"I have my ring—SUCH diamonds! too valuable, I tell Peter; but he says nothing can be that—and I know they can't help seeing it, because the whole room flashes when I turn it this way and that, like blue lightning playing; but they all pretend not to. Since they find they cannot break our engagement, the idea is to ignore it as if it was something so low as to be beneath their notice. Perhaps they fancy that will wear me out; but it won't.... If they had been nice, and pleaded with me, and if Peter had not been so VERY dear and good, I might have caved in; but not now. And indeed, I am sure I never should anyway, only we might have agreed to differ without quarrelling, which we never did before. Oh, it is too miserable! Poor Mr and Mrs Breen must hate the very name of Pennycuick, and they will end by hating me if this goes on.... Peter has bought the house, and is asking me to hurry our marriage, to get me out of it. He says a private ceremony would not be dishonourable under the circumstances. It seems to me a mean sort of way to go to him, but—what do YOU think?"

"My dear," wrote Alice Urquhart, "I think Peter is right. Next time he asks you, you say yes. It will be a real kindness to both families, who would never know what to do with a house wedding. Besides, then you might have to be given away by B. G. Walk out quietly and unbeknown, and don't come back. Write from the Blue Mountains or somewhere—'Yours ever, Rose Breen.' And later on, when things have settled down, their hearts will melt, and they will come and see you. Let me know what day, and I will run down (to the dentist) to see fair play and sign the register.

"Now, you need not have any scruples, child, because the whole of your husband's family approve of the match (Simpsons delighted, if a little huffy for the moment to see solid worth looked down upon), and Deb and the others are certain to come round when they find it is no use doing anything else. Outsiders don't matter; and I should hate touting for wedding presents in such a mixed concern. As for your clothes, you have plenty; when you want more, you can get them cost price at the shop. It is a very good shop, I hear, and I mean to be a steady customer from this out. Oh, yes, and I will come and see you, old girl, nows and thens, when I have to go to town. And you and Peter must spend all your Christmases up here. While he is seeing his people at Bundaboo, you can camp with me, like old times."

* * * * *

At the last moment Rose broke down, and wept upon the breast of her favourite sister in the act of bidding her goodbye—perhaps because Frances chanced to be absent at the time.

"Oh, Debbie darling, I won't deceive you—I am not going shopping; I am going into Melbourne to get married—to get married quietly and have done with it, so as not to be a nuisance to you any more."

"Married!" gasped Deb, holding the agitated creature at arm's-length. "What—NOW? And you spring this on us without a word of warning—"

"What was the use, Deb? You know what you would have said. I have GOT to have him, dear—I really have—and this seemed the only way."

"Where is he?"

"Waiting till I'm ready. They have a carriage outside. His mother and sister are going with us. His father will join us when we get there. And Alice Urquhart, who is in town, and one of his cousins from Bundaboo—quite respectable and above-board, you see, only very quiet, so as not to trouble you and the girls and poor dear Bennet Goldsworthy more than we can help—"

"Not trouble us!" broke in Deb, her face, that had paled a moment ago, flaming scarlet. "Rose, in your wildest aberrations, I did not credit you with being capable of humiliating us to this extent."

"Ah, you always say that! If you only knew him; but some day you will, and then you will wonder how you could have set yourself against us so. I can't help it, Deb. I did it for the best. Marry him I must and will, and I am only trying to do it in a way as inoffensive to you as possible."

"You call this an inoffensive way? But those people cannot be expected to know—"

"They can—they do. Don't insult them any more. They are giving me everything they can think of to make me happy, and here I have no home—no love—no sympathy from anybody—"

Tears gushed from her eyes and Deb's as from the same spring; they were instantly locked in each other's arms.

"Poor little Rosie! Poor dear child! But you don't understand pet—you don't know what you are doing—going right out of your class—out of your world—"

"But to a good husband, Debbie, and the man I love—and that's first of all! And I must go to him now—I must not keep him waiting. Bless you, dearest! I am happy now. Never mind the others. You can tell them after I'm gone. But I felt that I must speak to YOU before I went. Oh, I am so glad I did! Goodbye, darling! I must go."

"You must NOT go," said Deb, swallowing her tears and resuming her imperious air. "Not this way, Rose, as if your family had cast you off. How can you treat us so, child? But perhaps we deserve it; only you don't see what you are doing as clearly as we do—"

"Deb, Deb, don't stop me! They are waiting. It is late now!"

The bride-elect, pale with fright, struggled in her sister's strong hands, which held her fast.

"Where is Mr Breen?" demanded Deb.

"Waiting at his house—waiting for me—"

"I must send for him."

"Oh, Deb, not now, when everything is settled, and they have had all the expense and trouble—"

"Will you fetch him, Rose, if I let you go? For one minute only. No, I won't stop it. I can't, of course; but I must go with you, Rose—I MUST."

"Oh, Debbie, WOULD you? Oh, how I wish I had known before! Yes, I'll run and bring him. We must drive faster, that's all. Oh, Deb, how happy this will make us! But—"

"Run away and fetch him—ask him, with my compliments if he will be so good—and I will get my hat on while you are gone."

How she managed it was a mystery, but by the time the bridegroom appeared, Deb was in her best walking costume, hatted and veiled, with a pair of new pale-coloured gloves in her hand.

"Mr Breen," said she, grave and stately, "I am going to ask a favour of you. Allow me to take my sister to the church and give her away."

Peter was naturally flurried, besides being a trifle overawed. He mumbled something to the effect that he was sure his family would be "quite agreeable", and that his sister would give up her place in the carriage and go by train; and Deb, facing him with the air of a duchess, thought how thoroughly "shoppy" his manner was. His splendid new clothes helped to give her that impression. Fine dressing was one of the Breens' trifling errors of taste (as drapers) which damned them in her eyes. But what would she have thought if he had not done all honour to his bride in this respect?

"WE will go by train," said she decisively. "I have already delayed you a little, and you must be there first. The train will be quicker than driving, so that we shall be quite in time." She smiled as she caught his swift glance of alarm at Rose. "No, I am not going to kidnap her; I only wish to observe the proprieties a little—for her sake."

"If the proprieties have not been observed," retorted Peter, suddenly bold, "it has not been ALL my fault, Miss Pennycuick." "Perhaps not," she said gently, for she was a generous woman—"perhaps not. At any rate," holding out her hand, "we must let bygones be bygones now. Be good to her—that is all I ask." Peter seized her hand in his superfine glove, and wrung it emotionally, while Rose embraced her sister's left arm and kissed her sleeve. Then, after a hurried consultation of timetables, the bridegroom retired, and was presently seen to clatter past the house in the bridal carriage, which had white horses to it, to Deb's disgust.

She and Rose talked little on their journey. Rose was questioned about clothes and pocket-money, and asked whether she had a safe pocket anywhere. On Rose answering that she had, Deb pressed into it a closed envelope, which she charged her sister not to open until away on her honeymoon. Rose disobeyed the order, and found a hastily scrawled cheque for one hundred pounds—money which she knew could ill be spared.

"Oh, you darling!" she murmured fondly. "But I won't take it, Deb—I WON'T. It would leave you poor for years, while I shall have heaps of everything—"

"If you don't," broke in Deb, tragically stern and determined—"if you don't take it and buy your first clothes with it, I will never forgive you as long as I live. Child, don't you see—?"

Rose saw this much—Deb's horror of the thought of being beholden to the Breens for a post-nuptial trousseau. Reluctantly she pocketed the gift.

"But I shall never want it, you know."

"I don't care about that," said Deb.

The bridegroom's relief of mind when he saw the bride coming was so great as to do away with all the usual embarrassment of a man so circumstanced.

"Ha! now we are all right," he said to Harry Simpson, cousin and best man; and forthwith acted as if the trouble were over instead of just beginning. There was nothing shoppy in his demeanour now, even to Deb's prejudiced eye.

The sisters walked up the nave to the altar, hand in hand. Deb passed the bridesmaid, Alice Urquhart, without a look—her people had brought the young pair together, and were answerable for these consequences—and similarly ignored those walking fashion-plates, Mrs and Miss Breen. She landed her charge at the appointed hassock, and quietly facing the clergyman, stood still and dry-eyed amid the usual tearful flutter, apparently the calmest of the party. But poor Deb suffered pangs unspeakable, and her excessive dignity was maintained only by the sternest effort.

In the vestry, after the ceremony, she was introduced by the bride to her new relations; and Papa Breen, with a great show of magnanimity, expressed his satisfaction at seeing Miss Pennycuick "on this suspicious occasion", and formally invited her to what he called "a little snack" at Menzies', where a gorgeous wedding breakfast had been prepared at his orders.

"Thank you very much, Mr Breen," she said affably. "It would have given me great pleasure, but if you will excuse me, I must run home to my other sisters, whom I left in ignorance of this—this event—which concerns them so nearly."

"Oh, Deb, DO come!" pleaded the bride.

No; the line had to be drawn somewhere. Deb was very kind, very polite, very plausible with her excuses; but to Menzies' with those people and their white-horsed carriage she would not go.



CHAPTER XVIII.

Rose had never been reckoned a person of importance by her family, but now that she was gone, there remained a terrible emptiness where she had been. She was one of those unselfish, good-natured members of households to whom falls the stocking-mending, the errand-going, the fetching and carrying, the filling of gaps generally; and at every turn Deb and Frances missed her unobtrusive ministrations, which they had accepted as as much matters of course as the attentions of the butcher and baker. It was presently perceived that Keziah missed her too—that Keziah, who had loyally opposed the plebeian marriage, was become a turncoat and renegade, blessing where she should have cursed, blaming where she should have praised—yes, blaming even Queen Deborah, who, needless to say, took her head off for it.

