On the day following the death she had sought an interview with Percival. Never a woman evinced better tact than she. There was no violent change in her manner, no apologies for the past, or display of sudden affection. She spoke quietly and sensibly of passing topics: the death, and what could have led to it; the immediate business on hand, some of the changes it entailed in the future. "I'll stay with you still, Percival," she said, "and look after things a bit for you, as I have been doing for your brother. It is an awful shock, and we must all have time to get over it. If I had only foreseen this, how I might have spared my temper and poor Maude's feelings!"

She looked out of the corner of her eye at the young man; but he betrayed no curiosity to hear more, and she went on unasked.

"You know, Val, for a portionless girl, as Maude is, it was a great blow to me when I found her fixing her heart upon a younger son. How cross and unjust it made me I couldn't conceal: mothers are mothers. I wanted her to take a fancy to Hartledon, dear fellow, and I suppose she could not, and it rendered me cross; and I know I worried her and worried my own temper, till at times I was not conscious of what I said. Poor Maude! she did not rebel openly, but I could see her struggles. Only a week ago, when Hartledon was talking about his marrying sometime, and hinting that she might care fox him if she tried, she scored her beautiful drawing all over with ugly marks; ran the pencil through it—"

"But why do you tell me this now?" asked Val.

"Hartledon—dear me! I wonder how long I shall be getting accustomed to your name?—there's only you and me and Maude left now of the family," cried the dowager; "and if I speak of such things, it is in fulness of heart. And now about these letters: do you care how they are worded?"

"I don't seem to care about anything," listlessly answered the young man. "As to the letters, I think I'd rather write them myself, Lady Kirton."

"Indeed you shall not have any trouble of that sort to-day. I'll write the letters, and you may indulge yourself in doing nothing."

He yielded in his unstable nature. She spoke of business letters, and it was better that he should write them; he wished to write them; but she carried her point, and his will yielded to hers. Would it be a type of the future?—would he yield to her in other things in defiance of his better judgment? Alas! alas!

She picked up her skirts and left him, and went sailing upstairs to her daughter's room. Maude was sitting shivering in a shawl, though the day was hot.

"I've paved the way," nodded the old woman, in meaning tones. "And there's one fortunate thing about Val: he is so truthful himself, one may take him in with his eyes open."

Maude turned her eyes upon her mother: very languid and unspeculative eyes just then.

"I gave him a hint, Maude, that you had been unable to bring yourself to like Hartledon, but had fixed your mind on a younger son. Later, we'll let him suspect who the younger son was."

The words aroused Maude; she started up and stood staring at her mother, her eyes dilating with a sort of horror; her pale cheeks slowly turning crimson.

"I don't understand," she gasped; "I hope I don't understand. You—you do not mean that I am to try to like Val Elster?"

"Now, Maude, no heroics. I'll not see you make a fool of yourself as your sisters have done. He's not Val Elster any longer; he is Lord Hartledon: better-looking than ever his brother was, and will make a better husband, for he'll be more easily led."

"I would not marry Val for the whole world," she said, with strong emotion. "I dislike him; I hate him; I never could be a wife to Val Elster."

"We'll see," said the dowager, pushing up her front, of which she had just caught sight in a glass.

"Thank Heaven, there's no fear of it!" resumed Maude, collecting her senses, and sitting down again with a relieved sigh; "he is to marry Anne Ashton. Thank Heaven that he loves her!"

"Anne Ashton!" scornfully returned the countess-dowager. "She might have been tolerated when he was Val Elster, not now he is Lord Hartledon. What notions you have, Maude!"

Maude burst into tears. "Mamma, I think it is fearfully indecent for you to begin upon these things already! It only happened last night, and—and it sounds quite horrible."

"When one has to live as I do, one has to do many things decent and indecent," retorted the countess-dowager sharply. "He has had his hint, and you've got yours: and you are no true girl if you suffer yourself now to be triumphed over by Anne Ashton."

Maude cried on silently, thinking how cruel fate was to have taken one brother and spared the other. Who—save Anne Ashton—would have missed Val Elster; while Lord Hartledon—at least he had made the life of one heart. A poor bruised heart now; never, never to be made quite whole again.

Thus the dowager, in her blindness, began her plans. In her blindness! If we could only foresee the ending of some of the unholy schemes that many of us are apt to weave, we might be more willing to leave them humbly in a higher Hand than ours. Do they ever bring forth good, these plans, born of our evil passions—hatred, malice, utter selfishness? I think not. They may seem to succeed triumphantly, but—watch the triumph to the end.



CHAPTER XIII.

FEVER.

The dews of an October evening were falling upon Calne, as Lord Hartledon walked from the railway-station. Just as unexpectedly as he had arrived the morning you first saw him, when he was only Val Elster, had he arrived now. By the merest accident one of the Hartledon servants happened to be at the station when the train arrived, and took charge of his master's luggage.

"All well at home, James?"

"All quite well, my lord."

Several weeks had elapsed since his brother's death, and Lord Hartledon had spent them in London. He went up on business the week after the funeral, and did not return again. In one respect he had no inducement to return; for the Ashtons, including Anne, were on a visit in Wales. They were at home now, as he knew well; and perhaps that had brought him down.

He went in unannounced, finding his way to the inner drawing-room. A large fire blazed in the grate, and Lady Maude sat by it so intent in thought as not to observe his entrance. She wore a black crepe dress, with a little white trimming on its low body and sleeves. The firelight played on her beautiful features; and her eyelashes glistened as if with tears: she was thinner and paler; he saw it at once. The countess-dowager kept to Hartledon and showed no intention of moving from it: she and her daughter had been there alone all these weeks.

"How are you, Maude?"

She looked round and started up, backing from him with a face of alarm. Ah, was it instinct caused her so to receive him? What, or who, was she thinking of; holding her hands before her with that face of horror?

"Maude, have I so startled you?"

"Percival! I beg your pardon. I believe I was thinking of—of your brother, and I really did not know you in the uncertain light. We don't have the rooms lighted early," she added, with a little laugh.

He took her hands in his. Now that she knew him, and the alarm was over, she seemed really pleased to see him: the dark eyes were raised to his with a frank smile.

"May I take a cousin's greeting, Maude?"

Without waiting for yes or no, he stooped and took the kiss. Maude flung his hands away. He should have left out the "cousin," or not have taken the kiss.

He went and stood with his elbow on the mantelpiece, soberly, as if he had only kissed a sister. Maude sat down again.

"Why did you not send us word you were coming?" she asked.

"There was no necessity for it. And I only made my mind up this morning."

"What a long time you have been away! I thought you went for a week."

"I did not get my business over very quickly; and waited afterwards to see Thomas Carr, who was out of town. The Ashtons were away, you know; so I had no inducement to hurry back again."

"Very complimentary to her. Who's Thomas Carr?" asked Maude.

"A barrister; the greatest friend I possess in this world. We were at college together, and he used to keep me straight."

"Keep you straight! Val!"

"It's quite true. I went to him in all my scrapes and troubles. He is the most honourable, upright, straightforward man I know; and, as such, possesses a talent for serving—"

"Hartledon! Is it you?"

The interruption came from the dowager. She and the butler came in together, both looking equally astonished at the appearance of Lord Hartledon. The former said dinner was served.

"Will you let me sit down in this coat?" asked Val.

The countess-dowager would willingly have allowed him to sit down without any. Her welcome was demonstrative; her display of affection quite warm, and she called him "Val," tenderly. He escaped for a minute to his room, washed his hands, brushed his hair, and was down again, and taking the head of his own table.

It was pleasant to have him there—a welcome change from Hartledon's recent monotony; and even Maude, with her boasted dislike, felt prejudice melting away. Boasted dislike, not real, it had been. None could dislike Percival. He was not Edward, and it was him Maude had loved. Percival she never would love, but she might learn to like him. As he sat near her, in his plain black morning attire, courteous, genuinely sweet-tempered, his good looks conspicuous, a smile on his delicate, refined, but vacillating lips, and his honest dark-blue eyes bent upon her in kindness, Maude for the first time admitted a vision of the possible future, together with a dim consciousness that it might not be intolerable. Half the world, of her age and sex, would have deemed it indeed a triumph to be made the wife of that attractive man.

He had cautiously stood aside for Lady Kirton to take the head of the table; but the dowager had positively refused, and subsided into the chair at the foot. She did not fill it in dear Edward's time, she said; neither should she in dear Val's; he had come home to occupy his own place. And oh, thank goodness he was come! She and Maude had been so lonely and miserable, growing thinner daily from sheer ennui. So she faced Lord Hartledon at the end of the table, her flaxen curls surmounted by an array of black plumes, and looking very like a substantial female mute.

"What an awful thing that is about the Rectory!" exclaimed she, when they were more than half through dinner.

Lord Hartledon looked up quietly. "What is the matter at the Rectory?"

"Fever has broken out."

"Is that all!" he exclaimed, some amusement on his face. "I thought it must have taken fire."

"A fever's worse than a fire."

"Do you think so?"

"Think so!" echoed the dowager. "You can run away from a fire; but a fever may take you before you are aware of it. Every soul in the Rectory may die; it may spread to the parish; it may spread here. I have kept tar burning outside the house the last two days."

"You are not serious, Lady Kirton!"

"I am serious. I wouldn't catch a fever for the whole world. I should die of fright before it had time to kill me. Besides—I have Maude to guard. You were forgetting her."

"There's no danger at all. One of the servants became ill after they returned home, and it proved to be fever. I don't suppose it will spread."

"How did you hear about it?"

"From Miss Ashton. She mentioned it in her last letter to me."

"I didn't know you corresponded with her," cried the dowager, her tones rather shrill.

"Not correspond with Miss Ashton!" he repeated. "Of course I do."

The old dowager had a fit of choking: something had gone the wrong way, she said. Lord Hartledon resumed.

