Mrs Molesworth (continued 3)

“I am fanciful where you are concerned, Lilias,” she said. “There is no reason for misgiving, I feel sure. I think Captain Beverley is good and true, and it will all be right. Come down-stairs now—mother will not like our leaving her so long alone.”

Lilias made no further objection, and they went down together to the drawing-room, where it would be difficult to say which of the two, Mrs Western or Captain Beverley, was the more eagerly expecting them.

It was only three or four days since the young man had been at the Rectory, for the period of his mysterious absence from Miss Winstanley’s house had really, little as the Cheviotts suspected it, been spent at Hathercourt.

But during those three or four days he had been to town and back again, and now he had left the Edge and taken up his quarters at Romary. A great deal seemed to have happened in these few days, and, in her secret heart, Lilias Western had looked forward to them as to a sort of crisis.

“He will, probably, have been talking over things with his cousin, Mr Cheviott,” she said to herself, “and, naturally, he wishes to have some points settled before speaking to papa or me.”

And it was, therefore, with a sort of expectancy, half hope, half timidity, that added an indefinable charm to her whole bearing and expression, that Lilias met her all but declared lover this afternoon. He felt that she was more attractive than ever, “she grows lovelier every time I see her,” he said to himself, with a sigh, and then tried to forget that he had anything to sigh about, and gave himself up to the pleasure of being again beside her—to the consciousness that his presence was not distasteful to her, and smothered all misgivings with a vague, boyish confidence that, somehow or other, things would all come right in the end.

There could be no doubt about it—he was more devoted than ever—what nineteenth century preux chevalier could give greater proof of his devotion than a ten miles’ walk on a dull December day, for the sake of an hour’s enjoyment of his lady-love’s company, and a cup of tea from her fair hands? Yet when their guest rose to go—he had arranged, he told them, for a dog-cart from Romary to meet him at the Edge Farm—Lilias was conscious of a chill of disappointment. True, he had not been alone with her, but had he sought any opportunity of being so? And Mr Western was at home, sitting reading, as usual, in his study; nothing could have been more easily managed than an interview with him, had Captain Beverley wished it. But a word or two that passed, as he was saying good-bye, again put her but half-acknowledged misgivings to flight.

“Then when shall I see you again?” he said, as he held her hand in his for an instant, unobserved in the little bustle of taking leave.

Lilias glanced round hastily; her mother and Mary were hardly within hearing.

“I really cannot say,” she replied, somewhat coldly, drawing her hand away as she spoke. “I suppose Mary and I will go to the ball on Thursday, with Mrs Greville, but—”

“Suppose,” repeated Captain Beverley, hastily interrupting her. “Are not you sure of going? I should not have promised to go had I not thought you were certain to be there.”

“Are you going to the ball from Romary?” asked Mary, coming up to where they were standing, before Lilias had time to reply.

“I don’t know exactly,” replied Captain Beverley. “I am not sure what I shall do.”

Mary looked up in surprise, and Lilias saw the look.

“Mary and I will have a very long drive,” she said. “You know we are going with Mrs Greville from Uxley.”

Captain Beverley’s face cleared.

“I shall get there somehow,” he said, brightly, “and you must not forget the dances you have promised me, Miss Western.” And then he said good-bye again, and really took his departure. Lilias’s good spirits did not desert her through the evening, and Mary was glad to see it, and tried to banish the misgivings that had been left in her own mind by her conversation with her sister. But she did not succeed in doing so quite effectually.

“I wonder,” she said to herself—“I wonder why Captain Beverley did not order the dog-cart to come here to meet him. And I wonder, too, why he says so little about the Cheviotts. Under the circumstances, it would be only natural that we should know something of them—he has so often said Miss Cheviott was just like a sister to him.”

“Miss Cheviott is to be at the ball, I suppose,” she said to Lilias the next day. “Does she count as one of the three beauties we heard about, do you think?”

“I suppose so,” said Lilias, rather shortly.

“Did Captain Beverley not say anything about her going?” persisted Mary.

Lilias turned round sharply.

“You heard all he said,” she exclaimed. “He was speaking to you quite as much as to me. I don’t think he mentioned the Cheviotts at all, and I don’t care to hear about them. It is not as if they were Captain Beverley’s brother and sister.”

“I didn’t mean to vex you, Lilias,” said Mary, and then the subject dropped.

Mrs Greville was a very good sort of person to be a chaperon. She was her husband’s second wife, a good many years his junior, and she had no daughters of her own. She was pretty well off, but owing to Mr Greville’s delicate health, her allowance of amusement was, even for a clergyman’s wife, moderate in the extreme, and she had very little occupation of any kind; there were no poor people in the very well-to-do parish of Uxley, and her two boys were at school. She liked chaperoning the Western girls, Lilias especially, as her beauty was sure of receiving attention, and both she and Mary were quickly grateful for a little kindness, unexacting, and ready to be pleased. So, all things considered, she looked forward to the Brocklehurst ball with scarcely less eagerness then the sisters themselves.

“I am so pleased that you have got such pretty dresses this year,” said Mrs Greville, when she and her charges found themselves fairly launched on the eventful evening. She had chartered the roomiest of the Withenden flys, as much less damaging to their attire during a seven miles’ drive than her own little pill-box, in which, carefully wrapped in innumerable mufflers and overcoats, Mr Greville followed meekly behind. “Yes, I am particularly pleased you have got such pretty dresses, for I quite think it is going to be a very brilliant ball. You have heard that there are to be three beauties—noted beauties, have you not? There’s young Mrs Heron-Wyvern, the bride, you know; she is of Spanish origin; her father was a General Monte something or other, and they say she is lovely; and Sir Thomas Fforde’s niece, Miss—oh, I always forget names, but she is very pretty—handsome, rather—she is not so very young; and then there is Miss Cheviott of Romary. I have not seen her since she was quite a little girl, but she was pretty then, even.”

“Are the Cheviotts at Romary now?” asked Mary, when she got a chance of speaking.

“Oh, yes, I believe so, and very much liked, I hear,” replied Mrs Greville. “There was an impression that Mr Cheviott was stiff and ‘stuck up,’ but I believe it’s not at all the case when you know him. I hear Romary is likely to be one of the pleasantest houses in the county. I dare say Miss Cheviott will be making some grand match before long, though I have heard—”

But just at this moment the sudden rattle of the wheels upon the unmistakable cobble stones of Brocklehurst High Street distracted Mrs Greville’s attention.

“Here we are, I declare!” she exclaimed, “How quickly we seem to have come! I do hope the brougham is close behind, for Mr Greville has all the tickets;” and, in the bustle that ensued, what she had heard as to Miss Cheviott’s prospects or intentions was never revealed.

They were very early. Mrs Greville liked to be early, “to see all the people come in.” Hitherto, on such occasions, this weakness of her friend had been a sore trial to Lilias, but this year, for reasons of her own, she had made no objections to it, and had not, as formerly, exhausted her energies in search of some cleverly-laid scheme for making Mrs Greville late in spite of herself. And if Lilias was content, it never occurred to Mary to be anything else; so they all sat down together “in a nice corner out of the draught,” and listened to the discordant preliminaries of the band, and watched the gradually filling of the bare, chilly rooms, two hearts among the four caring for little but the confidently looked-for approach of a tall, manly figure, with a bright fair face, to claim his partner for the first two dances.

But time wore on; the first quadrille was a thing of the past, and still Lilias and Mary sat decorously beside their chaperon, each thinking to herself that “surely the Romary party was very late.” But when the second dance, a Waltt, had also come to an end, Lilias’s air changed; a proud flush of colour overspread her cheeks, and when Frank Bury, a Withenden curate of rather unclerical tastes, but decided in his admiration for Miss Western, begged for “the honour of the third dance,” she accepted at once—so much more amiably, and with so much sweeter smiles than usual, that the poor young man grew crimson with astonishment and delight. Mary longed, yet dared not, to interfere; there was “a look” in Lilias’s face as she walked away on Frank Bury’s arm that made Mary’s heart burn with anxiety for the possible issues of this evening.

“Oh,” said she, to herself, “if he were to come just now and think she would not wait for him!”

And she sat still in fear and trembling, longing for, yet dreading Captain Beverley’s appearance.

The dance was not half over when there came a little bustle at the principal door-way. Those nearest it stood back, and even through the music one discerned a slight hush of expectancy. Some new-comers were at hand; new-comers, too, of evident importance. Mrs Greville’s ears and eyes were equally wide awake.

“The Cleavelands party,” she whispered to Mary, “and I hear all the three beauties come with them! The Heron-Wyverns are staying there, and so are the Ffordes, and the Cheviotts. It looks as if it had been arranged on purpose to make a sensation.”

Mary would have cared little but for one thought. “Then there has been no party at Romary?” she asked.

“I suppose not—evidently not, for see, there is Mr Cheviott coming into the room with Sir Thomas’s niece on his arm—what a handsome couple! but he has a forbidding expression. Then that must be the bride, I suppose—oh, yes, look, Mary, she is going to dance with her husband, young Heron-Wyvern—he has reddish hair—and how, I wonder what has become of the third beauty, Miss Cheviott.”

