There was another young lady present, of a very different type to Lady Geraldine,—not exactly pretty, but evidently aiming at being chic. Her dress was of the latest fashion, and in a slightly audacious style, likewise the arrangement of her hair. She had a pretty, neat figure, and a way of seeing everything through half-shut eyes. This was Harry's cousin Kate.

Perhaps it would be too much to say he was very fond of this young damsel; but, at any rate, he was delighted to find her there. "She is such a jolly girl in a house!" he said to himself.

Kate, then a finished coquette of ten, used to try her hand at flirting with the big schoolboy; and when she had him in a state of helpless adoration, and all his pocket-money was gone in presents to her, would turn him off in favour of his particular friend, who was spending the holidays at Bromley Towers. The two boys blacked each other's eyes in consequence; but the capricious fair only remarked that "they had made such frights of themselves, the sooner they went back to school the better."

As they grew up the intimacy continued. Kate would make use of him as an escort, and allow him to kiss her as a cousin. She also confided to him her love affairs, which at first made him very angry, but afterwards he sometimes suspected their veracity.

Harry could not help watching her at dinner. He saw the amused face of her neighbour, Colonel Dashwood, and sometimes caught her lively repartees.

Lady Geraldine was rather tame, and not even pretty; it was up hill work talking to her, and he was just in the humour for a chaffing match with cousin Kate. After dinner it was just the same: she was surrounded by men, and Lady Geraldine, the only other girl, sat apart, with rather a plaintive, neglected look.

"Why can't she talk to some of those old women?" thought Harry. But he felt bound to try and amuse her, and, after a little desultory conversation, ingeniously evaded the necessity of boring himself further by asking her to sing. She complied very amiably, and, as he stationed himself near to turn over, saw it was one of Bluebell's songs. Lady Geraldine had been well taught, and sang accurately; but, oh! the contrast of the thin, piping voice and expressionless delivery to the rich tones and almost dramatic fervour with which Bluebell poured forth her "native wood-notes wild"! Then Kate came to the front, followed by a devoted cavalier, who took her gloves and fan, and was forthwith despatched in search of a very particular manuscript book somewhere in the half.

En attendant she rattled off a sparkling French chansonnette with such elan that every man in the room, musical or otherwise, was soon round the piano. Her voice was harsh and wiry; but there was an oddity and originality in her style, while she pronounced the words with a vehement clearness, that drove their meaning home to the dullest ear. Mr. Hornby returned with the manuscript book, fastened by a patent lock, and ornamented with an elaborate monogram.

"I never keep any songs that other people have, so I am obliged to guard my specialites under lock and key,"—and she held out her arm to Colonel Dashwood to unclasp a bracelet, the medallion of which opened on touching a spring, and disclosed a gold key.

Colonel Dashwood retained the wrist while pretending to examine this miracle, and Kate shot one of her dangerous glances out of half-closed eyes.

A personal assault upon Dashwood would have been consonant to Harry's feelings at the moment. He was not yet quite proof against twinges of jealousy about cousin Kate, who was now turning over the leaves of her book with an unconscious air.

"This song Mr. Forsyth brought me from Mexico. Such crabbed copying, only an expert could read it; so I merely scribbled down the words, and made him sing the air till I had caught it. That Charley Dacre got from a boatman at Venice; and this little Troubadour thing" (sentimentally) "was composed by a friend of mine, who has promised never to let any one possess it but myself."

"I hope you bought up the whole edition," put in Harry.

"And here—even you, you dear, unmusical boy, are represented. Do you remember it, Harry?" (playing a few bars.) "The air you were always whistling, and said the sailors sang at watch."

"Yes, that was it," said he, with brightening eyes. "How could you recollect?"

"Well, when you went to sea I got somewhat plaintive and dull; used to hum it about the house, and set down the notes."

"But these are not the right words."

"Oh, no," said Kate, casting down her eyes with modest candour; "they are my own."

Now Harry at the same moment felt almost certain he had seen the lines somewhere before; and, being rather apt to stick to a point, turned it over in his mind, while his cousin poured forth a flood of song like a skylark soaring. Ere she desisted, Dutton had left the room, and discovered the words in an old Annual on a top shelf in the library.



CHAPTER XXXII.

THE SPRING WOODS.

But, Tom, you'll soon find, for I happen to know, That such walks often lead into straying; And the voices of cousins are sometimes so low, Heaven only knows what you'll be saying. And long ere the walk is half over those strings Of your heart are all put into play By the voice of those fair demi-sisterly things, In not quite the most brotherly way. —Hon. Mrs. Norton.

More snow fell that night, and Lord Bromley's gardeners were sweeping the walks from an early hour next morning. Robins lingered about with bright eyes, soliciting crumbs, and shaking off showers of snow as they flew from yew-hedge to holly-bush. Breakfast was over at "The Towers," except for a few late individuals; and Harry Dutton, in a pair of long boots, and, I am afraid, a pipe in his mouth, was taking a quarter-deck walk in front of the ball-room windows. He was thinking pretty hard, and the subject was evidently not pleasing, as it was with a sensation of relief he observed a deft figure crossing the ball-room, in a fur-trimmed cloth costume, remarkably well kilted up over a resolute-looking pair of small boots. She signed to him to open the windows and let her out. Harry made a feint of emptying his pipe, but received gracious permission to "puff away."

"That killing get-up can't be for me," thought he. "I'll give her the tip she wants."

"A certain good-looking Colonel of Hussars has gone to play a match at billiards till luncheon."

"Why that blunt and abrupt observation, a propos to nothing?"

"You must excuse my sea manners. I should have used more circumlocution, but they don't put much polish on us on board."

"No, they don't, and you boast of it, hence that phrase. You never hear a soldier apologizing for his 'army manners'!"

"Speaks well for their modesty! Well, Kate, where are you bound for? You are not rigged up in that way merely to coast about here."

"I meant to walk round the spring woods."

"And as Dashwood has sloped perhaps I may sail in consort. The walks won't be swept, of course, and that dainty scarlet petticoat will look like an old hunting-coat."

But a gardener asserting that the men had been at work since daylight, the cousins departed on their ramble.

A gravel walk a mile round encircled the inner ring of a wood left wild, except where rides were cut, showing vistas into the park beyond. Here and there it was cleared into a rosary, with a summer-house, a Dutch garden with a fountain, a glade with a fish-pond, etc. The trees were magnificent, and many a foreign specimen was represented, while the shimmering tints of grey-green, from their great variety, were of shades innumerable. Sometimes the bordering turf became wider, and flowering shrubs grew each side of the walk,—an intoxicating spot in spring, when the wild flowers carpeted the woods, and the bird artistes, returning from starring in other lands, recommenced their "popular concerts."

Even now, in winter dress, its attractions were but changed. The lichen-covered kings of the forest revealed their bold limbs undisguised by foliage, the feathery birch showed its delicate tracery against the clear winter sky, and Dutton sighed as he gazed on that fair demesne, and thought how hard it would be to give it up.

Kate's thoughts had apparently wandered in the same direction, for she said abruptly,—"What a happy fellow you are, Harry, to be heir to all this!" But she was thinking more of the first-rate style in which it was kept up, and the magnificent, comfortable house, than of its picturesque features.

"There's many a slip," said Harry, moodily, between the whiffs of his pipe. "We all know Uncle Bromley, Kate."

"Do you know," said she, mysteriously, "I hear he actually keeps his eyes, so to speak, on that grand-daughter in Canada. The agent who pays the annuity reports to him."

"The deuce!—you make me quite hot, Kate. Are you inventing just out of chaff?"

"No, honour bright. Mamma was talking about it; and seems he heard rather an unpleasant rumour the other day."

"Come, that's better. What has the young woman been a-doing of?"

"Run away, or something. I overheard mamma telling old Lady Calvert; but they nodded and winked and interjected I couldn't clearly make it out. I was writing a letter at the davenport, and in the glass opposite observed them. I don't generally burden my mind much with the conversation of my elders, but something in the alertness of their attitudes and flutter of their caps made me contemplatively bite my pen and—attend. A breach of confidence on the maternal side, I should surmise, for she declined satisfying my laudable curiosity when I pumped her afterwards, and seemed alarmed at my having heard anything."

"I had no idea," exclaimed Harry, "that he took the slightest interest in that girl; and, hang it all, Kate, she is the rightful heir. Perhaps he looks on her as a second string in case I don't carry out all his arbitrary wishes."

"Yes, I shouldn't recommend your running counter to him gratuitously. To tell you the truth, I thought you rather a lunatic keeping away so long after coming on shore,"—and Kate gazed searchingly into Harry's face, who blushed, and then frowned under the scrutiny.

"Ah!" murmured the fair inquisitor, "then there was something—a woman in the case, of course: there always is."

"I tell you what," cried Dutton, recovering himself, "if you begin supposing improbabilities about me, I'll turn detective on you and Dashwood."

"Sea manners again! and when I was so kind—putting you on your guard. But, never mind, Harry, though I think what I please, I shan't peach if you don't."

"Let us seal the treaty," passing one arm round her waist. "Give me a kiss, Kate—you haven't yet."

"Anything in reason, which sealing treaties in a vista opposite Uncle Bromley's study windows is not."

A few paces rectified that objection; but Dutton relapsed into a brown study, and Kate fell to thinking of Colonel Dashwood; and so they wandered on till the girl spoke again.

