CHAPTER X

LONELINESS

"While I! I sat alone and watched; My lot in life, to live alone, In mine own world of interests, Much felt, but little shown." —CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

Yes; Elsie felt as if she were left out in the cold, and she looked as if she felt it.

There are women to whom nature has granted the gift of silent emotion. They have mobile faces, changeful eyes, soft lips, which express joy or desolation naturally, and with the charm of perfect simplicity and truth. These women keep their youth a long time; every experience of life comes to them with the freshness of a first feeling; they retain the capacity to rejoice and suffer to the very end of their days. Men like them, because they find them real, and because these impressionable characters have the attraction of varying often. Anything is more tolerable than monotony.

Arnold Wayne looked from Mrs. Verdon to Elsie, and read a pathetic story in her brown eyes.

"May I introduce myself, Miss Kilner?" he said. "I have heard of you so often from Mr. Lennard."

This was a fib. For years he had not seen or heard anything of the rector; but it was a fib which slipped from him unawares. He had wished for an introduction to Elsie when he had seen her at the picture gallery with the old clergyman, and he had secretly anathematised Mr. Lennard's obtuseness. He was not going to lose a second chance, he said to himself.

"I have known the Lennards all my life," Elsie answered. "They belong to my old home. It is a great pleasure to see the rector when he comes to town."

Mrs. Verdon regarded the speaker quietly, with the practised glance of a woman of the world; and she listened to the refined voice and accent with critical ears. It would be safe, she decided, to notice this stranger.

"Will you come and see Jamie some day?" she said, addressing Elsie in her silvery voice, which could be very sweet when she wished to please. "I am a widow without children, myself, and I want to know how you came to take such an interest in him. Go and kiss that lady, Jamie; you must learn to know her quite well."

The boy obeyed without reluctance. He had listened attentively to all that had been said, and, being an intelligent child, had come to the conclusion that no one wanted to take him away from Mrs. Verdon.

Elsie kissed the blooming face uplifted to hers, and pressed him in her arms for a moment. He was the child of her dreams, presented to her now in substantial form; but he was not meant for her. She could never have him for her own.

But it was the little lad's good, and not her own pleasure, which she had been seeking. Meta's prayers were answered; somebody was kind to Jamie.

Only, why had the vanished hand pointed out the path which she must follow? Why was she sent to search for a child who was sheltered and safe?

There seemed to be a sort of mockery in this phantom guidance. She had been led to the very place where Jamie was to be found, only to be shown that he had no need of her at all. Every want of his was abundantly supplied; the fair lady had won his little heart; and the kiss which he vouchsafed to Elsie was merely bestowed at Mrs. Verdon's request. When Elsie released him he returned with alacrity to his adopted mother's side, and slid his hand into hers again.

Yet she had found him, and all suspense and anxiety were at an end. She thanked Mrs. Verdon for her courtesy, learned that Jamie's home was in Portman Square, and then gave her own address in return, and went quietly away with her two companions.

Arnold Wayne was left with Mrs. Verdon, who had recovered her courage, and was easily persuaded to re-enter her carriage. The horses had never bolted before; the coachman was not likely to fail in vigilance again; there was really no danger in taking the homeward drive. But she was a little nervous still, and it would be so very kind if Mr. Wayne would accompany her.

He was quite willing to accompany her.

It was a perfect summer evening, balmy and still; the air was full of delicate, dewy perfumes; a rich rose-colour burned in the west, and touched the silver gleam of the river with the last glow of the day. The carriage rolled easily along; Jamie, with sleepy blue eyes, half-open, enjoyed the motion in silent content. Mrs. Verdon, with gentle animation, talked to Mr. Wayne.

Elsie, walking slowly down the hill, caught a glimpse of the carriage and its occupants, and noted the dainty bonnet bending towards the dark head. A sense of loneliness, of aloofness, seemed to possess her that evening. The scent of flowers had something sad in its sweetness (as flower-scents often have); the sunset light suggested solemn thoughts. Mrs. Beaton remarked that she looked languid and pale.

"All this excitement has been too much for you, Miss Kilner," she said. "What a day we have had! How little we realised what was in store for us when we started this morning! But I shall sleep soundly to-night, knowing that Jamie is safe."

"It is a splendid thing for the boy," Elsie remarked. "What a beautiful child he is!"

"Yes; his beauty attracted Mrs. Verdon at first; but I think she loves him for his own sake. She is a charming lady, Miss Kilner."

"Very charming," Elsie admitted at once.

"And you'll go to see her, and tell us how Jamie goes on," Mrs. Beaton continued. "Mr. Wayne, too, will look after him; he won't lack friends."

"Supposing that Mrs. Verdon should marry again, what would she do with Jamie?" asked Mrs. Penn in a dismal voice. "Mr. Wayne seemed very attentive to her, I thought."

"It would be a very good thing for Jamie if she married Mr. Wayne, his uncle's old friend," Mrs. Beaton replied. "But I daresay she has a score of lovers. However, you may be sure that she will never neglect the boy."

"He's as haughty as a young lord," said Mrs. Penn. "Did you see how he tossed his head at me, and waved his hand to send me away?"

"Well, Mrs. Penn, he is a sensible child, and he remembers the treatment at Lee," answered Mrs. Beaton candidly. "We will let bygones be bygones; but a child's memory keeps things shut up in it like a book. Andrew often astonished me when he was Jamie's age. He never would forget anything, especially if you wanted anything to be forgotten."

As the train sped homeward, Elsie looked from the window upon the shifting landscape, but observed nothing. All seemed a blank.

Her mind, so long intent on one object, was new deprived of its centre of thought. She recurred again and again to the old theme, only to say to herself a hundred times, "Jamie is safe." Had she lived so much upon this child that the secret of her interest had been self-forgetfulness? Her search was ended, and she was left alone—quite alone with herself.

She reached All Saints' Street between eight and nine o'clock. It was a clear night; the streets were full of carriages and people, and the lights of the lamps and shops had never been brighter. But an aspect of unreality pervaded everything, and she seemed to move through all these lights and sounds as if she were in a city of dreams.

When she had answered Miss Saxon's questions, and told her all that had happened in as few words as possible, she went upstairs to her sitting-room; and then she sank into a chair, leaning her head upon its back, and looking up at the stars above the roof.

Why was it that she was so melancholy to-night? She could have found it in her heart to have envied that fair woman who had gone away with the beautiful child by her side. Was Mrs. Verdon to have everything—wealth, position, Jamie's love, and——

She sprang up suddenly from her chair in an agony of self-contempt and self-reproach. It is always a hard thing for a proud woman to learn the lesson of human weakness. Never before had Elsie suspected herself of anything so mean as jealousy. "Oh, Meta," she said, half-aloud, "your hand has pointed to a hard, lonely road, stretching out before me like a desert! Show me the rest—the home—that lies beyond the waste! It seems to-night as if, on earth or in heaven, there would never more be any home for me."



CHAPTER XI

MRS. VERDON

"We know too much of Love ere we love. We can trace Nothing new, unexpected, or strange in his face When we see it at last. 'Tis the same little Cupid, With the same dimpled cheek and the smile almost stupid, We have seen in our pictures and stuck on our shelves, And copied, a hundred times over, ourselves." —OWEN MEREDITH.

Mrs. Verdon held an untrammelled position in life. She was a rich young widow, uncontrolled, and without children. The death of her little boy had been a greater sorrow than the death of a husband who was much older than herself. Katherine Verdon had adored her child; it was Jamie's resemblance to her lost darling which had drawn her so strongly towards him. She had been a widow five years, and was in no haste to marry again. Like Queen Elizabeth, she coquetted with her suitors, but these coquetries were of a harmless kind, and never went far enough to set the world talking. She had a great deal of tact and cleverness, and managed all her affairs with graceful dexterity.

She was not really beautiful, but in a woman so fortunately situated a little beauty is made much of. Her figure, tall and slender, had the flexible grace of ribbon-grass; her little head, regally poised, was almost overweighted with thick braids of satiny hair of pale gold; small features, delicate, if irregular, a colourless, fair skin, and pale-blue eyes, completed this face, which never had a warm tint. Her dress was costly, but always well chosen, and she had so carefully studied herself that she could not put on anything which did not become her.

On that summer evening at Richmond she was at her best. Deliverance from great peril had opened her heart to all good influences. The fear of losing Jamie was set at rest, and it was a fear which had increased as the child grew dearer. She was genial, responsive, full of gentle gaiety and genuine gratitude.

