The Diamond Bangle

Front matter

SEICE OlsTE SHILLING a BY THE SAME AUTHOR MY LADY DIMPLE In two vols., Price 2\s. 'A simple story well told. The style is simple and graceful throughout.' — Literary World. ' A good plot with some tragic elements. Some of the characters, notably that of the capricious, passionate Nanette, are well delineated.' — Daily Chronicle. ' The story is told in a very interesting manner. The characters are well drawn, and Miss Crane has a distinct talent for writing a story above the average circulating library level.' — Lady. ' The present writer has hardly anything but praise for Miss Crane's book. A story of incident it is, but the incident grows faithfully out of the characters. Miss Crane's descriptions of persons and places appeal by their vividness very strongly to the mind's eye.' — Academy. BY LILLIE CRANE AUTHOR OF ' MY LADY DIMPLE,' ETC. LONDON DIGBV, LONG & CO., PUBLISHERS 18 BOUVERIE STREET, FLEET STREET, E.C.

Chapter I Throughout

the broad acres of Kent, the very birthplace of pretty villages, it would be hard to find anything prettier than the little village of Bearsted. For miles around its green is celebrated, and many a four-horse brake, with a jovial party of working men from the neighbouring town, or soldiers from Chatham, finds its way to the ' Black Horse,' the low-roofed, rambling inn which occupies one corner of the velvety green. And velvety it is — this green, soft and yielding to the tread even in the height of summer when many a well-trimmed lawn is brown and hard. Perhaps there are springs very near the surface which keeps the earth moist and cool ; perhaps, far back in the days when the fair hop garden of Kent was the home of weeds and bulrushes and wild fowl, this particular spot was a big, silent pool, fed from some unknown source that has never quite dried up.

I do not know much about these mysteries of Nature, I only know that the earth is soft and yielding, and the grass is green and abundant A on this one village green ; and all this, too, in spite of its being used so frequently as a cricket or football ground by those jovial spirits who pull up at the ' Black Horse.' It must not be imagined, however, that the ' Black Horse ' is the only house affording like ac commodation for man and beast that overlooks the same green spot. Straight ahead, on the other side, is a larger and far more picturesque looking building with a big board in front of the principal entrance, whereon is painted one solitary tree. If anyone in the immediate neighbourhood thought about it at all, he knew that this tree was intended to represent an oak, but to a stranger it would be quite necessary to read the words ' The Oak ' at the foot of the tree to ascertain its species and also the sign of the house.

Yet, remarkable as the ' Black Horse ' and ' The Oak ' may be in their own particular way, it is with neither one nor the other, beyond the fact that they both overlook Bearsted Green, that our interest is at this moment concerned. If you have had the good fortune — yes, good fortune, for the unique prettiness of the place warrants the words — to find yourself on this same green, you may, perhaps, remember a low-pitched, old-fashioned white house, standing quite alone at the farthest extremity from the road which skirts the two houses of entertainment already mentioned. This, then, is the place which claims our present attention. Pleasant and cool-looking in summer, in winter it looks damp and ghostly. No, no ! not that ! It would only be some casual passer-by on a wild night, with the wind tearing the last few withered leaves from the branches of the old elms, which still tower high above the sloping roof, who could ever dream of connecting that white house with the idea of ghosts.

Once inside the front entrance — at least, at the date of this story — and it was good-bye to things unseen. Up in the largest gable there was a big loft — very big for the size of the house, but no owl or bat would have lived there for a single night ; there were great, old-fashioned cupboards in the walls, there were turns and twists, and unexpected flights of steps leading to rooms that a stranger would hardly expect to find in looking at the general outline of the building, but, bless your heart, no ghostly wanderer from any dead, old tragedy — if, indeed, the place had ever been the scene of one — would have stood a chance of being seen or heard. If, in the twilight, before the lamp with its pretty rose-tinted shade in the general sitting room, or the bronze one, standing on a pedestal in a corner of the square vestibule, was lighted, one of those ghostly visitants had dared so much as to peep over the low wooden banister it would have instantly glided back to its own dismal land of shadows.

In every corner of the place there was an antidote for all that was weird and uncanny, and the antidote was the living, breathing presence of a life that had neither tasted suffering nor sorrow — an antidote powerful enough, had such been necessary, to break the reign of forty time honoured ghosts. What chance had ghostly footsteps, ghostly tappings and warnings against the ring of that one hearty laugh ; what chance had the pale, faint outline of the thing which has its home neither in this world nor the next against the full, rich flesh tints, the round, shapely, palpitating body of a young female creature en dowed with a superabundance of good health, good looks, and good spirits ? And Kate Varley had all these things. Some people said she had her own and her sister's share of Nature's best gifts ; but that was not true.

