"The Story of a Beauty" (continued 5)

“I should not stop in time in such a case.”

“Oh yes, you would, my dear; you’re not a fool. Leave all that to take care of itself, and do what’s right now. I have never gone too far. I will tell you for your good—”

And Amethyst stood and listened to her mother’s experiences, told in her mother’s familiar voice—to her mother’s view of where a woman could always stop, and yet how much might be ventured and no harm come. She listened with a dreadful comprehension of these principles of action, and with a still more dreadful certainty that she never could be certain of following them.

Before she could reply, her father came in upon her, pleading and entreating with her, and throwing himself on her mercy; then, when she stood like a stone, hardened by her mother’s story, he turned upon her with a rage such as she had never imagined, broke out into violent, coarse language such as she had never heard, till she shrank and trembled with sheer physical terror. Then a sound of sobs broke on the scene, and there stood Miss Haredale, and Amethyst flung herself upon her, the real mother of her youth.

“They will kill me!” she cried; but Miss Haredale only wept afresh, and bemoaned all the misery, and gave Amethyst no real support at all. She was holding by another end of the tangle, and began to speak of Carrie and Charles—and what was she to do? while Lord Haredale turned and swore at her, and the flood of wrath and argument surged away from Amethyst for a moment, and then turned back to include her once more. Strained as her nerves already were, she was so frightened at Lord Haredale’s violent tones and gesture, that with a sobbing cry of “Oh, father—oh, father! don’t strike me!” she turned and fled, every other feeling lost in a personal terror that had never crossed her imagination before.

“What a fool the girl is!” cried Lord Haredale; “as if I should hurt her. You’ve managed her confoundedly ill, my lady, to bring all this about.”

“Well, I have,” said Lady Haredale. “When one is so upset and so dreadfully anxious, one is really stupid. And Amethyst has your temper, my lord. I never saw a girl in such a passion, but I’ll set it right presently. As for you, Annabel, if Carrie Carisbrooke is determined to stick to Charles, why not? It’s a straw to cling to.”

“I was a wicked woman to bring her near him,” said Miss Haredale, sobbing; “her heart will be broken, and Amethyst’s too.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Lady Haredale. “Amethyst has a sharp tongue, and, like Una, she’s emotional. Dear me, so we all are! I was just now, myself, and very incautious. But I won’t have the poor child frightened to death, my lord, and I think you’ll have to beg her pardon.” She left the room, leaving the brother and sister alone, the latter still in tears, and Lord Haredale cooling down under his wife’s shower of common sense.

“Well, Anna,” he said presently, “it isn’t the first time that you have heard a man swear, at any rate. You know there’s no disrespect intended.”

“It is a long time, Haredale, since I lived with my relations,” said Miss Haredale, dryly.

“Grattan doesn’t swear,” said Lord Haredale, with a slight accent of contempt, caused, perhaps, by the keen edge of intolerable and ill-requited obligation. “She’ll be a thousand times better off if she marries him.”

“Oh, she will,” said Miss Haredale. “If only she can so feel it!”

“Well,” said Lord Haredale, “her mother’s clever enough; perhaps she’ll bring her round.” His wrath had evaporated in its own violence, and he began to think how he could pass the morning least intolerably, since the haunts of his fellows were not likely to be made pleasant to him for the present. Miss Haredale was full of remorse and misery, but Sir Richard Grattan’s offer represented to her the last straw to hold by, and she had not courage enough to back up Amethyst’s resistance to it.

Amethyst meanwhile got up-stairs, and locked herself into her own room. Then she dropped down on the floor, not fainting, but in a sudden collapse of all her powers. The sudden news, on the day before, of Lucian’s return, the intense excitement at the theatre, the expectation of Lucian’s coming, the change of feeling when she saw him, the night of struggle with herself, the family disgrace, the high exaltation of Sylvester’s appeal, the strain of resolution in her encounter with Sir Richard, the shame of what her mother had said to her, and still more, of what she had answered, the shock and terror of her father’s unseemly violence, had worn out all her strength.

She lay perfectly still, without conscious thought or feeling, till gradually her strong nerves began to recover themselves, and a flicker of light came into her heart. She had broken free.

For many weeks she had been holding herself in, keeping herself in a prison of necessity, expediency, and pleasure, refusing to think long-stretching thoughts, to feel high-reaching feelings, to pray genuine prayers. She had been afraid to break through the soft, tempting satisfactions of the world’s good things, afraid to shake the foundations of the philosophy by which she justified her choice to herself.

Now she was free, out in the rain and the storm, with the wide world around her, and the wide sky above her head—free to be lonely, dissatisfied, miserable, to long and to dread, to love and to hate, to be all of herself once more.

“The snare is broken, and I am delivered!” she said; and great vigorous throbs of painful life came back to her soul.

Una’s voice broke in upon her.

“Amethyst, darling—won’t you let me in? Dearest, do open the door.”

Amethyst rose, still trembling and unsteady, and unlocked the door, then dropped back into a low chair, as Una ran in, and started at the sight of her face.

“Oh, my dear, you are half-killed,” she said. “Wait one moment.”

She went away again, and came back with a glass of wine in her hand.

“You must drink this. It’s my turn to be nurse now.”

“I’m not ill,” said Amethyst, taking the wine; but she laid her head on Una’s shoulder, and submitted passively to her caresses.

“Now,” she said, after a few minutes, “tell me all you know about things.”

“I know it all,” said Una. “We heard a great deal, and then mother came and told us. She was crying, and she said that she had been so much upset, that she’d actually made a scene, which was quite against her principles, and frightened you. But she says she hasn’t ‘said die’ yet, so she is going to take Kat and Tory to the duchess’s garden-party, and ‘see how she can represent things.’ They had better see a great party once, she said, if they never could again. And Sir Richard is to come again, then she thinks you won’t refuse him.”

“Oh yes, I shall, Una—I have,” said Amethyst, with a fresh ring in her voice for a moment.

“Then it seems that now,” continued Una, “it is quite impossible for Charles to marry, and Aunt Anna does nothing but cry, and repent bitterly of having thrown Carrie in his way. But Carrie turned round like a little fury, and said that she had told Charles that she liked him, and so she did, and that she meant to keep her word, and she has appealed to her uncle. He must have known all along how wrong it was. Isn’t it hard upon her?”

“Yes,” said Amethyst, “but I must get through my own business first. I am going to write Sir Richard a note which will stop him from coming, and you must take care that he gets it in time.” There was a vigour in her manner which astonished Una, as she rose and bathed her face, and wrote a few lines in a fairly steady hand.

“Dear Sir Richard,— “I will not let you deceive yourself nor be deceived by others about me. I did intend to accept your offer, for I wished to be content with all the good things you would give me. But I cannot, and I shall never change my mind again. I cannot ask you to forgive me, but I acknowledge that I have behaved very ill to you. You have been most generous. All I can do now, is to spare you doubt and delay. I beg you to take this as a final refusal from— “Amethyst Haredale.”

Amethyst knew that her letter was abrupt and outspoken, but in the effort to leave no doubt behind, she could do the ungracious and cruel thing in no softer fashion.

She gave the letter to Una, with strict injunctions to say nothing about it, but to take care that it was sent at once. Then she threw herself down on the bed, and, when Una came back again, she found her dead asleep, her face white and still, her limbs relaxed, in the reaction from the intense strain which she had been enduring. While she slept, Lady Haredale got herself up in a marvellously charming toilette, and drove off to her great garden-party with Kattern, full of the unexpected pleasure, and Tory, looking unwontedly serious. Miss Haredale and Carrie were shut up in their own rooms.

Una had been called down-stairs by her mother before she started, to receive orders to take care that Amethyst saw Sir Richard—orders which Una may be forgiven for receiving in silence.

She sat down in the drawing-room to collect her senses a little, and to wonder what would happen next, when there was a step behind her, and she turned and saw her brother. He came slowly down the long room towards her, looking pale and ill, and with that look of being down on his luck, which, though he was perfectly well-dressed, gave him the air of being out at elbows.

“The fellows said you were alone, Una, so, as you’re a kind little girl, I came to speak to you. It’s all up now, and I want you to tell Carrie so.”

“But, Charles—had you—is it because of what happened at Epsom?”

“Well, no, my dear, not exactly. But there are plenty of other things for Clyste to rout up, you see. I never was so clear from—difficulties—as I gave Grattan and his lordship to understand. No fellow ever can go to the bottom of his affairs, you see. I always knew that whitewashing me couldn’t be done. There’s not money enough, and I haven’t impudence enough, Una, to carry it out. So I’m going to make myself scarce again.”

“But, Charles—what shall you do?”

“Oh, well, there are ways and means of which you don’t know anything, and I know myself down among them; I was a fool to try this business. But I liked Carrie’s little round face, and if I’d been a better fellow, or if being a bad fellow was the sort of thing she thinks it is, I might have tried. But you ought to know a little more about it than she does, Una.”

“Yes, I never did see how you could marry her.”

“I never had a chance, Una. Blanche and I were left to the worst lot of servants ever known. Our nursemaid was a bad one to begin with. Then your mother first flattered and made much of me when I was a rough lout, and then turned upon me, and set me all across with his lordship. And then you know how things go with a fellow.”

