumn of married life--there is my proposal for an improvement on the present state of things! Come into the garden, Arnold; and let us calculate how long it will be before we get weary of each other, and want the beauties of nature to keep us company.”

Arnold looked appealingly to Sir Patrick. Not a word had passed between them, as yet, on the serious subject of Anne Silvester’s letter. Sir Patrick undertook the responsibility of making the necessary excuses to Blanche.

“Forgive me,” he said, “if I ask leave to interfere with your monopoly of Arnold for a little while. I have something to say to him about his property in Scotland. Will you leave him with me, if I promise to release him as soon as possible?”

Blanche smiled graciously. “You shall have him as long as you like, uncle. There’s your hat,” she added, tossing it to her husband, gayly. “I brought it in for you when I got my own. You will find me on the lawn.”

She nodded, and went out.

“Let me hear the worst at once, Sir Patrick,” Arnold began. “Is it serious? Do you think I am to blame?”

“I will answer your last question first,” said Sir Patrick. “Do I think you are to blame? Yes--in this way. You committed an act of unpardonable rashness when you consented to go, as Geoffrey Delamayn’s messenger, to Miss Silvester at the inn. Having once placed yourself in that false position, you could hardly have acted, afterward, otherwise than you did. You could not be expected to know the Scotch law. And, as an honorable man, you were bound to keep a secret confided to you, in which the reputation of a woman was concerned. Your first and last error in this matter, was the fatal error of involving yourself in responsibilities which belonged exclusively to another man.”

“The man had saved my life.” pleaded Arnold--“and I believed I was giving service for service to my dearest friend.”

“As to your other question,” proceeded Sir Patrick. “Do I consider your position to be a serious one? Most assuredly, I do! So long as we are not absolutely certain that Blanche is your lawful wife, the position is more than serious: it is unendurable. I maintain the opinion, mind, out of which (thanks to your honorable silence) that scoundrel Delamayn contrived to cheat me. I told him, what I now tell you--that your sayings and doings at Craig Fernie, do not constitute a marriage, according to Scottish law. But,” pursued Sir Patrick, holding up a warning forefinger at Arnold, “you have read it in Miss Silvester’s letter, and you may now take it also as a result of my experience, that no individual opinion, in a matter of this kind, is to be relied on. Of two lawyers, consulted by Miss Silvester at Glasgow, one draws a directly opposite conclusion to mine, and decides that you and she are married. I believe him to be wrong, but in our situation, we have no other choice than to boldly encounter the view of the case which he represents. In plain English, we must begin by looking the worst in the face.”

Arnold twisted the traveling hat which Blanche had thrown to him, nervously, in both hands. “Supposing the worst comes to the worst,” he asked, “what will happen?”

Sir Patrick shook his head.

“It is not easy to tell you,” he said, “without entering into the legal aspect of the case. I shall only puzzle you if I do that. Suppose we look at the matter in its social bearings--I mean, as it may possibly affect you and Blanche, and your unborn children?”

Arnold gave the hat a tighter twist than ever. “I never thought of the children,” he said, with a look of consternation.

“The children may present themselves,” returned Sir Patrick, dryly, “for all that. Now listen. It may have occurred to your mind that the plain way out of our present dilemma is for you and Miss Silvester, respectively, to affirm what we know to be the truth--namely, that you never had the slightest intention of marrying each other. Beware of founding any hopes on any such remedy as that! If you reckon on it, you reckon without Geoffrey Delamayn. He is interested, remember, in proving you and Miss Silvester to be man and wife. Circumstances may arise--I won’t waste time in guessing at what they may be--which will enable a third person to produce the landlady and the waiter at Craig Fernie in evidence against you--and to assert that your declaration and Miss Silvester’s declaration are the result of collusion between you two. Don’t start! Such things have happened before now. Miss Silvester is poor; and Blanche is rich. You may be made to stand in the awkward position of a man who is denying his marriage with a poor woman, in order to establish his marriage with an heiress: Miss Silvester presumably aiding the fraud, with two strong interests of her own as inducements--the interest of asserting the claim to be the wife of a man of rank, and the interest of earning her reward in money for resigning you to Blanche. There is a case which a scoundrel might set up--and with some appearance of truth too--in a court of justice!”

“Surely, the law wouldn’t allow him to do that?”

“The law will argue any thing, with any body who will pay the law for the use of its brains and its time. Let that view of the matter alone now. Delamayn can set the case going, if he likes, without applying to any lawyer to help him. He has only to cause a report to reach Blanche’s ears which publicly asserts that she is not your lawful wife. With her temper, do you suppose she would leave us a minute’s peace till the matter was cleared up? Or take it the other way. Comfort yourself, if you will, with the idea that this affair will trouble nobody in the present. How are we to know it may not turn up in the future under circumstances which may place the legitimacy of your children in doubt? We have a man to deal with who sticks at nothing. We have a state of the law which can only be described as one scandalous uncertainty from beginning to end. And we have two people (Bishopriggs and Mrs. Inchbare) who can, and will, speak to what took place between you and Anne Silvester at the inn. For Blanche’s sake, and for the sake of your unborn children, we must face this matter on the spot--and settle it at once and forever. The question before us now is this. Shall we open the proceedings by communicating with Miss Silvester or not?”

At that important point in the conversation they were interrupted by the reappearance of Blanche. Had she, by any accident, heard what they had been saying?

No; it was the old story of most interruptions. Idleness that considers nothing, had come to look at Industry that bears every thing. It is a law of nature, apparently, that the people in this world who have nothing to do can not support the sight of an uninterrupted occupation in the hands of their neighbors. Blanche produced a new specimen from Arnold’s collection of hats. “I have been thinking about it in the garden,” she said, quite seriously. “Here is the brown one with the high crown. You look better in this than in the white one with the low crown. I have come to change them, that’s all.” She changed the hats with Arnold, and went on, without the faintest suspicion that she was in the way. “Wear the brown one when you come out--and come soon, dear. I won’t stay an instant longer, uncle--I wouldn’t interrupt you for the world.” She kissed her hand to Sir Patrick, and smiled at her husband, and went out.

“What were we saying?” asked Arnold. “It’s awkward to be interrupted in this way, isn’t it?”

“If I know any thing of female human nature,” returned Sir Patrick, composedly, “your wife will be in and out of the room, in that way, the whole morning. I give her ten minutes, Arnold, before she changes her mind again on the serious and weighty subject of the white hat and the brown. These little interruptions--otherwise quite charming--raised a doubt in my mind. Wouldn’t it be wise (I ask myself), if we made a virtue of necessity, and took Blanche into the conversation? What do you say to calling her back and telling her the truth?”

Arnold started, and changed color.

“There are difficulties in the way,” he said.

“My good fellow! at every step of this business there are difficulties in the way. Sooner or later, your wife must know what has happened. The time for telling her is, no doubt, a matter for your decision, not mine. All I say is this. Consider whether the disclosure won’t come from you with a better grace, if you make it before you are fairly driven to the wall, and obliged to open your lips.”

Arnold rose to his fee t--took a turn in the room--sat down again--and looked at Sir Patrick, with the expression of a thoroughly bewildered and thoroughly helpless man.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “It beats me altogether. The truth is, Sir Patrick, I was fairly forced, at Craig Fernie, into deceiving Blanche--in what might seem to her a very unfeeling, and a very unpardonable way.”

“That sounds awkward! What do you mean?”

“I’ll try and tell you. You remember when you went to the inn to see Miss Silvester? Well, being there privately at the time, of course I was obliged to keep out of your way.”

“I see! And, when Blanche came afterward, you were obliged to hide from Blanche, exactly as you had hidden from me?”

“Worse even than that! A day or two later, Blanche took me into her confidence. She spoke to me of her visit to the inn, as if I was a perfect stranger to the circumstances. She told me to my face, Sir Patrick, of the invisible man who had kept so strangely out of her way--without the faintest suspicion that I was the man. And I never opened my lips to set her right! I was obliged to be silent, or I must have betrayed Miss Silvester. What will Blanche think of me, if I tell her now? That’s the question!”

Blanche’s name had barely passed her husband’s lips before Blanche herself verified Sir Patrick’s prediction, by reappearing at the open French window, with the superseded white hat in her hand.

“Haven’t you done yet!” she exclaimed. “I am shocked, uncle, to interrupt you again--but these horrid hats of Arnold’s are beginning to weigh upon my mind. On reconsideration, I think the white hat with the low crown is the most becoming of the two. Change again, dear. Yes! the brown hat is hideous. There’s a beggar at the gate. Before I go quite distracted, I shall give him the brown hat, and have done with the difficulty in that manner. Am I very much in the way of business? I’m afraid I must appear restless? Indeed, I am restless. I can’t imagine what is the matter with me this morning.”

“I can tell you,” said Sir Patrick, in his gravest and dryest manner. “You are suffering, Blanche, from a malady which is exceedingly common among the young ladies of England. As a disease it is quite incurable--and the name of it is Nothing-to-Do.”

Blanche dropped her uncle a smart little courtesy. “You might have told me I was in the way in fewer words than that.” She whisked round, kicked the disgraced brown hat out into the veranda before her, and left the two gentlemen alone once more.

“Your position with your wife, Arnold,” resumed Sir Patrick, returning gravely to the matter in hand, “is certainly a difficult one.” He paused, thinking of the evening when he and Blanche had illustrated the vagueness of Mrs. Inchbare’s description of the man at the inn, by citing Arnold himself as being one of the hundreds of innocent people who answered to it! “Perhaps,” he added, “the situation is even more difficult than you suppose. It would have been certainly easier for you--and it would have looked more honorable in her estimation--if you had made the inevitable confession before your marriage. I am, in some degree, answerable for your not having done this--as well as for the far more serious dilemma with Miss Silvester in which you now stand. If I had not innocently hastened your marriage with Blanche, Miss Silvester’s admirable letter would have reached us in ample time to prevent mischief. It’s useless to dwell on that now. Cheer up, Arnold! I am bound to show you the way out of the labyrinth, no matter what the difficulties may be--and, please God, I will do it!”

He pointed to a table at the other end of the room, on which writing materials were placed. “I hate moving the moment I have had my breakfast,” he said. “We won’t go into the library. Bring me the pen and ink here.”

“Are you going to write to Miss Silvester?”

“That is the question before us which we have not settled yet. Before I decide, I want to be in possession of the facts--down to the smallest detail of what took place between you and Miss Silvester at the inn. There is only one way of getting at those facts. I am going to examine you as if I had you before me in the witness-box in court.”

With that preface, and with Arnold’s letter from Baden in his hand as a brief to speak from, Sir Patrick put his questions in clear and endless succession; and Arnold patiently and faithfully answered them all.

The examination proceeded uninterruptedly until it had reached that point in the progress of events at which Anne had crushed Geoffrey Delamayn’s letter in her hand, and had thrown it from her indignantly to the other end of the room. There, for the first time, Sir Patrick dipped his pen in the ink, apparently intending to take a note. “Be very careful here,” he said; “I want to know every thing that you can tell me about that letter.”

“The letter is lost,” said Arnold.

“The letter has been stolen by Bishopriggs,” returned Sir Patrick, “and is in the possession of Bishopriggs at this moment.”

“Why, you know more about it than I do!” exclaimed Arnold.

“I sincerely hope not. I don’t know what was inside the letter. Do you?”

“Yes. Part of it at least.”

“Part of it?”

“There were two letters written, on the same sheet of paper,” said Arnold. “One of them was written by Geoffrey Delamayn--and that is the one I know about.”

Sir Patrick started. His face brightened; he made a hasty note. “Go on,” he said, eagerly. “How came the letters to be written on the same sheet? Explain that!”

Arnold explained that Geoffrey, in the absence of any thing else to write his excuses on to Anne, had written to her on the fourth or blank page of a letter which had been addressed to him by Anne herself.

“Did you read that letter?” asked Sir Patrick.

“I might have read it if I had liked.”

“And you didn’t read it?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Out of delicacy.”

Even Sir Patrick’s carefully trained temper was not proof against this. “That is the most misplaced act of delicacy I ever heard of in my life!” cried the old gentleman, warmly. “Never mind! it’s useless to regret it now. At any rate, you read Delamayn’s answer to Miss Silvester’s letter?”

“Yes--I did.”

“Repeat it--as nearly as you can remember at this distance of time.”

“It was so short,” said Arnold, “that there is hardly any thing to repeat. As well as I remember, Geoffrey said he was called away to London by his father’s illness. He told Miss Silvester to stop where she was; and he referred her to me, as messenger. That’s all I recollect of it now.”

“Cudgel your brains, my good fellow! this is very important. Did he make no allusion to his engagement to marry Miss Silvester at Craig Fernie? Didn’t he try to pacify her by an apology of some sort?”

The question roused Arnold’s memory to make another effort.

“Yes,” he answered. “Geoffrey said something about being true to his engagement, or keeping his promise or words to that effect.”

“You’re sure of what you say now?”

“I am certain of it.”

Sir Patrick made another note.

“Was the letter signed?” he asked, when he had done.

“Yes.”

“And dated?”

“Yes.” Arnold’s memory made a second effort, after he had given his second affirmative answer. “Wait a little,” he said. “I remember something else about the letter. It was not only dated. The time of day at which it was written was put as well.”

“How came he to do that?”

“I suggested it. The letter was so short I felt ashamed to deliver it as it stood. I told him to put the time--so as to show her that he was obliged to write in a hurry. He put the time when the train started; and (I think) the time when the letter was written as well.”

“And you delivered that letter to Miss Silvester, with your own hand, as soon as you saw her at the inn?”

“I did.”

Sir Patrick made a third note, and pushed the paper away from him with an air of supreme satisfaction.

“I always suspected that lost letter to be an important document,” he said--“or Bishopriggs would never have stolen it. We must get possession of it, Arnold, at any sacrifice. The first thing to be done (exactly as I anticipated), is to write to the Glasgow lawyer, and find Miss Silvester.”

“Wait a little!” cried a voice at the veranda. “Don’t forget that I have come back from Baden to help you!”

Sir Patrick and Arnold both looked up. This time Blanche had heard the last words that had passed between them. She sat down at the table by Sir Patrick’s side, and laid her hand caressingly on his shoulder.

“You are quite right, uncle,” she said. “I am suffering this morning from the malady of having nothing to do. Are you going to write to Anne? Don’t. Let me write instead.”

Sir Patrick declined to resign the pen.

“The person who knows Miss Silvester’s address,” he said, “is a lawyer in Glasgow. I am going to write to the lawyer. When he sends us word where she is--then, Blanche, will be the time to employ your good offices in winning back your friend.”

He drew the writing materials once more with in his reach, and, suspending the remainder of Arnold’s examination for the present, began his letter to Mr. Crum.

Blanche pleaded hard for an occupation of some sort. “Can nobody give me something to do?” she asked. “Glasgow is such a long way off, and waiting is such weary work. Don’t sit there staring at me, Arnold! Can’t you suggest something?”

Arnold, for once, displayed an unexpected readiness of resource.

“If you want to write,” he said, “you owe Lady Lundie a letter. It’s three days since you heard from her--and you haven’t answered her yet.”

Sir Patrick paused, and looked up quickly from his writing-desk.

“Lady Lundie?” he muttered, inquiringly.

“Yes,” said Blanche. “It’s quite true; I owe her a letter. And of course I ought to tell her we have come back to England. She will be finely provoked when she hears why!”

The prospect of provoking Lady Lundie seemed to rouse Blanche s dormant energies. She took a sheet of her uncle’s note-paper, and began writing her answer then and there.

Sir Patrick completed his communication to the lawyer--after a look at Blanche, which expressed any thing rather than approval of her present employment. Having placed his completed note in the postbag, he silently signed to Arnold to follow him into the garden. They went out together, leaving Blanche absorbed over her letter to her step-mother.

“Is my wife doing any thing wrong?” asked Arnold, who had noticed the look which Sir Patrick had cast on Blanche.

“Your wife is making mischief as fast as her fingers can spread it.”

Arnold stared. “She must answer Lady Lundie’s letter,” he said.

“Unquestionably.”

“And she must tell Lady Lundie we have come back.”

“I don’t deny it.”

“Then what is the objection to her writing?”

Sir Patrick took a pinch of snuff--and pointed with his ivory cane to the bees humming busily about the flower-beds in the sunshine of the autumn morning.

“I’ll show you the objection,” he said. “Suppose Blanche told one of those inveterately intrusive insects that the honey in the flowers happens, through an unexpected accident, to have come to an end--do you think he would take the statement for granted? No. He would plunge head-foremost into the nearest flower, and investigate it for himself.”

“Well?” said Arnold.

“Well--there is Blanche in the breakfast-room telling Lady Lundie that the bridal tour happens, through an unexpected accident, to have come to an end. Do you think Lady Lundie is the sort of person to take the statement for granted? Nothing of the sort! Lady Lundie, like the bee, will insist on investigating for herself. How it will end, if she discovers the truth--and what new complications she may not introduce into a matter which, Heaven knows, is complicated enough already--I leave you to imagine. My poor powers of prevision are not equal to it.”

Before Arnold could answer, Blanche joined them from the breakfast-room.

“I’ve done it,” she said. “It was an awkward letter to write--and it’s a comfort to have it over.”

“You have done it, my dear,” remarked Sir Patrick, quietly. “And it may be a comfort. But it’s not over.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think, Blanche, we shall hear from your step-mother by return of post.”

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.

THE NEWS FROM GLASGOW.

THE letters to Lady Lundie and to Mr. Crum having been dispatched on Monday, the return of the post might be looked for on Wednesday afternoon at Ham Farm.

Sir Patrick and Arnold held more than one private consultation, during the interval, on the delicate and difficult subject of admitting Blanche to a knowledge of what had happened. The wise elder advised and the inexperienced junior listened. “Think of it,” said Sir Patrick; “and do it.” And Arnold thought of it--and left it undone.

Let those who feel inclined to blame him remember that he had only been married a fortnight. It is hard, surely, after but two weeks’ possession of your wife, to appear before her in the character of an offender on trial--and to find that an angel of retribution has been thrown into the bargain by the liberal destiny which bestowed on you the woman whom you adore!

They were all three at home on the Wednesday afternoon, looking out for the postman.

The correspondence delivered included (exactly as Sir Patrick had foreseen) a letter from Lady Lundie. Further investigation, on the far more interesting subject of the expected news from Glasgow, revealed--nothing. The lawyer had not answered Sir Patrick’s inquiry by return of post.

“Is that a bad sign?” asked Blanche.

“It is a sign that something has happened,” answered her uncle. “Mr. Crum is possibly expecting to receive some special information, and is waiting on the chance of being able to communicate it. We must hope, my dear, in to-morrow’s post.”

“Open Lady Lundie’s letter in the mean time,” said Blanche. “Are you sure it is for you--and not for me?”

There was no doubt about it. Her ladyship’s reply was ominously addressed to her ladyship’s brother-in-law. “I know what that means.” said Blanche, eying her uncle eagerly while he was reading the letter. “If you mention Anne’s name you insult my step-mother. I have mentioned it freely. Lady Lundie is mortally offended with me.”

Rash judgment of youth! A lady who takes a dignified attitude, in a family emergency, is never mortally offended--she is only deeply grieved. Lady Lundie took a dignified attitude. “I well know,” wrote this estimable and Christian woman, “that I have been all along regarded in the light of an intruder by the family connections of my late beloved husband. But I was hardly prepared to find myself entirely shut out from all domestic confidence, at a time when some serious domestic catastrophe has but too evidently taken place. I have no desire, dear Sir Patrick, to intrude. Feeling it, however, to be quite inconsistent with a due regard for my own position--after what has happened--to correspond with Blanche, I address myself to the head of the family, purely in the interests of propriety. Permit me to ask whether--under circumstances which appear to be serious enough to require the recall of my step-daughter and her husband from their wedding tour--you think it DECENT to keep the widow of the late Sir Thomas Lundie entirely in the dark? Pray consider this--not at all out of regard for Me!--but out of regard for your own position with Society. Curiosity is, as you know, foreign to my nature. But when this dreadful scandal (whatever it may be) comes out--which, dear Sir Patrick, it can not fail to do--what will the world think, when it asks for Lady Lundie’s, opinion, and hears that Lady Lundie knew nothing about it? Whichever way you may decide I shall take no offense. I may possibly be wounded--but that won’t matter. My little round of duties will find me still earnest, still cheerful. And even if you shut me out, my best wishes will find their way, nevertheless, to Ham Farm. May I add--without encountering a sneer--that the prayers of a lonely woman are offered for the welfare of all?”

“Well?” said Blanche.

Sir Patrick folded up the letter, and put it in his pocket.

“You have your step-mother’s best wishes, my dear.” Having answered in those terms, he bowed to his niece with his best grace, and walked out of the room.

“Do I think it decent,” he repeated to himself, as he closed the door, “to leave the widow of the late Sir Thomas Lundie in the dark? When a lady’s temper is a little ruffled, I think it more than decent, I think it absolutely desirable, to let that lady have the last word.” He went into the library, and dropped his sister-in-law’s remonstrance into a box, labeled “Unanswered Letters.” Having got rid of it in that way, he hummed his favorite little Scotch air--and put on his hat, and went out to sun himself in the garden.

Meanwhile, Blanche was not quite satisfied with Sir Patrick’s reply. She appealed to her husband. “There is something wrong,” she said--“and my uncle is hiding it from me.”

Arnold could have desired no better opportunity than she had offered to him, in those words, for making the long-deferred disclosure to her of the truth. He lifted his eyes to Blanche’s face. By an unhappy fatality she was looking charmingly that morning. How would she look if he told her the story of the hiding at the inn? Arnold was still in love with her--and Arnold said nothing.

The next day’s post brought not only the anticipated letter from Mr. Crum, but an unexpected Glasgow newspaper as well.

This time Blanche had no reason to complain that her uncle kept his correspondence a secret from her. After reading the lawyer’s letter, with an interest and agitation which showed that the contents had taken him by surprise, he handed it to Arnold and his niece. “Bad news there,” he said. “We must share it together.”

After acknowledging the receipt of Sir Patrick’s letter of inquiry, Mr. Crum began by stating all that he knew of Miss Silvester’s movements--dating from the time when she had left the Sheep’s Head Hotel. About a fortnight since he had received a letter from her informing him that she had found a suitable place of residence in a village near Glasgow. Feeling a strong interest in Miss Silvester, Mr. Crum had visited her some few days afterward. He had satisfied himself that she was lodging with respectable people, and was as comfortably situated as circumstances would permit. For a week more he had heard nothing from the lady. At the expiration of that time he had received a letter from her, telling him that she had read something in a Glasgow newspaper, of that day’s date, which seriously concerned herself, and which would oblige her to travel northward immediately as fast as her strength would permit. At a later period, when she would be more certain of her own movements, she engaged to write again, and let Mr. Crum know where he might communicate with her if necessary. In the mean time, she could only thank him for his kindness, and beg him to take care of any letters or messages which might be left for her. Since the receipt of this communication the lawyer had heard nothing further. He had waited for the morning’s post in the hope of being able to report that he had received some further intelligence. The hope had not been realized. He had now stated all that he knew himself thus far--and he had forwarded a copy of the newspaper alluded to by Miss Silvester, on the chance that an examination of it by Sir Patrick might possibly lead to further discoveries. In conclusion, he pledged himself to write again the moment he had any information to send.

Blanche snatched up the newspaper, and opened it. “Let me look!” she said. “I can find what Anne saw here if any body can!”

She ran her eye eagerly over column after column and page after page--and dropped the newspaper on her lap with a gesture of despair.

“Nothing!” she exclaimed. “Nothing any where, that I can see, to interest Anne. Nothing to interest any body--except Lady Lundie,” she went on, brushing the newspaper off her lap. “It turns out to be all true, Arnold, at Swanhaven. Geoffrey Delamayn is going to marry Mrs. Glenarm.”

“What!” cried Arnold; the idea instantly flashing on him that this was the news which Anne had seen.

Sir Patrick gave him a warning look, and picked up the newspaper from the floor.

“I may as well run through it, Blanche, and make quite sure that you have missed nothing,” he said.

The report to which Blanche had referred was among the paragraphs arranged under the heading of “Fashionable News.” “A matrimonial alliance” (the Glasgow journal announced) “was in prospect between the Honorable Geoffrey Delamayn and the lovely and accomplished relict of the late Mathew Glenarm, Esq., formerly Miss Newenden.” The marriage would, in all probability, “be solemnized in Scotland, before the end of the present autumn;” and the wedding breakfast, it was whispered, “would collect a large and fashionable party at Swanhaven Lodge.”

Sir Patrick handed the newspaper silently to Arnold. It was plain to any one who knew Anne Silvester’s story that those were the words which had found their fatal way to her in her place of rest. The inference that followed seemed to be hardly less clear. But one intelligible object, in the opinion of Sir Patrick, could be at the end of her journey to the north. The deserted woman had rallied the last relics of her old energy--and had devoted herself to the desperate purpose of stopping the marriage of Mrs. Glenarm.

Blanche was the first to break the silence.

“It seems like a fatality,” she said. “Perpetual failure! Perpetual disappointment! Are Anne and I doomed never to meet again?”

She looked at her uncle. Sir Patrick showed none of his customary cheerfulness in the face of disaster.

“She has promised to write to Mr. Crum,” he said. “And Mr. Crum has promised to let us know when he hears from her. That is the only prospect before us. We must accept it as resignedly as we can.”

Blanche wandered out listlessly among the flowers in the conservatory. Sir Patrick made no secret of the impression produced upon him by Mr. Crum’s letter, when he and Arnold were left alone.

“There is no denying,” he said, “that matters have taken a very serious turn. My plans and calculations are all thrown out. It is impossible to foresee what new mischief may not come of it, if those two women meet; or what desperate act Delamayn may not commit, if he finds himself driven to the wall. As things are, I own frankly I don’t know what to do next. A great light of the Presbyterian Church,” he added, with a momentary outbreak of his whimsical humor, “once declared, in my hearing, that the invention of printing was nothing more or less than a proof of the intellectual activity of the Devil. Upon my honor, I feel for the first time in my life inclined to agree with him.”

He mechanically took up the Glasgow journal, which Arnold had laid aside, while he spoke.

“What’s this!” he exclaimed, as a name caught his eye in the first line of the newspaper at which he happened to look. “Mrs. Glenarm again! Are they turning the iron-master’s widow into a public character?”

There the name of the widow was, unquestionably; figuring for the second time in type, in a letter of the gossiping sort, supplied by an “Occasional Correspondent,” and distinguished by the title of “Sayings and Doings in the North.” After tattling pleasantly of the prospects of the shooting season, of the fashions from Paris, of an accident to a tourist, and of a scandal in the Scottish Kirk, the writer proceeded to the narrative of a case of interest, relating to a marriage in the sphere known (in the language of footmen) as the sphere of “high life.”

Considerable sensation (the correspondent announced) had been caused in Perth and its neighborhood, by the exposure of an anonymous attempt at extortion, of which a lady of distinction had lately been made the object. As her name had already been publicly mentioned in an application to the magistrates, there could be no impropriety in stating that the lady in question was Mrs. Glenarm--whose approaching union with the Honorable Geoffrey Delamayn was alluded to in another column of the journal.

Mrs. Glenarm had, it appeared, received an anonymous letter, on the first day of her arrival as guest at the house of a friend, residing in the neighborhood of Perth. The letter warned her that there was an obstacle, of which she was herself probably not aware, in the way of her projected marriage with Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn. That gentleman had seriously compromised himself with another lady; and the lady would oppose his marriage to Mrs. Glenarm, with proof in writing to produce in support of her claim. The proof was contained in two letters exchanged between the parties, and signed by their names; and the correspondence was placed at Mrs. Glenarm’s disposal, on two conditions, as follows:

First, that she should offer a sufficiently liberal price to induce the present possessor of the letters to part with them. Secondly, that she should consent to adopt such a method of paying the money as should satisfy the person that he was in no danger of finding himself brought within reach of the law. The answer to these two proposals was directed to be made through the medium of an advertisement in the local newspaper--distinguished by this address, “To a Friend in the Dark.”

Certain turns of expression, and one or two mistakes in spelling, pointed to this insolent letter as being, in all probability, the production of a Scotchman, in the lower ranks of life. Mrs. Glenarm had at once shown it to her nearest relative, Captain Newenden. The captain had sought legal advice in Perth. It had been decided, after due consideration, to insert the advertisement demanded, and to take measures to entrap the writer of the letter into revealing himself--without, it is needless to add, allowing the fellow really to profit by his attempted act of extortion.

The cunning of the “Friend in the Dark” (whoever he might be) had, on trying the proposed experiment, proved to be more than a match for the lawyers. He had successfully eluded not only the snare first set for him, but others subsequently laid. A second, and a third, anonymous letter, one more impudent than the other had been received by Mrs. Glenarm, assuring that lady and the friends who were acting for her that they were only wasting time and raising the price which would be asked for the correspondence, by the course they were taking. Captain Newenden had thereupon, in default of knowing what other course to pursue, appealed publicly to the city magistrates, and a reward had been offered, under the sanction of the municipal authorities, for the discovery of the man. This proceeding also having proved quite fruitless, it was understood that the captain had arranged, with the concurrence of his English solicitors, to place the matter in the hands of an experienced officer of the London police.

Here, so far as the newspaper correspondent was aware, the affair rested for the present.

It was only necessary to add, that Mrs. Glenarm had left the neighborhood of Perth, in order to escape further annoyance; and had placed herself under the protection of friends in another part of the county. Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn, whose fair fame had been assailed (it was needless, the correspondent added in parenthesis, to say how groundlessly), was understood to have expressed, not only the indignation natural under the circumstances but also his extreme regret at not finding himself in a position to aid Captain Newenden’s efforts to bring the anonymous slanderer to justice. The honorable gentleman was, as the sporting public were well aware, then in course of strict training for his forthcoming appearance at the Fulham Foot-Race. So important was it considered that his mind should not be harassed by annoyances, in his present responsible position, that his trainer and his principal backers had thought it desirable to hasten his removal to the neighborhood of Fulham--where the exercises which were to prepare him for the race were now being continued on the spot.

“The mystery seems to thicken,” said Arnold.

“Quite the contrary,” returned Sir Patrick, briskly. “The mystery is clearing fast--thanks to the Glasgow newspaper. I shall be spared the trouble of dealing with Bishopriggs for the stolen letter. Miss Silvester has gone to Perth, to recover her correspondence with Geoffrey Delamayn.”

“Do you think she would recognize it,” said Arnold, pointing to the newspaper, “in the account given of it here?”

“Certainly! And she could hardly fail, in my opinion, to get a step farther than that. Unless I am entirely mistaken, the authorship of the anonymous letters has not mystified her.”

“How could she guess at that?”

“In this way, as I think. Whatever she may have previously thought, she must suspect, by this time, that the missing correspondence has been stolen, and not lost. Now, there are only two persons whom she can think of, as probably guilty of the theft--Mrs. Inchbare or Bishopriggs. The newspaper description of the style of the anonymous letters declares it to be the style of a Scotchman in the lower ranks of life--in other words, points plainly to Bishopriggs. You see that? Very well. Now suppose she recovers the stolen property. What is likely to happen then? She will be more or less than woman if she doesn’t make her way next, provided with her proofs in writing, to Mrs. Glenarm. She may innocently help, or she may innocently frustrate, the end we have in view--either way, our course is clear before us again. Our interest in communicating with Miss Silvester remains precisely the same interest that it was before we received the Glasgow newspaper. I propose to wait till Sunday, on the chance that Mr. Crum may write again. If we don’t hear from him, I shall start for Scotland on Monday morning, and take my chance of finding my way to Miss Silvester, through Mrs. Glenarm.”