But at this moment an acquaintance of Mrs Greville happening to take the vacant seat on her other side, her attention was distracted, and Mary’s eyes were left free to roam in search of one familiar figure. Her heart was beating fast with excitement and anxiety, her sight surely was growing confused, for could that be he? Over on the other side, through a bewilderment of faces, she espied the one she was in search of, gazing about in quest of Lilias, or disconsolately observing her defalcation. Ah no, Captain Beverley’s face was bent to meet the upturned glance of a beautiful woman on his arm she was smiling up at him; he, down upon her, “just,” thought Mary, with a thrill of something very nearly approaching agony, “just as I have seen him look at Lilias hundreds of times.” Never had he appeared to greater advantage, never had his fair, handsome face looked brighter or more attractive—and the lady—yes, in another instant, Mary was sure of it, recognised fully the slight, graceful figure, the peculiar “set” of the haughty little head, and the glance of the pretty violet eyes. Yes, they were nearer her now, the young lady was his cousin, the beautiful Miss Cheviott! In another instant his arm was round her waist, they were dancing together. And Mary, for the first time in her life, felt as if it might be possible to hate good-natured Mrs Greville, when a succession of lady-like nudges having compelled her attention, her chaperon whispered, triumphantly, “Look, Mary, quick, child, or you won’t see them—there is Miss Cheviott, isn’t she lovely? And she is dancing with her cousin, Captain Beverley. And Mr Knox tells me—he has just heard it on the best authority—they are engaged to each other.”

“You forget that I know Captain Beverley,” Mary could not help rejoining, coldly; “he has called at the Rectory several times when he has been staying at the Edge Farm.”

“Ah, yes, to be sure. I wish he would come and ask you to dance,” said Mrs Greville, carelessly.

But Mary felt as if “the dance had all gone out of her.” Her mental tremors now took a new form—dread of her sister’s return, and, more in cowardice than because she had the slightest wish to move, she accepted Mr Greville’s offer of a convoy across the room “for a change; Mr Knox will look after my wife till your sister comes back,” he said, good-naturedly.

“Across the room,” Mary met with an unexpected invitation to “join the dance.” The major of the 210th was an old friend of Mr Greville’s, and being a quiet, retiring man, the number of his acquaintances at Brocklehurst was not large. He did not care much about dancing, but after chatting to Mr Greville for a minute or two, he discovered that the girl on his friend’s arm had a nice face and an undoubtedly beautiful pair of eyes, and, before Mary knew what she was about, she was dancing with Major Throckmorton, and engaged to him for the quadrille to follow. Between the dances her partner proposed that they should walk up and down the long corridor into which the ball-room opened, and Mary, caring little—so completely were her thoughts absorbed with Lilias—where she went, absently agreed. Major Throckmorton was so shy himself that he naturally attributed to the same cause the peculiarity of the young lady’s manner, and liked her none the less on account of it. But before the quadrille had reached the end of its first figure, his theory had received a shock. For suddenly his partner’s whole manner changed. She smiled, and talked, and laughed, and seemed interested; where before he had only succeeded in extracting the most indistinct of monosyllables, she now answered with intelligence and perfect self-possession, hazarding observations of her own in a way which proved her to be by no means the timid, ill-assured country maiden he had imagined her.

“What a curiously changeable girl!” he said to himself. “Five minutes ago I did not feel sure that she took in the sense of a word I said to her, and now she is as composed and rational as possible, and evidently a well-educated girl. What queer creatures women are!”

His glance ran down the lines of faces opposite them. Among them one arrested his attention. “What a beautiful girl,” he exclaimed; “the most beautiful in the room, in my opinion. Do you happen to know who she is, Miss Western?”

Mary’s eyes followed willingly in the direction he pointed out—whither, indeed, they had already been frequently wandering—and her whole face lighted up with a happy smile.

“Do you think her the most beautiful girl in the room?” she said. “I am so glad, for she is my sister. Do you know the gentleman she is dancing with?”

Major Throckmorton glanced at Lilias’s partner. “No,” he said, “I don’t think I do. I know so few people here. He is a good-looking fellow, and,” he hesitated, and glanced again in Miss Western’s direction, then added with a kindly smile, “it is evident he would agree with my opinion as to who is the most beautiful girl in the room.”

Mary smiled too, and blushed a little, and decided that her partner was one of the pleasantest men she had ever met. And poor Major Throckmorton thought how pretty she looked when she blushed, and said to himself that before long, very probably, some other fellow would be appropriating her, as her beautiful sister evidently was already appropriated, and he sighed to think that, not withstanding his eighteen years’ service, such good luck had never yet come in his way! For it was a case of “uncommonly little besides his pay,” and beautiful girls were not for such as he.

Chapter Ten.

Throwing Down the Gauntlet.

“The marvel dies, and leaves me fool’d and trick’d. And only wondering wherefore play’d upon! And doubtful whether I and mine be scorn’d.” Gareth and Lynette.

Major Throckmorton took Mary back to Mrs Greville, and after engaging her for another dance, later in the evening, strolled away again, considerably to her satisfaction, for she was now as anxious to see Lilias, and hear the explanation of Captain Beverley’s inconsistent behaviour, as she had before been to avoid her.

“Have you seen Lilias?” she asked Mrs Greville, eagerly, for no Lilias was as yet at the rendezvous. “She was near us in that last quadrille, but then, somehow, I lost sight of her in the crowd.”

“She is very content, wherever she is, I can assure you,” said Mrs Greville, significantly. “I don’t fancy either you or I will see much more of her for the rest of the evening. It is as clear as daylight,” she went on. “Why didn’t you tell me, Mary?”

“Tell you what, dear Mrs Greville?” said Mary, opening her eyes, and rather taken aback.

“Of course you know. Don’t pretend you do not,” said Mrs Greville, good-humouredly. “Of course I mean about Captain Beverley’s unmistakable admiration for Lilias. No one could have doubted it who saw the way he came up after that dance with Frank Bury. She looked cold and haughty enough at first, but he whispered something that put it all right, I could see. And only fancy Mr Knox telling me he was engaged to Miss Cheviott!”

“But,” said Mary, hesitatingly, and blushing a little as she spoke, “Lilias isn’t—there is nothing settled; they are not engaged.”

“Oh! I dare say not publicly, at present, but of course such attention as he is paying her to-night will soon make it public. I am so delighted—such a capital thing it will be for you all—I cannot tell you how pleased—but, hush! here they come,” said Mrs Greville, stopping abruptly.

And Mary, looking round, saw Lilias close at hand, and what a Lilias! Sunshine seemed to be playing about her, so bright and sweet and happy did she look—flushed not merely with her own inner consciousness of happiness, but with an innocent sense of triumph that her lover had been tested, and not found wanting; that in the eyes of all the assembled “somebodies” of Meadshire he was eager to do her homage; she felt that she had reason to be proud of him!

He only stayed to shake hands with Mary, and then hurried off, with a parting reminder to Lilias of her promise for the next dance but one. For the very next she was already engaged to a brother in arms of Major Throckmorton, and there was little time for any conversation between the sisters. Only Lilias whispered it was “all right.” “He” had explained why he was so late, and she was engaged to him for two more dances. Mary might feel quite happy about her. But was Mary enjoying herself too? she inquired, anxiously, as her partner appeared to carry her off. And in the sight of that radiant young face Mary could indeed with all honesty reply that she was. She would have thought and believed it the most charming ball in the world, even if she had spent the whole evening on the bench in the corner of the room beside Mrs Greville; and this would have been far more amusing than having to dance with Mr Bury, which she was now obliged to do. For the poor young man’s high spirits had suddenly deserted him; he was extremely depressed, not to say cross, and Mary, knowing the cause of the change, could not but find it in her heart to pity him, though her relief was great when her penance was over. She danced next with Frank’s elder brother, an occasional visitor only to the Brocklehurst part of the world, and a fairly amusing partner, and as Lilias and Captain Beverley were their vis-à-vis, Mary enjoyed the quadrille exceedingly.

A little further down the room a set composed entirely of the Cleavelands party attracted her attention. There stood the “three beauties” in close proximity. Mary glanced at them again and again, and once or twice it seemed to her that she and her sister were the objects of attention to some members of the party. That Miss Cheviott gazed admiringly at Lilias, and made some remark about her to her partner, Mary felt sure, and thought it not surprising; but, besides this, she two or three times caught Mr Cheviott’s observant eyes fixed on her sister and herself with a curious expression, which half annoyed her. And once, in turning suddenly, she fancied that Captain Beverley, too, noticed this peculiar expression with which his cousin was regarding them, and, Mary felt by instinct, resented it.

“You should by rights be dancing over there, should you not?” a sudden impulse urged her to say to her sister’s partner, when one of the figures in the dance brought them for an instant into juxtaposition.

“Over where?” he asked, the next time they met.

Mary bent her head slightly in the direction of the Cleavelands “set,” but she had not time to see how Captain Beverley liked her explanation. His answer was reserved for the next round.—It was quite ready.

“What could have put such an idea into your head?” he said, not without a touch of haughtiness in his tone. “I am perfectly free to dance where and with whom I choose.”

Mary smiled, but in her heart she felt a slight uneasiness. The bloom seemed by this little incident to have been rubbed off her satisfaction.

“It will be disagreeable for Lilias,” she said to herself, “if his friends are in any way prejudiced against her. She is so proud, too; she would never go out of her way to win them.”

Thus thought Mary when she again found herself in her corner by Mrs Greville. Her dances, so far as she knew, were over for the evening, but Lilias had not yet returned to her chaperon’s wing. Mrs Greville was beginning to wonder what o’clock it was.

“Not that I am in the least tired,” she said. “As long as Lilias is enjoying herself I am quite pleased to stay, and you, too, my dear. Are you not going to dance any more?”

