"And Lord St. Serf so bad, sir," she said. "Lord, to think that before we know where we are there may be such changes, and new names, and no knowing what to say! But it's best not to talk of it till it comes to pass, for there's many a slip between the cup and the lip, and there's no saying what will happen with a man that's been a-dying for years and years."

What did the woman mean? He got rid of her at length, chiefly by dint of making no reply: and then, to tell the truth, Pippo's eye had been caught by the pile of sandwiches which the kind woman, pitying his tired looks, had brought up with the tea. He was ashamed of himself for being hungry in such a dreadful emergency as this, but he was so, and could not help it, though nothing would have made him confess so much, or even touch the sandwiches till she had gone away. He pretended to ignore them till the door was shut after her, but could not help vividly remembering that he had eaten nothing since the morning. The sandwiches did him a little good in his mind as well as in his body. He got rid of the vision of the faces and of the red figure on the bench. He began to believe that when he saw her she would tell him. Had she not said so? That after awhile he should hear everything, and that all should be as it was before? All as it was before—in the time when she told him everything, even things that Granny did not know. But she had never told him this, and the other day she had told him that it was other people's secrets, not her own, that she was keeping from him. "Other people's secrets"—the secrets of the man who was Philip Compton, who went to Windyhill on the 6th of September, ten days before Elinor Dennistoun's marriage day. "What Philip Compton? Who was he? What had he to do with her? What, oh, what," Pippo said to himself, "has he to do with me?" After all, that was the most tremendous question. The others, or anything that had happened twenty years ago, were nothing to that.

Meanwhile Elinor, of all places in the world, was in John Tatham's chambers, to which he had taken her to rest. I cannot tell how Mr. Tatham, a man so much occupied, managed to subtract from all he had to do almost a whole day to see his cousin through the trial, and stand by her, sparing her all the lesser annoyances which surround and exaggerate such a great fact. He had brought her out into the fresh air, feeling that movement was the best thing for her, and instead of taking her home in the carriage which was waiting, had made her walk with him, supported on his arm, on which she hung in a sort of suspended life, across the street to the Temple, hoping thus to bring her back, by the necessity of exertion, to herself. And indeed she was almost more restored to herself by this remedy than John Tatham had expected or hoped. For though he placed her in the great easy-chair, in which her slender person was engulfed and supported, expecting her to rest there and lie motionless, perhaps even to faint, as women are supposed to do when it is particularly inconvenient and uncomfortable, Elinor had not been there two minutes before she rose up again and began to walk about the room, with an aspect so unlike that of an exhausted and perhaps fainting woman, that even John, used as he was to her capricious ways, was confounded. Instead of being subdued and thankful that it was over, and this dreadful crisis in her life accomplished, Elinor walked up and down, wringing her hands, moaning and murmuring to herself; what was it she was saying? "God forgive me! God forgive me!" over and over and over, unconscious apparently that she was not alone, that any one heard or observed her. No doubt there is in all our actions, the very best, much for God to forgive; mingled motives, imperfect deeds, thoughts full of alloy and selfishness; but in what her conscience could accuse her now he could not understand. She might be to blame in respect to her husband, though he was very loth to allow the possibility; but in this act of her life, which had been so great a strain upon her, it was surely without any selfishness, for his interest only, not for her own. And yet John had never seen such a fervour of penitence, so strong a consciousness of evil done. He went up to her and laid his hand upon her arm.

"Elinor, you are worn out. You have done too much. Will you try and rest a little here, or shall I take you home?"

She started violently when he touched her. "What was I saying?" she said.

"It does not matter what you were saying. Sit down and rest. You will wear yourself out. Don't think any more. Take this and rest a little, and then I will take you home."

"It is easy to say so," she said, with a faint smile. "Don't think! Is it possible to stop thinking at one's pleasure?"

"Yes," said John, "quite possible; we must all do it or we should die. And now your trial's over, Nelly, for goodness' sake exert yourself and throw it off. You have done your duty."

"My duty! do you think that was my duty? Oh, John, there are so many ways to look at it."

"Only one way, when you have a man's safety in your hands."

"Only one way—when one has a man's safety—his honour, honour! Do you think a woman is justified in whatever she does, to save that?"

"I don't understand you, Elinor; in anything you have done, or could do, certainly you are justified. My dear Nelly, sit down and take this. And then I will take you home."

She took the wine from his hand and swallowed a little of it; and then looking up into his face with the faint smile which she put on when she expected to be blamed, and intended to deprecate and disarm him, as she had done so often: "I don't know," she said, "that I am so anxious to get home, John. You were to take Pippo to dine with you, and to the House to-night."

"So I was," he said. "We did not know what day you would be called. It is a great nuisance, but if you think the boy would be disappointed not to go——"

"He would be much, much disappointed. The first chance he has had of hearing a debate."

"He would be much better at home, taking care of you."

"As if I wanted taking care of! or as if the boy, who has always been the object of everybody's care himself, would be the proper person to do it! If he had been a girl, perhaps—but it is a little late at this time of day to wish for that now."

"You were to tell him everything to-night, Elinor."

"Oh, I was to tell him! Do you think I have not had enough for one day? enough to wear me out body and soul? You have just been telling me so, John."

He shook his head. "You know," he said, "and I know, that in any case you will have it your own way, Elinor; but you have promised to tell him."

"John, you are unkind. You take advantage of me being here, and so broken down, to say that I will have my own way. Has this been my own way at all? I would have fled if I could, and taken the boy far, far away from it all; but you would not let me. Yes, yes, I have promised. But I am tired to death. How could I look him in the face and tell him——" She hid her face suddenly in her hands with a moan.

"It will be in the papers to-morrow morning, Elinor."

"Well! I will tell him to-morrow morning," she said.

John shook his head again; but it was done behind her, where she could not see the movement. He had more pity of her than words could say. When she covered her face with her hands in that most pathetic of attitudes, there was nothing that he would not have forgiven her. What was to become of her now? Her position through all these years had never been so dangerous, in John's opinion, never so sad, as now. Philip Compton had been there looking on while she put his accusers to silence, at what cost to herself John only began dimly to guess—to divine, to forbid himself to inquire. The fellow had been there all the time. He had the grace not to look at her, not to distract her with the sight of him—probably for his own sake, John thought bitterly, that she might not risk breaking down. But he was there, and knew where she was to be found. And he had seen the boy, and had cared enough to fix his gaze upon him, that gaze which John had found intolerable at the theatre. And he was on the eve of becoming Lord St. Serf, and Pippo his heir. What was to be the issue of these complications? What was to happen to her who had hid the boy so long, who certainly could hide him no more?

He took her home to Ebury Street shortly after, where Philip, weary of waiting, and having made a meal he much wanted off the sandwiches, had gone out again in his restlessness and unhappiness. Elinor, who had become paler and paler as the carriage approached Ebury Street, and who by the time she reached the house looked really as if at last she must swoon, her heart choking her, her breathing quick and feverish, had taken hold of John to support herself, clutching at his arm, when she was told that Philip was out. She came to herself instantly on the strength of that news. "Tell him when he comes in to make haste," she said, "for Mr. Tatham is waiting for him. As for me I am fit for nothing but bed. I have had a very tiring day."

