Mrs Molesworth (continued 8)

“I saw her half an hour ago,” said Mr Cheviott. “I think she is only tired. I will send her up something.” He got up from his chair and himself superintended the arrangement of a tempting little tray.

“Is Alys ill?” said Captain Beverley, in a low voice, and with a slight guiltiness of manner which did not escape his cousin.

“I think not,” Mr Cheviott replied, dryly, as he sat down. “She has been over-excited, and nowadays she can’t stand that sort of thing.”

Arthur said no more, but he was evidently glad when dinner was over, and Miss Winstanley had left the cousins by themselves.

“Laurence,” he began, eagerly, when the last servant had closed the door and they were really alone, “I am anxious to tell you everything that passed between Alys and me this afternoon. I only thought it fair to her that she should tell you what she chose to tell, first.”

“That was not very much,” said Mr Cheviott, “she evidently is afraid of damaging you by saying much.”

“God bless her,” said Arthur, fervently, “of course she does not know the whole state of the case. But I am perfectly willing to tell you everything, Laurence; in fact, as things are, I should be a fool not to do so. But, in the first place, read this.”

He held out the paper that Alys had written and signed. In spite of his intense anxiety—an anxiety but very partially understood by Captain Beverley, who little knew the personal complications the charge of his affairs had brought upon his cousin—Mr Cheviott could not restrain a smile as he read the words before him.

“An extraordinary document, I must confess,” he said, as he returned it to Arthur. “Upon my word, Beverley, Alys and you are just a couple of children. If only such serious results were not involved, the whole thing would be most laughable. What can have put all this into her head?”

“Her own intentions and her own observations principally, I believe,” said Arthur. “She knew something of—of my admiration for Miss Western, and she suspected that you had exerted your influence to prevent its coming to anything. She knows you to be too honourable and right-minded to interfere in such a matter without good reason—through mere prejudice, for instance.” Mr Cheviott winced a little.

“I cannot say of myself, Arthur, that I was always quite free from prejudice in this matter,” he interrupted, speaking in a low and somewhat constrained voice, “but I am, I believe I am, ready to own myself in the wrong if I have been so.”

Arthur’s face beamed with pleasure.

“Thank you for that, Laurence,” he said, “a hundred thanks. But I keep to what I said. Whatever your personal prejudices may have been, you did not act upon them. Your conduct was based entirely upon regard, unselfish regard for my welfare, and this Alys felt instinctively and set her wits to work to puzzle it out. But what has first to be considered is this—the statement on that paper is Alys’s own voluntary declaration—”

“Did she write it of her own accord?”

“She first said it to me, in stronger and plainer words even than those she wrote; and when I asked her if she would put it on paper, she did so in an instant—with the greatest eagerness and readiness. Now, Laurence, what is now my position? Supposing I wished to do such a thing, could I ask Alys to marry me after what she has said—it would be a perfect farce and mockery.”

“It certainly would,” said Mr Cheviott. “I’ll tell you what we must do, Arthur. We must go up to town and lay the present state of the case before old Maudsley, and see what he says. He is as anxious as any of us to get the thing settled, and he must see that it would be perfect nonsense now to look forward to any possibility of the terms of the will being fulfilled. And I do not see that their non-fulfillment can possibly rest upon you. It is a strong point in your favour that you have done nothing premature in any other direction. No doubt we shall have to go to law about it—carry it before the Court of Chancery, I mean to say—but as all the beneficiaries, you and Alys, or myself as her guardian, are of one mind as to what we wish, I cannot now anticipate much difficulty.”

“But, Laurence,” began Arthur, and then he hesitated. “At all costs,” he went on again, “I must be open with you. I have done what you call something ‘premature’ in another direction. I am as good as—in fact, I am engaged to Lilias Western.”

Mr Cheviott’s brow contracted.

“Since when?” he said, shortly, while a sudden painful misgiving darted through his brain. Had Mary known this?—had she, in a sense, deceived him? True, she was under no sort of bond not to oppose him—rather the other way; from the first she had openly defied him on this point, but still she must be different from what he had believed her, capable of something more like dissimulation and calculation than he liked to associate with that candid brow, those honest eyes, were it the case that she had known this actual state of things all through that time at the Edge farm—so lately even as during their strange drive to Withenden and back. With keen anxiety he awaited his cousin’s reply.

“Since about the time of Alys’s accident I came down here then one day—you did not know—I was so uneasy about Alys—and I met Lilias close to the Edge, and heard from her how Alys was. And then somehow—I felt I could not go on like that, at the worst I could work for her, and I have been learning how to do so, you must allow—somehow we came to an understanding.”

“And her people know, of course—her sister does, any way, I suppose?” said Mr Cheviott, with an unmistakable accent of pain in his voice which made Captain Beverley look up in surprise.

“Her sister—Mary, do you mean? No, indeed she does not. None of them do. There was, indeed, very little to know—simply an understanding, I might almost call it a tacit understanding, between our two selves that we would wait for each other till brighter days came. We have not written to each other or met again. I would do nothing to compromise Lilias till I could openly claim her. I did not, of course, explain my position; had I done so, she would not, as you once said, have agreed to my ruining myself for her sake. All she knows is that I may very probably be a very poor man. And because I could not explain my position, I saw no harm in keeping it all to our two selves for the present. But, you see, I have looked upon it as settled—till to-day I have considered myself virtually disinherited, and I have been working hard at C— to fit myself for an agency or so on at the end of the two years.”

Mr Cheviott listened attentively, without again interrupting his cousin. But Captain Beverley could see that it was with a lightened countenance he turned towards him again.

“Alys knows nothing of this?” he said. “You are perfectly certain that her eccentric behaviour to-day was not caused by her believing she in any way stood between you and Miss Western? Don’t you see, if it were so, this would injure you altogether; it might then seem as if she had done what she has out of pique, or self-sacrifice, or some feeling of that kind that, in a sense, you were to blame for?”

Mr Cheviott watched his cousin closely as he said this, but Arthur stood the scrutiny well. For a moment or two he stared as if he hardly understood; then a light suddenly breaking upon him, he flushed slightly, but there was no hesitation in his honest blue eyes as he looked up in his cousin’s face.

“I see what you mean,” he said, “but I didn’t at first. No, Laurence, Alys thinks of me as a brother; she did know and warmly approved of my admiration for Miss Western, but she never knew of its going further. I rather think she fancies it shared the fate of my other admirations, and that she thinks no better of me in consequence. What she did to-day had nothing to do with that. She has got into her dear little head that she comes between me and my fortune, and knowing that she never could possibly have cared for me, except as a brother, whether I had cared for her in another way or not, she has, for my sake, nobly taken the bull by the horns. And so far I feel all right. Had I proposed to her twenty times, she would never have accepted me.”

Mr Cheviott was silent. Whether or not he agreed with his cousin was not the question. That Arthur honestly believed what he said was enough.

“And what is to be done then?” said Arthur.

“What I said,” replied Mr Cheviott. “We must lay it all before Maudsley as soon as possible. And in the mean time, Arthur, do nothing more—let things remain as they are with Miss Western. In any case you cannot come into your property for two years.”

“But whatever happens, I am not going to let ‘things remain as they are,’ as you say, for two years,” said Arthur, aghast. “You can continue my present income for that time, anyway, now that my future is likely to be all right. At the worst, even if my engagement was publicly announced, it is six of one and half a dozen of the other as regards Alys and me. I should have shown I did not want to marry her, but she most certainly has shown she does not want to marry me.” He touched Alys’s paper as he spoke.

“Yes,” said Mr Cheviott, “that is true.”

