"Only Eighteen" (continued 3)

“Have they?” said Imogen, opening her eyes. Then some of Trixie’s remarks recurred to her, and she blushed a little. “Do you mean, mamsey,” she went on, “that this,” and she touched the letter, “is what one would call a proposal? It isn’t like what they are in books.”

“It is almost more than a proposal,” her mother replied. “It is as if he was quite sure of you—as if you quite understood each other. Have you not given him more encouragement than you quite realise, my pet?”

Imogen reflected.

“He did say something last night about hoping for a good talk to-day—something he wanted to say to me,” she said, hesitatingly.

“Ah, I thought so; he has in a sense taken the definite understanding for granted, as it were,” said Mrs Wentworth. “And you know, dearie, he is much older than you—about my own age, in fact,” with a touch of her little bridling of self-satisfaction, “and you must let him, as it were, do things in his own way.”

“Yes, I know he is much older than I. You do not need to remind me of that,” said Imogen, in a melancholy tone. And a vision passed before her of the ideal husband—rather, perhaps, the lover—she had pictured in her girlish dreams, eager, devoted, ardent; it was not the staid, almost paternal Major Winchester!

Mrs Wentworth’s face clouded. “But, my darling,” she said, “you don’t mean—”

“Oh, I don’t know what I mean. I am not good enough or clever enough for him; but I daresay it will be all right. I will tell him so; and he is very kind and patient. He will teach me, I daresay, and—I know it will be a comfort to you to—to feel—and—” Here a smile for the first time broke through her troubled expression: “Just fancy, mamsey, how astonished every one will be! It will be fun to write to Dora; and, mamsey, I must have her for one of my bridesmaids.”

“We shall see, dearie; we shall see. Yes, indeed, every one will be astonished,” and visions of the delightful letters of faire-part of the exciting news to her special cronies that would fall to her own share floated before Mrs Wentworth’s dazzled eyes. “Not but that Imogen might have made a more brilliant marriage,” she imagined herself saying; “but Major Winchester is a man one can so thoroughly trust, and—” Here her daughter’s voice interrupted her. She was pointing to the postscript and looking rather dismayed.

“Mamma,” she said, “did you notice this? I don’t think I did; at least, I was so startled I don’t know if I noticed it or not. But I shouldn’t have told even you.”

“Oh, nonsense, darling! He could not have meant to exclude me,” said Mrs Wentworth. “However—”

“You will be very, very careful, won’t you, mamsey?” urged, the girl, who was not without experience of her mother’s impulsiveness.

“Of course, dear, in any case; about such a thing you don’t think I need warning?” said Mrs Wentworth, in a slightly aggrieved tone.

“But—that Miss Forsyth,” said Imogen; “she is so wheedling, and you know you are rather easily taken in, mamsey, dear.”

The adjective and the caressing tone—for Imogen was not given to gush—smoothed down Mrs Wentworth’s ruffled feathers.

“I’ll be very careful, dearest,” she said; and then, at last, she tore herself away, Imogen promising to follow her down-stairs with the utmost possible speed.

It was with a sense of delightful, though almost bewildering, elation that Mrs Wentworth entered the dining-room, where various members of the party staying in the house were lounging over the irregular breakfast. No member of the family was present except Alicia, who half rose to greet her in her usual good-natured, apathetic way.

“Am I not praiseworthy, Mrs Wentworth, for being down so early?” she said.

“Is no one else down?” asked the new-comer, somewhat surprised; for the Helmont energy extended to early rising. “I mean to say, none of yourselves?”

“Oh dear, yes. Father and mother are off on their usual behests, and Florence was down at nine to give our worthy cousin his breakfast. Major Winchester was obliged to go up to town this morning.”

“I know—at least I heard so,” Mrs Wentworth could not resist saying.

“Really!” said Alicia with a glance of surprise. And as Miss Forsyth at that moment came in—“Did you know, Mab, that Rex and Robin went off first thing this morning? Oh yes, by the bye, I believe you and Trixie didn’t go to bed at all, did you?”

“It was much jollier sitting up in our armchairs over the fire,” said Mabella, carelessly. She did not look the least tired or fagged.

“Give me a cup of coffee, won’t you, Alicia? It’s such a time since I had breakfast, I feel ready to begin again.—And how is the fair Imogen, Mrs Wentworth? You yourself look brilliant,” she added.

Mrs Wentworth smiled graciously.

“Thank you,” she said; “Imogen is very well, very well indeed. She will be down directly. She would have been down already, but she had—we had some rather important letters this morning.”

Miss Forsyth drew her chair a little closer to her dear Mrs Wentworth’s.

“Nothing wrong, I trust?” she said in a low voice. “No, you could not look as you do if it were. Really, dear, there are times, and this is one of them, when, I cannot take in that you are Imogen’s mother—you do look so ridiculously young. If there is anything—any business matter—I can be of use about, you will tell me, won’t you?”

“You are so kind, dear Mabella,” murmured Mrs Wentworth vaguely.

“Let us take our work and go and sit in the large conservatory after breakfast, and have a good cosy talk,” the girl went on. “Imogen is sure to be—oh no, I forgot; Major Rex is off there will be no one especially to claim her this morning.”

Mrs Wentworth closed her lips in a peculiar way but did not reply. Just then Trixie came in, like a whirlwind, as usual, but looking very handsome.

“Where’s Imogen?” she exclaimed. “We’re going to skate—Noll and I and one or two others—and she said she wanted to learn. Is she still asleep?”

“Oh no, she will be down directly, and—if it’s not too cold, and—” she hesitated, for her faith was small in Trixie. “Would you like to go, dear?” she went on to Imogen, as she made her appearance.

“I have just told Florence I would go,” Imogen answered quietly. “I met her in the hall. She said she had undertaken to look after me. You know I can’t skate a bit, Trixie.”

“Promised Major Winchester to take care of her, you see,” whispered Mabella to Mrs Wentworth, with a smile. And for the life of her, Mrs Wentworth could not repress a certain self-consciousness in her “Perhaps so,” in reply.

How sardonic were Mabella’s inward chuckles of satisfaction!

“It is too good to be true almost, Trixie,” she told her semi-confidante that morning. “Revenged! I should think so, indeed—never was anything so neat in this world.”

But beyond this, not one word would she say.

And in spite of Imogen’s warnings and expressed misgivings, ere the day was many hours older, Miss Forsyth was pretty fairly in possession of all she wanted to know.

“She is so sympathising, and interested in Imogen,” thought Mrs Wentworth, “and I cannot tell what is absolutely untrue.”

But when after events had caused her to qualify Miss Forsyth’s character with very different adjectives, she found it impossible to recall any words of that astute young woman’s which, when repeated, could be fairly said to endorse or strengthen her own belief as to Major Winchester’s attitude towards Imogen. On the contrary, little phrases literally expressive of doubt or perplexity, though contradicted even while uttered by her tone and smile, returned to her memory.

“Of course, I cannot give an opinion, whatever I may think.”

“No, Major Winchester cannot be called a flirt, and every one speaks of him as a most honourable man; but I am not in his confidence, and one can only judge by what one sees.”

“I have been told of some attachment or engagement of old standing, but then one knows how such things often end,”—and so on, all providing a more or less safe shelter for Mabella should she ever be brought to book for her treachery.

And the next two or three days passed like a confused dream to Imogen herself. There were times when she felt girlishly exultant and elated; times when she was half inclined to entreat her mother to keep to their programme (for the original term of their visit expired two days after the theatricals) and leave The Fells before Major Winchester’s return; times when she longed to see him and test her own feelings; times when she dreaded meeting him again more than she could express. But with the obstinacy which I have before alluded to, on one point Mrs Wentworth was immovable. Leave The Fells before his return she absolutely would not. In vain Imogen pleaded that if he “really meant it,” he could follow them, and that it would be both more dignified and “much more comfortable,” to meet again elsewhere.

“It would be the most distinct refusal you could give him under the circumstances,” Mrs Wentworth maintained. “And a man of his age and position must be allowed to take his own way to some extent, even if it be a little eccentric;” adding, in her own mind, “And just supposing he wrote that odd letter impulsively, not being really quite sure of his own mind,” (which was, to do her justice, Mrs Wentworth’s only misgiving), “if he came back and found us gone, and Florence, who I know, does not like us, got hold of him and talked him round, where would we be? We might never hear of or see him again—quite as honourable men as he have backed out of things of the kind before now—and Imogen’s whole career might be spoilt, for of course he would not suppose she had shown me the letter, considering the postscript, and knowing what a punctilious darling she is.”

But these reflections she kept to herself—the effect of revealing them to Imogen would, she felt instinctively, have been disastrous, for the slight strain of coarseness, undeniable in the mother’s nature, despite her real gentleness and unselfishness, would have found no response in the perfect delicacy of the high-minded though undisciplined daughter.

A hint or two to the effect that another week at The Fells would be a convenience as well as a pleasure was cordially responded to by the Wentworths’ hostess. Truth to tell, the seed fell on ground already carefully prepared by Mabella, through Trixie, bribed by the promise of a speedy dénouement of their cherished scheme of revenge.

“I am really pleased to see that Trixie has made such friends with Imogen Wentworth,” said honest Mrs Helmont to her husband. “She is a thoroughly sweet, refined girl. And even Mab seems quieter lately.”

