"Mr. Carr is waiting to see you, my lord," said Hedges, meeting them in the passage. "He is in the dining-room."

"Mr. Carr! Now!"

The hall-lamp shone full on his face as he spoke. He had been momentarily forgetting care; was speaking gaily to his wife as they entered. She saw the change that came over it; the look of fear, of apprehension, that replaced its smile. He went into the dining-room, and she followed him.

"Why, Carr!" he exclaimed. "Is it you?"

Mr. Carr, bowing to Lady Hartledon, made a joke of the matter. "Having waited so long, I thought I'd wait it out, Hartledon. As good be hung for a sheep as a lamb, you know, and I have no wife sitting up for me at home."

"You had my message?"

"Yes, and that brought me here. I wanted just to say a word to you, as I am going out of town to-morrow."

"What will you take?"

"Nothing at all. Hedges has been making me munificent offers, but I declined them. I never take anything after dinner, except a cup of tea or so, as you may remember, keeping a clear head for work in the morning."

There was a slight pause. Lady Hartledon saw of course that she was de trop in the conference; that Mr. Carr would not speak his "word" whilst she was present. She had never understood why the matter should be kept apart from her; and in her heart resented it.

"You won't say to my husband before me what you have come to say, Mr. Carr."

It was strictly the truth, but the abrupt manner of bringing it home to him momentarily took away Mr. Carr's power of repartee, although he was apt enough in general, as became a special pleader.

"You have had news from the Ashtons; that is, of their cause, and you have come to tell it. I don't see why you and Lord Hartledon should so cautiously keep everything from me."

There was an eager look on Lord Hartledon's face as he stood behind his wife. It was directed to Mr. Carr, and said as plainly as look could say, "Don't undeceive her; keep up the delusion." But Thomas Carr was not so apt at keeping up delusions at the expense of truth, and he only smiled in reply.

"What damages are they suing for?"

"Oh," said Mr. Carr, with a laugh, and ready enough now: "ten thousand pounds will cover it."

"Ten thousand pounds!" she echoed. "Of course they won't get half of it. In this sort of action—breach of promise—parties never get so much as they ask for, do they?"

"Not often."

She laughed a little as she quitted the room. It was difficult to remain longer, and it never occurred to her to suspect that any graver matter than this action was in question.

"Now, Carr?" began Lord Hartledon, seating himself near the table as he closed the door after her, and speaking in low tones.

"I received this letter by the afternoon mail," said Mr. Carr, taking one from the safe enclosure of his pocket-book. "It is satisfactory, so far as it goes."

"I call it very satisfactory," returned Hartledon, glancing through it. "I thought he'd listen to reason. What is done cannot be undone, and exposure will answer no end. I wrote him an urgent letter the other day, begging him to be silent for Maude's sake. Were I to expiate the past with my life, it could not undo it. If he brought me to the bar of my country to plead guilty or not guilty, the past would remain the same."

"And I put the matter to him in my letter somewhat in the same light, though in a more business-like point of view," returned Mr. Carr. "There was no entreaty in mine. I left compassion, whether for you or others, out of the argument; and said to him, what will you gain by exposure, and how will you reconcile it to your conscience to inflict on innocent persons the torture exposure must bring?"

"I shall breathe freely now," said Hartledon, with a sigh of relief." If that man gives his word not to stir in the matter, not to take proceedings against me; in short, to bury what he knows in secrecy and silence, as he has hitherto done; it will be all I can hope for."

Mr. Carr lifted his eyebrows.

"I perceive what you think: that the fact remains. Carr, I know it as well as you; I know that nothing can alter it. Don't you see that remorse is ever present with me? driving me mad? killing me by inches with its pain?"

"Do you know what I should be tempted to do, were the case mine?"

"Well?"

"Tell my wife."

"Carr!"

"I almost think I should; I am not quite sure. Should the truth ever come to her—"

"But I trust it never will come to her," interrupted Hartledon, his face growing hot.

"It's a delicate point to argue," acknowledged Mr. Carr, "and I cannot hope to bring you into my way of looking at it. Had you married Miss Ashton, it appears to me that you would have no resource but to tell her: the very fact of being bound to you would kill a religious, high-principled woman."

"Not if she remained in ignorance."

"There it is. Ought she to remain in ignorance?"

Lord Hartledon leaned his head on his hand as one faint and weary. "Carr, it is of no use to go over all this ground again. If I disclose the whole to Maude, how would it make it better for her? Would it not render it a hundred times worse? She could not inform against me; it would be contrary to human nature to suppose it; and all the result would be, that she must go through life with the awful secret upon her, rendering her days a hell upon earth, as it is rendering mine. It's true she might separate from me; I dare say she would; but what satisfaction would that bring her? No; the kinder course is to allow her to remain in ignorance. Good Heavens! tell my wife! I should never dare do it!"

Mr. Carr made no reply, and a pause ensued. In truth, the matter was encompassed with difficulties on all sides; and the barrister could but acknowledge that Val's argument had some sort of reason in it. Having bound her to himself by marriage, it might be right that he should study her happiness above all things.

"It has put new life into me," Val resumed, pointing to the letter. "Now that he has promised to keep the secret, there's little to fear; and I know that he will keep his word. I must bear the burden as I best can, and keep a smiling face to the world."

"Did you read the postscript?" asked Mr. Carr; a feeling coming over him that Val had not read it.

"The postscript?"

"There's a line or two over the leaf."

Lord Hartledon glanced at it, and found it ran thus:

"You must be aware that another person knows of this besides myself. He who was a witness at the time, and from whom I heard the particulars. Of course for him I cannot answer, and I think he is in England. I allude to G.G. Lord H. will know."

"Lord H." apparently did know. He gazed down at the words with a knitted brow, in which some surprise was mingled.

"I declare that I understood him that night to say the fellow had died. Did not you?"

"I did," acquiesced Mr. Carr. "I certainly assumed it as a fact, until this letter came to-day. Gordon was the name, I think?"

"George Gordon."

"Since reading the letter I have been endeavouring to recollect exactly what he did say; and the impression on my mind is, that he spoke of Gordon as being probably dead; not that he knew it for a certainty. How I could overlook the point so as not to have inquired into it more fully, I cannot imagine. But, you see, we were not discussing details that night, or questioning facts: we were trying to disarm him—get him not to proceed against you; and for myself, I confess I was so utterly stunned that half my wits had left me."

"What is to be done?"

"We must endeavour to ascertain where Gordon is," replied Mr. Carr, as he re-enclosed the letter in his pocket-book. "I'll write and inquire what his grounds are for thinking he is in England; and then trace him out—if he is to be traced. You give me carte-blanche to act?"

"You know I do, Carr."

"All right."

"And when you have traced him—what then?"

"That's an after-question, and I must be guided by circumstances. And now I'll wish you good-night," continued the barrister, rising. "It's a shame to have kept you up; but the letter contains some consolation, and I knew I could not bring it you to-morrow."

The drawing-room was lighted when Lord Hartledon went upstairs; and his wife sat there with a book, as if she meant to remain up all night. She put it down as he entered.

"Are you here still, Maude! I thought you were tired when you came home."

"I felt tired because I met no one I cared for," she answered, in rather fractious tones. "Every one we know is leaving town, or has left."

"Yes, that's true."

"I shall leave too. I don't mind if we go to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" he echoed. "Why, we have the house for three weeks longer."

"And if we have? We are not obliged to remain in it."

Lord Hartledon put back the curtain, and stood leaning out at the open window, seeking a breath of air that hot summer's night, though indeed there was none to be found; and if there had been, it could not have cooled the brow's inward fever. The Park lay before him, dark and misty; the lights of the few vehicles passing gleamed now and again; the hum of life was dying out in the streets, men's free steps, careless voices. He looked down, and wondered whether any one of those men knew what care meant as he knew it; whether the awful skeleton, that never quitted him night or day, could hold such place with another. He was Earl of Hartledon; wealthy, young, handsome; he had no bad habits to hamper him; and yet he would willingly have changed lots at hazard with any one of those passers-by, could his breast, by so doing, have been eased of its burden.

"What are you looking at, Val?"

His wife had come up and stolen her arm within his, as she asked the question, looking out too.

"Not at anything in particular," he replied, making a prisoner of her hand. "The night's hot, Maude."

"Oh, I am getting tired of London!" she exclaimed. "It is always hot now; and I believe I ought to be away from it."

"Yes."

"That letter I had this morning was from Ireland, from mamma. I told her, when I wrote last, how I felt; and you never read such a lecture as she gave me in return. She asked me whether I was mad, that I should be going galvanizing about when I ought rather to be resting three parts of my time."

"Galvanizing?" said Lord Hartledon.

"So she wrote: she never waits to choose her words—you know mamma! I suppose she meant to imply that I was always on the move."

"Do you feel ill, Maude?"

"Not exactly ill; but—I think I ought to be careful. Percival," she breathed, "mamma asked me whether I was trying to destroy the hope of an heir to Hartledon."

An ice-bolt shot through him at the reminder. Better an heir should never be born, if it must call him father!

"I fainted to-day, Val," she continued to whisper.

He passed his arm round his wife's waist, and drew her closer to him. Not upon her ought he to visit his sin: she might have enough to bear, without coldness from him; rather should he be doubly tender.

"You did not tell me about it, love. Why have you gone out this evening?" he asked reproachfully.

"It has not harmed me. Indeed I will take care, for your sake. I should never forgive myself."

"I have thought since we married, Maude, that you did not much care for me."

Maude made no immediate answer. She was looking out straight before her, her head on his shoulder, and Lord Hartledon saw that tears were glistening in her eyes.

"Yes, I do," she said at length; and as she spoke she felt very conscious that she was caring for him. His gentle kindness, his many attractions were beginning to tell upon her heart; and a vision of the possible future, when she should love him, crossed her then and there as she stood. Lord Hartledon bent his face, and let it rest on hers.