Beulah, the elder by some five years, was small, even somewhat fragile in figure, her face, too, was pale, and the features were wanting the delicate regularity that characterised the sister's, yet there was a subtle charm about her presence to which few could remain insensible. The frank, steady eyes, the smile that was like a sunbeam stealing over a quiet landscape, the low voice round and sweet — the very voice that makes a gracious word sound ten times more gracious — gained upon one's senses ; and the spell having once begun to work, never again was Beulah Varley the insignificant young woman she at first sight might have seemed. Different as they were, such were the sisters who lived in that low, white house, where no uncanny spirit could find an abiding place. Years ago the girls' mother had died there, and very soon afterwards their father — who in more prosperous times had made a modest fortune by hop growing — had succumbed, partially to a disease of long standing, partially to grief for the loss of his wife ; but the sisters were too young, the elder being only eight years old, to thoroughly realise their double bereavement, or to take any super stitious prejudice to their home.

Indeed, under the care of an old and valued servant, the two children, on the contrary, had grown up with an unmixed tenderness for the quaint white house and the three great elms that sheltered it from the glare of the sun in summer and waved their naked branches weirdly above its roof in winter. Yes, both sisters loved the place ; still they loved it differently. Beyond an occasional trip to one of the nearest seaside resorts, or a visit of may be a week's duration to some particular friend or acquaintance in the neighbourhood, Beulah cared little about leaving home — not that she was in different to all that lay outside her own little world. There was a look in her earnest, intelligent face that banished at once any such supposition. But the people, mostly poor, and in need of sympathy, that made up her everyday surround ings ; the flowers that bloomed earlier, and often lingered later than in the neighbouring gardens; the little white terrier that repaid the work of one wild, wet night, when it had been picked up from the side of the road, where it had lain with one poor little leg broken heaven knows how long, and carried, all muddy and bleeding as it was, for three long miles, by an unobtrusive devotion, which was almost pathetic, were dear to her, and made up a world full enough to satisfy her quiet, unambitious nature.

With her sister — well, the case was not quite the same, and never perhaps had been, but the time had come when this difference was more than a slumbering hypothesis. Let the girls speak for themselves. There, with the light of the fire which had been lit an hour ago to keep out the chill autumnal mists that had already begun to creep up from the lower part of the green, flickering on her face, the younger stood in front of her sister. The girl was excited; she was even out of breath from rapid walking, but that did not prevent her from dashing into a subject which had evidently been previously discussed between the sisters. ' I mean to go, Beulah, whatever you may say,' exclaimed the girl, flinging her hat on the table, and flashing a little defiant glance at the quiet figure before her. ' I suppose you have just returned from Mrs Marsden's,' and two soft grey eyes dwelt thought fully upon the girl's flushed face. ' Yes, I have,' replied Kate, ' and she showed me the dresses she has had made, and the lovely mantle, and the bonnets she has bought to take.

Oh, Beulah, don't be such a prim old thing,' continued the girl, impulsively, dropping on her knees before her sister, and winding her long arms about the slight form. ' Let us go and see a bit of life now that there is someone willing to chaperon us. This is such a dull old place ; the same thing day after day, week after week. Do you know, Beulah, if I don't have some change soon I shall simply go crazy ! ' ' Poor Kate,' said the elder girl, softly, stroking the golden head that looked so beautiful with the firelight playing upon it ; ' and this dull old place ought to be to you the dearest and the best.' ' Yes, yes,' exclaimed the other, ' I know what you mean, but then, you see, I wasn't born with your frumpy, old-fashioned notions. I don't think with you that because I have promised to marry one man I ought to be perfectly happy and content to sink my own individuality and become merely an echo of his.' ' You are mistaken, dear,' said Beulah ; ' I could never have thought such a thing as that.