“Trixie was none the worse for her bit of plain-speaking, you see,” said the Squire with satisfaction. “I think I know how to manage that sort of thing when it is really called for, though I have no idea of nagging at the children as some do. I wish poor Florry could pick up her spirits a bit.”

“She misses Rex; he has such a good influence on her,” said Mrs Helmont, “though he has troubles enough of his own, poor fellow. I daresay she is anxious about his troubles too.”

For Florence, of all the party, had perhaps the most perturbed aspect just then. She was both distressed and bewildered—vaguely conscious that mischief was brewing, though unable to define how or where. And her anxiety was not lessened by the perception that Imogen was avoiding her.

“I wish Rex were back,” she said to herself. “And still more I wish he had not left that child in my charge, as he said. What can I do? She gives me no confidence, and she is always with Trixie, just as her silly mother is with Mabella.”

It was true, though the further truth that in those days it was not Imogen seeking Beatrix, but Beatrix Imogen, Beatrix was clever enough to conceal from her elder sister.

“Keep her always in view; for Heaven’s sake don’t let her get confidential with any one else, or it will all be spoilt!” were Mab’s instructions to Trixie.

“She’s not confidential with me; she’s as dull as ditch-water. I’m getting sick of your secret plots and plans that come to nothing,” grumbled Beatrix.

There came a morning, however, when Mabella altered her commands for the day.

“Trixie,” she said, in a low voice, “he—your cousin—is returning this afternoon. His luggage is to be fetched, and he himself is going to walk up from the station. He comes by the 2:15 express. No one is to be told; but I trust to you to let it out to Imogen.”

Beatrix faced round upon her.

“How do you know, if no one is to be told?” she asked sharply. Mabella smiled, a peculiar smile.

“I have ways and means,” she said. “He wrote it to Florence, and I was sitting beside her at breakfast. I knew he would be writing to her when he fixed his return.”

Trixie flamed up; her patience had been over-taxed.

“You mean, despicable—I don’t know what to call you,” she said. “I’ve a great mind to throw it all up, and tell what you’re capable of.”

“As you please,” returned Mabella, coolly. “I’m getting rather sick of it myself. But remember, you can’t tell on me without telling on yourself. It wouldn’t, after all, matter so very much to me, only a house the less to visit at; but it would be uncommonly unpleasant for you. Your father would never forgive you for playing tricks on his guests, and you couldn’t pack up and go off comfortably enough, as I could.”

Trixie looked blacker and blacker; there was truth in Mabella’s words.

“I haven’t played tricks, if it comes to that,” she said. “I’ve only connived, to a certain extent, at what you’re doing; and what you’re after just now I don’t understand in the least.”

“Wait a bit and you’ll see,” said Miss Forsyth. “We may as well have some fun for our pains. Be sensible, Trixie. After all, no one will be any the worse for it in the end, and it will be very wholesome for some people to be brought down a peg or two.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked Trixie, sulkily.

“Find ways and means to confide to Imogen that Rex Winchester is coming to-day, and that he will be walking up alone from the station at a certain hour. He wanted Florence to meet him, but she can’t. She had promised to go to Catborough to luncheon. You might insinuate that Florence wants to keep him all to herself, which is true. She never tells any one anything. I often wonder you and Alicia stand it. Ten to one Imogen will jump at the chance of meeting him unobserved. She hates her mother’s silly meddling, I can see.”

“And what will happen then?” demanded Trixie.

“Not much to hurt Imogen—I don’t believe she really cares for him, it’s only gratified vanity—but I hope and believe Major Rex will have a more thoroughly uncomfortable quart d’heure than he has ever experienced,” said Mabella, smacking her lips, so to say, in anticipation. “And you will be revenged, Trix, gloriously revenged on him, for his priggish meddling. And it will be all his own fault! That’s the beauty of it; he won’t be able to blame any one else—not a shadow of suspicion will fall on you or me, if only you are sensible.”

“And,” she added, to herself, in a lower tone, “I shall be revenged. What are Trixie’s babyish wrongs compared to mine?”

Thus worked upon and primed, Beatrix, as usual, agreed to carry out Miss Forsyth’s very precise and exact instructions. But Mabella’s dictatorial and scornful tyranny had overshot the mark.

“I know what she’s after,” thought Trixie. “She’s to have all the fun, to be in at the death; but I’m not. And then she’ll make some flimsy excuse afterwards! I know you, Miss Mabella Forsyth, and I can plot and plan too—ah, well, we shall see.”

It was a bright, clear, slightly frosty day. “The perfection of a day for a quick, brisk walk,” thought Imogen, as in ample time to meet a passenger by the train in question, walking up from the station, she let herself out by a side door which opened on an unobserved path joining the long winding avenue at some distance from the house. It had not been without difficulty that she had escaped from her mother, or avoided telling her of Major Winchester’s return. The girl’s head and heart were in a state of ferment, and to her overstrained nerves Mrs Wentworth’s fidgety excitement and anxiety was becoming almost unendurable. Added to this was a considerable element of perplexity and sore indignation—by every post she had looked for another and more coherent letter.

“After writing like that” she thought, and not unreasonably, “he had no right to leave me all these days in this way.” And now, Trixie’s communications had still farther increased her mental distress by the jealousy of Florence they had skilfully suggested.

“I believe he meant to consult her before he said anything more to me,” thought Imogen, though the next moment her loyal trust in Rex’s perfect honour caused her to discard the notion with disgust at herself for having entertained it. “No, not after going so far,” she reflected. “Yet, but for Trixie, I could never have known he was coming. Poor Trixie! she is far truer after all, than Florence. I wonder if a letter can have miscarried,” was her next idea, and one which so plausibly explained things, that she could not help turning it over and over in her mind. It had already occurred to Mrs Wentworth, and she had not failed to suggest it to Imogen.

“If we knew his address, I almost think you might write to him,” she had said. But Imogen turned upon her sharply.

“If I did, it would only be to enclose his letter in an envelope and send it back to him,” she said. “If—if it is possible that he wrote it impulsively, and is regretting it, do you think I would move one little finger to recall him?”

And on the whole Mrs Wentworth saw that it was best for her to keep her fingers, for the present anyway, out of the pie.

The road—the latter part of it at least—from Cobbolds to The Fells, was straight and direct. There was no possibility of missing any one on his way to the house within a mile. The first gates opened on to a sort of continuation of the drive—less carefully kept than the part within them, but still a private road. And before emerging on to the highway it led through a little fir-wood, where, as somewhat screened from the observation of any curious passers-by—not that many such were probable, for the men were shooting in a different direction that day, and a large party had started to join them at luncheon—Imogen had determined to try to meet Major Winchester.

She walked quietly, half unconsciously hoping by so doing to calm her momentarily-increasing agitation. The first time she emerged from among the firs there was no one to be seen in the stretch, of open road before her. So she retraced her steps, and it was not till she had traversed the little wood two or three times that she descried a tall, familiar figure moving quickly towards her. And in another moment, considerably to her surprise, she saw that she was herself—as she supposed—recognised. For Major Winchester took off his cap and waved it towards her.

“How could he know I was coming?” she thought, with a thrill of gratification nevertheless. “A letter must have miscarried. He must have written to me as well as to Florence.”

Chapter Eleven.

In the Fir-Coppice.

But the reassuring thrill lasted barely a moment. Suddenly, as Imogen walked on, feeling that every step was bringing the meeting nearer, a terrible, agonising rush of shyness and shame overwhelmed her. For the first time she realised that she was going, unbidden, uninvited, to seek an interview with this man whose position to herself was still so undefined, whose conduct had been so inexplicable! She, who had so proudly declared to her mother that not one finger would she move to influence him, were it the case that he had acted upon an impulse which he had afterwards regretted! It was all Trixie’s doing, she said to herself. Not that Trixie had suggested her taking Florence’s place, but she had alluded to the thing so simply, as if it were the most natural idea in the world to go to meet Rex on his way up.

“Florence would have given anything to go; she likes to get Rex to herself for a good talk. I wish he didn’t hate me so, for I’d like a good talk with him myself. I’m getting rather sick of his seeing everything through Florrie’s eyes.” And the chance had seemed so opportune that Imogen had seized it—in her eagerness to get the meeting over, to come to an explanation before her mother could complicate things by any interference—without realising the difference between her position and Florence’s.

She was well punished in these few seconds for her thoughtlessness. Unmaidenly and bold were among the mildest epithets she applied to herself, while her imagination sought in vain for some pretext or excuse in which she could find shelter. “But I can’t pretend I came by accident,” she thought; “he knows me too well, even if I could be so deceitful.”

So it was in utter indecision as to how she meant to bear herself that she at last met Major Winchester.

He was smiling; he looked well and cheerful. And he was feeling as he looked. He was relieved from anxiety about his sister, and there was a gleam of brightness in the clouds surrounding his engagement. And even though the smile was broken by a start, unperceived by Imogen, as he came near enough to recognise her, it soon appeared again.

“I thought you were Florence, do you know?” were almost his first words.

They acted as a cold shower-bath on Imogen; nothing could have so helped her to regain her self-possession. She stiffened at once.

“I am very sorry I cannot turn myself into Florence,” she said, though the tears were, all the same, not far from her eyes. “But I needn’t keep you; I am going on a little farther.”

