"I don't want to accuse anybody," said John Grange sadly, as he sat with a piteous look in his blank eyes; "but I'm afraid one of the servants must have stumbled up against the stand, and was then afraid to speak."

"Burr-urr!" growled old Tummus, who was devouring his late meal—a meat tea, the solid part consisting of a great hunch of bread and upon it a large piece of cold boiled, streaky, salt pork.

"Don't make noises like that at the table, Tummus," said his wife. "What will Mr Grange think of you?"

"Only said 'Burr-urr!'" grumbled old Tummus.

"Well, you shouldn't; and I do wish you would use the proper knife and fork like a Christian, and keep your pork on your plate."

"This here's quite sharp enough, missus," said the old man, cutting the piece of pork with the blade of his great pruning-knife, and re-arranging the piece under his perfectly clean but dirty-looking, garden-stained thumb.

"But it looks so bad, cutting like that; and how do we know what you used that knife for last."

"Well, Muster John Grange can't see, can he?"

"No, no, I cannot see, man," said Grange sadly. "Go on in your own way as if I were not here."

"Burr-urr!" growled old Tummus again.

"Why, what is the matter with the man?" cried his wife. "Have you not meat enough?"

"Aye, it's right enow. I was only thinking about them orchards. I know."

"Know what?" said his wife.

"Who done it. I see him go there and come away."

"What?" cried John Grange excitedly, as he turned his eyes towards the old gardener.

"I see Muster Dan Barnett come away from the conservatory all in a hurry like, d're'ckly after you'd been there."

"You saw Dan Barnett?"

"Aye, that's so. I see him: did it out o' spite 'cause the missus didn't give him the job."

"Tummus, what are you a-saying of?" cried his wife, as the old man's words made Grange start excitedly from his chair. "Why, if Dan'l Barnett heared as you said that, you'd be turned away at a moment's notice."

"I don't keer; it's the solomon truth," said old Tummus, cutting off a cubic piece of pork and lifting it from his bread with the point of his pruning-knife.

"It can't be anything of the sort, so hold your tongue. There, there, Mr Grange, my dear. Don't you take any notice of his silly clat. Have another cup of tea: here's quite a beauty left."

"You say you saw Daniel Barnett come from the conservatory that morning?" cried Grange excitedly; and there was a wild look of agony in his eyes as he spoke.

"Nay, nay, he didn't, my dear," cried old Hannah; "it's all his nonsense. Just see what you've done, Tummus, with your rubbishing stuff."

"Aye, but I did see him come out, and I see him go in all of a hurry like," said old Tummus sturdily.

"Where were you?"

"In the shrubbery, raking up the dead leaves as he told me to the night afore, and forgotten as I was there so near."

"And you were busy raking the leaves?" said Grange.

"Nay, I warn't; I was a-watching on him, and left off, for I didn't see what he wanted there."

"No, no, it's impossible; he would have been so careful," said Grange hurriedly.

"Keerful?" cried old Tummus contemptuously: "he did it o' purpose. I know: out o' spite."

"Tummus, you're driving us in a coach and four into the workhouse," cried his wife passionately.

"Good job too. I don't keer. I say Dan Barnett did it out o' spite, and I'll go straight to the missus and tell her."

"No," said John Grange sternly. "Not a word. What you say is impossible. Daniel Barnett does not like me, and he resents my being here, but he could not have been guilty of so cowardly, so contemptible an act."

"Burr-urr!" growled old Tummus; "wouldn't he? I know."

"Whatever you know," said John Grange sternly, "you must keep to yourself."

"What, and let the missus think you done it?"

"The truth comes to the surface some time or another," said John Grange very firmly. "I cannot believe this is the truth, but even if it is I forbid you to speak."

"Yes; he'd better," put in old Hannah, shaking her head severely at her husband; and the meal was finished in silence.

Another month had passed, and John Grange's position remained unchanged. He worked in the houses, and tied up plants by the green walks; but Mrs Mostyn never came round to stand by his side and talk to him regarding her flowers, and ask questions about the raising of fresh choice plants for the garden. In those painful minutes he had fallen very low in her estimation, and was no longer the same in her eyes, only the ordinary gardener whom she kept on out of charity, and whom she would keep on to the end of her days.

John Grange felt it bitterly, and longed to get away from a place which caused him intense agony, for, from time to time, he could not help knowing that Daniel Barnett went up to smoke a pipe with James Ellis, and talk about the garden.

But the sufferer was helpless. He could not decide what to do if he went away, for there was no talk now of getting him into an asylum; and in spite of all his strong endeavours and determination to be manly and firm, he felt that it would be impossible to go away from The Hollows and leave Mary Ellis.

From time to time Barnett saw little things which convinced him that so long as John Grange was near he would have no chance of making any headway with the object of his pursuit, and this made him so morose and bitter that he would often walk up and down one of the shrubberies on dark nights, inveighing against his rival, who still did not accept his position, but hung on in a place where he was not wanted.

"The girl's mad about him," he muttered, "absolutely mad, and—"

He stopped short, thoroughly startled by the thoughts which came into his mind. It was as if a temptation had been whispered to him, and, looking sharply round in the darkness, he hurried back to the bothy. That night he lay awake tossing about till morning. That very day he had encountered John Grange twice at the end of the long green walk, with its sloping sides and velvet turf, at the top of which slopes were long beds filled with dahlias. These John Grange was busy tying up to their sticks, and, as if unable to keep away, Barnett hung about that walk, and bullied the man at one end who was cutting the grass by hand where the machine could not be used; and at last made the poor fellow so wroth that he threw down his scythe as soon as Barnett had gone, and said he might do it himself.

Barnett came to the other end a couple of hundred yards away, and began to find fault with the way in which the dahlias were being tied up.

But John Grange bore it all without a word, though his lips quivered a little.

This was repeated, and Grange felt that it was the beginning of a course of persecution to drive him away.

Barnett went down the long green path till nearly at the end, when the dinner-bell began to ring, and just then he came upon the scythe lying where the man had thrown it in his pet.

"Humph!" ejaculated Barnett. "Well, he won't have Mrs Mostyn to take his part. Pretty thing if I can't find fault with those under me."

At that moment he turned, and there, a hundred yards away, was John Grange coming along to his dinner, erect, and walking at a fair pace along the green walk, touching the side from time to time with his stick so as to keep in the centre.

The idea came like a flash, and Daniel Barnett glanced round. No one appeared to be in sight, and quick as thought it was done. One sharp thrust at the bent handle was sufficient to raise the scythe blade and swing it round across the green path, so that the keen edge rose up and kept in position a few inches above the grass right in John Grange's path as he came steadily on.

The next moment Barnett had sprung among the bushes, and was gone.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

The late Albert Smith, in his Christopher Tadpole, describes a lady whose weakness was periwinkles. Old Hannah likewise had a weakness, but it was not for that unpleasant-looking curly mollusc which has to be wriggled out with a pin, but, as she expressed it, "a big mellow Williams pear with a maddick in it."

Old Hannah's "maddick" was, of course, a maggot in north-country language, but it was not that she had a liking for the larva of a fly, but for the fruit in which that maggot lived for as a gardener's wife she knew well enough that very often those were the finest pears, the first to ripen, that they fell off the tree and were useless for the purpose of dessert, and were often left to rot. So that, knowing well his wife's weakness, old Tummus would pick up a fallen pear when he saw it under the tree in September, show it to old Dunton, who would nod his head, and the destination of that pear would be Tummus's pocket.

