A little opening among the tall evergreens upon their right shows them Lord Baltimore once more, but this time not alone. Lady Swansdown is with him.

She is looking rather lovelier than usual, with that soft tinge of red upon her cheeks born of her last waltz, and her lips parted in a happy smile. The subdued lights of the many lamps falling on her satin gown rest there as if in love with its beauty. It is an old shade made new, a yellow that is almost white, and has yet a tinge of green in it. A curious shade, difficult, perhaps, to wear with good effect; but on Lady Swansdown it seems to reign alone as queen of all the toilets in the rooms to-night. She looks, indeed, like a perfect picture stepped down from its canvas, "a thing of beauty," a very vision of delight.

She seems, indeed, to Joyce watching her—Joyce who likes her—that she has grown beyond herself (or rather into her own real self) to-night. There is a touch of life, of passionate joy, of abandonment, of hope that has yet a sting in it, in all her air, that, though not understood of the girl, is still apparent.

The radiant smile that illumines her beautiful face as she glances up at Baltimore—who is bending over her in more lover-like fashion than should be—is still making all her face a lovely fire as she passes out of sight down the steps that lead to the lighted gardens—the steps that Joyce had but just now ascended.

The latter is still a little wrapt in wonder and admiration, and some other thought that is akin to trouble, when Dysart breaks in upon her fancies.

"I am sorry about that," says he, bluntly, indicating with a nod of his head the departing shadows of the two who have just passed out. There are no fancies about Dysart. Nothing vague.

"Yes; it is a pity," says Joyce, hurriedly.

"More than that, I think."

"Something ought to be done," nervously.

"Yes," flushing hotly; "I know—I know what you mean"—she had meant nothing—"but it is so difficult to know what to do, and—I am only a cousin."

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of you. I wasn't, really," says she, a good deal shocked. "As you say, why should you speak, when——"

"There is Beauclerk," says Dysart, quickly, as if a little angry with somebody, but certainly not with her. "How can he stand by and see it?"

"Perhaps he doesn't see it," says she in a strange tone, her eyes on the marble flooring. It seems to herself that the words are forced from her. "Because—because he has——"

She brings her hands tightly together, so tightly that she reduces the feathers on the fan she is holding to their last gasp. Because she is now disappointed in him; because he has proved himself, perhaps, unstable, deceptive to the heart's core, is she to vilify, him? A thousand times no! That would be, indeed, to be base herself.

"Perhaps not," says Dysart, drily. In his secret heart this defence of his rival is detestable to him. Something in her whole manner when she came in from the garden had suggested to him the possibility that she had at last found him out. Dysart would have been puzzled to explain how Beauclerk was supposed to be "found out" or for what, but that he was liable to discovery at any moment on some count or counts unknown, was one of his Christian beliefs. "Perhaps not," says he. "And yet I cannot help thinking that a matter so open to all must be patent to him."

"But," anxiously, "is it so open?"

"I leave that to your own judgment," a little warmly. "You," with rather sharp question, "are a friend of Isabel's?"

"Yes, yes," quickly. "You know that. But——"

"But?" sternly.

"I like Lady Swansdown, too," says she, with some determination. "I find it hard to believe that she can—can——"

"Be false to her friend," supplements he. "Have you yet to learn that friendship ends where love begins?"

"You think——?"

"That she is in love with Baltimore."

"And he?"

"Oh!" contemptuously; "who shall gauge the depth of his heart? What can he mean?" he has risen and is now pacing angrily up and down the small space before her. "He used to be such a good fellow, and now——Is he dead to all sense of honor, of honesty?"

"He is a man," says Joyce, coldly.

"No. I deny that. Not a true man, surely."

"Is there a true man?" says she. "Is there any truth, any honesty to be found in the whole wide world?"

She too has risen now, and is standing with her large dark eyes fixed almost defiantly on his. There is something so strange, so wild, so unlike her usual joyous, happy self in this outburst, in her whole attitude, that Dysart regards her with an astonishment that is largely tinctured with fear.

"I don't know what is in your mind," says he, calmly; "something out of the common has occurred to disturb you so much, I can guess, but," looking at her earnestly, "whatever it maybe, I entreat you to beat it under. Conquer it; do not let it conquer you. There must be evil in the world, but never lose sight of the good; that must be there, just as surely. Truth, honor, honesty, are no fables; they are to be found everywhere. If not in this one, then in that. Do not lose faith in them."

"You think me evidently in a bad way," says she, smiling faintly. She has recovered herself in part, but though she tries to turn his earnest words into a jest, one can see that she is perilously near to tears.

"You mean that I am preaching to you," says he, smiling too. "Well, so I am. What right has a girl like you to disbelieve in anything? Why," laughing, "it can't be so very long ago since you believed in fairies, in pixies, and the fierce dragons of our childhood."

"I don't know that I am not a believer in them still," says she. "In the dragons, at all events. Evil seems to rule the world."

"Tut!" says he. "I have preached in vain."

"You would have me believe in good only," says she. "You assure me very positively that all the best virtues are still riding to and fro, redeeming the world, with lances couched and hearts on fire. But where to find them? In you?"

It is a very gentle smile she gives him as she says this.

"Yes: so far, at least, as you are concerned," says he, stoutly. "I shall be true and honest to you so long as my breath lives in my body. So much I can swear to."

"Well," says she, with a rather meagre attempt at light-heartedness, "you almost persuade me with that truculent manner of yours into believing in you at all events, or is it," a little sadly, "that the ways of others drive me to that belief? Well," with a sigh, "never mind how it is, you benefit by it, any way."

"I don't want to force your confidence," says Dysart; "but you have been made unhappy by somebody, have you not?"

"I have not been made happy," says she, her eyes on the ground. "I don't know why I tell you that. You asked a hard question."

"I know. I should have been silent, perhaps, and yet——"

At this moment the sound of approaching footsteps coming up the steps startles them.

"Joyce!" says he, "grant me one request."

"One! You rise to tragedy!" says she, as if a little amused in spite of the depression under which she is so evidently laboring. "Is it to be your last, your dying prayer?"

"I hope not. Nevertheless I would have it granted."

"You have only to speak," says she, with a slight gesture that is half mocking, half kindly.

"Come with me after luncheon, to-morrow, up to St. Bridget's Hill?"

"Is that all? And to throw such force into it. Yes, yes; I shall enjoy a long walk like that."

"It is not because of the walk that I ask you to go there with me," says Dysart, the innate honesty that distinguishes him compelling him to lay bare to her his secret meaning. "I have something to say to you. You will listen?"

"Why should I not?" returns she, a little pale. He might, perhaps, have said something further, but that now the footsteps sound close at hand. A glance towards the door that leads from the fragrant night into the still more perfumed air within reveals to them two figures.

Mr. Beauclerk and Miss Maliphant come leisurely forward. The blood receding to Joyce's heart leaves her cold and singularly calm.



CHAPTER XVI.

"Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight."

"Life, I know not what thou art."

"You two," cries Miss Maliphant pleasantly, in her loud, good-natured voice. She addresses them as though it has been borne in upon her by constant reminding that Joyce and Dysart are for the best of all reasons generally to be found together. There is something not only genial, but sympathetic in her tones, something that embarrasses Dysart, and angers Joyce to the last degree. "Well, I'm glad to have met you for one moment out of the hurly-burly," goes on the massive heiress to Joyce, with the friendliest of smiles. "I'm off at cock-crow, you know, and so mightn't have had the opportunity of saying good-bye to you, but for this fortunate meeting."

"To-morrow?" says Joyce, more with the manner of one who feels she must say something than from any desire to say it.

"Yes, and so early that I shall not have it in my power to bid farewell to any one. Unless, indeed," with a glance at Beauclerk, meant, perhaps, to be coquettish, but so elephantine in its proportions as to be almost anything in the world but that, "some of my friends may wish to see the sun rise."

"We shall miss you," says Joyce, gracefully, though with an effort.

"Just what I've been saying," breaks in Beauclerk at this juncture, who hitherto has been looking on, with an altogether delightful smile upon his handsome face. "We shall all miss Miss Maliphant. It is not often that one meets with an entirely genial companion. My sister is to be congratulated on securing such an acquisition, if only for a short time."

Joyce, lifting her eyes, stares straight at him. "For a short time!" What does that mean? If Miss Maliphant is to be Lady Baltimore's sister-in-law, she will undoubtedly secure her for a lifetime!

"Oh, you are too good," says Miss Maliphant, giving him a playful flick with her fan.

"Well, what would you have me say?" persists Beauclerk still lightly, with wonderful lightness, in fact, considering the weight of that playful tap upon his bent knuckles. "That we shall not be sorry? Would you have me lie, then? Fie, fie, Miss Maliphant! The truth, the truth, and nothing but the truth! At all risks and hazards!" here he almost imperceptibly sends flying a shaft from his eyes at Joyce, who receives it with a blank stare. "We shall, I assure you, be desolated when you go, specially Isabel."

This last pretty little speech strikes Dysart as being specially neat: This putting the onus of the regret on to Isabel's shoulders. All through, Beauclerk has been careful to express himself as one who is an appreciative friend of Miss Maliphant, but nothing more; yet so guarded are these expressions, and the looks that accompany them, that Miss Maliphant might be pardoned if she should read a warmer feeling in them.

A sensation of disgust darkens his brow.

"I must say you are all very nice to me," says the heiress complacently. Poor soul! No doubt, she believes in every bit of it, and a large course of kow-towing from the world has taught her the value of her pile. "However," with true Manchester grace, "there's no need for howling over it. We'll all meet again, I dare say, some time or other. For one thing, Lady Baltimore has asked me to come here again after Christmas; February, I dare say."

"So glad!" murmurs Joyce rather vaguely.

"So you see," said Miss Maliphant with ponderous gayety, "that we are all bound to put in a second good time together; you're coming, I know, Mr. Dysart, and Miss Kavanagh is always here, and Mr. Beauclerk "—with a languishing glance at that charming person, who returns it in the most open manner—"has promised me that he will be here to meet me."