“I hope not,” he said kindly; “as I am so lucky as to have met you, can’t you turn and walk a bit of the way back with me?” (“It will be a splendid opportunity for following Robin’s advice and telling her all about Eva,” he suddenly thought.) “You know we were going to have a good talk the day I was called away.” He walked on slowly as he spoke, and Imogen could scarcely avoid accompanying him. “By the bye,” he added, “you got my note that morning?”

Imogen’s breath came fast and chokingly.

“Ye-es,” she said, and he saw that she was growing very pale, “I—I got it. That was why—I wanted to see you first alone.” Poor child! even as she uttered the words she felt what she was doing. Where were all her hoped-for evasions? she was no diplomatist indeed.

“Then you knew I was coming?” he exclaimed, thoughtlessly. But, almost in the same breath, his perfect though simple chivalry came to his aid. “I am so glad you came,” he went on, “if I can be of any use. I have been anxious about you; I had wanted to warn you even more definitely about some of our friends at The Fells. Florence promised to do what she could, but you have not got to know her as I hoped. By the bye, did she tell you I was coming? I asked her not; but still—if she told you—”

He was getting a little bewildered himself, now. For, of course, Florence would never have counselled or sanctioned the poor child exposing herself to such gossip as might result from her present step.

“No,” Imogen replied. “Trixie told me, not Florence. I suppose coming to meet you was a dreadful thing to do, Major Winchester, but I didn’t think of that at the time. I—”

She seemed unable to say another word.

Rex felt relieved. He thought he had got at it all now.

“Don’t take it to heart so,” he said, encouragingly. “It was a very natural thing to do. You know I asked you to trust me. It is only—people gossip so. But I’ll tell you what, we will walk up and down in this wood for a little, while you tell me all your troubles, and I—if I have time—will tell you some of mine: then I will hurry on, and you can finish your walk and come home at leisure. Not even Miss Mabella Forsyth can make mischief out of that.” He laughed a little as he spoke.

Neither he nor Imogen heard a faint rustle a few yards off, on one side where the brushwood was thick, and where there still stood the ruins of a summer-house or hut, which the Helmont boys had constructed years and years ago. But there was no response to his laughing tone, and glancing down he saw that the girl’s very lips were pale. He grew frightened again; what could be the matter? That it had anything to do with Robin’s warnings—which, after all, had not impressed him deeply—never occurred to him.

“My dear child—Imogen!” he said, impulsively, “what has happened? What is the matter? Do tell me, whatever it is,” and he tried to take her hand, but she tore it away.

“What do you mean?” she exclaimed half wildly. “If there is anything the matter, you must know it. Why have you made me think—made everybody, almost, think Oh, I don’t know what I am saying, and I don’t know what to do. You said the evening before you went away that you had something to say to me, and then you wrote. What was it, then, that you were going to say to me?”

“I wanted to warn you again, more definitely, about being on your guard in some ways, and I was sorry to see you and Beatrix Helmont so much together,” Major Winchester replied very quietly. He was growing very nervous himself; terrible misgivings that Robin’s discernment had not been at fault began to make themselves heard. He felt that everything depended on his own perfect self-possession and presence of mind, if this girl, so strangely thrown on his mercy, was to be saved, spared from what might cast a miserable shadow of mortification and loss of self-respect over the rest of her young life. So he allowed himself to show no pity; no impulse of sympathy must tempt him to go a hair’s-breadth beyond what he felt intuitively was the safe limit.

“I must try to be matter-of-fact and commonplace,” his instinct told him, “so that afterwards, when she thinks over it coolly, she will be able to believe I had imagined nothing else.”

“I am afraid you have had annoyances and difficulties I would have saved you from if I could. But don’t tell me anything you would rather not,” he went on, hesitating a little, half because he really did not know what to say, half to give her time.

But Imogen scarcely heard his words. It was growing too much for her; every sense seemed absorbed by an overmastering irritation and impatience.

“Are you purposely trying to mislead me? Are you making fun of me? Or,” as a new idea, like a flash of lurid lightning, crossed her mind, “has some one else been doing so? Yet—you spoke of a note? You sent me a note? See here—this is it—that is your writing, is it not?”

“Certainly,” Major Winchester replied, trying his best to speak lightly, though a strange vague fear was upon him. “That is the little note I left for you the morning I was called away.” And he looked down at her, smiling as if amused. “You don’t mean to say my poor little note has made any mischief?” he added.

“Read it,” said Imogen, hoarsely.

He did so, drawing the letter calmly out of the envelope, the slight smile still on his lips. But if his unconcern had hitherto added to the girl’s irritation, she had her revenge now. For the change which came over Rex’s face was almost appalling. A sort of grey pallor seemed to spread itself above and through the healthy ruddy bronze; he looked for the moment an elderly man.

“What can I have done?” he exclaimed involuntarily.

And Imogen, watching him breathlessly, gave a shivering gasp.

“What is it?” she said. “Is it some wicked trick? Oh, if only I had not told!”

The last word was almost inaudible; it was not till afterwards that Major Winchester recalled it. By a strong effort he had already mastered himself and recovered his self-possession. He looked almost as usual, as he turned to Imogen.

“I cannot understand how I could be so terribly, so inexcusably careless, Miss Wentworth,” he said. “I am not usually careless. It is only lucky for me—I should indeed be very thankful,” he went on speaking with intentional, deliberate impressiveness, “that my ridiculous mistake occurred between two people I can trust so perfectly and who will be as ready to forgive me as yourself and—and—the person this letter was intended for. I was going to ask your permission to tell you about her, if—”

But the last sentence was lost upon Imogen. She was staring up at him with the strangest expression in her eyes. “Then this letter was not meant for me at all?” she said.

An instant later, and she saw what she had done. The burning crimson rushed over her face like a scorching blast. She glanced round her desperately, as if in vain search of shelter.

But Rex’s voice recalled her to herself. In the intense strain, the fatal yet so commonplace words almost made him laugh. There was only one thought which gave him any relief. How young, how almost absurdly childish she was! So, though he had now no longer any self-deception in the matter, though he could scarcely trust that in any sense Robin’s warning had been uncalled for, he began to hope that out of the very inexperience which had caused the mischief might come in time the cure. For a moment or two he did not look at her. Then he said quietly—and from the tone of his voice no one could have suspected the almost passion of pity he was feeling—

“Of course I intended a letter for you. That is the envelope, properly addressed, you see. I—I blame myself more than I can ever express.”

His words meant far more than met the ears, but this, in her confusion of mind, Imogen did not take in.

“Then it wasn’t a trick?” she said in an odd, dull voice. “I think I would rather it had been a trick.”

“What put that into your mind?” he said, half sharply. “Supposing it had been a trick, what then?”

“I—I don’t know. I don’t think, if it had been a trick, I could have felt quite so—so degraded,” she said.

The word was almost more than he could bear. How he longed to comfort her, as a brother might have done!

“Miss Wentworth—Imogen,” he said, “do, for mercy’s sake, spare me a little. You cannot—you cannot possibly say or feel half so bitterly and severely to me as I do to myself. But if you cannot now, some day you will forgive me, won’t you? It will all seem so different, you will wonder you cared. I can promise you it will be so, and I am nearly old enough to be your father, you know; and, at worst, no one need ever know except ourselves; for she, Eva,” and he lightly touched the letter, “is like myself to me. She is absolutely sweet and trustworthy.”

“Is her name Eva?” asked Imogen, in a dazed sort of way.

“Yes. How is it you have never heard them mention her? My cousins are not generally so reticent,” and again the idea struck him, could there have been malice at work in all this?

“She has been very ill: that was what I was going to ask leave to tell you about.”

“I think I heard Florence speak about her. But I thought it was your sister. Her name is Evangeline, and some one said she was sometimes called Eva, and they said it troubled you to have it mentioned; so, even though you had told me about your sister, I scarcely liked to ask how she was.”

She put great control on herself to speak thus; but as she went on, Rex was relieved to see that she was rewarded for the effort by her calmness increasing. He had been dreading tears. Once let them begin, and he scarcely knew what could be done.

“I see,” he said; “but still, some day perhaps I may be able to tell you our melancholy little romance. We have been engaged five years, Miss Wentworth!” with a smile that was sad enough. “But who told you that Eva was my sister? Who warned you not to speak of her?” he added, with another flash of the strange, on the surface unreasonable, suspicion he had already felt more than once.

Imogen tried to collect her bewildered faculties.

“Trixie, I think,” she said; “and—and—I am not sure, but I think Miss Forsyth said something of the same to mamma.”

The lines on Major Winchester’s face hardened.

“They are both so likely to consider my feelings tenderly!” he said sarcastically.

“No,” said Imogen, bluntly, not detecting the satire. “I think they both almost hate you.”

The quiet, matter-of-fact tone in which she spoke startled him. “Hate,” uttered in cold blood, is an ugly word. But a new misgiving was now making its way to his mind, and for the moment, in his intense anxiety to save Imogen further suffering, he put aside the question of the present terrible complication being more than accident.

“Your mother?” he said, with quick inquiry.

“Do you mean—” He hesitated. It was so difficult to express what he wanted to know. “She—she has not seen this?” and again he touched the fatal letter.

“Yes,” said Imogen, simply. “She was with me when I got it. Indeed, she gave it me,” and as the remembrance of that morning—when she had wakened so happily—came back to her, it was very, very hard work to force down her tears; “and so, naturally, I showed it her, before I noticed the postscript. And she has thought—oh!”

