Mrs Molesworth (continued 4)

End of Volume One.

Volume Two—Chapter One .

Eavesdropping.

Rom. The hurt cannot be much. Mer. No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but ’tis enough.

It was the day of the Winsley Hunt Ball. The Halswood Chancellors’ stay had already considerably exceeded the week originally proposed as its extent; but Gertrude had persuaded them “not to talk of going away” till after the twenty-fifth, the date of this important local event. So they had stayed on, and with them the Exytons and the Gourlays, and ever so many other people, till the Grange was filled to overflowing with fine ladies and gentlemen, and still finer ladies’ maids and gentlemen’s gentlemen.

Gertrude was in her element, so in his own way was Beauchamp; he had felt much more comfortable since there had been a little more going on, and he had had less time for solitary meditation; and Roma, though he had not seen her for several days except in general society, was so agreeably gentle and subdued, that he began to think his new way of behaving to her was really going to prove a success. At any rate he would try it a little longer, it would do her no harm; and so long as the house was as lively as it had been lately, time did not hang heavy on his hands. There were two or three young ladies among the visitors in whom Adelaide Chancellor had discovered kindred spirits, so Roma was freed from the burden of entertaining the girl, and not sorry to be so; for the first few days during which they had been more thrown together had been quite enough for Miss Eyrecourt. Yet she felt very lonely sometimes; Gertrude seemed to be always surrounded by her guests, and to make her plans and arrangements without consulting Roma in the old way at all, and the understanding between her and Mrs Chancellor was evidently closer and more confidential than ever.

It was a mild spring-like morning: the meet, one of the last of the season, was at some distance from the Grange, and most of the guests had set off early, riding and driving, to be in time for it. Beauchamp—who did not hunt, not being rich enough to do so in what he considered proper style, but who nevertheless rode well enough, and managed to be always sufficiently well mounted to look as if his forswearing the field was to be solely attributed to eccentricity or indolence—had preferred this morning to drive Lady Exyton’s ponies, their pretty owner at his side. Addie had borrowed the horse Roma usually rode, and under her father’s wing intended to do great things; every one had arranged to go somehow or with somebody except Roma herself, who, fancying that nobody wanted her, and that her sister-in-law would prefer her remaining in the background, had kept out of the way till it was too late for her to be included in any of the arrangements.

It was rather a relief to be alone for a little while. She was, in a general way, fond of amusement and society, accustomed and not indifferent to a fair share of admiration. But lately she had not had heart or spirit to enter into things as usual; Gertrude’s coldness had already, it seemed to her, affected the tone of others; she said to herself she was getting old, “nearly five and twenty,” and “passée,” and ill-tempered, and it would not be long before Beauchamp would congratulate himself heartily on not having been taken at his word by her.

“I almost wish sometimes I could have cared for him as he cares or thinks he cares for me. But it would have been dreadful to have so vexed Gertrude after all her kindness to me. It is bad enough to feel that she distrusts me without my deserving it, but that would have been worse. No; I should not like to care for him; but it is very lonely sometimes.”

She was pacing slowly up and down a sheltered terrace walk that ran along one side of the house. On to this walk opened by glass doors several of the rooms most used by the family, the library, the morning-room, Mrs Eyrecourt’s little boudoir, and between these glass doors were placed here and there garden seats against the wall. Roma got tired of walking up and down; though still only February it was temptingly mild, so she sat down on one of the seats without observing that the glass door nearest it was slightly ajar. Voices from within reached her, she heard the sound of her own name; then before she had time to realise what she was doing, two or three sentences fell with cruel distinctness upon her ears.

“It is very difficult for me to think it is Roma’s fault. She has assured me so earnestly that there was nothing of the kind on her part, I cannot bear to think how she must have deceived me.”

The voice was Gertrude’s; the tone anxious and irresolute. Then came the answer; it was Mrs Chancellor who was speaking now.

“Ah, yes; that is the worst part of it. I can feel for you, my dear Gertrude; I can indeed. As to the affair itself, had she only been frank about it, one could hardly have blamed her. A man of dear Beauchamp’s attractions, thrown so much in her society—and she, of course she is handsome in a certain style, and her singing is really good, though not quite refined enough to suit my taste; but—what was I saying? Oh yes, of course, she, you know, is no longer very young, and has nothing, literally nothing you say, to look forward to? It is only too natural. It is most distressing altogether, and how perplexing for Beauchamp, dear fellow. A moment’s folly or weakness and a young man may be ruined, ruined in a sense of course, for life! Ah yes, I see it all, far more clearly than can be possible for one so young and unsuspicious as you, dearest Gertrude. But I do think Beauchamp has behaved beautifully, from what you tell me, beautifully. And—”

But just then there came a knock at the door of the boudoir in which the two ladies were sitting, and Mrs Chancellor’s maid appeared, or rather, that is to say, the sound of her voice penetrated to Roma still motionless on the garden seat outside, and it became evident to the involuntary eavesdropper that the confidential tête-à-tête was at an end. She had not meant to listen; just when the interruption came she had been on the point of marching into the room and stating what she had heard. Now of course before the servant it was out of the question. She rose from her seat, ran along the terrace and entered the house at the other side; then hastening upstairs she waited at the door of her own room till, as she expected, in a few minutes she saw Mrs Chancellor coming along the passage, followed by the maid, who wished to consult her about some important question of millinery for the evening’s adornment.

Then Roma walked deliberately downstairs again, across the hall, down the passage to the door of Gertrude’s boudoir, at which she knocked, and in obedience to her sister-in-law’s unsuspecting “come in,” entered Mrs Eyrecourt’s presence with no sign of agitation or uneasiness on her countenance.

“Gertrude,” she said, quietly. Gertrude started a little; she had not expected to see Roma, and glancing up at her now she felt instinctively that something must be the matter. Roma’s face was so grave, and she looked so dreadfully tall. What could it be? Gertrude laid down her pen—she was in the middle of a letter—and waited in some alarm for what was to follow, feeling perhaps the least little bit in the world guilty, when she remembered what her thoughts had lately been of her sister-in-law. “Gertrude,” said Roma again, “I have come to tell you that I heard what you said of me just now; what you said and what you allowed Mrs Chancellor to say of me in this very room not ten minutes ago.”

Mrs Eyrecourt grew crimson. There was no evading the charge; it was far too direct and circumstantial. She tried getting angry.

“I needn’t remind you of the old proverb about listeners, Roma,” she said, with an attempt at haughty indignation. “There was a time when I could hardly have believed you capable of such a thing, even though confessed by yourself; but I must have been mistaken in you in more ways than this. I cannot help your having heard what was said. I am not bound never to say anything about you that you would not like to hear—and to a near relation of my own too! You cannot expect to dictate to me what I am to talk about to my cousin.”

“That is nonsense, Gertrude,” answered Roma, so gently that the words did not sound disrespectful. “I have no intention of dictating to you. I have not even hinted at finding fault with what you said and allowed Mrs Chancellor to say, though I might perhaps be excused if I thought it hard that I should be so discussed by you with a person whom you have not known a fortnight; and it is nonsense for you to pretend that you think me capable of low eavesdropping. You know you don’t think so, Gertrude. Of course you know that my overhearing anything was purely accidental, and in your heart, Gertrude, you are bitterly sorry, not only that I overheard what I did, but that there was anything of the kind for me to hear.”

Gertrude was silent. “I don’t know if I am or not,” she said, half petulantly. “I don’t want to distrust you, Roma. If you heard all, you must have heard me say I could not bear to think you had deceived me.”

“And why should you think so?” exclaimed Roma, more vehemently. “I have never deceived you, dear Gertrude. You have been very good to me all these years since my mother died and I was left alone; there has never been any cloud between us, except about this unfortunate infatuation of your brother’s. I am not, in a sense, surprised at a woman like Mrs Chancellor thinking of me as she does—she has no reason to like me, and imagines me in her way—but you, Gertrude, ah! that is very different! Why should I deceive you as to my feelings to Beauchamp; what good would it do me if what Mrs Chancellor thinks were true, to conceal it from you? Oh, Gertrude, you know it has been all on his side all along; you cannot say I have ever encouraged him in the very least?”

“No-o,” said Gertrude, reluctantly. “Directly, you certainly have not done so. But I don’t know, Roma. I wish you wouldn’t ask me. As Mrs Chancellor said once, you may have been deceiving yourself.”

“I have not then; I have done nothing of the kind,” replied Roma, her dark eyes flashing as no light grey ones could do. “I tell you again, Gertrude, as I have told you a hundred times, I do not care for Beauchamp a straw, not in the way you mean. It is a perfect mystery to me what other women find so irresistible in him. I know him too well I suppose. To me he is the very antipodes of the sort of man I could care for. Selfish, weak, vain. He has good, qualities too of course, I know that as well or better than you do, but his faults and foibles are the sort that in a man I could least forget. There now, have I spoken plainly enough to convince you at last? I don’t want to offend you, Gertrude,” seeing that Mrs Eyrecourt, with true womanly inconsistency, now looked rather sulky at this unflattering depreciation of her Adonis; “you have forced it upon yourself. Good heavens! how unreasonable you are.”

“You are forgetting yourself, Roma,” said Gertrude, coldly.

