Would it bring forth fruit, this scheming of the countess-dowager's, and Maude's own love? In her wildest hopes the old woman never dreamed of what that fruit would be; or, unscrupulous as she was by habit, unfeeling by nature, she might have carried away Maude from Hartledon within the hour of their arrival.

Of the three parties more immediately concerned, the only innocent one—innocent of any intentions—was Lord Hartledon. He liked Maude very well as a cousin, but otherwise he did not care for her. They might succeed—at least, had circumstances gone on well, they might have succeeded—in winning him at last; but it would not have been from love. His present feeling towards Maude was one of indifference; and of marriage at all he had not begun to think.

Val Elster, on the contrary, regarded Maude with warm admiration. Her beauty had charms for him, and he had been oftener at her side but for the watchful countess-dowager. It would have been horrible had Maude fallen in love with the wrong brother, and the old lady grew to hate him for the fear, as well as on her own score. The feeling of dislike, begun in Val's childhood, had ripened in the last month or two to almost open warfare. He was always in the way. Many a time when Lord Hartledon might have enjoyed a tete-a-tete with Maude, Val Elster was there to spoil it.

But the culminating point had arrived one day, when Val, half laughingly, half seriously, told the dowager, who had been provoking him almost beyond endurance, that she might spare her angling in regard to Maude, for Hartledon would never bite. But that he took his pleasant face beyond her reach, it might have suffered, for her fingers were held out alarmingly.

From that time she took another little scheme into her hands—that of getting Percival Elster out of his brother's favour and his brother's house. Val, on his part, seriously advised his brother not to allow the Kirtons to come to Hartledon; and this reached the ears of the dowager. You may be sure it did not tend to soothe her. Lord Hartledon only laughed at Val, saying they might come if they liked; what did it matter?

But, strange to say, Val Elster was as a very reed in the hands of the old woman. Let her once get hold of him, and she could turn him any way she pleased. He felt afraid of her, and bent to her will. The feeling may have had its rise partly in the fear instilled into his boyhood, partly in the yielding nature of his disposition. However that might be, it was a fact; and Val could no more have openly opposed the resolute, sharp-tongued old woman to her face than he could have changed his nature. He rarely called her anything but "ma'am," as their nurse had taught him and his brothers and sisters to do in those long-past years.

Before eight o'clock the guests had all assembled in the drawing-room, except the countess-dowager and Maude. Lord Hartledon was going about amongst them, talking to one and another of the beauties of this, his late father's place; scarcely yet thought of as his own. He was a tall slender man; in figure very much resembling Percival, but not in face: the one was dark, the other fair. There was also the same indolent sort of movement, a certain languid air discernible in both; proclaiming the undoubted fact, that both were idle in disposition and given to ennui. There the resemblance ended. Lord Hartledon had nothing of the irresolution of Percival Elster, but was sufficiently decisive in character, prompt in action.

A noble room, this they were in, as many of the rooms were in the fine old mansion. Lord Hartledon opened the inner door, and took them into another, to show them the portrait of his brother George—a fine young man also, with a fair, pleasing countenance.

"He is like Elster; not like you, Hartledon," cried a young man, whose name was Carteret.

"Was, you mean, Carteret," corrected Lord Hartledon, in tones of sad regret. "There was a great family resemblance between us all, I believe."

"He died from an accident, did he not?" said Mr. O'Moore, an Irishman, who liked to be called "The O'Moore."

"Yes."

Percival Elster turned to his brother, and spoke in low tones. "Edward, was any particular person suspected of having fired the shot?"

"None. A set of loose, lawless characters were out that night, and—"

"What are you all looking at here?"

The interruption came from Lady Kirton, who was sailing into the room with Maude. A striking contrast the one presented to the other. Maude in pink silk and a pink wreath, her haughty face raised in pride, her dark eyes flashing, radiantly beautiful. The old dowager, broad as she was high, her face rouged, her short snub nose always carried in the air, her light eyes unmeaning, her flaxen eyebrows heavy, her flaxen curls crowned by a pea-green turban. Her choice attire was generally composed, as to-day, of some cheap, flimsy, gauzy material bright in colour. This evening it was orange lace, all flounces and frills, with a lace scarf; and she generally had innumerable ends of quilted net flying about her skirts, not unlike tails. It was certain she did not spend much money upon her own attire; and how she procured the costly dresses for Maude the latter appeared in was ever a mystery. You can hardly fancy the bedecked old figure that she made. The O'Moore nearly laughed out, as he civilly turned to answer her question.

"We were looking at this portrait, Lady Kirton."

"And saying how much he was like Val," put in young Carteret, between whom and the dowager warfare also existed. "Val, which was the elder?"

"George was."

"Then his death made you heir-presumptive," cried the thoughtless young man, speaking impulsively.

"Heir-presumptive to what?" asked the dowager snapping at the words.

"To Hartledon."

"He heir to Hartledon! Don't trouble yourself, young man, to imagine that Val Elster's ever likely to come into Hartledon. Do you want to shoot his lordship, as he was shot?"

The uncalled-for retort, the strangely intemperate tones, the quick passionate fling of the hand towards the portrait astonished young Carteret not a little. Others were surprised also; and not one present but stared at the speaker. But she said no more. The pea-green turban and flaxen curls were nodding ominously; and that was all.

The animus to Val Elster was very marked. Lord Hartledon glanced at his brother with a smile, and led the way back to the other drawing-room. At that moment the butler announced dinner; the party filed across the hall to the fine old dining-room, and began finding their seats.

"I shall sit there, Val. You can take a chair at the side."

Val did look surprised at this. He was about to take the foot of his brother's table, as usual; and there was the pea-green turban standing over him, waiting to usurp it. It would have been quite beyond Val Elster, in his sensitiveness, to tell her she should not have it; but he did feel annoyed. He was sweet-tempered, however. Moreover, he was a gentleman, and only waited to make one remark.

"I fear you will not like this place, ma'am. Won't it look odd to see a lady at the bottom of the table?"

"I have promised my dear nephew to act as mistress, and to see after his guests; and I don't choose to sit at the side under those circumstances." But she had looked at Lord Hartledon, and hesitated before she spoke. Perhaps she thought his lordship would resign the head of the table to her, and take the foot himself. If so, she was mistaken.

"You will be more comfortable at the side, Lady Kirton," cried Lord Hartledon, when he discovered what the bustle was about.

"Not at all, Hartledon; not at all."

"But I like my brother to face me, ma'am. It is his accustomed place."

Remonstrance was useless. The dowager nodded her pea-green turban, and firmly seated herself. Val Elster dexterously found a seat next Lady Maude; and a gay gleam of triumph shot out of his deep-blue eyes as he glanced at the dowager. It was not the seat she would have wished him to take; but to interfere again might have imperilled her own place. Maude laughed. She did not care for Val—rather despised him in her heart; but he was the most attractive man present, and she liked admiration.

Another link in the chain! For how many, many days and years, dating from that evening, did that awful old woman take a seat, at intervals, at Lord Hartledon's table, and assume it as a right!



CHAPTER V.

JEALOUSY.

The rain poured down on the Monday morning; and Lord Hartledon stood at the window of the countess-dowager's sitting-room—one she had unceremoniously adopted for her own private use—smoking a cigar, and watching the clouds. Any cigar but his would have been consigned to the other side the door. Mr. Elster had only shown (by mere accident) the end of his cigar-case, and the dowager immediately demanded what he meant by displaying that article in the presence of ladies. A few minutes afterwards Lord Hartledon entered, smoking, and was allowed to enjoy his cigar with impunity. Good-tempered Val's delicate lips broke into a silent smile as he marked the contrast.

He lounged on the sofa, doing nothing, in his idle fashion; Lord Hartledon continued to watch the clouds. On the previous Saturday night the gentlemen had entered into an argument about boating: the result was that a match on the river was arranged, and some bets were pending on it. It had been fixed to come off this day, Monday; but if the rain continued to come down, it must be postponed; for the ladies, who had been promised the treat, would not venture out to see it.

"It has come on purpose," grumbled Lord Hartledon. "Yesterday was as fine and bright as it could be, the glass standing at set fair; and now, just because this boating was to come off, the rain peppers down!"

The rain excepted, it was a fair vision that he looked out upon. The room faced the back of the house, and beyond the lovely grounds green slopes extended to the river, tolerably wide here, winding peacefully in its course. The distant landscape was almost like a scene from fairyland.

The restless dowager—in a nondescript head-dress this morning, adorned with an upright tuft of red feathers and voluminous skirts of brown net, a jacket and flounces to match—betook herself to the side of Lord Hartledon.

"Where d'you get the boats?" she asked.

"They are kept lower down, at the boat-house," he replied, puffing at his cigar. "You can't see it from here; it's beyond Dr. Ashton's; lots of 'em; any number to be had for the hiring. Talking of Dr. Ashton, they will dine here to-day, ma'am."

"Who will?" asked Lady Kirton.