"It is an awful shame of those seaside lodging-house people! Did you hear the particulars, Maude? After the Ashtons concluded their visit in Wales, they went for a fortnight to the seaside, on their way home, taking lodgings. Some days after they had been settled in the rooms they discovered that some fever was in the house; a family who occupied another set of apartments being ill with it, and had been ill before the Ashtons went in. Dr. Ashton told the landlady what he thought of her conduct, and then they left the house for home. But Mrs. Ashton's maid, Matilda, had already taken it."

"Did Miss Ashton give you these particulars?" asked Maude, toying with a late rose that lay beside her plate.

"Yes. I should feel inclined to prosecute the woman, were I Dr. Ashton, for having been so wickedly inconsiderate. But I hope Matilda is better, and that the alarm will end with her. It is four days since I had Anne's letter."

"Then, Lord Hartledon, I can tell you the alarm's worse, and another has taken it, and the parish is up in arms," said the countess-dowager, tartly. "It has proved to be fever of a most malignant type, and not a soul but Hillary the surgeon goes near the Rectory, You must not venture within half-a-mile of it. Dr. Ashton was so careless as to occupy his pulpit on Sunday; but, thank goodness, I did not venture to church, or allow Maude to go. Your Miss Ashton will be having it next."

"Of course they have advice from Garchester?" he exclaimed.

"How should I know? My opinion is that the parson himself might be prosecuted for bringing the fever into a healthy neighbourhood. Port, Hedges! One has need of a double portion of tonics in a time like this."

The countess-dowager's alarms were not feigned—no, nor exaggerated. She had an intense, selfish fear of any sort of illness; she had a worse fear of death. In any time of public epidemic her terrors would have been almost ludicrous in their absurdity but that they were so real. And she "fortified" herself against infection by eating and drinking more than ever.

Nothing else was said: she shunned allusion to it when she could: and presently she and Maude left the dining-room. "You won't be long, Hartledon?" she observed, sweetly, as she passed him. Val only bowed in answer, closed the door upon them, and rang for Hedges.

"Is there much alarm regarding this fever at the Rectory?" he asked of the butler.

"Not very much, I think, my lord. A few are timid about it; as is always the case. One of the other servants has taken it; but Mr. Hillary told me when he was here this morning that he hoped it would not spread beyond the Rectory."

"Was Hillary here this morning? Nobody's ill?" asked Lord Hartledon, quickly.

"No one at all, my lord. The countess-dowager sent for him, to ask what her diet had better be, and how she could guard against infection more effectually than she was doing. She did not allow him to come in, but spoke to him from one of the upper windows, with a cloak and respirator on."

Lord Hartledon looked at his butler; the man was suppressing a grim smile.

"Nonsense, Hedges!"

"It's quite true, my lord. Mrs. Mirrable says she has five bowls of disinfectant in their rooms."

Lord Hartledon broke into a laugh, not suppressed.

"And in the courtyard, looking towards the Rectory, as may be said, there's several pitch-pots alight night and day," added Hedges. "We have had a host of people up, wanting to know if the place is on fire."

"What a joke!" cried Val—who was not yet beyond the age to enjoy such jokes. "Hedges," he resumed, in a more confidential tone, "no strangers have been here inquiring for me, I suppose?"

He alluded to creditors, or people acting for them. To a careless man, as Val had been, it was a difficult matter to know whether all his debts were paid or not. He had settled what he remembered; but there might be others. Hedges understood; and his voice fell to the same low tone: he had been pretty cognizant of the embarrassments of Mr. Percival Elster.

"Nobody at all, my lord. They wouldn't have got much information out of me, if they had come."

Lord Hartledon laughed. "Things are changed now, Hedges, and they may have as much information as they choose. Bring me coffee here; make haste."

Coffee was brought, and he went out as soon as he had taken it, following the road to the Rectory. It was a calm, still night, the moon tolerably bright; not a breath of wind stirred the air, warm and oppressive for October; not by any means the sort of night doctors covet when fever is in the atmosphere.

He turned in at the Rectory-gates, and was crossing to the house, when a rustling of leaves in a shrubbery path caused him to look over the dwarf laurels, and there stood Anne. He was at her side in an instant. She had nothing on her head, as though she had just come forth from the rooms for a breath of air. As indeed was the case.

"My darling!"

"I heard you had come," she whispered, as he held both her hands in his, and her heart bounded with an exquisite flutter of delight.

"How did you hear that?" he said, placing her hand within his arm, that he might pace the walk with her.

"Papa heard it. Some one had seen you walking home from the train: I think it was Mr. Hillary. But, Percival, ought you to have come here?" she added in alarm. "This is infected ground, you know."

"Not for me. I have no more fear of fever than I have of moonstroke. Anne, I hope you will not take it," he gravely added.

"I hope not, either. Like you, I have no fear of it. I am so glad Arthur is away. Was it not wrong of that landlady to let her rooms to us when she had fever in them?"

"Infamously wrong," said Lord Hartledon warmly.

"She excused herself afterwards by saying, that as the people who had the fever were in quite a different part of the house from ours, she thought there could be no danger. Papa was so angry. He told her he was sorry the law did not take cognizance of such an offence. We had been a week in the house before we knew of it."

"How did you find it out?"

"The lady who was ill with it died, and Matilda saw the coffin going up the back stairs. She questioned the servants of the house, and one of them told her all about it then, bit by bit. Another lady was lying ill, and a third was recovering. The landlady, by way of excuse, said the greatest wrong had been done to herself, for these ladies had brought the fever into her house, and brought it deliberately. Fever had broken out in their own home, some long way off, and they ran away from it, and took her apartments, saying nothing; which was true, we found."

"Two wrongs don't make a right," observed Lord Hartledon. "Their bringing the fever into her house was no justification for receiving you into it when it was there. It's the way of the world, Anne: one wrong leading to others. Is Matilda getting over it?"

"I hardly know. She is not out of danger; but Mr. Hillary has hopes of her. One of the other servants has taken it, and is worse than Matilda. Mr. Hillary has been with her three times to-day, and is coming again. She was ill when I last wrote to you, Val; but we did not know it."

"Which of them is it?" he asked.

"The dairymaid; a stout girl, who has never had a day's illness before. I don't suppose you know her. There was some trouble with her. She would not take any medicine; would not do anything she ought to have done, and the consequence is that the fever has got dangerously ahead. I am sure she is very ill."

"I hope it will not spread beyond the Rectory."

"Oh, Val, that is our one great hope," she said, turning her earnest face to him in the moonlight. "We are taking all possible precautions. None of us are going beyond the grounds, except papa, and we do not receive any one here. I don't know what papa will say to your coming."

He smiled. "But you can't keep all the world away!"

"We do—very nearly. Mr. Hillary comes, and Dr. Beamish from Garchester, and one or two people have been here on business. If any one calls at the gate, they are not asked in; and I don't suppose they would come in if asked. Jabez Gum's the most obstinate. He comes in just as usual."

"Lady Kirton is in an awful fright," said Val, in an amused tone.

"Oh, I have heard of it," cried Anne, clasping her hands in laughter. "She is burning tar outside the house; and she spoke to Mr. Hillary this morning through the window muffled up in a cloak and respirator. What a strange old thing she is!"

Val shrugged his shoulders. "I don't think she means badly au fond; and she has no home, poor creature."

"Is that why she remains at Hartledon?"

"I suppose so. Reigning at Hartledon must be something like a glimpse of Paradise to her. She won't quit it in a hurry."

"I wonder you like to have her there."

"I know I shall never have courage to tell her to go," was the candid and characteristic answer. "I was afraid of her as a boy, and I'm not sure but I'm afraid of her still."

"I don't like her—I don't like either of them," said Anne in a low tone.

"Don't you like Maude?"

"No. I am sure she is not true. To my mind there is something very false about them both."

"I think you are wrong, Anne; certainly as regards Maude."

Miss Ashton did not press her opinion: they were his relatives. "But I should have pitied poor Edward had he lived and married her," she said, following out her thoughts.

"I was mistaken when I thought Maude cared for Edward," observed Lord Hartledon. "I'm sure I did think it. I used to tell Edward so; but a day or two after he died I found I was wrong. The dowager had been urging Maude to like him, and she could not, and it made her miserable."

"Did Maude tell you this?" inquired Anne; her radiant eyes full of surprise.

"Not Maude: she never said a word to me upon the subject. It was the dowager."

"Then, Val, she must have said it with an object in view. I am sure Maude did love him. I know she did."

He shook his head. "You are wrong, Anne, depend upon it. She did not like him, and she and her mother were at variance upon the point. However, it is of no moment to discuss it now: and it might never have come to an issue had Edward lived, for he did not care for her; and I dare say never would have cared for her."

Anne said no more. It was of no moment as he observed; but she retained her own opinion. They strolled to the end of the short walk in silence, and Anne said she must go in.

"Am I quite forgiven?" whispered Lord Hartledon, bending his head down to her.

"I never thought I had very much to forgive," she rejoined, after a pause.

"My darling! I mean by your father."

"Ah, I don't know. You must talk to him. He knows we have been writing to each other. I think he means to trust you."

"The best plan will be for you to come soon to Hartledon, Anne. I shall never go wrong when once you are my wife."

"Do you go so very wrong now?" she asked.

"On my honour, no! You need not doubt me, Anne; now or ever. I have paid up what I owed, and will take very good care to keep out of trouble for the future. I incurred debts for others, more than for myself, and have bought experience dearly. My darling, surely you can trust me now?"

"I always did trust you," she murmured.

He took a long, fervent kiss from her lips, and then led her to the open lawn and across to the house.

"Ought you to come in, Percival?"

"Certainly. One word, Anne; because I may be speaking to the Rector—I don't mean to-night. You will make no objection to coming soon to Hartledon?"

"I can't come, you know, as long as Lady Kirton is its mistress," she said, half seriously, half jestingly.

