"Oh, for heaven's sake," said John, "leave the child out of it! I want to hear nothing of the child!"

"That is one chief point, however, that we want your advice about, John. A man, I suppose, does not understand it; but her baby is everything to Elinor: and I suppose—unless he can really be proved as guilty as she thinks—he could take the child away."

John smiled to himself a little bitterly: this was why he was sent for in such a hurry, not for the sake of his society, or from any affection for him, but that he might tell them what steps to take to secure them in possession of the child. He said nothing for some time, nor did Mrs. Dennistoun, whose disappointment in the coldness of his response was considerable, and who waited in vain for him to speak. At length she said, almost tremblingly, "I am afraid you disapprove very much of the whole business, John."

"I hope it has not been done rashly," he said. "The husband's mere absence, though heartless as—as I should have expected of the fellow—would yet not be reason enough to satisfy any—court."

"Any court! You don't think she means to bring him before any court? She wants only to be left alone. We ask nothing from him, not a penny, not any money—surely, surely no revenge—only not to be molested. There shall not be a word said on our side, if he will but let her alone."

John shook his head. "It all depends upon the view the man takes of it," he said.

Now this was very cold comfort to Mrs. Dennistoun, who had by this time become very secure in her position, feeling herself entirely justified in all that she had done. "The man," she said, "the man is not the sufferer: and surely the woman has some claim to be heard."

"Every claim," said John. "That is not what I was thinking of. It is this: if the man has a leg to stand upon, he will show fight. If he hasn't—why that will make the whole difference, and probably Elinor's position will be quite safe. But you yourself say——"

"John, don't throw back upon me what I myself said. I said that perhaps things were not so bad as she believed. In my experience I have found that folly, and playing with everything that is right is more common than absolute wrong—and men like Philip Compton are made up of levity and disregard of everything that is serious."

"In that case," said John, "if you are right, he will not let her go."

"Oh, John! oh, John! don't make me wish that he may be a worse man than I think. He could not force her to go back to him, feeling as she does."

"Nobody can force a woman to do that; but he could perhaps make her position untenable; he would, perhaps, take away the child."

"John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, in alarm, "if you tell her that, she will fly off with him to the end of the world. She will die before she will part with the child."

"I suppose that's how women are made," said John, not yet cured of his personal offence.

"Yes," she said, "that's how women are made."

"I beg your pardon," he said, coming to himself; "but you know, aunt, a man may be pardoned for not understanding that supreme fascination of the baby who cares no more for one than another, poor little animal, so long as it gets its food and is warm enough. We must await and see what the man will do."

"Is that the best?—is there nothing we can do to defend ourselves in the meantime—to make any sort of barricade against him?"

"We must wait and see what he is going to do," said John; and they went over and over the question, again and again, as they climbed the hills. It grew quite dark as they drove along, and when they came out upon the open part of the road, from which the Cottage was visible, they both looked out across the combe to the lights in the windows with an involuntary movement. The Cottage was transformed; instead of the one lonely lighted window which had indicated to John in former visits where Mrs. Dennistoun sat alone, there was now a twinkle from various points, a glow of firelight, a sensation of warmth, and company. Mrs. Dennistoun looked out upon it and her face shone. It was not a happy thing that Elinor should have made shipwreck of her life, should have left her husband and sought refuge in her mother's house. But how could it be otherwise than happy that Elinor was there—Elinor and the other little creature who was something more than Elinor, herself and yet another? As for John, he looked at it too, with an interest which stopped all arguments on the cause of it. She was there—wrong, perhaps, impatient; too quick to fly as she had been too quick to go—but still Elinor all the same, whether she was right or wrong.

The cab arrived soberly at the door, where Pearson with the pony carriage, coming by the shorter way with the luggage, had just arrived also. Mrs. Dennistoun said, hurriedly, "You will find Elinor in the drawing-room, John," and herself went hastily through the house and up the stairs. She was going to the baby! John guessed this with a smile of astonishment and half contempt. How strange it was! There could not be a more sad position than that in which, in their rashness, these two women had placed themselves; and yet the mother, a woman of experience, who ought to have known better, got out of the carriage like a girl, without waiting to be helped or attended to, and went up-stairs like the wind, forgetting everything else for that child—that child, the inheritor of Phil Compton's name and very likely of his qualities—fated from his birth (most likely) to bring trouble to everybody connected with him! And yet Elinor was of less interest to her mother. What strange caprices of nature! what extraordinary freaks of womankind!

The Cottage down-stairs was warm and bright with firelight and lamplight, and in the great chair by the fire was reclining, lying back with her book laid on her lap and her face full of eager attention to the sounds outside, a pale young woman, surrounded by cushions and warm wraps and everything an invalid could require, who raised to him eyes more large and shining than he had ever seen before, suffused with a dew of pain and pleasure and eager welcome. Elinor, was it Elinor? He had never seen her in any way like an invalid before—never knew her to be ill, or weak, or unable to walk out to the door and meet him or anyone she cared for. The sight of her ailing, weak, with those large glistening eyes, enlarged by feebleness, went to his very heart. Fortunately he did not in any way connect this enfeebled state with the phenomenon up-stairs, which was best for all parties. He hurried up to her, taking her thin hands into his own.

"Elinor! my poor little Nelly—can this be you!"

The water that was in her eyes rolled over in two great tears; a brief convulsion went over her face. "Yes, John," she said, almost in a whisper. "Strange as it may seem, this is all that is left of me."

He sat down beside her and for a moment neither of them spoke. Pity, tenderness, wrath, surged up together in John's breast; pity, tender compassion, most strong of all. Poor little thing; this was how she had come back to her home; her heart broken, her wings broken, as it were; all her soaring and swiftness and energy gone. He could scarcely look upon her for the pity that overflowed his heart. But underneath lay wrath, not only against the man who had brought her to such a pass, but against herself too.

"John," she said, after a while, "do you remember saying to me that I was not one to bear, to put up with things, to take the consequences if I tried a dangerous experiment and failed?"

"Did I ever say anything so silly and so cruel?"

"Oh, no, no; it was neither silly nor unkind, but quite, quite true. I have thought of it so often. I used to think of it to stir up my pride, to remind myself that I ought to try to be better than my nature, not to allow you to be a true prophet. But it was so, and I couldn't change it. You can see you were right, John, for I have not been like a strong woman, able to endure; I have only been able to run away."

"My poor little Nelly!"

"Don't pity me," she said, the tears running over again. "I am too well off; I am too well taken care of. A prodigal should not be made so much of as I am."

"Don't call yourself a prodigal, Nelly! Perhaps things may not be as bad as they appear. At least, it is but the first fall—the greatest athlete gets many before he can stand against the world."

"I'll never be an athlete, John. Besides, I'm a woman, you know, and a fall of any kind is fatal to a woman, especially anything of this kind. No, I know very well it's all over; I shall never hold up my head again. But that's not the question—the question is, to be safe and as free as can be. Mamma takes me in, you know, just as if nothing had happened. She is quite willing to take the burden of me on her shoulders—and of baby. She has told you that there are two of me, now, John—my baby, as well as myself."

John could only nod an assent; he could not speak.

"It's a wonderful thing to come out of a wreck with a treasure in one's arms; everything going to pieces behind one; the rafters coming down, the walls falling in and yet one's treasure in one's arms. Oh, I had not the heart or the strength to come out of the tumbling house. My mother did it all, dragged me out, wrapped me up in love and kindness, carried me away. I don't want you to think I was good for anything. I should just have lain there and died. One thing, I did not mind dying at all—I had quite made up my mind. That would not have been so disgraceful as running away."

"There is nothing that is disgraceful," said John, "for heaven's sake don't say so, Nelly. It is unfortunate—beyond words—but that is all. Nobody can think that you are in any way disgraced. And if you are allowed just to stay quietly here in your natural home, I suppose you desire nothing more."

"What should I desire more, John? You don't suppose I should like to go and live in the world again, and go into society and all that? I have had about enough of society. Oh, I want nothing but to be quiet and unmolested, and bring up my baby. They could not take my baby from me, John?"

"I do not think so," he said, with a grave face.

"You do not—think so? Then you are not sure? My mother says dreadful things, but I cannot believe them. They would never take an infant from its mother to give it to—to give it to—a man—who could do nothing, nothing for it. What could a man do with a young child? a man always on the move, who has no settled home, who has no idea what an infant wants? John, I know law is inhuman, but surely, surely not so inhuman as that."

"My dear Nelly," he said, "the law, you know, which, as you say, is often inhuman, recognizes the child as belonging to the father. He is responsible for it. For instance, they never could come upon you for its maintenance or education, or anything of that kind, until it had been proved that the father——"

"May I ask," said Elinor, with uplifted head, "of what or of whom you are talking when you say it?"