"The doctor, Mrs. Ashton—if she's well enough—and Miss Ashton."

"Who are they, my dear nephew?"

"Why, don't you know? Dr. Ashton preached to you yesterday. He is Rector of Calne; you must have heard of Dr. Ashton. They will be calling this morning, I expect."

"And you have invited them to dinner! Well, one must do the civil to this sort of people."

Lord Hartledon burst into a laugh. "You won't say 'this sort of people' when you see the Ashtons, Lady Kirton. They are quite as good as we are. Dr. Ashton has refused a bishopric, and Anne is the sweetest girl ever created."

Lady Maude, who was drawing, and exchanging a desultory sentence once in a way with Val, suddenly looked up. Her colour had heightened, though it was brilliant at all times.

"Are you speaking of my maid?" she said—and it might be that she had not attended to the conversation, and asked in ignorance, not in scorn. "Her name is Anne."

"I was speaking of Anne Ashton," said Lord Hartledon.

"Allow me to beg Anne Ashton's pardon," returned Lady Maude; her tone this time unmistakably mocking. "Anne is so common a name amongst servants."

"I don't care whether it is common amongst servants or uncommon," spoke Lord Hartledon rather hotly, as though he would resent the covert sneer. "It is Anne Ashton's; and I love the name for her sake. But I think it a pretty name; and should, if she did not bear it; prettier than yours, Maude."

"And pray who is Anne Ashton?" demanded the countess-dowager, with as much hauteur as so queer an old figure and face could put on, whilst Maude bent over her employment with white lips.

"She is Dr. Ashton's daughter," spoke Lord Hartledon, shortly. "My father valued him above all men. He loved Anne too—loved her dearly; and—though I don't know whether it is quite fair to Anne to let this out—the probable future connection between the families was most welcome to him. Next to my father, we boys reverenced the doctor; he was our tutor, in a measure, when we were staying at Hartledon; at least, tutor to poor George and Val; they used to read with him."

"And you would hint at some alliance between you and this Anne Ashton!" cried the countess-dowager, in a fume; for she thought she saw a fear that the great prize might slip through her fingers. "What sort of an alliance, I should like to ask? Be careful what you say, Hartledon; you may injure the young woman."

"I'll take care I don't injure Anne Ashton," returned Lord Hartledon, enjoying her temper. "As to an alliance with her—my earnest wish is, as it was my father's, that time may bring it about. Val there knows I wish it."

Val glanced at his brother by way of answer. He had taken no part in the discussion; his slight lips were drawn down, as he balanced a pair of scissors on his forefinger, and he looked less good-tempered than usual.

"Has she red hair and sky-blue eyes, and a doll's face? Does she sit in the pew under the reading-desk with three other dolls?" asked the foaming dowager.

Lord Hartledon turned and stared at the speaker in wonder—what could be so exciting her?

"She has soft brown hair and eyes, and a sweet gentle face; she is a graceful, elegant, attractive girl," said he, curtly. "She sat alone yesterday; for Arthur was in another part of the church, and Mrs. Ashton was not there. Mrs. Ashton is not in good health, she tells me, and cannot always come. The Rector's pew is the one with green curtains."

"Oh, that vulgar-looking girl!" exclaimed Maude, her unjust words—and she knew them to be unjust—trembling on her lips. "The Grand Sultan might exalt her to be his chief wife, but he could never make a lady of her, or get her to look like one."

"Be quiet, Maude," cried the countess-dowager, who, with all her own mistakes, had the sense to see that this sort of disparagement would only recoil upon them with interest, and who did not like the expression of Lord Hartledon's face. "You talk as if you had seen this Mrs. Ashton, Hartledon, since your return."

"I should not be many hours at Hartledon without seeing Mrs. Ashton," he answered. "That's where I was yesterday afternoon, ma'am, when you were so kindly anxious in your inquiries as to what had become of me. I dare say I was absent an unconscionable time. I never know how it passes, once I am with Anne."

"We represent Love as blind, you know," spoke Maude, in her desperation, unable to steady her pallid lips. "You apparently do not see it, Lord Hartledon, but the young woman is the very essence of vulgarity."

A pause followed the speech. The countess-dowager turned towards her daughter in a blazing rage, and Val Elster quitted the room.

"Maude," said Lord Hartledon, "I am sorry to tell you that you have put your foot in it."

"Thank you," panted Lady Maude, in her agitation. "For giving my opinion of your Anne Ashton?"

"Precisely. You have driven Val away in suppressed indignation."

"Is Val of the Anne Ashton faction, that the truth should tell upon him, as well as upon you?" she returned, striving to maintain an assumption of sarcastic coldness.

"It is upon him that the words will tell. Anne is engaged to him."

"Is it true? Is Val really engaged to her?" cried the countess-dowager in an ecstacy of relief, lifting her snub nose and painted cheeks, whilst a glad light came into Maude's eyes again. "I did hear he was engaged to some girl; but such reports of younger sons go for nothing."

"Val was engaged to her before he went abroad. Whether he will get her or not, is another thing."

"To hear you talk, Hartledon, one might have supposed you cared for the girl yourself," cried Lady Kirton; but her brow was smooth again, and her tone soft as honey. "You should be more cautious."

"Cautious! Why so? I love and respect Anne beyond any girl on earth. But that Val hastened to make hay when the sun shone, whilst I fell asleep under the hedge, I don't know but I might have proposed to her myself," he added, with a laugh. "However, it shall not be my fault if Val does not win her."

The countess-dowager said no more. She was worldly-wise in her way, and thought it best to leave well alone. Sailing out of the room she left them alone together: as she was fond of doing.

"Is it not rather—rather beneath an Elster to marry an obscure country clergyman's daughter?" began Lady Maude, a strange bitterness filling her heart.

"I tell you, Maude, the Ashtons are our equals in all ways. He is a proud old doctor of divinity—not old, however—of irreproachable family and large private fortune."

"You spoke of him as a tutor?"

"A tutor! Oh, I said he was in a measure our tutor when we were young. I meant in training us—in training us to good; and he allowed George and Val to read with him, and directed their studies: all for love, and out of the friendship he and my father bore each other. Dr. Ashton a paid tutor!" ejaculated Lord Hartledon, laughing at the notion. "Dr. Ashton an obscure country clergyman! And even if he were, who is Val, that he should set himself up?"

"He is the Honourable Val Elster."

"Very honourable! Val is an unlucky dog of a spendthrift; that's what Val is. See how many times he has been set up on his legs!—and has always come down again. He had that place in the Government my father got him. He was attache in Paris; subsequently in Vienna; he has had ever so many chances, and drops through all. One can't help loving Val; he is an attractive, sweet-tempered, good-natured fellow; but he was certainly born under an unlucky star. Elster's folly!"

"Val will drop through more chances yet," remarked Lady Maude. "I pity Miss Ashton, if she means to wait for him."

"Means to! She loves him passionately—devotedly. She would wait for him all her life, and think it happiness only to see him once in a way."

"As an astronomer looks at a star through a telescope," laughed Maude; "and Val is not worth the devotion."

"Val is not a bad fellow in the main; quite the contrary, Maude. Of course we all know his besetting sin—irresolution. A child might sway him, either for good or ill. The very best thing that could happen to Val would be his marriage with Anne. She is sensible and judicious; and I think Val could not fail to keep straight under her influence. If Dr. Ashton could only be brought to see the matter in this light!"

"Can he not?"

"He thinks—and I don't say he has not reason—that Val should show some proof of stability before his marriage, instead of waiting until after it. The doctor has not gone to the extent of parting them, or of suspending the engagement; but he is prepared to be strict and exacting as to Mr. Val's line of conduct; and I fancy the suspicion that it would be so has kept Val away from Calne."

"What will be done?"

"I hardly know. Val does not make a confidant of me, and I can't get to the bottom of how he is situated. Debts I am sure he has; but whether—"

"Val always had plenty of those," interrupted Maude.

"True. When my father died, three parts of Val's inheritance went to pay off debts nobody knew he had contracted. The worst is, he glides into these difficulties unwittingly, led and swayed by others. We don't say Elster's sin, or Elster's crimes; we say Elster's folly. I don't believe Val ever in his life did a bad thing of deliberate intention. Designing people get hold of him—fast fellows who are going headlong down-hill themselves—and Val, unable to say 'No,' is drawn here and drawn there, and tumbles with them into a quagmire, and perhaps has to pay his friends' costs, as well as his own, before he can get out of it. Do you believe in luck, Maude?"

"In luck?" answered Maude, raising her eyes at the abrupt question. "I don't know."

"I believe in it. I believe that some are born under a lucky star, and others under an unlucky one. Val is one of the latter. He is always unlucky. Set him up, and down he comes again. I don't think I ever knew Val lucky in my life. Look at his nearly blowing his arm off that time in Scotland! You will laugh at me, I dare say; but a thought crosses me at odd moments that his ill-luck will prevail still, in the matter of Miss Ashton. Not if I can help it, however; I'll do my best, for Anne's sake."

