"On no account. Champagne, if you please . . . though I had rather you kept it in readiness."

"I am sorry, Miss Josselin, but there you ask of me the one thing impossible. I cannot abide to let wine stand and wait; and champagne— watch it, how it protests!" He filled her glass and refilled his own. "By the way," he added, sinking his voice, "one is permitted to congratulate a debutante?"

"And to criticise."

"There was nothing to criticise except—Oh, well, a trifle. At home in England we don't 'my lord' a mere baronet, you know."

"But since he is my lord?" She smiled gently, answering his puzzled stare. "How, otherwise, should I be here?"

Mr. Langton took wine to digest this. He shook his head. "You must forgive me. It is clear that I am drunk—abominably drunk—for I miss the point—"

"You accuse yourself unjustly."

"Do I? Well, I have certainly drunk a deal more wine than is good for me, and it will be revenged to-morrow. As a rule,"—he glanced around at his fellow-topers—"I pride myself that in head and legs I am inexpugnable. We all have our gifts; and i' faith until a moment ago I was patting myself on the back for owning this one."

"And why, Mr. Langton?"

"On the thought, Mistress Josselin, that I had cut out the frigate, as our tars say, and towed the prize to moorings before the others could fire a gun."

"I had hoped," she murmured, and bent her eyes on the wine-bubbles winking against the rim of her glass, "you did it in simple kindness."

"Well," he owned slowly, "and so I did. This belittling of good intentions, small enough to begin with, is a cursed habit, and I'll renounce it for once. It was little—it was nothing; yet behold me eager to be thanked."

"I thank you." She fingered the stem of the glass, not lifting her eyes. "But you have belittled me, too. I read it in books, and here on the threshold, as I step outside of books, you meet me with it. We women are always, it seems, poor ships, beating the seas, fleeing capture; and our tackle, our bravery—" She broke off, and sat musing, while her fingers played with the base of the glass.

"I take back my metaphors, Miss Josselin. I admit myself no buccaneer, but a simple ass who for once pricked ears on an honest impulse."

"That is better. But hush! Mr. Manley, yonder, is preparing to sing."

Mr. Manley, a young protege of the Collector's, had a streak of genius as an architect and several lesser gifts, among them a propensity for borrowing and a flexible tenor voice. He trolled an old song, slightly adapted—

"Here's a health unto Sir Oliver, With a fal-la-la, lala-la-la; Confusion to his enemies, With a fa-la-la, lala-la-la; And he that will not drink his health, I wish him neither wit nor wealth, Nor yet a rope to hang himself— With a fa-la-la, lala-la-la."

The effort was applauded. Above the applause the bull voice of Mr. Silk shouted,—

"But Miss Josselin has not drunk it yet! Langton monopolises her. Miss Josselin! What has Miss Josselin to say?"

The cry was taken up. "Miss Josselin! Miss Josselin!"

Batty Langton arose, glass in hand. "Is it a toast, gentlemen?" He glanced at Sir Oliver, who sat sombre, not lifting his eyes. "Our host permits me. . . . Then I give you 'Miss Josselin!'" Acclamations drowned his voice here, and the men sprang up, waving their glasses. Sir Oliver stood with the rest.

"Miss Josselin! Miss Josselin!" they shouted, and drank what their unsteady hands left unspilt. Langton waited, his full glass half upraised.

"Miss Josselin," he repeated very deliberately on the tail of the uproar, "who honours this occasion as Sir Oliver's ward."

For about five seconds an awkward silence held the company. Their fuddled memories retained scraps of gossip concerning Ruth, her history and destiny—gossip scandalous in the main. One or two glanced at the Collector, who had resumed his seat—and his scowl.

"The more reason she should drink his health." Again Mr. Silk was fugleman.

His voice braved it off on the silence. Ruth was raising her glass. Her eyes sought Miss Quiney's; but Miss Quiney's, lifted heavenward, had encountered the ceiling upon which Mr. Manley had recently depicted the hymeneals of Venus and Vulcan, not omitting Mars; and the treatment—a riot of the nude—had for the moment put the redoubtable little lady out of action.

Ruth leaned forward in her seat, lifting her glass high. It brimmed, but she spilled no drop.

"To Sir Oliver!"



Chapter VI.

CAPTAIN HARRY AND MR. HANMER.

"Guests, has he?—Out of my road, you rascal! Guests? I'll warrant there's none so welcome—"

A good cheery voice—a voice the curtain could not muffle—rang it down the corridor as on the note of a cornet.

The wine was at Ruth's lip, scarcely wetting it. She lowered the glass steadily and turned half-about in her chair at the moment when, as before a whirlwind, the curtain flew wide and a stranger burst in on the run with Manasseh at his heels.

"Oliver!" The stranger drew himself up in the doorway—a well-knit figure of a man, clear of eye, bronzed of hue, clad in blue sea-cloth faced with scarlet, and wearing a short sword at the hip. "Where's my Oliver?" he shouted. "You'll forgive my voice, gentlemen. I'm Harry Vyell, at your service, fresh from shipboard, and not hoarse with anthems like old what-d'ye-call-him." Running his gaze along the table, he sighted the Collector and broke into a view-halloo.

"Oliver! Brother Noll!" Captain Harry made a second run of it, caught his foot on the prostrate toper whom Langton had dragged out of Miss Quiney's way, and fell on his brother's neck. Recovering himself with a "damn," he clapped his left hand on Sir Oliver's shoulder, seized Sir Oliver's right in his grip and started pump-handling—"as though" murmured Langton, "the room were sinking with ten feet of liquor in the hold."

"Harry—is it Harry?" Sir Oliver stammered, and made a weak effort to rise.

"Lord! You're drunk!" Captain Harry crowed the cheerful discovery. "Well, and I'll join you—but in moderation, mind! Newly married man— if some one will be good enough to pass the decanter? . . . My dear fellow! . . . Cast anchor half an hour ago—got myself rowed ashore hot-foot to shake my Noll by the hand. Lord, brother, you can't think how good it feels to be married! Sally won't be coming ashore to-night; the hour's too late, she says; so I'm allowed an hour's liberty." Here the uxorious fellow paused on a laugh, indicating that he found irony in the word. "But Sally—capital name, Sally, for a sailor's wife; she's Sarah to all her family, Sal to me—Sally is cunning. Sally gives me leave ashore, but on condition I take Hanmer to look after me. He's my first lieutenant—first-rate officer, too—but no ladies' man. Gad!" chuckled Captain Harry, "I believe he'd run a mile from a petticoat. But where is he? Hi, Hanmer! step aft-along here and be introduced!"

A tall grave man, who had entered unnoticed, walked past the line of guests and up to his captain. He too wore a suit of blue with scarlet facings, and carried a short sword or hanger at his belt. He stood stiffly, awaiting command. The candle-light showed, beneath his right cheek bone, the cicatrix of a recent wound.

But Captain Harry, slewing round to him, was for the moment bereft of speech. His gaze had happened, for the first time, on little Miss Quiney.

"Eh?" he stammered, recovering himself. "Your pardon, ma'am. I wasn't aware that a lady—" Here his eyes, travelling to the end of the table, were arrested by the vision of Ruth Josselin. "Wh-e-ew!" he whistled, under his breath.

"Sir Oliver—" Batty Langton stood up.

"Hey?" The name gave Captain Harry yet another shock. He spun about again upon his brother. "'Sir Oliver'? Whats he saying?"

"You've not heard?" said the Collector, gripping his words slowly, one by one. "No, of course you've not. Harry, our uncle is dead."

There was a pause. "Poor old boy!" he muttered. "Used to be kind to us, Noll, after his lights. If it hadn't been for his womenkind."

"They're coming across to visit me, damn 'em!"

"What? Aunt Carrie and Di'? . . . Good Lord!"

"They're on the seas at this moment—may be here within the week."

"Good Lord!" Captain Harry repeated, and his eyes wandered again to Ruth Josselin. "Awkward, hey? . . . But I say, Noll—you really are Sir Oliver! Dear lad, I give you joy, and with all my heart. . . . Gad, here's a piece of news for Sally!"

Again he came to a doubtful halt, and again with his eyes on Ruth Josselin. He was not a quick-witted man, outside of his calling, nor a man apt to think evil; but he had been married a month, and this had been long enough to teach him that women and men judge by different standards.

"Sir Oliver," repeated Langton, "Miss Josselin craves your leave to retire."

"Yes, dear"—Miss Quiney launched an approving nod towards her—"I was about to suggest it, with Sir Oliver's leave. The hour is late, and by the time the sedan-chair returns for me—"

"There is no reason, Tatty, why we should not return together," said Ruth quietly. "The night is fine; and, with Manasseh for escort, I can walk beside your chair."

"Pardon me, ladies," put in Mr. Silk. "Once in the upper town, you may be safe enough; but down here by the quay the sh—sailors—I know 'em— it's my buishness. 'Low me—join the eshcort."

But here, perceived by few in the room, a somewhat remarkable thing happened. Mr. Hanmer, who had stood hitherto like a statue, put out a hand and laid it on Mr. Silk's shoulder; and there must have been some power in that grip, for Mr. Silk dropped into his seat without another word.

Captain Harry saw it, and broke into a laugh.

"Why, to be sure! Hanmer's the very man! The rest of ye too drunk— meaning no offence; and, for me,—well, for me, you see there's Sally to be reckoned with." He laughed aloud at this simple jocularity. "Hanmer!"