"We shall be happy yet, Val; and I will be as good as gold. To begin with, we will leave London at once. I ought not to remain, and I know you have not liked it all along. It would have been better to wait until next year, when we could have had our own house; only I was impatient. I felt proud of being married; of being your wife—I did indeed, Val—and I was in a fever to be amidst my world of friends. And there's a real confession!" she concluded, laughing.

"Any more?" he asked, laughing with her.

"I don't remember any more just now. Which day shall we go? You shall manage things for me now: I won't be wilful again. Shall the servants go on first to Hartledon, or with us?"

"To Hartledon!" exclaimed Val. "Is it to Hartledon you think of going?"

"Of course it is," she said, standing up and looking at him in surprise. "Where else should I go?"

"I thought you wished to go to Germany!"

"And so I did; but that would not do now."

"Then let us go to the seaside," he rather eagerly said. "Somewhere in England."

"No, I would rather go to Hartledon. In one's own home rest and comfort can be insured; and I believe I require them. Don't you wish to go there?" she added, watching his perplexed face.

"No, I don't. The truth is, I cannot go to Hartledon."

"Is it because you do not care to face the Ashtons? I see! You would like to have this business settled first."

Lord Hartledon hardly heard the words, as he stood leaning against the open casement, gazing into the dark and misty past. No man ever shrank from a prison as he shrank from Hartledon.

"I cannot leave London at all just yet. Thomas Carr is remaining here for me, when he ought to be on circuit, and I must stay with him. I wish you would go anywhere else, rather than to Hartledon."

The tone was so painfully earnest, that a momentary suspicion crossed her of his having some other motive. It passed away almost as it arose, and she accused him of being unreasonable.

Unreasonable it did appear to be. "If you have any real reason to urge against Hartledon, tell it me," she said. But he mentioned none—save that it was his "wish" not to go.

And Lady Hartledon, rather piqued, gave the necessary orders on the following day for the removal. No further confidential converse, or approach to it, took place between her and her husband; but up to the last moment she thought he would relent and accompany her. Nothing of the sort. He was anxious for her every comfort on the journey, and saw her off himself: nothing more.

"I never thought you would allow me to go alone," she resentfully whispered, as he held her hand after she was seated in the train.

He shook his head. "It is your fault, Maude. I told you I could not go to Hartledon."

And so she went down in rather an angry frame of mind. Many a time and oft had she pictured to herself the triumph of their first visit to Calne, the place where she had taken so much pains to win him: but the arrival was certainly shorn of its glory.



CHAPTER XXII.

ASKING THE RECTOR.

Perhaps Lady Hartledon had never in all her life been so much astonished as when she reached Hartledon, for the first person she saw there was her mother: her mother, whom she had believed to be in some remote district of Ireland. For the moment she almost wondered whether it was really herself or her ghost. The countess-dowager came flying down the steps—if that term may be applied to one of her age and size—with rather demonstrative affection; which, however, was not cordially received.

"What's the matter, Maude? How you stare!"

"Is it you, mamma? How can it be you?"

"How can it be me?" returned the dowager, giving Maude's bonnet a few kisses. "It is me, and that's enough. My goodness, Maude, how thin you look! I see what it is! you've been killing yourself in that racketing London. It's well I've come to take care of you."

Maude went in, feeling that she could have taken care of herself, and listening to the off-hand explanations of the countess-dowager. "Kirton offended me," she said. "He and his wife are like two bears; and so I packed up my things and came away at once, and got here straight from Liverpool. And now you know."

"And is Lady Kirton quite well again?" asked Maude, helplessly, knowing she could not turn her mother out.

"She'd be well enough but for temper. She was ill, though, when they telegraphed for me; her life for three days and nights hanging on a shred. I told that fool of a Kirton before he married her that she had no constitution. I suppose you and Hart were finely disappointed to find I was not in London when you got there."

"Agreeably disappointed, I think," said Maude, languidly.

"Indeed! It's civil of you to say so."

"On account of the smallness of the house," added Maude, endeavouring to be polite. "We hardly knew how to manage in it ourselves."

"You wrote me word to take it. As to me, I can accommodate myself to any space. Where there's plenty of room, I take plenty; where there's not, I can put up with a closet. I have made Mirrable give me my old rooms here: you of course take Hart's now."

"I am very tired," said Maude. "I think I will have some tea, and go to bed."

"Tea!" shrieked the dowager. "I have not yet had dinner. And it's waiting; that's more."

"You can dine without me, mamma," she said, walking upstairs to the new rooms. The dowager stared, and followed her. There was an indescribable something in Maude's manner that she did not like; it spoke of incipient rebellion, of an influence that had been, but was now thrown off. If she lost caste once, with Maude, she knew that she lost it for ever.

"You could surely take a little dinner, Maude. You must keep up your strength, you know."

"Not any dinner, thank you. I shall be all right to-morrow, when I've slept off my fatigue."

"Well, I know I should like mine," grumbled the countess-dowager, feeling her position in the house already altered from what it had been during her former sojourn, when she assumed full authority, and ordered things as she pleased, completely ignoring the new lord.

"You can have it," said Maude.

"They won't serve it until Hartledon arrives," was the aggrieved answer. "I suppose he's walking up from the station. He always had a queer habit of doing that."

Maude lifted her eyes in slight surprise. Her solitary arrival was a matter of fact so established to herself, that it sounded strange for any one else to be in ignorance of it.

"Lord Hartledon has not come down. He is remaining in London."

The old dowager peered at Maude through her little eyes. "What's that for?"

"Business, I believe."

"Don't tell me an untruth, Maude. You have quarrelled."

"We have not quarrelled. We are perfectly good friends."

"And do you mean to tell me that he sent you down alone?"

"He sent the servants with me."

"Don't be insolent, Maude. You know what I mean."

"Why, mamma, I do not wish to be insolent. I can't tell you more, or tell it differently. Lord Hartledon did not come down with me, and the servants did."

She spoke sharply. In her tired condition the petty conversation was wearying her; and underlying everything else in her heart, was the mortifying consciousness that he had not come down with her, chafing her temper almost beyond repression. Considering that Maude did not profess to love her husband very much, it was astonishing how keenly she felt this.

"Are you and Hartledon upon good terms?" asked the countess-dowager after a pause, during which she had never taken her eyes from her daughter's face.

"It would be early days to be on any other."

"Oh," said the dowager. "And you did not write me word from Paris that you found you had made a mistake, that you could not bear your husband! Eh, Maude?"

A tinge came into Maude's cheeks. "And you, mamma, told me that I was to rule my husband with an iron hand, never allowing him to have a will of his own, never consulting him! Both you and I were wrong," she continued quietly. "I wrote that letter in a moment of irritation; and you were assuming what has not proved to be a fact. I like my husband now quite well enough to keep friends with him; his kindness to me is excessive; but I find, with all my wish to rule him, if I had the wish, I could not do it. He has a will of his own, and he exerts it in spite of me; and I am quite sure he will continue to exert it, whenever he fancies he is in the right. You never saw any one so changed from what he used to be."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean in asserting his own will. But he is changed in other ways. It seems to me that he has never been quite the same man since that night in the chapel. He has been more thoughtful; and all the old vacillation is gone."

The countess-dowager could not understand at all; neither did she believe; and she only stared at Maude.

"His not coming down with me is a proof that he exercises his own will now. I wished him to come very much, and he knew it; but you see he has not done so."

"And what do you say is keeping him?" repeated the countess-dowager.

"Business—"

"Ah," interrupted the dowager, before Maude could finish, "that's the general excuse. Always suspect it, my dear."

"Suspect what?" asked Maude.

"When a man says that, and gets his wife out of the way with it, rely upon it he is pursuing some nice little interests of his own."

Lady Hartledon understood the implication; she felt nettled, and a flush rose to her face. In her husband's loyalty (always excepting his feeling towards Miss Ashton) she rested fully assured.

"You did not allow me to finish," was the cold rejoinder. "Business is keeping him in town, for one thing; for another, I think he cannot get over his dislike to face the Ashtons."

"Rubbish!" cried the wrathful dowager. "He does not tell you what the business is, does he?" she cynically added.

"I happen to know," answered Maude. "The Ashtons are bringing an action against him for breach of promise; and he and Mr. Carr the barrister are trying to arrange it without its coming to a trial."

The old lady opened her eyes and her mouth.

"It is true. They lay the damages at ten thousand pounds!"

With a shriek the countess-dowager began to dance. Ten thousand pounds! Ten thousand pounds would keep her for ever, invested at good interest. She called the parson some unworthy names.

"I cannot give you any of the details," said Maude, in answer to the questions pressed upon her. "Percival will never speak of it, or allow me to do so. I learnt it—I can hardly tell you how I learnt it—by implication, I think; for it was never expressly told me. We had a mysterious visit one night from some old parson—parson or lawyer; and Percival and Mr. Carr, who happened to be at our house, were closeted with him for an hour or two. I saw they were agitated, and guessed what it was; Dr. Ashton was bringing an action. They could not deny it."

"The vile old hypocrite!" cried the incensed dowager. "Ten thousand pounds! Are you sure it is as much as that, Maude?"

"Quite. Mr. Carr told me the amount."

"I wonder you encourage that man to your house."

"It was one of the things I stood out against—fruitlessly," was the quiet answer. "But I believe he means well to me; and I am sure he is doing what he can to serve my husband. They are often together about this business."

"Of course Hartledon resists the claim?"

"I don't know. I think they are trying to compromise it, so that it shall not come into court."

"What does Hartledon think of it?"

"It is worrying his life out. No, mamma, it is not too strong an expression. He says nothing; but I can see that it is half killing him. I don't believe he has slept properly since the news was brought to him."

"What a simpleton he must be! And that man will stand up in the pulpit to-morrow and preach of charity!" continued the dowager, turning her animadversions upon Dr. Ashton. "You are a hypocrite too, Maude, for trying to deceive me. You and Hartledon are not on good terms; don't tell me! He would never have let you come down alone."

Lady Hartledon would not reply. She felt vexed with her mother, vexed with her husband, vexed on all sides; and she took refuge in her fatigue and was silent.

