"Skip the Trustees," said Mrs. Gallilee.

Mr. Mool skipped.

"In the matter of the guardian," he said, "there is a preliminary clause, in the event of your death or refusal to act, appointing Lady Northlake—"

"Skip Lady Northlake," said Mrs. Gallilee.

Mr. Mool skipped.

"You are appointed Miss Carmina's guardian, until she comes of age," he resumed. "If she marries in that interval—"

He paused to turn over a page. Not only Mrs. Gallilee, but Ovid also, now listened with the deepest interest.

"If she marries in that interval, with her guardian's approval—"

"Suppose I don't approve of her choice?" Mrs. Gallilee interposed.

Ovid looked at his mother—and quickly looked away again. The restless little terrier caught his eye, and jumped up to be patted. Ovid was too pre-occupied to notice this modest advance. The dog's eyes and ears expressed reproachful surprise. His friend Ovid had treated him rudely for the first time in his life.

"If the young lady contracts a matrimonial engagement of which you disapprove," Mr. Mool answered, "you are instructed by the testator to assert your reasons in the presence of—well, I may describe it, as a family council; composed of Mr. Gallilee, and of Lord and Lady Northlake."

"Excessively foolish of Robert," Mrs. Gallilee remarked. "And what, Mr. Mool, is this meddling council of three to do?"

"A majority of the council, Mrs. Gallilee, is to decide the question absolutely. If the decision confirms your view, and if Miss Carmina still persists in her resolution notwithstanding—"

"Am I to give way?" Mrs. Gallilee asked.

"Not until your niece comes of age, ma'am. Then, she decides for herself."

"And inherits the fortune?"

"Only an income from part of it—if her marriage is disapproved by her guardian and her relatives."

"And what becomes of the rest?"

"The whole of it," said Mr. Mool, "will be invested by the Trustees, and will be divided equally, on her death, among her children."

"Suppose she leaves no children?"

"That case is provided for, ma'am, by the last clause. I will only say now, that you are interested in the result."

Mrs. Gallilee turned swiftly and sternly to her son. "When I am dead and gone," she said, "I look to you to defend my memory."

"To defend your memory?" Ovid repeated, wondering what she could possibly mean.

"If I do become interested in the disposal of Robert's fortune—which God forbid!—can't you foresee what will happen?" his mother inquired bitterly. "Lady Northlake will say, 'Maria intrigued for this!'"

Mr. Mool looked doubtfully at the ferns. No! His vegetable allies were not strong enough to check any further outpouring of such family feeling as this. Nothing was to be trusted, in the present emergency, but the superior authority of the Will.

"Pardon me," he said; "there are some further instructions, Mrs. Gallilee, which, as I venture to think, exhibit your late brother's well-known liberality of feeling in a very interesting light. They relate to the provision made for his daughter, while she is residing under your roof. Miss Carmina is to have the services of the best masters, in finishing her education."

"Certainly!" cried Mrs. Gallilee, with the utmost fervour.

"And the use of a carriage to herself, whenever she may require it."

"No, Mr. Mool! Two carriages—in such a climate as this. One open, and one closed."

"And to defray these and other expenses, the Trustees are authorized to place at your disposal one thousand a year."

"Too much! too much!"

Mr. Mool might have agreed with her—if he had nor known that Robert Graywell had thought of his sister's interests, in making this excessive provision for expenses incurred on his daughter's account.

"Perhaps, her dresses and her pocket money are included?" Mrs. Gallilee resumed.

Mr. Mool smiled, and shook his head. "Mr. Graywell's generosity has no limits," he said, "where his daughter is concerned. Miss Carmina is to have five hundred a year for pocket-money and dresses."

Mrs. Gallilee appealed to the sympathies of her son. "Isn't it touching?" she said. "Dear Carmina! my own people in Paris shall make her dresses. Well, Mr. Mool?"

"Allow me to read the exact language of the Will next," Mr. Mool answered. "'If her sweet disposition leads her into exceeding her allowance, in the pursuit of her own little charities, my Trustees are hereby authorized, at their own discretion, to increase the amount, within the limit of another five hundred pounds annually.' It sounds presumptuous, perhaps, on my part," said Mr. Mool, venturing on a modest confession of enthusiasm, "but one can't help thinking, What a good father! what a good child!"

Mrs. Gallilee had another appropriate remark ready on her lips, when the unlucky dog interrupted her once more. He made a sudden rush into the conservatory, barking with all his might. A crashing noise followed the dog's outbreak, which sounded like the fall of a flower-pot.

Ovid hurried into the conservatory—with the dog ahead of him, tearing down the steps which led into the back garden.

The pot lay broken on the tiled floor. Struck by the beauty of the flower that grew in it, he stooped to set it up again. If, instead of doing this, he had advanced at once to the second door, he would have seen a lady hastening into the house; and, though her back view only was presented, he could hardly have failed to recognize Miss Minerva. As it was, when he reached the door, the garden was empty.

He looked up at the house, and saw Carmina at the open window of her bedroom.

The sad expression on that sweet young face grieved him. Was she thinking of her happy past life? or of the doubtful future, among strangers in a strange country? She noticed Ovid—and her eyes brightened. His customary coldness with women melted instantly: he kissed his hand to her. She returned the salute (so familiar to her in Italy) with her gentle smile, and looked back into the room. Teresa showed herself at the window. Always following her impulses without troubling herself to think first, the duenna followed them now. "We are dull up here," she called out. "Come back to us, Mr. Ovid." The words had hardly been spoken before they both turned from the window. Teresa pointed significantly into the room. They disappeared.

Ovid went back to the library.

"Anybody listening?" Mr. Mool inquired.

"I have not discovered anybody, but I doubt if a stray cat could have upset that heavy flower-pot." He looked round him as he made the reply. "Where is my mother?" he asked.

Mrs. Gallilee had gone upstairs, eager to tell Carmina of the handsome allowance made to her by her father. Having answered in these terms, Mr. Mool began to fold up the Will—and suddenly stopped.

"Very inconsiderate, on my part," he said; "I forgot, Mr. Ovid, that you haven't heard the end of it. Let me give you a brief abstract. You know, perhaps, that Miss Carmina is a Catholic? Very natural—her poor mother's religion. Well, sir, her good father forgets nothing. All attempts at proselytizing are strictly forbidden."

Ovid smiled. His mother's religious convictions began and ended with the inorganic matter of the earth.

"The last clause," Mr. Mool proceeded, "seemed to agitate Mrs. Gallilee quite painfully. I reminded her that her brother had no near relations living, but Lady Northlake and herself. As to leaving money to my lady, in my lord's princely position—"

"Pardon me," Ovid interposed, "what is there to agitate my mother in this?"

Mr. Mool made his apologies for not getting sooner to the point, with the readiest good-will. "Professional habit, Mr. Ovid," he explained. "We are apt to be wordy—paid, in fact, at so much a folio, for so many words!—and we like to clear the ground first. Your late uncle ends his Will, by providing for the disposal of his fortune, in two possible events, as follows: Miss Carmina may die unmarried, or Miss Carmina (being married) may die without offspring."

Seeing the importance of the last clause now, Ovid stopped him again. "Do I remember the amount of the fortune correctly?" he asked. "Was it a hundred and thirty thousand pounds?"

"Yes."

"And what becomes of all that money, if Carmina never marries, or if she leaves no children?"

"In either of those cases, sir, the whole of the money goes to Mrs. Gallilee and her daughters."'



CHAPTER IX.

Time had advanced to midnight, after the reading of the Will—and Ovid was at home.

The silence of the quiet street in which he lived was only disturbed by the occasional rolling of carriage wheels, and by dance-music from the house of one of his neighbours who was giving a ball. He sat at his writing-table, thinking. Honest self-examination had laid out the state of his mind before him like a map, and had shown him, in its true proportions, the new interest that filled his life.

Of that interest he was now the willing slave. If he had not known his mother to be with her, he would have gone back to Carmina when the lawyer left the house. As it was, he had sent a message upstairs, inviting himself to dinner, solely for the purpose of seeing Carmina again—and he had been bitterly disappointed when he heard that Mr. and Mrs. Gallilee were engaged, and that his cousin would take tea in her room. He had eaten something at this club, without caring what it was. He had gone to the Opera afterwards, merely because his recollections of a favourite singing-lady of that season vaguely reminded him of Carmina. And there he was, at midnight, on his return from the music, eager for the next opportunity of seeing his cousin, a few hours hence—when he had arranged to say good-bye at the family breakfast-table.

To feel this change in him as vividly as he felt it, could lead to but one conclusion in the mind of a man who was incapable of purposely deceiving himself. He was as certain as ever of the importance of rest and change, in the broken state of his health. And yet, in the face of that conviction, his contemplated sea-voyage had already become one of the vanished illusions of his life!