"Yes, sir."

"Convoy."

"If you wish it, sir." The lieutenant bowed stiffly; but it was to be noted that the scar, which had hitherto showed white on a bronzed cheek, now reddened on a pale one.

Miss Quiney hesitated. "The gentleman, as a stranger to Boston—"

"I'll answer for Hanmer, ma'am. You'll get little talk out of him; but, be there lions at large in Boston, Jack Hanmer'll lead you past 'em."

"Like Mr. Greatheart in the parable," spoke up Ruth, whose eyes had been taking stock of the proposed escort, though he stood in the penumbra and at half the room's length away. "Tatty—if my lord permit and Lieutenant Hanmer be willing—"

She stood up, and with a curtsy to Sir Oliver, swept to the door. Miss Quiney pattered after; and Mr. Hanmer, with a bow and hand lifted to the salute, stalked out at their heels.

"I'll warrant Jack Hanmer 'd liefer walk up to a gun," swore Captain Harry as the curtain fell behind them. "He bolts from the sight of Sally. I'll make Sally laugh over this." But here he pulled himself up and added beneath his voice, "I can't tell her, though."

The road as it climbed above the town toward Sabines grew rough and full of pitfalls. Even by the light of the full moon shining between the elms Miss Quiney's chairmen were forced to pick their way warily, so that the couple on the side-walk—which in comparison was well paved— easily kept abreast of them.

Ruth walked with the free grace of a Dryad. The moonlight shone now and again on her face beneath the arch of her wimple; and once, as she glanced up at the heavens, Mr. Hanmer—interpreting that she lifted her head to a scent of danger, and shooting a sidelong look despite himself—surprised a lustre as of tears in her eyes; whereupon he felt ashamed, as one who had intruded on a secret.

"Mr. Hanmer."

"Ma'am?"

"I have a favour to beg. . . . Is it true, by the way," she asked mischievously, "that to talk with a woman distresses you?"

"Ma'am—"

"My name is Ruth Josselin."

Mr. Hanmer either missed to hear the correction or heard and put it aside. "Been at sea all my life," he explained. "They caught me young."

Ruth looked sideways at him and laughed—a liquid little laugh, much like the bubbling note of a thrush. "You could not have given an answer more pat, sir. I want to speak to you about a child, caught young and about to be taken to sea. You are less shy with children, I hope?"

"Not a bit," confessed Mr. Hanmer. He added, "They take to me, though— the few I've met.

"Dick will take to you, for certain. Dicky is Sir Oliver's child."

"I didn't know—" Mr. Hanmer came to a full stop.

"No," said Ruth, as though she echoed him. "He is eight years old almost." Her eyes looked straight ahead, but she was aware that his had scanned her face for a moment, and almost she felt his start of reassurance.

"So, the child being a friend of mine, and his father having promised him a cruise in the Venus, you see that I very much want to know what manner of lady is Captain Harry's wife; and that I could not ask you point-blank because you would have set the question down to idle curiosity. . . . It might make all the difference to him," she added, getting no answer.

"A child of eight, and the country at war!" Mr. Hanmer muttered. "His father must know that we cruise ready for action."

"I tell you, sir, what Dicky told me this morning."

"But it's impossible!"

"To that, sir, I might find you half a dozen answers. To begin with, we all know—and Sir Oliver perhaps, from private information, knows better than any of us—that peace is in sight. Here in the northern Colonies it has arrived already; the enemy has no fleet on this side of the world, and on this coast no single ship to give you any concern."

"Guarda-costas? There may be a few left on the prowl, even in these latitudes. I don't believe it for my part; we've accounted for most of 'em. Still—"

"And Captain Harry thinks so much of them that he sails from Carolina to Boston with his bride on board!"

"You are right, Miss Josselin, and you are wrong. . . . Mistress Vyell has come to Boston in the Venus; and by reason that her husband, when he started, had as little acquaintance with fear for others as for himself. But if she return to Carolina it will be by land or when peace is signed. Love has made the Captain think; and thought has made him— well, with madam on board, I am thankful—" He checked himself.

"You are thankful he did not sight a guarda-costa." She concluded the sentence for him, and walked some way in silence, while he at her side was silent, being angry at having said so much.

"Yet Captain Harry is recklessly brave?" she mused.

"To the last degree, Miss Josselin," Mr. Hanmer agreed eagerly. "To the last degree within the right military rules. Fighting a ship's an art, you see."

It seemed that she did not hear him. "It runs in the blood," she said. She was thinking, fearfully yet exultantly, of this wonderful power of women, for whose sake cowards will behave as heroes and heroes turn to cowards.

They had outstripped the chairmen, and were at the gate of Sabines. He held it open for her. She bethought her that his last two or three sentences had been firmly spoken, that his voice had shaken off its husky stammer, and on the impulse of realised power she took a fancy to hear it tremble again.

"But if madam will not be on board to look after Dicky, the more will he need a friend. Mr. Hanmer, will you be that friend?"

"You are choosing a rough sort of nurse-maid."

"But will you?" She faced him, wonderful in the moonlight.

His eyes dropped. His voice stammered, "I—I will do my best, Miss Josselin."

She held out a hand. He took it perforce in his rope-roughened paw, held it awkwardly for a moment, and released it as one lets a bird escape.

Ruth smiled. "The best of women," ran a saying of Batty Langton's, "if you watch 'em, are always practising; even the youngest, as a kitten plays with a leaf."

They stood in silence, waiting for the chair to overtake them.

"Tatty, you are a heroine!"

Miss Quiney, unwinding a shawl from her head under the hall-lamp, released herself from Ruth's embrace. Her nerve had been strained and needed a recoil.

"Maybe," she answered snappishly. "For my part, I'd take more comfort, just now, to be called a respectable woman."

Ruth laughed, kissed her again, and stood listening to the footsteps as they retreated down the gravelled way. Among them her ear distinguished easily the firm tread of Mr. Hanmer.



Chapter VII.

FIRST OFFER.

A little before noon next day word came to her room that Sir Oliver had called and desired to speak with her.

She was not unprepared. She had indeed dressed with special care in the hope of it; but she went to her glass and stood for a minute or two, touching here and there her seemly tresses.

Should she keep him waiting—keep him even a long while? . . . He deserved it. . . . But ah, no! She was under a vow never to be other than forthright with him; and the truth was, his coming filled her with joy.

"I am glad you have come!" These, in fact, were her first words as he turned to face her in the drawing-room. He had been standing by the broad window-seat, staring out on the roses.

"You guess, of course, what has brought me?" He had dressed himself with extreme care. His voice was steady, his eye clear, and only a touch of pallor told of the overnight debauch. "I am here to be forgiven."

"Who am I, to forgive?"

"If you say that, you make it three times worse for me. Whatever you are does not touch my right to ask your pardon, or my need to be forgiven—which is absolute."

"No," she mused, "you are right. . . . Have you asked pardon of Tatty?"

"I have, ten minutes ago. She sent the message to you."

"Tatty was heroic"—Ruth paused on the reminiscence with a smile—" and, if you will believe me, quite waspish when I told her so."

"You should have refused to come. You might have known that I was drunk, or I could never have sent."

"How does it go?" She stood before him, puckering her brows a little as she searched to remember the words—"'On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded the seven chamberlains—'"

"Spare me."

"'—to bring Vasbti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to show the people and the princes her beauty, for she was fair to look on.' Do I quote immodestly, my lord?"

"Not immodestly," he answered. "For I think—I'll be sworn—no woman ever had half your beauty without knowing it. But you quote mal a propos. Queen Vashti refused to come."

"'Therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him.'"

"I think, again, that you were not the woman to obey any such fear."

"No. Queen Vashti refused to come, being a queen. Whereas I, my lord—

"'Being your slave, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire?'"

"My slave?" he asked. "Setting aside last night—when I was disgustingly drunk—have you a single excuse for using that word?"

"Of your giving, none. You have been more than considerate. Of my own choosing, yes."

He stared.

"At any rate Tatty is not your slave," she went on, and he smiled with her. "I am glad you asked Tatty's pardon. Did she forgive you easily?"

"Too easily. She was aware, she said, that gentlemen would be gentlemen."

"She must have meant precisely the reverse."

"Was I pretty bad?"

She put a hand across her eyes as if to brush the image from them. "What matters the degree? It was another man seated and wearing my lord's body. That hurt."

"By God, Ruth, it shall never happen again!"

She winced as he spoke her name, and her colour rose. "Please make no promise in haste," she said.

"Excuse me; when a man takes an oath for life, the quicker he's through with it the better—at least that's the way with us Vyells. It's trifles—like getting drunk, for instance—we do deliberately. Believe me, child, I have a will of my own."

"Yes," she meditated, "I believe you have a strong will."

"'Tis a swinish business, over-drinking, when all's said and done." He announced it as if he made a discovery; and indeed something of a discovery it was, for that age. "Weakens a man's self-control, besides dulling his palate. . . . They tell me, by the way, that after you left I beat Silk."

Ruth looked grave. "You did wrong, then."

"Silk is a beast."

"An excellent reason for not making him your guest; none for striking him at your own table."

"Perhaps not." Sir Oliver shrugged his shoulders. "Well, he can have his revenge, if he wants it."

"How so? As a clergyman he cannot offer to fight you, and as a coward he would not if he could."

"Is one, then, to be considerate with cowards?"