It was all John could do not to burst into a peal of aggrieved and indignant laughter. He who had been brought from town, from his own comforts such as they were, to be consulted about this brat, this child which belonged to the dis-Honourable Phil; and Elinor, Elinor, of all people in the world, threw up her head and confronted him with disdain because he called the brat it, and not him or her, whichever it was. John recollected well enough that sentence at which he had been so indignant in the telegram—"child, a boy "—but he affected to himself not to know what it was for the indulgence of a little contumely: and the reward he had got was contumely upon his own head. But when he looked at Elinor's pale face, the eyes so much larger than they ought to be, with tears welling out unawares, dried up for a moment by indignation or quick hasty temper, the temper which made her sweeter words all the more sweet he had always thought—then rising again unawares under the heavy lids, the lips so ready to quiver, the pathetic lines about the mouth: when he looked at all these John's heart smote him. He would have called the child anything, if there had been a sex superior to him the baby should have it. And what was there that man could do that he would not do for the deliverance of the mother and the child?



CHAPTER XXV.

It cannot be said that this evening at the Cottage was an agreeable one. To think that Elinor should be there, and yet that there should be so little pleasure in the fact that the old party, which had once been so happy together, should be together again, was bewildering. And yet there was one member of it who was happy with a shamefaced unacknowledged joy. To think that that which made her child miserable should make her happy was a dreadful thought to Mrs. Dennistoun, and yet how could she help it? Elinor was there, and the baby was there, the new unthought-of creature which had brought with it a new anxiety, a rush of new thoughts and wishes. Already everything else in the mind of Elinor's mother began to yield to the desire to retain these two—the new mother and the child. But she did not avow this desire. She was mostly silent, taking little part in the discussion, which was indeed a very curious discussion, since Elinor, debating the question how she was to abandon her husband and defend herself against him, never mentioned his name.

She did not come in to dinner, which Mrs. Dennistoun and John Tatham ate solemnly alone, saying but little, trying to talk upon indifferent topics, with that very wretched result which is usual when people at one of the great crises of life have to make conversation for each other while servants are about and the restraints of common life are around them. Whether it is the terrible flood of grief which has to be barred and kept within bounds so that the functions of life may not altogether be swept away, or the sharper but warmer pang of anxiety, that which cuts like a serpent's tooth, yet is not altogether beyond the reach of hope, what poor pretences these are at interest in ordinary subjects; what miserable gropings after something that can furnish a thread of conversation just enough to keep the intercourse of life going! These two were not more successful than others in this dismal pursuit. Mrs. Dennistoun found a moment when the meal was over before she left John, poor pretence! to his wine. "Remember that she will not mention his name; nothing must be said about him," she said. "How can we discuss him and what he is likely to do without speaking of him?" said John, with a little scorn. "I don't know," replied the poor lady. "But you will find that she will not have his name mentioned. You must try and humour her. Poor Elinor! For I know that you are sorry for her, John."

Sorry for her! He sat over his glass of mild claret in the little dining-room that had once been so bright; even now it was the cosiest little room, the curtains all drawn, shutting out the cold wind, which in January searches out every crevice, the firelight blazing fitfully, bringing out all the pretty warm decorations, the gleam of silver on the side-board, the pictures on the wall, the mirror over the mantelpiece. There was nothing wanted under that roof to make it the very home of domestic warmth and comfort. And yet—sorry for Elinor! That was not the word. His heart was sore for her, torn away from all her moorings, drifting back a wreck to the little youthful home, where all had been so tranquil and so sweet. John had nothing in him of that petty sentiment which derives satisfaction from a calamity it has foreseen, nor had he even an old lover's thrill of almost pleasure in the downfall of the clay idol that has been preferred to his gold. His pain for Elinor, the constriction in his heart at thought of her position, were unmixed with any baser feeling. Sorry for her! He would have given all he possessed to restore her happiness—not in his way, but in the way she had chosen, even, last abnegation of all, to make the man worthy of her who had never been worthy. Even his own indignation and wrath against that man were subservient in John's honest breast to the desire of somehow finding that it might be possible to whitewash him, nay to reform him, to make him as near as possible something which she could tolerate for life. I doubt if a woman, notwithstanding the much more ready power of sacrifice which women possess, could have so fully desired this renewal and amendment as John did. It was scarcely too much to say that he hated Phil Compton: yet he would have given the half of his substance at this moment to make Phil Compton a good man; nay, even to make him a passable man—to rehabilitate him in his wife's eyes.

John stayed a long time over "his wine," the mild glass of claret (or perhaps it was Burgundy) which was all that was offered him—partly to think the matter over, but also partly perhaps because he heard certain faint gurglings, and the passage of certain steps, active and full of energy, past the door of the room within which he sat, going now to the drawing-room, now up-stairs, from which he divined that the new inmate of the house was at present in possession of the drawing-room, and of all attention there. He smiled at himself for his hostility to the child, which, of course, was entirely innocent of all blame. Here the man was inferior to the woman in comprehension and sympathy; for he not only could not understand how they could possibly obtain solace in their trouble from this unconscious little creature, but he was angry and scornful of them for doing so. Phil Compton's brat, no doubt the germ of a thousand troubles to come, but besides that a nothing, a being without love or thought, or even consciousness, a mere little animal feeding and sleeping—and yet the idol and object of all the thoughts of two intelligent women, capable of so much better things! This irritated John and disgusted him in the midst of all his anxious thoughts, and his profound compassion and deliberations how best to help: and it was not till the passage of certain feeble sounds outside his door, which proceeded audibly up-stairs, little bleatings in which, if they had come from a lamb, or even a puppy, John would have been interested, assured him that the small enemy had disappeared—that he finally rose and proceeded to "join the ladies," as if he had been holding a little private debauch all by himself.

There was a little fragrance and air of the visitor still in the room, a little disturbance of the usual arrangements, a surreptitious, quite unjustifiable look as of pleasure in Elinor's eyes, which were less expanded, and if as liquid as ever, more softly bright than before. Something white actually lay on the sofa, a small garment which Mrs. Dennistoun whisked away. They were conscious of John's critical eye upon them, and received him with a warmth of conciliatory welcome which betrayed that consciousness. Mrs. Dennistoun drew a chair for him to the other side of the fire. She took her own place in the middle at the table with a large piece of white knitting, to which she gave her whole attention, and thus the deliberation began.

"Elinor wants to know, John, what you think we ought to do—to make quite sure—that there will be no risk, about the baby."

"I must know more of the details of the question before I can give any advice," said John.

"John," said Elinor, raising herself in her chair, "here are all the details that are necessary. I have come away. I have come home, finding that life was impossible there. That is the whole matter. It may be, probably it is, my own fault. It is simply that life became impossible. You know you said that I was not one to endure, to put up with things. I scoffed at you then, for I did not expect to have anything to put up with; but you were quite right, and life had become impossible—that is all there is any need to say."

"To me, yes," said John, "but not enough, Elinor, if it ever has to come within the reach of the law."

"But why should it come within the reach of the law? You, John, you are a lawyer; you know the rights of everything. I thought you might have arranged it all. Couldn't you try to make a kind of a bargain? What bargain? Oh, am I a lawyer, do I know? But you, John, who have it all at your fingers' ends, who know what can be done and what can't be done, and the rights that one has and that another has! Dear John! if you were to try, don't you think that you could settle it all, simply as between people who don't want any exposure, any struggle, but only to be quiet and to be let alone?"

"Elinor, I don't know what I could do with so little information as I have. To know that you found your life impossible is enough for me. But you know most people are right in their own eyes. If we have some one opposed to us who thinks, for instance, that the fault was yours?"

"Well," she cried, eagerly, "I am willing to accept that: say that the fault was mine! You could confirm it, that it was likely to be mine. You could tell them what an impatient person I was, and that you said I was not one to try an experiment, for I never, never could put up with anything. John, you could be a witness as well as an advocate. You could prove that you always expected—and that I am quite, quite willing to allow that it was I——"

"Elinor, if I could only make you understand what I mean! I am told that I am not to mention any names?"

"No, no names, no names! What is the good? We both know very well what we mean."

"But I don't know very well what you mean. Don't you see that if it is your fault—if the other party is innocent—there can be no reason in the world why he should consent to renounce his rights. It is not a mere matter of feeling. There is right in it one way or another—either on your side or else on the other side; and if it is on the other side, why should a man give up what belongs to him, why should he renounce what is—most dear to him?"

"Oh, John, John, John!" she made this appeal and outcry, clasping her hands together with a mixture of supplication and impatience. Then turning to her mother—"Oh, tell him," she cried, "tell him!"—always clasping those impatient yet beseeching hands.

"You see, John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "Elinor knows that the right is on her side: but she will consent to say nothing about it to any one—to give herself out as the offender rather—that is to say, as an ill-disciplined person that cannot put up with anything, as you seem to have said."

