"No, but my head aches. Those Coltham people do talk so. Father, I want you to explain to me, for I can't well understand all this that they have been saying about Lord Ravenel."

John explained, as simply and briefly as he could.

"I understand. Then, though he is Earl of Luxmore, he is quite poor—poorer than any of us? And he has made himself poor in order to pay his own and his father's debts, and keep other people from suffering from any fault of his? Is it so?"

"Yes, my child."

"Is it not a very noble act, father?"

"Very noble."

"I think it is the noblest act I ever heard of. I should like to tell him so. When is he coming to Beechwood?"

Maud spoke quickly, with flushed cheeks, in the impetuous manner she inherited from her mother. Her question not being immediately answered, she repeated it still more eagerly.

Her father replied—"I do not know."

"How very strange! I thought he would come at once—to-night, probably."

I reminded her that Lord Ravenel had left for Paris, bidding goodbye to Mr. Jessop.

"He ought to have come to us instead of to Mr. Jessop. Write and tell him so, father. Tell him how glad we shall be to see him. And perhaps you can help him: you who help everybody. He always said you were his best friend."

"Did he?"

"Ah now, do write, father dear—I am sure you will."

John looked down on the little maid who hung on his arm so persuasively, then looked sorrowfully away.

"My child—I cannot."

"What, not write to him? When he is poor and in trouble? That is not like you, father," and Maud half-loosed her arm.

Her father quietly put the little rebellious hand back again to its place. He was evidently debating within himself whether he should tell her the whole truth, or how much of it. Not that the debate was new, for he must already have foreseen this possible, nay, certain, conjuncture. Especially as all his dealings with his family had hitherto been open as daylight. He held that to prevaricate, or wilfully to give the impression of a falsehood, is almost as mean as a direct lie. When anything occurred that he could not tell his children, he always said plainly, "I cannot tell you," and they asked no more.

I wondered exceedingly how he would deal with Maud.

She walked with him, submissive yet not satisfied, glancing at him from time to time, waiting for him to speak. At last she could wait no longer.

"I am sure there is something wrong. You do not care for Lord Ravenel as much as you used to do."

"More, if possible."

"Then write to him. Say, we want to see him—I want to see him. Ask him to come and stay a long while at Beechwood."

"I cannot, Maud. It would be impossible for him to come. I do not think he is likely to visit Beechwood for some time."

"How long? Six months? A year, perhaps?"

"It may be several years."

"Then, I was right. Something HAS happened; you are not friends with him any longer. And he is poor—in trouble—oh, father!"

She snatched her hand away, and flashed upon him reproachful eyes. John took her gently by the arm, and made her sit down upon the wall of a little stone bridge, under which the moat slipped with a quiet murmur. Maud's tears dropped into it fast and free.

That very outburst, brief and thundery as a child's passion, gave consolation both to her father and me. When it lessened, John spoke.

"Now has my little Maud ceased to be angry with her father?"

"I did not mean to be angry—only I was so startled—so grieved. Tell me what has happened, please, father?"

"I will tell you—so far as I can. Lord Ravenel and myself had some conversation, of a very painful kind, the last night he was with us. After it, we both considered it advisable he should not visit us again for the present."

"Why not? Had you quarrelled? or if you had, I thought my father was always the first to forgive everybody."

"No, Maud, we had not quarrelled."

"Then, what was it?"

"My child, you must not ask, for indeed I cannot tell you."

Maud sprang up—the rebellious spirit flashing out again. "Not tell me—me, his pet—me, that cared for him more than any of you did. I think you ought to tell me, father."

"You must allow me to decide that, if you please."

After this answer Maud paused, and said humbly, "Does any one else know?"

"Your mother, and your uncle Phineas, who happened to be present at the time. No one else: and no one else shall know."

John spoke with that slight quivering and blueness of the lips which any mental excitement usually produced in him. He sat down by his daughter's side and took her hand.

"I knew this would grieve you, and I kept it from you as long as I could. Now you must only be patient, and like a good child trust your father."

Something in his manner quieted her. She only sighed and said, "she could not understand it."

"Neither can I—often times, my poor little Maud. There are so many sad things in life that we have to take upon trust, and bear, and be patient with—yet never understand. I suppose we shall some day."

His eyes wandered upward to the wide-arched blue sky, which in its calm beauty makes us fancy that Paradise is there, even though we know that "THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS WITHIN US," and that the kingdom of spirits may be around us and about us everywhere.

Maud looked at her father, and crept closer to him—into his arms.

"I did not mean to be naughty. I will try not to mind losing him. But I liked Lord Ravenel so much—and he was so fond of me."

"Child"—and her father himself could not help smiling at the simplicity of her speech—"it is often easiest to lose those we are fond of and who are fond of us, because, in one sense, we never can really lose them. Nothing in this world, nor, I believe, in any other, can part those who truly and faithfully love."

I think he was hardly aware how much he was implying, at least not in its relation to her, else he would not have said it. And he would surely have noticed, as I did, that the word "love," which had not been mentioned before—it was "liking," "fond of," "care for," or some such round-about, childish phrase—the word "love" made Maud start. She darted from one to the other of us a keen glance of inquiry, and then turned the colour of a July rose.

Her attitude, her blushes, the shy tremble about her mouth, reminded me vividly, too vividly, of her mother twenty-eight years ago.

Alarmed, I tried to hasten the end of our conversation, lest, voluntarily or involuntarily, it might produce the very results which, though they might not have altered John's determination, would almost have broken his heart.

So, begging her to "kiss and make friends," which Maud did, timidly, and without attempting further questions, I hurried the father and daughter into the house; deferring for mature consideration, the question whether or not I should trouble John with any too-anxious doubts of mine concerning her.

As we drove back through Norton Bury, I saw that while her mother and Lady Oldtower conversed, Maud sat opposite rather more silent than her wont; but when the ladies dismounted for shopping, she was again the lively independent Miss Halifax,

"Standing with reluctant feet, Where womanhood and childhood meet;"

and assuming at once the prerogatives and immunities of both.

Her girlish ladyship at last got tired of silks and ribbons, and stood with me at the shop-door, amusing herself with commenting on the passers-by.

These were not so plentiful as I once remembered, though still the old town wore its old face—appearing fairer than ever, as I myself grew older. The same Coltham coach stopped at the Lamb Inn, and the same group of idle loungers took an interest in its disemboguing of its contents. But railways had done an ill turn to the coach and to poor Norton Bury: where there used to be six inside passengers, to-day was turned out only one.

"What a queer-looking little woman! Uncle Phineas, people shouldn't dress so fine as that when they are old."

Maud's criticism was scarcely unjust. The light-coloured flimsy gown, shorter than even Coltham fashionables would have esteemed decent, the fluttering bonnet, the abundance of flaunting curls—no wonder that the stranger attracted considerable notice in quiet Norton Bury. As she tripped mincingly along, in her silk stockings and light shoes, a smothered jeer arose.

"People should not laugh at an old woman, however conceited she may be," said Maud, indignantly.

"Is she old?"

"Just look."

And surely when, as she turned from side to side, I caught her full face—what a face it was! withered, thin, sallow almost to deathliness, with a bright rouge-spot on each cheek, a broad smile on the ghastly mouth.

"Is she crazy, Uncle Phineas?"

"Possibly. Do not look at her." For I was sure this must be the wreck of such a life as womanhood does sometimes sink to—a life, the mere knowledge of which had never yet entered our Maud's pure world.

She seemed surprised, but obeyed me and went in. I stood at the shop-door, watching the increasing crowd, and pitying, with that pity mixed with shame that every honest man must feel towards a degraded woman, the wretched object of their jeers. Half-frightened, she still kept up that set smile, skipping daintily from side to side of the pavement, darting at and peering into every carriage that passed. Miserable creature as she looked, there was a certain grace and ease in her movements, as if she had fallen from some far higher estate.

At that moment, the Mythe carriage, with Mr. Brithwood in it, dozing his daily drive away, his gouty foot propped up before him—slowly lumbered up the street. The woman made a dart at it, but was held back.

