Frances Peard (continued 3)

“Your face isn’t unlike Sandro’s favourite type, Phillis,” he said, looking at her critically.

She coloured slightly as she smiled.

“Except for the far-away look, this Fortitude hardly seems to me to be one of that type.”

“You have that far-away look occasionally: you sometimes meet me with it. What are you thinking about?—our future?”

“Of the future, perhaps.”

“Ours, then.”

Phillis was silent. The Fortitude seemed to gaze at her with sympathetic eyes. Jack went on gravely and a little awkwardly.

“It is time we settled something, don’t you think so?”

“Yes,” she said in a very low voice.

“My aunt is exceedingly anxious that we should not delay on account of her illness, and I don’t see that we need. We are both resolved that our wedding shall be as quiet and simple as possible, and really it will be a relief to her mind rather than an anxiety. Therefore, dear, only one thing remains—to fix the day.”

He did not look at Phillis as he spoke, and two people who glanced into the room thought the pair were a brother and sister bent on enjoying pictures which nobody in his senses could admire. Phillis said after a momentary pause—

“I am afraid that is not all.”

“Trousseau, and that sort of thing? But surely it can wait for England?”

“Something of more consequence,” and he noticed a tremor in her voice. “Jack,” she went on, “you and I have always been good friends. I hope that will go on; I don’t think I could bear to believe that anything could come between us in that. But for the other matter, dear, it has been a mistake, and I thank God that there is yet time to set it right. We are good friends always, remember, but we can be nothing more. I was wrong to consent, and my uncle was wrong to press it, as I think now he did; but he did it for the best, and, as I said, it can be set right.”

“Phillis!”

She put up her hand.

“Hush! Spare me any reproaches or entreaties, Jack. If I have done wrong, I will take all the blame, and do my best to set matters right I hesitated for a time because I thought of Hetherton, but I feel almost sure that if I write to my aunt and explain how this is entirely my own doing, Mr Thornton’s sense of justice will prevail, and that you will not suffer. But even should it be otherwise, we dare not make that the first consideration, dare we? I am certain that would be your decision.”

“About Hetherton, yes,” said Ibbetson, rising and standing by her chair with much agitation. “But I don’t understand you, Phillis! Have you changed or I? What have I done to bring you to such a conclusion? You can’t be thinking of all that your words imply. Are you offended with me?”

Her eyes, clear and steadfast, answered him, though her voice was shaken.

“Not offended. Offence could hardly dome between us. But don’t you see, we should not be happy together, we could not marry.”

“You could not be happy with me. That is what I must understand you to mean,” he said with some bitterness. “And I don’t know what I have done that you should change your opinion, if, indeed, you ever loved me.”

If she ever loved him! What but love, tender and true, could have nerved her to the anguish of this moment, of all the moments that were coming! Not love him! She sighed, she had not thought her task would be so hard.

“We all make mistakes at times,” she said, without answering his reproach, which, indeed, pricked his own conscience as he uttered it. “Let us be thankful, Jack, that this isn’t irreparable.”

“But why—why will you have it to be a mistake?” he asked doggedly.

“I leave that to you to answer,” she said gravely, and he suddenly felt in her a womanly dignity of which he had not before been conscious. “I don’t myself think that any good is to be gained by entering into explanations. You know in your heart that what I say is best for us both.”

“I know nothing of the sort,” he exclaimed; and indeed at this moment he would not acknowledge to himself that it was best. He had not wished to hurry on their marriage, but that was a different matter from giving up Phillis. And he could not help feeling that it was possible she might carry out her determination. But yesterday he would have smiled at the idea that he could not influence her in any direction he pleased. He had never understood her, and shyness had seemed to him such a marked feature in her character, that he had looked upon her as one who would be always willing to follow where others led, without attempting to exercise an independent judgment. In her words to-day, still more perhaps in her manner, there was a quiet resolution which for ever upset these preconceived ideas. This was no shy unformed girl, but a woman strong in her self-respect and self-control. “Phillis,” he said, and there was greater warmth in his tone than he had ever shown her before, “for pity’s sake don’t let a vague fancy separate us. If you say nothing definite, how can I defend myself?”

He half expected her to answer that she did not accuse him; but she did not, although she seemed to ponder over his words.

“It is not a vague fancy,” she said presently, and she spoke very quietly and sadly; “it is a conviction, which you will by-and-by acknowledge yourself.”

“But—it is impossible—you don’t really mean that it is all over between us? What reason can we give the Leytons—my uncle?”

“I will explain to both.”

He walked away from her to the other side of the room, standing staring at a picture of Signorelli’s without seeing it. She sat where he had left her, feeling as if she could not move, as if her own hands had wrecked her peace, as if for the moment she would give all she had to undo what she had done. And it was not over yet, though her strength failed as he left her side. He came back quickly.

“Have you really considered the bearings of the case? Hetherton, for instance?”

“I am very sorry for you,” she said faintly. “How sorry I cannot say. But there is no one nearer. I think Mr Thornton must retract his words when he hears that this has been my doing.”

“But what will be your own position?” Jack said with a certain effort.

She looked at him in bewilderment for a minute; then, as his meaning flashed on her, started to her feet. The tears sprang into her eyes, her voice trembled, but all her strength had come back.

“I have not deserved that,” she said vehemently. No, indeed. In this great crash of hope of happiness which she had brought about, Hetherton might go without so much as a thought. It was a hundred times more to Ibbetson, who salved the soreness of his independence with the idea that he was indifferent, but who could scarcely enter into the trouble, his words had caused her. Had he, then, thought so meanly of her as to suppose that Hetherton had weighed? Oh, well that she had spoken, at whatever cost of pain! She began to walk away quickly through the rooms, and he, who had been startled out of another misconception, followed, feeling himself awkwardly placed as he did so. He kept close behind, but did not join her until they were near the bottom of the great staircase, and then she had recovered her composure, and made some indifferent remark about asking for letters at the post-office opposite. If you wish to change a conversation in Florence, there are plenty of sights and sounds which will effect your purpose. They chose a packet of the little photographs which are spread out under the arcades, turned as usual to look at the flower-like tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, and stared in at the windows of the mosaic workers. When they reached the Old Bridge a soldier’s funeral was crossing it, and the people crowding. The regiment marched, the sun shone out for a moment on flashing steel and on young grave faces; behind came a group of the black and hooded Brothers of Mercy carrying lighted torches. They were all walking quickly, and the Old Bridge formed a strange mediaeval framework to the procession.

Ibbetson and Phillis dreaded silence too much not to make valiant efforts to avoid it all the way home by the Lung’ Arno. It seemed to her that her forces were expended, and he was thinking uneasily of what she had said. His good things had dropped so readily upon him all his life long, that although she did not know it, nothing stimulated him like difficulty, and she had already gained a new value in his eyes, and moved him to a greater appreciation. But he was also annoyed and a little ashamed. Did she really mean that she was rejecting him? When they reached Casa Giulia he paused at the door.

“Phillis,” he said in a low voice, “you said more than you meant just now, didn’t you?”

She might have answered that it had cost her too much to say what she did to allow of her falling into such an error, and the pleading which he put into his voice made this appeal a fresh anguish. But she steadied herself to answer quietly—

“I mean it all. Indeed, it is best.”

“If you will not consent to our marriage taking place as soon as was intended, you don’t at all events wish that everything should be at an end between us?”

“Are things ever at an end in this world?” she said, with a sad little smile. “But I do wish that all should be at an end so far that you—that we should be absolutely free.”

“Am I to go away?” he asked petulantly. It seemed as if in this conversation their usual parts were reversed, and perhaps she read in it a sign that her decision was right. But now she hesitated. For herself she would rather he had gone, but there was Miss Cartwright, there was Bice. She said—

“I don’t see how you can. And as we are always to be friends, there is no need.”

He said no more. He opened the door for her to go in, betook himself to the garden, and was as cross for the rest of the day as it was in his nature to be.

Chapter Eleven.

What a Woman will Do.

In the villa Bice was suffering the dreariness of suspense, for Clive did not answer her letter, into which she had poured a heart full of longing. At first she was positive, in spite of the delay, that it was only a delay and no more. Once she turned sharply upon Oliver.

“You are certain that you posted the letter?”

“I was particularly careful of it, because I knew it was of consequence to you,” he answered, looking full in her face.

“Then of course there is some good reason for our not hearing, and I dare say something will come in a day or two.”

But nothing did come. The days went on, the girl’s heart sank lower and lower in spite of her resolute words. If Clive bore that appeal in silence, things must be bad indeed, and perhaps there was but one way out of them.