To part with one's own individuality would, I fancy, be almost the work of a fool. But in spite of modern crazes I still that love is the one thing essential to a woman, and when that love is found, and is worthy, I do say she ought to be happy — ' ' And,' interrupted Kate, 'she ought at the same time, I suppose, be perfectly content to remain where the object of her affection is until her hair turns grey and her sight grows dim. Well, that sort of thing may suit a little mouse like you, but I want something more, I want — ' and the girl swayed her lithe body restlessly to and fro, and clasped her hands passionately in front of her — ' I want to see life. I want to be admired as other girls are. I want — well, I hardly know what I want, but something different to our humdrum existence.' ' I am glad Jack is not here to hear what you are saying,' said Beulah, quietly. ' When,' added she, with a sudden alteration in her voice, 'does Mrs Marsden start for Nice?' ' This day fortnight.' ' This day fortnight ? ' echoed the elder girl. ' The time is short ; but, perhaps, we could manage to be ready.' ' What do you mean, Beulah ?

Do you really mean to go ?' and the beautiful face with the fire light dancing upon it made a picture for the moment not easily forgotten. ' Yes, dear, after all perhaps it may be for the best,' answered Beulah, regarding the lovely, passionate face intently. ' We can ask Mrs Marsden to-morrow whether she is still willing to take us under her wing, and you,' concluded the girl, ' must tell Jack yourself this evening.' ' Oh, I'll do that readily enough,' returned Kate, lightly. 'Jack will be easy to manage. It was you,' continued the speaker, laughing, ' I was afraid of, but it's all right now, and I don't care a straw, you are a dear old darling, that you are.' And once more the dear old darling was clasped in those strong young arms ; but the girl's caress met no response, and in spite of her victory a feeling of dissatisfaction crept over Kate's exuberant spirits.

Chapter II

' You are as disagreable, Jack, and as loth for me to have a morsel of pleasure as Beulah herself was until to-day ! ' exclaimed Kate Varley, as, later on the same evening, she stood looking up at a tall, powerfully built young man with a pout on her lips and two little upright lines between her eye brows. 'What are you afraid of?' she went on reck lessly. ' Are you afraid that a prince will fall in love with me and carry me off to an enchanted castle ? I shouldn't much mind myself,' and the wilful, pouting lips parted in a malicious, provoking smile — ' I'm just about sick of being dictated to, first by Beulah, then by you, then Beulah, then you.' 'What folly you are talking,' said the man, as a look of pain crossed his fine, intelligent face. ' Neither your sister nor I have the slightest wish to dictate to you.

We both realise, as you know well enough, that you are of full age and at liberty to judge for yourself. All that I have just now been saying was simply to try and show you how desolate my life here will be without you ; but if your heart is so bent on this thing, that it means unhappiness if your wish is not gratified, I, like Beulah, say go by all means.' And just as the girl felt an hour or so ago when Beulah gave no response to her caress, she now felt as the last few words left her lover's lips ; and her naturally pleasure-loving nature rebelled at the momentary discomfort. She had no idea of giving in, she had no idea of studying the wishes of others on the subject in question, but she would like to have had her own way pleasantly — without, as she phrased it to her self, all this unnecessary fuss.

She would have liked Beulah to be pleased at the idea of spend ing the winter months in a place renowned for its gaiety and sunshine ; she would have liked Jack Hinton, this lover of hers, to say, whether quite truthfully or not mattered little perhaps, that he was glad for her to go and enjoy herself. Practically she had gained her point ; yet no thing had gone quite as she wished. Beulah had given in against her own idea of what was right ; and now here was Jack who had hitherto shown himself amenable to her slightest whim, and upon whose support she had perhaps secretly counted, as much really opposed to the proposed trip as Beulah herself. To say the least of it, to the spoilt beauty, it was aggravating, and small wonder was it that her feelings very soon found vent in the following words, — ' Why don't you say you don't want me to go ?

Why don't you say you begrudge me the smallest pleasure in which you are unable to share, or why don't you leave your precious patients and come with us, if you are afraid to trust me out of your sight ? ' ' Sit down, Kate ! ' exclaimed the young man, when the girl presently paused, not for words but for breath ; ' you are losing your temper, and there is no cause for that. It is evident you have fixed your mind upon this expedition. Well and good, but don't let us be induced to say things to one another which we may afterwards regret. Useless, unkind words between those who love are apt to leave scars behind which years of remorse can not always wipe away.' A flush had risen to the speaker's face, and his lips had a look of pain upon them ; but there was no passion, no unkindness in the tone of the words which fell upon the girl's ears.