For a whole year Arnold Wayne had listened to the praises of Katherine Verdon, chanted by his cousins the Danforths. They had found fault with him, as all his relations did, for leading an unsettled life, and were always asking when he was going to marry. He had been travelling for three or four years, associating with all sorts and conditions of men and women, interesting himself in strange religions, penetrating into regions which few Englishmen had ever visited, and he had reached the mature age of thirty-three without having been very deeply and seriously in love. Of course he had had love affairs. There was an Italian who had held him in her enchantments for a whole winter, not to mention a gitana, whose liquid eyes had kept him spell-bound under the walls of the Alhambra, and others, fair and dark, tall and little, who had been—

"The summer pilots of an empty heart Unto the shores of nothing."

But, as he had owned to his innermost self a hundred times, the woman who was to reign over his life had not yet come. Would she ever come? He had asked himself this question on the day when he had seen Elsie with the rector. Certainly, there had been a strange attraction in her face. It was beautiful, but he had seen beauties by the score; beauties of all lands and of all grades, high and low. It was not Elsie's beauty which had so strongly moved him, although it was of a type which he especially admired. It was an expression—a something that was wistful and tender in the eyes—a look as of one who was waiting before the fast-shut door of paradise. In time the face might have passed out of his memory, but it flashed upon him again at Richmond, and he had a prophetic feeling that his fate had come to him at last.

The boy Jamie, as he saw at once, would be the connecting-link between Elsie and himself. It would be perfectly right in him to call on one who had taken so warm an interest in the nephew of his intimate friend.

Then, too, there had been something said about Miss Neale's manuscript, in which his name was mentioned. He felt that he ought to examine the manuscript, and carry out, as far as he could, the wishes of the writer.

These were the thoughts which came crowding into his mind during the drive home from Richmond. Meanwhile Mrs. Verdon was talking to him in silvery tones, and asking, with pleasant friendliness, whether he had made any plans for the autumn. Jamie, rosy and sleepy, gave him an indolent smile now and then. It was a curious thing, he reflected, that the child should link him to Mrs. Verdon as well as to Miss Kilner. And then he smiled to himself, remembering all that the Danforths had said in this fair widow's praise. Her carriage set him down in a convenient spot, and he walked away to his chambers in Piccadilly, pondering over the strange adventures of the day.

Mrs. Verdon, although she loved liberty, was not unprotected, and her late husband's sister—a Mrs. Tell—had lived with her all through the years of her widowhood. Mrs. Tell, too, was a rich widow, tall, and of imposing aspect, but easy-tempered and rather lazy. She was past sixty, and looked a majestic matron, with her white hair and lace cap. Katherine's whims did not annoy her in the least, and she had taken quite kindly to Jamie. In her inmost heart she did not want her sister-in-law to marry again, and the boy, she thought, would fill up the void in her life, and help to make her contented with her lot.

Mrs. Verdon had a good deal of pleasure in her large house. She found her pictures, chairs, tables, plaques, and hangings quite absorbing sometimes. Many a morning was spent in arranging and rearranging cabinets and mantels, and trying the effect of new draperies; and Mrs. Tell enjoyed anything that made the time pass tranquilly away.

The carriage stopped at the door in Portman Square. Sleepy Jamie went toiling up the wide staircase in the dusk, and Mrs. Verdon slowly followed. Everything looked rich and dim; the plants in the great Indian jars filled the hall with sweet scents. Flowers were blooming in every nook. Through a half-drawn portiere there was a glimpse of Mrs. Tell reading in the shaded lamplight.

A motherly woman met Jamie on the landing, and gave him a loving greeting. She had been nurse to Mrs. Verdon's own child.

"Ready for bed?" she said in her cheery voice. "What pretty dreams you'll have to-night!"

"Horses ran away," Jamie began, opening his blue eyes. "Went faster than my rocking-horse! Dreadful! Don't want to go out in the carriage any more."

"Never mind," said nurse, with a little hug, "we won't talk about runaway horses at bedtime. We'll just shut our eyes and think of a field of yellow corn, waving, waving, waving."

Elsie had often been troubled with sad visions of Jamie at night. She had pictured him sleeping in rags under an arch, or in some corner of a grimy garret. But fancy had never shown her anything like the dainty little white bed in this spacious room.

Gaily-coloured prints decorated the walls, and on a bracket just above the boy's pillow stood a lovely statuette of an angel, with folded wings and down-bent gracious face. When any visitor came up to see the night-nursery, Jamie would point at once to the figure and say proudly, "My guardian angel."

An hour or two later, when Jamie, rosy and beautiful, was wrapped in the deep sweet sleep of childhood, Mrs. Verdon and her sister-in-law were sitting together after dinner.

"What an eventful day you have had!" said Mrs. Tell, looking up from her knitting in the softly-shaded light. "And what a romantic meeting with Mr. Wayne! Is he all that the Danforths described?"

"Of course not," replied Mrs. Verdon. "They described one of the impossible heroes of fiction. You know, they have a talent for description."

"But isn't he nice?" Mrs. Tell asked.

"Yes, he is nice. There is something about him that is not commonplace."

She leaned back in her chair with a half-smile, absently toying with a sprig of lemon-plant. Her slender figure looked graceful in a gown of some soft kind of silk, flowered with faint blue and pink.

Looking at her, you somehow imbibed the notion that her hair, eyes, complexion, and dress corresponded with her character. She was faintly coloured. Nothing about her was intense.

A vague thought of this kind flitted through Mrs. Tell's brain at this moment. She was not a clever woman, but long intercourse with the world had quickened her faculty for observation, and she was much given to studying Katherine.

"Not commonplace," she repeated; "then, of course, you found him very interesting?"

"There was not time to get interested in him," Mrs. Verdon answered.

"Naturally if a man saves one's life one feels grateful. Perhaps my gratitude has invested him with a fictitious charm."

She spoke with a little mocking air, twisting the sprig of lemon-plant in her long white fingers, and looking down meditatively at the carpet.

"He will follow up his advantage," remarked Mrs. Tell, knitting steadily. "No man ever had a more favourable introduction. I wonder if he knew whose carriage it was when he stopped the horses? It was very well done. Of course, a man who has travelled for years, and gone into all sorts of risky places, is always ready for an emergency. He will call soon."

"He will call soon," echoed the younger widow, still with the little touch of mockery in her tone, "and I shall ask him to dinner. And then, Olivia, you will sit there in your pet chair and watch us both over your knitting-pins. When men come here, you always remind me of Madame Defarge and the dreadful knitting-women of the French Revolution. You have knitted all my admirers into that coverlet you are making. It's a sort of secret record, I do believe."

She rose, with a slight laugh, suppressed a yawn in saying good-night, and went out of the room with a soft rustle of trailing draperies, leaving Mrs. Tell sitting in the "pet-chair."



CHAPTER XII

HIS FIRST VISIT

"The roses bloom while the lady waits, The lark sings high in the blue above; But who will open the golden gates, And let her in to the realms of love?"

Arnold Wayne's first call upon Elsie was always a very distinct memory to him afterwards. People were beginning to go out of town, and those who remained were haunted by the thought of breezy uplands, or of a blue summer sea breaking lazily on the golden sands. As Arnold walked along All Saints' Street, about five in the afternoon, the chime of a bell ringing for evensong reminded him of his old home at Rushbrook and the grey church close to his gates.

So it came to pass that he went into Elsie's presence haunted by memories of his boyhood, and there was nothing in her presence to dispel such memories; something about her seemed to blend with them and harmonise with early associations.

She had been sitting by the open window with a book upon her lap, and she rose to meet him, still holding the volume in her hand. She was dressed in a pale-grey gown, and wore a large bunch of heliotrope in the folds of a kerchief of soft muslin knotted at her breast. The quiet little room was flooded with sunshine; the bell kept up its chime; some white pigeons went flying past the window.

"You have made a home here," he said involuntarily; and then he thought of those wise words of Ruskin's: "Wherever a true wife comes, this home is always round her. The stars only may be over her head, the glow-worm in the night-cold grass may be the only fire at her foot; but home is yet wherever she is."

"Yes," she answered quietly, "it is a safe nook, where I can be at peace."

"She has known storms, then," was Arnold's mental comment.

He began to speak of Jamie, and a light came suddenly into her face. It was the greatest relief, she said, to know that the child was happy.

"And Miss Neale's manuscript—may I see it?" he asked. "I have always wished that I had known her. When Waring wrote to tell me of his engagement I was abroad. The letter followed me from place to place."

"The manuscript was discovered by chance. I keep it where I first found it," said Elsie, going to the old table in the corner. She took the roll of paper out of the drawer and put it into his hand. There was perfect silence in the room while he turned over the pages. Elsie had gone back to her window-seat and sat there motionless.

"If they were with us now the world would be all the better for them," he said, looking up at last. "I would give a great deal to grasp Waring's hand again. And Meta—it was best for her to follow him."

"Yes," Elsie answered; "it was best. I am glad, and yet I often wish she was here."

"You have loved these two without seeing them?" he said, looking at her intently.

"It is easy," she returned, "to know men and women by the footprints they have left and the harvest which they have sown. There are those whom, having not seen, we love."

