"I say!" cried the child; then he added indignantly, "I never ran away, I came to see you, because you are going to be my tutor. I didn't think it was such a long way. And pony got hungry. And so was I."

"Going to be his tutor!" It was Minnie's voice that said this so sharply that the air tingled with the words: and even Mrs. Warrender started a little; but it was not a moment at which any more could be said. The bathing was done, and Theo's wound had now to be brought together by plaster and bound up. It was not very serious. A hoof had touched him, but that was all, and fortunately not on a dangerous place.

"Take him away and give him something to eat," said the patient, but not in a hospitable voice.

"I want to see it all done," said Geoff, pressing closer. "Is that how you do it? Don't you want another piece of plaster? Will you have to take it off again, or will it stay till it is all well? Oh, look, that corner isn't fast. Press it there, a little farther. Oh, Theo, she has done it so nicely. You can't see a bit of the bad place. It is all covered with plaster, like that, and then like this. I wish now it had been me, just to know how it feels."

"Take him away, mother, for Heaven's sake!" cried Warrender under his breath.

"My dear, you must not worry Theo. He is going to lie down now, and be quiet for a little. Go with Minnie, and have something to eat."

"I am not so hungry now," said the boy, "but very much interested. When you are interested you don't feel hungry: and the old woman gave me something to eat. Would you pay her, please? Won't you tie something on, Mrs. Warrender, to hide the plaster? It doesn't look very nice like that."

"Come," said Chatty, taking him by the hand. The elder sister had thrown herself into a chair at the mention of the tutorship, and seemed unable for further exertion.

"Oh yes, I am coming; but I am most interested about Theo. Theo, you have got a stain upon your cheek; and your coat is torn, too, as bad as my—— Well, but he did tear my knickerbockers. Look! I felt the cold wind, though I did not say anything; not upon the open road, but when we got among your trees. It is so dark among your trees. Theo!"

"Come, come; I want you to come with me," Chatty said, hurrying Geoff away; and perhaps the sight of the table in the dining-room, and the tray which Joseph, not without a grumble, was placing upon it, became about this time as interesting as Theo's wound.

"We ought to send and tell his mother that the child is here."

"Or send him back," said Minnie sharply, "and get rid of him. A little story-teller! Theo his tutor! If I were his mother, I should whip him, till he learned what lies mean!"

Mrs. Warrender looked with some anxiety at her son. "Children," she said, "make such strange misrepresentations of what they hear. But we should send——"

"I have sent already," said Theo. "She will probably come and fetch him: and, mother——"

"My dear, keep still, and don't disturb yourself. There might be a little fever."

"Oh, rubbish, fever! I shall not disturb myself, if you don't disturb me. Look here. It is quite true; I've offered myself to be his tutor."

"His tutor!" cried Minnie once more, in a voice which was like the report of a pistol. Mrs. Warrender said nothing, but looked at him with a boundless pity in her eyes, slightly shaking her head.

"Well! and what have you to say against it?" cried Theo, facing his sister, with a glow of anger mounting to the face which had been almost ghastly with loss of blood.

"This is not a moment for discussion. Go and see to the child, Minnie. Theo, my dear boy, if you care so much for Geoff as that—; at another time you must tell us all about it."

"There is nothing to tell you, save that I have made up my mind to it," he said, looking at her with that prompt defiance which forestalls remark. "Geoff! Do you think it is for Geoff? But neither at this time nor at any other time is there more to say."

He looked at her so severely that Mrs. Warrender's eyes fell. He felt no shame, but pride, in his self-sacrifice, and determination to stand by it and uphold his right to do it in the face of all the world. But this very determination, and a consciousness of all that would be said on the subject, gave Warrender a double intolerance in respect to Geoff himself. To imagine that it was for the boy's sake was, he already felt, the most unbearable offence. For the boy's sake! The boy would have been swept away before now if thought could have done it. From the first hour he had been impatient of the boy. The way in which he clung to his mother had been a personal offence. And his mother!—ah no, she could do no wrong. Not even in this matter, which sometimes tortured him, could he blame Lady Markland. But that she or any one should imagine for a moment that he was ready to sacrifice his time, his independence, so much of his life, for the sake of Geoff! That was a misconception which Warrender could not bear. "Don't let that little—— come near me," he said to his mother, as he finally went off, somewhat feebly, to the old library, where he could be sure of quiet. "Make the girls take care of him and amuse him. She will probably come and fetch him, and I will rest—till then."—That little—— Warrender did not add any epithet; the adjective was enough.

"Till then,—till she comes! Is that all your thought?" said his mother. "Oh, my poor boy!"

He met her eyes with a pride which scorned concealment. Yes, he would own it here, where it would be in vain to deny it. He would not disavow the secret of his heart. Mothers have keen eyes, but hers were not keen, they were pitying,—more sad than tears. She looked at him, and once more softly shook her head. The blood had rushed again to his face, dyeing it crimson for a moment, and he held his head high as he made his confession. "Yes, mother, that is all my thought." And then he walked away, tingling with the first avowal he had ever made to mortal ears. As for Mrs. Warrender, she stood looking after him with so mingled an expression that scarcely the most delicate of casuists could have divined the meaning in her. She was so sorry for him, so proud of him. He was so young, not more than a boy, yet man enough to give all his heart and his life—to sacrifice everything, even his pride—for the sake of the woman he loved. His mother, who had never before come within speaking distance of a passion like this, felt her heart glow and swell with pride in him, with tender admiration beyond words. She had neither loved nor been loved after this sort; and yet it was no romance of the poets, but had a real existence, and was here, here by her side, in the monotonous little world which had never been touched by such a presence before. She said to herself that it would never come to anything but misery and pain; yet even misery was better than nothingness, and he who had loved had lived. To think that a quiet, middle-aged Englishwoman, a pattern of domestic duty, should think thus, and exult in her son's inconceivable and, as she believed, unhappy passion, is almost too much to be credible. Yet so it was.

Geoff's absence was not discovered until two o'clock, when Lady Markland, at the end of a long and troublesome consultation over matters only partially understood, suggested luncheon to her man of business. "Geoff will be waiting and very impatient," she said, with a smile. Mr. Longstaffe was not anxious to see Geoff, nor disturbed that the little boy's midday meal should have been postponed to business, though this disturbed Geoff's mother, who had been in the habit of thinking his comfort the rule of her life. She was much startled not to find him in the dining-room, and to hear that he had not come back. "Not come back! and it is two o'clock! But Black will take good care of him," she said, with a forced smile, to Mr. Longstaffe, "and I must not keep you waiting." "If you please, my lady," said the butler, "Black's not gone with him." At this Lady Markland stared at the man, the colour dying out of her face. "You have let him go out alone!" "I had nothing to do with it, my lady. The colt's lame, and Black——" "Oh," she cried, stamping her foot, "don't talk to me of excuses, but go, go, and look for my child!" Then she was told that Black had gone some time since, and was scouring all the roads about; that he had come back once, having seen nothing; and that now the coachman and gardener were gone too. From this time until the hasty messenger arrived with Theo's hurried note, Lady Markland spent the time in such distraction as only mothers know, representing to herself a hundred dangers, which reason told her were unlikely, but which imagination, more strong than reason, placed again and again before her eyes, till she felt a certainty that they were true. All those stories of kidnapping, which people in their senses laugh at, Lady Markland as much as any, being when in her right mind a very sensible woman—came before her now as possible, likely, almost certain. And she saw Geoff, with his little foot caught in the stirrup, dragged at the pony's frightened heels, the stones on the road tearing him, his head knocking against every obstacle; and she saw him lying by the roadside, white and lifeless. She saw everything that could and could not happen, and accused herself for not having sent him to school, out of danger,—for not having kept him by her side night and day.

Mr. Longstaffe naturally looked on at all this anguish with a mixture of contempt and pity. He was not at all alarmed for Geoff. "The young gentleman will have gone to visit one of his friends; he will have gone farther than he intended. He may, if he doesn't know the country very well, have missed his way: but we don't live in a country of brigands and bandits, my dear lady; somebody will be sure to direct him safely back." He managed to eat his luncheon by himself, after she had begged him not to mind her absence, and had left him undisturbed to confide to the butler his regret that Lady Markland should be so much upset, and his conviction that the little boy was quite safe. "He'll be all right, sir," the butler said. "He is as sharp as a needle, is Mr. Geoff. I did ought to say his little lordship, but it's hard to get into new ways." They said this, each with an indulgent smile at her weakness, in Lady Markland's absence. The lawyer had a great respect for her, and the butler venerated his mistress who was very capable in her own house, but they smiled at her womanish exaggeration, all the same.

Warrender had been quite right in thinking she would come at once for Geoff. She had almost harnessed the horses herself, so eager was she, and they flew along the country roads at a pace very unlike their ordinary calm. Evening had fallen when she rushed into the hall at the Warren, in her garden hat, with a shawl wrapped about her shoulders, the first she had found. Terrible recollections of the former occasion when she had been summoned to this house were in her mind, and it was with a fantastic terror which she could scarcely overcome that she found herself once more, by the same waning light, in the place where she had been sent for to see her husband die. If she had been deceived. If the child should be gone, like his father! She had not, however, a second moment in which to indulge this panic, for Geoff's voice, somewhat raised, met her ears at once. Geoff was in very great feather, seated among the ladies, expounding to them his views on things in general. "Our trees at Markland are not like your trees," he was saying. "They are just as young as me, mamma says. When I am as old as you are, or as Theo, perhaps they will be grown. But I should not like them so big as yours. When Theo is my tutor I shall tell him what I think; it will be a fine opportunity. Why, mamma!"

