"And he is really very philanthropic," Elisabeth continued; "he has done no end of things for the work-people at the Osierfield. It is a pity that his faith is second-rate, considering that his works are first-class."

"Ah! my dear, we must judge not, lest in turn we too should be judged. Who are we, that we should say who is or who is not of the elect? It is often those who seem to be the farthest from the kingdom that are in truth the nearest to it." Mrs. Herbert had dismissed a kitchen-maid, only the week before, for declining to attend her Bible-class, and walking out with a young man instead.

"Still, I am sorry that Alan has all those queer views," Elisabeth persisted; "he really would be a splendid sort of person if he were only a Christian; and it seems such a pity that—with all his learning—he hasn't learned the one thing that really matters."

"My love, I am ashamed to find you so censorious; it is a sad fault, especially in the young. I would advise you to turn to the thirteenth of First Corinthians, and see for yourself how excellent a gift is charity—the greatest of all, according to our dear Saint Paul."

Elisabeth sighed. She had long ago become acquainted with Mrs. Herbert's custom of keeping religion as a thing apart, and of treating it from an "in-another-department-if-you-please" point of view; and she felt that Tremaine's open agnosticism was almost better—and certainly more sincere—than this.

But Mrs. Herbert was utterly unconscious of any secret fault on her own part, and continued to purr contentedly to herself. "Felicia, dear child! will certainly take an excellent position. She will be in county society, the very thing which I have always desired for her; and she will enter it, not on sufferance, but as one of themselves. I can not tell you what a pleasure it is to Mr. Herbert and myself to think of our beloved daughter as a regular county lady; it quite makes up for all the little self-denials that we suffered in order to give her a good education and to render her fit to take her place in society. I shouldn't be surprised if she were even presented at Court." And the mother's cup of happiness ran over at the mere thought of such honour and glory.

Felicia, too, was radiantly happy. In the first place, she was very much in love; in the second, her world was praising her for doing well to herself. "I can not think how a clever man like Alan ever fell in love with such a stupid creature as me," she said to Elisabeth, not long before the wedding.

"Can't you? Well, I can. I don't wonder at any man's falling in love with you, darling, you are so dear and pretty and altogether adorable."

"But then Alan is so different from other men."

Elisabeth was too well-mannered to smile at this; but she made a note of it to report to Christopher afterward. She knew that he would understand how funny it was.

"I am simply amazed at my own happiness," Felicia continued; "and I am so dreadfully afraid that he will be disappointed in me when he gets to know me better, and will find out that I am not half good enough for him—which I am not."

"What nonsense! Why, there isn't a man living that would really be good enough for you, Felicia."

"Elisabeth! When I hear Alan talking, I wonder how he can put up with silly little me at all. You see, I never was clever—not even as clever as you are; and you, of course, aren't a millionth part as clever as Alan. And then he has such grand thoughts, too; he is always wanting to help other people, and to make them happier. I feel that as long as I live I never can be half grateful enough to him for the honour he has done me in wanting me for his wife."

Elisabeth shrugged her shoulders; the honours that have been within our reach are never quite so wonderful as those that have not.

So Alan and Felicia were married with much rejoicing and ringing of bells; and Elisabeth found it very pleasant to have her old schoolfellow settled at the Moat House. In fact so thoroughly did she throw herself into the interests of Felicia's new home, that she ceased to feel her need of Christopher, and consequently neglected him somewhat. It was only when others failed her that he was at a premium; when she found she could do without him, she did. As for him, he loyally refrained from blaming Elisabeth, even in his heart, and cursed Fate instead; which really was unfair of him, considering that in this matter Elisabeth, and not Fate, was entirely to blame. But Christopher was always ready to find excuses for Elisabeth, whatever she might do; and this, it must be confessed, required no mean order of ingenuity just then. Elisabeth was as yet young enough to think lightly of the gifts that were bestowed upon her freely and with no trouble on her part, such as bread and air and sunshine and the like; it was reserved for her to learn later that the things one takes for granted are the best thing life has to offer.

It must also be remembered, for her justification, that Christopher had never told her that he loved her "more than reason"; and it is difficult for women to believe that any man loves them until he has told them so, just as it is difficult for them to believe that a train is going direct to the place appointed to it in Bradshaw, until they have been verbally assured upon the point by two guards, six porters, and a newspaper boy. Nevertheless, Elisabeth's ignorance—though perhaps excusable, considering her sex—was anything but bliss to poor Christopher, and her good-natured carelessness hurt him none the less for her not knowing that it hurt him.

When Felicia had been married about three months her mother came to stay with her at the Moat House; and Elisabeth smiled to herself—and to Christopher—as she pictured the worthy woman's delight in her daughter's new surroundings.

"She'll extol all Felicia's belongings as exhaustively as if she were the Benedicite," Elisabeth said, "and she'll enumerate them as carefully as if she were sending them to the wash. You'll find there won't be a single one omitted—not even the second footman or the soft-water cistern. Mrs. Herbert is one who battens on details, and she never spares her hearers a single item."

"It is distinctly naughty of you," Christopher replied, with the smile that was always ready for Elisabeth's feeblest sallies, "to draw the good soul out for the express purpose of laughing at her. I am ashamed of you, Miss Farringdon."

"Draw her out, my dear boy! You don't know what you are talking about. The most elementary knowledge of Mrs. Herbert would teach you that she requires nothing in the shape of drawing out. You have but to mention the word 'dinner,' and the secret sins of her cook are retailed to you in chronological order; you have but to whisper the word 'clothes,' and the iniquities of her dressmaker's bill are laid bare before your eyes. Should the conversation glance upon Mr. Herbert, his complete biography becomes your own possession; and should the passing thought of childhood appear above her mental horizon, she tells you all about her own children as graphically as if she were editing a new edition of The Pillars of the House. And yet you talk of drawing her out! I am afraid you have no perceptions, Christopher."

"Possibly not; everybody doesn't have perceptions. I am frequently struck with clever people's lack of them."

"Well, I'm off," replied Elisabeth, whipping up her pony, "to hear Mrs. Herbert's outpourings on Felicia's happiness; when I come back I expect I shall be able to write another poem on 'How does the water come down at Lodore'—with a difference."

And Christopher—who had met her in the High Street—smiled after the retreating figure in sheer delight at her. How fresh and bright and spontaneous she was, he thought, and how charmingly ignorant of the things which she prided herself upon understanding so profoundly! He laughed aloud as he recalled how very wise Elisabeth considered herself. And then he wondered if life would teach her to be less sure of her own buoyant strength, and less certain of her ultimate success in everything she undertook; and, if it did, he felt that he should have an ugly account to settle with life. He was willing for Fate to knock him about as much and as hardly as she pleased, provided she would let Elisabeth alone, and allow the girl to go on believing in herself and enjoying herself as she was so abundantly capable of doing. By this time Christopher was enough of a philosopher to think that it did not really matter much in the long run whether he were happy or unhappy; but he was not yet able to regard the thought of Elisabeth's unhappiness as anything but a catastrophe of the most insupportable magnitude; which showed that he had not yet sufficient philosophy to go round.

When Elisabeth arrived at the Moat House she found Mrs. Herbert alone, Felicia having gone out driving with her husband; and, to Elisabeth's surprise, there was no sign of the jubilation which she had anticipated. On the contrary, Mrs. Herbert was subdued and tired-looking.

"I am so glad to see you, my dear," she said, kissing Elisabeth; "it is lonely in this big house all by myself."

"It is always rather lonely to be in state," Elisabeth replied, returning her salute. "I wonder if kings find it lonely all by themselves in pleasures and palaces. I expect they do, but they put up with the loneliness for the sake of the stateliness; and you could hardly find a statelier house than this to be lonely in, if you tried."

"Yes; it is a beautiful place," agreed Mrs. Herbert listlessly.

Elisabeth wondered what was wrong, but she did not ask; she knew that Mrs. Herbert would confide in her very soon. People very rarely were reserved with Elisabeth; she was often amazed at the rapidity with which they opened their inmost hearts to her. Probably this accounted in some measure for her slowness in understanding Christopher, who had made it a point of honour not to open his inmost heart to her.

"Don't the woods look lovely?" she said cheerfully, pretending not to notice anything. "I can't help seeing that the trees are beautiful with their gilt leaves, but it goes against my principles to own it, because I do so hate the autumn. I wish we could change our four seasons for two springs and two summers. I am so happy in the summer, and still happier in the spring looking forward to it; but I am wretched in the winter because I am cold, and still wretcheder in the autumn thinking that I'm going to be even colder."

"Yes; the woods are pretty—very pretty indeed."

"I am so glad you have come while the leaves are still on. I wanted you to see Felicia's home at its very best; and, at its best, it is a home that any woman might be proud of."

Mrs. Herbert's lip trembled. "It is indeed a most beautiful home, and I am sure Felicia has everything to make her happy."

"And she is happy, Mrs. Herbert; I don't think I ever saw anybody so perfectly happy as Felicia is now. I'm afraid I could never be quite as satisfied with any impossible ideal of a husband as she is with Alan; I should want to quarrel with him just for the fun of the thing, and to find out his faults for the pleasure of correcting them. A man as faultless as Alan—I mean as faultless as Felicia considers Alan—would bore me; but he suits her down to the ground."

But even then Mrs. Herbert did not smile; instead of that her light blue eyes filled with tears. "Oh! my dear," she said, with a sob in her voice, "Felicia is ashamed of me."

For all her high spirits, Elisabeth generally recognised tragedy when she met it face to face; and she knew that she was meeting it now. So she spoke very gently—

"My dear Mrs. Herbert, whatever do you mean? I am sure you are not very strong, and so your nerves are out of joint, and make you imagine things."

"No, my love; it is no imagination on my part. I only wish it were. Who can know Felicia as well as her mother knows her—her mother who has worshipped her and toiled for her ever since she was a little baby? And I, who can read her through and through, feel that she is ashamed of me." And the tears overflowed, and rolled down Mrs. Herbert's faded cheeks.

