Graham had tried it, and the ordeal was too difficult for him. Now he had a greater scope for his abilities, and less money for his pains.

Clara Graham was the daughter of a solicitor in Angleford, and had known Lettice Campion from childhood. She was a pretty woman, thoroughly good-hearted, with tastes and powers somewhat in advance of her education. Perhaps she stood a little in awe of Lettice, and wondered occasionally whether her husband considered a woman who knew Latin and Greek, and wrote clever articles in The Decade, superior to one who had no such accomplishments, though she might be prettier, and the mother of his children, and even the darner of his stockings. But Clara was not without wits, so she did not propound questions of that sort to her husband; she reserved them for her own torment, and then expiated her jealousy by being kinder to Lettice than ever.

Lettice's plans were far more fixed and decided than Sydney knew. She had corresponded very fully and frankly with the Grahams on the subject, and Mr. Graham was already looking about for a place where she could set up her household gods. It was no use to consult Mrs. Campion on the subject. Her husband's death had thrown her into a state of mental torpor which seemed at first to border upon imbecility; and although she recovered to some extent from the shock, her health had been too much shaken to admit of complete recovery. Thenceforward she was an invalid and an old woman, who had abnegated her will in favor of her daughter's, and asked for nothing better than to be governed as well as cared for. The change was a painful one to Lettice, but practically it left her freer than ever, for her mother wanted little companionship, and was quite as happy with the maid that Lettice had brought from Angleford as with Lettice herself. The visit to the Grahams was an excellent thing both for Mrs. Campion and for her daughter. Clara managed to win the old lady's heart, and so relieved her friend of much of her anxiety. The relief came not a moment too soon, for the long strain to which Lettice had been subjected began to tell upon her and she was sorely in need of rest. The last three or four years had been a time of almost incessant worry to her. She had literally had the care of the household on her shoulders, and it had needed both courage and endurance of no ordinary kind to enable her to discharge her task without abandoning that inner and intellectual life which had become so indispensable to her well-being. The sudden death of her father was a paralyzing blow, but the care exacted from her by her mother had saved her from the physical collapse which it might have brought about. Now, when the necessity for immediate exertion had passed away, the reaction was very great, and it was fortunate that she had at this crisis the bracing companionship of James Graham, and Clara's friendly and stimulating acerbities.

Lettice had reached the age of five and twenty without experiencing either love, or intimate friendship, or intellectual sympathy. She had had neither of those two things which a woman, and especially an intellectual woman, constantly craves, and in the absence of which she cannot be happy. Either of the two may suffice for happiness, both together would satisfy her completely, but the woman who has not one or the other is a stranger to content. The nature of a woman requires either equality of friendship, a free exchange of confidence, trust and respect—having which, she can put up with a good deal of apparent coldness and dryness of heart in her friend; or else she wants the contrasted savor of life, caressing words, demonstrations of tenderness, amenities and attentions, which keep her heart at rest even if they do not satisfy her whole nature. If she gets neither of these things the love or friendship never wakes, or, having been aroused, it dies of inanition.

So it was with Lettice. The one oasis in the wilderness of her existence had been the aftermath of love which sprang up between her and her father in the last few years, when she felt him depending upon her, confiding and trusting in her, and when she had a voice in the shaping of his life. But even this love, unsurpassable in its tenderness, was only as a faint shadow in a thirsty land. Such as it was, she had lost it, and the place which it had occupied was an aching void.

The one desire left to her at present was to become an absolutely independent woman. This meant that she should work hard for her living in her own way, and that she should do what seemed good and pleasant to her, because it seemed good and pleasant, not because it was the way of the world, or the way of a house, or the routine of a relative or an employer. It meant that she should keep her mother under her own eye, in comfort and decency, not lodged with strangers to mope out her life in dreary solitude. It meant also that she should not be a burden on Sydney—or, in plain terms, that she should not take Sydney's money, either for herself or her mother.

Indeed, the consciousness that she had to work for another, and to be her protection and support, was not only bracing but cheering in its effects, and Lettice now turned towards her writing-table with an energy which had been wanting when her efforts were for herself alone.

The Rectory household had been reduced as much as possible during the last few months, and only two servants remained at the time of the rector's death: one, an elderly cook, who was content for the love of "Miss Lettice" to do the work of a general servant; and a young girl of eighteen, who had lived at the Rectory and been trained for domestic service under Mrs. Campion's eye ever since her parents' death, which had occurred when she was fifteen years of age. Emily, or Milly Harrington, as she was generally called, was a quick, clever girl, very neat-handed and fairly industrious; and it seemed to Lettice, when she decided upon going to London, that she could not do better than ask Milly to go too. The girl's great blue eyes opened with a flash of positive rapture. "Go with you to London? Oh, Miss Lettice!"

"You would like it, Milly?" said Lettice, wondering at her excitement, and thinking that she had never before noticed how pretty Millie Harrington had grown of late.

"Oh, of all things in the world, miss, I've wanted to go to London!" said Milly, flushing all over her face through the clear white skin which was one of her especial beauties. There was very little trace of commonness in Milly's good looks. Three years of life at the Rectory had refined her appearance, as also her manners and ways of speech; and Lettice thought that it would be far pleasanter to keep Milly about her than to go through the agonies of a succession of pert London girls. Yet something in Milly's eagerness to go, as well as the girl's fresh, innocent, country air, troubled her with a vague sense of anxiety. Was not London said to be a place of temptation for inexperienced country girls? Could she keep Milly safe and innocent if she took her away from Angleford?

"You would have all the work of the house to do, and to look after Mrs. Campion a little as well," she said seeking to put her vague anxiety into the form of a warning or an objection. But Milly only smiled.

"I'm very strong, Miss Lettice. I am sure I can do all that you want. And I should like to go to London with you. One hears such fine tales of London—and I don't want to leave mistress and you." Though this was evidently an afterthought.

"You will see very little of London, Milly; I shall live in a very quiet part," said Lettice. "And I shall want you to be very good and steady, and take care of my mother when I am busy. I shall have to work hard now, you know; quite as hard as you."

Milly looked up quickly; there was inquiry in her eyes. But she answered only by protestations of good behavior and repeated desires to go with her young mistress; and Lettice gave her a promise, subject to the consent of Milly's grandmother, who lived at Birchmead, that she would take the girl with her when she went away.

Old Mrs. Harrington had no objection at all to Milly's going to London. "Indeed, Miss Lettice," she said, "I'm only too glad to think of your looking after her, for Milly's not got much sense, I'm afraid, although she's a woman grown."

"I always thought her unusually clever and sensible," said Lettice, in some surprise.

"Clever, miss, she always was, but sensible's a different affair. Her head's filled with foolishness, all along of her reading story books, I tell her; and she's got an idea that her pretty face will bring her a rich husband, and I don't know what beside. I shall be obliged to you, miss, if you'll kindly keep a sharp eye and a tight hand over Milly. Not but what she's a good kind-hearted girl," said the old woman, relenting a little, as she saw a rather startled expression on Miss Campion's face, "and I don't think there's any harm in her, but girls are always better for being looked after, that is all."

"I'll try to take care of Milly," said Lettice, as she rose to go. "But my care will be of very little use if she does not take care of herself."

She was fated on the same day to hear a remonstrance from the doctor's wife, Mrs. Budworth, on the subject of her choice of a servant. Mrs. Budworth was a noted busybody, who knew everybody's business better than the rest of the world.

"Oh, Lettice, dear," she said, "I do hope it's not true that you are going to take that silly girl, Milly Harrington, up to London with you."

"Why not? You cannot know anything against her," said Lettice, who was becoming a little angry.

"Well, perhaps not—only she is so very pretty, and London is so full of temptations for a pretty girl of that class!"

"We shall live so quietly that she will have no more temptations there than here, Mrs. Budworth."

"You can't tell that, my dear—once you get a girl away from her friends and relations. However, she has only her old grandmother to fall back on, and she seems a well-meaning girl enough, and perhaps she won't be considered so pretty in London as she has the name of being here. I hope she will keep straight, I'm sure; it would be such a worry to you, Lettice, if anything went wrong."

"Poor Milly!" said Lettice to herself, as she walked home in a state of blazing indignation; "how easily that woman would undermine your reputation—or that of anybody else! Milly is a dear, good little girl; and as for her being so pretty—well, it is not her fault, and I don't see why it should be her misfortune! I will look well after her when we are in London, and it will be for her good, I believe, to stay with us. What an absurd fuss to make about such a trifle!"

So she dismissed the matter from her mind, remembering it only from time to time when she was making her new household arrangements, and carefully planning to keep Milly out of every possible danger.

But dangers are oftener from within than from without. While Lettice walked homeward after her talk with Mrs. Budworth, Milly Harrington had locked herself into her own room, and was experimenting with her pretty curling hair before the looking-glass. She wanted to see herself with a "fringe"—a thing that was strictly forbidden at the Rectory, and she had brushed the soft little curls that were generally hidden beneath her cap well over her forehead. Then she stood and gazed at the reflection of the fair locks, the large blue eyes, the graceful neck and shoulders. "I suppose I look pretty," she was saying to herself. "I've been told so often enough. Mr. Sydney thought so when he was here at Christmas, I'm sure of that. This time, of course, he was so taken up with his father's death, and other things, that he never noticed me. But I shall see him again."