Now there was a fine old pyramid pear-tree not far from the green walk, and while hoeing away at the weeds that morning, where the rich soil made them disposed to grow rampant, old Tummus came upon "the very moral" of the pear his old woman would like. It was big, mellow, and streaked with vermilion and patched with gold; and had evidently lain there two nights, for its fragrant odour had attracted a slug, which had carved a couple of round cells in the side, close to where the round black hole betrayed where the maggot lived, and sundry other marks showed that it was still at hand.

Tummus picked up that pear and laid it in the green cup formed by a young broccoli plant, went on with his hoeing till the bell rang, and was half-way to the gate, stick and lunch-basket in hand, when he remembered the pear, and hurried back—that is to say, he walked back— not quite so slowly as usual, for Tummus never ran. A man that came from "his parts" remembered that the old man had been known to run once, at some cottagers' festival, but that was ages before, and ever since he had walked very deliberately.

Anyhow, he found the pear, and was returning to cut across the green path, when he caught sight of Daniel Barnett, and stopped short.

"I forgetted as poor old Dunton's dead," he thought, "He'll turn nasty if I ask him about the pear; and what's he a-doing of?"

Old Tummus peered through a great row of scarlet-runners and stared at his superior, and saw him bend over something on the green path, and then dart in among the bushes and disappear.

"Now what is he doing of?" old Tummus muttered. "Not a-going to—Why here comes poor Master Grange. Well, he couldn't have seen him. Not a-setting o' no more traps, is he?"

Old Tummus watched for a moment or two, and then walked right across the borders to reach the green path, breathless, just before John Grange came up, and shouted loudly—

"Ware well!"

It was just in time, for in another instant the blind man's ankle would have struck severely against the keen scythe edge, which by accident or malignant design was so placed that its cut would have proved most dangerous, that is to say, in a slightly diagonal position—that is, it would have produced what is known to swordsmen as a draw-cut.

But the poor fellow escaped, for, at the first warning of danger he stopped short, erect in his place, with his nostrils widening and face turned towards the speaker.

"Well?" he cried. "Impossible! I am three parts of the way along the green path."

"Aye, that's so, Muster Grange," said old Tummus, carefully removing the scythe, and placing it in safety by hooking the blade high up in a dense yew-tree. "No well here, but I thought it best any way to stop you."

"To stop me? Why?" cried Grange.

"'Cause some one as ought to be kicked out o' the place left his scythe lying across the grass ready for you to chop your shins. It's all right now."

They walked on in silence till they reached a gate opening upon the green meadow, where John Grange stopped short with his hand resting upon the upper bar.

"What is it, my lad?" said old Tummus.

"I was only thinking of how helpless I am. I thank you, Tummus," he said simply, as he turned and held out his hand. "I might have cut myself terribly."

"Aye, you might, my lad. There, go on to your dinner, and tell the missus I shall be there directly."

John Grange wrung the old man's hand, and went on in perfect ignorance of the trap that had been laid, with the idea that if he were injured and had to go to a hospital once again, it was not likely that he would return to the gardens; while old Tummus went off to the tool-shed, a quiet, retired nook, suitable for a good think, to cogitate as to what he should do under the circumstances.

His first thought was to go straight to Mrs Mostyn, and tell her what he had seen, and also about the orchids, but he argued directly that his mistress would not believe him.

"For I didn't see him upset the orchards, and as to this here business," he thought, "nobody wouldn't believe as a human being would go and do such a thing. Dunno as I would mysen if I hadn't seen it, and I arn't quite sure now as he meant to do it, though it looks as much like it as ever it could. He's got his knife into poor John Grange, somehow, and I don't see why, for the poor fellow arn't likely to do much harm to anybody now."

Then he considered for a bit as to whether he should tell John Grange what he had seen; but he concluded that he would not, for it would only make the poor fellow miserable if he believed him.

Old Tummus was still considering as to the best course when the two o'clock bell rang, and he jumped up to go back to his work.

"Never mind," he thought, with a grin, "I dessay there'll be a few cold taters left, and I must have them with my tea."

That same evening, after old Tummus had finished a meal which more than made up for his abstemiously plain dinner, he made up his mind to tell John Grange out in the garden.

"For," said he to himself, "I mayn't be there next time there's a scythe across the path, and who knows but what some day it may be the well in real airnest; Dan Barnett may leave the lid off, or uncover the soft-water tank, and the poor chap be drowned 'fore he knows it."

But when he went out he found his lodger looking so happy and contented, tying up the loose shoots of the monthly rose which ran over the cottage, that he held his tongue.

"It arn't my business," he argued, and he went off to meet an old crony or two in the village.

"Don't let any one run away with the house while I'm gone, Mr John," said old Hannah, a few minutes later. "I'm going down to the shop, and I shan't be very long."

Grange nodded pleasantly, and went on with his work.

That night Mary Ellis sat at her open window, sad and thoughtful, inhaling the cool, soft breeze which came through the trees, laden with woodland scents. The south-eastern sky was faintly aglow, lit up by the heralds of the rising moon, and save the barking of a dog up at the kennels, all was still.

She was thinking very deeply of her position, and of Daniel Barnett's manner towards her the last time they met. It was plain enough that her father favoured the head-gardener's visits, and in her misery her thoughts turned to John Grange, the tears falling softly the while. All at once she started away from the window, for, plainly heard, a low, deep sigh came from the dark shadow of the trees across the road.

Daniel Barnett? John Grange? There so late? Who could it be?

Her heart said John Grange, for the wish was father to the thought.

But she heard nothing more for a few minutes, and then in a whisper, hardly above the breath, the words—

"Good-bye—for ever, perhaps—good-bye!"

Then came the hurrying sound of steps on the dewy grass at the side of the road, and the speaker was gone, leaving Mary leaning out of the window, excited and trembling violently, while her heart beat in the stillness of the night as if it were the echo of the hurried pace rapidly dying away.

"It could not be—it could not be," she sighed at last, as she left the window to prepare for bed. "And yet he loves me so dearly. But why should he say that?"

She stopped in the middle of the room, and the words seemed to repeat themselves—

"Good-bye—for ever, perhaps—good-bye!"

The tears fell fast as she felt that it was so like John Grange in his manly, honourable way of treating their positions.

"He feels it all so terribly that it would be like tying me down—that it would be terrible for me—because he is blind."

She wiped her eyes, and a bright smile played about her lips, for there, self-pictured, was a happy future for them both, and she saw herself lightening the great trouble of John Grange's life, and smoothing his onward course. There was their happy home with her husband seeing with her eyes, guided always by her hand, and looking proud, manly, and strong once more as she had known him of old.

"It will only draw us closer together," she said softly; "and father will never refuse when he once feels it's for my happiness and for poor John's good."

But the smile died out as black clouds once more rose to blot out the pleasant picture she had formed in her mind; and as the mists gathered the tears fell once more, hot, briny tears which seemed to scald her eyes as she sank upon her knees by the bedside and buried her face in her hands.

That night Mary Ellis's couch remained unpressed, and the rising sun shone in at the window upon her glossy hair where she crouched down beside her bed.

It was a movement in the adjoining room which roused her from the heavy stupor into which she had fallen, for it could hardly be called a natural sleep, and she started up to look round as if feeling guilty of some lapse of duty.

For a few minutes she suffered from a strange feeling of confusion accompanied by depression. Then by degrees the incidents of the past night came clearly to her mind, and she recalled how she had sunk down by her bed to pray for help and patience, and that the terrible affliction might be lightened for him she loved, and then all had become blank.

A few minutes before Mary's face had looked wan and pale, now it was suffused by a warm glow that was not that of the ruddy early morning sun. For the hope had risen strongly in her breast that, in spite of all, the terrible affliction would be lightened, and by her.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Four days elapsed, and Mrs Ellis noticed a change in her child. Mary had been more than usually attentive to her father, and James Ellis had noticed and looked pleased.