John laughed with vexation, yet a kind of amusement. "I never said it nor thought it: still if it pleases her to think so—— The wiser thing if this separation is final——"

"If it is final!" Elinor cried. She raised herself up again in her chair, and contemplated the unfortunate John with a sort of tragic superiority. "Do you think that of me," she said, "that I would take such a step as this and that it should not be final? Is dying final? Could one do such a thing as this and change?"

"Such things have been done," said John. "Elinor, forgive me. I must say it—it is all your life that is in the balance, and another life. There is this infant to be struggled over, perhaps rent in two by those who should have united to take care of him—and it's a boy, I hear. There's his name and his after-life to think of—a child without a father, perhaps the heir of a family to which he will not belong. Elinor—tell her, aunt, you understand: is it my wish to hand her back to—to—— No, I'll speak no names. But you know I disliked it always, opposed it always. It is not out of any favour to—to the other side. But she ought to take all these things into account. Her own position, and the position in the future of the child——"

Elinor had crushed her fan with her hands, and Mrs. Dennistoun let the knitting with which she had gone on in spite of all fall at last in her lap. There was a little pause. John Tatham's voice itself had began to falter, or rather swelled in sound as when a stream swells in flood.

"I do not go into the question about women and what they ought to put up with," said John, resuming. "There's many things that law can do nothing for—and nature in many ways makes it harder for women, I acknowledge. We cannot change that. Think what her position will be—neither a wife nor with the freedom of a widow; and the boy, bearing the name of one he must almost be taught to think badly of—for one of them must be in the wrong——"

"He shall never, never hear that name; he shall know nothing, he shall be free of every bond; his mind shall never be cramped or twisted or troubled by any—man—if I live."

This Elinor said, lifting her pale face from her hands with eyes that flashed and shone with a blaze of excitement and weakness.

"There already," said John, "is a tremendous condition—if you live! Who can make sure that they will live? We must all die—some sooner, some later—and you wearing yourself out with excitement, that never were strong; you exposing your heart, the weakest organ——"

"John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, grasping him by the arm, "you are talking nonsense, you don't know what you are saying. My darling! she was never weak nor had a feeble heart, nor—anything! She will live to bring up his children, her baby's children, upon her knees."

"And what would it matter?" said Elinor—looking at him with clear eyes, from which the tears had disappeared in the shock of this unlooked-for suggestion—"suppose I have no more strength than that, suppose I were to die? you shall be his guardian, John, bring him up a good man; and his Heavenly Father will take care of him. I am not afraid."

A man had better not deal with such subjects between two women. What with Mrs. Dennistoun's indignant protest and Elinor's lofty submission, John was at his wits' end. "I did not mean to carry things to such a bitter end as that," he said. "You want to force me into a corner and make me say things I never meant. The question is serious enough without that."

There was again a little pause, and then Elinor, with one of those changes which are so perplexing to sober-minded people, suddenly turned to him, holding out both her hands.

"John—we'll leave that in God's hands whatever is to happen to me. But in the meantime, while I am living—and perhaps my life depends upon being quiet and having a little peace and rest. It is not that I care very much for my life," said Elinor, with that clear, open-eyed look, like the sky after rain—"I am shipwrecked, John, as you say—but my mother does, and it's of—some—consequence—to baby; and if it depends upon whether I am left alone, you are too good a friend to leave me in the lurch. And you said—one night—whatever happened I was to send for you."

John sprang up from his seat, dropping the hands which he had taken into his own. She was like Queen Katherine, "about to weep," and her breast strained with the sobbing effort to keep it down.

"For God's sake," he cried, "don't play upon our hearts like this! I will do anything—everything—whatever you choose to tell me. Aunt, don't let her cry, don't let her go on like that. Why, good heavens!" he cried, bursting himself into a kind of big sob, "won't it be bad for that little brat of a baby or something if she keeps going on in this way?"

Thus John Tatham surrendered at discretion. What could he do more? A man cannot be played upon like an instrument without giving out sounds of which he will, perhaps, be ashamed. And this woman appealing to him—this girl—looking like the little Elinor he remembered, younger and softer in her weakness and trouble than she had been in her beauty and pride—was the creature after all, though she would never know it, whom he loved best in the world. He had wanted to save her, in the one worldly way of saving her, from open shipwreck, for her own sake, against every prejudice and prepossession of his mind. But if she would not have that, why it was his business to save her as she wished, to do for her whatever she wanted; to act as her agent, her champion, whatever she pleased.

He was sent away presently, and accepted his dismissal with thankfulness, to smoke his cigar. This is one amusing thing in a feminine household. A man is supposed to want all manner of little indulgences and not to be able to do without them. He is carefully left alone over "his wine"—the aforesaid glass of claret; and ways and means are provided for him to smoke his cigar, whether he wishes it or not. He had often laughed at these regulations of his careful relatives, but he was rather glad of them to-night. "I am going to get Elinor to bed," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "It has, perhaps, been a little too much for her: but when you have finished your cigar, John, if you will come back to the drawing-room for a few minutes you will find me here."

John did not smoke any cigar. It is all very well to be soothed and consoled by tobacco in your own room, at your own ease: but when you are put into a lady's dining-room, where everything is nice, and where the curtains will probably smell of smoke next morning: and when your mind is exercised beyond even the power of the body to keep still, that is not a time to enjoy such calm and composing delights. But he walked about the room in which he was shut up like a wild beast in his cage, sometimes with long strides from wall to wall, sometimes going round, with that abstract trick of his, staring at the pictures, as if he did not know every picture in the place by heart. He forgot that he was to go back to the drawing-room again after Elinor had been taken to bed, and it was only after having waited for him a long time that Mrs. Dennistoun came, almost timidly, knocking at her own dining-room door, afraid to disturb her visitor in the evening rites which she believed in so devoutly. She did go in, however, and they stood together over the fire for a few minutes, he staring down upon the glow at his feet, she contemplating fitfully, unconsciously, her own pale face and his in the dim mirror on the mantelpiece. They talked in low tones about Elinor and her health, and her determination which nothing would change.

"Of course I will do it," said John; "anything—whatever she may require of me—there are no two words about that. There is only one thing: I will not compromise her by taking any initiative. Let us wait and see what they are going to do——"

"But, John, might it not be better to disarm him by making overtures? anything, I would do anything if he would but let her remain unmolested—and the baby."

"Do you mean money?" he said.

Mrs. Dennistoun gave him an abashed look, deprecatory and wistful, but did not make any reply.

"Phil Compton is a cad, and a brute, and a scamp of the first water," said John, glad of some way to get rid of his excitement; "but I do not think that even he would sell his wife and his child for money. I wouldn't do him so much discredit as that."

"Oh, I beg your pardon, John," Mrs. Dennistoun said.



CHAPTER XXVI.

John left the Cottage next morning with the full conduct of the affairs of the family placed in his hands. The ladies were both a little doubtful if his plan was the best—they were still frightened for what might happen, and kept up a watch, as John perceived, fearing every step that approached, trembling at every shadow. They remembered many stories, such as rush to the minds of persons in trouble, of similar cases, of the machinations of the bad father whose only object was to overcome and break down his wife, and who stole his child away to let it languish and die. There are some circumstances in which people forget all the shades of character, and take it for granted that a man who can go wrong in one matter will act like a very demon in all. This was doubly strong in Mrs. Dennistoun, a woman full of toleration and experience; but the issues were so momentous to her, and the possible results so terrible, that she lost her accustomed good sense. It was more natural, perhaps, that Elinor, who was weak in health and still full of the arbitrariness of youth, should entertain this fear—without considering that Phil was the very last man in the world to burden himself with an infant of the most helpless age—which seemed to John an almost quite unreasonable one. Almost—for, of course, he too was compelled to allow, when driven into a corner, that there was nothing that an exasperated man might not do. Elinor had come down early to see her cousin before he left the house, bringing with her in her arms the little bundle of muslin and flannel upon the safety of which her very life seemed to depend. John looked at it, and at the small pink face and unconscious flickering hands that formed the small centre to all those wrappings, with a curious mixture of pity and repugnance. It was like any other blind new-born kitten or puppy, he thought, but not so amusing—no, it was not blind, to be sure. At one moment, without any warning, it suddenly opened a pair of eyes, which by a lively exercise of fancy might be supposed like Elinor's, and seemed to look him in the face, which startled him very much, with a curious notification of the fact that the thing was not a kitten or a puppy. But then a little quiver came over the small countenance, and the attendant said it was "the wind." Perhaps the opening of the eyes was the wind too, or some other automatic effect. He would not hold out his finger to be clasped tight by the little flickering fist, as Elinor would have had him. He would none of those follies; he turned away from it not to allow himself to be moved by the effect, quite a meretricious one, of the baby in the young mother's arms. That was all poetry, sentiment, the trick of the painter, who had found the combination beautiful. Such ideas belonged, indeed, to the conventional-sacred, and he had never felt any profane resistance of mind against the San Sisto picture or any of its kind. But Phil Compton's brat was a very different thing. What did it matter what became of it? If it were not for Elinor's perverse feeling on the subject, and that perfectly imbecile prostration of her mother, a sensible woman who ought to have known better, before the little creature, he would himself have been rather grateful to Phil Compton for taking it away. But when he saw the look of terror upon Elinor's face when an unexpected step came to the door, when he saw her turn and fly, wrapping the child in her arms, on her very heart as it seemed, bending over it, covering it so that it disappeared altogether in her embrace, John's heart was a little touched. It was only a hawking tramp with pins and needles, who came by mistake to the hall door, but her panic and anguish of alarm were a spectacle which he could not get out of his eyes.