"Certainly, if you honour cowards with your friendship."

"Friendship! . . . The dog likes his platter and I suffer him for his talk. When his talk trespasses beyond sufferance, I chastise him. That's how I look at it."

"I am sorry, my lord, that Mr. Silk should make the third on your list this morning."

"Oh, come; you don't ask me to apologise to Silk!"

"To him rather than to me."

"But—oh nonsense! He was disgusting—unspeakable, I tell you. If you suppose I struck him for nothing—"

"I do not."

"You cannot think what he said."

"Something about me, was it not?" Then, as Sir Oliver stood silent, "Something a great many folk—your guests included—are quite capable of thinking about me, though they have not Mr. Silk's gift of language."

"—That gift for which (you will go on to remind me) I suffer him."

"No; that gift which (you said) trespasses beyond sufferance." She did not remind him that he, after all, had exposed her and provoked Mr. Silk's uncleanly words.

Both were beating time now. He had come, as was meet, to offer an apology, and with no intent beyond. He found not only that Ruth Josselin was grown a woman surpassing fair, but that her mere presence (it seemed, by no will of hers, but in spite of her will) laid hold of him, commanding him to face a further intent. It was wonderful, and yet just at this moment it mattered little, that the daylight soberly confirmed what had dazzled his drunkenness over night; that her speech added good sense to beauty. . . . What mattered at the moment was a sense of urgency, oppressing and oppressed by an equal sense of helplessness.

He had set the forces working and, with that, had chosen to stand aside—in indolence partly, partly in a careful cultivated indifference, but in part also obeying motives more creditable. He had stood aside, promising the result, but himself dallying with time. And lo! of a sudden the result had overtaken him. Had he created a monster, in place of a beautiful woman, he had not been more at its mercy.

But why this sense of urgency? And why should he allow it to oppress him?

Here was a creature exquisite, desirable, educated for no purpose but to be his. Then why not declare himself, leap the last easy fence and in a short while make her his?

To be sure her education—which, as we have seen, owned one source and spring, the passion to make herself perfect for his sake—had fashioned a woman very different to the woman of his planning. She had built not upon his careless defective design but upon her own incessant instinct for the best. So much his last night's blunder had taught him. He had sent for her as for a handmaid; and as a handmaid she had obeyed—but in spirit as a queen.

To put it brutally, she could raise her terms, and he as a gentleman could not beat her down. With ninety-nine women out of a hundred those higher terms could be summed up in one word—marriage. Well and again, why not? He was rich and his own master. In all but her poor origin and the scandal of an undeserved punishment she was worthy—more than worthy; and for the Colonials, among whom alone that scandal would count against her, he had a habit of contempt. He could, and would in his humour, force Boston to court her salons and hold its tongue from all but secret tattle. The thought, too, of Lady Caroline at this moment crossing the high seas to be met with the news agreeably moved him to mirth.

But somehow, face to face here, he divined that Ruth was not as ninety-nine women in the hundred; that her terms were different. They might he less, but also they were more. They might be less. Had she not crossed her arms and told him she was his slave? But in that very humility he read that they were more. There was no last easy fence. There was no fence at all. But a veil there was; a veil he lacked the insight to penetrate, the brutality to tear aside.

Partly to assure himself, partly to tempt her from this mysterious ring of defence, he went on, "I ought to apologise, too, for having sent Silk yesterday with my message. You received it?"

She bent her head.

"My aunt and cousin invite themselves to Boston, and give me no chance to say anything but 'Welcome.' Two pistols held to my head." He laughed. "There's a certain downrightness in Lady Caroline. And what do you suppose she wants?"

"Mr. Silk says she wants you to marry your cousin."

"Told you that, did he?" His eyes were on her face, but it had not changed colour; her clear gaze yet baffled him. "Well, and what do you say?"

"Must I say anything?"

"Well"—he gave a short, impatient laugh—"we can hardly pretend—can we?—that it doesn't concern you."

"I do not pretend it," she answered. "I am yours, to deal with as you will; to dismiss when you choose. I can never owe you anything but gratitude."

"Ruth, will you marry me?"

He said it with the accent of passion, stepping half a pace forward, holding out his hands. She winced and drew back a little; she, too, holding out her hands, but with the palms turned downward. Upon that movement his passion hung fire. (Was it actual passion, or rather a surrender to the inevitable—to a feeling that it had all happened fatally, beyond escape, that now—beautiful, wonderful as she had grown—he could never do without her? At any rate their hands, outstretched thus, did not meet.)

"You talked lightly just now," she said, and with the smallest catch in her voice, "of vows made in haste. You forget your vow that after three years I should go back—go back whence you took me—and choose."

"No," he corrected. "My promise was that you should go back and announce your choice. If some few months are to run, nothing hinders your choosing here and now. I do not ask you to marry me before the term is out, but only to make up your mind. You hear what I offer?"

She swept him a low, obedient bow. "I do, and it is much to me, my dear lord. Oh, believe me, it is very much! . . . But I do not think I want to be your wife—thus."

"You could not love me? Is that what you mean?"

"Not love you?" Her voice, sweet and low, choked on the words. "Not love you?" she managed to repeat. "You, who came to me as a god— to me, a poor tavern drudge—who lifted me from the cart, the scourge; lifted me out of ignorance, out of shame? Lord—love—doubt what you will of me—but not that!"

"You do love me? Then why—" He paused, wondering. The impalpable barrier hung like a mist about his wits.

"Did Andromeda not love Perseus, think you?" she asked lightly, recovering her smile, albeit her eyes were dewy.

"I am dull, then," he confessed. "I certainly do not understand."

"You came to me as a god when you saved me. Shall you come to me as less by an inch when you stoop to love me?"

"Ah!" he said, as if at length he comprehended; "I was drunk last night, and you must have time to get that image out of your mind."

She shook her head slowly. "You did not ask me last night to marry you. I shall always, I think, be able to separate an unworthy image of you, and forget it."

"Then you must mean that I am yet unworthy."

"My dear lord," she said after a moment or two, in which she seemed to consider how best to make it plain to him, "you asked me just now to marry you, but not because you knew me to be worthy; and though you may command what you choose, and I can deny you nothing, I would not willingly be your wife for a smaller reason. Nor did you ask me in the strength of your will, your passion even, but in their weakness. Am I not right?"

He was dumb.

"And is it thus," she went on, "that the great ones love and beget noble children?"

"I see," he said at length, and very slowly. "It means that I must very humbly become your wooer."

"It means that, if it be my honour ever to reward you, I would fain it were with the best of me. . . . Send me away from Sabines, my lord, and be in no hurry to choose. Your cousin—what is her name? Oh, I shall not be jealous!"

With a change of tone she led him to talk of the new home he had prepared for her—at a farmstead under Wachusett. He was sending thither two of his gentlest thoroughbreds, that she might learn to ride.

"Books, too, you shall have in plenty," he promised. "But there will be a dearth of tutors, I fear. I could not, for example, very well ask Mr. Hichens to leave his cure of souls and dwell with two maiden ladies in the wilderness."

She laughed. Her eyes sparkled already at the thought of learning to be a horsewoman.

"I will do without tutors." She spread her arms wide, as with a swimmer's motion, and he could not but note the grace of it. The palms, turned outward and slightly downward, had an eloquence, too, which he interpreted.

"I have mewed you here too long. You sigh for liberty."

She nodded, drawing a long breath. "I come from the sea-beach, remember."

"Say but the word, and instead of the mountain, the beach shall be yours."

"No. I have never seen a mountain. It will have the sound of waters, too—of its own cataracts. And on the plain I shall learn to gallop, and feel the wind rushing past me. These things, and a few books, and Tatty—" Here she broke off, on a sudden thought. "My lord, there is a question I have put to myself many times, and have promised myself to put to you. Why does Tatty never talk to me about God and religion and such things?"

He did not answer at once.

She went on: "It cannot only be because you do not believe in them. For Tatty is very religious, and brave as a lion; she would never be silent against her conscience."

"How do you know that I don't believe in them?"

She laughed. "Does my lord truly suppose me so dull of wit? or will he fence with my question instead of answering it?"

"The truth is, then," he confessed, "that before she saw you I thought fit to tell Miss Quiney what you had suffered—"

"She has known it from the first? I wondered sometimes. But oh, the dear deceit of her!"

"—And seeing that this same religion had caused your sufferings, I asked her to deal gently with you. She would not promise more than to wait and choose her own time. But Tatty, as you call her, is an honourable woman."

Ruth stretched out her hands.

"Ah, you were good—you were good! . . . If only my heart were a glass, and you might see how goodness becomes you!"

He took her hands this time, and laying one over another, kissed the back of the uppermost, but yet so respectfully that Miss Quiney, entering the room just then, supposed him to be merely taking a ceremonious leave.

For a few minutes he lingered out his call, hat and walking-cane in hand, talking pleasantly of his last night's guests, and with a smile that assumed his pardon to be granted. Incidentally Ruth learned how it had happened that a chair stood empty for her by Mr. Langton's side. It appeared that Governor Shirley himself had called, earlier in the evening, to offer his felicitations; and finding the seat on Sir Oliver's right occupied by a toper who either would not or could not make room, he had with some tact taken a chair at the far end of the table and vis-a-vis with his host, protesting that he chose it as the better vantage-ground for delivering a small speech. His speech, too, had been neat, happy in phrase, and not devoid of good feeling. Having delivered it, he had slipped away early, on an excuse of official business.