The dowager went to church on the following day. Maude would not go. The hot anger flushed into her face at the thought of showing herself there for the first time, unaccompanied by her husband: to Maude's mind it seemed that she must look to others so very much like a deserted wife. She comes home alone; he stays in London! "Ah, why did he not come down only for this one Sunday, and go back again—if he must have gone?" she thought.

A month or two ago Maude had not cared enough for him to reason like this. The countess-dowager ensconced herself in a corner of the Hartledon state-pew, and from her blinking eyes looked out upon the Ashtons. Anne, with her once bright face looking rather wan, her modest demeanour; Mrs. Ashton, so essentially a gentlewoman; the doctor, sensible, clever, charitable, beyond all doubt a good man—a feeling came over the mind of the sometimes obtuse woman that of all the people before her they looked the least likely to enter on the sort of lawsuit spoken of by Maude. But never a doubt occurred to her that they had entered on it.

Lady Hartledon remained at home, her prayer-book in her hand. She was thinking she could steal out to the evening service; it might not be so much noticed then, her being alone. Listlessly enough she sat, toying with her prayer-book rather than reading it. She had never pretended to be religious, had not been trained to be so; and reading a prayer-book, when not in church, was quite unusual to her. But there are seasons in a woman's life, times when peril is looked forward to, that bring thought even to the most careless nature. Maude was trying to play at "being good," and was reading the psalms for the day in an absent fashion, her thoughts elsewhere; and the morning passed on. The quiet apathy of her present state, compared with the restless fever which had stirred her during her last sojourn at Hartledon, was remarkable.

Suddenly there burst in upon her the countess-dowager: that estimable lady's bonnet awry, her face scarlet, herself in a commotion.

"I didn't suppose you'd have done it, Maude! You might play tricks upon other people, I think, but not upon your own mother."

The interlude was rather welcome to Maude, rousing her from her apathy. Not for some few moments, however, could she understand the cause of complaint.

It appeared that the countess-dowager, with that absence of all sense of the fitness of things which so eminently characterized her, had joined the Ashtons after service, inquiring with quite motherly solicitude after Mrs. Ashton's health, complimenting Anne upon her charming looks; making herself, in short, as agreeable as she knew how, and completely ignoring the past in regard to her son-in-law. Gentlewomen in mind and manners, they did not repulse her, were even courteously civil; and she graciously accompanied them across the road to the Rectory-gate, and there took a cordial leave, saying she would look in on the morrow.

In returning she met Dr. Ashton. He was passing her with nothing but a bow; but he little knew the countess-dowager. She grasped his hand; said how grieved she was not to have had an opportunity of explaining away her part in the past; hoped he would let bygones be bygones; and finally, whilst the clergyman was scheming how to get away from her without absolute rudeness, she astonished him with a communication touching the action-at-law. There ensued a little mutual misapprehension, followed by a few emphatic words of denial from Dr. Ashton; and the countess-dowager walked away with a scarlet face, and an explosion of anger against her daughter.

Lady Hartledon was not yet callous to the proprieties of life; and the intrusion on the Ashtons, which her mother confessed to, half frightened, half shamed her. But the dowager's wrath at having been misled bore down everything. Dr. Ashton had entered no action whatever against Lord Hartledon; had never thought of doing it.

"And you, you wicked, ungrateful girl, to come home to me with such an invention, and cause me to start off on a fool's errand! Do you suppose I should have gone and humbled myself to those people, but for hoping to bring the parson to a sense of what he was doing in going-in for those enormous damages?"

"I have not come home to you with any invention, mamma. Dr. Ashton has entered the action."

"He has not," raved the dowager. "It is an infamous hoax you have played off upon me. You couldn't find any excuse for your husband's staying in London, and so invented this. What with you, and what with Kirton's ingratitude, I shall be driven out of house and home!"

"I won't say another word until you are calm and can talk common sense," said Maude, leaning back in her chair, and putting down her prayer-book.

"Common sense! What am I talking but common sense? When a child begins to mislead her own mother, the world ought to come to an end."

Maude took no notice.

There happened to be some water standing on a table, and the dowager poured out a tumblerful and drank it, though not accustomed to the beverage. Untying her bonnet-strings she sat down, a little calmer.

"Perhaps you'll explain this at your convenience, Maude."

"There is nothing to explain," was the answer. "What I told you was the truth. The action has been entered by the Ashtons."

"And I tell you that the action has not."

"I assure you that it has," returned Maude. "I told you of the evening we first had notice of it, and the damages claimed; do you think I invented that, or went to sleep and dreamt it? If Val has gone down once to that Temple about it, he has gone fifty times. He would not go for pleasure."

The countess-dowager sat fanning herself quietly: for her daughter's words were gaining ground.

"There's a mistake somewhere, Maude, and it is on your side and not mine. I'll lay my life that no action has been entered by Dr. Ashton. The man spoke the truth; I can read the truth when I see it as well as anyone: his face flushed with pain and anger at such a thing being said of him. It may not be difficult to explain this contradiction."

"Do you think not?" returned Maude, her indifference exciting the listener to anger.

"I should say Hartledon is deceiving you. If any action is entered against him at all, it isn't that sort of action; or perhaps the young lady is not Miss Ashton, but some other; he's just the kind of man to be drawn into promising marriage to a dozen or two. Very clever of him to palm you off with this tale: a man may get into five hundred troubles not convenient to disclose to his wife."

Except that Lady Hartledon's cheek flushed a little, she made no answer; she held firmly—at least she thought she held firmly—to her own side of the case. Her mother, on the contrary, adopted the new view, and dismissed it from her thoughts accordingly.

Maude went to church in the evening, sitting alone in the great pew, pale and quiet. Anne Ashton was also alone; and the two whilom rivals, the triumphant and the rejected, could survey each other to their heart's content.

Not very triumphant was Maude's feeling. Strange perhaps to say, the suggestion of the old dowager, like instilled poison, was making its way into her very veins. Her thoughts had been busy with the matter ever since. One positive conviction lay in her heart—that Dr. Ashton, now reading the first lesson before her, for he was taking the whole of the service that evening, could not, under any circumstance, be guilty of a false assertion or subterfuge. One solution of the difficulty presented itself to her—that her mother, in her irascibility, had misunderstood the Rector; and yet that was improbable. As Maude half sat, half lay back in the pew, for the faint feeling was especially upon her that evening, she thought she would give a great deal to set the matter at rest.

When the service was over she took the more secluded way home; those of the servants who had attended returning as usual by the road. On reaching the turning where the three paths diverged, the faintness which had been hovering over her all the evening suddenly grew worse; and but for a friendly tree, she might have fallen. It grew better in a few moments, but she did not yet quit her support.

Very surprised was the Rector of Calne to come up and see Lady Hartledon in this position. Every Sunday evening, after service, he went to visit a man in one of the cottages, who was dying of consumption, and he was on his way there now. He would have preferred to pass without speaking: but Lady Hartledon looked in need of assistance; and in common Christian kindness he could not pass her by.

"I beg your pardon, Lady Hartledon. Are you ill?"

She took his offered arm with her disengaged hand, as an additional support; and her white face turned a shade whiter.

"A sudden faintness overtook me. I am better now," she said, when able to speak.

"Will you allow me to walk on with you?"

"Thank you; just a little way. If you will not mind it."

That he must have understood the feeling which prompted the concluding words was undoubted: and perhaps had Lady Hartledon been in possession of her keenest senses, she might never have spoken them. Pride and health go out of us together. Dr. Ashton took her on his arm, and they walked slowly in the direction of the little bridge. Colour was returning to her face, strength to her frame.

"The heat of the day has affected you, possibly?"

"Yes, perhaps; I have felt faint at times lately. The church was very hot to-night."

Nothing more was said until the bridge was gained, and then Maude released his arm.

"Dr. Ashton, I thank you very much. You have been a friend in need."

"But are you sure you are strong enough to go on alone? I will escort you to the house if you are not."

"Quite strong enough now. Thank you once again."

As he was bowing his farewell, a sudden impulse to speak, and set the matter that was troubling her at rest, came over her. Without a moment's deliberation, without weighing her words, she rushed upon it; the ostensible plea an apology for her mother's having spoken to him.

"Yes, I told Lady Kirton she was labouring under some misapprehension," he quietly answered.

"Will you forgive me also for speaking of it?" she murmured. "Since my mother came home with the news of what you said, I have been lost in a sea of conjecture: I could not attend to the service for dwelling upon it, and might as well not have been in church—a curious confession to make to you, Dr. Ashton. Is it indeed true that you know nothing of the matter?"

"Lady Kirton told me in so many words that I had entered an action against Lord Hartledon for breach of promise, and laid the damages at ten thousand pounds," returned Dr. Ashton, with a plainness of speech and a cynical manner that made her blush. And she saw at once that he had done nothing of the sort; saw it without any more decisive denial.

"But the action has been entered," said Lady Hartledon.

"I beg your pardon, madam. Lord Hartledon is, I should imagine, the only man living who could suppose me capable of such a thing."

"And you have not entered on it!" she reiterated, half bewildered by the denial.

"Most certainly not. When I parted with Lord Hartledon on a certain evening, which probably your ladyship remembers, I washed my hands of him for good, desiring never to approach him in any way whatever, never hear of him, never see him again. Your husband, madam, is safe for me: I desire nothing better than to forget that such a man is in existence."

Lifting his hat, he walked away. And Lady Hartledon stood and gazed after him as one in a dream.



CHAPTER XXIII.

MR. CARR AT WORK.

Thomas Carr was threading his way through the mazy precincts of Gray's Inn, with that quick step and absorbed manner known only, I think, to the busy man of our busy metropolis. He was on his way to make some inquiries of a firm of solicitors, Messrs. Kedge and Reck, strangers to him in all but name.

Up some dark and dingy stairs, he knocked at a dark and dingy door: which, after a minute, opened of itself by some ingenious contrivance, and let him into a passage, whence he turned into a room, where two clerks were writing at a desk.

"Can I see Mr. Kedge?"

"Not in," said one of the clerks, without looking up.

"Mr. Reck, then?"

"Not in."

