"For Miss Marston?" inquired Mewks, who had learned not a little cunning in the service.

"No!" roared Mr. Redmain; and Mewks darted from the room, followed more leisurely by Mary.

"I don't know what's come to master!" ventured Mewks, as he led the way down the stair.

But Mary took no notice, and left the house.

For about a week she heard nothing.

In the meantime Mr. Redmain had been prosecuting certain inquiries he had some time ago begun, and another quite new one besides. He was acquainted with many people of many different sorts, and had been to jewelers and pawnbrokers, gamblers and lodging-house keepers, and had learned some things to his purpose.

Once more Mary received from him a summons, and once more, considerably against her liking, obeyed. She was less disinclined to go this time, however, for she felt not a little curious about the ring.

"I want you to come back to the house," he said, abruptly, the moment she entered his room.

For such a request Mary was not prepared. Even since the ring was found, so long a time had passed that she never expected to hear from the house again. But Tom was now so much better, and Letty so much like her former self, that, if Mrs. Redmain had asked her, she might perhaps have consented.

"Mr. Redmain," she answered, "you must see that I can not do so at your desire."

"Oh, rubbish! humbug!" he returned, with annoyance. "Don't fancy I am asking you to go fiddle-faddling about my wife again: I don't see how you can do that, after the way she has used you! But I have reasons for wanting to have you within call. Go to Mrs. Perkin. I won't take a refusal."

"I can not do it, Mr. Redmain," said Mary; "the thing is impossible." And she turned to leave the room.

"Stop, stop!" cried Mr. Redmain, and jumped from his chair to prevent her.

He would not have succeeded had not Mewks met her in the doorway full in the face. She had to draw back to avoid him, and the man, perceiving at once how things were, closed the door the moment he entered, and stood with his back against it.

"He's in the drawing-room, sir," said Mewks.

A scarcely perceptible sign of question was made by the master, and answered in kind by the man.

"Show him here directly," said Mr. Redmain. Then turning to Mary, "Go out that way, Miss Marston, if you will go," he said, and pointed to the dressing-room.

Mary, without a suspicion, obeyed; but, just as she discovered that the door into the bedroom beyond was locked, she heard the door behind her locked also. She turned, and knocked.

"Stay where you are," said Mr. Redmain, in a low but imperative voice. "I can not let you out till this gentleman is gone. You must hear what passes: I want you for a witness."

Bewildered and annoyed, Mary stood motionless in the middle of the room, and presently heard a man, whose voice seemed not quite strange to her, greet Mr. Redmain like an old friend. The latter made a slight apology for having sent for him to his study— claiming the privilege, he said, of an invalid, who could not for a time have the pleasure of meeting him either at the club or at his wife's parties. The visitor answered agreeably, with a touch of merriment that seemed to indicate a soul at ease with itself and with the world.

But here Mary all at once came to herself, and was aware that she was in quite a false position. She withdrew therefore to the farthest corner, sat down, closed her ears with the palms of her hands, and waited.

She had sat thus for a long time, not weary, but occupied with such thoughts as could hardly for a century or two cross the horizon line of such a soul as Mr. Redmain's, even if he were at once to repent, when she heard a loud voice calling her name from a distance. She raised her head, and saw the white, skin-drawn face of Mr. Redmain grinning at her from the open door. When he spoke again, his words sounded like thunder, for she had removed her hands from her ears.

"I fancy you've had a dose of it!" he said.

As he spoke, she rose to her feet, her countenance illumined both with righteous anger and the tender shine of prayer. Her look went to what he had of a heart, and the slightest possible color rose to his face.

"Gone a step too far, damn it!" he murmured to himself. "There's no knowing one woman by another!"

"I see!" he said; "it's been a trifle too much for you, and I don't wonder! You needn't believe a word I said about myself. It was all hum to make the villain show his game."

"I have not heard a word, Mr. Redmain," she said with indignation.

"Oh, you needn't trouble yourself!" he returned. "I meant you to hear it all. What did I put you there for, but to get your oath to what I drew from the fellow? A fine thing if your pretended squeamishness ruin my plot! What do you think of yourself, hey?— But I don't believe it."

He looked at her keenly, expecting a response, but Mary made him none. For some moments he regarded her curiously, then turned away into the study, saying:

"Come along. By Jove! I'm ashamed to say it, but I half begin to believe in you. I did think I was past being taken in, but it seems possible for once again. Of course, you will return to Mrs. Redmain now that all is cleared up."

"It is impossible," Mary answered. "I can not live in a house where the lady mistrusts and the gentleman insults me."

She left the room, and Mr. Redmain did not try to prevent her. As she left the house she burst into tears; and the fact Mewks carried to his master.

The man was the more careful to report everything about Mary, that there was one in the house of whom he never reported anything, but to whom, on the contrary, he told everything he thought she would care to know. Till Sepia came, he had been conventionally faithful—faithful with the faith of a lackey, that is—but she had found no difficulty in making of him, in respect of her, a spy upon his master.

I will now relate what passed while Mary sat deaf in the corner.

Mr. Redmain asked his visitor what he would have, as if, although it was quite early, he must, as a matter of course, stand in need of refreshment. He made choice of brandy and soda-water, and the bell was rung. A good deal of conversation followed about a disputed point in a late game of cards at one of the clubs.

The talk then veered in another direction—that of personal adventure, so guided by Mr. Redmain. He told extravagant stories about himself and his doings, in particular various ruses by which he had contrived to lay his hands on money. And whatever he told, his guest capped, narrating trick upon trick to which on different occasions he had had recourse. At all of them Mr. Redmain laughed heartily, and applauded their cleverness extravagantly, though some of them were downright swindling.

At last Mr. Redmain told how he had once got money out of a lady. I do not believe there was a word of truth in it. But it was capped by the other with a narrative that seemed specially pleasing to the listener. In the midst of a burst of laughter, he rose and rang the bell. Count Galofta thought it was to order something more in the way of "refreshment," and was not a little surprised when he heard his host desire the man to request the favor of Miss Yolland's presence. But the Count had not studied non-expression in vain, and had brought it to a degree of perfection not easily disturbed. Casting a glance at him as he gave the message, Mr. Redmain could read nothing; but this was in itself suspicious to him—and justly, for the man ought to have been surprised at such a close to the conversation they had been having.

Sepia had been told that Galofta was in the study, and therefore received the summons thither—a thing that had never happened before—with the greater alarm. She made, consequently, what preparation she could against surprise. Thoroughly capable of managing her features, her anxiety was sufficient nevertheless to deprive her of power over her complexion, and she entered the room with the pallor peculiar to the dark-skinned. Having greeted the Count with the greatest composure, she turned to Mr. Redmain with question in her eyes.

"Count Galofta," said Mr. Redmain in reply, "has just been telling me a curious story of how a certain rascal got possession of a valuable jewel from a lady with whom he pretended to be in love, and I thought the opportunity a good one for showing you a strange discovery I have made with regard to the sapphire Mrs. Redmain missed for so long. Very odd tricks are played with gems —such gems, that is, as are of value enough to make it worth a rogue's while."

So saying, he took the ring from one drawer, and from another a bottle, from which he poured something into a crystal cup. Then he took a file, and, looking at Galofta, in whose well-drilled features he believed he read something that was not mere curiosity, said, "I am going to show you something very curious," and began to file asunder that part of the ring which immediately clasped the sapphire, the setting of which was open.

"What a pity!" cried Sepia; "you are destroying the ring! What will Cousin Hesper say?"

Mr. Redmain filed away, heedless; then with the help of a pair of pincers freed the stone, and held it up in his hand.

"You see this?" he said.

"A splendid sapphire!" answered Count Galofta, taking it in his fingers, but, as Mr. Redmain saw, not looking at it closely.

"I have always heard it called a splendid stone," said Sepia, whose complexion, though not her features, passed through several changes while all this was going on: she was anxious.

Nor did her inquisitor fail to surprise the uneasy glances she threw, furtively though involuntarily, in the face of the Count— who never once looked in hers: tolerably sure of himself, he was not sure of her.

"That ring, when I bought it—the stone of it," said Mr. Redmain, "was a star sapphire, and worth seven hundred pounds; now, the whole affair is worth about ten."

As he spoke, he threw the stone into the cup, let it lie a few moments, and took it out again; when, almost with a touch, he divided it in two, the one a mere scale.

"There!" he said, holding out the thin part on the tip of a finger, "that is a slice of sapphire; and there!" holding out the rest of the seeming stone, "that is glass."

"What a shame!" cried Sepia.