Touched in spite of herself, Kate lifted her eyes to the face above her, and something she saw there suddenly filled her with a sense of unwilling shame, but shielding herself and her stupid, unreasoning passion behind a woman's strongest refuge, she broke into a flood of tears. Like most things with this impetuous, emotional, headstrong girl, it was no ordinary paroxysm which now shook her frame from head to foot ; and the man, for the moment, felt himself utterly powerless. What chance was there for words, or even caresses, in the face of such an outburst ? None whatever. The lover could only wait — wait until the worst was over. Then Jack Hinton did as many a man, however wounded himself, would, under similar circumstances, have done. And by-and-by there was peace in that quiet, low-ceilinged room overlooking the green ; and the flames leaping up the wide chimney threw a fitful glare upon a lovely face, all smiles and dimples, resting close and snug against a man's broad shoulder. ' Jack.' Where did the sound come from !

The man with his hand upon the gate which shut in the garden of the low, white house looked hastily round. He had said good night to Kate inside. She had really accompanied him to the door, but the cold, biting wind, which rushed in directly it was opened, had sent her shivering back to the warm fireside. Yet the voice was her voice. Pooh ! love plays strange tricks ! It was Beulah who had spoken. It was Beulah who stood out there in the cold, with her small, slight figure shadowed by the overhanging branches, not yet quite denuded of leaves, of the old elm trees. ' Why, Beulah,' exclaimed the young man, re cognising the girl, ' this is no night for you to be loitering out here ; you'll catch your death of cold.' ' Yes, yes, I know all about that,' returned the other, hurriedly, ' but I wanted to speak to you alone, and there was no other way than to wait in the garden until you had said good night to Kate.

I knew she wouldn't come to the gate with you to-night' ' Oh, you knew that, did you ? ' said Jack, with just a shade of something in his voice that sounded like regret. ' No, no, I don't think I quite knew it,' Beulah hastened to explain, comprehending at once the idea her thoughtless expression had raised in the man's mind, ' but you see I chanced it. Kate doesn't like the cold, you know,' she added apologetically ; ' she was born for warmth and sunshine.' ' Yes, so it seems,' said the man. ' I suppose, Beulah, this love of warmth and sunshine of hers accounts for the longing she has to go to the south. I wish,' went on the speaker, a sudden passion breaking through his words, ' that I could go too to take care of her. It simply maddens me to think how men will run after her, and how little perhaps I shall be thought of.

This sounds selfish, Beulah — horribly, beastly selfish — doesn't it ? But you do not understand, dear. You don't know what it is to love one creature absolutely, — and she the most beautiful of all created things.' For a moment there was silence, and the man, glancing down at the girl standing motionless beside him, saw, and yet did not see, for it was only long afterward sit held any meaning for him, a some thing that was like a light suddenly flashing out in the darkness from a ship at sea, pass swiftly across the pale, earnest face. ' No,' said the girl, the first to speak, 'perhaps I do not quite understand these things. No knight errant maybe has passed my way to teach me. But it wasn't to speak of myself,' added the speaker, while a little quaint smile lifted one corner of the sensitive mouth, ' that I sought you to-night.

You love Kate. Whether I know what love is myself or not, I can grasp that fact well enough ; and I know, too, that this determination of hers to go to Nice gives you intense suffering. Never after to-night will I revert to the subject, but I thought it would be some little comfort to you if I told you I will do my very best to take care of her, and to bring her back the same light-hearted, lovable Kate as she is at the present moment' ' Beulah, you are just an angel ! ' and in the impulse of his gratitude, the young man raised the girl's hand to his lips and kissed it almost as a lover might have done. Had the full light from the moon, which was just breaking from behind the storm of dark clouds, hurrying straight across the heavens, been unimpeded by those overhanging, half-naked branches, even Jack, little as men are given to notice such things, might have been puzzled by the deep blush which broke up, just for one instant, the quiet peace of the earnest face before him. ' Good night, Jack,' said the girl, and there was nothing unusual in her voice, — nothing to correspond with that crimson light in her face. ' Kate will wonder what I am doing all this time.' A moment later the man had passed through the garden gate, and Beulah had turned back towards the house.

Just within the shadow of the porch, round which in the summer that had faded jasmine and sweet homer roses had blossomed, she paused. Looking slightly over her shoulder, her soft grey eyes followed the tall, retreating figure until it disappeared in the mist rising from the lower part of the green, then she turned the handle of the door and went in. And all unnoticed, all unheeded, a little animal, with a round, white body and a limping gait, followed close at her heels.