It had been Keziah's own choice to follow the sisters into exile, and to share the privations involved in their change of life. She had given up her Redford luxuries and importance to become a general servant, with only her kitchen to sit in, for their sakes; and she had cheerfully abided by her choice—until Rose went. Rose was the one who had understood the cost of the sacrifice, and who had lightened it by sympathetic companionship. They had cleaned rooms, and made cakes and puddings, and set hens, and stirred jam, and ironed frocks and laces together; they had spent hours in pleasant gossip over the many homely subjects that interested both; their relation had been more that of mother and daughter than of servant and mistress. Regarding her as virtually her child, Keziah had been quick to spring to the side of authority in the matter of the irregular love-affair; the natural parental impulse was to nip it in the bud. But "Providence" had decided the issue in this case. And a flirtatious girl was one thing, and a respectable married woman another. And Keziah was lonely, and felt neglected and "put upon" when nobody came to talk to her in her kitchen, or to help her with her cooking and ironing—and particularly after she had told Deb that it was a shame to bear malice to Miss Rose now, and Deb had commanded her to mind her own business.

She was suspected of treacherous visits to the house next door; she was known to have spent Sunday afternoons with Mrs Peter herself. The iniquity of these proceedings was in the secrecy she observed, or tried to observe, regarding them. It was she who knew, before anybody else, when a baby Breen was coming—and if a married woman was a personage to Keziah, an incipient mother was a being of the highest rank. She had forgiven Mary everything for the sake of her black-eyed boy; now she took the news that Rose was what she called "interesting" to Deb, and demanded that action should be taken upon it, with an air that was almost truculent. Deb, of course, did not believe in being spoken to, even by Keziah, in that way.

"Has the muffin boy been?" she inquired, with a steady look.

"It's too soon yet—and I can tell you, Miss Deb, that if it was you in her place, SHE wouldn't keep it up like this—and at such a time too."

"When the muffin boy comes, Keziah, please pay him the sixpence we owe him from last week. You will find the money on my writing-table."

"Well, I don't care—I call it a shame not to go to her—"

"Perhaps you would like to go to her yourself?" Deb swiftly changed her tone.

"I'd like nothing better," the old woman retorted, with spirit, "if you are agreeable."

"I am perfectly agreeable."

"Well, it was only the other day she said she'd give anything to have me, if it wasn't for taking me away from you."

"Oh, pray don't consider that. I can easily get somebody else," said Deb affably, though her surprise at the idea of Keziah wanting to leave her was only equalled by her dismay.

Keziah, also surprised to find herself of so much less consequence than she had supposed, said that, if that was the case, she'd go and see Miss Rose about it.

"You can go now," said Deb.

"Thank you, Miss Deb, I will," said Keziah, "as soon as I have cleared up. Would a month's notice suit you? I don't wish to put you about at all."

"A month will be ample," said Deb. "A week, if you like."

"I'll see what Miss Rose says," said Keziah.

Rose, after the interview, wrote affectionately to Deb, to say she would not dream of taking Keziah if Deb wanted her; Deb wrote affectionately to Rose, to say that she would be rather glad than otherwise to make the change, as the work was too much for such an old woman. So Keziah went over to the Breen camp, where she had comfort and companionship, and her own way in everything; and Deb began to experiment with the common or garden 'general' as purveyed by Melbourne registry offices.

She loathed these creatures, one and all. They were of a race unknown at Redford, and she was singularly unlucky in the specimens that fell to her; although some of them could have been made something of by a mistress who knew how to do it. It is only fair to state that they loathed her—for a finicking, unreasonable, stuck-up poor woman, who gave herself the airs of a wealthy lady. They came at the rate of two a month, and each one as she passed seemed to leave the little house meaner, dingier, more damaged than before. It was not living, it was "pigging", Frances said—and Deb agreed with her—although when Keziah ventured to call one day to inquire into the state of things, Deb calmly asserted that all was well.

In despair she tried a lady-help, in the person of Miss Keene, dying to return to her dear family (from relations who did not want her) on any terms.

"Whatever we ask her to do we must do ourselves," said Deb to grumbling Frances, who seemed never willing to do anything; "and of course we shall have to get a washwoman, and a charwoman to scrub; but it will be cheaper in the end. And oh, anything rather than sticky door-handles and greasy spoons, and those awful voices hailing one all over the house!"

But it was not cheaper, nor was the arrangement satisfactory in any way after the first fortnight. Miss Keene, spoiled at Redford as they had been, was as unfit for crude housework, and she aggravated her incompetence by weeping over it. She had not gathered from Deb's letters that the change in the family fortunes was as great as it now proved to be; and Deb had not anticipated the effect of adversity upon one so easily depressed. She had no 'heart', poor thing. She struggled and muddled, sighing for flowers for the vases while the beds were unmade; and when she saw a certain look on Deb's face, wept and mourned and gave up hope. So they "pigged" still, although they did not defile the furniture with unwashed hands, and the plate and crockery with greasy dish-cloths. With no knowledge of cookery, they lived too much on tinned provisions—a diet as wasteful as it was unwholesome—feeding their wash-and-scrub-women with the same; and their efforts to support the burden of their domestic responsibilities deprived them of outdoor exercise and mental rest and recreation—kept them at too close quarters with one another, each rubbing her quivering prickles upon the irritable skins of the other two. Frances bore the strain with least good-nature and self-control, and since she had to vent her ill-humour on someone, naturally made Miss Keene her victim when it was a choice between her and Deb. The poor lady grew more and more disappointed, discouraged and tearful. She became subject to indigestion, headaches, disordered nerves; finally fell ill and had to have the doctor. The doctor said she was completely run down, and that rest and change of air were indispensable. She went away to her relatives, weeping still, wrapped in Deb's cloak, and with all Deb's ready money in her pocket; and she did not come back.

Then Deb tried to carry on alone. Any sort of registry office drudge would have been welcome now, but had become an expense that she dared not continue. Moreover, the spectre of poverty, looming so distinct and unmistakable in the house, was a thing to hide, if possible, from anybody who could go outside and talk about it. The thing had become a living terror to herself—its claws Jew money-lenders, so velvety and innocent when her wilful ignorance made first acquaintance with them; but nobody—not even Mr Thornycroft, not even Jim, CERTAINLY not Rose—could be allowed to play Perseus to this proud Andromeda. Until she could free herself, they were not even to know that she was bound. Of course, she need not have been bound; it was her own fault. She should have managed better with the resources at her disposal than to bring herself to such a pass, and that so soon; either Mary or Rose would certainly have done so in her place. But Nature had not made her or Frances—whose rapacities had been one cause of the financial breakdown—for the role of domestic economists; they had been dowered with their lovely faces for other purposes.

That the fine plumage is for the sun was a fact well understood by Frances, at any rate. And she was wild at the wrongs wrought by sordid circumstances—her father's and sister's heedlessness—upon herself. She thought only of herself. Deb was getting old, and she deserved to suffer anyway; but what had Frances done to be deprived of her birth-right, of all her chances of success in life? Eighteen, and no coming out—beautiful, and nobody to see it—marriageable, and out of the track of all the eligible men, amongst whom she might have had her pick and choice. She had reason for her passionate rebelliousness against this state of things; for, while a pretty face is theoretically its own fortune anywhere, we all see for ourselves how many are passed over simply for want of an attractive setting. It was quite on the cards that she might share the fate of those beauties in humble life to whom romantic accidents do not occur, for all her golden hair and aristocratic profile, her figure of a sylph and complexion of a wild rose.

The fear of this future combined with the acute discomfort of the present to make her desperate. She cast about for a way of escape, a pathway to the sun. One only offered—the landlord.

He was an elderly landlord, who had lately buried a frumpy old wife, and he was as deeply tainted with trade as Peter Breen; but he had retired long since from personal connection with breweries and public-houses—and a brewer, in the social scale, was only just below a wholesale importer, if that—and he was manifestly rolling in money, after the manner of his kind. Half the streets around belonged to him, and his house towered up in the midst of his other houses, a great white block, with a pillared portico—a young palace by comparison. Above all, he had no known children.

From the first he had taken an interest in his pretty girl-tenants. He had liked to call in person to inquire if the cellar kept dry and the chimney had ceased smoking; and he had been most generous in offering improvements and repairs before they were even asked for. Deb had blighted these unbusiness-like overtures on her own account, and Frances herself had said the rudest things about them and him—but not lately. In the utter dullness and barrenness of her life, she had been glad to accept the civilities of anything in the shape of a man—to try her 'prentice hand on any material. All the armoury of the born beauty was hers, and she knew as well how to use each weapon effectively as a blind kitten knows how to suck milk. They were easily successful with the old fool, who is ever more of a fool than the young fool; and when she found that, she found something to entertain her. She not only received Mr Ewing when he called, but talked to him at the gate when he went past—and he went past several times a day. Now, when the situation at home had grown desperate, and she was looking all ways for means to save herself, his amusing infatuation became a matter for serious thought. COULD she? She was a hard case, but even she wavered. He was probably sixty, and she was eighteen. Oh, she couldn't! But when, after Miss Keene's departure, Deb told her they could no longer afford hired help, and that she (Frances) must give up her lazy ways and take her share of that intolerable housework, then Frances changed her mind. Beggars could not be choosers.

Deb felt like the camel under the last straw when the announcement of the proposed marriage was made to her. It was worse than Mary's—worse than Rose's—worse than any other misfortune that had befallen the family. She sat down and wept at the thought of what the Pennycuicks had come to. She rated Frances furiously; she reasoned with her; she pleaded with her; she tried to bribe her; but Frances was getting boxes of diamonds, and sets of furs and lace, and what not, and it was useless for Deb to attempt to outbid the giver of these things, or to part her sister from them. She loved the old man, Frances said—he certainly was a decently-mannered, good-natured, rather fine-looking, and most generous old man—and he was going to take her everywhere and give her a good time—and she would never have to go shabby again as long as she lived; and if Deb refused her a proper wedding, law or no law, she would run away with him, as Mary had run away with Bennet Goldsworthy, and Rose with Peter Breen.

Whether this dire threat prevailed, or the temptation of the money, or whether she could not any longer fight against fate, Deb gave in. After all, Frances was not to be judged as an ordinary girl—she was a hard-hearted, tough-fibred, prosaic little minx, for which reason Deb pitied the prospective husband more than she did her; and if she did not do this bad thing now, the chances were that she would do a worse thing later on. She was made to disport herself in the sunshine of the world; she was of the type of woman that must have men about her; she would get her "rights", as she called them, somehow, by fair means or foul. Deb was sufficiently a woman of the world herself to recognise this, and the uselessness of thinking she could alter it. Well, money is a consolatory thing—she knew its value now; and there was that additional comfort, which, of course, she did not own to—the thought of where Mr Ewing would be when Mrs Ewing was in her prime.