“Never mind what she has thought,” he said hastily. “If only—you don’t think she has told any one else?”

“I don’t know; not exactly. She promised she wouldn’t; but Miss Forsyth is so cunning, and mamsey is so—so simple,” said the girl. Major Winchester pulled himself together. “Miss Wentworth,” he said, “I must stop farther mischief, at once: they must not and shall not torture you. But will you trust me still? I shall hurry on, and take measures to put your mother on her guard.”

“You—you won’t tell any one—not Florence, about me—about this morning?” said Imogen, piteously.

“No, no, of course not. Come on quietly to the house in half an hour or so, and I think I shall be able to manage it. Now, my poor dear child—don’t be angry with me for calling you so this once—good-bye in the meantime.”

“Good-bye,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I wish you would count it good-bye for always.”

He glanced at her; she did not mean it, but in these few words was the bitterest reproach she could have expressed. Again the dull pallor crept over his face for an instant.

“Perhaps you are right. God bless you!” and he hurried away.

Imogen retraced her steps again to the outer margin of the wood. Then she turned, and walking slowly, found herself in twenty minutes or so at the gates of the inner drive. She looked at her watch mechanically: no, she must not go in yet, it was too soon. It was a winter day, but she did not feel cold, only very, very tired. She looked about for a seat. There were several, she knew, in among the shrubberies, which were here very thick. She turned down a little path, bordering, though she did not know it, a side entrance to the stables; there was a rustic seat there, almost an arbour, for it was shaded by the trunks and branches of a group of old elms. There she sat down, and for the first time the pent-up misery burst out. She could keep it in no longer, but broke into a passion of convulsive sobs.

She did not cry loudly. She was too worn out and spent to do so, even though for the first few moments her abandonment was so great that she gave not a thought to the possibility of attracting attention. But it was a very still day; sounds carried clearly. Beatrix, on the lookout for a scene of some kind as she came hurrying down the drive, caught the faint gasping sobs not many yards off, and stood, still to listen.

She had been forced to make one of the luncheon party in the coverts, sorely against her will; for Mabella, on pretext of a headache, had skilfully backed out of it, and Trixie more than suspected her motive. Florence was not to be back from Catborough till too late, and Alicia flatly refused to undertake the management of the party without one or other of her sisters. But Trixie succeeded in escaping in time to get back to the house not very much later than the hour at which Rex was expected. She wasted some minutes, however, in looking for Mabella, and hearing from a servant that Miss Forsyth had gone out some time before by herself, her suspicions redoubled, and she set off, racing along in her usual reckless harum-scarum fashion. Major Winchester, so far as she could discover, had not arrived (nor had the dogcart sent for his luggage); the truth being that Rex, by good-fortune having met Florence at the side entrance, was at that moment in close confabulation with her in the library.

But the strange sounds which reached her made Trixie slacken her pace. What could it be? At first she was by no means sure that they were not those of some animal in distress, in which case, to do her justice, the wild girl would not have been without some feeling of pity.

“Can it be one of the dogs?” she thought, as she pushed aside the thick-growing shrubs and made her way “cross country,” as she would have described it, in the direction of the gasping sounds. But she was quickly undeceived. On the rough bench lay or crouched Imogen, her face hidden, her whole figure shaken by sobs, now and then broken by low moans, equally piteous to hear. The Helmonts were not given to vehement grief or vehement feeling of any kind, except when Beatrix, the only really hot-tempered one, got into a passion, and the display of it was almost like an unknown language to them. In Trixie it seldom roused anything but a sort of contempt. But if this was her first sensation on seeing Imogen’s prostration of suffering, it was soon mingled with other emotions. Pity of a kind, and quickly succeeding to it remorse—of a kind also—and speedily overmastering both, extreme and unreasoning fear.

“Imogen,” she called out, though not very loudly, and instantly concealing herself again.

“Imogen, what is the matter?”

But there was no reply. Trixie’s terror increased.

“Can she be having some sort of a fit?” she said to herself; and as there was a good deal of cowardice, moral and otherwise, mixed up with the rough animal courage of the girl, no sooner had the idea struck her, than she turned and fled, rushing off, heedless of aught else, in search of some one or something, she scarce knew what.

At the turn of the path—the same path down which Imogen had wandered, and which, it will be remembered, led into a side road to the stables—Beatrix ran full tilt against a man, walking quickly towards the house. It was the younger of her cousins, by good-luck; for, in her state of excitement, she would scarcely have cared who it was—silly Percy Calthorp, or Newnham, the stately butler, would have suited her equally well.

“Robin, oh, Robin!” she screamed, “do come! I believe Imogen Wentworth has gone out of her mind, or else she’s dying in a fit.”

Chapter Twelve.

The Bull by the Horns.

For so young a man, Robin Winchester was possessed of a remarkable amount of presence of mind. Added to which, he was not, as will be seen, wholly unprepared for a dénouement, probably stormy, and very certainly painful, of the complicated state of affairs as to which, Cassandra-like, he had lifted up his voice. At Trixie’s appeal he turned and walked rapidly back in the direction whence she had come, without speaking; he had no idea of wasting his breath in words, and for another reason. So strongly was he imbued with the suspicion that the girl beside him had been “at it again with one of her odious practical jokes,” that he doubted his own self-control should he once allow his indignation to find words. He had no cause to ask her for direction. Two or three moments brought them to a spot whence the pitiful, and, it must be allowed, almost alarming sounds were clearly audible.

“She is there,” whispered Beatrix, “on the bench behind those trees.”

“Go on first and show me,” he said, sternly.

But to his amazement his guide rebelled.

“I won’t,” she said. “I’ll stay here. She’s given me such a fright already, and I don’t want her to see me. You speak to her and I’ll wait.”

Robin was not given to strong language, especially to a woman; he opened his mouth and shut it again without speaking. Then a second thought struck him. Perhaps it was better so, though no thanks to Trixie. He caught her by the arm and held her, not too gently.

“You’ll give me your word of honour, Beatrix Helmont,” he said, “that you will stay here, on this spot, till I come back and say you may go?”

“Yes; if I must stay, I will. But you are very rough and unkind, Robin. Why are you angry with me?”

He gave her no answer, but hurried on to the bench. Some instinct had warned Imogen that she was no longer alone. She had sat up, and was trying to look about her composedly. The effort only made her seem the more piteous. Robin’s heart positively swelled as he looked at her, recalling the last, the only time indeed he had ever seen her, and her glad girlish beauty.

She did not start as he came near; she sat still as if stupefied.

“Miss Wentworth,” he said most gently and respectfully, “I am afraid you have had a start or a fright, or—or that you have had bad news. Can I do anything?”

She looked at him and smiled, the strangest smile he had ever seen, and with a thrill of horror he remembered Trixie’s words, “Gone out of her mind.” But in a moment he was relieved of this worst of terrors.

“You are Mr Robin Winchester,” she said. “Yes, thank you. I have had bad news, and I am so dreadfully tired. I want to go home—to go in, I mean; but I am afraid of meeting any one, because, you see—though it is very silly of me—I have been crying. How can I get in without meeting any one?”

“Do you know the way in by the fernery, and the little back-stair up from what used to be the schoolroom?” he asked.

She shook her head. Then he considered for a moment in silence.

“Miss Wentworth,” he said, “Trixie is there, behind the trees. It was she that saw you and called me. If you could agree to it, the very best thing would be to let her take you in. You need not speak to her, and she will do what I tell her.”

She gave a little shiver, but did not object.

“Very well,” she said, “if she has seen me already. You will make her promise not to tell? There is something else—you are very kind—could you do it?”

“Anything,” he said, fervently.

“My head is getting so bad, and I don’t want to be ill here,” she said. “I do so want to get away. And mamma would want to know; there would be so many explanations. It has all got quite clear while I have been crying. Could you get a telegram sent for me, without anybody knowing?”

“Certainly; at once,” he replied. “I have a pencil and paper.”

She pressed her hand to her forehead. Then she quietly dictated an address and a message, which he wrote down without comment.

“You should have the reply this evening,” he said. Then, “Wait here one moment,” he added, and he retraced his steps to Trixie.

“You will do as I tell you, exactly,” he said, “and without a word now or ever to any one? You hear me?”

“I’ll do it,” she said, sulkily, “because it suits me to. All the same, I’d like to know what business it is of yours?”

“It’s this much my business, that if you break your promise I will tell your father all I know; and if you want proof that I do know, well I have in my pocket a letter I got from Eva Lesley last night, enclosing—another letter. Eva wrote to me in preference to Rex, not wanting to worry him, and—well, for other reasons.”

Trixie had grown pale, but she stood her ground. “I never touched anybody’s letters,” she said. “And how can you say any one did? People—accidents happen about letters sometimes.”

“Yes, they do; but there is such a thing as circumstantial evidence; and what is more, I, with my own hands, put the right note into the envelope addressed to Miss Wentworth that morning, as Rex was so hurried, and I laid it with the other one, stamped and directed to Miss Lesley, on the hall table.”

She grew paler and paler.

“I didn’t touch them,” she repeated.

“We have only your own word for it,” he said, scornfully; “and supposing Mabella Forsyth says you did? But I am wasting time upon you. I have warned you. Take your own way.”

