"Why should you suppose such a thing?" says Rylton. His face is dark and lowering. "Tita seems to me to be a person impossible to dislike."

"Ah, that is what I think," says Minnie. "And it made me the more surprised that Mrs. Bethune should look at her so unkindly. Well," smiling very naturally and pleasantly, "I suppose there is nothing in it. It was only my love for Tita that made me come and tell you what was troubling me."

"Why not tell Tita?"

"Ah, Tita is a little angel," says Minnie Hescott. "I might as well speak to the winds as to her. I tried to tell her, you know, and——"

"And——"

He looked up eagerly.

"And she wouldn't listen. I tell you she is an angel," says Minnie, laughing. She stops. "I suppose it is all nonsense—all my own folly; but I am so fond of Tita, that I felt terrified when I saw Mrs. Bethune look so unkindly at her on the balcony."

"You are sure you were not dreaming?" says Rylton, making an effort, and growing careless once again in his manner.

Minnie Hescott smiles too.

"I never dream," says she.



CHAPTER V.

HOW MISS GOWER GOES FOR A PLEASANT ROW UPON THE LAKE WITH HER NEPHEW; AND HOW SHE ADMIRES THE SKY AND THE WATER; AND HOW PRESENTLY FEAR FALLS ON HER; AND HOW DEATH THREATENS HER; AND HOW BY A MERE SCRATCH OF A PEN SHE REGAINS SHORE AND LIFE.



"How delicious the water looks to-day!" says Miss Gower, gazing at the still lake beneath her with a sentimental eye. The eye is under one of the biggest sun-hats in Christendom. "And the sky," continues Miss Gower, now casting the eye aloft, "is admirably arranged too. What a day for a row, and so late in the season, too!"

"'Late, late, so late!'" quotes her nephew, in a gloomy tone.

"Nonsense!" sharply; "it is not so very late, after all. And even if it were there would be no necessity for being so lugubrious over it. And permit me to add, Randal, that when you take a lady out for a row, it is in the very worst possible taste to be in low spirits."

"I can't help it," says Mr. Gower, with a groan.

"What's the matter with you?" demands his aunt.

"Ah, no matter—no matter!"

"In debt, as usual, I suppose?" grimly.

"Deeply!" with increasing gloom.

"And you expect me to help you, I suppose?"

"No. I expect nothing. I hope only for one thing," says Mr. Gower, fixing a haggard gaze upon her face.

"If it's a cheque from me," says his aunt sternly, "you will hope a long time."

"I don't think so," sadly.

"What do you mean, sir? Do you think I am a weathercock, to change with every wind? You have had your last cheque from me, Randal. Be sure of that. I shall no longer pander to your wicked ways, your terrible extravagances."

"I didn't mean that. I wished only to convey to you the thought that soon there would be no room for hope left to me."

"Well, there isn't now!" says Miss Gower cheerfully, "if you are alluding to me. Row on, Randal; there isn't anything like as good a view from this spot as there is from the lower end!"

"I like the middle of the lake," says Mr. Gower, in a sepulchral tone. As he speaks he draws in both oars, and leaning his arms upon them, looks straight across into her face. It is now neck or nothing, he tells himself, and decides at once it shall be neck. "Aunt," says he, in a low, soft, sad tone—a tone that reduces itself into a freezing whisper, "Are you prepared to die?"

"What!" says Miss Gower. She drops the ropes she has been holding and glares at him. "Collect yourself, boy!"

"I entreat you not to waste time over trivialities! I entreat you to answer me, and quickly."

Mr. Gower's voice is now apparently coming from his boots.

"Good gracious, Randal, what do you mean?" cries the spinster, turning very yellow. "Prepared to die! Why ask me such a question?"

"Because, dear aunt, your time has come!"

"Randal!" says Miss Gower, trying to rise, "pull me ashore. Do you hear me, sir? Pull me ashore at once. Cease your levity."

"Sit down," says her nephew sadly. "Pray sit down. It comes easier sitting than any other way, I have been told."

"What comes?" Miss Gower casts a wild glance round her. They are far from the shore, and, indeed, even if they had been nearer to it, no help could reach her, as there is not a soul to be seen, and from where they now are not a glimpse of the house is to be had. "Randal, would you murder me?" cries she.

"Oh, dear aunt, what a question!" says Mr. Gower with deep reproach. "No, far from that. Learn that I, too, am resolved to die!"

"Oh, heavens!" cries Miss Gower, clinging to the sides of the boat. "What brought me out to-day? And to think insanity should break out, in our family here, for the first time! Unhappy youth, bethink yourself! Would you have my death upon your soul?"

Here all at once it occurs to her that she has read somewhere of the power of the human eye. She has an eye, and it is human; she will use it! She leans forward and half closes her lids (presumably to concentrate the rays within), and casts upon Gower a glance that she herself would have designated "fell." The effect is, perhaps, a little destroyed by the fact that her big hat has fallen over her left ear, and that she has put on a diabolic grin—meant to be impressive—that gives all the gold with which the dentist has supplied her, to public view. Quite a little fortune in itself! She speaks.

"How dare you!" says she, in a voice meant to be thunder, but which trembles like a jelly. "Take me back at once to the house! What madness is this!"

She is frightened when she utters the word "madness." But the present madman does not seem to care about it.

"Not madness, aunt," says he, still with unutterable sadness in look and tone, "but sober, terrible truth! Life has ceased to have charms for me. I have therefore resolved to put an end to it!"

"But what of me, Randal!" cries the spinster in an agonized tone.

"I cannot bear to die alone, dear aunt. To leave you to mourn my memory! Such misery I am resolved to spare you. We—die together!"

"Randal—Randal, I say, you are out of your mind."

She has forgotten the power of the eye—everything.

"You are right, dear aunt, I am out of my mind," says Mr. Gower, with the utmost gentleness. "I am out of my mind with misery! I have, therefore, bored a hole in the bottom of this boat, through which I"—sweetly—"am glad to see the water is swiftly coming."

He points gently to where he has removed the plug, and where the water is certainly coming into the boat.

"It is rising, I think," says he softly and very pleasantly.

Miss Gower gives a wild scream.

"Help! help!" yells she. She waves her hands and arms towards the shore, but there is no one there to succour her. "Oh, Randal, the water is coming in—it's wetting my boots. It's getting on to my petticoats! Oh, my goodness! What shall I do?"

Here she picks up most of her garments; nay, all of them, indeed, and steps on to a loose bit of wood lying in the boat.

"Don't look! don't look!" screams she. There is a flicker of something scarlet—a second flicker of something that might be described as white tuckers of white embroidery.

"Look!" says Mr. Gower reproachfully. "What do you take me for? I'd die first. Ah!"—turning modestly aside—"how I have always been maligned!" He sighs. "I'm going to die now," says he. "Go on, aunt," in a melancholy tone. "There is little time to lose. Perfect your arrangements. The water is rising. I admire you. I do, indeed. There is a certain dignity in dying nicely, and without a sound."

"I won't die!" cries Miss Gower wildly. "I won't be dignified. Ho! there! Help! help!"

She is appealing to the shores on either side, but no help is forthcoming. She turns at last a pale glance on Randal.

"Randal!" cries she, "you say you are tired of life. But—I—I'm not!"

"This is folly," says Mr. Gower. "It is born of an hour, filled with a sudden fear. In a few moments you will be yourself again, and will know that you are glad of a chance of escaping from this hateful world that you have been for so many years reviling. Just think! Only yesterday I heard you abusing it, and now in a very few moments you will sink through the quiet waters to a rest this world has never known."

"You are wrong. It is not folly," says Miss Gower wildly. "I don't want to die. You do, you say. Die, then! But why sacrifice me? Oh, goodness gracious, Randal, the boat is sinking! I feel it. I know it is going down."

"So do I," says Gower, with an unearthly smile. "Pray, aunt, pray!"

"I shan't!" cries Miss Gower. "Oh, you wretched boy! Oh, Randal, what's the matter with the boat?"

"It's settling," says Mr. Gower tragically. "There is time for a last prayer, dear aunt."

Miss Gower gives a wild shriek.

"Forgive me, my beloved aunt," says Mr. Gower, with deep feeling. He is standing up now, and is doing something in the bottom of the boat. "Honour alone has driven me to this deed."

"Honour! Randal! Then it isn't madness. Oh, my dear boy, what is it? Oh," shrieking again to the irresponsive shore, "will no one save us?"

"You can!" says Mr. Gower. "At least you could. I fear now it is too late. I gave you a hint about that before, but you scorned my quotation. Therefore, thy death be on thy own head!"

"Oh, it can't be too late yet. You can swim, my dear good Randal. My dearest boy! I can help, you say. But how, Randal, is it—can it be that the debt you spoke of a while ago has driven you to this?"

"Ay, even to this!" says Mr. Gower in a frenzied tone.

"How much is it, dearest? Not very much, eh? Your poor old aunt, you know, is far from rich." As a fact, she hardly knows what to do with her money. "Oh, speak, my dear boy, speak!"

"It is only seven hundred pounds," says Mr. Gower in a voice full of depression. "But rather than ask you to pay it, aunt I would——" He bends downwards.

"Oh, don't!" screams Miss Gower. "For Heaven's sake don't make any more holes!"

"Why not?" says Randal. "We all can die but once!"

"But we can live for a long time yet."

"I can't," says he. "Honour calls me. Naught is left me but to die."

Here he stands up and begins to beat frantically upon the bottom of the boat, as if to make a fresh hole.

"Oh, darling boy, don't! Seven hundred pounds, is it? If that can save us, you shall have it, Randal, you shall indeed!"

"Is that the truth?" says Gower. He seats himself suddenly upon the seat opposite to her, and with a countenance not one whit the less draped in gloom, pulls from his pocket a cheque-book, a pen, and a tiny little ink case.

"I hardly know if there is yet time," says he, "but if you will sign this, I shall do my best to get back to a life that is apparently dear to you, though not"—mournfully—"to me."

Miss Gower takes the pen, plunges it into the ink, and writes her name. It is not until to-morrow that she remembers that the cheque was drawn out in every way, except for her signature.

"Ah, we may yet reach the shore alive!" says Mr. Gower, in a depressing tone, putting in the plug.

When they reach it, he gives his arm to his aunt, and, in the tenderest fashion, helps her along the short pathway that leads to the house.

In the hall quite a large number of people are assembled, and everyone runs toward them.