“Perhaps,” said Arthur, laughingly, “if we appeal to the Court of Chancery, it will divide the estate between us. I shouldn’t mind. Lilias and I could live on what there would be well enough.”

“I don’t think that’s likely,” said Mr Cheviott. “However, the first thing to be done is to see Maudsley.”

And it was settled that they should go up to town the following day.

But when the cousins had separated for the night, and Arthur was alone with his own thoughts, a certain feeling of dissatisfaction with his own conduct came over him.

“I can’t make it out exactly,” he said to himself, as he sat over the smoking-room fire with his pipe, “but somehow I’ve a feeling that I’m not acting quite straightforwardly. How is it? Is it that I am claiming my property on false pretences—knowing in my heart that I never did intend to propose to Alys; or is it that I am not behaving rightly to Lilias—keeping her, or our engagement rather, dark till I feel my way? Laurence is as honest a fellow as ever lived, but then his intense anxiety that I should get my own blinds him a little, perhaps, to the other sides of the question. What a muddle it all is, to be sure!”

He sat still for a few moments longer, then suddenly rose from his seat.

“I’ll do it,” he said; “right or wrong, it seems the honestest thing. I’ll do it.”

He hunted about for writing materials, and, having found them, set to work at once on a letter. He did not hesitate in writing it; he seemed at no loss what to say, and in less than half an hour it was completed, signed, sealed and addressed to Mrs Western, Hathercourt Rectory.

Then the young man gave a deep sigh of relief, went to bed, and slept soundly till morning. But very early he was astir again; before many members of the Romary household even—for it was, compared with many, an early one—were about, Captain Beverley had crossed the park, and traversed on foot the two miles to the nearest post-office, that of Uxley, where he deposited his letter, and was at home again before Mr Cheviott made his appearance for the eight o’clock breakfast, necessitated by their intended journey.

A couple of hours later found the two young men in the train.

“Laurence,” began Captain Beverley, but his cousin interrupted him.

“Excuse me, Arthur. I want to say something to you before I forget. You must let me be the spokesman with Maudsley; if he proposes, as I expect, to carry your affairs to the Court of Chancery, I think it will be best for his mind to be perfectly unprejudiced, and to let his instructions, in the first place anyway, come from me. You, I am certain, would not tell the story impartially—you would tell it against your own interests.”

“I must tell it as it is, Laurence,” said Arthur, “and, no doubt facts will show that I am, at least, as much to blame as Alys for the non-fulfillment of my father’s wishes. For, Laurence, I was just going to tell you when you interrupted me—I’ve done it, out and out. I couldn’t stand leaving things as they were; it wasn’t fair to her, nor honest to any one, somehow. I have written and sent a formal proposal for Lilias to her parents. I sent it to her mother, because her father is ill.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told them that my prospects were most uncertain—I might be poor, I might be rich, and probably should not know which for two years, but that, at the worst, I could work for my livelihood, and was preparing myself for such a possibility.”

Mr Cheviott was silent.

“Are you awfully annoyed with me, Laurence?”

A half smile broke over Mr Cheviott’s face at the question.

“Upon my soul,” he said, “I don’t know. If a fellow will cut his own throat—”

“Complimentary to Miss Western,” said Arthur.

“Well, well, you know what I mean. I allow that, in your case, there was strong temptation, and, of course, Arthur, I respect you for your straightforwardness and downrightness. Personally, I have certainly no reason to be annoyed. What the relief to me will be of having this horrible concealment at an end, you can hardly imagine—the misconception it has exposed me to—good God!” He stopped abruptly. Arthur stared at him in amazement.

“I had no idea you felt so strongly about it, Laurence,” he said. “It makes me all the more thankful I have done what I have. You refer to Alys, of course? I know she must have been puzzled, but nothing would shake her confidence in you, old fellow, and now she will understand everything.”

“Yes, it would, of course, be an absurdity to carry out the directions about not telling her, once you are openly engaged to Miss Western,” replied Mr Cheviott. “And, I suppose, you have not much misgiving as to what the answer will be to your letter?”

“I don’t know,” said Arthur. “It will all come right in the end, but I expect her people to hesitate, at first, on account of the uncertainty. But you don’t think there will be any question of stopping my allowance, in the mean time, if I marry before the stated period is out?”

“I think not. I can take that upon me—for Alys. But if we appeal to the court at once it will probably confirm your income till things are settled.”

That same evening the cousins returned home. Some light, but not much satisfaction, was the result of their journey. Mr Maudsley approved of the course proposed by Mr Cheviott, but was decidedly of opinion that no decision could be arrived at till the date fixed by Arthur’s father for his son’s coming of age. “And then?” eagerly inquired both men. He could not say—it was an unusual, in fact, an extraordinary case, but, on the whole, seeing that the non-fulfillment of the testator’s wishes was at least as much the lady’s doing as the gentleman’s—a contingency which never seemed to have dawned upon Mr Beverley—on the whole it seemed improbable that Captain Beverley should be declared the sufferer. “But it was a most extraordinary complication, no doubt,” repeated Mr Maudsley, and he was glad to feel that neither he nor any one connected with him had had anything to do with the drawing up of so short-sighted a document as the late Mr Beverley’s last will and testament.

“Who did draw it up?” said Arthur, turning to his cousin.

“A stranger,” was the reply. “You know he consulted no one about it. He knew my father would altogether have opposed it. But it is perfectly legal. Mr Maudsley and I have tried often enough to find some flaw in it,” he added, with a slight smile.

“And what about telling Alys?” said Arthur, with some little hesitation, as the dog-cart was entering the Romary gates.

“I think,” said Laurence, “I think, as she knows, or has guessed so much, it is best to tell her all. It is to some extent left to my discretion to explain the whole to her should it be evident that the conditions cannot be fulfilled, which I have always interpreted to mean in case of her or your marriage, or engagement to some one else. Of course there are people who would say that you are not yet married, hardly engaged, and that I should wait, to be sure. But honestly I confess, after what has happened, it would be repulsive to me, in fact, impossible to go on dreaming that your father’s wishes ever could be fulfilled. The worst of such a deed as your father’s will is that all I can do is to act up to the letter of his instructions—as for the spirit of it—!”

“You’ve done your best,” said Arthur, re-assuringly; “far better than any other fellow in the same position could have done. Just you see if Alys doesn’t say so. It’s been a horrid sell for you altogether, and—”

“Not the not getting your patrimony. You don’t mean that?” interrupted Laurence. “Heaven only knows what the relief will be to me if, as I am beginning to hope, it is decidedly the right way.”

“No, I didn’t mean that exactly,” said Arthur. “I know you and Alys are less selfish and grasping than any two people I have ever come across—cela va sans dire—I meant the bother and worry and all the rest of it. I wish somehow something might go to Alys. I can’t help wishing that, you see, knowing it all and feeling just as if she were my own sister.”

“Don’t wish it,” said Laurence, shortly. “Alys will have enough. Married or single she need never be dependent on any one.”

“Ah, yes!” returned Arthur; “but still—She wouldn’t be the worse of a home of her own. Downham now—it’s a nice little place, and what on earth should I do with two—three, there’s the Edge,” he added, with a merry, boyish laugh—“if Downham, now, could be settled on Alys, for, you see, Laurence,” he added, seriously, and as hesitating to allude to anything so completely out of the range of probabilities, “after all, it’s just possible you may marry.”

“I suppose so,” said Laurence, with a touch of bitterness in his tone which Arthur, had he perceived, would have been at a loss to explain, “I suppose so, but so highly unlikely, it is no use taking it into consideration one way or another. Confess now, Arthur, you hardly could, could you, imagine such a thing as any girl’s caring for me?”