"You dear old thing!" the bride-elect patronised her elder sister. "James is so pleased to have your consent, and he says he won't ask you to give me my share of what father left us—it would be but a drop in the bucket anyway; you are to keep it all yourself."

Deb had had whole control of the fragments of his once large fortune left by Mr Pennycuick to his four daughters, on behalf of any of them unmarried or under age; but Mary and Rose—although Peter had also protested against it—had been paid the value of their shares (whence the Jew element in the present difficulties); and the unforeseen marriage of Frances at eighteen threatened total bankruptcy to the remaining sister. Yet Deb said, with fierce determination:

"Of course you will have what is your due, like the others."

"I'm sure he won't take it, Deb. He said he wouldn't."

"I don't care what he says. It concerns you and me—not him."

"I really should not miss it, dear. I am to have a thousand a year to draw against, for just nothing but my clothes and pocket-money."

"I am glad to hear it," said Deb. "You can give your own income to the poor."

"You really won't keep it?"

"Is it likely I would keep what doesn't belong to me?"

"Well, then," said Frances, her easy conscience satisfied, "we can put it into my trousseau. I MUST have a decent trousseau mustn't I?"

"Of course!"

Frances saw to it that she had a decent one. Now was the time, the only time, that she should want her money, and she did not spare it. She ordered right and left, and Deb seemed equally reckless. The bills were left for her to settle—of course made out in her name. Mr Ewing pressed for permission to pay them, and the cost of the wedding, and Miss Pennycuick could hardly forgive him the deadly insult. He also desired that she should occupy her villa rent-free, and she gave him notice on the spot.

"I shall not continue to keep house when I am alone," said she grandly. "I intend to travel for a time."

The wedding was quiet, but as "decent" as the trousseau. The other sisters were invited, and Bennet Goldsworthy—who delighted in the connection, and received a thumping fee—performed the ceremony. Deb gave the bride away, but was also treated as the bridesmaid, and had a diamond bracelet forced upon her. She sold it as soon as the donor's back was turned, together with every article of jewellery in her possession, every bit of silver plate, and all her furniture. The breakfast was very elegant, and served in a private room at one of the best hotels; the bride's handsome luggage had also been brought thither, and it was the meeting-place of the family which so seldom met. There, also, when she had parted from Frances, Deb parted from Mary, so silent and constrained, and from Rose, over-dressed, for her station, in her rich gown and Brussels lace (but nevertheless sniffed at and condescended to by her still more wealthy sister), and from the uncongenial brothers-in-law, to whom she was so discouragingly polite. Their expressed anxiety to befriend and to see more of her was gently but firmly ignored.

"I will write," she said. "I will see you again soon. I will let you know my plans. Good-bye!"

And they went. There were no friends to go, for she had insisted on inviting none—for fear of the lynx eyes and the destructive influence upon her plans of Mr Thornycroft and Jim. She gained the one end she had schemed for throughout—to get past the risks of the public marriage and back to her struggle in obscurity, unmolested, unpitied, unshamed. The Urquharts wrote, and Mr Thornycroft, when he sent his present; but she had "bluffed" them with her implied misrepresentations, and hurt their feelings by not wanting them at the wedding. Jim was easily snubbed; Mr Thornycroft—though he did not mention it—was ill at the time.

So she got rid of all possible hindrances, and then—professing to go travelling—went nobody knew where, and was virtually lost for years.

Frances drove away from the hotel in her smart carriage, with her smart luggage and smart maid, and her amorous old husband, and never thought or cared what was to become of her abandoned sister. She could only think of her own exciting affairs.

Partly they were unsatisfactory, no doubt. All her rights were not hers even now—no, not by a long way. But oh, how much better was this than the drab and shabby and barren existence for ever left behind! She was bound, indeed; yet she was free—freer than another might have been in her place, and far, far less bound. One must expect to pay some tax to Fortune for such extraordinary gifts, and Frances was not the one to pay it in heart's blood. She was philosophically prepared to pay it in her own coin, and be done with it, and then give herself to the enjoyment of the pleasures of her lot.

Her first enjoyment was in her beautiful going-away dress—grey cloth and chinchilla fur, with flushes of pink as delicate as the rose of her cheeks—and in her knowledge of the effect she made in that dream of a costume. There was no hiding her light under a bushel any more. The highway, and the middle of it, for her now—her proud husband strutting there beside her—and every passer-by turning to look at and to admire her. There was joy in the occupancy of the best suite of rooms in the best hotel at every place she stopped at during her gay and well-filled bridal holiday; joy in the dainty meals—so long unknown; in the obsequious servants, in the plentiful theatres, in the ever-ready carriage that took her to them, in the having one's hair done to perfection by an expert maid, in sweeping forth with one's silks and laces trailing, and one's diamonds on. These were the delights for which her little soul had so long yearned; she now pursued them greedily. She could not rest if she were not doing something to display herself and feed her craving for what is known as seeing the world. Her husband was almost as obsequious as the servants—doubtless because from the first she took the beauty's high hand with him, as well as the attitude of the superior, naturally assumed by youth towards age—and he enjoyed the sensation she made almost as much as she did. Visibly he swelled and preened himself when his venerable contemporaries cast the eye of surprise, not to say of envy, upon the conjunction of his complacent figure and that of the bride who might have been his grand-daughter; he toiled for that pleasure, and to make pleasure for her, as no old gentleman should toil; he gave her everything she asked for, including his own ease and consequence, his own vital health and strength.

But the honeymoon waned, and the novelty wore off, and prudence and old habits resumed their sway. He grew tired of incessant gadding about, alarmed at his symptoms of physical overstrain, weary for his arm-chair and his club, and his men friends and his masculine occupations. She, on the other hand, insatiable for admiration and excitement still, was weary of his constant company. It became the kill-joy of her festive days, growing from a necessary bore to an intolerable irritation as the dimensions of her little court of younger gallants enlarged about her. Therefore she had no objection to his halting on the toilsome path, so long as he allowed her to go on alone.

It was not a case of allowing, however. He might object, and did; but he was no match for her either in diplomacy or in fight, and her cajoleries were usually sufficient for her ends, without calling out the reserves behind them. In any contest between selfishness and unselfishness, the result is a foregone conclusion.

So she began to go about with miscellaneous escorts, to play the combined parts of frisky matron and society beauty—an intoxicating experience; while the supporter of that proud position played the humble role of chief comer-stone, unseen and unconsidered in the basement of the fabric. He attended to his investments and increasing infirmities, and made secret visits to a married daughter (wife of a big hotel-keeper), who hated her young step-mother, and whose existence Frances ignored.

One day, Guthrie Carey, after several voyages to other ports, appeared again in Melbourne. He had just landed, and was strolling along Collins Street, when he encountered a vision of loveliness that almost took away his breath.

"What! It is not Miss Frances, surely?"

"It is not," smiled she, all her beauty at its conscious best as she recognised his, which was that of a man of men, splendid in his strong prime. And she told him who she was, and a few other things, as they stood on the pavement—she so graceful in her mature self-possession, he staring at her, stupidly distraught, like a bewildered school-boy.

"I had no idea—" he mumbled.

"That I was married? Alas, yes!"—with a sad shake of the head. "We girls are fated, I think."

"Miss Deb?"

"Oh, not Deb; she has escaped so far."

"Is she well?"

"I have not seen her lately, but I am sure she is, she always is." "She is not in Melbourne?"

"No. I don't quite know where she is. She has got a wandering fit on. Come and have some lunch with me, and I'll tell you all the news."

They turned into a restaurant, and had a meal which took a long time to get through. In the middle of the afternoon they parted, on the understanding that he would dine with her later in her own house. At the end of the few days that were virtually filled with him, Mrs Ewing sat down in her fine boudoir to weep over her hard fate.

"Oh, why wasn't HE the one to have the money! Oh, why do we meet again, now that it is too late!"

At the end of a few more days she went to her old husband to ask him how he was. He said he was a bit troubled with his lumbago, but otherwise fairly well.

"What you want," said she, "is a sea-voyage."

He thought not. He had never found the sea suit him. And travelling was a great fatigue. And it was the wrong time of year for it, anyhow. They had a good home, and it was the best place.

But she knew better. She had made up her mind, and it was useless for him to rebel. The sea-voyage was decided on—not so much because it would benefit his health as because his young wife had not seen England and Europe, and was dying to do so.

Then they discussed routes.

"The thing to do," said Mrs Ewing, "is not to crowd up with that lot in the mail steamers, where you can't do as you like, or have any special attentions, but to go in a smaller vessel, where you would be of some importance, and have your liberty, and plenty of space, and no tiresome rules and restrictions—"

"My dear child, you don't know those second-rate lines. I do. I assure you you'd be very sorry for yourself if I let you travel by them. They are not YOUR style at all."

"Yes, I was talking to Captain Carey about it, and that was his advice, and HE knows. On his ship they have accommodation for about six passengers, and he suggested that, if we were quick about it, we might be able to secure the whole, so as to be exactly as if we were on a yacht of our own. They have a fair cook; but we could take any servants we liked, and make ourselves comfortable in our own way—nobody to interfere with us. He doesn't go through the hot canal. He will be back from Sydney in three weeks—just nice time to get ready in."

Of course, they went that way. And perhaps it is better to leave the rest of the story to the imagination of the reader, who, one hopes, for Guthrie Carey's sake, is a common-sense person, as well as a dispassionate student of human nature.



CHAPTER XIX.

Deb was at Redford once more.

In her own room too, surrounded by familiar objects—the six-foot dressing-table and the nine-foot wardrobe, and the Aspinalled book-case that was a fixture, amongst other things. She had not taken them to her suburban villa, nor sent for them afterwards. Meanwhile, Mr Thornycroft had bought them with the place, and taken care of them, as of everything that she had left behind. They had been in his possession now for several years.

The strange thing in the room was Mr Thornycroft himself—Mr Thornycroft on the little white bed that Deb used to sleep on, his hair white, his once stalwart frame reduced to a pale wreck of skin and bone.