"Canaille! I always hated your Norton Bury! Call my carriage. I will go home."

Through its coarse discordance, its insane rage, I thought I knew the voice. Especially when, assuming a tone of command, she addressed the old coachman:

"Draw up, Peter; you are very late. People, give way! Don't you see my carriage?"

There was a roar of laughter, so loud that even Mr. Brithwood opened his dull, drunken eyes and stared about him.

"Canaille!"—the scream was more of terror than anger, as she almost flung herself under the horses' heads in her eagerness to escape from the mob. "Let me go! My carriage is waiting. I am Lady Caroline Brithwood!"

The 'squire heard her. For a single instant they gazed at one another—besotted husband, dishonoured, divorced wife—gazed with horror and fear, as two sinners who had been each other's undoing, might meet in the poetic torments of Dante's "Inferno," or the tangible fire and brimstone of many a blind but honest Christian's hell. One single instant,—and then Richard Brithwood made up his mind.

"Coachman, drive on!"

But the man—he was an old man—seemed to hesitate at urging his horses right over "my lady." He even looked down on her with a sort of compassion—I remembered having heard say that she was always kind and affable to her servants.

"Drive on, you fool! Here"—and Mr. Brithwood threw some coin amongst the mob—"Fetch the constable—some of you; take the woman to the watch-house!"

And the carriage rolled on, leaving her there, crouched on the kerbstone, gazing after it with something between a laugh and a moan.

Nobody touched her. Perhaps some had heard of her; a few might even have seen her—driving through Norton Bury in her pristine state, as the young 'squire's handsome wife—the charming Lady Caroline.

I was so absorbed in the sickening sight, that I did not perceive how John and Ursula, standing behind me, had seen it likewise—evidently seen and understood it all.

"What is to be done?" she whispered to him.

"What ought we to do?"

Here Maud came running out to see what was amiss in the street.

"Go in, child," said Mrs. Halifax, sharply. "Stay till I fetch you."

Lady Oldtower also advanced to the door; but catching some notion of what the disturbance was, shocked and scandalised, retired into the shop again.

John looked earnestly at his wife, but for once she did not or would not understand his meaning; she drew back uneasily.

"What must be done?—I mean, what do you want me to do?"

"What only a woman can do—a woman like you, and in your position."

"Yes, if it were only myself. But think of the household—think of Maud. People will talk so. It is hard to know how to act."

"Nay; how did One act—how would He act now, if He stood in the street this day? If we take care of aught of His, will He not take care of us and of our children?"

Mrs. Halifax paused, thought a moment, hesitated—yielded.

"John, you are right; you are always right. I will do anything you please."

And then I saw, through the astonished crowd, in face of scores of window-gazers, all of whom knew them, and a great number of whom they also knew, Mr. Halifax and his wife walk up to where the miserable woman lay.

John touched her lightly on the shoulder—she screamed and cowered down.

"Are you the constable? He said he would send the constable."

"Hush—do not be afraid. Cousin—Cousin Caroline."

God knows how long it was since any woman had spoken to her in that tone. It seemed to startle back her shattered wits. She rose to her feet, smiling airily.

"Madam, you are very kind. I believe I have had the pleasure of seeing you somewhere. Your name is—"

"Ursula Halifax. Do you remember?"—speaking gently as she would have done to a child.

Lady Caroline bowed—a ghastly mockery of her former sprightly grace. "Not exactly; but I dare say I shall presently—au revoir, madame!"

She was going away, kissing her hand—that yellow, wrinkled, old woman's hand,—but John stopped her.

"My wife wants to speak to you, Lady Caroline. She wishes you to come home with us."

"Plait il?—oh yes; I understand. I shall be happy—most happy."

John offered her his arm with an air of grave deference; Mrs. Halifax supported her on the other side. Without more ado, they put her in the carriage and drove home, leaving Maud in my charge, and leaving astounded Norton Bury to think and say exactly what it pleased.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

For nearly three years Lady Caroline lived in our house—if that miserable existence of hers could be called living—bedridden, fallen into second childhood:

"Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw;"

oblivious to both past and present, recognising none of us, and taking no notice of anybody, except now and then of Edwin's little daughter, baby Louise.

We knew that all our neighbours talked us over, making far more than a nine days' wonder of the "very extraordinary conduct" of Mr. and Mrs. Halifax. That even good Lady Oldtower hesitated a little before she suffered her tribe of fair daughters to visit under the same roof where lay, quite out of the way, that poor wreck of womanhood, which would hardly have tainted any woman now. But in process of time the gossip ceased of itself; and when, one summer day, a small decent funeral moved out of our garden gate to Enderley churchyard, all the comment was:

"Oh! is she dead?—What a relief it must be! How very kind of Mr. and Mrs. Halifax!"

Yes, she was dead, and had "made no sign," either of repentance, grief, or gratitude. Unless one could consider as such a moment's lightening before death, which Maud declared she saw in her—Maud, who had tended her with a devotedness which neither father nor mother forbade, believing that a woman cannot too soon learn womanhood's best "mission"—usefulness, tenderness, and charity. Miss Halifax was certain that a few minutes before the last minute, she saw a gleam of sense in the filmy eyes, and stooping down, had caught some feeble murmur about "William—poor William!"

She did not tell me this; she spoke of it to no one but her mother, and to her briefly. So the wretched life, once beautiful and loveful, was now ended, or perhaps born in some new sphere to begin again its struggle after the highest beauty, the only perfect love. What are we that we should place limits to the infinite mercy of the Lord and Giver of Life, unto whom all life returns?

We buried her and left her—poor Lady Caroline!

No one interfered with us, and we appealed to no one. In truth, there was no one unto whom we could appeal. Lord Luxmore, immediately after his father's funeral, had disappeared, whither, no one knew except his solicitor; who treated with and entirely satisfied the host of creditors, and into whose hands the sole debtor, John Halifax, paid his yearly rent. Therewith, he wrote several times to Lord Luxmore; but the letters were simply acknowledged through the lawyer: never answered. Whether in any of them John alluded to Lady Caroline I do not know; but I rather think not, as it would have served no purpose and only inflicted pain. No doubt, her brother had long since believed her dead, as we and the world had done.

In that same world one man, even a nobleman, is of little account. Lord Ravenel sank in its wide waste of waters, and they closed over him. Whether he were drowned or saved was of small moment to any one. He was soon forgotten—everywhere except at Beechwood; and sometimes it seemed as if he were even forgotten there. Save that in our family we found it hard to learn this easy, convenient habit—to forget.

Hard, though seven years had passed since we saw Guy's merry face, to avoid missing it keenly still. The mother, as her years crept on, oftentimes wearied for him with a yearning that could not be told. The father, as Edwin became engrossed in his own affairs, and Walter's undecided temperament kept him a boy long after boyhood, often seemed to look round vaguely for an eldest son's young strength to lean upon, often said anxiously, "I wish Guy were at home."

Yet still there was no hint of his coming; better he never came at all than came against his will, or came to meet the least pain, the shadow of disgrace. And he was contented and prosperous in the western world, leading an active and useful life, earning an honourable name. He had taken a partner, he told us; there was real friendship between them, and they were doing well; perhaps might make, in a few years, one of those rapid fortunes which clever men of business do make in America, and did especially at that time.

He was also eager and earnest upon other and higher cares than mere business; entered warmly into his father's sympathy about many political measures now occupying men's minds. A great number of comparative facts concerning the factory children in England and America; a mass of evidence used by Mr. Fowell Buxton in his arguments for the abolition of slavery; and many other things, originated in the impulsive activity, now settled into mature manly energy, of Mr. Guy Halifax, of Boston, U.S.—"our Guy."

"The lad is making a stir in the world," said his father one day, when we had read his last letter. "I shall not wonder if when he comes home a deputation from his native Norton Bury were to appear, requesting him to accept the honour of representing them in Parliament. He would suit them—at least, as regards the canvassing and the ladies—a great deal better than his old father—eh, love?"