Una did know, much better than it was well that she should, the hopeless history of her brother’s career.

“Does Grattan stick to Amethyst?” he said.

“Yes, but she has refused him. She does not like him.”

“Well,” said Charles, “it doesn’t matter what she does, men will always run after her. But I say, Una, tell her to keep clear of Carisbrooke. He has made ducks and drakes with some of Carrie’s money, and that was why he was so ready to consent to marry her to me. But he’s regularly gone upon Amethyst in the process. Don’t you know he was Blanche’s first love, when she was staying away with those hunting friends of hers, the Carshaltons? He carried on with her, and spoiled her chances when she was sixteen. He always had the sort of talk to take a girl’s fancy. He’s a very poor lot, so tell Carrie—”

“I’m here, Mr Haredale,” said a resolute little voice, as Carrie Carisbrooke, pale and tear-stained, came into the room. “I’ve not been deceived, I always knew that you had been—a dissipated man. But Miss Haredale said you had repented, and I mean to keep my word, and to help you through your troubles; I shouldn’t think of going back because of family misfortunes.”

“But I can’t do it, Carrie,” said Charles, in his odd, half-shame-faced, half-rough voice. “I can’t marry you, my dear, as you’d see, if I could tell you anything about it, or if you could understand, which you couldn’t—please God you never will. Good-bye.”

“Then didn’t you ever really care for me?” interposed Carrie, with a sudden flash.

Charles looked at her and then at Una, and shook his head.

“I’ll never forget you, Carrie,” he said, “nor your having liked me. I’d have married you if I could. Good-bye, Una. Will you give me a kiss?”

Una put her arms round his neck.

“Oh, Charles,” she whispered, “don’t give up altogether. Indeed—indeed—He does save sinners. He always went after the bad ones.”

Charles looked into her eager, tear-filled eyes.

“Why, you’re the sort that can persuade people to turn religious,” he said. “Good-bye, little Una.”

He kissed her very affectionately, then took hold of Carrie’s hands.

“Good-bye,” he said. “Between you, you’ve made me wish I’d had a chance of being a decenter fellow.”

He stooped down, and kissed her forehead quickly and shyly, then went hurriedly away. Poor Carrie made no further protest. She cried bitterly, as well she might; for her first fresh fancy, and her girlish peace, had been sacrificed to the unjustifiable effort to escape from the inevitable consequences that follow on sinful lives.

Una stood still for a moment. Ideas always came to her in sudden flashes, and, with her erring, hopeless brother’s last words, there came before her the momentary vision of a possible future for herself.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

The Wide, Wide World.

Not very long after this abrupt conclusion of so much that had appeared to be but just begun, and in process of continuance, the care-taker at Cleverley Hall uncovered and set to rights three or four of the smaller rooms, and received the four Miss Haredales, who came there to wait till the family plans were somewhat matured, to leave some of their belongings in one locked-up room, while the rest of the house was prepared for letting; and to select and pack all that it was necessary to take with them, for what was likely to be some months, at least, of visiting and wandering.

An inhabited oasis in the midst of brown holland and shutters is not cheerful; but the last few days before the break-up in London had been so wretched that the girls were all thankful for any change, and Amethyst, in particular, packed, contrived, and planned with a vigour and energy that would fain have made the little work into much. Freedom gave her a sense of eager, strenuous life, and there was nothing before her but a long stretch of idle, tiresome days, made lonely by uncongenial companionship.

“How I hate it all!” she thought; but her hatred was living and vigorous, and there was a ring in her voice and a spring in her feet, as she moved about the empty house, which had never been there in the Eaton Square drawing-rooms.

The afternoon was hot, tea was on the school-room table. Kattern, with her pretty face markedly sullen, was slowly sipping her tea. Una lay idly back in a corner of the sofa, and Tory was sitting on the deep ledge of the window, holding the end of her immense plait of hair in her hand, and contemplating Amethyst’s quick, careful packing of small valuables, with a curious elvish expression of critical observation.

“I have been informing the neighbours,” she said, after a silence, “that is, our good Rector’s worthy sister, as my lady used to call her, that we are going abroad for education—for Kat and me. But that first we are going to pay visits to some old friends. Can anything sound more creditable?”

“I don’t care how it sounds,” burst out Kattern; “it’s very dull and disappointing. I wish I was the eldest. I wish I had had even Una’s chances! I wouldn’t have thrown people over at the last minute. I would have got married, and not been called a fiasco in the society papers. I hate going abroad. We may get a little fun out of the visits, but I shall be sent on the dullest, and I haven’t near as many frocks as Amethyst and Una.”

“You have quite as many frocks as you want at present,” said Amethyst; “when you will have any more is another question.”

“Well,” said Tory reflectively, “I mean to keep respectable. The Kirkpatricks’ and Lorrimores’ aren’t very nice places for little girls. I shall have to take care of the rest of you. I’m very tired of our line of life, I should like to go to school. How much better good conduct pays! I dislike being ruined, and having a shady reputation.”

“I hate having all one’s pleasure stopped,” said Kattern.

“Don’t be a cross cat,” returned Tory. “If we go for to quarrel, as girls in goody story-books do, when the author wants them to be naughty for a change, we shall get no comfort in life. Goody! What a story I could write! I know! I’ll be a sensational, realistic author, and make a fortune. Experience is better for that than education. Come along, Katty, let us take farewell of our childish haunts. They weren’t our childish haunts. But no matter—”

She dragged Kattern up from her chair, and out of the room, as she spoke; while Amethyst laughed.

“I believe there’s something staunch about Tory, at bottom,” she said. “I’d rather trust her than Kat, among shady people.”

Una moved a little, and watched Amethyst for a few moments in silence.

“Amethyst,” she said, suddenly, “setting aside being married, what would you like best to do with your life?”

“I think I should like to enlist for a soldier,” said Amethyst with a laugh.

“But really?”

“Really. Oh, I could keep school, I always liked teaching. When I’m twenty-one, I shall think about it. We shall none of us ever have enough money to be comfortable, if we don’t marry. What can become of us? I think, perhaps, I shall write to Miss Halliday and consult her, though I would rather teach in a High School than go back to Saint Etheldred’s. I think there would be more life in it. I think one’s title might be swallowed, and, as for my beauty reputation, one would be the safest of young women, for there never would be anybody one would care to look twice at.”

“I suppose they wouldn’t like it, if rows of young men went to church to look at you?”

“You’re thinking of some Miss Pinkerton’s academy. Don’t you know that one’s own life would be quite independent of the schoolwork? And I might make such a line possible for Tory. There’s a great deal of spirit in the life.”

“Would it go on being enough for you?” Amethyst laughed again, but this time with some bitterness.

“Perhaps not,” she said, shortly. “I wonder what would! But there are some things I should like to take up again.”

“Amethyst—in some ways you are more like what you were when first you came home, than you have been since—since you were engaged to Lucian.”

“I am free,” said Amethyst. “That past is over really, over now for good and all. It has gone, I don’t know where; and I have got, thank heaven! to reconcile myself to no good fortune. I need not tell myself any more lies, nor pare down my feelings to suit my fate. If I am a High School mistress, and want the moon and the sun and the stars, why, I can cry for them. But if I’d married that rich, good, generous man, I should never have dared to wish for anything as long as I lived. Every wish would have opened the gates into the universe. Well, now I’m outside the bars, and it is the universe, and full of stars, and I can look at them, if I can’t have them.”

As Amethyst uttered this tirade, she lifted up her head, and her lovely face glowed with eagerness. Una listened, but her soul gave no response. Amethyst saw her blank expression, and stopped with a blush.

“Oh,” she said, “if you only knew what it is to let myself go! Of course I know we are in for a hateful existence—troubles and bothers of every sort. But I feel as if I should pull through! Nothing can be worse than the last week or two.”

“It has been bad enough,” said Una, sighing.

“Life has a great many sides, as I always told you,” said Amethyst. “Work is a great help, and, as Tory says, I’m tired of men. I wish I could go to Newnham or Girton, and take a first-class. But who’s to pay?”

“You, Amethyst! Oh, don’t take to being blue because you’re disappointed!”

“You little behind-the-world fossil! Blue! Cultured is the proper expression. And how am I disappointed? Una, I’m more in love with my real true natural self than with any one else at present. And I should like to go to college—I read an article about it the other day. I should like a little room to fit up, and to have tea with my friends, and debates, and discussions, and new ideas. Then I needn’t think about being married for the next five years. But there, that packing is finished. I’ll go for a walk, the country is delightful after London.”

She went away as she spoke, and Una heard her run down the long staircase, light of foot, and seemingly light of heart.

“I shall never be able to ‘let myself go,’ as long as I live,” thought she, with a weary sigh. “And I see no stars anywhere. Only—sometimes—that great Light—and then darkness.”

