"What brought him down here?" mentally questioned Mr. Hillary, in an explosion of wrath, as he watched his visitor down the street. "It will undo all I have been doing. He, and his wife too, might have had the grace to keep away for this year at least. I loved him once, with all his faults; but I should like to see him in the pillory now. It has told on him also, if I'm any reader of looks. And now, Miss Anne, you go off from Calne to-morrow an I can prevail. I only hope you won't come across him in the meantime."



CHAPTER XXVI.

UNDER THE TREES.

It was the same noble-looking man Calne had ever known, as he went down the road, throwing a greeting to one and another. Lord Hartledon was not a whit less attractive than Val Elster, who had won golden opinions from all. None would have believed that the cowardly monster Fear was for ever feasting upon his heart.

He came to a standstill opposite the clerk's house, looked at it for a moment, as if deliberating whether he should enter, and crossed the road. The shades of evening had begun to fall whilst he talked with the surgeon. As he advanced up the clerk's garden, some one came out of the house with a rush and ran against him.

"Take care," he lazily said.

The girl—it was no other than Miss Rebecca Jones—shrank away when she recognized her antagonist. Flying through the gate she rapidly disappeared up the street. Lord Hartledon reached the house, and made his way in without ceremony. At a table in the little parlour sat the clerk's wife, presiding at a solitary tea-table by the light of a candle.

"How are you, Mrs. Gum?"

She had not heard him enter, and started at the salutation. Lord Hartledon laughed.

"Don't take me for a housebreaker. Your front-door was open, and I came in without knocking. Is your husband at home?"

What with shaking and curtseying, Mrs. Gum could scarcely answer. It was surprising how a little shock of this sort, or indeed of any sort, would upset her. Gum was away on some business or other, she replied—which caused their tea-hour to be delayed—but she expected him in every moment. Would his lordship please to wait in the best parlour, she asked, taking the candle to marshal him into the state sitting-room.

No; his lordship would not go into the best parlour; he would wait two or three minutes where he was, provided she did not disturb herself, and went on with her tea.

Mrs. Gum dusted a large old-fashioned oak chair with her apron; but he perched himself on one of its elbows.

"And now go on with your tea, Mrs. Gum, and I'll look on with all the envy of a thirsty man."

Mrs. Gum glanced up tremblingly. Might she dare offer his lordship a cup? She wouldn't make so bold but tea was refreshing to a parched throat.

"And mine's always parched," he returned. "I'll drink some with you, and thank you for it. It won't be the first time, will it?"

"Always parched!" remarked Mrs. Gum. "Maybe you've a touch of fever, my lord. Many folk get it at the close of summer."

Lord Hartledon sat on, and drank his tea. He said well that he was always thirsty, though Mrs. Gum's expression was the better one. That timid matron, overcome by the honour accorded her, sat on the edge of her chair, cup in hand.

"I want to ask your husband if he can give me a description of the man who was concerned in that wretched mutiny on board the Morning Star," said Lord Hartledon, somewhat abruptly. "I mean the ringleader, Gordon. Why—What's the matter?"

Mrs. Gum had jumped up from her chair and began looking about the room. The cat, or something else, had "rubbed against her legs."

No cat could be found, and she sat down again, her teeth chattering. Lord Hartledon came to the conclusion that she was only fit for a lunatic asylum. Why did she keep a cat, if its fancied caresses were to terrify her like that?

"It was said, you know—at least it has been always assumed—that Gordon did not come back to England," he continued, speaking openly of his business, where a more prudent man would have kept his lips closed. "But I have reason to believe that he did come back, Mrs. Gum; and I want to find him."

Mrs. Gum wiped her face, covered with drops of emotion.

"Gordon never did come back, I am sure, sir," she said, forgetting all about titles in her trepidation.

"You don't know that he did not. You may think it; the public may think it; what's of more moment to Gordon, the police may think it: but you can't know it. I know he did."

"My lord, he did not; I could—I almost think I could be upon my oath he did not," she answered, gazing at Lord Hartledon with frightened eyes and white lips, which, to say the truth, rather puzzled him as he gazed back from his perch.

"Will you tell me why you assert so confidently that Gordon did not come back?"

She could not tell, and she knew she could not.

"I can't bear to hear him spoken of, my lord," she said. "He—we look upon him as my poor boy's murderer," she broke off, with a sob; "and it is not likely that I could."

Not very logical; but Lord Hartledon allowed for confusion of ideas following on distress of mind.

"I don't like to speak about him any more than you can like to hear," he said kindly. "Indeed I am sorry to have grieved you; but if the man is in London, and can be traced—"

"In London!" she interrupted.

"He was in London last autumn, as I believe—living there."

An expression of relief passed over her features that was quite perceptible to Lord Hartledon.

"I should not like to hear of his coming near us," she sighed, dropping her voice to a whisper. "London: that's pretty far off."

"I suppose you are anxious to bring him to justice, Mrs. Gum?"

"No, sir, not now; neither me nor Gum," shaking her head. "Time was, sir—my lord—that I'd have walked barefoot to see him hanged; but the years have gone by; and if sorrow's not dead, it's less keen, and we'd be thankful to let the past rest in peace. Oh, my lord, don't rake him up again!"

The wild, imploring accents quite startled Lord Hartledon.

"You need not fear," he said, after a pause. "I do not care to see Gordon hanged either; and though I want to trace his present abode—if it can be traced—it is not with a view to injuring him."

"But we don't know his abode, my lord," she rejoined in faint remonstrance.

"I did not suppose you knew it. All I want to ask your husband is, to give me a description of Gordon. I wish to see if it tallies with—with some one I once knew," he cautiously concluded. "Perhaps you remember what the man was said to be like?"

She put her fingers up to her brow, leaning her elbow on the table. He could not help observing how the hand shook.

"I think it was said that he had red hair," she began, after a long pause; "and was—tall, was it?—either tall or short; one of the two. And his eyes—his eyes were dark eyes, either brown or blue."

Lord Hartledon could not avoid a smile. "That's no description at all."

"My memory is not over-good, my lord: I read his description in the handbills offering the reward; and that's some time ago now."

"The handbills!—to be sure!" interrupted Lord Hartledon, springing from his perch. "I never thought of them; they'll give me the best description possible. Do you know where—"

The conference was interrupted by the clerk. He came in with a large book in his hand; and a large dog, which belonged to a friend, and had followed him home. For a minute or two there was only commotion, for the dog was leaping and making friends with every one. Lord Hartledon then said a few words of explanation, and the quiet demeanour of the clerk, as he calmly listened, was in marked contrast to his wife's nervous agitation.

"Might I inquire your lordship's reasons for thinking that Gordon came back?" he quietly asked, when Lord Hartledon had ceased.

"I cannot give them in detail, Gum. That he did come back, there is no doubt about whatever, though how he succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the police, who were watching for him, is curious. His coming back, however, is not the question: I thought you might be able to give me a close description of him. You went to Liverpool when the unfortunate passengers arrived there."

But Clerk Gum was unable to give any satisfactory response. No doubt he had heard enough of what Gordon was like at the time, he observed, but it had passed out of his memory. A fair man, he thought he was described, with light hair. He had heard nothing of Gordon since; didn't want to, if his lordship would excuse his saying it; firmly believed he was at the bottom of the sea.

Patient, respectful, apparently candid, he spoke, attending his guest, hat in hand, to the outer gate, when it pleased him to depart. But, take it for all in all, there remained a certain doubtful feeling in Lord Hartledon's mind regarding the interview; for some subtle discernment had whispered to him that both Gum and his wife could have given him the description of Gordon, and would not do so.

He turned slowly towards home, thinking of this. As he passed the waste ground and Pike's shed, he cast his eyes towards it; a curl of smoke was ascending from the extemporized chimney, still discernible in the twilight. It occurred to Lord Hartledon that this man, who had the character of being so lawless, had been rather suspiciously intimate with the man Gorton. Not that the intimacy in itself was suspicious; birds of a feather flocked together; but the most simple and natural thing connected with Gorton would have borne suspicion to Hartledon's mind now.

He had barely passed the gate when some shouting arose in the road behind him. A man, driving a cart recklessly, had almost come in contact with another cart, and some hard language ensued. Lord Hartledon turned his head quickly, and just caught Mr. Pike's head, thrust a little over the top of the gate, watching him. Pike must have crouched down when Lord Hartledon passed. He went back at once; and Pike put a bold face on the matter, and stood up.

"So you occupy your palace still, Pike?"

"Such as it is. Yes."

"I half-expected to find that Mr. Marris had turned you from it," continued Lord Hartledon, alluding to his steward.

"He wouldn't do it, I expect, without your lordship's orders; and I don't fancy you'll give 'em," was the free answer.