"Of course," said the Count, "you will prosecute the jeweler."

"I will not prosecute the jeweler," answered Mr. Redmain; "but I have taken some trouble to find out who changed the stones."

With that he threw both the bits of blue into a drawer, and the contents of the cup into the fire. A great flame flew up the chimney, and, as if struck at the sight of it, he stood gazing for a moment after it had vanished.

When he turned, the Count was gone, as he had expected, and Sepia stood with eyes full of anger and fear. Her face was set and colorless, and strange to look upon.

"Very odd—ain't it?" said Mr. Redmain, and, opening the door of his dressing-room, called out:

"Miss Marston!"

When he turned, Sepia too was gone.

I would not have my reader take Sepia for an accomplice in the robbery. Even Mr. Redmain did not believe that: she was much too prudent! His idea was, that she had been wearing the ring—Hesper did not mind what she wore of hers—and that (I need not give his conjecture in detail), with or without her knowledge, the fellow had got hold of it and carried it away, then brought it back, treating the thing as a joke, when she was only too glad to restore it to the jewel-case, hoping the loss of it would then pass for an oversight on the part of Hesper. If he was right in this theory of the affair, then the Count had certainly a hold upon her, and she dared not or would not expose him! He had before discovered that, about the time when the ring disappeared, the Count had had losses, and was supposed unable to meet them, but had suddenly showed himself again "flush of money," and from that time had had an extraordinary run of luck.

When he went out of the door of Mr. Redmain's study, he vanished from the house and from London. Turning the first corner he came to, and the next and the next, he stepped into a mews, the court of which seemed empty, and slipped behind the gate. He wore a new hat, and was clean shaved except his upper lip. Presently a man came out of the mews in a Scotch cap and a full beard.

What had become of him Mr. Redmain did not care. He had no desire to punish him. It was enough he had found him out, proved his suspicion correct, and obtained evidence against Sepia. He did not at once make up his mind how he would act on this last; while he lived, it did not matter so much; and he had besides a certain pleasure in watching his victim. But Hesper, free, rich, and beautiful, and far from wise, with Sepia for counselor, was not an idea to be contemplated with equanimity. Still he shrank from the outcry and scandal of sending her away; for certainly his wife, if it were but to oppose him, would refuse to believe a word against her cousin.

For the present, therefore, the thing seemed to blow over. Mr. Redmain, who had pleasure in behaving handsomely so far as money was concerned, bought his wife the best sapphire he could find, and, for once, really pleased her.

But Sepia knew that Mr. Redmain had now to himself justified his dislike of her; and, as he said nothing, she was the more certain he meant something. She lived, therefore, in constant dread of his sudden vengeance, against which she could take no precaution, for she had not even a conjecture as to what form it might assume. From that hour she was never at peace in his presence, and hardly out of it; from every possible tete-a-tete with him she fled as from a judgment.

Nor was it a small addition to her misery that she imagined Mary cognizant of Mr. Redmain's opinion and intention with regard to her, and holding the worst possible opinion of her. For, whatever had passed first between the Count and Mr. Redmain, she did not doubt Mary had heard, and was prepared to bring against her when the determined moment should arrive. How much the Count might or might not have said, she could not tell; but, seeing their common enemy had permitted him to escape, she more than dreaded he had sold her secret for his own impunity, and had laid upon her a burden of lies as well.



CHAPTER XLVI.

REPARATION.

With all Mr. Redmain's faults, there was a certain love of justice in the man; only, as is the case with most of us, it had ten times the reference to the action of other people that it had to his own: I mean, he made far greater demand for justice upon other people than upon himself; and was much more indignant at any shortcoming of theirs which crossed any desire or purpose of his than ho was anxious in his own person to fulfill justice when that fulfillment in its turn would cross any wish he cherished. Badly as he had himself behaved to Mary, he was now furious with his wife for having treated her so heartlessly that she could not return to her service; for he began to think she might be one to depend upon, and to desire her alliance in the matter of ousting Sepia from the confidence of his wife.

However indifferent a woman may be to the opinion of her husband, he can nevertheless in general manage to make her uncomfortable enough if he chooses; and Mr. Redmain did choose now, in the event of her opposition to his wishes: when he set himself to do a thing, he hated defeat even more than he loved success.

The moment Mary was out of the study, he walked into his wife's boudoir, and shut the door behind him. His presence there was enough to make her angry, but she took no notice of it.

"I understand, Mrs. Redmain," he began, "that you wish to bring the fate of Sodom upon the house."

"I do not know what you mean," she answered, scarcely raising her eyes from her novel—and spoke the truth, for she knew next to nothing of the Bible, while the Old Testament was all the literature Mr. Redmain was "up in."

"You have turned out of it the only just person in it, and we shall all be in hell soon!"

"How dare you come to my room with such horrid language!"

"You'll hear worse before long, if you keep on at this rate. My language is not so bad as your actions. If you don't have that girl back, and in double-quick time, too, I shall know how to make you!"

"You have taught me to believe you capable of anything."

"You shall at least find me capable of a good deal. Do you imagine, madam, I have found you a hair worse than I expected?"

"I never took the trouble to imagine anything about you."

"Then I need not ask you whether I married you to please you or to please myself?"

"You need not. You can best answer that question yourself."

"Then we understand each other."

"We do not, Mr. Redmain; and, if this occurs again, I shall go to Durnmelling."

She spoke with a vague idea that he also stood in some awe of the father and mother whose dread, however well she hid it, she would never, while she lived, succeed in shaking off. But to the husband it was a rare delight to speak with conscious rectitude in the moral chastisement of his wife. He burst into a loud and almost merry laugh.

"Happy they will be to see you there, madam! Why, you goose, if I send a telegram before you, they won't so much as open the door to you! They know better which side their bread is buttered."

Hesper started up in a rage. This was too much—and the more too much, that she believed it would be as he said.

"Mr. Redmain, if you do not leave the room, I will."

"Oh, don't!" he cried, in a tone of pretended alarm. His pleasure was great, for he had succeeded in stinging the impenetrable. "You really ought to consider before you utter such an awful threat! I will go myself a thousand times rather!—But will you not feel the want of pocket-money when you come to pay a rough cabman? The check I gave you yesterday will not last you long."

"The money is my own, Mr. Redmain."

"But you have not yet opened a banking-account in your own name."

"I suppose you have a meaning, Mr. Redmain; but I am not in the habit of using cabs."

"Then you had better get into the habit; for I swear to you, madam, if you don't fetch that girl home within the week, I will, next Monday, discharge your coachman, and send every horse in the stable to Tattersall's! Good morning."

She had no doubt he would do as he said; she knew Mr. Redmain would just enjoy selling her horses. But she could not at once give in. I say "could not," because hers was the weak will that can hardly bring itself to do what it knows it must, and is continually mistaken for the strong will that defies and endures. She had a week to think about it, and she would see!

During the interval, he took care not once to refer to his threat, for that would but weaken the impression of it, he knew.

On the Sunday, after service, she knocked at his door, and, being admitted, bade him good morning, but with no very gracious air— as, indeed, he would have been the last to expect.

"We have had a sermon on the forgiveness of injuries, Mr. Redmain," she said.

"By Jove!" interrupted her husband, "it would have been more to the purpose if I, or poor Mary Marston, had had it; for I swear you put our souls in peril!"

"The ring was no common one, Mr. Redmain; and the young woman had, by leaving the house, placed herself in a false position: every one suspected her as much as I did. Besides, she lost her temper, and talked about forgiving me, when I was in despair about my ring!"

"And what, pray, was your foolish ring compared to the girl's character?"

"A foolish ring, indeed!—Yes, it was foolish to let you ever have the right to give it me! But, as to her character, that of persons in her position is in constant peril. They have to lay their account with that, and must get used to it. How was I to know? We can not read each other's hearts."

"Not where there is no heart in the reader."

Hesper's face flushed, but she did her best not to lose her temper. Not that it would have been any great loss if she had, for there is as much difference in the values of tempers as in those who lose them. She said nothing, and her husband resumed:

"So you came to forgive me?" he said.

"And Marston," she answered.

"Well, I will accept the condescension—that is, if the terms of it are to my mind."

"I will make no terms. Marston may return when she pleases."

"You must write and ask her."

"Of course, Mr. Redmain. It would hardly be suitable that you should ask her."

"You must write so as to make it possible to accept your offer."

"I am not deceitful, Mr. Redmain."

"You are not. A man must be fair, even to his wife."

"I will show you the letter I write."

"If you please."

