"You read, sir, a great deal?" he said to the doctor, with a professional change of voice.

The doctor, who, like most great men, was a trifle greedy, was silently enjoying a dish of oysters delicately rolled in bacon. He looked up at his questioner.

"A great deal, Mr. Birch."

"Everything, in fact?"

"Everything—except, of course, what is indispensable."

Mr. Birch looked puzzled.

"I heard of you from the Duchess, doctor. She says you are one of the most learned men in England."

"The Duchess?" The doctor screwed up his eyes and looked round the table.

Mr. Birch, with complacency, named the wife of a neighboring potentate who owned half the county.

"Don't know her," said the doctor—"don't know her; and—excuse the barbarity—don't wish to know her."

"Oh, but so charming!" cried Mr. Birch—"and so kind!"

The doctor shook his head, and declared that great ladies were not to his taste. "Poodles, sir, poodles! 'fed on cream and muffins!'—there is no trusting them."

"Poodles!" said Fanny, in astonishment. "Why are duchesses like poodles?"

The doctor bowed to her.

"I give it up, Miss Merton. Ask Sydney Smith."

Fanny was mystified, and the sulky look appeared.

"Well, I know I should like to be a duchess. Why shouldn't one want to be a duchess?"

"Why not indeed?" said the doctor, helping himself to another oyster. "That's why they exist."

"I suppose you're teasing," said Fanny, rather crossly.

"I am quite incapable of it," protested the doctor. "Shall we not all agree that duchesses exist for the envy and jealousy of mankind?"

"Womankind?" put in Diana. The doctor smiled at her, and finished his oyster. Brave child! Had that odious young woman been behaving in character that morning? He would like to have the dealing with her! As for Diana, her face reminded him of Cowper's rose "just washed by a shower"—delicately fresh—yet eloquent of some past storm.—Good Heavens! Where was that fellow Marsham? Philandering with politics?—when there was this flower for the gathering!

* * * * *

Luncheon was half-way through when a rattling sound of horses' hoofs outside drew the attention of the table.

"Somebody else coming to lunch," said Mr. Birch. "Sorry for 'em, Miss Mallory. We haven't left 'em much. You've done us so uncommon well."

Diana herself looked in some alarm round the table.

"Plenty, my dear lady, plenty!" said the doctor, on her other hand. "Cold beef, and bread and cheese—what does any mortal want more? Don't disturb yourself."

Diana wondered who the visitors might be. The butler entered.

"Sir James Chide, ma'am, and Miss Drake. They have ridden over from Overton Park, and didn't think it was so far. They told me to say they didn't wish to disturb you at luncheon, and might they have a cup of coffee?"

Diana excused herself, and hurried out. Mr. Birch explained at length to Mrs. Colwood and Fanny that Overton Park belonged to the Judge, Sir William Felton; that Sir James Chide was often there; and no doubt Miss Drake had been invited for the ball of the night before; awfully smart affair!—the coming-out ball of the youngest daughter.

"Who is Miss Drake?" asked Fanny, thinking enviously of the ball, to which she had not been invited. Mr. Birch turned to her with confidential jocosity.

"Lady Lucy Marsham's cousin; and it is generally supposed that she might by now have been something else but for—"

He nodded toward the chair at the head of the table which Diana had left vacant.

"Whatever do you mean?" said Fanny. The Marshams to her were, so far, mere shadows. They represented rich people on the horizon whom Diana selfishly wished to keep to herself.

"I'm telling tales, I declare I am!" said Mr. Birch. "Haven't you seen Mr. Oliver Marsham yet, Miss Merton?"

"No. I don't know anything about him."

"Ah!" said Mr. Birch, smiling, and peeling an apple with deliberation.

Fanny flushed.

"Is there anything up—between him and Diana?" she said in his ear.

Mr. Birch smiled again.

"I saw old Mr. Vavasour the other day—clients of ours, you understand. A close-fisted old boy, Miss Merton. They imagined they'd get a good deal out of your cousin. But not a bit of it. Oliver Marsham does all her business for her. The Vavasours don't like it, I can tell you."

"I haven't seen either him or Lady Lucy—is that her name?—since I came."

"Let me see. You came about a fortnight ago—just when Parliament reassembled. Mr. Marsham is our member. He and Lady Lucy went up to town the day before Parliament met."

"And what about Miss Drake?"

"Ah!—poor Miss Drake!" Mr. Birch raised a humorous eyebrow. "Those little things will happen, won't they? It was just at Christmas, I understand, that your cousin paid her first visit to Tallyn. A man who was shooting there told me all about it."

"And Miss Drake was there too?"

Mr. Birch nodded.

"And Diana cut her out?" said Fanny, bending toward him eagerly.

Mr. Birch smiled again. Voices were heard in the hall, but before the new guests entered, the young man put up a finger to his lips:

"Don't you quote me, please, Miss Merton. But, I can tell you, your cousin's very high up in the running just now. And Oliver Marsham will have twenty thousand a year some day if he has a penny. Miss Mallory hasn't told you anything—hasn't she? Ha—ha! Still waters, you know—still waters!"

* * * * *

A few minutes later Sir James Chide was seated between Diana and Fanny Merton, Mr. Birch having obligingly vacated his seat and passed to the other side of the table, where his attempts at conversation were coldly received by Miss Drake. That young lady dazzled the eyes of Fanny, who sat opposite to her. The closely fitting habit and black riding-hat gave to her fine figure and silky wealth of hair the maximum of effect. Fanny perfectly understood that only money and fashion could attain to Miss Drake's costly simplicity. She envied her from the bottom of her heart; she would have given worlds to see the dress in which she had figured at the ball. Miss Drake, no doubt, went to two or three balls a week, and could spend anything she liked upon her clothes.

Yet Diana had cut her out—Diana was to carry off the prize! Twenty thousand a year! Fanny's mind was in a ferment—the mind of a raw and envious provincial, trained to small ambitions and hungry desires. Half an hour before, she had been writing a letter home, in a whirl of delight and self-glorification. The money Diana had promised would set the whole family on its legs, and Fanny had stipulated that after the debts were paid she was to have a clear, cool hundred for her own pocket, and no nonsense about it. It was she who had done it all, and if it hadn't been for her, they might all have gone to the workhouse. But now her success was to her as dross. The thought of Diana's future wealth and glory produced in her a feeling which was an acute physical distress. So Diana was to be married!—and to the great parti of the neighborhood! Fanny already saw her in the bridal white, surrounded by glittering bridesmaids; and a churchful of titled people, bowing before her as she passed in state, like poppies under a breeze.

And Diana had never said a word to her about it—to her own cousin! Nasty, close, mean ways! Fanny was not good enough for Tallyn—oh no! She was asked to Beechcote when there was nothing going on—or next to nothing—and one might yawn one's self to sleep with dulness from morning till night. But as soon as she was safely packed off, then there would be fine times, no doubt; the engagement would be announced; the presents would begin to come in; the bridesmaids would be chosen. But she would get nothing out of it—not she; she would not be asked to be bridesmaid. She was not genteel enough for Diana.

Diana—Diana!—the daughter—

Fanny's whole nature gathered itself as though for a spring upon some prey, at once tempting and exasperating. In one short fortnight the inbred and fated antagonism between the two natures had developed itself—on Fanny's side—to the point of hatred. In the depths of her being she knew that Diana had yearned to love her, and had not been able. That failure was not her crime, but Diana's.

Fanny looked haughtily round the table. How many of them knew what she knew? Suddenly a name recurred to her!—the name announced by the butler and repeated by Mr. Birch. At the moment she had been thinking of other things; it had roused no sleeping associations. But now the obscure under-self sent it echoing through the brain. Fanny caught her breath. The sudden excitement made her head swim.—She turned and looked at the white-haired elderly man sitting between her and Diana.

Sir James Chide!

Memories of the common gossip in her home, of the talk of the people on the steamer, of pages in that volume of Famous Trials she had studied on the voyage with such a close and unsavory curiosity danced through the girl's consciousness. Well, he knew! No good pretending there. And he came to see Diana—and still Diana knew nothing! Mrs. Colwood must simply be telling lies—silly lies! Fanny glanced at her with contempt.

Yet so bewildered was she that when Sir James addressed her, she stared at him in what seemed a fit of shyness. And when she began to talk it was at random, for her mind was in a tumult. But Sir James soon divined her. Vulgarity, conceit, ill-breeding—the great lawyer detected them in five minutes' conversation. Nor were they unexpected; for he was well acquainted with Miss Fanny's origins. Yet the perception of them made the situation still more painfully interesting to him, and no less mysterious than before. For he saw no substantial change in it; and he was, in truth, no less perplexed than Fanny. If certain things had happened in consequence of Miss Merton's advent, neither he nor any other guest would be sitting at Diana Mallory's table that day; of that he was morally certain. Therefore, they had not happened.

He returned with a redoubled tenderness of feeling to his conversation with Diana. He had come to Overton for the Sunday, at great professional inconvenience, for nothing in the world but that he must pay this visit to Beechcote; and he had approached the house with dread—dread lest he should find a face stricken with the truth. That dread was momentarily lifted, for in those beautiful dark eyes of Diana innocence and ignorance were still written; but none the less he trembled for her; he saw her as he had seen her at Tallyn, a creature doomed, and consecrate to pain. Why, in the name of justice and pity, had her father done this thing? So it is that a man's love, for lack of a little simple courage and common-sense, turns to cruelty.

Poor, poor child!—At first sight he, like the Roughsedges, had thought her pale and depressed. Then he had given his message. "Marsham has arrived!—turned up at Overton a couple of hours ago—and told us to say he would follow us here after luncheon. He wired to Lady Felton this morning to ask if she would take him in for the Sunday. Some big political meeting he had for to-night is off. Lady Lucy stays in town—and Tallyn is shut up. But Lady Felton was, of course, delighted to get him. He arrived about noon. Civility to his hostess kept him to luncheon—then he pursues us!"

Since then!—no lack of sparkle in the eyes or color in the cheek! Yet even so, to Sir James's keen sense, there was an increase, a sharpening, in Diana's personality, of the wistful, appealing note, which had been always touching, always perceptible, even through the radiant days of her Tallyn visit.

