Good gracious! What is the usual one, the one they use at home—the—er? He becomes miserably conscious that Tommy's left eye is cocked sideways, and is regarding him with fatal understanding. In a state of desperation he bends forward as low as he well can, wondering vaguely where on earth is his hat, and mumbles something into his plate, that might be a bit of a prayer, but certainly it is not a grace. Perhaps it is a last cry for help.

"What's that?" demands Tommy promptly.

"I didn't hear one word of it," says Mabel with indignation.

Mr. Dysart is too stricken to be able to frame a reply.

"I don't believe you know one," continues Tommy, still fixing him with an uncompromising eye. "I don't believe you were saying anything. Do you, nurse?"

"Oh, fie, now, Master Tommy, and I heard your ma telling you you were to be good."

"Well, so I am good. 'Tis he isn't good. He won't say his prayers. Do you know one?" turning again to Dysart, who is covered with confusion. What the deuce did he stay here for? Why didn't he go to his club? He could have been back in plenty of time. If that confounded grinning woman of a nurse would only go away, it wouldn't be so bad; but——

"Never mind," says Mabel, with calm resignation. "I'll say one for you."

"No, you shan't," cries Tommy; "it's my turn."

"No, it isn't."

"It is, Mabel. You said it yesterday. And you know you said 'relieve' instead of 'received,' and mother laughed, and——"

"I don't care. It is Mr. Dysart's turn to-day, and he'll give his to me; won't you, Mr. Dysart?"

"You're a greedy thing," cries Tommy, wrathfully, "and you shan't say it. I'll tell Mr. Dysart what you did this morning if you do."

"I don't care," with disgraceful callousness. "I will say it."

"Then, I'll say it, too," says Tommy, with sudden inspiration born of a determination to die rather than give in, and instantly four fat hands are joined in pairs, and two seraphic countenances are upraised, and two shrill voices at screaming-pitch are giving thanks for the boiled mutton, at a racing speed, that censorious people might probably connect with a desire on the part of each to be first in at the finish.

Manfully they fight it out to the bitter end, without a break or a comma, and with defiant eyes glaring at each other across the table. There is a good deal of the grace; it is quite a long one when usually said, and yet very little grace in it to-day, when all is told.

"You may go now, nurse," says Mabel, presently, when the mutton had been removed and nurse had placed the rice and jam on the table. "Mr. Dysart will attend to us." It is impossible to describe the grown-up air with which this command is given. It is so like Mrs. Monkton's own voice and manner that Felix, with a start, turns his eyes on the author of it, and nurse, with an ill-suppressed smile, leaves the room.

"That's what mammy always says when-there's only her and me and Tommy," explains Mabel, confidentially. Then. "You," with a doubtful glance, "you will attend to us, won't you?"

"I'll do my best," says Felix, in a depressed tone, whose spirits are growing low. After all, there was safety in nurse!

"I think I'll come up and sit nearer to you," says Tommy, affably.

He gets down from his chair and pushes it, creaking hideously, up to Mr. Dysart's elbow—right under it, in fact.

"So will I," says Mabel, fired with joy at the prospect of getting away from her proper place, and eating her rice in a forbidden spot.

"But," begins Felix, vaguely, "do you think your mother would——"

"We always do it when we are alone with mammy," says Tommy.

"She says it keeps us warm to get under her wing when the weather is cold," says Mabel, lifting a lovely little face to his and bringing her chair down on the top of his toe. "She says it keeps her warm, too. Are you warm now?" anxiously.

"Yes, yes—burning!" says Mr. Dysart, whose toe is not unconscious of a corn.

"Ah! I knew you'd like it," says. Tommy. "Now go on; give us our rice—a little rice and a lot of jam."

"Is that what your mother does, too?" asks Mr. Dysart, meanly it must be confessed, but his toe is very bad still. The silence that follows his question and the look of the two downcast little faces is, however, punishment enough.

"Well, so be it," says he. "But even if we do finish the jam—I'm awfully fond of it myself—we must promise faithfully not to be disagreeable about it; not to be ill, that is——"

"Ill! We're never ill," says Tommy, valiantly, whereupon they make an end of the jam in no time.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

"'Tis said the rose is Love's own flower, Its blush so bright—its thorns so many."

There is no mistake in the joy with which Felix parts from his companions after luncheon. He breathes afresh as he sees them tearing up the staircase to get ready for their afternoon walk, nurse puffing and panting behind them.

The drawing-room seems a bower of repose after the turmoil of the late feast, and besides, it cannot be long now before she—they—return. That is if they—she—return at all! He has, indeed, ample time given him to imagine this last horrible possibility as not only a probability, but a certainty, before the sound of coming footsteps up the stairs and the frou-frou of pretty frocks tells him his doubts were harmless. Involuntarily he rises from his chair and straightens himself, out of the rather forlorn position into which he has fallen, and fixes his eyes immovably upon the door. Are there two of them?

That is beyond doubt. It is only mad people who chatter to themselves, and certainly Mrs. Monkton is not mad.

Barbara has indeed raised her voice a little more than ordinary, and has addressed Joyce by her name on her hurried way up the staircase and across the cushioned recess outside the door. Now she throws open the door and enters, radiant, if a little nervous.

"Here we are," she says, very pleasantly, and with all the put-on manner of one who has made up her mind to be extremely joyous under distinct difficulties. "You are still here, then, and alone. They didn't murder you. Joyce and I had our misgivings all along. Ah, I forgot, you haven't seen Joyce until now."

"How d'ye do?" says Miss Kavanagh, holding out her hand to him, with a calm as perfect as her smile.

"I do hope they were good," goes on Mrs. Monkton, her nervousness rather increasing.

"You know I have always said they were the best children in the world."

"Ah! said, said," repeats Mrs. Monkton, who now seems grateful for the chance of saying anything. What is the meaning of Joyce's sudden amiability—and is it amiability, or——

"It is true one can say almost anything," says Joyce, quite pleasantly. She nods her head prettily at Dysart. "There is no law to prevent them. Barbara thinks you are not sincere. She is not fair to you. You always do mean what you say, don't you?"

But for the smile that accompanies these words Dysart would have felt his doom sealed. But could she mean a stab so cruel, so direct, and still look kind?

"Oh! he is always sincere," says Barbara, quickly; "only people say things about one's children, you know, that——" She stops.

"They are the dearest children. You are a bad mother; you wrong them," says Joyce, laughing lightly, plainly at the idea of Barbara's affection for her children being impugned. "She told me," turning her lovely eyes full on Dysart, with no special expression in them whatever, "that I should find only your remains after spending an hour with them." Her smile was brilliant.

"She was wrong, you see, I am still here," says Felix, hardly knowing what he says in his desire to read her face, which is strictly impassive.

"Yes, still here," says Miss Kavanagh, smiling, always, and apparently meaning nothing at all; yet to Felix, watching her, there seems to be something treacherous in her manner.

"Still here?" Had she hoped he would be gone? Was that the cause of her delay? Had she purposely put off coming home to give him time to grow tired and go away? And yet she is looking at him with a smile!

"I am afraid you had a bad luncheon and a bad time generally," says Mrs. Monkton, quickly, who seemed hurried in every way. "But we came home as soon as ever we could. Didn't we, Joyce?" Her appeal to her sister is suggestive of fear as to the answer, but she need not have been nervous about that.

"We flew!" declares Miss Kavanagh, with delightful zeal. "We thought we should never get here soon enough. Didn't we, Barbara?" There is the very barest, faintest imitation of her sister's voice in this last question; a subtle touch of mockery, so slight, so evanescent as to leave one doubtful as to its ever having existed.

"Yes, yes, indeed," says Barbara, coloring.

"We flew so fast indeed that I am sure you are thoroughly fatigued," says Miss Kavanagh, addressing her. "Why don't you run away now, and take off your bonnet and lay down for an hour or so?"

"But," begins Barbara, and then stops short. What does it all mean? this new departure of her sister's puzzles her. To so deliberately ask for a tete-a-tete with Felix! To what end? The girl's manner, so bright, filled with such a glittering geniality—so unlike the usual listlessness that has characterized it for so long—both confuses and alarms her. Why is she so amiable now? There has been a little difficulty about getting her back at all, quite enough to make Mrs. Monkton shiver for Dysart's reception by her, and here, now, half an hour later, she is beaming upon him and being more than ordinarily civil. What is she going to do?

"Oh! no 'buts,'" says Joyce gaily. "You know you said your head was aching, and Mr. Dysart will excuse you. He will not be so badly off even without you. He will have me!" She turns a full glance on Felix as she says this, and looks at him with lustrous eyes and white teeth showing through her parted lips. The soupcon of mockery in her whole air, of which all through he has been faintly but uncomfortably aware, has deepened. "I shall take care he is not dull."

"But," says Barbara, again, rather helplessly.