A shade came over his face. "If I were to die," he said suddenly, "no one would ever love me for the sake of what I had left. As to footprints, they would soon be effaced; and as to the harvest, nothing would crop up but a few wild oats. It's rather a depressing thought, isn't it?"

"Yes," she answered, looking at him in her turn. He was conscious that her soft, dark eyes were resting on him very thoughtfully, and that they were full of gentleness.

He had been left an orphan at nineteen, but he had never blamed any one but himself for the fact that he had done nothing in his life, and that he was going on doing nothing. Uncle Harry Danforth, his mother's brother, had looked after the Rushbrook estate for years, and had spared Arnold all possible trouble. He had given up all responsibilities, just because he chose to give up and let himself drift. But there are moments when a man wakes up to a sudden CONSCIOUSNESS that he has trifled with himself and his past. Had he come here to meet the touch of the vanished hand? There was a pause, and again the soft white wings flew past the window. Then Elsie spoke in a very quiet voice.

"I suppose," she said, "that there are a good many miles before you yet. You might try a new path and begin sowing afresh."

It was a simple speech, uttered in the simplest manner possible, but it came to him like a new truth. Yet it was a very old thing that she had said—a thing that others had spoken to him a hundred times at least, and he had been as deaf as a stone. Most of the ideas that have really stirred our hearts owe their power to the voice that speaks them.

"Thirty-three is rather an advanced age for a man to begin sowing," he answered. "But I might try, if you think it worth while."

She smiled, a sweet smile that crept up from her lips into her eyes, and lingered there.

"I think it is worth while," she said.

"Very well; I had better start at Rushbrook in the literal sense. My uncle will be delighted, although the ground has been thoroughly looked after, I believe. My relations have done their utmost to make an agriculturist of me. If I spend an autumn down there, and take an interest in things, it will be regarded as a hopeful sign."

"Then you have a home in the country," said Elsie, with a little sigh.

The sigh was not lost on Arnold.

"Yes, I have a quaint old place in Blankshire," he replied. "It overlooks a valley of many streams, in the midst of a quiet pastoral country. Can I persuade you to come and see it with the Lennards, Miss Kilner? Most people think it rather pleasant."

"The Lennards? Oh, I fancy they are going to Switzerland," she said. "I am not sure about their plans, and I have not made any arrangements yet."

"I shall write to Mr. Lennard to-night," Arnold remarked. "If I'm to begin to make myself useful I shall expect all my friends to come to my aid. May I count upon your help, Miss Kilner?"

There was an undertone of earnestness in the light speech and a look of eagerness in his face.

"I would help if I could," she answered. "As to the country, I see it always in my dreams. It is a lost Paradise to me."

"Then why did you leave it?" he asked suddenly.

She coloured, and the dark lashes veiled the trouble in her eyes.

His heart ached for her. Yet, being human, all sorts of doubts and fears came crowding into his brain. Was there an old love-affair and undying constancy? With that intense face of hers she could hardly have escaped love's sorrows.

And then, in an instant, came a flash of wonder at himself. Was he already so nearly in love that he dreaded a possible rival?

"Circumstances were too strong for me," she replied. "The rector and Mrs. Lennard knew that I had to go. I came to London because I have more friends here than anywhere else."

There was a tremor in her voice that touched him. He felt a sudden longing to be her champion, and prove that "circumstances" were not too strong for him. A man never looks so well as when he is under the influence of a chivalrous feeling; it can transfigure even a dull face, and Arnold's face was anything but dull. Poor Elsie happened to glance at him at that moment, and a soft glow flushed her cheeks. She tried hard not to think that she was losing her heart.

"It would be so dreadful," she thought, "if I were to make a fool of myself at nine-and-twenty! Can't I venture to enjoy a little friendliness without getting hot cheeks like a school-girl?"

After he was gone she sat dreaming till it grew dusk, and wondering what would become of her when Arnold Wayne had married Mrs. Verdon.

The pigeons had gone to roost, the last blush of crimson had faded from the sky, and the first stars were twinkling faintly in the gloaming. Elsie thought of Meta, lifted out of all the doubts and troubles of this poor life, and envied her perfect peace.

"Ah," she sighed, "if I could only see her home for one moment, how bravely I could go on living here!"



CHAPTER XIII

IN PORTMAN SQUARE

"And quite alone I never felt, I knew that Thou wert near, A silence tingling in the room, A strangely pleasant fear." —FABER.

Arnold Wayne took his way to Portman Square, thinking about Elsie as he went along. If those two could have looked into each other's hearts just then, they would speedily have come to an understanding.

When he went up the steps of the great house and entered the flower-scented hall, he was in a dreamy mood. And when he found himself in Mrs. Verdon's artistically furnished drawing-room, he had a queer notion that only his phantom self was here and his real self had remained in the little room in All Saints' Street.

His hostess looked very slender and tall and fair in her mauve silk dress. Her satiny hair, wound round her small head, conveyed the idea that if unbound it would enshroud her, like Lady Godiva's, in a veil. The rich glowing colours of the furniture and hangings formed themselves into a harmonious background for the graceful figure.

Mrs. Tell was quietly observing the new-comer, and silently deciding that the chances were in his favour. She had not the faintest doubt about his intentions. All the men who came here proposed to her sister-in-law, and of course he would do the same.

Everybody allowed that nothing could be more agreeable than Mrs. Verdon's position and surroundings. The house exactly suited Mrs. Tell. Katherine, whom she liked in her cool way, was not difficult to live with; any change was to be dreaded. But there was always the fear that change would come, and she had an instinctive dread of this Mr. Wayne.

"And so you have been calling on Miss Kilner?" said Mrs. Verdon, as they sat at dinner. "She must come and see me and Jamie. Has she many friends?"

"A great many," replied Arnold, who did not know anything about them.

"I daresay I have met her somewhere," Mrs. Verdon went on. "I have either met her or seen her face in a picture. She has quite a picture-face, hasn't she?"

"Ah, perhaps she has," said Wayne abstractedly, as if the idea had been presented to him for the first time.

"I must have seen her in a picture." Mrs. Tell noticed that Katherine seemed bent on keeping to the subject. "There is a painting of a young woman clasping a Bible to her breast. Don't you know it? That is like her, I think."

"Ah, very likely," rejoined Arnold in an expressionless voice. "I know a man who is always painting pictures of that kind. His girls are always going to suffer for their faith, and they have many costumes, but only one face. It becomes monotonous."

Mrs. Verdon laughed.

"I had my portrait painted once," she said, "but it wasn't like me—it was too intense. I couldn't look like that unless my whole nature had changed. I don't like strong feelings, they make life so uncomfortable."

"Very uncomfortable," assented Mrs. Tell in a lazy voice. "And, besides, they are undignified. You are always so deliciously calm, Katherine, that you make people fall in love with repose."

"This house would be a home for the lotus-eaters," said Mrs. Verdon. "I love perfumes and stillness and subdued light. Jamie exercises his lungs and legs in the top rooms, but he seldom breaks the tranquillity that reigns downstairs."

When they sat in the drawing-room after dinner, Arnold mentally decided that it was very easy to fall in love with repose—for a little while.

Katherine talked to him in her silvery tones, looking at him now and then with her pretty, faint smile. The folds of the delicate mauve gown trailed over the rich carpet. She leant lazily back in her chair, waving a plumy fan, sometimes, with a soft, even motion.

The doors of the conservatory were open; light curtains were looped back, giving glimpses of a mass of blossoms; the atmosphere was laden with perfumes. Yes, it was all very pleasant—for a little while.

Arnold Wayne did not try to persuade himself that he should enjoy it always. His was not the temperament of the lotus-eater. His nature craved a rich, warm life, full of strong light and shade. Still, he was glad when Mrs. Verdon told him that she should start for Rushbrook in a fortnight.

"I have taken The Cedars again," she said. "The air agreed with Jamie and me last year. We both want to be freshened up. It will be nice to be near the Danforths; I get on with them so well."

"They are always talking about you," rejoined Arnold, with perfect truth.

When he was gone, the two widows sat in silence for a little while. The elder knitted diligently; the younger toyed with her feathery fan.

"What do you think of him, Olivia?" Mrs. Verdon asked at last. There was a faint ring of impatience in her tone. She had been waiting for the other to speak first.

"There is something uncommon in him which makes him attractive," replied Mrs. Tell, without glancing up from her work. "And he doesn't seem anxious to attract. Not that he is indifferent, but——"

"Of course he is not indifferent." Katherine's silvery voice was shriller than usual. "I found it very easy to please him. But he is not a gushing man. I hate gushing men."

"So do I," returned Mrs. Tell. "No, he is not gushing; but I think—yes, I am sure—that he could be emotional if he were to let himself go."