"Why, we thought you were lost," says Mrs. Chichester.

"Yes, so we were very nearly," says Mr. Gower, shaking his head and advancing into the hall with the languid airs of one who has just undergone a strange experience.

"But how—how?" They all crowd round him now.

"Poor aunt and I were nearly drowned," says Mr. Gower pathetically. He takes a step forward, and the water drips from his trousers. He looks back at Miss Gower. "Weren't we?" says he.

"But you are dripping!" cries Tita, "whilst Miss Gower seems quite dry. Dear Miss Gower," turning anxiously to that spinster, "I hope you are not wet."

"Ah! she was so nice, so nice," says Randal sweetly, "that she wouldn't let me do much for her. But if you will just look under her petticoats I am afraid you will——"

"Randal!" cries Miss Gower indignantly.

After this the spinster is hurried upstairs by many willing hands and is put to bed. Tita, on her way down from seeing her made comfortable, meets Randal redressed and dry and comfortable in the library.

"What does all this mean?" says she. "When you spoke this morning of taking Miss Gower out on the lake I—I did not suspect you of anything—but now——"

"Well, now, you shall hear the truth," says Gower. Whereupon he gives her a graphic account of the scene on the lake.

"I knew she'd take that fence," says he. "And I was right; there wasn't even a jib."

"I wonder you aren't ashamed of yourself," says Tita indignantly.

"Don't wonder any more. I am ashamed of myself. I'm so ashamed that I'm going at once to pay my debts."

"Oh, I like that!"

"Well, I am. I shall give my landlady five pounds out of her account."

"And the account?"

"I really think it must be about seventy or eighty by this time," says Mr. Gower thoughtfully. "However, it doesn't matter about that. She'll be awfully pleased to get the five pounds. One likes five pounds, you know, when one has lost all hope of ever getting it."

"Oh, go away!" says Tita. "You are a horrid boy!"



CHAPTER VI.

HOW ALL THE HOUSE PARTY AT OAKDEAN GROW FRIVOLOUS IN THE ABSENCE OF THE LORD AND MASTER; AND HOW MRS. BETHUNE ENCOURAGES A GAME OF HIDE-AND-SEEK; AND HOW, AFTER MANY ESCAPES, TITA IS CAUGHT AT LAST.



"She has gone to bed," says Tita, reappearing in the drawing-room just as the clock strikes nine on the following evening.

"Thank goodness!" says Mrs. Chichester, sotto voce, at which Captain Marryatt laughs.

"She is not very ill, I hope?" says Margaret.

"Oh no! A mere headache."

"Bile!" suggests Mr. Gower prettily.

Tita looks angrily at him.

"What a hideous word that is!" says Mrs. Bethune, with a sneer. "It ought to be expunged from every decent dictionary. Fortunately," with a rather insolent glance at Randal, who is so openly a friend of Tita's, "very few people use it—in civilized society."

"And I'm one of them," says the young man, with deep self-gratulation. "I like to be in a minority—so choice, you know; so distinguished! But what, really," turning to Tita, "is the matter with poor, dear old auntie?"

"A chill, I should think," returns Tita severely. Has he forgotten all about yesterday's escapade? "She seemed to me very wet when she got home last evening."

"She was soaking," says Mr. Gower. "She didn't show it much, because when the water was rising in that wretched old boat—really, you know, Maurice ought to put respectable boats on his lake—she pulled up her——"

"Randal!"

"Well, she did!" says Randal, unabashed. "Don't glare at me! I didn't pull up anything! I'd nothing to pull up, but she——" Here Mr. Gower gives way to wild mirth. "Oh, if you'd seen her!" says he—"such spindleshanks!"

At this Marryatt gets behind him, draws a silken chair-back over his face, thus mercifully putting an end to his spoken recollections.

"If I were you, Tita, I should order Randal off to bed," says Margaret, who, I regret to say, is laughing. "He has been up quite long enough for a child of his years."

"Well—but, really, what is the matter with Miss Gower?" asks somebody.

"Temper," puts in Mrs. Bethune, with a shrug.

She is leaning back in an easy-chair, feeling and looking distinctly vexed. Maurice is away. This morning he had started for town to meet his mother, and bring her back with him for a short stay at Oakdean. He had gone away directly after breakfast, telling them all he would be home by the evening if possible; but he feared the journey would be too long for his mother, and that probably she would spend the night in town. In the meantime, if anything in the shape of a murder or an elopement should occur, they might telegraph to Claridge's. He had then turned and smiled at Tita.

"I leave them all in your care," he had said.

Was there meaning in his smile—was it a little entreaty to her to be "good" during his absence?

"Well, she's in bed, any way," says Tita; "and the question is, what shall we do now?"

"Dance!" says someone.

But they have been dancing every evening, and there seems nothing very special about that.

"I tell you what," says Tita; "let us have hide-and-seek!"

"Oh, how lovely!" cries Mrs. Chichester, springing to her feet. "What a heavenly suggestion!"

"Yes; two to hunt, and all the rest to hide in couples," says Tom Hescott.

It has occurred to him that he would like to hunt with Tita, or else to hide with her; and it might be managed. Margaret, who happens to be looking at him, makes a slight movement forward.

"Perhaps we should disturb Miss Gower!" says she anxiously.

"Oh no!" says Mrs. Bethune quickly. "Her room is in the north wing. If we confine our game to this part of the house, she can never hear us."

"Still, it seems such a silly thing to do!" says Margaret nervously.

She distrusts Marian where Tita is concerned. Why should she advocate the game—she who is the embodiment of languor itself, to whom any sort of running about would mean discomfort?

"Dear Margaret," says Mrs. Bethune, in a low voice, but a distinct one—one quite loud enough for Colonel Neilson to hear, who is standing near Miss Knollys—"don't give way to it; don't let it conquer you—too soon!"

"It?—what?" asks Margaret unconsciously.

"Middle age!" sweetly, and softly always, but with a rapid glance at Neilson. She leans back and smiles, enjoying the quiet blush that, in spite of her, rises to Margaret's cheek. "I feel it coming," says she. "Even I feel it. But why encourage it? Why not let these children have their game, without a check from us who are so much older?"

"That is not the question," says Margaret coldly, who has now recovered herself. "My thought was that perhaps Maurice might not approve of this most harmless, if perhaps——"

"Frivolous performance. Of course, if you are going to manage Maurice and Maurice's wife," with a strange laugh, "there is no more to be said. But I wish you joy of the last task. And as for Maurice," with a curl of her lips, "he is not a prig."

"Well, neither am I, I hope," says Margaret, with perfect temper.

She turns away, Colonel Neilson, who is furious with Mrs. Bethune, following her. As for the latter, she looks after Margaret until she is out of sight, and for once, perhaps, is sorry for her rudeness. She likes Margaret, but she is out of heart to-night and irritable. The absence of Rylton, the coming of her aunt, all tend to disturb her. And Rylton had gone without a word, a look even!—he who always dwelt upon her words, had studied her looks; he had not given her one farewell sign. She had waited to see if he would give one to Tita; but he had not—at least, nothing in particular—nor had Tita run out to the hall to see him off. She had blown him a little kiss from behind the urn, which he had accepted calmly, and that was all!

"Come on," says Randal excitedly; "Miss Hescott and I will hunt the lot of you! But look here, you must all keep to the parts of the house agreed on. I am not going to have my beloved aunt descending upon me in a nightcap and a wrapper!"

"Well, you must give us three minutes," says Tita, "and you mustn't stir until you hear someone cry, 'Coo-ee!' You understand now, Minnie."

"I know! I'll keep him in hand," says Miss Hescott.

"And he mustn't peep," says Mrs. Chichester.

"Good gracious! what a mean thought!" says Mr. Gower, who is already laying plans in his own mind as to how he is to discomfit the hiders, and win laurels for himself as a searcher.

"Well, off we go!" cries Mrs. Chichester, flying out of the room, Captain Marryatt after her.

Hide-and-seek as a game leaves little to be desired. Even Margaret, who had said so much against it, enters into the spirit of it presently, and knows the throes of anguish when the hunter draws nigh her hiding-place, and the glow of joy when she has safely eluded him and flown to the den, without a clutch upon so much as the end of her garments. Indeed, all have given themselves up to the hour and its excitement, except only Marian Bethune, who, whilst entering into the game with apparently all the zest of the others, is ever listening—listening—— He had said he might come home to-night. And it is now close on eleven! In ten minutes, if at all, he will be here. If only she could so manage as to——

They are all now standing once more, laughing, talking, in the small drawing-room, preparatory to another start.

"Who'll hunt now?" asks Colonel Neilson, who has been far and away the best pursuer up to this.

"Why not Tita and Mr. Hescott?" says Marian suddenly, vivaciously. She seems to have lost all her indolence. "They have not been hunting once to-night."

"Yes; that is true," says Captain Marryatt.

"I hate hunting and I like hiding," says Tita. "Colonel Neilson, you and Margaret can be our pursuers this time. Come, Tom! come, all of you!"

Mrs. Bethune for a moment frowns, and then a quick light comes back to her eyes. Even better so—if Maurice should arrive. She had planned that they—those two, Tita and her cousin—should be together on his arrival, should he come; and now, now they will be hiding together in all probability! Oh for Maurice to come now—now!

She has evaded her own partner in the game, and, slipping away unobserved, is standing in one of the windows of the deserted library—a window that opens on the avenue—listening for the sound of horses' hoofs. In five minutes Maurice will be here, if he comes at all to-night, and as yet they have scarcely started on their game of hide-and-seek. She had heard Tita whisper to Mr. Hescott something about the picture-gallery—she had caught the word—a delightful place in semi-darkness, and with huge screens here and there. Oh, if only Tita could be found hiding behind one with Mr. Hescott!

She presses her hot cheek against the pane of the open window, and as she does so she starts. She leans out into the night, and yes—yes, beyond doubt, here is the carriage!

It is rounding the bushes at the corner, and is already in sight. She springs lightly into the hall—now deserted, as all the house party have gone up the stairs to the happy hunting grounds above. All, that is, except Margaret and Colonel Neilson, who are waiting for the "Coo-ee."

Mrs. Bethune had forgotten them, and running lightly through the hall, she opens the door, and steps into the moonlight just as Sir Maurice comes up the steps.

"You!" says he, surprised.