"You see, she never feels safe for a moment. It will be hard to persuade her that that man, though I've seen him about the roads for years, is not an emissary—or a spy—to find out if she is here."

"I am sure it is quite an unnecessary panic," said John. "In the first place, Phil Compton's the last man to burden himself with a child; in the second, he's not a brute nor a monster."

"You called him a brute last night, John."

"I did not mean in that way. I don't mean to stand by any rash word that may be forced from me in a moment of irritation. Aunt, get her to give over that. She'll torture herself to death for nothing. He'll not try to take the child away—not just now, at all events, not while it is a mere—— Bring her to her senses on that point. You surely can do that?"

"If I was quite sure of being in my own," Mrs. Dennistoun said, with a forlorn smile. "I am as much frightened as she is, John. And, remember, if there is anything to be done—anything——"

"There is nothing but a little common sense wanted," said John. But as he drove away from the door, and saw the hawker with the needles still about, the ladies had so infected him that it was all he could do to restrain an inclination to take the vagrant by the collar and throw him down the combe.

"Who's that fellow hanging about?" he said to Pearson, who was driving him; "and what does he want here?"

"Bless you, sir! that's Joe," Pearson said. "He's after no harm. He's honest enough as long as there ain't nothing much in his way; and he's waiting for the pieces as cook gives him once a week when he comes his rounds. There's no harm in poor Joe."

"I suppose not, since you say so," said John; "but you know the ladies are rather nervous, Pearson. You must keep a look-out that no suspicious-looking person hangs about the house."

"Bless us! Mr. John," said Pearson, "what are they nervous about?—the baby? But nobody wants to steal a baby, bless your soul!"

"I quite agree with you," said John, much relieved (though he considered Pearson an old fool, in a general way) to have his own opinion confirmed. "But, all the same, I wish you would be doubly particular not to admit anybody you don't know; and if any man should appear to bother them send for me on the moment. Do you hear?"

"What do you call any man, sir?" said Pearson, smartly. He had ideas of his own, though he might be a fool.

"I mean what I say," said John, more sharply still. "Any one that molests or alarms them. Send me off a telegram at once—'You're wanted!' That will be quite enough. But don't go with it to the office yourself; send somebody—there's always your boy about the place—and keep about like a dragon yourself."

"I'll do my best, sir," said Pearson, "though I don't know what a dragon is, except it's the one in the Bible; and that's not a thing anybody would want about the place."

It was a comfort to John, after all his troubles, to be able to laugh, which he did with a heartiness which surprised Pearson, who was quite unaware that he had made any joke.

These fears, however, which were imposed upon him by the contagion of the terrors of the others, soon passed from John's mind. He was convinced that Phil Compton would take no such step; and that, however much he might wish his wife to return, the possession of the baby was not a thing which he would struggle over. It cannot be denied, however, that he was anxious, and eagerly inspected his letters in the morning, and looked out for telegrams during the day. Fortunately, however, no evil tidings came. Mrs. Dennistoun reported unbroken peace in the Cottage and increasing strength on the part of Elinor; and, in a parenthesis with a sort of apology, of the baby. Nobody had come near them to trouble them. Elinor had received no letters. The tie between her and her husband seemed to be cut as with a knife. "We cannot of course," she said, "expect this tranquillity to last."

And it came to be a very curious thought with John, as week after week passed, whether it was to last—whether Phil Compton, who had never been supposed wanting in courage, intended to let his wife and child drop off from him as if they had never been. This seemed a thing impossible to conceive: but John said to himself with much internal contempt that he knew nothing of the workings of the mind of such a man, and that it might for aught he knew be a common incident in life with the Phil Comptons thus to shake off their belongings when they got tired of them. The fool! the booby! to get tired of Elinor! That rumour which flies about the world so strangely and communicates information about everybody to the vacant ear, to be retailed to those whom it may concern, provided him, as the days went by, with many particulars which he had not been able to obtain from Elinor. Phil, it appeared, had gone to Glenorban—the great house to which he had been invited—alone, with an excuse for his wife, whose state of health was not appropriate to a large party, and had stayed there spending Christmas with a brilliant houseful of guests, among whom was the American lady who had captivated him. Phil had paid one visit to the lodge to see Elinor, by her mother's summons, at the crisis of her illness, but had not hesitated to go away again when informed that the crisis was over. Mrs. Dennistoun never told what had passed between them on that occasion, but the gossips of the club were credibly informed that she had bullied and stormed at Phil, after the fashion of mothers-in-law, till she had driven him away. Upon which he had returned to his party and flirted with Mrs. Harris more than ever. John discovered also that the party having dispersed some time ago, Phil had gone abroad. Whether in ignorance of his wife's flight or not he could not discover; but it was almost impossible to believe that he would have gone to Monte Carlo without finding out something about Elinor—how and where she was. But whether this was the cause of his utter silence, or whether it was the habit of men of his class to treat such tremendous incidents in domestic life with levity, John Tatham could not make out. He was congratulating himself, however, upon keeping perfectly quiet, and leaving the conduct of the matter to the other party, when the silence was disturbed in what seemed to him the most curious way.

One afternoon when he returned from the court he was aware, when he entered the outer office in which his clerk abode, of what he described afterwards as a smell fit to knock you down. It would have been described more appropriately in a French novel as the special perfume, subtle and exquisite, by which a beautiful woman may be recognised wherever she goes. It was, indeed, neither more nor less than the particular scent used by Lady Mariamne, who came forward with a sweep and rustle of her draperies, and the most ingratiating of her smiles.

"It appears to be fated that I am to wait for you," she said. "How do you do, Mr. Tatham? Take me out of this horrible dirty place. I am quite sure you have some nice rooms in there." She pointed as she spoke to the inner door, and moved towards it with the air of a person who knew where she was going, and was fully purposed to be admitted. John said afterwards, that to think of this woman's abominable scent being left in his room in which he lived (though he also received his clients in it) was almost more than he could bear. But, in the meantime, he could do nothing but open the door to her, and offer her his most comfortable chair.

She seated herself with all those little tricks of movement which are also part of the stock-in-trade of the pretty woman. Lady Mariamne's prettiness was not of a kind which had the slightest effect upon John, but still it was a kind which received credit in society, being the product of a great deal of pains and care and exquisite arrangement and combination. She threw her fur cloak back a little, arranged the strings of her bonnet under her chin, which threw up the daintiness and rosiness of a complexion about which there were many questions among her closest friends. She shook up, with what had often been commented upon as the prettiest gesture, the bracelets from her wrists. She arranged the veil, which just came over the tip of her delicate nose, she put out her foot as if searching for a footstool—which John made haste to supply, though he remained unaffected otherwise by all these pretty preliminaries.

"Sit down, Mr. Tatham," then said Lady Mariamne. "It makes me wretchedly uncomfortable, as if you were some dreadful man waiting to be paid or something, to see you standing there."

Though John's first impulse was that of wrath to be thus requested to sit down in his own chambers, the position was amusing as well as disagreeable, and he laughed and drew a chair towards his writing-table, which was as crowded and untidy as the writing-table of a busy man usually is, and placed himself in an attitude of attention, though without asking any question.

"Well," said Lady Mariamne, slowly drawing off her glove; "you know, of course, why I have come, Mr. Tatham—to talk over with you, as a man who knows the world, this deplorable business. You see it has come about exactly as I said. I knew what would happen: and though I am not one of those people who always insist upon being proved right, you remember what I said——"

"I remember that you said something—to which, perhaps, had I thought I should have been called upon to give evidence as to its correctness—I should have paid more attention, Lady Mariamne."

"How rude you are!" she said, with her whole interest concentrated upon the slow removal of her glove. Then she smoothed a little, softly, the pretty hand which was thus uncovered, and said, "How red one's hands get in this weather," and then laughed. "You don't mean to tell me, Mr. Tatham," she said, suddenly raising her eyes to his, "that, considering what a very particular person we were discussing, you can't remember what I said?"

John was obliged to confess that he remembered more or less the gist of her discourse, and Lady Mariamne nodded her head many times in acceptance of his confession.