"I think my brother would have given them, had he lived."

"But he didn't live," rejoined Pike. "He wasn't let live."

"What do you mean?" asked Lord Hartledon, mystified by the words.

Pike ignored the question. "'Twas nearly a smash," he said, looking at the two carts now proceeding on their different ways. "That cart of Floyd's is always in hot water; the man drinks; Floyd turned him off once."

The miller's cart was jogging up the road towards home, under convoy of the offending driver; the boy, David Ripper, sitting inside on some empty sacks, and looking over the board behind: looking very hard indeed, as it seemed, in their direction. Mr. Pike appropriated the gaze.

"Yes, you may stare, young Rip!" he apostrophized, as if the boy could hear him; "but you won't stare yourself out of my hands. You're the biggest liar in Calne, but you don't mislead me."

"Pike, when you made acquaintance with that man Gorton—you remember him?" broke off Lord Hartledon.

"Yes, I do," said Pike emphatically.

"Did he make you acquainted with any of his private affairs?—his past history?"

"Not a word," answered Pike, looking still after the cart and the boy.

"Were those fine whiskers of his false? that red hair?"

Pike turned his head quickly. The question had aroused him.

"False hair and whiskers! I never knew it was the fashion to wear them."

"It may be convenient sometimes, even if not the fashion," observed Lord Hartledon, his tone full of cynical meaning; and Mr. Pike surreptitiously peered at him with his small light eyes.

"If Gorton's hair was false, I never noticed it, that's all; I never saw him without a hat, that I remember, except in that inquest-room."

"Had he been to Australia?"

Pike paused to take another surreptitious gaze.

"Can't say, my lord. Never heard."

"Was his name Gorton, or Gordon? Come, Pike," continued Lord Hartledon, good-humouredly, "there's a sort of mutual alliance between you and me; you did me a service once unasked, and I allow you to live free and undisturbed on my ground. I think you do know something of this man; it is a fancy I have taken up."

"I never knew his name was anything but Gorton," said Pike carelessly; "never heard it nor thought it."

"Did you happen to hear him ever speak of that mutiny on board the Australian ship Morning Star? You have heard of it, I daresay: a George Gordon was the ringleader."

If ever the cool impudence was suddenly taken out of a man, this question seemed to take it out of Pike. He did not reply for some time; and when he did, it was in low and humble tones.

"My lord, I hope you'll pardon my rough thoughts and ways, which haven't been used to such as you—and the sight of that boy put me up, for reasons of my own. As to Gorton—I never did hear him speak of the thing you mention. His name's Gorton, and nothing else, as far as I know; and his hair's his own, for all I ever saw."

"He did not give you his confidence, then?"

"No, never. Not about himself nor anything else, past or present."

"And did not let a word slip? As to—for instance, as to his having been a passenger on board the Morning Star at the time of the mutiny?"

Pike had moved away a step, and stood with his arms on the hurdles, his head bent on them, his face turned from Lord Hartledon.

"Gorton said nothing to me. As to that mutiny—I think I read something about it in the newspapers, but I forget what. I was just getting up from some weeks of rheumatic fever at the time; I'd caught it working in the fields; and news don't leave much impression in illness. Gorton never spoke of it to me. I never heard him say who or what he was; and I couldn't speak more truly if your lordship offered to give me the shed as a bribe."

"Do you know where Gorton might be found at present?"

"I swear before Heaven that I know nothing of the man, and have never heard of him since he went away," cried Pike, with a burst of either fear or passion. "He was a stranger to me when he came, and he was a stranger when he left. I found out the little game he had come about, and saved your lordship from his clutches, which he doesn't know to this day. I know nothing else about him at all."

"Well, good evening, Pike. You need not put yourself out for nothing."

He walked away, taking leave of the man as civilly as though he had been a respectable member of society. It was not in Val's nature to show discourtesy to any living being. Why Pike should have shrunk from the questions he could not tell; but that he did shrink was evident; perhaps from a surly dislike to being questioned at all; but on the whole Lord Hartledon thought he had spoken the truth as to knowing nothing about Gorton.

Crossing the road, he turned into the field-path near the Rectory; it was a little nearer than the road-way, and he was in a hurry, for he had not thought to ask at what hour his wife dined, and might be keeping her waiting.

Who was this Pike, he wondered as he went along; as he had wondered before now. When the man was off his guard, the roughness of his speech and demeanour was not so conspicuous; and the tone assumed a certain refinement that seemed to say he had some time been in civilized society. Again, how did he live? A tale was told in Calne of Pike's having been disturbed at supper one night by a parcel of rude boys, who had seen him seated at a luxurious table; hot steak and pudding before him. They were not believed, certainly; but still Pike must live; and how did he find the means to do so? Why did he live there at all? what had caused him to come to Calne? Who—

These reflections might have lasted all the way home but for an interruption that drove every thought out of Lord Hartledon's mind, and sent the heart's blood coursing swiftly through his veins. Turning a corner of the dark winding path, he came suddenly upon a lady seated on a bench, so close to the narrow path that he almost touched her in passing. She seemed to have sat down for a moment to do something to her hat, which was lying in her lap, her hands busied with it.

A faint cry escaped her, and she rose up. It was caused partly by emotion, partly by surprise at seeing him, for she did not know he was within a hundred miles of the place. And very probably she would have liked to box her own ears for showing any. The hat fell from her knees as she rose, and both stooped for it.

"Forgive me," he said. "I fear I have startled you."

"I am waiting for papa," she answered, in hasty apology for being found there. And Lord Hartledon, casting his eyes some considerable distance ahead, discerned the indistinct forms of two persons talking together. He understood the situation at once. Dr. Ashton and his daughter had been to the cottages; and the doctor had halted on their return to speak to a day-labourer going home from his work, Anne walking slowly on.

And there they stood face to face, Anne Ashton and her deceitful lover! How their hearts beat to pain, how utterly oblivious they were of everything in life save each other's presence, how tumultuously confused were mind and manner, both might remember afterwards, but certainly were not conscious of then. It was a little glimpse of Eden. A corner of the dark curtain thrown between them had been raised, and so unexpectedly that for the moment nothing else was discernible in the dazzling light.

Forget! Not in that instant of sweet confusion, during which nothing seemed more real than a dream. He was the husband of another; she was parted from him for ever; and neither was capable of deliberate thought or act that could intrench on the position, or tend to return, even momentarily, to the past. And yet there they stood with beating hearts, and eyes that betrayed their own tale—that the marriage and the parting were in one sense but a hollow mockery, and their love was indelible as of old.

Each had been "forgetting" to the utmost of the poor power within, in accordance with the high principles enshrined in either heart. Yet what a mockery that forgetting seemed, now that it was laid before them naked and bare! The heart turning sick to faintness at the mere sight of each other, the hands trembling at the mutual touch, the wistful eyes shining with a glance that too surely spoke of undying love!

But not a word of this was spoken. However true their hearts might be, there was no fear of the tongue following up the error. Lord Hartledon would no more have allowed himself to speak than she to listen. Neither had the hands met in ordinary salutation; it was only when he resigned the hat to her that the fingers touched: a touch light, transient, almost imperceptible; nevertheless it sent a thrill through the whole frame. Not exactly knowing what to do in her confusion, Miss Ashton sat down on the bench again and put her hat on.

"I must say a word to you before I go on my way," said Lord Hartledon. "I have been wishing for such a meeting as this ever since I saw you at Versailles; and indeed I think I wished for nothing else before it. When you think of me as one utterly heartless—"

"Stay, Lord Hartledon," she interrupted, with white lips. "I cannot listen to you. You must be aware that I cannot, and ought not. What are you thinking about?"

"I know that I have forfeited all right to ask you; that it is an unpardonable intrusion my presuming even to address you. Well, perhaps, you are right," he added, after a moment's pause; "it may be better that I should not say what I was hoping to say. It cannot mend existing things; it cannot undo the past. I dare not ask your forgiveness: it would seem too much like an insult; nevertheless, I would rather have it than any earthly gift. Fare you well, Anne! I shall sometimes hear of your happiness."

"Have you been ill?" she asked in a kindly impulse, noticing his altered looks in that first calm moment.

"No—not as the world counts illness. If remorse and shame and repentance can be called illness, I have my share. Ill deeds of more kinds than one are coming home to me. Anne," he added in a hoarse whisper; his face telling of emotion, "if there is one illumined corner in my heart, where all else is very dark, it is caused by thankfulness to Heaven that you were spared."

"Spared!" she echoed, in wonder, so completely awed by his strange manner as to forget her reserve.

"Spared the linking of your name with mine. I thank God for it, for your sake, night and day. Had trouble fallen on you through me, I don't think I could have survived it. May you be shielded from all such for ever!"