“I think not,” Mary was replying when a voice behind her made her start.

“Miss Western,” it said, “if you are not engaged for this dance, may I have the honour of it?”

The voice was not altogether unfamiliar, when had she heard it before? It was not an unpleasing voice, though its tone was cold and very formal. Mary looked up; there, before her, stood Mr Cheviott.

In utter amazement, Mary partially lost her head. She rose mechanically, and, murmuring something in the shape of an assent, took Mr Cheviott’s arm, and had passed some little way down the room before she quite realised what she was doing. Then it all flashed upon her; the extreme oddness of the whole proceeding, and she grew confused and uneasy in trying to think how otherwise she should have done. Mr Cheviott had never been introduced to her! Those two or three words in the church porch two months ago were all that had ever passed between them. Yet his manner had been perfectly, even formally respectful, and the glow of indignation that had mounted to Mary’s cheeks at the mere notion of anything but respect being shown to her father’s daughter, faded as quickly away. One glance at Mr Cheviott’s grave, preoccupied face was enough completely to dispel it, and she, thereupon, solved the enigma in another manner. It was all on Lilias’s account! Mr Cheviott, doubtless in his cousin’s confidence, wished, naturally enough, to know something of her relations, and had, with almost unconscious disregard of conventionality, chosen this way of making friends. On second thoughts, Mary quite decided that she liked him all the better for it, and congratulated herself that her instincts had been in the right, that she had not, with misplaced prudery, chilled and repelled his first overtures of kindliness and interest.

It was a round dance, but Mr Cheviott marched on down the room as if perfectly oblivious that dancing of any kind was in question. Suddenly he stopped.

“Do you like balls?” he asked, abruptly.

“I don’t dislike them,” answered Mary, quietly.

Mr Cheviott, in spite of himself, smiled, and Mary, looking up, was again struck, as she had been the first time she saw him, by the effect of a smile on his somewhat sombre countenance.

“That is, and isn’t, an answer to my question,” he said. “Perhaps I should have worded it differently, and said, ‘do you like dancing?’”

“Sometimes,” said Mary, quietly still.

Mr Cheviott smiled again.

“One thing, I see, you do not like,” he said, “and that is, being catechised. I asked you if you liked dancing because, I fear, I do not dance well, and if you were fanatica on the subject I should be afraid of displeasing you. However, suppose we try?”

He did not dance badly, but with a certain indifference which Mary found provoking. This, and a suspicion of patronising in his last words, inspirited her to take a different tone.

“I do not think you dance ill,” she said, when they stopped, “but any one could tell that you do not care about it.”

“How?” he said, if truth be told, ever so slightly nettled—for what man likes to be “damned with faint praise,” by a girl in her teens, whoever she may be?

“Oh I can’t tell you. It would be quite different if you liked it. There is no verve in your dancing,” she replied.

She could see he was annoyed, and somehow she was not sorry for it. He took refuge again in a patronising tone.

“Do you speak French?” he inquired, with a slight air of surprise.

“Do you speak Italian?” she retorted.

“Why do you ask?” he said, coolly. “Are you offended by my inferring a possibility of your not speaking French?”

“No,” she replied; “but I thought it an uncalled-for question. You used an Italian word just now for the same reason, probably, that I used a French one—that we could not find an English word to express our meaning equally well—”

“The only reason,” interrupted Mr Cheviott, eagerly, “that can ever excuse one’s doing so.”

“But,” continued Mary, “you did not give me the credit of this good reason, as I did you. I did not suppose you used an Italian word for the sake of showing off that you knew Italian.”

“And I said nothing to lead you to suppose that I thought you were wanting to show off your French,” retorted Mr Cheviott, laughing a little in spite of himself, and yet manifestly annoyed. “I was only—a little—surprised, perhaps.”

“Why?” asked Mary. “Is it so unusual nowadays to find people who have learned French?”

“Oh dear, no, of course not; but I understood you had been brought up very quietly, and had always lived in the country, and all that sort of thing. I don’t want to offend you, but very probably you would be more offended if I did not answer you plainly.”

“Very probably,” said Mary, smiling. “But don’t you see that just because we have lived so quietly as you say, we have had the more time for ‘lessons’? And there were grave reasons why, in our case, we should learn all we could—practical reasons, I mean.”

Mr Cheviott did not at once reply; he seemed as if reflecting over what she had said.

“I wonder what he is thinking about,” thought Mary. “He must know we are poor. We have made no secret of it to Captain Beverley.”

“Shall we try again?” said Mr Cheviott, suddenly. “If I do my best, there is no saying but that, in time, I may catch a little of your verve, Miss Western.”

“You think I have a superabundance of it,” said Mary, good-humouredly; and, “Yes,” she added, when they stopped again, “that is better, decidedly.”

But again the look of preoccupation had come over Mr Cheviott’s face; he did not seem elated by her praise.

“Your sister likes dancing too, I suppose?” he said, after a little pause.

“Yes,” replied Mary, “she is very fond of it, and she dances very well.”

“I dare say she does,” said Mr Cheviott, “but she is too tall to dance with most men. I see,” he added, slowly, as if he had some little difficulty in going on with what he had to say—“I see she has been dancing a good deal with my cousin, Captain Beverley. He dances very well, in fact, better than he does anything else, I was going to say.”

Something in the words and tone roused Mary’s ire.

“I don’t see that dancing well need prevent a man’s doing other things well too,” she observed, coldly.

Mr Cheviott raised his eyebrows; he was quite his usual self again now, cool and collected, and satisfied that he was going to have the best of it.

“I quite agree with you,” he replied, dryly.

“Then,” said Mary, getting more angry, “why should you praise Captain Beverley’s dancing in that sort of way, as if you were dispraising everything else he does? I think he has it in him to do many things well—more, probably, than have as yet come in his way.”

“I dare say you are quite right,” said Mr Cheviott. “For a man,” pursued Mary, somewhat mollified, “he is still very young.”

“Peculiarly so,” said Mr Cheviott; “he is very young for his actual years. You must have seen a good deal of him, Miss Western, to judge him so correctly.”

“I have said very little about him,” said Mary, bluntly, looking up in her companion’s face with a questioning expression in her eyes, before which Mr Cheviott quailed a little—yet what pretty, gentle, brown eyes they were!—“but I have seen a good deal of him,” she went on, frankly. “He has been a great deal with us lately, while he was staying at the Edge Farm, you know.”

Almost as she pronounced the words, she became conscious of the annoyance they were causing her companion, and she felt that her worst misgivings were realised. “Why did I dance with him?” was the first form in which her hot indignation expressed itself in her thoughts.

“Yes,” replied Mr Cheviott, coldly, “I heard that Mr and Mrs Western had been very hospitable to my cousin, and no doubt he is very grateful to them. He is an extremely sociable person—cannot bear being alone. As you have seen so much of him, Miss Western, I dare say you have discovered that he is very impulsive and impressionable, very ready to amuse himself, without the least thought of the after consequences.”

Mary remained perfectly silent.

“You agree with me?” said Mr Cheviott. “I am very glad of it, for I see you will not misunderstand me. There are some kinds of knowledge not so easily acquired as French,” he added, with an attempt at carrying off what he had been saying lightly, “but I see your good sense stands you in lieu of what is commonly called knowledge of the world, and—and, for your sister’s sake especially, I am very glad indeed that you have so much perception.” He did not look at Mary as he spoke, but now she suddenly turned towards him, and he was obliged to face her. Every ray of their usually pretty colour had faded out of her cheeks; she looked so very pale that for an instant he thought she was going to faint, and a quick rush of pity for the poor child momentarily obliterated all other considerations. But Mary saw the softening expression that came over his face, and smiled slightly, but bitterly. And then Mr Cheviott saw that her paleness was not that of timidity or ordinary agitation, but of intense, wrathful indignation, and he thereupon hardened his heart.

“Why,” said Mary, after a little pause, and her voice, though low, was distinct and clear—“why, may I ask, do you say that it is especially on my sister’s account that you are glad to find that I possess what you so kindly call so much power of perception?”

Her words, to herself even, sounded stilted and almost absurd, but, had she tried to speak easily and naturally, she felt that in some way she would have broken down. And Mr Cheviott did not notice the stiltedness of her tone and speech; cool as he looked he was feeling intensely uncomfortable, and little inclined to see any humorous side to the situation.

“I would rather not say why,” he replied, “and, besides, it’s unnecessary. You would, afterwards, regret asking me to say more than I have done.”

“But having said so much, supposing I insist on your saying more,” said Mary, unwisely. “Supposing I tell my father, and that he asks you to explain why you have spoken to me this way—supposing—” she stopped, for her voice failed her. Anger inclines some women to tears more readily than grief!

Mr Cheviott smiled; it was, in reality, a nervous, uneasy smile, but Mary thought it insulting and insufferable.

“Miss Western,” he said, “you are really exciting yourself about nothing at all. I do not think that any reasonable person would see cause of offence in the two or three remarks I have made about my cousin, and, fortunate as he is in possessing so eager an advocate as yourself, it is impossible you can know him as well as I do. But I think we have discussed him quite sufficiently, and, in my opinion at least, the less said the better.”

