"I wonder if I affected him like a fine picture or a fine strain of music?" Susan asked herself in passing him.

"Miss Summerhaze must be acting on the hint I gave her," thought Mr. Falconer; and he went on with a little smile about his mouth. It pleased him to think he had influenced her.

Thus it was that this man and this woman came to think of each other. And now you are guessing that this thinking of each other advanced into a warmer interest—that these two people fell in love if they were not too far gone in years for such nonsense. Well for us all that there are hearts that are never too old for the sweet nonsense—the nonsense that is more sensible than half the philosophy of the sages. Your guess is so good that I should feel chagrined if I were one of those writers who delight in mysteries and in surprising the reader. But my highest aim is to tell a straight-forward story, so I acknowledge the guess correct, so far, at least, as my Susan is concerned. I have said that the romance in her nature died hard; but it never died at all. This man, this almost stranger, was rousing it as warmth and light stir the sleeping asphodels of spring. The foolish Susan came to think of Mr. Falconer whenever she made her toilet—to thrill at every sight of him and at his lightest word. But this was not till after many other meetings and interviews than those this story has recorded. As Mr. Falconer was frequently at the house which Susan built, and as this was less than a block removed from the one she occupied, there naturally occurred many a chance meeting, when some significant glance or word would send Susan's heart searching for its meaning.

And these chance meetings were not all.

"Who was it that called, Susie?" Gertrude asked one evening when her sister came up from a half-hour's interview with some one in the parlor.

"The gentleman who rents my house," Susan replied, her face turned from Gertrude.

"What is he for ever coming here for?"

"He came to tell me that there were some screws loose in a door-hinge," Susan answered.

"For pity's sake!" exclaimed Gertrude. "That's a great thing to come bothering about! Why didn't he get a screw-driver and screw up the screws?"

"It's my place to keep the house in order," said Susan.

"The report of things out of order usually sets landlords in a feaze, but you keep as serene as the moon with your tenant's complaints. He's always finding something out of order, which seems strange, considering that the house is brand-new."

Not many days after Gertrude had occasion to repeat her question to Susan: "Who was it called?"

She received the reply she was expecting: "The man who rents my house."

"Indeed! What's the matter now? another screw loose?" Gertrude asked.

"He wanted to suggest an alteration in the pantry."

"Why, he's for ever wanting alterations made! I don't see how you can be so patient with his criticisms: we all know you are house-proud. I wouldn't listen to that man: he'll ruin your house with his improvements. I don't know, anyhow, what he can mean by saying in one breath that it is a perfect house, and in the next asking for an alteration."

"I'm sure I don't know," said Susan; and then her heart went into a happy wondering as to what Mr. Falconer could mean.

"What is it this time?" Gertrude asked about three days after in reference to "the man who rents my house," as described by Susan. "Does he want another story put on your house?"

"No, he simply wanted to say that it would suit him to pay the rent semi-monthly, instead of monthly," Susan answered somewhat warmly.

"And, pray, what's his notion for that?" Gertrude asked.

"I didn't inquire," replied Susan shortly, resenting the evident criticism in her sister's tone.

But Susan did inquire why it was—inquired not of Mr. Falconer, but of her own heart.

"I don't see any reason for his making two errands to do a thing that could be done in one call. Instead of putting off pay-day, after the manner of most men, he proposes to anticipate it. Well, perhaps you and he understand it: I don't."

Why was this? Was it because it would double his visits to her? Was Susan vain or foolish that she thus questioned herself?

It was perhaps a little singular that Mr. Falconer's name had never passed between these two sisters; neither had Gertrude ever seen the gentleman who made these frequent business-calls on Susan.

"The man who rents my house:" this reply told something—all that Gertrude cared to know on the subject; whereas the reply, "Mr. Falconer," would have conveyed no information. And because the name had never been mentioned Susan was startled one morning after one of Gertrude's fine parties. She was sitting at the window with a new magazine while the young people talked over the party.

"I liked him so much," said Gertrude. "He says such bright, sensible things: he's so original. Some men are good to dance, and some are good to talk: he's good for both."

"I heard him when he asked for an introduction to you," said Brother Tom. "He designated you as the young lady in the blonde dress: then he said, 'Her dress is exquisite—just the color of golden hair. I never saw a more beautiful toilette.'"

"Isn't that delightful?" cried Gertrude in a transport. "You precious old Tom, to hear that! I'll give you a kiss for it."

"I wonder," said Brother Tom, recovering, "if he can be the same Falconer I've heard the boys talk about?"

Susan had been hearing in an indolent way the talk between Tom and Gertrude, but now her heart was bounding, and she was listening intently.

"They tell about a Falconer who holds rather suspicious relations with a handsome woman somewhere in the city. He rents a house for her where she lives all alone, except that there's a baby and a servant-girl."

Alas for Susan! she knew but too well that this was her Mr. Falconer.

Tom continued: "The fellows have quizzed him about his lady, and have tried to find out who she is, and how he's connected with her, but he's close as a clam about the matter."

"Perhaps it's a widowed sister," Gertrude suggested.

"Then why doesn't he say so? and why doesn't he go there and live with her, instead of boarding at a hotel? and why doesn't she ever go out with him? They say she never goes out at all, but keeps hid away there like a criminal."

"I'd like to know how the fellows, as you call them, could have found all this out unless they employ spies?" Gertrude spoke testily, feeling a strong inclination to stand up for the man who had paid her a handsome compliment. "There probably are two Falconers. I know there's nothing wrong about my Mr. Falconer, otherwise Mr. Richmond wouldn't have introduced him to me."

"I wish I had thought to inquire if he's the man, but till this moment I've not thought of that talk of the boys since I heard it. It takes women to remember scandal and repeat it," said Brother Tom sagely. "But I'll inquire about it, Gerty. Don't go to dreaming about Mr. Falconer till I find out."

"Hold your tongue, you great idjiot!" said Gertrude, wrapping with lazy grace a bright shawl about her and settling herself on a sofa to nap off the party drowsiness. "Go on down town and find out," she continued, her heavily-lashed lids dropping over the sleepy eyes: "go along!"

So Tom went down town, Gertrude went to sleep, and Susan was left to her thoughts. What had these thoughts been about all these weeks that the question had never arisen as to the connection between Mr. Falconer and the woman who occupied her house, "Who is she?" Now, indeed, Susan asked the question with a burning at her heart. If she was simply a friend or a sister, why this reticence and mystery of which Tom had spoken? If she was his wife, why any reticence or mystery? Besides, Mr. Falconer had said he was a bachelor.

Susan could contrive no answers to these questions that brought any relief to her vexed heart. She had no courage to make inquiries of others, lest the character of her interest might be discovered. Guilt made her cowardly.

She was yet turning the matter over and over when Brother Tom returned. She scanned his face with a keen scrutiny, eager to get at what he had learned, yet not daring to ask a question.

When Tom had pinched Gertrude's drowsy ear into consciousness he poured into it this unwelcome information: "I've found out that your Mr. Falconer is the man. But who the lady is I have not been able to discover. She is an inscrutable mystery—a good heroine for Wilkie Collins."

"Who told you?" Gertrude demanded in a challenging tone.

"Jack Sidmore: he knows your Mr. Falconer well. Why, Falconer's no new man: he's an old resident here. He's of the firm of Falconer, Trowbridge & Co., grain-dealers on Canal street. You know Phil Trowbridge?"

"I'm sure there's nothing wrong about Mr. Falconer, or he wouldn't have been at Minnie Lathrop's party." said Gertrude resolutely.

"Well, Jack Sidmore knows the gentleman, and he says there is no doubt he has suspicious relations with Miss or Madam The-Lord-knows-who. So, you see, you're to drop Mr. Falconer like a hot potato—to give him the cut direct."

"It would be a shame to if he's all right, and I feel certain he is," said Gertrude, still showing fight.

"Now, look here, Gert: don't be foolish. It won't do to compromise yourself. Be advised by me: I'm your guardian angel, you know. You can spare Mr. Falconer: your train will be long enough with him cut off."

"He's the most interesting acquaintance I've made this winter," said Gertrude persistently.

"Don't you say so, Sue? Oughtn't Gertrude to cut him? You've heard what we've been talking about, haven't you?"

"Please don't appeal to me," Susan managed to say without lifting her eyes from the blurred page before her.

She had been more than once on the point of telling Gertrude and Tom what she knew about Mr. Falconer—that it was her house he had rented for his friend, etc. But everything about the matter was so indefinite. She was fearful of exposing her unhappy heart, and she had withal some vague hope of unsnarling the tangled skein when she should find opportunity to think. So she allowed them to finish up their discussion and to leave the room without a hint of the facts in her knowledge.

When they had gone the set, statuesque features relaxed. A stricken look settled like a shadow over them. You would have said, "It will never depart: that face can never brighten again."

The thing in Susan's heart was not despair. There was the suffering that comes from the blight of a sweet hope, from the rude dispossession of a good long withheld. But overriding everything else was humiliation—a feeling of degradation, such as some deed of shame would engender. Her spirit was in the dust, for she knew now that she had given her love unasked. Was not this enough, after all the years of longing and dreary waiting and sickening commonplace? Could not the Fates have let her off from this cup, so bitter to a proud woman's lips? Why should she be delivered over to an unworthy love? Why should they exact this uttermost farthing of anguish her heart could pay? But is he unworthy? is this proved? asked the sweet voice of Hope. Then the face which you were sure could never brighten, did brighten, but, alas! so little; for there was another voice, a voice that dismayed: "Why otherwise the silence, the mystery?" Persistently the question was repeated, till Mrs. Summerhaze came in and asked Susan to do some marketing for dinner.