"What port have you left your heart in, Harry?"

"My dear, I have none. I left it in your charge when I went to sea, and have never asked for it back again."

"I expect I shall have to return it now, as I think my uncle has some views as to its disposal, and may inquire for it."

"He always has chimeras of that sort. I say, Kate, how perilously plain Geraldine has grown up."

"You discern the finger of Fate there. She has, indeed. I wonder she is not ashamed of herself."

"Speak not thus harshly of a misfortune."

"It's just as much a fault. Do you think I'd submit to be plain? Never. Give me only one good feature, I'd pose up to it, and make it beautify the rest. Large goggle eyes like hers might be thrown up with a heavenly expression—so—(but I am afraid mine are rather earthly). A bad figure even could be rectified. She need not indulge much in the poetry of motion. I am not pretty, but I dare say you never found it out. No, you haven't, so you needn't assume that look of regretful dissent; and I repeat, that any girl so spiritless as to give in to being ugly deserves to be left out in the cold."

"That, my dear, you can never be. You carry brimstone enough to set every one in flames about you. But to return to our—sheep. Don't say, Kate, I am expected to range alongside such a figure-head as that!"

"She will have a very valuable consignment of—timber, however, when she comes into Forest Hill."

"Which adjoins 'The Towers!' The Avuncular will be death on it! What an unfortunate idea to take up!"

"Can't you do it?" asked the girl, looking askance.

"I don't want to offend his Lordship. I'd ride for a fall. Any chance of a refusal, Kate?"

"That wouldn't satisfy him. He thinks a man ought never to be beat; and that

'It isn't so much the gallant who woos As the gallant's way of wooing.'

But I do hope, Harry, you won't have to marry Geraldine. Fancy her mistress of 'The Towers!'—no go!—no fun! and she would collect the stupidest people in the county."

"What a brilliant little chatelaine some one else would make!" quoth wicked Harry.

A glance—one of Kate's own—which few men could stand and feel perfectly cool. With all her flirtations,—and at present she was most in love with Colonel Dashwood,—she never forgot that if bereaved of their uncle by an opportune fit of the gout, few better matches could fall in her way than cousin Harry; so that a little quiet love-making with him was a useful investment in view of such a contingency; though, of course, she could not wait, if this dear uncle, as, indeed, was sadly probable, lived on indefinitely with Harry's future still unassured.

Dutton blushed a little under Kate's gaze, which affixed a serious meaning to his insincere words; but his eyes returned the challenge in hers, though the girl saw in an instant that the expression was not spontaneous, and Harry felt equally sure that the passion latent in his cousin's was more for "The Towers" than himself; and then he laughed inwardly as he thought how different it would be if she knew he was married.

Several days passed, and the object of Harry's visit was still unfulfilled. Indeed, a good opportunity for the disclosure seemed more remote than ever. Kate monopolized all the men in the house, and, being at home, Dutton, in common decency, could not suffer Lady Geraldine to be neglected. There were only those two girls staying at "The Towers." Others sometimes came to dinner with their parents, and an impromptu dance was often got up. Geraldine had begun to listen for Harry's step, seat herself near a vacant chair, and thrill with delight when he took it. No man dislikes such unconscious flattery, and Dutton, ill at ease in mind, felt himself soothed by her kindness.

On these occasions, Lord Bromley appeared bland and agreeable, Lady Calvert voluble and unobserving, and there was a sense of bien-etre over every one, Kate, perhaps, excepted.

Dutton had received one letter from his wife. He had had a five mile-walk to get it from the post town he had bidden her address to, and opened it with a strange mixture of curiosity and yearning. It was a very bright letter, made no complaints of loneliness, and was rather divertingly written, considering the limited topics at her command; and yet Harry crunched it up in his hand with a sensation of half anger and whole disappointment. It was their first separation,—they had not been married seven weeks,—and there was scarcely an expression of affection in it!

He felt like a schoolboy who has coveted and caught some pretty wild animal for a pet, yet cannot succeed in making it fond of him.

He laughed rather bitterly as he retraced his steps. It was scarcely worth the cold, companionless walk, or the pains he had taken to evade the rest.

Why should he risk offending his uncle to please her? If that, indeed, were all, he did not know that he should. But new considerations came in. We were on the eve of drifting into the Crimean War; the papers were getting more and more threatening; and, in the event of hostilities being declared, he had applied for a ship on active service.

Could he, then, when he might never return, leave Bluebell with their marriage unacknowledged? "Though," thought he, in his moody reverie, "if that were all right, I don't believe she would care a pin if I were knocked over by a round shot."

Some curiosity and a good deal of chaff greeted Dutton on his return; but Kate did not fail to remark how little he entered into, and how quickly turned it off. That cousin Harry had some mystery of his own, the astute damsel was pretty well convinced, though to the rest he appeared light-hearted and hilarious, and enjoying to the full his enviable position.

"What a lucky young fellow that is?" had been remarked at different times by nearly every guest in the house. And the days slipped by, Harry very much "made of" by Lady Calvert, while Lady Geraldine's preference was of an unobtrusive and reticent nature—impalpable, yet grateful to the senses as the fragrance of an invisible, leaf-hidden violet.

And Bluebell, all alone in her retreat, and each day passing without tidings, began to think she had over-estimated Harry's once troublesome adoration, and almost to doubt if he would ever return.

In truth, he was ashamed to write. The longer the confession was deferred, the harder it became; and he had now assigned himself a date. On receiving sailing orders to the Baltic, he would tell all, and make it, perhaps, a last request to his uncle to acknowledge his wife. In the mean time why plague himself about it? Things must take their course.

They were sitting one day in a pretty breakfast-room. Kate rather angry with her Colonel, who lingered on, always apparently at boiling point, yet never so far bubbling over as to commit himself in words. Harry, too, was looking actually interested in Geraldine, whose large, honest eyes were beaming with a sort of tender happiness. Lord Bromley was not in the room. Clearly he must be detached.

"Doesn't this dear old room remind you of childish days?" cried the artless damsel. "It used always to be summer or Christmas then; and we had tea here in such beautiful china, so different from the horrid school-room crockery."

"And sometimes we were so long over it, they couldn't clear away before the company passed through to dinner, and we got under the table to watch them," said Harry.

"And we used to put out the little sofas and jump over them, King Charles's beauties looking down on us from the wall so grand and gracious. And there was always mignonette and nemophila in window-boxes, so sweet in the evening air? And the honey? Oh, Harry, do you remember the honey?"

Her reminiscences succeeded in breaking up the tete-a-tete, and, lo! the wicked little dominant spirit who pulled the wires had indirectly influenced every one in the room. Harry, mesmerized by eye artillery, had dropped into confidential converse with Kate; Geraldine was suffering a serrement de coeur at being so lightly left; and the Colonel, his occupation gone, was reduced to twisting those tried friends in perplexity—his pendulous whiskers and moustache.

"How silly a hairy man looks drinking tea," Kate had whispered; "like a thirsty rat dipping its whiskers and tail in!"

A rather pleased expression pervaded Harry's countenance, which was as smooth as a billiard-ball. His cousin soon had him beautifully in hand, and then extorted a promise to do the thing he hated most, i.e., to escort her out hunting the following Friday. She hadn't the smallest intention of remaining with him after they found. Then she would ride with her Colonel, who acquitted himself more creditably in a hunting-field; but, as she was not allowed to start with him alone, it was necessary to impress Harry into her service.

"That's all settled," cried she, rising. "Remember, honour bright! And now go and talk to dear Geraldine, who looks as if she were going to cry." For Kate had heard Lord Bromley's step in the passage. He came in with Mr. Hobart, who had just returned from London. "Have you heard the news?" said the latter; "war is declared; the army, Guards and all, are ordered to the East, and the fleet is to go to the Baltic."

How these few words went straight to their mark, contrasting with the frivolities that had amused them all day! It had come at last. Chances of distinction, redemption from stagnation, the much-coveted active service. They were all brave men in that house—soldiers or sailors, most of them; but the "bitter sweet first shock" and rush of new ideas kept them, at first, rather pale and silent.

After dinner though, when the wine had circulated and the first strangeness worn off, chaff and jest flew lightly about, for a general excitement pervaded the whole party.

"Shall you order those new clothes now Dashwood, you had so many patterns for this morning?"

"No! they would be out of fashion, perhaps, when we return. I was just going to order a new tunic, too! That sinful extravagance may be cut off."

Harry, who, perhaps, had most cause for anxious thoughts, was foremost in the fun. If his spirits were forced, that was his own affair; and, to avoid Kate's over-keen eyes, he (the last thing he ought to have done) devoted himself the whole evening to the more restful society of Geraldine.

Pre-occupied as he was, he began to be sensible of a change in her manner—she seemed struggling with some indefinable agitation; her voice shook, and sounded strange when she spoke.

And when he laughingly hoped "he should be covered with medals next time they met," uncoquettish Lady Geraldine looked a moment in his face with a glance he could not misunderstand, while a large, unavoidable tear fell on her hand. To capture and press it tenderly was but obeying a remorseful impulse. Geraldine immediately became composed, and her sensitive face brightened. The embarrassment that had left her seemed to have passed into Harry, who felt the greatest relief when a flutter of skirts and general rising betokened that the ladies were about to retire.