She had him in her arms, kissing and sobbing over him for a moment, till she could overcome that hysterical impulse. Theo had come from his room at the sound of the wheels, and the party was all collected in the drawing-room, the door of which stood open. There was little light, so that they could scarcely see each other, but Minnie had full time to remark with horror that Lady Markland did not even wear a widow's bonnet, or a crape veil, for decency, but had on a mere hat,—a straw hat, with a black ribbon. She put her hand on her heart in the pang of this discovery, but nobody else took any notice. And, indeed, in the outburst of the poor lady's thanks and questions, there was no room for any one else to speak.

"Oh, it was all right," said Geoff, who was in high excitement, the chief spokesman, and extremely eager to tell his own story before any one could interfere. "I knew the way quite well. I wanted to see Theo, you know, to ask him if he really meant it. I wanted to speak to him all by himself; for Theo is never the same, mamma, when you are there. I knew which turn to take as well as any one. I wasn't in a hurry; it was such a nice day. But pony was not interested about Theo, like me, and he remembered that it was dinner-time. That was all about it. And then those people in the phaeton gave him a start. It was nothing. I just popped over his head. There was no danger except that the bays might have given me a kick; but horses never kick with their forefeet."

Here Lady Markland gave a shriek, and clutched her boy again. "You fell off, Geoff, among the horses' feet!"

"Oh, it didn't matter, mamma; it didn't matter a bit, Theo caught me, and tore my knickerbockers (but they're mended now). He bled a great deal, and I helped Mrs. Warrender to plaster up the cut; but I wasn't hurt,—not a bit; and my knickerbockers——"

It was Geoff's turn now to pause in surprise, for his mother left him, and flew to Theo, and, taking his hands, tried to kiss them, and, between laughing and crying, said, "God bless you! God bless you! You have saved my boy's life!"

Geoff was confounded by this desertion, by the interruption, by the sudden cry. He put his hand up to the place where Warrender's cut was, dimly realising that it might have been in his own head but for Theo. "Was that what it was?" he said, wondering and unobserved in the midst of the new commotion, which for the moment left Geoff altogether, and rose around Warrender, as if he had been the hero of the day.



CHAPTER XXIII.

They all sat round the table and took their evening meal together before Lady Markland went back. It was not a ceremonious, grand dinner, as if there had been a party. Old Joseph pottered about, and put the dishes on the table, and handed the potatoes now and then when they were not wanted, and sometimes leaned across between the young ladies to regulate the lamp, explaining why as he did so. "Excuse me, Miss Chatty, but it's a-going to smoke," he said; and in the meantime the family helped each other. But Lady Markland was not conscious of the defects in the service. She sat by Theo's side, talking to him, looking at him in a kind of soft ecstasy. They had been friends before, but it seemed that she had now for the first time discovered what he was, and could not conceal her pleasure, her gratitude, her admiration. She made him tell her how it all happened, a dozen times over, while the others talked of other things, and poured out her thanks, her happiness, her ascriptions of praise, as if he had been more than mortal, devoting herself to him alone. Lady Markland had never been the kind of woman who allows herself in society to be engrossed by a man. It was entirely unlike her, unlike her character, a new thing. She was quite unconscious of Minnie's sharp eyes upon her, of the remarks which were being made. All she was aware of, in that rapture of safety after danger and relief from pain, was Geoff, blinking with eyes half sleepy, half excited, by the side of Mrs. Warrender, nothing hurt in him but his knickerbockers; and the young man by her side, with the wound upon his head, who had saved her child's life. Theo, for his part, was wrapped in a mist of delight for which there was no name. He saw only her, thought only of her; and for the first time began to imagine what life might be if it should ever come to mean a state in which this rapture should be permanent,—when she would always look at him so, always devote herself, eyes and lips and all her being, to make him happy.

The room lay in darkness beyond the steady light of the white lamp, shining on the circle of faces. There was not much conversation. Minnie was sternly silent, on the watch; Chatty sympathetically on the alert, too, though she scarcely knew why, because her sister was; Mrs. Warrender listening with a faint smile to Geoff's little chatter, occasionally casting a glance at the other end of the table, which she could see but imperfectly. Lady Markland spoke low, addressing Theo only, so that Geoff, as before, held the chief place. He was never weary of going over the adventures of the day.

"It is that tall house before you come to the village,—a tall, tall house, with a wall all round, as if to keep prisoners in. I know there are no prisoners now. Of course not! There are people all about in the fields and everywhere, who would soon tell the policeman and set you free. I was not afraid. Still, if the gates had been shut, and they refused to open, I don't know what one would do. The lady was like a picture in the Pilgrim's Progress,—that one, you know—I thought her pretty at first. But then she held me in her arm as if I had been a baby."

"Oh, it would be Those People!" said Minnie, moved to a passing exclamation of horror.

"Never mind that now. You must not venture out again without the groom, for it makes your mother unhappy—Theo," said Mrs. Warrender, with a smile and a sigh, "when he was a little fellow like you, never did anything to make me unhappy."

"Didn't he?" said Geoff seriously. "But I didn't know. How could I tell pony would so soon get hungry? He hasn't a regular dinner-time, as we have; only munches and munches all day. But I was telling you about the tall house."

"You must tell me another time, Geoff. Theo must bring you back with him sometimes for a holiday."

"Yes," said Geoff, "that would do better. Pony would go splendid by the side of Theo's big black. I shall come often—when I do my lessons well. I have never done any lessons except with mamma. Does Theo like teaching boys?"

"I don't know, my dear. I don't think he has ever tried."

"Then why is he coming to teach me? That, at the very bottom of it, you know, is what I wanted him to tell me; for he would not tell straight out, the real truth, before mamma."

"I hope he always tells the real truth," said Mrs. Warrender gently. "I suppose, my little Geoff, it is because he is fond of you."

Upon this Geoff shook his little head for a long time, twisting his face and blinking his keen little eyes. "He is not fond of me—oh no, it is not that. I can do with Theo very well,—as well as with any one; but he is not fond of me."

"I am glad to hear that you can do with Theo," said the mother, much amused.

"Yes. I don't mind him at all: but he is not fond of me; and he is sure not to teach mamma's way, and that is the only way I know. If he were to want to punish me, Mrs. Warrender——"

"I hope, my dear, there will be no question of that."

"I shouldn't mind," said the boy, "but mamma wouldn't like it. It might be very awkward for Theo. You are flogged when you go to school, aren't you? At least, all the books say so. Mamma," he went on, raising his voice, "here is a difficulty,—a great difficulty. If Theo should want to flog me, what should you do?"

Lady Markland did not hear him for the moment. She was absorbed!—this was the remark made by Minnie, who watched with the intensest observation. Then Geoff, in defiance of good manners, drummed on the table to attract his mother's attention, and elevated his voice: "Can't you hear what I am saying, mamma? If I were to be stupid with my lessons, and Theo were to flog me——" ("It is only putting a case, for I am not stupid," he added, for Mrs. Warrender's instruction, in an undertone.)

"You must not suggest anything so dreadful," said Lady Markland from the other end of the table. "But now you must thank Mrs. Warrender, Geoff, and Mr. Theo, and every one; for the carriage has come round, and it is growing late, and we must go away."

Then Mrs. Warrender rose, as in duty bound, and the whole party with her. "I will not ask you to stay; it is late for him, and he has had too much excitement," said the mistress of the house.

"And to think I might never have brought him home at all, never heard his voice again, but for your dear son, your good son!" cried Lady Markland, taking both her hands, putting forward her head, with its smooth silken locks in which the light shone, and the soft round of her uplifted face, to the elder woman, with an emotion and tenderness which went to Mrs. Warrender's heart. She gave the necessary kiss, but though she was touched there was no enthusiasm in her reply.

"You must not think too much of that, Lady Markland. I hope he would have done it for any child in danger."

This, of course, is always perfectly true; but it chills the effusion of individual gratitude. Lady Markland raised her head, but she still held Mrs. Warrender's hands. "I wish," she said, "oh, I wish you would tell me frankly! Does it vex you that he should be so good to me? This kind, kind offer about Geoff,—is it too much? Yes, yes, I know it is too much; but how can I refuse what he is so good, so charitable, as to offer, when it is such a boon to us? Oh, if you would tell me! Is it displeasing, is it distasteful to you?"

"I don't know how to answer you," Mrs. Warrender said.

"Ah! but that is an answer. Dear Mrs. Warrender, help me to refuse it without wounding his feelings. I have always felt it was too much."

"Lady Markland, I cannot interfere. He is old enough to judge for himself. He will not accept guidance from me,—ah, nor from you either, except in the one way." She returned the pressure of her visitor's hand, which had relaxed, with one that was as significant. "It is not so easy to lay spirits when they are once raised," she said.