Sir Oliver related this appreciatively; and it had, in fact, been one of those small courtesies which, among men of English stock, give a grace to public life and help to keep the fighting clean. But in fact also (Ruth gathered) the two men did not love one another. Shirley—able and ruse statesman—had some sense of colonial independence, colonial ambition, colonial self-respect. Sir Oliver had none; he was a Whig patrician, and the colonies existed for the use and patronage of England. More than a year before, when Massachusetts raised a militia and went forth to capture Louisbourg—which it did, to the astonishment of the world—the Governor, whose heart was set on the expedition, had approached Captain Vyell and privately begged him to command it. He was answered that, having once borne the King's commission, Captain Vyell did not find a colonial uniform to his taste.



Chapter VIII.

CONCERNING MARGARET.

He called again, next morning. He came on horseback, followed by a groom. The groom led a light chestnut mare, delicate of step us a dancer, and carrying a side-saddle.

Ruth's ear had caught the sound of hoofs. She looked forth at her open window as Sir Oliver reined up and hailed, frank as a schoolboy.

"Your first riding lesson!" he announced.

"But I have no riding-skirt," she objected, her eyes opening wide with delight as they looked down and scanned the mare.

"You shall have one to-morrow." He swung himself out of saddle and gave over his own horse to the groom. "To-day you have only to learn how to sit and hold the reins and ride at a walk."

She caught up a hat and ran downstairs, blithe as a girl should be blithe.

He taught her to set her foot in his hand and lifted her into place.

"But are you not riding also?" she asked as he took the leading-rein.

"No. I shall walk beside you to-day . . . Now take up the reins—so; in both hands, please. That will help you to sit square and keep the right shoulder back, which with a woman is half the secret of a good seat. Where a man uses grip, she uses balance. . . . For the same reason you must not draw the feet back; it throws your body forward and off its true poise on the hips."

She began to learn at once and intelligently; for, unlike her other tutors, he started with simple principles and taught her nothing without giving its reason. He led her twice around the open gravelled space before the house, and so aside and along a grassy pathway that curved between the elms to the right. The pathway was broad and allowed him to walk somewhat wide of the mare, yet not so wide as to tauten the leading-rein, which he held (as she learned afterwards) merely to give her confidence; for the mare was docile and would follow him at a word.

"I am telling you the why-and-how of it all," he said, "because after this week you will be teaching yourself. This week I shall come every morning for an hour; but on Wednesday you start for Sweetwater Farm."

"And will there be nobody at the Farm to help me," she asked, a trifle dismayed.

"The farmer—his name is Cordery—rides, after a fashion. But he knows nothing of a side-saddle, if indeed he has ever seen one."

"Then to trot, canter, and gallop I must teach myself," she thought; for among the close plantations of Sabines there was room for neither. "If I experiment here, they will find me hanging like Absalom from a bough." But aloud she said nothing of her tremors.

"Dicky sits a horse remarkably well for his age," said Sir Oliver after a pause. "I had some thought to pack him off holidaying with you. But the puppy has taken to the water like a spaniel. He went off to the Venus yesterday, and it seems that on board of her he struck up, there and then, a close friendship with Harry's lieutenant, a Mr. Hanmer; and now he can talk of nothing but rigging and running-gear. He's crazed for a cruise and a hammock. Also it would seem that he used his time to win the affections of Madam Harry; which argues that his true calling is not the Navy, after all, but diplomacy."

Ruth sighed inaudibly. Dicky's companionship would have been delightful. But she knew the child's craze, and would not claim him, to mar his bliss—though she well knew that at a word from her he would renounce it.

"Diplomacy?" she echoed.

"Well," said Sir Oliver, looking straight before him. "Sally—my brother insists on calling her Sally—appears to have her head fixed well on her shoulders: she looks—as you must not forget to look— straight between the horse's ears. But your young bride is apt to be the greatest prude in the world. And Dicky, you see—"

Her hand weighed on the rein and brought the mare to a halt.

"Tell me about Dicky?"

"About Dicky?" he repeated.

"About his mother, then."

"She is dead," he answered, staring at the mare's glossy shoulder and smoothing it. His brows were bent in a frown.

"Yes . . . he told me that, in the coach, on our way from Port Nassau. It was the first thing he told me when he awoke. We had been rolling along the beach for hours in the dark; and I remember how, almost at the end of the beach, it grew light inside the coach and he opened his eyes. . . ."

She did not relate that the child had awaked in her arms.

"It was the first thing Dicky told me," she repeated; "and the only thing about—her. I think it must be the only thing he knows about her."

"Probably; for she died when he was born and—well, as the child grew up, it was not easy to explain to him. Other folks, no doubt—the servants and suchlike—were either afraid to tell or left it to me as my business. And I am an indolent parent." He paused and added, "To be quite honest, I dare say I distasted the job and shirked it."

"You did wrongly then," murmured Ruth, and her eyes were moist. "Dicky started with a great hole in his life, and you left it unfilled. Often, being lonely, he must have needed to know something of his mother. You should have told him all that was good; and that was not little, I think, if you had loved her?"

"I loved her to folly," he answered at length, his eyes still fixed on the mare's shoulder; "and yet not to folly, for she was a good woman: a married woman, some three or four years older than I and close upon twenty years younger than her husband, who was major of my regiment."

"You ran away with her? . . . Say that he was not your friend."

"He was not; and you may put it more correctly that I helped her to run away from him. He was a drunkard, and in private he ill-used her disgustingly. . . . Having helped her to escape I offered him his satisfaction. He refused to divorce her; but we fought and I ran him through the arm to avoid running him through the body, for he was a shockingly bad swordsman."

Ruth frowned. "You could not marry her?"

"No, and to kill him was no remedy; for if I could not marry an undivorced woman, as little could she have married her husband's murderer." He hunched his shoulders and concluded, "The dilemma is not unusual."

"What happened, then?"

"My mother paid twenty calls upon the Duke of Newcastle, and after the twentieth I received the Collectorship of this port of Boston. It was exile, but lucrative exile. My good mother is a Whig and devout; and there is nothing like that combination for making the best of both worlds. Indeed you may say that at this point she added the New World, and made the best of all three. She assured me that its solitudes would offer, among other advantages, great opportunity for repentance. 'Of course,' she said, 'if you must take the woman, you must.'"

He ended with a short laugh. Ruth did not laugh. Her mind was masculine at many points, but like a true woman she detested ironical speech.

"That is Mr. Langton's way of talking," she said; "and you are using it to hide your feelings. Will you tell me her name?—her Christian name only?"

"She was called Margaret—Margaret Dance. There is no reason why you should not have it in full."

"Is there a portrait of her?"

"Yes; as a girl she sat to Kneller—a Dryad leaning against an oak. The picture hangs in my dressing-room."

"It should have hung, rather, in Dicky's nursery; which," she added, picking up and using the weapon she most disliked, "need not have debarred your seeing it from time to time."

He glanced up, for he had never before heard her speak thus sharply.

"Perhaps you are right," he agreed; "though, for me, I let the dead bury the dead. I have no belief, remember, in any life beyond this one. Margaret is gone, and I see not how, being dead, she can advantage me or Dicky."

His words angered Ruth and at the same time subtly pleased her; and on second thoughts angered her the more for having pleased. She thought scorn of herself for her momentary jealousy of the dead; scorn for having felt relief at his careless tone; and some scorn to be soothed by a doctrine that, in her heart, she knew to be false.

For the moment her passions were like clouds in thunder weather, mounting against the wind; and in the small tumult of them she let jealousy dart its last lightning tongue.

"I am not learned in these matters, my lord. But I have heard that man must make a deity of something. The worse sort of unbeliever, they say, lives in the present and burns incense to himself. The better sort, having no future to believe in, idolises his past."

"Margaret is dead," he repeated. "I am no sentimentalist."

She bent her head. To herself she whispered. "He may not idolise his past, yet he cannot escape from it." . . . And her thoughts might have travelled farther, but she had put the mare to a walk again and just then her ears caught an unaccustomed sound, or confusion of sounds.

At the end of the alley she reined up, wide-eyed.

A narrow gateway here gave access to what had yesterday been a sloping paddock where Miss Quiney grazed a couple of cows. To-day the cows had vanished and given way to a small army of labourers. Broad strips of turf had vanished also and the brown loam was moving downhill in scores of wheel-barrows, to build up the slope to a level.

Sir Oliver marked her amazement and answered it with an easy laugh.

"The time is short, you see, and already we have wasted half an hour of it unprofitably. . . . These fellows appear to be working well."

She gazed at the moving gangs as one who, having come by surprise upon a hive of bees, stands still and cons the small creatures at work.

"But what is the meaning of it?"

"The meaning? Why, that for this week I am your riding-master, and that by to-morrow you will have a passable riding-school."



Chapter IX.

THE PROSPECT.

This happened on a Thursday. On the following Wednesday, a while before day-break, he met her on horseback by the gate of Sabines, and they rode forth side by side, ahead of the coach wherein Miss Quiney sat piled about with baggage, clutching in one hand a copy of Baxter's Saint's Everlasting Rest and with the other the ring of a canary-cage. (It was Dicky's canary, and his first love-offering. Yesterday had been Ruth's birthday—her eighteenth—and under conduct of Manasseh he had visited Sabines to wish her "many happy returns" and to say good-bye.)

