"I should like to say a word to him in private," responded Pike.

"Then you'd better not wait to say it. I'll tell him of your wish. It's all safe. Why, Pike, if the police themselves came they wouldn't trouble to touch you now."

"I shouldn't much care if they did," said the man. "I haven't cared for a long while; but there were the others, you know."

"Yes," said Mr. Hillary.

"Look here," said Pike; "no need to tell him particulars; leave them till I'm gone. I don't know that I'd like him to look me in the face, knowing them."

"As you will," said Mr. Hillary, falling in with the wish more readily than he might have done for anyone but a dying man.

He had patients out of Calne, beyond Hartledon, and called in returning. It was a snowy day; and as the surgeon was winding towards the house, past the lodge, with a quick step, he saw a white figure marching across the park. It was Lord Hartledon. He had been caught in the storm, and came up laughing.

"Umbrellas are at a premium," observed Mr. Hillary, with the freedom long intimacy had sanctioned.

"It didn't snow when I came out," said Hartledon, shaking himself, and making light of the matter. "Were you coming to honour me with a morning call?"

"I was and I wasn't," returned the surgeon. "I've no time for morning calls, unless they are professional ones; but I wanted to say a word to you. Have you a mind for a further walk in the snow?"

"As far as you like."

"There's a patient of mine drawing very near the time when doctors can do no more for him. He has expressed a wish to see you, and I undertook to convey the request."

"I'll go, of course," said Val, all his kindliness on the alert. "Who is it?"

"A black sheep," answered the surgeon. "I don't know whether that will make any difference?"

"It ought not," said Val rather warmly. "Black sheep have more need of help than white ones, when it comes to the last. I suppose it's a poacher wanting to clear his conscience."

"It's Pike," said Hillary.

"Pike! What can he want with me? Is he no better?"

"He'll never be better in this world; and to speak the truth, I think it's time he left it. He'll be happier, poor fellow, let's hope, in another than he has been in this. Has it ever struck you, Lord Hartledon, that there was something strange about Pike, and his manner of coming here?"

"Very strange indeed."

"Well, Pike is not Pike, but another man—which I suppose you will say is Irish. But that he is so ill, and it would not be worth while for the law to take him, he might be in mortal fear of your seeing him, lest you betrayed him. He wanted you not to be informed until the last hour. I told him there was no fear."

"I would not betray any living man, whatever his crime, for the whole world," returned Lord Hartledon; his voice so earnest as to amount to pain. And the surgeon looked at him; but there rose up in his remembrance how he had been avoiding betrayal for years. "Who is he?"

"Willy Gum."

Lord Hartledon turned his head sharply under cover of the surgeon's umbrella, for they were walking along together. A thought crossed him that the words might be a jest.

"Yes, Pike is Willy Gum," continued Mr. Hillary. "And there you have the explanation of the poor mother's nervous terrors. I do pity her. The clerk has taken it more philosophically, and seemed only to care lest the fact should become known. Ah, poor thing! what a life hers has been! Her fears of the wild neighbour, her basins for cats, are all explained now. She dreaded lest Calne should suspect that she occasionally stole into the shed under cover of the night with the basins containing food for its inmate. There the man has lived—if you can call such an existence living; Willy Gum, concealed by his borrowed black hair and whiskers. But that he was only a boy when he went away, Calne would have recognized him in spite of them."

"And he is not a poacher and a snarer, and I don't know what all, leading a lawless life, and thieving for his living?" exclaimed Lord Hartledon, the first question that rose to the surface, amidst the many that were struggling in his mind.

"I don't believe the man has touched the worth of a pin belonging to any one since he came here, even on your preserves. People took up the notion from his wild appearance, and because he had no ostensible means of living. It would not have done to let them know that he had his supplies—sometimes money, sometimes food—from respectable clerk Gum's."

"But why should he be in concealment at all? That bank affair was made all right at the time."

"There are other things he feared, it seems. I've not time to enter into details now; you'll know them later. There he is—Pike: and there he'll die—Pike always."

"How long have you known it?"

"Since that fever he caught from the Rectory some years ago. I recollect your telling me not to let him want for anything;" and Lord Hartledon winced at the remembrance brought before him, as he always did wince at the unhappy past. "I never shall forget it. I went in, thinking Pike was ill, and that he, wild and disreputable though he had the character of being, might want physic as well as his neighbours. Instead of the black-haired bear I expected to see, there lay a young, light, delicate fellow, with a white brow, and cheeks pink with fever. The features seemed familiar to me; little by little recognition came to me, and I saw it was Willy Gum, whom every one had been mourning as dead. He said a pleading word or two, that I would keep his secret, and not give him up to justice. I did not understand what there was to give him up for then. However, I promised. He was too ill to say much; and I went to the next door, and put it to Gum's wife that she should go and nurse Pike for humanity's sake. Of course it was what she wanted to do. Poor thing! she fell on her knees later, beseeching me not to betray him."

"And you have kept counsel all this time?"

"Yes," said the surgeon, laconically. "Would your lordship have done otherwise, even though it had been a question of hanging?"

"I! I wouldn't give a man a month at the treadmill if I could help it. One gets into offences so easily," he dreamily added.

They crossed over the waste land, and Mr. Hillary opened the door of the shed with a pass-key. A lock had been put on when Pike was lying in rheumatic fever, lest intruders might enter unawares, and see him without his disguise.

"Pike, I have brought you my lord. He won't betray you."



CHAPTER XXXV.

THE SHED RAZED.

Closing the door upon them, the surgeon went off on other business, and Lord Hartledon entered and bent over the bed; a more comfortable bed than it once had been. It was the Willy Gum of other days; the boy he had played with when they were boys together. White, wan, wasted, with the dying hectic on his cheek, the glitter already in his eye, he lay there; and Val's eyelashes shone as he took the worn hand.

"I am so sorry, Willy. I had no suspicion it was you. Why did you not confide in me?"

The invalid shook his head. "There might have been danger in it."

"Never from me," was the emphatic answer.

"Ah, my lord, you don't know. I haven't dared to make myself known to a soul. Mr. Hillary found it out, and I couldn't help myself."

Lord Hartledon glanced round at the strange place: the rafters, the rude walls. A fire was burning on the hearth, and the appliances brought to bear were more comfortable than might have been imagined; but still—

"Surely you will allow yourself to be removed to a better place, Willy?" he said.

"Call me Pike," came the feverish interruption. "Never that other name again, my lord; I've done with it for ever. As to a better place—I shall have that soon enough."

"You wanted to say something to me, Mr. Hillary said."

"I've wanted to say it some time now, and to beg your lordship's pardon. It's about the late earl's death."

"My brother's?"

"Yes. I was on the wrong scent a long time. And I can tell you what nobody else will."

Lord Hartledon lifted his head quickly; thoughts were crowding impulsively into his mind, and he spoke in the moment's haste.

"Surely you had not anything to do with that!"

"No; but I thought your lordship had."

"What do you mean?" asked Lord Hartledon, quietly.

"It's for my foolish and wicked and mistaken thought that I would crave pardon before I go. I thought your lordship had killed the late lord, either by accident or maliciously."

"You must be dreaming, Pike!"

"No; but I was no better than dreaming then. I had been living amidst lawless scenes, over the seas and on the seas, where a life's not of much account, and the fancy was easy enough. I happened to overhear a quarrel between you and the earl just before his death; I saw you going towards the spot at the time the accident happened, as you may remember—"

"I did not go so far," interrupted Hartledon, wondering still whether this might not be the wanderings of a dying man. "I turned back into the trees at once, and walked slowly home. Many a time have I wished I had gone on!"

"Yes, yes; I was on the wrong scent. And there was that blow on his temple to keep up the error, which I know now must have been done against the estrade. I did suspect at the time, and your lordship will perhaps not forgive me for it. I let drop a word that I suspected something before that man Gorton, and he asked me what I meant; and I explained it away, and said I was chaffing him. And I have been all this time, up to a few weeks ago, learning the true particulars of how his lordship died."

Lord Hartledon decided that the man's mind was undoubtedly wandering.

But Pike was not wandering. And he told the story of the boy Ripper having been locked up in the mill. Mr. Ripper was almost a match for Pike himself in deceit; and Pike had only learned the facts by dint of long patience and perseverance and many threats. The boy had seen the whole accident; had watched it from the window where he was enclosed, unable to get out, unless he had torn away the grating. Lord Hartledon had lost all command of the little skiff, his arm being utterly disabled; and it came drifting down towards the mill, and struck against the estrade. The skiff righted itself at once, but not its owner: there was a slight struggle, a few cries, and he lay motionless, drifting later to the place where he was found. Mr. Ripper's opinion was that he had lost his senses with the blow on the temple, and fell an easy prey to death. Had that gentleman only sacrificed the grating and his own reputation, he might have saved him easily; and that fact had since been upon his conscience, making him fear all sorts of things, not the least of which was that he might be hanged as a murderer.