Lady Markland gave her a sudden, alarmed, inquiring look; but Theo came forward at that moment with her cloak, and nothing could be said more.

He came back into the dining-room, expectant, defiant, fire in all his veins, and in his heart a sea of agitated bliss that had to get an outlet somewhere; not in a litany to her, for which there was no place, but at least in defence of her and of himself. It was Minnie, as usual, who stood ready to throw down the glove; Chatty being no more than a deeply interested spectator, and the mother drawing aside with that sense of impossibility which balks remonstrance, from the fray. Besides, Mrs. Warrender did not know, in the responsive excitement in herself which Theo's passion called forth, whether she wished to remonstrate or to put any hindrance in his way.

"Well, upon my word!" said Minnie, "Mrs. Wilberforce may well say the world is coming to a pretty pass. Only six months a widow, and not a bit of crape upon her! I knew she wore no cap. Cap! why, she hasn't even a bonnet, nor a veil, nor anything! A little bit of a hat, with a black ribbon,—too light for me to wear; even Chatty would be ashamed to be seen——"

"Oh no, Minnie; in the garden, you know, we have never worn anything deeper."

"Do you call this the garden?" cried Minnie, her voice so deep with alarm and presentiment that it sounded bass, in the silence of the night. "Six miles off, and an open carriage, and coming among people who are themselves in mourning! It ought to have given her a lesson to see my mother in her cap."

"If you have nothing better to do than to find fault with Lady Markland——" said Theo, pale with passion.

"Oh," cried Minnie, "don't suppose I am going to speak about Lady Markland to you. How can you be so infatuated, Theo? You a tutor,—you, that have always been made such a fuss with, as if there was not such another in the world! What was it all he was to be? A first class, and a Fellow, and I don't know what. But tutor to a small boy, tutor to a little lord,—a sort of a valet, or a sort of a nurse—"

"Minnie! your brother is at an age when he must choose for himself."

"How much are you to have for it?" she cried,—"how much a year? Or are you to be paid with presents, or only with the credit of the connection? Oh, I am glad poor papa is dead, not to hear of it. He would have known what to think of it all. He would have given you his opinion of a woman—of a woman——"

"Lady Markland is a very nice woman," said Chatty. "Oh, Theo, don't look as if you were going to strike her! She doesn't know what she is saying. She has lost her temper. It is just Minnie's way."

"Of a woman who wears no crape for her husband," cried Minnie, with an effort, in her bass voice.

Theo, who had looked, indeed, as if he might have knocked his sister down, here burst into an angry peal of laughter, which rang through the house; and his mother, seizing the opportunity, took him by the arm and drew him away. "Don't take any notice," she said. "You must not forget she is your sister, whatever she says. And, my dear boy, though Minnie exaggerates, she has reason on her side, from her point of view. No, I don't think as she does, altogether; but, Theo, can't you understand that it is a disappointment to us? We always made so sure you were going to do some great thing."

"And to be of a little real use once in a way, is such a small thing!"

"Oh, Theo, you must be reasonable, and think a little. It does not want a scholar like you to teach little Geoff."

"A scholar—like me. How do you know I am a scholar at all?"

Mrs. Warrender knew that no answer to this was necessary, and did not attempt it. She went on: "And you are not in a position to want such employment. Don't you see that everybody will begin to inquire what your inducement was? A young man who has nothing, it is all quite natural; but you—Theo, have you ever asked yourself how you are to be repaid?"

"You are as bad as Minnie, mother," he said, with scorn; "you think I want to be repaid."

She clasped her hands upon his arm, looking up at him with a sort of pitying pride. "She must think of it, Theo—everybody must think of it; ah yes, and even yourself, at the last. Every mortal, everybody that is human,—oh, Theo, the most generous!—looks for something, something in return."

The young man tried to speak, but his voice died away after he had said "Mother!" To this he had no reply.

But though he could not answer the objection, he could put it aside; and as a matter of course he had his way. At the beginning of a thing, however clearly it may be apparent that embarrassment is involved, few people are clear-sighted enough to perceive how great the embarrassment may come to be. Lady Markland was not wiser than her kind. She spoke of Theo's kindness in a rapture of gratitude, and ended always by saying that, after all, that was nothing in comparison with the fact that he had begun by saving the boy's life. "I owe my child to him," she said,—"I owe him Geoff's life; and now it almost seems natural, when he has done so much, that he should do anything that his kind heart prompts." She would say this with tears in her eyes, with such an enthusiasm of gratitude that everybody was touched who heard her. But then, everybody did not hear Lady Markland's account of the matter; and the common mass, the spectators who observe such domestic dramas with always a lively desire to get as much amusement as possible out of them, made remarks of a very different kind. The men thought that Warrender was a fool, but that the widow was consoling herself; the ladies said that it was sad to see a young man so infatuated, but that Lady Markland could not live without an adviser; and there were some, even, who began to lament "poor dear young Markland," as if he had been an injured saint. The people who heard least of these universal comments were, however, the persons most concerned: Lady Markland, because she saw few people, and disarmed, as has been said, those whom she did see; and Warrender, because he was not the sort of man, young though he was, whom other men cared to approach with uncalled-for advice. There was but one person, indeed, after his sister, who lifted up a faithful testimony to Theo. Mrs. Wilberforce, as his parish clergyman's wife, felt that, if the rector would not do it, it was her duty to speak. She took advantage of the opportunity one evening after Christmas, when Warrender was dining at the Rectory. "Are you still going to Markland every day?" she said. "Isn't it a great tie? I should think by the time you have ridden there and back you can't have much time for any business of your own."

"It is a good thing, then," said Theo, "that I have so little business of my own."

"You say so," said the rector's wife, "but most gentlemen make fuss enough about it, I am sure. There seems always something to be doing when you have an estate in your hands. And now that you are a magistrate—though I know you did not go to Quarter Sessions," she said severely.

"There are always enough of men who like to play at law, without me."

"Oh, Theo, how can you speak so? when it is one of a gentleman's highest functions, as everybody knows! And then there are the improvements. So much was to be done. The girls could talk of nothing else. They were in a panic about their trees. There is no stauncher Conservative than I am," said Mrs. Wilberforce, "but I do think Minnie went too far. She would have everything remain exactly as it is. Now I can't help seeing that those trees—— But you have no time to think of trees or anything else," she added briskly, fixing upon him her keen eyes.

"I confess," said Theo, "I never thought of the trees from a political point of view."

"There, that is just like a man!" cried Mrs. Wilberforce. "You seize upon something one says that can be turned into ridicule; but you never will meet the real question. Oh, is that you, Herbert? Have you got rid of your churchwarden so soon?"—for this was the pretext upon which the rector had been got out of the way.

"He did not want much,—a mere question. Indeed," said the rector, remembering that fibs are not permitted to the clergy any more than to the mere laic, and perceiving that he must expect his punishment all the same—with that courage which springs from the conviction that it is as well to be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, "it was not the churchwarden at all; it was only a mistake of John."

"Well," said his wife significantly, "it was a mistake that was quickly rectified, one can see, as you have come back so soon. And here is Theo talking already of going home. Of course he has his lessons to prepare for to-morrow; he is not a mere idle gentleman now."

Little gibes and allusions like these rained upon the young man from all quarters during the first six months, but no one ventured to speak to him with the faithfulness used by Mrs. Wilberforce; and after a time even these irritating if not very harmful weapons dropped, and the whole matter sank into the region of the ordinary. He rode, or, if the weather was bad, drove, five days in the week to his little pupil, who in himself was not to Theo's mind an attractive pupil, and who kept the temper of the tutor on a constant strain. It ought, according to all moral rules, to have been very good for Warrender to be thus forced to self-control, and to exercise a continual restraint over his extremely impatient temper and fastidious, almost capricious temperament. But there are circumstances in which such self-restraint is rather an aggravating than a softening process. During this period, however, Theo was scarcely to be accounted for by the ordinary rules of human nature. His mind was altogether absorbed by one of, if not by the most powerful influence of human life. He was carried away by a tide of passion which was stronger than life itself.



CHAPTER XXIV

It may now be necessary to indicate the outline, at least, of an incident which was the reason why, at the most critical period of the affairs both of her brother and sister, Minnie's supervising and controlling care was neutralised. Whether it is the case that nothing that did happen would have happened, as is her sincere conviction, had she been free to observe and guide the course of events, is what neither the writer of this history nor any other human looker-on can say. We are all disposed to believe that certain possibilities would have changed the entire face of history had they ever developed, and that life would have been a different thing altogether had not So-and-So got ill, or gone on a journey, or even been so ill-advised as to die at a particular juncture. Miss Warrender was of this opinion strongly, but it is possible the reader may think that everything would have gone on very much as it did, in spite of all that she could have said or done. It is a problem which never can be settled, should we go on discussing it for evermore.