"Well," she said, "you see what it has come to. An open scandal, a separation, and everything broken up. For one thing, I knew if she did not give him his head a little that's what would happen. I don't believe he cares a brass farthing for that other woman. She makes fun of everybody, and that amused him. And it amused him to put Nell in a state—that as much as anything. Why couldn't she see that and learn to prendre son parti like other people? She was free to say, 'You go your way and I'll go mine:' the most of us do that sooner or later: but to make a vulgar open rupture, and go off—like this."

"I fail to see the vulgarity in it," said John.

"Oh, of course; everything she does is perfect to you. But just think, if it had been your own case—followed about and bullied by a jealous woman, in a state of health that of itself disgusts a man——"

"Lady Mariamne, you must pardon me if I refuse to listen to anything more of this kind," said John, starting to his feet.

"Oh, I warn you, you'll be compelled to listen to a great deal more if you're her agent as I hear! Phil will find means of compelling you to hear if you don't like to take your information from me."

"I should like to know how Mr. Phil Compton will succeed in compelling me—to anything I don't choose to do."

"You think, perhaps, because there's no duelling in this country he can't do anything. But there is, all the same. He would shame you into it—he could say you were—sheltering yourself——"

"I am not a man to fight duels," said John, very angry, but smiling, "in any circumstances, even were such a thing not utterly ridiculous; but even a fighting man might feel that to put himself on a level with the dis-Hon——"

He stopped himself as he said it. How mean it was—to a woman!—descending to their own methods. But Lady Mariamne was too quick for him.

"Oh," she said; "so you've heard of that, a nickname that no gentleman——" then she too paused and looked at him, with a momentary flush. He was going to apologize abjectly, when with a slight laugh she turned the subject aside.

"Pretty fools we are, both of us, to talk such nonsense. I didn't come here carrying Phil on my shoulders, to spring at your throat if you expressed your opinion. Look here—tell me, don't let us go beating about the bush, Mr. Tatham—I suppose you have seen Nell?"

"I know my cousin's mind, at least," he said.

"Well, then, just tell me as between friends—there's no need we should quarrel because they have done so. Tell me this, is she going to get up a divorce case——"

"A divorce——!"

"Because," said Lady Mariamne, "she'll find it precious difficult to prove anything. I know she will. She may prove the flirting and so forth—but what's that? You can tell her from me, it wants somebody far better up to things than she is to prove anything. I warn her as a friend she'll not get much good by that move."

"I am not aware," said John, "whether Mrs. Compton has made up her mind about the further steps——"

"Then just you advise her not," cried Lady Mariamne. "It doesn't matter to me: I shall be none the worse whatever she does: but if you are her true friend you will advise her not. She might tell what she thinks, but that's no proof. Mr. Tatham, I know you have great influence with Nell."

"Not in a matter like this," said John, with great gravity. "Of course she alone can be the judge."

"What nonsense you talk, you men! Of course she is not the least the judge, and of course she will be guided by you."

"You may be sure she shall have the best advice that I can give," John said with a bow.

"You want me to go, I see," said Lady Mariamne; "you are dreadfully rude, standing up all the time to show me I had better go." Hereupon she recommenced her little manege, drawing on her glove, letting her bracelets drop again, fastening the fur round her throat. "Well, Mr. Tatham," she said, "I hope you mean to have the civility to see after my carriage. I can't go roaming about hailing it as if it were a hansom cab—in this queer place."



CHAPTER XXVII.

John went down to Windyhill that evening. His appearance alarmed the little household more than words could say. As he was admitted at once by the servants, delighted to see him, he walked in suddenly into the midst of a truly domestic scene. The baby lay on Elinor's knee in the midst of a mass of white wrappings, kicking out a pair of pink little legs in the front of the fire. Elinor herself was seated on a very low chair, and illuminated by the cheerful blaze, which threw a glare upon her countenance, and called out unthought-of lights in her hair, there was no appearance in her looks of anxiety or trouble. She was altogether given up to the baby and the joy of its new life. The little kicking limbs, the pleasure of the little creature in the warmth, the curling of its rosy little toes in the agreeable sensation of the heat, were more to Elinor and to her mother, who was kneeling beside her on the hearth-rug, than the most refined and lofty pleasures in the world. The most lofty of us have to come down to those primitive sources of bliss, if we are happy enough to have them placed in our way. The greatest poet by her side, the music of the spheres sounding in her ear, would not have made Elinor forget her troubles like the stretching out towards the fire of those little pink toes.

When the door opened, and the voice and step of a man—dreaded sounds—were audible, a thrill of terror ran over this little group. Mrs. Dennistoun sprang to her feet and placed herself between the intruder and the young mother, while Elinor gathered up, covering him all over, so that he disappeared altogether, her child in her arms.

"It is John," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "God be thanked, it is only John."

But Elinor, quite overcome by the shock, burst suddenly into tears, to which the baby responded by a vigorous cry, not at all relishing the sudden huddling up among its shawls to which it had been subjected. It may be supposed what an effect this cloudy side of the happiness, which he had not been able to deny to himself made a very pretty scene, had upon John. He said, not without a little offence, "I am sure I beg your pardon humbly. I'll go away."

Elinor turned round her head, smiling through her tears. "It was only that you gave me a fright," she said. "I am quite right again; don't, oh, don't go away! unless you object to the sight of baby, and to hear him cry; but he'll not cry now, any more than his silly mother. Mamma, make John sit down and tell us—Oh, I am sure he has something to tell us—Perhaps I took comfort too soon; but the very sight of John is a protection and a strength," she said, holding out her hand to him. This sudden change of front reduced John, who had been perhaps disposed for a moment to stand on his dignity, to utter subjection. He neither said nor even thought a word against the baby, who was presently unfolded again, and turned once more the toes of comfort towards the fire. He did not approach too near, feeling that he had no particular share in the scene, and indeed cut an almost absurd figure in the midst of that group, but sat behind, contemplating it from a little distance against the fire. The evening had grown dark by this time, but the two women, absorbed by their worship, had wanted no light. It had happened to John by an extreme piece of luck to catch the express train almost as soon as Lady Mariamne had left him, and to reach the station at Hurrymere before the February day was done.

"You have something to tell us, John—good news or bad?" Mrs. Dennistoun said.

"Good; or I should not have come like this unannounced," he said. "The post is quick enough for bad. I think you may be quite at your ease about the child—no claim will be made on the child. Elinor, I think, will not be disturbed if—she means to take no steps on her side."

"What steps?" said Mrs. Dennistoun. Elinor turned her head to look at him anxiously over the back of her chair.

"I have had a visit this afternoon," he said.

"From—" Elinor drew a long hurried breath. She said no name, but it was evident that one was on her lips—a name she never meant to pronounce more, but to which her whole being thrilled still even when it was unspoken. She looked at him full of eagerness to hear yet with a hand uplifted, as if to forbid any utterance.

"From Lady Mariamne."

How her countenance fell! She turned round again, and bent over her baby. It was a pang of acute disappointment, he could not but see, that went through her, though she would not have allowed him to say that name. Strange inconsistency! it ran over John too with a sense of keen indignation, as if he had taken from her an electric touch.

"——Whose object in coming to me was to ascertain whether you intended to bring a suit for—divorce."

A cry rang through the room. Elinor turned upon him for a moment a face blazing with hot and painful colour. The lamp had been brought in, and he saw the fierce blush and look of horror. Then she turned round and buried it in her hands.

"Divorce!" said Mrs. Dennistoun. "Elinor——! To drag her private affairs before the world. Oh, John, John, that could not be. You would not wish that to be."

"I!" he cried with a laugh of tuneless mirth. "Is it likely that I would wish to drag Elinor before the world?"

Elinor did not say anything, but withdrew one hand from her burning cheek and put it into his. These women treated John as if he were a man of wood. What he might be feeling, or if he were feeling anything, did not enter their minds.

"It was like her," said Elinor after a time in a low hurried voice, "to think of that. She is the only one who would think of it. As if I had ever thought or dreamed——"

"It is possible, however," he said, "that it might be reasonable enough. I don't speak to Elinor," who had let go his hand hastily, "but to you, aunt. If it is altogether final, as she says, to be released would perhaps be better, from a bond that was no bond."

"John, John, would you have her add shame to pain?"

"The shame would not be to her, aunt."

"The shame is to every one concerned—to every one! My Elinor's name, her dear name, dragged through all that mud! She a party, perhaps, to revelations—Oh, never, never! We would bear anything rather."

"This of course," said John, "is perhaps a still more bitter punishment for the other side."

She looked round at him again. Looking up with a look of pale horror, her eyelids in agonised curves over her eyes, her mouth quivering. "What did you say, John?"

"I said it might be a more bitter punishment still for—the other side."