But the little incident had forced resolution on Dutton's vacillating mind. "That settles it," he soliloquised. "She is far too nice to be deceived. I know Kate won't let me off to-morrow, but I will have it out with my uncle directly I come back, and go to London by the 8.30."



CHAPTER XXXIII.

LORD BROMLEY INTERVIEWS DUTTON.

Ere long a challenge and a cheer Came floating down the wind; 'Twas Mermaid's note, and the huntsman's voice We knew it was a find. The dull air woke us from a trance As sixty hounds joined chorus, And away we went, with a stout dog fox Not a furlong's length before us. —Lawrence.

Nearly every one was going by a late train the following day, intending to hunt in the morning; for it was a favourite meet in some of the best country of ——shire. Kate was the only fair equestrian, and Harry was to escort her.

There was one old hunter in the stables who loyally carried the young man without taking advantage of his maladroitness. Kate always insisted, when he accompanied her, on his being committed—I may say to the care of this faithful equine, who knew its business far better than its rider, and, if it did not lead him to glory, at least avoided disgrace.

Whatever she might have felt about the approaching departure of Colonel Dashwood certainly did not appear, for Kate was in glorious spirits,—her pretty figure, always well on horseback, set off still more by the elastic action of her beautiful dark chestnut.

Where is the thorough-bred without "opinions?"—and when of that excitable colour, you may generally reckon on a handful! "Childe Harold" was vexed at galloping on a different strip of turf to his companions, and delivered himself of seven buck-jumps successively. Kate, quite at her ease, was repressing his efforts to get his head down, with the same smile on her face that some absurdity of Harry's had provoked; but just as she began to tire a bit, and fancy her hat was loosening, "Childe Harold," who might then, perhaps, have had one conquering buck, as suddenly gave it up, in the fatuous way a horse will, when he is nearest success, if he only knew it.

"Two or three of those would have settled me," said Harry, good-humouredly coming to her side. "What an ass a fellow looks who can't ride!"

"Well, I will say for you you don't funk," said Kate consolingly; "and I suppose all sailors ride like monkeys.—There are the hounds going on; we are only just in time."

Coquettish Kate was soon surrounded. If she rode fair and didn't cross men at their fences, still less did she want assistance at any practicable leap. "Childe Harold," too, was indifferent to a lead; so, beholden to none, she rode her own line, and, with her merry smile and gay tongue, with the whole field, from the gallant master to the hard-riding farmer, there were few greater favourites than Harry's cousin Kate.

The universal theme at the cover-side was, of course, the declaration of war; but even that absorbing subject sunk to silence as the first low whimper, taken up more confidently by hound after hound, proclaimed that poor Reynard was being bustled through the underwood.

A relieved smile played over the features of the owner of the cover, and "Always a fox in Beechwood" came approvingly from the master's lips as he crashed out of the spinny. Kate's gauntleted hand was held up warningly, for the "Childe" was apt to let out one hind leg in excitement. Then there was a screech from an urchin in a tree, and they were away with a straight running fox pointing to Redbank Bushes, eight miles off as the crow flies.

Not much of the run was Harry Dutton destined to see that day; his presumed mission was to stick on and follow Kate, who thought no more about him once they were away. He had flopped over the first fence without a mistake; but coming on a bit of road the old horse faltered, a few yards more he was dead lame. Harry jumped off, and found a shoe gone. Dashwood had a spare one he remembered, and there was a blacksmith, not half a mile distant. He looked round—no sign of him of course; he was sailing away with a good start, fields ahead, in that contented ecstasy that stops not for friend or foe. There was nothing for it but to plod on to the forge, trusting to nick in later in the day. As the shoe had to be made, delay was inevitable. Dutton lit a cigar to while away the term of durance, and was disconsolately looking out at the door of the smithy, when he observed one of the Bromley grooms trotting smartly down the road.

He hailed the man, who touched his hat with alacrity. "I was riding to find you, sir; his Lordship has sent your letters."

The train was late, and the post had not arrived before they had been obliged to start that morning. He tore open a large blue official envelope, "On Her Majesty's Service," and read his appointment to H.M.S. "Druid," one of the Baltic fleet.

Harry stood intent a minute, with compressed lips, then signed to the groom to give him his horse.

"I have got letters for Colonel Dashwood and Mr. Hobart, too, sir."

"Well, 'Figaro' will be shod in five minutes. But you won't catch them this side of the Bushes; they were going straight for them half an hour ago."

And he galloped away with his loose sailor seat in the direction of "The Towers." The hour had come. That letter was the self-imposed signal for the acknowledgment of his marriage, and, perhaps, extinction of all hope of inheritance. One watchful figure at the library window perceived his red coat winding through the trees on his way to the stables. Lady Geraldine had caught sight of the blue envelope, and, with the prescience of love, had divined the whole. She had not wandered far from the window that morning, being too restless and miserable for anything else. Now, as she perceived him, her heart stood still. He must be going that very day.

"Well, she would see him once more, at any rate. Adieux must be spoken, and, after last night, surely something more, something to dwell on when they were apart." The carriage was rolling up to the door for the daily drive. Lady Calvert and Kate's mother came down well muffled up. "Geraldine, my dear, are you not ready! Oh, you had much better come, or you will be left alone in the house."

Geraldine, hitherto all transparent candour, shook her head dissentingly. "Oh, no, thank you; much too cold. I am going for a walk presently."

She forbore to inflame the maternal curiosity by mentioning Dutton's return, and the elder ladies drove off on a shopping expedition to the market town.

Harry, in the meanwhile, had entered the dining-room, and, eliciting from a footman that his uncle was in, poured out something from a decanter on the side table, and, without waiting to refresh himself further, went down the passage leading to Lord Bromley's sanctum.

"'The lion in his den, the Douglas in his hall,'" muttered he to himself. "I shall be a man or a mouse when I come out."

We need not go through the whole interview of the uncle and nephew. The latter's appointment was, of course, the first subject of discussion; and never had Harry known Lord Bromley show more cordiality and warmth of manner. He himself was becoming confused and tongue-tied with the importance of the confession at hand.

"I think of going to London this afternoon," said Dutton, still fencing. "There's a few things to arrange, as I am to join on Monday."

Lord Bromley coughed, poked the fire, and then observed,—"That brings me to a subject that I wish to explain to you. I have brought you up in the expectation of succeeding me at 'The Towers,' and, naturally, I expect you to make a suitable marriage,—as well you may with such prospects before you. I have noticed with great pleasure that your inclinations seem to have forestalled my wishes. The young lady, too, does not appear averse. But before you go, if you would like to explain yourself to her—in short, bring it to an engagement, you would have my most cordial approbation—in fact, I think it's the best thing you could do."

Harry grew a shade paler as the opportunity he wanted appeared.

"I am very sorry, sir," said he, shortly, "but I can never marry Lady Geraldine."

"Why, the devil not?"

"Because," faltered he, "I have a prior attachment. Indeed, am bound—"

"Prior attachment! d—d stuff!" cried the angry peer. "Whom have you seen, I should like to know, except some garrison hack at the ports you have stopped at! By ——, it is not Kate, I hope?"

Dutton shook his head. He would have been amused at any other moment.

"No, much worse, no doubt. Listen, Harry. It is bad enough your having made a fool of that very nice girl; but, if ever you wish to be master of this house, the sooner you get rid of all disgraceful entanglements, the better."

Dutton's good angel battled hard with the tempter, but the latter held him silent.

Lord Bromley spoke again, but his voice, though stern, was broken.

"I disinherited my only son for a marriage that displeased me, by which you have benefited. He died unreconciled to me. You may judge what quarter you would get in a similar offence!"

The old peer's face had turned to granite. A variety of expressions shifted across Harry's while his uncle continued,—"Yes, you had better go to town, as you have raised expectations here you seem to have no intention of fulfilling—at present," and he rose from his chair and held out his hand to his nephew. "Good-bye, Harry. You have something else to think of now; and when you return I hope you will have more sense."

It was not manly—it was not heroic—but with the wisdom of the children of this world, Dutton passed from his uncle's presence with his secret still unrevealed.

The watcher at the library window saw another carriage drive round. This time it was a double dog-cart, and two or three leather portmanteaus were being disposed on it at a side door.

Already! Geraldine grew nervous. He might come in at any moment, or perhaps would not know any of the ladies had remained at home.

"Still, he could ask," whispered her heart. She had not long to remain in suspense. Harry came out, jumped into the dog-cart, and gathered up the reins; then he looked up and saw Geraldine's stricken face. He blushed hotly as he took off his hat, and shot one sorrowful glance from his eyes ere he drove off, at headlong speed, to the station.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

HARRY GOES TO THE BALTIC.

Is this my lord of Leicester's love, That he so oft have swore to me? To leave me in this lonely grove? Immured in shameful privity? —Unknown.

Bluebell, a lonely little recluse at the cottage, seemed to have passed a lifetime there, so long were the uneventful days. She was not exactly unhappy, being too young and healthy to be a prey to low spirits. Still, her life could hardly be called satisfactory. In the first days of their marriage she would exclaim in her heart. "Oh, to be sometimes alone;" then, with the suddenness of a transformation-scence, her wish had been but too abundantly accomplished.