He turned abruptly away, and she looked after him, her heart beating a great deal faster than it ought to have done.

That she was his best and dearest love, in spite of his marriage, it was impossible not to see; and she strove to think him very wicked for it, and her cheek was red with a feeling that seemed akin to shame. But—trouble?—thankful for her sake, night and day, that her name was not linked with his? He must allude to debt, she supposed: some of those old embarrassments had augmented themselves into burdens too heavy to be safely borne.

The Rector was coming on now at a swift pace. He looked keenly at Lord Hartledon; looked twice, as if in surprise. A flush rose to Val's sensitive face as he passed, and lifted his hat. The Rector, dark and proud, condescended to return the courtesy: and the meeting was over.

Toiling across Lord Hartledon's path was the labourer to whom the Rector had been speaking. He had an empty bottle slung over his shoulder, and carried a sickle. The man's day's work was over, and had left fatigue behind it.

"Good-night to your lordship!"

"Is it you, Ripper?"

He was the father of the young gentleman in the cart, whom Mr. Pike had not long before treated to his opinion: young David Ripper, the miller's boy. Old Ripper, a talkative, discontented man, stopped and ventured to enter on his grievances. His wife had been pledging things to pay for a fine gown she had bought; his two girls were down with measles; his son, young Rip, plagued his life out.

"How does he plague your life out?" asked Lord Hartledon, when he had listened patiently.

"Saying he'll go off and enlist for a soldier, my lord; he's saying it always: and means it too, only he's over-young for't."

"Over-young for it; I should think so. Why, he's not much more than a child. Our sergeants don't enlist little boys."

"Sometimes he says he'll drown himself by way of a change," returned old Ripper.

"Oh, does he? Folk who say it never do it. I should whip it out of him."

"He's never been the same since the lord's death that time. He's always frightened: gets fancying things, and saying sometimes he sees his shadder."

"Whose shadow?"

"His'n: the late lord's."

"Why does he fancy that?" came the question, after a perceptible pause.

Old Ripper shook his head. It was beyond his ken, he said. "There be only two things he's afeared of in life," continued the man, who, though generally called old Ripper, was not above five-and-thirty. "The one's that wild man Pike; t'other's the shadder. He'd run ten mile sooner than see either."

"Does Pike annoy the boy?"

"Never spoke to him, as I knows on, my lord. Afore that drowning of his lordship last year, Davy was the boldest rip going," added the man, who had long since fallen into the epithet popularly applied to his son. "Since then he don't dare say his soul's his own. We had him laid up before the winter, and I know 'twas nothing but fear."

Lord Hartledon could not make much of the story, and had no time to linger. Administering a word of general encouragement, he continued his way, his thoughts going back to the interview with Anne Ashton, a line or two of Longfellow's "Fire of Driftwood" rising up in his mind—

"Of what had been and might have been, And who was changed, and who was dead."



CHAPTER XXVII.

A TETE-A-TETE BREAKFAST.

The Dowager-Countess of Kirton stood in the sunny breakfast-room at Hartledon, surveying the well-spread table with complacency; for it appeared to be rather more elaborately set out than usual, and no one loved good cheer better than she. When she saw two cups and saucers on the cloth instead of one, it occurred to her that Maude must, by caprice, be coming down, which she had not done of late. The dowager had arrived at midnight from Garchester, in consequence of having missed the earlier train, and found nearly all the house in retirement. She was in a furious humour, and no one had told her of the arrival of her son-in-law; no one ever did tell her any more than they were obliged to do; for she was not held in estimation at Hartledon.

"Potted tongue," she exclaimed, dodging round the table, and lifting various covers. "Raised pie; I wonder what's in it? And what's that stuff in jelly? It looks delicious. This is the result of the blowing-up I gave Hedges the other day; nothing like finding fault. Hot dishes too. I suppose Maude gave out that she should be down this morning. All rubbish, fancying herself ill: she's as well as I am, but gives way like a sim—A-a-a-ah!"

The exclamation was caused by the unexpected vision of Lord Hartledon.

"How are you, Lady Kirton?"

"Where on earth did you spring from?"

"From my room."

"What's the good of your appearing before people like a ghost, Hartledon? When did you arrive?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"And time you did, I think, with your poor wife fretting herself to death about you. How is she this morning?"

"Very well."

"Ugh!" You must imagine this sound as something between a grunt and a groan, that the estimable lady gave vent to whenever put out. It is not capable of being written. "You might have sent word you were coming. I should think you frightened your wife to death."

"Not quite."

He walked across the room and rang the bell. Hedges appeared. It had been the dowager's pleasure that no one else should serve her at that meal—perhaps on account of her peculiarities of costume.

"Will you be good enough to pour out the coffee in Maude's place to-day, Lady Kirton? She has promised to be down another morning."

It was making her so entirely and intentionally a guest, as she thought, that Lady Kirton did not like it. Not only did she fully intend Hartledon House to be her home, but she meant to be its one ruling power. Keep Maude just now to her invalid fancies, and later to her gay life, and there would be little fear of her asserting very much authority.

"Are you in the habit of serving this sort of breakfast, Hedges?" asked Lord Hartledon; for the board looked almost like an elaborate dinner.

"We have made some difference, my lord, this morning."

"For me, I suppose. You need not do so in future. I have got out of the habit of taking breakfast; and in any case I don't want this unnecessary display. Captain Kirton gets up later, I presume."

"He's hardly ever up before eleven," said Hedges. "But he makes a good breakfast, my lord."

"That's right. Tempt him with any delicacy you can devise. He wants strength."

The dowager was fuming. "Don't you think I'm capable of regulating these things, Hartledon, I'd beg leave to ask?"

"No doubt. I beg you will make yourself at home whilst you stay with us. Some tea, Hedges."

She could have thrown the coffee-pot at him. There was incipient defiance in his every movement; latent war in his tones. He was no longer the puppet he had been; that day had gone by for ever.

Perhaps Val could not himself have explained the feeling that was this morning at work within him. It was the first time he and the dowager had met since the marriage, and she brought before him all too prominently the ill-omened past: her unjustifiable scheming—his own miserable weakness. If ever Lord Hartledon felt shame and repentance for his weak yielding, he felt it now—felt it in all its bitterness; and something very like rage against the dowager was bubbling up in his spirit, which he had some trouble to suppress.

He did suppress it, however, though it rendered him less courteous than usual; and the meal proceeded partly in silence; an interchanged word, civil on the surface, passing now and then. The dowager thoroughly entered into her breakfast, and had little leisure for anything else.

"What makes you take nothing?" she asked, perceiving at length that he had only a piece of toast on his plate, and was playing with that.

"I have no appetite."

"Have you left off taking breakfast?"

"To a great extent."

"What's the matter with you?"

Lord Hartledon slightly raised his eyebrows. "One can't eat much in the heat of summer."

"Heat of summer! it's nothing more than autumn now. And you are as thin as a weasel. Try some of that excellent raised pie."

"Pray let my appetite alone, Lady Kirton. If I wanted anything I should take it."

"Let you alone! yes, of course! You don't want it noticed that you are out of sorts," snapped the dowager. "Oh, I know the signs. You've been raking about London—that's what you've been at."

The "raking about London" presented so complete a contrast to the lonely life he had really passed, that Hartledon smiled in very bitterness. And the smile incensed the dowager, for she misunderstood it.

"It's early days to begin! I don't think you ought to have married Maude."

"I don't think I ought."

She did not expect the rejoinder, and dropped her knife and fork. "Why did you marry her?"

"Perhaps you can tell that better than I."

The countess-dowager pushed up her hair.

"Are you going to throw off the mask outright, and become a bad husband as well as a neglectful one?"

Val rose from his seat and went to the window, which opened to the ground. He did not wish to quarrel with her if he could help it. Lady Kirton raised her voice.

"Staying away, as you have, in London, and leaving Maude here to pine alone."

"Business kept me in London."

"I dare say it did!" cried the wrathful dowager. "If Maude died of ennui, you wouldn't care. She can't go about much herself just now, poor thing! I do wish Edward had lived."

"I wish he had, with all my heart!" came the answer; and the tone struck surprise on the dowager's ear—it was so full of pain. "Maude's coming to Hartledon without me was her own doing," he remarked. "I wished her not to come."

"I dare say you did, as her heart was set upon it. The fact of her wishing to do a thing would be the signal for your opposing it; I've gathered that much. My advice to Maude is, to assert her own will, irrespective of yours."

"Don't you think, Lady Kirton, that it may be as well if you let me and my wife alone? We shall get along, no doubt, without interference; with interference we might not do so."

What with one thing and another, the dowager's temper was inflammable that morning; and when it reached that undesirable state she was apt to say pretty free things, even for her.