He looked at her with a sort of veiled inquiry. Mary stood perfectly silent. It was true; she had been very foolish, very undignified to have expressed herself as vehemently as she had done; she had no right to resent Mr Cheviott’s hinted warnings, for Arthur Beverley had not committed himself in such a way as to give her any. “Oh,” she thought, “if I could but look up in his face and say, ‘Your cousin is engaged to my sister, and I decline to hear anything you have to say about him; your opinion has not, and never will be asked,’ oh, how different it all would be! How different it will be when it is all settled, and no one can interfere!” But in the mean time; yes, certainly, the less said the better.

She felt that she trusted Captain Beverley, even now; already she felt that Mr Cheviott’s opinion was of no real consequence, and she could afford to despise it, much as, for Lilias’s sake she regretted that the connection was not likely to find favour in the eyes of Arthur’s proud relations.

“But that will not really matter,” she repeated to herself, and, fortified with this reflection, she turned quietly to reply to Mr Cheviott’s last speech.

“Yes,” she said, “I was very foolish to take up your remarks about your cousin so hotly. For, though I have known him such a short time, I think, in some ways, I already know him far better than you do. And now I shall be obliged if you will take me back to my friends.”

She looked up in Mr Cheviott’s face with fearless eyes, and no trace of agitation, but a somewhat deeper colour than usual in her cheeks, and the shadow of a quiver on her lips. But Mr Cheviott read her rightly; the gauntlet of defiance was thrown down, and her resolution staggered him.

“Can they be already really engaged?” he said to himself. “I could almost find it in my heart to wish they were, to get rid of all this! How unbearable it is—how horribly I am, and must be, misunderstood, even by this girl!”

And as he escorted Mary across the room, and, with a formal bow, deposited her in her old corner beside Mrs Greville, he made no effort to hide his gloom and annoyance. For the moment a species of recklessness seemed to have taken possession of him; he felt as if he cared little what was said or thought of him.

“Even Alys,” he thought to himself, “when, or if, she comes to hear of my attempt at interference, will find no words hard enough for me. Why can’t a man start clear in life, I wonder, without being weighted with the follies of those before him?”

Mrs Greville was all excitement and curiosity.

“My goodness, Mary,” she exclaimed, “wonders will never cease! Lilias’s conquest is nothing to yours. Mr Cheviott of Romary himself! You are very cunning, you naughty child; you never even told me you knew him.”

“I hardly do know him. I would not have danced with him if he had not asked me so suddenly that I had not presence of mind enough to refuse,” explained Mary.

“And why should you have refused? Of course, as I say, you have made a conquest. Why should you be ashamed of it?” said Mrs Greville.

“It is not that, it is nothing of the kind, I assure you, Mrs Greville,” said Mary, deeply annoyed. “Dear Mrs Greville,” she went on, beseechingly, “I do beg you not to say any more about it. There is Lilias coming, please don’t say anything about it.”

Mrs Greville saw she was in earnest, and gave in. “But you are the strangest girl I ever came across,” she added, with a tone of good-natured annoyance.

Then Lilias came up, on Captain Beverley’s arm, and Mrs Greville’s attention was distracted.

“I am not going to dance any more,” she said, smiling. “I am quite ready to go home now, Mrs Greville, if you like, and poor Mary looks tired to death.”

“And poor Mrs Greville must be tireder still, as Francie says,” said Mary, trying to laugh, and look as usual. “Yes, I think we should be going.”

“Good-night, Captain Beverley,” said Lilias, disengaging her hand from his arm.

But he would not allow it.

“You will let me see you to your carriage,” he said, in a low voice. “You have no other gentleman with you.” And Lilias made no further objection.

And Mary, as they crossed the room, thus escorted, said to herself that she hoped Mr Cheviott’s eyes were edified by the spectacle. Yet she was conscious of a sudden tremor when, close to the door, hemmed in for a moment or two by the stream of departing guests, which had already begun to flow, they came upon the object of her thoughts. He was standing looking the other way, with a lady on his arm, and as she approached them nearly, Mary saw that the lady was his sister. She happened to turn at this moment, and her glance fell on the advancing group. Instantly a smile lit up her beautiful face, a smile, there could be no manner of doubt, of hearty, pleased recognition. Mary happened to be the nearest to her, and Miss Cheviott leaned slightly forward.

“How do you do, Miss Western?” she said, brightly. “I have been seeing you and your sister in the distance all the evening, but never near enough to speak to you. Have you enjoyed the ball? I think it has been such a nice one.”

Mary murmured something in the way of answer, but her words were all but inaudible. The grateful glance of her brown eyes, however, was not lost upon Alys.

“What nice good eyes that second Miss Western has?” she observed to her brother, when they were out of hearing. “But she does not look as well as she did; she was quite pale, and her eyes had a troubled look.”

“What did you speak to her for?” said Mr Cheviott, gruffly, “there was no reason for it, and—you cannot have forgotten what I said about the Westerns, Alys?”

“Forgotten; no. Of course, I remember your saying I was not to call on them and make friends with them, but as for not speaking to them when we were jammed up close together in a door-way no, I certainly had forgotten that you wished me to be unkind and uncivil, Laurence,” replied Alys, with considerable indignation.

And Mr Cheviott thought it wisest to hold his peace. His sister was evidently in ignorance of the apparently glaring inconsistency of which he himself had been guilty in not only speaking to, but actually dancing with the younger Miss Western, and devoutly he hoped that in this desirable ignorance she might remain. But there was no saying how she might come to hear of it, and, therefore, the less said on the disputed subject the better.

There was silence for some time in the fly containing Mrs Greville and her two young friends, as it wended its slow way back to Hathercourt. Mrs Greville was tired, and a little anxious about the effects of the cold night air on her husband; Lilias was absorbed in a content which asked not for words; Mary—poor Mary, was suffering from a strange complication of discomfort. Indignation, mortification, fear, hope, defiance, and intense anxiety chased each other round, her brain. It was a relief when Lilias spoke.

“We are very selfish, dear Mrs Greville,” she said, suddenly—“at least, I am; Mary is never selfish. I have never thanked you for taking us to-night and being so kind; I have enjoyed it so much, and I do thank you so sincerely.”

Notwithstanding the heartiness and cordiality, there was an indefinable something in the tones of the pretty voice which effectually stifled any expression of curiosity on Mrs Greville’s part. Whether or not Lilias had anything to tell, there and then it was evident she had no intention of telling it, so Mrs Greville just answered, kindly:

“I am very glad you have had a pleasant evening. It is always a pleasure to me to take you.”

And in a few minutes more the fly stopped at the Rectory gate.

There was no one sitting up for them. That had been a proviso of Lilias’s, and, in spite of Alexa’s entreaties and “mother’s” misgivings, Lilias had carried the day.

“We are sure to come home sleepy, and cross, and dilapidated-looking after a seven miles’ drive. Do all go to bed comfortably and wait to hear our adventures till the morning,” she said; and Mary, as they let themselves quietly in with a latch-key, felt what a comfort it was that there were no anxious questioning eyes to meet.

Since Basil’s departure, Mary had taken possession of his little room, leaving Lilias sole mistress of what had formerly been their joint quarters. But to-night she lingered long beside her sister, making one excuse after another for not leaving her room.

“But Mary, dear, you must really go to bed now,” said Lilias, at last; “don’t trouble about putting away anything till the morning.”

“Yes,” agreed Mary, “I’m going now. Good-night, Lilias. You said you had enjoyed the ball very much—I’m so glad you did. But, Lilias,” she added, wistfully, “I wish you would tell me—you don’t mind my asking, do you?—is—is anything settled—explained, I mean?” Lilias’s cheeks flushed.

“It is all right,” she said, hastily—“I am sure it is all right. There is nothing to explain; I trust him thoroughly, and—and I don’t mind its not being what you call ‘settled’ just yet. It is nice keeping it just to ourselves.”

“Only,” said Mary, with some reluctance, “it isn’t being kept to yourselves. Every one must have noticed him to-night, and that was why I was so anxious to hear if it was all understood and settled.”

“Then don’t be anxious any more,” said Lilias, reassuringly, as she kissed her—“I am not; I could not be happier than I am. But I understand your feeling—I would have it for you, I dare say. Just set your mind at rest; you may ask me about it again—let me see—yes, this time to-morrow, if you like, and I think I shall be able to satisfy you.”

”‘In to-day already walks to-morrow,’” said Mary, laughing. “My ‘spirit’ is ‘striding on before the event,’ anyway, and the best thing I can do is to let you go to sleep. Kiss me again, Lilias; it’s to-morrow already, you know.”

“I wish Lilias hadn’t said that about this time tomorrow,” she thought to herself. “I wish she were not so confident, and yet how can she be less so if she trusts him? How could I bear to see her trust broken?”

Chapter Eleven.

A Cul-de-Sac.

”... It became a proverb, when what ought to be your election was forced upon you, to say, ‘Hobson’s choice.’” Spectator, Number 509.

There was silence in the Romary carriage too as it made its way home, with considerably more speed than the Withenden fly, after the ball. It had been arranged that Mr Cheviott and his sister were not to return to Cleavelands that evening, but to drive straight back to Romary, and it had been arranged, too, that Captain Beverley should accompany them. Arthur would not, on the whole, have been sorry to upset this plan, but there was no help for it. As to how much, or how little of his conduct in the ball-room, had been observed by his cousins, he was in ignorance, and he fancied that he did not care. He told himself that he had acted with deliberate intention, that it was best to bring matters to a crisis, and have done at all costs with the restraint which of late he had found so unendurable; but in so speaking to himself he was not stating the real facts of the case. From first to last his behaviour to Lilias Western had been the result of no reflection or consideration; he had never fairly looked his position in the face, and made up his mind as to what he was justified in doing, or how far he had a right to go; he had simply yielded to the charm of her society, and thrown care to the winds, trusting, like a child, that somehow or other things would come right—something would “turn up.”