“No, I am not. And if I were, would there not be some excuse? I am determined to come to an end of this. Either you must trust me, or if not I will go away. I will be a governess or a housemaid or anything, rather than stay with you if you doubt me. What would you have, Gertrude? You don’t want me to marry Beauchamp, yet you are angry because I am not the least atom in love with him? Would you like to be told that I am heart and soul devoted to him, but that to please you I was willing to sacrifice myself by refusing to have anything to say to him—would that be a pleasant state of things for you? I know very little about the feelings of people in love certainly—I have hardly a right to judge even of myself in such a predicament, but I don’t know but what I might have been capable of so sacrificing myself, Gertrude, rather than disappoint you after your many years’ goodness to me. I am grateful, whatever else I may not be. But such a state of things would have been wretched for you.”

Gertrude was touched. The old habit of sisterly trust and confidence was fast returning upon her.

“I do believe you, Roma,” she said, after a little silence. “I have never doubted you as much as you think. But it is altogether uncomfortable and anomalous.”

“I know it is. For no one more so than for me,” replied Miss Eyrecourt. “And my conviction that Beauchamp does not really care for me does not simplify matters. I doubt his being capable of what I call really caring for any one, though I don’t know,” she added thoughtfully, the expression of his face when he had begged her “never to sing that song again” returning to her memory; “but what can I do, Gertrude? You don’t want me to let him propose formally and hear my opinion of him in the plain words I have told it to you?”

“Certainly not,” said Gertrude, hastily. “It would be most disagreeable—just now especially; the Chancellors would hear of it, and—altogether—”

“It would be horrid, I allow,” answered Roma, consideringly. “A good blow to Beauchamp’s vanity might not do him any harm, but he would never forgive the dealer thereof. We could never be all comfortable together again. As for the Chancellors, I don’t know that it would much matter. I don’t think there is much chance of success in that quarter, Gertrude. Of course it would be a good marriage for Beauchamp, and he is far more likely to be a good husband rich than poor, and Addie is pretty and amiable. It would be all right if he saw it so of course, but I don’t think he will. However, I don’t want to be in the way. I tell you what, Gertrude, I had better go away.”

“Go away!” repeated Mrs Eyrecourt, in amazement. “Roma, oh no! that would never do.”

“I don’t mean for always,” said Roma. “I am not so in love with independence as to want to leave you unless you drive me to it—for, of course, as Mrs Chancellor delicately observed, I have ‘literally nothing else to look to.’ You are my bread and butter you see, Gertrude—for of course the trifle I have is hardly enough to dress upon; and I assure you I don’t want to quarrel with you if I can help it.” Gertrude winced a little. “If my father’s second wife had been an heiress like his first, things would have been different. No, I didn’t mean going away for always—only for a few weeks, till Beauchamp is away again.”

“He would be sure to suspect the reason, and would be angry,” objected Mrs Eyrecourt.

“Not he; I could manage it so that neither he nor any one else could suspect the reason. I shall probably be telegraphed for in a few days. I had a letter from my godmother this morning, which paves the way beautifully for a sudden summons. She is a good old soul. I shall write to her at once. Beauchamp is all right for the present. He is trying a new plan with me, and before he discovers its vanity I shall be safe out of his way.”

“Roma,” said Gertrude, penitently, “you are very good and unselfish.”

“No, I’m not. Neither the one nor the other,” said Roma, cheerfully. Her spirits had quite returned to her now that Gertrude was herself again. “Kiss me, Gertrude, and I will forget that you ever doubted me. What’s that noise? Some one listening again? It is certainly not I this time.”

She walked quickly to the window and looked out. The glass door was still ajar, but no one was to be seen. “It must have been my fancy,” she said, returning to Mrs Eyrecourt. But just then an unmistakable rustling was heard along the passage. “There is Mrs Chancellor coming back again. I must go before she comes in. You won’t tell her any of what we have been talking about, Gertrude? You will not let her know of my having overheard what she said?”

“Of course not. How can you ask me, Roma? I shall never mention you to her again at all if I can help it,” answered Mrs Eyrecourt, and almost before she had finished speaking, Roma had disappeared through the glass door, only just in time to escape Adelaide’s mother, who entered in great tribulation concerning the non-appearance of the flowers from Foster’s, ordered for the completion of Miss Chancellor’s ball-dress.

“What to do, I really don’t know, my dear Gertrude,” she began in a tone of sore distress. “The whole effect of the dress depends upon them. And we have felt anxious about the dress already. Pink is rather an experiment for Adelaide at a ball, for she does flush, you know, and on this account I have hitherto prohibited it. But she had so set her heart upon it I agreed to try it, and I have been trusting to these flowers—water-lilies, all white, you know—to soften the colour.”

“And has she no other ball-dress ready in case they don’t come?” inquired Mrs Eyrecourt, not sorry that Mrs Chancellor’s thoughts were thus diverted from the former subject of their conversation. “I didn’t know she was thinking of pink for to-night—at a Hunt ball, you see, against the scarlet coats—”

“Of course,” interrupted Mrs Chancellor. “Dear me, that makes it worse and worse! How could Adelaide and Fraser be so stupid? But there is her white tulle. I do believe there would be time to alter the trimming, and it is a lovely dress. Would you, dearest Gertrude, mind coming up with me to look at it? I should be so thankful for your opinion.”

Dearest Gertrude had no objection, and as the two ladies passed along the corridor upstairs, they met Roma coming out of her own room with a book in her hand.

“Can you tell me where the second volume of ‘Arrows in the Dark,’ is to be found, Gertrude?” she asked innocently, as they passed her.

The slight noise near the window of the boudoir had not after all been Roma’s fancy. Eavesdropping was in fashion to-day at Winsley.

When Captain Chancellor had driven Lady Exyton safely home again from the meet, and deposited her at the hall door, she begged him to go round with the ponies to the stable to explain to her groom a little matter in the harness requiring immediate adjustment. His errand accomplished, he strolled back to the house again by a roundabout route through the terrace garden. Here he suddenly came upon his niece, intently engaged in ascertaining how many new little worms she could chop up one big one into, her nursemaid, seated on a garden bench at a little distance, being safely engrossed with crochet.

“What are you doing, you nasty cruel little girl?” exclaimed Beauchamp, in considerable disgust.

In a general way Floss rather affected her uncle: such an address, however, roused all her latent ire.

“I ain’t nasty. And you’re cwueller to shoot pwetty birds and bunnies. Worms is ugly, and they doesn’t mind cutting,” she replied, defiantly.

“How do you know? You wouldn’t like to be chopped up into little bits, would you?” remonstrated Captain Chancellor, with a vague feeling that somewhere in his memory, could he but lay hold of it, there was a verse of one of Dr Watts’s hymns appropriate to quote on the occasion.

“No,” returned Floss calmly, “I wouldn’t, ’cause I’m not a worm. Worms doesn’t mind. I know they doesn’t. I know lots of things,” she continued, mysteriously peeping up into her uncle’s face with her green eyes; “lots and lots that nobody more knows.”

“Do you?” said Beauchamp, carelessly. “Let’s hear some of your secrets, Floss.”

“I’ll tell you one if you won’t tell nobody,” said the child. She was evidently burning to communicate it, or she would not so quickly have forgiven her uncle’s insulting greeting.

“All right, I won’t tell nobody.”

“Listen, stoop down, Uncle Beachey. Low down; now listen and I’ll whisper,” said Floss. Then to his amazement—he had expected only some childish confidence or complaint—she whispered into his ear the words, “Aunty Woma’s going away.” Beauchamp started back. “Roma is going away,” he repeated. “Nonsense, Floss. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do, I do,” exclaimed the child, in her eagerness to prove herself right, throwing all reserve to the winds, “she said so to mamma. I heard her, and mamma said she was good, and I know she’s going.”

“How did you hear her? Where were you?” questioned Beauchamp.

“I was under the sofa—in there, in mamma’s room,” said Floss, pointing in the direction of the boudoir. “My ball went in, and I went in too, and mamma thought I came out again, but I didn’t. I hided under the sofa for nurse not to see me, and it was a long time—hours, I should think—before she finded me,” she continued triumphantly.

“But how did you hear your aunt was going away—did nurse tell you?” asked Captain Chancellor, somewhat mystified.

“No, in course not,” exclaimed Floss, contemptuously. “Nurse doesn’t know. Aunty Woma came into the room and spoke lots to mamma. She said she would make something for mamma, but mamma wouldn’t have it; and then she said she would go away, and mamma said she was good, but you would be angwy, and Aunty Woma said, ‘No; you wouldn’t expeck.’”

”‘Wouldn’t expect?’ What can the child mean? Wasn’t it suspect she said, Floss?” a brilliant light flashing upon him.

“Yes, suchpeck,” agreed Floss. “It was suchpeck; and what could it be aunty said she’d make for mamma, Uncle Beachey?” she continued, evidently disposed now to regard her hearer as an interpreter of the jumble in her brain. “It was something like satin flies.”

Captain Chancellor stared at the child without speaking. He saw, or thought he at last saw, through it all. He turned to go, but a thought occurred to him.

“Floss,” he said, very impressively, “it wasn’t good of you to listen to what your mamma and aunt were saying. They would be very angry if they knew.”

“Oh, don’t tell. Uncle Beachey, you said you wouldn’t tell nobody,” said the little girl beseechingly.

“I’m not going to tell. But remember, Floss, you must be sure not to tell any one else, not nurse or any one, do you hear? It doesn’t matter for me, but other people might scold you.”