"No, no. You must rest yourself. Remember we are going to that 'at home,' at the Thesigers' to-night, and I would not miss it for anything. Don't dwell with such sad looks on Mr. Dysart, I have promised to look after him. You will let me take care of you for a little while, Mr. Dysart, will you not?" turning another brilliant smile upon Felix, who responds to it very gravely.

He is regarding her with a searching air. How is it with her? Some old words recur to him:

"There is treachery, O Ahaziah!"

Why does she look at him like that? He mistrusts her present attitude. Even that aggressive mood of hers at the Dore gallery on that last day when they met was preferable to this agreeable but detestable indifference.

"It is always a pleasure to be with you," says he steadily, perhaps a little doggedly.

"There! you see!" says Joyce, with a pretty little nod at her sister.

"Well, I shall take half an hour's rest," says Mrs. Monkton, reluctantly, who is, in truth, feeling as fresh as a daisy, but who is afraid to stay. "But I shall be back for tea." She gives a little kindly glance to Felix, and, with a heart filled with forebodings, leaves the room.

"What a glorious day it has been!" says Joyce, continuing the conversation with Dysart in that new manner of hers, quite as if Barbara's going was a matter of small importance, and the fact that she has left them for the first time for all these months alone together of less importance still.

She is standing on the hearthrug, and is slowly taking the pins out of her bonnet. She seems utterly unconcerned. He might be the veriest stranger, or else the oldest, the most uninteresting friend in the world.

She has taken out all the pins now, and has thrown her bonnet on to the lounge nearest to her, and is standing before the glass in the overmantel patting and pushing into order the soft locks that lie upon her forehead.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

"Ah, were she pitiful as she is fair." "Life's a varied, bright illusion, Joy and sorrow—light and shade."

"It was almost warm," says she, turning round to him. She seems to be talking all the time, so vivid is her face, so intense her vitality. "I was so glad to see the Brabazons again. You know them, don't you? Kit looked perfect. So lovely, so good in every way—voice, face, manners. I felt I envied her. It would be delightful to feel that every one must be admiring one, as she does." She glances at him, and he leans a little toward her. "No, no, not a compliment, please. I know I am as much behind Kit as the moon is behind the sun."

"I wasn't going to pay you a compliment," says he, slowly.

"No?" she laughs. It was unlike her to have made that remark, and just as unlike her to have taken his rather discourteous reply so good-naturedly.

"It was a charming visit," she goes on, not in haste, but idly as it were, and as if words are easy to her. "I quite enjoyed it. Barbara didn't. I think she wanted to get home—she is always thinking of the babies—or——Well, I did. I am not ungrateful. I take the goods the gods provide, and find honest pleasure in them. I do not think, indeed, I laughed so much for quite a century as to-day with Kit."

"She is sympathetic," says Felix, with the smallest thought of the person in question in his mind.

"More than that, surely. Though that is a hymn of praise in itself. After all it is a relief to meet Irish people when one has spent a week or two in stolid England. You agree with me?"

"I am English," returns he.

"Oh! Of course! How rude of me! I didn't mean it, however. I had entirely forgotten, our acquaintance having been confined entirely to Irish soil until this luckless moment. You do forgive me?"

She is leaning a little forward and looking at him with a careless expression.

"No," returns he briefly.

"Well, you should," says she, taking no notice of his cold rejoinder, and treating it, indeed, as if it is of no moment. If there was a deeper meaning in his refusal to grant her absolution she declines to acknowledge it. "Still, even that betise of mine need not prevent you from seeing some truth in my argument. We have our charms, we Irish, eh?"

"Your charm?"

"Well, mine, if you like, as a type, and"—recklessly and with a shrug of her shoulders—"if you wish to be personal."

She has gone a little too far.

"I think I have acknowledged that," says he, coldly. He rises abruptly and goes over to where she is standing on the hearthrug—shading her face from the fire with a huge Japanese fan. "Have I ever denied your charm?" His tone has been growing in intensity, and now becomes stern. "Why do you talk to me like this? What is the meaning of it all—your altered manner—everything? Why did you grant me this interview?"

"Perhaps because"—still with that radiant smile, bright and cold as early frost—"like that little soapy boy, I thought you would 'not be happy till you got it.'"

She laughs lightly. The laugh is the outcome of the smile, and its close imitation. It is perfectly successful, but on the surface only. There is no heart in it.

"You think I arranged it?"

"Oh, no; how could I? You have just said I arranged it." She shuts up her fan with a little click. "You want to say something, don't you?" says she, "well, say it!"

"You give me permission, then?" asks he, gravely, despair knocking at his heart.

"Why not—would I have you unhappy always?" Her tone is jesting throughout.

"You think," taking the hand that holds the fan and restraining its motion for a moment, "that if I do speak I shall be happier?"

"Ah! that is beyond me," says she. "And yet—yes; to get a thing over is to get rid of fatigue. I have argued it all out for myself, and have come to the conclusion——"

"For yourself!"

"Well, for you too," a little impatiently. "After all, it is you who want to speak. Silence, to me, is golden. But it occurred to me in the silent watches of the night," with another, now rather forced, little laugh, "that if you once said to me all you had to say, you would be contented, and go away and not trouble me any more."

"I can do that now, without saying anything," says he slowly. He has dropped her hand; he is evidently deeply wounded.

"Can you?"

Her eyes are resting relentlessly on his. Is there magic in them? Her mouth has taken a strange expression.

"I might have known how it would be," says Dysart, throwing up his head. "You will not forgive! It was but a moment—a few words, idle, hardly-considered, and——"

"Oh, yes, considered," says she slowly.

"They were unmeant!" persists he, fiercely. "I defy you to think otherwise. One great mistake—a second's madness—and you have ordained that it shall wreck my whole life! You!—That evening in the library at the court. I had not thought of——"

"Ah!" she interrupts him, even more by her gesture—which betrays the first touch of passion she has shown—than by her voice, that is still mocking. "I knew you would have to say it!"

"You know me, indeed!" says he, with an enforced calmness that leaves him very white. "My whole heart and soul lies bare to you, to ruin it as you will. It is the merest waste of time, I know; but still I have felt all along that I must tell you again that I love you, though I fully understand I shall receive nothing in return but scorn and contempt. Still, to be able even to say it is a relief to me."

"And what is it to me?" asks the girl, as pale now as he is. "Is it a relief—a comfort to me to have to listen to you?"

She clenches her hands involuntarily. The fan falls with a little crash to the ground.

"No." He is silent a moment, "No—it is unfair—unjust! You shall not be made uncomfortable again. It is the last time.... I shall not trouble you again in this way. I don't say we shall never meet again. You"—pausing and looking at her—"you do not desire that?"

"Oh, no," coldly, politely.

"If you do, say so at once," with a rather peremptory ring in his tone.

"I should," calmly.

"I am glad of that. As my cousin is a great friend of mine, and as I shall get a fortnight's leave soon, I shall probably run over to Ireland, and spend it with her. After all"—bitterly—"why should I suppose it would be disagreeable to you?"

"It was quite a natural idea," says she, immovably.

"However," says he, steadily, "you need not be afraid that, even if we do meet, I shall ever annoy you in this way again——"

"Oh, I am never afraid," says she, with that terrible smile that seems to freeze him.

"Well, good-bye," holding out his hand. He is quite as composed as she is now, and is even able to return her smile in kind.

"So soon? But Barbara will be down to tea in a few minutes. You will surely wait for her?"

"I think not."

"But really do! I am going to see after the children, and give them some chocolate I bought for them."

"It will probably make them ill," says he, smiling still. "No, thank you. I must go now, indeed. You will make my excuses to Mrs. Monkton, please. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," says she, laying her hand in his for a second. She has grown suddenly very cold, shivering: it seems almost as if an icy blast from some open portal has been blown in upon her. He is still looking at her. There is something wild—strange—in his expression.

"You cannot realize it, but I can," says he, unsteadily. "It is good-bye forever, so far as life for me is concerned."

He has turned away from her. He is gone. The sharp closing of the door wakens her to the fact that she is alone. Mechanically, quite calmly, she looks around the empty room. There is a little Persian chair cover over there all awry. She rearranges it with a critical eye to its proper appearance, and afterward pushes a small chair into its place. She pats a cushion or two, and, finally taking up her bonnet and the pins she had laid upon the chimney-piece, goes up to her own room.

Once there——

With a rush the whole thing comes back to her. The entire meaning of it—what she has done. That word—forever. The bonnet has fallen from her fingers. Sinking upon her knees beside the bed, she buries her face out of sight. Presently her slender frame is torn by those cruel, yet merciful sobs!



CHAPTER XL.

"The sense of death is most in apprehension."

"Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure."

It is destined to be a day of grief! Monkton who had been out all the morning, having gone to see the old people, a usual habit of his, had not returned to dinner—a very unusual habit with him. It had occurred, however, once or twice, that he had stayed to dine with them on such occasions, as when Sir George had had a troublesome letter from his elder son, and had looked to the younger to give him some comfort—some of his time to help him to bear it, by talking it all over. Barbara, therefore, while dressing for Mrs. Thesiger's "At Home," had scarcely felt anxiety, and, indeed, it is only now when she has come down to the drawing-room to find Joyce awaiting her, also in gala garb, so far as a gown goes, that a suspicion of coming trouble takes possession of her.