Ah, well!—like Dr. Roughsedge, only with a far deeper urgency, he, too, for want of any better plan, invoked the coming lover. In God's name, let Marsham take the thing into his own hands!—stand on his own feet!—dissipate a nightmare which ought never to have arisen—and gather the girl to his heart.

* * * * *

Meanwhile Fanny's attention—and the surging anger of her thoughts—were more and more directed upon the girl with the fair hair opposite. A natural bond of sympathy seemed somehow to have arisen between her and this Miss Drake—Diana's victim. Alicia Drake, looking up, was astonished, time after time, to find herself stared at by the common-looking young woman across the table, who was, she understood, Miss Mallory's cousin. What dress, and what manners! One did not often meet that kind of person in society. She wished Oliver joy of his future relations.

* * * * *

In the old panelled drawing-room the coffee was circulating. Sir James was making friends with Mrs. Colwood, whose gentle looks and widow's dress appealed to him. Fanny, Miss Drake, and Mr. Birch made a group by the fireplace; Mr. Birch was posing as an authority on the drama; Fanny, her dark eyes fixed upon Alicia, was not paying much attention; and Alicia, with ill-concealed impatience, was yawning behind her glove. Hugh Roughsedge was examining the Donatello photograph.

"Do you like it?" said Diana, standing beside him. She was conscious of having rather neglected him at lunch, and there was a dancing something in her own heart which impelled her to kindness and compunction. Was not the good, inarticulate youth, too, going out into the wilds, his life in his hands, in the typical English way? The soft look in her eyes which expressed this mingled feeling did not mislead the recipient. He had overheard Sir James Glide's message; he understood her.

Presently, Mrs. Roughsedge, seeing that it was a sunny day and the garden looked tempting, asked to be allowed to inspect a new greenhouse that Diana was putting up. The door leading out of the drawing-room to the moat and the formal garden was thrown open; cloaks and hats were brought, and the guests streamed out.

"You are not coming?" said Hugh Roughsedge to Diana.

At this question he saw a delicate flush, beyond her control, creep over her cheek and throat.

"I—I am expecting Mr. Marsham," she said. "Perhaps I ought to stay."

Sir James Chide looked at his watch.

"He should be here any minute. We will overtake you, Captain Roughsedge."

Hugh went off beside Mrs. Colwood. Well, well, it was all plain enough! It was only a fortnight since the Marshams had gone up to town for the Parliamentary season. And here he was, again upon the scene. Impossible, evidently, to separate them longer. Let them only get engaged, and be done with it! He stalked on beside Mrs. Colwood, tongue-tied and miserable.

Meanwhile, Sir James lingered with Diana. "A charming old place!" he said, looking about him. "But Marsham tells me the Vavasours have been odious."

"We have got the better of them! Mr. Marsham helped me."

"He has an excellent head, has Oliver. This year he will have special need of it. It will be a critical time for him."

Diana gave a vague assent. She had, in truth, two recent letters from Marsham in her pocket at that moment, giving a brilliant and minute account of the Parliamentary situation. But she hid the fact, warm and close, like a brooding bird; only drawing on her companion to talk politics, that she might hear Marsham's name sometimes, and realize the situation Marsham had described to her, from another point of view.—And all the time her ear listened for the sound of hoofs, and for the front door bell.

At last! The peal echoed through the old house. Sir James rose, and, instinctively, Diana rose too. Was there a smile—humorous and tender—in the lawyer's blue eyes?

"I'll go and finish my cigarette out-of-doors. Such a tempting afternoon!"

And out he hurried, before Diana could stop him. She remained standing, with soft hurrying breath, looking out into the garden. On a lower terrace she saw Fanny and Alicia Drake walking together, and could not help a little laugh of amusement that seemed to come out of a heart of content. Then the door opened, and Marsham was there.



CHAPTER IX

Marsham's first feeling, as he advanced into the room, and, looking round him, saw that Diana was alone, was one of acute physical pleasure. The old room with its mingling of color, at once dim and rich; the sunlit garden through the casement windows; the scent of the logs burning on the hearth, and of the hyacinths and narcissus with which the warm air was perfumed; the signs everywhere of a woman's life and charm; all these first impressions leaped upon him, aiding the remembered spell which had recalled him—hot-foot and eager—from London, to this place, on the very first opportunity.

And if her surroundings were poetic, how much more so was the girl-figure itself!—the slender form, the dark head, and that shrinking joy which spoke in her gesture, in the movement she made toward him across the room. She checked it at once, but not before a certain wildness in it had let loose upon him a rush of delight.

"Sir James explained?" he said, as he took her hand.

"Yes. I had no notion you would be here—this week-end."

"Nor had I—till last night. Then an appointment broken down—and—me voici!"

"You stay over to-morrow?"

"Of course! But it is absurd that the Feltons should be five miles away!"

She stammered:

"It is a charming ride."

"But too long!—One does not want to lose time."

She was now sitting; and he beside her. Mechanically she had taken up some embroidery—to shield her eyes. He examined the reds and blues of the pattern, the white fingers, the bending cheek. Suddenly, like Sir James Chide or Hugh Roughsedge, he was struck with a sense of change. The Dian look which matched her name, the proud gayety and frankness of it, were somehow muffled and softened. And altogether her aspect was a little frail and weary. The perception brought with it an appeal to the protective strength of the man. What were her cares? Trifling, womanish things! He would make her confess them; and then conjure them away!

"You have your cousin with you?"

"Yes."

"She will make you a long visit?"

"Another week or two, I think."

"You are a believer in family traditions?—But of course you are!"

"Why 'of course'?" Her color had sparkled again, but the laugh was not spontaneous.

"I see that you are in love with even your furthest kinsmen—you must be—being an Imperialist! Now I am frankly bored by my kinsmen—near and far."

"All the same—you ask their help!"

"Oh yes, in war; pure self-interest on both sides."

"You have been preaching this in the House of Commons?"

The teasing had answered. No more veiling of the eyes!

"No—I have made no speeches. Next week, in the Vote of Censure debate, I shall get my chance."

"To talk Little Englandism? Alack!"

The tone was soft—it ended in a sigh.

"Does it really trouble you?"

She was looking down at her work. Her fingers drew the silk out and in—a little at random. She shook her head slightly, without reply.

"I believe it does," he said, gently, still smiling. "Well, when I make my speech, I shall remember that."

She looked up suddenly. Their eyes met full. On her just parted lips the words she had meant to say remained unspoken. Then a murmur of voices from the garden reached them, as though some one approached. Marsham rose.

"Shall we go into the garden? I ought to speak to Robins. How is he getting on?"

Robins was the new head gardener, appointed on Marsham's recommendation.

"Excellently." Diana had also risen. "I will get my hat."

He opened the door for her. Hang those people outside! But for them she would have been already in his arms.

Left to himself, he walked to and fro, restless and smiling. No more self-repression—no more politic delay! The great moment of life—grasped—captured at last! He in his turn understood the Faust-cry—"Linger awhile!—thou art so fair!" Only let him pierce to the heart of it—realize it, covetously, to the full! All the ordinary worldly motives were placated and at rest; due sacrifice had been done to them; they teased no more. Upgathered and rolled away, like storm-winds from the sea, they had left a shining and a festal wave for love to venture on. Let him only yield himself—feel the full swell of the divine force!

He moved to the window, and looked out.

Birch!—What on earth brought that creature to Beechcote. His astonishment was great, and perhaps in the depths of his mind there emerged the half-amused perception of a feminine softness and tolerance which masculine judgment must correct. She did not know how precious she was; and that it must not be made too easy for the common world to approach her. All that was picturesque and important, of course, in the lower classes; labor men, Socialists, and the like. But not vulgar half-baked fellows, who meant nothing politically, and must yet be treated like gentlemen. Ah! There were the Roughsedges—the Captain not gone yet?—Sir James and Mrs. Colwood—nice little creature, that companion—they would find some use for her in the future. And on the lower terrace, Alicia Drake, and—that girl? He laughed, amusing himself with the thought of Alicia's plight. Alicia, the arrogant, the fastidious! The odd thing was that she seemed to be absorbed in the conversation that was going on. He saw her pause at the end of the terrace, look round her, and deliberately lead the way down a long grass path, away from the rest of the party. Was the cousin good company, after all?

Diana returned. A broad black hat, and sables which had been her father's last gift to her, provided the slight change in surroundings which pleases the eye and sense of a lover. And as a man brought up in wealth, and himself potentially rich, he found it secretly agreeable that costly things became her. There should be no lack of them in the future.

They stepped out upon the terrace. At sight of them the Roughsedges approached, while Mr. Fred Birch lagged behind to inspect the sundial. After a few words' conversation, Marsham turned resolutely away.

"Miss Mallory wants to show me a new gardener."

The old doctor smiled at his wife. Hugh Roughsedge watched the departing figures. Excellently matched, he must needs admit, in aspect and in height. Was it about to happen?—or had it already happened? He braced himself, soldierlike, to the inevitable.

"You know Mr. Birch," said Diana to her companion, as they descended to the lower terrace, and passed not very far from that gentleman.

"I just know him," said Marsham, carelessly, and bestowed a nod in the direction of the solicitor.

"Had he not something to do with your election?" said Diana, astonished.

"My election?" cried Marsham. Then he laughed. "I suppose he has been drawing the long bow, as usual. Am I impertinent?—or may I ask, how you came to know him?"

He looked at her smiling. Diana colored.

"My cousin Fanny made acquaintance with him—in the train."

"I see. Here are our two cousins—coming to meet us. Will you introduce me?"

For Fanny and Miss Drake were now returning slowly along the gravel path which led to the kitchen garden. The eyes of both girls were fixed on the pair advancing toward them. Alicia was no longer impassive or haughty. Like her companion, she appeared to have been engaged in an intimate and absorbing conversation. Diana could not help looking at her in a vague surprise as she paused in front of them. But she addressed herself to her cousin.

"Fanny, I want to introduce Mr. Marsham to you."

Fanny Merton held out her hand, staring a little oddly at the gentleman presented to her. Alicia meanwhile was looking at Diana, while she spoke—with emphasis—to Marsham.

"Could you order my horse, Oliver? I think we ought to be going back."