"You do look tired, ma'am," said the sympathetic landlady. "I'll run up and put your room ready, and then I'll make you a nice cup of tea."

John Tatham thought that, notwithstanding her exhaustion, her anxiety, all the realities of troubles present and to come that were in her mind and in her way, there was a flash something like triumph in Elinor's eyes. "Tell Pippo," she said, "he can come up and say good-night to me before he goes. I am good for nothing but my bed. If I can sleep I shall be able for all that is before me to-morrow." The triumph was quenched, however, if there had been triumph, when she gave him her hand, with a wistful smile, and a sigh that filled that to-morrow with the terror and the trouble that must be in it, did she do what she said. John went up to the little drawing-room to wait for Pippo, with a heavy heart. It seemed to him that never had Elinor been in so much danger. She had exposed herself to the chance of losing the allegiance of her son: she was at the mercy of her husband, that husband whom she had renounced, yet whom she had not refused to save, whose call she had obeyed to help him, though she had thrown off all the bonds of love and duty towards him. She had not had the strength either way to be consistent, to carry out one steady policy. It was cruel of John to say this, for but for him and his remonstrances Elinor would, or might have, fled, and avoided this last ordeal. But he had not done so, and now here she was in the middle of her life, her frail ship of safety driven about among the rocks, dependent upon the magnanimity of the husband from whom she had fled, and the child whom she had deceived.

"Your mother is very tired, Philip," he said, when the boy appeared. "I was to tell you to go up and bid her good-night before you went out; for it will probably be late before you get back, if you think you are game to sit out the debate."

"I will sit it out," said Philip, with no laughter in his eye, with an almost solemn air, as if announcing a grave resolution. He went up-stairs, not three steps at a time, as was his wont, but soberly, as if his years had been forty instead of eighteen. And he showed no surprise to find the room darkened, though Elinor was a woman who loved the light. He gave his mother a kiss and smoothed her pillow with a tender touch of pity. "Is your head very bad?" he said.

"It is only that I am dreadfully tired, Pippo. I hope I shall sleep: and it will help me to think you are happy with Uncle John."

"Then I shall try to be happy with Uncle John," he said, with a sort of smile. "Good-night, mother; I hope you'll be better to-morrow."

"Oh, yes," she said. "To-morrow is always a new day."

He seemed in the half light to nod his head, and then to shake it, as one that assents, but doubts—having many troubled thoughts and questions in his mind. But Pippo did not at all expect to be happy with Uncle John.



CHAPTER XLVI.

It cannot be said that Uncle John was very happy with Philip, but that was a thing the others did not take into account. John Tatham was doing for the boy as much as a man could do. A great debate was expected that evening, in which many eminent persons were to speak, and Mr. Tatham gave Philip a hasty dinner in the House so that he should lose nothing, and he found him a corner in the distinguished strangers' gallery, telling him with a smile that he expected him hereafter to prove his title to such a place. But Philip's smile in return was very unlike the flush of pleasure that would have lighted it up only yesterday. John felt that the boy was not at all the delightful young companion, full of interest in everything, that he had been. Perhaps he was on his good behaviour, on his dignity, bent upon showing how much of a man he was and how little influenced by passing sentiments, as some boys do. Anyhow it was certain that he was much less agreeable in his self-subdued condition. But John was fortunately much interested in the discussion, in which, indeed, he took himself a slight part, and, save for a passing wonder and the disappointment of the moment, did not occupy himself so very much with Pippo. When he looked into the corner, however, in a lull of the debate, when one of those fools who rush in at unguarded moments, when the Speaker chances to look their way, had managed to get upon his foolish feet to the despair of all around, the experienced man of the world received a curious shock from the sight of young Philip's intense gravity, and the self-absorbed, unconscious look he wore. The boy had the look of hearing nothing, seeing nothing that was around him, of being lost in thoughts of his own, thoughts far too serious and troubled for his age. Had he discovered something? What did he know? This was the instinctive question that rose in John's mind, and not an amused anticipation of Pippo's original boyish view of the question and the speakers, such as had delighted him on the boy's previous visits to the House. And indeed Philip's attention was little fixed upon the debate. He tried hard to bring it back, to keep it there, to get the question into his mind, but in spite of himself his thoughts flew back to the other public assembly in which he had sat unnoticed that day: till gradually the aspect of things changed to him, the Speaker became the judge, the wigged secretaries the pleaders, and he almost expected to see that sudden apparition, that sight that had plucked him out of his careless life of boyhood and trust, the sight of his mother standing before the world on trial for her life. Oh, no, no, not on trial at all! he was aware of that: a harmless witness, doing only good. The judge could have nothing but polite regard for her, the jury admiration and thanks for the clear testimony which took a weight from their shoulders. But before her son she was on her trial, her trial for more than life—and he who said with so much assurance that his mother had no secrets from him! until the moment arrived, without any warning, in the midst of his security, which proved that everything had been secret, and that all was mystery—all mystery! and nothing sure in life.

It crossed Philip's mind more than once to question John Tatham upon this dreadful discovery of his—John, who was a relation, who had been the universal referee of the household as long as he could remember, Uncle John must know. But there were two things which held him back: first, the recollection of his own disdainful offence at the suggestion that Uncle John, an outsider, could know more than he did of the family concerns; and partly from the proud determination to ask no questions, to seek no information that was not freely given to him. He made up his mind to this while he looked out from his corner upon the lighted House, seeing men move up and down, and voices going on, and the sound of restless members coming and going, while the business of the country went on. It was far more important than any private affairs that could be passing in an individual brain, and Philip knew with what high-handed certainty he would have put down the idea that to himself at his age there could be anything private half so exciting, half so full of interest, as a debate on the policy of the country which might carry with it the highest issues. But conviction comes readily on such subjects when the personal interest comes which carries every other away. It was while a minister was speaking, and everything hanging on his words, that the boy made up his mind finally that he would ask no questions. He would ignore that scene in the Law Courts, as if it had not been. He would say nothing, try to look as if nothing had passed, and wait to see if any explanation would come.

It was not, perhaps, then to be wondered at if John found him a much less interesting companion than ever before, as they walked home together in the small hours of the night. Mr. Tatham's own speech had been short, but he had the agreeable consciousness that it had been an effective one, and he was prepared to find the boy excited by it, and full of applause and satisfaction. But Philip did not say a word about the speech. He was only a boy, and it may be supposed that any applause from him would have had little importance for the famous lawyer—the highly-esteemed member who kept his independence, and whose speeches always secured the attention of the House, and carried weight as among the few utterances which concerned the real import of a question and not its mere party meaning. But John was hurt more than he could have thought possible by Philip's silence. He even tried to lead the conversation artfully to that point in the debate, thinking perhaps the boy was shy of speaking on the subject—but with no effect. It was exceedingly strange. Had he been deceived in Philip? had the boy really no interest in subjects of an elevated description? or was he ill? or what was the matter with him? It troubled John to let him go on alone from Halkin Street to his lodging, with a vague sense that something might happen. But that was, of course, too absurd. "Tell your mother I'll come round in the afternoon to-morrow, as soon as I am free," he said, holding Philip's hand. And then he added, paternally, still holding that hand, "Go to bed at once, boy. You've had a tiring day."