It was weeks since she had heard from Dutton, whose first letter had never been repeated, and she begun to believe that the headlong passion that had led him to force her, almost against her will, into marriage with him was as short-lived as it had been quickly kindled.

She remembered Bertie Du Meresq, who had appeared quite as desperate at first, and then had quietly transferred his affections to Cecil. Like the Psalmist, she could have "said in her heart, all men are liars."

Harry near—adoring—exigeant, could be an evil; but Harry away, engaged every thought; and if thinking of a person is the first step to love, he ought to have been satisfied with the way Bluebell was employing herself.

One evening she was sitting in her bed-room with the window open. There was a light breath of spring in the air though the nights were frosty. It was near midnight, and starlight, which has ever attractions for the young; later on, a warm fireside and creature comforts are more congenial. Archie, the dog, with his nose on his paws, bore her company; presently he gave a low growl, and pricked his ears—a moment after, Bluebell fancied she could hear the sound of wheels on the frosty ground. It became clearer and clearer; presently she could distinguish the red lights of a fly, and then she knew that Harry was come.

That his mission had been unsuccessful, she read at once in avoidance of her questioning eyes, yet, strange to say, it seemed of secondary importance. Dutton himself, for the first time, was of all-absorbing interest to Bluebell. His presence seemed to break the lethargic spell that had bound her, while no small detail of appearance and dress escaped her, even that his hair was parted differently. Dutton, who had dreaded the first meeting, was relieved by Bluebell's manner, and saw at once they were more en rapport. He was only too willing to procrastinate bad tidings, so it was not till the next day that she realized the whole fatal truth. Harry was going to the war with their marriage still unacknowledged.

He related, truthfully enough, his conversation with Lord Bromley. Even then, in her deep interest as to its result, Bluebell vaguely noticed the curious coincidence of his uncle also having disinherited a son, but, having a more dominant idea in her mind, that was left in a vacant corner, to crop up at some future time.

Dutton was vexed that she could not see he had no other alternative but silence.

"It would have been simply giving away 'The Towers' to have blurted it all out then."

To Bluebell's unsophisticated mind, honesty seemed more importunate than expediency.

"Then, if you do get 'The Towers' now, it will be on false pretences."

Harry reddened. He had all along been goaded by a vague sense of dishonour. "It's useless crying over spilt milk," exclaimed he, impatiently. "Now would have been the very worst time—just as he wants me to marry some one else. But when I come back—"

"Then he may be dead."

"By Jove! I think he has quite as good a chance of surviving me—not a shade of odds either way. Look here, Bluebell, I will write a letter containing a full confession, enclose our marriage certificate, and seal it with this ring he gave me. If anything happens, send it to him, and I believe he will take care of you, but not while I am alive."

"Send it to him at once, Harry."

"You used not to be so indifferent to poverty, Bluebell. You told me, in the steamer, that you had a longing for luxury and riches."

"Luxury and riches," echoed Bluebell, "seem as improbable as ever. I should like to be able to look my friends in the face."

But it was all in vain. Dutton, though remorseful, was obdurate; there was much to arrange, and he had only twenty-four hours to remain. Lord Bromley had omitted the accustomed parting cheque, which Harry had reckoned on, and money was scarce with the two young people.

"Will you go back to Canada, Bluebell, till the war is over, and I will send you all the money I can?"

"What, as Miss Leigh?"

And he could say no more. The same difficulty prevented her writing to the Rollestons, or any one else. Long and anxiously they talked over their dilemma; Dutton had only money enough to pay his bill at the cottage, and Bluebell was resolute to earn something for herself.

She answered an advertisement in the Times he had brought with him, naming, as reference, the mother of Evelyn Leighton. To her she also wrote, begging that any applicant might have the recommendation she had received of her from Mrs. Rolleston.

Dutton had gone, but expected to be able to return for a day or two before the fleet sailed, and Bluebell was left alone with her thoughts—too full of horrors for solitude to be endurable. Each night she dreamed of Harry, dying, and mangled by shot or shell, only to renew the vision in her waking hours; and, as she pictured such a termination to their brief married life, a vague tenderness took the place of her former apathy. The very weakness he had shown in concealing their marriage made him more a reality to her by giving her an insight into his nature—not an endearing trait, perhaps; yet sometimes the failing that one tries to counteract in the very effort it arouses awakens an interest.

Bluebell felt thankful that her hours at the cottage were numbered, for lately she had begun to fancy people looked askance at her, and the carpenter's wife had developed an inquisitiveness akin to impertinence.

Mrs. Leighton sent a very kind answer, assuring her of the recommendation as she had received it from Mrs. Rolleston. It was addressed to "Miss Leigh," and a crimson flush rose to her temples at the unpleasant smile with which the postmistress handed it across the counter. Harry, when he wrote, having posted it himself, ventured to address his letter to "Mrs. Dutton"; the only other she had received was from her mother, directed, as requested, to B. D. This letter had been rather distressing—filled with vague fears, inspired, she was sure, by Miss Opie, and conjuring her, with promises of inviolable secrecy, to reveal her name.

The lady whose advertisement she had answered, apparently attracted by her musical professions, replied immediately, and, the reference to Mrs. Leighton being satisfactory, she was shortly engaged at a fair salary.

Then Bluebell, writing the account to Canada, could not refrain from slipping in a private scrap to her mother, on which, in the strictest confidence, she acknowledged her wedded name. This circumstance, however, she did not mention to Harry when he returned on two days' leave, knowing he would be sceptical as to Mrs. Leigh's power of secrecy.

Of course he was relieved that she had an asylum provided, and equally, of course, raged inwardly at his wife's having to support herself in her maiden name. He was the more remorseful as Bluebell made no further allusion to it, and seemed more occupied with making the most of his last days.

But he only called himself a confounded rascal, and trusted things would come right in the end.

Bluebell was to remain one more night at the cottage after her husband left. Her wardrobe, though slender, was new, as it consisted of what Harry had bought at Liverpool. None of it was marked, as she remembered with satisfaction; so there was nothing to betray her but her wedding-ring. She removed and suspended it round her neck on a piece of ribbon. The miniature of Theodore Leigh, which had not been forgotten the day she eloped, was also carefully secreted in a trunk.

The bill was paid, the fly at the door. One tender parting only remained; this was with Archie, who had sprung into it after her, for he and Bluebell had become inseparable. They could scarcely drag him away, and she buried her face a minute in his rough coat with almost equal regret.

"Would you like to keep him, ma'am?" said the carpenter's wife.

"I cannot now, but when Mr. Dutton comes back, and we are settled, will you let me have him?"

"Ah, well," said the woman, half disappointed, for she did not care for Archie, "ye'll have forgotten all about it by then."



CHAPTER XXXV.

A DISCOVERY.

There woman's voice flows forth in song, Or childhood's tale is told; Or lips move tunefully along Some glorious page of old. —Hemans.

Bluebell was settled in her new abode, about fifteen miles from London: and certainly few governesses have the luck to drop into a more sunshiny home. Only two little girls, pleasantly disposed; no banishment to the school-room. They all mingled sociably together after lessons were over,—walked, drove in an Irish car, or played croquet and gardened as the spring advanced.

Mr. Markham was a barrister in London, and came down to dinner most days—not always, though; and his wife, still a young woman, was glad enough to find a companion in Bluebell. Beauty, too, unless it excites jealousy, is agreeable to look at, and she soon became interested in the young Canadian. But after a while she was puzzled by her. There was a far-off, touching look in her eyes that had come there since marriage, and she was reserved about herself, though the stiffness of first acquaintance had long ago given way to affectionate intimacy. For a girl apparently so frank to be at the same time so guarded suggested something to be concealed. Mrs. Markham, being a woman, could not refrain from speculating about it. She had elicited many lively descriptions of Bluebell's life in Canada, and the children were never weary of sleighing and toboggining stories. But these were general subjects; her narratives were never personal ones.

"By-the-bye," observed Mrs. Markham, one day, "how strange it was that poor child, Evelyn Leighton, dying just as you were going there! Her mother told me of it when she enclosed Mrs. Rolleston's letter. But you arrived in October, I think. Where were you those few months?"

"I was staying with a friend," replied Bluebell; but her hand shook and she became crimson.

Mrs. Markham did not fail to note this, and suspected that during that friendly visit some love passages might have arisen. "She seems very sensitive about it," thought the kind lady. "I will get her to tell me some day. It is such a shame ignoring that sort of thing with governesses, just as if it were a crime! And if there is really anything, he might come and see her here sometimes."

But Bluebell remained nervous and out of spirits the rest of that day.

One morning they were sitting together in the pleasant drawing-room; the children had a holiday, and were playing with their dogs out of doors; Mrs. Markham was colouring a design for her flower-beds, and lamenting the non-arrival of some seeds the postman was to have brought. "The year is getting on," murmured the aggrieved lady; "they really ought to be sown, and it is such a lovely day for gardening."

"Let me go to Barton and fetch them," cried Bluebell, who was always ready for a walk. "I shall be there and back before luncheon."

"Would you really?" said Mrs. Markham. "But it looks so hot! Are you sure you don't mind?" And declaring it was the thing of all others she should enjoy, Bluebell set off.

It was one of those glorious, sultry days that sometimes occur early in the year, when summer seems actually to have arrived for the season—a delusion invariably dispelled by the biting blasts of the blackthorn winter. Lovely as it appeared it was a very oppressive day for a long walk; the white, glaring road seemed endless, and she half repented her offer.

