Mrs Molesworth (continued 9)

“Yes,” she answered, absently, adding, “If you won’t come in to-night, will you come and see me to-morrow? I—I will try to think of what you have said, if it is not too late.”

“Then you don’t think me hard and cruel?” he said, gently.

“No, oh no. I only thought you could not understand.”

“This much I understand,” he replied. “You have suffered a great deal, where many women would have suffered little. It is your nature to, do so. Therefore, I dread for you, with unspeakable intensity, the deeper suffering you would bring upon yourself—most of all the knowledge, which, sooner or later must come to you that you had done wrong, grievously wrong—for it is not a case where duty is difficult of recognition.”

She did not answer, but sometimes silence is better than words. She went upstairs to the neat, bare, unhomelike lodging-house drawing-room, and sat down to think. She thought and thought so long and so deeply, that poor Rachel knocked several times before she was heard, and, unfortunately, it was past post-time! So no letter reached Wareborough the next morning.

Volume Three—Chapter Seven.

Roma to the Rescue.

That he has his faults cannot be doubtful; for we believe it was ascertained long ago, that there is no man free from them. Carlyle.

It is dreary work—perhaps no one who has not had personal experience of it can imagine how dreary—to find oneself really alone in a strange place, with no customary daily duties to compel one’s attention, however unwilling; no chance of a friendly face looking in to break the monotony of the empty day; no anticipation even of the post bringing distraction in the shape of news, good or bad. Such had been Eugenia’s life for two days at Nunswell, and already in these two days she had many times been on the point of saying to herself she could not stand it much longer.

“And is this to be my life?” she thought with a shiver, for, in the excitement of flying from her home, she had taken no account of the loneliness and dreariness that lay beyond. Now, the unconcealed disapproval of her nearest friends, the realisation of her anomalous position alone in lodgings in a strange place, were already bringing home, even to her uncalculating inexperience, something of the personal suffering, the bitter deprivations, the indefinite suspicion which must attach themselves to even the purest and noblest of women, once she voluntarily abandons her home. There may be cases, doubtless there are such, where a wife has no choice, where duty itself, deaf to all suggestions of expediency, relentlessly points out the way to abandonment of the post bravely battled for to the last—but such cases are rare, and the women to whose bitter experience they fall must have suffered too terribly to be sensitive to loneliness, or monotony, or half-averted looks. Not so was it with Eugenia Chancellor. What she had learnt from her sister of Frank’s opinion of her conduct had wounded her to the quick; her only idea had been at once to relieve her friends of her unwelcome presence, but she had altogether failed to realise the desolation and hopeless depression which seized upon her before she had been many hours in the Nunswell lodgings.

The morning after she had met Gerald, she woke with a slight sensation of expectation. She hoped she should see him again; she wanted to talk to him, and tell him how she had thought over his words; she did not feel indignant at his plain-speaking, for it was not contemptuous and unsympathising like Frank’s, but sprang, she could not but feel, from genuine anxiety for her good, from single-minded incapability of advising her to act otherwise than as he believed to be right. “Still it is often impossible,” she thought, “for one person to judge of right and wrong for another,” and, more out of a feminine determination to prove herself justified in what she had done than from any vehement desire to persevere in her present course, she prepared herself mentally with a whole string of unanswerable arguments, of well-sounding sophistries with which to compel her old friend to acknowledge how exceptional was her position, how principle and self-respect, and unselfishness even, had driven her to this apparently undutiful step.

It was still early when Rachel tapped at her mistress’s door. “A letter, ma’am,” she announced, as she came in.

“A letter!” exclaimed Eugenia, not without excitement, “it must be a mistake. No one knows where—I mean, I have not sent my exact address yet.” But notwithstanding her words, her heart beat with vague, unreasonable hope—what could it be?—could Sydney have found her out, and be coming to her at once?—could Beauchamp himself be on the way to beseech her to return to him, to entreat her forgiveness for all he had made her suffer, to assure her that this last misery, this worst trouble of all, had somehow or other been a mistake, a mischievous exaggeration of his sister’s? As one possibility after another suggested itself to her imagination, Eugenia’s heart beat faster and faster. “Give it me quickly, Rachel,” she said impatiently. But as the girl brought it to her, she remarked, “It is not a letter by the post, ma’am. It is only a note—from the Spa Hotel, I believe,” and Eugenia’s hopes died within her. It was only a note—a few hurried words from Mr Thurston—beginning “My dear Mrs Chancellor,” to inform her of his being suddenly obliged to leave Nunswell on business, and to express his regret that he should not see her again. It was dated the previous evening. “As if he could have got any business letters after he saw me last night, and as if he would be likely to travel home about business on a Sunday,” thought Eugenia, with a bitter incredulity; “no, he has just thought it over, and agrees with Frank. They don’t want to have anything more to say to me.” And this day was even more miserable than its predecessors. She would not go to church, she dreaded now even the thought of a stroll in the gardens; she sat alone in the dull drawing-room all day with no books to read, no letters to write, nothing to do, nothing to hope for. And when bedtime came and she knelt, more from the force of old habit than from any expectation of comfort, guidance, or peace of mind, to pray to the Father who understands us all so much better than we understand ourselves, she started back from the appealing attitude in horror. For the only prayer which rose with any spontaneity to her lips was that she might sleep and never wake again.

Hours passed and still she lay awake, feverish, restless, and yet exhausted. When at last she fell asleep it seemed to her afterwards that it must have been close to morning. And the longed-for unconsciousness brought her but little repose, for it was broken by anxious distressing dreams, of which the only one she could recall with any distinctness was the last before she awoke. She dreamt that it was again the night of her father’s death, she herself was hastening to him with Gerald Thurston; they were driving furiously along a road of which some features seemed familiar to her, though at the same time she felt perfectly certain she had never traversed it before; and from time to time her companion added to her feeling of indescribable bewilderment by asking her if it would not be better to turn now and go the other way. She never seemed to answer him, but every time he made the suggestion, the invisible driver appeared to respond by turning sharply, and driving away faster than ever in an apparently opposite direction. Suddenly the scene changed, and Eugenia found herself by her father’s bedside, in the room she knew so well; and she became conscious of the strange dual existence familiar to us all in dreams, for while there in her father’s presence, waiting for her own arrival, she was yet driving on with Gerald; again she heard his curious monotonous inquiry, “Don’t you think we had better turn now and go the other way?” Another change; she was now in the old state bedroom at Halswood, where she had spent the night of her arrival there; she was still watching by a bedside, still waiting for her own appearance. Then the sound of the carriage wheels, of which all this time she had been conscious, grew louder and louder; she heard them rattling up the smooth carriage drive at Halswood as if it were a paved Wareborough street. A clock began to toll, the figure in the bed by which she was watching seemed to move, and a sudden horror seized her. In her dream-agony she rushed to the door of the room, and found it locked; in despair, it seemed to her, she screamed aloud with frantic vehemence, “Let me out, let me out;” and a voice, which she recognised as her husband’s, answered from the other side—“Too late, too late. Better turn now and go the other way.” And at this crisis she awoke.

It was broad daylight. Rachel was standing by her bedside, a cup of tea in her hand.

“What is the matter?” asked Eugenia, confusedly. Then, coming a little to herself, she sat up and looked at the girl. “My head is aching dreadfully,” she said, laying it back among the pillows as she spoke; “is that why you have brought me some tea, Rachel? Oh, no; of course you could not know. But there is something the matter, Rachel; you look as if there were.”

“No, indeed, ma’am, there isn’t; nothing, that is to say, except your head being bad. I was awake very early this morning, and I had my breakfast sooner than usual, and I thought you might like a cup of tea.”

“I am very glad of it,” said Eugenia, languidly. “But what made you get up so early. Had you a bad night too?”

“Oh, no, ma’am, thank you. I was wakened, by some visitors arriving unexpectedly about five o’clock. One visitor, at least. A young lady.”

“What an odd time to arrive,” observed Eugenia, carelessly. But, glancing at Rachel as she spoke, something in the girl’s manner again caught her attention. “Who is the young lady?” she asked, quickly. “Is it some one to see me—is it my sister?”

“No, ma’am, it is not Mrs Thurston,” replied Rachel, evidently afraid lest her words should cause disappointment. “It could not be Mrs Thurston, for she will only get your address this morning, you remember, ma’am. But it is some one for you. It is—”

“It is I,” interrupted a voice at the door. “May I come in, Eugenia?” and in a moment Roma Eyrecourt stood by the bedside. “You poor child,” she went on, hurriedly, as if to cover some embarrassment, and without giving Eugenia time to speak; “how burning your hands are, and your head too! I am not going to tease you, dear. I have come to do exactly what you tell me, except go away. You won’t send me away, Eugenia, will you?”

There was some anxiety in her tone; she leant over towards Eugenia as she spoke, and looked earnestly into her face with her beautiful, bright dark eyes—not keen or contemptuous now, but tender and loving, and almost entreating in their expression. The struggle, if there were one, was quickly over with Eugenia. She threw her arms round her friend’s neck and kissed her warmly. “It is very, very good of you to have come,” she whispered. “I know it is pure goodness that has brought you. I have tried to fancy I hated you, but I don’t. I love you and trust you. But, oh, Roma, I have been so miserable!”