And it was the secret consciousness of the defencelessness of such conduct that made him uneasy in Mr Cheviott’s presence, and made him dread the explanation which he now fully realised must shortly take place between them.

Alys’s mood, as respects the Western sisters, was, as has been seen, verging on the defiant. Yet a quick sensitiveness to the unexpressed state of feelings of her two companions warned her that, at present, any allusion to the subject was best avoided.

“I will stand by Arthur if he is in earnest,” she said to herself, resolutely, “and were Laurence twenty times over my elder brother I would not support him in any narrow-minded piece of class prejudice, or interference with Arthur’s right to please himself. But if I am to do any good I must first be sure that Arthur is in earnest, and, till then, I had better take care how I irritate Laurence by meddling.”

So Alys cogitated, lying back in her corner of the carriage, and saying nothing.

Suddenly Mr Cheviott’s voice roused her; to her surprise he spoke very cheerfully.

“Well, Alys, are you very tired? I think it was a mistake of the Cleaves to have that carpet dance last night. It prevented our feeling as fresh as might have been the case to-night.”

“Yes,” said Alys, “I think it was. But I did not feel tired, except just at first, and then I was all right again.”

“Carpet dances are always a mistake,” observed Captain Beverley, rousing himself with some effort to join in the conversation. “People talk rubbish about their being more ‘enjoyable’—what an odious word ‘enjoyable’ is!—than any others, but it’s all nonsense. They take more out of one than twenty balls.”

“I don’t think last night could have taken much out of you, Arthur. You danced so little—not half as much as to-night,” said Alys, thoughtlessly.

“No,” said Mr Cheviott, markedly, “not a quarter as much, I should say.”

Arthur said nothing, and Alys, feeling rather guilty, tried to lead the conversation into safer channels. In this she might not have succeeded had not her brother done his best to help her. But Arthur remained silent, and all three were glad when at last the long drive was over and the carriage turned in at the Romary gates.

“Good-night, Alys,” said Mr Cheviott at once, and Alys obediently kissed him and said good-night.

“Good-night, Arthur,” she said, lingeringly. She felt so sorry for Arthur somehow; she would so have liked to have seen him by himself for a few minutes.

“Good-night, dear,” he replied, but without any of his usual sunny brightness. And Alys felt sure she heard him sigh, as, in accordance with Mr Cheviott’s suggestion that they might as well have a cigar before going to bed, he followed his cousin into the library.

“Laurence is going to give him a ‘talking to,’ as the boys say,” thought Alys, as she went slowly up-stairs. “And what has he done to deserve it, and why should he submit to it? Unless, indeed, he is not in earnest, and only amusing himself, and that Laurence knows it—but I’m sure it is not that. I cannot understand Arthur. I never before thought him wanting in spirit.”

But the more she reflected, the more puzzled she grew, so Alys, not being deficient in common sense, decided that she could do no good by sitting up and tiring herself. She undressed and went to bed, and to sleep; but, though not a principal in the drama which was being enacted in her sight, her dreams that night were scarcely less disturbed and troubled than those of another even more intensely interested spectator, eight or nine miles off. On the whole, Lilias’s sleep that night was far more peaceful than that of her sister Mary, or of Alys Cheviott.

For Lilias’s heart was full of faith and hope, and to such dreamers there come no uneasy visions.

Mr Cheviott led the way through the library into his own private sitting-room beyond. The fire had been carefully attended to, and was blazing brightly; the room looked a picture of comfort. Many and many a time Arthur would have liked nothing better than an hour’s tête-à-tête over their pipes with his cousin—the cousin who, to him, represented father and brother in one—to whom he owed all that he had ever known of “home” and its saving associations, “all the good that was in him,” as he himself had often expressed it, for Laurence’s care and affection for the boy had been great, and he had exerted them wisely. He had won Arthur’s confidence and respect; he had never so acted as to cause him to fret and chafe under what, in less judicious hands, he might have been made to feel an unnatural authority.

And not a small part of Captain Beverley’s present discomfort arose from the consciousness of having deeply disappointed his cousin. He told himself he had done no wrong, but he knew he had, thoughtlessly and impulsively, done that, or been on the point of doing that, which would greatly add to the difficulties and perplexities of a life much of which had been devoted to his welfare.

And acknowledging even thus much, where was the gratitude he had so often expressed?

He made no effort to conceal his gloom. He sat down on the first chair that came in his way, he muttered something about his pipe being up-stairs, “not unpacked,” and declined the cigar which his cousin hospitably offered him in its stead. Mr Cheviott quietly, filled and lighted his own pipe, drew his chair to the fire, with even more deliberation than usual, for his cousin’s demeanour somewhat disconcerted him.

He would have found it easier to go on with what he had to do, had Arthur continued indifferent or even defiant. But it is hard to strike a man that is down; it is extremely difficult to “lecture” or remonstrate with a man who is evidently more disgusted with himself than you can possibly be with him. For Laurence knew that Arthur was genuinely distressed and suffering; he knew his cousin to be as incapable of sulky or resentful temper as of dissimulation or intentional treachery.

“Arthur,” he said, at last, after smoking for a minute or two in silence, “I wish you wouldn’t look so unlike yourself; it makes it harder for me. You must have known that this sort of thing couldn’t go on—that you were running willfully into an entanglement which, sooner or later, must necessitate an explanation with me. You have no right to punish me for your own acts by looking as you are doing. Now the time has come to have it out with me, there is only one thing to do—face it.”

“I am perfectly ready to face it,” said Arthur, coldly, but with a decided and sudden increase of colour in his cheeks, and sitting up erectly on his chair.

“So much the better,” said Laurence, dryly, adding to himself, “I am glad I have roused him; we shall understand each other now.—I was going,” he continued, aloud—“I was going to have prefaced what I have to say by asking you whether you are losing your senses or your honour and high principle, for except by supposing one or the other I cannot, considering all, explain the way you have been going on. I was going to say so, I say, but I don’t now think I need, for I see you think as badly of yourself as I could do.”

“I do nothing of the kind,” replied Arthur, firing up. “I don’t ask you to tell me how badly you think of me—you could hardly infer worse than you have already expressed—but I altogether deny that I am either mad or bad, to put it shortly. And, what’s more, I have done nothing to justify you, or any one, in speaking of me as you have done.”

“You can’t mention ‘me’ and ‘any one’ together,” said Mr Cheviott, coolly. “I am the only person living, except a lawyer or two, who understands your position, therefore I am the only person who can judge whether you are doing right or wrong in making love to a girl without letting her perfectly comprehend what you have to offer her.”

“And how do you know that I have not put it all before her?” exclaimed Arthur, fiercely still.

“Because you could not do so without breaking your word,” said Mr Cheviott, “and because, too, no girl who understood your position would encourage your suit. If she were a high-principled, unselfish girl, she would not allow you to ruin yourself for her sake, and if she were a calculating, selfish girl, she would have no wish to share your ruin.”

“Yes,” said Arthur, bitterly, “you put it very neatly. I am regularly caught in a net, I know. Whichever way I turn, it is equally ruinous.”

“Then what on earth did you run your head into the net for?” said Mr Cheviott, impatiently. “You had your eyes open, you knew what you were about.”

“I did not,” said Arthur, “I never, till now, realised how unnatural and unbearable my position was. But you misunderstand me—I mean that my father’s absurd will entangles me hopelessly—I was not alluding to my—my acquaintance with Miss Western—that is to be blamed for nothing but causing me to realise the truth.”

“Well, then, I wish you had not realised the truth,” said Mr Cheviott. “I think, Arthur, you forget strangely that in all this you are not the only sufferer. Do you think my position is a pleasant one?”

“No,” said Captain Beverley, “I don’t, but I think you exaggerate matters. In any case, there is no question of my ruining myself, or any one else.”

“How do you make that out? For by ‘any case’ I suppose you mean in the case of your proposing to Miss Western and her accepting you (you may have done so already, for all I know), and your marriage following. I don’t think ruin is much too strong a word to use for what this would bring upon you.”

“You forget Hathercourt,” said Captain Beverley, with some hesitation.

“Hathercourt,” repeated Mr Cheviott, looking puzzled, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“The Edge. Hathercourt Edge—my farm, I mean,” explained Arthur, still with a sort of hesitation in his manner.

Mr Cheviott turned upon him with more asperity than he had yet shown.

“Really, Arthur, you are too foolish,” he exclaimed. “Do you mean to say that you could live at the Edge on about fifty pounds a year—certainly not more—for the interest of the money that was raised to pay your debts three years ago would fully take the rest of the two or three hundred a year that is the most you could make out of the farm, even if you managed it far better than you are likely to do. And I have no power to clear you from these debts out of what should be, what surely will be, your own before very long?” He looked at Arthur anxiously as he spoke.

“If it’s ever becoming mine depends upon the marriage that my father set his heart on taking place, it never will be mine—”

“But—” began Mr Cheviott.