"He is late, isn't he?" she says, looking at Joyce with something nervous in her expression. "What can have kept him? I know he wanted to meet the General, and now——What can it be?"

"His mother, probably," says Joyce, indifferently. "From your description of her, I should say she must be a most thoroughly uncomfortable old person."

"Yes. Not pleasant, certainly. A little of her, as George Ingram used to say, goes a long way. But still——And these Thesiger people are friends of his, and——"

"You are working yourself up into a thorough belief in the sensational street accident," says Joyce, who has seated herself well out of the glare of the chandelier. "You want to be tragic. It is a mistake, believe me."

Something in the bitterness of the girl's tone strikes on her sister's ear. Joyce had not come down to dinner, had pleaded a headache as an excuse for her non-appearance, and Mrs. Monkton and Tommy (she could not bear to dine alone) had devoured that meal a deux. Tommy had certainly been anything but dull company.

"Has anything happened, Joyce?" asks her sister quickly. She has had her suspicions, of course, but they were of the vaguest order.

Joyce laughs.

"I told you your nerves were out of order," says she. "What should happen? Are you still dwelling on the running over business? I assure you you wrong Freddy. He can take care of himself at a crossing as well as another man, and better. Even a hansom, I am convinced, could do no harm to Freddy."

"I wasn't thinking of him," says Barbara, a little reproachfully, perhaps. "I——"

"No. Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Here he is," cries she suddenly, springing to her feet as the sound of Monkton's footsteps ascending the stairs can now be distinctly heard. "I hope you will explain yourself to him." She laughs again, and disappears through the doorway that leads to the second hall outside, as Monkton enters.

"How late you are, Freddy," says his wife, the reproach in her voice heightened because of the anxiety she had been enduring. "I thought you would never——What is it? What has happened? Freddy! there is bad news."

"Yes, very bad," says Monkton, sinking into a chair.

"Your brother——" breathlessly. Of late, she has always known that trouble is to be expected from him.

"He is dead," says Monkton in a low tone.

Barbara, flinging her opera cloak aside, comes quickly to him. She leans over him and slips her arms round his neck.

"Dead!" says she in an awestruck tone.

"Yes. Killed himself! Shot himself! the telegram came this morning when I was with them. I could not come home sooner; it was impossible to leave them."

"Oh, Freddy, I am sorry you left them even now; a line to me would have done. Oh, what a horrible thing, and to die like that."

"Yes." He presses one of her hands, and then, rising, begins to move hurriedly up and down the room. "It was misfortune upon misfortune," he says presently. "When I went over there this morning they had just received a letter filled with——"

"From him!"

"Yes. That is what seemed to make it so much worse later on. Life in the morning, death in the afternoon!" His voice grows choked. "And such a letter as it was, filled with nothing but a most scandalous account of his——Oh!"——he breaks off suddenly as if shocked. "Oh, he is dead, poor fellow."

"Don't take it like that," says Barbara, following him and clinging to him. "You know you could not be unkind. There were debts then?"

"Debts! It is difficult to explain just now, my head is aching so; and those poor old people? Well, it means ruin for them, Barbara. Of course his debts must be paid, his honor kept intact, for the sake of the old name, but—they will let all the houses, the two in town, this one, and their own, and—and the old place down in Warwickshire, the home, all must go out of their hands."

"Oh, Freddy, surely—surely there must be some way——"

"Not one. I spoke about breaking the entail. You know I—his death, poor fellow. I——"

"Yes, yes, dear."

"But they wouldn't hear of it. My mother was very angry, even in her grief, when I proposed it. They hope that by strict retrenchment, the property will be itself again; and they spoke about Tommy. They said it would be unjust to him——"

"And to you," quickly. She would not have him ignored any longer.

"Oh, as for me, I'm not a boy, you know. Tommy is safe to inherit as life goes."

"Well, so are you," said she, with a sharp pang at her heart.

"Yes, of course. I am only making out a case. I think it was kind of them to remember Tommy's claim in the midst of their own grief."

"It was, indeed," says she remorsefully. "Oh, it was. But if they give up everything where will they go?"

"They talk of taking a cottage—a small house somewhere. They want to give up everything to pay his infamous——There!" sharply, "I am forgetting again! But to see them makes one forget everything else." He begins his walk up and down the room again, as if inaction is impossible to him. "My mother, who has been accustomed to a certain luxury all her life, to be now, at the very close of it, condemned to——It would break your heart to see her. And she will let nothing be said of him."

"Oh, no."

"Still, there should be justice. I can't help feeling that. Her blameless life, and his——and she is the one to suffer."

"It is so often so," says his wife in a low tone. "It is an old story, dearest, but I know that when the old stories come home to us individually they always sound so terribly new. But what do they mean by a small house?" asks she presently in a distressed tone.

"Well, I suppose a small house," said he, with just a passing gleam of his old jesting manner. "You know my mother cannot bear the country, so I think the cottage idea will fall through."

"Freddy," says his wife suddenly. "She can't go into a small house, a London small house. It is out of the question. Could they not come and live with us?"

She is suggesting a martyrdom for herself, yet she does it unflinchingly.

"What! My aunt and all?" asks he, regarding her earnestly.

"Oh, of course, of course, poor old thing," says she, unable this time, however, to hide the quaver that desolates her voice.

"No," says her husband with a suspicion of vehemence. He takes her suddenly in his arms and kisses her. "Because two or three people are unhappy is no reason why a fourth should be made so, and I don't want your life spoiled, so far as I can prevent it. I suppose you have guessed that I must go over to Nice—where he is—my father could not possibly go alone in his present state."

"When, must you go?"

"To-morrow. As for you——"

"If we could go home," says she uncertainly.

"That is what I would suggest, but how will you manage without me? The children are so troublesome when taken out of their usual beat, and their nurse—I often wonder which would require the most looking after, they or she? It occurred to me to ask Dysart to see you across."

"He is so kind, such a friend," says Mrs. Monkton. "But——"

She might have said more, but at this instant Joyce appears in the doorway.

"We shall be late," cries she, "and Freddy not even dressed, why——Oh, has anything really happened?"

"Yes, yes," says Barbara hurriedly—a few words explains all. "We must go home to-morrow, you see; and Freddy thinks that Felix would look after us until we reached Kensington or North Wall."

"Felix—Mr. Dysart?" The girl's face had grown pale during the recital of the suicide, but now it looks ghastly. "Why should he come?" cries she in a ringing tone, that has actual fear in it. "Do you suppose that we two cannot manage the children between us? Oh, nonsense, Barbara; why Tommy is as sensible as he can be, and if nurse does prove incapable, and a prey to seasickness, well—I can take baby, and you can look after Mabel. It will be all right! We are not going to America, really. Freddy, please say you will not trouble Mr. Dysart about this matter."

"Yes, I really think we shall not require him," says Barbara. Something in the glittering brightness of her sister's eye warns her to give in at once, and indeed she has been unconsciously a little half-hearted about having Felix or any stranger as a travelling companion. "There, run away, Joyce, and go to your bed, darling; you look very tired. I must still arrange some few things with Freddy."

"What is the matter with her?" asks Monkton, when Joyce has gone away. "She looks as if she had been crying, and her manner is so excitable."

"She has been strange all day, almost repellant. Felix called—and—I don't know what happened; she insisted upon my leaving her alone with him; but I am afraid there was a scene of some sort. I know she had been crying, because her eyes were so red, but she would say nothing, and I was afraid to ask her."

"Better not. I hope she is not still thinking of that fellow Beauclerk. However——" he stops short and sighs heavily.

"You must not think of her now," says Barbara quickly; "your own trouble is enough for you. Were your brother's affairs so very bad that they necessitate the giving up of everything?"

"It has been going on for years. My father has had to economize, to cut down everything. You know the old place was let to a Mr.—Mr.—I quite forget the name now," pressing his hand to his brow; "a Manchester man, at all events, but we always hoped my father would have been able to take it back from him next year, but now——"

"But you say they think in time that the property will——"

"They think so. I don't. But it would be a pity to undeceive them. I am afraid, Barbara," with a sad look at her, "you made a bad match. Even when the chance comes in your way to rise out of poverty, it proves a thoroughly useless one."

"It isn't like you to talk like that," says she quickly. "There, you are overwrought, and no wonder, too. Come upstairs and let us see what you will want for your journey." Her tone had grown purposely brisk; surely, on an occasion such as this she is a wife, a companion in a thousand. "There must be many things to be considered, both for you and for me. And the thing is, to take nothing unnecessary. Those foreign places, I hear, are so——"

"It hardly matters what I take," says he wearily.