"Yes. I heard you coming." There is a sort of wild delight in her voice. She would have liked to have flung herself into his arms, but the men outside are busy with his portmanteau and other things; and then—his mother——

"Your mother?" asks she, peering into the darkness.

"She has not come. I had a telegram from her at Claridge's. She can't come till next week, so I came back." He pauses, and then, abruptly, "Where is Tita?"

"Tita?" Mrs. Bethune shrugs her shoulders, and a little low laugh escapes her. "She is playing hide-and-seek," says she, "with—her cousin."

"What are you saying?" exclaims Rylton, her manner far more than her words striking cold to his heart. "Do you mean to insinuate——"

"Why, nothing. I insinuate nothing; we have all been playing——"

"All?"

"Yes."

"You and——"

"And everyone else."

"Was there nothing better, then, for you all to do?"

"Many things," coldly. "But your wife started the game. She had doubtless her reasons——"

"Is that another insinuation? But at all events you cannot condemn the game, as you joined in it."

"I could not avoid joining in it. Was I to be the one to censure my hostess?"

"Certainly not," sternly. "No one is censuring her. And besides, as you all——" Then, as though the words are torn from him, "Where is she now?"

"In the picture-gallery, behind one of your favourite screens, with Mr. Hescott."

"A graphic description," says he. He almost thrusts her aside, and steps quickly into the hall. Mrs. Bethune, leaning against the wall behind her, breaks into silent, terrible laughter.

At the foot of the stairs Margaret comes quickly to him. His face frightens her.

"Where are you going, Maurice?"

"Upstairs," returns he quite calmly.

"You are going to be angry with Tita," says Margaret suddenly. "I know it! And nothing is true. Nothing! What has Marian been saying to you? She"—with the very strangest little burst of passion, from Margaret, the quiet Margaret!—"she has been telling you lies!"

"My dear Margaret!"

"Oh, Maurice, do be led by me!—by anyone but her!" says Miss Knollys, holding him, as he would have gone on. "Why can't you see? Are you blind?"

"I really think I must be," returns he with a peculiar smile. "It is only just now I am beginning to open my eyes. My dear, good Margaret!" He lifts her hand from his sleeve and pats it softly. "You are too good for this world. It is you who are blind, really. It will take longer to open your eyes than even mine." He runs lightly past her up the stairs.

Margaret gives a little cry of despair. Colonel Neilson, catching her hand, draws her into a room on the left. The expected "Coo-ee" has been called twice already, but neither Margaret nor Neilson have heard it.

"Marian has done this," says Margaret, in great distress. He has her hand still in his, and now, half unconsciously, she tightens her fingers over his.

"That woman is a perfect devil!" says the Colonel savagely. "She is playing Old Harry with the rgime here."

"I can't think what she means to be the end of it," says Margaret. "She can't marry him herself, and——"

"She might, you know, if—if—she could manage to prove certain things."

"Oh no! I won't believe she is as bad as that," says Margaret with horror. "She has her good points. She has, really, though you will never believe me."

"Never!" says the Colonel stoutly. "The way she behaved to you this evening——"

"To me?" Margaret flushes quickly. The flush makes her charming. She knows quite well to what he is alluding, and she likes him for being indignant with Marian because of it—and yet, if only he hadn't alluded to it! It isn't nice to be called middle-aged—though when one is only thirty, one ought to be able to laugh at it—but when one is thirty and unmarried, somehow one never laughs at it.

"To you. Do you think I should have cared much if she had been beastly to anyone else? I tell you, Margaret, I could hardly restrain myself! I had only one great desire at the moment—that she had been a man."

"Ah! But if she had been a man, she wouldn't have said it," says Margaret. There is a little moisture in her eyes.

"No, by Jove! of course not. I'll do my own sex that credit."

"And after all," says Margaret, "why be so angry with her? There was nothing but truth in what she said."

There is something almost pathetic in the way she says this; she does not know it, perhaps, but she is plainly longing for a denial to her own statement.

"I really think you ought to be above this sort of thing," says the Colonel, with such indignation that she is at once comforted; all the effusive words of flattery he could have used could not have been half so satisfactory as this rather rude speech.

"Well, never mind me," says she; "let us think of my dear little girl. My poor Tita! I fear—I fear——" She falters, and breaks down. "I am powerless. I can do nothing to help her; you saw how I failed with him just now. Oh, what shall I do?"

She covers her face with her hands, and tears fall through her fingers.

Neilson, as if distracted by this sad sight, lays his arm gently round her shoulder, and draws her to him.

"Margaret, my darling girl, don't cry about it, whatever you do," entreats he frantically. "Margaret, don't break my heart!"

Miss Knollys' tears cease as suddenly as though an electric battery has been directed at her.

"Nonsense! Don't be foolish! And at my age too!" says she indignantly.

She pushes him from her.



CHAPTER VII.

HOW TITA IS "CAUGHT," BUT BY ONE WHOM SHE DID NOT EXPECT; AND HOW SHE PLAYED WITH FIRE FOR A LITTLE BIT; AND HOW FINALLY SHE RAN AWAY.



Rylton, striding upstairs, makes straight for the picture-gallery. It strikes him as he passes along the corridor that leads to it that a most unearthly silence reigns elsewhere, and yet a sort of silence that with difficulty holds back the sound behind it. A strange feeling that every dark corner contains some hidden thing that could at a second's notice spring out upon him oppresses him, and, indeed, such a feeling is not altogether without justification. Many eyes look out at him at these corners as he goes by, and once the deadly silence is broken by a titter, evidently forcibly suppressed! Rylton takes no notice, however. His wrath is still so warm that he thinks of nothing but the picture-gallery, and that screen at the end of it—where she, his wife, is——

Now, there is a screen just inside the entrance to this gallery, and behind it are Minnie Hescott and Mr. Gower. Randal's eyes are sharp, but Minnie's even sharper. They both note, not only Maurice's abrupt entrance, but the expression on his face.

"Do something—quickly," says Minnie, giving Randal a little energetic push that all but overturns the screen.

"Anything! To half my kingdom; but what?" demands Mr. Gower, in a whisper very low, as befits the occasion.

"Tita is down there with Tom," says Miss Hescott, pointing to the far end of the long, dimly-lit gallery. "Do you want to see murder done?"

"Not much," says Gower. "But—how am I to prevent it?"

"Don't you know what you must do?" says she energetically. "Those idiots downstairs have forsaken us. Run up the room as quick as you can—past Sir Maurice—and pretend you are the one who is hunting. I'll go for Tom. If we make a regular bustle, Sir Maurice won't think so much about our little game as he does now. Did you see his face?"

"I saw fireworks," says Mr. Gower. Then, "I'm off," says he.

He slips out from behind the screen, and galloping up the room comes to the screen very nearly as soon as Rylton. Not soon enough, however. Rylton has turned the corner of it, and found Tita with Tom Hescott crouching behind it, whispering together, and evidently enjoying themselves immensely.

As she sees him, Tita gives a little cry. She had plainly taken him for one of the hunters, and had hoped he would pass by.

"Oh, you!" cries she. "You! Go away. Go at once! They'll find us if——"

She waves him frantically from her. He is too angry to see that there is not a vestige of embarrassment in her air.

Here Gower comes up panting.

"Caught!" cries he, making a pounce of Tita.

"Not a bit of it!" says she, springing away from him to the other side of the screen. "And you, Randal, you are not hunting. Where's Colonel Neilson? Where's Margaret?"

"They changed," says Mr. Gower mendaciously. "Miss Hescott and I are upon the track; we are the bloodhounds—we," making another grab at her soft gown, "have got you!"

"No, you haven't," says Tita, whereupon there ensues a very animated chase round and round the screen, Tita at last finding shelter—of all places—behind her husband—behind Maurice, whose face it is quite as well she cannot see.

He makes a movement as if to go, but she catches him, and unless he were to use violence he could hardly get away.

"There now!" says she, addressing Rylton indignantly. "See how you've given us away. You've told him where we were. Don't stir. You mustn't. If you do he'll catch me."

She laughs defiantly at Gower as she says this. Gower could have laughed too. There could, indeed, be hardly anything stranger than the scene as it stands—comedy and tragedy combined. The husband cold, impassive, stern, and over his shoulder the charming face of his little wife peeping—all mirth and fun and gaiety.

"You must stay," says she, giving Sir Maurice a little shake. "Why, you've betrayed our hiding-place. You've shown him where we were. It isn't fair, Randal—it isn't indeed——"

"You are caught, any way," says Gower, who would willingly bring the scene to a close.

He can see Maurice's face, she cannot. As for Tom Hescott, his sister has chased him out of the gallery long before this, with a promptitude that does her credit.

"Caught! Not I," says Tita. "Caught, indeed!"

"Certainly you're caught," says Gower, making frantic little dabs at her; but she dances away from him, letting her husband go, and rushing once more behind the unfriendly screen that has done her so bad a turn.

"Certainly I'm not," retorts she, nodding her saucy head at him. Slowly and artfully, as she speaks, she moves towards the farther end of the screen, always keeping an eye on her adversary over the top of it until she comes to the far end, when, darting like a little swallow round the corner, she flies down the long, dark gallery. Once only she turns. "Now am I caught?" cries she, laughing defiance at Gower.

"Call that fair, if you like!" says he, in high disgust.

But she is gone.



* * * * *



The house is quiet again. Gower and Marryatt are still lingering in the smoking-room, but for the rest, they have bidden each other "Good-night" and gone to their rooms.

Tita is sitting before her glass having her hair brushed, when a somewhat loud knock comes to her door. The maid opens it, and Sir Maurice walks in.

"You can go," says he to Sarah, who courtesies and withdraws.

"Oh! it is you," says Tita, springing up.

Her hair has just been brushed for the night, and round her forehead some cloudy ringlets are lying. She had thrown on her dressing-gown—a charming creation of white cashmere, almost covered with lace—without a thought of fastening it, and her young and lovely neck shows through the opening of the laces whiter than its surroundings. Her petticoat—all white lace, too, and caught here and there with tiny knots of pale pink ribbons—is naturally shorter than her gown would be, and shows the dainty little feet beneath them.

"When youth and beauty meet together, There's worke for breath."

And surely here are youth and beauty met together! Rylton, seeing the sweet combination, draws a long breath.

She advances towards him in the friendliest way, as if delighted.