Sir Oliver would escort the travellers for twelve miles on their way, to a point where the inland road broke into cart-tracks, and the tracks diverged across a country newly disafforested and strewn with jagged stumps among which the heavy vehicle could by no means be hauled. Here Farmer Cordery was to be in waiting with his light tilt-covered wagon.

They had started thus early because the season was hot and they desired to traverse the open highway and the clearings and to reach the forest before the sun's rays grew ardent. Once past the elms of Sabines their road lay broad before them, easy to discern; for the moon, well in her third quarter, rode high, with no trace of cloud or mist. So clear she shone that in imagination one could reach up and run a finger along her hard bright edge; and under moon and stars a land-breeze, virginally cool, played on our two riders' cheeks. Ungloving and stretching forth a hand, Ruth felt the dew falling, as it had been falling ever since sundown; and under that quiet lustration the world at her feet and around her, unseen as yet, had been renewed, the bee-ravished flowers replaced with blossoms ready to unfold, the turf revived, reclothed in young green, the atmosphere bathed, cleansed of exhausted scents, made ready for morning's "bridal of the earth and sky ":—

"As a vesture shall he fold them up. . . . In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun; which cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course."

Darkling they rode, and in silence, as though by consent. Ruth had never travelled this high way before: it glimmered across a country of which she knew nothing and could see nothing. But no shadow of fear crossed her spirit. Her heart was hushed; yet it exulted, because her lord rode beside her.

They had ridden thus without speech for three or four miles, when her chestnut blundered, tripped, and was almost down.

"All right?" he asked, as she reined up and steadied the mare.

"Yes. . . . She gave me a small fright, though."

"What happened? It looked to me as if she came precious near crossing her feet. If she repeats that trick by daylight I'll cast her—as I would to-morrow, if I were sure."

"Is it so bad a trick?"

"It might break your neck. It would certainly bring her down and break her knees."

"Oh!" Ruth shivered. "Do you mean that it would actually break them?" she asked in her ignorance.

He laughed. "Well, that's possible; but I meant the skin of the knee."

"That would heal, surely?"

He laughed again. "A horse is like a woman—" he began, but checked himself of a sudden. She waited for him to continue, and he went on, "It knocks everything off the price, you see. Some won't own a horse that has once been down; and any knowledgeable man can tell, at a glance. It is the first thing he looks for."

She considered for a moment. "But if the mark had been a scratch only— and the scratch had healed—might she not be as good a horse as ever?"

"It would damage her price, none the less."

"But you are not a horse-dealer. Would you value a horse by its selling price?"

He laughed. "I am afraid," he owned, "that I should be ruled by other men's opinions. Your connoisseur does not collect chipped chinaware. . . . There's the chance, too, that the mare, having once fallen, will throw herself again by the same trick."

"And women are like horses," thought Ruth as they rode on. The night was paling about them, and she watched the rolling champaign as little by little it took shape, emerging from the morning mist and passing from monochrome into faint colours: for albeit the upper sky was clear as ever, mist filled the hollows of the hills and rolled up their sides like a smoke.

"Look!" commanded Sir Oliver, reining up and turning in his saddle.

He pointed with his horse-whip. Behind them, over a tree-clad hill, lay a long purple cloud; and above it, while he pointed, the sun thrust its edge as it were the rim of a golden paten. Ruth wheeled her mare about, to face the spectacle, and at that moment the cloud parted horizontally as though a hand had ripped the veil across. A flood of gold poured through the rent, dazzling her eyes.

The sun mounted and swam free: the upper portion of the veil floated off like a wisp and drifted down the wind. Where the glory had shone, it lingered through tint after tint—rose, pale lemon, palest sea-green— and so passed into azure and became one with the rest of the heavens.

Sir Oliver withdrew his eyes and sought hers. "When I find the need of faith," he said, "I shall turn sun-worshipper."

"You have never found that need?" she asked slowly.

"Never," he confessed. "And you?"

"Never as a need. I mean," she explained, "that though I always despised religion—yes, always, even before I came to hate it—I never doubted that some wisdom must be at watch and at work all around me, ordering the sun and stars, for instance, and separating right from wrong. I just cannot understand how any one can do without a faith of that sort: it's as necessary as breath."

He shrugged his shoulders. "To me one Jehovah's as good as another, as unnecessary, and as incredible. I find it easier to believe that chaos hurtled around until it struck out some working balance; that the stars learned their places pretty much as men and women are learning theirs to-day. A painful process, I'll grant you, and damnably tedious; but they came to it in the end, and so in the end, maybe, will poor imitative man. But," he broke off, "this faith of yours must have failed you, once."

She shivered. "No; I made no claim on it, you see. Perhaps"—with a little smile—"I did not think myself important enough. I only know that, whatever was right, those men were horribly wrong: for it must be wrong to be cruel. Then I woke up, and you were beside me—"

She would have added, "How could I doubt, then?" But her voice failed her, and she wheeled about that he might not see her tears.

He, too, turned his horse. They rode on for a few paces in silence.

"I wish," she said, recovering her voice—"I wish, for your sake, you could have felt what I have been feeling since we left Sabines; the goodness all about us, watching us out of the night and the stars."

She looked up; but the stars were gone, faded out into daylight. He pushed his horse half a pace ahead, and glanced sideways at her face. Tears shone yet in her eyes, and his own, as he quickly averted them, fell on a tall mullein growing by the roadside. Big drops of dew adhered upon its woolly leaves and twinkled in the sunshine; and by contrast he knew the colour of her eyes—that they were violet and of the night—their dew distilled out of such violet darkness as had been the quality of one or two Mediterranean nights that lingered among his memories of the Grand Tour. More and more this girl surprised him with graces foreign to this colonial soil, graces supposed by him to be classical and lost, the appanage of goddesses.

Like a goddess now she lifted an arm and pointed west, as he had pointed east. Ahead of them, to the right of the road, rose a tall hill, wooded at the base, broken at the summit by craggy terraces. Two large birds wheeled and hovered above it, high in the blue, fronting the sunlight.

"Eagles, by Jove!" cried Sir Oliver.

Ruth drew a breath and watched them. She had never before seen an eagle.

"Will they have their nest in the cliffs?" she asked.

"Perhaps. . . . No, more likely they come from Wachusett; more likely still, from the mountains beyond. They are here seeking food."

"They do not appear to be seeking food," she said after a pause during which she watched their ambits of flight circling and intersecting "See the nearest one mounting, and the other lifting on a wider curve to meet him above. One would say they followed some pattern, like folks dancing."

"Some act of homage to the sun," he suggested. "They have come down to the sea to meet him—they look over the Atlantic from aloft there—and perform in his honour. Who knows?"

Across Ruth's inner vision there flashed a memory of Mr. Hichens, black-suited and bald, bending over his Hebrew Bible and expounding a passage of Job: "Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high? She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. . . ."

To herself she said: "If it be so, the eagle's faith is mine; my lord's also, perchance, if he but knew it."

Aloud she asked, "Why are the noblest, birds and beasts, so few and solitary?"

Sir Oliver laughed. "You may include man. The answer is the same, and simple: the strong of the earth feed on the weak, and it takes all the weaklings to make blood for the few."

She mused; but when she spoke again it was not to dispute with him. "You say they look over the sea from aloft there. Might we have sight of it from the top of the hill?"

"Perhaps. There is plenty of time to make sure before the coach overtakes us—though I warn you it will be risky."

"I am not afraid."

They cantered off gaily, plunged into the woods and breasted the slope, Sir Oliver leading and threading his way through the undergrowth. By-and-by they came to the bed of a torrent and followed it up, the horses picking their steps upon the flat boulders between which the water trickled. Some of these boulders were slimed and slippery, and twice Sir Oliver reached out a hand and hauled the mare firmly on to her quarters.

The belt of crags did not run completely around the hill. At the back of it, after a scramble out of the gully, they came on a slope of good turf, and so cantered easily to the summit.

Ruth gave a little cry of delight, and followed it up with a yet smaller one of disappointment. The country lay spread at her feet like a vast amphitheatre, ringed with wooded hills. Across the plain they encircled a river ran in loops, and from the crag at the edge of which she stood a streamlet emerged and took a brave leap down the hill to join it.

"But where is the sea?"

"That small hill yonder must hide it. You see it, with its line of elms? If those trees were down, we should see the Atlantic for a certainty. If you like the spot otherwise, I will have them removed."

He said it seriously; but of course she took it for granted that he spoke in jest, albeit the jest puzzled her a little. Indeed when she glanced up at him he was smiling, with his eyes on the distant landscape.

"The mountain too," he added, "if the trees will not suffice. Though not by faith, it shall be removed."



Chapter X.

THREE LADIES.

"You may smoke," said Dicky politely, setting down his glass.

"Thank you," answered Mr. Hanmer. "But are you sure? In my experience of houses there's always some one that objects."

Dicky lifted his chin. "We call this the nursery because it has always been the nursery. But I do what I like here."

Mr. Hanmer had accepted the boy's invitation to pay him a visit ashore and help him to rig a model cutter—a birthday gift from his father; and the pair had spent an afternoon upon it, seated upon the floor with the toy between them and a litter of twine everywhere, Dicky deep in the mysteries of knots and splices, the lieutenant whittling out miniature blocks and belaying-pins with a knife that seemed capable of anything.