“Leaving me behind?”

“Leaving you behind. Somebody must stay with Blanche. After having only been a fortnight married, must I remind you of that?”

“Don’t you think Mr. Crum will write before Monday?”

“It will be such a fortunate circumstance for us, if he does write, that I don’t venture to anticipate it.”

“You are down on our luck, Sir.”

“I detest slang, Arnold. But slang, I own, expresses my state of mind, in this instance, with an accuracy which almost reconciles me to the use of it--for once in a way.”

“Every body’s luck turns sooner or later,” persisted Arnold. “I can’t help thinking our luck is on the turn at last. Would you mind taking a bet, Sir Patrick?”

“Apply at the stables. I leave betting, as I leave cleaning the horses, to my groom.”

With that crabbed answer he closed the conversation for the day.

The hours passed, and time brought the post again in due course--and the post decided in Arnold’s favor! Sir Patrick’s want of confidence in the favoring patronage of Fortune was practically rebuked by the arrival of a second letter from the Glasgow lawyer on the next day.

“I have the pleasure of announcing” (Mr. Crum wrote) “that I have heard from Miss Silvester, by the next postal delivery ensuing, after I had dispatched my letter to Ham Farm. She writes, very briefly, to inform me that she has decided on establishing her next place of residence in London. The reason assigned for taking this step--which she certainly did not contemplate when I last saw her--is that she finds herself approaching the end of her pecuniary resources. Having already decided on adopting, as a means of living, the calling of a concert-singer, she has arranged to place her interests in the hands of an old friend of her late mother (who appears to have belonged also to the musical profession): a dramatic and musical agent long established in the metropolis, and well known to her as a trustworthy and respectable man. She sends me the name and address of this person--a copy of which you will find on the inclosed slip of paper--in the event of my having occasion to write to her, before she is settled in London. This is the whole substance of her letter. I have only to add, that it does not contain the slightest allusion to the nature of the errand on which she left Glasgow.”

Sir Patrick happened to be alone when he opened Mr. Crum’s letter.

His first proceeding, after reading it, was to consult the railway time-table hanging in the hall. Having done this, he returned to the library--wrote a short note of inquiry, addressed to the musical agent--and rang the bell.

“Miss Silvester is expected in London, Duncan. I want a discreet person to communicate with her. You are the person.”

Duncan bowed. Sir Pa trick handed him the note.

“If you start at once you will be in time to catch the train. Go to that address, and inquire for Miss Silvester. If she has arrived, give her my compliments, and say I will have the honor of calling on her (on Mr. Brinkworth’s behalf) at the earliest date which she may find it convenient to appoint. Be quick about it--and you will have time to get back before the last train. Have Mr. and Mrs. Brinkworth returned from their drive?”

“No, Sir Patrick.”

Pending the return of Arnold and Blanche, Sir Patrick looked at Mr. Crum’s letter for the second time.

He was not quite satisfied that the pecuniary motive was really the motive at the bottom of Anne’s journey south. Remembering that Geoffrey’s trainers had removed him to the neighborhood of London, he was inclined to doubt whether some serious quarrel had not taken place between Anne and Mrs. Glenarm--and whether some direct appeal to Geoffrey himself might not be in contemplation as the result. In that event, Sir Patrick’s advice and assistance would be placed, without scruple, at Miss Silvester’s disposal. By asserting her claim, in opposition to the claim of Mrs. Glenarm, she was also asserting herself to be an unmarried woman, and was thus serving Blanche’s interests as well as her own. “I owe it to Blanche to help her,” thought Sir Patrick. “And I owe it to myself to bring Geoffrey Delamayn to a day of reckoning if I can.”

The barking of the dogs in the yard announced the return of the carriage. Sir Patrick went out to meet Arnold and Blanche at the gate, and tell them the news.

Punctual to the time at which he was expected, the discreet Duncan reappeared with a note from the musical agent.

Miss Silvester had not yet reached London; but she was expected to arrive not later than Tuesday in the ensuing week. The agent had already been favored with her instructions to pay the strictest attention to any commands received from Sir Patrick Lundie. He would take care that Sir Patrick’s message should be given to Miss Silvester as soon as she arrived.

At last, then, there was news to be relied on! At last there was a prospect of seeing her! Blanche was radiant with happiness, Arnold was in high spirits for the first time since his return from Baden.

Sir Patrick tried hard to catch the infection of gayety from his young friends; but, to his own surprise, not less than to theirs, the effort proved fruitless. With the tide of events turning decidedly in his favor--relieved of the necessity of taking a doubtful journey to Scotland; assured of obtaining his interview with Anne in a few days’ time--he was out of spirits all through the evening.

“Still down on our luck!” exclaimed Arnold, as he and his host finished their last game of billiards, and parted for the night. “Surely, we couldn’t wish for a more promising prospect than our prospect next week?”

Sir Patrick laid his hand on Arnold’s shoulder.

“Let us look indulgently together,” he said, in his whimsically grave way, “at the humiliating spectacle of an old man’s folly. I feel, at this moment, Arnold, as if I would give every thing that I possess in the world to have passed over next week, and to be landed safely in the time beyond it.”

“But why?”

“There is the folly! I can’t tell why. With every reason to be in better spirits than usual, I am unaccountably, irrationally, invincibly depressed. What are we to conclude from that? Am I the object of a supernatural warning of misfortune to come? Or am I the object of a temporary derangement of the functions of the liver? There is the question. Who is to decide it? How contemptible is humanity, Arnold, rightly understood! Give me my candle, and let’s hope it’s the liver.”

EIGHTH SCENE--THE PANTRY.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-NINTH.

ANNE WINS A VICTORY.

ON a certain evening in the month of September (at that period of the month when Arnold and Blanche were traveling back from Baden to Ham Farm) an ancient man--with one eye filmy and blind, and one eye moist and merry--sat alone in the pantry of the Harp of Scotland Inn, Perth, pounding the sugar softly in a glass of whisky-punch. He has hitherto been personally distinguished in these pages as the self-appointed father of Anne Silvester and the humble servant of Blanche at the dance at Swanhaven Lodge. He now dawns on the view in amicable relations with a third lady--and assumes the mystic character of Mrs. Glenarm’s “Friend in the Dark.”

Arriving in Perth the day after the festivities at Swanhaven, Bishopriggs proceeded to the Harp of Scotland--at which establishment for the reception of travelers he possessed the advantage of being known to the landlord as Mrs. Inchbare’s right-hand man, and of standing high on the head-waiter’s list of old and intimate friends.

Inquiring for the waiter first by the name of Thomas (otherwise Tammy) Pennyquick, Bishopriggs found his friend in sore distress of body and mind. Contending vainly against the disabling advances of rheumatism, Thomas Pennyquick ruefully contemplated the prospect of being laid up at home by a long illness--with a wife and children to support, and with the emoluments attached to his position passing into the pockets of the first stranger who could be found to occupy his place at the inn.

Hearing this doleful story, Bishopriggs cunningly saw his way to serving his own private interests by performing the part of Thomas Pennyquick’s generous and devoted friend.

He forthwith offered to fill the place, without taking the emoluments, of the invalided headwaiter--on the understanding, as a matter of course, that the landlord consented to board and lodge him free of expense at the inn. The landlord having readily accepted this condition, Thomas Pennyquick retired to the bosom of his family. And there was Bishopriggs, doubly secured behind a respectable position and a virtuous action against all likelihood of suspicion falling on him as a stranger in Perth--in the event of his correspondence with Mrs. Glenarm being made the object of legal investigation on the part of her friends!

Having opened the campaign in this masterly manner, the same sagacious foresight had distinguished the operations of Bishopriggs throughout.

His correspondence with Mrs. Glenarm was invariably written with the left hand--the writing thus produced defying detection, in all cases, as bearing no resemblance of character whatever to writing produced by persons who habitually use the other hand. A no less far-sighted cunning distinguished his proceedings in answering the advertisements which the lawyers duly inserted in the newspaper. He appointed hours at which he was employed on business-errands for the inn, and places which lay on the way to those errands, for his meetings with Mrs. Glenarm’s representatives: a pass-word being determined on, as usual in such cases, by exchanging which the persons concerned could discover each other. However carefully the lawyers might set the snare--whether they had their necessary “witness” disguised as an artist sketching in the neighborhood, or as an old woman selling fruit, or what not--the wary eye of Bishopriggs detected it. He left the pass-word unspoken; he went his way on his errand; he was followed on suspicion; and he was discovered to be only “a respectable person,” charged with a message by the landlord of the Harp of Scotland Inn!

To a man intrenched behind such precautions as these, the chance of being detected might well be reckoned among the last of all the chances that could possibly happen.

Discovery was, nevertheless, advancing on Bishopriggs from a quarter which had not been included in his calculations. Anne Silvester was in Perth; forewarned by the newspaper (as Sir Patrick had guessed) that the letters offered to Mrs. Glenarm were the letters between Geoffrey and herself, which she had lost at Craig Fernie, and bent on clearing up the suspicion which pointed to Bishopriggs as the person who was trying to turn the correspondence to pecuniary account. The inquiries made for him, at Anne’s request, as soon as she arrived in the town, openly described his name, and his former position as headwaiter at Craig Fernie--and thu s led easily to the discovery of him, in his publicly avowed character of Thomas Pennyquick’s devoted friend. Toward evening, on the day after she reached Perth, the news came to Anne that Bishopriggs was in service at the inn known as the Harp of Scotland. The landlord of the hotel at which she was staying inquired whether he should send a message for her. She answered, “No, I will take my message myself. All I want is a person to show me the way to the inn.”

Secluded in the solitude of the head-waiter’s pantry, Bishopriggs sat peacefully melting the sugar in his whisky-punch.

It was the hour of the evening at which a period of tranquillity generally occurred before what was called “the night-business” of the house began. Bishopriggs was accustomed to drink and meditate daily in this interval of repose. He tasted the punch, and smiled contentedly as he set down his glass. The prospect before him looked fairly enough. He had outwitted the lawyers in the preliminary negotiations thus far. All that was needful now was to wait till the terror of a public scandal (sustained by occasional letters from her “Friend in the Dark”) had its due effect on Mrs. Glenarm, and hurried her into paying the purchase-money for the correspondence with her own hand. “Let it breed in the brain,” he thought, “and the siller will soon come out o’ the purse.”

His reflections were interrupted by the appearance of a slovenly maid-servant, with a cotton handkerchief tied round her head, and an uncleaned sauce-pan in her hand.

“Eh, Maister Bishopriggs,” cried the girl, “here’s a braw young leddy speerin’ for ye by yer ain name at the door.”

“A leddy?” repeated Bishopriggs, with a look of virtuous disgust. “Ye donnert ne’er-do-weel, do you come to a decent, ‘sponsible man like me, wi’ sic a Cyprian overture as that? What d’ye tak’ me for? Mark Antony that lost the world for love (the mair fule he!)? or Don Jovanny that counted his concubines by hundreds, like the blessed Solomon himself? Awa’ wi’ ye to yer pots and pans; and bid the wandering Venus that sent ye go spin!”

Before the girl could answer she was gently pulled aside from the doorway, and Bishopriggs, thunder-struck, saw Anne Silvester standing in her place.

“You had better tell the servant I am no stranger to you,” said Anne, looking toward the kitchen-maid, who stood in the passage staring at her in stolid amazement.

“My ain sister’s child!” cried Bishopriggs, lying with his customary readiness. “Go yer ways, Maggie. The bonny lassie’s my ain kith and kin. The tongue o’ scandal, I trow, has naething to say against that.--Lord save us and guide us!” he added In another tone, as the girl closed the door on them, “what brings ye here?”

“I have something to say to you. I am not very well; I must wait a little first. Give me a chair.”

Bishopriggs obeyed in silence. His one available eye rested on Anne, as he produced the chair, with an uneasy and suspicious attention. “I’m wanting to know one thing,” he said. “By what meeraiculous means, young madam, do ye happen to ha’ fund yer way to this inn?”

Anne told him how her inquiries had been made and what the result had been, plainly and frankly. The clouded face of Bishopriggs began to clear again.

“Hech! hech!” he exclaimed, recovering all his native impudence, “I hae had occasion to remark already, to anither leddy than yersel’, that it’s seemply mairvelous hoo a man’s ain gude deeds find him oot in this lower warld o’ ours. I hae dune a gude deed by pure Tammy Pennyquick, and here’s a’ Pairth ringing wi the report o’ it; and Sawmuel Bishopriggs sae weel known that ony stranger has only to ask, and find him. Understand, I beseech ye, that it’s no hand o’ mine that pets this new feather in my cap. As a gude Calvinist, my saul’s clear o’ the smallest figment o’ belief in Warks. When I look at my ain celeebrity I joost ask, as the Psawmist asked before me, ‘Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?’ It seems ye’ve something to say to me,” he added, suddenly reverting to the object of Anne’s visit. “Is it humanly possible that ye can ha’ come a’ the way to Pairth for naething but that?”

The expression of suspicion began to show itself again in his face. Concealing as she best might the disgust that he inspired in her, Anne stated her errand in the most direct manner, and in the fewest possible words.

“I have come here to ask you for something,” she said.

“Ay? ay? What may it be ye’re wanting of me?”

“I want the letter I lost at Craig Fernie.”

Even the solidly-founded self-possession of Bishopriggs himself was shaken by the startling directness of that attack on it. His glib tongue was paralyzed for the moment. “I dinna ken what ye’re drivin’ at,” he said, after an interval, with a sullen consciousness that he had been all but tricked into betraying himself.

The change in his manner convinced Anne that she had found in Bishopriggs the person of whom she was in search.

“You have got my letter,” she said, sternly insisting on the truth. “And you are trying to turn it to a disgraceful use. I won’t allow you to make a market of my private affairs. You have offered a letter of mine for sale to a stranger. I insist on your restoring it to me before I leave this room!”

Bishopriggs hesitated again. His first suspicion that Anne had been privately instructed by Mrs. Glenarm’s lawyers returned to his mind as a suspicion confirmed. He felt the vast importance of making a cautious reply.

“I’ll no’ waste precious time,” he said, after a moment’s consideration with himself, “in brushing awa’ the fawse breath o’ scandal, when it passes my way. It blaws to nae purpose, my young leddy, when it blaws on an honest man like me. Fie for shame on ye for saying what ye’ve joost said--to me that was a fether to ye at Craig Fernie! Wha’ set ye on to it? Will it be man or woman that’s misca’ed me behind my back?”

Anne took the Glasgow newspaper from the pocket of her traveling cloak, and placed it before him, open at the paragraph which described the act of extortion attempted on Mrs. Glenarm.

“I have found there,” she said, “all that I want to know.”

“May a’ the tribe o’ editors, preenters, paper-makers, news-vendors, and the like, bleeze together in the pit o’ Tophet!” With this devout aspiration--internally felt, not openly uttered--Bishopriggs put on his spectacles, and read the passage pointed out to him. “I see naething here touching the name o’ Sawmuel Bishopriggs, or the matter o’ ony loss ye may or may not ha’ had at Craig Fernie,” he said, when he had done; still defending his position, with a resolution worthy of a better cause.

Anne’s pride recoiled at the prospect of prolonging the discussion with him. She rose to her feet, and said her last words.

“I have learned enough by this time,” she answered, “to know that the one argument that prevails with you is the argument of money. If money will spare me the hateful necessity of disputing with you--poor as I am, money you shall have. Be silent, if you please. You are personally interested in what I have to say next.”

She opened her purse, and took a five-pound note from it.

“If you choose to own the truth, and produce the letter,” she resumed, “I will give you this, as your reward for finding, and restoring to me, something that I had lost. If you persist in your present prevarication, I can, and will, make that sheet of note-paper you have stolen from me nothing but waste paper in your hands. You have threatened Mrs. Glenarm with my interference. Suppose I go to Mrs. Glenarm? Suppose I interfere before the week is out? Suppose I have other letters of Mr. Delamayn’s in my possession, and produce them to speak for me? What has Mrs. Glenarm to purchase of you then? Answer me that!”

The color rose on her pale face. Her eyes, dim and weary when she entered the room, looked him brightly through and through in immeasurable contempt. “Answer me that!” she repeated, with a burst of her old energy which revealed the fire and passion of the woman’s nature, not quenched even yet!

If Bishopriggs had a merit, it was a rare merit, as men go, of knowing when he was beaten. If he had an accomplishment, it was the accomplishment of retiring defeated, with all the honors of war.

“Mercy presairve us!” he exclaimed, in the most innocent manner. “Is it even You Yersel’ that writ the letter to the man ca’ed Jaffray Delamayn, and got the wee bit answer in pencil on the blank page? Hoo, in Heeven’s name, was I to know that was the letter ye were after when ye cam’ in here? Did ye ever tell me ye were Anne Silvester, at the hottle? Never ance! Was the puir feckless husband-creature ye had wi’ ye at the inn, Jaffray Delamayn? Jaffray wad mak’ twa o’ him, as my ain eyes ha’ seen. Gi’ ye back yer letter? My certie! noo I know it is yer letter, I’ll gi’ it back wi’ a’ the pleasure in life!”

He opened his pocket-book, and took it out, with an alacrity worthy of the honestest man in Christendom--and (more wonderful still) he looked with a perfectly assumed expression of indifference at the five-pound note in Anne’s hand.

“Hoot! toot!” he said, “I’m no’ that clear in my mind that I’m free to tak’ yer money. Eh, weel! weel! I’ll een receive it, if ye like, as a bit Memento o’ the time when I was o’ some sma’ sairvice to ye at the hottle. Ye’ll no’ mind,” he added, suddenly returning to business, “writin’ me joost a line--in the way o’ receipt, ye ken--to clear me o’ ony future suspicion in the matter o’ the letter?”

Anne threw down the bank-note on the table near which they were standing, and snatched the letter from him.

“You need no receipt,” she answered. “There shall be no letter to bear witness against you!”

She lifted her other hand to tear it in pieces. Bishopriggs caught her by both wrists, at the same moment, and held her fast.

“Bide a wee!” he said. “Ye don’t get the letter, young madam, without the receipt. It may be a’ the same to you, now ye’ve married the other man, whether Jaffray Delamayn ance promised ye fair in the by-gone time, or no. But, my certie! it’s a matter o’ some moment to me, that ye’ve chairged wi’ stealin’ the letter, and making a market o’t, and Lord knows what besides, that I suld hae yer ain acknowledgment for it in black and white. Gi’ me my bit receipt--and een do as ye will with yer letter after that!”

Anne’s hold of the letter relaxed. She let Bishopriggs repossess himself of it as it dropped on the floor between them, without making an effort to prevent him.

“It may be a’ the same to you, now ye’ve married the other man, whether Jaffray Delamayn ance promised ye fair in the by-gone time, or no.” Those words presented Anne’s position before her in a light in which she had not seen it yet. She had truly expressed the loathing that Geoffrey now inspired in her, when she had declared, in her letter to Arnold, that, even if he offered her marriage, in atonement for the past, she would rather be what she was than be his wife. It had never occurred to her, until this moment, that others would misinterpret the sensitive pride which had prompted the abandonment of her claim on the man who had ruined her. It had never been brought home to her until now, that if she left him contemptuously to go his own way, and sell himself to the first woman who had money enough to buy him, her conduct would sanction the false conclusion that she was powerless to interfere, because she was married already to another man. The color that had risen in her face vanished, and left it deadly pale again. She began to see that the purpose of her journey to the north was not completed yet.

“I will give you your receipt,” she said. “Tell me what to write, and it shall be written.”

Bishopriggs dictated the receipt. She wrote and signed it. He put it in his pocket-book with the five-pound note, and handed her the letter in exchange.

“Tear it if ye will,” he said. “It matters naething to me.”

For a moment she hesitated. A sudden shuddering shook her from head to foot--the forewarning, it might be, of the influence which that letter, saved from destruction by a hair’s-breadth, was destined to exercise on her life to come. She recovered herself, and folded her cloak closer to her, as if she had felt a passing chill.

“No,” she said; “I will keep the letter.”

She folded it and put it in the pocket of her dress. Then turned to go--and stopped at the door.

“One thing more,” she added. “Do you know Mrs. Glenarm’s present address?”

“Ye’re no’ reely going to Mistress Glenarm?”

“That is no concern of yours. You can answer my question or not, as you please.”

“Eh, my leddy! yer temper’s no’ what it used to be in the auld times at the hottle. Aweel! aweel! ye ha’ gi’en me yer money, and I’ll een gi’ ye back gude measure for it, on my side. Mistress Glenarm’s awa’ in private--incog, as they say--to Jaffray Delamayn’s brither at Swanhaven Lodge. Ye may rely on the information, and it’s no’ that easy to come at either. They’ve keepit it a secret as they think from a’ the warld. Hech! hech! Tammy Pennyquick’s youngest but twa is page-boy at the hoose where the leddy’s been veesitin’, on the outskirts o’ Pairth. Keep a secret if ye can frae the pawky ears o’ yer domestics in the servants’ hall!--Eh! she’s aff, without a word at parting!” he exclaimed, as Anne left him without ceremony in the middle of his dissertation on secrets and servants’ halls. “I trow I ha’ gaen out for wool, and come back shorn,” he added, reflecting grimly on the disastrous overthrow of the promising speculation on which he had embarked. “My certie! there was naething left for’t, when madam’s fingers had grippit me, but to slip through them as cannily as I could. What’s Jaffray’s marrying, or no’ marrying, to do wi’ her?” he wondered, reverting to the question which Anne had put to him at parting. “And whar’s the sense o’ her errand, if she’s reely bent on finding her way to Mistress Glenarm?”

Whatever the sense of her errand might be, Anne’s next proceeding proved that she was really bent on it. After resting two days, she left Perth by the first train in the morning, for Swanhaven Lodge.

NINTH SCENE.--THE MUSIC-ROOM.

CHAPTER THE FORTIETH.

JULIUS MAKES MISCHIEF.

JULIUS DELAMAYN was alone, idly sauntering to and fro, with his violin in his hand, on the terrace at Swanhaven Lodge.

The first mellow light of evening was in the sky. It was the close of the day on which Anne Silvester had left Perth.

Some hours earlier, Julius had sacrificed himself to the duties of his political position--as made for him by his father. He had submitted to the dire necessity of delivering an oration to the electors, at a public meeting in the neighboring town of Kirkandrew. A detestable atmosphere to breathe; a disorderly audience to address; insolent opposition to conciliate; imbecile inquiries to answer; brutish interruptions to endure; greedy petitioners to pacify; and dirty hands to shake: these are the stages by which the aspiring English gentleman is compelled to travel on the journey which leads him from the modest obscurity of private life to the glorious publicity of the House of Commons. Julius paid the preliminary penalties of a political first appearance, as exacted by free institutions, with the necessary patience; and returned to the welcome shelter of home, more indifferent, if possible, to the attractions of Parliamentary distinction than when he set out. The discord of the roaring “people” (still echoing in his ears) had sharpened his customary sensibility to the poetry of sound, as composed by Mozart, and as interpreted by piano and violin. Possessing himself of his beloved instrument, he had gone out on the terrace to cool himself in the evening air, pending the arrival of the servant whom he had summoned by the music-room bell. The man appeared at the glass door which led into the room; and reported, in answer to his master’s inquiry, that Mrs. Julius Delamayn was out paying visits, and was not expected to return for another hour at least.

Julius groaned in spirit. The finest music which Mozart has written for the violin associates that instrument with the piano. Without the wife to help him, the husband was mute. After an instant’s consideration, Julius hit on an idea which promised, in some degree, to remedy the disaster of Mrs. Delamayn’s absence from home.

“Has Mrs. Glenarm gone out, too?” he asked.

“No, Sir.”

“My compliments. If Mrs. Glenarm has nothing else to do, will she be so kind as to come to me in the music-room?”

The servant went away with his message. Julius seated himself on one of the terrace-benches, and began to tune his violin.

Mrs. Glenarm--rightly reported by Bishopriggs as having privately taken refuge from her anonymous correspondent at Swanhaven Lodge--was, musically speaking, far from being an efficient substitute for Mrs. Delamayn. Julius possessed, in his wife, one of the few players on the piano-forte under whose subtle touch that shallow and soulless instrument becomes inspired with expression not its own, and produces music instead of noise. The fine organization which can work this miracle had not been bestowed on Mrs. Glenarm. She had been carefully taught; and she was to be trusted to play correctly--and that was all. Julius, hungry for music, and reigned to circumstances, asked for no more.

The servant returned with his answer. Mrs. Glenarm would join Mr. Delamayn in the music-room in ten minutes’ time.

Julius rose, relieved, and resumed his sauntering walk; now playing little snatches of music, now stopping to look at the flowers on the terrace, with an eye that enjoyed their beauty, and a hand that fondled them with caressing touch. If Imperial Parliament had seen him at that moment, Imperial Parliament must have given notice of a question to his illustrious father: Is it possible, my lord, that you can have begotten such a Member as this?

After stopping for a moment to tighten one of the strings of his violin, Julius, raising his head from the instrument, was surprised to see a lady approaching him on the terrace. Advancing to meet her, and perceiving that she was a total stranger to him, he assumed that she was, in all probability, a visitor to his wife.

“Have I the honor of speaking to a friend of Mrs. Delamayn’s?” he asked. “My wife is not at home, I am sorry to say.”

“I am a stranger to Mrs. Delamayn,” the lady answered. “The servant informed me that she had gone out; and that I should find Mr. Delamayn here.”

Julius bowed--and waited to hear more.

“I must beg you to forgive my intrusion,” the stranger went on. “My object is to ask permission to see a lady who is, I have been informed, a guest in your house.”

The extraordinary formality of the request rather puzzled Julius.

“Do you mean Mrs. Glenarm?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Pray don’t think any permission necessary. A friend of Mrs. Glenarm’s may take her welcome for granted in this house.”

“I am not a friend of Mrs. Glenarm. I am a total stranger to her.”

This made the ceremonious request preferred by the lady a little more intelligible--but it left the lady’s object in wishing to speak to Mrs. Glenarm still in the dark. Julius politely waited, until it pleased her to proceed further, and explain herself The explanation did not appear to be an easy one to give. Her eyes dropped to the ground. She hesitated painfully.

“My name--if I mention it,” she resumed, without looking up, “may possibly inform you--” She paused. Her color came and went. She hesitated again; struggled with her agitation, and controlled it. “I am Anne Silvester,” she said, suddenly raising her pale face, and suddenly steadying her trembling voice.

Julius started, and looked at her in silent surprise.

The name was doubly known to him. Not long since, he had heard it from his father’s lips, at his father’s bedside. Lord Holchester had charged him, had earnestly charged him, to bear that name in mind, and to help the woman who bore it, if the woman ever applied to him in time to come. Again, he had heard the name, more lately, associated scandalously with the name of his brother. On the receipt of the first of the anonymous letters sent to her, Mrs. Glenarm had not only summoned Geoffrey himself to refute the aspersion cast upon him, but had forwarded a private copy of the letter to his relatives at Swanhaven. Geoffrey’s defense had not entirely satisfied Julius that his brother was free from blame. As he now looked at Anne Silvester, the doubt returned upon him strengthened--almost confirmed. Was this woman--so modest, so gentle, so simply and unaffectedly refined--the shameless adventuress denounced by Geoffrey, as claiming him on the strength of a foolish flirtation; knowing herself, at the time, to be privately married to another man? Was this woman--with the voice of a lady, the look of a lady, the manner of a lady--in league (as Geoffrey had declared) with the illiterate vagabond who was attempting to extort money anonymously from Mrs. Glenarm? Impossible! Making every allowance for the proverbial deceitfulness of appearances, impossible!

“Your name has been mentioned to me,” said Julius, answering her after a momentary pause. His instincts, as a gentleman, made him shrink from referring to the association of her name with the name of his brother. “My father mentioned you,” he added, considerately explaining his knowledge of her in that way, “when I last saw him in London.”

“Your father!” She came a step nearer, with a look of distrust as well as a look of astonishment in her face. “Your father is Lord Holchester--is he not?”

“Yes.”

“What made him speak of me?”

“He was ill at the time,” Julius answered. “And he had been thinking of events in his past life with which I am entirely unacquainted. He said he had known your father and mother. He desired me, if you were ever in want of any assistance, to place my services at your disposal. When he expressed that wish, he spoke very earnestly--he gave me the impression that there was a feeling of regret associated with the recollections on which he had been dwelling.”

Slowly, and in silence, Anne drew back to the low wall of the terrace close by. She rested one hand on it to support herself. Julius had said words of terrible import without a suspicion of what he had done. Never until now had Anne Silvester known that the man who had betrayed her was the son of that other man whose discovery of the flaw in the marriage had ended in the betrayal of her mother before her. She felt the shock of the revelation with a chill of superstitious dread. Was the chain of a fatality wound invisibly round her? Turn which way she might was she still going darkly on, in the track of her dead mother, to an appointed and hereditary doom? Present things passed from her view as the awful doubt cast its shadow over her mind. She lived again for a moment in the time when she was a child. She saw the face of her mother once more, with the wan despair on it of the bygone days when the title of wife was denied her, and the social prospect was closed forever.

Julius approached, and roused her.

“Can I get you any thing?” he asked. “You are looking very ill. I hope I have said nothing to distress you?”

The question failed to attract her attention. She put a question herself instead of answering it.

“Did you say you were quite ignorant of what your father was thinking of when he spoke to you about me?”

“Quite ignorant.”

“Is your brother likely to know more about it than you do?”

“Certainly not.”

She paused, absorbed once more in her own thoughts. Startled, on the memorable day when they had first met, by Geoffrey’s family name, she had put the question to him whether there had not been some acquaintance between their parents in the past time. Deceiving her in all else, he had not deceived in this. He had spoken in good faith, when he had declared that he had never heard her father or her mother mentioned at home.

The curiosity of Julius was aroused. He attempted to lead her on into saying more.

“You appear to know what my father was thinking of when he spoke to me,” he resumed. “May I ask--”

She interrupted him with a gesture of entreaty.

“Pray don’t ask! It’s past and over--it can have no interest for you--it has nothing to do with my errand here. I must return,” she went on, hurriedly, “to my object in trespassing on your kindness. Have you heard me mentioned, Mr. Delamayn, by another member of your family besides your father?”

Julius had not anticipated that sh e would approach, of her own accord, the painful subject on which he had himself forborne to touch. He was a little disappointed. He had expected more delicacy of feeling from her than she had shown.

“Is it necessary,” he asked, coldly, “to enter on that?”

The blood rose again in Anne’s cheeks.

“If it had not been necessary,” she answered, “do you think I could have forced myself to mention it to you? Let me remind you that I am here on sufferance. If I don’t speak plainly (no matter at what sacrifice to my own feelings), I make my situation more embarrassing than it is already. I have something to tell Mrs. Glenarm relating to the anonymous letters which she has lately received. And I have a word to say to her, next, about her contemplated marriage. Before you allow me to do this, you ought to know who I am. (I have owned it.) You ought to have heard the worst that can be said of my conduct. (Your face tells me you have heard the worst.) After the forbearance you have shown to me, as a perfect stranger, I will not commit the meanness of taking you by surprise. Perhaps, Mr. Delamayn, you understand, now, why I felt myself obliged to refer to your brother. Will you trust me with permission to speak to Mrs. Glenarm?”