"Yes—I suppose so," said Philip, drawing his hand away.

"I hope you haven't done too much," said John, still lingering. "You're too young for politics—and to sit up so late. I was wrong to keep you out of bed."

"I hope I'm not such a child as that," said Philip, with a half-smile: and then he went away, and John Tatham, with an anxious heart, closed behind him his own door. If it were not for Elinor and her boy what a life free of anxiety John would have had! Never any need to think with solicitude of anything outside that peaceful door, no trouble with other people's feelings, with investigations what this or that look or word meant. But perhaps it was Elinor and her boy, after all (none of his! thinking of him as an outsider, having nothing to do with their most intimate circle of confidence and natural defence), who, by means of that very anxiety, kept alive the higher principles of humanity in John Tatham's heart.

Philip went home, walking quickly through the silent streets. They were very silent at that advanced hour, yet not so completely but that there was a woman who came up to the boy at the corner. Philip neither knew nor desired to know what she said. He thought nothing about her one way or another. He took a shilling out of his pocket and threw it to her as he passed—walking on with the quick, elastic step which the sudden acquaintance he had made with care had not been able to subdue. He saw that there was still a faint light in his mother's window when he reached the house, but he would not disturb her. How little would he have thought of disturbing her on any other occasion! "Are you asleep, mother?" he would have said, looking in; and the time had never been when Elinor was asleep. She had always heard him, always replied, always been delighted to hear the account of what he had been doing, and how he had enjoyed himself. But not to-night. With a heart full of longing, yet of a sick revolt against the sight of her, he went past her door to his room. He did not want to see her, and yet—oh, if she had only called to him, if she had but said a word!

Elinor for her part was not asleep. She had slept a little while she was sure that Philip was safely disposed of and herself secured from all interruption; but when the time came for his return she slept no longer, and had been lying for a long time holding her breath, listening to every sound, when she heard his key in the latch and his foot on the stair. Would he come in as he always did? or would he remember her complaint of being tired, a complaint she so seldom made? It was as a blow to Elinor when she heard his step go on past her door: and yet she was glad. Had he come in there was a desperate thought in her mind that she would call him to her bedside and in the dark, with his hand in hers, tell him—all that there was to tell. But it was again a relief when he passed on, and she felt that she was spared for an hour or two, spared for the new day, which perhaps would give her courage. It was an endless night, long hours of dark, and then longer hours of morning light, too early for anything, while still nobody in the house was stirring. She had scarcely slept at all during that long age of weary and terrible thought. For it was not as if she had but one thing to think of. When her mind turned, like her restless body, from one side to another, it was only to a change of pain. What was it she had said, standing up before earth and heaven, and calling God to witness that what she said was true? It had been true, and yet she knew that it was not, and that she had saved her husband's honour at the cost of her own. Oh, not in those serious and awful watches of the night can such a defence be accepted as that the letter of her testimony was true! She did not attempt to defend herself. She only tried to turn to another thought that might be less bitter: and then she was confronted by the confession that she must make to her boy. She must tell him that she had deceived him all his life, hid from him what he ought to have known, separated him from his father and his family, kept him in ignorance, despite all that had been said to her, despite every argument. And when Elinor in her misery fled from that thought, what was there else to think of? There was her husband, Pippo's father, from whom he could no longer be kept. If she had thought herself justified in stealing her child away out of fear of the influence that father might have upon him, how would it be now when they must be restored to each other, at an age much more dangerous for the boy than in childhood, and with all the attractions of mystery and novelty and the sense that his father had been wronged! When she escaped from that, the most terrible thought of all, feeling her brain whirl and her heart burn as she imagined her child turning from the mother who had deceived him to the father who had been deprived of him, her mind went off to that father himself, from whom she had fled, whom she had judged and condemned, but who had repaid her by no persecution, no interference, no pursuit, but an acceptance of her verdict, never molesting her, leaving her safe in the possession of her boy. Perhaps there were other ways in which Phil Compton's magnanimity have been looked at, in which it would have shown in less favourable colours. But Elinor was not ready to take that view. Her tower of justice and truth and honour had crumbled over her head. She was standing among her ruins, feeling that nothing was left to her, nothing upon which she could build herself a structure of self-defence. All was wrong; a series of mistakes and failures, to say no worse. She had driven on ever wilful all through, escaping from every pang she could avoid, throwing off every yoke that she did not choose to bear: until now here she stood to face all that she had fled from, unable to elude them more, meeting them as so many ghosts in her way. Oh, how true it was what John had said to her so long, so long ago—that she was not one who would bear, who if she were disappointed and wronged could endure and surmount her trouble by patience! Oh, no, no! She had been one who had put up with nothing, who had taken her own way. And now she was surrounded on every side by the difficulties she had thrust away from her, but which now could be thrust away no more.

It may be imagined what the night was which Elinor spent sleepless, struggling one after another with these thoughts, finding no comfort anywhere wherever she turned. She had not been without many a struggle even in the most quiet of the years that had passed—in one long dream of peace as it seemed now; but never as now had she been met wherever she turned by another and another lion in the way. She got up very early, with a feeling that movement had something lulling and soothing in it, and that to lie there a prey to all these thoughts was like lying on the rack—to the great surprise of the kind landlady, who came stealing into her room with the inevitable cup of tea, and whose inquiry how the poor lady was, was taken out of her mouth by the unexpected apparition of the supposed invalid, fully dressed, moving about the room, with all the air of having been up for hours. Elinor asked, with a sudden precaution, that the newspapers might be brought up to her, not so much for her own satisfaction—for it made her heart sick to think of reading over in dreadful print, as would be done that morning at millions of breakfast-tables, her own words: perhaps with comments on herself and her history, which might fall into Pippo's hands, and be read by him before he knew: which was a sudden spur to herself and evidence of the dread necessity of letting him know that story from her own lips, which had not occurred to her before. She glanced over the report with a sickening sense that all the privacy of sheltered life and honourable silence was torn off from her, and that she was exposed as on a pillory to the stare and the remarks of the world, and crushed the paper away like a noxious thing into a drawer where the boy at least would never find it. Vain thought! as if there was but one paper in the world, as if he could not find it at every street corner, thrust into his hand even as he walked along; but at all events for the moment he would not see it, and she would have time—time to tell him before that revelation could come in his way. She went down-stairs, with what a tremor in her and sinking of her heart it would be impossible to say. To have to condemn herself to her only child; to humble herself before him, her boy, who thought there was no one like his mother; to let him know that he had been deceived all his life, he who thought she had always told him everything. Oh, poor mother! and oh, poor boy!