A faint color mantled in her cheeks, and her eyes began to sparkle.

"Beauty's a great power, I've heard," she said to herself, still looking at that fair image in the glass. "There's no knowing what I mayn't do if I meet the right person. And one meets nobody in Angleford. In London—things may be different."

Different, indeed, but not as poor Milly fancied the difference.

And then she brushed back her curls, and fastened up her black dress, and tied a clean muslin apron round her trim little figure before going downstairs; and when she brought in the tea-tray that afternoon, Lettice looked at her with pleasure and admiration, and thought how sweet and good a girl she was, and how she had won the Prayer-Book prize at the Diocesan Inspector's examination, and of the praise that the rector had given her for her well-written papers at the Confirmation Class, and of her own kindly and earnest teaching of all things that were good in Lettice's eyes; and she decided that Mrs. Harrington and Mrs. Budworth were mere croakers, and that poor Milly would never come to harm.



BOOK II.

CHANGE.

"Yet the twin habit of that early time Lingered for long about the heart and tongue; We had been natives of one happy clime, And its dear accent to our utterance clung.

"Till the dire years whose awful name is Change Had grasped our souls, still yearning in divorce, And pitiless shaped them in two forms that range— Two elements which sever their life's course."

George Eliot.



CHAPTER VI.

NEW BEGINNINGS.

"Poor dear Lettice! how she must have suffered!" said Clara Graham.

"Less than you suppose," rejoined her husband.

"Jim, what do you mean? You are very hard-hearted."

"No, I'm not! I'm only practical. Your friend, Miss Campion, has been a source of lamentation and woe to you ever since I made your acquaintance. According to you, she was always being sacrificed to that intolerable prig of a brother of hers. Then she was immolated on the altar of her father's money difficulties and her mother's ill-health. Now she has got a fair field, and can live where she likes and exercise her talents as she pleases; and as I can be as unfeeling as I like in the bosom of my family, I will at once acknowledge that I am very glad the old man's gone."

"I do hope and trust, Jim——"

"That I am not a born fool, my dear?"

"—That you won't say these things to Lettice herself."

"Exactly. That is what I knew you were going to say."

"If it weren't that I am certain you do not mean half you say——"

"I mean all that I say: every word of it. But I'll tell you what, Clara: I believe that Lettice Campion is a woman of great talent—possibly even of genius—and that she has never yet been able to give her talents full play. She has the chance now, and I hope she'll use it."

"Oh, Jim, dear, do you think she is so sure to succeed?"

"If she doesn't, it will be pure cussedness on her part, and nothing else," said Jim.

Clara reflected that she would tell Lettice what her husband said. She moved to the window and looked out. She was waiting for her guests, Lettice and Mrs. Campion, in the soft dusk of a sweet May evening, and she was a little impatient for their arrival. She had had a comfortable, nondescript meal, which she called dinner-tea, set ready for them in the dining-room, and as this room was near the hall-door, she had installed herself therein, so that she could the more easily watch for her visitors. Mr. Graham, a tall, thin man, with coal-black beard, deep-set dark eyes, and marked features, had thrown himself into a great arm-chair, where he sat buried in the current number of a monthly magazine. His wife was universally declared to be a very pretty woman, and she was even more "stylish," as women say, than pretty; for she had one of those light, graceful figures that give an air of beauty to everything they wear. For the rest, she had well-cut features, bright dark eyes, and a very winning smile. A brightly impulsive and affectionate nature had especially endeared her to Lettice, and this had never been soured or darkened by her experiences of the outer world, although, like most people, she had known reverses of fortune and was not altogether free from care. But her husband loved her, and her three babies were the most charming children ever seen, and everybody admired the decorations of her bright little house in Edwardes Square; and what more could the heart of womankind desire?

"I wonder," she said presently, "whether Sydney will come with them. He was to meet them at Liverpool Street; and of course I asked him to come on."

"I would have gone out if you had told me that before," said Mr. Graham, tersely.

"Why do you dislike Sydney Campion so much, Jim?"

"Dislike? I admire him. I think he is the coming man. He's one of the most successful persons of my acquaintance. It is just because I feel so small beside him that I can't stand his company."

"I must repeat, Jim, that if you talk like that to Lettice——"

"Oh, Lettice doesn't adore her precious brother," said Graham, irreverently. "She knows as well as you and I do that he's a selfish sort of brute, in spite of his good looks and his gift of the gab. I say, Clara, when are these folks coming? I'm confoundedly hungry."

"Who's the selfish brute now?" asked Clara, with triumph. "But you won't be kept waiting long: the cab's stopping at the door, and Sydney hasn't come."

She flew to the door, to be the first to meet and greet her visitors. There was not much to be got from Mrs. Campion that evening except tears—this was evident as soon as she entered the house, leaning on Lettice's arm; and the best thing was to put her at once to bed, and delay the evening meal until Lettice was able to leave her. Graham was quite too good-natured to grumble at a delay for which there was so valid a reason; for, as he informed his wife, he preferred Miss Campion's conversation without an accompaniment of groans. He talked lightly, but his grasp of the hand was so warm, his manner so sympathetic, when Lettice at last came down, that Clara felt herself rebuked at having for one moment doubted the real kindliness of his feeling.

Lettice in her deep mourning looked painfully white and slender in Clara's eyes; but she spoke cheerfully of her prospects for the future, as they sat at their evening meal. Sad topics were not broached, and Mr. Graham set himself to give her all the encouragement in his power.

"And as to where you are to set up your tent," he said, "Clara and I have seen a cottage on Brook Green that we think would suit you admirably."

"Where is Brook Green?" asked Lettice, who was almost ignorant of any save the main thoroughfares of London.

"In the wilds of Hammersmith——"

"West Kensington," put in Clara, rather indignantly.

"Well, West Kensington is only Hammersmith writ fine. It is about ten minutes' walk from us——"

"Oh, I am glad of that," said Lettice.

"—And it is not, I think, too large or too dear. You must go and look at it to-morrow, if you can."

"Is there any garden?"

"There is a garden, with trees under which your mother can sit when it is warm. Clara told me you would like that; and there is a grass-plot—I won't call it a lawn—where you can let your dog and cat disport themselves in safety. I am sure you must have brought a dog or a cat with you, Miss Campion. I never yet knew a young woman from the country who did not bring a pet animal to town with her."

"Jim, you are very rude," said his wife.

"I shall have to plead guilty," Lettice answered, smiling a little. "I have left my fair Persian, Fluff, in the care of my maid, Milly, who is to bring her to London as soon as I can get into my new home."

"Fluff," said Clara, meditatively, "is the creature with a tail as big as your arm, and a ruff round her neck, and Milly is the pretty little housemaid; I remember and approve of them both."

The subject of the new house served them until they went upstairs into Clara's bright little drawing-room, which Graham used to speak of disrespectfully as his wife's doll's house. It was crowded with pretty but inexpensive knick-knacks, the profusion of which was rather bewildering to Lettice, with her more simple tastes. Of one thing she was quite sure, that she would not, when she furnished her own rooms, expend much money in droves of delicately-colored china pigs and elephants, which happened to be in fashion at the time. She also doubted the expediency of tying up two peacocks' feathers with a yellow ribbon, and hanging them in solitary glory on the wall flanked by plates of Kaga ware, at tenpence-halfpenny a-piece. Lettice's taste had been formed by her father, and was somewhat masculine in its simplicity, and she cared only for the finer kinds of art, whether in porcelain or painting. But she was fain to confess that the effect of Clara's decorations was very pretty, and she wondered at the care and pains which had evidently been spent on the arrangement of Mrs. Graham's "Liberty rags" and Oriental ware. When the soft yellow silk curtains were drawn, and a subdued light fell through the jewelled facets of an Eastern lamp upon the peacock fans and richly-toned Syrian rugs, and all the other hackneyed ornamentation by which "artistic" taste is supposed to be shown, Lettice could not but acknowledge that the room was charming. But her thoughts flew back instantly to the old study at home, with its solid oak furniture, its cushioned window-seats, its unfashionable curtains of red moreen; and in the faint sickness of that memory, it seemed to her that she could be more comfortable at a deal table, with a kitchen chair set upon unpolished boards, than in the midst of Clara's pretty novelties.

"You are tired," Mr. Graham said to her, watching her keenly as she sat down in the chair that he offered her, and let her hands sink languidly upon her lap. "We won't let you talk too much. Clara is going to see after her bairns, and I'm going to read the Pall Mall. Here's the May number of The Decade: have you seen it?"