"You look all fagged, anyway: the fresh air 'll be good for you."

So Susan put on her bonnet and went out, feeling there was nothing could do her any good. She drew her veil down, the better to shut away her suffering from people, and a little way from home turned into a meat-market. She was in the centre of the shop before she discovered Mr. Falconer a few yards away, his back turned to her. She involuntarily caught at her veil to make sure it was closely drawn. She held it securely down, and hurried away at random to the remotest part of the shop, though her ear was all the while strained to hear what Mr. Falconer was saying.

He was ordering sundry packages to be sent to No. 649 North Jefferson street—Susan's house. In her remote corner, from behind her veil, with eager eyes Susan looked at the face that to her had been so noble, at the form which had seemed full of graceful strength. She would have yielded up her life there to have had that face and form now as it had been to her. He went out of the shop, and she went about making her purchases in a dazed kind of way that caused the shopman to stare. Then she wandered up the street past her home to 649 North Jefferson street, to the house she had built with such abounding pride and pleasure. How changed it now seemed! It had become a haunted house—haunted by the ghosts of her faith and peace.

For three days Susan as much as possible kept away from the family, and appeared very much engaged with Prescott's Conquest of Peru. But at the breakfast-table on the third day she received a start. Gertrude and Tom had been at a party the evening before. (They averaged some four parties a week.) Tom looked surly and Gertrude defiant.

"Why, Tom, what's the matter with you?" the mother asked. "'Pears to me I never did see you so pouty as you be this morning. What's gone crooked?"

"Perhaps Gertrude can inform you," Tom answered severely.

Gertrude flushed with annoyance, but tossed her head.

"Why, what's happened, Gertrude?"

"Nothing for Tom to make such a fuss about. He's mad at me because I won't insult a gentleman who is invited to the best houses, and who is received by the most particular young ladies of my acquaintance."

"At any rate," retorted Tom, "I heard Jack Sidmore tell his sister that she was not to recognize Mr. Falconer. I have warned Gertrude that a great many people believe him to be a suspicious character, and some know him to be such, so far as women are concerned, and yet last night Gertrude accepted his company home."

"Hadn't you gone home with Delia Spaulding? Was I to come trapesing home alone?" said Gertrude by way of justification.

"Now, Gert, be fair: didn't I tell you that I'd be back immediately?"

"Yes, but I knew something about the length of your 'immediatelies' when Delia Spaulding was concerned."

"You might have had Phil Trowbridge as an escort."

"Phil Trowbridge! I hate him!" said Gertrude with such vehemence that the very line which parted her hair was crimsoned.

"Well, what's that other man done?" asked the mother, who had not lost her interest in the original question. "What do folks have against him?"

"Why, he's rented a house and set up a woman in it, and nobody knows who she is, and he won't let out a word about her. If she's an honest wife or his sister or a reputable friend, why the deuce doesn't he say so? Jack Sidmore says there isn't any doubt but that the woman is Falconer's mistress, to speak in plain English. Hang it! Gertrude can't take a hint."

"Falconer! Why, Susan, ain't that the name of the man who rented your house?" cried the mother.

Susan felt all their eyes turned on her, and knew that she was cornered. So she said "Yes," and raised her coffee-cup to her lips, but set it down quickly, as she felt her hand trembling.

"And did he rent it for a lady friend?" Tom asked, putting a significant stress on the last two words.

"He did," Susan answered.

"And is there living in your house, right here beside us, a mysterious woman with a baby?" Gertrude asked eagerly.

"There's a woman living in my house, and she has a little girl," said Susan on the defensive.

"And does Mr. Falconer visit her?"

"Perhaps so: I have no spies out."

"Why, Susie! how strange! You never told me a word about it. I never dreamed that Mr. Falconer was the man who had rented your house, and who has been running here so much," Gertrude said.

"Well, I'd get that woman out of my house as quick as ever I could if I was you, Susan," said Mrs. Summerhaze. "Like as not the house will get a bad name, so you'll have trouble renting it."

"I'm more concerned about Gertrude's name," Tom said.

Gertrude's eyes flashed daggers at Tom.

"Of course Gertrude mustn't keep company with Mr. Falconer," said the mother. "Young girls can't be too particular who they 'sociate with."

Susan said nothing on the subject, though by far the most concerned of the party on her sister's account. It was significant and alarming, the warmth and persistence with which Gertrude defended Mr. Falconer. It was evident that her interest was in some way enlisted. Was it sympathy she felt, or was hers a generous stand against a possible injustice? Whatever the feeling, there was danger in this young and ardent girl becoming the partisan of an interesting man. Yet how could she, the involved, bewildered Susan, dare warn Gertrude? How could she ever do it? Would it not seem even to her own heart that she was acting selfishly? How could she satisfy her own conscience that she was not moved by jealousy? Besides, what could she say? Gertrude knew all that she could tell her of Mr. Falconer and his relations—knew everything except that she, Susan, had loved—and, alas! did yet love unasked—this unworthy man.

Ought she, as her mother had advised, demand possession of her house? She shrunk from striking at a man—above all, this man—whom so many were assaulting. No. She would leave God to deal with him. Besides, there might be nothing wrong. All might yet be explained, all might yet be set to rights, all—unless, unless Gertrude—Oh, why should there arise this new and terrible complication? Gertrude with her youth and beauty and enthusiasm—why must she be drawn into the wretchedness?

For days, feverish, haunted days, Susan went over and over these questions and speculations. In the mean time, Tom entered another complaint against Gertrude. "She gave the greater part of last evening to the fellow," he said.

"The party was stiff and stupid: Margaret Pillsbury's parties always are—no dancing, no cards. Mr. Falconer was the only man there who could say anything." This was Gertrude's defence, given with some confusion, and with more of doggedness than defiance in her tone.

"I told you, Gertrude, you had ought to stop keeping company with Mr. Falconer," said her mother.

"If she doesn't stop, she will force me to insult the gentleman," said Brother Tom resolutely.

Gertrude looked at the speaker as though she would like to bite him with all her might.

"Now, don't go to getting into a fuss," the mother said to Tom. "Gertrude must stop, or else she'll have to stop going to parties and stay to home."

Gertrude did not speak, but Susan, glancing up, saw a set look in the young face that struck a terror to her heart. She believed that she could interpret her sister's every look and mood—that she knew Gertrude by heart.

"By their opposition they are only strengthening her interest:" this was Susan's conclusion.

In the mean time, Mr. Falconer's next pay-day was approaching. With a dreadful kind of fascination Susan counted the hours that must bring the interview with him. She longed yet dreaded to meet him. Would he look changed to her? would she seem changed to him? How should she behave? how would he behave? Would she be able to maintain a calm coldness, or would her conscious manner betray her mistrust, her wounded heart? So great, at times, grew her dread of the meeting that she was tempted to absent herself, and to ask her mother or Tom to see Mr. Falconer and receive the rent-money. But she did not dare trust either of these. Tom might take that opportunity of conveying the insult with which he had threatened Mr. Falconer, while the plain-spoken mother would be certain to forbid him Gertrude's society, and probably give him notice to vacate Susan's house. No, she must stay at home and abide the meeting; and, after all, what would she not rather do and suffer than miss it?

But an interview with Mr. Falconer came sooner than Susan had anticipated. It was in the early evening, immediately after tea, that the servant brought her Mr. Falconer's card, on which was written, "An emergency! May I see you immediately?"

Susan hid the card in her dress-pocket, and went wondering and blundering down stairs and into the parlor.

Mr. Falconer rose and came quickly forward. His manner was nervous and hurried; "I thank you for this prompt response to my appeal, Miss Summerhaze. You can do a great kindness for me; and not for me only—you can serve a woman who is in sore need of a friend."

Susan's heart was ready to leap from her bosom. Was she to be asked to befriend this woman toward whom people's eyes were turning in mistrust, and about whom their lips were whispering?

"May I depend on you?" Mr. Falconer asked.

"Go on," said Susan vaguely.

"But may I depend upon you? upon your secresy?"

"In all that is honest you may depend upon me," she replied.

"Briefly, then. The lady for whom I rented your house is my sister. I could never tell you her story: it ought never to be told. But the man she married betrayed all her trust, and made her life one long nightmare of horrors. At length, in a drunken fury one wretched autumn night, in the rain and sleet, he turned her and her baby into the street at midnight, and bolted the doors against them. Then she resolved to fly from him and be rid of him for ever. A train was about leaving the depot, some three blocks distant. Without bonnet or shawl, the damp ice in her hair and on her garments, she entered the car, the only woman in it. She came to me. Thank God! she had me to come to!"

Mr. Falconer was crying; so was Susan.

"The beneficent law gives the child to the father," Mr. Falconer continued. "The father is now in the city seeking the child. He has his detectives at work, and I have mine. In his very camp there is a man in my service. Fortunately, I out-money him. Now, my sister knows of Patterson's being here. (The man's name is Patterson.) She has grown pitifully nervous, and is full of apprehension. She is very lonely. I must get her away from that house, and yet I must keep her here with me: she has no one else to look to. I don't know, Miss Summerhaze, why I should come to you for help when there are hundreds of others here whom I have known so much longer. I am following an impulse."