“Then I won’t tell,” decided Floss. “And do you think Aunty Woma will go away, Uncle Beachey? I hope she will. I like her best when she goes away, for then she can’t call me a tiresome plague, and she bwings me a pwesent when she comes back.”

But Uncle Beachey did not answer her inquiries. His mind was full of curiously mingled feelings; indignation against Gertrude, triumph over Roma, whose real sentiments he now imagined he had discovered; determination to be, as he expressed it to himself, “made a fool of no longer.” And below all these he was conscious of a strange, indefinable feeling of indifference to it all, of unwillingness to move decisively in the matter, as he told himself he must. Now that the long-coveted prize seemed within his reach, half its attractiveness appeared to have deserted it.

“There has been a great deal of unnecessary to-do about it all,” he said to himself. “Of course I always felt sure that in the end I should marry Roma, and I have no doubt we shall get on very well. But it takes the bloom off a thing to have all this uncertainty and delay about it.”

Volume Two—Chapter Two.

Plain Speaking.

“The fiery maiden-nature flashing forth.”

City Poems.

Roma’s spirits rose considerably after her conversation with her sister-in-law. She did not look forward with much anticipation of enjoyment to the evening’s amusement—balls at four-and-twenty are very different from what they are at eighteen—still she felt more like her usual cheerful sensible self than she had done for some time.

“How very pretty your dress is, Miss Eyrecourt,” said Adelaide, cordially, perhaps a little enviously, when the two young ladies happened to find themselves side by side shaking out their plumage after the four miles’ drive, in the temporary cloak-room, at the Winsley “Unicorn.”

“I do so admire black, and those foxgloves are really lovely. So very natural! I never, saw them worn before. I am not at all pleased with my dress,” she went on discontentedly. “I have worn it once before, and I think one never feels comfortable in an old dress. I wish I had had my new pink after all. I don’t believe there will be many scarlet coats. Only two of our party have them.”

“There are sure to be a good many; and really your dress is exceedingly pretty,” replied Roma, consolingly. “It looks perfectly fresh.”

“Does it?” said Miss Chancellor, turning herself round, the better to observe the effect of her long sweep of drapery. “I’m glad you think it looks nice. I am engaged for the first dance to Captain Chancellor. I almost wish I wasn’t! Do you know, Miss Eyrecourt, though I think he is charming to look at, I cannot get on with him. I never can think of anything to say to him, and yet just see how Miss Fretville goes on with him, and mamma thinks him delightful too.”

Roma smiled. “Miss Fretville and you are two very different people,” she replied kindly, for the girl’s unaffectedness pleased her. “You will find that he dances beautifully, any way, which is the principal consideration to-night. Here he comes,” for by this time the whole party were in the ball-room, and the first dance was on the eve of commencing.

Captain Chancellor made his way quickly to where the two girls were standing.

“Our dance, I believe, Miss Chancellor?” he said to his cousin, then, somewhat to Roma’s surprise—his late conduct had not prepared her to be thus honoured—he turned towards her.

“Will you keep number ten for me, Roma,” he said; “I shall count upon it, remember!” and before, in the moment’s hurry, she had time to make any excuse, or even to decide that it would be well to do so, he had left her, and in another minute was whirling round the room, with the substantial Adelaide in his arms.

Miss Eyrecourt felt a little uneasy. Something in Beauchamp’s manner had struck her as peculiar: then, too, number ten was—as she knew by the arrangement of the card—the last dance before supper; evidently he had chosen it on purpose. There was no help for it, however; she must trust to her tact to steer clear of anything undesirable, but she almost wished she had pleaded illness or some excuse, and remained at home.

What a pity it all was! Long ago in the old comfortable days, how she had enjoyed dancing with Beauchamp, especially at these Winsley balls, where they knew everybody, and it was sociable and friendly, and people were not too fine to enjoy themselves. How nice it would be, thought Roma, if there was no such thing in the world as falling in love, real or imaginary.

Could it be true, as Beauchamp had so often told her, when he was vexed, that she was different from the rest of young ladyhood, cold, and self-contained and unwomanly? If so, was it not a pity she had not taken the best that came in her way, with out waiting in a vague belief that something better might possibly be yet to come? Portionless though she was, she had refused two or three very fair proposals before now, refused them for no reason except the little-sympathised-in one that she “did not care for” the men who had made them to her. But now, at four-and-twenty, there were times when she questioned the wisdom of her decisions, when she doubted if, after all, it was in her to care for any real flesh-and-blood lover, as long ago in the romantic girlish days it had seemed to her she could. She might have been fairly happy with Sir Philip Bartlemore for instance, buried in politics over head and ears though he was. Lady Bartlemore seemed comfortable and content, and every one spoke of her as fortunate in her married life; or with that undoubtedly disinterested and truly uninteresting Mr Fawcett, the Rector of Ferrivale, towards whom for some time Roma had vainly tried to coax into existence a warmer sentiment than respect—she would have gone on respecting him till now, she felt quite sure, and she would have had a home and ties of her own, whereas now she was of no particular use to any one, and the cause of disunion and trouble among her nearest friends. Had she made a mistake in not acting up to the practical, worldly-wise philosophy she always professed to believe in? There was no saying, and little use now in trying to decide; so Roma turned her attention to the present, danced as much as she felt inclined, laughed and talked with such of her partners as were worth the trouble, and made fun to herself of the others, till nine dances had come to an end, and she was startled by Beauchamp’s voice beside her claiming her for the tenth.

“I am glad it is a waltz,” she said cordially, judging that a return to the old easy terms would be her best temporary policy. “It is ages since we have had one together, and we understood each other’s paces so well. I have not been very lucky to-night; so far as dancing goes, that is to say. My partners have belonged more to the order of ‘those that talk.’ How have you been getting on?”

“I! oh, I don’t know. Well enough,” replied Captain Chancellor somewhat absently. “Lady Exyton dances well to look at, but she’s rather too light and too small for me. Blanche Fretville again is a thought too big, and she bounces rather.”

“You are as difficult to please as ever, I see,” remarked Roma, rashly.

Beauchamp looked at her: his eyes and the consciousness of the mistake she had made, caused her colour to deepen. Her vexation with herself increased.

“Yes,” he replied, quietly, but with meaning in his tone, “I am. No one should know that better than you, Roma.”

Just then, to her relief, the music began. “Are you ready?” he asked, and in a moment they were off.

It is something for poor creatures such as most of us are, to be able to do anything perfectly, even so altogether small a thing as dancing! There is a real satisfaction while it lasts, in feeling that the thing we are doing could not be done better. And this agreeable consciousness was always Roma’s when waltzing with Beauchamp. They were a perfectly well-matched pair; their movements as harmonious as the blending of two voices in a duet. Once, long ago, Roma had said to Beauchamp that whatever he had done to offend her, it would be beyond her power to refuse to forgive him after dancing with him. It had been a passing laughing remark, and he had forgotten its ever having been made. Still, some instinctive desire to gain for himself every possible advantage in what was before him, had probably had to do with the details of his conduct this evening.

The waltz came to an end—all too soon, for more reasons than one, for Roma. She had not been able to make any plan of defence; she could only trust to her tact and quick-wittedness. Captain Chancellor seemed in no hurry to get rid of her. She was afraid of appearing anxious to leave him; symptoms of such a feeling on her part might only precipitate what she hoped to evade. So they promenaded up and down the room among all the other couples, saying little to each other, Roma all alert for the first chance of escape. Suddenly a door hitherto closed was thrown open; a general movement in the new direction ensued. Beauchamp started.

“Supper!” he exclaimed. “By-the-bye, I forgot. Will you excuse me, Roma, for a moment?”

She was only too ready; her hand was withdrawn from his arm almost before the words were out of his mouth.

“Never mind about me,” she said quickly. “I see Gertrude over there. I can make my way to her quite well alone.”

She did not know if he heard what she had said or not, in a moment he had disappeared. And, alas! for the vanity of human expectations, Gertrude was no longer to be seen “over there.” Nearly every one had by this time left the ball-room; the few who were still in process of filing out were not of Roma’s acquaintances. She began to feel rather uncomfortable and deserted, and a little indignant with Beauchamp. One or two couples glanced at her as they passed, with some surprise.

“What can Miss Eyrecourt be standing there alone for?” said a girl who knew her by name only, to the gentleman she was with.

“Better ask Captain Chancellor,” replied the young man. He was the son of one of the managers, formerly head clerk, of the Winsley Bank, and his acquaintance with the “county” was decidedly limited. As might have been expected therefore, his knowledge of its private arrangements was minute in the extreme, now and then indeed suggesting suspicions of clairvoyance.

“Who is he?” asked the girl, a stranger to the neighbourhood, to whom five minutes before Mr Thompson had pointed out Miss Eyrecourt, condescendingly, as “one of our belles—has been, that is to say.”

“He is a sort of a connection of hers,” he replied, “that is to say, a brother of Mrs Eyrecourt’s. He and she—Captain Chancellor and Miss Eyrecourt, are engaged to be married, though it is not generally known. There he is,” he added, lowering his voice, for at that moment, as if in confirmation of his statement, Beauchamp, conspicuous by running against the supper-seeking stream, passed them, on his way back to the ball-room.

