"There is no telling," said John, "what such asses might think."

"But Philip is not an ass; and don't you think I have behaved very well, and may give myself this indulgence the second year?"

"I certainly think you will be quite right to come to town: but I should not have them to live with you, if I were you."

"Shouldn't you? It might be a risk: but then I shouldn't do it unless there was room enough to leave them quite free. The thing I am afraid of is that they wouldn't accept."

"Oh, Phil Compton will accept," said John, hurriedly.

"Why are you so sure? I think often you know more about him than you ever say."

"I don't know much about him, but I know that a man of uncertain income and not very delicate feelings is generally glad enough to have the expenses of the season taken off him: and even get all the more pleasure out of it when he has his living free."

"That's not a very elevated view to take of the transaction, John."

"My dear aunt, I did not think you expected anything very elevated from the Comptons. They are not the sort of family from which one expects——"

"And yet it is the family that my Elinor belongs to: she is a Compton."

"I did not think of that," said John, a little disconcerted. Then he added, "There is no very elevated standard in such matters. Want of money has no law: and of course there are better things involved, for he might be very glad that Elinor should have her mother to go out with her, to stand by when—a man might have other engagements."

Mrs. Dennistoun looked at him closely and shook her head. She was not very much reassured by this view of the case. "At all events I shall try it," she said.

Quite early in the year, when she was expecting no such pleasure, she was rewarded for her patience by another flying visit from her child, who this time telegraphed to say she was coming, so that her mother could go and meet her at the station, and thus lose no moment of her visit. Elinor, however, was not in good spirits on this occasion, nor was she in good looks. She told her mother hurriedly that Phil had come up upon business; that he was very much engaged with the new company, getting far more into it than satisfied her. "I am terrified that another catastrophe may come, and that he might share the blame if things were to go wrong"—which was by no means a good preface for the mission with which it afterwards appeared Elinor herself was charged.

"Phil told me to say to you, mamma, that if you were not satisfied with any of your investments, he could help you to a good six or seven per cent.——"

She said this with her head turned away, gazing out of the window, contemplating the wintry aspect of the combe with a countenance as cloudy and as little cheerful as itself.

There was an outcry on Mrs. Dennistoun's lips, but fortunately her sympathy with her child was so strong that she felt Elinor's sentiments almost more forcibly than her own, and she managed to answer in a quiet, untroubled voice.

"Philip is very kind, my dear: but you know my investments are all settled for me and I have no will of my own. I get less interest, but then I have less responsibility. Don't you know I belong to the time in which women were not supposed to be good for anything, and consequently I am in the hands of my trustees."

"I think he foresaw that, mother," said Elinor, still with her head averted and her eyes far away; "but he thought you might represent to the trustees that not only would it give you more money, but it would be better in the end for me. Oh, how I hate to have to say this to you, mamma!"

How steadily Mrs. Dennistoun kept her countenance, though her daughter now flung herself upon her shoulder with uncontrollable tears!

"My darling, it is quite natural you should say it. You must tell Philip that I fear I am powerless. I will try, but I don't think anything will come of it. I have been glad to be free of responsibility, and I have never attempted to interfere."

"Mother, I am so thankful. I oughtn't to go against him, ought I? But I would not have you take his advice. It is so dreadful not to appear——"

"My dear, you must try to think that he understands better than you do: men generally do: you are only a girl, and they are trained more or less to business."

"Not Phil! not Phil!"

"Well, he must have some capacity for it, some understanding, or they would not want him on those boards; and you cannot have, Elinor, for you know nothing about it. To hear you speak of per cents. makes me laugh." It was a somewhat forlorn kind of laugh, yet the mother executed it finely: and by and by the subject dropped, and Elinor was turned to talk of other things—other things of which there was a great deal to say, and over which they cried and laughed together as nature bade.

In the same evening, the precious evening of which she did not like to waste a moment, Mrs. Dennistoun unfolded her plan for the season. "I feel that I know exactly the kind of house I want; it will probably be in some quiet insignificant place, a Chapel Street, or a Queen Street, or a Park Street somewhere, but in a good situation. You shall have the first floor all to yourself to receive your visitors, and if you think that Philip would prefer a separate table——"

"Oh, mamma, mamma!" cried Elinor, clinging to her, kissing passionately her mother's cheek, which was still as soft as a child's.

"It is not anything you have told me now that has put this into my head, my darling. I had made it all up in my own mind. Then, you know, when your husband is engaged with those business affairs—in the city—or with his own friends—you would have your mother to fall back upon, Elinor. I should have just the moments perdus, don't you see, when you were doing nothing else, when you were wanted for nothing else. I promise you, my darling, I should never be de trop, and would never interfere."

"Oh, mamma, mamma!" Elinor cried again as if words failed her; and so they did, for she said scarcely anything more, and evaded any answer. It went to her mother's heart, yet she made her usual excuses for it. Poor child, once so ready to decide, accepting or rejecting with the certainty that no opposition would be made to her will, but now afraid to commit herself, to say anything that her husband would not approve! Well! Mrs. Dennistoun said to herself, many a young wife is like that, and yet is happy enough. It depends so much on the man. Many a man adores his wife and is very good to her, and yet cannot bear that she should seem to settle anything without consulting his whim. And Philip Compton had never been what might be called an easy-going man. It was right of Elinor to give no answer till she knew what he would like. The dreadful thing was that she expressed no pleasure in her mother's proposal, scarcely looked as if she herself would like it, which was a thing which did give an unquestionable wound.

"Mamma," she said, as they were driving to the station, not in the pony carriage this time, but in the fly, for the weather was bad, "don't be vexed that I don't say more about your wonderful, your more than kind offer."

"Kind is scarcely a word to use, Elinor, between you and me."

"I know, I know, mamma—and I as good as refuse it, saying nothing. Oh, if I could tell you without telling you! I am so frightened—how can I say it?—that you should see things you would not approve!"

"My dear, I am of one generation and you are of another. I am an old woman, and your husband is a young man. But what does that matter? We can agree to differ. I will never thrust myself into his private affairs, and he——"

"Oh, mother, mother darling, it is not that," Elinor said. And she went away without any decision. But in a few days there came to Mrs. Dennistoun a letter from Philip himself, most nobly expressed, saying that Elinor had told him of her mother's kind offer, and that he hastened to accept it with the utmost gratitude and devotion. He had just been wondering, he wrote, how he was to muster all things necessary for Elinor, with the business engagements which were growing upon himself. Nobody could understand better than Nell's good mother how necessary it was that he should neglect no means of securing their position, and he had found that often he would have to leave his darling by herself: but this magnificent, this magnanimous offer on her part would make everything right. Need he say how gratefully he accepted it? Nell and he being on the spot would immediately begin looking out for the house, and when they had a list of three or four to look at he hoped she would come up to their rooms and select what she liked best. This response took away Mrs. Dennistoun's breath, for, to tell the truth, she had her own notions as to the house she wanted and as to the time to be spent in town, and would certainly have preferred to manage everything herself. But in this she had to yield, with thankfulness that in the main point she was to have her way.

Did she have her way? It is very much to be doubted whether in such a situation of affairs it would have been possible. The house that was decided upon was not one which she would have chosen for herself, neither would she have taken it from Easter to July. She had meant a less expensive place and a shorter season; but after all, what did that matter for once if it pleased Elinor? The worst of it was that she could not at all satisfy herself that it pleased Elinor. It pleased Philip, there was no doubt, but then it had not been intended except in a very secondary way to please him. And when the racket of the season began Mrs. Dennistoun had a good deal to bear. Philip, though he was supposed to be a man of business and employed in the city, got up about noon, which was dreadful to all her orderly country habits; the whole afternoon through there was a perpetual tumult of visitors, who, when by chance she encountered them in the hall or on the stairs, looked at her superciliously as if she were the landlady. The man who opened the door, and brushed Philip Compton's clothes, and was in his service, looked superciliously at her too, and declined to have anything to say to "the visitors for down-stairs." A noise of laughter and loud talk was (distinctly) in her ears from noon till late at night. When Philip came home, always much later than his wife, he was in the habit of bringing men with him, whose voices rang through the house after everybody was in bed. To be sure, there were compensations. She had Elinor often for an hour or two in the morning before her husband was up. She had her in the evenings when they were not going out, but these were few. As for Philip, he never dined at home. When he had no engagements he dined at his club, leaving Elinor with her mother. He gave Mrs. Dennistoun very little of his company, and when they did meet there was in his manner too a sort of reflection of the superciliousness of the "smart" visitors and the "smart" servant. She was to him, too, in some degree the landlady, the old lady down-stairs. Elinor, as was natural, redoubled her demonstrations of affection, her excuses and sweet words to make up for this neglect: but all the time there was in her mother's mind that dreadful doubt which assails us when we have committed ourselves to one act or another, "Was it wise? Would it not have been better to have denied herself and stayed away?" So far as self-denial went, it was more exercised in Curzon Street than it would have been at the Cottage. For she had to see many things that displeased her and to say no word; to guess at the tears, carefully washed away from Elinor's eyes, and to ask no questions, and to see what she could not but feel was the violent career downward, the rush that must lead to a catastrophe, but make no sign. There was one evening when Elinor, not looking well or feeling well, had stayed at home, Philip having a whole long list of engagements in hand; men's engagements, his wife explained, a stockbroking dinner, an adjournment to somebody's chambers, a prolonged sitting, which meant play, and a great deal of wine, and other attendant circumstances into which she did not enter. Elinor had no engagement for that night, and was free to be petted and feted by her mother. She was put at her ease in a soft and rich dressing-gown, and the prettiest little dinner served, and the room filled with flowers, and everything done that used to be done when she was recovering from some little mock illness, some child's malady, just enough to show how dear above everything was the child to the mother, and with what tender ingenuity the mother could invent new delights for the child. These delights, alas! did not transport Elinor now as they once had done, and yet the repose was sweet, and the comfort of this nearest and dearest friend to lean upon something more than words could say.