Elisabeth's heart swelled with an immense pity, for her quick insight told her that Mrs. Herbert was not mistaken; but all she said was—

"I think you are making mountains out of molehills. Lots of girls lose their heads a bit when first they are married, and seem to regard marriage as a special invention and prerogative of their own, which entitles them to give themselves air ad libitum; but they soon grow out of it."

Mrs. Herbert shook her head sorrowfully; her tongue was loosed and she spake plain. "Oh! it isn't like that with Felicia; I should think nothing of that. I remember when first I was married I thought that no unmarried woman knew anything, and that no married woman knew anything but myself; but, as you say, I soon grew out of that. Why, I was quite ready, after I had been married a couple of months, to teach my dear mother all about housekeeping; and finely she laughed at me for it. But Felicia doesn't trouble to teach me anything; she thinks it isn't worth while."

"Oh! I can not believe that Felicia is like that. You must be mistaken."

"Mistaken in my own child, whom I carried in my arms as a little baby? No, my dear; there are some things about which mothers can never be mistaken, God help them! Do you think I did not understand when the carriage came round to-day to take her and Alan to return Lady Patchingham's visit, and Felicia said, 'Mamma won't go with us to-day, Alan dear, because the wind is in the east, and it always gives her a cold to drive in an open carriage when the wind is in the east'? Oh! I saw plain enough that she didn't want me to go with them to Lady Patchingham's; but I only thanked her and said I would rather stay indoors, as it would be safer for me. When they had started I went out and looked at the weather-cock for myself; it pointed southwest." And the big tears rolled down faster than ever.

Elisabeth did not know what to say; so she wisely said nothing, but took Mrs. Herbert's hand in hers and stroked it.

"Perhaps, my dear, I did wrong in allowing Felicia to marry a man who is not a true believer, and this is my punishment."

"Oh! no, no, Mrs. Herbert; I don't believe that God ever punishes for the sake of punishing. He has to train us, and the training hurts sometimes; but when it does, I think He minds even more than we do."

"Well, my love, I can not say; it is not for us to inquire into the counsels of the Almighty. But I did it for the best; I did, indeed. I did so want Felicia to be happy."

"I am sure you did."

"You see, all my life I had taken an inferior position socially, and the iron of it had entered into my soul. I daresay it was sinful of me, but I used to mind so dreadfully when my husband and I were always asked to second-rate parties, and introduced to second-rate people; and I longed and prayed that my darling Felicia should be spared the misery and the humiliation which I had had to undergo. You won't understand it, Elisabeth. People in a good position never do; but to be alternately snubbed and patronized all one's life, as I have been, makes social intercourse one long-drawn-out agony to a sensitive woman. So I prayed—how I prayed!—that my beautiful daughter should never suffer as I have done."

Elisabeth's eyes filled with tears; and Mrs. Herbert, encouraged by her unspoken sympathy, proceeded—

"Grand people are so cruel, my dear. I daresay they don't mean to be; but they are. And though I had borne it for myself, I felt I could not bear it for Felicia. I thought it would kill me to see fine ladies overlook her as they had so often overlooked me. So when Alan wanted to marry her, and make her into a fine lady herself, I was overwhelmed with joy; and I felt I no longer minded what I had gone through, now that I knew no one would ever dare to be rude to my beautiful daughter. Now I see I was wrong to set earthly blessings before spiritual ones; but I think you understand how I felt, Elisabeth."

"Yes, I understand; and God understands too."

"Then don't you think He is punishing me, my dear?"

"No; I think He is training Felicia—and perhaps you too, dear Mrs. Herbert."

"Oh! I wish I could think so. But you don't know what Felicia has been to her father and me. She was such a beautiful baby that the people in the street used to stop the nurse to ask whose child she was; and when she grew older she never gave us a moment's trouble or anxiety. Then we pinched and pared in order to be able to afford to send her to Fox How; and when her education was finished there wasn't a more perfect lady in the land than our Felicia. Oh! I was proud of her, I can tell you. And now she is ashamed of me, her own mother! I can not help seeing that this is God's punishment to me for letting her marry an unbeliever." And Mrs. Herbert covered her face with her hands and burst out into bitter sobs.

Elisabeth took the weeping form into her strong young arms. "My poor dear, you are doing Him an injustice, you are, indeed. I am sure He minds even more than you do that Felicia is still so ignorant and foolish, and He is training her in His own way. But He isn't doing it to punish you, dear; believe me, He isn't. Why, even the ordinary human beings who are fond of us want to cure our faults and not to punish them," she continued, as the memory of Christopher's unfailing patience with her suddenly came into her mind, and she recalled how often she had hurt him, and how readily he had always forgiven her; "they are sorry when we do wrong, but they are even sorrier when we suffer for it. And do you think God loves us less than they do, and is quicker to punish and slower to forgive?"

So does the love of the brother whom we have seen help us in some measure to understand the love of the God Whom we have not seen; for which we owe the brother eternal thanks.



CHAPTER X

CHANGES

Why did you take all I said for certain When I so gleefully threw the glove? Couldn't you see that I made a curtain Out of my laughter to hide my love?

"My dear," said Miss Farringdon, when Elisabeth came down one morning to breakfast, "there is sad news to-day."

Miss Farringdon was never late in a morning. She regarded early rising as a virtue on a par with faith and charity; while to appear at the breakfast-table after the breakfast itself had already appeared thereon was, in her eyes, as the sin of witchcraft.

"What is the matter?" asked Elisabeth, somewhat breathlessly. She had run downstairs at full speed in order to enter the dining-room before the dishes, completing her toilet as she fled; and she had only beaten the bacon by a neck.

"Richard Smallwood has had a paralytic stroke. Christopher sent up word the first thing this morning."

"Oh! I am so sorry. Mr. Smallwood is such a dear old man, and used to be so kind to Christopher and me when we were little."

"I am very sorry, too, Elisabeth. I have known Richard Smallwood all my life, and he was a valued friend of my dear father's, as well as being his right hand in all matters of business. Both my father and uncle thought very highly of Richard's opinion, and considered that they owed much of their commercial success to his advice and assistance."

"Poor Christopher! I wonder if he will mind much?"

"Of course he will mind, my dear. What a strange child you are, and what peculiar things you say! Mr. Smallwood is Christopher's only living relative, and when anything happens to him Christopher will be entirely alone in the world. It is sad for any one to be quite alone; and especially for young people, who have a natural craving for companionship and sympathy." Miss Farringdon sighed. She had spent most of her life in the wilderness and on the mountain-tops, and she knew how cold was the climate and how dreary the prospect there.

Elisabeth's eyes filled with tears, and her heart swelled with a strange new feeling she had never felt before. For the first time in her life Christopher (unconsciously on his part) made a direct appeal to her pity, and her heart responded to the appeal. His perspective, from her point of view, was suddenly changed; he was no longer the kindly, easy-going comrade with whom she had laughed and quarrelled and made it up again ever since she could remember, and with whom she was on a footing of such familiar intimacy; instead, he had become a man standing in the shadow of a great sorrow, whose solitary grief commanded her respect and at the same time claimed her tenderness. All through breakfast, and the prayers which followed, Elisabeth's thoughts ran on this new Christopher, who was so much more interesting and yet so much farther off than the old one. She wondered how he would look and what he would say when next she saw him; and she longed to see him again, and yet felt frightened at the thought of doing so. At prayers that morning Miss Farringdon read the lament of David over Saul and Jonathan; and while the words of undying pathos sounded in her ears, Elisabeth wondered whether Christopher would mourn as David did if his uncle were to die, and whether he would let her comfort him.

When prayers were over, Miss Farringdon bade Elisabeth accompany her to Mr. Smallwood's; and all the way there the girl's heart was beating so fast that it almost choked her, with mingled fear of and tenderness for this new Christopher who had taken the place of her old playmate. As they sat waiting for him in the oak-panelled dining-room, a fresh wave of pity swept over Elisabeth as she realized for the first time—though she had sat there over and over again—what a cheerless home this was in which to spend one's childhood and youth, and how pluckily Christopher had always made the best of things, and had never confessed—even to her—what a dreary lot was his. Then he came downstairs; and as she heard his familiar footstep crossing the hall her heart beat faster than ever, and there was a mist before her eyes; but when he entered the room and shook hands, first with Miss Farringdon and then with her, she was quite surprised to see that he looked very much as he always looked, only his face was pale and his eyes heavy for want of sleep; and his smile was as kind as ever as it lighted upon her.

"It is very good of you to come to me so quickly," he said, addressing Miss Farringdon but looking at Elisabeth.

"Not at all, Christopher," replied Miss Maria; "those who have friends must show themselves friendly, and your uncle has certainly proved himself of the sort that sticketh closer than a brother. No son could have done more for my father—no brother could have done more for me—than he has done; and therefore his affliction is my affliction, and his loss is my loss."

"You are very kind." And Christopher's voice shook a little.

Elisabeth did not speak. She was struggling with a feeling of uncontrollable shyness which completely tied her usually fluent tongue.

"Is he very ill?" Miss Farringdon asked.

"Yes," Christopher replied, "I'm afraid it's a bad job altogether. The doctor thinks he will last only a few days; but if he lives he will never regain the use of his speech or of his brain; and I don't know that life under such conditions is a boon to be desired."

"I do not think it is. Yet we poor mortals long to keep our beloved ones with us, even though it is but the semblance of their former selves that remain."

Christopher did not answer. There suddenly rushed over him the memory of all that his uncle had been to him, and of how that uncle still treated him as a little child; and with it came the consciousness that, when his uncle was gone, nobody would ever treat him as a little child any more. Life is somewhat dreary when the time comes for us to be grown-up to everybody; so Christopher looked (and did not see) out of the window, instead of speaking.