"Well, it matters what I take," says she briskly. "Come and give me a help, Freddy. You know how I hate to have servants standing over me. Other people stand over their servants, but they are poor rich people. I like to see how the clothes are packed." She is speaking not quite truthfully. Few people like to be spared trouble so much as she does, but it seems good in her eyes now to rouse him from the melancholy that is fast growing on him. "Come," she says, tucking her arm into his.



CHAPTER XLI.

"It is not to-morrow; ah, were it to-day! There are two that I know that would be gay. Good-by! Good-by! Good-by! Ah I parting wounds so bitterly!"

It is six weeks later, "spring has come up this way," and all the earth is glad with a fresh birth.

"Tantarara! the joyous Book of Spring Lies open, writ in blossoms; not a bird Of evil augury is seen or heard! Come now, like Pan's old crew we'll dance and sing, Or Oberon's, for hill and valley ring To March's bugle horn—earth's blood is stirred."

March has indeed come; boisterous, wild, terrible, in many ways, but lovely in others. There is a freshness in the air that rouses glad thoughts within the breast, vague thoughts, sweet, as undefinable, and that yet mean life. The whole land seems to have sprung up from a long slumber, and to be looking with wide happy eyes upon the fresh marvels Nature is preparing for it. Rather naked she stands as yet, rubbing her sleepy lids, having just cast from her her coat of snow, and feeling somewhat bare in the frail garment of bursting leaves and timid grass growths, that as yet is all she can find wherein to hide her charms; but half clothed as she is, she is still beautiful.

Everything seems full of eager triumph. Hills, trees, valleys, lawns, and bursting streams, all are overflowing with a wild enjoyment. All the dull, dingy drapery in which winter had shrouded them has now been cast aside, and the resplendent furniture with which each spring delights to deck her home stands revealed.

All these past dead months her house has lain desolate, enfolded in death's cerements, but now uprising in her vigorous youth, she flings aside the dull coverings, and lets the sweet, brilliant hues that lie beneath, shine forth in all their beauty to meet the eye of day.

Earth and sky are in bridal array, and from the rich recesses of the woods, and from each shrub and branch the soft glad paeans of the mating birds sound like a wedding chant.

Monkton had come back from that sad journey to Nice some weeks ago. He had had very little to tell on his return, and that of the saddest. It had all been only too true about those iniquitous debts, and the old people were in great distress. The two town houses should be let at once, and the old place in Warwickshire—the home, as he called it—well! there was no hope now that it would ever be redeemed from the hands of the Manchester people who held it; and Sir George had been so sure that this spring he would have been in a position to get back his own, and have the old place once more in his possession. It was all very sad.

"There is no hope now. He will have to let the place to Barton for the next ten years," said Monkton to his wife when he got home. Barton was the Manchester man. "He is still holding off about doing it, but he knows it must be done, and at all events the reality won't be a bit worse than the thinking about it. Poor old Governor! You wouldn't know him, Barbara. He has gone to skin and bone, and such a frightened sort of look in his eyes."

"Oh! poor, poor old man!" cried Barbara, who could forget everything in the way of past unkindness where her sympathies were enlisted.

Toward the end of February the guests had begun to arrive at the Court. Lady Baltimore had returned there during January with her little son, but Baltimore had not put in an appearance for some weeks later. A good many new people unknown to the Monktons had arrived there with others whom they did know, and after awhile Dicky Browne had come and Miss Maliphant and the Brabazons and some others with whom Joyce was on friendly terms, but even though Lady Baltimore had made rather a point of the girls being with her, Joyce had gone to her but sparingly, and always in fear and trembling. It was so impossible to know who might not have arrived last night, or was going to arrive this night!

Besides, Barbara and Freddy were so saddened, so upset by the late death and its consequences, that it seemed unkind even to pretend to enjoy oneself. Joyce grasped at this excuse to say "no" very often to Lady Baltimore's kindly longings to have her with her. That, up to this, neither Dysart nor Beauclerk had come to the Court, had been a comfort to her; but that they might come at any moment kept her watchful and uneasy. Indeed, only yesterday she had heard from Lady Baltimore that both were expected during the ensuing week.

That news leaves her rather unstrung and nervous to-day. After luncheon, having successfully eluded Tommy, the lynx-eyed, she decides upon going for a long walk, with a view to working off the depression to which she has become prey. This is how she happens to be out of the way when the letter comes for Barbara that changes altogether the tenor of their lives.

The afternoon post brings it. The delicious spring day has worn itself almost to a close when Monkton, entering his wife's room, where she is busy at a sewing machine altering a frock for Mabel, drops a letter over her shoulder into her lap.

"What a queer looking letter," says she, staring in amazement at the big official blue envelope.

"Ah—ha, I thought it would make you shiver," says he, lounging over to the fire, and nestling his back comfortably against the mantle-piece. "What have you been up to I should like to know. No wonder you are turning a lively purple."

"But what can it be?" says she.

"That's just it," says he teazingly. "I hope they aren't going to arrest you, that's all. Five years' penal servitude is not a thing to hanker after."

Mrs. Monkton, however, is not listening to this tirade. She has broken open the envelope and is now scanning hurriedly the contents of the important-looking document within. There is a pause—a lengthened one. Presently Barbara rises from her seat, mechanically, as it were, always with her eyes fixed on the letter in her hand. She has grown a little pale—a little puzzled frown is contracting her forehead.

"Freddy!" says she in a rather strange tone.

"What?" says he quickly. "No more bad news I hope."

"Oh, no! Oh, yes! I can't quite make it out—but—I'm afraid my poor uncle is dead."

"Your uncle?"

"Yes, yes. My father's brother. I think I told you about him. He went abroad years ago, and we—Joyce and I, believed him dead a long time ago, long before I married you even—but now——Come here and read it. It is worded so oddly that it puzzles me."

"Let me see it," says Monkton.

He sinks into an easy-chair, and drags her down on to his knee, the better to see over her shoulder. Thus satisfactorily arranged, he begins to read rapidly the letter she holds up before his eyes.

"Yes, dead indeed," says he sotto voce. "Go on, turn over; you mustn't fret about that, you know. Barbara—er—er—" reading. "What's this? By Jove!"

"What?" says his wife anxiously. "What is the meaning of this horrid letter, Freddy?"

"There are a few people who might not call it horrid," says Monkton, placing his arm round her and rising from the chair. He is looking very grave. "Even though it brings you news of your poor uncle's death, still it brings you too the information that you are heiress to about a quarter of a million!"

"What!" says Barbara faintly. And then, "Oh no. Oh! nonsense! there must be some mistake!"

"Well, it sounds like it at all events. 'Sad occurrence,' h'm—h'm——" reading. "'Co-heiresses. Very considerable fortune.'" He looks to the signature of the letter. "Hodgson & Fair. Very respectable firm! My father has had dealings with them. They say your uncle died in Sydney, and has left behind him an immense sum of money. Half a million, in fact, to which you and Joyce are co-heiresses."

"There must be a mistake," repeats Barbara, in a low tone. "It seems too like a fairy tale."

"It does. And yet, lawyers like Hodgson & Fair are not likely to be led into a cul-de-sac. If——" he pauses, and looks earnestly at his wife. "If it does prove true, Barbara, you will be a very rich woman."

"And you will be rich with me," she says, quickly, in an agitated tone. "But, but——"

"Yes; it does seem difficult to believe," interrupts he, slowly. "What a letter!" His eyes fall on it again, and she, drawing close to him, reads it once more, carefully.

"I think there is truth in it," says she, at last. "It sounds more like being all right, more reasonable, when read a second time. Freddy——"

She steps a little bit away from him, and rests her beautiful eyes full on his.

"Have you thought," says she, slowly, "that if there is truth in this story, how much we shall be able to do for your father and mother!"

Monkton starts as if stung. For them. To do anything for them. For the two who had so wantonly offended and insulted her during all her married life: Is her first thought to be for them?

"Yes, yes," says she, eagerly. "We shall be able to help them out of all their difficulties. Oh! I didn't say much to you, but in their grief, their troubles have gone to my very heart. I couldn't bear to think of their being obliged to give up their houses, their comforts, and in their old age, too! Now we shall be able to smooth matters for them!"



CHAPTER XLII.

"It's we two, it's we two, it's we two for aye, All the world and we two, and Heaven be our stay, Like a laverock in the lift, sing, O bonny bride! All the world was Adam once, with Eve by his side."

The light in her eyes is angelic. She has laid her hands upon both her husband's arms, as if expecting him to take her into them, as he always does only too gladly on the smallest provocation. Just now, however, he fails her, for the moment only, however.

"Barbara," says he, in a choked voice: he holds her from him, examining her face critically. His thoughts are painful, yet proud—proud beyond telling. His examination does not last long: there is nothing but good to be read in that fair, sweet, lovable face. He gathers her to him with a force that is almost hurtful.

"Are you a woman at all, or just an angel?" says he, with a deep sigh.

"What is it, Freddy?"