He paused and looked at Susan, as if waiting for her reply. Happy Susan! Eager, trembling, her face glowing with a tender enthusiasm, a tearful ecstasy, feeling that it would be sweet to die in the service of this man whom her thoughts had so wronged, she gave her answer: "I am so glad you have come to me! Anything on earth I can do to aid you I will do with all my heart—as for myself. Let your sister come here if that will suit you."

It was what he wanted.

"I am sorry I have not made your sister's acquaintance: would it be convenient for me to go with you this evening and get acquainted with her?"

"Perfectly convenient, and I should be glad to have you go."

"I will bring my bonnet and shawl, and we will go at once."

"If you please."

Susan quickly crossed the parlor, but stopped at the door: "Perhaps your sister would feel more secure and more at peace to come to us right away—to-night. Sha'n't I bring her away to-night?"

"It would be a great mercy if you would do so, Miss Summerhaze," Mr. Falconer replied with an earnest thankfulness in his voice.

"Then please wait a few minutes till I explain things a little to my mother;" and with a quick, light step Susan hurried away.

Great were the surprise and interest awakened in the household by the revelation she made in the next ten minutes.

"Have her come right along to-night, poor thing!" the mother said, overflowing with sympathy.

Gertrude was triumphant. There was a warm glow on her cheek, and such a happy light in her eyes as Susan afterward remembered with a pang. "She had better have my room: it is so much more cheerful than the guest-chamber," Gertrude said.

Even Brother Tom, though demonstrated to have been on the wrong side, was pleased, for he was good-natured and generous in his light manner.

So Susan went back to Mr. Falconer, feeling that she had wings and could soar to the heavens. And she was happier yet as she walked that half block, her arm in his, feeling its warmth and strength. It is all very well to speculate in stocks and to build houses, but for such hearts as Susan's there is perhaps something better.

Too soon for one of them their brief walk was ended, and Susan sat in the neat, plainly-furnished parlor waiting the return of Mr. Falconer, who had gone to seek his sister. When at length the door opened, Susan sat forgetful, her gaze intent on the rare face that appeared by Mr. Falconer's side. It was not that the face was beautiful, though perhaps it was, or had been. It was picturesque, made so in great measure by a stricken look it had, and a strange still whiteness. It was one of those haunting faces that will not let themselves be forgotten—a face that solemnized, because it indexed the mortal agony of a human soul.

"Miss Summerhaze, this is my sister, Mrs. Patterson." said Mr. Falconer,

With a sweet cordiality of manner the lady held out her hand: "My brother has often told me about you: I am very glad to make your acquaintance."

Susan was greatly interested. "And I am very glad too," she said, a tremor in her voice. She wanted to run away and cry off the great flood of sympathy that was choking her. "Dear lady, may I kiss you?" she wanted to say. "Poor dear! she needs brooding." This Susan thought, and she wished she dared put out her arms and draw the sad face to her bosom, the sad heart against her own.

They talked over their plans, and then Mrs. Patterson and the little girl went home with Susan.

During Mrs. Patterson's stay with the Summerhazes, Mr. Falconer made frequent calls, though his movements were marked by great caution, lest they might betray the pursued wife to her husband. These calls were of a general character, designed for the household, and not exclusively for Mrs. Patterson. And they were continued after the lady had returned to No. 649. But they were to Susan tortures. They were but opportunities for noting the interest between Mr. Falconer and Gertrude. This was evident not alone to Susan, or she might have had some chance of charging it to the invention of her jealousy. Tom and Mrs. Summerhaze had both remarked it.

"He's well to do, Tom says, and stands respectable with the business-men," the mother commented to Susan; "and Gertrude 'pears fond of him, and he does of her; so I can't see any good reason why they shouldn't marry if they want one another. Anyhow, it's better for girls to marry and settle down and learn to housekeep—"

"Yes, yes," cried Susan's heart with pathetic impatience, "it's better, but—"

"Instead of going to parties in thin shoes and cobweb frocks: I wonder they don't all take the dipthery. And then they set up till morning. I couldn't ever stand that: I'd be laid up with sick headache every time. Besides, they eat them unhealthy oysters and Charlotte rooshes, and such like: no wonder so many people get the dyspepsy. Yes, I think Gertrude had better take Mr. Falconer if he wants her to. Ain't that your mind about it, Susan?"

"She had better accept him if—if—they love each other." Then Susan grew faint and soul-sick, and something in her heart seemed to die, as though she had spoken the fatal words that made them each other's for ever—that cut her loose from her sweet romance and sent her drifting into the gloom.

That evening Mr. Falconer called. Susan said she was not well, and kept her room. Gertrude had planned to go to the opera with Tom, but she decided to remain at home. Long after Tom had gone out Susan in her chamber above could hear from the parlor the murmur of voices—Mr. Falconer's and Gertrude's. They were low and deep: the topic between them was evidently no light one. While she listened her imagination was busy concerning their subject, their attitudes, their looks, and even their words. And every imagining was such a pain that she tried to close her ear against their voices. Then she went to her mother's room. Here, being forced to reply to commonplaces when all her thought was strained to the parlor, she was soon driven back to her own chamber. She turned the gas low and lay on a lounge, her face buried in the cushion, abandoned to a wrecked feeling.

After a time she heard some one enter her room. She sat up, and saw Gertrude standing beside her, the gas turned high. She wished her sister would go away: she hated the sight of that beautiful, glad face. She turned her eyes away from it, and then, ashamed to begrudge the young thing her happiness, she lifted her stained lids, to Gertrude's face and smiled all she possibly could. She tried in that moment to feel glad that the disappointment and grief had come to her instead of Gertrude. Her heart was inured to a hard lot, but Gertrude's had always been sheltered. It would be a pity to have it turned out into the cold: her own had long been used to chill and to hunger.

"Susie, won't you go with us sleigh-riding to-morrow evening?" Gertrude asked. "Mr. Falconer and I have planned a sleighing-party for to-morrow evening. They say the sleighing is perfectly superb."

"Is that what you've been doing?" Susan asked, feeling somehow that there would be a relief in hearing that it was all.

"That's a part of what we've been doing." A rosy glow came into Gertrude's cheek, and the old mean, jealous feeling came back into Susan's heart. "Mr. Falconer wants you to go," said Gertrude.

"He does not," Susan returned in a fierce tone. She was forgetting herself: her heart was giddy and blind with the sudden wave of bitterness that came pouring over it. "He wants you: nobody wants me. Go away!"

"Of course I'll go away if you want me to," Gertrude replied, pouting and looking injured, but yet lingering at Susan's side. She had come to tell something, and she didn't wish to be defrauded of the pleasure. "I guess you're asleep yet, Susie. Wake up and look at this;" and Gertrude held her beautiful white hand before Susan's eyes, and pointed to a superb solitaire diamond that blazed like a star on her finger. She sat down beside her sister. "I'm engaged, Susie, and I came up here to ask your blessing, and you're so cross to me;" and Gertrude put her head on Susan's shoulder and shed a few tears.

Susan could have cried out with frantic pain. "But," she thought, "I knew it was coming. After all, I am glad to have the suspense ended—to be brought to face the matter squarely."

In response to Gertrude's reproach Susan said in a low tone that was almost a whisper, "I congratulate you: I think you are doing well."

"Of course I'm doing well," Gertrude said, lifting her head and speaking with triumphant animation. "He's wealthy and handsome, and half the girls in our set are dying for him. But we've been about the same as engaged for months. But about two weeks ago we had an awful quarrel, all about nothing. But we were both so spunky I don't believe we ever would have made up in the wide world if it hadn't been for Mr. Falconer. He just went back and forth between us until I agreed to grant Phil an interview. So Phil came round to-night; and don't you believe the conceited thing brought the ring along!"

Susan was listening with wide-opened, staring eyes, like one in a trance. It wasn't Mr. Falconer, then; and who in the world was Phil? Was she awake? Had she heard aright? Yes, there was the ring and there was Gertrude, and she was still speaking: "I've already picked out my bridesmaids, I'm going to have Nellie Trowbridge—Phil's sister, you know—she's going to stand with Tom; and you're going to stand with Mr. Falconer, because he's the senior partner in Phil's firm: and then I'm going to have Delia Spaulding and Minnie Lathrop, because they'll make a good exhibition, they're so stylish."

On and on Gertrude went, talking of white satin and tulle and lace and bridal veils and receptions. And Susan sat and listened with a happy light in her eyes, and now and then laughed a little glad laugh or spoke some sweet word of sympathy.

At a late hour in the night Susan put her arms around her sister and kissed the happy young face once, twice, three times, and said, in no whisper now, "God bless you, dear!" Then Gertrude went away to happy dreams, and left Susan to happy thoughts—at last.

No, not at last. The "at last" did not come till the next evening, when by Mr. Falconer's side, warm and snug under the great wolf-robe, Susan heard something. With the something there came at length to the tired, hungry, waiting heart the thrill, the transport, the enchanted music that makes this earth a changed world.

SARAH WINTER KELLOGG.



AFTER A YEAR.

Dear! since they laid thee underneath the snow But one brief year with all its days hath past. Methought its hurrying moments flew too fast: I would have had them lingering, move more slow; For of the past one happy thing I know, That thou wert of it; but these swift days flee, And bear me to a future void of thee. Yet still I feel that ever as I go I know thee better, and I love thee more. As one withdraws from a tall mountain's base To see its summit, bright, remote and high, So hath my heart through distance learnt its lore, The knowledge of thy soul's most secret grace— Those silent heights that lose themselves in sky.