Amethyst walked through the deserted garden, rejoicing in her freedom, for she was free of regrets for Lucian, as well as of pledges to Sir Richard Grattan. She could laugh a little cynically at the girlish dream in which Lucian had seemed an ideal of perfection; she could give thanks, with bated breath, that she had not tied herself to Sir Richard; she could not but be thankful to Sylvester for having saved her; but she looked back upon her interview with him with a sense of shame, as she remembered that he, her lover, had pleaded with her not to debase her womanhood by marrying a man whom she did not love, and had had to plead, long and earnestly, before he won the day. She hoped that the love he had declared had been but the love of a poet’s dream; it seemed so, since he had never followed it up, for she could never wish to see him again, though she hoped never to fall again below his standard of noble maidenhood. His voice seemed to ring in her ears: “I would rather see you die than do it.”

She wondered what Mr Carisbrooke thought of the end of all her prospects. Had he really been Blanche’s first lover, as Una declared Charles to have said? Perhaps there was another side to that old story, and Blanche had broken his heart, not he Blanche’s.

But she had nothing now to do with any of them. Her life was her own, to begin afresh. But what lay before her? The life of intellectual interests and youthful striving was altogether out of her reach. All that was likely was a bad imitation of her London success. She knew well enough the sort of “old friends” among whom her parents’ rank, and her own reputation as a beauty, would still make her a desired guest. She had had glimpses of such society in the last two years.

“I am only twenty,” she thought. “I am strong and I am clever, and I think that I have proved that I am brave, and I should like to be good. Yet it seems that there is no life worth living, open to me. What am I to do? There’s plenty of spring in me. Free? I’m tied up with cobwebs. If any one could tell me what to do?”

As she looked round, as if in search of an answer, she saw Mr Riddell coming towards her, along the very path by which he had come on that day when his few words of advice had seemed to offer her a little help in her early helplessness; when his kindness had given her a little comfort, though all her world had then been unkind.

Amethyst believed in the existence of good people. That faith she perhaps owed to the capacity for goodness in herself. She knew that Mr Riddell would never tell her anything that he did not himself believe to be helpful and true. He asked after her family with kindly courtesy.

“We shall see you and your sisters, I hope, at the Rectory,” he said. “My sister and I are alone, for my son has gone to Scotland.”

Amethyst coloured a little, she wondered how much the Rector knew; but she was too worldly-wise to ignore the troubles.

“I suppose, Mr Riddell,” she said, “that you know why we left London so suddenly?”

“Yes, my dear,” he said gently, “I know all that is to be said on that matter. I am sorry.”

“It is a very unhappy prospect for myself and my sisters,” said Amethyst, with straightforward dignity. “I don’t in the least see how we are to lead lives that can be at all good. You were very kind to me once—you told me to try and be a little better, if I could not be good. May I speak to you now?”

“Surely,” said Mr Riddell; then after a moment he added, “My son has told me how fatally he was once mistaken, and how cruel an injury he once did you.”

“Yes,” said Amethyst, “but that is all at an end.” She paused; then said, with a deep blush, “Your son has done me a great service now, far greater than the harm he did then. I don’t want to speak about what is all over. If I could work or study, I could be quite happy. Indeed, I do care for many other things besides society and admiration; but there is such a wretched life before us. We shall never see good or clever people. And I do not feel religion as Una does, though indeed, Mr Riddell, I wish more to be good than for anything else in the world, though I have not been good lately.”

There was something in the simplicity of this final appeal—coming from this rarely beautiful girl, with her look of belonging to the great ones of the earth—that was very touching. Mr Riddell did not answer her for a minute, then he said—

“That trying to be a little better of which you spoke, that relative goodness that no lot can make impossible—it is important to be clear as to what is meant by better. Is it to make life a little smoother, or a little nobler, each day?”

Amethyst looked up as if these words struck her.

“And, Amethyst,” said Mr Riddell, stopping in his walk and taking her by the hand; “there is no need for you to stop at a little—

”‘Pray to be perfect—though material heave Forbid the spirit so on earth to be.’

“Your life is very full of trial, you have high thoughts and good thoughts. What hinders you from leading it like a saint?”

She looked at him still, but in silence.

“You say you don’t ‘feel religion.’ The word is a little vague. You have felt the guiding hand of God, and He speaks to you in that love of goodness which you possess. He will speak to you, believe me, with a yet clearer voice. He has a great deal yet to say to you. Aim spiritually at the very highest perfection; and, for the rest, my dear, you must indeed try for ‘a little.’ Perhaps a little study might keep your mind fresh, and, though I suppose religious observances will often be difficult to you, do what you can with a little. You have nearly all your life before you, and there is time in it for a great many things.”

A great hope shone in Amethyst’s face, a sense of vigour stole again into her soul. The light dawned in the depths of her earnest eyes, as she still looked up into her teacher’s face.

“The hope of holiness,” said Mr Riddell, “is an inspiration great enough to set against the greatness of the world’s temptations.”

“Yes,” said Amethyst, in full deep tones.

“You see that light, follow it, and you shall have more,” he said solemnly; then, with a change of tone to his usual simple and fatherly manner, he said—“Come and see Miss Riddell, and bring the girls with you. She will give you something to read up, or something to do—something interesting, you know.”

Amethyst laughed a little, and gave his hand a grateful pressure.

“Thank you,” she said earnestly, and sped away.

Mr Riddell looked after her, watching her quick and vigorous step. Then he took off his glasses and wiped them.

“Poor Syl!” he said, as he turned away. “He must have much patience in seeking his Iris. She is in the distance—in the distance, as yet.”

Chapter Thirty.

“Ayont the Isle of Skye.”

“Cleverley Rectory. “August 3rd. “My dear Syl,— “I found your letter very good reading. Thinking of you far away in Ultima Thule, in the scenes of that dearest of books to my youth, The Pirate, quite stirs my blood, and the Fitful Head and the Stones of Stennis come vividly into my mind. By the way, I hope you have ‘read’ The Pirate. If not, I will send you a shilling copy, that you and Lucian may remedy the defects of your education. Here we have been seeing a great deal of the four Haredale girls, and lately something of their mother, who joined them a few days ago. Lady Haredale is a wonderful woman. She has nearly made me believe her to be the most unselfish of people by the cheerful, matter-of-course way in which she accepts their ruined condition. Lord Haredale is abroad. She and the two elder girls are to pay some visits, and then join him. Kattern and Tory are to be sent to their aunt at Silverfold. Miss Carisbrooke is still with her, and her part in all the strange story I don’t understand. The girls are to go to classes at Saint Etheldred’s School. Tory has brains; but I am afraid she will be a fish out of water. I should not myself like to have charge of Miss Kattern; nor indeed of Una, though she is an interesting creature, and might do well in good hands. Poor child, she is likely to be in very bad ones, I fear. She has taken a great fancy to Miss Waterhouse, my old friend, who has been having a holiday here from her work among the East London wild girls and women. Una seems never to tire of hearing of them, and has undertaken to sew for them. I hope she may keep up with anything so practical. As for Amethyst, your father calls her a fine, brave, growing creature; but what a life lies before her! She has not half lived out her girlhood, in spite of all her troubles, and would be ready for all the wholesome interests and natural ambitions of clever, thoughtful girls. I have put her in the way of some correspondence-lessons in Latin and mathematics, and supplied her with the books. She means to work, when she can, with a view to a possible future. She is anxious to show that she is not all society beauty. But, dear me, how beautiful she is! I don’t see how her mind is to rival her face, and how she will be thrown away! “I could find it in my heart to wish she had married the rich baronet; but your father shakes his head, and says ‘No.’ I believe the whole family are to meet in the south of France in the winter. Lady Haredale smiles, and says she can’t think what they are going to live on. “My love to Lucian. How long do you stay with him? “Your loving aunt,— “Margaret Riddell.”

Sylvester read this letter as he and Lucian lay on the short fine turf of a bluff headland in the Isle of Orkney, not far from Kirkwall, looking over the northern sea, now blue and dancing in summer sunshine. The air was sweet, clear, and bracing; white sea-birds floated over the sparkling waves; a lark sang high in the pure sharp air; the charm of spring had hardly yet departed from the far advanced summer; tiny flowers sprinkled the down, and the little hardy black-faced lambs that cropped them, were still in the prettiest stage of their youth.

“My education is in advance of the shilling copy,” said Sylvester, reading the first sentence of his letter aloud; and then, after a moment’s hesitation, passing it to his companion.

When he had answered Lucian’s letter of invitation to join him at Oban, he had briefly acknowledged the truth of the guess indicated by the return of the photograph; but since then no word on the subject, so near the hearts of both, had passed between them.

Lucian had regained much of his usual look and manner, and did not appear to be occupied with anything but the business of his yacht and with the places that he had come to look at.

Now he put down his pipe, which he was preparing to re-light, and, leaning on his elbow, read the letter through, more than once perhaps, for he was a long time silent. Then he looked up at Sylvester.

“I was a fool,” he said, “a fool to be gulled by any evidence against her denial. I ought to have known her better. I wasn’t man enough to trust her. That’s why she has forgotten me.”

Though Sylvester had often said as much to himself, the avowal was startling, in Lucian’s slow, clear voice, the accents hardly varying from those in which a few minutes before he had asked his companion to give him a light.

“You were so young,” he said. “But how—”

“How do I know it now? I don’t know. I found it out by seeing her again. You understand her better.”

“I’d give my right hand never to have been forced to meddle with the matter,” said Syl.