She took it with a grateful smile; but she did not intend to read, and Mr. Graham knew it. He perused his paper diligently, but he was sufficiently interested in her to know exactly at what point she ceased to brood and began to glance at the magazine. After a little while, she became absorbed in its pages; and only when she laid it down at last, with a half suppressed sigh, did he openly look up to find that her eyes were full of tears.

"I hope that you discovered something to interest you," he said.

"I was reading a poem," Lettice answered, rather guiltily.

"Oh—Alan Walcott's 'Sorrow'? Very well done, isn't it? but a trifle morbid, all the same."

"It is very sad. Is he—has he had much trouble?"

"I'm sure I couldn't tell you. Probably not, as he writes about it," said Graham, grimly. "He's a pessimist and a bit of a dilletante. If he would work and believe in himself a little more, I think he might do great things."

"He is young?"

"Over thirty. He comes to the house sometimes. I daresay you will meet him before long."

Lettice said nothing. She was not in a mood to enjoy the prospect of making new acquaintances; but the poem had touched her, and she felt a slight thrill of interest in its writer.

"Yes," she said, "I shall be pleased to make his acquaintance—some day." And then the conversation dropped, and Graham understood from her tone that she was not disposed as yet to meet new faces.

The house on Brook Green proved eminently satisfactory. She agreed to take it as soon as possible, and for the next few weeks her mind was occupied with the purchase and arrangement of furniture, and the many details which belong to the first start in a new career. Although her tastes differed widely from those of Clara Graham, she found her friend's advice and assistance infinitely valuable to her; and many were the expeditions taken together to the Kensington shops to supply Lettice's requirements. She had not Clara's love for shopping, or Clara's eagerness for a bargain; but she took pleasure in her visits to the great London store-houses of beautiful things, and made her purchases with care and deliberation.

So at the end of June she settled down with her mother in the pleasant cottage which was thenceforth to be their home. In addition to the new plenishing, there were in the house a few favorite pieces of furniture which had been saved from the wreck at Angleford; and Sydney—perhaps as a sign that he recognized some redeeming features in her desire to be independent—had made one room look quite imposing with an old-fashioned bookcase, and a library table and chair. There was a well-established garden behind the house, with tall box and bay-trees of more than a generation's growth, and plenty of those old English border plants without which a garden is scarcely worthy of its name. On the whole, Lettice felt that she had not made a bad selection out of the million or so of human habitations which overflow the province of London; and even Mrs. Campion would occasionally end her lamentations over the past by admitting that Maple Cottage was "not a workhouse, my dear, where I might have expected to finish my life."

The widow had a fixed idea about the troubles which had fallen upon her. She would talk now and then of the "shameful robberies" which had broken her husband's heart, and declare that sooner or later the miscreants would be discovered, and restitution would be made, and they would "all end their days in peace." As for Sydney, he was still her hero of heroes, who had come to their rescue when their natural protector was done to death, and whose elevation to the woolsack might be expected at any moment.

Lettice's friends, the Grahams, had naturally left her almost undisturbed during her visit to them, so far as invited guests were concerned. Nevertheless, she casually met several of Mr. Graham's literary acquaintances, and he took care to introduce her to one or two editors and publishers whom he thought likely to be useful to her. James Graham had plenty of tact; he knew just what to say about Miss Campion, without saying too much, and he contrived to leave an impression in the minds of those to whom he spoke that it might be rather difficult to make this young woman sit down and write, but decidedly worth their while to do it if they could.

"Now I have thrown in the seeds," Graham said to her before she left Edwardes Square, "and by the time you want to see them the blades will be springing up. From what you have told me I should say that you have quite enough to do in the next three months. There is that article for me, and the translation of Feuerbach, and the Ouf stories."

This reminiscence of Sydney's criticism made Lettice laugh—she was beginning to laugh again—and Graham's forecast of her future as a woman of letters put her into a cheerful and hopeful mood.

The summer passed away, and the autumn, and when Lettice lighted her first study fire, one cold day at the end of October, she could look forward to the coming winter without misgiving. In four months she had done fifty pounds' worth of work, and she had commissions which would keep her busy for six months more, and would yield at least twice as much money. Mr. Graham's seeds were beginning to send up their blades; and, in short, Lettice was in a very fair way of earning not only a living, but also a good literary repute.

One call, indeed, was made upon her resources in a very unexpected manner. She had put by four five-pound notes of clear saving—it is at such moments that our unexpected liabilities are wont to find us out—and she was just congratulating herself on that first achievement in the art of domestic thrift when her maid Milly knocked at her door, and announced a visitor.

"Please, miss, here is Mrs. Bundlecombe of Thorley!"

Mrs. Bundlecombe was a bookseller in her own right, in a village some three miles from Angleford. Her husband had died four years before Mr. Campion, and his widow made an effort to carry on the business. The rector in his palmy days had had many dealings with Mr. Bundlecombe, who was of some note in the world as a collector of second-hand books; but, as Lettice had no reason to think that he had bought anything of Mrs. Bundlecombe personally, she could not imagine what the object of this visit might be.

"Did she say what her business was, Milly?"

"No, miss. Only she said she had heard you were living here, and she would like to see you, please."

Milly's relations had lived in Thorley. Thus she knew Mrs. Bundlecombe by sight, and, being somewhat inquisitive by nature, she had already tried to draw the visitor into conversation, but without success.

"Show her in," said Lettice, after a moment's pause. It was pleasant, after all, to meet a "kent face" in London solitudes, and she felt quite kindly towards Mrs. Bundlecombe, whom she had sometimes seen over the counter in her shop at Thorley. So she received her with gentle cordiality.

Mrs. Bundlecombe showed symptoms of embarrassment at the quiet friendliness of Lettice's manners. She was not a person of aristocratic appearance, for she was short and very stout, and florid into the bargain; but her broad face was both shrewd and kindly, and her grey eyes were observant and good-humored. Her grey hair was arranged in three flat curls, fastened with small black combs on each side of her face, which was rosy and wrinkled like a russet apple, and her full purple skirt, her big bonnet, adorned with bows of scarlet ribbon, and her much be-furbelowed and be-spangled dolman, attested the fact that she had donned her best clothes for the occasion of her visit, and that Thorley fashions differed from those of the metropolis. She wore gloves with one button, moreover, and boots with elastic sides.

Mrs. Bundlecombe seemed to have some difficulty in coming to the point. She told Lettice much Angleford news, including a piece of information that interested her a good deal: namely, that the old squire, after many years of suffering, was dead, and that his nephew, Mr. Brooke Dalton, had at last succeeded to the property. "He's not there very much, however: he leaves the house pretty much to his sister, Miss Edith Dalton; but it's to be hoped that he'll marry soon and bring a lady to the place."

Lettice wondered again why Mrs. Bundlecombe had called upon her. There seemed very little point in her remarks. But the good woman had a very sufficient reason for her call. She was a practical-minded person, and she was moreover a literary woman in her way, as behoved the widow of a bookseller who had herself taken to selling books. It is true that her acquaintance with the works of British authors did not extend far beyond their titles, but it was to her credit that she contrived to make so much as she did out of her materials. She might have known as many insides of books as she knew outsides, and have put them to less practical service.

"Well," she said, after a quarter of an hour's incessant talk, "you will be wondering what brought me here, and to be sure, miss, I hardly like to say it now I've come; but, as I argued with myself, the rights of man are the rights of man, and to do your best by them who depend on you is the whole duty of man, which applies, I take it, to woman also. And when my poor dear husband died, I thought the path of duty was marked out for me, and I went through my daily exercises, so to speak, just as he had done for forty years. But times were bad, and I could make nothing of it. He had ways of selling books that I could never understand, and I soon saw that the decline and fall was setting in. So I have sold the business for what it would fetch, and paid all that was owing, and I can assure you that there is very little left. I have a nephew in London who is something in the writing way himself. He used to live with us at Thorley, and he is a dear dutiful boy, but he has had great troubles; so I am going to keep his rooms for him, and take care of his linen, and look after things a bit. I came up to-day to talk to him about it.

"Well, Miss Campion, the long and short of it is that as I was looking over my husband's state documents, so to speak, which he had kept in a private drawer, and which I had never found until I was packing up to go, I found a paper signed by your respected father, less than three months before my good man went to his saint's everlasting rest. You see, miss, it is an undertaking to pay Samuel Bundlecombe the sum of twenty pounds in six months from date, for value received, but owing to my husband dying that sudden, and not telling me of his private drawer, this paper was never presented."

Lettice took the paper and read it, feeling rather sick at heart, for two or three reasons. If her father had made this promise she felt sure that he would either have kept it or have put down the twenty pounds in his list of debts. The list, indeed, which had been handed to Sydney was in her own writing, and certainly the name of Bundlecombe was not included in it. Was the omission her fault? If the money had never been paid, that was what she would prefer to believe.

"I thought, miss," her visitor continued, "that there might be some mention of this in Mr. Campion's papers, and, having heard that all the accounts were properly settled, I made bold to bring it to your notice. It is a kind of social contract, you see, and a solemn league and covenant, as between man and man, which I am sure you would like to settle if the means exist. Not but what it seems a shame to come to a lady on such an errand; and I may tell you miss, fair and candid, that I have been to Mr. Sydney Campion in the Temple, who does not admit that he is liable. That may be law, or it may not, but I do consider that this signature ought to be worth the money."