"Really, Olivia, I didn't give you credit for so much imagination," said Mrs. Verdon sharply. "Now, I am quite sure that he would never, under any circumstances, be emotional. He has travelled a great deal and seen everything, and he is just in the state to enjoy repose. He would like even to glide quietly into love without disturbing his calmness."

Then, prompted by an utterly unaccountable impulse, Mrs. Tell made one of the greatest mistakes she had ever made in her life. "Do you know, Katherine," she said, "I think you have at last found a man who doesn't mean to propose to you?"

Mrs. Verdon's fan ceased its regular come-and-go and lay motionless in her lap. She did not speak, and Mrs. Tell, who had expected her to laugh at her little speech, was startled by her silence. Presently Katherine rose, with a sort of queenliness which became her very well. "I am tired to-night," she said, quite ignoring her sister-in-law's remark. "In this hot weather one begins to pine for the country. Jamie has looked pale to-day. By-the-way, I shall call on Miss Kilner to-morrow, and ask her to dinner before we go away." Then she went off to her room without another word, and Mrs. Tell was left alone with the consciousness of her blunder.

If Katherine was tired, her eyes had never been more wakeful. Her maid, who entered noiselessly, found her standing by a window overlooking the garden, gazing out into the moonlight. It was a London garden, dry and dusty by day, but at night, when the trees were touched by the mysterious light, it had an aspect of romance.

In silence she sat before the glass, while Bennet's dexterous fingers unbraided the silky hair and brushed it before coiling it up for the night. Looking at the face reflected in the glass, she perceived that it was not quite so tranquil as usual, and was irritated at finding that Mrs. Tell's words had disturbed her. Why was she disturbed? Her vanity had taken a chill, that was all.

"I am vainer than I thought myself," she mused. "All women are vain, of course. It is not a very bad fault, but it makes one little in one's own sight." Then came other ideas, crowding fast into her brain. "What does Olivia know? She is not a clever woman. How can she tell what a man means to do? Away down there in Rushbrook he will be put to the test. I am always at my best in the country; the air freshens me, and the quietness rests me. And my dresses are lovely—on that ground I stand alone."

Yet, in spite of this comforting conclusion, Katherine was restless under Bennet's hands, and glad to be left in solitude.

On the following afternoon, Elsie, dreaming over her solitary cup and saucer, was startled when her parlour door opened. Mrs. Verdon, bland and smiling, came in, followed by Jamie. The boy lifted his blue eyes solemnly to Elsie's face, and something he saw there curved his lips into a smile and brought a dimple into his beautiful cheeks. As usual, he wore his sailor-suit, and this time he accepted Elsie's kiss with perfect graciousness.

"We must know each other better," said Mrs. Verdon, really touched by Elsie's feeling for the child. She talked on, pleasantly and fluently. It was evidently her fancy to make much of Miss Kilner and take possession of her.

Elsie accepted the invitation to dinner, partly because Mrs. Verdon was really a very pleasant person, but chiefly because her heart still clung to Jamie. On her arrival she was taken up to the top of the great house, and shown the two spacious rooms which were his own.

"I does as I like up here," said Jamie grandly (grammar was occasionally forgotten). "Mammy never 'feres with me." Elsie followed him when he led the way through the door which opened into the night nursery. The first object which attracted her gaze was the statuette on the bracket over the bed. Jamie at once introduced the figure as his guardian angel. "I am never afraid at nights," the little fellow said. "Some boys is. The angel never goes to sleep; he's always awake up there. If anything wicked came, he'd just make himself large and spread his wings right over me."

Jamie spoke with an air of perfect confidence which went to Elsie's heart, and her thoughts found mental expression in Browning's beautiful words:—

"Dear and great angel, wouldst thou only leave That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!"

Poor lonely Elsie! She, too, desired to feel the soft, white wings close round her, shutting out all miseries of trouble and doubt, and enfolding her in their healing atmosphere of peace.



CHAPTER XIV

RUSHBROOK

"About the windings of the maze to hear The soft wind blowing. Over meadowy holms And alders, garden aisles." —TENNYSON.

Arnold Wayne wrote his letter to Mr. Lennard, but the rector had already made arrangements to go to Switzerland. Mrs. Lennard, however, had decided not to accompany him; she had made up her mind to spend a couple of months with a maiden lady living at Rushbrook, and it was her wish that Elsie Kilner should be with her there. So it came to pass that Jamie and the three people who were linked together through his little person all came to sojourn within a stone's-throw of each other. Miss Ryan and Mrs. Lennard had been school-fellows and bosom friends, and the friendship had lasted through all the chances and changes of life.

Willow Farm and its broad acres belonged to Miss Ryan, and was managed for her by her nephew Francis. She lived in an old-fashioned house, long and low, with quaint dormer-windows set in a peaked roof of red tiles. The house stood in the middle of a garden filled to overflowing with country flowers, and the warm, sweet perfume of the crowded beds made Elsie feel that she had come close to the very heart of summer. The sun was ripening the black, juicy berries on the loaded cherry-trees; bees kept up a ceaseless hum; large roses pressed close together in masses of bloom.

"What a little world of sweets!" said Elsie, smelling a bunch of crimson carnations.

She was standing on the door-step after breakfast, wearing her pretty grey gown, and a creamy muslin kerchief knotted at the throat. Her face, under the golden straw-hat, was so richly, yet delicately, coloured that it wore the aspect of a flower.

A slim, tall man, of eight or nine and twenty, stood looking at that face in the morning light; he had just given her the carnations. "I am glad you like the old place here," he said. "It isn't as romantic, of course, as Wayne's Court, but it is comfortable. You know Wayne? He is a very good fellow."

"I met him in town," Elsie answered.

"Ah, yes! he knows your friends the Lennards. What a wanderer he has been! But now, they tell me, he seems inclined to settle down at last."

"That is a good thing," said Elsie, raising the carnations to her face.

"He'll marry, I suppose," Francis Ryan went on. "The Danforths are trying to make up the match with Mrs. Verdon. Do you know her? A fair woman, with sky-blue eyes. She has come to The Cedars again, close to the Court; so that looks as if she meant business."

This was the news that Elsie heard on her first day at Willow Farm. It gave her a strong desire for solitude, and she was glad when Francis said that he must go and look after one of the horses. She waited until he had disappeared, and then went down a long gravelled walk, between crowded borders, to a little white gate. Lifting the latch, she walked across a green meadow, and found herself close to the brink of a river. Rushbrook was a place of many waters, a land of green and silver, beautiful with the peace that belongs to a pastoral country. She soon found a cosy nook on an old tree-trunk in the shade, and sat down to think. It was a good spot for a reverie. You could listen to the whisper of the water among the sedges, and look off, across the river, to the low-lying meadows beyond—a scene which was fascinating in its intense quietness. It rests the eye and brain to gaze at those cool green levels, broidered with silvery rivulets, and watch the water stealing among rushes and tall rustling reeds.



It was a lovely morning—soft, hazy, exquisite, as mornings in August often are. Looking back across the meadow, Elsie saw a row of copper-beeches standing in an even line against the deep, dreamy blue of the sky. Away to the left was a mass of foliage hiding the red peaked roof of Willow Farm.

She had not expected to be very happy when she came to Rushbrook. Deep down in her heart was a fear which she kept carefully covered over; she was ashamed of its very existence, and strove to hide it from her own sight. It was Mrs. Verdon—always Mrs. Verdon—who was to have everything worth having.

Of course, it was the most natural thing in the world that Mr. Wayne should fall in love with Mrs. Verdon. The match would be approved by everybody, and Elsie's judgment just then was not clear enough to see that the matches approved by everybody are precisely those which seldom take place.

It was jealousy—ugly, plain, unconquerable jealousy—which was tormenting Elsie now. It is a dreadful moment when a woman looks deep into her innermost self and catches the gleam of a fierce fire burning there.

She looked out again at the shining water, and drew in deep breaths of pure air. The freshness of the streams was in the atmosphere; all around was the intense greenness of water-fed grass.

What a sweet old earth it was, after all! Green pastures and still waters were to be found by all who let the angels guide them. It is our own fault always if we enter the barren and dry land where no water is.

The old trunk on which she sat was close to the edge of the water. Overhead the spreading boughs of an elm protected her from the sun; a little bird, hidden among the leaves, gave out a clear note now and then. Elsie, feeling a sense of comfort stealing into her heart unawares, began to listen to the bird. The bunch of carnations lay upon her knee.

A rustling in the grasses near made her start. Arnold Wayne was coming down the slope of the bank to the spot where she was sitting.

"What a charming nook you have discovered!" he said, his brown face lighting up with pleasure at the sight of her. "I have been to Willow Farm to seek you."

"How did you know that I was here?" Elsie asked as she gave him her hand.

"Mrs. Lennard was standing at a window upstairs when you went out. She watched you cross the field and go down to the river. I heard that you arrived last night."