“Oh, indeed!” replied Miss Smith, with the sex’s usual keen interest in such matters. “I am glad you told me. It is such fun to watch engaged people.”

She communicated the fact in all good faith to her next partner, who happened to be one of the officers in the cavalry regiment stationed in the neighbouring town. This gentleman, not personally acquainted with either of the two people it chiefly concerned, mentioned it again casually as an undoubtedly well-authenticated piece of local news to a brother officer, whose wife, an old school-friend of Mrs Dalrymple’s, happened to be writing to that lady the next day. The object of her letter being to ask for an introduction to the family at Winsley Grange, the major’s wife naturally alluded to the engagement as a “just announced” occurrence, not forgetting, on the principle of “the three black crows,” to add, what she probably really thought she had been told, that “she understood the marriage was to take place almost immediately.”

Roma was sitting quite alone in the empty ball-room, when, to her great surprise, Beauchamp rejoined her. She had not liked his deserting her so unceremoniously, but this unexpected reappearance alarmed her: still she determined to seem to suspect nothing out of the common.

“So you haven’t forgotten me after all, Beauchamp?” she said good-humouredly. “You needn’t have come back for me though, I don’t care about any supper.”

“Don’t you really? Come now, that’s quite a fortunate coincidence,” said Captain Chancellor, seating himself deliberately beside her, “for as it happens I don’t want any either. We can spend the interval that less ethereal beings than you and I, Roma, devote to vulgar eating and drinking in a little congenial conversation.”

“But your partner?” objected Roma; “that is to say, the lady you took in to supper. What will she be thinking of you?”

“I didn’t take any one in to supper,” replied Captain Chancellor, composedly. “The reason I deserted you so unceremoniously was only that I had promised Lady Exyton to tell Vandeleur where she was to be found, and I had forgotten.”

Roma, who was really rather hungry, began to long for the comparative safety of the crowded supper-room. How she wished now she had not told that useless little fib about not wanting anything to eat.

“What is the matter?” asked Beauchamp, presently. “What are you looking so unhappy about?”

“I am tired,” she answered hastily. “I have got a little headache. I wish I could get a cup of tea, but I suppose there would be no chance of such a thing so late in the evening.”

“Every chance,” replied he; and for one happy moment Miss Eyrecourt thought he was going to volunteer an expedition in search of it. “If you will wait till the supper is over I will guarantee your getting it. I am so sorry you are tired, Roma, but I have not thought you looking well for some time. You may have fancied I did not notice your looks or think about you, but if so you have been mistaken.”

There was the unmistakable tone of a prelude in this little speech. Roma grew desperate, as a last hope she tried to offend him.

“I am not obliged to you for noticing my looks,” she said haughtily—“still less for commenting upon them. There are few things I dislike more than remarks of the kind. I am tired, as I told you, Beauchamp, and I want to sit here quietly by myself. It will oblige me very much if you will go away and leave me alone.”

Captain Chancellor had risen from his seat and stood before her, looking down on her flushed face, waiting quietly till she had come to the end of her not very civil speech. He was perfectly cool. Roma hardly understood the expression of his face, but she felt that, so far at least in the interview, he had the advantage of her.

“You needn’t think you will make me angry, and get rid of me in that way, Roma,” he said coolly. “You have tried that plan successfully several times, but I understand you better now, I am glad to say. Yes, I understand you thoroughly now at last, and I will have no more mystifications and shillyshallying.”

It was a peculiar sort of love-making. There was a tone of triumph in his way of speaking that irritated Miss Eyrecourt even while it bewildered her.

“What do you mean, Beauchamp?” she asked, really at a loss to understand what he was driving at.

“You know what I mean,” he answered; and Roma could see that he put some force on himself to keep down his rising irritation. “You know perfectly what I mean. Not many hours ago you told Gertrude you were willing to make a sacrifice of yourself for her,” (this was what after much cogitation Captain Chancellor had made out of Floss’s “satin flies,” and the look of utter astonishment on Roma’s face told him that his shot had hit the mark); “have you forgotten that you were sacrificing some one else as well as yourself? All these years, Roma, I have waited, if not always patiently, at least, more so than many men would have done,” (“yes,” thought Roma, “and amused yourself very agreeably between times,”) “and now I think I deserve my reward. I have always suspected what I now know, that Gertrude was the real difficulty; but for this suspicion your conduct would certainly have been most incomprehensible to me, still till to-day I hardly realised that she could carry her unjustifiable tyranny so far, or that you could so tamely yield to it.”

Here and there during this speech Roma had softened a little to her would-be lover, had even pitied him a little when it dawned upon her that the truth she had no option now but to tell him in unmistakable words might after all cause him some real pain: but the confident belief in the irresistible nature of his own charms, calmly inferred in his closing words, provoked her out of such weakness. She felt no difficulty now in hardening her heart.

“How you have got your knowledge, Beauchamp, of what passed between Gertrude and me to-day certainly baffles my comprehension; but, however you have done so, you must allow me to tell you that it is a very garbled version of the real conversation that has come to you,” began Roma.

“I don’t believe it,” interrupted the young man, hotly. “You are trying to mystify me again. Can you deny that Gertrude’s interference has gone the length of driving you from Winsley while I am there?”

“Certainly I deny it,” she replied. “It is perfectly true that Gertrude and I agreed together that it would not be unadvisable for me to leave Winsley for a time.”

“For the time of my being there?” he interrupted again.

“Well, yes, if you force me to say so, that was the time we proposed for my absence. But Gertrude was not the originator of the plan. It was my own wish.”

“Indeed!” he said, incredulously. “And if not to propitiate Gertrude, what on earth was your motive?”

“The foolish one,” she returned, getting very angry, “of wishing to spare myself the pain of saying, and you the pain—or rather, perhaps, I should say, the mortification, of hearing what I would much rather never have been driven to put into words.”

“And what may that be?” he asked, growing paler than was his wont, but with a sneer on his face that made Roma, in her exaggerated indignation, marvel that ever she could have thought him handsome.

“The truth,” she replied, vehemently, “the plain state of the case—namely, that there is one woman who does not think you irresistible; who would not marry you, hardly, I think, to save her life; who pities the woman that does marry you—vain, selfish, shallow as you are!” She stopped, breathless with excitement.

“Thank you,” said Beauchamp. He was still standing before her, to all outward appearance composedly enough, but still with the same disfiguring sneer over his handsome features. “Thank you,” he repeated, slowly. “One is never too old to learn, I suppose. I thought I knew something of women; till to-night I thought I knew something of you—I imagined you refined, gentle, and womanly, but you have undeceived me. Still, of course, pray understand how sincerely I thank you for your plain speaking; the only pity is that you have so long deferred it, out of regard, no doubt, for the pain—oh no, by-the-bye, I am too shallow to be capable of feeling pain, mortification I think you kindly called it—it might cause me.”

He turned to go. The intensity of wounded feeling from which he was suffering, the utter unexpectedness of the blow, had given him for the time a sort of dignity, a power of retort new to him. Never before, perhaps, had Roma been so near admiring him as now, when the mixture of truth in his sarcastic words stung her so deeply. A sort of remorse seized upon her—she felt that she had gone too far. Poor Beauchamp! he might be all she had taunted him with being, but had he deserved such treatment at her hands?

“Beauchamp,” she exclaimed, appealingly, “Beauchamp, don’t go like that. Forgive me. I have said more than I meant. You have been mistaken all along. You don’t really care for me in that way. Some day you will see you have never done so. Oh, do let us be friends in the old way; you don’t know how I wish it!”

At the first sound of her voice he had stopped short and half turned round. A foolish, wild idea flashed through his mind that possibly he had been premature in believing her, that now at the last moment, when she judged him all but lost to her, he was yet to see this proud woman at his feet. But in a moment her words undeceived him.

“Thank you again,” he said, coming nearer her, and speaking in a low voice, for just then some of the younger people—those who cared more for dancing than supper—began to straggle back into the ball-room, “but you must excuse me for saying—as plain speaking is the order of the day—that I can’t echo your wish. Even ‘vain, selfish, shallow’ people have feelings, you know, sometimes, of a kind.” Then, with a complete and sudden change of voice, he added aloud, “Shall we go to the supper-room now, and see what we can get? It must be getting less crowded.” And with the habitual instinct of not leaving the woman in an awkward or unprotected position, he offered Roma his arm, which she, wounded beyond expression, yet not without a certain feeling of gratitude for his consideration, was fain to accept.

Surely a more uncomfortable pair never walked arm-in-arm across a ball-room! They made their way in silence, meeting of course face to face the returning stream, feeling themselves agreeably exposed to the critical remarks of the many to whom, at least by sight, they were well known. Entering the supper-room, to her relief, Roma descried Gertrude and some of her party still seated in a corner, and she lost no time in joining them with some plausible excuse for her tardy appearance. But it is to be feared she never got the cup of tea on which she had so set her heart.

The rest of the evening passed like a dreary farce. It was all Roma could do to smile and talk sufficiently as usual to prevent Mrs Eyrecourt’s suspicions being aroused; for as yet she could not decide how much or how little of what had passed it would be well for her to confide to her sister-in-law. She felt unspeakably thankful when at last she found herself at home again, safe in the solitude of her own room, free to think over quietly the painful occurrences of the evening, and to decide what now was best for her to do. But when she tried to think it all over she found herself too tired and dispirited to do so reasonably or sensibly; worse still, when she gave up the attempt and went to bed, she could not sleep, and when, after tossing about for two or three hours, she at last fell into an uneasy doze, it was only to awake with a start and the indescribably wretched feeling familiar to us all that something was the matter, and that she must at once arouse her faculties to recall its details.