Bluebell was scarcely so strong as she had been, and, having to hurry a good deal to be back in time for luncheon, was quite pale and exhausted on re-entering the drawing-room, prize in hand.

The second post was on the table, and the girl stopped short in the midst of a message from the seedsman, for a deep black-edged envelope, addressed to herself, caught her eye. Mrs. Markham observed her with furtive anxiety. It is terrible to watch the opening of a letter evidently containing sad tidings, yet she was hardly prepared to see Bluebell, after perusing it drop prone on the ground as though she were shot, her forehead striking against the table in the fall. Ringing the bell, Mrs. Markham flew to her assistance, and, unfastening the collar of her dress, something was disclosed to view which gave that lady a second sensational shock, more thrilling than the first. Hurriedly she closed the dress again, despatching for water a sympathetic servant who had just entered, then swiftly, dexterously, possessed herself of a ribbon encircling the girl's throat, on which hung a wedding-ring.

Bluebell recovered only to fall from one fainting fit into another. Her strength had been exhausted by the walk, and she had none to bear up against the shock that awaited her. The letter was from Miss Opie, announcing Mrs. Leigh's sudden death, after a few hours' illness. Inside, and unopened, was returned Bluebell's private enclosure revealing her married name.

A year ago this child had been innocent of the existence of nerves, but, from the trying scenes she had lately gone through, they were now so shattered that she was unable to rally. The doctor kept her in bed at first, recommended absolute quiet, and exhausted his formula with as beneficial a result as could be expected considering it attacked the secondary cause only, and was impotent to heal the suffering mind reacting upon the body. Bluebell continued in a torpid condition, scarcely giving any signs of life. One day, Mrs. Markham, who nursed her with unremitting zeal, quickened, perhaps, by the interest of her discovery, observed the patient's hand steal to her neck, and then she glanced uneasily about, as if seeking for something.

They were alone, so Mrs. Markham whispered in a low, cautious tone, "I have it quite safe, locked up in my desk. No one knows of it but myself." An apprehensive look dilated the large, sad eyes, succeeded by an expression of contented resignation. She did not perceptibly improve, her mind was incessantly trying to realize what had happened, and was haunted by a morbid conviction that the anxiety induced by her own strange marriage might have precipitated the sad event, for Miss Opie's letter did not soften the fact that Mrs. Leigh had fretted greatly about it. Still she expressly said that she had succumbed to an epidemic that had already gleaned many victims.

It was, after all, many days before Mrs. Markham remembered the seeds she had been so anxious to obtain, but one favourable afternoon, she set diligently to work to lay the foundation for summer flowers. Though the "even tenour" of her life did not afford much scope for its indulgence, this lady was not devoid of a certain spice of romance. She was also of an independent character, and in the habit of judging for herself on most matters, and had decided not to betray Bluebell's secret to her spouse.

"Men are prejudiced and unpracticable on some points," she soliloquized, "and though I am quite satisfied that the poor girl is married, he may choose to doubt it, or think we had better get out of her. Her illness was entirely occasioned by the shock, so there really is no necessity to explain my little accidental discovery."

But the plot was thickening, for that morning there arrived a letter from Mrs. Leighton written in great perturbation, to the effect that she had heard some very uncomfortable reports about Miss Leigh. Her information was derived from the captain's wife at Liverpool, to whom she had written on Bluebell's obtaining a situation, supposing that, as they had shown her so much kindness, they would feel interested in the fact. But she had received in return a most extraordinary letter from Mrs. Davidson, stating that Miss Leigh had eloped from their house, leaving only a letter containing an improbable story about going to be married, without even mentioning to whom. Her husband, to be sure, had his suspicions as to the lover, but the name had escaped her memory, and Captain Davidson was at sea.

Now Mrs. Markham began to feel her innocent complicity becoming a little embarrassing. It was rather awkward keeping a suspected person about the children. Her husband would be in fits if he knew it, but, however imprudent of Bluebell to elope, she still saw no reason to doubt the marriage. Had she not the wedding-ring in proof of it?

So as she worked and planted, unavoidably decimating a worm here and turning up an ants nest there, she conned it all over.

"The child must really tell me her secrets, or I can do nothing. I will get her out for a drive; sitting alone in one room, as that demented old Chivers prescribes, is the worst thing for a nervous complaint."

So the next fine morning she ordered the car, and, going to the governess's room, asked her, in a matter-of-course manner, to put on her hat and come out.

Bluebell had just received a visit from the local practitioner, who had reiterated his assurances that "we wanted tone, and had better adhere to the iron mixture; that we must not exert ourselves, and must be sure to lie down a great deal," etc.; but she assented to Mrs. Markham's proposal with the same indifference with which she had listened to Esculapius.

They drove on for some distance through a straggling village, with its ivied church guarded by sentinel cypresses, children were playing about with hands full of cowslips, and lilac bushes blossomed within cottage palings. A little beyond they turned into Sir Thomas Farquhar's park, where young rooks were cawing, unwitting of their predestined pastried tomb. On entering a long, shady avenue, Mrs. Markham pulled the horse up to a walk, and said quietly,—"When were you married, Miss Leigh?"

Perhaps this question had not been unexpected since the little episode of the ring, for, with equal calmness, Bluebell replied,—"The last week in November, at Liverpool."

Mrs. Markham felt a triumphant thrill. She would now hear the solution of the mystery that had been exercising her imaginative powers for some weeks. She poured forth question after question. Yet, at the end of half-an-hour, not only had she failed to extort Dutton's name, but had even entangled herself in a promise of inviolable silence as to the only admitted fact.

She had insisted, threatened, got angry; Bluebell sorrowfully offered to go, but remained firm.

"Well, keep your secret, then," cried Mrs. Markham, at last, abandoning the contest; "but I shall find it out if I can. And I must take care that Walter doesn't," thought she, with a mischievous chuckle, for that gentleman, many years older than his wife, was a servile worshipper of Mrs. Grundy, and his hair would have stood on end had he known that he was harbouring a young lady with such suspicious antecedents. Besides her personal liking for Bluebell, Mrs. Markham recollected that if dismissed at this juncture she could scarcely recommend her to any other situation, and then what would become of the poor thing? But what puzzled her most was the total disappearance of the husband to whom she had been so very lately married.

A clue to this, however, she believed herself to have obtained on observing that Bluebell never failed to study the daily papers with an avidity unusual at her age.

"He must be in the army and gone to the Crimea," thought she. "Poor thing! how dreadful! Some day she will see him in the list of killed and wounded."

Some little time after, Bluebell, who had in a great measure recovered her strength, came to her room, and said, with frank, open eyes,—"May I go to Barton and post a letter to my husband?"

A very warm assent drew forth the heartfelt exclamation,—"How I wish I could tell you all, my dear Mrs. Markham."

Without that information, it was not so easy to answer Mrs. Leighton's letter, which she did eventually in very guarded terms, stating that she had proof of the marriage having taken place, but could say no more, except that, "being much pleased with Miss Leigh, she intended to keep her, especially as the children were very much under her own eye, and seldom alone with their governess."

Mr. Markham was generally the first down, and was rather addicted to a curious inspection of the post-mark on the family correspondence, neatly placed by each recipient's plate.

His wife one morning found him standing over a large ship letter directed to the governess, with somewhat the expression of distrustful pugnacity with which a dog walks round a hedgehog.

"Is that for Miss Leigh?" said she, carelessly.

"Yes," with much solemnity. "Apparently she has a correspondent in the Navy. It is not a sort of thing I like, and I must say I have often thought Miss Leigh too young and flighty for me."

"Oh, I believe she is engaged, poor girl!" said Mrs. Markham, slipping out a white one. "And she gets the children on beautifully. You thought Emma already so improved in playing."

"Well if you know all about it, that's another thing. I trust she doesn't put nonsense in the children's heads. Emma is getting very forward and inquisitive."

His wife felt secretly excited, for she was sure this letter must be from the errant husband, especially as the governess would not read it in public, but pocketed it with a slight nervousness of manner.

Time passed on, and Mrs. Markham had discovered nothing.

Bluebell, in her diligent revision of the papers, found much of personal interest. Colonel Rolleston's regiment had been ordered home to proceed to the Crimea, and she well knew the anxiety his family must be enduring.

It seemed cold and ungrateful to be unable to write one word of sympathy to Mrs. Rolleston, but any renewal of intercourse must lead to explanations, and it was her cruel fate to be able to give none. One other name, too, she saw in the public print that ought no longer to have had the power to thrill her as it did. Well, it was not so long ago, after all: but, however mentally disquieted we leave our heroine, as she has now drifted, outwardly, into a peaceful haven, we must return to others in the narrative who have more to do.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

IN DEATH THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED.

My love he stood at my right hand, His eyes were grave and sweet; Methought he said, "In this far land, Oh, is it thus we meet! Ah, maid most dear, I am not here, I have no place—no part No dwelling more by sea or shore, But only in thine heart!" —Jean Ingelow.

Bertie Du Meresq, after lingering a while in London, without any tidings of Cecil, began to weary of inaction, and turn his thoughts again to Australia. But just then warlike rumours were becoming rife, and forced his mind into another channel. Good heavens! with such a prospect, possibility even, how could he let his papers be sent in? There was just time to recall them. He rushed to the Horse Guards, despatched a letter to his Colonel, and his retirement, not having yet been gazetted, was cancelled.