"'Tis going off, mother," he said one evening. "Of course it hit very hard at the time, poor little lass, for she felt very fond of him, I suppose; but I always said to myself that time would heal the sore place, and, bless her, it is doing it. You've noticed how much brighter she seems?"

"Yes, I've noticed," said Mrs Ellis, nodding her head as she prepared the supper. "She was actually singing gently to herself this morning over her work, just as she used to, and you don't know, James dear, what a lot of good it did me."

"Oh, yes, I do—oh, yes, I do," said the bailiff, nodding his head. "Of course it would, mother."

"Yes, dear, it did, for it has been cruel work for me to see her going about the house in that heart-breaking way."

"Humph! Of course, and for me too."

"No, James, you're at home so little. You have your meals and sit with me of an evening, and at such times there's something going on to make the poor dear busy. But as soon as you're out of sight it has been dreadful again. I've seen a deal more of her poor heart-breaking than you have, and there have been times when—"

"Heart-breaking! Stuff and nonsense!" cried James Ellis petulantly.

"Ah, you don't know," said his wife, shaking her head at him sadly.

"Don't know what, you silly woman? There, that sounds like heart-breaking, doesn't it?"

For at that moment, plainly heard, came the sound of Mary's voice singing the old English song, "Robin Adair"; and as the notes reached his ear, James Ellis smiled, held his head on one side, swayed it to the melody, and began softly to hum over the plaintive tune.

"Rob—in—er—her—dair," sang James Ellis. "Well done, little lassie! Talk about a voice, mother, why it's as sweet as a bird's."

"Yes, dear, but I wish she wouldn't sing such sad things—it puts me in mind of the robins in the autumn time."

"I wish you wouldn't be so melancholy, mother. You're enough to put a whole regiment of soldiers out of spirits, let alone a poor girl. Here, hold your tongue now. Here she comes."

Footsteps were heard upon the stairs, and the foot was more springy than it had been of late, as Mary entered the room.

"Ready for supper, father dear?" said Mary, going behind his chair, placing her arms about his neck, and drawing his head back so that she could lay her cheek against his forehead.

"Ready, my pet? Of course I am;" and "Rob—in—er—her—dair," he sang. "That's the way. I'm glad to hear you tune up a bit. It's like the birds in spring corn: and mother wants it, for of all the melancholy old women that ever lived, she's about the worst."

Click!

"Hallo! Who's that at the gate? Just look, dear."

Mary went to the window, but there was no need, for she knew the step; and as her mother glanced at her, she saw the girl's face harden as she said—

"Mr Barnett, father."

"Humph! What does he want to-night?" muttered Ellis. "Let him in, my dear; and, Mary, my girl, don't run away out of the room."

Mary was silent, and a tapping came at the door, evidently administered by the head of a stick.

"Evening, Miss Mary," said the visitor briskly. "Nice growing weather. Father at home?"

"Yes, I'm at home. Want me, Daniel Barnett?"

"Well, yes, Mr Ellis, sir, there's a little bit o' business I want to see you about. I ought to have asked you this morning and down at the gardens, but somehow I've always got such a lot of things on my mind there that a lot of 'em slip out again."

"Come in then, come in then," said Ellis.

"Not if it's disturbing you, sir," protested the visitor. "Say the word, and I'll go and come up another evening. I don't mind a walk, Miss Mary," he added, in a confidential way.

"Business, business, Daniel Barnett! And there's nothing like getting it over," said Ellis, as, after a good deal of preliminary shoe-rubbing, Barnett stepped to the door of the sitting-room, and then stopped short in a very apologetic way.

"Why, you're just going to supper. I'd best come up to-morrow night."

James Ellis felt in the best of humours, and he smiled.

"Well," he said, "if you come to-morrow evening, I suppose I shall have some supper then. Sit down, man, and out with it."

"Oh, thank you, Mr Ellis, and with many apologies to you, Mrs Ellis, ma'am, and to you too, Miss Mary."

"Why, hallo! Daniel Barnett. Been to the bookseller's lately?"

"Eh? No, sir, I haven't been to the town for a fortnight past," said Barnett wonderingly.

"Oh," said the bailiff, with a knowing look at his wife and daughter; "I thought perhaps you'd bought and been studying up Etiquette for Gentlemen."

"No, no, sir! Ha, ha, ha! That's a good one, Mr Ellis. Oh, no, sir, I'm only a rough one, and what I know of etiquetty came up natural like—like—"

"Mushrooms?"

"That's a good one too!" cried Barnett, with forced gaiety. "He's having his little joke at me, Miss Mary."

"There, never mind them," said the bailiff, "let's have the business and get it over. What is it?"

"Of course, sir. It won't take long."

"Shall we go in the kitchen, James?" said Mrs Ellis.

"Eh, ma'am?" cried the young man eagerly. "Oh, no, pray don't let me drive you away, it's only garden business."

"They're not going," said Ellis, half jocularly. "Now then, what is it, my lad?"

"Well, it's about the gravel paths, Mr Ellis," said the young man, leaning forward, after wiping his damp forehead, and speaking confidentially. "I'm getting a bit anxious about them."

"Glad to hear it, my lad. I was always proud o' my paths in the old days."

"And so am I, sir. If the gravel paths in a garden's kept right there isn't so very much the matter."

"Humph! Well, I don't go so far as that, Daniel Barnett, but paths go a long way. So you're ashamed of their being so weedy, eh?"

"Weedy, sir," said the young man, flushing.

"Why those paths—Oh, I see! Ha ha! He's chaffing me again, Miss Mary."

Mary did not even smile, and the visitor looked uncomfortable, his own face growing serious again directly.

"It's a long time since they've been regravelled, Mr Ellis, sir, and as I could spare a bit of time, I thought, if you were not much pressed up at the farm, you might let me have a hundred loads of gravel carted from the pit."

"Take a lot of time and very hard work for the horses," said the bailiff, pursing up his lips.

"Yes, sir, I calculated all that, but it would be a wonderful improvement to my paths, and they'd pay for doing."

"I don't want to spare the carts, Daniel Barnett; but I agree with you it would be a great improvement, and I want Mrs Mostyn to feel that you are doing justice to the place, so I suppose I must say yes."

"Thank you, sir, thank you," cried Barnett, for he could feel the strength of the encouragement, and knew how much it meant. "There," he continued, rising very slowly and glancing at mother and daughter as he spoke, "I'll start two men picking up the big path, and I s'pose you'll be sending down the gravel almost any time."

"They shall begin soon and get it over."

"Thank you, sir; then I'll say good-night now. Good-night, Mrs Ellis. Good-night, Miss Mary."

"What, won't you stop and have a bit of supper with us, Daniel?" said the bailiff.

Wouldn't he! And "Daniel" too! He dropped down into his chair muttering something about its being very kind, and that he thought he wouldn't mind a morsel, but he looked in vain for a welcoming smile from Mary, who, without a word, slowly left the room, and returned as silently as she went, but with fresh knives and forks, and a couple more plates.

"But she didn't put 'em next to hers," thought Daniel Barnett, most unreasonably, for there was the whole opposite side of the table at liberty, and she laid a place for him there.

It was of course what he had been looking for. He had come expecting to be asked to stay, and as soon as they were all seated he told himself that it was all right, and he stared hard at the gentle face across the table and started various topics of conversation, directed at Mary, her father good-humouredly helping him with a word now and then, while Mrs Ellis looked on and attended to the wants of her guest.

"Yes, she's coming round at last," thought Daniel Barnett; for, whenever she was addressed, Mary replied in a quiet, gentle way, and once entered into the conversation with some word of animation, making the bailiff look across the table at his wife, and give her a nod, as much as to say—

"Now then, who's broken-hearted now?"