On this evening, however, in the quiet of those still hours, poor Elinor's heart was opened, or rather her mouth, which on most occasions was closed so firmly. She said suddenly, in the midst of something quite different, "Oh, I wish Phil was not so much engaged with those dreadful city men."

"My dear!" said Mrs. Dennistoun, who was thinking of far other things; and then she said, "there surely cannot be much to fear in that respect. He is never in the city—he is never up, my dear, when the city men are doing their work."

"Ah," said Elinor, "I don't think that matters; he is in with them all the same."

"Well, Elinor, there is no reason that there should be any harm in it. I would much rather he had some real business in hand than be merely a butterfly of fashion. You must not entertain that horror of city men."

"The kind he knows are different from the kind you know, mamma."

"I suppose everything is different from what it was in my time: but it need not be any worse for that——"

"Oh, mother! you are obstinate in thinking well of everything; but sometimes I am so frightened, I feel as if I must do something dreadful myself—to precipitate the ruin which nothing I can do will stop——"

"Elinor, Elinor, this is far too strong language——"

"Mamma, he wants me to speak to you again. He wants you to give your money——"

"But I have told you already I cannot give it, Elinor."

"Heaven be praised for that! But he will speak to you himself, he will perhaps try to—bully you, mamma."

"Elinor!"

"It is horrible, what I say; yes, it is horrible, but I want to warn you. He says things——"

"Nothing that he can say will make me forget that he is your husband, Elinor."

"Ah, but don't think too much of that, mamma. Think that he doesn't know what he is doing—poor Phil, oh, poor Phil! He is hurried on by these people; and then it will break up, and the poor people will be ruined, and they will upbraid him, and yet he will not be a whit the better. He does not get any of the profit. I can see it all as clear—— And there are so many other things."

Mrs. Dennistoun's heart sank in her breast, for she too knew what were the other things. "We must have patience," she said; "he is in his hey-day, full of—high spirits, and thinking everything he touches must go right. He will steady down in time."

"Oh, I am not complaining," cried Elinor, hurriedly dashing her tears away; "if you were not a dreadfully good mamma, if you would grumble sometimes and find fault, that I might defend him! It is the sight of you there, seeing everything and not saying a word that is too much for me."

"Then I will grumble, Elinor. I will even say something to him for our own credit. He should not come in so late—at least when he comes in he should come in to rest and not bring men with him to make a noise. You see I can find fault as much as heart could desire. I am dreadfully selfish. I don't mind when he goes out now and then without you, for then I have you; but he should not bring noisy men with him to disturb the house in the middle of the night. I think I will speak to him——"

"No," said Elinor, with a clutch upon her mother's arm; "no, don't do that. He does not like to be found fault with. Unless in the case—if you were giving him that money, mother."

"Which I cannot do: and Elinor, my darling, which I would not do if I could. It is all you will have to rely upon, you and——"

"It would have been the only chance," said Elinor. "I don't say it would have been much of a chance. But he might have listened, if—— Oh, no, dear mother, no. I would not in my sober senses wish that you should give him a penny. It would do no good, but only harm. And yet if you had done it, you might have said—— and he might have listened to you for once——"



CHAPTER XX.

A few days after this Philip Compton came in, in the afternoon, to the little room down-stairs which Mrs. Dennistoun had made into a sitting-room for herself. Elinor had gone out with her sister-in-law, and her mother was alone. It was a very rare thing indeed for Mrs. Dennistoun's guest—who, indeed, was to all intents and purposes the master of the house, and had probably quite forgotten by this time that he was not in reality so—to pay a visit "down-stairs." "Down-stairs" had a distinct meaning in the Compton vocabulary. It was spoken of with significance, and with a laugh, as something half hostile, half ridiculous. It meant a sort of absurd criticism and inspection, as of some old crone sitting vigilant, spying upon everything—a mother-in-law. Phil's cronies thought it was the most absurd weakness on his part to let such an intruder get footing in his house. "You will never get rid of her," they said. And Phil, though he was generally quite civil to his wife's mother (being actually and at his heart more a gentleman than he had the least idea he was), did not certainly in any way seek her society. He scarcely ever dined at home, as has been said; when he had not an engagement—and he had a great many engagements—he found that he was obliged to dine at his club on the evenings when he might have been free; and as this was the only meal which was supposed to be common, it may be perceived that Phil had little means of meeting his mother-in-law; and that he should come to see her of his own free will was unprecedented. Phil Compton had not improved since his marriage. His nocturnal enjoyments, the noisy parties up-stairs in the middle of the night, had not helped to dissipate the effect of the anxieties of the city, which his wife so deplored. Mrs. Dennistoun that very day, when she came down-stairs in the fresh summer morning to her early breakfast, had seen through an open door the room up-stairs which was appropriated to Phil, with a lamp still burning in the daylight, cards lying strewn about the floor, and all in that direful disorder which a room so occupied overnight shows in the clear eye of the day. The aspect of the room had given her a shock almost more startling than any moral certainty, as was natural to a woman used to all the decorums and delicacies of a well-ordered life. There is no sin in going late to bed, or even letting a lamp burn into the day; but the impression that such a sight makes even upon the careless is always greater than any mere apprehension by the mind of the midnight sitting, the eager game, the chances of loss and ruin. She had not been able to get that sight out of her eyes. Though on ordinary occasions she never entered Phil's rooms, on this she had stolen in to put out the lamp, with the sensation in her mind of destroying some evidence against him, which someone less interested than she might have used to his disadvantage. And she had sent up the housemaid to "do" the room, with an admonition. "I cannot have Mr. Compton's rooms neglected," she said. "The gentlemen is always so late," the housemaid said in self-defence. "I hears them let themselves out sometimes after we're all up down-stairs." "I don't want to hear anything about the gentlemen. Do your work at the proper time; that is all that is asked of you." Phil's servant appeared at the moment pulling on his coat, with the air of a man who has been up half the night—which, indeed, was the case, for "the gentlemen" when they came in had various wants that had to be supplied. "What's up now?" he said to the housemaid, within hearing of her mistress, casting an insolent look at the old lady, who belonged to "down-stairs." "She've been prying and spying about like they all do——" Mrs. Dennistoun had retreated within the shelter of her room to escape the end of this sentence, which still she heard, with the usual quickness of our faculties in such cases. She swallowed her simple breakfast with what appetite she might, and her stout spirit for the moment broke down before this insult which was ridiculous, she said to herself, from a saucy servant-man. What did it matter to her what Johnson did or said? But it was like the lamp burning in the sunshine: it gave a moral shock more sharp than many a thing of much more importance would have been capable of doing, and she had not been able to get over it all day.

It may be supposed, therefore, that it was an unfortunate moment for Phil Compton's visit. Mrs. Dennistoun had scarcely seen them that day, and she was sitting by herself, somewhat sick at heart, wondering if anything would break the routine into which their life was falling; or if this was what Elinor must address herself to as its usual tenor. It would be better in the country, she said to herself. It was only in the bustle of the season, when everybody of his kind was congregated in town, that it would be like this. In their rounds of visits, or when the whole day was occupied with sport, such nocturnal sittings would be impossible—and she comforted herself by thinking that they would not be consistent with any serious business in the city such as Elinor feared. The one danger must push away the other. He could not gamble at night in that way, and gamble in the other among the stockbrokers. They were both ruinous, no doubt, but they could not both be carried on at the same time—or so, at least, this innocent woman thought. There was enough to be anxious and alarmed about without taking two impossible dangers into her mind together.

And just then Phil knocked at her door. He came in smiling and gracious, and with that look of high breeding and savoir faire which had conciliated her before and which she felt the influence of now, although she was aware how many drawbacks there were, and knew that the respect which her son-in-law showed was far from genuine. "I never see you to have a chat," he said; "I thought I would take the opportunity to-day, when Elinor was out. I want you to tell me how you think she is."

"I think she is wonderfully well," said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"Wonderfully well—you mean considering—that there is too much racket in her life?"