Yet she did not yield. Oliver tried all the persuasions he could think of, and could not be sure that he had gained one step. She avoided him when she could, but if he forced her to listen to him, listened coldly, and answered that she must hear from Clive. He began to feel as if the puppets he was playing with were turning to flesh and blood avengers in his hands. She was asking for proof, and if she sought for it much more persistently, what might not start up in its place? He was tormented by jealousies, not only of Jack, who came up once or twice, and seemed moody and out of spirits, but of young Moroni, who made no secret of his devotion. Bice was kinder to him than she had ever been before, and the poor lad, not knowing that she used him as a defence against another, had his head pretty well turned. Oliver was man enough of the world to read her motives, but if he had seen them written in large letters, he would not have felt easy. He hated the young fellow with his smiles, his sudden pathetic melancholies, his sweet Italian, which he could not understand. It seemed to him that they had a hundred interests in common, from each of which he was shut out. Out on the terrace, late at night, Giovanni would sit thrumming his guitar, the girls would sing. Trent had no part to play in it all. Another time he would find Bice and Kitty sitting on the edge of the water tank, Moroni in a fig tree below them, tossing the ripe fruit into their laps, old Andrea, half hidden by leaves, munching away at a little distance. Oliver, when he came up, seemed to have no place or welcome, except perhaps from Kitty. He would ask himself angrily, why he lingered? what fascination there was for him in this proud, wilful girl? Yet, as he asked the question, he knew quite well that one glance of her beautiful eyes was enough to bind him to her side. He felt no remorse at the deception he was practising, or the pain he inflicted; neither pain nor deception seemed to him worth weighing for a moment against his determination to win her. What he did feel was annoyance at having to leave again with his work yet undone. It was necessary that he should return to England, and all his strong will as yet had failed to bind Bice, as he had never doubted she would by this time have been bound.

What then? Before he could return, would John Ibbetson have flung over his love and turned to Beatrice? Would young Moroni have touched the girl’s heart by his foolish youth, his sentimental songs? Would his own crooked dealings about Clive come to light when he was not present to turn the truth into a lie? Trent set his teeth savagely as he thought of these chances which must all be dared, since go he must.

He did his best to provide against them. He threw out hints, which he knew would make their mark upon Bice’s impulsive, generous little soul, of Phillis Grey’s desolate position in the world, and of her love for the man she was to marry. Moroni was an Italian, and when he was not present he did not really fear him. As for Clive, he had a long talk with Bice, in which he avoided pressing his suit, and so managed to reawaken some of her gratitude. Never had he been nearer winning her than he was that day. He was kind, sympathetic, wise. He advised her strongly not again to press upon Clive, or even so much as allude to, her knowledge of his difficulties. If she did it, he asked her to send the letter to him, that he might be aware of her writing and act upon it. But he implored her for the present to leave the matter absolutely in his hands, since interference might make it very difficult for him to act; while left alone, he had the strongest hopes of arranging everything. He led her to suppose that it was for this he was going home; and he very skilfully managed alike to abstain from hinting at any reward, and yet to leave upon her mind an impression that he really considered her to have pledged herself. He let it be fully understood that he should return, if not before they moved to Rome in November, at any rate so as to join them there.

And having taken these precautions, which, to his unquiet spirit, seemed miserably inadequate, he very reluctantly departed.

Bice expected to find his going a great relief. She was disappointed because an immediate lightness of spirit was not the result. What else—when she knew he was going to do his utmost for Clive—should make her listless and languid? Why did all that was going on at the podere seem utterly uninteresting and dry? Giovanni, who used to look daggers at the English signore, came over full of rejoicing that he was got rid of, full of plans and ideas for pleasant festivities; but for all the good that the young fellow got out of his deliverance, Oliver might have stayed on, for Bice could not be roused to any excitement, and indeed scarcely gave him a word in answer, though the simple and honest lad deserved better treatment; and every now and then she hated herself when she saw the pain which gathered in his eyes.

That was a time of which she could never bear to think in later days; and yet, poor child, there was a struggle, a contest going on, of which better people need not have been ashamed. She felt hurt and shamefaced in her own eyes, but she was loyal to the impulse which, had led her to Phillis, to the kiss which had passed between them. Jack’s manner, or an intuitive quickness, or newly-awakened perceptions of her own, somehow made her aware that things were not quite right between them. As for him, he was at that point which sometimes comes in a man’s life, when a very little thing might turn him either way. He was dazzled and attracted by the girl’s rare beauty, piqued by Phillis’s rejection, and yet something made him seem nearer to Phillis than ever he had been before. It is possible that with a little effort Bice might have turned the scale, but she never made it; rather more than once her grave, clear eyes had looked at him with a sort of reproach.

Miss Cartwright was better, though far from strong. She had grown so fond of Phillis that they feared the effect upon her of hearing that the engagement was off; but she listened in silence, scarcely alluding to it after the first, but, if possible, more tender than ever both to Phillis and to Jack. It pained her so greatly when Miss Preston said some sharp words about Jack’s conduct, that her friend was startled into silence; and as she clung to Phillis, and needed her kind and patient nursing, it fell out that Phillis was at the house as much as ever, and, to all outward seeming, things went on just as they had gone before.

If this caused a great strain upon the girl, no one was likely to notice it. Mrs Leyton had found pleasant friends in Florence, and though very good-natured in all she said to Phillis on the matter of her engagement, was equally taken up with fifty other things, and content to let all the fifty and one go their own way so long as they did not clash with her comfort. Phillis herself had never been taught to consider her own feelings as paramount, or she might have been tempted to fly. As it was, she looked forward to Rome with eagerness as a place of escape, and then heard to her dismay that the doctor had pronounced Florence too cold for Miss Cartwright to remain the winter, and that she was to follow them to Rome as soon as she could bear the journey. Surely Jack at least would return to England! But this he had evidently no intention of doing.

Mr Thornton’s letters took the line of disbelief. He ignored the fact that the engagement was broken, advising them to get over their small misunderstandings as quickly as possible, if they wished their friends to credit them with any grains of good sense. There was a kind of rough and ready philosophy about his letters under which Jack winced, while he did his best to keep Phillis from reading them. Jack was greatly interested in Phillis at this time, although he was hurt and annoyed with her. The fact was, she was so kind and unassuming that it was generally taken for granted that she would never fail at a pinch, and Mr Thornton’s indignation at the letters she had written to her aunt was as great as if his quietest horse had kicked him over. “She object! She be the one to give herself airs! Don’t let me hear any more of this nonsense, Harriet! Write and tell her to hold her tongue and be thankful.” And, indeed, although it was not acknowledged so roughly even to himself, Ibbetson, too, could not quite get over his wonder. The young fellow was not conceited enough to believe that any girl in the world would have him, but Phillis—to whom he had been accustomed all his life—he was unprepared to hear her say that they would not be happy together! She had grown to have a more separate existence since that assertion than she ever had in his eyes before. He was not sorry to be at liberty, but he was certainly annoyed that she should also have desired to claim her own.

The Leytons were to go slowly to Rome, by Perugia and Assisi, but early November arrived before they started, and two or three days before setting off, Phillis surprised them by asking Miss Preston to drive with her to Villa Carlina. She wanted to wish them good-bye, she said, and though some one suggested they would soon meet at Rome, she persisted.

“And may I not come, too?” said Jack, when he put them into the carriage.

“Not to-day,” Phillis said, smiling; “we are going for a gossip, and you would be very much in the way. But Cartouche is breaking his heart for a hunt among the canes, and that is the best thing that you and he can do this afternoon.”

“A dog, indeed!” he said, turning away with some pretended indignation.

And then they began to make their way up towards the villa. It was a grey and windy day, and every now and then the wind blew a misty rain full in their faces, and turned all the grey olive trees into a shivering whiteness of underleaf. The vineyards were stripped and bare. A poor little kid, which had lost its mother, leapt on a bit of desolate rock and bleated piteously. Miss Preston blamed the climate of Italy, as if England were unacquainted with rain or mist. A great deal of rain had fallen, so that the road between the white walls as they climbed higher up was washed as if by a torrent, and a number of loose stones had been brought down. Before they quite reached the gate of the villa, they came upon a little crowd, in the midst of which stood Bice, pouring indignant reproaches upon the driver of an ox-cart and upon two or three men and boys who stood by looking ashamed and downcast. One of the poor oxen had fallen, and instead of unfastening the cart and relieving the creature of the yoke which pressed it to the ground, they had set to work to belabour it about its head, using oaths and curses plentifully at the same time. Unluckily for them, the young padrona was within hearing, and as it was well-known among the contadini that nothing made her so angry as ill-usage of the animals, there was great dismay in their hearts.

“Cara signorina!” one of them began humbly, but she stopped him at once with flashing eyes.

“I go to the podere myself this very day, and see that you do no more work there,” she exclaimed vehemently. “You can go back at once, for little ’Tista shall take these poor beasts. If you have no shame as men for your cruelty, at least you shall find another farm for yourselves.”

Phillis could almost have smiled at the abashed looks of the men before the young indignant princess, whose sway no one seemed to dispute. The girl herself showed no discomposure at being found in this character. She gave her orders to ’Tista, directed that time should be given to the trembling creature to recover itself, and then, still pale with anger, came towards the carriage.

“When they are cruel like that, I hate the Italians,” she said, without any other explanation, as she put out her hand.

“There should be a society formed,” Miss Preston suggested eagerly. “Let me put down your names, and I will see about it to-morrow. A society for the protection of animals—the idea is admirable.”