"After all they have done to you. Their insults, coldness, abominable conduct, to think that your first thought should be for them. Why, look here, Barbara," vehemently, "they are not worthy that you should——"

"Tut!" interrupts she, lightly, yet with a little sob in her throat. His praise is so sweet to her. "You overrate me. Is it for them I would do it or for you? There, take all the thought for yourself. And, besides, are not you and I one, and shall not your people be my people? Come, if you think of it, there is no such great merit after all."

"You forget——"

"No; not a word against them. I won't listen," thrusting her fingers into her ears. "It is all over and done with long ago. And it is our turn now, and let us do things decently and in order, and create no heart-burnings."

"But when I think——"

"If thinking makes you look like that, don't think."

"But I must. I must remember how they scorned and slighted you. It never seems to have come home to me so vividly as now—now when you seem to have forgotten it. Oh, Barbara!" He presses back her head and looks long and tenderly into her eyes. "I was not mistaken, indeed, when I gave you my heart. Surely you are one among ten thousand."

"Silly boy," says she, with a little tremulous laugh, glad to her very soul's centre, however, because of his words. "What is there to praise me for? Have I not warned you that I am purely selfish? What is there I would not do for very love of you? Come, Freddy," shaking herself loose from him, and laughing now with honest delight. "Let us be reasonable. Oh! poor old uncle, it seems hateful to rejoice thus over his death, but his memory is really only a shadow after all, and I suppose he meant to make us happy by his gift, eh, Freddy?"

"Yes, how well he remembered during all these years. He could have formed no other ties."

"None, naturally." Short pause. "There is that black mare of Mike Donovan's, Freddy, that you so fancied. You can buy it now."

Monkton laughs involuntarily. Something of the child has always lingered about Barbara.

"And I should like to get a black velvet gown," says she, her face brightening, "and to buy Joyce a——Oh! but Joyce will be rich herself."

"Yes. I'm really afraid you will be done out of the joy of overloading Joyce with gifts. She'll be able to give you something. That will be a change, at all events. As for the velvet gown, if this," touching the letter, "bears any meaning, I should think you need not confine yourself to one velvet gown."

"And there's Tommy," says she quickly, her thoughts running so fast that she scarcely hears him. "You have always said you wanted to put him in the army. Now you can do it."

"Yes," says Monkton, with sudden interest. "I should like that. But you—you shrank from the thought, didn't you?"

"Well, he might have to go to India," says she, nervously.

"And what of that?"

"Oh, nothing—that is, nothing really—only there are lions and tigers there, Freddy; aren't there, now?"

"One or two," says Mr. Monkton, "if we are to believe travelers' tales. But they are all proverbially false. I don't believe in lions at all myself. I'm sure they are myths. Well, let him go into the navy, then. Lions and tigers don't as a rule inhabit the great deep."

"Oh, no; but sharks do," says she, with a visible shudder. "No, no, on the whole I had rather trust him to the beasts of the field. He could run away from them, but you can't run in the sea."

"True," says Mr. Monkton, with exemplary gravity. "I couldn't, at all events."

* * * * *

Monkton had to run across to London about the extraordinary legacy left to his wife and Joyce. But further investigation proved the story true. The money was, indeed, there, and they were the only heirs. From being distinctly poor they rose to the height of a very respectable income, and Monkton being in town, where the old Monktons still were, also was commanded by his wife to go to them and pay off their largest liabilities—debts contracted by the dead son, and to so arrange that they should not be at the necessity of leaving themselves houseless.

The Manchester people who had taken the old place in Warwickshire were now informed that they could not have it beyond the term agreed on; but about this the old people had something to say, too. They would not take back the family place. They had but one son now, and the sooner he went to live there the better. Lady Monkton, completely, broken down and melted by Barbara's generosity, went so far as to send her a long letter, telling her it would be the dearest wish of her and Sir George's hearts that she should preside as mistress over the beautiful old homestead, and that it would give them great happiness to imagine, the children—the grandchildren—running riot through the big wainscoted rooms. Barbara was not to wait for her—Lady Monkton's—death to take up her position as head of the house. She was to go to Warwickshire at once, the moment those detestable Manchester people were out of it; and Lady Monkton, if Barbara would be so good as to make her welcome, would like to come to her for three months every year, to see the children, and her son, and her daughter! The last was the crowning touch. For the rest, Barbara was not to hesitate about accepting the Warwickshire place, as Lady Monkton and Sir George were devoted to town life, and never felt quite well when away from smoky London.

This last was true. As a fact, the old people were thoroughly imbued with the desire for the turmoil of city life, and the three months of country Lady Monkton had stipulated for were quite as much as they desired of rustic felicity.

Barbara accepted the gift of the old home. Eventually, of course, it would be hers, but she knew the old people meant the present giving of it as a sort of return for her liberality—for the generosity that had enabled them to once more lift their heads among their equals.

* * * * *

The great news meanwhile had spread like wildfire through the Irish country where the Frederic Monktons lived. Lady Baltimore was unfeignedly glad about it, and came down at once to embrace Barbara, and say all sorts of delightful things about it. The excitement of the whole affair seemed to dissipate all the sadness and depression that had followed on the death of the elder son, and nothing now was talked of but the great good luck that had fallen into the paths of Barbara and Joyce. The poor old uncle had been considered dead for so many years previously, and was indeed such a dim memory to his nieces, that it would have been the purest affectation to pretend to feel any deep grief for his demise.

Perhaps what grieved Barbara most of all, though she said very little about it, was the idea of having to leave the old house in which they were now living. It did not not cheer her to think of the place in Warwickshire, which, of course, was beautiful, and full of possibilities.

This foolish old Irish home—rich in discomforts—was home. It seemed hard to abandon it. It was not a palatial mansion, certainly; it was even dismal in many ways, but it contained more love in its little space than many a noble mansion could boast. It seemed cruel—ungrateful—to cast it behind her, once it was possible to mount a few steps on the rungs of the worldly ladder.

How happy they had all been here together, in this foolish old house, that every severe storm seemed to threaten with final dissolution. It gave her many a secret pang to think that she must part from it for ever before another year should dawn.



CHAPTER XLIII.

"Looks the heart alone discover, If the tongue its thoughts can tell, 'Tis in vain you play the lover, You have never felt the spell."

Joyce, who had been dreading, with a silent but terrible fear, her first meeting with Dysart, had found it no such great matter after all when they were at last face to face. Dysart had met her as coolly, with apparently as little concern as though no former passages had ever taken place between them.

His manner was perfectly calm, and as devoid of feeling as any one could desire, and it was open to her comprehension that he avoided her whenever he possibly could. She told herself this was all she could, or did, desire; yet, nevertheless, she writhed beneath the certainty of it.

Beauclerk had not arrived until a week later than Dysart; until, indeed, the news of the marvelous fortune that had come to her was well authenticated, and then had been all that could possibly be expected of him. His manner was perfect. He sat still And gazed with delightfully friendly eyes into Miss Maliphant's pleased countenance, and anon skipped across room or lawn to whisper beautiful nothings to Miss Kavanagh. The latter's change of fortune did not, apparently, seem to affect him in the least. After all, even now she was not as good a parti as Miss Maliphant, where money was concerned, but then there were other things. Whatever his outward manner might lead one to suspect, beyond doubt he thought a great deal at this time, and finally came to a conclusion.

Joyce's fortune had helped her in many ways. It had helped many of the poor around her, too; but it did even more than that. It helped Mr. Beauclerk to make up his mind with regard to his matrimonial prospects.

Sitting in his chambers in town with Lady Baltimore's letter before him that told him of the change in Joyce's fortune—of the fortune that had changed her, in fact, from a pretty penniless girl to a pretty rich one, he told himself that, after all, she had certainly been the girl for him since the commencement of their acquaintance.

She was charming—not a whit more now than then. He would not belie his own taste so far as so admit that she was more desirable in any way now, in her prosperity, than when first he saw her, and paid her the immense compliment of admiring her.

He permitted himself to grow a little enthusiastic, however, to say out loud to himself, as it were, all that he had hardly allowed himself to think up to this. She was, beyond question, the most charming girl in the world! Such grace—such finish! A girl worthy of the love of the best of men—presumably himself!

He had always loved her—always! He had never felt so sure of that delightful fact as now. He had had a kind of knowledge, even when afraid to give ear to it, that she was the wife best suited to him to be found anywhere. She understood him! They were thoroughly en rapport with each other. Their marriage would be a success in the deepest, sincerest meaning of that word.

He leant luxuriously among the cushions of his chair, lit a fragrant cigarette, and ran his mind backward over many things. Well! Perhaps so! But yet if he had refrained from proposing to her until now—now when fate smiles upon her—it was simply because he dreaded dragging her into a marriage where she could not have had all those little best things of life that so peerless a creature had every right to demand.