They had been interrupted by Manasseh, bearing a tray of refreshments— bread and honey and cakes, with a jug of milk for the one; for the other a decanter of brown sherry with a dish of ratafia biscuits. The repast was finished now, and Dicky, eager to fall to work again, feared that his friend might make an excuse for departing.

Mr. Hanmer put a hand in his pocket and drew out his pipe.

"Your father would call it setting a bad example, I doubt?"

To this the boy, had he been less loyal, might have answered that his father took no great stock in examples, bad or good. He said: "Papa smokes. He says it is cleaner than taking snuff; and so it is, if you have ever seen Mr. Silk's waistcoat."

So Mr. Hanmer filled and lit his pipe, doing wonders with a pocket tinder-box. Dicky watched the process gravely through every detail, laying up hints for manhood.

"I ought to have asked you before," he said. "Nobody comes here ever, except Mr. Silk and the servants."

Hapless speech and bootless boast! They had scarcely seated themselves to work again, the lieutenant puffing vigorously, before they heard footsteps in the corridor, with a rustle of silks, and a hand tapped on the door.

It opened as Dicky jumped to his feet, calling "Come in!"—and on the threshold appeared Mrs. Vyell, in walking dress. Dicky liked "Mrs. Harry," as he called her; but he stared in dismay at two magnificent ladies in the doorway behind her, and more especially at the elder of the twain, who, attired in puce-coloured silk, stiff as a board, walked in lifting a high patrician nose and exclaiming,—

"Fah! What a detestable odour!"

Mr. Hanmer hurriedly hid his pipe and scrambled up, stammering an apology. Dicky showed more self-possession. He gave a little bow to the two strangers and turned to Mrs. Harry.

"I am sorry, Aunt Sarah. But I didn't know, of course, that you were coming and bringing visitors."

"To be sure you did not, child," said Mrs. Harry with a good-natured smile. She was a cheerful, commonsensical person, pleasant of face rather than pretty, by no means wanting in wit, and radiant of happiness, just now, as a young woman should be who has married the man of her heart. "But let me present you—to Lady Caroline Vyell and Miss Diana."

Dicky bowed again. "I am sorry, ma'am," he repeated, addressing Lady Caroline. "Mr. Hanmer has put out his pipe, you see, and the window is open."

Lady Caroline carried an eyeglass with a long handle of tortoise-shell. Through it she treated Dicky to a deliberate and disconcerting scrutiny, and lowered it to turn and ask Mrs. Harry,—

"You permit him to call you 'Aunt Sarah'?"

Mrs. Harry laughed. "It sounds better, you will admit, than 'Aunt Sally,' and don't necessitate my carrying a pipe in my mouth. Oh yes," she added, with a glance at the boy's flushed face, "Dicky and I are great friends. In any one's presence but Mr. Hanmer's I would say 'the best of friends.'"

Lady Caroline turned her eyeglass upon Mr. Hanmer. "Is this—er— gentleman his tutor?" she asked.

The question, and the sight of the lieutenant's mental distress, set Mrs. Harry laughing again. "In seamanship only. Mr. Hanmer is my husband's second-in-command and one of the best officers in the Navy."

"I consider smoking a filthy habit," said Lady Caroline.

"Yes, ma'am," murmured Mr. Hanmer.

The odious eyeglass was turned upon Dicky again. He, to avoid it, glanced aside at Miss Diana. He found Miss Diana less unpleasant than her mother, but attractive only by contrast. She was a tall woman, handsome but somewhat haggard, with a face saved indeed from peevishness by its air of distinction, but scornful and discontented. She had been riding, and her long, close habit became her well, as did her wide-brimmed hat, severely trimmed with a bow of black ribbon and a single ostrich feather.

"Diana," said Lady Caroline, but without removing her stony stare, "the child favours his mother."

"Indeed!" the girl answered indifferently. "I never met her."

"Oliver has her portrait somewhere, I believe. We must get him to show it to us. A toast in her day, and quite notably good-looking—though after a style I abominate." She turned to Mrs. Harry and explained: "One of your helpless clinging women. In my experience that sort does incomparably the worst mischief."

"Oh, hush, please!" murmured Mrs. Harry.

But Lady Caroline came of a family addicted to speaking its thoughts aloud. "Going to sea, is he? Well, on the whole Oliver couldn't do better. The boy's position here must be undesirable in many ways; and at sea a lad stands on his own feet—eh, Mr.—I did not catch your name?"

"Hanmer, ma'am."

"Well, and isn't it so?"

"Not altogether, ma'am," stammered Mr. Hanmer. "If ever your ladyship had been in the Navy—"

"God bless the man!" Lady Caroline interjected.

"—you'd have found that—that a good deal of kissing goes by favour, ma'am."

"H'mph!" said Lady Caroline when Mrs. Harry had done laughing. "The child will not lack protection, of course. Whether 'tis to their credit or not I won't say, but the Vyells have always shown a conscience for—er—obligations of this kind."

On her way back to Sabines, where Sir Oliver had installed them, Lady Caroline again commended to her daughter his sound sense in packing the child off to sea.

"They will take 'em at any age, I understand; and Mrs. Vyell, it appears, has no objection."

"She is not returning to Carolina by sea."

"No; but she can influence her husband. I must have another talk with her . . . a pleasant, unaffected creature, and, for a sailor's wife, more than presentable. One had hardly indeed looked to find such natural good manners in this part of the world. Her mother was a Quakeress, she tells me: yet she laughs a good deal, which I had imagined to be against their principles. She doesn't say 'thee' and 'thou' either."

"I heard her tutoyer her husband."

"Indeed? . . . Well," Lady Caroline went on somewhat inconsequently, "Harry is a lucky man. When one thinks of the dreadful connections these sailors are only too apt to form—though one cannot wholly blame them, their opportunities being what they are . . . But, as I was saying, Oliver couldn't have done better, for himself or for the child. At home the poor little creature could never be but a question; and since he has this craze for salt water—curious he should resemble his uncle in this rather than his father—one may almost call it providential. . . . At the same time, my dear, I wish you could have shown a little more interest."

"In the child? Why?"

"Really, Diana, I wish you would cure yourself of putting these abrupt questions. . . . Your Cousin Oliver is now the head of the family, remember. He has received us with uncommon cordiality, and put himself out not a little—"

"I can believe that," said Diana brusquely.

"And it says much. All men are selfish, and Oliver as a youth was very far from being an exception. I find the change in him significant of much. . . . At the same time you have mixed enough in the world, dear, to know that young men will be young men, and this sort of thing happens, unfortunately."

"If, mamma, you suppose I bear Cousin Oliver any grudge because of this child—"

"I am heartily glad to hear you say it. There should be, with us women, a Christian nicety in dealing with these—er—situations; in retrospect, at all events. A certain—disgust, shall we say?—is natural, proper, even due to our sex: I should think the worse—very far the worse—of my Diana did she not feel it. But above all things, charity! . . . And let me tell you, dear, what I could not have told at the time, but I think you are now old enough to know that such an experience is often the best cure for a man, who thereafter, should he be fortunate in finding the right woman, anchors his affections and proves the most assiduous of husbands. This may sound paradoxical to you—"

"Dear mamma"—Diana hid a smile and a little yawn together—"believe me it does not."

"Such a man, then," pursued Lady Caroline, faintly surprised, "is likely to be the more appreciative of any kindness shown to—er—what I may call the living consequence of his error."

"Why not say 'Dicky' at once, mamma, and have done with it."

"To Dicky, then, if you will; but I was attempting to lay down the general rule which Dicky illustrates. A little gentle notice taken of the child not only appeals to the man as womanly in itself, but delicately conveys to him that the past is, to some extent, condoned. He has sown his wild oats: he is, so to speak, range; but he is none the less grateful for some assurance—"

Lady Caroline's discourse had whiled the way back to Sabines, to the drawing-room; and here Diana wheeled round on her with the question, sudden and straight,—

"Do you suppose that Cousin Oliver is range, as you call it?"

"My child, we have every reason to believe so."

"Then what do you make of this?" The girl took up a small volume that lay on the top of the harpsichord, and thrust it into her mother's hands.

"Eh? What?" Lady Caroline turned the book back uppermost and spelled out the title through her eyeglass. "'Ovid'—he's Latin, is he not? Dear, I had no notion that you kept up your studies in that—er— tongue."

"I do not. I have forgot what little I learned of it, and that was next to nothing. But open the book, please, at the title-page."

"I see nothing. It has neither book-plate nor owner's signature." (Indeed Ruth never wrote her name in her books. She looked upon them as her lord's, and hers only in trust.)

"The title-page, I said. You are staring at the flyleaf."

"Ah, to be sure—" Lady Caroline turned a leaf. "Is this what you mean?" She held up a loose sheet of paper covered with writing.

"Read it."

The elder lady found the range of her eyeglass and conned—in silence and without well grasping its purport—the following effusion:—

Other maids make Love a foeman, Lie in ambush to defeat him; I alone will step to meet him Valiant, his accepted woman. Equal, consort in his car, Ride I to his royal war.

Victims of his bow and targe, Yet who toyed with lovers' quarrels, Envy me my braver laurels! Lord! thy shield of shadow large Lift above me, shout the charge!

"Well?"

"I make nothing of it," owned Lady Caroline. "It appears to be poetry of a sort—probably some translation from the Latin author."

"You note, at least, that the handwriting is a woman's?"