“I won’t tell anything about this morning. I swear I won’t,” she said, in terror.

Five minutes later saw Imogen safe in her own room, thither escorted by Trixie, silent and panic-stricken. And an hour or so later, when Mrs Wentworth returned from a drive in the pony carriage, to which she had been invited by Florence, she was met by Colman with the news that Miss Imogen was in bed and asleep, her head was so bad. It was only to be hoped, added the maid, after the manner of her kind, that the young lady had not got a bad chill, and was not going to have a regular illness.

Mrs Wentworth spent the rest of the afternoon in her own room, which opened into Imogen’s, watching for her to awake. The anxiety almost absorbed all other feelings.

“How can I tell her?” she kept saying to herself. “And why, oh why did Florence not tell me before? And to think that he is actually back, and that she must meet him after, and I that have encouraged it. There is no one—no, not one creature—I can confide in. For Florence meant something when she begged me not to trust Miss Forsyth. But—oh dear, and how my darling Imogen warned me too!—but how could Major Winchester have been so careless, if the letter he is so annoyed about really was the one sent to Imogen; and how am I to tell her, and she perhaps sickening for brain fever or typhoid fever, or something?” The poor woman’s brain was in a whirl, for Florence had not dared to do more than warn her vaguely. It was a relief when, about six o’clock, an orange-coloured envelope was brought in by Colman.

“Can you both spend a week with me on your way home?” it said. “Welcome any day; the sooner the better.”

It came from an old friend, Imogen’s godmother, and as there had been vague talk of the visit it was not altogether unexpected; not at least too surprising that Mrs Hume should have telegraphed.

“Can I send an answer back?” asked Imogen’s mother.

“Yes, ma’am. I was to say the messenger is waiting. There are telegraph forms in the envelope case on the writing-table,” was the maid’s reply.

And in another moment the answer was forthcoming—a warmly-worded acceptance, announcing the Wentworths’ arrival some time the following afternoon.

This settled, Mrs Wentworth, who did not often act with such promptitude and decision, relapsed into nervousness and depression. She established herself on a chair beside the door of communication with Imogen’s room, longing for and yet dreading her awaking.

For, strange as it may seem, the girl was really asleep, and soundly so. It was her first experience of violent emotion, and, coming on the top of the past days of tension and excitement, it had completely exhausted her. At first she had meant to lie still, and, if need were, feign sleep till time sufficient for Mrs Hume’s telegram should have elapsed, but real slumber had come, saving her, not improbably, from the illness that would not have been an abnormal result of all she had gone through. But at last, half an hour or so before the dressing-gong sounded, she awoke. For a moment or two she was in a chaos of bewilderment; then by degrees, as this cleared a little, she became conscious of one overmastering impression; the latest and strongest on her brain before she fell asleep. They—she and her mother—must leave, must seek shelter somewhere, anywhere, at once. Then the remembrance of the commission she had, in her desperation, entrusted to Robin Winchester returned.

“Has it—has the?” she began to say, raising herself to look about her. But her full senses revived before she said more. The room was quite in darkness, except for the faint red glow of the slumbering fire. It might have been the middle of the night; nay more, days might have passed, for all she knew, since that terrible afternoon.

“Perhaps I have been very ill, and am only now beginning to get better,” she thought. But no, though her head was dizzy and ached a good deal, she did not feel weak or exhausted. Then she had on her usual dress, the same dress she had worn all day. With a sigh almost of regret Imogen had to decide that nothing very remarkable had happened. She was still in the world of ordinary doings, and she must face what lay before her.

A dark figure, aroused by even the half-audible words she had begun to utter, crossed the room to the bedside.

“Mamma?” said Imogen.

“Yes, darling. I have been watching for you to awake. Is your head better, sweetest?”

“I think so,” the girl, now fully on the alert, replied. “What time is it? The middle of the night?”

“Oh no, dear, the dressing-gong has not sounded yet.”

“Has it not?” in a tone of disappointment.

“I won’t come down to dinner; you will tell them about my headache. But you must go down, mamsey,” with unconscious selfishness, “and—it would not do to seem to make a fuss.”

“No dear,” very submissively. “But first, Imogen, I have to tell you what I have done. I don’t know what you’ll say. I have had a telegram from Mrs Hume, begging us so to go to her at once. I fancy she has some party she wants you for; and so, as it was so near our time for leaving, and you not seeming very well, and—”

“You have said we would go? Oh, I do hope you did,” said Imogen, with feverish eagerness.

“Oh, why didn’t you wake me?—if only we could go to-night.”

“Not to-night, dearest; that couldn’t be; but to-morrow. I have telegraphed that we will be with her to-morrow.”

“Oh, thank you! I am so glad,” said Imogen. Then after a moment’s pause, “Mamma,” she went on, “you have heard something, and you see that I have. It has all been a terrible mistake. But do not ask me to speak about it yet. Afterwards, when we are away from here, I will tell you all. I cannot yet. Only one thing, you must understand that Major Winchester has not been to blame. So, if you see him to-night, you will be nice to him; promise me you will.”

“I will do my best,” said poor Mrs Wentworth.

“For every sake,” Imogen went on. She frowned as if thinking deeply. “I am not sure yet that there has not been some trick in it. Mamma, do not say one word you can help to Miss Forsyth or Trixie, and try not to let them think there is anything the matter.”

“Yes,” her mother agreed. “I will tell Mrs Helmont of the telegram—that it has hastened our going a little. They won’t be surprised; they are so accustomed to comings and goings. It really is most fortunate, most fortunate, that Mrs Hume should have thought of telegraphing. Lucky coincidences do happen sometimes, you see.”

She was trying to speak cheerfully. Trouble affecting Imogen brought out the real unselfishness underlying the superficial frivolity.

“Yes, they do,” said Imogen, smiling in spite of herself.

There was more truth in Mrs Wentworth’s remark than Imogen was aware of. Coincidences do occur in real life more strangely, more fortunately, sometimes, than even in fiction. It had been specially fortunate for all concerned that it was Robin and no one else whom Beatrix ran up against in her fright, and Robin’s being there at that moment was only thanks to his having driven round by Wood Court, where he had left some of his belongings, before his brother’s hasty summons to London. Fortunate, too, had been Major Winchester’s meeting with Florence on her return from Catborough, so that the two were able to lay their heads together as to warnings and explanations to Mrs Wentworth. And the kindliness and sympathy Florence extended to the mother as well as to the daughter met with its reward. Never before had Florence been able to feel to her so warmly as by the close of that—to some at least of the party—terribly trying evening.

“There is real heroism in her,” Florence could not help saying to Rex. “No one would have suspected what she must be feeling, to see her so cheerful and composed.”

The climax had come when Mrs Wentworth was bidding Major Winchester good-night; “and good-bye, probably,” she added, “for we are leaving so early in the morning. But I must not forget to ask how Mrs Bertrand is,” she went on. “Imogen called me back as I was coming down to dinner to remind me to ask you.”

“She is going on wonderfully well; there is every hope of a perfect cure,” he replied. “Thank you and Miss Wentworth a thousand times. Yes, I think it is good-bye, not on account of your early start, but I am off before breakfast to-morrow for a shoot at Gorsage.”

“I shall be here, however,” Robin had put in softly, “if I can be of the least use.”

“It is far more than I deserve. They are good, truly good women,” said Rex, in reply to Florence’s remark. And this, in her heart, his cousin endorsed. “Rex has been foolish—very foolish,” she said to herself. “But he has done his best to put things straight. After all, poor child, she will outlive it. It seems to have left a mark on him, however. He looks ten years older than when he went away.”

Some one else was remarking this with satisfaction.

“It has hit him in a tender point, I delighted to see,” Miss Forsyth was saying to herself. “Major Reginald Winchester, the mirror of chivalry and honour, to have flirted so egregiously with an inexperienced little fool, as to have brought her to the brink of a brain fever and goodness knows what not: it would be a nice story to tell, if I could tell it, which, alas! I fear I can’t. But, after all, it is not the publishing it I care about; it is the delight of knowing I have scored one against him.”

He caught her eye fixed upon him with something almost diabolical in its malice, and his strange suspicions redoubled. Then came his talk with Robin.

“Why did Eva not write to me direct—telegraph—anything?” he said at first, with a touch of impatience, when he had heard what his brother had to tell.

“Telegraphing would have done no good. Then she wanted to save you annoyance, to spare your ever hearing of the—mistake—at all, if possible,” was the reasonable reply. “Don’t you see, if the Miss Wentworth whose note she received had been an elderly spinster, no harm would have been done; at least so Eva thought, though I am not sure that I agree with her,” with a touch of grim humour.

“I have told her about Imogen,” said Rex. “Not by her surname. Eva specially says she had never heard of a Miss Wentworth. That postscript was so extraordinarily unlucky too,” he added reflectively.

“Angey particularly wanted no one to know the exact date of the operation.”

“And the confusion between the names—Evangeline and Eveleen,” Robin went on.

“Upon my word, I never knew anything like it. It is as if malicious imps had been told off to play into that—into Miss Forsyth’s hands. If she—if Miss Wentworth gets ill, and anything happens to her, I, for one, shall feel as if she had been murdered.”

Rex could bear no more.