The thing which deprived the family of Minnie's care at the approaching crisis was what cannot be otherwise described than as a happy event. In the early summer, before Mr. Warrender died, a new curate had come to Underwood. This, however, is not an entirely just way of stating the case. A curate, in the ordinary sense of the word, was not wanted at Underwood. The parish was small. Such a thing as a daily service had not begun to be thought of, and the rector, who was full of energy, would have thought it wasteful extravagance to give a hundred pounds a year to another clergyman, in order that he might have the lessons read for him and the responses led by an educated voice. Ideas about educated voices, as well as about vestments and lights on the altar, have all developed since that time. People in general were quite satisfied with the clerk in those days, or, if they were not satisfied, at least accepted him as a necessary evil, at which one was free to laugh, but against which there was nothing to be said. The morning service on Sunday was the only one that was of much importance, to which the whole parish came. That in the afternoon was attended only by the village people, and did not count for much. The rector would not have said in so many words, like a French cure, that vespers was pas obligatoire, but he had the same feeling. Both he and his wife felt kindly to the people who came, as if it were a personal compliment. It is needless to say that things ecclesiastical have very, very much changed since, and that this easy indulgence exists no longer.

Thus there was evidently no need of a curate at Underwood proper. But the parish was now a double one. Once "St Mary's Underwood," it was now "Underwood-cum-Pierrepoint;" and the condition of drawing the revenues of the latter district was, that the rector should always provide for the duty in the little church at Pierrepoint, which was considered a fine specimen of early architecture, though not much adapted to modern needs. It had been usually some shabby old parson, some poor gentleman who had been a failure in life, one of those wonderful curates who are rich in nothing but children, and to whom the old, rambling, out-at-elbows parsonage house at Pierrepoint was of itself an attraction, who had taken this appointment. And it had been a great surprise to the neighbourhood when it was known that the Honourable and Reverend Eustace Thynne (to say the Reverend the Honourable, which is now the highest fashion in such matters, postponing, as is meet, secular rank to that of the Church, was unknown in those pre-Ritualistic days), a young man, an earl's son, an entirely unexceptionable and indeed every way laudable individual, had accepted this post. A greater surprise it would be impossible to imagine. The Warrenders had been as much interested as anybody before the death in the family had made such sentiments for a time inappropriate. But Mr. Thynne had turned out a very sympathetic young clergyman. He had left his card and kind inquiries at once. He had helped to officiate at the funeral, and afterwards Minnie had been heard to say that no one had given her so true an idea of how grief ought to be borne. He had been a frequent visitor through the summer. If Theo saw little of him, that was entirely Theo's fault. It was Mr. Thynne who persuaded the girls that to resume their duties in the Sunday school was not only right, but the best thing for them,—so soothing and comforting; and he had come a great deal to the Warren while Theo was so much away, and in many things had made himself useful to the girls, as Theo had been doing to Lady Markland. He did not, indeed, devote himself to them with the same indiscriminate devotion. There was no occasion for anything of the kind. Mrs. Warrender was quite capable of looking after things herself, and Minnie's energy was almost greater than was necessary for the needs of their position; so that it was not at all needful or desirable that he should put himself at their disposal in any exaggerated way. But all that a man and a clergyman could do to make himself useful and agreeable Eustace Thynne did. They got to call him Eustace Thynne quite naturally, when they were talking of him, though they still called him Mr. Thynne when conversing with him. They saw a great deal of him. There was very little to do at Pierrepoint, and he was a great walker, and constantly met them when they were out. And he was very sound in his views, not extreme in anything; not an evangelical, much less inclining towards the section of the Church which began to be known in the world under the name of Puseyists. Eustace Thynne had no exaggerated ideas; he was not eccentric in anything. The Thirty-Nine Articles sat as easily upon him as his very well made coat; he never forgot that he was a clergyman, or wore even a gray checked necktie, which the rector sometimes did, but always had a white tie, very neatly tied, and a tall hat, which was considered in those days the proper dress for a clergyman, even in the country. His political ideas inclined to Conservatism, whereas, as Minnie always said, the Warrenders were Liberal; but it was a very moderate Conservatism, and the difference was scarcely appreciable.

From all this it may be divined that Minnie was in the way of following the example set her by her mother and grandmother, and the majority of women generally. She had not thought herself very likely to marry for some time back; for the county had wonderfully few young men in it, and she had no desire ever to leave home. But when Providence sent Eustace Thynne in her way, there was no reason why she should shut her eyes to that divine and benevolent intention. She softened in some ways, but hardened in others, during the course of the year. In matters upon which Eustace Thynne agreed with her,—and these were the principal features of her social creed,—she was more determined than ever, having his moral support to fall back upon: and would not allow the possibility of a doubt. And this made her the more severe upon Theo, for in all questions of propriety Mr. Thynne was with her, heart and soul.

As usually happens in the forming of new bonds, the old ones were a little strained while the process was going on. Chatty, who had been very deeply interested at first, when she saw in her elder sister symptoms of a state about which she herself had entertained only the vaguest dreams, became sometimes a little tired of it, when she found one of the results to be a growing inclination to get rid of herself. When they went out together to visit a pensioner, if they met Mr. Thynne (as they often did) on the road, Minnie would stop at the end of the lane. "Will you just run in and see how old Sarah is?" she would say to Chatty. "Two of us in such a little place is too much for the poor old dear;" and Mr. Thynne would remark, in a low voice, that Miss Warrender was so considerate (if everybody would be as considerate!), and linger and talk, while Chatty went and informed herself about all old Sarah's ills. This, however, the younger sister could have borne; but when she found, on rejoining the pair, that they had been discussing Theo, and that Minnie had been asking Mr. Thynne's advice, and that he entirely agreed with her, and thought she was quite right about Lady Markland, Chatty's spirit rose. "I would not talk about Theo to any one," she said, indignantly. "Who do you call any one? Mr. Thynne takes a great interest in all of us, and he is a clergyman, and of whom should one ask advice if not of a clergyman?" Minnie replied, with triumphant logic. "If he was a bishop, I would not talk over Theo; not with him, nor any one," Chatty replied. She had always been inclined to take Theo's part, and she became his partisan in these new circumstances, standing up for him through thick and thin. And in her little expeditions up and down the lane to ask after old Sarah, while Minnie strolled slowly along with her clerical lover, Chatty began to form little opinions of her own, and to free herself more or less from that preponderating influence of the elder sister which had shaped all her previous life. And a little wistfulness began to float across Chatty's gentle mind, and little thrills of curiosity to go through it. Her surroundings at this moment gave much room for thought. Minnie, who had never shown any patience in respect to such vanity, and was always severe with the maids and their young men, wandering on ahead with Mr. Thynne; and Theo, who had always been so imperious, given up in every thought to Lady Markland, and not to be spoken to on ordinary subjects during the short time he spent at home! With these two before her eyes, it can scarcely be supposed that Chatty did not ask herself, now and then, whether for her also there was not somebody whose appearance would change everything? And for the first time she began to get impatient of the Warren, in the gloom of the winter, and to wish, like her mother, for a change.

Mr. Thynne was not ineligible, like most curates. It was not for poverty, or because he had no other place to turn to, that he had taken the curacy at Pierrepoint. There was a family living awaiting him, a very good living; and he had some money, which an uncle had left him; and he was the honourable as well as the reverend. Minnie had her own opinion, as has been seen, on matters of rank. She did not think overmuch of the nobility. She was of opinion that the country gentry were the support and salvation of England. Still, while a plain Mrs. or Miss may be anybody to those who don't know her, a dairyman's daughter or a scion of the oldest of families—an honourable to your name does at once identify you as occupying a certain position. "It is a very good thing," she said, "in that way; it is a sort of hall-mark, you know."

"It is sometimes put on very false metal, Minnie."

"Oh, I don't know," said Minnie, with an indignant flush; "no more than any other kind of distinction. The peerage does not go wrong oftener, perhaps not so often, as other people: but it does give a cachet. It is known then who you belong to, and that you must be more or less nice people. I like it for that."

"There could be no doubt about Mr. Thynne, any way, my dear."

"I never said I was thinking of Mr. Thynne," said Minnie, with a violent flush, as she broke off the conversation and hurried away. And, indeed, it was not at all of Mr. Thynne that she was thinking, but rather of a possible Mrs. Thynne, and what her advantages might be over other ladies who did not possess that pretty and harmless affix. She decided that, unquestionably, it was an advantage. Out of your own county it might very well happen that nobody might know who you were: but an honourable never could be mistaken. She came gradually to change her views about the peerage in general, after that discovery, and made up her mind that a title in the family was good in every way. There could never be any doubt about that. There it was in Debrett, and everybody could satisfy themselves about its genuineness and antiquity, and lay their finger upon the descendants and relatives of the house. There were inconveniences in that, especially in respect to age, but still it was an advantage; and to be sure, for those who were added to a noble family by marriage even that inconvenience did not exist.