"Of course," Miss Farringdon continued, "you will take his place, should he be—as I fear is inevitable—unable to resume work at the Osierfield; and I have such a high opinion of you, Christopher, that I have no doubt you will do your uncle's work as well as he has done it, and there could not be higher praise. Nevertheless, it saddens me to know that another of the old landmarks has been swept away, and that now I only am left of what used to be the Osierfield forty years ago. The work may be done as well by the new hands and brains as by the old ones; but after one has crossed the summit of the mountain and begun to go downhill, it is sorry work exchanging old lamps for new. The new lamps may give brighter light, perchance; but their light is too strong for tired old eyes; and we grow homesick for the things to which we are accustomed." And Miss Farringdon took off her spectacles and wiped them.

There was silence for a few seconds, while Christopher manfully struggled with his feelings and Miss Maria decorously gave vent to hers. Christopher was vexed with himself for so nearly breaking down before Elisabeth, and throwing the shadow of his sorrow across the sunshine of her path. He did not know that the mother-heart in her was yearning over him with a tenderness almost too powerful to be resisted, and that his weakness was constraining her as his strength had never done. He was rather surprised that she did not speak to him; but with the patient simplicity of a strong man he accepted her behaviour without questioning it. Her mere presence in the room somehow changed everything, and made him feel that no world which contained Elisabeth could ever be an entirely sorrowful world. Of course he knew nothing about the new Christopher which had suddenly arisen above Elisabeth's horizon; he was far too masculine to understand that his own pathos could be pathetic, or his own suffering dramatic. It is only women—or men who have much of the woman in their composition—who can say:

"Here I and sorrow sit, This is my throne; let kings come bow to it."

The thoroughly manly man is incapable of seeing the picturesque effect of his own misery.

So Christopher pulled himself together and tried to talk of trivial things; and Miss Farringdon, having walked through the dark valley herself, knew the comfort of the commonplace therein, and fell in with his mood, discussing nurses and remedies and domestic arrangements and the like. Elisabeth, however, was distinctly disappointed in Christopher, because he could bring himself down to dwell upon these trifling matters when the Angel of Death had crossed the lintel of his doorway only last night, and was still hovering round with overshadowing wings. It was just like him, she said to herself, to give his attention to surface details, and to miss the deeper thing. She had yet to learn that it was because he felt so much, and not because he felt so little, that Christopher found it hard to utter the inmost thoughts of his heart.

But when Miss Farringdon had made every possible arrangement for Mr. Smallwood's comfort, and they rose to leave, Elisabeth's heart smote her for her passing impatience; so she lingered behind after her cousin had left the room, and, slipping her hand into Christopher's, she whispered—

"Chris, dear, I'm so dreadfully sorry!"

It was a poor little speech for the usually eloquent Elisabeth to make; in cold blood she herself would have been ashamed of it; but Christopher was quite content. For a second he forgot that he had decided not to let Elisabeth know that he loved her until he was in a position to marry her, and he very nearly took her in his strong arms and kissed her there and then; but before he had time to do this, his good angel (or perhaps his bad one, for it is often difficult to ascertain how one's two guardian spirits divide their work) reminded him that it was his duty to leave Elisabeth free to live her own life, unhampered by the knowledge of a love which might possibly find no fulfilment in this world where money is considered the one thing needful; so he merely returned the pressure of her hand, and said in a queer, strained sort of voice—

"Thanks awfully, dear. It isn't half so rough on a fellow when he knows you are sorry." And Elisabeth also was content.

Contrary to the doctor's expectations, Richard Smallwood did not die: he had lost all power of thought or speech, and never regained them, but lived on for years a living corpse; and the burden of his illness lay heavily on Christopher's young shoulders. Life was specially dark to poor Christopher just then. His uncle's utter break-down effectually closed the door on all chances of escape from the drudgery of the Osierfield to a higher and wider sphere; for, until now, he had continued to hope against hope that he might induce that uncle to start him in some other walk of life, where the winning of Elisabeth would enter into the region of practical politics. But now all chance of this was over; Richard Smallwood was beyond the reach of the entreaties and arguments which hitherto he had so firmly resisted. There was nothing left for Christopher to do but to step into his uncle's shoes, and try to make the best of his life as general manager of the Osierfield, handicapped still further by the charge of that uncle, which made it impossible for him to dream of bringing home a wife to the big old house in the High Street.

There was only one drop of sweetness in the bitterness of his cup—one ray of light in the darkness of his outlook; and that was the consciousness that he could still go on seeing and loving and serving Elisabeth, although he might never be able to tell her he was doing so. He hoped that she would understand; but here he was too sanguine; Elisabeth was as yet incapable of comprehending any emotion until she had seen it reduced to a prescription.

So Christopher lived on in the gloomy house, and looked after his uncle as tenderly as a mother looks after a sick child. To all intents and purposes Richard was a child again; he could not speak or think, but he still loved his nephew, the only one of his own flesh and blood; and he smiled like a child every time that Christopher came into his room, and cried like a child ever; time that Christopher went away.

Elisabeth was very sorry for Christopher at first, and very tender toward him; but after a time the coldness, which he felt it his duty to show toward her in the changed state of affairs, had its natural effect, and she decided that it was foolish to waste her sympathy upon any one who obviously needed and valued it so little. Moreover, she had not forgotten that strange, new feeling which disturbed her heart the morning after Mr. Smallwood was taken ill; and she experienced, half unconsciously, a thoroughly feminine resentment against the man who had called into being such an emotion, and then apparently had found no use for it. So Elisabeth in her heart of hearts was at war with Christopher—that slumbering, smouldering sort of warfare which is ready to break out into fire and battle at the slightest provocation; and this state of affairs did not tend to make life any the easier for him. He felt he could have cheerfully borne it all if only Elisabeth had been kind and had understood; but Elisabeth did not understand him in the least, and was consequently unkind—far more unkind than she, in her careless, light-hearted philosophy, dreamed of.

She, too, had her disappointments to bear just then. The artist-soul in her had grown up, and was crying out for expression; and she vainly prayed her cousin to let her go to the Slade School, and there learn to develop the power that was in her. But Miss Farringdon belonged to the generation which regarded art purely as a recreation—such as fancy-work, croquet, and the like—and she considered that young women should be trained for the more serious things of life; by which she meant the ordering of suitable dinners for the rich and the manufacturing of seemly garments for the poor. So Elisabeth had to endure the agony which none but an artist can know—the agony of being dumb when one has an angel-whispered secret to tell forth—of being bound hand and foot when one has a God-sent message to write upon the wall.

Now and then Miss Maria took her young cousin up to town for a few weeks, and thus Elisabeth came to have a bowing acquaintanceship with London; but of London as an ever-fascinating, never-wearying friend she knew nothing. There are people who tell us that "London is delightful in the season," and that "the country is very pretty in the summer," and we smile at them as a man would smile at those who said that his mother was "a pleasant person," or his heart's dearest "a charming girl." Those who know London and the country, as London and the country deserve to be known, do not talk in this way, for they have learned that there is no end to the wonder or the interest or the mystery of either.

The year following Richard Smallwood's break-down, a new interest came into Elisabeth's life. A son and heir was born at the Moat House; and Elisabeth was one of the women who are predestined to the worship of babies. Very tightly did the tiny fingers twine themselves round her somewhat empty heart; for Elisabeth was meant to love much, and at present her supply of the article was greatly in excess of the demand made upon it. So she poured the surplus—which no one else seemed to need—upon the innocent head of Felicia's baby; and she found that the baby never misjudged her nor disappointed her, as older people seemed so apt to do. One of her most devout fellow-worshippers was Mrs. Herbert, who derived comfort from the fact that little Willie was not ashamed of her as little Willie's mother was; so—like many a disappointed woman before them—both Mrs. Herbert and Elisabeth discovered the healing power which lies in the touch of a baby's hand. Felicia loved the child, too, in her way; but she was of the type of woman to whom the husband is always dearer than the children. But Alan's cup was filled to overflowing, and he loved his son as he loved his own soul.

One of Christopher's expedients for hiding the meditations of his heart from Elisabeth's curious eyes was the discussion with her of what people call "general subjects"; and this tried her temper to the utmost. She regarded it as a sign of superficiality to talk of superficial things; and she hardly ever went in to dinner with a man without arriving at the discussion of abstract love and the second entree simultaneously. It had never yet dawned upon her that as a rule it is because one has not experienced a feeling that one is able to describe it; she reasoned in the contrary direction, and came to the conclusion that those persons have no hearts at all whose sleeves are unadorned with the same. Therefore it was intolerable to her when Christopher—who had played with her as a child, and had once very nearly made her grow up into a woman—talked to her about the contents of the newspapers.

"I never look at the papers," she answered crossly one day, in reply to some unexceptionable and uninteresting comment of his upon such history as was just then in the raw material; "I hate them."

"Why do you hate them?" Christopher was surprised at her vehemence.

"Because there is cholera in the South of France, and I never look at the papers when there is cholera about, it frightens me so." Elisabeth had all the pity of a thoroughly healthy person for the suffering that could not touch her, and the unreasoning terror of a thoroughly healthy person for the suffering which could.

"But there is nothing to frighten you in that," said Christopher, in his most comforting tone; "France is such a beastly dirty hole that they are bound to have diseases going on there, such as could never trouble clean, local-boarded, old England. And then it's so far away, too. I'd never worry about that, if I were you."

"Wouldn't you?" Elisabeth was at war with him, but she was not insensible to the consolation he never failed to afford her when things went wrong.

"Good gracious, no! England is so well looked after, with county councils and such, that even if an epidemic came here they'd stamp it out like one o'clock. Don't frighten yourself with bogeys, Elisabeth, there's a good girl!"

"I feel just the same about newspapers now that I used to feel about Lalla Rookh," said Elisabeth confidentially.

Christopher was puzzled. "I'm afraid I don't see quite the connection, but I have no doubt it is there, like Mrs. Wilfer's petticoat."