"You will forgive me for coming here," he apologised. "I have not been using the things. But they had me moved for coolness—the south-east aspect, and being able to get a current through—"

"I am thankful they did. It is the best place for you this weather. But there's one thing I shall never forgive you—that you didn't let me know before."

She was sitting at his bedside, holding his hand—she, too, much changed, thinner, sadder, shabbier, or rather, less splendidly turned out than had been her wont in earlier days; beautiful as ever, notwithstanding—infinitely more so, in the sick man's eyes.

"Why should I bother you? I haven't been very bad—just the old asthma off and on. It is only lately that I have felt it upsetting my heart. And you know I am used to being alone."

He spoke with the asthma pant, and a throb of the lean throat that she could not bear to see. His head was propped high, so that they squarely faced each other. His eyes were full of tenderness and content—hers of tears.

"You have been pretty lonely yourself, by all accounts," said he, stroking her hand. "It's odd to think of you in that case, Debbie."

"I've felt it odd myself," she smiled, with a whisk of her handkerchief. "But, like you, I am getting used to it."

"Where's Dalzell all this time?" "Don't know. Don't care. Please don't talk of him."

"Nobody else—?"

"Oh, dear, no! Never will be. I am going to take up nursing or something."

"YOU!" he mocked.

"Do you suppose I can't? Wait till I have got you over this attack, and then tell me if I can't. I am going to stay with you, godpapa, until you are better. I have spoken to your housekeeper, and she is quite agreeable—if you are."

He did not think it necessary to reply to that hint, but just smiled and closed his eyes. She took up a palm-leaf fan and fanned him, watching him anxiously. It was a roasting February day, and he was breathing very badly.

"Have you given up your house?" he asked, when he could speak.

"Long ago. No use my staying there alone. Besides, I could not afford it."

"Francie not much good to you, I suppose?"

"Oh, I don't want her to be good to me."

"Keziah Moon hasn't deserted you, of course?"

"Oh, Keziah—she was moped to death, poor old woman—I found her a nuisance. And then those babies of Rose's were so irresistible. I thought she'd better go. As Rose's head-nurse, I believe she is in her element."

"Is Rose happy with her draper?"

"I don't know—I suppose so."

"You don't see much of her?"

"Not much."

"And Mary?"

"I haven't seen her for months. Her husband and I don't hit it off, somehow."

"Deb, how much have you to live on?"

"That's my business, sir."

"Not the business of a doting godfather—in the absence of nearer male relatives?"

"No. His business is only to see that I learn the catechism and present myself to be confirmed; and I've done both."

"That all?"

"Except to let his doting godchild take care of him when he is ill. Now—don't talk any more."

He was too exhausted to do so. And while he lay feebly fighting for breath, the trained nurse came in and took command.

In the evening that functionary gave a professional opinion.

"He is worried about something," she said to Deb, "and it is very bad for him. Do you know what it is?"

"Not in the least," said Deb promptly. "I have not been seeing him for years, I am sorry to say, and have not the slightest knowledge of his affairs."

But next day she seemed to get an inkling of what the worry was. Mr Thornycroft, when they were alone together, begged her to tell him if she had any money difficulties—debts, she supposed—and to be frank with him for old times' and her father's sake.

"What! are you bothering your mind about that?" she gently scolded him. "I assure you I am all right. I haven't any difficulties—or hardly any—not now. I have no rent, you see."

"They don't charge you anything where you board?" "No. Redford never has charged folks for board. Seriously," she hastened to add, in earnest tones, "I have all I want. And if I try presently to earn more, it will be because I think everybody ought to earn his living or hers. You earned yours. I despise people who just batten on the earnings of others, and never do a hand's turn for themselves."

"Batten!" he murmured ironically, with a troubled smile. "You look as if you had been battening, don't you? Debbie, I'm a business man, and I know you can't get behindhand in money matters and pull up again just when you want to; you can't get straight merely by anticipating income, when there's nothing extra coming in. Tell me, if you don't mind, how you managed?" She flushed, and her eyes dropped; then she faced him honestly.

"I will tell you," she declared. "I've wanted to confess it, though I'm horribly ashamed to—and I'm afraid you'll think I did not value it. I did indeed—I hated to part with it; but I was so hard up, and I didn't know which way to turn, or what else to do—"

"And never came to me!"

"Well, I did—in a way. I—I sold your pearls."

"That's right, Debbie. That's a load off my mind. It is the best thing you could have done with them."

"No, indeed! I have regretted it ever since."

"How much did they give you?" "A tremendous lot—three hundred and fifty guineas."

"The swindlers! They were worth two thousand."

"What!" She was thunderstruck. "You gave me a necklace worth two thousand guineas?"

"I only wish you'd let me give you a score or two at the same price, on condition that you sold them for three-fifty whenever you needed a little cash."

She was quite upset by this remark, and what had given rise to it. Impulsively—too impulsively, considering how weak he was—she kissed his damp forehead, and rushed weeping from his sight.

In the hot evening, while the trained nurse had her tea at grateful leisure in the housekeeper's room, Deb again took that nurse's place. She sat by the pillow of the patient, leaning against it, holding his hand in hers. Only the sound of the cruel north wind and his more cruel breathing disturbed the stillness that enveloped them. She hoped he was sleeping, until he spoke suddenly in a way that showed him only too wide awake.

"Debbie," he said, "if I was quite sure I would not get well this time, I should put that question to you again."

"What question, dear?" she queried softly.

"The question I asked you just before you left Redford."

"I don't remember—Oh!"

"Yes—that one. But if you consented, I might recover—it would be enough to make me; then you would repent."

She was silent, agitated in every fibre of her, but thinking hard.

"What put that idea into your head?" she whispered, still holding his hand.

"It was never put in; it was there always—since you were a kiddie."

"It seems so strange! I thought I was always a kiddie to you." "That does seem the natural relationship, doesn't it?" There fell another long silence, and, listening to his dragging breath, her heart smote her. She squeezed his bony hand.

"I will stay with you, anyway," she comforted him.

He turned his head on the pillow. "Kiss me," he sighed, with eyes closed.

She did, again and again.

The night was suffocating. She could not sleep for the heat and her thoughts, and when, towards morning, she heard the nurse stirring, she got up to inquire how he was.

"Pretty bad," the nurse said. "It's this awful weather. I can't cool the room, though I've got all the doors and windows open, and the wet sheets hanging up. It's air he wants, and there isn't any. If it don't change soon, I'm afraid his strength won't hold out."

It did not change, and consequently grew worse to bear, the parching and scorching of each day being carried over into the next. What the newspapers call a heat-wave was drawing to its culmination, which generally reaches the verge of the unbearable, even to the well and strong, just before the "change"—that lightning change to coolness, and even coldness, which comes while one draws a breath. How many a life has hung upon the chance of the blessed moment coming in time!

The nurse looked at the thermometer in despair. Darkness had not taken 10 degrees from yesterday's temperature of 102 degrees when another blazing sun arose. The fierce wind had raved and calmed, and raved and calmed, but it had not shifted. She wetted and she fanned, turn and turn about with Deb, the livelong day, without freshening the dead air that soaked the house and seemed to soak the world. The fagged and perspiring doctor (a great friend of the patient's), who came twice daily, came again, too tired to care very much even for this special case. He looked at it, and shook his head, and begged for a cool drink for the Lord's sake; and then, having muddled the wits he had tried to stimulate with quarts of whisky-and-soda, went away, saying: "I can do nothing. Send for me at once if you see a change."

At sunset the sick man was very low, his weak heart and his distressed lungs labouring heavily, while the sweat of agony glistened on his forehead and plastered his white hair to his backward-tossed head. Deb was frantic with fear and grief. She summoned the doctor again, sending commands to him to summon more doctors—the best in Melbourne, and any number of them—in defiance of Mr Thornycroft's known wishes to the contrary. At the same time she sent for the clergyman.

"Dear," she crooned in the patient's ear, when he seemed a little easier, "Mr Bentley will be here presently."

Mr Thornycroft's brows seemed to gather a momentary frown over his closed eyes.

"I'd rather not, Deb—"

"Oh, not for THAT! But—the wind will change soon, and then you will feel better; and then—you said it would help you to get well—I will—if you like—"

He opened his eyes and gazed at her. It took him a few seconds to understand.

"Ah—darling!" he breathed, between his pants, and with an effort drew her hand to his lips. Then—they were his last words, whispered very low—"Never mind now, Debbie—so long as you are here."

He seemed to drowse into a kind of half-sleep, in spite of his too obvious and audible suffering. She sat beside him, sponging and fanning him, listening to his shallow, jerky, wheezy respiration, watching for the subtle something in the stifling room that should announce a change of wind, thinking of Mr Bentley's coming, and many other things. The weary nurse came back from her brief rest and cup of tea, and sat down at the foot of the bed. She studied the patient's face intently for some time, and felt his feet; then she took the fan from Deborah's hand.

"You go and lie down, Miss Pennycuick. Mrs Dobson will come and sit with me for a while."

"No, no," said Deb. "He wants me to be here. I cannot leave him."

After a few more minutes of silence, the nurse said again: "You had better go, Miss Pennycuick." When Deb repeated her refusal, the nurse went out to fetch the housekeeper to persuade her.

A minute afterwards, Deb lifted her head with a jerk, and sniffed eagerly. At the same instant she heard a distant door bang.

"Thank God!" she ejaculated, and flew to the windows that all day had had to be shut tight against the furnace blast outside, and flung them wide, one after the other. The trees in the old garden were bending and rustling; the sweet, cool air came pouring in.

"The wind has changed," she whispered, almost hysterically, to the nurse and the housekeeper, as they stealthily crept in. "And"—as they all gathered round the bed—"he is better already. His breathing is easier."

The nurse bent over the long figure on the bed. "He is not breathing at all," said she.



CHAPTER XX.

Jim Urquhart had been fighting bush fires for several days when the wind changed and carried them back over the burnt ground that extinguished them. When he rode home, dead beat, from helping a neighbour who had helped him, it was to meet the news that Mr Thornycroft was dead, and Mrs Urquhart gone to Redford to support Deborah Pennycuick.