Mr. Thynne declared himself in summer, after the year of mourning was over, and when even Miss Warrender felt that it was permitted to be lively, and wear white dresses, though with black ribbons, of course; and as the family living fell vacant immediately, the wedding took place almost at once. It made a great sensation in the parish, it need not be said; and while the few people in Pierrepoint gave the curate a teapot, in Underwood there was a great agitation in the Sunday school and much collecting to buy a fine big Bible, with a great deal of gilding outside, for Miss Warrender, which was given to her at a tea in the schoolroom, with a speech from the rector, who was chary of public speaking, and had to be egged up to it by many little moral pricks from his wife. It was considered a very suitable present for a young lady who was going to marry a clergyman, just as the teapot was most suitable for a young clergyman about to be married. In those days there was not the rain of marriage presents from everybody within reach which are the painful fashion now. But Minnie had a very excellent, solid trousseau, as might be expected, full of useful clothes; the silks very handsome, and the dinner dresses, though serious, which she thought suitable to a clergyman's wife, quite good enough to go anywhere in. If she had been yielded to in that respect, her going-away dress would have been lavender with black lace, quite second mourning. But not only her mother and sister, but Mrs. Wilberforce and even Mr. Thynne himself, who did not fancy a bride in mourning, remonstrated so strongly that she was obliged to yield. "I am in favour of showing every respect to our dear ones who are gone; but there are limits," the bridegroom said, and Mrs. Wilberforce declared that, though herself a Conservative and staunch upholder of the past she did think dear Minnie sometimes went a little too far, notwithstanding that the Warrenders were Liberals. This determined stand on the part of all belonging to her resulted in Minnie's departure from the Warren clothed in a suit of russet brown, which was very becoming to her,—much more so than the whiteness of her bridal dress and veil.

This withdrew Minnie's thoughts in great measure from the other events which were preparing, and finally carried her off altogether on the eve of many and great changes, such as turned topsy-turvy the life of the Warrenders. She was naturally very much taken up by her husband and her new surroundings, and the delightful trouble of settling down in her new parish and home. And she was at a considerable distance from them, half a day's journey, which made very frequent visits impossible. It has been already said that we do not pretend to give our opinion as to whether, if Minnie had not married, things might not have gone very differently in the Warrender family life.

After the wedding guests had departed Warrender ordered his horse to be brought round, as usual. He had, of course, been occupied all the morning with his own family, and with the marriage and the entertainment afterwards. Geoff had got a holiday, which he prized very much. (Lady Markland and the boy had been asked, of course, to the wedding, but it was perhaps a relief to all that they declined to come.) And if there ever was a moment in which Mrs. Warrender wanted her son it was that day. She was tired out, and in the nervous state to which the best of us are liable at agitating moments. Minnie was not, perhaps, in absolute sympathy with her mother, but Mrs. Warrender had a great deal of imagination, and partly by those recollections of the past that are called up by every great family event, and partly by inevitable anticipations of the future, she was in special need of kindness and filial care. Her heart swelled within her when she saw the black horse brought round. She went to the door in the gray gown which she had got for Minnie's marriage, and met her son as he came into the hall. "Oh, Theo, are you going to leave us to-day? I thought you would have stayed with us to-day," she said, with what an unfavourable judge would have called a querulous tone in her voice. It was in reality fatigue and weariness, and a great desire for her boy's affection and comforting care; but the other explanation was not without reason.

"Why should I stay to-day, more than any other day?" he said.

"You don't require me to tell you, Theo. It is getting late; you can't be wanted there, surely, to-day."

Now this was injudicious on Mrs. Warrender's part: but a woman cannot always be judicious, however it may hurt her. He looked at her with quick offence.

"Suppose I think differently?" he said; "or suppose that it is for my own pleasure I am going, as you say, there?"

"I meant no harm," said Mrs. Warrender. "I have not opposed you. Often I have longed to have you a little more at home: but I never said anything, Theo,—you know I have never said anything."

"I can't imagine, mother, what there was to say."

She checked herself with difficulty, but still she did check herself. "There are some things," she said, "that I wish you would attend to,—I cannot help feeling that there are several things; but to-day, dear Theo, both Chatty and I are feeling low. Stay with us this afternoon. It will do us so much good."

She thought that he wavered for an instant, but if so it was only for an instant. "I don't believe that," he said. "We should only quarrel; and what is the use of a thing that is forced? And besides, of all days, this is the one above all others that I want to go. It is my best chance"—and then he stopped and looked at her, the colour rising to his face.

"I thought Geoff was to go somewhere, for a holiday."

He gave her another look, and the red became crimson. "That is just the reason," he said enigmatically, and with a slight wave of his hand passed her, and went out to the door.

"You will be back to dinner, Theo?"

He turned round his head as he was about to ride away, looking down upon her. "Perhaps I may be back immediately," he said,—"most likely; but never mind me, one way or another. I want nothing but to be let alone, please."

Chatty had come out to the door, and they both stood and watched him as he rode along, disappearing among the trees. "I think he must be going to—seek his fortune," his mother said, restraining a sob.

"Oh, mamma!" said simple Chatty, "I would go and pray for him, but I don't know what to ask."

"Nor I," said Mrs. Warrender. "God bless him,—that is all that one can say."

But the house looked very dreary as they went back to it, with all the confusion of the wedding feast and the signs of a great company departed. They scarcely knew where to sit down, in the confusion that had been so gay a few hours ago, and looked so miserable now.

But Theo! What was he doing? Where was he carrying the heart that beat so high, that would be silent no longer? Was he going to lay it at the feet of a woman who would spurn it? When would he come back, and how? Already they began to listen, though he had scarcely set out, for the sound of his return,—in joy or in despair, who could say?



CHAPTER XXV.

Theo came home neither late nor early; neither in joy nor in despair. He came back harassed and impatient, eaten up with disquietude and suspense. He was pale and red in succession ten times in a moment. He was so much absorbed in his own thoughts that he hardly heard what was said to him as the three sat down, a little forlorn, as the late summer twilight began to close over all the brightness of that long fatiguing day. The evening of the wedding, with its sense already of remoteness to the great event of the morning so much prepared for and looked forward to—with the atmosphere so dead and preternaturally silent which has tingled with so much emotion, with the inevitable reaction after the excitement—nothing could ever make this moment a cheerful one. It is something more than the disappearance of a member of the family, it is the end of anticipation, of excitement, of all that has been forming and accelerating the domestic life for weeks or months, perhaps. Even if there should happen to be an unexpressed and inexpressible relief in having permanently escaped a rule of sharp criticism, a keen inspecting eye which missed nothing, even that consciousness helps to take the edge off life and make it altogether blurred and brief for the moment. The very meal was suggestive: cold chickens, cold lamb, ham on the sideboard with ornamentations upon it, remains of jellies, and preparations of cream,—an altogether chilly dinner, implying in every dish a banquet past.

And there was not very much said. Joseph, who was rather more tired than everybody else, made no attempt to bring the lamp, and no one asked for it. They sat in the waning light, which had less of day and more of night in it in that room than anywhere else, and made a very slight repast in a much subdued way, very tired, and with little interest in the cold chicken. Once Mrs. Warrender made a remark about the evening. "How dark it is! I think, Theo, if you don't do something soon the trees will crush the house." "I don't see what the trees have to do with it," he answered with irritation; "I have always begged you not to wait for me when I was late." "But you were not late, dear Theo," said Chatty, with a certain timidity. "I suppose I ought to know whether I was late or not," he replied. And the ladies were silent, and the salad was handed round. Very suitable for a summer evening, but yet on the whole a depressing meal.

When they rose from the table Mrs. Warrender asked Theo to take a turn with her, which he did with great reluctance, fearing to be questioned. But she had more discretion than to begin, at least on that subject. She told him that if he did not particularly want her, she had made up her mind to go away. "Chatty will be dull without her sister. I think she wants a little change, and for that matter, so do I. And you don't want us, Theo."

"That is a hard thing to say, mother."

"I do not mean any blame. I know that the time is critical for you too, my dear boy. That is why I ask, do you wish me to remain? but I don't think you do."

He did not answer for a full minute. Then, "No," he said, "I don't think I do." They were walking slowly round the house, by the same path which they had taken together when the father was lying dead, and before there had been question of Lady Markland in the young man's life. "Mother," he said after another interval, "I ought to tell you, perhaps. I know nothing about myself or what I am going to do; it all depends on some one else. Minnie would moralise finely on that, if she were to hear it. Things have come to this, that I know nothing about what may happen to-morrow. I may start off for the end of the world,—that is the most likely, I think. I can't go on living as I am doing now. I may go to—where? I don't know and I don't care much. If I were a Nimrod, as I ought to have been, I should have gone to Africa for big game. But it will probably be Greece or something conventional of that kind."

"Don't speak so wildly, dear. Perhaps you will not go away at all. You have not made up your mind."

"When I tell you I know nothing, not even about to-morrow! But I don't entertain much hope. That is how it will end, in all probability. And of course I don't want you to stay like rooks among the trees here. Poor old house! it will soon have no daylight at all, as you say."

"Theo, I hope you will do something before it is too late. It is not a beautiful house, but you were born in it, and so was your father."

He pressed her arm almost violently within his. "Who knows, mother? great days may be coming for the old place: or if not, let it drop to pieces, what does it matter? I shall be the last of the Warrenders."

"Theo," she said with agitation, returning the pressure of his arm, "have you said anything to-night?"