"In Cousin Maria's copy of Lalla Rookh there is a most awful picture of the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan; and when I was little I went nearly mad with terror of that picture. I used to go and look at it when nobody was about, and it frightened me more and more every time."

"Why on earth didn't you tell me about it?"

"I don't know. I felt I wouldn't tell anybody for worlds, but must keep it a ghastly secret. Sometimes I used to hide the book, and try to forget where I'd hidden it. But I never could forget, and in the end I always went and found it, and peeped at the picture and nearly died of terror. The mere outside of the book had a horrible fascination for me. I used to look at it all the time I was in the drawing-room, and then pretend I wasn't looking at it; yet if the housemaid had moved it an inch in dusting the table where it lay, I always knew."

"Poor little silly child! If only you'd have told me, I'd have asked Miss Farringdon to put it away where you couldn't get at it."

"But I couldn't have told you, Chris—I couldn't have told anybody. There seemed to be some terrible bond between that dreadful book and me which I was bound to keep secret. Of course it doesn't frighten me any longer, though I shall always hate it; but the newspapers frighten me just in the same way when there are horrible things in them."

"Why, Betty, I am ashamed of you! And such a clever girl as you, too, to be taken in by the romancing of penny-a-liners! They always make the worst of things in newspapers in order to sell them."

"Oh! then you think things aren't as bad as newspapers say?"

"Nothing like; but they must write something for people to read, and the more sensational it is the better people like it."

Elisabeth was comforted; and she never knew that Christopher did not leave the house that day without asking Miss Farringdon if, for a few weeks, the daily paper might be delivered at the works and sent up to the Willows afterward, as he wanted to see the trade-reports the first thing in the morning. This was done; and sometimes Christopher remembered to send the papers on to the house, and sometimes he did not. On these latter occasions Miss Farringdon severely reproved him, and told him that he would never be as capable a man as his uncle had been, if he did not endeavour to cultivate his memory; whereat Chris was inwardly tickled, but was outwardly very penitent and apologetic, promising to try to be less forgetful in future. And he kept his word; for not once—while the epidemic in the South of France lasted—did he forget to forget to send the newspaper up to the Willows when there was anything in it calculated to alarm the most timid reader.

"Cousin Maria," said Elisabeth, a few days after this, "I hear that Coulson's circus is coming to Burlingham, and I want to go and see it."

Miss Farringdon looked up over the tops of her gold-rimmed spectacles. "Do you, my dear? Well, I see no reason why you should not. I have been brought up to disapprove of theatres, and I always shall disapprove of them; but I confess I have never seen any harm in going to a circus."

It is always interesting to note where people draw the line between right and wrong in dealing with forms of amusement; and it is doubtful whether two separate lines are ever quite identical in their curves.

"Christopher could take me," Elisabeth continued; "and if he couldn't, I'm sure Alan would."

"I should prefer you to go with Christopher, my dear; he is more thoughtful and dependable than Alan Tremaine. I always feel perfectly happy about you when you have Christopher to take care of you."

Elisabeth laughed her cousin to scorn. She did not want anybody to take care of her, she thought; she was perfectly able to take care of herself. But Miss Farringdon belonged to a time when single women of forty were supposed to require careful supervision; and Elisabeth was but four-and-twenty.

Christopher, when consulted, fell into the arrangement with alacrity; and it was arranged for him to take Elisabeth over to Burlingham on the one day that Coulson's circus was on exhibition there. Elisabeth looked forward to the treat like a child; for she was by nature extremely fond of pleasure, and by circumstance little accustomed to it.

Great then was her disappointment when the morning of the day arrived, to receive a short note from Christopher saying that he was extremely sorry to inconvenience her, but that his business engagements made it impossible for him to take her to Burlingham that day; and adding various apologies and hopes that she would not be too angry with him. She had so few treats that her disappointment at losing one was really acute for the moment; but what hurt her far more than the disappointment was the consciousness that Chris had obeyed the calls of business rather than her behest—had thought less of her pleasure than of the claims of the Osierfield. All Elisabeth's pride (or was it her vanity?) rose up in arms at the slight which Christopher had thus put upon her; and she felt angrier with him than she had ever felt with anybody in her life before. She began to pour out the vials of her wrath in the presence of Miss Farringdon; but that good lady was so much pleased to find a young man who cared more for business than for pleasure, or even for a young woman, that she accorded Elisabeth but scant sympathy. So Elisabeth possessed her wounded soul in extreme impatience, until such time as the offender himself should appear upon the scene, ready to receive those vials which had been specially prepared for his destruction.

He duly appeared about tea-time, and found Elisabeth consuming the smoke of her anger in the garden.

"I hope you are not very angry with me," he began in a humble tone, sitting down beside her on the old rustic seat; "but I found myself obliged to disappoint you as soon as I got to the works this morning; and I am sure you know me well enough to understand that it wasn't my fault, and that I couldn't help myself."

"I don't know you well enough for anything of the kind," replied Elisabeth, flashing a pair of very bright eyes upon his discomfited face; "but I know you well enough to understand that you are just a mass of selfishness and horridness, and that you care for nothing but just what interests and pleases yourself."

Christopher was startled. "Elisabeth, you don't mean that; you know you don't."

"Yes; I do. I mean that I have always hated you, and that I hate you more than ever to-day. It was just like you to care more for the business than you did for me, and never to mind about my disappointment as long as that nasty old ironworks was satisfied. I tell you I hate you, and I hate the works, and I hate everything connected with you."

Christopher looked utterly astonished. He had no idea, he said to himself, that Elisabeth cared so much about going to Coulson's circus; and he could not see anything in the frustration of a day's excursion to account for such a storm of indignation as this. He did not realize that it was the rage of a monarch whose kingdom was in a state of rebellion, and whose dominion seemed in danger of slipping away altogether. Elisabeth might not understand Christopher; but Christopher was not always guiltless of misunderstanding Elisabeth.

"And it was just like you," Elisabeth went on, "not to let me know till the last minute, when it was too late for anything to be done. If you had only had the consideration—I may say the mere civility—to send word last night that your royal highness could not be bothered with me and my affairs to-day, I could have arranged with Alan Tremaine to take me. He is always able to turn his attention for a time from his own pleasure to other people's."

"But I thought I told you that it was not until I got to the works this morning that I discovered it would be impossible for me to take you to Burlingham to-day."

"Then you ought to have found it out sooner."

"Hang it all! I really can not find out things before they occur. Clever as I am, I am not quite clever enough for that. If I were, I should soon make my own fortune by telling other people theirs."

But Elisabeth was too angry to be flippant. "The fact is you care for nothing but yourself and your horrid old business. I always told you how it would be."

"You did. For whatever faults you may have to blame yourself, over-indulgence toward mine will never be one of them. You can make your conscience quite clear on that score." Christopher was as determined to treat the quarrel lightly as Elisabeth was to deal with it on serious grounds.

"You have grown into a regular, commonplace, money-grubbing, business man, with no thoughts for anything higher than making iron and money and vulgar things like that."

"And making you angry—that is a source of distinct pleasure to me. You have no idea how charming you are when you are—well, for the sake of euphony we will say slightly ruffled, Miss Elisabeth Farringdon."

Elisabeth stamped her foot. "I wish to goodness you'd be serious sometimes! Frivolity is positively loathsome in a man."

"Then I repent it in dust and ashes, and shall rely upon your more sedate and serious mind to correct this tendency in me. Besides, as you generally blame me for erring in the opposite direction, it is a relief to find you smiting me on the other cheek as a change. It keeps up my mental circulation better."

"You are both too frivolous and too serious."

Christopher was unwise enough to laugh. "My dear child, I seem to make what is called 'a corner' in vices; but even I can not reconcile the conflicting ones."

Then Elisabeth's anger settled down into the quiet stage. "If you think it gentlemanly to disappoint a lady and then insult her, pray go on doing so; I can only say that I don't."

"What on earth do you mean, Elisabeth? Do you really believe that I meant to vex you?" The laughter had entirely died out of Christopher's face, and his voice was hoarse.

"I don't know what you meant, and I am afraid I don't much mind. All I know is that you did disappoint me and did insult me, and that is enough for me. The purity of your motives is not my concern; I merely resent the impertinence of your behaviour."

Christopher rose from his seat; he was serious enough now. "You are unjust to me, Elisabeth, but I can not and will not attempt to justify myself. Good afternoon."

For a second the misery on his face penetrated the thunder-clouds of Elisabeth's indignation. "Won't you have some tea before you go?" she asked. It seemed brutal—even to her outraged feelings—to send so old a friend empty away.

Christopher's smile was very bitter as he answered. "No, thank you. I am afraid, after the things you have said to me, I should hardly be able graciously to accept hospitality at your hands; and rather than accept it ungraciously, I will not accept it at all." And he turned on his heel and left her.

As she watched his retreating figure, one spasm of remorse shot through Elisabeth's heart; but it was speedily stifled by the recollection that, for the first time in her life, Christopher had failed her, and had shown her plainly that there were, in his eyes, more important matters than Miss Elisabeth Farringdon and her whims and fancies. And what woman, worthy of the name, could extend mercy to a man who had openly displayed so flagrant a want of taste and discernment as this? Certainly not Elisabeth, nor any other fashioned after her pattern. She felt that she had as much right to be angry as had the prophet, when Almighty Wisdom saw fit to save the great city in which he was not particularly interested, and to destroy the gourd in which he was. And so, probably, she had.

For several days after this she kept clear of Christopher, nursing her anger in her heart; and he was so hurt and sore from the lashing which her tongue had given him, that he felt no inclination to come within the radius of that tongue's bitterness again.

But one day, when Elisabeth was sitting on the floor of the Moat House drawing-room, playing with the baby and discussing new gowns with Felicia between times, Alan came in and remarked—

"It was wise of you to give up your excursion to Coulson's circus last week, Elisabeth; as it has turned out it was chiefly a scare, and the case was greatly exaggerated; but it might have made you feel uncomfortable if you had gone. I suppose you saw the notice of the outbreak in that morning's paper, and so gave it up at the last moment."