It was simply and modestly said--with an unaffected and touching resignation of look and manner. Julius gave her back the respect and the sympathy which, for a moment, he had unjustly withheld from her.

“You have placed a confidence in me,” he said “which most persons in your situation would have withheld. I feel bound, in return to place confidence in you. I will take it for granted that your motive in this matter is one which it is my duty to respect. It will be for Mrs. Glenarm to say whether she wishes the interview to take place or not. All that I can do is to leave you free to propose it to her. You are free.”

As he spoke the sound of the piano reached them from the music-room. Julius pointed to the glass door which opened on to the terrace.

“You have only to go in by that door,” he said, “and you will find Mrs. Glenarm alone.”

Anne bowed, and left him. Arrived at the short flight of steps which led up to the door, she paused to collect her thoughts before she went in.

A sudden reluctance to go on and enter the room took possession of her, as she waited with her foot on the lower step. The report of Mrs. Glenarm’s contemplated marriage had produced no such effect on her as Sir Patrick had supposed: it had found no love for Geoffrey left to wound, no latent jealousy only waiting to be inflamed. Her object in taking the journey to Perth was completed when her correspondence with Geoffrey was in her own hands again. The change of purpose which had brought her to Swanhaven was due entirely to the new view of her position toward Mrs. Glenarm which the coarse commonsense of Bishopriggs had first suggested to her. If she failed to protest against Mrs. Glenarm’s marriage, in the interests of the reparation which Geoffrey owed to her, her conduct would only confirm Geoffrey’s audacious assertion that she was a married woman already. For her own sake she might still have hesitated to move in the matter. But Blanche’s interests were concerned as well as her own; and, for Blanche’s sake, she had resolved on making the journey to Swanhaven Lodge.

At the same time, feeling toward Geoffrey as she felt now--conscious as she was of not really desiring the reparation on which she was about to insist--it was essential to the preservation of her own self-respect that she should have some purpose in view which could justify her to her own conscience in assuming the character of Mrs. Glenarm’s rival.

She had only to call to mind the critical situation of Blanche--and to see her purpose before her plainly. Assuming that she could open the coming interview by peaceably proving that her claim on Geoffrey was beyond dispute, she might then, without fear of misconception, take the tone of a friend instead of an enemy, and might, with the best grace, assure Mrs. Glenarm that she had no rivalry to dread, on the one easy condition that she engaged to make Geoffrey repair the evil that he had done. “Marry him without a word against it to dread from me--so long as he unsays the words and undoes the deeds which have thrown a doubt on the marriage of Arnold and Blanche.” If she could but bring the interview to this end--there was the way found of extricating Arnold, by her own exertions, from the false position in which she had innocently placed him toward his wife! Such was the object before her, as she now stood on the brink of her interview with Mrs. Glenarm.

Up to this moment, she had firmly believed in her capacity to realize her own visionary project. It was only when she had her foot on the step that a doubt of the success of the coming experiment crossed her mind. For the first time, she saw the weak point in her own reasoning. For the first time, she felt how much she had blindly taken for granted, in assuming that Mrs. Glenarm would have sufficient sense of justice and sufficient command of temper to hear her patiently. All her hopes of success rested on her own favorable estimate of a woman who was a total stranger to her! What if the first words exchanged between them proved the estimate to be wrong?

It was too late to pause and reconsider the position. Julius Delamayn had noticed her hesitation, and was advancing toward her from the end of the terrace. There was no help for it but to master her own irresolution, and to run the risk boldly. “Come what may, I have gone too far to stop here.” With that desperate resolution to animate her, she opened the glass door at the top of the steps, and went into the room.

Mrs. Glenarm rose from the piano. The two women--one so richly, the other so plainly dressed; one with her beauty in its full bloom, the other worn and blighted; one with society at her feet, the other an outcast living under the bleak shadow of reproach--the two women stood face to face, and exchanged the cold courtesies of salute between strangers, in silence.

The first to meet the trivial necessities of the situation was Mrs. Glenarm. She good-humoredly put an end to the embarrassment--which the shy visitor appeared to feel acutely--by speaking first.

“I am afraid the servants have not told you?” she said. “Mrs. Delamayn has gone out.”

“I beg your pardon--I have not called to see Mrs. Delamayn.”

Mrs. Glenarm looked a little surprised. She went on, however, as amiably as before.

“Mr. Delamayn, perhaps?” she suggested. “I expect him here every moment.”

Anne explained again. “I have just parted from Mr. Delamayn.” Mrs. Glenarm opened her eyes in astonishment. Anne proceeded. “I have come here, if you will excuse the intrusion--”

She hesitated--at a loss how to end the sentence. Mrs. Glenarm, beginning by this time to feel a strong curiosity as to what might be coming next, advanced to the rescue once more.

“Pray don’t apologize,” she said. “I think I understand that you are so good as to have come to see me. You look tired. Won’t you take a chair?”

Anne could stand no longer. She took the offered chair. Mrs. Glenarm resumed her place on the music-stool, and ran her fingers idly over the keys of the piano. “Where did you see Mr. Delamayn?” she went on. “The most irresponsible of men, except when he has got his fiddle in his hand! Is he coming in soon? Are we going to have any music? Have you come to play with us? Mr. Delamayn is a perfect fanatic in music, isn’t he? Why isn’t he here to introduce us? I suppose you like the classical style, too? Did you know that I was in the music-room? Might I ask your name?”

Frivolous as they were, Mrs. Glenarm’s questions were not without their use. They gave Anne time to summon her resolution, and to feel the necessity of explaining herself.

“I am speaking, I believe, to Mrs. Glenarm?” she began.

The good-humored widow smiled and bowed graciously.

“I have come here, Mrs. Glenarm--by Mr. Delamayn’s permission--to ask leave to speak to you on a matter in which you are interested.”

Mrs. Glenarm’s many-ringed fingers paused over the keys of the piano. Mrs. Gle narm’s plump face turned on the stranger with a dawning expression of surprise.

“Indeed? I am interested in so many matters. May I ask what this matter is?”

The flippant tone of the speaker jarred on Anne. If Mrs. Glenarm’s nature was as shallow as it appeared to be on the surface, there was little hope of any sympathy establishing itself between them.

“I wished to speak to you,” she answered, “about something that happened while you were paying a visit in the neighborhood of Perth.”

The dawning surprise in Mrs. Glenarm’s face became intensified into an expression of distrust. Her hearty manner vanished under a veil of conventional civility, drawn over it suddenly. She looked at Anne. “Never at the best of times a beauty,” she thought. “Wretchedly out of health now. Dressed like a servant, and looking like a lady. What does it mean?”

The last doubt was not to be borne in silence by a person of Mrs. Glenarm’s temperament. She addressed herself to the solution of it with the most unblushing directness--dextrously excused by the most winning frankness of manner.

“Pardon me,” she said. “My memory for faces is a bad one; and I don’t think you heard me just now, when I asked for your name. Have we ever met before?”

“Never.”

“And yet--if I understand what you are referring to--you wish to speak to me about something which is only interesting to myself and my most intimate friends.”

“You understand me quite correctly,” said Anne. “I wish to speak to you about some anonymous letters--”

“For the third time, will you permit me to ask for your name?”

“You shall hear it directly--if you will first allow me to finish what I wanted to say. I wish--if I can--to persuade you that I come here as a friend, before I mention my name. You will, I am sure, not be very sorry to hear that you need dread no further annoyance--”

“Pardon me once more,” said Mrs. Glenarm, interposing for the second time. “I am at a loss to know to what I am to attribute this kind interest in my affairs on the part of a total stranger.”

This time, her tone was more than politely cold--it was politely impertinent. Mrs. Glenarm had lived all her life in good society, and was a perfect mistress of the subtleties of refined insolence in her intercourse with those who incurred her displeasure.

Anne’s sensitive nature felt the wound--but Anne’s patient courage submitted. She put away from her the insolence which had tried to sting, and went on, gently and firmly, as if nothing had happened.

“The person who wrote to you anonymously,” she said, “alluded to a correspondence. He is no longer in possession of it. The correspondence has passed into hands which may be trusted to respect it. It will be put to no base use in the future--I answer for that.”

“You answer for that?” repeated Mrs. Glenarm. She suddenly leaned forward over the piano, and fixed her eyes in unconcealed scrutiny on Anne’s face. The violent temper, so often found in combination with the weak nature, began to show itself in her rising color, and her lowering brow. “How do you know what the person wrote?” she asked. “How do you know that the correspondence has passed into other hands? Who are you?” Before Anne could answer her, she sprang to her feet, electrified by a new idea. “The man who wrote to me spoke of something else besides a correspondence. He spoke of a woman. I have found you out!” she exclaimed, with a burst of jealous fury. “You are the woman!”

Anne rose on her side, still in firm possession of her self-control.

“Mrs. Glenarm,” she said, calmly, “I warn--no, I entreat you--not to take that tone with me. Compose yourself; and I promise to satisfy you that you are more interested than you are willing to believe in what I have still to say. Pray bear with me for a little longer. I admit that you have guessed right. I own that I am the miserable woman who has been ruined and deserted by Geoffrey Delamayn.”

“It’s false!” cried Mrs. Glenarm. “You wretch! Do you come to me with your trumped-up story? What does Julius Delamayn mean by exposing me to this?” Her indignation at finding herself in the same room with Anne broke its way through, not the restraints only, but the common decencies of politeness. “I’ll ring for the servants!” she said. “I’ll have you turned out of the house.”

She tried to cross the fire-place to ring the bell. Anne, who was standing nearest to it, stepped forward at the same moment. Without saying a word, she motioned with her hand to the other woman to stand back. There was a pause. The two waited, with their eyes steadily fixed on one another--each with her resolution laid bare to the other’s view. In a moment more, the finer nature prevailed. Mrs. Glenarm drew back a step in silence.

“Listen to me,” said Anne.

“Listen to you?” repeated Mrs. Glenarm. “You have no right to be in this house. You have no right to force yourself in here. Leave the room!”

Anne’s patience--so firmly and admirably preserved thus far--began to fail her at last.

“Take care, Mrs. Glenarm!” she said, still struggling with herself. “I am not naturally a patient woman. Trouble has done much to tame my temper--but endurance has its limits. You have reached the limits of mine. I have a claim to be heard--and after what you have said to me, I will be heard!”

“You have no claim! You shameless woman, you are married already. I know the man’s name. Arnold Brinkworth.”

“Did Geoffrey Delamayn tell you that?”

“I decline to answer a woman who speaks of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn in that familiar way.”

Anne advanced a step nearer.

“Did Geoffrey Delamayn tell you that?” she repeated.

There was a light in her eyes, there was a ring in her voice, which showed that she was roused at last. Mrs. Glenarm answered her, this time.

“He did tell me.”

“He lied!”

“He did not! He knew. I believe him. I don’t believe you.”

“If he told you that I was any thing but a single woman--if he told you that Arnold Brinkworth was married to any body but Miss Lundie of Windygates--I say again he lied!”

“I say again--I believe him, and not you.”

“You believe I am Arnold Brinkworth’s wife?”

“I am certain of it.”

“You tell me that to my face?”

“I tell you to your face--you may have been Geoffrey Delamayn’s mistress; you are Arnold Brinkworth’s wife.”

At those words the long restrained anger leaped up in Anne--all the more hotly for having been hitherto so steadily controlled. In one breathless moment the whirlwind of her indignation swept away, not only all remembrance of the purpose which had brought her to Swanhaven, but all sense even of the unpardonable wrong which she had suffered at Geoffrey’s hands. If he had been there, at that moment, and had offered to redeem his pledge, she would have consented to marry him, while Mrs. Glenarm s eye was on her--no matter whether she destroyed herself in her first cool moment afterward or not. The small sting had planted itself at last in the great nature. The noblest woman is only a woman, after all!

“I forbid your marriage to Geoffrey Delamayn! I insist on his performing the promise he gave me, to make me his wife! I have got it here in his own words, in his own writing. On his soul, he swears it to me--he will redeem his pledge. His mistress, did you say? His wife, Mrs. Glenarm, before the week is out!”

In those wild words she cast back the taunt--with the letter held in triumph in her hand.

Daunted for the moment by the doubt now literally forced on her, that Anne might really have the claim on Geoffrey which she advanced, Mrs. Glenarm answered nevertheless with the obstinacy of a woman brought to bay--with a resolution not to be convinced by conviction itself.

“I won’t give him up!” she cried. “Your letter is a forgery. You have no proof. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t give him up!” she repeated, with the impotent iteration of an angry child.

Anne pointed disdainfully to the letter that she held. “Here is his pledged and written word,” she said. “While I live, you will never be his wife.”

“I shall be his wife the day after the race. I am going to him in London--to warn him against You!”

“You will find me in London, before you--with this in my hand. Do you know his writing?”

She held up the letter, open. Mrs. Glenarm’s hand flew out with the stealthy rapidity of a cat’s paw, to seize and destroy it. Quick as she was, her rival was quicker still. For an instant they faced each other breathless--one with the letter held behind her; one with her hand still stretched out.

At the same moment--before a word more had passed between them--the glass door opened; and Julius Delamayn appeared in the room.

He addressed himself to Anne.

“We decided, on the terrace,” he said, quietly, “that you should speak to Mrs. Glenarm, if Mrs. Glenarm wished it. Do you think it desirable that the interview should be continued any longer?”

Anne’s head drooped on her breast. The fiery anger in her was quenched in an instant.

“I have been cruelly provoked, Mr. Delamayn,” she answered. “But I have no right to plead that.” She looked up at him for a moment. The hot tears of shame gathered in her eyes, and fell slowly over her cheeks. She bent her head again, and hid them from him. “The only atonement I can make,” she said, “is to ask your pardon, and to leave the house.”

In silence, she turned away to the door. In silence, Julius Delamayn paid her the trifling courtesy of opening it for her. She went out.

Mrs. Glenarm’s indignation--suspended for the moment--transferred itself to Julius.

“If I have been entrapped into seeing that woman, with your approval,” she said, haughtily, “I owe it to myself, Mr. Delamayn, to follow her example, and to leave your house.”

“I authorized her to ask you for an interview, Mrs. Glenarm. If she has presumed on the permission that I gave her, I sincerely regret it, and I beg you to accept my apologies. At the same time, I may venture to add, in defense of my conduct, that I thought her--and think her still--a woman to be pitied more than to be blamed.”

“To be pitied did you say?” asked Mrs. Glenarm, doubtful whether her ears had not deceived her.

“To be pitied,” repeated Julius.

“You may find it convenient, Mr. Delamayn, to forget what your brother has told us about that person. I happen to remember it.”

“So do I, Mrs. Glenarm. But, with my experience of Geoffrey--” He hesitated, and ran his fingers nervously over the strings of his violin.

“You don’t believe him?” said Mrs. Glenarm.

Julius declined to admit that he doubted his brother’s word, to the lady who was about to become his brother’s wife.

“I don’t quite go that length,” he said. “I find it difficult to reconcile what Geoffrey has told us, with Miss Silvester’s manner and appearance--”

“Her appearance!” cried Mrs. Glenarm, in a transport of astonishment and disgust. “Her appearance! Oh, the men! I beg your pardon--I ought to have remembered that there is no accounting for tastes. Go on--pray go on!”

“Shall we compose ourselves with a little music?” suggested Julius.

“I particularly request you will go on,” answered Mrs. Glenarm, emphatically. “You find it ‘impossible to reconcile’--”

“I said ‘difficult.’”

“Oh, very well. Difficult to reconcile what Geoffrey told us, with Miss Silvester’s manner and appearance. What next? You had something else to say, when I was so rude as to interrupt you. What was it?”

“Only this,” said Julius. “I don’t find it easy to understand Sir Patrick Lundie’s conduct in permitting Mr. Brinkworth to commit bigamy with his niece.”

“Wait a minute! The marriage of that horrible woman to Mr. Brinkworth was a private marriage. Of course, Sir Patrick knew nothing about it!”

Julius owned that this might be possible, and made a second attempt to lead the angry lady back to the piano. Useless, once more! Though she shrank from confessing it to herself, Mrs. Glenarm’s belief in the genuineness of her lover’s defense had been shaken. The tone taken by Julius--moderate as it was--revived the first startling suspicion of the credibility of Geoffrey’s statement which Anne’s language and conduct had forced on Mrs. Glenarm. She dropped into the nearest chair, and put her handkerchief to her eyes. “You always hated poor Geoffrey,” she said, with a burst of tears. “And now you’re defaming him to me!”

Julius managed her admirably. On the point of answering her seriously, he checked himself. “I always hated poor Geoffrey,” he repeated, with a smile. “You ought to be the last person to say that, Mrs. Glenarm! I brought him all the way from London expressly to introduce him to you.”

“Then I wish you had left him in London!” retorted Mrs. Glenarm, shifting suddenly from tears to temper. “I was a happy woman before I met your brother. I can’t give him up!” she burst out, shifting back again from temper to tears. “I don’t care if he has deceived me. I won’t let another woman have him! I will be his wife!” She threw herself theatrically on her knees before Julius. “Oh, do help me to find out the truth!” she said. “Oh, Julius, pity me! I am so fond of him!”

There was genuine distress in her face, there was true feeling in her voice. Who would have believed that there were reserves of merciless insolence and heartless cruelty in this woman--and that they had been lavishly poured out on a fallen sister not five minutes since?

“I will do all I can,” said Julius, raising her. “Let us talk of it when you are more composed. Try a little music,” he repeated, “just to quiet your nerves.”

“Would you like me to play?” asked Mrs. Glenarm, becoming a model of feminine docility at a moment’s notice.

Julius opened the Sonatas of Mozart, and shouldered his violin.

“Let’s try the Fifteenth,” he said, placing Mrs. Glenarm at the piano. “We will begin with the Adagio. If ever there was divine music written by mortal man, there it is!”

They began. At the third bar Mrs. Glenarm dropped a note--and the bow of Julius paused shuddering on the strings.

“I can’t play!” she said. “I am so agitated; I am so anxious. How am I to find out whether that wretch is really married or not? Who can I ask? I can’t go to Geoffrey in London--the trainers won’t let me see him. I can’t appeal to Mr. Brinkworth himself--I am not even acquainted with him. Who else is there? Do think, and tell me!”

There was but one chance of making her return to the Adagio--the chance of hitting on a suggestion which would satisfy and quiet her. Julius laid his violin on the piano, and considered the question before him carefully.

“There are the witnesses,” he said. “If Geoffrey’s story is to be depended on, the landlady and the waiter at the inn can speak to the facts.”

“Low people!” objected Mrs. Glenarm. “People I don’t know. People who might take advantage of my situation, and be insolent to me.”

Julius considered once more; and made another suggestion. With the fatal ingenuity of innocence, he hit on the idea of referring Mrs. Glenarm to no less a person than Lady Lundie herself!

“There is our good friend at Windygates,” he said. “Some whisper of the matter may have reached Lady Lundie’s ears. It may be a little awkward to call on her (if she has heard any thing) at the time of a serious family disaster. You are the best judge of that, however. All I can do is to throw out the notion. Windygates isn’t very far off--and something might come of it. What do you think?”

Something might come of it! Let it be remembered that Lady Lundie had been left entirely in the dark--that she had written to Sir Patrick in a tone which plainly showed that her self-esteem was wounded and her suspicion roused--and that her first intimation of the serious dilemma in which Arnold Brinkworth stood was now likely, thanks to Julius Delamayn, to reach her from the lips of a mere acquaintance. Let this be remembered; and then let the estimate be formed of what might come of it--not at Windygates only, but also at Ham Farm!

“What do you think?” asked Julius.

Mrs. Glenarm was enchanted. “The very person to go to!” she said. “If I am not let in I can easily write--and explain my object as an apology. Lady Lundie is so right-minded, so sympathetic. If she sees no one else--I have only to confide my anxieties to her, and I am sure she will see me. You will lend me a carriage, won’t you? I’ll go to Windygates to-morrow.”

Julius took his violin off the pi ano.

“Don’t think me very troublesome,” he said coaxingly. “Between this and to-morrow we have nothing to do. And it is such music, if you once get into the swing of it! Would you mind trying again?”

Mrs. Glenarm was willing to do any thing to prove her gratitude, after the invaluable hint which she had just received. At the second trial the fair pianist’s eye and hand were in perfect harmony. The lovely melody which the Adagio of Mozart’s Fifteenth Sonata has given to violin and piano flowed smoothly at last--and Julius Delamayn soared to the seventh heaven of musical delight.

The next day Mrs. Glenarm and Mrs. Delamayn went together to Windygates House.

TENTH SCENE--THE BEDROOM.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST.

LADY LUNDIE DOES HER DUTY.

THE scene opens on a bedroom--and discloses, in broad daylight, a lady in bed.

Persons with an irritable sense of propriety, whose self-appointed duty it is to be always crying out, are warned to pause before they cry out on this occasion. The lady now presented to view being no less a person than Lady Lundie herself, it follows, as a matter of course, that the utmost demands of propriety are, by the mere assertion of that fact, abundantly and indisputably satisfied. To say that any thing short of direct moral advantage could, by any possibility, accrue to any living creature by the presentation of her ladyship in a horizontal, instead of a perpendicular position, is to assert that Virtue is a question of posture, and that Respectability ceases to assert itself when it ceases to appear in morning or evening dress. Will any body be bold enough to say that? Let nobody cry out, then, on the present occasion.

Lady Lundie was in bed.

Her ladyship had received Blanche’s written announcement of the sudden stoppage of the bridal tour; and had penned the answer to Sir Patrick--the receipt of which at Ham Farm has been already described. This done, Lady Lundie felt it due to herself to take a becoming position in her own house, pending the possible arrival of Sir Patrick’s reply. What does a right-minded woman do, when she has reason to believe that she is cruelly distrusted by the members of her own family? A right-minded woman feels it so acutely that she falls ill. Lady Lundie fell ill accordingly.

The case being a serious one, a medical practitioner of the highest grade in the profession was required to treat it. A physician from the neighboring town of Kirkandrew was called in.

The physician came in a carriage and pair, with the necessary bald head, and the indispensable white cravat. He felt her ladyship’s pulse, and put a few gentle questions. He turned his back solemnly, as only a great doctor can, on his own positive internal conviction that his patient had nothing whatever the matter with her. He said, with every appearance of believing in himself, “Nerves, Lady Lundie. Repose in bed is essentially necessary. I will write a prescription.” He prescribed, with perfect gravity: Aromatic Spirits of Ammonia--16 drops. Spirits of Red Lavender--10 drops. Syrup of Orange Peel--2 drams. Camphor Julep--1 ounce. When he had written, Misce fiat Hanstus (instead of Mix a Draught)--when he had added, Ter die Sumendus (instead of To be taken Three times a day)--and when he had certified to his own Latin, by putting his initials at the end, he had only to make his bow; to slip two guineas into his pocket; and to go his way, with an approving professional conscience, in the character of a physician who had done his duty.

Lady Lundie was in bed. The visible part of her ladyship was perfectly attired, with a view to the occasion. A fillet of superb white lace encircled her head. She wore an adorable invalid jacket of white cambric, trimmed with lace and pink ribbons. The rest was--bed-clothes. On a table at her side stood the Red Lavender Draught--in color soothing to the eye; in flavor not unpleasant to the taste. A book of devotional character was near it. The domestic ledgers, and the kitchen report for the day, were ranged modestly behind the devout book. (Not even her ladyship’s nerves, observe, were permitted to interfere with her ladyship’s duty.) A fan, a smelling-bottle, and a handkerchief lay within reach on the counterpane. The spacious room was partially darkened. One of the lower windows was open, affording her ladyship the necessary cubic supply of air. The late Sir Thomas looked at his widow, in effigy, from the wall opposite the end of the bed. Not a chair was out of its place; not a vestige of wearing apparel dared to show itself outside the sacred limits of the wardrobe and the drawers. The sparkling treasures of the toilet-table glittered in the dim distance, The jugs and basins were of a rare and creamy white; spotless and beautiful to see. Look where you might, you saw a perfect room. Then look at the bed--and you saw a perfect woman, and completed the picture.

It was the day after Anne’s appearance at Swanhaven--toward the end of the afternoon.

Lady Lundie’s own maid opened the door noiselessly, and stole on tip-toe to the bedside. Her ladyship’s eyes were closed. Her ladyship suddenly opened them.

“Not asleep, Hopkins. Suffering. What is it?”

Hopkins laid two cards on the counterpane. “Mrs. Delamayn, my lady--and Mrs. Glenarm.”

“They were told I was ill, of course?”

“Yes, my lady. Mrs. Glenarm sent for me. She went into the library, and wrote this note.” Hopkins produced the note, neatly folded in three-cornered form.

“Have they gone?”

“No, my lady. Mrs. Glenarm told me Yes or No would do for answer, if you could only have the goodness to read this.”

“Thoughtless of Mrs. Glenarm--at a time when the doctor insists on perfect repose,” said Lady Lundie. “It doesn’t matter. One sacrifice more or less is of very little consequence.”

She fortified herself by an application of the smelling-bottle, and opened the note. It ran thus:

“So grieved, dear Lady Lundie, to hear that you are a prisoner in your room! I had taken the opportunity of calling with Mrs. Delamayn, in the hope that I might be able to ask you a question. Will your inexhaustible kindness forgive me if I ask it in writing? Have you had any unexpected news of Mr. Arnold Brinkworth lately? I mean, have you heard any thing about him, which has taken you very much by surprise? I have a serious reason for asking this. I will tell you what it is, the moment you are able to see me. Until then, one word of answer is all I expect. Send word down--Yes, or No. A thousand apologies--and pray get better soon!”

The singular question contained in this note suggested one of two inferences to Lady Lundie’s mind. Either Mrs. Glenarm had heard a report of the unexpected return of the married couple to England--or she was in the far more interesting and important position of possessing a clew to the secret of what was going on under the surface at Ham Farm. The phrase used in the note, “I have a serious reason for asking this,” appeared to favor the latter of the two interpretations. Impossible as it seemed to be that Mrs. Glenarm could know something about Arnold of which Lady Lundie was in absolute ignorance, her ladyship’s curiosity (already powerfully excited by Blanche’s mysterious letter) was only to be quieted by obtaining the necessary explanation forthwith, at a personal interview.

“Hopkins,” she said, “I must see Mrs. Glenarm.”

Hopkins respectfully held up her hands in horror. Company in the bedroom in the present state of her ladyship’s health!

“A matter of duty is involved in this, Hopkins. Give me the glass.”

Hopkins produced an elegant little hand-mirror. Lady Lundie carefully surveyed herself in it down to the margin of the bedclothes. Above criticism in every respect? Yes--even when the critic was a woman.

“Show Mrs. Glenarm up here.”

In a minute or two more the iron-master’s widow fluttered into the room--a little over-dressed as usual; and a little profuse in expressions of gratitude for her ladyship’s kindness, and of anxiety about her ladyship’s health. Lady Lundie endured it as long as she could--then stopped it with a gesture of polite remonstrance, and came to the point.

“Now, my dear--about this question in your note? Is it possible you have heard already that Arnold Brinkworth and his wife have come back from Baden?” Mrs. Glenarm opened her eyes in astonishment. Lady Lundie put it more plainly. “They were to have gone on to Switzerland, you know, for their wedding tour, and they suddenly altered their minds, and came back to England on Sunday last.”

“Dear Lady Lundie, it’s not that! Have you heard nothing about Mr. Brinkworth except what you have just told me?”

“Nothing.”

There was a pause. Mrs. Glenarm toyed hesitatingly with her parasol. Lady Lundie leaned forward in the bed, and looked at her attentively.

“What have you heard about him?” she asked.

Mrs. Glenarm was embarrassed. “It’s so difficult to say,” she began.

“I can bear any thing but suspense,” said Lady Lundie. “Tell me the worst.”

Mrs. Glenarm decided to risk it. “Have you never heard,” she asked, “that Mr. Brinkworth might possibly have committed himself with another lady before he married Miss Lundie?”

Her ladyship first closed her eyes in horror and then searched blindly on the counterpane for the smelling-bottle. Mrs. Glenarm gave it to her, and waited to see how the invalid bore it before she said any more.

“There are things one must hear,” remarked Lady Lundie. “I see an act of duty involved in this. No words can describe how you astonish me. Who told you?”

“Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn told me.”

Her ladyship applied for the second time to the smelling-bottle. “Arnold Brinkworth’s most intimate friend!” she exclaimed. “He ought to know if any body does. This is dreadful. Why should Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn tell you?”

“I am going to marry him,” answered Mrs. Glenarm. “That is my excuse, dear Lady Lundie, for troubling you in this matter.”

Lady Lundie partially opened her eyes in a state of faint bewilderment. “I don’t understand,” she said. “For Heaven’s sake explain yourself!”

“Haven’t you heard about the anonymous letters?” asked Mrs. Glenarm.

Yes. Lady Lundie had heard about the letters. But only what the public in general had heard. The name of the lady in the background not mentioned; and Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn assumed to be as innocent as the babe unborn. Any mistake in that assumption? “Give me your hand, my poor dear, and confide it all to me!”

“He is not quite innocent,” said Mrs. Glenarm. “He owned to a foolish flirtation--all her doing, no doubt. Of course, I insisted on a distinct explanation. Had she really any claim on him? Not the shadow of a claim. I felt that I only had his word for that--and I told him so. He said he could prove it--he said he knew her to be privately married already. Her husband had disowned and deserted her; she was at the end of her resources; she was desperate enough to attempt any thing. I thought it all very suspicious--until Geoffrey mentioned the man’s name. That certainly proved that he had cast off his wife; for I myself knew that he had lately married another person.”

Lady Lundie suddenly started up from her pillow--honestly agitated; genuinely alarmed by this time.

“Mr. Delamayn told you the man’s name?” she said, breathlessly.

“Yes.”

“Do I know it?”

“Don’t ask me!”

Lady Lundie fell back on the pillow.

Mrs. Glenarm rose to ring for help. Before she could touch the bell, her ladyship had rallied again.

“Stop!” she cried. “I can confirm it! It’s true, Mrs. Glenarm! it’s true! Open the silver box on the toilet-table--you will find the key in it. Bring me the top letter. Here! Look at it. I got this from Blanche. Why have they suddenly given up their bridal tour? Why have they gone back to Sir Patrick at Ham Farm? Why have they put me off with an infamous subterfuge to account for it? I felt sure something dreadful had happened. Now I know what it is!” She sank back again, with closed eyes, and repeated the words, in a fierce whisper, to herself. “Now I know what it is!”

Mrs. Glenarm read the letter. The reason given for the suspiciously sudden return of the bride and bridegroom was palpably a subterfuge--and, more remarkable still, the name of Anne Silvester was connected with it. Mrs. Glenarm became strongly agitated on her side.

“This is a confirmation,” she said. “Mr. Brinkworth has been found out--the woman is married to him--Geoffrey is free. Oh, my dear friend, what a load of anxiety you have taken off my mind! That vile wretch--”

Lady Lundie suddenly opened her eyes.

“Do you mean,” she asked, “the woman who is at the bottom of all the mischief?”