“I want to say,” said Lucian, “that I’m not a dog in the manger. If you could get her—I—I—I think it would be the best thing for her. I—hope you’ll try.”

“I have no reason to think she could care for me,” said Sylvester hurriedly; “but—well, Lucy—of course you know I shall try—some day. And thank you.”

There was silence again, and then Lucian said—

“I’m going, as I told you, to try Toppings. That’s what I have to look to. My mother will be glad my chance is over.”

“She wishes you to settle down?”

“Yes, of course. I could never have anything said about the past—and her, from my mother’s point of view; and knowing that she felt so strongly, has made a sort of separation. But I shall ask her if she likes to bring the girls to Toppings. The life there would suit her.”

“But, Lucy,” said Sylvester, “why should you give up the white bears that you had set your heart on? Two years hence, as you said, is quite time enough for you to settle down at Toppings.”

Lucian was silent for a minute, then he said—

“I don’t care much about the bears, so it’s better to do what suits other people. Besides, I had rather know what happens to her, and I couldn’t hear if I was in the Arctic regions.” Sylvester sat up and looked at him. It had never occurred to him to think that Lucian suffered from solitude or want of sympathy, or indeed to think that his life had been permanently saddened by his disappointment. He had always believed the interests which he picturesquely symbolised as “white bears” to be enough for the strong, healthy, active youth; and even his faithfulness to Amethyst had seemed to Sylvester to spring more from a sense of what was due to himself, than from involuntary yearning for her.

“I suppose,” Lucian went on, before he could speak, “that you meant—her—in that poem of yours all the time.”

“Well, yes,” said Syl, half laughing, “I suppose I did.”

“Its quite true,” said Lucian, “I couldn’t say all that; but there seems nothing else to think of, and icebergs would make no difference at all.”

“I didn’t think, Lucy, that you would spend your life in looking for the rainbow’s end.”

“I shall not. There are plenty of things to do. But, since I misjudged her so, there can be no peace till she is happy. You see, at first, I felt as if I could never get over knowing that I had been wrong, when all the comfort I’d ever had in the matter, had been thinking that giving her up was the only right thing to do. I went once that wretched afternoon—right up to the Hall—and then I turned back, and thought I wouldn’t be made a fool of—when all the while I was making a fool of myself.”

“We were all infernal fools,” said Sylvester. “Then,” said Lucian, “I remembered that it didn’t matter so much about me, since I had found out that she was—what I’d always thought her. I’m glad now it was all my fault and not hers. Something in your poem put that into my head.”

He gave a little smile as he spoke, and Sylvester noticed for the first time how grave his face had grown. It had never been exactly lively, but surely the weight on the straight, clearly-marked brows was new.

“I suppose I hadn’t given her up really,” he went on after a minute, “because I seem to have to begin quite new. It’s odd how hard it is to believe that I’m going to settle down at Toppings. I feel as if something must happen to prevent it. But it won’t now. It will be all right if she is happy—and good. So I mean what I said, Syl; I hope you’ll get her. I think I always knew you did love her, and that made me shy off when you meant to be kind to me. Then it will be all right—for her.”

He sat up and looked out over the sunny sea. The ache at his heart was hard to bear, all the harder perhaps that even now he had hardly found the right words for it. There seemed so little to look forward to. Sylvester, full of hopes and fears, interests and longings, with a future from which Amethyst was not shut out, and able to rejoice even in the suffering which brought to him so intense a life, could hardly realise the passion that only made itself felt as want and loss.

“Let’s walk on,” said Lucian presently. “We had better look up some of the Pirate places by and by. We might get down to the beach now, perhaps.”

There was a little rough path, a mere sheep-track, leading off the headland down a steep descent to the shore. The turf gave place to jagged rocks and loose stones. Lucian went on with rapid, practised tread, and presently turned off from the descent and followed the track along the cliff side. The rocks grew more precipitous, and the track narrower, the sea dashed up at their feet in great breakers of foam.

“You don’t get dizzy, do you, Syl?” he called back; “this is rather a nasty corner.”

“No,” said Syl. “I can look at the soap-suds.”

“All right. Here’s a splendid great wash-tub.”

He turned round the rock, there was a little crash. Sylvester hurried forward, but the path and Lucian had alike disappeared.

“All right, only a slip,” he shouted from below, and, looking down, Syl saw that he had caught by the rough projections of the rock, and was holding himself on by hands and feet, above the jagged rocks and the boiling sea. Sylvester threw himself on his face, and stretching out his hand, caught Lucian’s wrist.

“Can you pull yourself up a little nearer?” he said.

The sea roared in his ears, and foamed under his eyes, beneath Lucian’s upturned face.

“Let go; give me your hand,” said Lucian.

Sylvester obeyed, and Lucian loosened the hold of his right hand from the rock, and grasped Sylvester’s, holding on to a firmer projection with his left. Then he cautiously raised himself, not a very difficult feat for so active a person—another moment, and he would be safe; but, as he moved and strained upwards, to his horror Sylvester saw the face beneath him whiten and change.

“I—can’t—I’m hurt. Don’t pull me,” gasped Lucian.

Sylvester grasped the straining hand with all his strength, but his own position was cramped and insecure, he could do no more than hold on. If Lucian fainted! Lucian shut his eyes and moved his hand till it grasped Sylvester’s wrist, and gave him a firmer hold. Then he made another attempt to lift himself up, and then—. He opened his eyes, his whole face drawn with agony, and looked up at Sylvester. Sylvester held himself firm with every force of body and soul, but the forces were beginning to fail, the ground was slipping beneath him. Then—Lucian unclasped his fingers, and slipped slowly down the rough face of the rock, and fell backwards, not into the sea, but on to the rough, slippery rocks, just above the foaming water, where he lay motionless on his back.

Then Sylvester staggered up on to his feet, and, leaning his back against the rock, steadied his limbs, which trembled with the strain he had put upon them. Another moment, and, a pace or two further back, he had let himself down from the path, and with risk and difficulty reached the ledge of rock on which Lucian lay. It was so narrow and unsafe that he could not get beside him, could not see his face, only his fair hair shining in the sun, could but just reach forward and touch his lips and brow. He called to him, but found his voice was only a sob, inaudible to himself. Lucian lay motionless, and Sylvester looked round for any chance of help. He saw that the tide was going down, and leaving more and more rocks bare beneath him. The sea was smooth enough, the foaming eddy was only caused by the hollowing of the rocks. The sky was blue and bright; he could, as his nerves stilled a little, hear the lambs bleat above his head. Then Lucian’s head quivered under his hand, there was a movement, and then a sharp cry of agonising pain—a sound which, in a grown man’s voice, Sylvester, a homebred man of peace, had never heard before.

“Lucy—dear boy, I can’t reach you. I am here. You are terribly hurt.”

There was no answer, except that the cry was stifled into a moan, and Lucian turned his face a little towards Sylvester’s hand, pressing his cold cheek against it.

Then Sylvester, clinging on to the shelving rock, shouted with all his strength; and his shout was answered from the down above. What he uttered in his outcry of hope he never knew; but there was an answer back.

“All right! Hold on—we’re coming round.”

There was a dreadful pause, and then on the lower rocks, now bared by the ebbing tide, three young men, in tourist garb, appeared, scrambling round from behind, and came near enough for speech.

“What is it? A fall—are you both hurt? Good heavens! It’s Riddell of Cuthbert’s! There’s footing now—the tide’s going out.”

And in another minute Sylvester was pulled down from his dangerous perch and held up, as he staggered for a moment with cramp and stiffness, by the strong hands of three of his own scholars—youths whose faces at lecture had never greatly interested him, but who seemed now very angels of deliverance.

“Are you hurt, sir? Lean on me, Mr Riddell. We can soon get a boat up to the rocks.”

“Can we reach him? He fell over the cliff.”

The footing was much less secure beneath the spot where Lucian lay, but beneath again was a broad slab of rock now laid bare; and between them all they managed to lift Lucian, now quite senseless, and lay him down with his head on Sylvester’s knee. Then two of the lads went off to get a boat which could be brought up to a little strip of sand below at low tide, and the other remained to give what help he could.

Lucian moved a little again presently, when some whiskey, which the young men were carrying on their walking tour, had been put upon his lips and temples. He knew Sylvester’s voice and whispered—

“Are you safe, Syl?”

“Oh, yes. But you—can you say where you are hurt?”

“I’m glad I let go,” murmured Lucian; while it came over Sylvester with a flash of certainty that the clasping hand had not given way from faintness, but had loosed its hold rather than risk pulling him over. “I am—done for,” gasped Lucian. “I am hurt—inside—I can’t speak—Mother—my love—and her.”

He sank again into unconsciousness, and Howard, the young undergraduate, put his arm round Sylvester to support him as he held Lucian’s weight, and put the whiskey-flask to his lips.

“Is he your brother?” he whispered.

“No; my friend, and he has given his life for mine. Oh, my God! Can the boat get there?”

It came at last, and as they lifted Lucian into it, there was a sob of pain that showed life at least. And life, Sylvester tried to feel, meant hope.

Chapter Thirty One.

Commonplace.