Mr Thornycroft had been ailing with his asthma so long, and making so little fuss about it, that his friends had come to regard him as practically ailing nothing. The death that had slowly stalked him for years came upon them with the shock of the unexpected; so the newspapers said. Jim's heart smote him for that he had been so taken up with the fire epidemic as to have neglected for over a week to inquire after the old man; it smote him more when he heard that Deb had been at Redford through the ordeal, without "anyone" near her. He had known too well—had made it his business to know—that she had had a struggling life, heart-breaking to think of, for a long time, but under various pretexts she had kept "everybody" at arm's-length and further, refusing aid or pity; now there had come a chance to do something for her, and he had been out of the way. And duty still detained him, to arrange about destroyed fences and foodless stock—duty that had to be considered first, even before her. When at last he was free to put himself at her disposal, a dozen men had jumped his claim.

The manager of Redford met him when a few miles from the place. "You are behind the fair, Mr Urquhart," cried he, as they drew rein alongside; and his tone and his face were strangely cheerful, considering that his good employer of twenty years had been buried only yesterday—as usual, within a few hours of his death. "But I suppose you have heard the news. What—you haven't? Then I am the first to congratulate you," extending a cordial hand. "The will was read this morning, and you've got the biggest legacy—a cool five thousand, sir."

Five thousand! Jim, never on particularly intimate terms with the testator, had not thought of the will, and the idea that he might have an interest in it never crossed his mind. Five thousand! It is said of drowning people that they see the whole panorama of their lives in the last seconds of consciousness; in the instant's pause that followed the manager's announcement, Jim saw Five Creeks renovated and prosperous, and Deb's children running about the old rooms and paddocks, and calling him father—a home not quite unworthy of his goddess now, and one that loneliness and poverty would have taught her to appreciate. He stared at the burly manager like a man in a dream.

"I get a nice little windfall myself, which I never expected," the latter continued his tale. "The servants are well provided for, and there are odd sums for a lot of English relatives—I suppose they are—and a good bit for charities. But yours is the biggest individual legacy; and I'm glad of it, and I'm not surprised, because I've heard him many a time speak well of you for the way you worked to keep up your place and look after the family."

"But," said Jim, coming down from his clouds of glory, "I thought—I thought there'd be more than that." "Than what? You surely didn't expect—oh, I see!" The manager threw up his head and roared. "My good fellow, the estate altogether is worth a quarter of a million."

"Then who—?"

"Gets it? Miss Pennycuick. She's here now. And couldn't believe it when they told her—though, when you come to think of it, it was a natural thing for him to do, having been such friends with the old man, and she his god-daughter. A lucky young woman—my word!" Jim's swelled heart collapsed and sank like a burst balloon. His dream-house vanished in thin air, to be built no more.

"That settles it," he said to himself. According to his code of manly honour and self-respect, a man could not possibly, even with five thousand pounds in hand, ask a girl with a quarter of a million to marry him.

A little more conversation, if it can be called such, when one talked and the other did not even listen, and he parted with the garrulous manager and rode on to the house. Deb, wet-eyed, met him with a welcome that severely tried his Spartan fortitude, without in the least weakening his resolve. Although she did not know it, being still filled with grief for her lifelong friend, it was the power and command that he had endowed her with which gave that charming air of fearless and open affection to her manner.

"Oh, my dear, dear boy!" she addressed him, and all but kissed him before his mother's eyes. "I am so glad to have you here. Jim dear, Mrs Urquhart thinks you can be spared—will you stay here for a bit and help me to settle things? There is so much to do, and it is my duty to attend to everything myself. There are the lawyers and people, of course—everybody is so kind—but I want a man of my own beside me."

"Certainly, Deb," he replied, without wincing; "for as long as you want me—if I can run home every other day or so for a look round."

He stayed, in company with his mother, for a month; then, when he went to live at home again, he spent at least half his days at Redford, acting as Deb's 'own man' indoors and out—her real legal adviser, her real station manager, her confidential major-domo, the doer of all the 'dirty work' connected with the administration of her estate; and never—although she exposed him to almost every sort of temptation—never once stepped off the line that he had marked for himself.

Another person was not so scrupulous, though, to be sure, he was not so poor.

Claud Dalzell, drifting from one resort of the wealthy to another—deer-stalking in Scotland, salmon-fishing in Norway, shooting in the Rockies, hunting in the Shires, yachting everywhere, and everywhere adored of a crowd of women as idle as himself—was loafing at Monte Carlo when he heard of Mr Thornycroft's death and Deb's accession to his throne. Ennui and satiety possessed the popular young man at the moment—for he was made for better things, and his dissatisfied soul tormented him; and a vision of old-time Redford and the beautiful girl who was like wine and fire, a blend of passion and purity that now impressed him as unique, rose before his mental eyes with the effect of water-springs in a dry land. His thoughts went back to the days when they rode and made love together—the sunny days, before the clouds gathered. It was that past which glorified her all at once, not the present—not Mr Thornycroft's money—not the halo of elegance and consequence that again adorned her; he never suspected otherwise for a moment. And that was why he did not hesitate to book a passage to Australia that very day.

Deb was at Redford when he arrived. That she would never part with the place again, she had declared on the day that it came into her possession, and she was now establishing herself there, she said, for life. She had gone through the whole great rambling house, sorting and rearranging the furniture that was in it, adding the cream of the contents of the best shops in town. She made a clean sweep of the now 'awful' fittings of the big drawing-room, replacing them with parquet rugs and divans, and things of the softest, finest and most costly kind; she arranged the morning-room for herself afresh; also the glazed corridor, which became a beautiful art gallery and lounging-place; also the remainder of the long unused rooms. She called to her all the favourite old servants—except Keziah Moon, who was happy where she was—and old Miss Keene to play chaperon once more, with nothing to do but arrange flowers and doze at peace in the lap of luxury. Deb wanted Jim for her manager, at a ridiculous salary, but he would not take the post; he did, however, procure her an excellent substitute. She commissioned him to buy her riding-horses—he "knew what she liked"—regardless of expense; an English groom was given charge of them when they arrived. So easily did the magnificent woman slide back into her magnificent ways, for all her good taste and unpretentiousness.

When Claud Dalzell was driven in his hired buggy from the township to her door, his critical eye took in the many changes that the old homestead had undergone with high approval. Used as he was to far finer houses and the best of everything, he felt that here was as fair a camping-place as even he could desire. Redford, with a quarter of a million behind it, with this setting of sunshine and spaciousness (missed so much more than he had known till now), inclined—what a haven of rest and pleasure, after the crowded and fatiguing experiences of his later years!

He was shown upstairs to the big drawing-room. He hardly knew where he was, with the grass-green carpet and festooned window-draperies and gilding and plate-glass vanished, and these soft-coloured stuffs and subtle harmonies around him. He could recognise nothing but a few pictures and the old piano, the latter spread with a gem of Chinese embroidery, on which stood a gem of a Satsuma bowl filled with fine chrysanthemums. It was late in autumn now.

And while he wandered about, examining this and that with the pleasure of a satisfied connoisseur, Deb stood in the sitting-room downstairs, with clenched hands and teeth, staring at his card on a table before her.

"He has the cheek," she thought, afire with indignation—never so hot and bitter as when directed against one we love who has offended us—"he has the unspeakable effrontery to come and see me NOW, when he never came near me all those hard years—never cared how I muddled and struggled, nor whether I was alive or dead!"

But she must see him, of course. And she must maintain her proper dignity. No descending to vulgar reproaches—still less to weak condonation. She took a moment to calm herself, and walked forth to the interview. Many things upheld her, but the dead hand of Mr Thornycroft was her stoutest support.

She needed it when she reached the top of the stairs. Facing the drawing-room door, awaiting her, stood the figure that really seemed the one thing wanting to complete the beauty of the beautiful house. He had never in his younger days been so distinguished-looking as he was now. In any company, in any part of the world, he must have attracted notice, as a gentleman, in person and manners, of the very finest type. And how she did love that sort! How her lonely and hungry heart longed for him when she saw him—the only man she had ever deemed her natural mate—and at the same time how she hated him for the disappointment and the humiliation that he had brought her! Outraged self-respect, her robust will-power, and her quarter of a million sufficed to save her from a temptation she would not have fallen into for the world.

She swept forward to shake hands with him, with the grave affability of a great lady to a guest—any guest—and it was plain from the expression of his sensitive face that he was as keenly appreciative of her enhanced beauty and 'finish' as she of his. Black was not her colour—she was too dark—and she had discarded it for pale greys and whites, with touches of black about them; today a creamy woollen, thick and soft, and hanging about her like the drapery of a Greek statue, was an inspiration in becoming gowns. The maid who had dressed her hair was a mistress of the art. And Miss Pennycuick's step and poise—well, she WAS a great lady, and carried herself accordingly.

Her old lover was charmed. He held her hand—and would have held it thrice as long—and looked into her eyes, too overcome, it appeared, to speak.

"How do you do?" she said, evading his intense gaze. "What a man you are for dropping on one in this unexpected, sensational way! Why didn't you write and tell me you were around?"

She made a movement to withdraw her hand. He held it fast.

"Debbie," said he, in quite a tremulous voice—remarkable in one constitutionally so self-confident and self-possessed—"Debbie, you turned me out of your house when I came to see you last. I hope you have a different welcome for me this time?"

"To the best of my belief," she laughed, "you insisted upon going. I am sure you were asked to stay—to lunch, or whatever it was. By the way, have you lunched now?" She showed concern for her obligations as his hostess.

"Yes, thank you—at least, it doesn't matter."

He had to relinquish her hand, and when she immediately made towards the bell-button, he followed and arrested her.

"Let us have our talk first," he pleaded. "I don't want anything to eat until I know—until I feel that you don't grudge it."

"Oh, I don't grudge it," she took him literally. "Not one square meal, at any rate. The only thing I am obliged to grudge is house-room—for any length of time—to single gentlemen. But that is not a question of hospitality, as you know. Sit down, and tell me all the news."

He sat down; she also—about two yards off. Across the gulf of Persian rug he looked at her steadily.

"You are angry with me," he observed. "Why, Debbie? Is it still the old quarrel—after all these years?"

Then her face changed like a filled lamp when you put a match to it. She said, in a deep, breathless way:

"Do you know how many years it is?"