She had to show him half a score ere he was satisfied, declaring he would do it himself, if she could not make a better job of it.

At length one was dispatched, received, and answered: Mary would not return. She had lost all hope of being of any true service to Mrs. Redmain, and she knew that, with Tom and Letty, she was really of use for the present. Mrs. Redmain carried the letter, with ill-concealed triumph, to her husband; nor did he conceal his annoyance.

"You must have behaved to her very cruelly," he said. "But you have done your best now—short of a Christian apology, which it would be folly to demand of you. I fear we have seen the last of her."—"And there was I," he said to himself, "for the first time in my life, actually beginning to fancy I had perhaps thrown salt upon the tail of that rare bird, an honest woman! The devil has had quite as much to do with my history as with my character! Perhaps that will be taken into the account one day."

But Mary lay awake at night, and thought of many things she might have said and done better when she was with Hesper, and would gladly have given herself another chance; but she could no longer flatter herself she would ever be of any real good to her. She believed there was more hope of Mr. Redmain even. For had she not once, for one brief moment, seen him look a trifle ashamed of himself? while Hesper was and remained, so far as she could judge, altogether satisfied with herself. Equal to her own demands upon herself, there was nothing in her to begin with—no soil to work upon.



CHAPTER XLVII.

ANOTHER CHANGE.

For some time Tom made progress toward health, and was able to read a good part of the day. Most evenings he asked Joseph to play to him for a while; he was fond of music, and fonder still of criticism—upon anything. When he had done with Joseph, or when he did not want him, Mary was always ready to give the latter a lesson; and, had he been a less gifted man than he was, he could not have failed to make progress with such a teacher.

The large-hearted, delicate-souled woman felt nothing strange in the presence of the workingman, but, on the contrary, was comfortably aware of a being like her own, less privileged but more gifted, whose nearness was strength. And no teacher, not to say no woman, could have failed to be pleased at the thorough painstaking with which he followed the slightest of her hints, and the delight his flushed face would reveal when she praised the success he had achieved.

It was not long before he began to write some of the things that came into his mind. For the period of quiescence as to production, which followed the initiation of more orderly study, was, after all, but of short duration, and the return tide of musical utterance was stronger than ever. Mary's delight was great when first he brought her one of his compositions very fairly written out—after which others followed with a rapidity that astonished her. They enabled her also to understand the man better and better; for to have a thing to brood over which we are capable of understanding must be more to us than even the master's playing of it. She could not be sure this or that was correct, according to the sweet inexorability of musical ordainment, but the more she pondered them, the more she felt that the man was original, that the material was there, and the law at hand, that he brought his music from the only bottomless well of utterance, the truth, namely, by which alone the soul most glorious in gladness, or any other the stupidest of souls, can live.

To the first he brought her she contrived to put a poor little faulty accompaniment; and when she played his air to him so accompanied, his delight was touching, and not a little amusing. Plainly he thought the accompaniment a triumph of human faculty, and beyond anything he could ever develop. Never pupil was more humble, never pupil more obedient; thinking nothing of himself or of anything he had done or could do, his path was open to the swiftest and highest growth. It matters little where a man may be at this moment; the point is whether he is growing. The next point will be, whether he is growing at the ratio given him. The key to the whole thing is obedience, and nothing else.

What the gift of such an instructor was to Joseph, my reader may be requested to imagine. He was like a man seated on the grass outside the heavenly gate, from which, slow-opening every evening as the sun went down, came an angel to teach, and teach, until he too should be fit to enter in: an hour would arrive when she would no longer have to come out to him where he sat. Under such an influence all that was gentlest and sweetest in his nature might well develop with rapidity, and every accidental roughness —and in him there was no other—by swift degrees vanish from both speech and manners. The angels do not want tailors to make their clothes: their habits come out of themselves. But we are often too hard upon our fellows; for many of those in the higher ranks of life—no, no, I mean of society—whose insolence wakens ours, as growl wakes growl in the forest, are not yet so far removed from the savage—I mean in their personal history—as some in the lowest ranks. When a nobleman mistakes the love of right in another for a hatred of refinement, he can not be far from mistaking insolence for good manners. Of such a nobility, good Lord, deliver us from all envy!

As to falling in love with a lady like Mary, such a thing was as far from Jasper's consciousness as if she had been a duchess. She belonged to another world from his, a world which his world worshiped, waiting. He might miss her even to death; her absence might, for him, darken the universe as if the sun had withdrawn his brightness; but who thinks of falling in love with the sun, or dreams of climbing nearer to his radiance?

The day will one day come—or what of the long-promised kingdom of heaven?—when a woman, instead of spending anxious thought on the adornment of her own outward person, will seek with might the adornment of the inward soul of another, and will make that her crown of rejoicing. Nay, are there none such even now? The day will come when a man, rather than build a great house for the overflow of a mighty hospitality, will give himself, in the personal labor of outgoing love, to build spiritual houses like St. Paul—a higher art than any of man's invention. O my brother, what were it not for thee to have a hand in making thy brother beautiful!

Be not indignant, my reader: not for a moment did I imagine thee capable of such a mean calling! It is left to a certain school of weak enthusiasts, who believe that such growth, such embellishment, such creation, is all God cares about; these enthusiasts can not indeed see, so blind have they become with their fixed idea, how God could care for anything else. They actually believe that the very Son of the life-making God lived and died for that, and for nothing else. That such men and women are fools, is and has been so widely believed, that, to men of the stamp of my indignant reader, it has become a fact! But the end alone will reveal the beginning. Such a fool was Prometheus, with the vulture at his heart—but greater than Jupiter with his gods around him.

There soon came a change, however, and the lessons ceased altogether.

Tom had come down to his old quarters, and, in the arrogance of convalescence, had presumed on his imagined strength, and so caught cold. An alarming relapse was the consequence, and there was no more playing; for now his condition began to draw to a change, of which, for some time, none of them had even thought, the patient had seemed so certainly recovering. The cold settled on his lungs, and he sank rapidly.

Joseph, whose violin was useless now, was not the less in attendance. Every evening, when his work was over, he came knocking gently at the door of the parlor, and never left until Tom was settled for the night. The most silently helpful, undemonstrative being he was, that doctor could desire to wait upon patient. When it was his turn to watch, he never closed an eye, but at daybreak—for it was now spring—would rouse Mary, and go off straight to his work, nor taste food until the hour for the mid-day meal arrived.

Tom speedily became aware that his days were numbered—phrase of unbelief, for are they not numbered from the beginning? Are our hairs numbered, and our days forgotten—till death gives a hint to the doctor? He was sorry for his past life, and thoroughly ashamed of much of it, saying in all honesty he would rather die than fall for one solitary week into the old ways—not that he wished to die, for, with the confidence of youth, he did not believe he could fall into the old ways again. For my part, I think he was taken away to have a little more of that care and nursing which neither his mother nor his wife had been woman enough to give the great baby. After all, he had not been one of the worst of babies.

Is it strange that one so used to bad company and bad ways should have so altered, in so short a time, and without any great struggle? The assurance of death at the door, and a wholesome shame of things that are past, may, I think, lead up to such a swift change, even in a much worse man than Tom. For there is the Life itself, all-surrounding, and ever pressing in upon the human soul, wherever that soul will afford a chink of entrance; and Tom had not yet sealed up all his doors.

When he lay there dead—for what excuse could we have for foolish lamentation, if we did not speak of the loved as lying dead?—Letty had him already enshrined in her heart as the best of husbands—as her own Tom, who had never said a hard word to her—as the cleverest as well as kindest of men who had written poetry that would never die while the English language was spoken. Nor did "The Firefly" spare its dole of homage to the memory of one of its gayest writers. Indeed, all about its office had loved him, each after his faculty. Even the boy cried when he heard he was gone, for to him too he had always given a kind word, coming and going. A certain little runnel of verse flowed no more through the pages of "The Firefly," and in a month there was not the shadow of Tom upon his age. But the print of him was deep in the heart of Letty, and not shallow in the affection of Mary; nor were such as these, insignificant records for any one to leave behind him, as records go. Happy was he to have left behind him any love, especially such a love as Letty bore him! For what is the loudest praise of posterity to the quietest love of one's own generation? For his mother, her memory was mostly in her temper. She had never understood her wayward child, just because she had given him her waywardness, and not parted with it herself, so that between them the two made havoc of love. But she who gives her child all he desires, in the hope of thus binding his love to herself, no less than she who thwarts him in everything, may rest assured of the neglect she has richly earned. When she heard of his death, she howled and cursed her fate, and the woman, meaning poor Letty, who had parted her and her Tom, swearing she would never set eyes upon her, never let her touch a farthing of Tom's money. She would not hear of paying his debts until Mary told her she then would, upon which the fear of public disapprobation wrought for right if not righteousness.