“Really, Amethyst, I don’t see how I am to manage, if we pay many more visits. You see, all my things were got for the season, and I haven’t got an autumn gown or jacket that’s fit to be seen; and I can’t go to a hunt-breakfast in a summer hat, and just look at this one.”

The speaker was Una Haredale, one lovely autumn day in late October, as she stood by the wardrobe in her bedroom in Mrs Lorrimore’s country house, and displayed its contents ruefully to her sister.

The view from the window had all the charm of exquisite rural peace. The woods in every tint of gold and russet stretched away over wide outspreading country beyond the green slopes of the park where single trees blazed and shone in their autumn dresses; cattle and sheep dotted the grass between and beneath them. Restharrow, as the house was called, looked the very home of quiet and virtuous content. But the house-party who were staying with Mrs Lorrimore contrived to amuse themselves, and Restharrow was not regarded as a quiet house.

“Well, Una, I don’t know what is to be done. I haven’t an idea how long my lady means to leave us here, and stay at the Fitzpatricks’. I’ve got exactly seven and sixpence left, and if mother sends us more money—she must, of course, before we go away—heaven knows where she will get it from. You must wear my grey hat and jacket to-morrow, and your own red skirt.”

“And you?”

“I’ll do with the brown tweed. Who is there to see that matters?”

“How I hate this house!” said Una, dropping into a straw chair by the window, and stretching her arms above her head.

“I don’t think its as bad as the Fitzpatricks’.”

“Perhaps not, when the card-playing set is there, but it’s more rowdy. I never did see the fun of chasing men up and down stairs, and setting booby-traps in their bedrooms.”

“Nothing would ever induce me to do such a thing,” said Amethyst scornfully.

“You have only to choose what you will do. They’ll all come after you for the sake of saying afterwards they’ve been in with you. But—I shall never be a good girl, Amethyst. I can’t keep out of the fray. I want them to talk to me, and I know how to make them. Then one gets led on. No, I don’t bear-fight and romp; but oh, Amethyst, I talk—I say such horrid things—just things that make people stare and wonder if I can mean it. Oh, how I hate men!” stamping her foot. “They delight in making girls sail near the wind, and then, how they talk of us! That’s what Tony used to make me do when I was little. How he used to laugh! And the books,” went on Una, after a pause. “When do we ever see one, French or English, that you’d like Sylvester Riddell, or any nice man, to see you read? Oh, if men in general liked girls to be decent, how easy goodness would be!”

“Well,” said Amethyst, “if we are to be good, it certainly won’t be because we don’t hear of wickedness, either in books or in real life. But I wouldn’t say what I was ashamed of, to please any one. And I’m sure, darling, you hardly ever do.”

“You’re a sweet comforter,” said Una, kissing her. “My dear old mother-confessor! But really I sometimes hear things that make me think that my lady brought us up in a pattern way. Well, I believe Mr and Mrs Jackson are pattern people, so let us hope the hunt-breakfast will be highly proper too. Half an hour before lunch. I’ll do some sewing.”

“You are a pattern girl about your East End work, at any rate.”

“Oh, but, Amethyst, I like to hear from Miss Waterhouse about the girls. I do feel as if I exactly understood how hard it is for them to be good, when they want so to be bad, you see, and know just how; and how getting fond of her is such a help to them. And she tells them that I care when she gives them the things I make. If I only worked better!”

This was the fourth of a set of visits which Amethyst and Una had paid, sometimes alone, and sometimes with their mother. One of these visits had been to the Fowlers at the country house which was part of Mrs Fowlers fortune, and, little as the girls had wished to go there, they had found Mrs Fowler far the kindest friend they met in their wandering life. She was very good to the lonely girls, though they never knew in what light Major Fowler had represented their story to her; and Una was loyal and brave, and resisted even the temptation of not being tempted by notice from her host But the visit was a great strain on her, she felt the force of the temptations in her path, and did not know what upward growth was indicated by her knowing them to be temptations. She was too young and too impressionable not to be influenced by the atmosphere around her; outward helps were very few, and the struggle was hard within her. Still there were moments of peace, times which taught her what a holy life might be, times which upheld and uplifted her, the poor sinful girl who was trying to be a saint.

Amethyst’s troubles were of a different sort. She had left Cleverley with several growing purposes and intentions, and with a strong desire, an earnest wish to win that nobleness of character of which Mr Riddell had spoken, a wish that had always been as salt within her, but which Sylvester had touched with fire. She threw all the weight of her beauty on the side of maidenly conduct and modest speech, and there was neither man nor woman in the free-and-easy, careless-tongued set among whom she moved, who would take a liberty with Amethyst Haredale. But she was bored to death. There was nothing to do, nothing to know, nothing to feel. She was like a wild, strong creature in a cage. She worked at her Latin and mathematics in the early morning, she played tennis with vigorous interest in the game, and none in her partners, she took long walks by herself, but everything was dull, stale, flat, and unprofitable. The rebellion in her soul grew more and more violent. There were hours when she came to wish that she had resisted Sylvester and married Sir Richard. Anything would have been better than the life she had to lead now.

She heard occasionally from Miss Riddell, and had so been told of the terrible accident to Lucian Leigh, and of his almost fatal illness, but the same letter contained also better news, and since then she had heard that he was slowly recovering. She had been shocked and startled, but it was difficult to realise Lucian as otherwise than well and strong, and no details had been given to her.

Her natural good spirits often got the upper hand of her burden of discontent, and when all the house-party started for the meet at Mr Jackson’s place, Beechgrove, in a bright sparkling morning under brown trees and blue sky, amid golden and tawny ferns and ruddy hedgerows, she enjoyed herself as if she had never known a care. The red coats, the dogs, and the horses, the noise and the bustle of a hunting morning were delightful to her, and she had never looked more blooming and full of life than when she went into the house at Beechgrove to breakfast, followed by Una. Mrs Jackson received the two handsome young strangers pleasantly, and called to her son to come and wait on them and take care of them.

“As you have nothing else to do, Wilfred,” she said smiling.

Young Mr Jackson was pale and very lame, and it was explained that he was only just getting over a bad accident which had invalided him for some time.

“Stopped all my fun in the Rocky Mountains, Miss Haredale,” he said, “where I had gone on the jolliest trip, and I mustn’t ride all this winter. Hard lines, isn’t it?”

“Very hard,” said Amethyst, feeling that the accident in the Rocky Mountains was not quite new to her, though she could not recall how she had heard of it.

“Have you heard of poor Leigh lately, Jackson?” said another young man across the table.

“Oh, yes,” said Wilfred Jackson, with sudden gravity. “Riddell, his friend, who has been with him, you know, wrote to me yesterday. He is better, and able to walk a little, and they have got away from Edinburgh and down to Bournemouth. I believe he is to go abroad for the winter. It has been a frightful business.”

“Were you with Mr Leigh in the Rocky Mountains? He is a neighbour of ours at Cleverley,” said Amethyst.

“Ah, you know him? Yes, and I spoiled his trip by getting my back hurt. He gave it up to look after me. Never was such a good fellow. I can’t take in the idea of his being helpless and ill himself.”

“But you are having better accounts of him. I never heard exactly how he was hurt?”

“Nor I, in detail. He fell over the cliffs in the Orkneys. There was some internal strain which has caused frightful suffering, and besides, one of the ribs, which were broken, pierced the lungs so that he cannot breathe, or speak, without pain. They brought him back to Edinburgh in his yacht, where his mother met him. He is wonderfully patient and plucky, Riddell says—that he was sure to be. They are very anxious, but I can’t help hoping and thinking—don’t you, Miss Haredale?—that any fellow so young and strong must get over it. I was very bad last summer, and I shall soon be right again now.”

There was a warm-hearted simplicity in the young man’s manner, as he spoke of his friend, that was very engaging; but his last words tightened Amethyst’s breath, and made her fingers cold. Not get over it! Lucian! She had never dreamed of such a possibility. Una struck into the conversation, and asked a few more questions, eliciting a good deal of information as to the accident in America, and as to Lucian’s present condition. To Wilfred Jackson he was evidently a hero.

“I hope to be quite strong by Christmas,” he said, “and no trouble to anybody. Then I shall go out and see him. Riddell is going back to Oxford, he seems anxious at leaving Mrs Leigh alone. But my father’s on the move, Miss Haredale; will you come out?”

As Amethyst stood on the steps at the front door, and looked out again on the gay scene of active, vigorous life, she recalled how Lucian had once planned taking his bride to such a meeting in his own county, and had discoursed on the perfect horse he would get for her, and directed her taste as to the kind of habit in which he thought it correct for a lady to ride. She had always pictured him in some sort of active exertion. When she thought of him lying prostrate, the contrast, and the pity of it, gave her a new sense of the sadness and the mystery of life. There was no time, however, for sad thoughts. She and Una were asked to go in a large brake with Wilfred Jackson and one of his sisters and some other girls who were not mounted. The meet was as much for show as for business, and there was time to drive about the beautiful park and to chatter pleasantly over the little incidents of the occasion.

Miss Jackson was an engaging girl, and Amethyst and Una felt that they were in another and a wholesomer world than that in which they lived at Restharrow. Presently it appeared that, as everything possible must be done to amuse Wilfred Jackson while he was lame, and deprived of his usual resources, some tableaux vivants and charades were in prospect, and it was soon hinted that if the Miss Haredales would come and help in getting them up, it would be too delightful.