"Edward would have made her the better husband."

"But she didn't like him, you know!" he returned, his eyes flashing with the remembrance of an old thought; and the countess-dowager took the sentence literally, and not ironically.

"Not like him. If you had had any eyes as Val Elster, you'd have seen whether she liked him or not. She was dying for him—not for you."

He made no reply. It was only what he had suspected, in a half-doubting sort of way, at the time. A little spaniel, belonging to one of the gardeners, ran up and licked his hand.

"The time that I had of it!" continued the dowager. "But for me, Maude never would have been forced into having you. And she shouldn't have had you if I'd thought you were going to turn out like this."

He wheeled round and faced her; his pale face working with emotion, but his voice subdued to calmness. Lady Kirton's last words halted, for his look startled even her in its resolute sternness.

"To what end are you saying this, madam? You know perfectly well that you almost moved heaven and earth to get me: you, I say; I prefer to leave my wife's name out of this: and I fell into the snare. I have not complained of my bargain; so far as I know, Maude has not done so: but if it be otherwise—if she and you repent of the union, I am willing to dissolve it, as far as it can be dissolved, and to institute measures for living apart."

Never, never had she suspected it would come to this. She sat staring at him, her eyes round, her mouth open: scarcely believing the calm resolute man before her could be the once vacillating Val Elster.

"Listen whilst I speak a word of truth," he said, his eyes bent on her with a strange fire that, if it told of undisguised earnestness, told also of inward fever. "I married your daughter, and I am ready and willing to do my duty by her in all honour, as I have done it since the day of the marriage. Whatever my follies may have been as a young man, I am at least incapable of wronging my wife as a married one. She has had no cause to complain of want of affection, but—"

"Oh, what a hypocrite!" interrupted the dowager, with a shriek. "And all the time you've left her here neglected, while you were taking your amusement in London! You've been dinner-giving and Richmond-going, and theatre-frequenting, and card-playing, and race-horsing—and I shouldn't wonder but you've been cock-fighting, and a hundred other things as disreputable, and have come down here worn to a skeleton!"

"But if she is discontented, if she does not care for me, as you would seem to intimate," he resumed, passing over the attack without notice; "in short, if Maude would be happier without me, I am quite willing, as I have just said, to relieve her of her distasteful husband."

"Of all the wicked plotters, you must be the worst! My darling unoffending Maude! A divorce for her!"

"We are neither of us eligible for a divorce," he coolly rejoined. "A separation alone is open to us, and that an amicable one. Should it come to it, every possible provision can be made for your daughter's comfort; she shall retain this home; she shall have, if she wishes, a town-house; I will deny her nothing."

Lady Kirton rubbed her face carefully with her handkerchief. Not until this moment had she believed him to be in earnest, and the conviction frightened her.

"Why do you wish to separate from her?" she asked, in a subdued tone.

"I do not wish it. I said I was willing to do so if she wished it. You have been taking pains to convince me that Maude's love was not mine, that she was only forced into the marriage with me. Should this have been the case, I must be distasteful to her still; an encumbrance she may wish to get rid of."

The countess-dowager had overshot her mark, and saw it.

"Oh well! Perhaps I was mistaken about the past," she said, staring at him very hard, and in a sort of defiance. "Maude was always very close. If you said anything about separation now, I dare say it would kill her. My belief is, she does care for you, and a great deal more than you deserve."

"It may be better to ascertain the truth from Maude—"

"You won't say a syllable to her!" cried the dowager, starting up in terror. "She'd never forgive me; she'd turn me out of the house. Hartledon, promise you won't say a word to her."

He stood back against the window, never speaking.

"She does love you; but I thought I'd frighten you, for you had no right to send Maude home alone; and it made me very cross, because I saw how she felt it. Separation indeed! What can you be thinking of?"

He was thinking of a great deal, no doubt; and his thoughts were as bitter as they could well be. He did not wish to separate; come what might, he felt his place should be by his wife's side as long as circumstances permitted it.

"Let me give you a word of warning, Lady Kirton. I and my wife will be happy enough together, I daresay, if we are allowed to be; but the style of conversation you have just adopted to me will not conduce to it; it might retaliate on Maude, you see. Do not again attempt it."

"How you have changed!" was her involuntary remark.

"Yes; I am not the yielding boy I was. And now I wish to speak of your son. He seems very ill."

"A troublesome intruding fellow, why can't he keep his ailments to his own barracks?" was the wrathful rejoinder. "I told Maude I wouldn't have him here, and what does she do but write off and tell him to come! I don't like sick folk about me, and never did. What do you want?"

The last question was addressed to Hedges, who had come in unsummoned. It was only a letter for his master. Lord Hartledon took it as a welcome interruption, went outside, and sat down on a garden-seat at a distance. How he hated the style of attack just made on him; the style of the dowager altogether! He asked himself in what manner he could avoid this for the future. It was a debasing, lowering occurrence, and he felt sure that it could hardly have taken place in his servants' hall. But he was glad he had said what he did about the separation. It might grieve him to part from his wife, but Mr. Carr had warned him that he ought to do it. Certainly, if she disliked him so very much—if she forced it upon him—why, then, it would be an easier task; but he felt sure she did not dislike him. If she had done so before marriage, she had learnt to like him now; and he believed that the bare mention of parting would shock her; and so—his duty seemed to lie in remaining by her side.

He held the letter in his hand for some minutes before he opened it. The handwriting warned him that it was from Mr. Carr, and he knew that no pleasant news could be in it. In fact, he had placed himself in so unsatisfactory a position as to render anything but bad news next door to an impossibility.

It contained only a few lines—a word of caution Mr. Carr had forgotten to speak when he took leave of Lord Hartledon the previous morning. "Let me advise you not to say anything to those people—Gum, I think the name is—about G.G. It might not be altogether prudent for you to do so. Should you remain any time at Hartledon, I will come down for a few days and question for myself."

"I've done it already," thought Val, as he folded the letter and returned it to his pocket. "As to my staying any time at Hartledon—not if I know it."

Looking up at the sound of footsteps, he saw Hedges approaching. Never free from a certain apprehension when any unexpected interruption occurred—an apprehension that turned his heart sick, and set his pulses beating—he waited, outwardly very calm.

"Floyd has called, my lord, and is asking to see you. He seems rather—rather concerned and put out. I think it's something about—about the death last summer."

Hedges hardly knew how to frame his words, and Lord Hartledon stared at him.

"Floyd can come to me here," he said.

The miller soon made his appearance, carrying a small case half purse, half pocket-book, in his hand, made of Russian leather, with rims of gold. Val knew it in a moment, in spite of its marks of defacement.

"Do you recognize it, my lord?" asked the miller.

"Yes, I do," replied Lord Hartledon. "It belonged to my brother."

"I thought so," returned the miller. "On the very day before that unfortunate race last year, his lordship was talking to me, and had this in his hand. I felt sure it was the same the moment I saw it."

"He had it with him the day of the race," observed Lord Hartledon. "Mr. Carteret said he saw it lying in the boat when they started. We always thought it had been lost in the river. Where did you find it?"

"Well, it's very odd, my lord, but I found it buried."

"Buried!"

"Buried in the ground, not far from the river, alongside the path that leads from where his lordship was found to Hartledon. I was getting up some dandelion roots for my wife this morning early, and dug up this close to one. There's where the knife touched it. My lord," added the miller, "I beg to say that I have not opened it. I wiped it, wrapped it in paper, and said nothing to anybody, but came here with it as soon as I thought you'd be up. That lad of mine, Ripper, said last night you were at Hartledon."

The miller was quite honest; and Lord Hartledon knew that when he said he had not opened it, he had not done so. It still contained some small memoranda in his brother's writing, but no money; and this was noticeable, since it was quite certain to have had money in it on that day.

"Those who buried it might have taken it out," he observed, following the bent of his thoughts.

"But who did bury it; and where did they find it, to allow of their burying it?" questioned the miller. "How did they come by it?—that's the odd thing. I am certain it was not in the skiff, for I searched that over myself."

Lord Hartledon said little. He could not understand it; and the incident, with the slips of paper, was bringing his brother all too palpably before him. One of them had concerned himself, though in what manner he would never know now. It ran as follows: "Not to forget Val." Poor fellow! Poor Lord Hartledon!

"Would your lordship like to come and see the spot where I found it?" asked the miller.

Lord Hartledon said he should, and would go in the course of the day; and Floyd took his departure. Val sat on for a time where he was, and then went in, locked up the damp case with its tarnished rims, and went on to the presence of his wife.

She was dressed now, but had not left her bedroom. It was evident that she meant to be kind and pleasant with him; different from what she had been, for she smiled, and began a little apology for her tardiness, saying she would get up to breakfast in future.