Mrs. Halifax smiled, rather unwillingly, for her husband referred to a subject which had cost her some pain at the time. After the Reform Bill passed, many of our neighbours, who had long desired that one of John's high character, practical knowledge, and influence in the town, should be its M.P., and were aware that his sole objection to entering the House was the said question of Reform, urged him very earnestly to stand for Norton Bury.

To everybody's surprise, and none more than our own, he refused.

Publicly he assigned no reason for this except his conviction that he could not discharge as he ought, and as he would once have done, duties which he held so sacred and indispensable. His letter, brief and simple, thanking his "good neighbours," and wishing them "a younger and worthier" member, might be found in some old file of the Norton Bury Herald still. Even the Norton Bury Mercury, in reprinting it, commented on its touching honesty and brevity, and—concluding his political career was ended with it—condescended to bestow on Mr. Halifax the usual obituary line—

"We could have better spared a better man."

When his family, and even his wife, reasoned with him, knowing that to enter Parliament had long been his thought, nay, his desire, and perhaps herself taking a natural pride in the idea of seeing M.P.—M.P. of a new and unbribed House of Commons—after his well-beloved name; to us and to her he gave no clearer motive for his refusal than to the electors of Norton Bury.

"But you are not old, John," I argued with him one day; "you possess to the full the mens sana in corpore sano. No man can be more fitted than yourself to serve his country, as you used to say it might be served, and you yourself might serve it, after Reform was gained."

He smiled, and jocularly thanked me for my good opinion.

"Nay, such service is almost your duty; you yourself once thought so too. Why have you changed your mind?"

"I have not changed my mind, but circumstances have changed my actions. As for duty—duty begins at home. Believe me, I have thought well over the subject. Brother, we will not refer to it again."

I saw that something in the matter pained him, and obeyed his wish. Even when, a few days after, perhaps as some compensation for the mother's disappointment, he gave this hint of Guy's taking his place and entering Parliament in his room.

For any one—nay, his own son—to take John's place, to stand in John's room, was not a pleasant thought, even in jest; we let it pass by unanswered, and John himself did not recur to it.

Thus time went on, placidly enough; the father and mother changed into grandfather and grandmother, and little Maud into Auntie Maud. She bore her new honours and fulfilled her new duties with great delight and success. She had altered much of late years: at twenty was as old as many a woman of thirty—in all the advantages of age. She was sensible, active, resolute, and wise; sometimes thoughtful, or troubled with fits of what in any less wholesome temperament would have been melancholy; but as it was, her humours only betrayed themselves in some slight restlessness or irritability, easily soothed by a few tender words or a rush out to Edwin's, and a peaceful coming back to that happy home, whose principal happiness she knew that she, the only daughter, made.

She more than once had unexceptionable chances of quitting it; for Miss Halifax possessed plenty of attractions, both outwardly and inwardly, to say nothing of her not inconsiderable fortune. But she refused all offers, and to the best of our knowledge was a free-hearted damsel still. Her father and mother seemed rather glad of this than otherwise. They would not have denied her any happiness she wished for; still it was evidently a relief to them that she was slow in choosing it; slow in quitting their arms of love to risk a love untried. Sometimes, such is the weakness of parental humanity, I verily believe they looked forward with complacency to the possibility of her remaining always Miss Halifax. I remember one day, when Lady Oldtower was suggesting—half jest, half earnest—"better any marriage than no marriage at all;" Maud's father replied, very seriously—

"Better no marriage, than any marriage that is less than the best."

"How do you mean?"

"I believe," he said, smiling, "that somewhere in the world every man has his right wife, every woman her right husband. If my Maud's come he shall have her. If not, I shall be well content to see her a happy old maid."

Thus after many storms, came this lull in our lives; a season of busy yet monotonous calm,—I have heard say that peace itself, to be perfect, ought to be monotonous. We had enough of it to satisfy our daily need; we looked forward to more of it in time to come, when Guy should be at home, when we should see safely secured the futures of all the children, and for ourselves a green old age,

"Journeying in long serenity away."

A time of heavenly calm—which as I look back upon it grows heavenlier still! Soft summer days and autumn afternoons, spent under the beech-wood, or on the Flat. Quiet winter evenings, all to ourselves—Maud and her mother working, Walter drawing. The father sitting with his back to the lamp—its light making a radiance over his brow and white bald crown, and as it thrilled through the curls behind, restoring somewhat of the youthful colour to his fading hair. Nay, the old youthful ring of his voice I caught at times, when he found something funny in his book and read it out loud to us; or laying it down, sat talking as he liked to talk about things speculative, philosophical, or poetical—things which he had necessarily let slip in the hurry and press of his business life, in the burthen and heat of the day; but which now, as the cool shadows of evening were drawing on, assumed a beauty and a nearness, and were again caught up by him—precious as the dreams of his youth.

Happy, happy time—sunshiny summer, peaceful winter—we marked neither as they passed; but now we hold both—in a sacredness inexpressible—a foretaste of that Land where there is neither summer nor winter, neither days nor years.

The first break in our repose came early in the new year. There had been no Christmas letter from Guy, and he never once in all his wanderings had missed writing home at Christmas time. When the usual monthly mail came in, and no word from him—a second month, and yet nothing, we began to wonder about his omission less openly—to cease scolding him for his carelessness. Though over and over again we still eagerly brought up instances of the latter—"Guy is such a thoughtless boy about his correspondence."

Gradually, as his mother's cheek grew paler, and his father more anxious-eyed, more compulsorily cheerful, we gave up discussing publicly the many excellent reasons why no letters should come from Guy. We had written, as usual, by every mail. By the last—by the March mail, I saw that in addition to the usual packet for Mr. Guy Halifax—his father, taking another precautionary measure, had written in business form to "Messrs. Guy Halifax and Co." Guy had always, "just like his carelessness!" omitted to give the name of his partner; but addressed thus, in case of any sudden journey or illness of Guy's, the partner, whoever he was, would be sure to write.

In May—nay, it was on May day, I remember, for we were down in the mill-meadows with Louise and her little ones going a-maying—there came in the American mail.

It brought a large packet—all our letters of this year sent back again, directed in a strange hand, to "John Halifax, Esquire, Beechwood," with the annotation, "By Mr. Guy Halifax's desire."

Among the rest—though the sickening sight of them had blinded even his mother at first, so that her eye did not catch it, was one that explained—most satisfactorily explained, we said—the reason they were thus returned. It was a few lines from Guy himself, stating that unexpected good fortune had made him determine to come home at once. If circumstances thwarted this intention, he would write without fail; otherwise he should most likely sail by an American merchantman—the "Stars-and-Stripes."

"Then he is coming home. On his way home!"

And the mother, as with one shaking hand she held fast the letter, with the other steadied herself by the rail of John's desk—I guessed now why he had ordered all the letters to be brought first to his counting-house. "When do you think we shall see—Guy?"

At thought of that happy sight, her bravery broke down. She wept heartily and long.

John sat still, leaning over the front of his desk. By his sigh, deep and glad, one could tell what a load was lifted off the father's heart at the prospect of his son's return.

"The liners are only a month in sailing; but this is a barque most likely, which takes longer time. Love, show me the date of the boy's letter."

She looked for it herself. It was in JANUARY!

The sudden fall from certainty to uncertainty—the wild clutch at that which hardly seemed a real joy until seen fading down to a mere hope, a chance, a possibility—who has not known all this?

I remember how we all stood, mute and panic-struck, in the dark little counting-house. I remember seeing Louise, with her children in the door-way, trying to hush their laughing, and whispering to them something about "poor Uncle Guy."

John was the first to grasp the unspoken dread, and show that it was less than at first appeared.

"We ought to have had this letter two months ago; this shows how often delays occur—we ought not to be surprised or uneasy at anything. Guy does not say when the ship was to sail—she may be on her voyage still. If he had but given the name of her owners! But I can write to Lloyd's and find out everything. Cheer up, mother. Please God, you shall have that wandering, heedless boy of yours back before long."