Amethyst, of course, referred the matter to Mrs Lorrimore, a good-natured woman, who was only too glad that her young guests should enjoy themselves, and the result was a great deal of going backwards and forwards, and once, a visit of two or three days to Beechgrove.

The Jacksons were a large family, prosperous, merry, and affectionate. Una, at any rate, had never known people of the same kind before, nor had she ever been so gay and so like other girls in her life. The acquaintance gave her that fresh start which is often so good and wholesome. She struck up a friendship with the girl nearest her own age, and forgot her sins and her sorrows in the natural, genial companionship. She became on intimate terms with Wilfred, and in his company learned to laugh because she was gay, and not because she was scornful.

The acquaintance with the Leighs was of recent date, and Lucian’s past history was evidently unknown. He was a great hero to Wilfred’s sisters, and when a cheerful account of him arrived from Mrs Leigh to her son’s friend, they all rejoiced as if he had been their brother.

Amethyst and Una had one point in common with their mother; they were quite capable of keeping their own counsel when they thought it desirable.

Chapter Thirty Two.

An Interest in Life.

When the tableaux at Beechgrove were over, and the girls came back to Restharrow, Amethyst, felt as if she had had enough of the Jacksons for the present. She gave herself no airs, but, fresh and unworn as were her impulses for work or study, the beauty of the season had learned to expect more from society than very amateurish acting, and boy and girl dancing and flirting of the simplest kind. She was not vain enough to enjoy indiscriminate admiration, and indeed, took it as a matter of course. She found a letter from her mother, summoning herself and Una to join her in a few days’ time, to start immediately for the south of France. Lady Haredale was delighted to think that her dear girls had been having a good time. Mrs Lorrimore was the kindest of women. If Amethyst had not quite enough money for the journey to London, she had better ask her hostess to advance it. Lady Haredale was in a hurry to catch the post.

Amethyst tossed the letter into a drawer, and gave a vicious stamp with the white slippers which she had just put on, and then ran hastily down-stairs to dinner. The hall at Restharrow was the gathering-place of the company, and as Amethyst came down the stairs dressed all in white, she saw, among the guests gathered picturesquely round the fire, the slight alert figure and peculiar face of Oliver Carisbrooke. He came right up to the foot of the staircase to meet her, and greeted her with marked and eager interest.

“I am not disappointed; you are here still?” he said. “Oh, but it is good to see you.”

Amethyst hardly knew how to answer. He claimed her and appropriated her, standing by her side until he was told to take her in to dinner, and then setting himself at once to talk to her in tones meant for her ear only.

“So you are here,” he said; “and is it well? Have you regrets?”

“Not for London,” said Amethyst, surprised at his manner.

“No,” he said, “you were not born to live in a gilded cage. You couldn’t have endured it long. Oh, do you know how I watched you? I did not mean to let you marry Grattan. I would have stopped you—before it was too late.”

“I don’t see how you could have anything to do with it, Mr Carisbrooke.”

“You are angry? I am making you angry on purpose. Every word I say to you is for an end of my own. Then there was your boy lover. I was afraid of him till I saw him with you. Then I had no fears at all. But I couldn’t stand the thought that you might be still bound in heart to a fellow who had had scruples about you, who cared one iota to know what you had done—when he knew you. Then there was the young poet. Of course he was in love with you, but there wasn’t stuff enough in dream-love for you. I weighed them all in the balance. For you see, I know you.”

“Hardly well enough to say so much,” said Amethyst; but he struck in—

“Ah, wait, you will not be angry with me soon. But it’s time all that was over. Now we have met again, mayn’t we have one of our old discussions about the value of life, and the good things of life? What is the next thing for you now? Are you going to learn Greek, or hospital nursing, or what?”

“I shall learn Greek,” said Amethyst. “I mean to use my brains.”

“And when the Greek is learnt?”

“Then I’ll teach it.”

He smiled, and suddenly changing the conversation entirely, began to talk about a new play.

Amethyst felt a little angry with him, but she was no longer dull, and she wondered much what he would do next.

Restharrow was a house where every one did as they liked, and, in the evening, the large party scattered about among the different rooms. Mr Carisbrooke came up to Amethyst, and said, “Come with me;” and, quite careless as to whether they were noticed or not, he led the way into a little morning-room and shut the door.

Amethyst felt bewildered. The room was full of firelight and red-shaded lamp-light, and Oliver Carisbrooke stood in the warm glow with his deep-set, peculiar eyes fixed full upon her.

“Amethyst,” he said, “commonplace and conventional doings are not for you. I am playing a bold game, and I think—I think—I shall win it. I’m not going to pretend that I am what you call a good man, there are plenty to tell you the contrary; but I am going to tell you that, after all I have known and done, I love you passionately. Even you cannot give me a first love. What do I care? You shall love me now. I defy any one to say that I have let trifles stop me when my heart is set on a purpose. Are you thinking of your half-sister? She was too weak a creature to venture anything for my sake. But after I saw you, I said, Here is my fate. So I managed for my niece to join you, and I set to work on a plan. I caught your attention with talk that surprised you. No other man ever dreamed of such love for you. I soon saw that there was no chance, but by one bold stroke to tell you so. You can understand me. You know that we can give each other life.”

“I—I don’t think I am in love with you,” stammered Amethyst in a broken, childish voice, and with eyes fixed, as if fascinated, on his face.

“No, darling, but you shall be. Besides, you have not yet heard what I ask of you. I don’t imagine that your father would let you marry me now. I tell you plainly, I cannot marry—in a short time I shall have the means to do so. You know I have been abroad settling my affairs, and when I got back I was resolved that I would not wait a moment before letting you know that all there is of me is yours. Others may shrink from your father and brother’s reputation. I care for it so little that I am not afraid to allude to it in your presence. Tell me that I don’t love you in vain, tell me—Ah, you think I am mad, that I am too bold. Is that possible?”

“I cannot—answer—in a minute,” said Amethyst. “I never thought you were more than a friend.”

“But I was a friend?” he said, taking her hand and coming closer. “And I want to teach you what a friend can be. You need not promise, there is nothing to tell the world about at present. But we will be friends; we understand each other, we can talk and write—as friends. You can throw me over if you like, by and by. But I have laid my heart open to you, and I think—I think you have felt that the world is a dull place with no love in it.”

“Oh, it is!” burst from Amethyst’s lips. “My life is very dreary.”

“Your life dreary. Never any more, my darling; we will make each other’s happiness now.”

“Amethyst!”

The door was pushed open, and Una came quickly into the room. She went right up to her sister, and stood by her side.

“I had lost you,” she said anxiously.

Amethyst caught hold of her hand, while Mr Carisbrooke turned upon her with a sort of fury.

“Your sister is with me,” he said.

“Mr Carisbrooke,” said Amethyst, “I cannot say a word now. You cannot take me prisoner all in a minute;” and, still holding Una’s hand, she darted back to the protection of the rest of the company.

“He is a bad man, Amethyst,” said Una passionately, when they were up-stairs alone. “He led Blanche, heaven knows where; and he sacrificed Carrie to Charles to get near to you. And you know the tales we heard of him were true.”

“Yes, he says so,” said Amethyst.

“You don’t love him? You don’t want to marry him? You have never thought of him all this time?”

But Amethyst tossed about all night in restless excitement. Love, in a complex nature, is a complex thing, and though she was not quite in love with Oliver Carisbrooke, he had truly said that he could teach her to be so. She was fascinated by him, and, when she remembered how nearly she had sacrificed her life to worldly ambition, it is impossible to exaggerate the attraction which this heat of daring passion, this indifference to consequences, had for her.

Once again a strong appeal had been made to her to change her course of life. Sylvester had appealed to her sense of right, in utter self-forgetfulness, and had won the day. He had given her conscience strength. She heard his voice now—“I would rather see you die than do it.”

This man appealed to sensation, emotion, passion, to every force within her that makes life or mars it, to that intensifying of the feelings which she had hoped Lucian might bring back to her, and which the sight of him had left cold and dead. But did she respond to the appeal? What was the feeling that drew her to him, that made her long to grant at least “the friendship” he asked for?

Suddenly back into her mind there came a day at Cleverley, and a speech of her mother’s, the full meaning of which she did not then understand. Lady Haredale was reading a letter from Tony.

“You know, darling,” she had said in her sweet voice, “he is devoted to me, poor fellow; and it does give an interest in life to feel one’s self so necessary. It’s quite a woman’s vocation.”

“It’s the same thing,” cried Amethyst to herself, starting up in bed. “I want an interest in life! I am like her!” and she shuddered from head to foot. Poor child, who feared to be like her mother!

Her clear brain came to her aid once more. It was no true love with which Oliver Carisbrooke inspired her. She wanted an interest in life, and it was in her nature to find it as her mother—and her sister—had done before her. She was clever enough to know it, noble enough to despise herself for it; but she was Lady Haredale’s daughter, and she felt it. Would she have strength to resist it?

“Well,” she thought, “I had better die than do it.”