"I haven't had a word with you," says she. "Hardly one. You just told me your mother had not come, and"—she stops, and breaks into a gay little laugh—"you must forgive me, but what I said to myself was, 'Thank goodness!' " She covers her eyes with widened fingers, and peeps at him through them. "What I said to you out loud was, 'Oh, I am sorry!' Do you remember? Now, am I not a hypocrite?"

At this she takes down her hands from her eyes, and holds them out to him in the prettiest way.

He pushes them savagely from him.

"You are!" says he hoarsely; "and one of the very worst of your kind!"



CHAPTER VIII.

HOW TITA, HAVING BEEN REPULSED, GROWS ANGRY; AND HOW A VERY PRETTY BATTLE IS FOUGHT OUT; AND HOW TITA GAINS A PRESENT; AND HOW SIR MAURICE LOSES HIS TEMPER.



Her hands drop to her sides. She grows suddenly a little pale. Her eyes widen.

"What is it? What have I done now?" asks she.

The "now" has something pathetic in it.

"Done! done!" He is trying to keep down the fury that is possessing him. He had come to speak to her with a fixed determination in his heart not to lose his temper, not to let her have that advantage over him. He would be calm, judicial, but now—— What is the matter with him now? Seeing her there, so lovely and so sweet, so full of all graciousness—a very flower of beauty—a little thing—

"Light as the foam that flecks the seas, Fitful as summer's sunset breeze"—

somehow a very rage of anger conquers him, and he feels as if he would like to take her and compel her to his will. "You have done one thing, at all events," says he. "You have forfeited my trust in you for ever."

"I have?"

"Yes, you! When I left home this morning, what was the last word I said to you? I must have been a fool indeed when I said it. I told you I left our house and our guests in your charge."

"Well?"

"Well?" He checks himself forcibly. Even now, when passion is gathering, he holds himself back. "When I came back what did I see?"

"Our house—not in flames, I hope; and our guests—enjoying themselves!" Tita has lifted her head. She allows herself a little smile. Then she turns upon him. "Ah, I told you!" says she. "You want always to find fault with me."

"I want nothing but that my wife should show some sort of dignity."

"I see! You should have asked Mrs. Bethune to see after your house—your guests!" says Tita.

She says it very lightly. Her small face has a faint smile upon it. She moves to a large lounging chair, and flings herself into it with charming abandon, crosses her lovely naked arms behind her head, and looks up at him with naughty defiance.

"Perhaps you hardly know, Tita, what you are saying," says Rylton slowly.

"Yes, I do. I do indeed. What I do not know is, what fault you have to find with me."

"Then learn it at once." His tone is stern. "I object to your playing hide-and-seek with your cousin."

"With my cousin! One would think," says Tita, getting up from her chair and staring at him as if astonished, "that Tom and I had been playing it by ourselves!"

"It seemed to me very much like that," says Rylton, his eyes white and cold.

"I know what you mean," says Tita. "And," with open contempt, "I'm sorry for you—you think Tom is in love with me! And you therefore refuse to let me have a single word with him at any time. And why? What does it matter to you, when you don't care? When you are not in love with me!" Rylton makes a slight movement. "It's a regular dog in the manger business; you don't like me, and therefore nobody else must like me. That's what it comes to! And," with a little blaze of wrath, "it is all so absurd, too! If I can't speak to my own cousin, I can't speak to anyone."

"I don't object to your speaking to your cousin," says Rylton; "you can speak to him as much as ever you like. What I object to is your making yourself particular with him—your spending whole hours with him."

"Hours! We weren't five seconds behind that screen."

"I am not thinking of the screen now; I am thinking of yesterday morning, when you went out riding with him."

"What! you have not forgotten that yet?" exclaims she, with high scorn. "Why, I thought you had forgiven, and put all that behind you."

"I have not forgotten it. I might have considered it wiser to say nothing more about it, had not your conduct of this evening——"

"Nonsense!" She interrupts him with a saucy little shrug of her shoulders. "And as for hours—it wasn't hours, any way."

"You went out with him at eight o'clock——"

"Who told you that?"

"Your maid."

"You asked Sarah?"

"Certainly I did. I had to do something before I asked my guests to sit down to breakfast without their hostess!"

"Well, I don't care who you asked," says Tita mutinously.

"You went out at eight, and you came home late for breakfast at half-past ten."

"I explained all that to you," says Tita, flinging out her hands. "Tom and I went for a race, and of course I didn't think it would take so long, and——"

"I don't suppose," coldly, "you thought at all."

"Certainly I never thought I was going to get a scolding on my return!"

"A scolding! I shouldn't dream of scolding so advanced a person as you," says Rylton—who is scolding with all his might.

"I wonder what you think you are doing now?" says Tita. She pauses and looks at him critically. He returns her gaze. His cold eyes so full of condemnation, his compressed lips that speak of anger hardly kept back, all make a picture that impresses itself upon her mind. Not, alas! in any salutary way. "Well," says she at last, with much deliberation and open, childish vindictiveness, "if you only knew how ugly you are when you look like that, you would never do it again!" She nods her head. "There!" says she.

It is so unexpected, so utterly undignified, that it takes all the dignity out of Rylton on the spot. It suddenly occurs to him that it is no good to be angry with her. What is she? A mere naughty child—or——

"You do not know who you are like!" continues she.

Rylton shakes his head; he is afraid to speak—a sudden wild desire to laugh is oppressing him.

"You are the image of Uncle George," says she, with such wicked spite that a smile parts his lips.

"Oh! you can laugh if you like," says she, "but you are, for all that. You're worse than him," her anger growing because of that smile. "I never——"

"Never what?"

"I never met such a cross cat in my life!" says Lady Rylton, turning her back on him.

"It's well to be unique in one's own line," says he grimly.

A short laugh breaks from him. How absurd she is! A regular little spitfire; yet what a pretty one. His heart is full of sadness, yet he cannot keep back that laugh. He hardly knows how he has so much mirth left in him, but the laugh sounds through the room and drives Tita to frenzy.

"Oh, you can laugh!" cries she, turning upon him. "You can laugh when—when——" She makes a frantic little gesture that flings open the loose gown she wears, and shows once again her charming neck; words seem to fail her. "Oh! I should like to shake you," says she at last.

"Would you?" said Rylton. His laughter has come to an end. "And you. What do you think I should like to do with you?"

He looks at her.

"Oh! I know. It is not difficult to answer," with a contemptuous glance from under the long, soft lashes, beneath which his glance sinks into insignificance. "You would like to give me away!"

There is a pause.

It is on Rylton's tongue to say she has given herself away very considerably of late, but he abstains from saying so—with difficulty, however!

"No, I should not," says Rylton gravely.

"No? Is that the truth?" She bites her lips. "After all," with angry tearfulness, "I dare say it is. I believe you would rather keep me here for ever—just to be able to worry the life out of me day by day."

"You have a high opinion of me!"

Rylton is white now with rage.

"You are wrong there; I have the worst opinion of you; I think you a tyrant—a perfect Nero!"

Suddenly she lifts her pretty hands and covers her face with them. She bursts into tears.

"And you promised you would never be unkind to me!" sobs she.

"Unkind! Good heavens!" says Rylton, distractedly. Who is unkind? Is it he or she? Who is in fault?

"At all events you pretended to be fond of me."

"I never pretend anything," says Rylton, whose soul seems torn in twain.

"You did," cries Tita wildly. "You did." She brushes her tears aside, and looks up at him—her small, delicate face flushed—her eyes on fire! "You promised you would be kind to me."

"I promised nothing," in a dull sort of way. He feels crushed, unable to move. "It was you who arranged everything; I was to go my way, and you yours."

"It was liberal, at all events."

"And useless!" There is a prophetic note in his voice. "As you would have gone your way, whether or no."

"And you, yours!"

"I don't know about that. But your way—where does that lead? Now, look here, Tita,"—he takes a step towards her—"you are bent on following that way. But mark my words, bad will come of it."

"Nothing bad will come of my way!" says Tita distinctly.

Her eyes are fixed on his. For a full minute they regard each other silently. How much does she know? Rylton's very soul seems harassed with this question. That old story! A shock runs through him as he says those last words to himself. Is it old? That story? Marian! What is she to him now?

"As for Tom," says Tita suddenly, "I tell you distinctly I shall not give him up."

"Give him up!" The phrase grates upon his ear. "What do you mean?" demands he, his anger all aflame again.

"That I shall not insult him, or be cold to him, to please you or anybody."

"Is that your decision? Then I think it will be wise of your cousin to shorten his visit."

"Do you mean by that that you are going to be uncivil to him?"

"Yes!" shortly, and with decision.

"You will be cold to him? To Tom? To my own cousin? Maurice, Maurice! Think what you are doing!"

She has come close up to him. Her charming face is uplifted to his.

"Think what you are doing," returns he hoarsely. He catches her hands. "If you will swear to me that he is nothing to you—nothing——"

"He is my cousin," says Tita, who hardly understands.

"Oh!" He almost flings her from him. "There—let it be as you will," says he bitterly. "It is you cousin—your house."

Tita grows very pale.

"That is ungenerous," says she.

"I have all the faults, naturally." He goes towards the door, and then suddenly comes back and flings something upon the table before her. "You once told me you were fond of rings," says he.

The case has flown open, because of his passionate throwing of it, and an exquisite diamond and pearl ring lies displayed. Tita springs to her feet.

"Oh, wait! Don't go! Oh, do stop!" cries she, in great distress. "Fancy your thinking of me when you were in town! And what a lovely, lovely ring! Oh! Maurice—I'm sorry. I am indeed!"

She holds out her hands to him. Rylton, still standing on the threshold of the door, looks back at her.

Is it an apology? An admission that she has been wrong in her dealings with her cousin? An open declaration that this night's undignified proceedings are really being repented of?

He comes slowly back to her.

"If you are sorry——" begins he.

"Oh, I am indeed. And you must let me kiss you for this darling ring. I know you hate me to kiss you—but," she flings her arms round him, "I really must do it now."

Instinctively his arms close round her. With a thoroughly astonished air, however, she wriggles herself free, and draws back from him.

"You have done your part beautifully," says she, with a little soft grimace. "You bore up wonderfully. I'll let you off next time as a consideration."

"I don't want to be let off," says Rylton.

"There, that will do," lifting her hand. "And I am sorry—remember that."