“Yes. I saw her yesterday. She forced herself in at Swanhaven. She called him Geoffrey Delamayn. She declared herself a single woman. She claimed him before my face in the most audacious manner. She shook my faith, Lady Lundie--she shook my faith in Geoffrey!”

“Who is she?”

“Who?” echoed Mrs. Glenarm. “Don’t you even know that? Why her name is repeated half a dozen times in this letter!”

Lady Lundie uttered a scream that rang through the room. Mrs. Glenarm started to her feet. The maid appeared at the door in terror. Her ladyship motioned to the woman to withdraw again instantly, and then pointed to Mrs. Glenarm’s chair.

“Sit down,” she said. “Let me have a minute or two of quiet. I want nothing more.”

The silence in the room was unbroken until Lady Lundie spoke again. She asked for Blanche’s letter. After reading it carefully, she laid it aside, and fell for a while into deep thought.

“I have done Blanche an injustice!” she exclaimed. “My poor Blanche!”

“You think she knows nothing about it?”

“I am certain of it! You forget, Mrs. Glenarm, that this horrible discovery casts a doubt on my step-daughter’s marriage. Do you think, if she knew the truth, she would write of a wretch who has mortally injured her as she writes here? They have put her off with the excuse that she innocently sends to me. I see it as plainly as I see you! Mr. Brinkworth and Sir Patrick are in league to keep us both in the dark. Dear child! I owe her an atonement. If nobody else opens her eyes, I will do it. Sir Patrick shall find that Blanche has a friend in Me!”

A smile--the dangerous smile of an inveterately vindictive woman thoroughly roused--showed itself with a furtive suddenness on her face. Mrs. Glenarm was a little startled. Lady Lundie below the surface--as distinguished from Lady Lundie on the surface--was not a pleasant object to contemplate.

“Pray try to compose yourself,” said Mrs. Glenarm. “Dear Lady Lundie, you frighten me!”

The bland surface of her ladyship appeared smoothly once more; drawn back, as it were, over the hidden inner self, which it had left for the moment exposed to view.

“Forgive me for feeling it!” she said, with the patient sweetness which so eminently distinguished her in times of trial. “It falls a little heavily on a poor sick woman--innocent of all suspicion, and insulted by the most heartless neglect. Don’t let me distress you. I shall rally, my dear; I shall rally! In this dreadful calamity--this abyss of crime and misery and deceit--I have no one to depend on but myself. For Blanche’s sake, the whole thing must be cleared up--probed, my dear, probed to the depths. Blanche must take a position that is worthy of her. Blanche must insist on her rights, under My protection. Never mind what I suffer, or what I sacrifice. There is a work of justice for poor weak Me to do. It shall be done!” said her ladyship, fanning herself with an aspect of illimitable resolution. “It shall be done!”

“But, Lady Lundie what can you do? They are all away in the south. And as for that abominable woman--”

Lady Lundie touched Mrs. Glenarm on the shoulder with her fan.

“I have my surprise in store, dear friend, as well as you. That abominable woman was employed as Blanche’s governess in this house. Wait! that is not all. She left us suddenly--ran away--on the pretense of being privately married. I know where she went. I can trace what she did. I can find out who was with her. I can follow Mr. Brinkworth’s proceedings, behind Mr. Brinkworth’s back. I can search out the truth, without depending on people compromised in this black business, whose interest it is to deceive me. And I will do it to-day!” She closed the fan with a sharp snap of triumph, and settled herself on the pillow in placid enjoyment of her dear friend’s surprise.

Mrs. Glenarm drew confidentially closer to the bedside. “How can you manage it?” she asked, eagerly. “Don’t think me curious. I have my interest, too, in getting at the truth. Don’t leave me out of it, pray!”

“Can you come back to-morrow, at this time?”

“Yes! yes!”

“Come, then--and you shall know.”

“Can I be of any use?”

“Not at present.”

“Can my uncle be of any use?”

“Do you know where to communicate with Captain Newenden?”

“Yes--he is staying with some friends in Sussex.”

“We may possibly want his assistance. I can’t tell yet. Don’t keep Mrs. Delamayn waiting any longer, my dear. I shall expect you to-morrow.”

They exchanged an affectionate embrace. Lady Lundie was left alone.

Her ladyship resigned herself to meditation, with frowning brow and close-shut lips. She looked her full age, and a year or two more, as she lay thinking, with her head on her hand, and her elbow on the pillow. After committing herself to the physician (and to the red lavender draught) the commonest regard for consistency made it necessary that she should keep her bed for that day. And yet it was essential that the proposed inquiries should be instantly set on foot. On the one hand, the problem was not an easy one to solve; on the other, her ladyship was not an easy one to beat. How to send for the landlady at Craig Fernie, without exciting any special suspicion or remark--was the question before her. In less than five minutes she had looked back into her memory of current events at Windygates--and had solved it.

Her first proceeding was to ring the bell for her maid.

“I am afraid I frightened you, Hopkins. The state of my nerves. Mrs. Glenarm was a little sudden with some news that surprised me. I am better now--and able to attend to the household matters. There is a mistake in the butcher’s account. Send the cook here.”

She took up the domestic ledger and the kitchen report; corrected the butcher; cautioned the cook; and disposed of all arrears of domestic business before Hopkins was summoned again. Having, in this way, dextrously prevented the woman from connecting any thing that her mistress said or did, after Mrs. Glenarm’s departure, with any thing that might have passed during Mrs. Glenarm’s visit, Lady Lundie felt herself at liberty to pave the way for the investigation on which she was determined to enter before she slept that night.

“So much for the indoor arrangements,” she said. “You must be my prime minister, Hopkins, while I lie helpless here. Is there any thing wanted by the people out of doors? The coachman? The gardener?”

“I have just seen the gardener, my lady. He came with last week’s accounts. I told him he couldn’t see your ladyship to-day.”

“Quite right. Had he any report to make?”

“No, my lady.”

“Surely, there was something I wanted to say to him--or to somebody else? My memorandum-book, Hopkins. In the basket, on that chair. Why wasn’t the basket placed by my bedside?”

Hopkins brought the memorandum-book. Lady Lundie consulted it (without the slightest necessity), with the same masterly gravity exhibited by the doctor when he wrote her prescription (without the slightest necessity also).

“Here it is,” she said, recovering the lost remembrance. “Not the gardener, but the gardener’s wife. A memorandum to speak to her about Mrs. Inchbare. Observe, Hopkins, the association of ideas. Mrs. Inchbare is associated with the poultry; the poultry are associated with the gardener’s wife; the gardener’s wife is associated with the gardener--and so the gardener gets into my head. Do you see it? I am always trying to improve your mind. You do see it? Very well. Now about Mrs. Inchbare? Has she been here again?”

“No, my lady.”

“I am not at all sure, Hopkins, that I was right in declining to consider the message Mrs. Inchbare sent to me about the poultry. Why shouldn’t she offer to take any fowls that I can spare off my hands? She is a respectable woman; and it is important to me to live on good terms with al my neighbors, great and small. Has she got a poultry-yard of her own at Craig Fernie?”

“Yes, my lady. And beautifully kept, I am told.”

“I really don’t see--on reflection, Hopkins--why I should hesitate to deal with Mrs. Inchbare. (I don’t think it beneath me to sell the game killed on my estate to the poulterer.) What was it she wanted to buy? Some of my black Spanish fowls?”

“Yes, my lady. Your ladyship’s black Spaniards are famous all round the neighborhood. Nobody has got the breed. And Mrs. Inchbare--”

“Wants to share the distinction of having the breed with me,” said Lady Lundie. “I won’t appear ungracious. I will see her myself, as soon as I am a little better, and tell her that I have changed my mind. Send one of the men to Craig Fernie with a message. I can’t keep a trifling matter of this sort in my memory--send him at once, or I may forget it. He is to say I am willing to see Mrs. Inchbare, about the fowls, the first time she finds it convenient to come this way.”

“I am afraid, my lady--Mrs. Inchbare’s heart is so set on the black Spaniards--she will find it convenient to come this way at once as fast as her feet can carry her.”

“In that case, you must take her to the gardener’s wife. Say she is to have some eggs--on condition, of course, of paying the price for them. If she does come, mind I hear of it.”

Hopkins withdrew. Hopkins’s mistress reclined on her comfortable pillows and fanned herself gently. The vindictive smile reappeared on her face. “I fancy I shall be well enough to see Mrs. Inchbare,” she thought to herself. “And it is just possible that the conversation may get beyond the relative merits of her poultry-yard and mine.”

A lapse of little more than two hours proved Hopkins’s estimate of the latent enthusiasm in Mrs. Inchbare’s character to have been correctly formed. The eager landlady appeared at Windygates on the heels of the returning servant. Among the long list of human weaknesses, a passion for poultry seems to have its practical advantages (in the shape of eggs) as compared with the more occult frenzies for collecting snuff-boxes and fiddles, and amassing autographs and old postage-stamps. When the mistress of Craig Fernie was duly announced to the mistress of Windygates, Lady Lundie developed a sense of humor for the first time in her life. Her ladyship was feebly merry (the result, no doubt, of the exhilarating properties of the red lavender draught) on the subject of Mrs. Inchbare and the Spanish fowls.

“Most ridiculous, Hopkins! This poor woman must be suffering from a determination of poultry to the brain. Ill as I am, I should have thought that nothing could amuse me. But, really, this good creature starting up, and rushing here, as you say, as fast as her feet can carry her--it’s impossible to resist it! I positively think I must see Mrs. Inchbare. With my active habits, this imprisonment to my room is dreadful. I can neither sleep nor read. Any thing, Hopkins, to divert my mind from myself: It’s easy to get rid of her if she is too much for me. Send her up.”

Mrs. Inchbare made her appearance, courtesying deferentially; amazed at the condescension which admitted her within the hallowed precincts of Lady Lundie’s room.

“Take a chair,” said her ladyship, graciously. “I am suffering from illness, as you perceive.”

“My certie! sick or well, yer leddyship’s a braw sight to see!” returned Mrs. Inchbare profoundly impressed by the elegant costume which illness assumes when illness appears in the regions of high life.

“I am far from being in a fit state to receive any body,” proceeded Lady Lundie. “But I had a motive for wishing to speak to you when you next came to my house. I failed to treat a proposal you made to me, a short time since, in a friendly and neighborly way. I beg you to understand that I regret having forgotten the consideration due from a person in my position to a person in yours. I am obliged to say this under very unusual circumstances,” added her ladyship, with a glance round her magnificent bedroom, “through your unexpected promptitude in favoring me with a call. You have lost no time, Mrs. Inchbare, in profiting by the message which I had the pleasure of sending to you.”

“Eh, my leddy, I wasna’ that sure (yer leddyship having ance changed yer mind) but that ye might e’en change again if I failed to strike, as they say, while the iron’s het. I crave yer pardon, I’m sure, if I ha’ been ower hasty. The pride o’ my hairt’s in my powltry--and the black Spaniards’ (as they ca’ them) are a sair temptation to me to break the tenth commandment, sae lang as they’re a’ in yer leddyship’s possession, and nane o’ them in mine.”

“I am shocked to hear that I have been the innocent cause of your falling into temptation, Mrs. Inchbare! Make your proposal--and I shall be happy to meet it, if I can.”

“I must e’en be content wi’ what yer leddyship will condescend on. A haitch o’ eggs if I can come by naething else.”

“There is something else you would prefer to a hatch of eggs?”

“I wad prefer,” said Mrs. Inchbare, modestly, “a cock and twa pullets.”

“Open the case on the table behind you,” said Lady Lundie, “and you will find some writing paper inside. Give me a sheet of it--and the pencil out of the tray.”

Eagerly watched by Mrs. Inchbare, she wrote an order to the poultry-woman, and held it out with a gracious smile.

“Take that to the gardener’s wife. If you agree with her about the price, you can have the cock and the two pullets.”

Mrs. Inchbare opened her lips--no doubt to express the utmost extremity of human gratitude. Before she had said three words, Lady Lundie’s impatience to reach the end which she had kept in view from the time when Mrs. Glenarm had left the house burst the bounds which had successfully restrained it thus far. Stopping the landlady without ceremony, she fairly forced the conversation to the subject of Anne Silvester’s proceedings at the Craig Fernie inn.

“How are you getting on at the hotel, Mrs. Inchbare? Plenty of tourists, I suppose, at this time of year?”

“Full, my leddy (praise Providence), frae the basement to the ceiling.”

“You had a visitor, I think, some time since of whom I know something? A person--” She paused, and put a strong constraint on herself. There was no alternative but to yield to the hard necessity of making her inquiry intelligible. “A lady,” she added, “who came to you about the middle of last month.”

“Could yer leddyship condescend on her name?”

Lady Lundie put a still stronger constraint on herself. “Silvester,” she said, sharply.

“Presairve us a’!” cried Mrs. Inchbare. “It will never be the same that cam’ driftin’ in by hersel’--wi’ a bit bag in her hand, and a husband left daidling an hour or mair on the road behind her?”

“I have no doubt it is the same.”

“Will she be a freend o’ yer leddyship’s?” asked Mrs. Inchbare, feeling her ground cautiously.

“Certainly not!” said Lady Lundie. “I felt a passing curiosity about her--nothing more.”

Mrs. Inchbare looked relieved. “To tell ye truth, my leddy, there was nae love lost between us. She had a maisterfu’ temper o’ her ain--and I was weel pleased when I’d seen the last of her.”

“I can quite understand that, Mrs. Inchbare--I know something of her temper myself. Did I understand you to say that she came to your hotel alone, and that her husband joined her shortly afterward?”

“E’en sae, yer leddyship. I was no’ free to gi’ her house-room in the hottle till her husband daidled in at her heels and answered for her.”

“I fancy I must have seen her husband,” said Lady Lundie. “What sort of a man was he?”

Mrs. Inchbare replied in much the same words which she had used in answering the similar question put by Sir Patrick.

“Eh! he was ower young for the like o’ her. A pratty man, my leddy--betwixt tall and short; wi’ bonny brown eyes and cheeks, and fine coal-blaik hair. A nice douce-spoken lad. I hae naething to say against him--except that he cam’ late one day, and took leg-bail betimes the next morning, and left madam behind, a load on my hands.”

The answer produced precisely the same effect on Lady Lundie which it had produced on Sir Patrick. She, also, felt that it was too vaguely like too many young men of no uncommon humor and complexion to be relied on. But her ladyship possessed one immense advantage over her brother-in-law in attempting to arrive at the truth. She suspected Arnold--and it was possible, in her case, to assist Mrs. Inchbare’s memory by hints contributed from her own superior resources of experience and observation.

“Had he any thing about him of the look and way of a sailor?” she asked. “And did you notice, when you spoke to him, that he had a habit of playing with a locket on his watch-chain?”

“There he is, het aff to a T!” cried Mrs. Inchbare. “Yer leddyship’s weel acquented wi’ him--there’s nae doot o’ that.”

“I thought I had seen him,” said Lady Lundie. “A modest, well-behaved young man, Mrs. Inchbare, as you say. Don’t let me keep you any longer from the poultry-yard. I am transgressing the doctor’s orders in seeing any body. We quite understand each other now, don’t we? Very glad to have seen you. Good-evening.”

So she dismissed Mrs. Inchbare, when Mrs. Inchbare had served her purpose.

Most women, in her position, would have been content with the information which she had now obtained. But Lady Lundie--having a man like Sir Patrick to deal with--determined to be doubly sure of her facts before she ventured on interfering at Ham Farm. She had learned from Mrs. Inchbare that the so-called husband of Anne Silvester had joined her at Craig Fernie on the day when she arrived at the inn, and had left her again the next morning. Anne had made her escape from Windygates on the occasion of the lawn-party--that is to say, on the fourteenth of August. On the same day Arnold Brinkworth had taken his departure for the purpose of visiting the Scotch property left to him by his aunt. If Mrs. Inchbare was to be depended on, he must have gone to Craig Fernie instead of going to his appointed destination--and must, therefore, have arrived to visit his house and lands one day later than the day which he had originally set apart for that purpose. If this fact could be proved, on the testimony of a disinterested witness, the case against Arnold would be strengthened tenfold; and Lady Lundie might act on her discovery with something like a certainty that her information was to be relied on.

After a little consideration she decided on sending a messenger with a note of inquiry addressed to Arnold’s steward. The apology she invented to excuse and account for the strangeness of the proposed question, referred it to a little family discussion as to the exact date of Arnold’s arrival at his estate, and to a friendly wager in which the difference of opinion had ended. If the steward could state whether his employer had arrived on the fourteenth or on the fifteenth of August, that was all that would be wanted to decide the question in dispute.

Having written in those terms, Lady Lundie gave the necessary directions for having the note delivered at the earliest possible hour on the next morning; the messenger being ordered to make his way back to Windygates by the first return train on the same day.

This arranged, her ladyship was free to refresh herself with another dose of the red lavender draught, and to sleep the sleep of the just who close their eyes with the composing conviction that they have done their duty.

The events of the next day at Windygates succeeded each other in due course, as follows:

The post arrived, and brought no reply from Sir Patrick. Lady Lundie entered that incident on her mental register of debts owed by her brother-in-law--to be paid, with interest, when the day of reckoning came.

Next in order occurred the return of the messenger with the steward’s answer.

He had referred to his Diary; and he had discovered that Mr. Brinkworth had written beforehand to announce his arrival at his estate for the fourteenth of August--but that he had not actually appeared until the fifteenth. The one discovery needed to substantiate Mrs. Inchbare’s evidence being now in Lady Lundie’s possession, she decided to allow another day to pass--on the chance that Sir Patrick might al ter his mind, and write to her. If no letter arrived, and if nothing more was received from Blanche, she resolved to leave Windygates by the next morning’s train, and to try the bold experiment of personal interference at Ham Farm.

The third in the succession of events was the appearance of the doctor to pay his professional visit.

A severe shock awaited him. He found his patient cured by the draught! It was contrary to all rule and precedent; it savored of quackery--the red lavender had no business to do what the red lavender had done--but there she was, nevertheless, up and dressed, and contemplating a journey to London on the next day but one. “An act of duty, doctor, is involved in this--whatever the sacrifice, I must go!” No other explanation could be obtained. The patient was plainly determined--nothing remained for the physician but to retreat with unimpaired dignity and a paid fee. He did it. “Our art,” he explained to Lady Lundie in confidence, “is nothing, after all, but a choice between alternatives. For instance. I see you--not cured, as you think--but sustained by abnormal excitement. I have to ask which is the least of the two evils--to risk letting you travel, or to irritate you by keeping you at home. With your constitution, we must risk the journey. Be careful to keep the window of the carriage up on the side on which the wind blows. Let the extremities be moderately warm, and the mind easy--and pray don’t omit to provide yourself with a second bottle of the Mixture before you start.” He made his bow, as before--he slipped two guineas into his pocket, as before--and he went his way, as before, with an approving conscience, in the character of a physician who had done his duty. (What an enviable profession is Medicine! And why don’t we all belong to it?)

The last of the events was the arrival of Mrs. Glenarm.

“Well?” she began, eagerly, “what news?”

The narrative of her ladyship’s discoveries--recited at full length; and the announcement of her ladyship’s resolution--declared in the most uncompromising terms--raised Mrs. Glenarm’s excitement to the highest pitch.

“You go to town on Saturday?” she said. “I will go with you. Ever since that woman declared she should be in London before me, I have been dying to hasten my journey--and it is such an opportunity to go with you! I can easily manage it. My uncle and I were to have met in London, early next week, for the foot-race. I have only to write and tell him of my change of plans.--By-the-by, talking of my uncle, I have heard, since I saw you, from the lawyers at Perth.”

“More anonymous letters?”

“One more--received by the lawyers this time. My unknown correspondent has written to them to withdraw his proposal, and to announce that he has left Perth. The lawyers recommended me to stop my uncle from spending money uselessly in employing the London police. I have forwarded their letter to the captain; and he will probably be in town to see his solicitors as soon as I get there with you. So much for what I have done in this matter. Dear Lady Lundie--when we are at our journey’s end, what do you mean to do?”

“My course is plain,” answered her ladyship, calmly. “Sir Patrick will hear from me, on Sunday morning next, at Ham Farm.”

“Telling him what you have found out?”

“Certainly not! Telling him that I find myself called to London by business, and that I propose paying him a short visit on Monday next.”

“Of course, he must receive you?”

“I think there is no doubt of that. Even his hatred of his brother’s widow can hardly go to the length--after leaving my letter unanswered--of closing his doors against me next.”

“How will you manage it when you get there?”

“When I get there, my dear, I shall be breathing an atmosphere of treachery and deceit; and, for my poor child’s sake (abhorrent as all dissimulation is to me), I must be careful what I do. Not a word will escape my lips until I have first seen Blanche in private. However painful it may be, I shall not shrink from my duty, if my duty compels me to open her eyes to the truth. Sir Patrick and Mr. Brinkworth will have somebody else besides an inexperienced young creature to deal with on Monday next. I shall be there.”

With that formidable announcement, Lady Lundie closed the conversation; and Mrs. Glenarm rose to take her leave.

“We meet at the Junction, dear Lady Lundie?”

“At the Junction, on Saturday.”

ELEVENTH SCENE.--SIR PATRICK’S HOUSE.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-SECOND.

THE SMOKING-ROOM WINDOW.

“I CAN’T believe it! I won’t believe it! You’re trying to part me from my husband--you’re trying to set me against my dearest friend. It’s infamous. It’s horrible. What have I done to you? Oh, my head! my head! Are you trying to drive me mad?”

Pale and wild; her hands twisted in her hair; her feet hurrying her aimlessly to and fro in the room--so Blanche answered her step-mother, when the object of Lady Lundie’s pilgrimage had been accomplished, and the cruel truth had been plainly told.

Her ladyship sat, superbly composed, looking out through the window at the placid landscape of woods and fields which surrounded Ham Farm.

“I was prepared for this outbreak,” she said, sadly. “These wild words relieve your over-burdened heart, my poor child. I can wait, Blanche--I can wait!”

Blanche stopped, and confronted Lady Lundie.

“You and I never liked each other,” she said. “I wrote you a pert letter from this place. I have always taken Anne’s part against you. I have shown you plainly--rudely, I dare say--that I was glad to be married and get away from you. This is not your revenge, is it?”

“Oh, Blanche, Blanche, what thoughts to think! what words to say! I can only pray for you.”

“I am mad, Lady Lundie. You bear with mad people. Bear with me. I have been hardly more than a fortnight married. I love him--I love her--with all my heart. Remember what you have told me about them. Remember! remember! remember!”

She reiterated the words with a low cry of pain. Her hands went up to her head again; and she returned restlessly to pacing this way and that in the room.

Lady Lundie tried the effect of a gentle remonstrance. “For your own sake,” she said, “don’t persist in estranging yourself from me. In this dreadful trial, I am the only friend you have.”

Blanche came back to her step-mother’s chair; and looked at her steadily, in silence. Lady Lundie submitted to inspection--and bore it perfectly.

“Look into my heart,” she said. “Blanche! it bleeds for you!”

Blanche heard, without heeding. Her mind was painfully intent on its own thoughts. “You are a religious woman,” she said, abruptly. “Will you swear on your Bible, that what you told me is true?”

“My Bible!” repeated Lady Lundie with sorrowful emphasis. “Oh, my child! have you no part in that precious inheritance? Is it not your Bible, too?”

A momentary triumph showed itself in Blanche’s face. “You daren’t swear it!” she said. “That’s enough for me!”

She turned away scornfully. Lady Lundie caught her by the hand, and drew her sharply back. The suffering saint disappeared, and the woman who was no longer to be trifled with took her place.

“There must be an end to this,” she said. “You don’t believe what I have told you. Have you courage enough to put it to the test?”

Blanche started, and released her hand. She trembled a little. There was a horrible certainty of conviction expressed in Lady Lundie’s sudden change of manner.

“How?” she asked.

“You shall see. Tell me the truth, on your side, first. Where is Sir Patrick? Is he really out, as his servant told me?”

“Yes. He is out with the farm bailiff. You have taken us all by surprise. You wrote that we were to expect you by the next train.”

“When does the next train arrive? It is eleven o’clock now.”

“Between one and two.”

“Sir Patrick will not be back till then?”

“Not till then.”

“Where is Mr. Brinkworth?”

“My husband?”

“Your husband--if you like. Is he out, too?”

“He is in the smoking-room.”

“Do you mean the long room, built out from the back of the house?”

“Yes.”

“Come down stairs at once with me.”

Blanche advanced a step--and drew back. “What do you want of me?” she asked, inspired by a sudden distrust.

Lady Lundie turned round, and looked at her impatiently.

“Can’t you see yet,” she said, sharply, “that your interest and my interest in this matter are one? What have I told you?”

“Don’t repeat it!”

“I must repeat it! I have told you that Arnold Brinkworth was privately at Craig Fernie, with Miss Silvester, in the acknowledged character of her husband--when we supposed him to be visiting the estate left him by his aunt. You refuse to believe it--and I am about to put it to the proof. Is it your interest or is it not, to know whether this man deserves the blind belief that you place in him?”

Blanche trembled from head to foot, and made no reply.

“I am going into the garden, to speak to Mr. Brinkworth through the smoking-room window,” pursued her ladyship. “Have you the courage to come with me; to wait behind out of sight; and to hear what he says with his own lips? I am not afraid of putting it to that test. Are you?”

The tone in which she asked the question roused Blanche’s spirit.

“If I believed him to be guilty,” she said, resolutely, “I should not have the courage. I believe him to be innocent. Lead the way, Lady Lundie, as soon as you please.”

They left the room--Blanche’s own room at Ham Farm--and descended to the hall. Lady Lundie stopped, and consulted the railway time-table hanging near the house-door.

“There is a train to London at a quarter to twelve,” she said. “How long does it take to walk to the station?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You will soon know. Answer my question.”

“It’s a walk of twenty minutes to the station.”

Lady Lundie referred to her watch. “There will be just time,” she said.

“Time for what?”

“Come into the garden.”

With that answer, she led the way out

The smoking-room projected at right angles from the wall of the house, in an oblong form--with a bow-window at the farther end, looking into the garden. Before she turned the corner, and showed herself within the range of view from the window Lady Lundie looked back, and signed to Blanche to wait behind the angle of the wall. Blanche waited.

The next instant she heard the voices in conversation through the open window. Arnold’s voice was the first that spoke.

“Lady Lundie! Why, we didn’t expect you till luncheon time!”

Lady Lundie was ready with her answer.

“I was able to leave town earlier than I had anticipated. Don’t put out your cigar; and don’t move. I am not coming in.”

The quick interchange of question and answer went on; every word being audible in the perfect stillness of the place. Arnold was the next to speak.

“Have you seen Blanche?”

“Blanche is getting ready to go out with me. We mean to have a walk together. I have many things to say to her. Before we go, I have something to say to you.”

“Is it any thing very serious?”

“It is most serious.”

“About me?”

“About you. I know where you went on the evening of my lawn-party at Windygates--you went to Craig Fernie.”

“Good Heavens! how did you find out--?”

“I know whom you went to meet--Miss Silvester. I know what is said of you and of her--you are man and wife.”

“Hush! don’t speak so loud. Somebody may hear you!”

“What does it matter if they do? I am the only person whom you have kept out of the secret. You all of you know it here.”

“Nothing of the sort! Blanche doesn’t know it.”

“What! Neither you nor Sir Patrick has told Blanche of the situation you stand in at this moment?”

“Not yet. Sir Patrick leaves it to me. I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it. Don’t say a word, I entreat you. I don’t know how Blanche may interpret it. Her friend is expected in London to-morrow. I want to wait till Sir Patrick can bring them together. Her friend will break it to her better than I can. It’s my notion. Sir Patrick thinks it a good one. Stop! you’re not going away already?”

“She will be here to look for me if I stay any longer.”

“One word! I want to know--”

“You shall know later in the day.”

Her ladyship appeared again round the angle of the wall. The next words that passed were words spoken in a whisper.

“Are you satisfied now, Blanche?”

“Have you mercy enough left, Lady Lundie, to take me away from this house?”

“My dear child! Why else did I look at the time-table in the hall?”

CHAPTER THE FORTY-THIRD.

THE EXPLOSION.

ARNOLD’S mind was far from easy when he was left by himself again in the smoking-room.

After wasting some time in vainly trying to guess at the source from which Lady Lundie had derived her information, he put on his hat, and took the direction which led to Blanche’s favorite walk at Ham Farm. Without absolutely distrusting her ladyship’s discretion, the idea had occurred to him that he would do well to join his wife and her step-mother. By making a third at the interview between them, he might prevent the conversation from assuming a perilously confidential turn.

The search for the ladies proved useless. They had not taken the direction in which he supposed them to have gone.

He returned to the smoking-room, and composed himself to wait for events as patiently as he might. In this passive position--with his thoughts still running on Lady Lundie--his memory reverted to a brief conversation between Sir Patrick and himself, occasioned, on the previous day, by her ladyship’s announcement of her proposed visit to Ham Farm. Sir Patrick had at once expressed his conviction that his sister-in-law’s journey south had some acknowledged purpose at the bottom of it.

“I am not at all sure, Arnold” (he had said), “that I have done wisely in leaving her letter unanswered. And I am strongly disposed to think that the safest course will be to take her into the secret when she comes to-morrow. We can’t help the position in which we are placed. It was impossible (without admitting your wife to our confidence) to prevent Blanche from writing that unlucky letter to her--and, even if we had prevented it, she must have heard in other ways of your return to England. I don’t doubt my own discretion, so far; and I don’t doubt the convenience of keeping her in the dark, as a means of keeping her from meddling in this business of yours, until I have had time to set it right. But she may, by some unlucky accident, discover the truth for herself--and, in that case, I strongly distrust the influence which she might attempt to exercise on Blanche’s mind.”

Those were the words--and what had happened on the day after they had been spoken? Lady Lundie had discovered the truth; and she was, at that moment, alone somewhere with Blanche. Arnold took up his hat once more, and set forth on the search for the ladies in another direction.

The second expedition was as fruitless as the first. Nothing was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard, of Lady Lundie and Blanche.

Arnold’s watch told him that it was not far from the time when Sir Patrick might be expected to return. In all probability, while he had been looking for them, the ladies had gone back by some other way to the house. He entered the rooms on the ground-floor, one after another. They were all empty. He went up stairs, and knocked at the door of Blanche’s room. There was no answer. He opened the door and looked in. The room was empty, like the rooms down stairs. But, close to the entrance, there was a trifling circumstance to attract notice, in the shape of a note lying on the carpet. He picked it up, and saw that it was addressed to him in the handwriting of his wife.

He opened it. The note began, without the usual form of address, in these words:

“I know the abominable secret that you and my uncle have hidden from me. I know your infamy, and her infamy, and the position in which, thanks to you and to her, I now stand. Reproaches would be wasted words, addressed to such a man as you are. I write these lines to tell you that I have placed myself under my step-mother’s protection in London. It is useless to attempt to follow me. Others will find out whether the ceremony of marriage which you went through with me is binding on you or not. For myself, I know enough already. I have gone, never to come back, and never to let you see me again.--Blanche.”

Hurrying headlong down the stairs with but one clear idea in his mind--the idea of instantly following his wife--Arnold encountered Sir Patrick, standing by a table in the hall, on which cards and notes left by visitors were usually placed, with an open letter in his hand. Seeing in an instant what had happened, he threw one of his arms round Arnold, and stopped him at the house-door.