“Robin,” he exclaimed, “do you want to send me out of my mind? In your—only natural, I allow”—and he threw a quick and searching glance at his brother—“feeling for her, you seem to think I have no feeling at all. Keep to the point. What motive had that woman in doing as she did? and how can she be shown up and punished?”

“Spite,” answered Robin. “Spite, at her, Imogen, or you; that is my answer to the first question. And—”

“She has no special motive for malevolence at me,” interrupted Rex, “and her jealousy of Imogen can scarcely be so deep-seated. Beatrix hates me, in her mad, reckless way, for getting her a scolding, as she would express it; but even she, wild as she is—”

“Would have hesitated to open two envelopes, read their contents, and fasten them up again, after changing the letters,” said Robin. “Well, yes, it is to be hoped so; at least, I can’t help hoping so, considering she’s our cousin.”

“And you are certain, entirely certain, that the letters were rightly put in at first?” repeated his brother.

“Absolutely, entirely certain that the one I shut into the envelope addressed to Miss Wentworth was for Miss Wentworth. Yes, as certain as that I’m sitting on this chair. And I am also absolutely certain that as I was crossing the outer hall to look if the dogcart had come, I saw Miss Forsyth come down-stairs and stop at the table where notes and letters for the post always lie, and stand there looking at the letters. There was no one about; everybody was late that morning except ourselves, and Florence, and that woman. But that is all I can vouch for, though Trixie’s terror made me surer than ever.”

“Do you think she knew?”

Robin shook his head.

“I can’t say. Perhaps not all the details; but she tacitly owned to a plot of some kind.”

“If I can frighten Miss Forsyth into silence, that is the best we can hope for, I suppose,” said Rex.

“The best one should hope for, I should say,” Robin replied. “Of course one yearns to expose that woman, but the real concern is to shield Miss Wentworth. Miss Forsyth has put herself beneath contempt. I care nothing about her, provided we can stop her making a good story of it and—and getting Imogen laughed at; and you, too, for that matter.”

“Don’t take me into consideration,” said his brother.

“Not for Eva’s sake?” suggested Robin, gently.

“Eva would only feel as I do,” said Major Winchester. “Her whole sympathies will be with Miss Wentworth.”

“She is an angel, I know,” said Robin. “Well, keep cool about it, Rex, and be prepared for Miss Forsyth if you see your chance.”

Major Winchester had not to wait for it, nor did it come in any way such as could have been predicted. He was off the next morning, almost as soon as it was light, and did not return till about three in the afternoon. As he came up the drive, tired and depressed, with every step the painful scenes of the day before seemed to be re-enacted. He could not forgive himself, even though it was difficult to define precisely where and how he had been to blame. But he found no difficulty in defining and concentrating his overwhelming indignation. Instead of at all softening it, the last few hours had increased it tenfold. And now that, to a certain extent, Imogen was beyond the reach of Miss Forsyth’s malevolence, Rex almost felt as if silence were becoming impossible to him.

“She must be exposed,” he muttered to himself, “so that every honourable door may be closed to her. At all costs I cannot see that she should be allowed to get off scot-free.”

So thinking, he did not at once notice steps coming quickly behind him, nor till he heard his own name pronounced, in a mocking tone, did he realise that some one was overtaking him.

“It is you, Major Winchester, is it? This is your first appearance here to-day. You were off betimes this morning; early starts seem to be the order of the day with you.”

The effrontery of this greeting—for the voice was Mabella’s—almost took away Rex’s presence of mind and power of speech. He soon recovered them, however, and turning sharply, faced her.

“Yes, Miss Forsyth,” he said, quickly, “it is I. If you have anything to say to me, say it; if not, be so good as to walk on. Unfortunately, there are not two roads to the house from here.”

She laughed; there was not a trace of nervousness in her laugh.

“You are no diplomatist, Major Winchester. Here you are showing your colours to the enemy at once, before you have really any to show.”

“I have not the slightest objection to your knowing what I was thinking about,” he said. “I am only considering whether I shall expose you, or whether, for the sake of others, I must leave you to the punishment which is sure to come sooner or later, even if I have no hand in bringing it upon you.”

“Goody-goody talk runs off me like water off a duck’s back, I warn you,” she said. “Keep to common-sense, if you please. I shall not pretend I don’t know what you mean; I do perfectly, and I intend to treat you with entire candour. What I would ask you is this: how can you ‘expose me’—to use your courteous phrase—without proof, reliable and certain, that I am guilty? Such proof you know you have not got. All you can say is that your brother saw me standing at the table whereon lay the two letters in question. Is it likely that people would believe that I, a lady born and bred, would have done such an unheard-of thing as to open them, read them, and change their envelopes? And when the circumstances are explained further, of your agitation and hurry that morning, do you think you would gain much by your attempt at showing me up?” He was silent for a moment. Then, “Yes,” he said, “I believe my story would be accepted. There is not only this last distinct act; there is the whole string of misleading remarks and suggestions on your part, and,”—he hesitated to name her—“Trixie’s, which show the plot into which, Heaven knows why, you inveigled that misguided girl as a fellow-conspirator.”

“Ah, Trixie,” she said. “I will revert to her in a moment, though, en passant, I may tell you there was not much ‘inveigling’ required on my part. Your cousin Beatrix hates you, Major Winchester, with a very pretty hatred;” and she laughed gently, delighted to see that he started a little. If “hate” was not a pleasant word on Imogen’s childish lips, it did not gain when pronounced by Mabella.

“Yes,” she went on, “she hates you, though not as— But that will keep. But what I am going to say will indeed surprise you. I am going to treat you with unheard-of generosity—to furnish you myself with the necessary weapons. Here they are. You are perfectly correct in your surmises. I did open the envelopes and change their contents, not out of mischief, but from a far deeper motive; and I did, and have done, and meant to do all I possibly could to mislead that silly woman and her daughter into believing you were in love with the girl, and on the point of proposing to her; in which scheme I persuaded Trixie to join me, even as far as I remember, before they came. There, now, what do you say to that?”

“Why do you tell it me?” he asked. “If it is with any idea that your confession may force me to be silent, I—”

“Nonsense,” she said. “It is not a confession; that word is associated with penitence and coming for forgiveness. I am not penitent. I glory in what I have done. I triumph in it. And you will be silent. You cannot tell the story without making that girl a laughing-stock, even if people believed you—which I doubt—for you would scarcely like to say you were publishing what you call my ‘confession.’ And nothing, no word or sentence I have said to Mrs Wentworth, but could be naturally and innocently explained, and every one can see what a fool she is. And still more, you cannot tell the story without incriminating Trixie. Indeed, the moment I find you telling it, I shall tell her part of it. That would be very nice; your own cousin, the daughter, of the relatives you owe so much kindness to. For you know the Squire would be capable of turning her out-of-doors for such dishonourable breach of hospitality to guests.”

It was all quite true.

“Why have you told me, then?” he asked.

“Because I wanted to come to an understanding; to show you that you had better decide not to tell I shall not tell, for the story is nothing to me. I am leaving Grey Fells at once, and I don’t think I care to return. I am sick of Trixie’s atrocious temper, and I have got what I stayed for.”

“What was that?” he added. There was a curious fascination about the girl, with her entire absence of principle and absolute indifference to his opinion.

“My revenge,” she said quietly. “Not as much as I could have wished. I should not be easily satisfied; but it is better than nothing. I have made you suffer. I have lowered you in your own estimation. I have touched you in a tender part, for you know that Imogen Wentworth’s sunny girlhood is gone—gone for ever; she will never be the same again, and all through you?”

He winced, and she saw it.

“And why, may I ask, mystery of mysteries, have you condescended to this flattering interest in me? When and how did I incur the honour of offending you?”

His sarcasm made her for the first time lose a little of her self-control. Her black eyes positively glared as she went a step or two nearer him.

“The day you warned Harry Curzon against marrying me,” she replied. “Do you remember? You are good at that sort of dirty work; insolent meddling is rather a speciality of yours. Still, I think you cannot have forgotten this particular case.”

Rex grew visibly paler. Yes, he remembered. But without waiting for his reply, Mabella turned and fled swiftly up the avenue to the house. And she left The Fells the next day.

It had been several years ago—five or six. Harry Curzon was a subaltern in his own regiment—handsome, attractive, weak, and easily influenced; and Rex had warned him against the, even then, fast and noisy and unscrupulous girl. He had thought it his duty, and he thought it might save Harry. It had not done so. The young man had gone from bad to worse, and the watching his downward career had been one of the saddest pages in Rex Winchester’s life. But as he glanced up the darkening road after Mabella’s retreating figure, a strange pity thrilled him.

“They say no one is all bad,” he thought to himself. “I suppose it is possible she really loved that poor, foolish fellow.”

Chapter Thirteen.

Eva.

Late autumn again. A year, a year fully since Imogen and her mother left The Fells that bright, chilly November morning. Since then their life had been a wandering and unsettled one. Mrs Wentworth’s dreams of a modest season in London had not been realised, for Imogen had shrunk from anything and everything of the kind. So, having disposed of their house at Eastbourne, they had travelled about aimlessly enough, the one guiding influence the girl’s fancy for the time being. For Mrs Wentworth had entirely, as the French say, “effaced herself” for her child. And in this there was a strong element of not altogether undeserved self-reproach, as well as of adoring maternal devotion.