Light was beginning to break, however; she found she must have slept longer than she had imagined. Yes; it was nearly eight o’clock. She got up and dressed without ringing for her maid, who had sat up late for her the night before, and thinking that the fresh morning air might refresh her, she spent the next hour in a brisk walk round the park.

When she came in again, and was hastening to take off her hat and cloak, she passed Captain Chancellor’s room. The door was open, and just inside she caught sight of his man-servant engaged in strapping a portmanteau. Roma stopped short; the servant happening to look up, perceived her standing in the doorway.

“What time is your master leaving, Barlow?” she asked, coolly, as if she knew all about it.

“Half-past ten, ma’am,” was the reply. “At least, the dog-cart is ordered for then.”

Roma passed on to her own room, feeling very unhappy. She had no anticipation of Beauchamp’s acting so precipitately, and she could not bear to be, even unwillingly, the cause of annoyance and vexation to her sister-in-law. What could she do? There was no use trying to see Gertrude, she would certainly not be awake enough to take it all in, and persuade her brother to reconsider his plans. Much as she shrank from seeing Captain Chancellor again, Roma now wished she could do so; there was just a possibility that she might be able to stop his leaving so hastily, especially if she reminded him of her own determination to go away from Winsley for a time. She went down to the dining-room with a half-formed determination to try what she could do. None of the guests had as yet made their appearance, but at one end of the long table stood a cup of coffee already poured out, and other signs that some one intended breakfasting at once. It did not look promising. Miss Eyrecourt hung about uncertain what to do, but just as she was deciding that it would be better for her not to interfere, Captain Chancellor walked in.

For the first moment he did not see her, but sat down hastily to his breakfast. Then happening to look up, he caught sight of her, and started visibly. Roma felt very uncomfortable; till she was actually in it she had not realised the awkwardness of the position. Now, however, her good sense came to her aid.

“Beauchamp,” she said, trying to speak as much as possible as usual, though her voice trembled a little, “I want to ask you something.”

“Be so kind as to tell me what it is as quickly as possible,” he said, stiffly. “I am leaving immediately.”

“There are two things I want to ask you,” she went on hurriedly. “The first is, will you forgive me for having hurt you more than I need have done last night. I don’t suppose I could have avoided hurting you to some extent, but what I had to say I might have said differently. In short, Beauchamp, I am afraid now that I lost my temper, and I am very sorry for it.”

“The provocation was certainly very great,” returned Captain Chancellor, bitterly. “Still you must excuse me for saying that I do not see any need for the subject’s ever being reverted to again. We are not likely, you will be glad to hear, to see much more of each other for the future: it is not much to ask you to drop the subject now and for ever.”

Roma’s face flushed. “I only wish I could forget it at once and for ever,” she answered with much hurt feeling in her tone. “It is far from generous for you to answer me so.” Beauchamp remained perfectly silent. “However,” she continued, “I cannot believe that you will continue to feel so bitter as you do now. What I most wanted to see you for was to beg you not to leave so hastily. There is no need for it. I am going away in a day or two. It will be very hard upon me if you go away in this sudden way, for of course, Gertrude will be frightfully annoyed, and altogether it will be most disagreeable.”

She purposely exaggerated her personal feeling in the matter, as, under the circumstances, the strongest appeal she could make to him.

Captain Chancellor looked up quickly. “I am not surprised you should think so of me,” he said; “but you are mistaken. I explained everything to Gertrude last night; she knows of my leaving. She is most anxious you should not think of going away at present, as she will tell you herself. But my time is up. I must go.”

He rose from his seat.

“Are you going back to Wareborough?” asked Roma, feeling remorseful and yet indignant.

“Certainly not,” he answered sharply, evidently suspecting some meaning in her question. “Wareborough is about the last place I am likely to go to—wretched hole that it is. I am only too thankful to have seen the last of it.”

He spoke, it seemed to Roma, with unnecessary vehemence. But there was no time for anything more to be said. He shook hands formally and was off, and Roma walked slowly upstairs again to her own room, vexed with herself, vexed with Beauchamp, yet sorry for both.

Half-an-hour later Gertrude sent for her. Mrs Eyrecourt was wonderfully gracious. “It is very unlucky, dear—dreadfully unlucky, just what we have all along dreaded so, but most certainly not your fault. And I don’t think there will be any fuss about it. Beauchamp said something ‘confidentially’ to Mrs Chancellor last night about the probability of his being called away suddenly by letters this morning. A friend of his—that Major Thanet, you know, Roma, really is ill—at Torquay or somewhere, and Beauchamp will most likely join him. And he has promised to visit the Chancellors at Wylingham very soon. So after all it may all turn out for the best. They leave to-morrow. And I have been thinking, Roma, considering all—you will be the better of a change, and of course you won’t go to Deepthorne now—I don’t see why we should not go to town sooner than we intended. We can have that house in a fortnight for either two or three months.”

“Very well,” said Roma. “I am quite willing to do as you like.” Then, after a moment’s silence she added, “I am glad Beauchamp is not going back to Wareborough. I was a little afraid of that at first.”

“Of what?” asked Gertrude, lifting her eyebrows. Then as a remembrance of Roma’s former fears returned to her mind, “On account of that girl, do you mean? Oh dear no, I have no fears in that quarter now. You must have exaggerated what you noticed when you were there.”

“Perhaps so,” said Roma, quietly.

Volume Two—Chapter Three.

At Wareborough.

“The certainty that struck hope dead.”—J. Ruskin.

These three weeks had passed drearily enough at Wareborough. Not with everybody, of course. Frank Thurston for one was in a far from unhappy state of mind—his marriage with Sydney Laurence was to take place in a few weeks; thanks to Gerald’s generosity no difficulties had come in its way, and the prospects of the young people were bright enough to satisfy all reasonable requirements. Sydney, in her calm way, was happy too. She belonged to the class of women who to some extent identify the husband with the home, and the selecting of this home, the discussion of the rival merits of the two or three little houses which happened at the time to be vacant in that part of Wareborough where they were to live, was deeply interesting to her. Still more delightful to her was the furnishing and adorning of the tiny habitation. Her taste was good, her common sense and discrimination wonderful, and she had the happy knack of never apparently opposing her lover, even when his ideas as to the drawing-room curtains, or china dinner-service, hardly accorded with what she considered suitable, or threatened to exceed the sums respectively appropriated to these purposes. Yet in the end and without the exercise of any conscious diplomacy, Sydney generally got her own way. Eugenia on these occasions wondered at, admired, often almost lost patience with her sister.

“You are really spoiling Frank, Sydney,” she would say. “I don’t believe he half appreciates you.”

But “Oh, yes, he does,” Sydney would answer with a quiet smile, for nothing that Eugenia could have said in those days would have had power to draw forth any but the gentlest reply from the sister whose whole soul was filled with an intensity of unexpressed, inexpressible sympathy in the suffering which Eugenia was doing her utmost to conceal.

Since the night when they had learnt the certainty of Captain Chancellor’s departure, his name had never been even indirectly alluded to by Eugenia. It was not that she was naturally reserved or too proud to confide in her sister, but just at the first shock she felt that her only strength lay in silence—once let the barriers of her reticence be broken down, she trembled for her already overtaxed powers of self-control. And besides she shrank from the not improbably adverse view which Sydney might take of Captain Chancellor’s behaviour.

“She does not know him as I do; she could not understand him,” thought Eugenia. “I could not, even by her, endure to hear him blamed or judged in the common conventional way, for whatever others might think of him, I believe him to be blameless. My faith in him is unshaken.”

And so she believed it to be, not discerning that in this morbid shrinking from any discussion of the subject even with Sydney, there lay concealed an unacknowledged misgiving as to the soundness of the foundations of her trust.

So she kept silence, and flattered herself that no one but Sydney could possibly suspect that anything was amiss. It was not difficult for her just at present to keep a little more than usual in the background, the young fiancée being naturally the nine days’ centre of observation. And even if Miss Laurence did look hardly in her ordinary spirits, people did not much wonder at it.

“It must be a trial to the two sisters, especially to Miss Laurence, poor girl, to think of being parted, even though Mrs Frank Thurston, that is to be, will only be a few streets off,” observed one kindly-hearted Wareborough matron to Mrs Dalrymple during a morning call when the Laurence family happened to come on the tapis; to which Mrs Dalrymple, who was feeling anything but happy about Eugenia’s altered looks, agreed with almost suspicious eagerness. For Mr Dalrymple, with true masculine magnanimity, had already given symptoms of having a stock of “I told you sos” in readiness for the first suitable opportunity, and had Eugenia been less preoccupied, her friend’s increasingly demonstrative affection and constant reiteration of “how very well she was looking,” could not but have roused the girl’s own suspicions.

Curiously enough, in these days Eugenia seemed to turn with satisfaction to Gerald Thurston.