“Too miserable, a great deal too miserable. I can fancy it all,” said Roma, sympathisingly. “But, Eugenia, you do look so tired. I am sure you have not slept well. Do try to go to sleep again, and try to believe you are not going to be so miserable as you think. I will talk to you as much as ever you like when I see you looking better. I will tell you everything—what made me come here, and anything more you like to ask me, if you will do what I tell you now. I have one or two letters to write for the early post. I will come back in a little, I promise you.”

Soothed in spite of herself by Roma’s kindness, comforted by the feeling that she was no longer alone, that one person, at least, in the world, still loved and cared for her, Eugenia fell asleep, and slept peacefully for two or three hours. Miss Eyrecourt, meantime, wrote her letters: one was addressed to Captain Chancellor at Halswood, another to Gerald Thurston, at Wareborough, a third to old Lady Dervock, whom she had quitted at rather short notice. Once or twice in writing she seemed somewhat at a loss.

“I don’t want to exaggerate things,” she said to herself, “but I really should not be surprised if Eugenia had a bad illness—brain fever, or something of the kind. However, I can judge better when I see her again.”

Roma’s fears were not fulfilled. Eugenia was much better when she saw her again. By the middle of the day she was up and dressed, and eager for the promised conversation. The mystery of the new-comer’s sudden appearance was easily explained.

The “business” which had necessitated Gerald’s leaving on Saturday night had taken him all the way up to Deepthorne, whence he had returned accompanied by Roma herself. It had seemed to him the best thing to do, he felt certain that he might rely on Miss Eyrecourt’s friendship, and he felt certain too that in the end Eugenia would not blame him for his interference. By dint of hard travelling they had managed to reach Nunswell early on Monday morning, thence by the very next train, Gerald, already due at his post, had returned to Wareborough. This was all, so far, that Roma had to tell. Of what had taken place at Halswood she was in utter ignorance. “I have not heard from Gertrude for more than a week,” she told Eugenia. “I half thought of writing to her just now while you were asleep, but I decided not to do so till I had spoken to you. I have written to your husband though, Eugenia,” she added, with a little hesitation.

“To Beauchamp,” exclaimed Beauchamp’s wife, her cheeks flushing; “oh, Roma, why did you? Could you not have waited for that till you had spoken to me?”

“No, Eugenia,” said Roma, gently but decidedly, “I purposely wanted to write before seeing more of you. It was not betraying your secret, for Mr Thurston told me you had let your sister know where you were, and of course Beauchamp would go to her to inquire about you. I merely wrote to tell him that I was with you, ready to stay as long as you want me.”

“I don’t mind Beauchamp’s knowing where I am,” said Eugenia. “It will make no difference. He is not likely to seek me, for even if he cared about me, he will be too angry to take any such step.”

Roma thought differently. Beauchamp’s regard for appearances was likely to be a powerful motive with him, but she was wise enough to keep this consideration to herself, and to direct her attention to the root of the matter.

“How do you mean, ‘if he cared about you?’” she asked, quietly. “Do you doubt his caring for you?”

“Roma!” exclaimed Eugenia, reproachfully, the tears rushing to her eyes, “how can, you ask me? You, of all people!”

“You must tell me exactly what you mean, Eugenia,” said Roma, anxiously. “Half confidences are no use in such a case, and I, in return, promise to tell you what I believe to be the exact truth.”

So Eugenia told her all; more fully even than to Sydney she related the whole history of her hopes and disappointments, her golden anticipations, and the bitter realities in which they had ended. And Roma listened with a gravely attentive face, striving to the best of her power to distinguish between fact and fancy, between Eugenia’s actual grounds for unhappiness, and her morbid inclination to exaggerate them. It was not for Roma so impossible as it might have been for many to arrive at a just comprehension of the state of matters, for the character of the one of the two persons chiefly concerned had been long ago gauged by her, that of the other had interested her greatly, and now every word and look and tone assisted her to a fuller understanding of its lights and shades, its beauties and defects. When Eugenia at last left off speaking, Miss Eyrecourt sat silent for a minute or two. Eugenia’s heart was beating fast with anxiety. “Roma,” she said at last, imploringly, “speak to me, do.”

“I was only thinking how best to put in words what I want to say,” said Roma. “Listen, Eugenia. I would say it was very wicked of Gertrude to tell you what she did, if I supposed that she at all realised what she was doing, or how you would take it. However, don’t let us speak of her. I would rather not. She has been very kind to me, and she is more silly and small than malevolent. As to what she told you, it was a mixture of truth and falsehood, but the part that you cared about so deeply was untrue. It is quite untrue that Gertrude’s interference separated Beauchamp and me. It was not required. I refused to marry him because I did not care for him in that way in the least, and also because I did not believe, and never shall, that he cared for me either. Even if I had cared for him, I don’t know but what my dread of vexing Gertrude, of seeming to repay her kindness by ingratitude, would have been strong enough to stop me; but that was not the reason. I simply did not care for him, except in a sisterly sort of way. And he—he fancied he cared for me, but he never did. It was greatly out of contradiction, and also because my indifference piqued him—he was so spoilt wherever he went, so sought after and petted! But I think I know the worst of him, and you may believe me, Eugenia, that he never cared as earnestly, as truly, for any woman as for you. I regretted your marriage, because, matter-of-fact as I am myself, I saw how different you were—I feared there would be sorrow in store for you—I feared Beauchamp would not understand you—but all the same, I never liked him so much as when I found how he did care for you. He is not a grand character, Eugenia; I dare say what you tell me you suspect may have been true—that he thought it was very grand of him to marry for love, notwithstanding his great prospects, and I have no doubt Gertrude helped him to think so. But, all the same, he did marry for love, and he loves you still; and, dear Eugenia, you will come to see, I do believe, that there is still a fair share of happiness waiting for you. No one will ever have the same power for good over Beauchamp as you, and even if you begin again with little hope or heart, encouragement will come; all the more quickly, perhaps, because of your faint expectations. Now I have told you exactly what I think. I have gone against the old advice never to meddle between husband and wife. I allow that you have had a great deal to bear, not a little to complain of. But, knowing Beauchamp as I do, I must say he has had something to bear too. In the first place, he is innocent of your having imagined him a different character from what he really is; he could not possibly understand it if it was told him. There has been a sort of playing at cross-purposes; for you have not made the best of him from your mistaken notion of the material you had to work upon. Now, you can face things. Leave the past, and decide bravely to do the best with the present.”

The tears were running down Eugenia’s pale cheeks: “You forget, Roma,” she said, sadly. “I have no present. I have cut myself away from it. I believe all you say, every word of it. I mean, I believe you. But if, as you allow, Beauchamp has not understood me hitherto, how could he ever understand the feelings which made me leave him? He must be a different man from what I now believe him to be if what I have done does not estrange us more than ever. For no mere surface peace would satisfy me, Roma. I mean, I could not agree to go back and begin again, merely for the sake of appearances, knowing that in reality there was no possibility of happiness for us.”

“We shall see,” said Roma. “Sometimes things turn out quite the other way from what we expect. But I do think, Eugenia, you should make up your mind to do what ever you come to see is right for you to do, and never mind about Beauchamp’s motives for being willing, if he prove so, to meet you half-way.”

Eugenia did not answer, and Roma thought it as well to leave her now to think things over in her own way. In her heart Miss Eyrecourt was not without a hope that this crisis might prove a turning-point; that the shock of finding Eugenia gone might open her husband’s eyes to some part of the unhappiness she had endured, and that the way in which Gertrude had acted might lead him to a clearer understanding of the danger of her influence in his household. “Gertrude is sure to clear herself if she possibly can,” thought Roma; “still Beauchamp must see she at least did not try to do any good. Besides, he must be conscious of how he has allowed her to speak of Eugenia, and how he has spoken himself. I wonder what happened when he came home and found his wife gone.”

This was what had happened. It was on Thursday that Mrs Chancellor had left Halswood, where her husband was expected to return the next day. But the next day came and went, and it was not till pretty late on Saturday afternoon that he made his appearance. Mrs Eyrecourt in the meantime was suffering from no more painful feeling than annoyance, and some amount of indignation at her sister-in-law’s unceremonious behaviour. Anxiety she felt none, for Eugenia had by no means allowed the whole depth of her feelings to appear during her conversation with her husband’s sister, and the note which was given to Gertrude on her return home from a drive that Thursday afternoon, in explanation of her hostess’s absence, had been carefully worded by Eugenia, and only left on her sister-in-law’s mind the impression that she herself must be held of small account by her brother’s wife if some unexplained summons from her Wareborough friends was considered of sufficient importance to justify so unheard-of a breach of hospitality.

Beauchamp’s non-appearance the next day irritated her still further. She was by no means in the sweetest of tempers when Captain Chancellor came home. He came back in a more than usually kindly frame of mind towards his wife. He had enjoyed his visit very much. Everybody had been very civil to him, and several people had inquired pointedly for Eugenia, whose troubles and serious illness had awakened the sympathy and interest—sincere and genuine so far as they go—which, after all, selfish and conventional as we nineteenth-century people are supposed to have become, are not yet difficult to awaken in the hearts of many of those among whom we live. Lady Hereward had been of the party, and her peculiar interest in the young mother’s bereavement had caused her to single out Beauchamp in a gratifying manner.