He laughed at the notion. Lady Kirton must be going soon of her own accord; if not, he should have to pluck up courage and give her a hint, was his answer. At any rate, she'd surely take herself off before Christmas. The old dowager at Hartledon after he had Anne there! Not if he knew it, he added, as he went on with her into the presence of Dr. and Mrs. Ashton. The Rector started from his seat, at once telling him that he ought not to have come in. Which Val did not see at all, and decidedly refused to go out again.

Meanwhile the countess-dowager and Maude were wondering what had become of him. They supposed he was still sitting in the dining-room. The old dowager fidgeted about, her fingers ominously near the bell. She was burning to send to him, but hardly knew how he might take the message: it might be that he would object to leading strings, and her attempt to put them on would ruin all. But the time went on; grew late; and she was dying for her tea, which she had chosen should wait also. Maude sat before the fire in a large chair; her eyes, her hands, her whole air supremely listless.

"Don't you want tea, Maude?" suddenly cried her mother, who had cast innumerable glances at her from time to time.

"I have wanted it for hours—as it seems to me."

"It's a horrid custom for young men, this sitting long after dinner. If he gets into it—But you must see to that, and stop it, if ever you reign at Hartledon. I dare say he's smoking."

"If ever I reign at Hartledon—which I am not likely to do—I'll take care not to wait tea for any one, as you have made me wait for it this evening," was Maude's rejoinder, spoken with apathy.

"I'll send a message to him," decided Lady Kirton, ringing rather fiercely.

A servant appeared.

"Tell Lord Hartledon we are waiting tea for him."

"His lordship's not in, my lady."

"Not in!"

"He went out directly after dinner, as soon as he had taken coffee."

"Oh," said the countess-dowager. And she began to make the tea with vehemence—for it did not please her to have it brought in made—and knocked down and broke one of the delicate china cups.



CHAPTER XIV.

ANOTHER PATIENT.

It was eleven o'clock when Lord Hartledon entered. Lady Kirton was fanning herself vehemently. Maude had gone upstairs for the night.

"Where have you been?" she asked, laying down her fan. "We waited tea for you until poor Maude got quite exhausted."

"Did you? I am sorry for that. Never wait for me, pray, Lady Kirton. I took tea at the Rectory."

"Took—tea—where?"

"At the Rectory."

With a shriek the countess-dowager darted to the far end of the room, turning up her gown as she went, and muffling it over her head and face, so that only the little eyes, round now with horror, were seen. Lord Hartledon gazed in amazement.

"You have been at the Rectory, when I warned you not to go! You have been inside that house of infection, and come home—here—to me—to my darling Maude! May heaven forgive you, Hartledon!"

"Why, what have I done? What harm will it do?" exclaimed the astonished man. He would have approached her, but she warned him from her piteously with her hands. She was at the upper end of the room, and he near the door, so that she could not leave it without passing him. Hedges came in, and stood staring in the same wondering astonishment as his master.

"For mercy's sake, take off every shred of your clothes!" she cried. "You may have brought home death in them. They shall be thrown into the burning tar. Do you want to kill us? What has Maude done to you that you behave in this way?"

"I do think you must be going mad!" cried Lord Hartledon, in bewilderment; "and I hope you'll forgive me for saying so. I—"

"Go and change your clothes!" was all she could reiterate. "Every minute you stand in them is fraught with danger. If you choose to die yourself, it's downright wicked to bring death to us. Oh, go, that I may get out of here."

Lord Hartledon, to pacify her, left the room, and the countess-dowager rushed forth and bolted herself into her own apartments.

Was she mad, or making a display of affectation, or genuinely afraid? wondered Lord Hartledon aloud, as he went up to his chamber. Hedges gave it as his opinion that she was really afraid, because she had been as bad as this when she first heard of the illness, before his lordship arrived. Val retired to rest laughing: it was a good joke to him.

But it was no joke to the countess-dowager, as he found to his cost when the morning came. She got him out of his chamber betimes, and commenced a "fumigating" process. The clothes he had worn she insisted should be burnt; pleading so piteously that he yielded in his good nature.

But there was to be a battle on another score. She forbade him, in the most positive terms, to go again to the Rectory—to approach within half-a-mile of it. Lord Hartledon civilly told her he could not comply; he hinted that if her alarms were so great, she had better leave the place until all danger was over, and thereby nearly entailed on himself another war-dance.

News that came up that morning from the Rectory did not tend to assuage her fears. The poor dairymaid had died in the night, and another servant, one of the men, was sickening. Even Lord Hartledon looked grave: and the countess-dowager wormed a half promise from him, in the softened feelings of the moment, that he would not visit the infected house.

Before an hour was over he came to her to retract it. "I cannot be so unfeeling, so unneighbourly, as not to call," he said. "Even were my relations not what they are with Miss Ashton, I could not do it. It's of no use talking, ma'am; I am too restless to stay away."

A little skirmish of words ensued. Lady Kirton accused him of wishing to sacrifice them to his own selfish gratification. Lord Hartledon felt uncomfortable at the accusation. One of the best-hearted men living, he did nothing in his vacillation. He would go in the evening, he said to himself, when they could not watch him from the house.

But she was clever at carrying out her own will, that countess-dowager; more than a match for the single-minded young man. She wrote an urgent letter to Dr. Ashton, setting forth her own and her daughter's danger if her nephew, as she styled him, was received at the Rectory; and she despatched it privately.

It brought forth a letter from Dr. Ashton to Lord Hartledon; a kind but peremptory mandate, forbidding him to show himself at the Rectory until the illness was over. Dr. Ashton reminded his future son-in-law that it was not particularly on his own account he interposed this veto, but for the sake of the neighbourhood generally. If they were to prevent the fever from spreading, it was absolutely necessary that no chance visitors should be running into the Rectory and out of it again, to carry possible infection to the parish.

Lord Hartledon could only acquiesce. The note was written in terms so positive as rather to surprise him; but he never suspected the undercurrent that had been at work. In his straightforwardness he showed the letter to the dowager, who nodded her head approvingly, but told no tales.

And so his days went on in the society of the two women at Hartledon; and if he found himself oppressed with ennui at first, he subsided into a flirtation with Maude, and forgot care. Elster's folly! He was not hearing from Anne, for it was thought better that even notes should not pass out of the Rectory.

Curiously to relate, the first person beyond the Rectory to take the illness was the man Pike. How he could have caught it was a marvel to Calne. And yet, if Lady Kirton's theory were correct, that infection was conveyed by clothes, it might be accounted for, and Clerk Gum be deemed the culprit. One evening after the clerk had been for some little time at the Rectory with Dr. Ashton, he met Pike in going out; had brushed close to him in passing, as he well remembered. However it might have been, in a few days after that Pike was found to be suffering from the fever.

Whether he would have died, lying alone in that shed, Calne did not decide; and some thought he would, making no sign; some thought not, but would have called in assistance. Mr. Hillary, an observant man, as perhaps it was requisite he should be in time of public danger, halted one morning to speak to Clerk Gum, who was standing at his own gate.

"Have you seen anything lately of that neighbour of yours, Gum?"

"Which neighbour?" asked the clerk, in tones that seemed to resent the question.

Mr. Hillary pointed his umbrella in the direction of the shed. "Pike."

"No, I've seen nothing of him, that I remember."

"Neither have I. What's more, I've seen no smoke coming out of the chimney these two days. It strikes me he's ill. It may be the fever."

"Gone away, possibly," remarked the clerk, after a moment's pause; "in the same unceremonious manner that he came."

"I think somebody ought to see. He may be lying there helpless."

"Little matter if he is," growled the clerk, who seemed put out about something or other.

"It's not like you to say so, Gum. You might step over the stile and see; you're nearest to him. Nobody knows what the man is, or what he may have been; but humanity does not let even the worst die unaided."

"What makes you think he has the fever?" asked the clerk.

"I only say he may have it; having seen neither him nor his smoke these two days. Never mind; if it annoys you to do this, I'll look in myself some time to-day."

"You wouldn't get admitted; he keeps his door fastened," returned Gum. "The only way to get at him is to shout out to him through that glazed aperture he calls his window."

"Will you do it—or shall I?"

"I'll do it," said the clerk; "and tell you if your services are wanted."

Mr. Hillary walked off at a quick pace. There was a good deal of illness in Calne at that season, though the fever had not spread.

Whether Clerk Gum kept his word, or whether he did not, certain it was that Mr. Hillary heard nothing from him that day. In the evening the clerk was sitting in his office in a thoughtful mood, busy over some accounts connected with an insurance company for which he was agent, when he heard a quick sharp knock at the front-door.

"I wonder if it's Hillary?" he muttered, as he took the candle and rose to open it.

Instead of the surgeon, there entered a lady, with much energy. It was the bete noire of Clerk Gum's life, Mrs. Jones.

"What's the house shut up for at this early hour?" she began. "The door locked, the shutters up, and the blinds down, just as if everybody was dead or asleep. Where's Nance?"

"She's out," said the clerk. "I suppose she shut up before she went, and I've been in my office all the afternoon. Do you want anything?"

"Do I want anything!" retorted Mrs. Jones. "I've come in to shelter from the rain. It's been threatening all the evening, and it's coming down now like cats and dogs."

The clerk was leading the way to the little parlour; but she ignored the movement, and went on to the kitchen. He could only follow her. "It's a pity you came out when it threatened rain," said he.

"Business took me out," replied Mrs. Jones. "I've been up to the mill. I heard young Rip was ill, and going to leave; so I went up to ask if they'd try our Jim. But young Rip isn't going to leave, and isn't ill, mother Floyd says, though it's certain he's not well. She can't think what's the matter with the boy; he's always fancying he sees ghosts in the river. I've had my trapes for nothing."