He replaced the letters in their enclosure—held a general consultation, into which he threw a passing gleam of faint gaiety, as to whether being ours we had a right to burn them, or whether having passed through the post-office they were not the writer's but the owner's property, and Guy could claim them, with all their useless news, on his arrival in England. This was finally decided, and the mother, with faint smile, declared that nobody should touch them; she would put them under lock and key "till Guy came home."

Then she took her husband's arm; and the rest of us followed them as they walked slowly up the hill to Beechwood.

But after that day Mrs. Halifax's strength decayed. Not suddenly, scarcely perceptibly; not with any outward complaint, except what she jested over as "the natural weakness of old age;" but there was an evident change. Week by week her long walks shortened; she gave up her village school to me; and though she went about the house still and insisted on keeping the keys, gradually, "just for the sake of practice," the domestic surveillance fell into the hands of Maud.

An answer arrived from Lloyd's: the "Stars-and-Stripes" was an American vessel, probably of small tonnage and importance, was the under-writers knew nothing of it.

More delay—more suspense. The summer days came—but not Guy. No news of him—not a word—not a line.

His father wrote to America—pursuing inquiries in all directions. At last some tangible clue was caught. The "Stars-and-Stripes" had sailed, had been spoken with about the Windward Isles—and never heard of afterwards.

Still, there was a hope. John told the hope first, before he ventured to speak of the missing ship, and even then had to break the news gently, for the mother had grown frail and weak, and could not bear things as she used to do. She clung as if they had been words of life or death to the ship-owner's postscript—"that they had no recollection of the name of Halifax; there might have been such a gentleman on board—they could not say. But it was not probable; for the 'Stars-and-Stripes' was a trading vessel, and had not good accommodation for passengers."

Then came week after week—I know not how they went by—one never does, afterwards. At the time they were frightfully vivid, hour by hour; we rose each morning, sure that some hope would come in the course of the day; we went to bed at night, heavily, as if there were no such thing as hope in the world. Gradually, and I think that was the worst consciousness of all, our life of suspense became perfectly natural; and everything in and about the house went on as usual, just as though we knew quite well—what the Almighty Father alone knew!—where our poor lad was, and what had become of him. Or rather, as if we had settled in the certainty, which perhaps the end of our own lives alone would bring us, that he had slipped out of life altogether, and there was no such being as Guy Halifax under this pitiless sun.

The mother's heart was breaking. She made no moan, but we saw it in her face. One morning—it was the morning after John's birthday, which we had made a feint of keeping, with Grace Oldtower, the two little grandchildren, Edwin and Louise—she was absent at breakfast and dinner; she had not slept well, and was too tired to rise. Many days following it happened the same; with the same faint excuse, or with no excuse at all. How we missed her about the house!—ay, changed as she had been. How her husband wandered about, ghost-like, from room to room!—could not rest anywhere, or do anything. Finally, he left our company altogether, and during the hours that he was at home rarely quitted for more than a few minutes the quiet bed-chamber, where, every time his foot entered it, the poor pale face looked up and smiled.

Ay, smiled; for I noticed, as many another may have done in similar cases, that when her physical health definitely gave way, her mental health returned. The heavy burthen was lighter; she grew more cheerful, more patient; seemed to submit herself to the Almighty will, whatever it might be. As she lay on her sofa in the study, where one or two evenings John carried her down, almost as easily as he used to carry little Muriel, his wife would rest content with her hand in his, listening to his reading, or quietly looking at him, as though her lost son's face, which a few weeks since she said haunted her continually, were now forgotten in his father's. Perhaps she thought the one she should soon see—while the other—

"Phineas," she whispered one day, when I was putting a shawl over her feet, or doing some other trifle that she thanked me for,—"Phineas, if anything happens to me, you will comfort John!"

Then first I began seriously to contemplate a possibility, hitherto as impossible and undreamed of as that the moon should drop out of the height of heaven—What would the house be without the mother?

Her children never suspected this, I saw; but they were young. For her husband—

I could not understand John. He, so quick-sighted; he who meeting any sorrow looked steadily up at the Hand that smote him, knowing neither the coward's dread nor the unbeliever's disguise of pain—surely he must see what was impending. Yet he was as calm as if he saw it not. Calm, as no man could be contemplating the supreme parting between two who nearly all their lives had been not two, but one flesh.

Yet I had once heard him say that a great love, and only that, makes parting easy. Could it be that this love of his, which had clasped his wife so firmly, faithfully, and long, fearlessly clasped her still, by its own perfectness assured of its immortality?

But all the while his human love clung about her, showing itself in a thousand forms of watchful tenderness. And hers clung to him, closely, dependently; she let herself be taken care of, ruled and guided, as if with him she found helplessness restful and submission sweet. Many a little outward fondness, that when people have been long married naturally drops into disuse, was revived again; he would bring her flowers out of the garden, or new books from the town; and many a time, when no one noticed, I have seen him stoop and press his lips upon the faded hand, where the wedding-ring hung so loosely;—his own for so many years, his own till the dust claimed it, that well-beloved hand!

Ay, he was right. Loss, affliction, death itself, are powerless in the presence of such a love as theirs.

It was already the middle of July. From January to July—six months! Our neighbours without—and there were many who felt for us—never asked now, "Is there any news of Mr. Guy?" Even pretty Grace Oldtower—pretty still, but youthful no longer—only lifted her eyes inquiringly as she crossed our doorway, and dropped them again with a hopeless sigh. She had loved us all, faithfully and well, for a great many years.

One night, when Miss Oldtower had just gone home after staying with us the whole day—Maud and I sat in the study by ourselves, where we generally sat now. The father spent all his evenings up-stairs. We could hear his step overhead as he crossed the room or opened the window, then drew his chair back to its constant place by his wife's bedside. Sometimes there was a faint murmur of reading or talk; then long silence.

Maud and I sat in silence too. She had her own thoughts—I mine. Perhaps they were often one and the same: perhaps—for youth is youth after all—they may have diverged widely. Hers were deep, absorbed thoughts, at any rate, travelling fast—fast as her needle travelled; for she had imperceptibly fallen into her mother's ways and her mother's work.

We had the lamp lit, but the windows were wide open; and through the sultry summer night we could hear the trickle of the stream and the rustle of the leaves in the beech-wood. We sat very still, waiting for nothing, expecting nothing; in the dull patience which always fell upon us about this hour—the hour before bed-time, when nothing more was to be looked for but how best to meet another dreary day.

"Maud, was that the click of the front gate swinging?"

"No, I told Walter to lock it before he went to bed. Last night it disturbed my mother."

Again silence. So deep that the maid's opening the door made us both start.

"Miss Halifax—there's a gentleman wanting to see Miss Halifax."

Maud sprung up in her chair, breathless.

"Any one you know, is it?"

"No, Miss."

"Show the gentleman in."

He stood already in the doorway,—tall, brown, bearded. Maud just glanced at him, then rose, bending stiffly, after the manner of Miss Halifax of Beechwood.

"Will you be seated? My father—"

"Maud, don't you know me? Where's my mother? I am Guy."



CHAPTER XXXIX

Guy and his mother were together. She lay on a sofa in her dressing-room; he sat on a stool beside her, so that her arm could rest on his neck and she could now and then turn his face towards her and look at it—oh, what a look!

She had had him with her for two whole days—two days to be set against eight years! Yet the eight years seemed already to have collapsed into a span of time, and the two days to have risen up a great mountain of happiness, making a barrier complete against the woeful past, as happiness can do—thanks to the All-merciful for His mercies. Most especially for that mercy—true as His truth to the experience of all pure hearts—that one bright, brief season of joy can outweigh, in reality and even in remembrance, whole years of apparently interminable pain.

Two days only since the night Guy came home, and yet it seemed months ago! Already we had grown familiar to the tall, bearded figure; the strange step and voice about the house; all except Maud, who was rather shy and reserved still. We had ceased the endeavour to reconcile this our Guy—this tall, grave man of nearly thirty, looking thirty-five and more—with Guy, the boy that left us, the boy that in all our lives we never should find again. Nevertheless, we took him, just as he was, to our hearts, rejoicing in him one and all with inexpressible joy.