KATE HILLARD.



THE BERKSHIRE LADY.

To the Editor of Lippincot's Magazine:

SIR: There are few pleasanter ways of passing a desultory hour than haphazard reading amongst old numbers of a good magazine. I say advisedly "a desultory hour," for when it comes to more than that the habit is apt to become demoralizing. And, excellent as many English magazines are, I must own that for this particular purpose I give the preference to our American cousins. It would not be easy to say precisely why, but so it is. One feels lighter after them than one does after the same time given to their English confreres. It may be that there is more abandon, more tumbling in them—much more of that borderland writing (if one may use the phrase) so good, as I think, for magazine purposes, which you skim with a kind of titillating doubt in your mind whether it is jest or earnest—whether you are to take seriously, or the writer intended you to take seriously, what he is telling you; and so you may drop into a sort of dreamy Alice-in-Wonderland state, prepared to accept whatever comes next in a purely receptive condition, and without any desire to ask questions.

It was in such a frame of mind, and with considerable satisfaction, that I found myself some time since sitting in a friend's house with a spare corner of time on my hands, in a comfortable armchair, and a number of old Lippincotts on the table by my side, the odds and ends of the collection of a young countrywoman of mine of literary and Transatlantic tastes. I glanced through some half dozen numbers taken up at hazard, recognizing here and there an old friend—for I have been an on-and-off reader in these pages for years—and getting just pleasantly pricked with a number of new ideas, as to which I felt no responsibility—no need of ticketing or labeling or packing them—when I came suddenly upon a paper which sharply roused me from my mood of laisser aller. It was by your accomplished and amusing contributor Lady Blanche Murphy, and the subject just such a one as one would wish to happen on under the circumstances—Slains Castle, one of the oldest and most romantic of the grim palace-keeps which are dotted over Scotland, round which legends cluster so thick that there is not one of their towers, scarcely a slender old mullioned window, which is not specially connected with some stirring tale of love, war or crime. But Slains stands pre-eminent among Scotch castles on other grounds, and has an interest which the doings of the earls of Errol, its lords, could never have won for it. The Wizard of the North has thrown his spell over it, and, whether Sir Walter Scott intended it or not, Slains is accepted now as the Elangowan Castle in Guy Mannering.

Now, with all these rich stores to work on, these exceeding many flocks and herds of Northern legend and glamour, Lady Blanche should surely have been content, and not have descended into the South of England, upon a quiet country-house in Berkshire, to seize its one ewe lamb and claim that the heroine of the story which I hope to tell before I get to the end of my paper was none other than the termagant Countess Mary, hereditary lord high constable of Scotland, and the owner of Slains Castle at the beginning of last century.

Sir, I am bound to admit that this audacious claim spoilt my wanderings up and down the pages of your excellent magazine, and I resolved that whenever I should find time I would write to you to revindicate the claims of the "Berkshire Lady" to be native born and entirely unconnected with the Countess Mary or Slains Castle. I can scarcely remember the time when I did not know the story, which indeed all Berkshire boys—or at any rate all Bath-road Berkshire boys—took as regularly as measles in early youth. But let me explain to New-World readers what I mean by a Bath-road Berkshire boy. Our royal county of Berks is in shape somewhat like a highlow or ancle-jack boot with the toe toward London, and at the tip of the toe Windsor Castle, which, as we all know, looks down on the Thames as it finally leaves the county, of which it has formed the northern boundary for more than one hundred miles. The sweet river—for in spite of all pollution it is still sweet at Windsor—has run all along the top of the boot and down the instep, and along the toes, taking Oxford, Abingdon, Wallingford, Henley, Reading and Maidenhead in its way, with other places historically interesting in a small way over here, but which would scarcely be known by name even in the best-drilled classes of your public schools. Along the sole of the boot, from the heel at Hungerford, but sloping gently upward till it joins the Thames at Reading, runs another stream (a river we call it in little England)—

The Kennet swift, for silver eels renowned.

Now, before the Great Western Railway had opened up the county the only main line of road which passed through it was the great Bath road, which entered near the toe at Windsor and ran along the sole for the greater part of the way by the side of the Kennet to the extreme heel at Hungerford. All the northern part of the county—the Thames valley and Vale of White Horse, and the hill-district which separates these from the Vale of Kennet—was at that time pierced only by cross-country roads, and remained during the pre-railroad era one of the most primitive districts of the West of England. Its inhabitants retained their broad drawling speech, very slightly modified from Tudor times, and looked with a mixture of distrust and envy even on their fellow county brethren in the Kennet Valley, who were being demoralized by their daily intercourse with London through the constantly growing traffic of the Bath road. Along that thoroughfare, besides strings of post-chaises, vans and wagons, ran daily more than one hundred coaches most of which started from Bristol, and made the journey to London in the day. The best of them did their ten miles an hour, and so punctually that many of the inhabitants preferred setting their watches by the "York House." the "Tantivy" or the "Bristol Mail" rather than by the village clock. It were much to be desired that their gigantic successor would follow their excellent example more faithfully in this matter.

Notwithstanding the distrust with which we of the back country were bred to regard the metropolitan varnish which was thus undermining the ancient Berkshire habits and speech along our one great artery, it was always, I am bound to admit, a high day for the dweller in uncorrupted Berkshire when business or pleasure drew him from his home in the downs or rich pastures of the primitive northern half of the county by devious parish ways to the nearest point on the great Bath road, where he was to meet the coach which would carry him in a few hours "in amongst the tide of men." I can still vividly recall the pleasing thrill of excitement which ran through us when we caught the first faint clink of hoof and roll of wheels, which told of the approach of the coach before the leaders appeared over the brow of the gentle slope some two hundred yards from the cross-roads, where, recently deposited from the family phaeton (dog-carts not having been yet invented), we had been waiting with our trunk beside us in joyful expectation. Thrice happy if, as the coach pulled up to take us on board, we heard the inspiring words "room in front," and proceeded to scramble up and take our seats behind the box, waving a cheerful adieu to the sober family servant as he turned his horse's head slowly homeward, his mission discharged.

The habit of our family, and of most others, was to attach ourselves to one particular coach or coachman on the road, as thus special attention was secured for ladies or children traveling alone, and preference as to places should there happen to be a glut of would-be passengers. I cannot honestly say that the old Bath-road coachman was, as a rule, an attractive member of society, though the mellowing effects of time and the traditions of the road (helped largely by the immortal sayings and doings of Mr. Tony Weller) have done much for his class. He was often a silent, short-tempered fellow, with a very keen eye for half-crowns, and no information to speak of as to the country which passed daily under his eyes. But there were plenty of exceptions to the rule, of whom Bob Naylor was perhaps the most remarkable example. He had no doubt been selected as our guardian on the road for his kindly and genial nature and great love of children, and for his repute as one of the safest of whips. But, besides these sterling qualities, he was gifted with irrepressible spirits, a good voice and ear, and a special delight in the exercise of them. To county magnate or parson or stranger seated by him on the box he could be as decorous as a churchwarden, and talk of politics or cattle or county business with all due solemnity. But he was only at his best when "the front" was occupied by boys, or at any rate with a strong sprinkling of boys, amongst whom he was quite at his ease, and who were even more eager to hear than he to sing and talk. And of both songs and talk he had a curious and ample store. Of songs his own special favorites, I remember, were a long ballad in which a faithful soldier is informed on his return to his native village that his own true love "lives with her own granny dear," which he, his mind running in military grooves, takes for "grenadier," with temporarily distressing results—though all comes right at last—and a lyrical description of an upset of his coach, the only one he ever had, written by a gifted hostler. But on call he could give "The Tight Little Island," "Rule Britannia" or any one of a dozen other insular melodies.

Then his talk was racy of his beloved road, of which he would recount the glories even in the days of its decline, when the cormorant iron way was already swallowing stage after stage of the best of it. He would narrate to us the doings and feats of mighty whips—notably of a never-to-be-forgotten dinner at the Pelican Inn, Newbury, to which were gathered the elite of the Bath-road cracksmen. At that great repast we heard how "for wittles there was trout, speckled like a dane dog, weal as wite as allablaster, sherry-wite-wine, red-port, and everything in season. Then for company there was Sir Pay (Sir H. Peyton), Squire Willy boys (Vielbois), Cherry Bob, Long Dick, and I; and where would you go to find five sech along any road out of London?" But his crowning story, which he never missed as he cracked his four bays along on the first stage west out of Reading, was that of the Berkshire Lady, which, alas! my gifted countrywoman has now laid covetous hands on and claimed for that dour Lady Mary Hay, hereditary lord high constable of Scotland,

The "Berkshire Lady" is so bound up in my mind with my early friend of the road, from whom I first heard it, that I have let Memory fairly run away with me. But now, if your readers will pardon me for this gossip, I will promise to stick to my text.