She had given her gown a good shake from the rain-drops in the middle of the kitchen, and was now seated before the fire. The clerk stood by the table, occasionally snuffing the candle, and wishing she'd take herself off again.

"Where's Nancy gone?" asked she.

"I didn't hear her say."

"And she'll be gone a month of Sundays, I suppose. I shan't wait for her, if the rain gives over."

"You'd be more comfortable in the small parlour," said the clerk, who seemed rather fidgety; "there's a nice bit of fire there."

"I'm more comfortable here," contradicted Mrs. Jones. "Where's the good of a bit of fire for a gown as wet as mine?"

Jabez Gum made no response. There was the lady, a fixture; and he could only resign himself to the situation.

"How's your friend at the next house—Pike?" she began again sarcastically.

"He's no friend of mine," said the clerk.

"It looks like it, at all events; or you'd have given him into custody long ago. I wouldn't let a man harbour himself so close to me. He's taken to a new dodge now: going about with a pistol to shoot people."

"Who says so?" asked the clerk.

"I say so. He frighted that boy Ripper pretty near to death. The boy tore home one night in a state of terror, and all they could get out of him was that he'd met Pike with a pistol. It's weeks ago, and he hasn't got over it yet."

"Did Pike level it at him?"

"I tell you that's all they could get out of the boy. He's a nice jail-bird too, that young Rip, unless I'm mistaken. They might as well send him away, and make room for our Jim."

"I think you are about the most fanciful, unjust, selfish woman in Calne!" exclaimed the clerk, unable to keep down his anger any longer. "You'd take young Ripper's character away without scruple, just because his place might suit your Jim!"

"I'm what?" shrieked Mrs. Jones. "I'm unjust, am I—"

An interruption occurred, and Mrs. Jones subsided into silence. The back-door suddenly opened, not a couple of yards from that lady's head, and in came Mrs. Gum in her ordinary indoor dress, two basins in her hand. The sight of her visitor appeared to occasion her surprise; she uttered a faint scream, and nearly dropped the basins.

"Lawk a mercy! Is it Lydia Jones?"

Mrs. Jones had been drawing a quiet deduction—the clerk had said his wife was out only to deceive her. She rose from her chair, and faced him.

"I thought you told me she was gone out?"

The clerk coughed. He looked at his wife, as if asking an explanation. The meeker of the two women hastily put her basins down, and stood looking from one to the other, apparently recovering breath.

"Didn't you go out?" asked the clerk.

"I was going, Gum, but stepped out first to collect my basins, and then the rain came down. I had to shelter under the wood-shed, it was peppering so."

"Collect your basins!" interjected Mrs. Jones. "Where from?"

"I put them out with scraps for the cats."

"The cats must be well off in your quarter; better than some children in others," was the rejoinder, delivered with an unnecessary amount of spite. "What makes you so out of breath?" she tartly asked.

"I had a bit of a fright," said the woman, simply. "My breath seems to get affected at nothing of late, Lydia."

"A pity but you'd your hands full of work, as mine are: that's the best remedy for fright," said Mrs. Jones sarcastically. "What might your fright have been, pray?"

"I was standing, waiting to dart over here, when I saw a man come across the waste land and make for Pike's shed," said Mrs. Gum, looking at her husband. "It gave me a turn. We've never seen a soul go near the place of an evening since Pike has been there."

"Why should it give you a turn?" asked Mrs. Jones, who was in a mood to contradict everything. "You've seen Pike often enough not to be frightened at him when he keeps his distance."

"It wasn't Pike, Lydia. The man had an umbrella over him, and he looked like a gentleman. Fancy Pike with an umbrella!"

"Was it Mr. Hillary?" interposed the clerk.

She shook her head. "I don't think so; but it was getting too dark to see. Any way, it gave me a turn; and he's gone right up to Pike's shed."

"Gave you a turn, indeed!" scornfully repeated Mrs. Jones. "I think you're getting more of an idiot every day, Nance. It's to be hoped somebody's gone to take him up; that's what is to be hoped."

But Mr. Hillary it was. Hearing nothing from Jabez Gum all day, he had come to the conclusion that that respectable man had ignored his promise, and, unable to divest himself of the idea that Pike was ill, in the evening, having a minute to spare, he went forth to see for himself.

The shed-door was closed, but not fastened, and Mr. Hillary went in at once without ceremony. A lighted candle shed its rays around the rude dwelling-room: and the first thing he saw was a young man, who did not look in the least like Pike, stretched upon a mattress; the second was a bushy black wig and appurtenances lying on a chair; and the third was a formidable-looking pistol, conveniently close to the prostrate invalid.

Quick as thought, the surgeon laid his hand upon the pistol and removed it to a safe distance. He then bent over the sick man, examining him with his penetrating eyes; and what he saw struck him with consternation so great, that he sat down on a chair to recover himself, albeit not liable to be overcome by emotion.

When he left the shed—which was not for nearly half-an-hour after he had entered it—he heard voices at Clerk Gum's front-door. The storm was over, and their visitor was departing. Mr. Hillary took a moment's counsel with himself, then crossed the stile and appeared amongst them. Nodding to the three collectively, he gravely addressed the clerk and his wife.

"I have come here to ask, in the name of our common humanity, whether you will put aside your prejudices, and be Christians in a case of need," he began. "I don't forget that once, when an epidemic was raging in Calne, you"—turning to the wife—"were active and fearless, going about and nursing the sick when almost all others held aloof. Will you do the same now by a helpless man?"

The woman trembled all over. Clerk Gum looked questioningly at the doctor. Mrs. Jones was taking in everything with eyes and ears.

"This neighbour of yours has caught the fever. Some one must attend to him, or he will lie there and die. I thought perhaps you'd do it, Mrs. Gum, for our Saviour's sake—if from no other motive."

She trembled excessively. "I always was terribly afraid of that man, sir, since he came," said she, with marked hesitation.

"But he cannot harm you now. I don't ask you to go in to him one day after he is well again—if he recovers. Neither need you be with him as a regular nurse: only step in now and then to give him his physic, or change the wet cloths on his burning head."

Mrs. Jones found her voice. The enormous impudence of the surgeon's request had caused its temporary extinction.

"I'd see Pike in his coffin before I'd go a-nigh him as a nurse! What on earth will you be asking next, Mr. Hillary?"

"I didn't ask you, Mrs. Jones: you have your children to attend to; full employment for one pair of arms. Mrs. Gum has nothing to do with her time; and is near at hand besides. Gum, you stand in your place by Dr. Ashton every Sunday, and read out to us of the loving mercy of God: will you urge your wife to this little work of charity for His sake?"

Jabez Gum evidently did not know what to answer. On the one hand, he could hardly go against the precepts he had to respond to as clerk; on the other, there was his scorn and hatred of the disreputable Arab.

"He's such a loose character, sir," he debated at length.

"Possibly: when he is well. But he is ill now, and could not be loose if he tried. Some one must go in now and then to see after him: it struck me that perhaps your wife would do it, for humanity's sake; and I thought I'd ask her before going further."

"She can do as she likes," said Jabez.

Mrs. Gum—as unresisting in her nature as ever was Percival Elster—yielded to the prayer of the surgeon, and said she would do what she could. But she had never shown more nervousness over anything than she was showing as she gave her answer.

"Then I will step indoors and give you a few plain directions," said the surgeon. "Mrs. Jones has taken her departure, I perceive."

Mrs. Gum was as good as her word, and went in with dire trepidation. Calne's sentiments, on the whole, resembled Mrs. Jones's, and the woman was blamed for her yielding nature. But she contrived, with the help of Mr. Hillary's skill, to bring the man through the fever; and it was very singular that no other person out of the Rectory took it.

The last one to take it at the Rectory was Mrs. Ashton. Of the three servants who had it, one had died; the other two recovered. Mrs. Ashton did not take it until the rest were well, and she had it lightly. Anne nursed her and would do so; and it was an additional reason for prolonging the veto against Lord Hartledon.

One morning in December, Val, in passing down the road, saw the Rectory turned, as he called it, inside out. Every window was thrown open; curtains were taken down; altogether there seemed to be a comprehensive cleaning going on. At that moment Mr. Hillary passed, and Val arrested him, pointing to the Rectory.

"Yes, they are having a cleansing and purification. The family went away this morning."

"Went where?" exclaimed Hartledon, in amazement.

"Dr. Ashton has taken a cottage near Ventnor."

"Had Mrs. Ashton quite recovered?"

"Quite: or they would not have gone. The Rectory has had a clean bill of health for some time past."

"Then why did they not let me know it?" exclaimed Val, in his astonishment and anger.

"Perhaps you didn't ask," said the surgeon. "But no visitors were sought. Time enough for that when the house shall have been fumigated."

"They might have sent to me," he cried, in resentment. "To go away and never let me know it!"

"They may have thought you were too agreeably engaged to care to be disturbed," remarked the surgeon.

"What do you mean?" demanded Val, hotly.

Mr. Hillary laughed. "People will talk, you know; and rumour has it that Lord Hartledon has found attractions in his own home, whilst the Rectory was debarred to him."

Val wheeled round on his heel, and walked away in displeasure. Home truths are never palatable. But the kindly disposition of the man resumed its sway immediately: he turned back, and pointed to the shed.

"Is that interesting patient of yours on his legs again?"

"He is getting better. The disease attacked him fiercely and was unusually prolonged. It's strange he should have been the only one to take it."

"Gum's wife has been nursing him, I hear?"

"She has gone in and out to do such necessary offices as the sick require. I put it to her from a Christian point of view, you see, and on the score of humanity. She was at hand; and that's a great thing where the nurse is only a visiting one."

"Look here, Hillary; don't let the man want for anything; see that he has all he needs. He is a black sheep, no doubt; but illness levels us all to one standard. Good day."

"Good day, Lord Hartledon."

And when the surgeon had got to a distance with his quick step, Lord Hartledon turned back to the Rectory.