"When will either of them be in?" continued the barrister; thinking that if he were Messrs. Kedge and Reck the clerk would get his discharge for incivility.

"Can't say. What's your business?"

"My business is with them: not with you."

"You can see the managing clerk."

"I wish to see one of the partners."

"Could you give your name?" continued the gentleman, equably.

Mr. Carr handed in his card. The clerk glanced at it, and surreptitiously showed it to his companion; and both of them looked up at him. Mr. Carr of the Temple was known by reputation, and they condescended to become civil.

"Take a seat for a moment, sir," said the one. "I'll inquire how long Mr. Kedge will be; but Mr. Reek's not in town to-day."

A few minutes, and Thomas Carr found himself in a small square room with the head of the firm, a youngish man and somewhat of a dandy, especially genial in manner, as though in contrast to his clerk. He welcomed the rising barrister.

"There's as much difficulty in getting to see you as if you were Pope of Rome," cried Mr. Carr, good humouredly.

The lawyer laughed. "Hopkins did not know you: and strangers are generally introduced to Mr. Reck, or to our managing clerk. What can I do for you, Mr. Carr?"

"I don't know that you can do anything for me," said Mr. Carr, seating himself; "but I hope you can. At the present moment I am engaged in sifting a piece of complicated business for a friend; a private matter entirely, which it is necessary to keep private. I am greatly interested in it myself, as you may readily believe, when it is keeping me from circuit. Indeed it may almost be called my own affair," he added, observing the eyes of the lawyer fixed upon him, and not caring they should see into his business too clearly. "I fancy you have a clerk, or had a clerk, who is cognizant of one or two points in regard to it: can you put me in the way of finding out where he is? His name is Gordon."

"Gordon! We have no clerk of that name. Never had one, that I remember. How came you to fancy it?"

"I heard it from my own clerk, Taylor. One day last week I happened to say before him that I'd give a five-pound note out of my pocket to get at the present whereabouts of this man Gordon. Taylor is a shrewd fellow; full of useful bits of information, and knows, I really believe, three-fourths of London by name. He immediately said a young man of that name was with Messrs. Kedge and Reck, of Gray's Inn, either as clerk, or in some other capacity; and when he described this clerk of yours, I felt nearly sure that it was the man I am looking for. I got Taylor to make inquiries, and he did, I believe, of one of your clerks; but he could learn nothing, except that no one of that name was connected with you now. Taylor persists that he is or was connected with you; and so I thought the shortest plan to settle the matter was to ask yourselves."

"We have no clerk of that name," repeated Mr. Kedge, pushing back some papers on the table. "Never had one."

"Understand," said Mr. Carr, thinking it just possible the lawyer might be mistaking his motives, "I have nothing to allege against the man, and do not seek to injure him. The real fact is, that I do not want to see him or to be brought into personal contact with him; I only want to know whether he is in London, and, if so, where?"

"I assure you he is not connected with us," repeated Mr. Kedge. "I would tell you so in a moment if he were."

"Then I can only apologise for having troubled you," said the barrister, rising. "Taylor must have been mistaken. And yet I would have backed his word, when he positively asserts a thing, against the world. I hardly ever knew him wrong."

Mr. Kedge was playing with the locket on his watch-chain, his head bent in thought.

"Wait a moment, Mr. Carr. I remember now that we took a clerk temporarily into the office in the latter part of last year. His writing did not suit, and we kept him only a week or two. I don't know what his name was, but it might have been Gordon."

"Do you remember what sort of a man he was?" asked Mr. Carr, somewhat eagerly.

"I really do not. You see, I don't come much into contact with our clerks. Reck does; but he's not here to-day. I fancy he had red hair."

"Gordon had reddish hair."

"You had better see Kimberly," said the solicitor, ringing a bell. "He is our managing clerk, and knows everything."

A grey-haired, silent-looking man came in with stooping shoulders. Mr. Kedge, without any circumlocution, asked whether he remembered any clerk of the name of Gordon having been in the house. Mr. Kimberly responded by saying that they never had one in the house of the name.

"Well, I thought not," observed the principal. "There was one had in for a short time, you know, while Hopkins was ill. I forget his name."

"His name was Druitt, sir. We employed a man of the name of Gorton to do some outdoor business for us at times," continued the managing clerk, turning his eyes on the barrister; "but not lately."

"What sort of business?"

"Serving writs."

"Gorton is not Gordon," remarked Mr. Kedge, with legal acumen. "By the way, Kimberly, I have heard nothing of Gorton lately. What has become of him?"

"I have not the least idea, sir. We parted in a huff, so he wouldn't perhaps be likely to come in my way again. Some business that he mismanaged, if you remember, sir, down at Calne."

"When he arrested one man for another," laughed the lawyer, "and got entangled in a coroner's inquest, and I don't know what all."

Mr. Carr had pricked up his ears, scarcely daring to breathe. But his manner was careless to a degree.

"The man he arrested being Lord Hartledon; the man he ought to have arrested being the Honourable Percival Elster," he interposed, laughing.

"What! do you know about it?" cried the lawyer.

"I remember hearing of it; I was intimate with Mr. Elster at the time."

"He has since become Lord Hartledon."

"Yes. But about this Gorton! I should not be in the least surprised if he is the man I am inquiring for. Can you describe him to me, Mr. Kimberly?"

"He is a short, slight man, under thirty, with red hair and whiskers."

Mr. Carr nodded.

"Light hair with a reddish tinge it has been described to me. Do you happen to be at all acquainted with his antecedents?"

"Not I; I know nothing about, the man," said Mr. Kedge. "Kimberly does, perhaps."

"No, sir," dissented Kimberly. "He had been to Australia, I believe; and that's all I know about him."

"It is the same man," said Mr. Carr, quietly. "And if you can tell me anything about him," he continued, turning to the older man, "I shall be exceedingly obliged to you. To begin with—when did you first know him?"

But at this juncture an interruption occurred. Hopkins the discourteous came in with a card, which he presented to his principal. The gentleman was waiting to see Mr. Kedge. Two more clients were also waiting, he added, Thomas Carr rose, and the end of it was that he went with Mr. Kimberly to his own room.

"It's Carr of the Inner Temple," whispered Mr. Kedge in his clerk's ear.

"Oh, I know him, sir."

"All right. If you can help him, do so."

"I first knew Gorton about fifteen months ago," observed the clerk, when they were shut in together. "A friend of mine, now dead, spoke of him to me as a respectable young fellow who had fallen in the world, and asked if I could help him to some employment. I think he told me somewhat of his history; but I quite forget it. I know he was very low down then, with scarcely bread to eat."

"Did this friend of yours call him Gorton or Gordon?" interrupted Mr. Carr.

"Gorton. I never heard him called Gordon at all. I remember seeing a book of his that he seemed to set some store by. It was printed in old English, and had his name on the title-page: 'George Gorton. From his affectionate father, W. Gorton.' I employed him in some outdoor work. He knew London perfectly well, and seemed to know people too."

"And he had been to Australia?"

"He had been to Australia, I feel sure. One day he accidentally let slip some words about Melbourne, which he could not well have done unless he had seen the place. I taxed him with it, and he shuffled out of it with some excuse; but in such a manner as to convince me he had been there."

"And now, Mr. Kimberly, I am going to ask you another question. You spoke of his having been at Calne; I infer that you sent him to the place on the errand to Mr. Elster. Try to recollect whether his going there was your own spontaneous act, or whether he was the original mover in the journey?"

The grey-haired clerk looked up as though not understanding.

"You don't quite take me, I see."

"Yes I do, sir; but I was thinking. So far as I can recollect, it was our own spontaneous act. I am sure I had no reason to think otherwise at the time. We had had a deal of trouble with the Honourable Mr. Elster; and when it was found that he had left town for the family seat, we came to the resolution to arrest him."

Thomas Carr paused. "Do you know anything of Gordon's—or Gorton's doings in Calne? Did you ever hear him speak of them afterwards?"

"I don't know that I did particularly. The excuse he made to us for arresting Lord Hartledon was, that the brothers were so much alike he mistook the one for the other."

"Which would infer that he knew Mr. Elster by sight."

"It might; yes. It was not for the mistake that we discharged him; indeed, not for anything at all connected with Calne. He did seem to have gone about his business there in a very loose way, and to have paid less attention to our interests than to the gossip of the place; of which there was a tolerable amount just then, on account of Lord Hartledon's unfortunate death. Gorton was set upon another job or two when he returned; and one of those he contrived to mismanage so woefully, that I would give him no more to do. It struck me that he must drink, or else was accessible to a bribe."

Mr. Carr nodded his head, thinking the latter more than probable. His fingers were playing with a newspaper which happened to lie on the clerk's desk; and he put the next question with a very well-assumed air of carelessness, as if it were but the passing thought of the moment.

"Did he ever talk about Mr. Elster?"

"Never but once. He came to my house one evening to tell me he had discovered the hiding-place of a gentleman we were looking for. I was taking my solitary glass of gin and water after supper, the only stimulant I ever touch—and that by the doctor's orders—and I could not do less than ask him to help himself. You see, sir, we did not look upon him as a common sheriff's man: and he helped himself pretty freely. That made him talkative. I fancy his head cannot stand much; and he began rambling upon recent affairs at Calne; he had not been back above a week then—"

"And he spoke of Mr. Elster?"

"He spoke a good deal of him as the new Lord Hartledon, all in a rambling sort of way. He hinted that it might be in his power to bring home to him some great crime."

"The man must have been drunk indeed!" remarked Mr. Carr, with the most perfect assumption of indifference; a very contrast to the fear that shot through his heart. "What crime, pray? I hope he particularized it."

"What he seemed to hint at was some unfair play in connection with his brother's death," said the old clerk, lowering his voice. "'A man at his wits' end for money would do many queer things,' he remarked."

Mr. Carr's eyes flashed. "What a dangerous fool he must be! You surely did not listen to him!"

"I, sir! I stopped him pretty quickly, and bade him sew up his mouth until he came to his sober senses again. Oh, they make great simpletons of themselves, some of these young fellows, when they get a little drink into them."

"They do," said the barrister. "Did he ever allude to the matter again?"