Arthur looked up at his cousin with some surprise. Was Laurence joking? He could not tell.

“I don’t know why one shouldn’t,” he said, meditatively. “A girl, I mean—I don’t see why you need fancy yourself so unattractive. You’re good-looking enough, and—come now, Laurence, that’s not fair; you’re leading me out to laugh at me,” for so only could he interpret the slight smile that flickered over his cousin’s face.

“I was in earnest, I assure you,” said Mr Cheviott. “However, never mind. We’ll postpone the discussion of my charms to a more convenient season. Here we are at home.”

“Shall you have your talk with Alys to-night?” said Arthur.

“Probably—unless, that is to say, you would rather I should wait till—till—how shall I put it?—till you get a reply to your letter to Hathercourt.”

“No,” said Arthur, decidedly, “don’t put it off on that account. Whatever disappointment in the shape of delay or hesitation may be in store for me, I’ve no misgiving as far as Lilias herself is concerned. She’s as true as steel. And in any case Alys deserves my confidence. No sister could have been stauncher to me through all than she has been.”

And so it was decided, though, glad as Laurence felt to put an end once and for always to the only misconception that had ever existed between his sister and himself, a strange indefinable reluctance to tell her all clung to him.

“She will hate so to hear the idea of a marriage with Arthur discussed or alluded to,” he said to himself. “Girls are such queer creatures. However, the more reason to get it over. Will she ever tell it to Mary Western, I wonder? I shall lay no embargo upon her, for sooner or later Arthur is sure to tell the elder sister the whole story. But even if it were all explained, what then? I said in my fury that day what I wish I could forget—I said to her that I could have made her care for me. Could I? Ah, no—such deep prejudice and aversion could never be overcome. As Arthur could not conceal in his honesty, I am very far from an attractive man—not one likely to ‘find favour in my lady’s eyes.’ I am certainly not ‘a pretty fellow.’ Ah, well, so be it!”

Chapter Thirty.

“Amendes Honourables.”

”... But what avails it now To speak more words? We’re parting, Let it be in kindness, give me good-bye, Tell me you understand, or else forgive.” “I’ve nothing to forgive; you love me not, And that you cannot help, I fancy.” Hon. Mrs Willoughby.—Euphemia.

But, as not unfrequently happens, Mr Cheviott found the anticipation worse than the reality. Alys was upstairs in her own room when they got to the house, and she begged her brother not to ask her to come down that evening.

“I am not ill,” she said, “only tired and nervous, somehow. Come up to me after dinner, Laurence, and let us have a good talk—that will do me more good than anything.”

She looked up at him with a curious questioning in her eyes that struck him as strangely pathetic.

“Yes,” he said to himself, “she must be told all.”

So the way was paved for his revelations. And Alys was sufficiently prepared for them to manifest no very overwhelming surprise. She listened in silence till Laurence had told her all. Then she just said quietly:

“Laurence, it was a cruel will.”

“Yes,” said her brother, “however intended, so it has indeed proved.”

“Going near,” pursued Alys, softly, almost as if speaking to herself, “going near to spoil two, four, nay, I may say five lives,” she whispered. “Oh, thank God, Laurence, it is at an end!”

She clasped her thin little hands nervously. How changed she was—Alys, poor Alys, who used to ignore the very existence of nerves!

Her next remark struck Mr Cheviott unexpectedly.

“Laurence,” she said, “I wonder if Mary Western will ever know all this!”

He had it on his lips to answer, “The sooner so, the better,” but he could not. Instead thereof his reply sounded cool and unconcerned in the extreme.

“Possibly she may, some time or other. Arthur is sure to tell Lilias Western whom it does concern. But why should you care about her sister’s knowing it?”

“Because I do,” Alys replied, oracularly.

There was a large allowance of letters in the Romary post-bag the next morning. Several for Captain Beverley—all of which, but one, he put hastily aside. And his heightened colour and evident anxiety could not but have betrayed to his companions whence came that one, had not both Mr Cheviott and Miss Winstanley been absorbed by news of unusual interest in their respective letters.

“Laurence,” said Arthur, at last, when for the time letters were put down, and breakfast began to receive some attention, “is that yesterday’s Times? Have you looked at it? I wonder if there is a death in it of some one I know—you know who I mean—the last of those poor Brookes, Basil’s brother, I mean Anselm, a boy of eighteen. I hear he died at Hastings, two days ago.”

“I don’t know about its being in the Times,” replied Mr Cheviott, “but, curiously enough, I have just heard of it in a letter from an old friend of mine, Mrs Brabazon, an aunt of the poor fellow’s, and—”

“And?” said Arthur, eagerly.

Mr Cheviott glanced at Miss Winstanley. “Afterwards,” he formed with his lips, rather than by pronouncing the word, in reply to his cousin. But Miss Winstanley had caught something of what they were saying.

“The Brookes,” she exclaimed, “are you talking of the Brookes of Marshover?” and when both her companions answered affirmatively, “How very odd!” she went on, growing quite excited. “My letter is all about them too. It is from my old friend, Miss Mashiter, who has been staying at the same hotel at Hastings as the Brookes are at, and she is quite upset about the poor young fellow’s death—it was so sudden at the last, and there is such a romantic story about. It appears that a cousin of the young man’s came to Hastings lately, a most exquisitely beautiful creature, with whom he had been in love since early boyhood, though somewhat older than himself, and she has been devoting herself to him, and now the report is that, just before he died, he got his poor father to promise to leave everything to her—he has no child left, and the Brookes are enormously rich. What a catch the young lady will be!”

“Aunt Winstanley, I am ashamed of you!” said Mr Cheviott. “I had no idea you were so worldly-minded. You don’t mean to say you ever heard of such a thing as a girl’s losing a lover and consoling herself with another—especially when the first had, as you say in this case, left her a fortune?”

“It is very sad,” agreed Miss Winstanley, quite deceived by Mr Cheviott’s tone—“very sad, but such is the way of the world, Laurence. Of course, I would not say such a thing before Alys.”

“Of course not,” said her nephew, approvingly.

Arthur looked up with relief; for the instant, Miss Winstanley’s story had startled him a little—for to whom could the episode of the beautiful cousin refer but to Lilias, still, as her mother’s letter informed him, at Hastings, “doing what she can for our poor friends there.” But there must be great nonsense mixed up with Miss Mashiter’s gossip, Arthur decided, seeing that Laurence, who had the correct version of the whole in his hands, could afford to tease Miss Winstanley about it. The poor boy—Anselm Brooke—was dead, but still—the idea of Lilias’s name being coupled with that of any man, or boy even, was not altogether palatable, and still less that of her being an heiress!

“What a mercy I yielded to my inspiration and wrote to Mrs Western yesterday!” he replied. “To-day, after hearing that report, nonsensical though it probably is, I should hardly have liked to write.”

He was thankful when Miss Winstanley at length got up from her seat—her breakfast seemed to have been an interminable affair that morning—and saying that she must go and ask what sort of a night Alys had had, left the cousins to themselves.

“What is your news? What does Mrs Brabazon write about?” exclaimed Arthur, eagerly, almost before the door had closed on Miss Winstanley.

“Rather,” said Laurence, “What is yours? Mine will keep, but you, I see, have a letter from Hathercourt which, I am sure, you are dying to tell me all about.”

“To show you, if you like,” said Arthur, holding it out to his cousin. “You have guessed, I see, that it is all I could wish.”

It was a thoroughly kind and sensible reply from Mrs Western. She made no pretence of astonishment at the nature of Captain Beverley’s letter to her; she said that she and her husband would be glad to see him again, and to talk over what he had wished to say to them.