This story he had told Pike at the time, with one reserve—he persisted that he had not seen, only heard. Pike saw that the boy was still not telling the whole truth, and suspected he was screening Lord Hartledon—he who now stood before him. Mr. Ripper's logic tended to the belief that he could not be punished if he stuck to the avowal of having seen nothing. He had only heard the cries; and when Pike asked if they were cries as if he were being assaulted, the boy evasively answered "happen they were." Another little item he suppressed: that he found the purse at the bottom of the skiff, after he got out of the mill, and appropriated it to himself; and when he had fairly done that, he grew more afraid of having done it than of all the rest. The money he secreted, using it when he dared, a sixpence at a time; the case, with its papers, he buried in the spot where his master afterwards found it. With all this upon the young man's conscience, no wonder he was a little confused and contradictory in his statements to Pike: no wonder he fancied the ghost of the man he could have saved and did not, might now and then be hovering about him. Pike learned the real truth at last; and a compunction had come over him, now that he was dying, for having doubted Lord Hartledon.

"My lord, I can only ask you to forgive me. I ought to have known you better. But things seemed to corroborate it so: I've heard people say the new lord was as a man who had some great care upon him. Oh, I was a fool!"

"At any rate it was not that care, Pike; I would have saved my brother's life with my own, had I been at hand to do it. As to Ripper—I shall never bear to look upon him again."

"He's gone away," said Pike.

"Where has he gone?"

"The miller turned him off for idleness, and he's gone away, nobody knows where, to get work: I don't suppose he'll ever come back again. This is the real truth of the matter as it occurred, my lord; and there's no more behind it. Ripper has now told all he knows, just as fully as if he had been put to torture."

Lord Hartledon remained with Pike some time longer, soothing the man as much as it was in his power and kindly nature to soothe. He whispered a word of the clergyman, Dr. Ashton.

"Father says he shall bring him to-night," was the answer. "It's all a farce."

"I am sorry to hear you say that," returned Lord Hartledon, gravely.

"If I had never said a worse thing than that, my lord, I shouldn't hurt. Unless the accounts are made up beforehand, parsons can't avail much at the twelfth hour. Mother's lessons to me when a child, and her reading the Bible as she sits here in the night, are worth more than Dr. Ashton could do. But for those old lessons' having come home to me now, I might not have cared to ask your forgiveness. Dr. Ashton! what is he? For an awful sinner—and it's what I've been—there's only Christ. At times I think I've been too bad even for Him. I've only my sins to take to Him: never were worse in this world."

Lord Hartledon went out rather bewildered with the occurrences of the morning. Thinking it might be only kind to step into the clerk's, he crossed the stile and went in without ceremony by the open back-door. Mrs. Gum was alone in the kitchen, crying bitterly. She dried her eyes in confusion, as she curtsied to her visitor.

"I know all," he interrupted, in low, considerate tones, to the poor suffering woman. "I have been to see him. Never mind explanations: let us think what we can best do to lighten his last hours."

Mrs. Gum burst into deeper tears. It was a relief, no doubt: but she wondered how much Lord Hartledon knew.

"I say that he ought to be got away from that place, Mrs. Gum. It's not fit for a man to die in. You might have him here. Calne! Surely my protection will sufficiently screen him against tattling Calne!"

She shook her head, saying it was of no use talking to Willy about removal; he wouldn't have it; and she thought herself it might be better not. Jabez, too; if this ever came out in Calne, it would just kill him; his lordship knew what he was, and how he had cared for appearances all his life. No; it would not be for many more hours now, and Willy must die in the shed where he had lived.

Lord Hartledon sat down on the ironing-board, the white table underneath the window, in the old familiar manner of former days; many and many a time had he perched himself there to talk to her when he was young Val Elster.

"Only fancy what my life has been, my lord," she said. "People have called me nervous and timid; but look at the cause I've had! I was just beginning to get over the grief for his death, when he came here; and to the last hour of my life I shan't get the night out of my mind! I and Jabez were together in this very kitchen. I had come in to wash up the tea-things, and Jabez followed me. It was a cold, dark evening, and the parlour fire had got low. By token, my lord, we were talking of you; you had just gone away to be an ambassador, or something, and then we spoke of the wild, strange, black man who had crept into the shed; and Jabez, I remember, said he should acquaint Mr. Marris, if the fellow did not take himself off. I had seen him that very evening, at dusk, for the first time, when his great black face rose up against mine, nearly frightening me to death. Jabez was angry at such a man's being there, and said he should go up to Hartledon in the morning and see the steward. Just then there came a tap at the kitchen door, and Jabez went to it. It was the man; he had watched the servant out, and knew we were alone; and he came into the kitchen, and asked if we did not know him. Jabez did; he had seen Willy later than I had, and he recognized him; and the man took off his black hair and great black whiskers, and I saw it was Willy, and nearly fainted dead away."

There was a pause. Lord Hartledon did not speak, and she resumed, after a little indulgence in her grief.

"And since then all our aim has been to hide the truth, to screen him, and keep up the tale that we were afraid of the wild man. How it has been done I know not: but I do know that it has nearly killed me. What a night it was! When Jabez heard his story and forced him to answer all questions, I thought he would have given Willy up to the law there and then. My lord, we have just lived since with a sword over our heads!"

Lord Hartledon remembered the sword that had been over his own head, and sympathized with them from the depths of his heart.

"Tell me all," he said. "You are quite safe with me, Mrs. Gum."

"I don't know that there's much more to tell," she sighed. "We took the best precautions we could, in a quiet way, having the holes in the shutters filled up, and new locks put on the doors, lest people might look in or step in, while he sat here of a night, which he took to do. Jabez didn't like it, but I'm afraid I encouraged it. It was so lonely for him, that shed, and so unhealthy! We sent away the regular servant, and engaged one by day, so as to have the house to ourselves at night. If a knock came to the door, Willy would slip out to the wood-house before we opened it, lest it might be anybody coming in. He did not come in every night—two or three times a-week; and it never was pleasant; for Jabez would hardly open his mouth, unless it was to reproach him. Heaven alone knows what I've had to bear!"

"But, Mrs. Gum, I cannot understand. Why could not Willy have declared himself openly to the world?"

It was evidently a most painful question. Her eyes fell; the crimson of shame flushed into her cheeks; and he felt sorry to have asked it.

"Spare me, my lord, for I cannot tell you. Perhaps Jabez will: or Mr. Hillary; he knows. It doesn't much matter, now death's so near; but I think it would kill me to have to tell it."

"And no one except the doctor has ever known that it was Willy?"

"One more, my lord: Mirrable. We told her at once. I have had to hear all sorts of cruel things said of him," continued Mrs. Gum. "That he thieved and poached, and did I know not what; and we could only encourage the fancy, for it put people off the truth as to how he really lived."

"Amidst other things, they said, I believe, that he was out with the poachers the night my brother George was shot!"

"And that night, my lord, he sat over this kitchen fire, and never stirred from it. He was ill: it was rheumatism, caught in Australia, that took such a hold upon him; and I had him here by the fire till near daylight in the morning, so as to keep him out of the damp shed. What with fearing one thing and another, I grew into a state of perpetual terror."

"Then you will not have him in here now," said Lord Hartledon, rising.

"I cannot," she said, her tears falling silently.

"Well, Mrs. Gum, I came in just to say a word of true sympathy. You have it heartily, and my services also, if necessary. Tell Jabez so."

He quitted the house by the front-door, as if he had been honouring the clerk's wife with a morning-call, should any curious person happen to be passing, and went across through the snow to the surgeon's. Mr. Hillary, an old bachelor, was at his early dinner, and Lord Hartledon sat down and talked to him.

"It's only rump steak; but few cooks can beat mine, and it's very good. Won't your lordship take a mouthful by way of luncheon?"

"My curiosity is too strong for luncheon just now," said Val. "I have come over to know the rights and wrongs of this story. What has Willy Gum been doing in the past years that it cannot be told?"

"I am not sure that it would be safe to say while he's living."

"Not safe! with me! Was it safe with you?"

"But I don't consider myself obliged to give up to justice any poor criminal who comes in my way," said the surgeon; and Val felt a little vexed, although he saw that he was joking.

"Come, Hillary!"

"Well, then, Willy Gum was coming home in the Morning Star; and a mutiny broke out—mutiny and murder, and everything else that's bad; and one George Gordon was the ringleader."

"Yes. Well?"

"Willy Gum was George Gordon."

"What!" exclaimed Hartledon, not knowing how to accept the words. "How could he be George Gordon?"

"Because the real George Gordon never sailed at all; and this fellow Gum went on board in his name, calling himself Gordon."

Lord Hartledon leaned back in his chair and listened to the explanation. A very simple one, after all. Gum, one of the wildest and most careless characters possible when in Australia, gambled away, before sailing, the money he had acquired. Accident made him acquainted with George Gordon, also going home in the same ship and with money. Gordon was killed the night before sailing—(Mr. Carr had well described it as a drunken brawl)—killed accidentally. Gum was present; he saw his opportunity, went on board as Gordon, and claimed the luggage—some of it gold—already on board. How the mutiny broke out was less clear; but one of the other passengers knew Gum, and threatened to expose him; and perhaps this led to it. Gum, at any rate, was the ringleader, and this passenger was one of the first killed. Gum—Gordon as he was called—contrived to escape in the open boat, and found his way to land; thence, disguised, to England and to Calne; and at Calne he had since lived, with the price offered for George Gordon on his head.

It was a strange and awful story: and Lord Hartledon felt a shiver run through him as he listened. In truth, that shed was the safest and fittest place for him to die in!

As die he did ere the third day was over. And was buried as Pike, the wild man, without a mourner. Clerk Gum stood over the grave in his official capacity; and Dr. Ashton, who had visited the sick man, himself read the service, which caused some wonder in Calne.