"You seem to think very much of her yourself," cried Lady Maude, her cheeks crimsoning with an angry flush.

"I do—as Val's future wife. I love Anne Ashton better than any one else in the world. We all loved her. So would you if you knew her. In my mother's last illness Anne was a greater comfort to her than Laura."

"Should you ever think of a wife on your own score, she may not like this warm praise of Miss Anne Ashton," said Lady Maude, assiduously drawing, her hot face bent down to within an inch of the cardboard.

"Not like it? She wouldn't be such an idiot, I hope, as to dislike it. Is not Anne going to be my brother's wife? Did you suppose I spoke of Anne in that way?—you must have been dreaming, Maude."

Maude hoped she had been. The young man took his cigar from his mouth, ran a penknife through the end, and began smoking again.

"That time is far enough off, Maude. I am not going to tie myself up with a wife, or to think of one either, for many a long year to come."

Her heart beat with a painful throbbing. "Why not?"

"No danger. My wild oats are not sown yet, any more than Val's; only you don't hear of them, because I have money to back me, and he has not. I must find a girl I should like to make my wife before that event comes off, Maude; and I have not found her yet."

Lady Maude damaged her landscape. She sketched in a tree where a chimney ought to have been, and laid the fault upon her pencil.

"It has been real sport, Maude, ever since I came home from knocking about abroad, to hear and see the old ladies. They think I am to be caught with a bait; and that bait is each one's own enchanting daughter. Let them angle, an they please—it does no harm. They are amused, and I am none the worse. I enjoy a laugh sometimes, while I take care of myself; as I have need to do, or I might find myself the victim of some detestable breach-of-promise affair, and have to stand damages. But for Anne Ashton, Val would have had his head in that Westminster-noose a score of times; and the wonder is that he has kept out of it. No, thank you, my ladies; I am not a marrying man."

"Why do you tell me this?" asked Lady Maude, a sick faintness stealing over her face and heart.

"You are one of ourselves, and I tell you anything. It will be fun for you, Maude, if you'll open your eyes and look on. There are some in the house now who—" He stopped and laughed.

"I would rather not hear this!" she cried passionately. "Don't tell me."

Lord Hartledon looked at her, begged her pardon, and quitted the room with his cigar. Lady Maude, black as night, dashed her pencil on to the cardboard, and scored her sketch all over with ugly black lines. Her face itself looked ugly then.

"Why did he say this to me?" she asked of her fevered heart. "Was it said with a purpose? Has he found out that I love him? that my shallow old mother is one of the subtlest of the anglers? and that—"

"What on earth are you at with your drawing, Maude?"

"Oh, I have grown sick of the sketch. I am not in a drawing mood to-day, mamma."

"And how fierce you were looking," pursued the countess-dowager, who had darted in at rather an inopportune moment for Maude—darting in on people at such moments being her habit. "And that was the sketch Hartledon asked you to do for him from the old painting!"

"He may do it himself, if he wants it done."

"Where is Hartledon?"

"I don't know. Gone out somewhere."

"Has he offended you, or vexed you?"

"Well, he did vex me. He has just been assuring me with the coolest air that he should never marry; or, at least, not for years and years to come. He told me to notice what a heap of girls were after him—or their mothers for them—and the fun he had over it, not being a marrying man."

"Is that all? You need not have put yourself in a fatigue, and spoilt your drawing. Lord Hartledon shall be your husband before six months are over—or reproach me ever afterwards with being a false prophetess and a bungling manager."

Maude's brow cleared. She had almost childlike confidence in the tact of her unscrupulous mother.

But how the morning's conversation altogether rankled in her heart, none save herself could tell: ay, and in that of the dowager. Although Anne Ashton was the betrothed of Percival Elster, and Lord Hartledon's freely-avowed love for her was evidently that of a brother, and he had said he should do all he could to promote the marriage, the strongest jealousy had taken possession of Lady Maude's heart. She already hated Anne Ashton with a fierce and bitter hatred. She turned sick with envy when, in the morning visit that was that day paid by the Ashtons, she saw that Anne was really what Lord Hartledon had described her—one of the sweetest, most lovable, most charming of girls; almost without her equal in the world for grace and goodness and beauty. She turned more sick with envy when, at dinner afterwards, to which the Ashtons came, Lord Hartledon devoted himself to them, almost to the neglect of his other guests, lingering much with Anne.

The countess-dowager marked it also, and was furious. Nothing could be urged against them; they were unexceptionable. The doctor, a chatty, straightforward, energetic man, of great intellect and learning, and emphatically a gentleman; his wife attracting by her unobtrusive gentleness; his daughter by her grace and modest self-possession. Whatever Maude Kirton might do, she could never, for very shame, again attempt to disparage them. Surely there was no just reason for the hatred which took possession of Maude's heart; a hatred that could never be plucked out again.

But Maude knew how to dissemble. It pleased her to affect a sudden and violent friendship for Anne.

"Hartledon told me how much I should like you," she whispered, as they sat together on the sofa after dinner, to which Maude had drawn her. "He said I should find you the dearest girl I ever met; and I do so. May I call you 'Anne'?"

Not for a moment did Miss Ashton answer. Truth to say, far from reciprocating the sudden fancy boasted of by Maude, she had taken an unaccountable dislike to her. Something of falsity in the tone, of sudden hardiesse in the handsome black eyes, acted upon Anne as an instinctive warning.

"As you please, Lady Maude."

"Thank you so much. Hartledon whispered to me the secret about you and Val—Percival, I mean. Shall you accomplish the task, think you?"

"What task?"

"That of turning him from his evil ways."

"His evil ways?" repeated Anne, in a surprised indignation she did not care to check. "I do not understand you, Lady Maude."

"Pardon me, my dear Anne: it was hazardous so to speak to you. I ought to have said his thoughtless ways. Quant a moi, je ne vois pas la difference. Do you understand French?"

Miss Ashton looked at her, really not knowing what this style of conversation might mean. Maude continued; she had a habit of putting forth a sting on occasion, or what she hoped might be a sting.

"You are staring at the superfluous question. Of course it is one in these French days, when everyone speaks it. What was I saying? Oh, about Percival. Should he ever have the luck to marry, meaning the income, he will make a docile husband; but his wife will have to keep him under her finger and thumb; she must be master as well as mistress, for his own sake."

"I think Mr. Elster would not care to be so spoken of," said Miss Ashton, her face beginning to glow.

"You devoted girl! It is you who don't care to hear it. Take care, Anne; too much love is not good for gaining the mastership; and I have heard that you are—shall I say it?—eperdue."

Anne, in spite of her calm good sense, was actually provoked to a retort in kind, and felt terribly vexed with herself for it afterwards. "A rumour of the same sort has been breathed as to the Lady Maude Kirton's regard for Lord Hartledon."

"Has it?" returned Lady Maude, with a cool tone and a glowing face. "You are angry with me without reason. Have I not offered to swear to you an eternal friendship?"

Anne shook her head, and her lips parted with a curious expression. "I do not swear so lightly, Lady Maude."

"What if I were to avow to you that it is true?—that I do love Lord Hartledon, deeply as it is known you love his brother," she added, dropping her voice—"would you believe me?"

Anne looked at the speaker's face, but could read nothing. Was she in jest or earnest?

"No, I would not believe you," she said, with a smile. "If you did love him, you would not proclaim it."

"Exactly. I was jesting. What is Lord Hartledon to me?—save that we are cousins, and passably good friends. I must avow one thing, that I like him better than I do his brother."

"For that no avowal is necessary," said Anne; "the fact is sufficiently evident."

"You are right, Anne;" and for once Maude spoke earnestly. "I do not like Percival Elster. But I will always be civil to him for your sweet sake."

"Why do you dislike him?—if I may ask it. Have you any particular reason for doing so?"

"I have no reason in the world. He is a good-natured, gentlemanly fellow; and I know no ill of him, except that he is always getting into scrapes, and dropping, as I hear, a lot of money. But if he got out of his last guinea, and went almost in rags, it would be nothing to me; so that's not it. One does take antipathies; I dare say you do, Miss Ashton. What a blessing Hartledon did not die in that fever he caught last year! Val would have inherited. What a mercy!"

"That he lived? or that Val is not Lord Hartledon?"

"Both. But I believe I meant that Val is not reigning."

"You think he would not have made a worthy inheritor?"

"A worthy inheritor? Oh, I was not glancing at that phase of the question. Here he comes! I will give up my seat to him."

It is possible Lady Maude expected some pretty phrases of affection; begging her to keep it. If so, she was mistaken. Anne Ashton was one of those essentially quiet, self-possessed girls in society, whose manners seem almost to border on apathy. She did not say "Do go," or "Don't go." She was perfectly passive; and Maude moved away half ashamed of herself, and feeling, in spite of her jealousy and her prejudice, that if ever there was a ladylike girl upon earth, it was Anne Ashton.