His friend had arranged to travel with him, that morning, from London to the port at which the yacht was waiting for them. They were hardly intimate enough to trust each other unreservedly with secrets. The customary apology for breaking an engagement was the alternative that remained. With the paper on his desk and with the words on his mind, he was yet in such a strange state of indecision that he hesitated to write the letter!

His morbidly-sensitive nerves were sadly shaken. Even the familiar record of the half-hour by the hall clock startled him. The stroke of the bell was succeeded by a mild and mournful sound outside the door—the mewing of a cat.

He rose, without any appearance of surprise, and opened the door.

With grace and dignity entered a small black female cat; exhibiting, by way of variety of colour, a melancholy triangular patch of white over the lower part of her face, and four brilliantly clean white paws. Ovid went back to his desk. As soon as he was in his chair again, the cat jumped on his shoulder, and sat there purring in his ear. This was the place she occupied, whenever her master was writing alone. Passing one day through a suburban neighbourhood, on his round of visits, the young surgeon had been attracted by a crowd in a by-street. He had rescued his present companion from starvation in a locked-up house, the barbarous inhabitants of which had gone away for a holiday, and had forgotten the cat. When Ovid took the poor creature home with him in his carriage, popular feeling decided that the unknown gentleman was "a rum 'un." From that moment, this fortunate little member of a brutally-slandered race attached herself to her new friend, and to that friend only. If Ovid had owned the truth, he must have acknowledged that her company was a relief to him, in the present state of his mind.

When a man's flagging purpose is in want of a stimulant, the most trifling change in the circumstances of the moment often applies the animating influence. Even such a small interruption as the appearance of his cat rendered this service to Ovid. To use the common and expressive phrase, it had "shaken him up." He wrote the letter—and his patient companion killed the time by washing her face.

His mind being so far relieved, he went to bed—the cat following him upstairs to her bed in a corner of the room. Clothes are unwholesome superfluities not contemplated in the system of Nature. When we are exhausted, there is no such thing as true repose for us until we are freed from our dress. Men subjected to any excessive exertion—fighting, rowing, walking, working—must strip their bodies as completely as possible, or they are nor equal to the call on them. Ovid's knowledge of his own temperament told him that sleep was not to be hoped for, that night. But the way to bed was the way to rest notwithstanding, by getting rid of his clothes.

With the sunrise he rose and went out.

He took his letter with him, and dropped it into the box in his friend's door. The sooner he committed himself to the new course that he had taken, the more certain he might feel of not renewing the miserable and useless indecision of the past night. "Thank God, that's done!" he said to himself, as he heard the letter fall into the box, and left the house.

After walking in the Park until he was weary, he sat down by the ornamental lake, and watched the waterfowl enjoying their happy lives.

Wherever he went, whatever he did, Carmina was always with him. He had seen thousands of girls, whose personal attractions were far more remarkable—and some few among them whose manner was perhaps equally winning. What was the charm in the little half-foreign cousin that had seized on him in an instant, and that seemed to fasten its subtle hold more and more irresistibly with every minute of his life? He was content to feel the charm without caring to fathom it. The lovely morning light took him in imagination to her bedside; he saw here sleeping peacefully in her new room. Would the time come when she might dream of him? He looked at his watch. It was seven o'clock. The breakfast-hour at Fairfield Gardens had been fixed for eight, to give him time to catch the morning train. Half an hour might be occupied in walking back to his own house. Add ten minutes to make some change in his dress—and he might set forth for his next meeting with Carmina. No uneasy anticipation of what the family circle might think of his sudden change of plan troubled his mind. A very different question occupied him. For the first time in his life, he wondered what dress a woman would wear at breakfast time.

He opened his house door with his own key. An elderly person, in a coarse black gown, was seated on the bench in the hall. She rose, and advanced towards him. In speechless astonishment, he confronted Carmina's faithful companion—Teresa.

"If you please, I want to speak to you," she said, in her best English. Ovid took her into his consulting-room. She wasted no time in apologies or explanations. "Don't speak!" she broke out. "Carmina has had a bad night."

"I shall be at the house in half an hour!" Ovid eagerly assured her.

The duenna shook her forefinger impatiently. "She doesn't want a doctor. She wants a friend, when I am gone. What is her life here? A new life, among new people. Don't speak! She's frightened and miserable. So young, so shy, so easily startled. And I must leave her—I must! I must! My old man is failing fast; he may die, without a creature to comfort him, if I don't go back. I could tear my hair when I think of it. Don't speak! It's my business to speak. Ha! I know, what I know. Young doctor, you're in love with Carmina! I've read you like a book. You're quick to see, sudden to feel—like one of my people. Be one of my people. Help me."

She dragged a chair close to Ovid, and laid her hand suddenly and heavily on his arm.

"It's not my fault, mind; I have said nothing to disturb her. No! I've made the best of it. I've lied to her. What do I care? I would lie like Judas Iscariot himself to spare Carmina a moment's pain. It's such a new life for her—try to see it for yourself—such a new life. You and I shook hands yesterday. Do it again. Are you surprised to see me? I asked your mother's servants where you lived; and here I am—with the cruel teeth of anxiety gnawing me alive when I think of the time to come. Oh, my lamb! my angel! she's alone. Oh, my God, only seventeen years old, and alone in the world! No father, no mother; and soon—oh, too soon, too soon—not even Teresa! What are you looking at? What is there so wonderful in the tears of a stupid old fool? Drops of hot water. Ha! ha! if they fall on your fine carpet here, they won't hurt it. You're a good fellow; you're a dear fellow. Hush! I know the Evil Eye when I see it. No more of that! A secret in your ear—I've said a word for you to Carmina already. Give her time; she's not cold; young and innocent, that's all. Love will come—I know, what I know—love will come."

She laughed—and, in the very act of laughing, changed again. Fright looked wildly at Ovid out of her staring eyes. Some terrifying remembrance had suddenly occurred to her. She sprang to her feet.

"You said you were going away," she cried. "You said it, when you left us yesterday. It can't be! it shan't be! You're not going to leave Carmina, too?"

Ovid's first impulse was to tell the whole truth. He resisted the impulse. To own that Carmina was the cause of his abandonment of the sea-voyage, before she was even sure of the impression she had produced on him, would be to place himself in a position from which his self-respect recoiled. "My plans are changed," was all he said to Teresa. "Make your mind easy; I'm not going away."

The strange old creature snapped her fingers joyously. "Good-bye! I want no more of you." With those cool and candid words of farewell, she advanced to the door—stopped suddenly to think—and came back. Only a moment had passed, and she was as sternly in earnest again as ever.

"May I call you by your name?" she asked.

"Certainly!"

"Listen, Ovid! I may not see you again before I go back to my husband. This is my last word—never forget it. Even Carmina may have enemies!"

What could she be thinking of? "Enemies—in my mother's house!" Ovid exclaimed. "What can you possibly mean?"

Teresa returned to the door, and only answered him when she had opened it to go.

"The Evil Eye never lies," she said. "Wait—and you will see."



CHAPTER X.

Mrs. Gallilee was on her way to the breakfast-room, when her son entered the house. They met in the hall. "Is your packing done?" she asked.

He was in no humour to wait, and make his confession at that moment. "Not yet," was his only reply.

Mrs. Gallilee led the way into the room. "Ovid's luggage is not ready yet," she announced; "I believe he will lose his train."

They were all at the breakfast table, the children and the governess included. Carmina's worn face, telling its tale of a wakeful night, brightened again, as it had brightened at the bedroom window, when she saw Ovid. She took his hand frankly, and made light of her weary looks. "No, my cousin," she said, playfully; "I mean to be worthier of my pretty bed to-night; I am not going to be your patient yet." Mr. Gallilee (with this mouth full at the moment) offered good advice. "Eat and drink as I do, my dear," he said to Carmina; "and you will sleep as I do. Off I go when the light's out—flat on my back, as Mrs. Gallilee will tell you—and wake me if you can, till it's time to get up. Have some buttered eggs, Ovid. They're good, ain't they, Zo?" Zo looked up from her plate, and agreed with her father, in one emphatic word, "Jolly!" Miss Minerva, queen of governesses, instantly did her duty. "Zoe! how often must I tell you not to talk slang? Do you ever hear your sister say 'Jolly?'" That highly-cultivated child, Maria, strong in conscious virtue, added her authority in support of the protest. "No young lady who respects herself, Zoe, will ever talk slang." Mr. Gallilee was unworthy of such a daughter. He muttered under his breath, "Oh, bother!" Zo held out her plate for more. Mr. Gallilee was delighted. "My child all over!" he exclaimed. "We are both of us good feeders. Zo will grow up a fine woman." He appealed to his stepson to agree with him. "That's your medical opinion, Ovid, isn't it?"