Lettice took the paper again. There could be no doubt as to its genuineness, and the fact that Sydney had denied his liability influenced her in some subtle manner to do what she had already half resolved to do without that additional argument.

She looked at the box in which she had put her twenty pounds, and she looked at her father's signature. Then she opened the box and took out the notes.

"You did quite right in coming, Mrs. Bundlecombe. This is certainly my father's handwriting, and I suppose that if the debt had been settled the paper would not have remained in your husband's possession. Here is the money."

The old woman could scarcely believe her eyes; but she pocketed the notes with great satisfaction, and began to express her admiration for such honorable conduct in a very voluble manner. Lettice cut her short and got rid of her, and then, if the truth must be confessed, she sat down and had a comfortable cry over the speedy dissipation of her savings.



CHAPTER VII.

MRS. HARTLEY AT HOME.

After her first Christmas in London, Lettice began to accept invitations to the houses of her acquaintance.

She dined several times at the Grahams', where there were never more than eight at table, and, being a bright talker and an appreciative listener—two qualities which do not often go together—she was always an impressive personality without exactly knowing it. Clara was accustomed to be outshone by her in conversation, and had become used to it, but some of the women whom Lettice was invited to meet looked at her rather hard, as though they would have liked to draw her serious attention to the fact that they were better looking, or better dressed, or older or younger than herself, as the case might be, and that it was consequently a little improper in her to be talked to so much by the men.

Undoubtedly Lettice got on well with men, and was more at her ease with them than with her own sex. It was not the effect of forwardness on her part, and indeed she was scarcely conscious of the fact. She conversed readily, because her mind was full of reading and of thought, and her moral courage was never at a loss. The keenness of her perception led her to understand and respond to the opinions of the cleverest men whom she met, and it was not unnatural that they should be flattered.

It does not take long for a man or woman to earn a reputation in the literary circles of London, provided he or she has real ability, and is well introduced. The ability will not, as a rule, suffice without the introductions, though introductions have been known to create a reputation, lasting at any rate for a few months, without any real ability. Lettice advanced rapidly in the estimation of those whose good opinion was worth having. She soon began to discriminate between the people who were worth cultivating and the people who were not. If a person were sincere and straightforward, could say what he meant and say it with point and vivacity, or if he possessed for her those vaguely attractive and stimulating qualities which draw people together without their exactly knowing why (probably through some correlation of temperament), Lettice would feel this person was good to know, whether the world approved her choice of friends or not. And when she wanted to know man or woman, she exerted herself to please—mainly by showing that she herself was pleased. She did not exactly flatter—she was never insincere—but it amounted to much the same thing as flattery. She listened eagerly; her interest was manifested in her face, her attitude, her answers. In fact she was her absolute self, without reserve and without fence. No wonder that she incurred the jealousy of half the women in her set.

But this is how an intellectual woman can best please a man who has passed the childish age, when he only cared for human dolls and dolls' houses. She must carry her intellect about with her, like a brave costume—dressing, of course, with taste and harmony—she must not be slow to admire the intellectual costume of others, if she wants her own to be admired; she must be subtle enough at the same time to forget that she is dressed at all, and yet never for a moment forget that her companion may have no soul or heart except in his dress. If he has, it is for him to prove it, not for her to assume it.

It was because Lettice had this art of intellectual intercourse, and because she exercised it in a perfectly natural and artless manner, that she charmed so many of those who made her acquaintance, and that they rarely paused to consider whether she was prettier or plainer, taller or shorter, more or less prepossessing, than the women who surrounded her.

In due time she found herself welcomed at the houses of those dear and estimable ladies, who—generally old and childless themselves—love to gather round them the young and clever acolytes of literature and art, the enthusiastic devotees of science, the generous apprentices of constructive politics, for politicians who do not dabble in the reformation of society find other and more congenial haunts. This many-minded crowd of acolytes, and devotees, and apprentices, owe much to the hospitable women who bring them together in a sort of indulgent dame's school, where their angles are rubbed down, and whence they merge, perhaps, as Arthur Hallam said, the picturesque of man and man, but certainly also more fitted for their work in the social mill than if they had never known that kindly feminine influence.

Lettice became especially fond of one of these minor queens of literary society, who received her friends on Sunday afternoon, and whose drawing-room was frequently attended by a dozen or a score of well-reputed men and women. Mrs. Hartley was an excellent hostess. She was not only careful, to begin with, about her own acquaintance, cultivating none but those whom she had heard well spoken of by competent judges, but she knew how to make a second choice amongst the chosen, bringing kindred spirits together with a happy, instinctive sense of their mutual suitabilities. In spite of her many amiable and agreeable qualities, however, it took Lettice a little time to believe that she should ever make a friend of Mrs. Hartley, whose habit of assorting and labelling her acquaintances in groups struck her at first as artificial and conventional. Lettice objected, for her own part, to be classified.

She had been entreated so often by Clara to go to one of Mrs. Hartley's afternoons that it was with some compunction of heart that she prepared at last to fulfil her long-delayed promise. She walked from Brook Green to Edwardes Square, about three o'clock one bright Sunday afternoon, in February, and found Clara waiting for her. Clara was looking very trim and smart in a new gown of inexpensive material, but the latest, and she surveyed Lettice in a comprehensive manner from top to toe, as if to ascertain whether a proper value had been attached to Mrs. Hartley's invitation.

"You look very nice," was her verdict. "I am so glad that you have relieved your black at last, Lettice. There is no reason why you should not wear a little white or lavender."

And indeed this mitigation of her mourning weeds was becoming to Lettice, whose delicate bloom showed fresh and fair against the black and white of her new costume. She had pinned a little bunch of sweet violets into her jacket, and they harmonized excellently well with the grave tranquillity of her face and the soberness of her dress.

"I don't know why it is, but you remind me of a nun," Clara said, glancing at her in some perplexity. "The effect is quite charming, but it is nun-like too——"

"I am sure I don't know why; I never felt more worldly in my life," said Lettice, laughing. "Am I not fit for Mrs. Hartley's drawing-room?"

"Fit? You are lovely; but not quite like anybody else. That is the best of it; Mrs. Hartley will rave of you," said Clara, as they set forth. And the words jarred a little on Lettice's sensitive mind; she thought that she should object to be raved about.

They took an omnibus to Kensington High Street, and then they made their way to Campden Hill, where Mrs. Hartley's house was situated. And as they went, Clara took the opportunity of explaining Mrs. Hartley's position and claims to distinction. Mrs. Hartley was a widow, childless, rich, perfectly independent: she was very critical and very clever (said Mrs. Graham), but, oh, so kind-hearted! And she was sure that Lettice would like her.

Lettice meekly hoped that she should, although she had a guilty sense of wayward dislike to the woman in whose house, it appeared, she was to be exhibited. For some words of Graham's lingered in her mind. "Mrs. Hartley? The lion-hunter? Oh! so you are to be on view this afternoon, I understand." Accordingly, it was with no very pleasant anticipation that Lettice entered the lion-hunter's house on Campden Hill.

A stout, little grey-haired lady in black, with a very observant eye, came forward to greet the visitors. "This is Miss Campion, I feel sure," she said, putting out a podgy hand, laden with diamond rings. "Dear Mrs. Graham, how kind of you to bring her. Come and sit by me, Miss Campion, and tell me all about yourself. I want to know how you first came to think of literature as a profession?"

This was not the way in which people talked at Angleford. Lettice felt posed for a moment, and then a sense of humor came happily to her relief.

"I drifted into it, I am afraid," she answered, composedly.

"Drifted? No, I am sure you would never drift. You don't know how interested I am, Miss Campion, in the development of the human mind, or you would not try to evade the question. Now, which interests you most, poetry or prose?"

"That depends upon my mood; I am not sure that I am permanently interested in either," Lettice said, quietly.

Her hostess' observant eye was upon her for a moment; then Mrs. Hartley's face expanded in a benignant smile.

"Ah, I see you are very clever," she said. "I ask the question—not from idle curiosity, because I have representatives of both in the room at the present moment. There is a poet, whom I mean to introduce you to by and by, if you will allow me; and there is the very embodiment of prose close beside you, although I don't believe that he writes any, and, like M. Jourdain, talks it without knowing that it is prose."

Lettice glanced involuntarily at the man beside her, and glanced again. Where had she seen his face before? He was a rather stout, blonde man, with an honest open countenance that she liked, although it expressed good nature rather than intellectual force.

"Don't you remember him?" said Mrs. Hartley, in her ear. "He's a cousin of mine: Brooke Dalton, whose uncle used to live at Angleford. He has been wanting to meet you very much; he remembers you quite well, he tells me."

The color rose in Lettice's face. She was feminine enough to feel that a connecting link between Mrs. Hartley and her dear old home changed her views of her hostess at once. She looked up and smiled. "I remember Mr. Dalton too," she said.