At the beginning of the last century the fortune of one of the last of the "Great Clothiers of the West," John Kendrick, was inherited by a young lady, his granddaughter, who thus became the mistress of Calcott Park, past which the Bath road runs, three miles to the west of Reading. The house stands some three hundred yards from the road, facing due south, with a background of noble timber behind it, and in front a gentle slope of fine green turf, on which the deer seem to delight in grouping themselves at the most picturesque points. Miss Kendrick is said to have been beautiful and accomplished, and it is certain that she was an eccentric young person, who turned a deaf ear to the suits of many wooers, for, as the ballad quoted by your contributor says—

Many noble persons courted This young lady, 'tis reported; But their labor was in vain: They could not her love obtain.

This metrical version of the story is, I fear, lost except the fragments which I shall quote; at least I have sought for it in vain in all likely quarters since reading Lady Blanche's article.

So Miss Kendrick lived a lonely and stately life in Calcott Park.

Now, at this time there was a young gentleman of the name of Benjamin Child, a barrister of the Temple, belonging to the western circuit, of which Reading is the first assize-town. He came of a family which had seen better days, but his ancestors had suffered in the civil war, and he had no fortune but his good looks. His practice was as slender as his means, but nevertheless he managed to ride the western circuit after the judges of assize. The arrival of the judges in a county-town in those days was a signal for hospitalities and festivities in which the circuit barristers were welcome guests, and one spring assizes Benjamin Child found himself at a wedding and ball, where no doubt he carried himself as a young gentleman of good birth and town breeding should.

Next morning he received at his lodgings a written challenge, which alleged that he had grievously injured the writer at the entertainments on the previous day, and appointed a meeting in Calcott Park on the following morning to settle the affair in mortal combat. In those days no gentleman could refuse such an invitation, and accordingly Child appeared at the appointed time and place, accompanied by another young barrister as his second. The rendezvous was at a spot near the present lodge, and the young men on arriving found the lawn occupied by two women in masks, while a carriage was drawn up under some trees hard by. They were naturally in some embarrassment, from which they were scarcely relieved when the ladies advanced to meet them, and Child learned that one of them was his challenger, the mortal offence being that he had won her heart at the Reading ball, and that she had come there to demand satisfaction.

So, now take your choice, says she— Either fight or marry me.

Said he, Madam, pray, what mean ye? In my life I ne'er have seen ye, Pray, unmask, your visage show, Then I'll tell you, ay or no.

Lady. I shall not my face uncover Till the marriage rites are over. Therefore, take you which you will— Wed me, sir, or try your skill.

Benjamin Child retires to consult with his friend, who advises him—

If my judgment may be trusted, Wed her, man: you can't be worsted. If she's rich, you rise in fame; If she's poor, you are the same.

This advice, coupled perhaps with the figure and appearance of his challenger, and the family coach in the background, prevails, and the two young men and the masked ladies drive to Tilchurst parish church, where the priest is waiting. After the ceremony the bride,

With a courteous, kind behavior, Did present his friend a favor: Then she did dismiss him straight, That he might no longer wait.

They then drive, the bride still masked, to Calcott House, where he is left alone in a fair parlor for two hours, till

He began to grieve at last, For he had not broke his fast.

Then the steward appears and asks his business, and

There was peeping, laughing, jeering, All within the lawyer's hearing; But his bride he could not see. "Would I were at home!" said he.

At last the denouement comes. The lady of the house appears and addresses him:

Lady. Sir, my servants have related That some hours you have waited In my parlor. Tell me who In this house you ever knew?

Gentleman. Madam, if I have offended It is more than I intended. A young lady brought me here. "That is true," said she, "my dear."

His challenger was the heiress of Calcott, where he lived with her for many years; and

Now he's clothed in rich attire, Not inferior to a squire. Beauty, honor, riches, store! What can man desire more?

They had two daughters, through one of whom the property has descended to the Blagraves, the present owners.

And so ends the story of "The Berkshire Lady," and if it should meet the eye of your accomplished contributor I trust she will for ever hereafter give up all claim on behalf of Lady Mary Hay.

Perhaps, too, some of your readers may be led to visit the scene of these doings if they ever come to wander about the old country. Reading is only an hour from London now-a-days, and I will promise them that they will not easily find a fairer corner in all England. The Bath road, it is true, is now comparatively deserted, and no well-appointed coaches flash by in front of Calcott Park. But it is an easy three miles' walk or ride from Reading Station, and by missing one train the pilgrim may get a glimpse of English country-life under its most favorable aspects, while at the same time, if skeptical as to this "strange yet true narration," as the metrical chronicler calls it, he may at any rate satisfy himself as to the marriage of B. Child and the Berkshire Lady, and the birth of their two daughters, by inspecting the parish register at Tilchurst church for the years 1710 to 1713.

THOMAS HUGHES.



THE SABBATH OF THE LOST[1].

Mid homes eternal of the blessed Erewhile beheld in trance of prayer, A secret wish the saint possessed To see the regions of despair.

The Power in whose omniscient ken The thoughts of every heart abide Sent him to those lost souls of men, A splendid spirit for his guide—

Michael, the warrior, the prince Of those before the throne who dwell, The brightest of archangels since, Eclipsed, the son of morning fell.

Down through the voids of light they sped Till Heaven's anthems faintly rung Through darkening space, and overhead Earth's planets dim and dwindled hung.

Still downward into lurid gloom The saint and angel took their way, Moving within a clear cool room, The light benign of heavenly day.

The wretched thronged on every side. "Have mercy on us, radiant twain! O Paul! beloved of God!" they cried, "Pray Heaven for surcease of our pain."

"Weep, weep, unhappy ones, bewail! We too our prayers and tears will lend: Our supplication may prevail, And haply God some respite send."

Then upward from the lost there swept Entreaty multitudinous, As every wave of ocean wept: "O Christ! have mercy upon us!"

And as their clamor rose on high Beyond the pathway of the sun, Heav'n's happy legions joined the cry, Their voices melting into one.

The saint, up-gazing through the dew Of pity brimming o'er his eyes, Discerned in Heav'n's remotest blue The Son of God lean from the skies.

Then through their agonies were heard The tones which still'd the angry sea, The voice of the Eternal Word: "And do ye ask repose of me?

"Me whom ye pierced with curse and jeer, Whose mortal thirst ye quenched with gall? I died for your immortal cheer: What profit have I of you all?

"Liars, traducers, proud in thought, Misers! no offering of psalms Or prayer or thanks ye ever brought— No deed of penitence or alms."

Michael and Paul at that dread speech, With all the myriads of Heaven, Fell on their faces to beseech Peace for the lost one day in seven.

The Son of God, who hearkens prayer, In mercy to those souls forlorn Bade that their torments should forbear From Sabbath eve to Monday morn.

The torments swarmed forth at the gate— Hell's solemn guardians let them pass: Those awful cherubim who wait All sorrowful surveyed the mass.

But from the lost a single cry, Which rang rejoicing through the spheres: "O blessed Son of God most high! Two nights, a day, no pain or tears?"

"O Son of God, for ever blessed! Praise and give thanks, all spirits sad: A day, two nights of perfect rest? So much on earth we never had!"

[Footnote 1: See Fauriel, Hist. de la Poesie provencale, tom. i. ch. 8.]



THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS.

BY MRS. E. LYNN LINTON, AUTHOR OF "PATRICIA KEMBALL."

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE FRIEND OF THE FUTURE.

Instead of going home when she left Steel's Corner, Leam turned up into the wood, making for the old hiding-place where she and Alick had so often sat in the first days of her desolation and when he had been her sole comforter. She was very sorrowful, and oppressed with doubts and self-reproaches. As she climbed the steep wood-path, her eyes fixed on the ground, her empty basket in her hand, and her heart as void of hope or joy as was this of flowers, she thought over the last hour as she might have thought over a death. How sorry she was that Alick had said those words! how grieved that he loved her like this, when she did not love him, when she could never have loved him if even she had not been a Spaniard and her mother's daughter!

But she did not wish that he was different from what he was, so that she might have been able to return his love. Leam had none of that shifting uncertainty, that want of a central determination, which makes so many women transact their lives by an If. She knew what she did not feel, and she did not care to regret the impossible, to tamper with the indefinite. She knew that she neither loved Alick nor, wished to love him. Whether she had unwittingly deceived him in the first place, and in the second ought to sacrifice herself for him, unloving, was each a question on which she pondered full of those doubts and self-reproaches that so grievously beset her.

As she was wandering drearily onward Mr. Gryce saw her from a side path. He struck off to meet her, smiling, for he had taken a strong affection for this strange and beautiful young creature, which he justified to himself as interest in her history.

This acute, suspicious and inquisitive old heathen had some queer notions packed away in his wallet of biological speculations—notions which supplemented the fruits of his natural gifts, and which he always managed to harmonize with what he already knew by more commonplace means. He had been long in the East, whence he had brought a cargo of half-scientific, half-superstitious fancies—belief in astrology, mesmerism, spiritualism, and cheiromancy the most prominent. He could cast a horoscope, summon departed spirits, heal the sick and read the reticent by mesmeric force, and explain the past as well as prophesy the future by the lines in the hand.

So at least he said; and people were bound to believe that he believed in himself when he said so. He had once looked at Leam's hand, and had seen something there which, translated by his rules, had helped him on the road that he had already opened for himself by private inquiry based on the likelihood of things. Crime, love, sorrow—it was no ordinary history that was printed in the lines of her feverish little palm, as it was no ordinary character that looked out from her intense pathetic face. There was something almost as interesting here as a meditation on the mystic Nirvana or a discourse on that persistent residuum of all myths—Maya, delusion.