“Yes, yes, I know what you are going to say. I may change, you think, as I have changed before, but I never shall, Laurence. I never was really in earnest before—my flirtations, even you must allow, were very harmless; this is very different, and I cannot give it up. And—and even if I have to go away for two years—till Alys is of age—and take my chance of her remembering me, I could not owe my inheritance to a legal quibble—I could not go through the farce of asking Alys to marry me, even though sure of her refusal, when I was heart and soul devoted to another. And even if she—Miss Western—were married to some other fellow by that time, it would be no better. I could not marry any one else; and even if I could, as far as my feelings went, I could not, in honour, refrain from telling Alys all, and—” he stopped to take breath.

“Well, what then?” said Mr Cheviott.

“Could I insult Alys by asking her to accept me without my caring for her as she should be cared for? As I now know, I never could care for her, for she is just like the dearest of sisters to me, but only that.”

Mr Cheviott smiled.

“Why in the world did you not see all this two years ago, when you persuaded me into agreeing to your selling out and setting you straight again? Do you not remember how confident you were about never wanting to marry any one else?”

“Any one at all, you should say. I never realised the marrying Alys. I was sure she would not wish it, and that seemed to make it all safe; but I never, in the faintest degree, imagined my caring for any one in this way—a way which makes it simply impossible to think of ever marrying any one else.”

“You think so just now,” observed Mr Cheviott, cynically, “but—”

“No, it is no passing feeling—you misjudge me altogether, Laurence; you seem quite unable to understand me, and therefore there’s no more to be said.”

“I don’t see that—even supposing I am incapable of understanding your present frame of mind—though being in love, you must allow, is not such a very uncommon condition as you seem to think it; taking for granted, however, that I cannot understand you, still the practical side of the question has to be considered, and you have no one to consult but me. In two words, what do you mean to do?”

Arthur turned his face away for a moment; then he set his elbows on his knees and leaned his head on his hands, staring gloomily into the fire.

At last, “Laurence,” he broke out, “I don’t know what to do. There, now you have it all; you may despise and sneer at me as you like, I can’t help it. I deserve it, and yet I don’t deserve it, but that’s the long and the short of it. I do not, in the very least, know what to do, or what is right to do.”

To his surprise, Mr Cheviott suddenly leaned forward, took his pipe out of his mouth, and held out his hand. Half mechanically Arthur took it, and Laurence grasped his cousin’s hand warmly.

“We shall understand each other now,” he said, heartily. “When it comes to wishing to do right now, whatever mistakes you have made before, we come upon firm ground. Shall I tell you, Arthur, what seems to me the only thing for you to do?”

“What?” said Arthur, listlessly.

“Go away—quite away, for two years at least, if not more.”

“But not without explaining the reason to—to the Westerns?” said Captain Beverley, looking up quickly.

“Explaining!” repeated Mr Cheviott, with a shade of contempt in his tone, “what in this world could you explain? Think of the position you would put the girl in by letting her understand the real state of the case! What could she say or do? Her promising to wait for you would be ruin to you, and her throwing you over, should you distinctly propose to her, would seem to her—if she be what you believe her—shameful. I suppose you have not done anything definite? You are not engaged to her?”

“No,” said Arthur, reluctantly. “She couldn’t exactly bring me up for breach of promise, if that’s what you think her capable of,” he went on, with a half-bitter laugh; “but I consider myself more bound to her than if we were engaged. Then I should have given her a right to assert herself, then she could insist on my explaining myself. My going away, as you propose, Laurence, seems to me the meanest, most dishonourable attempt at sneaking out of the whole affair—and, good Heavens, what will they think of me?”

“Hardly so badly as they will think of me,” thought Mr Cheviott, while a vision of the pale indignation of Mary Western’s honest face flashed before his eyes. But he said nothing.

“Laurence, I say, what will they think of me?” repeated Arthur, impatiently.

Mr Cheviott took his pipe out of his mouth again, and, in his turn, stared into the fire.

“It can’t be helped; it’s the only thing to do,” he replied, decidedly.

Captain Beverley got up and walked excitedly up and down the room.

“What will Alys, even, think of me?” he exclaimed. “She knows enough to suspect more. Laurence, is there nothing—are you certain there is nothing that can be done to get me out of this cursed complication? Would there be no use in getting another opinion upon the will?”

Mr Cheviott shook his head.

“None whatever. You know that as well as I do,” he replied. “There is only one thing that would free you.”

“What?” exclaimed Captain Beverley, eagerly, stopping short and facing his cousin.

“Alys’s death,” said Mr Cheviott.

Arthur shuddered.

“For shame, Laurence,” he said, angrily. “Do you think it’s good taste, or good feeling either, to sneer in that way when you must—when you cannot but see what all this is to me?”

“It is not pleasant to myself,” observed Mr Cheviott, “which never seems to occur to you, as I said before. My allusion to Alys’s death should remind you of this. As things are, nothing—really nothing else than the death of the creature dearest to me on earth can clear me from the odious position I am placed in.”

Arthur looked at his cousin, first with surprise—it was so seldom Laurence talked of himself or of his own feelings—then gradually with a dawning of sympathy in his kindly eyes.

“Laurence,” he exclaimed, softly. That was all, and for a few moments there was silence.

“Did no one know of what my father was doing when he made that insane codicil? Could no one have prevented it—he was with your father at the time?” said Arthur, presently.

“No one knew of it,” replied Mr Cheviott, “not even his own lawyer; he must have had a consciousness that it would be disapproved of. I think the idea of saving you from the sort of marriage he had made himself had become a monomania with him—that, and the wish to repay to his sister’s child, in some way, what she had done for him. He knew little Alys would not be rich (her coming into Aunt Bethune’s money was never thought of then), and he was so extraordinarily fond of the child.”

“Couldn’t he have left her half his money unconditionally?”

“I wish he had—now,” said Laurence.

“But what do you mean by a wish to repay to his sister what she had done for him?”

“You know surely that my mother made over nearly all she had to him? Long ago, before your uncle’s death gave him Lydon and all his money. He was foolish as a young man, foolish and desperately extravagant, and but for what my mother did to save him, I don’t believe Lydon would ever have been his. His brother was just the sort of man to have passed him over, had there been any sort of disgrace.”

“What an unlucky set we have been!” said Arthur.

“And then he finished up by that wretched marriage,” pursued Laurence, without noticing his cousin’s remark, “and in that again my mother was the only one to stand by him. He had reason enough for gratitude to her, if only he had taken a different way of showing it.”

“Does Alys know anything of all this?” asked Arthur. “Nothing; and she never must. It has been my great aim to prevent it. However things turn out, she must never know. You see that, Arthur, surely? I can depend upon you?” said Mr Cheviott, speaking more eagerly and vehemently than he had yet done.

“You have my promise; what more would you have?” replied Arthur, regretfully. “Yes,” he continued, after a pause, “I suppose it would never do for her to know, but it is frightful to think how she will misjudge me—almost as bad as to think of the others. Laurence,” he went on, “I must do one thing—I must write to say good-bye to Mrs Western; they have been awfully kind to me—at least, I may say I am obliged to go away.”

Mr Cheviott smiled grimly.

“I am to have my full share of the credit of this nice piece of work, I see,” he said to himself. “Well, so best, perhaps.”—“Oh, yes, I suppose you must say something of the kind,” he added, aloud, and at these words Arthur felt a slight sensation of relief. What might he not contrive to say by not saying, in this note he had obtained permission to write? What might not Lilias, as clearheaded as she was true-hearted, Lilias, clairvoyant with “the eyes of the mind,” read between the lines of this poor little note on which so much was to hang; yes, for a minute or two Arthur felt a shade less hopelessly wretched.

“Laurence,” he said, after a little pause, and with some energy in his tone, “you will not, at least, coerce me in any way as to where or how I spend these two years?”

“How do you mean?” said Mr Cheviott, cautiously, with perhaps even a shade of suspiciousness in his tone. But Arthur did not resent, if he perceived it; he looked up into his cousin’s face, and somehow the sight of his own plead more in his favour than any words. All the comeliness and colour, all the boyish heartiness, seemed to have faded away out of his features as if by magic; in their stead there was a pale, almost haggard look of anxiety which touched Mr Cheviott inexpressibly. He turned away uneasily.

“It’s altogether too bad,” he muttered to himself; “it is altogether wrong. Here am I made to feel almost as if it were all my doing, and Arthur with all the heart and spirit crushed out of him, poor fellow! And, after all, he has not done anything wrong—all the result of his father’s folly; it is altogether too bad. Far better have left him penniless from the beginning.”

But Mr Cheviott was not in the habit of allowing his feelings, however righteous, to run away with him. In a moment or two he replied quietly to his cousin’s question.

“I have no wish to coerce you about anything,” he said, weariedly; “I only want to decide how to make the best of a bad business. Where would you like to go?”

“Like to go? Nowhere,” said Arthur, bitterly. “Where I would have a chance of doing any good is the question. I was thinking I might do worse than take to studying farming, and that sort of thing, systematically—go to Cirencester or one of those agricultural colleges, eh?”

“With a view to settling down at the Edge?” said Laurence, maliciously.

“No, but with a view to getting an agency—the agency of an estate, I mean, once Alys is of age. I don’t see anything unreasonable in that. If Alys doesn’t sell Lydon, perhaps she will take me into consideration.”

“Don’t sneer, Arthur; it is not Alys’s fault,” said Mr Cheviott. “I don’t think your idea is an unreasonable one,” and relieved to find his cousin so practically inclined, he went on to discuss the rival merits of the various agricultural colleges.

It was daylight, or dawn, at least, before the cousins separated, but, tired as he was, Captain Beverley did not go to bed till he had written and rewritten half a dozen times the conceded note of farewell to Mrs Western.