"Well, if I can, you know," says he, now beaming at her.

"How's that?" says the heiress, turning promptly upon him. It is strange how undesirable the very richest heiress can be at times. "Why, it's only just this instant that you told me nothing would keep you away from the Court next spring. What d'ye mean?"

She brings him to book in a most uncompromising fashion; a fashion that betrays unmistakably her plebeian origin. Dysart, listening, admires her for it. Her rough and ready honesty seems to him preferable to the best bred shuffling in the world.

"Did I say all that?" says Beauclerk lightly, coloring a little, nevertheless, as he marks the fine smile that is curling Joyce's lips. "Why, then," gayly, "if I said it, I meant it. If I hesitated about indorsing my intentions publicly, it is because one is never sure of happiness beforehand; believe me, Miss Maliphant," with a little bow-to her, but with a direct glance at Joyce, "every desire I have is centered in the hope that next spring may see me here again."

"Well, I expect we all have the same wish," says Miss Maliphant cheerfully, who has not caught that swift glance at Joyce. "I'm sure I hope that nothing will interfere with my coming here in February."

"It is agreed, then," says Beauclerk, with a delightfully comprehensive smile that seems to take in every one, even the plants and the dripping fountain and the little marble god in the corner, who is evidently listening with all his might. "We all meet here again early next year if the fates be propitious. You, Dysart, you pledge yourself to join our circle then?"

"I pledge myself," says Dysart, fixing a cold gaze on him. It is so cold, so distinctly hostile, that Beauclerk grows uncomfortable beneath it. When uncomfortable his natural bias leads him towards a display of bonhomie.

"Here we have before us a prospect to cheer the soul of any man," declares he, shifting his eyes from Dysart to Miss Maliphant.

"It cheers me certainly," responds that heavy maiden with alacrity. "I like to think we shall all meet again."

"Like the witches in Macbeth," says Joyce, indifferently.

"But not so malignantly, I hope," says the heiress brilliantly, who, like most worthy people, can never see beyond her own nose. "For my part I like old friends much better than new." She looks round for the appreciation that should attend this sound remark, and is gratified to find Dysart is smiling at her. Perhaps the core of that smile might not have been altogether to her taste—most cores are difficult of digestion. To her, to whom all things are new, where does the flavor of the old come in?

Beauclerk is looking at Joyce.

"I hope the prospect cheers you too," says he a little sharply, as if nettled by her determined silence and bent on making her declare herself. "You, I trust, will be here next February."

"Sure to be!" says she with an enigmatical smile. "Not a jot or tittle of your enjoyments will be lost to you in the coming year. Both your friends—Miss Maliphant and I—will be here to welcome you when you return."

Something in her manner, in the half-defiant light in her eyes, puzzles Beauclerk. What has happened to her since they last were together? Not more than an hour ago she had seemed—er—well. Inwardly he smiles complacently. But now. Could she? Is it possible? Was there a chance that——

"Miss Kavanagh," begins he, moving toward her. But she makes short work of his advance.

"I repent," says she, turning a lovely, smiling face on Dysart. "A while ago I said I was too tired to dance. I did myself injustice. That waltz—listen to it"—lifting up an eager finger—"would it not wake an anchorite from his ascetic dreams? Come. There is time.".

She has sprung to her feet—life is in every movement. She slips her arm into Dysart's. Not understanding—yet half understanding, moves with her—his heart on fire for her, his puzzlement rendering him miserable.

Beauclerk, with that doubt of what she really knows full upon him, is wiser. Without hesitation he offers his arm to Miss Maliphant; and, so swift is his desire to quit the scene, he passes Dysart and Joyce, the latter having paused for a moment to recover her fan.

"You see!" says Beauclerk, bending over the heiress, when a turn in the conservatory has hidden him from the view of those behind. "I told you!" He says nothing more. It is the veriest whisper, spoken with an assumption of merriment very well achieved. Yet, if she would have looked at him, she could have seen that his very lips are white. But as I have said, Miss Maliphant's mind has not been trained to the higher courses.

"Yes. One can see!" laughs she happily. "And it is charming, isn't it? To find two people thoroughly in love with each other now-a-days, is to believe in that mad old world of romance of which we read. They're very nice too, both of them. I do like Joyce. She's one in a thousand, and Mr. Dysart is just suited to her. They are both thorough! There's no nonsense about them. Now that you have pointed it out to me, I think I never saw two people so much in love with each other as they."

Providentially, she is looking away from him to where a quadrille is forming in the ballroom, so that the deadly look of hatred that adorns his handsome face is unknown to her.

* * * * *

Meantime, Joyce, with that convenient fan recovered, is looking with sad eyes at Dysart.

"Come; the music will soon cease," says she.

"Why do you speak to me like that?" cries he vehemently. "If you don't want to dance, why not say so to me? Why not trust me? Good heavens! if I were your bitterest enemy you could not treat me more distantly. And yet—I would die to make you happy."

"Don't!" says she in a little choking sort of way, turning her face from him. She struggles with herself for a moment, and then, still with her face averted, says meekly: "Thank you, then. If you don't mind, I should rather not dance any more to-night."

"Why didn't you say that at first?" says he, with a last remnant of reproach. "No; there shall be no more dancing to-night for either you or me. A word, Joyce!" turning eagerly toward her, "you won't forget your promise about that walk to-morrow?"

"No. No, indeed."

"Thank you!"

They are sitting very close together, and almost insensibly his hand seeks and finds hers. It was lying idle on her lap, and lifting it, he would have raised it to his lips, but with a sharp, violent action she wrests it from him, and, as a child might, hides it behind her.

"If you would have me believe in you——No, no, not that," says she, a little incoherently, her voice rendering her meaning with difficulty. Dysart, astonished, stands back from her, waiting for something more; but nothing comes, except two large tears, that steal heavily, painfully, down her cheeks.

She brushes them impatiently away.

"Forgive me," she says, somewhat brokenly. "To you, who are so good to me, I am unkind, while to those who are unkind to me I——" She is trying to rally. "It was a mere whim, believe me. I have always hated demonstrations of any sort, and why should you want to kiss my hand?"

"I shouldn't," says he. "If——" His eyes have fallen from her eyes to her lips.

"Never mind," says she; "I didn't understand, perhaps. But why can't you be content with things as they are?"

"Are you content with them?"

"I think so. I have been examining myself, and honestly I think so," says she a little feverishly.

"Well, I'm not," returns he with decision. "You must give me credit for a great private store of amiability, if you imagine that I am satisfied to take things as they now exist—between you and me!"

"You have your faults, you see, as well as another," says she with a frown. "You are persistent! And the worst of it is that you are generally right." She frowns again, but even while frowning glances sideways from under her long lashes with an expression hardly uncivil. "That is the worst crime in the calendar. Be wrong sometimes, an' you love me, it will gain you a world of friends."

"If it could gain me your love in return, I might risk it," says he boldly. "But that is hopeless I'm afraid," shaking his head. "I am too often in the wrong not to know that neither my many frailties nor my few virtues can ever purchase for me the only good thing on which my soul is set."

"I have told you of one fault, now hear another," says she capriciously. "You are too earnest! What," turning upon him passionately, as if a little ashamed of her treatment of him, "is the use of being earnest? Who cares? Who looks on, who gives one moment to the guessing of the meaning that lies beneath? To be in earnest in this life is merely to be mad. Pretend, laugh, jest, do anything, but be what you really are, and you will probably get through the world in a manner, if not satisfactory to yourself, at all events to 'les autres.'"

"You preach a crusade against yourself," says he gently. "You preach against your own conscience. You are the least deceptive person I know. Were you to follow in the track you lay out for others, the cruelty of it would kill you.

"To your own self be true, And——"

"Yes, yes; I know it all," says she, interrupting him with some irritation. "I wish you knew how—how unpleasant you can be. As I tell you, you are always right. That last dance—it is true—I didn't want to have anything to do with it; but for all that I didn't wish to be told so. I merely suggested it as a means of getting rid of——"

"Miss Maliphant," says Dysart, who is feeling a little sore. The disingenuousness of this remark is patent to her.

"No; Mr. Beauclerk," corrects she, coldly.

"Forgive me," says Dysart quickly, "I shouldn't have said that. Well," drawing a long breath, "we have got rid of them, and may I give you a word of advice? It is disinterested because it is to my own disadvantage. Go to your room—to your bed. You are tired, exhausted. Why wait to be more so. Say you will do as I suggest."

"You want to get rid of me," says she with a little weary smile.

"That is unworthy of an answer," gravely; "but if a 'yes' to it will help you to follow my advice, why, I will say it. Come," rising, "let me take you to the hall."

"You shall have your way," says she, rising too, and following him.

A side door leading to the anteroom on their left, and thus skirting the ballroom without entering it, brings them to the foot of the central staircase.

"Good-night," says Dysart in a low tone, retaining her hand for a moment. All round them is a crowd separated into twos and threes, so that it is impossible to say more than the mere commonplace.

"Good night," returns she in a soft tone. She has turned away from him, but something in the intense longing and melancholy of his eyes compels her to look back again. "Oh, you have been kind! I am not ungrateful," says she with sharp contrition.

"Joyce, Joyce! Let me be the grateful one," returns he. His voice is a mere whisper, but so fraught is it with passionate appeal that it rings in her brain for long hours afterward.

Her eyes fall beneath his. She moves silently away. What can she say to him?

It is with a sense of almost violent relief that she closes the door of her own room behind her, and knows herself to be at last alone.



CHAPTER XVII.

"And vain desires, and hopes dismayed, And fears that cast the earth in shade, My heart did fret."

Night is waning! Dies pater, Father of Day, is making rapid strides across the heavens, creating havoc as he goes. Diana faints! the stars grow pale, flinging, as they die, a last soft glimmer across the sky.