But Mrs Ellis only tightened her lips and said to herself—

"Yes, it's all very well; but fathers don't understand their girls like mothers do. Women know how to read women and men don't, and never will—that's my humble opinion about that—and I wish Daniel Barnett would go—"

Daniel Barnett was a clever fellow, but like many sharp men he could be too much so sometimes. Metaphorically, he was one of those men who disdained the use of stirrups for mounting a horse, and liked to vault into the saddle, which he could do with ease and grace, but sometimes he would, in his efforts to show off, over-leap himself—vaulting ambition fashion—and come down heavily on the other side.

He performed that feat on the present occasion at supper, for, in his blundering way, now that circumstances had occurred which made him feel pretty safe, he thought it would be good form to show Mary what a fine, magnanimous side there was in his character, and how, far from looking upon John Grange as a possible rival, he treated him as a poor, unfortunate being, for whom he could feel nothing but pity.

"Rather strange business, wasn't it, about poor Grange, Mr Ellis, eh?"

Mary started. Mrs Ellis thrust her hand beneath the table-cloth to give her daughter's dress a twitch, and Ellis frowned and uttered a kind of grunt, which might have meant anything.

Any one else would have known by the silence that he had touched dangerous ground. Daniel Barnett felt that it was an opportunity for him to speak.

"I am very sorry for the poor fellow," he said; "it seems so sad, but it is no more than I expected."

Mary turned white and cold.

"You don't know where he has gone, Mr Ellis?"

"No," said the bailiff shortly.

"No; I thought you said so. Poor chap! I did everything I could to make matters easy for him, and selected little jobs that I thought he could do; but, of course, he would not take to them happily. He felt it hard to have to take his orders from me, and very naturally, for he expected to be head-gardener, and would have been, eh, Mr Ellis?"

"Yes," grunted the bailiff.

"To be sure he would. I'm not such a donkey as to suppose I should have got the place if he had been all right. I'm a good gardener, though I say it as shouldn't say it, Miss Mary; but there were lots of little dodges about flowers where he could beat me hollow. Ha, ha, ha!" he laughed, "I wouldn't say that before the men, but I don't mind here."

"Is Mr Grange bad again?" asked Mrs Ellis, unable to restrain her curiosity.

"Bad, ma'am? Well, of course he's bad; but no worse than usual. You know, I suppose, that he's gone away?"

"I? No."

"Oh, yes, quite mysterious like; never said good-bye to a soul."

"But me," thought Mary, with a sensation as of something clutching her heart, as she recalled that night at her bedroom window.

"Yes, poor fellow, he's gone," said Ellis, who felt that it was time to speak.

"Of course I know why," said Barnett, "it was too much for him. He was fretting his heart out, poor chap, and he no doubt thought it was the best he could do—get right away you know, where he wasn't known, and where everything he saw—I mean everything he touched—didn't remind him of the old place. It's all very sad, and it used to make me feel uncomfortable, and keep away for fear of making him think of my superseding him; but there, we're all like plants and flowers, Miss Mary, and suffer from our blights and east winds."

He looked across at Mary, whose face was stony, and her eyes fixed upon him so strangely that he felt abashed, and turned to Mrs Ellis.

"Sad business, ma'am, from the beginning," he said; "but, as the saying is, we don't know, and perhaps it's all for the best."

Mrs Ellis sighed, the supper was at an end; and to the great relief of all, Barnett rose, and in a tone of voice which suggested that every one had been pressing him very hard to stay longer, he cried—

"Well, really, I must go now."

Mrs Ellis said meekly, "Must you, Mr Barnett?" and held out her hand promptly.

He shook hands with her quite affectionately, and then turned to Mary, who let him take her hand more than gave it, and he sighed as he said "Good-night."

"You'll think about the gravel, Mr Ellis?" he said to his host. "I want that garden to look better than any one in the county."

"Yes, you shall have it, Barnett, first time I can spare the horses at the farm. And I'll go down to the gate with you." They walked not only to the gate, but a couple of hundred yards towards the gardens before either spoke, and then just as Barnett was congratulating himself upon how well he had got on at the cottage that night, Ellis turned to him sharply.

"I told Mrs Mostyn about John Grange having gone away so suddenly."

"Did you, sir? What did she say?"

"That she didn't want to hear his name mentioned again, for she had been disappointed in the man."

"Poor chap!" said Barnett sadly.

"Yes, poor chap!" said Ellis hastily. "For Heaven's sake don't ever hint at such a thing at home, Daniel, but I've a horrible thought of something being wrong about that poor fellow. You don't think that, quite out of heart and in despair like, he has gone and done anything rash, do you?"

"Well, Mr Ellis, I didn't like to hint at such a thing to any one, but as you do think like that, and as old Tummus and his wife seem to be quite suspicious like, it did set me thinking, and I've felt sometimes that he must have walked two miles the other night to the river, and then gone in."

"By accident?" said Ellis quietly, "in his blindness."

"Ah!" said Barnett solemnly, "that's more than I can tell."

"Or must tell," said Ellis excitedly. "It mustn't even be breathed, Dan Barnett. If my Mary even heard it whispered, she'd go melancholy mad."



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

"Nay, sir, I don't know any more about it, and I arn't a-going to say nowt about it, but if that there poor bairn—"

"What poor bairn?" said James Ellis angrily, as he stood in the keeping-room of old Tummus's cottage. "I was asking you about John Grange."

"Well, I know you were. Arn't he quite a bairn to me?"

"Please don't be cross with him, Mr Ellis, sir," said old Hannah respectfully; "it's only his way, sir."

"Very well, let him go on," cried James Ellis testily.

"Just you keep your spoon out o' the broth, mother," grumbled old Tummus, "I know what I'm about."

"Well, what was it you were going to say?" asked the bailiff.

"I were going to say as I wouldn't say nowt about it, and I won't, but that poor lad has either been made away wi—"

"Tut, tut, nonsense!"

"Well, then, he's made away wi' himself," cried old Tummus, bringing his hand down upon the table with a heavy bang.

The bailiff, who had not removed his hat before now, took it off, showing a heavy dew upon his forehead, which he wiped away as he looked uneasily from one to the other.

"What—what makes you say that, Tummus?" murmured Ellis, who did not seem to be himself at all.

"Now, Tummus, do mind what you're saying," said old Hannah, in a lachrymose tone of voice.

"Well, I am, arn't I? What I say is this: Warn't it likely?"

"Likely?"

"Aye, likely. Here's the poor lad loses his sight all at once just when he's getting on and going to be head-gardener and marry my pretty bairn."

"Nothing of the sort, sir," cried the bailiff warmly. "You're too fond of settling other people's business."

"Yes, Mr Ellis, sir, that's what I tell him," said old Hannah anxiously.

"Tchah!" growled old Tummus, giving his body a jerk. "Very well then, sir, he thowt he were, and it got on his mind like that he were all in the darkness, and it's my belief as he couldn't bear it, and went and made a hole in the water so as to be out of his misery."

"Oh, Tummus, you shouldn't!"

"No, no; he was not the man to do such a thing," said Ellis, whose voice sounded husky, and who looked limp and not himself.

"I dunno," growled Tummus; "they say when a man's in love and can't get matters settled, he's ready to do owt. I never weer in love, so I doan't know for sure."

"Oh, Tummus!" cried old Hannah reproachfully.

"Will ta howd thee tongue?" cried the old man.

"No, I won't, Tummus. Not even with Mr Ellis here, if you stand there telling such wicked stories."