“You are a man,” he said, firmly. “Bear it like a man.”

Arnold’s head fell on the shoulder of his kind old friend. He burst into tears.

Sir Patrick let the irrepressible outbreak of grief have its way. In those first moments, silence was mercy. He said nothing. The letter which he had been reading (from Lady Lundie, it is needless to say), dropped unheeded at his feet.

Arnold lifted his head, and dashed away the tears.

“I am ashamed of myself,” he said. “Let me go.”

“Wrong, my poor fellow--doubly wrong!” returned Sir Patrick. “There is no shame in shedding such tears as those. And there is nothing to be done by leaving me.”

“I must and will see her!”

“Read that,” said Sir Patrick, pointing to the letter on the floor. “See your wife? Your wife is with the woman who has written those lines. Read them.”

Arnold read them.

“DEAR SIR PATRICK,--If you had honored me with your confidence, I should have been happy to consult you before I interfered to rescue Blanche from the position in which Mr. Brinkworth has placed her. As it is, your late brother’s child is under my protection at my house in London. If you attempt to exercise your authority, it must be by main force--I will submit to nothing less. If Mr. Brinkworth attempts to exercise his authority, he shall establish his right to do so (if he can) in a police-court.

“Very truly yours, JULIA LUNDIE.”

Arnold’s resolution was not to be shaken even by this. “What do I care,” he burst out, hotly, “whether I am dragged through the streets by the police or not! I will see my wife. I will clear myself of the horrible suspicion she has about me. You have shown me your letter. Look at mine!”

Sir Patrick’s clear sense saw the wild words that Blanche had written in their true light.

“Do you hold your wife responsible for that letter?” he asked. “I see her step-mother in every line of it. You descend to something unworthy of you, if you seriously defend yourself against this! You can’t see it? You persist in holding to your own view? Write, then. You can’t get to her--your letter may. No! When you leave this house, you leave it with me. I have conceded something on my side, in allowing you to write. I insist on your conceding something, on your side, in return. Come into the library! I answer for setting things right between you and Blanche, if you will place your interests in my hands. Do you trust me or not?”

Arnold yielded. They went into the library together. Sir Patrick pointed to the writing-table. “Relieve your mind there,” he said. “And let me find you a reasonable man again when I come back.”

When he returned to the library the letter was written; and Arnold’s mind was so far relieved--for the time at least.

“I shall take your letter to Blanche myself,” said Sir Patrick, “by the train that leaves for London in half an hour’s time.”

“You will let me go with you?”

“Not to-day. I shall be back this evening to dinner. You shall hear all that has happened; and you shall accompany me to London to-morrow--if I find it necessary to make any lengthened stay there. Between this and then, after the shock that you have suffered, you will do well to be quiet here. Be satisfied with my assurance that Blanche shall have your letter. I will force my authority on her step-mother to that extent (if her step-mother resists) without scruple. The respect in which I hold the sex only lasts as long as the sex deserves it--and does not extend to Lady Lundie. There is no advantage that a man can take of a woman which I am not fully prepared to take of my sister-in-law.”

With that characteristic farewell, he shook hands with Arnold, and departed for the station.

At seven o’clock the dinner was on the table. At seven o’clock Sir Patrick came down stairs to eat it, as perfectly dressed as usual, and as composed as if nothing had happened.

“She has got your letter,” he whispered, as he took Arnold’s arm, and led him into the dining-room.

“Did she say any thing?”

“Not a word.”

“How did she look?”

“As she ought to look--sorry for what she has done.”

The dinner began. As a matter of necessity, the subject of Sir Patrick’s expedition was dropped while the servants were in the room--to be regularly taken up again by Arnold in the intervals between the courses. He began when the soup was taken away.

“I confess I had hoped to see Blanche come back with you!” he said, sadly enough.

“In other words,” returned Sir Patrick, “you forgot the native obstinacy of the sex. Blanche is beginning to feel that she has been wrong. What is the necessary consequence? She naturally persists in being wrong. Let her alone, and leave your letter to have its effect. The serious difficulties in our way don’t rest with Blanche. Content yourself with knowing that.”

The fish came in, and Arnold was silenced--until his next opportunity came with the next interval in the course of the dinner.

“What are the difficulties?” he asked

“The difficulties are my difficulties and yours,” answered Sir Patrick. “My difficulty is, that I can’t assert my authority, as guardian, if I assume my niece (as I do) to be a married woman. Your difficulty is, that you can’t assert your authority as her husband, until it is distinctly proved that you and Miss Silvester are not man and wife. Lady Lundie was perfectly aware that she would place us in that position, when she removed Blanche from this house. She has cross-examined Mrs. Inchbare; she has written to your steward for the date of your arrival at your estate; she has done every thing, calculated every thing, and foreseen every thing--except my excellent temper. The one mistake she has made, is in thinking she could get the better of that. No, my dear boy! My trump card is my temper. I keep it in my hand, Arnold--I keep it in my hand!”

The next course came in--and there was an end of the subject again. Sir Patrick enjoyed his mutton, and entered on a long and interesting narrative of the history of some rare white Burgundy on the table imported by himself. Arnold resolutely resumed the discussion with the departure of the mutton.

“It seems to be a dead lock,” he said.

“No slang!” retorted Sir Patrick.

“For Heaven’s sake, Sir, consider my anxiety, and tell me what you propose to do!”

“I propose to take you to London with me to-morrow, on this condition--that you promise me, on your word of honor, not to attempt to see your wife before Saturday next.”

“I shall see her then?”

“If you give me your promise.”

“I do! I do!”

The next course came in. Sir Patrick entered on the question of the merits of the partridge, viewed as an eatable bird, “By himself, Arnold--plainly roasted, and tested on his own merits--an overrated bird. Being too fond of shooting him in this country, we become too fond of eating him next. Properly understood, he is a vehicle for sauce and truffles--nothing more. Or no--that is hardly doing him justice. I am bound to add that he is honorably associated with the famous French receipt for cooking an olive. Do you know it?”

There was an end of the bird; there was an end of the jelly. Arnold got his next chance--and took it.

“What is to be done in London to-morrow?” he asked.

“To-morrow,” answered Sir Patrick, “is a memorable day in our calendar. To-morrow is Tuesday--the day on which I am to see Miss Silvester.”

Arnold set down the glass of wine which he was just raising to his lips.

“After what has happened,” he said, “I can hardly bear to hear her name mentioned. Miss Silvester has parted me from my wife.”

“Miss Silvester may atone for that, Arnold, by uniting you again.”

“She has been the ruin of me so far.”

“She may be the salvation of you yet.”

The cheese came in; and Sir Patrick returned to the Art of Cookery.

“Do you know the receipt for cooking an olive, Arnold?”

“No.”

“What does the new generation know? It knows how to row, how to shoot, how to play at cricket, and how to bat. When it has lost its muscle and lost its money--that is to say, when it has grown old--what a generation it will be! It doesn’t matter: I sha’n’t live to see it. Are you listening, Arnold?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“How to cook an olive! Put an olive into a lark, put a lark into a quail; put a quail into a plover; put a plover into a partridge; put a partridge into a pheasant; put a pheasant into a turkey. Good. First, partially roast, then carefully stew--until all is thoroughly done down to the olive. Good again. Next, open the window. Throw out the turkey, the pheasant, the partridge, the plover, the quail, and the lark. Then, eat the olive. The dish is expensive, but (we have it on the highest authority) well worth the sacrifice. The quintessence of the flavor of six birds, concentrated in one olive. Grand idea! Try another glass of the white Burgundy, Arnold.”

At last the servants left them--with the wine and dessert on the table.

“I have borne it as long as I can, Sir,” said Arnold. “Add to all your kindness to me by telling me at once what happened at Lady Lundie’s.”

It was a chilly evening. A bright wood fire was burning in the room. Sir Patrick drew his chair to the fire.

“This is exactly what happened,” he said. “I found company at Lady Lundie’s, to begin with. Two perfect strangers to me. Captain Newenden, and his niece, Mrs. Glenarm. Lady Lundie offered to see me in another room; the two strangers offered to withdraw. I declined both proposals. First check to her ladyship! She has reckoned throughout, Arnold, on our being afraid to face public opinion. I showed her at starting that we were as ready to face it as she was. ‘I always accept what the French call accomplished facts,’ I said. ‘You have brought matters to a crisis, Lady Lundie. So let it be. I have a word to say to my niece (in your presence, if you like); and I have another word to say to you afterward--without presuming to disturb your guests.’ The guests sat down again (both naturally devoured by curiosity). Could her ladyship decently refuse me an interview with my own niece, while two witnesses were looking on? Impossible. I saw Blanche (Lady Lundie being present, it is needless to say) in the back drawing-room. I gave her your letter; I said a good word for you; I saw that she was sorry, though she wouldn’t own it--and that was enough. We went back into the front drawing-room. I had not spoken five words on our side of the question before it appeared, to my astonishment and delight, that Captain Newenden was in the house on the very question that had brought me into the house--the question of you and Miss Silvester. My business, in the interests of my niece, was to deny your marriage to the lady. His business, in the interests of his niece, was to assert your marriage to the lady. To the unutterable disgust of the two women, we joined issue, in the most friendly manner, on the spot. ‘Charmed to have the pleasure of meeting you, Captain Newenden.’--‘Delighted to have the honor of making your acquaintance, Sir Patrick.’--‘I think we can settle this in two minutes?’--‘My own idea perfectly expressed.’--‘State your position, Captain.’--‘With the greatest pleasure. Here is my niece, Mrs. Glenarm, engaged to marry Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn. All very well, but there happens to be an obstacle--in the shape of a lady. Do I put it plainly?’--‘You put it admirably, Captain; but for the loss to the British navy, you ought to have been a lawyer. Pray, go on.’--‘You are too good, Sir Patrick. I resume. Mr. Delamayn asserts that this person in the back-ground has no claim on him, and backs his assertion by declaring that she is married already to Mr. Arnold Brinkworth. Lady Lundie and my niece assure me, on evidence which satisfies them, that the assertion is true. The evidence does not satisfy me. ‘I hope, Sir Patrick, I don’t strike you as being an excessively obstinate man?’--‘My dear Sir, you impress me with the highest opinion of your capacity for sifting human testimony! May I ask, next, what course you mean to take?’--‘The very thing I was going to mention, Sir Patrick! This is my course. I refuse to sanction my niece’s engagement to Mr. Delamayn, until Mr. Delamayn has actually proved his statement by appeal to witnesses of the lady’s marriage. He refers me to two witnesses; but declines acting at once in the matter for himself, on the ground that he is in training for a foot-race. I admit that that is an obstacle, and consent to arrange for bringing the two witnesses to London myself. By this post I have written to my lawyers in Perth to look the witnesses up; to offer them the necessary terms (at Mr. Delamayn’s expense) for the use of their time; and to produce them by the end of the week. The footrace is on Thursday next. Mr. Delamayn will be able to attend after that, and establish his own assertion by his own witnesses. What do you say, Sir Patrick, to Saturday next (with Lady Lundie’s permission) in this room?’--There is the substance of the captain’s statement. He is as old as I am and is dressed to look like thirty; but a very pleasant fellow for all that. I struck my sister-in-law dumb by accepting the proposal without a moment’s hesitation. Mrs. Glenarm and Lady Lundie looked at each other in mute amazement. Here was a difference about which two women would have mortally quarreled; and here were two men settling it in the friendliest possible manner. I wish you had seen Lady Lundie’s face, when I declared myself deeply indebted to Captain Newenden for rendering any prolonged interview with her ladyship quite unnecessary. ‘Thanks to the captain,’ I said to her, in the most cordial manner, ‘we have absolutely nothing to discuss. I shall catch the next train, and set Arnold Brinkworth’s mind quite at ease.’ To come back to serious things, I have engaged to produce you, in the presence of every body--your wife included--on Saturday next. I put a bold face on it before the others. But I am bound to tell you that it is by no means easy to say--situated as we are now--what the result of Saturday’s inquiry will be. Every thing depends on the issue of my interview with Miss Silvester to-morrow. It is no exaggeration to say, Arnold, that your fate is in her hands.”

“I wish to heaven I had never set eyes on her!” said Arnold.

“Lay the saddle on the right horse,” returned Sir Patrick. “Wish you had never set eyes on Geoffrey Delamayn.”

Arnold hung his head. Sir Patrick’s sharp tongue had got the better of him once more.

TWELFTH SCENE.--DRURY LANE.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-FOURTH.

THE LETTER AND THE LAW.

THE many-toned murmur of the current of London life--flowing through the murky channel of Drury Lane--found its muffled way from the front room to the back. Piles of old music lumbered the dusty floor. Stage masks and weapons, and portraits of singers and dancers, hung round the walls. An empty violin case in one corner faced a broken bust of Rossini in another. A frameless print, representing the Trial of Queen Caroline, was pasted over the fireplace. The chairs were genuine specimens of ancient carving in oak. The table was an equally excellent example of dirty modern deal. A small morsel of drugget was on the floor; and a large deposit of soot was on the ceiling. The scene thus presented, revealed itself in the back drawing-room of a house in Drury Lane, devoted to the transaction of musical and theatrical business of the humbler sort. It was late in the afternoon, on Michaelmas-day. Two persons were seated together in the room: they were Anne Silvester and Sir Patrick Lundie.

The opening conversation between them--comprising, on one side, the narrative of what had happened at Perth and at Swanhaven; and, on the other, a statement of the circumstances attending the separation of Arnold and Blanche--had come to an end. It rested with Sir Patrick to lead the way to the next topic. He looked at his companion, and hesitated.

“Do you feel strong enough to go on?” he asked. “If you would prefer to rest a little, pray say so.”

“Thank you, Sir Patrick. I am more than ready, I am eager to go on. No words can say how anxious I feel to be of some use to you, if I can. It rests entirely with your experience to show me how.”

“I can only do that, Miss Silvester, by asking you without ceremony for all the information that I want. Had you any object in traveling to London, which you have not mentioned to me yet? I mean, of course, any object with which I have a claim (as Arnold Brinkworth’s representative) to be acquainted?”

“I had an object, Sir Patrick. And I have failed to accomplish it.”

“May I ask what it was?”

“It was to see Geoffrey Delamayn.”

Sir Patrick started. “You have attempted to see him! When?”

“This morning.”

“Why, you only arrived in London last night!”

“I only arrived,” said Anne, “after waiting many days on the journey. I was obliged to rest at Edinburgh, and again at York--and I was afraid I had given Mrs. Glenarm time enough to get to Geoffrey Delamayn before me.”

“Afraid?” repeated Sir Patrick. “I understood that you had no serious intention of disputing the scoundrel with Mrs. Glenarm. What motive could possibly have taken you his way?”

“The same motive which took me to Swanhaven.”

“What! the idea that it rested with Delamayn to set things right? and that you might bribe him to do it, by consenting to release him, so far as your claims were concerned?”

“Bear with my folly, Sir Patrick, as patiently as you can! I am always alone now; and I get into a habit of brooding over things. I have been brooding over the position in which my misfortunes have placed Mr. Brinkworth. I have been obstinate--unreasonably obstinate--in believing that I could prevail with Geoffrey Delamayn, after I had failed with Mrs. Glenarm. I am obstinate about it still. If he would only have heard me, my madness in going to Fulham might have had its excuse.” She sighed bitterly, and said no more.

Sir Patrick took her hand.

“It has its excuse,” he said, kindly. “Your motive is beyond reproach. Let me add--to quiet your mind--that, even if Delamayn had been willing to hear you, and had accepted the condition, the result would still have been the same. You are quite wrong in supposing that he has only to speak, and to set this matter right. It has passed entirely beyond his control. The mischief was done when Arnold Brinkworth spent those unlucky hours with you at Craig Fernie.”

“Oh, Sir Patrick, if I had only known that, before I went to Fulham this morning!”

She shuddered as she said the words. Something was plainly associated with her visit to Geoffrey, the bare remembrance of which shook her nerves. What was it? Sir Patrick resolved to obtain an answer to that question, before he ventured on proceeding further with the main object of the interview.

“You have told me your reason for going to Fulham,” he said. “But I have not heard what happened there yet.”

Anne hesitated. “Is it necessary for me to trouble you about that?” she asked--with evident reluctance to enter on the subject.

“It is absolutely necessary,” answered Sir Patrick, “because Delamayn is concerned in it.”

Anne summoned her resolution, and entered on her narrative in these words:

“The person who carries on the business here discovered the address for me,” she began. “I had some difficulty, however, in finding the house. It is little more than a cottage; and it is quite lost in a great garden, surrounded by high walls. I saw a carriage waiting. The coachman was walking his horses up and down--and he showed me the door. It was a high wooden door in the wall, with a grating in it. I rang the bell. A servant-girl opened the grating, and looked at me. She refused to let me in. Her mistress had ordered her to close the door on all strangers--especially strangers who were women. I contrived to pass some money to her through the grating, and asked to speak to her mistress. After waiting some time, I saw another face behind the bars--and it struck me that I recognized it. I suppose I was nervous. It startled me. I said, ‘I think we know each other.’ There was no answer. The door was suddenly opened--and who do you think stood before me?”

“Was it somebody I know?”

“Yes.”

“Man? or woman?”

“It was Hester Dethridge.”

“Hester Dethridge!”

“Yes. Dressed just as usual, and looking just as usual--with her slate hanging at her side.”

“Astonishing! Where did I last see her? At the Windygates station, to be sure--going to London, after she had left my sister-in-law’s service. Has she accepted another place--without letting me know first, as I told her?”

“She is living at Fulham.”

“In service?”

“No. As mistress of her own house.”

“What! Hester Dethridge in possession of a house of her own? Well! well! why shouldn’t she have a rise in the world like other people? Did she let you in?”

“She stood for some time looking at me, in that dull strange way that she has. The servants at Windygates always said she was not in her right mind--and you will say, Sir Patrick, when you hear what happened, that the servants were not mistaken. She must be mad. I said, ‘Don’t you remember me?’ She lifted her slate, and wrote, ‘I remember you, in a dead swoon at Windygates House.’ I was quite unaware that she had been present when I fainted in the library. The discovery startled me--or that dreadful, dead-cold look that she has in her eyes startled me--I don’t know which. I couldn’t speak to her just at first. She wrote on her slate again--the strangest question--in these words: ‘I said, at the time, brought to it by a man. Did I say true?’ If the question had been put in the usual way, by any body else, I should have considered it too insolent to be noticed. Can you understand my answering it, Sir Patrick? I can’t understand it myself, now--and yet I did answer. She forced me to it with her stony eyes. I said ‘yes.’”

“Did all this take place at the door?”

“At the door.”

“When did she let you in?”

“The next thing she did was to let me in. She took me by the arm, in a rough way, and drew me inside the door, and shut it. My nerves are broken; my courage is gone. I crept with cold when she touched me. She dropped my arm. I stood like a child, waiting for what it pleased her to say or do next. She rested her two hands on her sides, and took a long look at me. She made a horrid dumb sound--not as if she was angry; more, if such a thing could be, as if she was satisfied--pleased even, I should have said, if it had been any body but Hester Dethridge. Do you understand it?”

“Not yet. Let me get nearer to understanding it by asking something before you go on. Did she show any attachment to you, when you were both at Windygates?”

“Not the least. She appeared to be incapable of attachment to me, or to any body.”

“Did she write any more questions on her slate?”

“Yes. She wrote another question under what she had written just before. Her mind was still running on my fainting fit, and on the ‘man’ who had ‘brought me to it.’ She held up the slate; and the words were these: ‘Tell me how he served you, did he knock you down?’ Most people would have laughed at the question. I was startled by it. I told her, No. She shook her head as if she didn’t believe me. She wrote on her slate, ‘We are loth to own it when they up with their fists and beat us--ain’t we?’ I said, ‘You are quite wrong.’ She went on obstinately with her writing. ‘Who is the man?’--was her next question. I had control enough over myself to decline telling her that. She opened the door, and pointed to me to go out. I made a sign entreating her to wait a little. She went back, in her impenetrable way, to the writing on the slate--still about the ‘man.’ This time, the question was plainer still. She had evidently placed her own interpretation of my appearance at the house. She wrote, ‘Is it the man who lodges here?’ I saw that she would close the door on me if I didn’t answer. My only chance with her was to own that she had guessed right. I said ‘Yes. I want to see him.’ She took me by the arm, as roughly as before--and led me into the house.”

“I begin to understand her,” said Sir Patrick. “I remember hearing, in my brother’s time, that she had been brutally ill-used by her husband. The association of id eas, even in her confused brain, becomes plain, if you bear that in mind. What is her last remembrance of you? It is the remembrance of a fainting woman at Windygates.”

“Yes.”

“She makes you acknowledge that she has guessed right, in guessing that a man was, in some way, answerable for the condition in which she found you. A swoon produced by a shock indicted on the mind, is a swoon that she doesn’t understand. She looks back into her own experience, and associates it with the exercise of actual physical brutality on the part of the man. And she sees, in you, a reflection of her own sufferings and her own case. It’s curious--to a student of human nature. And it explains, what is otherwise unintelligible--her overlooking her own instructions to the servant, and letting you into the house. What happened next?”

“She took me into a room, which I suppose was her own room. She made signs, offering me tea. It was done in the strangest way--without the least appearance of kindness. After what you have just said to me, I think I can in some degree interpret what was going on in her mind. I believe she felt a hard-hearted interest in seeing a woman whom she supposed to be as unfortunate as she had once been herself. I declined taking any tea, and tried to return to the subject of what I wanted in the house. She paid no heed to me. She pointed round the room; and then took me to a window, and pointed round the garden--and then made a sign indicating herself. ‘My house; and my garden’--that was what she meant. There were four men in the garden--and Geoffrey Delamayn was one of them. I made another attempt to tell her that I wanted to speak to him. But, no! She had her own idea in her mind. After beckoning to me to leave the window, she led the way to the fire-place, and showed me a sheet of paper with writing on it, framed and placed under a glass, and hung on the wall. She seemed, I thought, to feel some kind of pride in her framed manuscript. At any rate, she insisted on my reading it. It was an extract from a will.”

“The will under which she had inherited the house?”

“Yes. Her brother’s will. It said, that he regretted, on his death-bed, his estrangement from his only sister, dating from the time when she had married in defiance of his wishes and against his advice. As a proof of his sincere desire to be reconciled with her, before he died, and as some compensation for the sufferings that she had endured at the hands of her deceased husband, he left her an income of two hundred pounds a year, together with the use of his house and garden, for her lifetime. That, as well as I remember, was the substance of what it said.”

“Creditable to her brother, and creditable to herself,” said Sir Patrick. “Taking her odd character into consideration, I understand her liking it to be seen. What puzzles me, is her letting lodgings with an income of her own to live on.”

“That was the very question which I put to her myself. I was obliged to be cautious, and to begin by asking about the lodgers first--the men being still visible out in the garden, to excuse the inquiry. The rooms to let in the house had (as I understood her) been taken by a person acting for Geoffrey Delamayn--his trainer, I presume. He had surprised Hester Dethridge by barely noticing the house, and showing the most extraordinary interest in the garden.”

“That is quite intelligible, Miss Silvester. The garden you have described would be just the place he wanted for the exercises of his employer--plenty of space, and well secured from observation by the high walls all round. What next?”

“Next, I got to the question of why she should let her house in lodgings at all. When I asked her that, her face turned harder than ever. She answered me on her slate in these dismal words: ‘I have not got a friend in the world. I dare not live alone.’ There was her reason! Dreary and dreadful, Sir Patrick, was it not?”

“Dreary indeed! How did it end? Did you get into the garden?”

“Yes--at the second attempt. She seemed suddenly to change her mind; she opened the door for me herself. Passing the window of the room in which I had left her, I looked back. She had taken her place, at a table before the window, apparently watching for what might happen. There was something about her, as her eyes met mine (I can’t say what), which made me feel uneasy at the time. Adopting your view, I am almost inclined to think now, horrid as the idea is, that she had the expectation of seeing me treated as she had been treated in former days. It was actually a relief to me--though I knew I was going to run a serious risk--to lose sight of her. As I got nearer to the men in the garden, I heard two of them talking very earnestly to Geoffrey Delamayn. The fourth person, an elderly gentleman, stood apart from the rest at some little distance. I kept as far as I could out of sight, waiting till the talk was over. It was impossible for me to help hearing it. The two men were trying to persuade Geoffrey Delamayn to speak to the elderly gentleman. They pointed to him as a famous medical man. They reiterated over and over again, that his opinion was well worth having--”

Sir Patrick interrupted her. “Did they mention his name?” he asked.

“Yes. They called him Mr. Speedwell.”

“The man himself! This is even more interesting, Miss Silvester, than you suppose. I myself heard Mr. Speedwell warn Delamayn that he was in broken health, when we were visiting together at Windygates House last month. Did he do as the other men wished him? Did he speak to the surgeon?”

“No. He sulkily refused--he remembered what you remember. He said, ‘See the man who told me I was broken down?--not I!’ After confirming it with an oath, he turned away from the others. Unfortunately, he took the direction in which I was standing, and discovered me. The bare sight of me seemed to throw him instantly into a state of frenzy. He--it is impossible for me to repeat the language that he used: it is bad enough to have heard it. I believe, Sir Patrick, but for the two men, who ran up and laid hold of him, that Hester Dethridge would have seen what she expected to see. The change in him was so frightful--even to me, well as I thought I knew him in his fits of passion--I tremble when I think of it. One of the men who had restrained him was almost as brutal, in his way. He declared, in the foulest language, that if Delamayn had a fit, he would lose the race, and that I should be answerable for it. But for Mr. Speedwell, I don’t know what I should have done. He came forward directly. ‘This is no place either for you, or for me,’ he said--and gave me his arm, and led me back to the house. Hester Dethridge met us in the passage, and lifted her hand to stop me. Mr. Speedwell asked her what she wanted. She looked at me, and then looked toward the garden, and made the motion of striking a blow with her clenched fist. For the first time in my experience of her--I hope it was my fancy--I thought I saw her smile. Mr. Speedwell took me out. ‘They are well matched in that house,’ he said. ‘The woman is as complete a savage as the men.’ The carriage which I had seen waiting at the door was his. He called it up, and politely offered me a place in it. I said I would only trespass on his kindness as far as to the railway station. While we were talking, Hester Dethridge followed us to the door. She made the same motion again with her clenched hand, and looked back toward the garden--and then looked at me, and nodded her head, as much as to say, ‘He will do it yet!’ No words can describe how glad I was to see the last of her. I hope and trust I shall never set eyes on her again!”

“Did you hear how Mr. Speedwell came to be at the house? Had he gone of his own accord? or had he been sent for?”

“He had been sent for. I ventured to speak to him about the persons whom I had seen in the garden. Mr. Speedwell explained everything which I was not able of myself to understand, in the kindest manner. One of the two strange men in the garden was the trainer; the other was a doctor, whom the trainer was usually in the habit of consulting. It seems that the real reason for their bringing Geof frey Delamayn away from Scotland when they did, was that the trainer was uneasy, and wanted to be near London for medical advice. The doctor, on being consulted, owned that he was at a loss to understand the symptoms which he was asked to treat. He had himself fetched the great surgeon to Fulham, that morning. Mr. Speedwell abstained from mentioning that he had foreseen what would happen, at Windygates. All he said was, ‘I had met Mr. Delamayn in society, and I felt interest enough in the case to pay him a visit--with what result, you have seen yourself.’”

“Did he tell you any thing about Delamayn’s health?”

“He said that he had questioned the doctor on the way to Fulham, and that some of the patient’s symptoms indicated serious mischief. What the symptoms were I did not hear. Mr. Speedwell only spoke of changes for the worse in him which a woman would be likely to understand. At one time, he would be so dull and heedless that nothing could rouse him. At another, he flew into the most terrible passions without any apparent cause. The trainer had found it almost impossible (in Scotland) to keep him to the right diet; and the doctor had only sanctioned taking the house at Fulham, after being first satisfied, not only of the convenience of the garden, but also that Hester Dethridge could be thoroughly trusted as a cook. With her help, they had placed him on an entirely new diet. But they had found an unexpected difficulty even in doing that. When the trainer took him to the new lodgings, it turned out that he had seen Hester Dethridge at Windygates, and had taken the strongest prejudice against her. On seeing her again at Fulham, he appeared to be absolutely terrified.”

“Terrified? Why?”

“Nobody knows why. The trainer and the doctor together could only prevent his leaving the house, by threatening to throw up the responsibility of preparing him for the race, unless he instantly controlled himself, and behaved like a man instead of a child. Since that time, he has become reconciled, little by little, to his new abode--partly through Hester Dethridge’s caution in keeping herself always out of his way; and partly through his own appreciation of the change in his diet, which Hester’s skill in cookery has enabled the doctor to make. Mr. Speedwell mentioned some things which I have forgotten. I can only repeat, Sir Patrick, the result at which he has arrived in his own mind. Coming from a man of his authority, the opinion seems to me to be startling in the last degree. If Geoffrey Delamayn runs in the race on Thursday next, he will do it at the risk of his life.”

“At the risk of dying on the ground?”

“Yes.”

Sir Patrick’s face became thoughtful. He waited a little before he spoke again.

“We have not wasted our time,” he said, “in dwelling on what happened during your visit to Fulham. The possibility of this man’s death suggests to my mind serious matter for consideration. It is very desirable, in the interests of my niece and her husband, that I should be able to foresee, if I can, how a fatal result of the race might affect the inquiry which is to be held on Saturday next. I believe you may be able to help me in this.”

“You have only to tell me how, Sir Patrick.”

“I may count on your being present on Saturday?”

“Certainly.”

“You thoroughly understand that, in meeting Blanche, you will meet a person estranged from you, for the present--a friend and sister who has ceased (under Lady Lundie’s influence mainly) to feel as a friend and sister toward you now?”

“I was not quite unprepared, Sir Patrick, to hear that Blanche had misjudged me. When I wrote my letter to Mr. Brinkworth, I warned him as delicately as I could, that his wife’s jealousy might be very easily roused. You may rely on my self-restraint, no matter how hardly it may be tried. Nothing that Blanche can say or do will alter my grateful remembrance of the past. While I live, I love her. Let that assurance quiet any little anxiety that you may have felt as to my conduct--and tell me how I can serve those interests which I have at heart as well as you.”

“You can serve them, Miss Silvester, in this way. You can make me acquainted with the position in which you stood toward Delamayn at the time when you went to the Craig Fernie inn.”

“Put any questions to me that you think right, Sir Patrick.”

“You mean that?”

“I mean it.”

“I will begin by recalling something which you have already told me. Delamayn has promised you marriage--”

“Over and over again!”

“In words?”

“Yes.”

“In writing?”

“Yes.”

“Do you see what I am coming to?”

“Hardly yet.”

“You referred, when we first met in this room, to a letter which you recovered from Bishopriggs, at Perth. I have ascertained from Arnold Brinkworth that the sheet of note-paper stolen from you contained two letters. One was written by you to Delamayn--the other was written by Delamayn to you. The substance of this last Arnold remembered. Your letter he had not read. It is of the utmost importance, Miss Silvester, to let me see that correspondence before we part to-day.”

Anne made no answer. She sat with her clasped hands on her lap. Her eyes looked uneasily away from Sir Patrick’s face, for the first time.