Now and again a first call from the birds startles the drowsy air. The wood dove's coo, melancholy sweet—the cheep-cheep of the robin—the hoarse cry of the sturdy crow.

"A faint dawn breaks on yonder sedge, And broadens in that bed of weeds; A bright disk shows its radiant edge, All things bespeak the coming morn, Yet still it lingers."

As Lady Swansdown and Baltimore descend the stone steps that lead to the gardens beneath, only the swift rush of the tremulous breeze that stirs the branches betrays to them the fact that a new life is at hand.

"You are cold?" says Baltimore, noticing the quick shiver that runs through her.

"No: not cold. It was mere nervousness."

"I shouldn't have thought you nervous."

"Or fanciful?" adds she. "You judged me rightly, and yet—coming all at once from the garish lights within into this cool sweet darkness here, makes one feel in spite of oneself."

"In spite! Would you never willingly feel?"

"Would you?" demands she very slowly.

"Not willingly, I confess. But I have been made to feel, as you know. And you?"

"Would you have a woman confess?" says she, half playfully. "That is taking an unfair advantage, is it not? See," pointing to a seat, "what a charming resting place! I will make one confession to you. I am tired."

"A meagre one! Beatrice," says he suddenly, "tell me this: are all women alike? Do none really feel? Is it all fancy—the mere idle emotion of a moment—the evanescent desire for sensation of one sort or another—of anger, love, grief, pain, that stirs you now and then? Are none of these things lasting with you, are they the mere strings on which you play from time to time, because the hours lie heavy on your hands? It seems to me——"

"It seems to me that you hardly know what you are saying," said Lady Swansdown quickly. "Do you think then that women do not feel, do not suffer as men never do? What wild thoughts torment your brain that you should put forward so senseless a question?—one that has been answered satisfactorily thousands of years ago. All the pain, the suffering of earth lies on the woman's shoulders; it has been so from the beginning—it shall be so to the end. On being thrust forth from their Eden, which suffered most do you suppose, Adam or Eve?"

"It is an old story," says he gloomily, "and why should you, of all people, back it up? You—who——"

"Better leave me out of the question."

"You!"

"I am outside your life, Baltimore," says she, laying her hand on the back of the seat beside her, and sinking into it. "Leave me there!"

"Would you bereave me of all things," says he, "even my friends? I thought—I believed, that you at least—understood me."

"Too well!" says she in a low tone. Her hands have met each other and are now clasped together in her lap in a grip that is almost hurtful. Great heavens! if he only knew—could he then probe, and wound, and tempt!

"If you do——" begins he—then stops short, and passing her, paces to and fro before her in the dying light of the moon. Lady Swansdown leaning back gazes at him with eyes too sad for tears—eyes "wild with all regret." Oh! if they two might but have met earlier. If this man—this man in all the world, had been given to her, as her allotment.

"Beatrice!" says he, stopping short before her, "were you ever in love?"

There is a dead silence. Lady Swansdown sinking still deeper into the arm of the chair, looks up at him with strange curious eyes. What does he mean? To her—to put such a question to her of all women! Is he deaf, blind, mad—or only cruel?

A sort of recklessness seizes upon her. Well, if he doesn't know, he shall know, though it be to the loss of her self-respect forever!

"Never," says she, leaning a little forward until the moonbeams gleam upon her snowy neck and arms. "Never—never—until——"

The pause is premeditated. It is eloquence itself! The light of heaven playing on her beautiful face betrays the passion of it—the rich pallor! One hand resting on the back of the seat taps upon the iron work, the other is now in Baltimore's possession.

"Until now——?" suggests he boldly. He is leaning over her. She shakes her head. But in this negative there is only affirmation.

His hand tightens more closely upon hers. The long slender fingers yield to his pressure—nay more—return it; they twine round his.

"If I thought——" begins he in a low, stammering tone—he moves nearer to her, nearer still. Does she move toward him? There is a second's hesitation on his part, and then, his lips meet hers!

It is but a momentary touch, a thing of an instant, but it includes a whole world of meaning. Lady Swansdown has sprung to her feet, and is looking at him with eyes that seem to burn through the mystic darkness. She is trembling in every limb. Her nostrils are dilated. Her haughty mouth is quivering, and there—are there honest, real tears in those mocking eyes?

Baltimore, too, has risen. His face is very white, very full of contrition. That he regrets his action toward her is unmistakable, but that there is a deeper contrition behind—a sense of self-loathing not to be appeased betrays itself in the anguish of his eyes. She had accused him of falsity, most falsely up to this, but now—now——His mind has wandered far away.

There is something so wild in his expression that Lady Swansdown loses sight of herself in the contemplation of it.

"What is it, Baltimore?" asks she, in a low, frightened tone. It rouses him.

"I have offended you beyond pardon," begins he, but more like one seeking for words to say than one afraid of using them. "I have angered you——"

"Do not mistake me," interrupts she quickly, almost fiercely. "I am not angry. I feel no anger—nothing—but that I am a traitor."

"And what am I?"

"Work out your own condemnation for yourself," says she, still with that feverish self-disdain upon her. "Don't ask me to help you. She was my friend, whatever she is now. She trusted me, believed in me. And after all——And you," turning passionately, "you are doubly a traitor, you are a husband."

"In name!" doggedly. He has quite recovered himself now. Whatever torture his secret soul may impress upon him in the future, no one but he shall know.

"It doesn't matter. You belong to her, and she to you."

"That is what she doesn't think," bitterly.

"There is one thing only to be said, Baltimore," says she, after a slight pause. "This must never occur again. I like you, you know that. I——" she breaks off abruptly, and suddenly gives way to a sort of mirthless laughter. "It is a farce!" she says. "Consider my feeling anything. And so virtuous a thing, too, as remorse! Well, as one lives, one learns. If I had seen the light for the first time in the middle of the dark ages, I should probably have ended my days as the prioress of a convent. As it is, I shouldn't wonder if I went in for hospital nursing presently. Pshaw!" angrily, "it is useless lamenting. Let me face the truth. I have acted abominably toward her so far, and the worst of it is"—with a candor that seems to scorch her—"I know if the chance be given me, I shall behave abominably toward her again. I shall leave to-morrow—the day after. One must invent a decent excuse."

"Pray don't leave on Lady Baltimore's account," says he slowly, "she would be the last to care about this. I am nothing to her."

"Is your wish father to that thought?" regarding him keenly.

"No. I assure you. The failing I mention is plain to all the world I should have thought."

"It is not plain to me," still watching him.

"Then learn it," says he. "If ever she loved me, which I now disbelieve (I would that I had let the doubt creep in earlier), it was in a past that now is irretrievably dead. I suppose I wearied her—I confess," with a meagre smile, "I once loved her with all my soul, and heart, and strength—or else she is incapable of knowing an honest affection."

"That is not true," says Lady Swansdown, some generous impulse forcing the words unwillingly through her white lips. "She can love! you must see that for yourself. The child is proof of it."

"Some women are like that," says he gloomily. "They can open wide their hearts to their children, yet close it against the fathers of them. Isabel's whole life is given up to her child: she regards it as hers entirely; she allows me no share in him. Not," eagerly, "that I grudge him one inch the affection she gives him. He has a father worthless enough. Let his mother make it up to him."

"Yet he loves the father best," says Lady Swansdown quickly.

"I hope not," with a suspicion of violence.

"He does, believe me. One can see it. That saintly mother of his has not half the attraction for him that you have. Why, look you, it is the way of the world, why dispute it? Well, well," her triumphant voice deepening to a weary whisper. "When one thinks of it all, she is not too happy." She draws her hand in a little bewildered way across her white brow.

"You don't understand her," says Baltimore frigidly. "She lives in a world of her own. No one would dare penetrate it. Even I—her husband, as you call me in mockery—am outside it. I don't believe she ever cared for me. If she had, do you think she would have given a thought to that infamous story?"

"About Madame Istray?"

"Yes. You, too, heard of it then?"

"Who hasn't heard. Violet Walden was not the one to spare you." She pauses and looks at him, with all her heart in her eyes. "Was there no truth in that story?" asks she at last, her words coming with a little rush.

"None. I swear it! You believe me!" He has come nearer to her and taken her hand in the extremity of this desire to be believed in by somebody.

"I believe you," says she, gently. Her voice is so low that he can catch the words only; the grief and misery in them is unknown to him. Mercifully, too, the moon has gone behind a cloud, a tender preparation for an abdication presently, so that he cannot see the two heartbroken tears that steal slowly down her cheeks.

"That is more than Isabel does," says he, with a laugh that has something of despair in it.

"You tell me, then," says Lady Swansdown, "that you never saw Mme. Istray after your marriage?"

"Never, willingly."

"Oh, willingly!"

"Don't misjudge me. Hear the whole story then—if you must," cries he passionately—"though if you do, you will be the first to hear it. I am tired of being thought a liar!"

"Go on," says she, in a low shocked tone. His singular vehemence has compelled her to understand how severe have been his sufferings. If ever she had doubted the truth of the old story that has wrecked the happiness of his married life she doubts no longer.

"I tell you, you will be the first to hear it," says he, advancing toward her. "Sit down there," pressing her into the garden seat. "I can see you are looking overdone, even by this light. Well——" drawing a long breath and stepping back from her—"I never opened my lips upon this subject except once before. That was to Isabel. And she"—he pauses—"she would not listen. She believed, then, all things base of me. She has so believed ever since."

"She must be a fool!" says Lady Swansdown impetuously, "she could not——"

"She did, however. She," coldly, "even believed that I could lie to her!"

His face has become ashen; his eyes, fixed upon the ground, seemed to grow there with the intensity of his regard. His breath seems to come with difficulty through his lips.

"Well," says he at last, with a long sigh, "it's all over! The one merciful thing belonging to our life is that there must come, sooner or later, an end to everything. The worst grief has its termination. She has been unjust to me. But you," he lifts his haggard face, "you, perhaps, will grant me a kindlier hearing."