Of course it had not been wisely done, but she was not a “wise” person. And the very unwisdom of her devotion should have touched a nature essentially generous as was Imogen’s. It did so from time to time, but not lastingly; only adding, therefore, to the poor girl’s restlessness and irritability, new and perplexing developments in her character.

They had been abroad for some months, and were now, when we meet them again, hesitating as to their winter destination. For once, there had been a diversity of opinion; that is to say, for once, Mrs Wentworth had expressed a wish, and Imogen had dissented from it. That this had not already occurred was no thanks to the latter, as with the spirit of contradiction fast becoming chronic in the formerly sweet-tempered and still gentle girl, it is much to be doubted if she would not have opposed any distinct suggestion. But hitherto every proposal had emanated from herself. That her mother had at last made one was due to the influence of Mrs Hume, Imogen’s sensible though not peculiarly refined godmother, who had of necessity been taken to a certain extent into the Wentworths’ confidence.

“You are ruining her,” Mrs Hume said, without beating about the bush; “ruining her character, and laying up a store of future discontent and misery for her. Never marry! tut, tut, nonsense! She’s not twenty yet; of course she’ll marry. And even if she never did? Much better have a settled, respectable ladylike home of your own than go wandering about in this purposeless fashion, as if there were some mystery about you. You have money enough to live very nicely: make your headquarters in London, which you will like yourself, and where Imogen can find something to do. She is not too old to have some lessons and girls do all sorts of things nowadays—cooking, ambulance classes, meddling and muddling about among the poor. It’s all very wholesome for them, and Imogen would get to like London.”

But no; Imogen would not hear of it. She was not going to like anything. She would take no interest in the idea of furnishing a pretty little house and making some pleasant acquaintances; she had, or imagined she had, a morbid terror of going into society, for fear her tragic story should be known; she had taken up the rôle of a being a part—a Mariana, without Mariana’s ghostly and illusive hope. She had nothing to watch or listen for; still, that made it no better: if she could neither watch nor listen, she would at least do nothing else. Far ahead in the dim future, when “mamsey,” somehow or other—she did not define how, for she was too true-hearted to say “when mamsey dies”—would no longer need her, she had sketched out for herself a shadowy possibility.

“I will become a Sister,” she used to think, as if for such a life no qualification were wanted but the having lost heart and interest in everything else!—while a not unpleasing vision of herself in trailing and sombre garments, pale face, and unearthly eyes, carrying solace and sympathy by her very presence to the “haunts of wretchedness” of which she knew naught but the name, or lost in devotion through long hours of midnight vigil in some dimly-lighted chapel, rose before her eyes—all, as Mrs Hume’s rough common-sense had already in its way perceived, centring round “self.” For of the real meaning of religion, apart from sentiment and self-seeking, it is to be feared that the poor child as yet knew not even the alphabet.

It was in this mood that she was pacing the sands one mild morning, tempted out by the soft sunshine and unusual stillness of the air, unusual at that season, even at the seaside winter resort where for the time they were staying. She had come out alone, for the discussion as to their future plans had begun again at breakfast, ending in a nearer approach to positive disagreement than had yet come to pass. For Mrs Wentworth’s eyes were opening, and she was growing more rationally anxious about Imogen every day.

“I can’t think what has made mamma take up that craze about London,” she thought. “I should detest it; at least,”—for, after all, London was an unknown quantity to Imogen, and at twenty there is charm in that very fact—“I am sure I should, though I daresay other girls would like it. But—”

At that moment she became aware that she had all but run against a Bath chair, drawn up in a sheltered position below the rough cliff-like bank.

“I—I beg your pardon,” she said hastily, fearing lest she had jarred the chair and its invalid occupant.

“It does not matter the least,” a sweet, bright, though feeble voice replied; and looking up, Imogen saw, half lying, half sitting, a girl—quite a young girl she seemed at first sight—whose exquisite complexion and brilliantly beautiful eyes told their own sad tale, even without the cough which quickly followed her few quick words.

“I am so sorry,” Imogen could not avoid saying, imagining that she had agitated the young lady.

“Oh no!” the stranger went on, when, after a moment or two, she had recovered her breath and voice, “it was not you at all. I made myself cough by trying to reach my book, which had fallen down. If you would be so kind—oh! thank you so much,” as Imogen eagerly started forward to pick it up. “It is my own fault, for I sent my maid home, and I never care to keep the chairman standing about. I love to be alone when I am pretty well, as I am this morning.”

Imogen gazed at her with eyes full of wondering pity. How could she be so cheerful? She had heard that consumptive patients never realise their state: it must be so in this case.

“I must not disturb you,” she said gently.

“It is a very nice mild day. May I say that I hope the air here will do you a great deal of good?” and she was moving on when the invalid stopped her.

“Do stay and talk to me for a minute or two, if you don’t mind,” she said. “I have noticed you passing so often; now and then with—your mother, I suppose?”

Imogen gave a sign of assent.

“But more often alone. And I wondered—” But here she stopped rather abruptly. Imogen looked up; she was carrying a little folding-stool, which she set down beside the stranger’s chair. “I am rather tired,” she said with a sigh; “but please, what did you wonder?” The young lady smiled, but shook her head “No,” she said, “I don’t think I will tell you: it might sound impertinent—from an utter stranger. If—if possibly I got to know you even a little, I think I would say it.”

“That is not likely to happen, I fear,” Imogen answered. “We are leaving here on Monday. Are you going to stay all the winter?”

For the first time a rush of sudden colour overspread the lovely face, leaving it more delicately pale than before. Imogen began to change her mind about the girl’s age. Something in her tone and manner made her feel as if the invalid were some years her senior; a slight, very slight touch of gentle authority made itself felt, as if the speaker were not accustomed to have her words or opinion lightly set aside.

“I do not know about the whole winter,” she replied. “But I feel sure—quite sure—I shall never be able to go abroad, as my friends are still hoping. We are to have a grand consultation in a day or two: others of my friends are coming on Saturday.”

“But you could scarcely find a milder place in England than this,” said Imogen, a little puzzled by her manner.

“No: that is why I shall stay here, till—till I go still farther away,” said the invalid gently. “And yet it cannot be really far away—not from those we love,” she added, as if speaking to herself, while her beautiful eyes seemed to be gazing at unseen things.

Imogen did not speak; and when the stranger glanced at her again, she was startled to see some large tears stealing down the girl’s face.

“My dear child!” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” said Imogen, “I am crying. I think it is dreadful. I think nearly everything is dreadful in the world. Why should you have to die, so beautiful and so good—I can feel you are good; and why should I, though I’m not good at all, be so very unhappy?”

Then, not a little ashamed of herself, she started up.

“I shall only do you harm if I talk to you,” she said. “Good-bye. Oh! don’t you think perhaps you will get better after all?”

She held out her hand; the lady took it and held it.

“No,” she said, “that cannot be. And, believe me, there is nothing dreadful in it all to me now. The struggle is over both for me and, I hope, even for those who love me most. It is all right. But thank you for your sweet sympathy. Do not mind about me, however. You have said of yourself what I hesitated to say. I was wondering why you looked so sad, and I see it is true that you are not happy. Yet—” She glanced at Imogen’s pretty fur-trimmed winter dress, “you are not in mourning; you have your mother, and health and youth, and—plenty of things both useful and pleasant to do?”

“I don’t do them,” the girl replied bluntly. “I suppose they are there, if I cared to look for them. But I have no heart or interest in anything. I was really ill last year—last winter—rather badly, and I got into lazy ways, I suppose, and—and—oh, I’m just unhappy, and I don’t see why I should be, and why there should be so many things all wrong and sad.”

“If we could see the ‘why’ of such things, the wrongness and the sadness would be gone,” said the invalid.

Imogen looked perplexed.

“Ye-es,” she said. “Yes; if we saw it was a good ‘why,’ of course it would seem different.”

“Then should we not believe it is a good ‘why?’” and the young lady smiled again.

“I suppose we should,” Imogen allowed.

“There is one thing that all who know anything about human nature agree upon,” said the invalid, “and that is, that without suffering, without having suffered, we should be very poor creatures indeed; we should scarcely be at the beginning of better things.”

“Yea, suffering like yours—high and good and noble sort of suffering,” said Imogen. “And suffering borne meekly and patiently and cheerfully—that’s quite different. But when it’s only selfish, and mostly your own fault, and when you do nothing but kick at it and feel horrid—”

The invalid smiled again.

“If we were able at once to accept and bear patiently the suffering, we should not need its discipline,” she said. “No, it goes deeper and wider than that. Suffering is the door opening for us—opening on to the higher road.”

Imogen was silent. She was impressed, but still perplexed.

“Mine—the—the trial or disappointment, or whatever it should be called, that spoilt my life was not like that. It seemed only lowering—only degrading.”

“Don’t say that!” the invalid exclaimed eagerly. “Nothing can degrade us but our own wrong-doing, and the true lowering is that which lowers us only to raise us higher in the end.”

Imogen considered.

“I don’t know that I quite understand you,” she said. “I am afraid you are too clever for me. I am not clever, and I have never thought much about religious things; they seem so dull and difficult—at least nearly always. I know I am wrong now; I am useless and selfish and discontented.”

“The last is sure, thank God for it, to follow on the two others,” her new friend interpolated.

Imogen glanced at her earnestly: the reverent expression struck her. “But,” she went on, “for the thing itself, the miserable mistake and mortification, I don’t think honestly that I was to blame, except that I was silly and, I suppose, vain.”