Lilias was at Hastings, but expected home in a few days. Mr Western was continuing better. Any afternoon of the present week would find them both at home and disengaged, and she ended by thanking Arthur for his consideration in writing to her instead of Lilias’s father, as he was still far from able to meet any sudden agitation without risk of injury.

“Should I go over this afternoon, do you think?” said Arthur.

“Yes, I should say so,” replied Mr Cheviott. “And what will you tell them?”

“Everything. I have no choice,” said Arthur. “That is to say, I shall tell them all about my father’s will and the present state of the case, and what Maudsley thinks and what you think. Of course I need not go into particulars as to what passed between Alys and me the other day, but I will just tell them that anything of the kind, as regards both her and myself, never has been, never could have been possible—that we are, and always have been, and always shall be, I trust, brother and sister to each other.”

Mr Cheviott had been listening attentively.

“Yes,” he said, when his cousin left off speaking, and looked up for his approval, “I don’t think you can do better.”

“And now for your news—Mrs Brabazon’s, I mean,” said Arthur, eagerly. But Mr Cheviott showed no corresponding eagerness to reply.

“She says,” he answered, quietly, “that Miss Western is with them and quite well. Of course they are all sadly depressed by young Brooke’s death, though they knew it must come before long—she writes as if poor old Brooke had got his death-blow, but she says that ‘Lilias’ has been the greatest comfort to them.”

“And what more?” asked Arthur, “there is something more, I know. There is nothing in all that to have been a reason for Mrs Brabazon’s writing to you.”

“I didn’t say there was. Women constantly write letters without any reason,” observed Mr Cheviott.

Arthur got up from his seat and walked impatiently up and down the room.

“Laurence,” he said at length, “I think that sort of chaffing of yours is ill-timed.”

“I don’t mean to chaff you—upon my word, I don’t,” said Mr Cheviott, looking up innocently. “All I mean is that, whatever my news is, I am not going to tell you any more of it at present. It is much better not, and you will see so yourself afterwards.”

“You meant to tell me all when you first got the letter?” said Arthur.

“Well, yes, I don’t know but that I did. But I have changed my mind.”

“Is it—no, it cannot be—that there is any truth in that absurd nonsense that Miss Winstanley was telling us?”

“Why should you ask? It bore on the face of it that it was absurd nonsense,” replied Mr Cheviott. “Do, Arthur, trust me. You have done so in important things. Can’t you leave me to tell you about Mrs Brabazon’s letter after you have been at Hathercourt?”

“Very well. Needs must, I suppose,” said Arthur, lightly.

But he was not without misgivings during his long ride to the Rectory.

“I wish that idiotic old maid had kept her gossip to herself instead of writing it off to Miss Winstanley,” he said to himself more than once, and when he got close to Hathercourt he felt so nervously apprehensive of what he might be going to hear, that the relief of meeting, or rather overtaking Mary within a few yards of the house was very great.

Mary had no hat or bonnet on—she had just run out to gather some fresh green for the simple nosegays her father liked to see from his sofa. She was already in mourning for her young cousin, and as she looked up with a bright flush of pleasure to return Captain Beverley’s greeting, he could not help thinking that, though “not Lilias,” she was certainly very pretty.

“That black dress surely shows her off to advantage,” he said to himself, “or else she has grown prettier than she used to be. What a queer fellow Laurence is—fancy being shut up at the Edge for three weeks with a girl like that, and emerging as great a misogynist as before!”

Her mother was at home and disengaged, or would, no doubt, speedily be so, when she heard of his visit, Mary told him. Then he got off his horse, and she led him into the drawing-room.

“Mamma is in the study, I think,” she said, lingering a little. Then with some hesitation and rising colour, “I had a letter from Lilias this morning. She is coming home the day after to-morrow.”

“So soon?” exclaimed Captain Beverley, delightedly. “That is better than I hoped for. Mary,” he went on, impulsively, holding out both his hands and taking hers into their clasp, “Mary—you will forgive my calling you so?—you know what I have come about, don’t you? You will wish me joy—you have always been our friend, I fancy, somehow.”

“Our friend,” repeated Mary, inquiringly. “You are sure, then,” she went on, “that—that it will be all right with Lilias? Yes, mamma told me of your letter—you don’t mind?—it is quite safe with me.”

“Mind, of course not. But how do you mean about Lilias?” he asked, with a quick return of his misgiving. “Nothing has happened that I have not been told of?”

His bright face grew pale. Mary, with quick sympathy, hastened to re-assure him.

“Oh, no, no,” she said, “I don’t know what you have heard—but it isn’t that. Nothing of that kind could make Lilias change of course. I only mean—it is a long time since you have seen her, and—and—you went away so suddenly, you know. Lilias has never said anything to me, but I have been at a loss what to think about her.”

“As to what she has been thinking about me, do you mean?”

“Yes,” said Mary, bluntly.

Arthur’s face cleared.

“If that is all, I am not afraid,” he said, gently. “You are sure that is all, Mary?”

“Quite sure,” she replied. Then after a moment’s pause, “How is Miss Cheviott?”

“Pretty well—at least, so I am told,” he replied; “but to me she seems terribly changed. Laurence, her brother, I mean, won’t say much about her. He can’t bear to own it, I fancy. And it is so dull for her. I think that keeps her back—she should have some companionship.” Mary’s face grew very grave. She gave a little sigh. “I wish—” she was beginning to say, when the door opened and her mother came in.

Alys was alone in her room that afternoon, when a tap and the request, “May I come in?” announced her cousin’s return. She knew where he had been, for Laurence had told her everything; but she had not been alone with Arthur since their strange interview two days ago, and the remembrance of it set her heart beating as she called out, “Come in by all means.”

To her surprise, Arthur came quickly up to her sofa, bent down and kissed her on the forehead before he spoke.

“Dear Alys,” he said, “I have come straight to you. It is all thanks to you, and I wanted to tell you, before any one, that everything’s going to be all right.”

For half a second there seemed a catch in Alys’s breath. Then she looked up with a smile, though there were tears in her eyes too.

“I am so glad, so very glad,” she said, softly. “Then has Lilias come back?” she asked.

“No, she is coming the day after to-morrow,” he replied, “and that reminds me—I have a great deal to tell you, Alys, and I am sure it will interest you—on Mary’s account as well as on Lilias’s.”

“I think I know—part of it anyway,” said Alys. “Laurence has been telling me of his letter from Mrs Brabazon—he would not tell you because he thought it would be so much pleasanter for you to know nothing about it till the Westerns told you themselves.”

“Yes,” said Arthur, “I see.”

“How strange it all seems!” said Alys. “How well I remember meeting Mrs Brabazon in Paris last year, and how she cross-questioned me about the Westerns, at the time, you know, that Laurence was so prejudiced against them.”

“And you spoke up for them?”

“A little,” said Alys, blushing slightly, “I mean, as much as I could.”

“Good girl!” said Arthur, approvingly.

“And since then, you know, Laurence has quite changed. How could he help it? You have no idea of Mary’s goodness to me that time at your farm, Arthur, and knowing her showed what they all were, so single-minded and refined, and so well brought up though they have been so poor. You mustn’t mind, Arthur,—it is no disparagement to Lilias when I say I cannot help counting Mary my special friend.”

“And now I hope you will see her often,” said Arthur. “She would do you good.”

Alys shook her head.

“I know she would,” she said, “but she won’t come here.”

“Now she will,” said Arthur. “She can have no more of that exaggerated terror of being patronised, if that has been her motive. The county will all find out the Westerns’ delightful qualities now, you’ll see, Alys. By-the-bye, I wonder what made Mrs Brabazon write to Laurence.”