"Never; and when I saw him the next day, he seemed ashamed of himself, and asked if he had not been talking a lot of nonsense. About a fortnight after that we parted, and I have never seen him since."

"And you really do not know what has become of him?"

"Not at all. I should think he has left London."

"Why?"

"Because had he remained in it he'd be sure to have come bothering me to employ him again; unless, indeed, he has found some one else to do it."

"Well," said Mr. Carr, rising, "will you do me this favour? If you come across the man again, or learn tidings of him in any way, let me know it at once. I do not want him to hear of me, or that I have made inquiries about him. I only wish to ascertain where he is, if that be possible. Any one bringing me this information privately will find it well worth his while."

He went forth into the busy streets again, sick at heart; and upon reaching his chambers wrote a note for a detective officer, and put some business into his hands.

Meanwhile Lord Hartledon remained in London. When the term for which they had engaged the furnished house was expired he took lodgings in Grafton Street; and there he stayed, his frame of mind restless and unsatisfactory. Lady Hartledon wrote to him sometimes, and he answered her. She said not a word about the discovery she had made in regard to the alleged action-at-law; but she never failed in every letter to ask what he was doing, and when he was coming home—meaning to Hartledon. He put her off in the best way he could: he and Carr were very busy together, he said: as to home, he could not mention any particular time. And Lady Hartledon bottled up her curiosity and her wrath, and waited with what patience she possessed.

The truth was—and, perhaps, the reader may have divined it—that graver motives than the sensitive feeling of not liking to face the Ashtons were keeping Lord Hartledon from his wife and home. He had once, in his bachelor days, wished himself a savage in some remote desert, where his civilized acquaintance could not come near him; he had a thousand times more reason to wish himself one now.

One dusty day, when the excessive heat of summer was on the wane, he went down to Mr. Carr's chambers, and found that gentleman out. Not out for long, the clerk thought; and sat down and waited. The room he was in looked out on the cool garden, the quiet river; in the one there was not a soul except Mr. Broom himself, who had gone in to watch the progress of his chrysanthemums, and was stooping lovingly over the beds; on the other a steamer, freighted with a straggling few, was paddling up the river against the tide, and a barge with its brown sail was coming down in all its picturesque charm. The contrast between this quiet scene and the bustling, dusty, jostling world he had come in from, was grateful even to his disturbed heart; and he felt half inclined to go round to the garden and fling himself on the lawn as a man might do who was free from care.

Mr. Carr indulged in the costly luxury of three rooms in the Temple; his sitting-room, which was his work-room, a bedroom, and a little outer room, the sanctum of his clerk. Lord Hartledon was in the sitting-room, but he could hear the clerk moving about in the ante-room, as if he had no writing on hand that morning. When tired of waiting, he called him in.

"Mr. Taylor, how long do you think he will be? I've been dozing, I think."

"Well, I thought he'd have been here before now, my lord. He generally tells me if he is going out for any length of time; but he said nothing to-day."

"A newspaper would be something to while away one's time, or a book," grumbled Hartledon. "Not those," glancing at a book-case full of ponderous law-volumes.

"Your lordship has taken the cream out of them already," remarked the clerk, with a laugh; and Hartledon's brow knitted at the words. He had "taken the cream" out of those old law-books, if studying them could do it, for he had been at them pretty often of late.

But Mr. Taylor's remarks had no ulterior meaning. Being a shrewd man, he could not fail to suspect that Lord Hartledon was in a scrape of some sort; but from a word dropped by his master he supposed it to involve nothing more than a question of debt; and he never suspected that the word had been dropped purposely. "Scamps would claim money twice over when they could," said Mr. Carr; and Elster was a careless man, always losing his receipts. He was a short, slight man, this clerk—in build something like his master—with an intelligent, silent face, a small, sharp nose, and fair hair. He had been born a gentleman, he was wont to say; and indeed he looked one; but he had not received an education commensurate with that fact, and had to make his own way in the world. He might do it yet, perhaps, he remarked one day to Lord Hartledon; and certainly, if steady perseverance could effect it, he would: all his spare time was spent in study.

"He has not gone to one of those blessed consultations in somebody's chambers, has he?" cried Val. "I have known them last three hours."

"I have known them last longer than that," said the clerk equably. "But there are none on just now."

"I can't think what has become of him. He made an appointment with me for this morning. And where's his Times?"

Mr. Taylor could not tell where; he had been looking for the newspaper on his own account. It was not to be found; and they could only come to the conclusion that the barrister had taken it out with him.

"I wish you'd go out and buy me one," said Val.

"I'll go with pleasure, my lord. But suppose any one comes to the door?"

"Oh, I'll answer it. They'll think Carr has taken on a new clerk."

Mr. Taylor laughed, and went out. Hartledon, tired of sitting, began to pace the room and the ante-room. Most men would have taken their departure; but he had nothing to do; he had latterly shunned that portion of the world called society; and was as well in Mr. Carr's chambers as in his own lodgings, or in strolling about with his troubled heart. While thus occupied, there came a soft tap to the outer door—as was sure to be the case, the clerk being absent—and Val opened it. A middle-aged, quiet-looking man stood there, who had nothing specially noticeable in his appearance, except a pair of deep-set dark eyes, under bushy eyebrows that were turning grey.

"Mr. Carr within?"

"Mr. Carr's not in," replied the temporary clerk. "I dare say you can wait."

"Likely to be long?"

"I should think not. I have been waiting for him these two hours."

The applicant entered, and sat down in the clerk's room. Lord Hartledon went into the other, and stood drumming on the window-pane, as he gazed out upon the Temple garden.

"I'd go, but for that note of Carr's," he said to himself. "If—Halloa! that's his voice at last."

Mr. Carr and his clerk had returned together. The former, after a few moments, came in to Lord Hartledon.

"A nice fellow you are, Carr! Sending me word to be here at eleven o'clock, and then walking off for two mortal hours!"

"I sent you word to wait for me at your own home!"

"Well, that's good!" returned Val. "It said, 'Be here at eleven,' as plainly as writing could say it."

"And there was a postscript over the leaf telling you, on second thought, not to be here, but to wait at home for me," said Mr. Carr. "I remembered a matter of business that would take me up your way this morning, and thought I'd go on to you. It's just your careless fashion, Hartledon, reading only half your letters! You should have turned it over."

"Who was to think there was anything on the other side? Folk don't turn their letters over from curiosity when they are concluded on the first page."

"I never had a letter in my life but I turned it over to make sure," observed the more careful barrister. "I have had my walk for nothing."

"And I have been cooling my heels here! And you took the newspaper with you!"

"No, I did not. Churton sent in from his rooms to borrow it."

"Well, let the misunderstanding go, and forgive me for being cross. Do you know, Carr, I think I am growing ill-tempered from trouble. What news have you for me?"

"I'll tell you by-and-by. Do you know who that is in the other room?"

"Not I. He seemed to stare me inside-out in a quiet way as I let him in."

"Ay. It's Green, the detective. At times a question occurs to me whether that's his real name, or one assumed in his profession. He has come to report at last. Had you better remain?"

"Why not?"

Mr. Carr looked dubious.

"You can make some excuse for my presence."

"It's not that. I'm thinking if you let slip a word—"

"Is it likely?"

"Inadvertently, I mean."

"There's no fear. You have not mentioned my name to him?"

"I retort in your own words—Is it likely? He does not know why he is being employed or what I want with the man I wish traced. At present he is working, as far as that goes, in the dark. I might have put him on a false scent, just as cleverly and unsuspiciously as I dare say he could put me; but I've not done it. What's the matter with you to-day, Hartledon? You look ill."

"I only look what I am, then," was the answer. "But I'm no worse than usual. I'd rather be transported—I'd rather be hanged, for that matter—than lead the life of misery I am leading. At times I feel inclined to give in, but then comes the thought of Maude."



CHAPTER XXIV.

SOMEBODY ELSE AT WORK.

They were shut in together: the detective officer, Mr. Carr, and Lord Hartledon. "You may speak freely before this gentleman," observed Mr. Carr, as if in apology for a third being present. "He knows the parties, and is almost as much interested in the affair as I am."

The detective glanced at Lord Hartledon with his deep eyes, but he did not know him, and took out a note-book, on which some words and figures were dotted down, hieroglyphics to any one's eyes but his own. Squaring his elbows on the table, he begun abruptly; and appeared to have a habit of cutting short his words and sentences.

"Haven't succeeded yet as could wish, Mr. Carr; at least not altogether: have had to be longer over it, too, than thought for. George Gordon: Scotch birth, so far as can learn; left an orphan; lived mostly in London. Served time to medical practitioner, locality Paddington. Idle, visionary, loose in conduct, good-natured, fond of roving. Surgeon wouldn't keep him as assistant; might have done it, he says, had G.G. been of settled disposition: saw him in drink three times. Next turns up in Scotland, assistant to a doctor there; name Mair, locality Kirkcudbrightshire. Remained less than a year; left, saying was going to Australia. So far," broke off the speaker, raising his eyes to Mr. Carr's, "particulars tally with the information supplied by you."

"Just so."

"Then my further work began," continued Mr. Green. "Afraid what I've got together won't be satisfactory; differ from you in opinion, at any rate. G.G. went to Australia; no doubt of that; friend of his got a letter or two from him while there: last one enclosed two ten-pound notes, borrowed by G.G. before he went out. Last letter said been up to the diggings; very successful; coming home with his money, mentioned ship he meant to sail in. Hadn't been in Australia twelve months."

"Who was the friend?" asked Mr. Carr.

"Respectable man; gentleman; former fellow-pupil with Gordon in London; in good practice for himself now; locality Kensington. After last letter, friend perpetually looking out for G.G. G.G. did not make his appearance; conclusion friend draws is he did not come back. Feels sure Gordon, whether rich or poor, in ill-report or good-report, would have come direct to him."

"I happen to know that he did come back," said Mr. Carr.

"Don't think it," was the unceremonious rejoinder.

"I know it positively. And that he was in London."

The detective looked over his notes, as if completely ignoring Mr. Carr's words.