More in sorrow and surprise than in anger, he guessed her meaning after a moment's thought.

"Is that my fault? The number of years has been of your choosing," he pointed out forbearingly. "You sent me away, when I never wanted to go. You broke it off, altogether against my wish. You never relented—never made a sign. Even now I come back uninvited."

It was a clear case, and all he asked for was bare justice.

"Why didn't you come before—uninvited? Why didn't you come back to me when I was poor and lonely? Claud, I have been in every sort of trouble—my father is dead, I have lost all my sisters in one way and another, I have been living in cheap lodgings, doing without what I always thought were the necessaries of life, to keep Francie going and to get debts paid off—I have been ill, I have been unhappy, I have sometimes been penniless, and you have carefully passed by on the other side, like that man in the Bible, and left me to my fate."

He was genuinely shocked. He knew that she had been horribly down in the world, but not that she had suffered to this extent. Seeing her sitting there in her beautiful gown, in her beautiful room, without one trace of those sordid years about her, his heart ached to think of them.

"My darling, I never knew—" "Why not?" she said swiftly. "Because you never tried to know—never cared to know. But now that I can be a credit to you again—the moment you hear that I have had a great fortune left to me—now you come back."

"Do you mean to say," he demanded sternly, "that you think—you honestly think I have come back to you on account of your money?"

She returned his cold, searching gaze in kind.

"Honestly," she said, "I do think so. There is no way out of it."

He rose deliberately, bowed to her, and picked up his hat. He was not really mercenary—or, if he was, he did not know it—and he was as intensely proud as she was. He felt that he had received the deadliest insult ever dealt him in his life, and one that he could never forget or forgive.

Without another word, he turned to the door and walked out. She stood still and watched him go, a calm smile curving her lips, a very cyclone of passion tearing through her heart; and she scorned to recall him.



CHAPTER XXI.

Deb yearned to have her Australian sisters—Frances was European—with her at Redford, as in the old days; she hated to be luxuriating there without them. But for a time the husbands stood in the way. She could not bring herself to ask them too. The draper she hardly knew at all—in her correspondence with Rose his name was rarely mentioned by either, except in comprehensive messages at the end of letters; and Bennet Goldsworthy's company, Deb said, simply made her ill.

It had made her ill since, after her father's death, the clergyman had permitted himself, in her hearing, to vent his personal disappointment at the unexpected smallness of his wife's inheritance. The man had presumed to take the air of one reasonably aggrieved; he had even dropped angry words about "deception" in the first heat of his chagrin. "As if," said haughty Deb, "it was not enough for him to have married one of us!" When he was understood to say that he had "arranged his life" in accordance with the expectations he had been given the right to entertain, Deb's withering comment was: "As if HIS life matters!"

But she was intolerant in her dislikes.

Poor Mr Goldsworthy, incurable cadger that he was, was bound to feel the family reverses acutely. When he had married Miss Pennycuick for her good, in that risky manner, he had naturally expected to be rewarded for the deed. If ever it be safe to trust to appearances, it had seemed safe then, so far as the solidity of the Pennycuicks' position was concerned. They had imposed upon him with their careless splendour; they had misled him by their condonation of the marriage, which restored Mary to her privileges as a daughter of the house; most thoroughly had they taken him in by that voluntary wedding gift of five hundred pounds. With his habit—which he took to be the general habit—of getting all he could and giving nothing that he was not obliged to give, he could not understand the airy flinging away of all that money, when there was no "call" for it, only as a proof that Mr Pennycuick had more than he needed for all the legitimate claims on him. And the old man had said, again and again, that his daughters would share and share alike in whatever he had to leave.

When Mr Bentley, the new parson, came—young, sincere, self-sacrificing, devoted, a poor preacher and a hard worker, who refused to batten on Redford bounty—all the old furniture of the parsonage was made over to him (on time payment), and the Goldsworthys began life in Melbourne on the basis of a rich wife. It was surprising how the legend grew amongst his set that Mr Goldsworthy had a rich wife. That she might dress the part on all occasions, so that there would be no mistake about it, the family-provided trousseau was added to; it was also subtracted from, for the simplicity that was her taste and distinction was hateful in his sight. When she looked "common" in a cotton gown, she lowered his dignity in the world and amongst his professional fellows—supposed to be so envious of it, in spite of her red face. Deb had had to suffer the shock of seeing her sister in silk of a morning more than once, and it had been reported to her—though she did not believe it—that Mary wore a jewelled necklace to church on Sundays. Deb did not go to Bennet's church, which was, fortunately, a long way from her suburban-villa home.

And she had been to his Melbourne house but twice. On her first visit she had penetrated to Mary's room, and been horrified to find the husband's clothes hung up in it from her door-pegs, and his razors and brushes mixed up with her things on her dressing-table. The arrangement in the country parsonage was to be accounted for; to find it here, made deliberately and of MALICE PREPENSE, was to see what gulfs now yawned between Mary's old life and the new one. Deb reached forth for a comb, and drew back her hand as if she had inadvertently touched a snake. Mary's red face went purple as she explained that there was not space in that house for a dressing-room. There was space enough going to waste in the drawing-room, where Deb had her feelings hurt on her second visit. It was a very large room, sharing the front of the house with a large study; and behind them all the other rooms huddled as of no account, none of them bigger than Keziah's Redford storeroom. The study was sacred to the master of the house; the drawing-room to "company". One look showed Deb that Mary never sat there, and that it was not she who had chosen and arranged the furniture. The foundation of the scheme was a costly "suite", upholstered in palish silk brocade, the separate pieces standing at fixed intervals apart on a gorgeous Axminster carpet. When Deb entered the room, Mr Goldsworthy was bending over the central sofa, excited and talking loudly. Miss Goldsworthy and Mary stood by, mute and drooping; Ruby looked on irresponsibly, with joy in her eye.

"What's the matter?" inquired Deb, advancing.

As she was not a great lady then, but quite the contrary, Mr Goldsworthy explained what was the matter, with scarcely any modification of his minatory air. A caller had called yesterday, bringing with her a little boy. Mary had thoughtlessly fed the little boy with soft cake, and the little boy had first made his hands sticky with it, and then pawed the sofa, which had cost him (B.G.) nearly twenty pounds (part of Mary's 500 pounds). Greasy marks had been left on that lovely brocade, for which he (not she) had given thirty-five shillings a yard, and which he had forbidden children to be allowed to sit on. As if that were not bad enough, "they"—i.e., those two poor women—had, without telling him, tried to take the marks out with some wretched chemist's stuff, which had not taken them out, but only spread them more. Now the sofa was completely spoiled, and what to do he did not know, unless he could match the brocade, which was scarcely likely. And ill could he afford to be buying brocade—and so on. Finally he went out to consult with a furniture repairer of his acquaintance, banging doors behind him. Deb cast a scornful glance upon the smudged brocade.

"What a fuss about nothing!" she brushed the subject by.

"My brother is very particular about this room," Miss Goldsworthy apologised for him.

"So I see."

"And he is very fond of this brocade, which he chose himself. It certainly is very pretty—don't you think so? But too delicate to wear well. I am always frightened to see children go near it, or even grown-up people when it has been raining, or if they have been gathering dust—it does show every spot so! And it was the mother's fault. I signed to Mary to give him a biscuit, but his mother picked out that cake, which had jam in it. It is very unfortunate. I don't wonder at his being vexed."

"Why don't you have chintz covers, Moll?"

"Oh, he wouldn't like it to be covered up," Miss Goldsworthy struck in, and seemed shocked herself at the suggested waste. Mary lifted dull eyes to her sister's face.

"Come and have some tea," she said. "Come, auntie; it is no use your worrying yourself."

And they went into the poky living room, which smelt of meals, and had tea, and the sort of barren talk that the presence of the third person necessitated. Mary seemed purposely to avoid a TETE-A-TETE. When Miss Goldsworthy went to fetch the baby, Ruby was kept at her step-mother's side. Only when the black-eyed boy appeared did Mary brighten into a likeness to her old self. She was a born mother, and her child consoled her. Then, in the midst of the baby worship, back came the still agitated husband and father, the furniture man with him; and the house was filled anew with the affair of the soiled sofa, so that Deb's presence, as also her departure, attracted little attention. As her brother-in-law pushed out a valedictory hand, she noticed a shirt-cuff that had the grime of days upon it.

"He economises in the wash," she soliloquised, with wrinkling nostril and curling lip. "And in those filthy cheap coals that choke the grate with dust, and in tea that is undrinkable. Oh, what a house!"

And she had not been there since. But now—

Her benevolence embraced the world, and the world included Bennet Goldsworthy. It was no longer in his power to make her feel ill. The sun of her prosperity, shining on him at her sister's side—poor, struggling, well-meaning little man!—gave him a pathetic and appealing interest. In fact, it was to him that her maternal dispositions towards her family drew her first.

"Thank God," she said to herself, "I can now make things a bit easier for that poor child. She won't let me, I daresay, but he will."

She took the humble tram to their suburb, and rang at their parsonage door. Having considerately sent word that she was coming, due preparations had been made to receive her. She was shown into the drawing-room, which had not a displaced chair, and where the many-coloured Axminster and the cherished brocade still looked as good as new. Almost her first act was to search for the grease marks on the sofa—the spot was indicated by a bleached patch—and she sat down on it, alone for a few minutes. On this occasion the old aunt had been ordered to keep in the background; Ruby also, after due consideration of her claims, had been denied the share she clamoured for of the impending excitement, and sent out of the house; Mary had had her directions, and remained invisible for a time. She was employed in getting Robert ready for inspection—brushing his best jacket, tying his best neck-tie, etc., while he jerked about under her hands, and freely criticised her labours on his behalf. For Robert took after his father as a knowing person. He was, in fact, a bright and clever lad, who knew some things better than his mother did. She was ever proud to admit it; but his own open acceptance of superiority, and readiness to keep it before her eyes at all times, was one of the secret crosses of her life, weighed down with so many. However, if you marry the wrong man, you cannot expect to have the right children, and it was something that this boy had the genuineness of his intellectual gifts to give her an excuse to adore him.