"How do you like her, Anne?" asked Val Elster, dropping into the vacant place.

"Not much."

"Don't you? She is very handsome."

"Very handsome indeed. Quite beautiful. But still I don't like her."

"You would like her if you knew her. She has a rare spirit, only the old dowager keeps it down."

"I don't think she much likes you, Val."

"She is welcome to dislike me," returned Val Elster.



CHAPTER VI.

AT THE BRIDGE.

The famous boat-race was postponed. Some of the competitors had discovered they should be the better for a few days' training, and the contest was fixed for the following Monday.

Not a day of the intervening week but sundry small cockle-shells—things the ladies had already begun to designate as the "wager-boats," each containing a gentleman occupant, exercising his arms on a pair of sculls—might be seen any hour passing and repassing on the water; and the green slopes of Hartledon, which here formed the bank of the river, grew to be tenanted with fair occupants. Of course they had their favourites, these ladies, and their little bets of gloves on them.

As the day for the contest drew near the interest became really exciting; and on the Saturday morning there was quite a crowd on the banks. The whole week, since Monday, had been most beautiful—calm, warm, lovely. Percival Elster, in his rather idle fashion, was not going to join in the contest: there were enough without him, he said.

He was standing now, talking to Anne. His face wore a sad expression, as she glanced up at him from beneath the white feather of her rather large-brimmed straw hat. Anne had been a great deal at Hartledon that week, and was as interested in the race as any of them, wearing Lord Hartledon's colours.

"How did you hear it, Anne?" he was asking.

"Mamma told me. She came into my room just now, and said there had been words."

"Well, it's true. The doctor took me to task exactly as he used to do when I was a boy. He said my course of life was sinful; and I rather fired up at that. Idle and useless it may be, but sinful it is not: and I said so. He explained that he meant that, and persisted in his assertion—that an idle, aimless, profitless life was a sinful one. Do you know the rest?"

"No," she faltered.

"He said he would give me to the end of the year. And if I were then still pursuing my present frivolous course of life, doing no good to myself or to anyone else, he should cancel the engagement. My darling, I see how this pains you."

She was suppressing her tears with difficulty. "Papa will be sure to keep his word, Percival. He is so resolute when he thinks he is right."

"The worst is, it's true. I do fall into all sorts of scrapes, and I have got out of money, and I do idle my time away," acknowledged the young man in his candour. "And all the while, Anne, I am thinking and hoping to do right. If ever I get set on my legs again, won't I keep on them!"

"But how many times have you said so before!" she whispered.

"Half the follies for which I am now paying were committed when I was but a boy," he said. "One of the men now visiting here, Dawkes, persuaded me to put my name to a bill for him for fifteen hundred pounds, and I had to pay it. It hampered me for years; and in the end I know I must have paid it twice over. I might have pleaded that I was under age when he got my signature, but it would have been scarcely honourable to do so."

"And you never profited by the transaction?"

"Never by a sixpence. It was done for Dawkes's accommodation, not mine. He ought to have paid it, you say? My dear, he is a man of straw, and never had fifteen hundred pounds of his own in his life."

"Does Lord Hartledon know of this? I wonder he has him here."

"I did not mention it at the time; and the thing's past and done with. I only tell you now to give you an idea of the nature of my embarrassments and scrapes. Not one in ten has really been incurred for myself: they only fall upon me. One must buy experience."

Terribly vexed was that sweet face, an almost painful sadness upon the generally sunny features.

"I will never give you up, Anne," he continued, with emotion. "I told the doctor so. I would rather give up life. And you know that your love is mine."

"But my duty is theirs. And if it came to a contest—Oh, Percival! you know, you know which would have to give place. Papa is so resolute in right."

"It's a shame that fortune should be so unequally divided!" cried the young man, resentfully. "Here's Edward with an income of thirty thousand a year, and I, his own brother, only a year or two younger, can't boast a fourth part as many hundreds!"

"Oh, Val! your father left you better off than that!"

"But so much of it went, Anne," was the gloomy answer. "I never understood the claims that came in against me, for my part. Edward had no debts to speak of; but then look at his allowance."

"He was the eldest son," she gently said.

"I know that. I am not wishing myself in Edward's place, or he out of it. I heartily wish him health and a long life to wear his honours; it is no fault of his that he should be rolling in riches, and I a martyr to poverty. Still, one can't help feeling at odd moments, when the shoe's pinching awfully, that the system is not altogether a just one."

"Was that a sincere wish, Val Elster?"

Val wheeled round on Lady Maude, from whom the question came. She had stolen up to them unperceived, and stood there in her radiant beauty, her magnificent dark eyes and her glowing cheeks set off by a little coquettish black-velvet hat.

"A sincere wish—that my brother should live long to enjoy his honours!" echoed Val, in a surprised tone. "Indeed it is. I hope he will live to a green old age, and leave goodly sons to succeed him."

Maude laughed. A brighter hue stole into her face, a softer shade to her eyes: she saw herself, as in a vision, the goodly mother of those goodly sons.

"Are you going to wear that?" she asked, touching the knot of ribbon in Miss Ashton's hands with her petulant fingers. "They are Lord Hartledon's colours."

"I shall wear it on Monday. Lord Hartledon gave it to me."

A rash avowal. The competitors, in a sort of joke, had each given away one knot of his own colours. Lady Maude had had three given to her; but she was looking for another worth them all—from Lord Hartledon. And now—it was given, it appeared, to Anne Ashton! For her very life she could not have helped the passionate taunt that escaped from her, not in words, but in tone:

"To you!"

"Kissing goes by favour," broke from the delicate lips of Val Elster, and Lady Maude could have struck him for the significant, saucy expression of his violet-blue eyes. "Edward loves Anne better than he ever loved his sisters; and for any other love—that's still far enough from his heart, Maude."

She had recovered herself instantly; cried out "Yes" to those in the distance, as if she heard a call, and went away humming a tune.

"Val, she loves your brother," whispered Anne.

"Do you think so? I do sometimes; and again I'm puzzled. She acts well if she does. The other day I told Edward she was in love with him: he laughed at me, and said I was dreaming; that if she had any love for him, it was cousin's love. What's more, Anne, he would prefer not to receive any other; so Maude need not look after him: it will be labour lost. Here comes that restless old dowager down upon us! I shall leave you to her, Anne. I never dare say my soul's my own in the presence of that woman."

Val strolled away as he spoke. He was not at ease that day, and the sharp, meddling old woman would have been intolerable. It was all very well to put a good face on matters to Anne, but he was in more perplexity than he cared to confess to. It seemed to him that he would rather die than give up Anne: and yet—in the straightforward, practical good sense of Dr. Ashton, he had a formidable adversary to deal with.

He suddenly found an arm inserted within his own, and saw it was his brother. Walking together thus, there was a great resemblance between them.

They were of the same height, much the same build; both were very good-looking men, but Percival had the nicer features; and he was fair, and his brother dark.

"What is this, Val, about a dispute with the doctor?" began Lord Hartledon.

"It was not a dispute," returned Val. "There were a few words, and I was hasty. However, I begged his pardon, and we parted good friends."

"Under a flag of truce, eh?"

"Something of that sort."

"Something of that sort!" repeated Lord Hartledon. "Don't you think, Val, it would be to your advantage if you trusted me more thoroughly than you do? Tell me the whole truth of your position, and let me see what can be done for you."

"There's not much to tell," returned Val, in his stupidity. Even with his brother his ultra-sensitiveness clung to him; and he could no more have confessed the extent of his troubles than he could have taken wing that moment and soared away into the air. Val Elster was one of those who trust to things "coming right" with time.

"I have been talking to the doctor, Val. I called in just now to see Mrs. Ashton, and he spoke to me about you."

"Very kind of him, I'm sure!" retorted Val. "It is just this, Edward. He is vexed at what he calls my idle ways, and waste of time: as if I need plod on, like a city clerk, six days a week and no holidays! I know I must do something before I can win Anne; and I will do it: but the doctor need not begin to cry out about cancelling the engagement."

"How much do you owe, Val?"

"I can't tell."

Lord Hartledon thought this an evasion. But it was true. Val Elster knew he owed a great deal more than he could pay; but how much it might be on the whole, he had but a very faint idea.

"Well, Val, I have told the doctor I shall look into matters, and I hope to do it efficiently, for Anne's sake. I suppose the best thing will be to try and get you an appointment again."

"Oh, Edward, if you would! And you know you have the ear of the ministry."

"I dare say it can be managed. But this will be of little use if you are still to remain an embarrassed man. I hear you were afraid of arrest in London."

"Who told you that?"

"Dawkes."

"Dawkes! Then, Edward—" Val Elster stopped. In his vexation, he was about to retaliate on Captain Dawkes by a little revelation on the score of his affairs, certain things that might not have redounded to that gallant officer's credit. But he arrested the words in time: he was of a kindly nature, not fond of returning ill for ill. With all his follies, Val Elster could not remember to have committed an evil act in all his life, save one. And that one he had still the pleasure of paying for pretty deeply.