"H'm, yes," Lady Caroline agreed.

"Nothing else?"

"Dear, you speak in riddles."

"It is a riddle," said Diana. "Take the first letter of each line, and read them down, in order."

"O, L, I, V, E, R V, Y, E, L, L," spelled Lady Caroline, and lowered her eyeglass. "My dear, as you say, this cannot be a mere coincidence."

"Did I say that?" asked Diana.

"But who can it be, or have been? . . . That Dance woman, perhaps? She was infatuated enough."

"It was not she," said Diana positively.

"Somebody can tell us. . . . That Mr. Silk, for instance."

"Ah, you too think of him?"

"As a clergyman—and to some extent a boon companion of Oliver's—he would be likely to know—"

"—And to tell? You are quite right, mamma: I have asked him."



Chapter XI.

THE ESPIAL.

Ruth Josselin came down from the mountain to the stream-side, where, by a hickory bush under a knoll, her mare Madcap stood at tether. Slipping behind the bush—though no living soul was near to spy on her— she slid off her short skirt and indued a longer one more suitable for riding; rolled the discarded garment into a bundle which she strapped behind the saddle; untethered the mare, and mounted.

At her feet the plain stretched for miles, carpeted for the most part with short sweet turf and dotted in the distance with cattle, red in the sunlight that overlooked the mountain's shoulder. These were Farmer Cordery's cattle, and they browsed within easy radius of a clump of elms clustered about Sweetwater Farm. Some four miles beyond, on the far edge of the plain, a very similar clump of elms hid another farm, Natchett by name, in like manner outposted with cattle; and these were the only habitations of men within the ring of the horizon.

The afternoon sun cast the shadow of the mountain far across this plain, almost to the confines of Sweetwater homestead. A breeze descended from the heights and played with Ruth's curls as she rested in saddle for a moment, scanning the prospect; a gentle breeze, easily out-galloped. Time, place, and the horse—all promised a perfect gallop; her own spirits, too. For she had spent the day's hot hours in clambering among the slopes, battling with certain craggy doubts in her own mind; and with the afternoon shadow had come peace at heart; and out of peace a certain careless exultation. She would test the mare's speed and enjoy this hour before returning to Tatty's chit-chat, the evening lamp, and the office of family prayer with which Farmer Cordery duly dismissed his household for the night.

She pricked Madcap down the slope, and at the foot of it launched her on the gallop. Surely, unless it be that of sailing on a reach and in a boat that fairly heels to the breeze, there is no such motion to catch the soul on high. The breeze met the wind of her flight and was beaten by it, but still she carried the moment of encounter with her as a wave on the crest of which she rode. It swept, lifted, rapt her out of herself—yet in no bodiless ecstasy; for her blood pulsed in the beat of the mare's hoofs. To surrender to it was luxury, yet her hand on the rein held her own will ready at call; and twice, where Sweetwater brook meandered, she braced herself for the water-jump, judging the pace and the stride; and twice, with many feet to spare, Madcap sailed over the silver-grey riband.

All the while, ahead of her, the mountain lengthened its shadow. She overtook and passed it a couple of furlongs short of the homestead; passed it—so clearly defined it lay across the pasture—with a firmer hold on the rein, as though clearing an actual obstacle. . . . She was in sunlight now. Before her a wooden fence protected the elms and their enclosure. At the gate of it by rule she should have drawn rein.

She had never leapt a gate; had attempted a bank now and then, but nothing serious. Her success at the water-jumps tempted her; and the mare, galloping with her second wind, seemed to feel the temptation every whit as strongly.

In the instant of rising to it Ruth wondered what Farmer Cordery would say if she broke his top bar. . . . The mare's feet touched it lightly— rap, rap. She was over.

A wood pile stood within the gate to the left, hiding the house. She had passed the corner of it before she could bring Madcap to a standstill, and was laughing to herself in triumph as she glanced around.

Heavens!

The house was of timber, with a deep timbered verandah; and in the verandah, not twenty paces away, beside a table laid for coffee, stood Tatty with three ladies about her—three ladies all elegantly dressed and staring.

Ruth's hand went up quickly, involuntarily, to her dishevelled hair; and at the same moment the little lady, as though making a bolt from captivity, stepped down from the verandah and came shuffling across the yard towards her, almost at a run.

"Ruth, dear!" she panted. "Oh, dear, dear! I am so glad you have come!"

"Why, what's the matter?" The girl, scenting danger, faced it. She swung herself down from the saddle-crutch, picked up her skirt, and taking Madcap's rein close beside the curb, walked slowly up to the verandah. "Have they been bullying you, dear?" she asked in a low quiet voice.

"They have come all this way to see us—Lady Caroline Vyell, and Miss Diana; yes, and Mrs. Captain Vyell—'Mrs. Harry,' as Dicky calls her. They have ferreted us out, somehow—and the questions they have been asking! I think, dear—I really think—that in your place I should walk Madcap round to her stable and run indoors for a tidy-up before facing them. A minute or two to prepare yourself—I can easily make your excuses."

"And a moment since you were calling me to come and deliver you!" answered Ruth, still advancing. "Present me, please."

Little Miss Quiney, turning and running ahead, stammered some words to Lady Caroline, who paid no heed to them or to her but kept her eyeglass lifted and fixed upon Ruth. Miss Diana stood a pace behind her mother's shoulder; Mrs. Harry, after a glance at the girl, turned and made pretence to busy herself with the coffee-table.

"So you are the young woman!" ejaculated Lady Caroline.

"Am I?" said Ruth quietly, and after a profound curtsy turned sideways to the mare. "A lump of sugar, Tatty, if you please. . . . I thank you, ma'am—" as Mrs. Harry, anticipating Miss Quiney, stepped forward with a piece held between the sugar-tongs. "And I think she even deserves a second, for clearing the yard gate."

She fed the gentle creature and dismissed her. "Now trot around to your stall and ask one of the boys to unsaddle you!" She stood for ten seconds, may be, watching as the mare with a fling of the head trotted off obediently. Then she turned again and met Mrs. Harry's eyes with a frank smile.

"It is the truth," she said. "We cleared the gate. Come, please, and admire—"

Mrs. Harry, in spite of herself, stepped down from the verandah and followed. The others stood as they were, planted in stiff disapproval.

The girl led Mrs. Harry to the corner of the wood pile. "Admire!" she repeated, pointing with her riding-switch; and then, still keeping the gesture, she sank her voice and asked quickly, "Why are you here? You have a good face, not like the others. Tell me."

"Lady Caroline—" stammered Mrs. Harry, taken at unawares. "She has a right, naturally, to concern herself—"

"Does he know?"

"Sir Oliver? No—I believe not. . . . You see, the Vyells are a great family, and 'family' to them is a tremendous affair—a religion almost. Whatever touches one touches all; especially when that one happens to be the head of his house."

"Is that how Captain Vyell—how your husband—feels it?—No, please keep looking towards the gate. I mean no harm by these questions, and you will not mind answering them, I hope? It gives me just a little more chance of fair play."

"To tell you the truth," said Mrs. Harry, pretending to study the jump, "I looked at you because I could not help it. You are an extraordinarily beautiful woman."

"Thank you," answered Ruth. "But about 'Captain Harry,' as we call him? I suppose he, as next of kin, is most concerned of all?"

"He did not tell me about you, if that is what you mean; or rather he told me nothing until I questioned him. Then he owned that there was such a person, and that he had seen you. But he does not even know of this visit; he imagines that Lady Caroline is taking me for a pleasure trip, just to view the country."

Ruth turned towards the house. "You will tell him, of course," she said gravely, "when you return to the ship."

"I—I suppose I shall," confessed Mrs. Harry, and added, "There's one thing. You may suppose that, as his wife, I am as much concerned as any—perhaps more than these others. But I don't want you to think that I suggested hunting you up."

"I do not think anything of the sort. In fact I am sure you did not."

"Thank you."

Ruth had a mind to ask "Who, then, had brought them?" but refrained. She had guessed, and pretty surely.

"Well," she said with half a laugh, "you have been good and given me time to recover. It's heavy odds, you see, and—and I have not been trained for it, exactly. But I feel better. Shall we go back and face them?"

"One moment, again!" Mrs. Harry's kindly face hung out signals of distress. "It's heavy odds, as you say. Everything's against you. But the Lord knows I'm a well-meaning woman, and I'd hate to be unjust. If only I could be sure—if only you would tell me—"

Ruth stood still and faced her.

"Look in my eyes."

Mrs. Harry looked and was convinced. "But you love him," she murmured; "and he—"

"Ah, ma'am," said Ruth, "I answer you one question, and you would ask me another!"



Chapter XII.

LADY CAROLINE.

She walked back to the verandah.

"I understand," she said, "that Lady Caroline wishes a word with me."

With a slight bow she led the way through a low window that opened upon the Corderys' best parlour, through that apartment, and across a passage to the door of a smaller room lined with shelves—formerly a stillroom or store-chamber for home-made wines, cordials, preserves, but now converted into a boudoir for her use. Its one window looked out upon the farmyard, now in shadow, and a farther doorway led to the dairy. It stood open, and beyond it the eye travelled down a vista of cool slate flags and polished cream-pans.

On the threshold Ruth stood aside to let Lady Caroline enter; followed, and closed the door; stepped across and closed the door of the dairy. Lady Caroline meanwhile found a seat, and, lifting her eyeglass, studied at long range the library disposed upon the store shelves.