But what was Mary to do now with Letty? She was little more than a baby yet, not silly from youth, but young from silliness. Children must learn to walk, but not by being turned out alone in Cheapside.

She was relieved from some perplexity for the present, however, by the arrival of a letter from Mrs. Wardour to Letty, written in a tone of stiffly condescendent compassion—not so unpleasant to Letty as to her friend, because from childhood she had been used to the nature that produced it, and had her mind full of a vast, undefined notion of the superiority of the writer. It may be a question whether those who fill our inexperienced minds with false notions of their greatness, do us thereby more harm or good; certainly when one comes to understand with what an arrogance and self-assertion they have done so, putting into us as reverence that which in them is conceit, one is ready to be scornful more than enough; but, rather than have a child question such claims, I would have him respect the meanest soul that ever demanded respect; the first shall be last in good time, and the power of revering come forth uninjured; whereas a child judging his elders has already withered the blossom of his being.

But Mrs. Wardour's letter was kind-perhaps a little repentant; it is hard to say, for ten persons will repent of a sin for one who will confess it—I do not mean to the priest—that may be an easy matter, but to the only one who has a claim to the confession, namely, the person wronged. Yet such confession is in truth far more needful to the wronger than to the wronged; it is a small thing to be wronged, but a horrible thing to wrong.

The letter contained a poverty-stricken expression of sympathy, and an invitation to spend the summer months with them at her old home. It might, the letter said, prove but a dull place to her after the gayety to which she had of late been accustomed, but it might not the less suit her present sad situation, and possibly uncertain prospects.

Letty's heart felt one little throb of gladness at the thought of being again at Thornwick, and in peace. With all the probable unpleasant accompaniments of the visit, nowhere else, she thought, could she feel the same sense of shelter as where her childhood had passed. Mary also was pleased; for, although Letty might not be comfortable, the visit would end, and by that time she might know what could be devised best for her comfort and well-being.

———————



CHAPTER XLVIII.

DISSOLUTION.

It was now Mary's turn to feel that she was, for the first time in her life, about to be cut adrift—adrift, that is, as a world is adrift, on the surest of paths, though without eyes to see. For ten days or so, she could form no idea of what she was likely or would like to do next. But, when we are in such perplexity, may not the fact be accepted as showing that decision is not required of us—perhaps just because our way is at the moment being made straight for us?

Joseph called once or twice, but, for Letty's sake, they had no music. As they met so seldom now, Mary, anxious to serve him as she could, offered him the loan of some of her favorite books. He accepted it with a gladness that surprised her, for she did not know how much he had of late been reading.

One day she received an unexpected visit—from Mr. Brett, her lawyer. He had been searching into the affairs of the shop, and had discovered enough to make him uneasy, and indeed fill him with self-reproach that he had not done so with more thoroughness immediately on her father's death. He had come to tell her all he knew, and talk the matter over with her, that they might agree what proceedings should be taken.

I will not weary myself or my readers with business detail, for which kind of thing I have no great aptitude, and a good deal of incapacitating ignorance; but content myself with the briefest statement of the condition in which Mr. Brett found the affairs of Mr. Turnbull.

He had been speculating in several companies, making haste to be rich, and had periled and lost what he had saved of the profits of the business, and all of Mary's as well that had not been elsewhere secured. He had even trenched on the original capital of the firm, by postponing the payment of moneys due, and allowing the stock to run down and to deteriorate, and things out of fashion to accumulate, so that the business had perceptibly fallen off. But what displeased Mary more than anything was, that he had used money of her father's to speculate with in more than one public-house; and she knew that, if in her father's lifetime he had so used even his own, it would have been enough to make him insist on dissolving partnership.

It was impossible to allow her money to remain any longer in the power of such a man, and she gave authority to Mr. Brett to make the necessary arrangements for putting an end to business relations between them.

It was a somewhat complicated, therefore tedious business; and things looked worse the further they were searched into. Unable to varnish the facts to the experience of a professional eye, Mr. Turnbull wrote Mary a letter almost cringing in its tone, begging her to remember the years her father and he had been as brothers; how she had grown up in the shop, and had been to him, until misunderstandings arose, into the causes of which he could not now enter, in the place of a daughter; and insisting that her withdrawal from it had had no small share in the ruin of the business. For these considerations, and, more than all, for the memory of her father, he entreated her to leave things as they were, to trust him to see after the interests of the daughter of his old friend, and not insist upon measures which must end in a forced sale, in the shutting up of the shop of Turnbull and Marston, and the disgracing of her father's name along with his.

Mary replied that she was acting by the advice of her father's lawyer, and with the regard she owed her father's memory, in severing all connection with a man in whom she no longer had confidence; and insisted that the business must be wound up as soon as possible.

She instructed Mr. Brett, at the same time, that, if it could be managed, she would prefer getting the shop, even at considerable loss, into her own hands, with what stock might be in it, when she would attempt to conduct the business on principles her father would have approved, whereby she did not doubt of soon restoring it to repute. While she had no intention, she said, of selling so well as Mr. Turnbull would fain have done, she believed she would soon be able to buy to just as good advantage as he. It would be necessary, however, to keep her desire a secret, else Mr. Turnbull would be certain to frustrate it.

Mr. Brett approved of her plan, for he knew she was much respected, and had many friends. Mr. Turnbull would be glad, he said, to give up the whole to escape prosecution—that at least was how Mary interpreted his somewhat technical statement of affairs between them.

The swindler wrote again, begging for an interview—which she declined, except in the presence of her lawyer.

She made up her mind that she would not go near Testbridge till everything was settled, and the keys of the shop in Mr. Brett's hands; and remained, therefore, where she was—with Letty, who to keep her company delayed her departure as long as she could without giving offense at Thornwick.

A few days before Letty was at last compelled to leave, Jasper called, and heard about as much as they knew themselves of their plans. When Mary said to him she would miss her pupil, he smiled in a sort of abstracted way, as if not quite apprehending what she said, which seemed to Mary a little odd, his manners in essentials being those of a gentleman, as judged by one a little more than a lady; for there is an unnamed degree higher than the ordinary lady. So Mary was left alone—more alone than she had ever been in her life. But she did not feel lonely, for the best of reasons—that she never fancied herself alone, but knew that she was not. Also she had books at her command, being one of the few who can read; and there were picture-galleries to go to, and music-lessons to be had. Of these last she crowded in as many as her master could be persuaded to give her—for it would be long, she knew, before she was able to have such again.

Joseph Jasper never came near her. She could not imagine why, and was disappointed and puzzled. To know that Ann Byrom was in the house was not a great comfort to her—she regarded so much that Mary loved as of earth and not of heaven. God's world even she despised, because men called it nature, and spoke of its influences. But Mary did go up to see her now and then. Very different she seemed from the time when first they were at work together over Hesper's twilight dress! Ever since Mary had made the acquaintance of her brother, she seemed to have changed toward her. Perhaps she was jealous; perhaps she believed Mary was confirming him in his bad ways. Just where they were all three of one mind—just there her rudimentary therefore self-sufficient religion shut them out from her sympathy and fellowship.

Alone, and with her time at her command, Mary was more inclined than she had ever been, except for her father's company, to go to church. The second Sunday after Letty left her, she went to the one nearest, and in the congregation thought she saw Joseph. A week before, she would have waited for him as he came out, but, now that he seemed to avoid her, she would not, and went home neither comforted by the sermon nor comfortable with herself. For the parson, instead of recognizing, through all defects of the actual, the pattern after which God had made man, would fain have him remade after the pattern of the middle-age monk—a being far superior, no doubt, to the most of his contemporaries, but as far from the beauty of the perfect man as the mule is from that of the horse; and she was annoyed with herself that she was annoyed with Joseph. It was the middle of summer before the affairs of the firm were wound up, and the shop in the hands of the London man whom Mr. Brett had employed in the purchase.

Lawyer as he was, however, Mr. Brett had not been sharp enough for Turnbull. The very next day, a shop in the same street, that had been to let for some time, displayed above its now open door the sign, John Turnbull, late—then a very small of— Turnbull and Marston; whereupon Mr. Brett saw the oversight of which he had been guilty. There was nothing in the shop when it was opened, but that Turnbull utilized for advertisement: he had so arranged, that within an hour the goods began to arrive, and kept arriving, by every train, for days and days after, while all the time he made public show of himself, fussing about, the most triumphant man in the town. It made people talk, and if not always as he would have liked to hear them talk, yet it was talk, and, in the matter of advertisement, that is the main thing.