She was still sitting by the breakfast-table, waiting, in a chill fever, if such a thing can be, for Philip, when a thing occurred which no one could have thought of, and yet which was the most natural thing in the world—which came upon Elinor like a thunderbolt, shattering all her plans again just at the moment when, after so much shrinking and delay, she had at last made up her mind to the one thing that must be done at once. The sound of the driving up of a cab to the door made her go to the window to look out, without producing any expectation in her mind: for people were coming and going in Ebury Street all day long. She saw, however, a box which she recognised upon the cab, and then the door was opened and Mrs. Dennistoun stepped out. Her mother! the wonder was not that she came now, but that she had not come much sooner. No letters for several days, her child and her child's child in town, and trouble in the air! Mrs. Dennistoun had borne it as long as she could, but there had come a moment when she could bear it no longer, and she too had followed Pippo's example and taken the night mail. Elinor stood motionless at the window, and saw her mother arrive, and did not feel capable of going to meet her, or of telling whether it was some dreadful aggravation of evil, or an interposition of Providence to save her for another hour at least from the ordeal before her.



CHAPTER XLVII.

Mrs. Dennistoun had a great deal to say about herself and the motives which had at the last been too much for her, which had forced her to come after her children at a moment's notice, feeling that she could bear the uncertainty about them no longer; and it was a thing so unusual with her to have much to say about herself that there was certainly something apologetic, something self-defensive in this unaccustomed outburst. Perhaps she had begun to feel a little the unconscious criticism that gathers round the elder person in a house, the inclination involuntarily—which every one would repudiate, yet which nevertheless is true—to attribute to her a want of perception, perhaps—oh, not unkindly!—a little blunting of the faculties, a suggestion quite unintentional that she is not what she once was. She explained herself so distinctly that there was no doubt there was some self-defence in it. "I had not had a letter for three days."

And Elinor was far more humble than her wont. "I know, mother: I felt as if it were impossible to write—till it was over——"

"My darling! I thought at last I must come and stand by you. I felt that I ought to have seen that all the time—that you should have had your mother by your side to give you countenance."

"I had John with me, mother."

"Then it is over!" Mrs. Dennistoun cried.

And at that moment Pippo, very late, pale, and with eyes which were red with sleeplessness, and perhaps with tears, came in. Elinor gave her mother a quick look, almost of blame, and then turned to the boy. She did not mean it, and yet Mrs. Dennistoun felt as if the suggestion, "He might never have known had you not called out like that," was in her daughter's eyes.

"Pippo!" she said. "Why, Elinor! what have you been doing to the boy?"

"He does not look well," said Elinor, suddenly waking up to that anxiety which had been always so easily roused in respect to Pippo. "He was very late last night. He was at the House with John," she added, involuntarily, with an apology to her mother for the neglect which had extended to Pippo too.

"There is nothing the matter with me," he said, with a touch of sullenness in his tone.

The two women looked at each other with all the vague trouble in their eyes suddenly concentrated upon young Philip, but they said nothing more, as he sat down at table and began to play with the breakfast, for which he had evidently no appetite. No one had ever seen that sullen look in Pippo's face before. He bent his head over the table as if he were intent upon the food which choked him when he tried to eat, and which he loathed the very sight of—and did not say a word. They had certainly not been very light-hearted before, but the sight of the boy thus obscured and changed made all the misery more evident. There was always a possibility of over-riding the storm so long as all was well with Pippo: but his changed countenance veiled the very sun in the skies.

"You don't seem surprised to see me here," his grandmother said.

"Oh!—no, I am not surprised. I wonder you did not come sooner. Have you been travelling all night?" he said.

"Just as you did, Pippo. I drove into Penrith last night and caught the mail train. I was seized with a panic about you, and felt that I must see for myself."

"It is not the first time you have taken a panic about us, mother," said Elinor, forcing a smile.

"No; but it is almost the first time I have acted upon it," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with that faint instinct of self-defence; "but I think you must have needed me more than usual to keep you in order. You must have been going out too much, keeping late hours. You are pale enough, Elinor, but Pippo—Pippo has suffered still more."

"I tell you," said Philip, raising his shoulders and stooping his head over the table, "granny, that there is nothing the matter with me."

And he took no part in the conversation as they went on talking, of any subjects but those that were most near their hearts. They had, indeed, no thoughts at all to spare but those that were occupied with the situation, and with this new feature in it, Pippo's worn and troubled looks, yet had to talk of something, of nothing, while the meal went on, which was no meal at all for any of them. When it was over at last Pippo rose abruptly from the table.

"Are you going out?" Elinor said, alarmed, rising too. "Have you any engagement with the Marshalls for to-day?"

"I don't know," Philip said; "Mr. Marshall was ill yesterday. I didn't see them. I'm not going out. I am going to my room."

"You've got a headache, Pippo!"

"Nothing of the kind! I tell you there is nothing the matter with me. I'm only going to my room."

Elinor put her hands on his arm. "Pippo, I have something to say to you before you go out. Will you promise to let me know before you go out? I don't want to keep you back from anything, but I have something that I must say."

He did not ask with his usual interest what it was. He showed no curiosity; on the contrary, he drew his arm out of her hold almost rudely. "Of course," he said, "I will come in here before I go out. I have no intention of going out now."

And thus he left them, and went with a heavy step, oh, how different from Pippo's flying foot: so that they could count every step, up-stairs.

"What is the matter, what is the matter, Elinor?"

"I know nothing," she said; "nothing! He was like himself yesterday morning, full of life. Unless he is ill, I cannot understand it. But, mother, I have to tell him—everything to-day."

"God grant it may not be too late, Elinor!" Mrs. Dennistoun said.

"Too late? How can it be too late? Yes; perhaps you are right, John and you. He ought to have known from the beginning; he ought to have been told when he was a child. I acknowledge that I was wrong; but it is no use," she said, wiping away some fiery tears, "to go back upon that now."

"John could not have told him anything?" Mrs. Dennistoun said, doubtfully.

"John! my best friend, who has always stood by me. Oh, never, never. How little you know him, mother! He has been imploring me every day, almost upon his knees, to tell Pippo everything; and I promised to do it as soon as the time was come. And then last night I was so glad to think that he was engaged with John, and I so worn out, not fit for anything. And then this morning——"

"Then—this morning I arrived, just when I would have been better away!"

"Don't say that, mother. It is always, always well you should be with your children. And, oh, if I had but taken your advice years and years ago!"

How easy it is to wish this when fate overtakes us, when the thing so long postponed, so long pushed away from us, has to be done at last! There is, I fear, no repentance in it, only the intolerable sense that the painful act might have been over long ago, and the soul free now of a burden which is so terrible to bear.