"Tell it all to me, if it will make you happier," says she, very gently. Her heart is bleeding for him. Oh, if she might only comfort him in some way! If—if that other fails him, why should not she, with the passion of love that lies in her bosom, restore him to the warmth, the sweetness of life. That kiss, half developed as it only was, already begins to bear fatal fruit. Unconsciously she permits herself a license in her thoughts of Baltimore hitherto strenuously suppressed.

"There is absurdly little to tell. At that time we lived almost entirely at our place in Hampshire, and as there were business matters connected with the outlying farms found there, that had been grossly neglected during my grandfather's time, I was compelled to run up to town, almost daily. As a rule I returned by the evening train, in time for dinner, but once or twice I was so far delayed that it was out of my power to do it. I laugh at myself now," he looks very far from laughter as he says it, "but I assure you the occasions on which I was compulsorily kept away from my home were——" He pauses, "oh, well, there is no use in being more tragic than one need be. They were, at least, a trouble to me."

"Naturally," says she, coldly.

"I loved her, you see," says Baltimore, in a strange jerky sort of way, as if ashamed of that old sentiment. "She——"

"I quite understand. I have heard all about it once or twice," says Lady Swansdown, with a kind of slow haste, if such a contradiction may be allowed. That he has forgotten her is evident. That she has forgotten nothing is more evident still.

"Well, one day, one of the many days during which I went up to town, after a long afternoon with Goodman and Smale, in the course of which they had told me they would probably require me to call at their office to meet one of the most influential tenants at nine the next morning, I met, on leaving their office, Marchmont—Marchmont of the Tenth, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"He and a couple of other fellows belonging to his regiment were going down to Richmond to dine. Would I come? It was dull in town, toward the close of the season, and I was glad of any invitation that promised a change of programme—anything that would take me away from a dull evening at my club. I made no inquiries; I accepted the invitation, got down in time for dinner, and found Mme. Istray was one of the guests. I——"

He hesitates.

"Go on."

"You are a woman of the world, Beatrice; you will let me confess to you that there had been old passages between me and Mme. Istray—well, I swear to you I had never so much as thought of her since my marriage—nay, since my engagement to Isabel. From that hour my life had been clear as a sheet of blank paper. I had forgotten her; I verily believe she had forgotten me, too. At that dinner I don't think she exchanged a dozen words with me. On my soul," pushing back his hair with a slow, troubled gesture from his brow, "this is the truth."

"And yet——"

"And yet," interrupting her with now a touch of vehement excitement, "a garbled, a most cursedly false account of that dinner was given her. It came round to her ears. She listened to it—believed in it—condemned without a hearing. She, who has sworn, not only at the altar, but to me alone, that she loved me."

"She wronged you terribly," says Lady Swansdown in a low tone.

"Thank you," cried he, a passion of gratitude in his tone. "To be believed in by someone so thoroughly as you believe in me, is to know happiness indeed. Whatever happens, I can count on you as my friend."

"Your friend, always," says she, in a very low voice—a voice somewhat broken. "Come," she says, rising suddenly and walking toward the distant lights in the house.

He accompanies her silently.

Very suddenly she turns to him, and lays her hand upon his arm.

"Be my friend," says she, with a quick access of terrible emotion.

Entreaty and despair mingle in her tone.

"Forever!" returns he, fervently, tightening his grasp on her hand.

"Well," sighing, "it hardly matters. We shall not meet again for a long, long time."

"How is that? Isabel, the last time she condescended to speak to me of her own accord," with an unpleasant laugh, "told me that she had asked you to come here again next February, and that you had accepted the invitation. She, indeed, made quite a point of it."

"Ah! that was a long time ago."

"Weeks do not make a long time."

"Some weeks hold more than years. Yes, you are right; she made quite a point about my coming. Well, she is always very civil."

"She has always perfect manners. She is, as you say, very civil."

"She is proud," coldly.

"You will come?"

"I think not. By that time you will in all probability have made it up with her."

"The very essence of improbability."

"While I—shall not have made it up with my husband."

"One seems quite as possible as the other."

"Oh, no. Isabel is a good woman. You would do well to go back to her. Swansdown is as bad a man as I know, and that," with a mirthless laugh, "is saying a great deal. I should gain nothing by a reconciliation with him. For one thing, an important matter, I have a great deal more money than he has, and, for another, there are no children." Her voice changes here; an indescribable alteration not only hardens, but desolates it. "I have been fortunate there," she says, "if in nothing else in my unsatisfactory life. There is no smallest bond between me and Swansdown. If I could be seriously glad of anything it would be of that. I have nothing belonging to him."

"His name."

"Oh, as for that—does it belong to him? Has he not forfeited a decent right to it a thousand times? No; there is nothing. If there had been a child he would have made a persecution of it—and so I am better off as it is. And yet, there are moments when I envy you that little child of yours. However——"

"Yet if Swansdown were to make an overture——"

"Do not go on. It is of all speculations the most useless. Do not pursue the subject of Swansdown, I entreat you. Let"—with bitter meaning—"'sleeping dogs lie.'"

Baltimore laughs shortly.

"That is severe," says he.

"It is how I feel toward him; the light in which I regard him. If," turning a face to his that is hardly recognizable, so pale it is with ill-suppressed loathing, "he were lying on his deathbed and sent for me, it would give me pleasure to refuse to go to him."

She takes her hand from his arm and motions him to ascend the steps leading into the conservatory.

"But you?" says he, surprised.

"Let me remain here a little while. I am tired. My head aches, I——"

"Let me stay with you."

"No," smiling faintly. "What I want is to be alone. To feel the silence. Go. Do not be uneasy about me. Believe me you will be kind if you do as I ask you."

"It is a command," says he slowly. And slowly, too, he turns away from her.

Seeing him so uncertain about leaving her, she steps abruptly into a dark side path, and finding a chair sinks into it.

The soft breaking of the dawn over the tree tops far away seems to add another pang to the anguish that is consuming her. She covers her face with her hands.

Oh! if it had all been different. Two lives sacrificed! nay, three! For surety Isabel cannot care for him. Oh! if it had been she, she herself—what is there she could not have forgiven him? Nay, she must have forgiven him, because life without him would have been insupportable. If only she might have loved him honorably. If only she might ever love him—successfully—dishonorably!

The thought seems to sting her. Involuntarily she throws up her head and courts the chill winds of dawn that sweep with a cool touch her burning forehead.

She had called her proud. Would she herself, then, be less proud? That Isabel dreads her, half scorns her of late, is well known to her, and yet, with a very passion of pride, would dare her to prove it. She, Isabel, has gone even so far as to ask her rival to visit her again in the early part of the coming year to meet her present friends. So far that pride had carried her. But pride—was pride love? If she herself loved Baltimore, would she, even for pride's sake, entreat the woman he singled out for his attentions to spend another long visit in her country house? And if Isabel does not honestly love him, why then—is he not lawful prey for one who can, who does not love him?

One—who loves him. But he—whom does he love?

Torn by some last terrible thought she starts to her feet, and, as though inaction has become impossible to her, draws her white silken wrap around her, and sweeps rapidly out of all view of the waning Chinese lamps into the gray obscurity of the coming day that lies in the far gardens.



CHAPTER XVIII.

"Song have thy day, and take thy fill of light Before the night be fallen across thy way; Sing while he may, man hath no long delight."

"What a delicious day!" says Joyce, stopping short on the hill to take a look round her. It is the next day, and indeed far into it. Luncheon is a thing of the past, and both she and Dysart know that it will take them all their time to reach St. Bridget's Hill and be back again for afternoon tea. They had started on their expedition in defiance of many bribes held out to them. For one thing, there was to be a reception at the Court at five; many of those who had danced through last night having been asked to come over late in the afternoon of to-day to talk over the dance itself and the little etceteras belonging to it.

The young members of the Monkton family had been specially invited, too, as a sort of make up to Bertie, the little son of the house, who had been somewhat aggrieved at being sent to bed without his share of the festivities on hand. He had retired to his little cot, indeed, with his arms stuffed full of crackers, but how could crackers and cakes and sweets console any one for the loss of being out at an ungodly hour and seeing a real live dance! The one thing that finally helped him to endure his hard lot was a promise on his mother's part that Tommy and Mabel Monkton should come down next day and revel with him among the glorious ruins of the supper table. The little Monktons had not come, however, when Joyce left for her walk.

"Going out?" Lady Swansdown had said to her, meeting her in the hall, fully equipped for her excursion. "But why, my dear girl? We expect those amusing Burkes in an hour or so, and the Delaneys, and——"

"Yes, why go?" repeats Beauclerk, who has just come up. His manner is friendly in the extreme, yet a very careful observer might notice a strain about it, a determination to be friendly that rather spoils the effect. Her manner toward him last night after his interview with Miss Maliphant in the garden and her growing coldness ever since, has somewhat disconcerted, him mentally. Could she have heard, or seen, or been told of anything? There might, of course, have been a little contretemps of some sort. People, as a rule, are so beastly treacherous! "You will make us wretched if you desert us," says he with empressement. As he speaks he goes up to her and lets his eyes as well as his lips implore her. Miss Maliphant had left by the early train, so that he is quite unattached, and able to employ his whole battery of fascinations on the subjugation of this refractory person.

"I am sorry. Don't be more wretched than you can help!" says Joyce, with a smile wonderfully unconcerned. "After a dance I want to walk to clear my brain, and Mr. Dysart has been good enough to say he will accompany me."

"Is he accompanying you?" says Beauclerk, with an unpardonable supercilious glance around him as if in search of the absent Dysart.

"You mustn't think him a laggard at his post," says Miss Kavanagh, still smiling, but now in a little provoking way that seems to jest at his pretended suspicion of Dysart's constancy and dissolve it into the thinnest of thin air. "He was here just now, but I sent him to loose the dogs. I like to have them with me, and Lady Baltimore is pleased when they get a run."