"Dawkes knows nothing of my affairs except from hearsay, Edward. I was once intimate with the man; but he served me a shabby trick, and that ended the friendship. I don't like him."

"I dare say what he said was not true," said Lord Hartledon kindly. "You might as well make a confidant of me. However, I have not time to talk to-day. We will go into the matter, Val, after Monday, when this race has come off, and see what arrangement can be made for you. There's only one thing bothers me."

"What's that?"

"The danger that it may be a wasted arrangement. If you are only set up on your legs to come down again, as you have before, it will be so much waste of time and money; so much loss, to me, of temper. Don't you see, Val?"

Percival Elster stopped in his walk, and withdrew his arm from his brother's; his face and voice full of emotion.

"Edward, I have learnt a lesson. What it has cost me I hardly yet know: but it is learnt. On my sacred word of honour, in the solemn presence of Heaven, I assert it, that I will never put my hand to another bill, whatever may be the temptation. I have overcome, in this respect at least, my sin."

"Your sin?"

"My nature's great sin; the besetting sin that has clung to me through life; the unfortunate sin that is my bane to this hour—cowardly irresolution."

"All right, Val; I see you mean well now. We'll talk of these matters next week. Instead of Elster's Folly, let it become Elster's Wisdom."

Lord Hartledon wrung his brother's hand and turned away. His eyes fell on Miss Ashton, and he went straight up to her. Putting the young lady's arm within his own, without word or ceremony, he took her off to a distance: and old Lady Kirton's skirts went round in a dance as she saw it.

"I am about to take him in hand, Anne, and set him going again: I have promised Dr. Ashton. We must get him a snug berth; one that even the doctor won't object to, and set him straight in other matters. If he has mortgaged his patrimony, it shall be redeemed. And, Anne, I think—I do think—he may be trusted to keep straight for the future."

Her soft sweet eyes sparkled with pleasure, and her lips parted with a sunny smile. Lord Hartledon took her hand within his own as it lay on his arm, and the furious old dowager saw it all from the distance.

"Don't say as much as this to him, Anne: I only tell you. Val is so sanguine, that it may be better not to tell him all beforehand. And I want, of course, first of all, to get a true list of—that is, a true statement of facts," he broke off, not caring to speak the word "debts" to that delicate girl before him. "He is my only brother; my father left him to me, for he knew what Val was; and I'll do my best for him. I'd do it for Val's own sake, apart from the charge. And, Anne, once Val is on his legs with an income, snug and comfortable, I shall recommend him to marry without delay; for, after all, you will be his greatest safeguard."

A blush suffused her face, and Lord Hartledon smiled.

Down came the countess-dowager.

"Here's that old dowager calling to me. She never lets me alone. Val sent me into a fit of laughter yesterday, saying she had designs on me for Maude. Poor deluded woman! Yes, ma'am, I hear. What is it?"

Mr. Elster went strolling along on the banks of the river, towards Calne; not with any particular purpose, but in his restless uneasiness. He had a tender conscience, and his past follies were pressing on it heavily. Of one thing he felt sure—that he was more deeply involved than Hartledon or anyone else suspected, perhaps even himself. The way was charming in fine weather, though less pleasant in winter. It was by no means a frequented road, and belonged of right to Lord Hartledon only; but it was open to all. Few chose it when they could traverse the more ordinary way. The narrow path on the green plain, sheltered by trees, wound in and out, now on the banks of the river, now hidden amidst a portion of the wood. Altogether it was a wild and lonely pathway; not one that a timid nature would choose on a dark night. You might sit in the wood, which lay to the left, a whole day through, and never see a soul.

One part of the walk was especially beautiful. A green hollow, where the turf was soft as moss; open to the river on the right, with a glimpse of the lovely scenery beyond; and on the left, the clustering trees of the wood. Yet further, through a break in the trees, might be seen a view of the houses of Calne. A little stream, or rivulet, trickled from the wood, and a rustic bridge—more for ornament than use, for a man with long legs could stride the stream well—was thrown over it. Val had reached thus far, when he saw someone standing on the bridge, his arms on the parapet, apparently in a brown study.

A dark, wild-looking man, whose face, at the first glimpse, seemed all hair. There was certainly a profusion of it; eyebrows, beard, whiskers, all heavy, and black as night. He was attired in loose fustian clothes with a red handkerchief wound round his throat, and a low slouching hat—one of those called wide-awake—partially concealed his features. By his side stood another man in plain, dark, rather seedy clothes, the coat outrageously long. He wore a cloth hat, whose brim hid his face, and he was smoking a cigar. Both men were slightly built and under middle height. This one was adorned with red whiskers.

The moment Mr. Elster set eyes on the dark one, he felt that he saw the man Pike before him. It happened that he had not met him during these few days of his sojourn; but some of the men staying at Hartledon had, and had said what a loose specimen he appeared to be. The other was a stranger, and did not look like a countryman at all.

Mr. Elster saw them both give a sharp look at him as he approached; and then they spoke together. Both stepped off the bridge, as though deferring to him, and stood aside as they watched him cross over, Pike touching his wide-awake.

"Good-day, my lord."

Val nodded by way of answer, and continued his stroll onwards. In the look he had taken at Pike, it struck him he had seen the face before: something in the countenance seemed familiar to his memory. And to his surprise he saw that the man was young.

The supposed reminiscence did not trouble him: he was too pre-occupied with thoughts of his own affairs to have leisure for Mr. Pike's. A short bit of road, and this rude, sheltered part of the way terminated in more open ground, where three paths diverged: one to the front of Hartledon; one to some cottages, and on through the wood to the high-road; and one towards the Rectory and Calne. Rural paths still, all of them; and the last was provided with a bench or two. Val Elster strolled on almost to the Rectory, and then turned back: he had no errand at Calne, and the Rectory he would rather keep out of just now. When he reached the little bridge Pike was on it alone; the other had disappeared. As before, he stepped off to make way for Mr. Elster.

"I beg pardon, sir, for addressing you just now as Lord Hartledon."

The salutation took Val by surprise; and though the voice seemed muffled, as though the man purposely mouthed his words, the accent and language were superior to anything he might have expected from one of Mr. Pike's appearance and reputed character.

"No matter," said Val, courteous even to Pike, in his kindly nature. "You mistook me for my brother. Many do."

"Not I," returned the man, assuming a freedom and a roughness at variance with his evident intelligence. "I know you for the Honourable Percival Elster."

"Ah," said Mr. Elster, a slight curiosity stirring his mind, but not sufficient to induce him to follow it up.

"But I like to do a good turn if I can," pursued Pike; "and I think, sir, I did one to you in calling you Lord Hartledon."

Val Elster had been passing on. He turned and looked at the man.

"Are you in any little temporary difficulty, might I ask?" continued Pike. "No offense, sir; princes have been in such before now."

Val Elster was so supremely conscious, especially in that reflective hour, of being in a "little difficulty" that might prove more than temporary, that he could only stare at the questioner and wait for more.

"No offence again, if I'm wrong," resumed Pike; "but if that man you saw here on the bridge is not looking after the Honourable Mr. Elster, I'm a fool."

"Why do you think this?" inquired Val, too fully aware that the fact was a likely one to attempt any reproof or disavowal.

"I'll tell you," said Pike; "I've said I don't mind doing a good turn when I can. The man arrived here this morning by the slow six train from London. He went into the Stag and had his breakfast, and has been covertly dodging about ever since. He inquired his way to Hartledon. The landlord of the Stag asked him what he wanted there, and got for answer that his brother was one of the grooms in my lord's service. Bosh! He went up, sneaking under the hedges and along by-ways, and took a view of the house, standing a good hour behind a tree while he did it. I was watching him."

It instantly struck Percival Elster, by one of those flashes of conviction that are no less sure than subtle, that Mr. Pike's interest in this watching arose from a fear that the stranger might have been looking after him. Pike continued:

"After he had taken his fill of waiting, he came dodging down this way, and I got into conversation with him. He wanted to know who I was. A poor devil out of work, I told him; a soldier once, but maimed and good for little now. We got chatty. I let him think he might trust me, and he began asking no end of questions about Mr. Elster: whether he went out much, what were his hours for going out, which road he mostly took in his walks, and how he could know him from his brother the earl; he had heard they were alike. The hound was puzzled; he had seen a dozen swells come out of Hartledon, any one of which might be Mr. Elster; but I found he had the description pretty accurate. Whilst we were talking, who should come into view but yourself! 'This is him!' cried he. 'Not a bit of it,' said I, carelessly; 'that's my lord.' Now you know, sir, why I saluted you as Lord Hartledon."

"Where is he now?" asked Percival Elster, feeling that he owed his present state of liberty to this lawless man.