Carmina's pretty smile passed like rippling light over her eyes and her lips. In her brief experience of England, Mr. Gallilee was the one exhilarating element in family life.

Mrs. Gallilee's mind still dwelt on her son's luggage, and on the rigorous punctuality of railway arrangements.

"What is your servant about?" she said to Ovid. "It's his business to see that you are ready in time."

It was useless to allow the false impression that prevailed to continue any longer. Ovid set them all right, in the plainest and fewest words.

"My servant is not to blame," he said. "I have written an apology to my friend—I am not going away."

For the moment, this astounding announcement was received in silent dismay—excepting the youngest member of the company. After her father, Ovid was the one other person in the world who held a place in Zo's odd little heart. Her sentiments were now expressed without hesitation and without reserve. She put down her spoon, and she cried, "Hooray!" Another exhibition of vulgarity. But even Miss Minerva was too completely preoccupied by the revelation which had burst on the family to administer the necessary reproof. Her eager eyes were riveted on Ovid. As for Mr. Gallilee, he held his bread and butter suspended in mid-air, and stared open-mouthed at his stepson, in helpless consternation.

Mrs. Gallilee always set the right example. Mrs. Gallilee was the first to demand an explanation.

"What does this extraordinary proceeding mean?" she asked.

Ovid was impenetrable to the tone in which that question was put. He had looked at his cousin, when he declared his change of plan—and he was looking at her still. Whatever the feeling of the moment might be, Carmina's sensitive face expressed it vividly. Who could mistake the faintly-rising colour in her cheeks, the sweet quickening of light in her eyes, when she met Ovid's look? Still hardly capable of estimating the influence that she exercised over him, her sense of the interest taken in her by Ovid was the proud sense that makes girls innocently bold. Whatever the others might think of his broken engagement, her artless eyes said plainly, "My feeling is happy surprise."

Mrs. Gallilee summoned her son to attend her, in no friendly voice. She, too, had looked at Carmina—and had registered the result of her observation privately.

"Are we to hear your reasons?" she inquired.

Ovid had made the one discovery in the world, on which his whole heart was set. He was so happy, that he kept his mother out of his secret, with a masterly composure worthy of herself.

"I don't think a sea-voyage is the right thing for me," he answered.

"Rather a sudden change of opinion," Mrs. Gallilee remarked.

Ovid coolly agreed with her. It was rather sudden, he said.

The governess still looked at him, wondering whether he would provoke an outbreak.

After a little pause, Mrs. Gallilee accepted her son's short answer—with a sudden submission which had a meaning of its own. She offered Ovid another cup of tea; and, more remarkable yet, she turned to her eldest daughter, and deliberately changed the subject. "What are your lessons, my dear, to-day?" she asked, with bland maternal interest.

By this time, bewildered Mr. Gallilee had finished his bread and butter. "Ovid knows best, my dear," he said cheerfully to his wife. Mrs. Gallilee's sudden recovery of her temper did not include her husband. If a look could have annihilated that worthy man, his corporal presence must have vanished into air, when he had delivered himself of his opinion. As it was, he only helped Zo to another spoonful of jam. "When Ovid first thought of that voyage," he went on, "I said, Suppose he's sick? A dreadful sensation isn't it, Miss Minerva? First you seem to sink into your shoes, and then it all comes up—eh? You're not sick at sea? I congratulate you! I most sincerely congratulate you! My dear Ovid, come and dine with me to-night at the club." He looked doubtfully at his wife, as he made that proposal. "Got the headache, my dear? I'll take you out with pleasure for a walk. What's the matter with her, Miss Minerva? Oh, I see! Hush! Maria's going to say grace.—Amen! Amen!"

They all rose from the table.

Mr. Gallilee was the first to open the door. The smoking-room at Fairfield Gardens was over the kitchen; he preferred enjoying his cigar in the garden of the Square. He looked at Carmina and Ovid, as if he wanted one of them to accompany him. They were both at the aviary, admiring the birds, and absorbed in their own talk. Mr. Gallilee resigned himself to his fate; appealing, on his way out, to somebody to agree with him as usual. "Well!" he said with a little sigh, "a cigar keeps one company." Miss Minerva (absorbed in her own thoughts) passed near him, on her way to the school-room with her pupils. "You would find it so yourself, Miss Minerva—that is to say, if you smoked, which of course you don't. Be a good girl, Zo; attend to your lessons."

Zo's perversity in the matter of lessons put its own crooked construction on this excellent advice. She answered in a whisper, "Give us a holiday."

The passing aspirations of idle minds, being subject to the law of chances, are sometimes fulfilled, and so exhibit poor human wishes in a consolatory light. Thanks to the conversation between Carmina and Ovid, Zo got her holiday after all.

Mrs. Gallilee, still as amiable as ever, had joined her son and her niece at the aviary. Ovid said to his mother, "Carmina is fond of birds. I have been telling her she may see all the races of birds assembled in the Zoological Gardens. It's a perfect day. Why shouldn't we go!"

The stupidest woman living would have understood what this proposal really meant. Mrs. Gallilee sanctioned it as composedly as if Ovid and Carmina had been brother and sister. "I wish I could go with you," she said, "but my household affairs fill my morning. And there is a lecture this afternoon, which I cannot possibly lose. I don't know, Carmina, whether you are interested in these things. We are to have the apparatus, which illustrates the conversion of radiant energy into sonorous vibrations. Have you ever heard, my dear, of the Diathermancy of Ebonite? Not in your way, perhaps?"

Carmina looked as unintelligent as Zo herself. Mrs. Gallilee's science seemed to frighten her. The Diathermancy of Ebonite, by some incomprehensible process, drove her bewildered mind back on her old companion. "I want to give Teresa a little pleasure before we part," she said timidly; "may she go with us?"

"Of course!" cried Mrs. Gallilee. "And, now I think of it, why shouldn't the children have a little pleasure too? I will give them a holiday. Don't be alarmed, Ovid; Miss Minerva will look after them. In the meantime, Carmina, tell your good old friend to get ready."

Carmina hastened away, and so helped Mrs. Gallilee to the immediate object which she had in view—a private interview with her son.

Ovid anticipated a searching inquiry into the motives which had led him to give up the sea voyage. His mother was far too clever a woman to waste her time in that way. Her first words told him that his motive was as plainly revealed to her as the sunlight shining in at the window.

"That's a charming girl," she said, when Carmina closed the door behind her. "Modest and natural—quite the sort of girl, Ovid, to attract a clever man like you."

Ovid was completely taken by surprise, and owned it by his silence. Mrs. Gallilee went on in a tone of innocent maternal pleasantry.

"You know you began young," she said; "your first love was that poor little wizen girl of Lady Northlake's who died. Child's play, you will tell me, and nothing more. But, my dear, I am afraid I shall require some persuasion, before I quite sympathize with this new—what shall I call it?—infatuation is too hard a word, and 'fancy' means nothing. We will leave it a blank. Marriages of cousins are debatable marriages, to say the least of them; and Protestant fathers and Papist mothers do occasionally involve difficulties with children. Not that I say, No. Far from it. But if this is to go on, I do hesitate."

Something in his mother's tone grated on Ovid's sensibilities. "I don't at all follow you," he said, rather sharply; "you are looking a little too far into the future."

"Then we will return to the present," Mrs. Gallilee replied—still with the readiest submission to the humour of her son.

On recent occasions, she had expressed the opinion that Ovid would do wisely—at his age, and with his professional prospects—to wait a few years before he thought of marrying. Having said enough in praise of her niece to satisfy him for the time being (without appearing to be meanly influenced, in modifying her opinion, by the question of money), her next object was to induce him to leave England immediately, for the recovery of his health. With Ovid absent, and with Carmina under her sole superintendence, Mrs. Gallilee could see her way to her own private ends.

"Really," she resumed, "you ought to think seriously of change of air and scene. You know you would not allow a patient, in your present state of health, to trifle with himself as your are trifling now. If you don't like the sea, try the Continent. Get away somewhere, my dear, for your own sake."

It was only possible to answer this, in one way. Ovid owned that his mother was right and asked for time to think. To his infinite relief, he was interrupted by a knock at the door. Miss Minerva entered the room—not in a very amiable temper, judging by appearances.

"I am afraid I disturb you," she began.

Ovid seized the opportunity of retreat. He had some letters to write—he hurried away to the library.

"Is there any mistake?" the governess asked, when she and Mrs. Gallilee were alone.

"In what respect, Miss Minerva?"

"I met your niece, ma'am, on the stairs. She says you wish the children to have a holiday."

"Yes, to go with my son and Miss Carmina to the Zoological Gardens."

"Miss Carmina said I was to go too."