"Would you mind asking Sir James?" Marsham pointed to the upper terrace. "I have something to see to in the garden."

Diana said hurriedly that Mrs. Colwood would send the order to the stables, and that she herself would not be long. Alicia took no notice of this remark. She still looked at Oliver.

"You'll come back with us, won't you?"

Marsham flushed. "I have only just arrived," he said, rather sharply. "Please don't wait for me.—Shall we go on?" he said, turning to Diana.

They walked on. As Diana paused at the iron gate which closed the long walk, she looked round her involuntarily, and saw that Alicia and Fanny were now standing on the lower terrace, gazing after them. It struck her as strange and rude, and she felt the slight shock she had felt several times already, both in her intercourse with Fanny and in her acquaintance with Miss Drake—as of one unceremoniously jostled or repulsed.

Marsham meanwhile was full of annoyance. That Alicia should still treat him in that domestic, possessive way—and in Diana's presence—was really intolerable. It must be stopped.

He paused on the other side of the gate.

"After all, I am not in a mood to see Robins to-day. Look!—the light is going. Will you show me the path on to the hill? You spoke to me once of a path you were fond of."

She tried to laugh.

"You take Robins for granted?"

"I am quite indifferent to his virtues—even his vices! This chance—is too precious. I have so much to say to you."

She led the way in silence. The hand which held up her dress from the mire trembled a little unseen. But her sense of the impending crisis had given her more rather than less dignity. She bore her dark head finely, with that unconscious long-descended instinct of the woman, waiting to be sued.

They found a path beyond the garden, winding up through a leafless wood. Marsham talked of indifferent things, and she answered him with spirit, feeling it all, so far, a queer piece of acting. Then they emerged on the side of the hill beside a little basin in the chalk, where a gnarled thorn or two, an overhanging beech, and a bed of withered heather, made a kind of intimate, furnished place, which appealed to the passer-by.

"Here is the sunset," said Marsham, looking round him. "Are you afraid to sit a little?"

He took a light overcoat he had been carrying over his arm and spread it on the heather. She protested that it was winter, and coats were for wearing. He took no notice, and she tamely submitted. He placed her regally, with an old thorn for support and canopy; and then he stood a moment beside her gazing westward.

They looked over undulations of the chalk, bare stubble fields and climbing woods, bathed in the pale gold of a February sunset. The light was pure and wan—the resting earth shone through it gently yet austerely; only the great woods darkly massed on the horizon gave an accent of mysterious power to a scene in which Nature otherwise showed herself the tamed and homely servant of men. Below were the trees of Beechcote, the gray walls, and the windows touched with a last festal gleam.

Suddenly Marsham dropped down beside her.

"I see it all with new eyes," he said, passionately. "I have lived in this country from my childhood; and I never saw it before! Diana!—"

He raised her hand, which only faintly resisted; he looked into her eyes. She had grown very pale—enchantingly pale. There was in her the dim sense of a great fulfilment; the fulfilment of Nature's promise to her; implicit in her woman's lot from the beginning.

"Diana!—" the low voice searched her heart—"You know—what I have come to say? I meant to have waited a little longer—I was afraid!—but I couldn't wait—it was beyond my strength. Diana!—come to me, darling!—be my wife!"

He kissed the hand he held. His eyes beseeched; and into hers, widely fixed upon him, had sprung tears—the tears of life's supremest joy. Her lip trembled.

"I'm not worthy!" she said, in a whisper—"I'm not worthy!"

"Foolish Diana!—Darling, foolish Diana!—Give me my answer!"

And now he held both hands, and his confident smile dazzled her.

"I—" Her voice broke. She tried again, still in a whisper. "I will be everything to you—that a woman can."

At that he put his arm round her, and she let him take that first kiss, in which she gave him her youth, her life—all that she had and was. Then she withdrew herself, and he saw her brow contract, and her mouth.

"I know!"—he said, tenderly—"I know! Dear, I think he would have been glad. He and I made friends from the first."

She plucked at the heather beside her, trying for composure. "He would have been so glad of a son—so glad—"

And then, by contrast with her own happiness, the piteous memory of her father overcame her; and she cried a little, hiding her eyes against Marsham's shoulder.

"There!" she said, at last, withdrawing herself, and brushing the tears away. "That's all—that's done with—except in one's heart. Did—did Lady Lucy know?"

She looked at him timidly. Her aspect had never been more lovely. Tears did not disfigure her, and as compared with his first remembrance of her, there was now a touching significance, an incomparable softness in all she said and did, which gave him a bewildering sense of treasures to come, of joys for the gathering.

Suddenly—involuntarily—there flashed through his mind the recollection of his first love-passage with Alicia—how she had stung him on, teased, and excited him. He crushed it at once, angrily.

As to Lady Lucy, he smilingly declared that she had no doubt guessed something was in the wind.

"I have been 'gey ill to live with' since we got up to town. And when the stupid meeting I had promised to speak at was put off, my mother thought I had gone off my head—from my behavior. 'What are you going to the Feltons' for?—You never care a bit about them.' So at last I brought her the map and made her look at it—'Felton Park to Brinton, 3 miles—Haylesford, 4 miles—Beechcote, 2 miles and 1/2—Beechcote Manor, half a mile—total, ten miles.'—'Oliver!'—she got so red!—'you are going to propose to Miss Mallory!' 'Well, mother!—and what have you got to say?' So then she smiled—and kissed me—and sent you messages—which I'll give you when there's time. My mother is a rather formidable person—no one who knew her would ever dream of taking her consent to anything for granted; but this time"—his laugh was merry—"I didn't even think of asking it!"

"I shall love her—dearly," murmured Diana.

"Yes, because you won't be afraid of her. Her standards are hardly made for this wicked world. But you'll hold her—you'll manage her. If you'd said 'No' to me, she would have felt cheated of a daughter."

"I'm afraid Mrs. Fotheringham won't like it," said Diana, ruefully, letting herself be gathered again into his arms.

"My sister? I don't know what to say about Isabel, dearest—unless I parody an old saying. She and I have never agreed—except in opinion. We have been on the same side—and in hot opposition—since our childhood. No—I dare say she will be thorny! Why did you fight me so well, little rebel?"

He looked down into her dark eyes, revelling in their sweetness, and in the bliss of her surrendered beauty. If this was not his first proposal, it was his first true passion—of that he was certain.

She released herself—rosy—and still thinking of Mrs. Fotheringham. "Oliver!"—she laid her hand shyly on his—"neither she nor you will want me to stifle what I think—to deny what I do really believe? I dare say a woman's politics aren't worth much"—she laughed and sighed.

"I say!—don't take that line with Isabel!"

"Well, mine probably aren't worth much—but they are mine—and papa taught them me—and I can't give them up."

"What'll you do, darling?—canvass against me?" He kissed her hand again.

"No—but I can't agree with you!"

"Of course you can't. Which of us, I wonder, will shake the other? How do you know that I'm not in a blue fright for my principles?"

"You'll explain to me?—you'll not despise me?" she said, softly, bending toward him; "I'll always, always try and understand."

Who could resist an attitude so feminine, yet so loyal, at once so old and new? Marsham felt himself already attacked by the poison of Toryism, and Diana, with a happy start, envisaged horizons that her father never knew, and questions where she had everything to learn.

Hand in hand, trembling still under the thrill of the moment which had fused their lives, they fell into happy discursive talk: of the Tallyn visit—of her thoughts and his—of what Lady Lucy and Mr. Ferrier had said, or would say. In the midst of it the fall of temperature, which came with the sunset, touched them, and Marsham sprang up with the peremptoriness of a new relationship, insisting that he must take her home out of the chilly dusk. As they stood lingering in the hollow, unwilling to leave the gnarled thorns, the heather-carpet, and the glow of western light—symbols to them henceforth that they too, in their turn, amid the endless generations, had drunk the mystic cup, and shared the sacred feast—Diana perceived some movement far below, on the open space in front of Beechcote. A little peering through the twilight showed them two horses with their riders leaving the Beechcote door.

"Oh! your cousin—and Sir James!" cried Diana, in distress, "and I haven't said good-bye—"

"You will see them soon again. And I shall carry them the news to-night."

"Will you? Shall I allow it?"

Marsham laughed; he caught her hand again, slipped it possessively within his left arm, and held it there as they went slowly down the path. Diana could not think with any zest of Alicia and her reception of the news. A succession of trifles had shown her quite clearly that Alicia was not her friend; why, she did not know. She remembered many small advances on her own part.

But at the mention of Sir James Chide, her face lit up.

"He has been so kind to me!" she said, looking up into Marsham's face—"so very kind!"

Her eyes showed a touch of passion; the passion that some natures can throw into gratitude; whether for little or much. Marsham smiled.

"He fell in love with you! Yes—he is a dear old boy. One can well imagine that he has had a romance!"

"Has he?"

"It is always said that he was in love with a woman whom he defended on a charge of murder."

Diana exclaimed.

"He had met her when they were both very young, and lost his heart to her. Then she married and he lost sight of her. He accepted a brief in this murder case, ten years later, not knowing her identity, and they met for the first time when he went to see her with her solicitor in prison."

Diana breathlessly asked for the rest of the story.

"He defended her magnificently. It was a shocking case. The sentence was commuted, but she died almost immediately. They say Sir James has never got over it."

Diana pondered; her eyes dim.

"How one would like to do something for him!—to give him pleasure!"

Marsham caressed her hand.

"So you shall, darling. He shall be one of our best friends. But he mustn't make Ferrier jealous."

Diana smiled happily. She looked forward to all the new ties of kindred or friendship that Marsham was to bring her—modestly indeed, yet in the temper of one who feels herself spiritually rich and capable of giving.

"I shall love all your friends," she said, with a bright look. "I'm glad you have so many!"

"Does that mean that you've felt rather lonely sometimes? Poor darling!" he said, tenderly, "it must have been solitary often at Portofino."

"Oh no—I had papa." Then her truthfulness overcame her. "I don't mean to say I didn't often want friends of my own age—girl friends especially."

"You can't have them now!"—he said, passionately, as they paused at a wicket-gate, under a yew-tree. "I want you all—all—to myself." And in the shadow of the yew he put his arms round her again, and their hearts beat together.