“I cannot tell you,” she had said to him, drawing him aside for a moment—“I cannot tell you how much I have been thinking lately of that beautiful young wife of yours, Captain Chancellor. I was very nearly writing to her when I heard of her—her disappointment, but I feared it might seem intrusive. Will you tell her so? And whenever she feels equal to it, I do hope you will bring her to spend a few quiet days with me. You must be very good to her—you will forgive an old woman’s impertinence?—you must be very good to her. No doubt you are, but I doubt if even the best of husbands can quite enter into her sorrow. It is not to be expected they should, perhaps. And following so quickly on her father’s death too! Ah, yes, it was very sad! And she has no mother! Give her my messages, and tell her of my sympathy, and be very patient with her, even if her grief seems exaggerated. There, now, I have kept up my character as a meddlesome old woman, have I not?”

But Beauchamp felt by no means offended. The interest was too evidently genuine, the sympathy too womanly for the words to annoy. And then the speaker was Lady Hereward! Captain Chancellor thought over what she had said, and was all the better for it.

No one was to be seen in Eugenia’s sitting-room when he reached home on Saturday afternoon. “She must be out,” he thought; and the sound of Mrs Eyrecourt’s voice as he passed an open window confirmed his supposition. He was hastening out to join them by the door opening from his own “den” on to the sort of terrace below, when a letter, addressed to him in Eugenia’s handwriting, placed conspicuously on the mantelpiece, caught his eye. In another moment he had opened and read it. His bright complexion turned to a grey pallor; a look of wild distress replaced the expression of smiling indifference habitual to him; all the nerve and spring seemed to melt out of his bearing; for “she has gone out of her mind,” was the first thought that occurred to him—“grief has driven her insane,” as Lady Hereward’s words returned to his mind. “Good heavens! and this note is dated Thursday! What may not have happened by now?” Then his sister’s voice, gay and careless as usual, again reached his ear. “Gertrude must know it. What is she thinking of? What is the meaning of it all?”

A sort of giddiness came over him. He had to sit down for a moment to prevent himself falling. Then he went forward to the window from which steps led to the walk below, and called to Mrs Eyrecourt.

“Gertrude,” he said, “come here at once. I want you.”

Full of her own grievances, which the sight of her brother recalled freshly to her mind, Mrs Eyrecourt hardly relished the authoritative summons. She came up the steps slowly, calling to her dog, whose company she much preferred to that of her daughter.

“So you have come back at last, Beauchamp!” she said, as she drew near him. “I was very nearly setting off home this morning, I can tell you. I wonder what you asked me to come to see you for!”

Her pettishness was quite lost on her brother.

“Gertrude,” he said, excitedly, as if he had not heard her words, “do you not know, or do you know about Eugenia? What has happened?”

“What has happened?” she repeated, looking a little startled; “nothing that I know of, except that she has gone to her friends at Wareborough—her sister, or aunt, or somebody—for a day or two. I suppose she often goes there, does she not? though I certainly thought she might have waited till my visit was over.”

“Is that all you know?” said Beauchamp, impatiently. “Do you not know with what intention she left this—that she went, never to return?”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Mrs Eyrecourt, now for the first time taking alarm. “You don’t mean to say she has run away—run away with some one? How frightful! What a scandal! Oh, Beauchamp, how terribly you have been deceived!”

“Take care what you say, Gertrude,” said Captain Chancellor, sternly. “Run away with any one—my wife—Eugenia! What are you thinking of? Read that!”

He thrust into her hand the letter he had found on his mantelpiece, and while watching her read it, he almost laughed, not with standing his distress, at the utter incompatibility of his sister’s coarsely commonplace supposition with the perfect guilelessness, the transparency and innocence, he had often been half inclined to look upon as but a part of his wife’s childishness and inexperience.

Eugenia’s note to her husband was as follows:—

“I am going away because I am too hopeless and miserable to bear my life longer. Hitherto I have clung to hope and to you through all my suffering, believing that at least you had loved me. Now I know the whole bitter truth. I am going to my own friends. I will agree to any arrangements you like to make, but I do not want any money, except what I have of my own. I cannot think that you will in any way miss me, but I trust you will be happier without me than you have been with me. “Eugenia.”

Mrs Eyrecourt did not speak when she had finished reading this. Beauchamp, observing her closely, fancied she looked pale and frightened.

“Can you explain any of this to me?” he asked, impatiently. “Has anything happened in my absence, to explain it? Or must I think she has gone out of her mind?”

Gertrude hesitated a little. “There was—we had a rather disagreeable conversation the day you left,” she began. “I don’t know who in the world could have put it in her head—truly I don’t, Beauchamp—but all of a sudden Eugenia challenged me with having been the cause of your not marrying Roma, and by some peculiar reasoning of her own, from that she went on to argue that I was the cause of your hasty proposal to her, which she seems to look upon as the misfortune of her life.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“What could I tell her but the truth? She seemed to have a very fair notion of it to begin with. I could not have deceived her. Certainly she is the most hot-headed exaggerated person I ever knew. She talked of having been deceived and all sorts of things. She must have been infatuated to think that you, with your prospects—and altogether—could have deliberately chosen her, or that your friends could have approved of your doing so, though of course both you and they were too honourable to try to draw back once the thing was actually done.”

Captain Chancellor laughed. There was a slight incredulousness in his laugh which made Gertrude very irate. “Then what you have told me is about the general substance of what you told her?” he said.

“I suppose so,” said Mrs Eyrecourt, sulkily. “I did not begin it. I do not consider myself in any way responsible for what she has done. She seemed all right again at luncheon, and as you must have seen, I never even associated this foolish fit of jealousy of hers with her sudden visit to her friends.”

But Beauchamp was not yet satisfied. For almost the first time in his life, he felt that he had his sister in his power, and he used it to the utmost. Little by little he extracted from her a full account of what had passed between her and his wife, including what she had told Eugenia of her really mistaken impression of the true relations that had existed between himself and Roma Eyrecourt, and when he had learnt all that she had to tell, he turned from her with a bitter “Thank you, Gertrude. You have certainly done your best to ruin any chances of happiness I had. I never before had a conception how spiteful a spiteful woman could be. You disliked Eugenia from the first, because she was my choice and not yours, and in the pleasure of making her miserable you have cared little what became of me.”

Mrs Eyrecourt was so offended that she first burst into tears, and then decided upon setting off to join Addie and her mother that very afternoon, leaving Floss behind her till she sent directions for her journey home. Captain Chancellor did not care. Before his sister had fixed her train, he was half-way to Wareborough, where, however, disappointment awaited him in the shape of the Thurstons’ complete ignorance of Eugenia’s whereabouts. The interview with his wife’s relations threatened at first to be a stormy one, for, in his increasing anxiety and perplexity, he was more than half inclined to blame them for this new complication. But they were patient and judicious; the sight of his unfeigned distress inclined Sydney to judge him more leniently than she had ever done, and new hopes began to spring in her heart, that if only Eugenia were with them again, all might yet be well. In the end, Beauchamp went home again to Halswood, by Frank’s advice, to wait there quietly till they heard from their sister.

“I am certain we shall have a letter from her to-morrow or Monday,” said Frank, “for even if she were ill, her maid Rachel, who, we were glad to find, is with her, would write. And it is better for you to go home, and look as if nothing were wrong. Your staying here would only make a talk, and I shall telegraph instantly we hear.”

So Beauchamp went home—home to the desolate house where Eugenia had felt so sure he would never miss her; and the loneliness and anxiety and wretchedness of the next two days brought him face to face with some truths hitherto but little recognised or considered in his pleasure-loving, self-regarding life.

And after all it was Roma’s letter, reaching him on Tuesday morning only, which first brought relief to the fears growing almost more than he could endure, for, by some mischance, Eugenia’s unlucky note to her sister, too late for Saturday’s post from Nunswell, was not received at its destination till this same Tuesday morning.

At first sight of Miss Eyrecourt’s letter, Captain Chancellor could hardly believe his eyes. “Roma with her,” he exclaimed; “Roma, of all people! How can I reconcile that with Gertrude’s story?”

Incomprehensible as it was, however, the news was marvellously welcome. Half-an-hour later came Frank Thurston’s promised telegram, and that very afternoon, hardly to her surprise, Rachel brought word privately to Miss Eyrecourt, that Captain Chancellor wished to know how he could see her.

“He does not want my mistress to be told of his arrival till he has seen you, ma’am,” said Rachel; adding discreetly, “of course with her not being very strong it might startle her, not expecting my master so soon.”

Volume Three—Chapter Eight.

O si sic Omnia!

“Und dennoch wohl ûns, wenn die Asche treû Der Fûnken hegt, wenn dan getäuschte Herz Nicht müde wird, von Neûem zû erglüh ’n!” Uhland.

“Eugenia,” said Roma, when they were sitting together later in the day, “I have something to tell you.”

“What?” asked Eugenia.

“Some one is coming to see you—this evening or to-morrow morning, if you would like that better.”