He motioned her back to her seat on the sofa before the open window, and sat down near her. His face was grave; she thought she had never seen it so much so—grave and firm, and his voice was grave too, but had a kindly tone in it. He took both her hands between his as he spoke; not so much, it seemed in affection, as to impress solemnity upon her.

"Maude, I'm going to ask you a question, and I beg you to answer me as truthfully as you could answer Heaven. Have you any wish that we should live apart from each other?"

"I do not understand you," she answered, after a pause, during which a flush of surprise or emotion spread itself gradually over her face.

"Nay, the question is plain. Have you any wish to separate from me?"

"I never thought of such a thing. Separate from you! What can you mean?"

"Your mother has dropped a hint that you have not been happy with me. I could almost understand her to imply that you have a positive dislike to me. She sought to explain her words away, but certainly spoke them. Is it so, Maude? I fancied something of the sort myself in the earlier days of our marriage."

He turned his head sharply at a sudden sound, but it was only the French clock on the mantelpiece striking eleven.

"Because," he resumed, having waited in vain for an answer, "if such should really be your wish, I will accede to it. I desire your comfort, your happiness beyond any earthly thing; and if living apart from me would promote it, I will sacrifice my own feelings, and you shall not hear a murmur. I would sacrifice my life for you."

She burst into tears. "Are you speaking at all for yourself? Do you wish this?" she murmured.

"No."

"Then how can you be so cruel?"

"I should have thought it unjustifiably cruel, but that it has been suggested to me. Tell me the truth, Maude."

Maude was turning sick with apprehension. She had begun to like her husband during the latter part of their sojourn in London; had missed him terribly during this long period of lonely ennui at Hartledon; and his tender kindness to her for the past few fleeting hours of this their meeting had seemed like heaven as compared with the solitary past. Her whole heart was in her words as she answered:

"When we first married I did not care for you; I almost think I did not like you. Everything was new to me, and I felt as one in an unknown sea. But it wore off; and if you only knew how I have thought of you, and wished for you here, you would never have said anything so cruel. You are my husband, and you cannot put me from you. Percival, promise me that you will never hint at this again!"

He bent and kissed her. His course lay plain before him; and if an ugly mountain rose up before his mind's eye, shadowing forth not voluntary but forced separation, he would not look at it in that moment.

"What could mamma mean?" she asked. "I shall ask her."

"Maude, oblige me by saying nothing about it. I have already warned Lady Kirton that it must not be repeated; and I am sure it will not be. I wish you would also oblige me in another matter."

"In anything," she eagerly said, raising her tearful eyes to his. "Ask me anything."

"I intend to take your brother to the warmest seaside place England can boast of, at once; to-day or to-morrow. The sea-air may do me good also. I want that, or something else," he added; his tone assuming a sad weariness as he remembered how futile any "sea-air" would be for a mind diseased. "Won't you go with us, Maude?"

"Oh yes, gladly! I will go with you anywhere."

He left her to proceed to Captain Kirton's room, thinking that he and his wife might have been happy together yet, but for that one awful shadow of the past, which she did not know anything about; and he prayed she never might know.

But after all, it would have been a very moonlight sort of happiness.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

ONCE MORE.

The months rolled on, and Lord and Lady Hartledon did not separate. They remained together, and were, so far, happy enough—the moonlight happiness hinted at; and it is as I believe, the best and calmest sort of happiness for married life. Maude's temper was unequal, and he was subject to prolonged hours of sadness. But the time went lightly enough over their heads, for all the world saw, as it goes over the heads of most people.

And Lord Hartledon was a free man still, and stood well with the world. Whatever the mysterious accusation brought against him had been, it produced no noisy effects as yet; in popular phrase, it had come to nothing. As yet; always as yet. Whether he had shot a man, or robbed a bank, or fired a church, the incipient accusation died away. But the fear, let it be of what nature it would, never died away in his mind; and he lived as a man with a sword suspended over his head. Moreover, the sword, in his own imagination, was slipping gradually from its fastenings; his days were restless, his nights sleepless, an inward fever for ever consumed him.

As none knew better than Thomas Carr. There were two witnesses who could bring the facts home to Lord Hartledon; and, so far as was known, only two: the stranger, who had paid him a visit, and the man Gordon, or Gorton. The latter was the more dangerous; and they had not yet been able to trace him. Mr. Carr's friend, Detective Green, had furnished that gentleman with a descriptive bill of Gordon of the mutiny: "a young, slight man, with light eyes and fair hair." This did not answer exactly to the Gorton who had played his part at Calne; but then, in regard to the latter, there remained the suspicion that the red hair was false. Whether it was the same man or whether it was two men—if the phrase may be allowed—neither of them, to use Detective Green's expressive words, turned up. And thus the months had passed on, with nothing special to mark them. Captain Kirton had been conveyed abroad for the winter, and they had good news of him; and the countess-dowager was inflicting a visit upon one of her married daughters in Germany, the baroness with the unpronounceable name.

And the matter had nearly faded from the mind of Lady Hartledon. It would quite have faded, but for certain interviews with Thomas Carr at his chambers, when Hartledon's look of care precluded the idea that they could be visits of mere idleness or pleasure; and for the secret trouble that unmistakably sat on her husband like an incubus. At times he would moan in his sleep as one in pain; but if told of this, had always some laughing answer ready for her—he had dreamed he was fighting a lion or being tossed by a bull.

This was the pleasantest phase of Lady Hartledon's married life. Her health did not allow of her entering into gaiety; and she and her husband passed their time happily together. All her worst qualities seemed to have left her, or to be dormant; she was yielding and gentle; her beauty had never been so great as now that it was subdued; her languor was an attraction, her care to please being genuine; and they were sufficiently happy. They were in their town-house now, not having gone back to Hartledon. A large, handsome house, very different from the hired one they had first occupied.

In January the baby was born; and Maude's eyes glistened with tears of delight because it was a boy: a little heir to the broad lands of Hartledon. She was very well, and it seemed that she could never tire of fondling her child.

But in the first few days succeeding that of the birth a strange fancy took possession of her: she observed, or thought she observed, that her husband did not seem to care for the child. He did not caress it; she once heard him sighing over it; and he never announced it in the newspapers. Other infants, heirs especially, could be made known to the world, but not hers. The omission might never have come to her knowledge, since at first she was not allowed to see newspapers, but for a letter from the countess-dowager. The lady wrote in a high state of wrath from Germany; she had looked every day for ten days in the Times, and saw no chronicle of the happy event; and she demanded the reason. It afforded a valve for her temper, which had been in an explosive state for some time against Lord Hartledon, that ungracious son-in-law having actually forbidden her his house until Maude's illness should be over; telling her plainly that he would not have his wife worried. Lady Hartledon said nothing for a day or two; she was watching her husband; watching for signs of the fancy which had taken possession of her.

He was in her room one dark afternoon, standing with his elbow on the mantelpiece whilst he talked to her: a room of luxury and comfort it must have been almost a pleasure to be ill in. Lady Hartledon had been allowed to get up, and sit in an easy-chair: she seemed to be growing strong rapidly; and the little red gentleman in the cradle, sleeping quietly, was fifteen days old.

"About his name, Percival; what is it to be?" she asked. "Your own?"

"No, no, not mine," said he, quickly; "I never liked mine. Choose some other, Maude."

"What do you wish it to be?"

"Anything."

The short answer did not please the young mother; neither did the dreamy tone in which it was spoken. "Don't you care what it is?" she asked rather plaintively.

"Not much, for myself. I wish it to be anything you shall choose."

"I thought perhaps you would have liked it named after your brother," she said, very much offended on the baby's account.

"George?"

"George, no. I never knew George; I should not be likely to think of him. Edward."

Lord Hartledon looked at the fire, absently pushing back his hair. "Yes, let it be Edward. It will do as well as anything else."

"Good gracious, Percival, one would think you had been having babies all your life!" she exclaimed resentfully. "'Do as well as anything else!' If he were our tenth son, instead of our first, you could not treat it with more indifference. I have done nothing but deliberate on the name since he was born; and I don't believe you have once given it a thought."

Lord Hartledon turned his face upon her; and when illumined with a smile, as now, it could be as bright as before care came to it. "I don't think we men attach the importance to names in a general way that you do, Maude. I shall like to have it Edward."

"Edward William Algernon—"

"No, no, no," as if the number alarmed him. "Pray don't have a string of names: one's quite enough."

"Oh, very well," she returned, biting her lips. "William was your father's name. Algernon is my eldest brother's: I supposed you might like them. I thought," she added, after a pause, "we might ask Lord Kirton to be its godfather."

"I have decided on the godfathers already. Thomas Carr will be one, and I intend to be the other."