But how appease the injured Green, who had advanced the over regulation money for the troop? That must be returned, however expensive it might be to raise the necessary sum. One possible resource remained. He possessed a maiden aunt—of means, whose patience and purse he had completely exhausted some years ago; added to which she had become "serious," and a gentleman of the Stiggens order now diverted her spare cash into the coffers of little Bethlehem.

Du Meresq was aware that he had been predestined to doom by the Rev. Mr. Jackson, and that his aunt had been assured she could not touch pitch without being defiled. "Nevertheless," he thought, "I must try and carry her by a coup de main, if I have to pitch her clerical friend out of the window first."

Lady Susan had abandoned the more fashionable precincts of London to be nearer her chapel and districts, and the Hansom cabman who drove Bertie to Hammersmith had quartered nearly every yard of it before their combined intelligence hit off a square stone house on a bit of a common.

Lady Susan was within, and Du Meresq followed the depressed-looking footman upstairs with as much ease as if he had not been particularly forbidden the house five years ago. He embraced his aunt affectionately before she had collected herself sufficiently to prevent him, and bowed with the utmost grace to a rather vulgar-looking, self-sufficient lady to whom he was presented. This person, however, he contrived to sit out in spite of her curiosity.

"And now, Bertie," said Lady Susan, austerely, "what is it you want? I know from past experience it is not I alone you come to see. I warn you though your hopes are vain. I have, happily, now a more edifying way of spending my poor income than in aiding you in your godless courses."

"I have come to you, my dear aunt, as the kindest-hearted person I know. I am in an awful hole. But let me explain." And then he told how he had sold his troop to pay his debts, but had now, war being eminent, recalled his papers, and so owed all the over regulation money obtained in advance.

For once Du Meresq had a good case. Against her principles almost, Lady Susan listened, and, though pre-determined not to believe a thing he said, his words were making an impression.

"Of course I can get the money; but, going on active service, I should have to pay enormously for it. And, anyhow," he continued, "I thought I should like to say good-bye to you, whether you can let me have it or not."

Bertie's Irish blarney always peeped out in his dealings with women, and Lady Susan of late had been so unaccustomed to anything of the sort, that her heart began to warm to her scape-grace nephew. He was so distinguished-looking, too, with the beauty which comes of air and expression, and a certain winning manner, none of which were conspicuous attributes of the disciples of little Bethlehem. She made him stay to dinner, and Du Meresq, who thought things were looking up, gladly dismissed his Hansom, which had been imparting an unwonted appearance of dissipation to the locality for the last hour. He could make himself quite as agreeable to an old lady as a young one, and this one was a soldier's daughter, and Irish into the bargain. What wonder that her heart beat responsively and her blood fired at the idea of another of her race lending his life to his country! Bertie, to be sure, would have preferred not having to make capital of that, and objected strongly to being treated as a hero in advance. However, it was no use quarrelling with the means that had brought his aunt into so promising a frame of mind; and, before he left that evening, he had actually received the promise of a cheque to the amount of Mr. Green's claims in a few days.

Soon after this, he heard the welcome news that his regiment was ordered home immediately, evidently in consequence of the disturbances in the East. This caused Du Meresq great delight. His corps was, then, certain to be in it, and he would go into action with Lascelles and all his old friends, instead of exchanging into a strange regiment, as he had determined to do if his own were not for service.

With all this other thoughts were associated. Somehow he had never looked upon his rupture with Cecil Rolleston as final, having pretty well fathomed the motif of her renunciation of him, which he considered would bear explanation when occasion offered; but now, rather sadly reviewing the past, he said to himself that, after all, it was well for her they had not married.

I do not know that Cecil would have been of the same opinion. She had a brave spirit, that could bear up against known evils, but fretted and suffered in suspense. She was much altered since her illness. Once the most attentive and docile of daughters, she became irritable and uncertain in temper-difficile, as the French call it, or, according to a Scotch expression, "There was no doing with her" some days; and Mrs. Rolleston, unhappy about both Cecil and Bertie, looked upon her husband's prejudice against the latter as the cause of all this unsatisfactory state of things.

As to Colonel Rolleston, he was in the condition of a man whose "foes are those of his own household." No one appreciated more the "pillow of a woman's mind"; but really now the pillow might have been stuffed with stones, so many corners and angularities had developed themselves in his feminalities.

The regiment had been ordered to Quebec almost immediately after Bluebell had gone to England; and, as Mrs. Rolleston there heard of Evelyn Leighton's death, the fate of their protegee became naturally a subject of anxious speculation. Yet not a line had been received from her; and, after a time, the subject was avoided, for all felt that Bluebell had been ungrateful.

Then Mrs. Leighton wrote out the strange story of her elopement, and having since entered a family as governess in her maiden name. Mrs. Rolleston was painfully shocked; for, coupling it with the girl's silence, she could not but imagine the worst, especially when, as they gazed at each other in mute dismay, she read in Cecil's face a suspicion that Bertie had had some hand in her disappearance, he had not written either; but, unless he were in correspondence with Bluebell, could not have been aware that she was in England. Of course, therefore, it was only the wildest conjecture. Yet how could Cecil believe that a girl who had once cared for Bertie should so utterly have forgotten him as to sacrifice herself to any one else within a few weeks? But a letter from Du Meresq himself did much to banish these gathering doubts and suspicions. It appeared quite open and above-board, and was written to Mrs. Rolleston on the eve of embarking with his regiment for the Crimea. He mentioned one or two houses he had been staying in, related the successful visit to his aunt and wound up in a postcript with the words,—"Give my dearest love to Cecil, if she cares to have it."

Mrs. Rolleston silently put the letter into her hand, and left the room. But the privacy of four walls was insufficient for Cecil while permitting herself the dear fascination of perusing Bertie's handwriting. She was missing for the next two hours, which Lela was able to account for, having observed her going downstairs dressed for walking.

She did not remember to return Du Meresq's letter, nor did Mrs. Rolleston ask for it. Very soon afterwards they also went to England, though the Colonel's regiment was not sent to the Crimea for some months later. It was quartered near London, and he took a house for his family in Kensington. And now a strange fancy possessed Cecil. It happened one day, when they were out driving, that a little boy drifting across the street with the suicidal insouciance of his kind, got knocked down by their horses, and, of course, had to be driven straight to the hospital to have his injuries investigated. It was necessary to detain the child, and Cecil walked down most days to bring him toys and inquire into his progress. There she became acquainted with some members of a sisterhood, who were employed in nursing in the accident ward, and, after the boy had been dismissed, convalescent, and ready to be run over again, she still continued her visits.

What the attraction was, neither of her parents could conceive, for, although the sisterhood was of the High Church order, they observed no particular religious enthusiasm or ritualistic tendencies in their daughter. "Cecil's mystery" it was called in the family, for she never spoke of what she had been doing all day, though it was apparently satisfactory, as her spirits were far more even than they had been of late. It was generally supposed that a charitable fervour had seized her, and that she was visiting among the poor; indeed Mrs. Rolleston had little curiosity to spare at present. She was living in dread and daily expectation of Colonel Rolleston being sent to the East; and he was engaged, as a calm, brave man might, in arranging his affairs to provide for his family in any event.

The order came at last; it was almost a relief from the continual suspense, and there were a few days for preparation. On one of these last evenings some of the officers were dining at the Colonel's, and among them—which was unusual now—Fane, who, though believing that Cecil's love affair with Du Meresq must have been broken off, still honourably abstained from her society till she should, by some sign, absolve him from his promise. On this occasion though, to her dread, he appeared sentimentally inclined, and Cecil, to whom a Sir Lancelot even would have been intolerable had he attempted to take the place of the lover she had outwardly discarded and inwardly enshrined, took refuge with Jack Vavasour, who regarded the approaching campaign in about the same light as a steeple-chase—a delightful piece of excitement, with a spice of danger in it.

His cheerful chatter amused and relieved the tension of her mind.

"I shall be sure to come across Du Meresq," he observed, with simple directness. "I shall tell him I saw you the last thing. How glad he will be to hear of any one at home! Have you any message, Miss Rolleston?" looking straight in her face, which was glowing as he spoke.

"Tell him," said Cecil, who liked Jack, and trusted him more than any one, "to be sure and write very often to his sister, who is dreadfully anxious, as, indeed, we all are."

"Oh, yes, of course," cried Vavasour; "but is that all? Let me give him that glove," which Cecil had been absently pulling off and on.

"Certainly-not!" flaming up in a moment. "Give it to me back directly, Mr. Vavasour!"

Jack thought she was offended. "I didn't mean to be impertinent, Miss Rolleston. You know this is not like an ordinary occasion; and I am sure I didn't think there would be much in it."

"I know, I know. But don't invent anything from me to Bertie Du Meresq." Then, with a softer manner, and most cordial squeeze of the hand as she saw the other men rising to go,—"Good-bye, and come back safe, you dear, true-hearted boy!"

Next day the mystery came out. She had been qualifying as a hospital nurse, with the view of joining Miss Nightingale's staff at Scutari.