“Oh, societies! There may be one for anything I know,” said the girl wearily. “There is no law behind it, that is the drawback. Are you come to spend the day? That is kind of you.”

But Phillis explained it was only an hour they had come to spend. “And when we have seen Mrs Masters, will you let Kitty show Miss Preston the great cellars where you store your wine? she does not feel quite satisfied about the vintage yet.”

It was not difficult for Miss Grey to find some further excuse for getting Bice alone. She had not seen the upper storey of the house, where there were great bare-looking bedrooms and sitting-rooms, a studio, laundries, all sorts of places. The girl’s room had a wonderful carved marble bas-relief over the fireplace, and a charming ceiling, bright and fantastic, but otherwise all the furniture was old and the greater part shabby. Phillis glanced at it with little attention; there was something she wanted to say, and she was not quick at turning a conversation to a desired point. It was Bice who unconsciously led to it. “When we are in Rome,” she had said, and then she looked quickly at Phillis—“But then you will be married?” she said in a low voice.

Phillis thought she was prepared, and yet at the words the colour rushed up to the roots of her hair.

“That is at an end,” she said very hurriedly. “We are not going to marry. It was settled before anyone had thought enough about it, and thinking has made us change our minds. Forget that you ever heard that it was to be.”

How fast her heart beat! How stiffly the syllables seemed to issue from her mouth. And yet she had meant to tell her quietly and calmly, to use quite different words. There was a silence in which the wind drove the loose branch of some creeper against the window, and in which Bice looked at Phillis.

She looked and smiled. Strange to say, at this moment she was the most composed of the two, and Phillis was deeply mortified that it should be so. But all that Bice said was—

“That is a pity. But I don’t suppose I shall be able to forget.”

“It is not a pity if it saves either of us from unhappiness,” said Phillis, with much earnestness.

“Oh, I hope you will never be unhappy. It is so very miserable,” Bice said, dropping her hands with a little gesture of despair.

Her change of expression seemed to put them again into their right positions. Phillis, who had been annoyed at her own agitation and at the incredulous manner of the other girl, felt her pity, her sympathy growing up again as warm as ever. If Bice and Jack loved each other, as was surely the case, then she would not shrink. She smiled in her turn, but looked steadily out of the window.

“There are many sorts of unhappiness,” she said gently. “Some come so quietly that we have time to prepare and almost change their nature. And others are like sharp and sudden storms which seem to sweep us away, but are soon over, and then the skies are as smiling again as ever.”

“They are all hateful, whether they are of one sort or another,” said Bice in the same tone. “I never believed the books which said they were anything else, and I think you have been reading those books.”

“No,” said Phillis firmly, “I don’t believe they are all hateful. And it is something different from books which you and I shall have to teach us that.”

“What?”

“Never mind, you will tell me one of these days. Now shall we go down, and will you order the little carriage?”

As they went out, two or three bronzed men were standing outside the door. Andrea had come up his steps and was haranguing them, but when they saw Beatrice they started forward and poured out a torrent of words. Phillis could not understand the rapid patois, but there were tears in their eyes, and they were evidently imploring, entreating. Bice listened coldly; once or twice she said something at which they redoubled their protestations. When finally she yielded, one of them, the chief spokesman, stepped forward, caught her hand, and kissed it fervently. It was like a scene of another age, Phillis thought, the young girl and the men watching her as if she had been a queen.

“I think perhaps they will behave better to the oxen for a little while,” Bice said, as they went away in delight.

“How much they care for you!”

“They care for the work, too; it is of great consequence in these bad times. But they are very faithful and affectionate, poor fellows!”

Miss Preston shook her head. She told Phillis as she drove home that Bice’s weakness in forgiving the contadini had convinced her that no woman should enter on the prerogative of her rights before the age of thirty years, when it might be considered that her judgment would be matured, and Phillis, who was pale and rather silent, did not attempt to contradict her. Miss Preston having her own views about Jack’s conduct very strongly outlined, glanced at her.

“Nothing can be worse for those two young girls than the sort of undisciplined life they lead, with a mother absolutely without energy or character,” she said decidedly. “If I had remained here I might have been of some service to them, if one ever can be of service to wilful girls. But in these days it is almost hopeless.”

“Bice is most lovable,” said Phillis eagerly. “I don’t think it has spoilt her one bit. Besides, what can be more simple than their life?”

“Oh, simple, I dare say!” Miss Preston said darkly. “You have had very little experience of the world, my dear.”

“I suppose so,” said Phillis smiling. “When people say that, one never knows what to answer. When does the experience come, I wonder; and what makes the world? Is it anything very different from what one lives in every day?”

Miss Preston found it difficult to define, and looked shocked.

“You will know better one day,” she said, falling back on a generality. But Phillis would not be baffled.

“Will it help one to understand, do you think, and not bring new puzzles?” she asked, still smiling. “It seems to me now, as if every experience brought something strange instead of making the old clearer.”

Miss Preston looked at her helplessly, and then put her head out of window.

“I never saw such a climate!” she exclaimed angrily. “Raining when we started, and now quite fine. I am sure I trust we may find more consistent weather in Rome.”

Chapter Twelve.

“One and One, with a Shadowy Third.”

If Florence has not forgotten her past, Rome has kept hers yet more faithfully, or rather has had a mightier one to keep. It is no longer the life of a few centuries back in which you move, Guelf and Ghibelline flaunting their battlements in your face; artist, sculptor, poet, working their lives out for the beautiful and ungrateful city—but an older age. The stones of the Republic are before your eyes, the road of triumph is under your feet. There, in the Forum, the great twin brethren watered their horses after the battle; hard by the martyrs were given to the lions. Look where you will, there is something which, as you recognise it, brings a thrill to your heart, stirs an interest deeper than Florence can excite, and binds you to Rome for ever. No other city in the world resembles her. In Egypt you are taken back yet further; in Athens, memories of scarcely smaller interest cluster round the golden stones; but they have only their past, while Rome is alive, acting, carrying on her history, many-sided; appealing to the present, to the future—stern, grey, sunshiny, brilliant, all at once.

Something of this sort had been said by one of a little party of people who were strolling about the Palatine Hill one December afternoon, and Mrs Leyton opposed it altogether on behalf of Florence.

“As to age, it is merely a comparative matter,” she announced. “I don’t feel very aged myself, but I heard a chit at the table-d’hôte yesterday speak of somebody as ‘quite old, oh, about thirty.’ It all depends upon the point from which you look at it. And I do think it is a shame to run down that beautiful Florence, about which you all pretended to be so enthusiastic when you were there, because some of these old stones of Rome have been set up for a few hundred years longer.”

Jack Ibbetson, who had been reconnoitring, came back.

“Run—hide yourselves—be quick!” he said anxiously. “Miss Preston is coming this way with a victim.”

“It is Phillis who must be hidden then. I believe you and I have taught her to avoid us, but I am getting vexed with Phillis for the patience with which she listens to long archaeological discussions which don’t interest her in the least.”

“But they do,” protested Phillis, laughing. “Nonsense, my dear. It is your amiability and not your intellect which is brought into play. Now I consider amiability on such occasions an absolute wrong to your fellow-creatures—I do, indeed. All isn’t gold that glitters, and even your virtues are not quite such unmixed blessings as I should like to find them. I hope you appreciate the sting of my remark.”

“It is taken out by your charity in crediting virtues which don’t exist. But if only you would listen to poor Miss Preston, you would discover that she has a great deal of really curious information to give you.”

“I like my ignorance a great deal better, thank you. There she goes. I see the last flutter of that steel-grey robe disappearing behind the aloes. Mr Ibbetson, you may come out and talk freely. How does dear Miss Cartwright get on in Rome? Is it true that the Masters came yesterday?”

“I believe so—yes,” said Jack shortly. He felt an odd sort of shrinking from Bice’s name when Phillis was present, and yet Phillis had herself constantly led to the subject. Mrs Leyton, who could not bear displeasing people, and saw he was unwilling to speak, skilfully dropped the topic.

“Then they will join us in some of this sight-seeing, which weighs like lead on my conscience,” she said lightly. “Poor Harry makes a Moloch of his sketching, and I am sure the things which have to be seen are quite as serious for me. When I have done them all, I shall begin to enjoy Rome; but I give notice, good people, not till then.”

Phillis laughed without contradicting her, or asserting a different opinion. Phillis herself, if there were any difference in her, had grown more silent and more reserved in these last few weeks, going about a good deal alone, though never unwilling to join the others in their plans. She and the Leytons were at a hotel; Miss Cartwright had taken apartments in the Via della Croce for the sake of Cartouche, who could not be expected to conform to hotel existence. Jack Ibbetson spent a great deal of his time with the Leytons. Phillis did not know how to escape from this life, which was full at once of sweetness and pain, pain sometimes almost unendurable. She rather sought other friends, and there were a brother and sister at the hotel whom she liked and who often joined them. They had expected the Peningtons to meet them at the Palatine, but they did not come, and by-and-by they all strolled down towards the Coliseum. A carriage overtook them, jolting over the Via Sacra, and somebody called out and waved. It was Bice.