"Isabel is always so sympathetic," says he, with a quite new and delightful rush of sympathy toward Isabel. "I suppose," glancing at Joyce keenly, "you would not care for an additional escort? The dogs—and Dysart—will be sufficient?"

"Mr. Dysart and the dogs will be," says she. "Ah! Here he comes," as Dysart appears at the open doorway, a little pack of terriers at his heels. "What a time you've been!" cries she, moving quickly to him. "I thought you would never come. Good-bye, Lady Swansdown; good-bye," glancing casually at Beauclerk. "Keep one teapot for us if you can!"

She trips lightly up the avenue at Dysart's side, leaving Beauclerk in a rather curious frame of mind.

"Yes, she has heard something!" That is his first thought. How to counteract the probable influence of that "something" is the second. A little dwelling upon causes and effects shows him the way. For an effect there is often an antidote!

* * * * *

"Delicious indeed!" says Dysart, in answer to her remark. His answer is, however, a little distrait. His determination of last night to bring her here, and compel her to listen to the honest promptings of his heart is still strong within him.

They have now ascended the hill, and, standing on its summit, can look down on the wild deep sea beneath them that lies, to all possible seeming, as calm and passive at their feet as might a thing inanimate.

Yet within its depths what terrible—what mournful tragedies lie! And, as if in contrast, what ecstatic joys! To one it speaks like death itself—to another:

"The bridegroom sea Is toying with the shore, his wedded bride, And in the fullness of his marriage joy He decorates her tawny brow with shells, Retires a pace to see how fair she looks, Then, proud, runs up to kiss her."

"Shall we sit here?" says Dysart, indicating a soft mound of grass that overlooks the bay. "You must be tired after last night's dancing."

"I am tired," says she, sinking upon the soft cushion that Nature has provided with a little sigh of satisfaction.

"Perhaps I should not have asked—have extracted—a promise from you to come here," says Dysart, with contrition in his tone. "I should have remembered you would be overdone, and that a long walk like this——"

"Would be the very thing to restore me to a proper state of health," she interrupts him, with the prettiest smile. "No, don't pretend you are sorry you brought me here. You know it is the sheerest hypocrisy on your part. You are glad, that you brought me here, I hope, and I"—deliberately—"am glad that you did."

"Do you mean that?" says Dysart, gravely. He had not seated himself beside her, and is now looking down her from a goodly height. "Do you know why I brought you?"

"To bring me back again as fresh as a daisy," suggests she, with a laugh that is spoiled in its birth by a glance from him.

"No, I did not think of you at all. I thought only of myself," says Dysart, speaking a little quickly now. "Call that selfish if you will—and yet——"

He stops short, and comes closer to her. "To think in that way was to think of you too. Joyce, there is at all events one thing you do know—that I love you."

Miss Kavanagh nods her head silently.

"There is one thing, too, that I know," says Dysart now with a little tremble in his voice, "that you do not love me!"

She is silent.

"You are honest," says he, after a pause. "Still"—looking at her—"if there wasn't hope one would know. Though the present is empty for me, I cannot help dwelling on the thought that the future may contain—something!"

"The future is so untranslatable," says she, with a little evasion.

"Tell me this at least," says Dysart, very earnestly, bending over her with the air of one determined to sift his chances to the last grain, "you like me?"

"Oh, yes."

"Better than Courtenay, for example?" with a fleeting smile that fails to disguise the real anxiety he is enduring.

"What an absurd question!"

"Than Dicky Brown?"

"Yes."

But here she lifts her head and gazes at him in a startled way that speaks of quick suspicion. There is something of entreaty, too, in her dark eyes, a desire that he will go no further.

But Dysart deliberately disregards it.

"Than Beauclerk?" asks he in a clear, almost cruel tone.

A horrible red rushes up to dye her pretty cheeks, in spite of all her efforts to subdue it. Great tears of shame and confusion suffuse her eyes. One little reproachful glance she casts at him, and then:

"Of course," says she, almost vehemently, if a little faintly, her eyes sinking to the ground.

Dysart stands before her as if stricken into stone. Then the knowledge that he has hurt her pierces him with a terrible certainty, overcomes all other thoughts, and drives him to repentance.

"I shouldn't have asked you that," says he bluntly.

"No, no!" says she, acquiescing quickly, "and yet," raising an eager, lovely face to his, "I hardly know anything about—about myself. Sometimes I think I like him, sometimes——" She stops abruptly and looks at him with a pained and frightened gaze. "Do you despise me for betraying myself like this?"

"No—I want to hear all about it."

"Ah! That is what I want to hear myself. But who is to tell me? Nature won't. Sometimes I hate him. Last night——"

"Yes, I know. You hated him last night. I don't wish to know why. I am quite satisfied in that you did so."

"But shall I hate him to-morrow? Oh, yes, I think so—I hope so," cries she suddenly. "I am tired of it all. He is not a real person, not one possible to class. He is false—naturally treacherous, and yet——"

She breaks off again very abruptly, and turns to Dysart as if for help.

"Let us forget him," she says, and then in a little frightened way, "Oh, I wish I could be sure I could forget him!"

"Why can't you?" says Dysart, in his downright way. "It means only a strong effort after all. If you feel honestly," with an earnest glance at her, "like that toward him, you must be mad to give him even a corner in your heart."

"That is it," says she, "there the puzzle begins. I don't know if he ever has a corner in my heart. He attracts me, but attraction is not affection, and the heart holds only love and hatred. Indifference is nothing."

"You can get rid of him finally," says Dysart, boldly, "by giving yourself to me. That will kill all——"

All he may be going to say is killed on his lips at this moment by two little wild shrieks of joy that sound right behind his head. Both he and Joyce turn abruptly in its direction—he with a sense of angry astonishment, she with a fell knowledge of its meaning. It is, indeed, no surprise to her when Tommy and Mabel appear suddenly from behind the rock just close to them, that hides the path in part, and precipitates themselves into her arms.

"We saw you, we saw you!" gasps Tommy, breathless from his run up the hill: "we saw you far away down there on the road, and we told Bridgie" (the maid) "that we'd run up, and she said 'cut along,' so here we are."

"You are, indeed," says Dysart, with feeling.

"We knew you'd be glad to see us," goes on Tommy to Joyce in the beautiful roar he always adopts when excited; "you haven't been home for years, and Bridgie says that's because you are going to be married to——"

"Get up, Tommy, you are too heavy, and, besides, I want to kiss Mabel," says Tommy's aunt with prodigious haste and a hot cheek.

"But mammy says you're a silly Billy," says Mabel in her shrill treble, "an' that——"

"Mammy is a shockingly rude person," says Mr. Dysart, hurrying to break into the dangerous confidence, no matter at what cost, even at the expense of the adored mammy. His remark is taken very badly.

"She's not," says Tommy, glowering at him. "Father says she's an angel, and he knows. I heard him say it, and angels are never rude!"

"'Twas after he made her cry about something," says Mabel, lifting her little flower-like face to Dysart's in a miniature imitation of her brother's indignation. "She was boo-booing like anything, and then father got sorry—oh!—dreadful sorry—and he said she was an angel, and she said——"

"Oh, Mabel!" says Joyce, weakly, "you know you oughtn't to say such——"

"Well, 'twas your fault, 'twas all about you," says Tommy, defiantly. "Why don't you come home? Father says you ought to come, and mammy says she doesn't know which of 'em it'll be; and father says it won't be any of them, and—what's it all about?" turning a frankly inquisitive little face up to hers. "They wouldn't tell us, and we want to know which of 'em it will be."

"Yes, an' is it jints?" demands Mabel, who probably means giants, and not cold meats.

"I don't know what she means," says Miss Kavanagh, coldly.

"I say, you two," says Mr. Dysart, brilliantly, "wouldn't you like to run a race? Bridget must be tired of waiting for you down there at the end of the hill, and——"

"She isn't waiting, she's talking to Mickey Daly," says Tommy.

"Oh, I see. Well, look here. I bet you, Tommy, strong as you look, Mabel can outrun you down the hill."

"She! she!" cries Tommy, indignantly; "I could beat her in a minute."

"You can't," cries Mabel in turn. "Nurse says I'm twice the child that you are."

"Your legs are as short as a pin," roars Tommy; "you couldn't run."

"I can. I can. I can," says Mabel, on the verge of a violent flood of tears.

"Well, we'll see," says Mr. Dysart, who now begins to think he has thrown himself away on a silly Hussar regiment, when he ought to have taken rank as a distinguished diplomat. "Come, I'll start you both down the hill, and whichever reaches Bridget first wins the day."

Instantly both children spring to the front of the path.

"You're standing before me, Tommy."

"No, I'm not."

"You're cheating—you are!"

"Cheat yourself! Mr. Dysart, ain't I all right?"

"I think you should give her a start; she's the girl, you know," says Dysart. "There now, go. That's very good. Five yards, Tommy, is a small allowance for a little thing like Mabel. Steady now, you two! One—Good gracious, they're off," says he, turning to Miss Kavanagh with a sigh of relief mingled with amusement. "They had no idea of waiting for more than one signal. I hope they will meet this Bridget, and get back to their mother."

"They are not going to her just now. They are going on to the Court to spend the afternoon with Bertie," says Joyce; "Barbara told me so last night. Dear things! How sweet they looked!"

"They are the prettiest children I know," says Dysart—a little absent perhaps. He falls into silence for a moment or two, and then suddenly looks at her. He advances a step.



CHAPTER XIX.

"A continual battle goes on in a child's mind between what it knows and what it comprehends."

"Well?" says he.

He advances even nearer, and dropping on a stone close to her, takes possession of one of her hands.

"As you can't make up your mind to him; and, as you say, you like me, say something more."

"More?"

"Yes. A great deal more. Take the next move. Say—boldly—that you will marry me!"

Joyce grows a little pale. She had certainly been prepared for this speech, had been preparing herself for it all the long weary wakeful night, yet now that she hears it, it seems as strange, as terrible, as though it had never suggested itself to her in its vaguest form.