Elisabeth ceased from her free translation of the baby's gurglings and her laudable endeavours suitably to reply to the same, and gave her whole attention to the baby's father. "I don't know what you mean. What scare and what outbreak are you talking about?"

"Didn't you see," replied Alan, "that there was an outbreak of cholera at Coulson's circus, and a frightful scare all through Burlingham in consequence? Of course the newspapers greatly exaggerated the danger, and so increased the scare; and I don't know that I blame them for that. I am not sure that the sensational way in which the press announces possible dangers to the community is not a safeguard for the community at large. To be alive to a danger is nine times out of ten to avoid a danger; and it is far better to be more frightened than hurt than to be more hurt than frightened—certainly for communities if not for individuals."

"But tell me about it. I never saw any account in the papers; and I'm glad I didn't, for it would have frightened me out of my wits."

"It broke out among a troupe of acrobats who had just come straight from the South of France, and evidently brought the infection with them. They were at once isolated, and such prompt and efficient measures were taken to prevent the spread of the disease, that there have been no more cases, either in the circus or in the town. Now, I should imagine, all danger of its spreading is practically over; but, of course, it made everybody in the neighbourhood, and everybody who had been to the circus, very nervous and uncomfortable for a few days. The local authorities, however, omitted no possible precaution which should assist them in stamping out the epidemic, should those few cases have started an epidemic—which was, of course, possible, though hardly likely."

And then Alan proceeded to expound his views on the matter of sanitary authorities in general and of those of Burlingham in particular, to which Felicia listened with absorbing attention and Elisabeth did not listen at all.

Soon after this she took her leave; and all along the homeward walk through Badgering Woods she was conscious of feeling ashamed of herself—a very rare sensation with Elisabeth, and by no means an agreeable one. She was by nature so self-reliant and so irresponsible that she seldom regretted anything that she had done; if she had acted wisely, all was well; and if she had not acted wisely, it was over and done with, and what was the use of bothering any more about it? This was her usual point of view, and it proved as a rule a most comfortable one. But now she could not fail to see that she had been in the wrong—hopelessly and flagrantly in the wrong—and that she had behaved abominably to Christopher into the bargain. She had to climb down, as other ruling powers have had to climb down before now; and the act of climbing down is neither a becoming nor an exhilarating form of exercise to ruling powers. But at the back of her humble contrition there was a feeling of gladness in the knowledge that Christopher had not really failed her after all, and that her kingdom was still her own as it had been in her childish days; and there was also a nobler feeling of higher joy in the consciousness that—quite apart from his attitude toward her—Christopher was still the Christopher that she had always in her inmost soul believed him to be; that she was not wrong in the idea she had formed of him long ago. It is very human to be glad on our own account when people are as fond of us as we expected them to be; but it is divine to be glad, solely for their sakes, when they act up to their own ideals, quite apart from us. And there was a touch of divinity in Elisabeth's gladness just then, though the rest of her was extremely human—and feminine at that.

On her way home she encountered Caleb Bateson going back to work after dinner, and she told him to ask Mr. Thornley to come up to the Willows that afternoon, as she wanted to see him. She preferred to send a verbal message, as by so doing she postponed for a few hours that climbing-down process which she so much disliked; although it is frequently easier to climb down by means of one's pen than by means of one's tongue.

Christopher felt no pleasure in receiving her message. He was not angry with her, although he marvelled at the unreasonableness and injustice of a sex that thinks more of a day's pleasure than a life's devotion; he did not know that it was over the life's devotion and not the day's pleasure that Elisabeth had fought so hard that day; but his encounter with her had strangely tired him, and taken the zest out of his life, and he had no appetite for any more of such disastrous and inglorious warfare.

But he obeyed her mandate all the same, having learned the important political lesson that the fact of a Government's being in the wrong is no excuse for not obeying the orders of that Government; and he waited for her in the drawing-room at the Willows, looking out toward the sunset and wondering how hard upon him Elisabeth was going to be. And his thoughts were so full of her that he did not hear her come into the room until she clasped both her hands round his arm and looked up into his gloomy face, saying—

"Oh! Chris, I'm so dreadfully ashamed of myself."

The clouds were dispelled at once, and Christopher smiled as he had not smiled for a week. "Never mind," he said, patting the hands that were on his arm; "it's all right."

But Elisabeth, having set out upon the descent, was prepared to climb down handsomely. "It isn't all right; it's all wrong. I was simply fiendish to you, and I shall never forgive myself—never."

"Oh, yes; you will. And for goodness' sake don't worry over it. I'm glad you have found out that I wasn't quite the selfish brute that I seemed; and that's the end of the matter."

"Dear me! no; it isn't. It is only the beginning. I want to tell you how dreadfully sorry I am, and to ask you to forgive me."

"I've nothing to forgive."

"Yes, you have; lots." And Elisabeth was nearer the mark than Christopher.

"I haven't. Of course you were angry with me when I seemed so disagreeable and unkind; any girl would have been," replied Chris, forgetting how very unreasonable her anger had seemed only five minutes ago. But five minutes can make such a difference—sometimes.

Elisabeth cheerfully caught at this straw of comfort; she was always ready to take a lenient view of her own shortcomings. If Christopher had been wise he would not have encouraged such leniency; but who is wise and in love at the same time?

"Of course it did seem rather unkind of you," she admitted; "you see, I thought you had thrown me over just for the sake of some tiresome business arrangement, and that you didn't care about me and my disappointment a bit."

A little quiver crept into Christopher's voice. "I think you might have known me better than that."

"Yes, I might; in fact, I ought to have done," agreed Elisabeth with some truth. "But why didn't you tell me the real reason?"

"Because I thought it might worry and frighten you. Not that there really was anything to be frightened about," Christopher hastened to add; "but you might have imagined things, and been upset; you have such a tremendous imagination, you know."

"I'm afraid I have; and it sometimes imagines vain things at your expense, Chris dear."

"How did you find me out?" Chris asked.

"Alan told me about the cholera scare at Burlingham, and I guessed the rest."

"Then Alan was an ass. What business had he to go frightening you, I should like to know, with a lot of fiction that is just trumped up to sell the papers?"

"But, Chris, I want you to understand how sorry I am that I was so vile to you. I really was vile, wasn't I?" Elisabeth was the type of woman for whom the confessional will always have its fascinations.

"You were distinctly down on me, I must confess; but you needn't worry about that now."

"And you quite forgive me?"

"As I said before, I've nothing to forgive. You were perfectly right to be annoyed with a man who appeared to be so careless and inconsiderate; but I'm glad you've found out that I wasn't quite as selfish as you thought."

Elisabeth stroked his coat sleeve affectionately. "You are not selfish at all, Chris; you're simply the nicest, thoughtfullest, most unselfish person in the world; and I'm utterly wretched because I was so unkind to you."

"Don't be wretched, there's a dear! Your wretchedness is the one thing I can't and won't stand; so please leave off at once."

To Christopher remorse for wrong done would always be an agony; he had yet to learn that to some temperaments, whereof Elisabeth's was one, it partook of the nature of a luxury—the sort of luxury which tempts one to pay half a guinea to be allowed to swell up one's eyes and redden one's nose over imaginary woes in a London theatre.

"Did you mind very much when I was so cross?" Elisabeth asked thoughtfully.

Christopher was torn between a loyal wish to do homage to his idol and a laudable desire to save that idol pain. "Of course I minded pretty considerably; but why bother about that now?"

"Because it interests me immensely. I often think that your only fault is that you don't mind things enough; and so, naturally, I want to find out how great your minding capacity is."

"I see. Your powers of scientific research are indeed remarkable; but did it never strike you that even vivisection might be carried too far—too far for the comfort of the vivisected, I mean; not for the enjoyment of the vivisector?"

"It is awfully good for people to feel things," persisted Elisabeth.

"Is it? Well, I suppose it is good—in fact, necessary—for some poor beggars to have their arms or legs cut off; but you can't expect me to be consumed with envy of the same?"

"Please tell me how much you minded," Elisabeth coaxed.

"I can't tell you; and I wouldn't if I could. If I were a rabbit that had been cut into living pieces to satisfy the scientific yearnings of a learned professor, do you think I would leave behind me—for my executors to publish and make large fortunes thereby—confidential letters and private diaries accurately describing all the tortures I had endured, for the recreation of the reading public in general and the said professor in particular? Not I."

"I should. I should leave a full, true, and particular account of all that I had suffered, and exactly how much it hurt. It would interest the professor most tremendously."

Christopher shook his head. "Oh, dear! no; it wouldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because I should have knocked his brains out long before that for having dared to hurt you at all."



CHAPTER XI

MISS FARRINGDON'S WILL

Time speeds on his relentless track, And, though we beg on bended knees, No prophet's hand for us puts back The shadow ten degrees.

During the following winter Miss Farringdon gave unmistakable signs of that process known as "breaking-up." She had fought a good fight for many years, and the time was fast coming for her to lay down her arms and receive her reward. Elisabeth, with her usual light-heartedness, did not see the Shadow stealing nearer day by day; but Christopher was more accustomed to shadows than she was—his path had lain chiefly among them—and he knew what was coming, and longed passionately and in vain to shield Elisabeth from the inevitable. He had played the part of Providence to her in one matter: he had stood between her and himself, and had prevented her from drinking of that mingled cup of sweetness and bitterness which men call Love, thinking that she would be a happier woman if she left untasted the only form of the beverage which he was able to offer her. And possibly he was right; that she would be also a better woman in consequence, was quite another and more doubtful side of the question. But now the part of Elisabeth's Providence was no longer cast for Christopher to play; he might prevent Love with his sorrows from coming nigh her dwelling, but Death defied his protecting arm. It was good for Elisabeth to be afflicted, although Christopher would willingly have died to save her a moment's pain; and it is a blessed thing for us after all that Perfect Wisdom and Almighty Power are one.