And the following week Lord Hartledon caused the shed to be cleared away, and the waste land ploughed; saying he would have no more tramps encamping next door to Mr. and Mrs. Gum.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE DOWAGER'S ALARM.

Again the years went on, bringing not altogether comfort to the house of Hartledon. As Anne's children were born—there were three now—a sort of jealous rivalry seemed to arise between them and the two elder children; and this in spite of Anne's efforts to the contrary. The moving spring was the countess-dowager, who in secret excited the elder children against their little brothers and sister; but so craftily that Anne could produce nothing tangible to remonstrate against. Things would grow tolerably smooth during the old woman's absences; but she took good care not to make those absences lengthened, and then all the ill-nature and rebellion reigned triumphant.

Once only Anne spoke of this, and that was to her father. She hinted at the state of things, and asked his advice. Why did not Val interpose his authority, and forbid the dowager the house, if she could not keep herself from making mischief in it, sensibly asked the Rector. But Anne said neither she nor Val liked to do this. And then the Rector fancied there was some constraint in his daughter's voice, and she was not telling him the whole case unreservedly. He inquired no further, only gave her the best advice in his power: to be watchful, and counteract the dowager's influence, as far as she could; and trust to time; doing her own duty religiously by the children.

What Anne had not mentioned to Dr. Ashton was her husband's conduct in the matter. In that one respect she could read him no better than of old. Devoted to her as he was, as she knew him to be, in the children's petty disputes he invariably took the part of his first wife's—to the glowing satisfaction of the countess-dowager. No matter how glaringly wrong they might be, how tyrannical, Hartledon screened the elder, and—to use the expression of the nurses—snubbed the younger. Kind and good though Lady Hartledon was, she felt it acutely; and, to say the truth, was sorely puzzled and perplexed.

Lord Elster was an ailing child, and Mr. Brook, the apothecary, was always in attendance when they were in London. Lady Hartledon thought the boy's health might have been better left more to nature, but she would not have said so for the world. The dowager, on the contrary, would have preferred that half the metropolitan faculty should see him daily. She had a jealous dread of anything happening to the boy, and Anne's son becoming the heir.

Lord Hartledon was a busy man now, and had a place in the Government—though not as yet in the Cabinet. Whatever his secret care might have been, it was now passive; he was a general favourite, and courted in society. He was still young; the face as genial, the manners as free, the dark-blue eyes as kindly as of yore; eminently attractive in earlier days, he was so still; and his love for his wife amounted to a passion.

At the close of a sharp winter, when they had come up to town in January, that Lord Hartledon might be at his post, and the countess-dowager was inflicting upon them one of her long visits, it happened that Lord Elster seemed very poorly. Mr. Brook was called in, and said he would send a powder. He was called in so often to the boy as to take it quite as a matter of course; and, truth to say, thought the present indisposition nothing but a slight cold.

Late in the evening the two boys happened to be alone in the nursery, the nurse being temporarily absent from it. Edward was now a tall, slender, handsome boy in knickerbockers; Reginald a timid little fellow, several years younger—rendered timid by Edward's perpetual tyranny, which he might not resent. Edward was quiet enough this evening; he felt ill and shivery, and sat close to the fire. Casting his eyes upwards, he espied Mr. Brook's powder on the mantelpiece, with the stereotyped direction—"To be taken at bedtime." It was lying close to the jam-pot, which the head-nurse had put ready. Of course he had the greatest possible horror of medicine, and his busy thoughts began to run upon how he might avoid that detestable powder. The little fellow was sitting on the carpet playing with his bricks. Edward turned his eyes on his brother, and a bright thought occurred to him.

"Regy," said he, taking down the pot, "come here. Look at this jam: isn't it nice? It's raspberry and currant."

The child left his bricks to bend over the tempting compound.

"I'll give it you every bit to eat before nurse comes back," continued the boy, "if you'll eat this first."

Reginald cast a look upon the powder his brother exhibited. "What is it?" he lisped; "something good?"

"Delicious. It's just come in from the sweet-stuff shop. Open your mouth—wide."

Reginald did as he was bid: opened his mouth to its utmost width, and the boy shot in the powder.

It happened to be a preparation of that nauseous drug familiarly known as "Dover's powder." The child found it so, and set up a succession of shrieks, which aroused the house. The nurse rushed in; and Lord and Lady Hartledon, both of whom were dressing for dinner, appeared on the scene. There stood Reginald, coughing, choking, and roaring; and there sat the culprit, equably devouring the jam. With time and difficulty the facts were elicited from the younger child, and the elder scorned to deny them.

"What a wicked, greedy Turk you must be!" ejaculated the nurse, who was often in hot water with the elder boy.

"But Reginald need not have screamed so," testily interposed Lord Hartledon. "I thought one of them must be on fire. You naughty child, why did you scream?" he continued, giving Reginald a slight tap on the ear.

"Any child would scream at being so taken by surprise," said Lady Hartledon. "It is Edward who is in fault, not Reginald; and it is he who deserves punishment."

"And he should have it, if he were my son," boldly declared the nurse, as she picked up the unhappy Reginald. "A great greedy boy, to swallow down every bit of the jam, and never give his brother a taste, after poisoning him with that nasty powder!"

Edward rose, and gave the nurse a look of scorn. "The powder's good enough for him: he is nothing but a young brat, and I am Lord Elster."

Lady Hartledon felt provoked. "What is that you say, Edward?" she asked, laying her hand upon his shoulder in reproval.

"Let me alone, mamma. He'll never be anything but Regy Elster. I shall be Lord Hartledon, and jam's proper for me, and it's fair I should put upon him."

The nurse flounced off with Reginald, and Lady Hartledon turned to her husband. "Is this to be suffered? Will you allow it to pass without correction?"

"He means nothing," said Val. "Do you, Edward, my boy?"

"Yes, I do; I mean what I say. I shall stand up for myself and Maude."

Hartledon made no remonstrance: only drew the boy to him, with a hasty gesture, as though he would shield him from anger and the world.

Anne, hurt almost to tears, quitted the room. But she had scarcely reached her own when she remembered that she had left a diamond brooch in the nursery, which she had just been about to put into her dress when alarmed by the cries. She went back for it, and stood almost confounded by what she saw. Lord Hartledon, sitting down, had clasped his boy in his arms, and was sobbing over him; emotion such as man rarely betrays.

"Papa, Regy and the other two are not going to put me and Maude out of our places, are they? They can't, you know. We come first."

"Yes, yes, my boy; no one shall put you out," was the answer, as he pressed passionate kisses on the boy's face. "I will stand by you for ever."

Very judicious indeed! the once sensible man seemed to ignore the evident fact that the boy had been tutored. Lady Hartledon, a fear creeping over her, she knew not of what, left her brooch where it was, and stole back to her dressing-room.

Presently Val came in, all traces of emotion removed from his features. Lady Hartledon had dismissed her maid, and stood leaning against the arm of the sofa, indulging in bitter rumination.

"Silly children!" cried he; "it's hard work to manage them. And Edward has lost his pow—"

He broke off; stopped by the look of angry reproach from his wife, cast on him for the first time in their married life. He took her hand and bent down to her: fervent love, if ever she read it, in his eyes and tones.

"Forgive me, Anne; you are feeling this."

"Why do you throw these slights on my children? Why are you not more just?"

"I do not intend to slight our children, Anne, Heaven knows. But I—I cannot punish Edward."

"Why did you ever make me your wife?" sighed Lady Hartledon, drawing her hand away.

His poor assumption of unconcern was leaving him quickly; his face was changing to one of bitter sorrow.

"When I married you," she resumed, "I had reason to hope that should children be born to us, you would love them equally with your first; I had a right to hope it. What have I done that—"

"Stay, Anne! I can bear anything better than reproach from you."

"What have I and my children done to you, I was about to ask, that you take this aversion to them? lavishing all your love on the others and upon them only injustice?"

Val bent down, agitation in his face and voice.

"Hush, Anne! you don't know. The danger is that I should love your children better, far better than Maude's. It might be so if I did not guard against it."

"I cannot understand you," she exclaimed.

"Unfortunately, I understand myself only too well. I have a heavy burden to bear; do not you—my best and dearest—increase it."

She looked at him keenly; laid her hands upon him, tears gathering in her eyes. "Tell me what the burden is; tell me, Val! Let me share it."

But Val drew in again at once, alarmed at the request: and contradicted himself in the most absurd manner.

"There's nothing to share, Anne; nothing to tell."

Certainly this change was not propitiatory. Lady Hartledon, chilled and mortified, disdained to pursue the theme. Drawing herself up, she turned to go down to dinner, remarking that he might at least treat the children with more apparent justice.

"I am just; at least, I wish to be just," he broke forth in impassioned tones. "But I cannot be severe with Edward and Maude."

Another powder was procured, and, amidst much fighting and resistance, was administered. Lady Hartledon was in the boy's room the first thing in the morning. One grand quality in her was, that she never visited her vexation on the children; and Edward, in spite of his unamiable behaviour, did at heart love her, whilst he despised his grandmother; one of his sources of amusement being to take off that estimable old lady's peculiarities behind her back, and send the servants into convulsions.

"You look very hot, Edward," exclaimed Lady Hartledon, as she kissed him. "How do you feel?"

"My throat's sore, mamma, and my legs could not find a cold place all night. Feel my hand."