"What a sweet face!" Mrs. Hartley said to herself. "Now if Brooke would only take it into his head to settle down——"

And aloud she added: "Brooke, come and be introduced to Miss Campion. You used to know her at Angleford."

"It seems a long time since I saw you," Mr. Dalton said, rather clumsily, as he took Lettice's hand into a very cordial clasp. "It was that day in December when your brother had just got his scholarship at Trinity."

"Oh, yes; that day! I remember it very well," said Lettice, drawing a long breath, which was not exactly a sigh, although it sounded like one. "I gave up being a child on that day, I believe!"

"There have been many changes since then." Brooke Dalton was not brilliant in conversation.

"You have heard of them all, I suppose? Yes, my mother and I are in London now."

"You will allow me to call, I hope?"

Lettice had but time to signify her consent, when Mrs. Hartley seized on her again, but this time Lettice did not so much object to be cross-examined. She recognized the fact that Mrs. Hartley's aim was kindly, and she submitted to be asked questions about her work and her prospects, and to answer them with a frankness that amazed herself. But in the very midst of the conversation she was conscious of being much observed by two or three people in the room; notably by Brooke Dalton, who had planted himself in a position from which he could look at her without attracting the other visitors' remark; and also by a tall man with a dark, melancholy face, deep-set eyes, and a peaked Vandyke beard, whose glances were more furtive than those of Dalton, but equally interested and intent. He was a handsome man, and Lettice found herself wondering whether he were not "somebody," and somebody worth talking to, moreover; for he was receiving, in a languid, half-indifferent manner, a great deal of homage from the women in the room. He seemed bored by it, and was turning away in relief from a lady who had just quoted half-a-dozen lines of Shelley for his especial behoof, when Mrs. Hartley, who had been discussing Feuerbach and the German materialists with Lettice, caught his eye, and beckoned him to her side.

"Mr. Walcott," she said, "I never heard that you were a materialist, and I don't think it is very likely; so you can condole with Miss Campion on having been condemned to translate five hundred pages of Feuerbach. Now, isn't that terrible?"

"I don't know Feuerbach," said the poet, after he had bowed to Lettice, "but it sounds warm and comfortable on a wintry day. Nevertheless, I do condole with her."

"I am not sure that I need condolence," said Lettice. "The work was really very interesting, and one likes to know what any philosopher has to say for himself, whether one believes in his theories or not. I must say I have enjoyed reading Feuerbach,—though he is a German with a translatable name."

This was a flippant speech, as Lettice acknowledged to herself; but, then, Mr. Walcott's speech had been flippant to begin with, and she wanted to give as good as she got.

"You read German, then?" said Walcott, sitting down in the chair that Mrs. Hartley had vacated, and looking at Lettice with interest, although he did not abandon the slight affectation of tone and manner that she had noted from the beginning of her talk with him. "How nice that must be! I often wish I knew something more than my schoolboy's smattering of Greek, Latin, and French."

Lettice had read Mr. Walcott's last volume of poems, which were just then exciting considerable interest in the literary world, and she could not help recalling one or two lyrics and sonnets from Uhland, Filicaja, and other Continentals. As though divining her thoughts, Walcott went on quickly, with much more sincerity of tone:

"I do try now and then to put an idea that strikes me from German or Italian into English; but think of my painful groping with a dictionary, before the cramped and crippled idea can reach my mind! I am the translator most in need of condolence, Miss Campion!"

"Yet, even without going to other languages," said Lettice, "there is an unlimited field in our own, both for ideas and for expression—as well as a practically unlimited audience."

"The artists and musicians say that their domains are absolutely unlimited—that the poet sings to those who happen to speak his language, whilst they discourse to the whole world and to all time. I suppose, in a sense, they are right."

He spoke listlessly, as if he did not care whether they were right or wrong.

But Lettice's eyes began to glow.

"Surely in a narrow sense! They would hardly say that Handel or Beethoven speaks to a wider audience than Homer or Shakspeare, and certainly no musician or painter or sculptor can hope to delight mankind for as many centuries as a poet. And, then, to think what an idea can accomplish—what Greek ideas have done in England, for instance, or Roman ideas in France, or French ideas in nearly every country of Europe! Could a tune make a revolution, or a picture destroy a religion?"

"Perhaps, yes," said Walcott, wishing to draw her out, "if the tunes or the pictures could be repeated often enough, and brought before the eyes and ears of the multitude."

"I do not think so. And, at any rate, that could not be done by way of systematic and comprehensive teaching, so that your comparison only suggests another superiority in literary expression. A poet can teach a whole art, or establish a definite creed; he can move the heart and mould the mind at the same time; but one can hardly imagine such an effect from the work of those who speak to us only through the eye or ear."

By this time Alan Walcott was fairly interested. What Lettice said might be commonplace enough, but it did not strike him so. It was her manner that pleased him, her quiet fervor and gentle insistance, which showed that she was accustomed to think for herself, and suggested that she would have the honesty to say what she thought. And, of course, he applied to himself all that she said about poets in general, and was delighted by her warm championship of his special vocation. As they went on talking for another quarter of an hour he recognized, without framing the admission in words, that Miss Campion was an exceedingly well-read person, and that she knew many authors—even poets—with whom he had the slightest acquaintance. Most of the people whom he met talked idle nonsense to him, as though their main object was to pass the time, or else they aired a superficial knowledge of the uppermost thoughts and theories of the day, gleaned as a rule from the cheap primers and magazine articles in which a bustled age is content to study its science, art, economy, politics, and religion. But here was a woman who had been a voracious reader, who had gone to the fountain-head for her facts, and who yet spoke with the air of one who wanted to learn, rather than to display.

"We have had a very pleasant talk," he said to her at last. "I mean that I have found it very pleasant. I am going now to dine at my club, and shall spend my evening over a monologue which has suggested itself since I entered this room. As you know the Grahams I may hope to meet you again, there if not here. A talk with you, Miss Campion, is what the critics in the Acropolis might call very suggestive!"

Again Lettice thought the manner and the speech affected, but there was an air of sincerity about the man which seemed to be fighting down the affectation. She hardly knew whether she liked him or not, but she knew that he had interested her and made her talk—for which two things she half forgave him the affectation.

"I knew you two would get on together," said Mrs. Hartley, who came up at the moment and dropped into Alan Walcott's chair. "I am not easily deceived in my friends, and I was sure you would have plenty to say to each, other. I have been watching you, and I declare it was quite a case of conversation at first sight. Now, mind you come to me often, Miss Campion. I feel that I shall like you."

And the fat good-natured little woman nodded her grey head to emphasize the compliment.

"It is kind of you to say that," said Lettice, warmly. "I will certainly take you at your word."

"My dear," said Mrs. Hartley, when Alan Walcott had left them, "he is a very nice and clever man—but, oh, so melancholy! He makes me feel quite unhappy. I never saw him so animated as he was just now, and it must be thoroughly good for him to be drawn out in that way."

"I suppose it is the natural mood of poets," Lettice answered with a smile. "It is an old joke against them."

"Ah, but I think the race is changing its characteristics in these days, and going in for cheerfulness and comfort. There is Mr. Pemberton, for instance—how aggravatingly prosperous he looks! Do you see how he beams with good nature on all the world? I should say that he is a jovial man—and yet, you know, he has been down there, as they said of Dante."

"Perhaps it goes by opposites. What I have read of Mr. Walcott's poetry is rather light than sad—except one or two pieces in The Decade."

"Poor man! I think there is another cause for his melancholy. He lost his wife two or three years ago, and I have been told that she was a charming creature, and that her death upset him terribly. He has only just begun to go about again."

"How very unfortunate!" said Lettice. "And that makes it still more strange that his poems should be so slightly tinged with melancholy. He must live quite a double life. Most men would give expression to their personal griefs, and publish them for everybody to read; but he keeps them sacred. That is much more interesting."

"I should think it is more difficult. It seems natural that a poet, being in grief, should write the poetry of grief."

"Yes—no doubt it is more difficult."

And Lettice, on her way home and afterwards, found herself pondering on the problem of a man who, recently robbed of a well-beloved wife, wrote a thousand verses without a single reference to her.

She took down his "Measures and Monologues," and read it through, to see what he had to say about women.

There were a few cynical verses from Heine, and three bitter stanzas on the text from Balzac:—"Vous nous promettiez le bonheur, et finissiez par nous jeter dans une precipice;" but not one tender word applied to a woman throughout the book. It was certainly strange; and Lettice felt that her curiosity was natural and legitimate.

Alan Walcott, in fact, became quite an interesting study. During the next few months Lettice had many opportunities of arriving at a better knowledge of his character, and she amused herself by quietly pushing her inquiries into what was for her a comparatively new field of speculation. The outcome of the research was not very profitable. The more she saw of him the more he puzzled her. Qualities which appeared one day seemed to be entirely wanting when they next met. In some subtle manner she was aware that even his feelings and inclinations constantly varied; at one time he did not conceal his craving for sympathy, at another he was frigid and almost repellent. Lettice still did not know whether she liked or disliked him. But she was now piqued as well as interested, and so it happened that Mr. Walcott began to occupy more of her thoughts than she was altogether willing to devote to him.