But our nature moves within its own inexorable limits. In Diana, Marsham's touch, Marsham's embrace awakened that strange mingled happiness, that happiness reared and based on tragedy, which the pure and sensitive feel in the crowning moments of life. Love is tortured by its own intensity; and the thought of death strikes through the experience which means the life of the race. As her lips felt Marsham's kiss, she knew, as generations of women have known before her, that life could give her no more; and she also knew that it was transiency and parting that made it so intolerably sweet.

"Till death us do part," she said to herself. And in the intensity of her submission to the common lot she saw down the years the end of what had now begun—herself lying quiet and blessed, in the last sleep, her dead hand in Marsham's.

* * * * *

"Why must we go home?" he said, discontentedly, as he released her. "One turn more!—up the avenue! There is light enough yet!"

She yielded weakly; pacifying her social conscience by the half-penitent remark that Mrs. Colwood would have said good-bye to her guests, and that—she—she supposed they would soon have to know.

"Well, as I want you to marry me in six weeks," said Marsham, joyously, "I suppose they will."

"Six weeks!" She gasped. "Oh, how unreasonable!"

"Dearest!—A fortnight would do for frocks. And whom have we to consult but ourselves? I know you have no near relations. As for cousins, it doesn't take long to write them a few notes, and ask them to the wedding."

Diana sighed.

"My only cousins are the Mertons. They are all in Barbadoes but Fanny."

Her tone changed a little. In her thoughts, she added, hurriedly: "I sha'n't have any bridesmaids!"

Marsham, discreetly, made no reply. Personally, he hoped that Miss Merton's engagements might take her safely back to Barbadoes before the wedding-day. But if not, he and his would no doubt know how to deal with her—civilly and firmly—as people must learn to deal with their distasteful relations.

Meanwhile on Diana's mind there had descended a sudden cloud of thought, dimming the ecstasy of her joy. The February day was dying in a yellowish dusk, full of beauty. They were walking along a narrow avenue of tall limes which skirted the Beechcote lands, and took them past the house. Above their heads the trees met in a brown-and-purple tracery of boughs, and on their right, through the branches, they saw a pale full moon, throning it in a silver sky. The mild air, the movements of the birds, the scents from the earth and bushes spoke of spring; and suddenly Diana perceived the gate leading to the wood where that very morning the subtle message of the changing year had come upon her, rending and probing. A longing to tell Marsham all her vague troubles rose in her, held back by a natural shrinking. But the longing prevailed, quickened by the loyal sense that she must quickly tell him all she knew about herself and her history, since there was nobody else to tell him.

"Oliver!"—she began, hurriedly—"I ought to tell you—I don't think you know. My name wasn't Mallory to begin with—my father took that name."

Marsham gave a little start.

"Dear—how surprising!—and how interesting! Tell me all you can—from the year One."

He smiled upon her, with a sparkling look that asked for all her history. But secretly he had been conscious of a shock. Lately he had made a few inquiries about the Welsh Mallorys. And the answers had been agreeable; though the old central stock of the name, to which he presumed Diana belonged, was said to be extinct. No doubt—so he had reflected—it had come to an end in her father.

"Mallory was the name of my father's mother. He took it for various reasons—I never quite understood—and I know a good deal of property came to him. But his original name—my name—was Sparling."

"Sparling!" A pause. "And have you any Sparling relations."

"No. They all died out—I think—but I know so little!—when I was small. However, I have a box of Sparling papers which I have never examined. Perhaps—some day—we might look at them together."

Her voice shook a little.

"You have never looked at them?"

"Never."

"But why, dearest?"

"It always seemed to make papa so unhappy—anything to do with his old name. Oliver!"—she turned upon him suddenly, and for the first time she clung to him, hiding her face against his shoulder—"Oliver!—I don't know what made him unhappy—I don't know why he changed his name. Sometimes I think—there may have been some terrible thing between him—and my mother."

He put his arm round her, close and tenderly.

"What makes you think that?" Then he whispered to her—"Tell your lover—your husband—tell him everything."

She shrank in delicious tremor from the great word, and it was a few moments before she could collect her thoughts. Then she said—still resting against him in the dark—and in a low rapid voice, as though she followed the visions of an inner sense:

"She died when I was only four. I just remember—it is almost my first recollection of anything—seeing her carried up-stairs—" She broke off. "And oh! it's so strange!—"

"Strange? She was ill?"

"Yes, but—what I seem to remember never explains itself—and I did not dare to ask papa. She hadn't been with us—for a long time. Papa and I had been alone. Then one day I saw them carrying her up-stairs—my father and two nurses—I ran out before my nurse could catch me—and saw her—she was in her hat and cloak. I didn't know her, and when she called me, I ran away. Then afterward they took me in to see her in bed—two or three times—and I remember once"—Diana began to sob herself—"seeing her cry. She lay sobbing—and my father beside her; he held her hand—and I saw him hide his eyes upon it. They never noticed me; I don't know that they saw me. Then they told me she was dead—I saw her lying on the bed—and my nurse gave me some flowers to put beside her—some violets. They were the only flowers. I can see her still, lying there—with her hands closed over them."

She released herself from Marsham, and, with her hand in his, she drew him slowly along the path, while she went on speaking, with an effort indeed, yet with a marvellous sense of deliverance—after the silence of years. She described the entire seclusion of their life at Portofino.

"Papa never spoke to me of mamma, and I never remember a picture of her. After his death I saw a closed locket on his breast for the first time. I would not have opened it for the world—I just kissed it—" Her voice broke again; but after a moment she quietly resumed. "He changed his name—I think—when I was about nine years old. I remember that somehow it seemed to give him comfort—he was more cheerful with me afterward—"

"And you have no idea what led him to go abroad?"

She shook her head. Marsham's changed and rapid tone had betrayed some agitation in the mind behind; but Diana did not notice it. In her story she had come to what, in truth, had been the determining and formative influence on her own life—her father's melancholy, and the mystery in which it had been enwrapped; and even the perceptions of love were for the moment blinded as the old tyrannous grief overshadowed her.

"His life"—she said, slowly—"seemed for years—one long struggle to bear—what was really—unbearable. Then when I was about nineteen there was a change. He no longer shunned people quite in the same way, and he took me to Egypt and India. We came across old friends of his whom I, of course, had never seen before; and I used to wonder at the way in which they treated him—with a kind of reverence—as though they would not have touched him roughly for the world. Then directly after we got home to the Riviera his illness began—"

She dwelt on the long days of dumbness, and her constant sense that he wished—in vain—to communicate something to her.

"He wanted something—and I could not give it him—could not even tell what it was. It was misery! One day he managed to write: 'If you are in trouble, go to Riley & Bonner—ask them.' They were his solicitors, whom he had depended on from his boyhood. But since his death I have never wanted anything from them but a little help in business. They have been very good; but—I could not go and question them. If there was anything to know—papa had not been able to tell me—I did not want anybody else—to—"

Her voice dropped. Only half an hour since the flowering of life! What a change in both! She was pacing along slowly, her head thrown back; the oval of her face white among her furs, under the ghostly touch of the moonlight; a suggestion of something austere—finely remote—in her attitude and movement. His eyes were on the ground, his shoulders bent; she could not see his face.

"We must try and unravel it—together," he said, at last, with an effort. "Can you tell me your mother's name?"

"It was an old Staffordshire family. But she and papa met in America, and they married there. Her father died not long afterward, I think. And I have never heard of any relations but the one sister, Mrs. Merton. Her name was Wentworth. Oh!" It was an involuntary cry of physical pain.

"Diana!—Did I hurt your hand? my darling!"

The sudden tightness of his grip had crushed her fingers. She smiled at him, as he kissed them, in hasty remorse.

"And her Christian name?" he asked, in a low voice.

"Juliet."

There was a pause. They had turned back, and were walking toward the house. The air had grown much colder; frosty stars were twinkling, and a chilly wind was blowing light clouds across the moon. The two figures moved slowly in and out of the bands of light and shadow which crossed the avenue.

Diana stopped suddenly.

"If there were something terrible to know!"—she said, trembling—"something which would make you ashamed of me!—"

Her tall slenderness bent toward him—she held out her hands piteously. Marsham's manhood asserted itself. He encircled her again with his strong arm, and she hid her face against him. The contact of her soft body, her fresh cheek, intoxicated him afresh. In the strength of his desire for her, it was as though he were fighting off black vultures of the night, forces of horror that threatened them both. He would not believe what yet he already knew to be true. The thought of his mother clamored at the door of his mind, and he would not open to it. In a reckless defiance of what had overtaken him, he poured out tender and passionate speech which gradually stilled the girl's tumult of memory and foreboding, and brought back the heaven of their first moment on the hill-side. Her own reserve broke down, and from her murmured words, her sweetness, her infinite gratitude, Marsham might divine still more fully the richness of that harvest which such a nature promised to a lover.

* * * * *

"I won't tell any one—but Muriel—till you have seen Lady Lucy," said Diana, as they approached the house, and found Marsham's horse waiting at the door.

He acquiesced, and it was arranged that he should go up to town the following day, Sunday—see Lady Lucy—and return on the Monday.

Then he rode away, waving his hand through the darkness.

* * * * *

Marsham's horse carried him swiftly through country roads, where the moon made magic, and peace reigned. But the mind of the rider groped in confusion and despair, seeing no way out.

Only one definite purpose gathered strength—to throw himself on the counsel of Sir James Chide. Chide had known—from the beginning!



CHAPTER X

Marsham reached Felton Hall about six o'clock. The house, a large Georgian erection, belonging to pleasant easy-going people with many friends, was full of guests, and the thought of the large party which he must face at dinner and in the evening had been an additional weight in his burden during the long ride home.

No means of escaping it, or the gossip with regard to himself, which must, he knew, be raging among the guests!

That gossip had not troubled him when he had set forth in the early afternoon. Quite the contrary. It had amused him as he rode to Beechcote, full of confident hope, to think of announcing his engagement. What reason would there be for delay or concealment? He looked forward to the congratulations of old friends; the more the better.

The antithesis between "then" and "now" struck him sharply, as he dismounted. But for that last quarter of an hour with Diana, how jubilantly would he have entered the house! Ten minutes with Lady Felton—a dear, chattering woman!—and all would have been known. He pictured instinctively the joyous flutter in the house—the merry dinner—perhaps the toasts.