Chapter III

It was carnival week in Nice. Afternoon dances and balls at the Mediterranee and Massene, theatre and opera going, card playing and gambling had been the order of things for weeks past. There had been heartaches, headaches, triumphs, vexations, blighted hopes, ruined prospects, violent deaths, and through all Kate Varley had held the sceptre of a little queen. Under the wing of a chaperon, who, having wintered many times in that gayest of gay resorts, knew the ways of its society and some of the oldest habitues, the girl, at her very first appearance, had created a sensation. Women had turned to look after her as she swept along with a buoyant, wild animal sort of grace that was in strange contrast to the soft, languid movements of the usual professional beauty. Men, almost satiated in that freer continental exist ance with the soft glances and soft flatteries of women, woke up from their indifference, and sought by fair means, or crooked means, an intro duction to this new importation from the little isle of mists and fogs.

Since that night, indeed, everything had gone one way for Kate Varley. A few faithful souls, it is true, rallied around an elegant, tired-looking American woman who had carried all before her the previous season ; but Kate's round, seductive figure, Kate's blue eyes, which seemed to be laughing at you and loving you at the same moment, proved in the end too much, and even these gradually relaxed in their allegiance and passed over to the enemy. Man in general is a gregarious animal. There is no getting away from that fact. Let one or two loudly declaim as to the merits of a certain play, or a particular book, and the rest will immediately run to see the one, or sit down to read the other. Let one man, with the reputation of a connoisseur of female beauty, announce that a certain woman is lovely, and all his friends and acquaintances will at once go crazy on the point, and, metaphorically, will be ready to knock the first person down who dares to say that in this particular she is other than the loveliest of her sex.

And certainly this sort of spirit must have ani mated many of the masculine gender when Kate Varley was proclaimed the belle of the season ; for beautiful as she doubtless was, there were other women far more beautiful to be met that winter on the Promenade des Anglais. But the fact remained. Kate was the reigning beauty ; and well enough the girl enjoyed her position. Flattery, admiration, gaiety, were the things which she had always, perhaps almost uncon sciously, craved for. She had had love — the love of a true-hearted man offered to her, and she had taken it, but it had not satisfied the wants of her nature. Unfortunately for some, there are such natures — indeed, the world, as it develops new vanities, helps to nurture such. They are not necessarily bad — they do not always work harm ; indeed, by their very love of appreciation, and by their efforts to obtain it, they often and often brighten the dark corners of this old earth.

Still there is in them an awful element of danger — danger to themselves — danger to those who give them ungrudgingly their all. Jack Hinton, working from morning till night — sometimes half of that — the first called when sickness entered the house, the last often paid or thanked when the cloud had passed by, deserved surely something more than a casual thought or a short, careless letter from the girl who had promised to share his life. Yet these were all he got, as Kate herself floated down the stream of her present intoxicating existence. Now and again Beulah remonstrated with her, and begged her to think a little more, and devote a little more time to her letters, but with a sweet, rippling laugh, the spoilt girl would invariably fling her arms around her sister's neck and call her a serious, frumpy old thing to worry about Jack and his eternal letters.

She wrote to him once a week she would sometimes aver when the frumpy old thing was a little slow in responding to her caresses, and surely that was enough to satisfy any lover, or, if it wasn't, well then it ought to be. And Beulah, knowing her sister's impatient, wilful spirit, often felt constrained to desist from further argument although each day as it came and went filled her mind with fresh misgivings. Love to her was such a sacred thing — the love of a child for its parent, the love of sister for sister, that of the woman for the man, the man for the woman, even the love she herself had for the little creature that limped after her day by day, were full of wonder and rever ence for her. Dumb as this tiny animal was, she could no more have done the slightest thing to hurt it than she could voluntarily have thrust her hand into the blazing fire.

B But Kate, did she know what love was? Did she really love this man she had promised to marry, but whom she was hurting by her carelessness every day of her life ? Again and again this latter question arose in Beulah's mind, and she could find no answer to it. Again and again her own promise to take her sister back to her lover, the same light-hearted, lovable girl she had hitherto been, haunted her. How was she, Beulah, to do this with a danger she as yet felt rather than saw coming nearer and nearer? And from the trouble and perplexity of her thoughts the girl would often rouse herself only to meet the patient eyes of Tottles fixed with a look half-pathetic, half-comic, upon her face. Kate and Mrs Marsden at first had laughed at the idea of making Tottles one of the party, but Beulah had held to it, that if she were to go the dog should go too ; and she had her way ; and just as the little white creature followed her footsteps, lay at her feet and watched her face at home, it did now. ' Well, Tottles,' the girl would sometimes say, while the dog put its head on one side to listen, ' can you help me ?