Her question was vague enough, but he had no difficulty in understanding. He said, after a moment, "I had no opportunity, there were people there; but to-morrow, to-morrow——"

They came out together as these words were said upon the edge of the pond. In the depth of that dark mirror, broken by water-lilies and floating growth of all kinds, there was a pale reflected sky, very colourless and clear, the very soul and centre of the brooding evening. Everything was dark around, the heavy summer foliage black in the absence of light, the heart of June as gloomy as if the trees had been funeral plumes. The two figures, dark like all the rest, stood for a moment on the edge of the water, looking down upon that one pale, dispassionate, reflected light. There was no cheer in it, nor anything of the movement and pulsation of human existence. The whiteness of the reflection chilled Mrs. Warrender, and made her shiver. "I suppose," she said, "I am fanciful to-night; it looks to me like an unkindly spectator, who does not care what becomes of us." She added, with a little nervous laugh, "Perhaps it is not very probable that our little affairs should interest the universe, after all."

Warrender did not make any reply. He heard what was said to him and saw what was round him in a dim sort of confused way, as if every object and every voice was at a distance; and with an impatience, too, which it was painful to him to keep down. He went back with her to the house saying little; but could not rest there, and came out again, groping his way through the surrounding trees, and returned after a while to the pond, where there was that light to think by, more congenial even in its chill clearness than the oppressive dark. It changed beneath his eyes, but he took no notice; a star came into it and looked him in the face from under the shadow of the great floating shelf of the water-lily leaves; and then came the blue of the dawn, the widening round him of the growing light, the shimmer of the early midsummer morning, long, long before those hours which men claim as the working day. That sudden bursting forth of life and colour startled him in the midst of his dreams, and he went home and stole into the sleeping, darkened house, where by dint of curtains and shutters the twilight still reigned, with something of the exhaustion and neglect of the morning after the feast. It was the morning of the day which was to decide for him whether life should be miserable or divine.

These were the words which the young man used in his infatuation. He knew no others—miserable, so that he should no longer care what happened to him, or believe in any good, which was the most probable state of affairs; or divine, a life celestial, inconceivable, which was indeed not to be dwelt upon for a moment as if under any suggestion of possibility it could be.

Next day, Mrs. Warrender began at once her preparations for that removal which she had so long contemplated, which had been so often postponed, throwing Chatty into an excitement so full of conflicting elements, that it was for some time difficult for the girl to know what her own real sentiments were. She had been figuring to herself with a little wistfulness, and an occasional escapade into dreams, the part which it was now her duty to take up, that of her mother's chief companion, the daughter of the house, the dutiful dweller at home, who should have no heart and no thought beyond the Warren and its affairs. Chatty was pleased enough with the former role. It had been delightful both to her mother and herself to feel how much they had in common, when the great authority on all family matters, the regulator of proprieties, the mistress of the ceremonies, so to speak, was out of the way, and they were left unmolested to follow their natural bent; but Chatty felt a little sinking of the heart when she thought of being bound to the Warren for ever; of the necessity there would be for her constant services, and the unlikelihood of any further opening of life. While there had been two, there was always a possibility of an invitation, of a visit and little break of novelty: but it was one of Minnie's most cherished maxims that a young lady in the house was indispensable, and Chatty in the recollection of this felt a certain cheerful despair, if the expression is permissible, seize her. She would be cheerful, she said to herself, whatever happened. It was her duty: she loved her home, and wanted nothing else, oh, nothing else! Home and one's mother, what could one want more?

But when Chatty heard all in a moment those plans which promised, instead of the monotonous life to which she was accustomed, a new world of novelty, of undiscovered distance, of gaieties and pleasure unknown, her despair changed into alarm. Was it right, however pleasant it might be, to go away; to abandon the Warren; to be no longer the young lady of the house, doing everything for those about her, but a young woman at large, so to speak, upon the world, getting amusements in her own person, having nothing to do for anybody? Chatty did not know what to think, what to reply to her mother. She cried, "O mamma!" with a gleam of delight; and then her countenance fell, and she asked, "What will Theo do alone?" with all the conscious responsibility of a sister, the only unmarried sister left. But the question that was uppermost in her mind did not really concern Theo. It was "What will Minnie say?" She turned this over in her mind all day with a breathless sense that among so many new things Minnie's opinion was a sort of support to her in the whirlwind of change. Minnie had often said that nothing short of necessity would make her leave the Warren. But then the firmness of that assertion was somewhat diminished by the fact that Minnie had not hesitated to leave the Warren when Mr. Thynne asked her to do so. Was necessity another name for a husband? Chatty blushed at this thought, though it seemed very improbable that any husband would ever appear to suggest such a step to herself. Would Minnie still think that the only motive; would she disapprove? Chatty went out by herself to take the usual afternoon walk which her sister had always insisted upon. The day was dull and gray for midsummer, and Chatty had not yet recovered from the fatigue of yesterday. She allowed to herself that the trees were sadly overgrown, and that it was quite dark within the grounds of the Warren when it was still light beyond; and she permitted herself to think that it was a little dull having nowhere to walk to but Mrs. Bagley's shop. To be sure there was the Rectory: but Mrs. Wilberforce would be sure to question her so closely about all that had happened and was going to happen that Chatty preferred not to risk that ordeal. There was not a soul about the village on this particular afternoon. Chatty thought she had never seen it so deserted. To make her walk a little longer, she had come out by the farther gate of the Warren,—the one that Theo always used; that which was nearest Markland. The only figures she saw in all her line of vision, as she came out, making a little sound with the gate, which in the silence sounded like a noise and startled them, were two women, just parting as it seemed. One of them Chatty saw at a glance was Lizzie Hampson. The other—she came hurrying along towards Chatty, having parted, it seemed, with a kiss from her companion. They met full without any possibility of avoiding each other, and Chatty, in spite of herself, gave a long look at this woman whom she had seen before in the high phaeton, and sometimes at the gate of the Elms. She was as young, or it might be younger than Chatty, with a lovely complexion, perhaps slightly aided by art, and quantities of curled and wavy hair. But the chief feature in her was her eyes—of infantine blue, surrounded with curves of distress like a child's who has been crying its very heart out. It was evident that she had been crying, her eyelashes were wet, her mouth quivering. Altogether, it seemed to Chatty the face of a child that had been naughty and was being punished. Poor thing! she said in her soft heart, looking at the other girl with infinite pity. Oh, how miserable it must be to go wrong! Chatty felt as if she could have found in her heart to stop this poor young creature, and entreat her, like a child, not to be naughty any more. The other looked at her with those puckered and humid eyes, with a stare into which there came a little defiance, almost an intention of affronting and insulting the young lady; but in a moment had hurried past and Chatty saw her no more. Chatty, too, quickened her steps, feeling, she could not tell why, a little afraid. Why should she be afraid? She did not like to look back, but felt as if the woman she had just passed must be mocking her behind her back, or perhaps threatening her, ready to do her a mischief. And certainly it was Lizzie Hampson who was running on in front. Chatty called to her in the sudden fright that had come over her, and was glad when the girl stopped and turned round reluctantly, though Lizzie's face was also stained with crying and wore a mutinous and sullen look.

"Did you call me, Miss Warrender? I am going home, Granny is waiting."

"Wait for me a moment, Lizzie. Oh, you have been crying too. What is the matter? And that—that lady——"

"I won't tell you a lie, Miss Chatty, when you've just found me out. But—if you're going to tell upon me, this is the truth. I have been saying good-bye to her; and no one in Underwood will ever see her more." Then Lizzie began to cry again, melting Chatty's soft heart.

"Why should I tell upon you? I have nothing to say. It appears that it is some one you know; but I—don't know who it is."

"Oh, Miss Chatty, you are the real good one," said Lizzie, "you don't think everybody's wicked. I don't love her ways, but I love her, that poor, poor thing. Don't tell Granny I was with her; but it is only to say good-bye;—that was all, for the last time, just to say good-bye."

"Is she—going away?" Chatty spoke in a low and troubled voice, knowing that she ought not to show any interest, but with a pity and almost awe of the sinner which was beyond all rule.

"Oh yes, Miss Warrender, she is going away; the gentleman spoke the truth when he said it always comes to misery. There may be a fine appearance for a time, and everything seem grand and gay; but it always comes to misery in the end."

To this Chatty made no reply. It was not a lesson that she required in her innocence and absence from all temptation, to learn; but she had an awe of it as if a gulf had opened at her feet and she had seen the blackness of darkness within.

"And if you'll believe me, she once was just as good and as innocent—! Well, and she's a kind of innocent now for that matter. Oh, poor thing! Oh, Miss Warrender, don't you be angry if I'm choking and crying, I can't help it! She don't know what she's doing. She don't know bad from good, or right from wrong. There's some like that. Just what pleases them at the moment, that's all they think of. She once had as happy a life before her! and a good husband, and served hand and foot."

"Lizzie," said Chatty, with a shudder, "don't please tell me any more. If anything can be done——"

"Nothing," said the girl, shaking her head. "What could be done? If the good ladies were to get her into their hands, they would put her in a penitentiary or something. A penitentiary for her! Oh, Miss Chatty, it's little they know. If they could put her in a palace, and give her horses and carriages and plenty to amuse her, that might do. But she doesn't want to repent; she doesn't know what it means. She wants to be well off and happy. And she's so young. Oh, don't think I would be like that for the world, not for the world, don't think it! But I can't help knowing how she feels. Oh, my poor dear, my poor dear!"