As it was, he slipped quietly into the house, hoping that his return might pass unnoticed. He was thankful to find no one about—the hall and drawing-room deserted. The women had gone up to rest before dinner; the men had not long before come back muddy from hunting, and were changing clothes.

Where was Sir James Chide?

He looked into the smoking-room. A solitary figure was sitting by the fire. Sir James had a new novel beside him; but he was not reading, and his cigar lay half smoked on the ash-tray beside him.

He was gazing into the blaze, his head on his hand, and his quick start and turn as the door of the smoking-room opened showed him to be not merely thoughtful but expectant.

He sprang up.

"Is that you, Oliver?"

He came forward eagerly. He had known Marsham from a child, had watched his career, and formed a very shrewd opinion of his character. But how this supreme moment would turn—if, indeed, the supreme moment had arrived—Sir James had no idea.

Marsham closed the door behind him, and in the lamplight the two men looked at each other. Marsham's brow was furrowed, his cheeks pale. His eyes, restless and bright, interrogated his old friend. At the first glance Sir James understood. He thrust his hands into his pockets.

"You know?" he said, under his breath.

Marsham nodded.

"And you—have known it all along?"

"From the first moment, almost, that I set eyes on that poor child. Does she know? Have you broken it to her?"

The questions hurried on each other's heels. Marsham shook his head, and Sir James, turning away, made a sound that was almost a groan.

"You have proposed to her?"

"Yes."

"And she has accepted you?"

"Yes." Marsham walked to the mantel-piece, and hung over the fire.

Sir James watched him for a moment, twisting his mouth. Then he walked up to his companion and laid a hand on his arm.

"Stick it out, Oliver!" he said, breathing quick. "Stick it out! You'll have to fight—but she's worth it."

Marsham's hand groped for his. Sir James pressed it, and walked away again, his eyes on the carpet. When he came back, he said, shortly:

"You know your mother will resist it to the last?"

By this, Marsham had collected his forces, and as he turned to the lamplight, Sir James saw a countenance that reassured him.

"I have no hope of persuading her. It will have to be faced."

"No, I fear there is no hope. She sees all such things in a false light. Forgive me—we must both speak plainly. She will shudder at the bare idea of Juliet Sparling's daughter as your wife; she will think it means a serious injury to your career—in reality it does nothing of the sort—and she will regard it as her duty to assert herself."

"You and Ferrier must do all you can for me," said Marsham, slowly.

"We shall do everything we can, but I do not flatter myself it will be of the smallest use. And supposing we make no impression—what then?"

Marsham paused a moment; then looked up.

"You know the terms of my father's will? I am absolutely dependent on my mother. The allowance she makes me at present is quite inadequate for a man in Parliament, and she could stop it to-morrow."

"You might have to give up Parliament?"

"I should very likely have to give up Parliament."

Sir James ruminated, and took up his half-smoked cigar for counsel.

"I can't imagine, Oliver, that your mother would push her opposition to quite that point. But, in any case, you have forgotten Miss Mallory's own fortune."

"It has never entered into my thoughts!" cried Marsham, with an emphasis which Sir James knew to be honest. "But, in any case, I cannot live upon my wife. If I could not find something to do, I should certainly give up politics."

His tone had become a little dry and bitter, his aspect gray.

Sir James surveyed him a moment—pondering.

"You will find plenty of ways out, Oliver—plenty! The sympathy of all the world will be with you. You have won a beautiful and noble creature. She has been brought up under a more than Greek fate. You will rescue her from it. You will show her how to face it—and how to conquer it."

A tremor swept across Marsham's handsome mouth. But the perplexity and depression in the face remained.

Sir James had a slight consciousness of rebuff. But it disappeared in his own emotion. He resumed:

"She ought to be told the story—perhaps with some omissions—at once. Her mother"—he spoke with a slow precision, forcing out the words—"was not a bad woman. If you like, I will break it to Miss Mallory. I am probably more intimately acquainted with the story than any one else now living."

Something in the tone, in the solemnity of the blue eyes, in the carriage of the gray head, touched Marsham to the quick. He laid a hand on his old friend's shoulder—affectionately—in mute thanks.

"Diana mentioned her father's solicitors—"

"I know"—interrupted Sir James—"Riley & Bonner—excellent fellows—both of them still living. They probably have all the records. And I shouldn't wonder if they have a letter—from Sparling. He must have made provision—for the occasion that has now arisen."

"A letter?—for Diana?"

Sir James nodded. "His behavior to her was a piece of moral cowardice, I suppose. I saw a good deal of him during the trial, of course, though it is years now since I lost all trace of him. He was a sensitive, shy fellow, wrapped up in his archaeology, and very ignorant of the world—when it all happened. It tore him up by the roots. His life withered in a day."

Marsham flushed.

"He had no right to bring her up in this complete ignorance! He could not have done anything more cruel!—more fatal! No one knows what the effect may be upon her."

And with a sudden rush of passion through the blood, he seemed to hold her once more in his arms, he felt the warmth of her cheek on his; all her fresh and fragrant youth was present to him, the love in her voice, and in her proud eyes. He turned away, threw himself into a chair, and buried his face in his hands.

Sir James looked down upon him. Instead of sympathy, there was a positive lightening in the elder man's face—a gleam of satisfaction.

"Cheer up, old fellow!" he said, in a low voice. "You'll bring her through. You stand by her, and you'll reap your reward. By Gad, there are many men who would envy you the chance!"

Marsham made no reply. Was it his silence that evoked in the mind of Sir James the figure which already held the mind of his companion?—the figure of Lady Lucy? He paced up and down, with the image before him—the spare form, resolutely erect, the delicate resolution of the face, the prim perfection of the dress, judged by the Quakerish standard of its owner. Lady Lucy almost always wore gloves—white or gray. In Sir James's mind the remembrance of them took a symbolic importance. What use in expecting the wearer of them to handle the blood and mire of Juliet Sparling's story with breadth and pity?

"Look here!" he said, coming to a sudden stop. "Let us decide at once on what is to be done. You said nothing to Miss Mallory?"

"Nothing. But she is already in some trouble and misgiving about the past. She is in the mood to inquire; she has been, I think, for some time. And, naturally, she wishes to hide nothing from me."

"She will write to Riley & Bonner," said Sir James, quietly. "She will probably write to-night. They may take steps to acquaint her with her history—or they may not. It depends. Meanwhile, who else is likely to know anything about the engagement?"

"Diana was to tell Mrs. Colwood—her companion; no one else."

"Nice little woman!—all right there! But"—Sir James gave a slight start—"what about the cousin?"

"Miss Merton? Oh no! There is clearly no sympathy between her and Diana. How could there be?"

"Yes—but my dear fellow!—that girl knows—must know—everything there is to know! And she dislikes Diana; she is jealous of her; that I saw quite plainly this afternoon. And, moreover, she is probably quite well informed about you and your intentions. She gossiped half through lunch with that ill-bred fellow Birch. I heard your name once or twice. Oh!—and by-the-way!"—Sir James turned sharply on his heel—"what was she confabulating about with Miss Drake all that time in the garden? Did they know each other before?"

Marsham replied in the negative. But he, too, was disagreeably arrested by the recollection of the two girls walking together, and of the intimacy and animation of their talk. And he could recall what Sir James had not seen—the strangeness of Alicia's manner, and the peremptoriness with which she had endeavored to carry him home with her. Had she—after hearing the story—tried to interrupt or postpone the crucial scene with Diana? That seemed to him the probable explanation, and the idea roused in him a hot and impotent anger. What business was it of hers?

"H'm!" said Sir James. "You may be sure that Miss Drake is now in the secret. She was very discreet on the way home. But she will take sides; and not, I think, with us. She seems to have a good deal of influence with your mother."

Marsham reluctantly admitted it.

"My sister, too, will be hostile. Don't let's forget that."

Sir James shrugged his shoulders, with the smile of one who is determined to keep his spirits up.

"Well, my dear Marsham, you have your battle cut out for you! Don't delay it. Where is Lady Lucy?"

"In town."

"Can't you devise some excuse that will take you back to her early to-morrow morning?"

Marsham thought over it. Easy enough, if only the engagement were announced! But both agreed that silence was imperative. Whatever chance there might be with Lady Lucy would be entirely destroyed were the matter made public before her son had consulted her.

"Everybody here is on the tiptoe of expectation," said Sir James. "But that you know; you must face it somehow. Invent a letter from Ferrier—some party contretemps—anything!—I'll help you through. And if you see your mother in the morning, I will turn up in the afternoon."

The two men paused. They were standing together—in conference; but each was conscious of a background of hurrying thoughts that had so far been hardly expressed at all.

Marsham suddenly broke out:

"Sir James!—I know you thought there were excuses—almost justification—for what that poor creature did. I was a boy of fifteen at the time you made your famous speech, and I only know it by report. You spoke, of course, as an advocate—but I have heard it said—that you expressed your own personal belief. Wherever the case is discussed, there are still—as you know—two opinions—one more merciful than the other. If the line you took was not merely professional; if you personally believed your own case; can you give me some of the arguments—you were probably unable to state them all in court—that convinced you? Let me have something wherewith to meet my mother. She won't look at this altogether from the worldly point of view. She will have a standard of her own. Merely to belittle the thing, as long past and forgotten, won't help me. But if I could awaken her pity!—if you could give me the wherewithal—"

Sir James turned away. He walked to the window and stood there a minute, his face invisible. When he returned, his pallor betrayed what his steady and dignified composure would otherwise have concealed.

"I can tell you what Mrs. Sparling told me—in prison—with the accents of a dying woman—what I believed then—what I believe now.—Moreover, I have some comparatively recent confirmation of this belief.—But this is too public!"—he looked round the library—"we might be disturbed. Come to my room to-night. I shall go up early, on the plea of letters. I always carry with me—certain documents. For her child's sake, I will show them to you."

At the last words the voice of the speaker, rich in every tender and tragic note, no less than in those of irony or invective, wavered for the first time. He stooped abruptly, took up the book he had been reading, and left the room.

Marsham, too, went up-stairs. As he passed along the main corridor to his room, lost in perplexity and foreboding, he heard the sound of a woman's dress, and, looking up, saw Alicia Drake coming toward him.