He was much altered, certainly. It was natural, nay, right, that he should be. He had suffered much; a great deal more than he ever told us—at least, not till long after; had gone through poverty, labour, sickness, shipwreck. He had written home by the "Stars-and-Stripes"—sailed a fortnight later by another vessel—been cast away—picked up by an outward-bound ship—and finally landed in England, he and his partner, as penniless as they left it.

"Was your partner an Englishman, then?" said Maud, who sat at the foot of the sofa, listening. "You have not told us anything about him yet."

Guy half smiled. "I will by and by. It's a long story. Just now I don't want to think of anybody or anything except my mother."

He turned, as he did twenty times a day, to press his rough cheek upon her hand and look up into her thin face, his eyes overflowing with love.

"You must get well now, mother. Promise!"

Her smile promised—and even began the fulfilment of the same.

"I think she looks stronger already—does she, Maud? You know her looks better than I; I don't ever remember her being ill in old times. Oh, mother, I will never leave you again—never!"

"No, my boy."

"No, Guy, no."—John came in, and stood watching them both contentedly. "No, my son, you must never leave your mother."

"I will not leave either of you, father," said Guy, with a reverent affection that must have gladdened the mother's heart to the very core. Resigning his place by her, Guy took Maud's, facing them; and father and son began to talk of various matters concerning their home and business arrangements; taking counsel together, as father and son ought to do. These eight years of separation seemed to have brought them nearer together; the difference between them—in age, far less than between most fathers and sons, had narrowed into a meeting-point. Never in all his life had Guy been so deferent, so loving, to his father. And with a peculiar trust and tenderness, John's heart turned to his eldest son, the heir of his name, his successor at Enderley Mills. For, in order that Guy might at once take his natural place, and feel no longer a waif and stray upon the world, already a plan had been started, that the firm of Halifax and Sons should become Halifax Brothers. Perhaps, ere very long—only the mother said privately, rather anxiously too, that she did not wish this part of the scheme to be mentioned to Guy just now—perhaps, ere long it would be "Guy Halifax, Esquire, of Beechwood;" and "the old people" at happy little Longfield.

As yet Guy had seen nobody but ourselves, and nobody had seen Guy. Though his mother gave various good reasons why he should not make his public appearance as a "ship-wrecked mariner," costume and all, yet it was easy to perceive that she looked forward not without apprehension to some meetings which must necessarily soon occur, but to which Guy made not the smallest allusion. He had asked, cursorily and generally, after "all my brothers and sisters," and been answered in the same tone; but neither he nor we had as yet mentioned the names of Edwin or Louise.

They knew he was come home; but how and where the first momentous meeting should take place we left entirely to chance, or, more rightly speaking, to Providence.

So it happened thus. Guy was sitting quietly on the sofa at his mother's feet, and his father and he were planning together in what way could best be celebrated, by our school-children, tenants, and work-people, an event which we took a great interest in, though not greater than in this year was taken by all classes throughout the kingdom—the day fixed for the abolition of Negro Slavery in our Colonies—the 1st of August, 1834. He sat in an attitude that reminded me of his boyish lounging ways; the picture of content; though a stream of sunshine pouring in upon his head, through the closed Venetian blind, showed many a deep line of care on his forehead, and more than one silver thread among his brown hair.

In a pause—during which no one exactly liked to ask what we were all thinking about—there came a little tap at the door, and a little voice outside.

"Please, me want to come in."

Maud jumped up to refuse admission; but Mr. Halifax forbade her, and himself went and opened the door. A little child stood there—a little girl of three years old.

Apparently guessing who she was, Guy rose up hastily, and sat down in his place again.

"Come in, little maid," said the father; "come in, and tell us what you want."

"Me want to see Grannie and Uncle Guy."

Guy started, but still he kept his seat. The mother took her grandchild in her feeble arms, and kissed her, saying softly,

"There—that is Uncle Guy. Go and speak to him."

And then, touching his knees, Guy felt the tiny, fearless hand. He turned round, and looked at the little thing, reluctantly, inquisitively. Still he did not speak to or touch her.

"Are you Uncle Guy?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you kiss me? Everybody kisses me," said everybody's pet; neither frightened nor shy; never dreaming of a repulse.

Nor did she find it. Her little fingers were suffered to cling round the tightly-closed hand.

"What is your name, my dear?"

"Louise—mamma's little Louise."

Guy put back the curls, and gazed long and wistfully into the childish face, where the inherited beauty was repeated line for line. But softened, spiritualised, as, years after its burial, some ghost of a man's old sorrows may rise up and meet him, the very spirit of peace shining out of its celestial eyes.

"Little Louise, you are very like—"

He stopped—and bending down, kissed her. In that kiss vanished for ever the last shadow of his boyhood's love. Not that he forgot it—God forbid that any good man should ever either forget or be ashamed of his first love! But it and all its pain fled far away, back into the sacred eternities of dreamland.

When, looking up at last, he saw a large, fair, matronly lady sitting by his mother's sofa, Guy neither started nor turned pale. It was another, and not his lost Louise. He rose and offered her his hand.

"You see, your little daughter has made friends with me already. She is very like you; only she has Edwin's hair. Where is my brother Edwin?"

"Here, old fellow. Welcome home."

The two brothers met warmly, nay, affectionately. Edwin was not given to demonstration; but I saw how his features twitched, and how he busied himself over the knots in his little girl's pinafore for a minute or more. When he spoke again it was as if nothing had happened and Guy had never been away.

For the mother, she lay with her arms folded, looking from one to the other mutely, or closing her eyes with a faint stirring of the lips, like prayer. It seemed as if she dared only THUS to meet her exceeding joy.

Soon, Edwin and Louise left us for an hour or two, and Guy went on with the history of his life in America and his partner who had come home with him, and, like himself, had lost his all.

"Harder for him than for me; he is older than I am. He knew nothing whatever of business when he offered himself as my clerk; since then he has worked like a slave. In a fever I had he nursed me; he has been to me these three years the best, truest friend. He is the noblest fellow. Father, if you only knew—"

"Well, my son, let me know him. Invite the gentleman to Beechwood; or shall I write and ask him? Maud, fetch me your mother's desk. Now then, Guy—you are a very forgetful fellow still; you have never yet told us your friend's name."

Guy looked steadily at his father, in his own straightforward way; hesitated—then apparently made up his mind.

"I did not tell you because he wished me not; not till you understood him as well as I do. You knew him yourself once—but he has wisely dropped his title. Since he came over to me in America he has been only Mr. William Ravenel."

This discovery—natural enough when one began to think over it, but incredible at first, astounded us all. For Maud—well was it that the little Louise seated in her lap hid and controlled in some measure the violent agitation of poor Auntie Maud.

Ay—Maud loved him. Perhaps she had guessed the secret cause of his departure, and love creates love often times. Then his brave renunciation of rank, fortune, even of herself—women glory in a moral hero—one who has strength to lose even love, and bear its loss, for the sake of duty or of honour. His absence, too, might have done much:—absence which smothers into decay a rootless fancy, but often nourishes the least seed of a true affection into full-flowering love. Ay—Maud loved him. How, or why, or when, at first no one could tell—perhaps not even herself; but so it was, and her parents saw it.

Both were deeply moved—her brother likewise.

"Father," he whispered, "have I done wrong? I did not know—how could I guess?"

"No, no—my son. It is very strange—all things just now seem so strange. Maud, my child,"—and John roused himself out of a long silence into which he was falling,—"go, and take Louise to her mother."

The girl rose, eager to get away. As she crossed the room—the little creature clinging round her neck, and she clasping it close, in the sweet motherliness of character which had come to her so early—I thought—I hoped—

"Maud!" said John, catching her hand as she passed him by—"Maud is not afraid of her father?"

"No,"—in troubled uncertainty—then with a passionate decision, as if ashamed of herself—

"No!"

She leaned over his chair-back and kissed him—then went out.

"Now—Guy."