The wonder with which Chatty heard this strange plea was beyond description; but she would ask no more questions, and hear no more, though Lizzie seemed ready enough to furnish her with all details. She went back with the girl to the shop, thus disarming Mrs. Bagley, who was always full of suspicions and alarm when Lizzie was out of the way, and stood talking to the old woman while Lizzie stole into the parlour behind and got rid of the traces of her tears. Chatty felt very solemn as she stood and talked about her patterns, feeling as if she had come from a death-bed or a funeral It was something still more terrible and solemnising; it was her first glimpse into a darkness of which she knew nothing, and her voice sounded in her own ears like a mockery as she asked about the bundle of new things that had come from Highcombe. "There's one as is called the honeysuckle," said Mrs. Bagley: "it will just please you, Miss Chatty, as likes nice delicate little things." The old woman thought she must be feeling her sister's loss dreadful, looking as melancholy as if it was her coffin she was buying. And Chatty accepted the honeysuckle pattern and looked out the materials for working it, without relaxing from that seriousness which was so little habitual to her. She even forgot all about her own problems, as she went home, seeing constantly before her the pretty childlike face all blurred with tears. Was it true, as Lizzie said, that there was no way to help or deliver? If she had stopped, perhaps, as she had almost been impelled to do, and said, as it was on her lips to say, "Oh, I am so sorry for you; oh, don't do wrong any more," would the unhappy creature perhaps have listened to her, and repented, though Lizzie said she did not want to repent? Chatty could not forget that pitiful face. Would she ever, she wondered, meet it again?



CHAPTER XXVI.

Markland lay as usual, bare and white against the sun, upon that day of fate. The young trees had grown a little and stood basking, scarcely shivering, leaning their feeble young heads together in the sun, but making little show as yet; all was wrapped in the warmth and stillness of the summer morning. The old butler stood upon the steps of the great door, his white head and black figure making a point in the bright, unbroken, still life about. Within, Lady Markland was in the morning-room with her business books and papers, but not doing much; and Geoff in another, alone with his books, not doing much; thinking, both of them, of the expected visitor now riding up in a breathless white heat of excitement to the hall door.

The entire house knew what was coming. Two or three maids were peeping at the windows above, saying, "There he is," with flutters of sympathetic emotion. That was why the butler himself stood on the steps waiting. All these spectators in the background had watched for a long time past; and a simultaneous thrill had run through the household, which no one was conscious of being the cause of, which was instinctive and incontrovertible. If not yesterday, then to-day; or to-morrow, if anything should come in the way to-day. Things had come to such a pitch that they could go no farther. Of this every one in Markland was sure. There is something that gets into the air when excitement and self-repression run high, and warns the whole world about of the approach of an event. "A bird of the air hath carried the matter." So it is said in all languages. But it is more than a bird in the air, swifter, flying, entering into the very scent of the flowers. The last thing that Warrender thought of was that the fire and passion in his own breast had been thus publicly revealed. He wondered night and day whether she knew, whether she had any suspicion, if it had ever occurred to her to think; but that the maids should be peeping from the windows, and the old butler watching at the door to receive the lover, was beyond his farthest conception of possibility, fortunately—since such a thought would have overwhelmed him with fury and shame.

Lady Markland sat at her table, pondering a letter from Mr. Longstaffe. She had it spread out before her, but she could only half see the words, and only half understand what they meant. She had read in Theo's eyes upon the previous day—all. Had he but known he had nothing to reveal to her, nothing that she could not have told him beforehand! She had felt that the tempest of his young passion had been about to burst, and she had been extravagantly glad of the sudden appearance of the visitors who made it impossible. She had been glad, but perhaps a little disappointed too; her expectation and certainty of what was coming having risen also to a white heat of excitement, which fell into stillness and relief at the sight of the strangers, yet retained a certain tantalised impatience as of one from whose lips a cup has been taken, which will certainly have to be emptied another day. This was what she said to herself, with a trembling and agitation which was fully justified by the scene she anticipated. She said to herself that it must be got over, that she would not try to balk him, but rather give him the opportunity, poor boy! Yes! it was only just that he should have his opportunity, and that this great crisis should be got over as best it might. Her hands trembled as she folded Mr. Longstaffe's letter and put it away; her mind, she allowed to herself, was not capable of business. Poor boy, poor foolish boy! was not he a boy in comparison with herself, a woman not only older in years, but so much older in life; a woman who had been a wife, who was a mother; a woman whose first thoughts were already pledged to other interests, and for whom love in his interpretation of the word existed no more? She would look down upon him, she thought, as from the mountain height of the calm and distant past. The very atmosphere in which such ideas had been possible was wanting. She would still him by a word; she would be very kind, very gentle with him, poor boy! She would blame herself for having unintentionally, unconsciously, put him in the way of this great misfortune. She would say to him, "How could I have ever thought that I, a woman so much older, past anything of the kind—that I could harm you? But it is not love, it is pity, it is because you are sorry for me! And it will pass, and you will learn to think of me as your friend." Oh, such a friend as she would be to him! and when some one younger, prettier, happier than she came in his way, as would certainly happen! Lady Markland could not help feeling a little chill at that prospect. The warmth of a young man's devotion has a great effect upon a woman. It makes many women do foolish things, out of the gratitude, the exhilaration of finding themselves lovable and beloved, especially those who are past the age and the possibility of being loved, as Lady Markland, now seven-and-twenty, had concluded herself to be.

Seven-and-twenty! ah, but that was not all! a wife already, to whom it was shame so much as to think of any other man. A second marriage appeared to her, as to many women, a sort of atheism; a giving up of the religion of the immortal. If marriage is a tie that endures for ever, as it is every happy woman's creed it is, how could she die, how dare ever to look in the face a man whom because he was dead,—no, more than that, because a change had happened to him which was no doing of his—she had abandoned for another man? This argument made it once and for ever impossible to contemplate such an act. Therefore it was to another man's wife that this poor boy, this generous enthusiast, was giving his all. But a woman cannot have such a gift laid down at her feet without a sensation of gratitude, without a certain pleasure even amid the pain in that vindication of herself and her womanhood which he makes to her, raising her in her own esteem. Therefore she could not be hard, could not be angry. Poor boy! to think of what it was he was throwing away; and of the beating heart full of foolish passion with which he was coming to say words which her imagination snatched at, then retired from, trying not to anticipate them, not to be curious, not to be moved in advance by what he must say. But then she paused to ask herself whether she could not prevent him, whether she could not spare him these fruitless words. Would not it be wrong to let him say them when it was so certain what her response must be? She might stop him, perhaps, in the utterance; tell him—with what sympathy, with what tenderness! that it must not be; that not for her were such expressions possible; that he was mistaking himself, and his own heart, in which pity was moving, not love. Could she do this? She felt a quick pang of disappointment in the thought of thus not hearing what he had to say: but it would be kinder to him—perhaps: would it be kinder?—to stop those words on his lips, words that should only be said to the woman who could listen to them; to the happy young creature whom some time or other he might still love. This was the confusion of thought in Lady Markland's mind while she sat by her writing-table among her papers, turning them over with nervous hands, now opening, now closing again the letters to which she could give no attention; letters, a cool observer might have said, much more important than a question of a foolish young fellow's love. Meanwhile the maids peeped, and the old butler looked down the avenue where Warrender's black horse was visible, marked with foam as if he had been pushed on at a great pace, and yet, now that the house was in sight, coming slowly enough. The servants had no doubt about what was going to happen so far as Warrender was concerned—but it was all the more like an exciting story to them that they had no certainty at all how it was to end. Opinions were divided as to Lady Markland; indeed so wrapped was the whole matter in mystery that those who ought to know the best, old Soames for one, and her own maid for another, could give no opinion at all.

Geoff was all this time in the room where he had his lessons, waiting for his tutor. He was biting his nails to the quick, and twisting his little face into every kind of contortion. Geoff was now ten, and he had grown a great deal during the year,—if not so very much in stature, yet a great deal in experience. A little, a very little, and yet enough to swear by, of the wholesome discipline of neglect had fallen to Geoff's share. Business and lessons had parted his day from his mother's in a way which was very surprising when it was realised; and Geoff realised it, perhaps, better than Lady Markland did. In the evenings she was, as before, his alone; though sometimes even then a little preoccupied and with other things in her mind, as she allowed, which she could scarcely speak to him about. But in the long day these two saw comparatively little of each other. At luncheon, Warrender was always there talking to Lady Markland of subjects which Geoff was not familiar with. The boy thought, sometimes, that Theo chose them on purpose to keep him "out of it." Certainly he was very often out of it, and had to sit and stare and listen, which was very good for him but did not make him more affectionate towards Theo. To feel "out of it" is not a comfortable, but it is a very maturing experience. Geoff sat by and thought what a lot Theo knew; what a lot mamma knew; what an advantage grown-up people had; and how inattentive to other people's feelings they were in using it. After luncheon, Theo frequently stayed to talk something over with Lady Markland; to show her something; now and then to help her with something which she did not feel equal to, and during these moments Geoff was supposed to "play." What he did, generally, was to resort to the stables and talk with the coachman and Black, whose conversation was perhaps not the best possible for the little lad, and who instructed him in horse-racing and other subjects of the kind. When Theo went away, Lady Markland would call for Geoff to walk down the avenue with her, accompanying the tutor to the gate. And when he had been shaken hands with and had taken his departure, then was to Geoff the best of the day. His mother and he, when it was fine, strolled about the park together for an hour, in something like the old confiding and equal friendship; a pair of friends, though they were mother and son, and though Geoff was but ten and she twenty-seven. That moment was old times come back, and recalled what was already the golden age to Geoff, the time before anything had happened. He did not say before his father died, for his childish memory was acute enough to recollect that things had often been far from happy then. But he remembered the halcyon days of the first mourning; the complete peace; the gradual relaxation of his mother's face; the return of her dimples, and of her laughter. It had only been then, he remembered, that he had called her "pretty mamma!" her face had become so fresh, and so soft and round. But lately it had lengthened a little again; and the eyes sometimes went miles off, which made him uneasy. "Why do your eyes go so far away? do you see anything?" he asked, sometimes; and then she would come back to him with a start, perhaps with a flush of sudden colour, sometimes with a laugh, making fun of it. But Geoff did not feel disposed to make fun of it. It gave him a pang of anger to see her so; and unconsciously, without knowing why, he was more indignant with Theo at these moments, than he was when Theo sat at table and talked about matters beyond Geoff's ken. What had Theo to do with that far-away look? What could he have to do with it? Geoff could not tell; he was aware there was no sense in his anger, but yet he was angry all the same.