“Will it not be enough,” she asked, after an interval, “if I tell you the substance of my letter, without showing it?”

“It will not be enough,” returned Sir Patrick, in the plainest manner. “I hinted--if you remember--at the propriety of my seeing the letter, when you first mentioned it, and I observed that you purposely abstained from understanding me, I am grieved to put you, on this occasion, to a painful test. But if you are to help me at this serious crisis, I have shown you the way.”

Anne rose from her chair, and answered by putting the letter into Sir Patrick’s hands. “Remember what he has done, since I wrote that,” she said. “And try to excuse me, if I own that I am ashamed to show it to you now.”

With those words she walked aside to the window. She stood there, with her hand pressed on her breast, looking out absently on the murky London view of house roof and chimney, while Sir Patrick opened the letter.

It is necessary to the right appreciation of events, that other eyes besides Sir Patrick’s should follow the brief course of the correspondence in this place.

1. From Anne Silvester to Geoffrey Delamayn.

WINDYGATES HOUSE. August 19, 1868.

“GEOFFREY DELAMAYN,--I have waited in the hope that you would ride over from your brother’s place, and see me--and I have waited in vain. Your conduct to me is cruelty itself; I will bear it no longer. Consider! in your own interests, consider--before you drive the miserable woman who has trusted you to despair. You have promised me marriage by all that is sacred. I claim your promise. I insist on nothing less than to be what you vowed I should be--what I have waited all this weary time to be--what I am, in the sight of Heaven, your wedded wife. Lady Lundie gives a lawn-party here on the 14th. I know you have been asked. I expect you to accept her invitation. If I don’t see you, I won’t answer for what may happen. My mind is made up to endure this suspense no longer. Oh, Geoffrey, remember the past! Be faithful--be just--to your loving wife,

“ANNE SILVESTER.”

2. From Geoffrey Delamayn to Anne Silvester.

“DEAR ANNE,--Just called to London to my father. They have telegraphed him in a bad way. Stop where you are, and I will write you. Trust the bearer. Upon my soul, I’ll keep my promise. Your loving husband that is to be,

“GEOFFREY DELAMAYN.

“WINDYGATES HOUSE Augt. 14, 4 P. M.

“In a mortal hurry. The train starts 4.30.”

Sir Patrick read the correspondence with breathless attention to the end. At the last lines of the last letter he did what he had not done for twenty years past--he sprang to his feet at a bound, and he crossed a room without the help of his ivory cane.

Anne started; and turning round from the window, looked at him in silent surprise. He was under the influence of strong emotion; his face, his voice, his manner, all showed it.

“How long had you been in Scotland, when you wrote this?” He pointed to Anne’s letter as he asked the question, put ting it so eagerly that he stammered over the first words. “More than three weeks?” he added, with his bright black eyes fixed in absorbing interest on her face.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“I am certain of it.”

“You can refer to persons who have seen you?”

“Easily.”

He turned the sheet of note-paper, and pointed to Geoffrey’s penciled letter on the fourth page.

“How long had he been in Scotland, when he wrote this? More than three weeks, too?”

Anne considered for a moment.

“For God’s sake, be careful!” said Sir Patrick. “You don’t know what depends on this, If your memory is not clear about it, say so.”

“My memory was confused for a moment. It is clear again now. He had been at his brother’s in Perthshire three weeks before he wrote that. And before he went to Swanhaven, he spent three or four days in the valley of the Esk.”

“Are you sure again?”

“Quite sure!”

“Do you know of any one who saw him in the valley of the Esk?”

“I know of a person who took a note to him, from me.”

“A person easily found?”

“Quite easily.”

Sir Patrick laid aside the letter, and seized in ungovernable agitation on both her hands.

“Listen to me,” he said. “The whole conspiracy against Arnold Brinkworth and you falls to the ground before that correspondence. When you and he met at the inn--”

He paused, and looked at her. Her hands were beginning to tremble in his.

“When you and Arnold Brinkworth met at the inn,” he resumed, “the law of Scotland had made you a married woman. On the day, and at the hour, when he wrote those lines at the back of your letter to him, you were Geoffrey Delamayn’s wedded wife!”

He stopped, and looked at her again.

Without a word in reply, without the slightest movement in her from head to foot, she looked back at him. The blank stillness of horror was in her face. The deadly cold of horror was in her hands.

In silence, on his side, Sir Patrick drew back a step, with a faint reflection of her dismay in his face. Married--to the villain who had not hesitated to calumniate the woman whom he had ruined, and then to cast her helpless on the world. Married--to the traitor who had not shrunk from betraying Arnold’s trust in him, and desolating Arnold’s home. Married--to the ruffian who would have struck her that morning, if the hands of his own friends had not held him back. And Sir Patrick had never thought of it! Absorbed in the one idea of Blanche’s future, he had never thought of it, till that horror-stricken face looked at him, and said, Think of my future, too!

He came back to her. He took her cold hand once more in his.

“Forgive me,” he said, “for thinking first of Blanche.”

Blanche’s name seemed to rouse her. The life came back to her face; the tender brightness began to shine again in her eyes. He saw that he might venture to speak more plainly still: he went on.

“I see the dreadful sacrifice as you see it. I ask myself, have I any right, has Blanche any right--”

She stopped him by a faint pressure of his hand.

“Yes,” she said, softly, “if Blanche’s happiness depends on it.”

THIRTEENTH SCENE.--FULHAM.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIFTH.

THE FOOT-RACE.

A SOLITARY foreigner, drifting about London, drifted toward Fulham on the day of the Foot-Race.

Little by little, he found himself involved in the current of a throng of impetuous English people, all flowing together toward one given point, and all decorated alike with colors of two prevailing hues--pink and yellow. He drifted along with the stream of passengers on the pavement (accompanied by a stream of carriages in the road) until they stopped with one accord at a gate--and paid admission money to a man in office--and poured into a great open space of ground which looked like an uncultivated garden.

Arrived here, the foreign visitor opened his eyes in wonder at the scene revealed to view. He observed thousands of people assembled, composed almost exclusively of the middle and upper classes of society. They were congregated round a vast inclosure; they were elevated on amphitheatrical wooden stands, and they were perched on the roofs of horseless carriages, drawn up in rows. From this congregation there rose such a roar of eager voices as he had never heard yet from any assembled multitude in these islands. Predominating among the cries, he detected one everlasting question. It began with, “Who backs--?” and it ended in the alternate pronouncing of two British names unintelligible to foreign ears. Seeing these extraordinary sights, and hearing these stirring sounds, he applied to a policeman on duty; and said, in his best producible English, “If you please, Sir, what is this?”

The policeman answered, “North against South--Sports.”

The foreigner was informed, but not satisfied. He pointed all round the assembly with a circular sweep of his hand; and said, “Why?”

The policeman declined to waste words on a man who could ask such a question as that. He lifted a large purple forefinger, with a broad white nail at the end of it, and pointed gravely to a printed Bill, posted on the wall behind him. The drifting foreigner drifted to the Bill.

After reading it carefully, from top to bottom, he consulted a polite private individual near at hand, who proved to be far more communicative than the policeman. The result on his mind, as a person not thoroughly awakened to the enormous national importance of Athletic Sports, was much as follows:

The color of North is pink. The color of South is yellow. North produces fourteen pink men, and South produces thirteen yellow men. The meeting of pink and yellow is a solemnity. The solemnity takes its rise in an indomitable national passion for hardening the arms and legs, by throwing hammers and cricket-balls with the first, and running and jumping with the second. The object in view is to do this in public rivalry. The ends arrived at are (physically) an excessive development of the muscles, purchased at the expense of an excessive strain on the heart and the lungs--(morally), glory; conferred at the moment by the public applause; confirmed the next day by a report in the newspapers. Any person who presumes to see any physical evil involved in these exercises to the men who practice them, or any moral obstruction in the exhibition itself to those civilizing influences on which the true greatness of all nations depends, is a person without a biceps, who is simply incomprehensible. Muscular England develops itself, and takes no notice of him.

The foreigner mixed with the assembly, and looked more closely at the social spectacle around him.

He had met with these people before. He had seen them (for instance) at the theatre, and observed their manners and customs with considerable curiosity and surprise. When the curtain was down, they were so little interested in what they had come to see, that they had hardly spirit enough to speak to each other between the acts. When the curtain was up, if the play made any appeal to their sympathy with any of the higher and nobler emotions of humanity, they received it as something wearisome, or sneered at it as something absurd. The public feeling of the countrymen of Shakespeare, so far as they represented it, recognized but two duties in the dramatist--the duty of making them laugh, and the duty of getting it over soon. The two great merits of a stage proprietor, in England (judging by the rare applause of his cultivated customers), consisted in spending plenty of money on his scenery, and in hiring plenty of brazen-faced women to exhibit their bosoms and their legs. Not at theatres only; but among other gatherings, in other places, the foreigner had noticed the same stolid languor where any effort was exacted from genteel English brains, and the same stupid contempt where any appeal was made to genteel English hearts. Preserve us from enjoying any thing but jokes and scandal! Preserve us from respecting any thing but rank and money! There were the social aspirations of these insular ladies and gentlemen, as expressed under other circumstances, and as betrayed amidst other scenes. Here, all was changed. Here was the strong feeling, the breathless interest, the hearty enthusiasm, not visible elsewhere. Here were the superb gentlemen who were too weary to speak, when an Art was addressing them, shouting themselves hoarse with burst on burst of genuine applause. Here were the fine ladies who yawned behind their fans, at the bare idea of being called on to think or to feel, waving their handkerchiefs in honest delight, and actually flushing with excitement through their powder and their paint. And all for what? All for running and jumping--all for throwing hammers and balls.

The foreigner looked at it, and tried, as a citizen of a civilized country, to understand it. He was still trying--when there occurred a pause in the performances.

Certain hurdles, which had served to exhibit the present satisfactory state of civilization (in jumping) among the upper classes, were removed. The privileged persons who had duties to perform within the inclosure, looked all round it; and disappeared one after another. A great hush of expectation pervaded the whole assembly. Something of no common interest and importance was evidently about to take place. On a sudden, the silence was broken by a roar of cheering from the mob in the road outside the grounds. People looked at each other excitedly, and said, “One of them has come.” The silence prevailed again--and was a second time broken by another roar of applause. People nodded to each other with an air of relief and said, “Both of them have come.” Then the great hush fell on the crowd once more, and all eyes looked toward one particular point of the ground, occupied by a little wooden pavilion, with the blinds down over the open windows, and the door closed.

The foreigner was deeply impressed by the silent expectation of the great throng about him. He felt his own sympathies stirred, without knowing why. He believed himself to be on the point of understanding the English people.

Some ceremony of grave importance was evidently in preparation. Was a great orator going to address the assembly? Was a glorious anniversary to be commemorated? Was a religious service to be performed? He looked round him to apply for information once more. Two gentlemen--who contrasted favorably, so far as refinement of manner was concerned, with most of the spectators present--were slowly making their way, at that moment, through the crowd near him. He respectfully asked what national solemnity was now about to take place. They informed him that a pair of strong young men were going to run round the inclosure for a given number of turns, with the object of ascertaining which could run the fastest of the two.

The foreigner lifted his hands and eyes to heaven. Oh, multifarious Providence! who would have suspected that the infinite diversities of thy creation included such beings as these! With that aspiration, he turned his back on the race-course, and left the place.

On his way out of the grounds he had occasion to use his handkerchief, and found that it was gone. He felt next for his purse. His purse was missing too. When he was back again in his own country, intelligent inquiries were addressed to him on the subject of England. He had but one reply to give. “The whole nation is a mystery to me. Of all the English people I only understand the English thieves!”

In the mean time the two gentlemen, making their way through the crowd, reached a wicket-gate in the fence which surrounded the inclosure.

Presenting a written order to the policeman in charge of the gate, they were forthwith admitted within the sacred precincts The closely packed spectators, regarding them with mixed feelings of envy and curiosity, wondered who they might be. Were they referees appointed to act at the coming race? or reporters for the newspapers? or commissioners of police? They were neither the one nor the other. They were only Mr. Speedwell, the surgeon, and Sir Patrick Lundie.

The two gentlemen walked into the centre of the inclosure, and looked round them.

The grass on which they were standing was girdled by a broad smooth path, composed of finely-sifted ashes and sand--and this again was surrounded by the fence and by the spectators ranked behind it. Above the lines thus formed rose on one side the amphitheatres with their tiers of crowded benches, and on the other the long rows of carriages with the sight-seers inside and out. The evening sun was shining brightly, the light and shade lay together in grand masses, the varied colors of objects blended softly one with the other. It was a splendid and an inspiriting scene.

Sir Patrick turned from the rows of eager faces all round him to his friend the surgeon.

“Is there one person to be found in this vast crowd,” he asked, “who has come to see the race with the doubt in his mind which has brought us to see it?”

Mr. Speedwell shook his head. “Not one of them knows or cares what the struggle may cost the men who engage in it.”

Sir Patrick looked round him again. “I almost wish I had not come to see it,” he said. “If this wretched man--”

The surgeon interposed. “Don’t dwell needlessly, Sir Patrick, on the gloomy view,” he rejoined. “The opinion I have formed has, thus far, no positive grounds to rest on. I am guessing rightly, as I believe, but at the same time I am guessing in the dark. Appearances may have misled me. There may be reserves of vital force in Mr. Delamayn’s constitution which I don’t suspect. I am here to learn a lesson--not to see a prediction fulfilled. I know his health is broken, and I believe he is going to run this race at his own proper peril. Don’t feel too sure beforehand of the event. The event may prove me to be wrong.”

For the moment Sir Patrick dropped the subject. He was not in his usual spirits.

Since his interview with Anne had satisfied him that she was Geoffrey’s lawful wife, the conviction had inevitably forced itself on his mind that the one possible chance for her in the future, was the chance of Geoffrey’s death. Horrible as it was to him, he had been possessed by that one idea--go where he might, do what he might, struggle as he might to force his thoughts in other directions. He looked round the broad ashen path on which the race was to be run, conscious that he had a secret interest in it which it was unutterably repugnant to him to feel. He tried to resume the conversation with his friend, and to lead it to other topics. The effort was useless. In despite of himself, he returned to the one fatal subject of the struggle that was now close at hand.

“How many times must they go round this inclosure,” he inquired, “before the race is ended?”

Mr. Speedwell turned toward a gentleman who was approaching them at the moment. “Here is somebody coming who can tell us,” he said.

“You know him?”

“He is one of my patients.”

“Who is he?”

“After the two runners he is the most important personage on the ground. He is the final authority--the umpire of the race.”

The person thus described was a middle-aged man, with a prematurely wrinkled face, with prematurely white hair and with something of a military look about him--brief in speech, and quick in manner.

“The path measures four hundred and forty yards round,” he said, when the surgeon had repeated Sir Patrick’s question to him. “In plainer words, and not to put you to your arithmetic once round it is a quarter of a mile. Each round is called a ‘Lap.’ The men must run sixteen Laps to finish the race. Not to put you to your arithmetic again, they must run four miles--the longest race of this kind which it is customary to attempt at Sports like these.”

“Professional pedestrians exceed that limit, do they not?”

“Considerably--on certain occasions.”

“Are they a long-lived race?”

“Far from it. They are exceptions when they live to be old men.”

Mr. Speedwell looked at Sir Patrick. Sir Patrick put a question to the umpire.

“You have just told us,” he said, “that the two young men who appear to-day are going to run the longest distance yet attempted in their experience. Is it generally thought, by persons who understand such things, that they are both fit to bear the exertion demanded of them?”

“You can judge for yourself, Sir. Here is one of them.”

He pointed toward the pavilion. At the same moment there rose a mighty clapping of hands from the great throng of spectators. Fleetwood, champion of the North, decorated in his pink colors, descended the pavilion steps and walked into the arena.

Young, lithe, and elegant, with supple strength expressed in every movement of his limbs, with a bright smile on his resolute young face, the man of the north won the women’s hearts at starting. The murmur of eager talk rose among them on all sides. The men were quieter--especially the men who understood the subject. It was a serious question with these experts whether Fleetwood was not “a little too fine.” Superbly trained, it was admitted--but, possibly, a little over-trained for a four-mile race.

The northern hero was followed into the inclosure by his friends and backers, and by his trainer. This last carried a tin can in his hand. “Cold water,” the umpire explained. “If he gets exhausted, his trainer will pick him up with a dash of it as he goes by.”

A new burst of hand-clapping rattled all round the arena. Delamayn, champion of the South, decorated in his yellow colors, presented himself to the public view.

The immense hum of voices rose louder and louder as he walked into the centre of the great green space. Surprise at the extraordinary contrast between the two men was the prevalent emotion of the moment. Geoffrey was more than a head taller than his antagonist, and broader in full proportion. The women who had been charmed with the easy gait and confident smile of Fleetwood, were all more or less painfully impressed by the sullen strength of the southern man, as he passed before them slowly, with his head down and his brows knit, deaf to the applause showered on him, reckless of the eyes that looked at him; speaking to nobody; concentrated in himself; biding his time. He held the men who understood the subject breathless with interest. There it was! the famous “staying power” that was to endure in the last terrible half-mile of the race, when the nimble and jaunty Fleetwood was run off his legs. Whispers had been spread abroad hinting at something which had gone wrong with Delamayn in his training. And now that all eyes could judge him, his appearance suggested criticism in some quarters. It was exactly the opposite of the criticism passed on his antagonist. The doubt as to Delamayn was whether he had been sufficiently trained. Still the solid strength of the man, the slow, panther-like smoothness of his movements--and, above all, his great reputation in the world of muscle and sport--had their effect. The betting which, with occasional fluctuations, had held steadily in his favor thus far, held, now that he was publicly seen, steadily in his favor still.

“Fleetwood for shorter distances, if you like; but Delamayn for a four-mile race.”

“Do you think he sees us?” whispered Sir Patrick to the surgeon.

“He sees nobody.”

“Can you judge of the condition he is in, at this distance?”

“He has twice the muscular strength of the other man. His trunk and limbs are magnificent. It is useless to ask me more than that about his condition. We are too far from him to see his face plainly.”

The conversation among the audience began to flag again; and the silent expectation set in among them once more. One by one, the different persons officially connected with the race gathered together on the grass. The trainer Perry was among them, with his can of water in his hand, in anxious whispering conversation with his principal--giving him the last words of advice before the start. The trainer’s doctor, leaving them together, came up to pay his respects to his illustrious colleague.

“How has he got on since I was at Fulham?” asked Mr. Speedwell.

“First-rate, Sir! It was one of his bad days when you saw him. He has done wonders in the last eight-and-forty hours.”

“Is he going to win the race?”

Privately the doctor had done what Perry had done before him--he had backed Geoffrey’s antagonist. Publicly he was true to his colors. He cast a disparaging look at Fleetwood--and answered Yes, without the slightest hesitation.

At that point, the conversation was suspended by a sudden movement in the inclosure. The runners were on their way to the starting-place. The moment of the race had come.

Shoulder to shoulder, the two men waited--each with his foot touching the mark. The firing of a pistol gave the signal for the start. At the instant when the report sounded they were off.

Fleetwood at once took the lead, Delamayn following, at from two to three yards behind him. In that order they ran the first round, the second, and the third--both reserving their strength; both watched with breathless interest by every soul in the place. The trainers, with their cans in their hands, ran backward and forward over the grass, meeting their men at certain points, and eying them narrowly, in silence. The official persons stood together in a group; their eyes following the runners round and round with the closest attention. The trainer’s doctor, still attached to his illustrious colleague, offered the necessary explanations to Mr. Speedwell and his friend.

“Nothing much to see for the first mile, Sir, except the ‘style’ of the two men.”

“You mean they are not really exerting themselves yet?”

“No. Getting their wind, and feeling their legs. Pretty runner, Fleetwood--if you notice Sir? Gets his legs a trifle better in front, and hardly lifts his heels quite so high as our man. His action’s the best of the two; I grant that. But just look, as they come by, which keeps the straightest line. There’s where Delamayn has him! It’s a steadier, stronger, truer pace; and you’ll see it tell when they’re half-way through.” So, for the first three rounds, the doctor expatiated on the two contrasted “styles”--in terms mercifully adapted to the comprehension of persons unacquainted with the language of the running ring.

At the fourth round--in other words, at the round which completed the first mile, the first change in the relative position of the runners occurred. Delamayn suddenly dashed to the front. Fleetwood smiled as the other passed him. Delamayn held the lead till they were half way through the fifth round--when Fleetwood, at a hint from his trainer, forced the pace. He lightly passed Delamayn in an instant; and led again to the completion of the sixth round.

At the opening of the seventh, Delamayn forced the pace on his side. For a few moments, they ran exactly abreast. Then Delamayn drew away inch by inch; and recovered the lead. The first burst of applause (led by the south) rang out, as the big man beat Fleetwood at his own tactics, and headed him at the critical moment when the race was nearly half run.

“It begins to look as if Delamayn was going to win!” said Sir Patrick.

The trainer’s doctor forgot himself. Infected by the rising excitement of every body about him, he let out the truth.

“Wait a bit!” he said. “Fleetwood has got directions to let him pass--Fleetwood is waiting to see what he can do.”

“Cunning, you see, Sir Patrick, is one of the elements in a manly sport,” said Mr. Speedwell, quietly.

At the end of the seventh round, Fleetwood proved the doctor to be right. He shot past Delamayn like an arrow from a bow. At the end of the eight round, he was leading by two yards. Half the race had then been run. Time, ten minutes and thirty-three seconds.

Toward the end of the ninth round, the pace slackened a little; and Delamayn was in front again. He kept ahead, until the opening of the eleventh round. At that point, Fleetwood flung up one hand in the air with a gesture of triumph; and bounded past Delamayn with a shout of “Hooray for the North!” The shout was echoed by the spectators. In proportion as the exertion began to tell upon the men, so the excitement steadily rose among the people looking at them.

At the twelfth round, Fleetwood was leading by six yards. Cries of triumph rose among the adherents of the north, met by counter-cries of defiance from the south. At the next turn Delamayn resolutely lessened the distance between his antagonist and himself. At the opening of the fourteenth round, they were coming sid e by side. A few yards more, and Delamayn was in front again, amidst a roar of applause from the whole public voice. Yet a few yards further, and Fleetwood neared him, passed him, dropped behind again, led again, and was passed again at the end of the round. The excitement rose to its highest pitch, as the runners--gasping for breath; with dark flushed faces, and heaving breasts--alternately passed and repassed each other. Oaths were heard now as well as cheers. Women turned pale and men set their teeth, as the last round but one began.

At the opening of it, Delamayn was still in advance. Before six yards more had been covered, Fleetwood betrayed the purpose of his running in the previous round, and electrified the whole assembly, by dashing past his antagonist--for the first time in the race at the top of his speed. Every body present could see, now, that Delamayn had been allowed to lead on sufferance--had been dextrously drawn on to put out his whole power--and had then, and not till then, been seriously deprived of the lead. He made another effort, with a desperate resolution that roused the public enthusiasm to frenzy. While the voices were roaring; while the hats and handkerchiefs were waving round the course; while the actual event of the race was, for one supreme moment, still in doubt--Mr. Speedwell caught Sir Patrick by the arm.

“Prepare yourself!” he whispered. “It’s all over.”

As the words passed his lips, Delamayn swerved on the path. His trainer dashed water over him. He rallied, and ran another step or two--swerved again--staggered--lifted his arm to his mouth with a hoarse cry of rage--fastened his own teeth in his flesh like a wild beast--and fell senseless on the course.

A Babel of sounds arose. The cries of alarm in some places, mingling with the shouts of triumph from the backers of Fleetwood in others--as their man ran lightly on to win the now uncontested race. Not the inclosure only, but the course itself was invaded by the crowd. In the midst of the tumult the fallen man was drawn on to the grass--with Mr. Speedwell and the trainer’s doctor in attendance on him. At the terrible moment when the surgeon laid his hand on the heart, Fleetwood passed the spot--a passage being forced for him through the people by his friends and the police--running the sixteenth and last round of the race.

Had the beaten man fainted under it, or had he died under it? Every body waited, with their eyes riveted on the surgeon’s hand.

The surgeon looked up from him, and called for water to throw over his face, for brandy to put into his mouth. He was coming to life again--he had survived the race. The last shout of applause which hailed Fleetwood’s victory rang out as they lifted him from the ground to carry him to the pavilion. Sir Patrick (admitted at Mr. Speedwell’s request) was the one stranger allowed to pass the door. At the moment when he was ascending the steps, some one touched his arm. It was Captain Newenden.

“Do the doctors answer for his life?” asked the captain. “I can’t get my niece to leave the ground till she is satisfied of that.”

Mr. Speedwell heard the question and replied to it briefly from the top of the pavilion steps.

“For the present--yes,” he said.

The captain thanked him, and disappeared.

They entered the pavilion. The necessary restorative measures were taken under Mr. Speedwell’s directions. There the conquered athlete lay: outwardly an inert mass of strength, formidable to look at, even in its fall; inwardly, a weaker creature, in all that constitutes vital force, than the fly that buzzed on the window-pane. By slow degrees the fluttering life came back. The sun was setting; and the evening light was beginning to fail. Mr. Speedwell beckoned to Perry to follow him into an unoccupied corner of the room.

“In half an hour or less he will be well enough to be taken home. Where are his friends? He has a brother--hasn’t he?”

“His brother’s in Scotland, Sir.”

“His father?”

Perry scratched his head. “From all I hear, Sir, he and his father don’t agree.”

Mr. Speedwell applied to Sir Patrick.

“Do you know any thing of his family affairs?”

“Very little. I believe what the man has told you to be the truth.”

“Is his mother living?”

“Yes.”

“I will write to her myself. In the mean time, somebody must take him home. He has plenty of friends here. Where are they?”

He looked out of the window as he spoke. A throng of people had gathered round the pavilion, waiting to hear the latest news. Mr. Speedwell directed Perry to go out and search among them for any friends of his employer whom he might know by sight. Perry hesitated, and scratched his head for the second time.

“What are you waiting for?” asked the surgeon, sharply. “You know his friends by sight, don’t you?”

“I don’t think I shall find them outside,” said Perry.

“Why not?”

“They backed him heavily, Sir--and they have all lost.”

Deaf to this unanswerable reason for the absence of friends, Mr. Speedwell insisted on sending Perry out to search among the persons who composed the crowd. The trainer returned with his report. “You were right, Sir. There are some of his friends outside. They want to see him.”

“Let two or three of them in.”

Three came in. They stared at him. They uttered brief expressions of pity in slang. They said to Mr. Speedwell, “We wanted to see him. What is it--eh?”

“It’s a break-down in his health.”

“Bad training?”

“Athletic Sports.”

“Oh! Thank you. Good-evening.”

Mr. Speedwell’s answer drove them out like a flock of sheep before a dog. There was not even time to put the question to them as to who was to take him home.

“I’ll look after him, Sir,” said Perry. “You can trust me.”

“I’ll go too,” added the trainer’s doctor; “and see him littered down for the night.”

(The only two men who had “hedged” their bets, by privately backing his opponent, were also the only two men who volunteered to take him home!)

They went back to the sofa on which he was lying. His bloodshot eyes were rolling heavily and vacantly about him, on the search for something. They rested on the doctor--and looked away again. They turned to Mr. Speedwell--and stopped, riveted on his face. The surgeon bent over him, and said, “What is it?”

He answered with a thick accent and laboring breath--uttering a word at a time: “Shall--I--die?”

“I hope not.”

“Sure?”

“No.”

He looked round him again. This time his eyes rested on the trainer. Perry came forward.

“What can I do for you, Sir?”

The reply came slowly as before. “My--coat--pocket.”

“This one, Sir?”

“No.”

“This?”

“Yes. Book.”

The trainer felt in the pocket, and produced a betting-book.

“What’s to be done with this. Sir?”

“Read.”

The trainer held the book before him; open at the last two pages on which entries had been made. He rolled his head impatiently from side to side of the sofa pillow. It was plain that he was not yet sufficiently recovered to be able to read what he had written.

“Shall I read for you, Sir?”

“Yes.”

The trainer read three entries, one after another, without result; they had all been honestly settled. At the fourth the prostrate man said, “Stop!” This was the first of the entries which still depended on a future event. It recorded the wager laid at Windygates, when Geoffrey had backed himself (in defiance of the surgeon’s opinion) to row in the University boat-race next spring--and had forced Arnold Brinkworth to bet against him.

“Well, Sir? What’s to be done about this?”

He collected his strength for the effort; and answered by a word at a time.

“Write--brother--Julius. Pay--Arnold--wins.”

His lifted hand, solemnly emphasizing what he said, dropped at his side. He closed his eyes; and fell into a heavy stertorous sleep. Give him his due. Scoundrel as he was, give him his due. The awful moment, when his life was trembling in the balance, found him true to the last living faith left among the men of his tribe and time--the faith of the betting-book.

Sir Patrick and Mr. Speedwell quitted the race-ground together; Geoffrey having been previously removed to his lodgings hard by. They met Arnold Brinkworth at the gate. He had, by his own desire, kept out of view among the crowd; and he decided on walking back by himself. The separation from Blanche had changed him in all his habits. He asked but two favors during the interval which was to elapse before he saw his wife again--to be allowed to bear it in his own way, and to be left alone.

Relieved of the oppression which had kept him silent while the race was in progress, Sir Patrick put a question to the surgeon as they drove home, which had been in his mind from the moment when Geoffrey had lost the day.

“I hardly understand the anxiety you showed about Delamayn,” he said, “when you found that he had only fainted under the fatigue. Was it something more than a common fainting fit?”

“It is useless to conceal it now,” replied Mr. Speedwell. “He has had a narrow escape from a paralytic stroke.”

“Was that what you dreaded when you spoke to him at Windygates?”

“That was what I saw in his face when I gave him the warning. I was right, so far. I was wrong in my estimate of the reserve of vital power left in him. When he dropped on the race-course, I firmly believed we should find him a dead man.”

“Is it hereditary paralysis? His father’s last illness was of that sort.”

Mr. Speedwell smiled. “Hereditary paralysis?” he repeated. “Why the man is (naturally) a phenomenon of health and strength--in the prime of his life. Hereditary paralysis might have found him out thirty years hence. His rowing and his running, for the last four years, are alone answerable for what has happened to-day.”

Sir Patrick ventured on a suggestion.

“Surely,” he said, “with your name to compel attention to it, you ought to make this public--as a warning to others?”

“It would be quite useless. Delamayn is far from being the first man who has dropped at foot-racing, under the cruel stress laid on the vital organs. The public have a happy knack of forgetting these accidents. They would be quite satisfied when they found the other man (who happens to have got through it) produced as a sufficient answer to me.”

Anne Silvester’s future was still dwelling on Sir Patrick’s mind. His next inquiry related to the serious subject of Geoffrey’s prospect of recovery in the time to come.

“He will never recover,” said Mr. Speedwell. “Paralysis is hanging over him. How long he may live it is impossible for me to say. Much depends on himself. In his condition, any new imprudence, any violent emotion, may kill him at a moment’s notice.”

“If no accident happens,” said Sir Patrick, “will he be sufficiently himself again to leave his bed and go out?”

“Certainly.”

“He has an appointment that I know of for Saturday next. Is it likely that he will be able to keep it?”

“Quite likely.”