"Why should I say that?" says she at last, stammering a little, and feeling somewhat disingenuous. She had known, yet now she is trying to pretend that she did not know.

"Because I ask you. You see I put the poorest reason at first, and because you say I am not hateful to you, and because——"

"Well?"

"Because, when a man's last chance of happiness lies in the balance, he will throw his very soul into the weighing of it—and knowing this, you may have pity on me."

As though pressed down by some insupportable weight, the girl rises and makes a little curious gesture as if to free herself from it. Her face, still pale, betrays an inward struggle. After all, why cannot she give herself to him? Why can't she love him? He loves her; love, as some poor fool says, begets love.

And he is honest. Yes, honest! A pang shoots through her breast. That, when all is told, is the principal thing. He is not uncertain—untrustworthy—double-faced, as some men are. Again that cruel pain contracts her heart. To be able to believe in a person, to be able to trust implicitly in each lightest word, to read the real meaning in every sentence, to see the truth shining in the clear eyes, this is to know peace and happiness; and yet—

"You know all," says she, looking up at him, her eyes compressed, her brow frowning; "I am uncertain of myself, nothing seems sure to me, but if you wish it——"

"Wish it!" clasping her hands closer.

"There is this to be said, then. I will promise to answer you this day twelve-month."

"Twelve months," says he, with consternation; his grasp on her hands loosens.

"If the prospect frightens or displeases you, there is nothing more to be said," rejoins she coldly. It is she who is calm and composed, he is nervous and anxious.

"But a whole year!"

"That is nothing," says she, releasing her hands, with a little determined show of strength, from his. "It is for you to decide. I don't care!"

Perhaps she hardly grasps the cruelty that lies in this half-impatient speech, until she sees Dysart's face flush painfully.

"You need not have said that," says he. "I know it. I am nothing to you really." He pauses, and then says again in a low tone, "Nothing."

"Oh, you mustn't feel so much!" cries she, as if tortured. "It is folly to feel at all in this world. What's the good of it. And to feel about me, I am not worth it. If you would only bear that in mind, it might help you."

"If I bore that in mind I should not want to make you my wife!" returns he steadily, gravely. "Think as you will yourself, you do not shake my faith in you. Well," with a deep breath, "I accept your terms. For a year I shall feel myself bound to you (though that is a farce, for I shall always be bound to you, soul and body) while you shall hold yourself free, and try to——"

"No, no. We must both be equal—both free, while I—" she stops short, coloring warmly, and laughing, "what is it I am to try to do?"

"To love me!" replies he, with infinite sadness in look and tone.

"Yes," says Joyce slowly, and then again meditatively, "yes." She lifts her eyes presently and regards him strangely. "And if all my trying should not succeed? If I never learn to love you?"

"Why, then it is all over. This hope of mine is at an end," say he, so calmly, yet with such deep melancholy, such sad foreboding, that her heart is touched.

"Oh! it is a hope of mine too," says she quickly. "If it were not would I listen to you to-day? But you must not be so downhearted; let the worst come to the worst, you will be as well off as you are at this instant."

He shakes his head.

"Does hope count for nothing, then?"

"You would compel me to love you," says she, growing the more vexed as she grows the more sorry for him. "Would you have me marry you even if I did not love you?" Her soft eyes have filled with tears, there is a suspicion of reproach in her voice.

"No. I suppose not."

He half turns away from her. At this moment a sense of despair falls on him. She will never care for him, never, never. This proposed probation is but a mournful farce, a sorry clinging to a hope that is built on sand. When in the future she marries, as so surely she will, he will not be her husband. Why not give in at once? Why fight with the impossible? Why not break all links (frail as they are sweet), and let her go her way, and he his, while yet there is time? To falter is to court destruction.

Then all at once a passionate reaction sets in. Joyce, looking at him, sees the light of battle, the warmth of love the unconquerable, spring into his eyes. No, he will not cave in! He will resist to the last! dispute every inch of the ground, and if finally only defeat is to crown his efforts still——And why should defeat be his? Be it Beauclerk or another, whoever declares himself his rival shall find him a formidable enemy to overcome.

"Joyce," says he quickly, turning to her and grasping her hands, "give me my chance. Give me those twelve months; give me your thoughts now and then while they last. I brought you here to-day to say all this knowing we should be alone, and without——"

"Tommy?" says she, with a little laugh.

"Oh, well! You must confess I got rid of him," says he, smiling too, and glad in his heart to find her so cheerful. "I think if you look into it, that my stratagem, the inciting him to the overcoming of his sister in that race, was the work of a diplomatist of the first water. I quite felt that——"

A war whoop behind him dissolves his self-gratulations into nothing. Here comes Tommy the valiant, triumphant, puffed beyond all description with pride and want of breath.

"I beat her, I beat her," shrieks he, with the last note left in his tuneful pipe. He staggers the last yard or two and falls into Joyce's arms, that are opened wide to receive him. Who shall say he is not a happy interlude? Evidently Joyce regards him as such.

"I came back to tell you," says Tommy, recovering himself a little. "I knew," with the fearless confidence of childhood, "that you'd be longing to know if I beat her, and I did. She's down there how with Bridgie," pointing to the valley beneath, "and she's mad with me because I didn't let her win."

"You ought to go back to her," says Dysart, "she'll be madder if you don't."

"She won't. She's picking daisies now."

"But Bridget will want you."

"No," shaking his lovely little head. "Bridgie said: 'ye may go, sir, an' ye needn't be in a hurry back, me an' Mickey Daily have a lot to say about me mother's daughter.'"

It would be impossible to describe the accuracy with which Tommy describes Bridget's tone and manner.

"Oh! I daresay," says Mr. Dysart. "Me mother's daughter must be a truly enthralling person."

"I think Tommy ought to be educated for the stage," says Joyce in a little whisper.

"He'll certainly make his mark wherever he goes," says Dysart, laughing. "Tommy," after a careful examination of Monkton, Junior's, seraphic countenance, "don't you think you ought to take your sister on to the Court?"

"So I will," says Tommy, "in a minute or two." He has climbed into Joyce's lap, and is now sitting on her with his arms round her neck. To make love to a young woman and to induce her to marry you with a barnacle of this sort hanging round her suggests difficulties. Mr. Dysart waits. "All things come to those who wait," says a wily old proverb. But Dysart proves this proverb a swindle.

"Now, Tommy," says he, "the two minutes are up."

"I don't care," says Tommy. "I'm tired, and Bridgie said I needn't hurry."

"The charms of Mr. Mickey Daly are no doubt great," says Dysart, mildly, "yet I think Bridget must by this time be aware that she wasn't sent out by your mother to tattle to him, but to take you and your sister to play with Bertie. Here, Tommy," decisively, "get off your aunt's lap and run away."

"But why?" demands Tommy, aggressively. "What harm am I doing?"

"You are tiring your aunt, for one thing."

"I'm not! She likes to have me here," defiantly. "I ride a 'cock horse' every night when she's at home, don't I, Joyce? I wish you'd go away," wrathfully, "because then Joyce would come home and play with us again. 'Tis you," glaring at him with deep-seated anger in his eyes, "who are keeping her here!"

"Oh, no; you are wrong there," says Dysart with a sad smile. "I could not keep her anywhere, she would not stay with me. But really, Tommy, you know you ought to go on to the Court. Poor little Bertie is looking out for you eagerly. See," plunging his hand into his pocket, "here is half a crown for you to spend on lollipops. I'll give it to you if you'll go back to Bridget."

Tommy's eyes brighten. But as quickly the charming blue in them darkens again. There is no tuck shop between this and the Court.

"'Tisn't any good," says he mournfully, "the shop's away down there," pointing vaguely backward on the journey he has come.

"You look strong in wind and limb; there is no reason to believe that the morrow's sun may not dawn on you," says Mr. Dysart. "And then think, Tommy, think what a joy you will be to old Molly Brien."

"Molly gives me four bull's-eyes for a penny," says Tommy reflectively. "That's two to Mabel and two to me, because mammy says baby mustn't have any for fear she'd choke. If there's four for a penny, how many is there for this?" holding out the half crown that lies upon his little brown shapely palm.

"That's a sum," says Mr. Dysart. "Tommy, you're a cruel boy;" and having struggled with it for a moment, he says "one hundred and twenty."

"No!" says Tommy in a voice faint with hopeful unbelief. "Joyce, 'tisn't true, is it?"

"Quite true," says Joyce. "Just fancy, Tommy, one hundred and twenty bull's-eyes, all in one day!"

There is such a genuine support of his desire to get rid of Tommy in her tone that Dysart's heart rises within him.

"Tie it into my hankercher," says Tommy, without another second's hesitation. "Tie it tight, or it'll slip out and I'll lose it. Good-bye, and thank you, Mr. Dysart," thrusting a hot little fist into his. "I'll keep some of the hundred and twenty ones for you and Joyce."

He rushes away down the hill, eager to tell his grand news to Mabel, and presently Joyce and Dysart are alone again.

"You see you were not so clever a diplomatist as you thought yourself," says Joyce, smiling faintly; "Tommy came back."

"Tommy and I have one desire in common; we both want to be with you."

"Could you be bought off like Tommy?" says she, half playfully. "Oh, no! Half a crown would not be good enough."

"Would all the riches the world contains be good enough?" says he in a voice very low, but full of emotion. "You know it would not. But you, Joyce—twelve months is a long time. You may see others—if not Beauclerk—others—and——"

"Money would not tempt me," says the girl slowly. "If money were your rival, you would indeed be safe. You ought to know that."

"Still—Joyce——" He stops suddenly. "May I think of you as Joyce? I have called you so once or twice, but——"

"You may always call me so," says she gently, if indifferently. "All my friends call me so, and you—are my friend, surely!"

The very sweetness of her manner, cold as ice as it is, drives him to desperation.