"If you are," says he, "you will promise me—not to——"

He has grown quite serious again. He hardly knows how to put it into words, and therefore hesitates; but if only she will cease from her encouragement of her cousin——

"Oh no—never. I shall never do it again," says she earnestly. "It was so—so—dreadful of me——"

"If you see it now, I wonder you didn't see it then," says Rylton, a little stiffly; this sudden conversion brings all the past back to him.

"Well, but I didn't see it then—I always talk too fast."

She hangs her pretty head.

"I don't remember what you said," says Rylton, a little at fault. "But—if you are honestly determined, Tita, to be—er—a little more circumspect in that direction in future——"

"I am—I am indeed!" cries Tita. "I'm sure I can't think how I ever said it to you! It was so rude—so horrid——"

"Said? What?" demands Rylton, with quick suspicion.

"Well, you know I did call you a cross cat!" says his wife, with a little slide glance at him, and a tremulous smile, and withal such lovely penitence, that if he had not been led astray by another thought, he would have granted her absolution for all her sins, here and hereafter, on the spot.

As it is, his wrath grows once more hot within him; so she is not sorry after all.

"Pshaw!" says he.

"Oh, and I called you ugly, too!" cries Tita. "Oh, how could I? But you will forgive me, won't you?" She runs after him, and lays her hand upon his arm. "You do forgive me, don't you?"

"No!" says he violently.

He almost flings her from him.

"Hypocrite!" he says to himself, as he fastens the door of his own room.

A baby's face, and the heart of a liar! She had played with him; she had fooled him; she had, at all events, refused to say she regretted her conduct with her cousin.

He goes down to the garden, feeling it impossible to sleep just now, and, coming back two hours later, finds the ring he had given her lying on his dressing-table. There is no note with it—not even a single line.



CHAPTER IX.

HOW MRS. BETHUNE IS BROUGHT BEFORE THE BAR; AND HOW SHE GIVES HER EVIDENCE AGAINST TITA; AND HOW MAURICE'S MOTHER DESIRES AN INTERVIEW WITH MAURICE'S WIFE.



"And now for the news," says the elder Lady Rylton, next morning, leaning back in her chair; she objects to the word "Dowager."

Contrary to all expectations, she had arrived to-day at half-past eight, and is now, at one o'clock, sitting in her room with Mrs. Bethune before her. She had seen Tita, of course; but only for a moment or so, as she had been in a hurry to get to her bedroom and her maid, and have the ravages that travel had laid upon her old-young face obliterated. She had, indeed, been furious (secretly) with Tita for having come out of her room to bid her welcome—such bad taste, obtruding one's self upon a person in the early hours of the morning, when one has only just left a train. But what can one expect from a plebeian!

"News?" says Marian, lifting her brows.

"Well," testily, "I suppose there is some! How is the mnage going on? How is it being managed, eh? You have a tongue, my dear—speak! I suppose you can tell me something!"

"Something! Yes."

"What does that mean?"

"A great deal," says Mrs. Bethune.

"Then you can tell me a great deal. Begin—begin!" says Lady Rylton, waving her hand in her airiest style. "I guessed as much! I always hated that girl! Well—and so—— Do go on!"

"I hardly know what you expect me to say," says Mrs. Bethune coldly, and with a hatred very badly suppressed.

"You know perfectly well," says her aunt. "I wish to know how Maurice and his wife are getting on."

"How can I answer that?" says Marian, turning upon her like one brought to bay.

It is too bitter to her, this cross-examination; it savours of a servitude that she must either endure or—starve!

"It is quite simple," says Lady Rylton. She looks at Marian with a certain delight in her eyes—the delight that tyrants know. She has this creature at her heels, and she will drag her to her death. "I am waiting," says she. "My good girl, why don't you answer? What of Maurice and his wife?"

"They are not on good terms, I think," says Mrs. Bethune sullenly.

"No? And whose fault is that?" Lady Rylton catches the tip of Marian's gown, and draws her to her. When she has made her turn, so that she can study and gloat over the rapid changes of her face, she says, "Yours?" in a light, questioning way.

She smiles as she asks her question—a hateful smile. There is something in it almost devilish—a compelling of the woman before her to remember days that should be dead, and a secret that should have been hers alone.

"Not mine, certainly," says Marian, clearing her throat as though it is a little dry, but otherwise defying the scrutiny of the other.

"And yet you say they are not on good terms!" Lady Rylton pauses as if thinking, and then goes on. "No wonder, too," says she, with a shrug. "Two people with two such tempers!"

"Has Tita a temper?" asks Marian indifferently.

Lady Rylton regards her curiously.

"Have you not found that out yet?" asks she.

"No," coldly.

"It argues badly for you," says her aunt, with a small, malicious smile. "She has shown you none of it, then?"

"None," distinctly.

"My dear Marian, I am afraid Maurice is proving false," says Lady Rylton, leaning back in her chair, and giving way to soft, delicate mirth—the mirth that suits her Dresden china sort of beauty. "Evidently our dear Tita is not afraid of you."

"You take a wrong reading of it, perhaps," says Mrs. Bethune, who is now, in spite of all her efforts to be emotionless, a little pale. "She is simply so indifferent to Maurice, that she does not care whom he likes or dislikes—with whom he spends—or wastes his time. Or with whom he——"

"Flirts?" puts in Lady Rylton, lifting her brows; there is most insolent meaning in her tone.

For the first time Mrs. Bethune loses herself; she turns upon her aunt, her eyes flashing.

"Maurice does not flirt with me," says she.

It seems horrible—horrible, that thought. Maurice—his love—it surely is hers! And to talk of it as a mere flirtation! Oh no! Her very soul seems to sink within her.

"My good child, who was speaking of you?" says Lady Rylton, with a burst of amusement. "You should control yourself, my dear Marian. To give yourself away like that is to suffer defeat at any moment. One would think you were a girl in your first season, instead of being a mature married woman. Well, and if not with you, with whom does Maurice flirt?"

"With no one." Marian has so far commanded herself as to be able now to speak collectedly. "If you will keep to the word 'flirtation,' you must think of Tita, though perhaps 'flirtation' is too mild a word to——"

"Tita!"

Tita's mother-in-law grows immediately interested.

"Yes, Tita. What I was going to say when you interrupted me was, that she refuses to take me into consideration—or anyone else for the matter of that—because——"

She stops—she feels choking; she honestly believes that Tita likes Tom Hescott far more than she likes her husband. But that the girl is guilty, even in thought guilty, she does not believe; and now she speaks—and to this woman of all others—— And yet if she does speak, ruin will probably come out of it—to Tita. She hesitates; she is lost!

"Oh, go on!" says Lady Rylton, who can be a little vulgar at times—where the soul is coarse, the manner will be coarse too.

"There is a cousin!" says Marian slowly.

"A cousin? You grow interesting!" says Lady Rylton. There is a silence for a moment, and then: "Do you mean to tell me that this girl," with a scornful intonation, "has a—Really" with a shrug, "considering her birth, one may be excused for calling it—a follower?"

"Yes."

"And so l'ingnue has awakened at last!"

"If you mean Tita," icily, "I think she is in love with her cousin; and, beyond all doubt, her cousin is in love with her."

"Birds of a feather!" says Lady Rylton. It has been plain to Marian for the past five minutes that her aunt has been keeping back her temper with some difficulty. Now it flames forth. "The insolence!" cries she, between her teeth. "That little half-bred creature! Fancy—just fancy—her daring to be unfaithful to my son! To marry a Rylton, and then bring a low intrigue into his family!" She turns furiously on Marian. "Where is she?"

"Tita?"

"Yes. I must see her this moment—this moment; do you hear?" The tyrannical nature of her breaks out now in a furious outburst. She would have liked to get Tita in her grasp and crush her. She rises. "I wish to speak to her."

"I should advise you to do no such foolish thing," says Mrs. Bethune, rising too.

"You advise!—you! Who are you?" says Lady Rylton insolently. "When did I ask for your advice, or take it? Send that girl here—directly."

"Surely you forget that 'that girl' is at this moment your hostess!" says Marian Bethune, who has some sense of decency left. "This is her house; I could not deliver such a message to her."

"Then take another! Say——"

"Nor any other. She dislikes me, as I dislike her. If you wish to see her, send a message through her maid, or," a happy thought coming to her, "through Margaret; she cares for Tita as a cat might care for her kitten!"

"Poor Margaret," says Lady Rylton, with a sneer. "I fear she will always have to care for other cats' kittens!"

"Do you? I don't," says Marian, who, though she detests most people, has always a strange tenderness for Margaret.

"What do you mean?" asks Lady Rylton sharply.

"I think she will marry Colonel Neilson."

"Don't make yourself more absurd than you need be!" says her aunt contemptuously. "An old maid like that! What could Colonel Neilson see in her? I don't believe a word of that ridiculous story. Why, she is nearly as bad—worse, indeed," with a short laugh, "than a widow——like you!"

"I think she will marry him, for all that," says Mrs. Bethune calmly, with supreme self-control. She takes no notice of her insult.

"You can think as you like," says her aunt. "There, go away; I must arrange about seeing that girl."



CHAPTER X.

HOW "THAT GIRL" WAS "SEEN" BY THE DOWAGER LADY RYLTON; AND HOW TITA HELD HER SMALL HEAD VERY HIGH, AND FOUGHT A GOOD FIGHT WITH THE ENEMY.



There is scarcely time for Lady Rylton to make arrangements for a private interview with her daughter-in-law, as Mrs. Bethune has scarcely left her room before that small person knocks at the door. And there is, perhaps, a slight touch of confusion on the older woman's face as Tita enters. She had not had time to prepare the little bitter barbs she had meant to fling against the girl's heart, and is now slightly taken aback.

However, Nature, the All-Mother, has been generous to Tessie in the way of venom, and after a moment or two she tells herself that she will be able to get through this interview with honour.

"My dear Tita. You! So glad! Pray come and sit down."

"I just came," says Tita smiling, but hesitating on the threshold, as if desirous of an excuse to run away again as quickly as possible, "to see if you were quite comfortable—quite happy."

"Ah, happy!" says Lady Rylton in a peculiar tone. "Do come in, Tita. It is a fad of mine—a silly one, no doubt—but I cannot bear to look at an open door. Besides, I wish to speak to you."

Tita closes the door and comes well into the room. She does not seat herself, however; she remains standing near the chimney-piece.

"About what?" asks she promptly.