When it was told Mary, it gave her not the smallest uneasiness. She only saw what had several times seemed on the point of arriving in her father's lifetime. She would not have moved a finger to prevent it. Let the two principles meet, with what result God pleased!

Whether he had suspected her design, and had determined to challenge her before the public, I can not tell; but his wife's aversion to shopkeeping was so great, that one who knew what sort of scene passed because of it between them, would have expected that, but for some very strong reason, he would have been glad enough to retire from that mode of gaining a livelihood. As it was, things appeared to go on with them just as before. They still inhabited the villa, the wife scornful of her surroundings, and the husband driving a good horse to his shop every morning. How he managed it all, nobody knew but himself, and whether he succeeded or not was a matter of small interest to any except his own family and his creditors. He was a man nowise beloved, although there was something about him that carried simple people with him—for his ends, not theirs. To those who alluded to the change, he represented it as entirely his own doing, to be rid of the interference of Miss Marston in matters of which she knew nothing. He knew well that a confident lie has all the look of truth, and, while fact and falsehood were disputing together in men's mouths, he would be selling his drapery. The country people were flattered by the confidence he seemed to put in them by this explanation, and those who liked him before sought the new shop as they had frequented the old one.

Unlike most men, not to say lawyers, Mr. Brett was fully recognizant to Mary of his oversight, and was not a little relieved to be assured she would not have had the thing otherwise: she would gladly meet Mr. Turnbull in a fair field— not that she would in the least acknowledge or think of him as a rival; she would simply carry out her own ideas of right, without regard to him or any measures he might take; the result should be as God willed. Mr. Brett shook his head: he knew her father of old, and saw the daughter prepared to go beyond the father. Theirs were principles that did not come within the range of his practice! He said to himself and his wife that the world could not go on for a twelvemonth if such ways were to become universal: whether by the world he meant his own profession, I will not inquire. Certainly he did not make the reflection that the new ways are intended to throw out the old ways; and the worst argument against any way is that the world can not go on so; for that is just what is wanted—that the world should not go on so. Mr. Brett nevertheless admired not only Mary's pluck, but the business faculty which every moment she manifested: there is a holy way of doing business, and, little as business men may think it, that is the standard by which they must be tried; for their judge in business affairs is not their own trade or profession, but the man who came to convince the world concerning right and wrong and the choice between them; or, in the older speech-to reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.



CHAPTER XLIX.

THORNWICK.

It was almost with bewilderment that Mrs. Helmer revisited Thornwick. The near past seemed to have vanished like a dream that leaves a sorrow behind it, and the far past to take its place. She had never been accustomed to reflect on her own feelings; things came, were welcome or unwelcome, proved better or worse than she had anticipated, passed away, and were mostly forgotten. With plenty of faculty, Letty had not yet emerged from the chrysalid condition; she lived much as one in a dream, with whose dream mingle sounds and glimmers from the waking world. Very few of us are awake, very few even alive in true, availing sense. "Pooh! what stuff!" says the sleeper, and will say it until the waking begins to come.

On the threshold of her old home, then, Letty found her old self awaiting her; she crossed it, and was once more just Letty, a Letty wrapped in the garments of sorrow, and with a heaviness at the heart, but far from such a miserable Letty as during the last of her former life there. Little joy had been hers since the terrible night when she fled from its closed doors; and now that she returned, she could take up everything where she had left it, except the gladness. But peace is better than gladness, and she was on the way to find that.

Mrs. Wardour, who, for all her severity, was not without a good- sized heart, and whoso conscience had spoken to her in regard of Letty far oftener than any torture would have made her allow, was touched with compassion at sight of her worn and sad look; and, granting to herself that the poor thing had been punished enough, even for her want of respect to the house of Thornwick, broke down a little, though with well-preserved dignity, and took the wandering ewe-lamb to her bosom. Letty, loving and forgiving always, nestled in it for a moment, and in her own room quietly wept a long time. When she came out, Mrs. Wardour pleased herself with the fancy that her eyes were red with the tears of repentance; but Letty never dreamed of repenting, for that would have been to deny Tom, to cut off her married life, throw it from her, and never more see Tom.

By degrees, rapid yet easy, she slid into all her old ways; took again the charge of the dairy as if she had never left it; attended to the linen; darned the stockings; and in everything but her pale, thin face, and heavy, exhausted heart, was the young Letty again. She even went to the harness-room to look to Cousin Godfrey's stirrups and bits; but finding, morning after morning for a whole week, that they had not once been neglected, dismissed the care-not without satisfaction.

Mrs. Wardour continued kind to her; but every now and then would allow a tone as of remembered naughtiness to be sub-audible in speech or request. Letty, even in her own heart, never resented it. She had been so used to it in the old days, that it seemed only natural. And then her aunt considered her health in the kindest way. Now that Letty had known some of the troubles of marriage, she felt more sympathy with her, did not look down upon her from quite such a height, and to Letty this was strangely delightful. Oh, what a dry, hard, cold world this would grow to, but for the blessing of its many sicknesses!

When Godfrey saw her moving about the house as in former days, but changed, like one of the ghosts of his saddest dreams, a new love began to rise out of the buried seed of the old. In vain he reasoned with himself, in vain ho resisted. The image of Letty, with its trusting eyes fixed on him so "solemn sad," and its watching looks full of ministration, haunted him, and was too much for him. She was never the sort of woman he could have fancied himself falling in love with; he did in fact say to himself that she was only almost a lady-but at the word his heart rebuked him for a traitor to love and its holy laws. Neither in person was she at all his ideal. A woman like Hesper, uplifted and strong, broad-fronted and fearless, large-limbed, and full of latent life, was more of the ideal he could have written poetry about. But we are deeper than we know. Who is capable of knowing his own ideal? The ideal of a man's self is hid in the bosom of God, and may lie ages away from his knowledge; and his ideal of woman is the ideal belonging to this unknown self: the ideal only can bring forth an ideal. He can not, therefore, know his own ideal of woman; it is, nevertheless —so I presume—this his own unknown ideal that makes a man choose against his choice. Gladly would Godfrey now have taken Letty to his arms. It was no longer anything that from boyhood he had vowed rather to die unmarried, and let the land go to a stranger, than marry a widow. He had to recall every restraining fact of his and her position to prevent him from now precipitating that which he had before too long delayed. But the gulf of the grave and the jealousy of a mother were between them; for, if he were again to rouse her suspicions, she would certainly get rid of Letty, as she had before intended, so depriving her of a home, and him of opportunity. He kept, therefore, out of Letty's way as much as he could, went more about the farm, and took long rides.

Nothing was further from Letty than any merest suspicion of the sort of regard Godfrey cherished for her. There was in her nothing of the self-sentimental. Her poet was gone from her, but she did not therefore take to poetry; nay, what poetry she had learned to like was no longer anything to her, now her singing bird had flown to the land of song. To her, Tom was the greatest, the one poet of the age; he had been hers—was hers still, for did ho not die telling her that he would go on watching till she came to him? He had loved her, she knew; he had learned to love her better before he died. She must be patient; the day would come when she should be a Psyche, as he had told her, and soar aloft in search of her mate. The sense of wifehood had grown one with her consciousness. It mingled with all her prayers, both in chamber and in church. As she went about the house, she was dreaming of her Tom—an angel in heaven, she said to herself, but none the less her husband, and waiting for her. If she did not read poetry, she read her New Testament; and if she understood it only in a childish fashion, she obeyed it in a child-like one, whence the way of all wisdom lay open before her. It is not where one is, but in what direction he is going. Before her, too, was her little boy—borne in his father's arms, she pictured him, and hearing from him of the mother who was coming to them by and by, when God had made her good enough to rejoin them!

But, while she continued thus simple, Godfrey could not fail to see how much more of a woman she had grown: he was not yet capable of seeing that she would—could never hare got so far with him, even if he had married her.

Love and marriage are of the Father's most powerful means for the making of his foolish little ones into sons and daughters. But so unlike in many cases are the immediate consequences to those desired and expected, that it is hard for not a few to believe that he is anywhere looking after their fate—caring about them at all. And the doubt would be a reasonable one, if the end of things was marriage. But the end is life—that we become the children of God; after which, all things can and will go their grand, natural course; the heart of the Father will be content for his children, and the hearts of the children will be content in their Father.