As usual Elisabeth was so busy straining her eyes after the ideal that the real escaped her notice; and it was therefore a great shock to her when her Cousin Maria went to sleep one night in a land whose stones are of iron, and awoke next morning in a country whose pavements are of gold. For a time the girl was completely stunned by the blow; and during that period Christopher was very good to her. Afterward—when he and she had drifted far apart—Elisabeth sometimes recalled Christopher's sheltering care during the first dark days of her loneliness; and she never did so without remembering the words, "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem"; they seemed to express all that he was to her just then.

When Maria Farringdon's will was read, it was found that she had left to her cousin and adopted daughter, Elisabeth, an annuity of five hundred a year; also the income from the Osierfield and the Willows until such time as the real owner of these estates should be found. The rest of her property—together with the Osierfield and the Willows—she bequeathed upon trust for the eldest living son, if any, of her late cousin George Farringdon; and she appointed Richard Smallwood and his nephew to be her trustees and executors. The trustees were required to ascertain whether George Farringdon had left any son, and whether that son was still alive; but if, at the expiration of ten years from the death of the testator, no such son could be discovered, the whole of Miss Farringdon's estate was to become the absolute property of Elisabeth. As since the making of this will Richard had lost his faculties, the whole responsibility of finding the lost heir and of looking after the temporary heiress devolved upon Christopher's shoulders.

"And how is Mr. Bateson to-day?" asked Mrs. Hankey of Mr. Bateson's better-half, one Sunday morning not long after Miss Farringdon's death.

"Thank you, Mrs. Hankey, he is but middling, I'm sorry to say—very middling—very middling, indeed."

"That's a bad hearing. But I'm not surprised; I felt sure as something was wrong when I didn't see him in chapel this morning. I says to myself, when the first hymn was given out and him not there, 'Eh, dear!' I says, 'I'm afraid there's trouble in store for Mrs. Bateson.' It seemed so strange to see you all alone in the pew, that for a minute or two it quite gave me the creeps. What's amiss with him?"

"Rheumatism in the legs. He could hardly get out of bed this morning he was so stiff."

"Eh, dear! that's a bad thing—and particularly at his time of life. I lost a beautiful hen only yesterday from rheumatism in the legs; one of the best sitters I ever had. You remember her?—the speckled one that I got from Tetleigh, four years ago come Michaelmas. But that's the way in this world; the most missed are the first taken."

"I wonder if that's Miss Elisabeth there," said Mrs. Bateson, catching sight of a dark-robed figure in the distance. "I notice she's taken to go to church regular now Miss Farringdon isn't here to look after her. How true it is, 'When the cat's away the mice will play!'" Worship according to the methods of that branch of the Church Militant established in these kingdoms was regarded by Mrs. Bateson as a form of recreation—harmless, undoubtedly, but still recreation.

Mrs. Hankey shook her head. "No—that isn't her; she can't be out of church yet. They don't go in till eleven." And she shook her head disapprovingly.

"Eleven's too late, to my thinking," agreed Mrs. Bateson.

"So it is; you never spoke a truer word, Mrs. Bateson. Half-past ten is the Lord's time—or so it used to be when I was a girl."

"And a very good time too! Gives you the chance of getting home and seeing to the dinner properly after chapel. At least, that is to say, if the minister leaves off when he's finished, which is more than you can say of all of them; if he doesn't, there's a bit of a scrimmage to get the dinner cooked in time even now, unless you go out before the last hymn. And I never hold with that somehow; it seems like skimping the Lord's material, as you may say."

"So it does. It looks as if the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches had choked the good seed in a body's heart."

"In which case it looks what it is not," said Mrs. Bateson; "for nine times out of ten it means nothing worse than wanting to cook the potatoes, so as the master sha'n't have no cause for grumbling, and to boil the rice so as it sha'n't swell in the children's insides. But that's the way with things; folks never turn out to be as bad as you thought they were when you get to know their whys and their wherefores; and many a poor soul as is put down as worldly is really only anxious to make things pleasant for the master and the children."

"Miss Elisabeth's mourning is handsome, I don't deny," said Mrs. Hankey, reverting to a more interesting subject than false judgments in the abstract; "but she don't look well in it—those pale folks never do justice to good mourning, in my opinion. It seems almost a pity to waste it on them."

"Oh! I don't hold with you there. I think I never saw anybody look more genteel than Miss Elisabeth does now, bless her! And the jet trimming on her Sunday frock is something beautiful."

"Eh! there's nothing like a bit of jet for setting off crape and bringing the full meaning out of it, as you may say," replied Mrs. Hankey, in mollified tones. "I don't think as you can do full justice to crape till you put some jet again' it. It's wonderful how a bit of good mourning helps folks to bear their sorrows; and for sure they want it in a world so full of care as this."

"They do; there's no doubt about that. But I can't help wishing as Miss Elisabeth had got some bugles on that best dress of hers; there's nothing quite comes up to bugles, to my mind."

"There ain't; they give such a finish, as one may say, being so rich-looking. But for my part I think Miss Elisabeth has been a bit short with the crape, considering that Miss Farringdon was father and mother and what-not to her. Now supposing she'd had a crape mantle with handsome bugle fringe for Sundays; that's what I should have called paying proper respect to the departed; instead of a short jacket with ordinary braid on it, that you might wear for a great-uncle as hadn't left you a penny."

"Well, Mrs. Hankey, folks may do what they like with their own, and it's not for such as us to sit in judgment on our betters; but I don't think as Miss Farringdon's will gave her any claim to a crape mantle with a bugle fringe; I don't indeed."

"Well, to be sure, but you do speak strong on the subject!"

"And I feel strong, too," replied Mrs. Bateson, waxing more indignant. "There's dear Miss Elisabeth has been like an own daughter to Miss Farringdon ever since she was a baby, and yet Miss Farringdon leaves her fortune over Miss Elisabeth's head to some good-for-nothing young man that nobody knows for certain ever was born. I've no patience with such ways!"

"It does seem a bit hard on Miss Elisabeth, I must admit, her being Miss Farringdon's adopted child. But, as I've said before, there's nothing like a will for making a thorough to-do."

"It's having been engaged to Mr. George all them years ago that set her up to it. It's wonderful how folks often turn to their old lovers when it comes to will time."

Mrs. Hankey looked incredulous. "Well, that beats me, I'm fain to confess. I know if the Lord had seen fit to stop me from keeping company with Hankey, not a brass farthing would he ever have had from me. I'd sooner have left my savings to charity."

"Don't say that, Mrs. Hankey; it always seems so lonely to leave money to charity, as if you was nothing better than a foundling. But how did you enjoy the sermon this morning?"

"I thought that part about the punishment of the wicked was something beautiful. But, to tell you the truth, I've lost all pleasure in Mr. Sneyd's discourses since I heard as he wished to introduce the reading of the Commandments into East Lane Chapel. What's the good of fine preaching, if a minister's private life isn't up to his sermon, I should like to know?"

Mrs. Bateson, however, had broad views on some matters. "I don't see much harm in reading the Commandments," she said.

Mrs. Hankey looked shocked at her friend's laxity. "It is the thin end of the wedge, Mrs. Bateson, and you ought to know it. Mark my words, it's forms and ceremonies such as this that tempts our young folks away from the chapels to the churches, like Miss Elisabeth and Master Christopher there. They didn't read no Commandments in our chapel as long as Miss Farringdon was alive; I should have liked to see the minister as would have dared to suggest such a thing. She wouldn't stand Ritualism, poor Miss Farringdon wouldn't."

"Here we are at home," said Mrs. Bateson, stopping at her own door; "I must go in and see how the master's getting on."

"And I hope you'll find him better, Mrs. Bateson, I only hope so; but you never know how things are going to turn out when folks begin to sicken—especially at Mr. Bateson's age. And he hasn't been looking himself for a long time. I says to Hankey only a few weeks ago, 'Hankey,' says I, 'it seems to me as if the Lord was thinking on Mr. Bateson; I hope I may be mistaken, but that's how it appears to me.' And so it did."

On the afternoon of that very Sunday Christopher took Elisabeth for a walk in Badgering Woods. The winter was departing, and a faint pink flush on the bare trees heralded the coming of spring; and Elisabeth, being made of material which is warranted not to fret for long, began to feel that life was not altogether dark, and that it was just possible she might—at the end of many years—actually enjoy things again. Further, Christopher suited her perfectly—how perfectly she did not know as yet—and she spent much time with him just then.

Those of us who have ever guessed the acrostics in a weekly paper, have learned that sometimes we find a solution to one of the lights, and say, "This will do, if nothing better turns up before post-time on Monday"; and at other times we chance upon an answer which we know at once, without further research, to be indisputably the right one. It is so with other things than acrostics: there are friends whom we feel will do very well for us if nobody—or until somebody—better turns up; and there are others whom we know to be just the right people for the particular needs of our souls at that time. They are the right answers to the questions which have been perplexing us—the correct solutions to the problems over which we have been puzzling our brains. So it was with Elisabeth: Christopher was the correct answer to life's current acrostic; and as long as she was with Christopher she was content.

"Don't you get very tired of people who have never found the fourth dimension?" she asked him, as they sat upon a stile in Badgering Woods.

"What do you mean by the fourth dimension? There are length and breadth and thickness, and what comes next?"

Christopher was pleased to find Elisabeth facing life's abstract problems again; it proved that she was no longer overpowered by its concrete ones.

"I don't know what its name is," she replied, looking dreamily through the leafless trees; "perhaps eternity would do as well as any other. But I mean the dimension which comes after length and breadth and thickness, and beyond them, and all round them, and which makes them seem quite different, and much less important."

"I think I know what you are driving at. You mean a new way of looking at things and of measuring them—a way which makes things which ordinary people call small, large; and things which ordinary people call large, small."