"Yes," said Elsie, a contented look coming into her brown eyes. "It is delicious to get away from London, delicious to tread on cool grass instead of hot paving-stones."

"And you are going to stay in Rushbrook a long time. Mrs. Lennard has been telling me all her plans. The rector is coming here on his return from Switzerland, and then you will all pay the long-promised visit to the Court."

"We shall see," Elsie returned, with a little air of gravity. "The present is so lovely that I don't care to look into the future, Mr. Wayne. I am charmed with the river. I like to smell the damp, fresh scent of the sedges."

"I'm glad it does you good," he answered, rather absently. "You have some fine carnations there," he added, lightly touching the flowers on her lap.

"Yes; Mr. Ryan gathered them after breakfast."

She spoke the words without thinking about them at all, and she was not looking at Arnold when she uttered them. If his face changed, she did not see it.

"So he is beginning to give her flowers already," Arnold thought.

Meanwhile Elsie was wondering whether he had yet seen Mrs. Verdon. The two widows had travelled down to Rushbrook on Monday, and this was Wednesday.

"Jamie must be delighted to be here," she said after a little pause.

"He is quite radiant," Arnold replied. "What lungs the boy has! I could hear him shouting as I walked up the lane to The Cedars yesterday afternoon."

"So he has called on her already," Elsie thought.

"Mrs. Verdon is afraid of the river," he went on. "The young rascal wants to make straight for the water; he has brought a regular fleet with him. They will have to keep a sharp watch."

"He is a dear little man," Elsie said warmly. "If your friend had lived he would have been proud of his nephew."

"I hope he'll grow up as good as dear old Harold," rejoined Arnold in a graver tone. "And I hope, too, that he won't miss Harold's influence over his life. He's in a fair way to be spoilt, you see."

"Mrs. Verdon really wants to do her best for him," said Elsie, with perfect sincerity. "And nurse is a very sensible woman."

"But it takes a man to manage a strong boy. A woman can't do it alone."

"He will help her to manage him," Elsie thought. "It is right, I know. This is what Meta would have wished. I am beginning to hate myself."

Aloud she said pleasantly, "I shall call at The Cedars to-morrow, and say that I will take care of Jamie sometimes."

"I came to ask you all to dine at the Court on Saturday," said Arnold, after another brief silence. "Mrs. Lennard will come, and so will Ryan; but Miss Ryan declined. I want you to get acquainted with my old place, Miss Kilner; there are one or two pictures which you will like, I think."

"Thank you," Elsie answered frankly. "I am very fond of pictures."

"You were looking at a picture when I saw you first," Arnold Wayne remarked, gazing at her with remembering eyes. "You were quite absorbed in it, and saw nothing else. And you only came out of your dream when the rector shouted a greeting to me."

Elsie smiled, and there was something dreamy in the smile. She had changed her attitude as she sat on the old trunk, and had laid the carnations on the bark by her side.

"I remember the picture," she said in a musing tone. "Two nuns were waiting outside a convent door. One of these days I think I shall be a nun."

"No, you won't," he answered in a masterful voice. "Will you walk a little way along the bank? There's a picturesque island farther on, a wonderful place for wild-flowers."

She rose. And the bunch of carnations was left forgotten on the trunk of the tree.



CHAPTER XV

WAYNE'S COURT

"Love in my bosom, like a bee, Doth suck his sweet; Now with his wings he plays with me, Now with his feet." —ROSALIND'S MADRIGAL.

Mrs. Lennard was a pleasant old lady, with a sunny temper and a strong will. She always had her own way, and decided all doubtful matters with a charming imperiousness which offended nobody.

Elsie had been accustomed to look up to the rector's wife from her earliest days. To the rectory she had always carried her burdens and secret sorrows, and Mrs. Lennard's sympathy had sweetened many bitter hours.

The golden light was streaming into Elsie's room as she stood before the glass, dressing for the dinner-party at the Court. It was a quaint room, with a chest-of-drawers of Queen Anne's time, and slender-legged tables and chairs, black with age, and Elsie, in a soft, trailing gown of cream-coloured silk, looked almost too modern for her surroundings.

After that stroll by the river on Wednesday morning she had schooled herself to take life in a calm fashion.

On Thursday she had called at The Cedars, and had been received with the utmost cordiality. Jamie had seized upon her with the freedom of long acquaintance, insisting that she should inspect the stock of toys he had brought from London. As a mark of special favour he dropped a tin soldier into her cup of tea, and presented her with a loathly green lizard out of his Noah's Ark.

On Friday he came to Willow Farm and gladdened the hearts of the two old ladies. Francis Ryan's enjoyment was less noticeable; he found the little fellow a decided bore. There was not a single quiet minute with Miss Kilner; she was devoted to the boy, and would not let him go out of her sight. Arnold Wayne, who dropped in unexpectedly, behaved in quite a fatherly manner to Jamie, and did not hesitate to rebuke him when his gambols went too far.

Looking back on the past four days, Elsie acknowledged to herself that they had been days of pleasantness. Once, Francis had openly remarked that he wondered how soon Mrs. Verdon and Wayne would come to an understanding; and Mrs. Lennard had replied that it was only the unexpected that ever came to pass.

The dear old lady, in her black silk dress and Honiton lace cap, came rustling softly into the room on this golden evening.

"Elsie," she said, "you are to wear my flowers. Mr. Ryan is cutting some in the greenhouse at this moment, but I am before him. Gloire de Dijon roses and scarlet geranium set in maidenhair! Isn't that a lovely spray? Your old friend knows what will become you best!"

"Of course she does," responded Elsie, with a kiss. "They are perfectly beautiful flowers, and no one else could have arranged them so well. Flowers suit me ever so much better than jewels, Mrs. Lennard."

"Yes, my dear. But where are your mother's diamonds?"

"I have not got them," Elsie answered quietly. "I saw Bertha wearing them just before my father died. Don't be vexed, dearest Mrs. Lennard."

But the old lady was vexed; a flush mounted to the roots of her silver hair, and her foot beat upon the carpet.

"Then I suppose some of Robert's creditors have got them now," she said angrily. "Bertha deserves all that she has had to bear. It is just chastisement. I wonder that you can take your wrongs so patiently!"

Elsie turned to her gently, with a wonderfully sweet look in her brown eyes.

"I was not patient at first," she answered. "There was a battle to fight. Afterwards, Meta helped me."

"Meta?" repeated Mrs. Lennard in a puzzled tone. "Ah, you mean the lady who was engaged to Harold Waring. How did she help you, my dear?"

"I think it was the touch of her vanished hand that calmed me," Elsie said in a hushed tone. "Like Hamlet, 'I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious;' I was glad at first when I heard of Bertha's humiliation. And then I read Meta's story in her manuscript, and knew that she had suffered more than I, and had forgiven."

She stood quite still a moment, a graceful figure enfolded in golden light, with an exalted look on her face.

"Elsie," Mrs. Lennard said suddenly, "you are a beautiful woman. You are like some one in a poem, child! There is a certain kind of beauty that only comes through pain."

Elsie smiled at her, and began to fasten the flowers in her bodice. They gave the finishing touch to her dress, and suited her, as she had said, better than jewels.

There was an ancient bridge across the moat which divided the Court from the highway. The water lay still and shining under the broad lily leaves, and the grey walls of the old house stood bathed in the enchanted light. It was an evening that made you think of legend and song, of knights riding home across the bridge when the fight was over, of ladies watching from those windows high for the first glimpse of streaming pennon and waving plume.

The old house stood fair and stately in the sunset, with all its oriel windows and pointed gables and gilded vanes. As Elsie went up the grey stone steps of the terrace she had that curious feeling which Rossetti has called "sudden light"—

"I have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell."

Nothing seemed unfamiliar; the dense walls of box and yew showing dark against a saffron sky, the half-defaced knightly figure above the great portico, the tiled floor of the hall, where a few white rose-petals were scattered.

A little later, when she sat down with the other guests to dine in a long room, dark with much black carved oak, she still had the dreamy sensation of returning to a life forgotten. The guests, however, were strangers. Mrs. Verdon, in a white silk gown embroidered with bunches of poppies, had never seemed less known. The grey-headed man with the rosy face was Mr. Danforth, and the two auburn-haired young ladies were his daughters, Mary and Lily.

Before that evening was over it occurred to Elsie that one or two persons were made slightly uncomfortable by her presence at the Court; and one of them, Lily Danforth, showed her uneasiness rather plainly.

She was a pretty girl, who owed her prettiness chiefly to her bright colouring and the freshness of youth. Her white dress, relieved only by touches of the palest green, became her very well. But she was restless, and Elsie saw that her eyes often glanced quickly and furtively in the direction of Francis Ryan.