CHAPTER XV.

VAL'S DILEMMA.

It was a mild day in spring. The air was balmy, but the skies were grey and lowering; and as a gentleman strolled across a field adjoining Hartledon Park he looked up at them more than once, as if asking whether they threatened rain.

Not that he had any great personal interest in the question. Whether the skies gave forth sunshine or rain is of little moment to a mind not at rest. He had only looked up in listlessness. A stranger might have taken him at a distance for a gamekeeper: his coat was of velveteen; his boots were muddy: but a nearer inspection would have removed the impression.

It was Lord Hartledon; but changed since you last saw him. For some time past there had been a worn, weary look upon his face, bespeaking a mind ill at ease; the truth is, his conscience was not at rest, and in time that tells on the countenance.

He had been by the fish-pond for an hour. But the fish had not shown themselves inclined to bite, and he grew too impatient to remain. Not altogether impatient at the wary fish, but in his own mental restlessness. The fishing-rod was carried in his hand in pieces; and he splashed along, in a brown study, on the wet ground, flinging himself over the ha-ha with an ungracious movement. Some one was approaching across the park from the house, and Lord Hartledon walked on to a gate, and waited there for him to come up. He began beating the bars with the thin end of the rod, and—broke it!

"That's the way you use your fishing-rods," cried the free, pleasant voice of the new-comer. "I shouldn't mind being appointed purveyor of tackle to your lordship."

The stranger was an active little man, older than Hartledon; his features were thin, his eyes dark and luminous. I think you have heard his name—Thomas Carr. Lord Hartledon once called him the greatest friend he possessed on earth. He had been wont to fly to him in his past dilemmas, and the habit was strong upon him still. A mandate that would have been peremptory, but for the beseeching terms in which it was couched, had reached Mr. Carr on circuit; and he had hastened across country to obey it, reaching Hartledon the previous evening. That something was wrong, Mr. Carr of course was aware; but what, he did not yet know. Lord Hartledon, with his natural vacillation, his usual shrinking from the discussion of unpleasant topics relating to himself, had not entered upon it at all on the previous night; and when breakfast was over that morning, Mr. Carr had craved an hour alone for letter-writing. It was the first time Mr. Carr had visited his friend at his new inheritance; indeed the first time he had been at all at Hartledon. Lord Hartledon seated himself on the gate; the barrister leaned his arms on the top bar whilst he talked to him.

"What is the matter?" asked the latter.

"Not much."

"I have finished my letters, so I came out to look for you. You are not changed, Elster."

"What should change me in so short a time?—it's only six months since you last saw me," retorted Hartledon, curtly.

"I alluded to your nature. I had to worm the troubles out of you in the old days, each one as it arose. I see I shall have to do the same now. Don't say there's not much the matter, for I am sure there is."

Lord Hartledon jerked his handkerchief out of his pocket, passed it over his face, and put it back again.

"What fresh folly have you got into?—as I used to ask you at Oxford. You are in some mess."

"I suppose it's of no use denying that I am in one. An awful mess, too."

"Well, I have pulled you out of many a one in my time. Let me hear it."

"There are some things one does not like to talk about, Carr. I sent for you in my perplexity; but I believe you can be of no use to me."

"So you have said before now. But it generally turned out that I was of use to you, and cleared you from your nightmare."

"All those were minor difficulties; this is different."

"I cannot understand your 'not liking' to speak of things to me. Why don't you begin?"

"Because I shall prove myself worse than a fool. You'll despise me to your heart's core. Carr, I think I shall go mad!"

"Tell me the cause first, and go mad afterwards. Come, Val; I am your true friend."

"I have made an offer of marriage to two women," said Hartledon, desperately plunging into the revelation. "Never was such a born idiot in the world as I have been. I can't marry both."

"I imagine not," quietly replied Mr. Carr.

"You knew I was engaged to Miss Ashton?"

"Yes."

"And I'm sure I loved her with all my"—he seemed to hesitate for a strong term—"might and main; and do still. But I have managed to get into mischief elsewhere."

"Elster's folly, as usual. What sort of mischief?"

"The worst sort, for there can be no slipping out of it. When that fever broke out at Doctor Ashton's—you heard us talking of it last night, Carr—I went to the Rectory just as usual. What did I care for fever?—it was not likely to attack me. But the countess-dowager found it out—"

"Why do they stay here so long?" interrupted Thomas Carr. "They have been here ever since your brother died."

"And before it. The old woman likes her quarters, and has no settled home. She makes a merit of stopping, and says I ought to feel under eternal obligation to her and Maude for sacrificing themselves to a solitary man and his household. But you should have heard the uproar she made upon discovering I had been to the Rectory. She had my room fumigated and my clothes burnt."

"Foolish old creature!"

"The best of it was, I pointed out by mistake the wrong coat, and the offending one is upstairs now. I shall show it her some day. She reproached me with holding her life and her daughter's dirt-cheap, and wormed a promise out of me not to visit the Rectory as long as fever was in it."

"Which you gave?"

"She wormed it out of me, I tell you. I don't know that I should have kept it, but Dr. Ashton put in his veto also; and between the two I was kept away. For many weeks afterwards I never saw or spoke to Anne. She did not come out at all, even to church; they were so anxious the fever should not spread."

"Well? Go on, Val."

"Well: how does that proverb run, about idleness being the root of all evil? During those weeks I was an idle man, wretchedly bored; and I fell into a flirtation with Maude. She began it, Carr, on my solemn word of honour—though it's a shame to tell these tales of a woman; and I joined in from sheer weariness, to kill time. But you know how one gets led on in such things—or I do, if you, you cautious fellow, don't—and we both went in pretty deep."

"Elster's folly again! How deep?"

"As deep as I well could, short of committing myself to a proposal. You see the ill-luck of it was, those two and I being alone in the house. I may as well say Maude and I alone; for the old woman kept her room very much; she had a cold, she said, and was afraid of the fever."

"Tush!" cried Thomas Carr angrily. "And you made love to the young lady?"

"As fast as I could make it. What a fool I was! But I protest I only did it in amusement; I never thought of her supplanting Anne Ashton. Now, Carr, you are looking as you used to look at Oxford; get your brow smooth again. You just shut up yourself for weeks with a fascinating girl, and see if you wouldn't find yourself in some horrible entanglement, proof against such as you think you are."

"As I am obliged to be. I should take care not to lay myself open to the temptation. Neither need you have done it."

"I don't see how I was to help myself. Often and often I wished to have visitors in the house, but the old woman met me with reproaches that I was forgetting the recent death of my brother. She won't have any one now if she knows it, and I had to send for you quietly. Did you see how she stared last night when you came in?"

Mr. Carr drew down his lips. "You might have gone away yourself, Elster."

"Of course I might," was the testy reply. "But I was a fool, and didn't. Carr, I swear to you I fell into the trap unconsciously; I did not foresee danger. Maude is a charming girl, there's no denying it; but as to love, I never glanced at it."

"Was it not suspected in town last year that Lady Maude had a liking for your brother?"

"It was suspected there and here; I thought it myself. We were mistaken. One day lately Maude offended me, and I hinted at something of the sort: she turned red and white with indignation, saying she wished he could rise from his grave to refute it. I only wish he could!" added the unhappy man.

"Have you told me all?"

"All! I wish I had. In December I was passing the Rectory, and saw it dismantled. Hillary, whom I met, said the family had gone to Ventnor. I went in, but could not learn any particulars, or get the address. I chanced a letter, written I confess in anger, directing it Ventnor only, and it found them. Anne's answer was cool: mischief-making tongues had been talking about me and Maude; I learned so much from Hillary; and Anne no doubt resented it. I resented that—can you follow me, Carr?—and I said to myself I wouldn't write again for some time to come. Before that time came the climax had occurred."

"And while you were waiting for your temper to come round in regard to Miss Ashton, you continued to make love to the Lady Maude?" remarked Mr. Carr. "On the face of things, I should say your love had been transferred to her."

"Indeed it hadn't. Next to Anne, she's the most charming girl I know; that's all. Between the two it will be awful work for me."

"So I should think," returned Mr. Carr. "The ass between two bundles of hay was nothing to it."

"He was not an ass at all, compared with what I am," assented Val, gloomily.

"Well, if a man behaves like an ass—"

"Don't moralize," interrupted Hartledon; "but rather advise me how to get out of my dilemma. The morning's drawing on, and I have promised to ride with Maude."

"You had better ride alone. All the advice I can give you is to draw back by degrees, and so let the flirtation subside. If there is no actual entanglement—"

"Stop a bit, Carr; I had not come to it," interrupted Lord Hartledon, who in point of fact had been holding back what he called the climax, in his usual vacillating manner. "One ill-starred day, when it was pouring cats and dogs, and I could not get out, I challenged Maude to a game at billiards. Maude lost. I said she should pay me, and put my arm round her waist and snatched a kiss. Just at that moment in came the dowager, who I believe must have been listening—"

"Not improbably," interrupted Mr. Carr, significantly.

"'Oh, you two dear turtle-doves,' cried she, 'Hartledon, you have made me so happy! I have seen for some weeks what you were thinking of. There's nobody living I'd confide that dear child to but yourself: you shall have her, and my blessing shall be upon you both.'

"Carr," continued poor Val, "I was struck dumb. All the absurdity of the thing rose up before me. In my confusion I could not utter a word. A man with more moral courage might have spoken out; acknowledged the shame and folly of his conduct and apologized. I could not."

"Elster's folly! Elster's folly!" thought the barrister. "You never had the slightest spark of moral courage," he observed aloud, in pained tones. "What did you say?"

"Nothing. There's the worst of it. I neither denied the dowager's assumption, nor confirmed it. Of course I cannot now."

"When was this?"

"In December."

"And how have things gone on since? How do you stand with them?"