Philip did not leave his room all the morning. His mother, overwhelmed now by the new anxiety about his health, which had no part in her thoughts before, went to his door and knocked several times, always with the intention of going in, of insisting upon the removal of all barriers, and of telling her story, the story which now was as fire in her veins and had to be told. But he had locked his door, and only answered from within that he was reading—getting up something that he had forgotten—and begged her to leave him undisturbed till lunch. Poor Elinor! Her story was, as I have said, like fire in her veins; but when the moment came, and a little more delay, an hour, a morning was possible, she accepted it like a boon from heaven, though she knew very well all the same that it was but prolonging the agony, and that to get it accomplished—to get it over—was the only thing to desire. She tried to arrange her thoughts, to think how she was to tell it, in the hurrying yet flying minutes when she sat alone, listening now and then to Philip's movements over her head, for he was not still as a boy should be who was reading, but moved about his room, with a nervous restlessness that seemed almost equal to her own. Mrs. Dennistoun, to leave her daughter free for the conversation that ought to take place between Elinor and her son, had gone to lie down, and lay in Elinor's room, next door to the boy, listening to every sound, and hoping, hoping that they would get it over before she went down-stairs again. She did not believe that Philip would stand out against his mother, whom he loved. Oh, if they could but get it over, that explanation—if the boy but knew! But it was apparent enough, when she came down to luncheon, where Elinor awaited her, pale and anxious, and where Philip followed, so unlike himself, that no explanation had yet taken place between them. And the luncheon was as miserable a pretence at a meal as the breakfast had been—worse as a repetition, yet better in so far that poor Pippo, with his boyish wholesome appetite, was by this time too hungry to be restrained even by the unusual burden of his unhappiness, and ate heartily, although he was bitterly ashamed of so doing: which perhaps made him a little better, and certainly did a great deal of good to the ladies, who thus were convinced that whatever the matter might be, he was not ill at least. He was about to return up-stairs after luncheon was over, but Elinor caught him by the arm: "You are not going to your room again, Pippo?"

"I—have not finished my reading," he said.

"I have a claim before your reading. I have a great deal to say to you, and I cannot put it off any longer. It must be said——"

"As you please, mother," he replied, with an air of endurance. And he opened the door for her and followed her up to the drawing-room, the three generations going one before the other, the anxious grandmother first, full of sympathy for both; the mother trembling in every limb, feeling the great crisis of her life before her; the boy with his heart seared, half bitter, half contemptuous of the explanation which he had forestalled, which came too late. Mrs. Dennistoun turned and kissed first one and then the other with quivering lips. "Oh, Pippo, be kind to your mother; she never will have such need of your kindness again in all your life." The boy could almost have struck her for this advice. It raised a kind of savage passion in him to be told to be kind to his mother—kind to her, when he had held her above all beings on the earth, and prided himself all his life upon his devotion to her! What Mrs. Dennistoun said to Elinor I cannot tell, but she clasped her hands and gave her an imploring look, which was almost as bitterly taken as her appeal to Philip. It besought her to tell everything, to hide nothing; and what was Elinor's meaning but to tell everything, to lay bare her heart?

But once more at this moment an interruption—the most wonderful and unthought-of of all interruptions—came. I suppose it must have been announced by the usual summons at the street-door, and that in their agitation they had not heard it. But all that I know is, that when Mrs. Dennistoun turned to leave the mother and son to their conversation, which was so full of fate, the door of the drawing-room opened almost upon her as she was about to go out, and with a little demonstration and pride, as of a name which it was a distinction even to be permitted to say, of a visitor whose arrival could not be but an honour and delightful surprise, the husband of the landlady—the man of the house, once a butler of the highest pretensions, now only condescending to serve his lodgers when the occasion was dignified—swept into the room, noiseless and solemn, holding open the door, and announced "Lord St. Serf." Mrs. Dennistoun fell back as if she had met a ghost; and Elinor, too, drew back a step, becoming as pale as if she had been the ghost her mother saw. The gasp of the long breath they both drew made a sound in the room where the very air seemed to tingle; and young Philip, raising his head, saw, coming in, the man whom he had seen in court—the man who had gazed at him in the theatre, the man of the opera-glass. But was this then not the Philip Compton for whom Elinor Dennistoun had stood forth, and borne witness before all the world?

He came in and stood without a word, waiting for a moment till the servant was gone and the door closed; and then he advanced with a step, the very assurance and quickness of which showed his hesitation and uncertainty. He did not hold out his hands—much less his arms—to her. "Nell?" he said, as if he had been asking a question, "Nell?"

She seemed to open her lips to speak, but brought forth no sound; and then Mrs. Dennistoun came in with the grave voice of every day, "Will you sit down?"

He looked round at her, perceiving her for the first time. "Ah," he said, "mamma! how good that you are here. It is a little droll though, don't you think, when a man comes into the bosom of his family after an absence of eighteen years, that the only thing that is said to him should be, 'Will you sit down?' Better that, however, a great deal, than 'Will you go away?'"

He sat down as she invited him, with a short laugh. He was perfectly composed in manner. Looking round him with curious eyes, "Was this one of the places," he said, "Nell, that we stayed in in the old times?"

She answered "No" under her breath, her paleness suddenly giving way to a hot flush of feverish agitation. And then she took refuge in a vacant chair, unable to support herself, and he sat too, and the party looked—but for that agitation in Elinor's face, which she could not master—as if the ladies were receiving and he paying a morning call. The other two, however, did not sit down. Young Philip, confused and excited, went away to the second room, the little back drawing-room of the little London house, which can never be made to look anything but an anteroom—never a habitable place—and went to the window, and stood there as if he were looking out, though the window was of coloured glass, and there was nothing to be seen. Mrs. Dennistoun stood with her hand upon the back of a chair, her heart beating too, and yet the most collected of them all, waiting, with her eyes on Elinor, for a sign to know her will, whether she should go or stay. It was the visitor who was the first to speak.

"Let me beg you," he said, with a little impatience in his voice, "to sit down too. It is evident that Nell's reception of me is not likely to be so warm as to make it unpleasant for a third party. There was a fourth party in the room a minute ago, if my eyes did not deceive me. Ah!"—his glance went rapidly to where Philip's tall boyish figure, with his back turned, was visible against the further window—"that's all right," he said, "now I presume everybody's here."

"Had we expected your visit," said Mrs. Dennistoun, faltering, after a moment, as Elinor did not speak, "we should have been—better prepared to receive you, Mr. Compton."

"That's not spoken with your usual cleverness," he said, with a laugh. "You used to be a great deal too clever for me, you and Nell too. But if she did not expect to see me, I don't know what she thought I was made of—everything that is bad, I suppose: and yet you know I could have worried your life out of you if I had liked, Nell."

She turned to him for the first time, and, putting her hands together, said almost inaudibly, "I know—I know. I have thought of that, and I am not ungrateful."

"Grateful! Well, perhaps you have not much call for that, poor little woman. I don't doubt I behaved like a brute, and you were quite right in doing what you did; but you've taken it out of me since, Nell, all the same."

Then there was again a silence, broken only by the labouring, which she could not quite conceal, of her breath.

"You wouldn't believe me," he resumed after a moment, "if I were to set up a sentimental pose, like a sort of a disconsolate widower, eh, would you? Of course it was a position that was not without its advantages. I was not much made for a family man, and both in the way of expense and in—other ways, it suited me well enough. Nobody could expect me to marry them or their daughters, don't you see, when they knew I had a wife alive? So I was allowed my little amusements. You never went in for that kind of thing, Nell? Don't snap me up. You know I told you I never was against a little flirtation. It makes a woman more tolerant, in my opinion, just to know how to amuse herself a little. But Nell was never one of that kind——"

"I hope not, indeed," said Mrs. Dennistoun, to whom he had turned, with indignation.