"Miss Carmina was perfectly right."

The governess fixed her searching eyes on Mrs. Gallilee. "You really wish me to go with them?" she said.

"I do."

"I know why."

In the course of their experience, Mrs. Gallilee and Miss Minerva had once quarrelled fiercely—and Mrs. Gallilee had got the worst of it. She learnt her lesson. For the future she knew how to deal with her governess. When one said, "I know why," the other only answered, "Do you?"

"Let's have it out plainly, ma'am," Miss Minerva proceeded. "I am not to let Mr. Ovid" (she laid a bitterly strong emphasis on the name, and flushed angrily)—"I am not to let Mr. Ovid and Miss Carmina be alone together."

"You are a good guesser," Mrs. Gallilee remarked quietly.

"No," said Miss Minerva more quietly still; "I have only seen what you have seen."

"Did I tell you what I have seen?"

"Quite needless, ma'am. Your son is in love with his cousin. When am I to be ready?"

The bland mistress mentioned the hour. The rude governess left the room.

Mrs. Gallilee looked at the closing door with a curious smile. She had already suspected Miss Minerva of being crossed in love. The suspicion was now confirmed, and the man was discovered.

"Soured by a hopeless passion," she said to herself. "And the object is—my son."



CHAPTER XI.

On entering the Zoological Gardens, Ovid turned at once to the right, leading Carmina to the aviaries, so that she might begin by seeing the birds. Miss Minerva, with Maria in dutiful attendance, followed them. Teresa kept at a little distance behind; and Zo took her own erratic course, now attaching herself to one member of the little party, and now to another.

When they reached the aviaries the order of march became confused; differences in the birds made their appeal to differences in the taste of the visitors. Insatiably eager for useful information, that prize-pupil Maria held her governess captive at one cage; while Zo darted away towards another, out of reach of discipline, and good Teresa volunteered to bring her back. For a minute, Ovid and his cousin were left alone. He might have taken a lover's advantage even of that small opportunity. But Carmina had something to say to him—and Carmina spoke first.

"Has Miss Minerva been your mother's governess for a long time?" she inquired.

"For some years," Ovid replied. "Will you let me put a question on my side? Why do you ask?"

Carmina hesitated—and answered in a whisper, "She looks ill-tempered."

"She is ill-tempered," Ovid confessed. "I suspect," he added with a smile, "you don't like Miss Minerva."

Carmina attempted no denial; her excuse was a woman's excuse all over: "She doesn't like me."

"How do you know?"

"I have been looking at her. Does she beat the children?"

"My dear Carmina! do you think she would be my mother's governess if she treated the children in that way? Besides, Miss Minerva is too well-bred a woman to degrade herself by acts of violence. Family misfortunes have very materially lowered her position in the world."

He was reminded, as he said those words, of the time when Miss Minerva had entered on her present employment, and when she had been the object of some little curiosity on his own part. Mrs. Gallilee's answer, when he once asked why she kept such an irritable woman in the house, had been entirely satisfactory, so far as she herself was concerned: "Miss Minerva is remarkably well informed, and I get her cheap." Exactly like his mother! But it left Miss Minerva's motives involved in utter obscurity. Why had this highly cultivated woman accepted an inadequate reward for her services, for years together? Why—to take the event of that morning as another example—after plainly showing her temper to her employer, had she been so ready to submit to a suddenly decreed holiday, which disarranged her whole course of lessons for the week? Little did Ovid think that the one reconciling influence which adjusted these contradictions, and set at rest every doubt that grew out of them, was to be found in himself. Even the humiliation of watching him in his mother's interest, and of witnessing his devotion to another woman, was a sacrifice which Miss Minerva could endure for the one inestimable privilege of being in Ovid's company.

Before Carmina could ask any more questions a shrill voice, at its highest pitch of excitement, called her away. Zo had just discovered the most amusing bird in the Gardens—the low comedian of the feathered race—otherwise known as the Piping Crow.

Carmina hurried to the cage as if she had been a child herself. Seeing Ovid left alone, the governess seized her chance of speaking to him. The first words that passed her lips told their own story. While Carmina had been studying Miss Minerva, Miss Minerva had been studying Carmina. Already, the same instinctive sense of rivalry had associated, on a common ground of feeling, the two most dissimilar women that ever breathed the breath of life.

"Does your cousin know much about birds?" Miss Minerva began.

The opinion which declares that vanity is a failing peculiar to the sex is a slander on women. All the world over, there are more vain men in it than vain women. If Ovid had not been one of the exceptions to a general rule among men, or even if his experience of the natures of women had been a little less limited, he too might have discovered Miss Minerva's secret. Even her capacity for self-control failed, at the moment when she took Carmina's place. Those keen black eyes, so hard and cold when they looked at anyone else—flamed with an all-devouring sense of possession when they first rested on Ovid. "He's mine. For one golden moment he's mine!" They spoke—and, suddenly, the every-day blind was drawn down again; there was nobody present but a well-bred woman, talking with delicately implied deference to a distinguished man.

"So far, we have not spoken of the birds," Ovid innocently answered.

"And yet you seemed to be both looking at them!" She at once covered this unwary outbreak of jealousy under an impervious surface of compliment. "Miss Carmina is not perhaps exactly pretty, but she is a singularly interesting girl."

Ovid cordially (too cordially) agreed. Miss Minerva had presented her better self to him under a most agreeable aspect. She tried—struggled—fought with herself—to preserve appearances. The demon in her got possession again of her tongue. "Do you find the young lady intelligent?" she inquired.

"Certainly!"

Only one word—spoken perhaps a little sharply. The miserable woman shrank under it. "An idle question on my part," she said, with the pathetic humility that tries to be cheerful. "And another warning, Mr. Vere, never to judge by appearances." She looked at him, and returned to the children.

Ovid's eyes followed her compassionately. "Poor wretch!" he thought. "What an infernal temper, and how hard she tries to control it!" He joined Carmina, with a new delight in being near her again. Zo was still in ecstasies over the Piping Crow. "Oh, the jolly little chap! Look how he cocks his head! He mocks me when I whistle. Buy him," cried Zo, tugging at Ovid's coat tails in the excitement that possessed her; "buy him, and let me take him home with me!"

Some visitors within hearing began to laugh. Miss Minerva opened her lips; Maria opened her lips. To the astonishment of both of them the coming rebuke proved to be needless.

A sudden transformation to silence and docility had made a new creature of Zo, before they could speak—and Ovid had unconsciously worked the miracle. For the first time in the child's experience, he had suffered his coat tails to be pulled without immediately attending to her. Who was he looking at? It was only too easy to see that Carmina had got him all to herself. The jealous little heart swelled in Zo's bosom. In silent perplexity she kept watch on the friend who had never disappointed her before. Little by little, her slow intelligence began to realise the discovery of something in his face which made him look handsomer than ever, and which she had never seen in it yet. They all left the aviaries, and turned to the railed paddocks in which the larger birds were assembled. And still Zo followed so quietly, so silently, that her elder sister—threatened with a rival in good behaviour—looked at her in undisguised alarm.

Incited by Maria (who felt the necessity of vindicating her character) Miss Minerva began a dissertation on cranes, suggested by the birds with the brittle-looking legs hopping up to her in expectation of something to eat. Ovid was absorbed in attending to his cousin; he had provided himself with some bread, and was helping Carmina to feed the birds. But one person noticed Zo, now that her strange lapse into good behaviour had lost the charm of novelty. Old Teresa watched her. There was something plainly troubling the child in secret; she had a mind to know what it might be.

Zo approached Ovid again, determined to understand the change in him if perseverance could do it. He was talking so confidentially to Carmina, that he almost whispered in her ear. Zo eyed him, without daring to touch his coat tails again. Miss Minerva tried hard to go on composedly with the dissertation on cranes. "Flocks of these birds, Maria, pass periodically over the southern and central countries of Europe"—Her breath failed her, as she looked at Ovid: she could say no more. Zo stopped those maddening confidences; Zo, in desperate want of information, tugged boldly at Carmina's skirts this time.

The young girl turned round directly. "What is it, dear?"

With big tears of indignation rising in her eyes, Zo pointed to Ovid. "I say!" she whispered, "is he going to buy the Piping Crow for you?"

To Zo's discomfiture they both smiled. She dried her eyes with her fists, and waited doggedly for an answer. Carmina set the child's mind at ease very prettily and kindly; and Ovid added the pacifying influence of a familiar pat on her cheek. Noticed at last, and satisfied that the bird was not to be bought for anybody, Zo's sense of injury was appeased; her jealousy melted away as the next result. After a pause—produced, as her next words implied, by an effort of memory—she suddenly took Carmina into her confidence.

"Don't tell!" she began. "I saw another man look like Ovid."