Yes! it was for her sake alone he had hesitated. He feels sure of that now. He has thoroughly persuaded himself the purity of the motives that kept him tongue tied when honor called aloud to him for speech. He feels himself so exalted that he metaphorically pats himself upon the back and tells himself he is a righteous being—a very Brutus where honor is concerned; any other man might have hurried that exquisite creature into a squalid marriage for the mere sake of gratifying an overpowering affection, but he had been above all that! He had considered her! The man's duty is ever to protect the woman! He had protected her—even from herself; for that she would have been only too willing to link her sweet fate with his at any price-was patent to all the world. Few people have felt as virtuous as Mr. Beauclerk as he comes to the end of this thread of his imaginings.

Well! he will make it up to her! He smiles benignly through the smoke that rises round his nose. She shall never have reason to remember that he had not fallen on his knees to her—as a less considerate man might have done—when he was without the means to make her life as bright as it should be.

The most eager of lovers must live, and eating is the first move toward that conclusion. Yet if he had given way to selfish desires they would scarcely, he and she, have had sufficient bread (of any delectable kind) to fill their mouths. But now all would be different. She, clever girl! had supplied the blank; she had squared the difficulty. Having provided the wherewithal to keep body and soul together in a nice, respectable, fashionable, modern sort of way, her constancy shall certainly be rewarded. He will go straight down to the Court, and declare to her the sentiments that have been warming his breast (silently!) all these past months. What a dear girl she is, and so fond of him! That in itself is an extra charm in her very delightful character. And those fortunate thousands! Quite a quarter of a million, isn't it? Well, of course, no use saying they won't come in handy—no use being hypocritical over it—horrid thing a hypocrite!—well, those thousands naturally have their charm, too.

He rose, flung his cigarette aside (it was finished as far as careful enjoyment would permit), and rang for his servant to pack his portmanteaux. He was going to the Court by the morning train.

* * * * *

Now that he is here, however, he restrains the ardor, that no doubt is consuming him, with altogether admirable patience, and waits for the chance that may permit him to lay his valuable affections at Joyce's feet. A dinner to be followed by an impromptu dance at the Court suggests itself as a very fitting opportunity. He grasps it. Yes, to-morrow evening will be an excellent and artistic opening for a thing of this sort. All through luncheon, even while conversing with Joyce and Miss Maliphant on various outside topics, his versatile mind is arranging a picturesque spot in the garden enclosures wherein to make Joyce a happy woman!

Lady Swansdown, glancing across the table at him, laughs lightly. Always disliking him, she has still been able to read him very clearly, and his determination to now propose to Joyce amuses her nearly as much as it annoys her. Frivolous to the last degree as she is, an honest regard for Joyce has taken hold within her breast. Lord Baltimore, too, is disturbed by his brother's present.



CHAPTER XLIV.

"Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight."

Lady Swansdown is startled into a remembrance of the present by the entrance of somebody. After all Dicky, the troublesome, was right—this is no spot in which to sleep or dream. Turning her head with an indolent impatience to see who has come to disturb her, she meets Lady Baltimore's clear eyes.

Some sharp pang of remorse, of fear, perhaps, compels her to spring to her feet, and gaze at her hostess with an expression that is almost defiant. Dicky's words had so far taken effect that she now dreads and hates to meet the woman who once had been her stanch friend.

Lady Baltimore, unable to ignore the look in her rival's eyes, still advances toward her with unfaltering step. Perhaps a touch of disdain, of contempt, is perceptible in her own gaze, because Lady Swansdown, paling, moves toward her. She seems to have lost all self-control—she is trembling violently. It is a crisis.

"What is it?" says Lady Swansdown, harshly. "Why do you look at me like that? Has it come to a close between us, Isabel? Oh! if so"—vehemently—"it is better so."

"I don't think I understand you," says Lady Baltimore, who has grown very white. Her tone is haughty; she has drawn back a little as if to escape from contact with the other.

"Ah! That is so like you," says Lady Swansdown with a rather fierce little laugh. "You pretend, pretend, pretend, from morning till night. You intrench yourself behind your pride, and——"

"You know what you are doing, Beatrice," says Lady Baltimore, ignoring this outburst completely, and speaking in a calm, level tone, yet with a face like marble.

"Yes, and you know, too," says Lady Swansdown. Then, with an overwhelming vehemence: "Why don't you do something? Why don't you assert yourself?"

"I shall never assert myself," says Lady Baltimore slowly.

"You mean that whatever comes you will not interfere."

"That, exactly!" turning her eyes full on to the other's face with a terrible disdain. "I shall never interfere in this—or any other of his flirtations."

It is a sharp stab! Lady Swansdown winces visibly.

"What a woman you are!" cries she. "Have you ever thought of it, Isabel? You are unjust to him—unfair. You"—passionately—"treat him as though he were the dust beneath your feet, and yet you expect him to remain immaculate, for your sake—pure as any acolyte—a thing of ice——"

"No," coldly. "You mistake me. I know too much of him to expect perfection—nay, common decency from him. But you—it was you whom I hoped to find immaculate."

"You expected too much, then. One iceberg in your midst is enough, and that you have kindly suggested in your own person. Put me out of the discussion altogether."

"Ah I You have made that impossible! I cannot do that. I have known you too long, I have liked you too well. I have," with a swift, but terrible glance at her, "loved you!"

"Isabel!"

"No, no! Not a word. It is too late now."

"True," says Lady. Swansdown, bringing back the arms she had extended and letting them fall into a sudden, dull vehemence to her sides. Her agitation is uncontrolled. "That was so long ago that, no doubt, you have forgotten all about it. You," bitterly, "have forgotten a good deal."

"And you," says Lady Baltimore, very calmly, "what have you not forgotten—your self-respect," deliberately, "among other things."

"Take care; take care!" says Lady Swansdown in a low tone. She has turned furiously upon her.

"Why should I take care?" She throws up her small bead scornfully. "Have I said one word too much?"?

"Too much indeed," says Lady Swansdown distinctly, but faintly. She turns her head, but not her eyes in Isabel's direction. "I'm afraid you will have to endure for one day longer," she says in a low voice; "after that you shall bid me a farewell that shall last forever!"

"You have come to a wise decision," says Lady Baltimore, immovably.

There is something so contemptuous in her whole bearing that it maddens the other.

"How dare you speak to me like that," cries she with sudden violence not to be repressed. "You of all others! Do you think you are not in fault at all—that you stand blameless before the world?"

The blood has flamed into her pale cheeks, her eyes are on fire. She advances toward Lady Baltimore with such a passion of angry despair in look and tone, that involuntarily the latter retreats before her.

"Who shall blame me?" demands Lady Baltimore haughtily.

"I—I for one! Icicle that you are, how can you know what love means? You have no heart to feel, no longing to forgive. And what has he done to you? Nothing—nothing that any other woman would not gladly condone."

"You are a partisan," says Lady Baltimore coldly. "You would plead his cause, and to me! You are violent, but that does not put you in the right. What do you know of Baltimore that I do not know? By what right do you defend him?"

"There is such a thing as friendship!"

"Is there?" says the other with deep meaning. "Is there, Beatrice? Oh! think—think!" A little bitter smile curls the corners of her lips. "That you should advocate the cause of friendship to me," says she, her words falling with cruel scorn one by one slowly from her lips.

"You think me false," says Lady Swansdown. She is terribly agitated. "There was an old friendship between us—I know that—I feel it. You think me altogether false to it?"

"I think of you as little as I can help," says Isabel, contemptuously. "Why should I waste a thought on you?"

"True! Why indeed! One so capable of controlling her emotions as you are need never give way to superfluous or useless thoughts. Still, give one to Baltimore. It is our last conversation together, therefore bear with me—hear me. All his sins lie in the past. He——"

"You must be mad to talk to me like this," interrupts Isabel, flushing crimson. "Has he asked you to intercede for him? Could even he go so far as that? Is it a last insult? What are you to him that you thus adopt his cause. Answer me!" cries she imperiously; all her coldness, her stern determination to suppress herself, seems broken up.

"Nothing!" returns Lady Swansdown, becoming calmer as she notes the other's growing vehemence. "I never shall be anything. I have but one excuse for my interference"—She pauses.

"And that!"

"I love him!" steadily, but faintly. Her eyes have sought the ground.

"Ah!" says Lady Baltimore.

"It is true"—slowly. "It is equally true—that he—does not love me. Let me then speak. All his sins, believe me, lie behind him. That woman, that friend of yours who told you of his renewed acquaintance with Madame Istray, lied to you! There was no truth in what she said!"

"I can quite understand your not wishing to believe in that story," says Lady Baltimore with an undisguised sneer.

"Like all good women, you can take pleasure in inflicting a wound," says Lady Swansdown, controlling herself admirably. "But do not let your detestation of me blind you to the fact that my words contain truth. If you will listen I can——"

"Not a word," says Lady Baltimore, making a movement with her hands as if to efface the other. "I will have none of your confidences."

"It seems to me"—quickly—"you are determined not to believe."

"You are at liberty to think as you will."