Elinor lifted up her baby to her breast, raising herself with a new dignity, with her head high. "I meant no punishment," she said, "I want none. I have left—what killed me—behind me; many things, not one only. I have brought my boy away that he may never—never— But if it would be better that—another should be free—"

"I will never give my consent to it, Elinor."

"Nor I with my own mind; but if it is vindictive—if it is revenge, mother! I am not alone to think of myself. If it were better for —— that he should be free; speak to John about it and tell me. I cannot, cannot discuss it. I will leave it all to John and you. It will kill me! but what does that matter?—it is not revenge that I seek."

She turned with the baby pressed to her breast and walked away, her every movement showing the strain and excitement of her soul.

"Why did you do this, John, without at least consulting me? You have thrown a new trouble into her mind. She will never, never do this thing—nor would I permit it. There are some things in which I must take a part. I could not forbid her marriage; God grant that I had had the strength to do it—but this I will forbid, to expose her to the whole world, when everything we have done has been with the idea of concealing what had happened. Never, never. I will never consent to it, John."

"I had no intention of proposing such a step; but the other side—as we are bound to call him—are frightened about it. And when I saw her look up, so young still, so sweet, with all her life before her, and thought how she must spend it—alone; with no expanding, no development, in this cottage or somewhere else, a life shipwrecked, a being so capable, so full of possibilities—lost."

"I have spent my life in this cottage," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "My husband died when I was thirty—my life was over, and still I was young; but I had Elinor. There were some who pitied me too, but their pity was uncalled for. Elinor will live like her mother, she has her boy."

"But it is different; you cannot but see the difference."

"Yes, I see it—it is different; but not so different that my Elinor's name should be placarded about the streets and put in all the newspapers. Oh, never, never, John. If the man suffers, it is his fault. She will suffer, and it is not her fault; but I will not, to release him, drag my child before the world."

Mrs. Dennistoun was so much excited that she began to pace about the room, she who was usually so sober and self restrained. She had borne much, but this she was unable even to contemplate with calm. For once in her life she had arrived at something which she would not bear. John felt his own position very strange sitting looking on as a spectator, while this woman, usually so self-controlled, showed her impatience of circumstances and fate. It was ruefully comic that this should be, so to speak, his doing, though he was the last in the world to desire any exposure of Elinor, or to have any sympathy with those who sought justice for themselves or revenge on others at such a cost.

"I was rash perhaps to speak as I did," he said; "I had no intention of doing it when I came. It was a mere impulse, seeing Elinor: but you must know that I agree with you perfectly. I see that Elinor's lot is fixed anyhow. I believe that no decree of a court would make any difference to her, and she would not change the name that is the child's name. All that I recognise. And one thing more, that neither you nor Elinor has recognised. They—he is afraid of any proceedings—I suppose I may mention him to you. It's rather absurd, don't you think, speaking of a fellow of that sort, or rather, not speaking of him at all, as if his name was sacred? He is afraid of proceedings—whatever may be the cause."

"John, can't you understand that she cannot bear to speak of him, a man she so fought for, against us all? And now her eyes are opened, she is undeceived, she knows him all through and through, more, far more, than we do. She opened her mind to me once, and only once. It was not that alone; oh, no, no. There are things that rankle more than that, something he did before they were married, and made her help him to conceal. Something dishon—I can't say the word, John."

"Oh," said John, grimly, "you need not mind me."

"Well, the woman—I blush to have to speak to you even of such a thing—the woman, John, was not the worst. She almost might, I think, have forgiven that. It was one thing after another, and that, that first business the worst of all. She found it out somehow, and he had made her take a part—I can't tell what. She would never open her lips on the subject again. Only that once it all burst forth. Oh, divorce! What would that do to her, besides the shame? You understand some things, John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with a smile, "though you are a man. She would never do anything to give herself a name different from her child's."

"Yes," said John, with a laugh, "I think I understand a thing or two, though, as you say, my dear aunt, I am only a man. However, it is just as well I am that imperfect creature, to take care of you. It understands the tactics of the wicked better than you do. And now you must persuade Elinor and persuade yourself of what I came here on purpose to tell you—not to disturb you, as I have been so unfortunate as to do. You are perfectly safe from him. I will not let the enemy know your sentiments, or how decided you are on the subject. I will perhaps, if you will let me, crack the whip a little over their heads, and keep them in a pleasing uncertainty. But as long as he is afraid that she will take proceedings against him, he will take none, you may be sure, against her. So you may throw aside all your precautions and be happy over your treasure in your own way."

"Thank God for what you say, John; you take a weight off my heart. But happy—how can you speak of being happy after such a catastrophe?"

"I thought I came in upon a very happy little scene. It might be only pretence, but it looked uncommonly like the real thing."

"You mean the baby, John, the dear infant that knows no harm. He does take off our thoughts a little, and enable us to bear——"

"Oh, aunt, don't be a hypocrite; that was never a fault of yours. Confess that with all your misery about Elinor you are happy to have her here and her child—notwithstanding everything—happy as you have not been for many a day."

She sat down by him and gave him her hand. "John, to be a man you have wonderful insight, and it's I who am a very, very imperfect creature. You don't think worse of me to be glad to have her, even though it is purchased by such misery and trouble? God knows," cried the poor lady, drying her eyes, "that I would give her up to-morrow, and with joy, and consent never to see her again, if that would be for her happiness. John! I've not thrust myself upon them, have I, nor done anything against him, nor said a word? But now that she is here, and the baby, and all to myself—which I never hoped—would I not be an ungrateful woman if I did not thank God for it, John?"

"You are an excellent special pleader, aunt," he said, with a laugh, "as most women whom I have known are: and I agree with you in everything. You behaved to them, while it was them, angelically: you effaced yourself, and I fully believe you never said a word against him. Also, I believe that if circumstances changed, if anything happened to make her see that she could go back to him——"

Mrs. Dennistoun started in spite of herself, and pressed her hands together, with a half sob of dismay.

"I don't think it likely, but if it were so, you would sacrifice yourself again—I haven't a doubt of it. Why, then, set up this piece of humbug to me who know you so well, and pretend that you are not very happy for the moment? You are, and you have a good right to be: and I say enjoy it, my dear aunt; take all the good of it, you will have no trouble from him."

"You think so, you really think so, John?"

"I have no doubt of it: and you must persuade Elinor. Don't think I am making light of the situation: you'll have plenty to trouble you no doubt, when that little shaver grows up——"

"John!"

"Well, he is a little shaver (whatever that may mean I'm sure I don't know), if he were a little prince. When he grows up you will have your business laid out for you, and I don't envy you the clearing up——"

"John don't speak as if a time would come when you would not stand by us. I mean stand by Elinor."

"Your first phrase was much the best. I will stand by you both as a matter of course."

"You must consider I shall be an old woman then; and who knows if I may live to see the poor little darling grow up?"

"The poor little darling may never grow up, and none of us may live to see it. One prediction is as good as another: but I think better things of you, aunt, than that you would go and die and desert Elinor, unless 'so be as you couldn't help it,' as Pearson says. But, however, in the meantime, dying of anybody is not in the question, and I hope both you and she will take as much pleasure out of the baby and be as happy as circumstances will allow. And I'll tell Pearson that there is no need for him to act the dragon—either the Bible one, whom he did not think you would like to have about the house, or any other—for the danger is over. Trust me at least for that."

"I trust you for everything, John; but," added Mrs. Dennistoun, "I wouldn't say anything to Pearson. If you've told him to be a dragon, let him be a dragon still. I am sure you are right, and I will tell Elinor so, and comfort her heart; but we may as well keep a good look out, and our eyes about us, all the same."