And now, he sat waiting for Theo to come: waiting, but not wishing for him. Geoff was not so clever as the maids and old Soames; he did not know what he was afraid of. He had never formulated to himself any exact danger; and naturally he knew nothing of the seductions of that way upon which Warrender had been drawn without intending it; without meaning any breach of Geoff's peace or of his own. Geoff did not know at all what he feared. He felt that there was something going on which was against him; and he had a kind of consciousness, like all the rest, that it was coming to a climax to-day. But he did not know what it was, nor what danger was impending over him. Perhaps Theo intended to stay longer; to come to Markland altogether; to interfere with the boy's evenings as he had done with his mornings. Or perhaps—but when he for a moment asked himself what he feared, his thoughts all fled away into vague alarms, infinitesimal in comparison with the reality, which was far too big, too terrible, for his mind to grasp. Mamma was afraid of it too, he had thought, this morning. She had looked, as the sky looks sometimes when the clouds are flying over it, and the wind is high and a storm is getting up: sometimes her face would be all overcast, and then her eyes had the look of a shower falling (though she did not shed any tears), and then there would be a clearing. She was afraid too. It was something that Theo was going to propose: some change that he wanted to carry out: and mamma was afraid of it too. This was in one way comforting, but in another more alarming: for it must be very serious indeed, if she, too, was afraid.

He roused himself from these uncomfortable thoughts, and began to pull his books about, and put his exercise upon the desk which Theo used, when he heard the sound of Theo's arrival; the heavy hoofs of the big black horse; the voice of Soames in the hall; the quick steady step coming in. The time had been when Geoff had thrown all his books on the table, and rushed out to witness the arrival, with an eager "Oh, Theo, you're five minutes late!" or "Oh, Theo, I haven't done yet!" For some time, however, he had left off doing this. Things were too serious for such vanities; he lifted his head and held his breath, listening to the approaching footstep. A kind of alarm lest it should not be coming here at all, but straight to Lady Markland's room, made him pale for the moment. That would be too bad, to come here professedly for Geoff and to go instead to mamma! it would be just like Theo; but fortunately things were not quite so bad as that. The steps came straight to Geoff's door. Warrender entered looking—the boy could not tell how—flushed, weary-eyed: something as he had seen his father look in the morning after a late night. Excitement simulates many recollections, and this was the first thought that leaped to Geoff's little mind, with its little bit of painful experience. "I say, Theo!" the boy cried; and then stared and said no more.

"Well! what is it you say? I hope you are prepared to-day, not like last time."

"Last time! but I was very well prepared! It is you who forget. I knew all my lessons."

"You had better teach me, then, Geoff, for I don't know all: no, nor half what I want to know. Oh, is this your exercise?" Warrender said, sitting down. He looked it over and corrected it with his pencil, hanging over it, seeming to forget the boy's presence. When that was done he opened the book carelessly, anywhere, not at the place, as Geoff, who watched with keen eyes everything the young man was doing, perceived instantly. "Where did you leave off last time? Go on," he said. Geoff began; but he was far too intent on watching Theo to know what he was doing; and as he construed with his eyes only, and not all of them, for he had to keep his companion's movements in sight all the time, it is needless to say that Geoff made sad work of his Caesar. And his little faculties were more and more sharpened with alarm, and more and more blunted in Latin, when he found that, stumble as he liked, Theo did not correct him nor say a word. He sat with his head propped on his hands, and when Geoff paused said, "Go on." Either this meant something very awful in the shape of fault-finding when the culprit had come to the end of the lesson, the exemption now meaning dire retribution then, or else—there was something very wrong with Theo. Geoff's little sharp eyes seemed to leap out of their sockets with excitement and suspense.

At last Warrender suddenly, in the midst of a dreadfully boggled sentence, after Geoff had beaten himself on every side of these walls of words in bewildering endeavours to find a nominative, suddenly sprang up to his feet. "Look here," he said, "I think I'll give you a holiday to-day."

Geoff, much startled, closed his book upon his hand. "I had a holiday yesterday."

"Oh yes, to be sure! what has that to do with it? You can put away your books for to-day. As for being prepared, my boy, if my head had not been so bad——"

"Is your head bad, Theo?" Geoff put on a hypo-critical look of solicitude to divert attention from his own delinquencies.

"I think it will split in two," said Warrender, pressing his hands upon his temples, in which indeed the blood was so swelling in every vein that they seemed ready to burst. He added a minute after, "You can run out and get a little air; and——" here he paused, and the boy stopped and looked up, knowing and fearing what was coming. "And," repeated Warrender, a crimson flush coming to his face which had been so pale, "I'll—go and explain to Lady Markland."

"Oh, if you're in a hurry to go, never mind, Theo! I'll tell mamma."

Warrender looked at Geoff with a blank but angry gaze. "I told you to run out and play," he said, his voice sounding harsh and strange. "It's very bright out of doors. It will be better for you."

"And, Theo! what shall I learn for to-morrow?"

"To-morrow!" The child was really frightened by the look Theo gave him: the sudden fading out of the flush, the hollow look in his eyes. Then he flung down the book which all the time he had been holding mechanically in his hand. "Damn to-morrow!" he said.

Geoff's eyes opened wide with amazement and horror. Was Theo going mad? was that what it meant after all?



CHAPTER XXVII.

A minute after he was in the room where Lady Markland sat with her great writing table against the light. He did not know how he got there. It seemed impossible that it could have been by mere walking out of one room into another in the ordinary mechanical way. She rose up, dark against the light, when he went in, which was not at all her habit, but he was not sufficiently self-possessed to be aware of that. She turned towards him, which perhaps was an involuntary, instinctive precaution, for against the full daylight in the great window he could but imperfectly see her features. The precaution was unnecessary. His eyes were not clear enough to perceive what was before him. He saw his conception of her, serene in a womanly majesty far above his troubled state of passion, and was quite incapable of perceiving the sympathetic trouble in her face. She held out her hand to him before he could say anything, and said, with a little catch in her breath, "Oh, Mr. Warrender! I—Geoff—we were not sure whether we should see you to-day."

This was a perfectly unintentional speech and quite uncalled for; for nobody could be more regular, more punctual, than Warrender. It was the first thing she could find to say.

"Did you think I could stay away?" he asked, in a low and hurried tone, which was not at all the beginning he had intended. Then he added, "But I have given Geoff a holiday, if you can accord me a little time,—if I may speak to you."

"Geoff is not like other boys," she said, with a nervous laugh, still standing with her back to the light. "He does not rejoice in a holiday like most children; you have made him love his work."

"It is not about Geoff," he said. "I have—something to say to you, if you will hear me. I—cannot be silent any longer."

"Oh," she said, "you are going to tell me—I know what it is you are going to say—that this cannot continue. I knew that must come sooner or later. Mr. Warrender, you don't need to be told how grateful I am; I thank you, from the bottom of my heart. You have done so much for us. It was clear that it could not—go on for ever." She put out her hand for her chair, and drew it closer, and sat down, still with her back to the window; and now even in his preoccupation with his own overwhelming excitement he saw that she trembled a little, and that there was agitation in her tone.

"Lady Markland, it is not that. It is more than that. The moment has come when I must—when I cannot keep it up any longer. Ah!" for she made a little movement with her hand as if to impose silence. "Must it be so? must I go unheard?" He came closer to her, holding out his hands in the eloquence of nature, exposing his agitated countenance to the full revelation of the light. "It is not much, is it, in return for a life—only to be allowed to speak, once: for half an hour, for five minutes—once—and then to be silent." Here he paused for breath—still holding out his hands in a silent appeal. "But if that is my sentence I will accept it," he said.

"Oh, Mr. Warrender, do not speak so. Your sentence! from me, that am so deeply in your debt, that never can repay—but I know you never thought of being repaid."