"Thomas Carr! A poor hard-working barrister, that not a soul knows, and of no family or influence whatever, godfather to the future Lord Hartledon!" uttered the offended mother.

"I wish it, Maude. Carr is the most valued friend I have in the world, or ever can have. Oblige me in this."

"Then my brother can be the other."

"No; I myself; and I wish you would be its godmother."

"Well, it's quite reversing the order of things!" she said, tacitly conceding the point.

A silence ensued. The firelight played on the lace curtains of the baby's bed, as it did on Lady Hartledon's face; a thoughtful face just now. Twilight was drawing on, and the fire lighted the room.

"Percival, do you care for the child?"

The tone had a sound of passion in it, breaking upon the silence. Lord Hartledon lifted his bent face and glanced at his wife.

"Do I care for the child, Maude? What a question! I do care for him: more than I allow to appear."

And if her voice had passion in it, his had pain. He crossed the room, and stood looking down on the sleeping baby, touching at length its cheek with his finger. He could have knelt, there and then, and wept over the child, and prayed, oh, how earnestly, that God would take it to Himself, not suffer it to live. Many and many a prayer had ascended from his heart in their earlier married days, that his wife might not bear him children; for he could only entail upon them an inheritance of shame.

"I don't think you have once taken him in your arms, Percival; you never kiss him. It's quite unnatural."

"I give my kisses in the dark," he laughed, as he returned to where she was sitting. And this was in a sense true; for once when he happened to be alone for an instant with the baby, he had clasped it and kissed it in a sort of delirious agony.

"You never had it in the Times, you know!"

"Never what?"

"Never announced its birth in the Times. Did you forget it?"

"It must have been very stupid of me," he remarked. "Never mind, Maude; he won't grow the less for the omission. When are you coming downstairs?"

"Mamma is in a rage about it; she says such neglect ought to be punished; and she knows you have done it on purpose."

"She is always in a rage with me, no matter what I do," returned Val, good-humouredly. "She hoped to be here at this time, and sway us all—you and me and the baby; and I stopped it. Ho, ho! young sir!"

The baby had wakened with a cry, and a watchful attendant came gliding in at the sound. Lord Hartledon left the room and went straight down to the Temple to Mr. Carr's chambers. He found him in all the bustle of departure from town. A cab stood at the foot of the stairs, and Mr. Carr's laundress, a queer old body with an inverted black bonnet, was handing the cabman a parcel of books.

"A minute more and you'd have been too late," observed Mr. Carr, as Lord Hartledon met him on the stairs, a coat on his arm.

"I thought you did not start till to-morrow."

"But I found I must go to-day. I can give you three minutes. Is it anything particular?"

Lord Hartledon drew him into his room. "I have come to crave a favour, Carr. It has been on my lips to ask you before, but they would not frame the words. This child of mine: will you be its godfather with myself?"

One moment's hesitation, quite perceptible to the sensitive mind of Lord Hartledon, and then Mr. Carr spoke out bravely and cheerily.

"Of course I will."

"I see you hesitate: but I do not like to ask any one else."

"If I hesitated, it was at the thought of the grave responsibility attaching to the office. I believe I look upon it in a more serious light than most people do, and have never accepted the charge yet. I will be sponsor to this one with all my heart."

Lord Hartledon clasped his hand in reply, and they began to descend the stairs. "Poor Maude was dreaming of making a grand thing of the christening," he said; "she wanted to ask Lord Kirton to come to it. It will take place in about a fortnight."

"Very well; I must run up for it, unless you let me stand by proxy. I wish, Hartledon, you would hear me on another point," added the barrister, halting on the stairs, and dropping his voice to a whisper.

"Well?"

"If you are to go away at all, now's the time. Can't you be seized with an exploring fit, and sail to Africa, or some other place, where your travels would occupy years?"

Lord Hartledon shook his head. "How can I leave Maude to battle alone with the exposure, should it come?"

"It is a great deal less likely to come if you are a few thousand miles away."

"I question it. Should Gorton turn up he is just the one to frighten a defenceless woman, and purchase his own silence. No; my place is beside Maude."

"As you please. I have spoken for the last time. By the way, any letters bearing a certain postmark, that come addressed to me during my absence, Taylor has orders to send to you. Fare you well, Hartledon; I wish I could help you to peace."

Hartledon watched the cab rattle away, and then turned homewards. Peace! There was no peace for him.

Lady Hartledon was not to be thwarted on all points, and she insisted on a ceremonious christening. The countess-dowager would come over for it, and did so; Lord Hartledon could not be discourteous enough to deny this; Lord and Lady Kirton came from Ireland; and for the first time since their marriage they found themselves entertaining guests. Lord Hartledon had made a faint opposition, but Maude had her own way. The countess-dowager was furiously indignant when she heard of the intended sponsors—its father and mother, and that cynical wretch, Thomas Carr! Val played the hospitable host; but there was a shadow on his face that his wife did not fail to see.

It was the evening before the christening, and a very snowy evening too. Val was dressing for dinner, and Maude, herself ready, sat by him, her baby on her knee. The child was attired for the first time in a splendidly-worked robe with looped-up sleeves; and she had brought it in to challenge admiration for its pretty arms, with all the pardonable pride of a young mother.

"Won't you kiss it for once, Val?"

He took the child in his arms; it had its mother's fine dark eyes, and looked straight up from them into his. Lord Hartledon suddenly bent his own face down upon that little one with what seemed like a gesture of agony; and when he raised it his own eyes were wet with tears. Maude felt startled with a sort of terror: love was love; but she did not understand love so painful as this.

She sat down with the baby on her knee, saying nothing; he did not intend her to see the signs of emotion. And this brings us to where we were. Lord Hartledon went on with his toilette, and presently someone knocked at the door.

Two letters: they had come by the afternoon post, very much delayed on account of the snow. He came back to the gaslight, opening one. A full letter, written closely; but he had barely glanced at it when he hastily folded it again, and crammed it into his pocket. If ever a movement expressed something to be concealed, that did. And Lady Hartledon was gazing at him with her questioning eyes.

"Wasn't that letter from Thomas Carr?"

"Yes."

"Is he coming up? Or is Kirton to be proxy?"

"He is—coming, I think," said Val, evidently knowing nothing one way or the other. "He'll be here, I daresay, to-morrow morning."

Opening the other letter as he spoke—a foreign-looking letter this one—he put it up in the same hasty manner, with barely a glance; and then went on slowly with his dressing.

"Why don't you read your letters, Percival?"

"I haven't time. Dinner will be waiting."

She knew that he had plenty of time, and that dinner would not be waiting; she knew quite certainly that there was something in both letters she must not see. Rising from her seat in silence, she went out of the room with her baby; resentment and an unhealthy curiosity doing battle in her heart.

Lord Hartledon slipped the bolt of the door and read the letters at once; the foreign one first, over which he seemed to take an instant's counsel with himself. Before going down he locked them up in a small ebony cabinet which stood against the wall. The room was his own exclusively; his wife had nothing to do with it.

Had they been alone he might have observed her coolness to him; but, with guests to entertain, he neither saw nor suspected it. She sat opposite him at dinner richly dressed, her jewels and smiles alike dazzling: but the smiles were not turned on him.

"Is that chosen sponsor of yours coming up for the christening; lawyer Carr?" tartly inquired the dowager from her seat, bringing her face and her turban, all scarlet together, to bear on Hartledon.

"He comes up by this evening's train; will be in London late to-night, if the snow allows him, and stay with us until Sunday night," replied Val.

"Oh! That's no doubt the reason why you settled the christening for Saturday: that your friend might have the benefit of Sunday?"

"Just so, madam."

And Lady Hartledon knew, by this, that her husband must have read the letters. "I wonder what he has done with them?" came the mental thought, shadowing forth a dim wish that she could read them too.

In the drawing-room, after dinner, someone proposed a carpet quadrille, but Lord Hartledon seemed averse to it. In his wife's present mood, his opposition was, of course, the signal for her approval, and she began pushing the chairs aside with her own hands. He approached her quietly.

"Maude, do not let them dance to-night."

"Why not?"

"I have a reason. My dear, won't you oblige me in this?"

"Tell me the reason, and perhaps I will; not otherwise."

"I will tell it you another time. Trust me, I have a good one. What is it, Hedges?"

The butler had come up to his master in the unobtrusive manner of a well-trained servant, and was waiting an opportunity to speak. He said a word in Lord Hartledon's ear, and Lady Hartledon saw a shiver of surprise run through her husband. He looked here, looked there, as one perplexed with fear, and finally went out of the room with a calm face, but one that was turning livid.