"Partly, I mean that—but, indeed, I meant it without condition; she is wonderfully well. I am surprised, often——"

"It is rather a racket of a life," said Phil.

"Too much, indeed—it is too much—for a woman who is beginning her serious life—but if you think that, it is a great thing gained, for you can put a stop to it, or moderate—'the pace' don't you call it?" she said, with a smile.

"Well, yes. I suppose we could moderate the pace—but that would mean a great deal for me. You see, when a man's launched it isn't always so easy to stop. Nell, of course, if you thought she wanted it—might go to the country with you."

Mrs. Dennistoun's heart gave a leap. "Might go to the country with you!" It seemed a glimpse of Paradise that burst upon her. But then she shook her head. "You know Elinor would not leave you, Philip."

"Well! she has a ridiculous partiality," he said, with a laugh, "though, of course, I'd make her—if it was really for her advantage," he added, after a moment; "you don't think I'd let that stand in her way."

"In the meantime," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with hesitation, "without proceeding to any such stringent measures—if you could manage to be a little less late at night."

"Oh, you listen for my coming in at night?"

His face took a sombre look, as if a cloud had come over it.

"I do not listen—for happily for me I have been asleep for hours. I generally jump up thinking the house is on fire at the sound of voices, which make listening quite unnecessary, Philip."

"Ah, yes, the fellows are rather noisy," he said, carelessly, "but Nell sleeps like a top, and pays no attention—which is the best thing she can do."

"I would not be too sure she slept like a top."

"It's true; women are all hypocrites alike. You never know when you have them," Phil said.

And then there was a pause; for she feared to say anything more lest she should go too far; and he for once in his life was embarrassed, and did not know how to begin what he had to say.

"Well," he said, quickly, getting up, "I must be going. I have business in the city. And now that I find you're satisfied about Nell's health—— By the way, you never show in our rooms; though Nell spends every minute she has to spare here."

"I am a little old perhaps for your friends, Philip, and the room is not too large."

"Well, no," he said, "they are wretched little rooms. Good-by, then; I'm glad you think Nell is all right."

Was this all he meant to say? There was, however, an uncertainty about his step, and by the time he had opened the door he came to a pause, half closed it again, and said, "Oh, by the bye!"

"What is it?" said Mrs. Dennistoun.

He closed the door again and came back half a step. "I almost forgot, I meant to tell you: if you have any money to invest, I could help you to—— The best thing I've heard of for many a day!"

"You are very kind, Philip; but you know everything I have is in the hands of trustees."

"Oh, bother trustees. The only thing they do is to keep your dividends down to the lowest amount possible and cut short your income. Come, you're quite old enough to judge for yourself. You might give them a jog. At your time of life they ought to take a hint from you."

"I have never done it, Philip, and they would pay no attention to me."

"Oh, nonsense, mamma. Why, except you, who has a right to be consulted except Nell? and if I, her husband, am your adviser——"

"I know they would do nothing but mock at me."

"Rubbish! I'd like to see who would mock at you. Just you send them to me, that is all."

"Philip, will you not believe me when I say that it is impossible? I have never interfered. They would ask what made me think of such a thing now."

"And you could tell them a jolly good opportunity, as safe as the bank, and paying six or seven per cent.—none of your fabulous risky ten or twelve businesses, but a solid steady—— How could it be to my interest to mislead you? It would be Nell who would be the loser. I should be simply cutting off my own head."

"That is true, no doubt——"

"And," he said, scarcely waiting for her reply, "Nell is really the person who should be consulted: for if there was loss eventually it would come upon her—and so upon me. I mean taking into consideration all the chances of the future: for it is perfectly safe for your time, you may be quite sure of that."

No one, though he might be ninety, likes to have his time limited, and his heir's prospects dwelt upon as the only things of any importance, and Mrs. Dennistoun was a very long way from ninety. She would have sacrificed everything she had to make her child happy, but she did not like, all the same, to be set down as unimportant so far as her own property was concerned.

"I am afraid," she said, with a slight quaver in her voice, "that my trustees would not take Elinor's wishes into consideration in the first place, nor yours either, Philip. They think of me, and I suppose that is really their duty. If I had anything of my own——"

"Do you mean to say," he said, bluntly, "that with a good income and living in the country in a hole, in the most obscure way, you have saved nothing all these years?"

"If I had," said Mrs. Dennistoun, roused by his persistent attack, "I should be very sorry to fling it away."

"Oh, that is what you think?" he said. "Now we're at the bottom of it. You think that to put it in my hands would be to throw it away! I thought there must be something at the bottom of all this pretty ignorance of business and so forth. Good gracious! that may be well enough for a girl; but when a grandmother pretends not to know, not to interfere, etc., that's too much. So this is what you meant all the time! To put it into my hands would be throwing it away!"

"I did not mean to say so, Philip—I spoke hastily, but I must remind you that I am not accustomed to this tone——"

"Oh, no, not at all accustomed to it, you all say that—that's Nell's dodge—never was used to anything of the kind, never had a rough word said to her, and so forth and so forth."

"Philip—I hope you don't say rough words to my Elinor."

"Oh!" he said, "I have got you there, have I. Your Elinor—no more yours than she is—Johnson's. She is my Nell, and what's more, she'll cling to me, whatever rough words I may say, or however you may coax or wheedle. Do you ever think when you refuse to make a sacrifice of one scrap of your hoards for her, that if I were not a husband in a hundred I might take it out of her and make her pay?"

"For what?" said Mrs. Dennistoun, standing up and confronting him, her face pale, her head very erect—"for what would you make her pay?"

He stood staring at her for a moment and then he broke out into a laugh. "We needn't face each other as if we were going to have a stand-up fight," he said. "And it wouldn't be fair, mamma, we're not equally matched, the knowing ones would all lay their money on you. So you won't take my advice about investing your spare cash? Well, if you won't you won't, and there's an end of it: only stand up fair and don't bother me with nonsense about trustees."

"It is no nonsense," she said.

His eyes flashed, but he controlled himself and turned away, waving his hand. "I'll not beat Nell for it when I come home to-night," he said.

Once more Phil dined at his club that evening and Elinor with her mother. She was in an eager and excited state, looking anxiously in Mrs. Dennistoun's eyes, but it was not till late in the evening that she made any remark. At last, just before they parted for the night, she threw herself upon her mother with a little cry—"Oh, mamma, I know you are right, I know you are quite right. But if you could have done it, it would have given you an influence! I don't blame you—not for a moment—but it might have given you an opening to speak. It might have—given you a little hold on him."

"My darling, my darling!" said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"No," said Elinor, "there's nothing to pity me about, nothing at all—Phil is always kind and good to me—but you would have had a standing ground. It might have given you a right to speak—about those dreadful, dreadful city complications, mamma."

Mrs. Dennistoun went to bed that night a troubled woman, and lay awake watching and expecting when the usual midnight tumult should arise. But that evening there was none. No sound but the key in the latch, the shutting of a door or two, and all quiet. Compunctions filled the mother's heart. What was the wrong if, perhaps, she could satisfy Elinor, perhaps get at the heart of Phil, who had a heart, though it was getting strangled in all those intricacies of gambling and wretched business. She turned over and over in her mind all that she had, and all that she had any power over. And she remembered a small sum she had in a mortgage, which was after all in her own power. No doubt it would be to throw the money away, which would be so much gone from the future provision of Elinor—but if by that means she could acquire an influence as Elinor said—be allowed to speak—to protest or perhaps even insist upon a change of course? Thinking over such a question for a whole sleepless night, and feeling beneath all that at least, at worst, this sacrifice would give pleasure to Elinor, which was really the one and sole motive, the only thing that could give her any warrant for such a proceeding—is not a process which is likely to strengthen the mind. In the morning, as soon as she knew he was up, which was not till late enough, she sent to ask if Phil would give her five minutes before he went out. He appeared after a while, extremely correct and point device, grave but polite. "I must ask you to excuse me," he said, "if I am hurried, for to-day is one of my Board days."

"It was only to say, Philip—you spoke to me yesterday of money—to be invested."

"Yes?" he said politely, without moving a muscle.

"I have been thinking it all over, and I remember that there is a thousand pounds or two which John Tatham placed for me in a mortgage, and which is in my own power."

"Ah!" he said, "a thousand pounds or two," with a shrug of his shoulders; "it is scarcely worth while, is it, changing an investment for so small a matter as a thousand pounds?"

"If you think so, Philip—it is all I can think of that is in my own power."

"It is really not worth the trouble," he said, "and I am in a hurry." He made a step towards the door and then turned round again. "Well," he said, "just to show there is no ill-feeling, I'll find you something, perhaps, to put your tuppenceha'penny in to-day."

And then there was John Tatham to face after that!



CHAPTER XXI.