It was a child's answer, sufficiently expressive. An anxious look rose to her countenance.

"Are you sure your throat is sore?"

"It's very sore. I am so thirsty."

Lady Hartledon gave him some weak tea, and sent for Mr. Brook to come round as soon as possible. At breakfast she met the dowager, who had been out the previous evening during the powder episode. Lady Hartledon mentioned to her husband that she had sent a message to the doctor, not much liking Edward's symptoms.

"What's the matter with him?" asked the dowager, quickly. "What are his symptoms?"

"Nay, I may be wrong," said Lady Hartledon, with a smile. "I won't infect you with my fears, when there may be no reason for them."

The countess-dowager caught at the one word, and applied it in a manner never anticipated. She was the same foolish old woman she had ever been; indeed, her dread of catching any disorder had only grown with the years. And it happened, unfortunately for her peace, that the disorder which leaves its cruel traces on the most beautiful face was just then prevalent in London. Of all maladies the human frame is subject to, the vain old creature most dreaded that one. She rose up from her seat; her face turned pale, and her teeth began to chatter.

"It's small-pox! If I have a horror of one thing more than another, it's that dreadful, disfiguring malady. I wouldn't stay in a house where it was for a hundred thousand pounds. I might catch it and be marked for life!"

Lady Hartledon begged her to be composed, and Val smothered a laugh. The symptoms were not those of small-pox.

"How should you know?" retorted the dowager, drowning the reassuring words. "How should any one know? Get Pepps here directly. Have you sent for him?"

"No," said Anne. "I have more confidence in Mr. Brook where children are concerned."

"Confidence in Brook!" shrieked the dowager, pushing up her flaxen front. "A common, overworked apothecary! Confidence in him, Lady Hartledon! Elster's life may be in danger; he is my grandchild, and I insist on Pepps being fetched to him."

Anne sat down at once and wrote a brief note to Sir Alexander. It happened that the message sent to Mr. Brook had found that gentleman away from home, and the greater man arrived first. He looked at the child, asked a few bland questions, and wrote a prescription. He did not say what the illness might be: for he never hazarded a premature opinion. As he was leaving the chamber, a servant accosted him.

"Lady Kirton wishes to see you, sir."

"Well, Pepps," cried she, as he advanced, having loaded herself with camphor, "what is it?"

"I do not take upon myself to pronounce an opinion, Lady Kirton," rejoined the doctor, who had grown to feel irritated lately at the dowager's want of ceremony towards him. "In the early stage of a disorder it can rarely be done with certainty."

"Now don't let's have any of that professional humbug, Pepps," rejoined her ladyship. "You doctors know a common disorder as soon as you see it, only you think it looks wise not to say. Is it small-pox?"

"It's not impossible," said the doctor, in his wrath.

The dowager gasped.

"But I do not observe any symptoms of that malady developing themselves at present," added the doctor. "I think I may say it is not small-pox."

"Good patience, Pepps! you'll frighten me into it. It is and it isn't—what do you mean? What is it, if it's not that?"

"I may be able to tell after a second visit. Good morning, Lady Kirton," said he, backing out. "Take care you don't do yourself an injury with too much of that camphor. It is exciting."

In a short time Mr. Brook arrived. When he had seen the child and was alone with Lady Hartledon, she explained that the countess-dowager had wished Sir Alexander Pepps called in, and showed him the prescription just written. He read it and laid it down.

"Lady Hartledon," said he, "I must venture to disagree with that prescription. Lord Elster's symptoms are those of scarlet-fever, and it would be unwise to administer it. Sir Alexander stands of course much higher in the profession than I do, but my practice with children is larger than his."

"I feared it was scarlet-fever," answered Lady Hartledon. "What is to be done? I have every confidence in you, Mr. Brook; and were Edward my own child, I should know how to act. Do you think it would be dangerous to give him this prescription? You may speak confidentially."

"Not dangerous; it is a prescription that will do neither harm nor good. I suspect Sir Alexander could not detect the nature of the illness, and wrote this merely to gain time. It is not an infrequent custom to do so. In my opinion, not an hour should be lost in giving him a more efficacious medicine; early treatment is everything in scarlet-fever."

Lady Hartledon had been rapidly making up her mind. "Send in what you think right to be taken, immediately," she said, "and meet Sir Alexander in consultation later on."

Scarlet-fever it proved to be; not a mild form of it; and in a very few hours Lord Elster was in great danger, the throat being chiefly affected. The house was in commotion; the dowager worse than any one in it. A complication of fears beset her: first, terror for her own safety, and next, the less abject dread that death might remove her grandchild. In this latter fear she partly lost her personal fears, so far at any rate as to remain in the house; for it seemed to her that the child would inevitably die if she left it. Late in the afternoon she rushed into the presence of the doctors, who had just been holding a second consultation.

Sir Alexander Pepps recommended leeches to the throat: Mr. Brook disapproved of them. "It is the one chance for his life," said Sir Alexander.

"It is removing nearly all chance," said Mr. Brook.

Sir Alexander prevailed; and when they came forth it was understood that leeches were to be applied. But here Lady Hartledon stepped in.

"I dread leeches to the throat, Sir Alexander, if you will forgive me for saying so. I have twice seen them applied in scarlet-fever; and the patients—one a young lady, the other a child—in both cases died."

"Madam, I have given my opinion," curtly returned the physician. "They are necessary in Lord Elster's case."

"Do you approve of leeches?" cried Lady Hartledon, turning to Mr. Brook.

"Not altogether," was the cautious answer.

"Answer me one question, Mr. Brook," said Lady Hartledon, in her earnestness. "Would you apply these leeches were you treating the case alone?"

"No, madam, I would not."

Anne appealed to her husband. When the medical men differed, she thought the decision lay with him.

"I'm sure I don't know," returned Val, who felt perfectly helpless to advise. "Can't you decide, Anne? You know more about children and illness than I do."

"I would do so without hesitating a moment were it my own child," she replied. "I would not allow them to be put on."

"No, you would rather see him die," interrupted the dowager, who overheard the words, and most intemperately and unjustifiably answered them.

Anne coloured with shame for the old woman, but the words silenced her: how was it possible to press her own opinion after that? Sir Alexander had it all his own way, and the leeches were applied on either side the throat, Mr. Brook emphatically asserting in Lady Hartledon's private ear that he "washed his hands" of the measure. Before they came off the consequences were apparent; the throat was swollen outwardly, on both sides; within, it appeared to be closing.

The dowager, rather beside herself on the whole, had insisted on the leeches. Any one, seeing her conduct now, might have thought the invalid boy was really dear to her. Nothing of the sort. A hazy idea had been looming through her mind for years that Val was not strong; she had been mistaking mental disease for bodily illness; and a project to have full control of her grandchild, should he come into the succession prematurely, had coloured her dreams. This charming prospect would be ignominiously cut short if the boy went first.

Sir Alexander saw his error. There must be something peculiar in Lord Elster's constitution, he blandly said; it would not have happened in another. Of course, anything that turns out a mistake always is in the constitution—never in the treatment. Whether he lived or died now was just the turn of a straw: the chances were that he would die. All that could be done now was to endeavour to counteract the mischief by external applications.

"I wish you would let me try a remedy," said Lady Hartledon, wistfully. "A compress of cold water round the throat with oilsilk over it. I have seen it do so much good in cases of inward inflammation."

Mr. Brook smiled: if anything would do good that might, he said, speaking as if he had little faith in remedies now. Sir Alexander intimated that her ladyship might try it; graciously observing that it would do no harm.

The application was used, and the evening went on. The child had fallen into a sort of stupor, and Mr. Brook came in again before he had been away an hour, and leaned anxiously over the patient. He lay with his eyes half-closed, and breathed with difficulty.

"I think," he exclaimed softly, "there's the slightest shade of improvement."

"In the fever, or the throat?" whispered Lady Hartledon, who had not quitted the boy's bedside.

"In the throat. If so, it is due to your remedy, Lady Hartledon."

"Is he in danger?"

"In great danger. Still, I see a gleam of hope."

After the surgeon's departure, she went down to her husband, meeting Hedges on the stairs, who was coming to inquire after the patient for his master, for about the fiftieth time. Hartledon was in the library, pacing about incessantly in the darkness, for the room was only lighted by the fire. Anne closed the door and approached him.

"Percival, I do not bring you very good tidings," she said; "and yet they might be worse. Mr. Brook tells me he is in great danger, but thinks he sees a gleam of hope."

Lord Hartledon took her hand within his arm and resumed his pacing; his eyes were fixed on the carpet, and he said nothing.

"Don't grieve as those without hope," she continued, her eyes filling with tears. "He may yet recover. I have been praying that it may be so."

"Don't pray for it," he cried, his tone one of painful entreaty. "I have been daring to pray that it might please God to take him."

"Percival!" she exclaimed, starting away from him.

"I am not mad, Anne. Death would be a more merciful fate for my boy than life. Death now, whilst he is innocent, safe in Christ's love!—death, in Heaven's mercy!"

And Anne crept back to the upper chamber, sick with terror; for she did think that the trouble of his child's state was affecting her husband's brain.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

A PAINFUL SCENE.