"Things have gone on as they went on before; and I stand engaged to Maude, in her mother's opinion; perhaps in hers: never having said myself one word to support the engagement."

"Only continued to 'make love,' and 'snatch a kiss,'" sarcastically rejoined Mr. Carr.

"Once in a way. What is a man to do, exposed to the witchery of a pretty girl?"

"Oh, Percival! You are worse than I thought for. Where is Miss Ashton?"

"Coming home next Friday," groaned Val. "And the dowager asked me yesterday whether Maude and I had arranged the time for our marriage. What on earth I shall do, I don't know. I might sail for some remote land and convert myself into a savage, where I should never be found or recognized; there's no other escape for me."

"How much does Miss Ashton know of this?"

"Nothing. I had a letter from her this morning, more kindly than her letters have been of late."

"Lord Hartledon!" exclaimed Mr. Carr, in startled tones. "Is it possible that you are carrying on a correspondence with Miss Ashton, and your love-making with Lady Maude?"

Val nodded assent, looking really ashamed of himself.

"And you call yourself a man of honour! Why, you are the greatest humbug—"

"That's enough; no need to sum it up. I see all I've been."

"I understood you to imply that your correspondence with Miss Ashton had ceased."

"It was renewed. Dr. Ashton came up to preach one Sunday, just before Christmas, and he and I got friendly again; you know I never can be unfriendly with any one long. The next day I wrote to Anne, and we have corresponded since; more coolly though than we used to do. Circumstances have been really against me. Had they continued at Ventnor, I should have gone down and spent my Christmas with them, and nothing of this would have happened; but they must needs go to Dr. Ashton's sister's in Yorkshire for Christmas; and there they are still. It was in that miserable Christmas week that the mischief occurred. And now you have the whole, Carr. I know I've been a fool; but what is to be done?"

"Lord Hartledon," was the grave rejoinder, "I am unable to give you advice in this. Your conduct is indefensible."

"Don't 'Lord Hartledon' me: I won't stand it. Carr?"

"Well?"

"If you bring up against me a string of reproaches lasting until night will that mend matters? I am conscious of possessing but one true friend in the world, and that's yourself. You must stand by me."

"I was your friend; never a truer. But I believed you to be a man of honour."

Hartledon lifted his hat from his brow; as though the brow alone were heavy enough just then. At least the thought struck Mr. Carr.

"I have been drawn unwittingly into this, as I have into other things. I never meant to do wrong. As to dishonour, Heaven knows my nature shrinks from it."

"If your nature does, you don't," came the severe answer. "I should feel ashamed to put forth the same plea always of 'falling unwittingly' into disgrace. You have done it ever since you were a schoolboy. Talk of the Elster folly! this has gone beyond it. This is dishonour. Engaged to one girl, and corresponding with her; making hourly love for weeks to another! May I inquire which of the two you really care for?"

"Anne—I suppose."

"You suppose!"

"You make me wild, talking like this. Of course it's Anne. Maude has managed to creep into my regard, though, in no common degree. She is very lovely, very fascinating and amiable."

"May I ask which of the two you intend to marry!" continued the barrister, neither suppressing nor attempting to soften his indignant tones. "As this country's laws are against a plurality of wives, you will be unable, I imagine, to espouse them both."

Hartledon looked at him, beseechingly, and a sudden compassion came over Mr. Carr. He asked himself whether it was quite the way to treat a perplexed man who was very dear to him.

"If I am severe, it is for your sake. I assure you I scarcely know what advice to give. It is Miss Ashton, of course, whom you intend to make Lady Hartledon?"

"Of course it is. The difficulty in the matter is getting clear of Maude."

"And the formidable countess-dowager. You must tell Maude the truth."

"Impossible, Carr. I might have done it once; but the thing has gone on so long. The dowager would devour me."

"Let her try to. I should speak to Maude alone, and put her upon her generosity to release you. Tell her you presumed upon your cousinship; and confess that you have long been engaged to marry Miss Ashton."

"She knows that: they have both known it all along. My brother was the first to tell them, before he died."

"They knew it?" inquired Mr. Carr, believing he had not heard correctly.

"Certainly. There has been no secret made of my engagement to Anne. All the world knows of that."

"Then—though I do not in the least defend or excuse you—your breaking with Lady Maude may be more pardonable. They are poor, are they not, this Dowager Kirton and Lady Maude?"

"Poor as Job. Hard up, I think."

"Then they are angling for the broad lands of Hartledon. I see it all. You have been a victim to fortune-hunting."

"There you are wrong, Carr. I can't answer for the dowager one way or the other; but Maude is the most disinterested—"

"Of course: girls on the look-out for establishments always are. Have it as you like."

He spoke in tones of ridicule; and Hartledon jumped off the stile and led the way home.

That Lord Hartledon had got himself into a very serious predicament, Mr. Carr plainly saw. His good nature, his sensitive regard for the feelings of others, rendering it so impossible for him to say no, and above all his vacillating disposition, were his paramount characteristics still: in a degree they ever would be. Easily led as ever, he was as a very reed in the hands of the crafty old woman of the world, located with him. She had determined that he should become the husband of her daughter; and was as certain of accomplishing her end as if she had foreseen the future. Lord Hartledon himself afterwards, in his bitter repentance, said, over and over again, that circumstances were against him; and they certainly were so, as you will find.

Lord Hartledon thought he was making headway against it now, in sending for his old friend, and resolving to be guided by his advice.

"I will take an opportunity of speaking to Maude, Carr," he resumed. "I would rather not do it, of course; but I see there's no help for it."

"Make the opportunity," said Mr. Carr, with emphasis. "Don't delay a day; I shall expect you to write me a letter to-morrow saying you've done it."

"But you won't leave to-day," said Hartledon, entreatingly, feeling an instant prevision that with the departure of Thomas Carr all his courage would ignominiously desert him.

"I must go. You know I told you last night that my stay could only be four-and-twenty hours. You can accomplish it whilst I am here, if you like, and get it over; the longer a nauseous medicine is held to the lips the more difficult it is to swallow it. You say you are going to ride with Lady Maude presently; let that be your opportunity."

And get it over! Words that sounded as emancipation in Val's ear. But somehow he did not accomplish it in that ride. Excuses were on his lips five hundred times, but his hesitating lips never formed them. He really was on the point of speaking; at least he said so to himself; when Mr. Hillary overtook them on horseback, and rode with them some distance. After that, Maude put her horse to a canter, and so they reached home.

"Well?" said Mr. Carr.

"Not yet," answered Hartledon; "there was no opportunity."

"My suggestion was to make your opportunity."

"And so I will. I'll speak to her either to-night or to-morrow. She chose to ride fast to-day; and Hillary joined us part of the way. Don't look as if you doubted me, Carr: I shall be sure to speak."

"Will he?" thought Thomas Carr, as he took his departure by the evening train, having promised to run down the following Saturday for a few hours. "It is an even bet, I think. Poor Val!"

Poor Val indeed! Vacillating, attractive, handsome Val! shrinking, sensitive Val! The nauseous medicine was never taken. And when the Ashtons returned to the Rectory on the Friday night he had not spoken.

And the very day of their return a rumour reached his ear that Mrs. Ashton's health was seriously if not fatally shattered, and she was departing immediately for the South of France.



CHAPTER XVI.

BETWEEN THE TWO.

Not in the Rectory drawing-room, but in a pretty little sitting-room attached to her bed-chamber, where the temperature was regulated, and no draughts could penetrate, reclined Mrs. Ashton. Her invalid gown sat loosely upon her shrunken form, her delicate, lace cap shaded a fading face. Anne sat by her side in all her loveliness, ostensibly working; but her fingers trembled, and her face looked flushed and pained.

It was the morning after their return, and Mrs. Graves had called in to see Mrs. Ashton—gossiping Mrs. Graves, who knew all that took place in the parish, and a great deal of what never did take place. She had just been telling it all unreservedly in her hard way; things that might be said, and things that might as well have been left unsaid. She went out leaving a whirr and a buzz behind her and an awful sickness of desolation upon one heart.

"Give me my little writing-case, Anne," said Mrs. Ashton, waking up from a reverie and sitting forward on her sofa.

Anne took the pretty toy from the side-table, opened it, and laid it on the table before her mother.

"Is it nothing I can write for you, mamma?"

"No, child."

Anne bent her hot face over her work again. It had not occurred to her that it could concern herself; and Mrs. Ashton wrote a few rapid lines:

"My Dear Percival,

"Can you spare me a five-minutes' visit? I wish to speak with you. We go away again on Monday.

"Ever sincerely yours,

"Catherine Ashton."

She folded it, enclosed it in an envelope, and addressed it to the Earl of Hartledon. Pushing away the writing-table, she held out the note to her daughter.

"Seal it for me, Anne. I am tired. Let it go at once."

"Mamma!" exclaimed Anne, as her eye caught the address. "Surely you are not writing to him! You are not asking him to come here?"

"You see that I am writing to him, Anne. And it is to ask him to come here. My dear, you may safely leave me to act according to my own judgment. But as to what Mrs. Graves has said, I don't believe a word of it."

"I scarcely think I do," murmured Anne; a smile hovering on her troubled countenance, like sunshine after rain.

Anne had the taper alight, and the wax held to it, the note ready in her hand, when the room-door was thrown open by Mrs. Ashton's maid.

"Lord Hartledon."

He came in in a hurried manner, talking fast, making too much fuss; it was unlike his usual quiet movements, and Mrs. Ashton noticed it. As he shook hands with her, she held the note before him.

"See, Percival! I was writing to ask you to call upon me."

Anne had put out the light, and her hand was in Lord Hartledon's before she well knew anything, save that her heart was beating tumultuously. Mrs. Ashton made a place for him on the sofa, and Anne quietly left the room.

"I should have been here earlier," he began, "but I had the steward with me on business; it is little enough I have attended to since my brother's death. Dear Mrs. Ashton! I grieve to hear this poor account of you. You are indeed looking ill."