It cost Mrs. Dennistoun a struggle to yield to her daughter and her daughter's husband, and with her eyes open and no delusion on the subject to throw away her two thousand pounds. Two thousand pounds is a big thing to throw away. There are many people much richer than Mrs. Dennistoun who would have thought it a wicked thing to do, and some who would have quarrelled with both daughter and son-in-law rather than do so foolish a thing. For it was not merely making a present, so to speak, of the money, it was throwing it away. To have given it to Elinor would have been nothing, it would have been a pleasure; but in Phil's investment Mrs. Dennistoun had no confidence. It was throwing her money after Elinor's money into that hungry sea which swallows up everything and gives nothing again.

But if that had been difficult for her, it may be imagined with what feelings she contemplated her necessary meeting with John Tatham. She knew everything he would say—more, she knew what he would look: his astonishment, his indignation, the amazement with which he would regard it. John was far from being incapable of a sacrifice. Mrs. Dennistoun, indeed, did him more than justice in that respect, for she believed that he had himself been on the eve of asking Elinor to marry him when she was snatched up by, oh, so much less satisfactory a man! which the reader knows is not quite the case, though perhaps it required quite as much self-denial on John's part to stand by Elinor and maintain her cause under her altered circumstances as if it had been the case. But notwithstanding this, she knew that John would be angry with what she had done or promised to do, and would put every possible impediment in her way: and when she sent for him, in order that she might carry out her promise, it was with a heart as sick with fright and as much disturbed by the idea of a scolding as ever child's was.

John had been very little to the house at Curzon Street. He had dined two or three times with Mrs. Dennistoun alone, and once or twice Elinor had been of the party; but the Comptons had never any guests at that house, and the fact already mentioned that Philip Compton never dined at home made it a difficult matter for Mrs. Dennistoun to ask any but her oldest friends to the curious little divided house, which was neither hers nor theirs. Thus Cousin John had met, but no more, Elinor's husband, and neither of the gentlemen had shown the least desire to cultivate the acquaintance. John had not expressed his sentiments on the subject to any one, but Phil, as was natural, had been more demonstrative. "I don't think much of your relations, Nell," he said, "if that's a specimen: a prig if ever there was one—and that old sheep that was at the wedding, the father of him, I suppose——"

"As they are my relations, Phil, you might speak of them a little more respectfully."

"Oh, respectfully! Bless us all! I have no respect for my own, and why I should have for yours, my little dear, I confess I can't see. Oh, by the way, this is Cousin John, who I used to think by your blushing and all that——"

"Phil, I think you are trying to make me angry. Cousin John is the best man in the world; but I never blushed—how ridiculous! I might as well have blushed to speak of my brother."

"I put no confidence in brothers, unless they're real ones," said Phil; "but I'm glad I've seen him, Nell. I doubt after all that you're such a fool, when you see us together—eh?" He laughed that laugh of conscious superiority which, when it is not perfectly well-founded, sounds so fatuous to the hearer. Elinor did not look at him. She turned her head away and made no reply.

John, on his part, as has been said, made no remark. If he had possessed a wife at home to whom he could have confided his sentiments, as Phil Compton had, it is possible that he might have said something not unsimilar. But then had he had a wife at home he would have been more indifferent to Phil, and might not have cared to criticise him at all.

Mrs. Dennistoun received him when he came in obedience to her call, as a child might do who had the power of receiving its future corrector. She abased herself before him, servilely choosing his favourite subjects, talking of what she thought would please him, of former times at the Cottage, of Elinor, and her great affection for Cousin John, and so forth. I imagine that he had a suspicion of the cause of all this sweetness. He looked at her suspiciously, though he allowed himself to be drawn into reminiscences, and to feel a half pleasure, half pain in the affectionate things that Elinor had said. At length, after some time had passed, he asked, in a pause of the conversation, "Was this all you wanted with me, aunt, to talk of old times?"

"Wasn't it a good enough pretext for the pleasure of seeing you, John?"

He laughed a little and shook his head.

"An excellent pretext where none was wanted. It is very kind of you to think it a pleasure: but you had something also to say?"

"It seems there is no deceiving you, John," she said, and with many hesitations and much difficulty, told him her story. She saw him begin to flame. She saw his eyes light up, and Mrs. Dennistoun shook in her chair. She was not a woman apt to be afraid, but she was frightened now.

Nevertheless, when she had finished her story, John at first spoke no word: and when he did find a tongue it was only to say,

"You want to get back the money you have on that mortgage. My dear aunt, why did not you tell me so at once?"

"But I have just told you, John."

"Well, so be it. You know it will take a little time; there are some formalities that must be gone through. You cannot make a demand on people in that way to pay you cash at once."

"Oh, I thought it was so easy to get money—on such very good security and paying such a good adequate rate of interest."

"It is easy," he said, "perfectly easy; but it wants a little time: and people will naturally wonder, if it is really good security and good interest, why you should be in such a hurry to get out of it."

"But surely, to say private reasons—family reasons, that will be enough."

"Oh, there is no occasion for giving any reason at all. You wish to do it; that is reason enough."

"Yes," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with diffidence, yet also a little self-assertion, "I think it is enough."

"Of course, of course." But his eyes were flaming, and Mrs. Dennistoun would not allow herself to believe that she had got off. "And may I ask—not that I have any right to ask, for of course you have better advisers—what do you mean to put the money in, when you have got it back?"

"Oh, John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "you are implacable, though you pretend different. You know what I want with the money, and you disapprove of it, and so do I. I am going to throw it away. I know that just as well as you do, and I am ashamed of myself: but I am going to do it all the same."

"You are going to give it to Elinor? I don't think there is anything to disapprove of in that. It is the most natural thing in the world."

"If I could be sure that Elinor would get any good by it," she said.

And then his face suddenly blazed up, so that the former flame in his eyes was nothing. He sat for a moment staring at her, and then he said, "Yes, if—but I suppose you take the risk." There were a great many things on his lips to say, but he said none of them, except hurriedly, "You have a motive, I suppose——"

"I have a motive—as futile probably as my act—if I could by that means, or any other, acquire an influence——"

John was very seldom, if ever, rude—it was not in his way—but at this moment he was so bitterly exasperated that he forgot his manners altogether. He burst out into a loud laugh, and then he jumped up to his feet and said, "Forgive me. I really have a dozen engagements. I can't stay. I'll see to having this business done for you as soon as possible. You would rather old Lynch had no hand in it? I'll get it done for you at once."

She followed him out to the door as if they had been in the country, and that the flowery cottage door, with the great world of down and sky outside, instead of Curzon Street: longing to say something that would still, at the last moment, gain her John's approval, or his understanding at least. But she could think of nothing to say. He had promised to manage it all for her: he had not reproached her; and yet not content with that she wanted to extort a favourable word from him before he should go. But she could not find a word to say. He it was only who spoke. He asked when she was going to return home, with his hand upon the street door.

"I don't know. I have not made any plans. The house is taken till July."

"And you have enjoyed it?" he said. "It has answered?"

What a cruel, cruel question to put to her! She going so unsuspectingly with him to the very door! Philip Compton's servant, always about when he was not wanted, spying about to see whom it was that "down-stairs" was letting out, came strolling into sight. Anyhow, whether that was the reason or not, she made him no reply. He caught her look—a look that said more than words—and turned round quickly and held out his hand. "I did not mean to be cruel," he said.

"Oh, no, no, no—you did not mean it—you were not cruel. The reverse—you are always so kind. Yes, it has answered—I am more glad than I can tell you—that I came."

He it was now that looked at her anxiously, while she smiled that well-worn smile which is kept for people in trouble. She went in afterwards and sat silent for some time, covering her face with her hands; in which attitude Elinor found her after her afternoon visitors had gone away.

"What is it, mother? What is it, dear mother? Something has happened to vex you."

"Nothing, nothing, Elinor. John Tatham has been here. He is going to do that little piece of business for me."

"And he—has been bullying you too? poor mamma!"

"On the contrary, he did not say a word. He considered it—quite natural."

Elinor gave her mother a kiss. She had nothing to say. Neither of them had a word to say to the other. The thought that passed through both their minds was: "After all it is only two thousand pounds"—and then, apres? was Elinor's thought. And then, never more, never more! was what passed through Mrs. Dennistoun's mind.

Phil Compton smiled upon her that day she handed him over the money. "It is a great pity you took the trouble," he said. "It is a pity to change an investment for such a bagatelle as two thousand pounds. Still, if you insist upon it, mamma. I suppose Nell's been bragging of the big interest, but you never will feel it on a scrap like this. If you would let me double your income for you now."

"You know, Philip, I cannot. The trustees would never consent."

"Bother trustees. They are the ruin of women," he said, and as he left the room he turned back to ask her how long she was going to stay in town.

"How long do you stay?"

"Oh, till Goodwood always," said Phil. "Nell's looking forward to it, and there's generally some good things just at the end when the heavy people have gone away; but I thought you might not care to stay so long."

"I came not for town, but for Elinor, Philip."