“Just that some one in the neighbourhood might know the real facts of the case,” Alys replied. “There is sure to be so much gossip and exaggeration. I fancy, too, she wrote with a sort of wish to disabuse Laurence of his prejudice against her cousins—I am sure she noticed it that day in Paris—Did the Westerns tell you all about their affairs, Arthur?”

“A great deal, they are so frank and, as you say, single-minded, Alys. They have known something about it for some time, ever since Lilias met the Brookes at Hastings.”

“And has it been all owing to that?”

“Oh, no—a great part of the property must have come to Mrs Western; no, to the eldest son, Basil, I should say, at Mr Brooke’s death. But the Westerns might not have known this, and as the father said to me, in his invalid state, the release from anxiety is a priceless boon.”

“But it isn’t only Basil that is to benefit,” said Alys, eagerly. “Mrs Brabazon said—”

“Of course not,” her cousin interrupted. “Everything is to go to him eventually—old Brooke not having any one to provide for, and not wishing to cut up the property—but Mrs Western will, for life, be very well off indeed, and so will the whole family. Each daughter and younger son will have what is really a comfortable little fortune. The Marshover Brookes are very rich, you know.”

“And to think how poor the Westerns have been!” said Alys, regretfully.

“Yes; but a few years ago nothing could have seemed more remote than their chance of succession. And, after all, even very rich people can’t look after all their poor relations.”

“No, I suppose not,” said Alys, with a sigh. “Will they leave Hathercourt?”

“Sure to, I should think. Mr Brooke wants them to go to Marshover, Mrs Western says, and keep it up for him, as he will be most of the year abroad. He is not obliged to do anything for them during his life, you see, but he has already settled an ample income on Mrs Western, and Basil is to go into the army, and George to college.”

“I shall never see Mary again, all the same.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, but I am certain she will never come here. Arthur, I think she dislikes Laurence too much ever to come here.”

Arthur opened his eyes.

“Dislikes Laurence!” he repeated. “Why should she?”

“She does,” persisted Alys, “and Laurence knows it.”

“Well, we’ll see. Perhaps Lilias may help us to overcome Mary’s prejudice,” said Arthur, with a smile. “And failing Mary, Alys, you won’t be sorry to have Lilias for—for a sister—will you, Alys?”

Alys smiled, and her smile was enough.

All this happened in spring. Early in the autumn of that same year Lilias and Arthur were married. They were married at Hathercourt—in the old church which had seen the bride grow up from a child into a woman, and had been associated with all the joys and sorrows of her life—the old church beneath whose walls had lain for many long years the mortal remains of Arthur Beverley’s far-back ancestress, the “Mawde” who had once been a fair young bride herself.

“As fair perhaps, as happy and hopeful as Lilias,” thought Mary, as her eyes once more wandered to the well-known tablet on the wall, with a vague wonder as to what “Mawde” would think of it all could she see the group now standing before the altar. Then there came before her memory, like a dream, the thought of the Sunday morning, not, after all, so very long ago, when the little party of strangers had invaded the quiet church, and so disturbed her own and her sister’s devotions. And again she seemed to see herself looking up into Mr Cheviott’s face in the porch, while she asked him to come into the Rectory to rest.

“He smiled so kindly, I remember,” thought Mary, “and there was something in his face that made me feel as if I could trust him. And so I might have done—ah! how hasty and prejudiced I have been—thank Heaven, I have injured no one else by my folly, however!”

And then she repeated to herself a determination she had come to—there was one thing, be the cost to her pride what it might, that she would do, and to-day, she said to herself should, if possible, see it done.

It was a very quiet marriage—for every reason it had seemed best to have it so. There were the considerations of Mr Western’s still uncertain health, of the mourning in the Brooke family with which that of Lilias was now identified, of Alys Cheviott’s invalid condition, and even of Captain Beverley’s own anomalous position, as still, by his father’s will, a minor, and at present, therefore, far from a wealthy man, though every hope was now entertained that before long he would be in legal possession of his own. There were no strangers present—only the Grevilles and Mrs Brabazon, besides the large group of brothers and sisters, and Mr Cheviott as “best man,” and Lilias and her husband drove off in no coach and four, but in the quiet little brougham now added to the Rectory establishment, for Mr Western’s benefit principally, when he was at Hathercourt. For Hathercourt was not to be deserted, though only a part of the year was now spent there by the Rector’s family, and to the curate, whose services he now could well afford, was deputed the more active part of the work. They had all been at Marshover for some months past, and had only returned to Hathercourt a few weeks before the marriage.

“I could hardly believe in any family event of great importance happening to us anywhere else—we seem so identified with our old home. I like to think I shall end my days here, after all,” Mr Western was saying, with inoffensive egotism, to Mr Cheviott, as they stood together in the window after the hero and heroine of the day had gone, when Mary came up and joined them.

“Yes, father,” she said, gently. “I remember your saying so, ever so long ago. I think,” she added, turning to Mr Cheviott, “it was the afternoon of that Sunday you all drove over to church here—do you remember?”

Mr Cheviott smiled slightly.

“I remember,” he said, quietly. “I have never been inside the church since, till to-day. If it is still open I would like to look round it, if I may?” turning to Mr Western for permission.

“It is not open,” said Mary, answering for her father, “but I can get the key in an instant, and, if you like,” she went on, considerably to Mr Cheviott’s surprise, “I will go with you.”

He thanked her, and they went. But, before fitting the great key into the old lock, as they stood once again by themselves in the church porch, Mary turned to her companion.

“Mr Cheviott,” she said, “I offered to come with you because I wanted an opportunity for saying something to you that I did not wish any one else to hear. I have never seen you alone since—since a day several months ago, when Lilias, by Arthur’s wish, explained everything to me, and I want just to tell you simply, once for all, that I am honestly ashamed of having misjudged you as I did, and—and—I hope you will forgive me.”

Mr Cheviott looked at her for a moment without speaking—her face was slightly flushed, her eyes bright and with a touch of appeal in them—half shy, half confident, which carried his thoughts, too, back to the last time they had stood there together. She looked not unlike what she had done then, but he—There was no smile in his face as he replied.

“Thank you,” he said. “It is kind and brave of you to say this, but I cannot say I forgive you. I have nothing to forgive. If I were not afraid of reviving what to you must be a most unpleasant memory, I would rather ask if you can forgive me for my much graver offences against you?”

“How? What do you mean?” said Mary, startled and chilled a little by his tone.

“My inconsideration and presumption are what I refer to,” he said. “I cannot now imagine what came over me to make me say what I did—but you will forgive and forget, will you not, Miss Western? We are connections now, you see—it would never do for us to quarrel. I once said—you remember—that speech is the one which I think I must have been mad to utter—that in other circumstances, had I had fair play, I could have succeeded in what I was then insane enough to dream of. Now my aspirations are surely reasonable enough to deserve success—all I ask is that you will forget all that passed at that time, and believe that, in a general way, I am not an infatuated fool.”

Mary had grown deadly pale. She drew herself back against the wall, as if for support.

“No,” she said, in a hard, constrained tone, “no, that I cannot do. You ask too much. I can never forget.”

Mr Cheviott gazed at her in astonishment. For one instant, for the shadow of an instant, a gleam darted across his face—could it be?—could she mean?—he asked himself, but, before his thought had taken form, Mary dashed it to the ground.

“I am ashamed of myself for being so easily upset,” she said, almost in her ordinary tone, “but I have had a good deal to tire me lately. We needn’t say any more, Mr Cheviott, about forgiving and forgetting, and all such sentimental matters. I have made my amende, and you have made yours, and it’s all right.”