Lord and Lady Hartledon were entertaining a family group. The everlasting dowager kept to them unpleasantly; making things unbearable, and wearing out her welcome in no slight degree, if she had only been wise enough to see it. She had escaped scarlet-fever and other dreaded ills; and was alive still. For that matter, the little Lord Elster had come out of it also: not unscathed; for the boy remained a sickly wreck, and there was very little hope that he would really recover. The final close might be delayed, but it was not to be averted. Before Easter they had left London for Hartledon, that he might have country air. Lord Hartledon's eldest sister, Lady Margaret Cooper, came there with her husband; and on this day the other sister, Lady Laura Level, had arrived from India. Lady Margaret was an invalid, and not an agreeable woman besides; but to Laura and Anne the meeting, after so many years' separation, was one of intense pleasure. They had been close friends from childhood.

They were all gathered together in the large drawing-room after luncheon. The day was a wet one, and no one had ventured out except Sir James Cooper. Accustomed to the Scotch mists, this rain seemed a genial shower, and Sir James was enjoying it accordingly. It was a warm, close day, in spite of the rain; and the large fire in the grate made the room oppressive, so that they were glad to throw the windows open.

Lying on a sofa near the fire was the invalid boy. By merely looking at him you might see that he would never rally, though he fluctuated much. To-day he was, comparatively speaking, well. Little Maude was threading beads; and the two others, much younger, stood looking on—Reginald and Anne. Lady Margaret Cooper, having a fellow-feeling for an invalid, sat near the sick boy. Lord Hartledon sat apart at a table reading, and making occasional notes. The dowager, more cumbersome than ever, dozed on the other side of the hearth. She was falling into the habit of taking a nap after luncheon as well as after dinner. Lady Laura was in danger of convulsions every time she looked at the dowager. Never in all her life had she seen so queer an old figure. She and Anne stood together at an open window, the one eagerly asking questions, the other answering, all in undertones. Lady Laura had been away from her own home and kindred some twelve years, and it seemed to her half a lifetime.

"Anne, how was it?" she exclaimed. "It was a thing that always puzzled me, and I never came to the bottom of it. My husband said at the time I used to talk of it in my sleep."

"What do you mean?"

"About you and Val. You were engaged to each other; you loved him, and he loved you. How came that other marriage about?"

"Well, I can hardly tell you. I was at Cannes with mamma, and he fell into the meshes. We knew nothing about it until they were married. Never mind all that now; I don't care to recall it, and it is a very sore point with Val. The blame, I believe, lay chiefly with her."

Anne glanced at the dowager, to indicate whom she meant. Lady Laura's eyes followed the same direction, and she laughed.

"A painted old guy! She looks like one who would do it. Why doesn't some one put her under a glass case and take her to the British Museum? When news of the marriage came out to India I was thunderstruck. I wrote off at once to Val, asking all sorts of questions, and received quite a savage reply, telling me to mind my own business. That letter alone would have told me how Val repented; it was so unlike him. Do you know what I did?"

"What did you do?"

"Sent him another letter by return mail with only two words in it—'Elster's Folly.' Poor Val! She died of heart-disease, did she not?"

"Yes. But she seemed to have been ailing for some time. She was greatly changed."

"Val is changed. There are threads of silver in his hair; and he is so much quieter than I thought he ever would be. I wonder you took him, Anne, after all; and I wonder still more that Dr. Ashton allowed it."

A blush tinged Lady Hartledon's face as she looked out at the soft rain, and a half-smile parted her lips.

"I see, Anne. Love once, love ever; and I suppose it was the same with Val, in spite of his folly. I should have taken out my revenge by marrying the first eligible man that offered himself. Talking of that—is poor Mr. Graves married yet?"

"Yes, at last," said Anne, laughing. "A grand match too for him, poor timid man: his wife's a lord's daughter, and as tall as a house."

"If ever man worshipped woman he worshipped you, though you were only a girl."

"Nonsense, Laura."

"Anne, you knew it quite well; and so did Val. Did he ever screw his courage up to the point of proposing?"

Anne laughed. "If he ever did, I was too vexed to answer him. He will be very happy, Laura. His wife is a meek, amiable woman, in spite of her formidable height."

"And now I want you to tell me one thing—How was it that Edward could not be saved?"

For a moment Lady Hartledon did not understand, and turned her eyes on the boy.

"I mean my brother, Anne. When news came out to India that he had died in that shocking manner, following upon poor George—I don't care now to recall how I felt. Was there no one at hand to save him?"

"No one. A sad fatality seemed to attend it altogether. Val regrets his brother bitterly to this day."

"And that poor Willy Gum was killed at sea, after all!"

"Yes," said Anne, shortly. "When you spoke of Edward," returning to the other subject, "I thought you meant the boy."

Lady Laura shook her head. "He will never get well, Anne. Death is written on his face."

"You would say so, if you saw him some days. He is excitable, and your coming has roused him. I never saw any one fluctuate so; one day dying, the next better again. For myself I have very little hope, and Mr. Hillary has none; but I dare not say so to Margaret and the dowager."

"Why not?"

"It makes them angry. They cannot bear to hear there's a possibility of his death. Margaret may see the danger, but I don't believe the dowager does."

"Their wishes must blind them," observed Lady Laura. "The dowager seems all fury and folly. She scarcely gave herself time to welcome me this morning, or to inquire how I was after my long voyage; but began descanting on a host of evils, the chief being that her grandson should have had fever."

"She would like him to bear a charmed life. Not for love of him, Laura."

"What then?"

"I do not believe she has a particle of love for him. Don't think me uncharitable; it is the truth; Val will tell you the same. She is not capable of experiencing common affection for any one; every feeling of her nature is merged in self-interest. Had her daughter left another boy she would not be dismayed at the prospect of this one's death; whether he lived or died, it would be all one to her. The grievance is that Reginald should have the chance of succeeding."

"Because he is your son. I understand. A vain, puffed-up old thing! the idea of her still painting her face and wearing false curls! I wonder you tolerate her in your house, Anne! She's always here."

"How can I help myself? She considers, I believe, that she has more right in this house than I have."

"Does she make things uncomfortable?"

"More so than I have ever confessed, even to my husband. From the hour of my marriage she set the two children against me, and against my children when they came; and she never ceases to do so still."

"Why do you submit to it?"

"She is their grandmother, and I cannot well deny her the house. Val might do so, but he does not. Perhaps I should have had courage to attempt it, for the children's own sake, it is so shocking to train them to ill-nature, but that he appears to think as she does. The petty disputes between the children are frequent—for my two elder ones are getting of an age to turn again when put upon—but their father never corrects Edward and Maude, or allows them to be corrected; let them do what wrong they will, he takes their part. I believe that if Edward killed one of my children, he would only caress him."

Lady Laura turned her eyes on the speaker's face, on its flush of pain and mortification.

"And Val loved you: and did not love Maude! What does it mean, Anne?"

"I cannot tell you. Things altogether are growing more than I can bear."

"Margaret has been with you some time; has she not interfered, or tried to put things upon a right footing?"

Anne shook her head. "She espouses the dowager's side; upholds the two children in their petty tyranny. No one in the house takes my part, or my children's."

"That is just like Margaret. Do you remember how you and I used to dread her domineering spirit when we were girls? It's time I came, I think, to set things right."

"Laura, neither you nor any one else can set things right. They have been wrong too long. The worst is, I cannot see what the evil is, as regards Val. If I ask him he repels me, or laughs at me, and tells me I am fanciful. That he has some secret trouble I have long known: his days are unhappy, his nights restless; often when he thinks me asleep I am listening to his sighs. I am glad you have come home; I have wanted a true friend to confide these troubles to, and I could only speak of them to one of the family."

"It sounds like a romance," cried Laura. "Some secret grief! What can it be?"

They were interrupted by a commotion. Maude had been threading a splendid ring all the colours of the rainbow, and now exhibited it for the benefit of admiring beholders.

"Papa—Aunt Margaret—look at my ring."

Lord Hartledon nodded pleasantly at the child from his distant seat; Lady Margaret appeared not to have heard; and Maude caught up a soft ball and threw it at her aunt.

Unfortunately, it took a wrong direction, and struck the nodding dowager on the nose. She rose up in a fury and some commotion ensued.

"Make me a ring, Maude," little Anne lisped when the dowager had subsided into her chair again. Maude took no notice; her finger was still lifted with the precious ornament.

"Can you see it from your sofa, Edward?"

The boy rose and stretched himself. "Pretty well. You have put it on the wrong finger, Maude. Ladies don't wear rings on the little finger."

"But it won't go on the others," said Maude dolefully: "it's too small."

"Make a larger one."

"Make one for me, Maude," again broke in Anne's little voice.

"No, I won't!" returned Maude. "You are big enough to thread beads for yourself."

"No, she's not," said Reginald. "Make her one, Maude."

"No, don't, Maude," said Edward. "Let them do things for themselves."

"You hear!" whispered Lady Hartledon.

"I do hear. And Val sits there and never reproves them; and the old dowager's head and eyes are nodding and twinkling approval."

Lady Laura was an energetic little woman, thin, and pale, and excessively active, with a propensity for setting the world straight, and a tongue as unceremoniously free as the dowager's. In the cause of justice she would have stood up to battle with a giant. Lady Hartledon was about to make some response, but she bade her wait; her attention was absorbed by the children. Perhaps the truth was that she was burning to have a say in the matter herself.

"Maude," she called out, "if that ring is too small for you, it would do for Anne, and be kind of you to give it her."

Maude looked dubious. Left to herself, the child would have been generous enough. She glanced at the dowager.