"Arn't a story," cried the old man, with the twinkle of a grim smile at the corners of his lips. "Who'd ever go and fall in love with an ugly owd woman like thou?"

"It couldn't be that; no, no, it couldn't be that," said the bailiff hastily.

"Wheer is he then, sir?" said old Tummus firmly.

"Gone away for a bit—perhaps to London."

"Nay, not he," said old Tummus, shaking his head, "I'm sewer o' that."

"Why, how do you know?"

"Would a smart young man like John Grange was ha' gone up to London without takking a clean shirt wi' him?"

"What!"

"Didn't take no clean shirt nor stoggins nor nowt."

"Are you sure of that?" said the bailiff.

"I couldn't make out that anything was gone out of his room, sir," said old Hannah, clapping her apron to her eyes. "Poor dear: it's very, very sad."

"Aye, it's sad enough," said old Tummus; "not as it matters much, what's the good o' going on living?"

"Tummus!" cried his wife.

"Well, what are yow shoutin' at? I say it again: What's the good o' livin'? You on'y get horrid owd, and your missus allus naggin' you at home, and your Dan Barnetts shoutin' at you in the garden, or else Master Ellis here giving it to you about something."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Tummus," said his wife. "To go and say such a thing to Mr Ellis's face, as has allus been a kind friend to you."

"Aye, lass, I don't grumble much at he, but we'm do grow precious owd."

"And a great blessing too, Tummus," cried his wife. "You don't hear Mr Ellis complain about getting old."

"Nay, but then he's got a pretty bairn, bless her!—as sweet and good a lass as ever stepped; and I says that to Master Ellis's face, same as I've often said it behind his back. Bless her! There!"

James Ellis, with the great care upon his breast—the haunting thought that perhaps, after all, he had had something to do with John Grange's disappearance—now stood in old Tummus's cottage a different being. There was none of the rather pompous, important manner that he was in the habit of putting on when addressing his inferiors. The faces of John Grange and Mary seemed to rise before him reproachfully, and, for the first time in his life, he stood before the old couple in the cottage a humbled man, hardly conscious of what was being said.

"Then he took nothing away with him, Hannah?" he said at last.

"No, sir, nothing that I can make out."

"Nowt!" said old Tummus. "Here he were, hevving his tea that night, looking that down sad, that a bad tater was nowt to him; next thing is as we hears him go out o' the door—that there door just behind wheer you're a-standing, Mr Ellis, sir, and he didn't come back."

"Didn't come back," said the bailiff, repeating the old man's words.

"We didn't set up for him because we know'd he'd shut oop all right, and if he didn't nobody wouldn't come and steal our plate, 'cause the owd woman allus taks it to bed wi' her."

"Tummus!"

"Well, so you do; six silver teaspoons, on'y one was lost years ago, and the sugar bows, sir, she allus wrops 'em up in an owd pocky ankychy."

"There is no water near," said James Ellis, as if to himself, but old Tummus's ears were sharp enough.

"There's the river."

"Two miles away, Tummus."

"What's two miles to a man who wants to drownd hissen! Why, if I wanted to mak' a hole in the watter I'd walk twenty."

"Tummus, I will not have you say such dreadful things."

"It's very, very sad, Hannah," said James Ellis at last; "and I'm more upset about it than I can say, for he was a fine, worthy young fellow, and as good a gardener as ever stepped."

"That he was," murmured the old couple.

"But we don't know that anything so terrible has happened. Some day perhaps we shall be hearing news of him."

"Nay, you never hear news o' them as has gone before, Master Ellis, sir. If I were you, I'd have the pond dragged up at the farm, and watter dreened off at Jagley's mill."

"No, no," cried the bailiff hastily. "There is no reason for suspecting such a thing. John Grange was not the man to go and do anything rash. There, I thought I'd come and have a few words with you, Hannah, and you too, Tummus. I want you' to hold your tongues, now, and to let this sad business die a natural death. You understand?"

"Oh yes, sir."

"Chatter grows into bad news sometimes. There, good-evening. I dare say you'll hear news about the poor fellow some day."

"Nay, we wean't," said old Tummus, when the bailiff was gone. "John Grange is as dead as a door-nail, and owd Jemmy Ellis knows it too; but he's scarred of his bairn hearing, and don't want the missus up at the house to think on it."

"But we don't know that he is dead," said old Hannah.

"Not for sewer," growled old Tummus, beginning to take off his heavy boots; "and we arn't sewer of a many things. But then, owd Jimmy's as good as master here, and if you go flying in his face you may just as well fly over the garden wall same time. I've done, missus. I don't say who done it, but it's my belief John Grange was put out o' the way."

"Oh, don't, Tummus; you give me the creeps."

"All right, all right, I've done. It's a rum world, and everything goes wrong in it."

"Not quite everything, dear."

"Well, no, not quite everything, but nearly. I believe it's because it was made round. Lookye here, missus: how can matters go right on a thing as has got no sound bottom to stand on? If the world had been made square it would have stood square, and things would have come right; but there it is all round and never keeping steady, and allus changing. Why, if you get a fine day you never can count upon another."

"No," sighed Hannah; "but there's a deal of good in the world, after all."

"Eh? What?" cried old Tummus, jumping up and standing upon the patchwork hearthrug in his stockings, "wheerabouts?—wheer is it, owd woman? I'm a-going to look for it 'fore I gets a day owder."

"Sit down, and don't talk such stuff, Tummus," cried the old woman, giving him a push which sent him back in his chair. "I won't have it."

"Ah! That's it," he said, with a low, chuckling laugh; "it's because the world's round. If it had been square we should all have stood solid, and old women wouldn't ha' flown at their mesters and knocked 'em down."



CHAPTER NINETEEN.

Old Tummus and his wife both declared that they minded what the bailiff said, and never let a word escape from them about the old man's suspicions; but rumour is a sad spreader of news, and the result of some bit of tittle-tattle turns up in places least expected, doing incalculable harm.

It was not likely that John Grange's disappearance would die out of ordinary conversation without being pretty well embroidered by people's imagination, and like the Three Black Crows of the old story, being added to until the origin looked very trifling and small. But all the same, it was some time before people's doubts reached Mrs Mostyn's ears through her housekeeper, and she turned upon her old confidential servant with a look of horror.

"Oh, my good woman!" she cried, "don't tell me that: it can't be true."

The housekeeper shook her head.

"I hope not, ma'am; but it has grown to be common talk."

"Why, if it really were so, I could never live happily in the old place again. Go away, and send some one to fetch James Ellis here, directly."

The bailiff came in due course; and as soon as he entered the drawing-room, where his mistress's face plainly showed that something was very wrong, she saluted him with—

"What's all this I hear about that poor young man?"

"Well, ma'am, I—"

"Ah, no hesitation, James Ellis. I want the precise facts. Is it true that he made away with himself?"

"That nobody can say, ma'am," said James Ellis firmly. "There has been some tattle of that kind."

"And you think that he did?"

"I try not to, ma'am," said the bailiff, "for everybody's sake. It would be terrible." Mrs Mostyn was silent. "Thank you, Ellis," she said, after a few minutes of awful silence; "it would indeed be terrible. But ought some search to be made? Is it my duty to have representations made to the police?"

"I think not now, ma'am. I did not like to give any encouragement to the rumour, for, after all, it is only a rumour."

"But where there's smoke there's fire, James Ellis."

"Yes, ma'am," said the bailiff sagely; "but people often see what they think is smoke, and it turns out to be only a vapour which dies away in the sunshine."

"Yes, yes," said Mrs Mostyn thoughtfully.

"I have gone into the matter a good deal, ma'am, I hope, as an honest man."

"I am sure of that, James Ellis," said his mistress.