“How pretty Miss Masters looked!” said Mrs Leyton, glancing a little curiously at Jack.

“We shall find them at the Coliseum,” said her husband, and he was right.

If Bice was looking pretty, she was changed, changed even since they had left Florence. Her eyes were bright and large, but they had dark lines under them; the round cheek had lost something of its sweet young curve; a pathetic appeal every now and then touched you in her voice. But she had not lost her decision. It was she who had brought Mrs Masters and Kitty. She was eager, interested, wanting to know everything, only Phillis could answer half her questions. Mrs Masters went back before long and sat in the carriage, the others climbed hither and thither, under the great arches, tier above tier. It is like climbing centuries and ages to mount those great steps, worn by many feet. The sun beats down upon them all, untempered now by the silken awning which used to stretch across the vast expanse. Where the Vestal Virgins sat, delicate plants spring from between the stones, maiden hair waves softly in remembrance. And as you go up, and the great area discloses itself, its greatness, its might, its majesty, its silence, will touch you, if you let them, with an awful power. Rome lies before you, clothed in purple and regal shadows; the Campagna stretches away towards surrounding hills; black cypresses point; all about you the solemn arches frame some picture which belongs to the world’s history; all about you the lights float, golden, rose, flashing into dark corners, and marked out by keen shadows.

Phillis stole away by herself, but she found that Bice soon followed her, and as if she were seeking occasion for saying something. And, indeed, she was too impetuous long to keep back anything she had to say. She caught Phillis’s hand and dragged her to a great block of travertine, where they were out of hearing of the others, and from which they could see. Santa Maria Maggiore glowing in the sunlight, and roofs stretching away into blue distance.

“Sit there,” she said imperatively. “Oh, I have wanted to see you! I am very, very miserable.”

“What has happened?”

People’s sympathy is as different as people are themselves. Phillis’s was very delicate and gentle—it seemed to ask for nothing, and yet to give just what was wanted. Tones and looks had more to do with it than words. Bice lifted her heavy wistful eyes to hers with satisfaction.

“Nothing has happened,” she said, “and that is the worst part of it all, don’t you think? If only one could set up one’s trouble before one, quite distinct and alive, there would be a chance of fighting it, of coming to the end somehow.”

She clenched her little hand as she spoke, and a fire came into her eyes.

“Perhaps,” said Phillis, smiling and looking at the beautiful face, “it is better for most of us that our anxieties don’t take quite such a definite shape. Suppose they should be too strong for us?”

“Then there would be an end that way.”

Phillis changed her tone.

“I don’t think we are wise in wishing troubles to be stronger than they are,” she said gravely. “As it is, I fancy they are as much as we can manage.”

“I don’t mind fighting; it is the waiting,” said Bice with a little perverseness. “Why are women expected to be able to endure? Is it because they have the hardest work and the least credit always?”

“You can tell me something more as to what is making you unhappy,” said Phillis, evading the question. “Has your brother himself written to you?”

“Yes, he has.”

“And are things going on no better?”

“You shall see for yourself,” said the girl with a sudden resolve. And she produced a letter from her pocket. “The first part is nothing,” she said, leaning on her hand and looking over Phillis’s shoulder. “There, begin there.”

“Trent has been awfully useful to me,” the letter said. “I don’t know how ever I should have got through without him. It’s not much use trying to explain, particularly to anyone who doesn’t know the sort of life one has to live here; and I suppose a good lot of fellows buy their experience much in the same way as I’ve bought it, but that doesn’t prevent one’s seeing when one has made a fool of oneself. I expected by this time I should have been able to do something for old Kitty and you all. Better luck soon; I don’t owe any money to a soul except Trent. You’ll be glad to hear he has got it all into his own hands, and, of course, I feel pounds more comfortable. By the way, he says he has done it for you, and that I may tell you so.”

“Well?” said Bice, taking back the letter.

Phillis was considering. The letter was boyish and inexperienced, but there was a tone about it which did not seem to her that of a young fellow who had entered on a course of crime, and her distrust of Oliver Trent had never abated. Yet what could she say? She had no real grounds for her opinion. She could not utter any word of warning which should touch Clive in his security. Yet with this conviction of hers growing in her heart, it would be impossible for a woman of Phillis’s nature not to do something or other by-and-by. She contented herself at present by saying—

“Poor fellow! No doubt he has been imprudent.” Bice started. She had been thinking of herself rather than Clive, and considering the weight of those words which sounded to her almost like a threat. What was it that Oliver had done for her of which he desired her to be reminded?

“Imprudent, yes! Weak and wicked too,” she said impatiently. “He does not care or even remember that others have to suffer besides himself.”

“Perhaps he does not know.”

“Oh, that is impossible. Oliver, at least, would have spoken plainly. And has he not had my letter?” Her voice quivered a little as she went on. “Phillis—I don’t know—I think I could do something dreadful for people if they wanted it, but then it is hard, isn’t it, if they don’t take any notice? Perhaps one shouldn’t care about that, but I do. If Clive would only say straight out, ‘I have done something bad, but I know you’ll not give me up,’ and then if he said ‘God bless you, Bice,’ afterwards, why—one could bear—bear anything.”

“Bice,” said Phillis, looking at her.

“What?”

“You haven’t told me all.”

“Not quite,” she said reluctantly. “I don’t like telling, or even thinking; but you know I am very miserable.”

“Has Mr Trent got you to promise?”

“How could I help it?” she said, drooping her head. “He did so much. It was like a network all round. Even mamma, poor mamma, she is so poor, you know, and he was kind—but I had things, I did manage that.” She had mechanically raised her hand to her throat as she spoke, and Phillis noticed that a slender gold chain which she generally wore was gone, and that she had neither earrings nor any bit of jewellery about her. “I couldn’t do anything for Clive, it was like a horrible nightmare, and what would have become of him but for Oliver? When this last letter came, another came too from Oliver, telling me a great deal. It did not seem worth while to make so much fuss about oneself, and so—I wrote and promised.” The tone in which she said those last words told much, and perhaps Phillis had herself had experience of that state of mind. She bent over and kissed her.

“Oh, my dear,” she said brokenly, “but you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t have done it!”

“It is done,” said the girl, clasping her hands round her knees, and looking out towards the old basilica with its domes. But Phillis saw there were tears in her eyes.

“Write and undo it,” she urged.

“No; I wouldn’t be so ungrateful for worlds. And at any rate it seems as if it would make him happy.” Phillis felt no satisfaction at this prospect. She was full of pity, yet almost angry with this young creature who was throwing away her own happiness, and, alas! other people’s too. Was this to be the end of what Phillis herself had done?—was no good to come out of her own pain? She hushed the cry of her heart almost angrily. “He did not love me, he did not love me,” she said to herself, “and this makes no difference. Only I hoped he would have been happy.”

Perhaps Bice felt that she could bear no more, for she jumped up.

“I have not heard their voices for a long while,” she said. “They can’t have gone without us! Or suppose we find the great iron door at the bottom shut?”

“Oh, there’s a bell. We shall see some one.”

Down on a lower tier they found Jack waiting. He explained that Mrs Leyton and Kitty had driven back with Mrs Masters, Captain Leyton was sketching the Arch of Constantine.

“And I am to see you home, if you’ll allow me. Are you cold? It’s not the most prudent thing in the world to sit about in the Coliseum, with all that water below you.”

“No, it was very foolish,” said Phillis, looking with compunction at Bice’s pale face. “Are you sure you are not chilled? Let us set off at once.”

“But you yourself?” said Jack, in a low voice.

Something in his tone made her flush crimson, and then she hated herself for having done so. “As if I had not already suffered enough for such foolish imaginings!” she thought reproachfully.

It was an odd sort of walk home for all of them, and would have been more uncomfortable but that the things around gave ready subjects for conversation. After the Arch of Titus and the Forum there are dirty, shelving, picturesque streets, noble fronts of old temples half buried in the earth, curiosity shops full of ancient and begrimed lamps of all graceful forms, of which, if you look long enough, you may one day light upon the manufactory. Grey oxen come stumbling along over the slippery lava pavement; very likely a Capuchin monk, brown and dirty, vanishes round a corner; the streets fall away for Adrian’s forum and the great pillar, and close up again until you come to the piazza of the Apostoli. It was there the Capponis lived with whom the Masters were staying. The palazzo was not so large or imposing as its neighbours; such as it was it was too big for its owners’ fortunes, and they let half of it to some English, consoling themselves by preserving a separate entrance and cordially despising their rich tenants. Phillis thought it looked very grey and gloomy as Bice stood for a moment in the entrance, and yet the girl’s loveliness struck them both. Perhaps it was partly the delightful charm of youth, and its contrast with the grim buildings; perhaps it was that the talk with Phillis, or the walk home, had brought a rosy flush into her cheeks, a bright light into her eyes. For the moment she was like the Hebe Jack had discovered on the hillside behind Florence.