It was to follow up the line thus opened to him that he had attached himself with so much zeal to his landlord, unsympathetic as such a man as Sebastian Dundas must needs be to a metaphysical and superstitious student of humanity, a born detective, shrewd, inquisitive and suspicious. But he attached himself for the sake of Leam and her future, saying often to himself, "By and by. She will come to me by and by, when I can be useful to her."

Meanwhile, Leam received his cares with the characteristic indifference of youth for the attentions of age. She was not at the back of the motives which prompted him, and thought him tiresome with his mild way of getting to know so many things that were no concern of his. The shrewd guesses which he was making, and the terrible mosaic that he was piecing together out of such stray fragments as he could pick up—and he was always picking them up—were hidden from her; and she understood nothing of the mingled surmise and certainty which made his interest in her partly retrospective and partly prophetic, as he fitted in bit by bit that hidden thing in the past or foresaw the discovery that must come in the future. She only thought him tiresome and inquisitive, and wished that he would not come so often to see papa.

It did not take a large amount of that faculty of thought-reading which Mr. Gryce claimed as so peculiarly his own to see that something unusual had happened to disturb poor Leam to-day. As she came on, so wrapped in the sorrow of her thoughts that the world around her was as a world that is dead—taking no heed of the flowers, the birds, the sweet spring scents, the glory of the deep-blue sky, while the flickering shadows of the budding branches played over her like the shadow of the net in which she had entangled herself—she looked the very embodiment of despair. Her face, never joyous, was now infinitely tragic. Her dark eyes were bright with the tears that lay behind them; her proud mouth had drooped at the corners; she was walking as one who neither knows where she is nor sees what is before her, as one for whom there is no sun by day and no stars for the night—lost to all sense but the one faculty of suffering. She did not even see that some one stood straight in the path before her, till "Whither and whence?" asked Mr. Gryce, barring her way.

Then she started and looked up. Evidently she had not heard him. He repeated the question with a difference. "Ah! good-morning to you, Miss Dundas. Where are you going? where have you been?" he said in his soft, low-pitched, lisping voice, with the provincial accent struggling through its patent affectation.

"I am going to the yew tree and I have been to Steel's Corner," she answered slowly, in her odd, almost mathematically exact manner of reply.

"From Steel's Corner! And how is that excellent young man, our deputy shepherd?" he asked.

"Better," she said with even more than her usual curtness, and she was never prolix.

"He has been fearfully ill, poor fellow!" said Mr. Gryce, in the manner of an ejaculation.

She looked at the flowers with which the wood was golden and azure. "Yes," was her not too eloquent assent.

"And you have been sorry?"

"Every one has been sorry," said Leam evasively.

"Yes, you have been sorry," he repeated: "I have read it in your face."

He had done nothing of the kind: he had guessed it from the fact of her daily visits, and he had surmised a special interest from that other group of facts which had first set him thinking—namely, that Steel's Corner owned a laboratory—two, for the matter of that; that old Dr. Corfield was a clever toxicologist; that Leam had stayed there during her father's honeymoon; and that her stepmother had died on the night of her arrival. "And your average Englishman calls himself a creature with brains and inductive powers!" was his unspoken commentary on the finding of the coroner's jury and the verdict of the coroner. "Bull is a fool," the old heathen used to think, hugging his own superior sagacity as a gift beyond those which Nature had allowed to Bull in the abstract.

"I have known him since I was a child. Of course, I have been sorry," said Leam coldly.

She disliked being questioned as much as being touched. The two, indeed, were correlative.

"Early friendships are very dear," said Mr. Gryce, watching her. He was opening the vein of another idea which he had long wanted to work.

She was silent.

"Don't you think so?" he asked.

"They may be," was her reluctant answer.

"No, they are—believe me, they are. The happiest fate that man or woman can have is to marry the early friend—transform the playmate of childhood into the lover of maturity, the companion of age."

Leam made no reply. She was afraid of this soft-voiced, large-eyed, benevolent old man who seemed able to read the hidden things of life at will. It disturbed her that he should speak at this moment of the happiness lying in the fulfillment of youthful friendship by the way of mature love; and, proud and self-restrained as her bearing was, Mr. Gryce saw through the calmer surface into the disturbance beneath.

"Don't you think so?" he asked for the second time.

"How should I know?" Leam answered, raising her eyes, but not looking into her companion's face—looking an inch or two above his head. "I have seen too little to say which is best."

"True, my child, I had forgotten that," he said kindly. "Will you take my word for it, then, in lieu of your own experience?"

"That depends," said Leam. "What is good for one is not good for all."

"But safety is always good," returned Mr. Gryce, meaning to fall back on the safety of love and happiness if he had made a bad shot by his aim at safety from the detection of crime.

A scared look passed over Leam's face. It was a look that meant a cry. She pressed her hands together and involuntarily drew back a step, cowering. She felt as if some strong hand had struck her a heavy blow, and that it had made her reel. "You are cruel to say that. Why should I marry—?" She began in a defiant tone, and then she stopped. Was she not betraying herself for the very fear of discovery?

"Alick Corfield, for instance?" put in Mr. Gryce, at a venture. "He may serve for an illustration as well as any one else," he added with a soothing kind of indifference, troubled by the intense terror that came for one moment into her face. How soon he had startled her from her poor little hiding-place! How easy the assumption of extraordinary, powers based on the clever use of ordinary faculties! Your true magician is, after all, only your quiet and accurate observer. "You are not vexed that I speak of him when I want a name?" he asked, after a pause to give Leam time to regain her self-possession, to readjust the screen, to fasten once more the mask.

"Why should I be vexed?" she said in a low voice.

"He is not disagreeable to you?"

"No, he is my friend," she answered.

"And a good fellow," said Mr. Gryce, lisping over a maple twig. "Don't you think so?"

"He is good," responded Leam like a dry and lifeless echo.

"An admirable son."

"Yes."

"A devoted friend—a friend to be trusted to the death; a man without his price, incorruptible, with whom a secret, say, would be as safe as if buried in the grave. He would not give it even to the wind, and no reed on his land would whisper 'Midas has ass's ears.'"

"He is good," she repeated with a shiver. Yet the sun was shining and the spring-tide air was sweet and warm.

"And he would make the most faithful and indulgent husband."

There was no answer.

"Do you not agree with me?"

"How should I know?" she answered; and she said no more, though she still shivered.

"Be sure of it—take my word for it," he said again, earnestly.

"It is nothing to me. And I hate your word indulgent!" cried Leam with a flash of her mother's fierceness.

Mr. Gryce, still watching her, smiled softly to himself. His love of knowledge, as he euphemistically termed his curiosity, was roused to the utmost, and he was like a hunter who has struck an obscure trail. He wished to follow this thing to the end, and to know in what relations she and her old friend stood together—if Alick knew what he, Mr. Gryce, knew now, and had offered to marry her notwithstanding; and whether, if he had offered, Leam had refused or accepted. Observation and induction were hurrying him very near the point. Her changing color, her averted eyes, her effort to maintain the pride and coldness which were as a rule maintained without effort, the spasm of terror that had crossed her face when he had spoken of Alick's fidelity, all confirmed him in his belief that he was on the right track, and that the lines in her hand coincided with the facts of her tragic life. Tragic indeed—one of those lives fated from the beginning, doomed to sorrow and to crime like the Orestes, the Oedipus, of old.

But if he was curious, he was compassionate: if he tortured her now, it was that he might care for her hereafter. That hereafter would come—he knew that—and then he would make himself her salvation.

He thought all this as he still watched her, Leam standing there like a creature fascinated, longing to break the spell and escape, and unable.

"Tell me," then said Mr. Gryce in a soft and crooning kind of voice, coming nearer to her, "what do you think of gratitude?"

"Gratitude is good," said Leam slowly, in the manner of one whose answer is a completed thesis.

"But how far?"

"I do not know what you mean," she answered with a weary sigh.

Again he smiled: it was a soft, sleepy, soothing kind of smile, that was almost an opiate.

"You are not good at metaphysics?" he said, coming still nearer and passing his short thick hands over her head carressingly.

"I am not good at anything," she answered dreamily.

"Yes, at many things—to answer me for one—but bad at dialectics."

"I do not understand your hard words," said Leam, her sense of injury at being addressed in an unknown tongue rousing her from the torpor creeping over her.

How much she wished that he would release her! She had no power to leave him of her own free-will. A certain compelling something in Mr. Gryce always forced her to do just as he wished—to answer his questions, stay when he stopped, follow when he beckoned. She resented in feeling, but she obeyed in fact; and he valued her obedience more than he regretted her resentment.

"How far would you go to prove your gratitude?" he continued.

"I do not know," said Leam, the weary sigh repeated.

"Would you marry for gratitude where you did not love?"

"No," she answered in a low voice.

"Would you marry for fear, then, if not for gratitude or love? If you were in the power of a man, would you marry that man to save yourself from all chance of betrayal? I have known women who would. Are you one of them?"

Again he passed his hands over her head and across and down her face. His voice sounded sweet and soft as honey: it was like a cradle-song to a tired child. Leam's eyes drooped heavily. A mist seemed stealing up before her through which everything was transformed—by which the sunshine became as a golden web wherein she was entangled, and the shadows as lines of the net that held her—where the songs of the birds melted into distant harmonies echoing the sleepy sweetness of that soft compelling voice, and where the earth was no longer solid, but a billowy cloud whereon she floated rather than stood. A strange sense of isolation possessed her. It was as if she were alone in the universe, with some all-powerful spirit who was questioning her of the secret things of life, and whose questions she must answer. Mr. Gryce was not the tenant of Lionnet, as the world knew him, but a mild yet awful god, in whose presence she stood revealed, and who was reading her soul, like her past, through and through. She was before him there as a criminal before a judge—discovered, powerless—and all attempt at concealment was at an end.