"And for two reasons I have tried to think I was right in taking no steps about what may, after all, be all a fancy at which we have jumped."

"And what were the reasons, James Ellis?"

"One was, ma'am, that I knew it would be a great pain and trouble to my employer."

Mrs Mostyn bent her head.

"And the other?"

"Well, ma'am, to speak plainly, there was a little bit of leaning on the part of my Mary towards poor John Grange, and there's no doubt he was very fond of her."

"Ah! This is news to me. And you and Mrs Ellis?"

"These things come about, ma'am, without fathers and mothers having anything to do with them till too late."

"Yes, yes," said Mrs Mostyn thoughtfully.

"But when John Grange's bad accident happened, of course I had to put down my foot firmly, and say it could not be."

"It seems very hard, James Ellis," sighed his mistress; "but I suppose it was right." Then she added quickly: "You are afraid of the poor girl hearing such a rumour?"

"More than that, ma'am," said the bailiff huskily; "I'm afraid it would kill her, or send her melancholy mad."

Mrs Mostyn heaved a deep sigh, and remained silent.

"Do you think it was my duty to have spoken to the police, ma'am, and told them I suspected the poor fellow made an end of himself?"

"James Ellis," said Mrs Mostyn gravely, "you are Mary's father, and love your child."

"She is my one great comfort in life, ma'am."

"Yes; and I am a weak woman, full of sympathy for one of my sex. I will not trust myself to judge in one way or the other. Let the matter rest for a time, and let us see what that brings forth."

"Yes," said James Ellis, as he went back home; "let us see what time brings forth."

Time brought the rumour sooner than James Ellis suspected, for while he was having his interview with Mrs Mostyn, the story had floated to the cottage, where Mary heard it whispered to her mother than John Grange had wandered away from his lodgings one night, and, either by accident from his blindness, or in despair on account of his affliction, he had walked into the river, or some pool, and been drowned; for though plenty of inquiries had been made, he had not since been seen.

"Good-bye—good-bye for ever." Those words she had heard that night as she sat at the window: his farewell to her; and it seemed to come home to her like a stroke of lightning, that in his despair he had rashly sought the end.

She said nothing. There was no wild cry of horror: only a sudden motion of her hands towards her bosom, where she held them pressed; and they saw her face turn of a deathly white, even to her lips, as the blood flew to her heart. Then she uttered a low sigh and sank down in a chair, where she was still seated, gazing vacantly before her into the future, when her father returned and flew to her side.

He looked at his wife without speaking, but his eyes said plainly, "You have heard?" and Mrs Ellis bowed her head.

"Mary, my darling," the old man whispered, as he caught her to his heart. And at this she uttered a faint cry, and hid her poor white face upon her hands.

"We can do nothing, mother," whispered Ellis. "Let her rest. Time is the only cure for this. I tried to hide it, but I knew it must come at last, and it has come."

"Good-bye—good-bye for ever," murmured Mary, almost in a whisper; and her words sent a chill through both their breasts.



CHAPTER TWENTY.

From that hour they saw the poor girl droop and begin to fade like some flower stricken by blight. No murmur escaped her lips, and John Grange's name was never mentioned. But it was noted at home that she appeared to be more gently affectionate to those about her, and anxious to please her father, while many a time poor Mrs Ellis told her husband that she was sure "our Mary" was slowly sinking into the grave.

"Wait a bit, wife—wait a bit," he would reply testily. "It's quite natural. You'll see it will pass off, and she'll forget."

"Never, James."

"Well, then, it will become softened down as time goes on; she's gentler towards Daniel Barnett, too, now. There: it will all come right in the end."

Mrs Ellis sighed and shook her head, but all the same she thought that after all her husband might prove to be correct.

"For James is a very wise man," she argued, "and one can't go on mourning for ever, however much one may have loved."

Daniel Barnett placed his own interpretation on Mary's manner towards him, and there were times when he was exulted, and felt how successfully he had climbed up the ladder of life. Head-gardener at Mrs Mostyn's by eight-and-twenty; James Ellis's prospective son-in-law; and in the future he would be bailiff and agent, when Ellis was removed by infirmity or death; and in the latter case he and Mary, the only child, would inherit the nice little bit of money the old man had saved, and the six cottages which he had bought from time to time.

Very pleasant all this, joined to the success in the gardens, where Mrs Mostyn had begun to show him more favour, and had several times expressed great satisfaction at the state of her garden.

But Daniel Barnett was not happy. He was perfectly sure that Mary would some day yield to his and her mother's wishes, and become his wife; but even that knowledge did not clear away the black cloud which overhung his life. For, sleeping or waking, he could not get rid of the feeling that John Grange's remains would some day be discovered, and conscience troubled him with the idea that he was more or less to blame for the poor fellow's untimely end. It was in vain that he indignantly protested to himself that it was not likely a man should risk his life if he could help it. That he was not bound to climb that tree, and that he did quite right to take care of himself, and so escape what might have been his fate. "I might have fallen, and turned blind, or might have been killed," he would often say to himself. "It was a bit of luck for me—ill-luck for him, poor chap. He went, and there's an end of it."

But there was not "an end of it," for Daniel Barnett's life was made a misery to him by the thoughts of how Grange had suffered, and how he had treated him, till in despair—

"Yes; that's it," Tummus would whisper to him; "he went and walked into the river, or—"

Daniel Barnett shivered and avoided the big well in the garden, and stubbornly refused to have the two great underground rain-water tanks cleaned out in the dry time for fear of some revelation being made.

In his own mind he grew more and more sure that John Grange had taken his life, but he said nothing, and though affectionately amiable to his friends up at the cottage, he daily grew more morose to those beneath him in the gardens, and made their lives as great a burden as his own was to him.

Troubles of this kind go on for a long time before they reach the employer's ears. James Ellis heard that there were complaints of Barnett's tyrannical treatment, and threats on the part of the men to leave; but he saw that the garden was admirably kept and sided with the head, refusing to listen to the murmurs which grew deep now instead of loud.

The months had glided by, and it was autumn once more, with the fruit ripening fast in the garden, and, save to Mary Ellis, the sad episode of John Grange's career had grown fainter and fainter in the memories of those who had known him.

Barnett had long ceased to wait for invitations, and quite three times a week used to go up to the cottage and stay late, while at the house he was often joked and questioned as to when it was coming off, whereupon he would smile and look knowing, while all the time there was a bitter gnawing at his heart, for he knew that he was no nearer winning Mary than he was the year before when John Grange disappeared.

Then came a sharp little encounter, one bright September day in the garden, where, after his wont, old Tummus had been to what he called "torment them there weeds," to wit, chopping and tearing them up with his hoe, and leaving them to shrink and die.

The Bon Chretiens were particularly fine that year, and one which had become worm-eaten, and had in consequence prematurely ripened, showing all the bright tints of its kind, had fallen and lay ready to rot, when, hoeing away, old Tummus saw it, smiled to himself as he thought how it would please old Hannah, picked it up and laid it aside ready to take up to the bothy when he put on his coat at dinner-time.

"I shall have to ask him for it," muttered the old man, "or else there'll be a row."

Just at that moment, as luck had it, Mrs Mostyn came along, with scissors and basket, to cut a few dahlias, and, in obedience to a sudden thought, old Tummus raised the fruit by the stalk and stepped toward his mistress, offering her the pear.

"Strange nyste pear, mum," he said.

"And ripe so soon. There, lay it in the basket. Ah! Tut, tut! It's all worm-eaten; take it away, and give it to somebody who will not mind."