Lady Hartledon followed in an impulse of curiosity. She looked after him over the balustrades, and saw him turn into the library below. Hedges was standing near the drawing-room door.

"Does any one want Lord Hartledon?"

"Yes, my lady."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know, my lady. Some gentleman."

She ran lightly down the stairs, pausing at the foot, as if ashamed of her persistent curiosity. The well-lighted hall was before her; the dining-room on one side; the library and a small room communicating on the other. Throwing back her head, as in defiance, she boldly crossed the hall and opened the library door.

Now what Lady Hartledon had really thought was that the visitor was Mr. Carr; her husband was going to steal a quiet half-hour with him; and Hedges was in the plot. She had not lived with Hartledon the best part of a year without learning that Hedges was devoted heart and soul to his master.

She opened the library-door. Her husband's back was towards her; and facing him, his arms raised as if in anger or remonstrance, was the same stranger who had caused some commotion in the other house. She knew him in a moment: there he was, with his staid face, his black clothes, and his white neckcloth, looking so like a clergyman. Lord Hartledon turned his head.

"I am engaged, Maude; you can't come in," he peremptorily said; and closed the door upon her.

She went slowly up the stairs again, not choosing to meet the butler's eyes, past the drawing-rooms, and up to her own. The sight of the stranger, coupled with her husband's signs of emotion, had renewed all her old suspicions, she knew not, she never had known, of what. Jumping to the conclusion that those letters must be in some way connected with the mystery, perhaps an advent of the visit, it set her thinking, and rebellion arose in her heart.

"I wonder if he put them in the ebony cabinet?" she exclaimed. "I have a key that will fit that."

Yes, she had a key to fit it. A few weeks before, Lord Hartledon mislaid his keys; he wanted something out of this cabinet, in which he did not, as a rule, keep anything of consequence, and tried hers. One was found to unlock it, and he jokingly told her she had a key to his treasures. But himself strictly honourable, he could not suspect dishonour in another; and Lord Hartledon supposed it simply impossible that she should attempt to open it of her own accord.

They were of different natures; and they had been reared in different schools. Poor Maude Kirton had learnt to be anything but scrupulous, and really thought it a very slight thing she was about to do, almost justifiable under the circumstances. Almost, if not quite. Nevertheless she would not have liked to be caught at it.

She took her bunch of keys and went into her husband's dressing-room, which opened from their bedroom: but she went on tip-toe, as one who knows she is doing wrong. It took some little time to try the keys, for there were several on the ring, and she did not know the right one: but the lid flew open at last, and disclosed the two letters lying there.

She snatched at one, either that came first, and opened it. It happened to be the one from Mr. Carr, and she began to read it, her heart beating.

"Dear Hartledon,

"I think I have at last found some trace of Gorton. There's a man of that name in the criminal calendar here, down for trial to-morrow; I shall see then whether it is the same, but the description tallies. Should it be our Gorton, I think the better plan will be to leave him entirely alone: a man undergoing a criminal sentence—and this man is sure of a long period of it—has neither the means nor the motive to be dangerous. He cannot molest you whilst he is working on Portland Island; and, so far, you may live a little eased from fear. I wish—"

Mr. Carr's was a close handwriting, and this concluded the first page. She was turning it over, when Lord Hartledon's voice on the stairs caught her ear. He seemed to be coming up.

Ay, and he would have caught her at her work but for the accidental circumstance of the old dowager's happening to look out of the drawing-room and detaining him, as he was hastening onwards up the stairs. She did her daughter good service that moment, if she had never done it before. Maude had time to fold the letter, put it back, lock the cabinet, and escape. Had she been a nervous woman, given to being flurried and to losing her presence of mind, she might not have succeeded; but she was cool and quick in emergency, her brain and fingers steady.

Nevertheless her heart beat a little as she stood within the other room, the door not latched behind her. She did not stir, lest he should hear her; and she hoped to remain unseen until he went down again. A ready excuse was on her lips, if he happened to look in, which was not probable: that she fancied she heard baby cry, and was listening.

Lord Hartledon was walking about his dressing-room, pacing it restlessly, and she very distinctly heard suppressed groans of mortal anguish breaking from his lips. How he had got rid of his visitor, and what the visitor came for, she knew not. He seemed to halt before the washhand-stand, pour out some water, and dash his face into it.

"God help me! God help Maude!" he ejaculated, as he went down again to the drawing-room.

And Lady Hartledon went down also, for the interruption had frightened her, and she did not attempt to open the cabinet again. She never knew more of the contents of Mr. Carr's letter; and only the substance of the other, as communicated to her by her husband.



CHAPTER XXIX.

CROSS-QUESTIONING MR. CARR.

Not until the Sunday morning did Lady Hartledon speak to her husband of the stranger's visit. There seemed to have been no previous opportunity. Mr. Carr had arrived late on the Friday night; indeed it was Saturday morning, for the trains were all detained; and he and Hartledon sat up together to an unconscionable hour. For this short visit he was Lord Hartledon's guest. Saturday seemed to have been given to preparation, to gaiety, and to nothing else. Perhaps also Lady Hartledon did not wish to mar that day by an unpleasant word. The little child was christened; the names given him being Edward Kirton: the countess-dowager, who was in a chronic state of dissatisfaction with everything and every one, angrily exclaimed at the last moment, that she thought at least her family name might have been given to the child; and Lord Hartledon interposed, and said, give it. Lord and Lady Hartledon, and Mr. Carr, were the sponsors: and it would afford food for weeks of grumbling to the old dowager. Hilarity reigned, and toasts were given to the new heir of Hartledon; and the only one who seemed not to enter into the spirit of the thing, but on the contrary to be subdued, absent, nervous, was the heir's father.

And so it went on to the Sunday morning. A cold, bleak, bitter morning, the wind howling, the snow flying in drifts. Mr. Carr went to church, and he was the only one of the party in the house who did go. The countess-dowager the previous night had proclaimed the fact that she meant to go—as a sort of reproach to any who meant to keep away. However, when the church-bells began, she was turning round in her warm bed for another nap.

Maude did not go down early; had not yet taken to doing so. She breakfasted in her room, remained toying with her baby for some time, and then went into her own sitting-room; a small cosy apartment on the drawing-room floor, into which visitors did not intrude. It looked on to Hyde Park, and a very white and dreary park it was on that particular day.

Drawing a chair to the window, she sat looking out. That is, her eyes were given to the outer world, but she was so deep in thought as to see nothing of it. For two nights and a day, burning with curiosity, she had been putting this and that together in her own mind, and drawing conclusions according to her own light. First, there was the advent of the visitor; secondly, there was the letter she had dipped into. She connected the two with each other and wondered WHAT the secret care could be that had such telling effect upon her husband.

Gorton. The name had struck upon her memory, even whilst she read it, as one associated with that terrible time—the late Lord Hartledon's death. Gradually the floodgates of recollection opened, and she knew him for the witness at the inquest about whom some speculation had arisen as to who he was, and what his business at Calne might have been with Lord Hartledon and his brother, Val Elster.

Why should her husband be afraid of this man?—as it seemed he was afraid, by Mr. Carr's letter. What power had he of injuring Lord Hartledon?—what secret did he possess of his, that might be used against him? Turning it about in her mind, and turning it again, searching her imagination for a solution, Lady Hartledon at length arrived at one, in default of others. She thought this man must know some untoward fact by which the present Lord Hartledon's succession was imperilled. Possibly the late Lord Hartledon had made some covert and degrading marriage; leaving an obscure child who possessed legal rights, and might yet claim them. A romantic, far-fetched idea, you will say; but she could think of no other that was in the least feasible. And she remembered some faint idea having arisen in her mind at the time, that the visit of the man Gorton was in some way connected with trouble, though she did not know with which brother.

Val came in and shut the door. He stirred the fire into a blaze, making some remark about the snow, and wondering how Carr would get down to the country again. Maude gave a slight answer, and then there was silence. Each was considering how best to say something to the other. She was the quicker.

"Lord Hartledon, what did that man want on Friday?"

"What man?" he rejoined, rather wincing—for he knew well enough to what she alluded.

"The man—gentleman, or whatever he is—who had you called down to him in the library."

"By the way, Maude—yes—you should not dart in when I am engaged with visitors on business."

"Well, I thought it was Mr. Carr," she replied, glancing at his heightened colour. "What did he want?"

"Only to say a word to me on a matter of business."

"It was the same person who upset you so when he called last autumn. You have never been the same man since."

"Don't take fancies into your head, Maude."

"Fancies! you know quite well there is no fancy about it. That man holds some unpleasant secret of yours, I am certain."

"Maude!"

"Will you tell it me?"

"I have nothing to tell."