Mr Cheviott’s voice was at its coldest and hardest when he spoke again.

“As you please,” was all he said, and Mary, foolish Mary, turned from him to hide the scorching tears that were beginning to come, and fumbled with the key till she succeeded in opening the door.

“There now,” she said, lightly. “I must run home. I don’t think you will require a cicerone for this church, Mr Cheviott,” and before he could reply, she was gone. Gone—to try to smile when she thought her heart was breaking, to seem cheerful and merry when over and over again there rang through her brain the cruel words—“He never cared for me, he says himself it was an infatuation. He is ashamed to remember it; oh no, he never really cared for me, or else my own words turned his love into contempt and dislike—and what wonder!”

Two or three days after Lilias’s marriage Mary heard from Alys Cheviott. She and her brother were leaving England almost immediately, she said, for several months. The letter was kind and affectionate, but it did not even allude to the possibility of her seeing Mary before they left.

“Good-bye, Alys,” said Mary, as she folded it up and one or two hot tears fell in the envelope. “Good-bye, dear Alys; and good-bye to the prize I threw from me, when it might have been mine—surely the best chance of happiness that ever woman was offered!”

Chapter Thirty One.

A Farewell Visit to Romary.

“He desired in a wife an intellect that, if not equal to his own, could become so by sympathy—a union of high culture and noble aspiration, and yet of loving womanly sweetness which a man seldom finds out of books; and when he does find it perhaps it does not wear the sort of face that he fancies.” The Parisians.

The Westerns were not to spend this winter at Marshover. It was too cold for Mr Western, and so was Hathercourt. A house, therefore, for the worst of the season had been taken at Bournemouth, and there old Mr Brooke had promised to spend with them his otherwise solitary Christmas.

“I’m so glad you are going to Bournemouth,” said Mrs Greville one day, a few weeks after Lilias’s marriage, when she had driven over to say good-bye to her old friends before they left; “it is such a nice cheerful place, and plenty going on there. Quite a pleasant little society. It will be an advantage for the girls if, as Mrs Brabazon tells me, they are to be in town next year.”

“But Alexa and Josephine will not be at Bournemouth except for a week at Christmas,” said Mary. “They will be at school.”

“And Alexa is too young to go out at least for another year,” said Mrs Western.

“But there is Mary. You are not going to school again, are you, Mary?” said Mrs Greville, laughingly, turning to her.

“I almost wish I were!” she replied, “excepting that I should not like to leave mother. But I shall not go out at all, dear Mrs Greville, either at Bournemouth or in town. I don’t care for society.”

“How can you tell till you have tried?” said her friend.

“That’s just it. I don’t know anything at all about it, and I feel too old to get into the way of it.”

“Mary!” exclaimed Mrs Greville; “what an idea! At one-and-twenty,” and even Mrs Western looked slightly surprised.

“I can understand your thinking you will never care for things of the kind much, and I dare say you never will,” Mary’s mother observed. “But if not for your own, it may for others’ sakes—for your younger sisters’—be necessary for you to go a little into society.”

“Ah, well—not at present, any way, and possibly never,” said Mary. “Alexa would make a much better Miss Western than I.”

Mrs Greville smiled.

“Are you tired of your honours already, Mary?” she said. “Well, who knows!”

“I didn’t mea—” began Mary, flushing slightly, “besides, it has always been settled that I was the old maid of the family.”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs Greville. “That reminds me, you will find some old friends at Bournemouth—the Morpeths; you don’t know, Mary, what an impression you made on Vance Morpeth.”

Mary looked annoyed. “That boy!” she exclaimed, hastily, “my dear Mrs Greville—”

“He isn’t a boy—he is five-and-twenty,” interrupted Mrs Greville, slightly ruffled. “Of course I don’t mean to say that now, with your present prospects you might not be justified in—well, to use a common phrase, though not a very refined one, in ‘looking higher’.”

“Dear Mrs Greville!” exclaimed both Mary and her mother together. “Don’t say things like that, please,” Mary went on. “You don’t really think that I would be influenced by that kind of consideration?—you don’t think so poorly of me?”

“No, my dear, I do not. I think you and all of you a great deal too unworldly; I wish, for your own sakes, you were a little more influenced by considerations of that kind,” said Mrs Greville, nodding her head sagaciously, and just then, some one calling Mrs Western from the room, she went on in a lower voice, “Why are you so desperately cold to Mr Cheviott, my dear? Do you really dislike him so hopelessly?”

“Who said I disliked him?” exclaimed Mary, sharply, and the slight extra colour on her cheeks deepened now into hot, angry crimson.

“My dear! Don’t be so fierce. Surely you can’t have forgotten all the things you yourself said against him. Why, you would not even go to see through Romary till I coaxed you into it—just because it was his house. I assure you your aversion to him became quite a joke among us—Vance Morpeth always speaks of him as your bête noire.”

Mary was silent. What else could she be?

“I only wish you had not expressed your dislike to or before me,” continued Mrs Greville. “I should have been only too glad to have been able to say that I had never heard of it when Alys Cheviott told me how it had distressed and disappointed her.”

“Did Alys speak of it?” said Mary, surprised and a little annoyed.

“Yes, to me—not to any one else. You need not be indignant at it, Mary. It came about quite naturally. You know I have seen a good deal of her this summer while you were all at Marshover. She seemed to like my going over there, and she has been very lonely, poor girl. That aunt of hers is such a goose! And one day she was asking me all about you, and she added quite naturally how much she wished you would sometimes go to see her.”

“But I was away,” pleaded Mary, not quite honestly.

“Yes, just then; but you had been at home quite long enough to go if you had wished, and that was Alys’s disappointment. She told me that almost her first thought, when everything was cleared up between Lilias and Captain Beverley, was, ‘And now I shall be able to see Mary,’ thinking, of course, that when you understood that Mr Cheviott’s dread had been altogether unselfish—fear of Arthur’s ruining himself by disobeying the will—you would at once lose your dislike to him.”

“And what does she now think?” asked Mary.

“She doesn’t know what to think. She fears that in some way Mr Cheviott has so deeply offended you that your dislike—prejudice—whatever it is—to him, is incurable.”

Again, for a moment, Mary was silent. Then she said, hesitatingly.

“Has she—do you think, Mrs Greville—said anything of this to Mr Cheviott?”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs Greville. “But of course, my dear Mary, you cannot pretend to be so modest as to fancy that your staying away from them—from Alys, at least—in this marked way, cannot have attracted attention. After the service you did them—the great obligation you put them under to you, and Alys’s constantly expressed affection and gratitude—your refusing to go to her, when she couldn’t come to you, was a very strong measure. And, to speak plainly, unless you had the very strongest reasons for it, I think it was very unkind to that poor girl.”

Mary, for some little time past, had been believing her punishment complete. Now, as Mrs Greville spoke, she realised that it had not been so. She had been cruel to Alys; she had allowed her own feelings—her mortification at the past, her proud terror of possible misapprehension in the future—to override what was the clearest and plainest of duties. “I am not worthy to be called a friend,” she said to herself, and tears filled her eyes as she turned to Mrs Greville.

“Thank you,” she said, gently, “for what you have said. It will not have been in vain.”

And Mrs Greville kissed and told her if she were proud and prejudiced, she was also honest and magnanimous. And then the good lady drove herself home in her pony-carriage with a comfortable feeling of self-satisfaction, and a vague, not unpleasing suspicion that she might turn out to have been a sort of “Deus ex machinâ,” or “benevolent fairy god-mother, we’ll say,” she added to herself, not feeling quite sure of the Latin of the first phrase, or that it did not savour a little of profanity, “just to give a little shove to affairs at the right moment.”