So far, all their meetings were in public. They had never exchanged a word that the world might not hear. They saw each other at the Grahams' dinner-parties, at Mrs. Hartley's Sunday afternoon "at homes," and at one or two other houses. To meet a dozen times in a London season constitutes intimacy. Although they talked chiefly of books, sometimes of men and women, and never of themselves, Lettice began to feel that a confidential tone was creeping into their intercourse—that she criticized his poems with extraordinary freedom, and argued her opinions with him in a way that would certainly have staggered her brother Sydney if he had heard her. But in all this friendly talk, the personal note had never once been struck. He told her nothing of his inner self, of his past life, or his dreams for the future. All that they said might have been said to each other on their first meeting in Mrs. Hartley's drawing-room. It seemed as if some vague impalpable barrier had been erected between them, and Lettice puzzled herself from time to time to know how this barrier had been set up.

Sometimes—she did not know why—she was disposed to associate it with the presence of Brooke Dalton. That gentleman continued to display his usual lack of brilliance in conversation, together with much good-heartedness, soundness of judgment, and thoughtfulness for others; and in spite of his slowness of speech Lettice liked him very much. But why would he persist in establishing himself within earshot when Alan was talking to her? If they absolutely eluded him, he betrayed uneasiness, like that of a faithful dog who sees his beloved mistress in some danger. He did not often interrupt the conversation. He sat silent for the most part, unconsciously throwing a wet blanket over both speakers, and sometimes sending Walcott away in a state of almost irrepressible irritation. And yet he seemed to be on good terms with Alan. They spoke to each other as men who had been acquaintances, if not friends, for a good number of years; and he never made an allusion to Alan, in his absence, which could in the least be deemed disparaging. And yet Lettice felt that she was watched, and that there was some mysterious anxiety in Dalton's mind.

Having no companions (for Clara was too busy with her house and her children to be considered a companion for the day-time), Lettice sometimes went for solitary expeditions to various "sights" of London, and, as usual in such expeditions, had never once met anybody she knew. She had gone rather early one summer morning to Westminster Abbey, and was walking slowly through the dim cloistered shades, enjoying the coolness and the quietness, when she came full upon Alan Walcott, who seemed to be doing likewise.

They both started: indeed, they both changed color. For the first time they met outside a drawing-room; and the change in their environment seemed to warrant some change in their relation to one another. After the first greeting, and a short significant pause—for what can be more significant than silence between two people who have reached that stage of sensitiveness to each other's moods when every word or movement seems like self-revelation?—Alan spoke.

"You love this place—as I do; I know you love it."

"I have never been here before," said Lettice, letting her eyes stray dreamily over the grey stones at her feet.

"No, or I should have seen you. I am often here. And I see you so seldom——"

"So seldom?" said Lettice in some natural surprise. "Why, I thought we met rather often?"

"Under the world's eye," said Alan, but in so low a voice that she was not sure whether he meant her to hear or not. However, they both smiled; and he went on rather hurriedly, "It is the place of all others where I should expect to meet you. We think so much alike——"

"Do we?" said Lettice doubtfully. "But we differ very much."

"Not in essentials. Don't say that you think so," he said, in a tone that was almost passionately earnest? "I can't tell you how much it is to me to feel that I have a friend who understands—who sympathizes—who would sympathize, I am sure, if she knew all——"

He broke off suddenly, and the emotion in his voice so far touched Lettice that she remained silent, with drooping head and lowered eyes.

"Yes," he went on, "you owe me your sympathy now. You have given me so much that you must give me more. I have a right to it."

"Mr. Walcott!" said Lettice, raising her head quickly, "you can have no right——"

"No right to sympathy from a friend? Well, perhaps not," he answered bitterly. "I thought that, although you were a woman, you could allow me the claim I make. It is small enough, God knows! Miss Campion, forgive me for speaking so roughly. I ask most earnestly for your friendship and your sympathy; will you not give me these?"

Lettice moved onward towards the door. "Do you think that we ought to discuss our personal concerns in such a place as this?" she asked, evading the question in a thoroughly feminine manner.

"Why not? But if not here, then in another place. By the bye"—with a sudden change of manner, as they stepped into the light of day—"I have a rare book that I want to show you. Will you let me bring it to your house to-morrow morning? I think that you will be interested. May I bring it?"

"Yes," said Lettice mechanically. The change from fierce earnestness to this subdued conventionality of tone bewildered her a little.

"I will come at twelve, if that hour will suit you?"

"It will suit me very well."

And then he raised his hat and left her. Lettice, her pulses throbbing strangely, took her way back to Hammersmith. As she grew calmer, she wondered what had agitated her so much; it must have been something in his look or in his tone, for every effort to assure herself by a repetition of his words that they were mere commonplaces of conversation set her heart beating more tumultuously than ever. She walked all the way from Westminster to Brook Green without once reflecting that she might save herself that fatigue by hailing a passing omnibus.



CHAPTER VIII.

AT THE OLIGARCHY CLUB.

Sydney Campion had done a year's hard and remunerative work since he paid his last visit to Angleford, and the result more than answered his expectations.

When the courts were sitting he was fully absorbed in his briefs; but now and again he took life easily enough—at any rate, so far as the law was concerned. In the autumn it had been his custom to live abroad for a month or two; at Christmas and Easter he invariably found his way to his club in the afternoon, and finished the evening over a rubber of whist.

It was a rare occasion when Sydney was able, in the middle of term, to leave his chambers between three and four o'clock, and stroll in a leisurely way along the Embankment, peacefully smoking a cigar. The chance came to him one sultry day in June. There was no case for him to master, nothing proceeding in which he was specially interested, and he did not feel disposed to sit down and improvise a case for himself, as he used to do in his earlier days. He was minded to be idle; and we may accompany him in his westward walk along the river side to Hungerford Bridge, and up the Avenue to Pall Mall.

On the steps of the Oligarchy Club he found his old friend, Pynsent, just starting for the House. The time was one of great excitement for those who had not lost their interest in the politics of the day. The Irish Land Bill was in Committee, and the Conservatives had strenuously opposed it, fighting, as they knew, a losing battle, yet not without consolations. This very week they had run the Government so close that the transfer of three votes would have put them in a minority; and Sir John Pynsent, who was always a sanguine man, had convinced himself that the Liberal party was on the point of breaking up.

"They are sure to go to pieces," he said to Campion; "and it would be a strange thing if they did not. What Heneage has done already some other Whig with a conscience will do again, and more effectually. You will see we shall be back in office before the year is out. No Ministry and no majority could bear the strain which the Old Man is putting on his followers—it is simply impossible. The worth and birth of the country are sick of this veiled communism that they call justice to Ireland—sick of democratic sycophancy—deadly sick of the Old Man. You mark my words, dear boy: there will be a great revolt against him before many months have passed. I see it working. I find it in the House, in the clubs, in the drawing-rooms; and I don't speak merely as my wishes lead me."

"No doubt you are right as to London; but how about the country?"

"The provinces waver more than the metropolis, I admit; but I don't despair of seeing a majority even in the English boroughs. Ah, Campion I never see you without saying to myself, 'There goes the man who lost us Dormer.' You would have won that election, I am certain."

"Well," said Sydney, "you know why I could not fight. The will, the money, everything was ready: but——"

"True, I forgot. I beg your pardon!"

"Not at all! But I will fight for you some day—as soon as you like. Bear that in mind, Pynsent!"

"To be sure I will, my dear fellow. We must have you in the House. I have often said so."

And the energetic baronet hurried away, whilst Sydney entered the Club, and made straight for the smoking-room. Here he found others just as eager to predict the downfall of the Government as Sir John Pynsent had been; but he was not in the mood to listen to a number of young men all of the same mind, all of-doubtful intellectual calibre, and all sure to say what he had heard a dozen times already. So he passed on to the billiard-room, and finding that a pool was just beginning, took a ball and played.

That served to pass the time until six o'clock, when he went upstairs and read the evening papers for an hour; and at seven he had his dinner and a bottle of wine. Meanwhile he had met two or three friends, with whom he kept up a lively conversation on the events of the day, seasoned by many a pungent joke, and fatal (for the moment) to many a reputation. It is a habit fostered by club life—as, no doubt, it is fostered in the life of the drawing-room, for neither sex is exempt—to sacrifice the repute of one's absent acquaintance with a light heart, not in malice, but more as a parrot bites the finger that feeds it, in sport, or even in affection. If we backbite our friends, we give them free permission to backbite us, or we know that they do it, which amounts to pretty much the same thing. The biting may not be very severe, and, as a rule, it leaves no scars; but, of course, there are exceptions to the rule.