"The time may come," says Lady Swansdown, "when you will regret you did not listen to me to-day."

"Is that a threat?"

"No; but I am going. There will be no further opportunity for you to hear me."

"You must pardon me if I say that I am glad of that," says Lady Baltimore, her lips very white. "I Could have borne little more. Do what you will—go where you will—with whom you will" (with deliberate insult), "but at least spare me a repetition of such a scene as this."

She turns, and with an indescribably haughty gesture leaves the room.



CHAPTER XLV.

"The name of the slough was Despond."

Dancing is going on in the small drawing-room. A few night broughams are still arriving, and young girls, accompanied by their brothers only, are making the room look lovely. It is quite an impromptu affair, quite informal. Dicky Browne, altogether in his element, is flitting from flower to flower, saying beautiful nothings to any of the girls who are kind enough or silly enough to waste a moment on so irreclaimable a butterfly.

He is not so entirely engrossed by his pleasing occupations, however, as to be lost to the more serious matters that are going on around him. He is specially struck by the fact that Lady Swansdown, who had been in charming spirits all through the afternoon, and afterward at dinner, is now dancing a great deal with Beauclerk, of all people, and making herself apparently very delightful to him. His own personal belief up to this had been that she detested Beauclerk, and now to see her smiling upon him and favoring him with waltz after waltz upsets Dicky's power of penetration to an almost fatal extent.

"I wonder what the deuce she's up to now," says he to himself, leaning against the wall behind him, and giving voice unconsciously to the thoughts within him.

"Eh?" says somebody at his ear.

He looks round hastily to find Miss Maliphant has come to anchor on his left, and that her eyes, too, are directed on Beauclerk, who with Lady Swansdown is standing at the lower end of the room.

"Eh, to you," says he brilliantly.

"I always rather fancied that Mr. Beauclerk and Lady Swansdown were antipathetic," says Miss Maliphant in her usual heavy, downright way.

"There was room for it," says Mr. Browne gloomily.

"For it?"

"Your fancy."

"Yes, so I think. Lady Swansdown has always seemed to me to be rather—raiher—eh?"

"Decidedly so," agrees Mr. Browne. "And as for Beauclerk, he is quite too dreadfully 'rather,' don't you think?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. He has often seemed to me a little light, but only on the surface."

"You've read him," says Mr. Browne with a confidential nod. "Light on the surface, but deep, deep as a draw well?"

"I don't think I mean what you do," says Miss Maliphant quickly. "However, we are not discussing Mr. Beauclerk, beyond the fact that we wonder to see him so genial with Lady Swansdown. They used to be thoroughly antagonistic, and now—why they seem quite good friends, don't they? Quite thick, eh?" with her usual graceful phraseology.

"Thick as thieves in Vallambrosa," says Mr. Browne with increasing gloom. Miss Maliphant turns to regard him doubtfully.

"Leaves?" suggests she.

"Thieves," persists he immovably.

"Oh! Ah! It's a joke perhaps," says she, the doubt growing. Mr. Browne fixes a stern eye upon her.

"Is thy servant a dog?" says he, and stalks indignantly away, leaving Miss Maliphant in the throes of uncertainty.

"Yet I'm sure it wasn't the right word," says she to herself with a wonderful frown of perplexity. "However, I may be wrong. I often am. And, after all, Spain we're told is full of 'em."

Whether "thieves" or "leaves" she doesn't explain, and presently her mind wanders entirely away from Mr. Browne's maundering to the subject that so much more nearly interests her. Beauclerk has not been quite so empresse in his manner to her to-night—not so altogether delightful. He has, indeed, it seems to her, shirked her society a good deal, and has not been so assiduous about the scribbling of his name upon her card as usual. And then this sudden friendship with Lady Swansdown—what does he mean by that? What does she mean?

If she had only known. If the answer to her latter question had been given to her, her mind would have grown easier, and the idea of Lady Swansdown in the form of a rival would have been laid at rest forever.

As a fact, Lady Swansdown hardly understands herself to-night. That scene with her hostess has upset her mentally and bodily, and created in her a wild desire to get away from herself and from Baltimore at any cost. Some idle freak has induced her to use Beauclerk (who is detestable to her) as a safeguard from both, and he, unsettled in his own mind, and eager to come to conclusions with Joyce and her fortune, has lent himself to the wiles of his whilom foe, and is permiting himself to be charmed by her fascinating, if vagrant, mood.

Perhaps in all her life Lady Swansdown has never looked so lovely as to-night. Excitement and mental disturbance have lent a dangerous brilliancy to her eyes, a touch of color to her cheek. There is something electric about her that touches those who gaze, on her, and warns herself that a crisis is at hand.

Up to this she has been able to elude all Baltimore's attempts at conversation—has refused all his demands for a dance, yet this same knowledge that the night will not go by without a denouement of some kind between her and him is terribly present to her. To-night! The last night she will ever see him, in all human probability! The exaltation that enables her to endure this thought is fraught with such agony that, brave and determined as she is, it is almost too much for her.

Yet she—Isabel—she should learn that that old friendship between them was no fable. To-night it would bear fruit. False, she believed her—well, she should see.

In a way, she clung to Beauclerk as a means of escaping Baltimore—throwing out a thousand wiles to charm him to her side, and succeeding. Three times she had given a smiling "No" to Lord Baltimore's demand for a dance, and, regardless of opinion, had flung herself into a wild and open flirtation with Beauclerk.

But it is growing toward midnight, and her strength is failing her. These people, will they never go, will she never be able to seek her own room, and solitude, and despair without calling down comment on her head, and giving Isabel—that cold woman—the chance of sneering at her weakness?

A sudden sense of the uselessness of it all has taken possession of her; her heart sinks. It is at this moment that Baltimore once more comes up to her.

"This dance?" says he. "It is half way through. You are not engaged, I suppose, as you are sitting down? May I have what remains of it?"

She makes a little gesture of acquiescence, and, rising, places her hand upon his arm.



CHAPTER XLVI.

"O life! thou art a galling load Along a rough, a weary road, To wretches such as I."

The crisis has come, she tells herself, with a rather grim smile. Well, better have it and get it over.

That there had been a violent scene between Baltimore and his wife after dinner had somehow become known to her, and the marks of it still betrayed themselves in the former's frowning brow and sombre eyes.

It had been more of a scene than usual. Lady Baltimore, generally so calm, had for once lost herself, and given way to a passion of indignation that had shaken her to her very heart's core. Though so apparently unmoved and almost insolent in her demeanor toward Lady Swansdown during their interview, she had been, nevertheless, cruelly wounded by it, and could not forgive Baltimore in that he had been its cause.

As for him, he could not forgive her all she had said and looked. With a heart on fire he had sought Lady Swansdown, the one woman whom he knew understood and believed in him. It was a perilous moment, and Beatrice knew it. She knew, too, that angry despair was driving him into her arms, not honest affection. She was strong enough to face this and refused to deceive herself about it.

"I didn't think you and Beauclerk had anything in common," says Baltimore, seating himself beside her on the low lounge that is half hidden from the public gaze by the Indian curtains that fall at each side of it. He had made no pretence of finishing the dance. He had led the way and she had suffered herself to be led into the small anteroom that, half smothered in early spring flowers, lay off the dancing room.

"Ah! you see you have yet much to learn about me," says she, with an attempt at gayety—that fails, however.

"About you? No!" says he, almost defiantly. "Don't tell me I have deceived myself about you, Beatrice; you are all I have left to fall back upon now." His tone is reckless to the last degree.

"A forlorn pis-aller," she says, steadily, with a forced smile. "What is it, Cyril?" looking at him with sudden intentness. "Something has happened. What?"

"The old story," returns he, "and I am sick of it. I have thrown up my hand. I would have been faithful to her, Beatrice. I swear that, but she does not care for my devotion. And as for me, now——" He throws out his arms as if tired to death, and draws in his breath heavily.

"Now?" says she, leaning forward.

"Am I worth your acceptance?" says he, turning sharply to her. "I hardly dare to think it, and yet you have been kind to me, and your own lot is not altogether a happy one, and——"

He pauses.

"Do you hesitate?" asks she very bitterly, although her pale lips are smiling.

"Will you risk it all?" says he, sadly. "Will you come away with me? I feel I have no friend on earth but you. Will you take pity on me? I shall not stay here, whatever happens; I have striven against fate too long—it has overcome me. Another land—a different life—complete forgetfulness——"

"Do you know what you are saying?" asks Lady Swansdown, who has grown deadly white.

"Yes; I have thought it all out. It is for you now to decide. I have sometimes thought I was not entirely indifferent to you, and at all events we are friends in the best sense of the term. If you were a happy married woman, Beatrice, I should not speak to you like this, but as it is—in another land—if you will come with me—we——"

"Think, think!" says she, putting up her hand to stay him from further speech. "All this is said in a moment of angry excitement. You have called me your friend—and truly. I am so far in touch with you that I can see you are very unhappy. You have had—forgive me if I probe you—but you have had some—some words with your wife?"