All day Mary thought and thought over what she should do. Could she get to see Alys, now at the eleventh hour, for the Cheviotts, if they had not already done so, must be on the eve of quitting Romary for the winter? Should she write to Mrs Greville and ask her to convey some message? Should she—so many months had passed since she had seen Alys that a little further delay could be of small consequence—should she wait for an opportunity of seeing Lilias, and asking her to explain? To explain what, and how? Ah! no. Explanation of any kind was impossible, and the necessity for it she had nothing but her own foolish conduct to thank for. At last—“I will attempt no explanation, no excuse, or palliation,” she decided, “Alys is generosity itself. I will trust her by asking her to trust me.” And that same evening she wrote to her a few simple words, which she felt to be all she could say.

“My dear Alys,” she said, “will you forgive me? I see now that I have made a grievous mistake, done a wrong and cruel thing in never going to see you all this time. This knowledge has come to me suddenly and startlingly, and I cannot rest till I write to you. I cannot explain to you what has distorted my way of seeing things, but I ask you to forgive me, and to believe that, selfishly and unkindly as I have acted, there has not been a day, scarcely an hour, since we were together in which I have not thought of you. “Yours affectionately,— “Mary Western.”

And when this letter was written and sent, Mary felt happier than she had done for a long time. Was it all “the reward of a good conscience?” Was there not deep down, unrecognised, in a corner of her “inner consciousness,” wherever that debatable land may be, a hope, a possibility of a hope rather, that Mrs Greville’s statement, to some extent, explained the change in Mr Cheviott’s manner? What if Alys, after all, had been the innocent marplot—suggesting to her brother in her disappointment that the “all coming right” of Lilias’s affairs had not resulted in a complete change of attitude on Mary’s part; that her dislike to him must be even deeper founded than could be explained by her misjudgment of his conduct towards her sister? What if they had both been at cross-purposes—each attributing to the other a prejudice that no longer existed—which, indeed, Mary had done nothing to remove his belief in on her part—which, as existing on his side towards her, she had imagined to have yielded temporarily to what he himself had described as an “infatuation,” but to return with tenfold strength?

All this she did not say to herself in distinct words, but the suggestion had taken root in her heart, and was not to be dislodged. And though days grew into weeks before there came from Alys an answer to her letter, Mary went about through those weeks with lightened steps and hopeful eyes. She could not distrust Alys, she told herself; and her mother, seeing her so cheerful, congratulated herself that Mary was “getting over” the loss of Lilias, which she had been beginning to fear had greatly depressed her.

Alys’s letter, when it did come, was all that Mary had expected and more, much more than she felt herself to have deserved.

“I will not ask you to explain anything,” wrote Alys, “I am more than satisfied. I cannot tell you what a change it makes in my life to be able to look forward to seeing you as much and as often as you can be spared to me. It will help me to be patient, and to try to get strong again. I am likely to be much alone when we return to England, for Laurence is thinking of letting Romary and taking a house for me somewhere not very far from town. He seems to have taken a dislike to a country life, and says he thinks he would be better if he had ‘more to do.’ I cannot agree with him that such a thing is possible, for I have never known him idle for half an hour.”

Mary gave a little sigh as she folded up the letter—that was all. And soon after came on the time for the family move to Bournemouth, and with a strange feeling of regret she again said good-bye to Hathercourt.

The winter passed, uneventfully enough on the whole. There was a flying visit from Lilias and her husband on their way back from Italy to the small country-house that was to be their home for the next two years; there were old Mr Brooke and Mrs Brabazon and the two schoolgirls, Alexa and Josey, for Christmas; there were, for Mary, very occasional glimpses of Bournemouth society; but with these exceptions her daily life was what many girls of her age would have considered very monotonous. She did not seem to find it so, however; she appeared, indeed, what Lilias called so “aggravatingly contented” that she owned to Arthur, with a sigh, that, after all, she greatly feared that the family prophecy about Mary was going to turn out true.

“At one-and-twenty,” she said, lugubriously, “she really seems to be steadily developing into an old maid.”

“Wait a little,” said Arthur. “Mrs Brabazon is determined to have her in town for some weeks. There is still hope of Mary’s proving to be not altogether superior to youthful vanities and frivolities.”

“Very little, I fear,” said Lilias, half smiling, half provoked.

Mrs Brabazon had her way—Mary did go to town, and, after her own fashion, enjoyed herself. She was generally liked, in some cases specially admired, but that was all. She gently repulsed all approach to anything more, and, though grateful to Mrs Brabazon, perplexed her by her calm equability in the midst of a life novel and exciting enough to have turned a less philosophical young head. If, indeed, it were “all philosophy,” thought Mary’s shrewd cousin, and not, to some extent, preoccupation?

One day towards the end of April—Mary had been six weeks in town—there came a letter from Bournemouth, asking her, if possible, to go to Hathercourt for a day or two, to make some arrangements preparatory to Mr and Mrs Western’s return there, “which,” wrote her mother, “no one but you, dear Mary, can see to satisfactorily, sorry as I am to interrupt your pleasant visit.”

Mrs Brabazon was somewhat put out. She had two or three specially desirable engagements for the next few days; but, though Mary heartily expressed her regret at the summons being, from her hostess’s point of view, thus ill-timed, she owned to herself rather enjoying the prospect than otherwise.

“I am an incurable country cousin, dear Mrs Brabazon,” she said; “you will have more satisfaction in every way with Alexa, if you are kind enough to take charge of her next year.”

“And where do you intend to be then?” said Mrs Brabazon, amused, in spite of herself, at Mary’s tone.

“I shall have retired to my own corner. I have always been told I should be an old maid,” said Mary, laughingly.

And two days later found her at Uxley. She was not to stay at Hathercourt, the Rectory being just released from the hands of painters and decorators, and unfit for habitation, and Mrs Greville delighted to seize the chance of a visit from one of her old favourites.

The day before that fixed for Mary’s return to town Mrs Greville came into the drawing-room with a note in her hand.

“You have quite finished at Hathercourt, you are sure?” she said, “you don’t need to go over again?”

“Oh, no, thank you,” said Mary, “there is nothing more for me to do. I am quite at your disposal for the rest of my time. Is there anything you want to do this afternoon?”

“Nothing much—only to drive over to Romary,” said Mrs Greville. “I have a note from poor old Mrs Golding, saying that she would be so thankful to see me. She is really ill, and quite upset with the idea of leaving Romary. She has only just heard definitely from Mr Cheviott about it, as she kept hoping he would change his mind.”

“Shall I not be in the way if I come with you? I don’t in the least mind staying alone,” said Mary, diplomatically.

“Oh dear, no!” replied Mrs Greville, who had not perceived the slight shadow that had stolen across Mary’s face at the mention of Romary, “the fact is I want you, for the boy cannot come this afternoon, and I don’t like driving quite so far alone.”

Mary resigned herself with outside cheerfulness, but some inward misgiving.

“I would rather never have gone near Romary again,” she said to herself; “however, I need not go into the house, and it will be a sort of good-bye to the place, and with it a great deal besides.”

For of late she had grown less hopeful. Alys had written once again, and to this second letter Mary had replied. But that was months ago, and she had heard no more; and, though nothing could make her distrust Alys’s affection, she was beginning to fear that their gradually drifting apart was unavoidable.

“Thinking of me as her brother does,” said Mary to herself, “it is not possible that she and I can have much intercourse. It was insane of me to hope for it.”

When Mrs Greville’s pony-carriage drove up to the house, Mary asked leave to stay outside.