Cecil had quite anticipated the antagonism and ridicule with which this announcement would assuredly be met. A craze to go out to the East possessed many romantic young ladies of the period, too adventurous to be satisfied with merely knitting socks and comforters for their frost-bitten heroes. Colonel Rolleston had frequently expressed a profound contempt for this mania, refusing to perceive any more exalted motive for it than a desire to follow their partners. So his horror may be imagined when his own daughter, whom he had always credited with a certain amount of sense, thus enrolled herself in the ranks of these fair enthusiasts.

Cecil allowed the first torrent of words to expend itself, but, in reply to the contemptuous query of "What earthly use could she be?" reiterated the fact of her having received a certificate of competency from the hospital, and adding, that as five of the sisterhood were shortly to be taken out to Scutari, it would be easy for her to accompany them as a volunteer. Then, evading further discussion by leaving the room, she calmly left the idea to work.

It was not certainly innate love of the occupation that had made Cecil so diligent an attendant of the accident ward. At first she shuddered and faltered at the simplest operation in which her assistance was called for, but it was essential to test her own nerve before dressing gun-shot wounds, besides which, a certificate from the hospital would much facilitate her chance of being taken out to Scutari. And, moreover, she was desperately unhappy, and rushed into anything to escape from herself.

I don't know how it was that Cecil prevailed in the end. A year ago, if she had proposed such a thing, Colonel Rolleston would have a considered her a fit subject for a maison de sante, but he had been thinking for some time that his daughter was "odd." She was evidently turning out one of those unmanageable beings, an eccentric woman. Of age, and with an independent income, if baulked in this, she might only do something else equally perverse, and, though a most extraordinary fancy for a girl so brought up, he would not oppose it further.

And then Cecil, when she had got her wish, with a strange inconsistency seemed almost inclined to give it up again. But the Colonel, being in ignorance of her vacillating purpose, took her passage in the same ship as the other nurses.

Work enough was there for every one when that vessel reached its destination. The battle of the Alma had just been fought, and the wounded were being brought in daily to Scutari.

In the mean time, Colonel Rolleston had sailed with his regiment, and Mrs. Rolleston fell into such a state of nervous depression, that Cecil saw it would be cruel to abandon her—another opportunity for going out would soon occur, and defering her journey till then, she remained at home to fulfil the more obvious duty of supporting the sinking spirits of her step-mother.

And so passed many weary weeks. The battle of the Alma had been won, and none of their belongings had appeared in the long list of killed and wounded. Mrs. Rolleston, becoming more accustomed to suspense, bore up with greater fortitude. Letters from the seat of war were, of course, waited for with fearful anxiety, and on the few and far between occasions when these arrived, they were all comparatively happy.

One evening Cecil was sitting alone in her own room, and, being very tired after a long day at the hospital, dropped asleep in her chair. She awoke with a feeling of deadly chilliness. The moon was shining into the room, and the figure of Bertie Du Meresq, keen clearly by its rays, was standing quietly gazing at her.

"Bertie!" shrieked Cecil "Oh, when did you come?"—and she tried to rush forward to greet him, but her limbs seemed paralyzed, and he did not move either, though a sad, sweet smile seemed to pass over his face. Was it himself, or only a quivering moonbeam? for when she was able to move there was nothing else to be seen.

A ghost itself could not have been whiter than Cecil, as she fled to the drawing room, and almost inarticulately described what she had beheld.

The very horror it inspired made Mrs. Rolleston repel the ghastly idea almost angrily.

"Good heavens, Cecil, why do you frighten me so! You had fallen asleep, and were dreaming. You say yourself," and she shuddered, "it was gone when you awoke."

"You know," said the girl, not apparently attending, "I have never seen Bertie in uniform, but this is what he wore," (describing the dress of the —— Hussars), "and his tunic was torn."

"That is too absurd, Cecil. All Hussar uniforms are more or less alike, and you must have seen many. It is this dreadful idea of going to Scutari that has filled your mind with horrors, and hospital work here has been too much for you, and told on your nerves."

But Cecil sat unheeding, as if turned to stone, with such a grey look of despair on her face, that Mrs. Rolleston longed to rouse her in any way.

"Forgive me, Cecil," she cried; "you do care for poor Bertie, I see."

She looked up with a vague, uncomprehending glance.

"Who was so brilliant—who so brave—with that sympathetic voice, and warm, endearing manner? He was wicked, I dare say!—he was not cold enough for a saint."

Mrs. Rolleston listened painfully.

"How every one adored him!" pursued Cecil. "I don't mean women—of course they did: but all his friends would have done anything for him. I have seen his letters; and who could touch him in countenance, manner, grace? And such a poetic, original mind! But he cared for me most,—he must, don't you think?" (looking up with dry, tearless eyes), "or he would not have come to me to-night."

"Then why, oh, why, Cecil, did you give him up?"

Her brow contracted for an instant. "I could not bear my sun to shine on any one else," she cried, passionately "I grudged every glance of his eye, every tone of his voice given to another."

"Then, Bluebell was the cause—" began Mrs. Rolleston.

"'My eyes were blinded;' he cared no more for her than the rest. Had I believed him, we might have been happy five months, for we should have married the day I came of age."

"It will happen yet!" cried Mrs. Rolleston. "Shake off this fearful dream, my dearest child. I know that Bertie cares only for you."

"We have met to-night, we never shall again."

"She will have a brain-fever," thought Mrs. Rolleston, distractedly, "if tears do not come to her relief." They did eventually, convulsively and exhaustingly, till she dropped into a death-like sleep far into the next morning.

The sun had been shining for hours. Mrs. Rolleston did not disturb her, but the superstitious terror she had battled against the night before returned daring that long day, in an agony of impatience for news.

But no submarine telegraph then existing, nothing was heard for a time. Mrs. Rolleston might have shaken off the gruesome impression, but for the immovable conviction of Bertie's death that actuated Cecil. She assumed the deepest mourning, and passed whole hours alone with her grief, perfectly indifferent to the opinion of any one. Indeed, since his spiritual presence had, as she believed, appeared to her, he seemed nearer than before, when they were parted and unreconciled.

One day, late in the afternoon, Mrs. Rolleston was agitated by that weird sound to anxious ears, the shouting voices of men and boys hawking evening papers, and proclaiming startling news. She saw from the balcony her servant dart down the street for the gratification of his curiosity. He bought a paper, and perused it as he slowly returned. He got "quite a turn," as he afterwards described it, when his mistress, pale as a sheet, met him at the door, and, without a word, snatched the evening journal from his astonished hands.

No occasion to seek far. The sensational paragraph was in capital letters, and contained the intelligence of the battle of Balaklava, and famous charge of the six hundred, with its fearful losses. The cavalry regiments engaged were named. Among them was Bertie Du Meresq's, and mentioned as one that had suffered heavily. The returns of killed and wounded did not appear.

Mrs. Rolleston had a friend at the Horse Guards, and instantly despatched the servant there, with a letter requesting further particulars as early as possible. Ill news does not lag. A letter from General—soon arrived, with its warning black seal. Captain Du Meresq was among the casualties. He had been shot through the heart during the charge.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

AN UNEXPECTED RENCONTRE.

Into a ward of the white-washed walls, Where the dead and the dying lay, Wounded by bayonets, shells, and balls, Somebody's darling was borne one day. —Song.

Mrs. Rolleston completely sank under this dreadful blow. Bertie had been her darling and pride from his infancy, and her own misery was redoubled, in anticipation of the even greater anguish of Cecil.

Strange to say, though, she experienced no new shock. That Du Meresq was dead, she had never doubted, or that his spirit, in the moment of departure, had hovered for an instant near the one who loved him best. It seemed to connect her with that other world whither he had gone. It did not appear so far away, now Bertie was there, and her thoughts were ever in communion with her spirit love.

The hour in which he had, as she believed, appeared to her, she regularly passed alone in the same room, and even prayed for another sign of his presence.

But if such prayers were answered, what mourners would remain unvisited by their dead?

This room became her "temple and her shrine," in which Bertie, all his sins forgotten, was canonized. How incessantly she regretted having parted with those letters, so impulsively affectionate and so entirely confidential! To be sure, they were chiefly about himself; but what subject could be so interesting to Cecil? His normal condition of picturesque insolvency was only a proof of generosity of disposition and absence of meanness. Now she had nothing but a letter not her own, and that one last message, "Give my dearest love to Cecil."

Whether or no the vision was really but a dream, we leave to the decision of our readers. It was not unnatural that the dominant idea should impress that unreasoning moment between sleeping and waking; but Cecil's fervent faith knew no doubts, and thus it was that Du Meresq dead influenced her as much as when living.

They soon heard from Colonel Rolleston. Part of his regiment had been sent to seek and bring in the wounded; his brother-in-law's body had been found and brought back by Vavasour, and he sent his wife Bertie's watch. The newspapers were full of the disastrous but glorious charge of the cavalry, and of their immense loss.

In Du Meresq's regiment all the senior had been cut off. Had he lived, he would have been Colonel of it, a position which Lascelles survived to fill.

There appeared no respite from anxiety for those who had relatives in the East. Within two months the battles of the Alma, Balaklava, and Inkermann had been fought. Colonel Rolleston seemed to bear a charmed life; for, though repeatedly under fire, he had come out unscathed. Many of his officers were killed, Fane slightly wounded, and Jack Vavasour had lost an arm.