"I am so ill, Percival, that I doubt whether I shall ever be better in this world. It is my last chance, this going away to a warmer place until winter has passed."

He was bending towards her in earnest sympathy, all himself again; his dark blue eyes very tender, his pleasant features full of concern as he gazed on her face. And somehow, looking at that attractive countenance, Mrs. Ashton's doubts went from her.

"But what I have said is to you alone," she resumed. "My husband and children do not see the worst, and I refrain from telling them. A little word of confidence between us, Val."

"I hope and trust you may come back cured!" he said, very fervently. "Is it the fever that has so shattered you?"

"It is the result of it. I have never since been able to recover strength, but have become weaker and more weak. And you know I was in ill health before. We leave on Monday morning for Cannes."

"For Cannes?" he exclaimed.

"Yes. A place not so warm as some I might have gone to; but the doctors say that will be all the better. It is not heat I need; only shelter from our cold northern winds until I can get a little strength into me. There's nothing the matter with my lungs; indeed, I don't know that anything is the matter with me except this terrible weakness."

"I suppose Anne goes with you?"

"Oh yes. I could not go without Anne. The doctor will see us settled there, and then he returns."

A thought crossed Lord Hartledon: how pleasant if he and Anne could have been married, and have made this their wedding tour. He did not speak it: Mrs. Ashton would have laughed at his haste.

"How long shall you remain away?" he asked.

"Ah, I cannot tell you. I may not live to return. If all goes well—that is, if there should be a speedy change for the better, as the medical men who have been attending me think there may be—I shall be back perhaps in April or May. Val—I cannot forget the old familiar name, you see—"

"I hope you never will forget it," he warmly interposed.

"I wanted very particularly to see you. A strange report was brought here this morning and I determined to mention it to you. You know what an old-fashioned, direct way I have of doing things; never choosing a roundabout road if I can take a straight one. This note was a line asking you to call upon me," she added, taking it from her lap, where it had been lying, and tossing it on to the table, whilst her hearer, his conscience rising up, began to feel a very little uncomfortable. "We heard you had proposed marriage to Lady Maude Kirton."

Lord Hartledon's face became crimson. "Who on earth could have invented that?" cried he, having no better answer at hand.

"Mrs. Graves mentioned it to me. She was dining at Hartledon last week, and the countess-dowager spoke about it openly."

Mrs. Ashton looked at him; and he, confused and taken aback, looked down on the carpet, devoutly wishing himself in the remote regions he had spoken of to Mr. Carr. Anywhere, so that he should never be seen or recognized again.

"What am I to do?" thought he. "I wish Mother Graves was hanged!"

"You do not speak, Percival!"

"Well, I—I was wondering what could have given rise to this," he stammered. "I believe the old dowager would like to see her daughter mistress of Hartledon: and suppose she gave utterance to her thoughts."

"Very strange that she should!" observed Mrs. Ashton.

"I think she's a little cracked sometimes," coughed Val; and, in truth, he now and then did think so. "I hope you have not told Anne?"

"I have told no one. And had I not felt sure it had no foundation, I should have told the doctor, not you. But Anne was in the room when Mrs. Graves mentioned it."

"What a blessing it would be if Mrs. Graves were out of the parish!" exclaimed Val, hotly. "I wonder Dr. Ashton keeps Graves on, with such a mother! No one ever had such a mischief-making tongue as hers."

"Percival, may I say something to you?" asked Mrs. Ashton, who was devouring him with her eyes. "Your manner would almost lead me to believe that there is something in it. Tell me the truth; I can never be anything but your friend."

"Believe one thing, dear Mrs. Ashton—that I have no intention of marrying anyone but Anne; and I wish with all my heart and soul you'd give her to me to-day. Shut up with those two women, the one pretty, the other watching any chance word to turn it to her own use, I dare say the Mrs. Graveses of the place have talked, forgetting that Maude is my cousin. I believe I paid some attention to Maude because I was angry at being kept out of the Rectory; but my attentions meant nothing, upon my honour."

"Elster's folly, Val! Lady Maude may have thought they did."

"At any rate she knew of my engagement to Anne."

"Then there is nothing in it?"

"There shall be nothing in it," was the emphatic answer. "Anne was my first love, and she will be my last. You must promise to give her to me as soon as you return from Cannes."

"About that you must ask her father. I dare say he will do so."

Lord Hartledon rose from his seat; held Mrs. Ashton's hand between his whilst he said his adieu, and stooped to kiss her with a son's affection. She was a little surprised to find it was his final farewell. They were not going to start until Monday. But Hartledon could not have risked that cross-questioning again; rather would he have sailed away for the savage territories at once. He went downstairs searching for Anne, and found her in the room where you first saw her—her own. She looked up with quite an affectation of surprise when he entered, although she had probably gone there to await him. The best of girls are human.

"You ran away, Anne, whilst mamma and I held our conference?"

"I hope it has been satisfactory," she answered demurely, not looking up, and wondering whether he suspected how violently her heart was beating.

"Partly so. The end was all right. Shall I tell it you?"

"The end! Yes, if you will," she replied unsuspectingly.

"The decision come to is, that a certain young friend of ours is to be converted, with as little delay as circumstances may permit, into Lady Hartledon."

Of course there came no answer except a succession of blushes. Anne's work, which she had carried with her, took all her attention just then.

"Can you guess her name, Anne?"

"I don't know. Is it Maude Kirton?"

He winced. "If you have been told that abominable rubbish, Anne, it is not necessary to repeat it. It's not so pleasant a theme that you need make a joke of it."

"Is it rubbish?" asked Anne, lifting her eyes.

"I think you ought to know that if any one does. But had anything happened, Anne, recollect it would have been your fault. You have been very cool to me of late. You forbid me the house for weeks and weeks; you went away for an indefinite period without letting me know, or giving me the chance of seeing you; and when the correspondence was at length renewed, your letters were cold and formal—quite different from what they used to be. It almost looks as if you wished to part from me."

Repentance was stealing over her: why had she ever doubted him?

"And now you are going away again! And although this interview may be our last for months, you scarcely deign to give me a word or a look of farewell."

Anne had already been terribly tried by Mrs. Graves: this was the climax: she lost her self-control and burst into tears. Lord Hartledon was softened at once. He took her two hands in his; he clasped her to his heart, half devouring her face with passionate kisses. Ah, Lady Maude! this impassioned love was never felt for you.

"You don't love her?" whispered Anne.

"Love her! I never loved but you, my best and dearest. I never shall, or can, love another."

He spoke in all good faith; fully believing what he said; and it was indeed true. And Anne? As though a prevision had been upon her of the future, she remained passively in his arms sobbing hysterically, and suffering his kisses; not drawing away from him in maiden modesty, as was her wont. She had never clung to him like this.

"You will write to me often?" he whispered.

"Yes. Won't you come to Cannes?"

"I don't know that it will be possible, unless you remain beyond the spring. And should that be the case, Anne, I shall pray your father and mother that the marriage may take place there. I am going up to town next month to take my seat in the House. It will be a busy session; and I want to see if I can't become a useful public man. I think it would please the doctor to find I've some stuff in me; and a man must have a laudable object in life."

"I would rather die," murmured Anne, passionately in her turn, "than hear again what Mrs. Graves said."

"My darling, we cannot stop people's gossip. Believe in me; I will not fail you. Oh, Anne, I wish you were already my wife!" he aspirated fervently, his perplexities again presenting themselves to his mind.

"The time will come," she whispered.

Lord Hartledon walked home full of loyal thought, saying to himself what an utter idiot he had been in regard to Maude, and determined to lose no time in getting clear of the entanglement. He sought an opportunity of speaking to her that afternoon; he really did; but could not find it. The dowager had taken her out to pay a visit.

Mr. Carr was as good as his word, and got down in time for dinner. One glance at Lord Hartledon's face told him what he half expected to see—that the word of emancipation had not yet been spoken.

"Don't blame me, Carr. I shall speak to-night before I sleep, on my word of honour. Things have come to a crisis now; and if I wished to hold back I could not. I would say what a fool I have been not to speak before; only you know I'm one already."

Thomas Carr laughed.

"Mrs. Ashton has heard some tattle about Maude, and spoke to me this afternoon. Of course I could only deny it, my face feeling on fire with its sense of dishonour, for I don't think I ever told a deliberate lie in my life; and—and, in short, I should like my marriage with Anne to take place as soon as possible."

"Well, there's only one course to pursue, as I told you when I was down before. Tell Lady Maude the candid truth, and take shame and blame to yourself, as you deserve. Her having known of the engagement to Miss Ashton renders your task the easier."

Very restless was Lord Hartledon until the moment came. He knew the best time to speak to Maude would be immediately after dinner, whilst the countess-dowager took her usual nap. There was no hesitation now; and he speedily followed them upstairs, leaving his friend at the dinner-table.

He went up, feeling a desperate man. To those of his temperament having to make a disagreeable communication such as this is almost as cruel as parting with life.

No one was in the drawing-room but Lady Kirton—stretched upon a sofa and apparently fast asleep. Val crossed the carpet with softened tread to the adjoining rooms: small, comfortable rooms, used by the dowager in preference to the more stately rooms below. Maude had drawn aside the curtain and was peering out into the frosty night.

"Why, how soon you are up!" she cried, turning at his entrance.

"I came on purpose, Maude. I want to speak to you."

"Are you well?" she asked, coming forward to the fire, and taking her seat on a sofa. In truth, he did not look very well just then. "What is it?"

"Maude," he answered, his fair face flushing a dark red as he plunged into it blindfold: "I am a rogue and a fool!"

Lady Maude laughed. "Elster's folly!"

"Yes. You know all this time that we—that I—" (Val thought he should never flounder through this first moment, and did not remain an instant in one place as he talked)—"have been going on so foolishly, I was—almost as good as a married man."