The secret history of almost every man or woman who has mixed at all in polite society is sure to be known by some one or other in the clubs and drawing-rooms. If there is anything to your discredit in your past life, anything which you would blot out if you could with rivers of repentance or expiation, you may be pretty sure that at some time, when you might least expect it, this thing has been, or will be, the subject of discourse and dissection amongst your friends. It may not be told in an injurious or exaggerated manner, and it may not travel far; but none the less do you walk on treacherous shale, which may give way at any moment under your feet. The art of living, if you are afraid of the passing of your secret from the few who know to the many who welcome a new scandal, is to go on walking with the light and confident step of youth, never so much as quailing in your own mind at the thought that the ground may crumble beneath you—that you may go home some fine day, or to your club, or to Lady Jane's five o'clock tea, and be confronted by the grinning skeleton on whom you had so carefully turned your keys and shot your bolts.

No doubt there are men and women so refined and kindly in their nature that they have absolutely no appetite for scandal—never speak it, or listen to it, or remember what they have overheard. Sydney and his friends were troubled by no such qualms, and, if either of them had been, he would not have been so ill-mannered as to spoil sport for the rest.

After dinner they had gone upstairs to the members' smoking room, in a comfortable corner of which they were lazily continuing their conversation. It turned by chance on a certain barrister of Sydney's inn, a Mr. Barrington Baynes, whom one of the party not incorrectly described as "that beautiful, bumptious, and briefless barrister, B. B."

"He gives himself great airs," said Captain Williams, a swaggering, supercilious man, for whom Sydney had no affection, and who was not one of Sydney's admirers. "To hear him talk one would imagine he was a high authority on every subject under the sun, but I suspect he has very little to go upon. Has he ever held a brief, Campion?"

"I never heard of it, if he did. One of those poor devils who take to journalism, and usually end by going to the dogs. You will find his name on the covers of magazines, and I fancy he does something, in the reviewing way."

It was an unfortunate speech for Sydney to make, and Captain Williams did not fail to seize his opportunity of giving the sharp-tongued lawyer—who perhaps knew better how to thrust than to parry in such encounters—a wholesome snub.

Fortune favored him. The current number of The Decade was lying on the table beside him. He took it up in a casual sort of way, and glanced at the list of contents.

"By the bye, Campion," he said, "you are not a married man, are you? I see magazine articles now and then signed Lettice Campion; no relation, I suppose."

"That is my sister," Sydney answered, quietly enough. But it was plain that the hit had told; and he was vexed with himself for being so snobbish as to deserve a sneer from a man like Williams.

"I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Campion two or three times lately at Mrs. Hartley's, in Kensington," said another of the quartette. This was none other than Brooke Dalton, whom Sydney always liked. He spoke in a confidential undertone, with the kindly intention of covering Sydney's embarrassment. "Mrs. Hartley is a cousin of mine; and, though I say it, she brings some very nice people together sometimes. By the way, have you ever seen a man of the name of Walcott—Alan Walcott: a man who writes poetry, and so forth?"

"I know him by name, that is all. I have heard people say he is one of the best poets we have; but I don't pretend to understand our latter-day bards."

"You never met him?"

"No."

"Well, then," said Mr. Dalton, who, though a justice of the peace, and the oldest of the four, could give them all points and beat them as a retailer of gossip; "well, then, that leaves me free to tell you as curious a little history as any I know. But mind, you fellows," he continued, as the others pricked up their ears and prepared to listen, "this is not a story for repetition, and I pledge you to silence before I say another word."

"Honor bright!" said Charles Milton; and the captain nodded his head.

"The facts are these: Five or six years ago, I knew a little of Alan Walcott. I had made his acquaintance in a fortuitous way, and he once did me a good turn by coming forward as a witness in the police court."

"Confession is good for the soul," Milton interjected.

"Well, I was summoned for thrashing a cabman, and I should certainly have been fined if Walcott had not contrived to put the matter in its proper light. For a month or two we saw a good deal of each other, and I rather liked him. He was frank and open in his ways, and though not a well-to-do man, I never observed anything about him that was mean or unhandsome. I did not know that he was married at first, but gradually I put two and two together, and found that he came out now and again to enjoy a snatch of personal freedom, which he could not always make sure of at home.

"Once I saw his wife, and only once. She was a strikingly handsome Frenchwoman, of that bold and flaunting type which generally puts an Englishman on his guard—all paint and powder and cosmetics; you know the style!"

"Not exactly a poetic ideal," said Sydney.

"That is just what I thought at the time; and she seems to have been still less so in character. When I saw her she was terribly excited about some trifle or other—treated Walcott like a dog, without the slightest consideration for his feelings or mine, stood over him with a knife, and ended with a fit of shrieking hysterics."

"Drink or jealousy?" Captain Williams asked.

"Perhaps a little of both. Walcott told me afterwards that that was his daily and nightly experience, and that he was making up his mind to end it. I never knew what he meant by that, but it was impressed upon my memory by the cool sort of way in which he said it, and a quiet look in his eyes which evidently meant mischief. About a fortnight later they went abroad, rather in a hurry; and for some time I heard nothing more of them. Then I went to Aix-les-Bains, and came on the scene just after a frightful row. It seems that a French admirer of hers had followed her to Aix, and attacked Walcott, and even struck him in the hotel gardens. The proprietor and the police had to interfere, and I came across Walcott just as he was looking for some one to act as second. There had been a challenge, and all that sort of thing; and, un-English as it seems, I thought Walcott perfectly right, and acted as his friend throughout the affair. It was in no way a remarkable duel: the French fellow was shot in the arm and got away to Switzerland, and we managed to keep it dark. Walcott was not hurt, and went back to his hotel."

"What did the woman do?" asked Williams, curiously.

"That's the odd part of it. Husband and wife seem to have made it up, for in a day or two they went on to Culoz, had luncheon there, and went out for a walk together. From that walk, Mrs. Alan Walcott did not return. Now comes the mystery: what happened in the course of that walk near Culoz? All that is known is that the landlady saw Walcott returning by himself two or three hours later, and that when she questioned him he replied that madame had taken her departure. What do you think of that for a bit of suggested melodrama?"

"It lacks finish," said Milton.

"I can't see where the poetry comes in," observed the captain.

"It certainly looked black for Walcott," Sydney remarked. "I suppose there was a regular hue and cry—a search for the body, and all that kind of thing?"

"So far as I know, there was nothing of the sort. Nobody seems to have had any suspicion at the time. The peasants at Culoz seemed to have talked about it a little, and some weeks afterwards the English people at Aix-les-Bains got hold of it, and a friend of mine tried to extract information from the landlady. But he was unsuccessful: the landlady could not positively affirm that there was anything wrong. And—perhaps there was not," Mr. Dalton concluded, with a burst of Christian charity which was creditable to him, considering how strong were his objections to Walcott's friendship with Miss Campion.

The captain leaned his head back, sent a pillar of smoke up to the ceiling, and laughed aloud.

"There is no question about it," said Milton, "that Walcott got out of it cheaply. I would not be in his shoes for any money, even now."

"Is this business widely known?" Sydney asked. "It is strange that I never heard anything about it."

He was thinking that the acquaintance of Mr. Alan Walcott could not in any case be a desirable thing for Miss Lettice Campion. From the manner in which Dalton had introduced the subject he felt pretty sure that the attention paid by this man to his sister had been noticed, and that his friend was actuated by a sense, of duty in giving him warning as to the facts within his knowledge.

"I don't wonder you never heard of it," said Dalton. "I am not aware of anyone in England who ever did, except myself. I have not mentioned it before, because I am not sure that it is fair to Walcott to do so. But I know you men will not repeat what I have been telling you."

"Not a word," said Captain Williams and Charles Milton, in a breath.

Yet in less than a week from that time the whole story made its appearance in one of the baser personal journals, and people were discussing who the "well-known poet" was, and whether "the buried secret" would presently come to light again.

And Alan Walcott saw the paragraph, and felt that he had not yet quite done with his past, and wondered at the dispensation of Providence which permitted the writers of such paragraphs to live and thrive.

But a good deal was to happen before that paragraph was printed; and in the meantime Dalton and Campion went off to look for partners in a rubber, without supposing for a moment that they had delivered a stab in the back to one who had never done an injury to either of them.



CHAPTER IX.

LETTICE RECEIVES A VISITOR.

The day following that on which Sydney Campion paid his afternoon visit to his club in Pall Mall was one of considerable importance to his sister Lettice.

She was an early riser, and generally contrived to write half-a-dozen pages of easy translation or straightforward fiction before ten o'clock. That was the hour when she was due in her mother's room, to help her in dressing, and to settle her comfortably in her arm-chair, with her Bible and spectacles at her side, and a newspaper or magazine waiting its turn after the lessons for the day had been read. Mrs. Campion was growing very feeble, both in mind and in body, but she got through her waking hours with a fair amount of satisfaction, thanks to the attention which was paid to all her wants and wishes. Lettice did not suffer anything to interfere with the regular routine which she had marked out for her mother's comfort. She and her maid Milly between them kept the old lady in peace of mind and constant good humor; and if Mrs. Campion still believed that Sydney was their great benefactor, and that it behoved her to comport herself with dignity and grace as the mother of a Lord Chancellor, Lettice did not attempt the hopeless task of undeceiving her.