"I don't see where the emphasis comes in. She was one that a man could be as sure of as of Westminster Abbey. The heart of her husband rests upon her—isn't that what the fellow in the Bible says, or words to that effect? Nell was always a kind of a Bible to me. And you may say that in that case to think of her amusing herself! But you will allow she always did take everything too much au grand serieux. No? to be sure, you'll allow nothing. But still that was the truth. However, I'll allow something if you won't. I'm past my first youth. Oh, you, not a bit of it! You're just as fresh and as pretty, by George! as ever you were. When I saw you stand up in that court yesterday looking as if—not a week had passed since I saw you last, by Jove! Nell—— And how you were hating it, poor old girl, and had come out straining your poor little conscience, and saying what you didn't want to say—for the sake of a worthless fellow like me——"

A sob came out of Elinor's breast, and something half inaudible besides, like a name.

"I can tell you this," he said, turning to Mrs. Dennistoun again, "I couldn't look at her. I'm an unlikely brute for that sort of thing, but if I had looked at her I should have cried. I daresay you don't believe me. Never mind, but it's true."

"I do believe you," said the mother, very low.

"Thank you," he said, with a laugh. "I have always said for a mother-in-law you were the least difficult to get on with I ever saw. Do you remember giving me that money to make ducks and drakes of? It was awfully silly of you. You didn't deserve to be trusted with money to throw it away like that, but still I have not forgotten it. Well! I came to thank you for yesterday, Nell. And there are things, you know, that we must talk over. You never gave up your name. That was like your pluck. But you will have to change it now. It was indecent of me to have myself announced like that and poor old St. Serf not in his grave yet. But I daresay you didn't pay any attention. You are Lady St. Serf now, my dear. You don't mind, I know, but it's a change not without importance. Well, who is that fellow behind there, standing in the window? I think you ought to present him to me. Or I'll present him to you instead. I saw him in the theatre, by Jove! with that fellow Tatham, that cousin John of yours that I never could bear, smirking and smiling at him as if it were his son! but I saw the boy then for the first time. Nell, I tell you there are some things in which you have taken it well out of me——"

"Mr. Compton," she said, labouring to speak. "Lord St. Serf. Oh, Phil, Phil!——"

"Ah," he said, with a start, "do you remember at last? the garden at that poky old cottage with all the flowers, and the days when you looked out for wild Phil Compton that all the world warned you against? And here I am an old fogey, without either wife or child, and Tatham taking my boy about and Nell never looking me in the face."

Philip, at the window looking out at nothing through the hideous-coloured glass, had heard every word, with wonder, with horror, with consternation, with dreadful disappointment and sinking of the heart. For indeed he had a high ideal of a father, the highest, such as fatherless boys form in their ignorance. And every word made it more sure that this was his father, this man who had so caught his eyes and filled him with such a fever of interest. But to hear Phil Compton talk had brought the boy's soaring imagination down, down to the dust. He had not been prepared for anything like this. Some tragic rending asunder he could have believed in, some wild and strange mystery. But this man of careless speech, of chaff and slang, so little noble, so little serious, so far from tragic! The disappointment had been too sudden and dreadful to leave him with any ears for those tones that went to his mother's heart. He had no pity or sense of the pathos that was in them. He stood in his young absolutism disgusted, miserable. This man his father!—this man! so talking, so thinking. Young Philip stood with his back to the group, more miserable than words could say. He heard some movement behind, but he was too sick of heart to think what it was, until suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder, and most unwillingly suffered himself to be turned round to meet his father's eyes. He gave one glance up at the face, which he did not now feel was worn with study and care—which now that he saw it near was full of lines and wrinkles which meant something else, and which even the emotion in it, emotion of a kind which Pippo did not understand, hidden by a laugh, did not make more prepossessing—and then he stood with his eyes cast down, not caring to see it again.

The elder Philip Compton had, I think, though he was, as he said, an unlikely subject for that mood, tears in his eyes—and he had no inclination to see anything that was painful in the face of his son, whose look he had never read, whose voice he had never heard, till now. He held the boy with his hands on his shoulders, with a grasp more full perhaps of the tender strain of love (though he did not know him) than ever he had laid upon any human form before. The boy's looks were not only satisfactory to him, but filled his own heart with an unaccustomed spring of pride and delight—his stature, his complexion, his features, making up as it were the most wonderful compliment, the utmost sweetness of flattery that he had ever known. For the boy was himself over again, not like his mother, like the unworthy father whom he had never seen. It took him some time to master the sudden rush of this emotion which almost overwhelmed him: and then he drew the boy's arm through his own and led him back to where the two ladies sat, Elinor still too much agitated for speech. "I said I'd present my son to you, Nell—if you wouldn't present him to me," he said, with a break in his voice which sounded like a chuckle to that son's angry ears. "I don't know what you call the fellow—but he's big enough to have a name of his own, and he's Lomond from this day."

Pippo did not know what was meant by those words: but he drew his arm from his father's and went and stood behind Elinor's chair, forgetting in a moment all grievances against her, taking her side with an energy impossible to put into words, clinging to his mother as he had done when he was a little child.



CHAPTER XLVIII.

It was while this conversation was going on that John Tatham, anxious and troubled about many things, knocked at the door in Ebury Street. He was anxious to know how the explanations had got accomplished, how the boy took it, how Elinor had borne the strain upon her of such a revelation. Well as he knew Elinor, he still thought, as is generally thought in circumstances so painful, that a great crisis, a great mental effort, would make her ill. He wanted to know how she was, he wanted to know how Pippo had borne it, what the boy thought. It had glanced across him that young Philip might be excited by so wonderful a new thing, and form some false impression of his father (whom doubtless she would represent under the best light, taking blame upon herself, not to destroy the boy's ideal), and be eager to know him—which was a thing, John felt, which would be very difficult to bear.

The door was opened to him not by good Mrs. Jones, the kind landlady, but by the magnificent Jones himself, who rarely appeared. John said "Mrs. Compton?" as a matter of course, and was about to pass in, in his usual familiar way. But something in the man's air made him pause. He looked at Jones again, who was bursting with importance. "Perhaps she's engaged?" he said.

"I think, sir," said John, "that her ladyship is engaged—his lordship is with her ladyship up-stairs."

"His—what?" John Tatham cried.

"His lordship, Mr. Tatham. I know, sir, as the title is not usually assumed till after the funeral; but in the very 'ouse where her ladyship is residing for the moment, there's allowances to be made. Naturally we're a little excited over it, being, if I may make so bold as to say so, a sort of 'umble friends, and long patronized by her ladyship, and young Lord Lomond too."

"Young Lord Lomond too!" John Tatham stood for a moment and stared at Mr. Jones; and then he laughed out, and turned his back and walked away.