"Ah, well; I expected you wouldn't speak," she answered, with subdued bitterness; as much as to say, that she made a merit of resigning herself to an injustice she could not help. "You have been keeping things from me a long time."

"I have kept nothing from you it would give you pleasure to know. It is not—Maude, pray hear me—it is not always expedient for a man to make known to his wife the jars and rubs he has himself to encounter. A hundred trifles may arise that are best spared to her. That gentleman's business concerned others as well as myself, and I am not at liberty to speak of it."

"You refuse, then, to admit me to your confidence?"

"In this I do. I am the best judge—and you must allow me to be so—of what ought, and what ought not, to be spoken of to you. You may always rely upon my acting for your best happiness, as far as lies in my power."

He had been pacing the room whilst he spoke. Lady Hartledon was in too resentful a mood to answer. Glancing at her, he stood by the mantelpiece and leaned his elbow upon it.

"I want to make known to you another matter, Maude. If I have kept it from you—"

"Does it concern this secret business of yours?" she interrupted.

"No."

"Then let us have done with this first, if you please. Who is Gorton?"

"Who is—Gorton?" he repeated, after a dumbfounded pause. "What Gorton?"

"Well, I don't know; unless it's that man who gave evidence at the inquest on your brother."

Lord Hartledon stared at her, as well he might; and gulped down his breath, which seemed choking him. "But what about Gorton? Why do you ask me the question?"

"Because I fancy he is connected with this trouble. I—I thought I heard you and Mr. Carr mention the name yesterday when you were whispering together. I'm sure I did—there!"

As far as Lord Hartledon remembered, he and Mr. Carr had not been whispering together yesterday; had not mentioned the name of Gorton. They had done with the subject at that late sitting, the night of the barrister's arrival; who had brought news that the Gorton, that morning tried for a great crime, was not the Gorton of whom they were in search. Lord Hartledon gazed at his wife with questioning eyes, but she persisted in her assertion. It was sinfully untrue; but how else could she account for knowing the name?

"Do you suppose I dreamed it, Lord Hartledon?"

"I don't know whether you dreamed it or not, Maude. Mr. Carr has certainly spoken to me since he came of a man of that name; but as certainly not in your hearing. One Gorton was tried for his life on Friday—or almost for his life—and he mentioned to me the circumstances of the case: housebreaking, accompanied by violence, which ended in death. I cannot understand you, Maude, or the fancies you seem to be taking up."

She saw how it was—he would admit nothing: and she looked straight out across the dreary park, a certain obstinate defiance veiled in her eyes. By the help of Heaven or earth, she would find out this secret that he refused to disclose to her.

"Almost every action of your life bespeaks concealment," she resumed. "Look at those letters you received in your dressing-room on Friday night: you just opened them and thrust them unread into your pocket, because I happened to be there. And yet you talk of caring for me! I know those letters contained some secret or other you dare not tell me."

She rose in some temper, and gave the fire a fierce stir.

Lord Hartledon kept her by him.

"One of those letters was from Mr. Carr; and I presume you can make no objection to my hearing from him. The other—Maude, I have waited until now to disclose its contents to you; I would not mar your happiness yesterday."

She looked up at him. Something in his voice, a sad pitying tenderness, caused her heart to beat a shade quicker. "It was a foreign letter, Maude. I think you observed that. It bore the French postmark."

A light broke upon her. "Oh, Percival, it is about Robert! Surely he is not worse!"

He drew her closer to him: not speaking.

"He is not dead?" she said, with a rush of tears. "Ah, you need not tell me; I see it. Robert! Robert!"

"It has been a happy death, Maude, and he is better off. He was quite ready to go. I wish we were as ready!"

Lord Hartledon took out the letter and read the chief portion of it to her. One little part he dexterously omitted, describing the cause of death—disease of the heart.

"But I thought he was getting so much better. What has killed him in this sudden manner?"

"Well, there was no great hope from the first. I confess I have entertained none. Mr. Hillary, you know, warned us it might end either way."

"Was it decline?" she asked, her tears falling.

"He has been declining gradually, no doubt."

"Oh, Percival! Why did you not tell me at once? It seems so cruel to have had all that entertainment yesterday! This is why you did not wish us to dance!"

"And if I had told you, and stopped the entertainment, allowing the poor little fellow to be christened in gloom and sorrow, you would have been the first to reproach me; you might have said it augured ill-luck for the child."

"Well, perhaps I should; yes, I am sure I should. You have acted rightly, after all, Val." And it was a candid admission, considering what she had been previously saying. He bent towards her with a smile, his voice quite unsteady with its earnestness.

"You see now with what motive I kept the letter from you. Maude! cannot this be an earnest that you should trust me for the rest? In all I do, as Heaven is my witness, I place your comfort first and foremost."

"Don't be angry with me," she cried, softening at the words.

He laid his hand on his wife's bent head, thinking how far he was from anger. Anger? He would have died for her then, at that moment, if it might have saved her from the sin and shame that she must share with him.

"Have you told mamma, Percival?"

"Not yet. It would not have been kept from you long had she known it. She is not up yet, I think."

"Who has written?"

"The doctor who attended him."

"You'll let me read the letter?"

"I have written to desire that full particulars may be sent to you: you shall read that one."

The tacit refusal did not strike her. She only supposed the future letter would be more explanatory. He was always anxious for her; and he had written off on the Friday night to ask for a letter giving fuller particulars, whilst avoiding mention of the cause of death.

Thus harmony for the hour was restored between them; and Lord Hartledon stood the dowager's loud reproaches with equanimity. In possession of the news of that darling angel's death ever since Friday night, and to have bottled it up within him till Sunday! She wondered what he thought of himself!

After all, Val had not quite "bottled it up." He had made it known to his brother-in-law, Lord Kirton, and also to Mr. Carr. Both had agreed that nothing had better be said until the christening-day was over.

But there came a reaction. When Lady Hartledon had got over her first grief, the other annoyance returned to her, and she fell again to brooding over it in a very disturbing fashion. She merited blame for this in a degree; but not so much as appears on the surface. If that idea, which she was taking up very seriously, were correct—that her husband's succession was imperilled—it would be the greatest misfortune that could happen to her in life. What had she married for but position?—rank, wealth, her title? any earthly misfortune would be less keen than this. Any earthly misfortune! Poor Maude!

It was a sombre dinner that evening; the news of Captain Kirton's death making it so. Besides relatives, very few guests were staying in the house; and the large and elaborate dinner-party of the previous day was reduced to a small one on this. The first to come into the drawing-room afterwards, following pretty closely on the ladies, was Mr. Carr. The dowager, who rarely paid attention to appearances, or to anything else, except her own comfort, had her feet up on a sofa, and was fast asleep; two ladies were standing in front of the fire, talking in undertones; Lady Hartledon sat on a sofa a little apart, her baby on her knee; and her sister-in-law, Lady Kirton, a fragile and rather cross-looking young woman, who looked as if a breath would blow her away, was standing over her, studying the infant's face. The latter lady moved away and joined the group at the fire as Mr. Carr approached Lady Hartledon.

"You have your little charge here, I see!"

"Please excuse it; I meant to have sent him away before any of you came up," she said, quite pleadingly. "Sarah took upon herself to proclaim aloud that his eyes were not straight, and I could not help having him brought down to refute her words. Not straight, indeed! She's only envious of him."

Sarah was Lady Kirton. Mr. Carr smiled.

"She has no children herself. I think you might be proud of your godson, Mr. Carr. But he ought not to have been here to receive you, for all that."

"I have come up soon to say good-bye, Lady Hartledon. In ten minutes I must be gone."

"In all this snow! What a night to travel in!"

"Necessity has no law. So, sir, you'd imprison my finger, would you!"

He had touched the child's hand, and in a moment it was clasped round his finger. Lady Hartledon laughed.

"Lady Kirton—the most superstitious woman in the world—would say that was an omen: you are destined to be his friend through life."

"As I will be," said the barrister, his tone more earnest than the occasion seemed to call for.

Lady Hartledon, with a graciousness she was little in the habit of showing to Mr. Carr, made room for him beside her, and he sat down. The baby lay on his back, his wide-open eyes looking upwards, good as gold.

"How quiet he is! How he stares!" reiterated the barrister, who did not understand much about babies, except for a shadowy idea that they lived in a state of crying for the first six months.

"He is the best child in the world; every one says so," she returned. "He is not the least—Hey-day! what do you mean by contradicting mamma like that? Behave yourself, sir."

For the infant, as if to deny his goodness, set up a sudden cry. Mr. Carr laughed. He put down his finger again, and the little fingers clasped round it, and the cry ceased.

"He does not like to lose his friend, you see, Lady Hartledon."

"I wish you would be my friend as well as his," she rejoined; and the low meaning tones struck on Mr. Carr's ear.