When Una came in the next morning, full of misgivings, Amethyst was up and dressed, and held a note in her hand. The window was flung open, and the fresh cold air was blowing in. She was pale, as if she had cried all night. She showed Una the note.

“No—never. “Amethyst Haredale.”

“Now, give that to the servant for him,” she said, “and never, never speak to me about it again. I fight awfully hard. Some day I shall be beaten.”

Amethyst had no rejoicing sense of freedom in escaping from this second snare. The straight path was cold and dull, and there were pitfalls on either side. To avoid being like Lady Haredale was not quite what Mr Riddell had meant by a “great inspiration.” She did not feel in the least the better for the victory she had won.

She sat down and put up her hands over her tired eyes, on which Oliver Carisbrooke’s passionate face had seemed to print itself. She was too tired to think; but his words echoed in her ears—

“The young poet’s was only a dream-love, not substantial enough for you.”

Amethyst dropped her hands and started up.

“Oh, I am sick of lovers,” she said angrily. “None of them are any good.”

The sun broke out through the mist of the autumn morning, the bells from the church in the village rang a merry chime through the open window. Amethyst turned her back on the smiling prospect. The morning bells had no message of hope for her.

Chapter Thirty Three.

Twisting the Threads of Fate.

The weeks that followed Lucian’s accident had been a time of severe trial to Sylvester Riddell. All the responsibility rested on his shoulders of deciding whether they should go ashore at Kirkwall, or get on to Edinburgh in the yacht, on which latter course Sylvester, finding that the Kirkwall doctor authorised it, and could accompany them, had finally fixed. He had to telegraph to Mrs Leigh, who was still in Switzerland, to come to Edinburgh, and when he did so he had scarcely any hope that she would find her son alive. He knew nothing of illness, was not a person of ready practical resource, and was far too sensitive not to feel the sight of such suffering to be a terrible strain upon him. Imaginative and sympathetic, he felt all the horror of the sudden striking down of the strong young life, and to be calm and cheerful was almost beyond his power. Lucian was far too ill to fret about himself or his future; when he was conscious, relief from pain was all he could desire, and the first time he showed much sense of the situation was when he knew Mrs Leigh was coming.

“Oh, Syl!—the mother!” he said, looking up with wistful eyes, “try to help her.”

There was very little help or comfort to be given. Sylvester knew that the worth of life would be as much crushed out for Mrs Leigh by Lucian’s death, or hopeless illness, as for the poor young fellow himself. She was a good woman, and a brave one, but heavy trial was new to her, and her misery took the line of trying every expedient, getting every opinion, wondering constantly whether anything else could have been done at first, and perhaps, spite of herself, her state of mind became apparent to Lucian, for he tried to say something of “Syl being so clever, and always knowing what to do,”—an opinion perhaps hardly shared by the trained nurses, but which went to Syl’s heart. Mrs Leigh, however, to say nothing of Lucian, would have been so much more forlorn without him, that he could not possibly leave them alone; he remained with them in Edinburgh, and, when his old playfellow’s vigorous youth enabled him to rally up to a certain point, he arranged for the difficult journey south, and escorted them back to London. Here he was obliged to leave them, to return to his duties at Oxford, taking a few days’ much-needed rest at home by the way.

He had had no time to think of himself, though there was much in his life which required consideration; he felt how severe the strain upon him had been, when he found himself once more in the dear old home, with his father’s loving eyes scanning his face, and noting the traces on it of anxiety and fatigue.

There was Amethyst and his chance of winning her. She had never been out of his thoughts, but it went against every generous instinct to seek her the moment that he left her old lover’s side, when poor Lucian’s long heart-ache had been betrayed in every unconscious murmur of the beloved name. The unselfish good wishes which had been meant to set him free from all such scruples only intensified them. And yet he had said too much to say no more, and, without his father’s concurrence, he was hardly in a position to say anything.

He murmured an inquiry as to where she was, and if his aunt ever heard from her, and soon had told his father all there was to tell.

Mr Riddell sighed, and shook his head. He had guessed it all before, and he did not quite see his way through it.

“My dear boy,” he said, “whatever I can do to forward your happiness you may regard as done. What else can I wish for? But, if you’ll take advice, give her a little time. She isn’t thinking of you just now, Syl. She needs to be left a little to herself, to find herself out. She knows how you have been occupied, and I am sure she is ready for no sudden definite appeal from you, which is all that is at present in your power. We will not lose sight of her for you.”

Sylvester acquiesced, yet utter silence was impossible to him. He could ask nothing from her just then, but he must let her know that he continued to give her all himself. He wrote some verses, veiled under the familiar disguise of Amelot to Iris, and sent them, unsigned and undated, to the address which he soon caused his aunt to give him. But it was a little like posting them to the rainbow’s end.

If he could not woo her, he might make himself worthy of her. When he went back to Oxford, he took up his work there with the determination to make it more real. He would in no way stand aside from the struggle of life to which he had urged her. The outward changes in his life were slight, but, nevertheless, it was pervaded by a new and more earnest spirit. The lads who had come to his help in his extremity were no longer strangers to him, and men began to say that Riddell would gain influence in the place.

Mrs Leigh had written encouraging accounts of Lucian. The London doctors had recommended the winter abroad as the best cure for the injured lungs, and had not forbidden a hope that the serious internal injuries resulting from the strain might be surmounted by Lucian’s hitherto unbroken health and strength. At least, so the mother interpreted their verdict, and it was decided that they were to go by sea to the Mediterranean, and finally to settle at Bordighera, a place Mrs Leigh knew and liked, and where she hoped Sylvester would join them at Christmas, and find his friend much nearer recovery than when they parted.

Sylvester hoped that so it might be, and made all necessary arrangements for spending part of his winter vacation abroad, all the more willingly, because he knew that the Haredales were somewhere among the towns of the Riviera. So it came to pass that one day, just after Christmas, Lucian lay on a couch under the verandah of one of the prettiest villas of Bordighera, wrapped up and propped with pillows, and listened, with a half-smile, to his mother’s assurances to the newly-arrived Sylvester, of how much good the climate was doing him, and how much better he was than he had been in London.

“Let Syl stay and talk to me, mother,” he said, “and you go and get your drive; he’ll take care of me. Perhaps we’ll go by and by for a drive in the pony carriage. Then I can show him the place.”

“Very well,” said Mrs Leigh, “that will be very nice for you. But it is good for him to walk a little too, Sylvester. He has been longing for you to come, to show you how much better he can do so.”

There were anxious lines on her smooth handsome face, which contradicted her cheerful words, as she went away after a little bustle of arrangements, and left the two young men alone together.

“Well, dear boy,” said Sylvester, turning to his friend, “and how is it? Do you like this lovely place?”

“Yes,” said Lucian, “the soft air is comfortable, and I can talk better than in the autumn, I have more breath.”

Sylvester felt as if he had never realised before what the change had been, as he listened to the gentle languid voice, and noticed how the handsome face had lost all its sturdy impassiveness, and had fined away into a sort of ethereal beauty, while nobody could accuse the clear grey eyes now of want of expression. Sylvester hardly knew how to meet their gaze, but it prepared him for the next words.

“You won’t mind my talking to you, Syl. You know I’m not really any better.”

“No?” said Sylvester, with difficulty.

“No. You see I was so strong and healthy, I took a great deal of killing. But I dare say the doctors always told you that there was fatal mischief done by the strain, and there’s not a bit inside me but what’s all wrong. I had to know the probabilities before I left England, you see, to get my affairs settled.”

“It is hard to believe,” said Sylvester.

“Yes, I suppose I should mind more: but I’m so tired out with pain that any sort of rest seems welcome.”

Lucian was as straightforward and to the point as ever, and, as his friend did not at once answer, he said—

“I thought you knew it—and it’s a comfort to speak out. You see how the mother takes it, and poor old Jackson (he’s out here with two of his sisters, you know), he thinks he ought to cheer me up.”

“Dear Lucy,” said Sylvester, “talk just as you like, and when you like; I’m too glad to help you.”

“Could you make the mother understand by degrees? It’s very bad for her. You see James Leigh is only a distant cousin, and he must have Toppings. She thought so much of my living here, I wish she’d give me up.”

“I’ll try,” said Sylvester; “but she will come to it in her own time.”

“Your father could help her. Syl, do you think he could come out here by and by? He would make it much easier for my mother, and I should like to do all that’s right, and prepare myself as much as possible.”

“I am sure he will come, if you wish it.”

“And then—Amethyst. The Jacksons know her and Una, they met them in the autumn. But I shall never see her again. Wasn’t it odd that we talked of her that last day in Orkney? Ask her to forgive me for being such a fool. Give her my love. I wish I could have taken care of her. I wish I could know she was happy.”

“I will tell her everything. Don’t talk too much now, dear boy, there’ll be plenty of chances.”

“I don’t know. You see, sometimes, speaking hurts me so badly; but I’ve thought it all over, in and out. You know, Syl, if I’d been in the army, and got killed out in Egypt or anywhere, you would have thought nothing of it, though I am young. And we’re bound to believe that it’s all right, and God’s will, as it is.”

“Lucy,” said Sylvester, “there’s one thing you must let me say. I know you gave your life for mine, quite as much as if we’d been under fire, and you had waited to help me out.”