“How very much Gerald has improved again of late,” she remarked one day naïvely to Sydney. “For some time after he came home, I thought India had spoilt him. He seemed rough and careless, as if he had got out of the way of women’s society, and was turning into a moody old bachelor. But now he has got back his nice, gentle, understanding way. He seems to know by instinct when, when—” she stopped and hesitated—“when Frank and his chattering are almost more than I can bear,” had been in her thoughts, but she recollected herself in time to change it—“when one is tired and disinclined to talk or anything,” she said, wearily, and Sydney had hard work to force back the expression of sympathy which she felt would not at this stage be welcome.

“Yes,” she answered simply, “Gerald is very good and kind.”

She would not have been the least offended had Eugenia finished her sentence as had been on her tongue. How she pitied her no words could have told, and many a time Frank’s unconscious cheerfulness jarred even on Sydney herself, poor child, feeling almost as if the contrast of her own happy content was a crime against Eugenia’s shattered hopes.

She pitied Gerald too. It was worse for him now, she said to herself, than if all had been as she had expected. True, he might then have realised more acutely the sharpness of his disappointment, have suffered unselfishly from his misgivings as to the worthiness of her choice; “but still,” thought Sydney, in her sensible way, “it would have been over and certain—a thing that was to be, and he would have been beginning to get accustomed to it.”

But now though Eugenia in the body was still among them, the heart and soul—the very life it seemed just now, had gone out of her. All the freshness and brightness had been sacrificed—whatever possibilities the far-off future might yet conceal, the Eugenia of Gerald’s first love, the Eugenia of his absent dreams, was gone for ever, could never be his. She had never been his, it was true, but Sydney’s womanish faith in the “what would have been,” was indefensibly great. Correspondingly deep was her unspoken disappointment, her vehement, almost fierce indignation against the cause of all this trouble, the wanton destroyer of her sister’s youth and happiness. Had she come upon the subject with Frank, he would, she knew, have either refused to believe in Eugenia’s suffering, or have blamed her as herself the originator of it.

“But he doesn’t understand her, and that man threw dust in his eyes. Supposing even that Eugenia was easily deceived, allowing her to be, as Frank says, impressionable and extreme, does that excuse him; cold-hearted, unprincipled, selfish man of the world that he must be, to have robbed my darling of her happiness.”

But all these feelings, little suspected under her quiet exterior, Sydney kept to herself.

Late one afternoon, about six weeks after Captain Chancellor had left Wareborough, the sisters on their way home from a long and rather fatiguing shopping expedition, happened to pass Barnwood Terrace.

“Don’t you think we might go in and see Mrs Dalrymple for a few minutes?” suggested Sydney. “She has been twice to see us since we have called on her, and she is always so kind.”

“Very well; if you like I don’t care,” replied Eugenia, and Sydney hastened to ring the bell before she could change her mind. The girl was jealous for her sister that no occasion should be given for either kindly or spiteful gossip, and it was well for Eugenia that she had so discriminating a friend at hand; for in the preoccupation of her perplexity and trouble, it would never have occurred to her that any regard should be paid to the possible comments of the little outside Wareborough world.

Mrs Dalrymple was at home, and as cordially delighted as usual to see her two friends, yet Sydney was at once conscious of a slight underlying constraint in her manner, perceptible chiefly perhaps in the kind-hearted woman’s extra effusiveness and palpable endeavour to be quite as easy and cheerful as her wont.

“She has something on her mind,” thought Sydney, “something she is uncertain about telling us,” for the girl had no great opinion of Mrs Dalrymple’s power of reserve, and every time that their hostess introduced a new subject of conversation Sydney trembled, she hardly knew why, and glanced furtively in her sister’s direction. Eugenia sat quietly, unconscious of anything unusual in Mrs Dalrymple’s demeanour, now and then putting in a remark on one or other of the various topics touched upon. She was at that stage of very youthful suffering at which a sort of calm often falls upon the inexperienced subject of it; in reality a simple physical reaction, but which she told herself, with a childish yet morbid satisfaction, must be “the apathy of despair.” Her life, she told herself, was over; she had sounded the very depths of suffering, she had experienced the worst, the very worst; only one possible aggravation of what she had endured was conceivable to her; yet not so either, for her heart refused to listen to the faintest suggestion of so monstrous an idea as that of her having been deceived in her hero. Could it be possible that he had never been “in earnest,” that he did not really care for her, that the softly hinting words and looks more eloquent than words had meant nothing? Oh no, no, it could not be; though all the world should swear it to her, she would refuse to believe it.

“For if I ever came to think so, I should die,” she said to herself, with the innocent arrogance of youth which cannot believe that ever a human being’s sufferings equalled its own, or that the worst anguish is not that which kills, but that which is lived through. For in those natures which have the deepest capacity for suffering there is usually an appalling reserve of strength and endurance, and to such, dying is not so easy of achievement, as, fresh from their baptism of woe, they are apt to imagine. And Eugenia did not yet know either that there is a “living,” compared to which this ignorantly invoked “dying,”—a girl’s hazy, sentimental notion of it, that is to say—were but child’s play.

So Eugenia sat quietly beside Sydney in Mrs Dalrymple’s luxurious drawing-room—a room full of associations to her—calm in the belief that she had known the worst; that her unapproachable, unsurpassable sorrow had, as it were, set her apart from the rest of the world; that for the future the only life remaining for her was that of unselfish, self-devoting interest in the lives and interests of others. For this was the rôle that Eugenia, ever extreme, imaginative, and incapable of the sometimes so salutary resting on one’s oars, the taking one’s life and its lessons day by day soberly and trustingly, instead of insisting on unravelling the tangled thread oneself—had now already marked out for herself, and, true to her new ideal, she tried to listen with interest to Mrs Dalrymple’s commonplacisms, to answer brightly and smile cheerfully at the proper times. She imagined the shock to be over, the doomed limb already severed, and that she had known the acutest agony; when, alas, she woke from this dream to find that the worst was yet to come, that what she had endured was but the first shrinking of the tender flesh from the cold steel of the surgeon’s knife.

Her attention, in spite of her efforts, had flagged a little; she was recalling in fancy the many times Beauchamp Chancellor and she had been together in this room, from that first evening that now seemed so long ago, when he had found her standing alone at the door in the fog, and had asked her to dance without knowing her name. Suddenly something that Mrs Dalrymple was saying recalled her to the present. Their hostess had been asking Sydney, as her intimacy with the girls excused her in doing, some questions as to the proposed arrangements for her marriage.

“I do hope it will be fine weather at the time,” she had been saying. “Not merely on the day itself, of course, though one naturally likes some sunshine for a bride, but for the honeymoon. You will enjoy your tour so much more if it is fine.”

“Yes,” agreed Sydney. “But of that we must take our chance. April is never to be counted on.”

“No, and yet it is such a favourite month for marriages,” replied Mrs Dalrymple. “I hear of—let me see—three among my near friends, which are fixed for this April,—a niece of Henry’s, one of the Conroys. I forget if you have ever met them here? She is marrying a Mr Mildmay Jones, in the Civil Service, and going out to India. Then there is your marriage, Sydney, and another I only heard of yesterday. You remember my cousin Roma, Roma Eyrecourt,” (here it was that Eugenia’s attention was attracted), “of course you do—she was here last December, you know.”

She stopped, as if waiting for Sydney’s reply, for to her the question had been addressed. In reality, poor woman, she felt unable to screw up her courage to make the announcement which she yet knew it would be cruel and impossible to withhold.

Little shivers of cold began to creep over Sydney. She felt inclined to shake Mrs Dalrymple—why could she not either have held her tongue or said it out quickly without this unnecessary torture of suspense? For Eugenia was listening: there she sat, Sydney seemed to see without looking at her, in an unnatural tension of expectation, her eyes, which had somehow grown to look larger of late, fixed on the speaker.

“No,” said Sydney, in a weak, faint, almost querulous voice, quite unlike her own.

“No, I don’t know her. I didn’t see her when she was here.”

“Ah, no, by-the-bye you didn’t,” said Mrs Dalrymple, and something kept her from turning to Eugenia, the one who did know her cousin, as would have been natural, “I remember. But though you don’t know her, you know Captain Chancellor very well. I can’t tell you how surprised I was to hear of those two being really engaged. Of course it has often been spoken of, but I long ago made up my mind it would never be. I could get no satisfaction out of Roma when she was here, but I certainly didn’t think it looked like it. Beauchamp Chancellor never gave me the slightest reason to expect it—rather the other way indeed. Really I don’t think I ever was so surprised.”

“And the marriage is to take place very soon, I think you said,” inquired Sydney, with the same strange sensation she had had once before of being a mere machine asking questions at her sister’s bidding.

“Yes, very soon, I believe,” Mrs Dalrymple went on again in the same nervous, hurried manner. “Next month—about the same time as yours. I have not heard the whole particulars yet. My letter was not from Roma herself, but from Mrs Winter, a friend of mine who is staying near there just now. I must write and congratulate them both, I suppose, though—I hope they won’t ask us to the marriage, however; I certainly don’t want to go.”

There was silence for a few moments. Then both Mrs Dalrymple and Sydney were startled by the sound of Eugenia’s voice. She spoke in a quiet, rather dreamy tone, as if the sense of her words was hardly realised by her—but of the peculiarity of her manner only Sydney was aware.

“Will you kindly give our congratulations too, when you write, Mrs Dalrymple, please—mine especially. I saw Miss Eyrecourt several times, and we all know Captain Chancellor very well, you know.”