"You heard, gentlemen, of that mutiny on board the ship Morning Star, some three years ago? Made a noise at the time."

"Well?"

"Ringleader was this same man, George Gordon."

"No!" exclaimed Mr. Carr.

"No reasonable doubt about it. Friend of his feels none: can't understand how G.G. could have turned suddenly cruel; never was that. Pooh! when men have been leading lawless lives in the bush, perhaps taken regularly to drinking—which G.G. was inclined to before—they're ready for any crime under the sun."

"But how do you connect Gordon with the ringleader of that diabolical mutiny?"

"Easy enough. Same name, George Gordon: wrote to a friend the ship he was coming home in—Morning Star. It was the same; price on G.G.'s head to this day: shouldn't mind getting it. Needn't pother over it, sir; 'twas Gordon: but he'd never put his foot in London."

"If true, it would account for his not showing himself to his friend—assuming that he did come back," observed Mr. Carr.

"Friend says not. Sure that G.G., whatever he might have been guilty of, would go to him direct; knew he might depend on him in any trouble. A proof, he argues, that G.G. never came back."

"But I tell you he did come back," repeated the barrister. "Strange the similarity of name never struck me," he added, turning to Lord Hartledon. "I took some interest in that mutiny at the time; but it never occurred to me to connect this man or his name with it. A noted name, at any rate, if not a very common one."

Lord Hartledon nodded. He had sat silent throughout, a little apart, his face somewhat turned from them, as though the business did not concern him.

"And now I will relate to you what more I know of Gordon," resumed Mr. Carr, moving his chair nearer the detective, and so partially screening Lord Hartledon. "He was in London last year, employed by Kedge and Reck, of Gray's Inn, to serve writs. What he had done with himself from the time of the mutiny—allowing that he was identical with the Gordon of that business—I dare say no one living could tell, himself excepted. He was calling himself Gorton last autumn. Not much of a change from his own name."

"George Gorton," assented the detective.

"Yes, George Gorton. I knew this much when I first applied to you. I did not mention it because I preferred to let you go to work without it. Understand me; that it is the same man, I know; but there are nevertheless discrepancies in the case that I cannot reconcile; and I thought you might possibly arrive at some knowledge of the man without this clue better than with it."

"Sorry to differ from you, Mr. Carr; must hold to the belief that George Gorton, employed at Kedge and Reck's, was not the same man at all," came the cool and obstinate rejoinder. "Have sifted the apparent similarity between the two, and drawn conclusions accordingly."

The remark implied that the detective was wiser on the subject of George Gorton than Mr. Carr had bargained for, and a shadow of apprehension stole over him. It was by no means his wish that the sharp detective and the man should come into contact with each other; all he wanted was to find out where he was at present, not that he should be meddled with. This he had fully explained in the first instance, and the other had acquiesced in his curt way.

"You are thinking me uncommon clever, getting on the track of George Gorton, when nothing on the surface connects him with the man wanted," remarked the detective, with professional vanity. "Came upon it accidentally; as well confess it; don't want to assume more credit than's due. It was in this way. Evening following your instructions, had to see managing clerk of Kedge and Reck; was engaged on a little matter for them. Business over, he asked me if I knew anything of a man named George Gorton, or Gordon—as I seemed to know something of pretty well everybody. Having just been asked here about George Gordon, I naturally connected the two questions together. Inquired of Kimberly why he suspected his clerk Gorton should be Gordon; Kimberly replied he did not suspect him, but a gentleman did, who had been there that day. This put me on Gorton's track."

"And you followed it up?"

"Of course; keeping my own counsel. Took it up in haste, though; no deliberation; went off to Calne, without first comparing notes with Gordon's friend the surgeon."

"To Calne!" explained Mr. Carr, while Lord Hartledon turned his head and took a sharp look at the speaker.

A nod was the only answer. "Got down; thought at first as you do, Mr. Carr, that man was the same, and was on right track. Went to work in my own way; was a countryman just come into a snug bit of inheritance, looking out for a corner of land. Wormed out a bit here and a bit there; heard this from one, that from another; nearly got an interview with my Lord Hartledon himself, as candidate for one of his farms."

"Lord Hartledon was not at Calne, I think," interrupted Mr. Carr, speaking impulsively.

"Know it now; didn't then; and wanted, for own purposes, to get a sight of him and a word with him. Went to his place: saw a queer old creature in yellow gauze; saw my lord's wife, too, at a distance; fine woman; got intimate with butler, named Hedges; got intimate with two or three more; altogether turned the recent doings of Mr. Gorton inside out."

"Well?" said Mr. Carr, in his surprise.

"Care to hear 'em?" continued the detective, after a moment's pause; and a feeling crossed Mr. Carr, that if ever he had a deep man to deal with it was this one, in spite of his apparent simplicity. "Gorton went down on his errand for Kedge and Reck, writ in pocket for Mr. Elster; had boasted he knew him. Can't quite make out whether he did or not; any rate, served writ on Lord Hartledon by mistake. Lordship made a joke of it; took up the matter as a brother ought; wrote himself to Kedge and Reck to get it settled. Brothers quarrelled; day or two, and elder was drowned, nobody seems to know how. Gorton stopped on, against orders from Kimberly; said afterwards, by way of excuse, had been served with summons to attend inquest. Couldn't say much at inquest, or didn't; was asked if he witnessed accident; said 'No,' but some still think he did. Showed himself at Hartledon afterwards trying to get interview with new lord; new lord wouldn't see him, and butler turned him out. Gorton in a rage, went back to inn, got some drink, said he might be able to make his lordship see him yet; hinted at some secret, but too far gone to know what he said; began boasting of adventures in Australia. Loose man there, one Pike, took him in charge, and saw him off by rail for London."

"Yes?" said Mr. Carr, for the speaker had stopped.

"That's pretty near all as far as Gorton goes. Got a clue to an address in London, where he might be heard of: got it oddly, too; but that's no matter. Came up again and went to address; could learn nothing; tracked here, tracked there, both for Gordon and Gorton; found Gorton disappeared close upon time he was cast adrift by Kimberly. Not in London as far as can be traced; where gone, can't tell yet. So much done, summed up my experiences and came here to-day to state them."

"Proceed," said Mr. Carr.

The detective put his note-book in his pocket, and with his elbows still on the table, pressed his fingers together alternately as he stated his points, speaking less abruptly than before.

"My conclusion is—the Gordon you spoke to me about was the Gordon who led the mutiny on board the Morning Star; that he never, after that, came back to England; has never been heard of, in short, by any living soul in it. That the Gorton employed by Kedge and Reck was another man altogether. Neither is to be traced; the one may have found his grave in the sea years ago; the other has disappeared out of London life since last October, and I can't trace how or where."

Mr. Carr listened in silence. To reiterate that the two men were identical, would have been waste of time, since he could not avow how he knew it, or give the faintest clue. The detective himself had unconsciously furnished a proof.

"Will you tell me your grounds for believing them to be different men?" he asked.

"Nay," said the keen detective, "the shortest way would be for you to give me your grounds for thinking them to be the same."

"I cannot do it," said Mr. Carr. "It might involve—no, I cannot do it."

"Well, I suspected so. I don't mind mentioning one or two on my side. The description of Gorton, as I had it from Kimberly, does not accord with that of Gordon as given me by his friend the surgeon. I wrote out the description of Gorton, and took it to him. 'Is this Gordon?' I asked. 'No, it is not,' said he; and I'm sure he spoke the truth."

"Gordon, on his return from Australia, might be a different-looking man from the Gordon who went to it."

"And would be, no doubt. But see here: Gorton was not disguised; Gordon would not dare to be in London without being so; his head's not worth a day's purchase. Fancy his walking about with only one letter in his name altered! Rely upon it, Mr. Carr, you are mistaken; Gordon would no more dare come back and put his head into the lion's mouth than you'd jump into a fiery furnace. He couldn't land without being dropped upon: the man was no common offender, and we've kept our eyes open. And that's all," added the detective, after a pause. "Not very satisfactory, is it, Mr. Carr? But, such as it is, I think you may rely upon it, in spite of your own opinion. Meanwhile, I'll keep on the look-out for Gorton, and tell you if he turns up."

The conference was over, and Mr. Green took his departure. Thomas Carr saw him out himself, returned and sat down in a reverie.

"It's a curious tale," said Lord Hartledon.

"I'm thinking how the fact, now disclosed, of Gordon's being Gordon of the mutiny, affects you," remarked Mr. Carr.

"You believe him to be the same?"

"I see no reason to doubt it. It's not probable that two George Gordons should take their passage home in the Morning Star. Besides, it explains points that seemed incomprehensible. I could not understand why you were not troubled by this man, but rely upon it he has found it expedient to go into effectual hiding, and dare not yet come out of it. This fact is a very great hold upon him; and if he turns round on you, you may keep him in check with it. Only let me alight on him; I'll so frighten him as to cause him to ship himself off for life."

"I don't like that detective's having gone down to Calne," remarked Lord Hartledon.

Neither did Mr. Carr, especially if Gordon, or Gorton, should have become talkative, as there was reason to believe he had.

"Gordon is in England, and in hiding; probably in London, for there's no place where you may hide so effectually. One thing I am astonished at: that he should show himself openly as George Gorton."

"Look here, Carr," said Lord Hartledon, leaning forward; "I don't believe, in spite of you and the detective, that Gordon, our Gordon, was the one connected with the mutiny. I might possibly get a description of that man from Gum of Calne; for his son was coming home in the same ship—was one of those killed."

"Who's Gum of Calne?"

"The parish clerk, and a very respectable man. Mirrable, our housekeeper whom you have seen, is related to them. Gum went to Liverpool at the time, I know, and saw the remnant of the passengers those pirates had spared; he was sure to hear a full description of Gordon. If ever I visit Hartledon again I'll ask him."

"If ever you visit Hartledon again!" echoed Mr. Carr. "Unless you leave the country—as I advise you to do—you cannot help visiting Hartledon."

"Well, I would almost as soon be hanged!" cried Val. "And now, what do you want me for, and why have you kept me here?"