Mrs Mostyn went on, and old Tummus chuckled, and hid the pear just as Daniel Barnett caught sight of him, and having marked the spot, waited till the old man had gone away. He then searched for, found the pear, and leaving it untouched, quietly watched at dinner-time, saw old Tummus secure the treasure, pocket it, and he was going off when Barnett accosted him with—

"What have you got there?"

"Pear," said the old man stubbornly, as Barnett tried to snatch it from his pocket.

"Now I know where the fruit goes. Why, you thieving old scoundrel. I'll soon put an end to this."

"Scoundrel yourself!" cried the old man fiercely. "Smart a man as you are, Dan Barnett. I never set myself to steal another man's love and harassed him till he went and drowned hisself, if you didn't go behind and throw him into the tank you won't have cleaned."

"Why, you lying old villain!" roared Barnett.

"Lying, eh?" retorted old Tummus; "it's a lie then that you shoved they orchards off the shelf, I s'pose, and made believe it was poor John Grange. A lie, perhaps, as you laid the scythe for the poor blind man to walk on and cut hisself."

"Yes, a lie," cried Barnett, turning white.

"Then you tell it, for I see you do it, I did, and saved him from crippling hisself for life. But we've had enough o' this. I goes straight to Missus Mostyn and tells her all I know."

"Mrs Mostyn is here, sir," said a sharp, stern voice, "and has heard all you have said."



CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

In the scene which followed, when the two men saw their mistress standing before them, that lady acted the part of judge.

"I told the old man he might take the pear," she said to Daniel Barnett sternly. "But you, sir," she cried, turning upon old Tummus, "how dare you make such horrible charges against my gardener?"

"Begging your pardon, my lady, Mrs Mostyn," said old Tummus, "I'm as much your gardener as Dan Barnett, mum. What I says I sticks to. He was allus agin' poor John Grange, and if he arn't made an end on him, what I says is this here—wheer is he?"

Mrs Mostyn for answer pointed to the gate.

"Go," she said quietly, "you do not know what you are saying. When you are ready to apologise to Mr Barnett for what you have said, come to me. Till then you had better stay away from the grounds."

Old Tummus raised the mellow pear, which he still held in his pocket, dashed it with all his might upon the ground, and then stumped away with head erect.

Mrs Mostyn stood watching the old man for a few moments, and then turned to Barnett.

"You were nearly as much in fault as he," she said sternly. "I do not approve of my servants, even if they are in fault, being addressed in such a tone."

Mrs Mostyn walked away, and Daniel Barnett abstained from visiting at the cottage that night.

A week later old Tummus was reinstated without apologising to the head-gardener, after old Hannah had been up to the house and begged him on.

"No, ma'am," she said, through her tears; "he hasn't 'pologised, and he says he can't, because it's all true."

"Then it is sheer obstinacy, Hannah," said Mrs Mostyn.

"Yes, mum, that's just what it is. Many's the time his mother's told me that he was the obstintest boy that ever lived, and well I know it. Once he's said a thing, wild horses couldn't make him alter it. And you see he's seventy-five now, ma'am, and been sixty-three years in these gardens. He's been growing obstin't' all this time, and I'm afraid you can't change him now. Please, please, let him come back to work, mum; you'll kill him if you don't."

"There, go away with you, you stupid woman, and tell him I'm very very angry with him for a careless, obstinate, wicked old man, and I don't forgive him a bit; but he may come back to work, and you can ask the housekeeper to give you half-a-pound of tea as you go."

Old Hannah went away, sobbing aloud, and so overcome that, in spite of the hot water which bedewed her cheeks, she forgot all about the tea.



CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

Another six months had passed, and it was spring again, with its bright promises of renewing life and sunshine, when, one evening, Mrs Ellis sat holding her child's hand, the tears stealing slowly down her cheeks as she talked in a low voice, stifling a sob from time to time, and in every way showing how bad an ambassadress she was, and how thoroughly her sympathies were with her child.

"Did father tell you to say this, mother?" said Mary wearily.

"Yes, my darling. He says he is getting older, and that it is the one wish of his heart to see you happy."

"But he would not see me happy, mother, if I said Yes," replied Mary. "I cannot, indeed, I cannot love Daniel Barnett. I could never make him a good wife. Why will he persecute me so?"

"Because he loves you, dear; and don't, pray don't be hasty! You don't know: the love may come, dear."

"Yes, mother; the love may come, but will it?"

"See how good and patient he has been; and father says it is his sole care to see you settled, and to know that if anything happens to him you have a strong right hand to protect you. Come, darling, let me go down and tell them both that you have thought better of it, and that you consent."

"Mother, you do not wish it," said Mary gently. "All this does not come from the heart."

"I think it does, my darling," said Mrs Ellis. "You see, it is my duty to do what your father wishes. Yours to love and obey him."

"No, mother dear," said Mary gently. "Your voice contradicts it all. This does not come from your heart. You do not wish to see me Daniel Barnett's wife."

Mrs Ellis's face went down on her child's breast, and she let her tears have their course for a few minutes, but raised her head again with a sigh.

"I oughtn't to have done that," she said hurriedly. "Mary, my darling, your father desires it, and it is, indeed it is, your duty to try and meet his wishes. What am I to go down and say?"

"Go and tell him that I cannot forget the past, mother, and tell Mr Barnett to wait. In a few months I will try to think, as you all wish me, if—if I live."

"Oh, my darling, my darling," sobbed the mother.

"Don't cry, dear," said Mary calmly. "I can't help feeling like that sometimes, it is when I think that he must be dead, and then hope comes, and—mother," she whispered, "do you believe in dreams?"

"My darling, no," said Mrs Ellis, "only that they are the result of thinking too much during the day of some particular thing. But I must go down to them now, dear. Father will be so impatient. He was angry last time Daniel came here, because you would keep up-stairs."

"Daniel!" said Mary sadly. "Mother, are you beginning to side against me too?"

Mary Ellis had hardly asked these words when the sound of voices below made her spring to her feet, run to the door, and stand there listening.

"Mary, my child, what is it?" cried Mrs Ellis.

For answer Mary ran down into the little parlour.

"John!" she cried wildly, and the next moment she was clinging to John Grange's neck, while he stood there with one arm about her, holding her tightly to him, and proudly facing her father and Barnett, who stood scowling and trying hard to speak.



CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

In the dead silence which fell upon all in the bailiff's room when Mary Ellis flung herself upon John Grange's neck, a looker-on might have counted sixty beats of the pendulum which swung to and fro in the old oak-cased "grandfather's clock," before another word was uttered.

Mrs Ellis stood with her face working, as if premonitory to bursting out into a fit of sobbing; James Ellis felt something rising in his throat, and looked on with a grim kind of jealous pleasure at the lovers' embrace; and Barnett broke the silence by making a strange grinding noise with his teeth.

"Do you—are you going to allow this?" he panted out at last.

James Ellis made a deprecating gesture with his hands, and looked uneasily at his wife, who had crossed to Grange, laid her hands upon his shoulder, and said gently—

"And we thought you were dead—we thought you were dead."

"As I should have been, Mrs Ellis, to you all," cried the young man proudly, "if I could not have come back to you like this."

By this time Barnett had fully recovered the speech of which jealous rage and disappointment had nearly deprived him, and after a savage scowl at Grange, he turned upon the bailiff.

"Look here, Mr Ellis, is this your house? Are you master here?"

Ellis made an angry gesture now.

"My good sir," he cried; "you see: what can I do?"

"Order this fellow—this beggar—this impostor out. He has no business here."

Mary turned upon him fiercely, but her angry look faded out, and gave place to a smile of content, as she now linked her hands together about Grange's strong right arm and looked gently in his face, as if to say, "Don't be angry, he hardly knows what he says."

Maddened more by this, Barnett stepped forward to separate them, but, roused now in turn, James Ellis stepped between.