"Exactly so. But don't you think Elinor has shown herself quite able to take care of herself—not to say that she has me? It's a thousand pities to keep you from the country which you prefer, especially as, after all, Nell can be so little with you."

"It would be much better for her at present, Philip, to come with me, and rest at home, while you go to Goodwood. For the sake of the future you ought to persuade her to do it."

"I daresay. Try yourself to persuade her to leave me. She won't, you know. But why should you bore yourself to death staying on here? You don't like it, and nobody——"

"Wants me, you mean, Philip."

"I never said anything so dashed straightforward. I am not a chap of that kind. But what I say is, it's a shame to keep you hanging on, disturbed in your rest and all that sort of thing. That noisy beggar, Dismar, that came in with us last night must have woke you up with his idiotic bellowing."

"It doesn't matter for me; but Elinor, Philip. It does matter for your wife. If her rest is broken it will react upon her in every way. I wish you would consent to forego those visitors in the middle of the night."

He looked at her with a sort of satirical indifference. "Sorry I can't oblige you," he said. "When a girl's friends fork out handsomely a man has some reason for paying a little attention. But when there's nothing, or next to nothing, on her side, why of course he must pick up a little where he can, as much for her sake as his own."

"Pick up a little!" said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"I wish you wouldn't repeat what I say like that. It makes a fellow nervous. Yes, of course, a man that knows what he's about does pick up a little. About your movements, however. I advise you to take my advice and go back to your snug little house. It would kill me in a week, but I know it suits you. Why hang on for Nell? She's as well as can be, and there's a few things that it would be good for us to do."

"Which you cannot do while I am here? Is that what you mean, Philip?"

"I never saw any good in being what the French call brutal," he said, "I hate making a woman cry, or that sort of thing. But you're a woman of sense, and I'm sure you must see that a young couple like Nell and me, who have our way to make in the world——"

"You know it was for her sake entirely that I came here."

"Yes, oh, yes. To do coddling and that sort of thing—which she doesn't require a bit; but if I must be brutal you know there's things of much consequence we could do if——"

"If what, Philip?"

"Well," he said, turning on his heel, "if we had the house to ourselves."

This was the influence Mrs. Dennistoun hoped to acquire by the sacrifice of her two thousand pounds! When he was gone, instead of covering her face as she had done when John left her, Mrs. Dennistoun stared into the vacant air for a minute and then she burst into a laugh. It was not a mirthful laugh, it may be supposed, or harmonious, and it startled her as she heard it pealing into the silence. Whether it was loud enough to wake Elinor up-stairs, or whether she was already close by and heard it, I cannot tell, but she came in with a little tap at the door and a smile, a somewhat anxious and forced smile, it is true, upon her face.

"What is the joke?" she said. "I heard you laugh, and I thought I might come in and share the fun. Somehow, we don't have so much fun as we used to have. What is it, mamma?"

"It is only a witticism of Philip's, who has been in to see me," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "I won't repeat it, for probably I should lose the point of it—you know I always did spoil a joke in repeating it. I have been speaking to him," she said, after a little pause, during which both her laugh and Elinor's smile evaporated in the most curious way, leaving both of them very grave—"of going away, Elinor."

"Of going away!" Elinor suddenly assumed a startled look; but there is a difference between doing that and being really startled, which her mother, alas! was quite enlightened enough to see; and surely once more there was that mingled relief and relaxation in the lines of her face which Mrs. Dennistoun had seen before.

"Yes, my darling," she said, "it is June, and everything at the Cottage will be in full beauty. And, perhaps, it would do you more good to come down there for a day or two when there is nothing doing than to have me here, which, after all, has not been of very much use to you."

"Oh, don't say that, mamma. Use!—it has been of comfort unspeakable. But," Elinor added, hurriedly, "I see the force of all you say. To remain in London at this time of the year must be a far greater sacrifice than I have any right to ask of you, mamma."

Oh, the furtive, hurried, unreal words! which were such pain and horror to say with the consciousness of the true sentiment lying underneath; which made Elinor's heart sink, yet were brought forth with a sort of hateful fervour, to imitate truth.

Mrs. Dennistoun saw it all. There are times when the understanding of such a woman is almost equal to those "larger other eyes" with which it is our fond hope those who have left us for a better country see, if they are permitted to see, our petty doings, knowing, better than we know ourselves, what excuses, what explanations, they are capable of. "As for the sacrifice," she said, "we will say nothing of that, Elinor. It is a vain thing to say that if my life would do you any pleasure—for you don't want to take my life, and probably the best thing I can do for you is to go on as long as I can. But in the meantime there's no question at all of sacrifice—and if you can come down now and then for a day, and sleep in the fresh air——"

"I will, I will, mamma," said Elinor, hiding her face on her mother's shoulder; and they would have been something more than women if they had not cried together as they held each other in that embrace—in which there was so much more than met either eye or ear.



CHAPTER XXII.

It was about the 10th of June when Mrs. Dennistoun left London. She had been in town for about five weeks, which looked like as many months, and it was with a mingled sense of relief, and of that feeling which is like death in the heart, the sense of nothing further to be done, of the end of opportunity, the conclusion of all power to help, which sometimes comes over an anxious mind, without in any respect diminishing the anxiety, giving it indeed a depth and pang beyond any other feeling that is known to the heart of man. What could she do more for her child? Nothing. It was her only policy to remain away, not to see, certainly not to remark anything that was happening, to wait if perhaps the moment might come when she would be of use, and to hope that perhaps that moment might never need to come, that by some wonderful turn of affairs all might yet go well. She went back to Windyhill with the promise of a visit "soon," Philip himself had said—in the pleasure of getting the house, which was her house, which she had paid for and provisioned, to himself for his own uses. Mrs. Dennistoun could not help hearing through her maid something of the festivities which were in prospect after she was gone, the dinners and gay receptions at which she would have been de trop. She did not wish to hear of them, but these are things that will make themselves known, and Mrs. Dennistoun had to face the fact that Elinor was more or less consenting to the certainty of her mother being de trop, which gave her a momentary pang. But after all, what did it matter? It was not her fault, poor child. I have known a loving daughter in whose mind there was a sentiment almost of relief amid her deep grief when her tender mother died. Could such a thing be possible? It was; because after then, however miserable she might be, there was no conflict over her, no rending of the strained heart both ways. A woman who has known life learns to understand and forgive a great many things; and Mrs. Dennistoun forgave her Elinor, her only child, for whose happiness she had lived, in that she was almost glad when her mother went away.

Such things, however, do not make a lonely little house in the country more cheerful, or tend to make it easier to content one's self with the Rector's family, and the good old, simple-minded, retired people, with their little complaints, yet general peacefulness, and incompetence to understand what tragedy was. They thought on the whole their neighbour at the Cottage ought to be very thankful that she had got her daughter well, or, if not very well, at least fashionably, married, with good connections and all that, which are always of use in the long run. It was better than marrying a poor curate, which was almost the only chance a girl had on Windyhill.

It was a little hard upon Mrs. Dennistoun, however, that she lost not only Elinor, but John, who had been so good about coming down when she was all alone at first. Of course, during the season, a young rising man, with engagements growing upon him every day, was very unlikely to have his Saturdays to Mondays free. So many people live out of town nowadays, or, at least, have a little house somewhere to which they go from Saturday to Monday, taking their friends with them. This was no doubt the reason why John never came; and yet the poor lady suspected another reason, and though she no longer laughed as she had done on that occasion when the Honourable Phil gave her her dismissal, a smile would come over her face sometimes when she reflected that with her two thousand pounds she had purchased the hostility of both Philip and John.

John Tatham was indeed exceedingly angry with her for the weakness with which she had yielded to Phil Compton's arguments, though indeed he knew nothing of Phil Compton's arguments, nor whether they had been exercised at all on the woman who was first of all Elinor's mother and ready to sacrifice everything to her comfort. When he found that this foolish step on her part had been followed by her retirement from London, he was greatly mystified and quite unable to understand. He met Elinor some time after at one of those assemblies to which "everybody" goes. It was, I think, the soiree at the Royal Academy—where amid the persistent crowd in the great room there was a whirling crowd, twisting in and out among the others, bound for heaven knows how many other places, and pausing here and there on tiptoe to greet an acquaintance, at the tail of which, carried along by its impetus, was Elinor. She was not looking either well or happy, but she was responding more or less to the impulse of her set, exchanging greetings and banal words with dozens of people, and sometimes turning a wistful and weary gaze towards the pictures on the walls, as if she would gladly escape from the mob of her companions to them, or anywhere. It was no impulse of taste or artistic feeling, however, it is to be feared, but solely the weariness of her mind. John watched her for some time before he approached her. Phil was not of the party, which was nothing extraordinary, for little serious as that assembly is, it was still of much too serious a kind for Phil; but Lady Mariamne was there, and other ladies with whom Elinor was in the habit of pursuing that gregarious hunt after pleasure which carries the train of votaries along at so breakneck a pace, and with so little time to enjoy the pleasure they are pursuing. When he saw indications that the stream was setting backwards to the entrance, again to separate and take its various ways to other entertainments, he broke into the throng and called Elinor's attention to himself. For a moment she smiled with genuine pleasure at the sight of him, but then changed her aspect almost imperceptibly. "Oh, John!" she said with that smile: but immediately looked towards Lady Mariamne, as if undecided what to do.