All the Danforths treated Elsie rather distantly, but they were devoted to Mrs. Verdon. As there was no mistress of Wayne's Court, it fell to Mary's part to play hostess, and when she gave the signal to rise from the table Elsie felt that she was going into a chilly atmosphere.

In a hundred little ways did Miss Danforth contrive to slight Miss Kilner. Mary had never been as pretty as Lily, and was ten or twelve years older. It was not unknown to family friends that, after hoping vainly to win Arnold Wayne for herself, she was now trying hard to provide him with a wife of her own choosing.

But there was one person who was more than a match for Miss Danforth, and that was Mrs. Lennard. The old lady was not ignorant of her devices; her own knowledge of the world was far greater than Mary could ever hope to attain. The rector's wife had been a society belle in her youth, and had not forgotten the use of her weapons. Mary was discomfited, and Mrs. Verdon and Mrs. Tell were immensely amused when Mrs. Lennard proved herself mistress of the situation.

The drawing-room had the look of a room that is seldom inhabited; the keys of the piano were stiff through lack of use. It was so warm that the windows (which were modern in this part of the house) had been widely opened, and the scent of flowers drifted in from the terrace. Arnold, entering with the other men, detected Elsie sitting in the shade of a lace curtain and looking out into the golden moonlight.

He was at her side in a moment. Francis Ryan, who had searched for her in a wrong direction, saw that he had lost his chance, and went over to talk to Mrs. Verdon.

"Come out and see how the streams glisten in the moonlight," said Arnold in a quiet voice. And Elsie consented willingly; she was tired of the formal room and the uninteresting talk, and the breath of the night was sweet.

The ground sloped gently down from the terrace, and beyond the Court gardens were the low-lying meadows and shining watercourses. The glamour of the moonshine was over all; it was like a landscape seen in a dream.

"I must see more of you next week," said Arnold, looking down at the delicate face which was spiritualised by the mysterious light. "You will come to church to-morrow. There will be a walk of three-quarters of a mile; the footpath runs through the fields."

"It will be delightful to go to a country church again," Elsie answered.

"I'm glad to return to the old rural scenes myself," Arnold confessed. "By the way, don't turn poor Ryan's head, Miss Kilner, unless you want to break some one's heart."

"Whose heart?"

Elsie looked up at him with grave, questioning eyes.

"My cousin Lily's. It's quite an old affair."

"Oh, yes, we'll all go out on the terrace. No, Mrs. Tell, we shan't take cold. It can't be done to-night."

Mary Danforth was speaking; her high-pitched voice grated unpleasantly on Elsie's ears. She stepped out over the low window-sill, followed by Mrs. Verdon, Lily, and Mr. Ryan.

Arnold muttered something under his breath. Mary came towards the pair at once, with a little affected exclamation of surprise.

"You here, Arnold! Isn't it lovely, Miss Kilner? The view from the terrace is always so pretty by moonlight. How very warm it is! But don't you think you ought to have a shawl?"

They were all mixed up now; there were no more quiet words. Everybody seemed to talk and laugh at once.

A stable-clock struck ten, and Mrs. Lennard told Elsie that it was time to go.

Francis Ryan and his two ladies went back across the old bridge. Miss Kilner, wrapt in a soft buff shawl, paused a second to look down into the dark moat. Only a few moonbeams touched the still water; the rushes stood up like tall black spears; one could fancy armed men crouched in ambush there in the shadow of the arch. She walked on again by Mrs. Lennard's side.

"We were rather dull at the Court to-night," said Francis. "Wayne has grown accustomed to living in tents, and that sort of thing, you see. The old place needs a lady's rule. Mrs. Verdon will make a good chatelaine."

"Has she been telling you her secrets?" Mrs. Lennard asked.

"No; but the Danforths were talking."

"The Danforths generally are talking," the old lady replied.

"Well, but I think they are right. It's time for Wayne to settle. A man should look after his own place and know his own people. And if he has a big house he wants a wife."

"When he wants her he can find her without the assistance of other people. The worst matches I've ever known were those made up by sisters and cousins and aunts," said Mrs. Lennard in her decided way. "Elsie, my dear, what are you looking at? That was only a cat that ran across the road. You are getting nervous. I shall send you off to bed."



CHAPTER XVI

GOING TO CHURCH

"But having entered in, we shall find there Silence, and sudden dimness, and deep prayer, And faces of crowned angels all about." —ROSSETTI.

Elsie woke on Sunday morning with her thoughts full of the charms of Wayne's Court.

She pictured the place to herself in the silence of the early hours, the cool depths of shadow in the green aisles, the trimly-kept gardens, the first sunshine stealing along the grey terrace. Did Arnold Wayne care for her well enough to ask her to come and reign over his old home?

He liked her, she was sure of that. And his cousins detested her, of that she was sure also. No woman can ever endure the thought that she is disliked or despised by the relatives of the man she loves. And poor Elsie, against her own will, had fallen in love with Arnold Wayne.

Against her own will! And Elsie had always fancied that her will was so strong. She had had several strong likings, and had found out (before it was too late) that a strong liking is only a distant cousin to love. For the first time in her life she was beginning to feel that terrible self-distrust which is love's cruel companion. And it is a painful moment for a woman when she learns that the sound of one voice can set her heart throbbing and drive the colour out of her cheeks.

Mrs. Lennard stoutly affirmed that she was quite equal to walking to church and back again. Nobody should get pony-chaises out for her on a Sunday. So the two old ladies and the younger one came out into the lane, just in time to see the flutter of summer gowns on the meadow-path. The Danforths were ahead of them. Yes; and Mrs. Verdon, slim and cool and graceful in a dainty costume of blue-grey cashmere—a dress which wrung unwilling admiration even from the rector's wife.

"That straw-coloured woman dresses well," she said to Elsie. "What a miracle of self-worship she is!"

"But she has a kind heart," Elsie answered. "Think of her love for Jamie."

The boy, trotting by nurse's side, had gone on in front of Mrs. Verdon and the Danforths. They were moving so slowly along the path that the party from Willow Farm instinctively began to saunter. There was a consciousness among them that it would be best for Miss Kilner and the Danforths not to meet too often.

But if they were sauntering, some one behind them was coming on with rapid strides. Arnold Wayne joined them with a cheery greeting.

"You are early," he said. "Do you keep your clocks too fast at the Farm? Miss Kilner, isn't this pure air delicious after London?"

Mrs. Lennard allowed herself to be displaced, and he stepped close to Elsie's side. It was a sultry morning; but the odour of the grass, fresh with half-hidden streams, was in the air. The meadow was dotted with yellow-rayed flowers, and in the moist places the tall bulrush lifted its dark brown head.

"Yes," Elsie answered, with a sigh of satisfaction; "it makes it hard to think of going back to a 'long, unlovely street.'"

"You are not going back yet," he said quickly. And the earnest look which accompanied the words brought the colour into her face.

"Not yet," she responded; "but one's bright days always fly."

The tone touched his heart. It told him that her bright days had been few. What he would have said was never known; words were rising to his lips when Mary Danforth came running back to them at a girlish speed.

"Oh, Arnold, how you are loitering!" she said, panting. "You will be late at church, naughty boy! It's a dreadful thing for the Squire to set a bad example, Miss Kilner."

"Isn't it rather warm for such violent exercise, Mary?" he asked in a lazy voice. "A cool face is a blessing to its possessor and all beholders."

Mary had the complexion that flushes easily. The glow which overspread her face was not becoming, but she felt that she was a martyr in a good cause. She had run back to separate her cousin from the dangerous Miss Kilner. Lily, whose eyes were on Francis, was hastening after her.

As to Francis, he was beginning to be piqued by Elsie's gentle indifference, and he had a vague suspicion that Wayne was carrying on a flirtation with her instead of attending to Mrs. Verdon. Lily's light-grey eyes were not as beautiful as Elsie's brown orbs, but they were pretty enough when they glanced at him in mute reproach. He felt he had neglected Lily.

Mrs. Verdon did not follow the Danforths when they ran back to the Willow Farm people. She sauntered slowly on talking with their father; but, when the two parties came together and melted into one, her greetings were very gracious.

Elsie, who was somehow edged out of the group, found herself walking alone. The Danforths were breaking the quietness of the meadows with their laughing voices. She was glad to escape them and overtake nurse and Jamie.

The boy met her gladly, putting his little warm hand into hers. And only a woman with a heartache can understand the comfort that she found in the clasp of that childish hand.

"We're going to church," said Jamie. "You shall sit by my side. It ain't a very pretty church."

"Oh, Master Jamie, 'ain't' again!" nurse murmured, in a tone of mild reproof.

"But there's nice things in it," continued Jamie, paying no attention to the good woman. "There's a man, cut out of stone, lying on his back, and he's lost his nose. He twies to put his hands together, but can't, not properly, 'cos some of his fingers has come off."

"I should like to see him," remarked Elsie, "very much."