Guy told, in his own frank way, all the history of himself and William Ravenel; how the latter had come to America, determined to throw his lot for good or ill, to sink or swim, with Maud's brother—chiefly, as Guy had slowly discovered, because he was Maud's brother. At last—in the open boat, on the Atlantic, with death the great revealer of all things staring them in the face—the whole secret came out. It made them better than friends—brothers.

This was Guy's story, told with a certain spice of determination too, as if—let his father's will be what it might, his own, which had now also settled into the strong "family" will, was resolute on his friend's behalf. Yet when he saw how grave, nay sad, the father sat, he became humble again, and ended his tale even as he had begun, with the entreaty—"Father, if you only knew—"

"My knowing and my judging seem to have been of little value, my son. Be it so. There is One wiser than I—One in whose hands are the issues of all things."

The sort of contrition with which he spoke—thus retracting, as it costs most men so much to retract, a decision given however justly at the time, but which fate has afterwards pronounced unjust, affected his son deeply.

"Father, your decision was right—William says it was. He says also, that it could not have been otherwise; that whatever he has become since, he owes it all to you, and to what passed that day. Though he loves her still, will never love any one else; yet he declares his loss of her has proved his salvation."

"He is right," said Mrs. Halifax. "Love is worth nothing that will not stand trial—a fiery trial, if needs be. And as I have heard John say many and many a time—as he said that very night—in this world there is not, ought not to be, any such words as 'too late.'"

John made no answer. He sat, his chin propped on his right hand, the other pressed against his bosom—his favourite attitude. Once or twice, with a deep-drawn, painful breath, he sighed.

Guy's eagerness could not rest. "Father, I told him I would either write to or see him to-day."

"Where is he?"

"At Norton Bury. Nothing could induce him to come here, unless certain that you desired it."

"I do desire it."

Guy started up with great joy. "Shall I write, then?"

"I will write myself."

But John's hand shook so much, that instead of his customary free, bold writing, he left only blots upon the page. He leant back in his chair, and said faintly—

"I am getting an old man, I see. Guy, it was high time you came home."

Mrs. Halifax thought he was tired, and made a place for his head on her pillow, where he rested some minutes, "just to please her," he said. Then he rose and declared he would himself drive over to Norton Bury for our old friend.

"Nay, let me write, father. To-morrow will do just as well."

The father shook his head. "No—it must be to-day."

Bidding good-bye to his wife—he never by any chance quitted her for an hour without a special tender leave-taking—John went away.

Guy was, he avouched, "as happy as a king." His old liveliness returned; he declared that in this matter, which had long weighed heavily on his mind, he had acted like a great diplomatist, or like the gods themselves, whom some unexacting, humble youth calls upon to

"Annihilate both time and space, And make two lovers happy!"

"And I'm sure I shall be happy too, in seeing them. They shall be married immediately. And we'll take William into partnership—that was a whim of his, mother—we call one another 'Guy' and 'William,' just like brothers. Heigho! I'm very glad. Are not you?"

The mother smiled.

"You will soon have nobody left but me. No matter. I shall have you all to myself, and be at once a spoiled child, and an uncommonly merry old bachelor."

Again the mother smiled, without reply. She, too, doubtless thought herself a great diplomatist.

William Ravenel—he was henceforward never anything to us but William—came home with Mr. Halifax. First, the mother saw him; then I heard the father go to the maiden bower where Maud had shut herself up all day—poor child!—and fetch his daughter down. Lastly, I watched the two—Mr. Ravenel and Miss Halifax—walk together down the garden and into the beech-wood, where the leaves were whispering and the stock-doves cooing; and where, I suppose, they told and listened to the old tale—old as Adam—yet for ever beautiful and new.

That day was a wonderful day. That night we gathered, as we never thought we should gather again in this world, round the family table—Guy, Edwin, Walter, Maud, Louise, and William Ravenel—all changed, yet not one lost. A true love-feast it was: a renewed celebration of the family bond, which had lasted through so much sorrow, now knitted up once more, never to be broken.

When we came quietly to examine one another and fall into one another's old ways, there was less than one might have expected even of outward change. The table appeared the same; all took instinctively their old places, except that the mother lay on her sofa and Maud presided at the urn.

It did one's heart good to look at Maud, as she busied herself about, in her capacity as vice-reine of the household; perhaps, with a natural feeling, liking to show some one present how mature and sedate she was—not so very young after all. You could see she felt deeply how much he loved her—how her love was to him like the restoring of his youth. The responsibility, sweet as it was, made her womanly, made her grave. She would be to him at once wife and child, plaything and comforter, sustainer and sustained. Ay, love levels all things. They were not ill-matched, in spite of those twenty years.

And so I left them, and went and sat with John and Ursula—we, the generation passing away, or ready to pass, in Heaven's good time, to make room for these. We talked but little, our hearts were too full. Early, before anybody thought of moving, John carried his wife up-stairs again, saying that, well as she looked, she must be compelled to economise both her good looks and her happiness.

When he came down again he stood talking for some time with Mr. Ravenel. While he talked I thought he looked wearied—pallid even to exhaustion; a minute or two afterwards he silently left the room.

I followed him, and found him leaning against the chimney-piece in his study.

"Who's that?" He spoke feebly; he looked—ghastly!

I called him by his name.

"Come in. Fetch no one. Shut the door."

The words were hoarse and abrupt, but I obeyed.

"Phineas," he said, again holding out a hand, as if he thought he had grieved me; "don't mind. I shall be better presently. I know quite well what it is—ah, my God—my God!"

Sharp, horrible pain—such as human nature shrinks from—such as makes poor mortal flesh cry out in its agony to its Maker, as if, for the time being, life itself were worthless at such a price. I know now what it must have been; I know now what he must have endured.

He held me fast, half unconscious as he was, lest I should summon help; and when a step was heard in the passage, as once before—the day Edwin was married—how, on a sudden, I remembered all!—he tottered forward and locked, double-locked, the door.

After a few minutes the worst suffering abated, and he sat down again in his chair. I got some water; he drank, and let me bathe his face with it—his face, grey and death-like—John's face!

But I am telling the bare facts—nothing more.

A few heavy sighs, gasped as it were for life, and he was himself again.

"Thank God, it is over now! Phineas, you must try and forget all you have seen. I wish you had not come to the door."

He said this, not in any tone that could wound me, but tenderly, as if he were very sorry for me.

"What is it?"

"There is no need for alarm;—no more than that day—you recollect?—in this room. I had an attack once before then—a few times since. It is horrible pain while it lasts, you see; I can hardly bear it. But it goes away again, as you also see. It would be a pity to tell my wife, or anybody; in fact, I had rather not. You understand?"

He spoke thus in a matter-of-fact way, as if he thought the explanation would satisfy me and prevent my asking further. He was mistaken.

"John, what is it?"

"What is it? Why, something like what I had then; but it comes rarely, and I am well again directly. I had much rather not talk about it. Pray forget it."

But I could not; nor, I thought, could he. He took up a book and sat still; though often times I caught his eyes fixed on my face with a peculiar earnestness, as if he would fain test my strength—fain find out how much I loved him; and loving, how much I could bear.

"You are not reading, John; you are thinking—what about?"

He paused a little, as if undetermined whether or not to tell me; then said: "About your father. Do you remember him?"

I looked surprised at the question.

"I mean, do you remember how he died?"

Somehow—though, God knows, not at that dear and sacred remembrance—I shuddered. "Yes; but why should we talk of it now?"

"Why not? I have often thought what a happy death it was—painless, instantaneous, without any wasting sickness beforehand—his sudden passing from life present to life eternal. Phineas, your father's was the happiest death I ever knew."

"It may be—I am not sure. John," for again something in his look and manner struck me—"why do you say this to me?"

"I scarcely know. Yes, I do know."

"Tell me, then."

He looked at me across the table—steadily, eye to eye, as if he would fain impart to my spirit the calmness that was in his own. "I believe, Phineas, that when I die my death will be not unlike your father's."

Something came wildly to my lips about "impossibility," the utter impossibility, of any man's thus settling the manner of his death, or the time.

"I know that. I know that I may live ten or twenty years, and die of another disease after all."