Godfrey indulged one great and serious mistake in reference to Letty, namely, that, having learned the character of Tom through the saddest of personal experience, she must have come to think of him as he did, and must have dismissed from her heart every remnant of love for him. Of course, he would not hint at such a thing, he said to himself, nor would she for a moment allow it, but nothing else could be the state of her mind! He did not know that in a woman's love there is more of the specially divine element than in a man's—namely, the original, the unmediated. The first of God's love is not founded upon any merit, rests only on being and need, and the worth that is yet unborn.

The Redmains were again at Durnmelling—had been for some weeks; and Sepia had taken care that she and Godfrey should meet—on the footpath to Testbridge, in the field accessible by the breach in the ha-ha—here and there and anywhere suitable for a little detention and talk that should seem accidental, and be out of sight. Nor was Godfrey the man to be insensible to the influence of such a woman, brought to bear at close quarters. A man less vulnerable—I hate the word, but it is the right one with Sepia concerned, for she was, in truth, an enemy—might perhaps have yielded room to the suspicion that these meetings were not all so accidental as they appeared, and as Sepia treated them; but no glimmer of such a thought passed through the mind of Godfrey. He knew nothing of all that my readers know to Sepia's disadvantage, and her eyes were enough to subdue most men from the first—for a time at least. Had it not been for the return of Letty, she would by this time have had him her slave: nothing but slavery could it ever be to love a woman like her, who gave no love in return, only exercised power. But although he was always glad to meet her, and his heart had begun to beat a little faster at sight of her approach, the glamour of her presence was nearly destroyed by the arrival of Letty; and Sepia was more than sharp enough to perceive a difference in the expression of his eyes the next time she met him. At the very first glance she suspected some hostile influence at work—intentionally hostile, for persons with a consciousness like Sepia's are always imagining enemies. And as the two worst enemies she could have were the truth and a woman, she was alternately jealous and terrified: the truth and a woman together, she had not yet begun to fear; that would, indeed, be too much!

She soon found there was a young woman at Thornwick, who had but just arrived; and ere long she learned who she was—one, indeed, who had already a shadowy existence in her life—was it possible the shadow should be now taking solidity, and threatening to foil her? Not once did it occur to her that, were it so, there would be retribution in it. She had heard of Tom's death through "The Firefly," which had a kind, extravagant article about him, but she had not once thought of his widow—and there she was, a hedge across the path she wanted to go! If the house of Durnmelling had but been one story higher, that she might see all round Thornwick!

For some time now, as I have already more than hinted, Sepia had been fashioning a man to her thrall—Mewks, namely, the body- servant of Mr. Redmain. It was a very gradual process she had adopted, and it had been the more successful. It had got so far with him that whatever Sepia showed the least wish to understand, Mewks would take endless trouble to learn for her. The rest of the servants, both at Durnmelling and in London, were none of them very friendly with her—least of all Jemima, who was now with her mistress as lady's-maid, the accomplished attendant whom Hesper had procured in place of Mary being away for a holiday.

The more Sepia realized, or thought she realized, the position she was in, the more desirous was she to get out of it, and the only feasible and safe way, in her eyes, was marriage: there was nothing between that and a return to what she counted slavery. Rather than lift again such a hideous load of irksomeness, she would find her way out of a world in which it was not possible, she said, to be both good and comfortable: she had, in truth, tried only the latter. But if she could, she thought, secure for a husband this gentleman-yeoman, she might hold up her head with the best. Even if Galofta should reappear, she would know then how to meet him: with a friend or two, such as she had never had yet, she could do what she pleased! It was hard work to get on quite alone—or with people who cared only for themselves! She must have some love on her side! some one who cared for her!

From all she could learn, there was nothing that amounted even to ordinary friendship between Mr. Wardour and the young widow. She was in the family but as a distant poor relation—"Much as I am myself!" thought Sepia, with a bitter laugh that even in her own eyes she should be comparable to a poor creature like Letty. The fact, however, remained that Godfrey was a little altered toward her: she must have been telling him something against her— something she had heard from that detestable little hypocrite who was turned away on suspicion of theft! Yes—that was how Sepia talked to herself about Mary.

One morning, Letty, finding she had an hour's leisure, for her aunt did not pursue her as of old time, wandered out to the oak on the edge of the ha-ha, so memorable with the shadowy presence of her Tom. She had not been seated under it many minutes before Godfrey caught sight of her from his horse's back: knowing his mother was gone to Testbridge, he yielded to an urgent longing, took his horse to the stable, and crossed the grass to where she sat.

Letty was thinking of Tom—what else was there of her own to do?- -thinking like a child, looking up into the cloud-flecked sky, and thinking Tom was somewhere there, though she could not see him: she must be good and patient, that she might go up to him, as he could not come down to her—if he could, he would have come long ago! All the enchantment of the first days of her love had come back upon the young widow; all the ill that had crept in between had failed from out her memory, as the false notes in music melt in the air that carries the true ones across ravine and river, meadow and grove, to the listening ear. Letty lived in a dream of her husband—in heaven, "yet not from her"—such a dream of bliss and hope as in itself went far to make up for all her sorrows.

She was sitting with her back toward the tree and her face to Thornwick, and yet she did not see Godfrey till he was within a few yards of her. She smiled, expecting his kind greeting, but was startled to hear from behind her instead the voice of a lady greeting him. She turned her head involuntarily: there was the head of Sepia rising above the breach in the ha-ha, and Godfrey had turned aside and run to give her his hand.

Now Letty knew Sepia by sight, from the evening she had spent at the old hall; more of her she knew nothing. From the mind of Tom, in his illness, her baleful influence had vanished like an evil dream, and Mary had not thought it necessary to let him know how falsely, contemptuously, and contemptibly, she had behaved toward him. Letty, therefore, had no feeling toward Sepia but one of admiration for her grace and beauty, which she could appreciate the more that they were so different from her own.

"Thank you," said Sepia, holding fast by Godfrey's hand, and coming up with a little pant. "What a lovely day it is for your haymaking! How can you afford the time to play knight-errant to a distressed damsel?"

"The hay is nearly independent of my presence," replied Godfrey. "Sun and wind have done their parts too well for my being of much use."

"Take me with you to see how they are getting on. I am as fond of hay as Bottom in his translation."

She had learned Godfrey's love of literature, and knew that one quotation may stand for much knowledge.

"I will, with pleasure," said Godfrey, perhaps a little consoled in the midst of his disappointment; and they walked away, neither taking notice of Letty.

"I did not know," she said to herself, "that the two houses had come together at last! What a handsome couple they make!"

What passed between them is scarcely worthy of record. It is enough to say that Sepia found her companion distrait, and he felt her a little invasive. In a short while they came back together, and Sepia saw Letty under the great bough of the Durnmelling oak. Godfrey handed her down the rent, careful himself not to invade Durnmelling with a single foot. She ran home, and up to a certain window with her opera-glass. But the branches and foliage of the huge oak would have concealed pairs and pairs of lovers.

Godfrey turned toward Letty. She had not stirred.

"What a beautiful creature Miss Yolland is!" she said, looking up with a smile of welcome, and a calmness that prevented the slightest suspicion of a flattering jealousy.

"I was coming to you," returned Godfrey. "I never saw her till her head came up over the ha-ha.—Yes, she is beautiful—at least, she has good eyes."

"They are splendid! What a wife she would make for you, Cousin Godfrey! I should like to see such a two."

Letty was beyond the faintest suggestion of coquetry. Her words drove a sting to the heart of Godfrey. He turned pale. But not a word would he have spoken then, had not Letty in her innocence gone on to torture him. She sprang from the ground.

"Are you ill, Cousin Godfrey?" she cried in alarm, and with that sweet tremor of the voice that shows the heart is near. "You are quite white!—Oh, dear! I've said something I oughtn't to have said! What can it be? Do forgive me, Cousin Godfrey." In her childlike anxiety she would have thrown her arms round his neck, but her hands only reached his shoulders. He drew back: such was the nature of the man that every sting tasted of offense. But he mastered himself, and in his turn, alarmed at the idea of having possibly hurt her, caught her hands in his. As they stood regarding each other with troubled eyes, the embankment of his prudence gave way, and the stored passion broke out.

"You don't mean you would like to see me married, Letty?" he groaned.

"Yes, indeed, I do, Cousin Godfrey! You would make such a lovely husband!"

"Ah! I thought as much! I knew you never cared for me, Letty!"

He dropped her hands, and turned half aside, like a figure warped with fire.

"I care for you more than anybody in the world—except, perhaps, Mary," said Letty: truthfulness was a part of her.