In the ensuing spring Cecil roused herself. Though all her hopes were dead, the native energy of her character asserted itself, and rebelled against utter stagnation. Some letters she had received from the nurses in the Crimea rekindled her former enthusiasm, and she determined to execute her original project, and go out to the aid of her suffering countrymen.

Mrs. Rolleston was now more hopeful, and, far from opposing Cecil's wishes, cheerfully forwarded them. She looked upon hers as so cruelly exceptional a lot, that any absorbing occupation capable of distracting her mind was only too welcome. And so when

Spring Came forth, her work of gladness to contrive, With all her reckless birds upon the wing,

Cecil, turning "from all she brought," was far on her way to the East, and wishing, as she assumed the black serge hospital dress, that she could as easily transform her internal consciousness as her outward identity.

Hers was not a nature to do anything by halves, and every faculty of mind and body became absorbed in these new duties. The patient who fell into Cecil's hands had little to complain of. She struggled for his life when even the shadow of death had fallen on him, and sometimes, by arduous exertions and devoted nursing, saved one in whom the vital flame had wasted almost to the socket. And then a nearly divine content came to her as she imagined she might have spared some distant heart the pangs that had almost broken her own.

But to follow her through the daily routine of duties, often painful, often touching, would be too long for the present history, so we pass abruptly to one event, a necessary link in it.

Cecil was attending a fever case, and looking anxiously for the doctor, as she fancied her patient was sinking. He was a young man, and had been more or less unconscious ever since he was brought in.

The surgeon came, and shook his head as he felt the feeble pulse.

"Is there no hope?" asked Cecil, sorrowfully.

"Scarcely any. Give him this stimulant whenever you can get him to swallow it; but there seems no reserve of strength." And he passed on to others.

She lost no time in attending to his directions, and a large pair of melancholy brown eyes opened on her. They watched her about persistently, and seeing their gaze, though languid, was rational, she asked "if there was anything she could do for him."

His voice was so inaudible she could but just catch the sentence, "So he gives me over!"

"I don't think he would if he could see you now. Indeed, you seem better."

"I don't think I shall die; but, in case of accidents, will you write something for me?"

Cecil nodded, while holding rapid communion with herself. Ought she to let him exhaust his little strength in dictating probably an agitating letter?

"Will you wait till you are a little stronger?" she said doubtfully.

"If I ever am, it will not be necessary to write; if otherwise I cannot do it too soon."

Cecil, judging by her own feelings that opposition to any strong wish would be more injurious than even imprudent indulgence, glided from the room, and soon returned with writing materials.

She sat down by the bed, and casually felt the attenuated wrist as she did so. The sick man gazed gratefully at her, but waited some minutes for breath to commence. His first words made her almost bound from her chair, and, as he continued in low feeble tones, with long pauses between, Cecil was wrought into an agony of suspense and interest.

The communication was to be addressed to an uncle, and began abruptly:—

"I was married to Theodora Leigh at a register office at Liverpool in November, 1853, and I make it a dying request to you to acknowledge my widow, who will otherwise be destitute both of money and friends. Forgive, if you can, my deception, and the poor return made for all the benefits lavished on your, notwithstanding, grateful nephew,

"HARRY DUTTON.

"P.S.—My wife is a governess in the family of Mr. Markham, Heatherbrae, Wimbledon."

It was sealed, directed, and the patient had sunk into a heavy stupor; but Cecil felt her heart stirred as she had never expected to do again.

Here, if she had required it, was complete exoneration of any subsequent intercourse having taken place between Du Meresq and Bluebell. The latter evidently had been far otherwise engaged, and, for the first time, she felt her long-cherished resentment melting away.

She gazed with some curiosity at the man who could so soon supplant Bertie, and smiled with irrepressible bitterness at the singular coincidence that she should be striving to preserve a husband to Bluebell, who had deprived her of her own early love.

But where could she have met this man, whom she had married almost immediately on landing in England? Cecil looked again at the address—"Right Honourable Lord Bromley." She had heard that name somewhere, but could not recall any connecting associations.

Harry lingered some time, his life frequently despaired of; and he would probably have succumbed had it not been for the untiring energy and care of the hospital nurse. Her anxiety could not have been exceeded by Bluebell herself, for Cecil's disposition was generous, and she never more truly forgave her ci-devant enemy than when thus labouring to return good for evil.

At last the turning-point was reached and Dutton lifted from the very gates of the grave. A wound in his leg was now the chief retarding circumstance; and as it seemed incapable of healing at Scutari, he was ordered on sick leave to England.

In the mean time, a lively friendship had arisen between him and Cecil. Directly she admitted her name and former intimacy with Bluebell, Harry took her entirely into his confidence, and, encouraged by the evident interest with which she listened, related how he had first met and fallen in love with Bluebell on the steamer, and subsequently persuaded her to elope with him.

He did not deny the interested motives which had afterwards induced him to conceal the marriage; but Cecil's upright mind recoiled at the unworthy deception, and the strong view she took of it made short work of the extenuating circumstances advanced by Harry.

The dying appeal to Lord Bromley had, of course, been burnt since its writer's recovery; but Dutton, now thoroughly ashamed of his shabby policy, vowed to Cecil that he would abandon all thoughts of inheritance, and boldly acknowledge his marriage to Lord Bromley as soon as he should set foot in England.

This was their last interview; for, as he had now approached convalescence, she had no further excuse for ministering to Harry.

It was some time since he had received tidings from his wife, having purposely kept her in ignorance when he volunteered into Peel's brigade. Then he was wounded and laid up at Scutari, so whatever letters she might have written would be on board the "Druid."

Now he must apprise her of his approaching return and explain his long silence. As it happened, a homeward-bound steamer sailed within a few days of the one which carried this letter, and Dutton, obtaining a passage in the former, which happened to the faster of the two, arrived in England almost simultaneously.

Without further notice, he rushed down to Wimbledon, and, had she been there, would speedily have solved the mystery that had so exercised Mrs. Markham. But, lo! on reaching Heatherbrae, he beheld with a sinking heart a conspicuous board on the garden-gate, with the words, "To be let, furnished," legibly inscribed thereon.

Weak from his illness and the disappointment, Harry leant against the railings to consider and recover. He had been so secure of finding Bluebell there, and during the whole hurried journey was picturing the meeting. How would she look? He knew so well the fluttering colour that changed in any emotion, pleasurable or otherwise: but would he see a true loving welcome in those transparent eyes? He had considered every probability or improbability of this sort, but not how he should act in such a dead lock as the present.

Repeated rings at the bell at last brought out the woman in charge, her arms covered with soap-suds, and gown drawn through a placket-hole.

"The family had gone abroad," she said. "No, she did not know where. The agent might, perhaps. She was only there to show visitors the house."

Harry turned away in listless perplexity; it was quite evident this person could tell him nothing. Doubtless their change of plans had been communicated to him by post, but he had not waited to send for letters. There was nothing for it but to obtain from the woman the address of the house-agent, get Mr. Markham's from him, and send another letter to Bluebell.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

OLD HEAD ON YOUNG SHOULDERS.

How could I tell I should love thee to-day, Whom that day I held not dear? How could I know I should love thee away, When I did not love thee a near? —Jean Ingelow.

We must now see whither the vicissitudes of fortune have conducted Mrs. Dutton. Her pleasant home at the Markhams' was gone. They had lost heavily in the failure of a bank, and were living abroad to retrench, while Mr. Markham pursued his profession in London.

Bluebell was the first luxury to be cut off, though, as a home during Harry's absence was what she chiefly required, she would willingly have remained for nothing. It was unspeakable grief to part with Mrs. Markham, who alone understood how oppressively her secret weighed on her, and her incessant anxiety for news from the seat of war.

One day,—it was after the battle of Balaklava,—when shuddering over, in the Times, the ghastly "butcher's bill," Bluebell came upon Du Meresq's name among the killed, and the shock to nerves that had scarcely yet recovered their equilibrium nearly brought on a relapse of her former illness.

Yet, as her mind cleared from its first horror, she was amazed to find it was not Cecil she was most feeling for, and that the cry, "Thank Heaven, it is not Harry!" had arisen spontaneously to her heart. I suppose Bertie's neglect had effected its own cure; but certainly some secret influence was turning the tide of her affections into its legitimate channel.

Yet their correspondence was not only desultory, but constrained. Dutton, never convinced of possessing her heart, and angry with himself at the part he had acted, had no pleasure in writing; and Bluebell was as shy of her new-found feelings as though he were still an unacknowledged lover.

But whenever a ship came in without bringing a letter, she was filled with foreboding and dread. Still, there was always the consolation that he was public property, and as long as she did not see his death reported, might conclude him to be safe.

And he never did write anything to excite alarm. No more perils or hair-breadth escapes could be inferred from his letters than if he were merely residing abroad from choice.

Mrs. Markham obtained her another situation. She had never succeeded in discovering to whom Bluebell was married; but having persuaded herself it was unnecessary to let that stand in the way, simply recommended her in her maiden name.

"I look upon your governessing as a farce, you know, Bluebell, though any one would gladly snap you up for your music alone. But when this war is over, the mysterious husband will return, and you will pay me a visit in your true colours."

And so they parted, with many promises of correspondence.

Bluebell's next venture was at Brighton, and she drove to Brunswick Square one chilly afternoon in March, rather dejected at the prospect of being again thrown among strangers.