“Who is it, Roma?” asked Eugenia, the colour rushing to her pale cheeks. “Not—not Beauchamp?”

“Yes, it is Beauchamp,” answered Roma. She had risen from her seat and now stood beside Eugenia, looking down at her with an expression of mingled anxiety and sympathy.

“Oh, Roma, you must have asked him to come, your letter must have brought him,” exclaimed Beauchamp’s wife in great distress. “I know you meant it well, dear Roma, but you should not have done it. I don’t want to see him just yet. I have been trying to make up my mind to do what I suppose must be right—to offer to go back to him, and do my duty as his wife. But you don’t know how difficult it will be. Oh, so difficult! He will never in the least understand the feelings that made me so miserable; he will think it was all bad temper; or low common jealousy of his having ever cared for you; oh, I see it all so plainly! Of course I will ask him to forgive me—ah, how gladly I would do so if I thought he could understand what he really has to forgive—it is not that I shrink from. But I see that during the rest of our life together I shall stand at such a hopeless disadvantage: he will not be able to believe in my real wish and determination to do my best; it is my own fault, I have brought it on myself, but that does not make it less bitter. This that I have done—this leaving him and my home, will be constantly rising up in judgment against me in his mind—it will never seem to him that anything was wanting on his side. I do mean to try, Roma, I do indeed, but all the spring has gone out of everything. Oh, how lonely it will be!”

Roma let her finish speaking without interrupting her. Then she said gently—“I think you see things at their very worst, Eugenia. I think there are feelings and motives in Beauchamp which will make your life easier than you now imagine. But I don’t think my saying so will do much good. About his coming, however, I must explain that it was entirely his own doing. My letter did not bring him. I did not say a word in it but what I told you. And even if I had not written, Beauchamp would have been here by now, for your brother-in-law had sent him your address.”

“He need not have interfered,” said Eugenia, haughtily.

Roma smiled. “He meant it for the best, I have no doubt,” she said. “You are sore and uneasy just now, Eugenia, and no wonder, but after awhile you will see things more brightly, I feel sure. But now, what about your seeing Beauchamp? He will be calling this evening to ask; he said he would. Would you rather wait till to-morrow morning?”

“I don’t know,” said Eugenia, irresolutely. Then, as a new thought struck her, “Have you seen him then, Roma?” she asked.

“Yes,” answered Miss Eyrecourt. “I have seen him, and had a very long talk with him—the longest talk, I think, I ever had with any gentleman! But I don’t think his wife will be jealous,” she added, with a bright smile, which, in spite of herself, extracted a faint, shadowy reflection of itself from Eugenia.

Just then there came a ring at the bell.

“There he is,” said Roma; “well, Eugenia?”

“I will see him now,” said Eugenia, suddenly. “It is better—my putting it off might only irritate him more.”

Roma kissed her without speaking, and left the room.

In the few minutes that passed before Captain Chancellor came upstairs how many painful anticipations had time to rush through Eugenia’s brain! She was determined to go through with what she had promised to Roma and to herself to attempt: she would humble herself to the utmost that she could truthfully do so; she would ask her husband’s forgiveness; she would own that she had taken up, with exaggeration and bitterness, Mrs Eyrecourt’s version of the past. All this she would say: she owed it to her own self-respect to do so, hopeless as she felt of any good effect it might have on her future, little as she anticipated that it would awaken any generous or tender feelings towards her in her husband’s heart. She pictured to herself the cold air of superiority with which he would receive her confession; she recalled the unsympathising contempt with which on several occasions her impulsive endeavours to draw nearer to him, to understand him better, had been thrown back on herself with a recoil of indignant mortification—and she said to herself that her fate was a very hard one.

There came a sort of tap at the door, and in answer to her tremulous “come in,” Captain Chancellor appeared. She was standing by the table, in the same attitude as that in which Roma left her. She looked up as Beauchamp closed the door, and came forward. To her surprise, she perceived at once that he was looking ill and careworn, and that his bearing was by no means free from agitation. She was so surprised that she forgot what she had meant to say first of all; she opened her lips mechanically, but no sound was heard: then a sort of giddiness came over her for a moment, and half unconsciously she closed her eyes. He was beside her in an instant. “Eugenia,” he exclaimed, “Eugenia, how ill you are looking! My poor darling, I may not have understood you—I have been a blind, selfish, careless husband, but oh, my dear, you should not have fancied I was so bad as not to care for your suffering! I did care—I do care. Your leaving me has half broken my heart. Will you not come back and try me again? Will you not believe in my love for you? Truly, it has always been there, though you doubted it.” Where were all Eugenia’s carefully considered words of confession? “Thus far have I done wrong, but no farther; to this extent have I been wanting in my wifely duty, but not beyond.” She threw her arms round her husband’s neck, and careless of possible repulse she burst into tears. “Beauchamp,” she said, simply, “I am very sorry for what I have done wrong. I will try to please you better in the future if you will forgive the past.”

“We will both try again,” he said, kindly, “Not that you did not please me, my dear child. Your only fault was—was—well, perhaps, as I have sometimes told you, you expected a little too much; your ideas were a little bit too romantic for every-day life. The best of husbands and wives knock against each other’s fancies now and then, you know, and it can’t be always like a honeymoon,”—Eugenia winced at this a little, a very little,—“but, all the same, I don’t see why our chances of being happy together are not quite as good as other people’s. You will gain experience, and I, I hope, will learn to understand you better. And I think that’s about all we can say. I am very thankful to have you again safe and well, and the next time you make yourself miserable about anything, come and ask me; don’t go to other people, who see nothing except through their own prejudices. Gertrude didn’t mean to make mischief; all the same she did so, as I told her. But Roma has put all that right?”

“Yes,” said Eugenia, “I—we—can never thank her enough for what she has done.”

“She says,” pursued Beauchamp, with unwonted humility, “I should have told you all about that old affair with her. I was very nearly doing so once, I remember, but—I don’t know how it was—I was bothered at that time, and I liked to keep you distinct from it all. I was bitter about Roma for a good while, and I disliked the subject. But, Eugenia, no suffering I have ever had to bear in my life has equalled that of the last few days.”

They were silent for a minute or two. “I must say,” Captain Chancellor went on, speaking more in his usual tone, “the Thurstons behaved very sensibly in not making any fuss. Nothing would have been so odious as any absurd story getting about.” But, happening to observe the pained expression of Eugenia’s face, he changed the subject, and went on to talk of some plans he had in his head of going abroad for a time, taking Eugenia to visit many places so far known to her but by name. “It would be the best way of making you strong again,” he said. “We might even spend next winter out of England, if we liked.” And, notwithstanding the unexpected encouragement she had met with in her new resolutions, it was a relief to Eugenia to be freed from the anticipation of an immediate recommencement of the life at Halswood, hitherto so lonely and uncongenial. She was touched, too, by the evident consideration for her happiness which prompted this new scheme, and Beauchamp, on his side, felt rewarded by her gratification for the amount of self-denial which the proposed plan entailed on him.

So when Roma rejoined them she quickly saw that her hopes had not been groundless; already the expression of Eugenia’s face had grown brighter and less despondent than she had seen it for long.

“Was I not a true prophet?” she said, to Eugenia, when they were by themselves again. “Are not things more hopeful than you expected?”

“Yes,” said Eugenia, thoughtfully, “they are; and it is you I have to thank for their being so, Roma.”

“No, don’t say that,” interrupted Roma, quickly. “I don’t like you to say so, because I want you to do Beauchamp justice. There is more to work upon in him than you were inclined to think, and you, as I told you before, have more power over him to draw out his best than any one else ever had or could have.”

“But still it is your doing,” persisted Eugenia, affectionately; “for who else but you could ever have opened my eyes to see this, or at least to look for it?”

A new feeling had wakened in her heart to her husband. From the ashes of the old unreasoning, wilfully blind, headstrong devotion had arisen a calmer, more tempered, more enduring sentiment. As yet she was hardly conscious of its existence; its component parts she could certainly not have defined. She only said to herself, “I don’t know how it is, but, somehow, what has passed to-day has made me feel sorry for Beauchamp. I don’t think hitherto any one has taken much pains to draw out what Roma calls ‘his best.’ And I am so weak and foolish and full of faults, how can I hope to do it? Yet, somehow, I think I do hope it.”

They all left Nunswell the next day, Roma travelling with them as far as Wareborough only, where she had promised a short visit to her cousins, the Dalrymples; Beauchamp and his wife returning to Halswood, there at once to commence preparations for their visit to foreign parts.

Eugenia trembled a little as they drew near the spot which, but so few days before, she had quitted with something very like despair in her heart. There was a mingling of almost superstitious apprehensiveness in her shrinking from “beginning again”—with new motives, new hopes, new patience—in the very place which had witnessed the woeful failure of her first essays, the cloudy ending to the too brilliant promise of the dawn of her married life. But these half-morbid feelings she was wise enough to keep to herself.

“I only hope,” she thought, “that Mrs Grier will not think herself bound to receive me in state after so short an absence. If she does I shall take it as a bad omen. She is a very good creature, but I shall never forget her first reception.”