But, for all that, he would not have spoken of her to Phillis unless Phillis had begun the subject, having an uneasy consciousness that here lay the key to the mystery of his rejection. The way in which this rejection haunted him astonished himself. He allowed that he had been piqued, but there is little doubt that he fancied the pique would have spent itself, and left him free; instead of which he could not shake off the vexation and the annoyance. As often as not he was angry with Phillis, and, but that he was a gentleman, would have shown it. As it was, he often perplexed her, and such a tête-à-tête as they were having now she avoided simply from the pain it caused herself. She was one of those people who try to do what is right with a brave disregard for the pain which may be a necessary part, but she did not go out of her way to court it. Only to-day she had a purpose, and it must be carried out in the few narrow and crowded streets which lay between them and the Condotti.

“If I were a man,” she said thoughtfully, “I should like to do something for that poor child.”

“A man,” repeated Jack. “Is it man in the abstract, or any particular man who is needed?”

“Well, he must be particular because he must be ready to take some trouble, and when the trouble is taken he must have wits to use its results, otherwise he might be as abstract as you please.”

“Is it this wretched brother who has come to the fore again?”

“I have a theory that he is not so wretched as we take for granted. I dare say he has been foolish.”

“Oh, that’s an epidemic we have all gone through,” said Ibbetson; and Phillis felt suddenly hot, though nothing was further from his thoughts than an allusion to their engagement. She said hurriedly—

“The evidence of anything worse is very vague. That Mr Trent never enters into details, he gives mysterious hints, and impresses them all with an idea of his own great efforts, but that is all.”

“The tone in which you say ‘that Mr Trent’ speaks volumes for your opinion,” said Jack laughing. “But didn’t you tell me she had written?”

“Yes. Still—Mr Trent posted the letter.”

Jack gave a low whistle.

“You are coming it rather strong in your suspicions, Phillis,” he said doubtfully. “What motive could he have? It would take a big one.”

“He wishes to marry her,” said Phillis, looking straight before her.

“But she does not like him?”

Jack put the question with evident eagerness. They had just turned into that open space which the Fountain of Trevi seems to fill with the glad rush of its waters. Clear streams leap from twenty different points; there is a confusion, a harmony, a most invigorating freshness in the silvery flashes. Phillis stood still for a moment, looking at them with her hand on a low wall which the spray had wetted. It seemed to her as if his question meant something quite different, as if he would have said, “Does she not like me a little?”—as if her hand must open the door between two hearts. Alas! but was there not a third which she herself was shutting out? She did not hesitate, but she was conscious of a feeling that it was hard on her that this, too, should be left for her to do. And what of Bice’s last confidence? As she turned and looked at Jack, did he guess what faithfulness, what kindness were shining in those clear brown eyes?

“I am sure she does not like him,” she said. “But I fear—”

“What?”

“I fear that he is using unfair means to bind her to him.”

“But what can be done?” he asked as they walked on again. “Suppose, for instance, that I became the particular man to whom you alluded, what should you do if you were in my place? We have arrived at a complete labyrinth of suppositions, but still—supposing?”

“I should go to England, and trace the matter out.”

“Very direct and decided, Phillis,” said Jack with a smile. Christian names had, of course, been used between them all their lives, and it would have been impossible to break off the custom; but still, as if by common consent, they did not use them more often than was necessary, and it seemed to Phillis as if he need not have brought hers in now, still less lingered slightly upon it. “Well—it’s hard to send me out of Rome, but if the fellow is what you take him to be, there would be a certain pleasure in baffling him, and one could but try.”

“Yes, I think so,” she said quietly. There was no need for her to thank him for what must be a grateful task, and she did not attempt it. Nor would she ask him questions as to his going. Perhaps Ibbetson expected something of one sort or the other, but the bells of Sant’ Andrea began to clash in their brick belfry overhead, and the Peningtons came rushing out of a side street from which they had caught a glimpse of Phillis. Miss Penington was small, plump and bright-eyed; her brother a clergyman of thirty, short-sighted, energetic, and quick in all his movements, with a sweet kind smile. As they all walked together through the Piazza di Spagna by the pretty jewellers’ shops towards the Alemagna, Phillis would have been very much astonished had any one told her that Jack, whose natural disposition was certainly peaceable, felt a far stronger aversion to Mr Penington than to Oliver Trent, against whom he was going to open a campaign.

Chapter Thirteen.

In the Vatican.

As Phillis passed out from the table-d’hôte at the Alemagna that evening, the porter put a note into her hand.

“Get me what information you can,” it said, “address, name of firm, and anything you think useful. And, for pity’s sake don’t let my aunt and Cartouche be completely flattened by that woman in my absence.”

The next morning a note went to the Via della Croce.

“The information is simply wonderful. The firm is ‘Thornton and Hay.’ I do think it is the oddest coincidence!”

For “Thornton,” the senior of the two great ironmasters, was Peter Thornton of Hetherton Court, of whom mention has been made; and, under the circumstances, Phillis’s astonishment was not to be wondered at. Quite a fire of notes passed between the two streets that morning. The next was to this effect:

“Very queer, indeed. If I were you I would say nothing of this to his sister. Where are you going to-day?”

An answer came back.

“To the Vatican with the Peningtons. I send you an order in case you like to bring the Masters—”

Mr Penington was an excellent cicerone. His information was trustworthy, and he had that pleasant way of imparting it which never gives you the impression of mounting a pedestal and declaiming. Phillis thought her afternoon delightful, and it seemed as if he thought the same, for he claimed her interest eagerly. They were in the hall of the Muses standing before the beautiful and stern Thalia, who sits with a garland of ivy leaves on her head, looking out disdainfully at the world’s follies, when Mr Penington touched Phillis.

“The most lovely girl imaginable has just come in,” he said; “you must really get a good view of her.”

It was Bice, of course. She was walking listlessly before her companions, and scarcely troubling herself to glance at the statues; but she brightened at seeing Phillis, and seemed relieved to join her. Phillis would have liked to tell her what errand was taking Jack to England, but she could not venture to do so, and indeed Mr Penington, who had no intention of allowing his companion’s interest to wander, managed to claim her whole attention. No one noticed the indignant glances which Jack threw at him. Phillis would have been the last to conceive that he could be annoyed at another engrossing her, and perhaps he himself would have scarcely allowed that Bice’s beautiful face could have less attraction for him than Phillis’s brown eyes. As it was, he was thoroughly angry at what he liked to think of as Phillis’s fickleness, and by way of retaliation devoted himself with all his might to Bice. It seems sometimes as if the world was made up of cross-purposes, when we see the mistakes, the unintentional wounds that are inflicted. People observe things which never existed, and shut their eyes to what lies plain before them, and long afterwards, perhaps, look back with a sigh at their own work. What should we do, all of us, if we were left with nothing better than to make the best we could of our tangles!

Poor Bice! All sorts of fancies went rushing through her heart that afternoon, as Jack strolled along by her side as he had done in the first days of their acquaintance—passionate longings and regrets, wonder and impatience. How had Phillis and he been separated, how had Oliver and she come together? Why did Jack talk kindly, and ask questions as if he cared? For the girl was not deceived, only troubled, and there was a bitter revolt in her heart against her fate, sometimes a yearning for Jack’s sympathy, sometimes a fierce suspicion that all this time he might have read her secret and despised her. She was not in a mood to look at the white statues, it made her shiver to see them by her side, cold and changeless, and she would not pretend an interest she did not feel. When they came to a great brazier, full of grey or glowing embers, she stretched out her little hands to the warmth, while Ibbetson glanced at her with unmistakable admiration in his eyes.

“When first I knew you, I could not picture you in anything but a white dress,” he said in a leisurely tone.

“Don’t talk of it,” and she shuddered. “If ever one wants warmth and colour it is in a sculpture gallery. I wouldn’t come here in white on the hottest day of the year.” She was looking before her as she spoke with that fixed mechanical gaze with which people look at something they do not really see. Suddenly she started and caught Jack’s arm. “Oh, look, look!” she cried in a terrified undertone.

He could feel her fingers trembling on his arm, and instinctively laid his own hand upon them with a strong firm clasp. The touch brought her to herself, for she withdrew her hand instantly, colouring crimson as she did so, but not removing her eyes from the object which had alarmed her. Ibbetson turned hastily to look where they were fixed.

“What was it? What frightened you?” he asked gently, looking at her again, for nothing that he could see accounted for her evident terror.

She drew a deep breath.

“Who is that man standing with his back towards us on the right?” she said in a quick low voice. “There, do you see?”

“I see, but it’s no one I know. Whom do you take him for?”

“Are you sure you don’t know him? I begin to think now that I was mistaken,” she said with such evident relief that Ibbetson smiled.

“I hope you are not generally so shocked at seeing an acquaintance unexpectedly? Would you like to come a little closer and make sure of the matter?”

“Yes—I think so,” she said with some hesitation. “But not too near.”

“Oh, we’ll beware of the ghost,” said Jack confidently and kindly. He was still feeling the clinging touch of those little fingers on his arm, and there was a warm impulse of kindness towards her stirring in his heart, as well as a little curiosity as to what likeness had so moved her. She stood still before they had gone many yards.