Young Lord Lomond too! The boy! who had been more like John's boy than anything else, but now tricked out in a new name, a new position, his father's heir. Oh, yes, it was John himself who had insisted on that only a few days ago! "The heir to a peerage can't be hid." It was he that had quoted this as an aphorism worthy of a social sage. But when the moment came and the boy was taken from him, and introduced into that other sphere, by the side of that man who had once been the dis-Honourable Phil! Good heavens, what changes life is capable of! What wrongs, what cruelties, what cuttings-off, what twists and alterations of every sane thought and thing! John Tatham was a sensible man as well as an eminent lawyer, and knew that between Elinor's son, who was Phil Compton's son, and himself, there was no external link at all—nothing but affection and habit, and the ever-strengthening link that had been twisted closer and closer with the progress of these years; but nothing real, the merest shadow of relationship, a cousin, who could count how often removed? And it was he who had insisted, forced upon Elinor the necessity of making his father known to Philip, of informing him of his real position. Nobody had interfered in this respect but John. He had made himself a weariness to her by insisting, never giving over, blaming her hourly for her delay. And yet now, when the thing he had so worked for, so constantly urged, was done——!

He smiled grimly to himself as he walked away: they were all together, the lordship and the ladyship, young Lord Lomond too!—and Phil Compton, whitewashed, a peer of the realm, and still, the scoundrel! a handsome fellow enough: with an air about him, a man who might still dazzle a youngster unaccustomed to the world. He had re-entered the bosom of his family, and doubtless was weeping upon Philip's neck, and bandying about that name of "Nell" which had always seemed to John an insult—an insult to himself. And in that moment of bitterness John did not know how she would take it, what effect it would produce upon her. Perhaps the very sight of the fellow who had once won her heart, the lover of her youth, with whom John had never for a moment put himself in competition, notwithstanding the bitter wonder in his heart that Elinor—Elinor of all people!—could ever have loved such a man. Yet she had loved him, and the sight of him again after so many years, what effect might it not produce? As he walked away, it was the idea of a happy family that came into John Tatham's mind—mutual forgiveness, mutual return to the old traditions which are the most endearing of all; expansions, confessions, recollections, and lives of reunion. Something more than a prodigal's return, the return of a sinner bringing a coronet in his hand, bringing distinction, a place and position enough to dazzle any boy, enough to make a woman forgive. And was not this what John wished above all things, every advancement for the boy, and an assured place in the world, as well as every happiness that might be possible—happiness! yet it was possible she might think it so—for Elinor? Yes, this was what he had wished for, been ready to make any sacrifice to secure. In the sudden shock Mr. Tatham thought of the only other person who perhaps—yet only perhaps—might feel a little as he did—the mother, Mrs. Dennistoun, upon whom he thought all this would come like a thunder-clap, not knowing that she was up-stairs in the family party, among the lordships and the ladyship too.

He went home and into his handsome library, and shut the door upon himself, to have it out there—or rather to occupy himself in some more sensible way and shut this foolish subject out of his mind. It occurred to him, however, when he sat down that the best thing to do would be to write an account of it all to Mrs. Dennistoun, who doubtless in the excitement would have a long time to wait for news of this great change. He drew his blotting-book towards him with this object, and opened it, and dipped his pen in the ink, and wrote "My dear Aunt;" but he did not get much further. He raised his head, thinking how to introduce his narrative, for which she would in all likelihood be wholly unprepared, and in so doing looked round upon his book-cases, on one shelf of which the reflection of a ray of afternoon sunshine caught in the old Louis Treize mirror over the mantelpiece was throwing a shaft of light. He got up to make sure that it was only a reflection, nothing that would harm the binding of a particular volume upon which he set great store—though of course he knew very well that it could only be a reflection, no impertinent reality of sunshine being permitted to penetrate there. And then he paused a little to draw his hand lovingly over the line of choice books—very choice—worth a little fortune, which he laughed at himself a little for being proud of, fully knowing that what was inside them (which generally is the cream of a book, as of a letter, according to Tony Lumpkin) was in many cases worth nothing at all. And then John went and stood upon the hearth-rug, and looked round him upon this the heart of his domain. It was a noble library, any man might have been proud of it. He asked himself whether it did not suit him better, with all the comforts and luxuries beyond it, than if he had been like other men, with an entirely different centre of life up-stairs in the empty drawing-room, and the burden upon him of setting out children, boys and girls, upon the world.

When a man asks himself this question, however complacent may be the reply, it betrays perhaps a doubt whether the assurance he has is so very sure after all; and he returned to his letter to Mrs. Dennistoun, which would be quite easy to write if it were only once well begun. But he had not written above a few words, having spent some time in his previous reflections, when he paused again at the sound of a tumultuous summons at the street-door. As may be well supposed, his servant took more time than usual to answer it, resenting a noise so out of character with the house, during which John listened half-angrily, fearing, yet wishing for, a diversion. And then his own door burst open, not, I need not say, by any intervention of legitimate hands, but by the sudden rush of Philip, who seemed to come in in a whirl of long limbs and eager eyes, flinging himself into a chair and fixing his gaze across the corner of the table upon his astonished yet expectant friend. "Oh, Uncle John!" the boy cried, and had not breath to say any more.

John put forth his hand across the table, and grasped the young flexible warm hand that wanted something to hold. "Well, my boy," he said.

"I suppose you know," said Philip. "I have nothing to tell you, though it is all so strange to me."

"I know—nothing about what interests me most at present—yourself, Pippo, and what has happened to you."

John had always made a great stand against that particular name, but several times had used it of late, not knowing why.

"I don't know what you thought of me last night," said the boy, "I was so miserable. May I tell you everything, Uncle John?"

What balm that question was! He clasped Pippo's hand in his own, but scarcely could answer to bid him go on.

"It was unnecessary, all she wanted to tell me. I fought it off all the morning. I was there yesterday in the court and heard it all."

"In the court! At the trial?"

"I had no meaning in it," said Philip. "I went by chance, as people say, because the Marshalls had not turned up. I got Simmons to get me into the court. I had always wanted to see a trial. And there I saw my mother stand up—my mother, that I never could bear the wind to blow on, standing up there alone with all these people staring at her to be tried—for her life."

"Don't be a fool, Philip," said John Tatham, dropping his hand; "tried! she was only a witness. And she was not alone. I was there to take care of her."

"I saw you—but what was that? She was alone all the same; and for me, it was she who was on her trial. What did I know about any other? I heard it, every word."

"Poor boy!"

"So what was the use of making herself miserable to tell me? She tried to all this morning, and I fought it off. I was miserable enough. Why should I be made more miserable to hear her perhaps excusing herself to me? But at last she had driven me into a corner, angry as I was—Uncle John, I was angry, furious, with my mother—fancy! with my mother."

John did not say anything, but he nodded his head in assent. How well he understood it all!

"And just then, at that moment, he came. I am angry with her no more. I know whatever happened she was right. Angry with her, my poor dear, dearest mother! Whatever happened she was right. It was best that she should not tell me. I am on her side all through—all through! Do you hear me, Uncle John! I have seen you look as if you blamed her. Don't again while I am there. Whatever she has done it has been the right thing all through!"