Pike pointed to the narrow path in the wood, leading to the high-road. "I filled him up with the belief that the way beyond this bridge up to Hartledon was private, and he might be taken up for trespassing if he attempted to follow it; so he went off that way to watch the front. If the fellow hasn't a writ in his pocket, or something worse, call me a simpleton. You are all right, sir, as long as he takes you for Lord Hartledon."

But there was little chance the fellow could long take him for Lord Hartledon, and Percival Elster felt himself attacked with a shiver. He knew it to be worse than a writ; it was an arrest. An arrest is not a pleasant affair for any one; but a strong opinion—a certainty—seized upon Val's mind that this would bring forth Dr. Ashton's veto of separation from Anne.

"I thank you for what you have done," frankly spoke Mr. Elster.

"It's nothing, sir. He'll be dodging about after his prey; but I'll dodge about too, and thwart his game if I can, though I have to swear that Lord Hartledon's not himself. What's an oath, more or less, to me?"

"Where have I seen you before?" asked Val.

"Hard to say," returned Pike. "I have knocked about in many parts in my time."

"Are you from this neighbourhood?"

"Never was in these parts at all till a year or so ago. It's not two years yet."

"What are you doing here?"

"What I can. A bit of work when I can get it given to me. I went tramping the country after I left the regiment—"

"Then you have been a soldier?" interrupted Mr. Elster.

"Yes, sir. In tramping the country I came upon this place: I crept into a shed, and was there for some days; rheumatism took hold of me, and I couldn't move. It was something to find I had a roof of any sort over my head, and was let lie in it unmolested: and when I got better I stayed on."

"And have adopted it as your own, putting a window and a chimney into it! But do you know that Lord Hartledon may not choose to retain you as a tenant?"

"If Lord Hartledon should think of ousting me, I would ask Mr. Elster to intercede, in requital for the good turn I've done him this day," was the bold answer.

Mr. Elster laughed. "What is your name?"

"Tom Pike."

"I hear a great deal said of you, Pike, that's not pleasant; that you are a poacher, and a—"

"Let them that say so prove it," interrupted Pike, his dark brows contracting.

"But how do you manage to live?"

"That's my business, and not Calne's. At any rate, Mr. Elster, I don't steal."

"I heard a worse hint dropped of you than any I have mentioned," continued Val, after a pause.

"Tell it out, sir. Let's have the whole catalogue at once."

"That the night my brother, Mr. Elster, was shot, you were out with the poachers."

"I dare say you heard that I shot him, for I know it has been said," fiercely cried the man. "It's a black lie!—and the time may come when I shall ram it down Calne's throat. I swear that I never fired a shot that night; I swear that I no more had a hand in Mr. Elster's death than you had. Will you believe me, sir?"

The accents of truth are rarely to be mistaken, and Val was certain he heard them now. So far, he believed the man; and from that moment dismissed the doubt from his mind, if indeed he had not dismissed it before.

"Do you know who did fire the shot?"

"I do not; I was not out at all that night. Calne pitched upon me, because there was no one else in particular to pitch upon. A dozen poachers were in the fray, most of them with guns; little wonder the random shot from one should have found a mark. I know nothing more certain than that, so help—"

"That will do," interrupted Mr. Elster, arresting what might be coming; for he disliked strong language. "I believe you fully, Pike. What part of the country were you born in?"

"London. Born and bred in it."

"That I do not believe," he said frankly. "Your accent is not that of a Londoner."

"As you will, sir," returned Pike. "My mother was from Devonshire; but I was born and bred in London. I recognized that one with the writ for a fellow cockney at once; and for what he was, too—a sheriffs officer. Shouldn't be surprised but I knew him for one years ago."

Val Elster dropped a coin into the man's hand, and bade him good morning. Pike touched his wide-awake, and reiterated his intention of "dodging the enemy." But, as Mr. Elster cautiously pursued his way, the face he had just quitted continued to haunt him. It was not like any face he had ever seen, as far as he could remember; nevertheless ever and anon some reminiscence seemed to start out of it and vibrate upon a chord in his memory.



CHAPTER VII.

LISTENERS.

It was a somewhat singular coincidence, noted after the terrible event, now looming in the distance, had taken place, and when people began to weigh the various circumstances surrounding it, that Monday, the second day fixed for the boat-race, should be another day of rain. As though Heaven would have interposed to prevent it! said the thoughtful and romantic.

A steady, pouring rain; putting a stop again to the race for that day. The competitors might have been willing to face the elements themselves, but could not subject the fair spectators to the infliction. There was some inward discontent, and a great deal of outward grumbling; it did no good, and the race was put off until the next day.

Val Elster still retained his liberty. Very chary indeed had he been of showing himself outside the door on Saturday, once he was safely within it. Neither had any misfortune befallen Lord Hartledon. That unconscious victim must have contrived, in all innocence, to "dodge" the gentleman who was looking out for him, for they did not meet.

On the Sunday it happened that neither of the brothers went to church. Lord Hartledon, on awaking in the morning, found he had a sore throat, and would not get up. Val did not dare show himself out of doors. Not from fear of arrest that day, but lest any officious meddler should point him out as the real Simon Pure, Percival Elster. But for these circumstances, the man with the writ could hardly have remained under the delusion, as he appeared at church himself.

"Which is Lord Hartledon?" he whispered to his neighbour on the free benches, when the party from the great house had entered, and settled themselves in their pews.

"I don't see him. He has not come to-day."

"Which is Mr. Elster?"

"He has not come, either." So for that day recognition was escaped.

It was not to be so on the next. The rain, as I have said, came down, putting off the boat-race, and keeping Hartledon's guests indoors all the morning; but late in the afternoon some unlucky star put it into Lord Hartledon's head to go down to the Rectory. His throat was better—almost well again; and he was not a man to coddle himself unnecessarily.

He paid his visit, stayed talking a considerable time with Mrs. Ashton, whose company he liked, and took his departure about six o'clock. "You and Anne might almost walk up with me," he remarked to the doctor as he shook hands; for the Rector and Miss Ashton were to dine at Hartledon that day. It was to have been the crowning festival to the boat-race—the race which now had not taken place.

Lord Hartledon looked up at the skies, and found he had no occasion to open his umbrella, for the rain had ceased. Sundry bright rays in the west seemed to give hope that the morrow would be fair; and, rejoicing in this cheering prospect, he crossed the broad Rectory lawn. As he went through the gate some one laid a hand upon his shoulder.

"The Honourable Percival Elster, I believe?"

Lord Hartledon looked at the intruder. A seedy man, with a long coat and red whiskers, who held out something to him.

"Who are you?" he asked, releasing his shoulder by a sharp movement.

"I'm sorry to do it, sir; but you know we are only the agent of others in these affairs. You are my prisoner, sir."

"Indeed!" said Lord Hartledon, taking the matter coolly. "You have got hold of the wrong man for once. I am not Mr. Percival Elster."

The capturer laughed: a very civil laugh. "It won't do, sir; we often have that trick tried on us."

"But I tell you I am not Mr. Elster," he reiterated, speaking this time with some anger. "I am Lord Hartledon."

He of the loose coat shook his head. He had his hand again on the supposed Mr. Elster's arm, and told him he must go with him.

"You cannot take me; you cannot arrest a peer. This is simply ridiculous," continued Lord Hartledon, almost laughing at the real absurdity of the thing. "Any child in Calne could tell you who I am."

"As well make no words over it, sir. It's only waste of time."

"You have a warrant—as I understand—to arrest Mr. Percival Elster?"

"Yes, sir, I have. The man that was looking for you in London got taken ill, and couldn't come down, so our folks sent me. 'You'll know him by his good looks,' said they; 'an aristocrat every inch of him.' Don't give me trouble, sir."

"Well now—I am not Percival Elster: I am his brother, Lord Hartledon. You cannot take one brother for another; and, what's more, you had better not try to do it. Stay! Look here."

He pulled out his card-case, and showed his cards—"Earl of Hartledon." He exhibited a couple of letters that happened to be about him—"The Right Honble. the Earl of Hartledon." It was of no use.

"I've known that dodge tried before too," said his obstinate capturer.

Lord Hartledon was growing more angry. He saw some proof must be tendered before he could regain his liberty. Jabez Gum happened to be standing at his gate opposite, and he called to him.

"Will you be so kind as to tell this man who I am, Mr. Gum. He is mistaking me for some one else."

"This is the Earl of Hartledon," said Jabez, promptly.

A moment's hesitation on the officer's part; but he felt too sure of his man to believe this. "I'll take the risk," said he, stolidly. "Where's the good of your holding out, Mr. Elster?"

"Come this way, then!" cried Lord Hartledon, beginning to lose his temper. "And if you carry this too far, my man, I'll have you punished."

He went striding up to the Rectory. Had he taken a moment for consideration, he might have turned away, rather than expose this misfortune of Val's there. The doctor came into the hall, and was recognized as the Rector, and there was some little commotion; Anne's white face looking on from a distance. The man was convinced, and took his departure, considerably crestfallen.