"Tell me what you know," said the soft and honeyed voice, ever sweeter, ever more soothing, more deadening to her senses.

Leam's whole form drooped, yielded, submitted. In another moment she would have made full confession, when suddenly the harsh cry of a frightened bird near at hand broke up the sleepy harmonies and scattered the compelling charm. Leam started, flung back her head, opened her eyes wide and fixed them full on her inquisitor. Then she stiffened herself as if for a personal resistance, passed her hands over her face as if she were brushing it from cobwebs, and said in a natural voice, offended, haughty, cold, "I did not hear what you said. I was nearly asleep."

"Wake, then," said Mr. Gryce, making a movement as if he too were brushing away cobwebs from her face. After a pause he took both her hands in his. "Child," he said, speaking naturally, without a lisp and with a broader provincial accent than usual—speaking, too, with ill-concealed emotion—"some day you will need a friend. When that day dawns come to me. Promise me this. I know your life and what lies in the past. Do not start—no, nor cover your face, my child. I am safe, and so are you. You must feel this, that I may be of use to you when you want me; for you will want me some day, and I shall be the only one who can save you."

"What do you know?" asked Leam, making one supreme effort over herself and confronting him.

"Everything," said Mr. Gryce solemnly.

"Then I am lost," she answered in a low voice.

"You are saved," he said with tenderness. "Do not be afraid of me: rather thank God that He has given you into my care. You have two friends now instead of one, and the latest the most powerful. Good-bye, my poor misguided and bewildered child. A greater than you or I once said, 'Her sins, which are many, are forgiven her, because she loved much.' Cannot you take that to yourself? If not now, nor yet when remorse is your chief thought, you will later. Till then, trust and hope."

He turned to leave her, tears in his eyes.

"Stay!" cried Leam, but he only shook his head and waved his hand.

"Not now," he said, smiling as he broke through the wood, leaving her with the impression that a chasm had suddenly opened at her feet, into which sooner or later she must fall.

She stood a few moments where the old philosopher and born detective had left her, then went up the path to the hiding-place where she had so often before found the healing to be had from Nature and solitude—to the old dark-spreading yew, which somehow seemed to be more her friend than any human being could be or was—more than even Alick in his devotedness or Mr. Gryce in his protection. And there, sitting on the lowest branch, and sitting so still that the birds came close to her and were not afraid, she dreamed herself back to the desolate days of her innocent youth—those days which were before she had committed a crime or gained friend or lover.

She had been miserable enough then—one alone in the world and one against the world. But how gladly she would have exchanged her present state for the worst of her days then! How she wished that she had died with mamma, or, living, had not taken it as her duty to avenge those wrongs which the saints allowed! Oh, what a tangled dream it all was! she so hideously guilty in fact, and yet that thought of hers, if unreal and insane, that had not been a sin.

But she must wake to the reality of the present, not sit here dreaming over the past and its mystery of loving crime. She must go on as if life were a mere holiday-time of peace with her, where no avenging Furies followed her, lurking in the shadows, no sorrows threatened her, looking out with scared, scarred faces from the distance. She must carry her burden to the end, remembering that it was one of her own making, and for self-respect must be borne with that courage of despair which lets no one see what is suffered. Of what good to dream, to lament? She must live with dignity while she chose to live. When her grief had grown too great for her strength, then she could take counsel with herself whether the fire of life was worth the trouble of keeping alight, or might not rather be put out without more ado.



CHAPTER XXX.

MAYA—DELUSION.

Leam was not dedicated to peace to-day. As she turned out of the road she came upon the rectory pony-carriage—Adelaide driving Josephine and little Fina—just as it had halted in the highway for Josephine to speak to her brother.

Adelaide was looking very pretty. Her delicate pink cheeks were rather more flushed and her blue eyes darker and fuller of expression than usual. Change of air had done her good, and Edgar's evident admiration was even a better stimulant. She and her mother had ended their absence from North Aston by a visit to the lord lieutenant of the county, and she was not sorry to be able to speak familiarly of certain great personages met there as her co-guests—the prime minister for one and an archbishop for another. And as Edgar was, she knew, influenced by the philosophy of fitness more than most men, she thought the prime minister and the archbishop good cards to play at this moment.

Edgar was listening to her, pleased, smiling, thinking how pretty she looked, and taking her social well-being and roll-call of grand friendships as gems that enriched him too—flowers in his path as well as roses in her hand, and as a sunny sky overarching both alike. She really was a very charming girl—just the wife for an English country gentleman—just the mistress for a place like the Hill, the heart of the man owning the Hill not counting.

But when Leam turned from the wood-path into the road, Edgar felt like a man who has allowed himself to be made enthusiastic over but an inferior bit of art, knowing better. Her beautiful face, with its glorious eyes so full of latent passion, dreaming thought, capacity for sorrow—all that most excites yet most softens the heart of a man; her exquisite figure, so fine in its lines, so graceful yet not weak, so tender yet not sensual; as she stood there in the sunlight the gleam of dusky gold showing on the edges of her dark hair; her very attitude and action as she held a basket full of wild-flowers which with unconscious hypocrisy she had picked to give herself the color of an excuse for her long hiding in the yew tree,—all dwarfed, eclipsed Adelaide into a mere milk-and-roses beauty of a type to be seen by hundreds in a day; while Leam—who was like this peerless Leam? Neither Spain nor England could show such a one as she. Ah, where was the philosophy of fitness now, when this exquisite creation, more splendid than fit, came to the front?

Edgar went forward to meet her, that look of love surprised out of concealment which told so much on his face. Adelaide saw it, and Josephine saw it, and the eyes of the latter grew moist, but the lips of the other only closed more tightly. She accepted the challenge, and she meant to conquer in the fight.

Wearied by her emotions, saddened both by the love that had been confessed and the friendship that had been offered, this meeting with Edgar Harrowby seemed to Leam like home and rest to one very tired and long lost. The bright spring day, which until now had been as gray as winter, suddenly broke upon her with a sense of warmth and beauty, and her sad face reflected in its tender, evanescent smile the delight of which she had become thus suddenly conscious. She laid her hand in his frankly: he had never seen her so frankly glad to meet him; and a look, a gesture, from Leam—grave, proud, reticent Leam—meant as much as cries of joy and caresses from others.

"Good-morning, Miss Dundas: where have you been?" said Edgar, his accent of familiar affection, which meant "Beloved Leam," in nowise overlaid by the formality of the spoken "Miss Dundas."

"Into the wood," said Leam, her hand, as if for proof thereof, stirring the flowers.

"It is a new phase to see you given to rural delights and wild-flowers, Leam," said Adelaide with a little laugh.

"But how pleasant that our dear Leam should have found such a nice amusement!" said Josephine.

"As picking primroses and bluebells, Joseph?" And Adelaide laughed again.

Somehow, her laugh, which was not unmusical, was never pleasant. It did not seem to come from the heart, and was the farthest in the world removed from mirth.

Leam looked at her coldly. "I like flowers," she said, carrying her head high.

"So do I," said Edgar with the intention of taking her part. "What are these things?" holding up a few cuckoo-flowers that were half hidden like delicate shadows among the primroses.

"You certainly show your liking by your knowledge. I thought every schoolboy knew the cuckoo-flower!" cried Adelaide, trying to seem natural and not bitter in her banter, and not succeeding.

"I can learn. Never too late to mend, you know. And Miss Dundas shall teach me," said Edgar.

"I do not know enough: I cannot teach you," Leam answered, taking him literally.

"My dear Leam, how frightfully literal you are!" said Adelaide. "Do you think it looks pretty? Do you really believe that Major Harrowby was in earnest about your giving him botanical lessons?"

"I believe people I respect," returned Leam gravely.

"Thanks," said Edgar warmly, his face flushing.

Adelaide's face flushed too. "Are you going through life taking as gospel all the unmeaning badinage which gentlemen permit themselves to talk to ladies?" she asked from the heights of her superior wisdom. "Remember, Leam, at your age girls cannot be too discreet."

"I do not understand you," said Leam, fixing her eyes on the fair face that strove so hard to conceal the self within from the world without, and to make impersonal and aphoristic what was in reality passionate disturbance.

"A girl who has been four years at a London boarding-school not to understand such a self-evident little speech as that!" cried Adelaide, with well-acted surprise. "How can you be insincere? I must say I have no faith, myself, in Bayswater ingenues: have you, Edgar?" with the most graceful little movement of her head, her favorite action, and one that generally made its mark.

"I do not understand you," said Leam again. "I only know that you are rude: you always are."

She spoke in her most imperturbable manner and with her quietest face. Nothing roused in her so much the old Leam of pride and disdain as these encounters with Adelaide Birkett. The two were like the hereditary foes of old-time romance, consecrated to hate from their birth upward.

"Come, come, fair lady, you are rather hard on our young friend," said Edgar with a strange expression in his eyes—angry, intense, and yet uncertain. He wanted to protect Leam, yet he did not want to offend Adelaide; and though he was angry with this last, he did not wish her to see that he was.