"About many things." Perhaps the girl's bluntness has daunted her a little, because, as she says this, she moves uneasily, and finally changes her seat for a low lounge that brings the light on the back of her head. "I am sorry to say I have heard several unpleasant things about you of late."

Tita stares at her.

"I don't understand you," says she.

"Then it must be my unhappy task to have to explain myself," says Tessie, who has now recovered herself, and is beginning to revel in the situation. The merriest game of all, to some people, is that of hurting the feelings of others. "For one thing, I am grieved to hear that you have made my son far from happy in his married life."

A quick red dyes Tita's face. It lasts for a moment only. She controls herself admirably, and, going to a chair, pulls it a little forward in a perfectly self-possessed fashion, pausing a little over the exact position of it, after which she seats herself amongst the cushions.

"Has Maurice told you that?" asks she.

"Maurice? No!" haughtily. "In our set husbands do not complain of their wives."

"No?" says Tita. She looks amused. "Then who else could it be in 'our set' who has said nasty little things about me? Mrs. Bethune?"

"All this is beside the question," says the dowager, with a wave of her hand. "There is something else I must speak of—painful though it is to me!" She unfurls the everlasting fan, and wafts it delicately to and fro, as if to blow away from her the hideous aroma of the thing she is forced to say. "I hear you have established a—er—a far too friendly relationship with a—er—a cousin of your own."

If Tita had grown red before, she is very white now.

"I am sure you are not aware of it," says she, setting her small teeth, but speaking quite calmly, "but you are very impertinent."

"I—I?" says Lady Rylton. In all her long, tyrannical life she has met with so few people to show her defiance, that now this girl's contemptuous reply daunts her. "You forget yourself," says she, with ill-suppressed fury.

"No, indeed," says Tita, "it is because I remember myself that I spoke like that. And I think it will save time," says she quietly, "and perhaps a good deal of temper too—mine," smiling coldly, "is not good, you know—if you understand at once that I shall not allow you to say insolent things like that to me."

"You allow me!" Tessie gets up from her chair and stares at her opponent, who remains seated, looking back at her. "I see you have made up your mind to ruin my son," says she, changing her tone to one of tearful indignation. "You accepted him, you married him, but you have never made even an effort to love him."

Here Tessie sinks back in her chair and covers her eyes with her handkerchief. This is her way of telling people she is crying; it saves the rouge and the powder, and leaves the eye-lashes as black as before.

"It is not always easy to love someone who is in love with someone else," says Tita.

"Someone else! What do you mean?"

"There is one fault, at all events, that you cannot find with me," says Tita; "I have not got a bad memory. As if it were only yesterday, I remember how you enlightened me about Maurice's affection"—she would have said "love," but somehow she cannot—"for—for Mrs. Bethune."

"Pouf!" says the dowager. "That! I don't see how that can influence your conduct. You married my son, and you ought to do your duty by him. As for Marian, if you had been a good wife you should have taught him to forget all that long ago. It seems you have not." She darts this barbed arrow with much joy, and watches for the pain it ought to have caused, but watches in vain. "The fact of your remembering it all this time only shows," says Tessie vindictively, angry at the failure of her dart, "what a malicious spirit you have. You are not only malicious, but silly! People of the world never remember unpleasant things."

"Well, I am not of them; I remember," says Tita. She pauses. "People of the world seem to me to do strange things."

"On the contrary," with a sneer, "it is people who are not in society who do strange things."

"Meaning me?" flushing and frowning. Tita's temper is beginning to give way. "What have I done now?" asks she.

"That is what I have been trying to explain," says Lady Rylton, "but your temper is so frightful that I am afraid to go into anything. Temper, my dear Tita, should always be one's slave; it should never be given liberty except in one's room, with one's own maid or one's own husband."

"Or one's own mother-in-law!"

"Well, yes! Quite so!" says Tessie with a fine shrug. "If you will make me one apart, so be it. I hate scenes; but when one has a son—a precious, only child—one must make sacrifices."

"I beg you will make none for me."

"I have made one already, however. I have permitted my son to marry you."

"Lady Rylton——"

"Be silent!" says Tessie, in a low but terrible voice. "How dare you interrupt me, or speak to me at all, until I ask for a reply? You, whom I have brought from the very depths, to a decent position in society! You—whom I have raised!"

"Raised!"

"Yes—you! I tell you you owe me a debt you never can repay."

"I do indeed," says Tita, in a low voice; her small firm hands are clasped in front of her—they are tightly clenched.

"You married him for ambition," goes on Tessie, with cold hatred in her voice and eye, "and——"

"And he?" The girl has risen now, and is clinging with both hands to the arms of her chair. She is very pale.

"Pshaw!" says the dowager, laughing cruelly. "He married you for your money. What else do you think he would marry you for? Are you to learn that now?"

"No." Tita throws up her head. "That pleasure is denied you. He told me he was marrying me for my money, long before our marriage."

Lady Rylton laughs.

"What! He had the audacity?"

"The honesty!" Somehow this answer, coming straight from Tita's heart, goes to her soul, and in some queer, indescribable way soothes her—comforts her—gives her deep compensation for all the agony she has been enduring. Later on she wonders why the agony was so great! Why had she cared or suffered? Maurice and she? What are they to each other? A mere name—no more! And yet—and yet!

"At all events," goes on Tessie, "when you made up your mind to marry my son, you——"

"It was your son who married me," says Tita, with a touch of hauteur that sits very prettily on her. She feels suddenly stronger—more equal to the fight.

"Was it? I quite forget"—Tessie shrugs her shoulders—"these little points," says she. "Well, I give you that! Oh! he was honest!" says she. "But, after all, not quite honest enough."

"I think he was honest," says Tita.

Her heart is beginning to beat to suffocation. There is a horror in her mind—the horror of hearing again that he—he had loved Marian. But how to stop it?

"You seem to admire honesty," says Lady Rylton, with a sneering laugh. "It is a pity you do not emulate his! If Maurice is as true to you as you"—with a slight laugh—"imagine him, why, you should, in common generosity, be true to him. And this flirtation, with this Mr. Hescott——"

"Don't go on!" says Tita passionately; "I cannot bear it. Whoever has told you that I ever—— Oh!" She covers her eyes suddenly with her pretty hands. "Oh! it is a lie!" cries she.

"No one has told me a lie," says Lady Rylton implacably.

The sight of the girl's distress is very pleasant to her. She gloats over it.

"Then you have invented the whole thing," cries Tita wildly, who is so angry, so agitated, that she forgets the commonest decencies of life. We all do occasionally!

"To be rude is not to be forcible," says Tessie, who is now a fury, "and I believe all that I have heard about you!" She makes a quick movement towards Tita, her colour showing even through the washes that try to make her skin look young. "How dare you insult me?" cries she furiously. Tessie in a rage is almost the vulgarest thing that anyone could see. "I wish my son had never seen you—or your money. I wish now he had married the woman he loved, instead of the woman whom——"

"He hated," puts in Tita very softly.

She smiles in a sort of last defiance, but every hope she has seems lying dead. In a second, as it were, she seems to care for nothing. What is there to care for? It is so odd. But it is true! How blank the whole thing is!

"Yes. Hated!" says Tessie in a cold fury. "I tell you he wanted to marry Marian, and her only. He would have given his soul for her, but she would not marry him! And then, when hope was at an end, he—destroyed self—he married you!"

"You are very plain! You leave nothing to be said." Tita has compelled herself to this answer, but her voice is faint. Her poor little face, beautiful even in its distress, is as white as death. "I am sorry——"

"For Maurice? So you ought to be," says Lady Rylton, unmoved even by that pathetic face before her.

Tita turns upon her. All at once the old spirit springs to life within the poor child's breast.

"No, for myself!" cries she, with a bitterness hardly to be described.



CHAPTER XI.

HOW TITA GOES FOR A WALK WITH TWO SAD COMPANIONS—ANGER AND DESPAIR; AND HOW SHE MEETS SIR MAURICE; AND HOW SHE INTRODUCES HIM TO ANGER.



Escaping from her mother-in-law's room, Tita goes hurriedly, carefully downstairs. There is no one in the smaller hall; she runs through it, and into one of the conservatories that has a door leading to the gardens outside. Its is a small conservatory, little frequented; and when one gets to the end of the two steps, one finds one's self at the part of the garden that leads directly into the woods beyond.

Tita, flinging open the little rustic gate that opens a way to these woods, hastens through it as though all the furies are at her back, and never ceases running until she finds herself a good half-mile from home.

And now she throws herself upon a sort mossy bank, and, clasping her hands in front of her, gives herself up to thought. Most women when in grief make direct for their bedrooms; Tita, a mere child of Nature, has turned to her mother in her great extremity. Her heart seems on fire, her eyes dry and burning. Her quick, angry run has left her tired and panting, and like one at bay.

She lays her flushed cheek against the cold, sweet mosses.

How good, how eternally good is the exquisite heart of the earth! A very balm from it seems now to arise and take this young creature into its embrace. The coolness, the softness of it! Who shall describe it? The girl lying on the ground, not understanding, feels the great light hand of the All-Mother on her head, and suddenly the first great pang dies. Nature, the supreme Hypnotizer, has come to her rescue, not dulling or destroying the senses, but soothing them, and showing a way out of the darkness, flinging a lamp into the dim, winding ways of her misery.

The cool mosses have brought her to herself again. She sits up, and, taking her knees into her embrace, looks out upon the world. To her it seems a cruel world, full of nothing but injustice. She has a long talk with herself, poor child!—a most bitter conversation. And the end of it is this: If only she could see Maurice and tell him—tell him what she thinks of him; and if only—— But it seems so impossible.

And here is where Mother Nature's doings come in. She has driven Maurice from his house almost as Tita left it, and has sent him here; for does he not know that Tita loves this solitary spot, and——

He has sprung upon the wall, and it is quite suddenly he sees her. Her attitude makes his heart stand still. Has it come to this? Has he brought her to this? What a child she was when he married her!—light-hearted, free——

Free! Was she free? This word spoils all his sympathy. Was she really free? Did she not love her cousin even then, when she consented to marry him? He springs lightly to the ground; his gun is on his shoulder, but he lays that against a tree, and goes lightly towards her.

How still she is! How tightly her small hands are clasped! How very small they are! Is that the first ring he had given her, shining on her third finger? She had not flung that back in his face, at all events! He hardly understands the wild, quick thrill of joy that this knowledge affords him. And how pale she is!