She started at sight of him, and under the bright electric light of the passage he saw her redden.

"Well, Oliver!—you stayed a good while."

"Not so very long. I have been home nearly an hour. I hope the horses went well!"

"Excellently. Do you know where Sir James is?"

It seemed to him the question was significantly asked. He gave it a cold answer.

"Not at this moment. He was in the smoking-room a little while ago."

He passed her abruptly. Alicia Drake pursued her way to the hall. She was carrying some letters to the post-box near the front door. When she arrived there she dropped two of them in at once, and held the other a moment in her hand, looking at it. It was addressed to "Mrs. Fotheringham, Manningham House, Leeds."

* * * * *

Meanwhile, Diana herself was wrestling with her own fate.

When Marsham rode away from her, and she had watched his tall figure disappear into the dusk, she turned back toward the house, and saw it and the world round it with new eyes. The moon shone on the old front, mellowing it to a brownish ivory; the shadows of the trees lay clear on the whitened grass; and in the luminous air colors of sunrise and of moonrise blended, tints of pearl, of gold, and purple. A consecrating beauty lay on all visible things, and spoke to the girl's tender and passionate heart. In the shadow of the trees she stood a moment, her hands clasped on her breast, recalling Marsham's words of love and comfort, resting on him, reaching out through him to the Power behind the world, which spoke surely through this loveliness of the night, this joy in the soul!

And yet, her mood, her outlook—like Marsham's—was no longer what it had been on the hill-side. No ugly light of revelation had broken upon her, as upon him. But the conversation in the lime-walk had sobered the first young exaltation of love; it had somehow divided them from the happy lovers of every day; it had also divided them—she hardly knew how or why—from that moment on the hill when Oliver had spoken of immediate announcement and immediate marriage. Nothing was to be said—except to Muriel—till Lady Lucy knew. She was glad. It made her bliss, in this intervening moment, more fully her own. She thought with yearning of Oliver's interview with his mother. A filial, though a trembling love sprang up in her. And the sense of having come to shelter and to haven seemed to give her strength for what she had never yet dared to face. The past was now to be probed, interrogated. She was firmly resolved to write to Riley & Bonner, to examine any papers there might be; not because she was afraid that anything might come between her and Oliver; rather because now, with his love to support her, she could bear whatever there might be to bear.

She stepped into the house. Some one was strumming in the drawing-room—with intervals between the strummings—as though the player stopped to listen for something or some one. Diana shrank into herself. She ran up-stairs noiselessly to her sitting-room, and opened the door as quietly as possible.

"Muriel!"

The voice was almost a whisper. Mrs. Colwood did not hear it. She was bending over the fire, with her back to the door, and a reading-lamp beside her. To her amazement, Diana heard a sob, a sound of stifled grief, which struck a sudden chill through her own excitement. She paused a moment, and repeated her friend's name. Mrs. Colwood started. She hastily rose, turning her face from Diana.

"Is that you? I thought you were still out."

Diana crossed the floor, and put her arm round the little gentle woman, whose breath was still shaken by the quiet sobs she was trying desperately to repress.

"Muriel, dear!—what is it?"

Mrs. Colwood found her voice, and her composure.

"Nothing! I was foolish—it doesn't matter."

Diana was sure she understood. She was suddenly ashamed to bring her own happiness into this desolate and widowed presence, and the kisses with which, mutely, she tried to comfort her friend, were almost a plea to be forgiven.

But Muriel drew herself away. She looked searchingly, with recovered self-command, into Diana's face.

"Has Mr. Marsham gone?"

"Yes," said Diana, looking at her.

Then the smile within broke out, flooding eyes and lips. Under the influence of it, Mrs. Colwood's small tear-stained face passed through a quick instinctive change. She, too, smiled as though she could not help it; then she bent forward and kissed Diana.

"Is it all right?"

The peculiar eagerness in the tone struck Diana. She returned the kiss, a little wistfully.

"Were you so anxious about me? Wasn't it—rather plain?"

Mrs. Colwood laughed.

"Sit down there, and tell me all about it."

She pushed Diana into a chair and sat down at her feet. Diana, with some difficulty, her hand over her eyes, told all that could be told of a moment the heart of which no true lover betrays. Muriel Colwood listened with her face against the girl's dress, sometimes pressing her lips to the hand beside her.

"Is he going to see Lady Lucy to-morrow?" she asked, when Diana paused.

"Yes. He goes up by the first train."

Both were silent awhile. Diana, in the midst of all the natural flutter of blood and pulse, was conscious of a strong yearning to tell her friend more—to say: "And he has brought me comfort and courage—as well as love! I shall dare now to look into the past—to take up my father's burden. If it hurts, Oliver will help me."

But she had been brought up in a school of reticence, and her loyalty to her father and mother sealed her lips. That anxiety, that burden, nobody must share with her but Oliver—and perhaps his mother; his mother, so soon to be hers.

Muriel Colwood, watching her face, could hardly restrain herself. But the moment for which her whole being was waiting in a tension scarcely to be borne had not yet come. She chastened and rebuked her own dread.

They talked a little of the future. Diana, in a blessed fatigue, threw herself back in her chair, and chattered softly, listening now and then for the sounds of the piano in the room below, and evidently relieved whenever, after a silence, fresh fragments from some comic opera of the day, much belied in the playing, penetrated to the upper floor. Meanwhile, neither of them spoke of Fanny Merton. Diana, with a laugh, repeated Marsham's proposal for a six weeks' engagement. That was absurd! But, after all, it could not be very long. She hoped Oliver would be content to keep Beechcote. They could, of course, always spend a good deal of time with Lady Lucy.

And in mentioning that name she showed not the smallest misgiving, not a trace of uneasiness, while every time it was uttered it pricked the shrinking sense of her companion. Mrs. Colwood had not watched and listened during her Tallyn visit for nothing.

At last a clock struck down-stairs, and a door opened. Diana sprang up.

"Time to dress! And I've left Fanny alone all this while!"

She hurried toward the door; then turned back.

"Please!—I'm not going to tell Fanny just yet. Neither Fanny nor any one—till Lady Lucy knows. What happened after we went away? Was Fanny amused?"

"Very much, I should say."

"She made friends with Miss Drake?"

"They were inseparable, till Miss Drake departed."

Diana laughed.

"How odd! That I should never have prophesied. And Mr. Birch? I needn't have him to lunch again, need I?"

"Miss Merton invited him to tea—on Saturday."

Diana reddened.

"Must I—!" she said, impetuously; then stopped herself, and opened the door.

Outside, Fanny Merton was just mounting the stairs, a candle in her hand. She stopped in astonishment at the sight of Diana.

"Diana! where have you been all this time?"

"Only talking to Muriel. We heard you playing; so we thought you weren't dull," said Diana, rather penitently.

"I was only playing till you came in," was the sharp reply. "When did Mr. Marsham go?"

Diana by this time was crossing the landing to the door of her room, with Fanny behind her.

"Oh, quite an hour ago. Hadn't we better dress? Dinner will be ready directly."

Fanny took no notice. She entered her cousin's room, in Diana's wake.

"Well?" she said, interrogatively. She leaned her back against the wardrobe, and folded her arms.

Diana turned. She met Fanny's black eyes, sparkling with excitement.

"I'll give you my news at dinner," said Diana, flushing against her will. "And I want to know how you liked Miss Drake."

Fanny's eyes shot fire.

"That's all very fine! That means, of course, that you're not going to tell me anything!"

"Fanny!" cried Diana, helplessly. She was held spellbound by the passion, the menace in the girl's look. But the touch of shrinking in her attitude roused brutal violence in Fanny.

"Yes, it does!" she said, fiercely. "I understand!—don't I! I am not good enough for you, and you'll make me feel it. You're going to make a smart marriage, and you won't care whether you ever set eyes on any of us again. Oh! I know you've given us money—or you say you will. If I knew which side my bread was buttered, I suppose I should hold my tongue.—But when you treat me like the dirt under your feet—when you tell everything to that woman Mrs. Colwood, who's no relation, and nothing in the world to you—and leave me kicking my heels all alone, because I'm not the kind you want, and you wish to goodness I'd never come—when you show as plain as you can that I'm a common creature—not fit to pick up your gloves!—I tell you I just won't stand it. No one would—who knew what I know!"

The last words were flung in Diana's teeth with all the force that wounded pride and envious wrath could give them. Diana tottered a little. Her hand clung to the dressing-table behind her.

"What do you know?" she said. "Tell me at once—what you mean."

Fanny contemptuously shook her head. She walked to the door, and before Diana could stop her, she had rushed across to her own room and locked herself in.

There she walked up and down panting. She hardly understood her own rage, and she was quite conscious that, for her own interests, she had acted during the whole afternoon like a fool. First, stung by the pique excited in her by the talk of the luncheon-table, she had let herself be exploited and explored by Alicia Drake. She had not meant to tell her secret, but somehow she had told it, simply to give herself importance with this smart lady, and to feel her power over Diana. Then, it was no sooner told than she was quickly conscious that she had given away an advantage, which from a tactical point of view she had infinitely better have kept; and that the command of the situation might have passed from her to this girl whom Diana had supplanted. Furious with herself, she had tried to swear Miss Drake to silence, only to be politely but rather scornfully put aside.

Then the party had broken up. Mr. Birch had been offended by the absence of the hostess, and had vouchsafed but a careless good-bye to Miss Merton. The Roughsedges went off without asking her to visit them; and as for the Captain, he was an odious young man. Since their departure, Mrs. Colwood had neglected her, and now Diana's secret return, her long talk with Mrs. Colwood, had filled the girl's cup of bitterness. She had secured that day a thousand pounds for her family and herself; and at the end of it, she merely felt that the day had been an abject and intolerable failure! Did the fact that she so felt it bear strange witness to the truth that at the bottom of her anger and her cruelty there was a masked and distorted something which was not wholly vile—which was, in fact, the nature's tribute to something nobler than itself? That Diana shivered at and repulsed her was the hot-iron that burned and seared. And that she richly deserved it—and knew it—made its smart not a whit the less.