"When, dear?" Carmina asked—meaning, at what past date.

"When his face was close to yours," Zo answered—meaning, under what recent circumstances.

Ovid, hearing this reply, knew his small sister well enough to foresee embarrassing results if he allowed the conversation to proceed. He took Carmina's arm, and led her a little farther on.

Miss Minerva obstinately followed them, with Maria in attendance, still imperfectly enlightened on the migration of cranes. Zo looked round, in search of another audience. Teresa had been listening; she was present, waiting for events. Being herself what stupid people call "an oddity," her sympathies were attracted by this quaint child. In Teresa's opinion, seeing the animals was very inferior, as an amusement, to exploring Zo's mind. She produced a cake of chocolate, from a travelling bag which she carried with her everywhere. The cake was sweet, it was flavoured with vanilla, and it was offered to Zo, unembittered by advice not to be greedy and make herself ill. Staring hard at Teresa, she took an experimental bite. The wily duenna chose that propitious moment to present herself in the capacity of a new audience.

"Who was that other man you saw, who looked like Mr. Ovid?" she asked; speaking in the tone of serious equality which is always flattering to the self-esteem of children in intercourse with elders. Zo was so proud of having her own talk reported by a grown-up stranger, that she even forgot the chocolate. "I wanted to say more than that," she announced. "Would you like to hear the end of it?" And this admirable foreign person answered, "I should very much like."

Zo hesitated. To follow out its own little train of thought, in words, was no easy task to the immature mind which Miss Minerva had so mercilessly overworked. Led by old Dame Nature (first of governesses!) Zo found her way out of the labyrinth by means of questions.

"Do you know Joseph?" she began.

Teresa had heard the footman called by his name: she knew who Joseph was.

"Do you know Matilda?" Zo proceeded.

Teresa had heard the housemaid called by her name: she knew who Matilda was. And better still, she helped her little friend by a timely guess at what was coming, presented under the form of a reminder. "You saw Mr. Ovid's face close to Carmina's face," she suggested.

Zo nodded furiously—the end of it was coming already.

"And before that," Teresa went on, "you saw Joseph's face close to Matilda's face."

"I saw Joseph kiss Matilda!" Zo burst out, with a scream of triumph. "Why doesn't Ovid kiss Carmina?"

A deep bass voice, behind them, answered gravely: "Because the governess is in the way." And a big bamboo walking-stick pointed over their heads at Miss Minerva. Zo instantly recognised the stick, and took it into her own hands.

Teresa turned—and found herself in the presence of a remarkable man.



CHAPTER XII.

In the first place, the stranger was almost tall enough to be shown as a giant; he towered to a stature of six feet six inches, English measure. If his immense bones had been properly covered with flesh, he might have presented the rare combination of fine proportions with great height. He was so miserably—it might almost be said, so hideously—thin that his enemies spoke of him as "the living skeleton." His massive forehead, his great gloomy gray eyes, his protuberant cheek-bones, overhung a fleshless lower face naked of beard, whiskers, and moustache. His complexion added to the startling effect which his personal appearance produced on strangers. It was of the true gipsy-brown, and, being darker in tone than his eyes, added remarkably to the weird look, the dismal thoughtful scrutiny, which it was his habit to fix on persons talking with him, no matter whether they were worthy of attention or not. His straight black hair hung as gracelessly on either side of his hollow face as the hair of an American Indian. His great dusky hands, never covered by gloves in the summer time, showed amber-coloured nails on bluntly-pointed fingers, turned up at the tips. Those tips felt like satin when they touched you. When he wished to be careful, he could handle the frailest objects with the most exquisite delicacy. His dress was of the recklessly loose and easy kind. His long frock-coat descended below his knees; his flowing trousers were veritable bags; his lean and wrinkled throat turned about in a widely-opened shirt-collar, unconfined by any sort of neck-tie. He had a theory that a head-dress should be solid enough to resist a chance blow—a fall from a horse, or the dropping of a loose brick from a house under repair. His hard black hat, broad and curly at the brim, might have graced the head of a bishop, if it had not been secularised by a queer resemblance to the bell-shaped hat worn by dandies in the early years of the present century. In one word he was, both in himself and in his dress, the sort of man whom no stranger is careless enough to pass without turning round for a second look. Teresa, eyeing him with reluctant curiosity, drew back a step, and privately reviled him (in the secrecy of her own language) as an ugly beast! Even his name startled people by the outlandish sound of it. Those enemies who called him "the living skeleton" said it revealed his gipsy origin. In medical and scientific circles he was well and widely known as—Doctor Benjulia.

Zo ran away with his bamboo stick. After a passing look of gloomy indifference at the duenna, he called to the child to come back.

She obeyed him in an oddly indirect way, as if she had been returning against her will. At the same time she looked up in his face, with an absence of shyness which showed, like the snatching away of his stick, that she was familiarly acquainted with him, and accustomed to take liberties. And yet there was an expression of uneasy expectation in her round attentive eyes. "Do you want it back again?" she asked, offering the stick.

"Of course I do. What would your mother say to me, if you tumbled over my big bamboo, and dashed out your brains on this hard gravel walk?"

"Have you been to see Mama?" Zo asked.

"I have not been to see Mama—but I know what she would say to me if you dashed out your brains, for all that."

"What would she say?"

"She would say—Doctor Benjulia, your name ought to be Herod."'

"Who was Herod?"

"Herod was a Royal Jew, who killed little girls when they took away his walking-stick. Come here, child. Shall I tickle you?"

"I knew you'd say that," Zo answered.

When men in general thoroughly enjoy the pleasure of talking nonsense to children, they can no more help smiling than they can help breathing. The doctor was an extraordinary exception to this rule; his grim face never relaxed—not even when Zo reminded him that one of his favourite recreations was tickling her. She obeyed, however, with the curious appearance of reluctant submission showing itself once more. He put two of his soft big finger-tips on her spine, just below the back of her neck, and pressed on the place. Zo started and wriggled under his touch. He observed her with as serious an interest as if he had been conducting a medical experiment. "That's how you make our dog kick with his leg," said Zo, recalling her experience of the doctor in the society of the dog. "How do you do it?"

"I touch the Cervical Plexus," Doctor Benjulia answered as gravely as ever.

This attempt at mystifying the child failed completely. Zo considered the unknown tongue in which he had answered her as being equivalent to lessons. She declined to notice the Cervical Plexus, and returned to the little terrier at home. "Do you think the dog likes it?" she asked.

"Never mind the dog. Do you like it?"

"I don't know."

Doctor Benjulia turned to Teresa. His gloomy gray eyes rested on her, as they might have rested on any inanimate object near him—on the railing that imprisoned the birds, or on the pipes that kept the monkey-house warm. "I have been playing the fool, ma'am, with this child," he said; "and I fear I have detained you. I beg your pardon." He pulled off his episcopal hat, and walked grimly on, without taking any further notice of Zo.

Teresa made her best courtesy in return. The magnificent civility of the ugly giant daunted, while it flattered her. "The manners of a prince," she said, "and the complexion of a gipsy. Is he a nobleman?"

Zo answered, "He's a doctor,"—as if that was something much better.

"Do you like him?" Teresa inquired next.

Zo answered the duenna as she had answered the doctor: "I don't know."

In the meantime, Ovid and his cousin had not been unobservant of what was passing at a little distance from them. Benjulia's great height, and his evident familiarity with the child, stirred Carmina's curiosity.

Ovid seemed to be disinclined to talk of him. Miss Minerva made herself useful, with the readiest politeness. She mentioned his odd name, and described him as one of Mrs. Gallilee's old friends. "Of late years," she proceeded, "he is said to have discontinued medical practice, and devoted himself to chemical experiments. Nobody seems to know much about him. He has built a house in a desolate field—in some lost suburban neighbourhood that nobody can discover. In plain English, Dr. Benjulia is a mystery."

Hearing this, Carmina appealed again to Ovid.

"When I am asked riddles," she said, "I am never easy till the answer is guessed for me. And when I hear of mysteries, I am dying to have them revealed. You are a doctor yourself. Do tell me something more!"

Ovid might have evaded her entreaties by means of an excuse. But her eyes were irresistible: they looked him into submission in an instant.

"Doctor Benjulia is what we call a Specialist," he said. "I mean that he only professes to treat certain diseases. Brains and nerves are Benjulia's diseases. Without quite discontinuing his medical practice, he limits himself to serious cases—when other doctors are puzzled, you know, and want him to help them. With this exception, he has certainly sacrificed his professional interests to his mania for experiments in chemistry. What those experiments are, nobody knows but himself. He keeps the key of his laboratory about him by day and by night. When the place wants cleaning, he does the cleaning with his own hands."