"What is the amount?" called the doctor, sternly.

"Not very much, this, sir. It's under three hundred."

Which was as much as to say there was more behind it. Dr. Ashton mentally washed his hands of Percival Elster as a future son-in-law.

The first intimation that ill-starred gentleman received of the untoward turn affairs were taking was from the Rector himself.

Mr. Percival Elster had been chuckling over that opportune sore throat, as a means of keeping his brother indoors; and it never occurred to him that Lord Hartledon would venture out at all on the Monday. Being a man with his wits about him, it had not failed to occur to his mind that there was a possibility of Lord Hartledon's being arrested in place of himself; but so long as Hartledon kept indoors the danger was averted. Had Percival Elster seen his brother go out he might have plucked up courage to tell him the state of affairs.

But he did not see him. Lounging idly—what else had he, a poor prisoner, to do?—in the sunny society of Maude Kirton and other attractive girls, Mr. Elster was unconscious of the movements of the household in general. He was in his own room dressing for dinner when the truth burst upon him.

Dr. Ashton was a straightforward; practical man—it has been already stated—who went direct to the point at once in any matters of difficulty. He arrived at Hartledon a few minutes before the dinner-hour, found Mr. Elster was yet in his dressing-room, and went there to him.

The news, the cool, scornful anger of the Rector, the keen question—"Was he mad?" burst upon the unhappy Val like a clap of thunder. He was standing in his shirt-sleeves, ready to go down, all but his coat and waistcoat, his hair-brushes in the uplifted hands. Hands and brushes had been arrested midway in the shock. The calm clerical man; all the more terrible then because of his calmness; standing there with his cold stinging words, and his unhappy culprit facing him, conscious of his heinous sins—the worst sin of all: that of being found out.

"Others have done so much before me, sir, and have not made the less good men," spoke Val, in his desperation.

Dr. Ashton could not help admiring the man, as he stood there in his physical beauty. In spite of his inward anger, his condemnation, his disappointment—and they were all very great—the good looks of Percival Elster struck him forcibly with a sort of annoyance: why should these men be so outwardly fair, so inwardly frail? Those good looks had told upon his daughter's heart; and they all loved her, and could not bear to cause her pain. Tall, supple, graceful, strong, towering nearly a head above the doctor, he stood, his pleasing features full of the best sort of attraction, his violet eyes rather wider open than usual, the waves of his silken hair smooth and bright. "If he were only half as fair in conduct as in looks!" muttered the grieved divine.

But those violet eyes, usually beaming with kindness, suddenly changed their present expression of depreciation to one of rage. Dr. Ashton gave a pretty accurate description of how the crisis had been brought to his knowledge—that Lord Hartledon had come to the Rectory, with his mistaken assailant, to be identified; and Percival Elster's anger was turned against his brother. Never in all his life had he been in so great a passion; and having to suppress its signs in the presence of the Rector only made the fuel burn more fiercely. To ruin him with the doctor by going there with the news! Anywhere else—anywhere but the Rectory!

Hedges, the butler, interrupted the conference. Dinner was waiting. Lord Hartledon looked at Val as the two entered the room, and was rather surprised at the furious gaze of reproach that was cast back on him.

Miss Ashton was not there. No, of course not! It needed not Val's glance around to be assured of that. Of course they were to be separated from that hour; the fiat was already gone forth. And Mr. Val Elster felt so savage that he could have struck his brother. He heard Dr. Ashton's reply to an inquiry—that Mrs. Ashton was feeling unusually poorly, and Anne remained at home with her—but he looked upon it as an evasion. Not a word did he speak during dinner: not a word, save what was forced from him by common courtesy, spoke he after the ladies had left the room; he only drank a great deal of wine.

A very unusual circumstance for Val Elster. With all his weak resolution, his yielding nature, drinking was a fault he was scarcely ever seduced into. Not above two or three times in his life could he remember to have exceeded the bounds of strict, temperate sobriety. The fact was, he was in wrath with himself: all his past follies were pressing upon him with bitter condemnation. He was just in that frame of mind when an object to vent our fury upon becomes a sort of necessity; and Mr. Elster's was vented on his brother.

He was waiting at boiling-point for the opportunity to "have it out" with him: and it soon came. As the gentlemen left the dining-room—and in these present days they do not, as a rule, sit long, especially when the host is a young man—Percival Elster touched his brother to detain him, and shut the door on the heels of the rest.

Lord Hartledon was surprised. Val's attack was so savage. He was talking off his superfluous wrath, and the wine he had taken did not tend to cool his heat. Lord Hartledon, vexed at the injustice, lost his temper; and for once there was a quarrel, sharp and loud, between the brothers. It did not last long; in its very midst they parted; throwing cutting words one at the other. Lord Hartledon quitted the room, to join his guests; Val Elster strode outside the window to cool his brain.

But now, look at the obstinate pride of those two foolish men! They were angry with each other in temper, but not in heart. In Percival Elster's conscience there was an underlying conviction that his brother had acted only in thoughtless impulse when he carried the misfortune to the Rectory; whilst Lord Hartledon was even then full of plans for serving Val, and considered he had more need to help him than ever. A day or two given to the indulgence of their anger, and they would be firmer friends than ever.

The large French window of the dining-room, opening to the ground, was flung back by Val Elster; and he stepped forth into the cool night, which was beautifully fine. The room looked towards the river. The velvet lawn, wet with the day's rain, lay calm and silent under the bright stars; the flowers, clustering around far and wide, gave out their sweet and heavy night perfume. Not an instant had he been outside when he became conscious that some figure was gliding towards him—was almost close to him; and he recognised Mr. Pike. Yes, that worthy gentleman appeared to be only then arriving on his evening visit: in point of fact, he had been glued ear and eye to the window during the quarrel.

"What do you want?" demanded Mr. Elster.

"Well, I came up here hoping to get a word with you, sir," replied the man in his rough, abrupt manner, more in character with his appearance and lawless reputation than with his accent and unmistakable intelligence. "There was a nasty accident a few hours ago: that shark came across his lordship."

"I know he did," savagely spoke Val. "The result of your informing him that I was Lord Hartledon."

"I did it for the best, Mr. Elster. He'd have nabbed you that very time, but for my putting him off the scent as I did."

"Yes, yes, I am aware you did it for the best, and I suppose it turned out to be so," quickly replied Val, some of his native kindliness resuming its sway. "It's an unfortunate affair altogether, and that's the best that can be said of it."

"What I came up here for was to tell you he was gone."

"Who is gone?"

"The shark."

"Gone!"

"He went off by the seven train. Lord Hartledon told him he'd communicate with his principals and see that the affair was arranged. It satisfied the man, and he went away by the next train—which happened to be the seven-o'clock one."

"How do you know this?" asked Mr. Elster.

"This way," was the answer. "I was hovering about outside that shed of mine, and I saw the encounter at the parson's gate—for that's where it took place. The first thing the fellow did when it was all over was to bolt across the road, and accuse me of purposely misleading him. 'Not a bit of it,' said I; 'if I did mislead you, it was unintentional, for I took the one who came over the bridge on Saturday to be Lord Hartledon, safe as eggs. But they have been down here only a week,' I went on, 'and I suppose I don't know 'em apart yet.' I can't say whether he believed me; I think he did; he's a soft sort of chap. It was all right, he said: the earl had passed his word to him that it should be made so without his arresting Mr. Elster, and he was off to London at once."

"And he has gone?"

Mr. Pike nodded significantly. "I watched him go; dodged him up to the station and saw him off."

Then this one danger was over! Val might breathe freely again.

"And I thought you would like to know the coast was clear; so I came up to tell you," concluded Pike.

"Thank you for your trouble," said Mr. Elster. "I shall not forget it."

"You'll remember it, perhaps, if a question arises touching that shed," spoke the man. "I may need a word sometime with Lord Hartledon."

"I'll remember it, Pike. Here, wait a moment. Is Thomas Pike your real name?"

"Well, I conclude it is. Pike was the name of my father and mother. As to Thomas—not knowing where I was christened, I can't go and look at the register; but they never called me anything but Tom. Did you wish to know particularly?"

There was a tone of mockery in the man's answer, not altogether acceptable to his hearer; and he let him go without further hindrance. But the man turned back in an instant of his own accord.

"I dare say you are wanting to know why I did you this little turn, Mr. Elster. I have been caught in corners myself before now; and if I can help anybody to get out of them without trouble to myself, I'm willing to do it. And to circumvent these law-sharks comes home to my spirit as wholesome refreshment."

Mr. Pike finally departed. He took the lonely way, and only struck into the high-road opposite his own domicile, the shed. Passing round it, he hovered at its rude door—the one he had himself made, along with the ruder window—and then, treading softly, he stepped to the low stile in the hedge, which had for years made the boundary between the waste land on which the shed stood and Clerk Gum's garden. Here he halted a minute, looking all ways. Then he stepped over the stile, crouched down amongst Mr. Gum's cabbages, got under shelter of the hedge, and so stole onwards, until he came to an anchor at the kitchen-window, and laid his ear to the shutter, just as it had recently been laid against the glass in the dining-room of my Lord Hartledon.