"Yes. People who have never been in the fourth dimension bore me, do you know? I daresay it would bore squares to talk to straight lines, and cubes to talk to squares; there would be so many things the one would understand and the other wouldn't. The line wouldn't know what the square meant by the word across, and the square wouldn't know what the cube meant by the word above; and in the same way the three-dimension people don't know what we are talking about when we use such words as religion and art and love."

"They think we are talking about going regularly to church, and supporting picture-galleries, and making brilliant matches," suggested Christopher.

"Yes; that's exactly what they do think; and it makes talking to them so difficult, and so dull."

"When you use the word happiness they imagine you are referring to an income of four or five thousand a year; and by success they mean the permission to stand in the backwater of a fashionable London evening party, looking at the mighty and noble, and pretending afterward that they have spoken to the same."

"They don't speak our language or think our thoughts," Elisabeth said; "and the music of their whole lives is of a different order from that of the lives of the fourth-dimension people."

"Distinctly so; all the difference between a Sonata of Beethoven and a song out of a pantomime."

"I haven't much patience with the three-dimension people; have you?" asked Elisabeth.

"No—I'm afraid not; but I've a good deal of pity for them. They miss so much. I always fancy that people who call pictures pretty and music sweet must have a dreary time of it all round. But we'd better be getting on, don't you think? It is rather chilly sitting out-of-doors, and I don't want you to catch cold. You don't feel cold, do you?" And Christopher's face grew quite anxious.

"Not at all."

"You don't seem to me to have enough furbelows and things round your neck to keep you warm," continued he; "let me tie it up tighter, somehow."

And while he turned up the fur collar of her coat and hooked the highest hook and eye, Elisabeth thought how nice it was to be petted and taken care of; and as she walked homeward by Christopher's side, she felt like a good little girl again. Even reigning monarchs now and then like to have their ermine tucked round them, and to be patted on their crowns by a protecting hand.

As the weeks rolled on and the spring drew nearer, Elisabeth gradually took up the thread of human interest again. Fortunately for her she was very busy with plans for the benefit of the work-people at the Osierfield. She started a dispensary; she opened an institute; she inaugurated courses of lectures and entertainments for keeping the young men out of the public-houses in the evenings; she gave to the Wesleyan Conference a House of Rest—a sweet little house, looking over the fields toward the sunset—where tired ministers might come and live at ease for a time to regain health and strength; and in Sedgehill Church she put up a beautiful east window to the memory of Maria Farringdon, and for a sign-post to all such pilgrims as were in need of one, as the east window in St. Peter's had once been a sign-post to herself showing her the way to Zion.

In all these undertakings Christopher was her right hand; and while Elisabeth planned and paid for them, he carefully carried them out—the hardest part of the business, and the least effective one.

When Elisabeth had set afoot all these improvements for the benefit of her work-people, she turned her attention to the improving of herself; and she informed Christopher that she had decided to go up to London, and fulfil the desire of her heart by studying art at the Slade School.

"But you can not live by yourself in London," Christopher objected; "you are all right here, because you have the Tremaines and other people to look after you; but in town you would be terribly lonely; and, besides, I don't approve of girls living in London by themselves."

"I sha'n't be by myself. There is a house where some of the Slade pupils live together, and I shall go there for every term, and come down here for the vacation. It will be just like going back to school again. I shall adore it!"

Christopher did not like the idea at all. "Are you sure you will be comfortable, and that they will take proper care of you?"

"Of course they will. Grace Cobham will be there at the same time—an old schoolfellow to whom I used to be devoted at Fox How—and she and I will chum together. I haven't seen her for ages, as she has been scouring Europe with her family; but now she has settled down in England, and is going in for art."

Christopher still looked doubtful. "It would make me miserable to think that you weren't properly looked after and taken care of, Elisabeth."

"Well, I shall be. And if I'm not, I shall still have you to fall back upon."

"But you won't have me to fall back upon; that is just the point. If you would, I shouldn't worry about you so much; but it cuts me to the heart to leave you among strangers. Still, the Tremaines will be here, and I shall ask them to look after you; and I daresay they will do so all right, though not as efficiently as I should."

Elisabeth grew rather pale; that there would ever come a day when Christopher would not be there to fall back upon was a contingency which until now had never occurred to her. "Whatever are you talking about, Chris? Why sha'n't you be here when I go up to the Slade?"

"Because I am going to Australia."

"To Australia? What on earth for?" It seemed to Elisabeth as if the earth beneath her feet had suddenly decided to reverse its customary revolution, and to transpose its poles.

"To see if I can find George Farringdon's son, of course."

"I thought he had been advertised for in both English and Australian papers, and had failed to answer the advertisements."

"So he has."

"Then why bother any more about him?" suggested Elisabeth.

"Because I must. If advertisement fails, I must see what personal search will do."

Elisabeth's lip trembled; she felt that a hemisphere uninhabited by Christopher would be a very dreary hemisphere indeed. "Oh! Chris dear, you needn't go yourself," she coaxed; "I simply can not spare you, and that's the long and the short of it."

Christopher hardened his heart. He had seen the quiver of Elisabeth's lip, and it had almost proved too strong for him. "Hang it all! I must go; there is nothing else to be done."

Elisabeth's eyes filled with tears. "Please don't, Chris. It is horrid of you to want to go and leave me when I'm so lonely and haven't got anybody in the world but you!"

"I don't want to go, Betty; I hate the mere idea of going. I'd give a thousand pounds, if I could, to stop away. But I can't see that I have any alternative. Miss Farringdon left it to me, as her trustee, to find her heir and give up the property to him; and, as a man of honour, I don't see how I can leave any stone unturned until I have fulfilled the charge which she laid upon me."

"Oh! Chris, don't go. I can't spare you." And Elisabeth stretched out two pleading hands toward him.

Christopher turned away from her. "I say, Betty, please don't cry," and his voice shook; "it makes it so much harder for me; and it is hard enough as it is—confoundedly hard!"

"Then why do it?"

"Because I must."

"I don't see that; it is pure Quixotism."

"I wish to goodness I could think that; but I can't. It appears to me a question about which there could not be two opinions."

The tears dried on Elisabeth's lashes. The old feeling of being at war with Christopher, which had laid dormant for so long, now woke up again in her heart, and inclined her to defy rather than to plead. If he cared for duty more than for her, he did not care for her much, she said to herself; and she was far too proud a woman ever to care for a man—even in the way of friendship—who obviously did not care for her. Still, she condescended to further argument.

"If you really liked me and were my friend," she said, "not only wouldn't you wish to go away and leave me, but you would want me to have the money, instead of rushing all over the world in order to give it to some tiresome young man you'd never heard of six months ago."

"Don't you understand that it is just because I like you and am your friend, that I can't bear you to profit by anything which has a shade of dishonour connected with it? If I cared for you less I should be less particular."

"That's nonsense! But your conscience and your sense of honour always were bugbears, Christopher, and always will be. They bored me as a child, and they bore me now."

Christopher winced; the nightmare of his life had been the terror of boring Elisabeth, for he was wise enough to know that a woman may love a man with whom she is angry, but never one by whom she is bored.

"It is just like you," Elisabeth continued, tossing her head, "to be so busy saving your own soul and laying up for yourself a nice little nest-egg in heaven, that you haven't time to consider other people and their interests and feelings."

"I think you do me an injustice," replied Christopher quietly. He was puzzled to find Elisabeth so bitter against him on a mere question of money, as she was usually a most unworldly young person; again he did not understand that she was not really fighting over the matter at issue, but over the fact that he had put something before his friendship for her. Once she had quarrelled with him because he seemed to think more of his business than of her; now she was quarrelling with him because he thought more of his duty than of her; for the truth that he could not have loved her so much had he not loved honour more, had not as yet been revealed to Elisabeth.

"I don't want to be money-grubbing," she went on, "or to cling on to things to which I have no right; though, of course, it will be rather poor fun for me to have to give up all this," and she waved her hand in a sweep, supposed to include the Willows and the Osierfield and all that appertained thereto, "and to drudge along at the rate of five hundred a year, with yesterday's dinner and last year's dress warmed up again to feed and clothe me. But I ask you to consider whether the work-people at the Osierfield aren't happier under my regime, than under the rule of some good-for-nothing young man, who will probably spend all his income upon himself, and go to the dogs as his father did before him."

Christopher was cut to the quick; Elisabeth had hit the nail on the head. After all, it was not his own interests that he felt bound to sacrifice to the claims of honour, but hers; and it was this consideration that made him feel the sacrifice almost beyond his power. He knew that it was his duty to do everything he could to fulfil the conditions of Miss Farringdon's will; he also knew that he was compelled to do this at Elisabeth's expense and not at his own; and the twofold knowledge well-nigh broke his heart. His misery was augmented by his perception of how completely Elisabeth misunderstood him, and of how little of the truth all those years of silent devotion had conveyed to her mind; and his face was white with pain as he answered—

"There is no need for you to say such things as that to me, Elisabeth; you know as well as I do that I would give my life to save you from sorrow and to ensure your happiness; but I can not be guilty of a shabby trick even for this. Can't you see that the very fact that I care for you so much, makes it all the more impossible for me to do anything shady in your name?"

"Bosh!" rudely exclaimed Elisabeth.

"As for the work-people," he went on, ignoring her interruption, "of course no one will ever do as much for them as you are doing. But that isn't the question. The fact that one man would make a better use of money than another wouldn't justify me in robbing Peter to increase Paul's munificence. Now would it?"

"That's perfectly different. It is all right for you to go on advertising for that Farringdon man in agony columns, and I shouldn't be so silly as to make a fuss about giving up the money if he turned up. You know that well enough. But it does seem to me to be over-conscientious and hyper-disagreeable on your part to go off to Australia—just when I am so lonely and want you so much—in search of the man who is to turn me out of my kingdom and reign in my stead. I can't think how you can want to do such a thing!" Elisabeth was fighting desperately hard; the full power of her strong will was bent upon making Christopher do what she wished and stay with her in England; not only because she needed him, but because she felt that this was a Hastings or Waterloo between them, and that if she lost this battle, her ancient supremacy was gone forever.