"May I give it her, grand'ma?"

Grand'ma was conveniently deaf. She would rather have cut the ring in two than it should be given to the hated child: but, on the other hand, she did not care to offend Laura Level, who possessed inconveniently independent opinions, and did not shrink from proclaiming them. Seizing the poker, she stirred the fire, and created a divertissement.

In the midst of it, Edward left his sofa and walked up to the group and their beads. He was very weak, and tottered unintentionally against Anne. The touch destroyed her equilibrium, and she fell into Maude's lap. There was no damage done, but the box of beads was upset on to the carpet. Maude screamed at the loss of her treasures, rose up with anger, and slapped Anne. The child cried out.

"Why d'you hit her?" cried Reginald. "It was Edward's fault; he pushed her."

"What's that!" exclaimed Edward. "My fault! I'll teach you to say that," and he struck Reginald a tingling slap on the cheek.

Of course there was loud crying. The dowager looked on with a red face. Lady Margaret Cooper, who had no children of her own, stopped her ears. Lady Laura laid her hand on her sister-in law's wrist.

"And you can witness these scenes, and not check them! You are changed, indeed, Anne!"

"If I interfere to protect my children, I am checked and prevented," replied Lady Hartledon, with quivering lips. "This scene is nothing to what we have sometimes."

"Who checks you—Val?"

"The dowager. But he does not interpose for me. Where the children are concerned, he tacitly lets her have sway. It is not often anything of this sort takes place in his presence."

The noise continued: all the children seemed to be fighting together. Anne went forward and drew her own two out of the fray.

"Pray send those two screamers to the nursery, Lady Hartledon," cried the dowager.

"I cannot think why they are allowed in the drawing-room at all," said Lady Margaret, addressing no one in particular, unless it was the ceiling. "Edward and Maude would be quiet enough without them."

Anne did not retort: she only glanced at her husband, silent reproach on her pale face, and took up Anne in her arms to carry her from the room. But Lady Laura, impulsive and warm, came forward and stopped the exit.

"Lady Kirton, I am ashamed of you! Margaret, I am ashamed of you! I am ashamed of you all. You are doing the children a lasting injury, and you are guilty of cruel insult to Lady Hartledon. This is the second scene I have been a witness to, when the elder children were encouraged to behave badly to the younger; the first was in the nursery this morning; and I have been here only a few hours. And you, Lord Hartledon, their head and father, responsible for your children's welfare, can tamely sit by, and suffer it, and see your wife insulted! Is this what you married Anne Ashton for?"

Lord Hartledon rose: a strange look of pain on his features. "You are mistaken, Laura. I wish every respect to be shown to my wife; respect from all. Anne knows it."

"Respect!" scornfully retorted Lady Laura. "When you do not give her so much as a voice in her own house; when you allow her children to be trampled on, and beaten—beaten, sir—and she dare not interfere! I blush for you, and could never have believed you would so behave to your wife. Who are you, madam," turning again, in her anger, on the countess-dowager, "and who are you, Margaret, that you should dare to encourage Edward and Maude in rebellion against their present mother?"

Taken by surprise, the dowager made no answer. Lady Margaret looked defiance.

"You and Anne have invited me to your house on a lengthened visit, Lord Hartledon," continued Laura; "but I promise you that if this is to continue I will not remain in it; I will not witness insult to my early friend; and I will not see children incited to evil passions. Undress that child, sir," she sharply added, directing Val's attention to Reginald, "and you will see bruises on his back and shoulder. I saw them this morning, and asked the nurse what caused them and was told Lord Elster kicked him."

"It was the little beggar's own fault," interposed Edward, who was standing his ground with equanimity, and seemed to enjoy the scene.

Lady Laura caught him sharply by the arm. "Of whom are you speaking! Who's a little beggar?"

"Regy is."

"Who taught you to call him one?"

"Grand'ma."

"There, go away; go away all of you," cried Lady Laura, turning the two elder ones from the room imperatively, after Anne and her children. "Oh, so you are going also, Val! No wonder you are ashamed to stay here."

He was crossing the room; a curious expression on his drawn lips. Laura watched him from it; then went and stood before the dowager; her back to her sister.

"Has it ever struck you, Lady Kirton, that you may one day have to account for this?"

"It strikes me that you are making a vast deal of unnecessary noise, Madame Laura!"

"If your daughter could look on, from the other world, at earth and its scenes—and some hold a theory that such a state of things is not impossible—what would be her anguish, think you, at the evil you are inculcating in her children? One of them will very soon be with her—"

The dowager interrupted with a sort of howl.

"He will; there is no mistaking it. You who see him constantly may not detect it; but it is evident to a stranger. Were it not beneath me, I might ask on what grounds you tutor him to call Reginald a beggar, considering that your daughter brought my brother nothing but a few debts; whilst Miss Ashton brought him a large fortune?"

"I wouldn't condescend to be mean, Laura," put in Lady Margaret, whilst the dowager fanned her hot face.

They were interrupted by Hedges, showing in visitors. How much more Lady Laura might have said must remain unknown: she was in a mood to say a great deal.

"Mr. and Mrs. Graves."

It was the curate; and the tall, meek woman spoken of by Anne. Laura laughed as she shook hands with the former; whom she had known when a girl, and been given to ridiculing more than was quite polite.

Lord Hartledon had left the room after his wife. She sent the children to the nursery; and he found her alone in her chamber sobbing bitterly.

Certainly he was a contradiction. He fondly took her in his arms, beseeching her to pardon him, if he had unwittingly slighted her, as Laura implied; and his blue eyes were beaming with affection, his voice was low with persuasive tenderness.

"There are times," she sobbed, "when I am tempted to wish myself back in my father's house!"

"I cannot think whence all this discomfort arises!" he weakly exclaimed. "Of one thing, Anne, rest assured: as soon as Edward changes for the better or the worse—and one it must inevitably be—that mischief-making old woman shall quit my house for ever."

"Edward will never change for the better," she said. "For the worse, he may soon: for the better, never."

"I know: Hillary has told me. Bear with things a little longer, and believe that I will remedy them the moment remedy is possible. I am your husband."

Lady Hartledon lifted her eyes to his. "We cannot go on as we are going on now. Tell me what it is you have to bear. You remind me that you are my husband; I now remind you that I am your wife: confide in me. I will be true and loving to you, whatever it may be."

"Not yet; in a little time, perhaps. Bear with me still, my dear wife."

His look was haggard; his voice bore a sound of anguish; he clasped her hand to pain as he left her. Whatever might be his care, Anne could not doubt his love.

And as he went into the drawing-room, a smile on his face, chatting with the curate, laughing with his newly-married wife, both those unsuspicious visitors could have protested when they went forth, that never was a man more free from trouble than that affable servant of her Majesty's the Earl of Hartledon.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

EXPLANATIONS.

A change for the worse occurred in the child, Lord Elster; and after two or three weeks' sinking he died, and was buried at Hartledon by the side of his mother. Hartledon's sister quitted Hartledon House for a change; but the countess-dowager was there still, and disturbed its silence with moans and impromptu lamentations, especially when going up and down the staircase and along the corridors.

Mr. Carr, who had come for the funeral, also remained. On the day following it he and Lord Hartledon were taking a quiet walk together, when they met Mrs. Gum. Hartledon stopped and spoke to her in his kindly manner. She was less nervous than she used to be; and she and her husband were once more at peace in their house.

"I would not presume to say a word of sympathy, my lord," she said, curtseying, "but we felt it indeed. Jabez was cut up like anything when he came in yesterday from the funeral."

Val looked at her, a meaning she understood in his earnest eyes. "Yes, it is hard to part with our children: but when grief is over, we live in the consolation that they have only gone before us to a better place, where sin and sorrow are not. We shall join them later."

She went away, tears of joy filling her eyes. She had a son up there, waiting for her; and she knew Lord Hartledon meant her to think of him when he had so spoken.

"Carr," said Val, "I never told you the finale of that tragedy. George Gordon of the mutiny, did turn up: he lived and died in England."

"No!"

"He died at Calne. It was that poor woman's son."

Mr. Carr looked round for an explanation. He knew her as the wife of clerk Gum, and sister to Hartledon's housekeeper. Val told him all, as the facts had come out to him.

"Pike always puzzled me," he said. "Disguised as he was with his black hair, his face stained with some dark juice, there was a look in him that used to strike some chord in my memory. It lay in the eyes, I think. You'll keep these facts sacred, Carr, for the parents' sake. They are known only to four of us."

"Have you told your wife yet?" questioned Mr. Carr, recurring to a different subject.

"No. I could not, somehow, whilst the child lay dead in the house. She shall know it shortly."

"And what about dismissing the countess-dowager? You will do it?"

"I shall be only too thankful to do it. All my courage has come back to me, thank Heaven!"

The Countess-Dowager of Kirton's reign was indeed over; never would he allow her to disturb the peace of his house again. He might have to pension her off, but that was a light matter. His intention was to speak to her in a few days' time, allowing an interval to elapse after the boy's death; but she forestalled the time herself, as Val was soon to find.

Dinner that evening was a sad meal—sad and silent. The only one who did justice to it was the countess-dowager—in a black gauze dress and white crepe turban. Let what would betide, Lady Kirton never failed to enjoy her dinner. She had a scheme in her head; it had been working there since the day of her grandson's death; and when the servants withdrew, she judged it expedient to disclose it to Hartledon, hoping to gain her point, now that he was softened by sorrow.