"And I care for you more than all the world!—more than very being—it is worthless without you. O Letty! your eyes haunt me night and day! I love you with my whole soul."

"How kind of you, Cousin Godfrey!" faltered Letty, trembling, and not knowing what she said. She was very frightened, but hardly knew why, for the idea of Godfrey in love with her was all but inconceivable. Nevertheless, its approach was terrible. Like a fascinated bird she could not take her eyes off his face. Her knees began to fail her; it was all she could do to stand. But Godfrey was full of himself, and had not the most shadowy suspicion of how she felt. He took her emotion for a favorable sign, and stupidly went on:

"Letty, I can't help it! I know I oughtn't to speak to you like this—so soon, but I can't keep quiet any longer. I love you more than the universe and its Maker. A thousand times rather would I cease to live, than live without you to love me. I have loved you for years and years—longer than I know. I was loving you with heart and soul and brain and eyes when you went away and left me."

"Cousin Godfrey!" shrieked Letty, "don't you know I belong to Tom?"

And she dropped like one lifeless on the grass at his feet.

Godfrey felt as if suddenly damned; and his hell was death. He stood gazing on the white face. The world, heaven, God, and nature were dead, and that was the soul of it all, dead before him! But such death is never born of love. This agony was but the fog of disappointed self-love; and out of it suddenly rose what seemed a new power to live, but one from a lower world: it was all a wretched dream, out of which he was no more to issue, in which he must go on for ever, dreaming, yet acting as one wide awake! Mechanically he stooped and lifted the death-defying lover in his arms, and carried her to the house. He felt no thrill as he held the treasure to his heart. It was the merest material contact. He bore her to the room where his mother sat, laid her on the sofa, said he had found her under the oak-tree—and went to his study, away in the roof. On a chair in the middle of the floor he sat, like a man bereft of all. Nothing came between him and suicide but an infinite scorn. A slow rage devoured his heart. Here he was, a man who knew his own worth, his faithfulness, his unchangeableness, cast over the wall of the universe, into the waste places, among the broken shards of ruin! If there was a God—and the rage in his heart declared his being —why did he make him? To make him for such a misery was pure injustice, was willful cruelty! Henceforward he would live above what God or woman could do to him! He rose and went to the hay- field, whence he did not return till after midnight.

He did not sleep, but he came to a resolution. In the morning he told his mother that he wanted a change; now that the hay was safe, he would have a run, he hardly knew where—possibly on the Continent; she must not be uneasy if she did not hear from him for a week or two; perhaps he would have a look at the pyramids. The old lady was filled with dismay; but scarcely had she begun to expostulate when she saw in his eyes that something was seriously amiss, and held her peace—she had had to learn that with both father and son. Godfrey went, and courted distraction. Ten years before, he would have brooded: that he would not do now: the thing was not worth it! His pride was strong as ever, and both helped him to get over his suffering, and prevented him from gaining the good of it. He intrenched himself in his pride. No one should say he had not had his will! He was a strong man, and was going to prove it to himself afresh!

Thus thought Godfrey; but he is in reality a weak man who must have recourse to pride to carry him through. Only, if a man has not love enough to make a hero of him, what is he to do?

He was away a month, and came back in seeming health and spirits. But it was no small relief to him to find on his arrival that Letty was no longer at Thornwick.

She had gone through a sore time. To have made Godfrey unhappy, made her miserable; but how was she to help it? She belonged to Tom! Not once did she entertain the thought of ceasing to be Tom's. She did not even say to herself, what would Tom do if she forgot and forsook him—and for what he could not help! for having left her because death took him away! But what was she to do? She must not remain where she was. No more must she tell his mother why she went.

She wrote to Mary, and told her she could not stay much longer. They were very kind, she said, but she must be gone before Godfrey came back.

Mary suspected the truth. The fact that Letty did not give her any reason was almost enough. The supposition also rendered intelligible the strange mixture of misery and hardness in Godfrey's behavior at the time of Letty's old mishap. She answered, begging her to keep her mind easy about the future, and her friend informed of whatever concerned her.

This much from Mary was enough to set Letty at comparative ease. She began to recover strength, and was able to write a letter to Godfrey, to leave where he would find it, in his study.

It was a lovely letter—the utterance of a simple, childlike spirit—with much in it, too, I confess, that was but prettily childish. She poured out on Godfrey the affection of a womanchild. She told him what a reverence and love he had been to her always; told him, too, that it would change her love into fear, perhaps something worse, if he tried to make her forget Tom. She told him he was much too grand for her to dare love him in that way, but she could look up to him like an angel—only he must not come between her and Tom. Nothing could be plainer, simpler, honester, or stronger, than the way the little woman wrote her mind to the great man. Had he been worthy of her, he might even yet, with her help, have got above his passion in a grand way, and been a great man indeed. But, as so many do, he only sat upon himself, kept himself down, and sank far below his passion.

When he went to his study the day after his return, he saw the letter. His heart leaped like a wild thing in a trap at sight of the ill-shaped, childish writing; but—will my lady reader believe it?—the first thought that shot through it was—"She shall find it too late! I am not one to be left and taken at will!" When he read it, however, it was with a curling lip of scorn at the childishness of the creature to whom he had offered the heart of Godfrey Wardour. Instead of admiring the lovely devotion of the girl-widow to her boy-husband, he scorned himself for having dreamed of a creature who could not only love a fool like Tom Helmer, but go on loving him after he was dead, and that even when Godfrey Wardour had condescended to let her know he loved her. It was thus the devil befooled him. Perhaps the worst devil a man can be posessed withal, is himself. In mere madness, the man is beside himself; but in this case he is inside himself; the presiding, indwelling, inspiring sprit of him is himself, and that is the hardest of all to cast out. Godfrey rose form the reading of that letter cured, as he called it. But it was a cure that left the wound open as a door to the entrance of evil things. He tore the letter into a thousand pieces, and throw them into the empty grate—not even showed it the respect of burning it with fire.

Mary had got her affairs settled, and was again in the old place, the hallowed temple of so many holy memories. I do not forget it was a shop I call a temple. In that shop God had been worshiped with holiest worship—that is, obedience—and would be again. Neither do I forget that the devil had been worshiped there too— in what temple is he not? He has fallen like lightning from heaven, but has not yet been cast out of the earth. In that shop, however, he would be worshiped no more for a season.

At once she wrote to Letty, saying the room which had been hers was at her service as soon as she pleased to occupy it: she would take her father's.

Letty breathed a deep breath of redemption, and made haste to accept the offer. But to let Mrs. Wardour know her resolve was a severe strain on her courage.

I will not give the conversation that followed her announcement that she was going to visit Mary Marston. Her aunt met it with scorn and indignation. Ingratitude, laziness, love of low company, all the old words of offense she threw afresh in her face. But Letty could not help being pleased to find that her aunt's storm no longer swamped her boat. When she began, however, to abuse Mary, calling her a low creature, who actually gave up an independent position to put herself at the beck and call of a fine lady, Letty grew angry.

"I must not sit and hear you call Mary names, aunt," she said. "When you cast me out, she stood by me. You do not understand her. She is the only friend I ever had-except Tom."

"You dare, you thankless hussy, to say such a thing in the house where you've been clothed and fed and sheltered for so many years! You're the child of your father with a vengeance! Get out of my sight!"

"Aunt—" said Letty, rising.

"No aunt of yours!" interrupted the wrathful woman.

"Mrs. Wardour," said Letty, with dignity, "you have been my benefactor, but hardly my friend: Mary has taught me the difference. I owe you more than you will ever give me the chance of repaying you. But what friendship could have stood for an hour the hard words you have been in the way of giving me, as far back as I can remember! Hard words take all the sweetness from shelter. Mary is the only Christian I have ever known."

"So we are all pagans, except your low-lived lady's-maid! Upon my word!"

"She makes me feel, often, often," said Letty, bursting into tears, "as if I were with Jesus himself—as if he must be in the room somewhere."

So saying, she left her, and went to put up her things. Mrs. Wardour locked the door of the room where she sat, and refused to see or speak to her again. Letty went away, and walked to Testbridge.

"Godfrey will do something to make her understand," she said to herself, weeping as she walked.

Whether Godfrey ever did, I can not tell.



CHAPTER L.

WILLIAM AND MARY MARSTON.

The same day on which Turnbull opened his new shop, a man was seen on a ladder painting out the sign above the old one. But the paint took time to dry.

The same day, also, Mary returned to Testbridge, and, going in by the kitchen-door, went up to her father's room, of which and of her own she had kept the keys—to the indignation of Turnbull, who declared he did not know how to get on without them for storage. But, for all his bluster, he was afraid of Mary, and did not dare touch anything she had left.