“I shall be quite happy wandering about by myself,” she said, “and Mrs Golding will prefer seeing you without a stranger. How long shall you be—an hour?”

“Possibly two,” replied Mrs Greville, laughing, “there is no getting away from the old body sometimes. And as I shall not see her many more times I should like to pay her a good long visit.”

“Don’t hurry, then,” said Mary. “I shall be all right.”

It was a very lovely day. Romary looked to much greater advantage than the last time Mary had been there. It had then been mid-winter to all intents and purposes, at least as far as the trees and the grass were concerned. Now it was the most suggestively beautiful season of the year—spring-time far enough advanced to have much perfection of loveliness of its own, besides the rich promise of greater things yet to come. Mary had not before realised how pretty Romary was.

“I wonder they can think of leaving it,” she said to herself, half sadly. She had sauntered round the west front of the house, along a terrace overlooking a sort of Italian garden, when, turning suddenly another corner, she came upon a well-remembered scene—the thick-growing shrubbery through which ran the foot-path leading to the private entrance near the haunted room. With a curious mixture of feelings Mary stood still for a moment, recalling with a strange fascination the sensations with which she had last hurried along the little path. Then she slowly walked on.

Bright as the day was, it seemed dusk in the shrubbery.

“It is really a rather creepy place,” thought Mary, “one might expect to meet any kind of ghost hereabouts.”

And as if the thought had conjured up some corroboration of her words, at that moment in the narrow vista of the path before her there appeared a figure approaching in her direction. For one instant Mary started with a half-thrill of nervous apprehension—was she really the victim of some delusion of her own fancy?—then she looked again to feel but increased bewilderment as she more clearly recognised the figure. How could it be Mr Cheviott? Was he not most certainly still at Hyères? Had not Mrs Greville told her so that very morning?

There was just this one flaw in her argument—the person now rapidly nearing her was Mr Cheviott! And when Mary became convinced of this her first sensation of amazement gave way to scarcely less perplexing annoyance and vexation at being again met by him as an uninvited intruder on his own domain.

“Was there ever anything so awkward?” thought Mary, “was ever any one so unlucky as I?” she repeated, proudly stifling the quick flash of gladness at meeting him again anywhere, under any circumstances. And so overwhelmed was she by her own exaggerated self-consciousness that when in another moment with outstretched hand he stood before her, she did not even notice the bright look of pleasure that lighted up his face, or hear the one word, “Mary!” with which he met her.

Whether she shook hands or not she did not know. She felt only that her heart was beating to suffocation, and her face crimson as she exclaimed confusedly:

“Mr Cheviott! I had not the least idea you were here—in England even. I only came over with Mrs Greville—I am so vexed—so ashamed—If I had had any idea—” Then she stopped, feeling as if she had only made bad worse. Mr Cheviott looked at her.

“If you had had any idea I was anywhere near here you would have flown to the Land’s End or John o’ Groat’s House to avoid me—is that it?” he said, and whether he spoke bitterly or in half jest to cover some underlying feeling, Mary really could not tell. She turned away her head and did not speak.

“If he takes that tone,” she said to herself, “I shall—I don’t know what I shall do.”

“Won’t you answer me? Mary you must,” he said, passionately, facing round upon her—half unconsciously she had walked on, and he had kept abreast of her—and taking both her hands in his—“do you hate me, Mary, or do you not?” he said. “I am not a proud man, you see, or else my love for you has cast out my pride; perhaps you will despise me for it, for a second time daring to—but I made up my mind to it. I came back to England on purpose to be sure. At least, you must see that my love is no light matter, and—oh! child, tell me—do you hate me? Look up and tell me.”

He had changed his tone to one of such earnest appeal that Mary trembled as he spoke. But when she tried to look up her eyes filled with tears, and the words she wanted would not come.

“Hate you?” was all she could say.

But it was enough. He looked at her as if he could hardly believe his eyes.

“Do you mean to say—Mary—do you mean that you love me? And all this time—”

A smile broke through her tears.

“Can’t you believe it?” she said. “At least, you may absolve me from having ever told you anything but the plain truth as to my feelings towards you,” she added. Then he, too, smiled.

“But,” she added, “the last time we met, you yourself called it an ‘infatuation.’ I thought you had grown ashamed of it.”

“Ashamed of it,” he repeated, “ashamed of loving you? My darling! Ashamed of my reckless inconsideration for your feelings?—yes, I had reason to be that. And an infatuation it certainly did seem, to believe that there was any possibility of your ever learning to care for me, for there were all those months of disappointment after my conduct in that wretched complication had been cleared up, and day by day Alys hoped, and I hoped, for some sign from you. And then what you said to me the day of the marriage I looked upon as merely wrung from you by your brave conscientiousness—that made you feel your acknowledgment of mistake was due even to me. Do you see?”

“Yes,” said Mary; “but,” she added, shyly, “what made you change?”

“Your letter to Alys partly; by-the-bye, you have to tell me how you came to change so as to write it? And then—I don’t know how it was—I felt my case so desperate; I had nothing to lose, and oh, Mary, what an inestimable possibility to gain! I made up my mind to try once more, and as soon as I could leave Alys I came home, never hoping, however, to see you here—in the very lion’s den!”

“Does Alys know why you came?”

“No, I would never have told her, or any one, had I failed. But to think that I have won!—Mary, I never before in all my life dreamed of such happiness. I have everything that makes life worth having given to me in you. And, do you know,” he added, with a sort of boyish naïveté, “I don’t think I ever realised how wonderfully pretty you are? What have you been doing to yourself?”

Mary laughed—a happy, heartful laugh that fully vindicated the youthfulness she had begun to believe a thing of the past. She was not above feeling delight at his thinking her pretty.

“It is your eyes, I think,” he said. “They were always nice, sweet, honest eyes, but now something else has come into them. What is it?”

“Guess,” whispered Mary. “I don’t think it was there this morning.”

“It wasn’t your beauty I ever thought the most of,” he said. “It reminds me of something I read the other day, that when a man does And his ideal it is sure ‘not to wear the face he fancies.’ But I have got it all, face too!”

“And now,” said Mary, “please go away. I am sure Mrs Greville is ready, and I don’t want to keep her waiting.”

Mr Cheviott’s countenance fell.

“Mayn’t I come with you to meet her? Won’t you tell her?” he said.

“Not before you!” said Mary, laughing. “But I will tell her—I should like to tell some one,” she added, girlishly.

“And when can I see you?”

“To-morrow morning. Come to Uxley early if you can. I am not leaving till the afternoon. And then we can fix about—about your going to see them at Bournemouth, and all that.”

“But I would like to tell some one, too, this very minute, at once, and I have no one. What shall I do?” he said, ruefully.

“Tell Mrs Golding,” said Mary, mischievously, and before he could stop her, she had turned and was running at full speed along the shrubbery path, back to the front of the house, where, sure enough, Mrs Greville and the pony-carriage were waiting.

Ten minutes after, Mr Cheviott entered the old housekeeper’s room.

“Mrs Golding,” he said, “I am not so sure that I shall let Romary after all!”

The End.

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Chapter 1

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Chapter 2

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Chapter 3

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Chapter 4

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Chapter 5

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Chapter 6

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Chapter 7

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Chapter 8

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Chapter 9

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Chapter 10

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Chapter 11

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Chapter 12

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Chapter 13

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Chapter 14

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Chapter 15

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Chapter 16

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Chapter 17

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Chapter 18

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Chapter 19

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Chapter 20

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Chapter 21

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Chapter 22

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Chapter 23

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Chapter 24

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Chapter 25

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Chapter 26

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Chapter 27

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Chapter 28

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Chapter 29

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Chapter 30

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Chapter 31

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