And in the end he, in despair, copied over the first and decided to send it.

“It is merely catching at a straw,” he said to himself. “Far better give up every hope of her at once, but I cannot.”

He left Romary the following afternoon, but his note was not sent to Hathercourt Rectory till late that evening.

Chapter Twelve.

“Have I made it worse?”

“Give me good fortune, I could strike him dead, For this discomfort he hath done the house!” Elaine.

So it was not really for from “this time to-morrow” that Lilias had so confidently anticipated, when Mrs Western opened the envelope, addressed to her by Captain Beverley, and read its contents.

“What can it mean? I cannot understand,” she said to herself, tremulously, for she was alone at the time. Then a second thought struck her, and the tremulousness gave place to hot indignation.

“Can he have been playing with her only? My child—my poor Lilias, is it possible?” she exclaimed aloud in her agitation. “What shall I do? How can I tell her?”

Just then a light, firm step sounded along the passage. Mrs Western shivered.

“If it is Lilias!” she whispered.

But it was not Lilias.

“Oh, Mary, my dearest, how thankful I am it is you!” she cried, as her second daughter entered the room. “Mary, what does this mean? Read it. How can we ever tell Lilias?” and as she spoke she held out the paper that trembled in her hands.

Mary trembled too, for an instant only, however. Then she drew herself together, as it were, by a vigorous effort, and read:

“Romary, February 19. “My Dear Mrs Western,— “I hardly know how to find words in which to apologise sufficiently for the ingratitude and discourtesy of which I shall appear guilty when I tell you that this note is to bid you all good-bye. For a time only, I trust and believe, but a time which seems terribly long for me to look forward to—for I am absolutely obliged to leave this neighbourhood at once, and for two years. I do not know how to thank you for all your goodness. I have never, in all my life, been so happy as under your roof, yet I have no choice but to go, without even bidding you all farewell in person. “Will you think of me as kindly as you can, and will you allow me to send, through you, my farewell to Miss Western and her sisters, and the rest of the family? and believe me,— “Yours most gratefully and truly,— “Arthur Kenneth Beverley.”

Mary stood motionless. Her face grew pale, her lips compressed, but she did not speak.

“What does it mean? Mary, speak, child, tell me what it means,” said Mrs Western, with the petulance born of extreme anxiety. “It cannot be that Lilias has refused him?”

“No, mother, it is not that,” said Mary, “I wish it were.”

“What is it, then? Can he be so utterly base and dishonourable?”

“Not of himself,” replied Mary, bitterly; “weak fool that he is, he is not so bad as that. No, mother, he is not, or has been made to think he is not, his own master; it is all that man—that bad man’s doing.”

“Whose doing?” said Mrs Western, bewilderedly. “That Mr Cheviott—Mr Cheviott of Romary. Don’t you see the note is dated from there? I see it all; he found it out at the ball. Very likely he went there for the purpose of finding it out, having heard rumours of it, and at once used all his influence, whatever it is, to make that poor fool give it up. And yet he isn’t a poor fool! That is the worst of it; there is so much good in him, and Lilias cares for him—yes, that is the worst of it. Mother, she does care for him. Will it break her heart?”

And Mary, in her innocence and ignorance, looked up to her mother who had gone through life, who must know how it would be, and repeated, wistfully, “Mother, will it break her heart?”

Mrs Western shook her head.

“I do not know—I cannot say; she is so proud. Either it will harden or break her utterly. Oh, Mary, my dear, my instincts were right. Do you remember how I dreaded it from the first?”

“Yes, mother, you were right; nowadays if people are poor, they must forget they are gentle-people. It would be well to bring up Alexa and Josey not to ‘look high,’ as the servants say; a respectable tradesman—Mr Brunt, the Withenden draper’s eldest son, for instance, is the sort of man that girls like us should be taught to encourage—eh, mother?”

“Mary, don’t; you pain me. It is not like you to talk so. If what you say were true, it would make me go back upon it all and think I was wrong to marry your father. He might have done so much better—he, so attractive and popular as he was; he might have married some one rich and—”

“Hush, mother—dear mother, hush,” said Mary, kissing her; “it is wicked of me to pain you,” and in saying these words she determined to tell her mother nothing of her own personal part of the affair, her bitter indignation at the way in which Mr Cheviott had tried to win her over to take part against her sister; and for this reticence she had another, as yet hardly understood, motive—a terrible misgiving was creeping upon her. Was she to blame? Had her plainly expressed defiance and indignation raised Mr Cheviott to more decisive action than he had before contemplated? She could not tell.

“But so mean as he has shown himself, it is perfectly possible that it is so,” she reflected. “He is small-minded enough to be stung into doing what he has by even my contempt, yet how could I have spoken otherwise? though for Lilias’s sake I could almost have made a hypocrite of myself.”

But as yet she was not at leisure to think this over; she only felt instinctively that it was better it should not be told, and thus deciding, her mother’s voice recalled her to the present.

“Mary,” she repeated again, “how are we to tell Lilias?”

“Leave it to me, mother dear,” she replied, for a moment’s consideration satisfied her that nothing in the shape of sympathy or pity—not even her mother’s—was likely to be acceptable to her sister at the first.

“She may soften afterwards, but she is sure to be hard at first,” Mary said to herself, “and, dear mother,” she went on, aloud, “the less notice we seem to take of his going, to the others, the better, don’t you think? Not even to papa. If he sees Lily looking much the same as usual—and you may trust her to do that—he will not think anything about it, and Alexa and Josey must just be well snubbed if they begin any silly chatter. And you will leave Lilias to me?”

“Yes, dear; but can I do nothing? If we could arrange for her to go away somewhere for a while, for instance?”

“After a time, perhaps, but not at first. Mother, you will try not to take any notice of it at first, won’t you? Just allude to it in a commonplace way; it will be far the best and easiest for Lilias.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“It is so horrible!” said Mary, with a little shudder, “so utterly horrible that a girl should be exposed to this—that even you and I, mother—mother and sister though we are to her, should be discussing her feelings as if we were doctors and she a patient! Oh, it is horrible!”

Lilias was not in her room; she was down-stairs in the drawing-room practising duets with Alexa, while Josey hovered about chattering, and interrupting, and trying to extract gossip from her elder sister on the subject of last night’s ball.

“Josey,” said Mary, as she came in, “it is past your bed-time, and you, too, Alexa, had better go I think. Mamma is in the study, so go and say good-night to her there.”

“Is mother not coming in here again?” asked Lilias. “I hate the evenings papa has to go out; we all seem so unsettled and straggling. Yes, do go to bed, children. I am beginning to feel a little tired, Mary; aren’t you?”

“No—yes, a little. I really don’t know,” said Mary.

Lilias laughed merrily.

“Why, I believe you are half asleep, child!” she exclaimed. “We are evidently not intended to be fine ladies, if one ball knocks us up so. I wonder what all the people who were there last night are doing with themselves now? Very likely they are having carpet dances tonight, and all sorts of fun. The Cleavelands party is broken up, though. The Cheviotts were going back to Romary last night.”

“Yes,” said Mary.

“No note has come for me, I suppose?” asked Lilias, with a little hesitation. “I did not like to ask you before the girls, but one of them said something about a groom on horseback having been at the stable door a little while ago.”

“There was no note for you,” said Mary, her voice sounding even to herself set and hard, “but there was one for mamma. She told me to bring it to you. Here it is.”

Lilias took it, but something in Mary’s manner startled her.

“What is it?” she said, hastily. “Why do you look so strange, Mary?”

“Read the note, Lily, please,” said Mary. “I’m going back to mamma—I won’t be a minute,” and as she spoke she turned to leave the room.

“Don’t go, Mary!” cried Lilias, but Mary had already gone.

Ten minutes after she returned to the drawing-room, but no Lilias was there. Mary’s heart failed her.

“Was I wrong to leave her?” she said to herself. “I thought it would be so horrid for me to seem to be watching how she took it.”

She flew up-stairs to her sister’s bedroom. The door was shut, but not locked. Mary knocked.

“Come in,” said Lilias’s voice, and hardly knowing what she was going to see, Mary entered.

There stood Lilias in the centre of the room, her beautiful fair hair all loosened, hanging about her like a cloud, her face pale, but eyes very bright—brighter than usual it seemed to Mary.

“Lily!” she exclaimed.

“Why do you say ‘Lily,’ and look at me like that?” replied her sister, sharply. “There’s nothing the matter. I’m tired, and going to bed early, that’s all. Please tell mamma so, and do ask her not to come to say goodnight to me. No, don’t kiss me, please, Mary. I’m cross, I suppose, just say good-night.”

“Very well,” said Mary, submissively.

She turned sadly to go, but had not reached the door when her sister’s voice recalled her.

“Oh! Mary,” it cried, and the sharp accent of pain which rang through the two little words went straight to Mary’s heart, “don’t misunderstand me. I want to be unselfish and brave, and just now it seemed to me that, if any one seemed to feel for me, I could not manage to get on. But I don’t want to make you unhappy, and you may talk to me if you like.”

Mary gently closed the door, then she came back to her sister, and drew her down on to a seat.

“What am I to say Lily? I wish I knew.”

“Anything,” replied Lilias; “you may say anything, Mary, except one thing.”

“And what is that?”

“Blame of him,” said Lilias, her eyes sparkling, “that, Mary, is the one thing I could not bear. I have made up my mind absolutely about this—if—if it is never explained, I will still keep to it, he is, in some way, not his own master.”