That he had a propensity for prying into the private affairs of his neighbours near and distant, there could be little doubt about. Mr. Pike, however, was not destined on this one occasion to reap any substantial reward. The kitchen appeared to be wrapped in perfect silence. Satisfying himself as to this, he next took off his heavy shoes, stole past the back door, and so round the clerk's house to the front. Very softly indeed went he, creeping by the wall, and emerging at last round the angle, by the window of the best parlour. Here, most excessively to Mr. Pike's consternation, he came upon a lady doing exactly what he had come to do—namely, stealthily listening at the window to anything there might be to hear inside.

The shrill scream she gave when she found her face in contact with the wild intruder, might have been heard over at Dr. Ashton's. Clerk Gum, who had been quietly writing in his office, came out in haste, and recognized Mrs. Jones, the wife of the surly porter at the station, and step-mother to the troublesome young servant, Rebecca. Pike had totally disappeared.

Mrs. Jones, partly through fright, partly in anger arising from a long-standing grievance, avowed the truth boldly: she had been listening at the parlour-shutters ever since she went out of the house ten minutes ago, and had been set upon by that wolf Pike.

"Set upon!" exclaimed the clerk, looking swiftly in all directions for the offender.

"I don't know what else you can call it, when a highway robber—a murderer, if all tales be true—steals round upon you without warning, and glares his eyes into yours," shrieked Mrs. Jones wrathfully. "And if he wasn't barefoot, Gum, my eyes strangely deceived me. I'd have you and Nancy take care of your throats."

She turned into the house, to the best parlour, where the clerk's wife was sitting with a visitor, Mirrable. Mrs. Gum, when she found what the commotion had been about, gave a sharp cry of terror, and shook from head to foot.

"On our premises! Close to our house! That dreadful man! Oh, Lydia, don't you think you were mistaken?"

"Mistaken!" retorted Mrs. Jones. "That wild face isn't one to be mistaken: I should like to see its fellow in Calne. Why Lord Hartledon don't have him taken up on suspicion of that murder, is odd to me."

"You'd better hold your tongue about that suspicion," interposed Mirrable. "I have cautioned you before, I shouldn't like to breathe a word against a desperate man; I should go about in fear that he might hear of it, and revenge himself."

In came the clerk. "I don't see a sign of any one about," he said; "and I'm sure whoever it was could not have had time to get away. You must have been mistaken, Mrs. Jones."

"Mistaken in what, pray?"

"That any man was there. You got confused, and fancied it, perhaps. As to Pike, he'd never dare come on my premises, whether by night or day. What were you doing at the window?"

"Listening," defiantly replied Mrs. Jones. "And now I'll just tell out what I've had in my head this long while, Mr. Gum, and know the reason of Nancy's slighting me in the way she does. What secret has she and Mary Mirrable got between them?"

"Secret?" repeated the clerk, whilst his wife gave a faint cry, and Mirrable turned her calm face on Mrs. Jones. "Have they a secret?"

"Yes, they have," raved Mrs. Jones, giving vent to her long pent-up emotion. "If they haven't, I'm blind and deaf. If I have come into your house once during the past year and found Mrs. Mirrable in it, and the two sitting and whispering, I've come ten times. This evening I came in at dusk; I turned the handle of the door and peeped into the best parlour, and there they were, nose and knees together, starting away from each other as soon as they saw me, Nance giving one of her faint cries, and the two making believe to have been talking of the weather. It's always so. And I want to know what secret they have got hold of, and whether I'm poison, that I can't be trusted with it."

Jabez Gum slowly turned his eyes on the two in question. His wife lifted her hands in deprecation at the idea that she should have a secret: Mirrable was laughing.

"Nancy's secret to-night, when you interrupted us, was telling me of a dream she had regarding Lord Hartledon, and of how she mistook Mr. Elster for him the morning he came down," cried the latter. "And if you have really been listening at the shutters since you went out, Mrs. Jones, you should by this time know how to pickle walnuts in the new way: for I declare that is all our conversation has been about since. You always were suspicious, you know, and you always will be."

"Look here, Mrs. Jones," said the clerk, decisively; "I don't choose to have my shutters listened at: it might give the house a bad name, for quarrelling, or something of that sort. So I'll trouble you not to repeat what you have done to-night, or I shall forbid your coming here. A secret, indeed!"

"Yes, a secret!" persisted Mrs. Jones. "And if I don't come at what it is one of these days, my name's not Lydia Jones. And I'll tell you why. It strikes me—I may be wrong—but it strikes me it concerns me and my husband and my household, which some folks are ever ready to interfere with. I'll take myself off now; and I would recommend you, as a parting warning, to denounce Pike to the police for an attempt at housebreaking, before you're both murdered in your bed. That'll be the end on't."

She went away, and Clerk Gum wished he could denounce her to the police. Mirrable laughed again; and Mrs. Gum, cowardly and timid, fell back in her chair as one seized with ague.

Beyond giving an occasional dole to Mrs. Jones for her children—and to tell the truth, she clothed them all, or they would have gone in rags—Mirrable had shaken her cousin off long ago: which of course did not tend to soothe the naturally jealous spirit of Mrs. Jones. At Hartledon House she was not welcomed, and could not go there; but she watched for the visits of Mirrable at the clerk's, and was certain to intrude on those occasions.

"I'll find it out!" she repeated to herself, as she went storming through the garden-gate; "I'll find it out. And as to that poacher, he'd better bring his black face near mine again!"



CHAPTER VIII.

THE WAGER BOATS.

Tuesday morning rose, bright and propitious: a contrast to the two previous days arranged for the boat-race. All was pleasure, bustle, excitement at Hartledon: but the coolness that had arisen between the brothers was noticed by some of the guests. Neither of them was disposed to take the first step towards reconciliation: and, indeed, a little incident that occurred that morning led to another ill word between them. An account that had been standing for more than two years was sent in to Lord Hartledon's steward; it was for some harness, a saddle, a silver-mounted whip, and a few trifles of that sort, supplied by a small tradesman in the village. Lord Hartledon protested there was nothing of the sort owing; but upon inquiry the debtor proved to be Mr. Percival Elster. Lord Hartledon, vexed that any one in the neighbourhood should have waited so long for his money, said a sharp word on the score to Percival; and the latter retorted as sharply that it was no business of his. Again Val was angry with himself, and thus gave vent to his temper. The fact was, he had completely forgotten the trifling debt, and was as vexed as Hartledon that it should have been allowed to remain unpaid: but the man had not sent him any reminder whilst he was away.

"Pay it to-day, Marris," cried Lord Hartledon to his steward. "I won't have this sort of thing at Calne."

His tone was one of irritation—or it sounded so to the ears of his conscious brother, and Val bit his lips. After that, throughout the morning, they maintained a studied silence towards each other; and this was observed, but was not commented on. Val was unusually quiet altogether: he was saying to himself that he was sullen.

The starting-hour for the race was three o'clock; but long before that time the scene was sufficiently animated, not to say exciting. It was a most lovely afternoon. Not a trace remained of the previous day's rain; and the river—wide just there, as it took the sweeping curve of the point—was dotted with these little wager boats. Their owners for the time being, in their white boating-costume, each displaying his colours, were in highest spirits; and the fair gazers gathered on the banks were anxious as to the result. The favourite was Lord Hartledon—by long odds, as Mr. Shute grumbled. Had his lordship been known not to possess the smallest chance, nine of those fair girls out of ten would, nevertheless, have betted upon him. Some of them were hoping to play for a deeper stake than a pair of gloves. A staff, from which fluttered a gay little flag, had been driven into the ground, exactly opposite the house; it was the starting and the winning point. At a certain distance up the river, near to the mill, a boat was moored in mid-stream: this they would row round, and come back again.

At three o'clock they were to take the boats; and, allowing for time being wasted in the start, might be in again and the race won in three-quarters-of-an-hour. But, as is often the case, the time was not adhered to; one hindrance after another occurred; there was a great deal of laughing and joking, forgetting of things, and of getting into order; and at a quarter to four they were not off. But all were ready at last, and most of the rowers were each in his little cockle-shell. Lord Hartledon lingered yet in the midst of the group of ladies, all clustered together at one spot, who were keeping him with their many comments and questions. Each wore the colours of her favourite: the crimson and purple predominating, for they were those of their host. Lady Kirton displayed her loyalty in a conspicuous manner. She had an old crimson gauze skirt on, once a ball-dress, with ends of purple ribbon floating from it and fluttering in the wind; and a purple head-dress with a crimson feather. Maude, in a spirit of perversity, displayed a blue shoulder-knot, timidly offered to her by a young Oxford man who was staying there, Mr. Shute; and Anne Ashton wore the colours given her by Lord Hartledon.