So it was with some little apprehension that Mrs Chancellor looked out of the carriage as the front of the house came in sight. She knew Mrs Eyrecourt had gone; it had never occurred to her that poor little Floss had been temporarily left behind. Her surprise was great, her relief and pleasure extreme, when, almost before the carriage had stopped, she heard her own name shouted in the little girl’s peculiar pronunciation: “Aunty ’Genia, Aunty ’Genia, you have comed back! Kiss me quick! You never said good-bye when you wented away, and I cwied so! Please don’t never go away any more!”

The tears were not very far away from Eugenia’s own eyes, as she lifted the excited little mortal in her arms, and kissed the eager, flushed face.

“Dear little Floss,” she said, “I am so glad to come back to you;” and even Beauchamp was struck by the little scene.

“What an eccentric little creature it is,” he said to his wife, when, Floss’s rhapsodies having subsided, she said good-night and went off to bed “as good as gold.”

“Who would have thought that Gertrude’s child could have hugged away as vehemently at anyone as Floss did just now.”

And the child’s demonstrative affection put it into his head to make an unexpected proposal to Eugenia. “How would you like to take Floss with us?” he said. “I have no doubt Gertrude would be enchanted to let her come, and the child’s maid is French, which would be an advantage. You see we shall not be moving about at any uncomfortable speed; you are not strong enough for it, and that sort of thing is not my idea of travelling for pleasure. When there is no need for hurry, much better take it leisurely.”

Eugenia was delighted; she knew, though she never told it to anyone, the indirect influence for good which Floss’s innocent championship had had upon her life, and the idea of the child’s happiness was pleasant to her. Mrs Eyrecourt was delighted; so delighted that she wrote back accepting her brother’s offer, as if no shadow of anything disagreeable had ever disturbed the harmony of their intercourse. It suited her particularly well, to have Floss disposed of for the present, as she was anticipating a round of visits in which a child would have been rather an encumbrance, while yet, for the sake of appearances, she could not make up her mind to leave the little girl alone at Winsley for many weeks at a time. It looked well, too, to be able to tell her friends that her brother and his wife, “having no children of their own,” had taken such a fancy to her little daughter that they had begged leave to take her abroad with them for the winter; for Gertrude had sense enough to know that “family jars” are, of all things, the most undignified and “vulgar,” and she had endured some perturbation of spirit of late as to the probable nature of her future terms with her Halswood relatives.

“I am so glad you are going abroad,” she wrote; “it will be the very thing to set up Eugenia’s health and spirits. By-the-bye, I must not forget to send all sorts of kind messages from Addie and Victoria and their mother. The girls were sorry not to see you at Halswood as was arranged, but of course they quite understand my explanation about Eugenia’s not being well enough to receive them, and they hope to pay their visit some other time” etc, etc.

Some people—for of course in the neighbourhood of Halswood as elsewhere there were to be found human beings with superfluous energy to spare from the management of their own concerns, which they apparently conceived it to be their duty to bestow on those of others—some people thought it very odd and absurd of Captain and Mrs Chancellor to burden themselves with a child on their foreign tour. It was so odd as only to be explicable by the comprehensive assertion of Mrs Chancellor’s being, to say the least, “very odd altogether.” For notwithstanding all the care that had been taken to guard against outside remark, some amount of gossip had oozed out concerning Eugenia’s hasty flight from Halswood. Servants, the very best of them perhaps, will but be servants. It was not in Mrs Grier’s nature to refrain from lugubrious head-shakings and mysterious allusions when she found that her young mistress had actually left home without any explanation to herself, the vice-gerent of the establishment, of the reasons for this sudden step; it was not in the unexceptionable Blinkhorn’s nature to refrain, at the first table at least, from comment upon his master’s state of anxiety and dejection during the days of uncertainty and foreboding which succeeded his return home. And the natures of the various inferior functionaries in the Halswood household, being neither better nor worse than are ordinarily met with in their respective capacities, the rolling stone of gossip, contrary to the adage, grew and gathered as it went, till but few of the great houses in the neighbourhood, none certainly of the tea-tables in the little town of Chilworth or of the less pretentious Sunday afternoon entertainments in the farm houses on the estate, but had their own pet version of the Halswood scandal.

Of this, however, the principals in the little drama were, as is not unfrequently the case, in happy ignorance. As to the Chilworth edition of the story, as to the village chatter, they were of little consequence. They lived their appointed nine days, then died a natural death. But as to the more discreetly veiled, but nevertheless the far more insidious, whisper that went the round of “the county,” there is little saying where it would have stopped, how deep might not have been the social injury it would have caused to impulsive, reckless, innocent Eugenia, had it not suddenly received its death-blow from an unexpected but irresistible hand. It came to Lady Hereward’s ears, how or whence matters little, that the wife of the master of Halswood, “the girl with the beautiful face” which somehow had recalled the memory of the long years ago dead and buried little Alice, the young mother whose little baby had died, had somehow or other done something which threatened to get her “talked about.” And the good old woman rose to the occasion. “I think you are not aware, my dear Lady Vaughan,” she said, the first time the subject was publicly alluded to before her, “in fact, I am quite sure you cannot be aware that the young lady of whom you are speaking is a valued friend of mine, for I am certain you would not intentionally hurt my feelings or those of any one. Mrs Chancellor has passed through much sorrow, and she has my deepest sympathy. The report to which you allude is an exaggerated version of the simple fact that she was called away rather suddenly in her husband’s absence to some of her own friends. When she comes home again strong and well, as I hope she will, it will give me great pleasure to introduce her and any of my friends who have not yet met, to each other, for I hope she will be often at Marshlands.” Then she changed the subject; but this was the last that was heard, publicly at least, of “Mrs Chancellor’s elopement,” for Lady Hereward had queened it to some purpose during her forty years reign in the county.

It was in the latter part of July that Beauchamp and his wife left home. They stayed a little time in town, then proceeded by easy stages to Switzerland, intending there to spend the remainder of the summer and the early autumn, and when the colder weather drew near, to turn their steps to some one of the winter nests in the south of France. Their programme was carried out even more fully than they had intended. Winter came and went, though they learnt it only by the shortening and then lengthening again of the soft, sunny days; spring and summer, chasing travellers and swallows away once more to less sultry regions, followed; autumn returned, and Christmas, in the unfamiliar garb he wears by the shores of the blue Mediterranean, had passed by yet again, with his all-the-world-over greeting of “glad tidings and great joy,” before there was any talk of Halswood being again inhabited by its owners. Before that time came, Floss had learnt to chatter French like a magpie, Eugenia had come to doubt if she after all sufficiently appreciated the inestimable privilege of being “English bred and born,” and Beauchamp, on his part, was beginning to wonder if he would be equal to keeping his seat across country next season, after his long sojourning in the tents of Kedar, otherwise regions where “le sport” was alluded to with the uncomprehending bewilderment with which we used to discuss the fascination of the feast of Juggernaut—where a day with the Pau foxhounds furnished the only procurable pretence of a run.

At last the time for their return home was fixed. It had been in July they left England; it was not till the April “next but one” that they found themselves again within her shores, their party augmented by the presence of a French bonne, with a flapping white cap and a very satisfactory “worldly-looking” baby, a great boy of four months old, a most respectable son and heir to the hitherto ill-fated Chancellor estates. At first Eugenia’s disappointment that the little creature was not a daughter was great; but this feeling she expressed to no one, well aware that sympathy therein was hardly to be expected. She had learnt a good deal, she was learning every day more and more of the wisdom, the necessity of making the best of the materials with which she had to work; slowly, painfully was coming home to her the interpretation of the dream, the lesson of the great “life’s trial” in which so rashly, so ignorantly she had engaged. “Love” for her had not been “clear gain,” viewed by the light of the dim knowledge of to-day; but in the wiser afterwards “the sun will pierce;” the follies, the failures, the mistakes, the delusions will be lost in the beautiful whole, may indeed prove to have been essential to its perfection.

Not that Beauchamp Chancellor’s wife said or thought all this to herself; she speculated and theorised and philosophised much less than of old; she lived more in the present, taking life, as we all must take it sooner or later, if it is to be endurable at all, in a day-by-day fashion, leaving the “huge mounds of years,” the bewildering mazes of whys and wherefores, past and future, to be considered “by-and-by”—by-and-by, when surely we shall see things somewhat more clearly, more justly, more divinely, but a by-and-by which will never come to us if, dissatisfied with the fair promise of its far-off beauty, we seek to grasp its shadowy substance before the time.

So, in a sense—must it not always be but in a sense?—Eugenia was happy. Happier perhaps possibly, because she thought less about being happy than in the old days. She had seen before her in imagination a dreary road; to her surprise, ever and again as she walked along, fresh flowers began to spring by the wayside—little unobtrusive blossoms, hardly distinguishable till her foot had all but crushed out their tender life; tiny buds of brightness and sweetness, bringing many an unexpected spot of colour or breath of fragrance into her daily life.

She grew to be very thankful that her child was a boy; she learnt to be grateful for every link of sympathy between her husband and herself, she tried her utmost to strengthen and rivet each one of these; and though, apparently, at least, her efforts often failed, sometimes, on the other hand, she was rewarded by success surpassing her most sanguine hopes.