"Were you?" said she, quietly. "Married to whom?"

"I said as good as married, Maude. You know I have been engaged for years to Miss Ashton; otherwise I would have knelt to ask you to become my wife, so earnestly should I desire it."

Her calm imperturbability presented a curious contrast to his agitation. She was regarding him with an amused smile.

"And, Maude, I have come now to ask you to release me. Indeed, I—"

"What's all this about?" broke in the countess-dowager, darting upon the conference, her face flushed and her head-dress awry. "Are you two quarrelling?"

"Val was attempting to explain something about Miss Ashton," answered Maude, rising from the sofa, and drawing herself up to her stately height. "He had better do it to you instead, mamma; I don't understand it."

She stood up by the mantelpiece, in the ray of the lustres. They fell across her dark, smooth hair, her flushed cheeks, her exquisite features. Her dress was of flowing white crepe, with jet ornaments; and Lord Hartledon, even in the midst of his perplexity, thought how beautiful she was, and what a sad thing it was to lose her. The truth was, his senses had been caught by the girl's beauty although his heart was elsewhere. It is a very common case.

"The fact is, ma'am," he stammered, turning to the dowager in his desperation, "I have been behaving very foolishly of late, and am asking your daughter's pardon. I should have remembered my engagement to Miss Ashton."

"Remembered your engagement to Miss Ashton!" echoed the dowager, her voice becoming a little shrill. "What engagement?"

Lord Hartledon began to recover himself, though he looked foolish still. With these nervous men it is the first plunge that tells; get that over and they are brave as their fellows.

"I cannot marry two women, Lady Kirton, and I am bound to Anne."

The old dowager's voice toned down, and she pulled her black feathers straight upon her head.

"My dear Hartledon, I don't think you know what you are talking about. You engaged yourself to Maude some weeks ago."

"Well—but—whatever may have passed, engagement or no engagement, I could not legally do it," returned the unhappy young man, too considerate to say the engagement was hers, not his. "You knew I was bound to Anne, Lady Kirton."

"Bound to a fiddlestick!" said the dowager. "Excuse my plainness, Hartledon. When you engaged yourself to the young woman you were poor and a nobody, and the step was perhaps excusable. Lord Hartledon is not bound by the promises of Val Elster. All the young women in the kingdom, who have parsons for fathers, could not oblige him to be so."

"I am bound to her in honour; and"—in love he was going to say, but let the words die away unspoken.

"Hartledon, you are bound in honour to my daughter; you have sought her affections, and gained them. Ah, Percival, don't you know that it is you she has loved all along? In the days when I was worrying her about your brother, she cared only for you. You cannot be so infamous as to desert her."

"I wish to Heaven she had never seen me!" cried the unfortunate man, beginning to wonder whether he could break through these trammels. "I'd sacrifice myself willingly, if that would put things straight."

"You cannot sacrifice Maude. Look at her!" and the crafty old dowager flourished her hand towards the fireplace, where Maude stood in all her beauty. "A daughter of the house of Kirton cannot be taken up and cast aside at will. What would the world say of her?"

"The world need never know."

"Not know!" shrieked the dowager; "not know! Why, her trousseau is ordered, and some of the things have arrived. Good Heavens, Hartledon, you dare not trifle with Maude in this way. You could never show your face amongst men again."

"But neither dare I trifle with Anne Ashton," said Lord Hartledon, completely broken down by the gratuitous information. He saw that the situation was worse than even he had bargained for, and all his irresolution began to return upon him. "If I knew what was right to be done, I'm sure I'd do it."

"Right, did you say? Right? There cannot be a question about that. Which is the more fitting to grace your coronet: Maude, or a country parson's daughter?"

"I'm sure if this goes on I shall shoot myself," cried Val. "Taken to task at the Rectory, taken to task here—shooting would be bliss to it."

"No doubt," returned the dowager. "It can't be a very pleasant position for you. Any one but you would get out of it, and set the matter at rest."

"I should like to know how."

"So long as you are a single man they naturally remain on the high ropes at the Rectory, with their fine visions for Anne—"

"I wish you would understand once for all, Lady Kirton, that the Ashtons are our equals in every way," he interrupted: "and," he added, "in worth and goodness infinitely our superiors."

The dowager gave a sniff. "You think so, I know, Hart. Well, the only plan to bring you peace is this: make Maude your wife. At once; without delay."

The proposition took away Val's breath. "I could not do it, Lady Kirton. To begin with, they'd bring an action against me for breach of promise."

"Breach of nonsense!" wrathfully returned the dowager. "Was ever such a thing heard of yet, as a doctor of divinity bringing an action of that nature? He'd lose his gown."

"I wish I was at the bottom of a deep well, never to come up again!" mentally aspirated the unfortunate man.

"Will—you—marry—Maude?" demanded the dowager, with a fixed denunciation in every word, which was as so much slow torture to her victim.

"I wish I could. You must see for yourself, Lady Kirton, that I cannot. Maude must see it."

"I see nothing of the sort. You are bound to her in honour."

"All I can do is to remain single to the end of my days," said Val, after a pause. "I have been a great villain to both, and I cannot repair it to either. The one stands in the way of the other."

"But—"

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," he interrupted, so peremptorily that the old woman trembled for her power. "This is my final decision, and I will not hear another word. I feel ready to hang myself, as it is. You tell me I cannot marry any other than Maude without being a scoundrel; the same thing precisely applies to Anne. I shall remain single."

"You will give me one promise—for Maude's sake. Not, after this, to marry Anne Ashton."

"Why, how can I do it?" asked he, in tones of exasperation. "Don't you see that it is impossible? I shall not see the Ashtons again, ma'am; I would rather go a hundred miles the other way than face them."

The countess-dowager probably deemed she had said sufficient for safety; for she went out and shut the door after her. Lord Hartledon dashed his hair from his brow with a hasty hand, and was about to leave the room by the other door, when Maude came up to him.

"Is this to be the end of it, Percival?"

She spoke in tones of pain, of tremulous tenderness; all her pride gone out of her. Lord Hartledon laid his hand upon her shoulder, meeting the dark eyes that were raised to his through tears.

"Do you indeed love me like this, Maude? Somehow I never thought it."

"I love you better than the whole world. I love you enough to give up everything for you."

The emphasis conveyed a reproach—that he did not "give up everything" for her. But Lord Hartledon kept his head for once.

"Heaven knows my bitter repentance. If I could repair this folly of mine by any sacrifice on my own part, I would gladly do it. Let me go, Maude! I have been here long enough, unless I were more worthy. I would ask you to forgive me if I knew how to frame the petition."

She released the hand of which she had made a prisoner—released it with a movement of petulance; and Lord Hartledon quitted the room, the words she had just spoken beating their refrain on his brain. It did not occur to him in his gratified vanity to remember that Anne Ashton, about whose love there could be no doubt, never avowed it in those pretty speeches.

"Well?" said Mr. Carr, when he got back to the dining-room.

"It is not well, Carr; it is ill. There can be no release. The old dowager won't have it."

"But surely you will not resign Miss Ashton for Lady Maude!" cried the barrister, after a pause of amazement.

"I resign both; I see that I cannot do anything else in honour. Excuse me, Carr, but I'd rather not say any more about it just now; I feel half maddened."

"Elster's folly," mentally spoke Thomas Carr.



CHAPTER XVII.

AN AGREEABLE WEDDING.

That circumstances, combined with the countess-dowager, worked terribly against Lord Hartledon, events proved. Had the Ashtons remained at the Rectory all might have been well; but they went away, and he was left to any influence that might be brought to bear upon him.

How the climax was accomplished the world never knew. Lord Hartledon himself did not know the whole of it for a long while. As if unwilling to trust himself longer in dangerous companionship, he went up to town with Thomas Carr. Whilst there he received a letter from Cannes, written by Dr. Ashton; a letter that angered him.

It was a cool letter, a vein of contemptuous anger running through it; meant to be hidden, but nevertheless perceptible to Lord Hartledon. Its purport was to forbid all correspondence between him and Miss Ashton: things had better "remain in abeyance" until they met, ran the words, "if indeed any relations were ever renewed between them again."

It might have angered Lord Hartledon more than it did, but for the hopelessness which had taken up its abode within him. Nevertheless he resented it. He did not suppose it possible that the Ashtons could have heard of the dilemma he was in, or that he should be unable to fulfil his engagement with Anne, having with his usual vacillation put off any explanation with them; which of course must come sometime. He had taken an idea into his head long before, that Dr. Ashton wished to part them, and he looked upon the letter as resulting from that. Hartledon was feeling weary of the world.

How little did he divine that the letter of the doctor was called forth by a communication from the countess-dowager. An artful communication, with a charming candour lying on its surface. She asked—she actually asked that Dr. Ashton would allow "fair play;" she said the "deepest affection" had grown up between Lord Hartledon and Lady Maude; and she only craved that the young man might not be coerced either way, but might be allowed to choose between them. The field after Miss Ashton's return would be open to the two, and ought to be left so.

You may imagine the effect this missive produced upon the proud, high-minded doctor of divinity. He took a sheet of paper and wrote a stinging letter to Lord Hartledon, forbidding him to think again of Anne. But when he was in the act of sealing it a sudden doubt like an instinct rushed over him, whether it might not be a ruse, and nothing else, of the crafty old dowager's. The doubt was sufficiently strong to cause him to tear up the letter. But he was not satisfied with Lord Hartledon's own behaviour; had not been for some few months; and he then wrote a second letter, suspending matters until they should meet again. It was in effect what was asked for by the countess-dowager; and he wrote a cold proud letter to that lady, stating what he had done. Of course any honourable woman—any woman with a spark of justice in her heart—would have also forbidden all intercourse with Lady Maude. The countess-dowager's policy lay in the opposite direction.