"Not your friend—your lover!" says he with sudden passion. "Joyce, think of all that I have said—all you nave promised. A small matter to you perhaps—the whole world to me. You will wait for me for twelve months. You will try to love me. You——"

"Yes, but there is something more to be said," cries the girl, springing to her feet as if in violent protest, and confronting him with a curious look—set—determined—a little frightened perhaps.



CHAPTER XX.

"'I thought love had been a joyous thing,' quoth my uncle Toby."

"He hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper. For what his heart thinks his tongue speaks."

"More?" says Dysart startled by her expression, and puzzled as well.

"Yes!" hurriedly. "This!" The very nervousness that is consuming her throws fire into her eyes and speech. "During all these long twelve months I shall be free. Quite free. You forgot to put that in! You must remember that! If—if I should, after all this thinking, decide on not having anything to do with you—you," vehemently, "will have no right to reproach me. Remember," says she going up to him and laying her hand upon his arm while the blood receding from her face leaves her very white; "remember should such a thing occur—and it is very likely," slowly, "I warn you of that—you are not to consider yourself wronged or aggrieved in any way."

"Why should you talk to me in this way?" begins he, aggrieved now at all events.

"You must recollect," feverishly, "that I have made you no promise. Not one. I refuse even to look upon this matter as a serious thing. I tell you honestly," her dark eyes gleaming with nervous excitement, "I don't believe I ever shall so look at it. After all," pausing, "you will do well if you now put an end to this farce between us; and tell me to take myself and my dull life out of yours forever."

"I shall never tell you that," in a low tone.

"Well, well," impatiently; "I have warned you. It will not be my fault if——O! it is foolish of you!" she blurts out suddenly. "I have told you I don't understand myself: and still you waste yourself—you throw yourself away. In the end you will be disappointed in me, if not in one way, then in another. It hurts me to think of that. There is time still; let us be friends—friends——" Her hands are tightly clasped, she looks at him with a world of entreaty in her beautiful eyes. "Friends, Felix!" breathes she softly.

"Let things rest as they are, I beseech you," says he, taking her hand and holding it in a tight grasp. "The future—who can ever say what that great void will bring us. I will trust to it; and if only loss and sorrow be my portion, still——As for friendship, Joyce; whatever happens I shall be your friend and lover."

"Well—you quite know," says the girl, almost sullenly.

"Quite. And I accept the risk. Do not be angry with me, my beloved." He lifts the hand he holds and presses it to his lips, wondering always at the coldness of it. "You are free, Joyce; you desire it so, and I desire it, too. I would not hamper you in any way."

"I should not be able to endure it, if—afterward—I thought you were reproaching me," says she, with a little weary smile.

"Be happy about that," says he: "I shall never reproach you." He is silent for a moment; her last speech has filled him with thoughts that presently grow into extremely happy ones: unless—unless she liked him—cared for him, in some decided, if vague manner, would his future misery be of so much importance to her? Oh! surely not! A small flood of joy flows over him. A radiant smile parts his lips. The light of a coming triumph that shall gird and glorify his whole life illumines his eyes.

She regarding him grows suddenly uneasy.

"You—you fully understand," says she, drawing back from him.

"Oh, you have made me do that," says he, but his radiant smile still lingers.

"Then why," mistrustfully, "do you look so happy?" She draws even further away from him. It is plain she resents that happiness.

"Is there not reason?" says he. "Have you not let me speak, and having spoken, do you not still let me linger near you? It is more than I dared hope for! Therefore, poor as is my chance, I rejoice now. Do not forbid me. I may have no reason to rejoice in the future. Let me, then, have my day."

"It grows very late," says Miss Kavanagh abruptly. "Let us go home."

Silently they turn and descend the hill. Halfway down he pauses and looks backward.

"Whatever comes of it," says he, "I shall always love this spot. Though, if the year's end leave me desolate, I hope I shall never see it again."

"It is unlucky to rejoice too soon," says she, in a low whisper.

"Oh! don't say that word 'Rejoice.' How it reminds me of you. It ought to belong to you. It does. You should have been called 'Rejoice' instead of 'Joyce'; they have cut off half your name. To see you is to feel new life within one's veins."

"Ah! I said you didn't know me," returns she sadly.

* * * * *

Meantime the hours have flown; evening is descending. It is all very well for those who, traveling up and down romantic hills, can find engrossing matters for conversation in their idle imaginings of love, or their earnest belief therein, but to the ordinary ones of the earth, mundane comforts are still of some worth.

Tea, the all powerful, is now holding high revelry in the library at the Court. Round the cosy tables, growing genial beneath the steam of the many old Queen Anne "pots," the guests are sitting singly or in groups.

"What delicious little cakes!" says Lady Swansdown, taking up a smoking morsel of cooked butter and flour from the glowing tripod beside her.

"You like them?" says Lady Baltimore in her slow, earnest way. "So does Joyce. She thinks they are the nicest cakes in the world. By the by, where is Joyce?"

"She went out for a walk at twenty minutes after two," says Beauclerk. He has pulled out his watch and is steadily consulting it.

"And it is now twenty minutes after five," says Lady Swansdown, maliciously, who detests Beauclerk and who has read his relations with Joyce as clear as a book. "How she must have enjoyed herself!"

"Yes; but where?" says Lady Baltimore anxiously. Joyce has been left in her charge, and, apart from that, she likes the girl well enough, to be uneasy about her when occasion arises.

"With whom would be a more appropriate question," says Dicky Browne, who, as usual, is just where he ought not to be.

"Oh, I know where she is," cries a little, shrill voice from the background. It comes from Tommy, and from that part of the room where Tommy and Mabel and little Bertie are having a game behind the window curtains. Blocks, dolls, kitchens, farm yards, ninepins—all have been given to them as a means of keeping them quiet. One thing only has been forgotten: the fact that the human voice divine is more attractive to them, more replete with delightful mystery, fuller of enthralling possibilities than all the toys that ever yet were made.

"Thomas, are you fully alive to the responsibilities to which you pledge yourself?" demands Mr. Browne severely.

"What?" says Tommy.

"Do you pledge yourself to declare where Miss Kavanagh is now?"

"Is it Joyce?" says Tommy, coming forward and standing undaunted in his knickerbockers and an immaculate collar that defies suspicion.

"Yes—Joyce," says Mr. Browne, who never can hold his tongue.

"Well, I know." Tommy pauses, and an unearthly silence falls on the assembled company. Half the county is present, and as Tommy, in the character of reconteur, is widely known and deservedly dreaded, expectation spreads itself among his audience.

Lady Baltimore moves uneasily, and for once Dicky Browne feels as if he should like to sink into his boot.

"She's up on the top of the hill with Mr. Dysart," says Tommy, and no more. Lady Baltimore sighs with relief, and Mr. Browne feels now as if he should like to give Tommy something.

"How do you know?" asks Beauclerk, as though he finds it impossible to repress the question.

"Because I saw her there," says Tommy, "when Mabel and me was coming here. I like Mr. Dysart, don't you?" addressing Beauclerk specially. "He is a very kind sort of man. He gave me half a crown."

"For what, Tommy?" asks Baltimore, idly, to whom Tommy is an unfailing joy.

"To go away and leave him alone with Joyce," says Tommy, with awful distinctness.

Tableau!

Lady Baltimore lets her spoon fall into her saucer, making a little quick clatter. Everybody tries to think of something to say; nobody succeeds.

Mr. Browne, who is evidently choking, is mercifully delivered by beneficent nature from a sudden death. He gives way to a loud and sonorous sneeze.

"Oh, Dicky! How funny you do sneeze," says Lady Swansdown. It is a safety valve. Everybody at once affects to agree with her, and universal laughter makes the room ring.

"Tommy, I think it is time for you and Mabel to go home," says Lady Baltimore. "I promised your mother to send you back early. Give her my love, and tell her I am so sorry she couldn't come to me to-day, but I suppose last night's fatigue was too much for her."

"'Twasn't that," says Tommy; "'twas because cook——"

"Yes, yes; of course. I know," says Lady Baltimore, hurriedly, afraid of further revelations. "Now, say good-bye, and, Bertie, you can go as far as the first gate with them."

The children make their adieus, Tommy reserving Dicky Browne for a last fond embrace.

"Good-bye, old man! So-long!"

"What's that?" says Tommy, appealing to Beauclerk for information.

"What's what?" says Beauclerk, who isn't in his usual amiable mood.

"What's the meaning of that thing Dicky said to me?"

"'So-long?' Oh that's Browne's charming way of saying good-bye."

"Oh!" says Tommy, thoughtfully. He runs it through his busy brain, and brings it out at the other end satisfactorily translated. "I know," says he: "Go long! That's what he meant! But I think," indignantly, "he needn't be rude, anyway."

The children have hardly gone when Joyce and Dysart enter the room.

"I hope I'm not dreadfully late," cries Joyce, carelessly, taking off her cap, and giving her head a little light shake, as if to make her pretty soft hair fall into its usual charming order. "I have no idea what the time is."

"Broken your watch, Dysart?" says Beauclerk, in a rather nasty tone.

"Come and sit here, dearest, and have your tea," says Lady Baltimore, making room on the lounge beside her for Joyce, who has grown a little red.

"It is so warm here," says she, nervously, that one remark of Beauclerk's having, somehow, disconcerted her. "If—if I might——"

"No, no; you mustn't go upstairs for a little while," says Lady Baltimore, with kindly decision. "But you may go into the conservatory if you like," pointing to an open door off the library, that leads into a bower of sweets. "It is cooler there."

"Far cooler," says Beauclerk, who has followed Joyce with a sort of determination in his genial air. "Let me take you there, Miss Kavanagh."

It is impossible to refuse. Joyce, coldly, almost disdainfully and with her head held higher than usual, skirts the groups that line the walls on the western side of the room and disappears with him into the conservatory.



CHAPTER XXI.

"Who dares think one thing and another tell, My heart detests him as the gates of hell."