"You need not look—as if I would try to detain you, Elinor."

"Do you think I am afraid of your detaining me? I thought I should be sure to meet you to-night, and was on the outlook. How is it that we never see you now?"

He refused the natural retort that she had never asked to see him, and only said, with a smile, "I hear my aunt is gone."

"Do you mean to say that you only came for her? That is an unkind speech. Yes, she has gone. It was cruel to keep her in town for the best part of the year."

"But she intended to stay till July, Elinor."

"Did she? I think you are mistaken, John. She intended to watch over me—dear mamma, she thinks too much of me—but when she saw that I was quite well——"

"You don't look to me so extraordinarily well."

"Don't I? I must be a fraud then. Nobody could be stronger. I'm going to a multitude of places to-night. Wherever my Hebrew leader goes I go," said Elinor, with a laugh. "I have given myself up for to-night, and she is never satisfied with less than a dozen."

"Ten minutes to each."

"Oh, half an hour at least: and with having our carriage found for us at every place, and the risk of getting into a queue, and all the delays of coming and going, it cannot be much less than three-quarters of an hour. This is the third. I think three more will weary even the Jew."

"You are with Lady Mariamne then, Elinor?"

"Yes—oh, you need not make that face. She is as good as the rest, and pretends to nothing, at least. I have no carriage, you know, and Phil took fright at my dear old fly. He thought a hired brougham was not good when I was alone."

"That was quite true. Nevertheless, I should like above all things to keep you here a little longer to look at some of the pictures, and take you home in a hansom after."

She laughed. "Oh, so should I—fancy, I have not seen the pictures, not at all. We came in a mob to the private view; and then one day I was coming with mamma, but was stopped by something, and now—— Always people, people—nothing else. 'Did you see So-and-so? There's some one bowing to you, Nell. Be sure you speak a word to the Thises or the Thats'—while I don't care for one of them. But I fear the hansom would not do, John."

"It would have done very well in the old days. Your mother would not have been displeased."

"The old days are gone and will never return," she said, half sad, half smiling, shaking her head. "So far as I can see, nothing ever returns. You have your day, and if you do not make the best of that——"

She stopped, shaking her head again with a laugh, and there were various ways in which that speech might be interpreted. John for one knew a sense of it which he believed had never entered Elinor's head. He too might have had his day and let it slip. "So you are making the most of yours," he said. "I hear that you are very gay."

Elinor coloured high under his look. "I don't know who can have told you that. We have had a few little dinners since mamma left us, chiefly Phil's business friends. I would not have them while she was with us—that is to say, to be honest," cried Elinor, "while we were with her: which of course was the real state of the case. I myself don't like those people, John, but they would have been insupportable to mamma. It was for her sake——"

"I understand," he said.

"Oh, but you must not say 'I understand' with that air of knowing a great deal more than there is to understand," she said, with heat. "Mamma said it would do me much more good to go—home for a night now and then and sleep in the fresh air than for her to stay; and though I think she is a little insane on the subject of my health, still it was certainly better than that she should stay here, making herself wretched, her rest broken, and all that. You know we keep such late hours."

"I should not have thought she would have minded that."

"But what would you have thought of me if I did not mind it for her? There, John, do you see they are all going? Ah, the pictures! I wish I could have stayed with you and gone round the rooms. But it must not be to-night. Come and see me!" she said, turning round to him with a smile, and holding out her hand.

"I would gladly, Elinor—but should not I find myself in the way of your fine friends like——"

He had not the heart to finish the sentence when he met her eyes brimming full of tears.

"Not my fine friends, but my coarse friends," she said; "not friends at all, our worst enemies, I am sure."

"Nell!" cried Lady Mariamne, in her shrill voice.

"You will come and see me, John?"

"Yes," he said, "and in the meantime I will take you down-stairs, let your companions think as they please."

It proved when he did so that John had to escort both ladies to the carriage, which it was not very easy to find, no other cavalier being at hand for the moment; and that Lady Mariamne invited him to accompany them to their next stage. "You know the Durfords, of course. You are going there? What luck for us, Nell! Jump in, Mr. Tatham, we will take you on."

"Unfortunately Lady Durford has not taken the trouble to invite me," said John.

"What does that matter? Jump in, all the same, she'll be delighted to see you, and as for not asking you, when you are with me and Nell——"

But John turned a deaf ear to this siren's song.

He went to Curzon Street a little while after to call, as he had been invited to do, and went late to avoid the bustle of the tea-table, and the usual rabble of that no longer intimate but wildly gregarious house. And he was not without his reward. Perhaps a habit he had lately formed of passing by Curzon Street in the late afternoon, when he was on his way to his club, after work was over, had something to do with his choice of this hour. He found Elinor, as he had hoped, alone. She was sitting so close to the window that her white dress mingled with the white curtains, so that he did not at first perceive her, and so much abstracted in her own thoughts that she did not pay any attention to the servant's hurried murmur of his name at the door. When she felt rather than saw that there was some one in the room, Elinor jumped up with a shock of alarm that seemed unnecessary in her own drawing-room; then seeing who it was, was so much and so suddenly moved that she shed a few tears in some sudden revulsion of feeling as she said, "Oh, it is you, John!"

"Yes," he said, "but I am very sorry to see you so nervous."

"Oh, it's nothing. I was always nervous"—which indeed was the purest invention, for Elinor Dennistoun had not known what nerves meant. "I mean I was always startled by any sudden entrance—in this way," she cried, and very gravely asked him to be seated, with a curious assumption of dignity. Her demeanour altogether was incomprehensible to John.

"I hope," he said, "you were not displeased with me, Elinor, for going off the other night. I should have been too happy, you know, to go with you anywhere; but Lady Mariamne is more than I can stand."

"I was very glad you did not come," she said with a sigh; then smiling faintly, "But you were ungrateful, for Mariamne formed a most favourable opinion of you. She said, 'Why didn't you tell me, Nell, you had a cousin so presentable as that?'"

"I am deeply obliged, Elinor; but it seems that what was a compliment to me personally involved something the reverse for your other relations."

"It is one of their jokes," said Elinor, with a voice that faltered a little, "to represent my relations as—not in a complimentary way. I am supposed not to mind, and it's all a joke, or so they tell me; but it is not a joke I like," she said, with a flash from her eyes.

"All families have jokes of that description," said John; "but tell me, Nelly, are you really going down to the cottage, to your mother?"

Her eyes thanked him with a gleam of pleasure for the old familiar name, and then the light went out of them. "I don't know," she said, abruptly. "Phil was to come; if he will not, I think I will not either. But I will say nothing till I make sure."

"Of course your first duty is to him," said John; "but a day now or a day then interferes with nothing, and the country would be good for you, Elinor. Doesn't your husband see it? You are not looking like yourself."

"Not like myself? I might easily look better than myself. I wish I could. I am not so bigoted about myself."

"Your friends are, however," he said: "no one who cares for you wants to change you, even for another Elinor. Come, you are nervous altogether to-night, not like yourself, as I told you. You always so courageous and bright! This depressed state is not one of your moods. London is too much for you, my little Nelly."

"Your little Nellie has gone away somewhere John. I doubt if she'll ever come back. Yes, London is rather too much for me, I think. It's such a racket, as Phil says. But then he's used to it, you know. He was brought up to it, whereas I—I think I hate a racket, John—and they all like it so. They prefer never having a moment to themselves. I daresay one would end by being just the same. It keeps you from thinking, that is one very good thing."

"You used not to think so, Elinor."

"No," she said, "not at the Cottage among the flowers, where nothing ever happened from one year's end to another. I should die of it now in a week—at least if not I, those who belong to me. So on the whole perhaps London is the safest—unless Phil will go."

"I can only hope you will be able to persuade him," said John, rising to go away, "for whatever you may think, you are a country bird, and you want the fresh air."

"Are you going, John? Well, perhaps it is better. Good-by. Don't trouble your mind about me whether I go or stay."

"Do you mean I am not to come again, Elinor?"

"Oh, why should I mean that?" she said. "You are so hard upon me in your thoughts;" but she did not say that he was wrong, and John went out from the door saying to himself that he would not go again. He saw through the open door of the dining-room that the table was prepared sumptuously for a dinner-party. It was shining with silver and crystal, the silver Mrs. Dennistoun's old service, which she had brought up with her from Windyhill, and which as a matter of convenience she had left behind with her daughter. Would it ever, he wondered, see Windyhill again?

He went on to his club, and there some one began to amuse him with an account of Lady Durford's ball, to which Lady Mariamne had wished to take him. "Are not those Comptons relations of yours, Tatham?" he said.