"Yes," he said firmly; "this is my house, and I am master here, Daniel Barnett. No violence, if you please."

"As much violence as is necessary to turn this fellow out," roared the young man. "I claim your promise, my rights. Mary, you are by your father's words my affianced wife; keep away from that man. Mrs Ellis, stand aside, or I will not be answerable for the consequences. You coward!" he cried to Grange; "you screen yourself between two women. Now then, out with you!"

One moment John Grange had been standing there calm and happy, with the women clinging to him; the next, by a quick movement, strong yet gentle, he had shaken himself free; and as Barnett seized him by the throat to eject him from the room, he was perfectly transformed. For, with almost superhuman strength, he seized his rival in return, quickly bore him back a step or two, and then wrenched his legs from beneath him, bringing him to his knees.

"It is you who are the coward," he cried in a deep voice, "or you would not have forced on this before two helpless women. Mr Ellis, I claim Mary by the ties of our old and faithful love. I, John Grange, thanks to God, strong, hale, keen of sight again as once I was, a man who can and will protect her while I live. Now, sir, open that door. If there is to be a struggle between us two, it will not take place here."

"John!"

That one word in a tone of appeal from Mary, and he dropped his hands.

"Yes," he said, with the calm assurance of a man who valued his strength; "you are right, dear, Daniel Barnett was half mad. That will do, sir. It is Mary's wish that you should go, and Mr Ellis will not refuse me a hearing when his child's happiness is at stake."

Barnett rose slowly, looking from one to the other, and finally his eyes rested upon Ellis, who nodded gravely.

"Yes," he said, "you'd better go, Daniel Barnett. I should not be doing my duty to my child if I fought against her now."

He walked slowly to the door, opened it, and without another word Barnett followed him out. Five minutes later the latch of the gate was heard to click, and as all stood listening, James Ellis came in and uttered a sigh of relief. There was that in his face which made Mary, with her eyes bright and a flush upon her cheeks such as had not been seen there for a year, run to him and fling her arms about his neck, as she went into a wild fit of joyful hysterical sobbing, which it was long before she could control.

There was not much to tell, but it was to the following effect. It dated from the evening when he had been left busying himself in the garden of old Tummus's cottage, left entirely to himself, trimming up the roses, and thinking sadly that there was no future for him in the world.

This had been going on for some time, and he was busily feeling the prickly rose strands, and taking nails and shreds from his pocket to tack the wild, blossoming shoots neatly in their places, in perfect ignorance, after a while, that he was being watched. For, though he heard hoofs upon the hard green turf beside the road, he supposed the sounds to be made by some horse returning to its stables from its pasture on the common, and did not imagine that it was mounted, as he heard it stop, and begin cropping the young shoots upon the garden hedge.

"Good-evening," said a decisive voice suddenly, speaking as if it was a good evening, and he who spoke would like to hear any one contradict him.

"Good-evening, sir," replied John Grange, adding the "sir," for the voice seemed familiar, and he knew the speaker was riding.

"You remember me, eh?"

There was a slight twitching about the muscles of John Grange's forehead as he craned his neck towards the speaker, and then he seemed to draw back, as he said sadly—

"No, sir; I seem to remember your voice, but I am blind."

"Quite blind?"

"Yes, sir."

"Look in my direction—hard, and now tell me: can you not make out my face, even faintly?"

"I can see that there is light, sir, where you are; but you have your back to the west. It is the warm sunset."

"Then you are not quite blind, my lad. Well, has Mrs Mostyn forgiven you about her orchids?"

"Ah! I remember you now, sir," cried Grange. "You are the friend—the great doctor—who came to see them."

"To be sure I am the doctor—I don't know about great—who stayed the night—Doctor Renton, of the Gables, Dale-by-Lyndon."

"Yes, sir, I know. I have heard tell of your beautiful garden."

"Indeed? Well, look here, my man. Your mistress interested me in your case, and I thought I would ride over some evening and see you. I should like you to come to me, so that I could examine your eyes, and test them a little."

John Grange turned ghastly and fell a-trembling, as he grasped at the window-sill to steady himself.

"Come, come, that will not do," cried the doctor quickly. "Be a man! You are weak and nervous. Try and control your feelings."

"But—then—oh, for Heaven's sake, speak, sir," said Grange, in a husky whisper. "You think there is hope?"

"I do not say that, my man, but since Mrs Mostyn told me about your case, I have thought of it a great deal. Come over and see me, saying nothing to any one, for fear of disappointment. Then, if I think it is worth while, you shall come up to London and stay."

"It is too much to bear," groaned the sufferer.

"No: and you will bear it. But you must expect nothing. I shall in all probability fail, but if I do, you will be no worse off than you are now."

"No, sir, I could be no worse off," faltered Grange.

"That is the way to take it. Then you will come? But I must warn you: it may mean your being away for a year—perhaps for two."

"I would do anything to get back my sight."

"Then you will come? I will not communicate with Mrs Mostyn, for fear of raising false hopes. If I succeed she will forgive your sudden leaving. She is a good mistress, my lad. Pity you did not speak out the truth that day."

John Grange flushed up.

"Indeed it was the truth, sir," he cried angrily.

"There, there! No excitement. You will have to lead now a calm, unemotional life if I am to do you good. Good-evening. I shall expect to see you to-morrow morning, then, before I leave for town. But once more, keep your own counsel, and hope for nothing; then all that comes will be so much gain."

He drew up the rein, touched his horse's side, and went off at a canter, leaving Grange standing in the cottage garden, one moment with his mind illumined by hope, the next black with despair.

"No," he cried softly; "it is too late. He can do nothing. Only that long, dark journey before me to the end. Tell no one! Lead no one to expect that I may be cured! No, not a word to any. Better away from here to be forgotten, for everything about me grows too hard to bear."

That night he stole away in the darkness, to pause on the opposite side of the road, to whisper to the winds good-bye, and feel for a few brief minutes that he was near Mary before he said "Good-bye—for ever!" To be dead to all he knew unless he could return to them as he had been of old.

This was John Grange's story—condensed—as he told it to the group at the cottage. Then in a low, deep tone, full of emotion—

"If I was to end my days sightless, Mary, I knew I could not come to you again; but Heaven has willed it otherwise. It has been a long, long waiting, hopeless till within the last month, and it was only within the past few days that the doctor told me that all was safe, and I might be at rest."

"But you might have written, John, if only once," said Mrs Ellis, with a sob in her throat.

"Yes," he said, "I might, but I believe what I did was right, Mrs Ellis; forgive me, all of you, if I was wrong."

What followed? Mrs Mostyn was eager to see John Grange back in his old position, but he gravely shook his head.

"No," he said, "Mary, I am not going to trample on a man who is down. Let Dan Barnett keep the place; the doctor offers me one that will make us a happy home; and it will be, will it not?"

Mary glanced at her mother before replying, and James Ellis clasped the young man's hand, while Mrs Ellis rushed out to have what she called a good hearty cry.

"Lor', missus," said old Tummus, "I never worried much about it. There's a deal of trouble in this here life, but a lot o' joy as well: things generally comes right in the end."

"Not always, dear."

"Eh? Well, never mind, this one has; and I only wish I was a bit younger, so that I could go and be under Muster John Grange.—No, I couldn't. I can go and see 'em once in a way, but I must stop here, in this old garden, with the missus, until we die."

"Yes, Tummus, yes," said old Hannah. "It wouldn't do at our time o' life to make a change."

"Only that last big one, old lady, to go and work in the Master's vineyard, if He sees as we've done right. But there, dear, on'y to think o' all this here trouble coming from sawing off a bit o' ragged wood."

THE END.