"I'll show him to you, when the pweachin's done," Jamie promised. "Keep close to me."

She did keep close to him when they entered the little grey church, and found a sense of peace and quietness there. She sat by his side, close to a massive pillar, near an open window set deep in the ancient wall. The breath of the warm summer wandered in, and she did not criticise the singing or the sermon. Through it all she could hear the distant bleating of flocks and the hum of bees.

If she could always live a simple country life with Jamie, it would be full of calm content. But the boy would grow up and demand more than her slender means could provide; and he belonged to Mrs. Verdon. She did not think she could endure a country life without Jamie. It would be better to go back to the London street, and care for the children of the poor, than live in rural solitude.

"Come and see the stone man," whispered Jamie, as soon as the service was over.

She let him lead her into a side aisle where a battered knightly figure lay on an altar-tomb. It was still and cool in this dim nook, and faint lights and shadows fell softly on the old warrior in his repose. The boy stood looking at him in silence.

"I wonder who he was," Elsie said in a low voice.

"His name was Lionel de Wayne," replied Arnold, at her elbow; "and he was one of the goodliest knights that ever bare shield. 'His soul is with the saints, I trust.'"

"Amen," said Elsie gravely. Jamie looked up at both the speakers with big blue eyes.

"I have some records of him at the Court," Arnold went on. "You must come and turn them over some day; if you care about such things, you will find a store."

"I do care," she answered. "Why do you not write a book about the Court, Mr. Wayne? England likes to know the histories of her stately old houses, and there is a great deal to tell."

"We will write it together," he said; and her heart gave a sudden throb.

"We had lost you!" Mary Danforth exclaimed behind the pair. "Arnold, Mrs. Verdon has promised to lunch with us; won't you come too?"

"I'll think about it," he replied, relapsing into that lazy manner which his friends knew so well.

"There isn't much time to think of it," said Mary, rather sharply. "You know father likes his luncheon punctually at half-past one."

"Don't let him wait for me. I was always a dawdling fellow."

Jamie held Elsie's hand as they walked home through the meadows. Miss Ryan asked Mrs. Verdon to let her keep him at Willow Farm for the rest of the day, and Elsie spent the long afternoon hours with the boy.

Seeing that Francis Ryan was prowling about in the garden, she carried Jamie off to her large, cool room upstairs, and told him stories to his heart's content. Then, too, she had discovered a pile of nursery books in a corner of the house, and had brought them up here for his benefit. Their hearts grew closer and closer together; they enjoyed each other's love, and exchanged caresses like a couple of children. The child had a wonderfully freshening influence on Elsie's life, and when she brought him down to afternoon tea, the two old ladies rejoiced to see her looking so young and bright.

"Francis is gone to the Danforths'," said Mrs. Lennard, with a merry twinkle in her eyes.

The afternoon was deepening into evening when Arnold Wayne came up the garden path to the door. He found Elsie under the porch, with a mass of jessamine hanging over her head.

"There is to be a picnic next Thursday," he said; "I am dragged into it. The gathering-place will be in a meadow, under some trees near the river. I've got a little boat, and a man to row people to and from the island."

"I shall like that," remarked Jamie, who was listening. "Mammy will be sure to let me go!"

Elsie did not feel strongly inclined to go to the picnic. She had taken the quiet of the country into her heart, and wanted to escape from society. But Mrs. Lennard disapproved of this growing taste for solitude.

"You must mingle with the others, my dear, whether you like them or not," she said. "I shall come upstairs and turn over your dresses. You have a cool, brown holland-looking thing, trimmed with bands of scarlet silk and black lace. I think you shall wear that."



CHAPTER XVII

THE PICNIC

"The chatterers chatter, here and there, They chatter of they know not what." —OWEN MEREDITH.

"The cool, brown holland-looking thing" was donned, in obedience to Mrs. Lennard's decree. Mrs. Verdon had written to her milliner to send her down something new for the occasion in the shape of headgear. But Elsie had spent an hour in her room, on the day before the picnic, and had retrimmed a black chip hat with black lace and soft knots of scarlet ribbon.

"I am not a rich woman," she said to the rector's wife; "and if I were, I should still like to use the gifts that have been given me. I think we should not let any gift get rusty for lack of use."

"You would have made an excellent wife for a poor man, my dear," Mrs. Lennard remarked.

"I shall never be any man's wife," said Elsie. "I mean to be a little sister of the poor, and especially devote myself to children. That is my vocation; I see it plainly."

"Indeed"—Mrs. Lennard leaned back in her chair with a satisfied little smile as she surveyed her favourite—"I don't think I would adopt that kind of dress just yet, if I were you. Black lace and a touch of scarlet are very becoming."

The day of the picnic was as balmy and blue as those that had gone before. The dew was still hanging on the clustered white roses which climbed to her latticed casement when Elsie looked out. The sweet, wet blossoms touched her face as she leaned forward into the pure morning air.

Her window overlooked that side of the garden nearest to the lane; and some one, strolling between the leafy hedges, looked up and saw a vision of a bright yet delicate face, framed in a quantity of thick, dark, rumpled hair.

He stood still, well hidden by the screen of leaves, and gazed upward in silent delight. The pretty picture only lasted half a minute; she vanished, and he, finding that the casement remained a blank, went back over a gate, and across dew-wet fields, to his solitary breakfast.

The picnic was exactly like other picnics. A space of level turf, under the shade of some fine beeches, had been chosen as the banqueting-place.

It was quite an aristocratic gathering; most of the important people of the country were there. There were white and rose-colour, violet and primrose, showing out amongst other indescribable tints. Frilled parasols were unfurled like great flowers; the place was filled with dainty fabrics, and soft hues, and laughter and ceaseless movement. All this flutter and commotion made Elsie feel intensely quiet. Somehow, although she was by no means unnoticed, she could not enter into the spirit of the hour.

Jamie did not care about the ladies and their pretty dresses; but he appreciated the good things to eat. Mrs. Verdon had said that he was too young to be of the party, but had ended by bringing him. Home was only a little way off, and nurse was among the other servants. Meanwhile the boy had stationed himself by Elsie's side, and she was keeping a careful watch over his plate.

Arnold saw them sitting together on the edge of the crowd, and longed to join them. But the party had assembled in his field, and he had a host's duties to perform. His father's friends came round him, glad to see that he had returned to the Court; elderly men proffered advice about this matter and that, taking it for granted that he would be a wanderer no more; matrons regarded him with motherly eyes. And Elsie silently thought that he looked like a prince upon his own borders, bidding them all welcome.

Lily Danforth, with two girl friends from the other side of the county, was sitting near her. The men moved about helping everybody, supplying their own needs in a rambling fashion. It was altogether a gay, informal kind of affair.

"I suppose it must be true," one of the girls said. "It was Henry who told us the news. He said that her horses bolted, and Mr. Wayne stopped them, and then it turned out that they had heard of each other for years. Such a story can have but one ending."

"I think the ending is pretty certain," Lily answered with gay confidence. "In fact, he has confessed as much to my father. We are all delighted. She is charming; and we were afraid he would settle down as a confirmed bachelor, or not settle at all."

"She is really pretty, and so distinguished looking," the other girl joined in. "I hope she'll give no end of balls at the Court. Just look at her now!"

Involuntarily following the direction of the speaker's glance, Elsie saw Mrs. Verdon and Arnold. He was putting something into her plate, and she was gazing up at him with eyes that seemed no longer wanting in colour and expression. Whether he returned that gaze or not, Elsie, at the moment, could not tell. But, being a woman in love, she jumped to the conclusion that he did.

Moreover, there were Lily's words to ring in her ears like a chime: "In fact, he has confessed as much to my father."

A sudden heart-sinking made her inexpressibly weary of her surroundings, and then she rallied, angry with herself—rallied just in time to see Jamie taking a second plateful of cherry-tart.

"Not a bit more, little man," she said resolutely. "Everybody else has finished. You wouldn't like to sit here and eat all alone. I think we had better get up and come away from the dishes."

"I want to go in the boat; Mr. Wayne said I might."

Jamie really felt that he had had enough, and the boat at this moment was better than the tart.

"Well, dear, you shall go. We'll walk down to the river-side."

There was an island on the river, which was, as Arnold had said, a wonderful place for wild-flowers. It was a very small islet, overgrown with bush vegetation; willow-boughs drooped down into the water; rushes, sedges, and wild trailing things flourished in uncontrolled luxuriance. Sometimes men and boys landed on it when they went fishing in a leaky old boat, or pulled round it to get water-lilies; but it was rumoured that Mr. Wayne would make improvements there.

Already, instead of the old boat, there was a new one, dark green with a stripe of white, moored against the landing-stage at the end of the meadow; and old Giles, who had worked on the Wayne estate for years, was waiting to take anybody for a row.