Mr. Carr drew his chair nearer to Lord Hartledon. They alone knew their own troubles, and sat talking long after the afternoon was over. Mr. Taylor came to the room; it was past his usual hour of departure.

"I suppose I can go, sir?"

"Not just yet," replied Mr. Carr.

Hartledon took out his watch, and wondered whether it had been galloping, when he saw how late it was. "You'll come home and dine with me, Carr?"

"I'll follow you, if you like," was the reply. "I have a matter or two to attend to first."

A few minutes more, and Lord Hartledon and his care went out. Mr. Carr called in his clerk.

"I want to know how you came to learn that the man I asked you about, Gordon, was employed by Kedge and Reck?"

"I heard it through a man named Druitt," was the ready answer. "Happening to ask him—as I did several people—whether he knew any George Gordon, he at once said that a man of that name was at Kedge and Reck's, where Druitt himself had been temporarily employed."

"Ah," said Mr. Carr, remembering this same Druitt had been mentioned to him. "But the man was called Gorton, not Gordon. You must have caught up the wrong name, Taylor. Or perhaps he misunderstood you. That's all; you may go now."

The clerk departed. Mr. Carr took his hat and followed him down; but before joining Lord Hartledon he turned into the Temple Gardens, and strolled towards the river; a few moments of fresh air—fresh to those hard-worked denizens of close and crowded London—seemed absolutely necessary to the barrister's heated brain.

He sat down on a bench facing the water, and bared his brow to the breeze. A cool head, his; never a cooler brought thought to bear upon perplexity; nevertheless it was not feeling very collected now. He could not reconcile sundry discrepancies in the trouble he was engaged in fathoming, and he saw no release whatever for Lord Hartledon.

"It has only complicated the affair," he said, as he watched the steamers up and down, "this calling in Green the detective, and the news he brings. Gordon the Gordon of the mutiny! I don't like it: the other Gordon, simple enough and not bad-hearted, was easy to deal with in comparison; this man, pirate, robber, murderer, will stand at nothing. We should have a hold on him, it's true, in his own crime; but what's to prevent his keeping himself out of the way, and selling Hartledon to another? Why he has not sold him yet, I can't think. Unless for some reason he is waiting his time."

He put on his hat and began to count the barges on the other side, to banish thought. But it would not be banished, and he fell into the train again.

"Mair's behaving well; with Christian kindness; but it's bad enough to be even in his power. There's something in Lord Hartledon he 'can't help loving,' he writes. Who can? Here am I, giving up circuit—such a thing as never was heard of—calling him friend still, and losing my rest at night for him! Poor Val! better he had been the one to die!"

"Please, sir, could you tell us the time?"

The spell was broken, and Mr. Carr took out his watch as he turned his eyes on a ragged urchin who had called to him from below.

The tide was down; and sundry Arabs were regaling their naked feet in the mud, sporting and shouting. The evening drew in earlier than they did, and the sun had already set.

Quitting the garden, Mr. Carr stepped into a hansom, and was conveyed to Grafton Street. He found Lord Hartledon knitting his brow over a letter.

"Maude is growing vexed in earnest," he began, looking up at Mr. Carr. "She insists upon knowing the reason that I do not go home to her."

"I don't wonder at it. You ought to do one of two things: go, or—"

"Or what, Carr?"

"You know. Never go home again."

"I wish I was out of the world!" cried the unhappy man.



CHAPTER XXV.

AT HARTLEDON.

"Hartledon,

"I wonder what you think of yourself, Galloping about Rotten Row with women when your wife's dying. Of course it's not your fault that reports of your goings-on reach her here oh dear no. You are a moddel husband you are, sending her down here out of the way that you may take your pleasure. Why did you marry her, nobody wanted you to she sits and mopes and weeps and she's going into the same way that her father went, you'll be glad no doubt to hear it it's what you're aiming at, once she is in Calne churchyard the field will be open for your Anne Ashton. I can tell you that if you've a spark of proper feeling you'll come down for its killing her,

"Your wicked mother,

"C. Kirton."

Lord Hartledon turned this letter about in his hand. He scarcely noticed the mistake at the conclusion: the dowager had doubtless intended to imply that he was wicked, and the slip of the pen in her temper went for nothing.

Galloping about Rotten Row with women!

Hartledon sent his thoughts back, endeavouring to recollect what could have given rise to this charge. One morning, after a sleepless night, when he had tossed and turned on his uneasy bed, and risen unrefreshed, he hired a horse, for he had none in town, and went for a long ride. Coming back he turned into Rotten Row. He could not tell why he did so, for such places, affected by the gay, empty-headed votaries of fashion, were little consonant to his present state. He was barely in it when a lady's horse took fright: she was riding alone, with a groom following; Lord Hartledon gave her his assistance, led her horse until the animal was calm, and rode side by side with her to the end of the Row. He knew not who she was; scarcely noticed whether she was young or old; and had not given a remembrance to it since.

When your wife's dying! Accustomed to the strong expressions of the countess-dowager, he passed that over. But, "going the same way that her father went;" he paused there, and tried to remember how her father did "go." All he could recollect now, indeed all he knew at the time, was, that Lord Kirton's last illness was reported to have been a lingering one.

Such missives as these—and the countess-dowager favoured him with more than one—coupled with his own consciousness that he was not behaving to his wife as he ought, took him at length down to Hartledon. That his presence at the place so soon after his marriage was little short of an insult to Dr. Ashton's family, his sensitive feelings told him; but his duty to his wife was paramount, and he could not visit his sin upon her.

She was looking very ill; was low-spirited and hysterical; and when she caught sight of him she forgot her anger, and fell sobbing into his arms. The countess-dowager had gone over to Garchester, and they had a few hours' peace together.

"You are not looking well, Maude!"

"I know I am not. Why do you stay away from me?"

"I could not help myself. Business has kept me in London."

"Have you been ill also? You look thin and worn."

"One does grow to look thin in heated London," he replied evasively, as he walked to the window, and stood there. "How is your brother, Maude—Bob?"

"I don't want to talk about Bob yet; I have to talk to you," she said. "Percival, why did you practise that deceit upon me?"

"What deceit?"

"It was a downright falsehood; and made me look awfully foolish when I came here and spoke of it as a fact. That action."

Lord Hartledon made no reply. Here was one cause of his disinclination to meet his wife—having to keep up the farce of Dr. Ashton's action. It seemed, however, that there would no longer be any farce to keep up. Had it exploded? He said nothing. Maude gazing at him from the sofa on which she sat, her dark eyes looking larger than of yore, with hollow circles round them, waited for his answer.

"I do not know what you mean, Maude."

"You do know. You sent me down here with a tale that the Ashtons had entered an action against you for breach of promise—damages, ten thousand pounds—"

"Stay an instant, Maude. I did not 'send you down' with the tale. I particularly requested you to keep it private."

"Well, mamma drew it out of me unawares. She vexed me with her comments about your staying on in London, and it made me tell her why you had stayed. She ascertained from Dr. Ashton that there was not a word of truth in the story. Val, I betrayed it in your defence."

He stood at the window in silence, his lips compressed.

"I looked so foolish in the eyes of Dr. Ashton! The Sunday evening after I came down here I had a sort of half-fainting-fit, coming home from church. He overtook me, and was very kind, and gave me his arm. I said a word to him; I could not help it; mamma had worried me on so; and I learned that no such action had ever been thought of. You had no right to subject me to the chance of such mortification. Why did you do so?"

Lord Hartledon came from the window and sat down near his wife, his elbow on the table. All he could do now was to make the best of it, and explain as near to the truth as he could.

"Maude, you must not expect full confidence on this subject, for I cannot give it you. When I found I had reason to believe that some—some legal proceedings were about to be instituted against me, just at the first intimation of the trouble, I thought it must emanate from Dr. Ashton. You took up the same idea yourself, and I did not contradict it, simply because I could not tell you the real truth—"

"Yes," she interrupted. "It was the night that stranger called at our house, when you and Mr. Carr were closeted with him so long."

He could not deny it; but he had been thankful that she should forget the stranger and his visit. Maude waited.

"Then it was an action, but not brought by the Ashtons?" she resumed, finding he did not speak. "Mamma remarked that you were just the one to propose to half-a-dozen girls."

"It was not an action at all of that description; and I never proposed to any girl except Miss Ashton," he returned, nettled at the remark.

"Is it over?"

"Not quite;" and there was some hesitation in his tone. "Carr is settling it for me. I trust, Maude, you will never hear of it again—that it will never trouble you."

She sat looking at him with her wistful eyes.

"Won't you tell me its nature?"

"I cannot tell you, Maude, believe me. I am as candid with you as it is possible to be; but there are some things best—best not spoken of. Maude," he repeated, rising impulsively and taking both her hands in his, "do you wish to earn my love—my everlasting gratitude? Then you may do it by nevermore alluding to this."

It was a mistaken request; an altogether unwise emotion. Better that he had remained at the window, and drawled out a nonchalant denial. But he was apt to be as earnestly genuine on the surface as he was in reality. It set Lady Hartledon wondering; and she resolved to "bide her time."

"As you please, of course, Val. But why should it agitate you?"

"Many a little thing seems to agitate me now," he answered. "I have not felt well of late; perhaps that's the reason."

"I think you might have satisfied me a little better. I expect it is some enormous debt risen up against you."

Better she should think so! "I shall tide it over," he said aloud. "But indeed, Maude, I cannot bear for you delicate women to be brought into contact with these things; they are fit for us only. Think no more about it, and rely on me to keep trouble from you if it can be kept. Where's Bob? He is here, I suppose?"

"Bob's in his room. He is going into a way, I think. When he wrote and asked me if I would allow him to come here for a little change, the medical men saying he must have it, mamma sent a refusal by return of post; she had had enough of Bob, she said, when he was here before. But I quietly wrote a note myself, and Bob came. He looked ill, and gets worse instead of better."

"What do you mean by saying he is going into a way?" asked Lord Hartledon.

"Consumption, or something of that sort. Papa died of it. You are not angry with me for having Bob?"