“He is not a grand character,” Roma had said, justly, “but, all the same, there is a great deal of good in him; and of all people, you, Eugenia, have most power to draw out and strengthen this.” And these simple words Beauchamp’s wife henceforth never allowed herself to forget.

They reached Halswood safe and well on a lovely spring evening. There stood Mrs Grier, her black silk dress relieved for once by some cheerful pink ribbons, tears of joy in her eyes at the non-fulfilment of her many gloomy prophecies. It was indeed, as she took care to inform her mistress, “a day she had little expected ever to see.” But Eugenia could smile at her now, as she assured her that “the luck had certainly turned” with the arrival of the great crowing baby who was to bring life and brightness to the old house.

And before long Halswood looked more cheerful than it had done for many a day. Mrs Eyrecourt’s anxiety to resume the guardianship of her little daughter was not so overwhelming as to be allowed to interfere with her plans for the season. She had just taken a house in town for her usual three months, so she contented herself with “a mere glimpse” of the travellers as they passed through, expressed herself delighted with the improvement in the child’s manners and appearance, and yielded without much pressing to the proposal that Floss should accompany her friends home and remain with them till the summer. “The country is much better for children certainly,” said Mrs Eyrecourt. “I shall feel happier for Floss not to be so long in town. I only wish I could go down to Halswood with you myself, but it is impossible. I must be in town as much as I can now, so that dear Quin can spend his Saturdays and Sundays with me.”

But though Gertrude could not spare time to welcome the absentees back to Halswood, Roma could. She joined them there within a week of their arrival, and for a few pleasant days Sydney and her belongings joined them too. Poor Sydney’s holidays were not many, but her busy life seemed to suit her; her fair face was as calm, her voice as sweet and even, as in her girlish days; and when she and Frank went away, back again to smoky Wareborough, they were cheered by the thought that their intercourse with Eugenia promised to be frequent and cordial. Not much private talk had passed between the sisters; Eugenia was charier of confidences, than had once been natural to her, but Sydney was satisfied.

“She is much happier than I ever hoped to see her,” said the younger sister to her husband. “It is not exactly the sort of happiness I should long ago have imagined would have contented Eugenia; somehow, even though I feel so thankful and relieved about her, I could hardly prevent the tears coming to my eyes when I looked at her. She must have suffered so much, Frank (though outwardly things have been so prosperous with her) to be so changed.”

“She has had to learn her lessons like other people,” said Frank, oracularly.

“But isn’t it wonderful how she adapts herself to her husband?” said Sydney. “He is improved, I must allow; but there cannot be much sympathy between them, and Eugenia must know it.”

“No doubt she does, but better women than Eugenia,” replied Frank, with a spice of his old antagonism, “have had to get on with less. And Chancellor’s by no means a bad fellow after all; many a man would have had less patience with Eugenia’s freaks and fancies than he. I always told you they’d shake into their places some day. By-the-bye, you must remind me to give that invitation to Gerald. I hope he will go, for more reasons than one.”

Sydney smiled. “I hope so too,” she said.

Volume Three—Chapter Nine.

Insuperable Obstacles.

But, Edith dead! Too Late.

Gerald Thurston did go to Halswood. Whether he did so knowing that there he would again meet Roma Eyrecourt is a secret that has never been divulged; whether in suggesting to her husband that he should invite Sydney’s brother-in-law Eugenia was influenced by malice prepense has never transpired. Be these possibilities as they may the event they would have foreshadowed came to pass; and in this fashion.

Once, during the absence of the Chancellors on the Continent, Mr Thurston and Miss Eyrecourt had met again. It was during one of Roma’s flying visits to the Dalrymples. They had seen each other several times, had talked a good deal on a subject interesting to them both—Eugenia—and from that on one or two occasions had drifted into other talk, had found out insensibly a good deal about each other’s thoughts and tastes and opinions, had discovered various remarkable points of coincidence in these directions, various no less impressive points of disagreement which both felt conscious it would have been pleasant and satisfactory to discuss further. All this talking no doubt might even then have led to a definite result, but for the prepossession with which each mind was guarded. Roma, unbeliever though she professed herself in the constancy of any man’s devotion, yet made one exception to her rule. She believed, or told herself, with perhaps suspicious frequency and decision, that she believed in the unalterable nature of Gerald’s feelings towards Eugenia.

“It is the only case, out of a book that is to say,” she would repeat to herself, “I have ever even heard of, where a man kept faithful to his first ideal. Not that she even turned out to be his ideal, from what he has told me; but she was and still is herself. I believe he would be content to serve her unthanked all his life, and she will never have the faintest notion of it! Ah, yes, things are queerly arranged. But I am very thankful I was born matter-of-fact and easy-going, not likely to break my heart for even the best of men.”

Gerald’s prepossession was of quite another nature. He did not think it impossible that, had he dared to show his growing regard for this heartless young lady, he might not have succeeded in winning that which she was so fond of declaring she was not possessed of. But his head was perfectly full of the notion that, though personally she might in time have learnt to care for him, his position would prove an insuperable objection. “As if she would ever consent to live at Wareborough,” he said to himself. “Ah, no, it is utterly out of the question.” And so, with the burnt child’s dread of the fire, he refrained from indulging in tantalising speculations on the possibility of overcoming these taken-for-granted prejudices on Miss Eyrecourt’s part, and from time, to time congratulated himself on the skill with which he had preserved intact his peace of mind and on the strength of self-control which permitted him to enjoy a good and beautiful woman’s friendship where a nearer and dearer tie was impossible.

But there came a day when his self-satisfaction received its death-blow, when he was fain to confess that after all he was neither wiser nor stronger than his fellows. He had been more than a week at Halswood. He had come there little intending or expecting to remain so long, but the days had passed very pleasantly; his hosts were so cordial, Miss Eyrecourt so friendly and companionable, that, having no pressing business on hand, he had been persuaded to linger on from day to day. It was not very often that he found himself alone with Roma, but one afternoon, some other visitors having left, it happened that they two were thrown on each other for entertainment.

“Shall you mind, Roma, if we leave you and Mr Thurston alone to-day?” Eugenia had asked her friend after luncheon. “Beauchamp is so anxious to drive me out with the new ponies—he has driven them several times, and says they go so beautifully! And the pony carriage only holds two and little Tim, the groom, behind, and I think perhaps Beauchamp would be disappointed if I did not go.”

“Of course you must go,” said Roma, brightly. “I don’t mind in the least. I will take Mr Thurston a tremendously long walk, and see if he isn’t much more tired than I when we come home. Men are so conceited about that sort of thing.”

Eugenia laughed. She was leaving the room, but a sudden impulse seemed to come over her. She turned back to the table where Roma was sitting writing, and kissed her gently.

“What is that for?” asked Roma. “Am I particularly good to-day?”

“No, yes. I mean you are always good,” answered Eugenia. “I am very happy to-day, and I always feel as if I should thank you when I feel so.” Roma looked up with a grateful look in her dark eyes. (“It is nice of you to say so, but I don’t deserve it,” she interrupted. “Yes you do,” said Eugenia, and then went on with what she had been speaking about.) “It was something Beauchamp said this morning that made me happy. I needn’t tell you it all, but just a little. He asked me, Roma, if I didn’t think we were getting to be very happy together, and he said, ‘At least, Eugenia, you make me very happy, and I think I am getting to understand you and your ways of thinking about things better. I am learning to see how selfish I was—a while ago, you know. But I trust all that is over.’ Then he said something else, I don’t know what put it into his head—something about baby and how we should bring him up, and the future. Roma,” she broke off, suddenly, “if Beauchamp were to die now I should miss him terribly. I am so glad to feel so, for there was a time when I couldn’t, when my life stretched before me like a long slavery. Don’t think me wicked to speak so—you understand me?”

“Understand you, dear Eugenia? Yes, thoroughly,” said Roma. “And years and years hence I trust and believe you will feel as you say you do now, yet more strongly. I don’t think the sort of happiness you feel is likely to fade or lessen,” she sighed, half unconsciously as she spoke.

Eugenia looked at her affectionately. She seemed on the point of saying something more, but changed her mind and, kissing Roma again, left the room.

How it came about they could neither of them in all probability have exactly related. They went the long walk Miss Eyrecourt had determined upon; they talked of every general subject under the skies, avoiding at first, as if by tacit mutual consent, any of closer personal interest. But after a while, somehow, Mr Thurston came to talking of himself, of his life, his hopes, his disappointments and failures. He was not by any means an egotistical man. Roma could not but feel flattered, by his confidence; she listened with undisguised interest. Suddenly, to her surprise, he alluded to the first time they had met.

“It is curious to look back now to that evening, is it not?” he said. “You were the first lady I had spoken to for, I may say, years. Out there I was completely cut off from any intercourse of the kind. And what a fool (I beg your pardon, Miss Eyrecourt) you must have thought me! Do you remember how I bored you with my confidences? I assure you I never remember our conversation without feeling inclined to blush, only you were so very kind—that part of it,” he added, in a somewhat lower tone, “I don’t want to forget.”

“You need not want to forget any of it,” said Roma, blushing, however, herself as she spoke; “I certainly did not think of you as you imagine. It has always been very pleasant to me to think that—that you thought me, even at first sight, trustworthy—fit to talk to as you did. The only unpleasing part of the remembrance to me is the thought of how it all ended for you, how terribly quickly your dreams faded. Forgive me,” she went on, hastily, “I am afraid I have said too much. I have never alluded to it before.”