Miss Kilner and Jamie were the first to come to the river-side. The other people were still lingering over the remains of the feast, making plans, proposing excursions, or chatting about nothing. Jamie had already made the old man's acquaintance, and hailed him as a friend.

"Now carefully, young master. Sit steady," said Giles, as he put his passengers in the stern.

The water under the banks was dark with shadows, but they floated out of the shade into a strange stillness and glory. The voices and laughter in the meadow grew fainter and fainter; they were going away from the turmoil into a world of peace.

Jamie sat still, resting one dimpled hand on Elsie's knee, enjoying it all in silence. It was a calm, full river, running still and smooth even out in the middle current, but the sun shone down, and the oars struck out diamonds.

Giles pulled close to the island, where there was a landing-place, rotten and green with slippery water-weeds. Jamie asked to land and search for the eggs of water-fowl; but Elsie reminded him that other people would be wanting the boat.

As they rowed back again, Giles described the habits of the birds which frequented this reedy spot. Jamie listened open-eyed to his accounts of the moor-hen, flapper, coot, water-rail, dab-chick, and sand-piper, to say nothing of rats in abundance, and an otter now and then. If you crept upon the islet very quietly, you could hear the rats before you saw them. Carefully listening to the sounds, you frequently discovered the rat himself, generally on the stump of some old tree, or on the bare part of the bank overhanging the water. There he would be, sitting upon his hind-legs, holding in his fore-feet the root of a bulrush, and champing away with his sharp teeth so as to be heard at a considerable distance.

"They be a bad lot, the rats—a bad, destructive lot," said the old man solemnly. "I wonder why such vermin was made. You'd never believe the number of fish and young wild-ducks, and game of different sorts, which are eaten up every season by them slippery rascals."



CHAPTER XVIII

THE ISLAND

"What hath life been? What will it be? How have I lived without thee? How Is life both lost and found in thee? Feel'st thou For ever in this Now?" —OWEN MEREDITH.

People were coming down to the river when the boat touched the bank again; there was a large group gathered at the landing-place. Two men started forward to help Miss Kilner to step on shore.

Elsie's good angel must surely have taken wing at that moment. With a bright smile, and a sudden flashing look from her dark eyes, she gave her hand to Francis Ryan, and then, chancing to make a false step, she nearly fell into his arms.

He was charmed, puzzled, delighted. Brown eyes sometimes say more than they mean, and Elsie never knew how much seemed to be conveyed in that flashing look. Had she awakened all at once to the knowledge that Francis (with a very little encouragement) was willing to lay himself and all his worldly goods at her feet?

Arnold Wayne was puzzled too, and a sharp pain smote him to the heart.

Was this the woman who had spoken to him in the little London room, with a voice like that of an angel? Then they had seemed to stand on the threshold of a beautiful life to be. There had been the unuttered consciousness of a comfort that each could give—a feeling of need and longing that each could fill.

And that golden hour had gone by. She was only a flirt, after all; more clever and more refined than the other flirts he had known, but just as unreal and unscrupulous as the rest.

She did not know what she had done. It seems to be a long way down from the mountain-top to the common earth at its base; but a woman can accomplish the descent in a moment.

She was very beautiful, certainly; he had not discovered until this instant what a power of witchery lurked in those dark eyes. He had gazed into their brown depths as a man who looks deep into a crystal pool, thinking that he sees all that is there.

She had not looked at him when she rejected his aid and sprang out with the help of Francis. She did not look at him when she turned and took Jamie by the hand.

"Are you not tired of the boy yet?" asked Mrs. Verdon's silvery voice. "You are very kind, dear Miss Kilner; but pray send him to nurse if he wearies you."

"He does not weary me in the least," Elsie answered, looking smilingly into Katherine's face. She could smile unflinchingly, although she saw that Arnold was staying by the "fair ladye's" side.

"Let them go their way together," she thought. "After all, what right have I to care?"

As to Francis Ryan, he forgot that Lily Danforth was looking after him with glances full of the deepest reproach. He had never been thoroughly in love with Lily; he had only felt for her that spurious kind of love which grows out of proximity. But she, poor girl, had set all her hopes upon him, and was very miserable when she saw what Elsie had done. She began to think that she had made an enemy of Miss Kilner.

"It was Mary's fault," she thought bitterly. "Mary decided that we should give her the cold shoulder. 'We don't know who she is,' she said. Absurd! It would have been better to have been civil."

Elsie, too, had forgotten Lily. The hint which Arnold had given her about the old attachment between his cousin and Ryan had slipped out of her mind. She was intent on wearing a brave face before the world, and hiding all the outward and visible signs of heartache.

Yet there was no need to hide a pain which no one suspected her of enduring. No one, save Mrs. Lennard, had discovered that Elsie had a secret, and the old lady could keep her own counsel.

"I have scarcely had a word from you all day," said Francis, not caring to conceal his delight as he walked up the meadow by her side.

"I did not know that my words were of any value," Elsie answered.

The flush was still warm on her cheek, and the dangerous light still shone in her eyes. Under the shade of her black lace hat the face glowed like a rich flower.

"Is that quite true, Miss Kilner?" asked Francis, looking down at her with undisguised admiration. "I think you must know that any word of yours—even the lightest—is of value to me."

"I'm afraid I say a great many foolish words," she replied lightly. "And they are best forgotten. What a glorious day we are having! This is Jamie's first picnic, and he will look back on it in years to come as a joy for ever. Rushbrook is certainly a charming place."

"Could you be content to live in Rushbrook?" Ryan suddenly asked.

"Always? I don't know."

"Try and see if you get tired of it, Miss Kilner."

"I am not tired of it yet," she said hurriedly, half afraid that he would go too far. "It is a place to remember and dream of on a November day in London."

"Do you realise that we are not very far from November?" Francis said. "We are only divided from that dreaded month by September and October. And they will go by like a dream; they always do. 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.'"

"I've been gathering them ever since I came here, Mr. Ryan. Don't talk of November now; I hate it."

"I should not hate it," he murmured, "if we could spend it together."

"Here is Mrs. Lennard looking for me," exclaimed Elsie hastily. "I have lost sight of her too long."

She went quickly towards her old friend, who received her with questioning eyes.

"You are getting too warm, my dear," Mrs. Lennard said. "Come and sit down in a cool spot. Mrs. Appleby has been wanting to chat with you; she knew your mother years ago."

Elsie found Mrs. Appleby on a camp-stool under the beeches, and sank down on the grass by her side. Mrs. Lennard took possession of Jamie, and kept him quiet by telling him an enchanting story.

The talk about old days soothed Elsie, and brought her, unawares, into a better state of mind. Mrs. Appleby knew nothing of the storm that she was helping to still. She chatted on, pleasantly and calmly, about those who had done with all storms for ever and ever; and by-and-by the young woman beside her began to remember that the struggle is short, and the rest long.

They were drinking tea under the trees when the wanderers came dropping in, by twos and threes, from all points of the compass. Among the latest were Arnold and Mrs. Verdon—a goodly pair.

People smiled furtively, and exchanged meaning glances when these two arrived. Arnold's eyes sought for the person who still interested him above all others, in spite of the shock she had given him. His heart was comforted when he saw her sitting quietly under a gigantic beech by an old lady's side.

"Dear Elsie," Jamie whispered, "I've had enough tea. It'll soon be my bedtime. Take me down to the boat and let me have just one row more, and then give me to nurse."

At the same moment Mrs. Lennard was addressing Francis in her most persuasive voice.

"Dear Mr. Ryan, you are doing nothing, and we are all so comfortably idle here in the shade. It will be most kind if you will hold my skein of yarn."

The young man held out his hands with ready obedience. Elsie was only two or three yards away, and he was content.

A few moments later Miss Kilner rose and took Jamie by the hand; and at the same instant Mrs. Verdon gave a sudden exclamation.

"I have left my little white shawl in the boat!" she cried. "It's a dear little shawl. I wouldn't lose it for the world."

"I will get it for you," Elsie said readily. "Jamie and I are going down to the boat before he says 'Good-night.'"

"Oh, thanks!" Mrs. Verdon responded gratefully; and then she glanced at Arnold, as if she expected him to sit down beside her on the grass.

But he remained standing bolt upright for a second. Then he took a stride in Elsie's direction. "I think I'll look after the shawl myself," he was heard to say. "Giles's old brain is apt to get confused after any kind of excitement."

Francis Ryan made an uneasy movement, but he was tied and bound with the skein of yarn; and Mrs. Lennard, winding steadily, was smiling into his eyes.

The hand which held Jamie unconsciously tightened its grasp, and the boy looked up in surprise.

"Why do you squeeze me so hard, Elsie?" he asked. "I ain't going to run away."

She did not reply; her heart was throbbing fast, and Arnold found that even the most commonplace remark stuck in his throat somehow. They walked for some yards together in silence.