“No, no, it is not,” she said hurriedly, “I see quite well now. It was very foolish of me.”

“Better look in his face and get the idea quite out of your head,” persisted Ibbetson. “Otherwise those sorts of notions are apt to prove uncomfortable.”

She did not resist. They passed the gentleman and saw his full face, but beyond saying that she did not know how she could have been so mistaken, she did not attempt to explain her terror, and no resemblance to Mr Trent struck Jack so as to give him the clue.

Still, real or fancied, the alarm had evidently shaken the girl. She said she would go back to Mrs Masters, who had placed her camp-stool near a brazier, and remained calmly indifferent to the art treasures about her, so long as she could keep warm and avoid fatigue.

“Don’t let me detain you from the others,” Bice said, when they had reached her mother.

“The others don’t want me,” answered Jack in a voice which had some irritation in it. “That fellow Penington is at it, speechifying away like mad.”

“Oh, do you mean he isn’t nice?” asked Bice so innocently that the young man laughed in spite of himself.

“I don’t know that there’s much harm in him,” he allowed, “but I dislike to have guide-book information crammed down my throat second-hand. Never mind them. Do you know that I am going away?”

“No.”

Though she hated herself, she felt the colour leaving her face. And she could not ask when or where.

“But I am. I am off to London.”

“Do you come back here?”

“Well, I hope so, certainly. The only thing likely to stand in the way is a lawsuit in which they sought my services, and I don’t mind confiding to you that the odds are rather against that supposition.”

More than one person had certain fancies of theirs confirmed that afternoon. One went and came like the dull tick of a great clock in Phillis Grey’s brain as she sat in her bedroom late at night. “He—loves—her,—he—loves—her,” was what it said with persistent effort. She had sent him away, and though no one suspected it of her, her heart was sometimes nearly breaking.

Chapter Fourteen.

Fog.

The change from Italy to London in the month of December, of all months in the year, is somewhat gloomy. It struck Ibbetson the more that he was greeted the morning after his arrival by a dense yellow fog, which came down chimneys and into people’s throats in the persistent manner with which we are all familiar, but which is dolefully depressing to foreigners. Jack had somewhat of the feeling of a foreigner himself as the gas was turned on to enable him to eat his breakfast in his lodgings—not having as yet effected the counterbalance of comfort versus climate, which a well-brought up and constitutional Englishman derives from his Club and his Times. That would come later in the day. Meanwhile, the fog was the reverse of cheerful, his lodging looked grimy, and his thoughts went flying back to the blue skies of Italy, and to people he had left there.

What was Phillis doing, for instance, and why should he care to know? the young fellow thought, pushing his fingers through his crisp curly hair. Probably at that moment making plans for some excursions with those confounded Peningtons. What detestable bores people were who dragged others about in that ridiculous way, here, there, and everywhere, and how extraordinary it was that others should be found to submit! Here was he himself come on a wild goose errand, if ever there were such a thing in the world, to look after a youngster, who from all accounts had rapidly developed into a scoundrel, and without the smallest idea what he was to do when he had got hold of him. Good heavens, what an idiot he had been! The only point on which he could fall back with satisfaction was that if he could do anything it would be a possible release for Bice, of whom he thought with great interest and compassion. Only on her account, he assured himself, had he undertaken the quixotic enterprise on the threshold of which he had arrived. Distinctly, only on her account.

He put himself into a hansom on the strength of this conviction, and drove to Clive’s lodgings out in the Kensington direction. As he expected, the lad had gone to the City, but he heard the hour at which he was likely to return, and left a card with an explanatory line, saying that he would look in that evening. Then he went to his chambers and began gathering up those odds and ends of life which so soon seem to detach themselves from us if for a moment we lay them down, and yet have a latent power of reproach when we meet them. There had been a little property of the first Lady Ibbetson’s which her husband had made over to her son, on the occasion of his own second marriage, so that Jack had enough to live upon without troubling his head as to his profession. And then the idea of his marriage and the visions of Hetherton had somehow taken away the spur to work. This was at an end. In the foggy dinginess of his chambers he began to try to pull together some floating strands of ambition which had never had much more substance in them than a cobweb-like texture, and which now eluded his grasp. His nature was pre-eminently social. He could not group his dreams round a central and solitary self. He wanted someone else to stimulate him with sympathy or fellow-interest. And, as he stood listlessly turning over a bundle of papers—why did the roar of London suddenly change to the rush of water, the splash of silver streams? Whose were those brown and steadfast eyes which he saw again looking into his—?

An exclamation escaped his lips. Then he turned up the gas, and sat down doggedly with the papers on his knees, and two or three big books by his side. His work might not be worth much, but he felt as if it served as a barricade against thoughts which were worthless.

He did not go out to Kensington again until half past six or thereabouts, and as he rattled along through the muddy streets, he was the more convinced that his errand was not an agreeable one, and that it would require delicate handling. A good deal must depend upon his first impression of Clive. If this were favourable, well and good; and yet Jack was vaguely conscious that he had no great insight into character, and was apt to see no more than people were disposed to show him.

“Mr Masters?” Yes, Mr Masters was at home, and a slipshod girl conducted him into a small room on the ground floor, smelling strongly of smoke, and brightly lit. A tall young man, who was sitting over the fire, came forward with a little shy awkwardness, which at once recalled Kitty to Ibbetson, and muttered something about being sorry he should have had the trouble of calling twice. Jack had an easy kindliness of manner which generally put people at their ease, but this young fellow was as undoubtedly awkward as he was thin and dark, and though evidently interested in hearing news of his family, it did not seem as if it would be within the bounds of possibility to get him to talk freely. Jack, himself, conscious that he was receiving very little that was definite in the way of those first impressions from which he had hoped so much, could hardly help smiling at his own discomfiture. Except the smoke, there was nothing in the room or about Clive himself to assist him in discoveries, and yet he had not come all the way from Rome for nothing.

“There’s another link between us,” he said pleasantly. “One of your heads, Mr Thornton, is an uncle of mine.”

“We don’t see much of him down at the office.”

“No, perhaps not. But I suspect he looks sharply into things. Don’t you feel him in the background?”

“I haven’t much to do with the heads,” said the young fellow, looking uncomfortable.

“Something pinches there,” said Ibbetson inwardly, with his suspicions confirmed. Aloud he said, laughing, “I’m not in Mr Thornton’s best books at this present moment, but I might be able to give you an introduction—where do you go at Christmas?”

“Nowhere. I stay here.”

“Gloomy work, isn’t it?” said Jack, compassionately.

“It doesn’t matter. I’d rather stop on here,” said Clive, kicking a piece of coal.

“Is your cousin in London—I mean Mr Trent?”

“Oliver Trent?” glancing up in surprise. “Do you know him? Oh, you met him at the villa, I suppose. Yes, he is. At least I believe so. He and old—he and Mr Thornton are very thick.”

“He!”

“Didn’t you know it?”

“Not I. But perhaps that’s not to be wondered at. Still—”

There was a pause while Ibbetson was musing on this information. He was conscious that it aroused a vague uneasiness in his mind, and yet, what should make him uneasy? Phillis’s suspicions had not really touched him, and the half dislike which he at one time felt towards Trent had been as fleeting as other emotions of the same date. But there always remains the possibility that emotions may be revived.

Clive volunteered the next remark.

“I never knew such a fellow as Oliver for knowing people. You can’t mention anybody but he can tell you all about them. And he seems to find out anything he pleases.”

It was the nearest approach to confidence that he had shown, and Jack followed it up with a plunge.

“I tell you what it is, Masters,” he said, looking hard at the fire so that Clive might not feel himself stared at, “your cousin has said something to your mother and sisters which has made them very uneasy about you. If he’d said more, it mightn’t have been so bad for them, but they know so little that they are fretting their lives out,” pursued Ibbetson with a bold disregard for the truth which should certainly have been limited here by the third person singular. “I dare say you think I’ve no business to come poking my fingers into what doesn’t concern me, indeed to tell you the truth I’m of the same opinion myself. But I’m here because a friend of theirs for whom I’ve a regard is under the impression they’ve got an exaggerated idea of what is amiss, and thinks you might put things straighter. There! and I hope I’ve not made a bungle of it,” he continued mentally, feeling as if the pause which followed lasted five minutes at the very least.

“I don’t see what Oliver can have said,” said the young fellow a little sullenly. “I’ve followed his advice pretty closely.”

“Well,” Jack said slowly, “I suppose you’d hardly be disposed to take an outside opinion?”

“Yours, you mean?”

His manner was not very pleasant, but Jack acknowledged that it was scarcely to be expected it should be different, and so far he had been unable to trace any symptom of fear as of one who held a guilty secret. He began to have a stronger conviction of his innocence himself.

“Yes, I meant mine. One moment—I mean, of course, only on their account.”

“Oliver is all the world with them,” said Clive uneasily, “at least if one may trust half the messages he brings back.”

“Why on earth don’t you write direct instead of trusting to messages?”