"Connections," said John, "by marriage."

"I'm very glad that's all. They are a queer lot. Phil Compton you know—the dis-Honourable Phil, as he used to be called—but I hear he's turned over a new leaf——"

"What of him?" said John.

"Oh, nothing much: only that he was flirting desperately all the evening with a Mrs. Harris, an American widow. I believe he came with her—and his own wife there—much younger, much prettier, a beautiful young creature—looking on with astonishment. You could see her eyes growing bigger and bigger. If it had not been kind of amusing to a looker-on, it would be the most pitiful sight in the world."

"I advise you not to let yourself be amused by such trifles," said John Tatham, with a look of fire and flame.



CHAPTER XXIII.

As a matter of fact, Elinor did not go to the Cottage for the fresh air or anything else. She made one hurried run in the afternoon to bid her mother good-by, alone, which was not a visit, but the mere pretence of a visit, hurried and breathless, in which there was no time to talk of anything. She gave Mrs. Dennistoun an account of the usual lists of visits that her husband and she were to make in the autumn, which the mother, with the usual instinct of mothers, thought too much. "You will wear yourself to death, Elinor."

"Oh, no," she said, "it is not that sort of thing that wears one to death. I shall—enjoy it, I suppose, as other people do——"

"I don't know about enjoyment, Elinor, but I am sure it would be much better for you to come and stay here quietly with me."

"Oh, don't talk to me of any paradises, mamma. We are in the working-day world, and we must make out our life as we can."

"But you might let Philip go by himself and come and stay quietly here for a little, for the sake of your health, Elinor."

"Not for the world, not for the world," she cried. "I cannot leave Phil:" and then with a laugh that was full of a nervous thrill, "You are always thinking of my health, mamma, when my health is perfect: better, far better, than almost anybody's. The most of them have headaches and that sort of thing, and they stay in bed for a day or two constantly, but I never need anything of the kind."

"My darling, it would not be leaving Philip to take, say, a single week's rest."

"While he went off without me I should not know where," she said, sullenly; then gave her mother a guilty look and laughed again. "No, no, mamma; he would not like it. A man does not like his wife to be an incapable, to have to leave him and be nursed up by her mother. Besides, it is to the country we are going, you know, to Scotland, the finest air; better even, if that were possible, than Windyhill."

This was all that was said, and there was indeed time for little more; for as the visit was unexpected the Hudsons, by bad luck, appeared to take tea with Mrs. Dennistoun by way of cheering her in her loneliness, and were of course enchanted to see Elinor, and to hear, as Mrs. Hudson said, of all her doings in the great world. "We always look out for your name at all the parties. It gives one quite an interest in fashionable life," said the Rector's wife, nodding her head, "and Alice was eager to hear what the last month's novelties were in the fashions, and if Elinor had any nice new patterns, especially for under-things. But what should you want with new under-things, with such a trousseau as you had?" she added, regretfully. Elinor in fact was quite taken from her mother for that hour. Was it not, perhaps, better so? Her mother herself was half inclined to think that it was, though with an ache in her heart, and there could be no doubt that Elinor herself was thankful that it so happened. When there are many questions on one side that must be asked, and very little answer possible on the other, is it a good thing when the foolish outside world breaks in with its banal interest and prevents this dangerous interchange?

So short time did Elinor stay that she had kept the fly waiting which brought her from the station: and she took leave of her mother with a sort of determination, not allowing it even to be suggested that she should accompany her. "I like to bid you good-by here," she said, "at our own door, where you have always come all my life to see me off, even when I was only going to tea at the Rectory. Good-by, good-by, mother dear." She drove off waving her hand, and Mrs. Dennistoun sat out in the garden a long time till she saw the fly go round the turn of the road, the white line which came suddenly in sight from among the trees and as suddenly disappeared again round the side of the hill. Elinor waved her handkerchief from the window and her mother answered—and then she was gone like a dream, and the loneliness closed down more overwhelming than ever before.

Elinor was at Goodwood, her name in all the society papers, and even a description of one of her dresses, which delighted and made proud the whole population of Windyhill. The paper which contained it, and which, I believe, belonged originally to Miss Dale, passed from hand to hand through almost the entire community; the servants getting it at last, and handing it round among the humbler friends, who read it, half a dozen women together round a cottage door, wiping their hands upon their aprons before they would touch the paper, with many an exclamation and admiring outcry. And then her name appeared among the lists of smart people who were going to the North—now here, now there—in company with many other fine names. It gave the Windyhill people a great deal of amusement, and if Mrs. Dennistoun did not quite share this feeling it was a thing for which her friends blamed her gently. "For only think what a fine thing for Elinor to go everywhere among the best people, and see life like that!" "My dear friend," said the Rector, "you know we cannot hope to keep our children always with us. They must go out into the world while we old birds stay at home; and we must not—we really must not—grudge them their good times, as the Americans say." It was more wonderful than words could tell to Mrs. Dennistoun that it should be imagined she was grudging Elinor her "good time!"

The autumn went on, with those occasional public means of following her footsteps which, indeed, made even John Tatham—who was not in an ordinary way addicted to the Morning Post, being after his fashion a Liberal in politics and far from aristocratical in his sentiments generally—study that paper, and also other papers less worthy: and with, of course, many letters from Elinor, which gave more trustworthy accounts of her proceedings. These letters, however, were far less long, far less detailed, than they had once been; often written in a hurry, and short, containing notes of where she was going, and of a continual change of address, rather than of anything that could be called information about herself. John, I think, went only once to the Cottage during the interval which followed. He went abroad as usual in the Long Vacation, and then he had this on his mind—that he had half-surreptitiously obtained a new light upon the position of Elinor, which he had every desire to keep from her mother; for Mrs. Dennistoun, though she felt that her child was not happy, attributed that to any reason rather than a failure in her husband's love. Elinor's hot rejection of the very idea of leaving Phil, her dislike of any suggestion to that effect, even for a week, even for a day, seemed to her mother a proof that her husband, at all events, remained as dear to her as ever; and John would rather have cut his tongue out than betray any chance rumour he heard—and he heard many—to this effect. He was of opinion, indeed, that in London, and especially at a London club, not only is everything known that is to be known, but much is known that has never existed, and never will exist if not blown into being by those whose office it is to invent the grief to come; therefore he thought it wisest to keep away, lest by any chance something might drop from him which would awaken a new crowd of disquietudes in Mrs. Dennistoun's heart. Another incident, even more disquieting than gossip, had indeed occurred to John. It had happened to him to meet Lady Mariamne at a great omnium gatherum of a country house, where all sorts of people were invited, and where that lady claimed his acquaintance as one of the least alarming of the grave "set." She not only claimed his acquaintance, but set up a sort of friendship on the ground of his relationship to Elinor, and in an unoccupied moment after dinner one day poured a great many confidences into his ear.

"Isn't it such a pity," she said, "that Phil and she do not get on? Oh, they did at first, like a house on fire! And if she had only minded her ways they might still have been as thick—— But these little country girls, however they may disguise it at first, they all turn like that. The horridest little puritan! Phil does no more than a hundred men—than almost all men do: amuse himself with anything that throws itself in his way, don't you know. And sometimes, perhaps, he does go rather far. I think myself he sometimes goes a little too far—for good taste you know, and that sort of thing."

It was more amazing to hear Lady Mariamne talk of good taste than anything that had ever come in John Tatham's way before, but he was too horribly, desperately interested to see the fun.

"She will go following him about wherever he goes. She oughtn't to do that, don't you know. She should let him take his swing, and the chances are it will bring him back all right. I've told her so a dozen times, but she pays no attention to me. You're a great pal of hers. Why don't you give her a hint? Phil's not the sort of man to be kept in order like that. She ought to give him his head."

"I'm afraid," said John, "it's not a matter in which I can interfere."

"Well, some of her friends should, anyhow, and teach her a little sense. You're a cautious man, I see," said Lady Mariamne. "You think it's too delicate to advise a woman who thinks herself an injured wife. I didn't say to console her, mind you," she said with a shriek of a laugh.

It may be supposed that after this John was still more unwilling to go to the Cottage, to run the risk of betraying himself. He did write to Elinor, telling her that he had heard of her from her sister-in-law; but when he tried to take Lady Mariamne's advice and "give her a hint," John felt his lips sealed. How could he breathe a word even of such a suspicion to Elinor? How could he let her know that he thought such a thing possible?—or presume to advise her, to take her condition for granted? It was impossible. He ended by some aimless wish that he might meet her at the Cottage for Christmas; "you and Mr. Compton," he said—whom he did not wish to meet, the last person in the world: and of whom there was no question that he should go to the Cottage at Christmas or any other time. But what could John do or say? To suggest to her that he thought her an injured wife was beyond his power.