"I don't want to go and do it, heaven knows! I hate and loathe doing anything which you don't wish me to do. But there is no question of wanting in the matter, as far as I can see. It is a simple question between right and wrong—between honour and dishonour—and so I really have no alternative."

"Then you have made up your mind to go out to Australia and turn up every stone in order to find this George Farringdon's son?"

"I don't see how I can help it."

"And you don't care what becomes of me?"

"More than I care for anything else in the world, Elisabeth. Need you ask?"

For one wild moment Christopher felt that he must tell Elisabeth how passionately he would woo her, should she lose her fortune; and how he would spend his life and his income in trying to make her happy, should George Farringdon's son be found and she cease to be one of the greatest heiresses in the Midlands. But he held himself back by the bitter knowledge of how cruelly appearances were against him. He had made up his mind to do the right thing at all costs; at least, he had not exactly made up his mind—he saw the straight path, and the possibility of taking any other never occurred to him. But if he succeeded in this hateful and (to a man of his type) inevitable quest, he would not only sacrifice Elisabeth's interests, he would also further his own by making it possible for him to ask her to marry him—a thing which he felt he could never do as long as she was one of the wealthiest women in Mershire, and he was only the manager of her works. Duty is never so difficult to certain men as when it wears the garb and carries with it the rewards of self-interest; others, on the contrary, find that a joint-stock company, composed of the Right and the Profitable, supplies its passengers with a most satisfactory permanent way whereby to travel through life. There is no doubt that these latter have by far the more comfortable journey; but whether they are equally contented when they have reached that journey's end, none of them have as yet returned to tell us.

"If somebody must go to Australia after that tiresome young man, why need it be you?" Elisabeth persisted. "Can't you send somebody else in your place?"

"I am afraid I couldn't trust anybody else to sift the matter as thoroughly as I should. I really must go, Betty. Please don't make it too hard for me."

"Do you mean you will still go, even though I beg you not?"

"I am afraid I must."

Elisabeth rose from her seat and drew herself up to her full height, as became a dethroned and offended queen. "Then that is the end of the matter as far as I am concerned, and it is a waste of time to discuss it further; but I must confess that there is nothing in the world I hate so much as a prig," she said, as she swept out of the room.

It was her final shot, and it told. She could hardly have selected one more admirably calculated to wound, and it went straight through Christopher's heart. It was now obvious that she did not love him, and never could have loved him, he assured himself, or she would not have misjudged him so cruelly, or said such hard things to him. He did not realize that an angry woman says not what she thinks, but what she thinks will most hurt the man with whom she is angry. He also did not realize—what man does?—how difficult it is for any woman to believe that a man can care for her and disagree with her at the same time, even though the disagreement be upon a purely impersonal question. Naturally, when the question happens to be personal, the strain on feminine faith is still greater—in the majority of cases too great to be borne.

Thus Christopher and Elisabeth came to the parting of the ways. She said to herself, "He doesn't love me because he won't do what I want, regardless of his own ideas of duty." And he said to himself, "If I fail to do what I consider is my duty, I am unworthy—or, rather, more unworthy than I am in any case—to love her." Thus they moved along parallel lines; and parallel lines never meet—except in infinity.



CHAPTER XII

"THE DAUGHTERS OF PHILIP"

In the market-place alone Stood the statue carved in stone, Watching children round her feet Playing marbles in the street: When she tried to join their play They in terror fled away.

Christopher went to Australia in search of George Farringdon's son, and Elisabeth stayed in England and cherished bitter thoughts in her heart concerning him. That imagination of hers—which was always prone to lead her astray—bore most terribly false witness against Christopher just then. It portrayed him as a hard, self-righteous man, ready to sacrifice the rest of mankind to the Moloch of what he considered to be his own particular duty and spiritual welfare, and utterly indifferent as to how severe was the suffering entailed on the victims of this sacrifice. And, as Christopher was not at hand to refute the charges of Elisabeth's libellous fancy by his own tender and unselfish personality, the accuser took advantage of his absence to blacken him more and more.

It was all in a piece with the rest of his character, she said to herself; he had always been cold and hard and self-contained. When his house had been left unto him desolate by the stroke which changed his uncle from a wise and kindly companion into a helpless and peevish child, she had longed to help and comfort him with her sympathy; and he had thrown it back in her face. He was too proud and too superior to care for human affection, she supposed; and now he felt no hesitation in first forsaking her, and then reducing her to poverty, if only by so doing he could set himself still more firmly on the pedestal of his own virtue. So did Elisabeth's imagination traduce Christopher; and Elisabeth listened and believed.

At first she was haunted by memories of how good he had been to her when her cousin Maria died, and many a time before; and she used to dream about him at night with so much of the old trust and affection that it took all the day to stamp out the fragrance of tenderness which her dreams had left behind. But after a time these dreams and memories grew fewer and less distinct, and she persuaded herself that Christopher had never been the true and devoted friend she had once imagined him to be, but that the kind and affectionate Chris of olden days had been merely a creature of her own invention. There was no one to plead his cause for him, as he was far away, and appearances were on the side of his accuser; so he was tried in the court of Elisabeth's merciless young judgment, and sentenced to life-long banishment from the circle of her interests and affections. She forgot how he had comforted her in the day of her adversity. If he had allowed her to comfort him, she would have remembered it forever; but he had not; and in this world men must be prepared to take the consequences of their own mistakes, even though those mistakes be made through excess of devotion to another person.

In certain cases it may be necessary to pluck out the right eye and cut off the right hand; but there is no foundation for supposing that the operation will be any the less painful because of the righteous motive inducing it. And so Christopher Thornley learned by bitter experience, when, after many days, he returned from a fruitless search for the missing heir, to find the countenance of Elisabeth utterly changed toward him. She was quite civil to him—quite polite; she never attempted to argue or quarrel with him as she had done in the old days, and she listened patiently to all the details of his doings in Australia; but with gracious coldness she quietly put him outside the orbit of her life, and showed him plainly that he was now nothing more to her than her trustee and the general manager of her works.

It was hard on Christopher—cruelly hard; yet he had no alternative but to accept the position which Elisabeth, in the blindness of her heart, assigned to him. Sometimes he felt the burden of his lot was almost more than he could bear; not because of its heaviness, as he was a brave man and a patient one, but because of the utter absence of any joy in his life. Men and women can endure much sorrow if they have much joy as well; it is when sorrow comes and there is no love to lighten it, that the Hand of God lies heavy upon them; and It lay heavy upon Christopher's soul just then. Sometimes, when he felt weary unto death of the dreary routine of work and the still drearier routine of his uncle's sick-room, he recalled with a bitter smile how Elisabeth used to say that the gloom and smoke of the furnaces was really a pillar of cloud to show how God was watching over the people at the Osierfield as He watched over them in the wilderness. Because she had forgotten to be gracious to him, he concluded that God had forgotten to be gracious to him also—a not uncommon error of human wisdom; but though his heart was wounded and his days darkened by her injustice toward him, he never blamed her, even in his inmost thoughts. He was absolutely loyal to Elisabeth.

One grim consolation he had—and that was the conviction that he had not won, and never could have won, Elisabeth's love; and that, therefore, poverty or riches were matters of no moment to him. Had he felt that temporal circumstances were the only bar between him and happiness, his position as her paid manager would have been unendurable; but now she had taught him that it was he himself, and not any difference in their respective social positions, which really stood between herself and him; and, that being so, nothing else had any power to hurt him. Wealth, unshared by Elisabeth, would have been no better than want, he said to himself; success, uncrowned by her, would have been equivalent to failure. When Christopher was in Australia he succeeded in tracing George Farringdon as far as Broken Hill, and there he found poor George's grave. He learned that George had left a widow and one son, who had left the place immediately after George's death; but no one could give him any further information as to what had subsequently become of these two. And he was obliged at last to abandon the search and return to England, without discovering what had happened to the widow and child.

Some years after his nephew's fruitless journey to Australia Richard Smallwood died; and though the old man had been nothing but a burden during the last few years of his life, Christopher missed him sorely when he was gone. It was something even to have a childish old man to love him, and smile at his coming; now there was nobody belonging to him, and he was utterly alone.

But the years which had proved so dark to Christopher had been full of brightness and interest to Elisabeth. She had fulfilled her intention of studying at the Slade School, and she had succeeded in her work beyond her wildest expectations. She was already recognised as an artist of no mean order. Now and then she came down to the Willows, bringing Grace Cobham with her; and the young women filled the house with company. Now and then they two went abroad together, and satisfied their souls with the beauty of the art of other lands. But principally they lived in London, for the passion to be near the centre of things had come upon Elisabeth; and when once that comes upon any one, London is the place in which to live. People wondered that Elisabeth did not marry, and blamed her behind her back for not making suitable hay while it was as yet summer with her. But the artist-woman never marries for the sake of being married—or rather for the sake of not being unmarried—as so many of her more ordinary sisters do; her art supplies her with that necessary interest in life, without which most women become either invalids or shrews, and—unless she happens to meet the right man—she can manage very well without him.

George Farringdon's son had never turned up, in spite of all the efforts to discover him; and by this time Elisabeth had settled down into the belief that the Willows and the Osierfield were permanently hers. She had long ago forgiven Christopher for setting her and her interests aside, and going off in search of the lost heir—at least she believed that she had; but there was always an undercurrent of bitterness in her thoughts of him, which proved that the wound he had then dealt her had left a scar.

Several men had wanted to marry Elisabeth, but they had not succeeded in winning her. She enjoyed flirting with them, and she rejoiced in their admiration, but when they offered her their love she was frightened and ran away. Consequently the world called her cold; and as the years rolled on and no one touched her heart, she began to believe that the world was right.