"Disease!"

"Nay—it is nothing to be afraid of. You see I am not afraid. I have guessed it for many years. I have known it for a certainty ever since I was in Paris."

"Were you ill in Paris?—You never said so."

"No—because—Phineas, do you think you could bear the truth? You know it makes no real difference. I shall not die an hour sooner for being aware of it."

"Aware of—what? Say quickly."

"Dr. K—— told me—I was determined to be told—that I had the disease I suspected; beyond medical power to cure. It is not immediately fatal; he said I might live many years, even to old age; and I might die, suddenly, at any moment, just as your father died."

He said this gently and quietly—more quietly than I am writing the words down now; and I listened—I listened.

"Phineas!"

I felt the pressure of his warm hand on my shoulder—the hand which had led me like a brother's all my life.

"Phineas, we have known one another these forty years. Is our love, our faith, so small, that either of us, for himself or his brother, need be afraid of death?—"

"Phineas!"—and the second time he spoke there was some faint reproach in the tone; "no one knows this but you. I see I was right to hesitate; I almost wish I had not told you at all."

Then I rose.

At my urgent request, he explained to me fully and clearly the whole truth. It was, as most truths are, less terrible when wholly known. It had involved little suffering as yet, the paroxysms being few and rare. They had always occurred when he was alone, or when feeling them coming on he could go away and bear them in solitude.

"I have always been able to do so until to-night. She has not the least idea—my wife, I mean."

His voice failed.

"It has been terrible to me at times, the thought of my wife. Perhaps I ought to have told her. Often I resolved I would, and then changed my mind. Latterly, since she has been ill, I have believed, almost hoped, that she would not need to be told at all."

"Would you rather, then, that she—"

John calmly took up the word I shrank from uttering. "Yes; I would rather of the two that she went away first. She would suffer less, and it would be such a short parting."

He spoke as one would speak of a new abode, an impending journey. To him the great change, the last terror of humanity, was a thought—solemn indeed, but long familiar and altogether without fear. And, as we sat there, something of his spirit passed into mine; I felt how narrow is the span between the life mortal and the life immortal—how, in truth, both are one with God.

"Ay," he said, "that is exactly what I mean. To me there is always something impious in the 'preparing for death' that people talk about; as if we were not continually, whether in the flesh or out of it, living in the Father's presence; as if, come when He will, the Master should not find all of us watching? Do you remember saying so to me, one day?"

Ah, that day!

"Does it pain you, my talking thus? Because if so, we will cease."

"No—go on."

"That is right. I thought, this attack having been somewhat worse than my last, some one ought to be told. It has been a comfort to me to tell you—a great comfort, Phineas. Always remember that."

I have remembered it.

"Now, one thing more, and my mind is at ease. You see, though I may have years of life—I hope I shall—many busy years—I am never sure of a day, and I have to take many precautions. At home I shall be quite safe now." He smiled again, with evident relief. "And rarely I go anywhere without having one of my boys with me. Still, for fear—look here."

He showed me his pocket-book; on a card bearing his name and address was written in his own legible hand, "HOME, AND TELL MY WIFE CAREFULLY."

I returned the book. As I did so, there dropped out a little note—all yellow and faded—his wife's only "love-letter,"—signed, "Yours sincerely, Ursula March."

John picked it up, looked at it, and put it back in its place.

"Poor darling! poor darling!" He sighed, and was silent for a while. "I am very glad Guy has come home; very glad that my little Maud is so happily settled. Hark! how those children are laughing!"

For the moment a natural shade of regret crossed the father's face, the father to whom all the delights of home had been so dear. But it soon vanished.

"How merry they are!—how strangely things have come about for us and ours! As Ursula was saying to-night, at this moment we have not a single care."

I grasped at that, for Dr. K—— had declared that if John had a quiet life—a life without many anxieties—he might, humanly speaking, attain a good old age.

"Ay, your father did. Who knows? we may both be old men yet, Phineas."

And as he rose, he looked strong in body and mind, full of health and cheer—scarcely even on the verge of that old age of which he spoke. And I was older than he.

"Now, will you come with me to say good-night to the children?"

At first I thought I could not—then, I could. After the rest had merrily dispersed, John and I stood for a long time in the empty parlour, his hand on my shoulder, as he used to stand when we were boys, talking.

What we said I shall not write, but I remember it, every word. And he—I KNOW he remembers it still.

Then we clasped hands.

"Good-night, Phineas."

"Good-night, John."



CHAPTER XL

Friday, the first of August, 1834.

Many may remember that day; what a soft, grey, summer morning it was, and how it broke out into brightness; how everywhere bells were ringing, club fraternities walking with bands and banners, school-children having feasts and work-people holidays; how, in town and country, there was spread abroad a general sense of benevolent rejoicing—because honest old England had lifted up her generous voice, nay, had paid down cheerfully her twenty millions, and in all her colonies the negro was free.

Many may still find, in some forgotten drawer, the medal bought by thousands and tens of thousands, of all classes, in copper, silver, or gold—distributed in charity-schools, and given by old people to their grandchildren. I saw Mrs. Halifax tying one with a piece of blue ribbon round little Louise's neck, in remembrance of this day. The pretty medal, with the slave standing upright, stretching out to Heaven free hands, from which the fetters are dropping—as I overheard John say to his wife, he could fancy the freeman Paul would stand in the Roman prison, when he answered to those that loved him, "I HAVE FOUGHT THE GOOD FIGHT. I HAVE FINISHED MY COURSE. I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH."

Now, with my quickened ears, I often heard John talking quietly to his wife on this wise.

He remained by her side the whole forenoon—wheeling her about in her garden-chair; taking her to see her school-children in their glory on our lawn—to hear the shouts rising up from the people at the mill-yard below. For all Enderley, following the master's example, took an interest, hearty even among hearty hard-working England, in the Emancipation of the Slaves.

We had our own young people round us, and the day was a glorious day, they declared one and all.

John was happy too—infinitely happy. After dinner he carried his wife to her chair beside the weeping ash, where she could smell the late hay in the meadow, and hear the ripple of the stream in the beech-wood—faint, for it was almost dried up now, but pleasant still. Her husband sat on the grass, making her laugh with his quaint sayings—admiring her in her new bonnet, and in the lovely white shawl—Guy's shawl—which Mr. Guy himself had really no time for admiring. He had gone off to the school tea-drinking, escorting his sister and sister-in-law, and another lady, whose eyes brightened with most "sisterly" joy whenever she glanced at her old playfellow. Guy's "sister" she nevertheless was not, nor was ever likely to be—and I questioned whether, in his secret heart, he had not begun already to feel particularly thankful for that circumstance.

"Ah, mother," cried the father, smiling, "you'll see how it will end: all our young birds will soon be flown—there will be nobody left but you and me."

"Never mind, John;" and stooping over him, she gave him one of her quiet, soft kisses, precious now she was an old woman as they had been in the days of her bloom. "Never mind. Once there were only our two selves—now there will be only our two selves again. We shall be very happy. We only need one another."

"Only one another, my darling."

This last word, and the manner of his saying it, I can hear if I listen in silence, clear as if yet I heard its sound. This last sight—of them sitting under the ash-tree, the sun making still whiter Ursula's white shawl, brightening the marriage ring on her bare hand, and throwing, instead of silver, some of their boyish gold colour into the edges of John's curls—this picture I see with my shut eyes, vivid as yesterday.

I sat for some time in my room—then John came to fetch me for our customary walk along his favourite "terrace" on the Flat. He rarely liked to miss it—he said the day hardly seemed complete or perfect unless one had seen the sun set. Thus, almost every evening, we used to spend an hour or more, pacing up and down, or sitting in that little hollow under the brow of the Flat, where, as from the topmost seat of a natural amphitheatre, one could see Rose Cottage and the old well-head where the cattle drank; our own green garden-gate, the dark mass of the beech-wood, and far away beyond that Nunneley Hill, where the sun went down.