"Angry! My dear Maude, the house is yours; and if poor Bob stayed with us for ever, I should welcome him as a brother. Every one likes Bob."

"Except mamma. She does not like invalids in the house, and has been saying you don't like it; that it was helping to keep you away. Poor Bob had out his portmanteau and began to pack; but I told him not to mind her; he was my guest, not hers."

"And mine also, you might have added."

He left the room, and went to the chamber Captain Kirton had occupied when he was at Hartledon in the spring. It was empty, evidently not being used; and Hartledon sent for Mirrable. She came, looking just as usual, wearing a dark-green silk gown; for the twelve-month had expired, and their mourning was over.

"Captain Kirton is in the small blue rooms facing south, my lord. They were warmer for him than these."

"Is he very ill, Mirrable?"

"Very, I think," was the answer. "Of course he may get better; but it does not look like it."

He was a tall, thin, handsome man, this young officer—a year or two older than Maude, whom he greatly resembled. Seated before a table, he was playing at that delectable game "solitaire;" and his eyes looked large and wild with surprise, and his cheeks became hectic, when Lord Hartledon entered.

"Bob, my dear fellow, I am glad to see you."

He took his hands and sat down, his face full of the concern he did not care to speak. Lady Hartledon had said he was going into a way; it was evidently the way of the grave.

He pushed the balls and the board from him, half ashamed of his employment. "To think you should catch me at this!" he exclaimed. "Maude brought it to me yesterday, thinking I was dull up here."

"As good that as anything else. I often think what a miserably restless invalid I should make. But now, what's wrong with you?"

"Well, I suppose it's the heart."

"The heart?"

"The doctors say so. No doubt they are right; those complaints are hereditary, and my father had it. I got quite unfit for duty, and they told me I must go away for change; so I wrote to Maude, and she took me in."

"Yes, yes; we are glad to have you, and must try and get you well, Bob."

"Ah, I can't tell about that. He died of it, you know."

"Who?"

"My father. He was ill for some time, and it wore him to a skeleton, so that people thought he was in a decline. If I could only get sufficiently well to go back to duty, I should not mind; it is so sad to give trouble in a strange house."

"In a strange house it might be, but it would be ungrateful to call this one strange," returned Lord Hartledon, smiling on him from his pleasant blue eyes. "We must get you to town and have good advice for you. I suppose Hillary comes up?"

"Every-day."

"Does he say it's heart-disease?"

"I believe he thinks it. It might be as much as his reputation is worth to say it in this house."

"How do you mean?"

"My mother won't have it said. She ignores the disease altogether, and will not allow it to be mentioned, or hinted at. It's bronchitis, she tells everyone; and of course bronchitis it must be. I did have a cough when I came here: my chest is not strong."

"But why should she ignore heart-disease?"

"There was a fear that Maude would be subject to it when she was a child. Should it be disclosed to her that it is my complaint, and were I to die of it, she might grow so alarmed for herself as to bring it on; and agitation, as we know, is often fatal in such cases."

Lord Hartledon sat in a sort of horror. Maude subject to heart-disease! when at any moment a certain fearful tale, of which he was the guilty centre, might be disclosed to her! Day by day, hour by hour, he lived in dread of this story's being brought to light. This little unexpected communication increased that dread fourfold.

"Have I shocked you?" asked Captain Kirton. "I may yet get the better of it."

"I believe I was thinking of Maude," answered Hartledon, slowly recovering from his stupor. "I never heard—I had no idea that Maude's heart was not perfectly sound."

"And I don't know but that it is sound; it was only a fancy when she was a child, and there might have been no real grounds for it. My mother is full of crotchets on the subject of illness; and says she won't have anything about heart-disease put into Maude's head. She is right, of course, so far, in using precaution; so please remember that I am suffering from any disorder but that," concluded the young officer with a smile.

"How did yours first show itself?"

"I hardly know. I used to be subject to sudden attacks of faintness; but I am not sure that they had anything to do with the disease itself."

Just what Maude was becoming subject to! She had told him of a fainting-fit in London; had told him of another now.

"I suppose the doctors warn you against sudden shocks, Bob?"

"More than against anything. I am not to agitate myself in the least; am not to run or jump, or fly into a temper. They would put me in a glass case, if they could."

"Well, we'll see what skill can do for you," said Hartledon, rousing himself. "I wonder if a warmer climate would be of service? You might have that without exertion, travelling slowly."

"Couldn't afford it," was the ingenuous answer. "I have forestalled my pay as it is."

Lord Hartledon smiled. Never a more generous disposition than his; and if money could save this poor Bob Kirton, he should not want it.

Walking forth, he strolled down the road towards Calne, intending to ask a question or two of the surgeon. Mr. Hillary was at home. His house was at this end of Calne, just past the Rectory and opposite the church, with a side view of Clerk Gum's. The door was open, and Lord Hartledon strolled into the surgery unannounced, to the surprise of Mr. Hillary, who did not know he was at Calne.

The surgeon's opinion was not favourable. Captain Kirton had heart-disease beyond any doubt. His chest was weak also, the lungs not over-sound; altogether, the Honourable Robert Kirton's might be called a bad life.

"Would a warmer climate do anything for him?" asked Lord Hartledon.

The surgeon shrugged his shoulders. "He would be better there for some things than here. On the whole it might temporarily benefit him."

"Then he shall go. And now, Hillary, I want to ask you something else—and you must answer me, mind. Captain Kirton tells me the fact of his having heart-disease is not mentioned in the house lest it should alarm Lady Hartledon, and develop the same in her. Is there any fear of this?"

"It is true that it's not spoken of; but I don't think there's any foundation for the fear."

"The old dowager's very fanciful!" cried Lord Hartledon, resentfully.

"A queer old—girl," remarked the surgeon. "Can't help saying it, though she is your mother-in-law."

"I wish she was any one else's! She's as likely as not to let out something of this to Maude in her tantrums. But I don't believe a word of it; I never saw the least symptom of heart-disease in my wife."

"Nor I," said the doctor. "Of course I have not examined her; neither have I had much opportunity for ordinary observation."

"I wish you would contrive to get the latter. Come up and call often; make some excuse for seeing Lady Hartledon professionally, and watch her symptoms."

"I am seeing her professionally now; once or twice a week. She had one or two fainting-fits after she came down, and called me in."

"Kirton says he used to have those fainting-fits. Are they a symptom of heart-disease?"

"In Lady Hartledon I attribute them entirely to her present state of health. I assure you, I don't see the slightest cause for fear as regards your wife's heart. She is of a calm temperament too; as far as I can observe."

They stood talking for a minute at the door, when Lord Hartledon went out. Pike happened to pass on the other side of the road.

"He is here still, I see," remarked Hartledon.

"Oh dear, yes; and likely to be."

"I wonder how the fellow picks up a living?"

The surgeon did not answer. "Are you going to make a long stay with us?" he asked.

"A very short one. I suppose you have had no return of the fever?"

"Not any. Calne never was more healthy than it is now. As I said to Dr. Ashton yesterday, but for his own house I might put up my shutters and take a lengthened holiday."

"Who is ill at the Rectory? Mrs. Ashton?"

"Mrs. Ashton is not strong, but she's better than she was last year. I have been more concerned for Anne than for her."

"Is she ill?" cried Lord Hartledon, a spasm seizing his throat.

"Ailing. But it's an ailing I do not like."

"What's the cause?" he rejoined, feeling as if some other crime were about to be brought home to him.

"That's a question I never inquire into. I put it upon the air of the Rectory," added the surgeon in jesting tones, "and tell them they ought to go away for a time, but they have been away too much of late, they say. She's getting over it somewhat, and I take care that she goes out and takes exercise. What has it been? Well, a sort of inward fever, with flushed cheeks and unequal spirits. It takes time for these things to be got over, you know. The Rector has been anything but well, too; he is not the strong, healthy man he was."

"And all my work; my work!" cried Hartledon to himself, almost gnashing his teeth as he went back down the street. "What right had I to upset the happiness of that family? I wish it had pleased God to take me first! My father used to say that some men seem born into the world only to be a blight to it; it's what I have been, Heaven knows."

He knew only too well that Anne Ashton was suffering from the shock caused by his conduct. The love of these quiet, sensitive, refined natures, once awakened, is not given for a day, but for all time; it becomes a part of existence; and cannot be riven except by an effort that brings destruction to even future hope of happiness. Not even Mr. Hillary, not even Dr. and Mrs. Ashton, could discern the utter misery that was Anne's daily portion. She strove to conceal it all. She went about the house cheerfully, wore a smiling face when people were present, dressed well, laughed with their guests, went about the parish to rich and poor, and was altogether gay. Ah, do you know what it is, this assumption of gaiety when the heart is breaking?—this dread fear lest those about you should detect the truth? Have you ever lived with this mask upon your face?—which can only be thrown off at night in the privacy of your own chamber, when you may abandon yourself to your desolation, and pray heaven to take you or give you increased strength to live and bear? It may seem a light thing, this state of heart that I am telling you about; but it has killed both men and women, for all that; and killed them in silence.

Anne Ashton had never complained. She did everything she had been used to doing, was particular about all her duties; but a nervous cough attacked her, and her frame wasted, and her cheek grew hectic. Try as she would she could not eat: all she confessed to, when questioned by Mrs. Ashton, was "a pain in her throat;" and Mr. Hillary was called in. Anne laughed: there was nothing the matter with her, she said, and her throat was better; she had strained it perhaps. The doctor was a wise doctor; his professional visits were spent in gossip; and as to medicine, he sent her a tonic, and told her to take it or not as she pleased. Only time, he said to Mrs. Ashton—she would be all right in time; the summer heat was making her languid.

The summer heat had nearly passed now, and perhaps some of the battle was passing with it. None knew—let me repeat it—what that battle had been; none ever can know, unless they go through it themselves. In Miss Ashton's case there was a feature some are spared—her love had been known—and it increased the anguish tenfold. She would overcome it if she could only forget him; but it would take time; and she would come out of it an altogether different woman, her best hope in life gone, her heart dead.