"In all her face was not one drop of blood."

She is staring before her, as if into the future—as if demanding happiness from it for her youth. He goes quickly to her.

"I was just getting over that fence there," says he, in a rather stammering sort of way, the new strange pallor on that small, erstwhile happy face having disarranged his nerves a little, "when I saw you. I am glad I saw you, as I wanted to say that perhaps I spoke to you too—roughly last night."

Tita remains silent. Something in her whole air seems to him changed. Her eyes—her mouth—what has happened to them? Such a change! And all since last night! Had he indeed been so rough with her as to cause all this?

"How bitter and winterly waxed last night The air that was mild! How nipped with frost were the flowers last night That at dawning smiled! How the bird lost the tune of the song last night That the spring beguiled!"

Did it all happen last night? He breaks through his wonder to hear her.

"I don't know how you dared speak to me at all," says she at last slowly, deliberately.

Where is the childish anger now that used to irritate—and amuse him? It is all gone. This is hardly Tita, this girl, cold, repellent; it is an absurd thought, but it seems to him that she has grown!

"I spoke—because—— I think I explained," says he, somewhat incoherently, upset not so much by her words (which are strange, too) as by the strange look that accompanies them.

"Ah, explained!" says she. Her lips curl slightly, and her eyes (always fastened upon his) seem to grow darker. "If you are coming to explanations——" says she softly, but with some intensity. "Have you explained things? And when? Was it before our marriage? It should have been, I think!"

Rylton changes colour. It is such a sudden change that the girl goes over to him and lays her hand upon his chest.

"Did you think—all this time—that I did not know?" says she, raising her eyes to his—such solemn young eyes. "I have known it a long, long time. Always, I think! Your mother told me when we went to the Hall after our—trip abroad."

"She told you what?"

It is a last effort to spare—— To spare whom? Marian or himself—or—— All at once he knows it is Tita whom he would spare.

"Ah, that is useless," says Tita, with a slight gesture. "She told me a great deal then; she has told me more to-day."

"To-day?"

"A few last items," says the girl, her eyes burning into his as she stands before him, her hand upon his breast. "Shall I tell them to you? You married me for my money! You ruined your life"—she seems to be looking back and repeating things that had been said to her—"by doing that. Your mother" slowly, "seemed sorry that your life was ruined!"

"Tita!"

"No, listen; there is a little more. You only consented to make me your wife when you found Mrs. Bethune would not have you."

"You shall hear me," says he.

His face is as white as death now, but she silences him. She lifts her small, cold hand from his breast, and lays it on his lips that are nearly as cold.

"You proposed to her four times! All your love was hers! And it was only when hope was dead—when life seemed worthless—that you—married me."

"She told you that—all that?" asks Rylton; he has caught her hand.

"All that—and more." Tita is smiling now, but very pitifully. "But that was enough. Why take it to heart? It is nothing, really. It does not concern us. Of course, I always knew. You told me—that you did not love me."

"I shall not forgive her," says Rylton fiercely.

There is anguish as well as rage in his tone. He is holding her hand tightly clenched between both his own.

"I don't care whether you do or not," says Tita suddenly, almost violently. "You can forgive her or not, as you choose. The whole thing," dragging her hand forcibly from his, "is a matter of no consequence whatever to me!"

"You mean that you don't care?" says Rylton, in a suffocating voice.

"Care!" contemptuously. "No! Why should I care, or wonder, or waste one thought upon your love affairs?"

This insolent answer rouses Rylton from his remorse.

"Why, indeed!" says he, stung by her scorn. "You have your own to think of!"

And now a terrible thing happens—swift as lightning she lifts her hand, and gives him a little stinging blow across his face.

A second afterwards she has her hands upon her breast, and is crying affrightedly.

"I'm sorry—I'm sorry—I'm sorry!"

Yet through all the fright he can hear there is not an atom of real sorrow in her voice.

"Let that alone," says he, smiling grimly. "I dare say I deserved it. I take it meekly, as you see. But now—how is it to be between us?"

"You know. You ought to know. We agreed before our marriage that you were to go your way, and I—mine!"

"Very well," says Rylton slowly. "Let it be so. Remember always, however," looking fixedly at her, "that it was you who insisted on it."

"I shall remember," says Tita.

She turns and walks quickly on the path that leads to the house. Rylton turns to accompany her. But she, stopping short, looks up at him with a frowning brow.

"We have been talking about ways," says she. "This," with a little significant gesture to the right, "is my way."

He lifts his brows and laughs, a very sad and dismal laugh, however.

"And therefore not mine," says he. "You are right so far. I meant to go on to Upsall Farm, but I should like to see you safely back to the avenue, at all events—if you will allow me?"

"No!" Tita has turned upon him like a little fury. All her rage and grief and misery has at last overpowered her. "I shall not allow you! I shall go nowhere with you! Our ways, as you say, are separate."

"As I say——"

"It doesn't matter," says she vehemently; "words are nothing. There is only meaning left, and what I mean is that I want never to go anywhere with you again."

"As you will, of course," says he, drawing back. Evidently it is to be war to the knife.

He could have laughed at himself as he leans back against a huge oak-tree and lights a cigar. Truly he is no Don Juan! The woman he loved did not love him to any measurable extent; the woman he married cares for him even less!

A very rage of anger against Tita is filling his breast, but now, standing here in the cold soft shades of the silent wood, his anger gives place to thought. By what right is he angry with her? By what right does he upbraid her? She knows all—everything. His mother had seen to that. Yes, his wife knows——

And yet, after all, what is there to condemn him for? What man under heaven has been so scrupulous, so careful as he? There had been that one night at the Warbeck's dance—but beyond that, never by word or look had he been unfaithful!

He is beginning almost to pride himself upon his good behaviour, when all at once it comes to him that it has been easy to be faithful, that there has been no trouble at all about being scrupulous.

It is like a dagger in his heart. Is it all at the end then? Must it be regarded as a thing that was told—that old, sweet story! Dead, withered, with the life, the meaning, gone from it. And if so, what remains?

Nothing but the face of a small, angry little girl defying him—defying him always.

Pouf! He thrusts it from him. He lights another cigar. Again the old anger breaks out. Tita's words come back to him. Plainly she would be as glad to get rid of him as he—— She had spoken of her own way. Why not let her go that way? It leads to her cousin. All the finger-posts point in that direction. Well—— If so—— There might be a divorce, and a divorce would mean marriage with Marian, and——

He stands staring stupidly at the ground before him. What is the matter with him? Only three months, three little months ago, and such a thought would have raised ecstasy within his heart, and now——

How flat it all seems, how unprofitable! Nothing seems alive within him save a desire for vengeance on this child who has dared to drag his name into the dust.

This child!

Again her face rises before him. Pale, determined, scorning him! He had read hatred in her glance, and behind that hatred—bred of it, perhaps—love for her cousin.

He flings his cigar into a bush near him, and goes back to the house, taking the path his wife had chosen.



CHAPTER XII.

HOW TITA, RUNNING FROM THE ENEMY, SUDDENLY FINDS HERSELF FACE TO FACE WITH ANOTHER FOE; AND HOW SHE FIGHTS A SECOND BATTLE, AND COMES OFF VICTORIOUS!



Tita, once out of the sight of Maurice, had run home very quickly. She knew that she was crying, and despised herself for so doing, but could not check her tears. She was not sure what they meant, grief or rage. Perhaps a little of both. All her guests were in the garden, so she would not return to the house that way, though it was much the nearest; but turning into a side path she made for a point in the shrubberies, from which one could get to the armoury door without being seen by anyone.

She is wrong in her calculations, however, for just as she steps into the shrubbery walk, she finds herself face to face with Tom Hescott.

"Tita! You have been crying!" says he suddenly, after a devouring glance at her small face, that indeed shows all the signs of woe.

"No, no!" cries Tita breathlessly.

She puts up her hands in protestation. She has grown crimson with shame and vexation.

"You have," says Hescott, almost savagely. The knowledge that he is leaving to-morrow (they are all leaving except the elder Lady Rylton) has rendered him desperate, and made more difficult of concealment the mad passion he entertains for her. "What has happened?" he asks, going closer to her and letting his cigar drop to the ground. "Are you unhappy? You," breathing quickly, "have been unhappy for a long time!"

"And even so, am I the only person in the world who is unhappy? Are you never unhappy?" demands Tita defiantly.

"God knows I am, always!" says Hescott. "But you! That you should be unhappy!"

"Never mind me," says Tita petulantly. "And I must say," with a little flaming glance at him, "that it would have been in much better taste if you—if you had pretended to see that I was not crying."

Hescott does not hear, or takes no notice of this little bombshell.

"Has your husband been unkind to you?" asks he sharply, most unpardonably.

Tita looks at him for a second as if he had struck her, and then waves him aside imperiously.

"Maurice is never unkind to me," says she, "and even if he were, I should not allow you or anyone to question me in the matter. What are you thinking of?"

"Of you," slowly.

"You waste your time," says Tita.

"It is not wasted. It is spent on you," says Hescott, with compressed but strong passion. "And now a last word, Tita. If ever you want to—to——" He hesitates. "To leave him," he had almost said, but her proud eyes and her pale lips made him hesitate—such pride! It raises his love for her to fever-heat. "If ever you should want anyone to help you, I——"

She interrupts him. She makes a haughty little gesture with hand. It would be impossible to describe the wild grace and beauty of it—or the dignity.

"If ever I should, I shall have Maurice!" says she coldly.

Hescott looks at her. Of course he has been told that old story about Mrs. Bethune, and has seen for himself many things.

"You are an angel!" says he at last, very sadly; yet he would not have wished her less than that.

"Don't be absurd!" says Tita most ungratefully.

She marches past him with her angry little head still upheld, but presently a word from him brings her to a standstill.

"Don't be angry with me, Tita," he is saying in a low tone. "I'm going away to-morrow."

"Ah, so you are!" says Tita. Her sweet nature comes back to her. Dear old Tom! And she has been saying such horrid things to him. "Never mind me, Tom!" says she, holding out her hand to him. "I'm dreadfully cross sometimes, but I don't ever mean it, really. And," smiling gently at him, "you know that I love you!"

Hescott takes her hand. His heart seems very full—too full for words. Those words, "I love you!" He stoops and presses a kiss upon the little warm fingers now resting within his own. And without another word he leaves her.