“Certainly I will, my dear Eugenia, with the greatest pleasure,” replied Mrs Dalrymple, with rather injudicious empressement. A very little encouragement would have drawn out the whole of her smouldering indignation against Beauchamp and womanly fellow-feeling with Eugenia’s wrongs, but without some hint from the sisters that the expression of her opinion would not be considered indelicate or intrusive, even Mrs Dalrymple felt that in this case, as in most others, the less said the better, and held her peace accordingly.

A minute or two passed, but no more allusion was made to the news which had so disturbed their hostess’s equilibrium. And before there was opportunity for the discussion of any other subject, the sisters, moved by a common instinct, discovered that it was getting late, and that they had already outstayed their time. Mrs Dalrymple could not resist kissing them both affectionately as they said good-bye, but this was the only expression of sympathy on which she ventured.

It was already twilight out of doors. Still not so dusk but that Sydney stole timid glances at her sister’s face in wistful anxiety as to what there might be there to read. But it seemed all blank: she might have stared at her with open inquiry, Eugenia would have been unconscious of it. She walked along quite quietly, replying mechanically to the little commonplace observations Sydney hazarded from time to time; but for the curious expression, or rather curious absence of expression in her usually changeful, speaking face, her sister would have suspected nothing but that Eugenia was in a more than usually silent mood this evening. As it was, Sydney felt bewildered and uncertain, vaguely apprehensive, yet not satisfied that there was new cause for any increase of her anxiety.

“Possibly,” thought Sydney, “this definite news may do her good. It may show her what a poor creature he is after all, and may rouse her to shake herself free of the remembrance of him altogether.”

She hardly understood that to Eugenia such a reaction, healthy and “sensible” though it might be, was impossible. Through all her despair and misery Eugenia clung with instinctive self-regard to her delusion; over and over again she repeated to herself in almost the same words, the poor little formula of faith in her lover which she told herself and really imagined she believed. It was her safeguard at this time, and well for her that she could hold to it; for what to some girls would have been merely a passing though sharp mortification, would to her have been a loss of self-respect extensive enough to have shaken the whole foundations of her character.

Very near their own house the sisters were overtaken by Frank Thurston. He walked beside them to the door, but seemed to hesitate about entering.

“Aren’t you coming in, Frank?” asked Sydney.

“It is hardly worth while,” he replied, eyeing regretfully his but half consumed cigar. “I have only five minutes to spare. Suppose you walk up and down with me, Sydney, instead of my coming in. It’s going to be a beautiful evening.”

Sydney glanced at Eugenia.

“Yes, do, Sydney,” said Eugenia.

Sydney fancied she could discern in this a longing on her sister’s part to be alone, if but for a quarter of an hour.

“Very well, then, I will stay out with you for a little, Frank,” she agreed, and Eugenia entered the house by herself.

When she got into the hall, for the first time she became conscious of feeling different from usual, strangely weak and giddy and very cold. Afraid of the servant’s observing anything amiss, she abandoned her intention of rushing upstairs at once to her own room, and went instead to the drawing-room, where she knew she would find no one. There was no light in the room but that of a large, brightly burning fire. Eugenia drew a low seat close to it, and in a minute or two when the warmth had penetrated a little through her thick dress, she seemed to feel better. Still, however, she was only half restored; she felt that going upstairs would be quite beyond her powers, so she sat still, vaguely relieved that Sydney did not appear with kindly but unendurable expressions of anxiety as to what was wrong.

How long she had sat there she did not know, when the door opened quietly and some one came in. Eugenia looked up. It was not Sydney. It was Gerald Thurston!

“Oh,” thought poor Eugenia, “oh, if only I were up in my own room! Oh, how can I sit and talk to Gerald!”

Then, however, there came a slight sensation of relief that it was Gerald and not Frank! She stood up to shake hands as usual when he crossed the room to where she was, but the giddy feeling returned, and she sat down again rather abruptly.

“I have been with your father in his study for the last hour,” explained Gerald. “He has asked me to stay to dinner and go with him to his lecture at Marny Mills to-night, so you must excuse my clothes.”

“Oh, certainly,” said Eugenia, smiling. “It wants more than half-an-hour to dinner-time still,” Gerald went on, speaking faster than usual—the truth being that this tête-à-tête with Eugenia, the first since the memorable evening of his return, was by no means to his taste—“don’t let me be in your way. I should not have come into the drawing-room, but your father had some letters to write, and I thought I was in his way. I met Sydney flying upstairs as I came across the hall, and she told me I should find a book and a fire in here.”

“There are some library books and new magazines over there on that side-table,” replied Eugenia, moving her head in the direction she meant. “But you are not in my way,” she went on indifferently. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

She shivered perceptibly as she spoke. Then she stooped to reach the poker, and began nervously stirring the fire.

Mr Thurston stopped on his way to the side-table. He came back to the fire-place and took the poker out of Eugenia’s hands. Even in the instant’s contact he felt their icy coldness.

“Let me do that for you,” he said gently. In her nervousness Eugenia had already done the very thing she would have wished not to do. She had stirred the glowing red into a vivid blaze, which fell full on her face. Something in it must have looked different from usual, for before she could turn away, Gerald spoke.

“Eugenia, what is the matter?” he exclaimed impulsively. “You are as cold as ice—you must be ill.”

She felt his eyes fixed upon her: extreme annoyance gave her momentary strength.

“Don’t, Gerald, please, don’t,” she said, half beseechingly, half petulantly. “There is nothing the matter. I may have got a chill, that is all. But please don’t look at me. I do so dislike it.”

She rose, resolved to put an end to his scrutiny. “I will get across the room,” she thought. She made two or three steps feebly but determinedly, wondering vaguely what had come to her feet, they felt so powerless and heavy; then, it seemed to her, she stepped suddenly down, down into unfathomable depths, into darkness compared to which midnight was as noon-day. “I am dying,” she thought to herself before her senses quite deserted her. “What will he think, how will he feel when he hears it?” And it seemed to her she called aloud with her last breath. “Beauchamp! oh, Beauchamp!”

In reality the words were a barely audible whisper, which would certainly have been unintelligible to ears less jealously sharp than those of her one hearer.

“My darling,” muttered Gerald, “so it is his doing, is it?”

The first two words made their way to Eugenia’s not yet quite unconscious brain. Afterwards she thought she must have dreamt that Beauchamp had answered her cry.

She had never fainted before. She could not at all understand the painful coming back to life; to finding herself after all—instead of awaking in the mysterious country across the river of which we know so little, so terribly little—in the old way again, lying on the drawing-room sofa, with a keen cold current of air blowing in her face.

“Where am I?” she said, as people always do say in such circumstances, glancing round her, apprehensively. But before Gerald had time to reply, her wits had sufficiently recovered themselves to take in the position.

It had not been much of a faint after all; her young life had not required much doctoring to regain its balance for the time. Mr Thurston had merely carried her to the window, and opened it to allow the fresh air to try what it could do. Then, laying her on the sofa, he was glad to see she was coming round again without his requiring to summon the assistance which he felt certain she would shrink from.

The room was bright with fire-light, and the cold air still blew in freshly. Eugenia lay still for a minute or two, gazing before her. Then she tried to rouse herself, and after a moment’s hesitation, seeing she could hardly manage it, Gerald put his arm round her, and helped her to sit up. He need not have been afraid of annoying her. She took his help with the most perfect simplicity, as if he had been her brother.

“Thank you, Gerald,” she said, softly, “you are so kind. You have always been kind to me, ever since I was quite little,” and half unconsciously she allowed her still throbbing head to lean for a moment on his shoulder. It was rather hard upon him—the perfect sisterliness of the little action made it all the more so. A sudden fear came over him that she would feel how fast his heart was beating, and would be startled into consciousness. So, very gently, under pretence of arranging the sofa cushion, he removed the arm that was round her. She did not seem to observe it.

“Are you better now, Eugenia?” he said, kindly. “I don’t know if I did right in opening the window, for I believe it must have been a chill that made you faint. But I am no doctor, and a good blow of fresh air was the only thing that occurred to me.”

“I am sure it was the best thing to do,” she answered; “I am not cold now. I don’t think it was real cold. It must have been the feeling of fainting coming on. I never fainted before, and I have always thought it so silly,” she added with a little smile. “I am all right now, I shall go upstairs in a minute, Gerald.” Appealingly, “You won’t tell anybody?”

“Not if you promise me to tell Sydney, and see the doctor if you have any return of it, or don’t feel quite well in any way.”

“Very well, I will promise that,” she replied, meekly enough. “It was very good of you not to call any one and make a fuss.” Then, after a moment’s hesitation, the hot colour rushing over her pale face, she added in a lower voice, “Gerald, didn’t I say something?”

There was no use parrying her inquiry. Sorely against his will, Gerald found himself obliged to accept the position of her confidant.

“Yes,” he said, simply; Eugenia did not perceive that it was sternly as well.

“Ah, I thought so,” she murmured. “I know I can trust you, though sometimes one prefers to trust no one. Don’t misunderstand me,” she added quickly, becoming alive to the grave expression of his face; “in one sense, I should not care if everybody knew what you suspect. No one need be ashamed of I can’t explain. I mean, I don’t want pity. I am not to be pitied, and no one is to be blamed. Only, people who only know half cannot understand, so I feel that my strength just now lies in silence.”

Mr Thurston looked at her very anxiously, the hard look melting out of his face.