“Direct? Why of course I do,” said Clive staring blankly.

“Well, openly then. Telling them of any—difficulties you may be in.”

“I can’t see the good of worrying them about all the particulars when one has made a fool of oneself, but they know the outcome of it.”

Clive said this frankly and without hesitation. Jack became more and more doubtful how he was to go on. Even if you believe a fellow-man, you may be offering him the worst insult in your power by telling him so.

“They fancy they don’t know, at any rate,” he said rather lamely.

“Not know! Why, haven’t they had Oliver out there? There was nothing to prevent their getting it all out of him. In fact, he told me he had explained everything.”

“He certainly left them with the impression that there were circumstances you didn’t wish made known.” The young man started to his feet and flushed angrily red.

“I?”

“Yes.”

“There is nothing whatever. Nothing to conceal from them,” he added in a lower tone.

“Then a false impression has undoubtedly been given, and I advise you to set it right. By the way, when Miss Capponi wrote to ask the question, why didn’t you explain?”

“Bice has never asked anything of the sort?” said Clive angrily, and yet uneasily.

“Are you certain? Just reflect. Last October it was.”

“I tell you she has never done anything of the sort. Why on earth should she?”

Jack got up and put his hand on his shoulder.

“I dare say it sounds queer to you, but I give you my word, I’m not asking from idle curiosity. Your sister did write to you last October. Look here, can you make up your mind to tell me your actual trouble? You owe money, I dare say. Much?”

“Much to me,” Clive said reluctantly. “I don’t know what you’d call it. Fifty pounds.”

“And to whom?”

“Oh, it’s all in Trent’s hands now. That’s one blessing.”

“Is that all the difficulty?” said Ibbetson. And this time he faced round and looked full at the other. Clive looked at him too, though distrustfully.

“No,” he said slowly. “But what there is besides, matters to no one.”

“No trouble with the firm?”

Jack’s eyes were on him still, and he saw that he hesitated. But he said “No” again. Then he broke out more eagerly.

“I can’t explain it to you, for Oliver wouldn’t like it, and I’m under tremendous obligations to him, there’s nothing wrong, only I’ve met with very bad luck.”

“Nothing wrong?”

“No. That I’ll swear.”

“Well,” said Ibbetson, “perhaps I can’t expect you to say more to me. But at any rate your mother and sisters deserve all your confidence. Write to them fully.”

“Oliver said it only bothered them, and that he would explain.”

“He has made a mistake or two in the matter, it seems to me,” said Ibbetson with so much concentrated anger in the tone that Clive looked at him in surprise. But he recovered himself quickly and put out his hand, “You’ll write, that’s understood. I’m going down to Hetherton, and will see you again when I come back.”

The interview had only been partly satisfactory. He felt sure that Clive had neither forged a cheque nor committed any other crime, and therefore Trent’s black insinuations deserved all that Phillis had thought of them. At the same time there was a depression about the young fellow which seemed to show that he was under some darker cloud than a debt of fifty pounds to a cousin. The more he thought of it, the more this conviction grew on him. Perhaps at Hetherton a light would be thrown upon it.

Before he had any chance of getting a hansom, he had to walk for some distance, and a thick wetting rain was falling. Lights were flashing and rolling through the fog, the noise of wheels, the cry of newsmen, were the only distinct sounds which reached him out of that mighty roar which London sends forth day and night. Damp and prosaic enough it all was; a beggar stretched forth a bony hand, the repulsiveness of face and figure unclothed by the picturesqueness which in the South might have softened its hideousness. Yet, as Jack splashed along, something within him seemed to leap into life as if in answer to a trumpet call. After all, it was his own country. He was young, strong, work had in it more of a joy than a burden. He felt as if he had been living of late in a fool’s paradise of dreams, where he was of no good to himself or to anyone else, except, perhaps, to kind Miss Cartwright. He had rather prided himself upon an absence of ambition. But a consciousness of strength and a desire to use it seemed to awaken that evening, and, although he did not own it, probably a wish that others—at any rate one other—should see that he, too, could do, awoke at the same time. Hetherton had gone from him, but he felt as if other Hethertons lay beckoning to him from a blue distance, and though he smiled at his own airy castles, they had the power of enabling him to face the prospect of the actual place with perfect cheerfulness. He refused the first hansom that offered itself, feeling as if the walk home among all those other workers who were passing, coming and going, was a sort of pledge of brotherhood with them—given to himself. And he resolved to run down to Hetherton to see what he could find out about Trent and Clive.

Chapter Fifteen.

Jack Expresses an Opinion.

It was afternoon the next day before he left London, and past dark when he reached the Hetherton station. But the day had been fairly fine, and there was nothing in the evening to prevent his walking the two or three miles which lay between the station and the house, while his portmanteau was to come after him in the carrier’s cart. He lingered a little, especially when he had crossed the sandy common and got down among the sturdy Scotch firs, so that, what with listening to the rustling of the wind in their tops, and the brawling of the swollen river, as he passed in at the lodge he heard the little clock striking seven, the dinner hour at the Court.

Jack was a favourite with all the servants, and the old butler bustled out from the dining-room directly he heard who had arrived, and sent a young footman off with orders about the room.

“You’ll like to wash your hands, Mr John, and I’ll let master know you’re come.”

“Anyone dining here, Jones?”

“Only one gentleman, sir.”

There was no time for more. Jack went up the broad stairs, two or three at a time, and coming down more leisurely, walked into the dining-room and found himself face to face with Mr and Mrs Thornton and—Oliver Trent.

Jack would have been more discomposed had he not heard of this acquaintanceship from Clive, but as it was, the meeting annoyed him, and he did not trouble himself to conceal the feeling. Oliver was prepared, and wore a passive countenance. Mr Thornton, who liked Jack as well as, and his own will very much better than, he liked anybody, was divided between welcome and displeasure.

“Upon my word, Jack, upon my word, you take us by surprise. Come for Christmas, eh? Well, fortunately a visitor more or less does not make much difference to Mrs Thornton, and your room is no doubt ready. But a carriage should have met you if you had acquainted us. How did you come?”

“I walked from the station, and my things were put into old Brook’s cart.”

He knew that Mr Thornton hated old Brook’s cart, and there was partly a mischievous desire to tease him, and partly a wish to show Oliver Trent that he held very lightly the grandeur and riches of the Court.

Mrs Thornton interposed. She was always interposing with kindly attempts to smooth down her husband, and an utter want of tact which made the smoothing produce the contrary effect.

“How did you leave Phillis?” she said.

“Why did you leave her? would be more to the purpose,” snorted Mr Thornton, under his breath.

“She was very well,” said Jack, quietly helping himself to cucumber. “And as to why I came, it was on a little matter of business, and partly to look after a protégé or cousin of yours, Mr Trent, unless I’m mistaken—Clive Masters.”

Oliver Trent’s face could not turn pale, but it changed to an indescribable shade of colour which answered the same purpose, and gave Ibbetson a moment of delight.

“Masters?” repeated Mr Thornton. “Isn’t that the clerk you were speaking of?”

“I presume it is,” said Trent, recovering himself with an effort, “although I am at a loss to conceive how my interest for him and Mr Ibbetson’s should run in an identical line?”

“And I am afraid I cannot enlighten you,” said Jack. “Perhaps they don’t. At any rate I can only answer for my own.”

There was a little silence. Oliver Trent had no desire to force explanations, and Mr Thornton looked at the young fellow with a feeling which was partly pride and partly exasperation. He could never think that he impressed Jack as he would have liked to impress him, but the oddest part was that in his heart he envied his imperturbability, and the ease of manner to which he had never attained. Not that he was not a gentleman by birth. He was a new man in Surrey, but the Thorntons were a good old family, and he had a right to good manners and good breeding; perhaps it was that very fact which made him sore over the consciousness that he had neither. Money had been his aim in life, and he had an exaggerated respect for its value, but his pleasure in it was a good deal marred by his having sufficient acuteness to perceive when others held it in small account, and he could neither forgive them, nor in his heart of hearts help respecting them for their indifference. He got more dislike than was really his due. To Jack, both as man and boy, he had indeed been very kind, and yet Jack sometimes almost detested him. At this moment as he looked across the table, sparkling with silver and valuable glass, he wondered how Phillis had ever endured her life, and yet more how she had lived it and still preserved that simplicity and quiet self-possession to which his eyes had lately seemed to open. Mr Thornton, with his bald head, insignificant features, and pompous manner, looked to him more vulgar than ever. Evidently Oliver Trent was a favourite. Ibbetson said no more about Clive, but set himself with something like amusement to watch Trent’s skilful treatment of his host. He deferred to him on all subjects, but not in any manner which should give the suspicion of open flattery, rather expressing at first a difference of opinion, and gradually allowing himself to be as it were convinced by Mr Thornton’s arguments. He showed, also, a delicate appreciation of wealth. Neither dinner nor wines were lost upon him, but his praise was discriminating, and implied reserve. Jack felt as if he were the spectator of some admirably played game of skill, the more so that Oliver took no pains to ingratiate himself with him, rather treating his comparative youth as something to be looked upon with condescension which was not without contempt.