He is hardly gone, when Rylton lays his hand upon her arm.

"Well," says he, his voice vibrating with anger. He had followed her, as has been said, with no idea of watching her, but with a curious longing to get near to her again. Why, he could hardly have explained even to himself. The only thing he did know in that walk homeward was that he was most horribly, most unreasonably unhappy!

He had followed her and he had found her crying, or at least with the signs of tears upon her eyes, and had seen her cousin kissing her hand. A slight madness came over him then. Crying for her cousin, no doubt, because he must leave her to-morrow!

"Well!" His tone is abrupt, almost brutal. Yet even in this hour where all things point to her discomfiture he cannot get the victory over her.

"Well?" demands she in return, shaking her arm loose from his hold.

"You have been crying for him, no doubt—for your——" He pauses.

"My what?" asks Tita. She is looking at him with fearless, wondering eyes.

"Your cousin," says Rylton, altering the phrase that would have made it in his anger, "your lover."

"I have not been crying because of Tom," says Tita coldly, "though I am very sorry he is going. He loves me, I think."

"Do you?" says Rylton. A sarcastic smile crosses his lips "And you? Do you love him? No doubt cousins are charming possessions. And so I find you crying because your dear possession is going, and because, no doubt, you were confiding to him what a desperate monster a husband can be."

There is hardly anything in his life afterwards that Rylton is so ashamed of as this; even now in the heat of the terrible anger that leads him so to forget himself, he cowers before the girl's eyes.

"Is that what people do in your set?" says she coldly—icily. "In the charmed circle within which your mother tells me I am not fit to enter? If so, I am glad I do not belong to it. Set your mind at ease, Maurice. I have not told Tom anything about you. I have not even told him what a——" She pauses. A flash from her eyes enters his. "I have told him nothing—nothing," says she, running past him into the house.



CHAPTER XIII.

HOW A LITTLE SPARRING IS DONE AMONGST THE GUESTS AT OAKDEAN; AND HOW TOM HESCOTT TELLS A STORY.



Meantime all the others are sitting out in the garden, gossiping to their hearts' content. They had tried tennis, but the courts are rather soft now; and though an Indian summer has fallen upon us, still it has not sufficed to dry up all the moisture caused by the late rains.

The little thatched hut at the end of the gardens, where the sun is now blazing, has drawn them all into a net, as it were. It is an off day, when there is no shooting, and the women are therefore jubilant, and distinctly in the ascendant. The elder Lady Rylton is not present, which adds to the hilarity of the hour, as in spite of her wonderful juvenility she is by no means a favourite. Miss Gower, however, is—which balances the situation.

"I don't believe I ever felt so sorry for leaving any place," says Mrs. Chichester (who is always talking) with a soft but prolonged sigh—the sigh that is meant to be heard. She casts a languishing glance at Marryatt as she says this. He is not invited to the next country house to which she is bound. He returns her glance fourfold, upon which she instantly dives behind Mrs. Bethune's back, on the pretence of speaking to Margaret, but in reality to hide her face.

"Yes; I feel sorry too," says Colonel Neilson. "Where are you going?"

"To the Hastings'," says Mrs. Chichester, who has now emerged from behind Marian's back, with the same sad face as before. "You know her. Matilda Bruce!"

"Bless me! Has she got married?" says Colonel Neilson, who is really the kindest-hearted man alive.

"Yes; quite a year ago."

Mrs. Bethune laughs her usual slow, cruel little laugh, that is always in some strange way so full of fascination. She, too, had known Matilda Bruce. "I am afraid poor Mr. Hastings must have had a great many refusals," says she. She looks at Mrs. Chichester. "So you are going there?"

"Yes, for my sins. Fred Hastings is a very old friend of mine."

"What a great many old friends you have," says Mrs. Bethune softly.

"Well, it is better to have old friends than no friends"—making the retort courteous, with a beaming smile.

"I've been staying at the Hastings', too," says Minnie Hescott, glad to show that she is within the sacred circle, even though it be on its outermost edge. "But——" She stops.

"I know. You needn't go on," says Mrs. Chichester. "I've heard all about it. A terrible mnage, and no fires anywhere. Amy Stuart told me—she was staying with them last Christmas—that she often wished she was the roast joint in the oven, she felt so withered up with cold."

"Well, marriage improves people," says Colonel Neilson, laughing. "Let us hope it will enlarge Mrs. Hastings' mind as to the matter of fires."

"It will!" says Mrs. Chichester.

"But why? If——" says Margaret, leaning forward.

"Because marriage improves women, and"—Mrs. Chichester pauses, and lets her queer green eyes rest on Marryatt's—"and does the other thing for men."

Marryatt is looking back at her as if transfixed. He is thinking of her words rather than of her. Has marriage disimproved her husband? Has he been a brute to her? He knows so little—she has told him so little! At this moment it occurs to him that she has told him nothing.

"What are you staring at?" asks she presently. "Is anything the matter with me? Have I straws in my hair?"

His answer is interrupted by Mr. Gower.

"Take it down," says he. "How can anyone tell nowadays what a woman has in her hair unless one sees?"

"Well, it's not straws, any way," says Mrs. Chichester, with a shrug of her lean shoulders.

"It might be worse!" says Mr. Gower, who has always declared that Mrs. Chichester has dyed her hair. His tone, which is always sepulchral, attracts immediate attention, as all things sepulchral do. "And as for Matilda Bruce, I refuse to see why you should sit upon her with such determined cruelty. I know her, and I think her a most excellent wife, and house-wife, and—mother!"

"A mother!" says Margaret, who had known Mrs. Bruce slightly, but had not been in sympathy with her.

"Why, yes! She's got a baby," says Mrs. Chichester. "Didn't you hear? Nobody does hear much about them. For my part, I pity her about that baby! It's so awkward to have children!"

"Awkward?"

"Yes. Nasty people go about asking their ages, especially the age of the eldest little horror, and then they can guess to a nicety how long one must have lived. It's a mean way of finding out one's age. I'm thankful I have no children."

Mrs. Chichester leans back in her chair and laughs. Perhaps—perhaps—there is a regret in her laugh.

"I think it is the children who ought to be thankful," says old Miss Gower, covering her with a condemnatory glance.

Mrs. Chichester turns her eye on her.

"Do you know, Miss Gower, you have for once hit a happy truth," says she.

She smiles blandly on the terrible old maid. But Tita, who has just come down from her room, and has entered the hut, is struck by the queer expression in her eyes.

"You have come at last, Tita," says Margaret, going to her.

"I have had such a headache," says Tita, pressing her hands to her brow. "It has worried me all day. But I came down now, hoping the air and"—sweetly looking round her—"all of you would cure it."

"I think you ought to be lying down," says Margaret, seeing the pallor of the young face before her, and pitying the determination, so plainly to be seen, to keep up.

"Maurice"—to Rylton, who has come on the scene a moment later than his wife, so immediately after her, indeed, that one might be forgiven for imagining he had come in her train, only for one thing, he had come from an opposite direction—"Maurice, I think Tita should be induced to lie down for a bit. She looks tired."

"Nonsense," says Tita.

Her tone is almost repellent, although it is to Margaret she speaks. But in reality the tone is meant for Maurice.

"I've got a headache, certainly. But I firmly believe that it has grown out of the knowledge that you are all going to desert me to-morrow."

This little speech, most innocently meant, she points by smiling at her cousin, Tom Hescott. She had been unkind to him down there in the shrubbery awhile ago, she tells herself, and now she is telling him in silent, sweet little ways that she meant nothing nasty, nothing cold or uncourteous.

Her husband, watching her, sees the glance, and grinds under it. He misunderstands it. As for Tom! Poor Tom! He, too, sees the pretty glance, and he, too, misunderstands it.

All at once a quick but most erroneous thought springs to life within his heart. Her glance now! Her tears awhile ago! Were they for him? Is she sorry because he is leaving her? Is her life here unbearable?

Mrs. Bethune has risen and come up to Tita.

"You speak as if we were going to leave you to immediate destruction?" says she. "Are you afraid of being left alone with—Maurice?"

Mrs. Chichester, who has a great deal of good in her, mixed up with a terrible amount of frivolity, comes forward so quietly that Tita's sudden whiteness is hardly seen, except by one.

"Fancy being afraid of Sir Maurice," says she. "Sir Maurice," casting a laughing glance at him, "I shouldn't be afraid of you."

Sir Maurice laughs back, and everyone laughs with him, and Mrs. Bethune's barb is blunted.

"I am not afraid of anything," says Tita lightly. "But I confess I feel sorry at the thought of losing you all, even for a time——"

This prettily, and with a glance round her as good as an invitation for next year.

"I know you, Minnie" (to her cousin), "are going to delightful people—and you," turning suddenly to Mrs. Bethune, "I hope you are going to friends?"

"Friends! I have no friends," says Marian Bethune sombrely. "I have learned to forbid myself such luxuries. I can't afford them. I find them too expensive!"

"Expensive?"

"Yes. A loss to me of peace of mind that can never be made up." She smiles at Tita, a cold, unpleasant smile. "Do you know what my definition of a friend is? Someone who takes delight in telling you all the detestable things your other friends have said of you."

"I don't think much of your friends, any way," says Mrs. Chichester, who as a rule is always en vidence. "Do you, Sir Maurice?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you agree with Mrs. Bethune?"

"I always agree with everybody," says Rylton, smiling.

Tita moves abruptly away.

"What a hot day it is," says she petulantly, "and nothing to do. Tom," beckoning Hescott to her, "tell us a story. Do. You used to tell beautiful ones—in—the old days."

"Do you still long for them?" asks Mrs. Bethune, always with her supercilious smile, and in a tone that is almost a whisper, yet quite loud enough for Rylton, who is standing near, to hear.

"Do you?" demands Tita, turning upon her with eyes ablaze with miserable anger.

"I?" haughtily. "What do you mean?"

Tita lifts her eyes to Rylton—such eyes.

"He will tell you," says she, and with a little scornful lifting of her chin she turns away.

"Now for your story, Tom," cries she gaily, merrily.

"You take me very short," says Hescott, who seems, in his present mood, which is of the darkest, to be the last man in Europe to tell an amusing tale. "But one occurs to me, and, of course," looking round him, "you all know it. Everyone nowadays knows every story that has and has not been told since the world began. Well, any way, I heard of a man the other day who—it is a most extraordinary thing—but he hated his wife!"