Carmina listened with great interest: "Has nobody peeped in at the windows?" she asked.

"There are no windows—only a skylight in the roof."

"Can't somebody get up on the roof, and look in through the skylight?"

Ovid laughed. "One of his men-servants is said to have tried that experiment," he replied.

"And what did the servant see?"

"A large white blind, drawn under the skylight, and hiding the whole room from view. Somehow, the doctor discovered him—and the man was instantly dismissed. Of course there are reports which explain the mystery of the doctor and his laboratory. One report says that he is trying to find a way of turning common metals into gold. Another declares that he is inventing some explosive compound, so horribly destructive that it will put an end to war. All I can tell you is, that his mind (when I happen to meet him) seems to be as completely absorbed as ever in brains and nerves. But, what they can have to do with chemical experiments, secretly pursued in a lonely field, is a riddle to which I have thus far found no answer.

"Is he married?" Carmina inquired.

The question seemed to amuse Ovid. "If Doctor Benjulia had a wife, you think we might get at his secrets? There is no such chance for us—he manages his domestic affairs for himself."

"Hasn't he even got a housekeeper?"

"Not even a housekeeper!"

While he was making that reply, he saw the doctor slowly advancing towards them. "Excuse me for one minute," he resumed; "I will just speak to him, and come back to you."

Carmina turned to Miss Minerva in surprise.

"Ovid seems to have some reason for keeping the tall man away from us," she said. "Does he dislike Doctor Benjulia?"

But for restraining motives, the governess might have gratified her hatred of Carmina by a sharp reply. She had her reasons—not only after what she had overheard in the conservatory, but after what she had seen in the Gardens—for winning Carmina's confidence, and exercising over her the influence of a trusted friend. Miss Minerva made instant use of her first opportunity.

"I can tell you what I have noticed myself," she said confidentially. "When Mrs. Gallilee gives parties, I am allowed to be present—to see the famous professors of science. On one of these occasions they were talking of instinct and reason. Your cousin, Mr. Ovid Vere, said it was no easy matter to decide where instinct ended and reason began. In his own experience, he had sometimes found people of feeble minds, who judged by instinct, arrive at sounder conclusions than their superiors in intelligence, who judged by reason. The talk took another turn—and, soon after, Doctor Benjulia joined the guests. I don't know whether you have observed that Mr. Gallilee is very fond of his stepson?"

Oh, yes! Carmina had noticed that. "I like Mr. Gallilee," she said warmly; "he is such a nice, kind-hearted, natural old man."

Miss Minerva concealed a sneer under a smile. Fond of Mr. Gallilee? what simplicity! "Well," she resumed, "the doctor paid his respects to the master of the house, and then he shook hands with Mr. Ovid; and then the scientific gentlemen all got round him, and had learned talk. Mr. Gallilee came up to his stepson, looking a little discomposed. He spoke in a whisper—you know his way?—'Ovid, do you like Doctor Benjulia? Don't mention it; I hate him.' Strong language for Mr. Gallilee, wasn't it? Mr. Ovid said, 'Why do you hate him?' And poor Mr. Gallilee answered like a child, 'Because I do.' Some ladies came in, and the old gentleman left us to speak to them. I ventured to say to Mr. Ovid, 'Is that instinct or reason?' He took it quite seriously. 'Instinct,' he said—'and it troubles me.' I leave you, Miss Carmina, to draw your own conclusion."

They both looked up. Ovid and the doctor were walking slowly away from them, and were just passing Teresa and the child. At the same moment, one of the keepers of the animals approached Benjulia. After they had talked together for a while, the man withdrew. Zo (who had heard it all, and had understood a part of it) ran up to Carmina, charged with news.

"There's a sick monkey in the gardens, in a room all by himself!" the child cried. "And, I say, look there!" She pointed excitedly to Benjulia and Ovid, walking on again slowly in the direction of the aviaries. "There's the big doctor who tickles me! He says he'll see the poor monkey, as soon as he's done with Ovid. And what do you think he said besides? He said perhaps he'd take the monkey home with him."

"I wonder what's the matter with the poor creature?" Carmina asked.

"After what Mr. Ovid has told us, I think I know," Miss Minerva answered. "Doctor Benjulia wouldn't be interested in the monkey unless it had a disease of the brain."



CHAPTER XIII.

Ovid had promised to return to Carmina in a minute. The minutes passed, and still Doctor Benjulia held him in talk.

Now that he was no longer seeking amusement, in his own dreary way, by mystifying Zo, the lines seemed to harden in the doctor's fleshless face. A scrupulously polite man, he was always cold in his politeness. He waited to have his hand shaken, and waited to be spoken to. And yet, on this occasion, he had something to say. When Ovid opened the conversation, he changed the subject directly.

"Benjulia! what brings You to the Zoological Gardens?"

"One of the monkeys has got brain disease; and they fancy I might like to see the beast before they kill him. Have you been thinking lately of that patient we lost?"

Not at the moment remembering the patient, Ovid made no immediate reply. The doctor seemed to distrust his silence.

"You don't mean to say you have forgotten the case?" he resumed. "We called it hysteria, not knowing what else it was. I don't forgive the girl for slipping through our fingers; I hate to be beaten by Death, in that way. Have you made up your mind what to do, on the next occasion? Perhaps you think you could have saved her life if you had been sent for, now?"

"No, indeed, I am just as ignorant—"

"Give ignorance time," Benjulia interposed, "and ignorance will become knowledge—if a man is in earnest. The proper treatment might occur to you to-morrow."

He held to his idea with such obstinacy that Ovid set him right, rather impatiently. "The proper treatment has as much chance of occurring to the greatest ass in the profession," he answered, "as it has of occurring to me. I can put my mind to no good medical use; my work has been too much for me. I am obliged to give up practice, and rest—for a time."

Not even a formal expression of sympathy escaped Doctor Benjulia. Having been a distrustful friend so far, he became an inquisitive friend now. "You're going away, of course," he said. "Where to? On the Continent? Not to Italy—if you really want to recover your health!"

"What is the objection to Italy?"

The doctor put his great hand solemnly on his young friend's shoulder. "The medical schools in that country are recovering their past reputation," he said. "They are becoming active centres of physiological inquiry. You will be dragged into it, to a dead certainty. They're sure to try what they can strike out by collision with a man like you. What will become of that overworked mind of yours, when a lot of professors are searching it without mercy? Have you ever been to Canada?"

"No. Have you?"

"I have been everywhere. Canada is just the place for you, in this summer season. Bracing air; and steady-going doctors who leave the fools in Europe to pry into the secrets of Nature. Thousands of miles of land, if you like riding. Thousands of miles of water, if you like sailing. Pack up, and go to Canada."

What did all this mean? Was he afraid that his colleague might stumble on some discovery which he was in search of himself? And did the discovery relate to his own special subject of brains and nerves? Ovid made an attempt to understand him.

"Tell me something about yourself, Benjulia," he said. "Are you returning to your regular professional work?"

Benjulia struck his bamboo stick emphatically on the gravel-walk. "Never! Unless I know more than I know now."

This surely meant that he was as much devoted to his chemical experiments as ever? In that case, how could Ovid (who knew nothing of chemical experiments) be an obstacle in the doctor's way? Baffled thus far, he made another attempt at inducing Benjulia to explain himself.

"When is the world to hear of your discoveries?" he asked.

The doctor's massive forehead gathered ominously into a frown, "Damn the world!" That was his only reply.

Ovid was not disposed to allow himself to be kept in the dark in this way. "I suppose you are going on with your experiments?" he said.

The gloom of Benjulia's grave eyes deepened: they stared with a stern fixedness into vacancy. His great head bent slowly over his broad breast. The whole man seemed to be shut up in himself. "I go on a way of my own," he growled. "Let nobody cross it."

After that reply, to persist in making inquiries would only have ended in needlessly provoking an irritable man. Ovid looked back towards Carmina. "I must return to my friends," he said.

The doctor lifted his head, like a man awakened. "Have I been rude?" he asked. "Don't talk to me about my experiments. That's my raw place, and you hit me on it. What did you say just now? Friends? who are your friends?" He rubbed his hand savagely over his forehead—it was a way he had of clearing his mind. "I know," he went on. "I saw your friends just now. Who's the young lady?" His most intimate companions had never heard him laugh: they had sometimes seen his thin-lipped mouth widen drearily into a smile. It widened now. "Whoever she is," he proceeded, "Zo wonders why you don't kiss her."

This specimen of Benjulia's attempts at pleasantry was not exactly to Ovid's taste. He shifted the topic to his little sister. "You were always fond of Zo," he said.

Benjulia looked thoroughly puzzled. Fondness for anybody was, to all appearance, one of the few subjects on which he had not qualified himself to offer an opinion. He gave his head another savage rub, and returned to the subject of the young lady. "Who is she?" he asked again.