"Hartledon, I want to talk to you," she began, critically tasting her wine; "and I must request that you'll attend to me."

Anne looked up, wondering what was coming. She wore an evening dress of black crepe, a jet necklace on her fair neck, jet bracelets on her arms: mourning far deeper than the dowager's.

"Are you listening to me, Val?"

"I am quite ready," answered Val.

"I asked you, once before, to let me have Maude's children, and to allow me a fair income with them. Had you done so, this dreadful misfortune would not have overtaken your house: for it stands to reason that if Lord Elster had been living somewhere else with me, he could not have caught scarlet-fever in London."

"We never thought he did catch it," returned Hartledon. "It was not prevalent at the time; and, strange to say, none of the other children took it, nor any one else in the house."

"Then what gave it him?" sharply uttered the dowager.

What Val answered was spoken in a low tone, and she caught one word only, Providence. She gave a growl, and continued.

"At any rate, he's gone; and you have now no pretext for refusing me Maude. I shall take her, and bring her up, and you must make me a liberal allowance for her."

"I shall not part with Maude," said Val, in quiet tones of decision.

"You can't refuse her to me, I say," rejoined the dowager, nodding her head defiantly; "she's my own grandchild."

"And my child. The argument on this point years ago was unsatisfactory, Lady Kirton; I do not feel disposed to renew it. Maude will remain in her own home."

"You are a vile man!" cried the dowager, with an inflamed face. "Pass me the wine."

He filled her glass, and left the decanter with her. She resumed.

"One day, when I was with Maude, in that last illness of hers in London, when we couldn't find out what was the matter with her, poor dear, she wrote you a letter; and I know what was in it, for I read it. You had gone dancing off somewhere for a week."

"To the Isle of Wight, on your account," put in Lord Hartledon, quietly; "on that unhappy business connected with your son who lives there. Well, ma'am?"

"In that letter Maude said she wished me to have charge of her children, if she died; and begged you to take notice that she said it," continued the dowager. "Perhaps you'll say you never had that letter?"

"On the contrary, madam, I admit receiving it," he replied. "I daresay I have it still. Most of Maude's letters lie in my desk undisturbed."

"And, admitting that, you refuse to act up to it?"

"Maude wrote in a moment of pique, when she was angry with me. But—"

"And I have no doubt she had good cause for anger!"

"She had great cause," was his answer, spoken with a strange sadness that surprised both the dowager and Lady Hartledon. Thomas Carr was twirling his wine-glass gently round on the white cloth, neither speaking nor looking.

"Later, my wife fully retracted what she said in that letter," continued Val. "She confessed that she had written it partly at your dictation, Lady Kirton, and said—but I had better not tell you that, perhaps."

"Then you shall tell me, Lord Hartledon; and you are a two-faced man, if you shuffle out of it."

"Very well. Maude said that she would not for the whole world allow her children to be brought up by you; she warned me also not to allow you to obtain too much influence over them."

"It's false!" said the dowager, in no way disconcerted.

"It is perfectly true: and Maude told me you knew what her sentiments were upon the point. Her real wish, as expressed to me, was, that the children should remain with me in any case, in their proper home."

"You say you have that other letter still?" cried the dowager, who was not always very clear in her conversation.

"No doubt."

"Then perhaps you'll look for it: and read over her wishes in black and white."

"To what end? It would make no difference in my decision. I tell you, ma'am, I am consulting Maude's wishes in keeping her child at home."

"I know better," retorted the dowager, completely losing her temper. "I wish your poor dear wife could rise from her grave and confute you. It's all stinginess; because you won't part with a paltry bit of money."

"No," said Val, "it's because I won't part with my child. Understand me, Lady Kirton—had Maude's wishes even been with you in this, I should not carry them out. As to money—I may have something to say to you on that score; but suppose we postpone it to a more fitting opportunity."

"You wouldn't carry them out!" she cried. "But you might be forced to, you mean man! That letter may be as good as a will in the eyes of the law. You daren't produce it; that's what it is."

"I'll give it you with pleasure," said Val, with a smile. "That is, if I have kept it. I am not sure."

She caught up her fan, and sat fanning herself. The reservation had suggested a meaning never intended to her crafty mind; her rebellious son-in-law meant to destroy the letter; and she began wondering how she could outwit him.

A sharp cry outside the door interrupted them. The children were only coming in to dessert now; and Reginald, taking a flying leap down the stairs, took rather too long a one, and came to grief at the bottom. Truth to say, the young gentleman, no longer kept down by poor Edward, was getting high-spirited and venturesome.

"What's that?" asked Anne, as the nurse came in with them, scolding.

"Lord Elster fell down, my lady. He's getting as tiresome as can be. Only to-day, I caught him astride the kitchen banisters, going to slide down them."

"Oh, Regy," said his mother, holding up her reproving finger.

The boy laughed, and came forward rubbing his arm, and ashamed of his tears. Val caught him up and kissed them away, drawing Maude also to his side.

That letter! The dowager was determined to get it, if there was a possibility of doing so. A suspicion that she would not be tolerated much longer in Lady Hartledon's house was upon her, and she knew not where to go. Kirton had married again; and his new wife had fairly turned her out more unceremoniously than the late one did. By hook or by crook, she meant to obtain the guardianship of her granddaughter, because in giving her Maude, Lord Hartledon would have to allow her an income.

She was a woman to stop at nothing; and upon quitting the dining-room she betook herself to the library—a large, magnificent room—the pride of Hartledon. She had come in search of Val's desk; which she found, and proceeded to devise means of opening it. That accomplished, she sat herself down, like a leisurely housebreaker, to examine it, putting on a pair of spectacles, which she kept surreptitiously in a pocket, and would not have worn before any one for the world. She found the letter she was in search of; and she found something else for her pains, which she had not bargained for.

Not just at first. There were many tempting odds and ends of things to dip into. For one thing, she found Val's banking book, and some old cheque-books; they served her for some time. Next she came upon two packets sealed up in white paper, with Val's own seal. On one was written, "Letters of Lady Maude;" on the other, "Letters of my dear Anne." Peering further into the desk, she came upon an obscure inner slide, which had evidently not been opened for years, and she had difficulty in undoing it. A paper was in it, superscribed, "Concerning A.W.;" on opening which she found a letter addressed to Thomas Carr, of the Temple.

Thomas Carr's letters were no more sacred with her than Lord Hartledon's. No woman living was troubled with scruples so little as she. It proved to have been written by a Dr. Mair, in Scotland, and was dated several years back.

But now—did Lord Hartledon really know he had that dangerous letter by him? If so, what could have possessed him to preserve it? Or, did he not rather believe he had returned it to Mr. Carr at the time? The latter, indeed, proved to be the case; and never, to the end of his life, would he, in one sense, forgive his own carelessness.

Who was A.W.? thought the curious old woman, as she drew the light nearer to her, and began the tempting perusal, making the most of the little time left. They could not be at tea yet, and she had told Lady Hartledon she was going to take her nap in her own room. The gratification of rummaging false Val's desk was an ample compensation; and the countess-dowager hugged herself with delight.

But what was this she had come upon—this paper "concerning A. W."? The dowager's mouth fell as she read; and gradually her little eyes opened as if they would start from their sockets, and her face grew white. Have you ever watched the livid pallor of fear struggling to one of these painted faces? She dashed off her spectacles; she got up and wrung her hands; she executed a frantic war-dance; and finally she tore, with the letter, into the drawing-room, where Val and Anne and Thomas Carr were beginning tea and talking quietly.

They rose in consternation as she danced in amongst them, and held out the letter to Lord Hartledon.

He took it from her, gazing in utter bewilderment as he gathered in its contents. Was it a fresh letter, or—his face became whiter than the dowager's. In her reckless passion she avowed what she had done—the letter was secreted in his desk.

"Have you dared to visit my desk?" he gasped—"break my seals? Are you mad?"

"Hark at him!" she cried. "He calls me to account for just lifting the lid of a desk! But what is he? A villain—a thief—a spy—a murderer—and worse than any of them! Ah, ha, my lady!" nodding her false front at Lady Hartledon, who stood as one petrified, "you stare there at me with your open eyes; but you don't know what you are! Ask him! What was Maude—Heaven help her—my poor Maude? What was she? And you in the plot; you vile Carr! I'll have you all hanged together!"

Lord Hartledon caught his wife's hand.

"Carr, stay here with her and tell her all. No good concealing anything now she has read this letter. Tell her for me, for she would never listen to me."

He drew his wife into an adjoining room, the one where the portrait of George Elster looked down on its guests. The time for disclosing the story to his wife had been somewhat forestalled. He would have given half his life that it had never reached that other woman, miserable old sinner though she was.

"You are trembling, Anne; you need not do so. It is not against you that I have sinned."

Yes, she was trembling very much. And Val, in his honourable, his refined, shrinking nature, would have given his life's other half not to have had the tale to tell.

It is not a pleasant one. You may skip it if you please, and go on to the last page. Val once said he had been more sinned against than sinning: it may be deemed that in that opinion he was too lenient to himself. Anne, his wife, listened with averted face and incredulous ears.

"You have wanted a solution to my conduct, Anne—to the strange preference I seemed to accord the poor boy who is gone; why I could not punish him; why I was more thankful for the boon of his death than I had been for his life. He was my child, but he was not Lord Elster."