“I like your alluding to it,” said Gerald. “I like the feeling that you understand it all. It doesn’t hurt me in the least now. It is wonderful how one grows out of things, isn’t it?—at least, hardly that; how things grow into one till one is no longer conscious of their existence.

“I am a part of all that I have met.

“You remember? Of course Eugenia had a great influence upon me. But for her I should probably have been quite a different sort of man. But still I can see the good it did me now without any bitterness. I am inexpressibly thankful that she is so much happier, that she seems to be growing into—her life, as it were. When she was unhappy I must confess I was bitter—bitter to think I had no right to interfere. But that has all past by. I am rather lonely, that is about all I have any right to complain of. If she had not married it might have been different—there is a sort of doggedness about me—I believe I should have gone on hoping against hope. But as it is, I feel it rather hard sometimes.”

“What?” asked Roma, in some bewilderment.

“Why, that I should be doomed to stay outside always, as it were. You don’t suppose I have any dislike to the idea of being happy like other people? You don’t suppose it is from choice I remain homeless and lonely, do you, Miss Eyrecourt?”

He looked at her half laughingly, yet earnestly too.

Roma’s face fell. Then after all, she thought, her one hero was no hero; already his love for Eugenia was replaced by some other apparently equally hopeless attachment. It was disappointing.

“Why do you look so grave?” he inquired. “Have I offended you?”

“Offended me! What have I to do with it?” she replied. “Of course not. To tell you the truth I felt just a little disappointed—a nice confession for an unromantic person to make—that—that you had ‘got over it,’ as it is called, so completely. You were my model of constancy. I shall think life more prosaic than ever now. And, to turn to prose, what a pity you a second time made an unlucky venture! Could you not have been more prudent? That is to say, if the obstacles whose existence you infer are insuperable. As to that, of course I can’t judge.”

She quickened her steps a little as she spoke. It seemed to Gerald she was eager to make an end of the conversation. Amused, yet much annoyed at her misapprehension, his wish to right himself in her eyes drove him further than he had intended.

“Miss Eyrecourt,” he began, not without a slight irritation in his tone, “I wish you would do me justice. Is it possible you don’t understand me? Do not you see that one of the things which most attracted me, which drew forth my admiration and gratitude, arose from the very strength of my care for Eugenia? It was that which first drew us together—your goodness to her, I mean—it was that which showed me how generous and noble you are. And yet, unfortunately, your knowledge of my feelings to her is one of the very things that make me hopeless, even if there were no insuperable practical objections. Not that I would have concealed the old state of things from you in any case had you not happened to know them, if I had ventured to try my chance with you. But they were forced upon you so unfortunately. It would be impossible for you ever to think of me in a different light. How could I ever convince you that the heart I offered was worth having? It must seem to you a poor wretched battered-about thing—not that, of course, it was ever worth your having.”

Roma stopped short. Hitherto she had kept up her rapid pace. She stopped short and turned round so as to face Mr Thurston. He saw that she was very pale.

“Are you in earnest?” she said, very gravely. “Do you mean what you are saying? I do not altogether understand you to-day, Mr Thurston. It would have been more in accordance with my notion of you if, allowing that you are in earnest, you had simply and manfully put the question to the test, instead of first imagining ‘insuperable obstacles’ and then putting them into my mouth. You place me very awkwardly. At this moment I solemnly assure you I do not know if you would like me to say, ‘Mr Thurston, I will marry you if you will ask me,’ or not.”

Notwithstanding her seriousness, with the few last words she had difficulty in repressing a laugh. Gerald’s face flushed deeply, angrily almost, as she spoke, and a quick light came into his eyes—a light, however, not altogether of indignation.

“I would have asked you months, years ago,” he said, “had I not believed that my doing so would have been looked upon as presumption—would have put an end to the friendship I have learnt to value more than anything in my life, and which I could ill afford to lose. So hopeless, till this instant, have I been of ever obtaining more.”

“Why?” asked Roma.

“Why?” he repeated. “For the reason I have already told you, and for another. Think of my position! A struggling engineer—an artisan, some of your people would call me, I daresay; for I am not yet at the top of my tree by any means, nor likely to be so for many a long day to come. The only home I can offer my wife is an unattractive one enough—you know what sort of a place Wareborough is—is that the home you are suited to? You, beautiful, courted, admired; spoilt by every sort of rule you should be, but I don’t think you are. I am not exactly poor, certainly, but I am not rich, and there is hard work before me for years to come. There now, Miss Eyrecourt, you know the whole. I have great reason to be sanguine of success, have I not?”

“And this is all?” she said. “You have told me every one of the ‘insuperable obstacles?’”

“Every one,” he replied. “Don’t torture me, Roma.”

She held out both her hands; she lifted up her beautiful face and looked at him with tears in her large soft dark eyes. “Oh, Gerald,” she said at last, when the two hands were pressed closely in his, when she felt his gaze of almost incredulous joy fixed upon her with eager questioning; “Oh, Gerald, how could you mistake me so? ‘Spoilt,’ am I? Ah no, or if so, not by the excess of love that has been lavished on me. I have been very lonely; it is years and years since I have known what it was to have a home—a real home. Even had I not loved you, I confess to you the temptation of your love, your strength and protection, would have been great to me. You don’t know what to me would have been the mere thought of having some one I could perfectly trust. But as it is, I needn’t think of temptation. I love you, Gerald. I would rather have your ‘poor battered old heart’ than anything in the universe. And if this makes amends for the dilapidated state of yours, I can assure you that mine, such as it is, is quite whole. I give it to you entirely, without the slightest little chip or crack.”

She had begun to speak with the tears in her eyes; as she went on, notwithstanding her half-joking tone, they dropped—one, two, three big tears. She pulled away one hand to dash them aside, but Gerald caught it, kissed it tenderly and gratefully, and held it fast again.

“Roma,” he said, “you and your heart are far too good for me. My darling, how shall I ever repay the sacrifices you will make for me? Are you sure, quite sure, you will never repent it? Have you considered it all? Think of having to live at Wareborough.”

“Gerald, you are too bad! Do you know you have all but driven me into proposing to you? I shall think you repent your bargain if you say much more. Living at Wareborough! Nonsense. I should be quite pleased and content to live in a coal mine with you. There now, I am not going to spoil you by any more pretty speeches, which, by rights, sir, please to remember, should come from the other side.”

With such encouragement, Mr Thurston, considering it was the first time he had actually tried his hand at anything of the kind, acquitted himself very fairly, and the remaining two miles of their walk seemed to them but a small fraction of the real distance. They had time, however, to discuss a good many aspects of their plans. “What would Frank and Sydney think? how astonished they would be!”

“How pleased Eugenia would feel!” etc, etc, before they re-entered the park and came within sight of the house.

They approached it from one side, intending, however, to enter by the front door. What was it, as they drew near, that gave Roma an indescribable feeling that something had happened since they went out? She could not have told. The hall door was half-open for one thing, but it was not that. It was a so-called “instinct”—one of those subtile revelations which science has not yet learnt to define or explain by any thoroughly apprehended law.

There was hardly time for even the realisation of a fear. The wave of vague apprehension had hardly ruffled the girl’s happy spirit when it was confirmed. The hall door opened a little wider, a little figure, evidently on the watch, rushed out.

“Aunty Woma,” cried Floss, flinging herself into Miss Eyrecourt’s arms, forgetful of the certain amount of awe with which Roma still inspired her, regardless of the awful presence of Mr Thurston; “Aunty Woma, something dweadful has happened. The ponies has wunned away, and little Tim has wunned home to tell. Uncle Beachey is killed quite dead on the dot, Tim says, and I don’t know where Aunty ’Genia is.”

“What does she say?” asked Gerald, hoarsely.

“Tell him; say it again, Floss,” said Roma, forcing her pale lips to move; and as well as she could, for her sobs, the child repeated her ghastly tale.

Without another word, Mr Thurston rushed off, and in an instant was lost to Roma’s sight among the thick growing shrubs that lay in the direction of the stables. What became of Floss her aunt never knew; probably in her intense anxiety to know more, the child followed the person whom she imagined most likely to obtain further information. However that may have been, Roma found herself alone—alone with this strange dreamlike feeling of horror and grief for Beauchamp’s untimely fate, which it never occurred to her to doubt—alone with a yet more terrible companion. What was the meaning of this sudden misery which overwhelmed her? Whence had come this poisonous suggestion which, so marvellously speedy is the growth of thought, had, even while the child was speaking, sprung to life in her brain? Beauchamp dead, Eugenia free, and the words which her newly made lover had spoken not an hour before ringing in her ears:

“If she had not married it would have been different. I believe I should have gone on hoping—”

How would it be now? What should she do? Oh, if only she had not encouraged him to say more, for without encouragement, now whispered the serpent in her heart, he would certainly not have said so much.

“Good God,” thought poor Roma, in her anguish and self-horror, “what a selfish wretch I am! What shall I do? How shall I bear it?”