"There, that will do. It is very bad form, you know, to be so fussy about people coming, and so anxious about what they may think about you," the young authority upon etiquette instructed the fine-fibred gentlewoman, who had done him the honour to be his mother. And Mary took the rebuke humbly.

Bennet Goldsworthy, alone, came softly into the drawing-room to receive the distinguished guest. He had grown fat and tubby, and a phrase of Claud Dalzell's flashed into Deb's memory as she marked the manner of his approach—"that crawling ass, that would lick your boots for sixpence". The noonday sun does not affect polished metal more obviously than Deb's wealth affected him.

"This is good of you," he murmured brokenly, pressing her gloved hand. "This is indeed good of you!" "I ought to have been before," she returned graciously—it was so easy to be gracious to him now—"I have been wanting to come; but you cannot imagine how many hindrances I have had."

"Oh, but I can indeed!" with earnest emphasis—"I can indeed! And have grieved that I was not able to be of some service to you in your—your very difficult position. I did not like to seem to force myself upon you, but I hoped—I confidently hoped that you would send for me, if it was in my power to be of the slightest assistance to you."

"Oh, yes—thank you so much—if I had needed anybody. But there were only too many kind friends."

"Aha! Yes, I expect so." His eye lighted and his lip curled craftily. "I have no doubt whatever of THAT. 'Where the carcase is—' You know the rest?"

"I am not a carcase," she rallied him playfully—for quite the first time in her life.

"No, indeed; I should have said 'prey'. Ah, my dear De—Miss Pennycuick, you will find plenty and to spare of so-called friends, professing anxiety to serve you, when their only object is to serve themselves."

"I expect so," she assented, smiling.

"So young a girl"—subtle flattery this, now that Deb was in her late thirties—"to be suddenly called to a position of such immense danger and responsibility! But"—cheeringly—"I said when I heard of it that Mr Thornycroft had justified my high opinion of his judgment and character. It is not often that great wealth comes into hands so worthy of it."

"I am afraid they are not very worthy," sighed Deb. Mr Goldsworthy knew better. He knew HER better—not only from personal intercourse, the observation and intuition of a man trained to read character, but from the loving representations of his dear wife.

"Where is she?" Miss Pennycuick asked abruptly. "Not out, I hope?"

"Out—hardly! She will be here in a moment. I am afraid, when you see her, you will think her looking delicate. The state of her health is a matter of the most anxious concern to me."

"What is the matter with her health? She was always well at home. We used to think her the strongest of the family—until—"

"Until she fell into the clutches of that dreadful man," Mr Goldsworthy concluded for her.

"Oh!"—Deb coloured and frowned—"that is not what I was going to say." (What she had really been going to say was—"until her marriage.") "And why do you rake up that old story? I thought it had all been forgotten long ago."

"It has been unpleasantly revived," said Mr Goldsworthy solemnly. "And it is my duty to tell you about it, if you have not heard."

Deb looked equally annoyed and alarmed. "What has been revived?" she asked.

He dropped his voice apologetically.

"I have been hearing of his going on in exactly the same way with another."

"Oh," sighed Deb, relieved that it was not Mary who had been the reviver; "then it's no business of ours, thank goodness."

"Pardon me—it is very much our business," he urged weightily. "I grieve to tell you that it is your sister, Mrs Ewing, who is implicated in the affair. Do you mean to say that you know nothing about it?"

Deb knew something, and so she put the question by.

"I don't encourage scandalmongers. Mrs Ewing is young and thoughtless—and pretty—which naturally lays her open to ill—natured gossip." "My informant is one of the least ill-natured of women; she is a person of the highest principle."

"Ah, those high-principled women—I know them!"

Mr Goldsworthy was nonplussed for the moment. He could not accept the suggestion that Deb was not high-principled. But he gave up his informant.

"There is ample evidence that the man is Mrs Ewing's lover," he grieved. "He has been seen with her in the most equivocal situations. I don't wish to go into details—to mention things unfit for a young girl's ears—"

"I hope not," put in Deb, her patience giving out. "I am not fond of that kind of talk. I should not believe, either, in any nasty tales connected with my sister, or with Captain Carey. And you ought not to listen to them, for Mary's sake. You should not pander to your high-principled ladies. You should tell them to be more charitable, and to mind their own business."

A year ago the parson would have taken umbrage at this rebuke; he now hastened to deprecate displeasure on the part of the one whom, of all the world, he most desired to please.

"Far be it from me to speak ill of anyone belonging to you," he declared solemnly; but still he could not help it.

The most good-natured person, if he be greedy, will seek to ingratiate himself with Power by disparagement of rival suitors. He was following an impulse that might be described as an instinct, in trying to weaken Deb's favour towards the rest of her relatives in order to concentrate as much as possible upon himself—to push back, as it were, the hands that he imagined eagerly outstretched to her (palm upwards), that the more might be dropped into his own. He asked her if she had seen Mrs Breen, and sighed over that plebeian connection.

"I may be poor," said he, "but I do come of a good family. It is unfortunate, perhaps, but we cannot help our prejudices." "It is a ridiculous prejudice," said Deb, "especially in a country like this."

"Oh, it is—it is. I own it; but—well, you know—"

She brusquely brought him back to the question of Mary's health.

"It is Mary that I want to hear about. Tell me—before she comes in—what is the matter with her?"

He was willingly confidential.

"She has worries," said he—"worries that you, my dear young lady, in YOUR position, know nothing of—would not understand if I were to tell you."

"I have been in positions to understand most kinds of worries," said Deb. "What are they? Money worries?"

"Well, I have a delicacy in—"

"Oh, you need not have! I know, of course, that you cannot have been too well off, and I am here on purpose to do something for you, if you will allow me.' There was no need to beat about the bush, she knew, since Mary was out of hearing. 'Tell me exactly, if you don't mind—in strict confidence, of course. No need to trouble her—and I shall not say anything."

He told her, with fullness and fervour, when he had expressed his too fulsome gratitude.

"I have done my best, Miss Pennycuick. You bade me be good to her; I gave you my solemn promise—and I can conscientiously say that I have kept my word." Well, so he had; according to his lights he had been an exemplary husband. "But circumstances have been against me. In the first place, I was in error somewhat, as you know, in regard to my wife's expectations from her father. I did not marry her for her money, as you also know, but appearances were such that I naturally concluded she would have a considerable income of her own. I did not care for myself one way or the other, but I was glad to believe that there would be the means to continue to her the mode of life that she had been used to. I acted upon this supposition, false, as it turned out, and anticipated, most imprudently, I confess, the little fortune that I imagined to be secure. When we came here, where living is so much more expensive than in the country"—with no Redford to draw upon—"I surrounded my wife with the comforts that were her due, and which I fully believed she had every right to." He waved his hand over the still blooming Axminster carpet and the brocaded suite the family was not allowed to sit on. "I spent—we spent the little capital represented by your father's wedding present—I had an erroneous idea that it was to be an annual allowance pending the eventual division of the estate; and then—well, then you know what happened."

Deb nodded.

"Did you," she inquired feelingly, "borrow of those professional money-lenders?"

She was prepared to be very sympathetic in that case; but Mr Goldsworthy repelled the suggestion with scorn.

"Certainly not. I never borrowed money in my life. I struggled and scraped and saved, as best I could; I endeavoured in vain to augment my small income by little speculations—harmless little dabblings in mining shares; I—but I won't bore you with these disagreeables"—pulling himself up with an air of forced cheerfulness.

"But I want to know," said Deb. "You spoke of worries—Mary's worries—worries now; are you still—"

He spread his hands and wagged his head.

"I'd rather not talk about our troubles," he sighed. "I don't want to dim the sunshine of your—"

And suddenly his eye flashed and his brow contracted with annoyance. Mary—somewhat hesitatingly, to be sure—walked in.

Robert had insisted that the pater was all wrong in his idea that it was proper for him alone to receive the visitor, and for the mistress of the house to linger inhospitably after it was known that she must know of the visitor's arrival. Robert had coerced his mother into doing the correct thing. Politely he opened the drawing-room door for her—that, of course, was absolutely the correct thing—and escorted her forward with the aplomb of a man of the world, nicely blended with the respectfulness appropriate to a nephew and a school-boy.

"Ah, HERE she is!" Mr Goldsworthy exclaimed heartily.

The sisters were at once in each other's arms. Deb, pierced to the heart by Mary's aged and faded looks, was the most demonstrative of the two; Mary struck her after a moment as being a little reserved and chilly—as if on the watch to repel benevolence as soon as it should take tangible form. Deb understood, and was warned to be circumspect.

"And this is our boy—grown out of knowledge, eh?"

Mary stepped swiftly aside to let Robert come forward, and there was no mistaking the sentiments held in common by the parents with regard to their son. Their two faces were mirrors for each other, suffused with the same tender pride.

"Perhaps the child has reconciled her to the rest of it," Deb hazarded a hope. "She may be happy."

For Mary smiled and moved alertly about the room. She accepted her husband's ostentatious hand and chair, and when he resumed the conversation, or rather restarted it, on the subject of Robert's achievements at school, she followed where he led, so long as he did not seem leading towards Deb's pocket, backing him up in the most wifely manner. "Can it be possible?" Deb kept asking herself, glad at heart to see such signs, which yet lessened her pity for and interest in her sister. But Mary, with all the pride of the Pennycuicks in her, was not, one to "let on". Her skeleton was locked tight in the cupboard it belonged to when visitors were about—especially such a visitor as this—and also when they were not about, so far as she could have it so.

So that a sort of air of entertaining "company" pervaded the room. Deb felt a constraint with her sister, and that she was making no way with her mission. But Robert stepped into the breach. With Mary's son the impulsive lady of Redford was unexpectedly pleased. There was not a trace of Pennycuick to be discerned in him; nevertheless, he was a good-looking, intelligent and interesting boy. He sat by her on the sacred brocaded sofa while she brightly questioned him, brightly answering her with aptness and good sense; his parents beaming on the pair, even the father content to play second fiddle to give the son his chance. Here, at any rate, thought Deb, was material to hand for the work she had come to do.

"I love boys," she remarked—and so she did, as some people love dogs—"and Robert and I are going to be great friends; aren't we, Robert?"

"It is very good of you to say so, aunt," Robert replied, with characteristic propriety.