There, having walked somewhat less time than usual, for the evening was warm and it had been a fatiguing day, John and I sat down together. We talked a little, ramblingly—chiefly of Longfield—how I was to have my old room again—and how a new nursery was to be planned for the grandchildren.

"We can't get out of the way of children, I see clearly," he said, laughing. "We shall have Longfield just as full as ever it was, all summer time. But in winter we'll be quiet, and sit by the chimney-corner, and plunge into my dusty desert of books—eh, Phineas? You shall help me to make notes for those lectures I have intended giving at Norton Bury, these ten years past. And we'll rub up our old Latin, and dip into modern poetry—great rubbish, I fear! Nobody like our old friend Will of Avon, or even your namesake, worthy Phineas Fletcher."

I reminded him of the "Shepherd's life and fate," which he always liked so much, and used to say was his ideal of peaceful happiness.

"Well, and I think so still. 'Keep true to the dreams of thy youth,' saith the old German; I have not been false to mine. I have had a happy life, thank God; ay, and what few men can say, it has been the very sort of happiness I myself would have chosen. I think most lives, if, while faithfully doing our little best, day by day, we were content to leave their thread in wiser hands than ours, would thus weave themselves out; until, looked back upon as a whole, they would seem as bright a web as mine."

He sat, talking thus, resting his chin on his hands—his eyes, calm and sweet, looking out westward—where the sun was about an hour from the horizon.

"Do you remember how we used to lie on the grass in your father's garden, and how we never could catch the sunset except in fragments between the abbey trees! I wonder if they keep the yew hedge clipped as round as ever."

I told him Edwin had said to-day that some strange tenants were going to make an inn of the old house, and turn the lawn into a bowling-green.

"What a shame! I wish I could prevent it. And yet, perhaps not," he added, after a silence. "Ought we not rather to recognise and submit to the universal law of change? How each in his place is fulfilling his day, and passing away, just as that sun is passing. Only we know not whither he passes; while whither we go we know, and the Way we know—the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."

Almost before he had done speaking—(God grant that in the Kingdom I may hear that voice, not a tone altered—I would not wish it altered even there)—a whole troop of our young people came out of Mrs. Tod's cottage, and nodded to us from below.

There was Mrs. Edwin, standing talking to the good old soul, who admired her baby-boy very much, but wouldn't allow there could be any children like Mrs. Halifax's children.

There was Edwin, deep in converse with his brother Guy, while beside them—prettier and younger-looking than ever—Grace Oldtower was making a posy for little Louise.

Further down the slope, walking slowly, side by side, evidently seeing nobody but one another, were another couple.

"I think, sometimes, John, that those two, William and Maud, will be the happiest of all the children."

He smiled, looked after them for a minute, and then laid himself quietly down on his back along the slope, his eyes still directed towards the sunset. When, brightening as it descended, the sun shone level upon the place where we were sitting, I saw John pull his broad straw hat over his face, and compose himself, with both hands clasped upon his breast, in the attitude of sleep.

I knew he was very tired, so I spoke no more, but threw my cloak over him. He looked up, thanked me silently, with his old familiar smile. One day—one day I shall know him by that smile! I sat half an hour or more watching the sun, which sank steadily, slowly, round, and red, without a single cloud. Beautiful, as I had never before seen it; so clear, that one could note the very instant its disc touched the horizon's grey.

Maud and Mr. Ravenel were coming up the slope. I beckoned them to come softly, not to disturb the father. They and I sat in silence, facing the west. The sun journeyed down to his setting—lower—lower; there was a crescent, a line, a dim sparkle of light; then—he was gone. And still we sat—grave, but not sad—looking into the brightness he had left behind; believing, yea, knowing, we should see his glorious face again to-morrow.

"How cold it has grown," said Maud. "I think we ought to wake my father."

She went up to him, laid her hand upon his, that were folded together over the cloak—drew back startled—alarmed.

"Father!"

I put the child aside. It was I who moved the hat from John's face—THE face—for John himself was far, far away. Gone from us unto Him whose faithful servant he was. While he was sleeping thus the Master had called him.

His two sons carried him down the slope. They laid him in the upper room in Mrs. Tod's cottage. Then I went home to tell his wife.

* * * * *

She was at last composed, as we thought, lying on her bed, death-like almost, but calm. It was ten o'clock at night. I left her with all her children watching round her.

I went out, up to Rose Cottage, to sit an hour by myself alone, looking at him whom I should not see again for—as he had said—"a little while."

"A little while—a little while." I comforted myself with those words. I fancied I could almost hear John saying them, standing near me, with his hand on my shoulder. John himself, quite distinct from that which lay so still before me; beautiful as nothing but death can be, younger much than he had looked this very morning—younger by twenty years.

Farewell, John! Farewell, my more than brother! It is but for a little while.

As I sat, thinking how peacefully the hands lay, clasped together still, how sweet was the expression of the close mouth, and what a strange shadowy likeness the whole face bore to Muriel's little face, which I had seen resting in the same deep rest on the same pillow; some one touched me. It was Mrs. Halifax.

How she came I do not know; nor how she had managed to steal out from among her children. Nor how she, who had not walked for weeks, had found her way up hither, in the dark, all alone. Nor what strength, almost more than mortal, helped her to stand there, as she did stand, upright and calm—gazing—gazing as I had done.

"It is very like him; don't you think so, Phineas?" The voice low and soft, unbroken by any sob. "He once told me, in case of—this, he would rather I did not come and look at him; but I can, you see."

I gave her my place, and she sat down by the bed. It might have been ten minutes or more that she and I remained thus, without exchanging a word.

"I think I hear some one at the door. Brother, will you call in the children?"

Guy, altogether overcome, knelt down beside his mother, and besought her to let him take her home.

"Presently—presently, my son. You are very good to me; but—your father. Children, come in and look at your father."

They all gathered round her—weeping; but she spoke without single tear.

"I was a girl, younger than any of you, when first I met your father. Next month we shall have been married thirty-three years. Thirty-three years."

Her eyes grew dreamy, as if fancy had led her back all that space of time; her fingers moved to and fro, mechanically, over her wedding-ring.

"Children, we were so happy, you cannot tell. He was so good; he loved me so. Better than that, he made me good; that was why I loved him. Oh, what his love was to me from the first! strength, hope, peace; comfort and help in trouble, sweetness in prosperity. How my life became happy and complete—how I grew worthier to myself because he had taken me for his own! And what HE was—Children, no one but me ever knew all his goodness, no one but himself ever knew how dearly I loved your father. We were more precious each to each than anything on earth; except His service, who gave us to one another."

Her voice dropped all but inaudible; but she roused herself, and made it once more clear and firm, the mother's natural voice.

"Guy, Edwin, all of you, must never forget your father. You must do as he wishes, and live as he lived—in all ways. You must love him, and love one another. Children, you will never do anything that need make you ashamed to meet your father."

As they hung round her she kissed them all—her three sons and her daughter, one by one; then, her mind being perhaps led astray by the room we were in, looked feebly round for one more child—remembered—smiled—

"How glad her father will be to have her again—his own little Muriel."

"Mother! mother darling! come home," whispered Guy, almost in a sob.

His mother stooped over him, gave him one kiss more—him her favourite of all her children—and repeated the old phrase:

"Presently, presently! Now go away, all of you; I want to be left for a little, alone with my husband."

As we went out, I saw her turn toward the bed—"John, John!" The same tone, almost the same words, with which she had crept up to him years before, the day they were betrothed. Just a low, low murmur, like a tired child creeping to fond protecting arms. "John, John!"

We closed the door. We all sat on the stairs outside; it might have been for minutes, it might have been for hours. Within or without—no one spoke—nothing stirred.

At last Guy softly went in.

She was still in the same place by the bed-side, but half lying on the bed, as I had seen her turn when I was shutting the door. Her arm was round her husband's neck; her face, pressed inwards to the pillow, was nestled close to his hair. They might have been asleep—both of them.

One of her children called her, but she neither answered nor stirred.

Guy lifted her up, very tenderly; his mother, who had no stay left but him—his mother—a widow—

No, thank God! she was not a widow now.

THE END