"Final words! I hope—I think."

"I do not, however. All this will blow over, and—come Cyril, face it! Are you really prepared to deliberately break the last link that holds you to her?"

"There is no link. She has cut herself adrift long since. She will be glad to be rid of me."

"And you—will you be glad to be rid of her?"

"It will be better," says he, shortly.

"And—the boy!"

"Don't let us go into it," says he, a little wildly.

"Oh! but we must—we must," says she. "The boy—you will——?"

"I shall leave him to her. It is all she has. I am nothing to her. I cannot leave her desolate."

"How you consider her!" says she, in a choking voice. She could have burst into tears! "What a heart! and that woman to treat him so—whilst—oh! it is hard—hard!"

"I tell you," says she presently, "that you have not gone into this thing. To-morrow you will regret all that you have now said."

"If you refuse me—yes. It lies in your hands now. Are you going to refuse me?"

"Give me a moment," says she faintly. She has risen to her feet, and is so standing that he cannot watch her. Her whole soul is convulsed. Shall she? Shall she not? The scales are trembling.

That woman's face! How it rises before her now, pale, cold, contemptuous. With what an insolent air she had almost ordered her from her sight. And yet—and yet——

She can remember that disdainful face, kind and tender and loving! A face she had once delighted to dwell upon! And Isabel had been very good to her once—when others had not been kind, and when Swansdown, her natural protector, had been scandalously untrue to his trust. Isabel had loved her then; and now, how was she about to requite her? Was she to let her know her to be false—not only in thought but in reality! Could she live and see that pale face in imagination filled with scorn for the desecrated friendship that once had been a real bond between them?

Oh! A groan that is almost a sob breaks from her. The scale has gone down to one side. It is all over, hope and love and joy. Isabel has won.

She has been leaning against the arm of the lounge, now she once more sinks back upon the seat as though standing is impossible to her.

"Well?" says Baltimore, laying his hand gently upon hers. His touch seems to burn her, she flings his hand from her and shrinks back.

"You have decided," says he quickly. "You will not come with me?"

"Oh! no, no, no!" cries she. "It is impossible!" A little curious laugh breaks from her that is cruelly akin to a cry. "There is too much to remember," says she, suddenly.

"You think you would be wronging her," says Baltimore, reading her correctly. "I have told you you are at fault there. She would bless the chance that swept me out of her life. And as for me, I should have no regrets. You need not fear that."

"Ah, that is what I do fear," says she in a low tone.

"Well, you have decided," says he, after a pause. "After all why should I feel either disappointment or surprise? What is there about me that should tempt any woman to cast in her lot with mine?"

"Much!" says Lady Swansdown, deliberately. "But the one great essential is wanting—you have no love to give. It is all given." She leans toward him and regards him earnestly. "Do you really think you are in love with me? Shall I tell you who you are in love with?" She lets her soft cheek fall into her hand and looks up at him from under her long lashes.

"You can tell me what you will," says he, a little impatiently.

"Listen, then," says she, with a rather broken attempt at gayety, "you are in love with that good, charming, irritating, impossible, but most lovable person in the world—your own wife!"

"Pshaw!" says Baltimore, with an irritated gesture. "We will not discuss her, if you please."

"As you will. To discuss her or leave her name out of it altogether will not, however, alter matters."

"You have quite made up your mind," says he, presently, looking at her searchingly. "You will let me go alone into evil?"

"You will not go," returns she, trying to speak with conviction, but looking very anxious.

"I certainly shall. There is nothing else left for me to do. Life here is intolerable."

"There is one thing," says she, her voice trembling. "You might make it up with her."

"Do you think I haven't tried," says he, with a harsh laugh "I'm tired of making advances. I have done all that man can do. No, I shall not try again. My one regret in leaving England will be that I shall not see you again!"

"Don't!" says she, hoarsely.

"I believe on my soul," says he, hurriedly, "that you do care for me. That it is only because of her that you will not listen to me."

"You are right!" (in a low tone)—"I—" Her voice fails her, she presses her hands together. "I confess," says she, with terrible abandonment, "that I might have listened to you—had I not liked her so well."

"Better than me, apparently," says he, bitterly. "She has had the best of it all through."

"There we are quits, then," says she, quite as bitterly. "Because you like her better than me."

"If so—do you think I would speak to you as I have spoken?"

"Yes. I think that. A man is always more or less of a baby. Years of discretion he seldom reaches. You are angry with your wife, and would be revenged upon her, and your way to revenge yourself is to make a second woman hate you."

"A second?"

"I should probably hate you in six months," says she, with a touch of passion. "I am not sure that I do not hate you now."

Her nerve is fast failing her. If she had a doubt about it before, the certainty now that Baltimore's feeling for her is merely friendship—the desire of a lonely man for some sympathetic companion—anything but love, has entered into her and crushed her. He would devote the rest of his life to her. She is sure of that—but always it would be a life filled with an unavailing regret. A horror of the whole situation has seized upon her. She will never be any more to him than a pleasant memory, while he to her must be an ever-growing pain. Oh! to be able to wrench herself free, to be able to forget him to blot him out of her mind forever.

"A second woman!" repeats he, as if struck by this thought to the exclusion of all others.

"Yes!"

"You think, then," gazing at her, "that she—hates me?"

Lady Swansdown breaks into a low but mirthless laugh. The most poignant anguish rings through it.

"She! she!" cries she, as if unable to control herself, and then stops suddenly placing her hand to her forehead. "Oh, no, she doesn't hate you," she says. "But how you betray yourself! Do you wonder I laugh? Did ever any man so give himself away? You have been declaring to me for months that she hates you, yet when I put it into words, or you think I do, it seems as though some fresh new evil had befallen you. Ah! give up this role of Don Juan, Baltimore. It doesn't suit you."

"I have had no desire to play the part," says he, with a frown.

"No? And yet you ask a woman for whom you scarcely bear a passing affection to run away with you, to defy public opinion for your sake, and so forth. You should advise her to count the world well lost for love—such love as yours! You pour every bit of the old rubbish into one's ears, and yet—" She stops abruptly. A very storm of anger and grief and despair is shaking her to her heart's core.

"Well?" says he, still frowning.

"What have you to offer me in exchange for all you ask me to give? A heart filled with thoughts of another! No more!——"

"If you persist in thinking——"

"Why should I not think it? When I tell you there is danger of my hating you, as your wife might—perhaps—hate you—your first thought is for her! 'You think then that she hates me'?" (She imitates the anxiety of his tone with angry truthfulness.) "Not one word of horror at the thought that I might hate you six months hence."

"Perhaps I did not believe you would," says he, with some embarrassment.

"Ah! That is so like a man! You think, don't you, that you were made to be loved? There, go! Leave me!"

He would have spoken to her again, but she rejects the idea with such bitterness that he is necessarily silent. She has covered her face with her hands. Presently she is alone.



CHAPTER XLVII.

"But there are griefs, ay, griefs as deep; The friendship turned to hate. And deeper still, and deeper still Repentance come too late, too late!"

Joyce, on the whole, had not enjoyed last night's dance at the Court. Barbara had been there, and she had gone home with her and Monkton after it, and on waking this morning a sense of unreality, of dissatisfaction, is all that comes to her. No pleasant flavor is on her mental palate; there is only a vague feeling of failure and a dislike to looking into things—to analyze matters as they stand.

Yet where the failure came in she would have found it difficult to explain even to herself. Everybody, so far as she was concerned, had behaved perfectly; that is, as she, if she had been compelled to say it out loud, would have desired them to behave. Mr. Beauclerk had been polite enough; not too polite; and Lady Baltimore had made a great deal of her, and Barbara had said she looked lovely, and Freddy had said something, oh! absurd of course, and not worth repeating, but still flattering; and those men from the barracks at Clonbree had been a perfect nuisance, they were so pressing with their horrid attentions, and so eager to get a dance. And Mr. Dysart——

Well? That fault could not be laid to his charge, therefore, of course, he was all that could be desired. He was circumspect to the last degree. He had not been pressing with his attentions; he had, indeed, been so kind and nice that he had only asked her for one dance, and during the short quarter of an hour that that took to get through he had been so admirably conducted as to restrain his conversation to the most commonplace, and had not suggested that the conservatory was a capital place to get cool in between the dances.

The comb she was doing her hair with at the time caught in her hair as she came to this point, and she flung it angrily from her, and assured herself that the tears that had suddenly come into her eyes arose from the pain that that hateful instrument of torture had caused her.

Yes, Felix had taken the right course; he had at least learned that she could never be anything to him—could never—forgive him. It showed great dignity in him, great strength of mind. She had told him, at least given him to understand when in London, that he should forget her, and—he had forgotten. He had obeyed her. The comb must have hurt her again, and worse this time, because now the tears are running down her cheeks. How horrible it is to be unforgiving! People who don't forgive never go to heaven. There seems to be some sort of vicious consolation in this thought.