"A little foolish going for that walk, wasn't it?" says he, leading her to a low cushioned chair over which a gay magnolia bends its white blossoms. His manner is innocence itself; ignorance itself would perhaps better express it. He has decided on ignoring everything; though a shrewd guess that she saw something of his passages with Miss Maliphant last night has now become almost a certainty. "I thought you seemed rather played out last night—fatigued—done to death. I assure you I noticed it. I could hardly," with deep and affectionate concern, "fail to notice anything that affected you."

"You are very good!" says Miss Kavanagh icily. Mr. Beauclerk lets a full minute go by, and then——

"What have I done to merit that tone from you?" asks he, not angrily; only sorrowfully. He has turned his handsome face full on hers, and is regarding her with proud, reproachful eyes. "It is idle to deny," says he, with some emotion, half of which, to do him justice, is real, "that you are changed to me; something has happened to alter the feelings of—of—friendship—that I dared to hope you entertained for me. I had hoped still more, Joyce—but——What has happened?" demands he suddenly, with all the righteous strength of one who, free from guilt, resents accusation of it.

"Have I accused you?" says she, coldly.

"Yes, a thousand times, yes. Do you think your voice alone can condemn? Your eyes are even crueller judges."

"Well I am sorry," says she, faintly smiling. "My eyes must be deceivers then. I bear you no malice, believe me."

"So be it," says he, with an assumption of relief that is very well done. "After all, I have worried myself, I daresay, very unnecessarily. Let us talk of something else, Miss Maliphant, for example," with a glance at her, and a pleasant smile. "Nice girl eh? I miss her."

"She went early this morning, did she?" says Joyce, scarcely knowing what to say. Her lips feel a little dry; an agonized certainty that she is slowly growing crimson beneath his steady gaze brings the tears to her eyes.

"Too early. I quite hoped to be up to see her off, but sleep had made its own of me and I failed to wake. Such a good, genuine girl! Universal favorite, don't you think? Very honest, and very," breaking into an apparently irrepressible laugh, "ugly! Ah! well now," with smiling self condemnation, "that's really a little too bad; isn't it?"

"A great deal too bad," says Joyce, gravely. "I shouldn't speak of her if I were you."

"But why, my dear girl?" with arched brows and a little gesture of his handsome hands. "I allow her everything but beauty, and surely it would be hypocrisy to mention that in the same breath with her."

"It isn't fair—it isn't sincere," says the girl almost passionately. "Do you think I am ignorant of everything, that I did not see you with her last night in the garden? Oh!" with a touch of scorn that is yet full of pain, "you should not. You should not, indeed!"

In an instant he grows confused. Something in the lovely horror of her eyes undoes him. Only for an instant—after that he turns the momentary confusion to good account.

"Ah! you did see her, then, poor girl!" says he. "Well, I'm sorry about that for her sake."

"Why for her sake?" still regarding him with that charming disdain. "For your own, perhaps, but why for hers?"

Beauclerk pauses: then rising suddenly, stands before her. Grief and gentle indignation sit upon his massive brow. He looks the very incarnation of injured rectitude.

"Do you know, Joyce, you have always been ready to condemn, to misjudge me," says he in a low, hurt tone. "I have often noticed it, yet have failed to understand why it is. I was right, you see, when I told myself last night and this morning that you were harboring unkindly thoughts toward me. You have not been open with me, you have been willfully secretive, and, believe me, that is a mistake. Candor, complete and perfect, is the only great virtue that will steer one clear through all the shoals and rocks of life. Be honest, above board, and, I can assure you, you will never regret it. You accused me just now of insincerity. Have you been sincere?"

There is a dead pause. He allows it to last long enough to make it dramatic, and to convince himself he has impressed her, and then, with a very perceptible increase of dignified pain in his voice, he goes on.

"I feel I ought not to explain under the circumstances, but as it is to you"—heavy emphasis, and a second affected silence. "You have heard, perhaps, of Miss Maliphant's cousin in India?"

"No," says Joyce, after racking her brain in vain for some memory of the cousin question. And, indeed, it would have been nothing short of a miracle if she could have remembered anything about that apocryphal person.

"You will understand that I speak to you in the strictest confidence," says Beauclerk, earnestly: "I wouldn't for anything you could offer me, that it should get back to that poor girl's ears that I had been discussing her and the most sacred feelings of her heart. Well, there is a cousin, and she—you may have noticed that she and I were great friends?"

"Yes," says Joyce, whose heart is beating now to suffocation. Oh! has she wronged him? Does she still wrong him? Is this vile, suspicious feeling within her one to be encouraged? Is all this story of his, this simple explanation—false—false?

"I was, indeed, a sort of confidant of hers. Poor dear girl! it was a relief to her to talk to somebody."

"There were others."

"But none here who knew him."

"You knew him then? Is his name Maliphant, too?" asks Joyce, ashamed of her cross-examination, yet driven to it by some power beyond her control.

"You mustn't ask me that," says Beauclerk playfully. "There are some things I must keep even from you. Though you see I go very far to satisfy your unjust suspicions of me. You can, however, guess a good deal; you—saw her crying?"

"She was not crying," says Joyce slowly, a little puzzled. Miss Maliphant had seemed at the moment in question well pleased.

"No! Not when you saw her? Ah! that must have been later then," with a sigh, "you see now I am betraying more than I should. However, I can depend upon your silence. It will be a small secret between you and me."

"And Miss Maliphant," says Joyce, coldly. "As for me, what is the secret?"

"You haven't understood? Not really? Well, between you and me and the wall," with delightful gaiety, "I think she gives a thought or two to that cousin. I fancy," whispering, "she is even in—eh? you know."

"I don't," says Joyce slowly, who is now longing to believe in him, and yet is held steadily backward by some strong feeling.

"I believe she is in love with him," says Beauclerk, still in a mysterious whisper. "But it is a sore subject," with an expressive frown. "Not best pleased when it is mentioned to her. Mauvais sujet, you understand. But girls are often foolish in that way. Better say nothing about it."

"I shall say nothing, of course," says Joyce. "Why should I? It is nothing to me, though I am sorry for her."

Yet as she says this, a doubt arises in her mind as to whether she need be sorry. Is there a cousin in India? Could that big, jolly, lively girl, who had come into the conservatory with Beauclerk last night, with the light of triumph in her eyes, be the victim of an unhappy love affair? Should she write and ask her if there is a cousin in India? Oh, no, no! She could not do that! How horrible, how hateful to distrust him like this! What a detestable mind must be hers. And besides, why dwell so much upon it. Why not accept him as a pleasing acquaintance. One with whom to pass a pleasant hour now and then. Why ever again regard him as a possible lover!

A little shudder runs through her. At this moment it seems to her that she could never really have so regarded him. And yet only last night——

And now. What is it? Does she still doubt? Will that strange, curious, tormenting feeling that once she felt for him return no more. Is it gone forever? Oh! that it might be so!



CHAPTER XXII.

"So over violent, or over civil!" "A man so various."

"Dull looking day," says Dicky Browne, looking up from his broiled kidney to glare indignantly through the window at the gray sky.

"It can't be always May," says Beauclerk cheerfully, whose point it is to take ever a lenient view of things. Even to heaven itself he is kind, and holds out a helping hand.

"I expect it is we ourselves who are dull," says Lady Baltimore, looking round the breakfast table, where now many vacant seats make the edges bare. Yesterday morning Miss Maliphant left. To-day the Clontarfs, and one or two strange men from the barracks in the next town. Desertion indeed seems to be the order of the day. "We grow very small," says she. "How I miss people when they go away."

"Do you mean that as a liberal bribe for the getting rid of the rest of us," says Dicky, who is now devoting himself to the hot scones. "If so, let me tell you it isn't good enough. I shall stay here until you choose to cross the channel. I don't want to be missed."

"That will be next week," says Lady Baltimore. "I do beseech all here present not to forsake me until then."

"I must deny your prayer," says Lady Swansdown. "These tiresome lawyers of mine say they must see me on Thursday at the latest."

"I shall meet you in town at Christmas, however," says Lady Baltimore, making the remark a question.

"I hardly think so. I have promised the Barings to join them in Italy about then."

"Well, here then in February."

Lady Swansdown smiles at her hostess, but makes no audible reply.

"I suppose we ought to do something to-day," says Lady Baltimore presently, in a listless tone. It is plain to everybody, however, that in reality she wants to do nothing. "Suggest something, Dicky."

"Skittles," says that youth, without hesitation. Very properly, however, no one takes any notice of him.

"I was thinking that if we went to 'Connor's Cross,' it would be a nice drive," says Lady Baltimore, still struggling with her duties as a hostess. "What do you say, Beatrice?"

"I pray you excuse me," says Lady Swansdown. "As I leave to-morrow, I must give the afternoon to the answering of several letters, and to other things besides."

"Connor's Cross," says Joyce, idly. "I've so often heard of it. Yet, oddly enough, I have never seen it; it is always the way, isn't it, whenever one lives very close to some celebrated spot."

"Celebrated or not, it is at least lovely," says Lady Baltimore. "You really ought to see it."

"I'll drive you there this afternoon, Miss Kavanagh," says Beauclerk, in his friendly way, that in public has never a tincture of tenderness about it. "We might start after luncheon. It is only about ten miles off. Eh?" to Baltimore.

"Ten," briefly.

"I am right then," equably; "we might easily do it in a little over an hour."

"Hour and a half with best horse in the stables. Bad road," says Baltimore.

"Even so we shall get there and back in excellent time," says Beauclerk, deaf to his brother-in-law's gruffness. "Will you come, Miss Kavanagh?"

"I should like it," says Joyce, in a hesitating sort of way; "but——"

"Then why not go, dear?" says Lady Baltimore kindly. "The Morroghs of Creaghstown live not half a mile from it, and they will give you tea if you feel tired; Norman is a very good whip, and will be sure to have you back here in proper time."

Dysart lifting his head looks full at Joyce.

"At that rate——" says she, smiling at Beauclerk.

"It is settled then," says Beauclerk pleasantly. "Thank you ever so much for helping me to get rid of my afternoon in so delightful a fashion."