“Oh no, I didn’t,” said Lucian. “I let go because I thought there was no good in killing two people instead of one. I was done for before that. What! the pony carriage come round? Let me rest for five minutes, Syl, and then we’ll go.” Lucian was helped into the pony carriage, and Sylvester sat beside him, and drove along a lovely sunny road with a wide view of the blue sparkling sea. They did not talk much more, only Lucian made his companion notice each point of interest, and very observant eyes he had for bird or flower, picturesque costume, or strangely-shaped boat dancing on the water—the traveller’s keen eyes for the characteristics of a new country.

Suddenly the keen eyes fixed themselves, and he started half upright, and laid a detaining hand on the reins.

“There she is!” he said, breathlessly.

Sylvester saw a tall young lady, in a grey dress, coming along the road towards them; but his sight was shorter than Lucian’s, and only a lover’s instant insight made him say—“Amethyst? Impossible!”

“No—they are somewhere in these parts. Stop, Syl! She is coming.”

Sylvester pulled up short, sprang out, and went to meet her.

“Miss Haredale,” he said, desperately, “Lucian is here. He has seen you; will you come and speak to him?”

“Here!” ejaculated Amethyst. “Oh yes—if he wishes it. I hope he is better?”

She came up to the side of the carriage, and Lucian raised himself, and looked up in her face.

Alas, she needed no answer to her question; her colour fled, her eyes brimmed with tears, nothing that she had heard had prepared her for the truth.

“We have been enjoying our drive,” said Sylvester nervously, “but I must not let him stay out till it gets chilly. Have you been here long, Miss Haredale?”

“Only since yesterday. We are at Hôtel—”

She faltered; and Lucian said, with something of his old abruptness,—

“Never mind me. I am sorry I look so bad, it frightens you. But people soon get used to it.”

“I was taken by surprise,” said Amethyst, with a great struggle for composure. “I hope you will soon look better.”

“My mother will call on Lady Haredale,” said Lucian punctiliously, but with wistful eyes.

Amethyst gave him her hand, as Sylvester made a decided movement, but, as he held it close for a moment, the contrast with the well-remembered grasp of his strong brown fingers broke her down completely, and she hurried away, half-blinded with tears. Lucian did not speak another word till the drive was over and he was back again on his couch. Then he whispered—

“Syl!”

“Yes—what is it?”

“Won’t she come sometimes and let me see her? Tell her how it is with me. I should like it, so much. Just to look at her!”

“I will tell her, and I am sure she will come. Rest now, and I will go and find her,” said Sylvester, gently.

“Yes, that’s what I want. Tell her how the Jackson girls come to tea, and many people. And the mother will call. But you tell her the truth.”

“Yes.”

“Just a few times more,” said Lucian, as he watched his messenger go.

Sylvester went with hurried steps, urged as much by his own feelings as by Lucian’s words. He made his way down into the sunny road where he had left Amethyst, and soon overtook her walking fast along it, with little heed to the beauty of sea or sky.

“I am grieved to have given you such a shock,” he said, “but I was obliged to think first of him.”

“Oh, I knew he was ill, but he looks as if he was dying!” broke out Amethyst, with a husky voice.

“Yes,” said Sylvester, “that is the sad truth. Life is all over for him, he cannot recover. He wishes you to know it. But, if you will, come sometimes to Casa Remi, as others do, and let him see you. It will give him pleasure. Mrs Leigh thinks society good for him. If he could see the old friendliness restored, he would not fret so much over his past want of insight.”

“I thought that he believed himself to have been perfectly right.”

“Ah, he has learned many lessons—in a hard school, poor boy! But you will give him this great pleasure—for a little while?”

“If Mrs Leigh wishes—it is for her to decide,” said Amethyst, still a little stiffly; then with a sudden break down—“Oh, how he is altered!”

“Yes, indeed.”

Sylvester was pale, he turned his troubled eyes upon her.

“It is impossible, just now,” he said, “to think of ourselves—of oneself I mean, of anything but of him.”

“I will do just what you think is best for him,” said Amethyst. “Tell him I will come. You understand?” She put her hand into Sylvester’s, and he held it in his own.

“I understand,” he said.

Their eyes met as they parted. She looked very unhappy; but Sylvester’s heart bounded as he felt that once again she yielded to his influence, and she forgot that she had ever dreaded meeting him again, and had been half angry when his verses reached her.

Chapter Thirty Four.

All these things have ceased to be with my Desire of Life.

Mrs Leigh obeyed her son’s wish, and made the amende with all the gracious tact that could possibly be shown in dealing with so difficult a situation. It suited Lady Haredale much better to ignore the past than to keep up any kind of coldness. The Jacksons were a connecting link, with their eager seeking of Amethyst and Una; Lucian’s two young sisters were glad to resume friendly relations with Kattern and Tory, who had but newly joined their mother, with Miss Haredale and Carrie Carisbrooke.

It was a fortunate moment. Lord Haredale was away at Monte Carlo, and his wife, who, with what Una called “my lady’s dreadful capacity for enjoying herself,” had found friends of every sort on their travels, lost in some marvellous way the nameless look, shabby, “shady” (only some slang word could quite describe it), which had just a little tarnished her graceful ladyhood, when there were only shabby, shady people with whom to associate, and fitted at once into her old circle. Other residents and visitors called upon her, so that a time of cheerfulness and gaiety set in for all the young people, who met every day, and made expeditions together, which often began and ended in Mrs Leigh’s garden at Casa Remi. Amethyst came with the rest. If she had been deaf to Sylvester’s appeal, she could hardly have resisted the half-acknowledged misery in Mrs Leigh’s face. She was kind and gentle to Lucian, and her manner never betrayed under-currents of feeling; but the dreary months of dissatisfaction with herself and with her lot in life had stolen away her bloom, and she looked unhappy and weary.

Lucian could not talk to her much. As he had said, he lay and looked at her; but how life and death seemed to him, when she was in his sight, it was hard to tell. Sylvester sometimes feared that the pleasure, which he had so much desired, had been dearly bought. Surely that restraint must be hard for Lucian, which was so great a strain upon himself, but the wonder how it was with her, the fear that all was not well with her, the pity for the dying lover, and the passion that beat in his own heart, were almost more than he could bear.

“Syl,” said Lucian one day, after one of these gatherings, about three weeks after Amethyst’s first visit, “Syl, Amethyst isn’t happy.”

“No,” said Sylvester, a little startled, “I fear not; her life has many hardships.”

“I want to speak to her alone,” said Lucian, “our parting has always stung her. It’s bad for her to look back on; I think I can make it better. You’ll manage it, won’t you?”

“If it’s not too much for you, I will try.”

“I’ve got it to do,” said Lucian. “Get her to come by herself; I know what I want to say.”

“Well,” said Sylvester, “I’ll try—when you are feeling strong enough.”

“To-morrow then.” He paused a moment and looked at Sylvester, and then said distinctly—“She is not the least bit in love with me now, you know, Syl.”

“Oh, my dear boy,” said Sylvester, hurriedly, “all this is very bad for you. Even for her sake, I can’t bear to have you distress yourself. It is so hard for you.”

“Why, Syl, I don’t feel enough like living, to mind as much as you suppose. Of course sometimes,”—he paused again, then smiled a little—“I know better than she does now, about a good many things.—Oh, I’m bad to-day! Lift me, Syl. A change makes it easier.”

Sylvester did what he could to mitigate the attack of pain which followed, glad that Lucian did not try to hide it from him, as he too often did from his mother.

He did not see how to manage the interview without Mrs Leigh’s co-operation, and decided to tell her of Lucian’s wish. She gave him a look which went to his heart; for in it was the acknowledgment of all which she could not bring her tongue to utter.

“I leave it to you,” she said, “he must have his own way now.”

Sylvester went straight to Amethyst and asked her to come at a given time, and to let Lucian say to her whatever he would. She looked at him for a moment, and he could see that she shrank from such a meeting, but she only said—

“I will come.”

“Thank you,” said Sylvester; “he has set his heart on it.”

She looked, as she stood silent, as if with another word her self-control would break down into passionate grief, but the moment passed, and she recovered her usual manner, as she repeated her promise to come to-morrow morning. Her troubled look dwelt in Sylvester’s mind. Had the old love woke again in tender pity, and were they breaking her heart once more with this recall of the past? But this time Sylvester did not understand her, and tormented himself in vain.

She came on the next day, punctual to the moment, very grave and quiet, and perfectly calm.

Lucian had been resting all the morning, and now lay on his couch under the verandah, while Mrs Leigh greeted Amethyst, and set a chair for her close by, within easy reach of his eyes and voice, then with hardly a word she left them.

“Amethyst,” said Lucian, “you know I’m going to die, and you, I suppose, will have a long life. I want to take the pain out of your thoughts of me, so that when you think of those days when we were engaged to each other, it may be pleasant to you, as if we’d had a good time when we were children.”

Amethyst looked at him, but she could not speak.

“I never ought to have lost patience with a girl like you, and I ought to have known you better. But I was too young and stupid, it was a dreadful thing to me when I knew I had wronged you—had been so wrong—and couldn’t make up for it. And when I saw you again, I knew I had never thought enough of you, though I loved you so much.”