It was somewhere about Christmas—just before—in that dread moment for the lonely and those who are in sorrow and distress, when all the rest of the world is preparing for that family festival, or pretending to prepare, that John Tatham was told one morning in his chambers that a lady wanted to see him. He was occupied, as it happened, with a client for whom he had stayed in town longer than he had intended to stay, and he paid little more attention than to direct his clerk to ask the lady what her business was, or if she could wait. The client was long-winded, and lingered, but John's mind was not free enough nor his imagination lively enough to rouse much curiosity in him in respect to the lady who was waiting. It was only when she was ushered in by his clerk, as the other went away, and putting up her veil showed the pale and anxious countenance of Mrs. Dennistoun, that the shock as of sudden calamity reached him. "Aunt!" he cried, springing from his chair.

"Yes, John—I couldn't come anywhere but here—you will feel for me more than any one."

"Elinor?" he said.

Her lips were dry, she spoke with a little difficulty, but she nodded her head and held out to him a telegram which was in her hand. It was dated from a remote part of Scotland, far in the north. "Ill—come instantly," was all it said.

"And I cannot get away till night," cried Mrs. Dennistoun, with a burst of subdued sobbing. "I can't start till night."

"Is this all? What was your last news?"

"Nothing, but that they had gone there—to somebody's shooting-box, which was lent them, I believe—at the end of the world. I wrote to beg her to come to me. She is—near a moment—of great anxiety. Oh, John, support me: let me not break down."

"You will not," he said; "you are wanted; you must keep all your wits about you. What were they doing there at this time of the year?"

"They have been visiting about—they were invited to Dunorban for Christmas, but she persuaded Philip, so she said, to take this little house. I think he was to join the party while she—I cannot tell you what was the arrangement. She has written very vaguely for some time. She ought to have been with me—I told her so—but she has always said she could not leave Philip."

Could not leave Philip! The mother, fortunately, had no idea why this determination was. "I went so far as to write to Philip," she said, "to ask him if she might not come to me, or, at least begging him to bring her to town, or somewhere where she could have proper attention. He answered me very briefly that he wished her to go, but she would not: as he had told me before I left town—that was all. It seemed to fret him—he must have known that it was not a fit place for her, in a stranger's house, and so far away. And to think I cannot even get away till late to-night!"

John had to comfort her as well as he could, to make her eat something, to see that she had all the comforts possible for her night journey. "You were always like her brother," the poor lady said, finding at last relief in tears. And then he went with her to the train, and found her a comfortable carriage, and placed her in it with all the solaces his mind could think of. A sleeping-carriage on the Scotch lines is not such a ghastly pretence of comfort as those on the Continent. The solaces John brought her—the quantities of newspapers, the picture papers and others, rugs and shawls innumerable—all that he possessed in the shape of wraps, besides those which she had with her. What more could a man do? If she had been young he would have bought her sugar-plums. All that they meant were the dumb anxieties of his own breast, and the vague longing to do something, anything that would be a help to her on her desolate way.

"You will send me a word, aunt, as soon as you get there?"

"Oh, at once, John."

"You will tell me how she is—say as much as you can—no three words, like that. I shall not leave town till I hear."

"Oh, John, why should this keep you from your family? I could telegraph there as easily as here."

He made a gesture almost of anger. "Do you think I am likely to put myself out of the way—not to be ready if you should want me?"

How should she want him?—a mother summoned to her daughter at such a moment—but she did not say so to trouble him more: for John had got to that maddening point of anxiety when nothing but doing something, or at least keeping ready to do something, flattering yourself that there must be something to do, affords any balm to the soul.

He saw her away by that night train, crowded with people going home—people noisy with gayety, escaping from their daily cares to the family meeting, the father's house, all the associations of pleasure and warmth and consolation—cold, but happy, in their third-class compartments—not wrapped up in every conceivable solace as she was, yet no one, perhaps, so heavy-hearted. He watched for the last glimpse of her face just as the train plunged into the darkness, and saw her smile and wave her hand to him; then he, too, plunged into the darkness like the train. He walked and walked through the solitary streets not knowing where he was going, unable to rest. Had he ever been, as people say, in love with Elinor? He could not tell—he had never betrayed it by word or look if he had. He had never taken any step to draw her near him, to persuade her to be his and not another's; on the contrary, he had avoided everything that could lead to that. Neither could he say, "She was as my sister," which his relationship might have warranted him in doing. It was neither the one nor the other—she was not his love nor his sister—she was simply Elinor; and perhaps she was dying; perhaps the news he would receive next day would be the worst that the heart can hear. He walked and walked through those dreary, semi-respectable streets of London, the quiet, the sordid, the dismal, mile after mile, and street after street, till half the night was over and he was tired out, and might have a hope of rest.

But for three whole days—days which he could not reckon, which seemed of the length of years—during which he remained closeted in his chambers, the whole world having, as it seemed, melted away around him, leaving him alone, he did not have a word. He did not go home, feeling that he must be on the spot, whatever happened. Finally, when he was almost mad, on the morning of the third day, he received the following telegram: "Saved—as by a miracle; doing well. Child—a boy."

"Child—a boy!" Good heavens! what did he want with that? it seemed an insult to him to tell him. What did he care for the child, if it was a boy or not?—the wretched, undesirable brat of such parentage, born to perpetuate a name which was dishonoured. Altogether the telegram, as so many telegrams, but lighted fresh fires of anxiety in his mind. "Saved—as by a miracle!" Then he had been right in the dreadful fancies that had gone through his mind. He had passed by Death in the dark; and was it now sure that the miracle would last, that the danger would have passed away?



CHAPTER XXIV.

It was not till nearly three weeks after this that John received another brief dispatch. "At home: come and see us." He had indeed got a short letter or two in the interval, saying almost nothing—a brief report of Elinor's health, and of the baby, against whom he had taken an unreasoning disgust and repugnance. "Little beast!" he said to himself, passing over that part of the bulletin: for the letters were scarcely more than bulletins, without a word about the circumstances which surrounded her. A shooting lodge in Ross-shire in the middle of the winter! What a place for a delicate woman! John was well enough aware that many elements of comfort were possible even in such a place; but he shut his eyes, as was natural, to anything that went against his own point of view.

And now this telegram from Windyhill—"At home: come and see us"—us. Was it a mistake of the telegraph people?—of course they must make mistakes. They had no doubt taken the me in Mrs. Dennistoun's angular writing for us—or was it possible—— John had no peace in his mind until he had so managed matters that he could go and see. There was no very pressing business in the middle of January, when people had hardly yet recovered the idleness of Christmas. He started one windy afternoon, when everything was grey, and arrived at Hurrymere station in the dim twilight, still ruddy with tints of sunset. He was in a very contradictory frame of mind, so that though his heart jumped to see Mrs. Dennistoun awaiting him on the platform, there mingled in his satisfaction in seeing her and hearing what she had to tell so much sooner, a perverse conviction of cold and discomfort in the long drive up in the pony carriage which he felt sure was before him. He was mistaken, however, on this point, for the first thing she said was, "I have secured the fly, John. Old Pearson will take your luggage. I have so much to tell you." There was an air of excitement in her face, but not that air of subdued and silent depression which comes with solitude. She was evidently full of the report she had to make; but yet the first thing she did when she was ensconced in the fly with John beside her was to cover her face with her hands, and subside into her corner in a silent passion of tears.

"For mercy's sake tell me what is the matter. What has happened? Is Elinor ill?"

He had almost asked is Elinor dead?

She uncovered her face, which had suddenly lighted up with a strange gleam of joy underneath the tears. "John, Elinor is here," she said.

"Here?"

"At home—safe. I have brought her back—and the child."

"Confound the child!" John said in his excitement. "Brought her back! What do you mean?"

"Oh, John, it is a long story. I have a hundred things to tell you, and to ask your advice upon; but the main thing is that she is here. I have brought her away from him. She will go back no more."

"She has left her husband?" he said, with a momentary flicker of exultation in his dismay. But the dismay, to do him justice, was the strongest. He looked at his companion almost sternly. "Things," he said, "must have been very serious to justify that."

"They were more than serious—they had become impossible," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

And she told him her story, which was a long one. She had arrived to find Elinor alone in the little solitary lodge in the midst of the wilds, not without attention indeed or comfort, but alone, her husband absent. She had been very ill, and he had been at the neighbouring castle, where a great party was assembled, and where, the mother discovered at last, there was—the woman who had made Elinor's life a burden to her. "I don't know with what truth. I don't know whether there is what people call any harm in it. It is possible he is only amusing himself. I can't tell. But it has made Elinor miserable this whole autumn through, that and a multitude of other things. She would not let me send for him when I got there. It had gone so far as that. She said that the whole business disgusted him, that he had lost all interest in her, that to hear it was over might be a relief to him, but nothing more. Her heart has turned altogether against him, John, in every way. There have been a hundred things. You think I am almost wickedly glad to have her home. And so I am. I cannot deny it. To have her here even in her trouble makes all the difference to me. But I am not so careless as you think. I can look beyond to other things. I shrink as much as you do from such a collapse of her life. I don't want her to give up her duty, and now that there is the additional bond of the child——"