“But if it is so, Lilias, it still does not free him from blame, though it alters the kind. If he is not his own master, he should not have let himself got to care for you, and, still worse, have taught you to care for him.”

“Oh! yes, I dare say that is true enough—at least, it sounds so,” said Lilias; “but in some way or other it isn’t true, though I can’t explain it, and can’t argue about it. Besides, Mary,” she went on, with some hesitation, her pale face flushing crimson as she spoke, “it isn’t as if he had said good-bye for ever. He says distinctly, ‘two years’.”

“Ah! yes, and that is the mean bit of it,” said Mary, indignantly; “he had no right to allude to any future at all. He should leave you absolutely free, if he cannot claim you openly—leave you, I mean, absolutely free for those two years, even if he really expects to be able to return at their end. What right has he to expect you to waste your youth and happiness for him? If you were engaged a separation of two years would be nothing, or if even he had said that at the end of the time he would be free to ask you to marry him.”

“But that would have been binding me unfairly, most people would say,” replied Lilias, softly. “I believe he means to leave me quite free, but that he could not help catching at a straw, as it were, and therefore said that about two years.”

“I don’t believe in the two years,” persisted Mary; “even if he does not come into his property for two years, you might have been engaged, though not marrying for that time. No, I see no sense in it—it is some clever pretext of that—” “that scheming Mr Cheviott’s,” she was going to have said, but she stopped in time.

“Mary,” said Lilias, drawing away the hand which her sister had held in hers, “I told you I would not let you speak against him.”

“Forgive me. I won’t,” said Mary, penitently.

“Whatever the future brings—if he marry some one else within the two years,” said Lilias, “I shall still always believe in the Arthur Beverley I have known. He may change—circumstances and other influences may change him, but the man I have known is true and honourable, and has wished and tried to act rightly. This I shall always believe—till I am quite an old woman—an old maid,” she added with an attempt at a smile.

“Lily,” exclaimed Mary, with a touch of actual passion in her tone—“Lily, don’t. You are so beautiful, my own Lily, why should you be so tried? So beautiful and so good!” And Mary, Mary the calm, Mary the wise, ended up her attempt at strengthening and consoling her sister by bursting into tears herself.

It did Lilias good. Now it was her turn to comfort and support.

“I am not an old woman yet, Mary,” she said, caressingly, “and I don’t intend to become one any sooner than I can help. My hair isn’t going to turn grey by to-morrow morning. To-morrow, oh! Mary, do you remember what I said yesterday about ‘this time to-morrow’? I was so happy this time yesterday, and he said he would be here to-day—it was the very last thing he said to me. What can have happened to change it all?”

Again the misgiving shot through Mary’s heart. Had she done harm? She said nothing, and after a moment’s pause Lilias spoke again:

“The great thing you can do to help me just now, Mary, is to prevent any of the others thinking there is anything the matter. Outside people may say what they like—I don’t care for that—but it is at home I couldn’t stand it. Besides, we have so few neighbours and friends, we are not likely to be troubled with many remarks. Except Mrs Greville, perhaps, I don’t suppose any one has heard anything about Captain Beverley’s knowing us.”

“Only at the ball,” said Mary, hesitatingly; “he picked you out so.”

“Yes,” said Lilias, smiling sarcastically, “no doubt all the great people said I was behaving most unbecomingly; but they may say what they like. I know I don’t care for that part of it. Mary, you will say something to mother to prevent her asking me about it.”

“Yes,” said Mary. “Lilias, would you like to go away from home for a while?”

“I don’t know. How could I? There is nowhere I could go, unless you mean that I should be a governess, after all, and—” She stopped, and her face flushed again.

“And what?”

“I don’t like to say it; you will not enter into my feelings—I don’t like to do anything he would not like.”

Mary looked at her sadly.

“Poor Lilias!” she thought, “is ‘he’ worthy of it all?”—“I was not thinking of that,” she said aloud. “I meant, if it could be arranged, for you to go away for a visit for a little. Mrs Greville’s sister asked you once.”

“Yes, but ever so long ago, and I wouldn’t on any account propose such a thing to Mrs Greville just now.”

“Very well,” said Mary.

Then they kissed each other, and said good-night.

“Two years—two long years!” were the words that Lilias said to herself over and over again that night—words that mingled themselves in the dreams that disturbed such sleep as came to her. “Two years!—what can it all mean? But I will trust you, Arthur—I will trust you!”

“Two years!” thought Mary. “That part of it can be nothing but a pretext. And if Lilias goes on trusting and hoping, it will make it all the worse for her in the end. She has never had any real trouble, and she thinks herself stronger to bear it than she really is. I have always heard that that terrible sort of waiting is worse for a girl than anything. Oh! Lily, what can I do for you? And have I made it worse? If I had been gentler, perhaps, to that hard, proud man—there was a kind look in his eyes once or twice; he cannot know that it is no piece of idle flirtation—he cannot know how Lilias cares. If I could see him again! I feel as if I could say burning words that would make him realise the wretchedness of separating those two.”

Chapter Thirteen.

A Tempting Opportunity.

“Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.” Richard III.

The days went on, and things at Hathercourt Rectory looked much the same as usual. But not many had passed before, to Mary’s watching eyes, it seemed that Lilias was flagging. She had kept up, as she said she would, she had seemed as cheerful, almost, as usual, she had not overacted her part either, there had been no excitement or affectation about her in any way. But, all the more, it had been hard work, very hard work, and Mary’s heart ached when she saw the first signs of physical prostration beginning to show themselves.

“She looks so pale and so thin, and her eyes haven’t the least of their old sparkle,” said Mary to herself, “if it goes on, she will get really ill, I know.”

And, in truth, Lilias was beginning herself to lose faith in her own strength and self-control. She had been buoyed up by a hope she had not liked to allude to to Mary. A hope which, long deferred, has made many a heart sick besides Lilias Western’s—the hope of a letter!

There was no reason, which she knew of, why Arthur should not write to her.

“He might say in a letter what, perhaps, he would have shrunk from saying directly,” she thought, forgetting that the same strong influence which had sent Arthur away would have foreseen and guarded against his writing to her. And as day by day came and went, and every morning the post-bag was opened without her hopes being fulfilled, Lilias’s heart grew very weary.

“If I had known him anywhere but here,” she said to Mary one day, “I don’t think it would have been quite so hard. But here, at home, he seemed to have grown already so associated with everything. And, Mary,” she went on, with a sort of little sob, “it wasn’t all only about myself I was thinking. He is rich, you know; and I couldn’t help fancying sometimes it might be a good thing for us all—for you and the younger girls, and for mother. He even encouraged this, for he more than once made little allusions to the sort of things he would like to do if he dared. One day, I remember, when mother was tired, he said to me ‘how he would like to choose a pony carriage for her that she could get about in, and have more variety without fatigue.’ We were walking up and down the terrace—it was late in the afternoon, and there was red in the sky that shone through the branches of the group of old oaks at the end—do you remember that afternoon, Mary? The sky looks something the same to-day, but not so bright—it was that that reminded me of it.”

“No,” said Mary, “I don’t remember that particular afternoon. But I do know that he was always kind and considerate, especially to mother, and I cannot believe that it was not sincere.”

She gave a little sigh as she spoke; they were standing together at the window, and as Lilias leaned against the panes, gazing out, her attitude so languid and hopeless, the sharpened lines of her profile, all struck Mary with a chill misgiving.

“Lilias,” she said, suddenly, “you must go away from home for a while. What you have said just now about the associations here strengthens my feeling about it. You must have some change.”

“I don’t think it is possible, and I would much, very much rather stay at home,” said Lilias.

And till she had some definite scheme to propose, Mary thought it no use to contradict her.

But morning, noon, and night she was thinking of Lilias, always of Lilias and her troubles, and revolving in her head over and over again every possible and impossible means of making her happy again.

Two mornings after the conversation in the window the postboy brought a note for Lilias from Mrs Greville. It was at breakfast-time that it came. They were all together at the table.

“A letter for you, Lilias,” said her father, as he handed it to her.

Now letters for the Western girls were a rarity. They had few relations and almost fewer friends, for they had never been at school, and seldom left home. So when Mr Western’s apparently most commonplace announcement was made, six pair of eyes turned with interest, not to say curiosity, in Lilias’s direction, and even her mother and Mary glanced towards her with involuntary anxiety.

“A letter for Lily,” cried Josey, darting up from her seat. “Do let’s see it. Who’s it from?”

“Josephine!” exclaimed Mary, severely, “how can you be so unladylike? Mother, do speak to her,” and the little bustle of reproof of Josey that ensued effectually diverted the general attention.

Mary’s little ruse had succeeded, and her mother understood it. But for this, even little Francie could hardly have failed to notice the deathly paleness which, at her father’s words, overspread poor Lilias’s face. For an instant only; one glance at the envelope, and the intensity passed out of her eyes.

“A note from Mrs Greville,” she said, carelessly, as soon as she felt able to control the trembling in her voice. “She wants Mary and me to go to stay there for two nights—she expects one or two young friends from somewhere or other, and wants us to help to entertain them, I suppose.”

“It is very kind of her to think of the variety for you, I think,” said Mr Western. “Why should you be so ungracious about it, Lilias?”

The girl’s face flushed painfully.

“I don’t mean to be ungracious, father dear,” she said, gently, “but I don’t care about going.”