"They are sure I am right, but think it better to go on as if I were wrong," John said to himself as he went to dress for dinner. And while he went through this ceremony, he had a great many thoughts—half-impatient, half-tender—of the wonderful ways of women which are so amazing to men in general, as the ways of men are amazing to women, and will be so, no doubt, as long as the world goes on. The strange mixture of the wise and the foolish, the altogether heroic, and the involuntarily fictitious, struck his keen perception with a humourous understanding, and amusement, and sympathy. That Mrs. Dennistoun should pose a little as a sufferer while she was unmitigatedly happy in the possession of Elinor and the child, and be abashed when she was forced to confess how ecstatic was the fearful joy which she snatched in the midst of danger, was strange enough. But that Elinor, at this dreadful crisis of her life, when every bond was rent asunder, and all that is ordinarily called happiness wrecked for ever, should be moved to the kind of rapture he had seen in her face by the reaching out and curling in of those little pink toes in the warm light of the fire, was inconceivable—a thing that was not in any philosophy. She had made shipwreck of her life. She had torn the man whom she loved out of her heart, and fled from his neglect and treachery—a fugitive to her mother's house. And yet as she sat before the fire with this little infant cooing in the warmth—like a puppy or a little pig, or any other little animal you can suggest—this was the thought of the irreverent man—there was a look of almost more than common happiness, of blessedness, in her face. Who can fathom these things? They were at least beyond the knowledge, though not the sympathy, of this very rising member of the bar.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

Thus there came a sort of settling down and composure of affairs. Phil Compton and all belonging to him disappeared from the scene, and Elinor returned to all the habits of her old life—all the habits, with one extraordinary and incalculable addition which changed all these habits. The baby—so inconsiderable a little creature, not able to show a feeling, or express a thought, or make even a tremulous step from one pair of loving arms to another—an altogether helpless little bundle, but nevertheless one who had already altered the existence of the cottage and its inhabitants, and made life a totally different thing for them. Can I tell how this was done? No doubt for the wisest objects, to guard the sacred seed of the race as mere duty could never guard it, rendering it the one thing most precious in the world to those to whom it is confided—at least to most of them. When that love fails, then is the deepest abyss of misery reached. I do not say that Elinor was happy in this dreadful breaking up of her life, or that her heart did not go back, with those relentings which are the worst part of every disruption, to the man who had broken her heart and unsettled her nature. The remembrance of him in his better moments would flash upon her, and bear every resentment away. Dreadful thoughts of how she might herself have done otherwise, have rendered their mutual life better, would come over her; and next moment recollections still more terrible of what he had done and said, the scorn she had borne, the insults, the neglect, and worse of all the complicity he had forced upon her, by which he had made her guilty when she knew and feared nothing—when these thoughts overcame her, as they did twenty times in a day, for it is the worst of such troubles that they will not be settled by one struggle, but come back and back, beginning over again at the same point, after we have wrestled through them, and have thought that we had come to a close—when these thoughts, I say, overcame her, she would rush to the room in which the baby held his throne, and press him to the heart which was beating so hotly, till it grew calm. And in the midst of all to sit down by the fire with the little atom of humanity in her lap, and see it spread and stretch its rosy limbs, would suffice to bring again to her face that beatitude which had filled John Tatham with wonder unspeakable. She took the baby and laid him on her heart to take the pain away: and so after a minute or two there was no more question of pain, but of happiness, and delicious play, and the raptures of motherhood. How strange were these things! She could not understand it herself, and fortunately did not try, but accepted that solace provided by God. As for Mrs. Dennistoun, she made no longer any pretences to herself, but allowed herself, as John had advised, to take her blessedness frankly without hypocrisy. When Elinor's dear face was veiled by misery her mother was sympathetically miserable, but at all other moments her heart sang for joy. She had her child again, and she had her child's child, an endless occupation, amusement, and delight. All this might come to an end—who can tell when?—but for the moment her house was no more lonely, the requirements of her being were satisfied. She had her Elinor—what more was to be said? And yet there was more to be said, for in addition there was the boy.

This was very well so far as the interior of the house and of their living was concerned, but very soon other difficulties arose. It had been Mrs. Dennistoun's desire, when she returned home, to communicate some modified version of what had happened to the neighbours around. She had thought it would not only be wise, but easier for themselves, that their position should be understood in the little parish society which, if it did not know authoritatively, would certainly inquire and investigate and divine, with the result of perhaps believing more than the truth, perhaps setting up an entirely fictitious explanation which it would be impossible to set aside, and very hard to bear. It is the worst of knowing a number of people intimately, and being known by them from the time your children were in their cradles, that every domestic incident requires some sort of explanation to this close little circle of spectators. But Elinor, who had not the experience of her mother in such matters, nor the knowledge of life, made a strenuous opposition to this. She would not have anything said. It was better, she thought, to leave it to their imagination, if they chose to interfere with their neighbours' concerns and imagine anything. "But why should they occupy themselves about us? And they have no imaginations," she said, with a contempt of her neighbours which is natural to young people, though very unjustifiable. "But, my darling," Mrs. Dennistoun would say, "the position is so strange. There are not many young women who—And there must be some way of accounting for it. Let us just tell them——"

"For heaven's sake, mamma, tell them nothing! I have come to pay you a long visit after my neglect of you for these two years, which, of course, they know well enough. What more do they want to know? It is a very good reason: and while baby is so young of course it is far better for him to be in a settled home, where he can be properly attended to, than moving about. Isn't that enough?"

"Well, Elinor; at least you will let me say as much as that——"

"Oh, they can surely make it out for themselves. What is the use of always talking a matter over, to lead to a little more, and a little more, till the appetite for gossip is satisfied? Surely, in our circumstances, least said is soonest mended," Elinor said, with that air of superior understanding which almost always resides in persons of the younger generation. Mrs. Dennistoun said no more to her, but she did take advantage of the explanation thus suggested. She informed the anxious circle at the Rectory that Elinor had come to her on a long visit, "partly for me, and partly for the baby," she said, with one of those smiles which are either the height of duplicity or the most pathetic evidence of self-control, according as you choose to regard them. "She thinks she has neglected her mother, though I am sure I have never blamed her; and she thinks—of which there can be no doubt—that to carry an infant of that age moving about from place to place is the worst thing in the world; and that I am very thankful she should think so, I need not say."

"It is very nice for you, dear Mrs. Dennistoun," Mrs. Hudson said.

"And a good thing for Elinor," said Alice, "for she is looking very poorly. I have always heard that fashionable life took a great deal out of you if you are not quite brought up to it. I am sure I couldn't stand it," the young lady said with fervour, who had never had that painful delight in her power.

"That is all very well," said the Rector, rubbing his hands, "but what does Mr. Compton say to it? I don't want to say a word against your arrangements, my dear lady, but you know there must be some one on the husband's side. Now, I am on the husband's side, and I am sorry for the poor young man. I hope he is going to join his wife. I hope, excuse me for saying it, that Elinor—though we are all so delighted to see her—will not forsake him, for too long."

And then Mrs. Dennistoun felt herself compelled to embroider a little upon her theme.

"He has to be a great deal abroad during this year," she said; "he has a great many things to do. Elinor does not know when he will be—home. That is one reason——"

"To be sure, to be sure," the Rector said, rubbing his hands still more, and coming to her aid just as she was breaking down. "Something diplomatic, of course. Well, we must not inquire into the secrets of the State. But what an ease to his mind, my dear lady, to think that his wife and child will be safe with you while he's away!"

Mary Dale not being present could not of course say anything. She was a person who was always dreadfully well informed. It was a comfort unspeakable that at this moment she was away!

This explanation made the spring pass quietly enough, but not without many questions that brought the blood to Elinor's face. When she was asked by some one, for the first time, "When do you expect Mr. Compton, Elinor?" the sudden wild flush of colour which flooded her countenance startled the questioner as much as the question did herself. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" said the injudicious but perfectly innocent seeker for information. I fear that Elinor fell upon her mother after this, and demanded to know what she had said. But as Mrs. Dennistoun was innocent of anything but having said that Philip was abroad, there was no satisfaction to be got out of that. Some time after, one of the Miss Hills congratulated Elinor, having seen in the papers that Mr. Compton was returning to town for the season. "I suppose, dear Elinor, we shan't have you with us much longer," this lady said. And then it became known at the Cottage that Mary Dale was returning to the Rectory. This was the last aggravation, and Elinor, who had now recovered her strength and energy, and temper along with it, received the news with an outburst of impatience which frightened her mother. "You may as well go through the parish and ring the bell, and tell everybody everything," she said. "Mary Dale will have heard all, and a great deal more than all; she will come with her budget, and pour it out far and wide; she will report scenes that never took place: and quarrels, and all that—that woman insinuated to John—and she will be surrounded with people who will shake their heads, and sink their voices when we come in and say, 'Poor Elinor!' I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it," she cried.

"My darling! that was bound to come sooner or later. We must set our faces like a rock, and look as if we were unaware of anything——"

"I cannot look as if I were unaware. I cannot meet all their cruel eyes. I can see, now, the smile on Mary Dale's face, that will say, 'I told you so.' I shall hear her say it even when I am in my room, with the combe between. I know exactly how she will say it—'If Elinor had listened to me——'"

"Elinor," said poor Mrs. Dennistoun, "I cannot contradict you, dear. It will be so—but none of them are cruel, not even Mary Dale. They will make their remarks—who could help it? we should ourselves if it were some one else's case: but they will not be cruel—don't think so—they will be full of sympathy——"

"Which is a great deal worse," Elinor said, in her unreason; "the one might be borne, but the other I will not endure. Sympathy, yes! They will all be sorry for me—they will say they knew how it would be. Oh, I know I have not profited as I ought by what has happened to me. I am unsubdued. I am as impatient and as proud as ever. It is quite true, but it cannot be mended. It is more than I can bear."