Sir Patrick said no more. Anne’s face was before him again at the memorable moment when he had told her that she was Geoffrey’s wife.

FOURTEENTH SCENE.--PORTLAND PLACE.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-SIXTH.

A SCOTCH MARRIAGE.

IT was Saturday, the third of October--the day on which the assertion of Arnold’s marriage to Anne Silvester was to be put to the proof.

Toward two o’clock in the afternoon Blanche and her step-mother entered the drawing-room of Lady Lundie’s town house in Portland Place.

Since the previous evening the weather had altered for the worse. The rain, which had set in from an early hour that morning, still fell. Viewed from the drawing-room windows, the desolation of Portland Place in the dead season wore its aspect of deepest gloom. The dreary opposite houses were all shut up; the black mud was inches deep in the roadway; the soot, floating in tiny black particles, mixed with the falling rain, and heightened the dirty obscurity of the rising mist. Foot-passengers and vehicles, succeeding each other at rare intervals, left great gaps of silence absolutely uninterrupted by sound. Even the grinders of organs were mute; and the wandering dogs of the street were too wet to bark. Looking back from the view out of Lady Lundie’s state windows to the view in Lady Lundie’s state room, the melancholy that reigned without was more than matched by the melancholy that reigned within. The house had been shut up for the season: it had not been considered necessary, during its mistress’s brief visit, to disturb the existing state of things. Coverings of dim brown hue shrouded the furniture. The chandeliers hung invisible in enormous bags. The silent clocks hibernated under extinguishers dropped over them two months since. The tables, drawn up in corners--loaded with ornaments at other times--had nothing but pen, ink, and paper (suggestive of the coming proceedings) placed on them now. The smell of the house was musty; the voice of the house was still. One melancholy maid haunted the bedrooms up stairs, like a ghost. One melancholy man, appointed to admit the visitors, sat solitary in the lower regions--the last of the flunkies, mouldering in an extinct servants’ hall. Not a word passed, in the drawing-room, between Lady Lundie and Blanche. Each waited the appearance of the persons concerned in the coming inquiry, absorbed in her own thoughts. Their situation at the moment was a solemn burlesque of the situation of two ladies who are giving an evening party, and who are waiting to receive their guests. Did neither of them see this? Or, seeing it, did they shrink from acknowledging it? In similar positions, who does not shrink? The occasions are many on which we have excellent reason to laugh when the tears are in our eyes; but only children are bold enough to follow the impulse. So strangely, in human existence, does the mockery of what is serious mingle with the serious reality itself, that nothing but our own self-respect preserves our gravity at some of the most important emergencies in our lives. The two ladies waited the coming ordeal together gravely, as became the occasion. The silent maid flitted noiseless up stairs. The silent man waited motionless in the lower regions. Outside, the street was a desert. Inside, the house was a tomb.

The church clock struck the hour. Two.

At the same moment the first of the persons concerned in the investigation arrived.

Lady Lundie waited composedly for the opening of the drawing-room door. Blanche started, and trembled. Was it Arnold? Was it Anne?

The door opened--and Blanche drew a breath of relief. The first arrival was only Lady Lundie’s solicitor--invited to attend the proceedings on her ladyship’s behalf. He was one of that large class of purely mechanical and perfectly mediocre persons connected with the practice of the law who will probably, in a more advanced state of science, be superseded by machinery. He made himself useful in altering the arrangement of the tables and chairs, so as to keep the contending parties effectually separated from each other. He also entreated Lady Lundie to bear in mind that he knew nothing of Scotch law, and that he was there in the capacity of a friend only. This done, he sat down, and looked out with silent interest at the rain--as if it was an operation of Nature which he had never had an opportunity of inspecting before.

The next knock at the door heralded the arrival of a visitor of a totally different order. The melancholy man-servant announced Captain Newenden.

Possibly, in deference to the occasion, possibly, in defiance of the weather, the captain had taken another backward step toward the days of his youth. He was painted and padded, wigged and dressed, to represent the abstract idea of a male human being of five-and twenty in robust health. There might have been a little stiffness in the region of the waist, and a slight want of firmness in the eyelid and the chin. Otherwise there was the fiction of five-and twenty, founded in appearance on the fact of five-and-thirty--with the truth invisible behind it, counting seventy years! Wearing a flower in his buttonhole, and carrying a jaunty little cane in his hand--brisk, rosy, smiling, perfumed--the captain’s appearance brightened the dreary room. It was pleasantly suggestive of a morning visit from an idle young man. He appeared to be a little surprised to find Blanche present on the scene of approaching conflict. Lady Lundie thought it due to herself to explain. “My step-daughter is here in direct defiance of my entreaties and my advice. Persons may present themselves whom it is, in my opinion, improper she should see. Revelations will take place which no young woman, in her position, should hear. She insists on it, Captain Newenden--and I am obliged to submit.”

The captain shrugged his shoulders, and showed his beautiful teeth.

Blanche was far too deeply interested in the coming ordeal to care to defend herself: she looked as if she had not even heard what her step-mother had said of her. The solicitor remained absorbed in the interesting view of the falling rain. Lady Lundie asked after Mrs. Glenarm. The captain, in reply, described his niece’s anxiety as something--something--something, in short, only to be indicated by shaking his ambrosial curls and waving his jaunty cane. Mrs. Delamayn was staying with her until her uncle returned with the news. And where was Julius? Detained in Scotland by election business. And Lord and Lady Holchester? Lord and Lady Holchester knew nothing about it.

There was another knock at the door. Blanche’s pale face turned paler still. Was it Arnold? Was it Anne? After a longer delay than usual, the servant announced Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn and Mr. Moy.

Geoffrey, slowly entering first, saluted the two ladies in silence, and noticed no one else. The London solicitor, withdrawing himself for a moment from the absorbing prospect of the rain, pointed to the places reserved for the new-comer and for the legal adviser whom he had brought with him. Geoffrey seated himself, without so much as a glance round the room. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he vacantly traced patterns on the carpet with his clumsy oaken walking-stick. Stolid indifference expressed itself in his lowering brow and his loosely-hanging mouth. The loss of the race, and the circumstances accompanying it, appeared to have made him duller than usual and heavier than usual--and that was all.

Captain Newenden, approaching to speak to him, stopped half-way, hesitated, thought better of it--and addressed himself to Mr. Moy.

Geoffrey’s legal adviser--a Scotchman of the ruddy, ready, and convivial type--cordially met the advance. He announced, in reply to the captain’s inquiry, that the witnesses (Mrs. Inchbare and Bishopriggs) were waiting below until they were wanted, in the housekeeper’s room. Had there been any difficulty in finding them? Not the least. Mrs. Inchbare was, as a matter of course, at her hotel. Inquiries being set on foot for Bishopriggs, it appeared that he and the landlady had come to an understanding, and that he had returned to his old post of headwaiter at the inn. The captain and Mr. Moy kept up the conversation between them, thus begun, with unflagging ease and spirit. Theirs were the only voices heard in the trying interval that elapsed before the next knock was heard at the door.

At last it came. There could be no doubt now as to the persons who might next be expected to enter the room. Lady Lundie took her step-daughter firmly by the hand. She was not sure of what Blanche’s first impulse might lead her to do. For the first time in her life, Blanche left her hand willingly in her step-mother’s grasp.

The door opened, and they came in.

Sir Patrick Lundie entered first, with Anne Silvester on his arm. Arnold Brinkworth followed them.

Both Sir Patrick and Anne bowed in silence to the persons assembled. Lady Lundie ceremoniously returned her brother-in-law’s salute--and pointedly abstained from noticing Anne’s presence in the room. Blanche never looked up. Arnold advanced to her, with his hand held out. Lady Lundie rose, and motioned him back. “Not yet, Mr. Brinkworth!” she said, in her most quietly merciless manner. Arnold stood, heedless of her, looking at his wife. His wife lifted her eyes to his; the tears rose in them on the instant. Arnold’s dark complexion turned ashy pale under the effort that it cost him to command himself. “I won’t distress you,” he said, gently--and turned back again to the table at which Sir Patrick and Anne were seated together apart from the rest. Sir Patrick took his hand, and pressed it in silent approval.

The one person who took no part, even as spectator, in the events that followed the appearance of Sir Patrick and his companions in the room--was Geoffrey. The only change visible in him was a change in the handling of his walking-stick. Instead of tracing patterns on the carpet, it beat a tattoo. For the rest, there he sat with his heavy head on his breast and his brawny arms on his knees--weary of it by anticipation before it had begun.

Sir Patrick broke the silence. He addressed himself to his sister-in-law.

“Lady Lundie, are all the persons present whom you expected to see here to-day?”

The gathered venom in Lady Lundie seized the opportunity of planting its first sting.

“All whom I expected are here,” she answered. “And more than I expected,” she added, with a look at Anne.

The look was not returned--was not even seen. From the moment when she had taken her place by Sir Patrick, Anne’s eyes had rested on Blanche. They never moved--they never for an instant lost their tender sadness--when the woman who hated her spoke. All that was beautiful and true in that noble nature seemed to find its one sufficient encouragement in Blanche. As she looked once more at the sister of the unforgotten days of old, its native beauty of expression shone out again in her worn and weary face. Every man in the room (but Geoffrey) looked at her; and every man (but Geoffrey) felt for her.

Sir Patrick addressed a second question to his sister-in-law.

“Is there any one here to represent the interests of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?” he asked.

Lady Lundie referred Sir Patrick to Geoffrey himself. Without looking up, Geoffrey motioned with his big brown hand to Mr. Moy, sitting by his side.

Mr. Moy (holding the legal rank in Scotland which corresponds to the rank held by solicitors in England) rose and bowed to Sir Patrick, with the courtesy due to a man eminent in his time at the Scottish Bar.

“I represent Mr. Delamayn,” he said. “I congratulate myself, Sir Patrick, on having your ability and experience to appeal to in the conduct of the pending inquiry.”

Sir Patrick returned the compliment as well as the bow.

“It is I who should learn from you,” he answered. “I have had time, Mr. Moy, to forget what I once knew.”

Lady Lundie looked from one to the other with unconcealed impatience as these formal courtesies were exchanged between the lawyers. “Allow me to remind you, gentlemen, of the suspense that we are suffering at this end of the room,” she said. “And permit me to ask when you propose to begin?”

Sir Patrick looked invitingly at Mr. Moy. Mr. Moy looked invitingly at Sir Patrick. More formal courtesies! a polite contest this time as to which of the two learned gentlemen should permit the other to speak first! Mr. Moy’s modesty proving to be quite immovable, Sir Patrick ended it by opening the proceedings.

“I am here,” he said, “to act on behalf of my friend, Mr. Arnold Brinkworth. I beg to present him to you, Mr. Moy as the husband of my niece--to whom he was lawfully married on the seventh of September last, at the Church of Saint Margaret, in the parish of Hawley, Kent. I have a copy of the marriage certificate here--if you wish to look at it.”

Mr. Moy’s modesty declined to look at it.

“Quite needless, Sir Patrick! I admit that a marriage ceremony took place on the date named, between the persons named; but I contend that it was not a valid marriage. I say, on behalf of my client here present (Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn), that Arnold Brinkworth was married at a date prior to the seventh of September last--namely, on the fourteenth of August in this year, and at a place called Craig Fernie, in Scotland--to a lady named Anne Silvester, now living, and present among us (as I understand) at this moment.”

Sir Patrick presented Anne. “This is the lady, Mr. Moy.”

Mr. Moy bowed, and made a suggestion. “To save needless formalities, Sir Patrick, shall we take the question of identity as established on both sides?”

Sir Patrick agreed with his learned friend. Lad y Lundie opened and shut her fan in undisguised impatience. The London solicitor was deeply interested. Captain Newenden, taking out his handkerchief, and using it as a screen, yawned behind it to his heart’s content. Sir Patrick resumed.

“You assert the prior marriage,” he said to his colleague. “It rests with you to begin.”

Mr. Moy cast a preliminary look round him at the persons assembled.

“The object of our meeting here,” he said, “is, if I am not mistaken, of a twofold nature. In the first place, it is thought desirable, by a person who has a special interest in the issue of this inquiry” (he glanced at the captain--the captain suddenly became attentive), “to put my client’s assertion, relating to Mr. Brinkworth’s marriage, to the proof. In the second place, we are all equally desirous--whatever difference of opinion may otherwise exist--to make this informal inquiry a means, if possible, of avoiding the painful publicity which would result from an appeal to a Court of Law.”

At those words the gathered venom in Lady Lundie planted its second sting--under cover of a protest addressed to Mr. Moy.

“I beg to inform you, Sir, on behalf of my step-daughter,” she said, “that we have nothing to dread from the widest publicity. We consent to be present at, what you call, ‘this informal inquiry,’ reserving our right to carry the matter beyond the four walls of this room. I am not referring now to Mr. Brinkworth’s chance of clearing himself from an odious suspicion which rests upon him, and upon another Person present. That is an after-matter. The object immediately before us--so far as a woman can pretend to understand it--is to establish my step-daughter’s right to call Mr. Brinkworth to account in the character of his wife. If the result, so far, fails to satisfy us in that particular, we shall not hesitate to appeal to a Court of Law.” She leaned back in her chair, and opened her fan, and looked round her with the air of a woman who called society to witness that she had done her duty.

An expression of pain crossed Blanche’s face while her step-mother was speaking. Lady Lundie took her hand for the second time. Blanche resolutely and pointedly withdrew it--Sir Patrick noticing the action with special interest. Before Mr. Moy could say a word in answer, Arnold centred the general attention on himself by suddenly interfering in the proceedings. Blanche looked at him. A bright flash of color appeared on her face--and left it again. Sir Patrick noted the change of color--and observed her more attentively than ever. Arnold’s letter to his wife, with time to help it, had plainly shaken her ladyship’s influence over Blanche.

“After what Lady Lundie has said, in my wife’s presence,” Arnold burst out, in his straightforward, boyish way, “I think I ought to be allowed to say a word on my side. I only want to explain how it was I came to go to Craig Fernie at all--and I challenge Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn to deny it, if he can.”

His voice rose at the last words, and his eyes brightened with indignation as he looked at Geoffrey.

Mr. Moy appealed to his learned friend.

“With submission, Sir Patrick, to your better judgment,” he said, “this young gentleman’s proposal seems to be a little out of place at the present stage of the proceedings.”

“Pardon me,” answered Sir Patrick. “You have yourself described the proceedings as representing an informal inquiry. An informal proposal--with submission to your better judgment, Mr. Moy--is hardly out of place, under those circumstances, is it?”

Mr. Moy’s inexhaustible modesty gave way, without a struggle. The answer which he received had the effect of puzzling him at the outset of the investigation. A man of Sir Patrick’s experience must have known that Arnold’s mere assertion of his own innocence could be productive of nothing but useless delay in the proceedings. And yet he sanctioned that delay. Was he privately on the watch for any accidental circumstance which might help him to better a case that he knew to be a bad one?

Permitted to speak, Arnold spoke. The unmistakable accent of truth was in every word that he uttered. He gave a fairly coherent account of events, from the time when Geoffrey had claimed his assistance at the lawn-party to the time when he found himself at the door of the inn at Craig Fernie. There Sir Patrick interfered, and closed his lips. He asked leave to appeal to Geoffrey to confirm him. Sir Patrick amazed Mr. Moy by sanctioning this irregularity also. Arnold sternly addressed himself to Geoffrey.

“Do you deny that what I have said is true?” he asked.

Mr. Moy did his duty by his client. “You are not bound to answer,” he said, “unless you wish it yourself.”

Geoffrey slowly lifted his heavy head, and confronted the man whom he had betrayed.

“I deny every word of it,” he answered--with a stolid defiance of tone and manner.

“Have we had enough of assertion and counter-assertion, Sir Patrick, by this time?” asked Mr. Moy, with undiminished politeness.

After first forcing Arnold--with some little difficulty--to control himself, Sir Patrick raised Mr. Moy’s astonishment to the culminating point. For reasons of his own, he determined to strengthen the favorable impression which Arnold’s statement had plainly produced on his wife before the inquiry proceeded a step farther.

“I must throw myself on your indulgence, Mr. Moy,” he said. “I have not had enough of assertion and counter-assertion, even yet.”

Mr. Moy leaned back in his chair, with a mixed expression of bewilderment and resignation. Either his colleague’s intellect was in a failing state--or his colleague had some purpose in view which had not openly asserted itself yet. He began to suspect that the right reading of the riddle was involved in the latter of those two alternatives. Instead of entering any fresh protest, he wisely waited and watched.

Sir Patrick went on unblushingly from one irregularity to another.

“I request Mr. Moy’s permission to revert to the alleged marriage, on the fourteenth of August, at Craig Fernie,” he said. “Arnold Brinkworth! answer for yourself, in the presence of the persons here assembled. In all that you said, and all that you did, while you were at the inn, were you not solely influenced by the wish to make Miss Silvester’s position as little painful to her as possible, and by anxiety to carry out the instructions given to you by Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn? Is that the whole truth?”

“That is the whole truth, Sir Patrick.”

“On the day when you went to Craig Fernie, had you not, a few hours previously, applied for my permission to marry my niece?”

“I applied for your permission, Sir Patrick; and you gave it me.”

“From the moment when you entered the inn to the moment when you left it, were you absolutely innocent of the slightest intention to marry Miss Silvester?”

“No such thing as the thought of marrying Miss Silvester ever entered my head.”

“And this you say, on your word of honor as a gentleman?”

“On my word of honor as a gentleman.”

Sir Patrick turned to Anne.

“Was it a matter of necessity, Miss Silvester, that you should appear in the assumed character of a married woman--on the fourteenth of August last, at the Craig Fernie inn?”

Anne looked away from Blanche for the first time. She replied to Sir Patrick quietly, readily, firmly--Blanche looking at her, and listening to her with eager interest.

“I went to the inn alone, Sir Patrick. The landlady refused, in the plainest terms, to let me stay there, unless she was first satisfied that I was a married woman.”

“Which of the two gentlemen did you expect to join you at the inn--Mr. Arnold Brinkworth, or Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”

“Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn.”

“When Mr. Arnold Brinkworth came in his place and said what was necessary to satisfy the scruples of the landlady, you understood that he was acting in your interests, from motives of kindness only, and under the instructions of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”

“I understood that; and I objected as strongly as I could to Mr. Brinkworth placing himself in a false position on my account.”

“Did your objection proceed from any knowledge of the Scottish law of marriage, and of the position in which the peculiarities of that law might place Mr. Brinkworth?”

“I had no knowledge of the Scottish law. I had a vague dislike and dread of the deception which Mr. Brinkworth was practicing on the people of the inn. And I feared that it might lead to some possible misinterpretation of me on the part of a person whom I dearly loved.”

“That person being my niece?”

“Yes.”

“You appealed to Mr. Brinkworth (knowing of his attachment to my niece), in her name, and for her sake, to leave you to shift for yourself?”

“I did.”

“As a gentleman who had given his promise to help and protect a lady, in the absence of the person whom she had depended on to join her, he refused to leave you to shift by yourself?”

“Unhappily, he refused on that account.”

“From first to last, you were absolutely innocent of the slightest intention to marry Mr. Brinkworth?”

“I answer, Sir Patrick, as Mr. Brinkworth has answered. No such thing as the thought of marrying him ever entered my head.”

“And this you say, on your oath as a Christian woman?”

“On my oath as a Christian woman.”

Sir Patrick looked round at Blanche. Her face was hidden in her hands. Her step-mother was vainly appealing to her to compose herself.

In the moment of silence that followed, Mr. Moy interfered in the interests of his client.

“I waive my claim, Sir Patrick, to put any questions on my side. I merely desire to remind you, and to remind the company present, that all that we have just heard is mere assertion--on the part of two persons strongly interested in extricating themselves from a position which fatally compromises them both. The marriage which they deny I am now waiting to prove--not by assertion, on my side, but by appeal to competent witnesses.”

After a brief consultation with her own solicitor, Lady Lundie followed Mr. Moy, in stronger language still.

“I wish you to understand, Sir Patrick, before you proceed any farther, that I shall remove my step-daughter from the room if any more attempts are made to harrow her feelings and mislead her judgment. I want words to express my sense of this most cruel and unfair way of conducting the inquiry.”

The London lawyer followed, stating his professional approval of his client’s view. “As her ladyship’s legal adviser,” he said, “I support the protest which her ladyship has just made.”

Even Captain Newenden agreed in the general disapproval of Sir Patrick’s conduct. “Hear, hear!” said the captain, when the lawyer had spoken. “Quite right. I must say, quite right.”

Apparently impenetrable to all due sense of his position, Sir Patrick addressed himself to Mr. Moy, as if nothing had happened.

“Do you wish to produce your witnesses at once?” he asked. “I have not the least objection to meet your views--on the understanding that I am permitted to return to the proceedings as interrupted at this point.”

Mr. Moy considered. The adversary (there could be no doubt of it by this time) had something in reserve--and the adversary had not yet shown his hand. It was more immediately important to lead him into doing this than to insist on rights and privileges of the purely formal sort. Nothing could shake the strength of the position which Mr. Moy occupied. The longer Sir Patrick’s irregularities delayed the proceedings, the more irresistibly the plain facts of the case would assert themselves--with all the force of contrast--out of the mouths of the witnesses who were in attendance down stairs. He determined to wait.

“Reserving my right of objection, Sir Patrick,” he answered, “I beg you to go on.”

To the surprise of every body, Sir Patrick addressed himself directly to Blanche--quoting the language in which Lady Lundie had spoken to him, with perfect composure of tone and manner.

“You know me well enough, my dear,” he said, “to be assured that I am incapable of willingly harrowing your feelings or misleading your judgment. I have a question to ask you, which you can answer or not, entirely as you please.”

Before he could put the question there was a momentary contest between Lady Lundie and her legal adviser. Silencing her ladyship (not without difficulty), the London lawyer interposed. He also begged leave to reserve the right of objection, so far as his client was concerned.

Sir Patrick assented by a sign, and proceeded to put his question to Blanche.

“You have heard what Arnold Brinkworth has said, and what Miss Silvester has said,” he resumed. “The husband who loves you, and the sisterly friend who loves you, have each made a solemn declaration. Recall your past experience of both of them; remember what they have just said; and now tell me--do you believe they have spoken falsely?”

Blanche answered on the instant.

“I believe, uncle, they have spoken the truth!”

Both the lawyers registered their objections. Lady Lundie made another attempt to speak, and was stopped once more--this time by Mr. Moy as well as by her own adviser. Sir Patrick went on.

“Do you feel any doubt as to the entire propriety of your husband’s conduct and your friend’s conduct, now you have seen them and heard them, face to face?”

Blanche answered again, with the same absence of reserve.

“I ask them to forgive me,” she said. “I believe I have done them both a great wrong.”

She looked at her husband first--then at Anne. Arnold attempted to leave his chair. Sir Patrick firmly restrained him. “Wait!” he whispered. “You don’t know what is coming.” Having said that, he turned toward Anne. Blanche’s look had gone to the heart of the faithful woman who loved her. Anne’s face was turned away--the tears were forcing themselves through the worn weak hands that tried vainly to hide them.

The formal objections of the lawyers were registered once more. Sir Patrick addressed himself to his niece for the last time.

“You believe what Arnold Brinkworth has said; you believe what Miss Silvester has said. You know that not even the thought of marriage was in the mind of either of them, at the inn. You know--whatever else may happen in the future--that there is not the most remote possibility of either of them consenting to acknowledge that they ever have been, or ever can be, Man and Wife. Is that enough for you? Are you willing, before this inquiry proceeds any farther to take your husband’s hand; to return to your husband’s protection; and to leave the rest to me--satisfied with my assurance that, on the facts as they happened, not even the Scotch Law can prove the monstrous assertion of the marriage at Craig Fernie to be true?”

Lady Lundie rose. Both the lawyers rose. Arnold sat lost in astonishment. Geoffrey himself--brutishly careless thus far of all that had passed--lifted his head with a sudden start. In the midst of the profound impression thus produced, Blanche, on whose decision the whole future course of the inquiry now turned, answered in these words:

“I hope you will not think me ungrateful, uncle. I am sure that Arnold has not, knowingly, done me any wrong. But I can’t go back to him until I am first certain that I am his wife.”

Lady Lundie embraced her step-daughter with a sudden outburst of affection. “My dear child!” exclaimed her ladyship, fervently. “Well done, my own dear child!”

Sir Patrick’s head dropped on his breast. “Oh, Blanche! Blanche!” Arnold heard him whisper to himself; “if you only knew what you are forcing me to!”

Mr. Moy put in his word, on Blanche’s side of the question.

“I must most respectfully express my approval also of the course which the young lady has taken,” he said. “A more dangerous compromise than the compromise which we have just heard suggested it is difficult to imagine. With all deference to Sir Patrick Lundie, his opinion of the impossibility of proving the marriage at Craig Fernie remains to be confirmed as the right one. My own professional opinion is opposed to it. The opinion of another Scottish lawyer (in Glasgow) is, to my certain knowledge, opposed to it. If the young lady had not acted with a wisdom and courage which do her honor, she might have lived to see the day when her reputation would have been destroyed, and her children declared illegitimate. Who is to say that circumstances may not happen in the future which may force Mr. Brinkworth or Miss Silvester--one or the other--to assert the very marriage which they repudiate now? Who is to say that interested relatives (property being concerned here) may not in the lapse of years, discover motives of their own for questioning the asserted marriage in Kent? I acknowledge that I envy the immense self-confidence which emboldens Sir Patrick to venture, what he is willing to venture upon his own individual opinion on an undecided point of law.”

He sat down amidst a murmur of approval, and cast a slyly-expectant look at his defeated adversary. “If that doesn’t irritate him into showing his hand,” thought Mr. Moy, “nothing will!”

Sir Patrick slowly raised his head. There was no irritation--there was only distress in his face--when he spoke next.

“I don’t propose, Mr. Moy, to argue the point with you,” he said, gently. “I can understand that my conduct must necessarily appear strange and even blameworthy, not in your eyes only, but in the eyes of others. My young friend here will tell you” (he looked toward Arnold) “that the view which you express as to the future peril involved in this case was once the view in my mind too, and that in what I have done thus far I have acted in direct contradiction to advice which I myself gave at no very distant period. Excuse me, if you please, from entering (for the present at least) into the motive which has influenced me from the time when I entered this room. My position is one of unexampled responsibility and of indescribable distress. May I appeal to that statement to stand as my excuse, if I plead for a last extension of indulgence toward the last irregularity of which I shall be guilty, in connection with these proceedings?”

Lady Lundie alone resisted the unaffected and touching dignity with which those words were spoken.

“We have had enough of irregularity,” she said sternly. “I, for one, object to more.”

Sir Patrick waited patiently for Mr. Moy’s reply. The Scotch lawyer and the English lawyer looked at each other--and understood each other. Mr. Moy answered for both.

“We don’t presume to restrain you, Sir Patrick, by other limits than those which, as a gentleman, you impose on yourself. Subject,” added the cautious Scotchman, “to the right of objection which we have already reserved.”

“Do you object to my speaking to your client?” asked Sir Patrick.

“To Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”

“Yes.”

All eyes turned on Geoffrey. He was sitting half asleep, as it seemed--with his heavy hands hanging listlessly over his knees, and his chin resting on the hooked handle of his stick.

Looking toward Anne, when Sir Patrick pronounced Geoffrey’s name, Mr. Moy saw a change in her. She withdrew her hands from her face, and turned suddenly toward her legal adviser. Was she in the secret of the carefully concealed object at which his opponent had been aiming from the first? Mr. Moy decided to put that doubt to the test. He invited Sir Patrick, by a gesture, to proceed. Sir Patrick addressed himself to Geoffrey.

“You are seriously interested in this inquiry,” he said; “and you have taken no part in it yet. Take a part in it now. Look at this lady.”

Geoffrey never moved.

“I’ve seen enough of her already,” he said, brutally.

“You may well be ashamed to look at her,” said Sir Patrick, quietly. “But you might have acknowledged it in fitter words. Carry your memory back to the fourteenth of August. Do you deny that you promised to many Miss Silvester privately at the Craig Fernie inn?”

“I object to that question,” said Mr. Moy. “My client is under no sort of obligation to answer it.”

Geoffrey’s rising temper--ready to resent any thing--resented his adviser’s interference. “I shall answer if I like,” he retorted, insolently. He looked up for a moment at Sir Patrick, without moving his chin from the hook of his stick. Then he looked down again. “I do deny it,” he said.

“You deny that you have promised to marry Miss Silvester?”

“Yes.”

“I asked you just now to look at her--”

“And I told you I had seen enough of her already.”

“Look at me. In my presence, and in the presence of the other persons here, do you deny that you owe this lady, by your own solemn engagement, the reparation of marriage?”

He suddenly lifted his head. His eyes, after resting for an instant only on Sir Patrick, turned, little by little; and, brightening slowly, fixed themselves with a hideous, tigerish glare on Anne’s face. “I know what I owe her,” he said.

The devouring hatred of his look was matched by the ferocious vindictiveness of his tone, as he spoke those words. It was horrible to see him; it was horrible to hear him. Mr. Moy said to him, in a whisper, “Control yourself, or I will throw up your case.”

Without answering--without even listening--he lifted one of his hands, and looked at it vacantly. He whispered something to himself; and counted out what he was whispering slowly; in divisions of his own, on three of his fingers in succession. He fixed his eyes again on Anne with the same devouring hatred in their look, and spoke (this time directly addressing himself to her) with the same ferocious vindictiveness in his tone. “But for you, I should be married to Mrs. Glenarm. But for you, I should be friends with my father. But for you, I should have won the race. I know what I owe you.” His loosely hanging hands stealthily clenched themselves. His head sank again on his broad breast. He said no more.

Not a soul moved--not a word was spoken. The same common horror held them all speechless. Anne’s eyes turned once more on Blanche. Anne’s courage upheld her, even at that moment.

Sir Patrick rose. The strong emotion which he had suppressed thus far, showed itself plainly in his face--uttered itself plainly in his voice.

“Come into the next room,” he said to Anne. “I must speak to you instantly!”

Without noticing the astonishment that he caused; without paying the smallest attention to the remonstrances addressed to him by his sister-in-law and by the Scotch lawyer, he took Anne by the arm, opened the folding-doors at one end of the room--entered the room beyond with her--and closed the doors again.

Lady Lundie appealed to her legal adviser. Blanche rose--advanced a few steps--and stood in breathless suspense, looking at the folding-doors. Arnold advanced a step, to speak to his wife. The captain approached Mr. Moy.

“What does this mean?” he asked.

Mr. Moy answered, in strong agitation on his side.

“It means that I have not been properly instructed. Sir Patrick Lundie has some evidence in his possession that seriously compromises Mr. Delamayn’s case. He has shrunk from producing it hitherto--he finds himself forced to produce it now. How is it,” asked the lawyer, turning sternly on his client, “that you have left me in the dark?”

“I know nothing about it,” answered Geoffrey, without lifting his head.

Lady Lundie signed to Blanche to stand aside, and advanced toward the folding-doors. Mr. Moy stopped her.

“I advise your ladyship to be patient. Interference is useless there.”

“Am I not to interfere, Sir, in my own house?”

“Unless I am entirely mistaken, madam, the end of the proceedings in your house is at hand. You will damage your own interests by interfering. Let us know what we are about at last. Let the end come.”

Lady Lundie yielded, and returned to her place. They all waited in silence for the opening of the doors.