The evening passed heavily. Mrs Thornton wished to pet Jack, and was always irritating her husband, so that at last she got up with a sigh and went off to bed. Mr Thornton himself crossed his legs, leaned his head back against the crimson satin chair and fell asleep; Jack laid down the Times which he had been studying deeply, and walked towards Oliver Trent.

“As we have met here,” he said, “will you give me five minutes’ conversation in the next room?”

“Conversation? Oh, certainly.”

A heavy portière separated the rooms; that which they now entered, less gorgeous in itself, and less glaringly lit, was one in which Phillis often sat; her piano was in a corner, and a sudden remembrance struck Jack of the evening when she had been at the window, and had gone out to him at his request. A dark flush rose to his forehead at the recollection; how changed were his thoughts of her since then, and yet by the strange irony of fate, or more truly by his own folly, then she was his, and now they were separated—for ever? Oliver Trent, watchful and composed, threw himself into a great chair; Ibbetson stood with his back to the fire. Moved by these thoughts, he was less at his ease than he had been throughout the evening, but it was he who had asked for the conversation, and he who had first to speak.

“I saw young Masters last night,” he began.

“So I gathered. Did you find your interview worth the trouble it had cost you?”

“You mean a journey from Rome? I think so.”

“Indeed! Your mission then may be considered fortunate.”

Trent’s soft voice was touched with scorn, perhaps a little more strongly than he would have permitted had it been under perfect control, but Jack took no notice. He repeated, “I think so. I believe I shall now be able to remove some misunderstandings which have been causing his family considerable anxiety and pain. You will allow me to add that it strikes me as a pity that you ever suffered the misunderstandings to exist.”

“I certainly shall not allow you to add anything which implies that you have the right to interfere with what relates to the private concerns of my own family,” said Trent hotly.

“I am afraid the veto, if it rested in your hands, would be applied too late,” said Jack with a cool scorn which stung the older man. “My advice has been already given.” And then he made a step forward on the rug, and a sudden fire flashed into his eyes which few persons had ever seen there. “You are in my uncle’s house as his guest, and that, Mr Trent, prevents me from speaking as plainly as I might otherwise do. But it does not hinder my thinking, and I leave you to imagine what is my opinion of a man who has suffered three helpless women, in a foreign land, to endure all the anguish of believing that their son and brother had sunk into a villain when a word from him would have lifted the load from their hearts. Suffered, did I say? Rather himself raised the suspicion in their hearts, and nursed it there.”

The contempt in the young man’s tone was unmistakable. When Trent answered, it was as if he struggled to use the same weapons and could not bring them to bear.

“May I enquire from whom you have gathered these remarkable facts?”

“From those who were interested,” replied Jack after a momentary pause. He did not wish to bring in Bice’s name, but Oliver understood whom he meant, and became almost livid. He started up.

“And it is you who venture to bring such scandalous accusations—you, whose conduct in Florence was so unworthy the name of gentleman that if Mr Thornton, with his high and honourable character, was acquainted with it, he would not, I believe, tolerate you in his house! I repudiate your charge. It is false. If my cousins mistook my warnings, it is not my fault. The word you have used never passed my lips—”

Jack interrupted him.

“It could not. But you implied it.”

“Implied!”

“Yes. To women who were terrified at shadows—and no wonder. What did they know about possibilities or proofs?”

“Until you enlightened them,” said Oliver with a sneer. “Pray, Mr Ibbetson, do you habitually indulge in romances of this description?”

Jack treated this speech with lofty indifference.

“I have said my say, and there’s an end of it I suppose,” he said, turning to the fire, and pushing a log with his foot. He went on speaking with his back turned to Trent. “I intended to let you know my opinion, and have done so; as for the others who are mixed up in the matter, they can form their own as they please.”

“I have something of my own for you to listen to, though,” Trent answered, recovering his coolness. “Your opinions are of too small importance for me to treat this impertinence as it perhaps deserves. Probably it arises from pique, and I may afford to pity it. But if we come to opinions I can give you my own hot and strong. I should like to hear what any honourable man would say of a gentleman who, engaged to one lady, not only flung away her affections, but deliberately insulted her by trying to gain those of another who was already pledged. Eh, Mr Ibbetson? Is this cock-and-bull story your last hope?”

There was enough truth in this speech for it to sting, and Jack felt an instinctive conviction that it was spoken for an auditor, and that if he looked round he should see Mr Thornton standing in the doorway. There he actually was, and the anger and perplexity in his red face were so ludicrously strong, that Jack’s anger was choked in an inclination to laugh.

“What is that you say, Trent? Be good enough to repeat it,” he said, coming forward and waving back the chair which Jack pushed forward.

“It is a private matter between your nephew and myself,” said Trent, as if reluctantly.

“Private? Nonsense. You alluded to an affair in which I am as much interested as anyone. I knew there was something of which I had not been informed. Both of you were aware I was within hearing, so now I insist upon hearing properly. Well, sir?”

The last interrogation was addressed loudly to Jack, who was leaning against the chimney-piece in an easy attitude which seemed like a personal affront to his uncle. He shrugged his shoulders slightly.

“Mr Trent was speaking, sir, not I.”

“Do you suppose I require to be told that? Mr Trent was speaking, and he was saying things which you should be ashamed of anyone having the power of saying,” said Mr Thornton, angrily.

“Excuse me. Not of any one. The force of an accusation altogether depends upon who makes it,” said Jack, with a haughty look at the other.

“If you will allow me, Mr Thornton,” said Trent rising, “I will wish you good-night. Your nephew would naturally prefer to offer his explanations alone with you. I exceedingly regret my own rashness of speech.”

“Stop, sir!” said Mr Thornton, bringing down his closed fist on his knees with a thump. “I manage matters in my own house in my own way. Let me hear what you have to say, and let me hear what he has to say, and then I shall know something of where we all are.”

“You must make allowances for my feeling sore,” said Oliver, still apologetically, “as the other lady to whom I alluded is my promised wife.”

“Now is that the truth or a lie?” reflected Ibbetson. “If it’s the truth I had better have left the matter alone.”

“Do you mean that he tried to make her jilt you, while he himself jilted Phillis Grey?” demanded Mr Thornton strongly. All Jack’s indifference was shaken. He stepped forward, drawing himself up to his full height, and his face was resolute and stern.

“I see no use in dragging Miss Grey’s name into this discussion,” he said, with a determination which impressed his uncle in spite of himself; “but since you and Mr Trent have done so, you will be good enough to understand that the facts have not been correctly represented. At the time of which he speaks, he was certainly not engaged to Miss Capponi, and as for my acting towards Miss Grey as you suppose, though I am perhaps a fool, I am not such an utter fool as that would prove me. That is sufficient for to-night, I think. Good-night, Uncle Peter,” and he marched out of the room, with his head rather high, and without a glance at Oliver.

No one stopped him; his uncle would have liked to have done so, but was not sure that in his present mood he would have attended to his wishes. Mr Thornton looked after the young fellow with an anger that was partly envy. Trent got up.

“I regret this very much,” he said in his soft tone. “He made an uncalled-for attack upon me, and I lost my temper and retaliated, without knowing that you were present.”

“Didn’t you see me?” said Mr Thornton simply. “Well, what you said explained a good deal. I never believed Phillis would have set all my wishes aside.” Then, as Trent remained silent, he went on—“However, they both of them know the alternative. When I have made up my mind I don’t change.”

“No, you have an enviable force of determination. I believe it to be the secret of your success.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said Mr Thornton, rising also, and shaking himself as if he would have thus got rid of a lingering compunction. “I’m a plain man, and I keep to my word. None of your shilly-shallying for me, and that Master Jack will learn, in spite of his confounded airs. Good-night, Trent.”

Chapter Sixteen.

“The Hand of Douglas is his Own.”

Jack took care to come down late to breakfast the next morning, having no inclination to partake of it with Oliver Trent, and feeling sure that Trent would respect the punctuality which reigned at Hetherton. He had cold fare in consequence himself, though the old butler did what he could, and when it was finished, he received a message to the effect that Mr Thornton was waiting for him in the small room where he sometimes transacted business. He was a little sorry to find Mrs Thornton also there, for, although her aim was always to make peace, the result where her husband was concerned was almost invariably of an opposite nature, all her married years having failed to teach her the management of his temper. She was fonder of Jack than of Phillis, and defended him wildly, in a manner which was most exasperating to an irritable man. Jack saw at a glance as he entered that some passage at arms had already taken place, for she was sitting upright, injured and tearful, while his uncle with a very red face poked the fire furiously.

“Very sorry to disturb you so early,” he said, brandishing the poker, and looking hard at a timepiece, “we poor working men are obliged to descend to such insignificant details of life as punctuality. Of course with you it is different.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Jack, good-humouredly, “I’m afraid you’re trying to chaff me. But you ought to allow I’m not often so late.”

“That is what I told your uncle,” broke in Mrs Thornton with eagerness. “I am sure there are so many young men who come here who are so much worse—”