That night she spent alone in the house. But she could not sleep. She got up and went down to the shop. It was a bright, moonlit night, and all the house, even where the moon could not enter, was full of glimmer and gleam, except the shop. There she lighted a candle, sat down on a pile of goods, and gave herself up to memories of the past. Back and back went her thoughts as far as she could send them. God was everywhere in all the story; and the clearer she saw him there the surer she was that she would find him as she went on. She was neither sad nor fearful. The dead hours of the night came, that valley of the shadow of death where faith seems to grow weary and sleep, and all the things of the shadow wake up and come out and say, "Here we are, and there is nothing but us and our kind in the universe!" They woke up and came out upon Mary now, but she fought them off. Either there is mighty, triumphant life at the root and apex of all things, or life is not—and whence, then, the power of dreaming horrors? It is life alone—life imperfect—that can fear; death can not fear. Even the terror that walketh by night is a proof that I live, and that it shall not prevail against me. And to Mary, besides her heavenly Father, her William Marston seemed near all the time. Whereever she turned she saw the signs of him, and she pleased herself to think that perhaps he was there to welcome her. But it would not have made her the least sad to know for certain that he was far off, and would never come near her again in this world. She knew that, spite of time and space, she was and must be near him so long as she loved and did the truth. She knew there is no bond so strong, none so close, none so lasting as the truth. In God alone, who is the truth, can creatures meet.

The place was left in sad confusion and dirt, and she did not a little that night to restore order at least. But at length she was tired, and went up to her room.

On the first landing there was a window to the street. She stopped and looked out, candle in hand, but drew back with a start: on the opposite side of the way stood a man, looking up, she thought, at the house! She hastened to her room, and to bed. If God was not watching, no waking was of use; and if God was watching, she might sleep in peace. She did sleep, and woke refreshed.

Her first care in the morning was to write to Letty—with the result I have set down. The next thing she did was to go and ask Beenie to give her some breakfast. The old woman was delighted to see her, and ready to lock her door at once and go back to her old quarters. They returned together, while Testbridge was yet but half awake.

Many things had to be done before the shop could be opened. Beenie went after charwomen, and soon a great bustle of cleaning arose. But the door was kept shut, and the front windows.

In the afternoon Letty came fresh from misery into more than counterbalancing joy. She took but time to put off her bonnet and shawl, and was presently at work helping Mary, cheerful as hope and a good conscience could make her.

Mary was in no hurry to open the shop. There was "stock to be taken," many things had to be rearranged, and not a few things to be added, before she could begin with comfort; and she must see to it all herself, for she was determined to engage no assistant until she could give her orders without hesitation.

She was soon satisfied that she could not do better than make a proposal to Letty which she had for some time contemplated— namely, that she should take up her permanent abode with her, and help her in the shop. Letty was charmed, nor ever thought of the annoyance it would be to her aunt. Mary had thought of that, but saw that, for Letty to allow the prejudices of her aunt to influence her, would be to order her life not by the law of that God whose Son was a workingman, but after the whim and folly of an ill-educated old woman. A new spring of life seemed to bubble up in Letty the moment Mary mentioned the matter; and in serving she soon proved herself one after Mary's own heart. Letty's day was henceforth without a care, and her rest was sweet to her. Many customers were even more pleased with her than with Mary. Before long, Mary, besides her salary, gave her a small share in the business.

Mrs. Wardour carried her custom to the Turnbulls.

When the paint was dry which obliterated the old sign, people saw the now one begin with an M., and the sign-writer went on until there stood in full, Mary Marston. Mr. Brett hinted he would rather have seen it without the Christian name; but Mary insisted she would do and be nothing she would not hold just that name to; and on the sign her own name, neither more nor less, should stand. She would have liked, she said, to make it William and Mary Marston; for the business was to go on exactly as her father had taught her; the spirit of her father should never be out of the place; and if she failed, of which she had no fear, she would fail trying to carry out his ideas-but people were too dull to understand, and she therefore set the sign so in her heart only.

Her old friends soon began to come about her again, and it was not many weeks before she saw fit to go to London to add to her stock.

The evening of her return, as she and Letty sat over a late tea, a silence fell, during which Letty had a brooding fit.

"I wonder how Cousin Godfrey is getting on?" she said at last, and smiled sadly.

"How do you mean getting on?" asked Mary.

"I was wondering whether Miss Yolland and he—"

Mary started from her seat, white as the table-cloth.

"Letty!" she said, in a voice of utter dismay, "you don't mean that woman is—is making friends with him?"

"I saw them together more than once, and they seemed—well, on very good terms."

"Then it is all over with him!" cried Mary, in despair. "O Letty! what is to be done? Why didn't you tell me before? He'll be madly in love with her by this time! They always are."

"But where's the harm, Mary? She's a very handsome lady, and of a good family."

"We're all of good enough family," said Mary, a little petulantly. "But that Miss Yolland—Letty—that Miss Yolland— she's a bad woman, Letty."

"I never heard you say such a hard word of anybody before, Mary! It frightens me to hear you."

"It's a true word of her, Letty."

"How can you be so sure?"

Mary was silent. There was that about Letty that made the maiden shrink from telling the married woman what she knew. Besides, in so far as Tom had been concerned, she could not bring herself, even without mentioning his name, to talk of him to his wife: there was no evil to be prevented and no good to be done by it. If Letty was ever to know those passages in his life, she must hear them first in high places, and from the lips of the repentant man himself!

"I can not tell you, Letty," she said. "You know the two bonds of friendship are the right of silence and the duty of speech. I dare say you have some things which, truly as I know you love me, you neither wish nor feel at liberty to tell me."

Letty thought of what had so lately passed between her and her cousin Godfrey, and felt almost guilty. She never thought of one of the many things Tom had done or said that had cut her to the heart; those had no longer any existence. They were swallowed in the gulf of forgetful love—dismissed even as God casts the sins of his children behind his back: behind God's back is just nowhere. She did not answer, and again there was silence for a time, during which Mary kept walking about the room, her hands clasped behind her, the fingers interlaced, and twisted with a strain almost fierce.

"There's no time! there's no time!" she cried at length. "How are we to find out? And if we knew all about it, what could we do? O Letty! what am I to do?"

"Anyhow, Mary dear, you can't be to blame! One would think you fancied yourself accountable for Cousin Godfrey!"

"I am accountable for him. He has done more for me than any man but my father; and I know what he does not know, and what the ignorance of will be his ruin. I know that one of the best men in the world"—so in her agony she called him—"is in danger of being married by one of the worst women; and I can't bear it— I can't bear it!"

"But what can you do, Mary?"

"That's what I want to know," returned Mary, with irritation. "What am I to do? What am I to do?"

"If he's in love with her, he wouldn't believe a word any one— even you—told him against her."

"That is true, I suppose; but it won't clear me. I must do something."

She threw herself on the couch with a groan.

"It's horrid!" she cried, and buried her face in the pillow.

All this time Letty had been so bewildered by Mary's agitation, and the cause of it was to her so vague, that apprehension for her cousin did not wake. But when Mary was silent, then came the thought that, if she had not so repulsed him—but she could not help it, and would not think in that direction.

Mary started from the couch, and began again to pace the room, wringing her hands, and walking up and down like a wild beast in its cage. It was so unlike her to be thus seriously discomposed, that Letty began to be frightened. She sat silent and looked at her. Then spoke the spirit of truth in the scholar, for the teacher was too troubled to hear. She rose, and going up to Mary from behind, put her arm round her, and whispered in her ear:

"Mary, why don't you ask Jesus?"

Mary stopped short, and looked at Letty. But she was not thinking about her; she was questioning herself: why had she not done as Letty said? Something was wrong with her: that was clear, if nothing else was! She threw herself again on the couch, and Letty saw her body heaving with her sobs. Then Letty was more frightened, and feared she had done wrong. Was it her part to remind Mary of what she knew so much better than she?

"But, then, I was only referring her to herself!" she thought.

A few minutes, and Mary rose. Her face was wet and white, but perplexity had vanished from it, and resolution had taken its place. She threw her arms round Letty, and kissed her, and held her face against hers. Letty had never seen in her such an expression of emotion and tenderness.

"I have found out, Letty, dear," she said. "Thank you, thank you, Letty! You are a true sister."

"What have you found out, Mary?"

"I have found out why I did not go at once to ask Him what I ought to do. It was just because I was afraid of what he would tell me to do."