Sir Patrick Lundie and Anne Silvester were alone in the room.

He took from the breast-pocket of his coat the sheet of note-paper which contained Anne’s letter, and Geoffrey’s reply. His hand trembled as he held it; his voice faltered as he spoke.

“I have done all that can be done,” he said. “I have left nothing untried, to prevent the necessity of producing this.”

“I feel your kindness gratefully, Sir Patrick. You must produce it now.”

The woman’s calmness presented a strange and touching contrast to the man’s emotion. There was no shrinking in her face, there was no unsteadiness in her voice as she answered him. He took her hand. Twice he attempted to speak; and twice his own agitation overpowered him. He offered the letter to her in silence.

In silence, on her side, she put the letter away from her, wondering what he meant.

“Take it back,” he said. “I can’t produce it! I daren’t produce it! After what my own eyes have seen, after what my own ears have heard, in the next room--as God is my witness, I daren’t ask you to declare yourself Geoffrey Delamayn’s wife!”

She answered him in one word.

“Blanche!”

He shook his head impatiently. “Not even in Blanche’s interests! Not even for Blanche’s sake! If there is any risk, it is a risk I am ready to run. I hold to my own opinion. I believe my own view to be right. Let it come to an appeal to the law! I will fight the case, and win it.”

“Are you sure of winning it, Sir Patrick?”

Instead of replying, he pressed the letter on her. “Destroy it,” he whispered. “And rely on my silence.”

She took the letter from him.

“Destroy it,” he repeated. “They may open the doors. They may come in at any moment, and see it in your hand.”

“I have something to ask you, Sir Patrick, before I destroy it. Blanche refuses to go back to her husband, unless she returns with the certain assurance of being really his wife. If I produce this letter, she may go back to him to-day. If I declare myself Geoffrey Delamayn’s wife, I clear Arnold Brinkworth, at once and forever of all suspicion of being married to me. Can you as certainly and effectually clear him in any other way? Answer me that, as a man of honor speaking to a woman who implicitly trusts him!”

She looked him full in the face. His eyes dropped before hers--he made no reply.

“I am answered,” she said.

With those words, she passed him, and laid her hand on the door.

He checked her. The tears rose in his eyes as he drew her gently back into the room.

“Why should we wait?” she asked.

“Wait,” he answered, “as a favor to me.”

She seated herself calmly in the nearest chair, and rested her head on her hand, thinking.

He bent over her, and roused her, impatiently, almost angrily. The steady resolution in her face was terrible to him, when he thought of the man in the next room.

“Take time to consider,” he pleaded. “Don’t be led away by your own impulse. Don’t act under a false excitement. Nothing binds you to this dreadful sacrifice of yourself.”

“Excitement! Sacrifice!” She smiled sadly as she repeated the words. “Do you know, Sir Patrick, what I was thinking of a moment since? Only of old times, when I was a little girl. I saw the sad side of life sooner than most children see it. My mother was cruelly deserted. The hard marriage laws of this country were harder on her than on me. She died broken-hearted. But one friend comforted her at the last moment, and promised to be a mother to her child. I can’t remember one unhappy day in all the after-time when I lived with that faithful woman and her little daughter--till the day that parted us. She went away with her husband; and I and the little daughter were left behind. She said her last words to me. Her heart was sinking under the dread of coming death. ‘I promised your mother that you should be like my own child to me, and it quieted her mind. Quiet my mind, Anne, before I go. Whatever happens in years to come--promise me to be always what you are now, a sister to Blanche.’ Where is the false excitement, Sir Patrick, in old remembrances like these? And how can there be a sacrifice in any thing that I do for Blanche?”

She rose, and offered him her hand. Sir Patrick lifted it to his lips in silence.

“Come!” she said. “For both our sakes, let us not prolong this.”

He turned aside his head. It was no moment to let her see that she had completely unmanned him. She waited for him, with her hand on the lock. He rallied his courage--he forced himself to face the horror of the situation calmly. She opened the door, and led the way back into the other room.

Not a word was spoken by any of the persons present, as the two returned to their places. The noise of a carriage passing in the street was painfully audible. The chance banging of a door in the lower regions of the house made every one start.

Anne’s sweet voice broke the dreary silence.

“Must I speak for myself, Sir Patrick? Or will you (I ask it as a last and greatest favor) speak for me?”

“You insist on appealing to the letter in your hand?”

“I am resolved to appeal to it.”

“Will nothing induce you to defer the close of this inquiry--so far as you are concerned--for four-and-twenty hours?”

“Either you or I, Sir Patrick, must say what is to be said, and do what is to be done, before we leave this room.”

“Give me the letter.”

She gave it to him. Mr. Moy whispered to his client, “Do you know what that is?” Geoffrey shook his head. “Do you really remember nothing about it?” Geoffrey answered in one surly word, “Nothing!”

Sir Patrick addressed himself to the assembled company.

“I have to ask your pardon,” he said, “for abruptly leaving the room, and for obliging Miss Silvester to leave it with me. Every body present, except that man” (he pointed to Geoffrey), “will, I believe, understand and forgive me, now that I am forced to make my conduct the subject of the plainest and the fullest explanation. I shall address that explanation, for reasons which will presently appear, to my niece.”

Blanche started. “To me!” she exclaimed.

“To you,” Sir Patrick answered.

Blanche turned toward Arnold, daunted by a vague sense of something serious to come. The letter that she had received from her husband on her departure from Ham Farm had necessarily alluded to relations between Geoffrey and Anne, of which Blanche had been previously ignorant. Was any reference coming to those relations? Was there something yet to be disclosed which Arnold’s letter had not prepared her to hear?

Sir Patrick resumed.

“A short time since,” he said to Blanche, “I proposed to you to return to your husband’s protection--and to leave the termination of this matter in my hands. You have refused to go back to him until you are first certainly assured that you are his wife. Thanks to a sacrifice to your interests and your happiness, on Miss Silvester’s part--which I tell you frankly I have done my utmost to prevent--I am in a position to prove positively that Arnold Brinkworth was a single man when he married you from my house in Kent.”

Mr. Moy’s experience forewarned him of what was coming. He pointed to the letter in Sir Patrick’s hand.

“Do you claim on a promise of marriage?” he asked.

Sir Patrick rejoined by putting a question on his side.

“Do you remember the famous decision at Doctors’ Commons, which established the marriage of Captain Dalrymple and Miss Gordon?”

Mr. Moy was answered. “I understand you, Sir Patrick,” he said. After a moment’s pause, he addressed his next words to Anne. “And from the bottom of my heart, madam, I respect you.”

It was said with a fervent sincerity of tone which wrought the interest of the other persons, who were still waiting for enlightenment, to the highest pitch. Lady Lundie and Captain Newenden whispered to each other anxiously. Arnold turned pale. Blanche burst into tears.

Sir Patrick turned once more to his niece.

“Some little time since,” he said, “I had occasion to speak to you of the scandalous uncertainty of the marriage laws of Scotland. But for that uncertainty (entirely without parallel in any other civilized country in Europe), Arnold Brinkworth would never have occupied the position in which he stands here to-day--and these proceedings would never have taken place. Bear that fact in mind. It is not only answerable for the mischief that has been already done, but for the far more serious evil which is still to come.”

Mr. Moy took a note. Sir Patrick went on.

“Loose and reckless as the Scotch law is, there happens, however, to be one case in which the action of it has been confirmed and settled by the English Courts. A written promise of marriage exchanged between a man and woman, in Scotland, marries that man and woman by Scotch law. An English Court of Justice (sitting in judgment on the ease I have just mentioned to Mr. Moy) has pronounced that law to be good--and the decision has since been confirmed by the supreme authority of the House of Lords. Where the persons therefore--living in Scotland at the time--have promised each other marriage in writing, there is now no longer any doubt they are certainly, and lawfully, Man and Wife.” He turned from his niece, and appealed to Mr. Moy. “Am I right?”

“Quite right, Sir Patrick, as to the facts. I own, however, that your commentary on them surprises me. I have the highest opinion of our Scottish marriage law. A man who has betrayed a woman under a promise of marriage is forced by that law (in the interests of public morality) to acknowledge her as his wife.”

“The persons here present, Mr. Moy, are now about to see the moral merit of the Scotch law of marriage (as approved by England) practically in operation before their own eyes. They will judge for themselves of the morality (Scotch or English) which first forces a deserted woman back on the villain who has betrayed her, and then virtuously leaves her to bear the consequences.”

With that answer, he turned to Anne, and showed her the letter, open in his hand.

“For the last time,” he said, “do you insist on my appealing to this?”

She rose, and bowed her head gravely.

“It is my distressing duty,” said Sir Patrick, “to declare, in this lady’s name, and on the faith of written promises of marriage exchanged between the parties, then residing in Scotland, that she claims to be now--and to have been on the afternoon of the fourteenth of August last--Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn’s wedded wife.”

A cry of horror from Blanche, a low murmur of dismay from the rest, followed the utterance of those words.

There was a pause of an instant.

Then Geoffrey rose slowly to his feet, and fixed his eyes on the wife who had claimed him.

The spectators of the terrible scene turned with one accord toward the sacrificed woman. The look which Geoffrey had cast on her--the words which Geoffrey had spoken to her--were present to all their minds. She stood, waiting by Sir Patrick’s side--her soft gray eyes resting sadly and tenderly on Blanche’s face. To see that matchless courage and resignation was to doubt the reality of what had happened. They were forced to look back at the man to possess their minds with the truth.

The triumph of law and morality over him was complete. He never uttered a word. His furious temper was perfectly and fearfully calm. With the promise of merciless vengeance written in the Devil s writing on his Devil-possessed face, he kept his eyes fixed on the hated woman whom he had ruined--on the hated woman who was fastened to him as his wife.

His lawyer went over to the table at which Sir Patrick sat. Sir Patrick handed him the sheet of note-paper.

He read the two letters contained in it with absorbed and deliberate attention. The moments that passed before he lifted his head from his reading seemed like hours. “Can you prove the handwritings?” he asked. “And prove the residence?”

Sir Patrick took up a second morsel of paper lying ready under his hand.

“There are the names of persons who can prove the writing, and prove the residence,” he replied. “One of your two witnesses below stairs (otherwise useless) can speak to the hour at which Mr. Brinkworth arrived at the inn, and so can prove that the lady for whom he asked was, at that moment, Mrs. Geoffrey Delamayn. The indorsement on the back of the note-paper, also referring to the question of time, is in the handwriting of the same witness--to whom I refer you, when it suits your convenience to question him.”

“I will verify the references, Sir Patrick, as matter of form. In the mean time, not to interpose needless and vexatious delay, I am bound to say that I can not resist the evidence of the marriage.”

Having replied in those terms he addressed himself, with marked respect and sympathy, to Anne.

“On the faith of the written promise of marriage exchanged between you in Scotland,” he said, “you claim Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn as your husband?”

She steadily repented the words after him.

“I claim Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn as my husband.”

Mr. Moy appealed to his client. Geoffrey broke silence at last.

“Is it settled?” he asked.

“To all practical purposes, it is settled.”

He went on, still looking at nobody but Anne.

“Has the law of Scotland made her my wife?”

“The law of Scotland has made her your wife.”

He asked a third and last question.

“Does the law tell her to go where her husband goes?”

“Yes.”

He laughed softly to himself, and beckoned to her to cross the room to the place at which he was standing.

She obeyed. At the moment when she took the first step to approach him, Sir Patrick caught her hand, and whispered to her, “Rely on me!” She gently pressed his hand in token that she understood him, and advanced to Geoffrey. At the same moment, Blanche rushed between them, and flung her arms around Anne’s neck.

“Oh, Anne! Anne!”

An hysterical passion of tears choked her utterance. Anne gently unwound the arms that clung round her--gently lifted the head that lay helpless on her bosom.

“Happier days are coming, my love,” she said. “Don’t think of me.”

She kissed her--looked at her--kissed her again--and placed her in her husband’s arms. Arnold remembered her parting words at Craig Fernie, when they had wished each other good-night. “You have not befriended an ungrateful woman. The day may yet come when I shall prove it.” Gratitude and admiration struggled in him which should utter itself first, and held him speechless.

She bent her head gently in token that she understood him. Then she went on, and stood before Geoffrey.

“I am here,” she said to him. “What do you wish me to do?”

A hideous smile parted his heavy lips. He offered her his arm.

“Mrs. Geoffrey Delamayn,” he said. “Come home.”

The picture of the lonely house, isolated amidst its high walls; the ill-omened figure of the dumb woman with the stony eyes and the savage ways--the whole scene, as Anne had pictured it to him but two days since, rose vivid as reality before Sir Patrick’s mind. “No!” he cried out, carried away by the generous impulse of the moment. “It shall not be!”

Geoffrey stood impenetrable--waiting with his offered arm. Pale and resolute, she lifted her noble head--called back the courage which had faltered for a moment--and took his arm. He led her to the door. “Don’t let Blanche fret about me,” she said, simply, to Arnold as they went by. They passed Sir Patrick next. Once more his sympathy for her set every other consideration at defiance. He started up to bar the way to Geoffrey. Geoffrey paused, and looked at Sir Patrick for the first time.

“The law tells her to go with her husband,” he said. “The law forbids you to part Man and Wife.”

True. Absolutely, undeniably true. The law sanctioned the sacrifice of her as unanswerably as it had sanctioned the sacrifice of her mother before her. In the name of Morality, let him take her! In the interests of Virtue, let her get out of it if she can!

Her husband opened the door. Mr. Moy laid his hand on Sir Patrick’s arm. Lady Lundie, Captain Newenden, the London lawyer, all left their places, influenced, for once, by the same interest; feeling, for once, the same suspense. Arnold followed them, supporting his wife. For one memorable instant Anne looked back at them all. Then she and her husband crossed the threshold. They descended the stairs together. The opening and closing of the house door was heard. They were gone.

Done, in the name of Morality. Done, in the interests of Virtue. Done, in an age of progress, and under the most perfect government on the face of the earth.

FIFTEENTH SCENE.--HOLCHESTER HOUSE.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-SEVENTH.

THE LAST CHANCE.

“HIS lordship is dangerously ill, Sir. Her ladyship can receive no visitors.”

“Be so good as to take that card to Lady Holchester. It is absolutely necessary that your mistress should be made acquainted--in the interests of her younger son--with something which I can only mention to her ladyship herself.”

The two persons speaking were Lord Holchester’s head servant and Sir Patrick Lundie. At that time barely half an hour had passed since the close of the proceedings at Portland Place.

The servant still hesitated with the card in his hand. “I shall forfeit my situation,” he said, “if I do it.”

“You will most assuredly forfeit your situation if you don’t do it,” returned Sir Patrick. “I warn you plainly, this is too serious a matter to be trifled with.”

The tone in which those words were spoken had its effect. The man went up stairs with his message.

Sir Patrick waited in the hall. Even the momentary delay of entering one of the reception-rooms was more than he could endure at that moment. Anne’s happiness was hopelessly sacrificed already. The preservation of her personal safety--which Sir Patrick firmly believed to be in danger--was the one service which it was possible to render to her now. The perilous position in which she stood toward her husband--as an immovable obstacle, while she lived, between Geoffrey and Mrs. Glenarm--was beyond the reach of remedy. But it was still possible to prevent her from becoming the innocent cause of Geoffrey’s pecuniary ruin, by standing in the way of a reconciliation between father and son.

Resolute to leave no means untried of serving Anne’s interests, Sir Patrick had allowed Arnold and Blanche to go to his own residence in London, alone, and had not even waited to say a farewell word to any of the persons who had taken part in the inquiry. “Her life may depend on what I can do for her at Holchester House!” With that conviction in him, he had left Portland Place. With that conviction in him, he had sent his message to Lady Holchester, and was now waiting for the reply.

The servant appeared again on the stairs. Sir Patrick went up to meet him.

“Her ladyship will see you, Sir, for a few minutes.”

The door of an upper room was opened; and Sir Patrick found himself in the presence of Geoffrey’s mother. There was only time to observe that she possessed the remains of rare personal beauty, and that she received her visitor with a grace and courtesy which implied (under the circumstances) a considerate regard for his position at the expense of her own.

“You have something to say to me, Sir Patrick, on the subject of my second son. I am in great affliction. If you bring me bad news, I will do my best to bear it. May I trust to your kindness not to keep me in suspense?”

“It will help me to make my intrusion as little painful as possible to your ladyship,” replied Sir Patrick, “if I am permitted to ask a question. Have you heard of any obstacle to the contemplated marriage of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn and Mrs. Glenarm?”

Even that distant reference to Anne produced an ominous change for the worse in Lady Holchester’s manner.

“I have heard of the obstacle to which you allude,” she said. “Mrs. Glenarm is an intimate friend of mine. She has informed me that a person named Silvester, an impudent adventuress--”

“I beg your ladyship’s pardon. You are doing a cruel wrong to the noblest woman I have ever met with.”

“I can not undertake, Sir Patrick, to enter into your reasons for admiring her. Her conduct toward my son has, I repeat, been the conduct of an impudent adventuress.”

Those words showed Sir Patrick the utter hopelessness of shaking her prejudice against Anne. He decided on proceeding at once to the disclosure of the truth.

“I entreat you so say no more,” he answered. “Your ladyship is speaking of your son’s wife.”

“My son has married Miss Silvester?”

“Yes.”

She turned deadly pale. It appeared, for an instant, as if the shock had completely overwhelmed her. But the mother’s weakness was only momentary The virtuous indignation of the great lady had taken its place before Sir Patrick could speak again. She rose to terminate the interview.

“I presume,” she said, “that your errand here is as an end.”

Sir Patrick rose, on his side, resolute to do the duty which had brought him to the house.

“I am compelled to trespass on your ladyship’s attention for a few minutes more,” he answered. “The circumstances attending the marriage of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn are of no common importance. I beg permission (in the interests of his family) to state, very briefly, what they are.”

In a few clear sentences he narrated what had happened, that afternoon, in Portland Place. Lady Holchester listened with the steadiest and coldest attention. So far as outward appearances were concerned, no impression was produced upon her.

“Do you expect me,” she asked, “to espouse the interests of a person who has prevented my son from marrying the lady of his choice, and of mine?”

“Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn, unhappily, has that reason for resenting his wife’s innocent interference with interests of considerable, importance to him,” returned Sir Patrick. “I request your ladyship to consider whether it is desirable--in view of your son’s conduct in the future--to allow his wife to stand in the doubly perilous relation toward him of being also a cause of estrangement between his father and himself.”

He had put it with scrupulous caution. But Lady Holchester understood what he had refrained from saving as well as what he had actually said. She had hitherto remained standing--she now sat down again. There was a visible impression produced on her at last.

“In Lord Holchester’s critical state of health,” she answered, “I decline to take the responsibility of telling him what you have just told me. My own influence has been uniformly exerted in my son’s favor--as long as my interference could be productive of any good result. The time for my interference has passed. Lord Holchester has altered his will this morning. I was not present; and I have not yet been informed of what has been done. Even if I knew--”

“Your ladyship would naturally decline,” said Sir Patrick, “to communicate the information to a stranger.”

“Certainly. At the same time, after what you have said, I do not feel justified in deciding on this matter entirely by myself. One of Lord Holchester’s executors is now in the house. There can be no impropriety in your seeing him--if you wish it. You are at liberty to say, from me, that I leave it entirely to his discretion to decide what ought to be done.”

“I gladly accept your ladyship’s proposal.”

Lady Holchester rang the bell at her side.

“Take Sir Patrick Lundie to Mr. Marchwood,” she said to the servant.

Sir Patrick started. The name was familiar to him, as the name of a friend.

“Mr. Marchwood of Hurlbeck?” he asked.

“The same.”

With that brief answer, Lady Holchester dismissed her visitor. Following the servant to the other end of the corridor, Sir Patrick was conducted into a small room--the ante-chamber to the bedroom in which Lord Holchester lay. The door of communication was closed. A gentleman sat writing at a table near the window. He rose, and held out his hand, with a look of surprise, when the servant announced Sir Patrick’s name. This was Mr. Marchwood.

After the first explanations had been given, Sir Patrick patiently reverted to the object of his visit to Holchester House. On the first occasion when he mentioned Anne’s name he observed that Mr. Marchwood became, from that moment, specially interested in what he was saying.

“Do you happen to be acquainted with the lady?” he asked

“I only know her as the cause of a very strange proceeding, this morning, in that room.” He pointed to Lord Holchester’s bedroom as he spoke.

“Are you at liberty to mention what the proceeding was?”

“Hardly--even to an old friend like you--unless I felt it a matter of duty, on my part, to state the circumstances. Pray go on with what you were saying to me. You were on the point of telling me what brought you to this house.”

Without a word more of preface, Sir Patrick told him the news of Geoffrey’s marriage to Anne.

“Married!” cried Mr. Marchwood. “Are you sure of what you say?”

“I am one of the witnesses of the marriage.”

“Good Heavens! And Lord Holchester’s lawyer has left the house!”

“Can I replace him? Have I, by any chance justified you in telling me what happened this morning in the next room?”

“Justified me? You have left me no other alternative. The doctors are all agreed in dreading apoplexy--his lordship may die at any moment. In the lawyer’s absence, I must take it on myself. Here are the facts. There is the codicil to Lord Holchester’s Will which is still unsigned.”

“Relating to his second son?”

“Relating to Geoffrey Delamayn, and giving him (when it is once executed) a liberal provision for life.”

“What is the object in the way of his executing it?”

“The lady whom you have just mentioned to me.”

“Anne Silvester!”

“Anne Silvester--now (as you tell me) Mrs. Geoffrey Delamayn. I can only explain the thing very imperfectly. There are certain painful circumstances associated in his lordship’s memory with this lady, or with some member of her family. We can only gather that he did something--in the early part of his professional career--which was strictly within the limits of his duty, but which apparently led to very sad results. Some days since he unfortunately heard (either through Mrs. Glenarm or through Mrs. Julius Delamayn) of Miss Silvester’s appearance at Swanhaven Lodge. No remark on the subject escaped him at the time. It was only this morning, when the codicil giving the legacy to Geoffrey was waiting to be executed, that his real feeling in the matter came out. To our astonishment, he refused to sign it. ‘Find Anne Silvester’ (was the only answer we could get from him); ‘and bring her to my bedside. You all say my son is guiltless of injuring her. I am lying on my death-bed. I have serious reasons of my own--I owe it to the memory of the dead--to assure myself of the truth. If Anne Silvester herself acquits him of having wronged her, I will provide for Geoffrey. Not otherwise.’ We went the length of reminding him that he might die before Miss Silvester could be found. Our interference had but one result. He desired the lawyer to add a second codicil to the Will--which he executed on the spot. It directs his executors to inquire into the relations that have actually existed between Anne Silvester and his younger son. If we find reason to conclude that Geoffrey has gravely wronged her, we are directed to pay her a legacy--provided that she is a single woman at the time.”

“And her marriage violates the provision!” exclaimed Sir Patrick.

“Yes. The codicil actually executed is now worthless. And the other codicil remains unsigned until the lawyer can produce Miss Silvester. He has left the house to apply to Geoffrey at Fulham, as the only means at our disposal of finding the lady. Some hours have passed--and he has not yet returned.”

“It is useless to wait for him,” said Sir Patrick. “While the lawyer was on his way to Fulham, Lord Holchester’s son was on his way to Portland Place. This is even more serious than you suppose. Tell me, what under less pressing circumstances I should have no right to ask. Apart from the unexecuted codicil what is Geoffrey Delamayn’s position in the will?”

“He is not even mentioned in it.”

“Have you got the will?”

Mr. Marchwood unlocked a drawer, and took it out.

Sir Patrick instantly rose from his chair. “No waiting for the lawyer!” he repeated, vehemently. “This is a matter of life and death. Lady Holchester bitterly resents her son’s marriage. She speaks and feels as a friend of Mrs. Glenarm. Do you think Lord Holchester would take the same view if he knew of it?”

“It depends entirely on the circumstances.”

“Suppose I informed him--as I inform you in confidence--that his son has gravely wronged Miss Silvester? And suppose I followed that up by telling him that his son has made atonement by marrying her?”

“After the feeling that he has shown in the matter, I believe he would sign the codicil.”

“Then, for God’s sake, let me see him!”

“I must speak to the doctor.”

“Do it instantly!”

With the will in his hand, Mr. Marchwood advanced to the bedroom door. It was opened from within before he could get to it. The doctor appeared on the threshold. He held up his hand warningly when Mr. Marchwood attempted to speak to him.

“Go to Lady Holchester,” he said. “It’s all over.”

“Dead?”

“Dead.”

SIXTEENTH SCENE.--SALT PATCH.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-EIGHTH.

THE PLACE.

EARLY in the present century it was generally reported among the neighbors of one Reuben Limbrick that he was in a fair way to make a comfortable little fortune by dealing in Salt.

His place of abode was in Staffordshire, on a morsel of freehold land of his own--appropriately called Salt Patch. Without being absolutely a miser, he lived in the humblest manner, saw very little company; skillfully invested his money; and persisted in remaining a single man.

Toward eighteen hundred and forty he first felt the approach of the chronic malady which ultimately terminated his life. After trying what the medical men of his own locality could do for him, with very poor success, he met by accident with a doctor living in the western suburbs of London, who thoroughly understood his complaint. After some journeying backward and forward to consult this gentleman, he decided on retiring from business, and on taking up his abode within an easy distance of his medical man.

Finding a piece of freehold land to be sold in the neighborhood of Fulham, he bought it, and had a cottage residence built on it, under his own directions. He surrounded the whole--being a man singularly jealous of any intrusion on his retirement, or of any chance observation of his ways and habits--with a high wall, which cost a large sum of money, and which was rightly considered a dismal and hideous object by the neighbors. When the new residence was completed, he called it after the name of the place in Staffordshire where he had made his money, and where he had lived during the happiest period of his life. His relatives, failing to understand that a question of sentiment was involved in this proceeding, appealed to hard facts, and reminded him that there were no salt mines in the neighborhood. Reuben Limbrick answered, “So much the worse for the neighborhood”--and persisted in calling his property, “Salt Patch.”

The cottage was so small that it looked quite lost in the large garden all round it. There was a ground-floor and a floor above it--and that was all.

On either side of the passage, on the lower floor, were two rooms. At the right-hand side, on entering by the front-door, there was a kitchen, with its outhouses attached. The room next to the kitchen looked into the garden. In Reuben Limbrick’s time it was called the study and contained a small collection of books and a large store of fishing-tackle. On the left-hand side of the passage there was a drawing-room situated at the back of the house, and communicating with a dining-room in the front. On the upper floor there were five bedrooms--two on one side of the passage, corresponding in size with the dining-room and the drawing-room below, but not opening into each other; three on the other side of the passage, consisting of one larger room in front, and of two small rooms at the back. All these were solidly and completely furnished. Money had not been spared, and workmanship had not been stinted. It was all substantial--and, up stairs and down stairs, it was all ugly.

The situation of Salt Patch was lonely. The lands of the market-gardeners separated it from other houses. Jealously surrounded by its own high walls, the cottage suggested, even to the most unimaginative persons, the idea of an asylum or a prison. Reuben Limbrick’s relatives, occasionally coming to stay with him, found the place prey on their spirits, and rejoiced when the time came for going home again. They were never pressed to stay against their will. Reuben Limbrick was not a hospitable or a sociable man. He set very little value on human sympathy, in his attacks of illness; and he bore congratulations impatiently, in his intervals of health. “I care about nothing but fishing,” he used to say. “I find my dog very good company. And I am quite happy as long as I am free from pain.”

On his death-bed, he divided his money justly enough among his relations. The only part of his Will which exposed itself to unfavorable criticism, was a clause conferring a legacy on one of his sisters (then a widow) who had estranged herself from her family by marrying beneath her. The family agreed in considering this unhappy person as undeserving of notice or benefit. Her name was Hester Dethridge. It proved to be a great aggravation of Hester’s offenses, in the eyes of Hester’s relatives, when it was discovered that she possessed a life-interest in Salt Patch, and an income of two hundred a year.

Not visited by the surviving members of her family, living, literally, by herself in the world, Hester decided, in spite of her comfortable little income, on letting lodgings. The explanation of this strange conduct which she had written on her slate, in reply to an inquiry from Anne, was the true one. “I have not got a friend in the world: I dare not live alone.” In that desolate situation, and with that melancholy motive, she put the house into an agent’s hands. The first person in want of lodgings whom the agent sent to see the place was Perry the trainer; and Hester’s first tenant was Geoffrey Delamayn.

The rooms which the landlady reserved for herself were the kitchen, the room next to it, which had once been her brother’s “study,” and the two small back bedrooms up stairs--one for herself, the other for the servant-girl whom she employed to help her. The whole of the rest of the cottage was to let. It was more than the trainer wanted; but Hester Dethridge refused to dispose of her lodgings--either as to the rooms occupied, or as to the period for which they were to be taken--on other than her own terms. Perry had no alternative but to lose the advantage of the garden as a private training-ground, or to submit.

Being only two in number, the lodgers had three bedrooms to choose from. Geoffrey established himself in the back-room, over the drawing-room. Perry chose the front-room, placed on the other side of the cottage, next to the two smaller apartments occupied by Hester and her maid. Under this arrangement, the front bedroom, on the opposite side of the passage--next to the room in which Geoffrey slept--was left empty, and was called, for the time being, the spare room. As for the lower floor, the athlete and his trainer ate their meals in the dining-room; and left the drawing-room, as a needless luxury, to take care of itself.

The Foot-Race once over, Perry’s business at the cottage was at an end. His empty bedroom became a second spare room. The term for which the lodgings had been taken was then still unexpired. On the day after the race Geoffrey had to choose between sacrificing the money, or remaining in the lodgings by himself, with two spare bedrooms on his hands, and with a drawing-room for the reception of his visitors--who called with pipes in their mouths, and whose idea of hospitality was a pot of beer in the garden.

To use his own phrase, he was “out of sorts.” A sluggish reluctance to face change of any kind possessed him. He decided on staying at Salt Patch until his marriage to Mrs. Glenarm (which he then looked upon as a certainty) obliged him to alter his habits completely, once for all. From Fulham he had gone, the next day, to attend the inquiry in Portland Place. And to Fulham he returned, when he brought the wife who had been forced upon him to her “home.”

Such was the position of the tenant, and such were the arrangements of the interior of the cottage, on the memorable evening when Anne Silvester entered it as Geoffrey’s wife.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-NINTH.

THE NIGHT.

ON leaving Lady Lundie’s house, Geoffrey called the first empty cab that passed him. He opened the door, and signed to Anne to enter the vehicle. She obeyed him mechanically. He placed himself on the seat opposite to her, and told the man to drive to Fulham.

The cab started on its journey; husband and wife preserving absolute silence. Anne laid her head back wearily, and closed her eyes. Her strength had broken down under the effort which had sustained her from the beginning to the end of the inquiry. Her power of thinking was gone. She felt nothing, knew nothing, feared nothing. Half in faintness, half in slumber, she had lost all sense of her own terrible position before the first five minutes of the journey to Fulham had come to an end.

Sitting opposite to her, savagely self-concentrated in his own thoughts, Geoffrey roused himself on a sudden. An idea had sprung to life in his sluggish brain. He put his head out of the window of the cab, and directed the driver to turn back, and go to an hotel near the Great Northern Railway.