"We had best be quite frank," said she, as Ruth came back and stood before her.

"If you please."

"Of course it is all very scandalous and—er—nauseating, though I dare say you are unable to see it in that light. I merely mention it in justice to myself, lest you should mistake me as underrating or even condoning Sir Oliver's conduct. You will guess, at any rate, how it must shock my daughter."

"Yes," said Ruth; and added, "Why did you bring her?"

The girl's attitude—erect before her, patient, but unflinching—had already gone some way to discompose Lady Caroline. This straight question fairly disconcerted her; the worse because she could not quarrel with the tone of it.

"I wish," she answered, "my Diana to face the facts of life, ugly though they may be." As if aware that this hardly carried conviction—for, despite herself, something in Ruth began to impress her—she shifted ground and went on, "But we will not discuss my daughter, please. The point is, this state of things cannot continue. It may be hard for you—I am trying to take your view of it—but what may pass in a young man of blood cannot be permitted when he succeeds to a title and the— er—headship of his family. It becomes then his duty to give that family clean heirs. I put it plainly?"

Ruth bent her head for assent.

"Oliver Vyell, as no doubt you know, has already been mixed up in one entanglement, and has a child for reminder."

"Oh, but Dicky is the dearest child! The sweetest-natured, the cleanest-minded! Have you not seen him yet?"

Lady Caroline stared. As little as royalty did she understand being cross-questioned. It gave her a quite unexpected sense of helplessness.

"I fear you do not at all grasp the position," she said severely. "After all, I had done better to disregard your feelings, whatever they may be, and come to terms at once."

"No," answered Ruth, musing; "I do not understand the position; but I want to, more than I can say—and your ladyship must help me, please." She paused a moment. "In New England we prize good birth, good breeding, and what we too call 'family'; but I think the word must mean something different to you who live at home in England."

"I should hope so!" breathed Lady Caroline.

"It must be mixed up somehow with the great estates you have held for generations and the old houses you have lived in. No," she went on, as Lady Caroline would have interrupted; "please let me work it out in my own way, and then you shall correct me where I am wrong. . . . I have often thought how beautiful it must be to live in such an old house, one that has all its corners full of memories—the nurseries most of all— of children and grandchildren, that have grown up in gentleness and courtesy and honour—"

"Good Lord!" Lady Caroline interjected. "You mean"—Ruth smiled— "that I am talking like a book? That is partly my fault and partly our New England way; because, you see, we have to get at these things from books. Does it, after all, matter how—if only we get it right? . . . There's a tradition—what, I believe, you call an 'atmosphere'—and you are proud of it and very jealous."

"If you see all this," said Lady Caroline, mollified, "our business should be easier, with a little common sense on your part."

"And it knits you," pursued Ruth, "into a sort of family conspiracy— the womenkind especially—like bees in a hive. The head of the family is the queen bee, and you respect him amazingly; but all the same you keep your own judgment, and know when to thwart and when to disobey him, for his own and the family's good. I think you disobeyed Sir Oliver in coming here; or, at least, deceived him and came here without his knowledge."

"I am not accustomed," said Lady Caroline, rising, "to direct my conduct upon my nephew's advice."

"That, more or less, is what I was trying to say. Dear madam, let me warn you to do so, if you would manage his private affairs."

They faced each other now, upon declared war. Lady Caroline's neck was suffused to a purplish red behind the ears. She gasped for speech. Before she found it there came a tapping on the door, and Diana Vyell entered.



Chapter XIII.

DIANA VYELL.

"Have you not finished yet?" Miss Diana closed the door, glanced from one to the other, and laughed with a genial brutality. "Well, it's time I came. Dear mamma, you seem to be getting your feathers pulled."

There was a byword among the Whig families at home (who, by intermarrying, had learned to gauge another's weaknesses), that "the Pett medal showed ill in reverse." Miss Diana had heard the saying. As a Vyell—the Vyells were, before all things, critical—she knew it to be just, as well as malicious; but as a dutiful daughter she ought to have remembered.

As it was, her cool comment stung her mother to fury. The poor lady pointed a finger at Ruth, and spluttered (there is no more elegant word for the very inelegant exhibition),—

"A strumpet! One that has been whipped through the public streets."

There was a dreadful pause. Miss Diana, the first to recover herself, stepped back to the door and held it open.

"You must excuse dear mamma," she said coolly. "She has overtired herself."

But Lady Caroline continued to point a finger trembling with passion.

"Her price!" she shrilled. "Ask her that. It is all these creatures ever understand!"

Miss Diana slipped an arm beneath her elbow and firmly conducted her forth. Ruth, hearing the door shut, supposed that both women had withdrawn. She sank into a chair, and was stretching out her arms over the table to bury her face in them and sob, when the voice of the younger said quietly behind her shoulder,—

"It is always hard, after mamma's tantrums, to bring the talk back to a decent level. Nevertheless, shall we try?"

Ruth had drawn herself up again, rallying the spirit in her. It was weary, bruised; but its hour of default was not yet. Her voice dragged, but just perceptibly, as she answered Miss Vyell, who nodded, noting her courage and wondering a little,—

"I am sorry."

"Sorry?"

"Yes; it was partly my fault—very largely my fault. But your mother angered me from the first by assuming—what she had no right to assume. It was horrible."

Diana Vyell seated herself, eyed her steadily for a moment, and nodded again. "Mamma can be raide, there's no denying. She was wrong, of course; that's understood. . . . Still, on the whole you have done pretty well, and had your revenge."

Ruth's eyes widened, for this was beyond her.

Diana explained. "You have let us make the most impossible fools of ourselves. It may have been more by luck than by good management, as they say; but there it is. Now don't say that revenge isn't sweet. . . . I've done you what justice I can; but if you pose as an angel from heaven, it's asking too much." While Ruth considered this, she added, "I don't know if you can put yourself in mamma's place for a moment; but if you can, the hoax is complete enough, you'll admit."

"I had rather put myself in yours."

Their eyes met, and Diana's cheek reddened slightly. "You are an extraordinary girl," she said, "and there seems no way but to be honest with you. Unfortunately, it's not so easy, even with the best will in the world. Can you understand that?"

"If you love him—"

"Oh, for pity's sake spare me!" Diana bounced up and stepped to the window. The red on her cheek had deepened, and she averted it to stare out at the poultry in the yard. "You are unconscionable," she said after a while, with a vexed laugh. "I have known my cousin Oliver since we were children together. Really, you know, you're almost as brutal as mamma. . . . The truth? Let me see. Well, the truth, so near as I can tell it, is that I just let mamma have her head, and waited to see what would happen. This was her expedition, and I took no responsibility for it from the first."

"I understand." Ruth, watching the back of her head, spoke musingly, with pursed lips.

"Excuse me"—Diana wheeled about suddenly—"you cannot possibly understand just yet. This last was my tenth season in London. One grows weary . . . and then in the confusion of papa's death— It comes to this, that I was ready for anything to get out of the old rut. I—I—shall we say that I just cast myself on fate? It may have been at the back of my head that whatever happened might be worse, but couldn't well be wearier. But if you think I had any design of setting my cap at him—"

"Hush!" said Ruth softly. "I had no such thought."

"And if you had, you would not have cared," said Diana, eyeing her again long and steadily. "Mamma—you really must forgive mamma. If you knew them, there was never a Pett that was not impayable. Mamma spoke of asking your price. . . . As if, for any price, he would give you up!"

"I have no price to ask, of him or of any one."

"No, and you need have none. I am often very disagreeable," said Diana candidly, "but my worst enemy won't charge me with disparaging good looks in other women."

"May I use your words," said Ruth, with a shy smile, "and say that you have no need?"

"Rubbish! And don't talk like that to me, sitting here and staring you in the face, or I may change my mind again and hate you! I never said I didn't envy. . . . But there, the fault was mine for speaking of 'good looks' when I should have said, 'Oh, you wonder!'" broke off Diana. "May I ask it—one question?"

"Twenty, if you will."

"It is a brutal one; horrible; worse even than mamma's."

"As I remember," said Ruth gravely, "Lady Caroline asked none. It was I who did the questioning, and—and I am afraid that led to the trouble."

Diana laughed, and after a moment the two were laughing together.

"But what is your question?"

"No, I cannot ask it now." Diana shook her head, and was grave again.

"Please!"

"Well, then, tell me—" She drew back, slightly tilting her chin and narrowing her eyes, as one who contemplates a beautiful statue or other work of art. "Is it true they whipped that, naked, through the streets?"

Ruth bent her head.

"It is true."

"I wonder it did not kill you," Diana murmured.

"I am strong; strong and very healthy. . . . It broke something inside; I hardly know what. But there's a story—I read it the other day—about a man who wandered in a dark wood, and came to a place where he looked into hell. Just one glimpse. He fainted, and when he awoke it was daylight, with the birds singing all around him. But he was changed more than the place, for he listened and understood all the woodland talk—what the birds were saying, and the small creeping things. And when he went back among men he answered at random, and yet in a way that astonished them; for he saw and heard what their hearts were saying, at the back of their talk. . . . Of course," smiled Ruth, "I am not nearly so wonderful as that. But something has happened to me—"

Diana nodded slowly. "—Something that, at any rate, makes you terribly disconcerting. But what about Oliver? They tell me that he browbeat the magistrates and insisted on sitting beside you."