"Pippo," said John, with a little quivering about the mouth, "give me your hand again, old fellow, you're my own boy."

"Nobody shall so much as look as if they blamed her," cried the boy, "while I am alive!"

Oh, how near he was to crying, and how resolute not to break down, though something got into his throat and almost choked him, and his eyes were so full that it was a miracle they did not brim over. Excitement, distress, pain, the first touch of human misery he had ever known almost overmastered Philip. He got up and walked about the room, and talked and talked. He who had never concealed anything, who had never had anything to conceal. And for four-and-twenty hours he had been silent with a great secret upon his soul. John was too wise to check the outpouring. He listened to everything, assented, soothed, imperceptibly led him to gentler thoughts.

"And what does he mean," cried the boy at last, "with his new name? I shall have no name but my own, the one my mother gave me. I am Philip Compton, and nothing else. What right has he, the first time he ever saw me, to put upon me another name?"

"What name?"

"He called me Lomond—or something like that," said young Philip: and then there came a sort of stillness over his excitement, a lull in the storm. Some vague idea what it meant came all at once into the boy's mind: and a thrill of curiosity, of another kind of excitement, of rising thoughts which he did not hardly understand, struggled up through the other zone of passion. He was half ashamed, having just poured forth all his feelings, to show that there was something else, something that was no longer indignation, nor anger, nor the shock of discovery, something that had a tremor perhaps of pleasure in it, behind. But John was far too experienced a man not to read the boy through and through. He liked him better in the first phase, but this was natural too.

"It happens very strangely," he said, "that all these things should come upon you at once: but it is well you should know now all about it. Lomond is the second title of the Comptons, Earls of St. Serf. Haven't I heard you ask what Comptons you belonged to, Philip? It has all happened within a day or two. Your father was only Philip Compton yesterday at the trial, and a poor man. Now he is Lord St. Serf, if not rich, at least no longer poor. Everything has changed for you—your position, your importance in the world. The last Lord Lomond bore the name creditably enough. I hope you will make it shine." He took the boy by the hand and grasped it heartily again. "I am thankful for it," said John. "I would rather you were Lord Lomond than——"

"What! Uncle John?"

"Steady, boy. I was going to say Philip Compton's son; but Lord St. Serf is another man."

There was a long pause in the room where John Tatham's life was centred among his books. He had so much to do with all this business, and yet so little. It would pass away with all its tumults, and he after being absorbed by it for a moment would be left alone to his own thoughts and his own unbroken line of existence. So much the better! It is not good for any man to be swept up and put down again at the will of others in matters in which he has no share. As for Philip, he was silent chiefly to realise this great thing that had come upon him. He, Lord Lomond, a peer's son, who was only Pippo of Lakeside like any other lad in the parish, and not half so important at school as Musgrave, who did not get that scholarship. What the school would say! the tempest that would arise! They would ask a holiday, and the head master would grant it. Compton a lord! Philip could hear the roar and rustle among the boys, the scornful incredulity, the asseverations of those who knew it was true. And a flush that was pleasure had come over his musing face. It would have been strange if in the wonder of it there had not been some pleasure too.

He had begun to tolerate his father before many days were over, to cease to be indignant and angry that he was not the ideal father of his dreams. That was not Lord St. Serf's fault, who was not at all aware of his son's dreams, and had never had an ideal in his life. But John Tatham was right in saying that Lord St. Serf was another man. The shock of a new responsibility, of a position to occupy and duties to fulfil, were things that might not have much moved the dis-Honourable Phil two years before. But he was fifty, and beginning to feel himself an old fogey, as he confessed. And his son overawed Lord St. Serf. His son, who was so like him, yet had the mother's quick, impetuous eyes, so rapid to see through everything, so disdainful of folly, so keen in perception. He was afraid to bring upon himself one of those lightning flashes from the eyes of his boy, and doubly afraid to introduce his son anywhere, to show him anything that might bring upon him the reproach of doing harm to Pippo. His house, which had been very decent and orderly in the late Lord St. Serf's time, became almost prim in the terror Phil had lest they should say that it was bad for the boy.

As for Lady St. Serf, it was popularly reported that the reason why she almost invariably lived in the country was her health, which kept her out of society—a report, I need not say, absolutely rejected by society itself, which knew all the circumstances better than you or I do: but which sufficed for the outsiders who knew nothing. When Elinor did appear upon great occasions, which she consented to do, her matured beauty gave the fullest contradiction to the pretext on which she continued to live her own life. But old Lord St. Serf, who got old so long before he need to have done, with perhaps the same sort of constitutional weakness which had carried off all his brothers before their time, or perhaps because he had too much abused a constitution which was not weak—grew more and more fond in his latter days of the country too, and kept appearing at Lakeside so often that at last the ladies removed much nearer town, to the country-house of the St. Serfs, which had not been occupied for ages, where they presented at last the appearance of a united family; and where "Lomond" (who would have thought it very strange now to be addressed by any other name) brought his friends, and was not ill-pleased to hear his father discourse, in a way which sometimes still offended the home-bred Pippo, but which the other young men found very amusing. It was not in the way of morals, however, that Lord St. Serf ever offended. The fear of Elinor kept him as blameless as any good-natured preacher of the endless theme, that all is vanity, could do.

These family arrangements, however, and the modified happiness obtained by their means, were still all in the future, when John Tatham, a little afraid of the encounter, yet anxious to have it over, went to Ebury Street the day after these occurrences, to see Elinor for the first time under her new character as Lady St. Serf. He found her in a languor and exhaustion much unlike Elinor, doing nothing, not even a book near, lying back in her chair, fallen upon herself, as the French say. Some of those words that mean nothing passed between them, and then she said, "John, did Pippo tell you that he had been there?"

He nodded his head, finding nothing to say.

"Without any warning, to see his mother stand up before all the world to be tried—for her life."

"Elinor," said John, "you are as fantastic as the boy."

"I was—being tried for my life—before him as the judge. And he has acquitted me; but, oh, I wonder, I wonder if he would have done so had he known all that I know?"

"I do so," said John, "perhaps a little more used to the laws of evidence than Pippo."

"Ah, you!" she said, giving him her hand, with a look which John did not know how to take, whether as the fullest expression of trust, or an affectionate disdain of the man in whose partial judgment no justice was. And then she asked a question which threw perhaps the greatest perplexity he had ever known into John Tatham's life. "When you tell a fact—that is true: with the intention to deceive: John, you that know the laws of evidence, is that a lie?"

THE END.



BY THE SAME AUTHOR IN UNIFORM STYLE

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

Contemporary spellings have been retained even when inconsistent. A small number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected, and missing punctuation has been silently added. The list of additional works by the author has been moved to the end.

The following additional changes have been made:

I seemed too dear It seemed too dear

do a thing that its do a thing that is

three tittle escapades three little escapades

"you gave me a fright," "you gave me a fright," she she said she said

waiting, with her eyes waiting, with her eyes on Elinora, sign on Elinor, for a sign