"But, do you know, I don't think I shall call you Robert," she went on. "It has a prim sound"—but it was the primness of himself that she wanted to break down—"and it doesn't suit a boy of your tender years. I think I'll call you Bob, if you don't mind."

"I wish you would," he adroitly answered her.

"What is your bent towards, in the way of a career, Bob?"

He said he thought the law—to be a judge some day.

"You don't care for station life?"

"Oh, he does," his father eagerly interposed. "He loves it. But he has had so few chances—"

"Which is your school, Bob?"

A seminary of no repute was named, and the father again intervened to regret that it was not one of the public schools. "But they, unfortunately, have been beyond our means—"

Here Mary broke in with praises of the seminary. It had such an excellent headmaster, was so conveniently situated—really better in many ways than one of the great schools—

And then Robert broke in.

"My dear mother!" he ejaculated, in a compassionate and forbearing way.

"Ah, Bob knows it is not better," laughed Deb. "And it isn't, Mary; you are no authority, my dear. Which of the public schools do you fancy, Bob?"

He mentioned his choice, and the University scholarships that were to be had there.

"Debbie!" implored Mrs Goldsworthy, under her breath.

"Hush-sh!" hissed her husband.

"You be quiet, Molly," Deb playfully adjured her. "This has nothing to do with you, or with anybody except Bob and me. You come and spend your next vacation with me at Redford, Bob, and then we can talk it all over together."

She nodded to him meaningly. He smiled with perfect comprehension.

"How can we thank you," Mr Goldsworthy murmured emotionally, for he also understood. "It is too, too—"

"It's all right, pater," the remarkable boy silenced him. "Aunt Deborah knows how we feel about it."

Mary sat in stolid silence, for once indifferent to her husband's dumb command; then tears welled into her tired eyes. She pocketed her pride for her child's sake. It had been her hopeless longing for years to give her darling's splendid abilities full scope.

"He will repay you, Debbie," she said.

"Ah, don't be so grudging—so ungenerous!" cried Deb.

Tea and cakes were brought in, and Bob, as he was thenceforth to be styled, waited upon his aunt in the correctest manner. He had by this time taken on an air that seemed to say: "You and I understand the ropes; you must excuse these poor parents of mine, who were not born with our perceptions." And Deb, no more proof against this sort of thing than meaner mortals, had a feeling of special proprietorship in him which she found pleasant, although he was not exactly the heir-on-probation that she could have wished; which, of course, it would have been preposterous to expect in a son of Bennet Goldsworthy's. Bennet Goldsworthy accompanied her to the gate when she went away, forbidding Mary to expose herself, hatless, to the wind. And there the benevolent aunt's "intentions" were more distinctly formulated.

"I wish to take entire charge of his education, if you will allow me. He is a very promising boy, and should have all his chances. Let me send him to the Melbourne Grammar after Christmas, and as a boarder, if you don't mind. There are such advantages, both in position and for study, in living at the school."

"I leave everything—everything, in your hands," murmured the grateful father.

"By the way"—as an after-thought—"what about your little girl?"

She was not a little girl now, and had finished with school; but, oh, the boon that a few good lessons in music and languages would be to her!

That matter was settled.

"Well, now," said Deb, "we must think about Mary. She is frightfully thin. I can see that she has had too many worries, as you say. She must be taken out of them. I want to have her at Redford with me—as soon as she can get ready—and give her a good long rest, and feed her up, and make her fat and strong."

"I only wish you could prevail on her," he sighed. "But I am afraid you will not get her to go anywhere without me. I have a devoted wife, Miss Pennycuick"—even if she had not tacitly forbidden "Deborah" in her poor days, he would not have ventured upon the liberty now that she was rich—"too devoted, if that can be. She insists upon sharing all my burdens, though I fain would spare her. I know well that, say what I will, she will never consent to leaving me to struggle with them alone."

"You have not told me what they are," said Deb, who saw that he was in dread of her going before he could do so.

"Oh, debts—debts—debts!" he answered, with a reckless air. "The millstone that we hung about our necks when we anticipated that she would have money, and lived accordingly, and were then left stranded. The eternal trying to make a shilling go as far as a pound—to make bricks without straw, like the captive Israelites of old. But why do you ask me? I hate to talk about it." He made a gesture of putting the miserable subject aside.

"It was very hard on you," Deb said gently—contradicting the Deb of an earlier time and different state of things—"to have those expectations, which were certainly justified, and to be disappointed as you were. I feel that we Pennycuicks were to blame in that—"

"Oh, dear, no!" he earnestly assured her.

"And that an obligation rests on me, now that I have the means, to make some compensation to you—to Mary, rather."

"It is like you to think of that. But really—"

"And I put a blank cheque in my pocket, and a stylographic pen—and will you let me"—she drew forth the articles mentioned, and made a desk of the top rail of the gate—"will you do me the favour to accept from me—what shall I say?—five hundred pounds? Would that relieve you—and Mary—of the immediate worries?"

He said it would, with the mental reservation that it did not amount to what he had been defrauded of by Mr Pennycuick (she had made a mistake in the designation of her gift); but the slight coolness of his acknowledgement quickly gave place to grateful fervour as he realised what the immediate five hundred pounds would do for him, and read in her words an implication that the sum was but an instalment of what she felt to be his due. He was incoherent in his thanks and benedictions as he slipped the cheque into his pocket.

"And you will let me have Mary at Redford?"

"Oh, yes! She will not want to go, but I shall make her."

"And do not tell her more than you can help about this little private transaction. She might feel—"

"I will tell her nothing that is likely to vex her."

"Do not—PRAY do not. Only take these sordid worries off her shoulders, and give her what she needs, and don't let her toil and moil. Remember, it is for her I do it." There was a little sting in that last remark, but he was too happy to feel it.



CHAPTER XXII.

Now, what to do for Rose.

Rose had written warm congratulations to her sister, without mentioning any desire for a personal interview. Ever since her marriage, she had refrained from giving invitations to her family, leaving the initiative in social matters to them—a mark of consideration and good taste on her part which they had quite approved of; and intercourse had been limited to afternoon calls, more or less affectionate and informal, but stopping short at meals in common under the roof of either party. Now, however, Deb craved for a fuller sympathy with the sweetest-tempered and kindest-hearted of her sisters, and now it seemed so perfectly easy to go to her house in pursuit of it. She despatched an impulsive note:

"DEAREST,—I want a quiet talk with you about all that has happened. May I come to lunch tomorrow, so as to make a long afternoon of it? If not convenient, fix a day to lunch with me; but I am not so tied as you are, and besides, I should like to have Peter's advice on one or two little matters of business, if it would not bother him—of course, after he comes from town. Don't keep him at home on purpose."

To which Rose replied by telegram:

"Shall expect you early tomorrow for a long day. Peter delighted to place himself at your disposal."

So Deb set off next morning, full of benevolent intentions, to gather poor humdrum Rose and her (in his way) truly worthy husband into the sphere of her golden prosperity. Also, incidentally, to warm herself in the light of faithful and familiar eyes. Since her final dismissal of Claud Dalzell—although she was satisfied with that act, and ready to repeat it again, if necessary—she had been conscious of a personal loneliness, not sensibly mitigated by her crowd-attracting wealth. "Someone of my own" was the want of her warm heart.

And Rose, with no petty grudge for past short-comings, answered that need with open arms. Never was hostess more cordial to honoured guest. Peter also was at home. He had been to town and back again, and now stood upon his spotless doorstep, and anon upon his handsome drawing-room hearthrug, determined that his house should lack nothing befitting the great occasion. It was all in gala dress—newly-arranged flowers, festive lunch-table, the best foot foremost; and yet, whereas there was no hiding the self-seeker in the ingratiating Bennet Goldsworthy, there was no finding him in this proud host and husband, whose desire was only to do his dear wife credit.

Neither of them said, in word or manner, "Why didn't you come like this before?" Deb knew that her welcome would have been the same, and had hard work not to show too frankly her sense of their magnanimity. As it was, she nearly kissed Peter in the hall—such a nice, warm, comfortable, hospitable entrance to as comfortable a home (in its undeniably middle-class style) as she had ever been inside of—the more striking in its effect by contrast with Mary's. Peter's cuffs were like the driven snow; he was charmingly fresh and clean, well barbered and well tailored; grown quite handsome, too, now that he had filled out and matured. As for Rose—"I hear," Frances wrote from Paris, "that poor Rose has become a perfect tub." Mrs Peter was almost as broad as she was long. But what health in the sunny face! What opulent well-being in the full curves of her figure, gowned in a fashion to satisfy even Deb's exigent taste.

They did not tell her it was good of her to come to see them, but they told her in all the languages of courtesy that they were mighty glad she had come. She was taken into the drawing-room—full of soft chairs and sofas that anybody might sit on, and with a fire of clear coals in a grate that glittered with constant polishing. But everything in Peter's establishment seemed to shine with pure cleanliness; he took after his mother, who, modest in other things, was fond of offering a sovereign to anybody who would find a cobweb in her house.

Deb was peeled of her furs by Peter, with the greatest deference and politeness, but with none of the obsequiousness that had sickened her elsewhere; he laid down her sable cloak with the reverence of one who knew its value, and he asked Rose in a whisper if her sister would like a glass of wine before lunch. The smiling matron shook her head, and whispered something else, which sent him out of the room. Then, while he skipped about in the background, attending to the wines and beers, she convoyed the guest to the very luxurious bedroom where head-nurse Keziah dandled the youngest of the Breen children. The rest had had their dinners and gone out a-walking, so as not to be made too much of by a silly mother, if it could be helped. Warm was the greeting between Keziah and her late mistress, and many the questions about Redford and the old folks; but there was no hint that Mrs Moon hankered after the big store-rooms and linen-closets, the dignities and privileges of her former home. Her heart was with Rose's babies now.

"There, what do you think of THIS?" she demanded, as she proudly displayed her charge, and, being invited thereto, condescendingly laid it in Deb's outstretched arms.

It was a pretty, healthy creature, fat, dainty and about two months old, still in the whitest and finest of long clothes. "Little duck!" Deb crooned, and rubbed her cheek almost with passion on its rose-leaf skin. Robert's nose, indeed, was dislocated on the spot.