“Take care you do not overrate your strength,” he said gently.

Eugenia smiled, but said nothing. Then she stood up, and was about to try if she could walk, when Gerald stopped her.

“Wait one instant,” he exclaimed, and before she had the least idea what he meant, he was back again with a glass of wine.

“Drink that, or at least half of it,” he said. “I found it on the sideboard. It must be getting near dinner-time.”

Eugenia did as he told her, and then he let her go.

“Good night; I don’t think I shall come down to dinner, and thank you again very, very much, and—and please remember,” were her last words.

Ten minutes later Sydney appeared, dressed for dinner, with a rather troubled face. She was anxious about Eugenia, she told Gerald; it looked as if she had caught a chill somehow—she had persuaded her not to come down again, but to go straight to bed.

“But talking of chills,” she went on, hastily, “this room is enough to freeze one. What can it be? Why, actually, the window is open. My dear Gerald, what can you be made of to have sat here without finding it out?”

Mr Dalrymple was dining with a bachelor friend that evening. It was pretty late when he got home to his wife, but he found her wide awake, and evidently in better spirits than she had been for the last day or two.

“Well, my dear Henry,” she began, “I am happy to tell you that for once your fears have been exaggerated. The Laurence girls were here to-day, and I told them—quite naturally, just in the course of conversation, you know—the piece of news I had heard. And I assure you, Eugenia took it beautifully; was not the least surprised or upset; begged me to send her congratulations, and so on. She cannot have been impressed by Beauchamp Chancellor as you thought, for she is a girl that shows all her feelings. It is quite a relief to me. I feel quite happy about her now.”

“Do you?” said Henry, with cruel satire. “I’m glad to hear it. Only I suspect your feelings are not at this moment shared by her family. Mr Le Neve was dining at Hill’s to-night, and a couple of hours ago he was sent for in a hurry to the Laurences. He said he would look in again, and so he did, and told us the patient was Miss Laurence—Eugenia, I mean. And I can tell you he is far from easy about her. My own idea is she’s in for brain fever. Be sure you send round first thing in the morning to inquire.”

Poor Mrs Dalrymple was crushed at once.

“Don’t you think Mr Le Neve is rather an alarmist?” she ventured, timidly.

But Henry was very unfeeling. “I can’t say I do,” he replied, leaving his wife to her own reflections, which considerably interfered with her night’s rest.

Volume Two—Chapter Four.

Reaction.

... The sorrows of all humanity Through my heart make a thoroughfare. G. Macdonald.

Things, however, did not turn out quite so badly as several people anticipated. Eugenia’s illness did not result in brain fever, though for a week or two it was serious enough to affect considerably the spirits of her little circle of friends, and to justify Mr Le Neve in looking rather grave.

“Not that there is anything to be surprised at in it,” he assured her father and Sydney; “there are a great many cases of the kind about just now,” and he went on to murmur something about “the season,” “the changeable weather,” and other scapegoats of the kind always ready at hand to bear the blame of any illness not altogether to be accounted for or easily defined.

But greatly to the relief of every one concerned, before long Eugenia began to mend, and it was then decided that what she had been suffering from had been nothing worse than “a feverish cold,” and the less observant of her friends made themselves quite happy about her again. Their rejoicing, however, proved somewhat premature. When the girl came downstairs and began to go about again as usual, it became very evident, that though she had escaped an acute illness, she was far from having regained her ordinary strength. Sydney watched her anxiously, trusting at first that a few days would bring improvement, but on the contrary, at the end of a week, Eugenia seemed paler and more feeble than when she first got up. She would not own to being ill; she was only tired, she said—tired of the long winter, for spring was slow in coming that year; she would be all right when the summer came again, and Sydney must not trouble about her.

“Besides, dear,” she said plaintively, “though I don’t want to be selfish, you know the idea of losing you so soon is rather overwhelming to me,” and the tears which seemed now-a-days nearer at hand than formerly, rushed to her eyes.

“If you are not looking better by the end of April than you do now, I shall put off my marriage,” returned Sydney.

“And what would Frank say? Think how he would hate me! As it is, I believe he thinks my being ill at all is a piece of my usual perversity,” said Eugenia, half playfully, half sadly. “I daresay it is true. I have always given you a great deal of trouble, Sydney, and by rights it should have been the other way. I should have looked after you.”

“So you have. Neither of us could have got on without the other, and Frank knows that,” replied Sydney, consolingly. “But, Eugenia, I mean what I say; so you had better be quick and get well.”

She was willing enough to do so—at least to become sufficiently like herself to escape observation and be left alone. She did her very utmost to seem well, fought valiantly to keep up a satisfactory show of good spirits, in which endeavour the unselfish fear of damping Sydney’s happiness by obtruding her own sorrows materially assisted her. She was docile and submissive to all, perfectly ready to take the tonics which Mr Le Neve prescribed for her, to try Frank Thurston’s masculine panacea, “more exercise and fresh air,” or her father’s old-fashioned remedy of “bark and port wine.” Her gentleness was almost too much for Gerald’s self-control; he left off coming to see them so often, on the pretext of extra business, but found he did not gain much by so doing, for at home his brother nearly drove him wild by his calm speculations as to the possibility of Eugenia’s going into a decline; “their mother was very delicate, you know, and Eugenia is more like her than Sydney,” and even more irritating remarks on how much she was improved, “so much better-tempered and equable than she used to be.”

One day when Sydney had been out by herself, paying the usual bi-weekly visit to their father’s old maiden aunt, their only relation in the neighbourhood, she was told, by Eugenia on her return that Mrs Dalrymple had been to see her. This was certainly no very unusual occurrence, for during the last three weeks their friend’s visits had been by no means of the proverbially angelic character; but to-day, by Eugenia’s account, she had come on a special errand.

“They are going away from home somewhere—they haven’t quite decided where—next week,” said Eugenia, “and they want, me to go with them. But I told Mrs Dalrymple that I did not think it was possible, though of course it is exceedingly kind of them. Oh, Sydney, dear,” she continued, interrupting the remonstrance which she saw in her sister’s face, “I don’t want, to go. Our last three weeks together, for they wouldn’t be back till a few days before the 29th! And how could you get all finished by yourself without me?”

“There is very little more to do,” said Sydney, sitting down beside Eugenia and looking at her anxiously, “almost nothing in fact, except the last preparations of all, which cannot be begun till a few days beforehand, and you would be back by then. It isn’t as if it was going to be a grand marriage. And to speak plainly, Eugenia—you mustn’t be offended—even if there were a great deal to do, you couldn’t, as you are just now, help me. Indeed you would be rather in my way. I cannot bear to see you doing anything when you look as if the least breath of air would knock you over.” Eugenia did not at once answer. She turned away her head. Then she said resignedly—

“Very well, if my father, too, wishes me to go, I will,” but the pleasure which Sydney was about to express was destroyed by Eugenia’s next speech. “It is as I thought. I am no use to any one. My own life is over, and I am not wanted to help in any one else’s.”

This was the first allusion she had made in all these weeks to the bitter sorrow she had passed through. Sydney was touched and distressed.

“You must not speak so, Eugenia,” she said. “We all want you. We want you to be your own bright self again. Don’t think me unfeeling for thinking it possible you may be bright again. I know I have no right to speak, for I have been exceptionally free from trial, but you have been so brave and good lately, Eugenia. I cannot bear to see you so desponding. I am sure it will do you good to go away. It will make me feel so much happier about you.”

“Very well, then, to please you, I will,” said Eugenia, more vigorously, and as Mr Laurence was only too thankful to give his consent to the proposal, Mrs Dalrymple triumphantly carried the day.

Ever so many places had been thought of as likely to be pleasant at this season, and one after the other rejected as undesirable. One was too far away, another too crowded by invalids, a third disagreeably exposed to east wind. Their time was too short for them to entertain the idea of any of the usual wintering places across the Channel, and Mrs Dalrymple objected to the south of England as too distant also. So in the end they pitched upon a pretty little watering place, not more than a three hours’ journey from Wareborough, where there was a good choice of walks and drives for Mr Dalrymple, and a certainty of comfortable quarters at the best hotel.

Their destination was a matter of perfect indifference to Eugenia, whose only interest in the journey was the feeling that she was pleasing her friends, and whose only strong wish was to get it over, and find herself at home again, free to yield to the lassitude and depression against which it became daily more difficult to struggle.

“If they would but leave me alone,” she constantly repeated inwardly; and though she hated herself for the feeling, there were times at which she realised that even Sydney’s absence would be in some ways a relief. The constant and but thinly veiled anxiety in her sister’s eyes, the incessant endeavour on her own part to lessen it by appearing as bright and energetic as of old, were at times almost more than the girl could endure or sustain; and when she found herself at last fairly started on her little journey with the Dalrymples, she became conscious that she had done wisely to consent to accompany them. Mrs Dalrymple’s kindly fussiness was infinitely less trying than Sydney’s wistful tenderness; it was far easier to keep up a cheerful, commonplace conversation with her friend’s husband than to sit through dinner at home with the feeling that her father and sister were stealthily watching to see if she ate more to-day than yesterday, or if she entered with greater vigour into the passing remarks. With her present companions she felt perfectly at ease; had she had any idea of what an accurate acquaintance with the actual state of things had been arrived at by the worthy couple, her comfortable freedom from self-consciousness would have speedily deserted her.