Her candour impressed the other favourably. It is a proof of real humility to own one’s self vain.

“You must have been very young,” she said almost more gently than she had yet spoken. “Supposing you begin at the now; try to put right some of the wrong you now are conscious of. Do not think me officious or presumptuous,” she added. Then almost in a whisper, “The dying are privileged, you know.”

“Oh, don’t!” Imogen exclaimed, raising her hand as if to ward off an impending blow. Then she answered by a question, “Shall you be here to-morrow morning, about this time?”

“Yes, if it is fine, I think I may say certainly so.”

“I am going to think,” said the girl simply. “And perhaps you will let me talk to you a little more. To-morrow is only Thursday, and we don’t go till Monday. I do hope I have not tired you?” she added anxiously.

“No, truly no. You have interested me very much. And if I can be of even the tiniest bit of help to you, it would be delightful. The feeling one’s self so useless, so condemned to lie still, is almost the worst part of it;” and again the colour rushed over her face.

“I think just to see you is use,” Imogen replied.

Then she went home, and she thought.

And “to-morrow” was fine, and Imogen had not thought in vain, nor had her new friend in any way forgotten her.

“I am going to tell you everything,” said the girl. “I don’t like it at all, even though you do not know my name, and perhaps we may never meet again. But I know I can trust you, and I want you to say plain, even hard things to me, if you think I need them.”

Then followed the story—simple enough, after all, which we know.

The invalid listened intently. Once or twice, when Imogen came to the climax of the changed letters, alluding, though but slightly, to her faint suspicion that all had not been mere accident in the little drama, she started as a restrained exclamation of pity or of indignation, perhaps of both, rose to her lips. But when Imogen had finished, quite finished, though she took her hand and held it, for some moments she did not speak. Then said the girl, waxing impatient, as was her way:

“Why don’t you say something? I told you I would not mind plain-speaking or hard speaking. Do you think me beneath contempt?”

“My dear,” said the older woman, with a touch of reproach, as she pressed the restless little hand, “I was thinking. I won’t attempt to say what I feel for you; I might say too much. Just be satisfied that I do feel for you intensely. I think it was a cruel, a really cruel trial; and if any one was an active agent in it—no, it is best not to say what I could say of such wickedness. The word is not too strong; but let us put all that aside. If so cruel a trial and mortification were sent to you, it was for a good purpose. That is a truism; but truisms are useful sometimes. Special suffering—and I do think it was very special and unusual—is meant to show special possibilities for good in those it comes to. That should take away some of the bitterness of the mortification, should it not, by helping you to rise above it?”

It was the second time in her little speech that she used the word, and as she laid a slight emphasis on it, she looked at Imogen keenly. It is not a pleasant word to have applied to one’s self, but the girl did not resent it. She only repeated it inquiringly.

“Mortification?” she said. “Yes, of course I know there was a good deal of that in it;” and her colour deepened. “But, that couldn’t have been the worst of it. I was—I had got to be very fond of him—of the person it was all about.”

“Naturally so,” said the invalid. “I don’t see how you could have helped it. And he deserved it. You need not feel ashamed of having cared for a man such as—as you describe. But—yes, I think the mortification was the worst of it, and the part that has left you so sore and morbid. I don’t think—and remember you told me to speak plainly—you can have been what is called ‘in love’ with him. You were more in love with the idea of it all. The sort of romance of it, and the girlish pride in being so quickly chosen, and your mothers gratification too.”

“It is true,” said Imogen, “that at the very first, when I thought it was really going to be, I wasn’t at all sure if I was glad or not. I was more frightened and worried than glad. But mamma said girls often feel as if they didn’t know their own minds.”

“Perhaps; but not exactly as you felt. Then there is another thing. I think and believe you would be capable of a very true and unselfish love. Now, if yours for him had been like this, it would not have spoilt your life hitherto as you tell me it has been spoilt. You would have been thankful to know the mistake had not caused him suffering. Oh, my child, that is the bitterest, to know that we have been the cause, however innocently, of sorrow to those we love better than ourselves!”

Her words and manner almost overawed Imogen. But after a little pause she replied:

“No,” she said, honestly, “I certainly did not care for him like that. I was even almost glad to think he had suffered a little. For though, of course, he was not the least atom in the world in love with me, he was unselfish. I know he was dreadfully sorry for me. But, after all, if it was more the mortification than—than any better feeling, how does that help me?”

“Because it is so clearly wrong—even ‘lowering,’ to use your own word—and it should be and must be so possible for you to throw it off and start afresh.”

Imogen raised her head; there was something inspiriting in the last words.

“What should I do?” she asked gently, but eagerly too.

And an earnest consultation followed.

The next day was rainy. Then came Saturday, fine and mild again—the last but one of the Wentworths’ stay at Tormouth. Imogen stole down for a few minutes to the sheltered nook where she had found her new friend.

Yes, she was there.

“I felt that I must see you—for a moment,” said the girl, “though I cannot stay, and I know you have friends coming to see you to-day. But I had to thank you again, and I want to tell you that I have told my mother I will do exactly what she wishes; so we are going to London on Monday to look for a house, and poor mamsey is so pleased. And I am going to follow your advice about everything. I am not going to be idle and useless any more.”

The tears were in the stranger’s eyes by this time.

“Dear child,” she said, “I am so glad.”

“Would you like to know my name?” the girl went on simply. “I thought at first I could not bear to tell it you; but if that is foolish and false pride, and if you would tell me yours?”

“No, dear,” the invalid replied. “Do not tell it to me. And I will not tell you mine. I think it would a little spoil the charm of our friendship, and there might come times at which you would wish you had not confided in me. No, I shall never forget you. And you may feel that your secret is as safe as it can be, for—”

“I know what you are going to say, but please don’t. You may get better for a while: do let me think so.”

The dying girl shook her head, though she smiled—yes, her own sweet smile. And this was Imogen’s last remembrance of her. So when, some few months later, in the daily list of deaths came the name of “Eveleen, only surviving daughter of General Sir Jocelyn Lesley, etc, etc, aged 28,” it called forth no remark from the girl whose eye it caught for a moment, save that of ”‘Eveleen Lesley.’ What a pretty name! And Eveleen spelt the Irish way.”

“Is it a marriage?” asked Mrs Wentworth across the table.

“No,” Imogen replied, with a softened tone in her voice, “it’s somebody dead. But not a very young girl.”

Five years later, and The Fells again, in its normal condition of hospitable cheeriness, and with, at the first glance, but few changes. The Squire is a little greyer, perhaps—a little greyer and a little stouter—and Mrs Helmont a trifle more grandmotherly in bearing and appearance. And the handsome figure and face of wild Trixie are conspicuous by their absence; for she is married and away—far away with her husband and his regiment in India, learning wisdom and other good things, it is to be hoped, by experience. In her stead there sits Lady Lucy, the pretty and irreproachable, though decidedly uninteresting, wife of Captain Helmont. Alicia and Florence are both in their usual places.

It is breakfast-time, and newspapers are handed about. From Oliver at one corner there comes an exclamation:

“I say, did any of you know that Robin—Robin Winchester was going to be married? Not going to be, he is married, and guess to whom—that’s to say, if you remember her.”

“Who?” said Alicia, languidly.

“That pretty, spoilt little girl who stayed here once, ages ago, before Trixie was married. What was her name—Gwendolin? No; Imogen Wentworth.”

“Dear me, how very odd!” said Alicia, with more interest in her tone. “They met here, then; no, they didn’t—did they, Florence?”

“They did meet, but only just,” said Florence; “still, I believe Robin dates his falling in love with her from then.”

Her father and mother turned to her. “Then you knew about it; you might have told us. Indeed, for the matter of that, Master Robin might have told us himself,” said the Squire.

“He is only a second-cousin after all,” said Florence, “and we never had seen anything of him scarcely. We never knew him like Rex—in the old days. And I believe he has been very little in England all these years.”

“We have seen little enough of Rex for a long time,” said Mrs Helmont. “Poor Rex! why, he always called us uncle and aunt, you remember, my dear. I suppose he has never got over poor Eva’s death. But I think the girl’s mother might have let me know. I always meant to ask them here again—indeed I think I did once—but something came in the way. Who told you about it, Florry?”

“I only heard it vaguely, some months ago, from Rex himself, as a thing that would be some day, but not an announced engagement. And this very morning I have a letter from him. It appears Mrs Wentworth is dead: she had a very long and painful illness, and her daughter would not leave her. Rex speaks of Imogen very highly. I think he seems quite cheered by the marriage.”

“We must ask them down: don’t forget about it, my dear,” said the hospitable Squire.

“And perhaps we could persuade Rex to come too. Ask them all for Christmas: they’d feel at home and cheer us up a bit—make up for poor Trixie, eh?”

The Christmas invitation was declined, though graciously. For Imogen’s mourning was still recent, and her marriage had been of the quietest. But the course of the following year did see the Winchesters—all three of them—at Grey Fells. And at last came to pass the friendship between Florence and Imogen, which so long ago Major Winchester had wished for and tried to compass.

“I like her exceedingly—thoroughly,” said Robin’s happy wife to—her brother-in-law.

“But, surely, is she not much softer, less standoff and much, much more sympathising than she used to be?”