"My cousin," Ovid replied as shortly as possible.

"Your cousin? A girl of Lady Northlake's?"

"No: my late uncle's daughter."

Benjulia suddenly came to a standstill. "What!" he cried, "has that misbegotten child grown up to be a woman?"'

Ovid started. Words of angry protest were on his lips, when he perceived Teresa and Zo on one side of him, and the keeper of the monkeys on the other. Benjulia dismissed the man, with the favourable answer which Zo had already reported. They walked on again. Ovid was at liberty to speak.

"Do you know what you said of my cousin, just now?" he began.

His tone seemed to surprise the doctor. "What did I say?" he asked.

"You used a very offensive word. You called Carmina a 'misbegotten child.' Are you repeating some vile slander on the memory of her mother?"

Benjulia came to another standstill. "Slander?" he repeated—and said no more.

Ovid's anger broke out. "Yes!" he replied. "Or a lie, if you like, told of a woman as high above reproach as your mother or mine!"

"You are hot," the doctor remarked, and walked on again. "When I was in Italy—" he paused to calculate, "when I was at Rome, fifteen years ago, your cousin was a wretched little rickety child. I said to Robert Graywell, 'Don't get too fond of that girl; she'll never live to grow up.' He said something about taking her away to the mountain air. I didn't think, myself, the mountain air would be of any use. It seems I was wrong. Well! it's a surprise to me to find her—" he waited, and calculated again, "to find her grown up to be seventeen years old." To Ovid's ears, there was an inhuman indifference in his tone as he said this, which it was impossible not to resent, by looks, if not in words. Benjulia noticed the impression that he had produced, without in the least understanding it. "Your nervous system's in a nasty state," he remarked; "you had better take care of yourself. I'll go and look at the monkey."

His face was like the face of the impenetrable sphinx; his deep bass voice droned placidly. Ovid's anger had passed by him like the passing of the summer air. "Good-bye!" he said; "and take care of those nasty nerves. I tell you again—they mean mischief."

Not altogether willingly, Ovid made his apologies. "If I have misunderstood you, I beg your pardon. At the same time, I don't think I am to blame. Why did you mislead me by using that detestable word?"

"Wasn't it the right word?"

"The right word—when you only wanted to speak of a poor sickly child! Considering that you took your degree at Oxford—"

"You could expect nothing better from the disadvantages of my education," said the doctor, finishing the sentence with the grave composure that distinguished him. "When I said 'misbegotten,' perhaps I ought to have said 'half-begotten'? Thank you for reminding me. I'll look at the dictionary when I get home."

Ovid's mind was not set at ease yet. "There's one other thing," he persisted, "that seems unaccountable." He started, and seized Benjulia by the arm. "Stop!" he cried, with a sudden outburst of alarm.

"Well?" asked the doctor, stopping directly. "What is it?"

"Nothing," said Ovid, recoiling from a stain on the gravel walk, caused by the remains of an unlucky beetle, crushed under his friend's heavy foot. "You trod on the beetle before I could stop you."

Benjulia's astonishment at finding an adult male human being (not in a lunatic asylum) anxious to spare the life of a beetle, literally struck him speechless. His medical instincts came to his assistance. "You had better leave London at once," he suggested. "Get into pure air, and be out of doors all day long." He turned over the remains of the beetle with the end of his stick. "The common beetle," he said; "I haven't damaged a Specimen."

Ovid returned to the subject, which had suffered interruption through his abortive little act of mercy. "You knew my uncle in Italy. It seems strange, Benjulia, that I should never have heard of it before."

"Yes; I knew your uncle; and," he added with especial emphasis, "I knew his wife."

"Well?"

"Well, I can't say I felt any particular interest in either of them. Nothing happened afterwards to put me in mind of the acquaintance till you told me who the young lady was, just now.

"Surely my mother must have reminded you?"

"Not that I can remember. Women in her position don't much fancy talking of a relative who has married"—he stopped to choose his next words. "I don't want to be rude; suppose we say married beneath him?"

Reflection told Ovid that this was true. Even in conversation with himself (before the arrival in England of Robert's Will), his mother rarely mentioned her brother—and still more rarely his family. There was another reason for Mrs. Gallilee's silence, known only to herself. Robert was in the secret of her debts, and Robert had laid her under heavy pecuniary obligations. The very sound of his name was revolting to his amiable sister: it reminded her of that humiliating sense, known in society as a sense of gratitude.

Carmina was still waiting—and there was nothing further to be gained by returning to the subject of her mother with such a man as Benjulia. Ovid held out his hand to say good-bye.

Taking the offered hand readily enough, the doctor repeated his odd question—"I haven't been rude, have I?"—with an unpleasant appearance of going through a form purely for form's sake. Ovid's natural generosity of feeling urged him to meet the advance, strangely as it had been made, with a friendly reception.

"I am afraid it is I who have been rude," he said. "Will you go back with me, and be introduced to Carmina?"

Benjulia made his acknowledgments in his own remarkable way. "No, thank you," he said, quietly, "I'd rather see the monkey."



CHAPTER XIV.

In the meantime, Zo had become the innocent cause of a difference of opinion between two no less dissimilar personages than Maria and the duenna.

Having her mind full of the sick monkey, the child felt a natural curiosity to see the other monkeys who were well. Amiable Miss Minerva consulted her young friend from Italy before she complied with Zo's wishes. Would Miss Carmina like to visit the monkey-house? Ovid's cousin, remembering Ovid's promise, looked towards the end of the walk. He was not returning to her—he was not even in sight. Carmina resigned herself to circumstances, with a little air of pique which was duly registered in Miss Minerva's memory.

Arriving at the monkey-house, Teresa appeared in a new character. She surprised her companions by showing an interest in natural history.

"Are they all monkeys in that big place?" she asked. "I don't know much about foreign beasts. How do they like it, I wonder?"

This comprehensive inquiry was addressed to the governess, as the most learned person present. Miss Minerva referred to her elder pupil with an encouraging smile. "Maria will inform you," she said. "Her studies in natural history have made her well acquainted with the habits of monkeys."

Thus authorised to exhibit her learning, even the discreet Maria actually blushed with pleasure. It was that young lady's most highly-prized reward to display her knowledge (in imitation of her governess's method of instruction) for the benefit of unfortunate persons of the lower rank, whose education had been imperfectly carried out. The tone of amiable patronage with which she now imparted useful information to a woman old enough to be her grandmother, would have made the hands of the bygone generation burn to box her ears.

"The monkeys are kept in large and airy cages," Maria began; "and the temperature is regulated with the utmost care. I shall be happy to point out to you the difference between the monkey and the ape. You are not perhaps aware that the members of the latter family are called 'Simiadae,' and are without tails and cheek-pouches?"

Listening so far in dumb amazement, Teresa checked the flow of information at tails and cheek-pouches.

"What gibberish is this child talking to me?" she asked. "I want to know how the monkeys amuse themselves in that large house?"

Maria's perfect training condescended to enlighten even this state of mind.

"They have ropes to swing on," she answered sweetly; "and visitors feed them through the wires of the cage. Branches of trees are also placed for their diversion; reminding many of them no doubt of the vast tropical forests in which, as we learn from travellers, they pass in flocks from tree to tree."

Teresa held up her hand as a signal to stop. "A little of You, my young lady, goes a long way," she said. "Consider how much I can hold, before you cram me at this rate."

Maria was bewildered, but nor daunted yet. "Pardon me," she pleaded; "I fear I don't quite understand you."

"Then there are two of us puzzled," the duenna remarked. "I don't understand you. I shan't go into that house. A Christian can't be expected to care about beasts—but right is right all the world over. Because a monkey is a nasty creature (as I have heard, not even good to eat when he's dead), that's no reason for taking him out of his own country and putting him into a cage. If we are to see creatures in prison, let's see creatures who have deserved it—men and women, rogues and sluts. The monkeys haven't deserved it. Go in—I'll wait for you at the door."

Setting her bitterest emphasis on this protest, which expressed inveterate hostility to Maria (using compassion for caged animals as the readiest means at hand), Teresa seated herself in triumph on the nearest bench.

A young person, possessed of no more than ordinary knowledge, might have left the old woman to enjoy the privilege of saying the last word. Miss Minerva's pupil, exuding information as it were at every pore in her skin, had been rudely dried up at a moment's notice. Even earthly perfection has its weak places within reach. Maria lost her temper.

"You will allow me to remind you," she said, "that intelligent curiosity leads us to study the habits of animals that are new to us. We place them in a cage—"

Teresa lost her temper.

"You're an animal that's new to me," cried the irate duenna. "I never in all my life met with such a child before. If you please, madam governess, put this girl into a cage. My intelligent curiosity wants to study a monkey that's new to me."