The words uttered aloud recalled her somewhat to herself. She was hastening to the house, intent on burying self at least for the present—on seeing in what way she could be of use to others, when Mr Thurston suddenly re-appeared. He came out by the hall door, hastened up to her quickly but without speaking. He was deadly pale, and when close beside her he seemed to move his lips once or twice before any sound was audible. Then at last he spoke.

“Roma,” he said, “wait a moment. There is no hurry. Everything has been done. They have sent for doctors and all. It,” he stopped, and seemed to gasp for breath, “it happened near the Chilworth lodge. I am just going there. I only came out to tell you. Floss’s version was not quite correct. Roma,” he stopped again, “it is even worse—forgive me, I cannot help saying so—it is not Beauchamp. It—it is Eugenia?”

The last words were hardly audible, they came with a sort of a sob. For once in his life Gerald was utterly unmanned. But Roma heard them only too plainly.

“Eugenia!” she cried, her voice rising almost into a scream; “oh no, Mr Thurston, not Eugenia. You do not mean she is dead? Say, oh, do say it is a mistake,” she clasped her hands together in wild entreaty; “you must say it is a mistake.”

He looked at her with unutterable pity, but shook his head.

“I cannot say so,” he replied; “from what I was told it seems only too certain. But I am going there at once. Will you come? no, perhaps you had better not. I will let you know immediately what I find. It may not be so bad. Roma, dearest Roma, do not lose heart so.”

He would have put his arm round her, but she eluded his grasp.

“Don’t touch me,” she said, wildly, “you don’t know how wicked I am. It is true—I feel it is true. Oh, Eugenia! God forgive me. I think my punishment is greater than I can bear,” and before her lover could stop her she had rushed into the house.

For a moment Gerald gazed after her in distress and bewilderment, half doubting if he had heard aright.

“She does not know what she is saying,” he decided. “My poor Roma, the shock has been too much for her; but I cannot stay,” and at a rapid pace he set off across the park in the direction of the scene of the frightful disaster.

Upstairs, meanwhile, Roma, locked into her own room, “matter-of-fact, easy-going” Roma—Roma, “into whose composition entered no tragic elements,” Gerald Thurston’s light-hearted betrothed of one short hour ago, was passing through an agony of remorse, a very fiery furnace of misery, such as falls to the lot of few women of her healthy, happy nature.

Volume Three—Chapter Ten.

From the Gates of the Grave.

“The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand, Who saith ‘A whole I planed, Youth shows but half: see all, nor be afraid!’” Rabbi Ben Ezra.

She was not dead. “Still alive, but perfectly unconscious,” was the report that met Gerald as he reached the lodge. “They have not told Captain Chancellor how bad it is,” added Mr Thurston’s informant, “for he was severely stunned himself, and the hearing it might do him harm. He thinks Mrs Chancellor escaped unhurt.”

A little later Gerald caught a glimpse of the Chilworth surgeon. This gentleman seemed glad to get hold of some responsible person.

“Mrs Chancellor’s brother-in-law, Mr Thurston, I presume,” he began, and Gerald did not think the slight mistake worth correcting. “I have sent to Chilworth to telegraph for Dr Frobisher, of Marley. I suppose I did right?”

“Most certainly,” answered Gerald.

“You see I had no one to consult—we must keep it from Captain Chancellor as long as possible, he has had a narrow escape himself—and I feel the responsibility very great. There is no wonder they thought Mrs Chancellor was killed, at first—I almost thought so myself when I first came.”

“Then what is your opinion now?” Gerald ventured to ask, fancying a shadow of hope was inferred by the surgeon’s manner.

“I think there is a slight hope, a very slight one. It will hang on a thread for some days at the best, but she is young and very healthy, though not strong. If she escapes, however, it will be little short of a miracle. Can you tell me how it happened? It seems an extraordinary thing altogether; the ponies were not wild, the coachman tells me, and had been driven several times.”

Gerald told what he knew. The ponies, it appeared, from the boy Timothy’s account, had gone beautifully, “as quiet as quiet,” all the way, till on their return home Beauchamp had stopped for a moment at the lodge to get a light for his cigar. There was no man in the house; only the lodge-keeper’s wife was at home, and she unfortunately, encumbered with a screaming baby who would scarcely allow her to open the gate. Captain Chancellor, to save her trouble, jumped out of the carriage, giving the reins to his wife, and calling to Tim to stand by the ponies’ heads. The boy was on the point of obeying, when his mistress told him to stay where he was; “She could hold them quite well, she said,” was the child’s account, “and she thought they should learn to stand still of their-selves.” It was an unfortunate experiment; the ponies, eager to reach their stable, were irritated by the delay almost within sight of their home. They began to fret and fidget, and Eugenia, by way of soothing them, walked them on slowly a few paces. Then something, what, no one ever knew (possibly only the animals’ own unrestrainable impatience), startled them, and with a desperate plunge they dashed forward just as their master came out of the lodge. There was a rush and a scramble, which Tim could not clearly describe. He remembered seeing Captain Chancellor dart forward, catch hold of the reins on the side nearest to him, and for a moment the boy thought they were saved. Only for a moment, however; it seemed to him his master was dragged a few yards, then kicked violently aside, “all of a heap, he lay without moving,” said the boy. “I thought he was killed, and so did my mistress. She stood up in the carriage and screamed out ‘he is killed, it is my fault,’ and then in another minute she were out too. I don’t know if she throwed herself out or not; the carriage shook so, going so fast and she standing up, she could hardly have kep’ in.” Apparently Tim thought it his duty to throw himself after her. He confessed to the idea having crossed his mind, but remembered no more till he woke up to find himself shaken and confused, though otherwise unhurt, some twenty yards or so from the spot where the first part of the catastrophe had occurred. The ponies, satisfied, seemingly, with their day’s work, pursued their way home, their pace gradually subsiding as they became conscious of being their own masters. They rattled into the courtyard, no one at the first sound of their approach suspecting anything amiss, till the first glance of the empty carriage, and the torn and dragging reins told their own dreadful tale.

Such was the explanation of the accident. Mr Benyon listened in silence, shook his head when Gerald finished speaking, and then went back to his patient again to await the arrival of the greater man from Marley.

Gerald lost no time in sharing with Roma the crumb of comfort he had found.

“It is not quite so bad as I was told at first. She is still alive, but there is very little hope. Will you not come? There is nothing to do. She is perfectly unconscious, but I think it would be less wretched for you than staying up there alone. Tell poor little Floss we hope her aunt will soon be better.”

This was the pencilled note—Roma’s first letter from her lover, a sad enough one truly—which Mr Thurston sent to the poor girl, waiting in all the anguish of well-nigh hopeless anxiety for his report. Within half-an-hour she had joined him, pale, haggard, careworn, aged even it almost seemed, from the bright Roma of an hour or two ago, but calm, self-possessed now, ready for any service that might be required of her. And the sweet summer afternoon deepened into sweeter evening; the moon shone out in cold indifferent loveliness; here and there through the latticed windows of the cottage a star peeped in with its cheery twinkle, and still the dreary vigil went on; still lay on the pallet bed where they had first carried her, the so lately beautiful form of Eugenia Chancellor, beautiful still, but with a death-like beauty that seemed already to separate her from the living breathing beings about her. Only from time to time she moaned faintly, and moved her head from side to side uneasily on the pillow with the sad restlessness so pitiful to see; telling too surely to the experienced eye of invisible injury to the delicate brain.

It was unspeakably painful to witness, knowing that so little could be done to relieve or mitigate the suffering. And not the least painful part of what Roma and her lover had to go through, was the sight of Beauchamp Chancellor’s suffering when the truth as to Eugenia was broken to him. His distress was indescribable; so evidently genuine in its depth that more than once in the course of the next few days Roma found herself asking herself if, after all her many years’ knowledge of him, she had done full justice to his capacity for true and earnest feeling, to the latent possibilities for good in his character below the crust of worldliness and selfishness. Or was it that he had altered and improved, that contact with a nature so fresh and genuine and single-minded as Eugenia’s, had done its work; that notwithstanding her many faults and mistakes, the essential beauty of her sweetness and simplicity had unconsciously asserted itself, had found a little-suspected vein of sympathy in the lower nature of her husband? It almost seemed as if it were so, and if so, oh how sad, how doubly to be regretted, the premature ending of the fair young life so full of promise, so prized and precious.

“She has been so much happier lately, Roma,” poor Beauchamp would say, in his yearning for consolation and sympathy. “She was saying so herself just the other day. I am a coarse selfish creature compared with her. No one but I knows thoroughly how innocent, and true, and unselfish she is, and I took a long time to find it out—I can’t forgive myself when I think of that time—but lately I do think I have got to understand her better, and to make her happier. Don’t you think so, Roma? She said so herself, you know.”

And Roma would agree with him, and say whatever she could think of in the way of comfort—a dozen times, a day, for Beauchamp followed her about in a touchingly helpless, dependent sort of manner, as if in her presence alone he found his anxiety endurable. A dozen times a day, too, he would appeal to whichever doctor was on the spot, almost entreating for a word of hope or comfort. “I fancy she is lying more quietly just now,” he would say; or, “Don’t you think the expression of her face is calmer, more like itself?”