* * * * *

Fanny did not appear at dinner. Mrs. Colwood and Diana dined alone—Diana very white and silent. After dinner, Diana began slowly to climb the shallow old staircase. Mrs. Colwood followed her.

"Where are you going?" she said, trying to hold her back.

Diana looked at her. In the girl's eyes there was a sudden and tragic indignation.

"Do you all know?" she said, under her breath—"all—all of you?" And again she began to mount, with a resolute step.

Mrs. Colwood dared not follow her any farther. Diana went quickly up and along the gallery; she knocked at Fanny's door. After a moment Mrs. Colwood heard it opened, and a parley of voices—Fanny's short and sullen, Diana's very low. Then the door closed, and Mrs. Colwood knew that the cousins were together.

How the next twenty minutes passed, Mrs. Colwood could never remember. At the end of them she heard steps slowly coming down the stairs, and a cry—her own name—not in Diana's voice. She ran out into the hall.

At the top of the stairs, stood Fanny Merton, not daring to move farther. Her eyes were starting out of her head, her face flushed and distorted.

"You go to her!" She stooped, panting, over the balusters, addressing Mrs. Colwood. "She won't let me touch her."

Diana descended, groping. At the foot of the stairs she caught at Mrs. Colwood's hand, went swaying across the hall and into the drawing-room. There she closed the door, and looked into Mrs. Colwood's eyes. Muriel saw a face in which bloom and first youth were forever dead, though in its delicate features horror was still beautiful. She threw her arms round the girl, weeping. But Diana put her aside. She walked to a chair, and sat down. "My mother—" she said, looking up.

Her voice dropped. She moistened her dry lips, and began once more: "My mother—"

But the brain could maintain its flickering strength no longer. There was a low cry of "Oliver!" that stabbed the heart; then, suddenly, her limbs were loosened, and she sank back, unconscious, out of her friend's grasp and ken.



CHAPTER XI

"Her ladyship will be here directly, sir." Lady Lucy's immaculate butler opened the door of her drawing-room in Eaton Square, ushered in Sir James Chide, noiselessly crossed the room to see to the fire, and then as noiselessly withdrew.

"Impossible that any one should be as respectable as that man looks!" thought Sir James, impatiently. He walked forward to the fire, warmed hands and feet chilled by a nipping east wind, and then, with his back to the warmth, he examined the room.

It was very characteristic of its mistress. At Tallyn Henry Marsham had worked his will; here, in this house taken since his death, it was the will and taste of his widow which had prevailed. A gray paper with a small gold sprig upon it, sofas and chairs not too luxurious, a Brussels carpet, dark and unobtrusive, and chintz curtains; on the walls, drawings by David Cox, Copley Fielding, and De Wint; a few books with Mudie labels; costly photographs of friends and relations, especially of the relations' babies; on one table, and under a glass case, a model in pith of Lincoln Cathedral, made by Lady Lucy's uncle, who had been a Canon of Lincoln; on another, a set of fine carved chessmen; such was the furniture of the room. It expressed—and with emphasis—the tastes and likings of that section of English society in which, firmly based as it is upon an ample supply of all material goods, a seemly and intelligent interest in things ideal and spiritual is also to be found. Everything in the room was in its place, and had been in its place for years. Sir James got no help from the contemplation of it.

The door opened, and Lady Lucy came quietly in. Sir James looked at her sharply as they shook hands. She had more color than usual; but the result was to make the face look older, and certain lines in it disagreeably prominent. Very likely she had been crying. He hoped she had.

"Oliver told you to expect me?"

She assented. Then, still standing, she looked at him steadily.

"This is a very terrible affair, Sir James."

"Yes. It must have been a great shock to you."

"Oh! that does not matter," she said, impatiently. "I must not think of myself. I must think of Oliver. Will you sit down?"

She motioned him, in her stately way, to a seat. He realized, as he faced her, that he beheld her in a new aspect. She was no longer the gracious and smiling hostess, as her familiar friends knew her, both at Tallyn and in London. Her manner threw a sudden light on certain features in her history: Marsham's continued dependence on his mother and inadequate allowance, the autocratic ability shown in the management of the Tallyn household and estates, management in which Marsham was allowed practically no share at all, and other traits and facts long known to him. The gentle, scrupulous, composed woman of every day had vanished in something far more vigorously drawn; he felt himself confronted by a personality as strong as, and probably more stubborn than his own.

Lady Lucy seated herself. She quietly arranged the folds of her black satin dress; she drew forward a stool, and rested her feet upon it. Sir James watched her, uncertain how to begin. But she saved him the decision.

"I have had a painful interview with my son" she said, quietly. "It could not be otherwise, and I can only hope that in a little while he will do me justice. Oliver will join us presently. And now—first, Sir James, let me ask you—you really believe that Miss Mallory has been till now in ignorance of her mother's history?"

Sir James started.

"Good Heavens, Lady Lucy! Can you—do you—suppose anything else?"

Lady Lucy paused before replying.

"I cannot suppose it—since both you and my son—and Mr. Ferrier—have so high an opinion of her. But it is a strange and mysterious thing that she should have remained in this complete ignorance all these years—and a cruel thing, of course—to everybody concerned."

Sir James nodded.

"I agree. It was a cruel thing, though it was done, no doubt, from the tenderest motives. The suffering was bound to be not less but more, sooner or later."

"Miss Mallory is very greatly to be pitied. But it is, of course, clear that my son proposed to her, not knowing what it was essential that he should know."

Sir James paused.

"We are old friends, Lady Lucy—you and I," he said at last, with deliberation; and as he spoke he bent forward and took her hand. "I am sure you will let me ask you a few questions."

Lady Lucy made no reply. Her hand—without any movement of withdrawal or rebuff—gently dropped from his.

"You have been, I think, much attracted by Miss Mallory herself?"

"Very much attracted. Up to this morning I thought that she would make an excellent wife for Oliver. But I have been acting, of course, throughout under a false impression."

"Is it your feeling that to marry her would injure Oliver's career?"

"Certainly. But that is not what weighs with me most heavily."

"I did not for a moment believe that it would. However, let us take the career first. This is how I look at it. If the marriage went forward, there would no doubt be some scandal and excitement at first, when the truth was known. But Oliver's personality and the girl's charm would soon live it down. In this strange world I am not at all sure it might not in the end help their future. Oliver would be thought to have done a generous and romantic thing, and his wife's goodness and beauty would be all the more appreciated for the background of tragedy."

Lady Lucy moved impatiently.

"Sir James—I am a plain person, with plain ideas. The case would present itself to me very differently; and I believe that my view would be that of the ordinary man and woman. However, I repeat, that is not what I think of first—by any means."

"You think of the criminal taint?—the risk to Oliver—and to Oliver's children?"

She made a sign of assent.

"Character—and the protection of character—is not that what we have to think of—above all—in this world of temptation? We can none of us afford to throw away the ordinary helps and safeguards. How can I possibly aid and abet Oliver's marriage with the daughter of a woman who first robbed her own young sister, in a peculiarly mean and cruel way, and then committed a deliberate and treacherous murder?"

"Wait a moment!" exclaimed Sir James, holding up his hand. "Those adjectives, believe me, are unjust."

"I know that you think so," was the animated reply. "But I remember the case; I have my own opinion."

"They are unjust," repeated Sir James, with emphasis. "Then it is really the horror of the thing itself—not so much its possible effect on social position and opinion, which decides you?"

"I ask myself—I must ask myself," said his companion, with equal emphasis, forcing the words: "can I help Oliver to marry the daughter—of a convicted murderess—and adulteress?"

"No!" said Sir James, holding up his hand again—"No!"

Lady Lucy fell back in her chair. Her unwonted color had disappeared, and the old hand lying in her lap—a hand thin to emaciation—shook a little.

"Is not this too painful for us both, Sir James?—can we continue it? I have my duty to think of; and yet—I cannot, naturally, speak to you with entire frankness. Nor can I possibly regard your view as an impartial one. Forgive me. I should not have dreamed of referring to the matter in any other circumstances."

"Certainly, I am not impartial," said Sir James, looking up. "You know that, of course, well enough."

He spoke in a strong full voice. Lady Lucy encountered a singular vivacity in the gray eyes, as though the whole power of the man's personality backed the words.

"Believe me," she said, with dignity, and not without kindness, "it is not I who would revive such memories."

Sir James nodded quietly.

"I am not impartial; but I am well informed. It was my view which affected the judge, and ultimately the Home Office. And since the trial—in quite recent years—I have received a strange confirmation of it which has never been made public. Did Oliver report this to you?"

"He told me certain facts," said Lady Lucy, unwillingly; "but I did not see that they made much difference."

"Perhaps he did not give them the right emphasis," said Sir James, calmly. "Will you allow me to tell you the whole story?—as it appears to me."

Lady Lucy looked distressed.

"Is it worth while," she said, earnestly, "to give yourself so much pain? I cannot imagine that it could alter the view I take of my duty."

Sir James flushed, and sternly straightened himself. It was a well-known gesture, and ominous to many a prisoner in the dock.

"Worth while!" he said. "Worth while!—when your son's future may depend on the judgment you form."

The sharpness of his tone called the red also to Lady Lucy's cheek.

"Can anything that may be said now alter the irrevocable?" she asked, in protest.

"It cannot bring the dead to life; but if you are really more influenced in this matter by the heinousness of the crime itself, by the moral infection, so to speak—that may spring from any kinship with Juliet Sparling or inheritance from her—than by any dread of social disgrace or disadvantage—if that be true!—then for Oliver's sake—for that poor child's sake—you ought to listen to me! There, I can meet you—there, I have much to say."

He looked at her earnestly. The slight, involuntary changes of expression in Lady Lucy, as he was speaking, made him say to himself: "She is not indifferent to the social stigma—she deceives herself!" But he made no sign of his perception; he held her to her word.

She paused, in evident hesitation, saying at last, with some coldness:

"If you wish it, Sir James, of course I am quite ready to listen. I desire to do nothing harshly."

"I will not keep you long."

Bending forward, his hands on his knees, his eyes upon the ground, he thought a moment. When he began to speak, it was in a quiet and perfectly colorless tone.