It was fortunate for Teresa that she was Carmina's favourite and friend, and, as such, a person to be carefully handled. Miss Minerva stopped the growing quarrel with the readiest discretion and good-feeling. She patted Teresa on the shoulder, and looked at Carmina with a pleasant smile. "Worthy old creature! how full of humour she is! The energy of the people, Miss Carmina. I often remark the quaint force with which they express their ideas. No—not a word of apology, I beg and pray. Maria, my dear, take your sister's hand, and we will follow." She put her arm in Carmina's arm with the happiest mixture of familiarity and respect, and she nodded to Carmina's old companion with the cordiality of a good-humoured friend.

Teresa was not further irritated by being kept waiting for any length of time. In a few minutes Carmina joined her on the bench.

"Tired of the beasts already, my pretty one?"

"Worse than tired—driven away by the smell! Dear old Teresa, why did you speak so roughly to Miss Minerva and Maria?"

"Because I hate them! because I hate the family! Was your poor father demented in his last moments, when he trusted you among these detestable people?"

Carmina listened in astonishment. "You said just the contrary of the family," she exclaimed, "only yesterday!"

Teresa hung her head in confusion. Her well-meant attempt to reconcile Carmina to the new life on which she had entered was now revealed as a sham, thanks to her own outbreak of temper. The one honest alternative left was to own the truth, and put Carmina on her guard without alarming her, if possible.

"I'll never tell a lie again, as long as I live," Teresa declared. "You see I didn't like to discourage you. After all, I dare say I'm more wrong than right in my opinion. But it is my opinion, for all that. I hate those women, mistress and governess, both alike. There! now it's out. Are you angry with me?"

"I am never angry with you, my old friend; I am only a little vexed. Don't say you hate people, after only knowing them for a day or two! I am sure Miss Minerva has been very kind—to me, as well as to you. I feel ashamed of myself already for having begun by disliking her."

Teresa took her young mistress's hand, and patted it compassionately. "Poor innocent, if you only had my experience to help you! There are good ones and bad ones among all creatures. I say to you the Gallilees are bad ones! Even their music-master (I saw him this morning) looks like a rogue. You will tell me the poor old gentleman is harmless, surely. I shall not contradict that—I shall only ask, what is the use of a man who is as weak as water? Oh, I like him, but I distinguish! I also like Zo. But what is a child—especially when that beastly governess has muddled her unfortunate little head with learning? No, my angel, there's but one person among these people who comforts me, when I think of the day that will part us. Ha! do I see a little colour coming into your cheeks? You sly girl! you know who it is. There is what I call a Man! If I was as young as you are, and as pretty as you are—"

A warning gesture from Carmina closed Teresa's lips. Ovid was rapidly approaching them.

He looked a little annoyed, and he made his apologies without mentioning the doctor's name. His cousin was interested enough in him already to ask herself what this meant. Did he really dislike Benjulia, and had there been some disagreement between them?

"Was the tall doctor so very interesting?" she ventured to inquire.

"Not in the least!" He answered as if the subject was disagreeable to him—and yet he returned to it. "By-the-by, did you ever hear Benjulia's name mentioned, at home in Italy?"

"Never! Did he know my father and mother?"

"He says so."

"Oh, do introduce me to him!"

"We must wait a little. He prefers being introduced to the monkey to-day. Where are Miss Minerva and the children?"

Teresa replied. She pointed to the monkey-house, and then drew Ovid aside. "Take her to see some more birds, and trust me to keep the governess out of your way," whispered the good creature. "Make love—hot love to her, doctor!"

In a minute more the cousins were out of sight. How are you to make love to a young girl, after an acquaintance of a day or two? The question would have been easily answered by some men. It thoroughly puzzled Ovid.

"I am so glad to get back to you!" he said, honestly opening his mind to her. "Were you half as glad when you saw me return?"

He knew nothing of the devious and serpentine paths by which love finds the way to its ends. It had not occurred to him to approach her with those secret tones and stolen looks which speak for themselves. She answered with the straightforward directness of which he had set the example.

"I hope you don't think me insensible to your kindness," she said. "I am more pleased and more proud than I can tell you."

"Proud!" Ovid repeated, not immediately understanding her.

"Why not?" she asked. "My poor father used to say you would be an honour to the family. Ought I not to be proud, when I find such a man taking so much notice of me?"

She looked up at him shyly. At that moment, he would have resigned all his prospects of celebrity for the privilege of kissing her. He made another attempt to bring her—in spirit—a little nearer to him.

"Carmina, do you remember where you first saw me?"

"How can you ask?—it was in the concert-room. When I saw you there, I remembered passing you in the large Square. It seems a strange coincidence that you should have gone to the very concert that Teresa and I went to by accident."

Ovid ran the risk, and made his confession. "It was no coincidence," he said. "After our meeting in the Square I followed you to the concert."

This bold avowal would have confused a less innocent girl. It only took Carmina by surprise.

"What made you follow us?" she asked.

Us? Did she suppose he had followed the old woman? Ovid lost no time in setting her right. "I didn't even see Teresa," he said. "I followed You."

She was silent. What did her silence mean? Was she confused, or was she still at a loss to understand him? That morbid sensitiveness, which was one of the most serious signs of his failing health, was by this time sufficiently irritated to hurry him into extremities. "Did you ever hear," he asked, "of such a thing as love at first sight?"

She started. Surprise, confusion, doubt, succeeded each other in rapid changes on her mobile and delicate face. Still silent, she roused her courage, and looked at him.

If he had returned the look, he would have told the story of his first love without another word to help him. But his shattered nerves unmanned him, at the moment of all others when it was his interest to be bold. The fear that he might have allowed himself to speak too freely—a weakness which would never have misled him in his days of health and strength—kept his eyes on the ground. She looked away again with a quick flush of shame. When such a man as Ovid spoke of love at first sight, what an instance of her own vanity it was to have thought that his mind was dwelling on her! He had kindly lowered himself to the level of a girl's intelligence, and had been trying to interest her by talking the language of romance. She was so dissatisfied with herself that she made a movement to turn back.

He was too bitterly disappointed, on his side, to attempt to prolong the interview. A deadly sense of weakness was beginning to overpower him. It was the inevitable result of his utter want of care for himself. After a sleepless night, he had taken a long walk before breakfast; and to these demands on his failing reserves of strength, he had now added the fatigue of dawdling about a garden. Physically and mentally he had no energy left.

"I didn't mean it," he said to Carmina sadly; "I am afraid I have offended you."

"Oh, how little you know me," she cried, "if you think that!"

This time their eyes met. The truth dawned on her—and he saw it.

He took her hand. The clammy coldness of his grasp startled her. "Do you still wonder why I followed you?" he asked. The words were so faintly uttered that she could barely hear them. Heavy drops of perspiration stood on his forehead; his face faded to a gray and ghastly whiteness—he staggered, and tried desperately to catch at the branch of a tree near them. She threw her arms round him. With all her little strength she tried to hold him up. Her utmost effort only availed to drag him to the grass plot by their side, and to soften his fall. Even as the cry for help passed her lips, she saw help coming. A tall man was approaching her—not running, even when he saw what had happened; only stalking with long strides. He was followed by one of the keepers of the gardens. Doctor Benjulia had his sick monkey to take care of. He kept the creature sheltered under his long frock-coat.

"Don't do that, if you please," was all the doctor said, as Carmina tried to lift Ovid's head from the grass. He spoke with his customary composure, and laid his hand on the heart of the fainting man, as coolly as if it had been the heart of a stranger. "Which of you two can run the fastest?" he asked, looking backwards and forwards between Carmina and the keeper. "I want some brandy."

The refreshment room was within sight. Before the keeper quite understood what was required of him, Carmina was speeding over the grass like Atalanta herself.

Benjulia looked after her, with his usual grave attention. "That wench can run," he said to himself, and turned once more to Ovid. "In his state of health, he's been fool enough to over-exert himself." So he disposed of the case in his own mind. Having done that, he remembered the monkey, deposited for the time being on the grass. "Too cold for him," he remarked, with more appearance of interest than he had shown yet. "Here, keeper! Pick up the monkey till I'm ready to take him again." The man hesitated.

"He might bite me, sir."

"Pick him up!" the doctor reiterated; "he can't bite anybody, after what I've done to him." The monkey was indeed in a state of stupor. The keeper obeyed his instructions, looking half stupefied himself: he seemed to be even more afraid of the doctor than of the monkey. "Do you think I'm the Devil?" Benjulia asked with dismal irony. The man looked as if he would say "Yes," if he dared.

Carmina came running back with the brandy. The doctor smelt it first, and then took notice of her. "Out of breath?" he said.