On this particular day there had been a poor pretence of morning work. She had arranged her papers, the ink and pen were ready to her hand, and a few lines were actually written. But her ideas were all in confusion, and eluded her when she tried to fix them. She could not settle to anything, and instead of writing she found herself drawing figures on the blotting-pad. She knew that of old as a bad symptom, and gave up trying to be industrious. The French window stood open, and the balmy June morning tempted her out into the garden. She picked some flowers for her vases, and pinned a rosebud on the collar of her soft grey dress. It was a simple, straight-flowing dress, of the make which suits every woman best, tall or short, handsome or plain, depending for its beauty on shape and material alone, without any superfluous trimmings; for Lettice had a man's knack of getting her dressmaker to obey orders, and would have scorned to wear and pay for, as a matter of course, whatever trappings might be sent home to her in lieu of what she wanted.

Clearly there were special reasons for her perturbation of mind, and if any other woman had been at her side, and watched her in and out of the house for ten minutes at a time, she would have had no difficulty in divining that Lettice expected a visitor. She would probably go further than this, and draw some confident conclusion as to the kind of welcome likely to be accorded to the visitor; but here, at any rate, the criticism would have been premature. Lettice did expect a visitor—Mr. Alan Walcott to wit; but she had not the slightest notion as to how she should receive him, or whether she would prefer that he should come or stay away.

Her friendship with the poet had grown steadily since their first meeting, and they were now on tolerably familiar terms. His manner had made it impossible for her to doubt that he liked to talk and listen to her, that he sought her company, and even considered himself entitled to her sympathy. But when on the previous day he had gone so far as to assert his title in words, he had done so with what seemed to her remarkable audacity. And, although she had given him permission to come to her house this morning, she was thinking now whether it would not have been better if she had suggested the transfer of the volume of which he spoke at Mrs. Hartley's on the following Sunday, or if she had made her hint still broader by praising the cheapness and despatch of the Parcels Delivery Company.

She had done nothing of this kind. She had been neither rude nor effusive, for it was not in her nature to be either. He was coming "some time after twelve," and in fact, punctually as the clock struck twelve, Mr. Alan Walcott was at the door.

Milly announced him demurely. She observed him carefully, however, as she admitted him into Lettice's room, and studied his card with interest while carrying it to Miss Campion. No man so young and handsome had ever called at Maple Cottage in her time before.

Lettice had been sitting with her mother, and she came down to her study and received her visitor with a frank smile.

"It is really, very kind of you," she said, taking the innocent book which he held out as a sort of warrant for his intrusion, "to be at all this trouble. And this is a splendid copy, it reminds me of the volumes my father used to be so fond of. I will take great care of it. How long did you say I might keep it?"

"Till you have read it, at any rate. Or till I ask you for it again—which I don't think I shall. You say that you used to see volumes like this on your father's bookshelves. I should not wonder if you had seen this very book there. It is a strange coincidence that I should have had it in my possession for some time, and yet never noticed until this morning, when I took it down to bring to you, that it had your name on the fly-leaf. Look!"

He opened the book and held the fly-leaf against the window. The name had been rubbed out with a wet finger, after the manner of second-hand booksellers, but the "Lawrence Campion" was still easily legible. Lettice could not restrain a little cry of delight.

"Yes, that is his dear handwriting, I know it so well! And this is his book-plate, too, and his motto—'Vive ut vivas in vitam aeternam.' Oh, where did you get the book? But I suppose my father's library was scattered all over the country."

"No doubt it was. I have a few—perhaps twenty—with the same plate. My uncle gave me them. I—a—Miss Campion—I came this morning—"

Apparently he did not quite know why he came, or at any rate he did not find it easy to say. Lettice spoke again in order to relieve his embarrassment, which she did not understand.

"It is so strange that I should have one of his books in my hand again. You can imagine what a grief it was to him when he had to let them go."

"I am so glad to have restored to you something that was your father's. I want you to give me a great pleasure, Miss Campion. These books—there are not more than forty outside—I want you to have them. They are yours, you know, because they were his, and he ought never to have been deprived of them."

"I could not take them, indeed, Mr. Walcott. You are most kind to think of it, but I could not!"

"Why?"

"That is hardly a reasonable question," she said, with a quiet little laugh. "How could I?"

"I see very well how you could, but why should you not? It will be a good deed, and there is no good deed without a sacrifice."

"And you want to sacrifice these books, which are so valuable!"

"No, it is no sacrifice to me, as I could easily prove to you. Believe that it pleases me, and sacrifice your own feelings by taking them."

"I don't see why you should ask me. It is too great a present to make, and—oh, dear me, I am afraid I do not know how to say what I mean! But if you will give me this one book, with my father's name in it, I will take it from you, and thank you very much for it."

"I shall not be satisfied if I may not send the rest. Miss Campion, I came to say——"

Again he stammered and broke down. Lettice, who thought that he had already delivered himself of his mental burden, was a little startled now, especially as he got up and stood by her chair at the window.

"What a lovely little garden!" he said. "Why, you are quite in the country here. What delightful roses! I—I want to say something else, Miss Campion!"

"Yes," said Lettice, faintly, and doing her best to feel indifferent.

"We have not known each other long, but it seems to me that we know each other well—at any rate that I know you well. Before I met you I had never made the acquaintance of a woman who at the same time commanded my respect, called my mind into full play, and aroused my sympathy. These last few months have been the happiest of my life, because I have been lifted above my old level, and have known for the first time what the world might yet be to me. There is something more I want to say to you. I think you know that I have been married—that my wife is—is no more. You may or may not have heard that miserable story, of my folly, and——"

"Oh, no!" cried Lettice, impulsively. "It is true that Mrs. Hartley told me of the great trouble which fell upon you in the loss of which you speak."

"The great trouble—yes! That is how Mrs. Hartley would put it. And the Grahams, have they told you nothing?"

"Nothing more."

A look as of relief passed across his face, followed by a spasm of pain; and he stood gazing wearily through the window.

"Perhaps they do not know, for I have never spoken of it to anyone. But I want to speak; I want to get rid of some of the wretched burden, and an irresistible impulse has brought me here to you. I am utterly selfish; it is like taking your money, or your manuscripts, or your flowers, or anything that you value, to come in this way and almost insist on telling you my sordid story. It is altogether unjustifiable—it is a mad presumption which I cannot account for, except by saying that a blind instinct made me think that you alone, of all the people in this world, could help me if you would!"

Lettice was deeply moved by various conflicting emotions; but there was no hesitation in the sympathy which went out to meet this strange appeal. Even her reason would probably have justified him in his unconventional behavior; but it was sympathy, and not reason, which prompted her to welcome and encourage his confidence.

"If I can help you—if it helps you to tell me anything, please speak."

"I knew I was not mistaken!" he said, with kindling eyes, as he sat down in a low chair opposite to her. "I will not be long—I will not tell you all; that would be useless, and needlessly painful. I married in haste, after a week's acquaintance, the daughter of a French refugee, who came to London in 1870, and earned a living by teaching his language to the poorest class of pupils. Don't ask me why I married her. No doubt I thought it was for love. She was handsome, and even charming in her way, and for some months I tried to think I was happy. Then, gradually, she let me wake from my fool's paradise. I found—you will despise me for a dupe!—that I was not the first man she had pretended to love. Nay, it was to me that she pretended—the other feeling was probably far more of a reality. Before the year was out she had renewed her intimacy with my rival—a compatriot of her own. You will suppose that we parted at once when things came to this pass; but for some time I had only suspicion to go upon. I knew that she was often away from home, and that she had even been to places of amusement in this man's company; but when I spoke to her she either lulled my uneasiness or pretended to be outraged by my jealousy. Soon there was no bond of respect left between us; but as a last chance, I resolved to break up our little home in England, and go abroad. I could no longer endure my life with her. She had ceased to be a wife in any worthy sense of the word, and was now my worst enemy, an object of loathing rather than of love. Still, I remember that I had a gleam of hope when I took her on the Continent, thinking it just possible that by removing her from her old associations, I might win her back to a sense of duty. I would have borne her frivolity; I would have endured to be bound for life to a doll or a log, if only she could have been outwardly faithful.

"Well, to make a long story short, we had not been abroad more than six weeks when this man I have told you about made his appearance on the scene. She must have written to him and asked him to come, at the very moment when she was cheating me with a show of reviving affection; and I own that the meeting of these two one day in the hotel gardens at Aix-les-Bains drove me into a fit of temporary madness. We quarrelled; I sent him a challenge, and we fought. He was not much hurt, and I escaped untouched. The man disappeared, and I have never seen him from that day to this, but I have some reason to think that he is dead."

He paused for a moment or two; and Lettice could not refrain from uttering the words, "Your wife?" in a tone of painful interest.