"I knew Juliet Wentworth first—when she was seventeen. I was on the Midland Circuit, and went down to the Milchester Assizes. Her father was High Sheriff, and asked me, with other barristers of the Circuit, not only to his official dinner in the county town, but to luncheon at his house, a mile or two away. There I saw Miss Wentworth. She made a deep impression on me. After the Assizes were over, I stayed at her father's house and in the neighborhood. Within a month I proposed to her. She refused me. I merely mention these circumstances for the sake of reporting my first impressions of her character. She was very young, and of an extraordinarily nervous and sensitive organization. She used to remind me of Horace's image of the young fawn trembling and starting in the mountain paths at the rustling of a leaf or the movement of a lizard. I felt then that her life might very well be a tragedy, and I passionately desired to be able to protect and help her. However, she would have nothing to do with me, and after a little while I lost sight of her. I did happen to hear that her father, having lost his first wife, had married again, that the girl was not happy at home, and had gone off on a long visit to some friends in the United States. Then for years I heard nothing. One evening, about ten years after my first meeting with her, I read in the evening papers the accounts of a 'Supposed Murder at Brighton.' Next morning Riley & Bonner retained me for the defence. Mr. Riley came to see me, with Mr. Sparling, the husband of the incriminated lady, and it was in the course of my consultation with them that I learned who Mrs. Sparling was. I had to consider whether to take up the case or not; I saw at once it would be a fight for her life, and I accepted it."

"What a terrible—terrible—position!" murmured Lady Lucy, who was shading her eyes with her hand.

Sir James took no notice. His trained mind and sense were now wholly concerned with the presentation of his story.

"The main facts, as I see them, were these. Juliet Wentworth had married—four years before this date—a scholar and archaeologist whom she had met at Harvard during her American stay. Mr. Sparling was an Englishman, and a man of some means who was devoting himself to exploration in Asia Minor. The marriage was not really happy, though they were in love with each other. In both there was a temperament touched with melancholy, and a curious incapacity to accept the common facts of life. Both hated routine, and were always restless for new experience. Mrs. Sparling was brilliant in society. She was wonderfully handsome, in a small slight way; her face was not unlike Miss Curran's picture of Shelley—the same wildness and splendor in the eyes, the same delicacy of feature, the same slight excess of breadth across the cheek-bones, and curly mass of hair. She was odd, wayward, eccentric—yet always lovable and full of charm. He was a fine creature in many ways, but utterly unfit for practical life. His mind was always dreaming of buried treasure—the treasure of the archaeologist: tombs, vases, gold ornaments, papyri; he had the passion of the excavator and explorer.

"They came back to England from America shortly after their marriage, and their child was born. The little girl was three years old when Sparling went off to dig in a remote part of Asia Minor. His wife resented his going; but there is no doubt that she was still deeply in love with him. She herself took a little house at Brighton for the child's sake. Her small startling beauty soon made her remarked, and her acquaintances rapidly increased. She was too independent and unconventional to ask many questions about the people that amused her; she took them as they came—"

"Sir James!—dear Sir James." Lady Lucy raised a pair of imploring hands. "What good can it do that you should tell me all this? It shows that this poor creature had a wild, undisciplined character. Could any one ever doubt it?"

"Wild? undisciplined?" repeated Sir James. "Well, if you think that you have disposed of the mystery of it by those adjectives! For me—looking back—she was what life and temperament and heredity had made her. Up to this point it was an innocent wildness. She could lose herself in art or music; she did often the most romantic and generous things; she adored her child; and but for some strange kink in the tie that bound them, she would have adored her husband. Well!"—he shrugged his shoulders mournfully—"there it is: she was alone—she was beautiful—she had no doubt a sense of being neglected—she was thirsting for some deeper draught of life than had yet been hers—and by the hideous irony of fate she found it—in gambling!—and in the friendship which ruined her!"

Sir James paused. Rising from his chair, he began to pace the large room. The immaculate butler came in, made up the fire, and placed the tea: domestic and comfortable rites, in grim contrast with the story that held the minds of Lady Lucy and her guest. She sat motionless meanwhile; the butler withdrew, and the tea remained untouched.

"Sir Francis and Lady Wing—the two fiends who got possession of her—had been settled at Brighton for about a year. Their debts had obliged them to leave London, and they had not yet piled up a sufficient mountain of fresh ones to drive them out of Brighton. The man was the disreputable son of a rich and hard-working father who, in the usual way, had damned his son by removing all incentives to work, and turning him loose with a pile of money. He had married an adventuress—a girl with a music-hall history, some beauty, plenty of vicious ability, and no more conscience than a stone. They were the centre of a gambling and racing set; but Lady Wing was also a very fine musician, and it was through this talent of hers that she and Juliet Sparling became acquainted. They met, first, at a charity concert! Mrs. Sparling had a fine voice, Lady Wing accompanied her. The Wings flattered her, and professed to adore her. Her absent whimsical character prevented her from understanding what kind of people they were; and in her great ignorance of the world, combined with her love of the romantic and the extreme, she took the persons who haunted their house for Bohemians, when she should have known them—the majority of them—for scoundrels. You will remember that baccarat was then the rage. The Wings played it incessantly, and were very skilful in the decoying and plunder of young men. Juliet Sparling was soon seized by the excitement of the game, and her beauty, her evident good breeding and good faith, were of considerable use to the Wings' menage. Very soon she had lost all the money that her husband had left to her credit, and her bankers wrote to notify her that she was overdrawn. A sudden terror of Sparling's displeasure seized her; she sold a bracelet, and tried to win back what she had lost. The result was only fresh loss, and in a panic she played on and on, till one disastrous night she got up from the baccarat-table heavily in debt to one or two persons, including Sir Francis Wing. With the morning came a letter from her husband, remonstrating in a rather sharp tone on what her own letters—and probably an account from some other source—had told him of her life at Brighton; insisting on the need for economy, owing to his own heavy expenses in the great excavation he was engaged upon; and expressing the peremptory hope that she would make the money he had left her last for another two months—"

Sir James lingered in his walk. He stared out of window at the square garden for a few moments, then turned to look frowning at his companion.

"Then came her temptation. Her father had died a year before, leaving her the trustee of her only sister, who was not yet of age. It had taken some little time to wind up his affairs; but on the day after she received her husband's letter of remonstrance, six thousand pounds out of her father's estate was paid into her banking account. By this time she was in one of those states of excitement and unreasoning terror to which she had been liable from her childhood. She took the trust money in order to pay the debts, and then gambled again in order to replace the trust money. Her motive throughout was the motive of the hunted creature. She was afraid of confessing to her husband, especially by letter. She believed he would cast her off—and in her despair and remorse she clung to his affection, and to the hope of his coming home, as she had never yet done.

"In less than a month—in spite of ups and downs of fortune, probably skilfully contrived by Francis Wing and his accomplices—for there can be no question that the play was fraudulent—she had lost four thousand out of the six; and it is clear that more than once she thought of suicide as the only way out, and nothing but the remembrance of the child restrained her. By this time Francis Wing, who was a most handsome, well-bred, and plausible villain, was desperately in love with her—if one can use the word love for such a passion. He began to lend her money in small sums. She was induced to look upon him as her only friend, and forced by the mere terror of the situation in which she found herself to propitiate and play him as best she might. One day, in an unguarded moment of remorse, she let him guess what had happened about the trust money. Thenceforward she was wholly in his power. He pressed his attentions upon her; and she, alternately civil and repellent, as her mood went, was regarded by some of the guests in the house as not unlikely to respond to them in the end. Meanwhile he had told his wife the secret of the trust money for his own purposes. Lady Wing, who was an extremely jealous woman, believed at this time that he was merely pretending a passion for Mrs. Sparling in order the more securely to plunder what still remained of the six thousand pounds. She therefore aided and abetted him; and her plan, no doubt, was to wait till they and their accomplices had absorbed the last of Mrs. Sparling's money, and then to make a midnight flitting, leaving their victim to her fate.

"The denouement, however, came with frightful rapidity. The Wings had taken an old house at the back of the downs for the summer, no doubt to escape from some of the notoriety they had gained in Brighton. There—to her final ruin—Juliet Sparling was induced to join them, and gambling began again; she still desperately hoping to replace the trust money, and salving her conscience, as to her sister, by drawing for the time on the sums lent her by Francis Wing.—Here at last Lady Wing's suspicion was aroused, and Mrs. Sparling found herself between the hatred of the wife and the dishonorable passion of the husband. Yet to leave them would be the signal for exposure. For some time the presence of other guests protected her. Then the guests left, and one August night after dinner, Francis Wing, who had drunk a great deal of champagne, made frantic love to her. She escaped from him with difficulty, in a passion of loathing and terror, and rushed in-doors, where she found Lady Wing in the gallery of the old house, on the first floor, walking up and down in a jealous fury. Juliet Sparling burst in upon her with the reproaches of a woman driven to bay, threatening to go at once to her husband and make a clean breast of the whole history of their miserable acquaintance. She was practically beside herself—already, as the sequel showed, mortally ill, worn out by remorse and sleeplessness, and quivering under the insult which had been offered her. Lady Wing recovered her own self-possession under the stimulus of Juliet's breakdown. She taunted her in the cruelest way, accused her of being the temptress in the case of Sir Francis, and of simulating a hypocritical indignation in order to save herself with her husband, and finally charged her with the robbery of her sister's money, declaring that as soon as daylight came she would take steps to set the criminal law in motion, and so protect both herself and her husband from any charge such a woman might bring against them. The threat, of course, was mere bluff. But Mrs. Sparling, in her frenzy and her ignorance, took it for truth. Finally, the fierce creature came up to her, snatching at a brooch in the bosom of her dress, and crying out in the vilest language that it was Sir Francis's gift. Juliet, pushed up against the panelling of the gallery, caught at a dagger belonging to a trophy of Eastern arms displayed on the wall, close to her hand, and struck wildly at her tormentor. The dagger pierced Lady Wing's left breast—she was in evening dress and decolletee; it penetrated to the heart, and she fell dead at Juliet's feet as her husband entered the gallery. Juliet dropped the dagger; and as Sir Francis rushed to his wife, she fled shrieking up the stairs—her white dress covered with blood—to her own room, falling unconscious before she reached it. She was carried to her room by the servants—the police were sent for—and the rest—or most of the rest—you know."