"My darling," said her mother, again. "We all say that in our trouble, and yet we know that we have got to bear it all the same. It is intolerable—one says that a thousand times—and yet it has to be put up with. All the time that we have been flattering ourselves that nobody took any notice it has been a delusion, Elinor. How could it be otherwise? We must set our faces——"

"Not I, mamma!" she said. "Not I! I must go away——"

"Go away? Elinor!"

"Among strangers; where nobody has heard of me before—where nobody can make any remark. To live like this, among a crowd of people who think they ought to know everything that one is doing—who are nothing to you, and yet whom you stand in awe of and must explain everything to!—it is this that is intolerable. I cannot, cannot bear it. Mother, I will take my baby, and I will go away——"

"Where?" said Mrs. Dennistoun, with all the colour fading out of her face. What panic had taken her I cannot tell. She grew pale to her lips, and the words were almost inaudible which she breathed forth. I think she thought for a moment that Elinor's heart had turned, that she was going back to her husband to find refuge with him from the strife of tongues which she could not encounter alone. All the blood went back upon the mother's heart—yet she set herself to suppress all emotion, and if this should be so, not to oppose it—for was it not the thing of all others to be desired—the thing which everybody would approve, the reuniting of those whom God had put together? Though it might be death to her, not a word of opposition would she say.

"Where? how can I tell where—anywhere, anywhere out of the world," cried Elinor, in the boiling tide of her impatience and wretchedness, "where nobody ever heard of us before, where there will be no one to ask, no one to require a reason, where we should be free to move when we please and do as we please. Let me go, mother. It seemed too dear, too peaceful to come home, but now home itself has become intolerable. I will take my baby and I will go—to the farthest point the railway can take me to—with no servant to betray me, not even an address. Mother, let me go away and be lost; let me be as if I had never been."

"And me—am I to remain to bear the brunt behind?"

"And you—mamma! Oh, I am the most unworthy creature. I don't deserve to have you, I that am always giving you pain. Why should I unroot you from your place where you have lived so long—from your flowers, and your landscape, and your pretty rooms that were always a comfort to think of in that horrible time when I was away? I always liked to think of you here, happy and quiet, in the place you had chosen."

"Flowers and landscapes are pretty things," said Mrs. Dennistoun, whose colour had begun to come again a little, "but they don't make up for one's children. We must not do anything rashly, Elinor; but if what you mean is really that you will go away to a strange place among strangers——"

"What else could I mean?" Elinor said, and then she in her turn grew pale. "If you thought I could mean that I would go—back——"

"Oh, my darling, my darling! God knows if we are right or wrong—I not to advise you so, or you not to take my advice. Elinor, it is my duty, and I will say it though it were to break my heart. There only could you avoid this strife of tongues. John spoke the truth. He said, as the boy grew up we should have—many troubles. I have known women endure everything that their children might grow up in a natural situation, in their proper sphere. Think of this—I am saying it against my own interest, against my own heart. But think of it, Elinor. Whatever you might have to bear, you would be in your natural place."

Elinor received this agitated address standing up, holding her head high, her nostrils expanded, her lips apart. "Have you quite done, mother?" she said.

Mrs. Dennistoun made an appealing movement with her hands, and sank, without any power to add a word, into a chair.

"I am glad you said it against your heart. Now you must feel that your conscience is clear. Mother, if I had to wander the world from place to place, without even a spot of ground on which to rest my foot, I would never, never do what you say. What! take my child to grow up in that tainted air; give him up to be taught such things as they teach! Never, never, never! His natural place, did you say? I would rather the slums of London were his natural place. He would have some chance there! If I could bear it for myself, yet I could not for him—for him most of all. I will take him up in my arms. Thank God, I am strong now and can carry him—and go away—among strangers, I don't care where—where there can be no questions and no remarks."

"But not without me, Elinor!"

"Oh, mother, mother! What a child I am to you, to rend your heart as I have done, and now to tear you out of your house and home!"

"My home is where my children are," Mrs. Dennistoun said: and then she made a little pause. "But we must think it over, Elinor. Such a step as this must not be taken rashly. We will ask John to come down and advise us. My dear——"

"No, mother, not John or any one. I will go first if you like and find a place, and you will join me after. That woman" (it was poor Mary Dale, who was indeed full of information, but meant no harm) "is coming directly. I will not wait here to see her, or their faces after she has told them all the lies she will have heard. I am not going to take advice from any one. Let me alone, mother. I must, I must go away."

"But not by yourself, Elinor," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

This was how it happened that John Tatham, who had meant to go down to the Cottage the very next Saturday to see how things were going, was driven into a kind of stupefaction one morning in May by a letter which reached him from the North, a letter conveying news so unexpected and sudden, so unlike anything that had seemed possible, that he laid it down, when it was half read, with a gasp of astonishment, unable to believe his eyes.



CHAPTER XXIX.

It was Mrs. Dennistoun whose letter brought John Tatham such dismay. It was dated Lakeside, Waterdale, Penrith—an address with which he had no associations whatever, and which he gazed at blankly for a moment before he attempted to read the letter, not knowing how to connect it with the well-known writing which was as familiar as the common day.

"You will wonder to see this address," she wrote. "You will wonder still more, dear John, when I tell you we have come here for good. I have left the Cottage in an agent's hands with the hope of letting it. Windyhill is such a healthy place that I hope somebody will soon be found to take it. You know Elinor would not let me make any explanation. And the constant questions and allusions to his movements which people had seen in the papers, and so forth, had got on her nerves, poor child. You can understand how easily this might come about. At last she got that she could not bear it longer. Mary Dale, who always lives half the year with her sister at the Rectory, was coming back. You know it was she who brought the first tale about him, and she knows, I think, all the gossip that ever was got up about any one. Poor Elinor—though I don't believe Mary had any bad meaning; and it would, alas! have been for all our good had we listened to what she said—Elinor cannot bear her; and when she heard she was coming, she declared she would take her baby and go away. I tried to bring her to reason, but I could not. Naturally it was she who convinced me—you know the process, John. Indeed, in many things I can see it is the best thing we could do. I am not supremely attached to Windyhill. The Cottage had got to be very homelike after living in it so long, but home is where those are whom one loves. And to live among one set of people for so many years, if it has great advantages, has at the same time very great disadvantages too. You can't keep anything to yourself. You must explain every step you take, and everything that happens to you. This is a lovely country, a little cold as yet, and a little damp perhaps, being so near the lake—but the mountains are beautiful, and the air delicious. Elinor is out all the day long, and baby grows like a flower. You must come and see us as soon as ever you can. That is one dreadful drawback, that we shall not have you running up and down from Saturday to Monday: and I am afraid you will be vexed with us that we did not take your advice first—you, who have always been our adviser. But Elinor would not hear a word of any advice. I think she was afraid you would disapprove: and it would have been worse to fly in your face if you had disapproved than to come away without consulting you: and you know how impetuous she is. At all events the die is cast. Write kindly to her; don't say anything to vex her. You can let yourself out, if you are very angry, upon me.

"One thing more. She desires that if you write you should address her as Mrs. Compton only, no Honourable. That might attract attention, and what we desire is to escape notice altogether, which I am sure is a thing you will thoroughly understand, now that we have transplanted ourselves so completely. Dear John, form the most favourable idea you can of this sudden step, and come and see us as soon as it is possible.

"Yours affectly., "M. D."

To say that John was thunderstruck by this letter is to describe his sensations mildly, for he was for a time bitterly angry, wounded, disappointed, disturbed to the bottom of his soul; but perhaps if truth were told it could scarcely be said that he disapproved. He thought it over, which he naturally did all that day, to the great detriment of his work, first with a sort of rage against Elinor and her impetuosity, which presently shaded down into understanding of her feelings, and ended in a sense that he might have known it from the first, and that really no other conclusion was possible. He came gradually to acquiesce in the step the ladies had taken. To have to explain everything to the Hudsons, and Hills, and Mary Dales, to open up your most sacred heart in order that they might be able to form a theory sufficient for their outside purposes of your motives and methods, or, what was perhaps worse still—to know that they were on the watch, guessing what you did not tell them, putting things together, explaining this and that in their own way—would have been intolerable. "That is the good of having attached friends," John exclaimed to himself, very unjustly: for it is human nature that is to blame, if there is any blame attaching to an exercise of ingenuity so inevitable. As a matter of fact, when Miss Dale brought the true or something like the true account to Windyhill, the warmth of the sympathy for Elinor, the wrath of the whole community with her unworthy husband, was almost impassioned. Had she been there it would not have been possible for those good people altogether to conceal from her how sorry and how indignant they were; even perhaps there might have been some who could not have kept out of their eyes, who must have betrayed in some word or shake of the head the "I told you so" which is so dear to human nature. But how was it possible that they could remain uninterested, unaffected by the trouble in the midst of them, or even appear to be so? John, like Elinor, threw a fiery dart of impatience at the country neighbours, not allowing that everywhere in the greatest town, in the most cosmopolitan community, this would have been the same.