"Dear Leam! I am sure she is very sweet and nice," breathed Josephine; but little Fina, playing with Josephine's chatelaine, said in her childish treble, "No, no, she is not nice: she is cross, and never laughs, and she has big eyes. They frighten me at night, and then I scream. Your are far nicer, Missy Joseph."

Adelaide laughed outright; Josephine was embarrassed between the weak good-nature that could not resist even a child's caressing words and her constitutional pain at giving pain; Edgar tried to smile at the little one's pertness as a thing below the value of serious notice, while feeling all that a man does feel when the woman whom he loves is in trouble and he cannot defend her; but Leam herself said to the child, gravely and without bitterness, "I am not cross, Fina, and laughing is not everything."

"Right, Miss Dundas!" said Edgar warmly. "If the little puss were older she would understand you better. You unconscionable little sinner! what do you mean? hey?" good-humoredly taking Fina by the shoulders.

"Oh, pray don't try and make the child a hypocrite," said Adelaide. "You, of all people in the world, Edgar, objecting to her naive truth!—you, who so hate and despise deception!"

While she had spoken Fina had crawled over Josephine's lap to the side where Edgar was standing. She put up her fresh little face to be kissed. "I don't like Learn, and I do like you," she said, stroking his beard.

And Edgar, being a man, was therefore open to female flattery, whether it was the frank flattery of an infant Venus hugging a waxen Cupid or the more subtle overtures of a withered Ninon taking God for her latest lover—with interludes.

"But you should like Leam too," he said, fondling her, "I want you to love me, but you should love her as well."

"Oh, any one can get the love of children who is kind to them," said Adelaide. "You know you are a very kind man, Edgar," in a quiet, matter-of-fact way. "All animals and children love you. It is a gift you have, but it is only because you are kind."

The context stood without any need of an interpreter to make it evident.

"But I am sure that Leam is kind to Fina," blundered Josephine.

"And the child dislikes her so much?" was Adelaide's reply, made in the form of an interrogation and with arched eyebrows.

"Fina is like the discontented little squirrel who was never happy," said Josephine, patting the plump little hand that still meandered through the depths of Edgar's beard.

"I am happy with you, Missy Joseph," pouted Fina; "and you," to Edgar, whom she again lifted up her face to kiss, kisses and sweeties being her twin circumstances of Paradise.

"And with sister Leam: say 'With Leam,' else I will not kiss you," said Edgar, holding her off.

She struggled, half laughing, half minded to cry. "I want to kiss you," she cried.

"Say 'With Leam,' and then I will," said Edgar.

The child's face flushed a deeper crimson, her struggles became more earnest, more vicious, and her laugh lost itself in the puckered preface of tears.

"Don't make her cry because she will not tell a falsehood," remonstrated Adelaide quietly.

"She does not like me. Saying that she does would not be true, and would not make her," added Leam just as quietly and with a kind of hopeless acceptance of undeserved obloquy.

On which Edgar, not wishing to prolong a scene that began to be undignified, released the child, who scrambled back to Josephine's lap and hid her flushed and disordered little face on the comfortable bosom made by Nature for the special service of discomposed childhood.

"She is right to like you best," said Leam, associating Edgar as the brother with Josephine's generous substitution of maternity.

"I don't think so. You are the one she should love—who deserves her love," he answered emphatically.

"Come, Joseph," cried Adelaide. "If these two are going to bandy compliments, you and I are not wanted."

"Don't go, Adelaide: I have worlds yet to say to you," said Edgar.

"Thanks! another time. I do not like to see things of which I disapprove," was her answer, touching her ponies gently and moving away slowly.

When she had drawn off out of earshot she beckoned Edgar with her whip. It was impolitic, but she was too deeply moved to make accurate calculations. "Dear Edgar, do not be offended with me," she said in her noblest, most sisterly manner. "Of course I do not wish to interfere, and it is no business of mine, but is it right to fool that unhappy girl as you are doing? I put it to you, as one woman anxious for the happiness and reputation of another—as an old friend who values you too much to see you make the mistake you are making now without a word of warning. It can be no business of mine, outside the purest regard and consideration for you as well as for her. I do not like her, but I do not want to see her in a false position and with a damaged character through you."

Had they been alone, Edgar would probably have accepted this remonstrance amicably enough. He might even have gone a long way in proving it needless. But in the presence of Josephine his pride took the alarm, and the weapon intended for Leam cut Adelaide's fingers instead.

He listened patiently till she ended, then he drew himself up. "Thanks!" he drawled affectedly. "You are very kind both to Miss Dundas and myself. All the world knows that the most vigilant overseer a pretty girl can have is a pretty woman. When the reputation of Miss Dundas is endangered by me, it will then be time for her father to interfere. Meanwhile, thanks! I like her quite well enough to take care of her."

"Now, Adelaide, you have vexed him," said Josephine in dismay as Edgar strode back to where Leam remained waiting for him.

"I have done my duty," said Adelaide, drawing her lips into a thin line and lowering her eyebrows; and her friend knew her moods and respected them.

On this point of warning Edgar against an entanglement with Leam she did really think that she had done her duty. She knew that she wished to marry him herself—in fact, meant to marry him—and that she would probably have been his wife before now had it not been for this girl and her untimely witcheries; but though, naturally enough, she was not disposed to love Leam any the more because she had come between her and her intended husband, she thought that she would have borne the disappointment with becoming magnanimity if she had been of the right kind for Edgar's wife. With Adelaide, as with so many among us, conventional harmony was a religion in itself, and he who despised its ritual was a blasphemer. And surely that harmony was not be found in the marriage of an English gentleman of good degree with the daughter of a dreadful low-class Spanish woman—a girl who at fifteen years of age had prayed to the saints, used her knife as a whanger, and maintained that the sun went round the earth because mamma said so, and mamma knew! No, if Edgar married any one but herself, let him at least marry some one as well fitted for him as herself, not one like Leam Dundas.

For the sake of the neighborhood at large the mistress of the Hill ought to be a certain kind of person—they all knew of what kind—and a queer, unconformable creature like Leam set up there as the Mrs. Harrowby of the period would throw all things into confusion. Whatever happened, that must be prevented if possible, for Edgar's own sake and for the sake of the society of the place.

All of which thoughts strengthened Adelaide in her conviction that she had done what she ought to have done in warning Edgar against Leam, and that she was bound to be faithful in her course so long as he was persistent in his.

Meanwhile, Edgar returned to Leam, who had remained standing in the middle of the road waiting for him. Nothing belonged less to Leam than forwardness or flattery to men; and it was just one of those odd coincidences which sometimes happen that as Edgar had not wished her good-bye, she felt herself bound to wait his return. But it had the look of either a nearer intimacy than existed between them, or of Leam's laying herself out to win the master of the Hill as she would not have laid herself out to win the king of Spain. In either case it added fuel to the fire, and confirmed Adelaide more and more in the course she had taken. "Look there!" she said to Josephine, pointing with her whip across the field, the winding way having brought them in a straight line with the pair left on the road.

"Very bold, I must say," said Josephine; "but Leam is such a child!—she does not understand things as we do," she added by way of apology and defence.

"Think not?" was Adelaide's reply; and then she whipped her ponies and said no more.

"Why does Miss Birkett hate me?" asked Leam when Edgar came back.

"Because—Shall I tell you?" he answered with a look which she could not read.

"Yes, tell me."

"Because you are more beautiful than she is, and she is jealous of you. She is very good in her own way, but she does not like rivals near her throne; and you are her rival without knowing it."

Leam had looked straight at Edgar when he began to speak, but now she dropped her eyes. For the first time in her life she did not disclaim his praise, nor feel it a thing that she ought to resent. On the contrary, it made her heart beat with a sudden throb that almost frightened her with its violence, and that seemed to break down her old self in its proud reticence and cold control, leaving her soft, subdued, timid, humble—childlike, and yet not a child. Her face was pale; her eyelids seemed weighted over her eyes, so that she could not raise them; her breath came with so much difficulty that she was forced to unclose her lips for air; she trembled as if with a sudden chill, and yet her veins seemed running with fire; and she felt as if the earth moved under her feet. What malady was this that had overtaken her so suddenly? What did it all mean? It was something like that strange sensation which she had had a few hours back in the wood, when Mr. Gryce had seemed to her like some compelling spirit questioning her of her life, while she was his victim, forced to reveal all. And yet it was the same, with a difference. That had been torture covered down by an anodyne: this was in its essence ecstasy, if on the outside pain.

"Look at me, Leam," half whispered Edgar, bending over her.

She raised her eyes with shame and difficulty—very slowly, for their lids were so strangely heavy; very shyly, for there was something in them, she herself did not know what, which she did not wish him to see. Nevertheless, she raised them because he bade her. How sweet and strange it was to obey him against her own desire! Did he know that she looked at him because he told her to do so? and that she would have rather kept her eyes to the ground? Yes, she raised them and met his.

Veiled, humid, yearning, those eyes of hers told all—all that she herself did not know, all that Edgar had now hoped, now feared, as passion or prudence had swayed him, as love or fitness had seemed the best circumstance of life.

"Leam!" he said in an altered voice: she scarcely recognized it as his. He took her hand in his, when suddenly there came two voices on the air, and Mr. Gryce and Sebastian Dundas, disputing hotly on the limits of the Unknowable, turned the corner and came upon them.