She did not understand.

"He had no right to my name; poor little Maude has no right to it. Do you understand me now?"

Not at all; it was as though he were talking Greek to her.

"Their mother, when they were born, was not my wife."

"Their mother was Lady Maude Kirton," she rejoined, in her bewilderment.

"That is exactly where it was," he answered bitterly. "Lady Maude Kirton, not Lady Hartledon."

She could not comprehend the words; her mind was full of consternation and tumult. Back went her thoughts to the past.

"Oh, Val! I remember papa's saying that a marriage in that unused chapel was only three parts legal!"

"It was legal enough, Anne: legal enough. But when that ceremony took place"—his voice dropped to a miserable whisper, "I had—as they tell me—a wife living."

Slowly she admitted the meaning of the words; and would have started from him with a faint cry, but that he held her to him.

"Listen to the whole, Anne, before you judge me. What has been your promise to me, over and over again?—that, if I would tell you my sorrow, you would never shrink from me, whatever it might be."

She remembered it, and stood still; terribly rebellious, clasping her fingers to pain, one within the other.

"In that respect, at any rate, I did not willingly sin. When I married Maude I had no suspicion that I was not free as air; free to marry her, or any other woman in the world."

"You speak in enigmas," she said faintly.

"Sit down, Anne, whilst I give you the substance of the tale. Not its details until I am more myself, and that voice"—pointing to the next room—"is not sounding in my ears. You shall hear all later; at least, as much as I know myself; I have never quite believed in it, and it has been to me throughout as a horrible dream."

Indeed Mr. Carr seemed to be having no inconsiderable amount of trouble, to judge by the explosions of wrath on the part of the dowager.

She sat down as he told her, her face turned from him, rebellious at having to listen, but curious yet. Lord Hartledon stood by the mantelpiece and shaded his eyes with his hand.

"Send your thoughts into the past, Anne; you may remember that an accident happened to me in Scotland. It was before you and I were engaged, or it would not have happened. Or, let me say, it might not; for young men are reckless, and I was no better than others. Heaven have mercy on their follies!"

"The accident might not have happened?"

"I do not speak of the accident. I mean what followed. When out shooting I nearly blew off my arm. I was carried to the nearest medical man's, a Dr. Mair's, and remained there; for it was not thought safe to move me; they feared inflammation, and they feared locked-jaw. My father was written to, and came; and when he left after the danger was over he made arrangements with Dr. Mair to keep me on, for he was a skilful man, and wished to perfect the cure. I thought the prolonged stay in the strange, quiet house worse than all the rest. That feeling wore off; we grow reconciled to most conditions; and things became more tolerable as I grew better and joined the household. There was a wild, clever, random young man staying there, the doctor's assistant—George Gordon; and there was also a young girl, Agnes Waterlow. I used to wonder what this Agnes did there, and one day asked the old housekeeper; she said the young lady was there partly that the doctor might watch her health, partly because she was a relative of his late wife's, and had no home."

He paused, as if in thought, but soon continued.

"We grew very intimate; I, Gordon, and Miss Waterlow. Neither of them was the person I should have chosen for an intimacy; but there was, in a sense, no help for it, living together. Agnes was a wild, free, rather coarse-natured girl, and Gordon drank. That she fell in love with me there's no doubt—and I grew to like her quite well enough to talk nonsense to her. Whether any plot was laid between her and Gordon to entrap me, or whether what happened arose in the recklessness of the moment, I cannot decide to this hour. It was on my twenty-first birthday; I was almost well again; we had what the doctor called a dinner, Gordon a jollification, and Agnes a supper. It was late when we sat down to it, eight o'clock; and there was a good deal of feasting and plenty of wine. The doctor was called out afterwards to a patient several miles distant, and George Gordon made some punch; which rendered none of our heads the steadier. At least I can answer for mine: I was weak with the long illness, and not much of a drinker at any time. There was a great deal of nonsense going on, and Gordon pretended to marry me to Agnes. He said or read (I can't tell which, and never knew then) some words mockingly out of the prayer-book, and said we were man and wife. Whilst we were all laughing at the joke, the doctor's old housekeeper came in, to see what the noise was about, and I, by way of keeping it up, took Agnes by the hand, and introduced her as Mrs. Elster. I did not understand the woman's look of astonishment then; unfortunately, I have understood it too well since."

Anne was growing painfully interested.

"Well, after that she threw herself upon me in a manner that—that was extraordinary to me, not having the key to it; and I—lost my head. Don't frown, Anne; ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have lost theirs; and you'll say so if ever I give you the details. Of course blame attached to me; to me, and not to her. Though at the time I mentally gave her, I assure you, her full share, somewhat after the manner of the Pharisee condemning the publican. That also has come home to me: she believed herself to be legally my wife; I never gave a thought to that evening's farce, and should have supposed its bearing any meaning a simple impossibility.

"A short time, and letters summoned me home; my mother was dangerously ill. I remember Agnes asked me to take her with me, and I laughed at her. I arranged to write to her, and promised to go back shortly—which, to tell you the truth, I never meant to do. Having been mistaking her, mistaking her still, I really thought her worthy of very little consideration. Before I had been at home a fortnight I received a letter from Dr. Mair, telling me that Agnes was showing symptoms of insanity, and asking what provision I purposed making for her. My sin was finding me out; I wondered how he had found it out; I did not ask, and did not know for years. I wrote back saying I would willingly take all expenses upon myself; and inquired what sum would be required by the asylum—to which he said she must be sent. He mentioned two hundred a-year, and from that time I paid it regularly."

"And was she really insane?" interrupted Lady Hartledon.

"Yes; she had been so once or twice before—and this was what the housekeeper had meant by saying she was with the doctor that her health might be watched. It appeared that when these symptoms came on, after I left, Gordon took upon himself to disclose to the doctor that Agnes was married to me, telling the circumstances as they had occurred. Dr. Mair got frightened: it was no light matter for the son of an English peer to have been deluded into marriage with an obscure and insane girl; and the quarrel that took place between him and Gordon on the occasion resulted in the latter's leaving. I have never understood Gordon's conduct in the matter: very disagreeable thoughts in regard to it come over me sometimes."

"What thoughts?"

"Oh, never mind; they can never be set at rest now. Let me make short work of this story. I heard no more and thought no more; and the years went on, and then came my marriage with Maude. We went to Paris—you cannot have forgotten any of the details of that period, Anne; and after our return to London I was surprised by a visit from Dr. Mair. That evening, that visit and its details stamped themselves on my memory for ever in characters of living fire."

He paused for a moment, and something like a shiver seized him. Anne said nothing.

"Maude had gone with some friends to a fete at Chiswick, and Thomas Carr was dining with me. Hedges came in and said a gentleman wanted to see me—would see me, and would not be denied. I went to him, and found it was Dr. Mair. In that interview I learnt that by the laws of Scotland Miss Waterlow was my wife."

"And the suspicion that she was so had never occurred to you before?"

"Anne! Should I have been capable of marrying Maude, or any one else, if it had? On my solemn word of honour, before Heaven"—he raised his right hand as if to give effect to his words—"such a thought had never crossed my brain. The evening that the nonsense took place I only regarded it as a jest, a pastime—what you will: had any one told me it was a marriage I should have laughed at them. I knew nothing then of the laws of Scotland, and should have thought it simply impossible that that minute's folly, and my calling her, to keep up the joke, Mrs. Elster, could have constituted a marriage. I think they all played a deep part, even Agnes. Not a soul had so much as hinted at the word 'marriage' to me after that evening; neither Gordon, nor she, nor Dr. Mair in his subsequent correspondence; and in that he always called her 'Agnes.' However—he then told me that she was certainly my legal wife, and that Lady Maude was not.

"At first," continued Val, "I did not believe it; but Dr. Mair persisted he was right, and the horror of the situation grew upon me. I told all to Carr, and took him up to Dr. Mair. They discussed Scottish law and consulted law-books; and the truth, so far, became apparent. Dr. Mair was sorry for me; he saw I had not erred knowingly in marrying Maude. As to myself, I was helpless, prostrated. I asked the doctor, if it were really true, why the fact had been kept from me: he replied that he supposed I knew it, and that delicacy alone had caused him to abstain from alluding to it in his letters. He had been very angry when Gordon told him, he said; grew half frightened as to consequences; feared he should get into trouble for allowing me to be so entrapped in his house; and he and Gordon parted at once. And then Dr. Mair asked a question which I could not very well answer, why, if I did not know she was my wife, I had paid so large a sum for Agnes. He had been burying the affair in silence, as he had assumed I was doing; and it was only the announcement of my marriage with Maude in the newspapers that aroused him. He had thought I was acting this bad part deliberately; and he went off at once to Hartledon in anger; found I had gone abroad; and now came to me on my return, still in anger, saying at first that he should proceed against me, and obtain justice for Agnes. When he found how utterly ignorant of wrong I had been, his tone changed; he was truly grieved and concerned for me. Nothing was decided: except that Dr. Mair, in his compassion towards Lady Maude, promised not to be the first to take legal steps. It seemed that there was only him to fear: George Gordon was reported to have gone to Australia; the old housekeeper was dead; Agnes was deranged. Dr. Mair left, and Carr and I sat on till midnight. Carr took what I thought a harsh view of the matter; he urged me to separate from Maude—"